The VonFrederick 

Tempus             

May 2007  Volume 5 Issue 5

  Feature Article:

What Is An American?

Eric Chevreuil, Retired Captain, French Military, The VonFrederick Group

When I drive around my town, I see more and more signs in Spanish trying to lure potential Hispanics customers to spend money. At the DMV, manuals are also written in Armenian, Chinese, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. At school, the simple mention of a bilingual family, even for an A student in English, triggers a process that involves the one on one testing of the child, and brings offers for special help and treatment. On the phone, in the voting booth, at the ATM, or at the self checking counters of a local grocery or hardware store, customers are also asked for the language of their choice. Finally, soon enough, to add to the shinning Golden Mausoleum-looking Mormon temple, we will commute everyday under a seven story high minaret that will remind me of the good old days when I lived in Chad or visited Tunisia! 

Maybe I am just cranky…Again, California just recovered from its Cinco di Mayo celebrations, the short lived victory of a foreign army over another foreign army in a foreign country. Again, California ignored Ocho di Mayo (oooops….May 8th, V day Europe….no biggie!) like we have already mostly ignored Siete de Deciembre (Pearl Harbor).

When I drive around my town today, I get this strange feeling that I am being quietly being assimilated, slowly but surely amalgamated to other foreign cultures that “de-me” a piece at a time while keeping their identities. I happen to be a white, Caucasian, Catholic and Westerner from France. When I decided to move abroad, I chose a country I could relate too, a place that I thought was built upon the same things that made what I am, a place my children could grow in, I came here. But now I am confused. What is it to be an American, a Californian? How do Americans define themselves? Can one individual be multicultural? Can society be multicultural and work? Is integration the cement of a working society? Is diversity an indicator of equality, the base of a working society?

I am already having a hard time with my “whiteness” because here, it seems to carry all the guilt of the world! Ask my fourth grader…she has already learned about how bad Americans can be: she knows everything about the discrimination against the Chinese that built the railways, the Mexican immigrants that do the work we don’t want to do, and the Japanese that were interned during WW2. Social studies it is called…and we still have enough time left to talk about Native Americans, African Americans and Muslims in the post 9-11 world. That is for sure making our kids proud of their heritage, right? And you wonder why they need Ritalin…In the meantime, Pearl Harbor and V day Europe are not in the curriculum….but Cinco di Mayo is! Go figure.

My Christianity is also something the laws, media, system, and intellectuals tell me I should be ashamed of and keep really private. I am sure that a seven story high project of a cross somewhere downtown my town would have drawn more attention and legal challenges than the project of the Mosque or the Mormon temple. Does it look like there is a global agenda to cure America from its Judeo-Christian traditions? I was having a conversation about the Mosque, and the Temple. I was trying to make the point that the edifices were more like a statement than places of devotion. Sure enough, I was quickly reminded that the whole process that led to the construction permits was legal and that there was nothing anybody could do about it. Sure enough, I was also finger pointed as a bigot, maybe racist, but certainly intolerant individual. I tried to make the case that forever communities of other faiths have freely practiced their religion in my town. I stated that we had opened our town to variety, multiculturalism, and many religions. Am I just resenting the fact that today, our guests feel like they can make my town look a little more like one of theirs? Am I intolerant? Should I join their faith to make them feel really comfortable in my town, in YOUR country?

As far as my French side goes, no comment! The French position on the war on Iraq got me more flak than I was expecting because my country did not buy the intelligence the Bush administration, the bi-partisan military, intelligence, and defense committees, the many oversight committees, Republican and Democrat elected officials, bought and approved when it was fashionable to be patriotic.

So here it is…for some reason, I still strongly feel French and do not want to get the US citizenship “just to get a better job”. For some reason, I believe that wanting to be an American should be something above and beyond getting a pay check, and for some reason, I am not sure anymore of what being an American means. I know that America is not the strong culture and model that used to assimilate worldwide waves of immigrants. Maybe something has happened to the American model and culture, something that makes all the different ethnic and religious groups live side by side in their traditional ways instead of melting in. 

From the melting pot to the salad bowl! Diversity in the name of equality for the American quilt, the patchwork of different bits and pieces legally sown together to create something warm and beautiful! Is it a failure? Is the American culture the weakest? Where will America be in twenty years? Is “nombrilism” and the immediate fulfillment of any needs enough to create a strong culture? Your call!

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Drugs, Youth, And Violence

Dr. Lionel C.M. von Frederick Rawlins, President & CEO, The VonFrederick Group

On a cool spring morning, in a dead-end neighborhood in Fresno, California, it was “Killer Lee’s” (his gang moniker) turn to sell a little bag of crack that he figured, was sure to buy him gym shoes, and girlfriends, and maybe keep the electric company from turning off the lights at his mother’s apartment again. Lee was at one time, court-ordered to a juvenile rehabilitation program/facility where I worked as the administrator.

He was 14, and not sure he was ready to be out there on his own. He had been playing lookout for the older boys, watching for police cars and yelling “Five-O” when he thought he saw one. He had not yet had to look a customer in the eye and wonder if this was an undercover police officer trying to make an arrest, or a rival dealer trying to rob him.

In another time and place, he might be doing something safer to get money, like cutting grass or bagging groceries. But there are mostly dirt lawns where he lives, and there were no supermarkets. He was too young to work at McDonalds. And anyway, in his neighborhood, the biggest employer is the drug business, which pays more in a day than flipping hamburgers would in a month. 

The most visible signs are the guns that crack dealers started to carry the same way accountants carry calculators. Guns multiplied right after crack came on the scene. They filtered down into the hands of children and are still in circulation. When the crack epidemic subsided in the 1990s, the guns stayed behind. 

Wherever it landed, crack took a definable course: The drug’s fleeting highs and long, desolate lows created a frenetic field of customers who again and again had to come back for more. In all the chaos, small-time dealers could set up shop practically anywhere, and did. Teenagers who might have otherwise stuck to hustling or shoplifting suddenly had a shot at the big time. As kingpins and upstarts competed for prime locations, disputes were settled with violence. With more and more guns on the street, homicides skyrocketed. 

No matter the city, homicides charts tell the same story. Whatever year crack took hold, in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, the homicide rates soared. The rate has leveled off in these cities, but the toll is still much higher than before crack arrived, because the guns remained even as crack declined. 
And the survivors have found that crack has turned the social order of their neighborhoods upside down. Armed teenagers control the streets. They decide who can stroll on the sidewalk or who can enter an apartment building, while the adults are afraid of the children or depend on them for drugs.

Killer Lee soon found out that he had more than just the police to worry about. With crack came violence. And before he was finally arrested for drug dealing and sent to my facility, he had lost a half-dozen friends to gunfire, witnessed executions, and fired on rival gang members in turf wars. In his business, it was understood that there would be casualties. 

I went to “Killer Lee’s” funeral one cool spring morning. I helped bury him. Violence finally caught up with him when he was shot in an early morning rampage by rival gang members. He was barely 16.

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Looking at the evening news, it appears the elderly are now being targeted and beaten by young men in cities across the nation. Many factors contribute to the violence rampant in the United States, other than the nightly mayhem of murder on the television screen and in the movies. Nearly 50 years of an economy that depends on war or the constant preparation for war might also be a factor. 

The increasingly superficial nature of society is another, because it undermines real values and produces a moral vacuum. For example, we have reached an absurd level of celebrity worship centering around movie stars, TV personalities, sports figures, etc., many of whom have little of substance to give either the present or the future. 

It is also common for petty gangsters, white collar criminals, and the totally bizarre to receive vast media attention. At the same time, people dedicated to improving the quality of life in this country – and peace and justice in the world – are ignored; virtually shut out of the establishment media.

This is sadly evident in popular television interview programs such as Jerry Springer, etc. These programs have degenerated to a degree of bad taste and utter idiocy not dreamed of in former times. In this context, the role of the establishment media is dismal. This includes political-type interview programs which feature either right-wing conservatives or left-wing liberal guests time and again. When, for example, is the last time a person with a new and fresh idea, or vision of the future appeared on a national television program? This sterile reporting and presentation of views by the media and its favored guests, along with the obsession with escapism and celebrity worship, significantly contributes to the moral vacuum and confused values of today.
The problem is that the media is owned and governed by Corporate America for the sole purpose of selling products, and this entity views the entire country as one giant marketplace where the only thing that counts is what sells. This selling ideas has become so pervasive that even individuals seeking employment are told they must “sell themselves” to prospective employers, as if human worth is nothing more than a piece of merchandise.

What we need are teachers, the churches, school administrators, parents, politicians, labor unions, peace organizations, and others to help install a new sense of idealism and purpose in our society, including such fundamentals as respect for life and the environment, social justice, racial equality, and common kindness and concern for others.
As the two main political parties are becoming a mirror image of each other, we must create a new political/social movement – perhaps even a new political party to achieve these goals. The parties today are so similar, people must vote on personalities rather than a real difference on issues.

We must rapidly develop this new movement with dynamism, the ethics, and the leaders who can instill the new values and purpose the country needs. And by working together, both here and around the world, with an intense level of commitment, a courageous determination in the face of all obstacles, and a passionate vision for the future, the prevalent cynicism and violence will be overcome, and replaced with a foundation for a better, safer, environmentally sound, and progressively governed world for the 21st century.

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There are two forms of controls in an organization: internal and external. Internal controls directly relate to corporate governance, business ethics, managerial structure, compensation, internal council and whistleblowers. External controls include government regulation, external auditors, accountants and the judicial process. A recurring theme in corporate governance is the limited efficacy of many safeguards in cases of “control fraud,” which is abetted or directed by top management and abusive practices become the organizational norm. Devastating organizational and personal consequences occur when fraud is determined within an organization, and many times it seems easier for the employees, directors, auditors, and even government regulators to go along with the internal/external cultural trends than to disrupt the functionality of the business. A corporate officer’s autonomy and power can be so great that once fraud is identified there is no effective force within the organization to counter their decisions. 

Incentives need to be placed within the realm of an organizations corporate governance to create a reward structure for ethical behavior. The division of management and ownership is diluted in publicly traded companies, whereas ownership is dispersed among thousands of shareholders. CEO’s of large publicly traded companies have received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock options during their tenures, which often outweighs their salary and bonus compensation. This is not directly tied to “ethical” behavior, and has yet been determined if the CEO’s performance in most cases have increased anyone’s wealth including the shareholders with the exception of themselves.

Why is there a failure of pay practices to improve ethical standards in Corporate America?

1. CEO’s are able to exercise an enormous amount of bargaining power when negotiating employment contracts in which the only oversight is provided by the board of directors, who are normally disinclined to challenge top management. 
2. CEO’s have significant power influencing and determining the board membership through control of the nomination process and the ethical concerns of the organization may not be important to the CEO (especially if they are planning to conduct fraudulent activities).
3. Directors represent the shareholders, but the shareholders do not select the directors in any meaningful way. Directors primarily want to keep their good graces with the board to keep their respective positions. Rarely do the shareholders vote to the contrary of the board and management.

Future attempts must be taken to reduce deceptive business practices in taking the full range spectrum of the current and potential problems of unethical behavior in corporate America. The first step in providing a barrier to unethical business practices was from the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Now it is the responsibility of the individual shareholders to demand more from the CEO’s of publicly traded companies in which they personally invest. Investors/shareholders need to research the companies in which they invest, and in many cases voting against management’s decisions may be beneficial. 

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“I fear that too many Americans have contempt for the principles of liberty and opt for solutions that employ the political arena to forcibly impose their wills on others.”… Walter Williams

Hardly a week can go by without finding the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at the forefront of controversy in national and local newspapers, as lead TV news stories, or the topic of conversation with radio talk shows. Depending on who is doing the reporting the ACLU is viewed as a “champion” or a “villain”.

With rare exception liberals find the ACLU as champions of their many causes, which usually entail defending criminals, special interest groups or reversing traditions or laws passed through the legislative process. Conservatives view the ACLU as villains that are using the courts to reverse the “will” of the people by “judge-shopping” and relying on the courts to unconstitutionally legislate from the bench or attack the freedoms and traditions that made America great.

The liberal media has long gave the ACLU very good press as “champions”. The question that begs to be answered is why? A historical analysis of the ACLU indicates it was created to transform America from a capitalistic ideology to a communistic ideology.

Primary founder and executive director of the ACLU until 1950 was Roger Nash Baldwin. He was a pacifist involved in the anarchist movement of Emma Goldman around the turn of the 20th Century. He joined the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM), which opposed American involvement in WW I. The AUAM created a legal division to protect the rights of conscientious objectors called the Civil Liberties Bureau and headed by Baldwin. In October 1917, it separated from the AUAM and renamed itself the National Civil Liberties Bureau, with Baldwin as director. In 1920 it was renamed the American Civil Liberties Union with Baldwin as the executive director. During the 1920’s Baldwin subscribed to the ideology of Karl Marx and communism, used the ACLU to advance communism in American, joined the Industrial Workers of the World and expressed admiration for Stalin’s Soviet Union. He wrote “Liberty under the Soviets” which praised one of the most repressive communist regimes of our times. 

An organizational analysis of the ACLU supports the conclusion that a goal of the founding officials and prominent members was to advance the ideology of communism in America.

Dr. Harry Ward was the first chairman of the ACLU. He had a record of extensive communist front affiliations and authored “Soviet Spirit” and “Soviet Democracy”, which were pro-Communist books that advocated the Soviet system of government. Abraham L. Wirin was often referred to as “Mr. ACLU”. He was chief counsel for the Southern California Chapter and a prominent member of the National Lawyers Guild, which was cited as a communist front. His law partner Leo Gallagher ran for state office on the Communist Party ticket in 1936. Rev. A. A. Heist was executive director of the Southern California Chapter. He publicly defended the Communist Party and resigned his position in the ACLU to become director of a communist front organization called the Citizens' Committee to Preserve American Freedoms, which he founded. Dr. Albert Eason Monroe followed Heist as executive director of the Southern California Chapter. Monroe was discharged from the U.S. Navy and fired from a San Francisco college in the 1950’s for controversial “loyalty” issues. He was chairman of the Federation for Repeal of the Levering Act, which was a communist front organization.

Other prominent ACLU officials included members of the National Committee. Carey McWilliams was an admitted member of the Communist Party, had extensive affiliations with communist front organizations and was the editor of a communist publication for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee called "Rights". Prof. William A. Kilpatrick, of Teacherc College, Columbia University promoted the idea that communism could be achieved in America by effectuating change within the framework of the Constitution. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was also a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, United States of America. 

In 1939, Baldwin lost his admiration for communism and Russia when Stalin signed the pact with Hitler. In the 1940’s Baldwin denounced communism and began a campaign to purge the ACLU of Communist Party members. However, they were so entrenched he was unsuccessful. The leadership has changed but not the goal. The ACLU still supports the repressive ideology of Marxism and is still dedicated to the advancement of a communistic liberal agenda, not the freedoms expressly enumerated in the Constitution of the United States.

The policies and activities of the ACLU further support their agenda is to advance an ideology that is contrary to traditions and norms that made America great. These policies and activities will be examined in next month’s newsletter.

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Tempus Virtuous

(good), adj., morally excellent, kind, beneficent, honorable or worthy

Good Grief. My dear friend Mary reminded me one day “no one ever said we are going to leave this earth alive!” Her remark reflected the needed humor of watching her husband of 50 + years degenerating from Alzheimer’s disease. How a loved one dies may determine the acuity of grief. The murder/death of a child must be an insurmountably horrifying sorrow. I am inspired by the Amish community in Nickel Mine, Pennsylvania, when last year five Amish girls were lined up in their one-room school building and gunned down by a mentally ill non-Amish neighbor. He then turned the gun on himself. The Amish immediately knew good grieving was the path toward healing. Within days of the tragedy, a spokesperson for the Amish community announced their forgiveness for the killer as well as sending prayers to the killer’s wife, that she too may begin the process of healing. Good grief, how does one do it?

The late Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and authority on death, remarked in her book Death The Final Stage of Growth, “the problem of death is a universal question. But the answer to that question differs among cultures.” In chapter 3, “Death Through Some Other Windows” focuses on good grieving by offering examples of how the Alaska Indians, Jews, Hindus, et al, mourn purposefully, reaffirm life, and grow. Kubler-Ross further comments growth can come in some unexpected moments, “in death and in grief,” she says, “we do not need as much protection from painful experiences as we need the boldness to face them.” (1)

There is a trauma clinic in Al Taquaddam, Iraq, serving U.S. Marines in shock, where there are clinics for Iraqi children. A U.S. Naval chaplain, sharing some of his reflections with his father via e-mail wrote about a particularly moving moment when an Iraqi father handing over his wounded son to the Marines. “Here, in the midst of a war-torn country…I am learning as a Christian chaplain from an Islamic father that faith means letting go at the absolute worst and traumatic time of your life. I am learning that faith is risking every emotion to save someone you love…” (2)

Letting go… facing painful experiences with boldness…having faith…accepting plans and dreams of what could have been have now changed. There will be a return to wholeness, or at the very least, “growing” from good grieving. 

Letting go, finding the path of good grieving can be an emotionally and physically straining obstacle course. Not one “step” (stage, phase) of grieving is of greater importance than another—nor is there an order in which the “steps” will occur save for the first step and that is “shock.” Looking back, after the sudden death of my spouse I was in shock, numbed for three to four months. For over a year I was unfocused and absentminded; I could not finish a novel for the life of me, a favorite pastime. I longed for his companionship, expecting any moment he would walk through the door. My anger was brief, and did not occur until two years into grieving while preparing to move, gathering and boxing some of his mementos. Loneliness was a horrific step, and it still comes in fits and starts as my journey of good grieving continues into its third year. My guilt was but an instant, as I comprehended the nature of why he died. My sadness comes and goes when I realize he will never see his daughter finish university, marry and begin her family. I believe I am three-quarters to being whole for I have faced my pain and accepted my life has changed, and now I am making new plans and dreams.

(1) Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth, Death The Final Stage of Growth, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey
(2) The Lutheran, January 2006, www.thelutheran.org

For your consideration: goodgriefcenter.com 
For children loosing a pet:
The Tenth Good Thing About Barney by Judith Vorst, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY;
For 30-minute read: Good Grief by Granger E Westberg, Fortress Press, Minn., MN
For an agnostic griever: Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther, Harper & Row, New York

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Tempus Consultus

Why are there seven days in a week, twenty-four hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour, and sixty seconds in a minute?

There is no mathematical or astronomical reason for the number of days in a week as there is for the number of days or months in a year, which are determined by the movements of the sun and moon, respectively.
The Babylonians were the first civilization to have a seven-day week. They created a seven-day week so they could devote one day a week to worship the seven heavenly bodies that they knew—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the moon, and the sun.

Later in history, other cultures had weeks varying in lenjgth from four to ten days, depending on the frequency of their markets. Roman farmers worked the fields for seven days and went to market on the eighth. Therefore, the Romans had an eight-day week.

Our modern seven-day week resulted from the spread of Christianity. In the Book of Genesis, God created the world in six days; on the seventh day (the Sabbath) He rested. The word "Sabbath" is from the Babylonian "Sabattu," a word that came into use during the Jewish captivity under the Babylonians. The Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday, as was the Roimans. The Romans considered Saturday, ruled by Saturn, to be an unlucky day and thus chose it to be a day of rest.

During the French Revolution in 1792, France established a ten-day week with three-week months. Each day had ten hours consisting of one hundred minutes and each minute was comprised of one hundred seconds. This system was extremely logical (as was the metric system, also established during the French Revolution). Alas, the system was used only thirteen years, until Napoleon took power and returned France to the old Gregorian system, in order to please the Pope.

Regardless of the source, today we all use the seven-day week.

We can also thank the Babylonians for the purely artificial divisions of seconds, minutes, and hours. Again, any number could have been chosen, but the Babylonians considered sixty a mystical number because no lower number could be divided by more numbers. Had the system of time divisions been created recently, it would doubtless be based on a system of tens, as is the modern metric system.

We have the Egyptians to thank for the crazy number of hours in a day. They divided the night up into twelve segments, corresponding with the rising of twelve different stars or constellations over their eastern horizon. They had ten divisions for daytime, representing the ten different positions of the sun, and two more divisions for dawn and dusk. This eventually became the twenty-four hour day that we still are using.

Lionel researching Voorhees

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Did You Know? Michelle Glisan Blevins         

• That Equatorial Guinea is one of the smallest countries in Africa and consists of a mainland and five small islands

• That it is believed the first inhabitants of Equatorial Guinea were Pygmies (people whose average adult height is less than 59 inches)

• That even though the government has had a large increase in revenue due to relatively recent off-shore oil and gas discoveries, the general population’s living conditions have improved very little

• That the first Europeans to discover the island of Bioko were the Portuguese in 1471

The Equatoguinean flag has three equal bands of horizontal color: top, green; middle, white; and bottom, red; with a light blue isosceles triangle on the hoist side. Centered on the white band of color are six yellow six-pointed stars (representing the mainland and five offshore islands) above a gray shield bearing a silk-cotton tree and below which is a scroll with the motto UNIDAD, PAZ, JUSTICIA (Unity, Peace, Justice)

WILLIAM HARRISON

William Henry Harrison

1773 - 1841

William Henry Harrison was a United States soldier, statesman and the 9th President of the United States. He was the first presidential candidate to have a campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” Harrison is known for having given the longest inaugural speech of any U.S. president to date. The 68-year-old spoke for one hour and forty-five minutes outside during a heavy snow. After having given his inaugural speech in such cold weather Harrison contracted pneumonia leading to his death just 31 days later. This made Harrison the first president to die in office and also the one with the shortest term of office

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How To Stop A Runaway Horse

1. Hold on tight to the saddle with your hands and thighs. 
   Most injuries occur when the rider is thrown, falls, or jumps of the horse and hits the ground or some immovable object, such as a tree or fence post.

2. Grip the saddle horn or the front of the saddle with one hand and the reins with the other. 
   If you have lost hold of he reins, hold on to the saddle horn or the horse’s mane and wait for the horse to slow or stop. 

3. Sit up in the saddle as much as you can.
   Fight the instinct to lean forward (it will be especially strong if you are in a wooded area with many trees and branches), since this is not the standard position for a rider when the horse is asked to stop (whoa!), and the horse can feel the difference. Keep a deep seat, with your feet pushed a little forward in the stirrups. 

4. Alternately tug and release the reins with a medium pressure
   Never jerk or pull too hard on the reins of a horse running at full speed—you could pull the horse off-balance, and it may stumble or fall. There is a very high risk of serious injury or death if the horse falls while running a full speed (25 to 30 mph).

5. When the horse slows down to a slow lope or a trot, pull one rein to the side with steady pressure so that the horse’s head moves to the side, toward your foot in the stirrup.
   This maneuver will cause the horse to walk in a circle. The horse will become bored, sense that you are in control again, and slow to a near stop. 
   

6. When the horse is at a walk, pull back with slow, steady pressure on both reins until the horse stops. 

7. Dismount the horse immediately, before it has a chance to bolt again. 
   Hold the reins as you get down to keep the horse from moving. 

BE AWARE

• Long reins dangling in front of a horse may cause it to trip. Inexperienced riders should tie the ends of the reins together so that they cannot fall past the horse’s neck and pose added danger. 

• Horse bolt when they are frightened or extremely irritated. The key response is to remain in control of the situation without causing the horse greater anxiety. Talk to it reassuringly and rub its neck with one hand. Yelling, screaming, and kicking the horse will only make it more agitated. 

(Piven and Borgenicht)

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The VonFrederick Group

Phone: (877) 207-1300
Fax:     (916) 488-7531
Email:

Dr. Lionel C.M. VonFrederick Rawlins
Lionel@VonFrederick.com

Dr. Melissa K. Luke
Melissa@VonFrederick.com

George A. Torres, MBA
George@VonFrederick.com

Eric Chevreuil
Eric@VonFrederick.com

Pat McLane
Pat@VonFrederick.com

Albert Globus, MD
Al@VonFrederick.com

General Clifford L. Stanely, Ph.D.
Cliff@VonFrederick.com

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