Graduation and Secession on the Very Same Day

6/24/2016

Five girls, graduation, 2016. Courtesy, Island Photo

Went to two graduations on Thursday – middle school and high school.
Listened to graduates called up for diplomas – familiar town names over the years, Italian, African-American, Polish.

Meantime, mischief was being made in Washington, D.C, and Great Britain.
The Supreme Court was showing its contempt for the new wave of immigrants and British voters were choosing to leave the European Union, mainly because of immigration. (That's the thanks they show for the grand gift of curry and roti; they were eating bangers and mash before they let in the new people.)

The student speaker at one graduation had a Hispanic name, spoke perfect English in a witty talk.
The next generation. The Jordans and the Jennifers. America.

I heard names being called that came from India and Pakistan. Central America. Korea and China and Japan. Several young women bowed their heads, Asian-style, to their teachers on the stage,

I eavesdropped as three mothers greeted each other, one with a thick Hispanic accent. Their familiarity spoke of parent-teacher conferences, art shows, sidelines at soccer matches on nippy afternoons.

In Washington and Britain, people were building walls, you might say.
The same week a great moral leader, an American treasure named John Lewis, reminded some of us how to demonstrate for fairness. The sourpuss speaker of the house labelled it a stunt. Guess he never studied civics in Wisconsin.

The middle school graduates lined up in alphabetical order, with four years of order ahead of them.
In the late afternoon, the high-school graduates swarmed in no order whatsoever, clusters of friends, glimpses of cutoffs and shorts under billowing robes – all energy and brashness, more than ready to move on.

Taxes are brutal in this part of the world, but the school district has done its job. We heard these graduates had earned $2.2-million in scholarships.
In this one corner of the world, the system seemed to be working.

At one family gathering, both graduates brought friends with recent roots overseas. Nice kids. Bright eyes. On their way.

In Scotland, the presumptuous Republican candidate – who, by the way, looks puffy, pasty-faced, not well, about to explode – congratulated the Scots for the Brexit vote.
He somehow missed the point that the Scots had voted to remain in the E.U. The Scots are mocking him, big-time.

Guess Wharton didn’t teach civics. Or else Trump simply cannot assimilate facts.

Late that night, money people around the world panicked. That’s the way the lemmings leap.

Happy graduation. Happy world.

Unidentified graduate gives mysterious signals to a waiting world.

Brian Savin

6/25/2016 06:33:31 am

Congratulations to the grads and may they repeat the process a few more times and without crippling debt!

Being a Citizen of the World is a worthy aspiration, but hard work. Achieving it opens ones eyes to endless wonders forever. It was easier for my late friend and business partner than for me, because he had a deck of cards worth of passports -- which just narrowed considerably for the Youth of the U.K.

George Vecsey

6/25/2016 10:31:39 pm

Brian, thanks. From what I read, there is a huge gap -- parents voting for Leave, their children wanting Remain.
Now everybody has to sort it out.
What a nightmare.
GV

Brian Savin

6/26/2016 09:21:40 am

Your late NYT colleague, Bill Cunningham, has been quoted as saying, "Money is the cheapest thing -- Liberty and freedom is the most expensive." Maybe that's part of the equation. Hard stuff with real consequences. Agreed.

George Vecsey

6/26/2016 10:20:31 am

Brian, he was one of the most free people I ever encountered. Marianne asked how old he was. My quickie response was, "Nine -- or 129." I only knew him via colleagues, observing him, shrugging off the latest robbery of his bike. A true artist. I could care less about fashion, or society but I looked at his photos in Style every Sunday, thinking of it as his world.
Not sure what the political implications are of "freedom."
The people who voted "Leave" in GB may now have to come up with a visa to take a one-week bargain holiday to the Spanish coast or take in a football match in France. Whatever. That's freedom, too.
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..." J. Joplin.
GV

Ed Martin

6/26/2016 07:24:19 pm

Peggy just said "He is so often on the same page with us." We just attended two college graduations for our two grandchildren, Alec at U. Colorado in Boulder, and Gwen at "The Johns Hopkins University." (They, the administration, not the kids, are a bit pedantic about the "The.").
The graduates at both featured multi- cultures from Bachelors to Doctorates, many top scholars from Asia, as you might express. Alec's good friend and Computer Science project mate, Abba, invited us to his aunt's home for a party and feast of Ethiopian family and friends.
Gwen took off right after graduation to Liberia for a two-year stint teaching high school English in the Peace Corps. She is pre-med who majored in Civil Engineering.

I hope these kids will prevail in our evolution as people and as a nation.

George Vecsey

6/27/2016 10:45:30 am

Ed, yes, we are on the same pathway. I didn't go into it, but as far as I can see, the bulk of science/math honors in that system are won by Asian/South Asian kids.
The music program is amazing...I've been to two performances at high school and middle school level ("Guys and Dolls" -- by 13-year-olds!!!) that were sensational.
Then, too, while I was out in the yard the other day, two college-age guys came by, an hour apart, enlisting voters for the Democratic primary Tuesday. Different candidates, both good. It was nice to see young people involved like that.
Some hope despite the Trumps and Brexits.
GV

Joshua Rubin

6/27/2016 10:15:36 am

I enjoyed the piece. Our daughter is a year away from HS graduation and we have been visiting colleges, so we are a year away from our next graduation but the future that our daughter and her generation inherits and then makes is very much on my mind. Two thoughts:

First, for all the discussion of the coddled millenials, I have high hopes for the rising generation. They -- at least those in the blue enclaves but there are encouraging signs elsewhere -- have a vision and a comfort, even a healthy nonchalance, about making and living in a harmonious pluralistic future. They may be a little too focused on working through and making space for various identity issues but they seem to be committed to a world in which people are not categorized and then pitted against each other. They can't come of voting age soon enough, in my humble opinion.

Second, what scares me about Brexit and Trump, besides the obvious, is the seeming willingness of so many -- pols and voters -- to live in a world where all that matters is the outrage and not the consequences. Trump has said many stupid things, but what scares me, perhaps most of all, is we have a major party candidate for president who is actively cheering on the disintegration of the western network of alliances that has been the foundation of the system that has kept the world from having another world war for the past 70 years. There seems to be a bit of buyer's remorse building in the UK as they start to come to terms with the consequences of the vote. Hopefully we will have a healthy sense of caveat emptor here so we do not find ourselves remorseful buyers in November.

George Vecsey

6/27/2016 10:50:10 am

Josh, thanks. Scarier yet is the certainty that Trump does not understand what he is talking about -- he just has an inchoate need to criticize and break. He cannot take in facts; I know, from having talked to him about football...and boxing...over the years. He cannot learn.
I addressed some of your points in my response to Ed (above)....The Sanders campaign has been heartening, too. Back to the 60's when kids cared.
But the talent of young people in NYC and good suburban districts is impressive.
Best, GV

Denise Vecsey

6/28/2016 03:54:39 pm

I remember all those years ago (23) when my family and I just emigrated from Europe to the USA and I sent you a letter..and you replied! Your very own father wasn't it, who was adopted by immigrant Hungarians...Maybe some distant relatives of mine even.

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QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Graduation and Secession on the Very Same Day

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