Pre-K and Wes Moore

Universal pre-kindergarten education, aka “pre-K,” is finally coming of age. In the long term, it’s the single most effective—and by far the most cost effective—thing we could do to make America great.

The science is clear. The vast majority of a child’s brain development occurs in the first few years of life. That’s when drinking-from-a-fire-hose education occurs. Miss out on it, and a child will fall behind, intellectually, socially, and emotionally. He or she may stay behind for a lifetime.

That’s why some rich people play Bach to their yet-unborn kids in the womb. Studies show that prenatal kids can hear and remember music, and it may help develop parts of the brain that do math and higher reasoning.

If we gave every kid in America a brain-growing head start, we could massively increase the intelligence and mental health of our general population in a single generation. In the process, we could dent the systematic disadvantages of our poor and people of color and strike a generational blow for equality. What’s not to like?

We are the richest nation in the history of our planet. So why don’t we already have universal Pre-K? Why was it left out of President Biden’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill? Aren’t our kids the most important “infrastructure” of all? Beats me.

It’s not as if it would break our budget. We already have a program to build the Northrop Grumman B-21 “Raider” stealth bomber. Its cost? Reportedly “$203 billion to develop, purchase and then operate 100 aircraft over 30 years.”

Let’s look at what the same amount, $203 billion, could do for our kids. According to our modern Oracle at Delphi (Google), 5.7% of our 2020 population of 331,449,281 were kids under 5. That’s 18.9 million kids. If we take only those three and older and assume an even age distribution, that’s 2/5 of the total, or 7.6 million kids. So $203 billion would amount to $26,000 per kid. If there are thirty kids per class, over thirty years, that would be $26,000 per class per year. Isn’t that pretty close to what a kindergarten teacher makes?

I know, I know: kindergarten teachers ought to earn a lot more. But that’s a story for another day. As for the B-21, I’m no kneejerk progressive who wants to kill every defense program. Putin and Xi—let alone Kim—are not getting more cuddly as they age.

So I think we need both strong defense and early-childhood education. But I would point out that our direct participation in a major war (at least for now) is speculative, while our need for smarter people to face future pandemics, global warming, multinational competition, and geopolitical crises is a certainty. We must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Enter Wes Moore. In case you haven’t heard, he’ll be the new governor of Maryland. He just won his general election by a 30-point landslide. He’s Black and progressive.

All I know about him I learned by watching news clips after his victory. But that’s enough. What he said about Pre-K really knocked me off my feet. He’s determined to make two years of it available to every kid in Maryland. And—in his very next sentence—he said why. Eighty percent of brain development, he said, occurs in a kid’s first five years.

Think about that. Here was a pol trying to justify his plans. Yes, he actually has plans. And how does he promote them? Not with fear. Not with hate. Not with name calling. Not with blame. Just with data.

When I heard that, I wanted to jump through the TV screen and pump his hand, though I hadn’t even known his name before watching his speech. No jolting the amygdala for Wes Moore. No feeding us a steady diet of outrage and fear. Just pure reason and problem-solving.

It gets better. When Moore takes office as governor of Maryland, he will be part of a Democratic “trifecta.” Democrats will control the governor’s mansion and both houses of Maryland’s state legislature.

So Moore will have the power to implement his plans. Every kid who sees a third birthday during Moore’s administration will have some (but not all) of the advantages of those whose parents are not exhausted from trying to make ends meet and can read to them every night.

The trouble is, the people of Maryland—let alone the rest of us—won’t see the effects of this plan for most of a generation. Teachers will, as the kids they teach get smarter, more disciplined and more excited by learning. So will parents. But the bulge in the working population’s intelligence will take a long time to show up in Maryland’s GDP.

It’s a lot like global warming, but on the positive, not the negative, side. By the end of this century, maybe only two-thirds through, global warming could make large parts of our Earth uninhabitable. Our species could be dealing with unimaginable migration, wars, famine and devastation: the Four Horsemen of the Climate Apocalypse. No one seems to care much now, least of all the oligarchs who reap their riches from fossil fuels and the pols who pander to them.

But I’ll bet Wes Moore does. He’s a guy who, on the high of a heady victory, thought of children barely old enough to talk, and of their futures and ours. He’s a long-term thinker who actually credits science and makes it part of his plans.

I don’t know much more about Moore than I’ve outlined in this post. But no one wins a thirty-point landslide in this divisive age by being a panderer. If it were up to me, we’d all, left and right, be thinking about how to clone Wes Moore.


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Brittney Griner’s Smile

Of all the good news since our general elections, one thing most sticks in my mind. It’s not Reverend Warnock’s triumphant announcement that “The people have spoken,” although that warmed my heart, too. It’s Brittney Griner’s smile.

Too tall to fit comfortably in the small plane that would deliver her from evil, Griner was hunched over. Her smile was tentative, for she was still in Russian custody and on display. But it was real—a sign of relief, of pleasure and of simple human happiness. She looked wan and tired but in good health, considering. Our military doctors verified her general health on her arrival home.

More than any recent thing, that smile let me know how much I love my country. We’re in the midst of a still-raging pandemic—three if you count RSV and this year’s especially nasty flu. After knowing about global warming for half a century, we just enacted the first serious legislation to deal with it and to lead the world in doing so. And we’re indirectly enmeshed in a horrible war started by a modern Russian Nazi.

With all this going on, the government of the mightiest nation in our species’ history spent months and considerable resources—and made some sacrifices—just to bring one of us home.

It matters that Griner is both Black and a Lesbian. Putin demonizes people like her just to maintain his vile tyranny and (he hopes) support for his atrocious war. But our government was willing to trade a convicted gun-runner (who had already served much of his sentence) just for one of us who was wrongfully held.

That’s a biblical triumph of justice and love. But think also of the message.

In the age of nuclear weapons, we can no longer rely on power alone. President Biden can’t do what Teddy Roosevelt famously did in demanding of a Moroccan warlord that he return a kidnapped American or be killed, saying “Pedicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” We had to give up something, a convicted gun runner known as the “Merchant of Death.”

But in all the vile tyrannies on Earth—and there are many—there must not be a single downtrodden subject who, on seeing that smile, would not wish to be in Brittney Griner’s place, that is, one of us. That’s why Ukraine will win its war with Russia, and that’s why our system will prevail, as long as we hold to our values.


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Positive Feedback in Georgia

Virginia was the Old Confederacy’s seat of government, but I think of Georgia as the Modern South’s heart. It’s where General Sherman made his infamous scorched-earth March to the Sea, and regional resentments die hard. From 1872 until 2003, Georgia had only Democratic governors, and since then only Republicans. I guess Richard Nixon’s disgraceful “Southern Strategy” took some time to sink in.

In contrast, Virginia has had Democratic governors for all but six years of our new century. Anyway, the northern part of Virginia is practically a suburb of D.C., with wealth, education and non-Southern-born residents far outside the Southern norm.

So I think of Georgia (with North Carolina next) as the linchpin or fulcrum of the Modern South. Those of us who look longingly for a New South should look there first.

That’s why the Reverend Rafael Warnock’s second victory last night gave me so much joy. After the heartbreaking losses of three superbly qualified women in the general election—Stacey Abrams, Cheri Beasley, and Val Demings—it made me feel that change is coming, too slowly but surely.

Never mind that Warnock’s opponent was grossly unqualified. Never mind that Warnock’s victory was narrower than it should have been. He won by 2.6% of the vote: a solid, decisive win. He’s the first-ever Black Senator from Georgia, and he’s a smart, persuasive, true progressive with good political instincts. Even Governor Kemp’s last-minute push to aid Herschel Walker made no difference. Let’s take the win.

The win makes one conclusion obvious. The Demagogue’s reaching into Georgia to anoint Herschel Walker as the Republican candidate was spectacularly unhelpful. That lesson bodes well for the future of our nation and the Republican Party. In Georgia, the GOP will have to compete on good policy, not lies.

But there’s more, much more. On my first cruise, in 2001, I met a Black Navy veteran and his wife, and we made friends. He invited my then-wife and me to visit them in Atlanta, and we did. He regaled us with stories of Atlanta as a mecca for Black entrepreneurs. He told us about a Black man in his twenties who had come from Texas to Atlanta and had built a million-dollar business silk-screening T-shirts with original designs. My cruising friend and his wife lived in Stone Mountain—an old rallying spot for the Ku Klux Klan!—but he said his neighbors treated them with kindness and decency. That, if memory serves, was in 2002.

In early 2021, I read Charles Blow’s piece about moving to Atlanta from New York City, despite having grown to love that City. His reasons included feeling more comfortable in his own skin (literally!), plus enjoying a bigger chance to wield political power, in a place where Black people like him have much greater numbers. (As a Jew, albeit mostly assimilated, I see that same motive as what draws some American Jews—and many, many more from Russia and Europe—to Israel.)

In a much more recent piece, Blow doubled down on that second theme, supporting it with demographics. It does seem that a Great Reverse Migration of Black people is gathering steam. And for those who might doubt that the South is changing, Reverend Warnock’s free and fair election—not once but twice—could be a powerful inducement.

That’s positive feedback. The more educated, wealthy and politically savvy Black people migrate to the South (and vote), the more victories like Warnock’s there will be. And the more such victories there are, the more progressive Black people will be motivated to move South.

But Black political power is not the only source of positive feedback. Many people from all over the country are moving to the South for its relatively cheap housing and good weather. Those who respect competent, good leaders like Warnock and are not troubled by their color will likely move to Georgia, rather than South Carolina or Florida, and bring their tolerance, education and progressive ideas with them. They may also bring an additional entrepreneurial spirit, lifting Georgia’s economy and, at the same time, reinforcing its progressive evolution.

For all these reasons, I expect Georgia to be the first state in the Old, Deep South to make the transition to modern, progressive, get-stuff-done politics. (Of course that means Democratic rule.) I even wonder whether, in four more years, when Brian Kemp will be term-limited, Stacey Abrams can realize her dream. I hope I live to see that. If I do, I’ll support her campaign as usual.

Endnote: This post uses the term “positive feedback” in the engineering sense, not in the HR sense of a favorable evaluation. Positive feedback in an engineering sense need not have a “positive” result. It could render global warming self-sustaining and make large parts of the Earth uninhabitable. In Georgia’s case, however, it will produce a stable system of social justice and progressive, people-friendly politics, with plenty of good Black leaders.


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The Mother of All Soap Operas

This December will mark a lame-duck session in a lame-duck era. All is uncertainty.

We think there will be a same-sex marriage law, but the rest is a mystery. Will the GOP crazies let our nation walk a straight line in the middle of a three-year pandemic and the biggest war in Europe since WWII? We don’t know. Will Ukraine finally win a pyrrhic victory against Russian Nazism? We don’t know.

Will the agonizingly slow uptake of our state-of-the-art vaccines slowly conquer the ever-evolving pandemic that has made life universally hard for almost three years? We don’t know. Will Congress do anything to stop the surging epidemic of gun slaughter that has become another pandemic? We don’t know. And will the Demagogue, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, rise out of his dark filth one last time to threaten all of us? Or will he finally subside into the slime of his own making and trouble us no more? We don’t know.

So as Winter Solstice comes and goes, and the days stay short and cold, we will all need some good TV.

Fortunately, there’s a remedy. A brilliant series about a mega-preacher and his extended family offers some of the best drama I’ve ever seen on TV.

I’m not much of a soap-opera fan. I’m usually a sci-fi guy. But this is soap opera with a difference. It’s soap opera as great drama, with indirect commentary about many things that trouble us today, including child abuse.

Everything about it is superb—from the acting, through the writing, to the sets and photography and the occasional celestial religious music. The costumes are often works of art. Even the background for the opening credits is inspired, evocative and mercifully short.

Like all great drama, the series addresses the essence of the human condition. It probes what people do for, with and to each other. It examines how they let great sins slide by out of inertia and a quest for a false peace of mind. It shows what happens when they address those sins too late, and why the ancient paradigm of alpha-male leadership still prevails in the age of nuclear weapons, the Internet and mRNA vaccines.

The show has beautiful people, good people, a few very bad people, and a lot of confused people, just as in real life. There is marvelous dialogue, with occasional, sudden shots of humor, and occasionally brilliant prose poetry. Late in the first season, after the mega-preacher expounds his personal vision of Hell, you may remember his answer for the rest of your life. There are occasional allusions to Shakespeare, including Lady Macbeth. (You’ll know who she is when you first meet her early in the first season. Lady Macbeth as an “iron magnolia”—who would’ve thought?)

But the best thing about this show is its inescapable realism. At first, the characters seem a bit cartoonish. But as the episodes roll on, they change. They grow or diminish. They do things you don’t expect. They suffer doubt, hesitation and confusion. And sometimes, when they rise up and challenge the fates that others assume for them, you want to stand up and cheer. If you enjoy never being able to predict where a story is going, this show is for you.

But why write about a TV show on Daily Kos? Because I’ve saved the best for last.

Nearly all the characters and actors are Black, as is the producer, Oprah Winfrey, who appears occasionally as an important subsidiary character. The story focuses on a huge and complex extended family, living under circumstances of extreme opulence that few of us whites associate with Black people. And while all the characters (except perhaps the bad guy) express some belief in religion, most carry their own internal visions of Heaven and Hell.

A few white actors appear in minor roles, where they begin to look uncommonly pale. The contrast made me, a white anti-bigot, wonder whether that’s how some Black people see us—as occasional, pale wraiths flitting through their lives, without much consequence. On a political level, the show’s self-evident quality gave me a taste of the joy and hope I felt while attending Barack Obama’s first inauguration, or (more recently) seeing Wes Moore and Hakeem Jeffries celebrate their well-deserved political victories.

But the show isn’t about politics at all, except incidentally. It’s just a fine work of art. It’s right up there with the best of streaming TV available, including “West Wing,” “Grantchester,” “The Crown,” and “Downton Abbey.” But it’s not on PBS; it’s on Netflix. If you like good TV, this show alone is probably worth the price of a subscription.

It’s title is “Greenleaf,” the surname of the fictional family that runs the fictional mega-church. Watch it, and the odds of your surviving this long, dreary lame-duck winter with your humanity and optimism intact might just go up.


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