IF

The tiniest of words and yet the foreword to a whole series of meanings.

The big Webster’s Dictionary has a field day of colons and semicolons in deciphering the word that comes down to this: IF can imply speculation, supposition, a condition or a qualification.

Just that one little word opens all sorts of thought possibilities…and so the following:

IF noted journalist Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and subsequent Presidential books, had told the world of Donald Trump’s genuine fear of the dangers of Covid-19 when he heard it from Trump instead of waiting six months later for the publication of his book about him, even a trained liar like Trump would never have dared to lie day after day pretending Covid was nothing more than a flu just to protect his Presidency. .

IF aging Bernie Sanders hadn’t convinced aging President Joe Biden that they could recreate FDR’s New Deal all at once with a multi-trillion dollar Build Back Better social policy bill that needed to pass a Senate with only a single vote margin, an otherwise experienced Joe Biden would never have proposed it all in one bill knowing that just a single Democratic vote no could doom it..

IF our system of public education hadn’t begun to fail in the 1970s when the model begun a century earlier which depended on a Mom at home able to help a teacher was failing as Moms began to work and the training of teachers at Schools of Education did not change as the Teacher – Mom – child “tripod” collapsed, would we be electing old men to the Presidency, men and women who have no sense – either common or knowledgeable – to lower levels of government and a sleazy, grossly incompetent as the Mayor of New York for eight years?

If the Matrix films which let Keanu Reeves and friends step through the looking glass of the Internet could be replicated in real life, we would be using the Internet instead of being used by it. If we could transport ourselves out of our lives into another life, alter our physical, mental and emotional selves, turn life into our playground, becoming what we could not otherwise be, we would be oblivious to an Internet which offers us up to businesses knowing our likes and dislikes to endlessly sell us things; an Internet able to shape our attitudes and beliefs providing disenchanted people with lies and distorted truths as easily as they provide us with goods and services; an Internet permitting people to embarrass or humiliate us with reckless bullying and intimidation; an Internet becoming the source of group thinking which enforces lies and distortions and builds an audience of like-believers to do so as well.

If 39 million Americans absolutely refuse to be vaccinated and wear masks, are they also the Americans most likely to be against the right of a woman to choose, against the move towards diversity and social justice, for the storming of the Capitol on January 6 and totally supporting the unproven claim that the Presidential election was stolen and that Donald Trump is still the President. Does one political action against a pandemic result in the rest or are the rest the precursors?

If one of the great writers of the 20th Century, Joan Didion, is prophetically correct that “We tell ourselves stories so that we can live” what has happened to our ability to tell stories? Where have all the great American novelists gone? Why are we no longer dazzled by great American artist – painters, sculptors? Where are the American playwrights whose work burned up our theaters? Where are the American composers and lyricists who kept us humming as we left the theater and whose music delighted us on the radio and on our records forever? Will Stephen Sondheim be the last of our musical theater immortals?

Why haven’t our young Progressives learned to use simple common sense to recognize that no matter the genuine value of their ideals, programs or policies are worthless without the know-how to develop the ‘design’ to pass them.

What kind of stories can an uneducated America tell itself to help it live a life we have known but may no longer have?

If Eric Adams, the new Mayor of New York believes what he says that if 65% of white children were failing to reach proficiency in reading and math, their parents would burn the city down, does that mean that he doesn’t know only 25% of NYC high school graduates are ready for college or a job and the rest are not and need remedial work just to get into college. Does he think that the 75% are all children of color? Those numbers don’t add up and we hope that the emphasis on finally reaching and teaching children of color will catch all the white children who need help in the same net.

If the job of Schools Chancellor is an enormous and vital one, how well will David Banks do without the necessary experience in any reasonably sized school district. We hope Mr. Banks is up to the job as we haven’t had a Schools Chancellor who has been for a very long time.

He recently stunned the education world with his blunt and accurate statement that our schools have failed to properly teach reading for generations. He said that phonemic awareness was the method that taught reading well for years and years and changes made have destroyed children’s reading ability.

How Mr. Banks will correct this in NYC schools is a puzzlement as he must also know that Schools of Education stopped teaching phonics years ago and few teachers exist who know how to do it…including reading specialists sent to schools to help children who need it. He must also know that the politically correct view supported by Ed schools and the entire educational establishment is that they don’t like phonics and don’t want to teach it no matter what facts science tells them.

If climate change deniers continue to ignore melting icebergs, continuous fires in California, floods in the South tornadoes that can stretch 150 miles in a row and take everything in their path, and rising sea elevations around the World, what do they say when they learn that France can no longer produce Champagne, Merlot and Bordeaux because heat and floods are destroying their vines and so they are moving those vines to England. Wine is France’s second largest export.

If…supposition, speculation, a condition or qualification.

Here are a few as we end 2021. What about yours?