Three Deaths

Most of us have heard the sayings that deaths come in threes and most of us pass this off as a superstition. But these old wives’ tales and such beliefs die hard when three famous people die in a brief time span. We can find a more scientific discussion here.

I look at Ms. Carter, Justice O’Connor, and Henry Kissinger tonight

I recently discussed the life of former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Tonight, I will briefly discuss her funeral. Reports are that it was like her life, full of family and friends, no thundering national speakers, but rather words from people who knew and loved her. Her 99-year-old spouse, Jimmy, looking frail and sad, was in attendance.

Yet the famous turned out. All the living First Ladies and their more famous husbands attended the funeral. What a tribute that was to this woman of Georgia who spent a lifetime getting things done. She started when she was the wife of the Governor of her state and she never looked back. She could hold a Ladies' Tea and wield a hammer for Habitat, meet with princes and paupers, and write a position paper in the evening, all without pretension. Quite a lady; she will be missed.

Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who died this week at 93, was a contemporary of Ms. Carter. Although she graduated from Stanford Law, was an editor of the Law Review there, and was third in her class, she could not get a job as a lawyer after graduation in 1952. They offered her only secretarial jobs at the Law firms she interviewed with. She grew up on a ranch and learned self-sufficiency on a vast property that encompassed 198,000 acres. When she was selected by President Reagan in 1981 to be the first woman justice, she noted she enjoyed being the first but did not want to be the last, and now, some forty years later, four women justices serve on the Supreme Court. 

A portion of her time on the court coincided with that of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Unlike some of those serving on the court today, Marshall and O’Connor both previously worked in the “real world’ before being selected to serve. O’Connor was a state legislator, Marshall was in the Civil Rights trenches. Each had faced intolerance and racial or gender discrimination. They understood justice with a capital J. Today’s Court members seem to think they are there to serve corporate interests when they should serve as the voice for the voiceless and right the wrongs of society. Unfortunately, they do not see that as their mission and seem to care little for the regulations that have kept our food and medicine safe, our air, and water clean, and our transportation system effective.

 O’Connor was a Republican and supported conservative values, but she was pragmatic and compromised as necessary, eventually becoming a designated moderate on the court. She was not a feminist but understood and upheld women’s causes. O'Connor supported Casey even as she diminished some of it. Many of her key rulings can be found here. She bemoaned some of the rulings the Roberts Court has championed that reversed many of the rulings she supported, undoing her decisions. After retirement, she established the Sandra Day Oconnor Institute. The Core Values of the Institute were listed as: “Non-partisan, objective, fact-based, centrist, inclusive, collaborative, civil. “

She worried about changes in society that showed support for such values declining in recent years. I certainly share those concerns, do you?

Henry Kissinger died this week. He lived to be 100 years old and was active until the end of his life with his international consulting business.

Love him, hate him; Love him and hate him, few people view Kissinger either benignly or serenely. Lauded for creating the ‘opening up” of China, castigated for secret bombings in Cambodia, praised by winning the Nobel Peace Prize for actions in Vietnam, condemned by many for toppling a democratic government Chile, few actions here are neutral in the world of public opinion. As the simultaneous Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President Nixon, he served as the only person to do so. This made him less transparent, and answerable to few. 

Many Vietnam vets believed his sabotage of Johnson’s peace plan prolonged the war and caused more American deaths. Others blamed him for genocide in Bangladesh since the US supported West Pakistan in that conflict where hundreds of thousands perished. Some admired his intellect; others claimed thousands of deaths stained his reputation. He stabilized some relations in the Middle East, which resulted in peace over many years, but cared little about the Palestinians.

His Jewish family escaped Hitler’s Germany before the Second World War and came to America. This is the typical American success story; an immigrant comes, learns, and does well, except when it is not. He eventually achieved a PhD and taught before becoming the confidant of presidents, kings, and dictators. As for my opinion, my generation distrusted him, his motivations, and his means to an end solutions.

“Til next week-Peace.