Pardon my obsolete reference. I am asked from time to time (not often) about what was accomplished during the period I chaired the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Always I talk about encouraging and facilitating the transition from analog to digital communications. Not infrequently, however, the lingering historical connection is with Howard Stern.

Stern had a morning show on radio and failed to find anything humorous outside of sex. His best ratings came from pre-pubescent males. I initiated proceedings against him for violating anti-obscenity laws that were in place to protect children. I became a frequent target on his show; at one point he hoped I wouldn’t recover from cancer surgery.

Okay, I get it. This brief chapter is more interesting, if less consequential than technology transactions. Or is it? Did Stern’s sexual repartee with his fall girl, Robin, have any effect on male sensibilities?

Or, on Beto O’Rourke, who has lugged the F word into politics from somewhere. Or, on a culture that to Beto’s mind will find the adjective unobjectionable or at least non fatal to his political ambitions.

Before my knee talked back, I enjoyed downhill skiing. Then I took up the cross-country kind. I, of course, knew the characteristics of gravity, but got a lesson in the dynamics of pleasure. Downhill was more fun.

I am coming around to believing that contemporary culture is similarly affected. Comedy writers lead the way — politics follows. If there are serious philosophers today I wonder what they think? Or, will anybody care?

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

As I write people are boarding a flight from Bozeman, Montana to Salt Lake City, Utah. They are doing what people do: blocking out the discomfort of flying–looking straight ahead. 

My guess is that same attitude applies to today’s presidential politics. The journey is necessary, while the flight is a pain.

The high altitude view of a low altitude scrum leaves me with two impressions. As I matched images of boarding flyers with the demographic support groups for Trump or an Alternative, the Alternative was winning. Perhaps this is where observation matches polls. The current Real Clear Politics average of numerous polls show President Trump with a 43.4% approval rating, while 54.3% disapprove. 

Just ahead of watching the airline boarders I read several articles on late season baseball—the rush of suspense. My team, the St. Louis Cardinals, is in first place in their division. While several veteran players are doing well, some of the most impressive late season statistics are shared by guys that were in the minor leagues a month or so ago. 

All of this leads me to wonder whether the Republican Party has any leaders equal to a late season elevation to what baseball calls the Bigs (Major League). Trump’s batting average, whoops, poll numbers suggest a replacement should be considered. If his poll numbers translated to a batting average, he would be sent to Triple A ball for a rehab assignment. And, we all know, there would be no rehab.

While in Virginia City, Montana, I talked to one of his supporters. I began by asking how he liked his Governor, Steve Bullock, who is one of the several dozen running for the Democratic nomination. He said he didn’t like him as a Governor, but thought he was preferable to the current front-runners. And about Trump he said, “I don’t like the man but he fights for his policies.” And, that is where the Alternative seems to offer hope to Trump. The World Series of politics might well be contested between the Baltimore Orioles (40-86) and the Miami Marlins (45-79). Well, you get it.

In the early stages of Internet development, it was said that Bill Gates, then CEO of Microsoft, was a tail lighter. He was said to follow just behind the developing technology trends and then seize the initiative with Microsoft’s immense market power. I watched (as an investor) Microsoft move in on Netscape (the first commercial browser) and crush it with Internet Explorer.

Maybe in the Republican primaries Bill Weld, the former Governor of Massachusetts, will demonstrate Trump’s vulnerability in the New Hampshire primary like Senator Eugene McCarthy did in 1968. Brief recollection: President Lyndon Johnson beat McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, but not decisively. Weeks later, with Senator Robert Kennedy closing in on him, he announced he would not run for reelection

We are, of course, in the early stages of the 2020 Presidential election process; this is not late season baseball. But, at this point, the bettors seem to favor former Vice-President Joseph Biden and President Trump. I am staying away from the betting windows while hoping that Americans are faced with a better choice. 

America needs a leader with the potential to reach out. Unity, at least to a degree, is essential if governance results are to equal the promise of America. My somewhat fanciful dream: a unifier who is also a fiscal conservative. At some point in the evolution of the United States the nation will need a leader who is not allergic to saying, “We cannot afford it.” And, an electorate that is not fanciful.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

The exuberance is still a vivid recollection. Joyfulness really! My wife and I were at the Jazz Standard in Manhattan listening to Monty Alexander for the first time. My recollection, it was 2001, who knew what was to come.

And then there was that first concert in Easton, 2008. It was the first time in my life I had shared with hundreds of persons from my home town a jazz artist I had so thoroughly enjoyed. Bliss.

Monty and I then met in New York and in a booth at the Greek restaurant, Molyvos, the Monty Alexander Jazz Festival was conceived. And now we are in the tenth year. Whew!

Monty Alexander is gifted and not just in music. He has the gift of entertainment. He is of course a consummate musician but has a love affair with his audiences. He is quite direct, “I want to bring joy”.

Monty’s melodies trace a remarkable life. This year’s theme: A Life In Music. There were remarkable influences; he speaks of Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole. And he loves to tell stories of the times with Frank Sinatra and Dizzy Gillespie and the gigs with Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Charlie Byrd and so many more.

And Monty, a good son of Jamaica, always tempts and then spoils his audiences with the inviting sounds of reggae and calypso blended, of course, with a lifetime of jazz phrasing and rhythms.  Improvisation at its best. 

And those of us who are fortunate to collaborate in Jazz on the Chesapeake, have also enjoyed a special relationship with Caterina Zapponi his wife and oh so special vocalist. Caterina almost always takes a star turn and in our celebration of the 10th  Anniversary she will certainly join in.

In short this is not an article about a jazz musician. This is a love note from Easton to Monty Alexander. 

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Fortunately my exposure was brief. I don’t have TV at a cabin my wife and I enjoy in the Catskills. I did, however, read the news coverage of the debate times two in several electronic newspapers. I can’t help myself.

Shrill voices punctuated a normally quiet early morning cup of coffee as the steeply angled sun shone in. The only clouds hung over my iPad.

Now before you conclude that my comfort is what is wrong with America, grant me a few minutes of reflection. Fifty years divided between government service and building companies offer some puzzle pieces, with a barely visible picture.

Since President Trump’s public feud with Congressman Elijah Cummings, arguments have tended to use Baltimore illustratively. But, most big cities would qualify. Trump figures he can take on Baltimore since he has no chance of winning Maryland. Too bad that once again Trump chose ad hominem language rather than reason. Division is his calling card.

Big city leaders, Baltimore included, have deployed political tools at a dangerous scale. Small cities don’t provide as much tax revenue, and their citizens (closer to the elected) tend to concentrate on the fundamentals — clean water, safe neighborhoods and timely dispatch of potholes.

In many of our largest cities, on top of out-sized promises, Mayors and its Councils have given public employees ever bigger paychecks. Well why not. Better pension benefits. Check. And if teachers wanted protection from those irritating charter schools, well okay. The teachers union is a part of the political coalition.

The end result: a coalition of interest groups that voice concern for those challenged by life’s circumstances, but whose principal interest is their tenure, checkbook and retirement.

Many big cities became employment agencies that protected the employed — monopolies enabled by a political monopoly—in City after City, the Democratic Party.

Only New York City, surprisingly, elected several GOP mayors. I lived there while first Giuliani and then Bloomberg were mayors. Neither brought Nirvana, but that is not on offer anywhere. They did, however, achieve dramatic reductions in crime and enabled school choice for many. The latter put creative pressure on traditional public schools, while the former gave most neighborhoods security. Not bad — but the point is that political monopolies do not work.

So forgive me if I greet the promise that if we just envelop humanity with larger government programs, with their attendant lifetime employment, all will be well. Count me a skeptic.

The truth is we need to pay our government’s bills, not just issue more debt. We need to introduce choice throughout public education for all families and their children. We need to harmonize pension obligations with cold-eyed projections of future revenue. And, in my view, we need to further enable State and Local governments to resolve issues that will, if left unchecked, consume our politics and attention spans. America is at her best when we work hard at avoiding private and public concentration of power and spread the ingenuity that results from competitive engagement in both private and public enterprise.

Enough, it is a very pleasant day—I am going outside.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

“People speak of “the environment.” They don’t know what they’re talking about. “The environment” refers to no place in particular. We’re alive only in some place in particular.”
Wendell Berry, The New Yorker, 7/14/19

Climate change and its causes are too big — not unimportant, just too big. We have to get closer to home. We have to reflect on human intrusions and the consequences, up-close. If we don’t understand our neighborhood, how can we get our mind around the world?

There is, of course, a big picture, but it started with one stroke or pixel or note. We have to understand the beginnings — what we can see or touch or feel.

For those of us who live on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, water is our most frequent picture window. In the broadest sense, we think of the Bay as an important element in a larger design. It is good to have that perspective — we need it.

But, let me take you back to high school chemistry. I was fascinated by the chemistry laboratory experiments that transformed liquids, even causing minor explosions.

The formulas seeped from my brain decades ago. But the fact of transformation did not. We, homo sapiens, are engaged in daily experiments. We change the chemistry of the air, water and soil — this is not theory, it can be measured. And, in the aggregate, these experiments go global.

We have radically changed the diversity and balance of flora and fauna. Again, this is not theory. But, to a degree, we have formulated theories about how we can compensate for our intrusions by heavy equipment, chain saws and herbicides.

I look at my neighborhood, in part, informed by bees — both imported and indigenous. Before becoming a beekeeper, I was, to put it charitably, under-informed. I could expound on international environmental issues, but didn’t understand the yard around my home. Or, my neighbors’ yards or fields.

Now, I can hear you saying “what is there to know that I can’t observe on the push end of a lawnmower?” And, that is the point. We have all suffered from a lack of curiosity; we are no longer eager students in a chemistry laboratory. To one degree or another we have been victimized by images conjured up by Scotts fertilizer ads. Most homeowners have become enamored with lawns that look like a golf course, while yard chemists labor away striving to improve the survive/kill ratio of grasses and clover.

When I became a beekeeper, clover became important — in a yard setting it is one of the few sources of pollen and nectar. Yet, one day I asked an employee working in Lowe’s garden section where I could find clover seed. She exclaimed, “We don’t sell it, we sell things that kill it.”

Have you ever seen a Monarch Butterfly gathering nutrition from a lawn? Or, a Damsel Fly? Or, a pollinator of any description? Nope, lawns are fly-over zones — in the aggregate, huge fly-over zones.

Now, if I were a botanist, academic words and phrases would follow. And, most of you would quit reading. But, I think we can all, on a visceral level, understand how our predispositions affect our neighborhood and how, writ large, they affect the planet.

We have not made a conscious decision to shut out or shut down pollinators. Or, degrade our soil. But, like it or not, we have implicitly decided that the cost-side of chemically re-engineering the earth’s surface is not our concern. We are seduced by pictures that create a universe that satisfies us and a company’s bottom line.

I would simply say: BRIDGE CLOSED! PERIL AHEAD! The bridge — the pathways that connect all of us — flora, fauna and human beings alike are flashing red lights. Life’s design is in trouble.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Bring in the Clowns—Whoops They Are Here

Trump sows dissent, it spreads. Farmers are envious. 

Trump smiles and tweets.

The dissenters lash out at Pelosi and then Biden. They miniaturize the sane.

Where is Amy of Minnesota? Well she is at the end of the debate line trying to avoid the spittle of de Blasio of New York.

Trump smiles and tweets.

Amash of Michigan offers up a principled withdrawal—a revolt of one—Trump smiles.

Fringe is in. Outrage, the new black or is it orange?

Cable channels, the new Arbiters, with their breaking wisdom,

Yes, “the levee is dry”.

Those who offer to work across the aisle find the aisle congested with clowns. Forgive me, not meaning to disparage clowns.

Racism. Well it should be a serious subject but, Biden and Pelosi racists? Or, any white men, period?

Civility? Who takes the first step? It should not require new profiles in courage.

Plastic is out; no it’s in, its MAGA man. Leaders can’t find space among the carnival barkers. 

Trump smiles and tweets.

by Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

My wife and I spend a few weeks each year at a cabin on the Beaverkill River in the Catskills of New York. We are in our 22nd year and our cabin, in a quiet rural area, has given us a window on the changes we frequently read about.

Overall, the beauty of the Catskills with it’s legendary trout streams provides a modest economic base built around tourism and second home dwellings. But, tourists and part-time dwellers do not provide volunteers for fire protection or regular church goers.

When we arrived there were two churches several miles apart; both were struggling. Neither had full-time pastors and both occupied old but classic New England style church buildings.

One lacked community leadership and is now closed. One is the center of a small community and is open in the summer with special events during other times of the year. And to say that the church is defined by its community is an understatement. The community does it all.

One feature that I find particularly interesting is a rotation of church members who deliver the Sunday message. Last year I became one of those.

Faith has many expressions. The Bible chronicles the first church and its many leaders. The epistles of Paul are filled with messages to the leaders in Corinth, Ephesus and beyond. He was framing first century theology and urging their devotion. We have to assume that these first communities of the newly faithful came together often and were led by persons who struggled with what to say. Undoubtedly they were thrilled to receive letters from Paul, but when it came to sustaining the church they were on the frontlines and on their own.

Today we read about shuttered churches, declining numbers of the ordained and falling church attendance. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about expanding suburbs, the writer noted a church in rapidly expanding Apex, North Carolina. There is a Catholic Church in Apex called St. Mary Magdalene. Father Donald Staib observed that in their new sanctuary there were eight stained-glass window panels from two closed churches in upstate New York.

My wife and I have heard a number of church messages presented by speakers at our small Catskill church. We find them insightful and often inspiring. And, it is not uncommon to find half the congregation participating in the service in one way or another. Maybe doctrinal elements are under emphasized, but expressions of how faith works in individual lives is more than an adequate substitute.

Now, this is not a message aimed at the ordained. Gifted religious professionals are crucially important. But, I do believe that churches should engage more lay people in the content of services. I know that preparing a message engages me well beyond commentary on the week’s news.

The churches in the Beaverkill Valley were once Methodist and I am told that the presiding Bishop did not make the transition to non-denominational status easy. I can imagine that regardless of the denomination, the powers that be don’t want to turn in reports showing fewer churches.

My limited research does not reveal an organization that encourages and facilitates congregation take-overs. I hope there are many faithful communities helping to reverse the downward slide and while doing so enriching their spiritual life.

One final thought. Today headlines and commentary rage about court battles over religious freedom. Most deal in one way or another with government actions. Forcing The Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception insurance coverage is probably the most memorable of recent years.

My concern, however, turns more on faithful communities and less on the latest outrage. In fact, I think that when politics is fused with religious doctrine, faith suffers. But when the faithful reach out and touch those in need, even the jaded are forced to pay attention.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Politics and the Supreme Court, intentionally, have a tense relationship. Indeed Franklin Roosevelt, when President, attempted to expand its membership so it would find more of his programs constitutional. The Court has the final say and its jurists enjoy lifetime tenure.

Beyond the structural differences, I can recall arguments in my constitutional law classes regarding the extent to which popular opinion influenced decision-making. Purists preferred to think the Court, being supreme, sits well to the north of the grubby fights about the legal way forward. Most know, however, that politics play a role in the appointments, confirmations and even considerations. Most Americans hope, however, that lifetime tenure invites wisdom.

But, let me leave the classroom and turn to the court’s complicity in what are fraught times.

I believe Roe v. Wade (the decision that discovered a constitutional right for abortion) was wrongly decided but decided it was and that occurred in 1973 on a 7 to 2 vote. The opinion was written by Justice Harry Blackman, an appointee of President Richard Nixon; the Chief Justice was Warren Burger, also appointed by Nixon. Both identified as Republicans. One of the dissenting justices, a Democrat, Byron White, was appointed by President John F Kennedy. Politics is inevitably part of the court’s history.

But, when politics seems to overwhelm the court’s deliberations, its authoritative position deteriorates. Indeed it has led the current Chief Justice, John Roberts, to give multiple speeches on the need to elevate Supreme Court decision-making.

The Boston Globe reported that “Roberts has been on a mission to convince the public that if the court is ideologically split, it is about law, not politics.

‘‘We do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle, we do not caucus in separate rooms, we do not serve one party or one interest, we serve one nation,’’ Roberts told an audience at the University of Minnesota in October.”

Today political parties divide along sharper edges than in 1973. Presidential and U.S. Senate campaigns often turn on Supreme Court appointments or issues. And today’s socio-political divisions often turn on the Roe decision.

We need clarity, if the Supreme Court wishes to step back from the raw edge of politics. It needs to hear a case on abortion restrictions that will result in a decision that answers rather than raises questions. It should not choose a case that leads to a minimalist decision that ducks the core issue. America needs to know when a woman’s right to an abortion is protected and when the States are allowed to restrict that right.

I say “when the right to an abortion” is legally protected because conservative jurisprudence honors precedence and the Roe decision was decided 46 years ago and the decision was not a partisan one decided by the slimmest of majorities.  

Yet, my concern is not so much the jurisprudence, but the social and political unrest that persists because the Court has chosen not to settle the constitutional issue. The failure to define the scope of the 1973 decision has led to toxic battles in State after State.

Also, the Supreme Court seems increasingly tethered to Presidential elections. The President will always appoint, but this power should not be the pivotal influence in voting decisions. If Justice Roberts wants to return the Court to a revered institution, he should guide it toward resolving the abortion issue. Indeed, now seems to be just the right time because the Court is still closely divided and the Chief Justice has both stated and shown an interest in decoupling the Court from the overwrought politics of the day.

Law students for generations will study and debate the Roe V. Wade decision. But, the health of our Supreme Court must be restored. Justice Roberts has diagnosed the problem. Only decisive action by a largely unified court will re-elevate the judicial seats each jurist occupy.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.