Thursday March 30, 2023

EDITOR'S NOTE | COMMENTARY: On Flowers Picked too Soon | ANALYSIS: Spotsylvania's Outrage Is Showing; There's Hope for Democracy | PUBLICATION

EDITOR’S NOTE

The past few days have brought a jarring juxtaposition of public outrages in the city of Fredericksburg. Shaun Kenney addresses both, and finds in them some important questions for each of us to consider. Read Shaun’s regular writings at his Substack site, The Republican Standard.

COMMENTARY: On Flowers Picked too Soon …

… on how Washington Avenue and Bragg Hill deal in two very different realities

by Shaun Kenney

Let us lead with the most obvious statements, that there is no one to blame for the Great Tulip Massacre of 2023 around the base of the Hugh Mercer Memorial on Washington Avenue.  Good natured citizens have made an effort to make Fredericksburg a more beautiful place, and good natured civic employees have made an effort to give the town its first seasonal haircut.

I’m sure there are good, if perhaps mundane, reasons why the tulips were in the way.  Social media being the middle school cafeteria that it is, reasons for their trimming ran the gamut from a lack of authorization from city staff to more practical reasons of having to trim the grass around the base of the memorial itself and whether the tulips could have survived seasonal mowing (HINT: they would not).

Perhaps there exists an anti-tulip constituency in Fredericksburg?  In fact, those who have stumbled upon its existence now know the truth.  Every February, a secret cabal presumably founded by George Washington himself – not content to mercilessly attack cherry trees at Ferry Farm -- meets in the very bowels of City Hall to discuss how best to exterminate a bulb so loathsome even squirrels think twice before consuming them.  

In fact, so deep was Washington’s intense and fiery hatred of tulips that, when caught as a young man, he who was “first in the hearts of this countrymen” confessed to the far lower crime of chopping down a cherry tree (though I suspect it was one of Downtown Fredericksburg’s Bradford Pears) before revealing the existence of this most secret society of Fredericksburg’s bulb-bashing elites.

But I digress.

The good news – or bad news, if you are one of Washington’s co-conspirators – is that the tulip bulbs were removed from the shade of Hugh Mercer to be transplanted elsewhere.  The even better news is that there is some hope (dare I say, excitement?) that via collaboration with city government, Fredericksburg might be able to double its tulip presence by 2024.

The bad or perhaps more tragic news is that the tulips along Washington Avenue seemed to gain far more attention and emotion than another flower picked to soon; the life of much-beloved James Monroe High School senior Jasiah Smith at just 18 years of age. 

What and Whom We Care About

I did not know Jasiah, but I knew those who knew him.  They describe a young man full of life, kind to everyone, who knew few strangers and no enemies.  Jasiah loved sports and defined the role of athlete, and those who knew him suspected that he was ready to give the world far more. 

Jasiah Smith had much to look forward to as a James Monroe graduate.  The painful part is to write about a young man’s life in past tense.  

One week ago, Jasiah has much to look forward to.  One week ago, Jasiah will have a great future.  One week ago, Jasiah is much-loved by his fellow students.  Those who knew him said that Jasiah got along with everyone, without exception, and that he was the sort of student who would get along and speak with everyone no matter who they were.

Once upon a time, such behavior would be the mark of a gentleman.  We often comfort ourselves by saying some people were too good for this world.  I disagree.  Jasiah had much to give this world.  We deserved to know what sort of man Jasiah would become, deserved to feel his impact, and deserved his presence.

All that was stolen from his family, his friends, the James Monroe community, and Fredericksburg as a whole.  The trial of his murderer(s) will help us understand how, but perhaps never really explain why.  What sort of culture allows this to happen?  What sort of society allows this mentality to persist? 

Here’s your hard question: What sort of community has more tears for tulips than the loss of Jasiah Smith?  Is it that we didn’t know?  Didn’t care?  That replanting tulips is easy?  What are you and I doing about it?  What have you and I been doing about it?  What will you and I do about it tomorrow?  

One doesn’t raise this question to assign blame or cast about ill-intent.  But we should think about the juxtaposition, because that’s what good people do.

Next year, the tulips will come back.  Jasiah Smith will not.  City staff will have new directives regarding the tenderness of tulips.  Will Bragg Hill simply have to make it up as it goes along?

“Make Gentle the Life of This World”

The late Robert F. Kennedy once gave his thoughts on the wider problems of injustice and violence in America.  In a more self-reflective role when his own brother was murdered, Jackie Kennedy gave him a copy of Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way the following Easter Sunday, wherein RFK practically locked himself in a room and read the text cover to cover.

Within those pages, RFK found the words to express his own feelings in Indianapolis just five years later as a community was coming to grips with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968:

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

That quote is borrowed for Aeschylus’ Oresteia written in 484 BC, and in it the Greeks explain how cycles of recrimination could be ended by means of justice, with reason replacing fury and right measure replacing violence as the solution for disagreements.

Kennedy’s admonishment might seem a game of higher stakes poker than the one played over a fistful of tulips.  For those still clenching their fists over the death of an 18-year old young man with his entire life ahead of him, the stakes certainly are higher.  

One might even raise the question as to whether Fredericksburg proper seems wound up over the wrong things.  I’ll put money on it that more e-mails went to Fredericksburg City Manager Tim Baroody over dead tulips than over dead young men, and while making the world less beautiful should bother us, creating a world where the façade of beauty becomes more important than having anyone around to enjoy it seems at odds when we really consider the question.  

This isn’t to say we can’t be bothered about both, but it is to say that if I had to trade every tulip in Fredericksburg for Jasiah Smith?  General Washington and I would ride at midnight.

Learning the Right Lessons and Redoubling Our Efforts

And so the wider lesson – “to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world” – is a lesson we should keep in mind as we think on the beauty of the Easter Season, extending more than good thoughts but proper action in the direction of young lives, friendly tulips, and yes even to books and public school libraries.

I write most of this not as an admonishment of any sort. Perhaps I write it all to sort out my own thoughts on two distinct tragedies, one more deeply than the other.  

Yet there are consequences when we fail to be intentional or present in this world.  Mowing a few tulips seems a tragedy where there is little blame to be cast but unfortunate circumstance, mowing down a young life with as little care as mowing down a tulip?  That seems to be something where we can all share a little blame, and perhaps in our own way, redouble our own efforts – no matter how noble or small – to make gentle the life of this world.

__

SHAUN KENNEY is a Fredericksburg native and might possibly be a member of a super-secret anti-tulip society rumored to be founded by George Washington himself (inquire within). 

ANALYSIS: Spotsylvania’s Outrage Is Showing

by Martin Davis

On Tuesday, this site took a deep dive into the budget adjustments that Mark Taylor suggested on Monday night. The conclusion? Taylor and the majority board have the destruction of the public school system as their primary goal, and that they are not only unfit for leadership, but cannot be trusted.

I argued that this threat was not a Democrat or Republican problem, but a problem for citizens of good faith - progressive and conservative - to address.

Tuesday night at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting, we found evidence that it’s not just one side of the political spectrum outraged by Taylor’s reckless actions.

Conservative board supervisor Tim McLaughlin called Taylor’s proposed cuts “garbage”; fellow conservative Chris Yakabouski noted that the board of supervisors had asked the board for a sit-down and had not heard back - true to form for a school board majority that does not respond to teachers, to its minority board members, to its constituents, and to news media.

Conservatives and progressives too infrequently find much to agree on in Spotsylvania. That both sides are coming together behind their disgruntlement with Taylor (who was previously fired by the county when he was the chief county administrator) and the four school board members who irresponsibly put him in office doesn’t bode well for them on election day in November.

The problem is, this group faces little in the way of checks on it between now and November. It’s hard to imagine how much more damage they will do before Election Day.

We did get a taste on Wednesday, when Taylor announced that he has decided to pull 14 books off the shelves of school libraries - including two by Pulitzer Prize winning writer Toni Morrison - while having the audacity to claim it wasn’t a ban. It’s a claim that rival’s Bill Clinton’s “It depends on what the definition of ‘is,’ is” statement for arrogance.

Let’s hope that conservatives and progressives continue to coalesce against the incompetence on the school board.

More important, let’s hope that county residents learn something too.

It was the voters who caused this disaster. Despite evidence that Phelps, Twigg, Gillespie, and Abuismail were intellectually, emotionally, and politically unfit for the offices they hold, voters elected them anyway.

The county will get out of this mess. The coming together of conservatives and progressives suggests that it could happen this November.

It will all be for naught, however, if voters go back to ignoring their responsibilities, and return to voting for incompetent leadership.

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