The Crossing - 1

 Dear Friends,

We are taking a break from real life to fulfill a bucket list item as we approach our 80th birthdays.  We are crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2, the only remaining ocean liner purpose built to cross the Atlantic.  We will go from New York to Southampton.  It takes 7 days.  We will then go by EuroStar to Paris for a few days before returning home by air.

On Tuesday, we flew from Minneapolis to New York. 

 

Upon landing in New York we went to our hotel in Brooklyn. Then had a nice dinner with relatives.  On Wednesday morning we took a Lyft to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to begin the embarkation process.

Fortunately, we had priority boarding so it was not very crowded when we arrived.  The process was quite easy and fast.

Before we knew it, we were actually boarding the Queen Mary 2.

Upon boarding, we stepped back in time.  

Our room was much larger than I had imagined, and it was well stocked for a welcome party.

After a glass of champagne with our friends with whom we are traveling, we had some lunch.  As we approached 4:00 pm, we headed outside where it was a beautiful day.  We could watch all the activity on the river as well as the various sites along the way.  Here are the others in our group.

Our berth was right across the river from Governors Island.

Beyond Governors Island is Ellis Island.

There were many great views of lower Manhattan.

We could look back at the Brooklyn Bridge.

Or forward to the Verrazzano Bridge,

Of course, the Statue of Liberty was a real highlight.  

Once underway, as we approached the Verrazzano Bridge, we could see more activity.  This ferry wanted a closer look.

If we had taken a straight line to the Verrazzano Bridge, these two anchored ships would have been run over.

It is not everybody that gets a bon voyage sendoff from a rainbow.

Once out under the bridge, we went to the bow.  

And the stern

But even before we were completely out of the sight of land, who knew there would be an oil rig.

Before long all we could see was ocean.  As you can see, it was a beautiful day.

That is all for today.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Project 2029 - 6 Childcare

 Dear Friends, 

The cost of childcare and early childhood education is a major concern for American working families. The cost to the family for pre-kindergarten childcare in the United States is dramatically higher than in other developed countries.  The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a study of full-time center-based care for singe and couple households with two children aged 2 and 3 where the household makes 67% of the average wage.  

According to that study the net cost to the parent(s) for such childcare in the United States is between 20% and 32% of the average wage.  At the other end of the spectrum is Canada where the net cost to the parent(s) is between -2% and 11%.  The OECD average is between 6% and 10%.  By comparison, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that childcare is affordable if it costs no more than 7% of a family’s income, which means that in the US we are paying 3 to 5 times what DHS says is affordable.

 

World Data recently published a report entitled: “US Childcare Cost Statistics 2026 | Prices, States & Facts” 

In that report it summarizes the status of US childcare as follows:

 

These facts collectively paint a picture of a childcare system in the United States that is failing on every dimension at once: too expensive for families, too underpaid for workers, and too scarce in the communities that need it most. The gap between the HHS 7% affordability benchmark and the 20%+ that families actually spend is not a small discrepancy — it represents a systemic market failure that policymakers have discussed for decades but never meaningfully resolved. What is particularly striking in the 2026 data is how the crisis has crossed an emotional and behavioral threshold: families are now reporting that childcare costs are directly shaping decisions about whether to have children at all, not merely how many to have. With nearly half of all U.S. census tracts qualifying as childcare deserts and the workforce paid wages in the bottom 5% of all U.S. occupations, supply and demand are both broken — and they are broken together.

 

We in the United States have made a policy choice to permit a failed early childhood education and care program to exist in the richest country in the world.  Generally, early childhood education and care (ECEC), is defined as the development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs by persons outside the family from birth to the age of about 8 years.  The US spends less than 0.5% of GDP on ECEC.  The EU and the OECD recommend spending 1.0%, more than twice what the US spends. Iceland, France and the Nordic countries spend at least 1.0%.  See here and here.

There many, many reasons to prioritize ECEC.  A 2025 OECD report entitled, “Why G20 countries should prioritise quality early childhood education” summarizes those reasons as follows:

 

High-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) lays the foundation for lifelong learning. Children who attend well-designed early learning programmes are more likely to succeed in school, reach higher levels of education and find rewarding employment. ECEC also offers a unique window to develop key capabilities such as curiosity, empathy, creativity and other social and emotional skills. These are essential in the 21st century and often evolve into lasting personality traits…

The benefits of high-quality ECEC extend well beyond the individual. More educated populations are associated with stronger workforces, greater innovation and improved social cohesion. High-quality ECEC also supports broader labour market participation by enabling parents to work, contributing to a larger workforce and reducing the risk of children living in poverty. It strengthens children’s readiness for school and boosts labour market outcomes – thus having the potential to contribute to a fairer society. In short, ECEC is an investment that produces huge social and economic dividends.

 

While the US does provide public K-12 education (in some jurisdiction pre-K-12), the quality and the funding are determined by the states and local jurisdictions.  Less than 10% of the funding comes from the federal government.  

 

All American working families and their children deserve high-quality free childcare and education from birth through high school.  Clearly, one of the policies that the Democrats must include in their Project 2029 is to dramatically increase the government subsidies for early childhood education and care and K-12 education to achieve the goal of free high-quality childcare from birth to pre-K and free high-quality education from pre-K through high school. 

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Our National Disgrace - the mental impact that we inflict on the people who we send into combat.

 Dear Friends,

The media has produced a lot of stories about Graham Platner’s life between the end of his military service (serving three tours of duty with the Marines in Iraq in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and an additional tour of duty with the Army in 2010-2011) and his campaign for the United States Senate. Unfortunately, the media is missing the opportunity to highlight a national disgrace that we don’t talk about enough – the mental impact that we inflict on the people who we send into combat. 

PTSD exists in our society for many reasons, but the rate of PTSD in veterans is higher than the general population and in veterans with combat experience the rates are the highest.  The data is very difficult because of the definitions of PTSD and the subgroups.  For example, I am a Vietnam era Navy veteran, I served quite a bit of time in the area that was classified as the Vietnam “combat zone”, but I was never on land in Vietnam, and I never saw combat.  Obviously, my experience was dramatically different from the experience of a Marine foot soldier in the jungle engaging in firefights. The data does not consistently differentiate between vets who have been deployed to a combat zone, those that have not been so deployed and vets who were in combat, killing people and watching their comrades being killed and maimed.

Keeping the difficulty with the data in mind, it generally indicates that roughly 15% to 20% of Vietnam era vets suffered from PTSD and that even 40 years later 4% continue to suffer from war related PTSD.  In Iraq and Afghanistan roughly15% to 30% of deployed vets suffered from PTSD. The studies demonstrate that combat exposure greatly increases the chance of suffering from PTSD. Substance abuse, suicide and divorce rates are also elevated for veterans and even more for veterans who have experienced PTSD.  In addition, rates for everything are elevated even more if the person we send into combat is younger.

Graham Platner is just one of many vets who have suffered significantly from what we have done to them. He did what we asked him to do – serve four combat tours of duty which nobody should be asked to do. He returned from those battles to face his new challenges of PTSD, substance abuse and relationship difficulties all in part because of what we asked him to do.  After a very dark period in his life, he acknowledged his difficulties, took responsibility for his actions and sought and received help from the government and the people around him.  He has worked hard to improve his life on his road to redemption.  

There are many victims in these scenarios – the people we sent to war as well as their families, friends and others close to them who suffered from their conditions and behavior, but we, the ones who sent them to war, are the villain.  Graham Platner and all our vets deserve our respect, support and forgiveness.  We owe him and all vets the grace to continue their work to become the wonderful people they might have been if we had not damaged their mental health.  

The media should bring this national disgrace into public view so that we can do several things. 

·          We need to understand what we are doing when we send our young people to war and to stop glorifying war and hypermasculinity. 

·          We need to be sure that violence is only used when it is the only available option to achieve a required result.  In my almost 80 years, we have consistently gone to war where other options were available. 

·          We need to fund the VA with the same generosity as we fund the military and our wars.  

·          We need to destigmatize the mental health problems that we inflict on our veterans.    

Thank you for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal