I Am a Force for Change

Sometimes you see something is wrong and you contact the powers that be to correct it, but often you get no response. It’s as if you’re screaming into a void. That is, until you speak up one more time about something wrong and finally get some real change.

Last week I began noticing something peculiar on Action News. They run this “Storm Tracker 6 Live” in the mornings in an inset on the side of the screen during commercials. It’s supposed to show live weather conditions in the Delaware Valley. For at least a week, my half-asleep mind had noticed that it didn’t seem to be showing live weather. It just showed the same green graphic of rain all over the I-95 corridor. This was despite the fact that there was no rain forecast.

The radar showed rain pretty much right over our house but it was bright and sunny. Even more curious was that I swore it was the same rainy graphic each day for several days. What were the odds rain would fall in the same pattern? It soon became clear that Channel 6 was running the same outdated radar information every day.

Now, I could have just accepted this passively. I could have just rolled my eyes at a mistake by Action News. But I decided I didn’t want to lie down and take this. We need accurate weather information during used car commercials.

So I emailed the station and politely pointed out the mistake. Too many people assume someone else already called 911 when they pass a car accident but I didn’t want to be that guy. I wanted to make sure someone reported it.

I didn’t get a response to my email but Monday morning, the radar was clear. The weather outside was sunny and the radar matched. No more green rain obscuring tristate borders. Perhaps the station was just too embarrassed to contact me. (I hope nobody got fired.) I’d like to think I had a small part in correcting this wrong.

See? For everybody out there who thinks their voice is too small to matter, that the wrongs will never be righted, I have proved that speaking up can make a difference. I am a force for change.

448 pages

As Robert Mueller said and implied over and over in yesterday’s testimony, read the report. Since the Mueller report’s release months ago, it’s amused and appalled me how many in Congress just haven’t read the whole thing. Politico interviewed a bunch of representatives in the House and Senate on whether they’ve finished the bedtime reading:

“What’s the point?” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). (Oh, just due diligence, getting answers on whether the nominal head of the Justice Department obstructed justice, reading up on the extent of Russia’s meddling in our elections, etc.)

“It’s tedious,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). (It’s part of your job and you frequently fly from Alaska to DC, so get on it.)

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) also said he hadn’t read the whole report. “It is what it is,” he said when asked why. (Some sage and helpful words there.)

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said he didn’t read the report and had no plans to start now. “We’ve been a little bit busy,” he said. (Sorry to bother you!)

“I didn’t have to read it. I lived it,” offered Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 vice presidential running mate. (No, you didn’t.)

This is just a sampling and I’m sure there are many who have read the full report. Elizabeth Warren has read it, but she strikes me as someone who would read this on the beach (not an insult). Amusingly, Justin Amash read the report and was so appalled that he left the Republican Party.

Well, I read the whole GD Mueller report, and it’s mortifying that I’m more informed on these important issues than many of our elected officials.

I read most of it on a plane to and from San Antonio shortly after the report’s release. Yes, it was tedious, but I wanted to be informed on this subject when it comes up. I wanted to read the Thing itself rather than read about people yelling about the Thing.

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back. I’m a voracious reader and a lot of people are not. I’m not critical of citizens who didn’t have the time or desire to read a dry government report.

But I’m sure as hell critical of those in the Legislative Branch who didn’t read it. The Mueller report covers enormously important issues which, as a check on the Executive Branch, it is their job to investigate. I’m sure they’re busy but we all are. Don’t they think a comprehensive report on potential presidential obstruction of justice could fit into their schedule? I don’t particularly want to be represented by people who can’t read a book that is less than 500 pages.

You read that everywhere after they released the report: 448 pages, two volumes. You almost never read anything about the Mueller report without hearing those daunting statistics. The text almost groans on the page: “448 paaaaaages. Two vooooolumes. Ugh!” Like it’s War and Peace. After Mueller’s press conference in May, so many journalists presented his words as “BOMBSHELL!” but they were already in the report, which makes me think that a lot of the reporters—who are writers and presumably capable of reading—didn’t read it either.

Again, I’m not trying to be arrogant that I read a book. Maybe I just have more free time than other people? I feel like I’m just an average person: I have a job and a child and I’m not overwhelmed but I’m not idle. But I don’t have staff to lean on as these elected officials do. If I read it, so could they. It’s their job.

Judge Actions, Not Hearts

You can tell when a person has done something really bad when he says, “You don’t know my heart.”

The implication, of course, is that people should judge their hearts, not their actions. I disagree: What is in your heart does not affect other people but your actions do affect other people. So I think if there’s any judging to be done, it should be on what people do. Yeah, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” Fine, but if people do something terrible, especially if they do it repeatedly, maybe a little judgment is in order.

You see people giving the “but I’m pure-hearted” excuse when they engage in some racism. They might do bigoted things and hurt people, but inside, it’s all halos and choirs of angels singing. (There’s also the “I don’t have a racist bone in my body” excuse. I’m not an expert in anatomy so can someone who is please pinpoint this fabled “racist bone” on a skeletal model?) I think this is nonsense. People in the real world are getting hurt by your actions whether or not your heart is pure. Your mom might care if your heart is pure but everybody else has to live with your actions.

Excusing your assholish actions by claiming a pure heart is just another way of justifying being an asshole using evidence that—conveniently for you—nobody can examine.

That said, when faced with a president who told four non-white congresswomen to go back where they came from and who did not discourage his followers from chanting “Send her back”; who found “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis shouting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville; who for years spread suspicion that Barack Obama was not born in America; who started his presidential campaign by smearing Mexican immigrants; who called African and Latin American nations “shitholes” and suggested increasing immigration from countries like Norway; whose redlining was so bad that even the Nixon administration sued him; who called for the execution of the Central Park Five and did not change his mind after they were exonerated; who has repeated false crime statistics about black people killing white people; who has retweeted white supremacists; who used a Native American slur at an event honoring Native American World War II code-breakers; and who has received support from David Duke and other white supremacists without any self-examination of why they support him, a reasonable look at the evidence indicates that he is a racist.

In conclusion, if you act like an asshole much of the time, it’s probably a more accurate barometer of your character than the beautiful nugget of gold that shines, unverifiable, in your heart.

Heat Lightning

I read somewhere once that there is no such thing as heat lightning. That the flickers of blue-white on black are not just aphasic versions of what normally flashes with bombast. That it is not just the heat of the sky scorching the sun after dark. That it is just a faraway thunderstorm whose sound strains in vain to reach but whose sight you catch through some system of relays and mirrors in the clouds.

Still, I saw the silent skies. I watched on some anonymous summer night, legs hanging off the unfinished deck—for hours, it seemed—sucking up all the energy and not wanting to go to bed. I saw the lightning coming home from grandparents’ house after eating so many pretzels that my mouth burned with salt, the configuration of clouds stifling thunder.

But it was no magic trick. Just as no angels bowled in heaven, no God angry or weeping. Just cold, hard science. But I still choose to hold heat lightning as a source of wonder in this cold, hard world.

Gayer Than Thou

I’ve been pleasantly surprised in the last few months by the relative popularity of Pete Buttigieg as a presidential candidate. I figured a gay mayor of a small city would be a longshot, but he’s making a bigger impression that expected. (He’s not one of my top candidates but it’s still nice to see a gay candidate not get dismissed immediately. Of course, for the love of Christ, I’m voting for whoever the Democrats nominate for president.)   

Lately I’ve read some commentary about how Buttigieg is apparently not quite gay enough for some of the gays. A few months ago when the Buttigiegs appeared on a magazine cover, dressed in khakis in front of their house, someone analyzed the photo and said the two appeared conservative enough that the photo looked, I believe, like “a photo of heterosexuality without women” or some nonsense. Then there was a recent article by a gay writer who called Buttigieg “Mary Pete,” speculated on his sexual position, basically said he was too boring, and since he came out at 33, he might be inclined in the White House to act like a big old gay whore in a belated adolescent period and endanger national security or something. The article seems to be satire but I’m not sure because with the very best satire, I find that the reader can take it at face value until reading one subtle but unmistakable giveaway that the article isn’t to be taken seriously, and I didn’t read that here.

Anyway, once in awhile I will see commentary like this that gay people are “assimilating” if they live their lives in the ways straight people always have. God knows that no gay people should feel the need to hide. Our spiritual ancestors fought for decades that people should be able to wear rainbow boas and parade and dance in the streets. If that’s what you want, if that’s who you are, go for it. Drop the mask and be who you are.

But what about gay people who sort of live quieter lives because that’s who they are, and not because they’re trying to assimilate? Aren’t such people allowed to be who they are just as much as the louder people? People shouldn’t have to go to the other extreme and slap on a mask of flamboyance if that’s not who they are.

I saw some of this during the gay marriage debate when some gay writers opposed gay marriage, saying basically, “Why would you want to do something so boring?” Like marriage is some couch that’s too blah for their unconventional loft. (It sounds like I’m making strawman arguments, and I don’t have sources here, but these are just pervasive things I’ve heard through the years.) I respect all the gay people who took risks in living unconventional lives to fight for parity with straight people but from some quarters there seems to be disappointment with those who chose to take advantage of that parity.

I’m not a flashy person. I’m not wearing a mask to hide anything to make me acceptable to straight circles; it’s just who I am. I’ve dabbled in excitement but in my heart, at my age, I just want a nice quiet life with my family and to read a few books. If that’s not gay enough for people, I don’t know what to tell ya.

Strange Skies

Strange skies all around us tonight.

Up north and west, shadows move and reform like gods battling just over the horizon that mortals know. A wisp of cumulonimbus could be a divine bicep smiting an enemy. The flat flinty flickering spark lights up the baleful bruise of sky. Great torrents of gray sadness smear the somersault sky up ahead. Having already been perfected, heaven finds petty violations to complain about, its under-breath grumbles getting louder. Meanwhile, in the south and east, harmless little clots of clouds drift over a sky boring and blank, like nothing ever happened.

All of it passes, quarrels settling reluctantly into something approaching understanding. I wait for the skies to take a bow.

Celery Reform Now

We need celery reform in this country and we need it now.

Picture this: You need a little celery for a recipe, probably some potato salad, or maybe to put out with crudité. You head on over to the produce aisle. Your most cost-effective option is buying a bag of celery hearts. You add the celery to the potato salad or put it on a tray with the cauliflower and cucumbers. It works out nicely and everybody eats and has a good time.

Only there’s a glaring problem: You still have a ton of celery left. What was in that package was way more than you needed. It’s a problem because you don’t entertain much and don’t eat celery on its own. So that green veggie will sit unused in your crisper, getting less and less crispy until you find it months later and throw it out.

How can we solve this? How the hell can we solve this?

The main problem, ladies and gentlemen, is that there are too few options for buying celery in America. The bag in the produce section is cheap but leads to too much waste. You can buy pre-sliced celery in plastic containers but it’s actually more expensive for the amount that you need. You could order a bunch of Buffalo wings and scavenge the celery from the takeout containers, but that seems expensive and complicated, even if you request extra celery each time.

The problem is not just limited to celery, as many products come in inconvenient sizes. Coffee K-cups usually come in packages of 12. You might think, “An even dozen. How logical.” But this is deceiving. I drink one cup of coffee per day and go food shopping once a week. If K-cups came in packages of 14, I would only need to buy them every two weeks. At 12 per carton, this destabilizes my grocery list as I sometimes have to buy K-cups once a week.

I trust you can see the conundrum here.

I don’t claim to have all the answers to the celery problem; that’s for the nation’s scientists to puzzle out. Therefore, in these divisive times, let’s all join together and push for saner, cheaper packaging for celery. I say enough is enough. Let’s end the pointless waste of this calorie-negative potato salad additive.

Civility

The talking head shifts on the couch as he always does when he wants to make a serious point.

“Civility is truly dead,” he says. “You can clearly see that in what happened with our House Democrats this week.”

“Truly dead,” the woman agrees while crossing her bare legs.

“Can you imagine the gall of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” the third one says to the camera. “Yelling at those poor CBP guards at the day camp in Texas. The audacity.”

The first one chimes in. “Well, I never!” He fans himself.

A look of extreme disgust comes over the first man’s face. “So much for the tolerant left.”

“I mean, all those guards were trying to do was their jobs: Detaining asylum-seekers in crowded holding pens for more than the legal 72 hours with no hygiene and just one bathroom,” says the woman.

“Oh boo-hoo,” says the first one. He affects a fake whine. “‘We have to drink out of the toilet. My kid has the flu and they won’t let him see a doctor. It’s hideously overcrowded and they won’t let me take a shower.’ Cry me a river.”

“Honestly, I went to worse house parties in college,” she says.

The three laugh.

“Even if those conditions were as bad as the libs think, none of that justifies AOC raising her voice,” the third one intones solemnly. “I just think of those poor, defenseless guards having to endure getting yelled at and my heart just …” he trails off.

“Is it any wonder why these guards are making rape jokes about AOC and making fun of the kid who died crossing the border? The stress they must be under.”

“We need a return to civility in this country.” The woman pauses and waits for applause, which does not come because the show does not have a live studio audience. “We need to settle our differences in a way that does not make anyone the slightest bit uncomfortable. That (bleep) needs to learn better manners.”

“I mean, if you want to argue against detaining asylum-seekers in horrific conditions, fine, but do it politely. Raising your voice is beyond the pale.”

“Let’s get back to the old days,” says the first one. “Politicians would argue about the Kansas–Nebraska Act and at the end of the day, they’d repair to a tavern to hoist glasses of ale with one another.”

“Boy, I think we’d be much better off if we went back to that time period,” the third one says wistfully.

The face of the first man darkens. “Now we need to interrupt this discussion for important breaking news. Sarah Huckabee Sanders received a series of dirty looks while out at a baseball game.”

The woman tsks audibly and mutters, “What’s become of us as a society?”

“For more on this harrowing development, let’s go to Sean Hannity.”