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John McCain
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Cross Country Days 7-18: Not much happened...well, one thing happened
My work in California, and the enjoyment of the non-work time, plus the drive back to Alabama were times that I did not feel like writing, so I am a little behind. So let me just summarize what happened for the week there and on the trip back.
I spent a week in Redding, California. It was very beautiful, and with only one exception, the weather was fantastic. I found a nice park and running trail where I could work out, and I managed to keep my slow but steady weight loss going while I was on the road. (I lost three more pounds, and I am now down sixteen pounds since the start of the year.) Also, I had a very good week of work. I was complimented by a fellow higher-ranking official on the job I had done that week. (This despite a day in which I gave six penalties in two matches, including a well-deserved penalty that cost a doubles team their match.)
On the drive back, I spent a night with my cousin and her husband in Napa. They work in the wine and beer industry. She had been bitten on the face by a dog the day before, but was in remarkably good spirits, and we had a nice visit. I spent the next night in Phoenix, and then the next two nights visiting friends in San Antonio (more below). On the next to last day of my trip, I drove through Austin and visited my old high school. I got lots of hugs and smiles, and it was very nice to be so warmly remembered. (I am considering a job offer there.) I spent the night in Lewisville with my sister's family, visiting my nephew (who is gigantic and not even two yet). Then I drove to the University of Mississippi for a college tennis match, and finally back home for a week of rest. The visits with friends and the urge to be home made the last week of this trip fly. But overall, it was an excellent experience. Two-hundred-mile drives are nothing to me now.
So, back to San Antonio...
At the start of this trip, I had six friends in San Antonio: three sets of gay couples. I met the other two couples through the first couple, Jeremy (I've known ten years) and Jon (I've known in one way or another for fourteen years). The other couples are James and A.J., both Starbucks baristas, and Jonathan and Justin, who split up in the recent past, but still live together out of circumstance. Jon and Jonathan are my age, and everyone else is in their 20s.
Jeremy and Jon have always been my main place to visit and stay when I come to San Antonio, even when I lived only an hour away in Austin. They have the biggest house, the most computer toys, and always seemed welcoming, or at least ambivalent, to my visits. Jonathan and Justin moved from Ohio and lived with Jeremy and Jon for a few months until they go on their own four feet. Initially, I was going to visit Justin after he got off work late, because I wasn't arriving from Phoenix until around 11pm. But I was exhausted when I got close to town, so I begged off meeting him that night, and instead called James and A.J., who were happy to wait up to see me, and gladly let me spend the night.
I had a great visit with them, even though it was short, and my plan was to spend the next day with Jeremy and Jon, hopefully have Justin and Jonathan come over to visit, and go out to dinner like we usually do when I visit. So, I left James and A.J.'s place and went to get my car serviced. By noon I was out, and I called Jeremy and went over to their house (Jon was at work). I confirmed again that when Jon got off work (Jeremy said around 7), that we'd all go to dinner.
During the first part of the visit, Jeremy says to me, "In exchange for sleeping here, would you clean the kitchen?" I was very taken aback - I've never had to sing for my supper before, so to speak. But for some reason I agreed, probably in part because I never have to do any cleaning in my own house.
The kitchen was a disaster. There were flies and bugs crawling because of how unsanitary it was. Food was caked onto plates and the range top. The microwave looked like a lentil soup had exploded inside it. Cereal bowls were stacked up six-high in the sink. The floor was covered with dog hair, dog food, and all manner of crumbs and human food remnants. It was disgusting. And it was somewhat expected - Jeremy and Jon are slobs. Part of the rent arrangement when Justin and Jonathan lived there was to clean the house. I watched Justin do ten loads of laundry one day, and he couldn't even catch up.
Well, like a good friend, I diligently cleaned up. I spent forty-five minutes on the microwave alone. As I worked more and more, I became angrier and angrier that Jeremy would even ask such a thing of me. You don't ask friends to clean your house, especially in exchange for letting them stay at your house, when you have let them stay at your house for years before without such a request. So now, I was stumped as to exactly what the hell was going on in his head.
While I am working in the kitchen, Jeremy is mesmerized by World of Warcraft. I am used to this obsession, however, and I visit with him while I play Wii in the same room. About an hour later, a man comes over - middle aged, hulking, and, according to Jeremy, a divorced masseur. Jeremy said he always has a massage at 2pm on Wednesday -- "ALWAYS" -- so would I mind? He said I was welcome to stay and play games in the meanwhile. Sure, I thought, no problem. Well, that was the next problem.
See, the massage didn't take place at Jeremy's house. Jeremy left and went somewhere else, probably to the guy's house, which Jeremy said was in the neighborhood. And then Jeremy was gone for three and a half hours. I couldn't leave because I didn't have anywhere else to go at that point. And, by the way, there was much more than massaging going on, from the behavior between the two of them when the man was there.
So Jeremy is back now, and it is almost six o'clock. Both of them are flakes, I know, but I've overlooked it for a decade, so why stop now? Jeremy goes back to his computer games, so I go back to the Wii. (Actually, I had never left the Wii for the most part in the previous three hours - there was nothing else to do there.) Time passes, I am hungry, and we are waiting for Jon to come home so we can go to dinner. Suddenly, I notice two things at once. First, it is nine pm. And second, Jeremy is getting dressed and putting his shoes on.
I asked where he was going, and he said to the gym to workout. So I said, um, hey, it's nine pm, and where's Jon, and we're supposed to be going to dinner, right? And he said, oh, I thought I told you, Jon is going to have drinks with friends after work, and won't be home until nine or ten, buh-bye. Well, not quite buh-bye, because I told him I was hungry and aggravated, and that he in fact had not told me that. He replied, oh, I must have said it to (the massage guy). So Jeremy leaves me alone in the house for the second time that day.
About an hour later, after ten pm, Jeremy calls and says, "Okay, my workout is done." Long pause. Like I am supposed to say something in reply. ("Great, I am ready for dinner. Don't mind me, it wasn't any inconvenience at all.") Finally I said, "okay." He had just spoken to Jon, who was on his way home. So I said, fine, we'll figure out what to do when you get here.
They both arrive home around the same time, and I explain the situation to Jon. After some arguing, Jon agrees to make some Hamburger Helper for dinner. Not what I was expecting, but not horrible, either. So he cooks, we chat, and Justin comes over to visit. (He'll wind up staying for about four hours, probably the nicest part of the day.) When it is done, Jeremy says, "Eat what you want and I'll take the rest." So I do. Jon sees what has happened and says, "I didn't cook for you guys to eat it all." So he comes and takes some from each of us. Thankful for anything to eat, I just consume my Helper in mostly silence.
While we are eating, and Jeremy goes back to his computer games, I explain to Jon what happened with the kitchen. Jon tells me that he had told Jeremy the day before to clean the kitchen, because it had gotten disgusting. Now I am pissed. Jeremy, my "friend", used me. Neither Jon nor Justin seems to have an explanation for this. So as the night continues, and the three of us stay up late talking, I ask Jon what he really gets out of a friendship with me. Justin tries to explain, both then and in a later IM exchange, that friends are not ledger sheets. That made sense, but it still did not explain why Jon tolerates me, much less calls me friend. He's never needed me for anything, never had to rely on me for anything, and I don't have anything he wants or needs. He sometimes shows contempt towards me between being affectionate. And all of those things, especially in recent years, apply doubly to Jeremy.
I should have stayed with James and A.J. again that night, but it was late, and I just said, screw it. Sleep, get up, leave without saying goodbye, go to Austin, and don't look back. And that's what I did. I don't consider Jeremy or Jon friends anymore.
It's funny how time can pass, and you can think things are just fine, and it takes a strong slap across the face ("clean my kitchen") to realize that you have been ignored and abused all that time. I guess I kept going back to them because they had things I needed - computer knowledge and equipment, a place to stay in town, occasional fun friends. It is hard to believe that at thirty-four, I can still be surprised by things like this.
I spent a week in Redding, California. It was very beautiful, and with only one exception, the weather was fantastic. I found a nice park and running trail where I could work out, and I managed to keep my slow but steady weight loss going while I was on the road. (I lost three more pounds, and I am now down sixteen pounds since the start of the year.) Also, I had a very good week of work. I was complimented by a fellow higher-ranking official on the job I had done that week. (This despite a day in which I gave six penalties in two matches, including a well-deserved penalty that cost a doubles team their match.)
On the drive back, I spent a night with my cousin and her husband in Napa. They work in the wine and beer industry. She had been bitten on the face by a dog the day before, but was in remarkably good spirits, and we had a nice visit. I spent the next night in Phoenix, and then the next two nights visiting friends in San Antonio (more below). On the next to last day of my trip, I drove through Austin and visited my old high school. I got lots of hugs and smiles, and it was very nice to be so warmly remembered. (I am considering a job offer there.) I spent the night in Lewisville with my sister's family, visiting my nephew (who is gigantic and not even two yet). Then I drove to the University of Mississippi for a college tennis match, and finally back home for a week of rest. The visits with friends and the urge to be home made the last week of this trip fly. But overall, it was an excellent experience. Two-hundred-mile drives are nothing to me now.
So, back to San Antonio...
At the start of this trip, I had six friends in San Antonio: three sets of gay couples. I met the other two couples through the first couple, Jeremy (I've known ten years) and Jon (I've known in one way or another for fourteen years). The other couples are James and A.J., both Starbucks baristas, and Jonathan and Justin, who split up in the recent past, but still live together out of circumstance. Jon and Jonathan are my age, and everyone else is in their 20s.
Jeremy and Jon have always been my main place to visit and stay when I come to San Antonio, even when I lived only an hour away in Austin. They have the biggest house, the most computer toys, and always seemed welcoming, or at least ambivalent, to my visits. Jonathan and Justin moved from Ohio and lived with Jeremy and Jon for a few months until they go on their own four feet. Initially, I was going to visit Justin after he got off work late, because I wasn't arriving from Phoenix until around 11pm. But I was exhausted when I got close to town, so I begged off meeting him that night, and instead called James and A.J., who were happy to wait up to see me, and gladly let me spend the night.
I had a great visit with them, even though it was short, and my plan was to spend the next day with Jeremy and Jon, hopefully have Justin and Jonathan come over to visit, and go out to dinner like we usually do when I visit. So, I left James and A.J.'s place and went to get my car serviced. By noon I was out, and I called Jeremy and went over to their house (Jon was at work). I confirmed again that when Jon got off work (Jeremy said around 7), that we'd all go to dinner.
During the first part of the visit, Jeremy says to me, "In exchange for sleeping here, would you clean the kitchen?" I was very taken aback - I've never had to sing for my supper before, so to speak. But for some reason I agreed, probably in part because I never have to do any cleaning in my own house.
The kitchen was a disaster. There were flies and bugs crawling because of how unsanitary it was. Food was caked onto plates and the range top. The microwave looked like a lentil soup had exploded inside it. Cereal bowls were stacked up six-high in the sink. The floor was covered with dog hair, dog food, and all manner of crumbs and human food remnants. It was disgusting. And it was somewhat expected - Jeremy and Jon are slobs. Part of the rent arrangement when Justin and Jonathan lived there was to clean the house. I watched Justin do ten loads of laundry one day, and he couldn't even catch up.
Well, like a good friend, I diligently cleaned up. I spent forty-five minutes on the microwave alone. As I worked more and more, I became angrier and angrier that Jeremy would even ask such a thing of me. You don't ask friends to clean your house, especially in exchange for letting them stay at your house, when you have let them stay at your house for years before without such a request. So now, I was stumped as to exactly what the hell was going on in his head.
While I am working in the kitchen, Jeremy is mesmerized by World of Warcraft. I am used to this obsession, however, and I visit with him while I play Wii in the same room. About an hour later, a man comes over - middle aged, hulking, and, according to Jeremy, a divorced masseur. Jeremy said he always has a massage at 2pm on Wednesday -- "ALWAYS" -- so would I mind? He said I was welcome to stay and play games in the meanwhile. Sure, I thought, no problem. Well, that was the next problem.
See, the massage didn't take place at Jeremy's house. Jeremy left and went somewhere else, probably to the guy's house, which Jeremy said was in the neighborhood. And then Jeremy was gone for three and a half hours. I couldn't leave because I didn't have anywhere else to go at that point. And, by the way, there was much more than massaging going on, from the behavior between the two of them when the man was there.
So Jeremy is back now, and it is almost six o'clock. Both of them are flakes, I know, but I've overlooked it for a decade, so why stop now? Jeremy goes back to his computer games, so I go back to the Wii. (Actually, I had never left the Wii for the most part in the previous three hours - there was nothing else to do there.) Time passes, I am hungry, and we are waiting for Jon to come home so we can go to dinner. Suddenly, I notice two things at once. First, it is nine pm. And second, Jeremy is getting dressed and putting his shoes on.
I asked where he was going, and he said to the gym to workout. So I said, um, hey, it's nine pm, and where's Jon, and we're supposed to be going to dinner, right? And he said, oh, I thought I told you, Jon is going to have drinks with friends after work, and won't be home until nine or ten, buh-bye. Well, not quite buh-bye, because I told him I was hungry and aggravated, and that he in fact had not told me that. He replied, oh, I must have said it to (the massage guy). So Jeremy leaves me alone in the house for the second time that day.
About an hour later, after ten pm, Jeremy calls and says, "Okay, my workout is done." Long pause. Like I am supposed to say something in reply. ("Great, I am ready for dinner. Don't mind me, it wasn't any inconvenience at all.") Finally I said, "okay." He had just spoken to Jon, who was on his way home. So I said, fine, we'll figure out what to do when you get here.
They both arrive home around the same time, and I explain the situation to Jon. After some arguing, Jon agrees to make some Hamburger Helper for dinner. Not what I was expecting, but not horrible, either. So he cooks, we chat, and Justin comes over to visit. (He'll wind up staying for about four hours, probably the nicest part of the day.) When it is done, Jeremy says, "Eat what you want and I'll take the rest." So I do. Jon sees what has happened and says, "I didn't cook for you guys to eat it all." So he comes and takes some from each of us. Thankful for anything to eat, I just consume my Helper in mostly silence.
While we are eating, and Jeremy goes back to his computer games, I explain to Jon what happened with the kitchen. Jon tells me that he had told Jeremy the day before to clean the kitchen, because it had gotten disgusting. Now I am pissed. Jeremy, my "friend", used me. Neither Jon nor Justin seems to have an explanation for this. So as the night continues, and the three of us stay up late talking, I ask Jon what he really gets out of a friendship with me. Justin tries to explain, both then and in a later IM exchange, that friends are not ledger sheets. That made sense, but it still did not explain why Jon tolerates me, much less calls me friend. He's never needed me for anything, never had to rely on me for anything, and I don't have anything he wants or needs. He sometimes shows contempt towards me between being affectionate. And all of those things, especially in recent years, apply doubly to Jeremy.
I should have stayed with James and A.J. again that night, but it was late, and I just said, screw it. Sleep, get up, leave without saying goodbye, go to Austin, and don't look back. And that's what I did. I don't consider Jeremy or Jon friends anymore.
It's funny how time can pass, and you can think things are just fine, and it takes a strong slap across the face ("clean my kitchen") to realize that you have been ignored and abused all that time. I guess I kept going back to them because they had things I needed - computer knowledge and equipment, a place to stay in town, occasional fun friends. It is hard to believe that at thirty-four, I can still be surprised by things like this.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
V13: On dinosaurs and Texas Canyon
This is a special edition of my vlog for my nephew, Will Carter, whose birthday I missed while out on the road.
The week of work in Redding was nice, with beautiful weather and uneventful events. I have some photos of the Sundial Bridge in Redding that I will post to flickr soon. Here are three:
I am on my way back to Alabama this week. I still owe you a post on the last and most treacherous part of the drive to California. There is already a video up on my vlog at YouTube.
The week of work in Redding was nice, with beautiful weather and uneventful events. I have some photos of the Sundial Bridge in Redding that I will post to flickr soon. Here are three:
I am on my way back to Alabama this week. I still owe you a post on the last and most treacherous part of the drive to California. There is already a video up on my vlog at YouTube.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Cross Country Day 2: Saint Louis to Denver / V11: On wind
One of the disadvantages to sleeping in the car is that I tend to wake up pretty early - because I am cold, because my back aches, or because the sun makes me rise. In this case, it was a combination of all three that got me on the road to Denver around 6:30 in the morning on day 2. I had breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express west of town. I hear that people who eat there can do pretty phenomenal things. Since I was trying to drive 850 miles in one day, I thought it was an apt choice.
The day was going to be divided into three parts - I-70 from Saint Louis to Kansas City; the drive clear across Kansas, and the shorter drive from the Colorado state line to Denver. During the first part of the trip, there was not much of interest to see. I spent most of the time thinking about baseball, actually.
The 1985 World Series was the I-70 series: the Kansas City Royals against the Saint Louis Cardinals. I knew I was mesmerized by sports from an early age, but this is my youngest and most vivid childhood sports memory. See, there was a time when World Series games were broadcast on weeknights at a time that kids could stay up and watch them, when games were played much closer together to keep the interest and drama high. I sat in the living room of our home every game night of that seven-game series, with Dad's ottoman over my legs. On top of the ottoman, I had the lineups for each team written in pencil on notebook paper, and I would compute and update in real time the players World Series batting averages. This should have been a sign that I needed to go into sabermetrics when I was older, but the 1994 strike, and canceling the World Series that year on my 21st birthday, forever ended my love affair with baseball. I remember being thrilled that Kansas City (controversially) won game six, and how they blew out the Cards in game seven so badly that both Whitey Herzog and Joaquin Andujar got tossed from the contest. Sadly, now, I can't even watch baseball. Even the playoff fail to excite me like once when I was young.
Perhaps because of the daydreaming, I cannot remember much about the drive across Missouri. But when I got to Kansas City, I needed a rest. I decided to visit the international headquarters of the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic-sponsored youth organization that I participated in until I was 21. Someday I'll tell more stories, but for now I will just say that DeMolay helped me come out of my shell, and gave me the confidence to speak in front of people, to seek elected office, and to become a professional sports official. The tour was interesting, and it refreshed a lot of memories that had collected dust since my majority. I don't think it stimulated me to go back and serve as an adviser, or to become a Master Mason like I promised. But who knows?
Rested and refreshed, it was time to tackle Kansas. Ah, yes - 450 miles of unbridled mediocrity. But Kansas was also where a lot of the fun began. Once it was finished, I realized that I could have easily spent a couple of days stopping and enjoying all the kitsch along I-70. But with the long day ahead, I just did not have the time. At first - hell, for the first 200 miles - Kansas is not as flat as you would believe. In fact, there were large swaths of the drive that significantly resembled north Alabama, save for the fact that the dominant color was yellow-brown, not green.
Shortly after leaving Kansas City, I-70 becomes the Kansas Turnpike. At the entrance, you get a time-stamped ticket. You pay when you get off the turnpike. This ticket-taking made me think of a problem I faced in high school calculus. We had to prove, using calculus, that if a driver averaged 60 miles per hour for a three-hour drive, at some point during the drive he must have been traveling exactly 60 miles per hour. My teacher Mrs. Jones said that if the speed limit on a section of toll road was 65, and the time stamp when you entered and when you left computed to show that you averaged 66 miles per hour, then one could prove that at one point, you must have been speeding. The toll booth operator would collect your toll money, and then hand you a speeding ticket and tell you to have a nice day. I drove one mile per hour under the speed limit all the way to Topeka.
Before the next major bout of fun, some random things happened. A tumbleweed actually rolled onto the interstate in front of the car, and I struck it with the right front fender. From where I sat, it looked like it exploded into hundreds of shards. When I stopped an hour later at a rest area, the bulk of it was still lodged in the front of the car. I passed the Oz Museum and winery, and I really wanted to stop there for mom's friend Kay, but it was too far off the interstate, and I did not want to take that big of a detour. And looking at the map of Kansas, I understand now why meteorologists and experts tell you that if you are caught in a tornado while driving, you should drive in right angles away from the funnel. Kansas roads only intersect at right angles, so it is the only way you can flee. Moreover, it might not be as dangerous to fall asleep while driving in Kansas as elsewhere I have been. There's nothing to run into. Finally, when trucks and farm vehicles sprint down the dirt roads that gird the interstate, they resemble terrestrial comets, with long tails stretching behind them.
I was in a bit of a hurry the night before I left when I tried to recalibrate my iPod to work with my laptop. As a result, I allowed the computer to decide which songs fill on my iPod. When I started using it during the drive, I had to skip five to ten tracks each time to get to a track I wanted to hear. The automatic upload had included podcasts, audio books (but only selected chapters - no complete books), songs I didn't know I had, too many classical works, and Christmas music. I'll be fixing that when I stop for a few days in Golden.
On a political aside, I heard the following factoid on CNN: Hillary Clinton is more likely than Barack Obama to be supported by "lower income white rural working-class voters". Tell me if that stilted description does not also sound like the voters who are most likely to be racist.
About halfway across Kansas, I began to see the wind turbines I was expecting. Here, let me allow the video to tell the story.
[I had to climb a steep embankment and slither through a well-constructed barbed wire fence to bring this story to you.]
As I passed through the tiny towns that randomly dotted the interstate in western Kansas and eastern Colorado, I tried to imagine what life was like for teens on the High Plains. There can be an Abercrombie or Old Navy for a hundred miles. What sets the tone for fashion, for coolness out here? How do they react to seeing styles in movies and on MTV that they cannot replicate where they live? And what in the world do they do when they are not in school? For some reason, the only thing I can visualize is the John Deere chicken fight scene from "Footloose".
Once I survived Kansas - which, by the way, was not bleeding anywhere - the last part of the trip through Colorado was survivable. Even as early as I left, I had to drive straight into the setting sun for a couple of hours. The sky was so clear and bright that I could see several jets flying in several directions, condensation trails giving them away. It was as if some giant force used Q-tips to write in the sky.
About 75 miles from Denver I was finally able to spy the Rocky Mountains. They helped shield the sun, but they also made it too dark as I drove into the Denver metro area for me to look around. The last (and only) time I was in Denver previously was in the summer of 1992 for a DeMolay convention. We stayed on campus at the Colorado School for Mines, where my friend Ryan is a graduate student, and the rest of the time I stayed with a friend in Aurora. It was so dark, and I was so tired when I arrived, that I did not even notice the huge Coors factory on the left as I drove into Golden. I hoped I would recognize more from sixteen years ago, but I didn't.
Ryan lives in a bachelor apartment about three blocks from his campus building. It was really great to see him after the insanely long drive. We went to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in town, and after he had one margarita, I had to drive us home. I am looking forward to the stay here, and when I get some time, I will take some photos and edit and upload them for you to see.
The day was going to be divided into three parts - I-70 from Saint Louis to Kansas City; the drive clear across Kansas, and the shorter drive from the Colorado state line to Denver. During the first part of the trip, there was not much of interest to see. I spent most of the time thinking about baseball, actually.
The 1985 World Series was the I-70 series: the Kansas City Royals against the Saint Louis Cardinals. I knew I was mesmerized by sports from an early age, but this is my youngest and most vivid childhood sports memory. See, there was a time when World Series games were broadcast on weeknights at a time that kids could stay up and watch them, when games were played much closer together to keep the interest and drama high. I sat in the living room of our home every game night of that seven-game series, with Dad's ottoman over my legs. On top of the ottoman, I had the lineups for each team written in pencil on notebook paper, and I would compute and update in real time the players World Series batting averages. This should have been a sign that I needed to go into sabermetrics when I was older, but the 1994 strike, and canceling the World Series that year on my 21st birthday, forever ended my love affair with baseball. I remember being thrilled that Kansas City (controversially) won game six, and how they blew out the Cards in game seven so badly that both Whitey Herzog and Joaquin Andujar got tossed from the contest. Sadly, now, I can't even watch baseball. Even the playoff fail to excite me like once when I was young.
Perhaps because of the daydreaming, I cannot remember much about the drive across Missouri. But when I got to Kansas City, I needed a rest. I decided to visit the international headquarters of the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic-sponsored youth organization that I participated in until I was 21. Someday I'll tell more stories, but for now I will just say that DeMolay helped me come out of my shell, and gave me the confidence to speak in front of people, to seek elected office, and to become a professional sports official. The tour was interesting, and it refreshed a lot of memories that had collected dust since my majority. I don't think it stimulated me to go back and serve as an adviser, or to become a Master Mason like I promised. But who knows?
Rested and refreshed, it was time to tackle Kansas. Ah, yes - 450 miles of unbridled mediocrity. But Kansas was also where a lot of the fun began. Once it was finished, I realized that I could have easily spent a couple of days stopping and enjoying all the kitsch along I-70. But with the long day ahead, I just did not have the time. At first - hell, for the first 200 miles - Kansas is not as flat as you would believe. In fact, there were large swaths of the drive that significantly resembled north Alabama, save for the fact that the dominant color was yellow-brown, not green.
Shortly after leaving Kansas City, I-70 becomes the Kansas Turnpike. At the entrance, you get a time-stamped ticket. You pay when you get off the turnpike. This ticket-taking made me think of a problem I faced in high school calculus. We had to prove, using calculus, that if a driver averaged 60 miles per hour for a three-hour drive, at some point during the drive he must have been traveling exactly 60 miles per hour. My teacher Mrs. Jones said that if the speed limit on a section of toll road was 65, and the time stamp when you entered and when you left computed to show that you averaged 66 miles per hour, then one could prove that at one point, you must have been speeding. The toll booth operator would collect your toll money, and then hand you a speeding ticket and tell you to have a nice day. I drove one mile per hour under the speed limit all the way to Topeka.
Before the next major bout of fun, some random things happened. A tumbleweed actually rolled onto the interstate in front of the car, and I struck it with the right front fender. From where I sat, it looked like it exploded into hundreds of shards. When I stopped an hour later at a rest area, the bulk of it was still lodged in the front of the car. I passed the Oz Museum and winery, and I really wanted to stop there for mom's friend Kay, but it was too far off the interstate, and I did not want to take that big of a detour. And looking at the map of Kansas, I understand now why meteorologists and experts tell you that if you are caught in a tornado while driving, you should drive in right angles away from the funnel. Kansas roads only intersect at right angles, so it is the only way you can flee. Moreover, it might not be as dangerous to fall asleep while driving in Kansas as elsewhere I have been. There's nothing to run into. Finally, when trucks and farm vehicles sprint down the dirt roads that gird the interstate, they resemble terrestrial comets, with long tails stretching behind them.
I was in a bit of a hurry the night before I left when I tried to recalibrate my iPod to work with my laptop. As a result, I allowed the computer to decide which songs fill on my iPod. When I started using it during the drive, I had to skip five to ten tracks each time to get to a track I wanted to hear. The automatic upload had included podcasts, audio books (but only selected chapters - no complete books), songs I didn't know I had, too many classical works, and Christmas music. I'll be fixing that when I stop for a few days in Golden.
On a political aside, I heard the following factoid on CNN: Hillary Clinton is more likely than Barack Obama to be supported by "lower income white rural working-class voters". Tell me if that stilted description does not also sound like the voters who are most likely to be racist.
About halfway across Kansas, I began to see the wind turbines I was expecting. Here, let me allow the video to tell the story.
[I had to climb a steep embankment and slither through a well-constructed barbed wire fence to bring this story to you.]
As I passed through the tiny towns that randomly dotted the interstate in western Kansas and eastern Colorado, I tried to imagine what life was like for teens on the High Plains. There can be an Abercrombie or Old Navy for a hundred miles. What sets the tone for fashion, for coolness out here? How do they react to seeing styles in movies and on MTV that they cannot replicate where they live? And what in the world do they do when they are not in school? For some reason, the only thing I can visualize is the John Deere chicken fight scene from "Footloose".
Once I survived Kansas - which, by the way, was not bleeding anywhere - the last part of the trip through Colorado was survivable. Even as early as I left, I had to drive straight into the setting sun for a couple of hours. The sky was so clear and bright that I could see several jets flying in several directions, condensation trails giving them away. It was as if some giant force used Q-tips to write in the sky.
About 75 miles from Denver I was finally able to spy the Rocky Mountains. They helped shield the sun, but they also made it too dark as I drove into the Denver metro area for me to look around. The last (and only) time I was in Denver previously was in the summer of 1992 for a DeMolay convention. We stayed on campus at the Colorado School for Mines, where my friend Ryan is a graduate student, and the rest of the time I stayed with a friend in Aurora. It was so dark, and I was so tired when I arrived, that I did not even notice the huge Coors factory on the left as I drove into Golden. I hoped I would recognize more from sixteen years ago, but I didn't.
Ryan lives in a bachelor apartment about three blocks from his campus building. It was really great to see him after the insanely long drive. We went to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in town, and after he had one margarita, I had to drive us home. I am looking forward to the stay here, and when I get some time, I will take some photos and edit and upload them for you to see.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Cross Country Day 1: Home to Saint Louis / V9: On Spitzer and gas / V10: On Superman
So today I embarked on my insanely ambitious cross-country drive from Huntsville, Alabama to Redding, California, for a week-long professional tennis tournament that I am umpiring. At least at the start of the trip, the plan was to drive from home to Saint Louis for the night, then to Golden, Colorado to visit my friend Ryan for three days, and then on to Salt Lake City and finally Redding on Saturday night. (The tournament begins on Sunday.) We will see if the weather and my plans hold.
I have driven most of this route before a number of times - especially in Tennessee - so there wasn't that much surprising to see. I got bored in Kentucky, so I put some random thoughts down on film.
It wasn't until I arrived in southern Illinois that things got interesting. And, unfortunately, it was the only interesting thing until I reached Saint Louis after dark. Seeing the Arch, lit only by ambient light from the city, is an impressive sight at night.
One thing you should understand about me is that I enjoy kitsch and Americana. (Some might say to this, "what's the difference?") I stop for quilting museums and the largest ball of twine and the potato chip that looks like the Virgin Mary. I find that local cultural icons such as these help me get a better understanding of the values and norms of different parts of America. And in my travels, I have gotten pretty good at distinguishing the genuine from the tourist trap.
So we return to the story in southern Illinois - Massac County, to be exact. There is a rest area just off the interstate interchange as soon as you cross from Kentucky into Illinois. I remember stopping at it once before, when I drove to the Chicago suburbs in 2003 for the U.S. Open golf tournament with my brother-in-law. When you exit the rest area and get back on the local highway that takes you to the interstate, there is a blue sign with Superman's shield on it, reading "Giant Superman Statue". I am intrigued. So, instead of getting back on the interstate, I follow the signs.
One mile passes, and then another and another. Periodically, there is another blue sign that says "Giant Superman Statue - straight ahead". I have faith and persist. Finally, I enter the nearest city. It is fairly flat out here, save for the grain elevators, so I figure that I won't have much trouble finding this giant statue. And right when I enter town and am welcomed by the Chamber of Commerce's sign, I see something that makes me groan and wonder if I ever should have exited the interstate in the first place. More on that in a minute.
Finally, the signs direct me to the town square, site of the county courthouse. This is what I find:
Here is a still photo:
There is a post script to this story, the thing I mentioned that I would come back to at the end. As soon as you enter Metropolis, Illinois, there is a Big John grocery store on the left hand side of the road. This is what I saw as soon as I came into town:
Now, here is my first thought - Superman got purchased by this grocery store and converted into a bag boy. I was thisclose to turning around and leaving Metropolis in a cloud of angry regret. But then I saw another sign ahead for the Superman statue, so I continued. When I stopped to take this photo, another car was also stopped taking a picture of Big John. I am sure I was not the only one fooled by this inconvenient placement of a grocer's statue.
I have driven most of this route before a number of times - especially in Tennessee - so there wasn't that much surprising to see. I got bored in Kentucky, so I put some random thoughts down on film.
It wasn't until I arrived in southern Illinois that things got interesting. And, unfortunately, it was the only interesting thing until I reached Saint Louis after dark. Seeing the Arch, lit only by ambient light from the city, is an impressive sight at night.
One thing you should understand about me is that I enjoy kitsch and Americana. (Some might say to this, "what's the difference?") I stop for quilting museums and the largest ball of twine and the potato chip that looks like the Virgin Mary. I find that local cultural icons such as these help me get a better understanding of the values and norms of different parts of America. And in my travels, I have gotten pretty good at distinguishing the genuine from the tourist trap.
So we return to the story in southern Illinois - Massac County, to be exact. There is a rest area just off the interstate interchange as soon as you cross from Kentucky into Illinois. I remember stopping at it once before, when I drove to the Chicago suburbs in 2003 for the U.S. Open golf tournament with my brother-in-law. When you exit the rest area and get back on the local highway that takes you to the interstate, there is a blue sign with Superman's shield on it, reading "Giant Superman Statue". I am intrigued. So, instead of getting back on the interstate, I follow the signs.
One mile passes, and then another and another. Periodically, there is another blue sign that says "Giant Superman Statue - straight ahead". I have faith and persist. Finally, I enter the nearest city. It is fairly flat out here, save for the grain elevators, so I figure that I won't have much trouble finding this giant statue. And right when I enter town and am welcomed by the Chamber of Commerce's sign, I see something that makes me groan and wonder if I ever should have exited the interstate in the first place. More on that in a minute.
Finally, the signs direct me to the town square, site of the county courthouse. This is what I find:
Here is a still photo:
There is a post script to this story, the thing I mentioned that I would come back to at the end. As soon as you enter Metropolis, Illinois, there is a Big John grocery store on the left hand side of the road. This is what I saw as soon as I came into town:
Now, here is my first thought - Superman got purchased by this grocery store and converted into a bag boy. I was thisclose to turning around and leaving Metropolis in a cloud of angry regret. But then I saw another sign ahead for the Superman statue, so I continued. When I stopped to take this photo, another car was also stopped taking a picture of Big John. I am sure I was not the only one fooled by this inconvenient placement of a grocer's statue.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Scenes from a mall
On occasion, whether for the change in scenery or to avoid cold or inclement weather, I will walk at the local mall, Parkway Place. It's less than a mile from the house; on simply cold days, I will walk to the mall and do several laps inside before coming home. I see many other people walking there, especially a lot of seniors. What I have yet to see, however, is a bona fide mall-walker - fast pace, swinging hips and arms. I tend to walk pretty fast by dint of the music in my ears. But I don't mall-walk either.
Tonight was a very visually potent night at the mall. I had not walked there on a Saturday night before, and I left with several scenes in my head.
One
The mall might as well have been a farmer's market, for all the obvious county folks who had made the once-a-week trip into the city to sample the exciting sights, sounds and tastes of Parkway Place. The boys had poorly dyed blond hair, heavy work boots and dinner plate belt buckles. The girls mostly holding hands with the boys, were also invariably larger than the boys, with flat, limp, uninteresting hair. The only stores that seemed to interest them were GNC (boys acting butch for the girls), Brookstone (shiny things) and the Cookie Company (of course).
Two
I walked past one woman and her two small children several times. She was seated in a bench near an exit with a stroller and several bags of merchandise. Her nonchalant posture implied that she was waiting for something - a spouse? a ride? They two children each had a drink and a cookie from the Cookie Company. The drink cups were on the ground, and one had already spilled some brown soda on the floor. I wondered after each circuit passed her whether she would exhibit good parenting and citizenship by cleaning up after her children, or (gasp!) having them clean up after themselves. Finally, on the next lap, she was gone. So were the drinks. Well, at least the cups were gone. The drinks were dripped and splashed all over the walkway, with pieces of cookie randomly scattered and smashed into the tile throughout.
Three
I passed the central intersection of the mall, and from my left side I saw a woman and a man walking down the adjacent way. She was carrying a white and black Williams-Sonoma bag. But not for long. The bottom fell out of the bag, and out tumbled a sterling silver cylinder that looked like a coffee carafe, and its mated lid. I had the ear buds in ("High School Never Ends," Bowling for Soup), so I didn't hear anything, which was remarkable. Most of the heads I passed for the next several seconds were turned in that direction, often murmuring something to the other nearby heads.
Four
Weekends usually bring out the young people. Parkway Place has a policy prohibiting unescorted minors during evening and weekend hours. Teen and early-20s adults come there, too, and this includes the urbanites from the north part of town. Many times at the mall I have seen pairs and small groups of young men that are mixed race groups - blacks and whites, for the sake of simplicity. Never have I seen the men in the group all dressed like the whites. They are always all dressed like the blacks.
Five
Near the end of my walk, I was following two adults, with two boys and five or six small girls. The group seemed too large and the adults seemed too happy for them to have all been related. And then I noticed the shortest girl in the group, a blonde whose height would imply she was four or five, but whose behavior would make you think she was double that age. She looked remarkably like my eldest niece Maddie. But she wasn't looking at or noticing me. I kept watching her, but not for too long, because I didn't want anyone who saw me to think I was some lecherous man. So I called my brother-in-law, and he confirmed that Maddie and Jessie were both out with friends. So I called her by her full name, and she turned around and saw me, and ran to give me a hug. She pointed me out to her younger sister, and said, rather demandingly, "Give Uncle Frankie a kiss!". Jessie kissed me, too, and I introduced myself to the adults, apologetically. I told them that I had seen Maddie, but not Jay or Lena, and that it had just surprised me. (I did not tell them that I had called Jay to make sure it was Maddie I had seen.)
Six
When I see seniors walking in the mall, especially alone, I wonder if that will be me someday. Without a spouse or children, it is easy for bachelor, single, or gay men to be forgotten in the older age. It is a platitude to say that it couldn't happen, or that it couldn't happen to me, because I can see it has happened to some of them. I have plenty of time to avert it. But then again, when I broke up with Joe Little, I certainly did not think at that time that I would still be single now, eight years later.
Seven
Near the central intersection of the mall - where the woman's bag broke - is a sunglasses kiosk. For almost the entire hour that I was walking at the mall, this attractive man was shopping there. Each time I walked past, he was trying on a different pair of sunglasses. Tragically, he did not have anyone to provide him advice aside from the salesperson, which was to his detriment. Each look he proffered was out of reach for him, an unusual state of affairs for a handsome man. On some laps, I speculated that he might have noticed my passing frequently, and he was trying to choose frames that were more and more outrageous each time. When I saw him last, he had walked away from the kiosk, empty-handed.
Tonight was a very visually potent night at the mall. I had not walked there on a Saturday night before, and I left with several scenes in my head.
One
The mall might as well have been a farmer's market, for all the obvious county folks who had made the once-a-week trip into the city to sample the exciting sights, sounds and tastes of Parkway Place. The boys had poorly dyed blond hair, heavy work boots and dinner plate belt buckles. The girls mostly holding hands with the boys, were also invariably larger than the boys, with flat, limp, uninteresting hair. The only stores that seemed to interest them were GNC (boys acting butch for the girls), Brookstone (shiny things) and the Cookie Company (of course).
Two
I walked past one woman and her two small children several times. She was seated in a bench near an exit with a stroller and several bags of merchandise. Her nonchalant posture implied that she was waiting for something - a spouse? a ride? They two children each had a drink and a cookie from the Cookie Company. The drink cups were on the ground, and one had already spilled some brown soda on the floor. I wondered after each circuit passed her whether she would exhibit good parenting and citizenship by cleaning up after her children, or (gasp!) having them clean up after themselves. Finally, on the next lap, she was gone. So were the drinks. Well, at least the cups were gone. The drinks were dripped and splashed all over the walkway, with pieces of cookie randomly scattered and smashed into the tile throughout.
Three
I passed the central intersection of the mall, and from my left side I saw a woman and a man walking down the adjacent way. She was carrying a white and black Williams-Sonoma bag. But not for long. The bottom fell out of the bag, and out tumbled a sterling silver cylinder that looked like a coffee carafe, and its mated lid. I had the ear buds in ("High School Never Ends," Bowling for Soup), so I didn't hear anything, which was remarkable. Most of the heads I passed for the next several seconds were turned in that direction, often murmuring something to the other nearby heads.
Four
Weekends usually bring out the young people. Parkway Place has a policy prohibiting unescorted minors during evening and weekend hours. Teen and early-20s adults come there, too, and this includes the urbanites from the north part of town. Many times at the mall I have seen pairs and small groups of young men that are mixed race groups - blacks and whites, for the sake of simplicity. Never have I seen the men in the group all dressed like the whites. They are always all dressed like the blacks.
Five
Near the end of my walk, I was following two adults, with two boys and five or six small girls. The group seemed too large and the adults seemed too happy for them to have all been related. And then I noticed the shortest girl in the group, a blonde whose height would imply she was four or five, but whose behavior would make you think she was double that age. She looked remarkably like my eldest niece Maddie. But she wasn't looking at or noticing me. I kept watching her, but not for too long, because I didn't want anyone who saw me to think I was some lecherous man. So I called my brother-in-law, and he confirmed that Maddie and Jessie were both out with friends. So I called her by her full name, and she turned around and saw me, and ran to give me a hug. She pointed me out to her younger sister, and said, rather demandingly, "Give Uncle Frankie a kiss!". Jessie kissed me, too, and I introduced myself to the adults, apologetically. I told them that I had seen Maddie, but not Jay or Lena, and that it had just surprised me. (I did not tell them that I had called Jay to make sure it was Maddie I had seen.)
Six
When I see seniors walking in the mall, especially alone, I wonder if that will be me someday. Without a spouse or children, it is easy for bachelor, single, or gay men to be forgotten in the older age. It is a platitude to say that it couldn't happen, or that it couldn't happen to me, because I can see it has happened to some of them. I have plenty of time to avert it. But then again, when I broke up with Joe Little, I certainly did not think at that time that I would still be single now, eight years later.
Seven
Near the central intersection of the mall - where the woman's bag broke - is a sunglasses kiosk. For almost the entire hour that I was walking at the mall, this attractive man was shopping there. Each time I walked past, he was trying on a different pair of sunglasses. Tragically, he did not have anyone to provide him advice aside from the salesperson, which was to his detriment. Each look he proffered was out of reach for him, an unusual state of affairs for a handsome man. On some laps, I speculated that he might have noticed my passing frequently, and he was trying to choose frames that were more and more outrageous each time. When I saw him last, he had walked away from the kiosk, empty-handed.
V8: On a snowy future
It snowed in Atlanta on my visit there. I am about to start on my 5,000-mile trek to northern California and back. This is just a short update on what is up, and a quick view of the snow.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
V7: On Lake Erie
I am back from Toronto, and there is much to tell and write. For now, be satisfied with this stop along the frozen shores of Lake Erie on the trip to Toronto. I apologize for the quality and I have learned from my error.
Monday, February 11, 2008
V6: On nieces
I figured you were tiring of hearing from me all the time, so tonight I have something much cuter.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Rules for Fighting Fair
On Super Tuesday, I volunteered as a poll observer at University Place School in Huntsville, Alabama. The polling location was in a hexagonal, cinder block gymnasium on an unusually warm and humid winter day. During my fourteen-hour day in that gym, I spied the signs of children all around me - four-square lines on the floor; chairs too short for me to sit in; rows of aligned dots painted on the floor for assigned seating; and elementary art on the walls encouraging students to stay active and eat healthy. Sometime during my interminable day, I discovered this:
and I was reminded that we adults seldom remember or exemplify the lessons we are trying to instill in our children. I think it is a worthy desire to want to live in a civil society. I believe the values of tolerance and freedom can exist together and complement one another. And I feel that as our road seems to inexorably lead to another argumentative presidential election, we should go back to what we learned in school about how to fight fair.
1. We find out the problem. In a civil society comprising more than one person, fights will happen. Fighting can sometimes involve violence, but most basically, fighting is about disagreeing. In elementary school, such disagreements were often one-word affairs. "Mine!" "Stopit!" "Jerk!" In the grown-up world, disagreements take on significantly more facets, complications, and baggage. They can refer to critical, even life-and-death, matters. Yet most often, as children and adults, we are reduced to puerile, off-topic rants about unrelated issues or events that get us no closer to solving the problem.
If we want to fight fair, and if we really care about the problem and solving it, first we must find out what the problem is, and leave everything else at the door. It is the first agreement that leads to the end of the disagreement. So much time and energy, so many column inches and diaries are wasted on the debris surrounding past and present conflicts. So much bad will is generated and maintained by the memories of past fights. To be successful, we must find the problem, isolate it, and focus our intensity and efforts like a laser beam on the problem itself. This goal relates directly to the second rule.
2. We attack the problem, not the person. This is the most violated rule of fighting fair. As children, our lack of maturity makes it easy to spin off into name-calling, pushing, temper tantrums, and grudges. We're supposed to be older than that now; we're supposed to be adults. There should be no threats and no blaming. Does this sound like an adult way to attack the problem of terrorism?
To summarize Jon Stewart's apt analysis: "So, Mitt, in order to avert a surrender on terror, you are going to ... surrender?"
So far, our candidates have resisted most urges to demonize the Republican Party and its supporters. They have defined the problems of our country as they see them; they have outlined their ideas for solutions; and they have highlighted how their plans differ from the proposals of their opponents. We Democratic partisans, we campaign supporters, we diarists and bloggers need to follow their lead. Fighting fair means keeping our eyes on the problem. It means no name calling, no threats, no making excuses, no failing to listen, no getting even. And it means doing this even when others do not.
Do you want to win, or do you want to win justly and fairly? If you are saying to yourself that the problems our country faces are too critical to make this distinction, or if you are asking yourself if there really is a difference, think. Why do we, and most right-thinking Americans, oppose the use of torture against our enemies? We oppose it because we do not want ourselves or our soldiers to be treated that way. We oppose it because it is inhumane. We oppose it because we do not want to be known in the world as a country that would do such things. All these statements boil down to one truth: we oppose it because it is wrong. We should not only fight the fights we can win. We must fight the fights that need fighting. And this is why we must do it fairly. Victory is hollow and meaningless if we don't fight fair.
3. We listen to each other. Fighting fairly is more than telling my side and waiting for you to agree, acquiesce, or give in. [Indeed, that is the way of the Bush administration.] We fight because we disagree, because we believe in something, and because we eventually want to agree. If we did not desire agreement and harmony as our default condition, there would be no incentive or impetus to fight in the first place. We must listen to those with whom we fight, even when they play unfairly.
Fighting fairly requires faith. We must believe that the people with whom we fight are what we strive to be, that they are sincere in their beliefs, and that they fight because they feel those beliefs are important. If we accept this and have faith, it makes it easier to fight fairly. No longer will we waste time on pettiness, on past quarrels, on scoring cheap points. Both sides will see the earnestness of the other, listen to what they offer, and find a road to connect the two.
If I only trust and listen to those who play dirty, then I do not really know who or what I am fighting. After all, I cannot disagree with you if I do not know what you believe or propose, or how it differs from my ideas and ideals. We must listen. We must seek out sources of information from those with whom we disagree. We must turn on our ears, even when our minds want to turn off our hearts to our opponents. We must listen, so that others will hear us. If we want to fight fairly, and if we believe things are worth fighting for, then we must desire a solution and a resolution to the fight. We will never achieve that without listening.
4. We care about each other's feelings. Perhaps politics, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. If we fight dispassionately and stoically, then we cannot be hurt when we lose. Perhaps, as stated earlier, the crisis of our country is so dire that it does not matter how we win, just as long as we win. Yet all of us are old enough to have been both winners and losers in this game, some of us many times over. We know that the losers do not get voted off the island. We must all live together in this republic once the current fight is over, and until the next fight comes. Fighting fairly means caring about how we fight, and caring about the feelings of others.
We teach our children to play fair, and most of us cite some religious or secular formulation of the Golden Rule when we correct their behavior. Then we mature, inherit the responsibilities of the world, and abandon this point of view. We're good, they're bad, and we must win while they lose because everything is a zero-sum game. But it does not have to be that way if we fight fairly.
Caring about the feelings of others while we fight is how we would want to be treated. It encourages future fights, meaning it allows people to have faith that the next time they disagree, they can fight fairly to solve it without animosity or hatred. It invites us to engage one another to solve the problem that started the fight; when the fight is over, we must return to being neighbors. And caring about others when we fight allows us to engage in rule two - focusing on the problem and not the person. If it is good enough for our children, why can't it be good enough for us?
5. We are responsible for what we say and do. When we fight fairly, we become a collective unit towards the goal we are seeking. The tactics we use to fight, including the words we say and write, are the weapons in that fight. We are all responsible for how they are used and what effects they have. If you believe in a cause or a person, you should want to fight fairly. It allows people to have faith in your sincerity, and it lends credence to your views. It engenders faith in you as a fighter. You will not be successful at winning converts if you do it unfairly. They will not be able to trust what you say now, or when the next fight inevitably comes.
If there are people fighting with you that do not fight fairly, you must call them out for their behavior. Remember, it is about the goal, the purpose, the ideal - and not about the person. Calling names, seeking revenge, or spreading misleading statements will not help you in your fight. They discourage others from fighting fairly, they cast doubt on your motives, and they distract from what you are fighting for. If the fight is more important than the person, then fighting fairly is to your advantage. Criticize others when they don't fight fairly. Apologize and take responsibility when you fail to remember these rules. Encourage those who keep their eyes on the prize. If you are responsible for what you say and do, even when you err, you will earn the trust and respect of sincere people with whom you fight, smoothing the way for future agreements.
Following these rules and fighting fairly is difficult. We should do it because it complements our sincerity and earnestness. We should do it because we want others to treat us the same way when we fight. We should do it because we expect it of our children, for whom we should be exemplars. We should do it because it makes winning feel good, and losing feel tolerable. All these statements boil down to one truth: we should do it because it is right.
and I was reminded that we adults seldom remember or exemplify the lessons we are trying to instill in our children. I think it is a worthy desire to want to live in a civil society. I believe the values of tolerance and freedom can exist together and complement one another. And I feel that as our road seems to inexorably lead to another argumentative presidential election, we should go back to what we learned in school about how to fight fair.
1. We find out the problem. In a civil society comprising more than one person, fights will happen. Fighting can sometimes involve violence, but most basically, fighting is about disagreeing. In elementary school, such disagreements were often one-word affairs. "Mine!" "Stopit!" "Jerk!" In the grown-up world, disagreements take on significantly more facets, complications, and baggage. They can refer to critical, even life-and-death, matters. Yet most often, as children and adults, we are reduced to puerile, off-topic rants about unrelated issues or events that get us no closer to solving the problem.
If we want to fight fair, and if we really care about the problem and solving it, first we must find out what the problem is, and leave everything else at the door. It is the first agreement that leads to the end of the disagreement. So much time and energy, so many column inches and diaries are wasted on the debris surrounding past and present conflicts. So much bad will is generated and maintained by the memories of past fights. To be successful, we must find the problem, isolate it, and focus our intensity and efforts like a laser beam on the problem itself. This goal relates directly to the second rule.
2. We attack the problem, not the person. This is the most violated rule of fighting fair. As children, our lack of maturity makes it easy to spin off into name-calling, pushing, temper tantrums, and grudges. We're supposed to be older than that now; we're supposed to be adults. There should be no threats and no blaming. Does this sound like an adult way to attack the problem of terrorism?
And Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror. They would retreat and declare defeat. And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child's play. About this, I have no doubt.
I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror. If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.
To summarize Jon Stewart's apt analysis: "So, Mitt, in order to avert a surrender on terror, you are going to ... surrender?"
So far, our candidates have resisted most urges to demonize the Republican Party and its supporters. They have defined the problems of our country as they see them; they have outlined their ideas for solutions; and they have highlighted how their plans differ from the proposals of their opponents. We Democratic partisans, we campaign supporters, we diarists and bloggers need to follow their lead. Fighting fair means keeping our eyes on the problem. It means no name calling, no threats, no making excuses, no failing to listen, no getting even. And it means doing this even when others do not.
Do you want to win, or do you want to win justly and fairly? If you are saying to yourself that the problems our country faces are too critical to make this distinction, or if you are asking yourself if there really is a difference, think. Why do we, and most right-thinking Americans, oppose the use of torture against our enemies? We oppose it because we do not want ourselves or our soldiers to be treated that way. We oppose it because it is inhumane. We oppose it because we do not want to be known in the world as a country that would do such things. All these statements boil down to one truth: we oppose it because it is wrong. We should not only fight the fights we can win. We must fight the fights that need fighting. And this is why we must do it fairly. Victory is hollow and meaningless if we don't fight fair.
3. We listen to each other. Fighting fairly is more than telling my side and waiting for you to agree, acquiesce, or give in. [Indeed, that is the way of the Bush administration.] We fight because we disagree, because we believe in something, and because we eventually want to agree. If we did not desire agreement and harmony as our default condition, there would be no incentive or impetus to fight in the first place. We must listen to those with whom we fight, even when they play unfairly.
Fighting fairly requires faith. We must believe that the people with whom we fight are what we strive to be, that they are sincere in their beliefs, and that they fight because they feel those beliefs are important. If we accept this and have faith, it makes it easier to fight fairly. No longer will we waste time on pettiness, on past quarrels, on scoring cheap points. Both sides will see the earnestness of the other, listen to what they offer, and find a road to connect the two.
If I only trust and listen to those who play dirty, then I do not really know who or what I am fighting. After all, I cannot disagree with you if I do not know what you believe or propose, or how it differs from my ideas and ideals. We must listen. We must seek out sources of information from those with whom we disagree. We must turn on our ears, even when our minds want to turn off our hearts to our opponents. We must listen, so that others will hear us. If we want to fight fairly, and if we believe things are worth fighting for, then we must desire a solution and a resolution to the fight. We will never achieve that without listening.
4. We care about each other's feelings. Perhaps politics, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. If we fight dispassionately and stoically, then we cannot be hurt when we lose. Perhaps, as stated earlier, the crisis of our country is so dire that it does not matter how we win, just as long as we win. Yet all of us are old enough to have been both winners and losers in this game, some of us many times over. We know that the losers do not get voted off the island. We must all live together in this republic once the current fight is over, and until the next fight comes. Fighting fairly means caring about how we fight, and caring about the feelings of others.
We teach our children to play fair, and most of us cite some religious or secular formulation of the Golden Rule when we correct their behavior. Then we mature, inherit the responsibilities of the world, and abandon this point of view. We're good, they're bad, and we must win while they lose because everything is a zero-sum game. But it does not have to be that way if we fight fairly.
Caring about the feelings of others while we fight is how we would want to be treated. It encourages future fights, meaning it allows people to have faith that the next time they disagree, they can fight fairly to solve it without animosity or hatred. It invites us to engage one another to solve the problem that started the fight; when the fight is over, we must return to being neighbors. And caring about others when we fight allows us to engage in rule two - focusing on the problem and not the person. If it is good enough for our children, why can't it be good enough for us?
5. We are responsible for what we say and do. When we fight fairly, we become a collective unit towards the goal we are seeking. The tactics we use to fight, including the words we say and write, are the weapons in that fight. We are all responsible for how they are used and what effects they have. If you believe in a cause or a person, you should want to fight fairly. It allows people to have faith in your sincerity, and it lends credence to your views. It engenders faith in you as a fighter. You will not be successful at winning converts if you do it unfairly. They will not be able to trust what you say now, or when the next fight inevitably comes.
If there are people fighting with you that do not fight fairly, you must call them out for their behavior. Remember, it is about the goal, the purpose, the ideal - and not about the person. Calling names, seeking revenge, or spreading misleading statements will not help you in your fight. They discourage others from fighting fairly, they cast doubt on your motives, and they distract from what you are fighting for. If the fight is more important than the person, then fighting fairly is to your advantage. Criticize others when they don't fight fairly. Apologize and take responsibility when you fail to remember these rules. Encourage those who keep their eyes on the prize. If you are responsible for what you say and do, even when you err, you will earn the trust and respect of sincere people with whom you fight, smoothing the way for future agreements.
Following these rules and fighting fairly is difficult. We should do it because it complements our sincerity and earnestness. We should do it because we want others to treat us the same way when we fight. We should do it because we expect it of our children, for whom we should be exemplars. We should do it because it makes winning feel good, and losing feel tolerable. All these statements boil down to one truth: we should do it because it is right.
Monday, February 04, 2008
V3: On Obama in the rain
I have a lot of other things to tell, of making new friends and losing more weight and generally feeling better. But right now, I need to tell you about Barack Obama, me, and the rain that just would not quit.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Edwards for President; or, How To Choose a Candidate in Seven Days
I was sitting in my room and the news came on tv;
A lot of people out there hurtin', and it really scares me.
Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight;
So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight.
~~Brian Wilson, "Love and Mercy"
It was about eight in the morning yesterday when my friend Ed sent me a text from Buffalo and said, "Turn on CNN." My first thought was that Buffalo was on the news - he had been telling me about the severe winds, about how school had been canceled, and about how, dammit, he still had to work that day. In the few seconds more before the channel appeared, I wondered a few more things that might prompt Ed to direct me to the news today, but the news I saw was the last thing I was expecting. John Edwards was ending his campaign for president.
I am certainly a political animal; I am my father's son in that regard. But, as my friends will attest, I can inform without offending. I have never lost a friend over politics. So I am a true believer, but a reluctant proselytizer. Many would be surprised to learn that I have been with John Edwards since his first run for president in 2004. I thought the ticket was reversed that year; I stood by him and supported him in my forcefully quiet way until the present. Similarly, many would be startled at the depth of my support and passion for Edwards' campaign.
I wonder, when I saw him in Nashville two days before his withdrawal, if he knew then that he was ending his campaign. You could not tell from the passion in his speech and the fire in the crowd. I came home and signed up for a couple of campaign events locally that were supposed to occur today. And now, it feels like my significant other of four years has left me. And I have to find a date for next Tuesday's ball, or else I will be the only person sitting on the sidelines.
The kernel of an idea for this diary was a grand analysis of candidate positions; a three column chart on each major issue area, comparing and contrasting the positions of Edwards with Obama and Clinton. From this, I could call a "winner" in each policy area, and use that to determine where I would send my support - I am not sitting this dance out. I also wanted to highlight the differences in Senate roll call votes between Obama and Clinton in the last two years. However, I could hear in my head the criticisms of this approach, and I also became daunted by the sheer volume of information involved. I tried to focus only on the candidates' differences, but found there were few substantial policy contrasts.
In order to save my sanity, I turned to a thematic and idea approach. Which candidate shares the values and the passion of John Edwards to a greater degree? Which candidate has more truly innovative ideas? Which candidate has demonstrated the judgment and awareness to carefully select adviser to help administer the government? Ah...now we're getting somewhere.
During the beginning of my more in-depth analysis of policy positions, I consistently found more detailed, more creative, and more congruent ideas from Obama than from Clinton. One might want to argue that all the information on candidate positions is not available on their campaign websites, or one might want to refer me to other sources of information. My view is this: the campaign website is the primary vehicle of communication with the public. It is not limited by timed duration or column inches. If it is important to the candidate, it should be detailed on the website. Here is just a sampling of what I found.
Tax policy: All three candidate share support for restoring higher-income tax brackets to 1990s levels; extending and enhancing child tax credits; and rolling back Bush's tax cuts. But Clinton's policy speaks in generalities, with words and phrases I have heard before, over and over. Obama, meanwhile, offers substantive and fresh ideas. He proposes a Making Work Pay tax credit - $500 individual, $1000 joint - that could eliminate federal income taxes for 10 million lower income people. He also has actual ideas for simplifying federal tax filing. For example, the IRS could use information it already receives from banks and employers to send pre-filled statements to taxpayers for verification; ideally, filing federal taxes could be reduced to five minutes.
Government reform: The three candidates agree on verifiable paper trails, ballot security and election auditing; restricting the revolving door for agency officials and lobbyists; and using technology and the Internet to provide more government transparency and data-sharing. Clinton proposes a Public Service Academy - four years of paid college education followed by five years of service. It is a quality idea, but hardly innovative. Want something new? Try Obama's Sunlight Before Signing - all non-emergency bills presented for his signature will be subject to a five-day public comment period before he takes action. How about 21st Century Fireside Chats? Obama would mandate that Cabinet departments hold regular broadband town hall meetings.
LGBT issues: John Edwards was the run away leader in his efforts for equal and fair treatment of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. Edwards visibly supported civil unions and other arrangements that would provide equal standing for the more than 1100 federal rights related to marriage to straight and to same-sex couples. He opposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage. He wanted to expand Medicaid to cover HIV+ people; to increase funding and support for the Ryan White Act; and to encourage age-appropriate sexual education and science-based prevention. Clinton and Obama have each made public statements supporting equal treatment of the LGBT community, but both need to step up the written and verbal commitments to rise to the level of support from John Edwards. Obama took a step in this direction by addressing equal treatment in front of a predominantly African-American audience. But more than words are needed.
I can go on - rural America; nuclear proliferation; civil rights; Africa; trade relations - but the pattern is the same. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton strike all the right chords when singing about the major issues our party and our country face. They have white papers, press releases, and speeches that say all the right things and stroke all the right constituencies; this is expected. The difference is in the quality, innovation, and freshness of the ideas. This is more than just "change": who can change the climate of Washington, or who can change the course of our government.
Barack Obama has shown the charisma and the inspiration to bring people together to follow him. And if you are looking for "change" in this election, he represents it to a far greater degree than Hillary Clinton. He is worried about health care, and tax burdens, and external threats, and education. But on each of these topics, and more, he hits the right notes and then embellishes them with trills and arpeggios. I have not seen sufficient evidence that Clinton is flexible enough or open enough to tackle old issues and emerging threats with a keen and fresh eye. Obama has the creativity and the vision to see beyond the same solutions to the same problems.
This is my analysis, and this is what works for me. Hopefully - maybe - it is helpful to you. The candidate who comes closer to the passion, the ideals, and the perspective of John Edwards is Barack Obama. I will be voting for Obama on Tuesday.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Should Mother Nature choose the president?
Norris says McCain too old for president
APRIL CASTRO
AP News
Campaigning for Mike Huckabee, actor Chuck Norris said Sunday that Sen. John McCain is too old to handle the pressures of being president.
"I didn't pick John to support because I'm just afraid that the vice president would wind up taking over his job in that four-year presidency," said Norris
As the first Southern primary, South Carolina was supposed to be friendly territory for Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister.
"We obviously wanted to win and we really thought we would win," he said. "The fact of Fred Thompson's being in the race took some votes that we would have most likely had."
Huckabee also blamed late snowfall in parts of upstate South Carolina.
"The snow not only froze the streets of the Greenville-Spartanburg area, the votes kinda stopped once it started snowing," he said. "That was an area we were looking forward to having a significant vote margin."
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Further down in this article from Talking Points Memo, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee lamented the affect of weather (and Grandpa Fred) on his vote totals in South Carolina.
Especially today, on the formal celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, it is worth noting the cavalier attitude we seem to have towards democracy and voting rights. I am not old enough to remember the bulk of the struggle for women and minorities to secure the right to vote. But in a country that considers itself the modern torch-bearer for democracy, in a country who nicknames its president the Leader of the Free World, in a country where thousands have died in the Middle East so we can ostensibly enjoy the freedom to shop here at home, it startles me to see the basic act of democracy so tattered.
Weather should not affect elections. If more South Carolinians really wanted Gov. Huckabee to win, it shouldn't be his bad luck - or a reflection on him - that they were too lazy or not intrepid enough to brave the weather in order to vote. It is troubling enough to deal with the variables of computerized voting versus hand counting, of polling places running out of ballots, of citizens actually turning away in Nevada because of half-mile lines to vote. It is likewise disturbing that dozens of votes were found to have been miscounted in New Hampshire, despite the fact that the recount did not change the outcome. Do you want your vote to be the one that is not counted?
So I guess my beef is not with Mother Nature. It is with our particular flavor of democracy. The tradition of Tuesday voting - harking back to the days of farmers' markets, and when most citizens would be "in town" to vote - needs to be retired. We need weekend voting, multiple day voting, voting by mail. Ask Oregon - mail voting has been tremendously efficient and effective, and very impervious to fraud. Austin always had multiple early voting sites throughout the city when I lived there. Unless you were away on business for three weeks solid, there was no excuse for failing to vote.
After all that has been given by so many for our right to vote, shouldn't it be more protected, more cherished? A vote should not be minimized because one could not get off work...because one could not get a ride to the polls...because one had a sick child on the one day of the vote...because weather depressed the turnout of an entire area of a city or state.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Mad libs vs. Pee Wee's Playhouse
[Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Mitt Romney, and former Sen. Fred Thompson (l-r), point out how they have never seen former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a man's suit before.]
I didn't listen to my mother; when she told me not to yell at the television, I did anyway. I was annoyed and disappointed at how Fox ran tonight's Republican debate. The audience was allowed to be too boisterous, and the whole she-bang came off sounding like a pep rally.
Because there was so much audience interaction, it was easy to see the Republican keyword machine in action. More times than I can count, candidates were interrupted in mid-sentence -- often in mid-topic-sentence -- by applause from a vat of Florida Republicans who heard the special words. Whether it was "terror" or "Vietnam" or "Hillary" or [insert your word here], they gave themselves away by applauding the keywords too quickly, often before the candidates had time to assemble them into complete thoughts. Did a Republican invent Mad Libs?
However, in my house, the opposite was going on. It was like Pee Wee's Playhouse here - whenever the keywords were uttered, I screamed at the television. I yelled down the hall to my mother. (Well, what can I say, the baseball game is still in the early innings as I write.) I was troubled to see how easily manipulated that audience was. They cheered for hating Hillary; they cheered for hating immigrants; they cheered for hating Muslims; they cheered for hating poor people.
I prefer my debates to be debates, and for the most part, the Democratic affairs have come off much more professionally and informative-ly. I don't want the audience to cheer or moan like someone just hit "Bankrupt" on Wheel of Fortune - it just encourages the candidates to give empty applause lines. And I don't want questioners to manufacture disputes. I want to know what candidate A thinks about an issue. And then I want to know whether candidate B agrees or disagrees, and what candidate B would do differently. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We might be favored in the coming election. But I was scared by what I saw tonight. I was scared to think that so many people are still caught in the headlights of Republicanism. The worst part is, it's not just them that will be run over by the oncoming truck - it's all of us.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Caught in the undertow
The first three days of my new job have been....what's the word...confounding.
I work for a company that sells tungsten heavy alloy products for a variety of uses - aerospace, metallurgical, machining and milling, and so on. We may not make most of the things in your home, but our products help make the machines and tools that make most of the things in your home. I am an inside sales representative, ostensibly responsible for all of our clients outside of North America.
When I was interviewed and then hired, I was advised that the company did not consider itself very good at training new non-floor employees, and that with us (me and my fellow new inside sales rep), they were going to try to use a more comprehensive training. No more sink-or-swim; now, it's seminar-and-snooze, as I like to joke.
My supervisor gave us a detailed three-week training schedule. She is due to be on vacation for the second and third weeks; however, much of our training during that time was to be provided by other employees - engineers, outside sales reps, product specialists, and so on. However, already people are coming to her with tweaks to the schedule and conflicts. For example, our plant tours were supposed to be next week, on days that she was gone. Now, they are taking place this week, on days that she was to provide training to us.
We have a slightly better idea of what products we sell, and what their properties are, and how they are manufactured. However, we still have no good sense for what our actual jobs will be like. We have not been trained in detail on our product line - thousands of different types of tool holders and inserts, for example, and which one is best for which application - nor have we learned about our all-powerful computer system. Those days are certainly coming. However, in the meantime, the last three days of work have not seemed like work at all.
So far, these days have felt more like, I don't know, college orientation? You feel like you know what to expect. You are shown a bunch of things you won't recall, and you are introduced to dozens of people you won't remember until you need them. You aren't taking notes, you're just watching and hoping things will stick when it is time to need them.
The training schedule gives only a vague idea of what we are doing each day. Yesterday was supposed to be about products and procedures. But I don't remember learning much that was new or not intuitive, and then the day ended early so we could go buy our steel-toed safety shoes (on the company's tab). Today, we toured our plant in La Vergne, outside Nashville. It was interesting to see the products being made, and I did learn a few things. But I have not seen our products being used yet. I don't know what they actually do, or how they do it, or how tiny differences in design create different outcomes, or why certain grades or materials are used for certain applications. I know what our products look like. I don't know what they do. So it felt like today's long trip (four hours on the road, three in the plant) was not the best use of time, at least at this point in our training.
I am still neutral about this job. Frankly, I don't know what to feel about it yet. I know I am not ready to deal with customers, not for a few more weeks or months, but I am chomping at the bit to do something, anything more meaningful and hands-on and productive. I am frustrated because I want to get to work.
I work for a company that sells tungsten heavy alloy products for a variety of uses - aerospace, metallurgical, machining and milling, and so on. We may not make most of the things in your home, but our products help make the machines and tools that make most of the things in your home. I am an inside sales representative, ostensibly responsible for all of our clients outside of North America.
When I was interviewed and then hired, I was advised that the company did not consider itself very good at training new non-floor employees, and that with us (me and my fellow new inside sales rep), they were going to try to use a more comprehensive training. No more sink-or-swim; now, it's seminar-and-snooze, as I like to joke.
My supervisor gave us a detailed three-week training schedule. She is due to be on vacation for the second and third weeks; however, much of our training during that time was to be provided by other employees - engineers, outside sales reps, product specialists, and so on. However, already people are coming to her with tweaks to the schedule and conflicts. For example, our plant tours were supposed to be next week, on days that she was gone. Now, they are taking place this week, on days that she was to provide training to us.
We have a slightly better idea of what products we sell, and what their properties are, and how they are manufactured. However, we still have no good sense for what our actual jobs will be like. We have not been trained in detail on our product line - thousands of different types of tool holders and inserts, for example, and which one is best for which application - nor have we learned about our all-powerful computer system. Those days are certainly coming. However, in the meantime, the last three days of work have not seemed like work at all.
So far, these days have felt more like, I don't know, college orientation? You feel like you know what to expect. You are shown a bunch of things you won't recall, and you are introduced to dozens of people you won't remember until you need them. You aren't taking notes, you're just watching and hoping things will stick when it is time to need them.
The training schedule gives only a vague idea of what we are doing each day. Yesterday was supposed to be about products and procedures. But I don't remember learning much that was new or not intuitive, and then the day ended early so we could go buy our steel-toed safety shoes (on the company's tab). Today, we toured our plant in La Vergne, outside Nashville. It was interesting to see the products being made, and I did learn a few things. But I have not seen our products being used yet. I don't know what they actually do, or how they do it, or how tiny differences in design create different outcomes, or why certain grades or materials are used for certain applications. I know what our products look like. I don't know what they do. So it felt like today's long trip (four hours on the road, three in the plant) was not the best use of time, at least at this point in our training.
I am still neutral about this job. Frankly, I don't know what to feel about it yet. I know I am not ready to deal with customers, not for a few more weeks or months, but I am chomping at the bit to do something, anything more meaningful and hands-on and productive. I am frustrated because I want to get to work.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Exposing Fox News
In my geekier moments, I like to research things. You know, things like "facts," which can then be used to demonstrate, or "prove," other things.
Tonight, I decided to tackle the task of proving that Fox News Channel is not news.
I succeeded. But you will have to go below the fold to see how.
I am not an expert in journalism. So I decided to use the most prominent honors and awards in journalism as the criteria for comparing several news organizations, including Fox News.
Competing against Fox News in this endeavor will be: ABC News; BBC News (including BBC Radio and World Service); CBS News; CNBC; CNN; the duMont Network (defunct since 1956); MSNBC; NBC News; and PBS.
[For each award, the top three news organizations in that category are listed. In some categories, total awards are minimums and only include clearly definable news programming.]
The Peabody Awards have been given by the University of Georgia since 1941, and are the oldest honors in electronic media. CBS News leads all organizations with 82 Peabody Awards, followed by ABC News with 52 and NBC News with 40. CNN has won 12 Peabody Awards in 25 years. The duMont Network won a Peabody in 1952 for The Johns Hopkins Science Review. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The Emmy Awards are the most famous awards in television. (Data is only available from 2003.) In that time, PBS leads with 26 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, largely thanks to Frontline. CBS News has 18 awards, and ABC News has 15. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award has been given since 1968, and is considered to be the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. ABC News had 42 duPont-Columbia Awards, CBS News has 40, and NBC News has 29. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The George Polk Awards have been given since 1949 by Long Island University. They honor a CBS correspondent who was slain while covering the Greek civil war in 1948, and are given for excellence in broadcast journalism. NBC News has 13 Polk Awards, CBS News has 12, and ABC News has 11. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The Gerald Loeb Awards recognize excellence business, finance, and economic journalism, and have been awarded since 1957. NBC News has won 3 Loeb Awards, ABC News has 2, and CBS News, PBS and CNN each have 1. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The Jack R. Howard Award is given by the Scripps Foundation for excellence in electronic media, and is usually awarded to local news organizations. CNBC won the Howard Award in 2004. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The Edward R. Murrow Award is given by the Radio-Television News Directors Association for "outstanding achievements in electronic journalism." Since 2002, NBC News has won 24 Murrow Awards, while CBS News has 13 and CNN has 5. Fox News Channel? Zero.
The Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism has been given since 1968, and honors reporting "of the lives and strife of disadvantaged people throughout the world." For this reason, the RFK Award is known as the "Poor People's Pulitzers". PBS and ABC News have won 11 RFK Awards, CBS News has 6 and NBC News has 5. Fox News Channel? Zero.
These are the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism, reflecting the views of respected peers in the field. So what is the final tally?
CBS News: 154
ABC News: 122
NBC News: 114
PBS: 42
CNN: 33
BBC News: 15
MSNBC: 3
CNBC: 3
Dumont: 1
Fox News Channel: 0
There are at least two salient points to be drawn from this cursory analysis.
- CBS News actually deserves the title "The Most Honored Name in News" and not CNN.
- Fox News Channel has won fewer journalism awards than any other major news organization. This includes a network that has been off the air for more than half a century!
There is no longer a need to bemoan the fact that Fox News is faux news, or to wish that the Congressional Black Caucus would not support Fox News with a debate, or to long for the day that their talking heads explode. Instead, just cite these facts as proof that no respected members of the journalism community view Fox News Channel as news.
You're welcome.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Sick as a dog
This is our sweet dog Lucy. She's 13 now, and is experiencing kidney problems. We have some pills to give her daily to help her with it. But she has become finicky about eating -- never the same meal twice -- and she keeps spitting the pills back up. Anyhow, I've been taking care of her while Mom is in Dallas visiting her grandson. I was supposed to be out there already, but I don't want to leave Lucy with the neighbors during this time.So if anyone's out there, please think some warm, fuzzy thoughts about Lucy. Thanks.
[By the way, she was sleepy, not sick, when this photo was taken.]
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Just One of the [Commander] Guys
Reuters:
That's not what I heard when I watched the event.
I heard "The Commander Guy." In fact, I was already envisioning Bush in a red leotard with a blue cape and knee-high blue boots, a large gold "C" emblazoned upon his chest.
Did The Decider's handlers decide to rewrite history again? You be the judge. View the transcript and a link to the video of the entire speech here. [The relevant part begins at 53:30.]
Additionally, here is the context of the whole quote.
[emphasis added]
I can imagine tens of thousands of our soldiers would like to be in some other place, too, Mr. President.
And just for ships and giggles, here are the hardball questions the president faced from the Association of General Contractors.
Bush's answer: (1) We must have the will and determination to succeed. (2) You must remind your legislators to renew my blank check to fund the war. (3) The Iraqis won't commit themselves to their new government unless we stand with them.
Correct answer: The media needs to continue to report both the good and the evil from the front lines. Lying about what happens in war, like our government did regarding Pat Tillman, abuses the memories of the dead and insults the intelligence of the survivors. And you, you need to continue to challenge your government on the spending of your money and your loved ones' lives.
Bush's answer: (1) Freedom of the press is great, even though it has "inherent dangers". (2) I'm the Commander Guy. (3) What was the question?
Correct answer: If you are concerned about media portrayals of your loved ones, tell the media, not the president.
Bush's answer: "[O]ur reconstruction strategy initially was to do big projects, and then those big projects would be destroyed by the enemy." (In other words, we're going to give no-bid contracts to friends of mine to build things that will get blown up right away, so that we can give more no-bid contracts to friends of mine to rebuild the new stuff that got blown up.)
Correct answer: Great, thanks for volunteering! As a sacrifice for our country and our men and women in uniform, I want you to offer up your services to the Iraqi government at a 50% discount rate.
Bush's answer: Millions of Americans are praying for me and Laura.
Correct answer: Millions of Americans are praying for me and Laura to go.
Oh, and what the hell kind of Christian are you, that you don't know how to pray for me?
Bush's answer: "Grace will live -- the question is, will Grace live in a peaceful world, today and tomorrow?"
Correct answer: Yeah, I've been fairly inaudible in my leadership, too. I probably should have done more, given my pro-life and pro-family platform. I guess I realize that my war has cost many lives and destroyed many families. But I am not worried, since there's not much you can do about it.
[Cross-posted at dailykos.]
The White House is trying to clarify something: President George W. Bush is "a commander guy" but not "the commander guy."
Or something like that.
On Wednesday, speaking to a friendly audience, Bush talked about his troop buildup in Iraq and rejected efforts by the Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress to force him to accept a withdrawal timetable.
"The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear -- I'm a commander guy," Bush said.
That's not what I heard when I watched the event.
I heard "The Commander Guy." In fact, I was already envisioning Bush in a red leotard with a blue cape and knee-high blue boots, a large gold "C" emblazoned upon his chest.
The official stenographer of the event recorded Bush as having said he was "the commander guy" and some reporters did as well. It was not far off from his past description of himself as "the decider."
But the quote prompted chuckles around Washington that Bush had given a new nickname to his constitutional role as the commander in chief.
So the White House sprang into action to try to put the toothpaste back into the tube.
"It's been reported that the president said, 'I'm the commander guy.' He did not. What I recalled was that he said 'I'm a commander guy,' meaning that he's one of the people that listens to the commanders on the ground," [White House spokeswoman Dana] Perino said.
Did The Decider's handlers decide to rewrite history again? You be the judge. View the transcript and a link to the video of the entire speech here. [The relevant part begins at 53:30.]
Additionally, here is the context of the whole quote.
By the way, in the [Iraq Study Group] report it said, it is -- the government may have to put in more troops to be able to get to that position. And that's what we do. We put in more troops to get to a position where we can be in some other place. The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear -- I'm [the] commander guy.
[emphasis added]
I can imagine tens of thousands of our soldiers would like to be in some other place, too, Mr. President.
And just for ships and giggles, here are the hardball questions the president faced from the Association of General Contractors.
Q. Thank you. In May of 2006, my second cousin was on his second tour in Iraq. Corporal Cory Palmer, he's in the Marines, he was on patrol in a Humvee, and they ran over a roadside bomb. He and many others in that Humvee perished. What do I need to do, what does the media need to do to help you, so that my second cousin, and others like him, have not died or been injured in vain?
Bush's answer: (1) We must have the will and determination to succeed. (2) You must remind your legislators to renew my blank check to fund the war. (3) The Iraqis won't commit themselves to their new government unless we stand with them.
Correct answer: The media needs to continue to report both the good and the evil from the front lines. Lying about what happens in war, like our government did regarding Pat Tillman, abuses the memories of the dead and insults the intelligence of the survivors. And you, you need to continue to challenge your government on the spending of your money and your loved ones' lives.
Q. I'd like to know, like a lot of other people in this room, we have family members -- we have family members who are actively involved in the security of this country in various ways. From them, we've received positive information that we consider credible, who say about the success and the good things that are happening as a result of us being in Iraq. I would like to know why and what can be done about we, the American people, receiving some of that information more from the media, or (inaudible.) (Applause.)
Bush's answer: (1) Freedom of the press is great, even though it has "inherent dangers". (2) I'm the Commander Guy. (3) What was the question?
Correct answer: If you are concerned about media portrayals of your loved ones, tell the media, not the president.
Q We're General Contractors of America, and what are we doing -- I don't hear anything about the reconstruction of Iraq. Could you fill us in on that? Are we doing enough, as general contractors? And we are at your disposal.
Bush's answer: "[O]ur reconstruction strategy initially was to do big projects, and then those big projects would be destroyed by the enemy." (In other words, we're going to give no-bid contracts to friends of mine to build things that will get blown up right away, so that we can give more no-bid contracts to friends of mine to rebuild the new stuff that got blown up.)
Correct answer: Great, thanks for volunteering! As a sacrifice for our country and our men and women in uniform, I want you to offer up your services to the Iraqi government at a 50% discount rate.
Q. And second is a personal question. What do you pray about, and how we can we pray for you?
Bush's answer: Millions of Americans are praying for me and Laura.
Correct answer: Millions of Americans are praying for me and Laura to go.
Oh, and what the hell kind of Christian are you, that you don't know how to pray for me?
Q. You talked about the terror of 9/11, and what I wanted to share with you, my wife and I had our first child two months after 9/11. We named her Grace, because we felt that the world needed some grace at the time. And what I wanted to (inaudible) is the fact that our appreciation and keeping my family and also the families of America safe for the past five years is (inaudible).
Bush's answer: "Grace will live -- the question is, will Grace live in a peaceful world, today and tomorrow?"
Correct answer: Yeah, I've been fairly inaudible in my leadership, too. I probably should have done more, given my pro-life and pro-family platform. I guess I realize that my war has cost many lives and destroyed many families. But I am not worried, since there's not much you can do about it.
[Cross-posted at dailykos.]
Monday, April 30, 2007
Blue in the face over a Purple Heart
Copperas Cove man to give president his Purple Heart
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Wow...where to begin?
Let us begin with Army Regulation 600-8-22 (Military Awards 11 December 2006):
Next, Army Regulation 672-8 (Manufacture, Sale, Wear, and Quality Control of Heraldic Items 27 November 1989):
Laura Bush:
As asked on Real Time with Bill Maher this week, how does one turn down an offer from a wounded Vietnam veteran to donate one of his Purple Hearts to you? What would the proper response have been? Ask yourself this, then: in a similar situation, what would Winston Churchill have done? Can you imagine Sir Winston having a photo op, focusing the nation on his own suffering, and taking the spotlight off the sacrifices of soldiers and citizens?
Class, dignity, and even common sense would have told anyone else that this is inappropriate. Mr. Thomas, if this is what you think of the Purple Heart, and the hundreds of thousands of fellow members of the Order, then you should take the two medals you have left and throw them over the fence at the White House before you go back to Texas. You earned three Purple Hearts. But you have no moral authority to be passing them around to people who have not earned them.
The only thing I can hope for is that a photo emerges from this farcical ceremony, showing Mr. Thomas pinning the Purple Heart on President Bush. Army Regulation 672-8 Chapter 2-7a:
[Cross-posted at dailykos]
Let us begin with Army Regulation 600-8-22 (Military Awards 11 December 2006):
The Purple Heart is awarded in the name of the President of the United States...after being wounded: (1) in any action against an enemy of the United States.The president was not physically wounded by the criticisms he has received. And Mr. Thomas insults all holders of the Purple Heart - more than a quarter million men and women since 1958 - by equating "foreign and domestic" critics with enemies of the United States.
A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent...the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer...
Examples of injuries or wounds which clearly do not qualify for award of the Purple Heart are as follows: (e) battle fatigue...(h) self-inflicted wounds, except when in the heat of battle and not involving gross negligence...(i) post-traumatic stress disorders.
Next, Army Regulation 672-8 (Manufacture, Sale, Wear, and Quality Control of Heraldic Items 27 November 1989):
[Chapter 2-7b] Mere possession by a person of any of the articles prescribed in paragraph 2 (except identification cards) is authorized provided that such possession is not used to defraud or misrepresent the identification or status of the individual concerned.Mr. Thomas was not prohibited by law or regulation from giving his Purple Heart away. But President Bush's possession of the medal defrauds the American people by portraying the president as a war hero, and it misrepresents the president's status as someone who has physically suffered as a consequence of his own decisions.
Laura Bush:
[B]elieve me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm's way.The president has not suffered like war widows and widowers have, whose only memories of a lost spouse are a triangular folded American flag and a Purple Heart. The emotional wounds of a commander-in-chief are part of the job, and not worthy of public honoring or recognition.
As asked on Real Time with Bill Maher this week, how does one turn down an offer from a wounded Vietnam veteran to donate one of his Purple Hearts to you? What would the proper response have been? Ask yourself this, then: in a similar situation, what would Winston Churchill have done? Can you imagine Sir Winston having a photo op, focusing the nation on his own suffering, and taking the spotlight off the sacrifices of soldiers and citizens?
Class, dignity, and even common sense would have told anyone else that this is inappropriate. Mr. Thomas, if this is what you think of the Purple Heart, and the hundreds of thousands of fellow members of the Order, then you should take the two medals you have left and throw them over the fence at the White House before you go back to Texas. You earned three Purple Hearts. But you have no moral authority to be passing them around to people who have not earned them.
The only thing I can hope for is that a photo emerges from this farcical ceremony, showing Mr. Thomas pinning the Purple Heart on President Bush. Army Regulation 672-8 Chapter 2-7a:
The wearing of any decoration, service medal, badge, service ribbon, lapel button, or insignia prescribed or authorized by the DA and the Department of the Air Force by any person not properly authorized to wear such device...is prohibited [and] subject to punishment as prescribed [by 18 USC 1704; a fine, six months in jail, or both].Come to think of it, hasn't President Bush been through this once before?
[Cross-posted at dailykos]
Really??!?
May 7, 2007 issue - Sen. Barack Obama vows to bring a "new kind of politics" to Washington. But a copy of a 36-page fax from Obama's Senate office, obtained by NEWSWEEK, shows that the rookie presidential candidate, riding the biggest wave this side of his native Hawaii, needs to keep a sharp eye on the details of his own campaign. Senate rules and federal law forbid the use of official equipment—such as faxes and phone lines—to conduct campaign business, which was what Buford was doing last Thursday when she faxed Obama's political "call list" to the senator's personal aide at a Columbia, S.C., hotel. A copy of the one to Obama was slipped, anonymously, under the door of a NEWSWEEK reporter. But the sender clearly knew the ethics rules. The accompanying note, written on hotel stationery, said of the fax: "Unbelievable, USS, office, phone, long distance, staff, etc.—for political." With all eyes on Obama, he needs to watch out.
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I travel for a living. You can't find a hotel anywhere anymore that will identify the room number of a guest. Did the staffer with the fax stalk Newsweek's Fineman to find his room and "slip" this under the door?
Oh, and Senator Obama? You messed up. Don't do it again. I don't want anyone to mess up - I want to see a clean campaign run on ideas and merits.
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