Hypocrisy?

Maybe you’re thinking that if one person holds both of these beliefs, they're being hypocritical:

(1) “Women should have choice about their own bodies”
(2) “People should be required to get a vaccine.”

One statement advocates for personal choice and the other advocates against it.

But keep in mind that not getting a vaccine puts people near you at risk - you could have an asymptomatic case of COVID, they could catch it, and they'll have a slim but non-zero risk of death. But getting an abortion affects one person: the woman getting an abortion.

To me, the real hypocrisy is between the ideas that:

(1) An embryo the size of a grain of rice (i.e. 6 weeks after conception, I'm looking at YOU, Texas) deserves the same protection as a human being, and 

(2) It's "giving undeserving people free stuff" to provide a safety net for babies, children and adults.

It’s a shame that people need mandates to make them do things that should come naturally from their kindness towards their fellow humans.

Dances with Death

Somewhere inside me, the distaste for Florida has increased. I have complained about several things, including the danger I faced on my bicycle, the dearth of pretty views in this flat landscape, the relentless heat. There is also this feeling of “not home” – I miss my old neighborhoods and the friends and family nearby.

But I have come to realize that there is another, more sinister problem about living in Florida. Let me explain.

In 2017, I left a technology career in the New York area. Having been laid off at age 65 it seemed unlikely that I could find another job at a comparable salary. New York is an expensive place to live, so what to do? We came to Florida, where we could afford to live comfortably on a smaller budget. Deb had friends and family here but not in other places we could potentially afford, so Florida seemed like a rational destination.

Florida is known for its many retirement communities. People come down here to enjoy the last few years of their lives in sunshine among friends in similar circumstances. Many “snowbirds” start with a sort of “pied-à-terre” away from the harsh winters up north, and eventually stay here full time. It’s known as the place where old people come to die. (Is that from Robert Klein? George Carlin?)

Since we have been here, we have made new friends in our community. But we have also lost a close friend, and have lost several friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, to cancer and other causes. We probably will “lose” some snowbird family members due to the difficulties of traveling while old. COVID has also prevented one of the activities that could have made these things more endurable, or at least escapable: travel.

So the problem here in Florida is that we are surrounded by death. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t learn about someone falling ill, whether suddenly or at the beginning of a long decline. They say, “No-one gets out alive” – but must we continually be reminded? There’s even a community down here named, “Journey’s End.”

It might be a good thing to be reminded, often, to live each moment in the present and to live each day as if it were your last. But in view of my current health situation, what good will that do me? There is not enough time, and I have too many regrets.

I am dancing with death, moving closer, then further away, twisting and squirming like Elaine on Seinfeld. I know the music will end, the dancing will stop. I don’t know when, but it won’t be very long.

I had a dream once, in which Deb, Ronni, Allison and I had a joyful dance together in another realm. Perhaps it was one of my premonitions. While I’m still on this Earth where each day should be celebrated, I wait for a time without time in a realm where time is meaningless, and only love, joy and kindness matter. And dancing. There should be dancing.

Originally posted Dec. 20, 2018 in FaceBlech.

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I’m old enough now to have begun “living the dream” and moved to sunny Florida, where I no longer have to shovel, rake, or mow. Every time I take a drive around here I pass dozens of gated communities. Each community has a name. When you tell someone where you live, you often give them the name of your community along with your actual address. I laugh when I see the names of some of them. Others leave me scratching my head in confusion. For example:

* Timber Creek, which has neither timber nor a creek anywhere nearby.

* Isles of Boca, which is, of course, completely landlocked.

* Harbour Green, consisting of concrete and houses nowhere near a harbor.

* Tides at Newport Bay, which is miles from the ocean so it’s not YET subject to tides - wait about 20 years, they say.

* Sherwood Forest - you mean Robin Hood has a condo?

* Coral Trace, in which surely there is no trace of coral anywhere except maybe as an end-table decoration.

* Whisper Trace, probably the nearest thing to “it’s not really there”. And what’s with all these “traces” anyway?

* Broken Sound — I’m concerned. Was this named for staccato gunshots? Or a body of water that has failed in some way?

* Isles at Hunter’s Run, where there have been no hunters for decades, no isles, and a low probability that any of the senior residents do any running.

* Hammock Reserve, evidently a place set aside to grow tree-borne beds.

* Snow Hill - are you kidding me?? This is Florida, remember?

* Mill Lake, where there never was a mill, and the so-called lake is a three foot deep pond.

* Waters Edge, which is, of course, at the edge of a five-foot-wide flood-control channel.

* Central Park: unhappy with living in Florida, they named the community nostalgically.

* Forest Hills - no forest, and flat as a kitchen counter. Also nostalgia-based.

* Patch Reef - is that a command?

* Waters Bend North, Waters Bend East - I guess it depends which way you’re looking.

One community is named Patios on the Park. To me this is nearest to the truth because nearly everyone has either a golf course or park to look at from the patio. Another is named Ashland, which is possibly another nostalgic reference, to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Flushing Meadow.

Now, why are so many communities named “Pointe” (pwant? pointy?)? The word “Point” is too unpretentious, I guess.

One developer here in South Florida has created a bunch of projects each named Valencia-something: Palms, Isles, Lakes, Cove, Reserve, Preserve... We seniors have enough memory problems already, and thanks to these names, I don’t know where some of my friends actually live.

But my all-time favorite community name is Journey’s End. Finally some truth in advertising: Florida is where you come to get old and die.

I used to live on Long Island, NY, in a community called East Northport, which was east of South Huntington. I had friends in West Islip, which was north of Islip. So apparently I have exchanged one kind of brain-bending name silliness for another.

Thoughts About Humans

What a pickle we are in, as a country and even as a species.

Our parents taught us that there are two sides to every story. They were wrong.   If only we could all deeply comprehend the concept that life is not win/lose and zero-sum.

There can be many “sides” to a story. In a formal debate (as opposed to the political shows we see in every election season) one “side” is declared the winner by a jury/audience. In American politics, just like in most sports, there are two sides and when the “game” ends there is one winner.

In contrast, when a group has a discussion, many opinions can be exchanged, and there is no winner or loser - everyone wins for having learned something.

Making policy should be the result of a discussion, not a debate or a game. Why is it a game in the American system?

Is it because our system reflects the game-based, winner-loser society we live in? 

In our broader set of social norms, everywhere there are winners and losers. Success and failure is measured by power and wealth.

But (reaching back to old maxims) if we are “all in this together” and “we’re all children of God” and “nobody gets out alive” then why must we think of some people as winners and others as losers? Why do we see things as black vs. white, have vs. have-not, workers vs. lazy, other vs. us? Granted that “good” and “bad” DO exist, why is it that, once we’ve made these distinctions, those who fall on the wrong “side” stop deserving our support, love and respect?

I guess these are questions that we humans have been asking for millenia. Finding answers has been the starting point of most religions. I don’t, of course, have The Answers. They might reside in the way we have evolved, or perhaps in the way we have been taught. Or both.

But we are more than a collection of cooperating cells. Our ability to understand ourselves and our fellow Travelers distinguishes us from all other species. If we could put more thought into that sympathetic and empathic part of our souls, this planet, this realm would be a happier place.

Am I lazy and a loser for thinking this way? Perhaps. Shall we discuss?

Incitement, Insurrection, Impeachment

I spent some time today watching Impeachment #2. Below I have tried to describe what happened neutrally, without inflammatory words and without bias, despite my outrage. This exercise is intended to to help me vent, calm down, and dissect the January 6 incident. It is not intended to provoke argument, or in fact, any discussion at all. So be aware that it's my blog, I'll be deleting any comments that aggravate me. Feel free to post your own summary, opinions, questions, etc. on your own blog, or on Farcebook.

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The problem: people were led to believe that "This is a rigged election" (Trump, August 24, 2020). Certain TV, radio and print outlets consistently and firmly amplified and expanded this message, stating that early and absentee voting was invalid, that voting machines were hacked, and that votes for Biden were "dumped" into the voting system overnight. So with the help of those media sources, the groundwork for disbelieving the election results, no matter what they were, was in place.

By the weekend after Election Day virtually all the votes were counted (and in some cases, recounted), and Biden had won. But Trump and his supporters still believed the election was stolen from Trump, who then proceeded to use all legal recourse to try to fix the problem. For the next several weeks, in about 60 cases that were brought by his legal team:

• Widespread fraud was neither alleged nor evidenced,
• Most cases were dismissed for reasons that might be called "technical", e.g. lack of standing to sue, or (in PA) waiting many months to dispute the legality of the absentee voting process,
• No court supported the assertion that the election was rigged.

The fact that 60 court cases found no widespread problems did nothing to change the minds of those who had been convinced in advance that the election would be fraudulent. Trump and certain media continued to say that Trump had won. In time they went further, saying that it was actually a Trump landslide, and that the election should be reversed. The Electoral College processes of certifying each state's vote count should be reversed by State Governors, and (later) Congress' certification of the overall result should be blocked.

If you believed that Trump actually won, and that the election process was subverted, your next move might have depended on the degree of passion you had developed. Some people in the public sphere promoted and harnessed this passion, including Trump. 

A large crowd from all over the country assembled on January 6, organized by Trump's tweets and by other people who were convinced that "the election was rigged". They gathered in front of a podium and screen near the Capitol, where the last step in preparing to inaugurate the new President was about to occur. Here they were urged to "fight for their country" by Trump and several other speakers, and watched a video supporting the patriotic nature of the crowd's genesis. Then the crowd walked to the Capitol. 

Here is where things went south. If you sincerely believed that the November 3 election was fraudulent, that your country's government was in danger of being taken over by bad actors, and that there was a way to stop all that from happening, what would you do?

Some of the angrier participants entered the Capitol violently and tried to find the Congresspeople responsible for finalizing the election results. We don't know what those participants would have done if they had found the Congress members, but many were shouting things like, "Hang Pence", and a few were carrying plastic zip-ties of the sort that would normally be used to detain criminals.

Many people were injured, some severely, and a few were killed during the incident. We don't yet know the full story concerning Law Enforcement intelligence, preparation and response to the unfolding incident, but we do know that they were unarmed and severely outnumbered. They have arrested many people, and more arrests are likely. 

The questions in my head include:

• Was the election fraudulent? There are always some irregularities, but were there enough fraudulent votes to have changed the result?
• Since legal remedies had been exhausted, was “stopping the steal” the only appropriate action? Do LEOs think it was appropriate?
• Does inviting a crowd, speaking to them about "taking back your country", and telling them to go to the Capitol - does that constitute incitement? Does the bigger picture do that?
• At what point should Trump have spoken out against the incident? Did he wait too long?

And a little further afield:

• Why has government become a zero-sum football game? Will we ever go back to discussing consequential issues instead of what enables one "side" to "win"?
• Should the Fairness Doctrine be reinstated and apply to all media? Doesn't that just perpetuate the "us vs. them" zero-sum mindset?
• How do we distinguish between facts and falsehood? How do we agree on a set of facts that the Fairness Doctrine would apply to?  
• Who won the Civil War?

Spitting into the wind

Today’s rant is a note to the unreasonably wealthy:

Many of you earn more in a week than you can possibly spend in your lifetime, and you own so much that all of your descendants for the next four generations will be set for life. 

Do you realize it’s in your own self-interest to “redistribute wealth”? It won’t cause you to live in poverty. On the contrary, it will increase your wealth, because more people will be able to afford to buy the stuff you make, or the services you offer. 

Do you recognize that people who are homeless, or food-poor, or can’t afford healthcare or a shack to live in, won’t be sending you any cash for cell phones, trips to Disney World or birthday gifts for their friends or kids?

Perhaps you could consider voluntarily, constructively redistributing your own wealth? Can you think of ways to help people to live above the level of “just surviving”? 

Maybe, for example, you can pay them a living wage, so they could work ONE job instead of three? With all that spare time, and a little more money, think of all the things they’ll be able to do and buy!

Or maybe you could advocate for separating health care from employment, so if you fire them or they get sick it’s not a death sentence? Dead people don’t spend much, as I understand it.

How about lobbying the government to put a proper “safety net” in place as in nearly all of Western civilization outside the U.S.? Then you can lobby the government to increase your taxes a bit, so that only three generations of your descendants will be set for life instead of four.

Maybe if you reinvested more money into your businesses instead of your own salary, you could justify hiring more people who could then buy your products. You’d be letting your wealth “trickle down” instead of hoarding it. 

In fact, a livable minimum wage, a safety net, and universal health care are just a few of the ways you can redistribute resources.

Think of it as an investment. The money you part with today will come back to you tomorrow.

So it's in your own self interest to do these things. How about it?

Off the Screen

We have endured 5 years of a Media Master. Enough.

Since he announced his candidacy for President, Trump has said or done something every day that makes headlines. I don't think "every day" is an exaggeration. We have not had a break for a very long time.

Now his removal from office is pending. Whether it's by voluntary resignation, invocation of the 25th amendment, impeachment, or the end of his term, he will no longer be President Trump, but will become Former President Trump. He will lose his "bully pulpit" from the White House, and has already lost several media platforms from which he has long dominated discourse.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Monday that a House plan to vote this week to impeach President Trump is “ill-advised.” I agree, in that Trump will NOT be convicted with a 2/3 majority in the Senate, and that it will delay Biden's efforts to assemble a new government and pass his legislative measures.

But I also believe that impeachment is a bad idea because it keeps Trump in the limelight. Congressional impeachment hearings will take some time, and you can bet the headlines about Trump's latest statements or actions will continue to dominate throughout that time.

Better to let Trump stop being the primary focus of the media. I'm sure he won't go quietly. I know the so-called Conservative Media (i.e. Fox, OANN, Breitbart, et. al.) will retain their focus. But even there, the new President Biden and his new agenda will take some space away from the Media Master if only for negative coverage.

Let's not give Trump any additional reason to keep our attention. Let him, however unwillingly, fade away.