The conceit of certainty

For better or worse, we’ve grown up in a thoroughly regimented world. From the time we’re old enough to start school, there’s a schedule for everything. By the time you reach adulthood, depending on your job, you count on your phone calendar for everything, from your work meetings, to workout times, to social events. My new calendar at work even allows me to include the times and dates the Mets and Jets play.

We’re accustomed to the conceit of certainty. When certainty evades us, sometimes we don’t react well.

In the first twenty years of this century, we saw every major institution in this country, from government to the Church to the private sector, let us down. Government inaction and corporate greed combined to give us the Great Recession. Our favorite movie star turned out to be a horrible person who used the power that comes with stardom to dominate others. The Government was impotent in its reaction to Hurricane Katrina. We weren’t protected from foreign terrorists or random dudes with guns.

The last two years seem like the spin cycle in possessed, unbalanced washing machine. We lived as hermits, wiping down groceries, not wearing then wearing masks. Having holidays outside (if you lived where I do). Foregoing personal interaction for Zoom, then more Zoom, then more Zoom. The vaccines were to be our salvation, then became a litmus test for being a reasonable American with a backbone or a soul.

The economy roared back to life and we were supposed to have a summer of fun–a great Rumspringa. Instead, we got a new variant, then a botched pullout from Afghanistan, then a war in Ukraine that sent prices through the roof. Around every corner where we expect a peaceful, easy feeling, we get a food fight.

The uncertainty can be maddening. And boy are we mad.

We’re seeing how little we can control in our lives, so we’re trying to grasp the things we think we should control. And when those things don’t go the way we expect, it deepens our anger.

A lot of people make out by adding to our uncertainty, magnifying it or increasing it. And some people like the release of letting that uncertainty get to them. Some of us randomly lash out when the stress is too much, then look back and wonder where that came from.

Some of us are just tired and want nothing more than the long, boring summer afternoons of childhood.

Certainty is a mirage we’ve constructed our lives around. Like anything we’re addicted to, when it’s threatened, we aren’t at our best.

A lot of marvelous things are happening in the world right now. But you have to look to find them as the tide of uncertainty rises and threatens our peace.

Personally, I really want a life where I care about Fonzie again.

Hard love

We’ve boiled love down to a Hallmark Channel condensed-milk version of itself that would make the Osmond family choke on its sweetness. We’ve processed love as if it were packaged food and we’re the poorer for it.

Sometimes, life throws you a season of angst and frustration. It’s a time when just being civil to the next person in the endless string of people with problems is a herculean feat.

You barely maintain your cool while someone reads you the riot act for something totally outside your control. You withstand the torrent of anger about politics, religion, or whatever other hot-button subject happens to cause instant heat. You don’t give in to rage when you’re on the phone after a 43-layer phone tree and a 22-minute wait to talk to the fifth person to solve the problem you inherited by simply buying a product and using it.

Parents–good parents–do it every day. There are two kinds of people: those who think it’s horrible to want to put a poor innocent child through the nearest wall, and parents. To be a parent is to want to beat your spawn to a bloody pulp sometimes. Good parents don’t act on that impulse, even if it means going in the other room for a while.

Caregivers do it every day. They put their lives on hold to make sure the person they’re caring for has the best possible life, mixing compassion and action with patience and restraint. In many cases, the person they’re caring for can’t begin to comprehend the cost of the effort required.

In the world of work, there’s that one person who seems to always have one more problem to derail everything, who magnifies the tiniest flaw in front of the biggest-possible audience. Who uses you as a safety valve for whatever pent-up frustrations they have.

Sometimes just making it to the end of the day without letting loose your frustrations is an act of love.

It’s easy to love a cherub-faced baby, your one and only true match on a romantic get-away, the person who just praised you in front of the entire department.

It’s hard to love the screaming banshee who refuses to be calm, the person you live with whose very presence seems to spawn an argument, or the person to tears you a new one at work simply because they can. Sometimes it’s even harder to love the person you deal with after those people.

When every act of living seems to get complicated beyond comprehension, it’s hard to love anyone.

And sometimes, just sucking it up and maintaining decorum in those circumstances is a profound act of love.

If that’s you, give yourself credit for it. You deserve it.

Graham: Nice country you got here. Be a shame if something happened to it.

It’s a standard trope for mob movies. “This is a wonderful <family/business/street/whatever> you have here. It’d be a damn shame if something were to happen to it.” The key to something not happening to it is to give into the speaker’s demands, whatever they happened to be. It would be best for everyone if he just got his way.

Decades ago, Al Sharpton was known for dropping this card about jury verdicts. If the verdict wasn’t correct, there was no telling what would happen. Sharpton made the statement to charge up his base while allowing himself to claim complete innocence if any of those bad things occurred.

Roger Stone used a similar tactic in 2016, when delegates would’ve been released if Trump wasn’t nominated on the first ballot. He’d just have to release the hotel rooms for any delegates who didn’t vote correctly on a second ballot. They should be held accountable for their action and face their critics. If anything bad happened, Stone wouldn’t be responsible.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is the latest to use this approach. Appearing on FOX News’s Sunday Night in America, Graham told host Trey Gowdy, “If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling the classified information after the Clinton debacle (referring to the email server)…there will be riots in the streets.”

Riots in the streets are a standard MAGA response to any criticism of the January 6 insurrection. Apparently, a bunch of morons burning down an auto parts store or being allowed to take over part of downtown Portland is the same as invading the Capitol and threatening to kill the vice president.

They bring up the Hillary Clinton email server, which did not get the attention it should’ve, to excuse Donald Trump’s “mishandling” of classified information (oops). Antifa burnt down some buildings and Hillary had her own secret email server, so Trump’s right about the documents he waved his wand and declassified and January 6 is nothing compared to George Floyd riots.

In the meantime, Graham’s message is clear. Donald Trump can do whatever the hell he wants to classified information or anything else. As Trump himself once said, he could gun down someone on Fifth Avenue and it would be okay with his followers.

If you think otherwise, angry people on my side will burn stuff down. And unlike those lawless Democrats, our rage-filled arson will be justified. And even if it isn’t there’s that auto parts store in Minneapolis that excuses anything we do.

It’s a nice country we have here, it would be a damn shame if anything were to happen to it.

Such rhetoric shouldn’t be a surprise given Trump’s rhetoric about anyone who dares criticize him. It shouldn’t be a surprise coming from a movement whose ideological leaders celebrate Jesus each December by posing around a Christmas tree with a weapons cache that would make G.I. Joe jealous.

It should be a surprise from a movement that has highly visible members aching for a right-wing dictatorship. It shouldn’t be a surprise from a movement that includes a guy who issued murder permits on US citizens who dare disagree with him publicly. (Response: It was a joke. The funniest thing I’ve ever seen. And even if someone follows through, it’s not his fault.)

(Besides, if you were a proper American, you’d have nothing to worry about.)

No other former President would sit silently while a sitting member of Congress threatens death and destruction if legal action is taken against him.

Our political system has devolved into a Martin Scorsese-Quentin Tarantino movie.

Recognizing the depth of my privilege

It’s entirely possible that Michael Jordan isn’t the greatest basketball player of all time (and no, it’s not Lebron). While Michael Jordan is the best we’ve ever seen, it’s possible the person born with the raw skills and drive Michael Jordan had, never got the chance to play basketball. That person maybe never saw a basketball.

Maybe that person used those skills and drive to hunt down food and evade death. Maybe they were the best at getting to the hard to reach spots in the mines. Or maybe they spent their days working a couple physically demanding jobs to keep food on the table.

I thought about that as I ran this morning.

This weekend was the first time I ran consecutive days since before I got the Covid. I still don’t have the lung capacity I have before my infection, but I’m a lot closer than where I was before. As health-related exercise layoffs go, this was a pretty short one.

It’s more than just the health, though. I do well enough materially that I can afford to run. When you reach a certain age, your feet pay if you don’t invest in high-quality footwear. And that doesn’t come cheap. It’s not an inexpensive sport.

While I can afford the money to run, I can also afford the time to run. My kids are grown and out of the house. I’m not a caregiver for anyone. I don’t have to work 32 zillion hours a week.

I live in a time and place where running is possible, popular, and accepted. There’s a running store closer to my house than the nearest gas station. I have a group I regularly run with. The culture is there.

It’s accessible. And it works for me.

Running is a privilege. This morning, I recognized just how deep that privilege runs. It’s not just the health–though that’s an enormous part of it. It’s the opporunity.

Privilege isn’t in vogue these days. In some situations, privilege should be quickly followed by shame or obligation. Because I have privilege, I have a obligation to forego that privilege in favor of those who don’t have that privilege.

An argument could be made that my reveling in my ability to run is ableist. That I need to recognize more those who can’t exercise. In fairness, I’ve been one of the people who can’t exercise. I went through the better part of a year where crossing the living room was a monumental effort.

It was a lovely morning to run. It was 55 degrees this morning where I am. The sun was out. The air was as still as a baseball field on Christmas morning.

But I’d have reveled in the run even if I’d been home in Satan’s Armpit, Florida 33558. I’d have celebrated my privilege to run.

DC (and others) are still botching Covid responses

According to CDC data, of the 1,038,799 people who have died from Covid-19 since January 1, 2020, 1,064 of them were children between the ages of 5 and 17. In that same age range, a little over 80,000 died in that time period.

So it seemed odd that until earlier this week, students in the District of Columbia Public Schools, ages 12 and up, were required to be vaccinated to attend classes. (That requirement has been pushed back until January.) Mayor Muriel Bowser said, “We’re not offering remote learning for children, and families will need to comply with what is necessary to come to school.”

Failure to abide by the mandate will result in a range consequences, from contact to parents or guardians to referrals to the DC Child and Family Services Agency and the Office of the Attorney General for action.

According to a Reason.com article, while 87 percent of white students in DC are vaccinated, less than 60 percent of black students are. Any move to require students to be vaccinated to enter school would fall disproportionately on students of color, the ones in the worst position to be excluded.

Vaccine mandates have made sense when the affected population is the one most likely to suffer severe illness from Covid-19. As shown by the CDC data, school children are not that population.

For most of the population, the relative risk of a revolutionary new vaccine is lower than the risk of catching full-blown Covid. There was full testing of the vaccine, but no one is sure what the long-term impact is. Time is required for that. Personally, the specter of choosing between Covid infection or an indefinite social isolation made the vaccine a no-brainer.

The scales balance much differently as people get younger.

This isn’t a slam on vaccination, but it is a call against the blanket dictates that often seemed to take the form of “because I said so” statements issued by governments in the name of caring. In this case, the perceived importance of this suspect policy is so high that the powers that be in DC are willing to enact a law that will fall disproportionately on people of color–in particular, students of color.

This is the same government that painted Black Lives Matter in enormous letters on 16th Street near the White House a couple of years ago.

The powers that be aren’t offering remote learning as an option. After Covid isolation during shutdowns the CDC reported a 31% increase in emergency room visits resulting from suicide attempts, with girls between 12 and 17 seeing a 51% increase. It’s appropriate to want kids to learn in school, rather than at home. DC got that right.

But these one-size-fits-all policies enacted from officials who know better and won’t even consider the negative impact of their actions don’t improve the public health. If anything, the erode trust in institutions that require trust to be effective. They look and feel like power being exercised for its own sake, resulting from a skewed perspective of risk, responsibility, and the ability of adults to think for themselves.

And when an otherwise progressive political body imposes them without consideration of how it impacts its key constituency, there can be little doubt why trust in government is eroding. As a new viral threat seems to emerge almost weekly, that trust is a finite resource that shouldn’t be squandered.

DC did the right thing by pushing the vaccination requirement back to January. Unless there’s a significant change in the way Covid affects children, it should eliminate it altogether.

Don’t be angry at students over debt relief; be angry at the price gougers

If you’re angry at the students who’ll gladly take the financial relief from Joe Biden’s $10,000 in student debt relief ($20,000 for Pell grants), you’re angry at the wrong people. If you’re angry at Biden, you’re closer, but you’re still angry at the wrong people.

Don’t be angry at them, be angry for the price gouging that’s gone on for forty years in higher ed.

The universities are thrilled that students are getting this money, and not because they enjoy seeing their students do well in life. It’s because the more money we pump into this system, the more prices go up.

For Democrats, this is a win-win leading up to the midterms. They solidify their standing with younger voters–a group that already supports them. They also effectively pay off higher education–another reliable voting block. Higher ed knows if they make their product more expensive, Democrats will work hard to cover the high prices out of the Federal till.

It’s unlikely any university will increase their costs by $10,000 this week, but with Uncle Sam starting to write checks, the cost of getting that degree just went up.

Again.

It’s been covered here before that the cost of tuition has gone up at more than five times the rate of inflation since 1980.

It’s also been covered that the rate of inflation for tuition has been higher than even CEO pay and health care costs since the late 1970s.

If the cost of any other good, service, or commodity went up at this rate for this long, the entire Democratic Party, from Bernie Sanders (technically not a Democrat) to AOC to Joe Manchin would be furious. Price gouging is only bad for Democrats when the gougers aren’t a key constituency.

If higher ed did anything else, such as having a book about gay people in their library or have non-gendered bathrooms, Republicans would be burning down Truth Social. Maybe if we can price more people out of college, more will vote red.

So while Democrats crow about how compassionate they are with other peoples’ money and Republicans whine about the people who work hard to pay off their debts, the pig just keeps getting fatter.

Until something’s done to control the increases, the money’s just being poured down a giant, ivory-tower shaped hole.

About Scott Patterson’s sexual harassment complaint

To set the record straight, and keep my man card, I was in the room while my wife and daughter watched Gilmore Girls. I paid attention enough to know who the characters are. And, though I’m happily married, my ego would be pleasantly fed were Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore in the series) to compliment my butt.

In a season three episode, Melissa McCarthy (Sookie) accidentally “rests her hand” on Luke Danes’ butt. In his podcast dedicated to reviewing the series, Scott Patterson, who played Danes, said he was shocked by the exchange between Lorelai and Sookie about his bottom, and by the repeated references to his keister in the episode.

“It was disturbing. I realized it wasn’t okay and it didn’t make me feel comfortable at all. It made me feel really embarrassed, actually,” he said on the podcast. “It’s infuriating to be treated that way–it is infuriating–because you’re being treated like an object. It’s disturbing and it’s disgusting. And I had to endure that entire scene and many takes.”

I’m not an actor. But I’ve read many times that part of being an actor is that you’re uncomfortable sometimes when you’re on the job. It can be particularly uncomfortable when sex and bodies are concerned.

In television shoes–and Gilmore Girls is a prime example–sometimes the characters are messed up. In the context of the show, Lorelai and Sookie talking about Luke’s butt and Lorelai razzing him about his butt aren’t gratuitous. It’s what those characters would do. Going through that, even if it’s uncomfortable, is part of the gig.

In the real world, I’m told women sometimes talk about guys’ body parts when they’re together.

Patterson went on to say “When we weren’t filming, we were sitting down, people were talking about the butt, the butt, the butt. It was the most disturbing time I have ever spent on that set, and I couldn’t wait for that day to be over.”

This part is a different story. Patterson wasn’t powerless in this instance. He could–and maybe he did–say to knock it off. But he never went to show-runner Amy Sherman-Palladino with his discomfort, citing the show’s rigid, top-down culture.

“I had this job and I didn’t want to make waves and all that.”

He’s far from the first person in Hollywood to say that in a similar situation. Harvey Weinstein and many others have filled preyed on people based on that attitude, in Hollywood and that workplace just down the street.

Sexual harassment isn’t okay, and it can happen to dudes. Those who dismiss Patterson’s complaints, saying “welcome to what women deal with every day” are missing the point. If it’s not okay, it’s not okay.

It’s possible, in context, that what happened after the scene was shot wasn’t okay.

A Hollywood set is different than a typical workplace. If you watch outtakes from television shows, there’s often risque humor. In context, none of it rises to the level of sexual harassment if the people involved don’t feel harassed.

But context is vital.

Obviously, Patterson felt harassed. If he said something, then the burden is on his co-workers to stop the butt talk. If he said nothing, how were they to know? (Again, watch some outtakes on YouTube for context.)

While there’s such as thing as obvious sexual harassment and assault, there are also gray areas. And there are areas in which a person’s not comfortable with the culture, but doesn’t feel empowered to say anything. In those cases, it’s incumbent on the people in charge to create a culture in which a concern like Patterson’s can be aired and dealt with appropriately.

Standards of comfort vary from person to person. I’ve had discussions with known and trusted co-workers that I would never have with people I don’t know well. That’s how people function.

As with any situation like this, there are two sides to the discussion. Amy Sherman-Palladino hasn’t commented. Before taking Patterson’s side, it would be good to hear what she and the other members of the cast had to say.

Cheering for tyranny

The first hour of Tuesday’s Jesse Kelly show was subtitled The Coming Tyrant. In the segment description on iHeart (who syndicates his show through Premiere Radio Networks), we’re told “A right-wing tyrant will soon rise, and when you only have to choices, Jesse is choosing Franco.”

Kelly thinks it’s okay that a right-wing tyrant will take power and imprison his political enemies–or worse. He believes it’s all necessary to bring us “closer to the purge of evil.” For him, that evil is sex reassignment.

All of this is because a ten-year-old’s parent are planning for sex reassignment surgery when the kid turns sixteen. To be fair, Kelly says he believes every major institution is okay with sex reassignment on minors. He considers it child abuse and he’s willing to submit to a dictator if the dictator makes it stop.

He would accept a right-wing tyrant who imprisons and murders his political enemies–simply to stop sex reassignment surgery.

I’m not comfortable with things like drag-queen story time for young children. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t take my kids to it. In a free country, that’s my choice. I can understand why women swimmers would have an issue with records being obliterated by Lia Thomas, who transitioned from a man.

But I also worked with a person who went through reassignment surgery. As a dude, this person wasn’t happy. As a woman, she was. In a free country, you get to make that transition if you want–and as a Christian I’m called to love you.

I’ve never had a ten-year-old boy who insists on being a girl. As the parent of such a child, I have no idea how I’d handle the situation. I also fully understand that to some, my ambivalence is the functional equivalent of a hate crime. So be it.

The kind of tyranny Jesse Kelly is jonesing for will result in millions of people being executed simply for disagreeing with the person in charge (or perhaps for adding your pronouns to your email signature). It’s not as far away as you might think.

Eric Greitens lost his primary. so RINOs are currently safe to enter Missouri without being executed. But a growing plurality is emerging that wants the FBI and Department of Justice dismantled because it creates of a counterweight to a President (or former President) doing whatever he wants without oversight.

In the 2016 Republican Convention, the Donald Trump’s ally Roger Stone threatened to reveal the hotel rooms of any delegate who didn’t vote the right way if Trump didn’t win the nomination on the first ballot. You can say “they should be willing to stand behind their vote,” but you’re really saying you’re okay with someone beating them or killing them. There’s no other reason to make such a threat.

Kelly himself has tweeted that he wants to limit voting to people who’ll probably give him the outcome he wants. The capitalization of BLOOD might not be a call to violence should his dream come to pass.

https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1562118451862405122?s=20&t=RJOEN2_mhX9ee1LmrSqfcw

Cheering for a dictator to take over isn’t an American value. Using gender reassignment as a catalyst to shred the Constitution isn’t an American value. Eliminating freedom to fight communism might be ironic, but it’s not an American value.

Jesse Kelly seems to be laying his cards on the table. Does he oppose sex reassignment? Yes. But is this a convenient hook to hang his totalitarian hat on? Only he can answer that.

It might be Trump. It might be DeSantis. But Kelly and people like him are itching for someone to take over the country, purge the Constitution, and murder their political opponents.

And he’s not bothering to hide it.

Why the French Laundry still matters

While the rest of the world is fighting over classified documents, Gavin Newsom is running for President. While he can’t run overtly, he’s establishing himself as plan B in case Joe Biden (too old and far too conservative to many Democrats) doesn’t run.

According to a US Berkeley Poll released earlier this month, the majority of Californians don’t want Biden to run for re-election. Newsom leads both Vice President Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders (somehow not too old) as first or second choice to replace Biden, 25%-18% each. Sanders and Harris are established. Newsom is new and still has the chance to increase his market share–and he’s working hard to do it.

Should he become the anti-Trump standard bearer, Newsom will have to called to task–again–about his Covid-era meal at the French Laundry. His allies will just as quickly dismiss it by equating it to the “but the emails” and “Obama wore a brown suit” scandals.

In November 2020, as health officials were advising us all to cancel the holidays, Newsom had a meal with lobbyists at the French Laundry, one of the most expensive restaurants in California wine country.

At the time, California rules prohibited gatherings of more than three households. While the rules were vague about outdoor gatherings, Newsom’s group was loud enough that restaurant staff closed the glass sliders. Indoor gatherings were clearly prohibited. Newsom admitted he was wrong, only after initially saying it was just a birthday party.

The French Laundry offers “tasting menus” that started at around $350 per person in 2020. About six months after Gretchen Whitmer allowed Walmart shoppers to buy liquor and lottery tickets–but not garden seeds–the Gavinator was yukking it up at a restaurant where a meal cost more than many families’ weekly food budget.

If (when) Newsom runs, his allies will try to dismiss the French Laundry as a meaningless, divisive attack from an intellectually and morally bankrupt movement led by Donald Trump.

Though it’ll be delivered with all the carefully tailored beauty of one of Newsom’s faux casual weekend outfits, that dismissal will be just as divisive as anything Donald Trump can say. It dismisses all his critics as idiots and their concerns as stupid.

Newsom’s trip to the French Laundry encapsulates everything the barely human clods in flyover country distrust about coastal liberal elites: you’re gonna raise my taxes and lecture me about sacrifice while you and your friends live high on the hog.

It’s a legitimate complaint. Most meat-and-potatoes voters probably prefer a guy who eats hamberders from McDonalds to the guy who dines on stuff they can’t pronounce and lectures them to stay home. They prefer ketchup running down the wall to caviar.

Donald Trump thrives in part because he sells people on the prospect that the left hates them and will use them as a checkbook to fund the reshaping of the country to exclude them.

By dismissing stuff like the French Laundry, Democrats pump oxygen and credibility into his message.

Kari Lake’s endorsement of an OK state senate candidate hammers home her true colors

If a serious political candidate said, “I love Jews because Christ told me to, not because they deserve it,” you’d think that candidate would be committing political suicide.

Not only is Republican Oklahoma Senate Candidate not considered political toxic waste, he’s garnered the endorsement of a rising Trump-supporting political star, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Lake has endorsed Jackson, calling him “an America First patriot” who “does so much to advance our America First movement.”

She says that “RINOs & the Soros media attack him relentlessly because he’s over the target.” If the target is Auschwitz, she’s probably right.

Jackson has also said being gay is disgusting and the LGBTQ lifestyle is a gateway to pedophilia, among other things.

Kari Lake isn’t running for office in Oklahoma. It’s more than 800 miles from Phoenix to Oklahoma City. She literally has to go out of her way to endorse a man who says these things.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti made a minor wave in the run-up to 2020 by spending time in Iowa. Ht was at least elected to an office before he tried to create a national platform. If I lived in Arizona, I’d have to wonder about a candidate who was spending time on Oklahoma state elections at a time when she should concentrate on problems at home.

Lake isn’t endorsing just anyone. Trump supporters bristle against accusation of racism and intolerance. The former President has strongly endorsed Lake–and why not, when she echoes accusations of stolen elections? These accusations were shot down in a plethora of court challenges and even a Trump-friendly “audit” in Arizona–Lake’s own state.

Trump said nothing about Lake’s endorsement of Jarrin Jackson, so it’s fair to assume he’s okay with it. When you support guys like him, it’s hard to say accusations of bigotry are unfair.

We’re not talking about someone who wants to protect America from cancel culture. We’re talking about a guy who brags about barely tolerates an entire people based solely on their religion and heritage–only because Jesus said to. A guy who repeats decades-old slurs about gays being pedofiles in disguise. He’s saying those things about your gay friends and family members.

When a political candidate wraps himself in Jesus and uses his faith as a bludgeon against groups he considers unworthy of receiving common decency, that candidate’s stances should be drawing condemnations, not endorsements.

If there were no other reason to nip Kari Lake’s political career in the bud, this would be enough.