A funk is a funk, even if others have it worse

I recognize that I have no standing to bitch about things.

The hurricane missed us. My job was okay with the little bit of work I missed during the prep and the aftermath. Other than a bit of a fibro hangover and achiness, I’m fine. My wife is fine. The cat’s fine. Both our kids are out of state, so they’re fine.

Just down the coast, a lot of people aren’t fine. Their lives have come apart. Some have lost their material belongings. Some have lost loved ones. And even if that hadn’t happened, within ten miles of me, there’s someone who will die a painful death today. That’s how life works.

In spite of all of that, I’m in a bit of a funk. I’m tired. My brain feels fried. Stuff hurts. My attitude is probably two-thirds of the way to sucking.

That’s also the way life works. If there were no valleys, there would be no mountains.

It would be easy to look at my relatively cushy existence right now, compare it to others, and say I’m self-absorbed and narcissistic. Maybe I am.

But that’s reality for the moment.

If you start the day chest-deep in a swamp, you can condemn yourself for getting there, but you’re still chest-deep in a swamp. Other people may be locked in a freezer, but you’re still chest-deep in a swamp, regardless of how you got there.

The only way to get out of the swamp is to realize you’re there in first place. Then you can do what it takes to work yourself out of the swamp. You might be sore and dirty when you’re done, but you won’t be in the swamp any more. Then maybe you can turn your attention to the person locked in the freezer.

No matter what condition you’re in, there’s always someone who has it worse. That doesn’t mean your situation is trivial or fake. It just means other people might be stuck deeper in the swamp.

The best thing is to recognize it, accommodate it in your approach to things, and start digging yourself out.

To do your best to go forward and, if you can’t get out of the swamp, to find someone with a map who can help you.

Answers to common hurricane questions

I wrote this Wednesday night, when it was clear Ian would spare Tampa Bay most of its wrath, but still unclear if we’d lose power or take minor damage. We didn’t lose power and it seems like nothing major broke for us. As with all hurricanes, that’s not true of everyone, especially people to our south.

As I write this, in the 24 years we’ve lived in Florida, we’ve never experienced an actual hurricane. We’ve gone through tropical storms and had some mighty close calls (including this week). In fact, no one who’s lived in Tampa has experienced a hurricane in 100 years.

But having gone through some close calls and visited places that were hit, I know some stuff you might find interesting. So here’s a short Q&A to provide some information to those who don’t live in Satan’s Armpit USA.

Why did you stay through the storm?

Leaving is always an option, but it’s not always the best option. Our house was built to Dade County protocols–the building codes put in place after Hurricane Andrew. It’s designed to maintain integrity up to 140 miles an hour, about halfway up the category four scale. It would take a hurricane of historic strength to make our house a bad place to be.

In terms of storm surge, we’re a long ways inland. While the storm surge predicted for Ian would swamp a lot of downtown Tampa, it wouldn’t get close to us.

For most storms, we’re in the best place we could be.

Except maybe Orlando, or Georgia. Or really anywhere else.

Ian’s a great example of the folly of running to another spot in Florida. If it had hit Tampa Bay, Orlando would’ve been affected, but not heavily. But the change in track means Orlando got hit harder than Tampa. When Ivan hit in 2004, it was supposed to hit us. A neighbor sent their daughter to the grandparents’ place in Orlando–then Ivan went there. A minor change in track can put anywhere in Florida in danger.

But Georgia…

Ian first looked dangerous on Friday. By Saturday afternoon, some stations were out of gas. That number increased as the storm got closer. Most people have to work and have other responsibilities that prevent them from leaving several days ahead of time. It’s also not cheap to go live in a motel for the better part of a week.

By the time it becomes obvious you should go, gas and crowded highways are a problem. When Irma hit in 2017, a co-worker tried to leave, but reached the point of no return and couldn’t find gas. She had to come back. There’s only one way out of Florida–north. There are three major corridors north (I-95, I-75, and US 19) and millions of people itching to go. That equals traffic jams. No one wants to ride out a hurricane stuck in their car.

Even if you get to Georgia, there are only so many motel rooms.

Sometimes the best spot is home.

But I saw Tampa had mandatory evacuations…

If you live near the coast in Tampa, you might be in a letter-coded evacuation zone. Zone A is the most vulnerable, with problems from storm surges up to 11 feet. Zone E has issues with storm surges up to 38 feet (one more than Fenway Park’s Green Monster). Even a surge that high wouldn’t cause problems for most of Hillsborough County (where Tampa is). We live in Pasco County, just north of Hillsborough and not near an evacuation zone. Hillsborough County’s evacuation zone map is available here.

Why do you keep your car outside and put your patio furniture and stuff in the garage?

Wind won’t turn my car into a missile. Before we even had tropical storm force winds yesterday, someone had already lost their trampoline.

Why not just tape the windows?

Tape won’t help your window stand up to strong winds. It will be a mess to clean off the window afterward. Custom window covers are best, followed by plywood, but that requires you to drive nails into stucco walls.

Is it just the wind and storm surge?

That’s what you’ll see in the headlines, but a category 1 storm with minimal storm surge can cause a lot of damage if it moves slowly or stalls. Aside from the strength of Ian, some of the models early in the week had it effectively stalling out over the Tampa Bay area for a day and a half or so.

Even a tropical storm is a big deal. Is that correct?

It can be. A tropical storm has sustained winds between 39 and 74 miles an hour, enough to make you want to stay inside and cause power outages. But it’s not likely to cause large-scale wind damage, especially if you protect your windows. Though tropical storms can drop any amount of rain, though, so flooding is a possibility.

So the whole state gets whacked, right?

It depends on the size and path of the storm. For Charley in 2004, the bad damage was relatively narrow. As you drove into Arcadia, which was devastated by the storm, the band of significant damage was about five miles wide. Bigger storms have more damage, but you generally need a pretty direct hit for significant storm damage.

Though Irma went up the west coast of Florida, it was an enormous storm and caused damage on the east coast as well. In fact, parts of the east coast got more damage the parts of the Tampa Bay area.

At least the weather gets better pretty quickly after a storm.

Sure, on television.

After Irma, it was pretty pleasant outside for a couple days. After Charley, it was miserable. The weather usually doesn’t break in Florida (at least in the Tampa area) until mid-to-late October. Odds are good you won’t have tons of rain right after, but it will probably be uncomfortably hot and humid.

Was Jim Cantore nearby?

In case you don’t know, Jim Cantore is the stunt reporter for The Weather Channel. They send him to the places that are supposed to get hit hardest by hurricanes. He was in Clearwater Beach this week, probably enjoying Frenchy’s. He didn’t bring doom to the area. This time.

Why do you live there?

Because that’s where our jobs are. Tampa hasn’t had a major hurricane in a century. Even Andrew didn’t devastate all of the Miami area. Homestead got hammered, though. And many people decided to leave after the storm. If we went through something similar, we’d consider it, too. But everyplace has some sort of severe weather, from hurricanes, to earthquakes, to tornados, to very bad winter storms. The odds of an specific place getting hit are very slim.

As mentioned above, I’ve never actually been through a hurricane. Some of my answers may change if we ever do go through one.

New Idaho law could make providing basic birth control a felony. Because freedom.

Less than a month ago, around September 11, social media was awash with people pining for unity, looking for that time when we put aside our differences and rallied together after intolerant religious fanatics tried to bring this country to its knees. Rosie O’Donnell even found it in her heart to say vaguely nice things about George W. Bush.

Three weeks later, we’ve gone on with life, returning to our tribes. And we’ve continued down the same road as the religious fanatics that attacked us–the ones who hated us for our freedoms.

At the University of Idaho, staff have been warned they could be fired and charged with a felony for the crime of helping the “prevention of conception,” according to a Vice article. It’s all part of Idaho’s sparkling new anti-abortion law. A memo sent to University employees said that in light of the felony nature of supposed crimes, the university is “advising a conservative approach here, that the university not provide standard birth control itself.”

University staff may, however, “provide condoms for the purpose of helping prevent the spread of STDs and not for purposes of birth control.” Ironically, gay students can get condoms with no problem. Straight students have to indicate they’ don’t care about contraception but a’re worried about getting the clap, but would presumably be open to baby-making.

The memo also says that “faculty or others in charge of classroom topics and discussion must themselves remain neutral on the topic and cannot conduct of engage in discussions in violations of these prohibitions without risking prosecution.”

It might seem like hyperbole to compare these limits to the culture in which women must remain covered, cannot drive, and cannot vote. If I told you a few years ago that providing basic birth control on a college campus could be a felony, that would seem like hyperbole, too.

No public interest is served by charging people with felonies and preventing all future state employment (another provision in the law) for providing birth control for college students.

It’s anti-freedom to insert the state in a room where heterosexual college students are gettin’ busy. It’s also stupid. A special kind of blindness is required to try to prevent abortion by eliminating access to birth control.

Any classical conservative–the kind that believes government offers too many solutions in search of a problem–would oppose these authoritarian measures.

But the guys who flew airplanes into buildings a generation ago would be willing to die for them.

When a big-ass storm puts things in perspective

Note: I wrote this Monday for publication yesterday, but then the day got away from me and I never published it. It looks like we dodged a bullet again. But when a major hurricane goes into the Gulf of Mexico, someone won’t dodge the bullet.

We moved to Florida just six years after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida. In that time, I got to speak with a few people unlucky enough to be stuck in the storm and lucky enough to survive it.

They were marked by the experience, the same way my grandmother was marked by the Depression. When they spoke of the storm, they changed. Their facial expression changed. Their tone changed. They way they held themselves changed.

There was almost a reverence for the storm and their experience.

As of today, I have no frame of reference for such an experience. Almost none of us have.

We’ve come close. Hurricane Charley in 2004 looked like it was drawing a bead on Tampa Bay until it swerved at the last minute. Ivan veered west later that year. As a major metropolitan area on the Gulf Coast, Tampa Bay has been blessed, avoiding doomsday for a century.

There’s nothing like a looming natural disaster to put things in perspective. Whatever problems we have now are nothing compared to what could happen if Ian stalls just west of Tampa, as it’s currently slated to do.

I’m a digital host at our church’s online experience. In the chat during Sunday service, one of the posters said it annoyed them when people said there’s nothing to be done, so we might as well pray. The upshot was that prayer should be first, not a last resort. There’s validity to that statement, but it’s not an axiom.

I don’t need to pray about what to have for lunch. I don’t need to pray when I’m figuring out something hard at work or figuring out a hard word in Wordle. I’ve got the tools myself for that myself. I can use the talent God gave me for that.

But when you’re facing down what could be a category-four hurricane, first, you thank him that your kids–both of whom were here two weeks ago–are both elsewhere. Then you think about how tiny you are next to a hurricane.

When the Seminole Indians faced a hurricane, they didn’t have a home built to Dade County protocols. They didn’t have eight updates a day from the National Hurricane Center. They didn’t have the ability to hop in the car and drive to Georgia if they wanted to.

They rode it out in the elements.

No matter what happens, we’re blessed, relatively speaking.

Something like this eliminates the pretense of power and importance. It reminds us of our tininess and frailty. And for those of faith, it reminds us just how much we depend on each other and on our Father.

Stay dry, everyone.

Blessings.

Kari Lake (AZ-Trump Republican) badly screws the pooch and it probably won’t matter

Not that you should expect one, but Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake owes her opponent, the God-hating Commie Katie Hobbs (D-AZ), an apology

Last week, Lake accused Hobbs of voting for a bill that would “block the Pledge of Allegiance, our national anthem, our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and even the Mayflower Compact from being taught to the next generation of Americans right here in Arizona.” Even the Mayflower Compact.

Gasp!

Except it’s not true.

According to Wes Gullett, once chief of staff for former Arizona Governor Fife Symington (a Republican), the bill Katie Hobbs supported would’ve added the phrases “Ditat Deus” (God enriches) and “In God We Trust” to the things kids could be taught in schools. These seem like things Kari Lake would support.

You’d expect someone who wants to be governor of one of our fifty states (there are fifty, Kari) to know how to read a bill. Or a briefing about a bill. Or, considering Lake used to be the anchor on the Phoenix FOX affiliate (KSAZ), how to read a news story about a bill.

As of my writing this Ms. Lake’s personal and campaign Twitter accounts haven’t said anything about their erroneous charge. That means either they don’t see an issue with it and they’re hoping the lie sticks, they’re too embarrassed to say anything, or they simply don’t care.

No matter how this plays out, unless you’re blinded by TDS (truth derangement syndrome, where your hatred of actual facts is so extreme it makes you nuts), Kari Lake is an unworthy candidate to run an entire state. She either lied about this story or was too incompetent to understand what the bill was really about. Either way, you can’t put her in charge of an entire state’s apparatus, including the oversight of its elections.

Unfortunately, it’s not likely to matter for her supporters. Her main qualifications are that she supports Trump and hates liberals. Those cover a multitude of sins.

The politics is important because it’s what lets us focus on more important things

As I write this, I ran a 5K with a friend this morning. After, there was beer. It was a lovely day to spend a Saturday morning. And, as a bonus, the finish medal–yes, there were participation trophies–included a bottle opener.

Remember in 2019, when we thought everything was turning to crap, then 2020 came and it really turned to crap?

As I write this, we’re in the path of a potential category-three hurricane. It’s entirely possible that next week at this time, I’ll figure that while Covid, inflation, political unrest, and the continued run of the Magnum reboot were signs the world had turned to crap, the hurricane was when they really turned to crap.

Dun-dun-DUNNNNNN!!!!!

It’s all relative. Today’s crap is tomorrow’s “good old days.”

Which takes me back to the 5K. I was a little nervous as this run approached. I hadn’t been running regularly until the past couple of weeks. The Covid took a long time to recover from and I’m still more subject to fatigue than I was BC (before Covid). I haven’t even been running regularly until the past two weeks.

But the point of this morning’s run wasn’t to set a personal record or lay a stripe fire behind me like the Roadrunner. It was to have a run with a friend. And we did. It was awesome.

The other things–Trump and politics and the economy–are important like your job is important. They’re necessary to get you to the point where you can do things like run a 5K with a friend. They’re a means to an end, an important one.

But they aren’t the end.

Most people just want to get to the end of the day with a little left over. Most wouldn’t mind if their neighbors could do the same thing. We just disagree on how to make that happen.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who derive power and wealth from making us believe that if they get to the day with a little left over, it means we won’t be able to. That they sell us this load of crap is on them; that we’re so eager to buy it is on us.

Almost no one wants your stuff. They don’t want your kid to be shot by a nervous or racist cop for driving while black. They don’t want to displace your from your home. Sure, some people do, but they’re the exception.

Most people just want to run a 5K if they choose, or have a nice meal out sometimes, or get to the end of the day with the kids’ stomachs full and them asleep oblivious to the world.

All of these things are appropriate, realistic goals. We should not be afraid that others have them.

More to the point, we should reject anyone who tries to make us afraid that the other is hellbent on taking that away from us.

Gascon benches critic assistant DAs, ignores public safety–but, he’s progressive so that’s…something

John McKinney is responsible for the conviction of Eric Holder (not that one) for the murder of rapper Nipsey Hussle. Holder killed Hussle in 2019 after being called a snitch. Hussle was well-known in his Crenshaw (Los Angeles) area for trying to add business and other resources to the community. Holder’s murder trial was one of the biggest in the Los Angeles area in years.

McKinney, who has worked in the Major Crimes Division, and has 24 years of experience with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s (DA’s) office, was demoted to a small office overseeing misdemeanor charges after publicly speaking out about his boss, embattled DA George Gascon.

On Gascon’s election in 2020, he immediately eliminated many sentencing enhancements, taking Assistant District Attorneys’ discretion away in these cases. Among other policy changes, he prohibited his staff from assisting victim families during parole hearings. He’s also been sued for telling prosecutors not to enforce California’s three-strikes law. A suit over enforcement of the law was recently escalated to the California Supreme Court.

Appearing on KFI’s Gary and Shannon show, McKinney said that he had to explain to the family of Brianna Kupfer that he would no longer be handling her murder case. Kupfer was a 24-year-old UCLA graduate student who was stabbed 24 times and killed when she was working alone at an LA furniture store in January. It was apparently more important to Gascon to silence his critics than to make sure Kupfer’s family had the best shot at justice.

McKinney has been a vocal Gascon critic during the recall process, going as far as saying that he would run against Gascon if the recall were successful. But he’s also a career prosecutor who’s good at his job. His reassignment, along with those of two other prosecutors who publicly opposed Gascon, weakens a DA’s office that has already been weakened by exodus since Gascon’s election.

Gascon is one of several progressive DAs that’s been elected over the past few years. Though the backlash against these DAs has cost Gascon’s successor as San Francisco DA, Chesa Boudin, his job, Gascon has survived two recalls. He’s up for re-election in 2024.

When Trump conservatives point to people like Gascon as a threat to society, they’re right. That many otherwise conservative voters consider voting for candidates who might support progressives shouldn’t be a statement against these voters. Instead, they have to choose between the Gascons of the world and people who consider January 6 something less than an insurrection and any opposition to former President Trump as something between a witch hunt and treason.

That we can’t choose something more moderate is proof positive that our electoral system is broken. Most of this country would support someone far more moderate than progressives or Trump.

Unfortunately, we don’t get those choices.

A Christian minority in this country might not be the worst thing

According to news reports this week, Christians may be a minority in this country by the year 2070. That might not be the worst thing for the love of Jesus to be best manifest in the America of the future.

It goes without saying that if Jesus is God and if he wanted to, he could’ve run everything on earth without working up a sweat. He could’ve amassed the political power required to force compliance. If he really wanted to avoid his death, he could’ve done anything from walking through the people aligned to kill him to calling down power from above, an almighty smiting to those who would kill him.

Instead, he chose to walk the relatively small part of the world he could get to, wearing uncomfortable shoes and not using his Godly powers to provide wealth for himself or his followers. He tried to convince in order to convert.

If his followers had seen political power by assembling around Jesus, they’d have flocked to that power, not to him. It’s true in personal life and political life. If you have power already, why do you need Jesus? You can do what you need to do without him. More to the point, you can do what you want to do without him. There’s no mitigating factor to keep you humble because you don’t need that humility.

In a perfect world, Christianity would be a force for righteousness–a movement that brings people to God through their actions, not through raw political power. We wouldn’t need Christians in power because we’d live out the Christian ideal.

This isn’t that world. Power begets power. Soon, instead of following Jesus, you’re leading the charge to enact what you think his will should be.

Relative powerlessness combined with wisdom breeds humility. Humility is the best way to encounter Jesus. A humble person realizes they aren’t completely put together and need help. They’re thrilled to receive it. And they look at other people who might be in similar straights and remember being in that position.

Salvation isn’t earned in Christianity. It’s a gift, freely given. We don’t deserve it. We aren’t somehow special or better than them, whoever they happen to be.

We’re just the ones who accepted the gift.

Accepting a gift should be cause for gratitude and humility, not chest-thumping.

So maybe it’s not the worst thing that we’re on the way to minority status. Maybe it’ll help us remember who we are and just how blessed his love makes us.

Jesus didn’t grab anyone by the scruff. He set his message out there for people to hear and let them decide.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we did likewise.

What is there are other ways to God?

Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father, except through me.

So, if you’re a Jew or Muslim or one of those weirdo Eastern religions, I guess you’re screwed. God loves Jesus and we should all be Christians because He said so, right? It’s right in the Bible and it can’t be any clearer. Believers are in; everyone else is damned. Right?

Right?!?!

It’s possible what I’m about to write will doom me to eternity in desperate want of an air conditioner. But I don’t believe in a God who would send you to a lake of fire that burns but never consumes if you were to live as a conscientious Jew who took God’s command to love Him and your neighbor, but didn’t feel that God called you to worship Jesus.

I don’t believe a righteous Muslim who exemplifies Islam as the religion of peace is doomed to die because Jesus the Savior is not a major part of their culture. I don’t believe that someone who got crapped on in the name of Jesus and kicked Christianity to the curb, while unknowingly honoring its precepts is headed for hell.

So I guess here’s the apostasy: I don’t believe Jesus is an absolute requirement for everyone to go to Heaven.

The Bible says we can’t understand God’s ways–His ways are different than ours. The totality of God is incomprehensible; we’re as incapable of understanding God as a two-year-old is of understanding nuclear physics.

If God is that much bigger than I can understand, how can I insist that He can’t manifest Himself differently to different cultures?

A truly loving God–the God modeled by the prodigal sons’ father–would do everything possible to give His children the change to come home to Him. As someone who currently has no children living in the same state as me, there’s something very special and important about children coming home. If they want to be there, I’ll welcome them.

I’m hard-pressed to believe in a God who loves us enough to come to earth and die at our hands to show that love, but damns us for earnestly approaching Him in a single arbitrary way.

If God is love, not welcoming people who want to come home doesn’t make sense.

Maury Wills and the death of heroes

During most of Maury Wills’ first tenure with the Dodgers, the team was the opposite of what it had been in Brooklyn. Outside Wills’ speed, the lineup was almost bereft of offensive firepower, looking instead to capitalize on pitching, defense, and speed.

In the 1980s, when my love of baseball was cemented, Wills’ type of baseball was exemplified by the the hated St. Louis Cardinals–a bunch of little fleas who nipped at you until you were bloody. Instead of hitting the crap out of the ball, they beat it into the Astroturf-covered concrete that made up their home ballpark, Busch Stadium, and beat the ball to first.

That the Mets were constantly battling the Cardinals through most of the 80s made the waterbug style of baseball event more repugnant. While the constant obsession with launch angle and exit velocity seems like analytics gone insane, I don’t understand supposed purists who pine for the time when 30 home runs might lead the league.

I’d have been a Dodgers fan in the 50s. Not so much in the 60s.

Maury Wills died this week at the age of 89. He was the National League Most Valuable Player in 1962 when he stole a then-record 104 bases in a year. He was a seven-time All-Star who finished in the top ten in MVP voting five times, including as a 38-year-old in 1971. Even with advancements in fitness and sports medicine, placing in MVP voting at that age is noteworthy.

Later in life, he battled and overcome alcoholism with the help of former Dodgers teammate Don Newcombe. He said Newcombe “was a channel for God’s love for me because he chased me all over Los Angeles trying to help me and I just couldn’t understand that. But he persevered, he wouldn’t give in and my life is wonderful today because of Don Newcombe.”

Current manager Dave Roberts considers Wills a mentor, someone who guided his career. It’s not coincidental that Roberts’ uniform number 30 is the same worn by Wills as a Dodger.

Wills’ son Bump was a Sports Illustrated featured phenom in 1977 and played six seasons with the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox. Later in life, Wills managed the Seattle Mariners to a 26-56 record in 1980 and the beginning of 1981.

He brought life to the game and made it exciting for a lot of people. His death has added another to the list of notable Dodgers who have died recently, including Wills, Tommy Lasorda, Newcombe, and Vin Scully.

His passing has created a void in those who watched him play all those years ago–and just a heartbeat ago. It marks part of the march toward finality we all face eventually. For me, it started when I realized several years ago that Carl Yastrzemski was 70 years old. It’s accelerated as the heroes of my youth start to age and pass away.

The Jets of the New York Sack Exchange, a fun team to watch and cheer for, had their great seasons 40 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. The difference between now and then is the same difference as between then and the first days of World War II.

Within the past couple years, Tom Seaver, Vin Scully, Eddie Van Halen and others, all part of the tapestry of my younger days, have passed. That process will only accelerate as time goes on.

Time does that to you. You see it as people grow around you grow through life and die.

I never saw Wills play. And my hatred for his style of baseball is baseball hate–a thin wrapping of disdain hiding respect for someone who can change the games he plays in and the way they play the game that employs him.

It’s inevitable that heroes die, but it’s a blessing that we get to experience what made them heroes. If we stick around and do our best, we might create a little hero worship ourselves.