Not Just Paradise Lost

A Facebook friend in the hills northeast of Sacramento said she has been through two bouts of PG&E power outages. She and her husband had moved to this state from the East for her health and his job opportunity. She woke up one morning this week with no heat and temperatures in the 30s. Another of her friends suggested she pack it in and move to Florida. She responded that it sounded like a good idea.

Florida, of course, has its own set of issues. But we Californians may have some decisions to make. Do we want to live in a state where every fall there are multiple fires, blackouts and precautionary evacuations? Are the home prices, rents,  and taxes worth it?

I have a couple of other friends who have recently pulled the plug. One who had a mortgage on a modest home here sold it for a profit and now lives in a four-bedroom house he owns free-and-clear on an acre of Tennessee land. He is surrounded by great natural beauty, has courteous neighbors, and the traffic is light. There is snow, but usually not too much. It gets cold enough for reminders that there are seasons. No earthquakes and no direct hits from hurricanes, and it is not really tornado country like the Midwest. Yes, bugs and humidity are issues, but the trade-off seems worth it, at least for him.

Look, I’m not going anywhere and am not suggesting anyone else do so. That said, while these power outages may save lives, if they continue at this pace, I’m sure more than one resident will be doing the calculations to see if it really pencils out to stay here. And those considering moving here from elsewhere might think twice about it.

If  that happens, the good news is, the crowds will thin out and housing prices and rents may become semi-reasonable again. That’s bad news for property owners, who will likely see values fall. The best news, of course,  is for those selling solar systems and generators.

It’s cathartic to rail against the big utilities whose lack of foresight has helped put us in this position, but woulda, coulda, and shoulda accomplish nothing. I am confident, though, that better safety tools than these clumsy mass outages may be found, or at least the power companies will come up with more efficient ways to carry them out, simply because they have to.

How long will some Californians wait around for those changes? The grass may seem a lot greener elsewhere right now. And this time of year, it’s probably wetter.

Halloween Hazards

I always thought Halloween was fun, but these days, I can see where it might be a little dangerous. I’m not talking about tainted candy, but PC. You might have to think about that before choosing a costume.

The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, felt compelled recently to apologize for putting on blackface, or in this case,  brownface, to portray Aladdin at an Arabian Nights party at a school where he taught years ago. I would like to be able to say that I’m horrified, but I’m just not that woke yet. Give me a minute to rub my eyes.

The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam,  got in trouble for allegedly dressing and going blackface as Michael Jackson for a party when he was in medical school. Blackface has a sorry history in this country, as we all know. But in Northam’s case, he was doing Michael Jackson, so you would think blackface would be part of the costume, for a person of another color, at least.

This all reminds me of one of my favorite old movies, Khartoum. Why it’s a favorite, I don’t understand, but it came out in the mid-1960s, and was about the  British general Charles George “Chinese” Gordon, enlisted in the 1880s to lead an army against the Mahdi, who, along with his Islamic followers, laid siege to the Sudanese city. It made me laugh, because they cast the American actor Charlton Heston as the British general, so he had to adopt an accent, with mixed results. But then, Laurence Olivier, who really was British, was cast as the Mahdi. They made his face sort of burnt sienna so he could look more Arab, and he had to use a strange accent too. How did that happen? Maybe Omar Sharif was busy at the time. Hollywood has pretty much mended its ways these days , favoring authenticity in the use of actors of appropriate races, ethnicities, and even genders.

To get back to the point, though, I’ve tried to tell myself that old portrayals by sitting politicians might be OK, because they didn’t seem to involve mockery with malicious intent and they were about specific characters -- but I guess that doesn’t work. It’s a shame, though, that pictures from private parties years ago are producing a whole new set of folks taking offense. In my case, I tend to judge politicians more on their response after the revelation than on the original deed.

OK. So what will I wear for Halloween?  I was thinking of an orange wig. But hey, I never won any prizes for original ideas. Just make sure I get some candy if I knock on your door.

What Iffing

I’m struggling with an addiction. It’s a habit of thought, and I have a feeling I’m not alone -- running election scenarios. A distraction, when I could be directing my mind toward more useful pursuits. I’m a binge-speculator.

Not very long ago, impeaching this President was considered a waste of time, no matter the moral compulsions of some liberals, because the Senate would never vote to remove him, and the 2020 election was too close. But how things can turn on a dime these days! Maybe the new questionis, will Donald Trump finish his first term?

OK, here I go. Let’s just say that the President is impeached and removed. Then what happens? He might say, civil war. But more likely, we would have President Pence, at least until Inauguration Day 2021.

What night that be like? My own feeling is that if Mr. Pence just kept a chair warm in the Oval Office until then, he might do less damage than the current occupant. And what might happen to Mr. Trump after removal? Pence could pardon him of likely federal criminal charges, but he’d still have to face the music in the state of New York.

How might the stock market respond to all this? Would it tank, or shoot up a thousand points? Place your bets!

It seems Pence would stand little chance of being elected to a full term. In fact, he might not even be nominated, and let’s just say what I’ll call a more credible Republican gets the nod.

Then the Democrats pick Elizabeth Warren. You might have thought the Republican Party as a brand was doomed – but if voters had to choose between a credible Republican and an edgy liberal, what would happen? Not as easy a call, but perhaps more interesting.

Now, let’s just go wild and say that somehow BOTH Trump and Pence were removed from office (cut me a little slack here, just throwing some spaghetti against the wall, OK?). Then there would be President Nancy Pelosi. You may say, well, “they” hated Hillary, but the prospect of a President Pelosi might also be too far a bridge for some.

You see what an addicting game all this is! Beats fantasy football. In the end, though, he only sensible thing we can do is make sure our seat belts are tight, as we will be flying through turbulence for quite a while.

I don’t know about you, but I’m almost looking forward to the day when the news starts to get a little boring again, the way it used to be.

The Right Target

The once-golden state of California has a giant black eye right now. The seasonal winds and low humidity have elevated the fire danger to the point where drastic preventive measures seem necessary to protect lives and property, like PG&E’s massive Northern California power shut-off. It was a mess.

At its San Francisco headquarters, the utility put up barricades around the building to shield its corporate personnel from angry customers. But that didn’t protect company field workers. In one case, a PG&E truck driver was shot at – fortunately, not hurt.

Not only was that expression of anger inappropriate; the PG&E line personnel shouldn’t be the ones targeted. But the utility’s spotty track record has exposed the company to crippling legal liability.

We did not lose power at our house, but we were expecting an extreme wind event, which didn’t live up to its billing in all areas. PG&E’s customer communication system generally failed, and even the shut-off itself was haphazard, as was the restoration of power. PG&E tried to comfort us all by talking about the disaster that didn’t happen - a hard sell to those with refrigerators full of spoiled food.

It’s fashionable to hate PG&E and to rail against the investor-owned-utility model for its apparent focus on profits over forward-thinking. But does that mean a government-run operation would necessarily be better? You can blame PG&E for not maintaining every single inch of power line through every rural acre of an enormous part of this state. You might also blame the local governments that allowed people to build  in certain areas, and those who chose to live there.

The blame game, though, has done nothing but divide us into victims and perpetrators, or plaintiffs and defendants. But where do we go from here? If there’s a bright side, the shutoff was good disaster training, and could spur the drive toward a sustainable electric power system to face climate change.

Microgrids are one potential solution, but progress can start at the individual homeowner level right now. If you can afford it, don’t just put solar panels on the roof. Pay the extra money and have your solar installer connect them to a battery storage system that can power the house whenever commercial electricity is cut. Batteries will only get better with time, and someday, homes may be self-sufficient, power-wise.

We can either submit to a depressing “new normal,” or we can start to shape it. We may have to be dragged into the latter kicking and screaming, but we will get there.

Clearing the Air

In at least one respect, the Ukraine flap has put former Vice President Joe Biden in a pretty good position politically: he gets to play the “victim” in an effort by the President to sully his name in connection with the business Biden and his son Hunter had in that country, including Hunter Biden’s taking a board position in a gas company that was reportedly paying him $50,000 a month. On the campaign trail, his dad hasn’t had too much to say about it, but when he is questioned, he gets a little testy and throws the “corruption” label back on Mr. Trump. But that has its limits, even though it’s generally accepted that the Bidens have done nothing wrong.

Personally, I think it would be tactically useful, and refreshing, for Joe Biden – maybe even both Bidens - to call a nationally televised news conference, telling reporters, “OK, I’m here for an hour. Ask me anything you want about my involvement in Ukraine, and China too. There may be some limits on what I can say legally, but I’ll do my best.”

After this, of course, the fact-checkers would go to work, but at least the Bidens could say they welcomed questions about their activities. Then, they can move on. Joe Biden might have to respond to specific attacks from the Trump camp going forward, but at least he’d be able to say he didn’t deflect.

Some of what’s happening is just judgmental stuff, people saying, “Why does the younger Biden (who’s an attorney, by the way) get paid so much for a business in which he has no experience? He just has a famous last name!”  It’s partly the bias I call “wealthism.” People who aren’t making much money don’t usually like to see others making a lot, for what to the former looks like little effort. If some of Hunter Biden’s critics could find such a job, they would take it in a heartbeat. I would.

Shifting gears for a moment to the impeachment inquiry, I agree with some who say that the Democrats should consider more than one article of impeachment against Mr. Trump. Putting all their eggs in the Ukraine basket may fail. Certainly one might think there is plenty of other material available for additional articles.

As for those who say that impeachment is wasteful and that it will suck time and attention away from getting anything useful done in Washington for the next year, I’d say, get over it, it’s life in the big city with an election so close, and we might as well see the current melodrama play out. There will no doubt be big surprises along the way.

Pots and Kettles

I took some time to listen to the audio version of the whistleblower complaint about President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is currently fueling the rapidly advancing impeachment inquiry into the alleged pressuring of Zelensky for help to advance Mr. Trump’s re-election prospects.

The complaint is no crazy cry in the wilderness. It is a carefully structured presentation of the information gathered by this individual, who said that while he didn’t hear the phone call himself, the accounts given by those who did were consistent. There was particular concern over the use of a separate server designed for highly classified material in an apparent effort to hide what the President was doing, and that it has been used on similar occasions.

To me, it seems crystal clear that President Trump was seeking foreign dirt on the man he believes will be his Democratic opponent in the upcoming election, former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden’s son Hunter was named to the board of a gas company in Ukraine whose founder was said to be a less-than-savory oligarch. Joe Biden, meanwhile,  actively sought the removal of a controversial Ukranian prosecutor. Defenders of the Bidens say they did nothing illegal there, though one wonders how the younger Biden got his job with limited knowledge of either Ukraine or the local gas business. A recent piece in The Atlantic on all this reminds us that it’s not new, or against the law, for those with a famous last name or a high connection to trade on that relationship. But there may be something of an optics problem now for the Bidens here.

That said, Joe Biden is not yet a presidential nominee. Will the party choose someone else with less baggage, or did President Trump simply make Biden a victim?

As for impeachment, what’s going on reminds me of the old days, when I had a refrigerator that didn’t automatically defrost. I had to heat up a pot of boiling water and put it in the freezer to thaw out the ice. I kept opening the freeze door to see if it was working, but that only slowed things down, and it took a long time for progress to be visible. After the first crack appeared, though, the ice melted quickly.

Angry Democrats would do well to be patient, taking their cue from that careful and methodical whistleblower in crafting an effective impeachment case. They may only have one chance before the election to get it right.

Beyond Sharpie

Hurricane Dorian has come and gone, but has also left lessons behind. The most obvious one is about climate change, suggesting that it is to blame for the increasing potency of such storms. But there’s another one. Computers are great forecasting tools, but just because we see a path on a map doesn’t mean a storm is going to follow it.

The President soooo wanted that Sharpie-assisted cone on his  map to include Alabama so that he could be right. But as we look now at the path Dorian actually followed, being right was not easy.

Dorian started in the eastern Caribbean as a tropical storm and originally wasn’t supposed to amount to much, as I recall. Then it grew and threatened Puerto Rico, but struck only a glancing blow, compared to what was to come. It continued to grow and seemed to be heading straight for a major impact on Florida, on the way inflicting Biblical-level damage on two Bahamian islands. There, it put on the brakes, changed direction enough to curve away from Florida, then headed up the Southeast coast, following its curvature with unusual precision, close enough to mess up one coastal city after another, only making landfall on the extreme eastern end of North Carolina, But it wasn’t done yet as it raced northeast. Even Atlantic Canada, was hit with Category 2 winds.

If we like, we can fault the weather scientists for not doing a better job with all their spaghetti-line projections. But those same scientists are the first to remind us that while forecasting has made tremendous strides over the years through satellite and computer technology, it’s far from perfect. They do get the path right most of the time, but then there’s a Dorian. Maybe it’s God trying to remind us who’s in charge.

Many years ago I was an intern at a major-market television station that included a weather segment in its evening news. No fancy graphics then: the TV weatherman drew lines on a regional map with a black Magic Marker (Sharpies had not been invented yet). During the 6 o’clock news, the weather guy would draw a big circle around our city, saying “Let’s get oriented,” then did his forecast.

After the show, he went out  to dinner, a meal at which he was known to consume more than a few adult beverages. But he still had an 11 p.m. show to do. When the time came, he again said, “Let’s get oriented,” and drew on the map. By then, it was not always a circle, and not always around our city. We were lucky if he was even in the ballpark. So let’s cut our current weather folks a little slack. We have indeed come a long way, baby.

It's Stability, Stupid

I’m sorry I never took up day-trading on the stock market. It looks like Vegas to me, or playing the horses, and I don’t have the emotional constitution for it. Even so, with all the twists and turns of this administration’s financial and trade policies, often communicated by tweet, the market has spent long periods in wild swings up and down, and it’s via these changes that sharp traders can really make money.

For most investors, though, it makes for a queasy stomach. They have enjoyed a decade of watching their 401(k)s and similar instruments grow, not without periodic setbacks, but the long-term trend has been upward. These days, however, the R word (for recession) is heard more and more frequently, and the media are trumpeting the indicators that point to it.

Clearly, bull markets don’t last forever. They really aren’t supposed to. The economy simply can’t grow at the same rate all the time. Big windfalls, a sudden killing on the market, or even the “sugar high” of tax breaks, aren’t enough to produce a real feeling of prosperity. That comes from a prolonged period of trust in the ability to weather the storms - the EGBOK thing, as the L.A. radio hosts used to say: Everything’s Gonna Be OK. That’s an elusive state of mind right now.

The President may enjoy keeping the international competition guessing. It may have worked in business for him as a negotiation tactic – though not always, apparently. But when it comes to the current trade wars and constant switching of direction, he’s playing with the house’s money - meaning ours. He seems incapable of thinking in any terms other than winning and losing.

The modern economy has enough pressures as it is. Climate change is one. Automation is another. Those are just two that are visible. The sea is rocky enough, we don’t need to be rocking the boat too.

Wars, military, economic and otherwise, are not usually the end of the story. More often, they end at negotiating tables, with the opposing parities forced by circumstances to make compromises. We eventually find we all can get along, because…well, we just have to.

It's Just Joe

This is my birth month, so the issue of how the aging are viewed hits much closer to home than it used to. Is ageism in the Presidential race a thing?

It has certainly focused attention on Joe Biden in particular, largely because of his occasional verbal stumbles and his seeming to be not quite fast enough on the draw when responding to challenges such as that presented by fellow candidate Kamala Harris in one of this summer’s debates. Some feel that these are signs that he’s a bit past it now.

Like anyone with a long track record in politics, Mr. Biden has his share of twists and turns in position to explain. If he now demonstrates a change of heart or mind, is it evolution or a flip-flop? We can only go back to that long track record for clues. As for the gaffes, they have been going on for a long time, perhaps well before anyone would link them to getting older.

Among those qualities we appreciate in a President are authenticity and the ability to absorb new information, especially from experts focused on a particular knowledge base. But we also appreciate a President who chooses words carefully, mindful of the enormous impact they have on the country’s mood and that of the rest of the world. I am not endorsing Joe Biden nor discouraging support for him here,  I’m just saying that occasional gaffes are his thing.

The media are merciless. Remember when President Ford, at a considerably younger age, said in a debate that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe? He was also famous for a physical stumble. George W. Bush was infamous for  “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!” after Hurricane Katrina, and the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the ship after the invasion of Iraq. When it comes to unfortunate utterances or phrases associated with Presidents, this list is longer than we like to think. The point is, it’s not about aging. It’s about being human, and sometimes, being just plain wrong.

At my age, I have some issues. I repeat stories I have told before. I try to tell them to new people or audiences, but am not always successful. People I have known for a while have blanket permission to cut me off if they’ve heard something already, and they do.

I’ll leave you with this little story. Some years ago, my wife and I were out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with a colleague of mine, who is white like me, but his wife is Asian. The restaurant brought us many dishes, and she graciously served us from them. She served me first, which was a surprise. “You are the wisest,” she explained, which I wanted to take as a compliment, but that’s not quite it. In her native country, the custom is that the oldest one at the table is served first. By the way, I apologize to those of you who have heard this one before. I’ll shut up now.

Cracking the Nut

No question about it. The two hardest legislative nuts that seem to defy cracking are healthcare and immigration. I want to talk about the first one today.

To start with, I do agree with those who feel that the business model of insurance is the avoidance of paying claims. But are voters ready to wipe out the private health insurance industry with Medicare for All? No, not yet.

I am old enough now to be on Medicare myself, and it is not a magic bullet that covers all medical costs. It’s just another form of insurance. Not all providers accept it, and even if they do, plain Medicare is not sufficient to pay for everything, so supplements are necessary, and there are choices to be made. Medicare itself has standard supplements available at different premium levels. Healthcare providers offer their own plans, called Medicare Advantage, which pay for more stuff but restrict the user to a particular health network, like an HMO.

Why is health insurance tied to employment? This is not exactly sacred tradition. It stems from a time during World War II when there were salary caps, and to attract workers, employers had to offer health benefits to get around them. These employer subsidies were exempted from taxes. The salary caps are long gone, but the exemption remains. To receive these benefits, however, employees generally have to be full-time workers. So yes, some people stick with jobs they hate, largely for the insurance.

I also agree with those who say that employer contributions to an employee’s health insurance premiums are income and should be taxed as such. This would help level the playing field. But there still needs to be some kind of reasonable plan available to those working in the gig economy or in between jobs. If there’s a gap to be filled by government, that  would seem to be the one.

Whatever we do, we can’t bring back the good old days when most healthcare was affordable, based on fee-for-service, and insurance was needed only for catastrophes. These days, almost any health issue can be catastrophic when it comes to cost, so insurance is a utility. Obamacare was a step in the right direction, but it hasn’t been much help with cost. Fixing this will require balancing business models with patient needs and deciding who pays for what. That’s where the policy wonks have to pick up the ball.

It may seem impossible, but as I often say, there are plenty of smart lawyers in Congress, who could figure out how to crack this nut. It may be unlikely, but I believe  it IS possible.

The "Can't Do" Attitude

I’m a little hesitant to talk about assault weapons, for fear of not saying anything new, and the arguments against gun control are all the same: You can’t ban assault weapons because there are too many of them out there. Buy-back programs don’t work, what gun owner is going to give the weapon up? You can’t write a good law because the definition of “assault weapon” will always leave something out. If you ban them, there will just be a black market, and the crooks, the crazies, and the home-grown terrorists will be able to get them anyway. You can write all the bills you want, but Mitch McConnell will just kill them in the Senate. It’s all feel-good legislation, it will accomplish little. We hear similar things when it comes to the rants of white supremacists. There’s the First Amendment, you can’t do anything about it.

I’m getting tired of hearing what can’t be done, and I would welcome feeling good about something these days. When it comes to an assault weapons ban, there are a lot of eminent attorneys in Congress, some of whom maybe went to the law schools at Harvard or Stanford or places in between. They could write legislation to cover most of these weapons and modification techniques. Didn’t we already have such a ban on the books once before? As for buy-backs, we spend hundreds of millions of military dollars on one bomber; do you think we could spare something that might save at least a few domestic lives?

As for free speech, the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law to abridge it, but there are limits. The most famous example is, you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Heck, I bet those smart lawyers could find a way to broaden the definition of both “fire” and “theater.” The Amendment does not prohibit media (conventional or social), search engines and other providers from blocking hate speech. That isn’t illegal censorship. I believe that’s called “editing.”

No law covers everything. There will always be a crazy who can get an assault weapon., just like a drunk who can get behind the wheel of a car. But is there anything we can do to make it just a little more difficult for those things to happen?

On the gun culture, there will likely come a time when guns just don’t seem as necessary. Remember when smoking used to be cool? How many decades has it taken for that to change? These days, the sheer expense caused by taxes heaped on tobacco has made it more difficult for smokers, who also have fewer and fewer places they can legally, or socially, do it.

When it comes to gun legislation, the perfect, as they say, should never be the enemy of the good, or even the pretty good. There is one greater enemy than perfection: doing nothing.

What We Need to Know

To start with, this isn’t about gun control. I want to talk about media coverage of mass shootings, and the information we need and don’t need. To their credit, the major media in general are aware of the role they play in these incidents and are trying to make adjustments.

First, there is the response right after the incident. The pressure is on to hit the air or the Internet live, with anchors at the mercy of the waves of constantly changing data coming at them. That information arrives in spurts. The anchors have little to fill the spaces in between but platitudes and speculation and, of course, social media phone videos.

It is amazing to me, when there’s a shooting and people are running for their lives, how many have enough presence of mind (or as a colleague calls it, stupidity) to record the whole thing on their phones, with jerky pictures, as they flee. What are the poor anchors to do but run them as they arrive? The trouble is, they don’t stop. The videos run for hours, even for days, in spilt-screen, even while authorities are providing real facts about what happened. Enough, already.

Then there is the issue of the shooter’s name. Some media won’t use it at all, for fear of glorifying the individual. The problem with this is, we do need to know who it is, their background, what the motive may have been, and whether they worked alone.

In this regard, I’m in favor of more information rather than less. It’s increasingly clear that while each case is individual,  most of these incidents seem to follow a pattern. Working with patterns is how weather forecasters have learned to predict storms with more and more accuracy, and provide better warning. The same is true of earthquakes. There are more sensors around, and while each quake is unique, they also tend to follow patterns, allowing the provision of even a few seconds of warning now. These principles could apply to mass shooting incidents, where the red-flagging of certain individuals might prevent tragedy.

I’m not suggesting here that the media start calling out suspicious people before they commit crimes. But digging into the motives of perpetrators when these incidents do happen results in educating the rest of us about why they get so frickin’ angry, as the Gilroy guy apparently said he was.

Each one of us is like one of those earthquake sensors. I hope we can develop some kind of reasonable red-flag laws to stop shooters before they start, but for these laws to work, we all have to know what the red flags look like in the first place, and through telling us these stories, the media can help us do that.

Defining Citizenship

The endless Twitter wars about race, ethnicity, and going back to countries of origin all take us to the following question: Who is an American?

Let me begin by saying that I am not a Birther. It’s worse than that. I’m more of an un-Birther. Does simply being born here make us American? I think the answer must be no.

The notion of birthright citizenship is a romantic one, as is the Constitutional requirement that an individual be born here to qualify to be President. But let’s be honest. Those of us who were born here had absolutely nothing to do with that process and can take no credit for it. As I have often said, it doesn’t make us better than others. We were just lucky.

I’m probably not the first to suggest this, but suppose everyone who is here, by birth or not, who intends to stay here, had to pass the same civics test that foreigners seeking legal citizenship must, followed perhaps by taking an oath? Do you think that might level the playing field a little?

Clearly, there would have to be categories, maybe a point system of sorts. If you’re born here, maybe you get the first 25 years of citizenship for free, then you have to take the test. You might get a point advantage for military service or being a Dreamer or a descendant of those who were brought here against their will. There are questions of disability and other access issues and, of course,  what happens if you repeatedly fail. But just being born here wouldn’t be quite enough. 

As for the Presidential birth requirement,  why should a foreigner, who commits him- or herself to our national values, like the rule of law, for example, or a free press, be unqualified to serve? I don’t have a problem with the current age and residency rules. But what advantage has the birth requirement brought us? I frankly think the record is a little spotty. By the way, the current citizenship oath for a foreigner requires the individual to give up allegiance to a foreign power. How are we doing with that one?

America, as we call it, is not just a place. It’s an idea. The place has been here for millions of years, but this idea has only been alive for about 250. It should require some kind of buy-in, in the form of a demonstrated rudimentary knowledge of how it works.

Yes, I subscribe to “love it or leave it,” but first we have to clearly understand what “it” is about. It is not only about being white, Christian, straight, or owning a gun. And it’s a heck of a lot more than just being another carbon footprint, taking up space.

Being There

It was July of 1969. I was living in Washington, DC, working as a management trainee at one of the city’s TV stations. My apartment was a few blocks east of DuPont Circle – not a great neighborhood in those days, but my address was 1600 Q Street NW. 1600, In Washington! Only one of the reasons I might have been a little full of myself at the time.

It was the week that climaxed with Earthlings taking their walk on the moon. Unlike the Vietnam War, ongoing racial tensions, and hippies spreading everywhere, this story would be laser-focused on a single moment: Neil Armstrong’s first step on the lunar surface. I looked forward to the first edition of the Washington Post carrying the story on the front page, and snapped one up quickly in the fear that if I didn’t, they would be gone. I was right.

When I got into work for my next shift. I noticed Deanna, an attractive young fellow trainee. She looked upset. “What’s the matter?” I asked. Deanna was almost in tears. “I went out to buy a Post with the moon landing story,” she said, “and all the news-racks in my area were empty. I tried five newsstands, still no luck. Kicking myself that I didn’t jump on it sooner.”

This began to look like something of an opportunity, so I went to what constituted my desk, pulled out my precious copy of the Post, and presented it to Deanna. “Gee,” she said, “you’d do this for ME? Thank you so much. I can never thank you enough!”

She was partly right about that. I think I expected a little  more appreciation from Deanna, but it was not to be (hey,  cut me a little slack here, I was single and in my 20s, and it was 1969). Anyway, a few months later, I moved on to another job, as did she. These days, especially this week, I’m wondering if Deanna has ever pulled out her copy of the Post, which I have a strong feeling she kept, to show to her grandchildren, if she has them, and, of course, if she remembers how she happened to come by that paper.

I sort of miss it. When I mentioned this to a younger colleague recently, he said, “No worries. You can get one on eBay for 10 bucks.” Nope, not the same. I collected that copy of the Post with my own hands, because I was alive when the big story happened. To my colleague, it is only history; to me, it’s experience, a whole different thing. And I did share that moment with Deanna.

Clock Management

I’m not a sports fan, but I was born into a family of them and then married into one. One of the things I learned early on is that whenever it’s a game where a time limit is involved, clock management near the end of the contest is critical. This is especially true in a close football game. The team that’s slightly ahead does everything it can to slow the game down and keep possession of the ball until the clock runs out and they win. If the losing team gets possession, the coach may have to decide in the short time remaining whether to call for the field-goal kicker or take the risk of going for a touchdown. Both teams use their limited number of time-outs, not to rest the players, but to rattle the other team, interrupting the opponent’s momentum. The legendary coach Bill Walsh was said to be especially good at clock management.


Right now, activist Democrats in the House are calling for opening an impeachment inquiry into the President, but party leaders,
 including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, aren’t ready to go there. She fears that impeachment proceedings would consume energy and allow the President to play the victim. And the Republican-dominated Senate wouldn’t vote right now for his removal anyway. In Pelosi’s view, House Democrats must first make the case against the President in order to flip Republicans, and most importantly, persuade the electorate that impeachment is necessary.


It seems, of course, that  there is not enough time before next year’s election for impeachment to be concluded. But do the Democrats look toothless if they don’t  impeach? If they do, and the proceedings drag on into next year, will the voters get tired of it all?


To me, it’s clear that the Democrats have the ball, and it looks like the best strategy is running out the clock. They certainly wouldn’t want a vote in the Senate too soon, handing the President the ball at the last minute. But an open impeachment inquiry would at least settle the go-or-no-go question and put a point on the spear. The drip-drip-drip of negative information arising from the investigation might persuade those who currently support the President or those still on the fence to carefully consider their votes in 2020, when it will finally be “game over,” and the fans of one team or the other can finally tear down the goal posts. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.

Panning for Dirt

“Everyone does it,” said our President, when confronted about taking pre-election dirt from the Russians on his opponent. We know that every candidate does NOT welcome or solicit such material from foreign sources, especially those considered adversaries. But opposition, or “oppo” research, as the President noted, is standard now in major campaigns. Negative advertising about a political opponent will never go away, because, well, it works.

We have to admire those who run for political office nowadays, because they are exposing themselves, and in many cases, their families, to invasive scrutiny that could change their careers – and lives -- forever. 

That said, information is information. During campaigns, it comes to journalists in a variety of ways, often through tips or leaks. Usually, reporters don’t waste time trying to figure out the motives of tipsters. When I was in that field, there were only two questions: ““Is it true?” and “Is it a news story?”

As a news manager myself, I once got a call on the evening  before Election Day about a candidate for a local office, a respected individual, who had been born in another country and came to this one as an adult and acquired US citizenship. The caller said this candidate had been something of a bad actor in the original country, but it didn’t sound all that serious to me, and there was no time to corroborate it before the election. The whisperer, in my case, had just waited too long.

What is  a voter supposed to do, though, in evaluating a candidate about whom a negative story surfaces? A major factor for me has always been how the candidate responds. Does the answer come right away? If the story is true, can the candidate explain it or say, “I’m sorry”? In that case, is the apology sincere and sufficient? If it’s untrue, can the candidate refute the allegation calmly, and with facts? 

For most of us, this is not our first rodeo, as they say, and we already have experience with political mud-slinging among candidates. In spite of pledges of civility, the gloves inevitably come off, maybe sooner than we’d like. It will not be pretty. For our part, we can watch how the candidates perform under this pressure. 

As voters, when it comes to negative material, we must always consider the source, and recognize when someone is playing our violin.

Reparations

It’s a tough subject on the campaign trail right now: Are African-Americans owed compensation for the injustices of slavery? And what form should it take? The first concept that comes to mind, of course, is money. Should checks be sent out? And to whom, exactly?


The root of the word “reparations” is “repair.” Anyone who has dealt with auto mechanics knows that throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily mean fixing it. If it were just about money, payment made to African-Americans in that form might allow us white people to feel that the debt has been settled somehow. The truth, of course, is that it’s a debt that can never be fully paid in such a fashion. 


Then there is the issue of whether current generations of whites are responsible for atrocities committed by their ancestors in past centuries. The original sin, so to speak, has left a stain that has bled through layers of time and persistent attempts to revise history. The white-dominated federal government did make a good-faith effort at reparations after the Civil War called Reconstruction. It just didn’t stick.


We do have an ongoing responsibility to compensate descendants for the economy that was built upon slavery and the vestiges that remain today. The precedent has already been set, both here and abroad. Not long ago, we compensated Japanese-Americans who were forced into internment camps during World War II. Germany and other European countries saw funds set up to compensate Holocaust survivors. Whether these attempts were adequate or not is a question, but they were at least gestures.


It would be nice if we could come up with quickie list of who gets paid, how, and when, but the answers are not simple. It may be up to a proposed commission to explore the questions of eligibility, the claims process, and what compensation should consist of. Cash payments may be one form, but might it also be about assistance with home loans, the payment of college tuition, or other things? The commission route would be a contentious and messy one, but it’s important that there is buy-in from a wide variety of quarters before any reparation program is launched.


Then of course, there is the issue of fairness, as members of other historically oppressed groups start asking when it’s their turn to get paid. But being fair is no excuse for doing nothing, especially when it’s about the “peculiar institution” that is part of this country’s definition, whether we like it or not.

A Nice Problem

Some years ago, an event coordinator I knew was surprised when the number of those planning to attend her function increased dramatically as the date approached, forcing her to scramble at the last minute to accommodate them. “A nice problem to have,” she said, a little breathlessly.

So it is with the two dozen Democratic candidates for President. Why do so many want to run? First, of course, there is the desire to keep the current occupant from serving another four years. But what might some other motives be? Personal publicity? Partly, but I think there’s more to it. I’m sure at least some of these folks realize full well that the sun will rise in the west before they actually win the nomination. But if nothing else, candidacy is a chance to ensure that their key issues become part of the agenda.


Democratic voters do have a nice problem. The problem part is that the choice is not an easy one; they will have to sit through many more town halls and debates before next year’s primaries, when they make that choice. The nice part, though, is that every one of these candidates seems qualified to serve as President, at least so far.


The second dose of nice is that whoever wins the nomination will have some great options, not only for a running mate, but for potential Cabinet members in the event of a November 2020 victory. I ask you to let me do some “what iffing” here. To start with, if she doesn’t win the nomination or get chosen for No. 2, who would make a better attorney general than Kamala Harris? Or Elizabeth Warren for Secretary of the Treasury? Beto O’Rourke could do a nice job at Homeland Security or Health and Human Services. Pete Buttigieg could do well at Commerce or Veterans Affairs. Jay Insley, outspoken on climate change, could be perfect for the Department of Energy. And Joe Biden would make a fine Secretary of State, not only because of his foreign policy experience, but because those in other countries don’t share the American penchant for dismissing older people. Whether any of these individuals would accept Cabinet positions if offered is another question. But none would be bent on destroying or minimizing the department he or she is heading.


I have left some important names out here, of course, and likely you will be doing some what-iffing of your own. But continuing with the niceties of this” problem,”  there are no losers among that crowded field. And it could all be a win-win for the country, too.

Down from the Mount

Robert Mueller holding a news conference is almost up there with Moses coming down from Mount Sinai. Like Moses, Mueller brought a hard message with him. Here is what it made me think about.

In a standard criminal case, the cops collect evidence of a crime and present it to the DA. If the DA decides the evidence is sufficient, the suspect is charged with the crime. The case has to be brought into the right court, and is TRIED (that’s where we get the word “trial” from). If the charge is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is acquitted (or exonerated) by the jury.

Mr. Mueller said that the evidence against President Trump in the Russia probe was insufficient for a charge of conspiracy. In the case of obstruction of justice in particular, Mueller said he and his team did not decide on a charge because it was not their business to do so, according to Department of Justice rules. Mueller insisted, however, that Trump had not been exonerated by the investigation. That would be up to Congress. So, the water is still muddy.

Under Mueller’s principle of fairness, it would have been wrong to even say Trump was chargeable, because the President does not have the ability to defend himself in the regular criminal justice system. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really feels that Trump may have committed an impeachable offense, as she put it recently, applying Mueller’s principle of fairness, she has simply added to the mud, and the case should now be pursued through the system that applies to a sitting President, namely, the impeachment process.

Opening an impeachment inquiry is not just a political chess move. Even on those terms, as a former Congressman, who is a Republican, observed in a TV interview, Democrats may suffer more damage by NOT moving toward impeachment than by doing so. If they want to retain their power in Congress, at some point they have to exercise it.

As with any court activity, the outcome of an impeachment proceeding isn’t certain. Even if the House makes a good case, the President may get a pass in the Senate, and then, he could claim full exoneration. But there is still another court, the supremest one of them all, in politics at least: the court of public opinion. As voters, we all have jury duty in 2020.

Our Best Angels

The feel-good story of the past week has got to be the pledge by billionaire Robert F. Smith to pay off the student loans of the graduating class at Atlanta’s Morehouse College. It’s important on many levels. It’s not just about a wealthy man “giving back.” The benefactor billionaire in this case is black; the beneficiaries are students at a traditionally black college. 


By now you have heard all the late-night TV jokes about the pressure this has put on other famous or wealthy people invited to speak at graduation ceremonies, who are all going to feel like pikers, and how picky the schools will be about courting speakers for next year. And then there are some serious critics, who say that students shouldn’t have to depend on angel benefactors to take care of their burdensome loans. It doesn’t seem fair to other students still bound by loans, or who had to pay them back in the past, and some of the lucky ones may actually feel guilt about their good fortune. But I say, thanks to Mr. Smith for setting the example. Helping even one is better than helping none.


In a related gesture, NYU last year announced the elimination of tuition for students entering its medical school, thanks to the generosity of its trustees and alumni.


Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has put forward a plan to tax the super-rich so that millions of students would have their loans forgiven and public colleges would be tuition-free. Whether you agree with the concept or with her numbers or not, it’s an idea that may be largely responsible for putting her among the top-tier candidates for 2020. It has taken a while, but  the financing of college education is officially a thing now.


There’s a lot of talk about investing in infrastructure, like roads, bridges, pipelines, etc. Now we have started the conversation about investing in human infrastructure – the people who can learn how to design all these things, create new technologies, and maybe even cure disease or help us all deal with climate change. College may not be for everyone, but we have the opportunity now to figure out how to make it accessible to those who could really benefit from it. It’s a benefit all of us could share in.