Finally Writes

You don't have to adore Ta-Nehisi Coates to like his book

2015-10-03T07:33:00.000-04:00

Book review:
Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
published July 14th 2015 by Spiegel & Grau
ISBN13 9780147520500

(Buy the book; support the reviewer.)

Many critics and some fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates say his literary and attitudinal offense is that his work lacks optimism and that his message embraces despair. This book delivers bleak tales that take place within an abysmal system, no doubt; but not once was there allusion to a doomed future or a call to succumb to a hopeless present. There exists a picture of helplessness, yes, a desperate and disabusing helplessness that, for example, brings parents to fiercely protect their children, but we hear nothing of the defeatism that reviewers and interviewers primed me to expect.

I wonder if some readers balk at investigating the relationship between thorough acknowledgement of an atrocious situation and personal acknowledgement of responsibility for it... in the same way that an employee in a staff meeting resists analyzing what went wrong the project, in the same way that people who benefit or believe they benefit from the longstanding formulas of racism cannot recognize the difference between an unfortunate event and a continual tragedy that they take part in. When first entertaining ideas that upend our conceptions, we often tend toward consolation or, in context of this book, the Dream. Coates explicitly puts it to his reader to ditch dreams, innocence, and rationalizations in favor of concise truth-- a journey and a destination he, in one through-line, likens to his experiences since youth of learning the craft of poetry, which necessitated questioning and confronting one's thoughts so as to jettison any excess. To encourage his reader along, the author divulges myths that he himself passionately developed in the course of building a heartening identity for a person born on the underside of oppression.

What I heard this book declare is that the future requires a struggle to see things as they truly are so that we-- in a wishful belief that appalling institutions are bound to somehow naturally improve, that special individuals inside a horrible system can somehow achieve control and safety for themselves while the system's destructive infrastructure remains fortified, that corrupt planters reap what they sow and, separately, good planters reap what *they* sow because: fairness-- do not passively lead ourselves to forever oppress non-whiteness by collectively blinding ourselves to the truth of what whiteness and blackness mean: as inventions and as powerful realities.

The most assured way to be disappointed in this book is to come to it looking for solace or for a road map to perfect understanding among all Americans. Books don't do that. You sillies. And Between the World and Me will not comfort you. It will, however, give you a beautiful opportunity to empathize with a father who loves his son and strives to prepare him for the world while allowing him to discover and experience the world in his own way and, above all, to help him keep his body safe in a country which continually declares that his body is and has always been a violable tool for preserving other people's power.

p51, 52:

[...] the craft of writing is the art of thinking. Poetry aims for an economy of truth-- loose and useless words must be discarded, and I found that these loose and useless words were not separate from loose and useless thoughts. Poetry was not simply the transcription of notions-- beautiful writing rarely is. I wanted to learn to write, which was ultimately, still, as my mother had taught me, a confrontation with my own innocence, my own rationalizations. Poetry was the processing of my thoughts until the slag of justification fell away and I was left with the cold steel truths of life.

p52:

It began to strike me that the point of my education was a kind of discomfort, was the process that would not award me my own special Dream but would break all the dreams, all the comforting myths of Africa, of America, and everywhere, and would leave me only with humanity in all its terribleness. And there was so much terrible out there, even among us. You must understand this.

p82:

Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered.

p83:

I still had my journalism. My response was, in this moment, to write. I was lucky I had even that. Most of us are forced to drink our travesties straight and smile about it.

p85:

And there were others like him, others who, having gotten a boost from a teacher, an aunt, an older brother, had peers over the wall as children, and as adults became set on seeing the full view.

p124, 125:

But sitting in that garden, for the first time I was an alien, I was a sailor-- landless and disconnected. And I was sorry that I had never felt this particular loneliness before-- that I had never felt myself so far outside of someone else's dream. Now I felt the deeper weight of my generational chains-- my body confined, by history and policy, to certain zones. Some of us make it out. But the game is played with loaded dice. I wish I had known more, and I wish I had known it sooner. I remember, that night, watching the teenagers gathering along the pathway near the Seine to do all their teenage things. And I remember thinking how much I would have loved for that to have been my life, how much I would have loved to have a past apart from the fear. I did not have that past in hand or memory. But I had you.

p150:

No. I left The Mecca knowing that this was all too pat, knowing that should the Dreamers reap what they had sown, we would reap it right with them. Plunder has matured into habit and addiction; the people who could author the mechanized death of our ghettos, the mass rape of private prisons, then engineer their own forgetting, must inevitably plunder much more. This is not a belief in prophecy but in the seductiveness of cheap gasoline.

Where have I been all my life?

2015-09-12T09:41:00.001-04:00

Now? Here? ... Why?

Here and now are as good a space-time as any to resume obstreperously publishing blog content of interest to few but me.*

It's good to be back!

I began this blog at a time when I had taken months off from gainful employment to try my hand and my pencil at completing a fiction novel. Hence I spent hours upon hours reading nonfiction, thinking about nonfiction, doing things other than plotting fiction, and telling family that, though it be a struggling artist's life, I was finally moving toward my dream of writing fiction. Turns out I was doing it wrong. (Eh. Live and learn. Paychecks and rent money are for corporate drones! Housed corporate drones. Housed, fed, content, future-prepared corporate drones.) That was 2011.

The similarity between then and now**

Earlier this week, an intolerable clunking sound began filling my teeny studio apartment every two to three hours, lasting approximately five minutes each iteration. You see, I live in Arizona now. It's a desert. You think I'm speaking in historical terms or xeriscaping terms. I'm not. We give our habitat euphemistic titles such as "Valley of the Sun" and "the 602" and "Phoenix," but what Phoenicians really mean is "I burnt my flesh on the doorknob! Why isn't it January yet!!?" It's true: residents of Phoenix, AZ, USA, really do call themselves Phoenicians. It's as zero-humidity reminder of our climate's non-resemblance to the Fertile Crescent. Right now is September in Phoenix, when air conditioning units redline. This accounted for the intermittent clunking I mentioned. Ingenious as I am, I devised an easy, economical, immediate remedy:

All I had to do was hop up on the sturdy counter, take a Phillips head to the vent's screws, remove the plate, reach inside, and clear out whatever was thumping around in there. Let's never mind that the clamorous culprit might have been something formerly living and I was risking my bare hand to sweep it out; rejoicefully, dead rodent turned out to not be the case. Less worthy of rejoicing, the far edge of the vent-- situated seven and a half feet above my tile floor-- was unreachable from the sturdy counter.

Being a strapping and proficient rock climber (and, don't forget, ingenious), I gave no second thought to grabbing hold of the ledge, abandoning my perch on the counter, and placing my weight and my life in the hands of... my hands. Knowing now that skipping second thoughts is how I often operate, I am considering instituting a more deliberate and rigorous first-thought process for future decision cycles. While my weight and life were spared this time, my joints were not when my fingers slipped over something half grimy and half slippery inside the vent's recess.

Owing to a fun kipping motion that was intended to help me reach one arm farther into the vent, my knees were above the height of my head at the moment of drop-ture, and my spine was parallel to the conveniently easy-to-clean tile floor. If ever I had wished for unmanageable carpeting, it was now. The instantaneous result was a seven-foot drop onto my back. The moments-later result was two dislocated elbows, a tender gluteus medius, unhappy latissimi dorsi, and a contusion on my tongue that one family member later (affectionately?) dubbed "raw meat." The days-long result was an overdose on fruit smoothies, limited minutes of being able to operate a keyboard or touchscreen or mouse, and hours of enjoyment making unpredictable requests for information that began with "Okay, Google."

Exactly like those months when I unsuccessfully wrote fiction every day, my past four days have been spent building my video business by not researching video business, not conducting video business, not editing already filmed video business, and not thinking video business. Years ago, intellectual injury was to blame; today, physical. What has all of this again created? Perfect conditions for blogging.

Let's see how it goes.

Call:

And Response:

* Now there's a tough phrase to figure! "All but me" means, obviously, that everyone else is including but I am excluded. "None but me" excludes everyone else and includes me. But does "few but me" include the few and exclude me? Or does it exclude the few and include me? By the feel of the statement, I think it would be taken as including the few and including me, but then why the "but"? Shouldn't the phrase rightly be "few and me"?

** Other similarities between my 2011 and 2015 circumstances: I still am yet to complete a fiction novel. I still have so much I want to convey about my quest for "the human connection in writing, politics, entertainment, and life." I still think that that is an undisciplined, overreaching subtitle and guidepost for this blog. I still want to keep it.

Changing minds, changing font capitalization

2015-09-11T20:58:00.000-04:00

I chickened out. A friend of mine shared the following on his Facebook wall yesterday:

Greta Van Susteren
This is so messed up! I know you are not a terrorist...
Why is President Obama hiding the Iran deal from honest American citizens? Watch my 'Off the Record' commentary and SHARE this post if you think the Iran deal should be posted on WhiteHouse.gov!
Like · Comment · Share · September 9 · Edited

A dispute that I will brazenly label "foolish" ensued between my friend and an Iran Deal supporter. Their discourse began with non-annotated links to items such as Huffington Post articles and Fox News clips, jumped into one-liners about the Constitution and opposing parties' deplorable uses of filibusters, and somehow dragged in Rush Limbaugh talk radio, the lock-step thinking of Democrats, and (inevitably?) Dick Cheney. Both my friend and his online friend seemed to sincerely deem their argumentation sequitur and indisputable. They believed also there was valuable cause to argue their sides with each other over social media.

"Duty Calls" by Randall Munroe, of course.

I cannot diagnose their intended goals: changing the other person's mind, opening their own minds to better understand where the other person in coming from, being "heard," venting? Whatever their reasons, the exchange struck me as neither fruitful in its conclusion, helpful in its execution, nor well-planned in its initiation.

As it now sounds unarguable that I am a lurking judgmental jerk who looks down on the political glossings of her own friends, I should admit what I did next. I began typing a response that, without doubt, would so perfectly elucidate the primary issue and confute all misunderstandings that I would lay the entire issue to rest for my friend, his friend, and every Facebook reader who happened by this thread. Until the end of time. Such would be the coherent, objective rationality of my written remark that it would forever stand as the quarrel-quashing fifteenth reply in a previously two-person thread on a wall that wasn't mine. Sure, my comment wasn't bound to straighten out the misconceptions of every voter in the country-- I'm not as impracticably self-regarding and airy-fairy as all that! I was merely going to solve the debate for all reasonable human beings who read this particular thread to its cumbersome final comment on a Thursday night on Facebook.

[Edit 9/25: Saw this online today. Had to include it.]

My thumbs were working at the redline. Three sentences in to my comprehensible exegesis on the July 14th Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and its relationship to the Road-map between the IAEA and Iran, recently styled as "secret side deals," I made the cautionary decision to continue my typing in a separate app, thus removing my unfinished text from the nearly live comment box lest I prematurely tap the inviting "Post" button and accidentally reveal my partially formed, incomplete ramblings to the universe.

This was an ace move. It turned out to be the first nudge toward the most ingenious (only ingenious?) thing I did all night. After rereads, the inclusion of clarifying parenthetical, spellchecks (Internet debaters know that an online misspelling eternally invalidates all otherwise logical propositions.), incorporation of reputable links to historical references, political analysis that admirably restrained from being partisan, and attentive recognition to both sides for being equally ostensibly correct despite being so very, very wrong, ... I long-pressed on my mobile screen, tapped the "Select All" icon, and grabbed my entire comment into the clipboard. Upon returning to the Facebook app, I was pleased that no opinions had been posted during my absence, as unexpected additions would surely require further elaborated debunking from my all-wise, ever-accurate viewpoint. Sitting pretty at twenty-minutes in the writing, my comment was already laden with impedimenta. Necessary impedimenta, mind you, but still... it was longer than I had intended.

The fateful moment came when I pasted the tome into the humble comment box, which instantly expanded to accommodate my prolix explainer. The scroll bar shrunk so entirely that I could not find to grab it! The act of swiping through the displayed lines wore on my finger and my mind, like a new user who is trying to reach the end of an Adobe agreement just so that the little agree button will activate!

It was more than long. It was TL;DR. I privately disdain the TL;DRness of such unpardonably lumbering social media comments. For goodness sake, people, if you like your own writing so much, why don't you get a blog?

And that was the end of that. However undeniably persuasive and evenhanded my comment certainly was, it was also unforgivably long-winded. I deleted it. I sighed for mono no aware. Then I lightheartedly disregarded all similitude between my and my friend's approach to Internet political squabbling. I mean, Internet political discussion.

There was one and only very fortunate difference between my actions this around time and anyone else's during instances when they initiate or get drawn into such high-minded contretemps:

Success!

The silliness of it all struck me this morning, when a synced electronic device opened up to reveal the unpublished opus, helpfully and automatically saved in the Cloud of Unforgetting. Thanks, Cloud. From now on, I'll try to remember too.

[Edit 9/25: Images I swapped out for the penguin video:]

What Dawn's working on: September 2011 edition

2011-09-08T03:36:00.000-04:00

Time to take up a new language. How many German speakers do I know? If you're out there, Du bist genial! Lassen Sie uns die Praxis gemeinsam! (Google Translate to the rescue.) Or if you want to go bold and learn German along with me, call or email. We'll be language buddies.

... or Skype or Facebook or G+ hangout or tweet or... Few excuses for not getting Deutsch with me are going to stand up to scrutiny in the age of the interwebs. I'm starting out as of this week, so if you know nothing about German except what you heard playing Castle Wolfenstein, we're on even footing. (No, I don't understand the German sentence I used in the first paragraph.)

"Sprechen sie Deutsch?"
"No, I don't sprechen sie Deutsch."
- Stalag 17
(Watch the "sprechen sie Deutsch" scene.)

It's called "FinallyWrites" because I seem never get around to it.

My primary manuscript is progressing. Yea! Here're how my latest works are faring:

Rhombus (temporary project title)

young adult fiction
novel

Stage: first draft

14 of 22 chapters (64%)

Gang

drama
teleplay

Stage: outlining (22%)

Then a Bridge

horror & supernatural
novel

Stage: brainstorm (10%)

untitled project

we'll see in November
NaNoWriMo speed writing

Stage: mulling it over (0%)

The second stage in NaNoWriMo prep, after 100% "mulling" completion, is "store up extra Halloween candy for month-long desk snacking." I'm very focused during the second stage.

I'd like to put a little chart, like the ones above, in my sidebar over there to the right, beneath the picture of my fountain pen grasped by my stubby thumb ("it's not fat; it's big-boned"); but I made the column so slim that the progress meters don't look good there. Playing around with the layout might make for a useful distraction on my next slow writing day, a guaranteed way to not advance in any of the progress bars above.

Go placidly, and know thy universe

2011-08-29T00:45:00.008-04:00

Whoa, Reihan Salam knows I read his blog, The Agenda. He identifies me right here:

Rather, I write in the hope and expectation that people read people with whom they disagree to challenge their settled views. Suffice it to say, this isn’t generally the case, but I’m happy to continue behaving as though it is, as it is true of enough people to justify the effort.

I'm that people! Can you believe he found me out? Every Sunday, when I catch up on the week's online news and opinions, Reihan Salam is someone I count on to write intelligently about stuff with which I disagree. (Did you see that? He used good grammar, so I did too.)

As I do for all the articles tagged in my feed reader as "national politics," I read The Agenda with a necessary amount of tolerance. Tolerance allowed for myself, I mean. Ahead of time, I consent that I shall be free to disagree as much as I want so long as, in any later complaining I do about the content, I'm not a jerk about it. (Wait! Warning: The other end of that link contains a potentially offensive word. Okay, proceed at will.) I am therefore under no personal obligation to agree with any portion of the excerpt above. But I do agree. I'm a sucker for the idea of behaving as if the world were the way it should be. (Oh, I guess that ought to be, "as if the world were the way I want it to be.")

Desiderata by Max Erhmann

Maybe that's because Mahatma Gandhi exhorted us to be the change we want to see in the world. Maybe it's because the golden rule, a Kindergartener's first educational take-away, relies on this concept. Maybe it's because wise words on the plaque in Mrs. Jenkins's English classroom-- a plaque shrewdly hung beside the room's most watched decoration: the clock-- reminded me daily ("weekdaily"?) for an entire school year that "the universe is unfolding as it should." Quixotic at an early age, I took those maxims to mean that either (A) yup, it's all true, so go ahead and make decisions knowing that it's true; or (B) if that isn't quite the way of things, then it's only a matter of time; might as well get started right now on turning my world into the one it is meant to become.

On a typical day in Mrs. Jenkins' English classroom, all of this idealism translated into something like, "Sure, I'll miss some recess to help you find your Troll doll pencil-head, because I don't doubt that when my classroom chore comes around, you'll be beside me, clapping chalk out of the blackboard* erasers. (Achoo!) I think it becomes difficult-- as we grow up, old, and experienced-- to still view the world so optimistically, mostly because as adults in the early twenty-first century, we're not apt find a Troll doll pencil-head. ...anywhere. (Or perhaps, like the Dalek, Trolls always survive.)

DNFTT! Trolls predate Usenet

Even so, I still stand by the value in occasionally behaving as if the world were the way I'd like it to be, not least of all because, in order to act as such, I'm compelled to, for at least a moment, think about exactly what the-world-the-way-I-want-it-to-be looks like, what it's made of, how it works. Without ever imagining the landscape of my ideal world, how would I be able to listen to opinions with which I disagree and subsequently strengthen my understanding or repair my misjudgments? And how would I be able to stand beside a classmate with whom I might have little in common (the kid likes Troll dolls, for goodness sake!) and work together to clap away the dust?

If you care what my advice to my ideal world would be (and in my ideal world, you most definitely care about my advice; you can't get enough of it!), my add-ons to the reliable ole golden rule would be these:

Know your universe the way you would want it to be.
Some, even many, people will disagree with how stuff goes down in your universe. Disagreeing is fine. Seriously, everything's still cool. Just don't you be a jerk about it.
Where there is doubt, give people (in the real-life universe) the benefit of it: behave as if the world is the way it should be.

Like the columnist admirably expressed in a column often in opposition to my opinion, but not this time:

a) ..."it is true of enough people to justify the effort."

* Chalkboard: dustier and more squealy than its successor, the dry-erase board.
Dry-erase board: squeakier and smellier than its successor, the iPad.
iPad: lame when kids will one day be learning on the iPad's elementary schoolroom successors. ...IMAX 3D screens and additive printers?

On Topic: All the world loves a performer

2011-08-19T09:57:00.052-04:00

On topic with my performerphilia post, take a look at this impressionist who does Clarence's dream from Richard III in the guises of a bunch of celebrities. His "Ron Howard" and "President Obama" aren't striking, but all of them are funny, most of them awesome.

Jimpressions: Impressionist Jim Meskimen Does Shakespeare in Celebrity Voices

Elsewhere in great performances: Performers who make a connection...

Yo-Yo Ma's unaccompanied "Air on a G String" (and the higher quality audio for Spotify people)

Itzhak Perlman plays John Williams's "Theme from Schindler's List", after being interviewed for about a minute by Yosemite Sam's 'tache (Spotify link)

The inspiring, humanitarian, hilarious, role-model-of-role-models dad, Bill Cosby, Himself (1983)

For the record, he's everything he ever was, even to this day: 2010 keynote speech at Temple. You'll chuckle and relate!

RSC's 2008 Hamlet with a helicopter, a wheeled office chair, CCTV, and a big broken mirror

Best scene: Gertrude's Chamber at 1:55:06; and at 2:00:15, Sir Patrick Stewart shows up all cool and ghostly.

PBS selections from last year's Sondheim! The Birthday Musical

For short attention spans that crave immediate audience-performer connection, jump straight to 12:30 and watch till 13:20.
If you have a heart in ya, stay for Mandy Patinkin right after.
Sweeney Todd(s) at 17:45
"I'm Still Here" underway at 26:00
Better yet, the entire show is available to Watch Instantly on Netflix, and it's immensely more meaningful unedited. Every single segment and performer impresses.

Greatest Sports Moments of the 20th Century by ESPN; sit back and relive.

If you aren't touched by the Jamie and Aurelia story in Love Actually, have the EMT begin heart resuscitation right now; you're in need of defib.

Mine shaft gaps, floridation, and precious bodily fluids-- when the time comes, be prepared, but above all, preserve the secrecy of the Big Board. (Dr. Strangelove, included because Petter Sellers and, in the clip, George C. Scott still let us think, laugh, and express frustrations all at the same time)

Thinking of people who inspire and touch us through performance, I couldn't help but call up the two recent Medal of Honor recipients. Entertainment as opposed to heroic or daily performance was my initial focus, but I'm going with my heart on this one to include Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta and Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, who have been sharing their stories, their and colleagues' valor, and their amazing senses of personal modesty and sacrifice. If you've not read their stories or seen either of them interview, fix that. You might be awed and humbled.

Have to cut the list off here, because with the last bullet point, I've opened a door to all sorts of "performers": friends, mentors, bold politicians, Captain Sully (resisting the temptation to link to Sully). Would love to hear about performers with whom you "connect".

In the end...

It is the performer who can, after being antic and bringing a room to laughter (a difficult enough task on its own), at will turn around and, with a look or a posture, a sound or decision, reach out to us, convince us to reach back, and form a bond we respect and care about.

How in the world do they do that?

If dresser mirrors were studio cameras, I'd be a star

2011-08-19T02:49:00.440-04:00

Want to bet he's faking it?

I love doing what I do, which is (try to) write. But performers, man... I'm amazed by performers: actors, comedians, athletes, mimes, you name it.

Not just because they're brave, standing afore an an audience that brought along its demands and preoccupations, its high-priced tickets and high-priced expectations. Facing those is daunting enough, and performers constantly demonstrate ways to overcome jitters and self-doubt. Bravo.

Not just because they memorize lines for long takes, ad lib material, or perfect moves over months of repetition and honing. Commitment and the kind of extreme practice that makes a performance appear natural and carefree is one of the most laudable virtues in all professionals. Well done.

Not just because they're on, night after night or week or month, consistent but, for our sake, like brand new; then, in a new venue or new role, they put on a completely different show, again consistent yet fresh. Of great benefit is the ability and aspiration to entertain others and ourselves in work, friendships, and thoughts. Thanks for that.

What gets me is that I have no idea how performers do it. It = [the way they decide what would be a unique way to make me giggle or sniffle or stare in awe] + [the way they-- having decided how to do it-- do it] + [and do it right, just the way they had in their minds] + [I giggle, sniffle, and stare in awe]. You massively rock. All ya'll.

When I was a kid, there might have been a time or two when I employed cry-on-demand.

Mom: "I told you to stop jumping off the top bleachers. This is what happens."
Little Dawn: *sniffle* "I... I thought I heard you calling me. I wanted to get to you as fast as I can. But now... now my shhhoooes lost their sooooles, and it's all because I love you SO MUCH!" *sniffle*.

Heartbroken over Fred, damn it, and a doggy zombie

A slight possibility exists that I am to this day capable of calling up a wet eye, come a dire, compassion-necessitating situation.

Editor: "I don't understand why you haven't done the rewrite. You read my notes on your introduction."
Grown-up Dawn: "You mean, remove the part drawing on personal experience? The childhood trauma." *sniffle* "Retelling the time I was left teetering on the top bleachers and" *lip quiver* "I... fell... ALL the way DOWN. And needed new sneakers!" *sniffle*.

Okay, clearly kids are better at it. They have those round eyes that are too large for their faces, and they have their itty little vocal cords. Plus there's that trick of theirs whereby sometimes they are genuinely impassioned, just often enough to make you not want to be a big meanie for possibly falsely disbelieving visible, tangible tears. (My brothers, by the way: classic Big Meanies. Could never get them to fall for the waterworks.)

But performers of the variety we typically see on stage, on screen, and in stadiums-- the post-pubescent ones-- don't have those tools: not the giant eyeballs on tiny heads, not the underdeveloped larynges, and not the ten years of personal relationships with every audience member; you know, the ups and downs and spilled ice cream cones and hidden report cards and bedtime stories. Those are why kids get away with it. How do adults?

Yo-Yo Ma

That how goes double for adults who are admittedly (and all the while we all are one hundred percent aware that this is the case) performing. The number of times that Yo-yo Ma has rehearsed "Air on a G String" must be beyond his recollection to tally. As a mere creature of the earth, can he conceivably put his soul into every bow stroke of every performance? Enervating! When I hear it, though (currently on third repeat, according to my playlist), I can tell he means it, even on what could be his thousandth time around. Audiences, too, know it, whether playing recordings or experiencing it live. How's he do that?

When Michael Peña held the little girl after gunfire exploded in her direction in the third act of Crash, I didn't care that the next line was schmaltzy (frail voice, big eyes, trusting whisper: "It's a really good cloak." Aawwww) or that the show was trying for a reaction (we know your game, Paul Haggis). I was okay with being of the mind that the girl in the invisible cloak and her loving father meant what they said. The same goes for when Gary Oldman has in-character rages without blinking the entire production, when Morgan Freeman takes in the weight of events around him, when Judi Dench scolds, and wherever Daniel Day Lewis exists. They mean it, and along with performers like them, they get us to applaud, laugh, gasp, grab the sleeve of the person sitting next to us, ... largely on the empathy we feel for someone whose emotion (often) and situation (all the time) are unashamedly pretend.

Performers-- depending on what they want for their characters or personas or art, we either trust them, despise them, or {fill in with whatever we're meant to} them. Most of all, we believe them. That is talent. Elusive, stunning talent. I love performers.*

*Even children. Not everyone of a certain youth gets by, as I did, on irresistibly chubby baby cheeks. Some have real game.

She really means it.

Don't pretend you can't connect
on a basic level to this reaction.

Dude is scary psycho.

Ouch. Hurts.

... But not really. They're only acting, silly.

Bonus performance, with an emotive connection between human audience and Nexus-6 replicant:

Not a real life cry baby

Images: David Morrissey in "Blackpool". Will Smith in I Am Legend. Yo-Yo Ma in D.C. (c) Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images. Angelina Jolie in Wanted. Simon Pegg in Shaun of the Dead. Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List. Sir Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. Video: Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford in Blade Runner.

I'll read that

2011-08-10T05:14:00.000-04:00

Found a new blog for my feed reader. Sometimes when people say "new" they mean "well, I ain't never heard of it before." Not this time. The blog is actually new, born in July, with-- it looks like-- four posts so far. At the least, the blogger is good at self-marketing. But he looks to have more than that to offer.

Rewire Blog - by a man who wanted to leave the workplace, did, and thinks that if you too want to leave it for something you feel is more meaningful, then you should. And can.

But whatever. Lots of people say that. The receptionist at my dentist's office said it today. Lots of places say it: blogs, entrepreneur gatherings, ads to become an Avon lady. There are probably twenty to thirty places on E-How that say so. So what convinced me to grab Rewire's RSS? Two things, far more important than the blog's tagline:

An SEO blogger I follow promoted it on her Google+. The link that got me there accounted for, let's say, 40% of the resulting follow, because it came from someone who, in my opinion, has good taste and without which I would never have heard of Rewire in the first place.
The very first bit of content delivered. That was the 60%: a compelling introductory post that declared the blogger's persona and demonstrated exactly what the blog ("rethink the rules of business"), the blogger (I'm honest. You're invited to meet with me on the same level. It'll be refreshing and productive.), and you ("think about some things that you hide when doing business") promise to be all about. All three came across like things on which I'd be willing to spend a minute or two a week.

Whether or not I hold on to the subscription will be up to the posts to come, and it's off to a good start. Not for the "hardcore entrepreneur," says Rewire's About page. From browsing the blog, I get the feeling that might not be true. I just put this in the feed folder with Seth Godin's blog. Looking forward to more.

Penalty, not tax. Darn. The Affordable Care Act's constitutionality

2011-08-05T13:37:00.025-04:00

Griping, insults, death panels, narrow votes, cheering on the House floor. But then the Affordable Care Act slipped out of the national media's consciousness, until the phrase "we'll see what happens" began ending the conversations still being held about the healthcare reform law. The waiting period isn't over, but this week saw a brief return to fame for the law-that-almost-wasn't when the Department of Health and Human Services published new preventative services guidelines for women, which the ACA put into effect four days ago.

In the meantime, the ACA has had little idle time to wait and see what happens. Just as the law put some of its provisions into effect as quickly as possible, its opponents stood ready with lawsuits even while the Act was still just a bill on Capitol Hill. It has been rising through the appellate courts ever since, challenged for the constitutionality of its "individual mandate" and destined for the Supreme Court.

In late June, the Sixth Circuit was the first appeals court to rule on a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. This was the case brought by the Thomas More Law Center and four people who believe that Congress can’t make them purchase health insurance or else face a monetary penalty. (One of them has since purchased health insurance and claims that she can’t constitutionally be made to keep it.) Divided 2-to-1, the judge panel decided the individual mandate is constitutional.

A concurring opinion was written by Judge Sutton, who was described in an ABC News report as "an 'intellectual leader among judicial conservatives' with a long record of supporting the cause of federalism -- and limiting the power of the federal government vis-a-vis the states."

Somewhere in me there's a college kid who misses studying long texts (weirdo), because I read the ruling-- all three opinions-- and I felt a need to summarize for you the incredibly fascinating bits.

From Judge Sutton’s opinion in the Thomas More case, 29 June 2011:

Does the minimum coverage provision unconstitutionally regulate inactivity by compelling some people to enter the medical insurance market?

Health insurance is about financial risk; the risk is that you won’t have enough money to pay for healthcare when you inevitably need it. If you don’t purchase health insurance—or sufficient health insurance—you’re self-insuring. Self-insuring isn’t inaction; it’s a whole lot of action. Of people who previously bought insurance and then dropped it: active. Of availing oneself of barebones insurance (which the ACA might require be upped): activity.

[...] inaction is action [...] when it comes to financial risk.

At any rate, the Constitution’s Commerce Clause (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3) doesn’t distinguish between action and inaction in any way that limits Congress’s power, nor has the Court treated the clause as limiting when what the law regulates is "economic and substantially affect[s] commerce." Three things that are economic and substantially affect commerce: private insurance, public insurance, and self-insurance. As Congress is permitted to makes rules for some of these methods of paying for health care, the Commerce Clause doesn’t prohibit Congress from making rules for all three of them.

No one is inactive when deciding how to pay for health care, as self-insurance and private insurance are two forms of action for addressing the same risk.

Take an example coercive law, for non-exempt individuals, which regulates their insurance coverage at the point of sale: When a person arrives to receive health treatment, her choice at that moment will be to either pay for the care or purchase health insurance from then on. That law would be constitutional, because Congress may put a federal condition on something that affects federal commerce (a person’s ability to pay affects the federal commerce of medical care), even if the choice comes at a time of crisis. The ACA places your decision before, not at, a time of crisis, and you’ve a choice: the monetary penalty is (for the first seven years, if not longer) cheaper than the insurance.

If one of these laws is legitimate, so it would seem is the other. Requiring insurance today and requiring it at a future point of sale amount to policy differences in degree, not kind, and not the sort of policy differences removed from the political branches by the word “proper” or for that matter “necessary” or “regulate” or “commerce.”

From Judge Martin’s court opinion:

All congressional enactments are entitled to a "presumption of constitutionality," invalidated only upon a "plain showing that Congress has exceeded its constitutional bounds." United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 607 (2000).

Why institute a minimum coverage provision? (The federal government’s case...) Without such, people would be incentivized to delay their purchase of health insurance until they need health care. That would "leave a gaping hole" (cf. Raich, 545 U.S. at 22 – regulating marijuana, interstate, for the Controlled Substances Act) in the plan to create "effective health insurance markets" which can sell "improved health insurance products that are guaranteed issue and do not exclude coverage of pre-existing conditions." 42 U.S.C. § 18091(a)(2)(I).

Supporting examples: Seven states passed guaranteed issue reforms with no minimum coverage requirement; costs rose and insurance companies left those insurance markets. In Massachusetts, which has a minimum coverage requirement, "despite the economic downturn, the number of workers offered employer-based coverage has actually increased." 42 U.S.C. § 18091(a)(2)(D). The decision on minimum coverage provision: valid.

The vast majority of individuals are active in the market for health care delivery because of two unique characteristics of this market: (1) virtually everyone requires health care services at some unpredictable point; and (2) individuals receive health care services regardless of ability to pay.

... Part two includes people who would opt for no health insurance.

Back to Sutton’s opinion:

Penalty, not tax. Darn.

Congress has authority to collect taxes under the Taxing and Spending Clause (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 1). Why should the penalty be treated as a penalty instead of as a tax?

(1) Congress said so. (2) The Act explicitly "invoked its commerce power, not its taxing authority." (3) Congress made tax-penalty distinctions throughout the Act. As explained in Judge Martin’s court opinion: sometimes tax and penalty are treated the same; other times not; this reasonably falls under other times. (4) The main function of the individual mandate is not to raise revenue. Sure, revenue will be gotten, but according to the acts findings, the aim is to get more people to participate in health insurance (to broaden the risk pool) before they need medical care instead of after they need it. For the most part, the Act will be getting uninsured people to buy private insurance, a revenue gain of nothing for the government. And, dude, even the Act’s proponents don’t want your penalty money for the government coffers; they want you to carry health insurance. That’s the goal: Get insurance, even if it’s private insurance, so that you don’t pay a penalty. (5) [Even more reasons this penalty isn’t a tax.]

Congress found that providing uncompensated medical care to the uninsured cost $43 billion in 2008 and that these costs were shifted to others through higher premiums. See 42 U.S.C. § 18091(a)(2)(F).

The Thomas More case is a pre-enforcement facial challenge against the individual mandate’s constitutionality, meaning it challenges the ACA’s individual mandate in not just some but all settings, which makes the plaintiffs’ particular situations irrelevant. As-applied challenges may come at the appropriate time, and will "have hills to climb."

Related:
SCOTUSblog has been on top of the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, with assessments from both sides.

On Topic: What else is going on?

2011-08-05T12:36:00.040-04:00

This week's release of the Department of Health and Human Service's new health plan guidelines for women's preventative services returned an old friend to the national spotlight: the Affordable Care Act. How've ya been, ACA? We hardly heard about you while the debt limit needed raising or, depending on who you ask, the federal government needed eliminating. Okay, not eliminating, just effectively eliminating.

Now that the whole wearying business of compromise is over with, and before the NFL season (with its compromisy post-lockout agreement) brings all our rowdy friends over Monday night, we have a moment to look at the less imminent, less doom-promising events we've been... not "ignoring"... just setting aside gently until the time when they too turn apocalyptically exigent.

So go ahead...

Tumble with the volatile trading of U.S. stocks.
Walk the front nine with Tiger's two-under return (on ESPN's "Tiger Tracker").
Head back to the airport ramp, for the short-term at least, with federal aviation workers.
Read Dilbert. It's funny.
Slide down a ~~kid's slide~~ "transfer accelerator" on your way to the subway. Like adults do. In the Netherlands.
Sigh relief that the nation turned in lower unemployment than many feared, but don't sigh too deeply.
Blast off with Juno for a five-year voyage to Jupiter. (It just launched. Heard it, felt a boom, and caught the last few seconds out the window.)
Throw a pie at the guy who tried to throw a pie at Rupert Murdoch. (But don't. You can get four weeks jail time.)

Me-- I hit a few dozen floater golf balls at the driving range and took some time catching up with the Affordable Care Act. Go, Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals! Might write that up later.

Enjoy the start of your weekend.

Today

2011-08-03T22:02:00.025-04:00

The unintentionally funniest (portion of a) line I read today:

"Mice are not people, though"

- from How Chocolate Can Help Your Workout by Gretchen Reynolds, August 3, 2011 (New York Times - Well Blog).

Annoyed, yes. Averse to compromise, maybe not.

2011-07-24T08:50:00.326-04:00

Guess what, national leaders. Americans are annoyed at you. ABC News/Washington Post polled the nation's "Frustration Index" last week, and it seems we're at 72 out of 100. Grrr!

In the poll, the majority of Americans (and we're talking both Republican Americans and Democrat Americans-- "Is there another kind?") pretty much agreed on thinking that a debt default would "cause serious harm" to...

the U.S. economy: 80% of Republicans, 90% of Democrats.
the country’s reputation as a safe place to invest: 76% of Rs, 83% of Ds.
their personal finances: 56% of Rs, 66% of Ds.

We agree!

And by we I don't just mean enough namby-pamby moderates to countervail what these poll questions should have revealed were the true sentiments of the politically unswerving brave, a.k.a. people who self-reported as "very conservative." (You be Namby, and I'll be Pamby.) Because it turns out that "even among Tea Party supporters, 62 percent say congressional Republicans have not been willing enough to compromise on the deficit." No italics necessary; you saw the respondent group, you saw the number, and you saw what they say.

Hey, congressional holdouts: What's the hold up, then?

Stop thinking tax cuts versus debt roof raising (whoop whoop!), and certainly don't go with that trusty and gratifying gut feeling which stands contrary to everything the world's collection of learned and respected economists are promising you is the truth. Quit watching the show in tunnel-vision. I know you kept your 3D Harry Potter glasses; use them so you can feel like you're actually there, like you really are a part of the saga-ending combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

... because there is no way one approach alone is going to pass muster. Combine. Your reduced deficit will thank you. Of course, this is merely my take on it. Others might disagree.

Not many though! 62% think I'm right! (I know: that was false humility.) They also think I'm cool.*

* "Cool" data not yet supported by statistics. It's just a trusty and gratifying gut feeling.

It's hard not to feel a little bad for spending cuts and tax increases. They show up to work in the same building every day, mistiming their meetings at the water-cooler, passing each other in the hallway-- two lonely-hearts who don't know they're right for each other.

Do you know what else are right for each other? My friend Vicky and _____.
If anyone can complete that sentence, please get in touch with Vicky. We'll get you sorted, Vix. :-o

Polls usually have me interested more in the numbers and method than in the incontrovertible truth surely gained by imagining to know the mind and makeup of the majority. But more likably, shareably, tweetably, and +1ably, polls are fun! They have reliably nibble-sized morsels, perfect for bullet-pointing. Like so...

These people support raising the following:

tax on incomes of $250k+: 72% overall, 52% of Rs.
Social Security tax on incomes of $107k+: 66% overall.
tax on oil and gas companies: 55% of Rs.

Percent of hopeful citizens = 54. That's how many think our leaders will "resolve this issue" before 2 Aug, the mutha deadline.
If the government does go into default:

42% would blame congressional Republicans.
36% would blame President Obama.
19% are correct (oops, I mean, 19% say both of them would be to blame).

Lest we forgot how irked we are, let us close on this opinion from the vox populi: "While President Obama for the first time has fallen under 40 percent approval for handling the economy, the Republicans in Congress do even worse, 28 percent approval."

Annoyed, more annoyed, most annoyed; American public, Marvin the Martian, this kid.

You decide.

About the images: could not find copyrights on the roaring kitteh and angered kid.

How to face down a price increase

2011-07-18T20:56:00.007-04:00

Dear Netflix,

Suck it.

"It" = my extra $6/month, because I really like your streaming. So take that. Anyway, give my love to the WI and to all your returned red envelopes. I'll see you next pay date.

Happy queuing,
~ An on and off customer for... oh my, has it really been seven years now? Time just flies. Don't ever die like Blockbuster did. Hugs!

Song Review: "Space Girl" by The Imagined Village

2011-07-15T02:42:00.041-04:00

I like the song. I like its lyrics. Its story strikes me as a cross between that of the love-searching outcast from Savage Garden's "To the Moon and Back" and that of the temporary adventurer in Train's dusty-voiced "Drops of Jupiter". (It even opens with the former's bleepity-bloppy flying saucer tones.)

The tune is pop-folk, which draws toward us-- from one direction-- a futuristic backdrop and pulls forward-- from the other direction-- an age-old theme of blinkered xenophobic mistrust, to successfully anchor both of them to the present day. The music video's diegesis begins in the Galaxy Ballroom, a guitar-shaped concert hall floating in outer space, and ends with a sprint to the band's bus on a mundane street. The journey is narrated by a woman who pioneers not only asteroids and romance but also a frontier beyond the intolerant social boundaries of which "mama" insularly warned her to steer clear.

Against rooted prejudices, the Space Girl had an adventure and brought us along with her, again and again declaring, "I did, I did, I did."

In the music, we're treated to a little bit of fiddle play directly followed by electronic effects (from 2:00 into the song to 2:20) and later accompanied by blasts from a Space Invaders laser canon (~2:35). Singer Eliza Carthy's vocals set the catchy beat just as strongly as the instruments do.

Here's the song... I hope you enjoy it as much as I have tonight, a bunch of times over:
"Space Girl" by The Imagined Village, on the album Empire & Love, released January 2010.

I first heard "Space Girl" last month in a remix sci-fi video mentioned on Bad Astronomy. The song is for general audiences, but the link to the remix video is for my nerds only. So, please, if you do watch, there's really no use protesting if you discover you're not nerd enough to identify all the TV and movie clips.

Lyrics to "Space Girl":

My mama told me I should never venture into space
But I did, I did, I did
She said no terran girl could trust the Martian race
But I did, I did, I did

A rocket pilot asked me on a voyage to go
And I was so romantic that I couldn't say no
That he was just a servo robot how was I to know
So I did, I did, I did

She told me never venture out among the asteroids
But I did, I did, I did
And she said that the Milky Way was something to avoid
And I did, I did, I did

She said that Venus was too hot and Saturn not much fun
Bug-eyed monsters tended to be just a trifle dumb
She said I'd need a blaster and I'd need a freezer gun
And I did, I did, I did

My mama told me never trust a space engineer
And yet I did, I did, I did
She said free fall and superdrive would surely cost me dear
Yes they did, they did, they did

I've been as far in hyperspace as anyone can
Travelled through the time warp in a cyborg land
They say a girl must travel far to find a superman
And yes I did, I did, I did
And yes I did, I did, I did
Oh I did, I did, I did

"My mama told me never trust a space engineer"

2011-07-15T02:29:00.005-04:00

Good writing, like second grade homework, requires complete concentration. Do you remember parking yourself on the family room carpet, fat pencil clutched in your little fist, a marbled Mead composition book on your lap (because you were flexible in second grade, unlike now when sitting crossed-leg and leaning down is a position that, if attempted, your body might never escape), copying "bats", "man", "spot", and the bonus word "grandma", letter for letter, four times each? You gave it complete concentration.

...Until, unexpectedly, your scrawls stopped. Your seven-year-old attention span had been lured away by the entrancing, adorable voices of Baby Rowlf and Baby Kermit (or one of those indescribable Fraggle Rock creatures, if your home had cable instead of a giant, outdoor pole which you rotated by hand-- by double-hand-- whenever someone changed the channel, so that the antennae could point toward the broadcasting station on the other side of the county). Under the influence of audiovisual distraction, pressures of scholastic performance ceased to matter, and all that existed was the homey cartoon nursery on the old CRT television in front of you, along with the simple, pint-sized desire to see a little something more of the Muppets' nanny than those silly green and white stripped socks she wore-- everyday.

"Did you finish your homework?" That was your dad, calling from behind a newspaper. (When you were a kid, teenagers on bicycles threw plastic-wrapped paper news onto everyone's driveway, and someone would pick it up and physically carry it into the house. Yeah, I know, strange.)

With wisdom beyond your years-- the kind of sagacity that even full-grown people struggle to employ when questioned about a date's buttocks size or the boss's competency-- you kept the answer to yourself. Had you finished your homework? Nope. But no point speaking up; better to let disappointing responses fade away into the unspoken void.

Unfortunately, the void can retain and cloak provable information for only a short time, and soon enough you received the dreary, uninspired request: "Turn off the TV." The explanation for such lamery? "You can't do two things at once."

Your dad was, of course, wrong. You were more than capable of watching the "Muppet Babies" while simultaneously shirking schoolwork-- two enjoyable tasks at one time. But back then, a second grader didn't point out these kinds of things to her father, and she certainly didn't tweet it behind the old man's back, under the account called Dumb Stuff the Old Fuddy-duddy Says. Instead, the television would be turned off (or tuned to "T.J Hooker", which you were never really into), and you would get back to copying letters in your composition book.

What's all this got to do with my assertion that writing, like second grade homework, requires complete concentration? Well... According to Chrome Nanny (an Internet lollygagging watchdog that, because of the incessant manner in which I check its statistics, actually eats up as much of my time as the social media websites its meant to protect me from), I've been repeatedly listening to a mesmeric song on YouTube since around one o'clock this morning. Very few of the two thousand words I set to have churned out by now have shown up in my Word document; about 70% of them never arrived. It's going on 2:30 AM, and though my appreciation for the song has not waned, both the prime overnight creative hours and my sitzfleisch have. I'm chalking up this discarded writing session to the ever-looming dangers of instant-access multimedia entertainment. To ensure that the night is total bust, I'll spend the final bit of it blogging about none other than the distraction itself (in my next post, Song Review: "Space Girl" by The Imagined Village), preceded by a nomadic introduction (vide supra).

Good ole Officer Romano

Making the human connection is hard without your bird suit

2011-01-25T13:54:00.018-05:00

Republicans and Democrats take a break from segregated seating tonight at the 2011 State of the Union, but in a less publicized showground—daily life—fake news correspondent Wyatt Cenac delivers warranted mumbly curses to focus our attention on a distressing example of neglect for the human connection in a segment called “Bird Like Me” on The Daily Show.

A place founded by freed slaves 145 years ago has been treated, the segment explains, as “a dumping ground.” It isn’t so bad that the Audubon Society is supporting birds in the town devastated by hurricane Katrina; it’s that political will successfully guaranteed the safety of birds where the rest of us failed to safeguard and care for human beings.

Watch the segment: “Bird Like Me”
Read about the community: Turkey Creek Community Initiatives
The video at the top of this page is of opera singer Shirley Verrett, singing “Oh Freedom” in 1966, the year emancipated African-Americans purchased and settled Turkey Creek, Mississippi.

Looking for something more uplifting? I suspect we’ll hear it today at 9 PM. President Obama usually aligns with the human connection.

On Topic: Elsewhere

2011-01-16T22:07:00.002-05:00

On topic:

In an unusual instance of the rhetoric-at-fault emphasis, this radio guy is dying to get blamed for someone else's actions. David Frum, whom the talk radio guy tried to call out, gave a mostly good response.
Gallup: Most Doubt Political Rhetoric a Major Factor in Ariz. Shootings

Fighting the Call for Civility

2011-01-16T03:20:00.028-05:00

Pamphlet on the creation of the Anti-Dueling Association of New York
in 1809 as a reaction to the Hamilton-Burr duel five years previous

The top-voted online comment on a New York Times Op-Ed by David Brooks, “Tree of Failure” (which I enjoyed very much), made a case for denying civility to people who downright don’t deserve any. The commenter had this to say: “I’m all for civility,” [A nice start.] “but there’s no way I am going to be polite to a bunch of venal politicians trying to destroy the social safety net of the New Deal.” The commenter ended that paragraph with...

“So no, I am not going to be civil to these people because they don’t deserve my politeness. To them, I will continue to be loudly and unashamedly vitriolic, blunt and rude, because that is my civic duty. Let them all hug themselves silly in their plexiglass Washington bubble. Spare me their obscene self-congratulation and pompous admonitions.”

To me, that pretty much negates (if not its OED definition, then) the point of civility. Reserving the apparently precious supply of civility solely for people with whom you agree would be like vowing to stand bravely at all times except when things get difficult, dangerous, painful, or scary. If courtesy should only be employed when dealing with people whose ideas we like, bravery only in circumstances of safety, patience only when we’re having a good time, and honesty only when we have something to brag about, is there really any use for those virtues?

A call for increased civility should not be mistaken for a transformation that can be realized with a quick promise and a good night’s rest. Being polite to people all the time isn’t easy, even when we love them dearly, and changing an uncivil behavior—especially one that has made a person popular or brought national attention—is all the more difficult when that behavior is habit or when it seems to achieve goals; and the way some public figures view incivility, changing this behavior could subtract from popularity, attention, and achievements. When someone has that much invested in a behavior, change will not come easily. That I understand.

Yet I’m struck by instances of public, steadfast support for a method of communication whose battle cry seems to be “Hey, civility. Bite me!” The protocol under discussion is not incredibly demanding. Encarta makes is easy for us: “the formal politeness that results from observing social conventions.” This is the grand demand of civility. When someone asks that others show civility, she isn’t saying to stop disagreeing, stop working for goals you believe in, and swallow gruel for the rest of your life. She’s saying, “While you’re performing your civic duty (or, for that matter, trying to influence the policies of people who meet in a room where they have to use titles like The Distinguished Gentlewoman from the Great State of New Hampshire), could you please not keep telling everyone to bite you?” A rise to that level of dialog seems reasonable to me.

DID YOU KNOW that Wikipedia has a policy on civility? You've been one-upped, national discourse. You too, political rhetoric.

Whose Tragedy?

2011-01-13T05:23:00.239-05:00

Maybe I’m following the wrong news feeds. Every article I read tells me how “the events in Tucson will have enduring effects on American politics” and not on, say, how we relate to our friends; how we teach our children; how we hug our parents, or write letters to our colleagues, or visit family in the hospital; how we think of disaster victims in other parts of the world, shoppers behind us in line, or people gathering at the rally downtown.

In his remarks at the memorial service, President Obama addressed the issue which the media had promoted to the number one concern of the times—the one for which you could watch CBS Early Show prompt commentators for sound bites and hear analysts telling us would be key for the President’s speech, the one Hotair.com promised the President would get wrong and on which many bloggers advised the President how to get it right, the one placed at the feet of extreme talk radio, the one that many blamed on crosshairs on maps and that Sarah Palin reacted to. The issue: political rhetoric rooted in violent hyperbole^[1]. But before he addressed this must-issue, the President talked about victims, about family, and about heroes.

Whether or not they liked the speech or the speaker, a whole lot of news people let us know they found it to be the President’s best yet. How come, then, I can’t find its sentiment within many of those same news people’s interviews and writings? Are the sides so strictly plotted that what we’re supposed to take from a nationally mourned tragedy comes down to a choice between (1) being an angry person or (2) being angry at how angry all of those other people are?

I feel like we should think back—it won’t be incredibly far back, but it will be to a moment that passed quickly and might be saddening to recall. Before we heard a sheriff accuse his state of harboring bigotry, before we knew the size of the make of the gun, before we found out if the injured congresswoman was Republican or Democrat, what ideas went through our heads? Maybe—and only because I can’t disprove a negative—maybe for some of us, the first thing to mind was, “The shooter probably used an extended magazine.” “I bet he hated the health care law.” “Only a marijuana-smoking, political nut would do that.” But I am pretty sure not a lot of us began with those.

For me, and I suspect for almost everyone, questions sprang up—immediate, intimate, personal questions. These questions turned toward the human, not the political. We did not instinctively think, “I need Glenn Beck to explain how I feel about this.” “Ezra Klein can make it all better.” “I want the President to reunite me with humanity.” That presidents and other figures, at times of historical heartbreak, have stepped up to make contributions toward uniting us is wonderful and not my point. In the first, most bare and raw moments after we are presented with a tragic event, our thoughts turn not to governmental policy but to concerns like “Was anyone seriously hurt?”

How many people were hurt? How many people were there? Is everyone safe? Where is my daughter right now?

There was even a silenced moment, where we had no questions, where we didn’t demand to know a thing; our minds stopped churning so that we could take just an instant to funnel all of our thoughts and personal energy into hoping people who were hurt will get better, people who were killed are resting at peace… and wanting the best that was possible for fellow human beings we didn’t even know. And hopefully, sprinkled throughout our initial questions and that pause, another question came up, maybe many times: “Is this real?” Because as we process a horror like the arbitrary and mass ending of innocent lives, I hope it strikes us as exactly that: a horror; as something unreal that should not be part of what goes on in the world. Not because we are naïve or unaware of violence (though, our national identity in America might be sheltered from the type of atrocities that many, many other nations face so much more often than we do), but because violence, even to people we don’t know, hurts us. It hurts when other lives are ripped away.

The moment when a bad thing happens—or when we hear about what happened—feels horrible, and we are right to not want to go through it again.

Later—and not long later, maybe only seconds or milliseconds—we begin looking for the rounding-out information, for images and details that will give the story of what happened, something we can try to understand and discuss with friends and explain to our children. How many people were involved; was it planned; did the shooter have a psychological disorder? These questions are valuable: they lead us to understand, to grow, to feel safe, and to do what we can to keep danger from coming back.

I know we have been asking these questions in our homes, in our communities, at work, and even in Congress. We are looking to solve whatever we can. In the national analysis that plays on television and in print and online, though, all I can seem to find is how “the events in Tucson will have enduring effects on American politics.”

I guess it’s easier this way. It’s enervating to process a tragedy, especially one that ended lives. And let’s be honest: we know catastrophe will return. It always does and always has. We will have these conversations, a few people will be truly impacted, many will forget, the conversation will fade away, and everything will happen again. If we can believe that the biggest and seemingly only consequences (if an Internet search on the words “shooting Tucson effects” tells the tale^[2]) are those on American politics, an issue for which most of us have already chosen positions, then we need not cry over disaster, we need not worry for our fellows, we need only stake our position and identify those who are with us and those against. Isn’t this much simpler than examining and changing how we relate to our friends; how we teach our children; how we hug our parents, or write letters to our colleagues, or visit family in the hospital; how we think of disaster victims in other parts of the world, shoppers behind us in line, or people gathering at the rally downtown?

Except, we cannot believe that the biggest consequences of the shooting in Tucson will be those on American politics. And when the horrifying happens again, we should not have to start over from the beginning.

With the amount of print and airtime that highlights this event’s “enduring effects on American politics,” there seems to be so little acknowledgement that when Jared Loughner shot twenty people in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 2010, we were affected in other ways. There seems so little acknowledgement that reminders may be taken and possibly other lessons learned which do not involve how one politician speaks about another politician on television. I feel like much of the mass and alternative media has, in this instance, removed the human connection from a tragedy.

[1] There. I fit all four words into one clause: rhetoric, violent, hyperbole, politics. The need to make new combinations with them is out of my system. Perhaps local and national news commentators could do the same.

[2] Early this morning, 13 January 2011.

Whatcha doing, AG Cuccinnelli?

2010-03-26T18:43:00.200-04:00

Virginia against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The latest issue seems to be not a criticism of the law's logic but of whether or not the federal government can enact law that requires state's citizens to purchase something and then fines them if they don't. Earlier this year, likely in the face of the coming healthcare law, the Virginia Senate amended its code to explicitly protect its citizens from such purchases and penalties (unless the health insurance is required for enrollment in a university or part of a state-administered program to receive federal Social Security Act funds).

According to the Virginia Attorney General’s lawsuit against the U.S. Secretary of Health, congress has no authority to enforce the “individual mandate” portion of the healthcare law because it doesn’t fall under Congress’s powers granted in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. And because, the lawsuit says, the individual mandate is essential and inseparable from the entire law, the law is unconstitutional and can be enforced neither in toto nor in part.

Though a court is more likely than not to uphold the congressional regulation under the category of activities that assert “a substantial impact on interstate commerce,” which meets Commerce Clause jurisprudence set by the Supreme Court, the healthcare law might also be seen as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s authority to tax and spend for the general welfare of the country (the first in the list of powers delegated to Congress by the Constitution) in combination with a decision to deny certain federal money to states if they don’t comply with a federal directive, also recognized by the Supreme Court as legitimate under the Spending Clause.

I think the state Attorneys General who are filing lawsuit face big legal roadblocks: the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is not on their side, and nether are Court precedent and the welfare of citizens.

Related links:

Congressional Research Service
Requiring Individuals to Obtain Health Insurance: A Constitutional Analysis, July 24, 2009

American Constitution Society, Issue Brief
“Mandatory Health Insurance: Is It Constitutional?” by Simon Lazarus

Virginia
Virginia AG Cuccinnelli’s lawsuit against Sec of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
RichmondSunlight’s record of the amendment to the Code of Virginia
Code of Virginia

Social Security Act
Title XIX—Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs
Title XXI—State Children's Health Insurance Program

Constitution of the United States
Article 1, Section 8: Tax and Spend and “Commerce Clause”

Supreme Court
Wickard v. Filburn

Note: It's 5 August 2011. Last night I found the notes above, dated 26 March 2010, which somehow escaped getting added to the blog. I'm backdating this post to the day it was written, but I really just put it up today. #cheating. (That's how you know I'm cheating; I wouldn't have deigned to speak in hashtag back then. #TooCoolForTwitter) The origins of these notes: A friend brought up, via my Facebook wall, the constitutionality of income tax when I admittedly got a bit case law nerdish. After reining in the stampede of citations, I ended my part of the conversation with "Don’t get me started on the individual mandate lawsuit filed by Virginia’s AG." As in, hee hee, aren't I silly for carrying on about law? I, um, subsequently went straight to work on carrying on.

Hez in ur teksbooks, moldin ur histry

2010-03-15T04:09:00.002-04:00

Here is an ABC News interview with Texas State Board of Education member, fossil record fault-finder, and Joseph McCarthy vindicator Don McLeroy—and don’t forget, contraster of the wholesome "American way" with, ugh, "multiculturalism,"—who reminded us, "Somebody's got to stand up to experts that are just... *sigh*".

(When Don McLeroy stands up, experts might as well sit down: you can view that bit of convincing delivery on a number of YouTube videos.)

State Senate booted you out of the chairmanship? Might not so much matter when your replacement is from of your ideological bloc. But new this month, and earning district voters a “Bully For You”: Dr. McLeroy (dentist) lost his seat on the board.

Not so bully: When the reelecteds and newly electeds take their seats next year, the Texas SBOE could still have members who were born on a 6000-year-old planet… and want public school textbooks to show it.

And in the meantime, the vote on what does and doesn’t get included in Texas textbooks guidelines (until the next review a decade from now) will take place before the change-over in incumbents.

But maybe, with the loss of the attention-drawing archconservative, the board will be able to bear down on crucial education issues that are the focus of much of the nation right now and on which the White House administration is soon to turn massive attention. Thomas Ratliff, the Republican elected to McLeroy’s spot, seems to think so anyway.

N.B. Any parts that are referenced but not directly sourced are within other links above or the two below:

Quoted in The Washington Monthly as saying, “There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

Russell Shorto writing on “How Christian Were the Founders?” in The New York Times. The title might make it seem irrelevant to this post, but give it a look; you’ll see.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer: in Ur sky, surveyen Ur Milky Way

2010-02-20T12:44:00.004-05:00

Wow, I remember, when I was in college, being blown away by the images coming back from the Hubble telescope. Just take a look now at what the WISE satellite is showing us! WISE began its total-sky survey in infrared a week ago from tomorrow, but it has been snapping photos since just before New Year's. My favorites right now are the Andromeda photos.

Oh, my sweet M31: so close, yet so far.

To back up for a second... That's a total-sky survey that the WISE team is planning to complete in six months. That alone is cool. The W in WISE stands for Wide-field. According to the mission website, each photo snapped by WISE covers an area of the sky equal to the area of three full moons. If that doesn't sound huge to you, consider the way astronomer Phil Plait, once who worked with Hubble, put it: "Hubble could take picture after picture for weeks and not get a view of the sky as large as WISE does in a few minutes," adding, "of course, the Hubble image would be a whole lot more detailed."

So far, WISE has discovered a comet and a near-Earth asteriod and has been just generally really cool.

... about as cool as the Hubble Space Telescope continues to be.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Been thundering since morning...

2009-08-13T18:37:00.003-04:00

... but I'm in my jogging clothes ready for it to let up. Rainfall over the lake was lovely, and I got an okay page's worth written so far today.