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| Today is one of those days that give me a smug little glow of elation: it's "these couples have 70/80/90 thousand dollars of credit card debt!" day on Oprah. I have to admit--I love it. Not that I don't feel bad for the poor morons who can't control their spending. It's just that it makes me feel superior, and it's nice to feel superior. I know, I'm a guy, and I shouldn't be watching Oprah. But one of the reasons my wife and I are not in debt is that we don't have cable. The only decent thing on TV when I want to plop down on the couch after work is Oprah, and there's always the chance that they'll be trotting out the financial mistakes of near-bankrupt couples. And today, they are. Yes!
On the way home from school I thought of something. One time in college when I was working as a waiter I was running late to work, and it was absolutely pouring down rain. I sprinted through the rain in my slick-soled dress shoes and put on the brakes as I neared the door. But my feet didn't stop. They didn't slow down. They just flew up in the air. I landed flat on my back on the concrete. Funny thing: it didn't hurt at all. Not my tailbone, not my back, not my shoulders, not my neck, not my head. When I landed, the force of my landing was dissipated along the length of my spinal cord. A not-unpleasant cracking sound went up and down my spine as the vertebrae were stretched apart ever-so-slightly, absorbing the shock. No pain when I landed. No pain the next day. Nothing.
Yesterday a student at the school where I teach was running late for the bus. He sprinted to try to catch it, but could not. At some point he gave up and put on the brakes. But there was ice, and his feet kept going. He fell. A broken rib pierced his liver, and he died. Not fair.
Obama's doing great, isn't he? Centrist cabinet appointments. Reliance upon experts. And a bonus pledge to eliminate ineffective government programs and eliminate waste and inefficiency from government. Who knew? If he eliminates two government programs, that will be one more than Reagan was able to eliminate! What's great about Obama is that since he derives his power from his popularity with the people, (who are supposed to be the source of power in government) he accomplishes in a constitutional way what McCain wanted to accomplish through McCain/Feingold (which has had unintended consequences, and should have been declared unconstitutional): he allows We the People to provide a counterweight to the influence of money spent by the Greedy Bastards to influence policy. I'm a believer.
And here's another thought I had on the way home from work: the orgy of government spending over the next few years may be (paradoxically) what wakes up our collective inner-Ross Perot and makes us care about the deficits and the debt. If you'll remember, before this financial meltdown, nobody was talking about the national debt. Nobody. Now we're talking about it. I don't know how we're going to pay for all of the stimulus and bailout programs, but if it really is too risky to let the economy correct itself, I like Obama's plan. And I like the way he is already talking about balancing the budget when this all blows over. And I like having his demeanor and his judgment in the Oval Office at this time in our history. My son Jackson sure knows how to pick a president!
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I wrote this when I first started blogging, but most new readers haven't gone back far enough to read it. With the chill in the air, it feels like time to put this back up.
Paul GetchellI wish you could have met Paul Getchell. I lived next to Paul for about six years. I always suspected that there was a lot I didn't know about him. But from the time I found him mowing my front yard while I was mowing the back, I knew I had a neighbor in the vein of those who were apparently common in the time when the word “neighborly” was coined. Winter was coming, he said, and he needed to use up the gas in his mower.
Paul was in his late forties—tall, wiry, rugged. As I found out when he hoisted my massive claw-foot tub by himself, he was as strong as an ox. With his brown Tom Selleck mustache, I always figured that women would find him attractive, but there were never any around. My theory is that women worthy of Paul demand a bit more conventionality from their men. Paul didn’t have an independent streak—he was an independent streak.
Information about his past came up as it came up, and it turns out he was college educated; a former social worker. But when I knew him, he was jumping from one menial job to the next. By keeping his overhead low, he bought himself the luxury of freedom—the freedom to drop any job the moment the bullshit got too deep. His deadbeat integrity was inspiring.
During the time I knew him, two jobs made him happy. For a short while, he had a promising dot-com job that fell through. But the last and best job he would ever have was landscaping. Looking back, I’m sure he’d tell you, the job was perfect for him. He had found a boss who would treat him with respect. His own jewel of a yard in our sketchy neighborhood was testimony to his skill. And the guy loved to be outside.
When we moved out, we knew that Paul wouldn’t mind bringing his truck over and pulling the senior-citizen shrubbery up from in front of our new old house. When he was finished with that (and with the work he did without being asked) he left us his pick-axe, since winter was coming, and he wouldn’t be needing it until Spring.
When winter came, we heard that Paul was in hospice. He didn’t tell us himself—he thought it wouldn’t matter to us. He didn’t have any idea how many people appreciated him, or how much. Within a span of three weeks, Paul went from bad heartburn to cancer’s end game. When we visited him, his boss and his co-worker were with him. There was a lot of love in the room, all expressed in unspoken, manly ways. Paul was comfortable, and only occasionally a little loopy from the drugs. He knew he was done, but then again, he didn’t. I imagine that it’s tough to eliminate the future tense from your speech after a lifetime of having a future. Especially on morphine.
We had a great visit. I found out a couple of important things about Paul. Each Christmas that I was his neighbor, I had given Paul one of those liquor gift boxes—a bottle of Kahlúa with two cups, for example. Only on his death bed did he mention that he was a recovering alcoholic. Sober for twenty years, he had the strength to resist, and the grace not to burden me with the information. He let me know that he had appreciated the gesture each year, and that he had always passed the gift along to someone who enjoyed it.
If there’s a good way for a good man to die, Paul had found it. Just enough time to get his affairs in order and say his goodbyes; and not so much that he was lost in increments. He was fully Paul to the end. It surprises me how his death has stayed with me. Humble as he was, I think Paul would be surprised and gratified to know that I think of him each time I dig a hole. And when winter comes. |
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| At some point during the initial Sarah Palin glow, I remembered why I liked John McCain.
McCain is an honorable man who is independent of the Greedy Bastard wing of the Republican Party. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, and the religious right's enthusiasm for her, put Christian conservatives in a position finally to declare independence from the Greedy Bastards and align itself with a not so soul-less agenda. Finally, the religious right would have the ally that would give them permission to question the corporate party line.
At some point after the Sarah Palin speech, I realized that the most damaging accusations against Obama--by Giuliani, Palin, and McCain--are simply lies. And the Palin record that seemed so promising was so heavily spun to fit her into the co-maverick narrative.
McCain, lacking any coherent philosophy beyond his sense of common decency, has, by running the typical indecent campaign, pissed away the very asset that could have made him the agent of change that he's campaigning to be.
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| I haven't exactly given equal time in my blog to my son, Jackson.
This may be because, frankly, it took me a while to warm up to him. It was partly my fault: I don't bond well with males and consider females superior. And it was partly his fault: he is and always has been a certifiable pain in the ass. But, before too much time passes after his second birthday, it's time that I make public the deep love I've developed for the little bastard.
Jackson Hawkins is, as they say, "all boy": curious, impulsive, destructive, dumb as an Irish Setter. But not so fast...just when he seemed destined for a life of crime, he began to show interest in writing and drawing, books, letters, and pictures. And Barack Obama.
Here's an idea of how his brain works: We put Sophia's gummy vitamins in one of those daily pill containers to help her learn the days of the week and the concept of a week. The container was a free one from CVS, and it has the CVS logo on it. When at about 16 months Jackson began to want multiple gummies per day, we had to tell him, "one gummy a day, Jackson". Almost immediately, two things happened. When he wanted a gummy, he started saying "dummy day, dummy day!" And second, whenever he would see a CVS Pharmacy, he would point to it and say "dummy day, dummy day!" One thing we've learned about him is that he's not very good at un-learning things. He knows the letters C, V, and S, but still calls the drug store "dummy day".
And Barack Obama? Jackson, from the time he was 18 months old, when he could say no more than 8-10 words, could spot his face anywhere. This seemed to be an extension of his phenomenal ability with logos--he started by pointing out Disney logos as small as two grains of sand. Then Baby Einstein. Then "Bama, Bama"! But then he moved on to campaign yard signs without a picture. He couldn't read the word "Obama" when I wrote it out, but he could spot the yard sign a mile away. Then, just after turning two, he freaked my neighbor out by walking up to her homemade yard sign with the horizontal flag/sunrise logo on it and said "Barack Obama!"
He and his sister are on a mission to learn all of the car logos. She's got most of them (she just turned five), but he's right behind her. And one sign that I've really warmed up to the boy is the wistful smile I get when I'm out by myself and see a Mini-Cooper and picture him pointing to it and calling out with pride.
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| (I started this in March, and some of it probably made more sense then.)
I think I'm different.
From an early age, I noticed that other people didn't mind it when the beloved Hoosiers got the benefit of a bad call--and in fact could not acknowledge this possibility, given the fact that all losses in close games could be traced to a few key calls against them. I hated it when a victory felt hollow because we got the calls.
Because of this innate sense of fairness (I'm not bragging--I didn't put it there), and despite an equally innate conservatism that was reinforced by family heritage, "All in the Family" resonated with me. The Bunker Family put me on a path that made me an outsider Republican as a child. Archie was clearly wrong, and everybody else was right. On the other hand, I cried when Nixon resigned. My head was sad because because Nixon just seemed right as president, and my (bleeding) heart was sad was upset because I felt sorry for him.
My heart is liberal. My head is conservative. My head generally wins, but my heart doesn't like it.
I was a cold-war hawk. I was (and remain) anti-abortion. I don't believe in spending money you don't have. Affirmative action trades one type of unfairness for another. But dammit, I can't shake the belief that government can play a role in ensuring fairness and alleviating human suffering. It is only George Will who keeps my (bleeding) heart from fully embracing certain big-government solutions. But he can't make me stop feeling guilty for it.
I'm still the guy who doesn't like it when the refs give my team the breaks. I'm skeptical when my teacher's union tells me that I'm underpaid. (Relative to what?) I'm opposed to the extent of the property tax cut I'm about to receive, because of the way it will exacerbate the under-funding of the most vulnerable schools. (Government is remarkably responsive to pissed-off rich white people.)
This puts me at odds with the heart of the Republican Party: the Greedy Bastard Wing. Religious conservatives think they're the heart of the party. That's what the Greedy Bastards want them to think. The Greedy Bastards co-opt the language of religious conservatism--and intellectual conservatism, for that matter--to gain support for their heartless agenda.
There are people who believe that low taxes are good for the nation as a whole; I can accept those people. There are people who want their taxes to be low because then they'll have more money; I can deal with that--not too noble, but natural.
The Republicans I don't want to be associated with are the the ones who rule: those who want their taxes to be low so they'll have more money, but who pretend they want lower taxes because it's the best thing for the country.
This is one reason I've been an ardent fan of John McCain. Despite his lack of an intellectually coherent philosophy, McCain understands the ugliness of the Greedy Bastards' control of the party. And he approaches his intellectually vacuous reforms with the zeal of a guy with his heart in the right place. I have to agree with George Will when he exposes the incoherence and unintended consequences of McCain's attempts to lessen the impact of money on politics, but I'll get over it because I want to see a president in office whom I know is not controlled by Greedy Bastards.
Would I prefer a candidate who wants to return the country to a more coherent and defensible interpretation of the Constitution? If I felt he could get elected, manage two wars and keep the Greedy Bastards at bay, sure. But conservative constitutional scholars represent a percentage of the population too small to be viable candidates, and must allow themselves to be co-opted by Greedy Bastards to have a shot. Just like the religious conservatives.
McCain represents a wider swath of America--people who would love to see the power of the Greedy Bastards diminished, and who believe that Government can serve as a counterweight to their influence. Sure, the Constitution suffers at times under the populist impulse. Let the Supreme Court take care of that.
McCain has a clear history of listening to all sides and supporting policies that he feels are best for the American people, with little regard for partisan politics (the primary campaign notwithstanding) or for the wishes of the Greedy Bastards. He stands up for his beliefs even if it could cost him the election (the primary campaign notwithstanding). And, especially in the middle of two wars, it's time we elect a Commander-in-Chief with honorable military experience.
Does he set himself up to be called a hypocrite? Sure, everybody who stands for something does that. Is he a hypocrite? Sure, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a non-hypocrite to emerge as a front-runner. (We tried electing a non-hypocrite, and got Jimmy Carter, who won't go away.)
Despite my disappointment in McCain for his campaign pandering and hypocrisy, and despite the carelessness with which he follows his impulses to fix problems that probably shouldn't have a government-imposed solution, McCain represents a balance between sensible Republican conservatism and a heartfelt desire to clear a path for the people's voice to be heard.
Mr. Lear, nice try with Archie and Edith, but I can't go as far left as the brilliant and charismatic Mr. Obama. Mr. Will, please let me know when an acceptable candidate has a shot at winning the Republican primary. Until then, McCain's the man.
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