Democrats, Republicans, and False Equivalencies

This morning as I read a heart-warming Washington Post story about adoption, I noticed on the margins of the article an advertisement for t-shirts. One of the shirts had a picture of Joe Biden and asserted that anyone who voted for him was a “Traitor.” The other sported an image of Donald Trump and implied that the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico should be electrified. Let me get this straight. Trump supporters in 2020 illegally invaded the U.S. Capitol and threatened the lives of lawmakers and the vice president, but a Biden supporter is the traitor. Okay. I see the logic.

As Americans face the depressing spectacle of a repeat Biden vs. Trump presidential race, many Americans will try to force a false equivalency: that both Trump and Biden are equally horrible candidates and that their supporters are at best delusional and at worse criminal. But the facts just don’t bear out such an equation. Almost immediately after the January 6 insurrection, conservatives tried to minimize the horror of what Trump supporters had done and attempted to do. Of course, criminal courts have seen it differently, and according to the Justice Department, “approximately 467 [rioters] have been sentenced to periods of incarceration.” (justice.gov) We can hardly characterize the insurrection as some sort of tempest in a teapot.

Furthermore, while Democrats often gleefully mock Trump for his unhinged rantings and his potential to someday sport an orange prison jumpsuit, they don’t advocate the kind of violence Trump supporters so casually make light of. The suggestion to electrocute migrants trying to cross the border is a case in point. During the 2016 election, Trump made a veiled reference to his supporters potentially shooting Hillary Clinton if she were elected. More recently, he shared an image on Truth Social of President Biden being hog-tied and kidnapped in the back of a pickup truck. He warns of a “bloodbath” if he is not elected in 2024. All of these comments play to his base – and I mean that term in its more pejorative sense. There is simply no equivalent to this kind of political rhetoric on the left.

And with a few notable exceptions (Thank you, Liz Cheney), Republicans have been silent when confronted with the evidence of Donald Trump’s authoritarian leanings. Although privately some Republicans bemoan the fact that Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president, publicly they are cowed, most likely because Trump and his supporters show such vindictiveness and acrimony toward anyone who dares to disagree with them.

As Washington Post columnist put it in his January 28 column, “It’s time for everyone, the media especially, to face up to the actual choice: Between constitutional democracy and authoritarianism. Between a normal human being and a self-involved, spiteful madman. Between a government that has performed well and a regime that would gyrate from one personal obsession to another.”

I’ll take Grandpa Joe over the would-be tyrant any day.

Human Connection

Two articles on the front page of the virtual Washington Post piqued my interest this morning. One was all about the death of fun, and the other was about aging. Although vastly different in tone – the article on fun being exasperated and critical while the Anne Lamott piece was thoughtful and meditative – the conclusion I drew from reading them was the same. Our greatest need is not being met – that is, the need for human connection.

Technology has been transformative in society both for better and for worse. The same innovation that makes it possible to attend work remotely has also kind of killed the workplace. Those water cooler conversations can’t take place without physical presence. Also, since 2020, when COVID-19 shut down schools for months, young people have been suffering the effects of social isolation and disconnection. Mental health crises are at an all-time high.

There is no substitute for day-to-day touch and human interaction. From the moment we’re born, we can’t survive without the close physical contact necessary to nurture a newborn. Yesterday my husband came up to me and wrapped me in a big hug while regaling me with a study he’d just heard about claiming that a 20-second hug lowers blood pressure. Way more pleasurable than a pill, let me tell you.

At the same time, we seek fun in grand, expensive and complicated ways. The article on fun bemoaned all the extravagant social media moments, destination weddings, and over-the-top gender reveals that seem to have become de rigeur in modern culture. You can’t even go out for a nice dinner without witnessing people taking selfies or photos of their food. In today’s culture, if you haven’t posted it, it didn’t happen.

Yet true fun usually comes when we aren’t actively seeking it. It comes from being truly connected with the people around us. The other night my sons and I jockeyed at the kitchen sink cleaning up after dinner. At one point, one of them turned around and remarked on my husband sitting at the table with an enigmatic smile on his face. Later my husband told me that he was smiling because it was clear from our interaction how much the boys and I loved each other. On another night, I hauled out the ornament boxes and corralled all four children into putting them on the Christmas tree. This activity is always accompanied by their complaints. Yet as they unwrapped the ornaments I’d picked out for each of them over the years, my kids had so much fun reminiscing, laughing, and just enjoying the act of being together in one space.

As we get older, we have so many worries: finances, health, our children’s well-being. We bemoan the state of the world, which always seems wracked with war, natural disaster and disease. The only antidote to our despair is love and connection. This Christmas Eve, I’m going to wrap myself up in my love for my family. I’m going to enjoy the laughs around the tree as the kids open up their traditional Christmas Eve gifts of pajamas and a book. I’m going to demand lots of blood-pressure-lowering hugs. I’m going to remember what’s most important in this sometimes scary and isolating world: human connection.

Skeletons Out of the Closet

It’s nearing Halloween, and along with all things pumpkin, a profusion of ghoulish decorations can be seen in front yards all around town. This year there seems to have been a run on skeletons. Skeleton chic seems to be the Halloween decor of the moment.

Everywhere I go, I see skeletons: giant ones looming over homes, skeletons in trees, on balconies and front porches, where they often stare vacantly out of quaint rocking chairs. People seem to have fun dressing up their skeletons in different roles: pirates, rock stars, soccer players and the like. I’ve even seen a photo of a Halloween lawn decoration with two skeletons posed in flagrante delicto. The caption underneath reads, “Is this appropriate?” Indeed. Try explaining that one to your four-year-old as you’re touring the neighborhood trick-or-treating.

The phenomenon reminds me a bit of the Christmas Elf on the Shelf, which has become fodder for much satire and mockery. People love to pose the elf in compromising or mischievous situations and then post photos on social media. In the case of skeletons, I think their popularity stems from their being essentially a stripped down version of the human form. You can pose them in all kinds of ways, from the silly to the ominous. (One of my favorites is an apartment building that positions skeletons climbing up on balconies and trying to get into apartment windows.) At the same time skeletons remind us of our mortality and the eventual disintegration of our flesh, they can be posed in ways that make them seem very much alive. And that meeting between the worlds of the living and the dead is what Halloween is all about.

Every season has trends, and I guess Halloween is no exception. Especially in this age of social media, where people are proudly photographing and posting their decorating feats, we have a tendency to imitate what others are doing. So if you’re looking to have the hippest Halloween house on the block, skeletons are the way to go. No bones about it!

Walking the Walk

Here’s a little parable for your Sunday morning. Johnny and Billy were lounging around on a Saturday morning playing video games when their mom popped her head into the room. “Boys, I need you to do your outdoor chores today. It’s going to rain tomorrow.” Johnny refused. “You can pay someone to do your dirty work,” he told his mother. But Billy smiled angelically and said, “Sure, Mom. I’ll get right on it.” His mother beamed at him while throwing Johnny a frustrated scowl. “Suck up,” muttered Johnny.

The boys continued to play in a desultory fashion for a while. But Johnny’s conscience started to bother him. His mom did so much for the family. And the height of the grass outside was starting to make the house look condemned. He reluctantly got up, got dressed, went outside and fired up the lawn mower. Meanwhile, Billy whiled away the hours on the couch. No matter how many times his mom reminded him, by dinner time he had still not completed his chores.

As you might guess, this is a parable from the New Testament. After telling the story, Jesus asks his followers, “Which of the two did his father’s (or mother’s!) will?” The answer, of course, is obvious. So often in life we express good intentions. We want to be good, or at least be seen as being good. We “talk the talk.” But do we “walk the walk”?

I am guilty of this tendency to talk a good game but fail to follow through. It’s easy to promote charitable works and family values. But I’m not always willing to do the hard work of actually promoting these ideals. All the talk about feeding the hungry, for instance, won’t put food in their bellies. But getting that food to them will. And as much as I’d like to think I am a kind and compassionate person, how often do I go out of my way to help the people in my life?

There is a lot of hypocrisy in society. Politicians often espouse feel-good values, but the actions they take as our government leaders often belie their words. The same is true for many companies, whose public image lies contrary to how they treat their employees or customers. And one of the worst kinds of hypocrisy is the religious kind. So many pious pronouncements mask intolerance and selfishness. It’s one of the reasons the number of people who practice any particular religion is on the decline.

The message in today’s Gospel is so incredibly simple and yet so incredibly difficult for us to follow. As the saying goes, your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying.

Self Disservice

At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old Boomer, I feel compelled to weigh in on the development of the self-service economy.

On a recent airport visit, I was appalled to discover that no matter where I went, I had to interact with a machine rather than a person to purchase a bottle of water. My choices were ordering from and paying on a screen or the truly frightening prospect of an Amazon-style shop that required the insertion of a credit card to enter.

The idea of self-service actually started decades ago with the automat, a nifty little purveyor of sandwiches and desserts ensconced in vending machines. To be sure, these vending machines could be helpful to the busy office worker in a hurry. But the lack of human interaction was a drawback. Wouldn’t you rather kibitz with Doreen at the diner over endless cups of joe?

Self-service gas stations appeared in the Seventies. I’ll never forget the first time I tried to pump my own gas and had no idea where the gas nozzle on my car was. How embarrassing! And how depressing for service station attendants who suddenly found themselves out of a job.

This is one of the biggest problems of the self-service economy. At pretty much every supermarket and big box store nowadays, there are perhaps one or two checkout lines with an actual cashier, yet a myriad of self-checkout terminals where a single employee does any necessary troubleshooting and checking of IDs for the purchase of alcohol. As much as I try to make a point of having an actual person check out my purchases, I’m sometimes too rushed or impatient to wait in the long lines.

Washington Post columnist Rick Reilly wrote a humorous column on the subject of this new self-service economy titled “Dear Grocery Store Owners: I Don’t Work for You!” In it, he details the annoyance and frustration of being expected to be your owner cashier and bagger, as well as McDonalds order taker and airline ticketer/baggage handler. As he humorously puts it, “I’m checking myself out more often now than a seventh-grade girl on TikTok.” (“Self-checkout is the worst,” The Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2022)

Reilly also points out that theft in self-checkout lines is rampant and costs merchants a lot of money. Why don’t they just pay that money to more cashiers and do away with the untrained ones trying to find “jicama” on the self-checkout machine product list?

Technology and social media have already done enough to alienate people from each other. We live in our little techno-bubbles and can go whole days without interacting with another human being. Sounds like a dream for a misanthrope, right? But most of us crave connection, even if it’s only to bemoan the lousy weather with the grocery checkout clerk.

Let’s face it. Self-service is a disservice to us all.

Slow Down

A young boy is in a coma after being hit by a car in my old home town. He was just meandering down the sidewalk outside the local car wash when a car came out of the bay and the driver apparently lost control, hitting the boy and slamming into a restaurant across the street, injuring four others inside. While the accident is still under investigation, it seems to me from what I know of the location that the driver pulled off the car wash tracks too quickly and slid on the wet pavement.

Every day I see cars driving way too fast in quiet residential areas. These are neighborhoods where kids are playing and people are walking their dogs. Children walk to school each day while cars whizz by, even in school speed zones. Why are we in such a hurry?

Cars are so ubiquitous that people fail to have a healthy fear of them. In reality, the average vehicle can be a 1-2-ton instrument of destruction and death. And while car manufacturers continue to make safety improvements for drivers and passengers (The driver of the accident was unharmed.), those protections don’t help people unlucky enough to be in the path of a fast-moving machine.

In our modern world, we always seem to be pressed for time. We’re running late, so we gun it down the street. And we get so used to speeding along that we continue to do so even when there is no urgency. Sometimes this is the fault of governments. The speed limit in our sleepy neighborhood near the lake is 40 mph. That’s entirely too fast and makes walking along the road much too hazardous. But in most residential neighborhoods, the speed limit is 25 mph. Even at that speed, damage can be done, of course. But drivers routinely drive 40 mph in these areas. Sure, they may be courting a speeding ticket. But local police can only do so much to slow drivers down.

My former community has united in prayer for the 14-year-old child clinging to life in a Chicago hospital. His devastated family can only wait. No doubt the driver of that car has lost sleep thinking about what they have wrought, however accidentally.

But just as with gun violence, there are things we can do to avoid such horrific tragedies. And the one action all drivers can take today is simple: slow down.

What’s in a (Boat) Name?

Last weekend I was staying in downtown San Diego right next to the marina. The Embarcadero was a great place for my daily walks, and as I strolled along, I admired the grand yachts, fishing boats, and modest dinghies harbored along the waterfront. What I found most interesting about them, though, was the variety of names ship owners come up with for their watercraft.

Traditionally, boats and ships have been considered female and given women’s names. In San Diego harbor there were numerous examples of this: the Stella, the Lady Theresa, Mariah, Lola, and Annie M., to name a few. I have to imagine there might be times when someone has regretted naming their boat for a former girlfriend or ex-wife. It can’t be the simplest task to erase and rename it.

Of course, many boats had names that referenced their sea-going connection: Aquarius, Maties, Southern Cross, and Spirit of the Wind, for example. And along those lines, many boat owners seem to have a penchant for fishing and boating puns. These were some of my favorites and included We Shell Sea, Reel Ruthless, Reel Deal, and Knot Guilty (my personal fave). Life’s Ruff was also a cute pun, if not specifically nautical. I could just imagine the captain with their first mate, a lovable golden retriever, wind in its fur as it enjoyed the salty breeze.

Many of the boats had inspirational names, such as Living the Dream, Amazing Grace, Lovely Day, True North, Live to Be Happy, and Perfect Life. There must be something about being on the water that brings out people’s hope and optimism. I guess if you are willing to deal with all that is entailed in owning a boat, you must love the sea-going life. As my husband likes to joke, “What are the two happiest days of a man’s life? The day he buys his boat – and the day he sells it!”

There were Spanish names – Trieste and Septiembre – and a couple for the Francophiles: La Vie En Rose and Joie de Vivre. Also, Prost for the cheerful German! One owner fancied their boat the Big Kahuna, another the Lucky Lady. Still another called theirs Summer Toy. There were boats that aspired to Valhalla and Jupiter. One was inexplicably named Queen Anne’s Revenge. I also wondered whether Catch Me and Dealer Ship got stopped routinely by the Coast Guard. Probably the least imaginatively named boat I saw was simply The Boat.

I think it would be great fun to name a boat. Friends of mine, who are huge Star Trek fans as well as sailing aficionados, have come up with the following Trekkie names for their watercraft over the years: Holodeck, 10 Forward, Nyota, Gallileo, and Star Gazer. My family jokes that they would name our boat the Queen Mary after me ironically since I am the most reluctant seafarer there is.

Whatever their names, I enjoy looking at boats, most especially from the safety of dry land.

St. Patrick’s Day Dilemma

Across the country today, the Irish – and those who want to be Irish for the day – will don their green and their shamrocks and their “Kiss me, I’m Irish” buttons and celebrate the feast day of Ireland’s patron saint, Patrick. While in Ireland the saint’s feast day is more of a holy day, here in America we embrace the more rollicking aspects of Irish culture: drinking, music and dancing. This distinction sometimes results in confusion for Catholics, as the holiday always falls during the penitential season of Lent.

This year St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday, a day when Catholics are ordinarily directed to abstain from eating meat. Thus the dilemma: how to celebrate the holiday without the traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner.

When I was a child, I remember the pastor of our church telling us we had a dispensation on St. Patrick’s Day when it fell on a Friday in Lent. We were allowed to partake of the corned beef. This was probably due to the preponderance of Irishmen in the priesthood back then. Nowadays, some dioceses give out similar dispensations while others hold fast to the rule about abstaining from meat. As my niece somewhat facetiously put it, if you travel to a diocese with the dispensation, can you partake of the corned beef feast?

To non-Catholics, and even some Catholics, I’d wager, the entire brouhaha seems a trifle ridiculous and arbitrary. For me, it’s a non-issue. The traditional boiled corned beef, in my view, leaves a lot to be desired and offers me no temptation to stray from the no-meat regulation today. (Maybe a lean deli corned beef sandwich would be a different story!) I think it’s important to contemplate the purpose of our Catholic rules on fasting and abstinence during Lent.

Making these culinary sacrifices is a small way of connecting us to the suffering of Christ during his passion and death. By depriving ourselves of food, we are also learning to focus on our reliance on God and His providence. Many people also fast in solidarity with those who routinely go without adequate sustenance, even going so far as to donate the savings on food to the poor. Over the years the Church has lightened the load on Catholics with regard to Lenten sacrifices. In the past, there were much more strenuous strictures on fasting and abstinence. Today we are expected to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and we are told to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent. Not so difficult.

So today Catholics need to decide how important it is to them to hold to this sacrifice on what for many is a joyful celebration of culture, family, and friendship. If the corned beef dinner is essential to your commemoration of the holiday, God probably doesn’t begrudge you this one exception to the rule. People could also choose to abstain from meat on a different day from Friday just this week in order to honor the sacrifice it represents. Others will content themselves with a fish fry to go along with their green beer today.

Whatever we decide, it is what is in our hearts that is really important to God.  “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,” says the Lord. (Hosea 6:6)

However you choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

2023 Oscar Takeaways

Every year the Academy Awards provides fodder for commentators, comedians, and social media mavens. Whether the subject is the overlong ceremony, the quality of the host’s jokes, or the fashions of the day, there is an intense interest in the grande dame of film awards ceremonies. I myself am always keenly interested in and captivated by the event.

This year the genre-bending Everything Everywhere All At Once won seemingly everything everywhere all at once. From acting to directing to Best Picture, EEAAO swept the Oscars. The winning speeches by Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan – as well as by “the Daniels,” the two directors – were exuberant and moving. The entire cast and crew, in fact, seemed to alternate between smiles and tears throughout the night.

I was happy for the success of Everything Everywhere… despite the fact that its weirdness makes it not to everyone’s taste. What I was most thrilled about was the representation of Asian Americans displayed by its success. Michelle Yeoh has pointedly mentioned a number of times the hope her recognition provides to youngsters “who look like me.” Indeed, the past few years of Oscar ceremonies have highlighted the strides made by minority populations in the movie business. And the presence of Halle Bailey, the black actress portraying Ariel in the new live-action version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, served to underscore the point.

Ke Huy Quan’s impassioned acceptance speech was the most moving, as he detailed his quest from being a Vietnamese refugee in America to becoming an Oscar-winning actor. My favorite part of the speech was when he shouted, “Ma, I just won an Oscar!” to his 84-year-old mother. His declaration that his success was an example of the American Dream is one that Americans of all political stripes can get behind.

Of course, this being the Oscars, there was its usual share of boring and cringe-worthy moments. The best song category mystifies me. Despite the wealth of talent available in the film industry, the nominees in this category are consistently forgettable, and their performances sprinkled throughout the telecast are almost always to be dreaded, not welcomed. I also do not understand why the directors of the show think it’s a funny idea to have the host mingle among the star-studded audience and ask silly questions. I get that Jimmy Kimmel asking a Nobel Prize winner a stupid question about Harry Styles is supposed to be ludicrous and funny. But Malala Yousafzai, a serious young woman whose life was nearly ended by the Taliban, should not be subjected to such an indignity.

In fact, interviewing celebrities attending the Academy Awards program always carries a certain degree of risk. This was particularly true for those accosted by Ashley Graham, a model whose interviewing skills left much to be desired. Most celebrities, when confronted by her inane questioning, tried to be gracious. Then she ran into curmudgeonly Hugh Grant, who was having none of it. The awkward exchange between them has made for a lot of commentary on social media. While I agree that Grant was kind of a jerk about the whole thing, I question why every guest needs to be asked, “What are you wearing?,” as if the whole world needs to know what designer togs the rich and famous are sporting these days.

Despite these criticisms, I found the 95th Academy Awards to be a happy return to tradition and a mostly heartfelt celebration of the magic of movies.

Valentine’s Day Is for Shooters?

Last night as I sat relaxing and watching TV with my husband, his family group text starting dinging uncontrollably. The subject? An active shooter situation at Michigan State University, my husband’s alma mater and the current home of his nephew, who was sheltering in place inside his dorm room while a lone gunman stalked around terrorizing the campus. The shooter ultimately turned the gun on himself, but not before killing three people, wounding numerous others, and teaching thousands of teens and young adults that they are not safe, even on a bucolic college campus.

The grim news shared space in my newspaper with remembrances of lives lost in other recent shooting massacres that took place on or near Valentine’s Day, among them the horrific Parkland, Florida, high school incident that left 17 dead and the killing spree at Northern Illinois University that resulted in 6 dead and 21 wounded.

There have always been dangers in the world. But never before have Americans had to fear such ordinary activities as going to school and work, shopping at Walmart, going to church, or seeing a movie at the local theater. Have people become inherently more violent than in times past? I don’t think so.

There are other factors at play. The most obvious one is the proliferation of guns. The more gun violence that occurs, the more the gun lobby digs in its heels and blocks the most common sense legislation to curb firearms ownership by known violent or unstable individuals. There will always be altercations between individuals. But when a gun is handy, those altercations can only too easily turn deadly.

Another factor I see, particularly in mass shooting events, is the widespread media attention given to these incidents. The fact that Valentine’s Day is becoming increasingly associated with these massacres is indicative of a copycat feature to disturbed young men’s decisions to arm themselves to the teeth and prey on random innocent populations. While I know that news organizations must report on the news, I think it’s worth examining the way these incidents play out on camera. It’s incumbent upon the media not to give undue attention to the shooters, not to publish nonstop photos and other information about these clearly disturbed individuals. Instead, news outlets should focus on the repercussions these senseless acts cause to the victims and their families.

People of good will need to come together and find solutions. How do we protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to own firearms while at the same time limiting their distribution to criminals and people with severe mental illness who are a danger to themselves and others? How do we create a society that deplores rather than celebrates violence? How do we hold the media to account for their inadvertent glorification of the mayhem caused by disturbed and violent individuals?

Valentine’s Day should be for lovers, not for shooters.