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August 31, 2017

Unmitigated

Harvey may be a storm like no other, developing quickly, then stalling, disastrously, over the Texas coast. There may be a case to be made for Harvey as an example of various truths we have learned in relation to climate change. But we don't need to revive the familiar debate of Just Convince Them It's Real to understand why Harvey is especially disastrous.

Climate Change, Global Warming... whatever we call it, the discussion of it has, conveniently, sidestepped other, harder discussions about our world and how we live in it. By focusing on the conviction that Nothing Gets Done because of Climate Denial, we ignore a great deal else that isn't getting done. And Houston, Texas is now Example A of what happens when we do that.

For years - and years - Houston has been an obvious, growing problem. Like a number of coastal communities, especially in the south, Houston sits on a large swath of marsh and wetland that was gradually paved over and built up... only in the case of Houston, it became not only the largest city in Texas but the fourth largest city in the country. Its "metroplex" - or the combination of the city proper and the constellation of communities surrounding it - take up acreage larger than the state of New Jersey (New Jersey, on the other hand, is more densely populated... which we'll get to, in a moment).

To say that "Houston had a flood risk" is to severely understate the reality. Houston, in fact, badly flooded in 2005 during Tropical Storm Allison. Hurricane Ike, which laid catastrophic damage on Galveston, the coastal town southeast of Houston, was actually predicted to be Harvey-like in its scope... but turned unexpectedly after hitting the coast. All of which is to point out that Texas, and Houston have known, for years and years, that they have a problem. And essentially nothing - and I do mean nothing - was done about it.

Cities like Houston - the gems of the sunbelt - grew like topsy starting in the mid seventies as a wave of retirees and job seekers moved south for opportunities and the warmer climate. Most of the cities and states that grew so rapidly grew in part because there was no zoning - no attempt to regulate, never mind think about, what should go where or why. Houston had, in fact rejected proposals to institute at the ballot box three times, most recently in 1993.

And so, Houston sat, and flooded, and dried out, and kept right on going as it had gone before. Never mind that some 50% of the nation's oil refineries sit on or near its shores. Never mind that because of the painful mess created when Houston attempted to evacuate for Ike the consensus was that full evacuation of the region was an impossibility. Never mind that the city has 2 reservoirs inside the city limits, feeding into bayous, that cannot take major flooding - by all means, build new housing developments hard up against them, as happened in the past 5 years.

Yesterday, the city of Houston deliberately flooded those communities, draining the reservoirs rather than see them fail completely, creating an even worse disaster. Water pours out of them, as I write this, at the rate of 7000 cubic feet per hour, and maybe, if it doesn't rain and the rivers go down, that might end later this week.

Having a debate about global warming is all well and good, and trying to reduce carbon emissions is a laudable goal. But knowing that storms are worse, that massive flooding is possible on a scale like little we've experienced... no one, it seems, wants to face the hard choices we still face about cities like Houston and other areas with overbuilt flood plains. We've created a system of "flood insurance" that's funded federally because the whole contraption denies how insurance works: that is, if you know a flood is possible on the land, don't build on it. Or if you do, accept that flooding will occur. Flood insurance, as we've built it, adds to the perverse incentives to build badly on flood prone land. And ending that, like even a modicum of zoning, would at least be a start to figuring out how to help more people suffer less, long term.

We lurch, after these disasters, towards some of this discussion each time - after Katrina, after Sandy. New Orleans is a different city now. New York moved, after Sandy, to buy out several thousand property owners on land deemed too close to the ocean to be livable safely. Yet the coastal beach towns of New Jersey - remember that dense population? - have rebuilt once more. Galveston, as it has each time, rebuilt after Ike. We build, and rebuild... and hesitate to ask, does any of this make sense?

It's tempting, as with global warming, to blame the rich interests and prominent know nothings arguing that talk of danger is overblown. The reality is, most of us would rather not want to believe that dangers are so great that we have to up-end our lives, our choices, our costal cities and beach towns. We pretend not to know how precariously San Francisco sits atop an earthquake fault line, we tell ourselves that events like a Sandy or a Harvey happen only in a 100 years or 500 years... as if that makes it ok. We play games of let's pretend and when a new disaster strikes, we wipe the board clean, focus on the immediate response and wonder "how could this have happened." As if we never knew.

We could make choices, even modest ones, to try and mitigate the effects of devastating floods. We could insist Houston adopt zoning regulations for federal aid. We could insist on wider dispersement of refineries and chemical production - and codify standards of safety so one state could not (er, Texas) create loose rules that also incentivize additional risks to life and health.

We could, but we probably won't. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey we see an unmitigated disaster. And, unmitigated, we will wait for it to happen. Again, and again.

Posted at 04:10 PM in House and Home, Issues, Politics, Science, weather | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 20, 2017

Stone Temple Pilots

My favorite line of the past week is "how can we erase our history by taking down these statues." It's a hilarious line, primarily, because it's said most often by people who have no understanding of the history of the statues, never mind the history they are meant to theoretically (at least) commemorate.

Each state in the US is invited to contribute 2 statues to the US Capitol in Washington. Mississippi chose as one of theirs Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America, who led the secessionist states during the Civil War. Georgia is represented in part by the CSA Vice President. Ponder that, for a moment. Yet the problem, we're told, rests with Nancy Pelosi, who stated - again - this week that it's long past time for Congress and the states to act to reconsider just which statues belong in the center of our national government's greatest hall.

These are not accidents. This didn't "just happen." And anger and outrage over the presence of a vast swath of Confederate celebrating statuary didn't appear overnight. Mississippi added the confederate stars and bars to its state flag in the mid sixties, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Yet to bring up the modest observation that it's probably time to remove them provokes outrage and cries of manhandling important history.

When Dylann Roof shot parishioners in Charleston's oldest black church - a deliberate act meant, in his words, to start a "race war" - the horrified response revived, in part, a decades old conversation across the South about the hate movements, the KKK, and the racist symbolism of the white south. Even in that aftermath, it was unclear for days if the will even existed to finally pull down the confederate flag on the state house grounds, a flag that, by statute, couldn't be lowered ever, for any reason.

And since then, in the aftermath of Charleston, the conversation about statues and symbols of an unrepentant south - a pointed display of confederate symbolism meant most to remind those who would defy it of just who holds what power and why - has continued on and led, most directly, to Charlottesville. The decisions to remove Robert E Lee from the town's main park, to rename the park "Emancipation Park" were painful ones that revived a hard discussion, long held grievances, and confronted difficult, rarely mentioned realities about race that are understood across the south and by black people pretty much all over the nation.

This is the reality and the history many unknowingly stepped into this past week, a week defined by the arrival of angry white supremacists in Charlottesville, determined to stop the statue's removal and to revive one side's insistence on making sure divisions by race remain intact. Race itself is an artificial, social construct. "Black' and "white" are terms we have made up ourselves, invested with meanings that often make no sense (the "one drop" rule, the "paper bag test") and that we perpetuate, on and on with no end in sight. To argue that removing statues erases an important piece of our history is, naturally, to erase history itself - it is to pretend we don't know how we got here, how this all started, what really drives this conversation.

There were those well meaning souls who, faced with yet more polling that an unaware public opposes something it largely doesn't understand, said "this isn't about the statues, this is about neo nazis and white supremacists" was also an attempt to both whitewash (literally) the whole conversation and to yet again tell blacks that long sought justice should be put off for the convenience of others and popular sentiment. It says something about the changes that Civil Rights and, yes, affirmative action have wrought that the attempts to silence were nipped and pushed back almost within hours of being brought up - a TV show with a host of color, and a panel of diverse representation, it turns out, brings forward voices with different ideas. And the conversation we're having now, it turns out, can be productive, thoughtful, and even difficult, and confrontational.

Knowing how we got here is half the battle - it turns out, in fact, to be an important half, but there's still more to do. It was heartening, this week, to see the progress made in cities across the north and south. Boston stood up to white supremacists. Baltimore took down its Confederate statues. Lexington, Kentucky made moves to do the same. Charlottesville refused to surrender its progress, its dignity, or its soul. And a nation refused, calmly and quietly, to simply accept the thoughtlessness of its accidental President.

The statues are important. The statues are the heart of this conversation, just as every sign and symbol of white power and oppression meant to further our racial divide is an important part of a conversation meant to figure out how, one day, we can be a better nation that moves beyond racial divisions. Ending those divisions isn't pretending we don't have them, or never had them, or don't have a history that enshrines enforcing them. It is hard, it is painful, it doesn't need to be violent, but we cannot surrender just because violence happens. Learn the history. Take them down. Erase nothing, change everything. For goodness sake, haven't we waited long enough?

Posted at 01:19 PM in anger, Current Affairs, Inequality, Issues | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 17, 2017

Do The Wrong Thing

Unlike many critics (and liberals), I've always felt that Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee's seminal film, isn't really all that it's made out to be. A musing on the ugly racial divides in outerborough New York, the film does accurately catch the tensions, misunderstandings and prejudices that made up urban life at the time. What I've always disagreed with, really is the title: no one in it is especially doing the "right thing." And without that, without some sense that there is a "right thing," Lee's film is a muddle - a film that never quite gets where it's meaning to go, no one to really feel good about, nothing in the situation that offers hope or possibility.

Still, watching last weekend's events in Charlottesville unfold, and watching Trump flail away in the days since, I come back to that notion of the "right thing" because Trump has been, at the very least, an object lesson in that in any bad situation, it's possible to make things worse. Do the right thing? Why not just do the wrong thing, and stand around, waiting for the applause.

The self-congratulatory, self righteous aspects of Trump - the boundless need for mass love, the urge he has to insist what he knows and has figured out is all there is to know - were, I always figured, the deal breakers for his run for high office. And, even with last year's outcome, it's possible to still feel right about this. Trump overcame his self made obstacles from a mix of people convincing themselves he couldn't possibly be as bad as all that, and another group hoping, more or less, that he was. That he was badass. That he was going to stick it to the people oh so deserving of having it stuck.

Those illusions are falling away - some times quickly (the "he can't be that bad" crowd has largely awoken to the fact that he is) and slowly (the growing unease beginning to show up in his friendly circles that He's Getting Distracted or Off Message... hint: he is the message). And with Charlottesville, Trump has more or less (mostly less) given away what he needs most: the good will of the doubtful. Now, at this point, he's not getting that back.

Charlottesville happened for a couple of reasons: a growing sense of confrontation and acknowledgement of the racial tensions, especially out of the traditional south, that drive the continued presence of Confederate symbols and the "Lost Cause" narrative of the Civil War. The other is the reawakening of the forces that ride that narrative to push their brand of racist hate: the Klan, other white supremacy groups, Neo-Nazis and on and on. "Standing Up For Our Rights" as the march was dubbed, was a construct of these racist groups, and from Friday night's procession of torch wavers to Saturday's messy confrontations, Charlottesville was driven by the hate of the racists.

There are these questions of "what does Trump know" or "what does he think" about the "Alt Right" (casual dress hatred for the young slacker) and the Klan/Neo Nazi world behind it... but this kind of misses the point. Trump doesn't have an ideology, a purpose, a philosophy to guide him. He has himself, and the prejudices and preconceived notions he came with, some he clearly got from his father (who seems to have had a more active, unpleasant notion of race relations in life and business), some he seems to have come up with on his own (his Central Park five antics, birtherism, etc). I don't know what he actually believes, I doubt he does, either. That, ultimately, is what makes him, and his actions, so sad and dangerous. He could know better... but why would he even try?

Trump's emphasis on opposition to violence, his revived use of Nixon era tropes about "law and order" and crime somehow rampant in the streets - a remnant, after all, of his New York youth - blurs, for him, the things that need to be addressed - out of Charlottesville, but more generally, around race in this country. He says the words about "condemning" Neo-Nazis and finding them "repugnant"... but it's a child's dutiful attempt to sound sincere.No one, it seems, can ask him the question he at least needs to think about for himself - not whether it's bad, but why. His answer seems to be "violence." For most of us, it would be, "the hateful racism."

As a nation, our use of language is sinking - and Trump is, in many ways, emblematic of that downturn as well. We use "racism" too often and too broadly to rope in a multitude of attitudes, actions and beliefs. This is racist. That's racist. He's racist. We need more words. I don't know if, Trump is racist, or how much. I suspect he's someone who carries a long list of prejudices and notions about race and groups that he's never particularly examined or thought deeply about their accuracy or usefulness. It's those preconceived notions he brings to this conversation - a painful, and probably necessary one - around race and how we treat one another, that lead him to choose to say and do the things that make this moment worse. And in that sense, Spike Lee was right - scratch the surface, and most people will show how they identify with their own tribe first. And not try very hard to understand the others. Do the right thing? We don't even know what that would be.

I think we do know some of the right things, and the wrong ones. In this new national conversation, perhaps the best approach is realizing that our President is not some all knowing, wise teacher - an approach of the last two Presidents, neither of whom quite deserved that spot, either - but someone who, like the rest of us, maybe needs to hear some things he hasn't heard before, consider the opinions of people who don't always agree with him, and think about changing his mind. For this conversation, discussion, dialogue to happen... that's a big part of what needs to happen (bless you Heather Heyer, and your amazing Mom). Just because Trump chooses, so actively and so throughly, to do the wrong things, doesn't mean we all have to go along. Indeed, saving ourselves - and any semblance of our decency - requires that we absolutely don't. And maybe that's a start on doing the right thing.

Posted at 11:13 AM in anger, Current Affairs, Ethics, Film, Inequality, Issues, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 03, 2017

Rich Man's Fugue (The K-Harris Remix)

Newly elected to the Senate, Kamala Harris has, not surprisingly, garnered outsize attention as a potential presidential hopeful. She is a high profile presence at Senate hearings. She frequently uses social media to highlight her positions and concerns.

It's not surprising that there's been some negative feedback as well as positive.

What is surprising is both how Harris has shot to the top of these - generally premature - discussions, and how much her presence has ignited rage within the smoldering remains of Bernie Sanders failed campaign for the nomination. In these dog days of the disastrous Trump presidency, Twitter has become the angry outlet for many to rage post their political (and other cultural) hot takes. Stories and memes take off and reverberate at a speed so rapid, the descent into ugliness can be head spinning, outrageous... and yes, frightening. What may well have been intended as a casual effort to pump up Harris' name recognition and presence, has morphed into both a debate how candidates of color are seen and how the left can find consensus at a moment when ending this Trump farce is so paramount.

And all of that is kind of secondary to what prompted me to write this.

I fell into the maelstrom of this partly as contrarian, partly in my own naivete; a somewhat blithe tweet from Harris about economic inequality for black women struck me as a reminder that many Democratic leaders, Harris included, have a challenge in presenting their concerns about an inequality that they themselves don't really live in or experience. Harris has, in fact, enjoyed a fairly comfortable existence since her youth, as the child of two successful university professors, her own largely upbeat political trajectory, and the wealth of her husband, also an attorney.

I've discussed before the tension we're currently under culturally and politically in discussing the lived experience of ourselves and others. It's of a piece with a larger issue around "expertise" and use of statistics that's complicating all sorts of political discussions, especially in this democratized age of discussions via media like Facebook and Twitter. It's not a simple matter, and there aren't a lot of easy answers, though many would like to approach these dilemmas simplistically, and with broad brushed generalizations.

Historically, Americans aren't necessarily excited by wealthy people speaking as if they are one with the common man. The most obvious example against this - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - achieved his levels of support by representing himself as standing up to, and against, members of his own upper crust social class. He was seen, in turn, by other bankers and business leaders, as suspect and untrustworthy because of his stances for workers and people in poverty. And his success as President was likely because he could thread the needle of helping those in need because of his patrician education and political savvy.

There's a long - much longer - list of millionaires and billionaires who have failed as candidates because their wealth left them seen as out of touch with ordinary folks. Mitt Romney is easily a recent failure, but you could include Ross Perot, John Kerry, and others. Americans are leery of the patrician class, those born to great wealth, handed every opportunity, who assert confidently that they know what it is to work an hourly job, struggle to meet expenses, trying to get by on barely enough. In this age of high income inequality - the worst since the Gilded Age - the problem has become more pronounced, the dissonance shrill, and the tension high.

It's also the case that getting elected to statewide office - like Governor or Senator - hasn't had the same hurdles. The Senate has long been (indeed since the founders) an enclave of inherited wealth and privilege. And it's part of why, though many Senators have tried, few have actually jumped the hurdle into the White House. Those who have achieved the goal - Kennedy, Lincoln, Obama - are men who have paired their privileged aspects with emphasis on their points of commonality with the masses. Lincoln as a hard knock success story, Kennedy as the triumph of Irish Catholic immigration, Obama as a mixed race champion for the Rest of Us.

Still, the Obama example is noteworthy given the decimation and hangover of the Housing Crisis he walked into as President. Everything from Occupy Wall Street to that campaign Sanders ran in 2016 stems from feelings, deeply held on the left, that our last President wasn't in fact in tune with the economic problems of the have nots. It is an internal tension driven in part by the strange, bifurcated coalitions both political parties have within - Business owners and less educated white voters on the right, and coalitions of minority groups combined with the educated professional class that make up the left. The "privileged few" live in both parties. And the resentment simmers all around.

It can seem unfair to question Harris, especially this early, for the sense of her personal privilege. But it seems myopic to pretend that examination won't, or shouldn't, occur... as it should occur generally in the conversations about candidates in upcoming elections. It matters because the issues of economic inequality ought to be the one we put paramount in our election choices: affordable housing, quality education for all, decent healthcare, ways out of poverty, and on and on. It matters because Donald Trump skillfully deployed class resentment and rage as his tools to achieve a slim electoral college majority. And it matters because we ought to ask, reasonably, if the long held bias of American voters isn't correct - do members of the educated, patrician class really understand the needs of those who have less?

That questions like this get lumped into the shrill, unpleasant shoutfest around questioning or challenging Harris and candidates of color more generally is understandable, but a shame. There's plenty of unpleasant aspects to the denigration of Harris in recent days - around race, around gender, and the still ugly tactics employed by the Sanders supporting left - but it's not wrong to ask if she's ready for the big leagues, for prime time, for the role as head of our national party. There are fair questions to be asked of her, or anyone else. Those who want to defend Harris (myself included) from unwarranted ugliness, have to leave room for what our politics require, a healthy, sometimes difficult, debate.

"Do something about income inequality" is, and should be, a rallying cry for the organized left. It's fair to ask who is best positioned to do something, anything - but more importantly, the right things - to address inequality and to right what is a devastating set of wrongs currently at play in American life. I'm sure Kamala Harris has a tremendous role to play in this, as do others who come from similarly successful, privileged upbringing and backgrounds. That said, I think this conversation is hopeless if those without wealth and privilege are kept from having their voices heard. These are important questions. Surely some of the most important. The challenge, it seems, is finding the balance, as it ever was. And the music plays on...