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Are We?

"Having Trouble Coping With Post Pandemic Life?" The headline blared at me this morning on my phone (side note - I am so dependent on Apple products at this point, it's hopeless), and yes, all around us are the questions and stories of "trying to get back to normal." But that headline prompted my most cynical morning affirmation... "Are we?"

Is this really "post pandemic"? It's a fair question, one we ought to ask harder and more often and not assume we know the answer. The logic for "post pandemic" generally goes: a) most of us are vaccinated; b) we're trying to get back to normal; and c) all those statistics about cases and hospitalizations and deaths are headed in the... right direction, right? So it's, you know, kind of over, right?

There are a lot of reasons o doubt that train of logic, questions and details and actual statistics that belie the hopefulness. More to the point there's a reality many Americans don't like: we've been trying to declare this thing over since literally before it began. Some of that, yes, was Trump, his team, and their incompetence. Some of it, yes, was other Republicans and folks on the right following Trump's lead or politicizing what really should have been based on science and public health guidance. All bad, sure. But the toehold that allowed those claims and complaints to take root was America's general impatience and the closing of our society, the most open and free moving in the world.

The point is, this isn't over when we say it is. We won't have "normal" because we insist that everything be "normal." The pandemic is over when we can say, safely, that the risk of contracting a deadly illness is no longer a major threat, when we can treat the disease and prevent death, and when we can fully and safely resume the lifestyle and behaviors we had previously, free from worry for ourselves, and others.

And most surely, we are not there. And here's a quick pass at why:

• The threat of variants: Covid 19 is highly contagious and easily spread. That has not changed, and the Delta variant is showing, yet again, that the disease moves faster than we can track. Given the concerns that variants may be vaccine resistant, it is way too soon to drop reasonable cautions.
• We Are The World. While America ranges from 40-70% adults vaccinated depending on region, almost no other country in the world is close to where we are, except Israel. Most obviously, this (still) affects international travel; but more basically, "post pandemic" is not just us. It is when a substantial majority of the world can resume, safely.
• What about the children? the pace and timing of vaccinations has meant that we won't resume anything like normal schooling until this fall, a reality that puts off for at least 3 months a lot of hard questions and unforeseen issues that may arise as we try to resume fully in person, 5 day a week schooling. For now, families are trying to set up normal kid summers around vacations and camp... and even that isn't quite working. It's cavalier to assume that we won't find, as August drifts into September, that simply restarting school is more complicated than anyone realizes.
• Staffing. And about that camp, and that restaurant, and that airline: what seemed at first like mere conservative hysteria has laid bare the complexities of "getting back to work": the workers aren't where they were, and they're not going back. It's hard to simply undo furloughs. And seasonal employment means nothing after 18 months of seasonless everything. Yesterday, I checked the local commuter train station parking lot, and while it's fuller... the lot was 3/4 empty at 9am. That says to me that we are far away from anything like what life was like before.

Yesterday the Washington Post sneaked a peek at an upcoming book detailing the failures of Trump and his team in managing the pandemic. I suspect, for many, it will be easy to make those bad actions the focus of our failures in this pandemic. And in many ways, he should. But even without him, or with him gone, we struggle to treat this pandemic as a pandemic - an ongoing problem that will, for the foreseeable future, impact our lives, our choices, and hinder attempts to restore normalcy. That, really, is still on us... the rebels, the privileged, the fortunate few who have endured some minor hardship, but come through largely health and intact. Are we "having trouble coping with "post pandemic life"? Or are we really, just, you know, the problem?

Instant Gratification Takes Too Long

The one thing that won't die in the internet age - the instant, and wrong, hot take - for me is actually the hopeful sign that our way out of the pandemic year isn't in fact written yet. The nearly cataclysmic changes we've all experienced in the past year aren't minor, aren't things you just "get over"... and the massive implications for our society and our economics (never mind our politics) are things we can only begin to start figuring out.

And that's why I don't mind the "jobs will instantly return to normal" and "everyone has to stop wearing sweatpants and put on real clothes again" type hot takes. The instant gratification culture of immediate analysis and pronouncements has been thoroughly up ended, even if the media may be the last to really understand what hasn't happened, and what isn't happening, and even start beginning to make sense of where we actually are.

At the most base level... people died. I've been stunned at the number of conversations of the past few months - you know, those reconnecting "hey, we haven't seen each other for a year" post vaccination convos, and dinners and re-gatherings - where that conversation veers into frank discussions of loss and pain and death. More than half a million people died of Covid (that we know of) - random, often pointless losses of family, parents, coworkers. But often, just as surprising, the losses people share turn out to be the other deaths - not covid, but the other stuff of cancer, heart attacks. The reckoning of these losses, over 18 months, has really only just begun, in part, yes, because Trump lacked the basic humanity to properly put the losses in context. But separation, and the near incomprehensibility of losses on this scale, is also a big part of it. No one in popular media, really, has yet found the words, the context, for all this loss. We're just beginning to grope for the words.

Then, too, I think of the enormous life changes so many have experienced as a result of this strange surreal, and yes, lost, year. People who have made major, significant life changes over the pandemic. All of the people who put significant life changes on hold because of it. And so many who have changed nothing... but for who everything has changed. Six months ago, I quit my job and embarked on this new course of writing and living differently. Only today, did it occur to me that perhaps expecting everything to be sorted after only six months is, well, not very realistic. Extrapolate that kind of major upheaval in so many lives... and really, our culture has no comprehension of what is and isn't happening in people's lives, and the ways those changes impact economic and social life. Are people "going back to work?" What does work even mean just now? What is "going back?" So much economic analysis just now is slapdash, lazy, and obvious. It will take months, if not years, to sort out all the forces in play, and what they mean.

And sure, it seems frivolous to relate these near existential issues - life and death, work and purpose - to the more superficial parts of our lives, the daily business of consumerism and consumption that make our American culture hum. But that's the point, isn't it? So much of the frothy, frivolous exercises merrily rolling along in early 2020... are just gone. if nothing else, the pandemic was a forced pullback to "is that really important" that offered many a chance to reassess all sorts of choices And that's just the beginning. Stores have closed that will never reopen. Dining has changed. Vacations have changed. New routines are part of all of our lives. And it's routines and habits that really guide our interests and choices. And again... we're only just beginning to figure out what these look like, what they might mean.

Just one obvious practical example to finish: "planes are full again." It's the hopeful, meaningless, deceptive storyline that will drive this summer's coverage of travel and leisure. Domestic air travel is still well below half of what it was before the pandemic, losses that have nothing to do with leisure or vacation travel (and don't even start on the embers of international). It's business travel that was the backbone, and profit center, of airline revenue. Will it resume? Sure; some of it will seem essential, some will argue that face to face beats Zoom and win. But many won't. At a moment when the whole concept of the "downtown office" is in flux, major city to city air travel looks like a relic.And again, that has economic implications no one wants to face and has gone largely undiscussed.

It's an odd moment, this juxtaposition of the "now now now" internet world we have and the almost luddite realities the pandemic placed on our existence. It's an odd, fascinating place none of us expected to be, and trying to intellectually sort out what it means is useful, and necessary... and all but impossible when we also want it all figured out, entirely, as of yesterday. As you peruse that Vogue telling you to get out of those sweatpants, and take in those reports that lazy workers are reluctant to give up unemployment to go back to work... just remember, no one, really, has figured any of this out. Instant gratification takes too long... and maybe the problem isn't "instant"... it's that maybe we're beginning to figure out this life needs more than just... gratification.

Coming Home

About six months ago, I made a strange, and wondrous, and scary decision to do the thing I'd always wanted to do: work from home, focus on writing, and see how that works out.

Obviously, it wasn't an entirely voluntary decision - in the sense that, it's not a decision that would have made nearly as much sense had we not been in the middle of absolute crazy time. 

It's weird, living through a pandemic. It's remarkable, to me, how clarifying the past year has been: how quickly it separated the things that are absolutely necessary (say, to stay alive) from the less than essential (going to the movies, for instance). In almost an instant, everything I'd based my decision making on - is that fun? do I want things? - was replaced with "what will keep my mother from catching a deadly infection." Ordering groceries to be delivered. Going to deserted parks. Life became, in so many ways, so much simpler.

Even when I went back to work (after a 3 month leave, essentially, to make sure mom was as safe as possible), I found trying to resume old routines was impossible without applying my newfound clarity. And, within months, that same newfound clarity was finding myself asking "what work really is most important and ultimately, most satisfying?" 

And so, I came back to what I've always wanted to do most - be here, and write.

I haven't done much. if any, specific pandemic posting; it's not what I think of as "my blog." Plus, I'm not sure it's exactly fascinating - we've all been at home, more or less. It's not easy. But somehow... we carry on.

But what was really interesting to me, what has been interesting in a voyage of discovery that, to my surprise has been generally positive, is discovering life at home. This life is not what I expected or planned. And it has been eye opening. 

For years, I threw myself into work. I went in early, stayed late, worked hard, Laundry, cleaning... home tasks came a distant second. My day off was "catch up on projects." I would tell myself that, one day, I would tackle some bigger plans, really "get organized." Somehow, the time for that was never quite there.

When I got home this past November, and began tackling those very projects... I quickly realized that I had been kidding myself. For years. These were not small projects. Getting my room together, organizing clothes, really making my desk a proper writing pace, starting to do research.... this was a lot of work. It was the work I'd put off to do... other work. And, as it turned out, tackling these 'minor home projects" was also valuable. And satisfying, And required attention and care.

This past Christmas was the first in years where we had a reasonable time to prepare. It was relaxed and festive and I didn't feel, for once, as it was rushed or ended too soon. I discovered the time to invest in making great coffee every morning, making that healthy fruit smoothie I was starting to like having around, to show up for volunteer activities I'd been missing. And, working on the book project that fueled this switch, I'm discovering that writing and editing is really work I love and love to pursue. 

It's easy in this pandemic to focus on the privations, the limitations, the struggles... the losses and the distance. I'm not made for that - life is too full of possibilities and hope and the chance to grow. There has got to be some good to find in all of this. Or we will just have to make it.

And this isn't to dismiss the work I used to do. I ran into a young woman at my old store the other night. She had started a month before I left, it was her first job, and her second day it rained badly and she got soaked walking to work. She was in tears, felt defeated and wanted to quit. I sat her down, talked to her, and eventually told her to go home and I would cover her day out. Now, happily, she's working there full time, and she knows that my assistance is what kept her there and she thanked me.  I miss the opportunity to be a part of that.

Growing up, I read Erma Bombeck a lot; her essays on life, suburban living and homemaker based feminism was humorous and inspiring; I recommend her highly. And, just like some man, I find myself writing about discovering laundry and cooking as if it was some sort of mystical land, and of course, it's not. But I will credit the pandemic with the opportunity to step back, reassess life as I've known it, and discover things I never quite knew. Coming home, being home... it does feel right, and okay. There will be time to figure out what life looks like after a pandemic, when we get there. And I know it's not possible for everyone... but we have been given, by fate and by disease, a real chance to reassess what life in America looks like. At the very least, we ought to explore what that might look like.

A Price Above Rubies

In America's mix of egalitarian and elitism, it's not hard to find oneself living or socializing in close proximity to great wealth. It's one of the oldest staples of Hollywood - the good (or bad) kid from a modest upbringing getting exposed to the ways of the upper class. The scholarship kid at boarding school. The everyday worker who marries the boss' daughter. That time you went to dinner in a fancy New York restaurant, surrounded by the obvious displays of people with far more money, if not taste, than yourself.

In some ways, I feel bad for Tom Price. It's not easy to be in close proximity to extravagance, natural, even, to feel somehow you should get to do and have the same things. I was a scholarship kid at a fairly elite private college where other kids drove the spare family BMW, amongst other luxuries large and small. I lived in Manhattan. I've had the privilege of a private showing of the Chanel Couture collection. As much as you think you know about wealth, there's always a level more.

Sadly, the lesson of the last few days is that these are the moments that really do show one's moral compass, and in that, Tom Price failed. Excessive use of private jets on the government dime is a ridiculous, petty excess that flies in the face of claims to cost consciousness and an interest in cutting the size of government. And it's not as though Price's fall was recent. His history of questionable stock deals in health companies while Chairing the House Committee overseeing their affairs was, it's clear, just an indication of Price's sense that he wanted in on the gravy train rolling nearby.

It's gotta sting when you're so very close to it, and reminded constantly of just how far away that life actually is.

Donald Trump may not be as wealthy as he claims, but he is, of course, the very essence of the eighties era "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" that he came to embody, and take as his "brand." (Trump, in fact, doesn't have the usual Gulfstream size PJ as his main plane - he has a 737 gaudily painted with his logo that hangs out, visibly, near the runways at LaGuardia.) And he has, naturally, stacked his Administration with like minded, and similarly well-heeled, millionaires and billionaires. In the midst of revelations this week involving a number of Trump officials... there sits Betsy DeVos, who doesn't spend government money on a jet, because she owns one.

Of course, as the adage goes, money can't buy taste, and the kind of wealth Trump and his friends bring to DC is a kind of ostentatious, showy display of wealth that rubs many, rich or not, the wrong way. Trump's gilded, golden everything decor in his homes and Country Clubs is designed to impress the easily awed, not demonstrate classic, sublime taste associated with older, quieter money (even DeVos, in that regard, seems more understated and private). Trump's is the conspicuous, elaborate consumption of someone who cares more about showing off, and the appearance of class than anything actually classy. Even Trump's much lampooned language about "the best" and "big league" in regards to what he owns betrays that endless need to show off, to preen and self aggrandize. What's sad, ultimately, about Price isn't just the small, petty nature of his fall - it's the way he let Trump's especially tasteless approach to extravagance further warp his own sense of entitlement. Surely, there are better ways to aspire to being upper class.

Trump's extravagant obviousness, too, is why losing Price is neither the end of this story, nor even likely it's worst example (and we do, after all, still have the oblivious displays of Steve Mnuchin and his recent bride, who may be hiding for now, but seem likely to reappear at any moment). The ridiculous trips, the family with no sense of propriety, combined with dozens of hangers-on, some rich and wasteful, some poor and aspiring... the stories can, and will, write themselves (the world waits, Scott Pruitt - don't stop now). And then of course, there's the even more familiar territory of say, Ryan Zinke, and the casual selling of favors to vested interests, like the oil and gas industry.

Still, at the heart of this Dynasty-like resurgence (I, for one, am not so sure that the CW's revival/reboot isn't a stroke of genius) is that sad, small tale of Tom Price. Covetousness and greed are embarrassing; it's almost painful to watch anyone's flaws laid out in such public, shaming display. American culture markets conspicuous consumption like it's, literally, going out of style. You will never have enough. You will never be rich enough, or thin enough, well dressed enough, or live luxuriously enough. The penthouse apartment, the private jet, the furs, the cars... the list is, truly, endless. And yet, how we punish those who succumb most to the siren's call.  It is vengeful, bordering on cruel.

The trick of course, is to learn what it means to have enough. To see luxuries as just that - the occasional extra, a little bit more, a nice perk. When I get to fly in the front of the plane, dine in the 5 star restaurant, buy the Tom Ford fragrance at Saks... I try to remember to be grateful. And to enjoy it without asking for more. At the very least, it gives one the luxury of giving Tom Price something worse than scorn... and that's pity.

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.

 

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The Christian Thing To Do

For years, Conservatives have held religious faith and their own sense of religiosity over the heads of liberals; calling it "holier than thou" would be an understatement. From the rise of the Moral Majority to the attempts at political advocacy run out of evangelical churches to the Christian Coalition, the conservative right grew over the past fifty years in part by appeals to religious fundamentalism. And with it came notions that no one knew religion, morality and decency better than they did.

Much of this legendary religious certainty came in the face of internal tensions, never fully reconciled: the most stridently antiabortion rhetoric defined as "pro-life" came from people just as likely to turn around and express a near bloodthirsty interest in the death penalty, and after 9/11, acceptance of even the most casual justifications for the use of life endangering methods of torture. We were treated to lectures on immorality and marital fidelity from folks eager to elect much married, often multiply divorced leaders with scandalous histories of adultery. The most stunning revelations of closeted men seeking men, often much younger men or even boys, for gay sex have come from a cadre of religious leaders closely associated with conservative causes, or members of the GOP in Congress.

And yet, in the face of this, conservatives have continued to wield their mighty sword of piety and religiosity at every turn, unencumbered by a sense of humility or certainly even a modicum of irony. To this day, the notion of liberals as shameless, godless hedonists, angry antireligious extremists bent on taking God out of schools and all aspects of modern life wherever possible, persists.The arguments around these issues are intense, extreme, and most certainly, endless. 

If liberalism could be defined as "a belief system" - something I heard much of growing up - what's been in remarkable over the past 25 years is watching liberalism move away from articles of faith to expressions of defensible public policy. Sociology, urban planning, education theory, economics, healthcare and energy policy... the list of areas where research and analysis has reached into thinking about government policy and actions is wide and deep. Policies that liberals advocate - from early childhood education, to nutrition, to environmental concerns, to energy policy and more - are built not on feel good pronouncements but the actual evidence of studying what works and what doesn't. That such policies and ideas often help to achieve desirable, compassionate ends is often not just a goal, but an added benefit.

Indeed, what;s been fascinating in the push/pull of political debate over my lifetime is the way what used to be a debate over emotional vs. rational in terms of left vs. right in this country, has reversed. It is now the left, more often, approaching debates from the position of thoughtful, rational approaches to policy and political action, while the right retreats ever more into orthodoxy, and rigid expressions of belief unmoored from fact. Emotion - particularly anger and hatred (and distrust) - rule the day. It is often impossible to even have rational debate across our deep divide because what we often call "not agreeing to the same facts" is one side simply refusing to deal in facts at all. Feelings are what matter - be it fear, suspicion, anger, righteousness or anything else. And often, it's so impossible to take seriously, the right has a growing internal reliance on a host of writers and commentators whose careers are built, entirely, on an abject rejection of seriousness altogether.

In the roughly 36 hours since the Trump Administration's budget has been made public, one organization in particular has come to the forefront of the debate over its absurd priorities and bad choices: Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is funded, in part, in many communities out of Community Development Block Grants, grants that are made to organizations providing services meant to help communities in need. As Seth Meyers said in his witty takedown, no one, really, opposes delivering food to old people. Because that's all there is to Meals on Wheels: a healthy meal delivered to senior citizens in need of care at home.

In zeroing out the funding for Community Development Block Grants, Trump's Director of OMB, Mick Mulvaney justified that choice saying there's no proof the grants made under the program go to programs with any proven results or demonstrated need. What, he was asked about Meals on Wheels. Mulvaney largely sidestepped describing Meals on Wheels directly as ineffective, but maintained his broader point - these things may sound good, but they don't really do much.

Since then, there's been a wide ranging debate online about Meals on Wheels as the "Christian Thing To Do." That debate, of course, isn't actually simple: there are a variety ways to look at, and define, Christianity. What's striking, to me, is that the debate in many ways simply misses the point: it doesn't matter if one thinks Meals on Wheels is Christian or decent or otherwise morally good. The main thing is, it does an important, useful service, and the effectiveness and need for that service is well documented, and easily proved.

Liberals, in some sense, need to get over the tired right wing boilerplate of religiosity and moral certainty - we are well past the point of the Religious Right owning, or earning, their spot as the moral high ground. The election of a twice divorced, serial adulterer as their champion speaks volumes to the myriad ways that so called "evangelical voters" (Usually self described, and often less overtly religious than the wider public) have simply given up on expressing moral decency in politics. The right has nothing more than a belief system at this point to justify their views, and, more often than not, that belief system is confused, deeply flawed, and morally inconsistent.

The left has done admirable work, in my lifetime, to move away from a cadre of True Believers more interested in orthodoxy than then effectiveness. The right, on the other hand, seems to have simply given up on fighting the regression further into extreme beliefs unmoored from the real world and how it actually operates. And it's well past time that liberals need to let go of the pointless exercise of engaging with conservatives on Who Is More Morally Decent. Not because we can win the argument - and endorsing food for old people, surely, puts us there - but because the argument really isn't the point. Governing sensibly, thoughtfully and appropriately isn't just The Christian Thing To Do. It's the intelligent defensible thing we've been right about all along.

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Oh, The Weather Outside

We just switched back to snow, from rain. There's two feet of accumulated snow (at least), five in piles where the plows have been or the corners where the shoveled snow starts to pile up. Week after week, since December, this winter has been about snow. And cold. A lot of cold, but mainly snow.

There was the big snowstorm where the snow was all light and powdery, and the one where the snow was all wet and heavy (and heavier with the coat of freezing rain that followed. Then there are those 1-3 inch storms that went form being "oh no!"  to "oh well." The night we saw The Lego Movie - me, Mom, and two rambunctious nephews - we got another one of those. Driving home through that was basically a piece of cake. That's what this winter has become. It takes more than a couple of inches of snow, now, to up end a northeasterner, right now.

That's less true down south, where one round of ice and snow paralyzed Atlanta and much of Georgia for a week; that was followed, over the past few days, by the most recent storm paralyzing North Carolina, as if no one had learned anything at all in just a couple of weeks, and with weather warnings more precise - and more accurate - than ever. Like hurricanes, it seems, people just don't believe the warning until they live it. Then, we get people who listen to, and heed, warnings.

Of course, there are diehards who refuse to give in, who refuse to be stopped or even slowed. Here in the northeast, it's easy to find those hardy souls who think every warning is an overreaction, every closing or delay unnecessary. Just put on your heavy coat and gloves and get on with it. Does your school district preemptively close, or take the chance (or, like my eldest nephew, does your private school simply soldier on, no snow days at all)? Unlike the years of amazing blizzards (1978, the memory lingers; and 1996), this year's snow day problem has been attrition: in three months, most New York area school districts have blown through their snow day plans by nearly a week, and the hard choices must be made - no vacations? more days at the end? weekend school? I feel for the kids, really I do.

Then there's the blown snow prevention budgets, the depleting reserves of salt and sand, the towns and cities where plows are few and far between, because winter doesn't do this. Usually. There's the drought developing in California, and the freezes in Florida that will wreck orange juice prices, or the already near crisis shortage of avocados (I picked the wrong year to obsess over guacamole).

This isn't some paean to global warming, or the greenhouse gas issue; it's cold, it's hot, it's wet, it's dry... climate change is worth considering but well beside the point on another night where the snow's piling up and the air is frigid. This winter has been an all too human reminder of our real vulnerabilities and our inability to really control our environment. We are at the mercy of the wind, and the rain, and the snow and the cold. We can dig out and get back on the roads and try to continue as if this all normal... but if this is normal, why do we seem so bewildered, so caught off guard?

The storms will pass, the snows will melt, the rains will come and go, and on some beautiful day in Spring we will again wonder what all the fuss was about. In memory it won't have been quite that bad. We will mostly have survived, largely intact. We'll  promise ourselves to be better prepared, get that extra shovel, keep a little more salt in the garage... and then we probably will forget and  put it off and soon the next winter will come. 

If this is the winter that did you in, the one that makes you rethink living in Minnesota, or revisiting that plan to buy a condo in Florida (maybe this is the solution to their foreclosure crisis! More snowbirds!), it's okay, dude, we get it. This one was a lot to take. This one separates the hearty souls from the mild mannered. My feeling is, you either have what it takes to get through a winter like this, or you should have picked a place without winter. No one said we get to have it easy. There will be snow. It can get pretty heavy at times. The air is cold and the chill wind blows. After twenty years, I had to replace my Timberland boots. And that was in December. They've already served some pretty hard time.

The weather outside, well, yes, it's frightful. There's no two ways about that. I can't remember a worse December - or January, or much of February - come to think of it. But we do live in amazing times: our weather prediction is faster, more accurate, and more widely disseminated than ever. Most of us are better sheltered, and warmer, than our counterparts of even 50, never mind 100 or more, years ago. Sure, we buy milk and bread as if the world's about to end, but the process is mostly orderly and fairly calm. This isn't snowmageddon or the snowpocalypse, or the end of the world. It's just winter. A rough, cold, snowy winter. And I think we've managed to get through it surprisingly well, and probably mostly intact. And that's not the worst thing, is it?

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Well, That Happened.

I had a more birds-eye view of this year's elections than usual, because I've been working on campaigns at the local level. Since I started writing this blog, I've liked to look at the aftermath of elections, partly because in this age of over-polling, I tend to think elections are the only really useful test of the public mood. We'll tell pollsters anything, but in the voting booth, somehow, the truth will out.

While I hoped to write some things leading into the vote, truth is, this is the post I was planning to write anyway; the big elections went mostly as I expected, and predicted outcomes aren't the point. It's what we do with what we know, and what happens next that I tend to think matters most, so here goes... just some observations on the winning and losing trends from last night's elections:

Winner: Our Worst Instincts. In race after race, it's clear that nice does not cut it. Massive amounts of money spent on ugly, divisive ads, frequently featuring frank distortions of factual evidence to define one's opponent got results, and mostly, no one cared. Ken Cuccinelli was doomed when Terry McAuliffe did what he does best - raise tons of money and spend it on attack ads. Chris Christie hardly needed to bother, but he struck early painting Barbara Buono as a tax raising liberal. And poor Joe Lhota never had a chance, even if the worst he could come up with is that electing deBlasio might send New York back to the bad old days... that no one even remembers. More locally, County Executive races in the NY suburbs brought out similar tactics, especially in Rob Astorino's brutal ads agaist Noam Bramson, but Ed Mangano used similar tactics against Tom Suozzi on Long Island. We may say it's ugly and want to change channels... but the baseless charges often stick and many voters aren't especially concerned with details. That's not a good thing... but this isn't about good, or nice.

Winner: Your New Best Friend. Many Democrats and some Republicans needed that extra bit of coaxing to cross the party line. Hence the disappearance of party labels from closing ads, usually offering sunny pictures of sensitive family men and their ordinary guy stats. Chris Christie's just a nice guy trying to make things better, right? Rob Astorino portrayed himself as the average Westchester neighbor.... and in a large chunk of white suburban Westchester, he looked just right. Had Ken Cuccinelli been better advised, he might well have erased some of McAuliffe's created negativity by protraying himself less as a conservative firebrand and more as a concerned dad just looking out for Virginia's families. The reality is, Democrats are (still) hopeless at fighting this kind of presentation often, and it's why the GOP's star field is top heavy with handsome, yet sensitive, dads in suits. Someone needs to crack that code, not clone it.

Winner: Hillary Clinton. Isn't she always? But seriously. No, seriously. The Democrats top stories of the night - Terry McAuliffe and Bill deBlasio - share one point of commonality, whether it's McAuliffe's role as her go-to fundraiser, or deBlasio's hand in running her first Senate campaign. She's now got cllose friends running America's money and media metropolis, and the most key of key swing states. I dunno... are you ready yet?

Winner: Narcissism. All over the place, the big winners were more about a Cult of Personality than anything like a great set of fresh ideas, or a movement of like-minded leaders. There were no coat tails - both McAuliffe and Christie will still have to  govern against legislatures chock full of incumbents from the other party whose elections were never in any danger. Even if McAuliffe helped lead a full transformation of Virginia's top offices (if the squeaker for Atorney General stays their way), there's no mandate. And amongst Republicans, that's probably a good indication of the party's continued dance with death - Christie couldn't win embracing a traditional Republican label, but he could by casting himself as the hero of the whole story. But liberals and progressives should be concerned too, about an all too short list of the same names in big roles (like the Clitons and McAuliffe), the history of electing Barack Obama on similar grounds, and little in the way of fresh ideas. Bill deBlasio? Perhaps he does represent more of a progressive trend, but a near 50 point margin wasn't ever just about ideas, it was a big story about image (that family!) and backstory.

And what lost?

Loser: Extremism on the Right (at least in the open). Conservatives are already whining about money and time... but Ken Cuccinelli's failings were deep and obvious, and started with a string of extreme views that he never really tried to deny or hide. The honesty's refreshing, but hard right types need to face the reality, quick: you're losing with this stuff because people don't agree with you. Period. Cuccinelli's social positions, opposition to minimum wage, secession movements in Colorado and elsewhere... these are unpopular dead ends, and easy pickings for liberal ad makers. Avene if the GOP itself managed to right the ship a bit by dumping a Tea Party type in Alabama's special election, the party is riven by divisions over tactics and fundamental beliefs. And in that sense Chris Christie may yet be the Party's solution more than we realize - his real skill may be masking deep conservatism with moderate-friendly soft pedaling and a tough talking persona. Luckily, outside of New Jersey, true conservatives don't seem to believe him.

Loser: Mike Bloomberg. From top to bottom, the New York City elections were a rejection of virtually everything Bloomberg ever did: the next Mayor says his focus will be on people in need, affordable housing, smarter policing and a different approach to education. And if Bill DiBlasio can lose the urge to take up the soda crusade... then the public seems willing to go along. Bloomberg might well have saved himself and his reputation had he gone gently into the night after his second term; instead he sledgehammered term limits, remained tetchy and defensive when questioned, and offered a virtual blueprint on what not to do to win this year's Mayor's race. NYC may have some lovely improvements to point to in 12 years. Myself, I'm not a fan of bike lanes and those rent-a-bikes, but it's hard to deny the lovely upper middle class suburb Manhattan has become. Unless, of course, you can't afford it. And that's the problem, really, isn;t it?

Loser: Country Living. You coud say "winner: polarization," but it's more than that - this year showed the growing power of urban enclaves, which are getting wealthier and more socially liberal. From Northern Virginia to New Jersey's coast to Manhattan, the winners on Tuesday had to attract the sophisticated, college educated urbanite to win. And even in the suburbs, Republicans might win local elections (all of New York City's first ring suburban counties on the New York side are now run by Republicans), but they all won by collecting crossover votes of city working commuters - as did Chris Christie. Suburban towns and villages are feeling the weight of years of pushing urban problems onto their doorsteps - making poverty, food, and affordable housing suddenly their problems, too - but there are few good answers. While urbanites want liberal ideas  (and fancy amenities), rural voters want back to basics and not a lot of coddling. Result? Socially liberal boilerplate and promises not to raise taxes. Good luck with that.

Loser: Change. Maybe it's a feeling of uncertainty, maybe it's a lack of fresh ideas... but this was an election with little real change and a lot of safe voting. Even the "upsets" weren't especially upsetting, certainly not surprising. And Bill deBlasio certainly does represent the big exception here, but a liberal running New York City hardly seems that odd or unexpected - the oddity has been those Giuliani and Bloomberg years, where "New York City Republican" was the synonym for "unicorn". Which is to say, the more things changed this year... the more they stayed the same.

Loser: Localizing the healthcare debate. Cuccinelli may have crowed about making healthcare "central" to the election conversation in Virginia... but he still lost as a result. Opposing Obamacare may  ignite the faithful, but Republicans basically demonstrated, on a big stage, that this argument doesn't close the deal. It may be that hitting healthcare, combined with other factors, may produce winning results - Cuccinelli's other problems are the real story anyway. And if, say, Mary Landrieu were to lose next year, maybe healthcare can be blamed... but the GOP has wanted that scalp since Landrieu was first elected, and beating her will be about all of that history as well. Lacking a coherent alternative, forcing an argument mainly based on anger and obvious dislike for the President, conservatives don't really have a story to tell about healthcare, even with the troubled website and some people with hard stories - and it's not as if Democrats have been attractive to the kind of hard driving entrepeneur who runs a small personal business and banks on cut rate insurance and a plan to never get sick. That guy is a Republican, and always has been. On the other hand, some waitress whose restaurant owner never offered insurance, who can now find reasonable insurance on an exchange was, and will be, a Democrat. And that's why both sides can tell a story that works for them. Your move, conservatives.

Winter Land

Mom and I are off on our new family tradtion, a post New Year's gathering in Maine at my Aunt and Uncle's, including my two cousins. Like last year, Mom and I broke up the drive, spending the night around Portland.

This morning I walked outside to get my hair dryer (I hate packing hair dryers in my suitcase; I need a separate piece of luggage for technical, maintenance type equipment. Or something), I was welcomed by a pleasant blast of crisp, cold winter air. I've mentioned, for years now, how much I like the change of seasons, and the weird world we have now, when the reality of global warming pushes winter further and further out of reach. 

Still, I was struck by the visceral joy of the cold weather today. Seeing my breath, bundled up yet my puffy cat unzipped. It's only in the high thirties, and while many would find it weather to complain about, on a sunny morning with little wind and low humidity, it's really very pleasant. It's the morning I understand the people who drive miles to ski, when I miss those fun winter days in the city, walking around window shopping, enjoying the cold.

Things simply aren't that cold anymore, not very often, and not for very long. I am not someone to wade deeply into the politics - or even the science - of climate change; I worry less about the sense of impending disaster than I do simply mourn the loss of the things I genuinely like - a cool day, snow on the ground, leaves off the trees, when those limited hours of sun really brighten a day. A good and proper winter.

So, rather than watch it wistfully out the window, I'm off to walk around in it. More later.

The Swing Of Things

The suitcase officially went back into the basement today, so I guess the vacation excuse is officially over. We got back home late Tuesday night (memo to self: Miami remains the worst reentry point into the US of anywhere), and Wednesday was mostly about resting up and feeling settled back home. Yesterday was my first morning back at work, which was fine, but as usual, the early rising and energy reqired at work makes the afternoon and evening after a bit of a wash.

That, and I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things, especially writing. Blogging lately, for me, has been an off and on enterprise at best, and, admittedly, more off than on. Writing about politics isn't simply frustrating at this point; mostly it feels simply pointless. Watching TV news and discussion programs - which I do a whole lot less lately - is frustrating and, I hate to admit, depressing. The waste of time and energy spent on useless topics ("our first story tonight: something not very controversial that happened on the Republican primary trail, amongst candidates you don't care about, pretty much all of whom will never be President.") really just floors me.

I'm left trying to fashion a blog out of movie reviews, the occasional pithy observation, and some witty asides about television programs I've seen, and no, I don't think that's much of a life, either. At the same time, I have no interest in simply stopping. As much as I like the idea that someone reads what I write, enojys it, gets something out of it... I write mostly because it fulfills something for me. And still, as I do it, literally as I type this, I feel more purposeful than I have... well, since I scribbled a few words about my vacation from a hotel room in St. Kitts.

There are two other obvious complications: I just got an iPhone for my birthday - mostly because my iPod died and I've come to the conclusion that the BlackBerry Curve, while nice, is technically flawed - and I have to admit, the remarkable number of things it can do (listening to online radio of disco remixes whilst reading the AP newswire, for example) means not even having to use my laptop for most anything. Second, on the job front, I am up for a fairly significant promotion and, when I am realistic, getting that promotion changes my priorities. I'm actually ambivalent, on a quiet personal level, about moving up, because I don't really know if I can sustain writing, even at this reduced level, over the long term while in management. On the better days, I resolve to try. On the worse dys, I just curl into a ball and avoid everyone and most everything.

(None of the last few sentences belong in a blog post that could potentially be read by your boss... but oh well.)

I suppose my point is that "real life" - off of the interwebs - has become the life I'm actually spending more time leading. Interesting things are happening; interacting with real people in real time is emotionally fulfilling; pounding the keys about personal and political frustrations isn't much fun (and frankly, has never entirely been my style). There's no real conclusion here, no absolute "that's it, I'm done", no resolution that I'll try harder to blog more. It might happen... and probably, however well intentioned, it won't anytime soon. Life goes on, I'm back in the swing of things, the journey continues... and that, really, is what matters, isn't it?