The Turning.

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Pat Greene

December. Hanukkah starts tonight, and it’s a little more than a week until the Solstice, less than two until Christmas. Darkness draws in ever closer. The gentle black nights stretch longer and longer until they snap.

The turning of the year.

I love December. No matter what may be happening in my life to make me sad, or anxious, or depressed, the sharp chill beauty of the of the dying leaves drifting to the ground, or even those that straggle on, holding to the branches as though by doing so they would be reanimated, affects me, layering sharp keen joy over pain and disappointment.

The traditions: the expedition to get the Christmas tree. I don’t know when we started this, but for at least three decades the Rocket Scientist and I and whatever family members are available head off into the woods (okay, whatever tree farm we’re going to that year) to find and cut the elusive perfect tree. We never find it, of course: like everything else in life, perfection is not possible, or even desirable.  This year, although Rail Fan could have taken a break from studying for his statistics final and joined us, the Rocket Scientist and I went forth and got the tree ourselves. We did so because my ancient van would have had trouble heading over the hill to Half Moon Bay. We took his (elderly but still spry) convertible, sitting the tree up in the back. As we drove home, the Rocket Scientist observed that this was a very Californian thing to do.

The night we decorate the tree we have chili for dinner. I know exactly where this tradition started. The Rocket Scientist’s family always had chili the night they decorated the tree. This is a good time of year for hand-me-downs.

The tree always enchants the cats. Penwiper in particular loves looking at the lights. The shot of her in the tree on my sidebar is my favorite picture of her.

Other things: the crèche and Elvis. Although the stable itself is a battered relic of the mid-eighties, the figures in the crèche are beautiful, sent to us by my sister, who is devout in the best way. Elvis is ten years old now, and showing some wear, mainly because his malachite needles trap dust like nobody’s business.

The Rocket Scientist’s family  also sits and sings Christmas carols on Christmas Eve. We don’t do so except when we’re with them, mainly because at that time in the evening the Rocket Scientist and I are getting ready for midnight services. The last few years we have gone to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, which means an extra hour getting there. It is stunningly beautiful and moving and joyful.

Back East, we attend a local church, and have for years. Midnight mass is a tradition from my side of the family. Everyone would go, except sometimes my Mom, who was a nurse and sometimes had to work Christmas. Sadly, this tradition will die with me, I suspect.

One year, when we had only been married a year, before we moved to California and before law school and children, the Rocket Scientist and I attended the church in downtown Atlanta where my parents had been married. In his homily, the priest criticized the city council for not taking enough care for the homeless and poor when they made decisions. (Although it seems to have fallen by the wayside somewhat in recent years, the Roman Catholic Church once placed great store in economic justice and caring for the poor. When I was a teenager, our youth group took a field trip to a migrant labor camp, and then discussed how we could help the field workers. I owe my belief of the value and dignity of human beings and that we need to take care of all people I to an upbringing that called me to recognize our common humanity. As wrong as I think they are on LGTB+ rights, and women priests, and abortion, I find it difficult to think of the Roman Catholic church as being irredeemable. ) Beautifully, as we left, snow flurries began. White Christmases are rare in Georgia, and this wasn’t one, but even flurries are wonderful.

Lessons and Carols: for those who are not Episcopalian or Roman Catholic, Lessons and Carols presents the story of God’s convenant with God’s people, from the Creation of Man to the birth of Christ. Lessons and Carols is usually held sometime during Advent (the four weeks before Christmas). I love Lessons and Carols more than any other service of the liturgical year, saving Easter Vigil. True confession: years ago when I was lector coordinator at the church I was attending, I would assign myself a reading from Isaiah. I would not assign myself the Magnificat, one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry in the Christian Bible, because by tradition that always went to a pregnant woman. I did read it once, when I was expecting the Red-Headed Menace.

One year, I was blessed enough to witness Lessons and Carols in Westminster Abbey. The boy choir sounded like angels.

Some traditions die over time. This year I stopped buying new ornaments. Before, every year, I would buy one new ornament for every person in the household. We are a surprisingly careful household when it comes to Christmas trees — if nothing else – and we have not broken enough ornaments to free up space for new ones. I strongly suspect that, barring disaster, the ornaments I bought from Yellowstone and Grand Tetons will be the last.

When I was both more faithful and more observant, we used to have an Advent wreath. We haven’t had one for years, but I still miss it, a vague ache of memory. That, too, was a tradition from my family, most especially my mother. Christmas is when I miss Mom the most, and I cried when I hung the angel ornament that I had brought home from her funeral.

Even more than tradition, though, December means lights.

Hanukkah, of course: I am not Jewish, but the Resident Shrink is, and our family has traditions.  She has a menorah that belonged to her grandmother, which makes me spend eight days being afraid it will get knocked over and broken. She holds a Latke Party (mmmm…. latkes) on the second or third night. And I, bad as I am at remembering to get anybody anything for any reason whatsoever, always get her a present for at least one night: I drive to Casa de Fruta and get chocolate covered cherries and, until they discontinued them, chocolate covered apricots.

The journey is important. Somehow the effort makes the gift more meaningful; to the giver if not to the recipient. Things you have to work for matter more than things you can order off of Amazon.

More than Hanukkah, however, December means Christmas lights, both on Christmas trees and on houses. The month finds me driving aimlessly around neighborhoods that would call the cops if I did that any other time of year.  (If you live in the South Bay, and have not been to San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood, you’re missing something. They have ten-foot high reindeer!) Part of me frowns inside – climate change really is a thing – but my inner child smiles happily.

Abbot Suger once said that light elevated the soul and brought one closer to God. He was talking about natural light of course, it being the 13th century, but for me the same holds true of twinkly blue, red, and green lights strung from the eves, and huge lighted snowflakes strung across the street, and wreaths with fake candles hung on the doors.

I know that part of the reason that Christmas lights are special is that they go away in early January, not to come out again until November. Scarcity creates desire. But I also just delight in the nights – as much as I love the long nights of winter – being broken by color and light, and that so many people seem to enjoy them. A sign of common humanity, I suppose.

At any rate, although since I live in California I can’t necessarily wish you a White Christmas (which I think are terribly overrated in any case), I can hope that you have a Happy Hanukkah, a joyful Solstice, and a very Merry Christmas.

Season’s Greetings, everyone.

Posted in My life and times | Tagged | 1 Comment

Almost but not really fruitcake.

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Pat Greene

I don’t like fruitcake, at least not most traditional fruitcake. I was tinkering around with my pumpkin-date bread, and wondering if I could make something that resembles fruitcake.

Well, it has fruit in it, but it’s not fruitcake. It is, however, damned tasty, albeit rich.  One of the things I like about this bread is that all the fruits, with the exception of the ginger, are dried, not “candied.” No bright green and red cherries for me, thank you very much.

I could just link to the recipe and indicate the additions, but that would mean that I would have to look at two different entries if I wanted to make it.  That  would be a nuisance.

Pat’s Not Really Fruitcake

3 1/3 c. flour
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 t.salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg (Alton Brown is right: freshly grated nutmeg is amazing)
1/2 t. ground cloves
2/3 c. vegetable shortening
2 c. mashed or pureed pumpkin (I roast my own)
2 tbls. spiced rum (or brandy,  or bourbon… scotch or tequila probably wouldn’t work, though)
2/3 c. milk
4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 2/3 c. sugar
1 c. Medjool dates, pitted and chopped (I found pitted Medjool dates in Safeway!)
1 c. chopped pecans
1/2 c. chopped dried pineapple
1/2 c. chopped dried apricots
1/2 c. dried cherries
1/2 c. chopped crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pans (I use disposable aluminum when I can find it, which seems harder all the time). Combine dry ingredients (the first seven), stir and toss together with a fork or whisk. (Or put them in a large Ziploc and shake.)  In a large bowl, combine shortening, pumpkin, eggs, sugar, milk, rum and fruit. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mixing until just blended; there should be no dry flour, but there will be small bits of shortening that will disappear in baking. Place in pans, bake for a bit over one hour until a broomstraw  or knife comes out clean.  Cool in pans for 5 to 10 minutes. If possible, let cool completely before cutting it. Goes very well with cream cheese or chevre.

I am thinking of tinkering more with this; I wonder if the batter would hold up to me doubling all the fruit except the dates? If it’s successful, I’ll come back and update this recipe.

So there it is. Your holiday Not A Fruitcake. Much better than something with fruit that looks like it was grown in Chernobyl.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

 

Posted in My life and times | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Al Franken Dilemma.

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Pat Greene

I love Al Franken. I have always loved Al Franken. One of my favorite lectures ever was the talk he gave on his fight against Fox News. (Hunt down The First Amendment Project; one of their episodes contains part of that talk.)

He broke my heart. I suspect he broke many others.

He broke my heart in the same way that Anthony Weiner did, albeit for less horrible reasons. Another champion of social justice brought low by behavior that I would have thought a champion of social justice would have known better than to engage in. (Weiner’s case had the added flavor of “how could he be so stupid?”.)

Franken has apologized, of course. But that’s not enough, at least not for me. I can’t help but feel that that apology was a political ploy, that Franken (who generally speaking is one smart cookie) is too intelligent to think that the allegations were going to go away. It’s a different tack than the Republicans take; they prevaricate, they lie, they slander women who come forward. They know they can get away with such behavior because their supporters will accept it. (After all, Roy Moore leads in the Alabama Senate race in spite of credible allegations of sexual harrassment and even rape of teenage girls.)

Democrats won’t. Representatives from both parties are pushing John Conyers to resign, even though he has given up his committee chairmanships and probably will not seek re-election.

This a sea change from the mid-1990s, when women charged that Bill Clinton had harrassed them, and Democrats for the most part questioned their motives and insinuated that they were all lying. Yes, some of them were Republican shills, but all of them? And even if some of them were brought forth by the Republicans, if the harassment occured, should that matter? It is incontrovertible that Clinton engaged in an illicit affair with an employee who was nearly twenty years younger then he was.

I was a lot more idealistic then. I wrote a letter to the White House urging Clinton to resign. (I wonder what would have happened had Gore ended up finishing that term: would the country have returned to normal or would the Republicans, seeking blood in the water, found something or made something up about Gore? Probably the latter. On the other hand, it might have given Gore a leg up in the 2000 election.)

I still believe that moral relativism is repugnant. If we decry behavior on the right, we should be just as swift to condemn it on the left. If we believe Roy Moore’s accusers, we should believe Al Franken’s. After all, as Jon Stewart said, “If you don’t stick to your values when they’re tested, they’re not values — they’re hobbies.”

That we have come to a point in history where women feel safe enough to come forward makes me happy. It still takes a lot of courage to tell of the misdeeds of the rich and powerful: you get slandered, your privacy invaded, your motives questioned in the nastiest terms. The difference is that now you have a chance of being believed.

We can empower women.* Maybe the first cracks in the shell of toxic masculinity and rape culture which cover this society are beginning to appear. Maybe women are beginning to be treated as trustworthy human beings, not as the heirs to Eve’s supposed treachery to Adam. Maybe punishing our heroes for their bad behavior is the first step towards a more just world.

And yet… and yet…. and yet…..

There are grave consequences to pushing Democrats out of the Senate. The repeal of the ACA was defeated by one vote. If Franken had not been there, the bill would have tied, and would have been passed by Mike Pence casting the deciding vote.

I am privileged in this debate. I can afford to ride forth on my white horse of righteousness, knowing that am, generally speaking, protected from the worst that Congress is likely to do. Had the ACA been repealed I probably would not have been affected all that much. If abortion is outlawed or birth control restricted I am not going to be personally harmed. I’ll take a hit with the new tax plan, but nothing I can’t handle.

Others are not so privileged. Their finances (when they are barely holding on in the first place), their health, perhaps their lives, will be in danger from reckless and callous government disregard for their well-being.

Some of those others are women. They need the protection that a Congress truly dedicated to their welfare can give. Yet at the same time those women are the ones who work for bosses, or have customers, who think they can grope, fondle, flash, forcibly kiss, and even rape with impunity, believing that they will never be called to account for assaulting the women over which they have power.

So I’m torn. All I can do is what I think right, which unfortunately changes from day-to-day as I confront once again the reality I have always known, that sometimes men — occasionally even men I like or admire — engage in despicable behavior.

*Yes, I do understand that men can be victims of assault as well, and that in fact in many ways the impacts of sexual assault are even more difficult for men than women. Anthony Rapp, whom I have always liked, has my unmitigated respect for speaking out against the popular and powerful Kevin Spacey. Men are affected by rape culture and toxic masculinity just like women, but in different ways. I think that’s another post.

Posted in Politics, Social Issues | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Posted on November 29, 2017 by Pat Greene

Dear Alton Brown,

I cheered when Food Network ran The Iron Chef Gauntlet. I grinned when Stephanie Izzard won against the Iron Chefs.

I love the new format for Iron Chef. The Iron Chef Showdown reduces the amount of time watching the Iron Chefs cook. With the possible exception of Morimoto (“he made a smoker out of ice?”), the chefs are not intrinsically interesting to watch while they are cooking. Splitting the competition into two speeds things up.

When are you going to bring back Cutthroat Kitchen?

Sincerely,

A fan.

P.S. In my estimation you are still the sexiest man on television, even if you have shaved off all your hair.

P.P.S. You’re right about the nutmeg.

Posted in nothing special | Leave a comment

All done.

Posted on November 23, 2017 by Pat Greene

[See sidebar disclaimer. These opinions are my own, and my employer — or recent employer — has nothing to do with them.]

To paraphrase H. H. Munro, it was a good job, as jobs go; and as jobs go, it went.

Years ago former operatic tenor turned Discovery Channel host Mike Rowe had a program called “Dirty Jobs.” According to Rowe, the son of a pig farmer, he was trying to shine a light on the unsung heroes who made life possible for the rest of us. A noble aspiration, indeed.

Over time, however, it seemed clear that Rowe favored jobs that had a definite physical component: sewer workers, chimney sweeps, reindeer farmers, etc. (I’m not sure that reindeer farmers have much impact on my life, but your mileage may vary.) Such jobs tended to skew male, but I am going to give Rowe the benefit of the doubt on this and assume that he wasn’t seeking out mostly male jobs. He did have a few primarily female jobs (candle maker comes to mind), but for the most part, they were definitely blue-collar (mostly male) jobs.

These workers do need to be recognized — they’re part of what makes society tick. Just look at the streets during a garbage strike. But many other people allow us to live the lives we do but don’t have to get their overalls dirty.

Pink collar clerical workers are not just unambitious pencil pushers. I know: I — and my coworkers — fall into that category. And people like me make government in the United States possible. It is hard — occasionally tedious — and unrecognized work, in occasionally unpleasant conditions.

We worked in a crappy structure that sweltered in the summer and froze in the winter. In the VBM (Vote By Mail) rooms, the floor was made of varnished plywood that buckles slightly when you walk on it. There were rumors last fall that the building had fleas. (That’s a distinct possibility — the area where we were located was pretty close to the street called “Alameda de la Pulgas” (Avenue of the Fleas) supposedly because the Spanish found them such a nuisance.) Because of security concerns, janitorial staff didn’t  come into the VBM area, or at least not very often, and we had to empty our own trash cans. Also for security reasons, nobody was allowed to be by themselves in any area where ballots were. This meant that if you forgot your cell phone at your desk at the end of the day, you had to find someone who could walk you back to pick it up.

Our hours were entirely at the whim of the voters of the county; this year, because it was a small off-year election that only affected half the jurisdictions, turnout was low, and our hours were cut. Last year, during the presidential general campaign, of the ten weeks I worked, I only worked less than fifty during one week (I worked 48). I worked more 60 in four weeks, and election week I worked 72. I did not even work as much as a couple of my co-workers and permanent staff; the somewhat bitter joke was that they were working lawyers’ hours but not getting lawyers’ pay.

The work is seasonal: you get called every few months to help. (“Extra help” is our official designation.) Because this election was so small it seemed to me like only the best workers were called in. I suppose I should be flattered. I have already been told that if I want to come back next year they would be happy to have me.

In between, I have to decide what to do. And I grapple with the “I’m a failure because I don’t have a career.” After all, aren’t people with my educational advantages supposed to be off making deals or making policy?

Except that I love this job. I love the surprisingly artistic aspects of verifying signatures. I love feeling like I am connecting with voters, even at an anonymous remove. I love being part of making democracy work, even if I am simply one small ant in a very busy hill.

It’s not all beer and skittles: there is some seriously tedious grunt work that nonetheless requires very close attention. All those ballots have to be extracted from their envelopes in a manner that preserves their secrecy. I am slow at this because it requires exceeding precision and my attention issues make that difficult. The people who excel at ballot extraction have my unadulterated admiration.

I love my coworkers, from the tall guy who makes the runs to the post office to the cute young woman who sits two cubicles down verifying signatures to the two guys who run the machines that scan the envelopes when they come in. They are friendly, often funny, and they care about what they are doing.

In political campaigns, you find people dedicated to a partisan cause. At the elections office, we care about something even more ambitious: representative democracy itself.

That is certainly a job worth doing, and worth doing well, and worth celebrating.

Posted in Work! | Tagged | Leave a comment

Just stuff, Halloween edition.

Posted on October 29, 2017 by Pat Greene

Although work is not nearly as grueling as last November (not even completely full time, some weeks — it’s an off-year election), it’s still work, and I’m writing even less than I was before this month. Sue me.

You know the difference between a Christmas tree and a Halloween pumpkin? The damn squirrels don’t try to eat the tree. Last week the Rocket Scientist and I went on a trek across the hill to the coast to find the best pumpkin, and I left it outside in an artistically arranged group with the sugar pie pumpkins we also bought, and the stupid squirrels ate a hole into the flesh that is already starting to rot. I am hoping enough of it will stay good so I can carve it into a Jack-O-Lantern. (At least they left the sugar pie pumpkins alone: I have a plan for those that revolve mainly around pumpkin date bread.)

I was NOT going to drive all the way to Half Moon Bay to get another pumpkin, and the closest Safeways only had ugly “fairy tale pumpkins.” I went to a “pumpkin patch” — you know the type: the pumpkins are secondary to the little train and the hay rides and the ponies. Great for kids, but I would have had to lug a full-size pumpkin up a steep grade to get to my car. Not gonna happen. I did manage to find a Safeway a couple of towns over that had regular (if large and sort of scarred) pumpkins, so I got one of those. At this point, we are looking at one, possibly two, Jack-O-Lanterns, a couple of small pumpkins, a couple of small ears of decorative corn, maybe a pomegranate, and several pine cones, which I purchased along with the pumpkin.

It nearly kills me to actually purchase pine cones when I can get larger and prettier ones in the public park about a mile away, but these are cinnamon-scented. REALLY scented.  I was starting to get a headache from them. Usually, I put bags of groceries on the seat next to me, but this time they went in the trunk. I am hoping they will deter the rats with the furry tails.

Speaking of scents…. Part of my costume this year (I am actually dressing up!) involves a fishing net. So I went and blew $22 at Michael’s on a “real recycled fishing net.” When I took it out of the package, it smelled about how you expect a recycled fishing net to smell.  My cat took an immediate interest. After a few hours, I thought it had aired out enough, but when Railfan came in from work he yelled: “What is that stench?” I suggested putting it outside, and he quickly said “No! It will attract wild animals!” I had to admit he was right.

The net is airing outside now, and I am hoping it will get better before tomorrow night when I wear it to trivia. People are encouraged to dress up, and I am actually going to do so. Not to mention for work on Tuesday. Last year one of my coworkers came in a Nine-Tails outfit (ask your local Pokemon nerd) that he had made himself, but which looked professionally produced. He was pleased that I actually recognized what he was.

I seem to be taking Halloween seriously this year. I haven’t done so since college. I am bemused by myself, but that hasn’t stopped me from dropping forty bucks on various makeup and temporary hair dye, not to mention the net and the seashells I am going to hot glue to it.

You’ve heard of a sandwich? I am going as a seawich.

I was going to wear a skirt but decided that getting up on a barstool wrapped in a net would be hard enough. So I am wearing pants and…. my electric blue Victorian sweetheart corset. (Hey, it’s a bar.) I decided that maybe wearing the corset to work on Tuesday would attract unwanted commentary, so I am wearing a corset shaped top: It looks like a corset, sort of, except it has shoulders and sleeves.  I have also made long pearl and blue crystal earrings, and I will wear my pearls and all my blue and pearl bracelets.

I might get someone to take pictures (although probably not of me in the corset).

So, as I said, I have not been posting much. I may end up not posting at all in the month of November — I am thinking of doing NaNoWriMo again. If so, wish me luck. I can’t write fiction at all well; NaNoWriMo is really more an exercise in seeing how much I can type in one month.

Finally… If any of you live in areas having an off-year election, and you are a vote-by-mail voter…. Mail your damn ballots, already.

Posted in My life and times | Tagged | Leave a comment

Treachery.

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Pat Greene

I have talked about my love of the ocean. The wild exuberant Pacific, the solemn Atlantic. The exotic Caribbean.

The gentle Gulf.

The Gulf is my ocean, the waters I grew up in and near. The ocean I love more than any other.

Oh, I have walked along the Pacific, listening to the roar of the waves crashing against the rocks. (I once swam in the Pacific, in Hawaii, which was the only place other than San Diego that I have ever been where the Pacific was warm enough to swim in.) I have waded the shores of the Atlantic at dawn, helping release baby sea turtles to hopefully help a species decimated by human activity avoid extinction. I have stood on the beaches of Key West and St. Croix, looking at the Caribbean waters which were a shade of blue more wonderful than anything in the world, except the brilliant cornflower of a San Francisco fall sky.

But the Gulf… The Gulf spoiled me. I once told a group of women, most of whom had grown up along the Atlantic Coast, that any temperature under seventy degrees was simply too cold to swim in. My pronouncement was greeted with derision; one young woman declared that that was “bath water.” They were, of course, wrong.

In my neck of the woods, the Pacific is showy: look at me, it seems to say: I am spectacular, I am dangerous. It is an ocean that could have been precisely designed for car commercials. Crashing waves and dramatic rocks – and the lighthouses, of course – show up in calendars. Nobody ever made a calendar of the Gulf: it would be too boring.

The Gulf is gentle. Until it’s not.

The Gulf usually only creates some of the storms: the rest are spawned thousands of miles away in the eastern Atlantic. (You want a dangerous ocean? Hurricanes, icebergs…The Atlantic has a lot to answer for.) But the Gulf and her sister the Caribbean caress them, feed them, grow them into monsters that can destroy cities. She gives her water for the surges that wash over islands and seawalls. The water that floods houses, that collapses buildings. That devastates lives. That warmth that I so love turns into a power source making the storms ever larger and longer-lasting.

The results of the sisters’ handiwork can be seen in the aftermath of Irma and Maria: in the houses stripped of roofs, the impassable roads. In islands that may not be habitable for months, perhaps (in the case of Barbuda, years, if ever). In people scrambling for food, water, fuel, power. In the Florida Keys, which straddle both seas, now being nothing more than a glorified sandbar, at least for months to come.

In Puerto Rico, people struggling all the while the U.S. government can not​ get its act together enough to provide adequate help. It’s Katrina all over again, made worse by the fact that, even though they proclaim otherwise, Trump and his people seem to not really believe the Puerto Ricans are American citizens. (Look at the disparate treatment of the Texans slammed by Harvey. Tell me that the Puerto Ricans are not being treated as red-headed stepchildren.)

And Harvey… The Gulf fed energy and moisture as Harvey sat for hours – days – driving more and more rain into Houston, a city already threatened by climate change.  You could see the pictures on the nightly news of people being carried from their flooded houses into waiting boats. (And in one unforgivable case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement grabbing and deporting an undocumented kid doing rescue work.)

Betsy.

Donna.

Camille.

Katrina.

Every year St. Croix (an island I love and whose destruction at the winds of Maria upsets me) and many other islands celebrate Hurricane Thanksgiving Day on November 14. I’m not sure that they will have much to be thankful for this year.

After the devastating winds, and the driving rain, and the killer storm surge, the Gulf will return to her deceptive gentleness. At least until the next storm, be it in two weeks or two years. And if you stand on the white sand beaches on the Pinellas barrier islands or the Florida panhandle and have the waves lick your toes, you might be unaware of her deviousness.

The Gulf is treacherous.

I still love her.

Posted in My life and times, Who I am | Tagged | Leave a comment

Democracy. I love it.

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Pat Greene

Standard disclaimer: See sidebar. These are my views, not those of my employer, for whom I am in no way authorized to speak. I am writing from my experience working for an elections division, a worker bee who gets to see up close and personal how elections happen.

I’m back at work this week, upholding the finest traditions of government in America. That’s right, I am an election worker. The local county I work for is having an off-year election.

I work in the vote-by-mail department. My particular job is “signature verification,” which is pretty much what it sounds like: we check the signatures on the ballots that come in against the signatures on file from people’s voter registration cards. We’re not conducting forensic analysis, and our determinations will never show up in court. We’re simply looking for lines in the signature that indicate that one person signed both documents.

In addition to the philosophical happiness of working for the common good, I love the work itself. I tell myself that this means that all my many hours joyfully wandering through art museums has finally had a practical application, although an expertise in finding Waldo would work just as well.  (A former supervisor, agreeing with my art analysis, said looking at signatures was sometimes like “looking at Jackson Pollacks, albeit really crappy Jackson Pollacks.”)

Technically, this work could be done by about anyone. It doesn’t call on skills developed in my expensive undergraduate and professional education. All it requires is a good eye, comfort around computers, and decent problem-solving abilities. It’s not glamorous, or exciting: nobody exits college thinking, “I want to do signature verification” for a living. (For one thing, it’s seasonal. For another, it can be stressful during a big election: the 2016 general election was crazy.)

My job is just one of many required for an election to go smoothly. Elections are one of those things that people never stop to consider how complicated they are until they break down. (I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I heard the Russians had hacked into the voters’ rolls of some counties in the Midwest, I gasped in horror. Everyone else I knew expressed concern, but until you’ve worked an election I don’t think you appreciate just what a huge impact that could have.)

What I do matters. Although right now I am working on a small off-year election, last year I was one of the anonymous hundreds — thousands, across the country — that made representative democracy possible. We worked very hard to make sure that government of the people, by the people, and (hopefully, although sometimes I have my doubts) for the people survived.

This makes me happy.

Posted in Work! | Tagged | Leave a comment

Just stuff.

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Pat Greene

The fact of the day: did you know migraine symptoms can mimic a stroke? I didn’t. Hence an overnight visit to the E.R. (In all honesty, I wasn’t going to go, but the Rocket Scientist threatened to call an ambulance.) I hope this is not a harbinger of the future.

Last Wednesday, the family went to wineries and creameries in Sonoma County. This morning at least one of the wineries — where we went to watch the sunset — has been burned to the ground. I know it’s kind of ghoulish, but I’m glad we bought a bottle of their really good blush wine last week. I hope they are able to recover okay.

Tweet of the day: in response to tweets by Donald Trump insulting him, Senator Bob Corker tweeted “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.” Pretty much sums up this administration, and it provoked the expected response from Trump minion Kellyanne Conway, namely that Corker’s tweet was “incredibly irresponsible.” Pot, kettle, black. Maybe if her boss wouldn’t go on the offensive against those who he perceives as disloyal, those persons would not feel the need to respond.

If you have not yet purchased Lin-Manuel Miranda’s benefit record for Puerto Rico, “Almost Like Praying,” you should as soon as possible. The island needs all the help it can get right now.  The song lists the names of all the towns on the island and is sung by Latin music luminaries including Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, and Fat Joe. Oh, and the wonderful Ruben Blades. It makes me want to dance, and after listening to it I crave black beans and rice and fried plantains.

I would also recommend “Dear Hate” by Marren Morris, with Vince Gill. It’s a little obvious, but also beautiful: “Even on our darkest night, the world keeps spinning round”  is a sentiment I need in my life.

Remember that open letter to Lawrence O’Donnell? I might need to write one for Brian Babylon. The Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me panelist was riffing about Trump’s Puerto Rico visit and the bizarre spectacle of him tossing paper towels to residents of San Juan. Babylon mentioned that people speculated that Trump was on drugs but the drug that he thought Trump was on was… lithium. Very funny. See me laughing? (For those unfamiliar with lithium, it is a first-line treatment for bipolar disorder. ) In this case, though, I did send off a complaint to NPR.

None of the teams I root for made the MLB playoffs, and the one team that I like that did — the Nats — is on the verge of elimination. That has happened before, but since I have pretty much given up football (due to the concussion issue) it leaves a sports void in my life. And no, I am not going to start watching hockey.

But hey! The Winter Olympics are in South Korea in a few months — that is, unless the country gets destroyed by North Korea in the meantime. I imagine the IOC is watching the childish spat between Kim Il Jun and Donald Trump with collectively bated breath.

On a final note, I start work on Friday, once again working on elections. I was originally supposed to start last Monday, but they moved the start date back, which allowed me to spend time with the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy on the few days he was back here from Korea. (The IOC are not the only people who are getting ulcers from the Korea situation.)

I’m looking forward to it.

 

 

Posted in My life and times, Politics | 1 Comment

Does Trumpism come from the South?

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Pat Greene

[I have been sitting on this post for literally a few months — I have not been able to get it into any sort of shape that I am happy with. However, since I have told several people about it, I am going to just grit my teeth and publish. I like the ideas, but the writing is clunky. Sorry.]

Many Trump supporters decry the worst elements of their movement. However, it cannot be denied that anti-white sentiment has been expressed by a number of the Trump faithful, most notably by the KKK and Neo-Nazis, who see Trump as a fellow traveler if not a full adherent to their beliefs. Certainly, during the campaign Trump dallied before rejecting former KKK leader David Duke’s endorsement. I used to think that was pure political opportunism: take all the votes you can get, from whatever source. I thought that he probably rejected Duke after someone explained to him that he would lose votes if he didn’t.  However, in his remarks following the terrorism in Charlottesville, Trump clearly showed himself to be either under the sway of a dangerous and immoral philosophy.

In addition, Trump’s record on misogyny is quite clear. He has a past filled with sexually aggressive and inappropriate behavior. This history being tolerated by the Trump faithful is in many ways more disturbing than racial elements: these are the acts of the man himself, not of his followers, which could be repudiated.

A friend of mine, Kevin Phillips, posted several months ago about Trump followers’ views of women and race. He identified the more repugnant attitudes they hold as arising out of the Deep South, and the region’s experience of slavery. When I pointed out that “Last time I checked, Nebraska and Iowa were not in the Deep South,” he countered that the attitudes in question originated from the South and then migrated elsewhere.

He’s wrong.

Not that the attitudes in question do not exist in the Deep South. Mine is not a “Not all white Southerners” argument; it is a “both sides do it,” but not for the sake of excusing the South.  Yes, slavery and its concomitant hatred and fear of African Americans have left deep scars there. And absent significant changes, there can be no absolution for the region. I know this, and it makes me weep.

But the rest of the country has its own history of racial hatred and misogyny as well.

Slavery was the original sin that this country was born into; no state was free of it. The colonies that abolished slavery nonetheless profited from the trade in slaves that took place elsewhere. And at the outbreak of the Civil War, the impetus for fighting the South was to preserve the Union. According to historian Bruce Catton, slavery only became the most important issue later on in the war. And abolitionist sentiment did not automatically translate into a belief in racial equality: white Union soldiers were initially reluctant to fight alongside freed blacks, according to Catton, “for race prejudice of a malignity rarely seen today was very prevalent in the North at that time, and [white soldiers] did not want to associate with [black soldiers] on anything remotely like terms of equality.”

Even Abraham Lincoln said things that could be definitely seen as racist in contemporary eyes, not the least a suggestion that freed slaves immigrate elsewhere once slavery was abolished. His words have been interpreted as being political sops thrown to the pro-slavery crowd. But at the least, his record on equality of the races is equivocal.

In the twentieth century, lynchings of blacks, while most heavily concentrated in the former Confederacy, took place all over the country. The photograph that inspired Abel Meeropol to write the poem that would become the song “Strange Fruit” showed a lynching not in the South but in Marion, Indiana.

In the sixties, Northerners decried the violence used to uphold Jim Crow while sitting in their houses located in housing developments with restrictive covenants.

And the bigotry lived on, in the same way it did in the South. When I lived in Massachusetts, it was common knowledge that God help any African-American who ended up in South Boston. It’s hard to think about now, but there were race riots in Boston as recently as forty years ago.

I am old enough to remember the Boston riots. Those rioters were not acting out of attitudes that spread like a contagion up from the South.

Why does this matter?

It matters because, within a couple of days of the Charlottesville protests, I had two different people say to me with a shrug “Well, it’s Virginia,” as though that were an explanation. It’s the South, their thinking seemed to be — given its history, it makes sense to have white supremacists marching there.

I had to explain to them that the Nazis and white supremacists had come from all over the country. I had to explain that yes, there are more KKK clans in the South than other parts of the country, but they are in fact across the land. They are in every state of the union except possibly Rhode Island. There are at least two in the San Francisco Bay Area.

And that doesn’t take into account Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.

Understanding this helps us get a grip on exactly what we’re dealing with.

Focusing on the South creates incentives to see the other outposts of the “alt-right” as being aberrations.  Even if the historical record did not support the finding that racism and misogyny of a particularly ingrained and pernicious sort existed all through the country, not just in the Deep South, acting as though the states of the former Confederacy provided the source for the nastiness of the Trump campaign is counterproductive. The  South (except bastions of liberalism such as Atlanta and Austin) will get defensive and angry; the rest of the country (especially the “liberal elite” on the coasts) will see Trumpism as a regional problem.

There is a certain element among Trumpsters that we will never be able to reach, nor should we try. All over the country, there are white supremacists and misogynists. But others may well prove easier to engage with fruitfully.

Fixating on regional differences makes that harder.

Posted in Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

An open letter to Lawrence O’Donnell.

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Pat Greene

Dear Mr. O’Donnell:

I have waited a few days before writing this letter, hoping that I would become more eloquent or the words you spoke on Tuesday less upsetting. Neither has happened.

Although I do not watch your show all the time, I respect you: a quote by you is on this blog’s sidebar. Usually, I agree with your positions on things, or if I don’t agree I am nevertheless not angered by what you say. Tuesday was different.

As I said, I don’t watch your show all the time, but I do watch The Rachel Maddow Show pretty faithfully. It was while I was waiting for TRMS on Tuesday that I caught the tail end of a segment that you did with Chris Hayes on All In.

“I don’t know when he lost his mind,” you said of Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter. ‘When he was up in that hotel room he was stark, raving, mad.”

I wanted to cry.

When you talk about the shooter as being “stark, raving, mad” or when Donald Trump calls him “demented,” or when everyone from Eugene Robinson to most of the people I read on Facebook say “Of course Paddock was disturbed. Who in his right mind mows down innocent strangers at a country music festival?” , life becomes harder for people like me. People who have an actual, as in “diagnosed by medical professionals, not television pundits or newspaper columnists,” mental illness.

Stephen Paddock may have had a mental illness. Who knows?  That has not been determined yet. But he will be assumed to have had one because of the “nobody does that” line of thinking. It wasn’t that he was evil; he was crazy.  Interestingly enough, I have never heard anyone make that argument about the men who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center.

When mental illness is seen to inevitably be at the root of horrific violence, the stigma against the mentally ill rises.  This stigma costs people jobs. It costs them friends. (A now-former friend told me she would never want to be friends with or work with someone who had a severe mental illness. I asked her “What about me?” “You’re okay,” she replied. “I know you.”)  It can cost them custody of their children.

And it costs others just as much: stigma increases the reluctance of some — especially men — to seek help. I’ve known people who refused therapy because they didn’t want it to appear on their health records, lest their employer somehow find out.

Some people who claim they have compassion for the mentally ill nevertheless perpetuate stereotypes or stigma. One so very compassionate friend of a friend on Facebook suggested that we needed a registry of the mentally ill, with information provided by doctors and pharmacists. If you believe that only mentally ill people commit these sorts of horrors, her suggestion is imminently logical. Unfortunately, in this country, the government might be more likely to create a registry of the mentally ill than a registry of gun owners. After all, a gun registry wouldn’t have given authorities any useful information whatsoever, other than that a man in Nevada had his own personal arsenal of semi-automatics.

Evil exists in the world, Mr. O’Donnell. Evil people exist in the world, and sometimes commit atrocities. But evil people who commit horrible acts are not intrinsically mentally ill.

Evil is not the same as insanity.

Please, I beg of you, for all of us out here who will have to deal with fallout from this massacre (as we did after Charleston, and Orlando, and Sandy Hook), do not elide the difference.

Posted in Culture (popular and otherwise), Social Issues | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on October 5, 2017 by Pat Greene

I may be posting here more. I am currently on hiatus from Facebook, so the little pieces I drop over there I will be dropping over here instead.

The aftermath of mass shootings is stressful for everybody. For me, the conversations online tend to revolve around the question of whether the shooter was mentally ill. I go about on my metaphorical Rocinante, challenging people who say “well, really, he must have been crazy. Sane people don’t commit mass murder.” It gets to be a bit much.

Everyone has a breaking point. Mine was when a friend of a friend suggested in all seriousness that the country should have, not a registry of gun owners, but a registry of the mentally ill, with information provided by doctors and pharmacists.

There is a long post about the…. ill-advisedness ….. of such a registry waiting to be written, but just right now I am worn out.

And more importantly, the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy has been in town from Korea for a short stay. The whole family took a day trip yesterday (the Red-Headed Menace came up from San Diego for a couple of days), which was lovely, but I just want the next couple of days to feel pleasanter and more hopeful than they have lately.

Posted in Family, My life and times, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Pat Greene

“Against one perfect moment, the centuries beat in vain.” Sir Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time.

A wood bench on a sidewalk overlooking La Jolla Cove.

Seventy-one-degree weather.

Warm late afternoon California sun and a cool gentle Pacific breeze.

Toddlers and teens climbing on the rocks and in and out of the cave. The slightly anxious parents following the toddlers.

Red kayaks a mile or so off bobbing up and down in the surf like so many fishing lures.

Swimmers seemingly appearing out of nowhere but really probably coming from the opposite shore a couple of miles off.

Seals sunning themselves, rousing only to drive off the cormorants that were beginning to encroach on their lounging space.

Sea lions splashing in the water, their booming barks ricocheting off the cliff, menacing the snorkelers who had wandered into territory the sea lions felt was theirs.

An older gentleman softly playing free-form jazz on his trumpet with perfect pitch and a round golden tone.

It was a perfect moment.

 

Posted in Travel (real or imaginary) | Tagged | Leave a comment

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Pat Greene

Sometimes the world is a wonderful place: the flea collection of the Natural History Museum in London has its own Twitter feed .

Posted in nothing special | Leave a comment

Irma.

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Pat Greene

A few years ago, The Weather Channel had a series called It Could Happen Tomorrow, about natural disasters which, because of their unusual nature, would have potentially disastrous effects. One show was dedicated to the scenario of a Cat 3 hurricane hitting Tampa.

St. Petersburg is down at the tip of the Pinellas peninsula, which forms the western shore of Tampa Bay. There are four ways out, one of which is unusable in high winds and which is not a good direction to evacuate in any case and another which is a nightmare to drive on good days.  Over 900 thousand people live in Pinellas County, over 250 thousand of them in St. Petersburg. Even more at risk,  there are eleven barrier islands which have significant development. Getting people off of them will pose an additional threat to human life.

The house that my brother and his family live in, and where I spent my formative years, is located down in South St. Pete, about a mile or two from the bay.  No matter how long I have lived in or may live in California, St. Petersburg is and always will be home.

The track that Irma is headed appears to be scraping up the east coast of Florida. However, some models show the storm veering slightly west and heading up through Naples and Fort Myers and Tampa. Irma is currently a five, and may well be a four when she hits the mainland US. Even if it doesn’t get a direct hit, the storm is wide enough — and the state of Florida narrow enough — people on the west coast of the state are going to get hit with at least tropical storm winds.

I’m kind of stressed out.*

*And, to top it all off, I am worried about friends in California and Oregon who live near the fires.

Posted in My life and times, Science | Tagged | Leave a comment