"The Chill Factor"

Numbers are real.  You can calibrate them on thermometers.  When the number is high, then you know it is warm.  When the thermometer’s frozen, you are living in Buffalo.

The only place that brings frigid Torontonians a smile.

“Well at least it’s not Buffalo, eh?”  

Let me assert here in Paragraph Four that numbers are not real. 

Numbers are relative.

(Anger Alert:  Be prepared to yell “Wimp!” at your computer.)

Last night, I walked ten minutes to a restaurant, meeting a friend for our bi-weekly dinner.

The outside temperature was fifty-one degrees. 

And I was freezing.

Even wearing a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a leather jacket, a hat and a scarf.

Okay, let’s have it.

“W--p!“

Thank you.

I can’t help it.  I was cold.

Something has happened to my body.  Back home?  Fifty-one in December?

A true Christmas miracle!

Yet here I was walking down Fourth Street, feeling the same way I felt standing at Bathurst and Eglinton, waiting for a bus.

Frozen, frustrated and mad!

And yet – dare I say it again without receiving a tightly packed snowball flying straight through my screen –

It was fifty-one degrees!

What does an L.A. “Popsicle” do in such Ice Age conditions?

We take off for Hawaii.

Where it’s – don’t hurt me – eighty-two degrees.

And sunny.

And balmy.

The warm air wafting fragrant “Essence of Plumeria” into our noses.

Okay, I’ll stop.

Realizing the effect.

We are staying in a hotel we once stayed in about twenty-five years ago, since last year, when we stayed in the hotel we have stayed in forever, we got robbed. 

Things have changed in our lives.  Twenty-five years ago, there were just four of us, which some nostalgically call “The Original Four” – Dr. M., Earlo, Rachel and Anna.  

Now we are nine.

When my old agent heard I was taking nine people to Hawaii, he brayed, “Nobody takes nine people to Hawaii unless they make four hundred thousand dollars a year!”

(I was amazed that he knew the exact number.  Like it is written in a book.)

Our annual income is not at that level.

But we are still going to Hawaii.

It is our annual splurge. 

We are done for the year.

But at least we have tans.

During our last visit, “The Original Four” rented a hotel-owned condo, close to the beach.  We checked the price for that condo today.  See my appropriate post:

“The Super Rich Are Ruining Things For The Wealthy.”

We can no longer afford that condo.

My strongest memory of that experience was that while being escorted to that condo we heard,

“You people are lucky.  Charlie Sheen trashed it last week, and we’ve put in all new furniture.”

So we’re off to Hawaii, swapping bone-chilling fifty-one for tropical eighty-two.

But, just in case there’s a “cold snap” and it drops down to the high seventies,

I am taking a sweater.

"They Said We Were Lying"

When you work in show business, there is very little democracy.

The networks or studios say “Yea or Nay”, and that’s it. 

At the work level, if you have a boss, they’re in charge.  And if you’re the boss, you are.  There are no tabulating votes.  The person in power runs the show.

(Explaining a show business president, pinched by a checks-and-balances approach.)

In your personal life, sometimes things happen that bring democracy – ready or not – knocking at your door. 

And it is not always “Hooray.” 

Case in point.

After Dr. M and her friend Ruth accumulated enough signatures and expert testimonials to apply for a hearing at the Santa Monica Landmark Commission, to request “Landmark Status” for a house we were trying to save from destruction, our application was granted, and we were off to the bureaucratic clutches of local government.

Here’s what was at stake.

After the Landmark Commission votes, their recommendation is sent up for a vote to the full Santa Monica City Council.

Two layers of democracy for those not content with just one.

(As well as those who would have been happier with none.)     

What we quickly learn is that the Landmark Commission is comprised not just of people interested in preserving beautiful old houses, it also includes real estate operatives, interested in plowing beautiful old houses into the ground, building ugly condominiums there instead, raking in fortunes for themselves.

I hope my prejudice is not showing too much.

It’s just that democracy invariably involves opposing sides, with often radically different agendas. 

You may think the other side is wrong and/or stupid and/or in league with the Devil. 

But you still have to deal with them.

No matter which road they take, which is not always the high road.

And here we go.

In the course of our presentation to gain Landmark Commission support, one of the commissioners – from the real estate “camp” – wondered out loud if the petitioners for landmark certification might actually be liars.

That’s me they are talking about. 

(And a close family member as well.)

Their argument, bolstered by no evidence or fact – nor by an honest belief that the house did not deserve landmark designation – no.  They claim we are trying to buy the house at a lower price than the developers are offering, not to preserve it as a viable residence but to turn around and sell it to developers ourselves, cashing in mightily by “gaming” the system.

Liars, they called us.

Just “floating an idea.”

That’s the official “deciding process” we are involved in, the one Churchill once called, “The worst form of government except for all the others.”

We won Landmark Commission approval by one vote.  And later, City Council certification, ultimately buying the house ourselves, down the line.

Why then am I complaining?

One vote in the other direction, and the city’s deprived of a classic “Craftsman Bungalow”, and I don’t have this spectacular view.

One vote!

By someone calling me a liar.

Though highly coveted by people living without it, democracy is a tough town to begin with.  Someone’s always going to lose. 

Can you at least play that tough game without cheating?

It depends.

How badly do you need to win?

And will you do whatever it takes?

"Out Of Many, Still Many"

Sometimes an article I read in the paper carries my mind to something else.

I saw a story about the Supreme Court upholding a provision concerning abortion that the State of Kentucky had unilaterally instituted which had been appealed by its opponents to the Highest Court in the Land, where they lost.

What jumped out at me in that article was the word “Kentucky.” 

It reminded me of what is what, to me, is our national disgrace.

Okay, maybe not “disgrace” exactly, but a terrible mistake. 

If I wanted to mess up that previous sentence, I would have said “a terrible though understandable mistake.”  The impact is better without it, but to achieve it, historical accuracy had to temporarily take a back seat.

Though, in the front seat, it was still a mistake.

Here’s, according to “Earlo’s Unauthorized History of America”, is how it happened.

1776. 

America’s going to war against England.  It was a huge mismatch.  Walmart against the 99 Cent Store.  America needed all the help it could get.

At that time, America, being a geographical designation rather than an actual country, the Revolutionary leaders had to go to the thirteen ununified colonies and say, “We need help.”

The colonies said okay. 

But first,

“We need to talk.”

The independent colonies, it turned out, had some prerequisite ground rules.   

Most specifically around protecting slavery.

Though they did not say it was about protecting slavery.  There was no “Slavery’s Great” faction, because, you know, it’s disgusting. 

The argument was framed in a loftier format.  There was no “Defense of slavery (P.U.).” 

There was, instead, a defense of “States’ Rights.”

Which protected slavery, but shut up.  It is not the same thing. 

“Yes, it is.” 

“No, it isn’t.”

Definitionally, “States’ Rights” allowed the soon-to-become individual states to do pretty much whatever they wanted, and no federal government could say no.

That, of course, included the delicately named “Peculiar Institution” of slavery.

“But not just slavery.  It’s about everything.”

“Including slavery.”

“Of course.”

The anti-slavery North vehemently objected.

“We do not want slavery in our country.”

“You mean the country we are establishing?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.  Then we will not help you fight England.  And the ‘country we are establishing’ will be no country.”

You see how that works?  They had them over the proverbial barrel.

What were they going to do?

Cave, is what they were going to do.

To maximize their chances against England – which was a long shot either way although less so this way – they accepted the principle of “States’ Rights.”

Apparently, judged by the recent Supreme Court abortion case, allowing Kentucky to go its own way,

We are stuck with it forever.

It was at that point that I started to wonder.

As wondering is a harmless exercise – since I have no chance of changing anything, including your minds, and tell the truth, my mind is not settled on this either – let’s think about “States’ Rights.”

Maybe, e pluribus unum notwithstanding, we are, after all this time, still not a unified country. 

And perhaps that’s okay.

Just as in the beginning, there are today states whose citizens believe one thing and Americans from elsewhere who don’t.

Raising the question, why should outsider “Don’ts” have the right to impose their will on the citizens of one particular state?

Maybe it’s true that the individual states know more about the desires, wishes and beliefs of their constituents than the National Government and it is, therefore, for them to decide.

It’s their state.  They have “States’ Rights.”  Why shouldn’t they?

The thing is, over the centuries, each state’s population has greatly diversified.  Now there are ideological divisions within states, some believing one thing, others, totally another.

Allowing greater in-state heterogeneity, what are you gonna do?

Go with the majority imposing its will on the objecting minority?

Yikes. 

Appeal the Supreme Court?

If they find no federal law broken, you’ll lose.  (Which – See:  Kentucky abortion case – they just did.)  (It didn’t hurt that the Supreme Court majority is publicly anti-abortion.)

It’s all kind of a mess.  To me, they should never have agreed to “States’ Rights.”

(SING-S0NGY WARNING) “We won’t help you fight England.”

That’s why we did it.

And we are still paying the price.

"The Center Is Not Holding"

Which is what they call out in battles.  I believe it’s a bad thing. 

So we go see New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, speaking at Rachel’s kids’ upscale private school about cultural division.  (Yeah.  I get it.)

Frank Bruni is a hero of mine, because he is thoughtful and conciliatory, sticking tenaciously to his moderate guns, when the “heat”, public attention and megabucks book deals go to the fulminating extremes.

Bruni’s college selection backed up his beliefs.  Rather than going to Yale, “Northerner” Bruni instead opted for the University of North Carolina, where he believed he would encounter people different from himself, which, he thought among other things, was what college was for.

That wished-for encounter would immediately transpire.

Bruni, who had known he was gay since he was twelve, had decided to “come out” in college.  Arriving at his assigned dorm room, he met his freshman roommate for the first time.  Entering their shared living accommodation, Frank was instantly greeted by a mounted poster, championing Christian beliefs.

His response:  “It’s going to be a long year.” 

It turns out, though he, understandably, did not directly let on, his religious roommate eventually gleaned Bruni was gay, and, befitting the point of the lecture,

“It turns out he was okay with it.”

Leading to a year of mismatched roommates, learning and growing.

An experience unlikely to have happened if there was a designated, exclusive “gay” dormitory and Frank Bruni had chosen to live in it.

In turns out, Bruni’s story was not only about “People sometimes surprise you.”  It was also about what we lose when we burrow ourselves away in protective enclaves. 

In a culture riven with division, argued Frank Bruni, we must take every opportunity to connect with people who are racially, culturally and economically outside our habitual “Comfort Zone.” 

His message was welcomed by the, I am guessing, liberal audience, for whom acceptance and tolerance are natural “givens.”  (In theory if not always in practice.  On our way out, Rachel tells of a family who, dropped from previously provided financial assistance, was forced to leave the school and go somewhere cheaper. (Bye-bye, “Economic Diversity.”)

I admire Bruni’s announced “left of center, but not that far left of center” approach.  Because it is also my own.  (Meaning, to some reflective degree, I am admiring myself through New York Times columnist Frank Bruni.)

I am familiar with the drawbacks of holding moderate views.  You are generally shunned, and nobody likes you.  (Dr. M has related that my views have elicited eye-rolling reactions from liberal visitors, some of whom never returned.)  Still, that’s where I am, believing the reasonable approach is not always – because I am not an “always” kind of a guy – but primarily in the middle. 

I just know there are apparently not a whole lot of us. 

I wanted Frank Bruni to know that I knew.  (And how admirably noble and brave we both were.)   So, during the follow-up “Q & A” section of festivities, I uncharacteristically offered a “Q.”

In a raspy voice, bearing the waning remnants of lingering bronchitis, I said,

“You said you were politically ‘not that far left of center.’  I wonder, if you could tell me, how popular is that group?

(Which got the laugh I was hoping for.)

“… and where exactly is its national platform?”

The upbeat Bruni said he knew a lot of people like him (and me.)  And that the strong showing by centrist candidates for the Democratic nomination demonstrably attests to its strength.

(Which considerably less upbeat Earlo sees less as support for the incremental “Middle Way” than the concern that the candidates to the Left have no chance to beat Trump.)

I hope Frank Bruni can expand our struggling franchise.

But I am not totally convinced. 

When people are juggling fireballs, it’s tough to attract audiences with a speech.

Even if it’s true.