Saturday, August 01, 2020

My Toast to New York

Being shut-in too long is driving me crazy. My mind wanders back to the times when I was free.

It was a reliable part of my year for a long time that I would fly to New York for at least two visits. There, I would attend an editorial board meeting for The Nation and also meet up with friends for dinner near my hotel, which was normally south of Gramercy Park.

That part of town features Korean food, so that's where we would go. My companions included my sister-in-law, her husband, and a good friend of mine.


My friend grew up in China and moved to Japan as a teenager, then came here. She was a student at Columbia at the time, on her way to an impressive career as an expert on Japanese literature.

Tonight, I am remembering her and the city that held us together.

I don't know if I'll ever go there again but here is what I wrote about New York in 2013:

If that turns out to be my last trip to New York for a long time, it had the usual high points and low points that have characterized my visits to our country's largest city for decades.

The day before the trip, during a dental appointment, I learned that my dentist has never been to New York. Not even once, even though his favorite camera-parts supply store is there, near the Empire State Building.

He's a pretty well-traveled guy, I think, so I found this revelation incomprehensible. According to Wikipedia, somewhere close to 50 million people visit NYC every year, 80 percent of them Americans, with about ten million foreigners in the mix.

That means that the roughly 314 million people in the U.S. currently account for about 40 million visits to New York during the course of the year, although many of those people probably visit more than once.

I'm just going to wildly assume the average number of visits per year per person is 1.5 which would reduce the number of individual American visitors to about 27 million, or about 8.5 percent of the population.

Given that the vast majority of visitors no doubt are regulars, i.e., visiting at least once every few years or so, I can now see statistically that probably a minority of my fellow citizens have ever been there!

I'm guessing maybe a third of the population.

After all, less than that (roughly 100 million) fly on an airplane each year, and JFK is only the sixth busiest U.S. airport (Atlanta and Chicago are the top two). Almost half of the 47 million flying into and/or out of JFK are foreigners, however.

As for the metropolitan area's two other airports, Newark ranks the 14th and La Guardia 20th in airport traffic, and the bulk of those are on domestic flights. Not everyone landing at Newark visits one of New York's five famous boroughs, however.

Using various assumptions, including multiple visits, etc., I'm again ending up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-35 million domestic visitors to what early in the 20th century came to be known as The Big Apple.

Besides me having fun with numbers, where is this going? I figured that for those who never visit Manhattan, specifically mid-town and downtown, I should provide a little tour guide information.

The cabs running into and out of midtown cost $57.30 plus tips. The best deals you can get on a two or three star hotel run close to $200/night. Restaurants are pricey as well, though there is always the option of a pretzel of hot dog from a street vendor.

People tend to dress well in Manhattan. Every block or so you pass a woman or a man who most likely is a fashion model. At least they have the looks and the clothes to play the part.

You'll run into the famous on the streets of New York, just as you will in Beverly Hills. New York is where the famous and wealthy live, especially on the upper east side.

I once visited David Rockefeller's place on the upper east side. That's a story for another day.

Over the years, the poor and homeless have been more or less pushed out of Manhattan. You don't tend to see a lot of desperation near the main tourist destinations, though trust me, it's there, in the shadows and around the edges.

Like San Francisco, New York is a getaway city, in its case to Europe; in SF's, Asia. There are always a lot of folks passing through, including the world's richest and biggest spending tourists.

Everyone knows about theater in New York. The theater district is just off Times Square, which everyone also knows about.

The media and advertising and book publishing industries are headquartered in Manhattan.

But here's something you may not know. Over the decades, Manhattan has become a friendlier place. The old joke  -- that if you need to approach someone there for help you should self-protect, as in "Excuse me, do you know what time it is or should I go fuck myself?" -- simply is no longer true.

Nowadays, people politely tell you the time, or whatever.

There's still a ton of aggressive people trying to make it to the top in New York. Don't get me wrong. But generational changes have softened the culture, at least from the perspective of one who typically visits twice a year.

That may now change; I may not get to visit much more, and if not, my ability to generalize will be lost.

As for now, I retain a fondness for the place, its people and institutions. And for a small number of very special people indeed, who I'll miss if I no longer am able to visit.

A toast to New York!

Used to spend my nights out in a barroom
Liquor was the only love I've known
But you rescued me from reachin' for the bottom
And brought me back from being too far gone
You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey
You're as sweet as strawberry wine
You're as warm as a glass of brandy
And honey, I stay stoned on your love all the time
I've looked for love in all the same old places
Found the bottom of a bottle's always dry
But when you poured out your heart I didn't waste it
'Cause there's nothing like your love to get me high
You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey
You're as sweet as strawberry wine
You're as warm as a glass of brandy
And honey, I stay stoned on your love all the time
-- Chris Stapleton
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Friday, July 31, 2020

Our Song



Everyone is coping with a variety of difficult problems during this pandemic as we try to adapt and perdure. One of my family's main issues right now involves my youngest child, who is 21.

Her college just announced that students cannot come back to live on campus this fall and that all classes will have to be remote, due to the virus.

She was upset when this news arrived early yesterday morning. She went for a long walk. She is a senior and was looking forward to living with friends as she completes her studies. She has worked hard to get to this moment and now it is eluding her.

This is a girl who was fully ready to go to school by the age of three. She'd watched her big brothers go off each day and she was impatient for her turn to come. She'd established her own creative look by then, including mismatched socks and colorful clothes, and she had the first of many backpacks ready to go. One more thing: She was clearly not the type who would suffer separation anxiety when her Mom or I dropped her off.

She's an October baby, so we held her back one year from when she could have started kindergarten. Thus she's always been a year older than most of her classmates. One of the comments her teachers have made consistently over the 18 years or so she's been in school is how mature she is.

She thrived at school, earned top grades, made good friends, played a mean defense on her soccer team, and developed a strong social conscience about the unfairness and injustices she saw around her. She is a fighter.

She grew into a brilliant, beautiful, kind young woman with an independent streak. When she was 16,  I told her "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen!" like any father would. She answered, "What's sweet about being sixteen? The meanest creatures on the planet are 16-year-old girls."

Also, at that age, she was invited to go away to an exclusive boarding school with a focus on the arts, and she happily did so. There, she explored a variety of media besides her favorites, painting and drawing, and also learned something about herself.

Two years later, when it came time to apply to college, she was accepted by most of the top colleges out here on the west coast, but was adamant that she wanted to move to another part of the country and experience life away from the Bay Area Bubble.

She had a wide choice of options back east, too, but zeroed in on a small, private school where she thought the student culture would best suit her personality. The rest of us had limited influence on her decision. Truth is, we've had very little influence on her decisions all the way along.

Of course, any person's senior year in college is supposed to be one of those magical transition times, the last act of your formal schooling that started in kindergarten or earlier. Sure, grad school looms, but that's a completely different chapter. Graduating from undergraduate college is a huge moment for almost all of us.

But Covid-19 may have  stolen that moment from  my daughter, and I feel sad for her. Like all parents, I want the best for my kids, and when disappointments arrive, it's tough on them and also on me. Trying to think about what she might do next, I came up yesterday with a plan. Maybe she could rent a house somewhere on the east coast with her friends so they can complete their senior year together?

There is one more thing I want to say about this: As a father, I am very angry that my daughter is having to go through this, and mine is not an inchoate, vague type of anger at the universe. It is very specific and it is directed at one cruel man.

As the rest of us cope with our disappointments, the President lashes out at ghosts and phantoms as he contemplates losing an election three months from now. I use sports metaphors a lot, because they help me sort out how to interpret this crazy world. Trump's suggestion that the election be delayed due to Covid-19 reminds me of a soccer coach suggesting that the second half of a game be postponed when his team is down 0-3.

Who does that sort of thing?

"Sore loser" doesn't even begin to do the job. I've been a consistent critic of the Democrats who purport to represent an alternative to Trump but their shortcomings pale in comparison to this man as he skulks around, blasting imaginary enemies on Twitter and shamelessly race-baiting in the hope he can one again bring out the worst in his base and get re-elected.

Thanks to a Vanity Fair writer,  we now know that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, led a task force that developed a national plan to fight the pandemic early in the spring, when it could have mattered, only to abandon it when the parts of the country most affected initially appeared to be under Democratic political leadership.

That is a crime against humanity. It's the action of a despot who considers a person's political affiliation a reason to assign them to disease and death as long as "your" team remains relatively safe. Of course that strategy backfired, as the main parts of the U.S. now suffering from Covid-19 are under Republican control.

Ever hear of a boomerang? Trump's cruel calculus is now rebounding on his own base. We can only hope they abandon him and help all of our families rid this nation of the worst political scourge in our history.

I truly hope every person, regardless of our bullshit differences, stays safe from this awful illness. We know enough now to say that many deaths could have been avoided with decent  political leadership. But we don't have decent political leadership and their blood is on Trump's hands.

The rest of us are still alive. So this song is for you, to you and yours:

You may be young or you may be old.

You may be hot or you may be cold.

You may be religious or maybe you're not.

You may be of Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Hindu, Parsi, or something else.

You may be straight, gay, bi, trans or prefer not to say.

You may be black, white, latino, asian or any other race or a mixture of races.

You may be disabled or you be abled for now.

You may have been born here or somewhere else, perhaps distant from here.

You may be rich or you may be poor.

Maybe your eyes are blue or brown or green or black or hazel or gray or may be nobody can say. I like your eyes the way that they are.

Your hair may be black, yellow, brown, red, gray or white or you may not have any hair at all. That's all okay.

Maybe you like to read books or maybe you like to watch movies or work with wood or maybe you like to smoke or drink or take drugs. Maybe you prefer rock n roll, or country or jazz or the blues or classical music.

Maybe you think you are pretty or maybe not. I think you are pretty.

Maybe you'll call me when I need you to or maybe you won't. That's the way love goes.

Maybe you like to walk. Maybe you like to run.

Maybe you put your right sock on first or maybe it's your left.

Maybe you lie awake at night and dream of a better world or maybe not.

Maybe you are a cynic or maybe you are the hopeless type like me.

Maybe you play the flute. Maybe the harmonica. Maybe the drums. Maybe no instrument at all.

Maybe when you pass a stranger on the street you avert your eyes or maybe you look that person in the eye, and recognize him  as your equal.

Maybe you stood up when you should have or maybe you just stayed seated.

Maybe you regret what you've done in your life or maybe you regret what you haven't done.

Maybe you have a daughter like mine or maybe you don't. No matter this or a thousand other things, because we are here together now and there's still time.

Otherwise, you've seen a picture of me without you.

Just don't give up.


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One Per Minute


The country has reached a grim level in the form of the accelerating rate of deaths from Covid-19.

 * One person in the United States dies about every minute from COVID-19 as the national death toll has surpassed 150,000, the highest in the world. (Reuters)

 * Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is warning Republicans that his state could go blue during November’s presidential election. Even though Texas hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1976, Joe Biden currently has a 0.7 percentage point edge over Trump, according to the latest FiveThirtyEight polling average. “Texas is in play,” Cruz warned. “The whole country is divided right now and the hard left is angry.” [HuffPost]

 * The federal moratorium on evictions expired last Friday, ending protections for nearly 12 million Americans. This Friday, 25 million people will stop receiving an extra $600 in weekly coronavirus relief in their unemployment benefits. And on Saturday, rent is due for millions of Americans who won’t be able to pay. If Congress doesn’t step in, these people could be evicted come September. All lawmakers need to do is take quick and decisive action by extending the moratorium and additional unemployment benefits as the pandemic crisis continues. But that’s yet to happen. [HuffPost]

 * The Department of Homeland Security had ‘intelligence reports’ on journalists covering Portland unrest. The agency disseminated three reports on tweets written by two journalists who published leaked, unclassified documents. Current and former officials described it as an alarming use of a system meant to share information about suspected terrorists and violent actors. (Washington Post)

 * President Donald Trump suggested the country should delay November's presidential election on Thursday, as polls indicate he currently trails his opponent by double digits.Trump has no authority to delay an election, and the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date for voting. Senior Republicans, who often refuse to weigh in on President Trump’s controversial tweets, overwhelmingly rejected his idea that the November election be postponed over the risk of fraud. (CNN. Washington Post)

 * The co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society said Thursday in a blisteringNew York Times op-ed that President Donald Trump's tweet musing about a delay to November's presidential election is grounds for impeachment. Steven Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor who has offered broad defenses of the President in recent years, wrote, "I am frankly appalled by the president's recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats' assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president's immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate," he said. (CNN)

 * Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton eulogized the late civil rights icon John Lewis Thursday. Trump was absent. Obama likened the recent federal push by Trump to use force against protesters to the attitudes fostered by men such as George Wallace, who opposed civil rights for African Americans. (CNN, Washington Post)
* The U.S. economy contracted at a 32.9% annual rate from April through June, its worst drop in history, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Business collapsed during the pandemic lockdown in the spring, as the country plunged into its first recession in 11 years, wiping out five years of economic gains in just a few months. (CNN)
Cycle after cycle, the news channels just keep churning out bad news like these summaries indicate. Because of that, many of us are feeling overwhelmed by it all. This is a strange, strange time.
But that also makes this a good time to reach out to each other. So...
"If there's anything that you want
If there's anything I can do
Just call on me and I'll send it along
With love, from me to you"
-- The Beatles
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Thursday, July 30, 2020

Colliding Realities


Here's a synopsis of the top overnight news. It's all over the map., and you can be forgiven for developing a case of whiplash just by scanning through it.

* Armed conservative groups are deploying to the front lines of the culture war Across the country, armed civilians have surged into public view — marching on statehouses, challenging Black Lives Matter protests, chasing Internet rumors — and bringing the threat of lethal force to local politics. (Washington Post)

 * Rebellions against the central government of Russia continue, like in the U.S., as protests swell in the city of Khabarovsk, 4,000 miles from Moscow, residents who had never before found a public outlet for anger are becoming activists (New York Times).
.
* The vast majority of Californians — 74 percent — believe that people should always wear masks in public to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Two-thirds say they support the Black Lives Matter movement. And 60 percent say that racism is a big problem in the nation today. (Public Policy Institute of California)

 * Covid-19 can lead to neurological complications like delirium, brain inflammation, stroke and nerve damage. In a University College London study published earlier this month, 10 out of 43 patients had "temporary brain dysfunction" and delirium, while 12 had brain inflammation, eight had strokes and eight had nerve damage.
* Vice President Mike Pence and members of his staff met Tuesday with some of the doctors who were featured in a video that was later removed from social media for misinformation. The video, which was shared by President Donald Trump before being removed, featured members of the group America's Frontline Doctors standing on the steps of the Supreme Court claiming that masks aren't necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus and promoting hydroxychloroquine as a cure. Both claims are contradicted by scientific studies. (CNN)
* The Trump administration has reached an agreement with Oregon's Democratic governor to withdraw federal officers from downtown Portland, though the Department of Homeland Security says it will maintain a presence in the city until it believes federal locations there are secure. (CNN)

* Trump has reverted to racial code language in an attempt to lure white suburban voters. Promoting his rollback of an Obama-era rule meant to combat segregation, Trump informed "all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood."

* A $600 weekly supplement to unemployment benefits is at an end, and Congress is deadlocked over new aid. For some, that means hunger, evictions or bankruptcies. Those who want to end it fear it's an incentive for unemployed workers to stay home rather than return to work.

* Biden leads Trump in swing states Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and (by a smaller margin) Arizona in the latest polls. That would provide the Democrat enough electoral votes to win the election. (FiveThirtyEight)

 * A Republican Congressman, Louie Gohmert from Texas, who refused to wear a mask and who was supposed to accompany Trump on a trip to his home state tested positive for Covid-19 at the White House and so could not go on the trip.
As I said, a case of whiplash can result if you follow these news items. too closely. It's a constant one step forward, one step back these days.

 The Trump formula for political success is law and order, thinly disguised racism, and usurping local control of the streets where protests persist. 

 The Democratic response is to attack Trump and hope Biden will expel him from the White House while there's still enough of a democracy left to preside over.

 That leaves the American people feeling screwed. We don't have leaders, we have TV actors. Speaking of actors, Bill Pullman, who played the President in the movie "Independence Day," gave a much better speech than Biden or Trump ever will be capable of:
"Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind. Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests.
Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.

And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:
"We will not go quietly into the night!
We will not vanish without a fight!
We're going to live on!
We're going to survive!" 
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"

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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Off Course

Loneliness is one of the obvious fellow travelers accompanying the virus as it sloshes over the land. It already was a big problem in American culture, of course, but 2020 is angling to be the loneliest numbered year ever.

“During the beginning of the pandemic, when social distancing and other restrictions were put into place, we found that depression and loneliness were being experienced at considerably heightened rates in the U.S.,” said Molly Rosenberg, lead author of a study in June at Indiana University. “While these restrictions were and continue to be critically important to protecting Americans from the virus, it is clear that the spread and response to the virus has had a tremendous mental health impact on Americans.”
"Many of us feel lonely from time to time and these short-term feelings shouldn’t harm our mental health," says the Mental Health Foundation  "However, the longer the pandemic goes on for, the more these feelings become long-term. Long-term loneliness is associated with an increased risk of certain mental health problems, including depression, anxiety and increased stress.  The impact of long-term loneliness on mental health can be very hard to manage."  

 As the months of isolation drag on, some have found ways to cope, but many others have not. It's my impression that social media like Facebook have never been more important in our lives than they are now. Every night, as I write, I hope to be helping relieve some of the isolation all of us feel.

 That is my intent.

 ***

Think about this: Few tasks can be more frustrating than trying to keep the President to stay on message. He seems incapable of doing so.

Once again, he is promoting hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19, which is a false, dangerous assertion, and he is also promoting conspiracy theories from a doctor who claims DNA from aliens is being used in pharmaceutical production.

Equally disturbing but psychologically revealing is Trump's open jealousy that Dr. Anthony Fauci has much higher approval ratings than he does.

"Nobody likes me," Trump complained at a press briefing yesterday.

Well, at least he got that one right.

I've often written about the danger of conspiracy theories. As opposed to what journalists do -- gather facts, confirm them, and communicate fact-based reports -- the imaginary worlds conjured by conspiracy theorists are complete fantasies.

That we have ended up with a President who endorses such nonsense is a national tragedy. Surrounded by every conceivable expert on any subject that interests him, instead he chooses quackery. What is dangerous about this is there are millions of people who believe him when he speaks.

And that is enough to make a normally sane, reasonable person feel lonely indeed.

So, the following song is dedicated to all lonely people, but most especially Donald Trump:

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one
No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes, it's the saddest experience you'll ever know
'Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest number, whoa-oh, worse than two
It's just no good anymore since you went away
Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday
One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
--Three Dog Night

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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Front Line Heroes

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I visited the Gulf Coast where some 1,833 people had died. My assignment was to cover the tragedy for Salon.com, but once there, I got involved with relief efforts by the grassroots groups that had gathered to help survivors.

Handing out food and blankets to people, I got into conversations with newly homeless residents of East Biloxi and Gulfport.  These were people who were poor before the big storm struck and destroyed what few possessions they once had had.

Now one of the few things many of them had left was their faith. So I found myself praying with people -- an activity that was unfamiliar to me -- often standing in a circle and holding hands.

As part of my reporting, I noticed that the large, well-known relief organizations, such as the Red Cross and United Way, were no longer on the scene. This was four to five months after the storm and they had exited once their initial relief efforts had concluded.

In their place, small organizations with limited resources took on the work of helping local people rebuild and gain access to the insurance and government benefits they were entitled to. Most residents had no access to the Internet, which is how they could apply for aid; many could not read or write well anyway and needed basic help with their applications.

Church groups, often from distant congregations, came to their rescue. It was one of the most impressive and heart-warming examples of people helping people I had ever witnessed.

One day, as I was helping a man who'd lost everything but his truck, where he now lived, he thanked me and said he knew we would switch roles someday in the future.

"You live out there in California, where they have those big earthquakes. When that big one hits, I'll be coming there and I'll look you up and make sure you're okay."

When I got back home to the Bay Area I filed my story, which I titled "Everything's Broken," after a Bob Dylan song. A few old friends contacted me about the situation down south and asked what they could do for the people I'd met there. One Stanford friend, Perla Ni, decided she was going to form an organization that would provide guidance to anyone who wished to support the types of non-profits I'd witnessed at work on the Gulf Coast.

The organization she created, GreatNonprofits. org, is alive today, providing information on thousands of non-profits that is difficult to get elsewhere. One feature allows volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, employees and board members to rate each organization.

Maybe check it out one of these days.

***

I've been thinking about the post-Katrina devastation lately in the context of the pandemic. As awful as the impacts from that monster storm were, they were small and localized compared to Covid-19, with over 16 million cases and more than 646,000 deaths worldwide.

Roughly a quarter of those cases and deaths have occurred in the U.S.

The scope is overwhelming our ability as individuals to comprehend what we are witnessing. How can we organize ourselves to help one another when we *all* are at risk?

What our front-line workers are doing is to fight this battle in the only way possible -- patient by patient. They have no other choice. They wear masks and gloves and protective clothing as they reach those who need immediate medical assistance and they transport them to hospitals where other workers take over in the effort to save lives, one life at a time.

To do this work they are living examples of the faith that every life is worth saving. Each human being is inherently valuable. And we are all in this together.

All for one and one for all.

It doesn't matter which faith you practice as long as you accept that fundamental principle.
Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken
Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken
              -- Bob Dylan









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