Everett Maroon's Blog, page 17

Why We’ll Never Have a Series Like The West Wing Again

The West Wing rushed in at the end of the 2oth Century when we were all worried about Y2K and our brand-new Internet crashing down around our ears. Helmed by Martin Sheen, Aaron Sorkin’s vision of the capitol city gave us a non-sexist image of a Democratic president, quick-witted and principled to the hilt, someone who would never receive, much less request, oral sex in the Oval Office from an intern. The biggest argument inside the Beltway was whether Ken Starr needed to spend $20 million of the taxpayers’ money to investigate the commander-in-chief’s sex life. We may not have thought of it as a simpler time, and it wasn’t all that long ago, but well, in retrospect popular culture was somewhat less complicated.

This is not a series that didn’t manage to hit the point of poor performance, often called “jumping the shark.” It did become somewhat preposterous, with a pretend coup of a pretend nation that could not possibly compare to the destruction of our national mental stability brought about by 9/11.

But many of us watched anyway, for the rapid fire dialogue, for Rob Lowe (until he left, of course), for the rich relationships among the senior advisers to the president (C.J.! Toby! Lyman!), and the ways in which smart people in Washington were portrayed. Intrigue on the domestic front was especially believable, First Family kidnappings aside. Audiences were willing to go along with a few half-baked story ideas because so much else about the series rang true. And when Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda ran for the highest office in the land, viewership rebounded.

Television has given us other series in some degree of trying to recapture The West Wing’s magic, and all of them have fallen flatter than a lead pancake. Commander in Chief couldn’t even break out of the gate before it resorted to a conspiracy against the Vice President taking office after the President’s death. Veep is funny but has relegated itself to using the Number 2′s office as a comedy motivator. Political Animals quickly descended into a better dressed version of Dallas. And Scandal, in its second season on ABC, has about as much resemblance to Washington’s machinery as an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Which is to say, none. Whereas it began obsessed with women’s sexual power in tension with men’s political power, the narrative is now caught up in an elaborate conspiracy theory much better enacted in The Manchurian Candidate.

So why do all of these shows fall so short?

It’s not that The West Wing was simply better, which yes, it was. But we as a country are perhaps too jaded for shows about our elected officials and their careers. The approval of Congress has never been lower–currently it’s around 12 percent–and on many issues, the populace has never been more divided. So much of our news cycle is dedicated to the actual infighting and name-calling in DC that it’s hard to give more attention to its fictional presence in series (or mini-series) form. We see re-tellings of presidential decisions in Zero Dark Thirty and Hollywood’s depiction of the Iraq war in The Hurt Locker, Green Zone, and Saving Jessica Lynch. Homeland gives us a narrative with feet in both camps of terrorist intrigue and Washington decision making, wrapped together in paranoid fantasy. In each of these stories there are clearly delineated good guys and bad guys, and once in a while, the blurring of that line in the guise of the malevolence of power itself.

We can’t watch political shows and believe them anymore because these fictions fail to capture the intense awfulness of our reality, the depths to which we have descended to believe that our neighbors truly care about us. We don’t believe in our hearts that we’re all in this together anymore, and so the idealist hope of a show like The West Wing can’t exist in popular culture in the same way in 2013. Our most prevalent, hyped narratives–Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Homeland, Revenge, Damages–are all about individual failures, misdeeds, and betrayals. The idea that we could work together to further the common good is what’s become unbelievable.

Happy New Year.

Post in the New Year

2013 is here and already people are waving their fists at the sky in frustration. Mitch McConnell of the US Senate is angry his congressional colleagues want to take up gun control debates on the floor. Murmurs from DC point to anger over the nominations of Chuck Hagel to head the Department of Defense and of John Kerry to lead State. Shooting victims from Aurora, Colorado, bemoan the possible trial of the Man Who Would be Joker, and the Hell’s Angels rode en masse to Connecticut to obstruct the Westboro Baptist Church from protesting at the Newtown victims’ funerals. If any of us had any hope that the end of the election could bring down the vitriol a notch or two, we had another thing coming. Glenn Beck may be relegated to the superhighway, but Ann Coulter continues to get attention for saying this jackass thing or that, and the Tea Party continues its clamp down on legislative productivity.

Therefore, I propose a few things for the sane among us to get through these trying times:

Watch the new women of the House and Senate: Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren might have made the news circuit when they were snapped at orientation, but there are a whole host of terrific women joining the legislature this year, including Tammy Duckworth, Mazie Hirono, Heidi Heitkamp, Kristen Sinema, Elizabeth Esty, and Joyce Beatty. With likely debates this year on gun control, budget cuts, and immigration reform, I’m looking to see how some of these new members make their voices heard in the conversation. The 112th Congress is dead. Long live the 113th Congress.

The return of some favorite television shows: Breaking Bad will host its conclusion in mid-year, with a scant eight episodes carved out of its previous season. The last we saw of anything, a certain DEA agent was parked on the throne, flipping through a book of poetry. How the experiment of protagonist’s descent into evil will wind up is still anybody’s guess. Mad Men also returns for another season and producers insist they’re going to “shake things up.” Because these characters’ lives have been so stable until now?

Anticipated trans reading: Pick up Nevada by Imogen Binnie when it comes out on April 2. (Full disclosure–I’ll have a review of her novel very soon, probably over at Bitch’s blog.) T Cooper’s Real Man Adventures has also just come out, so go read it. McSweeny’s wouldn’t steer you wrong. S. Bear Bergman is working on a new book project, and Red Durkin is poised to blow up the stuffy literary world with the release of her first novel, Ready, Amy, Fire. More generally, get away from the Amazon best seller list, go to the closest independent bookstore, and buy from them directly. Read outside of your usual preferred genres and shake up your reading world a little.

Turn off the Internet: I mean, you could finish reading this paragraph first. But I plan to extend my advice from last year to stop reading the comments to online political posts (or anything posted on Yahoo!, CNN, and Huffington Post), and just take breaks from the information superhighway. Screen readers have their place, but try one of the books listed above in paper format, and leave your smartphone on the other side of the room.

Here’s to a brand spanking new year.

2013 New Year’s Resolutions

These are my personal resolutions, and my 2013 to do list. Feel free to share yours, comment, or examine. Thanks, 2012, for being a helluva year. And on to next year…

1. Be the best support I can be to the people around me who are suffering with depression–I’m tired and sad to keep hearing about acquaintances who have attempted or successfully commit suicide. So I am starting my list here, and I’m saying again in a public space that I’m around to listen, to troubleshoot, to talk, to help muster resources. I care about my friends and extended family, and I’ve been in that dark place. Life is so much better when one can get through those awful moments. Please talk to someone you trust when you really need a helping hand. If that’s me, I’m honored.

2. Be the best dad I can be for Emile–Parenthood, I’m learning, is about finding your kid where they are, and with the rapid learning curve my son has, I’m constantly on the move to ascertain where that is. He’s standing, walking, running, making sounds, then words, and last week, his first real sentence: “I want Momma.” Probably can’t go wrong there, kid. But I have to keep checking myself to keep my own issues out of his way, and I see that this is a lifelong tactic I’ll need to employ. So here goes.

3. Finish these two book projects–I’ve got a novel-in-progress and a nonfiction humor book, but darn it, there’s no reason I can’t put both to bed and complete them. I’d cross my fingers, but I need them to type. ALSO: Come up with some new damn jokes.

4. Get a pen pal–I have an idea where I’m going to start, with the Black and Pink program.

5. Make better connections to progressive thinkers and writers–Living in Walla Walla, 225 miles from Seattle and 210 miles from Portland, this is difficult. But I need to come up with something other than spending thousands of dollars flying around the country and going to the same writer’s conference. Better, more efficient, more purposeful are my goals. Maybe more regional meetups, maybe through setting up an event here in town, I’ll work on this.

2013 To Do List

1. Go to Hawaii.

2. Buy a camera and take better pictures.

3. Introduce Emile to new animals and kids.

4. Go bowling.

5. Publish two more projects.

6. Reconnect with an old friend.

7. Drive someplace new.

8. Volunteer somewhere new.

9. Organize all of the books in the house.

10. Find 5 new bands and put them in my listening rotation.

11. Read 12 books, at least half of which must be fiction.

12. Master Lebanese cooking.

13. Write one short story a month.

14. Frame that lithograph I’ve had for four years.

15. Create a workable office in the house so I have somewhere to write at home.

16. Start learning Spanish.

17. Go hit at a batting cage.

18. Go to queer pride somewhere this summer.

19. Throw a pot.

20. Take Emile for a boat ride.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone! See you on the other side of the fiscal cliff.

Preventing Transgender Suicide

Reblogged from National Center for Transgender Equality's Blog:

Transgender Lives are Precious: National Suicide Prevention Week

Suicide sadly remains all too prevalent in the transgender community. Unremitting discrimination takes its toll and transgender people pay the price for the prejudice of others. Sometimes, transgender people turn to suicide when they can’t find work, housing or other practical necessities of life. In the survey that NCTE conducted with The Task Force, 41% of those who responded reported having attempted suicide at some point in their lives; this compares with 1.6% of the general population. 

Read more… 149 more words

We all need to support each other more. Please.

The Political Issues Next Year

For the past few years I’ve done a bit of cheeky prognostication on the popular culture front–picking which elected official will get caught up in a sexting scandal, which celebrity will get the most tabloid coverage, that sort of thing. But 2012 has left me with no heart for such frivolity, not with the Susan G. Komen attack on Planned Parenthood, the vitriol that spewed all over the nation through the election season, and Newtown. Now I’m left scratching my head and asking big questions about getting proactive on the issues I think are most important. I mean, I want to stay funny, I really do. I’m just having a tough time isolating my giggle button when it comes to civil rights, the lives of people on the margins, and our political atmosphere that seems hell bent to take us all down. Fiscal cliff, anyone?

Reproductive Rights and Sneaky Fake Women’s Clinics–We saw many examples of the fight against women’s health and reproductive rights this year, everything from the sound bites of the stupid (“Women’s bodies have ways of shutting that down”) to the attempt to gut Planned Parenthood funding, to new impossible regulations for abortion clinics to follow if they want to remain open. Late in the year, a woman died in Ireland, a state which doesn’t (barring new proposed rules since her death) allow for abortion except under extreme circumstances to save the life of the mother, with “extreme” being open to debate. It was a harrowing moment for abortion rights advocates in the States because so many of the GOP’s members are for just the same language and restrictions here. The forces against women’s health and civil rights continue to push; here in Washington State the legislature will be considering a bill to make fake abortion clinics (in which no prenatal care or health services are delivered) more obvious to consumers, and the rally against such transparency is already materializing. To see the laws in your state regarding “crisis pregnancy centers,” look at NARAL’s Web site.

Providing Better Medical Support to Transgender People–Far too many of us along the gender non-conforming spectrum receive poor, inadequate, or no medical care. First, medical studies are often conducted only on non-trans men and then “translated” for non-trans women. There have been no longitudinal or large studies of health outcomes or pharmaceutical effects on transfolk, or long-term effects of medical transition. I’ve personally gotten bad medial opinions instructing me to do the wrong thing because a physician was relaying the instructions for women to me, and I’ve heard stories from friends and acquaintances that range from hilariously wrong (“I still want to do a prostate exam on you”) to horrific (a friend was delayed treatment for a painful ovarian cyst that nearly ruptured while the ER searched for a surgeon who would assist him). What does it mean to pack on 20-40 pounds of muscle onto a skeletal framework that didn’t expect that? What is the likelihood of breast cancer for transwomen, and what protocols should they use for mammograms and other detection methods? Nobody knows. Beyond the political fight about covering transition-related medical services for transsexuals, we need to open up the conversation about our basic preventative medical care, and push researchers and practitioners into getting culturally competent, if not putting together a sound study to improve our future medical care.

Comprehensive Job Training–While the Republicans in Congress decry that President Obama wants to balloon government spending and declare that they will take the country over the financial cliff in order not to raise taxes on the richest Americans (be they $250,000-a-year earners or $400,000), we may all forget that there is some government spending that has helped our economy in the past. Take job training and education programs for adults. If we were to put more investment at the community college level into our younger generations of workers, we could deliver a viable alternative to unskilled labor and the increasingly bad revelations about what for-profit universities are doing to the country’s debt load and default rates. Instead of asking the now-tired question of “Where are the jobs” to our elected officials, let’s tell them more pointedly that we expect to see a comprehensive jobs training bill in the next session. Hey, Richard Nixon pushed for just such a law in 1971, and he was a Republican.

Immigration Reform that Works–We’ve talked about building walls long enough. We’ve demonized Central Americans long enough. We’ve invited migrant farmers to the US for decades, and yet we act shocked when it is mentioned that undocumented people do the back-breaking labor of harvesting crops that can’t be tended to with combines or harvesting machines alone. Alabamans discovered that the strawberry crop was left to rot in the field because there weren’t enough laborers to pick the fruit off the ground after the state rolled out harsh new laws designed to drive them out. A guest worker program, education support for the children of immigrants, access to medical and social services, as well as meal programs, Social Security earnings accrual, a path to citizenship, and a reworked permanent residency program–these are all points that should be part of the discussion. Talking about immigration only through the lens of razor-wire walls is like talking about comprehensive sex education only through the lens of abstinence. Oh, wait.

Sensible Gun Control Legislation–I wish it didn’t take 20 dead young children in the suburbs to grab national attention about semi-automatic weapons, but now that there’s a spotlight on the issue, can we all just agree that civilians shouldn’t have access to these powerful firearms? Can’t AR-15s and AK-47s and their ilk be the low-hanging fruit that we can cut out of the picture, even if we love the Second Amendment and even if they account for a small fraction of spree killing deaths? I really think we can.

I’m not sure how much hope I hold out for a conscientious debate or conversation on any of these issues, at least at the national level or as portrayed by our juggernaut media conglomerates. But I think we need to try to refuse reductive arguments when they pop up. Certainly they’ve held center stage for a while across all of these fronts, and we can all agree that they don’t result in any progress. What will really make our lives worse in 2013 is apathy, without a doubt.

How America Could Be Better in 10 Simple Steps

Personally, I’m not complaining about 2012. I published a book and one of my short stories was selected for the first transgender anthology in the US, and I’ve spent all kinds of wonderful moments with my baby, who is fast approaching the Defiant Toddler Years. 2012 was really pretty great for me, in that my candidate won another term as President, there are three more states with marriage equality on the board, and I got to go to some great cities, meet impressive people, run into Angela Davis and Alice Walker (sorry my stroller bag was in your way!), and read my writing to more than 500 people. But for many other reasons 2012 has been a terrible awful tragic year, and I lived through the trials, too. We all listened to that drawn-out, nasty election, filled with one sour sound bite after another, we saw the return of voting laws designed to stifle the electorate, and we watched a relentless attack on reproductive rights. The last two years have been nasty, with self-described conservatives vying for the attention of the most extreme right-wing ideals, their comments filling up the 24-hour news stations like a frothy volcano in a science experiment gone wildly wrong (which I suppose isn’t far from what their comments were). It’s hard to be inundated with incendiary rhetoric and news of the awful and still think we live in a great place. Forget best. We’re not the best country, we arguably never were, and I really don’t know why my fellow Americans keep insisting on this exceptionalism concept. But maybe if we can put our folly aside, we could carve out a renewed sense of community and “we’re in it together”ness that we sorely need these days. Here are 10 simple things we could do:

1. Turn off the pointed, partisan “news” shows—Most of us know that FoxNews isn’t either fair nor balanced, but MSNBC isn’t, either. It may feel good listening to talking heads from “your side” telling you what you want to hear, but it’s often inaccurate, and the skewed perspective only reinforces an “us/them” mentality that keeps us too distanced to listen to each other. I hate to use the word “old-fashioned” when talking about media outlets, but the old-fashioned, “objective” news rooms who fact-check every statement provides better reporting and has not set up its business model on the idea of partisanship. Who are these news outlets? That’s up to each of us to identify, frankly, because managements shift and reporters move around, but AP and UPI reporting are pretty steady, NPR has a mandate to be objective, and there are many foreign news organizations who are not beholden to US interests and so they tell it like it is. But please, shut off the Rush Limbaugh and the Chris Matthews. Go for a walk or something.

2. Meet your neighbors—We lead busy lives, and we’re often overscheduled, it’s true. But not even knowing our neighbors’ names can contribute to a sense of isolation. Not only could we learn some new stories, or borrow and lend sugar in a pinch, but friendly neighbors begets friendly communities. Knowing that your upstairs neighbor just lost his grandfather may make you not want to throttle him when it sounds like he’s bowling elephants at 10PM. I once helped an older lady who lived two doors down from me in DC—a half cord of wood had been dumped on her front lawn, so I split it and stacked it for her, and then I was the king of the neighborhood for two months, as people would see me and say hello and smile. I’m not suggesting everyone go and do hard labor, but put yourselves out there and get to know the folks in your midst, even if they’re different from you or not people you think you’d normally talk to. That tattooed guy working on his bike in the garage may still appreciate a sincere hello. I think.

3. Volunteer—Again, I get it with the busy. But there are many great nonprofit organizations around who would love even one or two hours of your time a month. Prep a meal for a homeless shelter. Handle the phones at the humane society. Join a highway cleanup effort, be a docent at a local museum, candy stripe at a hospital, something. You could meet lots of great new people, learn something interesting, and put yourself a little outside your comfort zone. Which is a good thing. Plus you can help out a charitable cause that probably needs all the support it can get.

4. Take a road trip—Instead of (or in addition to) saving up for a long-distance vacation, consider a shorter 4-day trip somewhere in your region where you’ve never before traveled. Maybe to a national park, or three states away to a botanical garden, or to some countryside where you can check out the local shops. Then instead of staying at a chain hotel find a bed and breakfast where you can bunk up. Talk to the shop owners who know the area and the quieter attractions. Listen to the stories from the other travelers you meet, swap experiences. You may find some fascinating connections! (I’m totally serious.)

5. Go to the library—If your library card is silently mouldering away in your wallet, let it breathe air again and use it. Don’t have a library card? Go get one at your local library. Then get two books and challenge yourself to read them before they’re due. Or check out a CD of something you’ve never heard before—a symphony, or opera, or a different musical genre. Learn the names of the librarians who work there, and when you drop off your two books (don’t just go to the drop box in the parking lot or on the side of the building), ask them for a recommendation for your next read. Because librarians are terrific, ravenous readers, and they always have a recommendation to give when asked.

6. Listen—Seek out different points of view from yours. When someone offers an opinion with which you disagree, don’t jump to calling them out, but ask them how they arrived at that opinion. If your opinion or take on the facts can only exist in a bubble with like-minded people, maybe it’s got some issues with validity. Learn to talk to other people without getting personal or self-righteous (we may think we’re free from that, but isn’t it something we can continue to work on?) and in being able to walk away from a discussion as friends. And remember, listening means not talking.

7. Do something outside—Garden, take walks, take a friend out to lunch, go window shopping, clean the gutters. Break your routine of home-work-home or whatever your routine looks like. Be open to new experiences and to working with your hands. Fix a broken bicycle, set up a comfortable patio area, take stock of all the parks in walking distance from your apartment and bring a book to read or a frisbee to throw with a friend. All of these things help us release endorphin, which balances our mood, but they also get us away from excessive time spent on the Internet and its endless reinforcement of dichotomies.

8. Pay it forward—Buy the person in line behind you their espresso drink, and you’ll improve their entire morning. When you hold open a door for someone, give them a smile, too, and if they don’t seem thankful, presume they’re having a particularly bad day. Other folks’ grumpiness need not become your own. I know the advice to support alternate giving has been around at least as long as author Heinlein’s work, but it never really gets old to do something nice for another among us. As a native East Coaster, I will always find time for my cynicism and skepticism, so I push myself to be thoughtful and make random acts of kindness a conscious process. I’m sure many people from the East Coast don’t have this deficiency, but I do, so I work on it. I’m a believer.

9. Attend a community meeting—Find out who the people are who have gotten involved in local politics. Is the library struggling? Are kids in overcrowded schools? Does the entire street system need an overhaul? Why leave these large issues to a few people to handle? Get involved in a way that you can manage, and work to improve your own environment. There are plenty of people with no children who grouse about paying taxes to support the local schools, but they’re missing the point that we need our next generation to grow up with resources. (Millions of school-age kids don’t get breakfast at home and are seriously under-nourished, and studies show that this leads to dire consequences for their future success.) Putting off infrastructure projects now results in much higher costs down the road, so bringing issues to light and putting pressure on local officials to find solutions in the near term benefits everyone. Get involved in the stresses on your community and figure out how you can help make positive change. Note: Criticizing what has or hasn’t happened thus far without working to solve the issue at hand is not positive change.

10. Stop calling everything a war—It’s all too easy to sensationalize clashes in popular culture with “war” as a metaphor: the “war” on Christmas, the “war” on marriage, etc. Not only are these “wars” often an overstatement, but they’re an unfair characterization of what is really a difference of opinion or values. It also flies in the face of the very real war in which we’re still engaged, over in Afghanistan, now the longest war we’ve ever had. If we insist on using the metaphor of war for every discussion of civil rights or belief system, we should not be surprised when years later, we’re still full of doubt about each other’s intentions and attitudes. Warmongering, domestic or foreign, helps nobody and fosters embedded systems of anger.

I look forward to 2013. At the very least, it’s not an election year. And it’ll be a year when there are no more memes about Mayans and the end of the world, and that’s a great year in my book.

The Persistence of Unreality

Not only do we have vapid debates in America about which beer is better, which sports team is more fearsome than which other sports team, and the like, but in the wake of our nation’s latest mass shooting, in which 20 children under age 7 perished, now we debate about whether it’s appropriate to debate. Now is not the time, many people attested this weekend, to talk about gun control. Some folks threatened to “unfriend” others on Facebook if those people persisted in posting about mental health support or gun laws, saying that they were obviously making it about “political issues.” Never mind the idiom about the personal being political that’s been around for 40 years, perhaps there is a time for mourning and a time for reflection about what’s led us to these moments. I say moments because a 6-year-old died in the Aurora, CO shooting, a 9-year-old in the Tuscon, AZ shooting  of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and of course there are hundreds of kids under 14 killed by guns every year in the US that get next to no media coverage. But even when the guns in an incident were purchased legally, even when there is no long history of mental health instability, and even when the majority of victims are defenseless kids, some among us insist on sticking to the same talking points to defend the status quo. Let’s look at these talking points, and hopefully it’s okay, four days later, to start some kind of dialogue about gun violence and gun rights. If I get defriended on Facebook, so be it.

If we don’t have assault rifles, we won’t be able to prevent the government from becoming a fascist state–Let’s see . . . the Department of Defense carries a budget of more than $680 billion. (For a surreal photo image, click the link to their Web site.) They own or control the most advanced fighter jets in the world, the second-largest nuclear arsenal, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of missiles, drone aircraft, not to mention countless biological agents and bioweapons, and they support secret interrogation chambers in foreign countries around the globe where they can waterboard the hell out of anyone. Not to get all paranoid, because I’m not, but if the US Government wanted to crack down on the citizenry en masse, our “right” to assault rifles is not going to stop them. However, proliferating the sale and use of assault rifles does seem to result in lots of people getting killed. Or put another way, this line of “logic” is asking us to let the most paranoid, alienated individuals in our culture set the policy parameters that affect everyone else. Are we okay with that?

If more people carried guns, they’d be able to take out spree killers before the SWAT teams arrived–There is absolutely, without question, no evidence to this claim whatsoever. First of all, it’s never happened that some guy with a handgun thwarted a spree killer. There is no moment in the nation’s history that gun advocates can point to. It’s as unreal as suggesting that sexual predators will wear dresses to assault women in bathrooms if gender identity protections are put in place by a local government. (And yet transphobes bring that idea up all the time anyway.) There are, however, examples of people killed by friendly fire (our same Department of Defense puts a range of 2-20 percent of war deaths as due to same-side fire), and by accidental firings–when folks don’t realize a gun is loaded, don’t realize the safety is off, or a gun mechanism fails, resulting in a misfire. Firing a gun and aiming a gun correctly are, of course, two different things. There is no reason to think that if more people owned guns and carried them to more places that we would somehow have fewer woundings and killings in our society. Also, consider that in several of the most recent spree killings (Tuscon comes to mind), the shooter was taken out with tackles from unarmed bystanders.

If we allow a ban on assault rifles, next it will be handguns and hunting rifles. It’s a slippery slope–This flies in the face of the purpose of guns, by type. Hunters have no need for assault rifles, unless they don’t care about the state of their steaks (see what I did there?). Some handguns have a purpose for law enforcement, or at least I can get there in theory. People who enjoy target practice have their preferences for what they fire, but both skeet shooting or stationary targets were designed with single-shot rifles and handguns in mind. Assault rifles were created by the Nazis to take out as many human targets as a quickly trained soldier could find. Thus that is what they’re good at doing. They don’t fit into the population of other firearms that civilians need, unless those civilians are looking to take out other human beings (or zombies, possibly, but that brings up another issue) as possible. There just is no reason to have assault rifles on the open market outside of war, just as we don’t sell Patriot missiles or C-4 explosive in that way.

If more people carried guns, criminals would think twice about commiting crimes–While it may be true that some criminals prioritize finding the most vulnerable targets to carry out their illicit behavior, say as with a mugging, this does not explain the whole of criminal behavior, which is often influenced by risk of capture, benefit of the behavior, a deficit in personality or empathy, and so on. Criminal activity has actually been shown to decrease in areas where tighter handgun laws exist, possibly because the calculus of commiting a crime shifts. But even if crimes existed at the same rate with an assault weapons ban in place, it is likely that fewer individuals would be injured or killed per attack, precisely because other firearms fire fewer rounds in the same amount of time.

If we ban assault rifles we’re infringing on the Second Amendment–First, this depends on one’s interpretation of that amendment’s “well regulated milita” phrase. The text reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Second, yes. It infringes on at least one reading of what the Second Amendment says. Maybe we can get okay with that. Maybe, seeing as the common firearms of 1791, when the amendment was written, looked like this:

…just maybe we can agree that 100 rounds fired in under two minutes and without reloading is not what the framers had in mind. Maybe when we reach 80 people killed every day from guns in the United States it’s time to rethink their access and use, without having one’s patriotism called into question.

I feel for the families in Newtown, the town where my sister works everyday. She was in lockdown Friday morning, as was her younger daughter, at a nearby high school. I haven’t been in lockdown since September 11, 2001, but it was unnerving and changed my life. Certainly that event on that bright September morning spurred our country and its leaders to make sweeping, permanent changes to our homeland security policy. These spree killings, so frequent, and gun violence more generally, so omnipresent in American culture, ought to move us again, not only to improve public safety, but to save lives. There is no defense in keeping assault weapons on the market. And while I would like to see serious debate about the effect of gun violence in neighborhoods and on families across the nation, I’m fine with starting here where the logical arguments are so, so far in favor of restriction.

Thanks for reading.

Zombie Risk During the Holidays

Many of us think of the time between Thanksgiving and the New Year as a happy season, filled with parties, presents, feasts, and family. The more cynical among us may grouse that such occasions are not cause for celebration, but very, very few of us see the holidays for the danger that it poses, which is this:

If the zombie apocalypse happened during the holidays, more people than usual would perish.

There are many reasons for this. In order to better protect the public good, I have listed them forthwith. Read, share, remember, people.

The Santa Myth–It sounds sweet to leave the back door unlocked or the sliding door unbarred, or the flue to the chimney in the open position, but these are all easy entry points for the undead to get into your house and ruin your merriment. Those aren’t reindeer hooves on the roof, people. Look, if zombie doomsday lands during Christmas season, you’re going to have to own up with your children about the fact that Santa does not exist. There’s no need for putting out cookies and milk, and there’s no reason to remove the barricades around the perimeter outside the house, either. Just hole up and hold on to dear life that DARPA or some one who still has a living brain will figure out how to help humanity survive.

Driving on Treacherous Roads to Visit People–The sun sets early at this time of year (Australians and Chileans excepted), which means that the howling for human flesh begins in the middle of the day. If you insist on seeing Aunt Maude because she gets lonely on Thanksgiving, for heaven’s sake depart at 8:00AM, an hour after dawn. You really owe it to your loved ones to take care while traveling in such trying times; bring those tire chains, crank-operated radios, and flamethrowers.

Giving Presents–Who knows what lies behind the pretty wrapping paper? To be extra safe that there’s nothing amiss in any given box, just hand out the presents in gallon-sized ziplock baggies. Remember the old adage: If you can’t see it, you don’t need it!

Drinking Lowers Alertness–Holiday celebrations sound like a good idea, sure, but consider that slowed reaction time, inhibited instincts to sense danger, and lowered ability to communicate could be the difference between getting away from hungry zombies and becoming a late night snack. Pass on the bubbly and pour yourself another mug of coffee instead. Also consider that gorging on Christmas cookies may make you sleepier than usual, another potential problem if you need to speed away to safety.

Christmas Lights Are a Beacon–Nothing says tasty person treat like an inflatable glowing, giant snow globe on the front lawn, or string after string of holiday lights. Even with their reduced intellectual capacity zombies will scrape over to ENORMOUS GLOWING OBJECTS. Save more than your energy bills. Save your lives and turn the lights out. You can have the Hannukah spirit in the safety of your walled off basement. Just tell yourselves the Maccabees had it worse and still somehow came out of it.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Seek and Reclaim

I love cargo pants. I love cargo pants almost as much as I love ye olde sweater vests, but trousers receive decidedly less attention from my friends and family. Maybe it’s because they’re in neutral tones, or situated too far from my face, the area where people look when we’re conversing. Peripheral vision only extends so far. In any case, I have several pairs of cargo pants, and I’ve owned at least one pair since Banana Republic sold its wares out of a hand-drawn catalog. I like them not because I have some strange affection for marsupial pouches, but because I don’t like having stuff in regular pants pockets; it’s more comfortable to keep my wallet in a bigger pocket that pressed against my hip or ass cheek.

Until yesterday, cargo pants had always been good to me. Until yesterday.

Left pocket stores my iPhone, right pocket my wallet. Lanyard goes around my neck with my office pass key, and my keys are either in my ignition or on a table nearby. I only put keys in my pocket if I’m out somewhere, walking, and even then, I’ll try to find a spot for them off my person if I can (read: baby stroller drink cup holder). But as my pants have aged the kangaroo pockets have gotten more pliable, and when sitting in my car, a couple of times I’ve felt my phone slip out and fall to the floor. I hadn’t identified it as a general problem, and that is on me. Because when I was running from the office to home on my way to an HIV testing fair, it slipped out, only this time it found the pavement in the parking lot rather than the floor of my Honda. I drove away and didn’t notice it missing until I crossed the threshold at home, giggling at Emile in his high chair. I patted my pockets once, twice. Wallet in my right hand. Where was the phone?

Now then, I presumed I’d left it on my desk at work. When I’d run out the door to the car, I had a stack of folders for taking down testing and specimen information, a fist full of HIV tests, a few pens, a paper sack filled with condoms, lube, and dental dams, and a banana. It was more than likely that in all of my flusteredness I simply forgot the little white iPhone. As I bundled up the baby and took his diaper bag from Susanne, I reminded myself to log on to the computer in the student center (where I’d be doing the testing), and email my case manager to ask if he could find my phone back at work. Nope, not here, he said.

My next guess was that it would be in the car, hugging the dust bunnies under the driver’s seat, but as I was engaged in collecting epithelial cells from the students and demonstrating correct condom usage with my trusty banana, I couldn’t go hunting just then. (Note to self: bananas are significantly less appetizing when they have lubricant all over them.) I was waylaid for a bit because Susanne had come to get the baby during her lunch break, and without my mobile phone I couldn’t call her when I needed to remember where we were meeting up. (Note to self: when confused about where to meet Susanne, pick the most obvious place, and don’t second guess yourself.)

Finally I had the baby, was done testing, back in the car, motoring home. Searched the driveway, under the seats, despite Emile’s increasingly frustrated requests for “up.” No phone. Maybe it was at the post office, where I’d gone first thing. I found the phone number for the post office and fifteen attempts later, never managed more than a busy tone. How 1985 of them. Next was the handoff to the nanny, and then I was back at work, looking under my desk and again in the car, while the case manager called my number to see if we could hear the poor thing ringing. Quick post to Facebook about my phonelessness, and one of my friends—a lawyer, naturally—piped up that I should have installed the Find My iPhone app. Woulda shoulda coulda, people!

I called Verizon, the carrier, to see if any charges had been racked up on the phone since it went missing, but I couldn’t remember my passcode, so they wouldn’t give me any information about the usage that day. (Note to self: write down your infrequently used passcodes.)

It wasn’t until 7PM that night that I realized the iCloud settings from Apple would give me some information, and then I remembered that I had set that up. Go go my self from 2011! I grabbed my iPad, installed the Find My iPhone app, clicked locate, and …

THERE IT WAS, glowing green, pulsating a little, in the middle of a block where my person has never set foot. Edith and 9th Avenue. Two blocks from the Penitentiary. The maximum security Penitentiary, the one with death row, where the Green River Killer lives. I wasn’t going over there. Clearly someone had my phone. They hadn’t called me, even though I’d left a message with my land line on it. They hadn’t called any of my last calls. They also hadn’t added any photos, or made any calls with it, or downloaded reams of data off the Web. I remotely added a lock screen to the phone so they couldn’t use it. And I called the police.

Now then, here’s another difference between Walla Walla and Washington, DC police: the Walla Walla cops called me back after I spoke with dispatch. I explained to the officer that I’d lost the phone that morning and that I could see it on my iPad in a part of town I’ve never visited, and when I gave him the coordinates of the phone, he said he was very familiar with that area. Great. Or maybe not great. He told me he’d come by to see what I was seeing. I switched on the satellite view so we could see the green glowing dot with the actual street overlay. Technology was scary, and my heart rate was climbing.

Little by little the phone was roaming around. Either someone was walking between houses or in their house, or they’d taped the phone to a dog, who knew. The officer was in my driveway a scant five minutes later and we examined the glowing orb like it was a link to another universe. In a way it was, I suppose. I refreshed the Find button and the officer said he knew that house quite well. He told me he had a colleague who was much better about technology stuff than he was, so he would get that guy involved as soon as he was done with a traffic stop. This made me wonder because I think I’ve seen exactly two traffic stops in Walla Walla in my 4.5 years here, but apparently they happen with greater frequency than that.

Poor little land line hasn’t seen this many calls since the baby was born and the Canadian relatives wanted to check in with us. The next thing I knew I was on the phone with the tech savvy officer, handing over my Mac ID and password so he could see my iPhone with his iPhone. I wondered briefly if the Apple designers had thought of this scenario specifically when they created these features, then immediately clicked back in to the moment. He relayed that he could see my iPhone. They’d narrowed it down to two houses, because none of us could zoom in on the map very far before the satellite images gave out.

We hatched a plan: I would wait for the cops to give me a signal, and then I would push the “Play Sound” button on my iPad, causing the phone to make an annoying beeping sound that can’t be turned off unless the phone is shut down. I’d waited to use this option fearing that it would alert the holder that I was on to them, even though I’d gone ahead and set up the lock screen.

“Okay,” he said to me, “we’re just about ready. Are you ready?”

It was like a ride along with the police. It was like an episode of Leverage. Pound pound pound went my heart.

“Ready,” I said.

“Okay, hit it.”

I pushed the play sound button, and saw the visual representation of sound waves fluttering on my screen. I pushed it again. Again. Again. Through the cop’s microphone I could hear a dog barking.

“Did you make the dog bark or did I,” I asked.

“I think it was us,” he said, and then, “I gotta go. Will call you in a few minutes.”

HOO. STUFF WAS HAPPENING FOR REALS.

The green dot went to gray as the people with my phone shut it down, probably in an attempt to make the beeping stop. I couldn’t locate it anymore.

Two minutes later my land line rang. RoboCop was on the other end.

“We’ve recovered your phone,” he said.

“Wow, wonderful!”

“Is it white?”

“Yes.”

“With a picture of a cute baby on the screen?”

“Yes. In an argyle sweater vest.”

“Right. Great. Okay, we’ll bring it to you in a minute.”

I alerted my friends on Facebook and Twitter to the good news. People on the east coast, approaching midnight, were relieved.

Ten minutes later I had the phone back in my hands, the non-tech officer telling me that the story from the holders went like this: A woman’s daughter had found it in the parking lot at the county building and not told her about it, and then she’d found it on her. They swore they were going to bring it back the next day. I guess we’ll never know if that was a true story or not, though certainly they didn’t run up any charges on the phone. He asked if I was interested in pressing charges. I said I thought it sounded like they had enough to deal with. Then I handed him a gallon bag of cookies from our party the previous day. It seemed . . . appropriate somehow.

And now the iPhone is back to its boring existence in my possession. And I am wearing jeans.

Review: Roving Pack

Recommended reading.

I finished Sassafras Lowrey’s debut novel Roving Pack last weekend and was struck when page after page of the protagonist’s diary managed to pull and push me with each bit of hys life experience. I’m at once familiar with being gender non-conforming in an urban space in the early aughts, and apart from the young genderqueer community Lowrey describes. This is a book, after all, located in a particular place (mostly Portland, Oregon) and time (late 2002 onward), and about a group of folks two trans generations younger than me. I know the situations the protagonist Click talks about–abusive and absent parents, inconsistently disbursed resources, a peer group that sometimes causes deep heartache, and living on the margins through gray markets and under-the-table agreements. I know these experiences, yes, but I’ve spent years trying to forget those struggles, so reading the universe through Click’s eyes is painful if not also somehow validating. It’s difficult to make it through late adolescence without the additional struggles Click and hyr friends have on their backs.

What support systems Click finds are mainstays of 2002 trans youth culture–expression through zines, within a straight-edge group, the relief of a decent binder–even if they are imperfect and often fleeting, and Click is a smart individual who knows a good thing or person when hy finds them. Usually. Lowrey gives us nuance of Click’s understanding by showing us overlapping journal posts, some public and some private, which creates a kind of window into Click’s breaking points and fault lines. Often Click hides hys most fragile points in the private posts, showing more bravado to anyone who may come by to read the public entry. This is its own statement about transgender consciousness–what we struggle with much of the time aren’t the expected maladies of body parts and family disappointment, they’re more often the spaces that trigger us, and our own self-doubt.

Click’s language is plain, replete with favorite phrases, and as direct as we’d expect a 19-year-old to be. In this way the book is a little reminiscent of Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, covering much of the same territory (albeit for a new audience)–tumultuous sexual desire and its terrain, finding ways to feel safe and loved in a society that has already dismissed the protagonist’s existence, negotiating one’s own gender identity with the few resources available–but it’s an important update to the narrative, because we’re seeing more than a single character’s assertion of gender presentation. If the youth among gender nonconforming people needs anything, it’s the flexibility of gender and availability of authenticity.

This is not to say that Click is free from prejudice, as evidenced with hys frequent mention of “bitches” and denigration of girls, with whom hy seriously does not want comparison. I appreciate Click’s limitations, however, because often young transfolk denigrate their assigned gender until they come to a better place for themselves (or we help prod them there). And I suspect that as I flinch over these terms I’m doing something that Click does when hy comes face to face with something hy doesn’t like; I’m washed into the story, which is the mark of notable literature, after all. Lowrey has forced me to relate to Click and hys crew, not simply read them. For readers not familiar with gutterpunks, BDSM, and genderqueer youth, this novel will be brand new territory; for readers who didn’t have to look up those terms, Lowrey’s universe will pull you in and sting you along the way.

I just hope if I meet Click on the streets of Portland, hy doesn’t write in his journal later about this “old creepy dude” who passed by hym.