Orlando was merely the latest chapter in a bloody saga of a country that allows pretty much anyone to get not just a gun but a military assault weapon capable of killing large numbers of people in moments.
One of the great failures of the Obama administration is the failure to push through any meaningful gun legislation in the wake of Newtown and all the other horrible massacres. What is wrong with our country that we can watch first graders mowed down by a madman with an assault rifle–a weapon whose only purpose is to destroy the maximum number of human lives in the shortest possible time–and we still have not reinstated the assault weapon ban. We still have not closed the loopholes around background checks, so any idiot with a history of mental health problems can get his or her fingers around the trigger.
These are not hunting rifles. These are not self-protection handguns. They exist only to inflict misery. In this country, you need to prove you’re qualified to cut hair or to drive a car. Why is it so easy to get a death machine like an assault rifle? And more fundamentally, why do we expect parents to automatically know how to parent? I wonder how much violence could be avoided if we provided free training in parenting skills to pregnant and newly parenting couples.
Let’s stop the madness! Let’s get sensible gun legislation into place.
In one day, I had two interactions with people reaching out on behalf of their employer that made me scratch my head.
I got telemarketed by a woman who claimed to have sent me some stuff I never received. She didn’t understand the simplest questions like “was it by postal or email?” (answer, repeated 3x: “Mail”) “What domain was it coming from?”
To top it off, the follow-up email, or what I believe was the follow-up email, came from a different domain and was signed by a different person, but it mentioned a conversation with their office.
And then there was the person who private-messaged me on Facebook about her social media marketing services. When I clicked the link, I was appalled at the sloppy grammar–NOT a way to get me to do business. When I told her that careful writing matters to me and that I wouldn’t be doing business, she started asking whether I would scout for her as an affiliate.
Who vets these people? If you have people representing your company, they should leave a GOOD impression with prospects. Yet over and over, I see businesses being harmed by the clueless, aggressive, unhelpful people they hire.
The Cracker Jack box as it appeared during my 1960s childhood (courtesy of Wikipedia)
It didn’t matter that the prize was something worth about 2 cents, something not even worthy of being called a tchochke. It was the thrill of the hunt, searching through all that icky sticky stuff to locate the prize—and the thrill of mystery, never knowing what, umm, “treasure” you’d find. Sometimes it would be something really cool, like a spy decoder ring. But like any other grab-bag item, sometimes it was truly worthless. I knew kids who bought CrackerJack just to get that prize.
At that time, the company was owned by Borden, whose Elsie the Cow was another advertising icon of the period. It’s now owned by Pepsico’s Frito-Lay division
I’m sorry, but that is just not the same. From a branding point of view, I think it’s a huge error. Cracker Jack’s whole brand is built around nostalgia, Americana, baseball, and that unforgettable jingle. Sure, digital natives will redeem their QR codes and not think twice about it. But they won’t know what they’re missing. And those who can’t afford or choose not to use smartphones are left out entirely. Plus, their kids will never hear their parents scream at a bad driver, “Did you get your license in a Cracker Jack box?” A piece of American culture is disappearing.
In Cracker Jack’s earliest days, during a baseball corruption scandal known as the Chicago Black Sox scandal, a fan reportedly went up to the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson and begged, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” Maybe now, we need to say, “Get back on the track, Jack!”
“What does he mean by ‘attacks on our democratic society?'” you ask. I’ll answer with a couple of excerpts from the article:
The trucking industry wants to allow longer tandem trucks and block rules requiring added rest for drivers.
If you don’t think that’s an attack on our democracy, consider the consequences if the driver of a supersize truck falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a school bus. There’s the human cost of an avoidable tragedy, of course, but also the financial burden on cities and counties already squeezed to the bone. It will be the safety net that gets shredded.
Financial companies want to ease tighter regulations imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.
Have we learned nothing from the debacle of 2007-08?
And there are efforts to repeal a law requiring that meat be labeled with its country of origin…and to block mandatory labels for genetically modified foods
Whatever happened to consumers’ right to know?
And then, of course, there’s the usual run of Islamophobic racism in our land built by immigrants, many of them refugees:
Republicans want to include a House-passed bill restricting Syrian refugees trying to enter the U.S. Faced with an Obama veto threat, that may be replaced by a measure, approved with bipartisan support by the House, restricting visa-free entry into the U.S. by many foreigners.
These Republican politicians forget that they are also descended from people who came here seeking a better life.
It happens that I sent a birthday greeting on Facebook to a Muslim (Pakistani immigrant) friend yesterday (I happened to sit next to him at a Bruce Springsteen concert several years ago, and we’ve stayed in touch). His response and the dialog we’ve had is relevant to the conversation. I reprint with his permission:
Him:
Thank you Shell….. It’s been an awesome few weeks. Finally became an American citizen and celebrated my birthday the same week.
Me:
Wow, congrats. We’ll have to change that Springsteen song (did he sing it the night we met? I don’t remember) to “CHOSE the USA!” It’s a powerful time to make that choice, with anti-Islamic crazies running high-poling campaigns for president.
Him:
Lol…. The same day I received my naturalization, Trump opened his mouth …. Lol…. It was funny…. However, the support has been wonderful from friends and coworkers.
Me:
All I can do is shake my head in wonder. He is sounding more like a Nazi. It shakes my faith in America that he has measurable support. My best hope is that he doesn’t get the nomination but gets close enough that he runs as an independent. And Hillary (more likely) or Bernie (my preferred choice) leads a Dem sweep that gets not just the WH but both houses of Congress and we can actually get some stuff done around here. Of course, US media has been playing up anti-Arab and anti-Islamic bigotry since at least the 1970s oil crisis–even though other than 9/11, Fort Hood, and this recent tragedy in California, most of the gun violence is at the hands of people who self-identify as Christian (I don’t think Christ would agree with their claim).
It just occurred to me as I hit send that this might make a good blog post. May I have your permission to reprint your comments–you can be an anonymous “Muslim friend” or I can name you.
Him:
Sure. Trump is just an attention seeking idiot. Amazing that a reality star, upstart millionaire can received so much attention …. Lol.
I’m glad he’s not deterred by recent xenophobia. Like my ancestors and yours, he will help us build a better country in the US.
Leslie Hinkson: If we want real desegregation, we need to not only make sure black and white kids attend the same schools, but that they interact socially within the school.
Bill Miller: To deal effectively with homelessness, first get people off the streets and into housing. THEN start addressing the other pieces, like jobs, addictions, etc. And this is good for the community, even the business community.
Amanda Herman: Making films “focusing on what people wish to happen, in their dreams. What is it to make someone else’s dreams come true? I gather with people to transform their ideas into public arts projects…The outcome of each project is joy…What’s possible and impossible in the world is largely a social construct. It’s up to us to redefine what is possible…and make it happen.
Darby Dyer: Despite 100,000 objects between the sun and Jupiter, our risk of being hit by the kind of cataclysmic asteroid that may have wiped out the dinosaurs. And the sun will keep producing energy and light for the next 5 million years or more. We are the “Goldylocks planet,” with perfect conditions to support human life. But even if we don’t have to worry about the planet surviving, we do have to worry about human survival. Catastrophic climate change is real, it’s here, and our window for addressing it is shrinking.
Nick Cummings: A recent high school graduate who has faced disability-level breathing problems since birth, he shared insights on being social when you don’t fit in, and on overcoming the depression of being different: “DON’T think the answer is in a pill or a bottle, unless that pill is made of chocolate and the bottle is Mr. Bubble bubble bath…Find the positive in every situation. Take all that raw emotion and have it drive you to be better…We’re all gloomy depressive messes some time. But there must have been something so fantastic before that to make you feel that way. A roller coaster doesn’t only go up.
Laney Rosenzweig: If we can replace the images we have of traumatic events (often with metaphors), we can reduce the post-traumatic stress. Our memories are not fixed, but fluid, and we can create memories of traumatic events that we can live with, that don’t trap or paralyze us.
Thom Fox: As a former drug abuser and gang member, “I’d been on my way to being dead…Life doesn’t have to be miserable. If you don’t like your life, change it. I understood that I could reach out and they’d be kind enough to help. No one succeeds alone. Once you get through hell, you can help one person, two people. That could be exponential and change the world. The more opportunity you create for others, the more you create for yourself.
“The one commonality for all the bad things that happened to me—was me. That’s what I had to overcome.
“Tofu takes on the flavor of whatever it’s with. People are like tofu. Surround yourself with potential, and it will be fulfilled… One person changed my life. I’m passing that on exponentially. What if your conversation was that one thing that changed their life?”
Angela Lussier: “When I graduated, I thought I had to abandon the artist in order to become a business person. What I realized is I can be an artist and a business person. Even stuffed celery could be an art project…I did a video, with sliding down slides and swinging on swings. I thought, is this something business people do? But the response was, ‘we had so much fun watching you have fun as you taught business principles.’
“The difference is my mindset. I was really outcome-focused at the beginning. Today, I have a creator’s mindset, more focused on learning and growing—the journey. The creator’s cycle: Being–>Dreaming–>Doing–>Making–>Being (reflect on what happened/worked: what happened, what didn’t, what am I scared of). The moment we want to quit lies right before the doing stage. When you move from ‘this won’t work’ to ‘let me just try this,’ a lot of things happen.
“When I figured out that I’m a weird person, I found out everyone else is too; we’re all just pretending to be normal.”
Several other speakers were also on the program, and they had good insights as well—but the notes I took on their sessions don’t lend themselves to reportage. Here are their storyboards (all prepared in real time by the graphics agency Collective Next).
Summary board prepared in real-time at Randy Pierce's talk on blindness, TEDx Springfield
Summary board prepared in real-time at Randy Pierce’s talk on blindness, TEDx Springfield
Randy Pierce, an athlete who recently climbed Kilimanjaro, enjoys a spectacular view or a great sunset—even though he happens to be blind. Just because he can’t see it and has to have it described doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy. His talk was my personal highlight of the fourth annual #TEDxSpringfield yesterday.
Formerly sighted, he had lessons for anyone going through a difficult transition, not just losing sight. “The transition trauma moment is incredibly difficult…If we want to just live there, we can be paralyzed and stay there forever.” Anger and depression are perfectly normal when you lose something you’d always had, but it’s our choice about whether to remain stuck there, or use the trauma to springboard growth. He shared a powerful example of this from his own experience learning to use a blind cane.
While the blind cane was the tool that let me walk around safely, it was also my scarlet letter that let me feel less than, feel their pity, their lack of understanding…
In those early stages, you might be angry, depressed, enthused, in denial. I was all of those. I broke my cane and threw it away, focused on the risk management of how people would react to me… I accidentally knocked over a toddler [too low to the ground to enter Pierce’s sensory awareness] who didn’t have the warning of my cane. I let my vanity restrict me and it caused damage. A really good eye-opener on evaluating more of the risk and what is the right way to manage it.
Once, he asked if anyone was sitting in a bus seat, and hearing no response, plopped himself in the lap of a woman too shy to answer his query. And this, too, was a teachable moment for Pierce:
I can mitigate the challenge of social interaction. I wear glasses so others are not upset by my eyes shaking back and forth. I could have said “if you’re sitting there, please say hello so I don’t sit in your lap,” instead of “is anyone sitting there?”
What he learned from these early experiences is that the risk of being rejected by others is a lesser risk than the risk of failing to connect with those who are ready.
Reach out and connect with people. Make it safe for them. Take a way the risk of rejection for THEM. But how much greater risk is isolation? Make the risk of a little rejection and understand that [not all will work out]. People look for the safety of the community they have in their pocket (phones). But think about how many lost future communities [never occur because we isolate ourselves in our phones and ignore the people around us].
Pierce choses a dynamic, almost Mandela-like optimism and a methodical approach. He achieved an athletic feats that trips up even 90 percent of sighted people: grabbing a moving trapeze and using it to ring a bell.
I have plenty of points of darkness in my life. But how long do I have to wait until I put my focus to the dawn that’s coming, the vision? If you get that vision, there’s a great dawn ahead of you in many ways…Vision is always going to be waaay more important than sight.
See tomorrow’s post for other highlights of #TEDxSpringfield
Justice Sonia Sotomayor works the crowd (Photo by Shel Horowitz.
By Shel Horowitz
Justice Sonia Sotomayor works the crowd (Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Yes, you can be a United States Supreme Court Justice and still keep your humanity. In an hour and a half of Q&A at the Springfield Public Forum in Springfield, Massachusetts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor not only kept her content humble and hopeful, but did her best to make herself one with the audience.
She answered the first question from the stage, but then left her comfortable armchair, announced that she wanted to make herself more accessible to the people at the far corners of the room, pleaded with the audience not to do anything that would make the Secret Service agents too nervous to let her wander, and then answered all remaining questions while walking around the room shaking hands and getting photographed—and leaving the moderator (another female judge) gaping and wondering where her speaker was at times. I’ve certainly seen speakers mingle, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one who spent virtually the entire speech mingling. It’s especially remarkable in a government official; most of them stay firmly behind their podiums, clinging tightly. I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton doing that. But Sotomayor is like that; she spent her first weeks at the Supreme Court not just boning up on the then-upcoming Citizens United case but also visiting the far corners of the building and greeting the staff. She claims to be the first Supreme Court Justice to visit the telephone operators up on the third floor.
Hillary also probably has help writing her books. Sotomayor–like President Obama–writes her own, even as she acknowledged that writing didn’t come easily to her until a college mentor observed that she was thinking in Spanish (her first language) and translating.
Like Sotomayor, I grew up poor in the Bronx (and actually fantasized about becoming a social justice lawyer and eventually, a Supreme Court Justice—though I love the career I chose instead). And I was thrilled to hear her say things like:
“I wanted to write a book that would give people hope…if I [the child of an immigrant alcoholic, raised in the tough housing projects of New York] can do it, so can you.”
“Squeeze as much as you can out of every day. Give to others. Don’t take a moment to not live life at its fullest.”
“Affirmative Action was a door opener for a door that had been closed to people of my background. Many institutions like to do the same thing over and over. But that success formula excludes certain people. The question is, what did I do with that opportunity? I wanted my career to be a bridge between my community and the wider society.” She noted that others had been given similar opportunity but chose not to make the most of it.
“As a prosecutor, I learned how to seek justice not just for society but for the defendant.
“Every mentor has made a positive mark on my life, and I hope that I have for them.”
“Accept your limitations and your strengths.”
Surprisingly, when asked where in her career she had the most fun, she didn’t hesitate to respond “as a trial judge. Every day, you’re surprised! When I retire from the Supreme Court, I want to go back to it.” She misses the human contact with the plaintiffs and defendants, who are generally not present in appeals or Supreme courtrooms.
When asked why the greatest legal minds in the country have so many split decisions, Sotomayor pointed out that this is part of the Supremes’ mandate. “The case wouldn’t come before the Supreme Court if the answer was clear. We don’t take cases unless there are disagreements in the Circuit Court decisions. That’s why we have 5-4 decisions. It doesn’t mean that the four are wrong, but that the five thought another way. Some people say [the split decisions lessen their faith in government]. I hope the split means you have more faith in the government, because if everything is 9-0, we’re not taking the care we need to. And if there’s a [written] dissent, at least somebody heard you.”
Dissents, for her, are also cause for optimism. “We can write our dissents and hope to influence Congress or a future Supreme Court decision. You have to feel optimistic that things can change. You have to hold that hope, so you can let go” and accept being on the losing side. “I remain optimistic, despite what’s happening in Congress right now.
And she asks each of us to take responsibility, to do our part for a better world, even if it’s as simple as casting a vote or calling a loved one. “Whatever you do, do it with passion and caring. Not voting is the greatest act of being a traitor. What counts is caring enough to make your voice heard. Every day, I try to become a better person, a better Justice. How many of us forget to call a friend who’s sick or suffered a loss? Every day I try to remind myself that the world doesn’t revolve around me. Every night before you go to sleep, ask yourself these two questions:
What have I learned that’s new today?
What good have I done today?
“If you can’t answer those two questions, don’t go to sleep. Send someone a [‘thinking-of-you’] email. Go on Google and learn about something.
Known as a Justice who asks a lot of questions during oral argument, Sotomayor was asked if she often changed her mind based on the lawyers’ responses to the Justices’ questions. And she said that she changes her thinking based on the oral argument, though not necessarily her vote, about 20 percent of the time. To future lawyers in the largely student audience, she advised, “Be happy when we ask questions. We engage you in engaging us.” But she said often, the real benefit to her in oral arguments is from listening to the questions of her colleagues. “I see what road they’re going down, what they’re thinking.” The Justices don’t discuss cases before oral arguments, so these are the first insights she gets about a case’s direction.
In the past, the Court was a very contentious place, with some Justices not speaking to each other for years. That changed, she said, when Sandra Day O’Connor (the first woman Justice, appointed by President Reagan) came onboard. She insisted on building collegial relationships, through instituting several changes including a weekly lunch. “She made a huge difference. There’s an ethos now that if someone says something they shouldn’t have, they call and apologize.”
She chose law, she said, because “I wanted to guide people into making decisions that were fair to themselves and to other people.” It was a way to help people solve problems, and it did not require singing, dancing, or drawing, didn’t require the patience of a teacher, and did not involve medicine; as a diabetic since age 7, she felt she’d spent far too much time in hospitals to want to work in one. When the moderator shot back that Sotomayor was the best salsa dancer she knew, the 61-year-old Justice said she’d taken lessons at 50, when she got tired of being the only Latina she knew who didn’t dance. She asked her mother why she’d never been taught to dance as a child, and her mom replied, “You were always outside chasing fireflies. We could never get you to be still long enough.”
Her final advice was to remember the people who helped you and to overcome your fears. “Every job I’ve had, every obstacle I’ve overcome, I’ve been afraid. None of us gets anywhere in life without the help of others. Nobody accomplishes alone. We are each of us blessed with the good and the bad I hope each of you can appreciate the blessings in your world.”
Note: material in quote marks and not in brackets are as accurate as my notes, memories, and ability to decipher my scrunched handwriting allow (I had no paper so I was writing on the backs of business cards). I apologize for any transcription errors I may have made. Material within square brackets is paraphrased.
Freedom to exercise one’s own religion is NOT the same as freedom to stuff that religion down others’ throats. This is what the right-wing Christians have not understood about the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. No one is forcing them to marry each other–and they do not have the right to keep others from marrying the ones they love, just because their religion doesn’t agree.
When my family was kosher, I went to private Jewish schools (yeshivas). It may have been that part of my parents’ reasons was to keep me away from the “corrupting” influence of non-kosher food.
This post is inspired by a report of a Canadian mayor telling Muslim parents the schools would not stop serving pork–a report that was a hoax (which took about seven seconds to determine). But just because the report was false (and probably motivated by someone seeking to stir up religious divisions) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about the underlying issue: when does one person’s freedom stop and another’s start?
I am a vegetarian and I would never say to a school system, “don’t serve meat because it is offensive to me.” On the contrary, it is offensive to me when someone tells me I can’t eat the food I want because that food offends them, and I wouldn’t presume to make those choices for others. Sure, I wish more people would turn vegetarian, and I can list a dozen reasons why vegetarianism is good for the planet and good for our bodies.
I will say (and have said), “please don’t bring meat into a potluck at my vegetarian house.” A parent offended that foods he/she doesn’t eat are served in the cafeteria has other choices. There are schools where no pork is served–in fact, I know for certain that pork is not served at any Orthodox yeshiva or Islamic or Seventh Day Adventist school. It would be offensive if the Muslim kids and Orthodox Jewish kids and vegetarian kids attending public school were *forced* to eat pork. But it should not be offensive to sit in a cafeteria where others are eating it.
Editor’s note: Too much power can be as discomfiting as too little. Judi takes this analogy from a real-world electrical issue through some deep soul-searching I thought you’d enjoy.
—Shel Horowitz
Guest Post by Judi Ketteler
Last week, during a storm, lightning struck the power sub-station just a few blocks away. At the time, I didn’t know that had happened. I just knew that our power flickered strongly. When it came back on, I noticed that the fan in my office was running more vigorously. It was louder. I turned it off and back on again, but it was still loud. I was in the middle of deadline, so I chalked it up to “oh well, whatever.”
Then I went downstairs to get some water. The lights in the kitchen were crazy bright. But . . . it had grown dark outside with the storm, so I thought my perception was off. Plus, I had been sitting at my computer all day. Perhaps my eyes were bleary and playing tricks on me, I thought. Even the light in the refrigerator was brighter. I’m really working too hard, I told myself.
All evening, I thought the lights were brighter, but I shrugged it off and didn’t say anything. By the next day, when the normally quiet bathroom fan sounded like a train, the microwave sounded like it was going to blow up, and the toaster oven burned red hot, looking like it would catch fire, I knew something freaky was going on. “We’re getting too much power!” I told my husband. His senses aren’t nearly as heightened as mine, but he couldn’t argue with a toaster oven about to blow.
I called our energy company, and they came out a few hours later. They measured the current we were getting. It’s supposed to be regulated to 240. Ours was at 275. “So that’s why everything is turbo-charged?” I asked the guy. “Yep. The regulator blew. If I were you, I’d go turn everything off and unplug it all until the crew comes in an hour or so. Otherwise, it might fry your stuff.”
A 75-watt light isn’t just a 75-watt light: it may be all the power that is safe, but it’s not actually all the power that is available. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to push it. I’d prefer not to fry thousands of dollars worth of electronics in my house. To that end, the energy crew fixed the sub-station later that day, and all was back to normal: a very good thing.
But this notion that there is more power available than meets the eye has been sticking with me. There is an explanation in the world of currents and voltage and energy regulators at electric sub-stations. But what about mysub-station? Do I have an energy regulator? Because I’d really like to find it.
What Regulates It, Anyway?
You know how some days, you’ve got energy to spare? It sizzles through you, as you knock thing after thing off your to-do list. You’re motivated, creative, and have all the right ideas at all the right times. I live for these kinds of days.
I just have absolutely no idea what creates them.
I could list what I think contributes. But it’s a long and random list, that ranges from caffeine to hormones to the phases of the moon to the amount of sleep I’ve gotten to the kind of food I’ve eaten to my husband’s mood at the time to whether or not my hair lays right that day to some inspiring movie or TV show I may have happened to watch or book I may have happened to read.
None of it is IT though. Like really it. That X-factor. The regulator in the sub-station.
What governs the amount of power getting through, not just to my physical body, but to the part of my brain that cares, has interesting and creative ideas, and—most importantly—the will the execute them?
I have learned that there are rhythms to my inspiration and creativity. If I’m in a good rhythm, I better go with it. If the muse is coming to me, for crying out loud, I better welcome her and not send her away so I can check email. Likewise, when I’m in a dark place—and I go there sometimes, because I am human—I can’t will myself out of it. I have to let the force of whatever woe me back.
It’s all the times in between, which turns out to be an awfully big chunk of my working life.
Big inspiration and energy? You bet I’ll follow. Down in the dumps? I accept it as a time to refuel. But status quo, ho-hum, low inspiration, trudging through it? That’s where I’d like to tweak my sub-station. Find the dial that turns up the voltage, just a notch. Or strike it with lightning, to shock it out of its banality. Can you make that kind of lightning, or, like actual lightning, is it solely an act of nature?
I honestly don’t know.
I want to respect my psyche’s natural balance, while finding my way to more of those inspired days. Because to walk into a room and feel the lights shining brighter? That’s sort of something. I know 240 is where the voltage in my house needs to stay. But I’d like to feel that extra bright light in my brain, just a little more often. I’d like to find that sub-station. Consider the search launched.
Warmly,
Judi
This piece by Judi Ketteler originally appeared on The Story Economy blog. Find her at judiketteler.com.
I went to my first same-sex commitment ceremonies around 1979 and 1980, never dreaming that the day would come when such unions would be recognized in every state of the United States of America.
Thank you, Justice Kennedy for your beautiful opinion, and the other four Justices who added their names. And thank you, President Obama, for being consistent in your support since the day you announced that your thinking had evolved on this issue.
And thanks to the activists who brought the country forward, including those who were brave enough to do this long before it was legal.
