Thank You, Republicans

If Barack Obama does indeed win re-election in seven weeks he will need to get busy right away penning Thank-You notes to those most responsible for his victory.  He should start with the Republican primary voters, who chose an incredibly weak candidate as their standard bearer.  Conditions were certainly favorable to unseat the incumbent—the economy has spent four years trying to work up a head of steam without much success.  Normally, this would be enough to force a sitting President out of office, (see: Carter, Jimmy and Bush, George H.W.)  All it would take would be a marginally acceptable candidate, yet the Republican field was exceptionally weak this year.  President Bachman?  President Gingrich?  President Santorum?  Compared to these utterly unqualified strivers, Mitt Romney must have looked like the best option.  He was the cream that rose slowly to the top of a rancid bucket.

So I suppose some Thank Yous need to go to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels and other qualified Republicans who chose to sit out this year.  After each of the Republican candidates spent a week or two as front-runner, Mitt cleared them out of the way with millions of dollars of negative ads and then stepped into the nomination with the numbers behind him, but not the passion of the base.  The only Republican in the field who may have actually been electable in the General Election was the other Mormon—John Huntsman—and he dropped out early.

Another Thank You needs to go out to the Tea Party.  With their “No Compromise, No Surrender” attitude they certainly drove many middle-of-the-road voters toward Barack Obama.  Tea Party extremism only served to show by contrast how centrist Barack Obama’s policies really are.  Most specifically, the Tea Party caucus inthe House of Representatives made President Obama look like the only adult in the room compared to their childish antics.  Mitt may have had it right when he said that 47% of the voters were going to stick with President Obama no matter what.  The 5 to 10 percent of voters who were undecided were ripe for the picking this year, but the Tea Party’s extremist rhetoric and refusal to compromise drove many undecideds to stay home or to vote for the incumbent. 

The Senate Republicans also deserve a written Thank You.  Senator Mitch McConnell made itclear a few years ago that he saw his first job as making sure President Obamadid not get re-elected.  (I don’t remember that from the oath of office he took, but I must not have been listening very carefully.)  Again, in contrast to the obstructionist Senate Republicans, President Obama looked like an adult who was willing to compromise for the good of the country. 

It is too soon to know who will be elected President on November 6, 2012.  I think Barack Obama will win, and it might even be an Electoral College landslide.  If so, some Presidential Thank Yous will be in order.  The Republicans, in their obsession with unseating Barack Obama, may have instead pushed him over the top and into a second term.

In Memorium

It is my sad duty to report the death of my trusted running shoes.  They were my first pair of Vibram five fingers and they served me above and beyond the call of duty.  My relationship with this particular pair of shoes started inauspiciously.  I got them as a Father’s Day gift from Erica and Isabel, tried them on, and then didn’t wear them for ten months.  That was back in 2010.  They sat on my closet floor, waiting patiently to prove themselves.

The following May I ran a half marathon in traditional running shoes and developed a giant blister under my toenail, which promptly popped off and hurt like hell.  I didn’t want to stop running while my toe healed, so I slipped on the Vibrams one day and went for a one-mile walk.  Even after that walk, it was not yet obvious that those shoes would become the loves of my life.  I slowly upped my mileage and before too long I was running 13.1 miles in my five fingers.  They were light and snug and made me want to be a better runner.

Over the past two years I have run over 1700 miles in these shoes, including five half marathons and two Reach the Beach 200 mile relays.  It was during the second of these Reach the Beaches that it became painfully obvious that this particular pair of Vibrams was on its last legs.  During my second leg of the relay I developed a blister on the bottom of my right foot because some fabric had ripped and collected in a lump.  I took the shoes off, thanked them silently for their service, and put them in the back of the van.  I wore some old traditional shoes for my final leg.

This pair of shoes was simply too good to allow them to pass without recognition.  If you want to mark the passing of these kind soles, you can.  Instead of cards or flowers, send cash to the “Get Chris a New Pair of Five Fingers Fund” in memory of Lefty and Righty.

Hurt So Good

My wife skydives because she finds it relaxing.  Well, maybe “relaxing” isn’t quite the right word, but something close to it.  She says that when you intentionally climb out of an airplane at 12,000 feet and then intentionally let gravity pull you toward Earth at well over 100 miles per hour, any extraneous thoughts evaporate.  For the duration of the freefall there is just no space in your head for thoughts of job or family or politics or money or really anything.  The world shrinks to the immediate concerns of altitude, speed, and landing safely.  Once the mechanics of skydiving become more, well…mechanical, there is a bit of room in your consciousness for looking around at how beautiful things are.  The towering clouds, the setting sun, the curve of the planet can come in and leave an indelible image on your retina the way a sudden light can in the dark night.

And once you land, the concerns keep their distance for a while as the beauty and the rush remain.  In this way, skydiving is relaxing.

And in a similar way, working with three-year olds is relaxing.  I have just this week started teaching a class of three-year old boys and girls.  Before I started, I had been out of work since last school year concluded at the end of June.  Two full months without work left my brain nothing but space for all my insecurities, doubts, and dissatisfactions to roam around in, trampling any good that might be right in front of me. 

There is nothing like a room full of 3 year olds to make a person quickly forget anything that might be on his mind.  While Sam raises the toy drill to “remind” Jessie (on her head) that she should share, my career doubts just get in the way of doing what I need to do.  For three hours I have to put myself last.  And that is turning out to be a good thing.  Friday was the most difficult day at work I have had in years, and it was alright.  I came away feeling like I helped a few kids learn a few things.  It was also good to realize that I have a lot to learn about managing three-year olds.  It will give me something to do with my mind.

Fracking Has To Happen

I went for a run last week and my route took me out of Tompkins County and into Tioga County in the Eastern Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York.  The land here is beautiful.  It is a mix of flatlands and forested hills that pop up 800 or 1000 feet above the lowlands.  The hills are covered in trees—many of the trees where I was running (in the Caroline Hills) were planted by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 1930s. 

Aside from the natural beauty, I noticed two other things as I ran.  One was the obvious disparity in wealth represented by some of the properties along my path.   Close by the road there were trailers with peeling paint and junk cars scattered through the yards.  The word “Appalachia” came to mind right away.  The other was all of the signs in favor of or opposed to fracking.  The Marcellus Shale runs under this area and contains a lot of natural gas.  The method used to force this gas out of the rock is called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

Fracking has become quite contentious in this area, (as in many others), due to uncertainty about its long term environmental impacts, including its effects on air quality, water quality, and climate change.  Towns, counties, and states are working through the tough process of coming to some agreement about the regulations they will adopt regarding fracking.  Drilling companies are having their say, as are environmental groups and landowners.  In some places it is getting nasty, with neighbor against neighbor.  On my run the way this played out was dueling lawn signs.

When I paid close attention I noticed a strong correlation between the state of the house and the position on fracking.  The worse off the house and property looked, the more likely the sign on the yard would be in favor of fracking.  The fracking debate reminded me of other places I have lived and other discussions about natural resources.

Years ago I spent a summer in Heart Butte, Montana on the Blackfeet reservation.  The hamlet sits at an altitude of 4,500 feet above sea level, exactly where the Great Plains become the Rocky Mountains.  It is a pretty spectacular setting, with Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness close by.  Heart Butte is small and poor.  In the 2000 census the government counted 698 people living in Heart Butte, 45% of whom lived below the poverty line and 93% of whom were Native Americans—mostly from the Blackfeet tribe.

The reservation itself comprises 3000 square miles east of Glacier National Park.  This makes it larger than Delaware but smaller than Connecticut.  In the 1800s the reservation was more than twice its current size, but US Government actions and policies shrunk it to its modern-day boundaries while handing land to non-Indians.  Today there are around 10,000 people living on the reservation, with an estimated 69% unemployment rate and widespread poverty.  Deep below the Blackfeet Reservation sits large deposits of natural gas trapped in shale.  Members of the Blackfeet tribe are in sharp disagreement about whether to tap this resource to bring jobs and development to the reservation.

I have also lived on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in the Southeastern corner of Montana.  The land there is very different from the land in the Finger Lakes and the land near Glacier National Park.  Southeastern Montana is far dryer and less forested than either Glacier or Upstate New York.  There are exposed red rock buttes and scrublands as far as the eye can see.  And under all of this 700 square miles of stark beauty lies an estimated 23 billion tons of coal.  The Cheyenne tribal members have not yet allowed any coal mining on the reservation, but some members want that to change.  Some mining companies want that to change, as well.

Now that I live in Tompkins County, I am going to have to come to a position of my own on fracking.  I do not own a few hundred acres of land here, so I am never going to be offered a lease for fracking on my land.  But I can absolutely understand the attraction for landowners.  Especially those who have no money and limited prospects.  A ban on fracking might feel like the one thing of value I own has been taken from me.  Just like a Blackfeet or Cheyenne tribal member might feel like tribal reluctance to tap into the natural resources available to them is equivalent to economic suicide. 

It struck me while I was running that it is a luxury to be able to think about the long-term health of the environment.  Not everyone has that luxury.  Some people are hungry.  Some people worry about their ability to provide for their children.  Some people just want some economic security, and fracking or mining look like viable ways to get there.   To these people it is strictly an economic issue.

To the many people who do not stand to benefit directly from resource extraction, it is an environmental issue.  It is about poisoned water, truck traffic, clear cuts, sludge ponds, and pollution.  It became clear to me on that run that fracking is one issue where the opposing sides are not even speaking the same language.  The only way to get to some sort of détente on the issue is to have the appropriate state agency, in this case the Department of environmental Conservation, complete a review of hydraulic fracturing and then write regulations for how to go ahead with the permitting process.  No amount of talking is going to change anyone’s opinion at this point.

It is a messy business, but the only solution is already clear on an issue like this where two entrenched sides can’t even agree on what the issue is about and talk past each other in lawn signs.  There has to be a compromise and neither side will like the final result.  The cost of banning all fracking is continued poverty for many rural landowners and continued reliance on foreign sources of energy.  The cost of allowing fracking to happen anywhere is severe environmental degradation.  What we need is a process in place that will allow drilling to happen in the most productive way possible while still protecting the air, water, and land of the Finger Lakes.  It won’t be pretty, but it does have to happen.

Can a Pregnant Woman Drive in the Carpool Lane? (or Why I Cannot Vote For Paul Ryan)

Yesterday Mitt Romney announced his choice of running mate.  By all accounts Paul Ryan, U.S. Representative from Wisconsin, is a serious man with actual knowledge of how national budgets work.  It is clear that Mr. Romney has engaged in some vicarious learning based on John McCain’s choice of a running mate in 2008.  Paul Ryan is someone who could be President Day One if he had to be.  He is also someone who will energize the Republican base.  It seemed as if many Republicans were going to vote for Romney out of duty rather than excitement.  Come Election Day they were going to lie back, stare at the ceiling, and think of England as they cast their half-hearted vote.  Now those same lukewarm supporters might actually wake up on Election Day hot and bothered and eager to do the deed.

To be honest, I do not think that Mitt Romney’s choice of a running mate had the power to swing this election his way.  Mitt is just too different from the average undecided voter to actually convince them to change horses midstream.  He comes across as what he is—a very rich man who has no idea how most of us really live.  In the interest of full disclosure I feel obligated to say that I do not think Mitt Romney would be a terrible President.  Based on his performance in Massachusetts and his willingness to adopt any position at all, (even if it is in direct contrast to an earlier position), I think his guiding principle would be pragmatism. 

  

His term or two as President would probably look a lot like Barack Obama’s.  He would propose all sorts of middle-of-the-road policies, some of which had enjoyed wide support from Democrats in the past, and the Democrats would oppose them all as too radically conservative.  He would manage the country just fine.  Given the choice in November I will certainly be voting for Barack Obama, but I would not be moving to Canada if Mitt Romney were to win.

Having said that, Paul Ryan scares me.  He is not a pragmatist.  In his own quiet, competent way, he is a right wing bomb thrower.  His economic policies, based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, are so radical that they would be unacceptable to most Americans. 

  

But I am not going to talk about Ryan’s economic policies today.  Instead I want to focus in on his beliefs about reproduction.  Paul Ryan is as far right as a politician can be when it comes to limiting Americans’ right to make choices about their own reproductive lives. 

  

If you follow this link you can see the details of Ryan’s many votes over his years in the House.  I want to home in on two of his positions that make it clear Representative Ryan wants to dictate what women should do with their eggs.  Paul Ryan co-sponsored the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which states  “each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”  He also co-sponsored a bill that would grant the pre-born equal protection under the 14^th Amendment.

Taken together, this position that a fetus is a person with full rights leads to all sorts of ridiculous situations.  For example, does a fetus need a passport?  Can a pregnant woman drive in the HOV lane? Can she claim a fetus as a dependent on her taxes? Can she buy life insurance on a fetus and then cash it out after a miscarriage?  Can a woman going through fertility treatments be charged with a crime if some of her embryos are frozen or discarded before implantation?  Can a fetus have a Social Security number? Can a corporation be a fetus?  Can a fetus who resides in a woman who is in prison sue for illegal imprisonment?  Paul Ryan may be a smart man, but this position that a fertilized egg is a citizen of the United States with all the rights and protections guaranteed in the United States Constitution is just plain bonkers. 

Another Ryan position I want to mention is his belief that ALL abortions should be illegal.  He makes no exceptions for rape, incest, or medical risks to the life of the mother.  Ironic that even if a girl or woman gets pregnant against her will, she is then forced to have the baby against her will as well.  Just who is it that holds Ryan’s all-important freedom in these cases.  Apparently, freedom belongs to rapists and the state in Paul Ryan’s dream country.  An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says,  “Ryan said he opposes abortion, period.  He said any exceptions to a ‘partial birth’ abortion ban would make that ban meaningless.”  

Here is what Ayn Rand has said about abortion:

"A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn). Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered."

I would be willing to hope for the best with Mitt Romney in the Oval Office—I do not think he would push the abortion issue.  Being practical, he knows it would really only energize the left and take away a perennial Republican issue while squandering any possible chance at bipartisanship.  But if something awful were to happen and Paul Ryan were to become Chief Executive, I fear he would forget his Objectivist roots and instead tap into his Talibanist tendencies and push to make all abortions illegal.

Maybe we can talk about all of the holes in the Romney/Ryan budget plan another day.  For now, I just needed to vent a little about my fears of Paul Ryan in the White House, a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, and what that would mean for the ability of women to choose to have a family or not.  Paul Ryan reminds me of some of the protesters who stand outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven with their pictures of dismembered fetuses.  I walk my dog by them sometimes and sometimes, when I am feeling strong, I engage them in conversation.  I genuinely try to get to the point where we can see some common ground.  

People who are pro-choice are not pro-abortion.  Of course we would all like to see a reduction in the number of abortions performed in this country each year.  One way to do that is to provide easy access to low cost birth control and reproductive health consultations with trained nurses and doctors.  When I mention this to the protesters, they often freak out and take an all-or-nothing position.  They say it is God's plan that we not have sex outside of marriage and that we carry to term any children that result from the sex we do have.  While idealistic, this belief is at odds with millions of years of biological imperative and ignores people's reproductive realities.  Paul Ryan has shown through his numerous votes and public comments about abortion and family planning that he is willing to impose his narrow religious view on all Americans, in spite of what the Constitution guarantees in the First Amendment.  This is not the only reason I would not vote for a Romney/Ryan ticket, but it is the reason that bubbled out first when I heard Ryan was chosen yesterday.