Culture – Page 14 – Pat the Expat

Mailing it in

There is one thing that MAGA-hat wearers, Never Trumpers, and the Progressive resistance agree upon: everything–and I mean EVERYTHING– revolves around President Trump. Nothing better represents this delusional state of affairs than the debate over mail-in voting. To wit:

Supporters of the President are sounding the alarm that rampant fraud will accompany mail-in voting. President Trump himself has stated he opposes liberalizing mail-in voting because he believes it will only favor the Democratic Party; some Progressives apparently agree and have seized upon the pandemic quarantine as a reason to support only mail-in voting. For the record, there is no data that mail-in voting favors either party, and little evidence of widespread mail-in voting fraud. Perhaps your own view about mail-in voting is driven by these same factors. Please permit me to explain why it’s wrong to do so.

First, mail-in voting is a necessity: not everyone can make it to a polling place on election day. As an expat, mail-in voting is the only way I can participate. However, mail-in voting is an exception, not the norm. Why? While all voting methods are vulnerable to fraud, mail-in voting is more vulnerable (I’ll explain why below). Thus when the number of mail-in voters is small (as an exception), the risk of fraud changing the election results is also small, so mail-in voting poses an acceptable risk.

Second, mail-in voting poses a vulnerability even if there is no evidence of fraud. Several states use only mail-in voting, and cite their success as proof there is no issue here. However, who is interested in interfering in the state elections of Washington, Oregon, or Colorado (places relying on mail-in voting)? There are several nations (e.g., Russia and China) capable of and interested in influencing, undermining, or corrupting US federal elections. Moving to large-scale, mail-in voting changes the calculus for such nations and thus the vulnerability becomes a real threat.

Third, while the 2020 election is a federal one, everyone should know that it is run as fifty distinct state elections, with different rules in each case. Asking states to make sudden changes within months of an election, while their employees are furloughed or working from home, is a recipe for disaster, especially when both political parties are primed to cry “foul” at any suspicious instance. Wisconsin conducted an in-person election in the teeth of the pandemic and had outrageous, unfounded claims of vote tampering by both sides. States would find it difficult to make big changes now, and errors they make would only compound the confusion.

Fourth, massive mail-in voting results in a much greater time lag between election day and when the results are announced. In some cases in the past, mail-in votes weren’t even counted if their total was less than the difference between candidates established by in-person voting (i.e., the outcome could not change). If the mail-in vote total is large, all must be counted, and each mail-in vote requires additional scrutiny and verification.

Fifth, that verification process is also a point of dispute. Anyone old enough to remember the “hanging-chads” debacle in Florida in 2000 knows that the authentication of votes is subjective. Imagine the public debates, protests and the like as days lead into weeks after the election without a final result (and with constant leaks and charges of corruption)!

Sixth, current security for mail-in voting is adequate for optional, small-scale use, but not for widespread use. Every state is different, but let me use my voting experience in Ohio as a example. I am currently registered to vote there, a process that required only a government ID and a banking document with an Ohio address. I mailed in my federal postcard application for a ballot: it contained nothing more than part of my social security number and signature. I opted for an e-mail ballot, which I will fill out and e-mail back to Ohio with my signature. So the security involved is (1) my social security number, (2) my signature, (3) any government issued ID, and (4) some paper documents with my Ohio address. Let’s look at those in turn:

Throw out number four (documents with an address), as any nitwit could have forged and printed those out.
Social security numbers were commonly (and wrongly) used for identification, so the many data breaches out there mean it is likely your SSN has been compromised.
Signatures? More difficult to find, but easy to copy/forge once found.
Government ID? An American passport is incredibly secure, but your state driver’s license not so much. Yet both count.

The bottom line here is it’s not easy for you to pretend to be me and vote in Ohio, but it’s also not impossible. The real problem is not you or me, but . . .

Russia. Seventh, what may be difficult for you is easy for Russia. Or China. Or even North Korea. Remember when the Chinese hacked the US Office of Personnel Management database and made off with the Personal Identifying Information of hundreds of thousands of federal employees? What about the routine credit card data breaches; all that data is available on the dark web for pennies. When Russia was hacking into state voting systems before the 2016 election, they often accessed voter registration rolls. Those could not change votes, but they would provide the Russians with the means to affect future elections. All a foreign actor needs to do is submit the same federal postcard I used and have the absentee ballot sent to a different e-mail or physical address. Whether they may or may not have the ability to forge a signature, they could submit a vote, meaning some voters showing up at the polls would be told they had already voted, and some mail-in voters would have two ballots submitted. All this could be sorted out in time, but at what cost to the credibility of the election process?

Finally, remember that the motivation for a foreign actor need not be changing votes. As the Intelligence Community pointed out in the 2016 report on Russian interference, Russia sought to “undermine public faith in the US democratic process.” The partisan divide in the United States has made this Russian operation one of the highest pay-off influence operations in history. Intelligence officers will be studying that one for decades. And the last straw would be a drawn out, contested, post-election series of public political and legal battles as states deal with a backlog of mail-in votes.

And I won’t even go into the challenge to the US Postal Service. I know you will breathlessly await my review of the USPS in a future blog post (if you’re still in quarantine and desperately bored).

What about the risk of contracting the coronavirus while voting in-person? This is indeed a quandry. I support allowing those who are at risk (e.g., aged, suffering comorbidities, immunocompromised) to get a doctor’s note and vote by mail. But for the vast majority of voters, there is nothing especially dangerous about in-person voting, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci. People gather and stand in lines for all kinds of reasons during the quarantine. And we make some people (grocery store employees, truck drivers) work despite the dangers because what they do is essential. So is voting.

I continue to support mail-in voting, as an exception, not the norm. I contend it could be expanded and secured, but not quickly or painlessly. Voting is so important, and in-person voting has many advantages in terms of preventing fraud. Please consider this issue with the seriousness it deserves, not as yet another simple Trump-driven dynamic.

Scenes from America

Travelling between visits to my ninety-one year old Dad, brother and sister, and daughters/sons-in-law/grandchildren. Some things I have noticed along the way, which was Chicago to South Bend to Cincinnati to Baltimore and return:

Pandemic restrictions and compliance are everywhere different and distinct. In South Bend, it seems like everyone was wearing masks, except for one family we saw in the Mall. Let’s set the stage. When you enter through the (limited) entrances, you see a sign indicating masks are mandatory, as is disinfecting your hands at a dispensary station. Signs direct you to keep six feet social distancing, and instructions on the floor tell you that foot traffic inside the mall is “walk to the right” (like driving) to avoid contact. We’re coming out of a store, and directly in front of us is a family: slightly chubby, middle-aged father and mother with likewise adolescent, all sans masks and with big grins on their faces. They are walking the “wrong way” and moving directly toward other shoppers, who are scattering away from and around them. I realize I’m making huge assumptions here, but the look on the Dad’s face was “go ahead, say something.” We walked past and ignored them. What’s the point?
At a roadside Wendy’s in southern Ohio, the travellers were all wearing masks, while the locals were all walking in without them. Everyone had to eat out in the parking lot, though.
All of this comes as a result of the combination of American individualism and federalism We all grew up in States. Taxes were different, health care was different, schooling was different, age of consent was different, age to consume alcohol was different. Granted, the federal response to Covid19 has been disjointed, but no one should be surprised about the differences between states, if they understand the term “United States of America.” Within those parameters, Americans remain contrarians, oftentimes doing the opposite of what they are asked or required by even local government. That said, we all wore masks and maintained social distance. Doing as you please is license; liberty is freely choosing to do the right thing.
Places which are under federal control, like airports, have uniform rules: everyone has masks on all the time. This tells me the non-compliance is symbolic: people flaunt their views where they can, but yield whenever or wherever they know the consequences are serious. Anybody feels tough enough to bully the WalMart greeter, but TSA, not so much.
The political environment really is as bad as I imagined. In my family, we argue (loudly and openly) about everything. I found family members quietly and delicately engaging me about issues before determining what views they could/could not express. Most had stories of friends lost, jobs endangered, or public encounters which border on discomfort. Seems like everybody is walking around on eggshells, with a vocal minority (at both ends of the spectrum) waiting to scream at any infraction. Land of the free home of the reticent.
Nothing will be normal in the States until in-person school resumes. With all the two working-parent (or single-parent) families, work can’t resume until in-person school resumes. In the jurisdictions I visited, the local teachers’ unions were vigorously and publicly lobbying against in-person school and for online curricula, which has been perfunctory at best. Parents with means are arranging private education for their children. Teachers’ unions were calling out parents (and teachers!) for making private agreements for tutoring. Many parents will be stuck “homeschooling,” an oxymoron in this case. Homeschooling is a choice which requires great preparation and sacrifice; parents are now forced to do it with neither the vocation nor the support. This, not a vaccine, may prove to be the long pole in the tent to recovery.
Touchless delivery has gone to a new level. We ordered in Chinese food one night. About forty minutes later, I asked Judy where the order was. She paused to check her smartphone and said “at the door.” Seems they dropped the order at the door (no knock, no doorbell), texted her, and left.
Speaking of ethnic food, “authentic Mexican” food in America still isn’t. This was not a surprise. Perhaps somewhere near the border, or in some ethnic enclave in a bg city, one can find authentic Mexican cuisine. Tried it twice, in different areas. The workers were Mexican, and we enjoyed practicing our Spanish, but the food was still the high carb, meat- and sauce-heavy Tex-Mex version of Mexican cuisine available anywhere in the States.
We got to attend in-person Mass twice, which was a treat. In South Bend, the pews were roped off, no singing, no sign-of-peace, masks on except for the Eucharist. Near Baltimore, Mass was in the parking lot in tailgate chairs, under a hot, humid sun. Made me grateful for whoever invented the kneeler, as warm asphalt is tough on new jeans and old knees!
I noticed non-grocery stores had stocking issues. A sporting goods chain we visited had several aisles with little or no merchandise, normally a no-no in retail. I talked to a store employee who was loading home weight sets into cars. He told me they sold all they had, including the floor models, and people keep calling for more. Remember when everyone seemed to have a weight set which never got used and went for bargain prices at a garage sale? Times have changed.
Traffic on interstate highways was down, but not gone. Somehow Washington DC still managed to have traffic jams. Perhaps they were left over from before the pandemic?
On the way back to Mexico, we had to traverse BWI Marshall and Chicago O’Hare airports. Neither was impressive. At BWI, they had no TSA pre-Check lines open during the morning flight rush. But, we were in luck, as the long lines prompted TSA to open new lanes for the security search. But, the scanner announced that each and every electronic device had to be put into a separate bin. And we had eight of them, some of which were packed because we had pre-Check. Grrrrr. At O’Hare, there was also no pre-Check, but the first TSA checkpoint gave us a card which stated we were pre-Check. But we still had to go through the same security screen. But this time devices were allowed altogether. And we were approached by a homeless man begging in the security area. What? It’s no wonder why people think airport security is just theater.
Our literal last step in America was a doozy. Awaiting our AeroMexico flight to Guadalajara from Chicago, we listened to all the announcements, first in Spanish and then English. It was good to get back into practice. As we went down the jetway to board, we both said “buenas tardes” to the woman operating the console for the jetway. “I speak English.” she replied coldly. “We speak Spanish”, we responded with smiles. Guess we were guilty of microaggression. Or was it cultural appropriation? Anyway, as we stepped aboard, the flight attendant gave us a hearty “¡Bienvenidos!”

What Matters? Part II

One might assume (based on my criticism of BLM, “defund the police,” “the talk,” and arguing whether data proves racial disparities in policing) that I don’t think race matters in the States. One would be wrong. I have always stated racism is evil and evident across the globe yesterday, today, and sadly tomorrow. Which does not counsel passivity, but cold realism in approaching solutions. Solutions will never be total, only partial, and we must focus on continuous progress to avoid backsliding. But soldier on, we must.

If you have ever met a real racist–not someone just #hashtagged as one–you know that there is little one can do to change his mind. The repentant racist is a rare breed: not exactly extinct, but always on the endangered list. One can, however, conform a racist’s behavior. Even a committed racist gets tired of constantly having to defend himself from public scorn. Thus society made public use of the n-word so offensive it changed from acceptable (among many) to unacceptable (excepting rappers). What a racist mutters under his breath in his own home? Another story.

This is a work everyone can undertake: identifying the small acts of racism that occur everyday (ask any person of color) and stand against them. No need to be boorish: simply pointing them out as unacceptable will do. This is solidarity in action, and we all need to spend time thinking about how we enact it. Whom security guards follow in stores, when people assume skin-color automatically denotes wealth, why some people seem suspicious in some neighborhoods: examples where we need to check our personal biases and those around us. But this is no small thing. We can never ask people of color to stop thinking constantly about race if they are constantly reminded of it!

So much for atmospherics; what about policies?

You’re probably unsurprised I oppose reparations. If the sums were small and symbolic, I could probably be convinced, but then why bother? If you are in favor of the larger amounts being considered, I ask you to also consider the data on what happens when average people receive a financial windfall. It rarely turns out well. Not to mention, reparations involve all kinds of messy moral questions. Who is black, and how black does one need to be? This is the kind of racist genotyping the Confederacy engaged in! Why should the sons of Vietnamese refugees, the granddaughters of Irish indentured servants, or the great-grandchildren of Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg pay?

Racially-tinged policies are always a double-edged sword. Where there is a clear and proven case of racial discrimination, it may be just (and constitutional) overtly to consider race in the solution. Thus if a college or institution has a track-record of excluding a race, they may make a conscious choice to hire or promote people of that race for a time. But there is always a cost. As people of color so chosen will tell you, they suffer a stigma that they did not merit selection, but for the color of their skin.

Thus I strongly adhere to the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, who said “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” I mention this to note that the policies I propose are never tied to race directly, and thus avoid the stigma of racialist policies. Still, these policies would directly affect black Americans, the subject of our recent strife. I propose two policies. The local policy could be implemented immediately and make an immediate difference. The national one is long-term, designed to address historic imbalances.

At the local level:

It is amusing that big city mayors (almost always Democrats and often Progressives, to boot) rail on about segregation while maintaining the racist zoning policies that created that condition. There is a reason there are no affordable housing options in Georgetown, DC: zoning regulations. Before you finish reading this paragraph, Mayor Muriel Bowser could propose and the DC Council could approve the construction of small, tasteful, affordable family-housing in Georgetown. Mutatis mutandis, Chicago, New York and hipster Seattle.

You don’t need a legend to see what’s wrong with this picture.

Rather than trying to remake DC Ward 8 (the poorest, most crime-ridden section of the District), the local government could start integrating wealthy neighborhoods by (1) allowing affordable housing to be built there, (2) subsidizing the development and the movement of people to those areas, and (3) where necessary, using the powers of eminent domain (at fair market price, naturally) to obtain land. Why don’t they do it? Politically powerful and wealthy benefactors oppose it: NIMBYism at its racially-tinged finest. Despite decades of Democratic governance, most of America’s largest cities are more segregated than they were in the 1960s!

Is this important? Growing data sources show that one’s zip code at birth/childhood is a better predictor of health, wealth, and success than any other factor! We’ve tried for several generations a weird experiment in separate-but-equal: keeping poor people–mostly minorities–segregated but pouring money into schools, policing, and social services, with little to show for it (according to the protestors in the streets). Good neighborhoods already have less crime, better schools, more grocery stores and parks and enrichment activities. Integrating appropriate numbers of the poorer into such locations would involve little overall change to the neighborhood while reaping huge rewards. But don’t hold your breath.

At the national level:

Much is made of the relative distribution of wealth in America, including the racial imbalances. While some of the more exaggerated claims have been called into question, America has greater wealth imbalance than most advanced industrialized nations (and thus has it ever been, by the way). Furthermore, the net worth of a white family ($170,000) was almost ten times that of black family. Even accounting for the fact that the median white family was two parents with some college, while the median black family was a single mother with a high school education, this is astounding.

While I believe the breakdown in the family–specifically the two parent, nuclear family of yore–is the culprit, I would suggest the federal government focus its efforts on the children. Politicians who propose “baby bonds” are on the right track. Paid by the federal government to children when they reach adulthood, these transfer payments would help reduce the wealth imbalance at the critical juncture when youth either go to college or join the workforce (i.e., the exact time when some capital makes a huge difference).

The bonds should not be based on race but the financial status of the parent/s at birth: if below a certain cut-off, the federal government starts investing US savings bonds in a numbered account for that child, accessible somewhere between their eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays, payable only to the child (not his parents, nor his beneficiaries). The amount is open to debate, but should certainly cover a degree at community college. The money should be paid against receipts for things like tuition, vocational training, new job expenses or starting a business: not simply disbursed to be spent on tattoos or avocado toast (or a tattoo of avocado toast, even). Such a program has predictable costs (not all immediate) and could even be prorated to cover (grandfather, so to speak) some children already born.

Both of these programs are expensive, but we’ve spent trillions getting nowhere, apparently. Neither program guarantees success: for example, there is some evidence that racial segregation in housing is also a result of conscious choices by racial minorities. Both policies tackle root causes (lack of opportunity) while avoiding racially-associated pitfalls. These programs benefit from the fact they acknowledge the federal-state structure inherent to our system of government. They are eminently “do-able.”

Let me end where I began. Policies are all well and good, but remember, despite equal opportunity there will always be unequal outcomes. What we should strive for is the day when–even at first glance–we judge the other ‘by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.’ This is an unending task (in this world), but one which requires no political leadership or legal change, just personal commitment. Let us begin.

What matters? Part I

Black lives? Blue lives? All lives? So many slogans, so little effort to understand and address issues. When the shouting starts, the thinking usually stops. Such is the level of discourse in modern day America, or at least in the social media-driven, twitterized version of America.

“All lives matter” is a truism not worth repeating: water remains wet; sorry, but no film at eleven. “Blue lives matter” is a riposte: if you didn’t say it before you heard the original, you’re just being provocative now. But “Black Lives Matter” is all about, um, well . . . now, visit their website and tell me. Ending “state sanctioned violence”? “Disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family”? “Dismantling cisgender privilege”? If you wish to chant it, there’s quite a chorus of beliefs associated with it!

Words used to matter, but not so much anymore. Like Humpty-Dumpty, people have taken to insisting “words mean exactly what I say they mean!” So we now have the slogan “Defund the Police” which is instantly followed by the comment that is doesn’t really mean “defund the police.” If only words were the problem; actions speak louder.

There is a reasonable case to be made that symbols of white racial dominance (e.g., Confederate statues) help create an environment propagating racial discrimination. This is a nuanced argument that doesn’t suggest eliminating these symbols fixes everything, but it helps. Such an argument requires–nay demands–a deep understanding of the history involved and a willingness to confront that history as it was, alongside the humble realization that the past happened under different standards.

For example, many Confederate monuments were erected in support of the “Lost Cause” mythology as a reminder of continued white dominance of Southern blacks. Yet the naming of US Army bases after Confederate military leaders happened as a result of a Congressional compromise to encourage southern states to support the US Army. The military reintegration of the former Confederate States into the Union is an amazing case study in success. It began with Lincoln’s commitment, to wit

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

The healing continued with General US Grant’s order for his soldiers to refrain from cheering as General Robert E. Lee left Appomattox Court House in defeat: “The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.” When Confederate General John Brown Gordon led his men to surrender their arms in a formal ceremony days later, Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain called the Grand Army of the Potomac to attention and rendered a salute, to which Gordon responded: honor facing honor. Slightly more than thirty years after the nation’s bloodiest war, a healed United States Army was ready for combat once again.

And yet, and yet, all this honor and healing came at the cost of the Jim Crow South. History is messy that way.

That is a nuanced, historically-informed conversation. We are not having that discussion. We have mobs tearing things down, burning things, and attacking those who disagree with them. How many Americans of any color knew who Braxton Bragg was? I did, but I’m a civil war geek; but seriously, when so little history is taught, how can such a name retain power?

Argument swirls around the symbolic meaning of the Emancipation Statue in Washington, DC, funded by freed slaves, especially the symbolism of a slave kneeling before Abraham Lincoln.

Most of those debating the statue don’t even know that when Lincoln secretly visited the just-captured Confederate Capital of Richmond, Virgina, (days before his assassination), word spread of the Great Emancipator’s arrival, and real slaves really knelt before him, calling him “Father Abraham” and “the messiah” and trying to touch his shoes! Today we have poorly-schooled protestors arguing about the symbolism of a statue of something . . . that . . . really . . . happened. Apparently, wokesters today know better than the freed slaves who paid for the monument.

Surely the nation could do without Confederate “Lost Cause” memorabilia; if that is important to you, make the case (I’ll probably agree with you). But make sure you know the history first. And if we are going to decide Washington or Lincoln isn’t sufficiently “woke,” we better be prepared to go where the history leads. Off the top of my head? Elihu Yale was a slave-trader; Leland Stanford exploited Chinese laborers for his railroad while calling them an “inferior race.” Only yesterday (in historical terms) FDR herded Japanese-Americans into camps. I await the universities renaming, and of course the removal of the FDR memorial. Bye-Bye Rhodes Scholars!

Better for all concerned if our youth learn some history before deciding to judge it. Reminds me of a great Indiana Jones’ movie quote:

“Chanting mobs should try learning history before tearing it down.”

Names change and statues go up and come down. Real problems remain. In Part II, I invite you to consider what America needs to do when it stops shouting and starts thinking again.

The Talk

I started writing this piece a while back, then put it on the shelf “to cool.” As I suspected, the media would give me another chance to engage, and they just did. There’s a New York Times article entitled “Black Behind the Wheel” (link). Here’s an excerpt that interested me, dealing with when the driver, a black man, was pulled over many years ago in rural Arkansas:

I heard the shrill siren of a patrol car, and saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I cut off my music, and pulled to the side of the highway. A white patrolman, hands on his holster, moved toward my vehicle. . . . I was petrified. When the patrolman asked for my license and registration, and where I was going, I channeled my elders. I kept my hands visible and was performatively polite, even reverential. This routine always fills me with self-contempt, but here, on this lonely highway, it seemed to be working. The policeman disappeared into his patrol car, and left me waiting and waiting. Eventually, he returned and without a word, handed me my I.D. and walked off. I sat there for a few moments, shaken. I lived. But a part of me died that day.
Ron Stodghill, “Black Behind the Wheel”

The writer’s reference that he “channeled his elders” calls to mind “The talk.” Perhaps you’re already familiar: “The talk” is a discussion black parents have with their children, explaining how to behave when the police inevitably confront them, just for being black in America. The talk may be prefaced with a lengthy discussion of violence perpetrated against innocent victims, or the inherent racism of American society in general or police forces in particular, but it always ends in a series of rules: here’s how to behave to avoid becoming the next statistic.

The premise of the talk is that very bad things can happen to you for almost no reason, if you’re black. The point of the talk is to provide some rules for how to behave with cops; if you follow these rules, you may avoid providing any reason for police misbehavior. To that point, it all makes sense to me. What confounds me is: I had it. Not just any talk, not a vague discussion, but “the talk.”

My Dad gave me the talk when I was a teenager, and we were the whitest of white-bread families living in a quintessential small town in the middle of middle America. My Dad was a career State Police Officer: more than thirty years as a patrolman, detective and senior leader. He wanted to pass on to me exactly what the police were thinking, what they are trained to do, and how to respond. It went something like this:

For the patrol officer, there is no such thing as a routine stop. When a police officer pulls a vehicle over or stops someone on the street, they do so for a reason, and it is not to complement them on their sartorial style. Since it almost always involves some negative outcome (a fine, an arrest, or just an ass-chewing), there is always the possibility of the recipient reacting badly. If the police officer forgets this, his next stop may be his last.

The officer is not on a hair trigger. He just realizes he is ruining your day, your week, or maybe even your whole life. He takes no joy in this, but it is his job. He is used to hearing excuses, threats, crying, pleading, swearing; he doesn’t like it, but it is nothing new. Your stop or interaction is unique and important to you; to him, it’s one of ten he will have during the shift, and they all go down mostly the same. Every day. For a career.

The officer must quickly make a judgment about you as the person being apprehended. In the officer’s world, there are two types: “regular people” who are generally remorseful and compliant, and “jerks” who want to confront, resist, fight, or flee. If there was ever a time when first impressions are important, this is it. How the interaction goes down generally depends on in which of these categories the officer places you.

Because of the inherent uncertainty of the interaction, the first rule of police interactions is to establish and maintain control of the situation. This means the officer is in charge, and the other person is under the officer’s control, responding to the officer’s commands. Nothing else happens until the officer establishes control, and if he loses control, nothing else happens until he re-establishes control. Notice that there is no accounting for the views of the individual: no debate, no discussion, no protest. Control must be established and maintained. The officer will give you a series of commands based on his training, view of the situation, and what he suspects has happened. He expects you to comply, even if the commands make no sense to you.

I listened to my dad’s talk and took it to heart. As a practical example, back in college days, a buddy and I went out joy-riding on the interstate in upstate New York. He gunned his muscle car up to almost one hundred miles-per-hour as we flew down the open road, until we heard the telltale wail of a siren catching up from behind us. As we pulled over, we both had a good laugh until the officer used his loudspeaker to order the driver to turn off the engine, drop the keys out of the window, exit the car with his hands behind his head, and kneel next the car door. I was still laughing until the officer ordered the passenger–me–to do the same. Excessive, no? When it was all said and done, the officer explained that a similar car had been used as a getaway vehicle in an armed robbery that morning, so we were initially given the full “fleeing felon” treatment . . . but only a fat speeding ticket in the end.

When I have been stopped for speeding, I turn off the radio (I never access a phone in a car), and wait with the window down, my hands at ten-and-two on the steering wheel. I only respond to the officer, never initiate or extend my remarks. End with “sir” or “officer.” Make no excuses. Answer only what is asked. Be completely honest. I make no move without first explaining what I intend to do, and then asking the officer for permission. I make it clear to the officer by my words and actions that he or she is in complete control.

How has that worked for me? Pretty damn well. I have a penchant for exceeding the posted speed, at least on highways (not where pedestrians are present). In over forty years of driving, I have received exactly one ticket from an officer (I don’t count a couple speed camera tickets, as they are just a tax for driving fast). I got that one for doing twenty-five in a fifteen mph zone of desert highway at the entrance to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 1983.

Oh, I’ve been pulled over many, many times for speeding. The worst case? Seventy-five in a forty mph stretch of I-395 in downtown DC about twenty years ago, during morning rush hour. That officer was leaving morning PT at his station and couldn’t believe how I blew past him as he entered the highway on-ramp. He was sweaty, angry, and ready to chew me out. When he asked for license and registration, I explained the former was in the inside pocket in my suit coat, the latter in the visor above my head, and could I please reach for each in order? When he asked how fast I was going, I said “at least seventy” and he corrected me to “seventy-five.” He asked if I knew what he could do because of my excessive speed and I replied he could have me incarcerated overnight for going more than twenty-five mph over the limit (it pays to know local laws if you intend to break them). He asked, with several colorful adjectives and adverbs, whether I was late for work (“no, sir”) and what could possibly justify going that speed (“nothing, sir”). So why was I speeding, he demanded? I explained that I had been stuck in traffic on the 14th Street bridge, and when the traffic cleared I just gunned it on the briefly open road. No good reason, just an explanation. Our calm exchange helped him regain his composure, and after giving me a good butt-chewing, he left me with a verbal warning and the admonition that if he ever caught me speeding again, it would include a visit to a station.

This was not a one time thing. Every time I have been pulled over (save the Military Policeman in the desert), I have received nothing more than warning. As a teenager, I even talked my way out of a “failure to stop” at a stop sign by calmly explaining that I had stopped, but the officer could only see my vehicle after I proceeded through the intersection. It helped that there were huge snow piles on either side of the street, and that I had completely stopped.

Now I am not advocating using these rules to avoid due punishment. I am simply arguing that the rules embodied in the talk work. Many police interactions today are filmed by bystanders or body-cams. And in so many of the cases, the suspect flees, or argues, or resists, or swears, or spits, or refuses to comply. Apparently the message from “the talk” about the rules is not getting through. Check out this Washington Post story, which makes much of a traffic stop for running a stop sign. The embedded video is seven and a half minutes long, but it includes nearly everything someone can do wrong. Luckily, it ends with a simple arrest, not a homicide-by-cop. But if you google so many of the more famous incidents which are heralded as exemplars of police brutality or racism, they inevitably begin with the individual not behaving according to the rules of “the talk.” Mr. Garner. Ms. Bland. Mr. Brown. Apparently even Mr. Floyd. And the list goes on.

Let’s be clear: nothing excuses kneeling on a man’s neck for almost nine minutes. I’m not arguing here about the justice or injustice of these cases: I’m arguing about “the talk.” I hear that so many people are giving “the talk,” but I wonder about that because I am not seeing much evidence anyone is listening. I doubt folks are listening because their actions don’t correspond to the rules of “the talk.”

I remain perplexed why the writer in the Times article felt self-contempt for behaving the same way I was taught to behave. More confounding, why he wrote “a part of me died that day” when his behaving according to the rules of “the talk” worked? I want to suggest “the talk” is important, and that behaving by its rules is neither contemptible nor demeaning: it just works. for everyone.

That’s a talk worth having, and one to which more people need to listen.

Payin’ bills

Way back in January, we decided to let our property manager go and take responsibility for our casa on our own. It’s gone pretty well, as we’ve made arrangements for all the usual things (handyman, water softener and filter maintenance, plumber, gardener, house cleaning, etc.) without too much effort. Yes, we had to learn which bills could be paid online, which had to be paid in person, and where to pay them. Some can be paid with a US credit card online, others only with a Mexican credit card. As I mentioned before here, some have discounts if paid early, others have a penalty for late payment. Most allow you some grace period, and as far as I can tell, few are exacting about the amount. If you pay a little more or less than the bill, it just gets rolled over to the next payment (government bills and the phone service being exceptions).

We were pretty much set for the year by March, when the quarantine and shut down hit. The only exception was our car registration. I was going to go the last week in March, but I had a stomach ache and decided to wait, and then: boom goes the coronavirus. And I totally forgot about the car.

Until last week, when I saw a notice in the local English language paper that the Jalisco government was extending (through July) the grace period before fines went into effect for auto registration renewal. So I got after it.

I had been warned about the long lines at this office. My first trip to it was in the early afternoon, and sure enough, I drove past to see lines out in the street and just kept going. That was last week, the beginning of the month, so perhaps more people were going to get it out of the way. I decided to get up early (when I say early, I mean expat retiree/Mexico time early) and hit the office when it opens at 8:30 am, when the lines should be more manageable.

Degollado 306. The only person you see is cleaning the glass doors!

That is, if there were lines. I arrived at 8:35 with not a soul in sight. Made my way in to the counters, where two clerks were handling two customers. Just as I sat down in the waiting chairs (thoughtfully socially distanced), the clerk beckoned. I walked up, performed in flawless (and rehearsed) subjunctive Spanish my desire to pay my auto registration renewal and handled over the expired registration card. The clerk said gracias and started typing my info into his machine, hit “enter” and the printer spat out my documentation. I paid my 702 MXP bill (a little less than $35 USD, including a small mandatory-voluntary donation to the Mexican Red Cross) and was on my way in under one minute.

Boring, yes? But a little piece of normalcy, too. It was nice to avoid the lines, better still to do something routine in a routine manner . . . perhaps with the exception I was masked. It made me think: when people sometime in the future see pictures of people wearing masks, they’ll (probably) immediately associate it with 2020, a tell of from what era the picture was taken. Just an odd thought at the end of oddly routine day!

Blame it on La Cuarentena

The continuing quarantine, partial as it is, is mostly about not doing things: not traveling, not getting to see family and friends, not being able to congregate in groups, not attending Mass, not having sports to watch. As I pondered the continuing effects of the coronavirus, I had to ask myself: what if anything could I say I have done that I could blame, specifically, on the quarantine? And a few things came to mind, namely:

We bought a freezer. One of those seven cubic feet, chest-style machines from Coppal, a local vendor. Now we had pondered getting one earlier, but since we eat out so frequently, and eat fresh meat and produce when we cook in, we simply didn’t see the need for a freezer. The quarantine challenged both of those givens: no restaurants, and avoiding going to the tienda every other day. We reconsidered: it’s nice to have some storage for larger portions of meat, etc. and I’ll admit having some frozen convenience foods (pizza, wings, ice cream) close at hand beats trying to go out and buy them every time a craving hits. Judy remains concerned we don’t need it; I’m up to the challenge of filling it!

My fountain came out as a planter. Or more specifically, it completed that transition. We had the option to put a fountain somewhere on our property when we were having the house built, so we put it in the middle of our interior courtyard. The idea of a fountain was superior to its incarnation. It’s an energy hog, the fountain was never loud enough to hear over other ambient sounds, and it can become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The pump failed. It was difficult to keep clean. The quarantine left me pondering it almost daily, and something had to give. So, first I drained it and put an herb garden on top of it. Then I drilled drainage holes in the bottom, filled it with dirt, and started to add plants. The soil will always be wet during the rainy season, so I am experimenting with different plants to see what takes. First up is Alocacia.

Finally, I reviewed and updated my bug-out bag. What’s that you ask? It’s a long story, going all the way back to when we were first married and living in what was then West Germany. While the US Army there awaited a Soviet invasion that never came, our spouses and families were instructed to have a bag packed for a speedy evacuation in the event of war. Ours did, with a twist. The families were supposed to be bussed to Rhein-Main airbase and evacuated from the same hub where the rest of the US Army (from the States) was arriving. Except that was also where the Russians were going to drop chemical weapons to delay the reinforcements, and where was all the protective gear for spouses and children? So my family’s bug-out bag was designed with what they needed for a quick drive south to and across the Swiss border. Never needed it, but the concept always stuck with me.

The contents of the bug-out bag vary based on from what you’re running: a bag for the zombie apocalypse is different from one for the Red Army. When we moved to the DC area, the bag was primarily for me to grab as part of a family evacuation plan, designed to be executed from wherever one was when notified. That one was mainly in the event of some kind of weapon of mass destruction threat/event, and the ensuing mass panic. Nowadays, our bag is primarily for some kind of natural disaster and subsequent need to “live off the land.”

It’s not elaborate or expensive: some basic first aid gear, some multi-tools, fire-starter, space blankets and ponchos, a US Armed Forces Survival Manual, blades and tools, among other things. Upon review, what lacked in mine was water capacity. Face it, in any survival situation, water is the critical resource, but you can’t carry enough. So I added some large plastic water bottles and a Steri-straw, a basic filtration device which allows you to drink from most any natural source.

The idea well predates the recent “prepper” craze, although there are similarities. Bug-out bags are just a little extra preparedness; prepping is more of a lifestyle choice, in my opinion. Anyway, the long hours of quarantine proved a good opportunity to review and inspect everything, replace some items, do the basic math and add a few things. Never would have gotten around to it otherwise.

Nothing remarkable here, but a few things to note. Oh, and the title of the post? well, it’s an homage that goes all the way back to 1963! Do you remember?

Cultural Differences

I have mentioned before that one’s success at any expat life is dependent upon one’s ability to adapt to cultural differences: from whatever culture you came, to whatever culture you go. External influences (age, health, money, government policies) may play a role in how long one can be an expat, but the question of how happy one is as an expat comes down to how well one can fit in. Because the culture will be different, and the culture does not adapt to you, you adapt to it. Or be unhappy.

I covered the mañana culture in Mexico before, and it is one of the large cultural changes. Coming from TYPE A America, where everything is about efficiency, speed, and acquisition (of things), moving to a culture where things . . .

will . . .

get . . .

done . . .

eventually (mañana, not necessarily tomorrow): well that takes much getting use to.

Likewise, there is the challenge of the relationship between honesty and politesse (A word I learned from the Rolling Stones, thank-you-very-much).

“Use all your well-learned politesse, or I’ll lay your soul to waste!”

People here are extremely polite, and basically honest, but emphasize more of the former than the latter. So to avoid offending you, they’ll agree with you when they really don’t, commit to something they have no intention of ever doing, answer a question they don’t actually know the answer to, or give directions to a destination they don’t know. In Mexican culture, this is all understood, and no one would get upset about it. For expats, it’s another story.

Another cultural difference I have alluded to is what I call the “Robin Hood” culture of Mexico. There is an interplay between the concepts of fairness and legality that is just different here. Drop a wallet on the street, and some local will move heaven-and-earth to get it back to you, intact with all the bills and credit cards. Why? A dropped wallet is a misfortune that could befall anyone, and it is only right and proper to help someone who has had such bad luck. These same folk think nothing of conducting as much business as possible “off-book” avoiding charging/paying the value-added tax which funds much of the government. Why? The government is viewed with suspicion, as another entity looking out only for special interests. In a similar vein, nice houses here often have a large exterior compound wall with concertina wire, broken glass and nails, or electrified fencing. Why? If you have wealth and don’t protect it, it must mean nothing to you, so some people view it as available to others who have less (hence the prevalence of petty theft). The wall and wire are statements of both privacy and security: go find someone who doesn’t care about their stuff.

Of course, if you’ve seen the Disney movie CoCo (97% on Rotten Tomatoes!!) or witnessed Dia de Muertos in person, you are familiar with how Mexico views the family and death: you take care of your own, and death is a tragicomic end not to be feared. A skeleton elicits laughs or smiles here: terror NOB. Katrinas, lovingly-maintained roadside shrines to pedestrians killed (oh, so many), and sugar-candy skulls (calaveras): very different indeed!

The final obvious difference brings these observations together: the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. A nation which emphasizes taking care of your own (vice relying on the government, which is usually corrupt or ineffective), where family is the most important thing and work something you do, not who you are? A place that laughs at death and knows how to party? Where life may be unfair, but people are ready to go the extra mile for those in need? How would they deal with a deadly, global pandemic?

Mexico is 10th largest country (in population) and 15th in GDP. They currently have over 200,000 CoVid19 cases (11th overall) and 27,000 fatalities (7th overall). Yes, there is the same mix of resentment of the government, ridiculous conspiracies, and magical thinking as other countries/populations. The medical system does better for the wealthy than the poor and is inadequate for large-scale intensive care needs. The federal government initially tried denial as a national policy and still is not stepping up to secure the economy. Yet, there is no panic. Why has the nation weathered the storm so well?

In a word: Culture. Corona beer faced a marketing catastrophe: it doubled down and came out smiling. Mexican society is more unequal than America’s (as measured by the Gini coefficient); people aren’t happy about it, but still no one is out protesting about it. The economic consequences of the lockdown have been severe, yet somehow people are getting by. Extended families look out for one another, and for neighbors and friends of friends.

Think culture matters? Nicholas Kristof had an interesting Op Ed piece in the New York Times yesterday. He detailed something called the “Hispanic Paradox.” Hispanic Americans are part of a marginalized ethnic minority, yet they drink less alcohol, commit fewer crimes, die less frequently of drug overdoses, and are less likely to commit suicide than the white majority. On top of discrimination and poverty, Hispanics are less likely to have health insurance than either black or white Americans, yet they have the longest life expectancy among those three groups. Interestingly, as immigrants give way to second- and third-generation Americans, these advantages gradually recede. The overwhelmingly largest group of Hispanic Americans? Mexican Americans.

No one cultural point (e.g., faith) explains the paradox. But anyone familiar with the culture of Mexico, its web of family and friends, its relentless sense of joy and personal satisfaction, and its acceptance of life’s indignities or death’s inevitability, would not have any difficulty explaining it.

Eponyms

Don’t look it up: you know the word already! When the band Boston cut their record-selling first album, you certainly heard a radio DJ refer to it as their “eponymous” album, and somehow you figured out the album title was just their name. Eponyms, names which develop a permanent meaning on their own, have a long history. For the person, they are a source of immortality: statues can be torn down (oh. can they!), histories forgotten (or never learned), but words, they long outlast us.

Sometimes brands become eponyms: most people reach for a kleenex when they sneeze, and who doesn’t google something they don’t know? But for individuals, it’s a rare honor. Well, there was ancient Sissyphus, who gave us our favorite adjective for endlessly uncompleted work. Dr. Mesmer sold us a technique to hypnotize, and Elbridge Gerry donated a political tool for manipulating elections. Then there is Charles Cunningham, or at least that was the name he used during a visit to the States in 1881.

Charles was an English land agent and tenant-farm owner in 19th century Ireland. He was not particularly mean or greedy (for his type), but was still disliked by the Irish peasants who worked his lands. After a dispute over rents, the peasants decided to stop working for him, and encouraged (in the way only the Irish can, with a shillelagh) everyone else in the locality to join in. No bread from the bakery, no mail from the postboy, no goods from the grocery. Charles had to call on Orangemen from Ulster to salvage his crops, protected by soldiers, at his expense. There was no violence (sure and begorrah, a miracle), but the costs to Charles were ruinous, forcing him to leave Ireland for good. He left with his reputation intact, but not his good name. See, his full name was Charles Cunningham Boycott, and his name came to signify the kind of protest which brought him near to ruin.

The Irish peasants’ rebellion against Mr. Boycott was peaceful, proportionate, and purposeful, to borrow the three rules I suggested for protests. Peaceful, since while there were insinuations of potential violence by both sides (and a long history of real violence), none happened this time. Proportionate since they limited their actions: they didn’t shutdown the province or target his relations. Purposeful in that Mr. Boycott was the source of the protestors’ concern: they left the Orangemen, the Crown, and the Union Jack out of it. Oh, and they were successful!

Which is a long way of getting to the subject of boycotts. In today’s hyper-partisan world, where all things associated with the other side are not only wrong, they are evil, boycotts are much called for. There is always a danger in such actions: what if the target is not whom you thought? What if otherwise innocent people are harmed? How well do you know the actions, reasons, and intentions of the party for whom you’re supporting a boycott? Ah, nevermind!

As a helpful guide to all sides looking to avoid conducting business with evil, I’ve gathered the data (and sources, at the hyperlinks). I’ll use the general terms Republican and Democrat, as that is the way campaign contributions are counted in the States. The data actually shows how the employees of a given firm donate, as the companies themselves cannot do so under federal law.* And I’ll note where some the donations break equally, but what does that mean? Does it demonstrate evenhandedness, or a particularly amoral view that as long as they give roughly equivalent money to both sides, they’re safe from partisanship (but guilty of hypocrisy)?

As to the links, Business Insider covers the Fortune 500 top donating companies here. Progressives seem much taken with boycotts, so the Progressive Shopper has a site (and a Chrome extension) to guide you. They go beyond the basics of who-gives-how-much-to-whom and include such other issues as “Fox News Advertisers” and “pink-washing.” Finally, Goods Unite Us lets you have the data as an app.

Staying on the correct side of the lines is complicated. Democrats would want to fly only British Airways, Virgin Airways, or something called Evergreen International Airlines. Except that last one has longstanding ties to the CIA! Republicans are safe with United, American, and Southwest, but Delta splits down the middle. Anyway, Boeing and Lockheed Martin give almost equal money to both sides, so you’re going to need to check the make of your plane in addition to the airline, to remain unsullied.

Republicans will have to do without FaceBook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, ATT, Verizon, and Intel, so learn to program with Java, operate on Linux, and can you still get dial-up? Since they have so much time on their hands without the internet, Republicans can shop at Home Depot and Publix, use Revlon products, and eat at Chick-fil-A and Papa John’s, all off-limits to true believer Democrats.

No gassing up at Exxonmobil for Democrats, no caffeinating at Starbucks for Republicans. According to the money, Amazon is sort of ok for Democrats, but they “are a Fox News advertiser, enable the gun industry, fund anti-abortion politicians, ‘pinkwash’ LGBT+ rights, and dodge taxes” . . . but don’t even think of shopping at EBay or WalMart instead! Most major financial institutions split evenly, as does Johnson & Johnson, Best Buy, and Target. Best to check further first. Exhausting, no?

Yet that’s the easy part. How to discern the implications of the policies of a major multinational? Apple is famous for standing up to the US government to protect the privacy of its customers, but enables China’s government to spy on its own citizens. What about the difference between a corporation and its franchises? What about the individuals? Is the manager at your local REI a tree-hugger or a survivalist boogaloo boy? How would you know? If you really care (and that’s the point, isn’t it?), most states have laws requiring public records of campaign donations. So you can check these things out.

Federal records, check. State records, check.

Boycotts can be an effective, if sometimes slow-acting, tool: the treatment of South Africa under the apartheid regime is a case in point. They can be faster and more effective when done locally (per Mr. Boycott). Yet there is a difference between holding someone accountable for their direct actions and shunning them for some second or third-order relationship. Life seems so much easier when lived in a bubble of certainty: “don’t be evil” as Google proclaimed. But the truth is so much more difficult to face. So have at it, but remember: no excuse for not knowing, the data is out there, if you really care.

*Yes, it is possible for companies to create PACs and use other means to funnel money to candidates, parties, and campaigns, but that just muddies the water further.

La Lluvia

Pronounced “la YU-vi-a”, it is Spanish for the rain. Frequent readers will notice that I have tried to wax rhapsodic about the coming of the rainy season. I don’t think people who live with intermittent rains all year long can really understand what it’s like to go without rain for six months. There is a dryness in the air that, like the polvo (dust) from the road, gets into the very soul. The omnipresent sun, such a blessing, becomes a curse only shade can aleve. There is a reason, I believe, the word arid in English has negative connotations in climate and relationships. The old joke “yeah, but it’s a dry heat” is only a joke told in temperate climates.

Here in the waning days of June, any precipitation is a cause for expectation. Is this it: the end of the dry season, the beginning of the rain? Even the year after a year of record rainfall (when some locals were worried about the potential for flooding because the lake had not receded much and the rainy season was about to begin): yes, even then we welcomed the advent of the rains.

In the temperate world, rain requires context. A drenching rain in summer cools off the land, while the cold rains of Spring are a plague (ask me about my Camino!). Rain in the winter yields the careful calculation of the freezing point. In the workaday world, rain meant accidents and delays on crowded highways. Rain on a long run might be acceptable, but rain on a picnic: no.

Here it is different. Rain changes everything, and heralds the best time of the year. During the dry season, water your plants everyday or they die, unless you choose (like me) to plant succulents native to this high desert plateau. During the rainy season, water the garden mañana. The extra fine coating of dust which nightly overlays your terracotta tile floor, suggesting an ice rink, magically disappears. The strategic positioning of curtains–to block the relentless sun–and fans–to promote circulation–are suddenly unnecessary. Each evening, clouds do the blocking and winds whip up (whence tonight?) to clear the air.

Then the rain: cooling, thunderous, at times horizontal and changing cardinal directions at a moment’s notice. And of course the freshness that is everywhere after a good hard rain. When we first moved here, I would scurry to close the windows from the capricious rain. Then I realized that the water just collects on the tile, and you brush it out the door or let it dry and so what?

Reign on me!

It is saddening that the snowbirds who overwinter here in Mexico mostly miss the rainy season. The transition period, when our flora move from Phoenix to Honolulu, when the temperature briefly flirts with too hot before settling into wonderful, and the sun passes from scorching to friendly: that is what makes some call it paradise.

The Ides of June are well past, so we’ll have no early start to the rainy season. But start it will. It rained once last week, and then again two nights back. And now again last night. There is something different in the air, and it is as welcome as an old friend.