Buy a gun! Hurry! Quick!

Trigger happy

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. – 2nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The U.S. Constitution is much like the Bible – a guide that citizens of different leanings find multiple ways to interpret. I have so far perceived three big ways that both can be read: as absolute truth to be taken literally word for word; as parables written to teach a moral lesson and to be applied to the bigger picture; as a reflection of the culture and society of the time, and so a re-interpretation through the lens of contemporary world organization is necessary to apply the moral lessons.

I don’t believe the three are mutually exclusive, although strict constitutionalists would disagree. I do believe it’s time we have a national discussion about the meaning of the most difficult passages of one of our founding documents, and perhaps reach a peaceful impasse – an agreement to disagree and do what’s best.

It is a phenomenal reflection on the advancement and stability of our society that we have preserved the same constitution since our nation’s birth. In this world, that continuity is extremely rare. Many nations change their constitutions as often as they elect new leaders. But that presents us with the problem of modernization. 

The 2nd Amendment is tricky. It was written in a time when societies were more rural, the right to vote belonged to few, and the use of weapons was still a reasonable method of challenging and changing government power. People remembered literally having to physically defend themselves from the king’s men. It was also written when centralized government power was feared above all else, and the states desired strong militias to defend themselves from a king-like national force. To maintain those militias, individuals needed to keep weapons because they were part of informal armies. (It was also written when most weapons took a long time to load a single shot.)

Now, as we sing the praises of democracy, which includes the power of the vote, weapons are an unreasonable method of protection from a government that commands the most powerful national military in the world. The presidents we have elected have – over time – accumulated tremendous powers not explicitly written into the constitution, and yet we continue to want an explicit interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. 

It’s hard to accept a strict interpretation when I read about how a small child trick-or-treating in my city was killed by an AK-47 on Halloween night. The owner of the weapon had multiple drug and robbery charges against him, and thought someone was trying to break into his house. He blasted over 20 rounds through his front door before looking out, killing the child and wounding his family members. 

It’s hard to accept a strict interpretation when people stretch “security of the free State” to leisure activities and try to justify their ownership of assault weapons because they’re fun to shoot at the range on the weekend. What else are you going to do with it: Take to the streets in protest with that gun high above your head? I doubt anyone really wants our country to descend into the kind of anarchy and thoughtless, violent reactions that we see around the world. 

I understand that tailoring constitutional rights is a slippery slope, but I often wonder if a happy medium couldn’t be reached based on collective reason, instead of an all-or-nothing, selfish view.

Time for Something Substantive

How about educating a public that doesn’t understand the presidency to begin with?

The Daily Show described this election season well: It’s like a man on Viagra who’s had an erection for three hours and 58 minutes and is on the verge of having to go to the hospital. Why can’t it just be over already? 

Reporters are running out of things to talk about concerning the candidates (and going mad in the process). I’d like to make a suggestion. Instead of digging for miniscule and irrelevant details, or rehashing the same themes fed to them relentlessly by the campaigns, why not start writing informational pieces concerning how the presidency functions? (Click here for what the Constitution has to say.) It’s extremely complicated, way more so than we treat it on a daily basis. A couple of problems are due for correction:

• The public assumes the president has far greater powers than they actually do, and what single-handed powers the president does have aren’t openly discussed. Things like signing statements and executive orders (often law-like acts that come into being with the flash of a president’s pen) are closely guarded and not PR-friendly because they eschew the checks and balances our nation was founded on. Who a president assembles for their cabinet, appoints to head federal regulatory agencies and puts up for judge positions are arguably more important than who the president is. Let us discuss those processes. 

• Americans need to learn that it’s not all about them, the individual. Although presidential campaigns are often run on a miniscule slate of issues, they are done to appeal to wide swaths of people. It’s beautiful that we can all have a voice, but those issues constitute only a fraction of what a president has to contend with annually. With over 300 million people in the world’s most diverse melting pot, a president cannot possibly unify or satisfy everyone all the time when he has the rest of the world to deal with. A president cannot always “represent his constituents” or be a single-issue leader the way a local district congressman can, and so he/she should not be elected on such an expectation. Presidential campaigns should be about the greater good, but that’s a tough act to sell. 

Besides, as The Daily Show put it: “What are we going to find out in the last few days anyway? That Obama is half-Chinese … or that Sarah Palin is a dude? I don’t think so.”

Advice Worth Sharing

Make time before you know whether or not you’ll even have it.

Photo credit: Me. Taken in San Antonio, Tex.

Grade school teachers and college professors landed themselves in my “favorites” category when they inadvertently taught me far more than they were paid to. A phenomenal political science professor of mine used to share personal stories as they related to her class on elections and voting behavior. She rarely wandered off track, but wistfully told a story one afternoon that has stuck with me for a few years.

My professor looked up one day to find herself married and working on her doctorate in her late 20s, two things that buried her life in chaos. That year, her husband bought season tickets for the local college basketball team, something she wasn’t particularly happy about. But because he’d paid good money for the tickets, they felt obligated to attend every game, even when they were too tired, too busy or otherwise not happy about leaving the house. 

“And, wouldn’t you know, we had fun every time,” she said to the class. The wild atmosphere, cheap beers and endless hot dogs always relaxed them. They eventually formed close friendships with the other people who had season tickets in their section. She and her husband were always in a fantastic mood when they returned home from a game. And, of course, they always found a way to get all work accomplished. 

My professor’s lesson to us was to force ourselves to have fun, even when it seemed impossible or required extra juggling. She recognized that it wasn’t a very romantic statement, but she knew – as well as anyone could – that those of us dedicated to learning and public service were going to find ourselves in over our heads someday. She advised us (very seriously) to make fun plans in advance, when you don’t know that you’re going to be “too busy,” and do everything in your power to stick to them when they roll around. 

It’s a tough act to follow – I failed miserably as a college senior – but it’s advice I found worthy of passing along.

Greed and You and Me

So unhappy together.

It’s crisis time, and America is looking for someone to blame. Who better to place on the chopping block than Alan Greenspan? Congressmen and Senators who once asked the former Fed Chairman for advice and called him a market “guru” were trying to fault him as much as possible this week for the current market disasters.

Whereas the belief that companies and the market could forever police and regulate themselves was a bit far fetched (in retrospect), our national tendency to rabidly seek out a scapegoat does nothing but make the nation feel better. We need such a bandage because – God forbid – no one will look us in the eye and tell us that it’s our fault.

But we have played into the hands of widespread, cultural greed. Our own personal greed got us, and institutional, corporate greed got us. So a big chunk of the blame absolutely falls on us. The actions of many financial system players have been egregious, and we have been idiots. Credit cards may be easy to obtain, but it’s the user who is ultimately at fault for spending more than they earn, eventually digging into a debt from which there is no escape.

It’s our fault that we don’t read the fine print, or use common sense, or plan ahead, or live anywhere other than in the moment. It’s our fault that we’re so freakishly materialistic that we don’t think we can survive without a 62-inch flat screen TV or shiny rims on our cars. It’s our fault that we can’t do simple math to make budgets, save parts of our earnings and know whether or not we can afford a car over the bus or a house over an apartment.

Unfortunately, there is no one to tell us that much of this crisis is our own damn fault. There is no leader who could stand up and chastise the nation for being irresponsible and get away with it. It would be political suicide and a social disaster. Most Americans think they’re swell, and anyone who has anything to say in contrast is un-patriotic.

The Lost Twenties

A time to indulge our inner child and listen to our elders

When in your twenties and early thirties, opportunity stretches itself out before you on the endless horizon. Armed with knowledge from years spent in classrooms and the prime of life’s energy, the urge to ricochet among different dreams and goals is palpable – and probable. 

But the opposite is also true. In the ways this fresh time in life is limitless and free, it’s equally terrifying. Those of us in our twenties suddenly find ourselves bearing the weight of the future’s expectations. We lack the childlike oblivion that allowed us to dance in the mall for anyone to see, or spend our days in the comfort of our imagination and creativity. Our awareness has exploded, and we become like Adam and Eve after the Fall; we discover our self-consciousness, shame, fear and knowledge of the darker shards of human nature. 

We wield dull weaponry in our arsenal, for in our youth we lack the advantage of wisdom. We have not lived long enough to reach back and draw lessons from previous experiences. Our memories may only go back ten or 15 years, and we may have learned much better ways to deal with the things we once faced. We haven’t met enough people or been aware of the world long enough to be assured that the good will balance the bad. Some may never be assured of such things. 

So we stand before the world, bearing the weight of idealism, armed with much more bookish knowledge than practical experience, and having lost much of our childish bravery and reckless curiosity that prevented us from living in fear of failure. And at the same time, we haven’t lived long enough to know we can recover from those failures, that they will happen often, and not destroy us. 

It’s a decade or two to channel that inner child who says, “Go for it,” at the same time we must balance the words of the wise who beg us to consider consequences. The great challenge is to not spend too much time relying on the past, while pining for the future. Since we can’t gain much from either (yet), we should spend much time enjoying the moment.

Life on the Farm, Part 2

I’ve settled into a kind of quiet, floating existence. My evenings are punctuated by silence and the vast spaces of acres of farmland out my front door, and inside it: the emptiness of a large, sparsely decorated room. The farm is a phenomenal environment for perfection of craft; I can imagine no reason ever to rush anything. Indeed, I spend a great deal of time doing things deliberately and listening intently to nature. 

Because I work nine hour days, I don’t feel that two hours spent reading a book is at all wasteful. Two hours spent riding my bike every other evening doesn’t prevent me from doing “what I need to be doing” or “what I really want to be doing.” Spending two hours riding or reading is exactly what I want to be doing.

I did think about need vs. want for a moment tonight. I felt a sense of restlessness creeping up on me when I considered what I might be neglecting by giving all of my free time to cooking, reading, writing and cycling. A brief inventory of my present situation produced no urgent messages, and I let it go. 

We – as a species – are so often in a hurry and so often over-extended. My life was strictly regimented for two months on the transcontinental bike trip, and even though I enjoyed it, I was never without the company of at least one of my eight companions. So I’ll take my peace and lack of obligations and savor them slowly, rolling the solitude along the back of my tongue like a strong, flavorful drink. I’m sipping, and enjoying.

Life on the Farm

What is home?

Photo credit: Me. Taken in Americus, Ga.

I just ushered a tiny green frog out of my cottage and found myself longing for home. I have enjoyed the past week in small-town Georgia, living on a cooperative farm and working for a housing non-profit. But as I thought ahead to the next two or three weeks that I’ll remain here, I knew I’d welcome the 1,000 mile drive back to Texas when the time comes.

Comfortable and well cared-for, I had to stop and consider what “home” really means. What is it that I am missing? I live – for the moment – on a peanut farm made up of 32 people for whom community is paramount, and yet I’ve only had a long conversation with one of them. My needs are easily (and cheaply) met at the local WalMart and the people I work with have surrounded me supportively, inviting me to their homes for dinner and buying me tickets to local events so that I have something to do at night, and people I know to do it with. As content as I am on this peaceful piece of land, where there’s no TV to distract me, I feel that I live each day with my departure lingering constantly in the back of my mind. And it’s not a dread, but a bit of encouragement. I know I get to leave. Soon.

What is it that will make me feel comfortable the minute I cross the state line from Louisiana into Texas? I felt a bit of frustration this morning as I tracked down the giant ants traversing my kitchen, attempting to get them all before I made coffee. I hung my backpack on a hangar because roaches were getting in it when it sat on the floor. Is it a well-sealed house I am missing? 

What is it that will settle my soul when I-10 makes a familiar turn north? I had a thought that unnerved me: Have I really succumbed irreversibly to the sprawling cradle of suburbia? Driving around my hometown, the vast and growing expanses of national retailers gives me heartache, but if I have to drive very far to get what I need, there’s an almost equal feeling of annoyance.

Here I am in a town that knows itself well. You can never go anywhere without bumping into a friend. My hometown isn’t like that. Here, I have the opportunity to live chain-free. The road to the WalMart is flanked by fast food eateries and big-name drugstores, but downtown is tranquil and unscathed. Perhaps because of it, this town feels listless. 

It’s a horrible thought to consider the life of a place being breathed by brands. I know that’s not true. I’m plenty content in small mountain towns out west, but there, people have almost psychotic affinities for outdoor activities. (“Gear” pulls at them with an equally strong gravitational force. Alas, for better or worse, they are my people.)

I am told by many in my office that if one scratches the surface here, life can be found and things lighten up. I’m sure that’s true anywhere. Once you rub the crust from sleepy eyes, the brightness returns.

Then what is it I miss? Not air-conditioning, despite finding myself in south Georgia in late summer. Not the comforts of home; my kitchen is respectable and I think the shower and toilet are brand-new. The couch smells funny, but I solved that problem by covering it with the spare blanket. 

Indeed, I miss my fiancee more than words can express. But this is about something different. Maybe I feel guilt living on a co-op and not partaking in the cooperation. I came home yesterday to find my law mowed and felt awkward, like I should be paying whoever did it. Granted, it’s more of a shared lawn with my neighbors, but being at work all day during the week means I don’t contribute anything to the success of the farm. 

I just read an article in National Geographic Adventure magazine about a young couple who left a hip neighborhood in Brooklyn and moved to an 11,000-strong town in Vermont. Their house was out in the woods without cable or cellphone service. The author said it was not about the location – he loved his house and his office – but about one’s mindset. You have to change your way of thinking, he wrote, to accept life in any city, whether it fits you like a glove or not.

All things considered, it’s still very hard.

Re-defining Sexism

sex-ism: noun. When a woman is dissing the credentials of another woman, and a man doesn’t like it.

For a few days, journalists have been dissecting what little information they have on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Even National Public Radio, which tends to shy away from personal information about public candidates (in comparison to cable news), has been asking several people about Palin’s family. “Man on the street” interviews have produced several women who believe Gov. Palin could not possibly accomplish the globe-trotting, highly-stressful mission of being vice president with five children, a pregnant teenager and a baby with mental disabilities. 

The response of several male Republican strategists has been to label that view sexism, despite the fact that these women are usually working mothers who can’t imagine raising such a large, dynamic brood while working in the unfathomably demanding, public job of executive office. “No one says that Obama will be a bad father by being president,” the pundits say, regardless of the fact that Obama has only two children, and they are both old enough to understand a bit of what’s going on.

We have men calling women sexist, when those women are making comments about another woman based on how they’d feel in her shoes. This picture becomes even less clear when looking back at the Hillary Clinton campaign. By definition, “prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination” were rampant, though often underhanded and expelled from the side of the mouth. I never heard a man standing up for Clinton, even as women cried foul up and down every time Clinton was harassed – for example – for showing emotion. It’s a weakness in women, and a sign of depth of character in men. Without rational or reasonable explanation, this idea has stuck.

Men aren’t the only ones who can be sexist, but they also aren’t the only judges of what is and what is not a sexist remark. It is unfair to throw that back at a woman to silence her concerns, especially when it is culturally taboo to challenge charges of racism or sexism. But the pundits and strategists must know that.

Summer hiatus to do something crazy

For reasons I’ve yet to fully understand, I have chosen ride my bicycle across the country this summer with the Fuller Center for Housing on their inaugural, 3,300 mile journey. This means I will be taking a break from 10 Thousand Feet, but you can expect me back in August. In the meantime, I will keep a website with blog posts and photos from the trip at XCountry Bike Stories.

You can follow a daily team blog as well at www.fullercenterbiketrip.blogspot.com.

Holler back, Girl

The DNC bonked its head and forgot what it came in here to do.

As children, we sought solace in rules that didn’t allow others to go back on their word. Whether it was a parent’s promise to allow dessert if a pre-set number of corn kernels were eaten, or a call for “no take-backs” when playing games (meaning someone couldn’t change his or her mind midway through), we liked promises and the friends who kept them. Promises made us feel mature, adult-like and responsible.

Where were our inner children when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Rules Panel retracted their own bylaws and voted yesterday to give Florida and Michigan delegates half of their votes at the nominating convention?

Talk of fairness and strategy has proliferated, leaving behind the simple fact that to seat those delegates would be in violation of established rules. Hemming and hawing aside, a rule was broken, plain and simple. Would any of this have come up again were Clinton in the lead? How is this not simpler than sticking to an agreed-upon punishment? If a child could always debate themselves out of a time out, they’d probably never learn from their mistakes nor change their behavior.

Confused? Here’s an overview of what happened:

This all started several years ago. A May 10, 2005 memo from Phil McNamara, DNC Director of Party Affairs and Delegate Selection to Co-Chairs of the Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling summarized DNC authority: “Each presidential election cycle, the DNC issues Delegate Selection Rules to govern the selection, in each state, of the delegates to the National Convention.”

McNamara went on to remind recipients of the rules: “If a State Party’s plan does not comply with the rules, the Rules & Bylaws Committee can declare the plan in ‘non-compliance.’ Non-compliance with certain key rules-including the timing rule—results in an automatic, severe reduction in the number of delegates the state can send to the Convention.”

And thus a line was (re)drawn in the sand.

In Aug. of 2006, the DNC posted on its website rules hashed out the year before. The new election calendar set Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina as the first four states that could hold primaries, in that order. Starting Feb. 5, it was open season for the rest of the country. When Michigan moved its primary to Jan. 15 and Florida moved theirs to Jan. 29, each state was in clear violation of the rule.

Therefore, on Dec. 1 of last year, Democratic party leaders voted to strip Michigan of all its delegates to the national convention, following the same penalty they slapped on Florida in August 2005. The candidates were not allowed to campaign in either state without punishment.

Rule made, rule broken, rule-breakers punished. It seemed clear-cut, and was made even more so by Clinton’s and Sen. Barack Obama’s endorsement of the enforcement. A September 2007 press release on Clinton’s website endorsed the “Four State Plan:”

“We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process. And we believe the DNC’s rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC approved nominating calendar.”

End of story? Not quite.

Fast forward a few months. Clinton finds herself the underdog, not the front-runner, and her campaign’s tone changes. An April 2008 press release on Clinton’s website opened this way: “We have long maintained that pretending the voters of Florida and Michigan don’t exist is not fair in principle and unwise in practice.”

Maintained since when? 

It is a hallmark of America that its people are fairly good at follow rules – even mundane ones – which have ensured our generally peaceful society. Who were the people that decided the DNC’s rule did not matter? Who were the people that decided circumstance could dictate adherence? We stop at red lights even when no one else is around, so why can’t we stick to rules even when they don’t fit in to what was expected to have happened?

There is no reason that an argument for patriotism and Constitutional voting rights could not have been had months ago. No one speaks of state party official’s lack of respect for their citizens and their voting rights when they defied party rules and moved their primaries earlier in the season. It’s nice that we want to make everyone happy all the time, but we just can’t.