Callin' Shenanigans: #iamonestudent

Welcome back to "Callin' Shenanigans!" In everyone's favorite Mainer segment, I call out get on a soapbox and wax quasi-intellectual about things I think are even just a little bit dumb.

While reading Doug Muder's excellent news blog The Weekly Sift, I saw he had posted a link to the following "powerful video about men's responsibility for sexual assault," in which college students get real real about the issue.

Now, I agree that this video is excellent in that it calls out us dudes for our persistent tendency to use language that suggests to women that it's THEIR responsibility to avoid being harassed or attacked. Language that casually blames women for sexual assault. What the narrator was saying was so true, even for someone 8 years removed from college, that I found it hard to look directly at his eyes while he told me that meaning well doesn't cut it. It seemed too raw somehow, like I was realizing I wasn't nearly as innocent of oppressive tendencies as I had allowed myself to believe.

My privilege aside, a couple things about the video itself made me itch a bit. And since this is my blog, I get to blow those things way out of proportion.

First, did you really need to make that many sports metaphors in a 6-minute video? You're acting like the only way to get guys to the table on this whole gender equality thing is to make them think they're talking about The Big Game instead.

I call shenanigans. Not every guy thinks and speaks in terms of sports-- base-running, offense/defense mentality, those terms are unhelpful for men who don't or can't relate to that lifestyle, which is going to limit the potential for uptake of the important points the video makes.

It could be argued that the video's target demographic is only that sort of collegiate fraternity <----> athletics axis, the last great adolescent bro-down before you have to go and deal with the "real world." That's traditionally one of the strongest things underpinning the patriarchal aspects of our culture, and it hits men at a critical period in their development. But there's a large (and growing) segment of the male population that doesn't relate to that world and that has its own sinister, often internet-based ways of marginalizing women (think Gamergate.) So basically, the language of the video limits its audience and reach unnecessarily.

A second, and related, point. The man speaking issues multiple demands that men stop lazily relying on a culture permissive of our supposed base aggression and lack of caring. He argues that it's time for us to prove that we have evolved past the point of being cavemen clubbing cavewomen and excusing ourselves because it's just our nature. By debasing women, we create animals of ourselves.

I call shenanigans. He makes an excellent point, of course. But when I sent the video to a friend who shares my low level of sports literacy, his response was "Looks like something I, as a cretinous male, might be able to understand." Yuh.

So you're saying... it's MEN that mostly do sexual assaults to women???

The narrator invites us to evolve our thinking, but again, his language assumes that we won't understand unless that message is couched in sports terms, because we're dumb guys. It's almost an invitation to revert to outdated, tribal thinking. The message and the messenger appear to be at cross-purposes-- he deploys a vocabulary and a set of metaphors germane to a thought pattern he simultaneously asks us to abandon.

Maybe creating cognitive dissonance was the objective, since it might lead us to really examine our perceptions, which could lead in turn to a positive shift in attitude. I'm just not sure how successful it was. Definitely watch and share the video all the same, since carpet-bombing the male persuasion with several brands of this stuff might just work.

Total shenanigans: 2
Lifetime shenanigans: 4

Bonus shenanigans: I honestly had the urge to call shenanigans on myself a number of times while writing this post. I wondered whether I was really evaluating the video on its own merits, rather than just what I wish it had said, which is like Critical Analysis 101. Was I manufacturing flaws in order to avoid confronting an uncomfortable truth about myself and my entire sex?

No. I'm way too evolved for that.

Thanks for reading.

--AWG

I might be a prototype, but we're both real inside.

How Many Incidents in a Trend?

I've lived a pretty sheltered life, OK? Never been mugged or attacked (while in the U.S.), never had my house broken into, never even had a cabbie try to rip me off. That I can remember.

But when you live in a city and work in a crowded, public building, you're constantly reminded to maintain "situational awareness," hold your phone with both hands, avoid this or that area at night, and "when you see something, say something."

D.C. used to be known variously as "Drama City" and the "murder capital" of America during the 80s and 90s, as the violent crime rate soared high above our stunted southern skyline. Things have improved vastly in the past 20 years or so, though the revitalization has brought its own set of problems. But I've always felt mostly safe in the four neighborhoods I've lived in since moving here.

In the past few weeks though, my neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant/Columbia Heights has seen more than its fair share of incidents- some robberies, a stabbing, bike-borne smartphone theft, and a group of youth who attacked a woman at random. I even saw two guys fighting, like literally trying to beat the crap out of each other, on the corner of 14th and Irving, the unofficial hub of Columbia Heights. Oh, and yesterday some muggers shot a guy 2 blocks from my house.

And now some of the commentary on our neighborhood blogs like PoPville and New Columbia Heights express a lot of anxiety over a general uptick in crime and blight in our neighborhood(s) over the past 2 years, backsliding from all the progress that had been made.

I've never had a head for numbers, and I was not the star of statistics class in college. But I did learn one very important critical thinking skill there: don't let "vivid cases," exemplary incidents that stand out in your mind, trick you into seeing a pattern where there isn't one. Obviously we're nowhere near the levels of crime and blight that the long-neglected neighborhoods east of the Anacostia have been dealing with. Everything is relative, and even these small incidents no doubt burn brightly in the minds of people not used to seeing them. But what sort of predictive power do they have, if any?

So a thought for this weekend is "how many incidents does it take to make a pattern?" Is my adopted home actually backsliding, and if so, how worried should I be? Or, are these just the fits and starts of a neighborhood and city in an ongoing transition, and I should pay less attention to upper-middle class (mostly) white-gentrifier anxiety over crime?

Maybe the police could release some statistics already so we'd be able to know for sure.      

--AWG

Justice for Thomas Palermo

Wow, a driver is actually getting charged for killing a cyclist.

Bishop Heather Cook, left, indicted this week on 13 charges in the death of Thomas Palermo, right.
Cook struck and killed Palermo with her car in December. 

If you're a cyclist, you get used to hearing stories about other cyclists being hit and killed by drivers every couple weeks or so. And it's really discouraging.

Usually, the outcome is that the driver faces no consequences of any kind: he couldn't see her; he was distracted by his new car smell and couldn't focus on the road; she didn't notice the bike frame stuck under her bumper for 10 miles, these are all just terrible accidents. 

Those are real things that have happened by the way, I'm only not linking to them because I can't find the reports. The blame is all too often placed on the cyclist in order to excuse the driver: he should have been wearing brighter clothing; she should have ridden on the sidewalk; WHY didn't he wear a helmet?

Our limitless capacity for victim-blaming aside, Bike Snob NYC and others have made much of the societal pathology, embedded in America but increasingly rare in other developed nations, that leads us to view rampant traffic deaths (National Safety Council nationwide estimate: 35,200 in 2013, most caused by cars) as an acceptable cost of doing business, rather than a mind-boggling public health crisis that demands immediate attention.

So it's refreshing to see the justice system working at least in this one instance. The beginning of a new era? Maybe. But this particular case has several aggravating factors that would have made the usual "I didn't see him" defense ring *real* hollow, including that Bishop Cook may have been drunk and texting at the time, and initially left the scene of the crash (allegedly.) I guess it takes a crash that egregious to suggest the driver may be at fault after all.

Word is, she's been at a treatment center since the incident, which is probably good- though there's no excuse for killing someone with your car, drug and alcohol addiction is as every bit as serious a public health issue as traffic fatalities, and she obviously needs help.

Burning questions around Bishop Cook remain, including how much the Episcopal Diocese knew about her possible alcohol abuse and what might have been done to prevent Tomas Palermo's death. I've always had a lot of respect for the Episcopal Church for their progressive stance on gender and LGBT issues, and it would be really unfortunate if they had missed an opportunity to help prevent this tragedy.

Below I have some additional musings on this event's relationship to other current issues. They may or may not be in entirely good taste, so only read it if you want to. If you do, I hope you'll understand it's my attempt to process some conflicting thoughts and I intend no offense to anyone.

I also can't help but wonder-- what if it had been a different guy she killed? Palermo is an intensely sympathetic figure: good-looking, father of a young child, well-known in the community...and a middle-class white dude.
In the last couple years, so many families were denied justice for lost loved ones whose most serious crime seemed to be having dark skin. And those responsible for the killings faced no consequences whatsoever. Meanwhile, the country was having inappropriate arguments over how sympathetic the victim had been/not been, as if impugning their character could somehow make less deserving of life, as if looking for a way to blame their fate on their own actions. And it was really unacceptable. So I'm torn between feeling satisfaction that a member of one vulnerable group (that I'm a member of), non-car road users, may receive some justice, and sadness that millions of people in other marginalized communities continue to seek it in vain. Even worse, their dead brothers and fathers and sons become the subject of morbid debate and the same victim-blaming that cyclists feel so keenly, and over which they have even less (zero) control.

So there we have it. If you're hearing about this ongoing saga for the first time (or if you're not,) I encourage you to go offer your support to the Washington Area Bicyclist Association and Baltimore Bicycle Club, or your local cycling advocacy group, as they work to mainstream cycling in (y)our area, increase alternative transit opportunities, and help ensure that people can get where they're going safely, regardless of how they choose to get there. Thanks for reading, and ride/drive/walk/Metro/helicopter safe!

--AWG

...in a style Clark Gable would have admired...

Callin' "Shenanigans"

***UPDATE 6/5/15*** I'm giving Jeb a bonus shenanigans for JUST THIS WEEK declaring that's he's ABOUT to declare his candidacy, weeks after leasing a campaign headquarters and having had plenty of time to court wealthy potential donors. We should know more mid-June. Nice job sidestepping campaign finance law, Governor! Original post begins below.

Welcome to the very first "Callin' Shenanigans", a new Mainer segment where I call out complain histrionically about stupid things or people I see in the news. Today, we check in with a certain prospective Republican candidate for president in 2016:

Uh-hurrr, hiya little lady, ya wanna join my exploratory co-mitty?

Yes, Jeb Bush was in not-so-rare form in Detroit today, reminding low-income people to be afraid, be very afraid, of liberals and all their anti-poor policies. See, you might think that the potential standard-bearer of a party so wildly supportive of letting corporate profits skyrocket while workers' wages stagnate would tread a little more carefully when it comes to The Poors.

But no, you don't understand, it's a failure of "liberal government policies" that have created, not a social safety net, but a "spider web" to ensnare people in the trap of government dependence. Which is why his party wants you to have to take drug tests before you get can welfare. Jeb wants to get you out of that web! After all, it's not like any of the responsibility for Detroit's economic suffering can be traced to any of the GOP's pro-corporate, anti-regulation policies that led to the Great Recession, which hit Detroit particularly hard.

I call shenanigans.

Governor Bush then launched another salvo at pro-government progressives, who act like we need to govern our way out of major societal problems or something: "The progressive and liberal mindset believes that to every problem there is a Washington, DC solution, but that instinct doesn't solve any problems."

Okay, seriously, how many more times are we going to let the Jeb Bushes, the Marco Rubios, and the Ted Cruzes (Cruces? Cruz'ses?) get away with saying how harmful "government" is while being/aspiring to be a major public official? It's not even like they're saying they wanna fix government, no, they seem to want us just...not to have one. Government keeps people down and overcomplicates problems and it needs to get in the back of the bus. Until it's time to secure the border or defeat Islamic State, that is, in which case, all hands on...the ground. In boots. On the deck. Hands on deck tying your boots to the ground?

Either way, you can't verbally assault the government and governing in every speech, and then tell people to make you the literal head of the government. And that is why...

...I call shenanigans.

Total "shenanigans" (shenaniganses? shenanigii?): 2

So thanks for reading joining us on "Callin' Shenanigans," a new whenever-I-get-to-it-ly segment where I'll probably piss off a lot of conservatives and car-centric urban planning advocates. I hope you'll join us next time for something else I think is dumb!

--AWG 

...the beauty of this mess it that it brings me close to you.

Taking My Leave

Arthritis? Like, seriously, arthritis. The thing that happens to old people...? 

As I glanced listlessly around the waiting room in my third week of sick leave, watching my fellow patients shuffle in and out, it occurred to me that, except for Amanda, I was the youngest person there by a good wide margin.

That wasn't so weird in and of itself, I've had mostly older friends for most of my adult life. But we're talking a few years here, not decades. Yet there I sat, suddenly having something deeply in common with all these people who look like they're getting ready for retirement.

So what, right? I mean, illnesses and injuries know no age. Except, some of them kinda do, I thought.

My doctor started to explain his diagnosis-- that the condition that had kept me laid up, stiff, and in pain for the past month was, in fact, a form of arthritis. The knowledge that my 30th birthday was rapidly approaching seemed like some cosmic joke, I had never felt older than I did in that moment. I mean, wasn't arthritis something that...OLD people got? You don't see any guys my age in those commercials for Aleve and Humira and stuff.

At the same time, I was glad to finally have at least a good idea of what was wrong with me. Ever since I woke up the day before Thanksgiving barely able to bend my knee or put weight on one leg, I'd run (figuratively) through a month-long series of doctor visits, X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, insurance co-pays, more visits, and more tests. I also got to hobble around the United Nations on crutches, but that's another story.

But the worst thing was giving constant, rambling explanations to friends and family members:

"Well, I might have gout, so no I shouldn't have that beer..."

"Maybe I've got Lyme disease..."

"Yeah, that's true, I could have a repetitive motion injury from riding my bike that somehow damaged multiple joints, good suggestion..."

While standing outside the pharmacy waiting on a prescription, I had totally ignored a friend who passed by me without recognizing who I was. Hadn't showered in three days, hadn't shaved in twice as long, looking like some crippled unabomber under my hat and sunglasses, and I didn't feel at all up to social interaction OR another attempt to explain why I was leaning on crutches.

So at least I knew now, and could explain my situation to others. My situation felt less desperate, and I resumed showering daily. The thing about a diagnosis, though, is that it's the beginning, not the end. The beginning of an extended period of recovery punctuated by shots and pills, one that would keep me out of work, off my feet, and off my bike for at least a few more weeks. At least it would happen during the crummiest time of the year, weather-wise.

Another month, some holidays, bouts of mild depression a lot of reading, and a few video games later, I'm walking again (albeit with a cane,) and looking at finally getting back to work and back to my life within the next week or so. I've burned through all my sick and vacation time, and have quite a few people to thank for donating their own leave time to help me out.

We don't know yet whether this is something I'll deal with for the rest of my life, only every so often, or never again. Probably one of the first two. Having your first major medical diagnosis at age 30 is strange, but I'll count myself lucky since I managed to avoid any real issues for that long. So here's to recovery, here's to having a job with good health insurance, and here's to the people around me who I can count on to help me get through the hard stuff.

--AWG

Something keeps a river from sinking to the ground. 

The Rant

Well, Republicans, it looks like you've finally wrested control of America back from the godless liberals.

You've got majorities in both houses of Congress, and only an unpopular president to push back against your agenda. It's your turn to shine. Your time to put in play all of the great initiatives and policies you couldn't under the tyrannical Obama White House, and repeal all of those overreaching laws that have stifled American freedoms since January 2009.

Or not.

I'm far from optimistic about a Republican-controlled legislature. But maybe, just maybe, I'm not giving them a fair chance. After all, I was barely out of college when Obama was elected, I've never been a real adult while Republicans ran things.

So go ahead, GOP, prove me wrong. Prove that you can govern, rather than just oppose. That you thought a little further ahead than getting Barack Obama out of office or turning him into a lame duck. That "get my way or threaten to burn the house down" isn't your only move.

Prove me wrong, GOP. Don't kick off the legislative session by passing regressive social policies limiting a woman's right to choose, gay couples' right to be equal to straight couples before the law, and immigrants' right to have a fair shot at staying here legally. Prove to me that you haven't had your eyes closed as America changes around you, that you're not clinging to some hallowed American golden age that never really existed except for an extremely lucky few. Oh, and maybe let the District of Columbia pass the laws its voters want for a session or two. Just a thought.

Prove me wrong, GOP. Don't continue to champion laws and financial regulations that benefit the extremely wealthy at the expense the poor, the middle classes, and everyone else, or let corporate employers oppress their workers under some twisted definition of "religious freedom." Stop pretending that the slow erosion of white, male, Christian privilege constitutes a "war" on anything other than the rampant inequity that our civilization has grappled with ever since the first settlers landed and decided they owned the place.

Prove me wrong, GOP. Stop our political leadership on both sides of the aisle from babbling about the self-evident greatness of American values and leadership. From acting as though, if we believe in America hard enough, everything will be awesome again. Stop standing up for clowns like Gov. Paul LePage of Maine, who carries on about American ideals while obviously having no clue what those ideals are.

Instead, take action that will restore, rather than further damage, America's leadership role in the world. If you can't do that, at least help us gratefully transition out of the superpower years and into a quieter, though still important, role on the global stage. I'd suggest starting with a renewed national focus on human rights at home and abroad, on protecting our civil liberties from law enforcement and security forces, on recognizing the right to health care and development. Or perhaps you could begin by putting a stop to our economic policy of writing checks that future generations (and our planet) can't cash, and instead pushing yourselves and the rest of us to wake up to climate science and make real progress on tackling the global changes that are going to threaten us throughout the next century.

But most importantly, prove me wrong about the fate of our democratic process. Prove to me that you came to power on the strength of a message that's attractive to the majority of Americans, rather than by making it almost impossible for the people who don't support you to even vote.  Prove to me that elections and legislation haven't been bought and paid for by the moneyed interests of the 1%, whose agenda you are conspicuously supportive of.

Your move, guys. We're all waiting. Prove me wrong.

Oh, and enjoy having no one else to blame if Congress continues to get nothing done.

--AWG

...we'd join the politicians, and we know we'd be well-fed/ we'd sleep no more upon the ground but in a feather bed... 

On the Secret Service: You know who else had an SS?

That's right, it was Hitler.

OK, so our (S)ecret (S)ervice is much less horrible. But thanks to them, it looks like the security perimeter around the White House might be getting a lot bigger.

Next time you're binge-watching Scandal or whatever on Netflix, take a minute to check out an old episode of "The West Wing". An early episode, I mean. They're all old, by now. You'll see stock establishing shots of cars and buses going by the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue back when it was still an Avenue, before it became a sprawling plaza cordoned off by Secret Service on either end.

But not much of DC survived the post-9/11 security blitz, and the White House most certainly didn't. And that's OK, I actually like the new Penn Ave. I ride through it every day going to and from work, and it's much more pleasant for bikes and pedestrians than I imagine the old Penn would have been. Sometimes a motorcade shuts it down completely, which is inconvenient, but that's just a fact of life here in Drama City.

Last weekend, though, some nutcase troubled former Army sniper named Omar J. Gonzalez jumped the security barriers with a hatchet down his pants and got through the White House's front door before being stopped by a guard. And now they want to turn the whole area into a fortress, and screen every single tourist, employee, or resident trying to go anywhere within a few blocks.

Local commentators (obviously) have roundly condemned that potential move, citing major disruptions to the lives of Washingtonians and our visitors. It's just the latest reminder that D.C. does not belong to the people who live here, but to the federal government, and increasingly to federal security forces.

My fear, though, is that a larger cordon around the White House will have the support of most of the country, because it'll be framed as an anti-terror tactic, and anyone who opposes it will be in league with terrorists or something. Citizens' concerns will be silenced, as ever, in the name of "security."

Oh, and because D.C. residents have no voting member of Congress to advocate for us. That doesn't help either.

I mean, I get that this is kerfuffle is kinda embarrassing for the Secret Service, and they need to be seen as taking decisive action. But I can't help fixating on this one minor detail: the guard at the door stopped Gonzalez. Gonzalez never got a chance to menace the first family, at all.

Doesn't that mean that the security measures in already place... worked?

"Oh, but he should never have gotten that far to begin with," cry the hawks. Fine. Probably not. But passive security measures like bollards, fences, and scanning checkpoints are never going to completely prevent a single person from slipping past on rare occasions, and we'd be naive to pretend that they ever will.

People jump the White House fence all the time. That's why we have trained, armed human beings and riled-up dogs standing behind those barriers. If anything, the Secret Service needs to review its procedures and maybe beef up patrols. Or, as Petula Dvorak argues, lock the front door. The measures they're discussing now just smack of encroaching totalitarianism. It's not worth further restricting our freedom of movement in the nation's capital just to make a big show of subjecting thousands of workers and residents, along with millions of tourists, to even more rigorous screening even further from the White House.

Because it'll be exactly that. A show. A really big, really expensive show to meant to stop something really bad that didn't really happen from not happening again.

Really?

--AWG