Taken for Granted

I don't want politicians deciding what's exciting in my life.

— David Hockney

Last year I was elected to the board of directors of our HOA by the residents of our development.

Although a thankless job, my involvement has taught me something fundamental about people.

No one wants her needs taken for granted.

That fact, I now see, forms the eye of our nation's political storm.

I've been trying for nine months, along with the other board members, to advise a group of 20 neighbors about the peril their homes face.

A commercial developer is about to build a nursing home uphill of them that will cause their properties to flood during rainstorms.

They don't care.

Not a single one of them has responded to the board's many recommendations for a course of action, nor even acknowledged the repeated emails and letters we have sent them.

They don't care.

We have been reading them wrongly.

We've been assuming flooded yards and basements would represent an inconvenience; and that they ought to worry their homes' sale prices will fall.

They don't care.

I see clearly, as a result, the dilemma every politician creates for herself by taking others' needs for granted.

As board members, our duties (which stem from state law) include the "duty of care," which means we must do our homework and make prudent decisions.

We try always to do so.

Where we went wrong in this case was to neglect to ask the 20 homeowners affected if they cared their homes will flood.

They don't care.

Imagine how peaceful the public forum would be if the politicians from both parties ceased taking our needs for granted.

Imaging if they quit deciding for us what concerns us; what we care about and need.

Imagine if they asked every constituent:

Do you need oil wells and coal mines?

Do you need to carry a gun? 

Do you need your own bathroom? 

Do you need to protect kids from 1619?

Do you need to shelter Jeff Bezos' taxable income? 

Do you need to incarcerate every criminal?

Do you need to turn back every immigrant?

Do you need to deny an abortion to a woman you'll never meet?

Do you need to guarantee that food costs less in Cuba, that Palestinians can find jobs, or that Afghanis can read Teen Vogue?

Do you need the federal budget balanced?

Just imagine if the politicians asked us those questions.

They'd find out, like the owners of the 20 homes in my HOA, we don't care. We have totally other needs.

What a wonderful world this would be.

The Nero Decree

We may be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us.

— Adolf Hitler

While retreating from the Soviet Union in 1944, the Nazis used Schwellenpflüge ("rail rippers") to destroy Russia's railroads.

The Schwellenpflug (literally "crosstie plow") was a railcar that dragged an immense hook behind it.

The hook splintered the crossties under the rails, leaving the railway useless.

Officially named the Krupp C24, thousands of Schwellenpflüge were deployed by Germany to enemy nations throughout the war.

Sowing destruction was not a military tactic, but a scorched-earth policy known among Hitler's inner circle as the "Nero Decree."

“Our nation’s struggle for existence forces us to use all means to inflict lasting damage on the striking power of the enemy,” Hitler wrote in the decree.

The Nero Decree was the product of a fanatic whose ruthless Darwinism knew no bounds.

Today, another fanatical Darwinist, Trump, has his own Nero Decree.

It mandates the deaths of thousands of Republicans—Republicans too weak to overthrow the federal government. 

His Schwellenpflug isn't a railcar, but a microbe we call Covid-19. 

It, too, has hooks.

They rip through Republicans like a red-hot knife slices butter.

Since January 6, tens of thousands have died.

Many more will die in the coming months. 

But what of it? 

To Trump, they're just "losers" who are "actually made of garbage."

The line between between sanity and madness, like the line between victory and defeat, is thin.

POSTCRIPT: In Landslide, journalist Michael Wolff describes Trump's contempt for his followers: “Trump often expressed puzzlement over who these people were, their low-rent 'trailer camp' bearing and their 'get-ups,' once joking that he should have invested in a chain of tattoo parlors and shaking his head about 'the great unwashed.'" Like Hitler's, Trump's Darwinism debases everyone outside his family circle—even his most ardent followers.

Character Defects

 Perhaps you are right, Watson. I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one.

— Arthur Conan Doyle

The Wall Street Journal reports that drug overdose deaths rose nearly 30% last year. 

A record 93,300 deaths occurred.

Most were due to abuse of fentanyl, the illegal opioid said to be 50 times more stimulating than heroin.

Sherlock Holmes would alarm Dr. Watson by injecting a mere seven percent solution of cocaine. 

Imagine if he'd had access to fentanyl.

Public health officials blame last year's deaths on the hardship, dislocation, and isolation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

I don't buy what the officials are peddling.

Addiction is due to character defects.

Well-meaning doctors insist otherwise, but a naïve ignorance of life explains their mistake.

They spend too much time chumming with colleagues, too little with addicts.

Dr. Watson knew better. He spent countless hours with an addict.

Watson would often scold Holmes for using a narcotic the detective called "transcendently stimulating."

"Your brain may be roused and excited," Watson would say, "but it is a pathological and morbid process. You know what a black reaction comes upon you."

Watson understood it was Holmes' raging egotism that drove him to shoot up. 

I've met enough people in recovery to know addicts' dependence stems from the drive to paper over character defects like pride, shame, hate, cowardice, and laziness.

Covid-19 didn't kill the 93,300 Americans who overdosed last year.

Neither did fentanyl.

Unresolved character defects did.

Above: Victorian syringe kit.

Birds Sing from the Heart, Revisited

Five years ago this week, author Erik Deckers invited me to guest-post on his blog. "Birds Sing from the Heart" was the result, one that still holds up years later. Here it is in its entirety.

Erik recently invited me to discuss “My Writing Process,” a dead-horse topic if there ever were one.

But I’ll beat that horse anyway, just because Erik asked.

Here you go:

Where I find ideas. The wellsprings of ideas are many and inexhaustible. The ones I return to again and again are:

• Other writers—from the sublime (e.g., Emerson, Faulkner, Sartre, Updike) to the ridiculous (names withheld)
  
• Pop culture (songs, movies, TV shows, blogs, etc.)
  
• Current events (AKA La Comédie humaine)
  
• Memories, dreams, reflections
  
• Other people’s observations (my wife’s, in particular)

How I write the ideas down. My secret sauce is no secret. Writing isn’t thinking. It isn’t even writing. “Writing is revision,” as Tracy Kidder says. “Write once, edit five times,” David Ogilvy urged office mates.” Priceless advice. Your fifth draft may not excel, but it will beat your first by a long shot. And, as you edit five times, be like the birds. An ornithologist mentioned during a recent NPR interview that birds’ voice boxes are lodged deep within their chests. “Birds sing from the heart,” she said. You should, too. Readers like it and will respond accordingly.

How I assure quality. Copy’s never error free, but I try hard to check my facts. In fact, I often spend more time fact-checking sources than writing and editing. (Don’t hem and haw: fact-checking is enlightening.) And I proofread, both twice before I hit publish and twice afterwards. Boring task, but my reputation’s on the line.

How I spread ideas. Outposting has helped aggrandize my scribblings more than any of my other activities. Adman Gary Slack advises clients to invest in “other people’s audiences” more than their own. He’s 100% on the money.

For more advice about writing. If you’re hungry for sound advice, listen to Paul Simon and Chuck Close discuss the creative process in a podcast for The Atlantic. You’ll learn more than you will by reading 50 how-to books, with these four noteworthy exceptions:

• The Art and Craft of Feature Writing by William E. Blunder
• On the Art of Writing Copy by Herschel Gordon Lewis
• Secrets of a Freelance Writer by Bob Bly
• Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark

Oh yeah, don’t forget No Bullshit Social Media.

Above: Little Bird by Jose Trujillo. Oil on canvas. 14 x 14 inches.

Bounce

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

— Omar Khayyam

Americans are happier than ever, according to Gallup.

In fact, 6 of 10 (59%) are "thriving," the pollster says—a record number since it launched the National Health and Wellbeing Index in 2008.

That number is up nearly 13 points since the appearance of Covid-19 last year, when the number of happy Americans plunged to 46% (tying the record low, reached during the Great Recession).

Gallup divvies Americans into three buckets it calls "thriving," "struggling" and "suffering." 

"Thriving" Americans rate their lives 7 or higher on a 10-point scale. Over 59% currently do so.

Not that you'd know it from news coverage and social media, but only 38% of Americans currently are "struggling;" and only 3%, "suffering."

That's far too many in my book; but, still, it's a minority. 

Gallup also measures worry.

Worry gripped 6 of 10 Americans during the pandemic.

It grips many fewer now—only 4 in 10.

Instead, most Americans—7 in 10—are enjoying their lives every day.

Less than 3 in 10 are ever bored.

Gallup claims the bounce is due to the availability of the Covid-19 vaccine, the reopening of in-person events, and the recovery of the economy.

I would add to those causes last November's exorcism of the incubus Trump. No doubt about it. Ding dong.

Although, as Gallup warns, the Delta variant of Covid-19 could again crimp our happiness, it's clear, altogether, we're a pretty happy bunch, even if we don't deserve our happiness.

"What is happiness?" Friedrich Nietzsche asked. 

"The feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome."

So if you're feeling blue, get with the program: feel the power.

And put on a happy face.

NOTE: Be sure to click the embedded links above. They're guaranteed to make you happy.