A Word About Shitholes

Yesterday, with sudden and mighty force, a new word entered the American vocabulary...shithole. While it might be argued that this isn’t really a new word, or even a word at all, because it came from the mouth of a sitting President, it has been thrust into the limelight by a news media suddenly aghast at foul language coming from the Oval Office. But, with this word, like all others, context is important. Our president used this term to describe a country, or countries, from which he didn’t wish any more immigration. The specific countries in question were, depending on which news account you prefer...Haiti or any country from the African continent. In some quarters the use of the epithet “shithole” to describe countries populated predominantly by black people is clear evidence of racism. Others point out that a healthy immigration policy should begin and end with skills-based requirements, the unlimited entry of unskilled poor people from countries that can be described as shitholes not being the kinds of places where one finds highly skilled professionals. What to make of all this?

First, I think that most reasonable people would be willing to acknowledge that this world does in fact contain many shitholes. Anyone who has ever wandered off the grounds of their luxury hotels in Jamaica would soon be confronted with conditions that closely resemble something fairly described as shithole-like. There are vast regions of this planet where shitholery abounds. Indeed, if some of the journalists who are catawauling the loudest at the moment were dropped in the middle of a Haitian shantytown, the word shithole would fairly leap from their lips. But, does the existence of shitholes mean that we should not allow immigration from such shitholes? This is a different question that deserves greater attention.

The words of the President yesterday ignited a firestorm on Twitter. One particular thread I read was instructive. Someone with a vowel-heavy last name proclaimed...The Mayflower didn’t come from Haiti!!!...to which someone else, who has my undying admiration, replied...It didn’t come from Poland either! 

When the first wave of immigration surged into this country from Ireland after the great potato famine, I feel confident that conditions in Ireland at that time could fairly be described as shitholeish. The conditions in Dickensian London that propelled people across the Atlantic were certainly at least close to shithole territory. The truth is that throughout our history, the people who have fled to this country have all pretty much been fleeing something horrible, whether from European horribleness or Asian horribleness or, yes, African horribleness. During periods of great inflows, our government has passed laws that sought to limit one sort of immigrant over another. I believe that this is perfectly fine. It is the responsibility of any government to control its border. The question becomes, are the rules we propose designed to limit people bases solely on their race, regardless of their qualifications? With regards to Haiti, it appears that our President is neck deep in racist intent, especially when you consider the fact that the average immigrant from Haiti is more educated than the average American. Is it merely a coincidence that our chief executive used the modifier shithole only to refer to African nations? While Jerry Falwell Jr. could probably come up with a way to justify this latest rhetorical bomb, the rest of us, probably not. 

Seems like just yesterday I read an incredible story about some guy who raced into a burning building to rescue five strangers. On his second trip into the inferno he died in the flames. The hero in question was a private in the National Guard, and an immigrant from the African nation of Ghana. When the President famously asks, “Why do we want all these people from shithole countries coming here?” The answer is, because that’s what America is, a place created by people great and small, fleeing shithole countries for a chance at a better life. I don’t object to having rules for entry. I don’t care how oppressed you are, if you have tuberculosis, you ain’t getting in, pal.

But, if our reasons for denying someone entry into this country are based on racist assumptions of your value as a human being because of where you come from, or what color your skin is, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Planned Obsolescence

It is 6:12 am and I am sitting at my desk at the office, clean shaven, showered and ready for my day. After a fitful night of half sleep, I finally gave up at 4:15, so here I sit. I blame this all on my empty house. 

Yesterday, the furniture movers arrived and cleared out everything except the refrigerator from downstairs. This morning they come for that. After a late appointment yesterday, I met my wife over at a friends house for dinner, so I didn’t get home until about 9. I can’t tell you how disconcerting it was to walk into a dark and empty house, and hear your voice echoing off the bare walls. By 10:30 or so I was exhausted by a long and rigorous 10 hour business day. I collapsed into bed and was asleep practically before my head hit the pillow. But within a couple of hours I was wide awake. A couple of hours ago I read my twelve pages from Numbers. Now, I’m alone in my office a full two hours before my first appointment is due to arrive. This place is creepy quiet at this hour.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re up super early, every detail of your environment comes into sharper focus? For example, I don’t think I have ever noticed this before, but my desk chair has started to list a bit towards port. How did I never notice this before? It is definitely leaning to the left, irritatingly so. Upon closer examination, the left side of the seat cushion is more worn, reflecting this unequal weight distribution. All of a sudden, my chair is intolerably uncomfortable. This stupid chair can’t be more than five years old and I paid good money for it. Now it’s tilting to one side? 

This is an outrage. Office chairs are only good for half a decade now? The big shots at the chair factory are cooking planned obsolescence into office furniture now? What the heck ever happened to the reliable, comfy chair? A couple of days ago I walk into the office and notice that there was a furniture truck outside and six sleek new conference room chairs were being carried into our office while the old ones were headed out the back door to Goodwill. This, despite the fact that the old chairs didn’t have a mark on them and had given us 8 years of faithful service without a single chair-related fatality. What in the world was going on? My partner informed me that these new ones were more modern and stylish, and would contribute to a more 21st century look. They actually are more modern and stylish looking, I had to admit, while being about as uncomfortable as the old ones. But still...conference room chairs only have an eight year lifespan? When did this happen? When in the world did basic business environment furniture start either falling apart or becoming hopelessly unhip in less than a freaking decade?? 

I need a good night’s sleep...

How Much Is Enough?

How much is enough? This is one of the weightiest questions that this world asks of us. If you gathered all of the world’s bounty into one place and stood on a high place to survey it, how much of it would satisfy you? How much would be your fair share? The arguments that flow out of this central question have been the source of intense, often violent debate over the course of human history, indeed most wars have been fought over variations of the question of who is the rightful owner of what. I bring this up for a couple of reasons, the first being my lifelong quest to discover the answer and second, the news yesterday that the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos’ personal net worth had exceeded 100 billion dollars.

The fact that one human being could possibly be worth that much money is repulsive to a lot of people. I noticed several people on Facebook venting their disgust at Bezos for his hoarding of so much money. Their argument goes something like this: Why, if he weren’t so greedy, he could solve the world’s poverty problem by giving it away to charity! Someone even attempted to do the math and incorrectly declared that he could give every person in the world like a million dollars and still have billions left over!! (Fabulously wrong) Never mind the fact that much of Mr. Bezos’ wealth consists of the value of his shares of Amazon stock, an entirely paper number. It’s not like the man sits, Scrooge-like, in the basement of one of his mansions running his hands through 100 billion dollars of gold coins every night. Still, 100 billion dollars is an unfathomable number. Put it perspective, if Bezos were to decide that he was tired of the rat race and just wanted to retire and live the rest of his life in leisure, he would have to run through about 10 million dollars a day for the rest his actuarial life to spend it all! Surely, he has enough...right? So why is he still so driven?

My own grappling with this question has been a contentious personal battle. In many ways I’m no different than anyone else. I like nice stuff. I enjoy a fine car, a beautiful and comfortable house, and nice clothes. I enjoy taking long and expensive vacations and shorter, more frequent weekend getaways. Nothing gives me more pleasure than being able to spoil my kids. All of these things require money. So, I pursue the acquisition of money with relative gusto. But, is there a point beyond which this pursuit is counter productive? When does the pursuit of wealth become an exercise in vanity? That’s the essential struggle of the thing...how much is enough. 

One of the problems lies with the fact that the answer to this question cannot be found in a vacuum. The reason the answer is elusive is because we aren’t alone in the pursuit. How much I have will always and forever be compared with how much my neighbor has. Wealth is basically how this world keeps score. It’s a store of value, a means of ranking one thing against another. When I walk into someone’s home for the first time, my mind seems to always start comparing the house and everything in it to my own. If the house is larger, the furnishings more ornate and grand, I conclude that the owner is wealthier than I am. As long as this conclusion doesn’t result in me coveting my friends house and stuff, I suppose I’m ok. But, sometimes I have to admit, I succumb to a creeping resentment. Why is this? Why should I begrudge anyone else their stuff?? It makes no sense to me. And yet...there it is. 

I have made much progress over the years in this regard. When I was younger, envy of the prosperity of others was a much more powerful emotion. It served as a great motivator. As I’ve gotten older, envy has faded from me, but for reasons that I don’t entirely understand, envy has never completely disappeared. It’s like it’s hardwired into my soul, this desire for...more. Which brings me back to Bezos.

What would I do if I were worth 100 billion? It’s easy for me to say that I would keep, say, 20 million for myself, and give the rest away to the poor. Frankly, having that much money would be an embarrassment to me. It’s also easy for me to have an opinion about what Jeff Bezos should be doing with his money, since I’m not the one who earned it. Nothing is quite so easy or sublime, after all, than spending somebody else’s money. Maybe if I was worth 100 billion, I would be an entirely different person, in fact, I’m sure of it. That’s because at some point on the scale, wealth changes a person. I’ve seen it in my business a thousand times. Someone inherits a bunch of money from a relative and they go nuts. There is a reason they call it life changing money. But, is the change that comes with wealth a good or bad thing? I don’t know. I guess it depends on the person.

I’ve reached an uneasy agreement with this question over the past couple of years. I know what my number is. It’s not that I would turn down a higher number, but I’m done chasing. I have discovered that the value of something isn’t the same thing as its price. Often in life, enjoying what you have is more valuable than chasing won’t you don’t have. A happier house is more valuable than a bigger one. My number is one that leaves me room to be generous to those who struggle. I think this is the point of that scripture verse that says...to whom much is given, much is required. If I am fortunate enough to have accumulated enough wealth to live a full, unrestricted life, then I’m in a position to help others along the way who might need a break. That has to be the purpose of wealth, right? Otherwise, if all money is for is a bigger car, bigger house and fancier stuff, then it’s meaningless and empty.

Unsettled

Behold the uninspired condition of my library. This is a result of the work of just two highly skilled women, employed by my insurance company, who showed up here a couple of days ago to pack up every thing in the downstairs of our house. Earlier today, two not so highly skilled piano movers arrived to load up our piano for safe keeping during next week’s hardwood floor refurbish job. In the short time the dudes from Richmond Piano were here, we heard a vaguely musical thud which produced this:

No worries, the moving guy said. I have taken a photograph and someone from the company will call you in a couple of weeks to set a time to come fix the hole. Lovely.

This Friday I’m told that yet another crew will arrive and transport all furniture and boxes from the downstairs of our house into our garage. Shortly thereafter, on Sunday, Pam and I along with poor, unsuspecting Lucy will move into a two bedroom suite at a local Hotel for seven days and seven nights,(more reading the Bible in 90 Days humor). All of this is happening during the very busiest month of my business year, leaving me with a very unsettled feeling, made infinitely more so by a series of financial obligations which are all competing for my attention, each making pushy, petulant demands...me first, me first!!!

Once all this house repair work is done and we are moved back into our house, I will be fine. I’m just not very good at dealing with disruptions to my routine. I am a creature of habit, and while I love having those habits rearranged during vacations and what not, when I’m home and at work...not so much. That’s the best thing about home, truth be told...predictability, reliability, and comforting routine. 

So, the theme for these next three weeks or so will have to be...flexibility. My goal will be to deal with one catastrophe at a time, and if something horrible and unplanned happens, I will do my best Ted Kennedy impression and drive off that bridge when I get to it.

Leviticus

Day 8 of reading through the Bible in 90 Days has landed me in Leviticus. Reading Leviticus is kind of like that feeling you get when you show up at a party full of people you don’t like, and you’re terribly overdressed. You think, I don’t belong here. It’s like you’re ten chapters into a Jane Austen novel when all of a sudden you turn the page and Hemingway shows up. It’s like one minute you’re watching figure skating and suddenly a hockey game breaks out. 

It’s not as if Genesis and Exodus were walks in the park, but the first 12 chapters of Leviticus read like a How-to book for starting your own slaughterhouse. There’s more blood and guts than a Tarantino movie. But, it’s not just the grisly details of animal sacrifice, it’s the maddening fastidiousness of it all. Step one: take hold of beast by placing right thumb next to left ear of offering...take special care in this regard, for if you screw it up you shall surely die. It’s like Robert’s Rules of Order for the Old Covenant.

I’m sure there is a much deeper meaning here than meets the eye. All of this will eventually make sense as part of the grander sweep of the story, I’m sure. My pastor, David Dwight has a marvelous gift of being able to make complex and confusing things easier to understand, without dumbing down either the material or his audience . I eagerly await his take on Leviticus. 

He has his work cut out for him!

“You’re not the boss of me!”

This morning, I completed my first week of reading through the Bible in 90 Days, having made it through the end of Exodus. For what it’s worth, I find myself developing an intense dislike for the children of Israel, a brooding swarm of petulant brats who wouldn’t know how to pour piss from a boot if the instructions were written on the heal. If I had been Moses, I would have left the whole lot of them to their own devices and built a retirement home back in Midian. Surely, there has never existed a collection of people more whiny and ungrateful than God’s chosen people...with the possible exception of we Americans.

So, yesterday I had a text conversation with my son. My wife and I, having just finished season 2 of The Crown, find ourselves in a showhole, and I have been hearing much buzz about another Netflix series called Black Mirror. Since this show is billed as a modern, high tech version of the Twilight Zone, I decided to defer to my high tech savvy son to get the scoop. He and Sarah, it turns out, have indeed watched the show, around 8 episodes so far, so he had lots of opinions. He went on and on about the story lines, the intensity and darkness of some of the plots, the way each story is exhausting to watch because your brain is going a million miles an hour by the end, etc...Then, he throws this out...

...Do not watch the first episode of season 1. Just don’t.

Why would my son say such a thing? In this regard, he is not much different than my daughter, both of them seem certain of the kinds of things I would like and those things that I would hate. My children seem to know my tendencies so thoroughly that they can tell me with confidence exactly which episodes of a show I should avoid? (In his defense, he warned me against going to see The Book of Morman.) But here’s the thing...when somebody singles out something as specific as the first episode of season 1 with dire warnings, why does it make me want to watch it all the more? It’s like, I think..Wait, why can’t I watch that particular episode? I’m a grownup. I’m perfectly capable of deciding what episodes of a show I can watch. I’ll watch whatever the heck I want to watch, thank you very much! I was watching television long before either of my children were even born. Where do they get off telling me not to watch episode one of season 1? I’ll show them!!

My reaction was not much different than the reaction of Adam and Eve to God’s warning that they could eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden, except one. My conclusion is that human beings are hard wired for rebellion. We hate nothing quite so much as being told what to do. It’s as if the one unifying cry of all of mankind throughout all of human history is the same cry one hears from their middle school children...You’re not the boss of me!! 

Come to think about it, sounds exactly like the Israelites...

A Stable Genius?

It has been nearly a month since I have made any reference, specific or implied, about the President of the United States. Ignoring him in this space has been mildly therapeutic, since grappling with such a man has proven to be quite a challenge. The audience for this blog is a disparate group which includes some who are ardent supporters, some who are cautiously optimistic, others who are thoroughly confused, and a fourth group who are horrified by the man. I fluctuate wildly between the last three groups. 

For all of my adult life I have been a fascinated observer of politics and politicians, and an admirer of very few of them. My overarching opinion is that politics is a grubby, pedestrian, unfortunate neccesity of our republican form of government. The people normally drawn to it are egomaniacs and narcissists of ordinary intelligence who either arrive in Washington rich, or quickly become rich during their tenure. If this makes me a cynic, so be it. A quick glance at the historical record, in my view, practically demands cynicism, but that’s another story. My general attitude towards government and the people who comprise it has been to give them a wide berth. I have endeavored to go about living my life in such a way as to limit interaction with politicians or at the very least, attempt to insulate myself and my business from their most egregious dictates. In this project I have enjoyed considerable but limited success. I say all this to place into proper context what I am about to say about the President’s latest(I think) tweet.

I follow the President on Twitter. I have never responded to any of his tweets, and never retweeted any of them. I follow him out of a combination of civic duty and my lifelong attraction to all things puerile. It has been a fascinating journey, reading the thousands of short, hastily constructed, emotionally charged outbursts which have gushed from the fingers and thumbs of the 45th President. But, this morning’s beats them all:

Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!

Apparently some Democrats in Congress had been promoting the analysis of some shrink somewhere who had positted a theory that the President had taken leave of his senses and therefore, pursuant to the 25th amendment, a committee needed to be formed to make a determination of his mental fitness, etc... Since this shrink and the suggestion of envoking constitutional remedies came from the Democrats, I dismissed it as nothing more than the usual unhinged partisan rancor that has forever flowed from the party out of power. But, this particular President always feels compelled to crank up his Twitter account, and respond, so respond he did...and what a response!!!

My parents were consistent in their advice to me in only a few memorable things. One of them was in the area of pride. Every body hates a braggart, they would warn. Never toot your own horn. Let others praise you, never take up the job yourself. This was part of their lifelong negative opinion of self-promoting hustlers. Besides, they would insist, if you call yourself a Christian, you should be more concerned about the well being of others than you are about your own well being. Pride goeth before a fall became one of my mother’s favorite axioms, which she trotted out at the first sign of boasting among any of her children. So, what to make of the President’s tweet?

For starters, I don’t know that I have ever heard a really smart person actually say, I’m a really smart person. Most of the super smart people I’ve ever been around, if anything, have tried to hide their brilliance, sensing that it separated them from others. But, now we have a chief executive who is telling us about his two greatest assets being his mental stability and being, like, really smart. Later in the tweet, just in case we missed it, he goes one step further by declaring himself to be not only genius, but a very stable genius.

I, for one, am very grateful for the stability thing since history is full of examples of the perils of unstable genius.

So, this tweet had the effect of producing a President-themed blog post. I probably should have resisted, since now somewhere around 40% of you are pissed. I suppose the reason I gave in to writing this was the fact that sometimes I still manage to be astonished by things. Reading the words of a sitting President bragging about his genius is an entirely higher level of astonishment. Surely, most of our previous Presidents thought themselves geniuses. This one proclaims it from the rafters. 

Pride goeth before a fall......