Famous People and Twitter

I have been shocked at the number of people who have lost their jobs and reputations over the past few weeks over comments made over social media platforms that have suddenly become lethal. It’s really not a new phenomenon, but has gained momentum in this post George Floyd world. Some have decried the First Amendment implications and the Brave New World thought police nature of it all. Others have pointed out that the First Amendment protects us from governmental suppression of free expression, but does not shield us from the consequences of the words we speak. Fair enough, but something tells me that this will feel like a distinction without a difference to the guy who gets crucified over a remark that three weeks ago wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow...see: Brees, Drew.

But, then it occurs to me that this very blog is probably chocked full of ill-considered ideas, phrases, and expressions that could destroy me if I were a public figure. The Tempest is over ten years old. I have written over 2000 posts, a whopping 1,300,000 words covering every topic imaginable. I have no doubt that there are plenty of inappropriate, over the top insensitive remarks on any number of hot topics. Heck, I even had a two part argument with myself over gay marriage back in the day. I shudder to think how that would have gone over in this environment. The thing is, I also have no doubt that I have been wrong about a lot of things I’ve written about. The Doug Dunnevant of today would probably take issue with the Doug Dunnevant of 2013. But, that’s the nature of the human experience. We grow and mature and our opinions change, hopefully for the better. We discover new information and make changes in our views. We meet someone who brings a fresh perspective on an issue that helps us understand better. For Christians like me there’s also the influence of the Holy Spirit, as he whispers to us, a whisper that we often don’t hear because of our stubbornness, but when we do changes how we see and understand the world. So, I will offer no apologies for what I have written here. It was an accurate and honest reflection of what was in my mind and heart when I wrote it. To the extent that it may have been boneheaded and tone deaf, well...that’s how we roll as human beings, ever striving ever changing, ever edging closer and closer to the truth.

But seriously? If I were a famous person? I would run away from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram so fast it would make your head swim!!

T-18

Monday morning. Another week of to-do lists, appointments and commitments to honor. The week starts with glorious weather, a big help.

Meanwhile, my country is still convulsed by protests, statue toppling, and now streets being painted with giant yellow letters promising to DEFUND THE POLICE. It’s my opinion that if we’re going to start defunding stuff we should start with the Commerce Department, then work ourselves down to the police, but I suppose that’s a subject for another day. I shouldn’t quibble. This is the first time I’ve heard hardly anybody in the public square come out for defunding any part of government since the 1980’s. Progress.

We haven’t talked much about COVID for over a week now. Good and bad. Good because the relentless wall to wall doom and gloom with regards to the virus was suffocating. Bad because despite the fact that we are no longer talking about it as much, it’s still out there, people are still dying and there’s still no vaccine.

Then there’s Wall Street. I do this for a living and I still can’t explain the unexplainable. I get this a lot, “Doug, with all of this turmoil and chaos how can the stock market be going up??” My answer is usually something technical and complicated like, “Beats me.” The only thing I should point out about the stock market is the fact that there’s a big difference between the economy and the stock market. Sometimes they move in tandem, often times they do not. Additionally, stock prices are leading indicators, not lagging indicators meaning that the market for equities is set by what traders see in the future, not what is happening now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent of my expert opinion on this subject that I am willing to share on this blog for two reasons. First, I started this blog ten years ago as an escape from my real job, and second, the quickest way to bore people to tears is to start talking about economics.

At the Dunnevant Compound it is T-18 days until Maine launch. All systems are not go. There are a world of details to attend to before the great adventure can begin, not the least of which is staying healthy. All I ask the rest of the Country is to try to hold itself together for just 18 more days. Once Pam and I are safely ensconced in our lake house, you are free to do whatever the next crazy thing you have in mind happens to be.

Too Soon?

Often on Fridays, I have taken a break from the momentous conflicts and catastrophes of our world to offer really terrible jokes for all of you to moan and groan over. It’s my way of reminding everyone that no matter how despicable a place this world has become, awful Dad Jokes are still quite exquisitely funny. This particular Friday morning caused me to hesitate. Is it the right time and place to be posting cringeworthy attempts at humor while all around us, man’s inhumanity to man is on the march?

After careful consideration, I have determined that it is the perfect time for what follows. These jokes are so bad they have the power to unite us all: black, white, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, carnivore, vegan, devout, pious, straight, gay, married, single, Boomer, Millennial, yankee, southerner, even dog and cat..in a collective eye roll.

What happened to Bullwinkle when he was pulled over for speeding?

He was charged with a .....moosedemeanor.

The police found a chickpea that was smashed.

But after looking at the evidence, they have ruled out....hummuscide.

What do you call it when someone hates riding to work with his coworkers over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge?

Carpool Tunnel Syndrome.

What kind of prize do you give someone who hasn’t moved a muscle in a year?

A Trophy.

I had a dream last night that I knighted an electric fish.

It was Sir eel.

Mike Tyson gifted little metal cups to his friends.

When they asked what it meant, he said it was a thimble of friendship.

They say that Argentina is cold.

But actually it would be more accurate to say that it borders Chile.

Confederate Statues

Woo Hoo! Thanks to our Governor, my Facebook feed will be filled to overflowing with rants about Confederate statues for at least a week, or until some fresh new abomination appears to divert our attentions elsewhere. This is 2020, after all, and every time we think it can’t get any worse, 2020 says, “hold my beer.” I will have nothing further to say on this subject. I have written about it at least three times that I can recall: 

https://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-assistant-is-well-known-for-her.html

https://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-is-set-to-pound-coast.html

https://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-brief-follow-up-to-yesterdays-post.html

But maybe there have been more that I don’t recall. I will say that this is one of those subjects about which my opinion has changed over time. How I felt about the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue as a thirty year old was different than how I feel now. That’s happened to me a lot over the years. Things happen. History unfolds for me, it is an ongoing, dynamic thing, and how I think about it also changes. I have friends who as far as I can tell haven’t undergone a single change in opinion about anything over their entire lives. I marvel at their impenetrable resolve, their unflappable confidence in opinions forged as a heady adolescent that were able to withstand decades of challenges undeterred.

Of course, I am also no weather vane, constantly pulled this way and that by every idea of the moment. Some things I have been resolute about, even become more convinced of their truth; the Gospel of Jesus Christ, my Mother’s love, the power of kindness, the perfection of sausage, the beauty of music, the magic of art, the supremacy of baseball, and the allure of Maine.

But when it comes to politics and history, I am swayed by events and the preponderance of facts. I am moved by the story that raw numbers tell. I tend to judge issues based more upon their actual results than their intentions. Because of this, my views on a few things have changed because of...new information...not available to me ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. But that’s just me.

So, no pontification from me on the removal of statues this week. If you want my views, try the three links above. Meanwhile, I have sausage links to think about!

Has Anyone Been on a Virtual Doctor’s Appointment Yet?

We interrupt the regularly scheduled dystopian nightmare that is 2020 to bring you this special edition of The Temptest:

VIRTUAL DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENTS

Recently, my brother took an unfortunate tumble down a flight of stairs. He’s a big guy, 6’4” and probably 230. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, so it was quite a trip. By the time it was over he was bruised up pretty badly, his glasses were broken and his face covered in blood. Don’t worry, he’s ok now but for a while there it was scary. I’ve probably told him a thousand times to walk down stairs, but he’s the oldest. Does he listen? Of course not.

Anyway, yesterday he sends the family a text getting us caught up on the latest. In this text he told us of a virtual appointment he had just had with his doctor. The minute I hear “virtual doctor’s appointment, I didn’t hear anything else. What a concept. My mind—a carnival fun-house of the bizarre in the best of times—began churning with the possibilities. While everyone else who received the text was asking him follow up questions about his recovery and being appropriately engaged, I found myself typing this:

“Wonder how a virtual appointment with a proctologist would work? ...‘ Nurse, bring me Mr. Dunnevant’s file. It’s in the back room, near the rear of the office. Yeah, I’m thinking that virtual proctologist thing would be difficult...no if’s and’s or butts about it.”

I could actually feel the collective eye roll from all the women in the family, none of whom would even dignify my take with a response. But my big brother gets it. He shot back with:

“I wasn’t particularly impressed with the magazine collection in his virtual office.”

To which I thought, but did not respond: “Yeah, how many times can you read 2017 issues of Rectum Illustrated?”

Once allowed to go down this tricky proctologist road, my mind wandered back to when I was seven years old in our cramped New Orleans apartment watching our grainy RCA black and white television with the tin foil wrapped around the rabbit ears. It was a Sunday morning and I was sitting crossed legged on the floor waiting for my family to leave for church when I turned the set on and was introduced for the first time to one Earnest Angley, faith-healer.  Dude was dressed from head to toe in a white suit, complete with white shoes and a white belt. His sweat covered face was staring into the screen, his hands extended towards the camera as he implored his viewers to believe that they could be healed. He was so confident on this point that he explained that the viewer did not even have to be in his live audience to be healed, that his miraculous powers could work through the television set....

“I am asking you to believe and claim your healing, friend. Get up from that sofa and place the part of your body that afflicts you on your television set and I will heal you!!”

With this odd, 55 year old memory brought into my head for reasons that defy understanding, I imagined some guy with hemorrhoids backing up into his television set waiting for his miracle. Then the famous words of the prophet from 4000 years ago came to mind...There is nothing new under the sun. Indeed, virtual doctor’s appointments aren’t new at all. Earnest Angley was doing them years ago.

Now, we return you to the regularly scheduled pandemic and civil unrest.

An Opportunity Lost

I left the house around 3:30 yesterday to take out my building frustrations on a bucket of golf balls. It’s hard to watch your city being torn apart. But as much as I hate the violence and destruction, what I hate even more is the sight of a police officer’s knee on the back of George Floyd’s neck. I throw my dusty golf clubs in the back of my car and drive the peaceful streets of Short Pump to hit golf balls at Bogey’s Sports Park to forget about it all for a while.

But I can’t. When I pull into the parking lot I notice a black man, middle 40’s maybe, with his two elementary aged kids playing putt putt. For the Christians in this audience what follows will be familiar. For everyone else it will sound weird. That’s ok. I get it. Anyway, as soon as I saw this dad and his kids, the Holy Spirit whispered very clearly to me that I should reach out to this man, offer words of encouragement, let him know that in fact, his life and the lives of his children very much mattered. But the logistics were all wrong. He was on the putt putt course and I was headed for the driving range. Lost opportunity.

As I pounded 8 irons at the 150 yard target with wildly different outcomes I kept thinking about what I would have said if I had the chance. It might have gone very badly. He would have been excused if he just wasn’t in the mood for chit chat with a 62 year old white guy right about now. He very well might have let me have it. But even if he was gracious, what would I have said? What words would have been the right words?

I could have started by saying that his life mattered, that what happened to George Floyd was an outrage, and the fact that it continues to happen is a stain on our country. But then I thought how empty and insincere it sounded, more like a sound bite than an encouraging word. Too much like staged pandering. The last thing I wanted to do is come off as a patronizing liberal.

I took the driver out of my bag and hooked the first one badly, then slowed my swing down a bit and eventually striped one on a beautiful arc, slightly right to left against the brilliant blue sky. Slow down. Think. What that 40-something black dad really needed to hear was an apology. I could have apologized for my silence. I have watched his people getting mowed down like this for half my life. I could have apologized for my indifference. I could have admitted to him that even though I consider myself a Christian and know that racism is one of the vilest of sins, from time to time I recognize its existence in my own heart. I could have confessed that to him. They say that it’s good for the soul. 

By this time my hands were getting raw. Swinging a golf club hasn’t been a thing since this pandemic started, I could tell. I picked up my bag and headed to the parking lot. As I turned the corner around the edge of the building I saw him and his kids heading from the parking lot to the driving range loaded down with golf bags. They were headed right for me. The Holy Spirit again. This was my chance. As they got closer we made eye contact. He said “hey” about the same time I did. Then everything seemed to be in slow motion. I opened my mouth, he passed by and it was over. I whiffed. What a coward.

I’m convinced that for race relations to improve it will require a million such conversations started between strangers. Yes, criminal justice reform is an absolute necessity, but it will require so much more than that. Guys like me are going to have to start reaching out of our comfort zones to start uncomfortable conversations with total strangers and the couple who live down the street. And those conversations are going to require some contrition and humility...and the one ingredient that I sadly lacked yesterday afternoon at 4:30 on a bright, sunny day....guts.

But today is another day. Maybe I’ll get another chance. Maybe this time I’ll man up.

The Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is dispair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy;  

 

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.  

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.  

Difficult Truth or Comfortable Lie ?

Yesterday, my day started with virtual church on the deck, proceeded to a sun-splashed 4 mile run around my peaceful Short Pump neighborhood, and ended with Leonardo’s pizza for dinner and the last fire of the season.

The juxtaposition of the peace of my day, the soft glow of the fire, with the destruction, chaos and raging fires burning in cities all across this country was not lost on me. In fact, these days it’s hard to avoid the contradictions of American life. On a weekend that found American cities engulfed in hatred and flames, an eccentric billionaire scientist/entrepreneur managed to put two astronauts into orbit and eventually place them in the International Space Station flawlessly, a feat never before accomplished by a private company. But this has always been the story of America, one of outrageous contradiction. On the one hand, limitless opportunity for the bold and daring, on the other bitter divisions and deep racial hatreds. My countrymen are capable of heroic selflessness, unparalleled innovation, breathtaking art. But we’re also capable of pettiness, silly unserious leadership, epic waste, and virulent racism. Within us lie the seeds of greatness and the stain of our original sin. What an impossible, miserable, maddening mess we are.

In the middle of this year, 2020, with all of its disappointments, I’m writing another story. The gist of it centers around the following question. What would happen to someone if all of a sudden they no longer had the ability to A. Knowingly tell a lie, and B. Resist the temptation to speak the truth at all times? In other words, what would life be like if no insincere word ever crossed your lips? So far, my protagonist is having a heck of a hard time. I guess the idea for the story came to me because of how much truth has been devalued over the past few years. Everyone says they want the truth, everyone decries the fact that it is so damn hard to know what the truth is anymore. But, do we really? Suppose we aren’t nearly as interested in the truth as we think we are? Suppose what we really want is the attractive and far more comforting...lie? Indeed, how much of our daily lives are dependent upon the lies we freely tell each other? The more I write this story the more difficult and uncomfortable it feels. Sort of like...2020.