01/28/2010

Not Measured By Length

In the autumn of 1987, I canvassed Kensington, Maryland on behalf of the US Public Interest Research Group. I was talking to citizens about acid rain. (Seems almost quaint now.) Canvassing’s a tough job. You get many noes for each yes and you have to keep a thick skin about you.

At one house, the father answered and said his family was eating dinner, which was usually a reason to send me away. Instead, he invited me to the table and asked if we could have a conversation about the environment with his wife and sons. It was one of those experiences that made the job worth while.

Better still, the elder son – Tony – came and canvassed for me the following summer. He was 17 years old, tall with a big jaw and glasses. He was a bit dorky and it was clear he had not yet accommodated himself to his new size. He was like a colt learning to run. Tony was not the best canvasser in the office that summer, but I took particular pleasure watching his progress. Although I was 27 (it seemed old at the time), I took an avuncular interest in him. It was like watching a coming-of-age movie.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , | Comments (0)
01/21/2010

Re-Creation Stories

January sun was warm in Washington on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It caused me to slip the jacket from my shoulders as I walked on New Hampshire Avenue. There were no eviction piles of possessions along the curb this week, as there were in November. Instead, Christmas trees had been put to the curb, waiting for some special truck to take them away. Only one of the three adjacent townhouses for sale in November still has a sign out front. Perhaps it’s evidence of economic recovery, at least among the DC townhouse set.

From the stereo in the coffee shop, I heard Professor Longhair whistling “Big Chief” and was reminded that Carnival season has begun. Carnival, which some people think is limited to Mardi Gras, is one of the oldest human rituals. Historian Karen Armstrong traces its history back to the Babylonian creation story.

In that story, the gods overcame the Earth’s initial chaos and established order. In the Babylonian springtime as the Earth was renewed after winter, the gods (and the king) had to annually reassert their power, so the king was symbolically dethroned, chaos (in the form of unfettered celebration) reigned and in the end the king (and gods) were re-throned and order was restored.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
01/14/2010

Rick’s Tale

They say the classic Washington, DC career has four stages: Idealism, Pragmatism, Ambition and Corruption (a/k/a IPAC). Read a few DC biographies, you’ll see the pattern. I don’t have to name names.

The exception proves the rule and one exception is my friend, I’ll call him Rick. (It’s his name.) Rick’s been in DC for almost 30 years, most of that time spent lobbying the Hill and the agencies. In a town where seniority and personal connections are currency, he’s got a pocket full. Pragmatic? Yes. Idealistic? Not exactly. What was once idealism has hardened into something resembling weary cynicism, but the important thing is that his convictions remain unchanged. His ambitions are for his causes, not himself. There is no trace of corruption. Pretty remarkable in this town.

I’m in DC this week and he told me this story Tuesday. I think it illustrates how he’s managed to keep his conscience clear. (Disclosure: what follows is paraphrased. Rick is incapable of the kind of brevity this space demands.)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged | Comments (1)
01/07/2010

Warmer and Wetter

My new year began with snow. Thirty-three inches of it, the biggest snowstorm in 120 years of recorded weather history in Burlington. It began Saturday morning and didn’t stop until Monday morning. I shoveled and napped, shoveled and napped. We were supposed to attend a holiday party Saturday night; instead we gathered at the neighbors across the street.

Adrienne and I have lived in Vermont for 12 years, or for one-tenth of the recorded history of weather. The newspaper published a list of the 20 largest snowstorms in Burlington history. It’s reasonable to assume we have witnessed 10 percent of those storms, but that assumption would be incorrect. According to the National Weather Service, I have witnessed 65 percent – or seven – of Burlington’s 20 worst snowstorms.

What gives? Global warming. It’s counterintuitive to think of snowstorms and global warming in the same sentence, but the long-term forecast for this part of the world is warmer and wetter.

In Vermont’s traditional weather pattern (and by “traditional,” I mean the way things used to be), the six weeks from New Year’s Eve until St. Valentine’s Day were the window for sub-zero temperatures. “As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens,” was the post-solstice proverb, according to David Ludlum in The Vermont Weather Book, published in 1985. (I keep a copy on my bookshelf, for sentimental reasons.)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , , | Comments (1)
12/31/2009

Did You Ever Go Clear?

It’s ten in the morning, the end of December. I’m writing you now to see if you’re better. Vermont is cold but I like where I’m living. There’s silence on Howard Street all through the evening.

It’s New Year’s Eve morning; I’m listening to Leonard Cohen through the computer. The sky outside is a gray tinged with purple. The color depresses many but comforts me. Several strata of crystallized water – powder, cake, ice – cover the Earth.

You’re living for nothing now. I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.

The Cohen was inspired by memories of 2009. On January 7th of the passing year, a friend died. He was a writer, a political junkie and a Leonard Cohen fan. He hated the Bush era. When he died, I was sad he missed surviving it by so little.

Much has been written this week about the year and decade now behind us. I don’t want to add to it. I doubt you want me to, either.

When I was young, I would look back over the course of a year and think about how much I’d learned. Later, I’d take solace knowing I was not as big a jerk on this new year’s as I’d been the year before. Now I’m middle aged. I’m not sure I learn as much in a year as I used to and the jerk factor has – for good or ill – leveled off.

Over tea this morning, Adrienne said, “Twenty-ten is going to be whatever it’s going to be.” Odd as that statement sounds, she’s exactly right. Perhaps that’s the lesson of 2009. So much was said and still left unsaid, so much done and still left undone.

The year is gone and my life’s half gone (if I’m lucky). I’m a year older and I don’t know if I’m any closer to finding the meaning of life. Here’s what I think it is today: The meaning of life is all around me, it falls in my path a dozen times a day. The key is actually not to find the meaning of life, but to make myself ready to find it, to recognize it when I see it.

Once I’m ready for it, I’ll see I already have it.

Happy New Year.

© Mark Floegel, 2009

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12/24/2009

Two Priests Walk Into….

A chain store? A casino?

Two stories in Wednesday’s Washington Post: The first was about Father Tim Jones, an Anglican priest at the parish of St. Lawrence in York, England. From the pulpit last Sunday, Fr. Tim said shoplifting is not a sin, if the act was caused by need instead of greed. He encouraged his parishioners – should they need to shoplift – to do it from big chain stores and not a locally–owned mom-and-pop store and to not take more than they absolutely need to get by.

The sermon generated plenty of attention, much of critical. Archdeacon Richard Seed promptly rejected Fr. Tim’s point of view on the Anglican Church’s website and has called Fr. Tim in on the carpet.

Fr. Tim says the frenzy misses the main point of the sermon. “The point I’m making is that when we shut down every socially acceptable avenue for people in need, then the only avenue left is the socially unacceptable one,” he said

“What I’m against is the way society has become ever more comfortable with the people at the very bottom, and blinded to their needs,” Fr. Tim said. Among the classes of justified shoplifters, he said, are people who are legally entitled to government welfare benefits but have the benefits delayed for bureaucratic reasons.
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By floegel | Posted in Catholicism, Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
12/17/2009

Stockholm Syndrome in Copenhagen

It’s cold in Vermont. Our long autumn has given way to the winter weather that always beats the calendar winter by a few weeks here. Frank Capra snowflakes fall past my window as I type.

On Saturday evening, in the company of a 14-year-old girl, I walked to a park in the south end of town, where we met fellow citizens. We all had candles. The idea was to spell out the digits 3-5-0 in light, as a message to the negotiators in Stockholm, to tell them to take action to bring the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down to below 350 parts per million.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is currently around 385-390 ppm and rising. If we stop producing greenhouse gases right now, levels of CO2 will keep rising for several decades. Neither the 14-year-old nor I will see CO2 drop below 350 ppm in our lives, but perhaps – if we act decisively and swiftly – her children may see it.

Even that is doubtful. The talks, which have less than 24 hours to go, look hopelessly stalemated. The biggest news seems to be a call to move the date of the next meeting – in Mexico City – forward from December to June 2010. Which means we’re kicking the can down the road, just not as far. Progress, they call it.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)