GM Super Bowl Ad — I Was Ahead of my time…

Delighted to see both Doctor Evil back in action & GM embrace what my buddies at The Union of Concerned Scientists‘ was asking of them when I worked there some two decades ago. To show we were indeed “ahead of our time” here is a PSA pitch I sent to Mike Myers’s agent when I worked there in ‘04.

Coincidence? Watch the ad and then read my pitch (that Myers promptly, but politely declined). If GM wants to settle with me, I’ll take the Kramer billboard agreement 😉

DRAFT PITCH LETTER TO MIKE MYERS

November XX, 2004

 

Mr. Mike Myers

c/o Ina Treciokas
I/D Public Relations

 

Dear Mr. Myers,

As a tremendous fan of your ability to tap into and lampoon some of the basic tenets of pop culture and society, I am writing to ask you to channel those talents in an effort to defend California new global warming regulations on automobiles—an initiative that will impact not only California, but the entire United States and your home country, Canada.

We have recently launched our “Automakers v. The People?” campaign to counter current auto industry tactics to undermine California’s new regulations.  In doing so, we asked ourselves this question, “Why in the world would automakers ignore consumer will, thwart their own potentially lucrative market, and use their lawyers rather than their engineers to ensure that their vehicles would continue to emit higher levels of greenhouse gases?”  If taken to its ridiculous extreme, this sounds like something Dr. Evil might do to “destroy the world.”  And that thought is what has brought us to you.

It is our opinion that automakers must understand that they cannot “spin and sue” with impunity in the face of over 80 percent of Californians who in polls have supported clean car solutions to climate change, and the potential for a lucrative, job-creating market in providing consumers with cleaner vehicle choices.  

While we are admittedly not ourselves comedians, we thought that the automaker tactics were rife with potential for satire, and that, whether it be through a parody using your iconic Dr. Evil character or in some other clever way, we might be able to work with you to create amusing and informative audio and video spots for use in the media and on the internet.

We have had some previous success teaming up with celebrities on global warming issues, most recently with Kevin Bacon on a print campaign that got placement in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Us Weekly.  

Your creative contribution could have an enormous impact on this campaign, and we hope you will have interest in being a part of it.  We have enclosed a copy of our report on this subject, Climate Control, and more information on the Automakers v. The People? campaign is available online at http://www.ucsusa.org/general/special_features/page.cfm?pageID=1534.  If you have interest, please contact our Clean Vehicles Program organizer, Scott Nathanson, at 202.223.6133 x143 or at snathanson@ucsusa.org.  

 

With sincerest thanks,

 

Kevin Knobloch

President

UCS DR EVIL SKETCH

Fade in—Dr. Evil’s conference room.

 

Much the same as his evil lair from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil sits in his black swivel chair at his conference table, stroking his hairless kitty who stands on end, hissing.

 

DrE:  There, there, Mr. Bigglesworth, I know he is scary snookums, but finally we have America’s premiere sleuth, their “Top Dog” if you will, in our clutches.  Now that I’ve given you my infallible truth serum, tell me all about your secret crime fighting syndicate.

 

Cut to: The opposite side of the conference table where, chained in a chair with a giant spiked dog collar sits a person dressed up in a McGruff the Crime Dog costume.  Embedded in his oversized mascot eye is a small syringe.  In the cracking, frightened voice of a teenager, McGruff begins to speak.

 

McG: Listen, dude, I’m just getting paid 4.35 an hour by the San Demus Police Benevolent Association to do Christmas parties.  I can’t even drive yet.  I–

 

Cut to: Dr. Evil in his chair

 

DrE: Zip it canine crusader!  I’m impressed, nay astonished, with your ability to withstand my drug Crime Dog, I must remind myself to have my chemist liquidated.

 

McG:Dude, the needle didn’t even make it through the plastic googly eyeball…

 

DrE: You’re a worthy adversary, but I have no more time to match wits.  Guards, muzzle this pooch and place him in the room of 1000 cute fuzzy kittens. 4000 tiny, razor sharp claws should be enough to get this doggie to sit up and beg—FOR HIS LIFE (evil laugh).

 

2 guards come in and put a large novelty muzzle on McGruff and drag him out of the room.

 

Cut to: Top of the conference room.

 

No. 2, Dr. Evil’s right-hand man, enters the room and makes his way down toward Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: Ah, No. 2, you bring good news I hope.

 

No2: Yes, Dr. Evil, we have successfully insinuated ourselves into controlling interest of the major automakers as you requested.

 

DrE: Splendid. And what do you have to report?

 

No2: I’ve done a preliminary analysis, and I have identified a lucrative new opportunity.

 

DrE: Go on, dazzle me Number 2.

 

A computer screen comes up from the center of the table with a label on it saying “computer screen.”

 

No2: Automakers in the American market have traditionally made, promoted, and advertised gas guzzling cars and “SUVs” filled with over-powered engines and hyper-inflated size.

 

The computer screen shows a montage of ultra-manly car and SUV commercials with scantily clad women ogling men revving their monstrous machines.

 

DrE:  Ah, America, land of the free and home of the Humvee.

 

No2: Yes, well as usual, automakers have myopically attuned themselves to that market and ignored the fact that as gas prices have gone up and sources of petroleum more unstable, most Americans these days just want a safe car that will save them cash at the pump, drive cleaner, and suck up less foreign oil.  The small but burgeoning hybrid market has shown an inking of this potential.

 

The computer screen changes to pictures of hybrid cars and SUVs zooming past a gas station filled with souped up cars and SUVs filling up.  At that station you find the gas price sign showing the Price of Regular gas being “ARM” and the price of premium being “LEG.”

 

DrE: Sensible. Mind-numbingly boring, but sensible.  

 

No2: But here’s the kicker.  California has recently proposed groundbreaking regulations to control global warming pollution from automobiles.  This gives us the perfect opportunity to use clean car improvements and let us profit from this market rather than handing that money to the oil companies.  Indeed, 80% of Californians support these regulations.

 

DrE: Well, of course they do, and they’d like to make their bumpers out of compressed oat bran and their gasoline made magically out of the smiles out of the good little boys and girls across our fair land. All this “clean car” technology sounds expensive No2.  And I’m still a bit in hoc for that drill to the center of the earth to unleash the red-hot magma, as you might recall.

 

No2: Dr. Evil, most of the technologies needed already exist and are sitting on automaker shelves.

 

DrE: Sounds like someone is trying to blow a little smoke up ole’ Dr. Evil’s keester, No2.  You won’t get Daddy’s MasterCharge that easily.

 

No2:  I anticipated your reluctance, so to prove it, I have brought in the only engineer that you would know and trust.  I give you…

 

No.2 moves to a chair at the table that had been turned around, and slowly and dramatically spins it toward Dr. Evil.

 

No2: Geordi LaForge, chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise!

 

The char reveals LaVarr Burton in an ill-fitting, original Star Trek uniform and a hair clip over his eyes to poorly simulate his trademark visor.

 

DrE: Ah, the most trusted name in engineering since Pops Racer.  So tell me, Commander, what 24th century technologies might “cool the savage car?”

 

LB: As I told your friend here before they kidnapped me and threw this costume on me—one that’s from the wrong series mind you—I am not Geordi LaForge.  I’m LaVarr Burton, an actor.

 

DrE: Yes, yes, a clever little ruse to save your precious “prime directive” about interfering with the time-space continuum.  Go on, Commander, tell me, a “warp drive in every garage?”

 

LB: (sighs) Okay, I’m not an engineer, but even I know that carmakers have a whole host of clean car technologies sitting on their shelves that they just don’t integrate into most standard vehicle models.  Things like VTEC engines, variable valve timing, cylinder deactivation, and continuously variable transmissions are all available today.  You don’t need warp drive to make cleaner cars.

 

DrE: Okay Number 2, color me convinced. But what does this mean for little old Dr. Evil?

 

No2:Well from merely letters sent to the automakers from around the country in support of these clean car regulations, we estimate a market of at least—

 

Closeup on Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: Let me guess—ONE MILLION DOLLARS!?!

 

No2: Actually, Dr. Evil, it’s more like a billion dollars.

 

The computer screen pops up with the figure of $1 billion.

 

DrE: Billion, with a “B” you say.

 

No2: Yes, billion—a thousand million.

 

DrE: That’s a lot of mutated sea bass with lasers on their heads.

 

No2: Exactly Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: A most interesting presentation, No.2.  But while I hate to “flush” your ideas down the drain.

 

Dr. Evil chortles.  No.2 looks annoyed.

 

DrE: No.2—flush—that never gets old.

 

No2: Yes, Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: I have decided on a slightly different plan.

 

No2: And that is?

 

DrE: Nothing.

 

No2: Nothing, Dr Evil?

 

DrE:  I’m sorry, what didn’t you understand about my answer.  The “NOT” or the “HING?”

 

No2: But, I don’t understand. The market, the profit, the sea bass–

 

DrE: As per usual, No.2 you don’t see the bigger picture.  I have done some looking into this as well.

 

The computer screen changes to a screen saying “Operation Hot Gas”

 

DrE: It seems the goody-goody Union of Concerned Scientists have done some climate simulations. They predict a future of melting mountains in the Sierra Nevadas, the great redwoods tumbling, Napa grapes drying on the vine. Glaciers melting so quickly it would be like pouring a foot of water over California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. More droughts in the farm belt, beachfront properties potentially swallowed by the sea…

 

As Dr. Evil recites this list of cataclysmic horrors, a corresponding picture appears on the screen.  Finally, a scene of a giant tidle wave destroying Manhattan pops on the screen.

 

No2: And the gigantic tidle wave?

 

DrE: Oh, that’s just a scene from “The Day After Tomorrow.”  I just like it for effect.  And, in a breathtakingly simple scheme, all we must do to ensure that these catastrophies come true is make sure that everything stays the same.

 

No2: Stays the same?

 

DrE: Yes, my cyclopic sidekick.  As long as nothing is done to address global warming pollution, we will succeed in –

 

Closeup on Dr. Evil

 

DrE: MELTING THE WORLD!

 

LB:  Dr. Evil, that’s insane.  Being part of the climate solution is cost-effective, profitable, and the right thing to do.

 

DrE: Okay, Geordi, you’ve convinced me, now beam back to planet sunshine and lollypops and let me get back to my plan.

 

Dr. Evil presses a button on the table and Lavarr’s chair tilts back into a hole leading to a firey pit.

 

Dr.E: So our first order of business must be to eviscerate California’s landmark legislation.  It could set a dangerous precedent that other states might follow.

 

No2: I’ve heard the Canadians are already looking at similar regulations.

 

DrE: Those ridiculous Canucks—you would think they’d like to get rid of some of their snow.  We must act quickly.  Number 2, unchain—THE LAWYERS.

 

No2: No Dr. Evil, not, the lawyers.

 

Dr. Evil presses a button on the table and a large panel on the far wall slides open.  There a group of well dressed lawyers with leather briefcases are chained along the wall, growling, foaming at the mouth, acting like a pack of caged wolves.

 

DrE: Oh, yes, No2.  We will sue the consumer to keep them away from their clean cars, and continue to shove inefficient monsters down their throats, making sure that advertisements and dealers around this great land speak only of “power” and “size” and dual 8-track cassette changers.  And with that, the world will burn under my fingertips…moo-haa-haa-haa…MOO-HAA-HAA-HAA…MOOOO—HAAAA-HAAAA-HAAAA!!!!

 

As Dr. Evil elicits reluctant evil laughter from No.2, a disembodied voice begins to speak.

 

VO: Okay, no one really thinks that Dr. Evil is controlling automakers threats to sue Californians in order to stop their precedent-setting regulations on global warming emissions from automobiles—

 

Dr. Evil and No. 2 abruptly stop laughing and start looking around for where the voice is coming from.

 

DrE: No.2, how many times have I told you to make our secret chamber voiceover-proof.

 

VO: But how else can you explain why they are threatening lawsuits, ignoring the will of Californians, and the demand from consumers around the country for the cost-effective, no-compromises, clean-car solutions their talented engineers could provide us?

 

Dr. Evil grabs a spray can labeled “Voice Over-Away” and begins to spray it around the room.

 

VO: If you think automakers should send their engineers, not their lawyers, to help provide consumers with clean car solutions, better jobs for their workers, and more profit for themselves, let them hear it.  Go to www.automakersVpeople.org and take action today.

 

Fade out to posting of the website address.

2020 & The Tyranny of “Time”

It is December 31, 2020. The end of a horrible year.

Covid is raging.

My Father can’t remember anything past 15 minutes — he has multi-infarct dementia.

My little brother — my Best Man — is about to die — he is in the final stages of brain cancer.

I am crying.

Almost uncontrollably.

Yet, simultaneously, I am listening to my brother play. A captured moment in time off of his solo album, Heavy Breathing.

It reminds me of an exchange that I had with my other Father who now lives in the Clearwater area. One is my biological father, the other my step-father. I will not tell you which-is-which, as when it comes to my heart, that is an irrelevancy. He has had some battles of his own with his health, but is sound of mind. Here’s our recent exchange as his adopted hometown Rays made their run to the World Series:

I call it “Ratatouille” moments. There are times when we simply remember things, but there are other times when those memories become present, like when a bite of an elevated peasant’s dish took Anton Ego directly to the moment when his mother cured a little boy’s boo-boo with the flavors his favorite meal. Past and present intertwine. The two Doctors meet as their Tardises (Tardi?) overlap at the same moment, even though those moments are at two different places in linear time.

To nerd this up just a bit more, let’s talk science & philosophy. A recent article I read suggested that physicists have new evidence that the future is not the open question that we living in linear time intuit to be. Indeed, it seems that the counter-intuitive notion that the future is as fixed as the past seems more-and-more what the science is suggestion is the truth.

Of course, to a Star Trek nerd raised on Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, this rubs against the grain. But, as Professior Alison Fernandes of Trinity College Dublin sagely notes:

“Human minds aren’t geared to intuit what fundamental reality is like. Typically, it takes a lot of empirical work to figure out the way things are. It was very natural at one time to think of air as weightless, and of solid objects as filled with matter. But we’ve learnt that air is weighty, and that solid things are mostly empty space – even if we can also make good sense of why these things seemed otherwise. Given these lessons, it would be very surprising if we had direct insight into the fundamental nature of time.”

That lack of fundamental understanding shaped by what we feel is a major reason I am almost militantly agnostic. Much to I’m sure the aggravation of devout Atheists like Richard Dawkins (one of my 10 different Covid-reading books I’m in the middle of is his, The God Delusion), I do not think that we are even close to enough of an understanding of our universe to simply dismiss faith. That level of certainty seems to be on par with those on the opposite side who demand that their belief is somehow proveable.

On that side of the coin, I recently got into an exchange with my devoutly Jewish mother as we cried together over the impending end of my brother’s life. She finds comfort that which is Dan, “Everything that is not of the body,” as Sarek says of Spock after his demise at the hands of Khan, will go on; his soul traveling to heaven.

She chafed at the fact that I could not share that belief with her, as I have no idea if there is something beyond our bodies, or whether we have a definitive beginning, middle, and end. The Taoist philosophy that we are all part of one larger way, and simply shift in our form in that flow, certainly always held appeal to me. But air is not weightless, and solids are mostly empty space…

To my surprise, my mother decided to continue this conversation via email. Below is the exchange, including the link to the video my mother asked me to watch:

https://youtu.be/Oc3YpDG9hMg

Love to know what you think of this. Mom

******

Okay, so I watched this. Not sure you’ll like my reaction to it, though. I found the logic here to be so tortured as to be almost comical. Essentially, the notion is, “These events have historical proof, and the Bible says that G-d played a hand in it. Therefore if you believe the Bible, it’s incontrovertible proof s/he exists.” So essentially the only actual “proof” of G-d is in the Bible.

The argument that because the Jews have survived so much it’s obviously proof of the Hebrew G-d is similarly silly and ethnocentric. There are MANY ethnic minorities and cultures around the world who have faced similar threats and survived. Large empires attempting to stamp out ethnic differences or assimilate them is a historical standard. Armenians, B‘’hai, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and countless others could tell similar stories. I’m not saying the Jewish story isn’t impressive—it absolutely is—it’s just not unique.

What this means to me personally is the very same that it did before I watched it. There is a real power to a “leap of faith” but it is just that. You are leaping beyond logic and proof and trusting in something that really cannot be proven. I understand the attraction and power of making that leap and will never bash anyone for having that (provided they do not attempt to foist their belief on anyone else—that’s where I draw a line). But, if anything, watching this made me even more agnostic because I feel it’s almost dishonest in twisting history and archeology to try and make a factual case for what is clearly a leap beyond logic (which is fine, but that’s what it is so I say just own up to it, IMHO).

So, there you go — your agnostic son’s view. Hope you don’t find this insulting but you asked my opinion, so there you go.

The fact that I love you and you love me is definitely something I have faith in!

Shmoolik

******

Thank you for taking the time to listen to Solovechick and to respond. Noone claims that we are the only people chosen to have a path that can help perfect this world. But you ignore or explain away all the “coincidences”. How amazingly the prophets have predicted what would happen, the Assyrians simply fading away with a plague just as they were about to sack Jerusalem. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, I guess we will find out when these bodies give out. Yes I do love you very much, but not your choice in liquors. Mom

*****

I’m not ignoring prophecies. Frankly, given how many prophecies were wrong or so vague or metaphorical as to mean about anything, I find the fact that some of them happened to hit home doesn’t do much for me, personally. Here’s a good article that encapsulates how I feel about biblical prophecies:

https://whistlinginthewind.org/2014/01/15/were-the-biblical-prophecies-fulfilled/

You are correct, we’re going to agree to disagree for now. I’m happy to keep listening and reading the stuff you send — I often do. Maybe my opinion will grow and change. Being agnostic rather than atheist is that I don’t know or believe I’m right — I just don’t think you are, either and so far I just don’t see anything except leaping beyond logic into faith, which nothing in my experience has made me do.

Hope you’ll be able to join the Zoom in a bit,

The Shmoo

Indeed, as this tortured year—and my Best Man’s life — comes to an end, I am finding a strange and unexpected comfort in my uncertainty. If time is not really as we experience it, and things to come are just as fixed as a memory of things past, then past and present are just as eternal and real as the undiscovered country.

Perhaps the illusion is the very notion of beginning and end. Those Ratatouille moments are indeed two fixed and forever points in time intersecting. This would mean that if we have a beginning, we never actually have an end. That the love I feel now for my brother is indeed forever; as is he. His impending release from his tortured present body in no way erases his existence. He existed, and therefore, perhaps, he always exists.

With so many having lost so much this year, perhaps there is some comfort in that for others. After all, before his resurrection, Spock told his brother from another mother, James Tiberius Kirk that, “There always are…possibilities.” (Make sure you read that line with Bill Shatner voice in your head for maximum dramatic effect)

I will have far more to say about my brother in time, but, at this time, that is about as much as I can type between tears. May your New Year’s 2020 be a safe and peaceful one, and thank you for joining me in this moment in time.

Strength vs. Bluster

Vice President Biden with wife Jill and Tara Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, in India, July 2013. Credit mkgandhi.org

So about 100 years ago (or 2011 to be more precise, given everything pre-COVID seems ancient now) I wrote a piece called, “The strength in sorry” with this quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Typos and all (trying to forgive myself for those…), that piece was about the strength in asking for forgiveness and how that can open the door to more dialogue than the traditional, defensive, “Let me explain” mode we often get into. The other side of that particular coin, of course, is the actual act of forgiving itself.

In many ways, Joe Biden’s address at the DNC was the epitome of displaying that kind of strength. “I am the Democratic candidate, but I will be an American President.” Well before anyone casts their first vote, Biden is already forgiving anyone who did not agree with him. Indeed Biden has often throughout his career been attacked (inclusive of his Vice Presidential choice, showing another act of powerful forgiveness) for being too willing to reach out and try to understand the other side in an effort to make progress on a particular issue.

Another attack on Biden’s sense of forgiveness is that it will turn him into a punching bag against the bullying rhetoric that Donald Trump and his acolytes have, are, and will be hurling against him. That Biden’s reluctance to demonize his opponents opens him up to exactly the kind of smear campaign that Trump unleashed on Hillary Clinton.

Yesterday, I believe he showed exactly how wrong that was. If you haven’t watched it in its entirety, it’s worth your 20 minutes:

Much like Gandhi’s campaign against the racist, colonial presence in his native land, Biden cannot abide a bully. In India, the ultimate success in removing the British came from forgiveness—the ability for Hindus and Muslims to look past their differences and unite behind a common good. While history showed that sustaining forgiveness in that region has been a difficult proposition, there is no doubt that Gandhi’s ability to bring disparate interests together changed the course of history.

Biden’s blistering attack on Trump yesterday was not, “going low.” Instead it was straight out of the playbook of Gandhi, King, and Lewis. In calling out Trumps myriad lies about his own record and his refusal to call out all sides who have used violence as a tool, the Vice President literally brought truth-to-power. And he put his money where his mouth was; himself condemning any rioting done under the false flag of legitimate protest by using the words of forgiveness and peace from Jacob Blake’s own parents to reinforce both the admonition of violence and the need for reform.

Of course, there will be some who will go straight to the, “Sleepy Joe” rubbish, focusing on a few circular sentences or misspoken words. The recent spread of an obviously falsified video by White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino shows they will go to any length to demean and degrade. Lawyer and SuitUPNews host Exavier Pope took Trump apologists to task trying to simply dismiss this fabrication as parody:

Such an obviously disprovable fake of that Harry Belafonte sleeping video swap of Joe Biden, but by the time it spreads to Facebook and other social media many people have ingrained what the images convey and don’t care about a “fact check.” That’s why propaganda is so dangerous

As the father of an Dean’s List college student with a stutter, one who braved his condition to win a middle school public speaking competition, and trips over the “B” in “Biden” each of the thousands of times he’s been making calls as a volunteer for the Biden/Harris campaign, I can hear it every single time Joe circles his sentences to keep from tripping on a word, or misspeaks because he doesn’t have the luxury that most of us do of not having to think about how he is saying things.

And every time I hear it, I hear strength, not weakness. True, humble, and genuine strength; not the bluster of narcissistic hubris.

As my son continues to brave his stutter for BidenHarris, now while in an isolation dorm awaiting the results of a COVID test (he developed a fever a few days ago though it’s gone now and we’re keeping fingers-and-toes crossed that it was just a quick, not-so-novel coronavirus), he continues his mantra that, “This is personal for me.”

I hope it is for you as well, and that you choose true strength over arrogant bluster.

Bring Back the Draft? A Parent’s Perspective

And so the tit-for-tat begins. Iran responded with what is clearly a symbolic military strike, using its own ballistic missiles to show their capacity and technology to strike, but not with the devastating impact that allowed America the political room not to escalate.

But you can read about that anywhere from those more in the know than I. One of my areas of expertise is, however, being a Dad. My High School freshman came back from school yesterday talking about how his AP World History teacher (yes, I’m humble-bragging that my 9th Grader is taking an AP class…) engaged the class in a discussion on what’s happening with Iran. It seems the core element of the discussion was Mr. Moses trying to calm their fears of war; noting that Iran recognizes that U.S. military might is not something they want to instigate a full-scale fight with.

Of course, Mr. Moses is likely right, and the Iranian response seems to validate that theory. But that hasn’t kept my College freshman’s Instagram from blowing up with fears of war—but more pressing to young men and women—fear of the draft. It reminded me to make sure that my boy was indeed registered with Selective Service as I did 30-plus years ago.

My big fella has a lot of his mother’s practicality in him, and spent most of the time trying to settle his friends down. I agreed with his rationale and rationality. There is no political appetite in this country for a draft, and with the force-multiplier of technology (remember, it was a drone that killed Suleimani), the likelihood that we’re going to spend the time and money to increase the size of our standing forces is a distant threat to Millennials and Gen Z.

But while something like a draft would mostly impact my sons’ generation, and the impact that Millennials have on the workplace and culture are almost obsessively covered by the media (AOC, anyone?), very quietly, the overlooked middle child of the “O.K. Boomer” battle—Generation X—are taking the levers of leadership. Indeed, as this fascinating article points out, The Global Leadership Forecast for 2018 shows that Xers have taken the majority of world leadership positions for the first time.

Besides the certainty that music attained it’s absolute height with Peter Gabriel’s “So” in 1986 and there can-and-will never be a better action movie than Raiders of the Lost Ark (note: it is NOT “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Star Wars” is NOT “Start Wars: A New Hope”), I as a GenXer remember the establishment of AmeriCorps, President Clinton’s initiative to expand the notion of service beyond the military or international aid (aka Peace Corps) both by providing direct government services such as teaching, construction, and poverty amelioration with grants to existing organizations to bolster their ability to employ and expand their reach. Indeed, it is a model strikingly similar to the signature program that the first GenX President put in place—Obamacare.

I’ve often termed Generation X as the “Live Aid” generation. In general, it’s a notion that we want to make the world a better, place, but there’s no reason we can’t do that and keep the things we love about the world we have. Global hunger? Okay, let’s have a mega-concert and collect a zillion dollars to feed the hungry!

Indeed, I’ve heard from so many of my contemporaries the notion of “working the problem.” Perhaps that’s why as a coach I am so taken with the the RAMP-C method from the Heads-Up Baseball school. Calm down, breathe, don’t get ahead of yourself, and give the best you have at the moment to an immediate goal. Reset, assess, and go at it again. It’s not sexy. It’s not revolutionary; it just works.

I graduated from college before AmeriCorps kicked in. Instead I went the nonprofit direction, spending the next two decades working for various arms control and environmental organizations. I’m still proud of the little, tiny sliver of a Nobel Peace Prize I can clam as my organization worked as part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. But as much as I loved the idea of AmeriCorps back then, I must admit that I had to look it up this morning to see if it indeed still even existed. And when I mentioned it to my College Boy, he looked back at me as blankly as if I had asked my Denison University first-year whether he knew the Occidental College fight song by heart (Of course, it’s, Occidental Fair!).

Right now, he’s planning on public service, but in the government arena as a Poli Sci major. While as a history nerd and non-profit advocacy vet I’m proud of that choice, getting him upped for Selective Service has really reinvigorated the aspirational ideal of AmeriCorps in me. As I mentioned in my last Iran post, when I was a student in Israel, I almost marveled as my friends packed-up the dorm room in order to do their tour in Gaza as part of their obligatory military service.

In a nation so polarized, could mandatory national service be a way to empower the next generation toward a sense of a common future? And could we afford such a thing?

The more I think about it, the more I think that we cannot afford not to.

I’ll leave that on a cliffhanger. In my next post, I’ll give you my idea of why, and how, I think it can and should be done, and how I got at least my Gen Z College Kid to sign off on it.

Batman, Bibi, and the Killing of Quassem

“Life only makes sense if you force it to.”

—Earth 99 Batman/Bruce Wayne in the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths

Maybe it’s just me, but this one feels different.

The US assassination of Quasem Suleimani, general and leader of the Qods Force of Iran, doesn’t feel like the usual tit-for-tat in our endless war. This would be like Iran directly assassinating our Secretary of State or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Several intelligence sources have noted that both the Bush and Obama administrations had Suleimani on their radar and had opportunities to conduct similar strikes. Both administrations decided not to move forward because of the potential for uncertain results.

However, one of those Bush Administration officials, Michael Doran, saw this move as a positive. He said in a “hot take” in the New York Times:

In Washington, the decision to kill Mr. Suleimani represents the final demise of Mr. Obama’s Middle East strategy, which sought to realign American interests with those of Iran. Mr. Obama’s search for a modus vivendi with Tehran never comported with the reality of the Islamic Republic’s fundamental character and regional ambitions. President Trump, by contrast, realized that Tehran’s goal was to replace America as the key player in the Middle East.

I personally disagree with Doran’s assessment of the Obama Administration’s efforts in the region. I see it more as a belief in multilateral pressure as the key component to moving adversarial powers in the region to policy directions more in line with stability and U.S. interests. Such a core belief had its successes (Iran nuclear deal) and failures (rise of Islamic State) much like the very similar global foreign policy successes (Oslo Accord) and failures (Rwandan Genocide) of the Clinton Administration.

So while I might see that part differently than Doran, one thing I completely agree with is that this action marks the final demise of the Obama (and Clinton) Middle East policy. And, at it’s core, I believe what that means is particularly tragic.

It means the death of hope.

And that’s where Batman comes in.

For while I don’t have Mr. Doran’s pedigree, I have a Nerd’s Eye View he lacks.

While I tried and just didn’t enjoy the soapy, millennial stylings of most of the CW’s “Arrowverse” shows, I have always come back for their crossovers, as to date they have brought back and referenced the “multiverse” of heroes beyond just the shows currently on. And this time, leaping off the seminal 1980s comic series Crisis on Infinite Earths, the writers decided to go all out, bringing in everything from Christopher Reeve’s iconic Superman to my Batman, the Batusi-dancing caped crusader of the 1960s.

But while perhaps the most satisfying part of the first three episodes has been Brandon Routh’s return as the successor to Christopher Reeve (Bryan Singer deprived us of a fantastic era of Superman with his poorly constructed film), what has been most striking was the iconic voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, making his first live action appearance as the Broken Bat. For while we first think he will become the “Paragon of Courage” we quickly learn that, instead that what light was in this Dark Knight’s soul was snuffed out long ago.

If you’ve got a little over 4 minutes, here’s the segment in its bleak, glorious entirety:

https://youtu.be/62GpdErpjr4

In essence, this feels like what would have become of Batfleck in Batman vs. Superman had he succeeded in killing the last son of Krypton. Indeed that Batman says almost the same bleak line that I quoted to start this piece, before finding hope in Superman’s humanity as Clark seeks to save his earthling mother even at the cost of his own life.

But this Bruce instead saw his world as a bleak and endless battle; the only survival coming from forcing one’s will on reality. It is why he rejects Kate’s pleas to help save the universe. The end of everything is a release from misery:

KATE: Do you understand how many people, how many worlds, are going to die?

BRUCE: If they’re anything like this world, maybe that’s for the best.

KATE: How can you even say that?

BRUCE: Because there is no hope for this world.

For me, this is at the very core of why despite the failures of Clinton and Obama (for Clinton, I highly recommend the incredibly difficult, but entirely brilliant book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch), I will take this world view of neocons like Doran, who tried to force the Middle East to make sense by attempting to export western democracy at the edge of a sword.

Indeed, I remember seeing hope spring in the Middle East when I was studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the summer of 1992. Yitzhak Rabin and the Labor Party had just come to power on the promise of a serious effort toward peace with the Palestinians. Israeli friends of mine who had to leave school to do their tour of duty in Gaza expressed a spark of hope that it could be their last. And, almost unanimously, they told me that I should be following their lead and voting for “Kleenton.” Time to take a chance on the man from Hope.

Perhaps somewhere else in the multiverse, Rabin avoided assassination at the hands of a Jewish zealot fed in part by the political machinations of one Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. I could go into detail, but if you want the full picture, I recommend Dan Ephron’s seminal Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel. Or perhaps there’s an Earth where Rabin’s slaying inspired Yasser Arafat into seizing on Ehud Barak’s offer at the Camp David summit in 2000. But we don’t live on those worlds.

Instead, Israel’s hope was broken, and what replaced it was Netanyahu’s cynical efforts to bend the situation to his will, inclusive of the call-and-response of Hamas missile attacks on Israel and Israeli strikes aimed at high-level military operatives in Gaza. The Labor Party of Rabin has been reduced to an afterthought. In its stead are parties fighting over who can best manage dystopia.

In this fateful action the Trump Administration has taken, it smacks to me of that final surrender of hope. While it began with abandoning the nuclear agreement and the international consensus behind it, this action feels like Batman finally snapping the Joker’s neck. A decision to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven.

This morning, my wife retweeted something from Congressman Richard Dangler (D-WA) that I think should resonate with any parent:

I try to be a little less judgmental, but the worry rings true.

But despite how I feel, I still find some light. The world’s greatest superpower is still a democracy even in the midst of a growingly undemocratic world. Change is still possible.

As the multiverse collapsed, Brandon Routh’s Superman, flying from universe-to-universe trying to save what was left of humanity, returns to the heroes, slamming his fist on the floor having failed one now-destroyed reality. Lois Lane (from another universe, his Lois was murdered by The Joker) attempts to comfort him:

LOIS: Clark?

SUPERMAN: I couldn’t save them.

LOIS: Do you want to take a minute? Looks like you could use a break.

SUPERMAN: When I put this on—this crest—I made a promise, to keep fighting, no matter what.

LOIS: Hey, why’d you add black to it?

SUPERMAN: Because, Lois, even in the darkest times, hope cuts through. Hope is the light that gets us through the darkness. I must go back.

And in this moment of darkness, I will—no, I must—hope that maybe, just maybe, that we can Make America Super Again.

A Useful Tool

So here I am on my fancy new iPad my sister gave me for my big Five-O. The last two iPads were victims of my Forgetful Forties—both sacrificed to the travel gods when placed hurriedly in airplane seat pockets while coordinating the family exodus.

The nice thing about a new device—and a new decade—is that it gives me a chance to both start fresh and look back. I always love when cognitive dissonance comes into play—it’s such a wonderfully human trait. After all, every person has an inalienable right to hypocrisy.

As far as starting fresh is concerned, my mid-century tech boost enables me to bid farewell to the literally dozens of failed blog posts, op/eds, and first chapters that litter my old PC. Indeed, I’m really hoping this missive doesn’t wind up in the same virtual dust heap as all those others—it will at least prove that something is different this time. For my 40s featured mostly a point/counter-point that started with some point, and countered with my realization that I really wasn’t making my point particularly well.

The 40s me simply hated the sound of my own voice.

Indeed, I recently made this point to my great college friends in life in a 50th birthday bash weekend in LA. 30 years after wandering as boys into Eagle Rock, California, Thom, Dan, and I rounded back to see the decay, gentrification, and renewal in both our old stomping ground and ourselves. To quote one of Thom and my favorite pop culture characters—FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper—such trips are invariably both, “wondrous and strange.”

Dan became a business and marketing expert, though his true profession is people, as it was even back in school. His interest in culture and his natural ease enabled him to build a career that for years took him hopping all over the globe, mostly in Asia. Even so, he and I always had a small pang of regret that we never tried our hand at following Occidental College legend Terry Gilliam in the art of satirical comedy.

Both caustic and quick, Dan and I found pleasure at pushing at pillars we thought needed toppling. Our most memorable campus moment came when we decided that the Oxy Glee Club’s annual Valentines Day foray—going into classes and serenading a student at a lover’s behest—needed a counter. Dan and I felt that it unfairly left out the angry and alone among us, and used our friend Thom as a willing rube to regale his class with a thrilling rendition of everyone’s favorite tune, “I Hate You, You Dirty Sonofabitch!”

Ah, the college comedy stylings of Dan & Scott…

Unlike we Python wannabes, our accomplice Thom did decide to make a career in comedy. He’s written and directed some fantastically funny short films, and with representation now seems on the verge of his long-deserved breakout moment. As we sat in the hotel drinking in every moment together (as well as some plain-old drinking), I gathered a bit of bravery to expose some of my vulnerability.

“So do you ever get frustrated with what you write?” I queried.

“Of course!” Thom responded. “Sometimes I just can’t find the right line, the right joke, and I’ll just put, ‘think of something funny here’ as a placeholder.”

I envied his ability to simply push on over that obstacle. But I selfishly wanted to get more to the heart of my own issue.

“But do you ever look down at the page, and just find yourself sick-and-tired of your own writing? Do you ever just dislike your own voice?”

Thom’s response was almost instantaneous, almost reflexive.

“Oh, that’s just ‘imposter syndrome.’ You can’t let that creep in.”

Our conversation moved on, but my thoughts dwelled on the apparent ease in which he was able to dismiss what for me as a writer is at my core. Indeed, even as I write this, I feel both verbose and whiny.

But my new iPad compels me forward.

So I will punch the keys.

I can see that for Thom, imposter syndrome might be the correct diagnosis for such a malady. But I’m not so sure that applies to me. Not everyone is a good writer—and there are many out there who think they have talent, but simply do not. Why can’t my poor self-review be honest, rather than simple self-loathing?

People who like you, love you, root for you are oft unflinching in their support; for your happiness is their happiness. That’s not selfish—at least not in a bad way. It’s human nature—a symbiotic circle of giving and reciprocity. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make, as a fabulous set of four philosophers once crooned.

I understand this as a husband and father. My greatest moments of joy and satisfaction lie in knowing my family is thriving. My greatest fears are their struggles. My greatest failures are their failures. I have invested my entirety. And so it is only natural to want a return.

The same goes for my, “relentless optimism” as a coach. I simply do not have it in me not to invest in the kids I work with. To simply give them Xes and Os defeats the purpose of teaching the game. And while I’ve come to understand that my own style needs to change with both age group and the particular player, I cannot distance myself from every pitch, swing, and throw my players take. It’s probably not healthy, but it’s true.

But while I understand that selfish altruism (there’s fun with cognitive dissonance again!), the flip side of that comes with it the pressure to measure up. In my personal case, it’s the pressure that I think comes from everyone who wants you to see yourself as positively as they see you. If they think you are awesome, and you don’t think you are awesome, something surely must be wrong with you. It must be imposter syndrome. It must be depression. You must need therapy, Prozac, something so you can see what they see.

As a teen, my mother put me on anti-depressants, and everyone just loved how happy I was. But I didn’t feel like they were helping me. It felt more like they were replacing me. I felt like I was feeling someone else’s feelings. Like I was the me others wanted to see.

I stopped taking those medications, and some 35 years later with an incredible wife and two fantastic boys, I’ve never regretted the decision to be me; warts and all.

This is not to say I don’t think medication is a bad thing in itself for mental health. It is a crucial component for many and I don’t begrudge anyone that choice. But for me, it was a moment best captured by James T. Kirk in one of the fleeting moments of quality from the ill-fated Star Trek V. When the antagonist Sybok attempted to enlist him as a follower by releasing him from his greatest mental anguish, he refused, saying, “I want my pain. I need my pain!”

And here you thought you’d escape an arcane pop-culture reference. Wrong blog.

In my 20s, that pain was tempered with the endless, impetuous possibilities of youth.

In my 30s, that pain was put to use with empathy, passion, and love to build a family and career.

In my 40s, that pain overwhelmed me with the realization that the endless, impetuous possibilities of youth had given way to the understanding that inevitably comes to most—that I was not special. My mark would be local—not global. I was good at my job, but so would the person taking my job after me, and the next. That what I contributed might be of value, but it certainly wasn’t novel. Indeed, “Midlife Crisis” isn’t a stereotype for nothing.

Here in the infancy of my 50s, my pain has dulled into a sort of resignation—no—an understanding is perhaps the better term. I am loved and lucky. I have made an overall positive impact on the lives of the people closest to me, and of some others around me. I will never become a best-selling author or write the bill that changes the world. I understand now better than I ever did before that the more you learn, the less you truly know. But I see that what I have become still has its utility.

My pain and I are, at last, partners.

I am, finally, a useful tool.

And, at least right now, that is enough.

Wonder Woman vs. The Filter Bubble

Much to my boys’ consternation at times, I’m an “NPR in the car” parent.  If we’re going somewhere they need to get pumped-up for, say to a sporting event or a workout, I’ll let them pop it on music, but mostly they’re regaled to the lilting tones of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

On Sunday mornings, we toggle between acoustic sunrise (kids in a bad mood so I know they’ll complain) and the TED Radio Hour (got enough sleep and not thinking about Monday just yet).  Last week, TED won out, and I got a chance to listen to a great story on a 2011 talk by Upworthy co-founder Eli Pariser.

His was a sobering talk about the advent of “Filter Bubbles,” our new algorithmic masters.  The talk is less than nine minutes and very much worth your time.  In short, he decried how the most ubiquitous ways we get our information, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Flipboard, are all “personalizing” what you see based on clickthroughs and user information.  This used to be only for ads, which I personally never saw as an issue, but now it filters everything from search results to friends’ posts.  The result is that the online “world” for us becomes a proverbial bedtime story; gently rocking us to sleep with warm, comforting words.  I believe that makes us as a people more self-righteous and thinner-skinned whatever your political slant.

Our outgoing President would seem to agree.  Again owing to my NPR-nerd side, Obama spoke in a fascinating, wide-ranging interview with Steve Inskeep, he had this to say about the advice he’s given to his daughters about political dialogue:

“… my advice to progressives like myself, and this is advice I give my own daughters who are about to head off to college, is don’t go around just looking for insults. You’re tough. If somebody says something you don’t agree with, just engage them on their ideas. But you don’t have to feel that somehow because you’re a black woman that you’re being assaulted. But speak up for yourself, and if you hear somebody saying something that’s insulting, feel free to say to that guy, “You know what? You’re rude” or “you’re ignorant” and take them on.

But the thing that I want to emphasize here though is, the irony in this debate is often-times you’ll hear somebody like a Rush Limbaugh, or other conservative commentators, or you know, radio shock jocks, or some conservative politicians, who are very quick to jump on any evidence of progressives being “politically correct,” but who are constantly aggrieved and hypersensitive about the things they care about, and are continually feeding this sense of victimization, and that they are being subject to reverse discrimination.”

I think Obama’s point is a valid one.  There’s a delicate, yet vital line between disagreement and insult, and I think we have, collectively, strayed too far as a society toward conflating the two.  But what I would add to the President’s insight on this is that while we shouldn’t be looking for insults, we should be actively looking for disagreement.  Testing (and sometimes disproving) our assumptions helps us to be better people, parents, and for me, a better coach.

So, to give myself a little pat-on-the-back, one thing I’ve been doing for a while to get out of my filter bubble is that I’ve chosen “Conservative News” as one of my interest areas on Flipboard.  I noticed over time that because I was choosing to read more progressive than conservative stories, the Flipboard algorithm was bubbling away and that the conservative stories in my main feed were dwindling down to nothing.

So rather than go to the main feed, I always spend at least a few minutes going directly to the conservative news section.  Now, I’ll fully admit, most of what I see I have a hard time getting past the headlines on.  Here are a couple of examples of stories I really had to force myself through:

• Islamist Terrorists Continually Slaughter Christians’: Trump Says What Obama Refused to Say: The whole “Call it Islamic Terror” thing has been a terrible dog whistle, and this article has nothing new to say on the matter. There a reason why ISIS is delighted Trump won the election, as they yearn to be taken as the No. 1 threat to Western civilization.  So good on ya for playing right into that propaganda.
• Freakout on the Left: I can’t even begin to tell you how much I detest the deflection on the fact that Russia actively hacked into our election process. This kind of editorial backslapping is so filled with misstatements I can’t even begin to go through them all.  The larger point I feel being missed by most isn’t the fact that Russia hacked for Trump, but that it hacked at all, and succeeded.  That’s not just a past threat, but a pernicious future one that is tremendously worrisome.  Articles like this make it that much more difficult to find common ground on what should be universally accepted: it is not good to have foreign powers use covert means to destabilize our democratic process.

But while the lake runs deep with articles like these that make my blood boil, there are ones that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen that stretch the gray matter a bit more.

An article from The College Fix (“Original.  Student Reported.  Your Daily Dose of “Right Minded” News and Commentary from Across the Nation”) posted a challenging article on a black teaching in Milwaukee who was suspended from his job for giving his 7^th Grade students a persuasive writing assignment to defend the KKK.

The article is, to my mind, fairly written—not overly defending the teacher or the parents.  The suspension came down over the fact that 7^th Grade was too young to ask students to put themselves in the shoes of a hate group, but coming off reading To Kill a Mockingbird, the notion of seeing the perceptions of even the worst of people seems to me a challenging and appropriate assignment.

As a teacher, I could easily see myself making that choice, as arguing for the worst of people is often the best way to understand and ultimately undermine their arguments.  Perhaps 13 is too young and perhaps the assignment could have been couched better, but I find it hard to think that a teacher trying to create a challenging and thought-provoking assignment should be suspended.  There’s that line between disagreement and insult that Obama was talking about.

As I continued to wade through, I ran across an article that was a nerd’s must-click.  This one from The Blaze, best known as Glenn Beck’s online home, emblazoned, “Israeli actress playing Wonder Woman responds to UN giving her character the boot as ambassador.”  The flap, for those who aren’t aware, is that Wonder Woman was given a ceremonial ambassador for women’s rights with both the original TV Wonder Woman Linda Carter and current inhabitor of the character Gal Gadot celebrating the long history of the character championing women’s rights.

The Star-Spangled spandex and the animated version’s impossible body-type inspired a petition to remove the Themysciran princess from the UN-appointed roll.  Gadot, who has embraced the chance to play Wonder Woman as the roll of a lifetime, was less-than-impressed by the rationale behind the protest.  From the article:

“There are so many horrible things that are going on in the world, and this is what you’re protesting, seriously?  When people argue that Wonder Woman should ‘cover up,’ I don’t quite get it. They say, ‘If she’s smart and strong, she can’t also be sexy.’ That’s not fair. Why can’t she be all of the above?”

I had to say I was behind the sentiment of the article, but I do take issue with the article’s subtext.  Note in the headline the choice to say “Israeli” first.  The notion of “cultural imperialism” that some of those protesting WW’s inclusion has absolutely nothing to do with Israel.  Indeed her citizenship is entirely irrelevant to this particular story the way it is written.

Until…

At the very end of the article, as an aside, there’s this tucked away:

Gadot has come under attack in the past from social justice warriors for her background as an Israeli national, an Israeli Defense Force veteran, and a denouncer of Hamas.

Look how the article bookends anti-Israeli innuendo into a story that has absolutely nothing to do with the story.  To me, this is perhaps the worst traditional journalistic practice—the “wink-and-nudge” editorializing within a solid piece of reporting.  To me, it undermines an excellent, thought-provoking point about the need to look past labels (or the spandex) and see the value underneath.  Indeed, I dare any one of the protesters to sit down and watch the wonderful Independent Lens documentary Wonder Women! and not see the immense and complex contribution to the world that this character has to this very day.

So while I was disappointed by the way The Blaze decided to cover the story, there was still room there for agreement.  Indeed, the best defense for Wonder Woman came just days later from Eli Pariser’s Upworthy (wonderfully written—well worth the read).  And when the two ends meet, to me that can be the place to burst the bubble and start a real, productive conversation instead of a label-throwing fight that simply puts us once again in our ideological corners.

So whatever place in the ideological spectrum you are, go hop out of the slowly warming pot of water that is the filter bubble.  For the more we seek disagreement, the easier it is to find the space for common ground.

“They’re Not Jewish”

It’s one of those memories that burn.

23 years ago or so, I took a girl to an Indian restaurant in Adams Morgan.  She was friend’s with my roommate, and from the first time I met her, I knew this tall, beautiful woman could talk, drink and think circles around time.  If she ever actually liked me, I knew immediately this had the potential to be much, much more than just a hookup.

And so I took a chance, and on our first official date, I said something that I knew might make her run the other way.

“I really like you, but I value our friendship.  And I think there’s real potential in our relationship.  So I just want to tell you up front that one thing I need is to have my children raised as Jews.  If that’s not something you’d consider, we should just stay friends, as I don’t want to lose that.”

I remember her saying she appreciated my honesty.

And I also remember at that moment I thought I had just tossed the best thing I ever had out the window.  The strains of Tevya’s “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof strained in my mind’s ear.

But it wasn’t.  She asked if that meant that she needed to convert.  I said absolutely not.  Not long after, we were roommates, and a few years after that, engaged.

That’s a wonderful memory, but it’s not the one that burns.

As we decided to start our lives together, one thing we were looking at was the right fit for us, and our future children, was a synagogue.  I was brought up in a conservative household, and still enjoyed the rituals and traditions and underlying philosophy of Judaism—particularly the notion of Tikkun Olam; the notion that we are partners with the almighty to assist in the perfection of the world.  My work, my coaching, and my writing are entirely infused with that concept to this day.

But despite my background, I was a skeptical about taking our interfaith relationship in that direction.  Intermarriage is something of a “crisis” to many conservative Jews, and I wanted Kirsten to feel welcomed for who she was.  But I didn’t rule it out, either.  And one of our synagogue shopping stops was the largest conservative synagogue in the D.C. area, Adas Israel, was only a couple of Metro stops away.

And so I called to ask about whether we could attend a service and talk to the rabbi.  A woman with a distinctly New York accent got on the line.  I remember her name was Tobie.

I told her our situation, and what we were looking to do.

“So how do you practice?” Tobie inquired.  I was a bit taken aback as I didn’t expect this to be about me.

“Uh, I light candles pretty much every Friday,” I stammered back.  “I attend services on the High Holidays, and I’m always home for Pesach.”

There was a pause.  And then there was a sentence I will never, ever forget.

“That isn’t Judaism.”

Stunned, I mumbled, “Uh, okay.”

Then she started rambling.  Something about my needing to invest more in the rituals and how important that was, and reconnect with my Judaism in a meaningful way.  None of that mattered, as she had already lost me with that most insulting of phrases.  It wasn’t that her opinion was better.  Not that she was more connected to the Jewish community than I was.  It was that everything I felt and believed was invalid.  I did not have the right to believe or feel the way I did.

That isn’t Judaism.

That’s what burned.

I do not now nor did I then believe that was the way that Adas Israel itself wanted to speak to young Jewish kids like me, and I don’t hold it against the congregation.  But I will never forget that, in all my life and among the many anti-Semitic jabs taken at me over the years, I have never felt as insulted as a Jew as I did that day.

And then I got a chance to read about our prospective new Ambassador to Israel.

To quote from today’s New Yorker:

“Finally, are J Street supporters really as bad as kapos? The answer, actually, is no,” Friedman wrote in Arutz Sheva. “They are far worse than kapos—Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps. The kapos faced extraordinary cruelty and who knows what any of us would have done under those circumstances to save a loved one? But J Street? They are just smug advocates of Israel’s destruction delivered from the comfort of their secure American sofas—it’s hard to imagine anyone worse.”

Asked about this piece of wisdom recently at the Saban Conference, in Washington, Friedman doubled down. “They’re not Jewish,” Friedman said of J Street, “and they’re not pro-Israel.”

They’re not Jewish [epm. added]. This is a calumny of the most disgusting order. But hardly a new one. Netanyahu, in the hope of solidifying his conservative and religious base, was once overheard whispering in the ear of the Sephardic leader and rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, “The left has forgotten what it is to be Jewish.” The question of Jewish identity has for centuries been a matter of debate and halakhah, Jewish law. It has never, to my knowledge, been a matter of bankruptcy law.

Friedman’s view is Tobie on steroids, and taken now to a global scale.  He goes beyond disagreeing with those that dissent from his viewpoint, and goes even beyond dismissing those viewpoints.  He delegitimizes.  And not only the viewpoint, but, like Tobie did to me, he delegitimizes the people behind the opinion.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is excruciatingly complex.  I’m not going to get in to the details here but for anyone who wants to get a flavor for just how tenuous a lasting peace was even at its zenith of hope, I highly recommend Dan Ephron’s excellent work, The Killing of a King.  There are sides-within-sides-within-nuances-within-conundrums.  Those that try and make this simple on either/any side is doing a tremendous disservice to their own argument.

But this is about something beyond the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and beyond Israel itself.  To elevate a man who chooses to question not the validity of the argument, but the validity of the person, is someone, and something that is beyond question an insult to governance, regardless of issue or viewpoint.

Both America and Israel built their democracies on disagreement.  It has helped to check direction, strengthen argument, and create enduring institutions where the voice of the “other” had to be heard.  The selection of David Friedman is contrary to what is best in both peoples.

I AM a Jew.  I AM and American.  As “real” as any other.  And the minimum I expect from those that govern is to acknowledge those fact, regardless of my viewpoint.  The fact that this is actually a matter of debate at this moment should give every American and every Jew, regardless of their viewpoint, pause and cause to leap past politics and understand that there is something truly dangerous to free society afoot.

It’s Not Fake News – It’s SPAM

Back when I was with the Union of Concerned Scientists, I ran a nice little feature called the Hybrid Timeline as part of our (Webby Award-winning — yep, still bragging a decade later) HybridCenter website. In an effort to combine both issue and consumer advocacy, we looked to give folks the most up-to-date information on how the hybrid car market developed, what was on the market currently, and what looked to be coming down the pike.

As we wrangled with EPA folks and Congress over the minutiae of weight-based fuel economy rules and whether pee-based technologies could be an effective particulate matter reduction technology for Diesel engines (I kid you not), it was actually quite nice to take a bit of a mental break and just surf the Web for news of a cool new car that might push the Prius off its perch atop the fuel-efficiency world.

At one point, I found a news story that sounded really exciting.  Toyota had made a concept hybrid supercar and it looked sweet.  Most concept cars never see the production line, as they are more intended to show what the technology could do, rather than be something that gets the full production treatment.  But this one site had a story saying that Toyota decided to go ahead with the car, nicknaming it the “Priapus.”  Now, this was before Tesla really even got off the ground, so the idea that a carmaker was going to go high-end with a hybrid was extremely exciting.  So much so for me that I posted it on our website without giving it a second thought.

After a few months, one of our engineers was perusing the site and said, “Uh, Scotty, have you actually taken a look at the site for the “Priapus?”  I think it’s actually something like The Onion.  I went to the site, and sheepishly saw that it did say “satire” in the header.  That said, I reread the article, and despite the fact that it was from a satire site, didn’t really find anything particularly funny about the article.  Perhaps, I thought, the author mixed in satire and fact.

So I went to the author and asked whether, perhaps, this was true, and if so where he got the information.  He responded quickly and succinctly, noting that anyone who might take the name “Priapus” seriously must be someone with, shall we say, special needs.

I think he was being satirical.

That was my first real experience with what we are now calling “Fake News.”  What it showed me was how much I personally was willing to look past in order to reinforce my own hopes, and how easy it was now in the age of the internet to see anything on the screen as potentially legitimate.

My mistake was pretty innocuous, all things considered.  I admitted my mistake and removed the Priapus from the timeline.  Not even once did it cross my mind to arm myself, drive to Toyota’s headquarters, and self-investigate as to whether the Pripus was really heading to market.

But that’s where we have evolved.  A few years back, we all got a giggle out of when the Chinese government would confuse an article from The Onion with actual fact.  But now, what we are calling “Fake News” is a cottage industry, going beyond cherry-picking of facts and gross exaggerations to creating outright lies.  And whether the end game is political or financial (from articles I’ve read, the latter seems more often the case), this phenomenon is now a common and disturbing part of our dialogue.

Now, there are far better places than this to get excellent information about the sources, motivations, and impacts of so-called “Fake News” than this blog.  I bow to the expertise of excellent investigative journalists and technology experts who are covering this, some of whom I’ve linked to in this post.  What I want to talk about is the fact that I think we are already losing the war of words with the term we have so far chosen.

To be blunt, “Fake News” just doesn’t cut it.  It is overly simplistic, implying only that what you are reading is not true.  Jon Stewart would often call his program “fake news.”  As noted, satire sites have been doing this for years, occasionally tricking the random dictator or clean car advocate.  Grouping in those who plant false and conspiratorial stories, sometimes even using false major network headers to hoodwink the public, have essentially been grouped into the same aggregate.  That both confuses and lessens what has become a growing, serious threat to discourse in our society, particularly our kids.

Worse still, the term “Fake News” has already been corrupted.  Donald Trump has cited major news sources being wrong about the election result as another example of Fake News.  Of course, this is in no way the same thing, but it has allowed those that profit and are ideologically strengthened by the propagation of lies-as-news to not only co-opt the term, but help to further erode confidence in genuine investigative journalism by branding it with the same brush.  And, sadly, the media itself has been complicit in reinforcing this muddled perception.

In the old days when print mattered, it was fairly easy to get a sense of what was real and what was fake.  Print cost money, so the difference between, let’s say, a thoughtful-yet-conservative source like the National Review was easy to discern from the tinfoil hat crowd, who published amateurish pamphlets in far smaller numbers.  But in the age of the Internet, it is now much harder for even a discerning reader to tell the difference.  Frankly, most mainstream news sources these days just look like filler for the sea of click-bait ads that generate the revenue.  This reinforces a false equivalence among sources of information.

And so with that, I would ask those concerned about this phenomenon to end the use of the term, “Fake News.”  We need something that better, and I believe we already have a term in our online lexicon that covers it:

SPAM

What we are seeing with these stories are nothing more than a new wrinkle on the Nigerian Prince just needing your bank account information to send you his riches, or that irresistible erectile dysfunction treatment just begging you to click through to virus-land.  Whether it be clicks-for-profit or malicious political tampering, we’re just seeing folks looking to dump crap online for the purpose of their own gain. That is a big difference between a satire site, or ideologically-driven commentary that might cherry-pick facts to suit their world view.  The latter IS an issue, and a significant one, but it is distinct in both its problems and its impact.

So call it SPAM News.  Or Social SPAM.    Or just plain SPAM.  Or, hey, come up with a better term that encapsulates not only the outright falsehood, but the malicious nature of this phenomenon—I’m all ears.  But I believe the longer we call it “Fake News” the more we turn a pressing problem into more white noise on the web.  This is an issue that needs more than identification, it requires stigmatization.

And so I ask all you readers, posters, and writers out there to please help not just educate, but change how we converse about SPAM in the news.  Because if we hope to have any chance to have a real dialogue about real issues, we cannot be entitled to our own facts.

Post Election Stress Disorder

Frustration.

Powerlessness.

A feeling like your voice doesn’t matter.

Anyone feeling that way today?

Frankly, I’ve been feeling that way for the better part of a year now.  It’s why while I’ve been busy as Dad and Coach and certainly have some stories to tell, SHYB has been in a virtual shutter.

I’ve started dozens and dozens of posts.  On the need to rethink the way we teach kids baseball.  On how I reacted when a young player said to me—“You’re weird!”  On the demise of the Super Hero genre even as it rises.  On the exchange between my 15-year-old son and my mother when he linked his own experiences being bullied for his stutter to the actions of our President-elect.  Those and many more gathering dust on the virtual shelf.

I cannot finish them.  Any of them.  And I’m struggling to keep going even at this moment.  I’ve reached a point where I simply don’t like the sound of my own voice.  In the constant drone of social media, the endless chimes of incoming email, the explosion of availability of news both true and “truthy,” my words feel redundant and trite.  My voice does not feel special, or even valuable.

And last night didn’t help.

Or did it?

I started Stop Hitting Your Brother to take a look at parenting and pop-culture from a conflict-resolution standpoint.  And, in this moment when we face four years of an almost literal “Bully Pulpit” I have heard those like Van Jones say, “What do we tell our kids in the morning?”

I know this is hyperbolic, but the feeling I have today has a strange taste of 9/11.  I remember in the days after the attacks, I started looking online at potential jobs in smaller towns in the Midwest.  With DC as one of the ground zero locations, I worried for my infant child and thought perhaps it might be better to head elsewhere to better protect his future.  Given Canada’s immigration site crashed last night, I’m guessing others are dealing with a similar emotional déjà vu.

It was that fear of the unknown—the horrific prospects the Id of my imagination happily filled—that made me feel unable to ground myself in the reality of that moment.  I knew the world was profoundly changed, and in a way that dashed my dreams of a post-Cold War world where, while we still struggled with the complexities of ethnic hatred and economic disenfranchisement, was a world that was better than the one that we had left when the Berlin wall fell.

Ironically, we woke up today on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a President-elect who used the building of one as his signature.  And that 9/11 feeling of a diminished, depressing future – of a country not struggling to overcome its past demons, but one who would prefer to ignore them (and some even celebrate them) in favor of the illusion of past greatness sears my soul with a disturbingly similar dread.

Now, I’ve seen folks like me posting and writing inspiring and consoling lines from Anne Frank and MLK.  Believe in the good in people.  The arc of history bends toward justice.  This Huffington Post piece that tells us we should tell our kids that we will protect them from the big, bad, Trump first and foremost.  And with those yawps into the perceived darkness come the unsure retorts of those seized by it – we are simply not sure anymore: of the light in people; of the arc of justice; that we can or should tell our kids that everything will be all right.

I don’t buy it.  My belief in this country is profoundly shaken.  But this moment — at least for me — is saying something different.

For me, it brings to mind another profound philosopher, Ms. Rachel Dawes.  Don’t know who that is?  Well, of course, she’s the assistant DA and long-time friend of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins (hey, it’s SHYB — of course there’s going to be a pop-culture reference).  As she said to an apparently vapid billionaire playboy:

“It’s not what you are underneath.  It’s what you do that defines you.”

To be honest, I’m not sure people in general have a “nature.”  And I’m not sure it matters.  The idea of recompense for good deeds is alluring, but it presupposes some kind of emotional payment that may never come.  Instead of proffering a better vision of a future I am entirely unsure about, what I feel like I can do is figure out what I think I can do today that will make our world a little more loving, a little more tolerant, and a little more understanding of others.

Obama told us to hope.  But maybe it’s better to just act hopefully instead, and let the chips fall where they may.

An election is a competition, and we get very caught up in the “winning.”  It’s understandable, given everything that is on the line.  But, as a coach, I get the fact that no matter how hard you work, no matter how well you do things, someone out there just might do it better.  Or someone might take a great pitch you made and flair it just over the infield for a game winning blooper (my best analogy at the moment for a candidate who won more votes but lost the election).  The result, however devastating, should not…cannot… invalidate the effort.

I am fearful today, I will fully admit.   I have less hope than I had 24 hours ago.

But I think I have found the power to act hopefully.

To show my children through my actions what I think the world should be whether it ever ends up that way.  That tolerance, inclusion, and love is how we should both live and give no matter what comes back to us in return.  That the value is in the effort, and that failure is part of the learning experience, and helps make us better people and our future actions more effective.

My first step in this process is right here, right now.  I will reclaim my words and my voice on this blog, and in my books.  I may still very much doubt who I am underneath, and what I do may define me in a way I don’t like.

But it is what I do.

I encourage all of you who feel like I do to go and do, too.

Well, what do you know, I finally finished one.