Category — Politics

I rejoice in the power of (some) corporations.

I vigorously support the doctrine of states’ rights.

I believe the South was right: If your values and beliefs, if your everyday and embedded culture, if your very way of life is at odds with the country to which you have previously pledged your allegiance, secede.

My younger self—and by “younger” I mean pre-2016—never could have imagined my 2022 self writing these words. Thinking these thoughts. Embracing these ideas.

Yet it is corporations–and not our elected officials, not our public servants–that are leading the resistance against the assault of women’s reproductive freedom. In this land where I used to despair that “money talks,” I salute and celebrate (and will do my business with) the big corporations that have publicly announced their opposition to the overturn of Roe by putting their money where their big corporate mouths are.

These companies are funding abortions and associated travel for their employees: Starbucks, Tesla, Yelp, Airbnb, Microsoft, Netflix, Patagonia, DoorDash, JPMorgan Chase, Levi Strauss, PayPal, Amazon, Reddit, Walt Disney Company, Meta, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Condé Nast, Johnson & Johnson, Warner Bros, Bank of America, Intuit, Zillow, Lyft, Uber, Adobe, Vox, H&M, Accenture, Expedia, URBN, Estée Lauder Companies, Chobani, Yahoo, The Body Shop, Discord, Rivian, Bumble, Bloomberg L.P., Ralph Lauren, Sephora, Neiman Marcus Group, Vanguard, Match Group.

And I am now in favor of that line of thinking that the federal government’s power ought to be limited to minting money and waging war (and really, forget the war thing) and all other powers reside with the individual states.

Especially if your state is Oregon. And your state passes legislation enshrining women’s reproductive freedom. And your state enacts an aggressive climate protection program with a plan to cut greenhouse gas emission by 90 percent. And your state creates and funds a plan that provides free (or very low cost) health coverage for tens of thousands of working families, pregnant women and seniors. And you know what: We don’t have to pump our own gas.

And about secession: Yes. I cannot pledge allegiance to this country we have become.

I am a citizen of Cascadia.

I am a citizen of Ecotopia.

As they enter the basement of the church, each person is handed a folder with a name printed on it. It is not their name. It is the name of a fictitious person whose identity they will assume this evening. The people filing in are local business owners, teachers, cops, social workers, university students. They are here to participate in a simulation that will challenge them to complete the set of reentry tasks that routinely face those just released from prison. The fictitious people whose identities they will assume are men, women, Black, white and brown, short-timers who’ve been in and out of county jail, Lifers who spent three decades behind bars.

The biographies may be contrived for the purpose of tonight’s exercise, but the tasks are real-world. This evening’s simulation is a “walk a mile in my shoes” exercise that is both harrowing and instructive, an hour-long immersion designed to both foster empathy and spur community action.

In all the folders handed out this evening are documents detailing the conditions of the individual’s parole, from required check-ins to drug tests to mandatory treatments. And all contain a list of tasks to be completed. The participant-parolees will have one hour to complete these tasks. That hour represents one month—the first month—following release. The simulation is divided into four timed fifteen-minute/ one-week segments.

A whistle blows to begin week one. Clutching their folders, the ersatz parolees rush—or try to rush—from table to table. These tables line the perimeter of the room, each representing a different service, from the Department of Human Services to the Department of Motor Vehicles, from a community health clinic to a resale clothing store. There’s a rental agency, credit union, a parole office, a job center, a church, a payday paycheck cashing establishment. Alcoholics Anonymous has a table.

Should they get their SNAP food benefits first? Apply for health insurance? Maybe they should cash that small “gate check” they found in their folder? A few go to the credit union desk but find the minutes ticking away as they are asked to fill out lengthy forms. Others make their way to the paycheck cashing desk. When asked to present their ID to cash the check, several discover that the drivers’ license they were given in the folder has expired. They rush to the DMV table. But there is a long line there. And as they are waiting to get to the front of the line, the clock runs out.

The whistle blows ending the first segment. During that first “week” hardly anyone managed to check in with their parole officer. No one looked for a job. No one had time to go to the clinic to fill prescriptions for necessary medication. No one was able go to an AA meeting or attend mandatory treatment.

The whistle begins segment two.

If you would like to know how they fared in segment two, three and four, I invite you to read my new book, Free: Two years, Six Lives and the Long Journey Home.

The simulation sets the stage for the reentry journeys of the six people you will meet, real folks, traveling the road from caged to free.

You will be amazed at the obstacles they face.

You will be more amazed at their resilience.

Last night, the night of January 20, I had this dream:

I was looking out the back door of my house across the property. I saw six or seven men or maybe older teenage boys rolling across the land seated on small tractors or dirt bikes. They were rolling toward the back of the house, toward me. They were yelling at each other. I saw that they were holding rifles. But they looked to be plastic, maybe play guns or BB guns. I was scared. The back door was unlocked. I wanted to lock it. But, as in so many dreams like this, I moved in slow motion, and the lock was stuck, and the men got closer, and I struggled with the lock. Finally, it clicked, and I moved away from the door.

The dream shifted to the front of the house. There was a knock on that door. Standing on the porch was a man and woman. The woman was holding a baby in her arms. I didn’t know who they were, but they smiled and I invited them into the house, and they sat on the couch in the living room. I went back to close the front door, and I saw a group of young girls standing in the yard. There was a woman with them. They were wearing Girl Scout uniforms, those old ones like I wore when I was in sixth grade, those unflattering sickly green ones. No one said anything, but I knew they were selling Girl Scout cookies. That’s why they were there.

I was still shaken, so I said, “I’m sorry I can buy any cookies. I just can’t think about that now.” And one of the girls walked the front steps and handed me a little carton. I took it. I went inside to sit next to the couple with the baby. I opened the carton. There were three boxes of Girl Scout cookies inside.

Obvious? Yes. In need of deep analysis? Um, no.

Did I wake as if scoured by a cleansing rain? Oh yes.

And then I listened to this “Call to Courage” meditation on InsightTimer.

Good morning, my friends. A new day.

“You’re just in your own little bubble.”

This is offered as an insult. A bubble is bad thing. Being in a bubble implies (well, more than implies) that you purposely and exclusively surround yourself with people who think, talk, live and look like you, your political, cultural, religious, economic, racial, gender-identified bedfellows.

The bubble is, by this definition, an unchallenging, unmotivating place, a somnambulant comfort zone that you share with fellow bubble-dwellers. Or maybe it’s just your own private world, isolated and insulated from what is happening all around you. A bubble by this definition is solipsistic, self-involved. Those who reside inside it are resistant to acknowledging, reaching out, getting to know and working to understand the “other.”

Maybe.

I mean, yes, a bubble can be all that. But I’d like to argue for another kind of bubble. Especially during the past four dark, nasty, soul-crushing years, I have sought out and immersed myself in a bubble. My bubble is not geographic—although living on the “upper Left coast” sure helps. It is not age-specific. The bubble includes people from 26-81 years old. It is not race-specific. The bubble includes people of many hues. Some in this bubble I have known for most of my life. Others are newcomers. Some, most, I know IRL. Others I have connected and bonded with over social media.

What we have in common, what has sustained me these past four years, is our commitment to social justice and meaningful change, our love of our communities and our work to keep those communities vibrant, our persistent and stubborn belief (sometimes to the contrary of all we see) that people are good and want to do good and do indeed care about each other. What we have in common is our resilience. When during these past few years more shit hit the fan than anyone knew there was shit out there, we were appalled, we were furious, we yelled, we cried. And then we took a breath, gave ourselves a talking to, reached out and jumped back into it. That meant everything from taking to the streets to cooking food for the hungry, from running for political office to helping find jobs for the previously incarcerated, from making music to sewing masks. And more. So much more.

I owe my sanity to this bubble. I thank you all. You know who you are.

In memory of, in praise of RBG. Of course.

I used to think “self-care” was the special bullshit of the Me Decade (and beyond) privileged who wanted to feel less guilty about their spa days. “I need a little Me Time” was code for “I am a self-involved, selfish jerk. Why don’t you just shoulder my burden as well as your own while I go center myself.”

This was back when I was so protected from (and ignorant of) the kind of life that would have called for radical self-care that I could espouse such an attitude.

Now I know better. I know better because I am no longer protected. None of us are. And some of us never were, I realize that. I understand the privilege of that.

And here’s what I also understand:
I understand that to keep fighting we need energy, and to have energy we have to gather it within ourselves, to feed ourselves. I understand that to keep fighting we have to hold onto both our sanity and our optimism, which are eroded every day by the ongoing catastrophes of this place we call our country. And to hold on, we have to dig deep, and we can’t expect others to do that work for us. I understand that to keep fighting we have to keep resilient, to not just “bounce back” but to “bounce forward,” as a psychologist friend recently put it.

So: Self-care.

What to do? A foot massage would be lovely, but not now, so not-now. A long, leisurely coffee date with a good friend would be delightful. But there is no one outside my family who is in my bubble, and I don’t go outside my bubble. Speaking of which…a bubble bath. Sure right after I deep-scrub that tub, which is not, in my book, a good precursor to a self-care experience.

So I go outside. I don’t mean I bike, hike and run. I do all these things, and I believe they help keep me healthy (and dopamine-infused). I mean I sit on the porch and listen to the jays. I crouch in the garden and watch the quail. I kneel beside spider webs and take pictures of them. I try to take cues from my cat.

And, in the spirit of all that, I offer these images. May they help support whatever your version of self-care is.

I refuse…

to write about politics today, the mockery of last night, how deeply ashamed I am to be a citizen of a country that calls that man our President;

to write about this virus and our lack of a national response and the disaster of reopening schools and the politicalization of everything from masks to vaccines;

to write about our deep wounds as a nation and as a people and how they are festering.

Instead, today I write about APPLES. Yes, apples. Because they are fresh and crisp and healthy, and they grow abundantly in our state, and they make me very happy. Standing in our little orchard eating them right off the tree, oh yeah. A cauldron of applesauce simmering on the stove that makes the house smell like heaven, uh huh. Big box of apples delivered to the Food for Lane County Dining Room. A bushel of apples to Wildcraft in exchange for juice and cider. Liza’s apple pie.

Herewith…more than you want to know (but interesting!) about the original epicenter of apple-growing in our state: Hood River.

But first, fun fact: The oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest is located six miles from downtown Portland in the middle of a highway interchange. This tree was planted circa 1826.

The nation’s grocers discovered Hood River apples—huge, crisp and able to maintain their perfection through the winter—at countless agricultural exhibitions throughout the country in the late 1800s, especially the World’s Fair in Chicago, where Hood River apples took the grand prize, the gold medal and twenty-seven other medals. At the Columbia Exposition in 1892, Hood River Valley received sixteen awards, more than any other region, including a prize for the largest apple, a six-and-a-quarter-inch high, thirty-three ounce Spitzenberg as big around as a cantaloupe.

In 1900, responding to interest generated by the awards and contracts made through the expositions, Hood River growers freighted their first shipment of apples to New York. Five years later, 90 percent of the valley’s apple output was being shipped east for the “fancy trade.” From 1900 to 1910 the entire crop of valley apples sold while still on the trees.

Today Oregon ranks in the top ten states for apple-growing (Washington is first).

In our little orchard we grow Galas, Fujis, Braeburns and Red Delicious. Fyi, Galas and Fujis are the two most popular varieties in the state. Other common apple varieties grown in Oregon are Jonagold, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp and Braeburn.

‘Ya see, I took your mind off the hot mess that is the United States 2020 for about two minutes! You’re welcome.

Now go eat an apple.

We waited long months for Joe Biden’s VP pick. He had such a talented pool from which to choose.

When he takes office Jan. 20, 2021, he will start selecting his cabinet. And again, he will have an extraordinarily talented pool. Remember when the current resident of the White house proclaimed he had chosen “the best cabinet ever assembled” with “the highest IQ?” (Really? They took IQ tests? Did any involve identifying an elephant?) That patently absurd boast joined so many others. Remember these:

I am the least racist person you will ever meet.

Nobody has more respect for women than I do.

I am more presidential than anyone other than the great Abe Lincoln.

No one has done more for people with disabilities than me.

No one has done so much for equality as I have

On the off-chance that Joe Biden consults with me on his cabinet picks, I will give him this list:

Agriculture, Amy Klobuchar
Commerce, Frank Pallone
Defense, Susan Rice
Education, Michelle Obama
Energy, Jay Inslee
Health and Human Services, Jeff Merkely
Homeland Security, Val Demings
Housing and Urban Development: Julian Castro
Interior, Jennifer Morris
Labor, Bernie Sanders
State: Elizabeth Warren
Transportation, ​​​Darnell Chadwick Grisby
Treasury: Andrew Yang
Veterans Affairs, Tammy Duckworth

How about you? Please comment, add, amend. And, if a name is unfamiliar, check it out. So much talent. So much expertise.

You know—don’t you?—that multi-taking doesn’t work.

The brain is not capable of simultaneously performing two or more tasks that require our focus and attention. Instead, a kind of toggle mechanism allows the brain to switch from one task to another. The switch is rapid, so you think you’re doing two things at once and oh-so productive, but you aren’t and you’re not. In fact, toggling leads to errors, and the tasks take more time than if you were to focus on each individually. Toggling also, over time, leads to a special kind of exhaustion. As all of us supposed multi-taskers know.

Why am I writing about this now?

Because all of us who care deeply about and want to be meaningfully involved in the crucial issues of the day have been forced into exhausting, debilitating—and inefficient—multi-taking. We are so overwhelmed with what is wrong, with what needs our attention, with what we need to learn more about, with how to be part of the struggle(s) and the change(s), that our brains are toggling toggling toggling.

Our focus shifts from moment to moment: another outrageous statement by the man in the White House, another heart-stopping virus statistic, another video of federal troops in city streets, Russian hackers, white supremacists. And then there are those concerns we had, those fights we were fighting, before all this. Remember climate change? Criminal justice reform? Homelessness? Food insecurity?

Like you, I am overwhelmed.

I cannot do everything.

I cannot do nothing.

I must do something.

And to DO something, I must focus. I must put a stop to all this exhausting and inefficient toggling. I invite you, even just for the next 24 hours, to do the same.

What is helping me focus today on an issue I care deeply about (one that intersects with race, COVID and MOTUS—that’s the acronym for Monster of The United States) is this new album by my fellow Food for Lane County Dining Room volunteer, Steve Gibson. He wrote the songs beginning in 2011 when he started volunteering. They tell of the people he met and his own efforts to stay in the fight, to do the work. (It’s the final song on the album, Compass.)

Here’s the link to the album.  All proceeds go to Food for Lane County.

And here’s the link to Steve’s live performance tomorrow (Thursday, 7 pm Pacific).

Listen. Contribute if you can.

We can’t do everything. But we can FEED ONE PERSON who would normally go hungry. That is what we can do today.

More often than not I write these Wednesday columns from a place of concern, disappointment, of anger, fury, sometimes fear. And shame. Such a dark time. So much that drains the spirit, that brings a person to the brink of despair. This time, my country, my “fellow Americans,” as Nixon used to say. (Quaint now to think how evil we thought this man was.)

But today I awake at the moment of dawn, when sunlight streams through the mesh of the tent. The air is cold, fresh, new, not yet breathed. I awake to the sounds of some of the 225 species of birds that make this lake their home. I awake to the soft snores of the person with whom I’ve made a life, children, a home.

And for a moment–sinking deep, oh-so-deep–into this privilege, I think: This is good. I live on an amazing planet. Isn’t it a blessing, an astonishment, a glory, that despite the cruelty and hatred, the nooses made of bread dough, the furious insanity of 3 am tweets, the 2.3 million we put in cages, despite it all, the sun comes up, the sky is cerulean, the birds sing.

On the occasion of Bloomberg Health Index’s announcement of the healthiest countries of 2020…take a wild guess at the US’s ranking…(or, you cheater, skip to the end and see) added to the President’s incessant, incoherent, hallucinatory ramblings about how great we are, I feel compelled to ask:

Just how great are we? What exactly does the US rank #1 in? 

We lead the world in:

...COVID cases. We are 5 percent of the world’s population and have 30 percent of the confirmed cases.

…the cost of health care. Ours is the most expensive in the world.

…the incarceration of men and women. By pure number. By percent of population. By any way you can count it.

…our military spending.

Here are #1 ranking in other areas that might interest you:

#1 Most innovative: Switzerland
#1 Most technologically advanced: Japan
#1 in use of renewable energy: Sweden
#1 Cleanest environment: Finland
#1 Highest worker productivity: Germany
#1 Highest median family income: Norway
#1 Healthiest: Spain
#1 Safest: Singapore
#1 Lowest Infant mortality: Luxembourg
#1 Best healthcare system: Luxembourg
#1 Longest life expectancy: Monaco
#1 Most educated: Singapore
#1 Highest literacy rate (100%) Andorra, Luxembourg, Greenland, Norway
#1 Narrowest gender gap: Iceland
#1 Most LGBGTQ-friendly: The Netherlands
#1 Happiest: Norway

Now to the Bloomberg Index. Each year statisticians pour over country-by-country data on pollution, water quality, access to health care, health risks in the population (smoking, obesity, high blood pressure), malnutrition, life expectancy, causes of death. Taking these and other factors into account, the Index ranks 169 countries. The top (healthy) score is 100. (The data are pre-pandemic.)

This year Spain (92.75) placed first, edging out last year’s first-place Italy. Here are the top 10:

1. Spain
2. Italy
3. Iceland
4. Japan
5. Switzerland
6. Sweden
7. Australia
8. Singapore
9. Norway
10. Israel

Where, oh where, is the US in this ranking? We are #35.

Among those countries ranked healthier than us: Cuba, Croatia, Estonia, Chile, Slovenia. (And, of course, the unsurprising ones: Canada, UK, New Zealand, Germany, France, Austria.)

Our greatness at this moment can be our recognition of our faults and our embrace of meaningful and compassionate change. It is this thought that allows me to sleep at night.