Both Things Can Be True

 In the past week, there were two trips to the very edges of space, not by NASA astronauts, but by non-government employees.  Two of the passengers were billionaires.

Twitter has been flooded with criticism aimed at both of these men.  Their money could be spent saving our planet, feeding children, etc.  Or 90% of the money in the US belongs to 1% of the population.  Or just "Jeff Bezos is evil" (I guess Richard Branson is slightly more likeable).

On the other hand, these trips are paving the way for future commercial space travel, with rockets that can be used more than once.  Industries like mining that are hurting our planet can be moved to space.  It's no longer science fiction that an asteroid, hollowed out, can safely and comfortably hold tens of thousands of people.  And Jeff Bezos gave away $200 million dollars today to two do-gooders to do with what they please.

Both things can be true.  

In today's uber-polarized world, EVERYTHING has to fall on one side or the other; my side or your side.  It's nothing new - the Wright brothers were laughed at when they attempted to fly.  And today, the founder of several airlines is paving the way for commercial space travel.

Billionaires and millionaires have helped to build this country, for better and sometimes worse.  Railroad tycoons of the 19th and 20th century invested in railroads because they recognized the profit that could be made by transporting wares quickly to their destination.  Many of these men were ruthless and would do anything to enrich themselves.  And ordinary people now had the means and ability to travel.  Oranges from California could be experienced for the first time by settlers in North Dakota.

Thomas Edison was ridiculed when he introduced a machine called a kinetoscope.  It took photographs and moved them through a reel so it appeared that the pictures moved.  Only one person at a time could watch the film, but Edison and others recognized the potential of the idea.  So then the projector was invented, so that the moving pictures could be shown to many people at a time.  Today, high-def images are streamed into our living rooms instantly.  

Yes, there is great inequity in our country.  But the people who played by the rules and became billionaires aren't to blame - the rules are.  It's easy to point the finger at Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson as being responsible for the woes of our world.  It's much harder to do the work to change the rules so that the rest of us get a piece of the pie.  

We don't have to be angry about everything.  We were told as children to "reach for the stars".  Today, we're closer than ever.

RBG

 On election night of 2016, I was sickened by the results.  All of those people I knew that either didn't vote or voted for a 3rd party candidate because they didn't believe their vote mattered.  It mattered all right. 

And for the last 4 years, we've had a leader that openly expresses his hatred.  Hatred for black people, hatred of disabled people, hatred of women, hatred of Democrats.  

Last night RBG died.  And the white men in power immediately pounced, vowing to replace her with someone that wants to keep white men in power indefinitely.  Within two hours, Mitch McConnell vowed to confirm whoever Trump nominates.  

An editor for The Atlantic, when interviewed today, called the Democratic party the "party of inclusion", and the Republicans the "party of restoration".  I started to think about this, and while I believe I know what inclusion is, I wasn't so sure about restoration.  Restoration to what?  Restoration to when?  How far back do we go?  Back to 1776 when our country was declared free of England?  Slavery was legal, women didn't have a vote, and white men held all the cards.  

Or maybe restoration means going back to the 1950's, when slavery was no longer legal, but people of color were still prevented from voting, or eating in a "whites only" restaurant.  When a boy could be lynched and hanged because a white woman said he flirted with her.  

I prefer the party of inclusion; that's no secret.  The country where every vote counts, and every person is equal.  Equal if you're a woman or man, black, brown, or red, rich or poor, gay, transgender, or straight.  The rights that we have had to fight for, claw for.  The rights that Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent her life defending.

Rest with the angels Ruth.  You did good.

Gerbils and the Black Plague

 In the years 535-536, a sudden change in climate occurred throughout the known world.  The sun turned blue, and a haze filtered what little light there was.  Temperatures dropped, crops failed, and people died.  The theory is that a volcano erupted somewhere in the world and caused a temporary change in climate.

In a little corner of Africa, gerbils who hosted the Yersinia bacterium were forced to leave their isolation and venture further and further to survive.  They met rats for the first time, and rats lived near human populations.  

Five years after the event, the plague first arrived.  150 million people died worldwide, and we learned about it from our history books.  The Black Plague that decimated the world started with climate change.  

Now, the climate is changing again, not due to a volcanic eruption or an asteroid hitting the earth, but because of our own actions.  Modern medicine gives us a sense of security we don't deserve, and in my lifetime HIV, Ebola, SARS, H1N1 and now Covid-19 have erupted and for the most part, been dealt with.

Today, wildfires are burning in California, Oregon, Colorado, and other places because of man-made climate change.  Here in Minnesota we've gotten used to hazy skies in the summer when wildfires burn in Canada.  

Bigger and badder hurricanes are hitting the coasts, one after another.  

We are actively working towards our own extinction event.  

Fear and Loathing, Socialism and Fascism

Online, in person, on TV, I hear people throwing around terms like Socialism, Fascism,  and Communism, and half the time I don't think they know what the words mean.  I knew a bit, but had to research the terms myself to be clear.  They're being used to inspire fear and loathing, and it's working.  So let's dive into each one a little.  

Let's start with democracy.  It's a system where every person has a say, where every vote is counted.  The United States is not a democracy, although it is a democratic republic.

A Republic allows every citizen to have a vote, but also has a group of "wise people" called Electors that take input from the state's voters and place the only votes that count.  This system was chosen initially by the founding fathers of the U.S. because so many citizens may never meet the candidates and understand who they're voting for.  No TV, Facebook, or Twitter in those days (and no political ads!).  So the Electoral College back then had the power to override the popular vote in the best interest of the country if they thought it necessary.  Today, they can't override the vote (trust me, they tried in 2016), so the Electoral College is simply a quaint remnant of the past.  Except it can be corrupted by gerrymandering, or re-drawing districts so that a particular party has an easy win.

Socialism is a system where everyone pays into the pot to benefit everyone else.  Think of it like dinner with friends, where we all agree to split the bill equally.  It works well if everyone orders the same thing - we all get what we put in.  But then there's always that one friend that will order the lobster and have 4 glasses of wine when we had hamburgers and soda.  We just paid for their greed.  And then there's the friend who has fallen on hard times and we buy them dinner.  5 friends splitting the cost of one meal isn't so painful, and it's the compassionate thing to do.

We all pay taxes to fund things like public schools, roads, Social Security and Medicare.  That's socialism.  It is not democratic socialism, because we, the people have very little say over what our taxes are used for.  Our government has been "borrowing" money from Social Security for years, for example, to fund various projects.  That's our friend with the lobster meal.  The big bank and auto bailouts are another example,  Our money (trillions of it) got banks out of hot water after their greed stole billions from individual citizens.  

Democratic Socialism uses the same concept as socialism, however it gives citizens more of its own money when they're in need, like our friend at dinner who has fallen on hard times.  Our tax money would be used for what it's intended for instead of of paying CEO salaries in bailouts and funding wars.  Both socialism and democratic socialism are squishy; both can be good, both can be bad, depending who is wielding the power.  Both allow for capitalism, but one is more compassionate than the other.  The compassionate sort is illustrated by countries like England, Sweden, and Denmark where taxes are high, but healthcare is paid for, paid leave is generous, and the quality of life can be very good.  The bad sort can be seen in countries like Venezuela.

Finally, Fascism.  This is the one to fear and loathe.  A dictator is in charge, and has the power to control the media.  If someone speaks out against the leader, there are real consequences (death, poisoning, you get the picture).  If the US was a fascist state, individual states would no longer have any power, all power residing instead with the leader of the US.  Italy under Mussolini was the original fascist state, and Nazism is an extreme form of fascism.

Robert Paxton writes, [Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

So listen to the political banter, but do your homework.  It's really easy to win a contest through inspiring fear and loathing.  Don't fall for it.  Work towards the future you want.  Vote.

History and When History Becomes Real

I took history in school, and memorized dates just like everyone else.  But it wasn't real to me; just facts and figures I begrudgingly read about.  George Washington: first US President, had wooden teeth and a wife named Martha.  Abraham Lincoln: assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, freed the slaves, yada yada yada.

The founding fathers didn't become real for me until I saw Hamilton recently.  They suddenly became people.  I realized that Aaron Burr wasn't just a villain, but a complicated, nuanced character.  Alexander Hamilton wasn't perfect; he cheated on his wife.

Even history that happened during my lifetime didn't sink in to a white girl in a town of 1200 people in North Dakota.  It was images in the newspaper and later on TV, but had nothing to do with me.  I was 3 when JFK was killed in Dallas; too young to remember.  And in March of 1965, I was 4 and light years removed from Selma, Alabama.  So the Celebration of Life activities this past week for John Lewis have made history real for me once again.

Alabama State Troopers attack SNCC leader John Lewis, Edmund Pettus Bridge, Montgomery, Alabama, March 7, 1965

John was inspired by a letter he received from Martin Luther King, Jr., and when he was 17 he met him for the first time.  MLK asked if he was the "boy from Troy", and John said he was.  They remained friends until MLK was assassinated in 1968.

At 25, on a Selma, Alabama bridge named for Confederate General and local KKK leader Edmund Pettis, John led a peaceful march of 600 two by two up one side of the bridge to affirm their right to vote.  The bridge is curved, so the group couldn't see what was waiting for them on the other side.  When they reached the apex and saw the state troopers massed on the other side waiting for them, they asked for a moment.  They didn't get one, but were instead beaten.  50 people were hospitalized, John Lewis himself was almost killed, with a fractured skull.  That day, history became real for millions of citizens, because it was televised. 

John Lewis never stopped fighting for the rights of others.  He became a US Congressman, where he fought for Native American voting rights and LGTBQ citizens.  His was a life well-lived and worth remembering.

The Future

The future belongs not to the strong, fit, or intelligent - it belongs to those that can adapt.

Life throws curve balls at us all the time; some folks duck and cover, some throw their bat and complain to the umpire, and some adjust their stance and hit the ball out of the park.

The pitch wasn't unfair, it wasn't illegal, not a conspiracy...it just was.  The best way to attack it is to adjust, then hit away. 

You can say "she sure doesn't know a lot about baseball", and that would be correct!  But I do believe that adaptability is the key to our future.  This year, it might mean getting used to wearing a mask when leaving home. 

Adapting doesn't mean that there isn't a problem.  It just means that we choose to address the problem head-on instead of making it so much worse by inaction, disbelief, or anger.

Take climate change for example.  It is a fact that it exists, and it is a fact that humans are a big part of the problem.  For years some people have refused to listen for various reasons.  Their mind may not accept the horrible truth and it shuts down in protest.  Some believe that they are superior and have a right to use the earth's resources as they see fit.  They're the ones that refuse to leave their home after the water has risen to their door, claiming that the government just wants their land.  

2020 threw a lot at us in a short time frame; everything from a pandemic to protests.  Some are adapting, and some are not.  I see some masks in the grocery store, and I see others that insist that a virus is an infringement upon their rights.  I see people use the term "rioters" instead of protesters on social media to justify their thoughts on racial disparities.  And others are organizing to figure out how to fix a problem that's been around since the 1600's. 

Adaptability isn't giving up - it's acceptance that there is a problem, and a willingness to focus on the problem rather than how it impacts ME.  It's disengaging from the emotional part of the brain when given information, rather than immediately thinking about ways to discredit a fact you don't like. 

It's also a life with a lot less anger. 

A Better Normal

I hear all the time, "I just want things to go back to being normal".

What is normal?  Yes, it's a world where you can hug and shake hands and visit without worrying about infecting someone.  You drive to work every day and feel accomplished by what you've done.  It feels safe.  It's normal.

It's also stagnant.  It is easy to dismiss issues like climate change, civil rights, and economic divides, because we have our own lives to manage; a job, perhaps children...responsibilities.

And now we're sitting at home, furloughed or laid off.  Or we're considered essential and having crazy anxiety wondering if we'll get sick, or shot, or shoved into a lake for doing our job.

What if this is the "new" normal? 

There are religions and spiritualists all over the world that forecast a great awakening in the year 2000.  What if this prediction is true, and this painful process we're going through leads to something spectacular?  Many more people working from home.  High speed internet free and available everywhere.  Fewer cars on the road, leading to less need for the oil and gas industry.  A re-evaluation of our priorities. 

The fossil fuel industry has been subsidized for years, with the argument that if it were not, consumer costs would skyrocket.  And yet, those companies are reporting record profits - and those profits aren't paid back to the taxpayers.  Fossil Fuel Subsidies and the Implications is an interesting read on the subject.

This crisis has taught us that health insurance isn't enough to keep us healthy.  It's highlighted the income disparity between the 1% and the rest of us.  By being furloughed, I've doubled my income being on unemployment.  And before you say that's the problem, and I'm being paid not to work, ask yourself WHY it's doubled my income.  Why was I paid so little to begin with? 

A five day workweek and eight hour day was inconceivable until 1926 when Henry Ford implemented the practice in his factories.  In 1900, 18% of all American workers were under the age of 16. 

Child Oyster Shuckers 1911

When I started working at American Airlines in 1989, smoking was still allowed at workstations, and pantyhose was a requirement when traveling.  Computers were new, and I found myself explaining what a 'mouse' was.  E-mail was revolutionary.

Here's a fascinating overview of work life from the 1950's until now.  We can't conceive going back to the work of the past, and the changes have been positive for the most part.  Check out the predictions from each decade!

I'm looking forward to what people can do given the incentive.  What if our future revolved around our home lives; our family and friends.  The United States could leapfrog into the future that's already going to happen.  Telehealth was starting to be a thing, and now it's growing leaps and bounds.  Self check-outs were already in use, and are rising exponentially.  Amazon already has introduced stores fully stocked and no employees.

Not everyone will be happy about the changes of course.  Change is uncomfortable and sometimes painful.  Families didn't know how they would pay the rent in 1900 without their children over the age of 4 working for a wage.  Corporate leaders don't trust their employees to work remotely.  The CEOs of Exxon/Mobile and Chevron have gotten used to making millions off of our tax subsidies. 

The change will happen, with or without your permission.  And I believe that the world of 2030 will be better, cleaner, and healthier.