To Senator Ó Riordáin in thanks for his remarks on November 10, 2016

Monday, November 28, 2016




Dear Senator Ó Riordáin,

I wanted to take a moment to commend you for your remarks delivered on November 10th in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. In a bleak moment for those of us who believe not only in the practicality of democratic governance but in its underlying values and ideals, your words were invigorating. I suspect I speak for a great number of my countrymen (two million more of whom voted against Trump than for him) when I say “thank you.”

My hope is that you (and those of us with similar values) will continue to shine a light on the atrociousness of Mr. Trump’s words and actions and bring pressure on governmental institutions to not normalize (via passive acceptance) values antithetical to democracy.

Of course, it is not the job of Ireland, its government, or its people to save the United States from itself. However, as I think your recent remarks suggest, the time has come for those of us who share democratic values to take note of ties of political and moral kinship beyond our borders. The election of Mr. Trump is but the most recent and egregious incident in what I fear is a movement to roll back progress on matters of equality, justice, and inclusiveness. This movement is not unique to the United States, and therefore the resistance to it must not be confined by borders.

I feel it’s important to note, however, the special role Ireland might play in this vis-à-vis the incoming administration in the U.D. Among the most odious of Mr. Trump’s statements and promises are those involving anti-immigrant sentiment and hatefulness based on religious beliefs. Such rhetoric is not new; indeed, its roots in America predate the establishment of the United States as an independent nation. And Irish immigrants to America were particularly targeted by such hatefulness during the influx of migration from Ireland in the 19th century.

Given this, public voices in Ireland are in a position to be of particular influence given that such a large percentage of us in America are here thanks to our Irish forebears. Ireland can speak to America about the repugnance of such sentiments in way no other nation on Earth can, reminding us that although Saint Patrick’s Day is practically a national holiday in the U.S., this is the case today despite the best efforts of those like Mr.Trump, who, were he living 150 years ago, would likely have advocated for closing harbors to Irish ships and advocating for “extreme vetting” of the impoverished and starving immigrants who sought refuge on our shores.

As someone descended in part from immigrants from Cork and Galway, it was particularly moving to hear such a fierce voice for decency speaking with an Irish accent. And I both hope and expect that many other Americans, including those perhaps not predisposed to be open to such a message, would be similarly responsive to these sentiments from our Irish cousins in way they would not if they came from almost any other quarter.

Indeed, it would be a monumentally meaningful gesture if the leading public figures of Ireland said they would not engage in “business as usual” with the incoming administration given its repellent views toward immigrants and religious minorities.

Although I suspect persuading the highest government officials in Ireland would be difficult (self-interest being what it is), the effort to do so is worth it. Above all, our shared goal ought to be to avoid normalizing what should be—what must be—stigmatized as antithetical to the projects of democratic government and building a more humane world.

Your remarks were a formidable and welcome contribution in this effort, and I sincerely hope you continue to fight this battle. And please know that as you do, you have countless allies here in America with whom you will find common cause.

Go raibh maith agat,

Ted Remington

Blogging as letter writing

I've been remiss about keeping up my blogging, at least in part because it often feels like screaming into a hurricane, and other writing projects seem like they would be a more fruitful way to spend my time.  However, after having sworn off dealing with Facebook beyond the basics of having a point of contact for friend/relatives I don't interact with often in other forums, some of the energy that had been channeled there might be profitably put to use here.

But, to be honest, it still seems rather pathetic to cast random thoughts out into the blogosphere. So, I thought I might bundle blogging with another project I'm going to try to get going on, which is to be a more active writer of letters to public figures.  Particularly given the insanity revealed by our most recent election (or perhaps I should say "election"--the scare quotes seem appropriate), I've been thinking I ought to be a more engaged citizen. Specifically, I decided I ought to write more letters (including, when possible, good ol' fashioned paper/envelope/stamp letters) to people in positions to do something about various issues.

To that end, my hope is to write at least one letter, even a brief one, every week or so and to copy the text here, for whatever it might be worth.

Why?

Why?

Is that the only question that matters?  When something as senseless and shocking as what happened in Coralville over the weekend happens, is that the only meaningful question?

If so, why do I find myself asking so many others?

Is it logical for me to find this shooting, one like so many others that happen on a daily basis, more shocking because it happened in location I’ve been so many times myself?  If not logical, is it at least understandable?

Is it true that what set the murderer off that he was fired from his job because of a complaint that he was continually sexually harassing the victim?

Does it give me a sense of grim satisfaction that the guy seems to have been a rabid gun lover with a Facebook page filled with pro-military, pro-gun, anti-immigrant rhetoric? Does this help me wrap my brain around the event because it somehow “makes sense” in my own world view for the person who did these acts to fit that profile?  Do I dare answer that question?

Was the murderer someone in the thrall of a patriarchal culture? If this indeed is the case, what are we to make of the fact that he recently got married and apparently took his wife’s last name?  Is there anything we can make of this in terms of the intertwining of patriarchy, misogyny, and cultural constructs of masculinity?

Was the murderer mentally ill?  Does a definition of “mentally ill” that does not cover the need to mindfully drive home, get a semiautomatic handgun, drive back, and murder an innocent young woman really qualify as an adequate definition?  But if we chalk this action up to mental illness or emotional disturbance, do we undercut the importance of personal autonomy and responsibility?  And how do we define *those* qualities, anyway?

Is my gut-level reaction to this affected by the fact that the victim was a young, pretty woman?  Would I feel the same way if the victim was older? Ugly? Male? If the genders of the people involved were flipped, would it strike me on a visceral level as less tragic? Are my reactions shaped by cultural attitudes?  And, if so, is my own emotional reaction just as much a product of patriarchy as the misogyny of the perpetrator? Am I forced to see the event through the lens of gender constructs?  Is it simply a choice of which parts of those constructs I choose to see it through?  Or is the word “choice” here even appropriate?

Why do people feel the need to own semi-automatic guns?  Is there any purpose to these besides the quick and efficient killing of human beings?  Did the murderer buy the gun because he reflected carefully and sincerely felt it provided necessary protection?  Or was owning the gun a symbolic act that satisfied some emotional lack or need?  Given the objective evidence that owning a gun, no matter how it’s stored, significantly increases the likelihood of someone dying violently in the household, is there such a thing as a truly careful and reflective decision to bring a gun into one’s home?

What did the murderer think when he was driving down I-80?  Did he feel regret? Remorse? Satisfaction? Or was he simply numb? 

What did the sky look like as he drove toward Davenport?

What does it feel like to know that, for all practical purposes, your life is over, even though you may live for 50-60 years?

Did the victim ever know what was happening to her?  Was there time?  Was she scared? 

Is it true that she was particularly fond of the turtle exhibit at the Children’s Museum where she worked?  Do turtles have any sense of who works with them?  Will they on some level sense her absence?  Did the turtles hear the gunshots?  Can turtles hear at all?  And why do I find such trivial questions going through my head?

What would she have done with her life?  How will other people’s lives be different because she’s not in it?  Is it even possible, outside the world of Hollywood schmaltz, to answer such a counterfactual question? How can the flapping of a butterfly’s wings end up creating a hurricane on the other side of the world?

Are any of these questions even worth asking?  Or is there only a single question that all of these can be reduced to . . . one unanswerable question?

Why?

An Open Letter to My State Senator Vis-à-Vis L'Affair de Ritz

My illustrious state senator (and local Pizza Hut franchise lawyer): David Long

Sometimes my interest in peaceful communication gets steamrolled by snark.  This is one of those times.  I'm posting the text of a letter I sent to my State Senator, David Long, about his role in the attempt by some political operatives in Indiana to circumvent the authority of the Superintendent of Schools, Glenda Ritz.  

(You can read about it here.)

I had contacted him before the senate vote to let him know I thought he should vote "no." Given that he's been in the forefront of the attack on the superintendent, this was quixotic on my part.  I did, however, get a form email from his office after the vote in which he attempted to "explain" why he voted the way he did.  My response is as follows:

Dear State Senator Long:

I appreciate the response to my email sharing my thoughts on the bill regarding Superintendent Ritz.  

Unfortunately, the attempt to explain your position only further served to muddy the waters.  In particular, the letter engages in a tell-tale sign of political doublespeak: the circular argument.

The rationale for the legislation given in the letter was that Superintendent Ritz took actions you felt were detrimental to the relationship between her and the board.  The salient fact left out, of course, is that these actions were themselves responses to actions taken by the governor.

In essence, the reasoning of your argument is as follows: the governor didn’t like Ritz’s positions so he made unprecedented moves to circumvent her authority—authority given to her by the people of Indiana. 

 Superintendent Ritz resisted such moves and, because she wouldn’t play ball, legislation was needed to force her.

It’s a bit like the schoolyard bully defending himself by saying, “Don’t blame me for hitting her!  She kept putting her face in front of my fist!”

I recognize that you are counting on the average Indianan to not fully understand the dynamics of the narrative.  Perhaps that hope is well-founded.  That has yet to be seen.

It’s also clear you hope that part of these forgotten dynamics are other statements you’ve made about Superintendent Ritz.  In your letter, you plead innocence about this being in any way about Superintendent Ritz personally.  But that doesn’t square with the following public statement made last month:

“In all fairness, Superintendent Ritz was a librarian, OK? . . . She has never run a school system, and that is a bit of a problem for her — she’s on a learning curve there.”

Now, in all fairness, you’re a local pol and pizza joint lawyer, OK?  You’ve never run a school system, or had any professional experience in education for that matter.  And that’s a bit of a problem for you—you’re on a learning curve there.  

See, education isn’t a political game. It’s actually important.  The effects of decisions made now will have consequences when your own political career is reduced to nothing more than a footnote in a dusty, untouched reference tome in some government office in Indianapolis.  

Those of us who have devoted our lives to education know this; neither you nor the governor seem to.

(In all fairness, Governor Pence is a former radio talk show host, OK?  He also has never run a school system, and that’s a bit of a problem for him—he’s on a learning curve there.)

Indeed, not only do you not seem to understand education, but your ignorance encompasses the basic aspects of democracy as well.

Untrolling Tuesday

So, I'm trying to be more dedicated to blogging, which means not waiting until I have something well thought out to say and shooting from the hip (if you'll pardon the firearms metaphor in this context).

One half-baked idea I had recently was something minor that could be done to help make Twitter a bit more friendly.  I'm not sure where/when it occurred to me, and it's not exactly original, but a couple of weeks ago, I tried an experiment in "untrolling."

Of course, "trolling" is the art/habit/addiction of saying snarky, mean-spirited, critical things to people on social media in an attempt to get a rise out of them and/or to simply vent one's spleen. Anyone who's reading a blog post like this is no doubt familiar with this. Many of us, yours truly included, have done it ourselves.

Hamlet, Skull in Hand

I’m not entirely sure why this occupied my mind this morning, but it did, so I thought I’d type it up.

My dad’s favorite episode ever of Star Trek: the Next Generation was one in which Picard findshimself stranded on a planet with an alien he can’t communicate.  It’s not that they don’t share a common language; as is the case in most episodes of Star Trek, everyone and everything speaks the Queen’s English (or Starfleet’s English).  

No, the problem is that while the alien’s individual words might be decipherable, the underlying meaning of them is not.  The reason is that the alien speaks in nothing but literary analogies alluding to myths from his own culture.  Without having a grounding in the culture of the alien, Picard can make no sense of koan-like sayings, such as “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” or “Temba, his arms wide.”

Eventually, Data and the trusty Enterprise computer figure out where this alien comes from and provide Picard with a Wikipedia-esque understanding of the characters and situations the alien makes reference to, and this allows communication to take place.  Picard even creates his own version of this language, using phrases from his own culture's repository of literary allusions, such as “Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk.”  Not only does this newfound common language of analogy allow Picard and his companion to defeat a monstrous beast that attacks them, but to forge a bond between themselves and their cultures. 

JFK and the Stories We Tell

Every week or so, I have a dream involving the JFK assassination.  It’s never realistic.  I’m not in Dealey Plaza as it actually looks.  I often don’t even see Kennedy.  It’s much more abstract.  I’m running through some generic city streets that are sort of stand ins for Dallas (I guess), and I’m aware that the shots are about to be fired, but I don’t know where.  Or I’m watching something on television about the assassination, and suddenly I’m sucked through the screen and I’m somewhere unfamiliar and unrecognizable, and I’m scared I’m about to see something horrific, and then I hear the rifle shots.

I don’t know why this has become a recurring motif of my dreams.  I wasn’t alive when it happened, so it’s something more indirect than reliving a traumatic experience—something metaphorical.  If forced to guess, I suppose it has probably has something to do with fear of my own death, the threat of violence, dealing with loss, or just the fragility of life in general.

In the early 1990s, around the time of the 30^th anniversary of the assassination, I became interested in exploring the assassination and read a few books.  Stone’s JFK had just come out, so that was probably the catalyst for my interest.  What became more fascinating to me than issues of bullet trajectories or missing autopsy reports or the time Oswald spent in the Soviet Union was the passion with which people held their opinions on the event.  Single bullet or magic bullet.  CIA or the Cubans. Grassy knoll or sixth floor.  Whatever people thought about the assassination, they seemed to hold like a religious belief.  I became aware that whatever the actual facts were didn’t matter.  Any fact could be molded to fit a preconceived narrative.  The question was then why did people choose certain narratives over others?  What was at stake for them?  Clearly, it had to be something, given my increasing conviction that rational argumentation had little to do with people’s thoughts.