He’s been a hero of mine for more than thirty years. A short little guy who I’m pretty sure was bald in high school. But over the years I’ve watched him fight. He’s fought tirelessly for a cleaner environment, a safer world, and for all kinds of tools, programs and systems to help improve the health of Americans.
I’m speaking of course of Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), past and future Chairman, currently Ranking Minority Member (head Democrat) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) (Roll Call photo credit)
Energy and Commerce isn’t just any crummy old Committee. Nope. E&C has jurisdiction over a zillion things that touch our lives. Energy (fossil fuels, wind, solar, alternatives), environmental issues (Clean water, clean air, pollution controls on cars and trucks), interstate commerce, the internets (Al Gore was on E&C when he really was instrumental in the start of what became the World Wide Web. So he is actually the father of all blogs, too — thanks Al). E&C is a seriously powerful committee. And when I was a young professional, well, I was an Energy and Commerce Committee groupie. More about that some other time.
Early on, Henry became my hero. And not just because he is incredibly funny. He’s also incredibly smart and quite crafty. Isn’t it nice to know that sometimes heroes just keep on keepin’ on? Henry? Congressman Waxman? Yup. He’s like that. He’s still my hero. He doesn’t disappoint.
You see, today I read that he, along with Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Ranking Member of the Health Subcommittee, released a treasure trove of information to help Americans sort stuff out for November’s election. But it’s simple, clear, and easy to use. That is especially helpful, don’t you think? You’ve got to admit that all of these Medicare/Social Security/Vaginal issues are getting confusing.
But now, now thanks to Henry, now we can sort out just what the Ryan plan will mean closer to home. Because they just released a compilation of what the Ryan Plan will mean in each and every congressional district in the United States. These were put together by an assortment of independent, government and academic thinkers who have analyzed the Paul Ryan Medicare Changes to see what it will mean to you and me. Yup, everybody can now see just exactly what GOP Candidate for Vice President Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan will mean to them and the people in their own little congressional districts. As in right here at home.
The Paul Ryan Medicare Plan; How will it affect your district?
So go ahead. Check it out. Click on it. It took me forever to figure out how to do that, too. Humor me. What would these changes mean in your district? In your life?
There is only one common sense solution to end the carnage. Gun Control. Sensible gun laws.
And it also is damn time some of these irresponsible politicians, and yeah, I’m talking to you Palin, and you Bachmann, and you Steven King, and a whole host of other primarily in the GOP) stop preaching hate and pretending you stand for freedom and the American way. You don’t. You are evil. Go to hell where you belong.
This rant was inspired by today’s shooting in Wisconsin.
As you can probably tell, there is little I like more than humiliating myself. Repeatedly. It makes for great stories.
So today I’m going to up the ante. Go deep into ritual humiliation. Voluntarily. With my eyes and my ego open.
Yup, I’m going to phone bank for political candidates. Barak Obama, Tim Kaine (VA Senate) and Kristin Cabral (VA-House).
I expect a lot of this:
“Hi, my name is Ely …” click.
But sometimes I’ll get through. And when I do, well, it’s a greatfeeling. I am participating in Democracy. Helping to make my country a better place. I am convincing folks that they should vote for the people I think are best for that office. And I am pretty good at it.
Some people won’t want to listen. Some will have gotten a zillion calls already. Some will be in the bathroom. Some will hang up.
Others will be disillusioned. Or disappointed.
So why do I do it? You know why if you read my blog. I am a bit opinionated, you see. But the thing I believe in most strongly is our democracy. Our right to vote. Because, as I keep saying
ELECTIONS MATTER
And if I can help get a few more votes for candidates I believe in, get folks who need to register, registered, transport folks to the polls who couldn’t otherwise get there, then I’m making a difference. ME! I’m taking an active part in the process of making things better in our country. Because I have done my best to help make my vision of what kind of a country we should have become a reality.
But I really do it for the stories. I always come away with great stories.
There was the time in 2006 when I was working on Jim Webb’s Senate primary.
The man said “I just want to beat George Allen, but I think both candidates are the same. I’m just going to flip a coin when I get to the polls.”
“Well then,” I responded, “you’d better take a two-headed coin, with Jim Webb’s head on both sides. Because Webb is only the one of these two guys who has a chance to beat incumbent Senator George Allen. If you want to get rid of Allen, vote for Webb. Now and in November.”
He promised me his vote, both times, of course. And it was entirely due to my phone call and my coin flip line. I put Jim Webb in the Senate. You’re welcome.
I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that George Allen showed himself to be a bigot. (George Allen is running for Senate in Virginia again. He is still a bigot.)
There was also the call in 2008 when I was working on Obama’s presidential campaign. I was calling registered voters:
“Hi, my name is Elyse and I’m calling from Obama for President HQ. Do you have a second to talk with me.”
“Sure,” said the man on the other end.
“Thanks, I appreciate your time. I just have a couple of questions. First, are you planning to vote Tuesday?”
“I always vote.”
“Me too. May I ask if you’ll be supporting Barak Obama for President?”
“I’d like to, but I was a mid-shipman with John McCain at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I have to give him my vote,” he said.
“You were at school with Senator McCain?” I couldn’t resist, I had to ask. “I bet you did better academically than he did!”
The man got a little less chatty just then. “Well, I was actually a few years ahead of McCain. I graduated fifth from the bottom, too.”
Political work can be fun and fulfilling. And the stories are the bonus. I will be telling these and other stories to my grandchildren. Of course if the Republicans continue destroying the education system, I will also have to teach them history.
* * *
Have you ever done political calls? Canvassing? Worked the polls? Got a story? Send it to me at fifty.four.and.a.half@gmail.com. I will collect and post stories throughout the campaign season. And if you get a fun call from someone, send that to me too.
Some tasks only seem Herculean at first glance. Then they become impossible. Take the one I got this morning.
“You gotta help me with this, Elyse,” said Robert, our Human Resources Manager. “I spent the better part of a year editing and improving this, and still nobody will read it.”
“It’s our Employee Manual, Robert. Of course nobody will read it.”
“But they need to read it,” he said. “Otherwise the staff won’t know when they’re breaking rules.”
I stared back at him blankly. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said, thumbing through the four-inch binder for the first time myself.
“Give it some pizzazz, make is shoot off the page. You know, Jazz it up!”
“Robert,” I said, holding up the tome, “this is the written equivalent of Muzak. Elevator music. It cannot be jazzed up!”
He looked so pitiful that I added, “I’ll see what I can do.” Guilt gets me every time.
Robert left my office, and I plopped the Manual down on my desk and ignored it. It was an impossible task. So I clicked on the internets to gear myself up for drudge work.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear? Someone else was working on their office manual and making recommendations! Seriously! I couldn’t believe my luck. I knew that all I had to do was add this information to the front of the Manual and it would certainly capture everybody’s attention. Yes, I can follow the lead of the City of Houston Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security! That’s how I can jazz up our company manual. I’ll include information on “Surviving an Active Shooter Event!”
That will certainly catch that unsuspecting new employee’s interest!
Whoo-hoo! “I am so underpaid,” I thought.
Don’t you think this is a wise prep for life in today’s workplace? Shouldn’t we all be trained to “Run. Hide. Fight”? I don’t know about you, but “Duck and Cover” served me really well way back when. And nothing at all happened to me then. So clearly these Public Service Announcements work.
That’s all you need, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Or did I get that moral wrong? I’m trying to remember what happened. Let’s see. Duck and Cover. Duck and Cover. Oh yeah. That came out after the Soviet Union developed its first nuke! Whenthey could hit us with one too! Me, I got my exposure to it during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962 when the threat of nuclear war was real. Funny thing, though. Duck and Cover was actually wayless effective than President Kennedy’s blockade.
And what has happened since?
Hmmm. Let me think. We and the Soviet Union (now Russia, in case you missed something) have been behaving ourselves, more or less. Nuke-wise, anyway. Because a nuclear war? That’s unthinkable. We all know that.
You know what else is unthinkable? Random gun violence every day in America. It is unthinkable that we have to worry every day that some crazy person is going to come into our offices, our schools and our movie theaters and start shooting. And that others will defend their “freedom” to do so.
Just like governments have learned how to co-exist with nuclear weapons, we need to figure out how to get along with guns (because they, sadly, ain’t goin’ away) but without gun violence. To me that means we need fewer guns, especially fewer of the sort that can shoot and kill lots of folks without much effort. But I am willing to compromise.
Because these other precautions? They are closing the barn door after the horse has run out; and I for one am tired of beating that dead horse.
Tuesday evening, just before 7, a huge tree fell half a mile from where I once lived. A man, who seconds before had been simply sitting in traffic, died when the tree crashed down on him as he sat in his car. It was a tragedy that could happen to any one at any time. Unexpected.
Photo Fairfax Police courtesy of The Washington Post
What happened next? Well, the tree’s twin across the way was cut down. Arborists are looking at nearby old, big trees, checking their health, determining if these trees, too, are dangerous. If so, they will be cut.
Of course that’s what they’re doing.
They are protecting human life. It’s the logical next step following such a tragedy. Of course, there will be traffic snarls and hassles as the old diseased trees are culled. It will be a huge pain for commuters. But, you know, that’s OK. I and just about everybody accepts a bit of inconvenience if it means that someone else won’t die. (Which doesn’t mean we won’t all grumble, natch.)
It’s the same with other stuff, too.
In the 60s and 70s, it became clear that fatalities in automobile accidents could be prevented by using seat belts. They became mandatory after a series of Swedish studies demonstrated that fatalities were dramatically reduced when car occupants involved in an accident had buckled up. Seat belts protect folks. Last year in this post I provided some statistics on the benefits of seat belts:
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s latest statistics state that 15,147 Americans survived accidents in 2007 that would have been fatal without seat belts. That’s a lot of people saved by a law that doesn’t really inconvenience us all that much.
We do a lot of things to keep ourselves and our families safe. Of course we do. And when the danger comes from the unknown? Well, that’s when we ratchet up our actions to protect ourselves. It’s common sense.
Remember the Tylenol Murders? Twenty years ago, Tylenol, laced with cyanide, killed seven people in the Chicago area. The murders were never solved. But they did change our lives. Every time I struggle to open a package of virtually anything purchased in the United States, I think of that bastard, those murders. I hope he/she has a horrible case of rheumatoid arthritis in his/her hands and therefore has even more trouble opening those damn packages than the rest of us. I also hope they catch him/her.
It’s common sense to react protectively, isn’t it. It’s what we do as a species. It’s part of our evolutionary trajectory. It is the manifestation of the problem solver in all of us. Stay alive. Protect. Survive.
Well, that’s usually true.
Unless, of course, there is a random lunatic with a gun. Then, well, logic and common sense are suspended as we all enter the Twilight Zone.
Yes, when a guy (and they do all seem to be guys) who gets a bunch of guns (as in lethal weapons) and kills people, randomly, or by specifically targeting individuals, well then we double down on the 2nd Amendment. WE PROTECT HIS RIGHT TO DO IT! We let it happen again. And then, when it happens again, we are shocked, shocked.
Yup, when we should be shouting “STOP THIS MADNESS!” we instead cow-tow to the National Rifle Association and to the cowboys who are oh-so-sure that if they had only been there with their gun, well, then the outcome would be way different. If only ….
Bullshit. It is a fantasy.
Remember when Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot? Nineteen people were shot that day at a local grocery story when a crazy person opened fire.
Did you know that seconds/minutes after the shooting, a man carrying his own gun came out of the store and saw somebody holding a gun on a man? Yeah, it’s true. Here’s a smidge of the story:
[Joe] Zamudio was in a nearby drug store when the shooting began, and he was armed. He ran to the scene and helped subdue the killer. Television interviewers are celebrating his courage, and pro-gun blogs are touting his equipment. “Bystander Says Carrying Gun Prompted Him to Help,” says the headline in the Wall Street Journal.
But before we embrace Zamudio’s brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, let’s hear the whole story. “I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready,” he explained on Fox and Friends. “I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this.” Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. “And that’s who I at first thought was the shooter,” Zamudio recalled. “I told him to ‘Drop it, drop it!'”
But the man with the gun wasn’t the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. “Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess,” the interviewer pointed out.
Yeah. A big, fat mess. Mr. Zamudi would have added to the carnage, not helped. BECAUSE HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON.
When a tragedy like today’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado, happens, there is only one person who knows pretty much what’s happening – the shooter. Yeah, the bad guy. Everybody else is reacting.
And no matter how cool, how brave, how well meaning a would be hero is in a situation, the sane gun owner is unlikely to shoot first. And if he/she doesn’t, the bad guy will. And unlike in the movies, in real life, you can’t just get back up.
It is really time that we all just accept the passing of the Cowboy Era. We have accepted other similar passings: The Middle Ages, The Age of Kings, The Age of Exploration. The Teen Years. Besides, the last gunfight at the OK Corral happened already. You missed it. Get over it. Move on.
How many more massacres are we going to allow before we stop folks from buying assault weapons, multiple guns that can kill multiple people? How many more deaths will it take?
We changed how every item we use every single day is packaged. Because of SEVEN deaths from tainted Tylenol. We took action to prevent the eighth and the eighth didn’t happen.
What’s the death toll from these random acts of violence with guns? At last count, it was, ummm, more than twelve. And that’s just for today.
What will it take for us to come to our senses?
Mr. Saturday night special
Got a barrel that’s blue and cold Ain’t no good for nothin’ But put a man six feet in a hole
FiftyFourandAHalf 