Gary Hart

I was in Kramerbooks this afternoon, in Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. (along with Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, and City Lights in San Francisco, my three favorite bookstores), and as can only happen in Washington D.C. I ran into, or rather passed by, Gary Hart (born Gary Warren Hartpence), the frontrunner in the 1988 Democratic presidential race until he fucked up by challenging the media to follow him around to see that he wasn’t an adulterer, only to have them do so and find him in fact to be an adulterer, one of the first in a long string now of politicians (all male) to be taken down by their sexual dalliances. I always liked Gary Hart, as a Senator from Colorado and as a presidential candidate. He was (and I assume still is) bright, experienced, and right-headed (well, left-headed, but that’s being right-headed). When I passed him this afternoon, I turned back around, pretending to be browsing the same bookshelf I was browsing before I passed him, just to be sure it was him. It was him, wearing what looked like a very expensive, well-tailored black suit with blue-striped shirt, the coat draped casually over his shoulder. Then I had to decide whether to approach him, to say something stupid about my admiration of him. But because I couldn’t think of something even stupid to say, I just walked into the other room and continued my browsing. I have no idea what Gary Hart is doing now, though no doubt he’s doing well at what any politician who makes it to D.C. does once they leave – teaching, lobbying, think-tanking. And I wish him well. Maybe that’s what I should have told him. Next time.

Waiting For Baby

Babies can’t be rushed from the womb. Apparently. We’ve been in a Maryland suburb of D.C. to help out and we hoped be here for the birth of our second grandchild for five days now. The due date was three days ago, and there doesn’t look to be any signs that the new grandbaby is going to pop out any time soon. So we wait, we bide time, we entertain – and are entertained by – our first granddaughter. We leave in three days, so of course we’re hoping for an imminent birth. But we’re also preparing for the disappointment of missing the arrival. Disappointing for missing the arrival, but there won’t be any disappointment whenever it comes about, even with us not here. (The induction – if needed – will be two days after we leave and are back home.) A spent satellite fell from the heavens sometime around midnight last night. The predictions of when and where it would drop ranged over 14 hours, give or take, and thousands of miles. Even this morning, when they knew the satellite had fallen to earth, they weren’t sure when exactly it had fallen or where it possibly could have fallen. And so we wait too for the falling of our baby. There is just so very little in life that can be predicted.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a [expletive]."

The Washington D.C. City Council should be rated R for language (and perhaps in the near future for violence). In a public meeting the other night, Councilperson Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) proposed a tax increase for the district’s wealthiest residents. Councilperson David A. Catania (I-At Large) described the proposal as hypocritical, pointing out that at least two council members had failed to pay their taxes on time. Mendelson said that he didn’t think it was appropriate to bring other members’ personal behavior into the debate, but Catania cut him off by reminding Mendelson that “I don’t give a shit what you think.” Chair Kwame R. Brown (D) tried to bring order, but member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), an opponent of the tax increase, pointed out that Mendelson’s objection to Catania was “bullshit.” For the next two hours, Brown attempted in vain to bring order to a council that Evans would afterward describe as “the worst council I’ve ever served on in my 20 years on the council.”

I can’t say I’m surprised at the use of this language in a D.C. council meeting. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often and in many other public meetings across the country. It pretty much sums up our current state of political dialogue in this country. What does surprise me is that the quotes above appeared as is in an article in The Washington Post the next day. Only a few years ago, Catania’s snipe would have been printed as “I don’t give a [expletive] what you think,” leaving it to the reader to figure out what might have been said. More naïve readers might assume a Rhett Butler interpretation: “I don’t give a damn what you think.” On the other end, some readers might assume a more Dick Cheney locution: “I don’t give a fuck what you think.” (Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to “Go fuck yourself” on the Senate floor a few years, an imperative that didn’t appear in print in most all national papers or on tape on any network or cable channel.) The problem with [expletives] is that they dilute or distort what was actually said, they blur the truth that journalism professes to report. It’s like describing a silver 2011 BMW as “I own a [year] [car] that is [color].” It might convey some vague sense, but there isn’t anything of substance, of matter. We deserve to know how our politicians (and other public figures) behave and speak in public. Euphemism has no place in journalism. And I’m pleased to see The Washington Post moving away from it.

Inside the Beltway

I’m inside the Washington D.C. Beltway. OK, not all that far in the beltway. I can see it from my hotel window, though, and I’m on the inside looking out. So technically I’m in the beltway. But I’ll be honest. After a full day of being officially here in the beltway I’m not looking or thinking about things any differently than I was two days ago when I was back home in Iowa, way far away from the beltway. I’ve always read and heard that those who are in the beltway of D.C. don’t see things the way those of us outside the beltway see things. I was hoping that by the time I got inside the beltway I’d start seeing things in a whole new way. Maybe sort of like looking through a kaleidoscope. Or maybe like wearing those night-vision goggles soldiers wear. (What would it be like to wear those during the day?) Or maybe like trying to watch one of those old 3D movies with the paper glasses with one red plastic lens and one green plastic lens, balanced on my nose between my eyes and my real glasses, my head tilted slightly to one side in a vain attempt to find focus. It isn’t easy to see things in a new way. But tomorrow I’m taking the Metro to the Mall, into the heart of the beltway. Maybe things will come into – or out of – focus there.

Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains

The drive through the Allegheny Mountains and northern Blue Ridge Mountains, from eastern Ohio, through southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland, is stunning, forested rolling mountains, winding hilly roads with spectacular vistas at every crest, along every ridge, fading folds of flowing earth disappearing into distant haze, small ancient farms tucked comfortably into valleys and hollows, occasional small herds of cattle or horses grazing on the cleared sides of hills, the fall cutting of hay.

Of course the cost of this bucolic canvas is navigating Interstates 70 and 68, a ribbon of gray concrete winding through the valleys, up the mountains, along the ridges, back down, crowded too often with too many too fast cars, trucks, RVs, semis, a white-knuckle weave through traffic that varies in miles per hour at every rise and drop and pass and curve, lower back aching, shoulders sore. But then the road rises and curves and a semi slows and suddenly another view.

Football TV

The football TV shows – college and pro – are back on the air in this fall season, and once again they have kicked the news – local and national – off our screens for the next five or six months. It’s a strange message the networks send us: For six or seven months, the world, national, and local news continues its consequence, its import throughout the weekend. But once the football season starts, it’s as if all that’s significant retreats into hibernation, replaced by what’s really important, physical mutants trying to maim one another for the edification of those of us who think these contests hold some worth (which they potentially do for those who bet on them (or broadcast them)). What’s on TV is what we value. I may loath it. But here I sit, watching it. Just one more unwitting idiot with a flat-screen HD TV and too much time on his hands.