Before you proceed: I believe the first amendment is critical to a healthy democracy. I do not advocate or wish to eliminate free speech.

For the past 3 years I have asked a person, Beth Light, in my community to stop sending me emails due to their content; typically ranting about how awful the president and Republicans are, calling out people in politics and even people in our community, their actions and words that Beth does not like. She insults individuals and groups alike, calls them names and even threatens them with legal action. After a while I noticed her email and social media rants were causing me stress so I asked her to please remove me from her email list. She ignored my first requests. I repeated my requests, initially being polite and friendly, after she ignored polite requests I began demanding that she remove me. Initially she refused and told me that because I was on the same committee as she was, I was compelled to receive them. So I quit the group due to her words (and to be fair the words of a few of the other members). I just did not want to hear or read them, I did not want to spend any part of my day listening to/reading about a person ranting and being mean to other people. I did not like how she treated people in my community and did not want to be around her ugly rancor. Now she is telling people that I need therapy because I am mentally unstable. That’s right, I am the one who needs anger management therapy because I am demanding she stop contacting me.

What do the members of the community tell me?

“That’s just Beth. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“Oh, she’s always been that way.”

“You need to toughen up.”

“Don’t be so thin skinned.”

“She’s just an old lady, don’t put too much into what she says.”

“Just delete her emails if you don’t like them.”

“Just block her in your email settings.” (By the way, I did that a long time ago but occasionally they slip though the SPAM filter)

“She donates a lot to the community.”

“She has issues, just ignore her.”

“She has a right to say what she wants- Free Speech.”

The last one, “She has a right to say what she wants- Free Speech.” Where is my right to freedom from her speech? Why is the responsibility mine to get away from her speech? Why do I have to change my behavior? Why does she not have to change her behavior? Does no one find it disturbing that a person continues to send unwanted emails to a woman who has made clear she does not want them? Made vehemently clearly. Why am I the one who needs therapy? Free Speech comes with responsibility. If you would like to read a similar perspective on this topic I suggest, Frank Sonneburg.

Maybe some have become immune to the angry rantings of others, maybe they think it is amusing to read, or perhaps they just have the luxury of ‘thick skin’. What exactly is thin skin and thick skin? Is thick skin when you have lost the ability to be affected by the nasty insults and commentary of others? If there is one thing that 45’s election has taught me is that words matter, what we say and how we say it matters. 45 has enabled the outrage of Nationalist Whites to come up from the sewer we thought it was buried under to the surface of our culture and media. While racism and sexism never went away, the election of 45 has enabled and empowered it to come back. Words are powerful as Maya Angelou well knew, that is why she didn’t want foul speech around her.

I will not sit in a group of black friends and hear racial pejoratives against whites. I will not hear “honky.” I will not hear “Jap.” I will not hear “kike.” I will not hear “greaser.” I will not hear “dago.” I will not hear it. As soon as I hear it, I say, “Excuse me, I have to leave. Sorry.” Or if it's in my home, I say, “You have to leave. I can't have that. That is poison, and I know it is poison, and you're smearing it on me. I will not have it.” Now, it's not an easy thing. And one doesn't all of a sudden sort of blossom into somebody who's courageous enough to say that. But you do start little by little.... Little by little, you develop courage. You sit in a room, and somebody says, “Well, you know what the Japs did then, and what they're doing now.” Say, “Mm-hmm! I have to go. My goodness! It's already six o'clock.” Leave. Continue to build the courage. Sooner or later, you'll be able to say out loud, “Just a minute. I defend that person. I will not have gay bashing, lesbian bashing. Not in my company. I will not do it.”

Why do we allow the people around us to behave badly? Instead of telling, discussing, asking, requesting or demanding that those who spew vitriol stop; we either spit it back at them or pretend to ignore them. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a culture that enabled a misogynistic, racist, unqualified, lying, criminal as president. When we allow bad behavior to continue we are quietly condoning it. Every time a man chuckles with his buddies about, “what a hot ass you have” or a woman back stabs another woman instead of supporting her in the workplace, or a principal tells a bullied student, ‘suck it up, buttercup’, we enable bad behavior. When we tell the recipient there is something wrong with them because they are offended instead of calling out the offender, we enable racism, sexism, or hate speech. That’s how we have arrived at a place in our society where a president can say, “Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!". Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan or John Kennedy saying that in a public arena? Did Obama or Bush brag about grabbing pussy? We should be able to disagree with another’s politics without slamming them to the mat. We ought to be able to talk about issues and qualifications without disparaging each other.

At some point we have to stand up and say, “No more. Your words are hateful, hurtful, ugly, racist, sexist, segregationist and are causing our society harm. Stop talking like that. Stop insulting people. Discuss policies and issues and qualification instead.”

Recently Adam Schiff (you may remember “So funny to see little Adam Schitt...) wrote:

This is a moment of great peril for our democracy. Our country is deeply divided. Our national discourse has become coarse, indeed, poisonous. Disunity and dysfunction have paralyzed Congress.

But the Russian attack on our democracy had its limits. Only we could do that to ourselves.

To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t like as illegitimate, we heard not a word. And now he comes for Congress, the first branch of government, seeking to strip it of its greatest power, that of the purse.

Many of you have acknowledged your deep misgivings about the president in quiet conversations over the past two years. You have bemoaned his lack of decency, character and integrity. You have deplored his fundamental inability to tell the truth. But for reasons that are all too easy to comprehend, you have chosen to keep your misgivings and your rising alarm private.

That must end. The time for silent disagreement is over. You must speak out.

This will require courage...............history compels us to speak, and act, our conscience, Republicans and Democrats alike. Adam B. Schiff, Democrat, represents California’s 28th Congressional District in the House and is chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

There are many places where I have commented about and discussed civility, in my personal life, private conversations, in groups, in meetings and on social media and many people seem to understand that my intention has been to entreat others to talk with civility using reasonable language. I have tried to be clear in relaying that I am not opposed to people’s opinions or their right to speak.

I do not want to limit or restrict Free Speech- it’s integral to democracy (which I happen to love very much).

I am not asking anyone to be silent; that is not my aim. I have witnessed the suppression of speech by some leaders in my community and it was ugly. Silence is not what I am proposing. Just plain civility- that’s all. Just recognize that as the poet William Carlos Williams wrote,

Requiring civility and rational discourse should not be mocked, those who ask to be spoken to with respect are not the problem. Can we please stop ridiculing requests for courtesy as if being polite and respectful are preposterous notions? A person should have the right to be spoken to with a modicum of decency and not be told they are need of therapy for requesting it. One day they may come for you.... and there will be no one left to speak for you.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller

Sadly, this follow up to my initial reports on working in my local Democratic Central Committee will not be an optimistic or hopeful story because I feel like Floki, one of the main characters in the TV Series Vikings  who is also an historical person and the first Norseman to deliberately sail to Iceland. 

Floki has a dream of creating a new world but his dream quickly fades as strife among the new settlers’ causes a death- Floki is devastated. He blames himself, that he was not effective as a leader. While I am certainly not equal to Floki in leadership or cultural perspective, I feel that I too have failed. My intentions in joining were to see if I could weave my own brand of open, positive discussion without insulting, type of communication into an older paradigm. It hasn’t worked. The bickering and dysfunction are still there, possibly worse. We now have a civil war within our tiny microcosm of the Democratic Party. I have no way of comparing our committee to other committee’s across the state or country. I do know that what I see in social media indicates that our local group likely represents a snap shot of the bigger picture. Somehow, I could not find the right words and actions to express to my fellow members that we should try to rise above bickering and arguing and attempt rational conversation in determining the path forward, somehow, my message of being open and transparent has turned into a mockery. My fellow members are sending scathing ‘shut up’ messages to me, accusing me of manipulation and fostering Wasserman-Shultz tactics and using ‘my position’ to compel the local public to vote my way. As if I have any sway on anyone- hell, I can’t even get my kids to clean their bedrooms!

Perhaps you are thinking, “That’s just the way it is.” “That’s politics.” “That’s how humans are.” Maybe you are correct but aren’t statements like that really resignation? Aren’t we really saying, “There is no point in attempting.”? If that’s how humans are then why does it feel so uncomfortable? Why did Floki feel like a failure? It’s uncomfortable to me because I put in work and my effort was met with disappointment and no progress. Actually, that’s a lie- it’s not uncomfortable, it’s disheartening and discouraging and depressing. I joined the Central Committee because I wanted to work on changing the outlook for my children and grandchildren. I see them struggle almost daily in one way or another in ways I never had to. I didn’t have crippling student debt, constant lay-off concerns, low job and salary prospects, or out of reach housing prices. The American Dream was relatively easy for my generation to achieve, but not so for millennials. We have so many serious issues facing us, locally (forests dying, drought), statewide (drought, loss of farm land, affordable housing), countrywide (extreme weather, housing, poverty, racism, sexism) and it is daunting. I thought to follow the adage, “think globally, act locally”, but even that does not seem to work.

And what is the serious issue that is causing this rift? Whether or not we should openly discuss candidate qualifications. That’s it. We are fighting about whether or not we should DISCUSS candidates, whether we should keep our evaluation of the candidates’ qualifications to ourselves individually or whether we should share our evaluations among each other. Seriously. We are arguing about whether or not to have an open conversation, that's it, and one member is threatening to sue another member over this battle. Yea, that’s what the Democrats in my community are arguing about while our Bylaws express that our stated purpose is: “Identify, recruit, develop, interview, ENDORSE, SUPPORT and elect Democratic candidates for local partisan and non-partisan public office.” We are fighting about having an open conversation.

I do not know what it takes to convince people to work together for the common good and clearly my theory and philosophy of open communication, “let’s just sit down and talk about this in a rational way” is not the answer. So I have failed in my mission and I am contemplating resigning. I guess the need to do battle ingrained in our mind is stronger than the desire to live peacefully. If ever there was a time for us to work together in unity, yea, I said unity, I thought it was now, but I guess we need more damage to our culture and more destruction to our world and more war before we will work together.

Please read my fellow author’s piece on Russian Collusion and ask yourself if you still want to see Democrats fight among themselves, or should we be unified (yes, I used the word unity- it isn’t a 4 letter word). https://www.idiotfreezone.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=678%3Aimho-the-glenn-simpson-transcript&catid=15&Itemid=612#.WmogaTzpSH8.facebook

Another good read that may help you understand the need for civil discussion and compromise is, Collapse by Jared Diamond.

“Collapse arose as an attempt to understand why so many past societies collapsed, leaving behind ruined or abandoned temples, pyramids, and monuments as romantic mysteries to baffle subsequent visitors and modern tourists.  Why did societies that were as powerful as the Khmer Empire, and as brilliantly creative as the Maya, abandon the sites into which they had invested such enormous effort for so many centuries?  Archaeological and paleoclimatic studies of recent decades have documented a role of environmental factors in many of these collapses.”

http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Collapse.html

TWO TALES

I was in the checkout line at the supermarket when the man in front of me got my attention. He was older, very thin almost frail looking. His basket of stuff was inching toward the cashier on the conveyor.

Excuse me sir, “Do you think you could help me pay for my groceries. I don’t have any money and I need to feed my grandkids”.

Sure enough there were two small boys with him and a woman hovering in the background. The selections on the conveyor reflected the eating preferences of children. “I just started a new job and haven’t been paid yet. We’re staying at the Motel Six. I graduated with my welding certificate last week.” I knew the company he referenced and it matched the kind of work he was qualified for and was not one just anyone would be familiar with. Everything on the conveyor could be prepared in a motel microwave or single hotplate.

While he talked to me, Grandma went off for a flat of bottled water and we sent the boys for a couple bottles of Gatorade. I asked if he had gas money. “no sir, tank’s almost dry” I slipped him a twenty, “Buy some gas”.

As I was about to pay, one of the boys picked up a candy bar and looked up at me hopefully. I nodded assent. Total bill was 38 dollars and change.

They packed up their groceries and left. I turned to deal with my own order. The cashier looked me in the eye and mouthed “Thank You”.

It was Saturday, poker night. I was off to the game at a workmate’s house, down Columbia Rd to Washington Street. It was winter and the beginnings of a “wintry mix” was developing. It was the most direct route but I knew none of my workmates would go that way. Washington Street was the wrong part of town.

I got to Gary’s and we played. The stakes were low and I have no recollection of whether I won or lost. When I left the house, the wintry mix had turned to snow and begun to accumulate. The roads were slippery and driving was treacherous.

As I proceeded slowly back up Washington Street, I saw a van coming toward me and it began to slide into my lane. I steered right as far as I could go but the left front quarter of the van struck the left front quarter of my pickup. We ended up side by side, nose into the curb, so close together that our doors wouldn’t open.

I got out through the passenger door and went around to the driver’s window. He rolled down the window so we could talk. He wanted to exchange information and leave as quick as possible. I wanted to call a cop. He was clearly at fault since his vehicle had lost control and crossed the center line before hitting me. This did not sit well with him and the next thing I knew he was backing up, nearly running me down and left.

I was stranded and I was alone in a part of town not recommended after dark.

There was a store on the corner. I headed that way hoping to find a pay phone. I called 911 and reported what was now a hit and run. They would send someone. I went back to my car to wait. The truck wouldn’t run so there was no point in getting inside. I stood by the rear bumper watching for the cop I hoped would arrive soon. Still snowing, my feet were wet and I was cold.

A beat up old station wagon slowed and stopped. The driver got out and asked me what happened. He invited me to get in the car to get warm and we would wait for the police to arrive. I got in behind the driver. His wife was in the passenger seat ant there were two children on the seat next to me. We made small talk until the police arrived.

The police arranged for a tow truck and asked me into their car to take notes for their report. Seeing that things were under control, my Samaritan took his leave and I thanked him profusely. After my truck was in tow the cops offered to drive me home. Shortly after we turned right onto Columbia Road, we found the van abandoned in the middle of the road. We stopped briefly so they could look at the damage and get the license number. As we continued on to my house the cops assured me that the van would be called in stolen the next morning.

As I pondered the events of the evening I had no doubt that had my benefactor found himself in similar circumstances in my neighborhood, he would have received no help. None of my workmates would have slowed down let alone stop the car and allow him into the back seat with their children.

We are all somehow the sum of the events of our lives. I would like to believe in Karma; as ye sow, so shall ye reap but who really knows. In the end, given a choice, I choose kindness.

For just short of a century, The Braille Institute of America has been a beacon and shelter for adults and children born without sight, or later deprived thereof in a variety of ways and degrees. Apart from inducing geniality among those of similar experience, the Braille Institute also offers instruction in a plethora of useful skills and knowledge. The teaching of Braille reading and writing remains its basic raison d’etre. A free, now-digital library system, in conjunction with the National Library Service, is a veritable treasure for those deprived of the ability of reading the written word. Both Tom Hughes and I counted ourselves among the denizens of the beautiful San Diego Braille Institute facility in the part of San Diego known as La Jolla.

Mahmud Ahmadinejad had just become President of Iran. Having been attendee and instructor at the Braille Institute since the beginning of the New Millennium, I was just returning from a three-year hiatus with the International Tutor-Mentor Program at San Diego State University, while at the same time attending an adult school piano class. I met Tom Hughes for the first time when I signed up for his Western Civilization class. He was using those extraordinary ITV videos that feature Professor Eugen Weber brilliantly laying out the evolution of life in the Western Hemisphere. He takes you from the emergence of writing in the now-defiled Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; through the Greek and Roman Empires; and down through the turbulent European development; all the way into the 1980s.

Although Tom and the class mainly depended upon Professor Weber’s mellifluous, acquired-British tonality. Tom would play the half-hour video, after which we would discuss the subjects covered therein. Tom had been a lifetime educator, and was well positioned to lead the discussion about this marvelous march of our humanity.

Tom Hughes constantly made it clear that, without the assistance of his devoted wife Lois, there would be no class. He described how she would go over the tapes with him, making notes and pointing out the things that were to be discussed in class. It was obvious that Lois was a lot more than just a pretty extra set of eyes.

Once, Tom asked me to substitute for him during a time when he and Lois would be traveling. Knowing that I would not have the lucidity of a Lois to aid in formulating class prep, I politely demurred. Instead, I agreed to fill in the time spot with a class, teaching Spanish.

I met Lois for the first time at a Braille Institute open house. Braillites with manual or other skills upon these occasions are encouraged to set up booths to demonstrate and vend whatever their individual creation might be. This was my first time, and I was displaying the CD of an anthem I had written and dedicated to the Braille Institute. It is entitled, “Hail, O Hail, Braille Institute,” and is arranged, played and sung by my music colleague Tommy Dodson. Dutifully, Tom and Lois made their purchase. On other occasions, they did the same with other of my musical compositions or collaborations, as well as my published memoir, which they very kindly had helped me edit!

Lois and Tom were among those who mostly commented on my humble IFZ articles. Ergo, it is hoped that this personal paean to Tom will provide a little comfort for his wonderful widow. From what I heard about their writer-son and his involvement in film festivals, it is obvious that Tom and Lois have spread their elevated values in many directions.

Filling in for Tom drew me into teaching again at Braille. Apart from Spanish, I covered music and News and Views. The latter was very popular, and grew to unmanageable proportions. I needed help in taking roll and reading the written items I prepared for class. I approached Tom, and he was able to convince Lois. She was a tremendous asset and a great relief to me and the rest of the class.

One Christmas season, I hosted a large dinner at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Lois and Tom were able to join us. The Rosas and kids were there, as well as Michael Ann’s mom Mary. Millie McCoo  came, as well as Tommy Dodson and Horace Birgh from the Palm Springs area. A wonderful actor, Portia, was there as well. She was the principal narrator in my play, “Strange Land/Strange Brand,” which had played at the Community Actors Theatre. After dinner, we retired to the lounge, where Tommy Dodson regaled us with his brilliant piano. Portia delighted us all with a reading from the play. Tom and Lois were able to enjoy themselves until the bitter end. They were smart enough to have reserved a room at that very hotel!

I had switched Braille attendance days, and no longer saw Tom on a regular basis. When I got Lois’ note describing how Tom courageously had asked her to turn off the infernal machine that only exacerbated his last, difficult breaths, I really got to see the staunch stuff of which they both were made. As I explained to Lois, she never would be alone. Two marvelous souls had now become one.

*****  *****  *****

A guy named Tom passed by one day.
His wisdom did he softly say.
Dear Lois was there;
Just one perfect pair.
Now, rest ye, Tom, we gently pray.