The Rotary Phone and the Clock

A conversation between two friends over coffee and cookies

 “Gladys? Why do you have an old black rotary phone?”

“Oh, I’ve always had that phone.”

“But, such phones don’t really work anymore. They can’t do a bunch of things that push button phones do, and I imagine it makes it very hard to do basic tasks like ordering prescriptions, or even ordering pizza. Push button phones cost like 20 bucks. Why don’t you just get one?”

“No. I’ve always had that one. No sense changing.”

“But don’t you see, you are limiting what you can do and forcing yourself to do things that are way more inconvenient and time consuming?

“Yeah, well.”

“What do you mean ‘yeah, well’?” There is absolutely no logical reason to have that phone. By keeping that phone you are willfully making your life less convenient. Hell! You are probably making your life less safe as well. Something incredibly basic like dialing 9-1-1. I bet it takes 4 times as long to dial 9-1-1 on your phone then on a push button phone?

“Well, there’s nothing I can do. The phone is plugged in and working. I’m stuck with it.”

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN?!  You could literally go to like any store in town and buy a new phone, plug it in and be done. It is about the easiest thing you could do.”

“Hmm.”

“My god you are exasperating!”

“OK, let’s talk about something else then.”

“Fine. Oh, I just thought of something: Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour this weekend. It’s Daylight Savings Time.  Fall back and all that.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? It’s fall and Sunday is the day we set our clocks back an hour.”

“Yeah, but why?  Why should we do that?

“Because we’ve always done that.”

“But switching the time doesn’t really work anymore, it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t save energy, it doesn’t save money, it does nothing.”

“That’s just what we do. No sense changing.”

“But don’t you see, switching our clocks is an artificial construct that limits natural light and forces us to modify our schedule which is inconvenient.”

“Yeah well.”

 “What do you mean ‘yeah, well’?” There is absolutely no logical reason to switch the clocks. By keeping this ridiculous practice we are willfully making life less convenient. Hell! We are making life less safe as well. Something incredibly basic like driving with less light makes the roads less safe and causes deaths on the road!”

“Well there’s nothing we can do. We move our clocks back every fall. We are stuck with it.”

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN?! We could literally just NOT touch our clocks and keep the time consistent. Doing nothing is about the easiest thing we could do!!”

“Hmm.”

“My god you are exasperating!”

“OK, let’s talk about something else then.”

Why we love sports

This weekend, my lifelong favorite NFL team played the marquee game on Sunday and my new second favorite team played on Monday Night.

My Cowboys vs. Vikings in America’s Game of the Week and my new found focus Seattle vs. SF for the Monday Night tilt.

Both games were good, entertaining down to the wire affairs. My Boy’s lost a heartbreaker and my Seahawks won a thriller in overtime.

My wife, a long suffering NFL widow did watch a lot of the MNF game with me.

At one point, while I was (for me, fairly good-naturedly) yelling at a ref’s bad call that negatively impacted my Seahawks, she asked: “how is this fun? How is this not completely stress inducing torture? Why do you subject yourself to this?”

And the answer to that question is why we love sports.

The answer is simply this: Sports is one of, if not the only, mass appeal endeavor that a person could care about with 100 effort all the while knowing we have zero percent control of the outcome. The game has us completely in its clutches, while we have absolutely no hand in the result.

We have all the passion, with absolutely none of the responsibility. We can care about our team from early childhood to our deathbed and bare no obligation to its success and failure.

That is, as I said to my dear wife, the point. 

In so much of our lives, we bare responsibility for outcomes that often are not in our control.  The success of our company, the success of our children, the success of our community. We put our blood, sweat and tears toward doing a good job at work, only to be down-sized or reassigned because despite making our numbers, the corporation didn’t. Or giving our sons and daughters all the best life lessons for their journey into adulthood only to see them join a terrible SKA band and use the college savings for a van and guitars. Giving much of our spare time to rotary, or the PTA or a nonprofit only to watch our community sink further into despair.

But sports?  I can live and die on the hopes of a strong-armed quarterback who spots an open receiver in the end zone with the same emotional investment I have down at the office and probably more. Yet, when my Cowboys or Hawks fail – it’s completely on them. I can curse and stomp my feet on a Sunday night and then wake up the next morning with no regret or remorse. That strong-armed quarterback missed the wide open receiver that cost us the game? Not my fault.  

It’s so liberating and dare I say cathartic to care so deeply about a game, to clench one’s jaw, yell yourself hoarse, and pace the rug like an expectant father, and then – let it go.

It’s almost like our replacement for battle.  All the rage and adrenaline and angst, without the threat of death, injury or PTSD. 

Win or lose, I feel relaxed after a game. Sure, I might hold grudges and some anger after a loss, but I’m still much more relaxed.

Sports is riding the roller coaster at the amusement park. Dread and fear and nausea quickly replaced by calm and Zen and a giddy sense that we can’t wait to do it all again.

Confessions of a Rookie Vegan

I’m a 52-year-old, red blooded American male and proud omnivore for 51.6 of those years. Yet, for the past several months, I have committed myself to eating an exclusive plant-based diet.

And I’m doing it for one, and one reason only.

First, what I’m not doing it for. I’m not doing it for the animals. I love animals, but I’ve been eating them since I was about two. I’ve even killed a few. No, I’m not some weak-kneed, PETA-worshiping animal do-gooder. Sure, it’s a nice side effect of veganism, the warm feeling knowing nothing on my dinner plate suffered the cruelty of factory farming, but in the end, the animals themselves don’t matter.

Next, I’m not doing it for my health. I haven’t lost any weight or felt any better as a vegan and I have decidedly not discovered newfound energy or a miraculous change in stamina or strength. I feel exactly the same. I’ve been an active person as an omnivore and I will continue that as vegan. I know, like most doctors and nutritionists know, that you can be ultra-healthy as either an omnivore or a vegan. No, health isn’t the reason.

So why?

Simple. I’m a lazy, yet hopeful environmentalist and going vegan is the easiest, yet absolutely most personally impactful thing any individual can do to assist our endangered planet.

Look, I like to try and do all the things a good environmentalist should, but I frequently fail. I drive –often for no real purpose. I shave with the water going, I turn up the heat when it’s cold and I’ll often just throw something out instead of sorting and recycling. And in many cases, my sloth stems from never really being sure that my “green” efforts were making a difference.  And for someone as lazy as me, that often means throwing caution – and carbon – to the wind. Basically, I would give myself an A for intent, but a C- for execution and really saw no way of upping my environmental grade point average.

Then I saw the documentary Cowspiracy.

I won’t go into great detail about this film, but the gist of it is this: hiding in plain sight, yet often unspoken, is the fact that what we eat and how we raise it is without question the biggest threat to our planet and if we moved to a largely plant based diet, we would reverse our deadly footprint. Further, the film does a great job of illustrating the positive impact one vegan convert like me can have on the environment - today. For me, becoming vegan is actually an easier way toward green living.

After viewing the film, I felt that embracing veganism would be a giant (relatively easy) form of checking the environmentalist box. By embracing a plant based diet , I can guiltlessly drive without purpose, take long showers, buy fruit with an obscene amount of food miles….and still check the box of being a rabid environmentalist, because I’m doing the single and most measurable thing to help the environment – stop eating meat and animal products. Period.


Here are the facts, painstakingly laid out in the film: “A person who follows a vegan diet produces the equivalent of 50% less carbon dioxide, uses 1/11th oil, 1/13th water, and 1/18th land compared to a meat-lover for their food.   Each day, a person who eats a vegan diet saves 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 sq ft of forested land, 20 lbs CO2 equivalent, and one animal’s life.” I’ve never come across statistics and facts so clearly illustrated. Little old me could make a hugely positive impact on the world – right now.

Wait a second?, you might say. How can completely changing your diet be the easier path toward a sustainable lifestyle? Because, as I found out almost by accident, the only real change I had to make was rethinking the order of things on my plate. As an omnivore and the main cook in our family, I had always been conditioned to think about the meat serving first. From there, I would build out the meal, from there I would construct the shopping list. I credit my wife, who went vegan first, with simply asking the question, “why not think of the veggies first?

Need more proof about the relative ease of veganism vs. other green practices? Here’s what a meat-eating environmentalist would need to do to match my diminished environmental footprint:
- Audit all water consumption and reduce daily us by around 75 percent
- Sell the family car, purchase a bike and/or take the bus
- Purchase thousands of dollars of carbon offsets in order to replace deforested land
- Reduce all home heating and cooling to about zero.

Here’s what I have to do: buy and eat nuts, beans and lentils instead of chicken and beef.

What about taste?!, you might scream. Yes, animals taste great and no, tofu doesn’t seamlessly replace chicken in a perfect stir fry. But again, for me the path toward veganism has really been about simply re-ordering my thought process. 

For example, let’s take bacon – the kryptonite of many a vegetarian or vegan. Bacon is wonderful to eat, no arguments here. But what is bacon really? Bacon is just an ideal fat and salt delivery system. And I can get my salt, my fat, and other yummy components like sugar and carbs easily from plants. The satiety from meat can be replaced; bacon replaced by salted cashews and French fries.

In closing, if you don’t care about environmentalism, this little article is not for you and you are more than welcome to grab a burger and forget all about veganism. However, if you are concerned about doing your part for the environment, yet haven’t really found your place in the cause – perhaps the plant-based way is for you. What’s great about veganism is that it offers something very tangible to both sides of the political divide. Of course, liberals can jump on board because of the environmental sustainability, but there is (pardon the pun) red meat for conservatives as well. Meat production is one of, if not, THE largest government subsidized and supported industry in the world. You hard core free market devotees should greatly appreciate a movement which aims to directly end the devil’s bargain between big government and big meat.

So if you want to help save the planet but don’t want to abandon cars, central heating and your hair dryer, consider eating your way toward a greener tomorrow.

The Walk of Shame for Amazon Suitors

This story is fascinating and instructive.  A bunch of cities whored themselves out in order to seduce Amazon’s HQ2 – only to lose spectacularly to NYC and D.C. who each actually gave away less in bribes and succor then the losers proposed.

There are lessons here.

1. Cities or states will attract major league business because of who they are not what they offer. No matter what a city is willing to do to attract the next “big thing,” municipalities rarely ever punch above their weight. Amazon ultimately choose the financial and political hub of the freaking world to locate its new corporate centers. Residents of the Columbus’s and Tucson’s and Omaha’s of the nation should take note. You are never going home with the hottest girl at the dance. So stay in your lane and set realistic expectations.

2. The clichés is true: Politicians do things that help themselves, not their constituencies. Look, we all know that elected officials are naked self-promoters, but it sometimes takes a shit show like the Amazon HQ2 debacle to remind us all. The sheer volume of public displays of prostitution by city and state officials to woo Amazon was like a red light district documentary. And the reason that seemingly normal leaders would strap on the kneepads for the online retailer? Because if they got it, they would guarantee themselves reelection and hero worship. No matter how bad the deal eventually turned out for their city, no matter how bad roads and schools and bridges got because of the massive tax giveaways – they could crow about getting Amazon every minute of every day.

3. Which brings us to this: the good leaders of Columbus and Tucson and Omaha aren’t truly stupid. They knew they had a snowball’s chance in hell of landing this whale, but they knew that they had to appear willing to pull out all the stops to try. Unfortunately in our democracy – appearance matters. City leaders have to waste colossal amounts of cash, time and resources to pitch a relocation like Amazon, because if they weren’t seen as trying, they would be lambasted by voters.

4. Another lesson: like most of us, elected officials seek the path of least resistance. It’s hard to fix the potholes; it’s hard to lower crime; it’s hard to do more and more with less and less money. And as a mayor or city councilor, you’re never going to get enough credit for those things, because despite the trends of the last 40 years, citizens still kind of expect and take for granted the basics of running a city.
5. Yet, for average citizens, the behavior won’t change.  Today, a mayor or council member for any medium to large city in America SHOULD step back and realize that courting a huge business to relocate is folly.  There is nothing substantive to be gain by entering into this competition. Tis far better for said politician to publically state that his or city does not, nor will not give away the store to attract a business whale.

But they won’t.  They won’t do it because they want to be courted and seduced the next time a big business wants to relocate. They want to be part of the show. The show is good for their reelection. The show breaks up the boredom and tediousness of actually doing their job, of endless council meetings and discussion of potholes.  Being a mayor is only fun when you get to look important and unfortunately, kissing the ass of a bigtime corporation is considered important by way too many people.

MAKING OTHERS WORSE

It’s important to understand the fundamental appeal of Trump to his base.


White, under-educated men, mostly over 40, who live in rural areas and the suburbs individually and collectively have come to the realization that they are no longer the cool kids. In every cultural outlet – TV, music, movies, and literature – it’s other members of society, the nerds, the urban hipsters, the black boundary pushers, the Latino chic, all of them are ascendant.

And that makes Joe, living a relatively secure, but anonymous life outside of Indianapolis or in rural Ohio pissed. And that anger needs an outlet.  Trump doesn’t appeal to his base because he’s actually going to make things better.  He can’t and they know that. What he can do is try and make things worse for those “other” groups. They didn’t flock to Trump because they saw him as a savior. They flocked to him because they believed he would give them permission to hate and strike out against those groups of people that had surpassed them in relevance.

Trumper’s are almost universally zero-sum: they can’t win unless the “others” lose and winning really means remaining the dominate and most relevant group and pushing the other groups down.

But they couldn’t do that themselves. Hell, in the very deep recesses of their brains they knew the truth: they were becoming irrelevant because they deserved to be. Their skills were atrophied, their ideas were stale and their work ethic had been dulled. They knew that among their ranks the next Mark Zuckerberg, Jay-Z, Lin-Manuel Miranda or Satya Nadella simply didn’t exist. They were beat.  Progress and diversity and sheer talent had passed them by. They knew they were headed to irrelevancy and they knew that didn’t have the industriousness nor skill to reverse that trend. The needed an accelerant.  Some force that would do the heavy lifting for them. Some zeitgeist-whisperer who could sell them the dream that he and he alone could hurt those talented and hardworking “others” so that they would go back to being marginalized and fearful.

In many ways, Trump is like Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and his base are like the millions who follow the team.  The Cowboys are – in terms of actual football success – a kind of league-wide laughing stock. They haven’t won a meaningful playoff game since they last appeared in a Super Bowl more than 23-years ago.  Yet, the Cowboys are still one of the most relevant (and profitable) teams in all of professional sports. Year in and year out, they go 6-10, or 8-8 or 9-7 and leave millions of fans disappointed. From a purely football perspective, the Cowboys are the Arizona Cardinals, yet the Cardinals are imminently forgettable and the Cowboys are still one of the top draws every season. Why?

Because Jones, like Trump, is a master at selling the illusion of relevance. Jones, like Trump, is a savant at selling sizzle over steak. Trump has always been a pretty bad businessman and Jones has always been a pretty bad general manager. Yet, Trump has built the artifice of “Trump: Master Dealmaker” like Jones has built the artifice of the “Dallas Cowboys: America’s Team.” To their hardcore supporters, the bankruptcies, the massive debt, the unpaid bills and all the hallmarks of Trump’s besmirched business career don’t matter, just like the decades without winning, the endless poor personnel decisions, the revolving door of coaches and all the similar hallmarks of Jones’ besmirched team-building career don’t matter to fans and haters alike who watch the Cowboys on TV.

Jerry Jones, like Donald Trump has a kind of idiot savant quality where they are stupid in one thing and brilliant in another. Both men are actually pretty bad at what makes them famous, where Jones owns a professional football team that doesn’t win and Trump is a business dealmaker who’s been taken to the cleaners on multiple occasions. Yet Jones has built a brand that is unequaled in sports and Trump has created a brand that millions of people equate with ultimate success.

Like a nation that still pays outsized attention to a football team that doesn’t win, Trumpers voted for the man in 2016 because to many “deplorables” around the country, he mattered.  He was relevant. And his racism, misogyny and rage against “the other” was like a hit of pure OxyContin. It felt so good to hear this master huckster say he was going to make them top-dogs once again. And he was going to do it in a mean and cruel way. He wasn’t just going to restore their relevance, he was going to kick those liberal, ethnic, educated, urban elites in the crotch.

“Make America Great Again,” is and was always going to be a dog whistle. Trump never had the talent, skill or even desire to truly make the nation as a whole better and more prosperous.  What he could deliver – at least in the minds of his supporters – was the promise of cutting the “others” down to size.

And in the end, that fact helps explain the cult of Trump. To his fans and supporters – who when they are alone and look in the mirror and see staring back at them a reduced or even failed man – The Donald offers them the only hope left: the ability to drag those people who’ve surpassed them back down to their level.

The Tide is Turning

Watching the NBA awards on TNT tonight.

It is almost entirely black.  The hosts, the award recipients, everything.  It is a show about the NBA, but really it’s a show about the ascendency of black culture, black power, black relevance and black celebrity.

It’s not a great show.  It's like any other awards show….boring, self-agrandizing, etc. etc.  and that is the point.  Millennials couldn’t care less about other award shows. A lot care about this one. This is a kind of a big deal.

Black culture is without a doubt the dominate arts culture in America.  It’s not even close.  When I was younger, smart people would say that black culture was ascendant.  It is no longer ascendant.  It's here. It is what every kid wants to grab hold of and make it their own.

I was also recently watching a documentary about the Lakers Celtics rivalry.  One of the subtexts of the story was how hard it was for Boston to sell out the garden in the 1970s and early 80’s because of the amount of black players. 

It seems ridiculous today, but in less than a generation we’ve gone from a hegemony of black athletes being a loss-leader to the absolute need for black celebrities/athletes/leaders being associated with a brand.

Baseball was America’s past time.  Baseball is fast becoming irrelevant.  Basketball and football, two sports than need black athletes just to open the doors are so much more popular.  Baseball is a white sport and is associated with old men wearing non-ironic hats.

Baseball today only gets by because of history and weather.  Baseball only exists because of summer days, beer and an homage to your old man.

American industry used to worry about products and services being too closely associated with black people and black culture.  Now if you want to attract white kids and Hispanic kids and Asian kids and middle eastern kids to a mass-market product, you HAVE to use black culture and urban hip hop culture to market it or it will never get out of R&D.

 

 

Actually, it's good news

Positive.

There have been a spate of racial and predjudical things happening lately.  White people calling the police because black people are doing things that seem (to the callers) wrong or illegal or menancing.

We know these things happened because we have cell phone video that goes viral on social media. Social justice guardians like Shawn King and there to make sure the terrible deeds get told.

A month or so ago, a woman in Oakland called police on two black men having a BBQ.  She said it was illegal. And so she called the cops.  It exploded.  The video that the two men, and others shot, went viral.  It evoked screams on white privildge.  She’s now called "BBQ betty. " She is now a meme.  She was mentioned not once, but twice, on Saturday Night Live.

Others have happened as well.

Some see and hear about these transgressions and get upset and depressed.  They believe they represent a certain amount of backsliding of our society toward pre-civil rights racism.

I see it differently.  It fills me with hope.

Now, there are so many people – white and black – who are itching to expose this racism. They are poised – cell phones at the ready – to record injustice and, much more importantly, share it with a receptive world.

Indeed Trump won the presidency and many horrible things have happened, are happening and will happen. But the arc toward justice is etched in the hard stone of history.  We will get through this era, because so many people are upset and so ready to dive in.

True, we are and have always been a reactive society. We do not tend toward being proactive. Instead, something bad or untenable has to happen before we act. That is not ideal, but it does work. We see the horrible hatred, fear and ignorance of the moment and we jump into the fray
.
White people who want things to remain the way they were – where they were unquestionably at the top and they didn’t have to change their ways or their ideas – are getting smaller. They are still very large in number, but each year and each decade brings more people who are either of an ethnic or sexual identity that is ready to topple the existing order. Sure, there are plenty of young bigots, but there are more young people who simply don’t see the value in it.

Right now, to paraphrase the great Hunter S. Thompson, is where we just might be able to see where the wave crests and begins to roll back on itself.  Where the old ideas of racial denial and sexual repression are permently exhiled to the minority.

Never foget…Trump is a 71 year old man, who talks like it’s 1976.  His base is much older than the other side. Congress is old. Both sides.

Millenials grow up with black and brown people.  Their heroes are black and brown people.  They’ve already had a two-term black president.  They believe that overt racism should be punished and shamed.  They arent’ afraid of immigrants.  They grew up with latino and black celebrities almost outpacing their white colleagues.  They don’t fear losing a job to a Jose or a Jamal. They only fear losing a job to a C-12312 processor or robot.

They know that everyone has to think globablly.  They are totally used to consolidation and continually corporatization.  They know that in a few decades, it won’t just be companies that merger, it will be nations. 

They know the wave will roll back on itself.

THE BEAR

My favorite clean joke is rather prophetic.  It goes like this:


Two hikers and walking through the wilderness in Alaska. They suddenly stubble upon a snarling, charging grizzly bear.  The first hiker takes off running. The second hiker yells to him: "hey Joe! You can't outrun a grizzly bear."


The second hiker turns over his shoulder and yells back: "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."


This is such a wonderful parallel to life as we know it. It's not that we have to best the best, we just have to outdo the least.


Trump is president not because he was the most competent person for the job - certainly not. In 2016 he just happened to be better than the hapless crew that was running for president. He didn't have to outrun Lincoln or Jefferson...he just had to outrun Cruz and Rubio and Carson.


In fact much of our politics is this. It's not the bears who are running the show - it's just the folks who are more politically savvy, more well-funded and more able to subjugate their souls to get elected.


The Bear is excellence. The bear is truth. The bear is integrity.  In a truly just world, the bear would consume the bad people and the liars and the frauds. Problem is, the bear gets so full of the slower baddies, liars and frauds that the one's who just happen to run a little faster escape it's clutches.

THEM GOOD OL' DAYS

When I was a kid, the Great Revolution in China killed millions.
When my dad was a kid, Hitler killed millions and so did Stalin.
When his dad was a kid the Spanish flu killed millions.
My son is a kid and even though the Iraq War has gone on for longer than any other war in US history, about 1,000 American's have died and 100,000 Iraqis have as well.


When I was a kid, we were told that margarine was good and butter was bad.
When my dad was a kid, smoking was recommended by doctors.
When his dad was a kid, doctors didn't routinely wash their hands between surgeries.
My son is a kid, and he has more access to healthy food, a healthy lifestyle and medical care that would have been unimaginable to all of his forebears. 


When I was a kid, none of us drove with seatbelts.
When my dad was a kid, asbestos rained down from almost every industrial ceiling.
When his dad was a kid, an industrial accident killed 10 to 100 times more people than it ever could today.
My son is a kid and the roads are infinitely safer, as are the buildings and workplaces.


When I was a kid, the world was in turmoil, hot and cold wars raged, a US president was in unprecedented scandal, millions were dying in Africa and Cambodia and the threat of nuclear annihilation was omnipresent.
When my dad was a kid, the world shook from a World War that claimed millions upon millions of lives, nearly wiped out the Jewish people and saw mankind develop a weapon of unspeakable hardship. And millions were dying in Africa and China and other places.
When his dad was a kid, the first World War nearly destroyed western Europe a flu killed more people than currently live in in the entire Pacific Northwest and most people on the planet lived a kind of slave-like existence.
My son is a kid and he lives in a world of unparalleled peace, unparalleled health, unparalleled freedom and unparalleled global opportunity.




Things are most assuredly getting better.  We don't see it, we don't feel it. But it is there. From 1966, to now, my current lifespan, we have seen the end of the cold war, a black president, a massive shift from rural poor to urban wealthy and more. From 1941 to now, my dad's lifespan, we ended Jim Crow, we almost cured cancer, we ended global fascism  and more.


From 1900, my grandfathers birth, to now we have reduced violence, pestilence, disease, hunger and oppression to stunning affect.


Gregg Easterbrook's new book "It's Better than it Looks: Reasons for Hope in the Age of Fear" shows this in great detail.  We live longer, freer, healthier and with more choice, more diversity and more care and understanding then ever before.

KIDS THESE DAYS...

But then again...




There was a group in all this that I didn't count on.  Teenagers. Today's teenagers in 2018.


The Florida shooting unleashed pissed off, media savvy, entitled to the spotlight teenagers and the rest of us adults couldn't handle it.




If you are over 35 and white - the big decisions may be beyond us. We aren't going to stop global warming, we aren't going to stop gun violence, we aren't going to stop sexual harassment.




But these kids might.  and not just the universal "kids."  These kids.


When we were kids we couldn't. We were too scared and too immersed in the way things were.




Today's kids are smarter, bolder, harder to embarrass, out-of-the-box starter kits for talking with the press and politicians. Their entire worldview is based on their belief that they are special and that no adult can contain them.  And damn it, they are right.




And they actually aren't jerks about it.  They grew up believing that they were equal to adults and therefore could talk to adults as adults.  That fact removes the filter that I and we were born with. The filter that told us to comply. And when I say that, I don't mean that we didn't protest and march and roll our eyes at "the man." of course we did.  that is what all kids are supposed to do.




But these kids today...they were born ready to actually talk to adults. To have a conversation - from the moment they could actually speak.  And they have and they are. They aren't protesting as much as they are forcing their way into the  conversation. We didn't. We just yelled.  These kids speak and converse.




And the establishment can't handle it and the establishment might actually cave to them. Because the establishment is terrified of them. There are too many of them and they represent an incomprehensible market of buyers and consumers. Old crusty politicians are afraid of them, because they - unlike us - will vote them out. Retailers who sell guns are terrified of them because they know that 12 of them can get on social media and put a billion dollar sporting goods chain out of business. 




They don't stop, because they don't have to stop.  When we got mad as teenagers, we held a protest, staged a sit-in and then a day or a week later we would have to get back to our lives - to our school or homework or whatever. 


These kids?  They can protest 24-7 and still do all their assignments, keep up with their friends and be entertained all at the same time.




They never go away.




The NRA relies on laziness. On the latest school shooting to last about 1.5 news cycles and then fizzle because we adults have work and kids and dinner etc. 


But that won't work this time. These kids can keep up their grades AND keep up the pressure. 


Relentlessly.

WHY WE LET IT GO ON

Another school shooting.  Another dozen and more kids killed. And it won't matter.

We won't do anything to change our gun culture. We won't do anything to reduce it.

And I finally know why.

It helped to finally crystallize in my mind the insanity of gun violence by looking at the president and evangelicals. Evangelicals love Trump, despite the fact that he has the morality of a wolverine. It just came out that all the rumors are true and that he had an affair with a porn actress while his wife was pregnant with his youngest son. And they love him.

Yes, they love him because he gives them clear support to rail against abortion and to discriminate against gays.  But it's more than that.  They support him because to not support him is to admit that they were wrong.  And they know they are wrong.  They know he is a lecherous, troglodyte who probably has already had sex with his daughter Ivanka. They already know that they were so wrong about supporting him and his character.  They know.

There is nothing more anathema to the American psyche than admitting we were wrong.

And that is the same with legislators and supporters of the NRA and gun rights.  They know they are wrong.  They know they are complicit in all this, but they've gone way beyond the tipping point.

For today, they would have to stand before TV cameras and admit they were wrong.  And they can't do that. They would rather let bullets rip through the bodies of 15-year-old kids than admit they were wrong. 

JUST SO I'M ON THE RECORD...

There is only one outcome of the craziness that we are in.

Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States will resign within six months.

There is no other option. He can't withstand the shots to his presidency, his legacy, his reputation and his family.

He knows he has become a laughing stock and a buffoon and one day very soon, he will look up from his burger and fries and say to no one - "enough."

He will say that the "deep state" was insurmountable and that he decided to declare victory and leave.

And then he will set up his media empire (that will fail within one year) and wait to die.

Twas the Night Before (Trump’s) Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and throughout the White House,

Incriminating emails with gasoline to douse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

With hopes that Russia-gate would not soon ensnare;

The trump kids were nestled all snug in their beds,

With visions of subpoenas dropped by the feds;

And Melania in her kerchief and Donald in his cap,

Thinking Obama must surely the phone lines did tap;

When out on the south lawn arose such a clatter,

 “Is it a CNN truck and that ol rascal Jake Tapper?”

Away to the window Trump flew like a flash,

Hoping that Don Junior deleted the incriminating web cache;

When what to his wondering eye should appear,

Mueller’s legal team preparing a right robust voir dire;

With an approaching young lawyer, so lively and quick,

Don wondered if he was history’s next Tricky Dick;

“Now, Manafort, now Spicey, now Comey now Flynn,

Who’s lawyered up and ready to stick the knife in?”

The Donald he paces by the 60 inch flat screen,

His fingers dripping from fast food cuisine;

“I must attack these betrayers with the snarkiest tweet,

To give Fox News a gem to repeat;

This stress is giving me a harsh panic attack,

God why did Sessions talk with Sergey Kisliak!

I feel as though the wolves are closing in,

Better get on the hotline and call my old pal Putin;

Toward Moscow I’ll direct air force one to take flight,

Dasvidaniya to all, and to all a good night!”

The State of the NFL: A Partial Eulogy

Every great and popular TV show hits a crest: a point in its lifecycle where it is at the very apex of its power and appeal. The ratings are high, the critical acclaim is voluminous and it achieves that amazing status where “everyone” is talking about it.

However, usually within one or two seasons and without most fans even consciously observing it, the fall begins. It’s still a major destination – either in real-time or through the DVR – and it still evokes joy in the watching….but. But there just seems to be something subtly missing. And when that “it” show finally ends, most true and observant fans can look back and point out the season where the decline began. “Lost” had it, “Seinfeld” had it, “Breaking Bad” had it, and “The Sopranos” had it. They all had it.

2017 seems like the year and the season where the NFL is truly and irrevocably on the decline. And the inevitability of this decline has nothing to do with quality of play, owners or players. It has everything to do with fans and their wandering attention.

To me, there are five reasons why 2017 is a watershed year for the NFL and the mark where the great and might Shield started the fall toward irrelevancy.

1.       CTE

The worry about concussions and CTE hangs over the NFL like a nation-sized black cloud. And that cloud causes three separate national mindsets that have the unique ability to further damage pro football’s brand and longevity.

First, head trauma makes watching football feel dirty. I am a life-long fan and former high school coach, and even I feel like a bad person for viewing the spectacle of head-on-head collisions, stumbling players and the new “medical tent.” I now begin to wonder if the Romans felt this way two thousand years ago during the coliseum era.  Football has always been dangerous, but with what we know about head trauma it now seems more Russian roulette than athletic endeavor.

The second issue CTE creates is the “boxing-ification” and “enlistment-ification” of the sport. White middle class families simply no longer let their sons box, and by-and-large don’t let their sons enlist in the army. We understand the inherent long-term risks of both (concussion for boxing, death for the army) and we have the ability to simple say no, not my son. With CTE, a lot of us white middle class families are now saying no to football for our sons and that is going to sap a lot of the much needed fodder for elite athletes to compete against. I know my son would never become an NFL caliber player if I allowed his participation, but his participation, and the participation of thousands of other similar lads, is critical toward furthering football and the ultimate level of the sport – the NFL. Fewer players’ means the lifeblood is starting to dry up.

T

he other issue CTE is helping to destroy, if not severely warp, is the concept of hero worship. The NFL has always relied on fans loving the players –buying their jerseys and posters, seeking their autographs and shelling out big bucks to watch them play. The Brady’s and the Rogers, and the Watt’s and the Ryan’s drive the sport. But what happens if we start to truly care for their long-term health? What if we are afraid that our gridiron hero of today becomes the drooling idiot or suicide victim of tomorrow? Might we start to do what we often do when confronted with tragedy beyond our control – to look away and pretend it doesn’t exist? And isn’t it easier to pretend the problem doesn’t exist by turning the channel and watching “American Ninja Warrior,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” or NBA basketball instead?

Race

Like everything else in America, race and racial tension is inescapable in the NFL. I’m not going to add my two cents on the Collin Kapernick issue, other than to say that race is absolutely and inarguably part of the issue. But I think the Kapernick situation is really just a symptom of a larger race issue for the NFL. It’s starting to feel like fans have to choose sides regarding their NFL support: are you a god-fearing, flag waving, NASCAR-supporting Houston Texan Fan, or are you a latte-sipping, NPR-listening, touchy-feely Seattle Seahawks fan? Baseball has precipitously fallen from the national consciousness in the last few decades, and one possible reasons for that is its hard right shift over the years. It seems strange that baseball – the first sport to integrate – has now become mostly the prevue of the “Duck Dynasty” and truck nuts set. And a big part of that shift is that black players are not nearly as fundamental to baseball anymore. That has led to baseball to become a niche pastime for more rural, suburban and older white fans and ignored by the huge percentage of urban, minority and young fans. Could the racial divide do that to football as well?

In the era of Trump, Goodell seems redundant

Roger Goodell is almost universally hated. Most people believe he is a corrupt, despotic ruler who doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t care who he alienates. And in most eras that wouldn’t be such a big deal. I’m sure Pete Rozelle had his emperor-like tendencies and I’m not sure Paul Tagliabue was any kind of genius. But Goodell, in 2017 is living in the Trump era. If you are a democrat like me you think Trump is impossibly corrupt, incompetent and mean and you absolutely do not want the commissioner of your favorite sport to be just like the much-hated president. If you are a republican, you want football to be a distraction from the creeping sense of buyer’s remorse you feel with Trump and Goodell is just too similar. With Goodell apparently attached to the NFL for the foreseeable future, the uncomfortable feeling from CTE is only made worse by the truly icky feeling of knowing this commissioner is in charge of it all.

Better enjoyment for free

Attending a football game is a major commitment with a diminishing payoff. It’s expensive, time consuming and forces oneself to endure bad sightlines, drunk fans and disgusting public restrooms. For what? To be “at” the game. Who cares? Watching any football game at home in the comfort of one’s favorite chair in front of a 60 inch plasma, with unfettered access to a clean bathroom and free snacks is sports fan nirvana. And, watching the game at home allows any super fan to exploit all the riches of watching a televised game without having to pay a single red cent into a greedy owner’s hands – save for your monthly cable or satellite bill. If, in the next decade, the vast majority of season ticket holders stop going to games, the NFL will be in for a world of trouble. No more publically financed stadiums, no more personal seat licenses, and no more $15.00 beers. Can the NFL survive on TV revenue only? We might find out sooner rather than later.

Which leads to…There’s so much more to watch on TV than ever before – especially during the dark winter months of the football season.

Network executives of the other channels used to avoid NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ESPN’s Monday Night Football like the plague.  Not so much anymore. I stop watching most Monday night games at 8 p.m. because that’s when American Ninja Warrior starts. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a quasi-sporting event that was created exclusively for TV and is becoming hugely popular. NBC has it run right when MNF starts the 4^th quarter. Such scheduling was unthinkable just a few years ago. On Sunday Night, cable networks are trotting out great quality TV that is gobbling up eyeballs and fans at record numbers.  Watching an entire game of NFL football is no longer as simple as lazily slumping down on one’s couch. It takes an active mind and a commitment to stay focused on three hours of one game. There is a great comedy, a compelling drama or a riveting action thrilling just a channel away. You tell me, what would you rather watch? - the Colts vs. the Brownsn or a TV show that everyone discusses at work the next day. “Did you see that catch last night?” has been replaced with, “man! The plot twists on Game of Thrones have me reeling!!!” as watercooler talk these days.

The NFL ran – and still runs – supreme in the American Sports ecosystem. But the cracks and the flaws and the competition are like wolves at the door. Not today, not tomorrow, but in the not-too-distance future, the NFL will become like baseball, an interesting and sometime compelling also-ran. 

Worse yet, it may end up become boxing.

True Bipartisan Disgust

I get it. It’s stunningly easy as a college-educated, life-long democrat to wallow in schadenfreude over President Donald Trump and the current state of his administration. The ineptitude, the lack of any substantive legislative progress, the Russia investigation, the revolving door of staffers, the Russia investigation, the historic unpopularity, the Russia investigation, the incompetence of his family members, the Russia investigation.

It’s almost too much to take. As much as most of the country hates him and wants his failure to be truly unprecedented, we are actually looking forward to a break where at least a week goes by without another never-before-seen embarrassment. 

I also get it. If you voted for Trump, you are currently trying to double-down on your support, lest you admit your vote on November 8, was one of the biggest mistakes of your life. Look, if the dems had run a werewolf and I voted for him/her/it I too would feel a deep sense of regret and a profound sense of needing a shower.

But forget all the big news items that have come out about the president. Forget about Russia, forget about healthcare, forget about Spicer/Flynn/Scaramucci et al.  Forget about leaving the Paris Climate Accord, forget about the lack of progress toward the boarder wall.

Instead, let’s just focus on two statements the president made this week. Just two. There have been many, but let’s just concentrate on the following:

He told reporters that the president of Mexico called him recently to praise his action on board security.

He told the Wall Street Journal that the head of the Boy Scouts called him to praise his recent speech before that organization.

Just those two. Nothing else. These two pronouncements tell anyone everything they would ever need to know about the most unqualified president and perhaps most unqualified world leader in history.

Here are the facts.

1.       He said both of these things to reporters – on the record.

2.       They were not true. Representatives from both the president of Mexico and the Boy Scouts denied that any such calls were made to the president.

3.       The alleged statements were 100 percent verifiable. Any reporter could have called the pertinent organizations (as they did) and received confirmation or denial.

4.       The president either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that anything he says or does can be verified.

5.       The vast majority of sentient people in the US and around the world, when faced with a choice of whom to believe – the president, or any other party – will choose any other party.

6.       In just six months, we have reached such a low point that it is now accepted as unassailable fact that the President of the United States possesses the integrity and intellect of an infomercial salesman.

I know it is a fool’s errand to make the pronouncement (when faced with Trump’s behavior) that Republicans would lose their minds if Clinton had been elected and acted the same way. For many R’s, Clinton is the bête noire of politics that somehow can never be eclipsed.

So let’s just take the last five Republican presidents. Can anyone imagine presidents Bush, Bush Sr., Reagan, Ford or Nixon acting this way? As bad as George W. Bush was on so many fronts, can anyone really imagine him making up an easily verifiable call from say, the Mayor of New Orleans praising his handling of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina? Can anyone imagine Reagan – in the early onset of dementia, even – making up a call from the director of SF General Hospital praising his efforts to combat HIV? Can anyone imagine Nixon making up a call from a group of anti-war activists supporting his escalation in Vietnam?

No. You can’t.  I can’t either.

It is a fact. Donald Trump is a 70-year-old man, but also a 12-year-old boy. For that is what happened this week. A 12-year-old boy, needing affirmation and approval, made up out of whole cloth a couple of stories to try and make himself appear better than he really was.

That, at the end of the day, is the worst thing about Trump. He wields incredible power, with none of the necessary intelligence, integrity and simple maturity to handle it.

YES, BUT...

On Thursday, June 9, the president of the United States took to twitter and told the world that the testimony of his former FBI director was a complete lie - yet also a total exoneration of him related to the Russia investigation.

That’s a pretty neat trick. 

I think all of us would like to have that superpower: to be able to completely dispute something AND use it as a legitimate excuse.

Kind of like this:

“Absolutely not honey.  I was absolutely not with a prostitute in that hotel room in Vegas, believe me. That woman is totally lying.  She is completely unbelievable and should not be trusted at all. Further, the fact that the time and date stamp on my credit card receipt in her possession completely proves that I wasn’t with your best friend in a hotel room in Miami.  See?”

Or,

“Teacher, Jenny is lying. I didn’t put a frog on her head, I would never do that. However, her scream right after a green long -legged amphibian dropped from my open hands onto her skull totally proves that I was nowhere near the fire alarm when it went off. I’m glad we were able to clear that up.”

Or,

Boss, come on!  You know I didn’t fake being sick yesterday in order to join with other members of the sales force on a trip to the horse track. I’m too loyal an employee to ever fake an illness to skip out on work. I’m the biggest cheerleader for this company and currently lead our culture committee.  In fact, if you look closely at the local news footage of the track grandstand that you’ve been interrogating me about, you can clearly see me high-fiving our entire team in an effort to boost morale.

This is who we have as a president. A man so removed from the basic rules of language and logic, that his aforementioned tweet actually makes sense to him.

Worse, he is so inoculated from reality that such statements comport to his worldview. This is where we are: a 70-year-old, Ivy League educated billionaire and the most powerful man in the world possessing the rhetorical skills of a slow-witted nine-year old.

What’s the over/under on Donald Trump looking seriously into a camera and saying without a hint of irony, “I’m rubber and your glue!!!” about four weeks?

THE FORK IN THE ROAD

Really, it’s down to just two choices: take the road on the left or take the road on the right.

The road on the left leads here:

Donald Trump is a master manipulator and is drawing everyone’s fire toward him, while quiet zealots like Paul Ryan and Mike Pence, methodically undo the social contract and create a two tiered America of Rich and white vs. minority and poor. That Trump made a grand bargain with the grand old party to create the most amazing distraction while the true leaders set about creating massive tax cuts for the wealthy and completely undoing Roosevelt’s New Deal, Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, Nixon’s Environmental Protection and Obama’s Healthcare.

Or,

The road on the right takes us to a place where all is exactly as it appears. The President of the United States is the same Donald Trump we’ve all come to know over the years. A huckster, a lazy, incurious, un-read, schemer who’s desperation to be loved and admired is only surpassed by his infantile need to be seen as great and powerful. He is without question, the least qualified person in history to become a national leader.

There is no third path. The path, we all thought might be true, that he would be a poor president but at least not an historic grease fire, is no longer operational.

It can only be one of these two options.

Yes, if I were handicapping this, I’d say there is a 99% likelihood that option 2 is the truth. To believe in the first option, one would have to also believe that Trump is a world-class actor and a true master of personality subterfuge. One would have to literally accept that Trump is some swirling combination of James Bond, Keyser Soze and Voldemort.

I’m unprepared to believe that. However….

I leave one percent chance open to hedge my bets. And - probably because I’ve read too much science fiction and seen to many plot-twisting movies - I can’t shake this feeling that Trump’s incompetence and ineptitude are almost too perfect. During every single crisis and right after every single mind-numbing interview and every single ridiculous tweet I roll my eyes and ask myself: “can anyone really be that stupid!?” Further there is this tine corner of my brain that lives in isolated terror that the orange-haired commander-in-chief is playing us all for fools.

What’s worse, I think to myself. Seeing Trump wreck the country due to his corrupt and stupid ways, or finding out that we were all played for suckers by the brilliant Mr. Trump? I guess it doesn’t matter. Either way leads to pain and mayhem.

A sign at the fork in the road we all find before us should have arrows pointing at both paths and should read: “madness that way lies!”

ON TRUMP AND RUSSIA AND THE STOMACH-CHURNING, PULSE-POUNDING STRESS OF IT ALL

Right now, if you had to bet $1,000 on which option is more likely to happen, which would you choose?

1. Aliens land on earth next Monday

2.  A thorough, fair and independent investigation into the Trump/Russia affair finds no collusion or wrongdoing.

It’s a toughie isn’t it?

I mean, I really, really feel confident that little green men are not going to show up in five days somewhere on the planet, but…….?

Seriously. The absolute biggest and most blockbuster story in the world over the next year would be that Trump and his administration were completely innocent of working with Russia to throw the election. The second biggest story would be proof that he and they did. 

That is where we are right now. The smoke is so think and powerful right now that a conflagration threatening to outstrip Watergate is building and building. We are all in at this point. It really is the political embodiment of the transitive property of math – If A equals B and B equals C, than A equals C.

A Trump needed help to win because god knows he’s not smart enough to do it alone

B Russia wanted a stooge in the White House;

C November 9^th brought us the previously unthinkable.

And it’s only been a little over 100 days!!!! Seriously republican defenders of the president…do you really have the stamina for another 3 and 2/3 years of this?!

One of my favorite football quotes comes from defensive guru Wade Philips who once said about playing football: “it’s an incredibly hard game because every play is a crisis.” And that’s fine for a contest that lasts about three hours. Then everyone can take a break until next Sunday.

Can we really handle a presidency where every day is a crisis – a self-made crisis?  My god! He hasn’t even been tested yet. No terrorist attacks, no economic shocks, no killer storms, no incursions abroad…relatively speaking, nothing.

Others have said this, but it bears repeating: we are at the point where we fear picking up our smartphones and checking social media platforms for the latest news on the administration. Every buzz of a twitter alert, illumination from an RSS feed or jingle of a text sends us all into panic.

“What now!?”we all reflexively think, “What has he done now!!!!”

Yes, I held lofty dreams of Clinton presidency, a democratically controlled congress and a 5-4 liberal tilt in the Supreme Court – only to have those velvety aspirations slapped down like a fly on one’s shoulder.

So yes, my wondrous visions of fairness, equality, environmental stewardship and economic justice have been bludgeoned to death.  But at this point, I’d just settle for a stretch of days where I didn’t actually fear Trump calling a nuclear strike against some third-rate state senator from Minnesota daring to tweet critically about healthcare premiums.

In the famous words of every A through D list actor over 50 in far too many movies to even count: “I’m too old for this shit.”

THE NECESSARY EYE IN THE SKY

Quick question: what is the one absolutely indispensable item every passenger must have when they board a commercial flight today? No, it’s not a neck pillow, no it’s not a credit card to buy outrageously priced snacks and no it’s not a pain reliever to help cope with cramped spaces and uncomfortable seats.

The one thing that every passenger simply must have when they board a plane today is a camera phone.

For a camera phone has now become a passenger’s last line of defense against an industry that has completely devolved into a dystopian hell-scape of customer disservice and outright abuse. A camera phone now plays the critical dual role of eyewitness and possible deterrent to the open hostility and civil rights-trampling that has become almost routine in the “Friendly Skies.”

And in case you think I’m exaggerating, please allow me to refer you to exhibit A, the Game of Thrones-esque behavior of United Airlines employees and complicit law enforcement personnel who bloodied a man and dragged him off a plane.

Of course you’ve all seen the video tape, and you’ve probably viewed it more times than you’ve viewed footage of the recent US bombing of Syria. According to Goggle, that piece of passenger-recorded video has been viewed more than 100 million times in less than three days.

But imagine if that reprehensible and potentially criminal behavior had occurred away from the prying lens of a smartphone? What would be the fall-out for United if there was no recorded evidence of its actions?

Indeed, if “The Great Airplane Dragging of 2017” had occurred without video confirmation, the entire episode would be a one or two day story that quickly fades into oblivion. United would make loud and numerous pronouncements of innocence and thinly veiled threats against the passenger’s “false accusation.” Ultimately it would be a contest where the word of one man would have to stand against a global juggernaut with billions of dollars and thousands of lawyers and consultants at its disposal. I think we all know how that would turn out.

However, this in-plane mugging was diligently recorded by several passengers with their phones. A few clicks later, mere seconds of upload time and suddenly, the global juggernaut is staggering back on its heels and frantically searching for cover. In one day, United lost $1 billion in value; its ridiculously tone deaf CEO is on the ropes; and cable news and the internet are skewering the hapless company like a winged pin cushion.

The other thing this particular camera phone footage has done is to rally most of the world against a common enemy – the airlines. Because this industry has sunk to such levels of outright customer hatred, it has fomented conditions which not only allowed this terrible incident to happen, but also to lower our incredulity toward it. As such, we are all appalled by the video, yet not too surprised that the act itself was conducted by an airline and an industry we’ve learned to despise. Not so much in a physical sense, but in a figurative sense, all of us have been dragged around by the airlines more than any of us care to remember.

And that won’t change anytime soon. With deregulation, terrible business models and a host of other problems, flying isn’t going to get better and certainly the airlines aren’t going to suddenly become even merely bad at customer service.

Therefore, I urge everyone to protect themselves as best they can.

Later this summer, my family and I are taking a big vacation to Europe and to my great horror, we are flying United. We have to as our choices are severely limited.

And so, when I get my kids ready for the flight I will instruct them as follows: pack only one carry-on so we don’t run the risk of the incompetent carrier losing our luggage; stretch your legs and back vigorously in the boarding area so you can prep for the crappy seats and ever-decreasing leg room on our long flight and finally - make sure your phones are charged and accessible.

If we’re lucky our phones will only record the splendor of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and not the heavy hands of a United flight attendant, but we’ll be ready all the same.

The "Barbed" Wire

Illicit drugs running rampant. Crime and violence out of control. Families torn apart. Whole communities scarred by the drug trade and the criminals who profit from its prevalence. 

Pretty typical narrative in America today, isn’t it? But if you read that first paragraph again and imagine the landscape it portrays, do we all not go immediately to inner-city Chicago or Detroit? And don’t we all envision the actors in this tragedy to be black and brown-skinned?

But we are wrong. This is the scene in Appalachia, and rural Mississippi, and the suburbs around Sacramento and the farm towns of Nebraska. This is the heartland in America today. Sarah Palin’s “Real America.” And the actors are mostly white, mostly economically disadvantaged, poorly educated people who long for the days when the farms and the factories and the mills and the plants were humming.

When hearing about the opioid problem in the nation today, I am always reminded of that great Richard Pryor line from decades ago: “The drug problem today is an epidemic. That means white people have it!”

If we were honest with ourselves – if Hollywood were honest with itself – the next wave of great TV shows would all feature stories about the opioid crisis in rural America. They would tell the tale of woe and drama of how white people in the heartland failed themselves and their communities and became a wasteland of drug-addled schemers. Instead of burnout city blocks and urban decay, the tracking shots would be of abandoned grain silos, rusted combines and meth dealers cooking their product in ramshackle trailers.

That is where the great drug crisis – and great drama – of the 21^st century America exists.

Instead of a black drug kingpin rolling through the streets of Watts or Oakland in a slick Cadillac Escalade with a glove box full of crack, we open with a white dude in a souped-up Ford F-150 splashing along a muddy two-track, checking in on his mules distributing Oxycontin to high schoolers.

Instead of the counter narrative of the one good black kid who is using his basketball prowess to escape the mean streets, we hone in on the white kid who is tops in his wrestling weight class fighting the good fight to get a scholarship and help his meth-addicted mother.

“Making America Great Again,” in part means returning to the era when they drug problem was confined to the urban core.

The narrative of how the “bad dudes” and weak-minded minorities destroying themselves and their communities is so easy today to transport to the “bad hicks” and weak-minded white trash who are destroying themselves and their communities.

In this dramatic series, would it be the ultimate irony to showcase a lead character who is a gruff, but big-hearted black sheriff chasing down the hillbilly drug dealers, but also helping the poor white kids say no to the drug trade?