My Father's Son

My father’s desk is covered in piles of paper, but he knows where everything is. I smile when I see that, because my desk is the same way, and I know where I got it from. (Our spouses do not smile at what they unjustly perceive as a horrendous mess.) My father is one of those rare people who gets pleasure in putting numbers into the right boxes, so it totally made sense for him to take up being a tax preparer and enrolled agent as a part-time gig to keep himself busy after retirement. I inherited that too – you can look at my Quicken and find every expense categorized and even see how much cash is in my wallet. I hope I’ve inherited so much more of him, because over the years, my admiration for my father has only grown. In his long career at TRW, he started as an engineer, but moved into business development and found a niche in being TRW’s point man with the business they did with Japan. In the 1970s when Japan was still a fairly new and mysterious place to do business, Dad’s ability to listen and learn, and his sensitivity to differences in culture and communication earned him much respect on both sides of the Pacific. When I was a kid, he would share stories about his dealings that were exotic and sometimes funny; only much later would I come to realize the communications skills that he had been gently teaching in those stories. Initially as a side gig, he become involved with the TRW Credit Union, serving on the board and eventually becoming chairman. He has continued in that role long after his retirement from TRW, where he has overseen their growth through several mergers to where the credit union (now called Unify FCU) is now a top 100 national credit union with 245,000 members and $3 billion in assets. Over Sunday night dinners, he has shared many stories about decisions the board has made, stories which share a consistent thread of concern for the members’ best interests, of care for their employees being treated well, of extraordinary actions the credit union has taken in response to local disasters to help out their stakeholders, and of negotiating challenges to everyone’s best interest. He won particular regard for negotiating their first merger, between two equal sized credit unions, with many thorny issues around leadership, organization, and even the name of the merged entity, and finding a solution that everyone was happy with. So many times I just thought I was hearing an interesting story over family dinner, when really I was getting a business school education, and life lessons in successful win-win negotiation. As he closes in on 90, Dad has had the mixed blessing of his own longevity and good health surpassing most of his dearest friends. In that time, I have seen him be an exemplary friend when his friends became incapacitated, with countless faithful visits to nursing care facilities, being there for his friends and their families in their most challenging times. And as Mom struggles with Parkinsons, he has shown himself a great caregiver, helping her to do the things she is still able to do, and picking up where she no longer can. I am so lucky and so grateful to be my father’s son, and to continue to learn from him.

Kindred, we now meet to worship, reaching out through screen and phone

We’ve been regularly attending Glendale City Church via a YouTube livestream since the pandemic shutdown began in March, and meeting up after church via Zoom instead of potlucks. It’s definitely not the same, though our church has done a fantastic job of making it work, and keeping it as normal as it can be given the circumstances. At the same time, I think it has given all of us a sudden new perspective on how much we had been taking for granted in our lives, and a sharpened sense of gratitude for our church family and the opportunities we have to share the trials and challenges of this strange new life. As I heard a familiar hymn being sung this morning, I realized with a jolt and a delighted laugh that some clever person had updated the lyrics for this moment. To the tune of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, updated words by Thom Snell, you can enjoy it here:

(1) Kindred, we now meet to worship, reaching out through screen and phone.
Though we dwell in isolation, we know we are not alone.
Worshipping beyond our building, far apart, yet face to face,
We’re united as one Body, bound by Christ’s redeeming grace.

(2) Siblings, share a song of gladness, praising God and spreading cheer,
So that in these days of sadness we won’t be consumed by fear.
In this time of mass confusion, sickness, loss, and overwhelm,
Let’s encourage one another, hands not joined, but hearts are held.

(3) Friends, be gentle with each other, there’s so much we’re going through.
May this be a time for healing, holding space for grieving too.
Bodies, minds, and hearts are weary, anguish fills the aching soul,
But by God’s unfailing mercy, broken hearts will be made whole.

Bostock and the Triumph of Textualism

Many people were delighted with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County finding that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender people against employment discrimination. A fair number of other people were outraged. Most of those people on either side were focused on the outcome, and took the decision as the Supreme Court’s denunciation of discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. But that’s not actually what happened. To its credit, the court made no arguments about the morality or injustice of such discrimination. Both dissents, in fact, made clear that their authors welcomed non-discrimination protections. Rather, the entire argument of the opinion and the dissents was focused on the text of the statute and its interpretation, down in the weeds on competing versions of the “textualist” philosophy, replete with extensive dictionary definitions of the word “sex” (as well as some sniping over who had the best claim to the mantle of Saint Antonin, the patron saint of textualism). To be honest, as a matter of law, I think this was a tough call, and both sides had very reasonable arguments. Had Alito found two more votes for his argument, making the decision go the other way, I would not have been outraged. I am encouraged to see that Gorsuch and Roberts are willing to follow principles, even when they may lead to consequences that are highly unpopular with many of their fellow Federalists. And despite the accusations of some, I don’t think that either side was working backwards from a desired outcome, “legislating from the bench”, or “updating” the law to fit modern sensibility.

The crux of the decision was that discrimination based on sexual orientation essentially entails discrimination based on sex. The key test for Gorsuch was to consider an individual case and reason whether an employee with all of the same attributes but a different gender would get fired. Say Mark was a respected employee who was fired after he brought his husband Tim to the company holiday party. If Mark were Mary instead, and Mary showed up to the party with husband Tim, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Mark would not have been fired but for being male rather than female. Therefore sex discrimination, which is prohibited. Alito, on the other hand, thinks that Gorsuch is torturing the text to get this outcome, which everyone agrees would have been a very unexpected outcome for the lawmakers who wrote the law in 1964. (Lots of hermeneutical debate ensues over when it is appropriate for a court to try to discern the “intent” of lawmakers, as opposed to just interpreting the text itself.) For Alito, it’s perfectly clear in plain language that sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination are two different concepts, and Congress in 1964 chose to outlaw one and not the other. Ironically, I was inclining to agree with Alito until he brought up an example that I think inadvertently sunk his own argument: miscegenation. Suppose we had an employer who did not discriminate based on race, in that he hired employees of all races and treated them equally. But when one of the Black employees shows up to the holiday party with his white wife, he gets fired. The employer argues that they are not discriminating based on race, they are discriminating against mixed-race marriages, which is a different concept, and not an explicitly prohibited type of discrimination. But is it? Would any court not recognize that as a form of race-based discrimination? Discrimination against race is inherently bound up in discrimination based on mixed-race marriage. Alito attempts to explain why this is not perfectly analogous to the case at hand, but I found it unpersuasive. Homophobia is inextricably bound up with misogyny, and with making people uncomfortable who prefer “men to be men and women to be women”. While Gorsuch would deny on philosophical grounds that we could know the intent of the 1964 Congress, he would probably agree that his conclusion would be unrecognizable to them. Nonetheless, he makes a compelling case for following the plain text of the law even to unanticipated consequences, noting a whole body of prior case law (for example, protecting male victims of sexual harassment) that would be thrown out if they didn’t. In the end, I am encouraged not just by the welcome outcome, but even more by how they got there.

Systemic Racism as a Game of Monopoly

To understand systemic racism, let’s recall the board game Monopoly. We’ll play a game, you and I, but we’ll start it a little differently. You’ll start off with $200 and already owning Baltic (the cheapest property) with a house on it. I’ll start with $1000, and I’ll already own half of the properties on the board, most of them with houses and hotels. Every time I pass “Go”, I collect $200. Whenever you pass “Go”, you collect $130. If I land directly on “Go”, nothing special happens, but if you land on “Go”, you go to jail. If you land on “Free Parking”, you also go to jail (because your car doesn’t fit the profile of the neighborhood). When we land on a “Chance” square, we draw a Chance card. But the Chance cards are divided into black Chance cards and white Chance cards. I draw from the white Chance cards, which mostly comprise good things like getting a bonus or a windfall inheritance. You draw from the black Chance cards, which mostly comprise bad things like fees, fines, and “Go To Jail”. You’ll go to jail a lot. I’ll never go to jail. But we both will roll the same dice, go around the same board, and follow the same rules, and we both have a possibility of winning. That’s fair, right? Ready to play?

The Whiniest Generation

“The wildfire is only 10% contained, and it has jumped the highway causing several new flare-ups, with an increasing number of homes in jeopardy,” reported the Fire Chief. “Well,” replied the County Supervisor, “this firefight has been going on for weeks, and we’re tired of the inconvenience of the highway being closed. Just pack it up, Chief. The fire will burn itself out.”

This is seemingly the attitude of some people, including too many who are in positions of leadership. In Orange County, their County Health Director issued an order mandating masks be worn in offices, businesses, and public places where distancing was not possible. This caused a firestorm in which irate people brought signs to public meetings comparing her to Hitler. She received death threats and no support from the County Supervisors, and was ultimately bullied into resigning. Her successor tried to maintain the common-sense order, but eventually relented. One supervisor demanded, “Are you telling us masks, in your professional opinion, are going to be necessary until the end of time or until there’s a vaccine or what?” Here’s a thought, supervisor: how about we wear masks until there’s no longer an exponential death threat? At the very least, until cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are going steadily down instead of up? Just what do you think has changed that makes masks no longer needed?

I keep thinking about World War II, and “the greatest generation”. Our grandparents made phenomenal sacrifices, not only all of those who volunteered to go off to war, but all of those at home who willingly accepted harsh rationing of everything from gas to sugar, milk, and meat; who rounded up and donated whatever rubber and metal they could spare; who bought war bonds. Housewives left their homes and worked in factories around the clock to do what needed to be done to support the war effort. Their leaders inspired them, encouraged them, and the allied nations pulled together in heroic sacrifice and earned victory. I feel pride and admiration for the greatest generation, but also shudder in embarrassment at the pitiful comparison to the present. At a time when we desperately need an FDR or a Churchill, we have a gaping vacuum of leadership. Never has a President been more unequal to the challenges before us. But even where governors, mayors, and public health officials try to provide some leadership, they face a public with barely one vertebra of our grandparents’ backbone. We are asked to make the supreme sacrifice of staying home and watching TV, and wearing a cloth face-covering when we occasionally venture out. But no, that’s too much to ask. We want a haircut, and that mask is slightly uncomfortable. Can you imagine if our cohort had been the ones to face World War II? We’d be remembered as the whiniest generation. Or more likely, “der weinerlichste Generation”, since we’d all be speaking German.

Where things turned south

When I first saw the security video of Ahmaud Arbery at the construction site, I’ll admit the first thought that flashed across my mind was “uh oh, that looks a little sketchy.” And then I caught myself. First, let’s acknowledge that everyone looks a little sketchy when you see them on a grainy security cam video. And then I remembered, how many times have George and I snooped around a construction site? We see some new construction going up in the neighborhood and we’re curious, so we poke around and take a look. I suppose technically it might be trespassing, but it’s harmless, we’re just looking around. At least it’s harmless for us, because we’re white. Nobody’s going to freak out and call the police, and even if they did, the police would size us up, politely tell us we’re technically trespassing, and send us on our way. But a black man doing the exact same thing? That arouses suspicion and fear. And now he’s dead.

The police came for George Floyd because he had passed a fake $20 bill. When you heard that, did you assume he was a forger? Did it occur to you that he might have received it from somewhere else and just passed it on, not knowing it was counterfeit? It’s not common, but it happens. It’s happened to me. But I’m white, so when it happened to me, the store clerk assumed correctly that I was unaware of the counterfeit. They apologized and handed it back, I apologized and gave them a different bill, and that was that. Unfortunately for George Floyd, he was Black, so the store clerk presumed an intentional crime and called the police, who also presumed his guilt and dangerousness. And now he’s dead. Do you see where these stories turned south? Bad cops are a crucial part of the problem, but the problem is so much bigger than that.

Pathetic Lafayette Square photo op

Trump desecrates St. John's Church

We're reeling from a pandemic and a boiling over of racial injustice, but this malignant narcissist has to make it all about him. He tear-gassed peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so he could stage a pathetic photo op at historic St. John's Church. What a national disgrace. Or as George Will so eloquently describes him, "this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron."

(Just to be clear: the Bible passage in the photo is my embellishment, and part of my commentary. It was hard to resist, as it was probably the most Photoshop-begging photo since the Queen wore that green dress.)