Oh, Hai Thar

So, it seems I fell of the face of the Earth for a bit there. Sorry about that. Can’t promise it won’t happen again, but I can do a photo post to make it up to you. Here’s what has been keeping me from updating the last 6 months or so:

First, you should probably know this guy. This is my Joe. He took me to a Rennasaince Faire. If you know me at all, you know he’s a keeper for that alone:

Further evidence I have found someone grouchy enough to put up with me, he was willing to dress up as Sherlock Holmes with me for Halloween:

Another curmudgeony man in my life who devours my time:

Meet Mortimer, the grumpy old fuzzball who has wormed his way into my heart

Apparently he won my mother over as well, since she sent some cat nip. Which he appreciated.

Christmas with my family is also always a little bit insane, with treatmaking for Santa with my sister’s kids:

The extended family having a mad tea party at grandma’s house:

(In this picture, there are four high evergy dogs, two aunts, two grandmothers, a pot of blooming tea, a basket of smoked salmon and cheeses and crackers and chocolates, and two brothers in the background fixing a light)

What would New Year’s be without Flagstaff’s Pinecone drop?

And that last little bit of the home country that makes me second guess, if only for a moment, my decision to leave:

But don’t get me wrong, I happen to think my life is pretty amazing. There was an epic five hour brunch, during which I went what I like to call “the full Martha”

(Those are “cup cakes” made in little Corningware cups, layered with banana cream, and topped with shredded coconut. Tiny shoes made by my mother)

And what else could make a brunch last five hours, let alone qualify as “the full Martha” if not way too much champagne?

Of course, no blog procrastination would be complete without a trip to a distillery to help them bottle:

These guys are really great, they have volunteers come in on bottling days and we get to write little messages on the labels. People who know this distillery look for the messages and buy ones with a note they like

The assembly line starts with This gleaming behemoth of fermentation

Then moves along to the “Whiskey Cow”

Then you cork it, and use what looks like a hairdryer of doom to shrink the wrappers on.

(Can you spot the burn marks from where people got careless with the table?)

Law students get a chance to practice their OCD on things other than the messy law

In addition to holy ghosts (what I am now calling “Spirits” forevermore) they make 100% roundstone Rye.

(Apparently its making a comeback)

You said it, fuzzball.

Sir, your welfare state has created your own, personal Tunisia

The title of this post is what I said to a friend working in the British government when he explained why youths have been rioting for the past four nights all over England. There is a lot of debate in England about the “cause” and “reason” behind it. I, personally, agree with this blog post from a Londoner who lives in a neighborhood seeing a lot of looting. The thing that strikes me the most about the debate I’ve seen in the UK is the presence of truly diametrically opposed and passionate viewpoints. England is a bit more left-leaning than the US, generally, making me almost a conservative when I visit. Which is why I was so tickled when I was called a bleeding heart liberal many times in a debate about whether or not to use live rounds on the looters with some conservative fellows yesterday. Some of the arguments I’ve heard are a little ridiculous, that the smash and grab, attacking police and news crews, is a form of protest for the austerity measures, and ridiculously high unemployment rates. The conservatives I was debating thought that this was my argument, and made the point that these young looters are just greedy and opportunistic. I took issue with such a simplistic viewpoint, which is where I think the confusion happened.

To me, while not politically motivated, the situation is politically created. The welfare system in England has set generations up for free handouts and no expectation of success. While I think that parents should be the ones responsible for instilling a sense of duty and productivity in their children, clearly something is going wrong with the system when many people claiming welfare now are the third generation to do so (disclaimer: I cannot find a direct source for this statistic). When young people are full of energy and nothing to do, they will find something to do. I disagree with the argument that they are looting because “they have nothing” since they do have cell phones to tweet meeting places to each other and a lot of general anger. But if they had jobs and some expectation of success, I sincerely doubt they would be rioting. I also cannot agree that this is just their nature, that these people are inherently violent and inherently criminal. There are far too many of them in far too many locations to justify that argument. I think this is a symptom of a broken system, fueled by incompetence by the police.

After three nights the Met (Metropolitan Police) finally started using rubber bullets, rather than pulling out the mace and fire hoses the first night, as US cops would have done. I am pleased that there is restraint, but unfortunately, too much restraint has made it unsafe for shop owners, which has triggered some foaming mouth conservativism. Even after all of this, Parliament still won’t meet until Thursday to discuss it. No wonder England feels detached from their political structure. Be strong, England, while you all are waiting, I’m sure we can get Boston to send you back some tea.

Small town DC

So, shortly before I went home for my oldest best friend’s wedding, I started reading Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, which is the eloquent and thoughtful election propaganda one would expect from a legal scholar and brilliant political strategist. He touches on all the safe talking points, saying sensible things in a not terribly inflammatory way, including the usual politician’s lament about being distant from “real America” when in DC. Which always cracks me up coming from people who spend 90% of their time in DC. People who live here talk about the “The Other DC”, which is largely consigned to the Eastern half of the city, and only just avoids hitting Capitol Hill.

See, I live in a respectable, but by no means affluent part of DC. In my opinion, this is the part of DC you want your children to grow up in if you want their feet set firmly in the reality of daily struggles, without being overly burdened by the stigma and poverty which lurks a mere two blocks to the East. I think that geographic surreality is one of the most characteristic parts of DC. The homeless sleep on the steps of the Smithsonian, and West Wing wasn’t being ironic when they had a vet die from exposure in the Veteran’s Memorial. From my bus-riding perspective, one would have to be blind to be in DC and not see “the real America” every day.

Never the less, I can understand how it happens. Friends who live in the more affluent part of town to the West can go jogging in their neighborhood in the morning without needing to be rather careful in planning the route, or chose not to wear headphones. Housing developments in that area were designed to keep out the riff raff of Georgia Avenue I get to banter with every time I go for groceries. Sometimes the cat-calls get a little more than I really want to deal with, but for the most part, I am glad to live in a place where I can maintain my connection with the “real America,” especially with my lofty goals and ambitions; and to fight my paranoia that by being around those with more ordinary but certainly as noble ambitions will somehow rob me of my opportunity to chase my dreams.

This visit back to the motherland was one of the first for me that was entirely refreshing. Being around the confident, argumentative and ambitious, while excellent for fostering those qualities in myself, does get frustrating at times. I miss the warm sincerity of people who have nothing to gain from fooling me. I find myself clinging to the firm realities of the family next door to my flat in DC who call me “Miss Leila” and love that their little girl shares a name with me. My crossing guard is named Bonnie and always remembers what’s going on in my life from our weekly 30 second conversations while waiting for the light to change. I am perpetually amazed at her ability to keep the faith, regardless of the difference in dogma between us. This is the part of DC that I want to live in. I like the gargantuan sandstone castles downtown, and of course I want to hear the click of my shoes on polished marble floors when I go to work. But I hope I never lose this connect to people with mundane, gorgeous, difficult aspirations and that sincerity that comes from daily dealings not based on power and leverage.

I am, really, a small town girl.

Getting felt up by the officials was never so much fun

Those of you who have known me for any amount of time know that I have a major bone to pick with the TSA. Being a rather frequent traveler and rampant fan of privacy, I had a rather viceral reaction to the introduction to the new strip and grope backscatter machines and enhanced pat downs. The biggest problem I have had with all this is the way TSA has handled it. The paternalistic, humorless, inhuman approach has alienated the public, and the absolute refusal to admit the legitimacy of customer concerns is a frightening quality in a government agency with so little oversight. Reports of abuse are rampant, and seem to be designed into the system. Previously, I have been so fortunate as to never be in a line where I had to chose between an individual in front of me getting personally and physically intimate with my body, and a person somewhere else getting personally and visually intimate with my body. (Do we even need to mention the 4th amendment and the blatant violation that this policy creates anymore?)

I flew home (Arizona) for a wedding, and today, on my way back to DC, I had my first encounter with the TSA at America’s Friendliest Airport. Since I’ve been so on edge about it for so long, I’ve had the opportunity to think about how I wanted to handle it. And it turns out, I was really fortunate. I can also see how my experience would be unique and highly dependent on the people involved. It is my philosophy that any policy which depends wholly on the personalities involved to not result in a massive breach of dignity and personal rights is a bad one.

When I got up to the backscatter scanner, I let the agent know I was opting out, She had me step aside and called for an assist. We started shooting the breeze about the FAA shutdown and TSA agents’ rights to unionize. She let me know that they have a union at Sky Harbor, but that it only allows for collective bargaining, so they have no recourse against the TSA for insisting that they grope people to continue earning their living. I asked her about the people who abuse the system and cause all the trouble we’ve been hearing about and she mentioned that “some people are just like that.” She was letting families just go through the metal detector so they wouldn’t get separated and told me that it’s up to the agent’s discretion. After about five minutes, another agent came up to relieve her and I was pleased to find that she’d be the one performing my pat down, since we’d gotten a good repoir going. She led me away from the scanning area, but still in full sight of everyone in line and asked me if the location was ok. I was already a little conscious of how long it was taking so decided not to make more of a fuss about the public nature of it. She sat and chatted with me about my experiences with pat-downs in India and her experiences with people demanding if she thought they were a terrorist. We talked a little about Norway and the importance of cultural acceptance for security.

Then the official part began and she asked if I had any implants or anything in my pockets. She asked if I had any sensitive areas, and I mentioned I had a couple rifle bruises from the buck shot my brother in law had me shooting the day before. She asked if I’d worn the same thing, because she needed to know in case any gun shot residue wound up on her gloves. She explained exactly what she was going to do in a friendly, professional, but very natural fashion and was very light with her touch. The whole thing took 20 minutes, and I can see why agents have been trying to discourage people from opting out. The man next to me had a “typical” TSA agent who could not smile, was very official, like a cop giving a drunk driver a pat down before snapping on the cuffs. The passenger was trying to have a sense of humor, but I could see he was very uncomfortable. That fit the image that I’d gotten of the TSA policy. Cold, official, search and suspect everyone. My agent treated me with a basic human dignity, and I feel would be an excellent ambassador for how the TSA should handle their task. I realize that if I’d been less friendly, I probably would have had a much worse time, and the same with her.

The TSA needs to respect the humanity of the passengers it is supposedly protecting, and the decency of its employees. It needs to reward good agents like the one I got and monitor and remove agents who abuse their authority. But most of all, it needs less authority to abuse. My interaction was the result of sheer dumb luck and matching personal qualities. In the thousands of combinations of agents and travelers who interact every day, how often can anyone expect the kind of interaction I had to be the norm? Had the new stick figure technology been introduced first or as an immediate response with a mea culpa to the reaction of the public, I would not consider the policy to be a 4th amendment violation as I do. It’s all about the attitude they approach their job with.

I vote my agent to be the new head of the TSA.