Veterans Day, Observed

On Memorial Day this year I wrote about my incredibly moving experience at the Vietnam War Memorial. I like to think that I appreciate America's Veterans and support the troops every day of my life, but this year I have made a conscious decision to spend my day off on Memorial Day and Veterans Day paying my respects and using my day off to observe the holiday as it was intended. Which, as it turns out, has nothing to do with barbeque.

On Tuesday I mentioned to a coworker that my plan was to visit Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day. I didn't necessarily want to go for the wreath-laying ceremony, but I wanted to pay my respects at the final resting place of so many of America's heroes. She was interested in coming with me so we coordinated and met at the Cemetery in the afternoon.

Neither of us have a personal relationship with anyone who has been buried at Arlington. I have only been there once before and for my previous trip I had the honor of going with someone in the Navy who was visiting members of his team who were killed in Iraq. This time I had no one in particular to visit, and the aforementioned Sailor is currently back on another deployment in Iraq. So many friends and loved ones were in my thoughts and in my heart on this day already, I fully expected my trip to Arlington to be an emotional experience. I had no idea that the most moving moment on this day would come from my coworker.

She was especially interested to visit the Cemetery for the first time. She has only been a U.S. Citizen for about a year, but came to the U.S. from Romania twenty years ago. She is an amazing person and she appreciates her U.S. citizenship more than anyone I have ever known. I suppose living under Communist rule will have that effect on a person.

We arrived to Arlington in the afternoon and decided to venture out on our own rather than join a tour. I was concerned that she would want to leave quickly because of the rain, but the weather may as well have been 75 degrees and sunny with how enthusiastic she was to walk the hallowed grounds of the Cemetery. We walked to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and she took a photograph and wiped the tears from her face. After that we set off walking, nowhere in particular, just walking past the numerous grave stones and paying our respects as best we could. The rain came down, the temperature became colder, and through it all, we walked. As the winds came and tried to claim our umbrellas, we held on tight and walked along quietly. Acutely aware that our battle with the elements was no sacrifice at all compared to the experiences of men and women in uniform, their families, and the men and women whose names surrounded us. Walking silently with no one aware of our presence but the fallen heroes long gone, we swelled with respect and awe for the losses our country has suffered.

As we walked along and commented on names, graves and inscriptions, Cristina carried a small American flag and looked for somewhere to direct her symbol of respect and appreciation. As I continued to walk and wrestle the wind for control of my umbrella, she fell behind a bit, and when I turned to look back, she was paused before a grave stone along the path. She knelt down on the wet earth, put her hand on the stone so tenderly, as if she were caressing a member of her own family. She drove the flag into the earth and said, "Thank you, Major Young - for fighting for me." She stood up, dusted herself off, and leaned over and kissed the top of the gravestone before turning to continue down the path.

It was the most beautiful gesture I have ever seen. One woman with no personal ties, sharing an intimate moment at the final resting place of someone who will forever remain anonymous. To everyone who has served or is currently serving in the U.S. Armed Forces - never doubt the effect your sacrifices have made. It has become a catchphrase in popular culture for everyone to "support the troops" but today I saw with my own eyes how deeply this support is felt by someone who still has emotional scars from living with communism and fascism in her own life. Someone who truly appreciates her freedom and her citizenship in ways that I will never understand, but am so privileged that she has shared part of her story, and her Veterans Day, with me.

That's what friends are for

I live in a large apartment building in NW Washington, DC. I am near the Metro and there are shops and restaurants nearby, I have always felt like everything I need is within walking distance. (Everything I want, on the other hand - that may require public transportation or a Zipcar. Depending on how badly I want it.) I have lived there for about a year and a half, but it's just lately that I've gotten to know my neighbors and grown to appreciate and love where I live.

I don't know the exact specifications, but the building is very large and it is mostly one-room studio apartments. There are some other floorplans, but the majority seem to be studio. The rent is expensive for folks like me at an entry-level job, but it's truly the best value for a studio in DC. There is an exercise room downstairs with a sauna and a hot tub. There is a sun deck on the roof, and a party room on the second floor for residents to get together. The party room has a flat screen TV, a comfy couch and chairs, a coffee maker, a lending library, and if tenants leave their drivers license at the front desk, we can have access to the Nintendo Wii. In addition to all of these amenities, the building hosts free coffee and bagels before work once or twice a month, and a couple of times a year they host a wine and cheese party for us in the party room. The building is rather old, and the hallways feel like a hotel or a dormitory, but it is worth every penny I can barely afford to pay to live there.

Even though I'd lived there over a year, it has not been until this summer that I have started to meet other tenants. The building management hosted a party in June, and one of the tenants tried to draw up interest in getting a team together for pub trivia. The pub trivia didn't exactly pan out, but once everyone had exchanged contact information, emails started to abound. There was always an invitation to a happy hour, a kickball league, dinner, game night, going away parties... there was always something going on. It has taken me a while to catch on, but this atmosphere of expensive one-room apartments seems to draw a similar demographic of people. We are all out of school and carving our career path and we're old enough to appreciate living by ourselves. At the same time, we are young enough that we're not at the point where we're ready to buy a house or get married or start a family. It makes sense that we should all come together in this little community of expensive studio apartments.

Yesterday was the birthday of one of the girls in the building. One of the guys in the building had bought her a birthday card and somehow that had a snowball effect and by the evening, we had a card, candy, balloons, cupcakes from Red Velvet, and we invited her and everyone else to get together in the party room to watch The Simpsons Halloween special. This led to the realization that we did not have enough cupcakes.

Brian, Beau and I ended up in Brian's apartment waiting for a call back from the birthday girl. We decided that a box of Ghiradelli brownie mix would save us from running out of birthday cupcakes. After much running around and gathering ingredients, we had mixed up the batter and started to pour it into the 13 x 8 inch pan. The batter barely covered the bottom of the pan. It was apparent that we had a problem and that problem was about 5 inches worth of cake pan.

We laughed at ourselves, then someone else had a box of brownie mix and we mixed that up (to a very different consistency) and poured it into the pan on top of the rest. The absurdity of the different brownie mixes, and people running out to different apartments to grab supplies and back to the brownie batter was absurd. I had a genuine moment of affection and said, "My life has improved so much since I met you guys." Beau looked at me in disbelief, spatula in hand, and said, "Really? This is your moment? You're having that much fun right now?" I reconsidered. Of all the incredibly fun things we've done together, why did I take that opportunity to tell them how much I appreciate them? I tried to explain,

"Yes. Because this moment is identical to what I would be doing had I never met you guys. Except I'd be in my kitchen by myself, feeling like a dumbass for picking the wrong pan and wondering how I was going to eat two dozen brownies all by myself."

Okay okay, we're all racist! Can we talk about the issues now?!?!

Our top story tonight, President Barack Obama is still black. Well, half black, technically. But there have been no melanin-based changes since he was elected in November.

A series of events, beginning with Rep. Wilson's comment, followed by a weekend of protests and capped off with a former president making yet another quotable declaration - have now brought the issue of race to the forefront of discussion about the president. It was even a poll question in the Express this week.

The Express poll is a good example of the problem with this debate - "Do you think race is a factor in the opposition to President Obama?" Your choices are YES or NO. As Carter himself said when he brought this up in his NBC interview, "That racism inclination still exists" in the country. Of course. Without question it still exists, and if you were to put that as your poll question with a choice of YES or NO, you should get a 100% unanimous vote that we all agree - racism still exists. But to bring this up as "is race a factor?" will get you nothing but a never-ending dialogue with personal attacks and racial insensitivity. Of course racism inclination still exists. No one is denying that. But to suggest that race is the key factor in the opposition to Obama is irresponsible, unfair and dangerous.

Not surprisingly, the published results of the poll were 50/50. Split down the middle between yes and no on "Is race a factor." A 50/50 vote should show that this a very divided issue. The problem is, it's not a divided issue. I think most of us agree that race will inevitably factor into many peoples decisions, but this poll suggest that half of the people think race is the number one overarching factor. Which is irresponsible, because it does nothing but dismiss the opinions of his opposition.

I can not say this any better than Joe Scarborough did this morning. This country elected Barack Obama. His approval ratings until recently were in the 70 percentile range. The amount of hope and positive energy on the National Mall in January was palpable. But now, the protesters descend on the capitol over the weekend and accusations of racism abound. This issue of race is an important one and it is worthy of lengthy and substantial debate. But let's refrain from dismissing peoples' opinions as being race-based and try to work on solutions to some real problems. This argument about whether race is a factor is a distraction. During the primaries, Bill Clinton was accused of playing the race card. Joe Biden was accused of making racist comments right after he announced he was running for President. However much of a factor you think race may be to the opposition, this is not an argument that will ever get resolved. This country is in crisis. I for one would like to hear solutions on how to fix the economy, the healthcare crisis, the national deficit; rather than accusations and finger-pointing.

It is unfortunate, but there will always be an undertone of racism in all matters related to Barack Obama. Just like there will always be an undertone of sexism in all matters related to Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton. Instead of reducing these people to categories and characteristics, can we just let them try to get something done? Our elected officials have enough distractions as it is. Let's stop reducing complex arguments about race to yes-or-no questions; and while we're at it, we're not accomplishing much by demanding apologies for rude outbursts either. It's time to stop focusing on the bad behavior and get to work on putting this country back together.

When in DC, do as the tourists

I took a late lunch today and walked up to the Farmers Market in Penn Quarter. While the walk itself is only about 10 blocks, it's not a straight shot. The walk across the mall can be like navigating a racecar driving video game. You're going really fast, but you have to zig and zag across the sidewalk just to stay out of someone's photograph. Within one block I saw four different photos being taken right in front of me and at least three different languages being spoken. The best was the woman getting a photo of her friend with the capitol building in the background. When she had the camera on her, the woman smiled and said "whiskey!" She had a huge grin on her face.

That's when I stopped and decided to take my own picture. The photo itself isn't that impressive, but it is all part of why I am so in love with this city. I can walk a few blocks from my office on any given day and this is what I see. Just in one lunch hour I took in the capitol building, the Washington Monument and WWII Memorial in the distance, the Navy Memorial, Archives and the Smithsonian buildings. I moved here in May of last year, and after 16 months I still find this city as breathtaking as ever. I am truly, madly, deeply in love with this city. Sure, it's not perfect and it's expensive as hell. But there is nowhere else I would rather be right now. Thanks to the whiskey tourists for reminding me not to take it for granted.

Single in DC

This weekend was spent with several friends - all of us single and in our late 20s or 30s. It was an awesome weekend! I went to Six Flags and rode roller coasters, later that night I went to see Inglourious Basterds (excellent movie and worthy of another blog post altogether.) After the movie we went out for drinks and then after-hours get-together and some of us met for brunch the next day. It wasn't always the same people at every event, but there was anywhere from four to seven people at any given time.

During Sunday brunch, one of the girls said several times, "This has been a great weekend. I'm really happy we got together." She repeated it again later. "I just can't believe what a great weekend this was!"

A declaration with extreme disbelief that we could have fun might be insulting under normal circumstances. But no one was offended. We know that she is going through a breakup right now. Not a big, devastating, estate-dividing breakup, more like acceptance that it's not going to work out with the person she's been dating the last few months. No broken hearts, just that annoying feeling of knowing that yet another romantic relationship has fizzled and you are back to the flirtatious drawing board.

It was a great weekend spent with single, platonic friends and at one point, the inevitable conversation between came up - someone talking of setting someone else up with one of their friends, others frustrated because they don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I just don't get it.

This is what's frustrating to me. This universally accepted belief that there is something wrong with being single. That being single means being lonely or being too selfish to commit to someone. Or being too "scared" of getting hurt.

Is it that difficult to belief that maybe, quite possibly, being single kicks ass?!?

Single people are fun. We are available. Literally! When you get the urge to go out an do something - see a movie or go to a bar, who do you call? Your single friends! We don't have to check in with anyone to make arrangements. We're social free agents.

I'm not judging anyone who is in a committed relationship. There is nothing wrong with either lifestyle. But when you get settled, you tend to stop looking outside the confines of your own nest. If you want to see a movie, you know who you'll go with. If you feel like going out to eat, you always ask the same person to go with you. If you need to vent about someone at work, or if you're feeling low and need an attaboy or attagirl, you know who's going to listen. If you are single, you get proactive and put more effort into your social life. You have to put yourself out there and stay in touch with people around you, and I find it to be a much more rewarding experience. We have all heard it a thousand times - no one else can make you happy, you have to make yourself happy. Those words are so true yet rarely ever followed. When you are single, you need to stop worrying about the pressure of settling down and take responsibility to make yourself happy.

Take this weekend for example. Six Flags was my idea. I have been wanting to go and it's getting to be the end of the summer, so I sent out an invitation to over 20 people. Of those 20+ people, four of us ended up going and we all had a great time. On our way back from the park, two of us wanted to see the same movie, so we invited the others and called a few people to join us. Some did, and others met up with us at a bar after the film. By the end of the night we were seven people strong and walking home at 1:30 in the morning planning for brunch the next day.

We all had a blast over theweekend, and I would argue that I had a much more enriching experience than had I gone to an amusement park, movie, and then brunch with one person.

If you are in a relationship and you are happy, I am happy for you. But to the rest of you - those who are in an unhappy relationship but afraid of being alone, those of you who are going through a breakup, and the people who are sitting around feeling bad about themselves because they are single - to you people I say, go out and meet new people and have fun. There is way too much pressure to settle down and not enough people celebrating the single life. And those of us who do, we generally do it silently because the rest of you start to judge. I know, all of you married folks hate us. That much is obvious in the way you encourage single people to join you in your misery.

Being single does kick ass, but in closing, I will concede one point. While I am a big advocate of the single life, sex is another matter altogether. Generally, it is not a good rule of thumb if you have been wanting to have sex to invite 20 people and then have fun with the four who show up. It's not quite the same arrangement as a trip to Six Flags. Sex complicates everything. And like the film I mentioned earlier, it is also fun, awesome and deserving of its own blog. (Preferably one that my parents don't read on a regular basis like this one.)

Do you want to be on TV? Do you have a handgun carry permit?

Have I got a deal for you!

Last week I caught this interview on MSNBC. It was after a presidential town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The person being interviewed is William Kostric, who garnered much attention outside of the event and and afterward proceeded to be cussed out by Hardball host Chris Matthews for "...carrying a goddamn gun at a presidential event."

The desperation of the 24-hour news cycle never ceases to amaze me.

While I did not watch live footage of the gun-totin' protester, I did see an endless number of close-ups of Mr. Kostric's unconcealed weapon strapped to his leg. I can only imagine how this footage came to existence. I picture it now - the news cameras surveying the crowd, noticing the protester with a gun and the cameras suddenly swarming upon him. Speculation on a handgun outside a presidential event makes for great filler when they have to fill the downtime. It spurred quite a bit of controversy.

This controversy annoys me greatly. I especially like the part of Matthews' interview where he asks Kostric if he's part of the "birther movement" and pesters the man to ask repeatedly if he believes President Obama is a legitimate president of the United States. How disappointing it must have been for the host to find that his guest refused to rant about birth certificates like a true anti-Obama zealot.

While Kostric comes across as someone who is not accustomed to television exposure, he does not present himself as a zealot. He legally and openly carried a firearm without incident while protesting. The only chaos that ensued was in response to the media overexposure of this non-incident. Yesterday, the daily poll question in the Washington Post Express was Should it be illegal to carry guns outside presidential events? I can't even believe this is starting a national dialogue when there was no incident. As Kostric says in the interview, he wasn't doing anything illegal. Which Matthews answers by pointing out "You can chew gum in church, you can ride in on a pogo stick. There's a lot of things you're legally allowed to do." His point being, that with America's history of assassinations, it is inappropriate to legally carry a gun near a presidential event.

It seems to me that our history of assassinations is the reason why President Obama has a presidential motorcade with bulletproof vehicles, secret service agents and metal detectors. Is the guy deliberately trying to make a statement by standing across the street from the event w/a handgun? Certainly. And it seems to have worked beyond his wildest expectations. By showing up carrying his gun, he got a great deal of media exposure by sources who have nothing better to report and with the bonus of starting a national dialogue about the second amendment.

Now, thanks to the media exposure of New Hampshire, everyone wants to make a statement and get on television. This is the part that bugs me. Here is how I see this playing out.

A guy in NH shows up to protest and straps his piece to his leg, hoping that it will attract attention and give him the opportunity to stand up for 2nd amendment rights.

Said guy ends up with media exposure and succeeds in starting (again!) a national dialogue about gun laws and the likelihood of a presidential assassination.

The Second Amendment argument gets the masses on both sides of the issue worked up - as it always does.

People start showing up to more events with more guns just to make their point.

Eventually all of the attention turns it into a circus, and yes, inevitably someone will do something stupid and someone may get hurt.

Because the debate will escalate as it always does and someone will cross the line as they always do.

If (God forbid!) there is an incident, the anti-gun activists will be vindicated. They can be sure to thank the media once again.

Lines on Ale

Now that I have cancelled HBO and ditched the expensive sports channels, I'm back to watching cable news networks when there's nothing on basic cable. I'm also back to remembering why it was worth the extra $30 per month to have the extra channels. The other night I watched Keith Obermann until I couldn't tolerate any more. Then I switched over to the O'Reilly Factor until I couldn't tolerate anymore. That continued on - back and forth until I lost the will to live. About ten times back and forth by 15 minutes into the hour.

Tonight I caught an episode of Glenn Beck's program where he does not compare the Obama administration to Nazi Germany. If you have not heard about this particular episode, Beck begins by talking about eugenics, Nazi Germany's racial politics, and healthcare reform in the United States. Beck repeats several times that he does not believe that Barack Obama is advocating eugenics, nor does he believe that Obama wants to "Pull the plug on Grandma" as he has been accused of with the so-called "Death Panels." Beck removes himself from these preposterous claims and says that is NOT what he is trying to say. Then he points out the reasons why the same philosophy in Nazi Germany may be an unintended consequence of the proposed healthcare reform. He makes no accusations that Obama's intention has any comparison eugenics of Nazi Germany, but all intentions aside - in a crisis situation, he points out why it may be a likely result if the current healthcare reforms are passed. He also goes on to suggest that the people Obama surrounds himself with may be capable of such unthinkable acts. All the time repeating that he is making no accusations on Obama's intentions whatsoever.

As Glenn Beck introduces his guests, I can't help but greet them with, "Nice to meet you. Your career is over." "Nice to meet you, your career is also over..." I'm watching and I'm shocked because I know - you can not mention Nazi Germany when speaking of the President of the United States. There are few things at all that you can make a logical and reasonable comparison to Hitler without sounding like a crackpot and losing credibility. This is especially so if you are reporting on Fox News. Likewise, if you are reporting on MSNBC making the same comparison with George W. Bush. Credibility is slim in this argument. I'm sure that the producers of this program knew how provocative this program would be, and they went ahead with it. I have to give them credit, they undoubtedly knew what kind of reaction it would get.

While I am shocked by the audacity of Beck's claims, I can't say as I necessarily disagree with part of his argument. If I try my best to be objective, I must admit I will never refute the possibility of the way this country may react to a crisis situation. If his argument is (as it appears to be) that in an economic crisis, we may begin pulling the plug on grandma as a desperate attempt to save younger patients, I can't really refute that. I really wouldn't refute any claim against our government or the American public if it began with "In a crisis situation..." Frankly, our country has a history during crisis situations to do some incredibly fucked up things.

Think of it this way - had there been a 24-hour news cycle and a 1942 version of Glenn Beck on a radio program claiming, "Japanese Americans beware!! President Roosevelt wants to drag American citizens from their homes and put them into camps!" He would not have been taken any more seriously than the current claims of Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity against Obama on their Fox News programs. Even in this lifetime, had a partisan political medium made the claim in 2000 that terrorists would fly airplanes into buildings on live television while the entire country watched, we would have found the whole scenario preposterous. That's a movie, that's a fantasy. That is not reality. Terrorists decimating the World Trade Center? Flying into the Pentagon? Taking over aircrafts armed only with box cutters? That just screams conspiracy theory. Yet, we all watched it happen didn't we? What if someone had told us that following said terrorist attack, the entire country would spend billions of dollars in resources and countless human lives taking over government and rebuilding a country unrelated to this this terrorist attack? C'mon! What are we? Idiots?!?

Well... yeah, we are.

I love this country and I think we are afforded a lot of freedoms we take for granted. (One of which is the free press that brings us these 24-hour news networks.) And for some reason, we think we are a lot smarter than we really are. This country has a long history of panicking in a crisis situation. Don't ever underestimate what this country is capable of when faced with a real fear (Like 9/11, like Pearl Harbor...) Death Panels, euthanizing elderly people... in a crisis situation? You bet. The politics of fear could easily sell this to America. Hell, people could even be scared into forming militias to be sent into senior citizen centers. History has informed me and I would not rule it out. When Americans fear our freedom and our lifestyle - we will support things that are clearly preposterous with the benefit of foresight or hindsight.

Here's the problem with Glenn Beck. The politics of fear may work in a certain demographic - in this case the elderly (which also happen to be largely Republican) may take Beck's suggestions gravely serious. But when the overall population has the benefit of foresight and logical thinking, they will clearly identify this as fearmongering. For the same reason they would not have believed Japanese internment camps would be a possibility, for the same reason none of us would would ever have been prepared for a group of well-organized terrorists to take over aircrafts with box-cutters and change our lives forever. For the same reason that forming a detention center in Cuba for terrorists, exempt from U.S. protocol would seem far-fetched. Had Keith Obermann gone on his show with a panel warning us of that outcome, it would seem just as preposterous as the Republicans do with their claims of Death Panels, eugenics, and granny mercy killings.

Glenn Beck may have crossed a line by drawing parallels between Nazis and Obama's healthcare reform and he probably won't be surprised to feel backlash and loss of sponsorship. Fearmongering is effective only when there is a clear and present danger. In this country, people are more afraid of the state of healthcare as it exists now. People who are struggling or unable to pay for insurance and medical bills could be in a crisis situation right now, and that is the fear they are responding to, not the fear of death panels or eugenics.