Dr. Strange-Horror: How I Learned to Relax and Love Furiosa, A Mad Max Saga.

So TLDR: Furiosa A Mad Max Saga, is amazing. Go see it. 

But it’s more than the standard summer popcorn action flick. It’s art. And like good art it is layered, complex, and challenging. It keeps you thinking as it’s more than one thing and just when you think you have it figured out, it throws you a curve ball. So it’s not just art but great art. This article from the Atlantic and this one from i09 helped me appreciate how Furiosa and Fury Road work together. They also give satisfying insight into the writing process. Also kudos for Miller for daring to make Furiosa different and embracing that, instead of making a retread of his 2015 masterpiece (sending side eye at you, Star Wars producers). 

Fury Road and Furiosa are in conversation with one another. As described in the Atlantic article, Fury Road takes place nearly in real time, so of COURSE Miller and the screen writer had to basically have a second script that fleshed out the backstory for Fury Road. There was almost no room for exposition otherwise. 

Furiosa is definitely a film about the limitations of revenge. The second article from i09 that unpacks the ending sheds some light on the complexity of this theme. But the ending is still ambiguous in my opinion, even uncomfortable. (But that makes it good. It challenges us). 

[SPOILERS FOLLOW] 

In writing we often say the protagonist must learn something from a “good” antagonist. Dementus is a great antagonist in that sense. His comparison of himself and Furiosa in his final scene should convince you of this. Furiosa defeats him by becoming like him. It's the theme in Dune Part II when Paul Atradies says, "We will defeat the Harkonens by becoming Harkonens." It’s Max learning to be like Vincent the hit-man in order to defeat him in Collateral.  

This is standard fare for us writers. We see Miller craft this visually (of course, because he is a visual master): when we first see Dementus he is wearing a robe fashioned out of a parachute. It's pristine and white. It’s downright messianic. You could even read the parachute as a reference to a heavenly descent. 

But as the movie progresses, we see what a fallen savior Dementus is. There is no way but down for him. As we watch him make darker and darker choices, we witness his descent ever deeper into moral corruption. Miller signals this to us as well: the parachute becomes stained with red and black as the scenes play out. 

(Side note: this also takes place on Bruce Willis' undershirt in Pulp Fiction. As he descends the steps into the white supremacists’ lair to slay Zed and his companions who are raping Marcellus Wallace, his white shirt becomes redder and redder. Then, after saving Marcellus, the shirt becomes less bloodstained as Willis ascends out of the basement/dungeon. I was never sure whether this was intentional with Quentin Tarantino or just bad continuity. In Furiosa, we can be confident it is intentional).   

So in the final confrontation between Furiosa and Dementus, what has Furiosa done? She's retrieved the cloak/parachute that was used to distract her and donned it herself. 

There are heaps of meaning in that, good and bad. Read what you want into how the parachute and the moral darkness it represents is a false path for her (literally and figuratively as Dementus’ men used it to fool her into following them). What struck me most powerfully as Furiosa stood over Dementus wearing his cloak, was that yes in some ways she has triumphed, but as Dementus says, she's only triumphed by becoming him, (again) literally and figuratively.  

So we're facing up to that theme of the limits of revenge and the toll it takes on our souls, a central conceit of the film. The reviewer from the i09 article says that planting the peach tree seed in Dementus' body and allowing his body to nurture it becomes a sort of redemption of the hell Furiosa has been through. 

This is the part I don't know if I buy completely (at this point in the story). For me, the choice to keep Dementus alive and let a tree grow out of him, is just the same type of torture and body horror that is Dementus' modus operandi. In this choice, I don't know if the brutality Furiosa has endured is redeemed (yet). Rather we see she has become a master of the very type of darkness that has so harmed her. She did it to survive and to stop a monster, but mastery came at a steep cost (her soul). It’s an ambiguous note to end the film on (at best). The child in her is dead. Dementus lives on in her. In her cruelty, she is his spiritual daughter.

So who has really won? 

That is where the importance of the second (first?) 2015 film, Fury Road comes in. Again, if we follow the visuals, (and the commentary of the i09 review) Furiosa picks the first peach, the fruit from the tree planted in Dementus and takes it not for herself, but for the captured “wives” of Imorten Joe. Their garments are also white, again, a visual reference to purity, potential, beauty, all the things otherwise squelched in the destructive ultra-patriarchy of the Wasteland.  

So the final frames of Furiosa show her seeking out the wives and helping them to sneak into the war rig, the very moments leading up to Fury Road. 

It reminds me of something one of my old friends in AA says: “You can make all the motions of being a ‘good’ and ‘sober’ person. But if you don’t make that shift from being a taker to being a giver, you’re not going to make it.” 

What he’s talking about is the emotional, even spiritual, transformation of our characters.  

And that is what makes good drama and good stories. It’s character arcs 101. 

The 2015 film Mad Max Fury Road then becomes the redemptive end of Furiosa's character arc where she transforms her pain into something that transcends the horrors around her. She turns towards good things (saving, serving others), but she herself is only able to save those women because she has become a balance of help and brutality through sacrifice. The innocence of her childhood is gone. Dementus took it. But in its place are the skills and knowledge of the Wastelands, skills the wives, trapped all their days in a posh dungeon, lack. Only Furiosa can save them—as a result of her journey. She puts the lessons she has painfully learned to work for a "righteous" cause—a righteous cause that her mentor, Pratorean Jack, and his parents, searched in vain for. 

Furiosa has become her best self, as the closing quote of the film, “How far must we wander in this wasteland in search of our better selves,” asks of all of us. In becoming her best self, Furiosa also transforms her world, returning to the Citadel, toppling the patriarchy, freeing the women and children, and replacing a culture of scarcity with one of abundance. This captured in the image of the milk mothers freeing themselves and opening the sluices of life giving water to rain down on the people.

That transformation of the Citadel, that “fixing the things that are broken” instead of running from them, as Max says she must do when he convinces her to return, is Furiosa’s redemption, not planting a tree in her tormentor. That left her trapped in the past, in her pain. She had not transcended her torture. She had only become a torturer herself. The cycle was unbroken. Revenge was, ultimately, unfulfilling.

Don’t take my word for it. Furiosa says this for herself in Fury Road. When Max asks her why she’s taking the wives with her in the war rig to the Green Place, her reply is one word: “Redemption.” Given how she defeated Dementus, whom she had become to do so, Furiosa knows she crossed a line into a level of darkness too much like her enemy. She desperately wants to come back. Frankly, that also works as powerful motivation for her seeking out her home, the Green Place, when she does. She wants to return to a place where she was a different, more innocent, person, after witnessing the horrors she is capable of.

Given we don't see this full picture of redemption in Furiosa a Mad Max Saga, I can see how the film makers themselves felt compelled to splice scenes from Fury Road into Furiosa’s end credits. Considering the closing image of Dementus and his grotesque body-horror fate, which is a dark and uncomfortable reflection of Furiosa herself, we the audience likely need that reminder that there is a path of redemption out of that horror for Furiosa—eventually. We just saw it in 2015. 

Two Year Investigation by the Washington Post Published Today

This story represents two years of work by Rael Ombuor from the Washington Post. She and her editors who were the only ones willing to listen and believe the survivors when they came forward. Having helped to facilitate this story for two years now, I have been humbled, frustrated, and surprised how hard it is to make a story like this public when vested interests with lawyers have a stake in keeping it silent - even to the detriment to the children they claim to support.

This story isn’t over with the allegations public. The victims are owed restitution from those who should have protected them. Major reforms are needed in the child protection sector globally so things like this don’t continue to happen. One motivation of the survivors I worked with was that they wanted to come forward and tell their stories so that the same things didn’t happen to others. Their strength, resilience, and courage has inspired me and motivated me through this long ordeal.

There were further allegations including even the murder of a community health worker who some claim was going to be a whistleblower many years ago, but there was not time or resources to investigate those allegations further. I’m hoping that if the story gains traction amid all the other competing and legitimate crises facing the world, additional reporting might get to the bottom of that aspect of this many branching story.

Rael Ombuor, and her editors Max Bearak (former), Katharine Houreld (current) stuck with this investigation, gave it support, and kept it from getting lost. They have lived up to the ideal that journalism should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

AI an Writing: Quarkle.ai, what the future of AI writing (most likely) looks like.

A friend of mine recently met someone involved with the development of Quarkle.ai an AI writing tool. My friend sent me a link to the site with the question: Ted, this something you would use?

I watched the demo video. If you’re interested in the role AI might be playing in the creative arts, especially writing, I’d urge you to check it out.

Quarkle is an interesting application of AI for writing. Honestly, I see this as the way AI will help writers in the near future. It’s more in line with the current capabilities of AI. We still can’t ask Chatgpt to write a story about X in the style of Y. See my previous blog posts for how that went. Bottom line: AI can’t do that (yet). That is still too great of a leap.

But Quarkle represents the actual next, incremental, step forward. Humans (right now) are still needed to pull together a whole story from start to finish. Quarkle allows for that, but as you write that story it has suggestions. These notes are more than just sentence completion. They are notes on tone, pacing, and other things a real life editor might provide. If there is anyone’s job that is threatened here, it’s editors.

Spell check and grammar checks of word processors made copy editing easier, thanks to technology. Quarkle does the same, except with line editing and even some developmental notes.

And it’s useful to note that with the advent of word processors with spell and grammar check, copy editors did not disappear.

Just sayin.

You might have guessed I am one of those people who thinks the panic over AI replacing us in ALL our jobs is alarmist. What I anticipate is a collaboration between creatives and AI, using tools like Quarkle. Will tools like this eliminate writers, or editors? I still don’t think so. They might streamline the process and even make us more productive as AI is integrated into how we work. The most optimistic view is that tools such as these free us up to focus more on the things only humans can do.

It’s akin to the movement from type writers to word processors. We writers no longer had to endure the laborious tedium of retyping every page after a pass of editing. That freed us to focus more on “writerly” things such as plot and character. I think it’s allowed us to tell better stories in sharper language.

That said I don’t know if I would use Quarkle myself. It’s taken me a long time to develop my own process and I feel confident with it. That is not a judgment on Quarkle, it’s more a statement of me and my own inflexibility. I don’t see any reason young writers starting out wouldn’t use it as they develop their own creative process. It’s progress and it moves forward, whether we like it or not.

One caveat. I like many artists, I have concerns about where AIs are gathering their learning material. I do think it’s unfair for these AIs to scrape up content from creatives and use it for learning, or even output, without compensation. Rules for guiding that are coming. We’re seeing norms established right before our eyes with court cases, writer and actor strikes, and union/management negotiations. All of this is accompanied by the angst and anxiety that comes with any technological disruption.

The technology may be new, but that isn’t.

AI Writing March 31, 2023: Sabrina & the Post Apocalypse

Photo by Daniel Lincoln from Unsplash

So today I tried to make headway a paragraph at a time with Microsoft’s chatbot, using the set up from my novel City on a Hill. Instead of asking for the whole story I tried it scene by scene. We still didn’t get to far. Whenever the interrogation scene started to ratchet up the drama, the chatbot kept saying it couldn’t answer. I asked it why, if it was the content, or the violence (the scenes it kept creating were increasingly violent with Sabrina strong arming Sal the shop keeper she was interrogating), or it was growing too complex.

 It told me it could not reveal its programming parameters.

 As for the content, it was, again, surprisingly accurate if flat. It got a lot of the details about black market religious trinkets right. Being a Seattleite, I liked the inclusion of “New Seattle” as a post apocalyptic urban setting.

 I didn’t find the rendering of Sabrina very likable. She was coming off as a bit of a bully, but let’s face it 99 percent of scenes like this in almost any genre might play out that way. My question is whether or not the AI would recognize the importance of the protagonists development and dramatic change. Is it knowledgeable enough about story that it is setting up this hardened version of Sabrina with the intention for her to change dramatically as the story progresses? That remains to be figured out.

 Also, any of the gendered undertones of Sabrina trying to manage this job as a female in a male dominated profession has so far been lost. I’m not sure if that could be incorporated by suggesting the story be written in the style of a female author. I might try that in a coming iteration. So far Sabrina reads like one of cases where some bro-sy screen writer in Hollywood, in an effort to make his action script seem more “inclusive” changed the name of his male protagonists to a female one. So, practically speaking you can have an actress play the part, but it’s still written male).

Here’s yesterday’s output from the chatbot:

Okay, let’s try to write a story together. Here’s my attempt at the first paragraph:

Sabrina adjusted her helmet and checked her gun as she followed Sean into the dimly lit shop. The neon sign outside flashed “Sal’s Electronics” in garish colors, but she knew better than to trust the name. This was a black market hub, where anything from illegal software to stolen organs could be bought and sold. She had been on patrol with Sean for six months now, learning the ropes of being a police cadet in New Seattle, a sprawling megacity that rose from the ashes of the old world. A world where religion had been outlawed after the Great War, and anyone who dared to worship was hunted down by the state.

Alright, here’s my attempt at the second paragraph:

They approached the counter, where a balding man with a greasy apron and a nervous smile greeted them. “Welcome to Sal’s Electronics, officers. How can I help you today?” he said, his eyes darting around the shelves of gadgets and wires. Sean nodded at Sabrina, indicating that she should take the lead. She cleared her throat and flashed her badge. “We’re here to ask you a few questions, Sal. We’ve received some reports of suspicious activities in this neighborhood. Things like unauthorized transmissions, encrypted messages, religious symbols. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” She stared at him intently, trying to read his expression. Sal swallowed hard and shook his head. “No, no, of course not. I’m just a humble shopkeeper, trying to make an honest living. I don’t have anything to do with those things.” He tried to sound confident, but Sabrina could tell he was lying. She glanced at Sean, who gave her a subtle nod. She knew what to do next.

Alright, here is my attempt at a third paragraph:

She leaned forward and pressed a button on her helmet, activating a scanner that projected a holographic image of Sal’s face on her visor. She could see his vital signs, his stress level, his criminal record. She smiled coldly and said, “You know, Sal, we have ways of finding out the truth. Ways that you won’t like. So why don’t you save us all some time and tell us what you’re hiding? Who are you working for? Where are they hiding? What are they planning?” She saw his pulse spike and his pupils dilate. He was scared. Good. She hoped he would crack soon. She didn’t want to use the more aggressive methods that Sean had taught her. But she would if she had to. She was determined to prove herself as a police cadet, and to protect New Seattle from the religious fanatics who threatened its stability.

AI Writing March 30, 2023: Gabriella & Damon

Here is the latest dabbling with Microsoft’s chatbot. This time I gave it a prompt and then followed up with possible twists to get a longer story out of it. In terms of sophistication, it’s not too far off from a lot of basic fairy tales for children (obviously that is where it’s probably pulling the plot devices from). It’s still interesting! You can see my prompts in brackets. What you don’t see were the chatbot’s responses to my prompts such as, “Oh that is an interesting twist!” Oh, why thank you chatbot! With these prompts the chatbot could give much more extensive scenes a number of paragraphs long—this supersedes the previous two paragraph limit it gave me before. Anyway, check it out for yourself:

Gabriella had always dreamed of sailing the seas and finding hidden treasures. But she never expected to do it alone, with only a map and a compass as her guides. She had volunteered to go on a quest to find the legendary Golden Pearl, a priceless jewel that could save her village from famine and disease. She had borrowed her father's boat and set sail at dawn, hoping to reach the island where the pearl was rumored to be.

She was halfway through her journey when she heard a noise from below deck. She grabbed her sword and went to investigate, only to find her little brother Damon hiding in a barrel. He had followed her secretly, wanting to join her adventure. Gabriella was furious and scared. She knew Damon was too young and reckless to face the dangers of the sea. But she also knew she couldn't turn back now. She decided to let him stay, but only if he promised to obey her every command. She hoped they would find the pearl soon, before they ran into any trouble.

[What would happen next if they ran into a dragon?]

Gabriella and Damon were nearing the island when they saw a dark shape in the sky. It was a dragon, flying towards them with a roar. Gabriella had heard stories of dragons, but she had never seen one in real life. She was terrified, but she also felt a surge of courage. She grabbed her sword and shield and prepared to fight.

Damon was amazed by the sight of the dragon. He had always loved dragons and wanted to befriend one. He didn't understand why Gabriella was so scared. He thought the dragon looked friendly and curious. He grabbed a piece of bread from his bag and waved it at the dragon, hoping to attract its attention.

The dragon saw the bread and smelled the boy. It was hungry and curious too. It flew closer to the boat, ignoring Gabriella's shouts and swings. It reached out with its claws and snatched Damon from the deck, along with the bread. It flew away with him, leaving Gabriella alone and helpless.

Gabriella was heartbroken and angry. She had lost her brother and her boat to the dragon. She had no way of reaching the island or finding the pearl. She felt like giving up, but she also remembered her promise to her village and her love for her brother. She decided to follow the dragon and try to rescue Damon.

She grabbed a rope and a hook from the boat and tied them together. She threw the hook at the dragon's tail and caught it. She pulled herself up and climbed onto the dragon's back. She hoped the dragon wouldn't notice her or shake her off.

Damon was having the time of his life. He was flying with a dragon, his dream come true. He didn't mind being kidnapped by the dragon. He thought the dragon was his friend. He fed it more bread and talked to it. He named it Fluffy and asked it where it lived.

The dragon liked the boy and his bread. It didn't mind him being on its back. It answered his questions with grunts and nods. It told him it lived on a mountain near the island where the pearl was. It said it had seen the pearl before, but it didn't care for it. It preferred shiny things like coins and jewels.

Gabriella heard their conversation and got an idea. She whispered to Damon and told him to trick the dragon into flying them to the island. She told him to pretend he wanted to see the pearl and trade it for something shiny. She said she had a necklace in her pocket that they could use.

Damon agreed to help Gabriella. He trusted his sister and wanted to make her happy. He also wanted to see the pearl and have more fun with Fluffy. He told Fluffy he wanted to see the pearl and asked him to fly them to the island. He said he had a shiny necklace that he would give him in exchange.

Fluffy agreed to take them to the island. He liked shiny things and wanted to please the boy. He flew faster and reached the island in no time. He landed near a cave where the pearl was hidden. He waited for Damon to give him the necklace.

[Can you tell me what happens next if they reach the cave and there is a cursed mage there who will only give them the pearl if they can solve a riddle. The riddle can only be solved by them working together.]

Gabriella and Damon entered the cave and saw the pearl. It was a huge and beautiful pearl that glowed with a golden light. They were amazed by its sight and wanted to grab it. But before they could, they heard a voice. 

"Stop! You cannot take the pearl without my permission. I am the guardian of the pearl and the master of this island. I am a powerful mage who was cursed to live here for eternity. If you want the pearl, you must prove your worth by solving my riddle."

Gabriella and Damon looked around and saw a man in a hooded robe. He had a long beard and a staff. He looked old and wise, but also sad and lonely. He stared at them with piercing eyes.

"What is your riddle?" Gabriella asked.

The mage smiled and said:

"I have a face and two hands, but no arms or legs. I can tell you the time, but I don't know your name. I can make you run, but I can’t walk. I have a heart, but I don't breathe. What am I?"

Gabriella and Damon thought hard about the riddle. They tried to think of something that matched the description. They whispered to each other and came up with different answers.

Gabriella thought it was a clock. She said it had a face and two hands that showed the time. She said it could make people run if they were late. She said it had a heart that ticked.

Damon thought it was a watch. He said it was like a clock, but smaller and worn on the wrist. He said it also had a face and two hands that showed the time. He said it could make people run if they were in a hurry. He said it had a heart that beeped.

They both thought they had the right answer, but they also realized they had different answers. They argued with each other and tried to convince each other that their answer was better.

The mage watched them and shook his head. He said:

"You are both wrong and right at the same time. You have found part of the answer, but not the whole answer. You need to work together and combine your answers to find the true answer."

Gabriella and Damon stopped arguing and listened to the mage. They realized he was right. They needed to work together and not against each other. They apologized to each other and hugged.

They then said together:

"The answer is a clock or a watch."

The mage smiled and clapped his hands. He said:

"Very good! You have solved my riddle. You have shown me that you are smart and brave, but also kind and humble. You have earned the right to take the pearl."

He waved his staff and lifted the curse from himself and the island. He said:

"Thank you for freeing me from my prison. I have been here for too long, waiting for someone like you to come along. Now I can finally rest in peace."

He gave them the pearl and disappeared in a flash of light.

Gabriella and Damon took the pearl and ran back to Fluffy. They thanked him for his help and gave him the necklace. They flew back to their village with Fluffy as their friend.

They gave the pearl to their village chief and saved their village from trouble. They were hailed as heroes and celebrated by everyone.

They lived happily ever after.

Can an AI Write My Books?

After hearing the buzz about the abilities different chat bots to complete human tasks e.g. passing the bar exam, MCAT, GRE, or write college essays, I decided to ask one if it would write one of my books.

For my first go, I gave Microsoft’s chatbot the basic set up of my novel City on a Hill, feeding it not much more than the books teaser. Then I asked it to write me a story in the style of William Gibson.

While the chatbot kept cutting itself off about ten paragraphs into the story to tell me that such a task was too complicated for it, I was nonetheless impressed and also horrified at how eerily good the copy was.

Impressed because, well it captured a lot of the basic tropes and twists typical of the genre. Horrified, not at the emerging intelligence of AI (I’m pretty familiar with that). No, I was horrified and humbled at how easily and formulaic putting together a genre story can be.

I guess I already knew this. Stories have a universal structure and archetypal themes. We see them recycled all the time. When its done poorly, by humans, it’s cliche. And that’s mostly what the chatbot cooked up.

The lesson for me is two fold. One, to make good stories, we have to (obviously) push ourselves beyond the conventions of cliche; two, AI story telling IS coming. I’m not one of those people who is going to panic over AI taking my job. The history of technology and work demonstrates to me that, while, yes, technology DOES eliminate some jobs, it creates others too. Those folks who thrive are ones who learn to work with it.

It’s for that reason I’m going to keep playing with chatbots, feeding them set ups from my stories and seeing what fun alternative, parallel, universes they create. I’ll post a screen shot of what the Microsoft chatbot created for me and will provide further updates and examples of what blended stories we can create.

Microsoft’s chatbot attempt at telling me my own story . . .

Even as they try to kill us with cars and guns, I understand Trump Supporters Now—They’re Addicts

To Trump Supporters, 

I understand you now. My breakthrough is this: the way the recovery community treats an addict or alcoholic is the way I ought to treat you.  

I’ll say this: the people I have met in the rooms of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous are the most loving people I know. They live the principles of compassion, generosity, and humility. They do more good in the world than most churchgoers.  

But they also recognize their limitations, especially when helping other drunks and addicts. They won’t force anyone into recovery, even if it means that person will die of their disease. The individual has to choose recovery. 

That brings me to you. I’m realizing that I need to let you hit rock bottom before you will ever accept a hand up, a different way, or a better way. Any “helping” I do before you reach that point shields you from the consequences of your poor choices.  

Your drug of choice is the self-affirming feedback loop of conservative media. The messages fed to you by these “dealers” validate your resentments, inflame your hatred, and give you a false “high” of superiority. They leave you comfortable in your ignorance and free of moral responsibilities—to the point where running down and shooting at peaceful protestors feels justified, as happened in my home city of Seattle last Sunday. 

Your drug is intoxicating, liberating, and soothing at once. It makes sense of the world. It confirms to you that a black man writing forged checks is a deadly threat. Medical workers decrying lack of personal protective gear are whiners. Armed protestors at a state capital are patriots. Police are morally pure. Folks picketing because they can’t get their hair cut are defenders of liberty, while those protesting police violence are terrorists.  

As with any drunk, or addict, you have a problem with the truth, mostly telling it to yourself. Even as Covid cases in your regions spike, jobs disappear, opioid addiction surges, and suicides by firearms climb, you insist nothing is wrong in “real” America. “Snowflakes,” advocating for gun control, prison, police, health, and/or education reform, they are the real threats whose heresies will ruin the “heartland,” and squash the “American dream.”  

For those of you who do want to keep protesting for a haircut, a firearm, and against universal health care, I have learned from the recovery community that the loving thing to do is to let you. It may destroy you, yes, but it also might allow things to get bad enough that you realize you want something different. And like a drunk who has finally reached that jumping off point, we’ll be here, waiting for you with a seat at the table. 

They tell you that if you join AA or NA, that you need to “buy a black suit.” It’s because not everyone makes it. Not everyone comes in from the cold. In that sense, I will respect your argument (fetishization) of liberty—even if you choose to use your liberty to utterly wreck yourself with your own fear, hatred, and resentment. 

You are free to get high on your indignation, your victimhood, your superiority, but don’t ask us to participate in it and don’t destroy us in the process. Stop killing black and brown people. Stop supporting polices that result in their deaths. I’m not black or brown. I’m white. I love people who are black and brown. As my friends, they carry pieces of my heart within them, their safety is my safety, their well-being is my well-being. So please, destroy yourself, but leave them, and me, alone. 

I once heard a recalcitrant teen in drug treatment say he was tired of all the adults telling him what he should do with his life. A veteran counselor chuckled and replied, “Kid, you should be grateful people are bothering to talk to you. It’s when they stop talking to you that you should really be worried.” 

I’m just about there. I can’t turn my back on you, as much as I want to, because if I deny your humanity, (or anyone’s) then I’ve joined your side. That is what distinguishes us. So, my standing message will remain the same: there is a seat at the table, a place in our community for you, when you’re ready to take it. It requires you to recognize the humanity of all people and to stop debasing your own by destroying yourself and others. It requires you to quit your drug of choice, reexamine your fallacies, and let go of the twin idols of superiority and victimhood.  

But like they say, it’s a free country. Just like a drug addict, needle in arm, passed out in a pool of vomit, you can choose to stay as you are, but we know how that story ends.

The Weird State of The Covid-19 World

With all the information out there regarding Covid-19 I feel like this platform can be most useful for (1) reporting on the under-reported stories; (2) reflection on social responses; and (3) point readers to what I find are the best resources amidst the crisis.  

In that spirit. Here is what has my attention today. 

My parents were still shopping and not ordering groceries online or accepting offers from neighbors to get groceries for them a mere two weeks ago. My father is 82 with occasional high blood pressure. My mother is 76 with asthma.  

I was livid with what I viewed as cavalier behavior regarding their own health. I had a weird sense of role reversal as I scolded them like the parent of a know-it-all-I-feel-invincible-teenager might. But under that anger I know there was sadness, grief, and fear. 

Sadness as anyone who has to contemplate losing one or both parents might feel. But in addition to that, the real worry that if something didn’t happen, that the usual rituals of mourning and honoring the dead—key parts of the healing process after loss—would be unavailable to me. Among many things Covid-19 has taken from us, it is the opportunity to grieve together in traditional ways. 

As for my fear, well I was terrified really—terrified and frustrated at my own helplessness. Helpless is a feeling I think a lot of us are dealing with. I know it’s irrational but I (along with other friends trained in public health) as much as we feel some gratitude for our training and tools which allow us to be a service at this time, there is likely an unhealthy sense of personal responsibility. Part of this is our common neurosis within helping professions, our desire to “save the world.” But it’s more acute than usual. As many of my friends grapple with even our own family members who might not be taking the outbreak seriously, we turn to self recrimination: did I not provide them enough information? Was I not clear enough about the risks? Was I not forceful enough, should I have raised my voice more/less? If I can’t “save” my family, what good am I?  

But a lot of this second guessing is based on the premise that we’re a lot more “powerful” than we really are. As I should remember from my public health program, you can provide all the information in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people will make healthy choices. 

Sigh. 

That said, here are the guidelines for safe shopping in the age of Covid-19.[1] Spoiler alert: if you don’t have to, don’t. If you do have to, order what you can online so your trip to the store and up and down the aisles is short as possible. That classic harm reduction principles.  

Be kind. This is a triathlon, not a sprint.

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[1] Readers old enough will remember when the term “safe sex,” seemed novel.

9/11/2001: 3K deaths united the US. 4/17/2020: 125K deaths and we still can’t agree on whether or not it’s a hoax.

With all the information out there regarding Covid-19 I feel like this platform can be most useful for (1) reporting on the under-reported stories; (2) reflection on social responses; and (3) point readers to what I find are the best resources amidst the crisis. 

Reflection: Crises often reveal who we really are. As a country, I feel that we’re struggling as to which America we want to be, a city on a hill or a pit of corruption and moral bankruptcy. The Eric Liu’s excellent piece in the Atlantic last week really got me thinking about how the US markets the former but sadly reverts to the latter. In 2019, as part of the 75th anniversary of WWII and D-Day, I wrote about this dualism in our national character in my book Finding St. Lo and the tension that results.

I didn’t have too many answers in that book, except hope that angels of our better nature would win out.

But as I reflected on Lui’s piece I couldn’t help but remember that on September 12, 2001 I saw a picture of a banner in a Midwest town reading: “WE’RE ALL NEW YORKERS TODAY.” Back then, three thousand deaths united us. 

Contrast that with today when even after a hundred and twenty five thousand deaths (and climbing), we have vast swaths of the US who still believe Covid-19 is a hoax generated by a “deep state.” It speaks to a division that should deeply disturb us.

In 2001, conspiracy theories (like the US gov. being behind the attacks) were confined to a repudiated fringe. In 2020, we have conspiracy theories flourishing in the mainstream and coming from members of US gov. It all makes my head hurt and heart break. That speaks to a disagreement on reality that should alarm us.

But in hopes that this can still be a crisis that serves as a reckoning and course correction (although some days I feel discouraged it won’t be) here are two hopeful trends and one observation. 

Prison Reform: As states are resorting to releasing inmates early from their sentences because they cannot protect them from rampant spread of the virus within prisons, one might hope that this could lead to the shuttering of some prisons altogether. The US incarcerates more people per capital than any country and perhaps as we consider wider amnesties of this sort, we might start asking (1) why are so many people in prisons in the first place and (2) why people of color are so disproportionately over-represented. It’s not like we don’t know the answers to these questions, but this could be an opportunity for true reform of the prison-bail bond-parole-industrial complex that is so deeply flawed and profits off the incarceration of poor people and people of color, without giving them real options for rehabilitation as productive citizens.

Health care reform: The growing number of people losing insurance because of unemployment as well as the sight of makeshift morgues, has to affect public opinion regarding health care. I anticipate more Americans will be in support for the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare, and even further expansions of Medicare and Medicaid. There might be further movement on separating health insurance from employment all together. If we’re lucky, this all leads to a more robust and just health care system and even the acknowledgement that health care is a right. Additionally, I was heartened to hear at least some leaders, like Governor Cuomo calling out the fact that fatalities for people of color have been much higher than for others and that its an issue that must be addressed. It’s been encouraging to see this being picked up by new agencies throughout the US.

Venmo and other Digital Apps for Transferring/Spending Money: If you didn’t know how dirty money is . . . you might not want to. Covid-19 has made us hyper vigilant for all the surfaces we touch, screens, knobs, crosswalks, etc . . . An hyper-awareness of how dirty money is, I believe, is likely to follow. This will accelerate the already growing use of apps like Venmo. Sadly, this is another one of those changes/reforms which are more likely to benefit only one side of the digital divide. Having a phone, paypal account, or credit card, are privileges the poor are less likely to have. Being on the wrong side of the digital divide already compromises economic and educational opportunities, now it will pose greater risk to health. 

Be kind. Wash your hands. This is a triathlon, not a sprint.

Hate in the time of Covid-19. A health crisis is not the only one we face.

Dana Milbank, a regular columnist for the Washington Post shares this in his article addressing the heinous incidents of “zoombombing” taking place across the country: 

Rabbi Jeremy Kridel, whose flock in the capital includes several members of my family, was leading a recent Shabbat service for Humanistic Jews. About 10 minutes into the service, one man unmuted himself and started shouting “Jewish scum” and “Heil Hitler.” Before he could be blocked from the call, he lifted up his shirt to reveal a large swastika tattooed on his chest. 

Other hooligans began interrupting, and while the rabbi shut down the virtual service, another man dropped his pants on camera. Remarked Kridel: “This is just another indication of the fact that the current crisis isn’t the only one we face.”  

As disruptive as this crisis has become, it is incumbent upon us to remember that we face other social sicknesses which we cannot ignore. Perhaps, as we settle in to our new norms of social distancing and quarantine to ride out the worst of this pandemic, we must (re)focus on other underlying, chronic, social illnesses.  

And it is not as if social issues such as racial inequalities do not compound the current crisis. All one needs to do is look at this repost from Austin Channing Brown alongside the breakdown in mortality rates in terms of ethnicity from Covid-19 and it is clear the contours of the epidemic follow the fissures of racial and economic injustice.

Wash your hands. Stay Safe. Be kind. Normally I’d say this is a marathon, not a sprint, but perhaps triathlon would be a more apt metaphor, as there are multiple races here to be run.