On recycling

Most people probably get recycling, although for some the trash is just everything you want to throw away, and that means everything–every container, can, bottle, box, and paper goes into the trash, no discrimination. I think those days have long since past, however, when we can afford to just throw it all away. Recycling is about knowing that the planet’s resources are finite, and that we must reuse and recycle almost everything that we can. Recycling seems like an obvious response to the insanity of filling up an endless string of landfills with valuable resources. These are moral and ethical choices we are making that affect us now and will affect our children in the decades to come. Recyclable materials, whether they are metal, glass, plastic or paper, are valuable commodities that with a little effort can be turned in to new products. Yet, when driving around my own neighborhood on any given Friday morning when the trash cans have been wheeled out to the curb one can find lots of recyclable materials protruding from the gray bins whose contents will be going to the landfill. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming that the general public understands the finite nature of natural resources and how quickly we are using them up. No paper or cardboard should ever go into the general trash, yet one might spot a huge cardboard box roughly jammed into the top of the gray trash bins as if it were a corpse with the feet sticking out. Why would anyone throw away an aluminum can when the metal dealers will give you real money for the empties? Let’s say one is addicted to diet sodas: a real drinker might turn all of those empty cans into some real money by the end of the month, but lots of cans just go into the garbage, or tossed onto the side of the road, or left in the gutter for someone else to pick up. Our relationship with our garbage is an unhappy one, marked by dysfunction and bitterness. Wouldn’t it be better to just keep two bins at home? One for organic waste which has little value and should be disposed of, and one for all of the materials that can be recycled. The volume of the organic waste is very small, but all of the bottles, cans, boxes, and paper take up an enormous amount of space. In order to recycle one must be proactive and make an effort to distinguish between what is, or is not, trash. Of all the things we throw away, very little of it is actual trash, and if we could compost that without attracting vermin, we could reduce our solid wastes to almost nothing. The time will come when natural resources give out and we will have to dig up the dumps and land fills to “mine” all of the precious materials that lie smoldering away, buried years ago by a society that put no value in recycling. There are those people who do not look to the future, don’t really care about the planet, don’t understand how we are polluting our environment with landfills and such, don’t believe in global warming, and, in general, just don’t care about anything or anyone but themselves. The choice to not recycle, then, turns into a moral decision to just wallow in filth and ego and not care. I am not idealistic enough to believe that recycling will solve our problems regarding the use of natural resources, manufacturing, pollution, or greenhouse effects, but I do think there will come a time when it will be illegal to dump recyclables into the trash, a time which has already come to some communities across the USA. This is no longer a question of whether recycling is a good idea, it’s a question when we are going to take it seriously. Now? Or when we no longer have the choice?

On recycling

Most people probably get recycling, although for some the trash is just everything you want to throw away, and that means everything–every container, can, bottle, box, and paper goes into the trash, no discrimination. I think those days have long since past, however, when we can afford to just throw it all away. Recycling is about knowing that the planet’s resources are finite, and that we must reuse and recycle almost everything that we can. Recycling seems like an obvious response to the insanity of filling up an endless string of landfills with valuable resources. These are moral and ethical choices we are making that affect us now and will affect our children in the decades to come. Recyclable materials, whether they are metal, glass, plastic or paper, are valuable commodities that with a little effort can be turned in to new products. Yet, when driving around my own neighborhood on any given Friday morning when the trash cans have been wheeled out to the curb one can find lots of recyclable materials protruding from the gray bins whose contents will be going to the landfill. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming that the general public understands the finite nature of natural resources and how quickly we are using them up. No paper or cardboard should ever go into the general trash, yet one might spot a huge cardboard box roughly jammed into the top of the gray trash bins as if it were a corpse with the feet sticking out. Why would anyone throw away an aluminum can when the metal dealers will give you real money for the empties? Let’s say one is addicted to diet sodas: a real drinker might turn all of those empty cans into some real money by the end of the month, but lots of cans just go into the garbage, or tossed onto the side of the road, or left in the gutter for someone else to pick up. Our relationship with our garbage is an unhappy one, marked by dysfunction and bitterness. Wouldn’t it be better to just keep two bins at home? One for organic waste which has little value and should be disposed of, and one for all of the materials that can be recycled. The volume of the organic waste is very small, but all of the bottles, cans, boxes, and paper take up an enormous amount of space. In order to recycle one must be proactive and make an effort to distinguish between what is, or is not, trash. Of all the things we throw away, very little of it is actual trash, and if we could compost that without attracting vermin, we could reduce our solid wastes to almost nothing. The time will come when natural resources give out and we will have to dig up the dumps and land fills to “mine” all of the precious materials that lie smoldering away, buried years ago by a society that put no value in recycling. There are those people who do not look to the future, don’t really care about the planet, don’t understand how we are polluting our environment with landfills and such, don’t believe in global warming, and, in general, just don’t care about anything or anyone but themselves. The choice to not recycle, then, turns into a moral decision to just wallow in filth and ego and not care. I am not idealistic enough to believe that recycling will solve our problems regarding the use of natural resources, manufacturing, pollution, or greenhouse effects, but I do think there will come a time when it will be illegal to dump recyclables into the trash, a time which has already come to some communities across the USA. This is no longer a question of whether recycling is a good idea, it’s a question when we are going to take it seriously. Now? Or when we no longer have the choice?

On food and cooking

The local fast food joints are busy, lots of vehicles of the folks who don’t cook, won’t cook, never cooked for themselves, refuse to learn. Cooking does take both skill and know-how, energy, utensils, desire, time,and primary ingredients, a long list of impossibilities for many people. Those who cook for themselves don’t go to all-you-can-eat buffets. Perhaps the biggest challenge for most people who cook is the planning of distinct menus, followed quickly by the acquisition of ingredients, shopping. Those who don’t cook, don’t know their way around their own kitchens, have made a decision about not participating anymore in the age-old tradition of food preparation. Almost every society that has ever developed has/had traditions and dietary rules about what foods are viable, how they should be acquired and prepared, how they should be served and eaten. The fast food crowd cares about these things, but they are not interested in anything but consumption. To say that fast food restaurants cater to the lowest common denominator in food marketing and consumption is to grossly misunderstand the situation: pizza, burgers, fries, chicken, and sodas make up 90% of fast food menus. The traditions and conventions of food preparation that are lost due to the success of fast food are myriad and diverse: bread making, soups, baking (all kinds), roasted meats, pickling, sauces, gravies, vegetables. Perhaps it was the introduction of the tv dinner back in the fifties that heralded the arrival of the fast food generation, taking out the hassle of food preparation from the daily routine of millions of families. Today, where both spouses, indeed, if there are two spouses, work, food preparation is difficult because time is at a premium. No one has time to go to the store to buy food. Time poverty, perhaps more than any other factor, kills our cooking traditions. When people had all day to cook a stew or a soup, bake bread, or make cookies and doughnuts, the younger people also learned to cook and bake. The art of cooking is a skill that must taught by those with experience and learned by the youngsters. Cooking even a simple dish such as steak has its details that must be observed in order to avoid producing unchewable shoe leather. You have to know how to choose your meat, know if it needs any preparation before cooking, know what the appropriate cooking method might be. Effort must be expended in order to produce edible food. What makes endless all-you-can-eat buffets so attractive is the unlimited supply of already produced, cooked, prepared food, and all you have to do to consume it is pay for it. No effort. People now pay a premium for traditionally prepared and baked breads, shunning the popular industrially produced supermarket breads, looking for flavors and textures that remind them of home-baked breads of their youth. Home-cooked food probably has less weird fat, less salt, and less sugar. Fast food seems to have rewritten the four major food groups: fat, sugar, salt, and caffeine. Yes, a few of the larger chains now offer a salad or two, but buying milk is infinitely more expensive than sodas, burgers are cheaper than salads, and fries come in ever larger bulk sizes, taking the place of real nutrition and sensible portion sizes. Original recipes with variations have been substituted by the massification of an industry with one set of flavor profiles, and no one dares to vary from that list. And besides, if you decide to graze at the alter of fast food and unlimited buffets, you don’t have to do any dishes or clean the kitchen.

On George Takei

I was only six when I first saw Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu at the controls of the Starship Enterprise. This was the first time when I realized the world was a complicated place made up of many different people all working toward a common goal. Yes, Kirk sat in the captain’s chair, but difference and alterity made no difference in the make-up of the crew: an African communications officer who was also a female, a Russian pilot, a Vulcan science officer, a Scottish engineer. In 1965 this was all you could do on television to promote a world in which color, gender, and age (Chekov, very young, Bones, obviously older) made no difference. The homogenous society of my youth–Waspy en extremus, was not really the way the world was shaped. Lieutenant Sulu, the helmsman of this massive ship, cerebral, confident, self-assured, tough, but he was obviously Oriental and not a part of my world. The show demonstrated how important diversity was in the middle of the American civil rights conflagration that was tearing up the country–marches, demonstrations, sit-ins, protests. Even as the show aired, integration was slowly becoming a reality across the entire nation, changing the way we think about everything in our society. Sulu was emblematic of our changing times in which we began to stop judging people by the color of their skin or racial designation. As people we are hard-wired to notice difference, but the superficial differences between peoples are less different than we either know or suspect. The Human Genome project has tracked all humans back to African to about a quarter of million years ago when we all enjoyed a common gene pool and common ancestors. The bridge of the Enterprise is where all of those superficial physical differences stopped being important. Of course, the bridge crew was not perfect–few women in non-traditional roles, Uhura sometimes seemed to be a glorified telephone operator, and the captain’s yeoman, Janice Rand, was rather secretarial, and the head nurse, Chapel, was also a woman, but they were a start. This was, however, 1965, and you can’t change everything at once. In the Next Generation incarnation of show, the bridge crew would be both more diverse and more integrated, a sign that the eighties had already been strongly affected by the show from the sixties. Sulu was about alterity, about difference, about tolerance, about being different but, at the same time, being a part of the whole. American television series of the sixties did not generally have “different” characters. Shows like “Gunsmoke” or “Medical Center” or “My Three Sons” were shows almost exclusively about white males. I remember how surprising it was to see a black doctor on “Emergency”, but that was already in the mid-seventies. Today, George Takei is still about difference, still about alterity, still about being different. How refreshingly wonderful. Let’s all break the mold, throw our expectations to the wind, and start to live life as if being different were no big deal.

On civil disobedience

It is rather intimidating to write on a topic that has already been covered by the of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr., yet the relationship between the governed and the government, however that relational metaphor works itself out, is intrinsic to most human relations at both the micro and macro levels, where few or maybe millions may be involved. Governments are most necessary so that disorganized groups of people may live in relative harmony, observe laws that uphold basic rights to life and liberty, avoid chaos and anarchy. Harmony, laws, and order are in and of themselves good things, but you cannot avoid, then, impinging on the rights of some who do not feel that laws and rules apply to them. Government makes policies, tries to implement them, screws things up, blames the wrong people, and resolves nothing in the long run. In the meantime, most citizens forgive their government for wrong-headed thinking, short-sited policies, poor social and economic plans, and a host of other mistakes which usually includes wars at some point or another. Where governments really fail miserably is when they try to legislate reproduction, the consumption of controlled substances, and marriage (on any level). Civil disobedience rears its ugly head when a large number of people, or maybe just one, decides that a government and its policies are wrong, immoral, unethical, wrong-headed, repressive, cynical, or illegal. Civil disobedience comes in many forms, shapes, sizes, levels and incarnations. Mr. King had to change the thinking of an entire country that was enjoying and constantly rebuilding an institutional form of apartheid that had split a country in two, creating an entire underclass of citizens that were suffering in unfair and unjust conditions just because of their skin color. Mr. King’s civil disobedience was to disregard both a series of social practices and the laws that upheld those practices. I would not agree with Mr. Thoreau’s thesis that the government that governs least, governs best, but he wasn’t too far from the truth. We all need some form of government, some rules that tame our anarchic ways and boundaries that keep our boundless self-interest from destroying us. When the rules are unjust and unfair, when tyrants seem to get away with things, when the people making the rules are not following them, civil disobedience may be called for. I’m not talking about a revolution or hard core violence, but protesting that which is unjust cannot be called a mistake. Mahatma Ghandi had to throw out the entire British Empire, and although he suffered mightily at the hands of the British, he never raised his hand in anger. He understood that blind obedience to his oppressors was not a solution for his nation or his people, but that a violent revolution would also cost countless lives and still risk being unsuccessful. The “civil” in civil disobedience is a double entendre referring both to society at large and to the “reasonable” application of that disobedience within the context of a larger social context. These men and their ideas about change and revolution within the practice of civil disobedience walked a fine line between social anarchy and blind collaboration, and their efforts to improve their worlds often bordered on illegality and criminal action. Yet, as Thoreau says, “I believe–“That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” So even Thoreau knew that living without government would be a disaster, but civil disobedience was a check, nay, a balance, against unjust or unfair laws and practices.

On civil disobedience

It is rather intimidating to write on a topic that has already been covered by the of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr., yet the relationship between the governed and the government, however that relational metaphor works itself out, is intrinsic to most human relations at both the micro and macro levels, where few or maybe millions may be involved. Governments are most necessary so that disorganized groups of people may live in relative harmony, observe laws that uphold basic rights to life and liberty, avoid chaos and anarchy. Harmony, laws, and order are in and of themselves good things, but you cannot avoid, then, impinging on the rights of some who do not feel that laws and rules apply to them. Government makes policies, tries to implement them, screws things up, blames the wrong people, and resolves nothing in the long run. In the meantime, most citizens forgive their government for wrong-headed thinking, short-sited policies, poor social and economic plans, and a host of other mistakes which usually includes wars at some point or another. Where governments really fail miserably is when they try to legislate reproduction, the consumption of controlled substances, and marriage (on any level). Civil disobedience rears its ugly head when a large number of people, or maybe just one, decides that a government and its policies are wrong, immoral, unethical, wrong-headed, repressive, cynical, or illegal. Civil disobedience comes in many forms, shapes, sizes, levels and incarnations. Mr. King had to change the thinking of an entire country that was enjoying and constantly rebuilding an institutional form of apartheid that had split a country in two, creating an entire underclass of citizens that were suffering in unfair and unjust conditions just because of their skin color. Mr. King’s civil disobedience was to disregard both a series of social practices and the laws that upheld those practices. I would not agree with Mr. Thoreau’s thesis that the government that governs least, governs best, but he wasn’t too far from the truth. We all need some form of government, some rules that tame our anarchic ways and boundaries that keep our boundless self-interest from destroying us. When the rules are unjust and unfair, when tyrants seem to get away with things, when the people making the rules are not following them, civil disobedience may be called for. I’m not talking about a revolution or hard core violence, but protesting that which is unjust cannot be called a mistake. Mahatma Ghandi had to throw out the entire British Empire, and although he suffered mightily at the hands of the British, he never raised his hand in anger. He understood that blind obedience to his oppressors was not a solution for his nation or his people, but that a violent revolution would also cost countless lives and still risk being unsuccessful. The “civil” in civil disobedience is a double entendre referring both to society at large and to the “reasonable” application of that disobedience within the context of a larger social context. These men and their ideas about change and revolution within the practice of civil disobedience walked a fine line between social anarchy and blind collaboration, and their efforts to improve their worlds often bordered on illegality and criminal action. Yet, as Thoreau says, “I believe–“That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” So even Thoreau knew that living without government would be a disaster, but civil disobedience was a check, nay, a balance, against unjust or unfair laws and practices.

On the Grinch

Were his shoes too tight? Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grinch, and as a child I knew Christmas could not be very far away if the network was running this very strange cartoon about hate, violence, bigotry, and intolerance. The Grinch is a very odd character who has lived in self-imposed exile in a cave on the outskirts of Whoville. What the Grinch is, exactly, is a bit of a mystery, but in the world of Dr. Seuss species identification or confusion is usually of the first order. In fact, Dr. Seuss has been known to invent his own species of beings when he wants to. The Grinch, whatever he is, is an embittered old cranky dude who lives alone with his dog. He hates Christmas, which is no secret to the billions of people who have seen the cartoon. He cooks up a diabolical plan to rob the Who down in Whoville of the Christmas by stealing the trappings of their celebration. He lacks, of course, a fundamental understanding of why people celebrate Christmas: the birth of Christ, the messiah. The trappings are nothing more than that, trappings. After loading up an enormous old sled and traipsing up the side of his mountain to his hideout, he hears the Who come and begin to sing. His epiphany causes his heart to grow because of the love he finally feels for his fellow man who can still celebrate the birth of their savior even when there are no trappings. The cartoon is an interesting riff on the consumer culture which has ironically spawned the very cartoon of which I write. Nothing is more hyper-consumerist than television, the very medium into which the cartoon of the Grinch is inscribed. The commercial advertisements that pepper the screening of the Grinch completely undermine the message of the cartoon. The hyper-consumer event that has become the Christmas present buying season, starting with Black Friday just after Thanksgiving, is completely out of control, but nobody seems to either car or to even feign caring. Our economy necessarily depends on a happy retail December so that people can work, people can buy, and people can later pay their bills. In fact, questioning the very nature of consumer America is almost anti-patriotic, if not downright anti-American. Yet the consumer society which the Grinch hates is not sustainable in the long term. Unlimited growth is not the logical outcome of a consumerist society which has finite limits unless the consumers go into perpetual debt to sustain their vicious habits of buying every last thing that they see and end up wanting and desiring because advertising and marketing are infinitely stronger than the human will to control itself. Desire, temptation, envy are a big part of human weakness, and most of what we do is motivated by one of those negative motivations. The Grinch associates the happiness of the Who with all things they have bought–toys, trees, decoration, food. Lost in the midst of that rampant out-of-control consumerism is the only reason for celebrating Christmas: the birth of a baby, the beginning of a life. If there was anything that Jesus despised on this earth it was rampant, out-of-control consumerism inside the temple. He tears through the temple, upending tables and chasing away the moneylenders and vendors who were making a living by exploiting the needs of temple visitors. The Grinch underestimates, however, the spirituality of the Who, who celebrate in spite of him, the Grinch, I mean. So we watch this cartoon, dismiss its message off hand, and we go out shopping afterwards, unwilling to do with less, or, in fact, to do with just what we need, falling into gluttony, avarice, greed, and ego. I like the Grinch because he asks the hard questions about our society, but his analysis falls short of his objectives. Christmas comes after all.

On the Grinch

Were his shoes too tight? Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grinch, and as a child I knew Christmas could not be very far away if the network was running this very strange cartoon about hate, violence, bigotry, and intolerance. The Grinch is a very odd character who has lived in self-imposed exile in a cave on the outskirts of Whoville. What the Grinch is, exactly, is a bit of a mystery, but in the world of Dr. Seuss species identification or confusion is usually of the first order. In fact, Dr. Seuss has been known to invent his own species of beings when he wants to. The Grinch, whatever he is, is an embittered old cranky dude who lives alone with his dog. He hates Christmas, which is no secret to the billions of people who have seen the cartoon. He cooks up a diabolical plan to rob the Who down in Whoville of the Christmas by stealing the trappings of their celebration. He lacks, of course, a fundamental understanding of why people celebrate Christmas: the birth of Christ, the messiah. The trappings are nothing more than that, trappings. After loading up an enormous old sled and traipsing up the side of his mountain to his hideout, he hears the Who come and begin to sing. His epiphany causes his heart to grow because of the love he finally feels for his fellow man who can still celebrate the birth of their savior even when there are no trappings. The cartoon is an interesting riff on the consumer culture which has ironically spawned the very cartoon of which I write. Nothing is more hyper-consumerist than television, the very medium into which the cartoon of the Grinch is inscribed. The commercial advertisements that pepper the screening of the Grinch completely undermine the message of the cartoon. The hyper-consumer event that has become the Christmas present buying season, starting with Black Friday just after Thanksgiving, is completely out of control, but nobody seems to either car or to even feign caring. Our economy necessarily depends on a happy retail December so that people can work, people can buy, and people can later pay their bills. In fact, questioning the very nature of consumer America is almost anti-patriotic, if not downright anti-American. Yet the consumer society which the Grinch hates is not sustainable in the long term. Unlimited growth is not the logical outcome of a consumerist society which has finite limits unless the consumers go into perpetual debt to sustain their vicious habits of buying every last thing that they see and end up wanting and desiring because advertising and marketing are infinitely stronger than the human will to control itself. Desire, temptation, envy are a big part of human weakness, and most of what we do is motivated by one of those negative motivations. The Grinch associates the happiness of the Who with all things they have bought–toys, trees, decoration, food. Lost in the midst of that rampant out-of-control consumerism is the only reason for celebrating Christmas: the birth of a baby, the beginning of a life. If there was anything that Jesus despised on this earth it was rampant, out-of-control consumerism inside the temple. He tears through the temple, upending tables and chasing away the moneylenders and vendors who were making a living by exploiting the needs of temple visitors. The Grinch underestimates, however, the spirituality of the Who, who celebrate in spite of him, the Grinch, I mean. So we watch this cartoon, dismiss its message off hand, and we go out shopping afterwards, unwilling to do with less, or, in fact, to do with just what we need, falling into gluttony, avarice, greed, and ego. I like the Grinch because he asks the hard questions about our society, but his analysis falls short of his objectives. Christmas comes after all.

On losing

Perhaps there is no better lesson in life than learning to lose well. Those that say winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing, are doomed to a life of frustration and despair. Some win and others lose, but in the end, most lose. In all the major professional sports, all except the one winning team end their seasons with a loss or have a losing record. Learning to lose well and be a good sport about it is even more important in real life situations where you don’t get the job, a project falls through, you get laid off, you just don’t get picked, the promotion train leaves you behind, she/he picks someone else and leaves you alone. Life, especially in politics where winning and losing define us as a nation, is mostly about losing and seldom about winning. For most of my life I’ve had to deal with losing most or all of the elections in which I’ve had any interest at all, and sometimes not particularly thrilled about the ones I’ve won. Winning is illusory and fleeting because all people remember is the last five minutes, not the last five years. History is full of losing causes, but you seldom see them because the winners write the stories. Losing is a day-to-day fact that has to be sucked up and dealt with. There are lots of sad and angry people around America tonight because they think their loss was unjust or unwarranted or just plain wrong. Yet I would also suggest that if their candidate lost tonight, that it will mean little or nothing tomorrow. You see, that’s the secret about losing in politics: there is always another election in two years, or four years, or six years. Nothing in life is forever, not even taxes. Look at Richard Nixon, he was a big-time loser in 1960 who went on to score a couple of sweet conservative victories before he publicly disgraced himself with Watergate. Gerald Ford, the man who pardoned him and assumed the office of the presidency had to live with the bitter notion that he was never elected to be the president of the United States—he had to be appointed. Nixon, in his second election against George McGovern, a man who really knew how to lose, Nixon took 49 of 50 states. McGovern didn’t even take his home state. I’m not about to say that losing builds character because that ‘s not true, but losing might temper your character, and you might develop such mental health factors such as empathy, kindness, generosity, self-awareness, tolerance. If the only thing you can see in tonight’s loss is your own bruised ego, then you have a little soul-searching to do because this loss is nothing compared to what life has in store for you. And you won’t like it, and it will be much worse than any political whipping you might endure. Life is not about winning anything, but it is about enduring loss and losing because that’s all we have some days, so we better know how to handle it when the clouds turn black and you find yourself in the midst of a dark night, off of the path, lost in a dark and savage wood. Grace in the face of a loss never goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Funny how life works that way.

On losing

Perhaps there is no better lesson in life than learning to lose well. Those that say winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing, are doomed to a life of frustration and despair. Some win and others lose, but in the end, most lose. In all the major professional sports, all except the one winning team end their seasons with a loss or have a losing record. Learning to lose well and be a good sport about it is even more important in real life situations where you don’t get the job, a project falls through, you get laid off, you just don’t get picked, the promotion train leaves you behind, she/he picks someone else and leaves you alone. Life, especially in politics where winning and losing define us as a nation, is mostly about losing and seldom about winning. For most of my life I’ve had to deal with losing most or all of the elections in which I’ve had any interest at all, and sometimes not particularly thrilled about the ones I’ve won. Winning is illusory and fleeting because all people remember is the last five minutes, not the last five years. History is full of losing causes, but you seldom see them because the winners write the stories. Losing is a day-to-day fact that has to be sucked up and dealt with. There are lots of sad and angry people around America tonight because they think their loss was unjust or unwarranted or just plain wrong. Yet I would also suggest that if their candidate lost tonight, that it will mean little or nothing tomorrow. You see, that’s the secret about losing in politics: there is always another election in two years, or four years, or six years. Nothing in life is forever, not even taxes. Look at Richard Nixon, he was a big-time loser in 1960 who went on to score a couple of sweet conservative victories before he publicly disgraced himself with Watergate. Gerald Ford, the man who pardoned him and assumed the office of the presidency had to live with the bitter notion that he was never elected to be the president of the United States—he had to be appointed. Nixon, in his second election against George McGovern, a man who really knew how to lose, Nixon took 49 of 50 states. McGovern didn’t even take his home state. I’m not about to say that losing builds character because that ‘s not true, but losing might temper your character, and you might develop such mental health factors such as empathy, kindness, generosity, self-awareness, tolerance. If the only thing you can see in tonight’s loss is your own bruised ego, then you have a little soul-searching to do because this loss is nothing compared to what life has in store for you. And you won’t like it, and it will be much worse than any political whipping you might endure. Life is not about winning anything, but it is about enduring loss and losing because that’s all we have some days, so we better know how to handle it when the clouds turn black and you find yourself in the midst of a dark night, off of the path, lost in a dark and savage wood. Grace in the face of a loss never goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Funny how life works that way.