I still can't comprehend supporting Trump

Let’s call them Brad and Linda. I met them a little while back, found them generally likeable people, some good jokes, some less-lovely behaviors, but we got along. They live in Texas, have a daughter, and are retired. Then something fascinating. I learned that they are Trump supporters. I was delighted.

What about you, Tongue Cat?
Do you understand?

A couple weeks ago I blogged about the hope Trump gives me, and only after I posted it did I think to check my facebook friend count to see if anyone wouldn’t read it before un-friending me. Because the fact is I don’t really know anyone who supports the global political clusterfuck of idiocy that is Donald Trump.

I see them on TV. They’re...well...they’re idiots. A profoundly dangerous tide of anti-intellectualism has been growing in America for years, but Trump? He’s a whole new low. Just...stunning. A level of idiocy, immorality, and statements so preposterously infeasible and irresponsible that they damage the standing of the US every time they’re repeated.

So how on earth can a third of Americans support him? I am utterly baffled. But here, in Brad and Linda, was my chance to find out. Because Brad and Linda, for all their peculiarities, clearly had brains in their heads. They had a fundamental level of intelligence that I expected to preclude support for the walking imbecility of Trump. I stocked up on patient observation to figure it out.

It took awhile. The first clue came when they suggested that Trump disclose who he’d put in his cabinet. “For example he could put The Black Guy in charge of medicine.” I wasn’t sure who they meant until they remembered The Black Guy’s name. “Carson, Ben Carson.”

A relic of Sri Lanka's past, or a glimpse of America's future?

The Black Guy? That seemed odd. Nevermind the idea of having an Attorney General with peculiar opinions about pyramids.

But better understanding was close behind, in a story they told about their daughter. “Well, we found out she was dating some guy, you know, with a funny last name. So we put a stop to that of course.” I didn’t ask which ethnicity that funny last name belonged to. Didn’t matter.

It wasn’t that they thought Trump’s policies were strategically sound. Or that they figured a terrible businessman with a track record of fundamentally un-American values and actions would be a good leader. And it wouldn’t matter if I pointed out the contradiction between the statements “I like him because he says what he means” and “I don’t worry about his crazy comments because he doesn’t mean most of what he says.”

In Sri Lanka it's laundry detergent.
In America it's apparently still a political platform.

They were just racist. How terribly disappointing.

Racism like theirs isn’t an opinion, or an ethos, or a belief structure. It’s just a moral failing. A default of the intellect and human spirit in favor of small-mindedness and a refusal to address actual problems.

And as I watch Trump "talk to black voters" in a way that is not remotely actually about black voters, but is clearly an attempt to convince white voters that he's not racist (click here), it's all just so...sad. Maddening. Vile. And televised.

So in the end, I am no closer to understanding how anyone with a brain could possibly support Donald Trump. If you know the answer, please let me know.

Empathy

Should I add horse carts to that list? Gotta love Cuba

I think about it every time I almost get run over by a car. “If that driver knew what it was like to be a cyclist, they’d be more aware of us.” And then when I drive, and some biker is being unnecessarily disruptive, I think “Get out of the way! Don’t you know how impatient and hobbled it can feel to drive in traffic?”

And it’s obvious when some driver pushes through the crosswalk that he’s a jerkwad, right? Except when I rode with my college friend whose medical condition kept him from walking, and there was an unending line of pedestrians, he had a class to get to too.

We all need to experience the other point of view periodically to retain our empathy and shared experience. Gotta wear their shoes, man!

Amazing kids in that Pretoria orphanage, unsurprisingly

I remember the shoes of the kids in the South African orphanage, hanging in red dust off the benches where they knelt to do a craft project. After seeing their faces I would read an African news story and instead of thinking “Man, that part of the world is screwed” I’d think “There are incredible people doing amazing work to improve each other’s lives there” and on good days “Maybe I can help somehow.”

And the orderly lines of Bay Area traffic look different after you’ve sat in Nepali gridlock where cars butting into each other’s way have written a self-fulfilling prophecy that nobody’s going anywhere. “The world works better with cooperation, fellas” you understand immediately. A nice antidote to the dictatorial individualism of the United States, me first.

The tuktuks of Cambodia actually understood fast lanes
surprisingly well. Compared to highway 101 anyway.

But spend some time on European freeways, where everyone understands what a fast lane is, only moving left while actively passing then immediately shifting back right again, and suddenly our freeways are a top notch clusterfuckery of dunces. Or maybe it’s just me. (It’s not just me.)

And if the power goes out in a winter storm, I don’t rage at the electric company for it (they’re despicable for other reasons), instead I remember the unelectrified silence of Myanmar and appreciate that when I plug in my electronics and come back a few hours later, they’re charged, not fried.

A little different relationship to the grocery store

Yes, we should all spend time on a bicycle and our own two feet in addition to behind the wheel. But to really add perspective and empathy for the human experience, you can’t beat travel. Go somewhere else and see what else life can be, then come back to appreciate, and perhaps improve, what you had before.

But you already knew that.

So when does your next flight leave?

I've been coming home a lot lately

Oakland view from my weekend

I’ve come home a lot lately. First I suppose was when I landed in America again, three months gone by, and saw the smile of a friend as he picked me up from San Jose’s embarrassingly unconnected airport. The shuttle to the light-rail to the bus to the train to the other bus...wouldn’t have worked. They would have closed before I got there, and after 31 straight hours of travel time I didn’t need that.

What I did need was my friend. And he was there. And I was home, the second he showed up.

Need a photo, so that's my apartment
right now. Should I have cleaned?

And I got back to my apartment, which was nice. Clean laundry all the time!, predictable food, knowing where I would sleep and being able to choose when to do so. A functioning toilet. All good stuff. But running into my neighbors in the hallway, that’s when the phrase “welcome home” seemed to fit best.

I visited my folks in Monterey, a town where I’ve never lived, a house I’ve only visited, but the home of my loved ones was immediately a home for me too, as I curled up to sleep on the couch.

And even further, a house I’d never even seen before, newly purchased by friends, where I spent the weekend house/dog sitting with my old galpal Lucy. And to my surprise, or maybe not, even an unknown building can hold some aura of home when you know it’s beginning to shelter members of your community, where they’ll add memories and time together to the walls and floorboards.

Still definitely a fan of fetch

Definitely not mine, but definitely not a hotel. No impersonal transactions. This, all of these, were places that contacted the individual in me in some way.

And now I’m back in my apartment, not long until I go again. And though I know the physical things around me, the photos and maps and furniture, are not my definition, not the limits of me, they are the manifestations of my living, and every one of them wears memories that make this place mean more than just shelter.

And they share that, or some shade of it, with a constellation of other spots scattered around.

No filter because who needs one?

What a profound blessing to have so many homes. I remember when the closest I came was the borrowed bed for the night, and though I loved that too, when I come back here after another month of work, I will be coming home. And I’m grateful for that.

What is Skopje?

Skopje, Macedonia, from the ancient Kale Fortress

Skopje has nothing to do with the Italian verb scopare, which technically means “to sweep,” but just as “to screw” has a bit more oomph than inserting a light bulb, scopare is that favorite vulgar verb of the angry, horny, or adolescent.

And they don’t speak Dutch in Macedonia, so Skopje has nothing to do with the diminutive -je in that language, which makes things smaller, cuter, cuddlier. If you have a dog in Holland, you have a hond. If you have a puppy-wuppy, you have a hondje.

So while Skopje might sound like a quick little lusty interlude to me, and now to you (you’re welcome), no one will have any idea what you’re talking about when you try to explain why you’re giggling in front of the heroic statues. (But feel free to try anyway.)

So that’s what Skopje is not. But what Skopje is?

It's a neolithic settlement already 4000 years old when the Romans got there a bit before 0. Then centuries of chaos calming to empires that crumbled back to chaos, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Ottoman all getting to fancy themselves eternal on the banks of the Vardar River. After six millennia, Skopje is a powerhouse arena of history, culture, and pride...that currently hosts a Las Vegas style showroom of propaganda mayhem like I had never seen. It’s bizarre. Surreal. Kinda hideous. And I loved it!

It was mostly men, but these ladies were lurking near the opera

Statues of scholars in robes, kings in crowns, and the odd barbarian looking perplexed and aggressive over a big lumpy club line every bridge, lurk in arcades, and loom like suicidal squadrons on the edges of prominent buildings. Don’t jump, toga-clad men! We’ll get you some modern fashion!

I gave some background here (click to open), but why all the classical imagery?

Macedonia declared independence in 1991, and 27 seconds later was feuding with Greece over ownership of the name and Alexander the Great’s legacy. The quandary continues, as Macedonia struggles between Classical or Slavic origin, bashing out an identity for its ethnically diverse population in a region where such questions have been soaked in blood for centuries.

Just slightly a mother and father national
foundation story going on here.

So some say the classical theme is anti-Greek, part of that dispute. Others say anti-Bulgarian for much the same ethnic reasons. But a former adviser to the Prime Minister reassures us on both those counts.

“No! It’s not anti-Greek or anti-Bulgarian!” Says Shmuel Ben David Vaknin. And we pause for a quick sigh of relief before he adds “Antiquisation has a double goal, which is to marginalize the Albanians and create an identity that will not allow Albanians to become Macedonians."

Something of the Romans must have lingered in Skopje, because it doesn’t take an Australian playing a Spaniard in an American movie about Ancient Rome to tell me that if you win the crowd, they won’t ask questions. Bread and circus, man, bread and circus. (Except without the bread.)

So is it working? Are the people placated? Blood-red handprints on shiny new marble say no, but we’ll talk about that next time.

Because even though the towering statue of a warrior on a horse is the centerpiece of an international dispute, it is also a great fountain, spraying water from a variety of jets, at unpredictable moments from unexpected places, shifting colors as grandiloquent music piped into the square on pigeon-pooped speakers.

And the kids loved it.

And I loved that.

Small-minded men have been picking fights since we climbed out of the trees, but as July heat emanated from the stones after dark on a calm Macedonian evening, the laughter of happiness was enough.

And that's what Skopje is.

Donald Trump gives me hope

Election night is a weird sort of strangled Super Bowl. Only instead of a trophy the winner gets to influence the country for four years, but as spectators we just watch to see if Our Team wins.

Terrible, terrible mindset.

This team mentality, “My party right or wrong” is a fundamental part of how our political process got so off track. By any objective assessment, Trump is at best uninformed, but far more likely a narcissistic danger to the wellbeing of this country, economy, and safety throughout the world. Voting for him because he’s your team is just irresponsible.

He wants to give nuclear weapons to more countries, including multiple involved in the volatile South China Sea conflict, and Saudi Arabia, apparently unaware that if it’s okay to give nukes to one’s allies, then everyone will have them, because everyone is allies with someone. That’s just ignorant, dangerous, and in the fundamental lack of awareness of what a nuclear weapon really means, it’s sociopathic.

I find GIFs annoying, but this is how
I feel when Trump talks about NATO

Trump invited the most dangerous country on Earth to engage in cyber espionage against the sitting US Secretary of State because she’s his political opponent. That’s both immoral and treasonous. And again, shows a complete lack of understanding of the things he’s playing with plus a sociopathic willingness to cause immense harm for his own short-term gain.

Using misdirected fear and hatred to blame entirely the wrong people because racism is easy. Not my America.

Opposing our fundamental right to free speech, both in the courts and at demonstrations, even inciting violence to stop it, that’s just un-American. No, that’s fundamentally uncivilized. Punch someone if they disagree with you? I thought we left that attitude in the caves.

Did he actually just say Obama
founded ISIS? Repeatedly?

Suggesting/joking about assassinating his political rival. Again, fundamentally against our shared values. It’s not that I just disagree with his policies, I disagree with Trump’s very notion of humanity. And what’s so scary is that I could continue this list all day. It’s like John Oliver said, any one of these incidents would be like stepping on a nail, but he has so many repetitions of insanity, immorality, and downright idiocy that we just sort of cruise across the top of a bed of nails without any managing to really penetrate.

But that’s all pretty dreary. So where’s the hopeful part?

Trump is spectacularly unqualified and inadequate to the job of president. And in the bizarre world of PR campaigns and willfully misinformed voters, that alone might not be enough to stop him. But he’s also fundamentally un-American. That might matter.

Hating Hillary is a like a religion for many, while she just leaves others uninspired. I get why people don’t love her. But here’s the thing: After decades of rampant gerrymandering and $billions of Koch brothers money, the Republicans have congress pretty well locked up. Republicans in congress aren’t going to let Hillary get anything done.

Or just the primaries

Unfortunately, a vote for Hillary is a vote for the status quo. Our congressional system of gridlock means she won’t be able to build any new structures. But while it takes a lot of people working together to build a house, it only takes one cheeto-colored madman to burn it down.

A vote for Trump is a vote for incomprehension, intolerance, volatility (we don’t want to see how that one reflects in the markets), and immoral narcissism.

Personally, I have more faith in America than that. And that’s where the hope gets in.

Because imagine election night...and we all watch...as the entire map...turns blue.

The entire country, rejecting Trump’s brand of hatred and ignorance, uniting to vote for sanity, even if you don’t like the policies.

What would that do for America? After years of demonizing each other, Karl Rove’s divisive politics, partisan vitriol and childish grandstanding, to be united, as a country, for sanity.

That idea. That idea gives me hope. So thank you, Mr Trump, for being so spectacularly unqualified and unstable that you might just push us into realizing how much our shared humanity matters.

Loving Brussels, whether you like it or not

Didn't even know Brussels had a
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

I like to think I can find some version of beauty anywhere. No podunk too dunky to find a po little piece of purty in it. And with some time and a camera, I reckon I could fill up a memory card just about anywhere and at least have myself a passable screensaver.

But Brussels. Oh Brussels.

Maybe it’s because I’d just spent the weekend in Paris, a city so beautiful you can nab something nice while putting the lens cap on wrong, but Brussels just... It just wouldn’t cooperate.

Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of beautiful things there. Old facades, careful corners, and hunks of history sitting in the sun or resting in the rain. But every single dern one of ‘em had a big heap of crap in front of it. Canine or municipal. Pigeon-piled or city planned.

Have a cute little mansion? Why not
build a giant glass thing looming over it?

But that’s just it. It’s not planned. For a city renowned and maligned as the home of bureaucracy and civil interference, Brussels seems to have grown up without any oversight whatsoever. In fact, I just learned that in urban planning, the term Brusselization means: “the indiscriminate and careless introduction of modern high-rise buildings into gentrified neighborhoods” and/or “haphazard urban development and redevelopment.”

Want a big beautiful church? Here, have seven. And each one gets a buddy, snuggled up nice and close, perhaps a neon Pizza Hut or an obese hotel that wishes it was in Miami, but usually a neo-brutalist concrete monument to capitalist dominance and sociopathic success.

Or you can just let it rot and paint eyelashes on the saints. That’s cool too.

But somehow in the chaos, the glaring glass and clumsy corners, I kind of fell in love with Brusselsian ugliness. It’s not exactly ugly, it’s just...kind of flailing. Uncontrolled and accidental. Tripping over itself and knocking over the altar. It’s kind of like life, built in steel and drywall and error.

Place des Martyrs

I’m glad not every city is scrambled eggs like this, but I’m also happy not every city has the unity of Paris, or the modernity of new Amsterdam, or the rotting Victorian urbanity of Oakland. And as San Francisco struggles with a malignant housing crisis, and the principle of supply and demand suggests we should build some modern high-rise buildings in our gentrified neighborhoods, I pray we don’t Brusselize ourselves into oblivion.

But strolling around the city, down traffic-afflicted streets with torn up cobblestones, I started to fall for the place, and by the time I sat to dinner in a sidewalk cafe with a peculiar blend of Moroccan, French, and Malaysian flavors, wouldn’t you know it, I’d filled up a memory card.

Camping on the South Yuba

I can't remember the area's name. Something
like Molotov so all I can remember is that.

You know that jetlag thing where you wake up after a good night’s sleep, all refreshed and bright-eyed, to discover you’ve been out for 23 minutes? And then it happens again at 4 o’clock in the morning? And both times, you sit there thinking “Y’know, I really should be sleeping right now” and it’s mildly stressful?

That stress is gone when you open your eyes to look up through pine trees at an array of stars so cosmically tremendous it feels like childhood rose up inside you to layer optimism and unselfconscious gratitude on the backs of your eyes. At moments like that, jetlag’s alarm clock is a blessing that lets you sneak in one extra moment of beauty.

I like camping.

I know the feeling

After three weeks of asphalt and buses, getting among the trees was exactly what I needed. And after standing in my apartment again, seeing only the places where my lady’s stuff used to be, and realizing every single g’dang thing has memories of her attached, some time in the trees was even more necessary. I took of dose of my new reality, choked it down, then took a last break from it, in the company of one old friend and two brand-spankin’ new ones.

I’d never been to the South Yuba River, whose warm clear water gathers in blue and green pools, between sunsoaked stones that dry your feet with their earthy breath, and whose swaying trees are a consoling hug that heals the knowledge that this area was once annihilated and abused by ruthless mining practices.

If those trees and hillsides can heal…

So gather around the campfire as the wood pops, the dishes are “camping clean” and the avocados are ripe for tomorrow’s breakfast. Now that there’s some good camping. And it’s almost bedtime. And everything will be alright. Somehow.

I left the camera in the car most of the time,
so this is just the parking lot

Ever since we were kids, I’ve preferred sleeping outside the tent. Open air, soft pineneedle wind, and the buzz of bees in the morning. The effortlessness of waking up with dawn when your body is reading all of it without interference. Or maybe it was just because someone threw up on the tent in the back of the family minivan all those years ago.

Truth be told I don’t even remember which brother that was. I’m 83% sure it wasn’t me.

That love of sleeping outside is still in me, so no need to bring a tent, I stretched my bag on a thin mat and watched the night sky pop up through the intermittence of my jetlag.

I think it was the third time I woke up that I registered two things in quick succession. First was the daylight. Second was the black bear looking me in the eyes from about 15 feet away.

Found him again while I was brushing
my teeth. Neighbors should have
put their garbage in the bear box

Good morning big fella.

He went his way and I went mine. Friends, river swimming, and an ursine alarm clock. Every weekend should be this good.