BLACKOUT SERMON: It’s Sunday morning, and being a former churchgoer, that puts me in the mood for a sermon. So that’s what I’m gonna write today. A sermon about the Blackout of 2003.

It’s pretty clear now that the Blackout is related to DEREGULATION. Ah yes, deregulation, one of the pillars of the modern Republican world that we’ve been in since 1968. (Jimmy Carter? A temporary aberration. Bill Clinton? A Republican in drag.) Since the 1970s, the free-market business Republicans have convinced us that regulation of key industries like communications, finance, transportation and power are no longer needed. They gave plenty of reasons why deregulation would benefit the common man, but in the end they were trying to line their own pockets. And line them they did. Isn’t it time to turn the tide a bit?

In the power industry, the government regulators (FERC and the state commissions) once sought to maintain high levels of reliability by granting the power companies limited monopolies and in return requiring them to act nice — i.e., don’t gouge the public so as to make outrageous profits. Part of this agreement meant that the power companies would set up very reliable systems to generate and distribute electric power, so as to avoid all of the chaos that a big power outage causes. Who gets socked with the bill for all the added power lines and equipment that sit idle most of the time but come in handy when Murphy’s Law comes calling? The consumer, through higher electric bills. But, again, under regulation, the power companies only get to tack on enough profit on their investment to raise capital. And the consumer gets to avoid the fun of being stranded when the power goes down, and paying higher taxes to cover all the police overtime and other emergency costs needed to avoid looting and such. So, your electricity bill goes up a buck or two a month, but maybe it’s worth it.

BY COMPARISON: under DEREGULATION, as we have it today, the consumer pays a little bit less, and the rich people who are the biggest corporate investors make a whole lot more. Any wonder why they vote Republican and send big checks to support Republican political candidates? The deregulated power companies, acting on behalf of their investors, buy just enough power lines and equipment to maximize their profits. If that means a big blackout every so many months, well, that’s not their problem. They don’t pay the bill caused by civic chaos and having the rest of the economy shut down for a day or two. Economists call this the “internal versus external cost” problem.

Another problem with DEREGULATION is instability. Even if power company investors decide to take a long-term view and do the right thing, they may not be able to raise the money to buy the stuff that will avoid the next big blackout. Why not? Because the bankers and investors are still all freaked out about some big bankruptcy or something. Something like ENRON. (Financial deregulation doesn’t help either.)

I’m not a socialist; I know that free markets promote innovation and when they work correctly, pass the benefits on to the consumer. But dang, there are just too many times when they don’t work right. And that’s when government needs to get involved. But over the past 30 years, the Republicans have told the little folk that all government is bad and the little folk have swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. The Republicans have given the little folk their cell phones and $100 tax rebates in return for their votes, and have retreated to their mansions to call their accountants and watch the profits roll in. We are clearly living in an era of entrenched wealth once again, something like the “Roaring 20’s” (and you know where that led). It’s the little people who went along with it all by electing Nixon and Reagan and Bush and Bush (and Clinton — let’s be honest about the honorary Republican category).

And they are the ones who now have to deal with the mess left behind by this deregulated, small-government world. They are the ones who often can’t get proper health coverage, they are the ones who spend hours trying to get through an automated answering system to straighten out some important thing and avoid being thrown in to bankruptcy and becoming homeless, they are the ones who can’t get proper help if they have a retarded child or a crippled grandparent. They are the ones who swim in polluted public beaches, while the rich folk jet off to pristine shores in the western Pacific. The world is great if you’re healthy and attractive and have a good job that pays. But let just one or two little things go wrong, let your bank account get drawn down and your credit card accounts puffed up, and you’re thrown to the dogs.

Really, does it have to be this way? DEREGULATION and lack of good health insurance is a big part of the whole Republican scheme, but I’ve noticed a whole lot of other little things that go with the flow. One little example: credit cards. I’ve almost always paid my credit card bills on time. In 25 years, I had two late payments, both just by a few days because of a vacation or a delay in the US Mail. One was about 20 years ago, back in the early 80s. I got hit with a small interest charge, maybe a dollar or two. My second one was last month. I got hit with about the same small interest charge, maybe two dollars, PLUS a $30 LATE FEE. Now when was that policy started? Another little example: trying to renew my anti-virus updates, I noticed that if you want to order it by phone, you get hit with a $10 FEE, because you have to talk to somebody.

And don’t even get me started about the way that people drive these days. I’m old enough to know that it wasn’t always so aggressive. Once upon a time, cooperation and tolerance were the norm when people got in their cars.

This world is really starting to get UGLY. Should we go back to the old Democrat days of the ‘40s and 60s when labor unions had a lot of power and there were lots of government regulations and not as many people were rich or near-rich? Yea, there were plenty of bad things about those days, including stupid, greedy labor unions that caused a lot of American jobs to go overseas because of their inflexibility. Today we have a lot more consumer choices, things that couldn’t even be dreamed of back then (like laptops and hand-helds and portable mp3 players and DVDs and air-conditioning everywhere). But we also had people who answered the phone when you called the bank or doctors office or insurance company or motor vehicles bureau. The average slob seemed to get a little more respect. Finding a job wasn’t such a horrendous process (and you didn’t lose your old one so quickly). You didn’t seem to fall off the edge so fast when something bad happened to you.

It’s a question of balance, obviously. Maybe the pendulum did swing too far towards socialism and economic stagnation in the 60s. And a lot of people got scared when the Democrats got too aggressive about civil rights (NOT to the credit of those people) and started moving away from “old fashioned Christian values”. But can’t we see that it’s time to move a little bit back towards the center, towards the middle ground, a middle ground where government would do a lot, but not too much. Taxes might be higher, but you’d be sure that Social Security was there when you need it. Where being rich isn’t the answer to everything, and isn’t seen as the only way to live a good life?

Most people today seem absolutely convinced that you’ve got to struggle fiercely to get all you can economically, even if you have to cut some throats, because otherwise you’re gonna get thrown into the gutter. Can’t we put some safety nets back into the system, so that we can all calm down a bit, and maybe get back to acting human towards each other? Can’t we make a decent middle-class life the standard to shoot for, instead of shooting for a McMansion up in the woods? Can’t we start driving sensible and efficient cars again instead of huge monster trucks, even if that means that we might have to sit home for a few hours during a snowstorm while the government gets the roads plowed? Can’t we stop the trucking industry from taking over the Interstates with huge high-speed trucks that crash big time and usually take a few average motorists down with them? (A lot of the railroad lines that once hauled the freight are now abandoned — guess why? — yep, deregulation). Can’t we start trusting in the commonweal a little more?

Think about it during the next blackout or terrorist attack. (The next blackout may be both).

Yes, I just experienced the great eastern blackout of 2003. My first inkling of the problem came when I talking with my boss at around 4 and the lights started blinking on and off. When I got outside, I saw that the traffic lights weren’t working. I took the train to work today, as I do once a week, and wouldn’t you know, no train service home — I walked up to the station and it was quieter than a New Years morning. But there is a bus that goes near my house, so I went over to the stop and waited for about a half hour amidst a nervous crowd. After two of those busses passed without stopping, I opted for third best, a bus that gets within 2 miles of home. The ride was slow and the walk was long and hot, but I made it.

It looked like it was going to be a candle-light evening without the Internet, but just after9 pm the refrigerator started rumbling and all the little red lights on my consumer electronics lit up. Twenty-first century techno-civilization was back in my neighborhood. Cool. But let this be a reminder. 21st century techno-civilization is still a very frail thing, something that can disappear in the blink of an eye. This time it was just a lightening bolt in Niagara Falls, but next time it could be a rocket-propelled grenade launched by a terrorist. The deep, terrible dark night, which I saw along my street just a half hour ago, is never all that far away. (And the lights are still flickering a bit here).

Here’s a quick follow-up to last Sunday’s thoughts on the African-American culture. I recently read a book by Bertice Berry called “The Haunting of Hip Hop”. Ms. Berry is a black author and PhD in sociology who writes from a black perspective, or more accurately, from her own version of a black perspective. And hey, that’s fine by me. The “Hip Hop” story revolves around a successful rap music producer in Manhattan who becomes haunted by the ghosts of African-American history. As a rationalistic white guy, I found it all a bit over the top. Nevertheless, Berry was out to make some valid points. She doesn’t exactly give white folk much slack, but then again, what the heck. The book was not written for me, but for African American youth who need a stronger sense of their ethnic heritage and a greater pride in even the more eccentric features of it.

Even if this wasn’t the most edifying book I’ve ever read, there were still some pearls of wisdom to be found in it. For example: “by the time you know how to spend your years, you find that you done already wasted them.” So true. Another one: “what don’t work out for you in this life will have to work out in someone else’s”. Hmm, there’s something to ponder.

The book comes with a set of 15 discussion questions at the end. They are aimed at inquiring young minds, and that’s a good thing. Maybe this book ain’t exactly for me, but it will help a lot of others. More power to ya, Dr. Berry.

But next time, back to the un-real world: that recent article on the nature of time by Peter Lynds, a college drop-out from New Zealand who has the world of academic physics buzzing. Did this guy really say anything new? Stay tuned.

I was out walking through town the other day, past some expensive new homes on the other side of a hill. They weren’t exactly mansions; a two-earner professional couple could possibly swing such a place with today’s low mortgage rates. I gather that families that buy such houses become quite attached to them. I myself have never owned real estate, but from what I’ve been told, ownership gives people a strong sense of connection to their homestead. And I guess that’s good in a lot of ways. But as for me, I like the idea of home being a movable concept, something not tied to any one structure or plot of land. That notion jibes well with the fact that we aren’t permanent residents of this planet. If we’re lucky, we get 70 or 80 years here, but they go by pretty quickly. I’m still holding out hope that we are citizens of a larger reality, something that transcends the space-time universe that we know of. I’m still thinking that our bittersweet years here are mainly a preparation course for something bigger and better.

I once read an article about some groovy Jesuit priest who had his own apartment somewhere and slept every night on a couch; he didn’t have a regular bed. That was his style. And actually, that sounds like my kind of style (although I have a regular bed but not a couch!). That priest seems to be the kind of guy who doesn’t put too much effort into making a nest for himself here in this realm, as he believes that his true home is somewhere else. You would have hoped that all priests and all spiritual seekers would have been like that. But in reality, there ain’t all that many like that. Oh well, too bad. Wrong planet I’m on, I guess. But it ain’t gonna be forever, for better and for worse.

Two more observations about why people are happy or not in this world. First thought: unfortunately, a lot actually does depend upon your body and how it looks. Certain jobs and certain situations in life — actually, quite a few — do indeed require a certain look. Let’s face it, there are certain cultural notions defining beauty or handsomeness, and there are certain jobs that require it. Certain combinations of body height, girth, shoulder width, muscle angularity or skin curves, facial shape, angles of the chin, tone of voice, behavior of the eyes, etc. make a lot of difference in how people judge you. It ain’t really fair when you think about it, but that’s how it is.

Cultural norms are powerful thing, right or wrong. Certain women just aren’t going to get jobs as entertainers or clothing models or airline stewards, even if they are intelligent, well mannered and poised. Certain guys just aren’t going to be CEOs or submarine commanders or the President of the United States. For example, compare George W. Bush with VP Cheney. Bush has the leadership look and Cheney doesn’t (even though I personally don’t have much confidence in either of them as leaders). Rumsfeld has the look, but Wolfowitz generally doesn’t. And yes, Bill Clinton had the look, but as to Al Gore …. just a bit too stocky. Perhaps Gore felt deeply called to leadership, but the importance of looks ultimately betrayed him (he was beat by a guy with a stonger chin line and a trimmer build). So, Al Gore isn’t going to be quite as happy with his life as he might have been had he a more dynamic looking body (“dynamic” according to our cultural notions). And if you don’t have the look, you may have to struggle harder for happiness in 21st Century America.

Second observation: Money. The great disequalizer. For better and for worse, our society and our economy decides what talents and abilities are less important and more important to it, and rewards everyone approximately. So, those people who are called to be file clerks, i.e. good organizers, are generally not going to get the same money and recognition as those who are called to be CEOs or trial attorneys. (And people who feel called to help the poor by becoming social workers are asking to become poor themselves, given the salary levels in the social work field). Then throw in the “look” factor, as discussed above, and things get really uneven. A dumpy looking guy who is good at organizing papers and information is, if lucky, going to get a steady $40,000 a year in some dumpy government bureaucracy, while an extroverted guy with a jaunty build and strong cheekbones and a Clinton-esque hairline who is pretty good at public speaking is going to become a trial lawyer making $250,000 a year. It just happens.

Why should one guy be worth $40,000 and little public recognition, and the other guy gets $250,000 and probably gets quoted in the papers and even makes the TV news? Who is happier? Hate to say it, but the lawyer dude is probably having a better time. He may well have too many toys (fancy car, big house, trophy wife, all sorts of high-tech gadgets) that ultimately don’t make him happy, but the challenge of his job and the recognition that he gets keeps him pumped. He probably “gives something back” by taking on volunteer cases for poor people or counseling seniors with legal questions, and that helps make him feel good. Life probably has given him the better hand of cards.

You might be tempted to say that “smartness” and intelligence justifies the way that things are. People with higher IQs generally do better then “dummies”. True enough, but the closer you look at what “intelligence” is, the fuzzier it becomes. I really think there are different kinds of intelligence, e.g. abstract intelligence, social intelligence, practical intelligence(Al Gore has much abstract intelligence, GWB has more social and practial), body intelligence (needed by sports stars and performers), etc. I still think, quite idealistically, that just about everyone is smart in some way, but that society rewards certain ways of being smart much differently than others. So it’s still not fair.

What’s the bottom line here? How can even the losers get lucky sometime and enjoy life? How can people who land in prison or are outcasts or drunks or drug addicts turn it around? Well, I haven’t figured that one out. But one thing I can say: when you realize just how arbitrary life and culture can be in deciding who is valuable and who isn’t, you realize that even if get the short end of the stick, it doesn’t really mean that you’re not worthy. If you can keep on believing in yourself even when the world around you doesn’t, you still have something going, an inner flame burning deep inside. With some people, the world stokes their inner fires; with others, it pours water on it. But even if so, don’t let the world blow it out.

Just a random thought or two for a mid-summers night. The other afternoon I was at my mother’s house, doing my laundry, and I found some old “all about” books that I had as a kid. I picked up the one about police and firemen and saw the following quote: “Police and fire fighters are BIG STRONG MEN”. Ah yes, the pre-feminist era.

Here’s another recollection from those days. For some odd reason I was reading a reprint of a magazine story written in the 1940s not long ago, and I noticed that the “voice of the story” directly addresses the reader every few paragraphs using the term “mister”. E.g., “You better believe that joint was hopping, mister”. I guess that the writer didn’t anticipate much of a female audience.

Well, I suppose that it’s best those days are behind us. However, you gotta admit, the “mister” device in the article is rather bracing and insistent. It reminds me of Thunderbirds and Old Spice after-shave and Lucky Strikes and metal Zippo lighters. (Oh yea, speaking of Luckys, I remember a line from one of their old ads: “Lucky seperates the men from the boys, but not from the girls”. Definitely pre-feminist).

Finally, I’ve discovered StarLogo, a non-sexist computer simulation program made available as freeware by MIT. More on that soon!