Two Conversations

"That's the cloud factory", she said matter-of-factly, although beneath this veil, she was proud of her clever interpretation of the tall cylindrical pillar that spewed bright white fumes.  She knew that they were not factories that made clouds, but was still of the age in which such explanations sufficed, awaiting confirmation from me, or just as readily, an alternative explanation.  These clouds, if not for this day's overcast November afternoon, would have starkly contrasted themselves against the bright blue sky.  But they melted into the grey heavens above and disappeared almost immediately.  Five-months later, I would see the factory's white cloud against the backdrop of the bright blue sky and to my pleasant surprise, return to continue our conversation.

It was a sunny, perfect afternoon, a pleasant break from all of the rain we had been getting in the past month.  As a matter of fact, we endured a drought last summer, followed by consistently periodic, moderate snowfall this winter, to a rainy spring that has now over-saturated the local water table.  I am relieved that the effects of last year's drought has been compensated with the snow and subsequent rain, so long as it does not overdo itself and result in any serious problems for myself or others.  (Too late for some, unfortunately, as the river has yet to crest as it further floods those who live closer to it.)

"Remember when you told me that the cloud factory wasn't making clouds, but was actually throwing out poison?"  I cringed a bit inside, as I recalled my internal struggle about whether I should try to reveal to her the reality of pollution, or just go with encouraging the creative juices.  I opted for both, but apparently, those magical words I used when explaining the Debbie Downer reality of pollution made a more lasting impression.

She understood that the factory wasn't spewing out clouds, but there was something a little sad about my contribution to helping her understand the world in this more adult way.  I had added to the loss of innocence by way of my explanation.  I remember grasping for concepts and words as I drove northbound on the rural road, fishing for more basic, child-specific words.  I had forgotten, but that winter afternoon months ago when she revealed the factory's purpose to me, I had resorted to offering an alternative theory, in the process equating "pollution" with "poison". It was the only comparo I could come up with at that moment.  She was too smart to simply appease anyway.  She would not have been satisfied with simple validation of something untrue, I reasoned.

"Yeah, I remember," I told her.  At this point, it was useless to seek support through the fact that I did indeed encourage her cloud theory initially, albeit short-lived.  "Yeah!  Those totally look like clouds!", I recalled saying to her.  But somehow the limited enthusiasm in my voice and the latter use of the powerful word "poison" rendered any hope for salvaging that "glass half-full" memory and experience empty.  Debbie D. overpowered that noise in her mind long ago...

As I drove up the road, I told her that I wasn't sure what kind of factory it was, but that I thought it was a coal-burning power station.  Sure enough, as we drove on, there was a large mass of coal, forming an artificial black peninsula.  "Yeah, it's a coal burning factory", I explained.  "It makes energy.  See all of that?  That's coal."  Thankfully this conversation changed shortly thereafter.

The air was dry and not a single cloud was in the sky with exception to those behind us being perpetually produced by the cloud factory.  The road in front shimmered as though a mirage of water in a desert.  "Is that water?", she asked.  It was as though she read my mind.  Just a day or two before, I had been thinking about this visual phenomenon, and as soon as she asked the question, I knew exactly what she was talking about. You know the scene in movies that depict a two-lane highway driving through the American southwest desert in the heart of summer?  The camera shot of the ongoing highway shimmies in the heat of the bright-yellow midday sun?  It was just like that, except it was a beautifully perfect spring afternoon.  It was the type of scene where you would not have been surprised to see a scorpion walking along the edge of the highway.

As the light waves shimmied from our vantage point of the moving car, we could see images of approaching cars and surrounding trees reflect off the mirage of water.  It was one of those simple physics situations that I considered on occasion but wouldn't necessarily need to understand in my life, as such thoughts quietly float into the dusty archives of my thoughts and experiences... perhaps never to be accessed again.  But to have the opportunity to share this moment of childhood innocence and strength; her actual verbalizing of this event as it unfolded, was a profoundly satisfying experience that I was grateful to have been a part of.

"You know what? You were right", I said.  "Those were clouds being made at the factory."  It was, after all I reasoned, water vapor that we were seeing pushed into the sky, as they spun the generators to create electricity.  I chose to ignore the coal ash and its contaminants that infected our surroundings as we admired the bright white clouds rising into the air and disappearing into the beautiful blue sky.  It was a perfect spring afternoon.

Bureaucracy at Its Finest

                This morning I went through my usual Sunday routine of purchasing a newspaper.  Every Sunday I walk to the local gas station, say hello to the attendant and pay $1.75 for the local paper.  I walk over to buy the Sunday paper for several reasons: 1.) to feel like I’m somehow contributing to sustain the struggling newspaper industry.  2.) to maintain some semblence of social connectedness to my fellow locals.  [The lady at the gas station knows me as a regular and this routine has been ongoing for several years.  Saying hello to her as a non-anonymous entity is important to myself and I believe to a much lesser extent, to the greater society.]  3.) to read up on what the publishing powers that be considers newsworthy.  4.) to get coupons and save money here and there – so long as I save at least $1.75 in groceries, I figure my paper’s free.  [Today being Easter, there were no coupons.  Must be a slow newspaper day on holidays…]  5.) to hand it over to my elderly neighbor whose age and health limits her ability to go out and do things.  [She’s really sweet and a great friend.  She primarily wants the TV guide as the television is her main source of information and most regularly available companion; which of course, is the case for most people.]  6.) to criticize, laugh, and (occasionally) ridicule that which I read. 

                I opened up the paper after skimming over the headlines on the front page.  I always find it interesting how a local newspaper dictates and prioritizes what it considers to be newsworthy by putting stupid and oftentimes laughable local stories that are meant to tug at your heartstrings.  I suppose it can be argued that it is important to maintain a sense of connection with your fellow locals, in the same manner that I do by walking to the gas station to purchase a paper in part to say hello to the attendant, or similarly, walking to the library to say hello to the local librarian and chit chat.  However, it drives me crazy as to the degree newspapers and other local reporting sources try so hard to play the role of emotional subjugator over its readers.   You know, the stuff that makes you say, “aww”, or “eww”, or “grrr”.  Shouldn’t that stuff be reserved for the “Local” or “Metro” section of the newspaper for the most part?  (The assumption here is that mainstream news media no longer even attempt to be “objective”, if that’s possible at all.)  I mean, I would like to get more national and international news on the front page rather than all three front page stories being about local stuff (today’s front page articles consisted of: local roller coaster closed again this year; local woman converts to Catholicism; local weather hits all-time rain high).  Out of these three front pagers, I can only justify the last one because there’s some people being flooded out of their homes due to the inordinant amounts of rain we’ve gotten this month. 

Anyhoo, I was reading this short little diddy that the local newspaper publishes from USA Today.  I guess there are a couple of pages inside that are reserved for USA Today reporting to save money by firing local staffers garner strength by joining forces in this flailing industry.  It simply prints out the entire page’s layout; font, everything as though you’re suddenly reading USA Today: a full “copy and paste” job.  I felt terrible because I just flat-out guffawed when I read this quick paragraph about an elderly woman who died.  I didn’t find her death amusing in the slightest, but rather the way it was written: “Janet Richardson fell ill while on a Scandinavian cruise and was being transferred to a rescue boat on March 29 when coast guard officers let her stretcher drop into the sea.”  [Italics added for emphasis.]  I mean, it makes the coast guard of whatever country (unidentified, but presumably the UK, based on the rest of the short, mini-article) seem like they just didn’t give a shit (Click here for a slightly more detailed version of the same article I read.  This particular article specifies that it was the Norwegian Sea Rescue that “let her” take a swimmy-swim in the freezing waters).  Man, whoever the “Staff and wire reports” author of that article is, sure had little empathy for those bloody “coast guard officers”, huh?  As I said, I felt badly that I laughed, but for an AP article in a newspaper, it seemed pretty harsh.  (Maybe the author is a blogger, too…)

So back to the newspaper.  That was just the frosting – the aforementioned article’s poorly written sentence made me laugh, although riddled with guilt immediately thereafter.  I couldn’t help myself, comrades!  I read two more articles that made me go “hmm”, or more accurately, “Goddamn, that’s fucking crazy…” 

The first was on female soldiers on combat duty on the front lines in Afghanistan.  What got to me was that the military does have female soldiers that are (and have been) taking direct “enemy” fire and returning fire to the “enemy” for some time now.  Yet the Army still has a gender-exclusion policy.  Granted, the pay is the same as their male counterparts based on the soldiers’ respective ranks, however, despite these real-combat experiences, these women face absurd and quite frankly, impossible hurdles when it comes to advancement!  This is because female soldiers are officially not part of a given infantry that they serve, but rather, they are “attached” to a unit so as to bypass the present gender-exclusion policy enacted by the Army.  Therefore there is no female officer that is allowed to lead an infantry company, let alone officially be part of one.  Yet there they are, belonging and serving alongside their male brethren and comrades, facing life and death, doling out life and death.

Then the article continued to describe the brilliant notion that the women are subjected by regulation to have the opportunity to bathe “every few days”.  Okay.  So the female of our species is to be kept clean.  How sweet.  In order to make this happen, they need to leave their unit (I guess they become temporarily “detached”), jump onto a truck convoy to drive an hour or so back to the nearest base, and get cleaned up!  Mind you, this is a warzone, ergo jumping on a truck convoy to get back to base in order to get cleaned up and smell like the roses that the female combatants “attached” soldiers should, is not without risks. 

I cannot say whether these female soldiers like this opportunity to bathe or not, however, I would guess that if given the choice, they would prefer to go through each day as the rest of their unit does.  I would imagine that basic hygiene accommodations already exist, such as antibacterial wipes or the like.  But really?  “Sorry toots, but you gotta go get cleaned up ‘cause you are one fine mama.  Just make sure the driver avoids IEDs and mines n’ shit.  By the way, thanks for your service.  You did a hell of a job with that suppressin’ fire, darlin’.  But I’ll be Goddamned if they ever promote you to lead an infantry company!”

The second article was about the recent debacle with the FAA.  Apparently in the airline industry, fatigue is a significant cause or contributing factor to aviation accidents.  This is not surprising, considering how some days I am so tired at work that I find myself struggling to stay focused whether I am at my desk or worse, while driving to an appointment at times.  I am sure most of us have experienced that fatigue factor while driving, where your head tilts forward and you suddenly raise up your head realizing that you nearly nodded off.  Similarly, airline pilots experience fatigue and the FAA even proposed that pilots be permitted to nap during the cruise phase of their flight, so that they can be more focused during landings.  Nope!  The FAA apparently rejected their own recommendations. 

The issue with fatigue for flight controllers is with regards to the overnight shift.  These flight controllers sit in dark, dimly lit towers, staring at the iridescent glow of a radar screen for hours.  The overnight shift has been scrutinized in recent weeks due to the many mishaps that were occurring: flight controllers falling asleep, watching movies, not responding to requests for landing, etc.  Now I’m not excusing these situations and am just as outraged about it as anyone.  However, I also understand that if you’re the only person doing the graveyard shift, and you’re bored out of your mind, fending off the desire to lay your head down even for a moment because your internal clock is all fucked up; well, I get it.  You gotta do something to keep yourself awake.  That sucks!

Just last week, I heard on the radio US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood say brazenly (and quite confidently, I might add), “On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps.  We’re not going to allow that.”  Okay, Mr. LaHood.  Well, apparently two years ago, the FAA made the recommendation to officially allow the air traffic controllers to take naps when they were not directing traffic due to this fatigue issue.  Sounds reasonable enough, no?  Nope!  Uh, can I take a quickie nap during my personal break?  “Nope!  Listen up!  This is the United States!  You think we’re gonna pay you to take a nap?  Not on my watch, you little motherfucker!  Oh, you just wanna go have a smoke?  Go for it!  What about public safety for passengers and those on the ground?  Shit.  That’s your job!  Just do your job!” 

Sweet.  Bureaucracy at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.  I am sure some kind of reasonable arrangement can be made for both pilots and air traffic controllers (as well as others in the transportation field), which would not be construed by the general public as offensively as workers that are “paid to nap”.  It seems reasonable to put safety over this political hubbub, which is nothing more than bull-shit-talk based on perceived public perception of indignation.  "What?  They sleep while they’re on the job?  Who do they think they are?"  Yeah, kinda like you, who checks out porn on the job, or you, who streamed a basketball game during March Madness while on the job, or you, who drank too much the night before and put your head down on your desk to take a quick nap last year. 

And lest we forget, for you ladies in camouflage, you ladies go get yourselves cleaned up ‘cause we love our women combatants “attached” soldiers smelling nice and clean.  See what we do for you?  Just don’t mind the possibilities that you’ll get blown up by enemy combatants during your drive back to base, and oh, forget about that promotion in the future.  You’re just a girl!  Thank you, by the way, for your service.