Nuclear Opinion

Published on 18 Jan 2006 at 9:24 am. Comments Off.
Filed under Politics.

Forgive me, but I’m wondering why the Democrats have decided not to filibuster the Alito nomination. Why not face the nuclear option and go down fighting? To paraphrase Former Secretary of State Albright, what is the point of having this weapon if you don’t use it? Particularly now, when the future of our nation is literally in the Democrats’ hands?

Surely after the hearings, no one doubts that placing this judge on the Supreme Court will fundamentally change the way the Constitution is interpreted and applied.

  • He does not believe in privacy rights
  • He does not believe in the right to choose
  • He does not believe in affirmative action
  • Apparently, he does not believe in “one man, one vote,” the most fundamental democratic principle of the modern era.

This at a time when our executive branch is behaving more and more and more and more like a totalitarian regime.

Judge Alito will still be sitting on that high court when you are old and gray. (I’m already old and gray; I’ll be dead.)

The Democrats owe it to the country to go down fighting.

They are sacrificing the rights of American citizens to save the Senate minority’s slim (and apparently meaningless) rights.

Buff

Re-solved

Published on 31 Dec 2005 at 7:50 pm. 1 Comment.
Filed under Politics, The Economy, Aging Gracefully.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I am cooking dinner for a friend while she signs her mother up for the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. My friend’s mother is in her late 80’s, is in a nursing home recovering from hip replacement surgery. My friend was glad to take over the task, but was dumbfounded by the complexity of the selection process. My friend is a brilliant attorney. She can decipher a class-action notice, understand the ingredients in a power bar, and beat me (sometimes) at Scrabble. She is sharp and well-educated and tenacious.

But it is 7:50 p.m. New Year’s Eve, and she is still on the computer after an hour, trying to decide what plan is best for her mother, and then to sign her up for it.

She’s back in the kitchen for a glass of wine.

This isn’t her first try. She’s been narrowing down the choices all week. From 29, she got down to three, but when she tried to print the spreadsheet, the program crashed.

  • She had to know her mother’s medication list.
  • She had to have her mother’s Medicare card number (which is not, strangely, her Social Security number).
  • She had to know how much her mother spent last year on prescription drugs (and her mother isn’t using Quicken.)
  • She has to understand why the pharmacist isn’t charging for one prescription, and to guess whether that can possibly last.
  • She had to predict what new drugs her mother might need in the coming year.

And, oddly, she cannot pay by credit card! Instead, at the end, she is given the choice to pay by check or have the cost deducted from her Social Security check (but she isn’t on Social Security; who of us baby boomers will live long enough to receive Social Security? But that is another blog.) She decides to pay for the benefit rather than trouble her mother again. Her mother is tired, in pain, and genuinely worried that her medication won’t be there on New Year’s Day.

It’s a lot to ask of an old lady on New Year’s Eve. I worry about the elderly who don’t have children or caregivers with sufficient information and tenacity to navigate this process.

How did we get into this muddled mess, with a plan written by the drug companies and produced by Rube Goldberg? Open Secrets explains:

Bush topped all other federal candidates in contributions from the pharmaceuticals and health products industry, with more than $466,000 in 1999-2000. Moreover, the industry donated more than $10.6 million in soft money to the GOP during the 2000 election cycle, more than twice the amount it gave to Democrats.

The pharmaceutical industry bought themselves an administration, which was delighted to do its bidding. And then they bought the Congress. The Center for Public Integrity reported:

The pharmaceutical and health products industry has spent more than $800 million in federal lobbying and campaign donations at the federal and state levels in the past seven years, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Its lobbying operation, on which it reports spending more than $675 million, is the biggest in the nation. No other industry has spent more money to sway public policy in that period. Its combined political outlays on lobbying and campaign contributions is topped only by the insurance industry.

The drug industry’s huge investments in Washington—though meager compared to the profits they make—have paid off handsomely, resulting in a series of favorable laws on Capitol Hill and tens of billions of dollars in additional profits. They have also fended off measures aimed at containing prices, like allowing importation of medicines from countries that cap prescription drug prices, which would have dented their profit margins. Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, made a profit of $11.3 billion last year, out of sales of $51 billion.

The vote itself was riddled with unprecedented behavior. In 2005, all attempts—from Republicans as well as Democrats—to improve the legislation, or to reduce its costs, failed.

We might collectively summon the political will to rid ourselves this ridiculous plan–where we pay retail for the largest drug purchase in history. We might get rid of the plan written by the Bush Administration official, Thomas Scully, who went straight to work for the drug industry (with an ethics waiver signed by his boss) as soon as the plan was in place.

But (as is the case with so many of this Administration’s fiascos) we’ll never be able to recover the hours of time, and the anxiety, and the stress suffered by millions of elderly Americans and their families, trying to navigate the three-ring circus that passes for public policy.

Benefit? Bushwah!

Buff

Networked Up

Published on 19 Dec 2005 at 1:55 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under Good Manners, Airlines.

I came home yesterday from a week in Mexico, my composure and harmony destroyed with such efficiency by the return trip that I’m puzzled why America Worst is going under.

Really.

It started on the trip out. My bag was 4 pounds over the limit of 50, and the jerk at the counter made me take things out until I made my weight class (meanwhile, the cat next to me was forking over a set of clubs that weighed more than I do. As did his stomach.) No problem; I just stuffed a couple more books in my backpack. No worries. Be happy

Foolishly thinking, “Hey, this is my vacation! I can indulge myself,” I decided, for a few dollars more to upgrade to first class. Since I don’t drink, this is entirely a matter of being the first one off the plane (and thus through customs). But I told the agent that I didn’t want a bulkhead seat, because my backpack now weighed 5 pounds more and I didn’t want to start my vacation with a torn rotator cuff (Buff is buff, but old, remember?)

When she handed me the boarding pass, it said, 1A. “But I said I didn’t want a bulkhead seat!”

“That’s all there was.”

“But I don’t want a bulkhead seat.”

“You can ask someone to switch with you.”

“You want me to go through first class begging someone to swap with me? Aren’t mendicants a little low rent for first class? I mean, normally you won’t even let me use the restroom.”

“I can’t help you.” So I did ask and of course, no one would switch with me. I was using yoga to lower my blood pressure, and when we boarded, one old guy asked me about it. We talked yoga for awhile, and then he offered to trade with me. One point for good karma.

When I arrived in Mexico, my bag was not there. I’m sure it had nothing to do with my little exchange at the counter. One point for bad karma. Since I was staying 90 km away from the airport, I figured I’d probably pass my luggage on my way home (actually, it arrived at my hotel that night, with the lock gone and the handle ripped off, but everything else intact. A karmic wash, I think.)

One week of peace, quiet, and no electricity (more about this another time.)

Fast forward and I am now in the Puerta Vallarta airport waiting to come home. The restaurant area is filled with so much smoke that you could not see across the room, so I retreated to the gate area, to be surrounded by sunburned and coughing children.

For five hours.

Just like my last trip home from Mexico on America Worst, my return flight was cancelled. And although I ran like a gazelle, trampling retirees and knocking over strollers in my rush to get rebooked, they still put me on the last flight out, so others could make their connections east. I waited patiently as each earlier flight left, hoping for an empty seat. No luck.

Also no telephone call. The gate agent was too busy rebooking other people to give me the time of day, much less a 450 peso long-distance call.

Finally, I made it to the states, and through customs in record time, thinking “If I could just get a boarding pass, I could make the 7:15 flight home.”

But nooooooooooooo. The AmWorst agent took every single bag for rechecking before he would give me a boarding pass. By that time, my flight had left. I was the last to leave, preceded only by a man who spoke no English to whom I had explained where to get to his flight to LA. Not one airline agent in the customs area spoke Spanish. (Just imagine how outraged an American would be if no airline employee in Mexico spoke English . . .)

Two more hours in an airport.

No problem. I had a Netflix movie and just curled up on the floor near an outlet to watch it (I won’t even start my rant about airports humbling all computer users by forcing us to squat like beaten dogs in hallways and under vending machines to feed our starving batteries, while we wait, quietly, for their next flight.)

The movie was Network, more terrifying now than when it came out, because the satire is now too close to reality.*

And I seriously considered standing, in the concourse by the gate where this plane was also late, near Customer Service where other surly agents were telling exhausted passengers that their flight was cancelled, and yes, all the food service in the terminal had closed at 9, and yelling out:

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.

And if it had been a movie, the other passengers would have started to yell, first one, and then many:

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.

People in bare feet at security, hollering:

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.

But in this America, in this airport, I would have been arrested.

Life imitates life.

Buff

*Do go read Ned Beatty’s speech as Arthur Jensen, the head of the holding company that bought the network. It’s a work of such pinpoint cassandran accuracy that I’m surprised Cheney’s speechwriters haven’t plagiarized it.

Transformational State

Published on 15 Dec 2005 at 7:35 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under Politics.

In the beautiful book, “Yoga and the Quest for the True Self,” Stephen Cope writes about the need for transformational spaces—safe environments to nurture and shield us during times of fundamental change. Whether a university, a relationship, a therapy, or a spiritual practice, these protective places promote personal growth by offering safe haven during periods of profound vulnerability—containing us like cribs and cushioning us like bandages, while we move beyond the chrysalis.

While reading this, I realized that the United States needs a transformational space right now. We struggle desperately to mature as a nation, to react to the changing demands of a world with one superpower, to understand our relationship with China, comprehend the cost of environmental damage, and acknowledge both the challenges and limits of scientific discovery. But we can’t learn and grow in a vacuum. Every misstep and error has global consequences. Our enemies attack us, our leaders mislead us, our addiction to oil limits us, and instead of growing, we entrench and attack.

Cope tells of a conversation with a friend—a minister, professor, and artist—who said he worshiped at the library. When Cope asked if had two Gods, the friend replied,

Every mature human being must have more than one church.

These words, more than any editorial or political screed, clarified for me the dangerous circumstances of our nation. Right now, Americans cling childishly to the idea that we must only believe in one thing at a time.

  • If we believe in security, we have to sacrifice freedom.
  • If we are against the war, we can’t also grateful that at least one tyrant in the Middle East has been toppled.
  • And if we supported one idea, we can’t also long for better one.

Look at our politics: We aren’t just polarized, we’re simple-minded. For years, I worried that if I voted for an issue other than choice, I would lose my choice. If I cared about the environment, I couldn’t also care about just immigration policies. And if I wanted a balanced budget, I couldn’t also expect social services. I have alliance deficit disorder.

The Clinton Administration illustrated that nuanced public policy could deliver a lot. Not everything for everyone, but a utilitarian set of beneficial compromises. Too bad that Clinton’s personal immaturity ultimately overshadowed his political sophistication.

The Bush Administration has returned us to a sophomoric era. Everyone is worshiping in only one church. Clearly, this is true of the president. He reminds me of a student I once had, a fundamentalist Christian man who engaged me one day in a lively debate about the role of religion in public life.

“It’s refreshing that you can be so open-minded,” I complimented him.

“Oh no, professor,” he replied seriously. “Once you have found the one true way, an open mind can only lead you astray.”

To him, honest debate led to moral relativism, a minefield in his limited view of the world. One foot off the path and you blow yourself up.

Bush governs with the same closed mind, as if considering alternatives and accepting compromise were heretical. His speech Sunday night didn’t convince anyone otherwise.

He cannot lead the majority because he must cleave to a minority world vision. Far from being a big tent, the Republican Party is a mass of tiny revival tents. And even in that narrow band of the political spectrum, the neocons are losing patience with the Christians, and the fiscal conservatives are fed up with the tax cutters.

The Democrats have deconstructed into disparate congregations as well, forgetting that a broad coalition of interests always defined the party. If a leader speaks to Hispanics, he must be against blacks. If she argues for local schools, she must be against public education. If he cares about business, he must be anti-environment. If she is pro-gay, she is anti-family. They are so busy carping at one another that they barely notice that they lost the country.

A Canadian friend described this as the fundamental flaw in a republic. A parliamentary form of government demands constant compromise, political hand-shaking as well as arm-twisting, and multi-faceted thinking.

Americans have had grown-up government. But we keep regressing to the political Middle Ages. It’s time for us to mature again, to develop beyond our current limited capacity. We need a national transformation.

In Cope’s vision, an unselfish, thoughtful, and charismatic leader can provide a transformational space. I believe this can happen even for a nation. Nelson Mandela was such a man. Franklin Roosevelt was another. Some think Barak Obama may the next.

If one appears in America, will we again become capable as a nation of growth, compromise, maturity? Or, for the slightest heresy, will we each toss him out of our own “True Church”?

Buff

Tortured Logic

Published on 7 Dec 2005 at 1:17 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under Politics, Words.

I heard Senator John McCain on Fresh Air yesterday, speaking about his new book. He’s an amazing man and while I don’t always agree with his politics, I think he says what he believes, a rare commodity in Congress.

McCain is sponsoring an amendment banning torture by all arms of the government.

This amendment would (1) establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of Department of Defense detainees and (2) prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the U.S. government.

The arguments you hear lately against torture are relativist arguments:

  • Torture is ineffective
  • If we torture them, they will torture us
  • Torture isn’t the only means to accomplish our goals
  • Torture makes us look bad.

The problem with relativism is that it can be overcome by more relativism: we must torture in this case, because the death of many is worse than the suffering of a few.

But there is a different, absolutist argument: torture is wrong.

One of the most troubling aspects of American politics is our willingness to compromise our values in times of crisis. At so many moments of national challenge, we give up what we believe to protect what we “believe”:

  • the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII
  • the devaluing of free speech during the McCarthy era
  • and now, post-9/11, the systematic deconstruction of civil rights and fundamental values.

If torture isn’t un-American, what on earth is?

The Bush/Cheney doublespeak on the topic is all the more troubling because we let them get away with it.

President Bush strongly defended U.S. interrogation practices for detainees held in the war on terrorism Monday, insisting, “We do not torture.”

USA Today, November 7, 2005

Just last week, Cheney showed up at a Republican senatorial luncheon to lobby lawmakers for a CIA exemption to an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would ban torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. The exemption would cover the CIA’s covert “black sites” in several Eastern European democracies and other countries where key al Qaeda captives are being kept.

Washington Post November 7, 2005

Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, is this the government you want representing you to the world?

According to news reports today, the House and Senate are close to a compromise on the McCain bill. Even if you’ve never written your Congressional delegation in outrage, this would be a good time to start.

Buff

Salon’s recent coverage of the torture issue

One teenager’s introduction to torture: This American Life, search “Teenage Embed: Part 2″

The Longest Day

Published on 6 Dec 2005 at 8:57 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under About Buff, Etcetera, etcetera.

I was sick this week and decided to tackle a task I hadn’t had time for before: watching the first season of “24″ on DVD. I spread it out over four days, and I’m still recovering.

The plot is a ragged sweater of holes and loose ends. Almost nothing the characters do makes sense; it’s filled with the sort of meaningless action scenes that keep me away from most thrillers, and the “gee, do you think there is danger here?” moves that keep me away from all teen slasher flicks.

Kiefer Sutherland’s range is one letter beyond Dorothy Parker’s famous description of Katherine Hepburn:

  • Angry Action
  • Bullying (and a little Brooding)
  • Crying and Curling into the fetal position (but not for long; see A)

Does “Guns” qualify as an emotion? Unfortunately not, although it captures my constant impulse to shoot the tv.

I was moderately engaged (I was sick, remember?) until 5 p.m. (that’s show-speak for episode 17) when helpless, hapless mom Teri gets amnesia, loser daughter Kim (a role occupied by Elisha Cuthbert) decides to drop in on a drug deal, and Jack pretends to be a Balkan terrorist but leaves his accent at home, taking along instead a sniper who shoots a constant stream of insults into his earpiece.

After that, all bets were off. This show is lousy, and I feel cheated having spent 24 whole hours (actually, without commercials, and credits, it was only about 45 minutes an episode) watching it.

The show is clearly aimed at young couples together, and it has shallow to appeal to both sexes. But the portrayal of women is hilariously flat. I’m not someone who expects brilliant female characters from television (a medium that gave Patricia Arquette an Emmy.) But 24 scales new stereotypes. The madonna-whore spectrum is two characters wide: bitches and bimbos (some, to be fair, are both):

  • Teri, as mentioned, dutiful, clueless, and helpless wife. We can only assume that the actress begged to be murdered so she could return to her career
  • Kim, whose hair has more chops than her acting, a brat who could have saved us all this trouble if she hadn’t snuck out
  • Evil Nina fills both roles, first impersonating a particularly helpful information operation and then — Bang! she’s a clever spy, figuratively screwing the men she was literally screwing before.
  • Extra Evil Sherry Palmer, the bitch queen (apparently modeled after Nancy Reagan) who lies, double-deals, and orders the speechwriter to screw her husband
  • The aforementioned speechwriter, who meekly agrees, and is shocked, Shocked! when she gets fired
  • Nicole Palmer, dutiful daughter/rape victim
  • Jamey, our first turn-coat, who sells out her country to pay hospital bills (a federal employee without health insurance?)
  • Janet, whose most memorable scene was getting her arm broken by her boyfriend
  • Mia Kirshner—Ah! I have fond memories of her from “The L Word.” Her first-episode role, as a terrorist who coyly lures the putative bad guy into the Mile High Club and then parachutes out seconds before blowing up the plane, gave me hope. I should have been suspicious when a broad who can pull that off watches meekly as the bad guy shoot her girlfriend and orders her to participate in some future scheme. Mia, I believed in you. Why couldn’t you just kill him in the pilot and rescue me?

Have I missed anyone? Only a leggy secretary and the dutiful terrorist’s daughter who cooks, cleans, and takes a bullet in the forehead.

The men are no better. David Palmer is more sympathetic, and more believable in the Allstate ads. Dennis Hopper’s accent isn’t good enough to evoke Boris Badinov. And where do the endless cell phones come from?

At the beginning of each show, Jack Bauer stentoriously intones, “This is the longest day of my life.”

That, I believed.

Buff

The Right Religion?

Published on 30 Nov 2005 at 9:37 am. 1 Comment.
Filed under Politics.

I’ve written before about the the devil’s pact many American Jews made to support the Bush administration solely because of his support for Israel. Jews, who have always supported (for good reason) the separation of church and state in America, chose to be silent in the face of the eroding boundary between secular and religious life.

Last night, I watched in disbelief as Barbara Walters (who was raised a Jew and used to be a news anchor) advertised her upcoming special, “Where is Heaven?” Unless she is planning to take viewers there, this is certainly not news! Okay, so not much she does these days is news. But that doesn’t excuse the obsession with religion that is everywhere in the media, including Time and Newsweek.

ABC and CBS have dueling biopics of Pope (soon to be Saint) John Paul II.. No one is pretending this is news, although the coverage of his death did seem excessive (well, not compared to Princess Diana, or, come to think of it, Ronald Reagan . . . .)

The current national attention to religion—as either news or truth—is not only bad news for the state, it’s also bad news for the church. Acquiescing to the notion that this is a Christian nation does not reflect the values of Jews or atheists or Moslems or Buddhists, or, more importantly, Catholics, Mormons, or liberal Protestants.

So it’s a relief to read that Jewish leaders are finally speaking out. In today’s Salon, Michelle Goldberg writes:

Two major Jewish figures — Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism — have taken on the religious right and, by extension, the Republican Party. By doing so, they have enraged some evangelicals and opened a fissure in the larger Jewish community. Some leaders are worried about provoking a conservative backlash and ushering in a new era of anti-Semitism. Others rejoice that someone has finally articulated what so many ordinary American Jews have been thinking. Either way, the culture wars have suddenly taken on an overtly sectarian cast.

Hallelujah. I never did like politicians explaining to me the various reasons I will be going to hell (and they don’t know the half of it.) It has always irked me that American Jews are viewed as a monolith with a single agenda. I don’t support most of what Israel does, and many American Jews don’t. The American Jewish community is as multi-faceted and contentious as Iraq, but with sharp tongues as the only weapons.

Michelle Goldberg says,

Jews in America aren’t endangered, but the power of the religious right has clearly reached a point where a great many feel exceedingly nervous. The fear is not of pogroms or outright discrimination; rather, it’s of the disappearance of the secular civic culture that allowed Jews to feel like full citizens of America rather than a tolerated minority.

Exactly.

So it’s about time that leaders in the Jewish community started speaking out against this Administration’s crusade. How ironic that President Bush is fighting to bring religious freedom to Iraq while systematically deconstructing it at home.

Buff

E-Nail

Published on 22 Nov 2005 at 10:20 am. Comments Off.
Filed under Words.

E-mail is such an efficient, low-cost medium that we often overlook its hidden costs. I’m not talking about the hours we spend writing epics for an audience of one. I’m not including the carpal tunnel, or the adult-onset ADD, which distracts us from useful work whenever we hear the ping! of a new message arriving in the in box.

I’m referring to the unfortunate circumstance, almost unthinkable in the BC (before personal computers) era, when the author suffers deep embarrassment because a communication is sent to a person referred to in critical or unflattering terms. As in,

Max e-nailed me when he forwarded to Sally my message about her blind date.

I was first e-nailed early in my history when I asked a few colleagues for advice handling a difficult member of the faculty. One recipient, for motives clearly venal, forwarded my message to the subject, who issued a faculty-wide rebuttal that included my original message.

Was my face red.

You can also be e-nailed accidentally, when a long string of exchanges gets copied to a larger group, the sender having forgotten that somewhere in the early e-mails, personal comments or confidential information were included.

What I can’t seem to learn is that some things should not be put in writing. Repeating what you say you’ve heard ranks as gossip, and it’s always subject to disbelief or denial. But that copy of your pithy prose sent to the immediate world is harder to explain.

This just didn’t happen in the days of written communication. You never accidentally sent a letter to someone, and only the biggest jerk would photocopy an unflattering letter and send it to the subject.

Of course, I’ve e-nailed myself in a variety of ways. The worst was when I was asked my opinion about a colleague, and replied candidly. Since the inquiring party wanted contact information, I used “auto-suggest” in the cc field to find his address. That feeling when I realized that I had sent the e-mail without erasing his address?

E-nailed.

Buff

Willing to Agree

Published on 19 Nov 2005 at 4:00 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under Politics, The Economy.

I hardly know what to think when I agree with George Will.

But a recent column is not only cogent but accurate. He says,

It does me no injury,'' said Thomas Jefferson,for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But it is injurious, and unneighborly, when zealots try to compel public education to infuse theism into scientific education. The conservative coalition, which is coming unglued for many reasons, will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades.

He picks up on one theme that I’ve been advancing for years: Government won’t willingly get smaller. Public choice theory ultimately means that government will not shrink itself no matter who controls it. The current all-Republican Washington proves it. It’s a tendency as aberrant as suicide for elected officials to refuse to exercise their power to legislate their opinions, favor their contributors, or send home the pork. (BTW, the removal of the $452 million Alaska “bridges to nowhere” appropriation was a joke; the money was just added to their general highway revenues.)

Remember the dismantling of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the late 70’s? What a remarkable achievement. I happened to know Alfred Kahn, the man who oversaw it—he was an economist, not a politician, so perhaps that helped.

I hate to be adding to the growing Clinton hagiography, but let’s give the guy credit: the government got smaller under Clinton, in ways that benefitted the overall economy, and cut both taxes and spending. So if we wish to praise the greatest conservative president of the 20th Century, we should call it Bill Clinton National Airport!

Taxing Ride

Published on 15 Nov 2005 at 10:00 pm. Comments Off.
Filed under Good Manners, Etcetera, etcetera.

I’ve always hated bad cab drivers. I hate it when the cab has an overpowering air freshener but I also hate it when they smell of cigarettes or b.o. I hate when the driver speeds up and then stomps on the brakes until I have motion sickness. And I hate it when drivers don’t know where they are going.

Once I took a cab in Chicago from my hotel to a blues bar. I didn’t know exactly where we were going, but he had no clue, as I discovered when we drove through the same intersection from all four directions. Finally, in disgust, I just got out at a stop light. Not the smartest move. It was snowing. I was freezing. And I had no idea where to find the bar or another cab.

So I did what any damsel in distress would do.

I hailed a cop.

I asked for direction to a cab stand, but when they heard my story, they offered to take me to the bar instead. It turned out to be a few blocks away. During the ride, I told them I’d been married to a cop and they told me about their ex-wives. When we arrived, they told me to stay in the car for a minute, and one of them spoke to the doorman. The doorman let me cut the line and I said goodbye to the cops.

I couldn’t imagine why everyone was staring at me, having momentarily forgotten that I arrived in the back of a police car.

Someday I’ll tell you about the cab that followed me home.

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