By Jason Atkinson, on Fri Sep 20, 2013 at 1:31 PM ET  Conservation in America is shifting to the “radical middle.” The extreme edges of the political spectrum, right and left, the partisans, protect the status quo. That has radicalized those caught in middle, where most Americans live, where people and their local environments suffer the consequences of partisan gridlock. People want and need action, not obstruction.
A perfect example of the radical middle is Long Island’s Great South Bay. A true grassroots movement from towns like — Babylon, Sayville, Bellport, Patchogue and a dozen others — want their bay back. For centuries, this bay produced oysters, finfish, and clams, providing livelihoods to thousands of families. Today, that world is all but gone, destroyed by over-harvesting, rampant over-development, along with the gross mismanagement of the bay and of Fire Island, the barrier beach forming the bay’s southern border. A laissez-faire approach to resource management led to a ‘tragedy of the commons.’
Until now, the issues faced by Long Island’s shorelines and Fire Island were addressed ‘top-down,’ with The Army Corps of Engineers literally drawing lines in the sand. When a storm washed away dunes on Fire Island, or breached the barrier, the solution was simple: pile more sand. Billions spent over the decades to defend the indefensible, with the baymen knowing all along their bay needed regular flushing the breaches and shifting sands provided. The bay needs clean ocean water to come in an out with the tide, regardless of who is in office. But money can move faster than sand, and after all, there were were summer homes with basements to protect. The Army Corps, like America itself, has been informed by the old rules of conservation, where man can supposedly bend nature to our will and still protect it.
With Sandy, however, came “The Breach,” a place on Fire Island’s National Seashore where the ocean broke through to the bay where The Army Corps of Engineers had limited jurisdiction. They couldn’t, post-Sandy, go and fill it in as they had with two other breaches. Within weeks, locals began to see years of stagnation convert into clear water. Fish returned, clam growth accelerated, eelgrass started sprouting. Residents of the South Shore could see their past again — and just maybe their future. They rallied fiercely to defend the breach against Democrats like Senator Schumer and Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County Executive, who sought its immediate closure, for reasons having nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.
Buried on Long Island are an estimated 500,000 septic tanks seeping into its sandy soil and triggering brown tides, rust tides, red tides, and blue green algae, wiping out Long Island’s bays, rivers and ponds. The Brookhaven town dump, referred to locally as “Mt. Trashmore,” the only mountain seen from the bay, leach downhill into the water, too. Mainline conservationists have failed to convey to the larger public they have come to the point where Long Island is at the brink of an ecological collapse.
The radical middle knows the problems we face are fixable, building clean bays and protecting our waters is not rocket surgery. The old way of thinking is that all environmental issues are organized vertically, mainly in one party. My friends on the extreme right would say ‘this is all an environmental conspiracy,’ whereas our supposed Democratic stewards have typically funneled money into the hands of the incompetent.
Save The Great South Bay has focused on the local shared love of the bay transcending all party lines. No budget to speak of, no lobbyists, no lawsuits. Party lines, environmental left and Tea Party labels, no longer apply. Marshall Brown, Founder of Save The Great South Bay, strategically organized laterally around a shared concern, rather than preach to the vertical choir. The radical middle started getting the word out what was at stake and what could be. To date, no Army Corp bulldozer has driven on the strip of beach to fill the breach and once again choke off The Great South Bay.
So how come an Oregonian is talking about Long Island? The reason is the radical middle does something we don’t think Congress is capable of: working for the good of America first. The Great South Bay is as important to Oregonians as preventing the Pebble Mine in Alaska is to Iowans. Conservation reflects who we all are as Americans. The radical middle is ahead; way head in fact, of our politicians. In essence, they are a better definition of public service than those making decisions with an eye on a lobby donation.
Don’t blame politicians, they don’t know any different than the old way of thinking. Winners, losers, fear and loathing is how they get elected. This new conservation movement created along horizontal lines and reaching across to people, holds no victory for these types of leaders. How can you be a true environmentalist working with a Republican? How can you get reelected if people who share the same concern you do are not part of your party? Marshall Brown states inclusively: “This is our bay, our heritage.” While politicians are playing partisanship gridlock, Brown and radical middle Americans like him are leading.
(Cross-posted at The Huffington Post)
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Sep 20, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET  Yes! It really can happen. And just did to me.
No. Not anything catastrophically bad. Just something catastrophically idiotic and stratospherically unlikely.
I use these USB modems for remote internet access—live off of them, really. It’s a must have for me because I travel a great deal and work out of my car frequently.
So when I lost it several weeks ago I panicked. And scoured my office. And scoured my home office. And scoured the rest of my home. And scoured my car. And scoured them all again. Twice.
Finally, in desperation, after going two weeks without my usb internet lifeline, I broke down Friday afternoon and bought a new one. It was full price. About $150 and they set up a new SIM card for me in the store. It was like getting oxygen again for someone with respiratory problems. I could breathe again….internet-wise, anyway.
Friday was great. But then on Saturday I was in my car and needed to send some emails and tracked down my handy USB modem–but it wasn’t connecting. I tried again later in the day. No connection and a message to call AT&T to activate.
 I shrugged and figured it was new and the bugs needed to be worked out— and it would work next time–like it did Friday. But today and tonight it failed again. Frustrated…I called AT&T…and was put on hold for 26 minutes while I thought of all the reasons this shouldn’t be happening that AT&T should be made aware of…
After running through the first customer service rep who was stumped…I was transferred to a more expert customer service rep….She was stumped, too, after I explained what had happened and that my USB modem wasn’t working.
She then asked me to open up the modem and read her the SIM Card number. I ripped off the back of the modem and finally found the SIM card. I growled out the teeny-tiny numbers to her after pointing out “No human can read these without a magnifying glass.”
When I finished she said, “That’s not possible.”
“Why not, I asked.” She laughed and said, “That is your old SIM Card number.” And added, “You have apparently found your old USB Modem and lost your new USB Modem with the new SIM Card that is activated.”
I paused….for a long time. Part dumbfounded, part humiliated, part wanting to crawl into the fetal position under my desk. It seemed like 3 minutes passed before I spoke again ….but was really only about 5 1/2 seconds. “Well, um, can you fix it?”
“No. Not over the phone. That card has been de-activated and you’ll have to go to an ATT store tomorrow to get a new SIM Card for your old USB Modem.” Pausing before chirping helpfully, “Or you could find your new USB Modem. It should still work.”
So, tomorrow I’m scouring my office. And then my home office. And then the rest of my home and my car….to find the new USB Modem I just bought to replace the old USB Modem I had lost but inadvertently found and mistook for the new USB Modem. But can’t use anymore since I activated the new USB Modem on Friday.”
And customer service chalked up another “story” for the bar later tonight.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Sep 19, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
The other day a journalist friend came by my office with her 11 year old son who was wise beyond his years. I learned he was a gifted student who liked science and art.
I responded, “Wow. That’s a rare combination. Like someone who is good at both math and verbal on the SAT” to show I understood smart sounding stuff too.
I tried to engage the young man and encourage him. I asked him what science courses he liked and he said, I believe, bio-technology and I maybe something about genetics. Finally he mentioned chemistry. Yes! I was back in the conversation. I said, “Yeah, chemistry….Yeah. It’s tough isn’t it. That’s the one with the Periodic Tables and all those hard to remember formulas. I mean….you know, ummm….little um…you know. Little uh…formulas.”
“You mean, chemical elements?”
“That I do,” I said. “Yes, I mean the chemical elements.”
Excited to be engaged by an interested adult, he pulled out some art work for me to see. I perused it and tried to interpret it so he would think I knew more about art than my weak showing with science.
It was a complicated drawing with war and chaos and peace and tranquility juxtaposed.
I suggested, “I think I get this.” Adding, “I’ve always loved to artistic mind and trying to understand what motivates it.” I offered, “I think I get what you are saying here. You are saying there is a war….battle of some sort….and then after we get through that….after we get through that …there is peace and happiness. Right?”
“Yeah” my young friend said.
Then I focused in on the one part of the drawing I didn’t understand. There were two rabbits. One drawn in the war zone and the other in the peace zone.
“I’m thinking….the rabbits. I’m thinking the rabbits probably mean, or signify…..I’m not.. …No….Hmmm. I’m guessing the rabbits are to symbolize…..uh….I don’t know. Tell me about the…So, what do the rabbits stand for.”
“Oh, nothing” my young friend explained. “I just like rabbits.”
And finally a breakthrough for me. “I totally get that” I said. “I like rabbits too.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Sep 18, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Why can’t they make one of those?
I need a smartphone app that explains the meaning of life to me and then charts my daily progress on a multi-color graph based on a bracelet I wear and the spiritual significance of daily activities I input on this smartphone app after I sign in.
And I want to be able to post my weekly progress report on Facebook.
By Krystal Ball, on Wed Sep 18, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Sep 18, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Sep 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
“My most emasculated—or feminine— moment. You know what I mean.”
A friend and I were having coffee Friday and he brought up a topic and used the term “emasculated.” That is a painful word to read and even more painful to write and dern near impossible to say out loud. But there it was.
Except we weren’t sure if we were using it in the right sense. My friend meant it in the “males are de-powered by women” sense. I think I was thinking of it in the singing castrato sense. And then both of us–at least partially–meant it in in terms of a “man feeling overly feminine” sense.
We didn’t say it but understood what we were talking about and were just going with it….and my friend had that look of “Don’t interrupt the flow of the story by asking the precise definition of a word.” Followed by the “”You know what I mean” look. You know what I mean when I say the “You know what I mean” look, right?
Anyway, that got me to thinking afterwards, “What situation in my life made me feel the most, well, feminine, that I’ve ever felt?”
OK. It’s a guy thing. We don’t like talking about such things but have been known to quietly wonder about it. (Just not write about it on Facebook). That’s an attention-seeking thing…and another story all together. But back to my point.
I had grown up in a household filled with women outnumbering men by a significant multiple. A lot of good came out of that. I was more nuanced and sensitive and had better grammar than most my male counterparts. The bad? Mostly things like not learning how to fish or hunt or shoot a gun or change the car oil. Or, yes, even change a tire.
By the time I was in my mid 30s I had never had to change a flat tire and started to secretly imagine I might get through life not knowing how to change a tire and no one ever finding out. Like having webbed feet and wearing socks my whole life so no one ever knew. The shame of not knowing how to change a tire was abating….and a sense of me possibly outsmarting the system began to displace it.
Until the year 2001. I went to visit the North Carolina secretary of state, Elaine Marshall, and went with my IT programmer, Steve Spisak. We were going because Sec Marshall offered to give us her office’s software code for an e-government initiative we were implementing so we wouldn’t have to purchase it or write it internally. Just give her office credit for it.
Steve Spisak is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and makes me feel more masculine than most guys because I suspected that although he probably knew the mechanics of things like changing a tire he probably tried once as a boy and hurt himself and ran to his room and started writing computer code instead and never looked back.
Driving home from dinner that night with Secretary Marshall the unthinkable happened. Lo and behold, Sec Marshall’s car breaks down. Actually the car didn’t break down. And I began to realize she’d simply had a flat tire. She was relieved. I was mortified. I didn’t say “S**t!” out loud. But it came up inside me automatically from so deep a place I worried others might have heard it. I know I did. It was an agonizing slow motion “Ssss*****eeeee*****tttt!”
I was petrified. It was the South and I was with a female colleague as her guest and my brilliant software programer. Meaning I was the more masculine looking of the two males present— and was about to have to finesse my way through pretending how to change a tire while not knowing how to change a tire.
My first bluff was acting like time was of the essence and we needed to call AAA. Elaine balked and said that would take extra time and we’d have to tip the driver and for me to just change the tire and she’d help.
I said, “Sure. OK.” and then tried to play along. At least for the next 15 seconds until I could think of my next move.
I did remember the spare tire is kept in the trunk…so I slyly —almost cavalierly –strutted to the back of the car like I’d done this a thousand times before. I asked her to pop the trunk in as masculine a voice as I could muster. She did. But there was no spare tire that I could see. That noise came from deep down inside me again….Fortunately Steve knew to look under the mat in the trunk and someone had apparently hidden the spare underneath it in a spare-sized hollowed out area. I thought to myself, “I wonder if they made it that way on purpose so the spare wouldn’t stick out?” Before I could decide if car manufacturers hollowed out a place for spare tires in the trunk of cares, I was caught off guard again. The dang tire changing equipment was screwed into the trunk and had to be unscrewed! Steve helped with this too–and fortunately Secretary Marshall couldn’t see us and I just acted all busy and made grunting sounds so Elaine would think I was doing most the work behind the popped trunk.
I did carry the tire to the exact correct tire that needed replacing— the one that was flat. I placed the tire on the ground long ways. Steve picked it up and rolled it instead of carrying it like a medicine ball as I did. I made a mental note to remember that the next time I had to fake change a tire to roll don’t carry it like a medicine ball or baby.
Steve started doing something that looked to me like unscrewing a tire bolt…and it wasn’t easy. I jumped in and the two of us–a computer programer and a male secretary of state—gave it all the effort we possibly could while a bemused damsel in distress and female secretary of state watched on and hoped her two gallant heroes didn’t hurt themselves. I remember as I twisted with all my might falteringly a story about a 94 year old woman lifting a car off of a baby in a moment of super human strength to save the baby and hoped I could muster something like that now. I didn’t think try to imagine a baby’s life depending on the flat tire being successfully changed…but was ready to when the bolt finally turned. “Urrrr!” I growled. Like Steve and I had just finished placing a gigantic ton-sized stone in place at Stonehenge.
And the worst part was there were three more bolts to go. No one who built Stonehenge put 4 different ton-sized stones in place. It just wasn’t fair we were going to have to change the whole tire.
And then I got lucky. I love it when that happens. A local reporter walked by and asked what we were doing as he recognized Secretary of State Marshall. I laughed confidently and introduced myself as a fellow secretary of state from Kentucky and explained Elaine had had a flat tire and I was –with my colleague–changing the tire……and said it in that, you know, in that way that we guys do when we know how to change a flat tire. At least that was the impression I tried to create. I mean….c’mon…maybe the male secretary of California may not know how to change a tire. But Kentucky? No way. All man, here, sir!
The reporter looked over at our progress and I worried he was going to start criticizing our handiwork…but he didn’t. I suspect he may have been one of us. A non-tire changing male….because he only stayed long enough to quip he was writing a blurb piece the next day in the NC Observer titled “How many secretaries of state does it take to change a tire?” We all laughed heartily and knowingly as he walked away— and I just hoped he didn’t realize the answer was at least 3 and probably more.
After that I acted like I didn’t want to get in Steve’s way and, heck, Elaine and I had some serious business to discuss and I’d do that instead of changing the flat tire–in the interest of being efficient with our time. I still pretended to stay engaged with the flat tire work to avoid suspicion and did things like looked around for other reporters and passersby. Not sure how that contributed anything but it made me look busy and prevented the assumption that I didn’t know how to change a tire.
Steve finished up and I pretended to put the tools in the right place in the back of the car and we drove off. Two days late, Secretary Marshall emailed us the blurb piece about secretaries of state and changing tires. And we all had a good laugh.
And as I reflected on that night I realized I had narrowly…oh so narrowly….escaped. And just hoped that I wouldn’t find myself in that position again for at least another 50-60 years (having to change a flat tire) when I would be too old to change a flat tire and just let people assume I knew how but didn’t ask due to my advanced age. That was my plan. Put off the next flat tire for 50-60 years.
And it seemed to be working the first few weeks. And I could chalk up my funny Elaine Marshall and Steve Spisak NC flat tire story as the answer to the question, “What situation in your life did you feel the most feminine?”
As I said, my plan was flawless for 2 weeks. Then 3 weeks. And 50-60 years seemed not all that far away in the offing…. at least where flat tires were concerned. Until the next week while driving home from Frankfort in a state car during 5pm rush hour….it happened. I had a flat tire. The swear word from deep down inside me didn’t even come up this time. But sweat beaded on my forehead.
I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t like carrying one back then because I liked to think to myself without worrying about my phone ringing at any moment and startling me and causing me to lose my train of thought. So I couldn’t call for help.
Cars whizzed by. A few even honked because they were friends– but not good enough friends to feel guilty about not stopping to help me change a flat tire. Those flat tire changing friends are very rare friends indeed.
It was too far to walk back to Frankfort….so I tried waving down a car to help. I figured I might get lucky and get a 18 wheeler to pull off ….perhaps the driver would have some time on his hands and being very masculine (like truck drivers are) he would change the tire for me without ever asking if I knew how to. Just for the exercise and to show off, I figured. I kept my navy blazer on while flagging down cars in hopes whoever stopped would offer to change the tire for me and not suspect I was more likely to be able to explain String Theory than successfully change my own flat tire.
I thought back on my experience in NC a few weeks earlier and started chuckling to myself. “Hey,” I said to myself, “At least you won’t be ‘that’ embarrassed” this time……
A car pulled off the road to help. “John?” said a friendly voice. I didn’t recognize the gentleman but was so grateful he was kind enough to stop. He was a state employee and I shook his hand and thanked him profusely for stopping. He said he knew what it felt like to be in this situation and felt bad for me and wanted to help.
At about that time I noticed he was wearing a small diamond earring and was immaculately dressed—at least compared to my rumpled navy blazer. He also was thin and fit and very nice and sure of himself. And just as he was about to ask me to pop the trunk I realized that my rescuer was quiet possibly a gay man.
I tried not to think in stereotypes but was horrified that I was about to have to explain to this wonderfully kind and presumably gay man that I didn’t know how to change a tire.
As I realized my most feminine feeling moment ever (which had just happened in NC a month earlier) was being displaced by a new experience on the side of the road in Waddy Peytona. And I didn’t have Steve, my computer programmer, to cover for me and simultaneously make me look more masculine than I was.
And then I realized I may have caught a miraculous break. The wonderful thing about gay men (and that was just an assumption) is you can tell them things like “I don’t know how to change a tire” and not lose any of your masculinity while at the same time watching them take over and change the tire for you because, hetero guys are like TV sitcom husbands and dads —useless in a humorous kind of way. I was so relieved and I felt my secret was safe. It was like I was telling a longtime best friend a deep dark secret about myself–and not being shamed. It was liberating too.
My new friend changed my tire in record time and without breaking a sweat. He changed that tire like Steve Spisak writes code. And much better than Steve Spisak changes a tire–even with me pretending to help.
I drove away and started to make peace with the fact that I didn’t know how to change a flat tire….and I may or may not have 50-60 years before I have my next flat tire. But that was OK now because I had a back up plan. If I had a flat tire in the future I would try to flag down a competent and compassionate gay man who wouldn’t judge me. And still change my tire for me.
That was 15 years ago….and counting.
By Artur Davis, on Tue Sep 17, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET A few takeaways from Bill de Blasio’s apparent victory in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary:
(1) If the New York Times’ insider account of his strategy is accurate (and not just post victory spin by consultants) de Blasio deserves a substantial amount of strategic credit for running against the grain of initial polling as well as conventional wisdom. Six months ago, the best empirical and anecdotal evidence was that New Yorkers were generally contented with the city’s direction, and preferred a successor that offered a continuation of Michael Bloomberg’s policy tilt, albeit in a less autocratic, more compassionate style. It turns out that had de Blasio heeded that mindset rather than challenging it, his candidacy would likely have suffered from the thematic muddle that damaged Christine Quinn’s and Bill Thompson’s efforts.
That is no small nod to de Blasio, given that most campaigns become prisoners of their own data and the temptation to craft a message broad enough to leave virtually every sector of the electorate (and the universe of endorsers) in play. And in making a bold play for a silent, but disgruntled majority, de Blasio enabled himself to benefit from an emergent shallowness in Bloomberg’s popularity: once the voice of opposition to Bloomberg became an unabashed liberal (and the ad featuring that candidate’s polished, appealing son) as opposed to Fox-loving critics of soda bans and the National Rifle Association, the mayor’s approval ratings bled, and his putative heir, Quinn, collapsed. (for a similarly adept Republican example of tossing conventional wisdom aside, see Bobby Jindal’s 2003 race for Governor of Louisiana, when an obscure, thirty-something Indian policy wonk opted to run on a comprehensive ethics platform when polls described the state’s tepid economy and the wounded petroleum industry as the major voter concerns. Jindal lost in 03, but his 48 percent showing tagged him as a fresh figure who became the presumptive favorite four years later.
 (2) Bill Thompson’s inability to mobilize the African American vote, which had he dominated it, would have put him and de Blasio in a dead heat, is even more surprising than it seems on first glance. Unlike, say, my own 2010 race as a right of center Democrat, Thompson’s campaign was a conventionally liberal affair that, post primary rationalizations aside, actually spent considerable energy and advertising on assailing New York’s stop and frisk laws. To be sure, there was a lawyerly, nuanced bent to the substance of Thompson’s arguments—more thorough supervision versus an outright repeal—but it is unlikely that Thompson’s increasingly personal and forceful denunciations of the controversial tactic did not register on the city’s African American electorate. Nor did Thompson, by the way, reap much benefit from his support from one of New York’s influential and minority dominated teacher unions.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: The Tale of New York
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Sep 16, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Want to really know someone? You know what I mean? I mean…”really know their souls?” Not just how they want you to think about them…or the way they are when times are good and things are going their way.
I also don’t mean knowing someone in a crisis situation. I mean just knowing their real temperament, their respect for others and their sense of themselves and their place in the world.
If you do, there is not better way to do this than watching how they conduct themselves at the Starbucks condiment bar when it is crowded.
Some people, when it is their turn, act like they own the condiment bar all by themselves. When it is their turn they take their sweet time getting their sugar and 2% milk…just like they like it. They obviously have high self esteem but show a lack of respect for others. They tend to be in middle-management and think they have all the answers.
Another group of people don’t even need much sugar or half-and-half but take their sweet time getting it ….in fact, they take much longer than is actually needed. These people don’t have high self-esteem but are actually struggling with low self-esteem and being flagrantly passive aggressive toward others. Being at the condiment bar at Starbucks for them is viewed as a time in their day where they feel they have power over others–and they wield in irresponsibly and excessively. They abuse the condiment bar rules of engagement. They tend to be corporate executives and bored housewives.
What about the people who use the last bit of cream and don’t get it re-filled and instead leave it for the next person who discovers there is no cream left? These are the social deviants who are simply out for themselves. They tend to be stock brokers and lawyers.
Still another group gets very nervous at the condiment bar and starts nervously hurrying to get out of the momentary limelight into the safety of their car. They don’t take the time to put the right amount of sugar and cream in their coffee but will usually at least get the cream and sugar right if they are getting coffee for another person. These people are co-dependent and struggle to see themselves as “worthy” —even worthy of having cream and sugar in their coffee. They are the saddest condiment bar personality type. These types are usually at the bottom of the food chain at work and apologize for even being there.
Finally, there is the type that doesn’t even use cream and sugar but will go to the condiment bar to steal napkins they don’t need for their car. Does this make them criminals? No, not really. But you don’t want to go into business with them….and if you do you can be sure you will always be getting the short end of the stick. They tend to be CEO’s.
Oh yeah, there is one more condiment bar group. The kind that watch others and draw conclusions about their personality. They tend to be the ones who always get stuck with the empty half-and-half canister. And they usually write a lot on Facebook.
By Jeff Smith, on Sun Sep 15, 2013 at 9:28 AM ET Contributing recovering politician Jeff Smith, who spent a year in federal prison for lying to federal authorities about a minor campaign finance violation, offers advice to his fellow pol/prisoner/hoopster Richie Farmer, set to spend some time in the can for public corruption charges. Here are excerpts from Smith’s piece in the (Louisville) Courier Journal:
Use your basketball skills to help others. Running the point and making your teammates better may be an effective way to build alliances.
• Be careful on the court. Some people who have it out for you may exploit the opportunity to try to hurt you on the athletic field and not get in trouble for it….
Don’t break prison rules.
• This may seem contradictory. The last rule suggested that you should tolerate prison rule-breaking — and you should. But try not to violate rules yourself.
• Don’t gamble. If you lose, you’ll be in debt and you do not want to be compromised like that. If you win, someone will be angry and may figure out a way to get his money back — a way that might leave you unrecognizable.
• Don’t “hold” anything someone asks you to hold. Even if it looks innocuous, it’s probably got contraband inside of it…
Don’t look for trouble.
• Don’t change the TV channel. There is a stringent seniority-based regime when it comes to TV watching, and your celebrity does not entitle you to alter it in any way.
• Don’t stare. There is generally no reason to make eye contact unless someone says your name.
• Don’t eat the Snickers. During orientation, you’ll watch a mandatory sexual assault prevention video featuring a guy warning you not to eat the Snickers bar that may be waiting for you on your bed in your cell. (The actor ate the one left under his pillow, unwittingly signaling the predator who left it for him that he was ready and willing.) All the guys watching the video will laugh. But take the video’s message to heart: Don’t accept sweets from anyone.
Click here for Smith’s full column in the Courier-Journal.
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Conservation in America is shifting to the “radical middle.” The extreme edges of the political spectrum, right and left, the partisans, protect the status quo. That has radicalized those caught in middle, where most Americans live, where people and their local environments suffer the consequences of partisan gridlock. People want and need action, not obstruction.
