Bead 25: Notes from the Road + National Park Price Hikes

On November 3, my son and I drove out of our neighborhood and down the road toward Madera.  That felt normal enough.  Living in the Sierra Nevada foothills, there are myriad reasons to descend to the Valley every now and then—Costco, Trader Joe’s, the airport, jury duty.  What didn’t feel normal that day was that, after a quick errand in Madera, we kept driving.  And driving.  And driving.  

We made it to Truckee that night; to Portland a few days later.  Then came Seattle, Bellingham, Ellensburg, La Grande.  Then Utah, New Mexico.  Still we kept driving. 

Five thousand miles later, I am finally catching my breath.  We aren’t home yet.  Actually, we are just the opposite: homeless.  We gave up our rental in California and have assumed a new, mobile life, stitching our way between friends and family all around the country, camping some, springing for Airbnb’s in the blank spots on the map, regions without loved ones.

Six weeks into our indeterminate journey, we have crossed fifteen states.  We have invaded nine households, lingering for two hours or two days; in one case, ten days.  Now we’re with my sister and her family in Kentucky.  The plan is to stay here for a full month, until after the New Year.  For once, I have fully extracted my clothes from my backpack and arranged them on hangers, in drawers.  I have joined a gym.  It feels good.

But the road feels good, too.  It’s what I chose.  Fall came, and like the Sierran songbirds, I knew it was time to move.  Unlike the songbirds, I had no idea where to go.  So I decided just to go around for a while, until our landing spot came into focus.

One of our temporary homes over the last 6 weeks, Gallo Campground in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM

One thing I have not done on the road is be political.  In fact, I’d estimate I fell off the wagon a full month shy of our departure date.  There were so many boxes to pack, logistics to manage, goodbyes to say.  What had earlier in the year felt like end times started to feel more like background noise.  I couldn’t make myself care anymore.  No matter what I did, there would be shitty new news everyday.

I felt a little guilty about letting my Beads lapse.  But just a little.  Wouldn’t it be fun, I thought, to try lighter writing?  I could start a new blog about our travels.  I would call it Roadstead, named for the fact that we are, amid all the visits and sightseeing, searching for our homestead.  Or I could not start a new blog.  I could just suddenly morph 52 Beads into Roadstead.  “And for my next Bead, I will buy a new traveling houseplant!”  That sort of thing.

But now, with time to breathe, I can feel my engine starting up again.  Not my four-cylinder Subaru engine; that’s thankfully cooling in my sister’s front yard.  My resistance engine.  I can’t say I’m feeling especially indignant or emotional about anything.  I’m not burning to pick up the phone or paint a sign, like before.  But I’m aware that, while I’ve been drifting, the world has continued to burn.  And I’m feeling ready to once again do my part. 

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM

 

Just before Thanksgiving, in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, I renewed my “America the Beautiful” pass.  That’s my annual $80 ticket to any National Park, National Monument, National Forest, or National Recreation Area I care to visit, good for me and whoever I can fit in my car.  It felt especially important to renew my pass right then because of the Department of the Interior’s October 24 proposal to more than double the entrance fees at our 17 top-revenue National Parks during peak visitation season.  I naturally expected price hikes for the annual passes, too.

“I have to buy this now, before it goes up to $150,” I said to the interpretative ranger who was running my debit card.

“Yeah, or $500,” he said.

As it turns out, the America the Beautiful pass will hold steady at $80.  But at Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, and Arches, what was once an affordable family outing will become a luxury.  

It’s the latest assault by the Trump Administration on public lands.  It wasn’t enough for them to illegally shrink two of our National Monuments.  It wasn’t enough for them to expedite oil and gas development on BLM land, notwithstanding sluggish markets.  It wasn’t enough for them to tuck into their nearly-enacted tax bill a plan to drill 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, bucking majority American opinion after a four-decade fight.  

The new $70-per-car price tag at our most iconic parks will ensure a subtle demographic shift in park use as a whole.  Greater representation by foreign tourists, retired people, upper income earners.  Less representation by American families, millennials, the working class.

And once the demographics change, what sorts of tweets can we expect from our de facto President?

Real Americans say "been there, done that" to Grand Canyon!  Time to end welfare for washed-up National Parks.  LATER, LOSERS!

There's no doubt our National Parks need money.  The Trump Administration has proposed a budget of $2.6 billion for the National Park Service in fiscal year 2018, about 13 percent lower than the previous year.  The cuts mean less money to deal with maintenance backlogs, less money to keep up with current operations--and 1,200 lost jobs.  It's sink or swim for the NPS, and with the proposed entrance fee hikes, they are presumably trying to recoup their losses.

But there are other ways to get the money, other coffers to draw from.  Why do our parks get $2.6 billion per year while fossil fuel production gets subsidized to the tune of $20 billion?  And what about the U.S. military budget of $825 billion for fiscal year 2018? 

We are long overdue for a shakedown of our American values.

The National Park Service is accepting public comments on the entrance fee increases until December 22.  I submitted my comments today.  If I can come back from my two-month political hiatus and long-distance driving binge to do this, I know you can, too.  Check out this fact sheet on the rate increases and the affected parks.  Tell the National Park Service what your National Parks mean to you, and why they should stay in the hands of all Americans. 

Zac exploring an ancient room at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM

Bead 24: Generation Z

I've had a practice, as a mother, of taking my kid to places one doesn't normally see kids.  When he was born, I still had a couple of weeks left in my school semester.  No matter; I nursed him to sleep in physics class.  Just before his second birthday, he joined his dad and me for a long walk on the Appalachian Trail.  Shrouded in mosquito netting, and wearing diapers made of pack towels, he rode on my back for 700 miles.  As a toddler, he came with me to music festivals.  And while I was in graduate school, I once brought him to a keg party.  As I was tucking him into his sleeping bag in the backyard, a perpetually drunk and creepy classmate of mine leaned over us, and promised Zac a trip to a baseball game, along with his "babysitter" (me).  I stayed close to Zac the rest of the night.

Zac in his pack on the Appalachian Trail.

Zac is fourteen now, and gets more of a say on where he goes.  Since Inauguration Day, I've invited him to attend a dozen or so political affairs, including our local Women's March, a town hall, and numerous meetings of my peace group and environmental action team.  For some reason, he keeps turning me down.  It's not that he's not woke--he does fabulous impressions of our 45th president, cringes at the morning news, and relates with everything uttered by John Oliver.  It's just that he's, well, fourteen.  Meetings and marches are boring.

But a couple of weeks ago, I upped the ante.  I turned Congressman Tom McClintock's satellite office hours into a school assignment, and drug my sleepy-eyed ninth grader along.

My intentions were three-fold.  First, as a new homeschool parent, I was eager to round up real-world lessons for my son, experiences to personalize what would otherwise just be words on a page or screen.  Second, I wanted to get him out of the house.  We are, at this point, not affiliated with any homeschool charters or groups, and I am always conscious of the isolation factor.  Finally, I hoped Zac would find the civic engagement empowering.  Although I have no illusions that McClintock will enact any of my "radical leftist" ideas, I believe that what I say at his satellite office hours actually reaches his desk.  And that counts for something.

The day I brought Zac to McClintock's office hours, there were only six people in attendance, and the vibe was familial.  This many months into the new political renaissance, we mostly knew each other, and felt at home with Matt Reed, McClintock's field representative.  Although Matt's Twitter feed is disappointing, he has always been easy to work with and talk to, and today was no exception.

I had told Zac ahead of time that he wouldn't need to participate in the sound-off if he didn't want to.  After the meeting, to complete his assignment, he would need to email the Congressman about an issue of his choice.  But for now, he could just listen and take notes.

I should have known better.  Zac is opinionated, likes to talk, and is famously not-shy.  There was no scenario in which he would sit at a table buzzing with hot-button discourse, and not take part.

Moreover, Matt included him from the start.  He initiated the discussion by asking Zac what he thought of our government.  Zac answered confidently and precisely, as if he'd had time to prepare a response beforehand.  "I think we should do away with the electoral college," he said.  He went on to provide supporting details--the electoral college was established, many years ago, for an uneducated populace who couldn't be trusted to make informed voting decisions.  It had no place in the modern world, where inventions like the Internet supply a wealth of information on any candidate or issue we want to learn about.  In conclusion, it was obsolete, and should be dissolved.

Matt was impressed.  He complimented me on my homeschooling.  I explained that I couldn't take any credit, as I had only been his teacher for about two weeks.  He owed his big brains to--well, himself, and the good people at his K-8 school, from which he'd graduated in June.

After his initial stump speech, Zac made several quippy contributions.  Over the past few weeks, hurricane after hurricane had been ramming into the Caribbean and southeastern United States.  We naturally wanted to talk about climate change.  Matt naturally wanted to point out that McClintock, as a fiscal conservative, wasn't inclined to wreck the economy over something that was, in his world, still up for debate.  We countered with the reality that renewables are a burgeoning economic sector, and we risk getting edged out by China if we don't move forward.  Whereupon Zac said that favoring the development of fossil fuels over renewables, as most of McClintock's party seems to be doing, is as idiotic as Honda introducing a horse and buggy line. 

He got props for his wit.  One of my fellow cage-rattlers, Charlie, told Matt to "write that down and give it to your boss."

Later, we talked about debt.  Charlie was concerned about what he perceived as massive, and largely unwarranted, military spending.  Our wars in the Middle East had cost trillions of dollars to date.  We still had 30,000 troops in South Korea, a nation both economically stable and capable of defending itself.  And then there was the F35 program, which Charlie considered the poster-child of military waste.

He said that while our countrymen across the aisle liked to gripe about the "tax and spend Democrats," we needed to take a closer look at the "borrow and spend Republicans."

Here, Zac delivered another short treatise.  He said that debt was increasingly being treated as an asset.  Banks lend money to people, and benefit from the debts that accrue.  Similarly, corporations give money to politicians, and benefit when the politicians behave as though they are indebted to them.  He said it was like New Rome.  I am no history buff, and I didn't get the reference.  Possibly others didn't either, as there was no particular response from anyone.

After the fact, though, I did a little surfing, and learned that massive personal debt among Roman citizens contributed to the fall of the Empire.  The ruling class held the debts, and had the military at its disposal. Populist uprisings were quashed, and war tributes levied that only compounded the debts of the people.  By the second century A.D., one-quarter of the population was in bondage for unpaid debts.  Three centuries later, the economy collapsed and the Empire was finished.

It always smarts a little when your kid knows more than you do.

As we disbanded that day, Matt asked Zac what his favorite school subject was.  "Social studies," Zac replied, but quickly qualified that he didn't mean boring social studies, the kind with endless packets of photocopied text and busywork.  He meant homeschool social studies, in which you got to research famous assassinations.

Matt didn't act openly alarmed, but I did wonder if Zac's parting words could have landed us on The List.  Son of an obvious radical leftist issues a handful of his own radical leftist statements at a public forum, then reveals a personal obsession with assassination attempts.

Fortunately, assassination was not the theme of Zac's email to Congressman McClintock.  Instead, he reprised, in careful detail, his argument against the electoral college, and urged McClintock to consider introducing a bill to establish direct representation.

Those of us who live in California's 4th Congressional District know that McClintock only really considers what is already entrenched in his mind.  Still, I thought it was important to show Zac, my very own member of Generation Z, how it feels to get involved.  Speaking out for the first time, you may wonder where the words go once they've left your mouth.  Were they heard?  Do they make a difference?  But with more and more of us choosing to be outspoken, I feel it's only a matter of time.  We'll turn this thing around.

Zac on his last day of eighth grade.

Bead 23: Fire, Water, and a Night at the Movies

Here in the Yosemite area, Hurricane Harvey never made landfall.  Not only were our small mountain communities nowhere near the path of the storm, but the news of its destruction was, for the most part, an occasional flicker on our screens.  Not real.  What was real was what was outside:  Dense smoke, falling ash, and the nightly orange glow from the hilltops above our heads. 

In July there was the Detwiler Fire, which led to the evacuation of two entire towns just a short drive up the road from me, and the loss of nearly 60 homes.  In August there were the South Fork and Empire Fires of southern Yosemite, which closed roads and trails, and emptied out the park community of Wawona.  

Then, over the past two weeks, there were four more local flare-ups:  the Peak Fire near Bootjack, the Cathedral Fire near Midpines, the Mission Fire near North Fork, and the Railroad Fire near a slew of small towns:  Fish Camp, Sugar Pine, Oakhurst, and Ahwahnee.  Collectively, these fires displaced hundreds, if not thousands, of my neighbors, and destroyed about a dozen homes.  Two of my coworkers were evacuated for two separate fires.  I worried about evacuation myself; one night there was scanner traffic about a spot fire about a mile away from me, and I packed the car.  The fire was never mentioned again, and it eventually seemed clear that the location had been misreported.  Still, I got out of town.  With my son and my dog, I headed to my grandmother's home in Palo Alto, where the air was safe the breathe.

This photo was taken by Elva Gurule, age 12, as she and her family fled their home during the Mission Fire.

The fires in the southern Sierra are only a sliver of the larger conflagration that is this summer's American West.  In Montana alone, there are currently 45 fires reported as "active" on the federal fire tracker website.  More than 1 million acres, or slightly over an acre per Montana resident, has burned.  The state has long since drained its $32.5 million fire account.

In Oregon and Washington, states people typically think of as wet, federal fire incidents have consumed more than 800,000 acres this year.  The Eagle Creek Fire has the mile-wide Columbia River for a firebreak, and has nevertheless managed to scorch more than 30,000 acres, not to mention drift across the river to the Washington side.  I've hiked in the Eagle Creek area before.  It is all waterfalls and ferns, a thick world of evergreen.  Not fire country.

If it were only the fires, it would be one thing.  But it's not.  First there was Harvey.  Then Irma.  Then Jose.  The devastation bundled into these three back-to-back storms is unprecedented.  A full two weeks after Harvey's passage, more than 50,000 Texas residents remain in temporary housing.  An estimated 126,000 homes in Houston were "severely impacted" by Harvey, many to the point of being uninhabitable.  Irma's march through the Caribbean destroyed ninety-five percent of the structures on the islands of Barbuda and St. Martin.  In Florida, thanks to Irma, as many as 15 million people are without electricity. 

Scene from St. Martin after Irma plowed through.  Photo credit Daily Mail (UK).

To some, this simultaneous scourge of fire and water is mere coincidence.  For as long as there has been nature, there have been natural disasters.  Although it is highly improbable that so many disasters would affect so many parts of North America at once, statistics work in mysterious ways.  Nothing more to look at here.

Or if there is something more to look at--say, in the perspective of Congressman Tom McClintock of California's 4th District--it certainly isn't human-caused climate change.  Technically speaking, McClintock doesn't deny climate change.  In fact, he likes to say that it was he, and not Al Gore, who "discovered" it while on a class field trip to the American Museum of Natural History in 1964.  The dinosaur exhibits made him acutely aware of the earth's fluctuating temperatures.  End of story.  According to McClintock, the earth is up to its usual antics, warming and cooling.  It might be a bit hotter than usual these days, but that is only because the sun is hotter than it used to be.

McClintock's views on climate change are nicely summarized in a speech he delivered to the Heartland Institute in 2009, entitled Inconvenient Questions.  But McClintock's version of climate change is anything but inconvenient.  How handy to have an explanation for what is happening on the planet today without having to actually make any changes.  How handy to be able to retain our age-old allegiance to the bottom line.  McClintock's "theories" grease the cogs of the machine that keeps him in office. 

But as Al Gore and 97 percent of the world's climate scientists have long known, it is not the sun that is driving up global temperatures and increasing the frequency of apocalyptic fires and hurricanes.  It is people.  If we wish to continue inhabiting our planet, then we need to get busy.

This summer, Al Gore released a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, his 2006 cinematographic wake-up call.  An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power summarizes Gore's work in recent years, and offers reasons to be hopeful.  Compared to its predecessor, the sequel focuses less on climate change itself, and more on the movement that has grown around it.  We see Al Gore roaming the world and recruiting "climate champions" to do the good work.  We see what climate action looks like--who the leaders are, where they come from.  We are taken to Paris in December 2015, when 195 countries came together to adopt a global action plan known as the Paris Accord.  We are shown how the deal was reached, against the odds and with some crafty eleventh-hour assistance from Gore himself.  We are, of course, also shown the rise of Trump and its fallout.  But the resounding moral is:  The people are awake now, and fighting for the planet.

Another Mission Fire photo taken by Elva Gurule, once she and her family were safe at the mill site in North Fork.

We have a movie theater in Oakhurst.  Established in 1986, the Met Cinema has long served as a hub in a town that can otherwise feel like a commercial strip for Yosemite tourists.  In 2013, when the theater was purchased by three local entrepreneurs, it became even more of a community centerpiece.  Operated on a subscription basis, the theater's members, or "Met Heroes," may see as many movies as they want for the equivalent monthly cost of less than two Fandango tickets.  For a small additional cost, members can bring guests--which encourages friends and neighbors to gather at the movies, a la Americana.  The lobbies are set up like living rooms, inviting conversation on either side of showtime.  My son and I have been Met Heroes since the subscription program was launched.  Even though there are months when we don't make it to the Met, my recurring $28 always feels like money well spent.

The Met mostly airs big studio movies, but also has room for an independent film here and there.  Often, these trend Christian and/or politically conservative, as that is the bent of the theater's owners--and frankly, the community at large.  But theater insiders have told me that the management team is always open to suggestions.  In a nutshell, they will play what people want to see.

My local peace group put this to the test recently.  At our August meeting, we circulated a handwritten "petition" asking Matt Sconce, one of the owners, to bring An Inconvenient Sequel to the Met, and pledging to come see it when it aired.  We gathered 28 signatures.  Many were theater members.  A couple days later, I strolled into the theater, intending to deliver the signatures to Matt.  I was told by my buddy Micah, who works there, that the sure-fire way to reach Matt was not at the theater, but on social media.

Bingo.  I messaged Matt, and had a response from him within a couple of hours.  He appreciated knowing there were so many members who wanted to see An Inconvenient Sequel, he wanted to show it, and he would do everything he could to make that happen.

Matt messaged me updates over the next week.  Finally, just six days after our original communication, there was this:  "It is coming in Friday!  Please spread the word.  I am hoping the people who asked for it will help by telling others and showing up."

My group organized two viewings of An Inconvenient Sequel at the Met.  Both times, we made sure Met Heroes were in hefty supply; that way we could bring the others in as our guests.  My son and I went to the second viewing, and filed in with nine guests in tow.  All told, there were probably 30 peace group members there that night.

An Inconvenient Sequel:  Truth to Power wasn't exactly what I thought it would be.  I was expecting a lot more science, a lot more nature gone amok.  I was expecting to be shown what the earth had been up to since the first movie was released.  Instead, I was shown what people concerned about the earth had been up to.  That was disappointing at first.  I'm not sure how hard I would have lobbied for a documentary that was largely about Al Gore.  But by the end of the movie, and certainly in retrospect, I appreciated having learned about the movement.

And I appreciated the positive message.  If nothing else, the film is a rallying cry to people who accept the reality of human-caused climate change to get out there, to be the boots on the ground our planet needs.  According to Gore, we won't be moving to any other celestial bodies any time soon.  The earth is our only home, he says, and we'd best look after it.

  

Bead 22: Coup d' éTom, Part 4

The venue was a bright pink house set low in the oaks flanking Nelder Creek.  The hosts were the lucky ones who recognized the unique value of the house when it went on the market a few years earlier.  Its previous owner had passed away, and the house had essentially been abandoned.  But its previous owner was also its architect, the renowned Allyn E. Morris, once an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright.  And the architect was a genius.  The house had almost no right angles.  Outside it was all pink swoops.  Inside, curves and triangles of red, blue, and green.

It was civics that brought us to the bright pink house.  We were to be addressed by a candidate for Congress--a good, Democratic candidate, one that suggested far brighter horizons for our district than what we currently faced.  The candidate was Rochelle Wilcox.  She was one of four women vying for the prize against its incumbent, Tom McClintock, a political dinosaur.

Rochelle Wilcox addressing us at the bright pink house, August 5.

We gathered on the patio.  People sat in wrought iron chairs, camp chairs, folding chairs.  I sat on the low concrete bench that separated the patio from the long drop into the backyard.  The house was built on a hill.  Beneath its feet were rock slabs that ran down toward the creek.  Some of the rock had little tiles set in it--quaint, indecipherable messages from Allyn E. Morris.

The message from Rochelle Wilcox was loud and clear.  Tom McClintock had worn out his welcome in California's 4th Congressional District.  He needed to go--and she was the best-equipped to kick him out.  We pressed her on this.  Her three Democratic contenders--Jessica Morse, Regina Bateson, and Roza Calderon--had already come to to our little town to address us.  We liked them all.  What made her, Rochelle, the top pick?

For starters, Rochelle said, there was her electability.  As a media lawyer in a big L.A. law firm, she had high-powered connections.  Her fellow lawyers supported her bid for Congress, and would help her raise a lot of money.  And because she knew how to get through to conservatives, she could sway many of the undecided voters--particularly those dismayed by McClintock's willful neglect of the District.

Moreover, she said, she would be the most successful in the job.  Her two decades in law had prepared her well for lawmaking.  And she had an ability to work across the aisle without compromising the Democratic Party's core principles.

But there was a problem.  Rochelle's audience that evening was the Oakhurst Area for Peace, a group of mountain-dwelling people of conscience who came together last November, when the world suddenly seemed to go dark.  We found each other in the Red Sea that represents much of rural California, and hung on tight.  Since then, we've been pecking away at this strange new order we've been given.  Individually and collectively, we are trying to make a difference.

Although we understand it takes money and connections to get elected, those aren't the things that inspire us.  As one of my fellow peace group members put it at Jessica Morse's talk, "This is a Bernie crowd."  We are idealists.  We are wary of the establishment.  We grow our own food and cut our own firewood.  We support livable wages and healthcare for all, and wish that California would hurry up and become a sanctuary state.

What's more, in the current climate, I think many of us cringe a little when we hear Democrats talk about working across the aisle.  It's not that we want a divided, ineffectual Congress.  It's just that, since the election, there has been an open season on the sacred.  Civil rights, checks and balances, national monuments, public schools, and countless other American birthrights seem always at the brink of being gutted.  It feels like we need to defend our country from the other side of the aisle, not meet them in the middle.

So, when asked Why you?, the assets Rochelle Wilcox named might not have been the ones we OAP members prioritize in our candidates of choice.  But it was clear, throughout the rest of our evening at the pink house, that she was competent, well-informed, and a glowing alternative to Tom.

Raised by a single mom with the help of food stamps and other aid programs, Rochelle was keenly aware of economic inequality in our country, and wanted to do her part to mend it.  Key in this struggle, she said, was education.  Herself an alumnus of public schools and universities, Rochelle believed in public education and had ideas for how to improve it.  In particular, she said, it would be important to strengthen vocational training and early childhood education.

Another crucial step toward leveling the playing field in our country, she said, was health care.  If a person felt bound to their job because of the employer-sponsored health insurance that came with it, they might be missing out on opportunities for growth--say, by improving their education, or even by pursuing a better job.  To Rochelle, health care was a human right.  She was committed to universal health care, and had a plan for how to get us there.

The final piece of the puzzle, Rochelle said, was rural broadband.

Wait--rural broadband?  We scratched our collective heads on this one.  All four of the candidates had mentioned it in their talks, but it wasn't until Rochelle that we asked anyone to flesh it out.  What did rural broadband have to do with solving economic inequality?

Rochelle explained that with rural broadband came business.  New employers wouldn't turn their gaze toward Oakhurst if, like us, they had to contend with spotty, and often sluggish, Internet service.  Rochelle envisioned our mountain communities wooing the tech industry--but to be half-tempted, those companies would need to know they could function here.

Currently, Rochelle said, there is "a pot of money" available for rural broadband development, and Tom McClintock isn't doing anything to bring it to the District.  I looked this up.  Indeed, there appear to be myriad federal programs to bolster rural broadband, originating from offices as seemingly disparate as the Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Rochelle Wilcox, like the other three Democratic candidates, lives in the 4th District.  Her L.A.-based firm allows her to work remotely from her home in Roseville.  This is would go without saying were it not for the fact that Tom McClintock doesn't have constituents for neighbors.  He lives down the hill in Elk Grove, away from mountain interests and livelihoods, away from the natural resources he claims to know so much about.  As a 7th District resident, he has never been able to vote for himself.

Also like the other three, Rochelle has an impressive resume.  She has worked at the same firm since she began practicing law in 1998.  Her firm's focus is the first amendment.  She generally works for media companies, pushing for increased government transparency and accountability.  She has represented the ACLU.  She has gone before the California Supreme Court.

In previous blog posts, I have attempted to quantify our congressional candidates' relative levels of qualification, for comparison purposes.  I've drawn some heat for this, as we don't all have the same opinion as to what the "most qualified" candidate looks like.  Is it Jessica Morse, the national security strategist with a decade of civil service under her belt?  Is it Regina Morse, the Ivy League professor of political science?  Is it Roza Calderon, the geoscientist and community organizer?  Or is it Rochelle Wilcox, the first amendment attorney?  I still have my pick.  You might have a different pick.  The bottom line is, any of these powerful women are light-years beyond the current fare. 

Rochelle Wilcox's campaign theme, "Building on Shared Values," seems to reflect her philosophy as a whole.  For most of the politically-charged issues out there, she said, there was a values-oriented way to bring people together.  For example, when it came to Planned Parenthood, she would emphasize the organization's role in providing basic health care.  For climate change, she would show how investing in green energy meant more American jobs.

This made sense to me--and, I assume, most of my fellow Oakhurst Area for Peace members at the pink house.  We might still feel like we're in the thick of the fight.  We might not feel inclined to offer an olive branch to the administration, and the movement, that keeps threatening to dump all the progress we've made as a society.  But when it comes down to it, I think most of us want to find common ground with our neighbors, and our fellow humans in general.

There are four Democrats who, in 2018, hope to go head-to-head with Tom McClintock in the battle for California's 4th Congressional District.  We won't see all their names on the general ballot.  If things go as they should, we won't see all their names on the primary ballot, either.  But in the meantime, Rochelle said, she was happy for the wide field.  Four good candidates roaming the District meant four times the number of bridges that could be built.  And for Rochelle Wilcox, building bridges is everything.

The bright pink house.  Photo courtesy of Lois Clarke.

When the evening's hosts bought the bright pink house, it was occupied by mice.  It hadn't been lived in by humans for four years.  They resuscitated it, redoing the paint and tile work, adding roof supports where necessary.  Today, it shines.  You can find it on architectural websites.  You can find it on Pinterest.  It is again loved, and lived in, and ever improving.

California's 4th District, like the pink house, is a treasure.  Also like the pink house, it has been neglected for some time, left to languish in the weeds.  Our current "representative" doesn't live here.  He has never lived here.  Our current "representative" only listens to those constituents he agrees with, the ones just about as far right as a person can politically swing.  But the 4th District is on the market.  In 2018, with any luck, it will be in capable new hands--those of Jessica, Regina, Roza, or Rochelle.  And the renovations will begin.  

Bead 21: Coup d' éTom, Part 3

The day Roza Calderon came to address us at the Oakhurst Public Library, the foothills were burning.  It was day four of the Detwiler Fire, and Detwiler was all anyone could think about.  Born in the chaparral of rural Mariposa County, the fire had run more than 15 miles toward the town of Mariposa.  By July 19, the day of Roza's talk, thousands of people had been evacuated and dozens of homes had been lost.

We wondered if Roza would show up.  After all, the most intuitive routes into Oakhurst from her end of California's 4th Congressional District, Highways 140 and 49, had been jumped by the fire and were closed.  There were other routes into town--through Yosemite, through Raymond, through Madera--but they were longer and more circuitous.  Besides, maybe she would be scared.

But Roza not only showed up; she showed up straight from the Mountain Christian Center, one of three Red Cross evacuation shelters in Oakhurst for people displaced by the Detwiler Fire.  She had been there volunteering and meeting people.  She left her 12-year-old daughter there on dinner service while she came to address us.  So no, not scared.

Roza Calderon at the Oakhurst Public Library, July 19

Not-scared Roza got right into it.  She came into this country, she said, when she was a toddler.  Back home in El Salvador, her activist mother had begun to fear for her family's safety when a grenade was launched at a vehicle she was traveling in.  So she walked all the way to the United States, registered as a refugee, and sent for her two young daughters.  Thanks to their mother's journey, Roza and her sister had a peaceful upbringing in Placer County, California.

Perhaps also thanks to her mother's example, Roza herself became an activist.  She co-founded California DREAMers, a group that advocates immigration reform, especially as it relates to undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. as children.  She co-founded Placer Women Democrats and Indivisible CA-04; the latter serves as sort of an umbrella organization for progressive causes in California's 4th Congressional District.  Every week, Roza can be found at Tom McClintock's office in Roseville, rattling cages as a member of the RAT Pack, or Resistance Action Tuesday.  And she is a regular participant in, and leader of, marches and rallies for social justice.

Now, Roza Calderon is upping the ante.  She has hit the 4th District's very own campaign trail, in hopes of claiming Tom McClintock's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2018. 

Of course, Roza Calderon is not alone in the fight for the 4th.  Three other female Democrats--Jessica Morse, Regina Bateson, and Rochelle Wilcox--are running as well.  Previously, I wrote about Jessica and Regina.  Now, it's Roza's turn.

After giving us a brief bio, Roza launched into the issues.  Front and center for her is the environment.  She is concerned about water, which she referred to as "blue gold."  District 4 marks the top of the watershed for much of the Sierra Nevada, Roza said, and our water is generally destined for other places.  In some cases, our water is sold off to corporate interests.  A special focus of Roza's is keeping District 4 water safe to drink and freely accessible to its residents.

Then there is the bark beetle.  If you've read my blog, you know that I have a slight obsession with bark beetle ecology, especially as it relates to the ponderosa pine forests near me.  So I sat as rigid as a beetle-killed snag while Roza discussed this subject, and peppered her with questions afterward.

Roza considers the bark beetle infestation one of four major issues that affect District 4 residents across the political spectrum.  (The other issues are jobs, broadband, and immigration reform.)  In District 4 alone, Roza said, there are 66 million dead trees--and she has a plan for how to deal with them.  In contrast with Tom McClintock's Emergency Forest Restoration Act, which seeks to mitigate insect infestations through wholesale logging of both live and dead trees, Roza's plan would be science-based, and would emphasize the restoration side of things.

The first step in dealing with an insect infestation, Roza said, would be to obtain a State of Emergency declaration, triggering the release of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds.  Under Roza's plan, a portion of those FEMA funds would be used to collect data about the infestation.  Workers on the ground would evaluate every affected tree, and mark it for treatment or removal.  The funds would then be used to implement the prescriptions for the affected trees, and finally, to restore the forest.  The best part, according to Roza?  Her plan would put boots on the ground again in our National Forests, including many a pair of out-of-work corks.  She would bring the loggers out of retirement, and employ them in environmental protection.

Roza is well-versed in the environment, and forest health in particular, because it's what she does for a living.  A geospatial scientist by trade, Roza owns a consulting firm that conducts research and data analysis for the U.S. Forest Service and other land management agencies.  The Sierra Nevada bark beetle infestation has been the firm's focal point in recent years.  They collect tree data on the ground, study the relative responses of trees and regions to beetle infestations, and advise clients as to how to mitigate infestations and improve forest health.  In essence, Roza's firm carries out her larger plan for the beetle-swamped forests of the Sierra, only minus the FEMA funding.

Although Roza didn't name health care among the four unifying concerns of the 4th District, it's clear that this is another of her priorities.  "Single-payer!" she bellowed, by way of summarizing her position on the matter.  And until single-payer health care is realized, Roza feels it's important to shore up the programs we do have.  She pointed out that in District 4, 70,000 people depend on Medicaid and Medicare.  Tom McClintock wishes to gut Medicaid, alleging that many of its recipients aren't needy enough to be on the dole.  He is also a proponent of turning Medicare into a premium support or "voucher" system, which is projected to hurt beneficiaries by driving up costs and weakening coverage.  At the Oakhurst Public Library, Roza suggested McClintock come clean.  He should, she said, personally write a letter to the 70,000 constituents who would be impacted by his vision for Medicaid and Medicare, explaining why they are not worthy of their benefits.

Roza is strictly anti-McClintock, but I don't think she would describe herself as anti-Republican.  In fact, she seems to relish engaging with the other side.  She shared a story from a McClintock town hall event she attended, in which she befriended the alt-right.  It was a full house, and she'd had to squeeze into a row occupied by a delegation from the State of Jefferson.  In her purse was a mini megaphone, with which she planned to address McClintock if he seemed to not be listening.  She started chatting with the State of Jefferson folks.  They were delighted by her megaphone scheme.  When the time came, and she approached McClintock's podium, the whole State of Jefferson got up and followed her.  She said they seemed a little confused once she started delivering her message, but they stayed put.  Since then, she has been invited to address their group a couple of times.

Roza is nothing if not District-centered.  Nearly every point she made at the Oakhurst Public Library had a 4th District connection.  The 4th needs clean water.  The 4th needs healthy forests.  Affordable, reliable health care.  Good public schools.  Jobs.  Relief from the corporate clutches facilitated by McClintock.  Roza's 4th focus, I think, resonated strongly with her audience, and will serve her well along the campaign trail.

And for Roza, it's clearly not just a talking point.  Since arriving in the United States as a young child, she has lived almost exclusively in Placer County.  Her activism has centered mostly around local politics and community development.  She loves her district, knows her district, and hopes to become its champion in the U.S. House of Representatives.

What's more, Roza is likeable.  In big-city congressional districts elsewhere in the state, a person's resume and high-powered connections would likely hold more sway than their humor and story-telling ability.  But this is District 4, arguably California's most down-home district.  Here, people live in the mountains, wear jeans, talk about the weather.  We know we need tourism to survive, but we bristle at the seasonal influx of urbanites that crowd out our local restaurants and make our favorite Yosemite hiking trails smell like cologne.  Roza is our neighbor from just up north.  She gets what goes on here.  You could grab a beer with her at Southgate, and feel perfectly at ease.

In my opinion, Roza's 4th-centric nature and likeability make her pretty darn electable.  But a candidate's ability to beat Tom McClintock is only part of the equation.  Equally important, I think, is how well they will serve us in the House.  This is where I feel Roza is edged out by my enduring pick, Jessica Morse.

Roza's activism credentials are impressive.  But from what Google tells me, the organizations she helped establish and/or supports today are all fairly new, like since the election of DJT.  There is nothing wrong with this.  Most of the people in my local peace group weren't politically active prior to November 2016.  But that's kind of my point.  We are all activists now.  If Roza's activism credentials are what qualify her to be our Congresswoman, then so do mine.  I organized the January 21 Oakhurst Women's March.  I was one of the founding members of Oakhurst Area for Peace, and co-founded a sister group, the Oakhurst Earth Guardians.  I'm a member of Indivisible CA-04, and contribute to its blog.

Perhaps, though, the thing that best qualifies Roza for the House is her science background.  Or maybe it's her ambition and determination; after all, she put herself through school as a single mom, earning a Bachelor of Science and three Associate's degrees.  But then again, you could say the same about me.  As a single mom, I earned a Master of Science in Forestry, and work today as a consulting wildlife biologist.

I am by no means trying to downplay Roza's experience.  And the last thing I am trying to do is run for Congress.  I am just pointing out that her resume, in and of itself, does not make her our best possible choice.

By contrast, the only credential that I share with Jessica Morse is a lot of foot travel in the High Sierras.  She quickly disappears over the horizon when you take into account her ten years of civil service, her humanitarian work around the world, and her course of study at Princeton.  Jessica has rolled up her sleeves for her fellow Americans in venues ranging from war zones to budget offices.  She knows the inner workings of our government because she has lived at its center--in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.  She has worked fearlessly in places that, to me, connote death and dismemberment, or at the very least dysentery--Iraq, Ethiopia, India, Nepal.  Often times, she is the only woman in the room.  From what I can tell, her voice remains loud and clear regardless of who she's up against.

Jessica Morse may not be as District-centered as Roza Calderon.  But I suspect there is a lot more to serving in Congress than simply fighting for one's own district.  There is, for example, foreign policy.  National security.  Intelligence.  Government oversight.  The armed services.  The federal budget.  And what about the host of issues for which District 4 represents only a tiny piece of the overall puzzle?  Think the environment, the economy, public education, and health care.

Of course we need a candidate who will keep District 4's best interest in mind when casting their votes in the House.  But we also need a candidate who is comfortable operating at the federal level, working for the interest of all Americans, as we attempt to turn this ship around.  To me, Jessica Morse has both bases covered.  Three candidates into my Coup d' éTom series, she still gets my vote.

Bead 20: Fired Up

On Sunday, July 16, about 30 miles downslope of Yosemite, a flame was ignited in the steep, chaparral-cloaked ridge system flanking the Merced River.  Nobody knows the origin of the flame, but all the locals know what happened next:  It ran amok, quickly swelling into the Detwiler Fire and gobbling up a sizeable portion of Mariposa County.

A full week later, the fire is less than half contained, meaning fire lines must still be established around most of its perimeter.  It has burned more than 75,000 acres.  Although many of the evacuation orders have been lifted, there are still hundreds of people in limbo, living in shelters in Oakhurst, Mariposa, Planada, Sonora, and Groveland.  And then there are the 60 families facing long-term limbo, having recently learned that their homes were destroyed.

Facing the Detwiler Fire from the top of Miami Mountain, July 20

On Thursday, July 20, Congressman Tom McClintock held his monthly satellite office hours meeting in Oakhurst, staffed by one of his field representatives, Matt Reed.  At that point, all evacuation orders were still in place.  The entire town of Mariposa was evacuated and adrift.  At least one person attending the office hours was an evacuee.  Others had not yet been evacuated, but were close enough to the Detwiler front to be nervous.  And people were angry.

"Where is McClintock?" a woman from Bootjack demanded, nearly yelling.  "Why isn't he on the ground?"  She glared at Matt over her tablet, which she was using to shoot video of the meeting. 

Matt explained that, in fact, Tom McClintock's office was very involved in the Detwiler Fire.  They had reached out to Mariposa County's elected officials, offering help at the federal level.  And they were researching the air tanker issue. 

The "air tanker issue" refers to the use of a single Boeing 747 jet, dubbed the SuperTanker and owned by a man named Jim Wheeler, to drop retardant on the Detwiler Fire.  The SuperTanker can drop almost twice as much retardant as the stoutest air tanker currently in service, making it an attractive option for fires, like Detwiler, that threaten to snuff out entire communities.  Perhaps because of its price tag, an estimated $250,000 per day, the U.S. Forest Service hasn't approved use of the SuperTanker yet.  Until it does, Jim Wheeler won't be able to work the Detwiler Fire or any other fire in our country.

But it's not like Detwiler doesn't have air tankers on the job.  The Internet is a murky place, and I've had trouble determining the exact number of tankers in use.  I do know that at least two very large air tankers, or VLATs, have been working the fire.  In fact, one of the VLATs set a company record on July 18 when it flew ten missions in less than six hours, dropping 108,000 gallons of retardant on the fire.  The SuperTanker can evidently drop 19,000 gallons in a single mission.  But to me, that's not a deal-breaking difference.  And I don't see why one man's flagging business venture has become Tom McClintock's "air tanker issue"--unless he is secretly trying to portray the U.S. Forest Service as incompetent and out of touch.  Oh, right.  He is.

Of course, at the July 20 office hours, I didn't know any of this.  Matt's vague explanation of the air tanker issue suggested the Forest Service wasn't permitting the use of any large air tankers on the Detwiler Fire.  We were made to feel that once again, bureaucracy was taking it out on the little guy.  

You can imagine that the air tanker issue, as presented by Matt, might have been quite upsetting for the evacuees in the room, and those who feared evacuation.  But to their credit, they kept their dissatisfaction trained on McClintock himself.

I asked a woman who had identified herself as an evacuee what, specifically, she would like to see from McClintock.  She answered calmly, and with clarity.  First, she wanted his presence.  He needed to come to Mariposa County and show its residents that he cared about them.  Second, she wanted to know that he was communicating with all the involved agencies--with Cal Fire, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and PG&E.  Finally, she wanted him to address people's concerns.  People were facing loss of income from the fire.  And some had lost their homes.  What did McClintock have to say about that?

Facing the Detwiler Fire from the top of Miami Mountain, July 21

Since the Detwiler Fire started on July 16, Tom McClintock has published two speeches on his website.  Both showed up on July 19, by which point the Detwiler Fire had burned 45,000 acres, and several homes had been lost.  Governor Jerry Brown had already declared a state of emergency.  The first of McClintock's July 19 speeches pertained to our federal spending deficit.  He cautioned his fellow House Budget Committee members that raising taxes above their "natural limit" would only drive us closer to economic collapse.  The second speech was an assertion to the House Budget Committee that the best way to lift people out of poverty was to wean them off their entitlements.  Also, corporate taxes strip ordinary Americans of their money and jobs.

Right.  So, nothing about Detwiler.  Nothing about Mariposa County residents, unless he meant to include them in the impoverished class he is trying to help by downsizing federal aid programs and slashing corporate taxes.

As it turns out, Tom McClintock did finally make his way to Mariposa County.  Earlier today, he visited a command center, where he met with Mariposa County Sheriff Doug Binnewies and Cal Fire officials.  He even shared a few photos online to prove he was there.  But I think many of those impacted by the Detwiler Fire would say:  too little, too late.

With a population of 17,410 souls, Mariposa County is home to only around 2 percent of Tom McClintock's constituents.  You would have to multiply the county's population by 10 to equal that of Elk Grove, the Sacramento suburb in which McClintock himself resides.  Mariposa County has no incorporated cities, and no permanent traffic lights.  But Mariposa County matters.  That was our primary message for Matt on Thursday, and that is what we hope will get through to Tom.

Facing the Detwiler Fire from the top of Miami Mountain, July 22

Bead 19: Office Hours Make Me Cry

The first time I attended my congressman's satellite office hours, I couldn't keep the shake out of my voice as I explained to the young staffer how crucial food stamps and Medicaid had been for me in the past.  The second time was worse; I cried and swore.

I didn't see it coming.  I was having a good day.  Walking to the meeting spot from work, I enjoyed the sensation of my arms and legs churning through the heat, creating a microbreeze to sustain me for my ten minutes between AC units.  In my purse was a letter from my congressman.  All the best words and phrases were accented with pink highlighter.  I was organized.  I was upbeat.  I was ready.

Inside, I was happy to see that the staffer was once again Matt Reed, the same personable fellow as last time.  Just like last time, I sat in the chair immediately to Matt's left.  I was a couple of minutes late, and the meeting was already underway.  Matt seemed to be providing an update on Tom McClintock's recent efforts in Congress.  Coincidentally, the agenda item I walked in on was the Emergency Forest Restoration Act, a pet peeve of mine that I've written about previously.  Matt was explaining how this bit of McClintock genius would benefit District 4, in that it would fund the removal of our beetle-killed trees, and otherwise improve forest health.  

It didn't sound half-bad, but the room was full of McClintock skeptics who knew to expect the proverbial drop of the other shoe.  Someone asked Matt how the program would be funded.  Matt explained that it would be through timber sales, but only of trees that would be dying soon anyway.  The sales, he said, would target the same species as the beetles--in our area, presumably the ponderosa pine--and would be located near the site of infestations.

This boded better than the bill text I had read a few months ago, which had not held the timber sales to any sort of sustainability criteria.  I gave Matt the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that the bill had been amended. 

But in re-reading it a few days later, I saw that the bill was just as it was originally introduced in February.  The Emergency Forest Restoration Act's main aim, from what I can tell, is to grease everyone's chainsaws.  Sure, it funds actions by the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies to deal with insect infestations.  But it requires those monies to be paid back in full through timber sales.  The bill sets no ground rules as to where and what to log, provided it's outside of wilderness and roadless areas.  The crux is that all activities carried out under the Act--both the insect-related actions and the timber sales--get to skip environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act.  That means that, while the Forest Service might analyze the projects internally, there will be no formal process for public participation.  No public notices, no public hearings, no public comment periods.

Big picture, that means less accountability.  And less democracy.

It wasn't McClintock's feigned concern for forest health that made me cry and swear at the office hours, though.  It was his lack of concern for human health.  The Better Care Reconciliation Act, or BCRA, is the latest attempt by U.S. lawmakers to topple Obamacare.  It's the Senate's version of the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, which McClintock helped pass out of the House in May.  And it's ugly.

The BCRA is a moving target.  Perpetually unable to garner the votes it needs, it's been revised twice since the June 21 office hours.  The version of it we were discussing on June 21 had a to-do list like this:  1) reduce subsidies, 2) rein in eligibility, 2) lower the bar for insurance plans, 4) cut taxes for wealthy income-earners and corporations, 5) defund Planned Parenthood for a year, and 6) gut Medicaid forever.

Nobody at the office hours, except for maybe Matt, wanted to see the BCRA--or anything close to it--become a law.  There was a pharmacist who knew firsthand how the "whatever the market will bear" dynamic hurt the low-income and elderly people that he dispensed prescriptions to.  There was an occupational therapist who spent a lot of her time in nursing homes.  If Medicaid collapsed, she didn't know how her elderly patients would be able to afford residential care.

There was a woman whose grown daughter had a serious health condition requiring regular infusions.  Her treatments were enormously expensive, and untenable without insurance coverage, which in her case happened to be Obamacare.  The woman worried about what would happen to her daughter under the BCRA.  Would she lose her coverage?  Without insurance, she wouldn't be able to get her treatments.  And without her treatments, she would die.

By this point, the emotional timbre in the room was dialed up a notch.  And I was close to losing it.  It was the way the woman talked about her daughter--so sweetly, with such motherly concern.  She didn't seem angry at Matt, or Tom McClintock, or anyone else.  She was just scared.

Then came my friend Lynn.  Lynn is a retired professor of social welfare policy who has pledged to spend the rest of her days fighting for people and the environment.  Diplomatic by nature, she didn't mince any words about the BCRA.  It was nothing more than an $800 billion tax cut for the rich, she said.  Obamacare had provided a mechanism for the most privileged members of our society to give a leg up to the most vulnerable; the BCRA would take that away, and then some.  At 76, Lynn worried about the future of Medicare and Medicaid not just for her own age cohort, but for those of her children and grandchildren.  She worried about it for everyone.

When Lynn talks about her causes for the greater good, she is always passionate.  But I've never seen Lynn get angry.  At the office hours, she was angry.  She interrupted herself to apologize for it--"I'm sorry to get angry," she said, and went on.  This is what did me in.

I started to cry.  It wasn't just an eye-misting sort of cry.  It was the kind of cry that comes from down deep, that clenches you up and cuts off your air.  I at first felt a little embarrassed to be sitting right next to Matt, wiping away tears with the backs of my hands.  Then I worried that I was headed toward wholesale sobbing.  I focused on breathing, and kind of blacked out for the tail end of Lynn's contribution.  But my heart was wide open, and fused with most of the other hearts in the room.

Matt had a few things to say in response to people's concerns about the BCRA.  To Lynn's point about the $800 billion tax cut, he acknowledged that yes, a medical device tax had been removed.  McClintock and others like him considered it to be unfair double taxation.  But Matt didn't mention the tax cuts of consequence--the ones that actually accounted for the $800 billion price tag.  He didn't mention the elimination of a 3.8 percent investment income tax for families with annual incomes over $250,000, or a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on wage income in excess of $250,000.  And he didn't mention the tax breaks promised to insurance and drug companies over the next 10 years.

As to Medicaid, Matt echoed McClintock's sentiments that some people just weren't needy enough to be receiving government-sponsored health care.  To me, this notion is heartbreaking.  Obamacare expanded Medicaid for American children by raising the household income cutoff from 100 percent to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).  It also gave states the option of covering childless, able-bodied adults with income at or below 133 percent FPL; previously, this population was categorically disqualified from Medicaid.  As the pharmacist at the office hours put it, Obamacare's Medicaid expansion helped the "donut hole people" of our nation--those who were plenty poor, but just not poor enough to receive government aid.

Just how poor is 133 percent FPL?  For an individual, it's $16,040 per year.  For a family of two, it's $21,599; for three, it's $27,159.  And so on.  We are not talking big income here.  These aren't people who are trying to scam the system.  These are people who work, and can't pay their bills.  These are people who, prior to Obamacare, might have had to weigh out the relative benefits of a doctor's appointment and a shopping cart full of groceries.

These aren't people that should be getting the ax.  But according to Tom McClintock, who presumably earns at least the $174,000 default salary afforded to members of House of Representatives, 133 percent FPL is far too generous a threshold.  If the BCRA passes, these people are once again headed for the donut hole.

In response to the mother who feared what the end of Obamacare would mean for her medically needy daughter, Matt said simply that people don't die from lack of health insurance.  There was no hostility in his voice.  It was as if he meant to reassure her.  But coming from the office of a man who acknowledges his constituents' concerns only insofar as they dovetail perfectly with Tea Party ideals, I doubt the mother felt any relief.

Me, I felt ready to burst.  How could people be so greedy?  How could people be so mean?  Why was everything ruled by money?  How had we let corporate interests infiltrate every aspect of American life, so that the very few at the top dictated our principles, our morals, and--through puppets like McClintock--the Law of the Land?

With just a few minutes remaining in our office hours with Matt, I pounced.  Unfolding the letter from my purse, I said I was deeply disturbed by McClintock's recent words for his newsletter recipients.  He had appealed to his readers, many of whom hadn't even voted for him, to take a stand against the "radical left," who were attempting to "deny the legitimacy of the election, to obstruct the administration from fulfilling its promises and to threaten, intimidate, and bully anyone who disagrees with them."  He warned his readers that their progressive neighbors were operating under centralized direction, and were working to "portray their radical views as mainstream."  He suggested that he and his ilk were "men of good will," while those on the other side of the aisle were "evil."

I shared with Matt and the rest of the group, as if it wasn't obvious, how distressed I was over what we had heard today.  Over the past hour, people had spoken about life-and-death health struggles, their concern for their loved ones, their concern for their patients, and their general apprehension about the future.  Where, I asked Matt, were the radical views?  Were we radical because we believed our society could, and should, take care of its most vulnerable?  Were we radical because we saw health care as a basic human right, not a privilege?  Were we radical because we were afraid?

My voice rose in pitch, and I started to lose track of what I was saying.  I think I might have waved the letter around a little bit.  I wrapped up my speech by bellowing "That's bullshit!"--not exactly at Matt, but through the portal of Matt to Tom McClintock.

Matt remained calm.  He explained that the letter had come from McClintock's campaign office, not his congressional office.  ("What difference does it make?" people protested.)  It had already been the subject of much scorn at Town Hall meetings and other venues.  People were upset, he admitted.  And the letter was probably a mistake.

Having spoken my piece, I settled down.  The meeting ended.  Walking back to work, I again swung my limbs in the heat, trying for the fan effect.  I chuckled at myself for having lost my composure.  And I nourished just the tiniest nugget of pride that I, a fundamentally non-confrontational person, had mustered up the indignation to call bullshit to Tom McClintock at a public forum.

There is a beautiful mural on one of the outbuildings at the Methodist church, which marks the approximate halfway point of my monthly walk to McClintock's office hours.  I'm not sure how long it's been around.  I started noticing it only recently.  On June 21, it was a salve for my spirits.  They tried to bury us; they didn't know we were seeds.