Category: personal

Judges, Juries and Executioners

Empty Courtroom

It’s my birthday today. I am thirty-two. I hope you don’t mind because there isn’t anything I can do about it. (I’ve tried.)

When I started this blog one year ago (it’s my blog’s birthday, too) I very deliberately did not want it to be a record of personal things. I’ve done that before, several times, and it always leads to unfocused rambling that can’t possibly be of interest to anybody other than myself. So I decided to focus on pop-culture instead, and I told myself that if I ever felt the need to use the “personal” tag when categorizing a post, then it didn’t belong on this site. I’ve now broken that rule 16 times.

I can’t speak for the others, but I think number 16 is important, because I went through a transformative experience just last month. I’m still processing it. Maybe writing about it, and opening it up for discussion, will make something more clear about it.

Maybe not. But I wanted to talk about it anyway, because it’s important to me, and I don’t know what else to do with it.

I served as jury foreman for a domestic violence case. And it was an experience I’d like to share with you here. Why? I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me.

I’ve often grappled with what should be a very easy question to answer: am I a good person?

I don’t know why I’d grapple with that. The answer should be yes. Right? Well, why? If I’m a good person, then why am I a good person?

Because I don’t do bad things, I guess.

Except I do do bad things, sometimes. I tell a lie or I hurt somebody’s feelings or I don’t volunteer my seat on the train to an old person. I’m a real bastard.

And besides, even if I didn’t do that stuff, is it enough to not do bad things? “Good” shouldn’t be a neutral category; you shouldn’t end up there simply because you didn’t do the opposite. It should be an active category. It should be something you earn.

And what have I done to earn it?

I’ve thought about the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life many (many, many…) times. Jimmy Stewart runs through the streets of Bedford Falls positively bursting with the sheer joy of being alive, not because anything is going right for him — it sure as heck isn’t — but because he’s just been shown how important he is to the world around him. If he hadn’t saved all of these people — he actively saved all of these people — they wouldn’t be around anymore, or would be far worse off. He did that. He wasn’t a nice guy because he sat quietly and didn’t bother anyone…he was a nice guy because he changed people’s lives for the better. He could see that if he was never born, things would have gone much worse without him.

But what have I changed? Certainly I’ve been important to many people, but if I hadn’t been there, would their lives really be worse? Did I change anything, or was I just party to their decided trajectory? I think people would miss me if I’m gone, and that says something, but would anything really change? If it didn’t, then can I really be good?

It’s an interesting thing to ponder. And now I actually do know somebody whose life would have changed without me. He doesn’t know my name and I’m already starting to forget his, but I did something. I actively did something. And because of that, a switch got flipped somewhere along the track, and he’s in a different place because of me than he would have been without.

He was the defendant in a domestic violence case. If I understand correctly I am actually able to discuss details of the case now that it’s over, but I’m choosing not to, as I don’t think it’s worth making anything traceable for those involved.

I’ve been chosen for jury duty before, when I lived in Florida. For those unfamiliar, a large number of potential jurors are first chosen from a pool of registered tax payers. From there that number is whittled down the day before your scheduled court date, as they have a better idea then of how many jurors they need. You call the night before to find out if you even need to show up. Often you don’t.

From there the pool that shows up is divided into smaller groups who are called into court rooms to serve. If you’re not called, you get to go home…and that’s as far as I made it in Florida.

Once you get to the court room that group is further whittled down when the judge asks questions of each individual and determines whether or not there are any reasons they shouldn’t serve on a jury. And then after that the prosecutor and defense attorney both get to ask questions and discharge any juror they like (without having to provide a reason) until only the required number of jurors remains.

I remained, and so did seven others. At every step of the process I expected to be sent home, but I never was. I remained.

The defendant was accused of physically abusing his wife, and also disturbing the piece, though obviously that latter charge was much less serious and the prosecutor hardly argued it at all.

The real meat of the case was the domestic violence. It was alleged that the defendant returned home to find his wife in bed, and she woke up with his hand around her throat. She ran outside and called 911. The police arrived, and before any questions were asked the man said to the police, “I didn’t touch her. I didn’t do anything.”

That — in tandem with a recording of the 911 call — was the entire case. There was no other evidence, and only two people gave their testimony: the wife, and the police officer who responded.

The defendant was a black man who spoke very little English.

There was a recess about 2/3 of the way into the case. The judge dismissed us to a small room with only a coffee pot and some old issues of Readers’ Digest. As might be expected, I kept to myself…doubly so when I heard the others talking. I don’t wish to paint them all with the same brush, but I heard enough talk about him being “obviously guilty” and a few people who “think he did it” that I knew I didn’t want to participate. I kept my head down until we were allowed back into the court room.

Here’s the thing: justice works in a very specific way in this country. At least, it’s supposed to. See, we were reminded many times — and would later be given documentation reminding us of this fact as we went off to render our verdict — that the burden of proof was on the prosecutor. That is to say that we were to consider the defendant innocent, until proven guilty. It was not up to the defendant to prove his “innocence,” and it never was. It was up to the prosecutor to prove the defendant’s guilt…and if the prosecutor failed to do that beyond a reasonable doubt, then we must find the defendant not guilty.

That’s why we find them “not guilty” instead of “innocent.” We’re not being asked to declare whether the defendant did or did not commit the crime…we couldn’t possibly know that. We are instead being asked to determine whether or not it was proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he did commit the crime.

What I heard from my fellow jurors was that he must be guilty, because why would his wife lie? I heard that he must be guilty, otherwise why wouldn’t he testify for himself? I heard that he must be guilty because people had a bad feeling about him. I heard nothing of the evidence, or of any serious consideration. I heard people speaking from the heart…the part of them that hears that a woman has been beaten and reacts to that statement, rather than trying to assess how much truth is behind it.

I understand the impulse. I had a hard time fighting it as well. Spousal abuse is a touchy subject, and one that triggers floods of emotions. I’d imagine that crimes against children or even animals would do the same thing, and people want to render a guilty verdict just to show that they are not fans of these crimes…as though that even needs to be demonstrated.

When we walked into the small room for the final time to deliberate, one fellow juror was outright convinced he was guilty. The others were all leaning guilty. I was the sole holdout for a verdict of not guilty.

And when we left that room, we were all in agreement: the man was not guilty.

I still don’t know how I did that, but I know that I did. That’s not the kind of thing I can usually do. Getting my own life together is hard enough most of the time, but then, with something very serious and immediate on the line, when it was a man who was about to go to jail even though the prosecution had not proven that he did anything, I was able to fight. I was able to pull it together…and fight.

And I fought with the only thing I really had on my side: logic.

Because there was no evidence.

Nobody saw them argue. Not then.

Other times they saw them argue, witness reports state that the defendant walked away from the conflict. He shouted, just as his wife did, but ultimately he walked away when he was asked to.

The 911 call revealed the woman shouting repeatedly, “He’s going to kill me! Come over now, my husband is going to kill me!” Yet there are no sounds of him anywhere, and by her own testimony she was outside while he sat on the couch in the living room waiting for the cops to come. He could clearly hear her shouting these things, so it’s no surprise that he said “I didn’t touch her,” as soon as the police showed up. I certainly would have said the same thing.

The woman’s testimony — and she was the only witness, apart from her husband of course — contradicted itself on large issues. For instance at first she claimed that she woke up with his hand around her throat. Later she claimed that she was awake and heard him come in. A relatively small detail, but later on she was asked how much time passed between his coming home and the attack. She didn’t know. She first said that he came right into the room and grabbed her, then later said that he might have taken a shower, made dinner, eaten it, and then grabbed her. And there’s a big difference there, especially if she claimed to hear him come in…it’s not a detail.

Additionally, the logic of the actual events wasn’t sound. He was clearly strong enough to overpower her physically, there wouldn’t have been a surprise there, but evidently he grabbed her throat out of nowhere — no argument — then released it just as suddenly, and made no attempt to interfere with her calling 911 on him. When the police arrived, there were no marks on her, and the husband was calm. I have a hard time believing a flash of violence like that could occur out of nowhere, and just as quickly disappear into nowhere, without there being any history or any evidence that anything even happened.

Do I think he did it? Here’s my answer: it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter, because based on the available evidence and testimony, we can’t prove he did it. And because of that we can’t find him guilty. We simply don’t have any choice other than to find him not guilty.

Several of my fellow jurors protested to the end that they felt he was guilty. That’s okay, I let them know. They can think that. But we weren’t called to let the judge know what we felt; we were called to render a verdict based upon the judicial system we have established in this country.

Americans like to make their own calls. Americans like to tailor the law to whatever it is best suits them at the time. That’s how Trayvon Martin got killed; he violated the law that existed in one man’s head, was found guilty, and was summarily executed. That’s how Bernie Goetz killed four teenagers who attempted to mug him in New York. That’s how black men who don’t speak very good English get sent to jail for crimes nobody actually saw them commit.

It was scary. It was scary because, one day, that could be me. I could well be on trial for something I didn’t do, something that would similarly cause an emotional response in jurors. And I’d hope that a complete lack of evidence would mean that the jurors would know better than to listen only to their hearts and their hatred of awful crimes…but what I saw in that room convinced me that I can’t rely on that. And neither can you. Nobody can. The heart makes decisions today that the brain may regret long after the deal’s been done. By that time, we’re already gone.

I stopped a lot of hearts from making that decision that day. If I hadn’t been there, he’d be in jail. And he’d be in jail for a crime that nobody managed to prove even happened.

I don’t know what to make of the experience. I really don’t.

I’m equal parts proud and baffled by it. Justice was served, as it should have been. It was my job to see that that happened. But what if he did do it? It wasn’t our job to determine that…but what if he did? Did the other jurors have a point? Is it better to put a man who you believe did a bad thing behind bars than to let him go free simply because nobody could prove it? Of course not. But what if he did?

I argued for justice, and justice was served. Does that make me a good man?

Again, I don’t know. I did the thing I was asked to do, and I fought to make sure others did it as well. The wheels of justice turned, and the only fair verdict was read aloud in that courtroom in mid-January.

A man went free, because I changed things.

Maybe that doesn’t make me good, but that does make me responsible.

And that’s not a bad thing to be, I suppose, moving into year 32. I just really hope that if I’m ever in that situation, somebody will be willing to risk feeling like an outcast, will be willing to risk dying of anxiety, will be willing to risk fighting a terribly lopsided battle, to help justice — rather than passion — be served.

I know I can’t rely on that.

The defendant that day couldn’t have relied on it either.

But for better or worse, I made it happen. And I can only hope, for better or worse, someone would make it happen for me.

Thanks for listening.

Day 9: “Pee-wee’s Christmas Special,” Pee-wee’s Playhouse (1988)

On the ninth day of Christmas Philip (that’s, uh…me…) gives to us…

"Pee-wee's Christmas Special," Pee-wee's Playhouse

When I was little, I loved Pee-wee Herman. And looking back, I’m pleased that I don’t have to wonder why.

The show was, and is, a sheer delight. As Pee-wee, Paul Reubens taps into everything great about being a kid. The limitless wonder of daily life, the magic inherent in the world around us, and the sheer addictiveness of simple imagination. The concept that Pee-wee wasn’t a kid, but was an adult, was revolutionary to me; this was a grownup who understood.

It wasn’t dad, or a teacher, or an uncle. They had jobs and responsibilities and things to do…and so no matter how much you might love them, they didn’t understand. There was always going to be a barricade, an age-defined breaking point between youth and adulthood. Pee-wee Herman didn’t bridge that gap so much as he simply existed in isolation. He was a glorious, addictively cheerful exception to reality. He epitomized something we, as children, always wanted to believe, but hadn’t really been able to: the fact that you didn’t have to grow up.

Every Saturday morning I would get out of bed and watch Pee-wee’s Playhouse. It was an escape for me in very much the same way as the Muppets…from a sad and frustrated childhood I could find myself, through the magic of a television screen, transported into another world. A world where things weren’t scary, weren’t upsetting, and weren’t dangerous. A world where people were laughing, and having fun. A world dictated and shaped entirely by the bounds of our own creativity. I wanted that, and I feel as though I’ve spent, in some way, the rest of my life trying to recapture it…that elusive vision from the past, long faded and gone.

I was fortunate growing up to have two great shows — this one, and Muppet Babies — that both preached and demonstrated the value of imagination. I’m not sure how much of that exists anymore, but every Saturday morning I could count on being reminded of how important creativity really was, and I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that this shaped me, in enormous part, into the individual I am today.

Pee-wee’s Playhouse apparently had only 45 episodes. I almost can’t believe it…I must have seen each one a dozen times, because it feels like I spent a lifetime in the Playhouse. I still remember all the puppets by name. I remember Jambi’s incantation. I remember what to do whenever somebody says the secret word.

I remember vividly one morning when I must have been about eight. My friend had spent the night, and he was a Pee-wee fan too. We woke up and turned on the television and sat on the floor waiting for the show to come on. My bedroom door opened, and it was my mother, asking what we were doing awake at five in the morning. We hadn’t realized it was so early. We hadn’t even thought to look at a clock. We just woke up and immediately turned the television on, so that we wouldn’t miss Pee-wee.

"Pee-wee's Christmas Special," Pee-wee's Playhouse

“Pee-wee’s Christmas Special” doesn’t stand out to me at all. Perhaps that’s because every episode was like Christmas to me. It was all a gift beyond value…a missive from an imaginary world that offered invaluable escape. It really was the best gift of all, and I got to re-experience it weekly. I’d tune in to Pee-wee’s Playhouse and that was all I needed. They say that Christmas comes only once per year, but for me it came weekly.

Looking back on the show now I’m amazed by how quaint it feels. Pee-wee was a throwback I’d never, as a child, have recognized as a throwback. His rebelliousness was that of a 1950s school child. He was bratty, but wore a bowtie and a smartly pressed suit. His hair was immaculate and his smile bright. He was both significantly older than me, and was also my peer. He was someone you could look up to, and yet conspire with. And while I’d have never recognized the Playhouse as an absurd subversion of the tropes of children’s programming, I loved it for what it was. Pee-wee’s mocking was gentle. Adults could laugh at the inane undercutting of the shows they grew up with, and children could be proud to grow up with this one. Pee-wee didn’t exclude.

In “Pee-wee’s Christmas Special,” there’s a deliberate desire to overwhelm. Pee-wee is so overbooked with celebrities that he needs to turn Whoopi Goldberg away, and he hosts a conference call with Oprah Winfrey and Dinah Shore just to get them both out of the way at once. Magic Johnson is crammed into Magic Screen (they’re cousins) to help Pee-wee “connect the Christmas dots,” and when Grace Jones is delivered accidentally to the Playhouse (she was supposed to go to the White House) Pee-wee quickly orders her back in the box.

It’s overstuffed by design, so that even the opening list of celebrity cameos becomes a joke. With Pee-wee’s Playhouse, the simple act of putting a television show together offers a wealth of opportunities for comedy. The main joke is that the show itself exists, and literally everything else is just a continuous heightening of comic fulfillment.

As a kid I’m sure I didn’t care that Cher was on hand to help reveal the secret word, or that Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello became Pee-wee’s indentured Christmas servants…I was just glad to have Pee-wee holding the show together.

"Pee-wee's Christmas Special," Pee-wee's Playhouse

Of course, in the end, we did have to grow up. The promise of Pee-wee was lost, forever, in 1991. That, I say without any trace of irony, was the moment my generation lost its innocence.

Paul Reubens was arrested for public masturbation, having been caught doing so in an adult theater. My parents, for what it’s worth, didn’t tell me the reason. (Or, rather, they told me that Pee-wee was losing his show because he was caught saying curse words.) But the school yard, as ever, filled in the blanks. Pee-wee was gone.

As much as I didn’t want to grow up, I no longer had a choice. Paul Reubens was an adult male masturbating to pornography — a fact not exceptional in any way — but because he was caught doing it, the Playhouse was closed forever. Sealed off from a nation of children who wanted nothing more than to find it for themselves. They instead found that it was totally erased from existence.

There was no more. The dream was over.

I don’t begrudge Reubens his choices. I don’t think he’s a bad person. He committed the crime of pleasuring himself in an adult theater — a crime I have a hard time of seeing in any way as criminal — and, all at once, it was over. I carry the scar of that forcibly lost world today, but it’s not a scar inflicted by Reubens…it’s a scar inflicted by the witch hunters that barred him from television and decimated his career. It’s a scar inflicted by the very watchdog groups that claim to be helping children, and keeping them safe. I think it’s a similar thing that children today are experiencing with Kevin Clash. Congratulations, kids. You’re all grown up.

The world is a cruel and dangerous place. That’s the unintentional lesson Pee-wee’s Playhouse taught children my age. Imagination can keep it at bay for only so long. Whatever time you spend at the top only pulls you closer to your fall back to the bottom.

I miss being a kid. I miss the things I’ll never see through that youthful filter again — Christmas certainly among them. I miss the world and how it looked before the curtain fell away and I saw the ugly, grinding mess of gears that kept everything operational.

I never wanted to grow up. Nobody did. But everybody had to. Pee-wee and Santa Claus appear together in this special, making the world a happier place for children everywhere, but their days were numbered. Children were getting older. Reality was intruding. Dreams were fading and promises were being broken. We’d have to grow up after all, and, what’s more, we had to do it quickly. There’s no time to get your coat, and there’s no sense looking back. We all fled together.

And the fact that we weren’t alone failed to make it any easier.

Tomorrow: The healing power of music.

Reader Mail: Ken Huber is Right, In a Manner of Speaking

It’s election day here in America, so make sure you get out and vote. It’s important. I learned that the hard way, since the first election I was old enough to vote in was Bush vs. Gore and I did not cast a ballot, assuming democracy would sort itself out. We all saw how well that went, so I won’t be missing any — admittedly small — opportunity to shape this country’s future again.

Anyway, some of you may have seen this before as it’s certainly nothing new, but it’s been circulating again in light of election season and, at last, I’ve felt compelled to respond to this thing.

It’s ostensibly a letter to the editor by one Ken Huber, but I’m not entirely convinced it was ever published anywhere. Regardless, I think it pretty accurately reflects a certain type of mindset, even if the particular words don’t belong to the person to whom it’s attributed. And it’s a dangerous mindset. A rotten one. I thought I would take a moment to reply.

The text is viewable in the image above…if there are any errors in the transcription below they are not deliberate…feel free to let me know and I will correct them.

Editor, Has America become the land of special interest and home of the double standard?

Remember these words, as Huber frames “special interest” and “double standard” as bad things — rightly so — when he opens the letter, but then spends the rest of his time arguing in their favor.

Lets see: if we lie to the Congress, it’s a felony and if the Congress lies to us its just politics;

It should indeed be a crime to lie “to the Congress.” I genuinely can’t imagine a situation in which lying to the government should be excusable, so I don’t know why it’s a bad thing that those found guilty of bearing false testimony in a court of law should be punished for it.

Also, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anybody say “It’s just politics” when a congressman is caught in a lie. Depending upon the severity of the lie sometimes one’s own party members will attempt to spin it in a less damaging way, but did anybody anywhere brush off the mistruths of Rod Blagojevich, Anthony Weiner or Todd Akin by saying “That’s just politics?”

We have a free press, and we take our congressmen to task for what they say and do, on both sides of the divide. Neither party gets a free ride…at the very least, they get called on it by the other party…one of the relatively few — but pretty clear — benefits of partisanship.

if we dislike a black person, we’re racist and if a black person dislikes whites, its their 1st Amendment right;

We’re still toward the front end of Huber’s second sentence and already he’s arguing overtly for a right to hate. That sure didn’t take long.

Read again what he wrote here, and then consider this alternative: “Why is it that I am always kind and friendly to my black neighbors, but I don’t feel the same courtesy in return?”

Same core wish — for a two-way sense of fairness — but the way in which it’s expressed says worlds about what we wish to do with that fairness. Huber doesn’t want to love his brother or be loved by his brother. He sees that his brother dislikes him and so he’d like the right to dislike him back.

Which is odd, because he does already have that right. Yes, if we dislike a black person because they are black, that is racist…however we have the right to dislike them for whatever intolerant reason we choose. We can’t openly discriminate against them, we can’t commit crimes against them, and we can’t enslave them, but last I checked there were plenty of racist morons roaming the street, longing for the glory days of the universal oppression of everyone who wasn’t them. Here, Huber would like us to think that he is oppressed, because we’ve robbed him of his right to oppress others. And that’s damned disgusting.

Also, it’s pretty funny that he thinks black people get an easier ride with the law than whites. That’s an ignorance so active it must hurt.

the government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims;

I still don’t know what he’s arguing for here. “Do something for the victims” is pretty clearly what he’s trying to say, but what is “something?” And “victims” of what? Both of those things need to be defined because there’s way too much room for interpretation there.

And isn’t the rehabilitation of criminals “something?” If it gets them off the streets and prevents them from committing crimes, then that’s “something” the government is doing for all potential “victims.”

Perhaps he wants free health care for victims of crimes. Well, good news for him: President Obama’s been pushing for that free health care for a while now, while the folks Huber keeps voting into office prevent him from getting it passed. Nice job, Ken.

in public schools you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process;

I’m unaware of any school, public or otherwise, that explicitly teaches that homosexuality is okay. More accurately they’re just not allowed to teach that it’s a Bad Thing. And why anyone would want to use the word “God” in the process of teaching the complete awesomeness of gayness is beyond me.

you can kill an unborn child, but it is wrong to execute a mass murderer;

37 states practice capital punishment currently, and the most recent Gallup poll on the subject (2011) found that 61% of Americans were in favor of executing those found guilty of murder, with only 35% opposing it. That’s a clear majority, and it’s also the lowest level of support ever found by the Gallup poll…it’s usually even higher. So I’m not sure where Huber gets the idea that America feels it’s wrong to execute a mass murderer, and he’s pretty clearly using that only as a counterpoint for his stance on abortion which, as we all know, is mandatory in all cases of pregnancy now.

we don’t burn books in America, we now rewrite them;

Citation — and significant clarification — needed.

we got rid of communist and socialist threats by renaming them progressive;

First of all, please stop lumping Communism and Socialism together. Second of all…what?

we are unable to close our border with Mexico, but have no problem protecting the 38th parallel in Korea;

We have significant problems with Korea, Ken. Far morseo than we have with Mexico. Of course, they’re also completely different problems and one might say it’s impossible to compare the two without looking foolish for doing so.

if you protest against President Obama’s policies you’re a terrorist, but if you burned an American flag or George Bush in effigy it was your 1st Amendment right.

A revisiting of Huber’s earlier black/white rant, this time naming particular individuals.

First of all, give me an example of one person who’s protested against President Obama and, due to that fact, has been tried as a terrorist. Just one, since this seems to happen all the time. That shouldn’t be so hard.

Heck, just look at Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck…those guys protest Obama on a daily basis, so I have to assume they’ve each been labelled terrorists and punished to the fullest extent of…

…oh, wait. No, they’re still around, and still given a platform with which to spout their anti-Obama beliefs. So where did we get this idea again?

And, yes, it is within your rights to burn someone in effigy. That’s why it’s allowed…because you’re burning someone in effigy. It’s the difference between a political statement and an attempt at assassination. Nobody’s going to jail for it, whether it’s Obama, Bush, or Harry Potter you’re burning.

You can have pornography on TV or the internet, but you better not put a nativity scene in a public park during Christmas;

What correlation is there at all between these two things? Television and the internet are both private venues for information retrieval. If someone chooses to view pornography, that’s within their rights. Why wouldn’t it be? People can choose what to view in both cases. If they want to see the pornography they can and if they don’t wish to see it they can avoid it.

A public park however is…well, public. Which is to say it is not something people should have to avoid, nor should any one person or group of people decide which religion is endorsed by it. (Also pornography, last I checked, is not a religion, so maybe, just maybe, this isn’t the comparison he should be trying to make.)

Somehow I don’t think Huber would be in favor of a giant, mechanical Mohammed being installed in a public park, so why would he be in support of a nativity? Easy…because that reflects his special interest. And his double standard means he’s perfectly fine relegating the beliefs and feelings of others to the sidelines in favor of his.

we have eliminated all criminals in America, they are now called sick people;

I thought we were rehabilitating criminals?

Who knows. Maybe in the time between writing that observation and this one America happened to eliminate all criminals and he just didn’t have time to delete that before mailing it to the editor.

We do indeed refer to criminals as “sick” very often. And they very often are sick. I’m unaware of anyone who’s stopped referring to them as criminals, however.

we can use a human fetus for medical research, but it is wrong to use an animal.

We can use an animal fetus for medical research as well. And we use animals at all stages of development for medical research. We can’t use living human beings of any age for medical research unless they personally consent, and even then there are far more stringent guidelines for testing on humans than there are for testing on animals.

We take money from those who work hard for it and give it to those who don’t want to work;

There are those who don’t want to work, and some of them do indeed defraud government welfare programs. There are also many more who can’t work, or can’t find work, whose families are sustained by temporary government assistance.

The fact that there are those who abuse a system does not suggest that the system itself is a problem.

we all support the Constitution, but only when it supports our political ideology;

I agree with this, Ken. In fact, I’d raise your letter high as proof of that very fact.

we still have freedom of speech, but only if we are being politically correct;

Your letter is not “politically correct” in the slightest, as I’m sure you’ll agree. Yet it’s also not been censored. You’ve proven yourself conclusively wrong by simply making that observation.

parenting has been replaced with Ritalin and video games; the land of opportunity is now the land of hand outs;

Nothing much to say here. The hand-outs bit is dealt with above, and I don’t know why he wants the government to enforce standards of parenting. Wouldn’t that be more in line with the imaginary Big Brother government controllapalooza he’s raging against above?

the similarity between Hurricane Katrina and the gulf oil spill is that neither president did anything to help.

A bit reductionist here, but honestly that’s pretty fair. I will say, however, that there’s a difference between not helping actual human beings who are being displaced and dying, and not helping a body of water that’s seeing substantial environmental impact. Certainly a humanitarian like Huber — who just moments ago was preaching how much more important human life is than animal life — would see that.

Also, hindsight really works against this one, as Obama’s currently dealing with the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy…and he’s dealing with them in an active way that Bush did not do with Katrina. Comparing apples to apples, we have a clear winner here.

And how do we handle a major crisis today? The government appoints a committee to determine who’s at fault, then threatens them, passes a law, raises our taxes; tells us the problem is solved so they can get back to their reelection campaign.

Apparently determining who is at fault before dishing out punishment is a Bad Thing to Huber. So is passing a law to prevent it from happening again, and asking citizens to chip in so that this new law protecting them from a “major crisis” occurring again can actually be enforced.

What has happened to the land of the free and home of the brave?

You demonstrated that neither of those things has gone anywhere simply by complaining that they’re long gone. You’re brave and free enough to write what you feel, and newspapers are brave and free enough to print it, and everyone else is brave and free enough to respond to it as they see fit. Congratulations, Ken…your imaginary nightmare land never existed.

– Ken Huber, Tawas City

So why get out and vote?

Because this man is unquestionably turning up to the polls.

Do your part, America.

Reflections on Jerry Nelson’s Passing

When I was a little boy, I loved Jim Henson.

I didn’t just like him. I didn’t just enjoy his work. I loved the man.

He was probably the first person I knew as an artist behind the material he produced. Certainly I enjoyed other TV shows, and songs and films, but I always saw them in isolation. As products distinct from whatever anonymous forces breathed life into them.

Not so with Henson’s work. I don’t know why that is, but I knew his name. I knew what he looked like. I know not only that there was a human being out there bringing all of this wonderful stuff to life, but I knew who it was. He was the first artist I knew as an artist, and that’s either a cause or symptom of how important his work was to me.

He was also a less exciting first for me: his was the first death that hit me personally…and it hit me hard.

I guess I was fortunate that, by nine years old, I hadn’t had a family member die. Or a close friend. Or a beloved pet. But when Jim Henson died, it felt like I was losing all of those things at once.

I was devastated. If I choose to look back to that news, I find I’m still devastated.

Losing a friend is tragic because that friend isn’t there anymore. There is now a hole in your life where somebody you cared about used to be. It’s not easy, and shouldn’t be easy, to move forward from there. The world has changed, and one special person is no longer there.

When Henson died, though, the world didn’t just lose one special person; it lost an entire, powerful, selfless, incomparable creative force. A man who conjured up so much magic and wonder from nothing. A man who could make you laugh or cry with a piece of felt, and — what’s more — make you fall to your knees in sorrow when he’s no longer around to carry that felt.

Partway through The Crying of Lot 49, the protagonist takes out a notebook and writes to herself, “Shall I project a world?”

That’s a line I keep returning to in regards to Henson. From his lone, singular, gifted vantage point, he projected a world. In fact, he projected three worlds. Sesame Street. Fraggle Rock. The Muppet Theater. He seemed bottomless in his capacity for invention. He willed entire universes full of unique, rich and complex individuals to life. He treated them with love and respect by handing them off to great writers and even better performers. Henson’s vision was a serious one, even when it was silly. It was a life-affirming one, even when it was breaking your heart.

To this day I think it was Henson that inspired me to create. After all, what Henson did with cloth and plastic is what any artist should be doing all the time. Whether it’s words, or sounds, or colors, or anything else that brings you joy, an artist takes these small, insignificant things and assembles them into something life-changing. Henson and his team may have been constructing their characters from common materials, but when you look at Kermit the Frog you don’t see green felt and ping-pong ball eyes. You see Kermit the Frog. That’s because Henson was a success as an artist. He used small, insignificant things to build characters we not only believed in, but with whom we wanted to share our lives.

When I write, I try to do the same thing with words. If could ever be fortunate enough to create anything as rich or important as Kermit the Frog, I’d probably die of shock. Henson created characters that rich and important routinely. It really was some kind of magic, and it’s a magic that died with him, that the world lost, and that I lost at the age of nine.

By that point I was probably a bit too old for Sesame Street, and so I could have moved my affection over to reruns of The Muppet Show, or Fraggle Rock. But I found that I preferred Sesame Street in some way that I couldn’t understand then, even though I understand now: it was longer. Each episode was an hour compared to the half-hours of its sister programs. And that’s why I preferred it: it wasn’t that I wanted to watch these characters; I wanted to spend time with them.

I wanted to be part of that world of Henson’s. Be privy to that vision. Be able to touch, and feel, and interact.

I wanted the promise of his work to come true. I wanted to live in a world in which I could sit on a bench in the park and look over to see that I was sitting next to Kermit. A world in which I could look up into the sky and see Gonzo floating away with his balloons. A world in which I could see Fozzie’s act go poorly on stage, but then find him later and make his day by telling him I enjoyed it.

I don’t know. Maybe my particular childhood cried out for escapism more than others. Whatever it was, the Muppets helped me through some really difficult times, be sheer virtue of their existence. They taught me that magic was real, only it was called creativity. And with it, you really could change the world.

Jerry Nelson’s death isn’t like Jim Henson’s or Richard Hunt’s, because Jerry Nelson lived a long and full life. He was faced with an impossible legacy to carry on…and yet he carried it on anyway. (That’s another kind of magic.) I’m not sad because an old man has laid down to rest, but simply that one of the last threads connecting me to my childhood, to my early sense of wonder, to three distinct and safe places I was always allowed to visit when I needed an escape, has disappeared.

Up to the very end Jerry was an enormously talented man. He may not have had a Kermit or a Fozzie or a Gonzo or a Scooter…but he had a Gobo. And a Robin. And a Count von Count. And a blue businessman destined always to be disappointed by Grover. He had characters that could fill out these worlds, and make them more real. Everybody who worked on those shows did me — and countless other children, and adults — a service for which they can sincerely never be repaid.

The fact that my sadness at the passing of Jerry Nelson leads me to think about the larger universes Henson created isn’t meant to be a slight at Jerry…but rather a loving acknowledgement of what larger, unforgettable, culture-defining things he helped bring to life.

There’s no shame in being remembered as part of a team. And there’s probably no team more impressive to have been a part of.

Thank you Jerry. Sincerely, thank you.

RIP Jerry Nelson

Well, this is some extremely sad news. Muppeteer Jerry Nelson has died. Nelson was one of the few original Muppeteers who remained active with his characters. (Dave Goelz and Carrol Spinney being the only others I’m aware of.)

His signature Sesame Street character was probably Count Von Count, but he also handled Sherlock Hemlock, The Amazing Mumford, and Herry Monster. My personal favorite? Mr. Johnson, the bald blue guy who would always go to Grover’s restaurant and get soup dumped on him or something. Poor Mr. Johnson.

On The Muppet Show he played Floyd, Kermit’s nephew Robin, and Camilla the chicken. My personal favorite though? Pops the doorman, who introduces the gang to The Happiness Hotel in The Great Muppet Caper.

On Fraggle Rock he was Gobo, arguably the main character of that show. He was also Pa Gorg and Marjorie the Trash Heap.

It’s impossible to put into words quite how much Jim Henson’s creations shaped my life, and every time we lose another connection to those original, magical creatures I feel a small piece of myself disappear as well.

But we can’t get hung up on what we’re losing. We should, instead, focus on what we were given. And Jerry Nelson gave the world some unforgettable characters. Rest in peace, Jerry. And thank you.