Supporting the party of function

Believe it or not, I find an hour of watching the news on the same channel every night to be a grounding experience. It has been less so recently, I am not a rock. But the steady nature of news presented by PBS is a comfort to me. Recently, I was able to travel with Miles O’Brien on his trek out to the fastest melting glacier and follow the progress of the expedition to uncover why it was melting so quickly. Sadly, the drill ran into a wide crevice under the surface and the team wasn’t able to achieve their goal of getting through the ice and ocean to the earth beneath it, so we won’t get the data we were hoping for. I love Miles. He’s also the aviation expert so he’s been filling me in on what’s happening with the TSA. He has such a passion for his work and it shows. There isn’t anyone on the program I don’t respect. I like when Geoff does the sign off. It was a pleasure spending part of my evening with you, sir. Amna looks stunning in her tone on tone ensembles. (I hate that my first compliment for her is about her wardrobe. She can also grill a b*tch and make it sound like a polite inquiry.) I love the depth of Lisa’s congressional policy geekery. Her interest in the subject is contagious. I have a certain pride when I recognize Liz up front in the press pool, shouting her questions to the president. I can count on Tamara and Amy to say my thoughts out loud for me as they struggle to articulate the days events and remain professional. And Judy Woodruff is the aunt I never had. She retired from the news desk to hit the road and try to uncover the reasons why our nation is so divided. There is so much to learn.

A few nights ago I watched a piece on the News Hour covering the increased flooding in Indonesia. The reporter, Fred de Sam Lazero, interviewed a woman who lived in what looked to be a very small home in Jakarta caring for a family of seven. Her neighborhood was routinely flooding because of the rising sea level. It was a circumstance she was learning to live with. Cars and motorcycles couldn’t enter the area, and her electricity was in and out. The streets around her home were flooded with contaminated water and her children kept falling ill because of it. Have you ever tried to take care of a sick kid and then there’s also a flood? I am grateful that I have not.

I haven’t had much experience with floods at all. Once my laundry sink overflowed and the water filled the junk drawer beneath the counter before spilling onto the floor that held everyone’s shoes, backpacks, and laundry baskets. Everything was drenched. I looked over at the full basin, my socks soggy from the unexpected water, and didn’t even know where to start the clean up. I plunged my arm into the sink splashing even more water onto the floor and pulled out the obstruction blocking the drain—a baby sock.

There was another time during a thunderstorm, the steel casing around our window well rusted through and the open area filled with water and submerged most of the window. I didn’t know what the sound was at first. I sat at my desk enjoying the heavy summer thunderstorm and thought what’s that noise? before the sinking realization. The storage room in our basement, packed tightly with the belongings of a family of five, was flooded with 2 inches of water. I stood in disbelief at the indoor puddle that had accumulated. How did it get there? It took me a few panicked moments to locate the source. A thick trickle of water was weaving her way down the painted cinder block from the corner of the hopper window. I remember being incredibly self-aware of the fact that I had absolutely no idea what to do in that moment. I ended up outside in the storm scooping buckets of rain water out of the well and then covering it with a boogie board that was left out in the garage after a recent beach trip.

I was alone in the house at both of those moments, but I understood that any problem with water is getting worse by the second. I grabbed the shop vac and all the towels in the house and went to work restoring order. Thankfully, I only lost the belongings in my junk drawer and a few hours of my time. Everything else dried out. But it was traumatic enough to keep me hypervigilant any time the washer is running. I listen like a prairie dog from the other room. Does it sound like its draining?

I appreciate the non-navel gazing look at the world that PBS provides. I learn a lot about the rest of the globe when I watch and it helps me keep things in perspective. There are people out there suffering through worse conditions. It’s not like the woman in Jakarta can suck up all the water up in her shop vac and dump it out into the street. Her street is flooded too! Where do you start with a problem like that? Indonesia is dealing with it by moving their nation’s capital to higher ground. A rather expensive endeavor I would imagine. It probably wasn’t in their budget. To help the mother and her family, the nation is building 435 miles of seawall to try to quell the problem, but that’s only temporary. The fresh cement won’t hold up to the relentless waves forever and when the wall finally gives out the water will be several inches higher. Will the retrofitted stilts on her home hold up to that much water? I hate that for her. Don’t we all? No, I guess we don’t. Or maybe some of us are in denial. Indonesia is relocating the capital of their country because the current capital is flooding so frequently it’s untenable for living. This is a change in climate.

I feel grateful that my biggest problem in America is living under a corrupt system of law enforcement and not survival. It’s hard not to feel guilty about all that I have and am selfishly not willing to give it up. You can pry my luxury socks from my cold, dead hands. Here I have time to sit and think while my machines do the lion’s share of my labor. I can be done with a full load of dishes and laundry with the press of two buttons. I don’t want to live like the woman in Indonesia cooking dinner for seven over a candle in standing water, but I don’t need to outsource all of my life’s daily annoyances to some robot’s carbon footprint until we solve her problem.

It’s important to know what’s going on for others. I believe it to be my global civic duty, so I watch the News Hour ever night (except Fridays, Fridays are for family) and then I declare enough news for the day. I prefer the PBS News Hour because for years it has fallen just to the left of the center tick and I think the only thing that bumps them that way is an appreciation for the arts. The program epitomizes journalistic integrity. Their reporting is comprehensive and their presentation is measured and dependable. I read a tweet some time ago (when it wasn’t really normal but we still felt the sense that we had lost what normal was) that said something like “It’s about to get weird. Stick to trusted sources” and I knew of no one better to trust. I don’t let go of my dollars easily but I’m more than happy to send a few to my friends at PBS every month. It’s worth my investment to be able to count on their accurate representation of reality.