SUV POV?

On two recent vacations, I rented SUVs. Although I considered purchasing an SUV when I shopped for a new car, I have never driven one for longer than a test drive until these rentals. One of the SUVs was a three-row luxury vehicle. The other was a mid-sized sports SUV. 

After spending almost four weeks driving these vehicles (they are NOT cars), I still fail to understand their appeal. Why would anyone choose to drive these trucks? 

The original purpose of the sports utility vehicle was either to be a workhorse by pulling and hauling heavy materials or to drive on unpaved or inhospitable surfaces. Many years ago, SUVs became fashionable. The Hummer became the symbol of the SUV fad. 

When I purchased my first minivan, I looked at SUVs, but when it came to hauling people and their stuff, the minivan was both easier for the people and more storage for the stuff. The third row in the SUV I rented was almost unusable. Perhaps very small children or people without legs would be comfortable – when they could contort themselves to get back there. 

When we used the third row, the remaining storage capacity was so diminished that we could not carry much luggage. When we only had four people in the car, we had plenty of storage. Unlike my old minivan, the SUV could not carry people and stuff, but only one or the other – and the people not that well. 

People sometimes like to ride higher than traffic. It is not a feature exclusive to SUVs – nor do all SUVs have it equally. Minivans and a few other types of trucks also ride higher than a standard sedan. Some of the crossovers, which look more like station wagons, ride closer to the height of many cars. 

Safety is an often-stated reason for purchasing a larger vehicle. Are SUVs safer? According to a recently released study, passengers in the second row of an SUV aren't as safe as those in front. But this study looked at injuries to the people in the SUVs, not to those they hit! Are SUVs safer when they are not driven well? How many times have you seen a driver of an SUV on the road or in a parking lot who could not manage the large vehicle? Driving these beasts takes skill that many people have not mastered.

My rentals were more complicated to navigate in a parking lot or small spaces. The larger SUV had an interesting feature: the parking brake automatically engaged whenever the vehicle was parked. The SUV was so heavy that the regular parking setting could not keep it from rolling! 

My family owns hybrid cars. We are used to getting between 35 to 55 miles per gallon. Both of the SUVs I rented were gas guzzlers. I was shocked at how often I had to fill the tank. I was also shocked at the size of the tanks! I spent almost $100 to fill it up! That is three or four fill-ups for our cars at home! 

Why would anyone pay so much? Perhaps it makes sense if the SUV was full of people or stuff much of the time, but my experience is that most people drive alone. Why would you drive by yourself in an enormous, expensive, gas-guzzling truck? Does it say that you are so wealthy that the costs, both financially and environmentally, are meaningless to you? 

Gas prices are in the news constantly. People complain about them. Drivers of electric cars comment to me about how they are immune to them.  If you drive an SUV that gets less poor mileage and use it as your regular daily vehicle, I can only assume that the cost of gas might be breaking your budget. If it isn’t, you are indeed fortunate and wealthy. 

As I am writing, I am coming to the conclusion that driving a larger SUV is a kind of fashion and status statement. It isn’t about practicality, safety, fuel economy, or environmental impact. It is about wanting to drive the largest truck on the road. 

I have decided not to rent SUVs anymore. They are too costly, too difficult to drive, require trips to the gas station too often, and haul people poorly. If I need a truck, I’ll rent a van or minivan. From now on, I am sticking with cars!  

Reading for Treasure: What is "Woke?"

Recently, someone asked me if the teachers in my school were woke. I asked him what he meant by “woke.” He struggled to give me any form of answer. Does it just mean liberal? Does it mean Black? Does it mean whatever those in Florida want it to mean? What do they want it to mean? Do they know? 

Those who are banning books, worrying about drag shows, and storming school board meetings know what they are doing. It doesn’t matter what woke means. They have turned it into a weapon against those who coined it. It is an attempt to make schools and society white-centric – again. After accusing liberals of being snowflakes, the battle against woke is an attempt to protect the feelings and power of those who benefit from the status quo and don’t wish to be reminded of it. 

If eliminating any signs of “wokeness” might make some comfortable, it will make others uncomfortable and unsafe. There are some who stand to benefit if “woke” ideas are suppressed and we all go to sleep. But those who have been bullied, beaten, and brutalized also deserve to have their voices heard. Their history is our history, it is American history. We must face it because it is painful and difficult. 

The issues of our past do not go away because we wish they never happened. If we ignore health issues, things don’t get better because we pretend we are well when we know there is cause for concern. We must have the courage and fortitude to confront the issues that the anti-woke people are trying to silence. We can’t move forward until we deal with our past and present. 

With that in mind, here are some other voices that helped shape my view and may give more context to this issue:  

Clarence Page’s editorial in the Chicago Tribune, “What is ‘woke’? More than a joke.” 

NewsOne’s article, “Fox News Host Whitesplains Why Conservatives Can’t Define ‘Woke,’ Says It’s Just A ‘Feeling.’” 

Two articles from The Atlantic: “Woke Is Just Another Word for Liberal” and  “Wokeness Has Replaced Socialism as the Great Conservative Bogeyman.”

Michael Harriott, writing in The Grio, looks at how the word “woke” and other terms have been twisted into new definitions and speculates on what other words might suffer the same fate, “After white people redefined ‘woke’ and ‘critical race theory,’ these 6 words or phrases might be next.” 

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction.

I am currently reading The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

Twenty Years Ago: May 2003

On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush declared that, in Iraq, our mission had been accomplished and “major combat operations” were over. He was very wrong. 

At that time, I was keenly aware that, as a parent and teacher, not only was my mission not accomplished, but my major operations were only beginning. It is ironic that, twenty years later, many of my missions are accomplished (This is not the place to debate the state of Iraq). I look back at May of 2003 and it is nearly the opposite of my life now. 

My mission at school was in full swing. I had Peer Helping meetings two or three mornings a week. I was preparing for the student performance of creative writing, StageWrite, after school, later in the month. I was getting my Sunday School students ready for their May confirmation, and I was meeting with a new teaching team and designing our class for the fall. I started my adult Hebrew class, too! 

Operations at home were complex and intense. Unlike now, my children lived at home. I moved them from violin to sports practices to the park district to birthday parties and doctor appointments. Oh, yeah, they had school, homework, and Sunday School, too! 

My mother-in-law was at a nursing home in Skokie. My wife visited her frequently. My parents and my wife’s aunt helped us by picking up my kids and taking them for sleepovers and filling in when our babysitter got sick, which happened a lot in May 2003. My wife’s aunt died seven years later, and now I am frequently helping my parents.

Oddly, I didn’t see myself as frenetically busy as I do when I look back. In my journal, I wrote, “Today felt so – reasonable! I don’t remember when I have had a day when I got everything done and I didn’t feel like a madman doing it.”  But I continued, “I taught three classes, got the school work done (I didn’t have grading today – that helps). Web, attendance, special ed forms, calls, reading, and then temple, North Trail, and all the rest – but done and no craziness. What have I forgotten?”  So maybe not so reasonable? Of course, just a day later, I write, “From sane and reasonable to crazy and hectic! The day is only a few hours old and already things are nustybaum.” Are you shaking your head? I am. I was so busy that one of my journal entries ends midsentence as if I was called away and never had a chance to finish it. 

I worked out on my exercise bike most mornings. My body was letting me know that I was stressed: my neck and back hurt. I made my morning workouts more palatable by watching TV shows, but Star Trek: Enterprise had its series finale in May 2003. 

A good metaphor for my life at that time was the way that I organized my students’ debate presentations. Students were in groups of four, debating two on two. It might take ten class sessions if we saw them one at a time, so I found empty classrooms and put cameras in them, and had multiple debates for two or three days. Kids had to report to our room, find their debate room, and then set up and operate the camera, keep time, and debate! I would then take all the recordings home and grade them. It was stressful, intense, and exhausting for me, great for the class schedule and the kids. 

I ran a fundraising road rally for the congregation, which was a mix between a treasure and scavenger hunt. I organized a Mother’s Day brunch for my wife, mother, sister-in-law, and aunt-in-law. My daughter had another wrist x-ray and then we went to the Bakers Square which was demolished this week. My son had an ear infection! We went to the spring play, gymnastics tournaments to watch a former student, and Honors Night. I was a human pinball. 

Much of my free time was filled with grading (and watching those debate recordings). I also started meeting with a group of teachers who team-taught classes. Those meetings meant I was not in my regular classes, which meant sub plans and thus additional work. 

Yet, I read to both kids every night. We had our mornings together, too, even if it meant that when we left the house, it looked like the kitchen had been ransacked by raccoons. We went to dinners at Sweet Tomatoes on a regular basis, which was my children’s favorite restaurant. I rode my bike with my daughter to her school in the morning until she felt comfortable riding by herself. We even had an occasional Saturday babysitter and went to see the movie, Bend It Like Beckham! 

Like today, I was very aware of my good fortune. I wrote, “I am so lucky, so very very very lucky.” Despite a relative’s divorce and my mother-in-law’s condition, the rest of the family worked like a well-oiled Rube Goldberg machine. I noted that I did a “thousand things today,” but I wasn’t overwhelmed or unhappy about it. As with prior months, reading my old journals exhausted me now – but not then. 

I don’t know when we’ll be able to really say, “mission accomplished” in the middle east. It was May of 2003 when the Israeli government approved a plan that they thought would create a two-state system by 2005! 

Looking back lets us shake our heads at the past. It emphasizes how our view then is different from our reality now. Yet, it is our past that formed this present and what will come next. I think that frenetic pace is why I love the quiet and calm of retirement.

Privacy Protections Not TikTok Bans

When I was in the classroom (I’m retired), I wanted to keep up with my students’ technology trends. I wanted to know what interested and engaged my students. I was aware of social media when My Space, Friendster, and eventually, Facebook came out. However, it wasn’t until I signed up for an account on Facebook that I really understood what all the fuss was about. Reading about teen culture is one thing, diving in is very different. 

When TikTok came out, I didn’t hear kids talking about it. I had an account on Instagram and I found the “stories” slow and often duplicates of images and ideas from other posts. My students seemed more involved in other platforms like Snapchat.

Two years ago, on vacation, my twenty-something daughter (our family trailblazer) showed me the TikTok videos she was watching. We spent an hour or more laughing together. It was delightful. 

She showed me that TikTok was more than comedy videos. She was learning about smart homes, cooking, and other do-it-yourself skills. So, I signed up. I found TikTok the most entertaining of my social media sources. I like Facebook for personal connections, but TikTok was way more engaging and thus time-consuming. 

There, I said it. Despite the controversy, the fear of foreign manipulation, or the theft of my personal data, I like TikTok because it is the most entertaining, edifying, and enjoyable social media site I have found - and I have tried almost all of them. 

I like TikTok’s variety of content. I am following folks reviewing and talking about books, science fiction, Star Trek, theatre, education, religion, health, social issues – and, of course, politics. I hear about people’s perspectives and experiences. I learn about music, linguistics, science, education, and technology. 

While our lawmakers are worried about espionage, misinformation, and unethical use of my information, my concern is more about the way kids may be using social media (on any of its platforms). I am told that kids are using TikTok instead of search engines and it has become a mediator of the internet for them. Yet, this is a problem with many social media platforms, not just TikTok. Kids must be taught both critical thinking skills and how to seek and evaluate information they find online. 

And yes, I have Marshall McLuhan in my head at times asking something like, does viewing short, clever, and easy to digest videos about such important topics as race, religion, and the culture wars minimize and trivialize these complex issues? Is it also possible that this medium has made messages both more available and powerful to a new audience? 

Yet, when some legislators seem to want people to go to sleep rather than confront anything that might kick their complacency, worrying about quick videos seems the least of our troubles. The issue is not the form or the ownership. The issue is that social media can foment hate and violence. The issue is that kids can learn wonderful and wholesome lessons as well as destructive and dangerous ones. But that is a problem with all social media platforms, not just TikTok. In fact, that is an issue on and off the internet. 

Should we be concerned about privacy? Of course. At this point, it is more than a cliché statement that if you don’t pay for a service, you are the product. TikTok is getting my attention. But that, too, happens with every social media platform. 

Do I make purchasing decisions based on TikTok, Facebook or other online ads: not consciously. Will I? Perhaps. I am thinking about buying some of the products that the home automation guy on TikTok has been demonstrating (but I haven’t done it yet). I do go to some of the websites that I learn about from the people who demonstrate “useful websites I’ll bet you didn’t know about.” 

I know I am leaving digital footprints. They are far deeper than my use of TikTok. I find Facebook’s targeted ads creepy. But the use of my data is the price I am paying for this service. Should the government make sure that Facebook, TikTok, and others use my data ethically? Absolutely!  

Burying our heads in analog sand (or staying asleep) is not going to help either. Our world is now, at least in part, online. We must be informed and connected. TikTok has, on several occasions, informed me about important issues long before they appeared in my news feeds. Snapchat doesn’t work for me. I find Instagram slow and self-indulgent. Facebook is a way to stay connected to distant folks. I don’t go to social media to be angry or argue. I don’t go to feel good about myself or look down at others. I go to learn, connect, explore, and laugh. I hear authentic voices that I might not hear in real life (IRL). 

Banning TikTok doesn’t make us personally or communally safer. Creating legislation that protects users against inappropriate and unethical use of their data might. Like other industries, social media, and perhaps the internet in general, could use some consumer protections – in order to do this, lawmakers need to become much more knowledgeable about today’s technology! 

Reading for Treasure: Protecting Your Information and Privacy

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction.

Once again, here are some articles to keep you safe as you use your technology. Specifically, how to thwart being tracked or scammed by devices, websites, advertisers, and others. 

This video from CNN includes a password tip that is genius and I have never heard of before. I am not going to list it here, but listen for the word “salt” in the video: "Here's how to keep your passwords safe, according to a hacker.” 

Wired provided a simple and common sense list of “6 Things You Need to Do to Prevent Getting Hacked.” Read the article, but I’ll list them here: Use multifactor authentication, get a password manager, learn how to spot a phishing attack, update everything, encrypt everything, and wipe your digital footprint. If any of those terms are foreign to you, take it as a sign you need this article. 

A great compliment to the above article, Propublica’s article, “A Former Hacker’s Guide to Boosting Your Online Security.” provides a straight forward and simple list of ten things to preventing stolen data, identity theft, and other online hazards. Again, I’ll list them here, but read the article for more: stop reusing passwords, delete unused accounts, use multifactor authentication, manage your privacy settings, think before you click, keep your software up to date, limit what you’re sharing online, security your SIM, freeze your credit reports, and back up your data! 

Lifehacker is also a great source for digital safety. Here a short and simple article that lets you know “How to Tell Which Apps Can See Your Private iPhone Data.” It is an older article, but still worth reading. 

This somewhat scary article from The Conversation via Inverse is a good overview of how your use of technology may put your privacy at risk: “Here’s exactly how tech companies and apps conspire to track you 24/7.”

Yes, emails can snitch on you. Many emails report back to their senders if you opened them, when you opened them, and even for how long you engaged with them. Want to stop this? Read this article from Wired: “How to Tell Which Emails Quietly Track You.” If you use Apple devices, this Lifehacker article, “How to Stop Email Trackers on Your iPhone, iPad, and Mac” will help you with this issue and more. 

A new form of hacking is to use free USB charging stations. Apple Insider discusses, “What juicejacking and trustjacking are, and how to protect yourself.” The basic piece of advice here is, if your phone asks you “Do you trust this computer?” or “Allow this device to access.. and you are not connected to your home computer, say, NO! 

How many of us have lost our phones or have had our phones stolen?  We may feel safe because our phone is locked with a passcode, fingerprint, or our face. Lifehacker says, “Your iPhone Is Still Vulnerable When It Is Locked” and then helps you secure it! 

And it is worse than that: Lifehacker provides instructions on how to use screen time on the iPhone to prevent a stolen phone from becoming a stolen Apple account or worse: "How Screen Time Can Save You When Your iPhone is Stolen." 

I am currently reading The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Nineteen Eighty Florida

“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink—greetings!”

Although written by Orwell’s 1984 protagonist, Winston Smith, this message might be a missive from the sunshine state, which is increasingly making certain that the sun only shines on what is state approved and those who get up in the morning must go right back to sleep. Big Brother is alive and well in Florida. 

The state government of Florida –and the states emulating it - are taking their cue from Orwell’s classic dystopian novel. They are rewriting history, stifling free expression, and creating hated scapegoats. All of this to strengthen and sustain the power of, using Orwell’s label, the Party. 

The forces that are squelching any communication about topics that hurt the Party’s feelings are akin to the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s novel. In 1984 there are four ministries: the Ministry of Peace, which makes war, the Ministry of Love, which is the secret police, the Ministry of Plenty which rations resources, and the Ministry of Truth, which among other things, rewrites the past so it justifies and supports the party’s political and social goals. 

“Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is the past, and no different past can ever have existed. This holds good even when, as often happens, the same event has to be altered out of recognition several times in the course of a year.”

Like in 1984, Floridians have been given a menu of people to hate: Black people, Trans people, gay people, drag queens, immigrants, and anyone who disagrees with the Party’s views. All evils are attributed to those who are “woke,” although they struggle to define what that means. The world of 1984 has the Two Minutes Hate every day. Like Florida, all evils were attributed to the traitor Goldstein and his organization, the Brotherhood.  

“The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching.”

Hate, fear, and the manipulation of history are critical to sustaining the Party in the novel. But why would Americans, who value our freedoms, abandon them? How can they believe “alternative facts”, political spin, and propaganda that are obviously designed to manipulate them? They just need to defeat their own memories and morality. 

“The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed— if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.”

Republicans who vote for abortion bans (but make sure that their pregnant people get them), condemn drag shows (and then turn up in drag), and insist that banning guns will not protect anyone (and then ban guns from their gatherings) are hypocrites. But even more, they and their followers are also experts at “reality control.” They have mastered “doublethink.” 

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able—and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years—to arrest the course of history.”

Fox News's editing of the events of January 6th is a public expression of doublethink. It is a revision of the facts into a form that fits Florida and its followers. To admit that racism is built into the fabric of our country and history, to accept responsibility and deal with the real issues and challenges facing us, to protect children in their schools, people praying in church, moviegoers in the theater, and shoppers in the mall from gun violence is not important. Battling drag queens, sexy candy, and elementary school teachers is far more critical than any other social ill. 

There is more, of course. The society of 1984 is divided by class, insiders and outsiders, party and proles. Further into the book, the similarities to Florida intensify. Orwell took the Soviet Union as his model for this novel, just as many Republicans are big fans of Russia’s Putin. 

Spoiler: Orwell’s 1984 doesn’t end well for Winston and those who rebel against the party. The power of the party broaches no compromise and has no compassion. It is a state run by fear, hate, lies, and violence. To quote Winston (and Orwell), “Down with Big Brother.” 

Twenty Years Ago: April 2003

April 2003 was a mixture of familiar and foreign. I started my journal by discussing an episode of This American Life. Not only do I vividly remember this particular story, but I had recently listened to it! 

My journal was punctuated by anxious dreams. I dreamed that, “I was going to summer camp and they were making us go through some kind of medical checkup that I didn’t want. They were going to ‘open up our heads.’” I dreamed about picking the wrong waffles, being overwhelmed with bnai mitzvah prices, having my hotel bathroom taken over by a stranger, and being on crutches on an army ship! 

I wrote about relishing quiet and slow mornings (one of my favorite parts of retirement), making lots of lists (I noted that, “I live on lists”), and struggling with the change from daylight saving time (“That lost hour counts!”). April was still hardly spring; in 2003, it began with a snowstorm! 

Even at a young age, my kids were themselves, “Quinn enjoyed her day at the zoo. She is great. Jonah is so happy, he literally bounces into the room. These kids are fantastic.” They still are! 

My life was hectic and phenomenally full, “There is a great deal to do between all the projects: StageWrite, Road Rally, Humanities, Peer Helping, Confirmation, and just teaching, parenting, and day to day stuff. Stop! Don’t want to freak myself out!” And that list wasn’t even complete! My daughter had several x-rays and doctor visits, I was returning to school in the evening for SEED class and special events, the homeowners association, and Friday night services. Oh, and I signed up for an adult Hebrew class! 

Yet, my enthusiasm for teaching was powerful, “Each job is different, I suppose, but I happen to think that I have the best one around: I do good – and do well. I have seasons. I am always learning and helping others to grow. I work for the good guys.”

Over spring break, I prepared for the class I would teach in the fall. I used quite a bit of that precious downtime to grade and prepare for my current students – and I started a summer to-do list dominated by professional tasks. And I got another cold! 

There were school challenges. The return to school after spring break was like diving into a cold pool. I had a student who was unhappy with the B he earned on his essay. We scheduled a meeting to go over the essay and he brought his mother to it! I struggled with getting my website updated. All materials that I gave to students on paper were available online. This is typical today, but in 2003, very few teachers did this. 

I used the computer regularly in the classroom for learning activities. We didn’t have projectors in classrooms, so I had to get the C.O.W., the computer on wheels. The English cart was called the Literary COW or L.C. for short. 

I dealt with a case of plagiarism, made presentations for our writing tutors, proctored the state testing, facilitated the display of the Names Memorial AIDS Quilt, hosted classroom observers, and ran a rehearsal of our student performance of creative writing. After I finished the rehearsal, I thought to myself, “I can’t believe I used to do this every day!” I was so much younger when I was directing plays: Ha! 

The school selected one of my schedules! However, they also chose to begin the day twenty minutes earlier, which flies in the face of the research about teens and sleep! The staff member who spoke to the staff was a coach in favor of starting earlier. It would be great for outdoor sports. I created a two-sided chart to explore both sides of the issue and even wrote a thesis arguing against an earlier beginning to our day. I lost. Sports' needs usually win. 

April brought Passover, touch-a-truck, my daughter’s birthday party, the start of softball, homeowners association meetings, and lots of rain. I noted, “I feel drained. Tired. I know this is the normal Friday feeling but this has been a very full week and a very full day. Each day, my pocket list was overflowing. My list for the weekend is longer than it usually is.” I reminded myself, “I think I can, I think I can.”

My father and I got into a heated “discussion” about the Iraq war at our Passover seder. I resolved to get rid of my Windows computer at home and buy a Mac. I was stuck with the “pieces of c” at school. 

Yet, April was a typical month – then. I am delighted that my life has slowed down now.