Warning: May Cause Blindness

Like anything which brings us enjoyment, power begets more power. The more we have of something, the more we tend to want it. And the more we get, the more insatiable out appetites become for it. Whether it's food or drink, sex or money (but hopefully not sex-for-money), respect or power, a whetted appetite breeds a desire for more, more, more. Eventually we reach a point where there are signs to take a break; that first deep exhale when you finally come up for air from the dinner plate doesn't always mean you are ready to stop noshing. In an unfortunate twist of events, we rarely heed those warning signs and continue (think about the last time you drank to excess...was it the shot that sat in your mouth for a little too long before you swallowed? The beer that got REALLY heavy? The slight lapse in balance as you got up to use the bathroom?). The result? A painful reminder that we've had too much. You get up at 2 am to take another antacid. You boot on the sidewalk outside of the bar. You make sure that nothing touches your vital organ until after you've had a few hours to recover. You go all in on two pair because hey, you can spare it. You text a picture of your dick.

Wait, what?

Former Representative Anthony Weiner's latest entry in the book of 21st century creeps is sad and enraging. For the rage, please scroll below. The sadness that comes out of this is largely for his new and pregnant wife, Huma Abedin. The rest of whatever combination of grief and pity you have for Weiner is largely reserved for the warning signs he brazenly steamrolled through with his power. Why didn't he think about the long-lasting footprint that a crotch-shot message leaves? Why did he think it was alright to do that while married (and soon to be a father, no less)? Why did he say his Twitter account had been hacked? Why did he FIGHT it? For ten long days, why did he try to fight, ignore, cover up, and downplay this?

I'm not one for scrutiny on the acts of others. In previous cases of such behavior- affairs, scandals, politicians being scumbags (see Schwarzenegger, Arnold)- I would wish the person good luck in untangling the clusterfuck that their life has become, particularly for any kids that they may have. It's bad enough when stuff like this happens to people who are not in the public eye. However, when you are a person who is elected into office, you ARE held to a higher standard than everyone else, just as you are held to a higher standard when you are paid millions of dollars to play your sport and make your movies (and the nonsense about love of the game/craft is bullshit. Ask minor league-ers and film students about love of a craft). No, the Anthony Weiner situation became its saddest when, after he was revealed to have been in intimate contact with another young lady, he said that he would take a temporary leave to undergo therapy for what he had done. Another warning sign that you have DE-RAILED.

No, wait. That wasn't it. The saddest part had to have been when Nancy Pelosi called on him to resign, on behalf of his political party. Uhh, Ant? That was another wake-up call. Your teammates no longer want your distractions fogging up the clubhouse, man.

Nope. Not quite there yet. The saddest part had to have been a couple of days later when President Obama suggested tha-- wait, the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is suggesting that you step down and you don't? Thick-headed seems an inappropriate term to use. "Dumbass" at least gets the point across, if not in polite fashion.

Would we have reached the bottom when his constituents- the people he was elected to serve seven times since 1998- were reported to want him to step down (including a paltry 8% approval rating from Democrats (the party which Weiner represented) nationally)? I would be inclined to think so, until I noticed that it was still a solid 2-3 days before he formally resigned. The bottoming-out was not when he actually resigned, or when the insults came hurling towards him at that press conference*.

No, I would hope that the bottoming out came when Anthony Weiner looked around at his press conference and did not see his wife anywhere. Not in the crowd. Not weeping in the wings. Not located next to him as a show of solidarity. Huma Abedin was nowhere to be found. This has to be rock-bottom. If it is not, then there's little reason to think that Weiner has any redeeming qualities whatsoever, and has been permanently polluted by power.

Power must be an incredibly potent thing, as more and more people are getting caught up in having so much of it that they become blinded to the consequences of their actions, and the warning signs that pop up along the way. In Weiner's case, there were easily a half dozen billboard-sized warning signs that he should get out of office and repair his damaged personal life. Any one of these- had they been listened to- would have resulted in far less damage to his precious public image. Instead, he has lost the confidence of his district, his party, and his leader. What you think of his wife staying with him is, frankly, irrelevant. It has been made painfully clear during this ordeal that the power and prestige of being a Congressman is priority number one, and on that front, Weiner has lost it all.

Whatever your indestructibility seems to be when you have enough power, this stuff DOES get out. It happened to Kennedy. It happened to Clinton. It has happened to people in power more times than should be allowed. What made Weiner think it wouldn't happen to him, particularly because of the role of technology over the years?

The biggest problem I have with Weiner doesn't rest with the personal scars on his marriage, or his political fall from grace, and it CERTAINLY doesn't rest with the fight over his Congressional seat (if kept after the re-district movement, do you really think a Republican candidate will stroll into Brooklyn and Queens and lay claim to it?). Of course not. The problem I have is that this man was elected to represent the people in his district. That's what you are when you are elected into office in this country: Representative of the people. And the people don't like dick shots. They don't like liars. And they certainly don't like the combination of the two. Whatever it was that made Weiner think he had a right to keep his seat after the people who voted him INTO office demanded that he leave office must be taken chilled with a chaser of ignorance.

Your job as a public official is to serve the people. If the people vote you in, you are at their will. You present issues they have to the rest of the legislative body and you figure it out. Even if that problem is you. Them's the breaks. Or did no one teach that at Congress 101? The power is said to lie within the people. At what point is that on-ramp missed? I have confidence that the NYS 9th Congressional district would at no point in the last 7 elections have put Anthony Weiner into office if they knew what was in store for them. It's embarrassing. It's degrading. And it's certainly an unfortunate side effect of power.



* For those hurling insults at the press conference: You make it worse.

Dusting off the blog

I make no guarantees that I will be more dutiful in the steady update of this blog. In fact, I'd be surprised if things shook out that way. However, something happened the other day that got me to thinking that while there is an inherent danger in posting information up on the cloud of the internet, there's no surefire way to keep information on the computer otherwise. The other day, a virus took out documents, pictures, music, etc. from my hard drive. While I am generally really good about getting my work onto an external hard drive, my major writing endeavors were not so fortunate. Works that I had put a lot of effort into, including a book, a script, and a journal...were lost. To say it was a rough afternoon would be putting it mildly. On the other hand, I recognize that it is a bit petty to worry about that sort of thing when in the larger picture, I am doing alright.

In the meantime, rolling into yesterday and the self-assessment that tends to consume my birthdays, it was not off to a rollicking start. In fact, there are few instances where I had felt LESS enthusiastic about a special day. The day itself was nothing too wild: hot, sticky weather; at a sub job with less-than-enthusiastic students; swallowed up in a book. I came home and took a nap to try and beat the heat, had a nice, quiet dinner with Mom, and went to work. Pretty standard. It lacked the punch of, say, an extravaganza.

Fast forward to last night. After trivia, I meandered over to the Dubliner to meet up with some more fellow birthday children for a catch up. While catching up with old friends and acquaintances, I got to talking with my buddy Jay, whom I hadn't seen in ages. We got to talking about old faces from the past and how- with a high school reunion on the horizon- it's been fairly manageable to keep in touch with familiar faces from back in the day. While I won't give ALL of the credit to facebook, it is plainly obvious that the internet has made so much of that possible. We-- those of us who grew up with access to the internet-- are a spoiled generation: communication became easier from the luxury of a distant screen, interaction made bolder and more brazen without the menace of eye-to-eye contact, becoming more and more empowered to do less and less to really test ourselves as the world becomes more accessible at the simple stroke of a few keys. This is not something that has been lost on me.

One of the benefits of this simple interaction is that it is incredibly easy to keep up this communication with people from the past. On a day like yesterday, I was genuinely moved to tears of gratitude that, despite the hazy June doldrums and the downright shitty day that I had, there were a plethora of messages and well wishes waiting for me when I returned home. This simple act of kindness took all of a few seconds to send, text, post, whatever. And yet the impact of that simple short message means the world to me. I felt quite overwhelmed by it (and I am wont to do when I step back). See, it costs very little to send along a message, to take the time to give well-wishes, and so all of that little effort adds up to floor a man.

I am truly humbled to have been given the warm thoughts that I've been given. And thankful. To each and every one of you who took the time to pass along just a little piece of gladness, I say, "thank you". It truly made my day, and made me take stock in the blessings in my life. I sincerely hope that all of you receive the wonderful, and easy-to-give, blessings of a great day in the near future. Thank you!