Writing Boots

On I-80 West yesterday bound for Des Moines—somewhere after the Iowa state line but before the real border, which is the looming, purple thunderhead you inevitably pass through on this road—NPR stations were getting harder and harder to find, badly outnumbered on the bottom of the FM dial by Christian shows.

I was listening with forced intensity, as I was drowsy and my first mate was sleeping. On “Talk of the Nation,” I heard an interview on the energy situation with the president-elect of the American Petroleum Institute. The fellow, who has also represented the mining industry and one other industry lobby whose altruistic aim I can’t recall, said more than once that what he thought we really need in this country is a “robust debate” about energy.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I have as strong a point of view about something as I imagine the oil industry has about wanting to drill more reserves in North America, what I’m looking for is not a “robust debate.”

Honey, I understand you want me to come along with you to Bed, Bath and Beyond, and that this trip will cause me to miss my tee time. I embrace this diversity of views, and I look forward to a robust debate.

I don’t know whether drilling offshore is a good idea. I’m not an environmentalist, a scientist, or an oil energy expert.

I do know that in general, people who call for debates and dialogues are looking to put the problem off (“we need a dialogue on education!”) while pretending to address it (“we need a dialogue on race in this country!”).

As for people who use the word “robust”—whether they’re referring to debates, coffee or marketing strategies—well, they’re bullshitters too.

Finally, the petroleum guy also said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts. It’s my experience—and I bet most sensible Iowans will agree with me on this one—that people who use this old saw happen to be liars.

Looking at earnings releases for a daily news roundup that I do for one of my clients, I recently got clarity about the reason management hates the media (a thing that makes media relations’ people’s jobs so stressful).

Management spends weeks arguing internally—the accountants, the IR guys, the lawyers, the CFO and the CEO himself—about how to frame the quarterly results. They finally come to a grudging conclusion, almost all of them believing all the others are either Pollyannas or prigs.

And the press release gets hammered out. And it’s finally released. And the moment it is, these goofy industry reporters interpret the results all over again.

For instance, back in late April the German retailer Metro released its first-quarter earnings.

"Metro Q1 EBIT rises despite German doldrums," Reuters reported.

"Metro Widens 1Q Net Loss," said Dow Jones.

Both facts were true; but the interpretations were different. Same thing happened to Clorox a couple of days later.

"Clorox lowers high end of 2008 guidance range," the Associated Press reported.

"Clorox forecasts eases investor fears, stock jumps," Reuters said.

Again: No factual differences in the stories. Just different interpretations, both of them probably legitimate. But one reporter’s take nudges the stock price up, the other threatens to nudge it down.

You can understand why management hits the roof over this stuff. But have you ever found a way to make management understand that, with a free press (let alone a wild blogosphere), various interpretations are absolutely inevitable and should be received philosophically?

Every July Fourth we have a party on our back deck. We call it the "Defend the Roof Party." Armed with large glasses of gin, we are ready to put put any fire that might erupt as a result of the fireworks bombardment by our Mexican neighbors.

It’s an endless siege, the Alamo in Chicago. Firecrackers in dumpsters, bottle rockets going everywhere, M-80s in the back alley, astonishingly noisy and colorful things blowing up over the garage, sparks raining down on everything.

And you should see the kinds of fireworks their parents shoot off! (Was that a gun?)

But here’s the deal about the Defend the Roof Party. We don’t really think the Mexicans are going to burn our house down.

Of course, we can’t be sure about their intentions.

We don’t know many of the Mexicans around us; they keep to themselves, encouraging our instinct to do the same. (Most days, life seems complicated enough without diving into an intercultural dialogue, does it not?)

But in more than 10 years of living in this neighborhood, I’ve never been threatened by a Mexican, never once been panhandled by a Mexican, never had any reason to feel the slightest bit of antipathy toward any of my Mexican neighbors. It’s a ridiculous generalization based mostly on a thousand shallow interactions at tacquerias, but my observation is that Mexicans—I can’t tell the legals from the illegals—are a hard-working, unassuming, cheerful lot.

At least that’s how I’d describe Jose, the cook at the corner Irish bar, whose greatest crime is his regular attempt to sneak a slice of cake to Scout for dessert.

I can understand the fear and rancor in people who live near the Mexican border and have their houses ransacked by hungry, thirsty immigrants. And I’m sure I’d feel differently if I believed it was my job that illegal immigrants were taking (like everybody else, I turn into the Hulk when I perceive that someone is threatening my livelihood). And maybe I’m willfully ignorant about the terrible strain illegal immigrants are putting on the health care system.   

But Dear Lou Dobbs: Why should I care if Jose doesn’t want to learn English? His young daughter will learn it by accident. If illegal immigration is the widespread, soul-sucking problem you say it is, why would you have to prove it, over and over, night after night? Is it possible that the reason we can’t seem to pass sensible immigration reform is that there is no solution to the problem of a rich country jammed up against a poor country with a long border between them?

I was seven in the summer of the Bicentennial in 1976. During the school "units" surrounding that, I remember honestly scratching my head when my teachers talked about freedom. What, exactly, were kids in other countries not "free" to do? Could they not eat ice cream? Could they not play cowboys and Indians? Did they have to set the table and clear the dishes?

I still think about what it is we’re supposed to be free to do here in America, and I still sometimes wonder. People are afraid to blog for fear of losing their jobs; corporate nondisclosure agreements trump freedom of speech; more and more, our lives seem to be organized by Microsoft Office and run by mutual fund investors who don’t even know they own CNN as part of their Moderate Risk portfolio.

So this mad, spontaneous, lawless neighborhood fireworks festival expresses freedom for me, as my friends drink and laugh and the Mexicans light fuses and run. Yes, we’re a nation of laws. Yes, a country probably needs some amount of cultural cohesion. Yes, it would be more convenient if we all spoke the same language.

But tomorrow isn’t a day to celebrate laws or social theory or convenience. Tomorrow the main thing is freedom, right? It’s Independence Day, is it not? So tomorrow, the main idea is:

You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.