Unplug

      Thoreau said, “we don’t ride on the railroad, it rides on us.”

      And he never experienced the internet.

      Social media weighs more heavily on us than previous generations of innovations.

     We become locked into the routine of checking. Checking email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever. Scrolling a deleting until, eventually, we find something worth reading.

     Of course there is value in communication through social media. Business emails, Twitter posts that are real news and all that. But it is so easy to become trapped by the irrelevant.

    Advertising used to be avoidable. Now it pops up on emails and newsfeeds like dandelions in the spring. Friends used to be people we actually talked to. Now they are people we hardly remember posting photos of their grandchildren and dogs.

      I’m as guilty as anyone of enjoying reconnecting with high school and college friends and keeping up with people who have moved across the country. But, I limit my time on social media. I have always had a feeling it was more than a time suck.

   Now, more intelligent columnists than I have come to the conclusion that too much exposure to social media causes our brains to operate more inefficiently.  Of course it does. For one thing, we are sitting, staring at a screen rather than moving around and keeping our blood circulating.  For another, we are spending time glancing at paragraphs of drivel masquerading as news. Especially after the recent election, many of us are becoming ridiculously enraged at the collective idiocy of those who believe everything they read on Facebook. Or Stalkbook, as the barista at my local coffee shop calls it.

     It’s only natural to use the anonymity of the internet to create an alternate identity. It’s sort of like the boy in A Thousand Clowns who chose various names for himself. I remember he had his library card as Raphael Sabatini. Even under our own names, it is tempting to be that little boy, trying out different personas.

    While that in and of itself isn’t damaging, it isn’t terribly productive.

     I know a number of people who are taking a post-election break from social media. That’s a good thing, but it shouldn’t take a depressing disaster make you realize you have better things to do.

     I also know some people who “unfriended” everyone on their friend’s list who voted for “the other candidate.” That indicates politics is everything. It’s not. It’s possible to still care about someone you don’t always agree with. Trust me on this one.

     And trust me, you’ll be better off with a little less computer time.

Safety -- the Downside

     One of the Facebook posts that actually makes sense to me, poised amid the weeds of political lunacy, points out that at one time 18-year-olds were storming the beaches of Normandy (or the jungles of Khe San), not searching for a "safe space" because the results of the election bothered them.

     We have done a tragic disservice to our children if they need to hide from reality.

      Sure, there are certain groups justifiably frightened by the rhetoric of the election season and the actions of a number of Trump supporters. But there is way too much cowering going on.

     And on the other end, too much property damage. Protests are fine, looting and violence are never the right reactions.

     The point is there are too many young people in this world who aren't taught to be resillient.

     Helicopter mothers. Trophies for participation. Even, I've been told, teachers instructed not to tell their students they are wrong.

     What an injustice to young people, not teaching them to handle problems, even the smallest of problems.

     Someone once asked me what's the most important thing I taught my kids. I said "to get back up on the horse."

     I'm not the best mother in the world, I'm sure. I know I made lots of mistakes. But I taught my kids to handle defeat. 

     Sure, nobody wants bad things to happen to their kids. But stuff does happen. We have to teach them to pick themselves up and brush themselves off. They have to learn that mommy won't always be standing behind them.

     People somehow got the idea that college tuition is an investment allowing them to control what happens. No, you don't have a right to sit in on advising sessions. Your college student is an adult and needs to act like one. I have a feeling they will learn quickly when they have to. We all did.

     I don't believe this generation has less ability to learn than we did. I don't believe they are less resilient than we were. They just need the chance to prove themselves.  

Outdated Terminology

     I am pretty tired of the term "media elite."

     It pigeonholes everyone involved in newsgathering. As if the media from the NYTimes to your hyperlocal digital website run by an exhausted ex-newspaperman was a monolith.

     We don't feel terribly elite much of the time. Like when we are living on stale coffee and melted candy bars on a midnight deadline. Or when the high school fieldhouse is on fire and there's no place to get a picture that isn't in the line of fire from a fire hose.
   
     People see the anchors of national news with their bespoke suits and hundred dollar haircuts. They don't see the rookie reporter living on raman noodles in an apartment shared with three other reporters and shopping at the Methodist Thrift Shop. 

     Of course some people can see the difference.  Those we cover closely know the difference between real reporters and superstar anchors and the difference between them both and the dilettantes who call themselves journalists because they can type. The officials who have seen us weekly for years may learn to finesse our questions, but, if they do their job well, they know when we do ours professionally. Most people who just read the news and don't make the news never think about what we do or how hard we work to do it.

    This dreadful, interminable election season has brought that into focus.  I see people whom I always assumed were pretty smart commenting on Facebook about things they obviously read that were written by someone who did absolutely no research and relied on no primary sources. I'm not just talking about people on the right. Some of my liberal friends also remind me of the Red Queen who could often believe two impossible things before breakfast. 

     The legacy newspapers and their digital presences, NPR and the old-line television news shows do our research, reach out to sources and work really hard for the truth. Fox (Faux) News and the loudmouths of AM radio do not. Don't put us all in the same wheelbarrow. And, for Cronkite's sake, don't believe ANYTHING you read on social media. It was probably posted by a 17-year-old in Macedonia with a wicked sense of humor and a fondness for marijuana brownies.
 


   
 

How Exactly Did It Come to This?

     I get people having different, even conflicting, political opinions.

     Some people seem to be motivated totally by idealology. Small government is best, they say, ignoring, or forgetting, that times change and as the world becomes more complex, people become less able to look out for themselves. If you grow your own food, you know what's in it. If corporate, industrial farms grow it, you need the USDA and the FDA. But, they have very right to believe they  don't need government regulation. They also have every right to get salmonella.

     Other people have this urban idea that guns equal crime. They have the right to believe that. They also have the right to be bitten by a rabid raccoon because they didn't have a gun to shoot it.

     But, today, it doesn't seem to be about ideology. I'm not sure what it is about.

     Fear? Sure, I get people don't like change. Nobody liked the New Coke. But change comes. And, to be in America and dislike the change that comes from immigrants is pretty ridiculous. I mean, this isn't like the immigration that destroyed the Indian Nations. If you're Navajo and pissed off, I get it. But, I don't think a bunch of Syrians is gonna drive out to the plains and wipe out buffalo herds. They may open some decent Middle Eastern restaurants in Brooklyn . . .

     Then, fear turns to anger. And anger is a lousy reason to cast a vote.

     An election season with more venom than facts helps no one.  There has been precious little actual discussion during the presidential campaign. I, for one would like to hear something substantial between now and next Tuesday. Something. Anything. 
     

We have to Save the Union Hotel.

The Trial of the 20^th Century was undoubtedly the Lindbergh kidnapping trial.

Some people might dispute that and argue for the O. J. Simpson trial, but I have it on good authority from someone who witnessed both trials that Simpson was amateur hour on that score.

H. Alan Painter covered the Lindbergh trial as a rookie reporter and lived long enough to watch the Simpson trial on television.

The difference, of course, was technology. The Lindbergh trial had radio, black and white movie newsreeels. The Simpson trial had television, helicopters hovering over the famous white Bronco on the freeway. But atmosphere is what makes a circus.

And the Lindbergh trial had the elephants and the dancing bears and the high wire acts. Reporters signaled their colleagues out the courtroom windows as deadline approached and had many other little methods of getting the word out.

The trial is Hunterdon County’s little contribution to American history. Lindbergh was America’s hero. The Lone Eagle, Lucky Lindy. The man who personalized the fledgling world of aviation.

In an age where Elon Musk is testing rockets to send payloads to space for private clients and investing in self-driving cars, it may not occur to the younger folks among us that what Lindbergh did was really incredible. Several aviators had died trying to cross the Atlantic. Once Lindbergh proved it could be done transportation was forever changed.

In a very modern-seeming action, the Lindberghs chose to move to the secluded Sourland Mountains to avoid being stalked by photographers and the public decades before Fellini’s Paparazzo would lend his name to the phenomenon. There tragedy struck, forever placing Flemington in the public lexicon.

The courthouse, already an old building, was the scene of uncontrolled chaos. Rules about courtroom decorum by the press were in their infancy, as were kidnapping laws. Every prominent journalist of the day crowded into the second-floor courtoom and, when the day‘s proceedings were over, adjourned to the Union Hotel, a former stagecoach stop right across Main Street.

In 1935, reporters were probably even more hard-drinking than they are now. It was certainly more acceptable. Damon Runyon had quit drinking by that time, but not Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Killgallen, Walter Winchell and H. L. Mencken. The Union Hotel was where they drank, and talked, and wrote their stories. The echoes of their typewriters still resonate through the hallways and their banter still lingers in the bar.

The courthouse was carefully restored years ago.  The hotel allowed to deteriorate.

There have been attempts to save the hotel. Now, apparently, the borough has given up. Experts in historic preservation say the hotel is salvageable. It is a matter of will.

Without the Union Hotel, the courthouse would still be the courthouse, but its historic significance would be lessened. The two buildings need to be preserved as a unit. They both played a role in Hunterdon County’s most important historic event. They must be kept together.

 Flemington has many historic buildings that have been carefully restored. Like those below.

The hotel is bigger than most, but that is a challenge, not a deterrent. Allowing the hotel to be demolished would be a tragedy for the courthouse, the borough, the county and anyone who care about history.

The Present is Fine, Thank you

      I don't want to return to 1973. 
     
      While I would love to be that young again (with a little of the wisdom I have gained since -- full disclosure, I had hair like Susan St. James), I wouldn't want to relive the lies of Richard Nixon or the insults hurled at returning soldiers. I also really don't want to relive the fallacies of urban renewal.

      For some strange reason, some people in Hunterdon County do want to go back to those days. 

This is what Main Street Flemington looks like now. Small town America at its best.

         The problems with urban renewal is that it took away old, well built structures and replaced them with oversized and poorly built towers. Often the new buildings were so out of scale they ruined the look of the entire downtown.

      Fortunately, that silly trend fell away, replaced by a desire to save and cherish historic buildings.

     But, Flemington Borough Council gave the borough's redevelopment contract to a throwback to the bad oild days.

     Jack Cust wants to build a building three stories taller than allowed in the ordinance (and probably taller than the fire department's snorkel can handle). He wants a 100-room hotel (100 is the magic number of a new liquor license), 900-car parking garage, 45,000 square feet of retail space.

      Of that 45,000, 25,000 would be dedicated to Flemington Furs -- sure, keep the business that attracts PETA and their spray cans of fake blood. Just what every town needs.

      Cust also wants to take the Flemington Furs property. He said the borough needs a college. Maybe, but I'd rather heard that from RVCC.

      His proposal goes against the master plans of both the borough and the county. Sure, master plans can be changed, but it should only be done through a process of public hearings with expert testimony. Not on a whim.

      I'll get to the transparency and historic issues in future blogs.

     Stay tuned.
 

It Isn't Easy Being Green

     Many years ago, I was walking along a hallway at Rutgers University when a man in a clerical collar hurried up to me and said, "Hi, I hear you're Episcopalian and an environmentalist, do you want to be on my environmental commission?"
     The environmental commission in question was that of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. The priest was Franklin (Skip) Vilas, then rector of St. Paul's Chatham. 
     Anyone who ever met Skip knows I said yes. Nobody can say no to Skip. 
     Eventually, the Diocesan commission worked with other Christian denominations and with area Jewish congregations and a Mosque in Jersey City to form Partners for Environmental Quality. I was on the inaugural advisory board. Like I said, nobody can say no to Skip.  PEQ expanded to include Buddhist and Hindu congregations and from a local to a national group called GreenFaith.
     Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, wrote a book titled Green Faith: Mobilizing God's People to Save the Earth.
     I have moved on to other projects in my life, but I continue to subscribe to GreenFaith's email newsletter and I got the book as soon as it came out. I didn't, however, read it immediately, because, well, life.
     A train ride from Hackettstown to Bellmore, LI, inspired me to read it.
     I learned a lot from the book.
     In a way, that surprised me. After all, I was on the diocesan commission and PEQ. I taught the environmental curriculum for Sunday School prepared by the diocese -- we were the first church to do so, St. Peter's Mt Arlington. We were the most obvious church to adopt the environmental curriculum, located on a rise above Lake Hopatcong. The kids, even the little ones knew a lot about saving water, recycling, many topics other children don't live with day to day. I even gave presentations at the annual Creative Congregations conference in the diocese.
   

Lake Hopatcong from the Miss Lotta cruise ship

     But, while I  knew a good deal about the environment and about teaching children about caring for God's Creation, there were things I learned from Fletcher's book. 
      I knew Christian and Jewish teaching about Creation. I also knew some Buddhist teachings. What I didn't realize is that every major religion says pretty much the same thing about our duties toward the natural world. That "dominion" over animals doesn't mean "ownership," it means "stewardship." We are to treat all living things with compassion.

Bleu is one of God's more beautiful creatures, a Weimaraner. He's standing on the rocks at the Lake Hopatcong State Park Beach.

     

       I also learned a good deal about the environmental catastrophes threatening many islands in the South Pacific. I learned about the food shortages that will occur if climate change isn't stopped in its tracks. And, I learned some of the simple things people and organizations, specifically congregations, can do to alleviate the problems.

Climate change affects what crops will grow and the length of the growing season. 

 

Coastlines are jeopardized by rising sea levels.

     

     I can't recommend the book strongly enough. Even if you don't have a God-centered faith, you will learn and be inspired to take action.