Author Archives: Dr. Ben Zalisko

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Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation

READ THE PAPER

I’m proud to have just published a peer-reviewed article in the Strategic Trade Review, discussing why fossil fuels should be considered a proliferation threat along the lines of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons or dual-use materials. I go into detail about how strategic trade management institutions should think about the landscape of policy and enforcement practicalities to mitigate climate change by restricting trade in fossil fuels. The history and infrastructure of multilateral nonproliferation regimes and enforcement institutions are the long-established foundation on which climate collective action is beginning to be built. Enforce it at the border!

A Message to the Climate Change Policy and Advocacy Community:

The collective action, tragedy of the commons, and multilateral coordination problems of climate change have already been solved over the past century of nonproliferation movements. Learn this history and build upon these institutions of trade controls, multilateral institutions, global governance of international trade, the sharing of economic and administrative burdens, and diplomatic norms. Don’t reinvent the wheel, but embrace the lessons, institutions, mechanisms, and expertise that can counter the nonproliferation of fossil fuels to solve the climate crisis.

A Message to the Strategic Trade Management and Customs Community:

I not only recommend, but predict that strategic trade management and customs enforcement will take center stage in the coming global waves of climate mitigation policies. The threat posed by the burning of fossil fuels is similar in scale and character to threats posed by WMDs, and that threat grows as it is ignored. Roughly half of global GDP crosses international borders, so regulating and pricing carbon emissions will be on your shoulders. It’s time to prepare, get smart on climate, and join the conversation to stem the proliferation of fossil fuels.

Read the full latest issue of the STR, here

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Politics, Research, Science, Uncategorized

Moderator Linsey Davis was wrong, and we’re missing the real question

     Watch the first 2.5min of this exchange from last night’s Democratic Primary debate.
     I was unable to find a good fact check or even good coverage of this exchange – only hot takes and cheers from the far left that “Mayo Pete” finally got his comeuppance. However, the claims made by the moderator were pretty complex, so I dug into the data and did the analysis myself.
     First, Davis’s initial, very precisely worded claim that the ratio of black to white arrests for marijuana possession went up during Buttigieg’s mayorship was correct, but a bit misleading. While the ratio of black to white arrests did go up after Buttigieg took office, the number of possession arrests for both white and black people went down significantly during his tenure.
South Bend Analysis.jpg
     Would it have been better if black arrests had gone down even more than for whites so that the ratio was closer to one? Sure, but did he make things better? Of course he did.
     This data tells the story of the real left vs. far-left debate: Would black people in South Bend have been better off if Buttigieg had continued to arrest white people at the pre-2012 rate, making for a more equitable arrest ratio but arresting more people for a victimless crime? If you really understand these data and your answer is “yes”, I would suggest that you are are more interested in vengeance than justice or equality.
     That debate aside, I must turn my ire to moderator Lindsey Davis. Like many journalists, she started with an interesting issue but brought more heat than light.
     Davis pushed back against Buttigieg’s imprecise answer, and this is where she started making mistakes:
Davis: “How do you explain the increase in black arrests in South Bend under your leadership for marijuana possession?”
     This statement is flat out false. For the data we have, the rate of black arrests was significantly lower under Buttigieg and continued to fall for most of his administration. She probably meant the ratio of black to white arrests, but that is a completely different claim.
Buttigieg: “and again, the overall rate was lower than the national rate…”
Davis: “No, there was an increase. The year before you were in office, it was lower, once you became in office in 2012, that number went up. In 2018, the last number year that we have record for, that number was still up”
     Check out the data. Again, she’s probably meaning to say that the ratio of black to white arrests went up, which is true. However, what she is clearly saying, that the arrests of black people for possession went up, is wrong. Arrests of black people for possession went down while Buttigieg was mayor.
     There was a spike in 2018, but this is clearly an outlier and arrests that year went up for both white and black people and the ratio held steady.
     Buttigieg had an imprecise answer about his overall arrest rate, which isn’t quite the point I have been trying to make. Not unreasonably, he wasn’t completely up to speed on the data she was throwing at him. This is the actual “gotcha” journalism that I believe is unfair.
     As I watched this exchange live, what I mostly bumped on was their use of rates, ratios, and percentages to describe arrests in a city of only about 100,000 people. That’s too small of a city to describe in such terms as opposed to absolute numbers. You could bust one big college party and see the rate skyrocket. However, I’m sure that this is not an argument that Mayor Pete wants to make: highlighting that his city was so small that you probably can’t learn much about his governance from data like this.
     See what happens when journalists get sloppy… Warren jumped on Buttigieg not confronting the facts, the narrative about Pete’s performance gets distorted, we miss an important ideological debate, and already complex nomination process for the potential leader of the free world gets further confused.
     METHODS: The demographic data for annual arrests for possession of marijuana in South Bend, IN was downloaded from the FBI, the same data Davis was citing. I tried to get a baseline of how demographics in the city have changed, but couldn’t find a breakdown from year to year. Instead, I combined the data from the 2000 and 2010 census and another survey from 2017 to get a baseline of 60.25±3.60% white and 25.66±0.66% black residents of South Bend, IN. These standard errors were then propagated to give a general sense of the variation in baseline.

 

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Uncategorized

Our Next Generation of Scientists, Exploited

The following article was published by the Union of Concerned Scientists on October 1, 2019 and is re-published with permission.

Uchicago Union March

In May 2017, Ben marches with fellow Graduate Students at the University of Chicago for union recognition. Photo: Claudio Gonzáles

Our federal labor laws have a loophole: If you can get away with characterizing your employees as “students”, you don’t have to respect their right to unionize. Research institutions have been doing this to prevent graduate student workers, who are paid to teach and perform research for their institution, from forming an effective labor union. It’s a neat trick; could a “Walmart University” be on the horizon?

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has bounced back-and-forth for decades on whether or not graduate student workers are “employees” with the right to unionize. Democratic administrations vote “yay”, and Republicans, “nay”.

In 2016, the Obama-era NLRB ruled that graduate student workers could unionize at Columbia University, a private institution that is under NLRB jurisdiction. I was a PhD student at the University of Chicago at the time, and soon after this decision, we voted overwhelmingly to form a labor union. The university fought us at every step, and I was repeatedly floored by the absurd arguments, insults, and rampant dishonesty from the administration. They devalued our work, mischaracterized our relationship with the university, and lied about our compensation not being dependent on productivity. And yet, their message was “trust us, you don’t need a union”.

When President Trump was elected, union movements like ours performed an impressive act of solidarity: They all withdrew their unionization petition in an effort to delay the Trump NLRB’s ability to repeal the Columbia-decision precedent. As of September 2019, the delay appears to be over. In a release, the Trump NLRB is back to “nay”, announcing a move to overturn the 2016 “Columbia decision” and removing protections for graduate student workers.

To be clear, this is not a debate about whether or not graduate student workers should form a union; that’s up to the workers at each institution. This is a debate about whether or not graduate student workers are employees in the first place with a right to unionize.

Getting a PhD has very little in common with going to college. There is little to no significant coursework, homework, assignments, exams, or grades. It’s a job, an entry-level apprenticeship, but a job nonetheless. Educated professionals, with a master’s degree, perform services in exchange for salary, meager benefits, and the possibility of a future PhD. Sucking up prime years of life, science PhD’s now average 6-8 years.

Research universities are dependent on graduate student work. Much of the teaching is performed by graduate students, at a low cost, and often without much input from faculty. The vast majority of research is performed by graduate students and postdocs (Grad students and postdocs do essentially the same work). Research faculty mostly function as managers and writers, but faculty clout, rank, grant funding, and tenure is highly dependent on the research that their students design, develop, and produce. Universities depend on taking a significant chunk of this grant money as well.

When you are getting a PhD, your faculty advisor is your boss, your patron, your Ayatollah. They direct and judge your work, evaluate you, subjectively decide if and when you graduate, and can fire you at any time. Sometimes the worst bosses are distant and passive aggressive, never satisfied, sometimes pitting students against each other, scaring students into pushing themselves to the brink of exhaustion and nervous breakdown. Most companies are incentivized to take care of their employees by a fluid job market, but changing PhD advisors is difficult and usually means starting over with a new project in a new subject.

It is not surprising that there is a mental health crisis among graduate students, with depression and anxiety six times higher than the general population. Depression rates are 30-40% and highest among women and racial minorities. 7.3% have had suicidal thoughts and 2.3% have made plans for suicide. Half of graduate students drop out due to the stress, risk, and imbalance of power. It’s rarely a failure of intellect or work ethic.

Sexual harassment is also a symptom of such power imbalances and toxic environments. I was at the party where this happened. In a different incident, two of my lab mates were groped by a senior faculty member that wasn’t their advisor, but they feared reprisal if they reported it.

Some bosses are fine, and some universities have relatively good work environments. (Like a job!) However, even the most easygoing bosses can be anxiety-inducing because you never know when things could change, like climbing a cliff face without a safety rope. Labor rights and a union can be that safety rope.

Labor unions have long been the solution for situations just like this: a company town built around a mine or factory, in which the employees cannot simply pick up and leave. Unions negotiate higher wages, benefits, and workplace protections, benefits that exceed union dues.

Graduate student labor unions could also negotiate:

  • Clear expectations for earning a degree to reduce exploitative and capricious decisions
  • Requirements for a powerful thesis committee as a check on a single advisor
  • Safety net policies in case of your advisor moving, retiring, dying, losing funding, or unjustly firing a student.
  • Resources and reporting guidelines for harassment
  • Minimum vacation time and workload limits
  • Mental health resources
  • Childcare benefits

There are plenty of solutions: Congress or state legislatures could close this labor loophole. A new administration could appoint a new NLRB. Universities or even just their faculty could voluntarily recognize their employees’ right to collective bargaining, like was done at Harvard. Graduate school rankings and prospective students could make strong unions a key factor in deciding where to apply or accept a position.

Graduate students’ wellbeing is linked to the country’s wellbeing, and those 50% of PhD students that drop out are a loss for everyone. Never has it been more important to produce highly educated, creative PhD scientists, engineers, and thinkers. We need these people to start new businesses, cure disease, solve problems that have stumped past generations, and teach the generations that will follow.

Dr. Ben Zalisko earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2017 where he was a union advocate.  Today, he is an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow, pursuing a long-term career in the federal government. He also runs the science-policy podcast “Beltway Science”, where this issue was recently discussed in detail. His views here do not in any way reflect those of AAAS or the US Government. To hear more from Ben follow him on Twitter @benzalisko or his podcast @beltwayscience.

 

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Science

Dinosaurs! Why did sauropods have long necks?

Sauropods are plant eating, long-necked dinosaurs, a group that includes the largest land animals ever to walk the earth. As much as sauropods permeate pop culture, their most striking feature, their long necks, remain mysterious. Why did nature select for such a long neck? Many assume that, like giraffes, the longer their neck, the higher food they could reach. However, this assumption is riddled with holes.

First, the blood pressure required to service a brain that high above the heart would push the limits of biology, perhaps requiring multiple hearts working in series or hardened veins to siphon blood up the neck. For comparison, healthy humans have a systolic blood pressure of about 120 torr. Giraffes: 180 torr, much higher to pump blood up a nearly two-meter neck. Sauropods, on the other hand, have to push blood through a vertical neck that is often over ten meters long, which would require blood pressure of approximately 600 torr! That presents a serious physics challenge that would require multiple hearts working in series or hardened veins, like plumbing pipes, to siphon blood up the neck. No evidence for such adaptations can be found in fossils or living animals.

Second, the torso of most sauropods is angled downward, with shorter front legs than back legs. Some scientists proposed that this simply shifts body weight toward the rear to facilitate rearing up on their hind limbs. However, we can rule out this unwieldy idea. The front limbs do not contain the micro-fractures that would be consistent with regularly returning to all fours.

Third, the sauropod neck does not appear to be very flexible. Computer modeling of its neck vertebra demonstrate that Diplodocus, if it strained to the limits of its skeleton, could not even raise its neck above parallel with the ground! These were clearly animals that browsed on low-lying plants. So, what were they reaching for?

Imagine what it’s like to be an animal that size. Weighing over a dozen tons, the stability of the ground they are standing on is a chief concern. Falling or getting stuck in the mud could be deadly. However, a long neck is an excellent way to get the head close to water or over treacherous ground while keeping the massive body on stable, dry land. Such a neck would have no need for flexibility, height, or ludicrous blood pressure. Perhaps long necks are simply an emergent property of being a land animal that large.

So that’s it, right? As compelling as this answer might seem, scientists don’t judge hypotheses by how satisfying they are. Ideas in science have power to the extent that they can be falsified and proven wrong. It is exceptionally difficult to falsify the idea that long necks evolved to span Paleozoic mud. There may be better solutions that no one has thought of yet. We must therefore tolerate ambiguity and accept only data-driven conclusions, because natural selection is far more creative than we.

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Science

Tracking Bioengineered Bacteria Through The Body Using Ultrasound

Each of our hundreds of trillions of cells is as complex as a big city, and the mere shape of our internal organs reveals little about the true complexity of life. Unfortunately, you can’t “see” biochemistry, at least not with the naked eye. However, advances in molecular biology are literally illuminating the chemistry going on inside living tissues.

Scientists at the Shapiro Lab at Caltech have engineered bacterial cells that are exceptionally visible to ultrasound imaging. This technology could finally allow scientists to “watch” the biochemistry going on deep within living animals.

Since the 1990’s, there has been a fluorescent protein revolution in molecular biology. These fluorescent proteins are engineered to emit light from cells that express whatever gene scientists want to study. Unfortunately, unless your animal is translucent, they are not much use in illuminating the chemistry of internal organs. If you want to know what’s going on deep inside, you are limited to the static and specious snapshot of a dead and dissected animal.

GFP_hiir

Mouse engineered to express Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)

Ultrasound imaging, on the other hand, is a great non-invasive technique to see inside a living body. This is the same technology that has us staring at amorphous black and white images trying to figure out how cute our future child will be. Ultrasound imaging uses echolocation, emitting sound waves (at a much higher pitch than we can hear) and recording their reflections from different internal tissues, turning them into a 3D image. Until now, ultrasound imaging only revealed internal structure, not the chemistry, gene expression, or types of cells in those deep tissues. However, the Shapiro Lab has engineered bacterial cells that specifically ‘light up’ under ultrasound.

Embryo_at_14_weeks_profile

Embryo at 14 weeks

How? Tiny balloons. Some bacteria in nature already make tiny gas-filled structures inside their cells to help regulate their buoyancy. Because of their size, these balloons happen to vibrate at the same frequency as the ultrasound wave, strongly reflecting the ultrasound signal. Obviously, these natural structures did not evolve with ultrasound technology in mind, so they had to be further engineered or tuned like tuning a guitar string or drum head. The Shapiro Lab did this by combining pieces of genes from different bacterial species to get the best ultrasound signal. Despite occupying roughly 10% of the cell’s volume and 1% of the cell’s mass, the balloons only marginally impaired the growth and movement of the bacteria.

An additional feature of these balloons is that they collapse when subjected to a suddenly strong pulse of ultrasound, like a glass shattered by an opera singer’s voice. The authors demonstrate that the balloons can be engineered to collapse at different pressures and frequencies, enabling different populations of cells to be distinguished within the same tissues, adding color to the gray ultrasound image.

As a proof of concept that these bacteria can be observed in live animals, the Shapiro Lab injected a chunk of gel that contained the engineered bacteria into the colon of a mouse. They used a species of bacteria that occurs naturally in the gut and is often used in humans to treat digestive disorders. Indeed, shape and location of the bacterial gel inside the mouse could be imaged with high resolution.

They were also able to image cancer tumors using this technology. Special strains of bacteria have already been engineered to bind to cancer tumors and even inhibit their growth. By giving these cancer-tracking bacteria the balloon-making genes, they successfully imaged a mouse tumor using ultrasound.

Bacteria can be easily engineered to stick to a variety of specific tissues, and have the potential to serve as ultrasound homing beacons for imaging various tissues in both research and medical therapy. Other applications include tracking the spread of newly introduced bacteria into our gut and the dynamics of our bacterial ecosystem. Many medical disorders are caused by imbalances in our gut bacteria and require the introduction of new bacteria into our body to correct the imbalance. Better understanding how and where these bacteria spread within us will better direct future treatments and innovations.

One of the Shapiro Lab’s most ambitious goals moving forward is engineering animal cells to manufacture these ultrasound balloons. However, can animal cells make this bacterial structure? Would the presence of these balloons affect the way animal cells behave? Would they stimulate an immune response? Can they be used in a therapeutic context? If these hurdles can be cleared, the impact of ultrasound markers like these could be an extraordinary new tool for research and medicine.

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Politics, Uncategorized

Country Over Party?

It was perfectly reasonable, though disappointing, for pro-life, pro-corporate, anti-tax Republicans to support Trump as their nominee, despite recognizing all of the obvious and disturbing aspects of his character. There was no shortage of rational, non-bigoted Republicans who knowingly voted for a racist, stupid, misogynist who was wildly unfit and unprepared to become the most powerful person in the world, voting merely so that they could get the judges and tax rates that they wanted. It is the inevitable byproduct of the two-party system, choosing between the lesser of two evils. The American left would have probably done the same had the shoe been on the other foot.

Now, Donald Trump is president, and the West Wing is crawling with reactionary Republicans. Neil Gorsuch will reign supreme, and Paul Ryan will have at least two years to pass sweeping, conservative legislation. Nothing will change without action from Congressional Republicans. However, even the most reasonable, responsible congressional Republicans still refuse to push back against Donald Trump with respect to Russia, corruption, and civil rights. The left is correct to accuse GOP leaders of putting party before country. That is a refrain worth amplifying.

However, before the left turns the smug disdain up to 11, let’s test this accusation of ‘party before country’ for validity and hypocrisy…

If, for the sake of argument, all Republicans care about is abortion and tax policy, it’s in their best interest to stand by President Trump. They need the Republican White House to be politically strong for the sake of passing legislation and re-electing a Republican president. That’s what we mean by putting party before country. Single-issue voting may be effective, but it produces an immoral disregard for the complexity of federal policy and the number of issues that are critical to consider when stepping into the ballot box. Don’t be a single issue voter. Don’t do it.

Let’s consider hypocrisy. Would Democrats be willing to put country before party? Fortunately, we weren’t forced to vote for a Trump-of-the-left, but liberals will have the opportunity to show their true colors very soon. If Donald Trump truly represents an existential threat to the country, and if Donald Trump must be defeated for re-election at all costs, who should the Democratic Party nominate for president in 2020?

The Democrats may be able to defeat Donald Trump with a liberal like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. They may be able to elect an establishment pick like Tim Kaine or Corey Booker. However, there is risk in that kind of choice. Such a general election will be another polarized slug fest, pitting left v. right over a few million votes, an election that could turn on a dime and risks a full four more years of Donald Trump with his finger on the armageddon button.

The Democratic Party can make a patriotic choice to ensure victory in 2020, but it requires putting their money where there mouth on Donald Trump and putting country before party.

They could nominate a moderate Republican. It’s not a comfortable thought, but it would transcend the ideological divide to produce an election about character, fitness for office, and experience. After all, the presidency isn’t supposed to be ideological.

jon_huntsman_by_gage_skidmore_2

Jon Huntsman, the only guy to look more presidential than Mitt

Jon Huntsman, who has advocated for a third-party since his presidential run in 2012 would be an ideal choice for me in this scenario. John Kasich, who was supposedly every Democrat’s favorite Republican in the 2016 primary, has to be on this list. However, his views about religion make him a nonstarter for me. Bill Weld is a highly qualified, former VP nominee of the 2016 Libertarian ticket and flirted with endorsing Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats could have a look at famous swing votes Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski from the Senate. Jim (Rambo) Webb is practically a Republican who probably voted for Trump. Bob Dold is a youngish, socially liberalish, pro-choiceish Republican Congressman from Illinois who has been trading his job with Democrat Brad Schneider every 2 years. Colin Powell is too old, but perhaps a non-partisan administration official can come forward.

Would this work? Probably not. It would almost certainly elicit a third party left-wing revolt. However, consider that every problem with this scenario also applies to Republicans choosing to defy President Trump. How does the left’s characterization of Trump have any credibility while nominating someone from the left who forces rational, non-bigoted Republicans into the same choice they had to make in 2016?

Before you accuse Republicans of putting party before country, question if you would do the same. Put yourself in their shoes.

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Politics

Paul Ryan is Actually Right About Planned Parenthood

I’d hate to say it, but Paul Ryan was right about Planned Parenthood in his recent CNN town hall. Funding PP does ‘effectively’ fund abortions with taxpayer money. All the meticulous accounting that PP is committed to can’t prevent non-abortion revenue (mostly from medicaid) from paying for staff, PR, utilities, and infrastructure. However, Ryan has a tough road ahead of him to clean up the confusion.
Speaking of roads, the federal government funds the transportation that gets people to abortion clinics. Taxpayers fund the abstinence only education which has demonstrably lead to more abortions. Taxpayers fund elections that occasionally elect people who fight to keep abortion legal and accessible. The federal government even pays millions of federal employees, some of which occasionally purchase abortion services! Clearly Ryan has a lot to clear out of the federal budget.
If the sarcasm of this post isn’t obvious, I apologize. I can be very dry.
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Check Your Outrage

Safe Space Trigger at U of C

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’m in the throws of writing my paper/thesis, though I don’t know if that makes me inherently less likely to post out of time constraints or more likely due to procrastination.

The University of Chicago, where I work/study/serve-“the man”, published the following letter to its incoming Freshman class:

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The letter has drawn national attention, smug satisfaction from many of its alumni, and trepidation from the incoming students. There’s undoubtably a generational divide here, one that I find myself in the middle of. Adam Davidson put it well in the latest Slate Political Gabfest:

“I don’t know if college-age kids understand that people in their mid-40’s think of themselves as like, ‘oh, I just graduated from college’, but that is my continual experience, to remember that, ‘oh, I’ve been alive longer after college than before college’. And, so this whole world of trigger warnings and not allowing people on campus to disagree with you… […] This is when I feel like an old man and very confused and upset, and I was just proud of my alma mater, the University of Chicago, which sent a letter to the incoming class of 2020 saying ‘we’re not into that; we don’t do trigger warnings; we don’t shield you from complicated ideas. This is a place where we wrestle with complicated ideas, upsetting ideas, the world as it is.’, and I felt very proud of the University of Chicago. I also felt like, maybe this letter was written by a bunch of people just like me and were completely missing something really important we don’t understand.”

Perhaps as a 29-year-old, I can walk that generational divide. This letter and Adam’s response reminded me of this old Simpson’s clip:

Adam and the University of Chicago have taken a righteous stand, but nuance is important in preventing an adversarial or authoritarian environment and backlash from the students…

Take trigger warnings: If you are teaching a class, leading a discussion, or showing a video of an event that is likely to be a psychological trigger to traumatized students, it is compassionate to warn students of this beforehand. This is especially true in the case of sexual assault, since college students live under such threat and are far more likely to have been recently been survivors of rape.

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On the other hand, no one should be forced to give trigger warnings or even be censured for eschewing them. They can detract from many presentations and discussions, so should be used sparingly.

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Safe spaces provide a necessary escape from stressful environments. Whether it’s your dorm room or an exclusive club, they have value. I started a chapter of the Secular Student Alliance primarily to serve as a safe space for atheists to express themselves and form a community. The ability to temporarily retreat from the chaos and rigmarole is critical to student development.

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College itself is not inherently a safe space. On the contrary, it’s supposed to be ideologically challenging. Whatever ideological safety you impose infringes on the expression of others.

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The University of Chicago’s letter does not, as some have reported, limit or discourage protest. Protest is a form of expression that the letter specifically endorses.

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It should be news to no one that protest often takes the form of silencing others. Shouting down invited speakers, blocking entrances, and destroying property are anti-expression

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The best solution for bad speech is more speech, and neither I, nor this letter (for the most part…), says otherwise.

[Edit 8/30/2016]: A friend of a friend from U of C did a nice survey of reactions to the letter.

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Uncategorized

This Stupid Poem I Wrote

“Life Isn’t Fair” by Ben Zalisko

“I don’t understand”, said the boy to his mom
Why I’m not allowed to go skating with Tom
“Life isn’t fair”, she said squatting in place
and thumbed away dirt from his obstinate face

Far away, dad left work for the very last time
After decades of outstanding work on the line
“It’s out of my hands, Jim, the math is the math
I can’t pay your wages when others take half.”

The manager, Steve, got a call from his boss,
“It is what it is, Steve, a loss is a loss”
The owner’s son, barely a month out of Penn
said, “I’ll want to be fair, Steve, my door’s always open.”

The businessman said to his staff, “It’s not fair,
But we can’t allow this sort of unruly flair
As professionals, we all must dress to impress
We can’t cause our customers any distress.”

The assistant left work to find her car in the lot
With a ticket for parking in an unauthorized spot
“The law is the law”, said the meter maid in her coat.
Sam took the ticket and drove off to go vote.

She looked at the names, at the lessers of evils
Of candidates chosen by very few peoples
That is the system we’ve always endorsed
A poverty numbed by the thought of what’s worse

José couldn’t vote because in the land of the free
Your birthplace means more than your allegiance since three
Without an ID, the same fate for his wife,
And Frank’s short jail term debars him for life.

The law is the law, and life isn’t fair
We can’t create money from the thickest of air
We have little control on the choices of others
Least of all mothers and much older brothers

With fairness presumed, questions abound
We all want to understand why our world isn’t sound
What frustrates me most, from birth to the grave,
Is that so many people consider tautologies satisfying

…as if a simple statement of what is, “is”, somehow justifies a shirking of responsibility, absolves us of guilt, or is even an explanation at all. “Life isn’t fair”, “That’s the way it is”, or “those are the rules” should give no one comfort, but serve as prompts to make change. Basking in our inability to articulate a problem or an explanation leaves us prey to the few, giving them license to make our lives for us, Gus.

 

Food for thought during party primaries and conventions…

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