Month: April 2021

The Unexpected Benefit of Bumper to Bumper Traffic

I am stuck in traffic on the West Side Highway. They are fixing potholes up ahead and so two lanes are closed, backing things up for what seems like miles but is really no more than three or four furlongs. Nothing to do but sit; I look around and see the cherry blossoms along the riverfront (to my left) and in the parkland (to my right). Other trees are starting to bud; cyclists enjoy the riverside trail on this first warm day of spring.

In the distance is a tugboat pushing a barge upriver, framed by the George Washington Bridge but not, I know, nearly there yet. I am at 86th Street: the trees don’t yet obscure the prewar buildings up on Riverside Drive, and the Normandy is unmistakable: its Art Deco line takes up the whole block. I think of Nick and Nora, swilling too much gin and having too much fun while they sort out the identity of the Thin Man.

As suddenly as traffic stopped, it starts again: I have arrived at the pothole brigade and make my way past, reluctantly now: eyes on the road instead of on my surroundings, this grand pocket of nature (one of many) tucked alongside the concrete and the steel, the granite and the glass.

The Unthinkable

My Apple News feed includes headlines from Fox, to the mild consternation of my children. “Why do you want to do that to yourself?” Because I want to know what they’re saying; because it can be entertaining (in a Jerry Lewis kind of way); because the tenor and content help illuminate the why and how of our riven social fabric.

A few days ago the clickbait headline screamed: “A woman was angry because of the long wait at the Burger King drive-thru window. Then she did the unthinkable.” Hoping to be surprised, I clicked. I was not surprised that she opened fire through the window. Nor did I think this in any way unthinkable. It was, in fact, all too thinkable: it was in fact exactly what I thought.

A very modest suggestion: Let’s start using words to mean, well, what they actually mean.  An angry woman who arrives at the drive-thru window and pays for the next ten cars? As unthinkable as it is unlikely. That woman shooting into the store? Neither surprising nor unimaginable. This kind of event has become so common it’s not just not unthinkable, it barely attracts any attention any more. We are benumbed: a mass shooting in Boulder is neither unthinkable nor unimaginable.

A woman opening fire through a fast-food drive-thru doesn’t move the needle on our emotional, intellectual, and political outrage. That is precisely the problem — and precisely what the NRA wants.