Author: Hank Garfield

The Spring of Our Discontent

Hank Garfield

Distancing ourselves from one another to avoid an infectious disease may engender some unexpected side benefits. Perhaps it will afford us the opportunity to approach delicate subjects wearing gloves and wary of infection.

I’ve tried hard to keep partisan politics out of this blog. My effort to reduce by one the number of cars in the world seems to me less a political stance than a personal decision. But friends have told me that the act of renouncing car ownership in 21st-century Maine makes me an activist.

To which I say: nonsense. Thousands of people don’t own cars because they can’t afford one. But it doesn’t follow that they all want to own a car, or that the rest of us should support a status quo in which car ownership is preferable to all possible alternatives. I do know that I was a lot more broke when I owned cars than I am now. If more people can find encouragement and reward in this chosen lifestyle, well, I think Maine, the United States, and the world would be happier and better places to live.

Most of my friends own cars. If I constantly castigated them for it, many of them would not be my friends for much longer. Twenty-four hour availability of a motor vehicle seems like a necessity to them. I know. I was there once.

What makes me an activist is that I write about the Late Automobile Age, and I sometimes show up at City Hall to lobby for policies that will make it easier for people to shed their cars: later bus hours, bicycle infrastructure, location of essential services in central areas or along bus routes. Why must we fight political battles over such sensible goals?

But if you want to stir up political passion in an otherwise apathetic population, challenge their perceived right to widespread free parking and cheap gas. The howls of protest will be heard from here to Venezuela.

Something like fifty percent of carbon emissions in the United States come from motor vehicles. Electric cars and hybrids mitigate the problem, but even they help to perpetuate a culture of driving that encourages consumptive land-use practices. A parking lot is still more damaging to the ecosystem than a bus.

It makes sense, for many reasons, to reduce the number of cars on American roads. But that means that some individuals must give up their cars. Fourteen years ago, I made the decision to be one of them. I was in a decent position to do so: my kids were grown, and I had a job that I could get to and from by bus. I was used to doing certain things by car, but I could make adjustments. Still, I wasn’t sure I could do it, and there was a period of transition. I rented a car from time to time, and still do. I accepted rides from friends who admired my new lifestyle but were unable to adopt it themselves.

Appeals to altruism only go so far. Economic self-interest is also a good reason to question the conventional wisdom that we all need cars. The upsides of renouncing individual car ownership become apparent within a few months. That’s how long it took me to realize the financial savings, the health benefits of walking and bicycling, and the absence of aggravations, from trolling for parking to rude behavior of other drivers.

My environmentalism is more instinctive than systematic. I’m appalled by wanton littering, and by industrial pollution of the air we breathe and the water we drink. I don’t want to look out at Penobscot Bay and see oil platforms. But I use oil to heat my house. In ordinary times, I’m an ardent advocate for public transportation. But now that we’re all self-quarantining to slow the spread of the coronavirus, I’m a little leery about getting on a public bus. I hope this is temporary.

I should be a vegetarian. The carbon footprint of industrial meat is at least as bad as that of motor vehicles. But I still have my driver’s license, and I’ve been known to eat a burger from time to time. One thing I don’t do is use the drive thru windows at fast-food restaurants. I avoid those eateries in the same way I avoid cars. But that doesn’t make me morally superior to anyone else.

I distrust politicians who take absolutist positions on complicated issues. We yearn for simple answers, as we prefer creation myths to more plausible explanations of gradual evolution. Baseball wasn’t invented by Abner Doubleday on a sunny spring afternoon in Cooperstown, New York; it evolved from British stick and ball games played by working class people who didn’t have the leisure time for cricket. The modern car culture evolved from a desire for privacy in public and the freedom to travel on one’s own schedule, along with government subsidies for the manufacture and sales of cars.

It’s not a perfect world, but it’s the one we’ve got. Changing it requires time, patience, and the willingness to accept partial victories and build on them.

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A Meditation on Star Trek

Hank Garfield

 

I haven’t seen Star Trek: Picard, the latest incarnation of television’s most venerable franchise, nor am I inclined to go out of my way to see it. It will come around on free TV eventually if I outwait the hype. There’s enough Star Trek already available, in all its forms, to keep all but the most ardent junkies happy.

One of my cable channels runs a five-hour marathon of all the Star Trek series six nights a week, beginning with the original series at eight, followed by The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the last series in real time but the first in the timeline of the Star Trek universe, Enterprise. I watch them now as I did years ago, with descending levels of interest.

The 79 episodes of the original series recycle every thirteen weeks plus a day. I’ve seen them all enough times to recite many of the lines along with the characters. Yet if I’m home in the evening, I’m likely watching Kirk, Spock, McCoy and company. I’ll hang in for The Next Generation if it’s a good episode, but Deep Space Nine has aged poorly. Voyager is marginally better, but I never paid much attention to Enterprise, and I’m usually asleep by the time it rolls around.

All this promotional noise about Picard as “Star Trek’s greatest captain” is, pardon me, nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, I like The Next Generation – in the same way I like Paul McCartney and Wings, and the Plastic Ono Band. Picard is a well-drawn character, and Patrick Stewart an excellent actor, but James Tiberius Kirk is an icon. And. There. Is. Only. One. William. Shatner.

What is it about the original Star Trek series, anyway? Why do I, and millions of others, never get tired of it? The show employed some great writers: Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, and the incomparable Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana. But many of the plots are contrived, some of the dialogue is inane, and the special effects – by modern standards – are primitive. Yet the original series retains a unique appeal that none of the subsequent iterations quite live up to – not even the feature films, though Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan comes close.

That quality is called genius, and it is the most elusive thing any artist can hope to capture. I’m reminded of something Joan Baez once said of Bob Dylan (and I’m paraphrasing here): There’s a touch of genius to everything he’s done, even the crappy stuff.

Even at its hokiest – and there are some pretty hokey episodes – that first Star Trek series resonates with the genius of its creator, a cop turned television writer named Gene Roddenberry. The spark of genius from that original series is what has kept the fires of fandom burning through all the subsequent series and films. Without it, there would be no Jean-Luc Picard to be plucked from his vineyard in France and returned to the cosmos. There would be no “Star Trek Universe” populated by Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Betazoids, Borg, Q, sentient androids, and countless other life forms large and small, made up of matter or pure energy. There would be no Prime Directive protecting developing civilizations from human hubris. There would be no phasers, transporters, warp drive, flip phones, or Vulcan salutes. Without Star Trek, we would have little relief from the shoot-em-up shows that sadly pervade much of television, including science fiction.

The original Star Trek series offered something different. It depicted a future in which human failings were tempered with hard-won wisdom, where people might give in to their baser instincts but usually pulled themselves back from the brink of disaster, with a little help from their friends. It was often funny, sometimes sad, but never pessimistic about the potential of human beings, or the species they (we) encountered.

Two first-season episodes that aired in the spring of 1967, as America’s involvement in Vietnam was escalating, showcase the Star Trek ethos.
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In “A Taste of Armageddon,” the Enterprise wanders into a solar system where two planets have been at war for centuries. The “battles” are fought in virtual reality: computer simulations enact scenarios and provide lists of “casualties.” Those listed as killed have 24 hours to get their affairs in order and report to disintegration chambers, where they are vaporized. The planetary infrastructure is preserved. As Anan 7, the planetary leader, tells Kirk, “The people die, but our civilization goes on.”

Kirk and crew run afoul of this system when the Enterprise, in orbit, is “destroyed” in one of these simulated attacks. To save his crew, Kirk decides to end the war – by destroying the computers. “Now you’ve got a real war on your hands,” he tells the aghast Anan. It is precisely the horrors of war, as opposed to sanitized suicide, Kirk explains, that make it “a thing to be avoided.”

“Errand of Mercy” marked the first appearance of the Klingons, sworn enemies of the United Federation of Planets. Kirk and Spock beam down to Organia, a disputed planet seemingly inhabited by a primitive but peaceful civilization of shepherds and farmers. The Klingons arrive, occupy the planet, and declare martial law. Kirk tries to exhort the pacifist Organians to fight back, but they refuse. As the Enterprise prepares to do battle with the Klingons in space, Kirk, stranded on the planet, grows increasingly impatient at the Organians’ docility.

The Organians intervene in both the battle in space and Kirk’s fight with the Klingons on the ground, by causing all the weapons in both places to radiate extreme heat, rendering them useless. Kirk and the Klingon commander angrily insist on the right to fight their battle without interference. In response, the Organians reveal themselves as highly evolved beings of pure energy that have temporarily taken on humanoid form, “as far above us on the evolutionary scale,” Spock says, “as we are above the amoeba.”

There will be no war, the Organians declare. Humans and Klingons must find another way to settle their differences. In the future, they add, the two species will become friends (presaging the presence of Worf in The Next Generation crew).

Kirk, chagrined, admits to Spock that he was spoiling for a fight. Humans still have much to learn, he says.

Yes, we do. We forget that at our peril. When we explore space, we will take our human foibles and swashbuckling stories with us, but we will also take our visions of a kinder and more compassionate future. The Star Trek franchise was at its best when it wrapped these lessons in the sometimes corny but always entertaining adventures of its original crew.

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Council Majority Delivers a Win for the Whole Bangor Community

Hank Garfield

By a 5-4 vote, the Bangor City Council on January 27 affirmed plans to build a hub for the Community Connector bus system in Pickering Square downtown. The vote was the culmination of an eight-year discussion that was at times rancorous. But barring a petition drive by entrenched opponents, the city will finally move forward with this sensible course of action.

Councilors Clare Davitt, Sarah Nichols, Angela Okafor, Gretchen Schaefer, and Laura Supica all spoke eloquently in favor of the Pickering Square hub. Dissenters Rick Fournier and Susan Hawes declined to state reasons for their opposition; each uttered just one word during the two-hour meeting: “No,” when the vote was called. Dan Tremble said that the city had not adequately explored alternatives, and that he represents all Bangor residents, not just bus riders. Ben Sprague delivered a long soliloquy about the merits of public transportation before casting his “No” vote.

Much of the public opposition came from an organized group of downtown merchants, residents, and property owners. The gist of their argument is that a bus hub would be “in the way” of future development, including a pedestrian mall or extended green space in the center of town.

It’s difficult to understand their continued resistance, as they are among the people who stand to benefit most from an improved bus system and a downtown hub. And the plan preserves much of the square for open public space.

A modern bus hub in Pickering Square will emphasize the centrality of public transportation in Bangor’s future. Everyone who ventures downtown will see it. Some of them will decide to use the bus on their next trip.

But perhaps we need to take a harder look at the issue of “classism” that was raised during the debate. Why does the impression linger that the bus system is there to serve primarily lower-income people who can’t afford to own a car? Why don’t more professionals ride the bus? Why is a downtown hub so often seen as an obstacle and not an asset?

In many other places in the world, including parts of the United States, bus ridership cuts a wider demographic swath. Lawyers and businesspeople take the bus to work alongside janitors and cashiers. Enlightened municipal governments recognize that reducing the number of cars downtown results in a friendlier streetscape, filled with customers happy to spend money at curbside establishments.

But Maine remains married to the automobile. This is due in part to the state’s rural ethos. There’s no tradition of public transportation. Riding buses is something people From Away do. In my adolescence in Blue Hill, the kids had a name for such folk: “straphangers.”

Decades of car-first public policy have cemented this perception in the public consciousness. Why take a bus when you can park virtually anywhere for free? Proposals for paid parking in downtown Bangor, which might steer some people toward the bus, are met with howls of protest. It takes a year to put up a parking garage, but eight years to make a decision on the location of a bus hub.

Former Councilor Gibran Graham, owner of the downtown Briar Patch bookstore, pointed out that the buses have been in Pickering Square longer than most of the businesses surrounding it. Why aren’t the businesses taking advantage of their proximity to the bus hub, instead of lobbying to move it? Why can’t the Bangor Children’s Museum, for example, run a promotion for families who bring their kids into town on the bus? Why can’t the downtown restaurants do the same? Get a coupon on the bus; get a half-price meal or free dessert. Opportunities abound.

But the perception persists that the sole beneficiaries of the bus hub are bus riders, and that the standing-room-only attendance at recent Council meetings does not represent the community as a whole. In fact, better public transportation benefits everyone. A central, accessible, visible hub will attract new riders, and extended evening hours will attract even more. Every passenger on a bus represents a car not driven, a parking space left vacant for someone else.

I launched this blog five years ago. At the time, I likened it to tossing a pebble in a pond and letting the ripples spread outward. In those five years I’ve seen support for public transportation in the Bangor area grow. Current City Council members ran and won on platforms espousing better bus service. Many more people have tossed many more pebbles. The ripples have become waves. And a big one washed ashore last week.

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