It does not seem that a little thing like a blanket should set me reeling. Yet, there I was reading about American Airlines charging people eight bucks to use a blanket on the airplane (oh, they toss in a pillow, too) and I found myself spiraling into a little eddy of depression. Highway robbery? It really wasn’t simply that (for one thing, in the air, no highway); it was more the way such a cost-cutting effort displays such a crass disregard for people’s sense of comfort.
Certainly, there are some legitimate logistical considerations this little piece of news seemed mildly terrible. You can’t exactly walk to the next plane and grab a blanket. Nor can you afford the space to carry one on board (passengers these days are charged, it would seem, for every single ounce being moved from point A to point Your-Final-Destination, let alone the hassles with carry-on and security and new requirements about the maximum size of carry-on cases). And maybe it’s okay, because if you’re cold, you might as well be hungry, too (gone are most snacks, nearly all meals, and complimentary much of anything to imbibe or ingest; you can’t carry on liquids that you didn’t purchase for a small fortune in the airport and you can’t even bring your own yogurt along). While bus service might be semi-miserable, inherent is the counterpoint that it’s an inexpensive mode of transportation, something the airlines can’t really boast as a selling point. Air travel often occurs because the distances spanned are too great to make another choice efficient, at least in terms of time. You feel, blanket for rent as ransom, that you are effectively hostage. Please pay careful attention to the emergency exit rap.
Obviously, I don’t fly much these days, because it turns out American isn’t even the first airline to charge for the use of a not terribly nice blanket (the blanket I’d like to sleep under is one much more like the one featured here, by Crispina ffrench).
Somehow, though, the sense that corporate America is trying to siphon off all humanity in a quest for profit (profit, which by the way, seems harder to find the less humane they get—coincidence, hmm, I think not). And while the blanket is really not that big a deal, it’s emblematic not only of this lack of regard for how customers are treated but also harkens to a certain type of callousness that seems to claim cynicism as its traveling companion. I believe it’s that hardened, think-the-least attitude that has me feeling especially glum (or a blanket’s not just a blanket).
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Take the extended jousting match between (those less than totally effective) Democrats and Republicans (the party of NO, the party that spawned a teabag frenzy). It can be hard to remember that anyone elected to public office actually wants to do well by this country when so many examples to the contrary can be pointed to, including the refusal of even one Republican to support passage of health care reform.
These aren’t words that inspire confidence in anyone: ’We can’t afford grandstanding at the expense of actually getting something done,’ Mr. Obama said as he made a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing for the media only hours after he convened his first monthly bipartisan meeting he called for in the State of the Union address.” The New York Times article describes President Obama’s dropping in as the “latest effort in a revised White House approach for the president to appear more transparent and more bipartisan in the second year of his term. He touched upon health care, saying that he would be willing to consider tort reform in the overall debate on expanding coverage and bringing down the costs of health care, but he said Republicans needed to consider some of the Democratic ideas.”
Since when are transparency and shared will to move the country forward not considered part of the job description? Anyone who argues otherwise—in essence that politics trumps government—has to do so with a sigh, because these days, politics above all else glosses over substance and places self-involvement over concern for others, no two ways about it. That’s why so many modern-day politicians leave deeply disturbing legacies (and I’m not talking about a Ted Kennedy, who seemed to determine that his early personal mishaps and mistakes and his family’s tragedies and gifts rendered it his duty to do that much more for his country).
People who were greedy at best and more likely out-and-out corrupt such as Jack Murtha or willfully cheated on a cancer-stricken spouse and tried to hide it like John Edwards did their legacies no favors—and their taking noble stands wasn’t enough to erase their “other” reputations. Both men spoke up at critical moments for critical ideals: Murtha opposed the Iraq War and would have to be considered one of the voices that changed that national conversation (heroic action) and John Edwards brought the idea of “two Americas” forward and again, made important contributions to the national conversation at a critical moment.
But here we are. Robert Gibbs makes jokes at Sarah Palin’s expense (I'm shedding no tears for her, you understand). The President must push the opposition to stop playing politics, by playing politics. Meantime, Bob Herbert writes so simply, even starkly, about a fact in plain sight that seems to be all too ignored: that the recession is not hurting all people equally; the recession is worse for poor people.
Combating cynicism is not about getting starry-eyed. It’s about looking at reality with open eyes, and about making necessary changes with open heart. And it’s about employing observation as a key to our finding and celebrating all that’s hopeful, something as simple as birdsong on a February morning.
