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An Open Letter to Christine Quinn Regarding Chick-fil-A

New York City from Hoboken

Dear Speaker Quinn;

First of all, congratulations on your recent nuptials! Having just been married myself, I was told that my life would be the same but completely different afterward. I find that to be true.

However, I write this letter to discuss something less pleasant – which is this whole Chick-fil-A matter. Frankly, I don’t like where it’s going politically.

Specifically, you recently sent a letter to the NYU President, which you wrote on government stationary and opened with the words: “I write as the Speaker of the NYC Council.” In that letter you asked the President to break a legal agreement NYU signed with a corporation who’s view you term “repugnant.”

This comes on the heels of similar letters by the mayors of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco that have threatened to treat Chick-fil-A differently than any other person and organization for no other reason than that you find them “repugnant.”

While I too find them repugnant, as a citizen – and a minority – I also find this all even more unsettling.

A while back, I wrote about this judge 100 years ago named Stephen Johnson Field that hated the Chinese. Absolutely hated them. While sitting on the bench, he was called to judge the constitutionality of the Pigtail Ordinance. Without getting into the specifics of the law, suffice it to say that it was meant to make life hell for a group of people he personally despised.

In other words, he found us repugnant.

I’ve always found this odd because we’re a lovely people but that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, everyone expected him to uphold the law precisely because they knew his personal opinion. He did not. Instead, he struck down the law as unconstitutional.

His reason was simple: As much as he hated the Chinese, he respected the letter of the law more.

His office trumped his personal opinions.

A more recent example is the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. You stood with Mayor Bloomberg when he said that cancellation of the mosque would be a “sad day.” I assume because, in that instance, the party singled out you felt personal sympathy with AND it was on the right side of the law.

Here, you don’t feel personal sympathy with Chick-fil-A yet, like the mosque, it is on the right side of the law.

In both examples, the law is clear: An organization cannot be discriminated against because of its beliefs.

Speaker Quinn, integrity means that one is the same person in public as one is in private. It requires consistency.

It demands that if you defend the constitution for a white person you must defend the constitution for a Chinese person.

The judge in the Pigtail Ordinance, while racist, had integrity. 100 years later, that means something.

I humbly submit that you’re letting your personal feelings interfere with your respect for the law. It’s easy to defend the defenseless and sympathetic; it’s harder to defend those that you personally find repugnant.

  • The law allows a mosque to rent a space without concern that the government does not like its opinions.
  • The law allows a corporation to rent a space without concern that the government does not like its  opinions.

As a life-long New Yorker, I admit had conflicted feelings about having a mosque so close to where 9/11 happened. But in the end, the law is the law. And in the end, I supported it being there.

I would not want someone saying that I cannot live someplace because I am a Christian, or Chinese-American, or terribly clumsy.

I support citizens boycotting Chick-fil-A. I support citizens marching. I support citizens ripping them to shreds online.

But I draw the line at government telling us that its opinions supersede the law.

It’s dangerous when government officials use their positions of power to further their own personal agendas. To think otherwise sets a dangerous precedent.

History has shown, time-and-time again, that a world ruled by someone’s personal opinion is not a safe place for Chinese, gay, black, Jewish, Muslim, disabled people to live.

Imagine a world where Michele Bachmann’s personal opinion ruled it.

We put up with opinions that are different than ours – even repugnant to us – because it’s what we do. The word is “tolerance.”

One doesn’t tolerate things, people, and opinions one finds lovely. One tolerates things, people, and opinions one finds repugnant. It’s what we do.

Sincerely,

Logan Lo

Location: in front of my first cuppa joe for the day
Mood: curious
Music: if everybody looked the same we’d get tired of looking at each other
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business personal

Stop looking only north

This happened 15 years ago maybe?

Her: Who’s out there that could possibly overtake Yahoo now that AltaVisa, Excite, and Snap are gone?
Me: It’s gonna be someone we never heard of, doing stuff we never thought of, making things we’ve never seen.

There’s a story I’ve told for decades: For thousands of years, the Chinese have been invaded by the north.

  • The Xiongnu (aka Attila the Hun) invaded from the north regularly
  • The Jurchen invaded from the north and controlled China for over a century.
  • The Manchus invaded from the north and controlled China for over three centuries

It goes on.

In any case, they hit on the idea to build a wall. And for the next 1,800 years, they kept an eye on that wall.

Then in 1839, the Opium Wars start – in the south – which led China into the civil wars, WWII, more civil wars, Communism, and now China making Olympic clothing for the US.

My point is that they’d trained themselves to respond automatically to a set stimulus: Blitzkrieg attacks from the north.

But they no idea that they could be attacked – slowly and both militarily and economically – from the south.

By people they’d never heard of, doing stuff they never thought of, with things they’d never seen.

The hardest lesson to learn in wrasslin and in fencing – one I’m still struggling with – is how to stop going for a closed path and see the open paths.

Anywho, tell this story cause I got some interesting news the other day: The guy that made it into that law school just got a pretty good gig somewhere else. He’s super psyched. I remember telling him this story on the phone.

Me: The moral of the story’s this: Stop looking north. You spend all your time and energy looking at this one direction and your threats and opportunities are potentially – and probably – somewhere else completely.
Him: So stop looking north?
Me: Well, stop looking only north.

 

Location: my steamy room
Mood: hot as balls
Music: Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head
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Honesty and politeness are (very) different things

Me: Do you want me to be honest or polite?
Him: Honest.
Me: If that’s the case, then the truth is that: Unless you make it to an ivy league or top tier one, it just doesn’t pay to go to law school any more.

Hazel asked me to chat with a friend of her’s the other day.

What a lotta people don’t realize is that honesty and politeness are two very different – and usually, opposite – things. Consider some scenarios:

You’re rushing out the door and someone’s walking in.
Honest: If you’re honest with yourself, you’d want to head out first.
Polite: You let the other person in first.

Your friend’s in a play and you think it’s terrible.
Honest: You tell him he should stick to accounting.
Polite: You tell him that he has promise.

As for the conversation I had, it wasn’t the most pleasant one I’ve had in my life. He just got out of a messy marriage, lost his job, and law school was one of the few bright spots in his horizon.

But it was just a bright spot in his mind.

It wasn’t a first, second, or even a third tier law school. Moreover, he was getting zero financial aid. It would be a $150,000, three-year black hole.

Me: I once fought tooth-and-nail to get this company started – after two rejections – so that I could do it with a close family friend. I finally got it and I was so psyched.
Him: And?
Me: Well, the family friend ended up stealing all my scratch and I spent the next three years of my life just to end up at zero. Sometimes you spend all your time fighting for something without realizing what you’re actually fighting for.

Conversations with strangers remind me that I’m barely running close to schedule.

 

Location: in front of spreadsheets
Mood: slightly cooler
Music: If you ask me how I’m doing I would say I’m doing just fine
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In defense of lawyers: To do evil things, first kill all the lawyers

There’s this popular quote going around attributed to Will Smith:

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.

However, that saying’s been around forever (most attribute it to Will Rogers). I personally like the variation that goes: It’s crazy to work at jobs you hate, to buy things you don’t need, to impress those you don’t know.

It’s yet another onea those sayings that people think they know but they don’t know at all; although, unlike these sayings, it has more than just the air of truth.

But there’s this joke that I’m tired of hearing that has only the air of truth:

Him: You know, Shakespeare said, First, kill all the lawyers.
Me: Really, when did he say that?
Him: (thinking) I don’t know.

Shakespeare wrote the line in Henry VI, Part 2. (Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78)

In it, a fella named Jack Cade is bragging that the world’d be a wonderful place if he were king cause:

  • you could buy seven half-penny loaves for a penny
  • get ten pots of soup for the price of three
  • it would be illegal to drink a small beer

If only the Jack Cade could get people to “worship me as their lord.”

It’s at this point that a villain named Dick the Butcher laughs and says, The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. To which, Jack Cade goes, Yup, that I mean to do.

Why? Cause that would mean killing the people that ask the questions. Kill the people that protect the little guy.

(“How y’gonna make people sell ten pots of soup for the same price as three pots?” and “Why should you be king?”)

This is true even now: The most dangerous profession in China is a lawyer. It’s why it was such a big deal earlier in spring with the blind dissident, Chen Guangcheng. He was beaten and tortured for trying to make authorities follow their own laws.

Me: So basically, you’re quoting a villain – who’s also a Dick – who’s saying that to be a good and proper dictator, you have to kill the people that think and protect the little guy from empty promises. And the actual line is: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

We’ll add this to the list of things that have the air of truth, but no real truth at all.

Of course, only a lawyer like me would parse out every bit of meaning behind a fella trying to say something funny.

Some days, y’just can’t win.

Location: home, eying the AC
Mood: irritated
Music: funny the way it is, if you think about it
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personal

Chivalry’s dead

Woman after I hold door for her: Good to see chivalry’s not dead in NYC.
Me: I wasn’t being chivalrous, ma’am. I was being polite.

integrity means that you’re the same person in public as y’are in private. In other words, it’s being internally consistent. And consistent with my concept of what a real man is, I feel that chivalry’s an outdated concept.

Its basic tenet’s that women are weak, different, and need special treatment.

I disagree. It’s the same reason that I won’t buy a woman a drink but I’ll buy my friends drinks.

There’s this woman I know who’s ultra-feminist but feels men should always hold the door for women.

Me: Why? Because they’re weak?
Her: No, just because they’re supposed to.
Me: So they should stay home and take care care of the kids? Because they’re supposed to?
Her: That’s different.

Put another way: I don’t believe that we should lower our behaviour for half the population so much as we should raise our behaviour for all of the population.

One should hold doors for others because it’s the polite thing to do, not because someone has two X-chromosomes insteada one.

But it cuts both ways. That same friend is incensed by wage differences between men and women but doesn’t feel a woman should fight in the army.

I think that when a woman is held up to the same standards of men, they rise to the occasion.

For better or worse.

Coach: Don’t be easy on her, she’s tough!
Me (beginning to wrestle with female teammate): I won’t be…
Her: (slams knee on my stomach)

Location: looking out at the rain
Mood: relaxed
Music: She can do the same thing to the clique you know
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Real men watch sports

Slaughtered Lamb in NYC

Me: (eyeing wife) You look really good this morning.
Her: (walking out door) Logan. It’s Monday morning. It’s not happening…

Work’s been so busy that I’ve neglected friends so last week finally met up with a number of them. While out, however, I was reminded that – after all these years – Tequila is not my friend.

Stupid tequila.

The other thing I did this past weekend was catch up on some television. This segment aired yesterday about the changing views of what it means to be a man. Found it interesting cause what I think makes a man differs greatly from a number of people around me.

For example, a fella I work with said “Real men watch sports.” Another person said that men curse, it’s what they do. Yet another one says that men don’t order drinks with umbrellas in them.

Alla which I find misses the point.

Since the beginning of time, because of our physical advantages, a man’s role’s been physical. This meant that we were the providers and protectors. This served us well historically cause mosta human existence’s hinged on our ability to push or pull something.

Providing for and protecting our 13 square feet of the world.

But consider Facebook and Google. Here’re companies where 99.99% of their worth are  assets that cannot be pushed or pulled. It’s imagined.

Ditto with most work – consider the number of people you know that make money pushing or pulling something versus people that spend their times thinking up stuff.

So what’s a man’s role in this modern world where physical strength’s been supplanted by mental acuity?

  • There’re those that ignore the physical. That’s not good, we’re still physical creatures.
  • Then there’re those that ignore the mental. That’s not good either cause survival in today’s modern world requires mental acumen.

If I gotta guess, it requires both. It always has. Sports are sanitized violence. Some less sanitized than others. It’s true that I don’t watch any sports, but I hit the gym (almost) daily.

These other things – like watching sports or cursing – have the veneer of manhood but nothing to do with it actually. As with most things, it has an air of truth to it but no real truth it.

If it has nuthin to do with providing or protecting, I say it’s got a lot more to do with mental masturbation than being a man.

Although even I draw the line at an Appletini.

That’s mostly true.

Location: my old chair, waiting for my new chair
Mood: rejuvenated
Music: no end to the lengths I’ll go to. Hunting high and low
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Hills from which we look and caves in which we hide

A shrub in Times Square, NYC

Him: I remember your ex. She was a ______.
Me: I don’t think so. No 30 year old woman in a happy relationship looks to cheat. I wasn’t very nice to her.
Him: I knew you back then, you weren’t that bad.
Me: We all have our three lives: public, private, and secret.

Spent the holiday weekend working for the most part. One major downside for essentially working for yourself is that the work never really stops.

Every free moment you have, you’re thinking, I should be doing something.

We did find time to catch up with season 6 of Dexter, which reminded me of my three lives. Recently met a woman who said that she had no regrets in life cause, “To regret would mean I’m not proud of something in my life.”

Thought that was one of those things that have the air of truth but no real truth to it.

I’m not saying you should live your life fulla regrets crying over your possible pasts. Then again, a life of no regrets means that you’ve not done any growth at all.

Show me a guy that’d make the exact same choices at 39 he’d make at 19, and I’ll show you a guy that’s wasted 20 years of his life.

Onea the friends I cut, thinks that I cut him cause of some fights we had. That’s partly true. The main reason he got cut, however, is cause he finds it noble that he hasn’t “sold out” – whatever that means.

Suppose that means that he wants to remain the same while the world around him changes.

F Scott Fitzgerald once said that: At 18 our convictions are hills from which we look; at 45 they are caves in which we hide.

In reality, he’s less an artist and more just some dude living in a cave.

As for me, thought about writing my ex an email saying I’m sorry. I didn’t do any one majorly bad thing to her – it was more a series of thoughtless actions and stupid arguments over nuthin.

In the end, decided against writing. Instead, I’ll add that to my list of ten thousand regrets. Some things are better left hidden deep in caves.

Got other secrets too. But these aren’t bad ones.

I’ll tell you about them someday.

Location: on my stoop, telling workmen to keep it down
Mood: regretful
Music: Days seem to last forever but the weeks fly by
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You either just do it or you don’t

Me: I’m sorry I’m late.
Him: It’s fine. I’m just glad you came.

Yesterday was a strange and sad day.

Part of my job’s to do site inspections around the state for things.

Yesterday, was in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn checking out a building when the property contact and I went to the roof. There, at 12:30 in the afternoon, a bunch of people were drinking and smoking.

Thought for sure a fight was gonna break out.

Ended up being lotsa talk and stare-downs and me wondering in the background why every guy in the world thinks he’s Pacino or DeNiro, ready to die like a hero.

If you can actually fight, you don’t talk about the stuff you’re gonna do. You either just do it or you don’t. Luckily the property contact was an adult and just called up for some help.

Afterward, rushed home to change into a suit to go downtown.

Said it once before: The sweetest words in the English language’re I’m on my way.

My buddy’s mom passed away. Made it down to the funeral home just at the very end.

My wrasslin coach and other fellas from the gym showed up before me to pay their respects too.

The older you get, the more funerals you go to. It’s a crap milestone but one we all reach.

There’s really not much you can say at them. It’s not the words that matter any way. As sweet as the words I’m on my way are, the most important thing’s the being there.

In the end, you don’t talk about being there, you’re just either there or you’re not. You either just do it or you don’t.

It’s so true: A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.

When we take the blows life gives us, if we’re lucky, good souls‘ll be there – not to take the blows for us, but to pick us up, bloodied and battered, afterward.

Him: The other guys showed up in suits. Suits! Can you believe it? They musta brought them to the gym and came here afterward.
Me: (laughing) I can’t picture it.

Location: home, for now
Mood: pensive
Music: Sometimes I get to feelin’ I was back in the old days
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The things no one can ever take from me

As a spur-of-the-moment thing, bought myself and the wife a set of bicycles. Haven’t had one for maybe 20 years?

Y’know that old saying: It’s just like riding a bike? That’s totally true.

Anywho, we took the bikes out for a quick spin and … I promptly got a flat tire. Nuthin horrendous. Just annoying. As is my luck – I’m certain I’m darned.

Getting back to the flat tire, came across a nice fella named “House” (no kidding) and he lent me his pump. Didn’t work but still appreciated the assist. He told me to check out TreadHunter.com as they have tons of tips or “hacks” to fix my tire, he was a helpful fellow.

On the (long) walk home, thought about that saying above.

Yes, I value knowledge above all else. But within knowledge, I value a particular type of knowledge above all other knowledge.

Somewhere in my muscles and medulla oblongata’s knowledge that’s forever mine – how to ride a bike, do a parry/thrust, or this weird thing called a rubber guard – all things that no one can take from me. Or at least highly unlikely.

One day my body’ll betray me, I know. But that’s me taking it away. Until then, always looking for more of that kinda stuff. Partly cause I think it’s cool, secretly cause I’m greedily possessive of such things.

Oddly though, it makes me no less clumsy.

Her: (CRASH) What happened now?
Me: Spent the last 15 minutes making waffles with bananas to go with my coffee and I just dropped the whole thing on the floor.

———-

Speaking of darned, one of my bathroom showers completely stopped working so had to call in a plumber. I installed a fancy new showerhead for my when my girlfriend is staying over that she ordered from ShowerHeadly – after her hassling me about it for 3 months, and now she can’t even use it. It’s always something.

Anyway, lemme tell you, as a lawyer, I don’t charge anything close to what a plumber charges.

Totally made the wrong career decisions in my life.

Location: running to HomeDepot to get a different shower-head
Mood: crazy stressed, yo
Music: girls they’ll be riding today so look out
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If left to my own devices, my only expenses would be…

JFK in NYC

HG: Logan?
Me: Yeah?
HG: I never thought I’d ever say these words in my life but: Could you please stop swinging wooden swords around the house?

Things have returned (mostly) back to normal. I’m sleeping my usual five hours a night again and I’m back in the swing of things. (Literally – ha ha! Ok, I’ll stop now).

It’s a pretty amazing time to be alive right now; still don’t have my flying car but I got my Dick Tracy Two-Way watch in the form of my iPhone, amongst other things.

A recent survey put New York City as the 47th most expensive place to live in the world – a huge drop from 7th, which is a good thing.

I live pretty inexpensively myself as my favourite forms of entertainment are free – the web and walks. If left to my own devices, my only expenses would be rum, chili, gyros, coffee, my mortgage, the gym, laundry, and my tailor.

That was actually a longer list than I expected.

What about you?

———-

HG cooked over the weekend and documented it.

So, as an added side benefit, she’ll actually be making a food post tomorrow (and perhaps again on Thursday) if you’re interested.

And then back to the usual nuthin on Wednesday.

Location: desk, getting ready to walk in the rain
Mood: pensive
Music: And I may do something I might regret the next day
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