On Soapboxes and Shovels

Yesterday I listened to NPR for entirely too long. Expert after expert had opinion after opinion about ISSUES (read that with a deep, serious voice). Arizona had increased the power of the police force to punish hungry immigrants for daring to try to be hungry in our country. I get it. How can we pay for everyone? OFFICIALS (again... deep voice) were battling with how to punish banks, but not so much that they refused to give us money. PUNDITS were talking about LAWMAKERS who were trying to put a tighter harness on coal companies... but not too tight because of, you know, JOBS.

Everybody's got their feet on the soapbox and hand in the air, waving it around imperiously. Everybody's wearing suits and sensible, but very expensive, shoes. Everybody's got a microphone and a shovel. The microphone is to make sure their words are recorded for everyone to hear. The shovel is to keep the crap off their own feet.

This picture is of my youngest one-day-man at the Theodore Roosevelt monument in D.C. It's a monument most people don't even know about and to get to it you have to walk across this long bridge that spans half the Potomac River. You end up on an island at the start of a muddy path. Last time we were there we saw about eight actual snakes slithering around being very Congressional and slippery. After you walk up the muddy path, you find pillars with some of Roosevelt's better lines all bronzed up and looking inspiring. You see giant, empty concrete bowls that were once fountains. It is beautiful in its decay and emptiness. The giant orator has been softened by algae and patina and is rarely considered anymore.

The striking thing about the monument is not even really HIM. The monument makes him look permanently perfect, above the fray. But, Roosevelt wore a suit and sensible shoes. He carried a microphone and a shovel. The striking thing about this forgotten monument is that we really make monuments to the idea that there are actually people who can somehow harness luck and politics and public outrage to talk louder and dig faster than everybody else, and in the process get something done for the sake of the people who dare to be hungry or enslaved. We love the idea that things can get done, but only long after the dust has settled to show the idea to harness the maelstrom truly worked or if "I told you so..."

I took a picture of Marcus here at the foot of a statue large enough to crush him not because I know much about Roosevelt, but because I know quite a bit about hope.