A Tall Tree Has Fallen: Remembering Jim Mackoy

Last Friday, April 3rd, my dad passed away. It breaks my heart to speak of him in the past tense, and I’m already mourning the long conversations that won’t be coming, the things his grandchildren will do that he won’t be around to see, and the places I’ll go that I wish he could experience with me. 

James Russell Mackoy was a brilliant, kind and gentle man, but also stubborn in the mode of a deeply rooted plant, determined to grow just where it is regardless of convenience or condition. He was an early computer programmer, and spent his service during the Vietnam War installing and maintaining computer systems for the government as part of the Air Force. Throughout my childhood, the trunk of his car was generally full of cards full of code, computer parts, and books, as well as hunting gear and hats to protect his bare scalp from the sun as he tromped around outside. 

He was both an armchair intellectual and an outdoorsman, keen to explore the world through books and sensitive to the changing seasons’ flora and fauna. I remember him always being able to rustle up a spoon and small container to scoop up baby trees that sprouted in inopportune spots, so he could replant them elsewhere to give them a better chance or a bigger purpose. He showed me which plants to snack from, and which to stay away from; how to watch for animal tracks on the path, and how to recognize which critters could be dangerous as I played in the woods. He always wanted to fix things, to save them and repurpose them, always reluctant to throw anything away in case it could be useful. 

As a child, he did Roman riding exhibitions and was so bendy he could fold himself in half like a gymnast. His family moved from California to Missouri when he was still young, where he then grew up on farm that became a crucial part of what is now the Tarkio Prairie Conservation Area, his own father having recognized the rarity of some of the plants and animals that still resided on the land there. Part of his schooling was in a one room schoolhouse, and I recall him saying that the first house they lived in out there had no electricity, and water had to be pumped by hand from the well. Over his eight decades of life, he witnessed a huge amount of technological and social change, participating in some and bemoaning plenty as well.

Whether I lived in Missouri, Colorado, California, or England, Dad was always reading in the background, traveling with me through the news and magazines so he was ready for our next phone call. He constantly surprised me with the mundane details he had picked up about wherever I was, how he would ask about my friends he had met only once or twice, attentive to these as points of connection even when distance or other difficulties got in the way. To paraphrase Gibran, he always endeavored to dwell with me in the house of tomorrow, and visit it as I lived my dreams.

His subscriptions to National Geographic and Scientific American went with me up into willow trees on hot Missouri summer days, where I would read and wonder about the world out there, even while loving the breeze through the rustling branches just where I was. If I dreamed big, in was in no small part because his own voracious intellect demanded constant input, and there was plenty of material laying around to encourage imagination.

In his final days, we talked about all the baby cedars I saw him bring home, and he said, “Some of them are probably still growing.” I hold that hope in my heart, too, even as I mourn the tall tree that has fallen. 

"Every Man Ought to Endeavour Peace"

I have two images in my mind today regarding Charlie Kirk: The video of his shooting, which I never asked for but some algorithm threw in front of me before I could even react, and the photo of him with his family. 

I saw that video, and thought, "He's not going to live through that." Which, well. 

And then that photo with two small kids at a birthday party, the children's faces carefully turned away from the camera, the photo carefully chosen to reframe the inevitable discussion. Those kids didn't ask for their father to be a repressive hate coward, and maybe he was someone different for them. He's gone now, though, and that will be a rupture they'll feel for the rest of their lives. 

There was also the shooting in Evergreen, which isn't far from where I went to high school, and I had friends who went to school there. I've repeated so many times the story of being locked down in a temporary classroom in a high school near Columbine on the day that shooting occurred, and getting to have another two and a half decades to wonder why that one wasn't the last. 

I try to walk the highwire of explaining what's going on to my eight-year-old, without freaking him out but without leaving him in questioning silence. He hears about this stuff, because it's swirling around. I don't yet dare to talk about how his beloved school, safe and full of friends, could become anything else. I somehow hold on to the hope that another world is possible, though that requires bravery and an innate sense of justice to inspire the build. It's hard for me to muster any sympathy for the bad people meeting bad ends, but I loathe the aftermath of escalating violence and risk of martyrdom that follows in their wake. 

A terrible person, who talked about other people's children as worthy blood sacrifices to this country's gun fetish, met his end while fomenting division. Our collective life expectancy is dropping because of how many small children are dying, riddled with bullets, before age five. My own children, so beautiful and kind, deserve better than this looming threat and rising radicalism, which Kirk made a buck off of at every turn. 

Hard to know how to finish this one, really, but Kirk is finished, and so his legacy is set. His record will be a lot of awful words, hateful opinions framed as bullying debates, and there is now no opportunity for him to pivot, for him to learn or have an ounce of shame for his behavior. That possibility is foreclosed, with the finality brutally brought to households across this country every day in the form of gunfire. 

I don't think this is our natural state, and yet there are those in this nation that would seek to forcefully oppress us back into a war of all against all. One perished today, having pursued this singular aim: "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Out of Touch

I was just reading this op-ed in the New York Times by Eric Schmidt and Selina Xu, discussing how Silicon Valley is growing out of touch with the realities of everyday Americans, focused on the AI wars and what people actually need right now. 

Firstly, growing out of touch? Baby, the valley has been out of touch. It’s practically a point of pride. That’s the brand. And I know because I’m here, and I’ve been around long enough to see this boom and bust cycle a few times.

I’ve been saying for a while: No one is actually asking for AI to be jammed into every fucking thing they touch, but don’t let that stop the folks at the top from spending billions and billions of dollars to beat each other to the punch on… Whatever.

Meanwhile, they are roasting our environment, especially around communities of color and areas of deprivation, to build data centers that suck up the water and pollute the air around them. As is traditional for robber barons.

Those guys at the top? Appalling. Financing fascism. Sucking up to a wannabe dictator in hopes of relaxed regulation. They are in competition with each other to make the biggest bucks, with no regard for the impact on everyone else’s lives, which is exactly in keeping with what they’ve given us up to now. We’re talking about people that knowingly create products that ensnare children in depression and also approve of chatbots that sexualize them. Where they work in the physical, they exploit their labor forces in hot warehouses with hard labor before replacing them with robots. They build themselves private compounds and exclusive schools for their children while they fund the demolishing of public schools and the sale of public lands. They operate with impunity like comic book villains.

These are not anyone’s saviors, and waiting around for them to build technology for the social good is absolutely a fool’s errand. Silicon Valley is high on its own farts, again, and we are all supposed to believe that this hype means that a techno-utopia is just on the other side. And that is never, never what happens, though they need us to buy into it to line their pockets and pave the way.

So many people are guzzling this freely-provided Kool-Aid, volunteering to be the guinea pigs of this technology, even as we see people suffering from mental health crises and even death because they were sucked in. Again, history is full of this, and the net effect is that the rich get richer and the rest of us struggle to hold onto to what we have. 

The cotton gin didn’t end slavery, it entrenched dependence on enslaved black labor. We always get sold a false bill of goods about technology, only to come thudding down to a status quo where income inequalities are entrenched, and the ones that got the special treatment to build their uncontrolled outcomes get astronomically wealthier. Does anyone really believe that this generation of ruthlessly self-enriching, super-wealthy white men will deliver an outcome different than what’s come before?

Let me talk about the effects of this that I can already see:

- I’m writing less. I don’t want my words used to train the plagiarism machine, and I can’t see any way around it while sharing my work. So, I don’t. I can hardly be the only person disinclined to do their art under this shadow. 

- After years of enjoying the connection of social media, my disgust with Zuckerberg has led me to massively curtail posting anything personal. I don’t want my words used in chatbot training, and I don’t want my kids’ faces being fed into whatever sinister shit he cooks up next. Honestly, I look back on the beautiful timelines assembled, the hopeful stories of life and love that I shared, and it makes me sad that I don’t feel comfortable doing that anymore.

- People smart enough to know better say, “I asked ChatGPT…” with numbing regularity. Friend, that thing is not more intelligent than you, it’s not an expert in anything, and it is not a data tool. Everything you said after that, I skipped. I zoned out. Tell me about your fever dreams, as they have more credence than the people-pleasing delusions of this thing that is just regurgitating plausible word combos. 

- Jobs are being automated, but quality is not improving. People are just not able to compete with a VC-funded fly-by-night robo-competitor that doesn’t have to eat or pay rent. 

- Disconnection is only accelerating, because these bots are acting as a cheap and addictive substitute for human connection, insult to injury after the societal reshuffle of COVID. More screen time that feels like a conversation but lacks a true conversational partner is a recipe for spiraling, and we’ve been here before with other technology. The lonely and vulnerable among us are already succumbing.

- Misinformation continues to spread, as these chatbots are regurgitating things with the tone of truthiness, but are also being visibly manipulated by their masters. And this is to say nothing of the flood of deepfakes delivering deception.

Zuckerberg’s vision for the near future is all of us siloed, having conversations with robots as a cure for loneliness, constantly available to pull data from and serve ads to. How quickly he forgets that his core product used to be saying connected to people you knew and loved from face-to-face interaction.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here communing with the spirit of William Morris, making something with my hands and teaching my children to do the same.

Love Knots and Safety Nets

Reminded because I have just sent another such email: As my eldest kiddo gets older, I realize more and more how much parenting goes on behind the scenes. 

Yes, there's absolutely the important stuff of cuddles and play, face-to-face talks through delightful conversations and difficult ones. All that love gets poured in directly, and layers up to form secure attachments and senses of safety. 

But there are also the emails to teachers and coaches, nudging conversations along so that I can quietly coach him to develop the skills he wants to gain, working as a team with his other trusted adults both visibly and invisibly. Together, we're weaving his safety net every day, with discussions about where things might slip and where the strands are really coming together. 

And so I give him a big bear hug when I pick him up from school. I ask about his day, even when he's too tired to spin out the chronology of events. And I try to wrap my mind around the contours of his world, to help him learn to hold it all together.

Easter in the City of Saint Francis

Oh, Pope Francis. What timing! Of course, we were just talking about you, which doesn't happen that much around here. 

This Easter, as with all so far except those cancelled by COVID, included our annual outing to Hunky Jesus. My eldest has never known an Easter without drag queens, and so each Easter morning I have my little sermon: 

I remind him about the biblical story of Jesus, and the pagan elements of spring's resurrection from winter's apparent death, how bunnies and eggs got involved with empty tombs and whatnot. Then I talk about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and how they stand up for what's right, after explaining about nuns being female priests in Catholicism. 

Since my kiddo is getting to be old enough to understand more and more of the swirling complexities and imperfections of the adult world, I filled in some details this year about how the AIDS crisis made a lot of people in our city very sick, and that so many died. I explained that, even though a lot of religious people talk about love, that the people that were sick and dying from AIDS were often alone when they most needed family and love, and that's part of the work the Sisters still do. 

I also had to explain popes, and said they are basically the kings of the Catholic church, but sometimes there's a really good one. And I said that we were lucky to have a good one right now, who was trying to stand up for what is right in lots of ways, too. 

Then we spent the day in joy and also kind of peaceful protest as well as celebration with our friends in the park, as colorful nuns organized photos with the Easter bunny and games for children before more adult festivities rolled on in the afternoon. Hunky Jesus seems to always guarantee gorgeous weather, and everyone sparkles in that glorious sunshine while the music plays and the park thumps with music and mischief. 

And then, I woke up this morning to the news that Pope Francis had delivered one last Easter blessing, shaded our shady vice president, and then passed. 

Obviously, I am a heathen. There's no need to correct me on matters of dogma, it's not my thing. There were a million areas where we would not have agreed, I’m sure. But with the vast weight and reach of his position, he tried to move an enormous structure of power and prayer in our world toward more acceptance and understanding. I will miss his huge counterweight against the forces of craven self-interest that particularly govern this country right now. 

In his absence, who will speak for the migrant? Who will embrace non-judgement in the face of traditions that demand old oppressions? 

Honestly, it will have to be all of us. Who knows what comes next, or what change in leadership follows? We'll have to resolve to embody radical kindness and inclusion ourselves to transform the world around us. 

It sure does matter that we speak up, though. Thank you, Pope Francis, for sharing your fumbling path with us, imperfections and all, as you tried to take an ancient thing and make it work more in service of compassion and care for people here right now than it had before. I'm sorry to see you go.

Someone's Baby

God, those photos of the men stacked up in a concentration camp in El Salvador... Piled up like commodities, made faceless, dehumanized by their captors both foreign and domestic. 

Each one of them was someone's baby. Now grown, they are heaped upon each other, discarded, hope stolen, kidnapped from their own families. 

Part of the beautiful, terrible magic of parenting is that all children somehow became my children. One of the daily horrors of the previous Trump administration was protecting my own tender, gorgeous infant in my arms as babies his age slept in cages, wailing for their own mothers, standing alone in court, parents lost to them in an extrajudicial system that has expanded to horrifying overseas operations in this term. I couldn’t save them all. I could only hold onto one.

Now, we are given this vision of adulthood for men. Trump's supporters continue to dehumanize migrant men, framing them as dangerous criminals to justify the lawless detention and abuse they are suffering, when in actual fact so many of them came to our country to escape violence. They trusted us to be better than the criminals they endured.

And each of them was someone's baby. 

How can I look at my own sons, brilliant and beautiful, and not fear that they might also someday be treated with such disregard and hatred? Am I really supposed to trust the capriciousness of racism to protect them from such a fate, knowing how racists are motivated by their own extreme insecurity and fear? 

Racism protects no one. Insecurity and fear breed only violence and spasms of dominance. Relying on whiteness leans into the same dehumanization that delivers the results we're seeing now. Racism overspills the imaginary lines constructed by those that cling to it; it’s coming for all of us, eventually, regardless of our skin color or the content of our character. We all become faceless before it, reduced to the meanest calculation of our value. The only answer is to see it for what it is, and tear it down.

I look up at our administration, and see an array of broken men, insecure and fearful, drawn like moths to a flame toward the biggest bully. Tortured by their own fathers, hating their own mothers, beating their own wives, neglecting their own children. These criminals--some subject to the very due process denied to the men of CECOT--we tolerate, as they rain down further abuse in hopes that someday, finally, they might feel strong enough. 

And each of them was someone's baby, too. 

Many of them are famous for their stories of human failure. We don't have to guess at what made this administration this way, because their politics of grievance spell it out each day. They can never be stronger than the abusive fathers that tormented them as children or abandoned them, but they work each day to keep women under their heel and a hierarchy of racism available so they can feel taller as the bodies stack up. They can steal someone else’s father and throw him away like garbage, but they can never repair their own fractured souls by doing so. They can sell fear, but they can never feel safe.

What will it take to ensure that my own sons won't be failed men in this way? Will my daily work be enough so that they see others as fully formed individuals, each with their own dreams and difficulties, and emerge into adulthood with their empathy intact? 

They are my babies. I see them with hopeful eyes, wrap my love around them, and grieve for all the ones I cannot reach. With the spectre of failure looming large, I try my best to fight this fight on many fronts. 

We were all someone's baby. May we hold each other gently, and grow beyond this hateful brokenness of insecure men with too much power.

Of Trials and Taxes

Today held an emotional morning of civic responsibility. Perhaps mourning, too. At the risk of seeming susceptible to seeing my own life as a movie, the timing felt significant. Maybe that’s just the poetry of life, though, the synchronicities and symbolism. 

I was on standby for jury duty this week. I have wanted to serve on a jury, and I often feel disappointed or even disdainful of folks swapping tales of weaseling out of this call to service. However, I have still yet to make it to the point of serving, and the journey to today’s visit to the courthouse was a long one. 

The first time I was called years ago, I had a new baby and I didn’t know what to do except bring him with me. When I showed up with an infant on my hip, they let me know there is actually a way to be excused for this without the adventure of hauling the little one all the way to the courthouse.

Then, I was called just before final exams for my interior architecture courses. With no guarantees that the trial could be concluded before I needed to sit for my tests, I could not serve, though the judge talked to my as if I was his own recalcitrant teenager trying to evade responsibility. I let him know that, if I felt I could reasonably attend to both duties, I would love to serve. But, little matter. Dismissed.

My next postcard came just before my second child was born. I was heavily pregnant, and, again, no guarantees about the length of time, neither the trial nor impending labor. Working with the clerk (over the phone this time) I was advised about postponement to a future date to allow time for birth and breastfeeding a baby. 

So, today. I got the call, and I gathered my supplies: A book to read while waiting, snacks and tea, but also my most portable breast pump and a chiller bottle for milk—because my baby is still nursing, and attending to milk supply is both a nutritional concern for him and a comfort and health issue for me.

When I arrived today, the clerk at the jury assembly room let me know that the trial looked like a short one, but also that I had a valid reason to request being excused. He invited me to sit down and watch the introductory videos with the other potential jurors.

I nearly cried as the reels played. I am sure I’m not the only one carrying a lot of stress from the daily disarray we’re seeing from the federal government. The uncertainty, the disappearances of those who speak up, or who are viewed as “other.” As a judge spoke of the right to a fair trial, of our ability to serve justice in one of our three branches of government, I felt part of my heart break open. 

Not long after, we were all called to a courtroom, where the judge spoke eloquently of her thanks to us for being there, and also of the few duties of citizenship: mainly, taxes and jury duty. 

“And here we are, on Tax Day. But what we’re asking of you here is for your time, and for your careful consideration. It is a privilege to be able to be here, and you may ask how you were so lucky to be chosen.” She explained how the pools of potential jurors are assembled, “a cross section of our beautiful city,” and reminded us all how important it is to show up for each other in this way. 

Those fractures in my heart sang again; I don’t think very highly of paying taxes today, at least on a federal level. Many of the agencies that mean the most to me have been deliberately destroyed, their dedicated staff scattered to the winds, their work undercut or abandoned. To the extent that I can see what I am paying for, there are abductions of people seeking hope in America, and frequent golf trips for an egomaniac while food aid and medical advances are nixed from the program.

But, wow, I care about the judiciary. Of those aforementioned three branches of government, one is viciously lawless, one has completely abdicated its duty as a check on executive power—and yet one stands. The courts are holding the line, more often than not, enraging those that would seek to make the orange oaf our mad king. His allies gnash their teeth and pull their hair as rulings land that hail back to those constitutional constructs meant to balance our governing bodies. 

The scales are delicate, imperfect, and yet they hold. Due process matters. Resisting violence with resolve and clear eyes matters. These are some of our highest accomplishments in civilization. We bend the moral arc toward justice not only in the streets, but in the courts, too.

Our judge asked anyone who could serve to take a ten-minute break outside the courtroom. Anyone requesting consideration of a hardship was to remain. I stayed, ready to discuss my circumstances, but not yet convinced I should present them as a barrier to service. We sat in the seats later to be used for the selected jurors, and in a row we passed the microphone along. 

First, a woman with a crucial conference before the week’s end. Dismissed. Then, a student with an impressive course load nearing the end of the academic year. Dismissed. A mother, scheduled to fly on Friday to her son’s university orientation. Dismissed. For each story, the judge listened, asked more questions where needed, and congratulated the big milestones and hard work of those receiving dismissals. 

Then, me. I took the mic, and said that I am currently breastfeeding a baby. The judge offered me a dismissal, too, but I said that I felt strongly about serving, and that if I could be accommodated to pump then I could probably do it. 

She smiled and said, “This is a special time.” And, my god, it matters to have a woman present to adjudicate these things, both legal and where that intersects with the personal. This was no cold analysis of the rules, but a moment of empathy, delivered with the awareness that my youngest will only be little once. 

I thanked her, gathered my things, and left. I missed my baby. I felt a little deflated that my contributions could not be greater in this moment. Always, the timing. Upholding so many duties, some fleeting and essential, both biological and bureaucratic. 

Where we show up matters. I’ve said many times recently in private conversations that I wish Americans would understand voting as a civic responsibility, akin to paying taxes; not always exciting, perhaps mostly not, but a duty and a privilege. Today, with checks to write and the erosion of our highest ideals plainly before me, I held in my hands for an hour or so the ability to bolster our last bulwark of co-equal powers. And, gently, I was told that I was probably needed elsewhere more, because time is short. 

I walked past the square where less than two weeks ago, I donned my patriotic finery and protested alongside my family: No Kings. We the People. I want my children to see this, and know that we need to stand strong in these moments. I passed Abraham Lincoln, sat seriously in bronze, inviting me to consider it all in front of City Hall, where I’ve voted, yes, but also witnessed weddings and celebrated arts in our city. So much in this beautiful building.

Our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness have their best chances in a framework of mutual care. That framework requires a sense of responsibility, and it requires us all to show up as we can to maintain it. 

I walked on, home to my child. I held him close. This time is special.