Monthly Archives: October 2021

Bomb cyclone on the Amtrak

As I changed my wet outer garments into something dry, the conductor announced that the train isn’t exactly weather proof, there may be some seats that are wet, due to leaks.

Searching for a home during a global pandemic

By Stacey Warde

I woke up at 4:45 a.m. to catch a six o’clock train, Amtrak’s Surfliner, in San Luis Obispo to Santa Ana. I slept fitfully in a Motel 6 not far from the station.

Had I stayed here the previous night, it would have cost me nearly $300, which I don’t have; but Sunday, after prime time, it’s only $80, which is still more than I want to pay on a fixed budget. Fortunately, good friends put me up for a night and it was great to socialize and visit them and to find love in an era where love seems lacking, when so many are holding their breath, isolating themselves as I have these past two years, waiting for the covid pandemic to end, starved for affection and a friendly, warm human embrace.

Throughout the night I could hear rainfall but it turned heavy and started dumping around 3 a.m. I got up several times to look out the window of my motel room and saw it coming down in sheets the way it does in the tropics. God, I thought, I hope there aren’t any delays or problems on the railroad tracks.

I had been worried about this supposed “bomb cyclone” forecasters had been warning about for days, a system out of Alaska that was drawing moisture up from the south, packing potential devastating rain.

I’ve been looking for a new home, essentially homeless, these past four weeks after quitting a 7-year relationship. I’ve been up to Mendocino and back to San Luis Obispo and Orange Counties several times, staying with family, friends, and in motels, hoping to find a place to land.

Meanwhile, during my travels up and down the state, I had been worried about this supposed “bomb cyclone” forecasters had been warning about for days, a system out of Alaska that was drawing moisture up from the south and packing potential devastating rain, with flash flood warnings in California’s burn areas, one of which, the Alisal Fire near Gaviota, we would be passing through on our way south. Peak rainfall, the forecast warned, would occur as we passed through the area, and debris could quite possibly muck things up.

I found a space as close to the station as possible in the long-term parking lot, and tried to wait a few minutes for the rain to lighten up before traipsing up to the train depot but the rain kept coming down hard. Finally, losing precious time, I grabbed my bags and hustled off, still a good walking distance from the station, to find cover inside the depot, when I realized that I hadn’t placed my parking pass on the dashboard of my truck. I hurried back (“goddammit!”), by this time nearly soaked, to place the pass in the window as heavy rain blasted at my back. I could feel it soaking through, my bags already glistening wet as I set them down to unlock my truck and put the parking pass where it belonged.

Inside the depot, still not quite 6 a.m., I had a moment of panic, my travel bags dripping, clothes soaked, waiting passengers milling about, shaking off the rain, some wearing masks as required to protect against Covid-19, others not, some, believe it or not, wearing flip-flops over bare feet. I hadn’t had my coffee, and I was feeling cranky, and the air itself seemed icky wet.

A young male adult, probably a Cal Poly student, stood tossing a yo-yo through the air not far from where I sat, barely missing his girlfriend’s face who was seated in front of him, watching and blinking as the yo-yo flew past her nose, and I wondered what her parents must think of the fella, whose only talent appeared to be wrapping yo-yo string around his fingers, and making the yo-yo itself twirl in loops around their daughter’s face. What a useless dick, I thought, feeling like a crotchety old man. Still, she seemed to like him.

I noticed one woman who had gone into the restroom with wet clothes and came out moments later in dry clothes. She appeared to be the only person in the room who felt comfortable and at ease. Smart woman, I thought. I’ll be doing the same thing on the train, putting on dry clothes, staying comfortable, not getting chilled.

The station master, who had been carefully monitoring the scene, came out, and from the door of his office announced, “the password to get into the restroom is 2-0-0-1.” In minutes, the train pulled up to the boarding platform and passengers gathered their damp belongings to go outside, where it was still dark, and board the train. Underneath a small covering, in the glimmering light of the station, we waited for the doors of the train to open and watched as the rain poured, splattering the ground all around us.

The biggest concern I had at that moment wasn’t the flash flood warnings given for the recent Alisal Fire near Gaviota, but my damp clothes, staying warm, and keeping my covid protection mask dry. “Ugh, a petri dish of…”  I had to put it out of my mind. “What good does it do to worry? I’m going, so let’s go!” I boarded the train, feeling like a wet rat in clothes and a mask covering my face.

On board the train, as I changed my wet outer garments into something dry, the conductor announced that the train isn’t exactly weather proof, there may be some seats that are wet, due to leaks, and to “feel free to move around until you find something dry.” I found my place, the same as always, a seat with no one behind me. I could essentially relax unmolested, if I could relax.

We passed the Alisal Fire area without any problems, the blackened ground reeling against the season’s first downpour but not slipping into nearby ravines and clogging waterways or blocking the road and railroad tracks. I could barely see out of my window as the rain pelted the train. I could hear it on the roof of the car, and when I went down to the cafe car to get coffee, I spotted empty seats that were taking on water from the leaky roof.

At the Santa Barbara station, where mostly college students get on or off, the conductor announced again, “this train is not weather proof! Please find yourselves a seat that’s dry, and be careful walking around the lower deck; it’s very wet!”

Occasionally, I could hear the throaty hacking cough of a woman several seats in front of me. WTF? I hoped she’s ok and that it was only the usual morning clearing of the lungs and not something more menacing. Yet, I know there are those who will travel no matter how they feel, even during a global pandemic.

Upon our arrival in Ventura, the rain had lightened considerably but the wind blew stiff against flags that flapped furiously in dark horizontal squares against the sky, and along the tracks trees had fallen. The hacking cough continued unabated, at least until the woman got off the train. I wasn’t feeling especially charitable or friendly, and neither did other passengers appear ready to show friendly faces. I kept to myself, and did not wish to appear friendly so no one would sit next to me. I was perfectly happy to sit alone for this ride.

My mask, as always with long-time wear, was beginning to hurt my ears after several hours, but at least my clothes were dry.

This trip would not have been necessary had I stayed in the unhappy situation I’d lived in for years. Things had gotten so toxic. I try not to focus on it too much and remind myself that I need to get on with my life, and I’m still learning what that even means. “Getting on” means a willingness to risk, to be vulnerable, to find a home, to end things when so much effort goes into making an unworkable relationship work.

As we rolled into the LA station, the conductor announced that more than 100 passengers would be boarding, and that all seats must be made available. “It’s a crowded train.” Who’s gonna get the wet seats on this train that “isn’t weatherproof”? And why are so many people traveling when the risk of covid is still so great?

As more passengers boarded, complaining of how crowded the train was, I could smell the dank odor of marijuana. Someone is packing or carrying a load, I thought, someone always is. Fortunately for me, I love that smell.

As the conductor made announcements about federal regulations for wearing masks–“yesterday I removed five passengers for not wearing masks”–a young woman, probably in her 20s, on her cell phone raised her voice to be heard above the din: “I had the bruschetta…” I was having trouble hearing the conductor. What is wrong with people, I thought as I tried to listen to the conductor’s instructions, that their personal stuff, which isn’t really personal because everyone can hear them, is so much more important than the conductor giving instructions for riding the train during a global pandemic? A friend soon joined her. Neither one wore a mask.

I’ve been hearing so much about the tensions between Boomers like me–“OK, Boomer”–and younger folk like this woman, who was so rude and selfish in her tiny little world of sharing her dinner experience with everyone on the train. I didn’t understand those tensions; now I do. Basically, I realized, we’re all sojourners of a sort, looking for a place to call home. Yet, I also know that home is a state of mind, where friends and family welcome you into their arms, no matter how wet you are, or how difficult your life has been.

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Stacey Warde is editor of The Rogue Voice. Please leave comments.

Truth Matters

We need gatekeepers now more than ever

by Stacey Warde

I spent the bulk of my career in the days prior to the internet working as a gatekeeper. I managed the flow of information. 

As an editor, aka “gatekeeper,” I took great pride in making sure that what passed through my hands and landed in the news pages could be trusted, based on verifiable facts.

I picked through press releases, advertisements disguised as “news,” and avoided ploys by politicians and other charlatans to grab the limelight that wasn’t theirs to own. I looked for hard, usable data and read all the local and metropolitan rags. Mostly, I sought a good story, which was compelling, dramatic, and filled with solid, robust information, and backed with reliable, trustworthy  sources. I liked to tease my brain with information I could trust; I still do.

I spent the better part of 25 years deciding for various small communities, for religious as well as secular audiences, what they would get to read as “news.” I decided what, in the flood of data then in circulation, would get a share of the precious, and limited, “news hole” that was my job as editor to fill. 

Gatekeeping is an art that requires tested skills, an analytical mind, a few logs, and an effective way to screen truth from fiction.

I treated  limited space in the newspaper as if it were high-end real estate. The closer to the front of the book, as far as I was concerned, the more value it held. The cover story, for example, belonged to me, and to our readers. I protected that space through heated discussions and a passion for truth. It received the greatest play and attention, occupying pages that advertisers would pay thousands for.

My primary task was to make sure that information could hold up to the scrutiny of informed readers, have something of value, something of vital significance, for the whole community, and could be established, as much as was possible, in fact. The risk, otherwise, was to suffer the consequences of libel, which could ruin a publication, or at the very least destroy its credibility, which ultimately meant certain death, a severe drop in faithful readership, which advertisers seek to influence with their dollars.

Mostly, libel suits, in my experience, failed because they were issued more as threats rather than as actual attempts to reclaim verifiable truth and to protect one’s character from real defamation. The two or three libel threats sent my way during those 25 years came to nothing. 

On one occasion, for example, I ran a story about a local video producer of a series that featured bar room fights while women, strategically placed for the big event, would flash their breasts. In one of the videos, a patron of the bar got plunked on the head for no apparent reason and soon he was in the midst of a fight. The police came and cleaned the place out.

The unsuspecting patron had no idea that the melee was staged or being videotaped, at least not until a friend who had seen the video called to say, “Hey, dude, I was just watching this video with all these babes flashing their titties and  you were in it, fighting. What’s up with that?”

The victim researched the matter and found that the whole thing had been staged. He made a big stink about it, contacted the authorities and gave us a heads up, wondering if we would be interested in telling his story. We were and we did.

The producer, outed for the phony setup and for putting unsuspecting patrons at risk of injury or arrest, threatened to sue for libel. Our attorney sent a one-paragraph letter back, explaining the basics of libel law, indicating they had no basis for a suit because there was nothing actionable, meaning “false, misleading, or malicious.”

Truth is the best defense against libel. A person might feel defamed but if the facts can be established–through the court systems, government agencies, or through other incriminating evidence–there’s no libel, there’s no slander, and no risk of going to court.

Today, however, in the war zones of social media and platforms that claim no responsibility for what gets posted or published, libels and slanders flourish, the truth be damned. Facts don’t matter. Instead, malicious individuals with an agenda fabricate half-truths to look like facts, which they then publish and use to mislead and hurt others. Few are held accountable.

Consequently, in the midst of this insane free-for-all, there’s little to no consensus on important issues such as how to govern, how to proceed toward a healthier, more vibrant democracy, where people are held accountable for what they proclaim and publish, where truth matters.

In the best circumstances, citizens can discern fact from fiction, and can think critically about what they consume in today’s world of information overload. This will only happen with media, especially with social media, that can be trusted, that can take responsibility for ensuring the robust solidity of their content.

Gatekeepers, the idea went before the web spread its tentacles across the planet, gleaned reliable data from false and misleading information. They vetted everything that went into publication to inform rather than confuse, mislead, or hurt readers, to give them a solid footing in the workings of their community. An informed readership, I was taught, would make better decisions–for themselves and their community. They would, ultimately, be less divided.

Fights and heated disagreements might break out over an unpopular story or idea but seldom, as far as I can remember, did a mob of malicious malcontents descend upon school boards to harass, intimidate or outright terrorize the opposition, forcing others, not negotiating with them, to see things their way. There were no insurrections, or misinformed and pathetically misled mobs storming the nation’s Capitol, all for the sake of promulgating The Big Lie.

This, by the way, is how fascists operate. And fascists don’t like truth. Fascists are fabricators that have no respect for dialog and established facts. They make up their own “facts.” 

They cherry pick their data to boastfully make their false claims, they bully and harass those who disagree with them, even when those who disagree have a better grasp of reality, and they refuse to listen to sound reason, primarily, I believe, because gatekeepers no longer play a key role where truth and sound reason are factors, at least in social media, in the dissemination of trustworthy information. It’s a giant free-for-all of fools tearing at one another’s eyeballs. 

Often, the bloviators who organize around or through social media don’t know what they actually stand for because they don’t possess any reliable data to back their claims. Their bag of goodies is full of holes. Mostly, all they can offer are random bits of insider jargon, a fist-full of fake “facts” and a failure to glean truth from a lie. This is what happens when gatekeepers no longer have a role in what gets played in the media, when social media platforms refuse to take responsibility for what they feature on their sites.

I took some hard knocks for not getting things right. Readers who knew the truth, I learned, spoke loudly when falsehoods or misleading data got published in the local paper or magazine. They called, and let me know: Truth matters, get it right!

That lesson came home to me again and again but especially as my responsibilities began to increase, including editorial decisions that could very well, and sometimes did, send someone to jail, or cause disruption in the community. Truth matters, and not everyone likes the truth. But it’s better than a lie, and a more reliable indicator of a healthy democracy, and trained, knowledgeable gatekeepers can help to make that happen.  

Stacey Warde is editor of The Rogue Voice. Please feel free to add your comments.