He's Innocent! Really!

I’m not saying he’s on the FBI's Most Wanted list, but last week Rich was apprehended by police and detained to “help them with their inquiries.”
 
It all started so innocently. Having just returned to California after six months in Spain, Rich took our dusty VW to the local car wash. Ready to head home in his sparkling clean vehicle, he headed out the exit onto a street with sporadic traffic. As he eased out into the street, he saw cars zooming up from the right and stepped on the brakes. Then three cars came from the left, couldn’t get past him, and stopped.
 
After 20 seconds, one of the stopped drivers went ballistic, continuously honking and shrieking with fury. One minute later traffic cleared, Rich was able to make his turn, and Road Rage Lady leaned out of her car to snap a photo of him. He waved back cheerily and drove off.
 
Half an hour later, Rich was flabbergasted to see flashing red lights in his rear view mirror.

A witness, said the cop, had reported that Rich’s irresponsible exit from the car wash had forced a car to slam on its brakes, causing it to be rear-ended. Having shown willful and wanton disregard for the safety of others, Rich should be arrested for (allegedly) causing the accident.
 
“But there was no accident,” Rich protested. “Yes, I stopped and everyone else did too. That’s it.” At most, he was guilty of overcautious pausing. Incredibly, the cop believed him, and let him go with an apology.
 
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes or even Veronica Mars to deduce this was the handiwork of Road Rage Lady. If so, she committed several very real crimes: filing a false police report, obstruction of justice, defamation of character, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and — for those who answer to a Higher Authority — bearing false witness against thy neighbor.

Remember this one? It's number nine on the Ten Commandments, right between not stealing and not coveting your neighbor's wife.

​Worryingly, America is the only country in the world where more than half the population views their fellow citizens as morally bad, according to a new Pew Research survey. Was Road Rage Lady expressing the zeitgeist of our times?
 
Maybe not. That same week, while on an outing with her sister, my brother’s wife, Deb, keeled over senseless in a Silicon Valley railway train. The passengers sprang into action, offering help and summoning the conductor. He found doctors among the passengers and delayed the train at the next station until Deb regained consciousness, got assessed, and was deemed able, with assistance, to walk off the train to a waiting ambulance.
 
Afterwards Deb asked if the other passengers were glaring at her in fits of — would we call it railway rage?
 
“No,” said her sister. “Nobody looked upset or impatient at all. In fact, everyone kept asking, ‘Is she OK? Will she be all right?’” (Yes, she’s fine, thanks for asking. It was dehydration.)

In a groundbreaking humanitarian study conducted with Spanish college students, researchers determined that beer hydrates better than water. Apparently it's the electrolytes. Just a thought for next time, Deb.

Another case in point: This week someone posted online that she’d run out of gas on the freeway and was stranded without cash or credit cards. “I don’t have a dime to my name right now so I don’t know how I am going to get gas. I am 8 months pregnant and it is hot inside my car. If anyone could bring me some gas or money for gas,” she wrote, “you will be a saving grace and I’d be grateful!!!!!!”
 
Obviously a scam, right? While online comments ran the gamut from skepticism to concern, one neighbor jumped in her car with a can of gas and bottle of water and went to see for herself. Turns out it was a genuine distress call, and when the Good Samaritan posted, “Fuel and water delivered!” Another neighbor wrote, “Now that’s some good karma!” 

​In my experience, most people (with a few obvious exceptions) want to  be kind, decent, and helpful. To test this belief, I’ve decided to spend the next six months writing a series posts called “Good Neighbors.” I’m going to check out how those around me — in my neighborhood and my nation — are reaching out to help one another through these dark times.
 
Examples are everywhere. As food prices skyrocket, people are quietly stocking the community fridge at a nearby church with free food for those in need. In cities across the country, volunteers are delivering groceries to American citizens and legal immigrants who are afraid to leave their homes. People are pitching in, lending a hand, sharing the burden, and figuring out how to voice common concerns. You may have noticed eight million of us doing this last Saturday.

People took to the streets in Oakland, California on March 28 as part of the largest protest in modern American history.

Last month, Matt Schumer decided to speak up, loud and clear, in a now-viral essay called “Something Big is Happening.”

​“Think back to February 2020," he says. "If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren't paying close attention.... Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed. Your office closed, your kids came home, and life rearranged itself into something you wouldn't have believed if you'd described it to yourself a month earlier. I think we're in the ‘this seems overblown’ phase of something much, much bigger than Covid.”
 
As a tech CEO, he is alerting us to the fact that artificial intelligence reached the tipping point last month. When advances in ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude were announced in February, “something clicked,” he recalls. “Not like a light switch... more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.” Yes, he includes suggestions for coping while he's sounding the alarm.

Remember when we viewed robots as our plucky little pals? (Sigh...)

 
Industry insiders speak of AI as the biggest game-changer since we learned how to use fire two million years ago. Nobody knows what wonders and horrors we’ll see. But I am certain of this: we’ll get through the transition with greater wisdom, grace, and success if we do it together.
 
A few days ago, Rich and I went to a talk on friendship by the actor Andrew McCarthy. You may remember him for his sensitive, nuanced portrayal of Larry in Weekend at Bernie’s.

Larry was just one of many buddies and sidekicks Andrew McCarthy played in 1980s comedies. Now he writes travel books exploring the meaning of friendship.

Today he's a travel writer whose latest book is Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America. An impulsive decision to visit an old pal led to a 10,000 mile solo road trip, visiting long-lost buddies and chatting with random strangers at diners and road stops, asking them about the friendships that define their lives.
 
“I kept walking up to men and asking if we could talk for a few minutes,” he said. “I did this dozens of times. Not one person ever said ‘no.’ Not one. America’s really open-hearted. Yes, even now.”
 
Connecting with others started going out of fashion when TV came along, and the isolation epidemic surged with smart phones. If there is a silver lining to these catastrophic times, it will be the sharp and constant reminders that we can’t get through them alone. And luckily we don’t have to. We live surrounded by friends, family, and (if we’re lucky) some good neighbors. How do we connect with them? That’s what I’ll be writing about in the days ahead. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.

 
SO WHY DID WE COME BACK?
Lots of people have asked us why we were crazy enough to return from Spain to the US at this moment in history. Rich and I are here because we love our country (warts and all), and we are ready to do our bit to help her in her hour of need. Yes, we'll head back to Spain in the fall, because we'll need some relief from the madness.

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