Tag: politics

• May 20, 2022

  Why America Needs a National Paid Family Leave Program

  

  

  Earlier this year, when my daughter was four months old, I did something that few parents (and even fewer fathers) have the opportunity to do: I took time off from work to care for her. My spouse was going back to work and it was going to be two more months before another child care option was available. Plus, I wanted to spend time with her. It was the best two months of my adult life; challenging, sure, but also incredibly rewarding. Without a paid family leave program to support us, it wouldn’t have been possible.

  My parental leave was paid through a program that Washington state instituted in 2020 and it’s funded through a payroll deduction just like health insurance or worker’s compensation. We all pay into the system and when we have a qualifying event, like the birth or adoption of a child or need to take time off for medical care or to care for someone else, you simply file a claim with the state and you receive a percentage of your salary each week. I was entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave through the state program—and my wife received 16 weeks.

  At this point, most readers from outside the U.S. are probably saying, “So what? That’s standard.” And in much of the world, it is. The U.S. is an outlier. It’s one of only six countries in the world—and the only rich nation—that doesn’t guarantee leave for parents. There are state programs like Washington’s, but it’s a patchwork system. Only 10 states and the District of Columbia have any kind of paid leave program in place, which leaves two-thirds of all Americans with unpaid programs or nothing at all. In fact, four-in-10 people return to work within two weeks of giving birth. Two weeks.

  A national system of paid family leave will not solve the systemic problems this country has when it comes to supporting children and families—the deeply engrained economic, health, educational, and racial disparities that put many children at a disadvantage from birth. It will not address the fact that the average cost of child care in the U.S. is an exorbitant $10,000 a year or that 17% of American children live in poverty. But in giving parents time to bond with their children, recover from childbirth and delay the high cost of childcare for a few extra months, we’ll be taking a step in the right direction.

  Those early days with a newborn are exhausting and exhilarating and worth every second. Every new parent deserves the chance to spend that time with their child. It’s time for a national paid leave program.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a dad, writer and podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can follow him on Twitter,  join his mailing list, and listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, wherever you enjoy podcasts.

  Learn more about how you can join the effort to pass a national paid family and medical leave policy at paidleave.us or paidleaveforall.org.
• April 27, 2022

  Twitter and the Public Square

  

  For years, Twitter was hailed as a cure-all for the ills of 21st-century life. It eliminates gatekeepers, they said. Now everyone has a platform! Writers can easily connect with their readers! Journalists can discover and report on stories as they break! Politicians will be more accessible than ever! Proponents lauded the platform as a modern-day version of the village commons where the free flow of ideas and opinions would create healthier democracies. People pointed to the way Arab Spring protestors, Occupy Wall Street, and the #MeToo movement used Twitter to organize their efforts for social and political change. Even I bought into the hype, viewing the platform as an unfiltered news source and a promotional tool all rolled into one.

  We were wrong.

  Starting in the mid-2010s, Twitter’s flaws were laid bare as demagogues and trolls weaponized it. Misinformation skyrocketed and crowds of followers were whipped up into dangerous mobs. And it wasn’t just Twitter. Facebook was hijacked by conspiracy theorists to spread lies like wildfire and state-sponsored hackers leveraged its algorithm to shape the outcome of elections. But while Facebook was vilified for its inaction and ineptitude, Twitter’s reputation survived relatively untarnished, even as it allowed the likes of Donald Trump to threaten his opponents and for legions of anonymous users to hurl abuse, slurs, death threats, and harassment.

  Somehow, the faithful convinced themselves that despite the hateful rhetoric and the real-world consequences of proxy wars being fought through its app, Twitter was fundamentally a good thing. Or at least, it was a neutral entity with a capacity for good if the right guardrails were in place.

  We came to equate Twitter — and all social media by extension — as the second coming of the Athenian ideal of direct democracy, where everyone could contribute their voice to discussions on a global scale. Then, a billionaire who disagreed with the company’s moderation practices swooped in to buy it, and I was reminded that Twitter isn’t the public square. It never was. We aren’t recreating the Greek polis¹. If anything, we are living through a resurgence of the Gilded Age, when rich aristocrats accountable to no one slandered their critics in the newspapers they owned.

  Is there hope? Perhaps Twitter’s new owner, who claims to be a free speech “absolutist,” won’t dismantle moderation policies which reign in some of the platform’s darkest impulses. Maybe there will be a renewed commitment to protect vulnerable groups from online bullying and harassment. It’s possible there will be a slow exodus to some other social media provider, or that we’ll simply retreat to our individual corners of the Internet, cocooning ourselves in a decentralized network of blogs and mailing lists. I’m not sure what I’ll do. A lot of the traffic to my website comes from Twitter. No other platform provides as big a reach for writers and artists who depend on social media for their livelihood, so many of us stay, even as it comes as an increasingly steep ethical price.

  Last week, I listened to an episode of the Rumble Strip podcast. The episode describes how, in many small towns in New England, the entire town meets once a year to debate and vote on the issues facing their community. It’s a remarkable reminder that true democracy happens face-to-face in coffee shops and high school gyms. It’s slow, hard work that relies on a common understanding of the rules of engagement, respect for those who disagree with us, and a shared goal of caring for our neighbors. As we choke on social media’s grip on our national conversation, we’ve largely lost the art of civil debate and shared governance. I don’t know if we can get back to that place, but I hope it isn’t too late.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. Ironically, you can follow him on Twitter, but you can also join his mailing list for more musings (which might be better in the long run). His debut audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, is available wherever you enjoy podcasts.

  Further Reading: Elon Mush bought Twitter. What’s next? (PBS Newshour)

  1. Note: The Athenian system of democracy, while innovative, was far from ideal, with citizenship limited to a small group of free men allowed to participate in the political sphere, with women and slaves excluded. The ancient Greeks struggled to keep their democratic experiment alive before ultimately abolishing it in favor of rule by a small oligarchy.
• August 23, 2021

  Reclaiming Empathy In the Age of Indifference

  

  I don’t know about you, but these days, I’m numb. Numb to the rising tide of this unending pandemic. Numb to the suffering of people in Afghanistan. Numb to the wildfires ravaging communities across the West. Numb to the tearing of our country’s social fabric and the partisan screaming all around. I don’t know if it’s a result of exhaustion from years of living with national, global, and existential crises or if the fact that most of my human interactions are mediated by a screen have made it harder to put myself in other people’s shoes.

  And it’s not just me. Last fall, social psychologists Judith Hall and Mark Leary wrote an article for Scientific American declaring that America as a whole has “an empathy deficit.” We are losing our ability to care about others, especially those who don’t look, think, or act like us. We no longer believe we owe anything to each other, or that other perspectives are worth hearing. We are cold, indifferent, and isolated. I know I am.

  Perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that I’ve been finding a remedy for my own empathy deficit in books. Not just any books. Several wonderful books about diverse experiences, written by authors whose worldviews are fundamentally different than my own, have fallen into my possession. Books like How Long ‘Til Black Future Month, Gun Island, This Is How You Lose the Time War, Arc of Justice, Exhalation, and The House in the Cerulean Sea are renewing my capacity to care about my fellow humans.

  These are books that deal with difficult subjects, like climate change, racial justice, and the queer experience. They’ve challenged me, they’ve broken my heart, and they are slowly wearing down my callouses. I think reading beyond our comfort zone is necessary now more than ever. If we don’t relearn how to feel what a stranger feels, then we’re in deep trouble. But if we can rediscover something buried in the pages of a book that can remind us that we are part of the world instead of separate from it, then maybe there’s hope for the future.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle lives in Tacoma, WA with his wife, three typewriters, and a puppy. His fiction has been featured in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine and All Worlds Wayfarer. Read more of his short fiction, follow him on Twitter, and subscribe to his monthly email newsletter.
• June 30, 2021

  The Once and Future Climate Crisis

  

  This week, temperatures in Tacoma were upward of 105 degrees—34 degrees above the average high for June—and stayed in the triple digits for three consecutive days. In a region where less than half the population lives in air conditioned homes, people suffered and as many as 100 people in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia died due to a heat wave unlike anything seen in the Pacific Northwest for as long as weather records have been kept.

  Our climate is changing in ways both subtle and profound, causing incremental disruptions in global weather patterns as well as sudden, extreme weather events like heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, and deluges. This round of dangerous heat is over, but it is part of a larger shift that imperils people and ecosystems in every corner the world. More is coming.

  As I look forward to the birth of our first child, I find myself increasingly worried about the world our child will grow up in and the multitude of social and environmental sins they will inherit. Will my child be able to go outside to play in the summer? Will there be unburned forests to enjoy?

  There are things we can do. We can acknowledge and share the scientific consensus that climate change is real and that humans are driving it. We can take responsibility for our personal actions and take steps to reduce our carbon usage. More substantively, we make our voices heard at the ballot box to demand measures to curb the devastating impacts of the climate crisis and reign in the industries and nations who continue to put profits ahead of preservation.

  There is no time to wait. We got ourselves into this mess; now we need to be the solution.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle lives in Tacoma, WA with his wife, three typewriters, and a puppy. His fiction has been featured in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine and All Worlds Wayfarer. Read more of his short fiction, follow him on Twitter, and subscribe to his monthly email newsletter.
• October 1, 2020

  Publishing News: Two Stories for a World on Fire

  

  Writing is a strange craft. You spend months or years with an idea rolling around in the dark recesses of your mind, weeks or months or years coaxing that idea out of the shadows, and months more chipping away at the rough edges before its time to shop a story around to find it a home. And then, out of nowhere, the pieces fall into place in the bizarre ways.

  In September, I found out that two of my short stories were going to be published. One was a story that I’d been editing and submitting to various journals for almost three years. The other was an idea I had four or five years ago that crystallized in mid-summer and came pouring out onto the page over the course of a week. Despite their vastly different origins, they both revolve around a similar image: fire.

  I love fire. My mom taught me how to build a fire when I was eight or nine years old on one of our camping trips to Zion National Park. To this day, I’m mesmerized by flickering of firelight and in awe of its power to create and destroy. Fire can forge, it can cleanse, it can make way for new life to take hold. Fire can also consume and kill. For me, fire is a metaphor for humanity. We, too, are capable of great beauty and equally terrible destruction.

  Perhaps it’s no surprise that this idea should work its way into my short fiction. In “Firemaker,” fire is a symbol of humanity’s potential, as a time traveler discovers when he travels to a village on the verge of being wiped out at the dawn of the last Ice Age. “Pyrocene” embodies the other side of the coin as a character tries to save a house from burning down in a setting that could be the present day or the very near future.

  I never thought of these stories as having anything to do with each other, but rereading them, the parallels are obvious. They are intertwined, each commenting on the other. I love being surprised by fiction — sometimes I even surprise myself with hidden themes I didn’t consciously incorporate. In a year when the world feels like it’s on fire (racial injustice, the presidential election, and the actual fires raging across much of the American West for a start), it’s fitting that these two stories will be published together in 2020.

  “Pyrocene” will be published in Creative Colloquy’s seventh annual anthology, due out later this year. You can hear me read it at the Creative Colloquy Crawl on Saturday, October 3 at 2pm Pacific time (RSVP here to receive the Zoom link). “Firemaker” will be published in All World’s Wayfarer Issue VII, which will be available on Monday, December 21. You can preorder it for your Kindle at allworldswayfarer.com. The issue will also be free to read on their website until March 20, 2021.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Creative Colloquy, All Worlds Wayfarer and Grit City Magazine. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to the mailing list today for exclusive content delivered to your inbox once a month.
• March 25, 2017

  Why We Must Protect Funding for the Arts

  

  “I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.” – John F. Kennedy

  The National Endowment for the Arts (along with its sibling agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities) was established by Congress 1965 as the fulfillment of a Kennedy-era dream to support and encourage the development of American art. It also set out to correct inequity in access for the arts in low income and African American communities and bring the arts out of the ivory towers and to all Americans.

  More than 50 years later, though hobbled by decreased funding and dogged by political attacks, the NEA still provides an essential service to our nation. Today, the vast majority of audiences for plays, symphonies, readings and exhibitions are middle/upper class, middle-aged, white, and living in affluent urban communities. And though private funding keeps these cultural meccas alive, struggling artists in rural towns, young people, and minorities are far less likely to have access to money from foundations and wealthy donors to make arts programming possible.

  The NEA steps in to level the playing field. In 2016, the NEA helped to provide 23,000 grants in 5,000 communities, which reached every congressional district in the United States. That funding turned into 30,000 concerts, readings, performances and exhibitions that were seen by a staggering 20 million people. The NEA also supports arts education in our schools, with 50% of its education projects located in low income neighborhoods.

  The president’s proposed budget aims to eviscerate this important work by completely eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These cuts are proposed as a way of reigning in a bloated federal government, but these programs are only a drop in the bucket. The NEA accounts for only $148 million, or 0.012% of the total $3.65 trillion federal budget. By contrast, Trump is calling for a $50 billion increase in defense spending. Cutting the NEA is purely symbolic and does nothing to balance the federal budget.

  Even from a purely economic point of view, funding the arts makes sense. The arts industry employs 4.7 million people and contributes $698 billion to the U.S. economy (4.3% of GDP). That’s more than the construction, transportation, or warehousing industries and is an excellent investment of our tax dollars.

  We must protect our federal arts funding. And we must fight to preserve it from those who see more value in a fighter jet than a one-act play. We must declare loudly that the arts matter and we must do it now—before it is too late.

  “I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.” – John F. Kennedy.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, photographer, filmmaker and arts advocate. Call your congressional representatives and tell them not to defund the NEA: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/. You can find more rants on Twitter or subscribe to the email newsletter.
• November 30, 2016

  Write Like Hell

  

  The last few weeks have been tumultuous in this country, in my circle of friends, in my own life. After a major political upset on Election Night, many are worried about the direction we’re headed in — and rightly so. We’ve elected a man with disturbing authoritarian leanings; who believes dissent should be punished and advocates for limits on our First Amendment rights to free speech, religious exercise, peaceful assembly, and the press.

  As an artist, I am deeply troubled by these remarks, however off-hand they may seem. Even a veiled or vague threat against free expression is a threat to be taken seriously. What are creative people supposed to do when a person who makes those kinds of threats assumes the highest office in the land?

  Write like hell.

  Whatever your medium, use it. Write stories, poems, protest songs. Scupt, paint, dance, blog, or tweet. Art has always been there to challenge structures of power.

  • In 1945, Boris Pasternak started writing Doctor Zhivago on paper that was sent to him by the widow of a friend who had been executed by the Soviet Union for his poetry. Pasternak’s novel dared to question the bloodshed of the revolution and his manuscript had to be smuggled out of the country to be published (it was later smuggled back in by the CIA).
  • In the 1960s and ’70s, musicians wrote songs protesting the Vietnam War and highlighting its many injustices, like Creedance Clearwater Revival’s Fortnate Son, a song about how the rich and well-connected were able to keep their sons from going to war.
  • This year, 130 writers and journalists were jailed after an attempted coup in Turkey, including novelist Aslı Erdoğan, whose novels, stories, and articles deal with human rights, violence against women and Kurdish rights.

  Your work could be protest, but it doesn’t have to be. A friend and I are redoubling our efforts to write a how-to guide for people to have respectful political conversations. It’s nothing new or earth-shattering, but with luck, it can be a small part of the solution to the toxic partisan environment that surrounds American politics.

  The world needs art. Especially art that unflinchingly holds up a mirror to us and our society. Art that nudges people to think and question and come to their own conclusions. Write about what you’re passionate about. Write with conviction. Write the truth. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. You can find him on Twitter or working on any one of a dozen writing projects. Thanks for reading.
• June 23, 2016

  Extremism, Compassion and Books

  

  We live in a time of extremism. We are divided along fault lines of who we vote for, who we pray to (or don’t), what language we speak, who we are and who we love. In the news each day, I see people building walls and pulling triggers. We don’t even want to know the other we hate so much.

  When I was in school, I remember having to read novels about the Holocaust, slavery, racism, and immigration. At the time, I didn’t understand why I needed to read them. The Holocaust was in the past, as was the slave trade. I wasn’t Chicano or a woman in 17th century America. What was the point? It was more than just a history lesson; it was an exercise in encountering people and cultures that were nothing like the one I was growing up in. I realize now that our teachers were trying to instill in us an appreciation of the great diversity that exists in the world. Those books were our vehicle out of our quiet mountain town and into the lives of people we would never otherwise meet. In the process, I also gained a sense of the tragedy of the concentration camps and the plantations — and how fear and hate still eat away at the fabric of our society.

  It is much harder to hate someone when you know their story. I can’t help but wonder how our world would be different if more people actively sought out stories of the other. If the heroes and heroines in our novels look and sound like us, we are training ourselves on some level to only sympathize with people who look and sound like us. If, on the other hand, we expose ourselves to diverse protagonists representing other genders, religions, nationalities, orientations, and experiences, we give ourselves room to expand our sense of empathy to encompass all of humanity.

  Walk in someone’s shoes for a few hundred pages. Seek out books, movies, and music that speaks to the immigrant, Muslim, or trans experience and you might start to understand someone who doesn’t live in your little world. Understanding breaks down barriers of “us” and “them,” of separation, of hate. If more people were willing to step out of their comfort zone to immerse themselves in their neighbor’s narrative — even if it’s only in the pages of a book — I think there would be fewer slurs, bombs, bullets, and bloodshed.

  Let us trade extremism for compassion. And let us begin by picking up a book.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. His newest short story, Inheritance, was published by Creative Colloquy this week. Follow him on Twitter or join the mailing list.
• November 15, 2013

  Is the NSA Spying on Me?

  I was just starting to write freelance articles on foreign affairs and conflict areas when the full scope of the NSA’s domestic spying program came to light. We learned that the government is tapping into smartphone data, breaking online encryption and gathering data from emails, phone calls and financial transactions. The NSA effectively has all of us under surveillance. You never know who might be listening in on your phone call or reading your email. Each new leak gave me pause.

  I worried that I might be under the microscope because of what I was writing. My articles cover the restless areas of the world that are so crucial to United States foreign policy, including detailed reports on the Syrian civil war, drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Egyptian coup and terrorism in North Africa. My articles are strictly news — not manifestos or opinions — and I stand by my words as a journalist. I report facts, using the best news sources as my guide. But even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if my work had attracted attention because of the subject matter.

  We live in the age of Big Data, where the little snippets of information (from cell phone conversations, Google searches and email exchanges) add up to form a complete picture of our views, our habits and our preferences. No one can escape the net our governments are casting.

  

  This has caused a lot of concern in the writing community. According to the PEN American Center, 73% of writing professionals surveyed said they had “never been as worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are today.” Significant numbers had curtailed their activities on social media or avoided discussing certain topics on the phone or via email. Sixteen percent said they had even avoided writing or speaking about a certain topic.

  When surveillance is so widespread, it is easy to fall into self-censorship. We want to fly under the radar rather than challenge the infringement on our rights. The framers of the Constitution knew how important a free press was to a democracy — so important, they protected it in the First Amendment. But now, I feel that freedom eroding away.

  Censorship is subtle, beginning with the smallest of ideas: That you’re being watched. That worries me, because we need the freedom to write. We need the freedom to report the truth and encourage civil discourse on controversial issues.

  I’ve started to carefully consider what I say in emails and text messages and questioned the security of my cloud storage since I heard about the Snowden leaks. I will not be deterred from writing. I hope journalists and editors everywhere will not be deterred from providing their vital service to the public. And I hope normal citizens will not be scared into silence.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. He writes on foreign relations for Grey Cell. You can follow him on Twitter, but kindly requests that you don’t spy on his email correspondence.

  Related Posts:
  Stop the Presses: Is This The End of the Daily Newspaper?
  An Examined Life: In Memory of Dr. Joel Olson
  Censorship Kills: Banned Books Week
• March 8, 2013

  Taking a Stand

  

  It was almost a year ago that I got my “This is what a feminist looks like” button. It got it from my friend and carsick buddy Olivia when we were traveling through the Western Highlands of Guatemala. We were in the town of Xela on a brisk spring morning, waiting to meet with Neuvos Horizontes (New Horizons), a women’s advocacy group that works with victims of domestic violence.

  The building where they worked was simple. A corrugated plastic roof let sunlight filter into the anteroom, where wooden benches stood on dark red tile. Posters on the walls painted a picture of the scale of violence and femicide that still plagues Guatemala and offered hope of change. I remember one in particular that showed a man unlocking a door and read (in translation): “I will no longer be afraid at the sound of his keys.”

  Every year, hundreds of women are killed by their husbands in Guatemala. Many more are beaten or sold into the sex trade. No one knows how many sex slaves are transported along the Pan-American highway system that runs from Argentina to Alaska.

  Things are bad for women in Guatemala. The machismo culture keeps women subservient to men; second class citizens in their own country. But there are glimmers of hope. Groups like Nuevos Horizontes provide transitional housing and vocational training for women. Women, not men, are in charge of the health clinic in the rural village of Pachaj. When I was there, Guatemala had even elected a female vice president.

  Progress is slow, but on the way.

  Still, it is easy to criticize the developing world for being slow to protect women’s rights. It is easy to point the finger, but we must also remember that the United States is not free of gender inequality. Women in our country are still beaten and still raped. Women still do not have wage equality with men. We still have such a long way to go.

  It starts with each and every one of us changing our behavior. We can all stand up against violence and discrimination in our communities, our countries and our world. I support women’s rights and I hope that someday soon, no woman will have to live in fear. Someday soon, we will all be equal.

  

  — 30 —

  I’m a writer and photographer in Flagstaff, AZ. I’m proud to be an advocate of equal rights and protection for all. In honor of International Women’s Day, I hope you’ll take a moment to learn more about how you can help end violence against women and that you might consider following me on the Twitter machine: @jonnyeberle.

  Related Posts:
  One Month After Guatemala
  Guatemala in the Rear View Mirror
  Immortality and the Written Word