The Height of the Situation

(The following is adapted from an essay written as part of an application for the Paramount Tall of Chicago Scholarship, in response to the prompt “What Being Tall Means to Me.”)

All sorts of people are chosen—by fate, by chance, by whatever have you—for all sorts of things. According to Mel Gibson (just so I can source an old maxim), William Wallace proclaimed on the eve of his execution that “Every man dies…not every man really lives.” Alas, yes.

And in that same vein, all are born short. At one time in my life, I was short myself. But while some—many—fail to ever grow far beyond the vertical constraints of their younger days, there remains the ever-constant presence of those of us who have been selected to reach greater heights. Literally.

I don’t know why I was chosen for this gift, or for that matter why anyone is. I don’t regard my height (6’3”, just for sake of getting it out there) in the same manner as you would a political appointment, nor do I feel as though I’ve been ordained by God, because God must have some better way of ordaining people than this.

In no way do I feel better than other people because of the fact that I’m tall, though I do find a sort of humor in the fact that when I stand and converse with some of my best friends (they happen to be short, or at least a lot shorter than I am), I can see across the tops of their heads. Same thing with my grandma. And, for that matter, with my last boss. Come to think of it, I once happened to be standing next to him as he stood on a milk crate to address a crowded room. Even with an extra foot of hard molded plastic under him, I was still taller.

The frank fact is that we’re one of the big greases that keeps the wheel of society running smoothly, and I take a lot of pride in being a part of that. As much as some of them might hate to admit it, short folks just wouldn’t be able to get on quite the same without us. I don’t know how many times my assistance has been requested, by family or friends or coworkers or even people at Walmart, to retrieve this or that off of such and such shelf, or whatever ledge. Over time, it’s gotten to the point that it’s all but futile to even cite anecdotes. Besides, my tall fellows all have their own stories that they can insert here for themselves; I know you have them, just as I know that my friends in the short community are all harboring tales of times that they’ve been in need of aid and one of us came to the rescue. It’s okay, they can let it out; we’re not here to belittle you. We’re here to help.

That’s not to say that there aren’t challenges, of course; in height, as in most everything, there are the occasional fallbacks. Again, literally; I’m not the most clumsy fellow, but on the occasion that I fall on something hard, it really is the worst. It’s science really: the longer you fall, the faster you fall, and the harder you hit. And I’m starting my descent out from all the way up here.

A similar principle applies elsewhere. I hate dropping things on the ground, because then I have to bend over and pick them up. On the face of it, I don’t mind picking things up; I’m no slovenly creature, and as such I will make the effort, just not all that gladly. You see, the ground is just so far down from here, that I absolutely detest having to make the trip if I don’t have to. And this must only get worse the higher up towards that cosmos that your forehead ventures.

But challenges are a part of life, and what defines us is how we overcome them. On balance, these challenges are small and petty compared to those faced down by some of our greatest tall icons. And there is no way you can have a proper discourse on the literal and figurative meanings of being tall without considering the life and legacy of the Illinois Rail-splitter, Old Abe.

Too many, our tallest (actually tied for tallest, with Lyndon Johnson) President was also our greatest; for myself, that honorific is hard to bestow upon anyone aside from George Washington, for whom the office was essentially created, whose deliberate and measured preferences and practices therein became precedent that have remained for over two centuries.

But in no way can that ever possibly detract from the argument for Abraham Lincoln. While Washington’s voluntary departure from the seat of power established the young America as a remarkable example of a functioning free republic, it is the emergence and steady rise of Lincoln from obscurity to the highest rungs of power that truly cements America as the land where anybody can be anything.

In research, I have discovered theories that Lincoln suffered from Marfan syndrome, the genetic connective tissue disorder that sadly tends to affect those whose physical description closely match his: incredibly tall and gangly, with a degree of awkwardness and difficulty in movement. My research shows that Marfan might not be the most accurate diagnosis for the Sixteenth President; yet, the larger point lies elsewhere from the specifics of any medical condition.

Rather, Lincoln best provides himself as an example for us all, of every height, as he stood tall in the face of wide and varied personal turmoil, and overcame it all to change the world forever and become one of the most powerful figures of freedom to exist in twenty centuries, before ultimately falling to the chaos of the world he dedicated his life to making better. In that way, possibly, Lincoln did stand taller than General Washington, who he literally stood a single inch taller than.

The Lincolnian example is in a way also a challenge for all of us, as his fellow tall individuals, to take on. Not every one of us can be the President, of course; and, thankfully, the moral tragedy of slavery no longer exists here for us to abolish as we once had to. But for us the tall, living like Lincoln isn’t about titular success, but rather means to me something more profound: it means to stand tall above others, not to dominate them, but to see past what they can’t and provide a clearer vision; it means to provide the guidance towards new heights and the helpful assistance to reach them, whether in solitary interaction or for the betterment of all mankind; and in the face of our own troubles we must hold ourselves extra high, for before we can be tall for anyone else we must prove we can be tall for ourselves.

In that way, I know very clearly what it means to me to be tall, even if in a thousand years of pondering I could never even begin to fully perceive what forces have colluded to make me this way, or why they’ve done it. My height serves me as a daily challenge to stand tall just as figuratively as I do literally; to arise every day with a command presence not over others, but over myself, so that I may fully utilize my gifts; to prove myself helpful to humanity, in whatever way I can be; to see above and past the common and the average, so that I may reach up towards a whole new level of possibility and potential.

-Mitch Carter is an Illinois State Scholar and an Associate Member of the Kendall County Young Republicans.

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@CartersCornerPR

Finally Moving On

Manny Pacquiao and  Timothy Bradley during the rematch of their controversial 2012 title fight, Saturday night in Las Vegas.
(Courtesy: mp8.ph)

I remember very clearly the night of June 9th, 2012; well maybe not the exact date (I had to google that), but the events that transpired in Las Vegas late that summer eve have stuck with me nonetheless. I wasn't exactly expecting to witness sports history—the bad kind—, but I sure got it anyways. It was, of course, the night that Manny Pacquiao was screwed out of what should have been an easy unanimous-decision victory over Timothy Bradley, ultimately finding himself on the wrong end of one the most glaringly wrong split-decisions in history (115-113, 115-113, and 113-115).

Tim Bradley surely didn’t head down the wrong corridor and stumble into the ring by mistake that night; he is, with certainty, a world-class athlete (and had a undefeated record at the time to back him up), and fully deserved his shot at the only eight-division world champion in history. But all the worthiness in the world does not by default a winner make; you still have to earn the right to stick around, most especially with the world’s best. And speaking of world’s best, Pacquiao, for all the speculation that he was beginning the descent from his career peak, still managed to out-fight Bradley, in convincing fashion; I almost wasn’t paying attention as the scores were read that night, it seemed so obvious that Pac was to be declared winner. And then it was a close split-decision. And then Timothy Bradley was the new WBO Welterweight Champion of the World. The boos started almost immediately; after a brief dumbfounded silence, HBO’s Jim Lampley gave the call about as well as anyone could: “Well, I tell you, I don’t think we’re blind. I think Harold Lederman is the best scorer alive, and I think that is a terrible, bogus decision” (Lederman had scored it 119-109 for Pacquiao). The newly-crowed champ Bradley suggested he might go home and watch the fight on tape to “see if I won the fight really or not,” which speaks volumes without any further explanation.

For myself, I wanted to break something, as bizarre as it sounds. It was as if in an instant, I had been stopped being just a casual observer watching one of all-time greats spending another day at the office and been transformed into something else; I was now, simply by association (albeit a relatively detached one), invested into something much larger than I had ever expected. Breaking furniture over a sporting event is quite the stupid thing to do, so thankfully I did manage to stay calm and restrain myself from that; the shock and the anger, however, stuck with.

“Something must be done!,” I remember thinking to myself repeatedly, probably out loud more than once. I stayed glued to the TV, wishing that the HBO telecast would continue on for hours into the night, as if Lampley and the rest of the on-air crew’s continued dumbfounded analysis of the night’s events would somehow change the result. And before long, they did sign off, and all was chaos in the world of boxing. Over time, there were positive developments, like the WBO announcing their own official review unanimously ruled in favor of Pacquiao, and the decision by The Ring Magazine to not really count the fight in their official rankings. But almost two years later, that result still stands, and with it remains a wound to my soul.

At least I have some closure now. What happened Saturday night in Vegas, when Pacquiao and Bradley met for the second time, was more than just a big-deal rematch; it was something that needed to happen, that should’ve have happened a long time ago. It was righting a wrong. After his shocking knockout loss to Juan Manuel Márquez in their fourth bout, and a relatively unremarkable victory over Brandon Rios in Macau, Manny’s second performance against Bradley made even more clear that he is now surely past his prime; as such, it was all the more satisfying to see him claim what was rightfully his when he was finally awarded that unanimous decision (116-112, 116-112, 118-110, this time) he earned all that time ago.

I can finally say that I’ve cleansed myself of all contempt for Tim Bradley, and that I can even go back to liking him as a competitor; having gone in there, given it his all, and taken a few hard hands from the old champ, he’s earned his share of respect from me. Despite his inability to knock over an all-time great, he still isn’t bad, and he very likely has quite the future ahead of him.

For myself, the first Pacquiao-Bradley encounter will long go down as the biggest sports robbery I’ve ever had the chance to witness. But I can move on in my life from that now. Justice has finally been served, and great wound to the sweet science has finally been healed.

-Mitch Carter is an Illinois State Scholar and an Associate Member of the Kendall County Young Republicans.

carterscornerpr@gmail.com

Twitter @CartersCornerPR

Obamacare: Time To Celebrate?

NBC's David Gregory, towing the line for Obamacare on Meet The Press.
(Courtesy: NBC).

“President Obama may be a little knicked-up after this health care fight, but he seems like he had a fairly-good week on this,” David Gregory starts off his latest in a long line of Meet The Press roundtables on Obamacare. “Republicans are tryin’, it seems their best, to say this thing isn’t gonna work,” he went on, in an oddly folksy and forceful manner, “this was a pretty good sign that it’s here to stay, this week, don’t you think?”

What “sign” was pretty good? That the White House reported, after last Monday night, that approximately 7.1 million people had enrolled for a new healthcare policy under the Affordable Care Act. As evidenced by Mr. Gregory’s sudden enthusiasm, those hanging around left-of-the-center have taken full advantage of this opportunity for a victory lap; after all, it was just ac couple weeks ago that doubts as to whether the enrollment goal, the one that was never really goal and now apparently turned back into the goal, would be met by the deadline (which, lest we forget, was delayed once or twice, depending on how you count).

Barely staving off what could’ve been (and may still be nonetheless) a politically crippling disaster aside, why not celebrate? In reality, what the White House has been celebrating was more than just meeting a goal; it was exceeding a goal by roughly a million signups. How, you ask? Well, these days reality can be whatever the White House Press Secretary and Co. want it to be, with a little help from the Washington Post Capital bureau. Just a week and a half back, the Post held up what may be the most laughable headline of the year (lucky for us, the year is still young): “Health-care enrollment hits goal of six million.” Then there’s the sub-head, which is what really made me hit the floor: “After revising its goal downward, the White House says it has surpassed its target for the first open enrollment period” (emphasis mine). Imagine that: you can be a month late and a million signups short, and still "surpass" goals (another WaPo gem), with hardly a questioned raised by the very same paper whose legacy was cemented by bringing down Nixon.

Back to our Sunday morning roundtable: John Sununu, who served New Hampshire with some distinction in the Senate for a term, brought some sense to the discussion, outlining that

“It's not about enrollment figures.  It's about reducing the number of uninsured in this country.  We have 50 million uninsured.  And if you only look at the enrollment figure, you miss the question of how many of them were previously uninsured.  So you have to multiply by about 80%, 80% will probably be the number that actually pay, gets you down to 5.6.  And how many were previously uninsured.  McKinsey Consulting did some surveys, 25% previously uninsured.  Now you're down to 1.4 million.  That's about 3%.  Reducing the number of uninsured in America by 3% for how much money?  $2 trillion.”

And then Gregory cuts him off and moves on to the more liberal Steve Case, late of AOL, but not before babbling about some “Republican argument to try to deal with the reality that people who didn't have insurance are getting insurance, or their kids are now being allowed to stay on their policies, or if you had pre-existing conditions, those are covered now.” Erm, well, sure, except not many of those people signed up, Dave.

When former Democrat Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. offered up that “The question, I think, the main question, is affordability.  We're going to cover more people.  We're going to find ways to pay for it.  But will we curb costs or curtail costs going forward?  The jury is still out there,” Gregory retorts with yet another stroke of obvious genius: “But the federal government could help defray that.  I mean you're getting-- do premiums go up?  Perhaps they will.  Perhaps the government pays some of that bill.”

That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it? The plain fact is, the number of the previously uninsured signing up are underwhelming, and premiums are still rising post-implementation. Obamacare was sold as requiring no increase in deficit spending, on the logic that a rush of newly-insured Americans would offset the costs of insuring those with preexisting conditions. Now, since that’s not exactly happening as advertised, the default answer is the old standby, federal subsidies.

Kathleen Parker, in raising an unusually strong point, that “whether it's 7.1 million or 30 million, whatever the real numbers are…we don't know what those numbers mean,” gets at something else key: as it is, around 10-20% of all enrollees (previously uninsured or not), haven’t even paid yet, which pours cold water all over the “7.1 million signup” talking point, let alone the new wrench it throws into the whole “it pays for itself” argument.

Perhaps the White House, and Dave Gregory, should take that victory lap and bring out the bubbly now, while they still can. The administration may have staved off political embarrassment for the moment, but their luck may very well not hold out for long.

-Mitch Carter is an Illinois State Scholar and an Associate Member of the Kendall County Young Republicans.
carterscornerpr@gmail.com
Twitter @CartersCornerPR