Truth - Al Franken [56]
I consider myself a very fortunate person, most of all because I’ve been extremely lucky in my family life. Even though my wife and I had not been totally abstinent before getting married, we will be celebrating our thirtieth wedding anniversary a few weeks before this book is published. How have I managed to stay married for thirty years, many of them happy? I credit fear. My fear of being alone. Also, there’s Franni’s willingness to tolerate me.
And, of course, we’re a family. I’m not a big one for prayer. Unless you consider counting your blessings as praying. I am grateful every day for my two unbelievably great kids. Please indulge me in a moment of fatherly pride here. Both my kids are smart, happy, funny, and kind. Those of you who listen to my radio show know I brag way too much on my daughter Thomasin and the fact that she teaches third grade at an inner-city public school in the Bronx. She hates when I do it and always asks me to stop, which makes me even more proud of how modest she is. She didn’t get that from me.
My son is Joe, after my Dad. Here’s another point of pride. At Joe’s high school they give out one prize to a graduating senior. There are no academic awards, no valedictorian, just the Billy Farrell Award, named for a particularly beloved student who died in a car accident a number of years ago. Essentially, it’s the Mensch of the Class Award. You know I’m telling you this because the school presented Joe with the honor.
Of course, I credit his Mom. Mostly. You see, when Joe was about eight years old, he was over at another kid’s house and the kid’s mom asked Joe why he was such a nice guy. Joe said, “I think it has something to do with my grandfather.”
Is Dad in Heaven looking down, giving that smile he gave me when I laughed at his joke? I have no clue. Actually, I really doubt it. But I know he’s a part of me. And a part of everyone who loved him.
I think somewhere in there is God.
Book Two
Seeds of Collapse
9 “A Great Political Issue”
Al Gore has had a lot of gloomy days in the last five years. But even by his extremely high standards, December 26, 2004, was a standout. On that day an undersea earthquake sent a shock wave through the Indian Ocean, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 150,000 lives.
It was an unspeakable tragedy for everyone. But for Gore, the horror was compounded by the knowledge that a huge amount of the suffering could have been prevented if, not so many years before, Republicans in Congress had been able to set aside partisanship and let him carry out his plan for a Global Disaster Information Network. Had his system been put in place, ocean-bottom earthquake detectors would have alerted scientists at a monitoring hub that a tsunami was on the way. The scientists in turn would have activated an international alarm system, warning officials in Asian coastal areas to immediately begin evacuation. As Gore’s national security adviser, Leon Fuerth, explained in a rueful New York Times op-ed two weeks after the disaster, “Tens of thousands of people might have been able to flee to higher ground.”
Gore had begun working with a variety of government agencies on this project during the second Clinton administration. Some might claim he was angling for the Indonesian ex-pat vote, but I think it was because he cared about human life. Gore has always had that weakness. And if there’s one thing that Republicans know how to exploit, it’s weakness. They knew that Gore was planning to run for president, and they didn’t want to him to be able to point to any “accomplishments,” so they killed the project’s funding. Today, the Global Disaster Information Network survives as little more than a professional society for people in the depressing, though crucial, field of disaster management.
The killing