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Talking Story 
by Polo

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #1 (January 2, 2007), page 7.

Rules are good. And as everyone knows, rules are many. Many more every year.

Take last year. In state after state all across the Union, anxious Americans tried to add a constitutional rule about marriage: one man and one woman. No more.

Another example: In our nation’s capitol, an exploratory committee sent from sunny Cal worked the hill, sniffing for interest in a new rule specially fashioned for foreign-born, former bodybuilder, famous film-stars-turned-big-state-governors. So they can run for President. Of America.

In D.C. also — more at the core of power and people who breathe, eat, and dream rules and regs and laws — recent legislation set out in tidy detail how much government guys can torture words out of your mouth. Between screams. Don’t worry, medical and legal experts signed on to our new torture rules. You need only ask that these doctors and your lawyer be present when those G-men hood your head, strap you down.

We need rules. No one would argue. Our family is — indeed, a good quarter of my North Portland neighborhood is — recent arrivals from places on our precious green planet where we silently wish for a little more rule of law. And a little less rule by plata o plomo. Silver or lead. Cash or bullet.

But, having said aaall that, there are a lot of folks I know, Hmong or Maya, Korean or Kosovar, immigrant or not, who are dazed by American law. Who are dizzied by the sheer complexity of Oregon rules. Ask anyone in Portland who’s tried to add a room so grandma can move in. The codes, the fees, the earnest inspectors, are endless.

So. How on earth are we going to do well in 2007? Our families, our energetic cities and growing states, our big fat federal government, need to be directed and managed. Told what to do. How, under heaven, will we navigate a new year when our issues are only made messier by more rules? Rules loved only by legislators, lobbyists, and lawyers.

Complex questions call for simplicity.

Sometimes it’s easier rolling ahead by looking back.

The answer is: Oma rules — my grandma, your grandma, no matter. Our elder aunties know this stuff.

Okay-okay, on questions of progress they’ve always been a bit slow. That’s why they’ve kept menfolk around. We’ve been good at clearing farmland, killing Communists, keeping chaos at bay. But on issues of justice, what’s right in a morally muddled world — ask an oma.

Dig this —

Here’s a major 2007 issue: a Democrat says something nasty about a Republican opponent; in turn, the Republican says something uglier about the Democrat. It’s all carried between hit prime time TV shows. It costs millions. And those dollars come in bribes (campaign contributions) from those big boys running America.

Forget complex campaign finance legislation.

Bring in Oma Rule Number 1: If you can’t think of a nice thing to say, shut up. Sit down.

2007’s emergent foreign policy debate will be about North Korea cooking The Big One; about Teheran’s going nuke; about the bombs-bombs-bombs in every Iraqi back alley. What-oh-what’re we going to do?

This is not a question for gold-star generals, for politicos without kids in uniform, or government execs with stock in war-related industry. In fact, fellas’ roles in issues involving fear should be severely circumscribed. Nervous men tend to respond all the same. Kick some butt.

Now, ask any elder auntie what we should do when edgy, and she’ll say: you keep your hands to yourself. Poking, punching, pummelling, makes only more punching and pummelling. I want to see your little hands, fingers laced, on your lap.

Close corollary to Oma Rule 2: Don’t touch things that don’t belong to you (that is, another’s oil, timber, uranium, natural gas, oil, women, water, land, oil).

The utterly vexing domestic policy debate for 2007: ugh, those Mexicans.

Substitute: doggone Chinese or Arabs or smart-aleck Indians, indeed insert any other inscrutable immigrant type, as necessary. Imagine the U.S. Congress getting practical and productive. Hard to do, huh?

Now, imagine every American or African, Asian or Islander grandma’s response when a hungry family suddenly shows up at her crowded kitchen table. They jump to their feet, they tell us: "Move over, we have plenty. Younger make room for elder. Men stand up for ladies. Hurry up, my chicken’s getting cold."

The U.S. has no immigration problem. We have a family problem. We don’t have limited resource issues; we have, at the end of leafy cul-de-sacs, at the core of our abundant middleclass lives, a cocker spaniel’s fear that some dog’s going to get my soup bone. Immigrant America’s elder aunties, who’ve seen us through Irish and Italian famines, who’ve kept families together through Imperial European and Imperial Asian excesses, who’ve held firm through Pilipino poverty and Khmer nightmares — know exactly how much we have, now. Here. How much we have to share.

A close cousin to this rule of plenty, is one I just heard from a lovely lola, a Filipina grandma. And it should be our big rule, America’s central ethos, as we roll into 2007. It goes like this:

"Wake up every morning, and first thing, pull open your curtains. And thank Allah for another day, for the sun, for his love, on your face."