DADWAGON

So, surely you’ve seen the video of the boy–three-year-old Jesse Koczon–in the car crying because he’s too small to be governor of New Jersey.

It’s a fine video for a morning like today, when Amtrak and NJ Transit trains came to a near-total standstill because one of the TWO tracks between Jersey and New York was shut down during the morning commute. There is exactly one person in all of Christendom who has made it his job to make sure our rail system stays that shitty: the current governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, who in his bluff and bullying way turned down federal dollars, told New York and Connecticut to fuck themselves, and shut down a critically needed new train tunnel connecting Jersey and Manhattan.

Also: those teachers who are going to teach this passionate young man from the video to handle his emotions and fully pronounce his word endings, as well as every other skill that will help him eventually become a civic leader? Christie loathes them as well, and has become a viral video star by bashing them and shouting them down at town hall forums across the Garden State. The national crapping on the heads of public employees started with the enormous BM that Christie rained down on New Jersey teachers as he crafted his own political persona. And he’s done it all with a disregard for fact that forced even the NY Times, which had lauded him at nearly every turn, to issue a corrective of sorts, with the headline “Christie’s Talk Is Blunt, but Not Always Straight”.

Yes, this boy is still too small to be governor of New Jersey. And, yes, that makes me want to cry as well.

I spoke last week on a panel on how journalists cover immigration, hosted by the rather ominously-named Deadline Club.

It was a nice little event–a couple old friends showed up, I met some good people for the first time. I learned a bit more about NYU’s intriguing Beyond the Border student journalism project. There was also enough blowharding and grandstanding to keep the panel interesting (I include myself in that pomposity: as a friend pointed out afterwards, I had at one point said something to the effect of “all that tragedy and death on the border is in that fruit salad you buy from the bodega in New York).

But it has got me thinking, both before and after the panel, about my next story, and whether or not I should go to the town uniformly described as the Most Dangerous City in the Western Hemisphere: Juárez, right across the river from El Paso. It’s a hell of story: a manufacturing town where manufacturing costs are now lower than in mainland China, and, in the past few years, a total bloodbath. Internecine fighting between narcogangs that are killing each other for the right to intoxicate us Americans. For a sense of the velocity of death: reports say that 24 people were killed in the city in the last 24 hours.

How can you tell the story of the border–which I’m hoping to do with my next travels later this month–without telling the story of Juárez? But is the danger there simply too great?

I know the answer to the first: you can’t. Juárez has to be a part of the puzzle.

The answer to the second is, I don’t know yet. The reporting protocols for Juárez now look a lot like Baghdad, circa 2005. Move often. Travel with a buddy. Let three people know where you’re headed and whom you’re meeting. If your contact isn’t there, or if anything looks even slightly off, leave immediately. In the case of Juárez, you probably should back over the border before nightfall (a luxury that Iraq reporters never had–El Paso is one of the safest cities in the country, and certainly safer than the Green Zone).

All of these things won’t eliminate the risk. But I don’t know that I can avoid going.

I should state, for those who don’t already know, that I am not a war reporter. I’m not naturally brave, don’t have much use for bravado, and I lack that continual drive that the war guys (and gals) have to go where the story is literally blowing up.

I’ve been in Kevlar situations with the police in Baltimore, and been detained and watched and suspected by various foreign governments, but I’ve never been in a war zone or something that rises to Juárez’s level of danger. I volunteered for Iraq in 2003 when it was not a killzone (for foreign journalists anyhow), and was rebuffed by Time, because I was just a freelancer. By 2004 I was married with an unwritten prenup that included not going to war. By 2006 I was a father, and in all honesty, my desire to go in harm’s way for a story–any story–had diminished all on its own. I have a powerful new constituency in my children, and they teamed up with my natural inclination against risk to effectively end that discussion.

And yet.

I’m a correspondent. And it just feels incomplete if you go out of your way to stay out of harm’s way. Because as we all know, I’m still more likely to get hit by a bus while Tweeting in Manhattan rather than have something bad happen overseas.  So it feels like sitting on the sideline to avoid conflict areas when some of the journalists I admire most–personally and professionally–are out there now, in Libya, in Juárez, everywhere.

I’m headed this morning to NYU to talk to journalism masters students about covering immigration. I’ve got a full hour to tell them what I know. Not sure I’ll have a chance to walk them through one of the things I don’t know–whether I stay out of the fight for my kids or for myself.

In which Matt and Nathan discuss flying, phobias, irrationality, and Asia via Skype:

NT: you in asia yet?

MG: yep. sitting in Jean’s childhood bedroom in Taipei

NT: ah, how nice. congrats on getting there. how’s the babe?

MG: man, what a nightmare

NT: really?

MG: “I scared! I scared!”

NT: oh no! The flight?

MG: yeah

NT: wow

MG: she didn’t want to sit in her own seat

NT: i get that

MG: total freakout

NT: hmm

MG: screaming, crying, “No! No! No! No!”

NT: did the attendants fuck with you?

MG: no, they were nice. it was Cathay Pacific

NT: oh

MG: they did everything they could to help. you know, Asians

NT: yes. why i married them. but still

MG: true

NT: sasha had to be on your lap?

MG: no, that was the problem: she’s over 2, so has to be in a seat

NT: yup

MG: landing in Hong Kong, the flight attendants gave in to her bloodcurdling shrieks and brought one of those double seatbelts so Sasha could sit on Jean’s lap

NT: ah, that’s crazed.

MG: but from HK to Taipei was better: Sasha understanding that though she was scared, everything was okay. also, massive exhaustion doesn’t help

NT: no doubt. But SOOO interesting: I’ve got a touch of flight-phobia, and my kids never picked that up. Until the last flight

MG: really? with all that you fly?

NT: Yeah.

MG: huh

NT: It’s better. Used to be mortal. But I’m a fucking idiot. But Dalia on the last flight was a little jumpy and my heart sank

MG: she was picking up on it from you? (btw, I can smell frying garlic from my desk…)

NT: Ha! sounds good. No, I’ve been pretty brave-faced with them around. They also ground me. I literally am ok with perishing if they are with me. It’d be like a telelnovela

MG: The thing that Sasha’s freakout reminded me was this: It’s nice to have kids grow up and be more intelligent and sentient, but the smarter they get, away goes the feral-animal not-caring that made flights so easy before.

NT: yeah. And I think that dalia is still more animal than human, so her phobias shouldn’t start. not yet. not soon

MG: But still, god, there’s nothing like hearing “I scared!”

NT: poor girl. I’m sorry to hear that.

MG: It’s the kind of milestone you don’t want to reach.

NT: Altho it’s worth remembering that Dalia gets VERY SCARED at episodes of Wallace and Gromit

MG: wow, weird

NT: YES

MG: but now that seems irrational

NT: Ha

MG: like that would be the part of the animal brain reacting

NT: Yeah, the cheese brain. I am not one to lecture on irrationality

MG: whereas flightphobia (yours and Sasha’s) seems more considered: “Okay, this aluminum tube I’m in does not seem all that sturdy.” the cheese brain!

NT: Eh. I spent a decade of my life thinking I was so exalted as to be on the ONE DOOMED FLIGHT that year. that’s stupid

MG: no one’s that lucky. oh, last night, Sasha hit on another new thing

NT: Oh?

MG: she woke up crying and screaming at 2am, and we had to bring her into our room

NT: that hadn’t happened before?

MG: and she told us repeatedly, “I can’t sleep.” (that’s after all the flights and such)

NT: i bet she couldn’t

MG: it was an interesting statement, like she wanted to sleep and knew this was the time to sleep, but also knew she couldn’t. there were some layers there

NT: how old is she?

MG: 2.25. oh, and another thing I kept meaning to mention the other day when we all met up: I was at a book party for Greg Lindsay’s “Aerotropolis” a couple of weeks ago and I met another writer, Andrew Blum or Bloom or something

NT: sounds like our people

MG: while we were talking, the subject of kids’ ages came up, and I mentioned my scheme for how you’re allowed to talk about weeks, months, years, etc., and this Andrew guy said, “Oh, you’re on the DadWagon guys.” presumably b/c I’d written about that (kids’ ages) on DadWagon

NT: You’re one OF the dadwagon guys?

MG: sorry, “You’re one of the DadWagon guys.” yes, correct. jetlag

NT: aha

MG: ah, now I smell fish frying

NT: fame! fish! great combo

MG: I know! Weird, huh?

NT: Kismet

MG: I don’t know if I’m smelling my own lunch or someone else’s

NT: ha. that’s the problem with Asia. Fucking great line

MG: Asia, however, is so cheap you can usually just buy someone else’s lunch off of them

NT: “I don’t know if I’m smelling my own lunch or someone else’s.” Right

MG: and that’s the headline for this IM-transcription post

NT: Theirs can become yours. No doubt. Great chatting with you

MG: same here

NT: Sorry it built off your daughter’s terror