Entry 261: South Carolina Vacation Part I

Just got back from a vacation to visit S's family in Columbia, South Carolina.  Here's what happened the first four days.

Monday, November 21

I only have one regular meeting at work I absolutely need to attend: Monday, 2:00 pm.  It's amazing how often this day and time can impede travel plans.  In this case, I have to wait until after the meeting before I can leave.  S and Lil' S have been in SC since last Wednesday, and I'm joining them there tomorrow.  Tonight I'm staying in Blacksburg, VA with my friends E and F and their two-year-old son Lil' E.  Because I don't leave until 3:00 pm traffic is rough out of DC.  It takes me over two hours drive the first 45 miles of the trip.  I don't get in to Blacksburg until 8:30.  

Upon arrival, E greets me: "F is in the hospital.  Lil' E is downstairs with the neighbors.  Let's go get a beer."  Apparently, F had to have surgery to remove her gall bladder three weeks ago, and in doing a follow up procedure, they injected some dye into her pancreas, and her body had an adverse reaction to it.  This made her feel very sick, and they rushed her to the doctor this afternoon.  Ultimately she is/will be fine, but they want to keep her in the hospital as a precaution.  E has been overworked lately trying to keep up with his (and her) job (they're both instructors, and he's been covering a class for her) and care for her and Lil' E, so she instructed him to take Lil' E to the neighbors and take me out for a beer and some dinner -- so that's what he did.

[I learned the full name is Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State College.]

Tuesday, November 22

Lil' E gets us up pretty early because that's what two-year-olds do.  He's a little unsure of me at first, but I get on his good side over a bowl of cheerios while E showers.  At one point I fart, and he points towards the chair and says "noise", which I find hysterical.  We take him to daycare, and then E and I get breakfast, and then we visit F in the hospital for a few minutes.  I hit the road again after that, and get into Columbia around 2:30.  There's no traffic the entire way.  It's times like this you question whether or not living in a big city is really the way to go.

Lil' S is napping when I arrive, but he's super happy to see me when he gets up.  He says, "Daddy!", and then runs over and climbs up on my lap and keeps smiling and hugging me, which elates me to no end.  We don't do much for the rest of the night, but eat and sit around (a true vacation).  S's sister is in town as well.  Than around 10:30 pm, S's cousin arrives from Jacksonville with his wife and their two daughters (ages 5ish and 10ish).

At night, I stay up on late (S's mom gets up with Lil' S, so I can sleep in -- arguably the best part about my vacation) and read articles about the Ferguson Grand Jury's decision to not indict Darren Wilson.  I feel the same way about it as I felt about the Trayvon Martin tragedy, which is that Officer Wilson didn't do the right thing, but within a strictly legal framework, he probably (key word, here, as we don't know what actually happened) didn't commit a crime.  As I understand things, officers in Missouri have tremendous leeway in using lethal force if they are involved in a scuffle and feel their life is threatened. 

The two big questions that came to my mind in reading this are: a) Is it a good thing that police officers have an almost carte blanche license to kill? b) Why did Wilson feel his life was in danger in an encounter with an unarmed man?  I'll answer the former in a word: no.  On the latter, if you honestly think his race played no part in it (as I've heard many contend), then you are a fool.  If Michael Brown had been my idiot (white) friend from high school, who once tried to punch a cop, he would have been subdued with non-lethal force (don't officers carry mace, anymore?) and eventually given a plea deal to a misdemeanor.  But, as I've said before, white people are irrationally afraid of black people.  So just existing as a large black teenager (admittedly one who just committed a strong-arm petty theft) is a threatening offense to many people.

One bit of evidence I found very damning for Wilson was his hyperbolic testimony of the encounter.  When you use words like "demon" and "it" and ascribe superhuman properties to the victim (Hulk Hogan against a child), then it says to me that you don't have a firm grasp on reality.  And perhaps your opinion about what constitutes a legitimate threat to your life shouldn't be the final word.  I saw a video recently of a black man being shot by a white officer at a gas station for getting his ID out of his van.  This is literally what happened without an iota of exaggeration.  (You can Google it.  I don't want to link to it because it bums me out.)  Now, suppose the man had been killed -- very possible, he was shot after all -- and further suppose there wasn't a camera around to capture it all.  You don't think the office would have been saying his life felt threatened?  That the man dove into his car and pulled out something that looked like a gun?  Who could say any different?

[A little lake near S's parents house.]

Wednesday, November 23

The big event for the day is a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's (which, by the way, I just learned has a possessive 'S' on the end; I always said "Chuck E. Cheese").  I haven't been there in about 30 years, and it is not how I remember it all.  I remember it being fun and nice, not headache-inducing and seedy.  It's like being in a run-down casino only instead of degenerate gamblers, booze, slot machines, and has-been lounge acts, it's hyperactive little kids, sugar, video games, and an ear-splitting animatronic band that sings mostly about pizza.

But the kids love it.  (There are four kids and five adults, and the ratio is barely adequate.)  Lil' S is super funny.  He climbs up on one of the rides, puts the token in the slot, rides the ride stoically, not so much as a semblance of a smile, and then puts his hand out for another token as soon as it's over.  He's serious about having fun!  He also gets up into the "tubes" they have on the ceiling because of course he does.  He's too short to climb the steps that take you up there, so instead he goes up the slide when S turns her back.  (Luckily no little kid is coming down at the time.)  It actually really makes me nervous because you can't see where he is, and it would be extremely difficult for me to get up there if anything should happen to him.  Eventually he comes down, but he gets back up again, this time by soliciting a boost up the stairs from an older little girl.  ("He'p me! He'p me!")   Hey, at least he's resourceful.

Oh, and also, I set the pop-a-shot record.

After Chuck E. Cheese's, we stop at Baskin-Robbins because pizza and soda and french fries wasn't enough junk food, we need something from the dessert group.  I get a scoop of chocolate and peanut butter that I split with Lil' S.  I feel like chocolate and peanut butter doesn't get its just due as a delicious ice cream flavor.  I put it right up there with cookies n' cream and mint chip -- probably even a bit ahead.  (Yes, you read that correctly.)  By the way, does anything make you desire water more than Baskin-Robbins ice cream.  For me, I could run wind sprints in Death Valley and still not be as thirsty as I am after I finish a cone at Baskin-Robbins.  I don't know why that is.  

Thursday, November 24

Thanksgiving!  On Thanksgiving, some families eat turkey, drink booze, and watch football.  Others eat Rice Krispies sauteed with peanuts in chili powder, drink coffee, and watch Frozen.  At my in-laws it's the latter -- although, truth be told, I'm able to put the football games on the big screen in the background.  I get to watch the Seahawks lay waste to the 49ers in San Francisco, which is pretty awesome.  

After everybody goes to sleep, I stay up late again and read more articles about Ferguson.  The rioting is horrific, but I agree with the people who say focusing on the rioting is missing the point.  People are rioting in response to the Darren Wilson decision the same way a firecracker explodes in response to a flame.  It's the catalyst, but it only happens because of tremendous volatility below the surface.  If gunpowder isn't packed tightly into a little package, lighting a wick does nothing.  Similarly if black citizens didn't feel oppressed by a police force that is supposed to be working for them, not against them, the response to the Michael Brown killing would have been very different and much less destructive.

Also, all the commentary suggesting that the rioting somehow negates the larger point (an unarmed black man was killed by a white police officer) reveals a big double standard when it comes to rioting.  When I was in grad school, I inadvertently got swept up in a riot on the UMD campus (I quickly extricated myself and went home).  Students were lighting sofas and benches on fire and disobeying orders to disperse, while the police marched in formation, many on horses, and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowds.  It went on all night, several students were expelled and/or arrested, and it created a large amount of lingering tension between the police, the student body, local business, and the UMD administration.  The "reason" for the riot: Maryland beat Duke in a regular season basketball game.  Seriously, that's it.  And nobody suggested that the riot somehow negated the victory, and nobody suggested it was a systemic problem with (mostly white) college students.  Rioting isn't a racial thing, and it's usually not a response to any one particular thing.  It's a misguided and dangerous human expression of community.

Another trope we've all been hearing ad nauseam: the vast majority of violent crimes against African-Americans are carried out by other African-Americans.  My response to this is, "yeah, so?"  Are we not allowed to talk about a problem (police brutality, particularly against minorities), because there is another tangentially related problem (gang violence) with a larger body count?  This is a very bizarre line of thinking.  As Mike Pesca of The Gist podcast pointed out, it's like saying we can't discuss ISIS because more Americans kill Americans than Arab terrorists kill Americans.  Like I said, it's bizarre, or at least it should be bizarre.  Unfortunately, with today's right-wing at it's right-wingiest this type of tortured logic is all too commonplace.

Anyway, when I finally fell sleep tonight, I had a very uncomfortable dream that had nothing to do with Ferguson or anything else in the news.  I had the old panicky back-in-school dream, but with a twist.  Instead of forgetting to study for a test or walking the halls in my underwear, the source of my consternation is that I am back living in shithole house.  In the dream, I come home and my roommates (who in real life are two of my roommates from undergrad) are sitting down in a pile of trash watching TV.  I sit down next to them in a tattered chair and pick up nachos off the ground and start eating them.  I look in my bedroom and see a pile of soiled clothes covering the bed.  I'm disgusted and depressed, and I wonder why I went back to get another master's degree when I already have a Ph.D. (apparently that's the pretext for me being back in school).  Why don't I just get a real job?  I take a hit off a warm beer that was sitting in an empty plant pot.

Then I wake up and have the glorious realization that it was all just a dream.  I don't live like a slob in a shitty college house anymore.  I live in a nice house with my wife and son.  My bed isn't a hand-me-down twin mattress on the floor.  I can turn on the heat, if I get cold.  The dishes aren't growing mold in the sink.  I did get a job after I got my degree.  Real life is pretty good after all.  It's a very fitting dream for Thanksgiving.

OK, that's all for tonight.  I have a rule here at Crocodile DG: as soon as I start writing about my dreams, it's time to go.  So go I shall.  I'll put out Part II later this week.

Until next time ...

Entry 260: Why All the Rapin'?

Today I'm going to talk a bit about everybody's favorite topic: rape!  It's been in the news a lot lately.  Talking about rape is a weird thing because you have to follow certain social norms or else people get upset and offended.  I don't really understand all the rules.  Like, is it kosher to joke about rape or not?  I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells talking about rape -- any sexual assault, really.  I mean, I get that rape is a horrific crime, but that's not it alone because murder is a horrific crime -- worse than rape --  but joking about murder doesn't carry the same social gravity as doing so about rape.  For some reason rape is much more taboo.

Think about it.  What if instead of going to murder mystery parties, we went to rape mystery parties?  What if the board game Clue was centered around rape instead of murder?  What if instead of first-person shooter video games, we had first-person rapist video games?  Imagine if people jokingly said "just rape me now" or "I'm gonna rape that guy!"  It's disturbing, right?  But if you substitute "rape" with "kill", then these phrases turn into completely innocuous idioms.  It's very strange, and I'm not sure what the explanation is.  Is it a sex-versus-violence thing?  I don't know.  And I don't have a point other than it's weird.

[It was the entitled rich kid, in the frat house, with the roofie.]

Anyway, one man who isn't afraid to joke about rape is comedian Hannibal Burress.  I'm sure you've heard all about him and the whole Bill Cosby thing.  As many people have pointed out, it's pretty strange and sad that it takes a viral video for people to care about something.  Allegations against Cosby go back years and nobody really cared.  By 2006, there were at least four women who came out against Cosby, all telling the same basic story.  That was eight years ago.  Since then Cosby has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, and he had a network TV deal in the works until just a few days ago.  But only now is he being raked over the coals because there is video of a comedian joking about him?  Like I said, it's strange and sad.  It reminds me a little bit of the Ray Rice ordeal in that people didn't become truly outraged until after the punching video went public, even though everybody saw the aftermath, and he admitted it.

Cosby, for his part, is certainly not admitting anything.  He's not even talking about anything, which, let's be honest, probably means there is something there.  Yeah, yeah, I know, it's innocent until proven guilty, but my mind is not a court of law.  This isn't a he-said-she-said type of thing; this is a she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said type of thing.  The number of Cosby accusers is now up to 15 (probably more since I posted this; it's a rolling number, like that giant nation debt counter).  15!  And he's not saying anything about it?  If one woman accuses you of sexually assaulting her, you can claim the high road and stay silent -- but 15?  You kinda gotta defend yourself then, right?  You gotta do the talk show circuit proclaiming your innocence, and explaining why all these women are speaking out against you.  I mean, 15 is a pretty damning number when it comes to sexual assault accusers.  As Eugene Robinson (the journalist, not ex-Seahawks safety) put it in this article:

It is possible that all the women who accuse Cosby of sexual predation are lying, in the sense that anything not prohibited by the laws of physics is possible. But it doesn’t seem very likely.

Exactly.  I mean, I hate as much as anybody the thought that Cliff Huxtable is a rapist.  But I also hate the thought that I'm going bald, and this doesn't mean I will wake up tomorrow with a full head of hair.

Alright, that's all I got.  Relatively short entry this week.  I'm tired, and I don't have anything else to say about rape right now.  If you want more, you can read this article about the prevalence of sexual assault on the University of Virginia campus.  It's pretty horrifying.  We definitely need to do a better job teaching our sons not to rape -- it sounds silly to say it this way, but it's true.  When Lil' S is old enough to understand such things I'm going to teach him a general rule of consent that I once heard somebody whose name I can't remember say (sing, actually) on the Dan Savage podcast: If it feels a little bit rape-y just don't do it.

Until next time...

Entry 259: Blog List Removal

Time to clear out the blog list, lightning round style.

• I found this "debate" (now several weeks old) between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly interesting.  Stewart kinda sorta gets O'Reilly to admit that white privilege is a real thing.  Of the all wacko right-wing pundits, I've actually found O'Reilly to be one of the  more reasonable.  This is a bit like saying, "among the soiled diapers in my son's Diaper Genie, this one smells the freshest" -- but still ... It's something, I guess.
• I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't understand why people deny the existence of white privilege.  Black Americans were literally enslaved by whites for the first several hundred years of our country's existence (including its time as a British colony), and then they were legally discriminated against until, like, 60 years ago.  Black people weren't even allowed to play baseball until 1947.*  (My mom, who is still alive and healthy, was born in 1945.)  Brown v. Board of Education happened in 1954.  LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  Black people weren't accepted in the LDS church until 1978 (a year after I was born).  And an African-American was not admitted to Augusta National Golf Course until 1990 (1990!).  Given this history, I ask you, how could being white not be a privilege, all other things equal?  That last clause is very important -- hence the italics.
• The way I see it, the solution to America's racial problems are remarkably easy.  White people need to stop being afraid of black people.  That's it.  Just stop being afraid.  Chances are nobody of any color is going to hurt you.
• Whenever somebody starts a sentence with "The way I see it", expect an oversimplified, useless statement: The way I see it, poor people just need to start making more money.
• I "love" when people defend their prejudices by inventing extremely unlikely hypotheticals: Hey, if you're walking alone through a crime-infested neighborhood at three in the morning, and you see some black kids dressed like extras from "The Wire" on one side, and then you see some white kids dressed like Alex P. Keaton on the other side, which side are you choosing to walk down?  If you could guarantee to black people that they would only ever face discrimination in the early hours of the morning, in dark alleys, and that at all other times, in all other places -- on the street in daylight, in the office, at school, at social functions, etc. -- they would be treated exactly equally, I think they would gladly sign off on it.

• Last thing about race.  Watch the video below.  It's pretty funny.  And pretty much nails why race is still a big part of American life.
  

• Yahoo mail is quite possibly the worst internet platform I've ever had to deal with.  I use Yahoo as my "spam account".  If I have to register at a commercial site, I use it so that my personal Gmail account doesn't get bombarded with ads and such.  I have so many other things linked to Yahoo that getting rid of it would be a HUGE hassle, but I'm contemplating it because it's so incredibly glitchy.  Here are some of its myriad problems: Inbox doesn't load, or loads very slowly; individual email doesn't load, or loads very slowly; doesn't mark messages as having been read even after you've clicked on them numerous times (the most frequent problem, by far); marks messages as having being read, but still shows a positive number next to the inbox, even though they have all already been read (e.g., "Inbox (3)", but there are no unread messages); skips messages when using the "View Next Email" feature.  It's both the desktop and the mobile app.  Here are a few screen shots that illustrate what I'm talking about.

• And here's a screen shot of an advertisement that was in my Yahoo mail account.  WTF?!  Can you at least give me a NSFW warning?  I shouldn't have to worry about getting fired for looking at porn on a company computer, if I check at the office to see if a bill payment went through.

• Question: Do you find articles bemoaning judgmental parents more annoying than parents who are actually judgmental?  I think I do.  It seems like every other day somebody on Facebook is linking to a HuffPo article by a mom who is tired of other parents judging her because she gives her kid formula or feeds them non-organic strawberries or lets them watch more than ten minutes of TV or some other such offense.  (There are dad versions as well.)  I just can't related to these types of articles.  I never feel like other parents are judging my parenting.  I mean, isn't it a bit narcissistic to think everybody is being critical of you?  (And, by the way, this is being asked by a narcissist.)  This assumes people are thinking about you at all, which, chances are, they aren't.  And even if they are, why do you care?  I could give a shit if another parent is critical of the way I'm raising Lil' S.  But then again, as S is always quick to point out, I'm "a robot".
  
• Speaking of S, I'm thinking of starting a new regular segment on this blog: "Stupid Argument of the Week".  It will run until I get tired of posting stupid arguments or until S finds out I'm doing it, whichever comes first.  Here's the first installation:
  
  Me: Hey, have you noticed Lil' S started singing Jingle Bells?  It's so cute.  He goes, "jingle bells ... jingle bells ... jingle bells all the way."    
  S: Yeah, I don't even know where he heard that.
  Me: I don't know either.  It must be daycare.
  S: Hmm ... I don't know how I feel about that.
  Me: What do you mean?
  S: It's a religious song.
  Me: [thinking through the lyrics to Jingle Bells] No, it isn't.
  S: It's a Christmas song.  Christmas is a religious holiday.
  Me: No, it's not a Christmas song.  It's just a song about the winter.
  S: It's a Christmas song.  It's only played during Christmas time.
  Me: No, it's just about the winter.  Snow, sleights, bells on bobtails -- all generic winter stuff.
  S: If it's just about the winter, then how come it's never played in January and February?  It's still the winter then.  It's only played at Christmas time.
  Me: OK, in that sense it is a Christmas song because that's when people listen to it.  But it's not explicitly about Christmas.  It doesn't mention Christmas at all.
  S: It's still a Christmas song.
  Me: It's a Christmas song, but it's not a "Christmas song".  You can't control when other people play a song ...  It's like eggnog.  Eggnog is a Christmas drink, but there is nothing inherently religious about eggnog.  If his daycare was giving out eggnog you wouldn't have a problem with it.
  S: Yes, I would.  I don't drink eggnog, and we don't give him eggnog at home.  I don't want them giving it to him at school.
  Me: I've given him eggnog before.
  S: Well, I don't given him eggnog.
  Me: Right, but there would be nothing wrong with his daycare giving him eggnog.
  S: Of course there is.  It's super fattening and full of sugar.  They are supposed to give them healthy snacks.
  Me: No ... I mean ... Uh ... Never mind.
  
  And there you have it: "Stupid Argument of the Week"!
  

Until next time ...

*Technically, Jackie Robinson was not the first black man to play Major League Baseball.  That was probably Bill White who appeared in one game in 1879 before the "gentlemen's agreement" to ban dark-skinned people from baseball wen into effect.

Entry 258: You Take the Good, You Take the Bad ...

I was mildly bummed Tuesday evening when it became apparent the Republicans were going to regain control of the Senate.  It wasn't just that they won; it was also how they won.  They won almost every close race, despite not really running on anything other than "Obama = Bad".  (To be fair this was more or less the Democratic position back in 2004.  I remember seeing many a "Anybody but Bust" bumper sticker.)  As Paul Krugman put it in yesterday's column:

But the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. 

Indeed, when you have a two-party system, voting becomes a one-on-one, zero-sum game: any loss for you is a gain for your opponent and vice versa.  Further, voters tend to hold the president -- the highest ranking official -- more responsible for the state of the union than they do congress.  The Reps did the math on this and realized that "tanking the country" (for lack of a better term) is a good move politically for them.  And they are ideologically ruthless enough actually carry out.  Sure, it makes them look bad, and the public disapproves overall, but they disapprove of Obama (and by proxy the Democrats) more, which is ultimately a net gain for them.  Conversely, if they actually did their jobs and passed bipartisan legislation, overall approval ratings would surely go up, but vis-a-vis the president Republican ratings would go down.  GOP leaders, in moments of candor, have openly stated that they didn't want to be bipartisan because bipartisanship makes the president look good.  Occasionally this strategy backfires (remember last year's government shutdown?) but Tuesday's results emphatically demonstrated that, for the most part, it can work.

What we really need is a viable third, and even fourth, party in this country to break this one-on-one, your-loss-is-my-gain dynamic.  But whenever somebody tries this (Perot, Nader) they get accused of spoiling the election and being a traitor and going on an ego trip and all sorts of other nonsense.  The only way I could see a third party becoming a force is if a superrich person, like a Bill Gates, decides to make it his* life's goal and is willing to spend a substantial portion of his fortune on it.  What would be even better is if he engineered two new parties, one on the conservative side and one on the liberal side.  Actually, the time is probably right for this, people are mostly fed up with Congress.  But I think there just aren't any superrich people that want to do it, which is understandable.  I wouldn't want to do it.  But I would (and do) want somebody else to do it.  

Anyway, you might have noticed in my opening sentence that I said "mildly bummed", not "totally bummed".  I was only mildly bummed for a few reasons.  For one, part of me thinks, well, if this is the government we want, then this is the government we get, and then when things suck I'll get to say, "told you so."  (But this is not very satisfying because I have to live under the dysfunctional government we're electing, and also because no matter what happens, no matter how much objective evidence there is, conservatives never admit they are wrong.  The Capitol could be underwater, and they would still insist global warming isn't real and that the free market will surely lower the ocean level if we'd only cut taxes on the rich and repeal Obamacare.)

For two, the Democrats are no great prize themselves.  Yes, they are much better than the crazy-and-becoming-crazier Republicans -- but other than that, what can you say about them?  They don't really champion a progressive agenda.  They're fair-weather progressives.  When the country is high on hope and change, they're right there riding that wave; when things get a little choppy (as they always do), it's "Obama who?  ACA what?"  Two big examples of this (as pointed out by Bill Maher on Real Time) are Alison Grimes, who bizarrely wouldn't even admit she voted for Obama, and Clay Aiken who also distanced himself from Obama and wouldn't even speak in favor of gay marriage when given the opportunity.  With friends like these ...  Now, the obvious retort is they are in red states, and if they act too liberally they will lose votes.  And the (perhaps) not as obvious counter-retort is they are likely going to lose no matter what they do.  Is a 54-46 loss any better than a 59-41 loss?  If you're the underdog, act like the underdog and try a David strategy.  Or as Jim Carrey once said, "You can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."  Of course, this assumes Democrats love liberalism -- no safe bet.

[This is what came up when I Googled "David and Goliath"]

The last and biggest reason I wasn't totally bummed by Tuesday's results is that other than the Senate (no small thing, of course) the progressive agenda did remarkably well.  Here in DC, I-71 passed, legalizing possession and growth (but not sale) of marijuana, which is a step in the right direction in mitigating the deleterious, and often racist, effects of the awful "war on drugs".  Minimum wage is set to go up in several states.  Anti-abortion measures failed in two states (but passed in one).  And in the great state of Washington, a strict (by US standards) gun control measure passed, while an anti-gun control bill failed.

It doesn't really make sense that all these things would pass -- many in red states -- and the GOP would also win back control of the Senate.  At least, it doesn't make sense until you remember that most people don't vote on the actual issues, and in fact don't even understand the actual issues (which is why, say, Kentuckians like KyNect and hate Obamacare), and then it makes perfect sense.

Well, that's all I have time for today.  I'll leave with a YouTube clip of the original Tacoma-Narrows Bridge (aka "Galloping Gertie") breaking apart and plunging into the sea (set to some eerily tranquil new age-y music), as yesterday marked the 74th anniversary of this event.  Given the news of this week, it seems like an appropriate way to go out.



Until next time ...

*No, I'm not being sexist by assuming this superrich person is a man.  I just don't want to write his or her a bunch of times.  And even if I did that, what about the people who don't comply with your gender binary norms?  Did you ever think about that?  Also, there is the undeniable, if uncomfortable fact that the superrich are almost all men, so my hypothetical billionaire probably is a man, anyway.