A pair of Nene – Hawaiian geese – sauntered up the grassy hillside toward our lanai. I was sitting in a wicker chair at the outdoor table. Hawaiian geese are a recovering endangered species. They are large, smart, territorial, and bold. I once had one stand on my foot.
The Nene approached and one of them stepped gingerly onto the concrete floor of the lanai. My left leg rested on the right one and my foot faced the Nene. The bird looked up at me, then looked at my foot, then looked at me again. Then it bit me on the second toe. Maybe it thought my toe was a worm.
The bird’s casual nip didn’t cause me any pain – unlike the presidential debate I watched the night before we left on vacation.
The Debate
A June debate made sense. The key to winning a presidential campaign is to define your opponent. President Biden wanted to define Donald Trump as too crazy to be president. It almost worked.
The intent was to contrast a mature, reassuring leader with a raving madman. Trump, who was restrained early in the debate, degenerated into his true raving madman self by the halfway point. Biden came across as mature – unfortunately, a bit too mature – undermining the “reassuring” part. While Trump looked like a man screaming at butterflies, Biden sounded like he just wandered in from an early Cheech and Chong album.
The Stutter
While most viewers, including members of the media, saw a man besieged by old age, I saw something else. Perhaps it’s because of my experience with disabled individuals, from Special Education and Section 504 students in my school law days to Pima County employees when I was the ADA coordinator.
Biden’s debate performance did not evidence an intellectual disability or senility. It was the result of his stutter. I did not see an old man in a fog; I saw a man dealing with a disabling condition that flared up at the worst possible time.
"Stuttering symptoms often worsen when you’re tired, excited, anxious or stressed,” writes the Cleveland Clinic. Joe Biden was suffering from a cold, dealing with jet lag from extensive foreign travel, and engaging in a high-stakes debate. No wonder he lost control of his stutter. Anybody with a stutter, regardless of age, would likely have had the same problem.
Biden also jumbled his words and sometimes failed to complete a sentence. Those are symptoms of a stuttering condition, not an intellectual disability.
“People who stutter may have more disfluencies and different types of disfluencies,” according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. “They may repeat parts of words (repetitions), stretch a sound out for a long time (prolongations), or have a hard time getting a word out (blocks).”
The Mayo Clinic lists symptoms of stuttering. Some were evident in President Biden’s debate performance:
· Having a hard time starting a word, phrase, or sentence.
· Brief silence for certain syllables or words, or pausing before or within a word.
· A lot of tension, tightness or movement of the face or upper body when saying a word.
The Fallout
Nearly every commentator on the debate either mentions Biden’s stutter in passing, or not at all. They missed the point. While Biden is old, he is not senile. When he insists that he had a “bad night,” too many dismiss that possibility, suggesting his performance showed progressive deterioration. Somebody suffering from a disability flare-up does have bad days and nights.
Biden’s staff and medical providers should address his disabling condition in detail. Most people regard disabilities differently from how they regard age and senility. It’s one thing if a person suffers from an occasional flare-up of a stuttering condition. It’s quite another if the individual suffers from degeneration. Biden’s people should explain that to the American public. They can handle it.
Besides, if Biden’s campaign explains the nature and impact of his stuttering, Donald Trump could not control himself. He’s likely to make fun of Biden’s stutter. That kind of cruelty turns people off.
The White Sandy Beach
“We were playing in the sun
We were having so much fun
On a white sandy beach of Hawaii”
- White Sandy Beach of Hawaiʻi
- Song by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole
We woke up in the early morning after the debate and drove to Phoenix Sky Harbor for a flight to Kaua’i. We stayed at our usual location on the north shore. Our first day there, we headed down to the nearby beach and bobbed and floated in the serene, glistening waters of Hanalei Bay. Our grandson wore a “floatie,” which made him fearless.
There’s never a bad time for a vacation, but it’s hard to imagine a better time than June 28th this year. As I lingered in the warm Pacific waters and looked out on Hanalei Bay, Namolokama and Māmalahoa mountains and the Makana formation, mainland realities – like the debate - slipped away like a fading dream.
Behind me was the beach, where we parked our gear under a giant hau tree, whose leaves provide protection from Kaua’i’s frequent rain. Kaui’i’s north beaches are not crowded. We shared the space with swimmers, sun-bathers, snorkelers, and paddle-boarders, adult and keiki. It was my “moment of Zen.”
Epilogue
We’ve been back from Kaua’i for several days. Talking heads are obsessing over whether Joe Biden is too old to be president. The news media, as well as the frisky Nene, sometimes get things wrong. For the record:
My toe is not a worm.
Joe Biden is not senile.