I didn't either.
My wife's license is expiring soon and she wanted to renew it. She called to see if she could renew it online or by mail. Well, you could, they said, but you're over 69 so you have to come in.
She got an appointment for 3:45pm, but there was still a long line. BUT people were masked and keeping their distance and the clerks were separated by plexiglass or something. Neither of us have had any symptoms and it's been a week or so.
But I did send an email to the Director of the DMV and the Assistant Director.
The email back to me was also shared with someone in the Department of Administration (I'd copied by State Rep and State Senator). Today I got an email from the person at DOA. It says:
". . . attached please find the Order of Suspension 2, on page 24 please find, the DMV AS 28.15.101(a) is suspended. This suspension applies to the expiration date of all driver licenses, and we have asked that this suspension be continued."
Clearly, the clerk my wife talked to by phone at the DMV didn't know this. And neither did the Deputy Director of the DMV who originally responded to my email with:
"It is possible for your wife to renew her license online at https://online.dmv.alaska.gov/DMVMailInRenewal/index.aspx if she is younger than 69. For those 69 years of age and older, Alaska has a statute (AS 28.15.101 (c) (2)) that states that if an applicant is 69 years of age or older on the expiration date of the driver’s license being renewed then their license may not be renewed online or through the mail, which is why we’re limited."
So I'm letting others know this. The snow tire ban through September is also suspended. There are lots of things on the list of suspensions. A lot have to do with health procedures, fees, etc. Also there are a lot on Retirement and Pensions.
The whole list is below.
07.30.20 Order of Suspensio... by Steve
Ah, that means my expired June 2020 ADL is un-expired??? At any rate, we didn't renew our license(s) when back in 2019 as one has to affirm American citizenship (because of 'enhanced security' protocol). Problematic, that.
ReplyDeleteOh well.
Thinking about the problem of losing one's driving license when a student on an education visa (time-limited to course work) because you weren't an American? Not a problem, I guess.
DeleteTo another point, then.
Excellent, deeply-experienced & worked out piece today, Steve. I know you don't write for compliments, but today's piece laid out how implicit racism works for all of us who've lived its ‘refined’ editions.
And I do want to add something. I know one of the real problems of ANY group of people who've been suppressed/oppressed/ is that the same logic of ‘being put in one’s place’, turned against oneself, is a self-inflicted wound far deeper than that slashed on your skin from another.
Black is what Black ain't. Women doubt their sisters. LGBT folk suspect their place in family. Success for all of them breeds doubts different from being ‘phony’ – we learn to doubt being fully human.
The work isn't only about what others do to us; it's what we do to ourselves because of it. While ripping the whip from the hand of our 'master' is first order business, laying down that same whip in one's own mind & community is that other 'business' that masters never know. We who have been hurt do and sometimes, we’re really messed up by it all.
We do act out to self-harm. We turn rage inward. We do anti-social acts. We become what THEY fear. I risk saying this next sentence knowing its pattern has been used to thwart change for so long, but we, the hurt, the bruised and broken, have to pick up our beds…
And walk. Yes, I needed to have my very sexuality understood and taken up as any such human emotion works. But I needed to love myself, too. And that is still the hard work.
I won’t posit the solution here or even a solution. I know in the case of LGBT folk, it started with saying NO to those who don’t live our lives and finding those who would hear how things didn’t work for us in what all around saw as ‘normal’. BLM this time round seems to have finally found many more white folk who are hearing what black folk have been living since the founding of the American Republic. Many of us are beginning to feel their pain.
Some of us are walking with our brothers & sisters. It’s all we’ve ever needed.
Thanks. Sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself way too much. And yes, the internalized hatred is probably the most pernicious.
DeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete