Stay In, Tune Out, Get Sluggish, Get Foggy

We spend too much time indoors, sitting or laying down, breathing indoor air, getting little or no exercise.

At Christmas, I could enlist no one to take a walk after dinner.  That is, after engorgement on copious amounts of food, much of it sweet or otherwise not good for us.  Could get no one to take a walk in 30s degree weather with no wind.  I walked the trails and never met another person. My son, 20, said, “Are you crazy, dad? It’s December.”

If we are that appallingly weak, we have no chance to maintain this “system” or this “empire.”  Events—Nature or a stronger culture—will eat us like a lion eating kittens.

Real Life Mr. Potters Are Having a Merry Christmas

My retired uncle and aunt live in a once-thriving upper working class/lower middle class neighborhood, the same one they have for nearly 50 years.  The transformation of the economy from being middle class centric to upper class centric has unfortunately also transformed their neighborhood.  The good jobs the people who lived there once held are largely gone.  Rental houses now dominate.  The neighborhood pool has closed, and the neighborhood association has dissolved.

My uncle did everything right.  He bought used cars not new, paid off his little house early and never “traded up,” invested in the stock market, and although he had a decent pension and Social Security, he saved enough money in addition to live comfortably, raise three daughters, go on vacations, and be able to enjoy his retirement.

Except that picture is marred.  He now sees, where perhaps he didn’t before, that if you take care of yourself only—if you aren’t helping to support, sustain, and fight for a healthy economy and social structure for the rest of people, ultimately it won’t matter because of all the stress around you.

That’s the way it is—unless you’re super rich.  Then you can live—courtesy of the decisions you support that gut the places like my uncle lives—in a gated community, with armed guards, amid a purposely ignorant life of relative seclusion and disconnection at others’ expense.

Potter may not have won in Frank Capra’s fictional holiday classic, but his ideological brethren are well winning in real life. 

Just like the same Roman wealthy did. Until they could no longer escape the results of theirs and their predecessors' myopically selfish decisions.

The Self-Stabbing Pen

This week I was approached at a store by a woman who wanted me to sign a petition.  It was to get tax credits for tuition to private schools. It was being promoted as being “fair.” 

Forget for the moment that tax credits drive up deficits.  This woman, like her companion at the other end of the store, was almost certainly a product of the state-starved (declining revenue) local school system, a system that would be even more starved if this went through. 

I asked her if she was paid to gather signatures.  Yes.  I asked her if she knew who was paying her.  A non-profit company, she said.  Did any of that seem strange, I asked.  No, why would it, she answered.

I didn’t ask her if she made enough to send her children to private school, even with some tax credits. 

I let irony be enough.  Bitter irony she can chew on later.

The Fast Are Furious

There is SO much that can be said about the fast food strikes that were launched across the country recently.  Here’s just two selected points:

1   The workers were invigorated a bit by the fact that their ranks have been bolstered by better educated people who have been marginalized economically in this post Great Recession “recovery.” These people remember what it was like to be something approaching middle class.

2   The corporatized media has, as expected, given short shrift.  But so have most fast food restaurant attendees, even those whose economic status would be similar and whose goals would in theory be nearly congruent.

In an over-individualized culture of disconnection and social in-camaraderie, the isolation strategy of the wealthy class seems to be working splendidly. 

Trolling For Dollars

Would be entrepreneurs and inventors could use and want to use things to rightfully earn the fruits of their labors.  But those legal rights and pathways are bought up by patent trolls, thus stifling the initiative and entrepreneurship that should be, because the harried entrepreneurs and inventors have to sell much of their interests to get the authority for their own idea. 

Another indication how the unholy alliance of legal firms and corporations and the wealthy have locked out the rest of America, and worse, set themselves up as the parasitical class.

In A Flap

Anyone who has been to Madame’s page knows she has recently been to a 1920s themed party.  I myself was at one earlier this year put on by some colleagues across the state, one where the ladies were dressed as Flapper Girls, and the men in cool hat wear.  It was a lot of harmless fun.

However, as a historian, I feel I should point out that in the 1920s, there was a lot of partying and diversion going on, speculative behavior in the “markets” was high, the income inequality gap was widening rapidly and markedly, the middle class was stretched to the breaking point, and the wealthy seemed to have all of the advantages and were increasing their already considerable wealth dramatically.

Let us hope that this period is not prelude to what transpired in the period that followed (Depression and World War).

Because I would truly despise it if that “80 year cycle crowd” were even a little correct (and not just because they are so smug, lol). 

Sexual “Excesses” By The Few: Criminal! Poverty and Squalor For The Many: Acceptable.

A Nebraska sensation right now is a woman who supposedly prostituted herself and her largely willing 13-14 year old daughter.  The woman will probably serve close to 40 or 50 years in prison. 

Aside from ignoring history, and aside from the infantile societal infatuation with severely punishing sexual proclivity among the biologically able (the alleged main “client” in the case also faces prison time), as well as punishing what one does with one’s own gene pool, there is another issue.

The woman and her daughter were destitute, homeless.  Society can work itself into a lather for one thing but not about the other. 

Selective moral outrage is not a pretty sight.

Perception or Reality?

Modern young American males, particularly those below age 18, seem a great deal more willing/prone to cry at moderate pain or moderate humiliation.  Have they been feminized by a maybe over-feminized culture?  Or are they simply more free with their emotions, and less likely to internalize needless stress?  Or is it something else?  Or, rather, is the perception (a common anecdotal one) not the reality? 

I will be interested to see what data academia can provide.

What Is Power?

“They take orders from the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, not the President.” (From a news report talking about how the president could be unaware of intelligence activity for 5 years.) Perhaps that’s just political cover, but all indications are that the security and surveillance complex do what they want, get what they want—and temporary politicians are of minor concern to them.

Joking bitterly, Jon Stewart responded to how he could poke fun at such a serious matter:  “I pretend I’m a character actor in a movie about the demise of the country.” 

"Recovery"

Low-wage jobs, part-time jobs, or temporary jobs have been the vast bulk of the “jobs” created during the “recovery” since 2009 from The Great Recession.

Plutocrat Service Doesn't Generate Enough

People want to do useful work.  There’s just not enough of it in a plutocratized economy, one designed to serve the wealthy, because there’s just not enough wealthy people.  The shrinking middle class doesn’t have the economic wherewithal to make enough of a difference, and certainly isn’t going to borrow much more.  Even the mismatch of skills, where a number of good jobs go begging because there’s no one qualified to fill them, does not account for enough to truly make a difference even if they were filled.

And so you don’t get a real “recovery.”

When Neither Knowledge of History nor Knowledge and Concern About Government and Politics Are Valued

How a relatively small group of wealthy people have managed to 1) transfer incredible wealth to themselves, 2) gradually and dramatically underfund government while increasing its burdens, 3) seed the lexicon with terms of “bloated” programs (although the ones they desire are never included) and “excessive” social benefit—nay, “entitlement”—transfers, and 4) control and divert the economics and politics of a supposed democracy,  can perhaps be summed up in the following:

To expound on John Fugelsang, the extremely rich got the rich to convince much of the middle class that the poor, including the working poor, were responsible for all the middle class’s problems, and the rich and extremely rich are “small businessmen” and “good job creators” being so unfairly “persecuted” via “huge and oppressive” taxation and regulation, that the middle class needs to rally behind the goal of gutting government and further lowering taxes for the wealthy—even though as that happens, the situation of the middle class gets worse and worse.

Only a citizenry obsessively concerned with only the “private” sphere could, over decades, let willful ignorance dramatically undermine the public sphere, and as a result, disempower and impoverish themselves.

Now, Now, Padawan

Often, people under 35 don’t want to wait—for anything—and want to be entertained and satisfied at all times, an unreasonable expectation.  I’ve seen people playing a group GAME, who declare they’re not having fun and just want to quit, merely because of a momentary lull where the spotlight is off THEM, the individual.

If we become a society where the only things we choose to and are able to focus on for extended periods are individual distractions, who and what will that serve?

A Single Life

Every time I read or hear about helicopters and teams sent out, often dangerously, to search for and rescue someone, I am on the one hand amazed and humanely pleased that we care so much, and on the other hand, appalled at the economic (and probably unsustainable) imbalance. Historians of the future will marvel at how much resource expenditure went into trying to preserve, save, or rescue ONE human life, and how this philosophy diffused from the US and the West to the rest of the world.  The search and rescue, the humanitarian aid, the life support.  We take it for granted, but shouldn’t.  Previous civilizations would have said, “tough $%#@!”

What Parable Would Jesus Use Today?

I have a friend who is connected, albeit indirectly, to the plutocrat grid.  It is an economy made for them.  They go many places and yet pay less than regular people for travel, entertainment, etc.  

Those who have much are given more.  And those who have hardly anything?  What little they have is being taken away and given to those who already have so much.

There’s a biblical parable stood all on its head.

A Matter of a Word

Those who have seen “The Butler,” a slightly fictionalized account based on a real person, are treated to an encapsulated history of the modern American civil rights movement.  It does not mean we have shared the experience.  White people, especially the young, who use the word “nigger” in any context, let alone casually, are guilty of the most appalling historical and sociological ignorance.  While the less unaware may believe they are doing a Lenny Bruce on the word by taking away its significance, they are mistaken.  And the clueless who view it as a “term of endearment and friendship” are pathetically delusional.  While it MAY sometimes be those things BETWEEN African-Americans, the time is FAR off when it can be so used generally by whites, whose skin color being associated with historical and occasional contemporary oppressions of the worst kind, means that time might NEVER come.

Fattening the Cow To Be Slain and Feasted Upon

It looks more and more like the Postal Service is having its pension and health funds artificially bloated (at great cost to short term finances of PO) so that when privatization comes, the privateers can loot the funds and leave the taxpayer on the hook. 

You Thought Voting Was A Right? Silly You.

Need a crash course in voter disenfranchisement?  Watch The Daily Show, August 5, 2013.

And remember, voter fraud, supposedly the reason for all the disenfranchising measures (it couldn’t be race, economics, or partisanship) is statistically non-existent.  And state legislatures around the country, with all the pressing problems, made this their top priorities?

Douchenozzles and Bitter Ironies

A friendly neighborhood pub was “stung” by an underage operation which consisted of this: a couple, both one month shy of being 21, went in, sat down and ordered.  Both looked not only 21 but actually at least 5 years older, maybe 26 or 27.  They were served by the busy bartender, didn’t touch their drinks, and walked out.  In came the alcohol enforcement officer, who cited both the bartender and the pub owner. 

The bartender was a veteran one of 15 years.  The owner, whose establishment does not exactly make a screaming fortune, was forced by the incident to hire 1-2 entrance guard/checkers a night at significant financial impact to his business.

Business owners often complain of government interference and regulation.  This is an example.  It’s not one that affects the plutocrats, who have the wealth and influence to neutralize any real impactful things to them.  It instead affects the middle class small business owners, many of whom are barely making it.

And the irony you ask?  Republicans often scream about excess government and regulation.  This alcohol enforcement officer, who spent public money to set up this overdone, entrapping, needless, and what will be perpetually harmful operation (for something that wasn’t a problem), is a son of..the local Republican Party chairman.

See It

“The Act of Killing”

Rabidity

As testament to how much the Republican Party has been captured by emotional whip saw ideologues, thoughtful Republicans voted against the UN treaty on disabilities, which had no impact on the US at all but was only an encouragement internationally.  Even with WW2 disabled vet (and their former fellow senator and majority leader) Bob Dole lobbying on the floor of the Senate for it, they turned it down.  They did so because their rabid bases and those bases’ irrational fears forbid them from agreeing to anything with “UN” in it.

Decay In Civilization's Teeth

Civilizations that are on tracks of continuance may do sub-optimal or even regrettable or tragic things as they confront problems.  Decaying and declining civilizations exhibit denial, delay, or even refusal to confront pressing problems.

America leads the decay.  The rest of “Western” civilization is making some attempts to confront its problems, albeit with significant drag from the millstone of the dysfunctional US colossus.  And Western Europe has a lot of problems, chief among them the same manpower and population problems it had during late Roman times.

Albert Einstein supposedly once worried that our technology would one day make us idiots and fools who don’t talk to each other, but at best only (and even then disconnectedly) to a limited group of people who “think” like us.  Wonder what he would say today?

Persnickety

For those of who tire of the Persnickety Prof, yet are still in denial about plutocratic control, I refer you to Thursday’s Daily Show (7/25/13).  There you can see a demonstration of how Wall Street owns America, for just one firm does billions in market manipulation and insider trading—colossal scale crimes—and nothing happens. 

Nor is going to. Even the Senate Banking Committee only has five members show up, merely to lazily dance around the fact that Americans are being fleeced.

My question for the moment: Will those, many generations from now, be able to understand our political comedy like we understand ancient Greek and Roman political comedy?

McNamara

As he was promoting his new book and loudly denouncing the Obama administration, Donald Rumsfeld was asked by a reporter if he read McNamara’s book before going into Iraq.  He hadn’t, and still hasn’t.  Self-examination has never appeared to be one of his traits.  At least McNamara had the human decency to exhibit remorse, albeit late in life.

Vitamins, Minerals, and Supplements: What's a person to think?

An academic friend of mine said I should read this article: http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/are-vitamins-useless?page=0%2C4

I did.

Here’s my thoughts:

I believe the article to be on target, with the following clarifications or expoundings:

It should be emphasized that there is a difference between the mass produced ag-biz/pharma related ones and the less well known, better produced ones.  Pills made in a lab or factory are not only poorly regulated, but often not designed for easy and ready absorption.  If the pills in the studies were the mass produced crap so prevalent in regular stores, that’s going to shade the studies’ results. I have personally taken some mass produced pills that made me feel sick and that sat hard on my stomach (and probably passed through my system with little nutrient absorption).  And that’s not even considering the other risks of counterfeit or even contaminated pills, so pathetic is our regulation of the “industry.”  In fact, the only time the FDA seems to get its wonk up about it is to intimidate some small (and often truly health dedicated) company into not making claims or branding itself to stand out in the sea of supplements and information and misinformation/disinformation.  But to be fair, and the article largely is, the FDA also got a hamstringing from the mass-produced vitamin industry.

As the article says, “natural” is a near-useless term.  Something the article does not go into but should is that even something labeled “organic” may 1) not be entirely organic, and 2) just because it’s organic doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

A complicating factor about nutrients is that we often have depleted soils, and the fruits and veggies we get do not have the nutritional content they had 100 years ago. As the article says, nature did not intend us to eat vast quantities to get our nutrients, and certainly not take many times the amount one could, even if we ate mass quantities, via a pill.  If we had truly rich soils and sensible food systems (that didn’t, for example, emphasize spoil-resistance and appearance over nutrition), there would certainly be next to no need for food supplements. As it is, there is some need, but just where that need exists on the scale is not only imprecise because of all the variables (including how much, what kind, and what quality a person ingests), but imprecise because of what we don’t know (let alone the imprecision that comes from human behaviors in general).

Another complicating factor is our processed food industry.  It is nutritionally (and glycemic, fiber, etc.) whacked in many cases, and the nature-provided nutrients get processed out.  Sometimes they pack it back with artificial nutrients (how crazy the whole process—no pun intended—is).  And that doesn’t even get into the Frankenfood and Frankendrink type things that change nature’s food—everything from spliced genes to radiation.  The processed food industry can keep people alive, and with technically enough nutrients (or at least calories), but it won’t make or keep you healthy. Look at all the studies about what it’s doing to our bodies and brains, with ramifications for everything from our educations to health costs to economic productivity.

Things are complicated here in America, with our food “system,” and we need to be aware of the above.  But one can certainly overdose on vitamins, minerals and other supplements, and the taking of them may be useless or hazardous anyway.  A consumer that wanted to hedge bets might try getting by with taking something once a week, unless otherwise prescribed by a doctor or dietitian/specialist who has taken all the factors above and in the article in consideration.  No one can give ready blanket advice on this one.  We have to be partners in the decisions ourselves.  A too common choice in this time and place!

Working and Poor

Was absent a week and no one complained.  Tsk, tsk. :)

I watched a poor woman, probably 30 at the most, holding her back and walking with her two well mannered sons.  In her eyes, and in her walk, I saw not a “taker and do-nothing,” but the exhaustion of the working poor with little to no hope.

Crumbs For The Masses

$8.23.  That’s what my share of the aggregate net settlement fund for an egregious matter concerning a Wall Street firm/bank was.  After the legal fees, of course.

Trial lawyer firms enrich themselves while their opponents write it off as business expenses.  And what of the aggrieved, the ones supposedly at the center?

Dogs at the tables of the poor fare far better.

Oh well, I’ll buy a good smoothie or something. :)

Wait, isn’t that what they expect?  For us to shrug about the crumbs?

Season of Weddings

This is the time of year when some hapless young person pays 2 months’ or more salary for an engagement ring.  And then the couple (and maybe their parents) go into debt to pay for an expensive wedding and honeymoon.  Meaning the couple start deep in debt. 

Anyone think THAT will stack the odds in favor of success?

Straining at Gnats While Elephants Rampage

We spend enormous amounts of time, efforts, and money guarding against extraordinarily unlikely things or forbidding an individual from assuming any risk (raw milk anyone?), while matters of much greater likelihood—and wider and more severe implications—are neglected.

68 Years Ago, We Had Defeated Nazi Germany and Were About to Defeat Imperialist Japan

From the strong, thriving Republic at the end of the Second Punic War, to the demise of the Roman Republic, was a period of about only 130 years. 

Could we be over halfway through a similar time frame? 

For Greed, or For Ideology…

In a culture of distractions, true control belongs to those who can focus.

Getting Out and About

We are surrounded by the hurting, especially the emotionally and spiritually hurting.  And we do a lousy job of helping them, let alone helping them heal.  But maybe most importantly, we don’t even do the first thing, which is just to get to know them.  Because we are a disconnected society, too much hyperindividualism, too much pretension and denial about all that.

In America, most of it is not nearly as dangerous as you think it is, at least during the day.  Often irrational and unfounded fear is holding you back from experiencing the wonders that your community has.  The people you will meet, the places you will see, the neighborhoods, the history, the stories, are far richer than you probably think.  You probably know a little of this already, the last time you turned up a street and found yourself saying “I didn’t know there was…”

One EVERYTHING

Society expects ONE woman to satisfy all a man’s needs and desires professionally, socially, emotionally, and sexually.  How many lucky happenstances occur to do that?  Few, because it’s statistically a tall order.  And it’s probably similar on the female side, although they are probably better than men at justifying and compensating due to the family and age imperative that usually weighs in at some point.

Is it even possible to envision a society where jealousy is muted and more fulfillment for more people is possible?  Or are jealousy and endless emotional upheavals inevitable in perpetuity because we are stuck in a self-locking box of biology and culture intertwined like a Gordian knot?

Damn The Poor

Instead of anger and discontent toward a self-serving upper class, it has been turned on the poor.   Words and phrases like “Entitlements,”  “Welfare,”  “Nanny State,” and “THEIR cost of living increases,” dot the lexicon and drive both the focus and what passes for debate.  Plutocrats and their servitors rule, and others are ruled, whether they know it consciously or not.

Heroes

Are we an educated people, or an easily directed and emotionally-malleable one?

We readily identify with the emergency-related “heroes,” the police and first responders whenever some “incident” occurs, and that’s fine.  But there are heroes of other sorts.

How many people know who Yuliya Tymoshenko is?  Her bravery in fighting a thoroughly corrupt and often evil system that wants to see her dead goes unnoticed outside of Europe and a few State Department people.

And where are all the Ayn Rand lovers when the relatively unknown in America Mikhail Khodorkovsky is their John Galt?  

The Unexplained

I have yet to have it explained to me why any fully functioning adult in this country who works full-time should receive a wage rate that is below the poverty level.

An Excess of Irony

The irony of those in government, or those in the military, who receive, by the impoverished modern private sector standards, generous retirements: The funding for these government/military retirements come from taxes, yet so many of these people, especially the military ones, are ideologically rigidly anti-tax, and generally support the candidates who want to gut the government’s funding.

Return of the Roman Theme

Many, American Farmland Trust among them, are worried about the declining number of family farms.  I point out here to the reader that this pattern of decline was repeated previously by Roman Italy.  Right before the Italian peninsula started to decline, and Rome with it.

Contending In The Mortal Playground

Power has an addictive or consuming allure to those whose relationships—past and present—are starved, twisted, or dysfunctional.  And the diseased nature(s) of what those relationships (or lack of relationships) have done often determines how maniacal or damaging the pursuit of power is.

Left of Correct

 Although I am usually revolted far more by the misinformation and disinformation of the “Right,” who have been and are far more powerful where it counts, there is plenty on the “Left” as well.  Some examples:

1) Revisionist thinking about North Vietnam being this splendor house of noble characters.  While they may have looked okay compared to their insanely murderous or corrupt neighbors (China, Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, South Vietnam), both their motives and their processes were FAR from pure.  And I don’t mean just because they tortured American prisoners of war.

2) Dropping atomic weapons on Japan.  While it is a false and covering myth that they were used to make an invasion unnecessary and “save a million American lives” (would have been closer to 25,000, and unlikely to be needed since Japan was on the ropes primarily because of the blockade), the Left’s condemning of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in absolutist terms is shallowly considered.  Dropping the weapons did several things, some intended and some unintended (but with benefits): a) Get Japan, who was reeling from the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviets and the quick defeat of their best Army, the Kwantung Army, by the Soviets, to surrender to us first and primarily, not the Soviets.  No mean feat, given we had been their primary enemy and had just committed what outside observers would probably consider acts of terror (the firebombings). Having Japan surrender to the U.S. was important for post-war situations and the setup of the Cold War. b) Show that America both possessed weapons of enormous power and was willing to use them—and not just once. This had considerable deterrence effect, and not just immediately. c) Gave a hard shove to developing anti-militarism in Japan, and helped seed future pacifistic sentiments there, all from the horror and shock. d) Gave the world a truly terrible look at destruction on such a scale and such a soul-sucking horror, that it never wanted to go down that road.  There would be no need to demonstrate (as was felt necessary in WW1) their general use before combatant nations—even greatly malevolent ones—forswore their desire to use them again.  In that way, the bombings perhaps saved far more lives and suffering than they cost, and so were “worth” it.

3) Absolutist condemnings of collateral casualties in the fight against terrorists.  While there is reason to question some tactics, methods, and targeting—especially ones whose effects end up doing more harm than benefit—and there are insufficient answers to questions of constitutionality, some collateral casualties are unavoidable.  And one prime reason: terrorists purposely put women and children—often even their own—in harm’s way, thinking we will hesitate long enough to lose opportunity.  Precisely because we want to make this a useless tactic for them, we strike anyway.  In this way, we show the futility of such “human shield” tactics, and perhaps save more innocent lives in the future by making such tactics irrelevant and ineffective.

Reflections of Our Values

How far out of balance are we in what and who we as a society value, what we emphasize, what we reward, what we give our time, talent, and treasure to?  Take a look at today’s Parade Magazine sampling of “What People Earn.”  Who are rewarded? Largely, 1) entertainers, 2) those who manipulate money, and 3) those who serve the interests and desires of the wealthy.  Those who do (often to the point of near-exhaustion) the important work, the foundational work, the integrative work to make a functioning economy possible, are frequently under-rewarded or even only able to obtain poverty or below poverty level compensation for their work.

The Long Lens

War is failure.  Failure of statesmanship, failure of leadership, failure of a people or peoples and their humanity.  It MAY be a failure of only one “side,” but it is more often a failure of all sides.

The Emphasis Balance

It’s the triple team, the full-court press.  This week, all three blogs (mine, Madame’s, and ours) get the same theme, a theme as old as, well, time: You reap what you sow.

We don’t finish what we start.  We let ourselves be led astray by diversions.  Other societies don’t.  And they are walloping the bejeezus out of us.

We reap what we emphasize.  If we value a 20 foot jump shot or a touchdown pass more than we value the ability to use math and engineering to construct and maintain our infrastructure, we lose.  The fact that the average person knows WAY more about sports or various forms of entertainment in general than that person knows about science, math, or engineering, says volumes about how out of balance we are.

Time to get back in balance.  That’s all.

Starting today, not tomorrow.

The Hidden

There is an unseen cost to Americans getting what they want, at prices they want. 

As one American professor paraphrased to me a Chinese manager of Apple production in China: “We have a safety net so when our 6 year old Chinese employees leap from their job buildings, we don’t incur the expense or publicity of their deaths.”

Mother Example

My mother died Friday.

I was flying back from a work trip and arrived at her side 45 minutes after she died.

Yes, I know, there’s no sense in anguishing over that.  Things of this mortal life, and mortal life itself, should not be excessively focused on.  And lots of people’s mothers die every day, one could tell oneself.  But those reminders do little good, for all pain is personal, not comparative.

   

Because she was MY mother, and I will miss her terribly every day, and wonder if I could have been a better son.

 

She was a brave woman as she struggled to preserve dignity during her increasingly debilitating, frightening, and suffocating disease.  I watched her take the news of her death sentence last year with a stoicism that would have made a Buddhist monk proud.

She chose to remain at home throughout the ordeal.  Yes, it required hospice, some out-of-pocket caregiving services, and us, her family, for the last several weeks to make that work.  And yes, my mother still fretted, worried, and stressed about things at times.  But resource-wise, she used little.  Apart from oxygen, some morphine, and some sleeping pills, she did not cost “the system” very much.

I never asked her to do that.  As far as I know, she didn’t even know the viewpoint I’ve expressed here and on the Professor and Housewife page about how the elderly in America get a grossly disproportionate share of the resources compared to the resource-deprived young.

Knowing her, she might not have even bothered with cataract and glaucoma surgery a while back if she’d known her timeline more exactly.

She was much like her husband during his similarly degenerative disease progression, and maybe she saw how things should go because of that, because she herself was front and center in that caregiving until the very end.  There could be irony, even bitter irony, in that, but there could also be the example of dignity in the end and to the end.

My mother was in many respects a simple woman, and always much kinder to me than I ever deserved.  But then again, she was kind to most everyone.  Two hours before she died, she thanked, through gasping breaths, the hospice nurse who had come to take her vitals.

Yes, she and my dad had faults.  But the examples of their lives, and the goodness of their characters, meant far more to me than their faults.

 

I hope I can live my own life to be worthy of you, Joe and Darlene.

That Federal Government Jobs Are So Attractive Is A Bad Sign

A government job should not be top line “good,” but instead adequate and steady.  It’s a sign of a labor-commoditized and anemic economy when the private sector isn’t the attractive engine for “good” jobs.

 Once again, for we seem to need reminding, the productive private sector furnishes the taxes that fund government jobs.  If the private sector is weak, which it structurally is now, that begins to emplace an unsustainable pattern.

Another of the many warning signs all over.

All Over Again, Having Thrown Scorn and Derision on History

“Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags.”

Think that quote comes from some Occupy protester?  Nope.  Mary Elizabeth Lease, a populist.  In 1890.

Amazing how little sustained progress we seem to be capable of, eh? 

Biology, Not Deviancy

Culturally, we have mislabeled biology and criminalized it.  And labeled “criminals” those who are responding to biology the way nature designed. 

I refer to the LACK of distinction we make in sexual “offenses.”

By our laws, a 22 year old who has non-coerced sexual relations with someone below the supposed age of “consent” (let’s say 16 for discussion) is guilty of a “sex crime” and is labeled a “sex offender.”  To serve time, and yet never be able to pay a debt to society and be done as others can, but rather be put on a list for life, to be shunned and marginalized, to be hated and feared forever because of that label.

Given the same label as an adult who has sexual relations with an 8 year old.  No distinction.

The one is natural biology.  The other is unnatural—a criminal sickness, a heinous crime.

We send mixed signals in our society of sexual attractiveness at a pubescent age on the one hand, while on the other extending childhood and lack of responsibility far beyond the years that cultures of the past did.  It is bad enough in our disconnected and constantly afraid society to have unjust condemnation by anonymous accusers and a spectacle-obsessed media.  To use words like “rape” with careless ubiquitous-ness not only contributes to more irrational fear and distortion in this disconnected society, but also demeans those who have truly experienced rape.

The 22 year old in our example is not guilty of deviancy, but has merely manifested biology.  Deviancy is sickness, perverted sickness.  Pre-pubescent sexual relations is a form of deviancy/sickness, and SHOULD be a criminal one, but post-pubescent sexual relations should not be classified with it.  The one is a crime.  The other MAY OR MAY NOT be a SOCIAL INFRACTION, depending on the social culture of the time.  It should not be a crime.

In sensible societies, puberty has been the defining measure between biology and criminal sexual predation.   At puberty, the presumption was that if no physical coercion was involved, no crime occurred.  Of course, the sexual relations may or may not have been considered socially or psychologically or emotionally appropriate, and the family may have had another opinion even if it was.  But it was not considered “deviancy.”  See Cokie Roberts’ book Founding Mothers, about 14 year old “mothers” of this country, if you want something a little more recent about 14 year olds than the Joseph and Mary story.

We have a choice: We can go on in our unselective and mindless rage.  We can create criminals out of those who are biologically normal.  We can ruin lives.  We can be emotional and irrational.

Or we can have distinction. Although it’s biological, if we still feel it’s somehow “wrong” concerning pubescent relations, then just set some guidelines.  Something like: “Although it may not be a law, here’s society’s guideline.  If you choose not to follow it, it is on your conscience, which is, after all, the true arbiter and punisher, both in this life and perhaps the next.  Know that if you go against this guideline, these are the things that often or usually happen, and most are bad: [and then go on to list those things]. 

That’s far better than what we’re doing presently, with scarce legal and governmental resources being chewed up, and jails full of non-criminal people made criminals like casual smokers of marijuana have been made criminals. 

And for those of you who think I’m pontificating from lofty and woolly ivory towers, utterly disconnected from it all, hardly.  I have a 13 year old daughter, and woe to anyone who ever tries to coerce her into anything.  I hope she stays smart enough and learning enough from teachings, and the examples she has been shown, to navigate her way successfully through this chaotic society long into the future before sex ever comes into the picture.  But if non-coerced ever does, criminality should have no part.

A Drugged Conversation

Apologies for missing a week!

With much talk about some states legalizing marijuana, and the Obama administration’s declaration that they will not press federal enforcement against possession of small amounts in those states, the topic of general legalization of many of the presently illegal substances comes up.  Talk about how it would free up our prison systems and courts from dealing with non-violent “offenders” who aren’t really criminals.  How it would take away money and reason for existence for many violent criminals and criminal organizations. How it could return both money and tax revenue to society.  And so forth.  All good possible benefits.  Yet let us not wear blinders.

Legalizing drugs will not solve things without our addressing the root causes which are driving demand.  And those root causes are directly related to the disconnected, non-communal society we have made, and the assumptions and paradigms of our culture that stresses, frustrates, alienates, isolates, depresses, and leaves no place for far too many.