RANDYLUDACER

Are you Jewish ?

2011-04-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have often been perplexed, vexed and confused by the question “Are you Jewish?” In my time I have considered myself Jewish, Rosicrucian, Unitarian, agnostic, atheist and Buddhists yet when asked the question “Are you Jewish?” my answer has always been YES. I have always understood when this question is posed it is not an inquiry into my belief structure the name of the religious institution I attend nor my philosophic persuasion. It inquires as to my “blood,” who my parents or grandparents were, not whether I particularly believe in a doctrine or a form of a religious worship. It is rather in the nature of “show me your papers” rather than tell me what is in your heart.

Frequently I reflect on a chance encounter at a bar in London when a handsome young man asked in a crisp, pointed way “Are you Jewish ” I anticipated some kind of challenge, a crack, some kind of a verbal provocation when, to my surprise he responded “So am I “ to my affirmation.” Shalom Aleichem,” I said to which he replied “Aleichem Shalom” and we exchanged grins. Questions !

I recall in the tender years of my youth in the Bronx the question was usually “What is your nationality?’ again not an inquiry into my citizenship nor the flag to which I might owe allegiance but rather “are you Jewish ?” At best we now understand one must ask the right question. Yes ?

Travesty

2011-03-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

Recently Bush and Rumsfeld were busily hawking their selective recollections as to how and why it was just, virtuous and necessary for American troops to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. While their books are still on the best sellers list, our forces find themselves trapped in Afghanistan, with objectives unclear and no end in sight.

Bush and Rumsfeld induced a Congress and a people into participating in two unnecessary wars, which were ill conceived, badly planned , poorly managed and ultimately bungled, as being necessary for the security of the United States. The allure of history overcame any modicum of good sense. To have started two wars on the thinnest of reasons, cherry picking among data and calling it intelligence, advancing stories of whole cloth in order to deceive an entire nation should not go into the history books without a thorough vetting and a delivery of shame rightly bought by these self promoting heroes.

Rather than making literary “victory laps” and preening , peacock like, in halls of Congress, these men should apologize firstly to the dead youngsters whose lives were lost in pursuit of these follies, next to the thousands of young men maimed and crippled by these wars, and lastly to the survivors whose lives will never be repaired.

Bush, once pantomimed before a “roast” making sport of his inability to find WMD’s in Iraq. He should try that routine in the wards of Walter Reed.

But the last, and worst great crime these men continue to participate in is to tell the men who served that they were doing something important for their country, to take pride in their service. It is , in effect, their BIG LIE, the one behind which they hide. That this lie serves as solace is probably undeniable. Yet it is the grossest of crimes, this deception of the young men who were victims of their egos and recklessness. Ultimately , a history will emerge which will tear down this deceptive facade, this “Potamkin Village” of falsehoods.

Perhaps, before the book is closed , an apology to those who served would be appropriate if not sufficient.

I’m 80 and 1/2

2011-03-18T18:49:00.001-07:00

According to my grandson Ray’s early birthday computations, I’m now 80 and 1/2 and will remain so until the day before my next birthday. While I have no plans to leave, to go anywhere it is still never too early to start a bucket list.

So far my early favorites :

1) Drown Norqist in the bath tub he planned to drown the Federal Government in.

2) Unionize Wal Mart.

3) Institute remedial education courses for tea party members. History, government and economics for starters.

The rest is still in the planning stage but I will consider any and all suggestions.

The TV Insurance Wars

2011-03-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

Watching a bit too much TV of late, I thought it appropriate to comment on the insurance wars, currently being played out in dueling commercials.

The gecko, having spread himself a bit thin is resorting to threesome tangos, woodchucks and the like as a holding action; State Farm now has magic, say the magic words and an agent appears; Flo, doing her utmost for Progressive is still holding guiding tours and selling policies by the box; Nationwide is fronted by a pollyanna with a telephone in a shoulder holster ; while Allstate features a psychotic called “chaos” who wears a pink sweat band and causes wrecks. And let’s not forget the guy with the sledgehammer administering door dings in pursuit of business, an equal opportunity vandal. All in all one hell of a way to sell product.

So far no one has seriously focused on coverage and premiums but, hell, it’s still early.

Conservation

2011-03-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

Like an ass-kicking contest among one-legged men, our politicians are busy proclaiming concern about the debt future generations will inherit, without demonstrating any concern for shrinking supply of natural irreplaceable resources.

Despite warnings as far back as Teddy Roosevelt’s concern for conservation, Buckmeister

Fuller’s “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”, we continue to pursue amazingly wasteful methods in pursuing our necessary and unnecessary objectives.

Who will apologize to that generation with the line “Sorry we used it up ?” Easter Islanders used all their trees to make rollers for moving stone heads until their culture collapsed. We are fast following in their footsteps.

Never accepting a concept of thrift, enough, we built larger than we need, SUV’s when a small sedan would suffice, distribution grids which waste most of our power; rebuilding for efficiency deemed “too costly” not profitable. And there you have it. Always the magic - Oil short ? Drill in Alaska - as if this would supply more than a drop in the bucket, if that, 10 years down the road.

Well good luck - and I am really sorry we used it all up.

Sweet Dreams

2011-03-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

Recent charges that a bus driver involved in a fatal accident might have fallen asleep at the wheel provoked a recollection of a near miss of my own many years ago.

After graduating from law school, I was in the process of relocating my family and household in Sarasota after nearly five years in Gainesville. I recall borrowing or renting a pickup truck to complete the collection of some items of our stuff from Gainesville, a shuttle trip over the 200 mile run back to Gainesville. I recall the difficulty in loading our monstrously heavy washing machine, unable to lift it the two foot or more to the back of the pickup until inspired by a recollection of a lecture about Archimedes, I lubricated a plank with soap and creating a slippery, inclined plane, the monster slid handily up into the truck bed. (A pre-MacGyver insight. At least it seemed so at the time.)

With little or no rest loaded our washing machine together with other furniture and unwisely decided I could complete the return trip without stopping for sleep, anxious to settle in and consolidate in our new, if dreadfully humble digs on Siesta Key.

Bored and tired I drove south on U.S. 41 or 441, I forgot which, on a bright sun shiny day, when in a moment of inattention I found myself overtaking a log-hauling truck, too fast and with barely enough time to avoid a probably fatal rear end collision with the protruding log. Slamming on the brakes with all I had I was thrown against the wheel only to snap wide awake on a totally empty roadway, in front of me. My subconscious had manufactured a dream scenario sufficient to scare me awake and remind me I had drifted off and driving on a busy highway was no place for a nap. Whether I took my own advice and sought a motel for a place to sleep or loaded on coffee at the next diner I can’t recall but the memory of that most appropriate dream has remained clear and vivid over the years.

Deficits and Deceit

2011-03-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Just as it was once said that all roads lead to Rome, it is now the conventional wisdom that all of our economic woes are attributable to the middle class, the working people of America. At state and local governmental levels, a wedge issue to divide the electorate has been advanced; the cost of salary, pensions, and other benefits owed to public employees and their unions, is the cause of deficits. Never mind the fact that these benefits were not future funded by the folks in charge; now it is the responsibility of the public employees, and government must repudiate these debts.

Social security is not part of the federal budget since it is funded by a separate payroll tax.

But conservatives in congress now point to social security as an unsustainable obligation, ignoring the fact that for years the social security trust fund was “borrowed” to fund other projects and that the debt created to pay back these funds backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States is to be ignored.

Increasing taxes on the most wealthy is apparently anathema. Still advancing the trickle down argument to protect the wealthy, the supposed job creators. But they have done nothing to create jobs of late but invest overseas. Ignoring the fact that the author of supply side economics has repudiated his own theory.

Clearly, all the solutions for our economic troubles are to be solved by imposing upon the working classes; entitlement programs to be gutted, tax breaks for the most wealthy are sacrosanct.Union busting is the answer.

Somehow, the penultimate line in William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech seems apt,

“...you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.”

Public Employees

2011-02-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

One of the difficult choices, public VS private sector employment, was a choice facing many in the post World War II era and thereafter. With memories of the depression the choice of a guaranteed, though small salary motivated many to choose teaching, law enforcement and government jobs instead of the uncertainty of chasing the pot of gold in the private sector. A promised pension and health insurance (less costly to government than pay raises ) seemed to sweeten the pot. Thus over the years public sector employees were content to be less affluent than their counterparts in the private sector, secure in the knowledge that at least their future and retirement was not subject to the uncertainties of the stock market and the fluctuations in value of the 401K plans.

Now, however, with the contractions of the wage markets and high unemployment in formerly lucrative endeavors, the public sector has become the scapegoat of our financial woes. Conservative pundits call for the abolition of collective bargaining rights and civil service, advance irrelevant, apples to oranges comparisons to private sector practices and call for requiring contributions to health and retirement plans, ignoring the fact that these “benefits” were bought and paid for with lower salaries and lifestyles over the years. The financial crisis brought about by years of excess borrowing and regressive taxes will now be cured by scapegoating the teacher, police and other government employees by depriving them of their “just due” to balance the budget.

While carping about the cost of public service pensions and benefits our Governor supports a virtual elemination of taxes in the business sector, rewarding the rich while imposing the entire burden of the current short fall on public sector employees.

Education

2011-01-30T07:18:00.001-08:00

After decades of blaming teachers for our lackluster, unmotivated, undisciplined, under achieving students, giving their disinterested, uninvolved parents a pass, our new barely un-indicted coconspirator of a Governor, now proposed to abolish tenure and push the voucher system, a doubled barreled assault on public education. Borrowing his thinking from Bush leftovers, Scott’s proposal would , in effect, put all teachers on probation for their entire careers, effectively destroying education’s civil service and disburse more tax dollars to his beloved entrepreneurs in the private sector; largely unreliable and barely regulated charter schools. No proposals could be more destructive for public education. Professionalism would be destroyed.

What seems the “elephant in the room” during these dialogues is the fact that student attitudes and student arrogance are formed at home and lacking parental interventions, poor performance should be laid at the door of the home, rather than at the teachers.

The adage “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” could not be more applicable as an appropriate metaphor. Students should come ready to learn.

The underlying motivation, cosmetic political smoke and mirrors aside is an across the board effort by Scott to destroy all civil service protection while “privatizing”; ie spending tax dollars for his political cronies.

Speech

2011-01-27T06:12:00.001-08:00

The question is what constitutes colorful rhetoric and when does it become incendiary exhortation ? The rule was that one could not shout fire in a crowded theater. Now a “tweet” can become a shout and the instantaneous ability to disseminate that “tweet” to the world created a crowded theater. Just a bit of “red meat” to energize the base, perhaps intended as mere hyperbole, is rebroadcasted enlarged and takes on a life of its own as mandate.

Describing a political opponent as “the enemy” and utilizing such terms as “cross hairs”, “bulls eyes”, “reload” and “target” are clear allusions to gun violence, not mere colorful rhetoric and it is clearly foreseeable that some will perceive these communications as literal directives, to be pursued in furtherance of a political objective Urging “resort to 2nd amendment remendies” is a clear call to violence.

The speed with which the righteous right issued disclaimers after the killing of an abortion doctor is the perfect blueprint for what will now occur. “Our comments were merely expressions of opinion, free speech guaranteed under the 1st amendment.” Helpfully furnished a megaphone by Fox news. “We did not exhort anyone to commit murder, we merely suggested it would be an appropriate step. No nexus there !” No not much !

That some demented soul will pick up and take the next step, give action to the word is not merely possible, it is almost a certainty. Our history is replete with such cases.

Disagreement, within the bounds of civility is always appropriate in a democracy - encouragement to violence is not. Political icons should not emulate Machiavelli or Sun Tzu and then contend they are merely following the directives of our “founding fathers.” My Federalist Papers did not counsel nor condone random killing and assassination as appropriate means to express disagreement.

The Senate

2010-12-09T11:38:00.001-08:00

Time we took a hard, impassioned look at the U.S. Senate without the usual lament that the system is broken. The seeds of its dysfunction were planted a long time ago, 1789 to be exact.

When 13 sovereign colonies decided that the Articles of Confederation was little more than a mutual defense treaty, too much emphasis was lavished on trying to preserve the continuing myth that the several states could really be treated as sovereign . None of the later states had even a colorable claim to sovereignty at the time of their admission. They were merely a portion of territory cut out of lands, acquired from France by purchase and Mexico by conquest. We created a Senate for the “states” treating them of equal importance (lest the feelings of the smaller ones would be offended and opt out of ratification.) The House was to represent the people. Originally we provided for the election of Senators by the Legislatures of the several states, until a century of abuse and corruption led to the adoption of the 17th amendment and the direct election of Senators. Now we live with the tyranny of the minority.

Senators enamored of their own, rule making power, bestowed upon themselves all manner of extraordinary powers, far beyond those originally contemplated now serve as tools to frustrate the will of the people and the President. Filibuster, super majority votes on ordinary legislation, the power of one Senator to hold up consideration or voting on a bill, secretly and without giving, any reason, all of those self-created devices to inhibit and frustrate the powers of the House and the Executive in the performance of their constitutional duties. Yet they complain, that the system is broken.

Reconsider why we have a Senate at all ? Perhaps it should be stripped of any but symbolic functions, similar to the British House of Lords. Under our current system, seven states, with a population so small that they are only entitled to one seat in the House of Representatives, still have 14 U.S. Senators, equal in power and authority to Senators from states whose populations number in the millions.

It was foreseen that whatever compromises were necessary to bring the Constitution into effect, it was a flawed solution and would need readjustment and change. The fact that we have already amended 27 times is ample proof of the imperfections of the system and the fact that it is time to rethink the Senate, reshape its function and restrict its abusive powers.

On Writing

2010-12-02T14:01:00.001-08:00

Up late, unable to sleep, to capture the parade of recollections we call dreams. It appears that writing has become an optional activity when sleep is illusive or television programming is poor or abysmal.

Reexamination of what were once seemingly good ideas for writing themes now seem more like exercises in futility. Either preaching to the choir as I perceive my family and friends to be or casting pearls before swine as I perceived the total effect of my letters to the editors, however pithy and correct I deem them to b e.

Still ego suggests that so many good one liners held in reserve ought not be wasted. In a era of bumper strip philosophy and simplistic oversimplification as the rule in political discourse it would be pointless to add yet one more voice to the cacophony.

If I write only for me (a self-deception) I might as well turn it into a mantra and save the ink and paper. Still, I think I have some insights and clarity on a few issues, but no one is listening then it can’t really matter. Maybe I can write my upscale version of a political dead sea scrolls, get some plastic tubing and bury them in the backyard for some yet to be born archeologist to discover in some remote future. EGO - unseemly for one with Buddhist inclinations - wanting to let go.

Still and yet, I feel I may still have something of significance for my sons or grandsons, some little shard of insight which might serve as a prism for their own perspectives.

For the now, with my ego and ambitions appropriately atrophied, I am reduced to dividing my concerns between organizing my next several doctors’s appointments and delivering a daily can of cat food (alimony payments) to my alienated cat, Flower, now in residence down the block.

The Continuing Saga of Flower

2010-11-21T15:14:00.001-08:00

Unable to find inspiration to write about anything of significance, and since I am obsessively concerned with Flower’s welfare I thought I would catalog my continuing adventures in that regard.

For the last several days I have walked early in the A.M. and called her name as I approached the new venue of her choice. She usually appears from the jungle of the growth which surrounds the place, a so-called “Florida lawn”, of leafy plants and wild grasses, which I, and apparently Flower much approve of. I bring her food which she eats gratefully, rolls a bit, and then with an air of quiet dismissal concentrates on washing, my signal to depart, no longer with any expectation that she will follow.

I have made the acquaintance of the lady of the house who has informed me that Flower has been resident in her yard for the last two years but understands that she lives elsewhere, in a house up the street, this information based on her recent conversation with Becky.

We knew that for some time this was the point where we encountered Flower on our daily walks when she would accompany us home but I was unaware of how Flower had really made herself at home here. The householder, Mel by name, told me she pets Flower for a few minutes each day but doesn’t feed her; however, today I informed her that Flower has no longer returned to our house and I have undertaken to bring her food on my walks, less the poor animal starve. Mel has joined in my concern and furnished me with a bowl, to replace the coffee filters I was using as plates as well as finding a better location for me to place the food so it would not dry out in the sun. Flower ate with gusto while we talked, pausing occasionally to determine whether she should join in the conversation. I remember that for some time, an earlier time, she had made an abandoned boat trailer in a vacant lot her alternative venue but this time it seems more serious (and apparently permanent).

Still my affection for the weird cat, has not abated so I fear I will be delivering a can of meow mix on a virtual daily basis for the foreseeable future. Saturday morning as I left at 7 A.M. Becky seemed surprised that I made to walk around the block rather than making straight away for Flower to deliver her food. I fear I am now regarded as the “food guy,” a “meal on wheels” for my favorite feline. I prefer to think of it as a sort of a delivery of alimony in kind, Flower not yet having mastered the intricacies of our electronic banking (though not beyond her ability to comprehend.) Still she was sitting in her usual spot and recognized me before I made any sign or signal. Payment due for years of enthusiastic attention, now to be delivered rather than awarded after a walk up the block. Having experienced this attitude in other, former relationships, I understood it implicitly.

If we understand that our dogs and cats employ their intelligence in influencing the people in their world to do things for them that they cannot really do for themselves and have, through many trial and error encounters, learned to manipulate our behavior on their behalf, we are light years ahead of those who think they employ their intelligence just to please us.

My Teachers

2010-11-17T16:06:00.000-08:00

From time to time I have realized that I have an unacknowledged debt to those wonderful people who stood (or sat) at the front of the room and endeavored to communicate with me and infuse me with some knowledge or understanding of the world.

Firstly, there was Miss Dotell, first grade (P.S. 6) who I accused of hitting me in order to get some attention when my brother was born. To her great credit she never retaliated against an insecure, stuttering child after the confrontation by mother, and my confession that I made the whole thing up.

My second grade teacher, Miss Eagan, (P.S. 36) I remember dimly, she of the soft lisp and the frozen face who also was my mother’s teacher in some distant past. The rest of P.S. 36 is vague, but something must have stuck since I can now do long division.

Next came a seismic move from East to West Bronx, (P.S. 26)where the formidable principal, Miss Healy, who informed me they did not tolerate wise guys. My lasting impression of that lady was she was vastly more suitable to serve across the street as Mother Superior in the Holy Spirit School. Mr. Pascal, my first fifth grade teacher, urban, spent most of the time drying 8 X 10 glossy prints on the radiator, only to bail out midterm, becoming a successful something or other on Broadway, but then P.S. 26 was where Mrs. Webber , she of the wonderful soft breast, who came to regard me as her favorite, and ranted at Bronx crudity and bad manners as “Burnside Avenue style,” but gave me my earliest feelings of being special and perhaps, even loved.

Junior high school, McCombs (P.S. 82) just up the street came next, with some wonderful, memorable people stepped into my reality. These was Miss Riley, who shared with me the fact that our fathers were both serving in the Navy, and on that connection came early several mornings to tutor me in Algebra, raising my grade from 30 at the midterm to a soaring 98 by the end of the term. The elegant Mr. Middleton, who resembled a dissipated Walter Pidgeon, in his glen plaid suit, good tweeds, brilliant, if cutting wit, who conjugated the name Ludacer as if it were a French verb with “er” ending. English teachers names , now forgotten who motivated me to read short stories, novels, histories, putting my feet on the path of being a lifetime learner. Shop teachers, giving me some rudimentary skills in electricity, carpentry, and the art of printing although never attaining a skill level worthy of mention, still thanks !

Briefly, commuting to DeWitt Clinton High School, a large foreboding building resembling Attica, where I first developed some creative writing skill, only to be accused of plagerism. The rest of that year largely blurred, becoming a pretend “tough guy” in the service of serf-preservation, commuting to downtown Manhattan at 3 P.M. to a variety of part time jobs. Then moving to Arizona, the return and .........

Baldwin HIgh School where I finally found new friendships which have lasted a lifetime and a nice life in a great little town. Teachers like, Mr. Hillman, who read history one chapter ahead of the class; Mr. Reed, who made math understandable; others supportive rather than critical. I began to develop some social skills and develop a persona but still wore a variety of masks. Naval Reserve time where old salts taught me seamanship.

A wasted semester at Toledo University, with no memory of my teachers, which I have already chronicled. Lastly the University of Florida, a freshman at age 23, obsessed with maximizing my GI benefits , and catching up with my peer group, carrying too many credits, making, mostly A grades, and having no memory of having fun, no social life. An academic monk. My only clear memory of teachers were the ones who treated me unfairly, withholding A grades, reserved for graduates students looking for easy credits, as Dr. Vedder, phony who taught criminology. Still, I managed to do 3 years of work in 2.

Then law school under a special admission policy for veterans. There I worked my ass off, graduated second in my class. Professors like Ernie Jones and Frank Maloney putting a critical edge on my thinking.

Still in sum, I remain grateful to all of those wonderful people who with chalk-stained suits, stood at the front of the room, overcame my resistance, and instilled in me a love of knowledge.

MSNBC

2010-11-03T20:24:00.002-07:00

Trying an end run on the old adage that you can’t make a silk purse out of a ssow’s ear, MSNBC now continues to try to make a pundit out of Joe Scarboro, an unreconstructed redneck, Alabama football fan, whose sole claim to fame is he snuck into Congress behind a Newt Gingrich “surge”, is now presented as Morning Joe, an expert in politics, economics, foreign affairs and sports.

Posing in fashion flixs with his co-host and traveling largely on her good looks, Joe with the aid of a wardrobe consult is packaged in the A.M. as the new voice of middle of the road “enlightenment “; despite his obdurate insistence on his paleolithic views on politics and his constant references to 1994 as proof of his judgments.

Hey - she’s great but....BASTA !

Visions

2010-11-03T20:24:00.001-07:00

It is early in the morning of election day and I cringe in expectation of the perpetual onslaught of the political pundits and pollsters in their final orgasms of opinion once more, their last chance to pummel my brain with their witless forecasts of tea party expectations, statistical satire and the rest, like a sunami of verbal bullshit advancing toward a shore of helpless listeners. The have battered my brain with their ceaseless harangues for months and have inculcated a litany of nonsense into my fore conscience.Instead I will search the corners of long, almost forgotten past for images of amusement or concerns to wait for first light and the routines of retirement, of sorting my weekly wash, coffee, the therapeutic walk and brief visit with Flower, the cat of my heart, all before curling up before the TV for an hour of “Will & Grace”, my latest addiction to well-written comedy.

I am back in the east Bronx, about a block from the intersection of Tremont Ave and Southern Blvd, where the overhang of the subway station casts a great shadow over the busy confusion of cars, trolley cars and pedestrians, all scurrying about on some serious mission. My eye finds, with delight, one of the many moving vans of the,( wait for it,) “The Seven Santini Brothers” and my imagination sees a group of muscular, young men on the stage of the Loews Paradise, posing in their formfitting purple tights before performing 10 minutes of acrobatic exhibitions, hand to hand stands, tumbling and the like until they all link hands and join in a final unified bow as they leave the stage. Knowing that the glory of applause and the footlights will not last forever they wisely repair to the east Bronx and the “Seven Santinis Moving Company” is born. To this day a vision of a big van with that name emblazoned on its side brings a grin to my face. Mayflower, and the others be dammed, its the Santini Brothers for me.

After a moments reflection and a sip of coffee, my memory reveals the dark side, linked to the visit with the Wieners, my long time friends, my former analyst and his Dutch wife now in their 80’s and struggling with the disabilities visited by advancing age. Beth, struggling with her knee operation, a recent repair Stan, his memory and brilliant insight now sliding down the slippery slope of early dementia or alzheimer’s which I cannot guess. He usually asks me if I still carry a pistol, which I make sure to do on my visits, and display for him my latest firearm, while we reminisce about our old days of playful target shooting and related misadventures, such as the time we assisted the deputy sheriff in subduing a prisoner. He grins, but has no memory of the event. Sad. Always he responds to my carrying with an enthusiastic “good,” glad that his aging friend is still armed and my mind turns to the poem by Martin Niemoeller, to the effect, that:

“,,, they came first for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist, then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up “....and I spare you the rest of the litany, now very well known to every thinking person. Beth, who lived through the Nazi occupation of her beloved Amsterdam, Stan who grew up in the Yiddish dominated Crown Heights of Brooklyn and is well familiar with our Jewish history, still my source for the occasional translation of a Yiddish expression I find drifting in my memory. Stan knows the gun in my pocket is my personal answer for “Speaking up” if once again they come for the Jews. I long ago decided my personal response would not to be taken willing, but rather than write a poem I would punctuate my protest with whatever Smith and Wesson or Sig Sauer happened to ride in my hip pocket at that moment. My personal “Masada” would take a few latter day centurions with me.

But those are dark corners, and today is election day, and if I prayed , (and I do not) I would pray that the electors will have enough vision and sense to see through the fog of disinformation and posturing, provocations and prevarication's and vote sensibly, without rancor or anger and give us a wise Congress for the next 2 years. Until the results are in, I will try to avoid the pundits and their daily production of their misguided predictions.

Octogenarians

2010-11-03T20:23:00.001-07:00

When I told my proctologist I just passed my 80th birthday he informed me that the “scoping” which he urged every three years was now “optional,” and after some perplexed reflection I opted not. On further reflection however I wondered what further implications I might find in this relaxed attitude on the part of the medical community. Is causa mortis for my age group now to be easily dismissed as “natural causes” unless a car crash or a bullet hole is inconveniently interjected into the causal chain ? Might I now expect a somewhat cavalier attitude from other practitioners of the curative arts if prognosis or prescriptions become a touch less precise?

Having now reached the age of 80; probably largely due to nature, nurture and good luck, rather than pills and nostrums, but the medics, now take full credit for my longevity, expect continued lavish expressions of gratitude despite their now dismissive, “Oh well, soon or later “ attitudes. What wonders - I wonder ?

Nearsleep

2010-10-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

I awoke at 4:00 A.M. with a mixture of images in my dreams, images easily identifiable from a movie seen on TV yesterday, together with a BBC offering involving unarmed British police as victims. The images of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. the Kennedy's - the dead Beetle, a lessor sacrifice to a gentle philosophy of peaceful persuasion of the beast by becoming victims, all dead by violence. In my dream I was an unarmed beach patrol policeman whose only badge of authority was a large sunflower pin, with the word “talk” printed on it. My job was to defuse violence by willingly allowing myself to be beaten until the aggressor had worked off his anger and was willing to talk. Jane Goodall and her patience with her chimps (also a recent TV viewing) got folded into my mental omelet and I awoke at the point where I was pondering the question of whether I was obligated to let my passive resistance proceed to the point where I permitted my own death to occur as part of the process of educating the aggressor to the understanding that violence is not productive.

The movie seen earlier was my latest NetFlix offering “Temple Grandin,” which unexpectedly hit many of my most sensitive buttons and I found tears flowing easily and surprisedly while watching the picture. The story, about an autistic young woman, with great compassion for animals, who overcame much difficulty,somehow broke loose some ancient feelings of my own, of fears and failings, due to my “refrigerator” mother and early feelings of fear and insufficiency, things whose sequela haunt me still. Recollection of awkwardness and gaucheness in parties and gatherings of people who seemed me more sophisticated than I and how I was provoked into acts of anger and stupidity as a defense.

The movie other main theme of compassion for animals hit my own level of understanding for animals - memories of Ken and Ginger bringing the vet to their home when it became necessary to put down two of their dogs, but did not want to heighten their anxiety and fear by a trip to the vet and the accompanying signals which would create panic in the dogs. My admiration for my kids for this understanding and compassion is still huge and respectful. “Secret Buddhist.”

The movie focused on redesign of the slaughterhouse to eliminate those things which created or heightened fear in the cattle. Applying her understanding of what frightened animals, the heroine goes about designing the processing of cattle, to the point of killing, to minimize their fear so that their end comes unexpectedly without causing panic; her premise “ we owe them that much.” A lovely attitude in a world which grows more brutish and unfeeling every day with promolgating concepts like “collateral damage” for deaths of bystanders or “preventative war” as a description for invading a country with which we are at peace for latent fears or to resolve perceived insults. Such is the devaluation of our values.

Our two “great wars” of the 20th century provoked some reevaluation of our values and proportion; trying ot find a rationale and justification for the mass killings ordered or tolerated in those wars and to synthesize a philosophy which could encompass those disasters and still present a face of humanity. I think so far we have failed.

In the state I now described as “nearsleep” somewhere between dreaming and reflective semiconsciousness, much of the review takes place with amazing speed, as demonstrated by an occasional time check which reflects only the passage of a few minutes.

So, now provoked out of further attempts to sleep and finding it still too dark to begin my walk, I surrender to the urge to record it all in some dim hope that upon rereading I can glean some sense of it all.

Homecoming

2010-10-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

A painful bright morning in Florence Arizona, dad, his jaw set, largely uncommunicative as we sat with a row of suitcases waiting for the Eastbound Arizona Trailways bus to take us to Tucson connecting with other buses which would ultimately take us back to New York, - broke, humiliated and defeated after our bold, doomed to defeat, business venture to be remembered as the Shamrock Cafe. I was in tears, a self-absorbed 15 year old, feeling only my own acute sense of loss at an identity that I had won as Brooklyn, the cowboy from Brooklyn - having passed all of the small town tests and felt accepted, fully fledged and belonging to a place, a group, a community for the first time in my life. I was aware of my father’s anger, his own defeat, and his regard for my tears and turning to Tony, his untrustworthy partner for solace at my ultimate weakness, a breach in the family solidarity he needed. I had only a faint awareness of mom, who said nothing, and my younger brother, Ed, whose presence I barely felt. I was aggravating my father’s shame in defeat, (another one, inflicted after his return from the war and qualified rejection from his NYPD.)

Ultimately the bags were stored in the underneath compartments of the bus and we boarded, the first in a succession of bus rides, 20 minutes in greasy spoon meal stops until we took a break in St. Louis two days later. We had been separated on the bus, taking seats as available and I had attached myself to a young cowboy traveling East to a new job, Oklahoma as I remember, who had taken me under his wing and provided an instant sense of companionship, separating me from the low hanging gloom which pervaded mom and dad’s attitude. He waived off dad’s apologies on my behalf and was all too briefly, an instant friend. I guess the country was full of such young men at the time, some just out of service at war’s end or on their own for the first time, traveling in search of new jobs, brave horizons. Tough, self reliant guys.

Dad decamped his troop in St. Louis, declaring we needed a good nights sleep in a hotel after a few days of bouncing around on Trailways best and checked us into a commercial hotel in the downtown; then shepherding us straight to the hotel dining room. I remember how the color drained from is face as he read the menu, ultimately ordering a shot of whiskey, quickly downed and then we left the dining room. I later realized the prices were for us, beyond reach and we found ourselves a cafeteria a few blocks away, more within our means. It was rush hour and it seemed to me that every policeman in St. Louis was blowing his whistle and waving his arms at the traffic clogging the road, a sharp contrast to Florence with it’s one paved road, in and out of town, at that time.

Next day it was back on the bus for a few uneventful days re-crossing the other half of the United States, finally to surface at 42nd street and 7th avenue, the edge of Times Square about 8 P.M. Dad busy at a battery of pay phones on the side of the building while mom, Ed and I guarded the suitcases. Frantic, crow-eating calls for help to various of the relatives resulted in mom and Ed and I going to Grandpa’s on Simpson Street in the Bronx while Dad went to his brother Irving’s in Flatbush. The arrival, the reception now lost - a blur, sleeping on Al’s old art deco curved sofa - Dad signing me out of school so I could get my working papers a few days later my next clear recollection within a few days I was hired at Blomingdale’s on 59th street as a stock boy - my employment for most of that year until the reconstitued Ludacer’s made their way to Baldwin.

I visited with Phil and Frank, my former friends on the West side but clearly I was now the down and out kid, the dropout who lived in the slums, although that particular term was never uttered in my presence. The residents at Grandpa’s place, 1166 Simpson Street seemed never constant; mom moving to Brooklyn, Betty and Roy living there for a time as well as Uncle Noah. Where we all fit is now a mystery - my evenings frequently with Uncle Noah at one of the movies on Southern Blvd., - taking Roy his lunch on his late night in a hardware store on the Blvd., and suffering the terrible noises he produced while pissing away his GI bill on saxophone lessons. Almost like a set in a Saroyan play. Still we survived. Dad studying refrigeration and air conditioning on his GI bill, to emerge a newly confident, well informed salesman, by mid- 1946. His courage and stoic resilience became a model for me although we never spoke of it. He was just another depression hardened guy taking care of his family and surviving whatever life threw at him.

Waiting

2010-09-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

The political news on the television grows more strident daily, empty-headed candidates posing with bland, slogans so utterly vague as to be meaningless, presented as brilliant insights,illustrative of the kind of representation to be expected from the empty-headed ones. Liberals protest,seeking approval to demonstrate general pique and dissatisfaction with the current officials failure to deliver instants total gratification unable to take the long view. The malady of youth and inexperience.

Learning to wait is an acquired skill is well understood by us older folk. The patience accumulated over a lifetime now serves. With nothing much to really do, one must do a lot of waiting. Waiting with style is a new art form.

There is the small waiting, like for a traffic light to change, now more easily tolerated than formerly but then there is no longer any urgency in where I am going or when I get there. Then there is the slightly more prolonged waiting, as in a doctor’s waiting room (appropriately named ) but here growing impatience can be forestalled by a good book. (Something I am now never without after viewing most M.D.’s magazine offerings (Yachting World, Golfing, Forbes, Fortune, a subtle “in your face”.)

Then there is the ultimate waiting which some of us try to embrace with patience and understanding, - at least resignation and dignity - while some hide in busy work, diversion and denial - as if the party was to last forever and that long sought - instant, total gratification somehow never arrived although we all waited for that in our own way - some quietly, some with growing impatience - but still waiting - but somehow it continues to elude. It is an illusion - the gratification is in quietude which comes from within neither instant nor total - but grows with waiting.

Dreams

2010-09-12T13:04:00.001-07:00

Freud wrote that dreams have three basic functions; to review recent events, to review long term events and issues, and , to keep the dreamer asleep. Recently I have experienced a number of dreams which seem to have yet another purpose - to clean out the remote corners of memory as if a “spring cleaning” was in progress. Ancient, and seemingly insignificant encounters and concerns are dredged up and woven into some bizarre fabric or narrative. People encountered only once, people whose names cannot be recalled nor probably were never committed to memory, now parade across the mirror of my sleeping mind, clamoring for attention and assuming roles of importance, which never existed in my reality.

Rather than resort to Sigmund’s “Dream Work,” I prefer to improve my own understanding as the reason for the appearance of these remote “bit players” in my nightly productions. I suspect I am in the process of reorganizing many recorded understandings, imposing new insights on old confusions and rejecting analyses which served for a time but now seem incorrect, ersatz “band aids” which no longer serve their original purpose.

I think the engine for this reexamining, the prime mover, as it were, is a need to replace compromises with new , honest understanding, sweeping out old deals I made with myself for the sake of expediency, and replacing those data with a new, more honest understanding of old events and old decisions. In many cases my old memories, highly protective once, are no longer accurate nor correct recollections, and with the remove of the need to protect myself from painful realities of the past I can run the data through a new examination.

Just what all this has to do with the old, barely remembered, cast of characters I am unsure but I suspect it will fall into place.

Buchanan

2010-09-09T03:40:00.001-07:00

This weekend C-Span 2, Book TV broadcast was a rare threat of the double barreled bullshit of Pat Buchanan; a fraudulent historian repacking the old Irish-American anti- British bias in his latest effort in demonstrating that Winston Churchill was the pivotal cause of World War II, and a simultaneous display of his so-called historical gun collection, a pile of bogus - glitzed up, gun-of-the-month offerings of the NRA - the ultimate sucker bait for those who never served nor carried a combat weapon and think they are buying “history.”

Firstly, as to the history, Buchanan displays a large wall of writings of other writers, many of them looking spanking new, dust covers undisturbed - the collection presented as his resources for his anti-Churchill offering. One would question whether Pat is old enough to actually read all of these tomes page by page, but they are clearly some of the sources for some delicate “cherry picking” which he quotes to support his bogus analysis of history. I could not have found a more flagrant example of the abuses described in Margaret MacMillan’s “Dangerous Games” subtitled “the uses and abuses of history”

For example, his comments on Hitler’s Mien Kampf; “of course it was full of anti-Semitic stuff, but it was badly organized, needed an editor.” Thus he dismisses the dire warnings of history, searching instead for some obscure reference which would demonstrate Churchill’s awareness of Hitler’s organizational skills as evidence of Winston’s culpability in causing the war.

Similarly, his so-called system seems excessively with triple checking the precision of quotes and punctuation in his “cherry picked” samples of scholarship that the overall significance, or lack thereof, of the tidbits he advances in support of his thesis.

All of this passing as the dedicated scholar, (his insider Nixon connections advanced collaterally to buttress is credentials of sincerity.)

The gun collection is almost a Freudian ratification of is ability of deception and self-deception, each glass boxed, engraved, and overly ornate and overdecorated piece a supposed duplicate of the piece carried by Rommel, Kaiser Wilhelm, and even a LeMat of “JEB Stuart”, the “cherry” of his collection. A more bogus book of the month club styled collection never existed. What a crock - he goes to some length explaining that a Walther P-38 is not a Luger, something self-evident to even a casual observer, then argues that his replica of the famous Ned Buntline, with it’s 12’ barrel was worn as a sidearm rather than a saddle gun. Yet here again, Pat puts himself forward as an expert, pointing to his glitzy, barely shootable replica collection as proof of his expertise - What a Bozo !!

Now appearing on TV as a noted historian and political pundit.

The Amnesiac Party

2010-09-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Some of the arguments advanced by certain members of the Republican party recently suggest that there is an outbreak of amnesia in their ranks.

Tax cuts for the very rich is advanced as a cure for the loss of jobs, a sure fire way to create new business and have a trickle down of wealth, creating new business and job opportunities in the process. Yet not too long ago, supply-side and trickle down economics, as advanced by David Stockman as Reagan’s director of OMB led to greater and greater deficits and was finally rejected by Reagan and later rejected by Stockman himself, has been completely forgotten.

At a recent news conference a Republican enthusiast, repeatedly asked the White House communications director whether the President would give Bush credit for the “surge” in discussing the end of combat activities in Iraq. Anyone seeking such acclaim for the “surge” must have forgotten Bush’s responsibility for causing the unnecessary war, manipulating the country and the press by withholding critical facts and arguing for the invasion of a country which posed no threat to America, all of which is generally now acknowledged, is either politically tone deaf or suffering from an extreme case of historical amnesia.

De ja vu all over again.

Critical Balance

2010-09-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

During 50 years as a lawyer I have served as campaign manager for a Democratic state representative, a speech writer for a Republican U.S. Congressman and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, a legal advisor to an Ambassador and a county attorney for a county commission. As such I have been involved in government on all levels, Federal, State and local and have seen both good government and misguided government in action and learned to tell the difference.

Good government requires a critical balance be maintained between competing factions and points of view. Vigorous disagreement and the airing of difference has been one of the hallmarks of our healthy democracy, with give and take and sensible compromise resulting in beneficial legislation and policies. Obdurate obstructionism, such as we have witnessed in our Congress for the last several years, serves no positive purpose except to paralyze government and lead people to the erroneous conclusion that our system is broken.

In their effort to make Obama and the Congress look bad for the last 2 years, the Republican party have pursued such a course of conduct, intent only on creating issues for campaigning purposes without regard to the needs of the people and the gravity of the crisis they have fomented and prolonged.

Arguing for bipartisanism while consistently refusing to participate in any realistic attempt to achieve compromise, arguing for capitulation as the price of cooperation and then blandly contending that the Democrats have “controlled” Congress for the last 4 years is the worst kind of dissembling.

With the inability to pass any legislation over a threatened filibuster without 60 votes, and faced with a consistent Republican refusal to do other than vote NO unless some crippling amendments are agreed to, and to now argue that the Democrats controlled Congress is the height of insincerity and deceit.

The country and its citizen’s deserve better. Until we restore the critical balance and the party out of power resumes the role of loyal opposition rather than seeking to win at any cost, we can expect little progress toward resolving some of our nation’s problems.

Tail Wagging the Dog

2010-08-23T04:29:00.001-07:00

With the periodic reporting of the Pew Poll to the effect that this month 18% of those polled thought that the President a Muslim, as opposed to 11% of those polled last month who thought the President a Muslim, one is compelled to ask “Why is the Pew (among others) asking folks whether they think the President is a Muslim ? In my minds eye I see the Pew people telephoning their little (how little ?) coterie of the misinformed, and politely asking “Do you think the President is a Muslim this month ? “, then spew out their periodic statistic. Immediately seized up by the AP and given the wildest possible dispersion, to be picked up and endlessly repeated by TV talking heads and published in the leading papers - ready packed and thoroughly digested disinformation whose sole purpose is to undermine the President’s effectiveness and create distrust and confusion. For whose benefit and to what end doesn’t get asked.

The tail is wagging the dog and those who still call themselves journalists should feel used and ashamed. Whatever it is, news it ain’t !

Musings - Music and Montebanks

2010-08-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

After watching a TV broadcast of a rock concert, where the audience waived their arms in the air and ignighted cigarette lighters over head, I briefly lamented on the loss of rhythm and grace in contemporary dancing, and then , briefly, lamented on the loss of rhythm and grace in what now passes for music. Quality has been replaced by a concept which roughly translates to “you just have to be there.” The triumph of opportunism.

Early A.M. television is currently dominated by Joe Scarbrough (2nd cousin to Joe the plumber,) co-hosted by Mika Brzezinki, whose father, Zbigniew, once characterized Joe as “stunningly simplistic,” a charitable description at best. At his usual, obdurate best, Joe (a pundit) commenting on General Petraeus’ observations on the future of Afghanistan, said “President Obama now cannot do anything unless Petraeus agrees.”

And thereby is the burr, under my saddle this week, the glorification of a run of the mill general.

As a matter of public imagery, this “military Montebank - a clauswitz of self promotion has, by virtue of characterizing his request for more help as “the surge,” has elevated his regard as a military genius as ranking somewhere between Napoleon and Robert E. Lee. To add visual reinforcement to the myth, the general sports 16 rows of ribbons, despite the fact that his actual combat command was as a divisional 2 star for a 6 month period. When our peacock of a general appeared before a Senate committee, unctuous Senator Lindsey Graham lamented as to his inability to award Petraeus his “fifth star,” (a recognition of achievement only awarded to those commanders responsible for winning World War II.)

Perhaps his most significant award, and most telling, came from the American Enterprise Institute, which recently awarded the general the Irving Kristol Award, given for “notable intellectual or practical contributions, to improve public policy; ” the triumph of surgology as the acme of military tactics.

GOD save the Republic - next week - Mosqueology.

Political Pollsters

2010-08-14T11:58:00.001-07:00

Of late, the political pollster has morphed into the wizard behind the curtain, whose methods, it’s sampling It’s composition, style of questioning are all beyond being questioned. The results are accepted like the Oracle of Delphi, a political pope speaking ex cathedral. When wrong, it was within the margin of error, with no standards, no transparency, it is impossible to judge whether the questions were fairly cast or shaped to provoke a desired result; based on questionable premises or generally accepted concepts. Yet we are deluged daily with dubious opinion polls as if they truly reflect the mood of the people. To ask how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin presupposes fairies can dance and a pin is an appropriate dance floor.

Too often pollsters influence and shape the outcome of their questionnaires, depending on who hires them and the nature of the inquiry. Recent polls ask for example “is the country going in the right or the wrong direction?” A more meaningless query could not be structured yet the results are reported as if serious data had been unearthed. Until the public becomes more critical of this glorified scam the pollsters will continue to tell us what we think and report the results they shaped.

More Reflections

2010-08-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

I feel some novelty in my 80th year, a numerical milestone. How to fill up my day is another matter. My periodic squawk. One of my neighbors, in his 80’s use to spend his time washing his cadillac and hitting golf balls. My neighbor was a bean counter for GM and has an MBA from University of MIchigan. Once retired he had no beans to count and spent his time washing his cadillac. Somehow this always struck me as strange - but then there is something inherently aimless in being 80. My philosophic leaning has always been away from involvement, except for a period in my 30’s when I felt keenly about thing political, but now less so, wars and divorces have tempered my taste for blood sports. It seems appropriate that my view should be retrospect - re-examining where I have been, what I have done, and the new synthesis in my understanding. I have to work not to invest too much energy or concern in pointing to the repetitive mistakes our society makes; others are enthusiastic in this regard. I have made enough of my own to keep me busy for a while.

A summing up, it seems to me should be my recapitulation - an examination of how I have reasoned, arrived at decisions good and bad - not wisdom for the ages - just me knowing me better and hopefully finding some comfort in that - no cadillac to wash.

I hope as I write to find valid criticism in understanding. Cutting through the projections and distortions that have influenced my perception of reality.

In my 20’s my favorite tune was “Skylark” a musical representation of my loneliness and yearning, looking for an idealistic love - feeling quite poetic about my self and my quest. I also dabbled a bit in eastern attitudes, searching for understanding, at least, even then, vaguely aware that it would never be easy, and wanting to understand with more insight carried a price of pain and disappointment. My desires structured fantasies which became projections.

Zen suggested an exercise involving picking up an object, say a cup. Holding the cup you were instructed to put it down once you mentally formed the word “cup” in your mind. The object of this exercise was to hold the cup for as long as possible without mentally forming the word “cup.” It finally came to me that two things were operating; firstly, that we have a necessity to think about things by categories, that by categorizing objects and transactions we are more enabled to deal with them. The downside of this is that by seeing a thing as part of a category, we fail to see the thing as something unique, different, individual - that the word has become a filter to our ability to perceive the ultimate unique reality. Without categorization of things we could not function.

Other impediments we create for ourselves; preconceptions, bias and the uncritical acceptance of misinformation further distracts how we perceive reality. A projection of our needs create a filter of urgency, addition distortion. Of late I find that the Buddhist concepts of non-attachment have helped me to find a comfort in “letting go” - wanting less; especially wanting things, and this in turn, seems to reduce the amount of filtering I do. Wanting, creates distortions of priority and perception - fewer demands comforting. But then, without a Cadillac to wash one must find some level of involvement in something.

I have never been terribly good at making friends, or at least sustaining relationships. Over the years I constructed many excuses or explanation for this failing - but in the final analysis it is my failing. Sometimes it’s because of a lack of shared interests,unwillingness to risk, the few friendships I considered long lasting have ended by friends predeceasing me. Those few who survive are distant, engaged, perhaps too much time past. Mostly the mistakes were mine, but now I just want to understand my shortfall not assign responsibility.

So I will continue to pursue insights, to understand the world is an independent reality, not a construction of solutions to my needs, an edifice of my projections. And, of course, pick such additional fights as may, from time to time, strike my fancy or my funny bone.

Most recently, in reviewing priorties, the lyrics of an old song have been calling for attention, a Nat Kng Cole from the late 40’s called “Nature Boy.” Considered trite then, its compelling wisdom persuades me in my 80th year ;

“The greatest thing

You’ll ever learn

is just to love

and be loved

in return”

All the rest is just washing cadillacs.

Immigration

2010-07-21T12:12:00.001-07:00

Once again, immigration is a hot topic, largely because of our current unemployment crisis and the competition of illegals in the work force. Even when this was not the cause of anti-immigration attitudes, immigrants have been less than enthusiastically welcomed in America.

This is somewhat paradoxical since all of us (save native Americans) were descended from immigrants, hell even the founding fathers themselves were recent immigrants or children of immigrants. As each new group secured a foothold , found its niche, and felt secure, it rolled out the “your not welcome” mat for the next group of arrivals. Thus the early English colonials, Scotch-Irish, Italians, Jews, Eastern Europeans, and Asians were serially unwelcomed by their predecessors.

Yet all of the immigrants came here looking for a better life, improved living conditions, opportunity, all except, of course, those who first arrived in chains.

Forgotten War

2010-06-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Watching a parade of Korean War vintage movies last week I realize how much chauvinist blather was fed to my generation and how readily we swallowed it, trying to emulate our fathers and older brothers who served in Word War II. Without complaint we served, froze, saw our friends die, without being missed by our countrymen who were busy building careers, raising families and getting rich.

Educational exemptions for the affluent, draft or enlist for the rest of us. 37,000 dead; amputees whose wounds were attributable to frostbite due to poor winter equipment rather than combat wounds; an issue conveniently buried in piles of other statistics. Well insulated boots, called “MIckey Mouse” boots, arrived the second winter, not in time for the leg less victims of the winter of 1950-1951.

On July 27, 1953 an armistice ended the fighting in Korea, an occasion neither observed nor celebrated by American, the end of a war that never happened. For most Americans life went on. we were barely missed. When we returned we were not spate on nor called baby killers. We were just ignored.

Ring

2010-06-26T11:45:00.001-07:00

Watching the history channel yesterday, a special on the city of Venice showed the ruler, the Doge, symbolic wedding to the sea, by throwing a gold ring into the water while reciting “I wed thee.” I was struck by the similarity of my custom of throwing my ex-wives wedding rings into the sea on the eve of my subsequent marriages, symbolic of a finality,

a letting go, closure.

OK, so I’m not Venetian and it’s not such a big deal - but still - there is some basis for comparison, n’est pas ?

Cousin Artie and the Purple Nipples

2010-06-20T10:43:00.001-07:00

My only excuse for writing this piece is to exorcise an irrelevant, but persistent, memory of a singular, and singularly pointless, episode involving my distant cousin, Artie Lisker, while walking along the beach at Orchard Beach, the Bronx, during the summer of 1943. My usual contacts with cousin Artie were chance encounters at the corner of University Avenue and Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. We were of an age although we tended to hang out in different social groups, rarely tangential, except for these chance encounters. He lived within a block of me, on Andrews Avenue, perhaps even attended the same school but we rarely had any society, indeed I never knew what side of the family we shared but we knew one another as cousins.

Artie was a jazz musician, played trumpet, and if I recall correctly may have gone to Julliard and later played in the Navy band, if memory serves. Back in 1943 we rarely met; after that never but I digress.

Of late, my TV frequently offers up a cartoon called “Harold and the purple crayon” and, YUP ! immediately I see that title on the screen I am reminded of cousin Artie on Orchard Beach but Hell -

We were walking along; two groups of young kids, separated by 20 feet or so when suddenly Artie, who was ahead stood stock-still, his head canted 90 degrees left staring, pointedly at a young, topless black girl, changing out of her bathing suit. Artie, a touch nearsighted, perpetually wore glasses, and as we caught up to him, the sun glinting off is lenses, he said “Did you see, her nipples were purple ! ” Not to call too much attention to this gaffe, we tried to move Artie along, down the beach less he achieve some unwanted attention from the muscular young black guys in “ Purple nipples “ group - but Artie was having none of it. Like a mongoose transfixed by a cobra ( or the other way around.) Artie continued to stare - repeating his declaration “her nipples were purple.”

Racial tolerance in 1943 was somewhat limited but Artie’s fascination with the coloration of this young lady’s teats was not. As he seized my arms and urged me to look, we collectively grabbed Artie and dragged him down the beach. To this day, references to the purple crayon bring back a recollection of this pointless episode which I hope will now be forever exorcised.

The Swan Song of J. Alfred Pruf-rot

2010-06-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

In the room where women no longer go

No one speaks of Michelangelo

They echo empty - dusty now

No fog rubs the window panes

Windows now the dust’s domain

Memories long forgot

No longer question where to part

The hair, once there, did now depart

You have grown old

Your feet grow cold

Your trousers hang without a fold

But no one’s looking

None will see

Whether you've rolled them

Past your knee

So go ahead and eat your peach

but be careful walking upon the beach

Randy Ludacer

America is not a Flag

2010-06-07T06:29:00.001-07:00

As we approach June 14, and the air is filled with saccharine platitudes and advice as to which color goes where, it is important to remember that America is not a flag, it is a wonderful idea which was born over 200 years ago to a group of inspired people who were no longer content to be dominate by Kings or tyrants, but instead set about to create a government ruled by its own people and answerable only to them. They stitched together 13 rebellious colonies with diverse and conflicting interests and priorities, emphasizing those issues which unified them and structuring compromises to minimize the importance of those issues which proved divisive. The result of those efforts became our Constitution which, together with some critical amendments, became the heart and brain of America. Over the succeeding two centuries we have fought wars to preserve our America, protecting the idea which gave us birth and the country which grew out of it. While it is appropriate to show reverence for the symbols we have selected for our country, we should not confuse the symbol with what America still is, a wonderful idea about how people can govern themselves, and not a flag.

My Brother was a Soldier

2010-06-02T13:12:00.001-07:00

I have written little about my brother Ed, his quiet courage and qualities as a young man nor how proud I was of him. When the family moved to Arizona then Baldwin, then Miami, Ed was still a youngster, yet he took the moving, the bouncing around and the displacement in stride; for years lacking both a stable home and a support structure.

In his quiet way he survived and flourished, making friends, becoming educated and growing into a likable, self reliant young man. Once settled in Miami, Ed came into his own, becoming popular and political in Coral Gables High School, surrounded by a circle of nice loving friends and developing a quality of self-confidence and charm which served him well. Active in a variety of youth activities, he became the Boy's State governor of Florida and we Ludacers were proud of little brother.

Some financial impediments prevented Ed from immediately pursing college and he enlisted in the Army in 1953, posted to Ft. Jackson S.C.for his basic training. Although he has always been modest regarding his military skills, at 17 years of age, first time on the range, Ed qualified as "expert" on the M-1 Garand rifle, a bear to shoot. No small achievement,usually achieved only by lifers and country boys, especially for a kid with no shooting background but Ed still refuses to brag, saying "I was 17 when that happened." After basic he opted for the Army language school in Monterey. There he ran into some substantial difficulty with the study of Vietnamese, then the largest class in the school. Apparently, U.S. officialdom had quietly decided to pull France's chestnuts out of the fire and was beefing up its linguistic skills for the task. Ed, having inherited the Ludacer tin ear was unable to cope with the Vietnamese sing- song subtleties and had much difficulty with hearing the tonals. Eventually he transferred out and was posted to the Army Security Agency at Ft. Devens Mass, where he finished his service. On discharge, he was shortchanged by the U.S.G. ; denied G.I. Bill educational benefits since the Korean ceasefire ended hostilities in the summer of 1953. Undaunted, Ed "sucked it up" and went to work, putting himself through the University of Miami, working part time jobs while living at home, no small achievement. Later a retrospective GI Bill was no avail for him since they would not compensate him for working his own way at his own expense.He did it by himself, the hard way.

He embarked on his career as an accountant, quietly working his ass off and advancing his interests, changing jobs and moving frequently. Along the way he acquired a wife and two sons who are his prize and the apple of his eye, rejoicing in their accomplishments as a proud father should. His work moved him all over the country, a lifestyle not unlike a career military officer, except in the business mode.

Recent reports indicate he will soon become a grandfather, something he has long

wished for. I wish him all the love and success he can garner. He has earned it. He has paid his dues many times over during the years, hardworking and uncomplaining. So - here's to you Ed - I am still very proud of my "baby" brother.

Becoming Rome

2010-05-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

In addition to the widespread disposition of U.S. military around the world, as evidence of an American Imperium, the defining of American interests in terms of a projection of American force, a policy of what some conservative groups, such as the “New American Century” group define as “full spectrum dominance” is growing evidence that American interests are viewed by some as nothing less than full world dominance, a new Rome.

Contingency plans developed in the Pentagon have become heavily influenced by some political groups seeking dominance, including the implied threat of war, as a device to advance American commercial interests. Not since the opium wars to force open China to western commercial interests have such motives been so openly and unashamedly advanced.

We advocate for the development of democratic institutions in the third world, necessarily including the opening of markets to U.S. entrepreneurs as evidence of democratic institutions. Apparently advancing our own economic advantage is now an integral part of how we define democracy.

There is a great danger that we do not advance what is seen as “corporate colonialism” as a component of American democratic interest. These are neither benign nor particularly American and should not be promoted in the name of advancing American interests.

Dylan Thomas wrote :

2010-05-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

"Do not go gentle into that good night

....Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Wrongly urging wise men, good men, wild men, grave men

and lastly, his father, not to go gently - to foment

disquiet - to rage -

A response:

Disappointment, regret, frustration, all failed

excuses - failure - forgiven -

By what right to demand one more swallow,

one more mouthful of the nectar that

has nurtured you all this time -

Now time stops - all excuses,

delays becomes shadow, dust, forgotten, memory -

Slip quietly back into the river that first gave

you life - close your mouth

Rage not, you have no right -

Time to recombine with the waters that

flow forever slow and quietly through

the time of existence to the sleep of

the quiet.

American Mother

2010-05-24T13:39:00.001-07:00

This week’s news devoted a major segment to the visit of their "Moms" to the three American hikers who wandered across the border into Iran recently. Allegedly an innocent mistake but no explanation has ever been forthcoming as why any reasonably sane young Americans would do their hiking in close proximity to Iran's border nor why a visit from their mothers should be considered newsworthy.

And thereby hangs the tale. In his classic work, "A Generation of vipers," Phillip Wylie, a popular writer of the forties, observed "Mom is an American creation." He went on to observe that only in America has the adoration of motherhood almost been raised to the state of a religious cult, and concludes that "... Megaloid mom worship has got completely out of hand, .... a spot next to the Bible and the Flag, being reckoned part of both in a way." Without further making Wylie's case, beyond recommending a complete reading of his work on the subject, I would like to explore some consequences, the seguela of American mom's status.

In World War II the U.S.S. Juneau, a light cruiser was sunk with the loss of over 600 men. the five Sullivan brothers were among those lost and these five were elevated to heroic status, a destroyer being named the "Sullivan Brothers," in their honor. The remaining some 600 lost were ignored, but then their mothers were not as important as Mom Sullivan who had lost all of her sons; and a new governmental policy was born.

The movie "Saving Private Ryan" demonstrated this new policy in action, where the sacrifice of an entire patrol of American rangers (our elite troops at the time) was deemed necessary in order that Mom Ryan's sole surviving son be rescued from combat in order that she not suffer the fate of Mom Sullivan and be rendered sonless. Concerns for the moms of the other sons lost to effect this rescue is apparently ignored.

Currently, officially governmental policy has formalized this concern for sonless moms by enacting regulations which exempt a sole surviving son/daughter from combat service if they are the sibling of one who died as a result of military service.

A former comrade of mine, who rose to be a squadron commander in the U.S. Air Force was exempted from Vietnam duty because his older brother had been killed in W.W.II and he was the only sibling. As a matter of convenience , rather than provide a new CO for the squadron, which was scheduled for Vietnam duty, they were ordered to stand down, another squadron sent in their place. Here the effect of this policy, based on protecting a mom from a subsequent loss of a child in service was to give an entire fighter squadron a pass. Perhaps the result a bit excessive ?

The fact that other sons will lose their lives seems outside the concern of officialdom, as long as we do not have any moms with a loss of more than one son. So here the fact of parentage trumps risk of survival for others in the service.

Exit Stage Left

2010-05-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

A much neglected aspect of the American presidency, is how some recent presidents left the White House upon the inauguration of their successor. Early research however has disclosed that this is an area largely ignored by both historians and contemporary journalists. I was always impressed by the modesty and civility of Truman’s quiet departure to Union Station. I was equally impressed by the gravity and insight of Eisenhower’s farewell address and his thoughtful and visionary caveat concerning the dangers of the military - industrial complex. Kennedy on a cassion, Johnson quietly by car. After that it has been largely downhill, Nixon, with a presidential pardon in his pocket, waiving boldly from the doors of the helicopter, shortly to be whisked to Andrews AFB for his departure (instead of Leavenworth, where he belonged.) His “farewell address” is best forgotten. Gerald Ford never really elected or inaugurated left in a golf cart, his prime mode of transport thereafter. As to record-setting bombast's, Reagan’s farewell speech is worthy of review,. As a straddle between Corinthians III, and a waive of self-congratulatory blather he almost dislocated a shoulder patting himself on the back, congratulating himself for “reversing the course of history” and giving the shining city on the hill a new patina, a new layer of chrome. Concluding, he disdained a helicopter and mounting a flaming chariot, rose to the center of the sun, his former resilience to await his second coming. His faithful, the revisionists quickly went to work, arguing for canonizing, and rewriting the history of his administration, while Nancy supervised the filling of is so-called presidential library with what she considered the significant artifacts symbolic of his reign. Pieces of the Berlin wall, a recently retired Air Force One, and other bricabrac considered of historic worth, a treasure trove worthy of a pharoh’s tomb. She would later be reduced to tears when advised that the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan CVN 76, a nuclear-powered, 100,000 ton aircraft carrier would actually serve with the U.S. Navy rather than be shipped to the Reagan library for inclusion in the accumulation. Bush I had a quiet departure, still muttering “read my lips” and perplexed as to his failure to secure a second term. His party, however, immediately began a jihad to disgrace his successor, securing the appointment of a special grand inquisitor who relentlessly delved into every aspect of Clintons private affairs, regardless of the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars, finally precipitating a pointless impeachment proceeding before departing to become dean of a fourth rate law school in California. At the end of Bush II, rather than leave quietly and permit Obamba’s inauguration to occupy center stage, the Bushies proceeded to Andrews AFB to hold a “departure ceremony” featuring some emotional blather from Karl Rove. It is reported that those who shook Rove’s hand subsequently developed warts but this has not yet been verified. Later sources indicated that only those who shook Rove’s hand during Bush’s exorcism broke out in warts. Flying back to Texas on a borrowed Air Force One, (now designated “special air mission 28000) the Texan continued to celebrate his retirement in happy oblivion to the disasters he bequeathed to his successor.

Bare Breast

2010-05-19T10:33:00.001-07:00

A recent meeting of the Hillsborough County School board witnessed a protest by a group of women breast feeding their babies to object to a school barring a breast feeding mother from the waiting area of it’s school. In a culture which easily tolerates breast exposure for “titillating” purpose as demonstrated by the large numbers of topless entertainment establishments in the county, it is at least paradoxical that the school seeks a “screening” of the breast while nurturing one’s infant. The school’s official contended that letting the kids “get an eyeful” was distracting as the reason for the requirement, never imagining a crowd of lactating mothers would hold a “feed in” as a protest.

A tempest in a B cup!

The Mother of all Rants

2010-05-17T06:50:00.001-07:00

My strong suit is political incorrectness but then I’m a direct descendant of the kid who said the Emperor didn’t have on any clothes. My career in the foreign service was a nonstarter because I was too observant and much too out spoken. My mistakes were usually my own although on occasion I got my lumps for trusting someone else.

In retrospect I think my perceptions are sharper and my conclusions are nearer the mark than before. Disengaged from self-interest I think I see more clearly.

What I see now is my world in a sea of confusion, without direction and involved i n purposeless pursuits. We have become the pampered darlings of creation, selfish and self-indulgent beyond all belief. In pursuit of everything bigger and better, more and more our vision fixed just beyond the horizon and regardless of the immediate consequences.

To explain : In the 1950’s and 1960’s we were content to purchase small two and three bedroom homes for little or nothing down as a place to begin, to raise a family and make a life . Now mini-mansions are the rule for young married couples who think nothing of undertaking mortgages of $200,000 or more, with floating interest rates and balloon provisions with no expectation of ever being out of debt.

Formerly these purchases were deferred, together with marriages and children, while we educated ourselves and began careers or employment with some expectation of security and advancement. We drove modest automobiles and had a keen interest in our families, our community, our governments and our world.

The term “entrepreneur” has been redefined from risk taker, to chosen of GOD whose welfare is the prime concern of those in government. “Privatizing” a plan to permit private companies to perform governmental functions have created a golden opportunity to raid the public fisc and vastly increase the cost of government by contending services will be performed more efficiently and economically by the private sector. Cost control usually goes out the window, together with career civil service, while new millionaires are created out of such governmental opportunities, all presented under the banner of conservatives.

Elected representative, now representing the contracting community from whom all campaign funds flow, no longer represent their constituency, instead declaring themselves to be leaders and deciders, preferring their own unenlightened, bought and paid for judgment to the considered will of the people. Dedication and conscience have given way to popularity and reelection. Political naivety coupled with uninformed cynicism rules the day, people don’t know how government works, who is responsible for what, and most assuredly never read the Constitution.

Jingoism and fear mongering infect our foreign policy and silence critics. We are wallowing in a technology of the trivial,, computer games, come to market with lines of people waiting outside stores for days to be the first one to acquire the gadget.

That item of convenience, the telephone, has metamorphosed into an “I thing” capable of serving as an instantaneous encyclopedia, internet connection, camera, entertainment center, music provider and oh yes a communications devise. Don’t leave home without one.

School children all have a personal portable telephone clipped to their belt, capable of verbal communications or text messaging. More ways to talk and less to say than ever before. Educational curricula have been modified to train workers and employees rather than to educate. Computer classes abound while history courses, civics, geography and the social traditions of the culture have fallen by the wayside. The well rounded educated person, the liberal arts graduate is an endangered specie.

Preachers, no longer content to serve as pastors to small congregations have create mega churches, with seating capacities that rival a sports arena and of course have TV coverage. Shrines are constructed to glory the ego of the founder rather that the creator. Group prayers are offered for everything from the winning season of a football team to a hopeful return to a booming real estate market, these being of critical concern to the Almighty. My prayers for enlightenment and serenity are considered quaint.

Automobiles, once viewed as basic utilitarian transportation have become overpriced, overblown status symbols, costly behemoths like vehicular mastodons called SUV’s or crossovers, inefficient in the extreme, are necessary for transport to the supermarket or the mall. Some upscale vehicles (those absurdly out priced) are capable of parallel parking themselves, a maneuver formerly required when passing a driving test.

People rejoice when the stockmarket goes up, without regard to its dependency on a good backlog of unemployed workers to keep wage demands low; and cheap imports to inflate the profits of the large retailers. Mergers and acquisitions are seen as good for the market although these consolidations of economic strength generally accrues to the ultimate disadvantage of the consuming public .

The TV weekly news enthusiastically reports which newly released movie made how many millions its first days in release with little or no regard as to the content or quality of the movie.

The television industry proudly sells bigger screens with higher definition and more and more channels from which to chose. A pity that programming hasn’t kept pace with the technology. So-called reality programs abound, low-budget tales as to who will survive like on a desert island until next week and win the large cash prize. Inane contest show, like how much is in the attaché case or who will be disqualified in dancing with the stars or be prevented from becoming this years American Idol. TV movies tilt heavily toward monsters, vampires, creatures of the darkness or interminable car chase with demolition derby results. One can search for hours for something entertaining, with plot and substances, without result.

Expressions such a “like” and “you know” and “I mean” have become as common as commas in the increased inarticulate communications of the day, whether a result of poverty of vocabulary or foggy thought processes is still undecided.

Elderly couples are now addressed as “you guys” by their “servers” (formerly known as waiters and waitresses.) Equally unuseful are their comments with regard to items on the menu, but always in expectation of a large tip their parting greeting will invariable by “have a nice day” the ultimate triteness of our communication.

All of this saddens me, the courtliness and civility seems to have been forced out of our dialogues by the “in your face” attitudes now prevalent. Yet I continue to hope.

But I digress

2010-05-17T06:45:00.001-07:00

Small bits - In Saigon I bought a used 35 mm camera, with a view to recording interesting aspects of my stay. One day, stopped behind a bus in traffic, I was taken by a young man hanging out of the back window of the bus. He seemed effused with the joys of the day, his grin, (admittedly a bit goofy) spread across his face reflecting his enthusiasm for life, for all within his vision. I slowly raised my camera, intending to capture this wonderful image of a totally happy young man when he saw my move. Immediately his expression collapsed, he appeared almost to shrink physically. He quickly turned away and sat down, completely out of my field of vision. Clearly I had spoiled his day, actually robbed him of the elation he was enjoying until my unfeeling act intruded in his private paradise.

Ashamed, I put the camera away and took no more pictures of strangers.

When I got back to the states some years later I found the camera, still with a half exposed roll of film. I took no more pictures. For some it is like stealing a bit of their soul.

Risk and Redundancy

2010-05-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

Design has always worked to incorporate safety as a concept, whether in a device or in a system. Delivery systems involved in bringing raw materials to a factory or to distribute goods to consumption points have usually incorporated concepts to absorb unanticipated disruption and smooth the supply chain so it can function without interruption. Warehousing finished goods or stockpiling raw materials have generally served as the “shock absorbers” in delivery systems enabling continued, smooth performance despite unforeseen interruptions.

Of late, however, a new arrogant concept called “just in time” has made inroads into the thinking of planners. By limiting and timing shipments just as they are needed, the “shock absorbers” the stock piling or warehousing is eliminated; resulting in a cost saving and consequent increase in profitability.

What is lost is the safety factors of the “shock absorbers” to the great risk of a serious stoppage in supply in the event of any unforeseen disaster or acts beyond the control of the planners. Weather crisis, earthquakes, truck and train wrecks, strikes, all possible problems which could quickly overpower the advantages of a “just in time” system are ignored, short cuts to disaster. Accidents waiting to happen.

Consequences are of course potentially empty store shelves and closing of manufacturing facilities and layoffs until the supply chain is remedied.

Was warehousing such a bad idea, really ?

Ousting, Incumbents and Necessary Changes

2010-05-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Instead of lamenting endlessly about the abuses and inefficiencies of Congress and the Presidency it might be time to consider some small changes which could beget big results. Newly elected Senators and Representatives elected to bring about necessary change might start with this list; a “New Contract with America.”

We need to give the President a line item veto to limit wasteful spending by Congress. Since the Supreme Court has ruled that this cannot be achieved by legislation we should begin, at once, to enact a constitutional amendment to create such a power. This will destroy Congress’s power to sandwich bad proposals in necessary legislation and make it veto proof. A way to save billions.

Congress must give up the power to “earmark” appropriations, a device which advances pet projects ahead of the generalized needs of the country. Also, a high visibility is needed in special legislation so that we stop appropriating millions for bridges to nowhere and tea cup museums which bleed dollars needed elsewhere out of the budget.

The practice of congressman, congressional and white house staffers leaving office and going to work as lobbyists at astronomical salaries has to stop. It is merely another way of selling their office and then selling their insider positions to the highest bidder. It is the government equivalent of “insider trading.” Legislation which would prohibit, even criminalize, such employment for say four or five years after leaving government would go a long way to achieve this end. Public service should not be a “boot camp” for training lobbyists.

The practice of letting one Senator or Congressman put a “hold” on legislation, keeping it from going forward to committee action or a floor vote is equally corrupt and should be outlawed. The process of considering and passing laws should not be subject to being frustrated at the whim of one legislator. No such power is granted by the constitution and no reason exists to support such a rule. Congress must stop acting like a private club and remind itself of its higher obligation to the nation.

The committee system whereby the majority party completely locks out the minority from exercising any power to act is damaging and counterproductive. Unable to call hearings, issue subpoenas, introduce legislation or schedule business, the minority, often representing 49% of the people, rather than 51% have been completely frozen out of the act.

Lastly, we must explore a possible constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling that spending huge amounts of money is but a manifestation of free speech. Without workable restrictions on campaign contributions and lobbying the government remains for sale to the highest bidder, a putrefaction of the ideals of democracy and an invitation to an oligarchy of the rich, a danger which has come perilously close to succeeding in recent years.

The sum total of these suggested changes would once again restore confidence in government and produce a system of which we can be proud .

Rambling

2010-05-12T13:09:00.001-07:00

Of late, things in the news, trivia or not, have cornered my attention. The nomination of a proposed new Justice for the Supreme Court has made me reexamine one of the sitting Justices’ who pisses me off, one Antonin Scalia. For a time I thought Lewis Carroll had some prescience knowledge of him, the Jabberwocky. More recently however I have seen a photograph of Scalia when he was a chubby boy scout, posing as a fat little smart aleck in his uniform, replete with merit badges. Now morphed into an older fat smart aleck in a robe. Rethinking Lewis Carroll I realized Scalia was really one of the Tweedle brothers, whether Tweedledee or Tweedledum, which one was hard to decide. His originalist views on the Constitution, believing it to be carved in granite rather than written on parchment would tilt toward Tweededum , but the fact that he believes in the amending process (and only in the amending process ) points toward Tweedledee. A dilemma.

As to understanding others who display utterly destructive attitudes toward sensible government, as Grover Norquist, - I would argue for a silver bullet or a wooden stake in his heart - either one optional.

Finally the tea party - truly a target for vorpal blades. I thought of Quixote, and reconstructing the tea party as his windmills (a reasonably appropriate substitution,) but it seems to lack zest. Tea bags generally produce tepid tea at best but these pests with their obdurate misdirection have become toxic and abrasive. Perhaps I should take a pill - then I hear Chris Matthew's railing against Cheney - the angel of darkness - the prince of Halliburton.

Somewhere in the murky future, a chief executive will issue Cheney a blanket, Nixonesque general pardon and the book will close. Till then I rely on the Sicilian gesture to invoke the evil eye (I still will not do the sign of the cross) when his name is mentioned.

Flower, my most excellent cat hovers, seeking a tryout as my familiar, but I lack bell, book and candle.

Another pill

Circling the drain - a noxious metaphor for winding down, perhaps apt but yet it seems dirty and unloving.

Oil Well

2010-05-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

On April 20, 2010 B.P.’s drilling rig exploded, caught fire and ultimately fell into the Gulf leaving behind a well leaking 5,000 barrels of oil a day. Since that date all efforts to stop the leak have focused on capping, doming, in some way preserving the newly proved well, despite the monumental damage posed by the continuing leak. Most recently, a 100 ton, 4 storied container, designed to cap the leak and permit the oil to be funneled to a tanker on the surface has failed.

One wonders whether the adroit use of a few hundred pounds of high explosive, RDX or something similar might just blow the damned thing shut but questions persist that BP is unwilling to lose this new gusher despite the damage resulting from the leak. No one has commented as to the potential for an explosive closing of the leak and BP isn’t talking.

Reflections - Always Tomorrow

2010-05-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been much of a pollyanna, in fact I’ve had years of treatment for depression reflected in my dossier (if I had a dossier.) Despite all that I have always looked forward to tomorrows. There were tomorrows when the briefs was due and I spent a rough night doing last minute research and drafting, midnight panic, pay back for delay, defer and procrastination. ending with a terse note for my secretary t o have it ready by noon. Nevertheless there was always a little bump of Joy when the sun came up, a new day - unanticipated adventures, unexpected encounters, perhaps new insights. Even before the show “Annie” made a hit song about it I have always loved tomorrows.

there were dark times, occasional times of despair, yet somehow tomorrow was always waiting, just over the horizon, bright with promise of newness and perhaps change.

I still love and look forward to tomorrow but lately I’ve learned to save some of that enthusiasm for today, not to be neglected today because today is yesterday’s tomorrow.

For Sale

2010-05-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

On our morning walks both my wife and I have noticed the widespread “for sale” signs in our neighborhood. When I find two or three clustered on a particular block it makes me sad and reflective.

Some of the sales are attributable to the current economic troubles but more frequently it is the culmination of a household of an aging mom and pop, children gone, moved elsewhere; the passing of the last survivor.

Still, the subdivision is green, clean and pleasant, polite greetings from early morning dog walkers, clusters of school kids waiting for their bus, quiet, still half asleep. A good place.

Brokerage signs abound , some displaying well advertised logos and association, others essentially local.

Next come the yard or garage sales, some conducted by heirs, others by so-called estate sales experts - spreading a lifetime collection of keepsakes, souvenirs, books, furniture, clothing, dishes, pots & pans and assorted bric-a-brac - like an autopsy of the goods - a tell tale collection the accumulation of two lifetimes; all for sale at bargain prices on an early Saturday morning.

Picked over by the curious and vultures, bargain seekers. A final obliteration, a scattering of bones and ashes to complete the removal of all traces of what was once a home. Now “for sale.”

“In my memory I hear the lyrics of a tune once popular in the fifties, “A Cottage For Sale,”

Our little dream castle with every dream gone

Is lonely and silent - - the shades are all drawn,

And my heart is heavy as I gaze upon

a cottage for sale.......

the end of the story is told on the door a cottage for sale.”

REFLECTIONS

2010-05-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

Late movies on the back channels got me thinking of religion and nationalism. Caught a segment of a show called “Liam”about a little Irish kid being prepped for his 1st communion, lectured about the necessity of dieting for a number of hours before the event since it wouldn’t do for the body of Christ to be sloshing around with half-digested sandwich or something like that. Anyway, the kid slips and eats some Lady Fingers or Lorna Doones, or something and family and priest rant and rage at the little tike.

A channel change brought me to a 1940’s picture of a noble Polish family, talking of how their horse cavalry will stop the German tanks once it rains and the roads turn to mud. Of course only Poland still had horse cavalry in 1939, most other armies learning the folly of that after W.W.I and the advent of the machine gun.

Armed with the memories of these two cinematic epics I reflected :

“The body of Christ ? ” The communion wafer - symbolism or transubstantiation cannibalism ? Poor Liam - I wonder who bakes communion wafers ? Probably a Jewish bakery “Schwartz Body of Christ and Bagels Bakery” how’s that for a start ? This led me in turn to the mixture of nationalism and religion, almost inseparable in 19th and 20th century Europe. In the Balkans the Croats and Serbs at each other’s throats for centuries, largely over the difference between the orthodox and Catholic churches. Centuries of bloody minded butchery. Eventually, all part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire.

My grandfathers, one apparently a Czech the other an Austrian, both carried the passport of the Austro-Hugarian Empire when they immigrated here in the late 1800’s. Yet one considered himself Austrian, from Lintz, the other perhaps Czech, or Hungarian or Romanian, the stories varied - obviously he wandered.

Reminded me of the Basques, I represented one and made the mistake of asking if he was a French-Basque or a Spanish Basque, thinking I was displaying an urbane knowledge of his history. His hissing reply, not needing any translation; “No es espania, no es Franc, Basque es Basque.” His take was when he returned from fighting in the resistance his wife was pregnant, not by a man, but by the Priest. Necessarily he left home in disgrace whether in shame or because he killed the Priest. Emigrating to Belize, and so the story went but anyway fiercely Basque.

In Vietnam, my buddy, Lazlo Bugati, an over the hill Hungarian Cavalryman, cum French foreign Legionnaire, fiercely Hungarian, decided I must also be Hungarian,

(Magyar actually ) due to the folds of my eyelids and thereafter loudly declared I was, of course, a Hungarian, and attached himself to me. Forget American, logic and my knowledge of my own history. The eyelids told it all.

Rambling further, my mind went back to Poland, Danzig and the “Polish Corridor”; the fact that on some of the older maps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland barely existed except as a buffer between parts of Russia and Eastern Prussia - then the redrafting of the maps at Versailles, following the end of a war which killed millions, commenced by a trigger-happy Serb who bore a hatred of an Austrian Arch Duke.

By now the sun was coming up so I abandoned my review of the history of middle Europe, the decline of the horse cavalry, the illogic of the Polish corridor, and why the body of Christ does not well tolerate the proximity of Lady Fingers. Coffee time !

Conversations in an Oncologist Waiting Room

2010-05-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

On a recent visit to my oncologist the doctor was uncharacteristically late and I had the misfortune to be subjected to an ongoing diatribe of a group of badly misinformed, undereducated older women holding forth on their take on the contemporary political scene and the nature of necessary solutions to the problems as they perceived them.

My memory flashed back on seeing a little theater production of Sartre’s “No Exit” years ago while in Charleston, particularly the last sentence of the play, “This really is Hell.” I was of two minds; the first to tell them to shut the fuck up, they did not know what they were talking abut, the second to listen quietly to gain some insight into the extent f their misinformation.

The prime grand dame took the lead, opening “They are ruining our country and it will soon be beyond repair. Next election we will take our country back and vote out all of the incumbents. Having finished her opining shot, she pursed her lips and surveyed her group of listeners to see if their was anything less than total agreement. Satisfied, she continued, “Part of the problem is the Senate. They were originally appointed for four years but could be removed any time. The, THEY (emphasis hers, ) changed it to election by the voters and it’s been a mess ever since.” She nodded, in agreement with herself while seeking silent approval from her ladies, (which I now was pretty sure constituted a coven.)

“Eventually, we will get some good people who will do what we say, defeat this health care, socialist takeover, and give us back our government as the founding father’s intended. Do only what the constitution says, nothing more. “

At this point I was convinced that this woman had never read a history book nor the constitution with any degree of understanding, yet here she is , persuading these other dummies that she knows what she was talking about and likely follow her lead at the polls. My anger toward her was not because she was ignorant, that can be forgiven, but the arrogance to lecture others, to dispense her stupidity as something to believe.

For the first time I was glad that we were in the waiting room of an oncologist and that these, erroneous, distorted views would soon pass from the scene. I thought briefly “what would Sartre think ?”

Show Your Papers

2010-04-24T10:41:00.001-07:00

With a stroke of the pen, Arizona’s Governor Brewer, has reduced every Mexican-American in the state to a second class citizen. What is overlooked, forgotten or ignored by the passage of this law is that Arizona, together with most of the southwest was part of the Republic of Mexico until 1848 when the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo ceded it to the United States. At that time the indigenous people of Arizona were the hispanic Mexican and Apache Indians; they became American citizens as a matter of law. The Apaches, as a threat, are gone; the Mexicans have been Americans for generations; now subject to warrantless stop and interrogations as if the 4th amendment to the Constitution no longer applies to them. Concerns for unlawful immigration, drug smuggling and other crimes, shall henceforth be regard as likely the result of activities by dark skinned, spanish speakers who shall henceforth be subject to strict police surveillance and harassment without concerns for due process of law or other niceties warranted by civility and civilized conduct. ‘Show me your papers “ shall henceforth be the mode of greeting rather than buenos tardes.

Reflections “THEN “

2010-04-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

But then the beautiful people

lost their tans and resolve

the world went a little bit mad

with bombast and bull droppings

found new reasons to anger

concocted new meaning less slogans

and made war again and again

destroying our young men

destroying our young hopes.

Jefferson’s Gibe

2010-04-19T11:00:00.001-07:00

Few realize that the Jefferson dictum now brandished by Tea Party types, “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants ...” was actually intended as a humorous gibe concerning the “Mouse that Roared” quality of Shays Rebellion on 1787. It was contained in a private correspondence and not intended to encourage nor approve of rebellion.

“I’m Mad as Hell and ....etc.”

2010-04-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

A Chinese sage once said a long journey is commenced by taking the first step. He might also have said that before one begins a long journey it is well to have a destination in mind.

Lately our politics has degenerated into the shouting of empty slogans and crowd-pleasing postures ie; whipping up the base. Shakespeare called it “playing to the pit”, appealing to the lowest common denominator.

In the 1950’s an independent self educated guru named Eric Hoffer distinguished between real leaders and those who determined the direction the mob was traveling and ran as fast as possible to get out front to appear as if a leader. Today we have an oversupply of the latter, basking in the limelight and encouraging more heat and less light.

Term limits advocates have been morphed into a “turn the rascals out movement,” vote out all the incumbents and then, what ? Replace them with a bunch of pliant know-nothings, except to respond to the voices of the mob ? Better a quick review of the French revolution.

Before you hop on a bandwagon, make sure it has 4 wheels and the driver knows where he’s going.

Mark Twain and the Telephone

2010-04-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

April 21, 2010 is the 100th anniversary of the death of Mark Twain, an original American icon, literary giant, and home grown sage. Whether lionized or lambasted, his contribution to American thought and our uniqueness of character is undeniable.

What is sometimes overlooked was his astute recognition of what an unmitigated annoyance the telephone was to become.

In “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” he observed, “ Confound the telephone, anyway. It is the very demon for conveying similarities of sound that are miracles of divergence from similarity of sense.” Elsewhere in his works he is less oblique.

Imagine what his reaction would be to today’s proliferation of cell phones; ubiquitous in every purse, pocket, automobile and belt loop in creation; a society where there is more talk and less said than at any time in recent history. Any conversation, any pause of quiet, in any venue, now is in immediate danger of rude interruption of an irrelevant noise, some wag’s idea of what would be a clever ring tone. Not confined to the hearing of the wearer of this offensive gadget, it assaults the ears of everyone present, whether at table, in solemn conclave, awaiting a doctor’s appointment or a stroll down a quiet path, the cell phone repeatedly squaks for attention until it’s buttons are pushed. Thereafter, the wearer will conduct a loud conversation with his invisible caller, indifferent to the irritation caused to all within hearing.

During rush hour a goodly number of drivers devote half of their attention to hazards of the road, holding the gadget to one ear and yammering away, oblivious to the dangers they create. Like some infectious virus, no longer content with having seriously damaged the ancient art of polite dialogue, the gadget now takes pictures and offers an ever increasing menu of distractions, diversion and services, called apps, competing with computers, directories, magazines and newspapers.

The fine art of corresponding; carefully crafted letters going around the world has been supplanted, by instantanious blather, via satellites. Small wonder then, when over 100 years ago, the visionary Mark Twain, when composing his famous prayer that :

“...all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us throughout the whole earth) may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone.”

What a damn pain this little miracle has become !

Good Morning Day!

2010-04-01T18:29:00.001-07:00

At first light, whether I was out on my morning walk or just to the road to get the paper, my first impulse was to greet the morning with a verbal salute, ”good morning day.” The light was just asserting itself, stirring the birds to their early, busy chirping and singing, colors beginning to grow strong, the time of a new beginning - a new day. Sometimes the addition of a late setting full moon would bring its additional brightness to view, prompting a special greeting to that large luminous rock in the sky.

For me, first light has always had some special magic about it, when as a young lookout on the bridge in the Navy or later in life when sailing overnight. From the end of the mid watch, 4 A.M. when everything is inky black, particularly when an overcast deprives the sky of star light, voices of people nearby seem disemboweled bodyless with little sense of direction. Then, with the earliest of gray light, outlines appear without much sense of depth and little definition. As the colors begin to assert themselves in turn, a wonderful transformation begins. Shapes assume dimension, distances resolve and the world becomes full, alive and three dimensional. It is morning.

Drawers

2010-03-29T05:50:00.000-07:00

Drawers - horizontal compartments, usually components of chests of drawers or parts of counters - receptacles for stuff - by category usually ; socks, shorts, shirts, spoons, tickets, clips, all depending of course on location and function. All but one, the “junk “drawer, a container of miscellaneous, the diverse, the unclassifiable. Most every household has at least one, sometimes more, competing with hooks and nooks and crannies, now empty, intended as places where stuff should reside but sometimes doesn’t .

When we moved from the Keys, I did most of the unpacking but I don’t remember a box marked “junk drawer “, yet I suspect our Key West home had one. Did we have to start over ? The old stuff forgotten, abandoned or just lost ?

Our primary junk drawer is in the kitchen, near the door to the garage. It is a veritable treasure trove of stuff. Topped by menus from the Chinese take-out and other fooderies like _the No Frills Grill, next plastic bags of screws and stuff, suction hooks, tape measures, plastic bottle caps, bagged reels of black tape, coaxial connectors, door stoppers, short pieces of chain, souvenir tags, keys to locks long forgotten, tools that never quite made it home and things once ordered and long forgotten.

Elsewhere in the kitchen is one other drawer that defies categorization. It holds logically enough batteries of all sizes, yet it shares its space with various pet medications and my brand of cough drops. How this arrangement was first decided remains a mystery but it has served for many years and since we know this is where we look when we want this stuff, why question ? Rules of thumb you have to know where to look or you’ll never find it unless you remember the last time you noticed it somewhere out of place.

Money

2010-03-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

We have forgotten that a corporation was first conceived as a device to permit people of wealth to accumulate more wealth without risking every thing they already had. Piles of money assert their right to be heard, their right to be represented, to contribute to candidates of their choice. Absurd, contend the people, you each have your rights, your piles of money have no independence, no right to determine the fate of the world.

But they do, declare the court, 5-4 of course, but piles of money now have rights as citizens.

But then, what about foreign piles of money ? You know, piles of money accumulated from selling us cars, televisions, stuff ? From overseas - why of course we will provide safeguards. We are only concerned with the rights of American piles of money - we will guard against co-mingling you can be sure. Only citizen piles of money should have rights, right ?

American piles of money were influential in our selection as Justices, doesn’t that inspire you with confidence in the correctness of our decision ? No - not really - Why ? Should it ?

Harvest of Fear

2010-03-16T03:49:00.001-07:00

The planting, cultivating, and harvesting of fear has been one of the most pernicious practices of society. During the middle ages, the church, designated outsiders, Jews, and other nonbelievers in the true faith, as a danger to society and the inquisition was born. Torture, torment and the constant searching of the heretical bred a climate of fear which dominated Europe and provided the church with a mechanism with which to totally control the populace.

Hitler pointed to the Jews and Communists as a danger to the continued safety of the German people and they were persuaded to abandon their traditions of intellectual freedom and liberality of attitudes; instead embracing brutality, murder and repression as necessary steps to assure themselves of their continued security.

When Senator Joseph McCarthy wielded the power to slander and accuse people of being communists instilling fear, Americans relinquished their traditions of free speech and political tolerance to scapegoat McCarthy’s targets.

On 9/11, when the twin towers fell, we were told that danger and disaster was everywhere, and to “ be afraid, be very afraid.” A more clinical view would have recognized that 19 Wahabi Moslem Saudi fanatics, with financial backing and planning, had succeeded in highjacking 4 airliners due to a lax security system. By the use of misdirection and disinformation, we were persuaded to initiate an unnecessary and costly war which still costs the nation in blood and treasure. A golden opportunity to achieve dominance through fear.

We were told that we were terribly vulnerable, in great danger; counseled to hide under the bed, stock up on duct tape, or in the alternative, to go shopping, depending on the color of a newly adopted signaling system. The Patriot Act, as invasive of citizens rights as were the writs of assistance, was passed under color of necessary for security. No one objected. Fear ruled.

The shibboleth “We’re keeping you safe!” was thereafter always advanced as cover for all manner of abuse and misinformation. As long as we were fearful the administration could get away with all manner of mischief without being called to account. Such is the power of fear.

On the other hand

2010-03-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

Some mortgages are now described as “upside down” or “underwater”, cute catch phrases invented by the media to encourage the home owner to feel victimized. Sure the real estate market has gone soft but on the other hand I don't know too many people who check the real estate section of their morning newspaper to see if the value of their home has gone down so why then is it a crisis when your home would not sell today for what you paid for it ? And how is that justification for not repaying the money you borrowed to buy it in the first place ? You didn’t buy your home from the bank so why should the bank be regarded as a guarantor of it’s value ? A mortgaged property is security for the repayment of a debt and the debt is not contingent on the value of the security being constant. And if you're not contemplating a sale of your home anyway what is the significance of its current value being down ? It’s still your home, where you live.

Many people who play the stock market and check the stock market reports daily would never dream of disavowing a debt incurred for a stock purchase when the stock falls in value, so how is someone "damaged" when they still owe the purchase price of their home while its current resale value is less than what they paid ?

Then why the rush to "bail out" the homeowner who owes more than his home is currently worth? The debt is absolute, regardless of the home's resale value . The buyer would be subject to a deficiency judgment in the event a foreclosure failed to yield enough to pay off the loan. Walking away is bad advice, fraught with risk. Try a deed back to the lender first, conditioned on a release. The lender saves the costs of foreclosure and the homeowner avoids a deficiency judgment.

RUBIO’S REPUBLICANISM

2010-03-06T03:24:00.001-08:00

Marco Rubio, Republican candidate for the Senate, speaking at CPAC, has become the new darling of the conservative movement, displaying the appropriate set of negatives, including an anti-Obama bias. As a senatorial hopeful, he recently announced his newly acquired disbelief in global warming, a conversion based on expediency; he joins such intellectual luminaries as Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who regards all evidence of global warming as a giant Democratic hoax. These are the people who complain that the national debt will harm our grandchildren but deny that shrinking ice caps and rising oceans will have any consequences. The health of the market, not the health of the planet, is what they regard as most important. Truth is sacrificed to expedient advantage.

In the pursuit of regaining power, an element of recklessness has been injected into the politics of our country. The republicans have now persuaded the people that the system is “broken.” What is obfuscated is that they are the ones who broke it . Acting for special interests rather than the interests of their constituency.

The party temporarily out of power, has decided to act to obstruct every action of the majority party in an effort to discredit it and thus resume power, to control. Formerly, other considerations; the benefit of the people, the health of the nation, our world position was given weight in the equation to arriving at what position, what tactics should the minority employ? No longer, the minority is now willing to risk the utter destruction of the state, in order to achieve control. Winning or losing on a particular issue, extending cooperation where mutual advantage was perceived, are all now subsumed to destroying the majority control at all costs, at any cost, regardless of the damage to the nation or the harm inflicted on its people.

Memory- They’re all that’s left you

2010-03-01T06:20:00.000-08:00

Simon and Garfunkel had it right - they’re all that’s left you. But when even these are gone - lost to a fog, a disability. I think it must be a terrible thing to lose one’s memory or even a part of it. As if a piece of you had died, never to be remembered. It is in a way, very much like a small death - that a piece of your life, which you lived, interacted with people, felt joy, felt pain - understood pleasures - all wiped clean - gone as if it never happened. And all the more sad when those around you expect you to remember - look at you with compassion and disappointment - not realizing until just this moment that this part of you had already died - was gone - beyond recall and rememberances.

Talking on the phone recently to an old friend who several times had to remind me that he could no longer remember certain episodes, as if they never happened for him, yet those forgotten things were what bonded us, made us friends - I still recall them but for him they never happened.

My friend has a memory that we are friends but doesn’t recall the nuisances, the transactions, the whys, building blocks that became the basis for our friendship - for him that was gone. And there must be “why’s,” something shared, else a friend is merely someone whose name you know.

BALDWIN HIGH BEER DRINKERS

2010-03-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

When it came to beer drinking, Baldwin HIgh’s class of 1949 was second to none. Although we did not field a varsity squad in this endeavor, the wreckage of the men’s room at Baloney John’s in Babylon was mute evidence of our prowess in this regard.

Another, less well known, disaster was the newly seeded front lawn of Mr. Hillman, our history teacher; after being visited by Norm Raben, piloting his 1931 Buick around my block, during the end of one of our beer-drinking episodes. the next morning, my brother Ed was gleeful in describing the activities of the police in taking plaster casts of the tire marks on Hillman’s lawn. Norm arrived, parking his mud stained chariot in front of the house. We left quickly, my concerns chiefly about avoiding apprehension, Norm’s trying to recover from the galloping giggles; (Norm wasn’t big on guilt in those days.)

Then came senior day, when Norm and I led the class goodies to the brewery where we purchased a half keg for the beach party. Later that day Norman defended the keg against abuse by beating the crap out of the abnormal Tommy Nagel alias “mongol” while I quietly passed out at the feet of our prettiest cheerleader. Ah memories !

If they had a beer drinking team back then, I’m sure Norm and I would have earned a letter, albeit a beer stained one.

Global Warming Challenge

2010-02-27T05:30:00.000-08:00

A formidable body of scientists have urged that drastic steps be taken

to reverse or at lest slow the change in global climate change which

they regard as potentially catastrophic.

In opposition to this group are the doubters, those who reject all

evidence of man-made contribution to the problem and the business

and monied interests who contend that to pursue the suggested

remedies would be ruinous, cost vast sums, damage industries and

cost jobs.

In 1660, Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and theologian

advanced a proposition, which came to be known as "Pascal's

wager." The proposed wager was a bet - If there is a GOD and you

follow the church you will gain paradise. On the other hand if you

reject the church you will gain some minor indulgences in this life

and lose nothing if there is no GOD. However, if you choose wrongly

and there is a GOD you have gambled away an eternity in paradise

and suffer an eternity of torment, for the sake of a few minor

indulgences.

Applying this reasoning to the current global warming issue is a good

fit. If the scientists are correct then logic compels us to take

steps, drastic or not, to keep the planet habitable. If they are wrong

and we follow their advise we will have added some layers of hardship

and difficulty to our lives to no purpose. If, however, they are

correct and we ignore their suggestions, we imperil the very

survival of life on this planet.

Picture Album

2010-02-27T05:29:00.001-08:00

Earlier today I took out my so-called picture album to look for a paper Hal sent me many years ago. I thought to send it to him - it seemed a metaphor for his current situation.

I had forgotten the disorderly disarray it had become. Years ago, many years ago, I recall sitting down with piles of snap shots, my newly acquired album and an unfortunate choice, rubber cement with which to glue the pictures. It never occurred to me that, in time, it would dry up and the pictures would fall out - producing the jumble which I an now presented.

I have thought, from time to time, to get a new album and reorganize and reassemble the pile into an orderly, proper, picture album. Somehow I have always surpressed the impulse and put the book away, sometimes for years.

Now, the random disordered piles of pictures of my loved ones as they grew up, mixed with irrelevant snaps of my life of misadventures, seemed strangely appropriate, representative of the hodgepodge of my existence in years past and a continuing endeavor to “carry water on both shoulders” - my unsuccessful attempts ito keep it all sorted out - yet to hang onto all the pieces somehow.

Most of the significant pictures of my life are fairly vivid in my memory. I have always been a poor photographer, but the bright memories I cherish are augmented by these photographs, although very few were taken by me. They serve me today as benchmarks, reference points in my sons growing up; some to record happy times, others reflect times of travail and hardship for the boys. Recorded memories.

I really should examine them more frequently and relocate the album to someplace more accessible.

Now especially, as I see occasional pictures of my grandsons, tall handsome but remote, distant, little private peeks into their lives which I have largely missed, I am a strangely drawn to the pictures of their fathers, my sons, records of a different time each attached to a memory in my heart, a reminder of a time relived.

REPUBLICANISM

2010-02-22T04:34:00.001-08:00

Mark Rubio, speaking at CPAC, has become the new darling of the conservative movement. Displaying the appropriate set of negatives, including an anti-Obama bias, Mr. Rubio has now hitched his wagon to a star, however dim; former VP Cheney. As a senatorial hopeful, he recently announced his disbelief in global warming, a conversion based on expediency; he joins such intellectual luminaries as Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who regards all evidence of global warming as a giant Democratic hoax.

These are the people who complain that the national debt will harm our grandchildren but deny that shrinking ice caps and rising oceans will have any consequences. The health of the market, not the health of the planet, is what they regard as most important. Truth is sacrificed to expedient advantage.

The “system” is now regarded as broken because, the minority, the party temporarily out of power, has decided to act to obstruct every action of the majority party in an effort to discredit it and thus resume power, to control. Formerly, other considerations; the benefit of the people, the health of the nation, our world position was given weight in the equation to arriving at what position, what tactics should the minority employ ? No longer, the minority is now willing to risk the utter destruction of the state, in order to achieve control. Winning or losing on a particular issue, extending cooperation where mutual advantage was perceived, are all now subsumed to destroying the majority control at all costs, at any cost.

Such is the morality of the Republican party.

Maybe It's Still Music

2010-02-11T05:08:00.000-08:00

The half-time show at the Super bowl this year was "The Who", a group of British septuagenarian rockers, reliving their glory years in the middle of a light show which covered half of the playing field . Just why "Who" needed to be surrounded by a few acres of flashing lights, rockets, smoke bombs and torches while they whacked away at their guitars and bellowed old lyrics is part of the current ego malady infecting the music business. Similarly, a recent "U-2" concert in Tampa required the construction of a giant claw, standing several stories high, topped by something resembling an ICBM. All of this so the four of them could stand under it for their two hour concert.

I grew up in the big band era, the time of Glenn Miller, the Dorsey's, Benny Goodman and Harry James. They shared a high level of virtuosity, their music clever and memorable. Pyrotechnics were not necessary to augment their showmanship; their only concession- matching jackets for the band. The music said it all.

Beyonce, a big winner at this year's Grammy's travels with 14 truckloads of equipment recently added a trapeze to her singing performance. 14 truckloads of stuff ! The New York Philharmonic travels with less dunnage.

I recall Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, sharing a spotlight, singing hit tunes, music which became classics. No light show, no smoke bombs. They set the standard for vocalists. I'm a fan of cool jazz, Bach and Brubeck, an admirer of the Beatles. Simon and Garfunkel's lyrics and music captured the story of my life with two guitars and a boatload of brilliance. So what the hell happened to the music business ?

Reading the Teabags

2010-01-28T14:44:00.001-08:00

Man has always been involved in trying to foresee, to foretell the future. The History channel broadcasts the predictions of Nostradamus. Tarot cards, once favored by wizards are no longer so regarded. Gypsies made reading the tea leaves fashionable and the phrase survives as a metaphor. Now, however, we are left with a new device for future casts, the teabags. Since reading the teabags is a fairly new phenomena, we had not yet built a body of expertise on the subject but some feckless, if not foolhardy, new casters are venturing into this uncharted discipline.Teabag-based forecasts regarding the 2010 elections abound. Sarah Palin, still in pursuit of her golden harvest, plans to charge the teabaggers convention $115,000 for a talking appearance, not that she has much of value to say, but, hell, she can usually draw a crowd. It remains to be seen whether the "Lipton lobby" will sell off enough reservations at $550 a plate, to cover the spread, but Sarah has read the teabags. We'll see.

The Promised Land

2010-01-20T03:17:00.000-08:00

On January 18, watching the History channel on TV, I

saw MLK's Washington speech concerning the” movement” and his

comment "I have seen the promised land." After all these years, despite

the progress of the civil rights movement I must conclude there is no

promised land and in fact it is a poor metaphor. Striving for

betterment is the journey.

Buddha's wiser counsel, that there is only the journey, is far better,

both as a goal for behavior and descriptive realization that striving

for enlightenment to improve our world is far better than hoping for

some idealized destination called the promised land.

I'm reminded also of the novel "Darkness at Noon" analyzing the

communist movement and its dogma that the end justifies the means,

concluding that there are only means, there is no end and behavior

must find its justification in the here and now, not excused by some

envisioned, distant result where the gains far outweigh the pain and

cost of progress.

There is only the journey.

Defense Spending Appropriations

2010-01-03T06:43:00.000-08:00

Last month Congress passed the $636 billion, Defense Spending Appropriations bill, which appropriates 55% of all federal taxes with barely a whimper of objection raised. Loaded with earmarks inserted by congressmen and senators alike, it provides billions to purchase aircraft which DOD doesn't need or want but which provide work for favored industries in their home states and districts, without any protest from the administration or DOD. New aircraft carriers costing billions are under construction despite the fact that they were unneeded by the Navy. Boon doggles and pork on parade. In 1961, retiring President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell speech, warned of the dangers of the growing power of the military industrial complex, of how that combination would grow in power and override other concerns and claims upon the budget unless careful and continued scrutiny was observed, The unwarranted influence of this combination could threaten security and liberty. Regretfully, we failed to heed Eisenhower's warning and the military budget passes without scrutiny while the remainder of the budget is shredded, allegedly in the service of economical government. While congress wrings its collective hands over the costs of health care, global warming and a host of other important concerns, the military gets a free pass, a platinum credit card to use as they please, beyond criticism or oversight. Only one remedy is now possible to put an end to this repeated abuse. That is the passage of a constitutional amendment providing for a presidential line item veto. This would enable the President to strike from an appropriation any item deemed inappropriate. Currently, the President must veto the entire act or permit it to pass into law unchanged. By adding earmarks and other unrelated and marginal items to a critical appropriations passage of these “pork” items are virtually assured, unless the President is willing to veto the entire bill and precipiate a confrontational crisis.

Communication

2010-01-03T06:32:00.001-08:00

In the last decade TV news reporters have inaccurately used the terms: “next” “straight ahead” and “but first” when they really meant “eventually” or “sooner or later.” This should have served as a cautionary notice for a breakdown in communication.

Letters and phone calls have been replaced with e-mails, twitter,google, face book and texting. People no longer communicate directly.

Periodically I am informed that someone has declared I am their “friend” or someone has written on my wall. In all candor, I did not know that I had a wall and I am unsure of my responsibility for it now that people are writing on it. I am fearful that it may be something inflammatory like the wall posters that caused such a stir in China a while back. Then again if it is something obscene or offensive I suppose I have a responsibility to have it removed, but I’m unsure as to the location of my wall.

I have yet to review any texting and I’m informed there is something of a cryptic coding involved. Can a revival of pig latin be far behind?

Small Government Fallacy

2010-01-03T06:30:00.000-08:00

It is argued that what we need is a smaller government, as if less government will provide a better, stronger society. This premise is advanced without any consideration of how our government grew to their current size. The government grew largely in response to problems in our society, abuses which were not resolved and a ruthless exploitation of the American people by a few people with power and privilege. During the era of our history called the Gilded Age, when extravagance and excess were the hallmarks of the life style of the rich, the rest of the people worked and lived in conditions of abject poverty. Those ultra rich who owned the railroads, the steel industry, mining and manufacturing treated labor as a commodity rather than people. Writers, known collectively as "muckrakers" publicized the horrible working conditions and other abusive practices of big business. Government responded to the needs of the people. "The Progressive Movement" created institutions to regulate and control objectionable practices. Decent working conditions, minimum wages, safety regulations were promised. The ICC was established to curtail railroad abuses, the SEC to limit stock market frauds, Pure Food and Drug regulations protect public health to name a few. As problem areas surfaced and no relief was in sight, government responded on behalf of the people, to provide protection and satisfy a need otherwise neglected. In short, government didn't just grow big by accident nor for any sinister purpose, rather it grew to promote the health, safety and prosperous society which was America. Reagan opined that the government was the problem and created a movement which advantaged the rich by abolishing regulation whenever possible. We dutifully dismantled protection that had served so well. We have just survived from the folly of that philosophy which led to the banking and Wall Street abuses which almost destroyed the economy. Neither small nor large government, per se, is the answer. We need sensible, responsible government to prevent abuses. Size alone is no criterion with which to judge whether government is well serving its people. Reducing the size of government without concern with what aspects of society then go unregulated can only lead to another "Gilded Age" where some of us live in luxury and excess while the rest of society subsists on unemployment benefits and food stamps.

Defense Spending Appropriations

2009-12-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Congress passed the Defense Spending bill, which disposes

of 55% of all federal taxes with barely a whimper of objection raised

Loaded with earmarks inserted by congressmen and senators alike, it

provides billions to purchase aircraft which DOD doesn't need or want

but which provide work for favored industries in their home states and

districts, without any protest from the administration or DOD. New

aircraft carriers costing billions are under construction despite the

fact that they were unneeded by the Navy. Boon doggles and pork on

parade.

In 1961, retiring President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell

speech, warned of the dangers of the growing power of the military

industrial complex, of how that combination would grow in power and

override other concerns and claims upon the budget unless careful and

continued scrutiny was observed, The unwarranted influence of this

combination could threaten security and liberty.

Regretfully, we failed to heed Eisenhower's warning and the military

budget passes without scrutiny while the remainder of the budget is

shredded, allegedly in the service of economical government.

While congress wrings its collective hands over the costs of health

care, global warming and a host of other important concerns, the

military gets a free pass, a platinum credit card to use as they

please, beyond criticism or oversight.

The Children's Table

2009-12-18T19:57:00.000-08:00

In the mid 1980's, Becky and I drove to Sunrise, a small community in
Broward County, to attend my Uncle Irving's 80th birthday party. When
we arrived Aunt Sylvia told us we would be sitting at the children's
table. Since I was required to sit at the children's table half a
century before, at their wedding, I found a certain irony in the
seating arrangements, but then some things never change.

Irving was in his glory, seated at the head table on a dais,
surrounded by his fellow octagenarian. During the evening I overheard
one of Irving's old street people, one of the Times Square denizens,
recount one of Irving's episodes, when he escorted visiting Governor
Rockefeller around the lobby of the Astor Hotel, introducing him to
the assorted pimps, bookies, gangsters and other ner-do-wells who
inhabited the place as if they were people of importance who the
Governor should meet. Irving at his pixiest best. The story teller had the
unmistakable accent of the city, Damon Runyon channeled.

Later, while seated at the children's table, with my cousin Judy and
her husband Steve, I began to recount the gentleman's story of Irving
at the Astor, and with my slight gift of mimicry, did it with the
delivery and inflection of that older New Yorker. Each inflection and
pronunciations I copied, proud of my skill until I heard a voice
behind me saying "Who is this guy, who is this guy?" To my extreme
embarrassment, the gentleman who I was imitating was standing directly
behind me, and was not amused. On the verge of raising a hue and cry
until Irving came over to investigate the tumult. Pointing at me he
again asked "Who is this guy?" his agitation turning to fury.At this point
I didn’t know whether an apology or an honor killing was necesary to
satisfy his anger. Irving put his arm around the Guy's shoulder, and
turning on his incredibleskill in turning a nonsequitur into a relevant
explanation asked "Do you remember Hymie the cop from the Yankee

stadium ?" "Ya Ya sure, Hymie the cop from the Yankee stadium,"

was the reply.

Well, Irving said, "This is his kid" for some reason, this absurd explaination
molified the man and he left, muttering "....from the Yankee stadium."
I abandoned trying to climb under the table at that point but for me
the evening was over and I was the brunt of the joke.

Letting Go

2009-12-18T19:55:00.000-08:00

In abandoning my concerns as to why my father told the Naval Reserve
he didn't know where I was when my first orders to active duty
arrived and dropping my inquiry into the consequences of having a
"refrigerator mother," I realize that I am finally content not to
further explore how my father loved me and why mother could not. It
is enough for me to understand that the circumstances that brought me
to these insights were difficult to understand at first but finally
can be put to rest, to let go and find contentment and release in
letting go, being content that my understanding is sufficient for my
purposes, that further inquiry and analysis is both futile and
unnecessary. It is enough.

I had hoped that further inquiry would reveal some underlying truths,
useful in understanding other transactions and relationships- but I
see that that would be pointless - unnecessary- I can let go. the
pursuit of understanding causation must have limits and that the
realization of those limits is in itself liberating.

Immigrants

2009-12-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

Today's mail brought the newsletter of the U.S.S.MURRAY Association,
whose members are former crewmen of the destroyer (DD 576). The
newsletter contained a list of the names of members who had recently
passed away. My first level of interest was to identify the names of
the men with whom I served, old shipmates who shared a liberty, a
late watch or lent a hand in heavy weather. A silent farewell.

The more I stared at the the list the more I was struck by the
variety of ethnic and national backgrounds that the names represented.
Irish, English, Italians, Swedish, German, Eastern European, Hispanic
were all represented. Immigrants and the sons and grandsons of
immigrants from all over the old world.

I was reminded of a poem I read in high school called "Americans
All," by Minna Irving, recognizing how diverse our immigrant
population was.

I offer, in remembrance of shipmates lost, it's last stanza :
"So when on the horizon rises
A war-cloud to threaten the land
with Liberty's native-born children.
Shoulder to shoulder they stand.
For America ready to battle,
for America ready to fall,
Not Russian, nor Swedes or Italians Americans all."

Worth a thought in our current anti-immigrant climate fueled by the
descendant's of immigrants.

Copenhagen, GOD, & Global Warming

2009-12-09T03:14:00.000-08:00

Currently, representatives from 170 countries are meeting in Copenhagen to confer with
respect to climate change, its causes, what aspects are man made and what steps may be
taken to ameliorate the problem.

With respect to whether such a change is happening, the evidence is
manifest. What is yet to be determines is the extent of man made
activities as a cause and what can be done to limit this effect.Lastly,
some projections as to what possible consequences may result from a too
feeble response.

A formidable body of scientists have urged that drastic steps be taken
to reverse or at lest slow the change which they regard as potentially
catastrophic.

In opposition to this group are the doubters, those who reject all
evidence of man-made contribution to the problem and the business and
monied interests who contend that to pursue the suggested remedies
would be ruinous, cost vast sums, damage industries and cost jobs.
Some even poll the American public for it's collective opinion, as if the weight
of opinion should control scientific realities.

In 1660, Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and theologian
advanced a proposition, which came to be known as "Pascal's
wager." The proposed wager was a bet - If there is a GOD and you
follow the church you will gain paradise. On the other hand if you
reject the church you will gain some minor indulgences in this life
and lose nothing if there is no GOD. However, if you choose wrongly
and there is a GOD you have gambled away an eternity in paradise and
suffer an eternity of torment, for the sake of a few minor indulgences.

Applying this reasoning to the current global warming issue is a good
fit. If the scientists are correct then logic compels us to take
steps, drastic or not, to keep the planet habitable. If they are wrong
and we follow their advise we will have added some layers of hardship
and difficulty to our lives to no purpose. If, however, they are
correct and we ignore their suggestions, we imperil the very survival
of life on this planet.

With those odds and the magnitude of the bet, which side appears the
more rational ?

NAPLES LIBERTY

2009-12-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

One aspect of my liberty in Naples has gone unrecorded for a
variety of reasons, some valid, some not. Perhaps out of a sense of
propriety or embarrassment, Now long inappropriate, an episode almost
forgotten.

One of the imperatives on liberty is sex, and after a few weeks of
bouncing around the Med, it was high on our list of priorities.
Exactly how we got to the place I don't recall, probably our guide,
the friendly street boy was a familiar reference.

It was as I recall a rather dismal room, divided by sheets suspended
by wires, but sailors were not interested in the decor. The girls were
young, but then so were we, 20 years old navy men on our first "Med"
cruise. Sailor sex especially just ashore on liberty sex is rather cut
and dry, not exactly, wham, bam, thank you maam ! But that is pretty
close to the mark. A quick mechanical, or animal release, and then on
to the bar.Quick and impersonal as hell !

I was surprised by the girl, looking up at me, suddenly saying "Kiss
me." She was not new to her profession and the request confused me
but she said again with some urgency "Kiss me" and then I had a quick
insight that she needed a fantasy to help her with her profession; not
yet hardened to an unemotional, yet intimate act of sex with a total
stranger. I hesitated, then kissed her lightly, a peck- then with more
genuine participation as it became for an instant, a shared passion,
and therapy for both of us, the lonely sailor and the young unhappy
hooker- all for 1,000 lira.

Definitions

2009-12-05T18:32:00.001-08:00

Recently, some TV programs were preceded by a caveat to the effect that some of the pictures to be broadcast are “graphic” and advised discretion. Since, by definition, all pictures are graphic, it would seem this warning is in fact meaningless. If the purpose was to alert the viewer to the fact that some of them may find the pictures repulsive, offensive, shocking, vile, salacious or reprehensible, that should have been the message. English has the largest vocabulary of any language in use yet occasionally we find ourselves unable to say exactly what we mean.

In Mac Beth, Shakespeare writes “...sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care...”, using raveled to describe something that has become undone. Later, much later, someone decided unraveled would be more accurate. Yet current dictionaries define “raveled” and “unraveled” as meaning the same thing.

Some years ago after the word inflammable was misinterpreted to mean non- combustible, leading to several disastrous conflagrations; linguists, threw up their hands and concocted the term “flammable” hoping to remove the confusion. Today “flammable and inflammable are defined as meaning precisely the same thing. Distinctions without a difference. Impossible to be incorrect.

Small talk with a Stranger

2009-11-14T13:07:00.001-08:00

Today, as I sat in a doctor's waiting room, two other patients
endeavored to strike up a conversation, their opening gambit "aren't
things bad ?" Whether they were soliciting agreement or disagreement
was hard to tell but since, predictably, the doctor's TV was set to
Fox News, I assumed the former. I usually try not to converse with
people in doctors waiting rooms; firstly, they are sick or they
wouldn't be there, secondly, if their cue comes from the program on
TV, odds are I will probably disagree with them and thirdly, my
instinct is to either tell them to "shut the fuck up" or pantomime
George Carlin's motion of ultimate dismissal. Most usually, I do a
banal nod and grunt (a republican signal of dismissal.)

Today I felt mildly combative and a bit irritated, so I ventured "how
come?" wearing my I just left the mother ship expression. My first
interrogator, an oriental woman of indeterminate age, turned
immediately defensive, as if she had given an immigration official a
wrong signal, quickly backed up saying " I'm only 50 but I think so,
it's bad.' she left shortly thereafter, appointment apparently
abandoned.

Feeling elated after this encounter, I was primed when a man of my
approximate age, entered the room, attired in a shirt sporting a golf
logo and pricey loafers. To my surprise he opened with the same
gambit, adding "I feel sorry for these young people who can't find a
job." Tough to find a riposte but I countered "I've been unemployed
any number of time's, it's not such a big deal." this had the intended
off putting effect and he concentrated on his golfing magazine,
probably an article dealing with how bad things were on the links,

I remained quiet until my name was called and I went off to attend to
the business which prompted my visit in the first place.

SAND HILL CRANES

2009-11-10T03:15:00.001-08:00

This morning the first sound I was conscious of was of a sand hill
crane clearing his throat, making that strange rattling sound of
theirs but in a low, soft, tentative way-- not with the usual urgency
when they have something significant to say. It got me thinking. Did
they settle on that sound first thing or did they try a variety of
other sounds before they all agreed to use that one ? After all
they're really ancient breed and what with the great variety of
sounds birds are capable of producing, you know , song birds, parrots
and the like, it seemed the sand hills probably had a lot of choices
to consider before they decided on their throaty warble rattle.
Strange though !

Which, in turn, brought me back to an earlier concern, nicknack (see)
Knick kack as alternatively defined and spelled by Webster's New World
Dictionary; a definition masquerading as a tautology- bad start- a
small ornamental article or contrivance; gimcrack; trinket, also
spelled -etc. I found all of this astounding. No credit or derivation
as to how all this wonderful stuff came about- or who contrived the
alternate spelling with the silent "K" ? Probably some Teutonic "K"
hater.

My mother filled our house with volumes of this useless junk and I
used to marvel at all of the wonderful questions it would provoke.
firstly, why ? the purpose of all of this useless, non-utilitarian
stuff. Sure, it gave rise to other industries, shelf manufacturing,
five and dime stores (now called Dollar Stores), feather duster, dust
rags, even those things now advertised on TV - the cleaning thing from
Germany (where they make good stuff.) Well that's the idea.

It congers up visions of my mom, shopping and "window shopping"; back
during the depression when times were really tough and bring home this
useless, garish ugly stuff- to then be displayed and regarded until some
hoped for event like an earthquake (rare in the Bronx in those days)
or some clutsy (Klutzy) event came alone and reduced the clutter to a
sweepable jumble.

And where were the factories producing truckloads of this commodity
with which to fill the windows of the 5 & 10 (now $ 1.00) Did they
employ great mobs of underutilized people, yearning for a living or
was it a product of elves, those little guys who work the North Pole
ore Christmas, something to keep them busy in the off season ?

Why not a Tie ?

2009-11-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

It was said that nature abhors a vacuum and sports fans abhor a tie.
Yet with the sole exception of baseball, where extra innings can continue
ad infinitum, sports contests in the United States used to tolerate
ending in a tie. Now, with the heavy influence of statisticians odds
makers and gamblers; sporting events; football, basketball, hockey,
and soccer have all added provisions to the rules to eliminate the
possibility of a contest ending in a tie. Overtime periods some for
fixed periods, some with "sudden death " conclusions, still others
with "shootouts" as methods for providing a final resolution and no
ties.
Yet in the remote years of my youth, a football game between two
champion teams, ranked 1st and 2nd in that particular year, each with
Heisman winners on their squads, played a game know for years as the
"Game Of The Century," to a 0-0 tie. The year 1946, the teams Army,
no.1, undefeated, Notre Dame, no.2, undefeated. Army's backfield
included Doc Blanchard (Heisman 1945) and Glen Davis (Heisman 1946).
Notre Dame quarterback, Johnny Lujak (Heisman 1947) A duel of
quarterbacks and sterling defensive play in an era before 2 platoons
and free substitution, where both offense and defense were played by
the same squad. So, stats, percentages, standings be dammed, for the
love of the game what's wrong with a tie ?

Small Government Fallacy

2009-11-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

It is argued that what we need is a smaller government, as if less government will provide a better, stronger society. This premise is advanced without any supporting analysis nor any consideration of how our government grew to their current size.

The government of the United States grew largely in response to problems in our society, abuses which were not resolved and a ruthless exploitation of the American people by a few people with power and privilege. During the era of our history known as The Gilded Age, when extravagance and excess were the hallmarks of the life style of the very rich, most of the rest of the people of the U.S. worked and lived in conditions of abject poverty.

Those ultra rich who owned the railroads, the steel industry, mining and manufacturing treated labor as a commodity rather than people. Journalists and writers, known collectively as "muckrakers" publicized the horrible working conditions and other abusive practices of big business. Government responded to the needs of the people, "The Progressive Movement" created institutions to regulate and control these objectionable practices.

Decent working conditions, minimum wages, safety regulations were promised. The ICC was established to curtail railroad abuses, the SEC to limit stock market frauds, Pure Food and Drug regulations to prevent snake oil swindlers and protect public health to name a few. As problem areas surfaced and no relief was in sight, government responded on behalf of the people, to provide protection and satisfy a need otherwise neglected. In short, government didn't just grow big by accident nor for any sinister purpose, rather it grew to promote the health, safety and prosperous society which was America.

Then St. Reagan opined that the government was the problem and led a movement to advantage the rich by abolishing regulation whenever possible. We dutifully dismantled protection that had served so well. We have just survived from the folly of that philosophy which led to the banking and Wall Street abuses which almost destroyed the economy.

Neither small nor large government, per se, is the answer. We need sensible, responsible government to prevent abuses. Size alone is no criteria with which to judge whether government is well serving its people.

Reducing the size of government without concern with what aspects of society then go unregulated can only lead to another
"Gilded Age" where some of us live in luxury and excess while the rest of society subsists on unemployment insurance and food stamps.

RETIRED, Today

2009-10-27T03:03:00.001-07:00

This morning when I first awoke I instinctively looked to the clock to see whether I was delinquent in some time related function when it hit me, you’re retired, really free from the tyranny of the alarm clock, schedules and deadlines. Except for the medical necessity of periodic reference to a glucometer to meter the ups and downs of my diabetes dominated blood sugar level I am really independent from the domination of deadlines.

For years I have lamented, quietly and at times not so quietly, about feeling purposeless and uninvolved, once again the perpetual malcontent who after being freed from the wheel of real threats and consequential anxieties. I have constructed a framework of concerns surrounding letters to the editor, whether the cats have eaten our offering or is it once again necessary to find another brand, and even more mundane concerns about chores, now elevated to real problems worthy of much concern and thoughtful recollection. Aside from a slight concern that this may be perceived as a mood swing worthy of consideration as a symptom of bipolarism, I am symbolically kicking myself in the butt and thanking myself for this realization.

My last writing (ramble really) now looks like I was trying for the T.S. Eliot prize for self-pity; now seems more of a lament for the death of self-importance. While it contains some valid verities, worthy of being integrated into my consciousness, my awareness of where I am, it is really part of why I should rejoice at being retired, beyond serious consequences should others take serious disagreement with my view of world affairs, the tax structure, the garbage collection schedule, or any of the myriad earthshaking events which daily compete for my attention. My mountains are once again becoming mole hills and I am thankful for that.

Apologies to my loving wife who tolerates my emotional roller coaster rides but hell, it keeps things interesting for her too, never being quite sure what kind of firestorm I’m apt to stir up today- perhaps none at all - but on the other hand ?

So to all you retirees who may read this one day - rejoice, your situation is really so much better than it used to be if you give it some quiet reflection. In other words- free at last, free at last, thank God almighty ! free at last.

ONCE , yesterday

2009-10-27T03:01:00.000-07:00

As time passes; we were once held in some regard,
no longer now, not so much as things forgotten,
We exchange hot letters through the editorial page
as if to assert a position entitled to attention
If anyone were listening-
Like opinions shouted across the back fence
at midnight-
A clearing of the throat,
an old habit, a refusal to recognize that our time has passed.
Insistence that we can still influence
Like blind men communication in sign language.
“you may talk of.... but none can compare with the
British, British,British, grenadier. “
It could not, in reality, be otherwise
time to move over, to one side,
time for others to assert their views,
Ignore or be influenced by our advice as
they see fit - but only to a point-
Like politely repeating the mispronunciation
of an elder in deference to his age,
but only that.
Now unnoticed, but still casting a shadow...
a bit at a loss to identify that point in time,
that point of transition when it ceased to matter.

Executive Compensation

2009-10-25T10:45:00.001-07:00

One of the leading controversies on the Sunday TV talk shows was the appropriateness of the government imposing limits on the executive compensation packages of those corporations which have been bailed out with tax funds. A moment’s reflection on the fact that the taxpayer now stands in the place of the stockholder as the owner of these companies should be a sufficient justification for these limits.

Stockholders, as the owners of a corporation originally set the compensation of its officers and employees but over the years, the officers and boards of directors, through a series of strategies wrested control from the stockholders and, treating the companies as their own, set their own compensations without regard for the wishes of the true owners, the stockholders. Their view ? If you don’t like it sell you stock. A board room “coup de corps” !

When these corporations who now owe their very existence to the American taxpayer have repaid the government, they can go back to their former way of doing business if their stockholders permit. Till then, they can thank their stars that the government bailed them out and saved their bacon and be grateful that they still have a job rather than complain that they can no longer take home a paycheck in the millions.

Define A Republic

2009-10-16T12:59:00.001-07:00

A recent letter by Jesse James apparently defining our government as other than a democracy, expressed enthusiasm for the study of civics, but omitted the importance of history in explaining government.

Two concerns of the drafters of the Constitution were the avoidance of a monarchy and unlimited rule by all of the people, which they characterized as “mobocracy.” Control was to be reserved for the “right people, ” those with money and property.

Madison defined a Republic as “...a government which derives all of its powers, directly or indirectly, from the great body of the people, and is administrated by persons holding their office during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.” In effect, a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy.

Originally, the Constitution provided indirect selection of Senators by the legislatures of the states . Unfortunately this led to the abuses disclosed by David Graham Phillips in his work ” The Treason of the Senate” published in 1902, which led to the passage of the 17th amendment in 1912, amending Article I. section 3 of the constitution and provided for Senators to be “...elected by the people.”

Initially, the view was that the Senate represented the original 13 sovereign states. This position became meaningless when former territories, which were never sovereign nor independent, were admitted to statehood. Vesting the selection in state legislatures initially was a stratagem to avoid “mobocracy,” that terrible concern that ordinary citizens would control government; placing contol of the Senate instead in the elite property class which then controlled state legislatures.

Mr. James’ disparagement of democracy is little more than a continuation of the “mobocracy” slander of some of the founding fathers and their attempt to vest some important aspects of government exclusively n the hands of a few elitists. The passage of the bill of rights was to foreclose some overlooked abuses of the English crown , not fear of a democratic majority.

The magic in our system is its democracy, and the restrains imposed on government at the instance of the people, not our “aristocratic forefathers” as Mr. James contends.

In sum, there was no essential virtue in avoiding democracy, only a desire to restrict certain critical functions for the Senate, which in turn was controlled by a privileged class, the propertied citizens and providing for the selection of Senators by state legislators. An amendment to the Constitution ended this abuse.

Simplistic Solutions to Complex Problems

2009-10-11T11:33:00.001-07:00

In the current dialogues about where we go next in Afghanistan, concepts without clear definitions are frequently advanced about the problems and potential solutions for consideration. “Winning,” “victory,” “hearts and minds” and “the big picture” are much mentioned but rarely defined. Since the purpose, the object of the original mission has remained ill-defined and subject the subtle change, concepts advanced in support of an analysis are similarly vague and slightly out of focus.

Even the distinction between strategy and tactics is blurred, which takes precedence, and whose opinion is entitled to more weight is obscured in the discussion. Euphemisms advanced to define our objectives range from creating “a shining city on a hill” to achieving our minimum objectives for our own international security, or getting the hell out, compete for attention. From disagreement over troop numbers, to what kind of governance should we promote for Afghanistan are now “on the table.” Defeat the Taliban or prevent the return of al Quida ? Where does our concern for Afghanistan begin and our concern for our own security end ?

For a beginning, we should depoliticize the issues and reach an American position rather than a Republican, conservative or liberal position.

Making a choice based on an emotional preference or political advantage and then “cherry picking” facts to buttress such a choice can only lead to disaster.

Treading Water

2009-10-07T02:12:00.000-07:00

I was reflecting on Hal’s use of the term “treading water,” to
describe his last several years in business in New York; on how
appropriate it was as a metaphor for standing still or going nowhere
and how totally appropriate it was as a description of how I’ve spent
the last 14 years since I retired from practice.

My life has reduced to walks around the block, doctor visits and an
eternity of watching the mind numbing trite offered as news and
entertainment on TV.

When we left Key West I was greatly relieved to be out from under the
terrible stress of the job I had held for my last 7 years in the Keys,
being criticized from every turn, in virtual continuous fear of being
fired, of losing my income and my self respect. Retirement day came as
a “mixed bag,” relief that the fight was over combined with a sense of
shame and loss that I had let it happen, leave quietly with my pension
rather than fight back. In truth I had lost all sense of confidence
and only wanted for the stress to be over, to get past the need for
bolstering psychoanalysis, mood-elevating drugs and large amounts of
sedative-providing Jack Daniels at sunset. To escape with my sanity
was enough, never mind the loss of face.

The practice of law had always been something of an emotional roller
coaster for me; momentarily buoyed by little victories but worn down
and fearful of the never ending competition, the necessity of
posturing and the consuming fear that I would overlook something,
screw up and fall flat on my face in plain view of the entire world.

So there I was at age 65, social security kicking in, minimum state
pension assured, my economic life jacket, acting as if I had secured a
desired prize when internally I felt as if I had escaped just before the
last curtain came down, free and clear but no pretense, by the skin of
my teeth.

For the greater part of my adult life I had to keep going like the
“little engine that could” because of obligations --- to others, the
kids, my sense of image, unwillingness to disappoint my father, one
bloody excuse or compelling necessity after the other, meanwhile dying a
little bit each day.

Refuge from time to time was in surrender to depression, that black
mood that seemed to swallow up everything but the sunlight, and at
times even obscure that. But always, the pull of obligation combined
with the patchwork and repair of timely therapy put me back in the rat
race where I had to fight and claw for my survival, all the while smiling
and radiating the false confidence that was deemed so necessary for success.

And now finally retired, how happy that word sounded at first, escape
with dignity and a whole skin. Ultimately; however, the joke was on me
as I came to realize that here there was little or nothing that one
could consider reward or relief.

Slowly, but inevitability, physical ailments began to gang up on me,
the magnets on the refrigerator door which usually proudly displayed
pictures of grandchildren now held a parade of medical appointment
cards, backed up by cryptic entries on the calendar over the sink.
Internist, cardiologist, podiatrist, dentist, nephrologist, and
oncologist.

This, and living in a community with little by way of real involvement
or diversion with choices like emersion in career veteranism at the

Legion or VFW, or perhaps wearing a pink shirt and pushing wheelchairs
around the hospital in a spirit of volunteerism . Others retreated into a
lifetime of hitting golf balls or participating in crackpot political
movements. For me, none of this had a moment’s breath of appeal.
At least I was done with self-deception.

So back to “treading water”, sharing my youngest son’s insight. My
recent attraction to Buddhism as a philosophy rather than a religion
was of substantial help. Unloading the weight of desires by coming to
understand “non-attachment,” letting go of the desire for things,
stuff, goodies was an immense relief. Fashion, good suits, new cars,
“more and better” began to fall away like excess pounds resulting from
a successful diet. An occasional failing; wanting a new jacket or a
pistol (toy really) only helped to reinforce the correctness of this
loss of materialism. In its place another Buddhist objective; “enlightenment”
began to influence my drive to reach a better understanding of my life, where
I had been and who I had been, and changing what I could and accepting what
I could not. Learning and understanding became a source of pleasure and
contentment, but only to a point. I still tripped over the small stuff, rankled by
petty issues however much I tried to keep them in perspective. Perhaps, on my
horizon, which by now was essentially bare, they loomed larger than they really
were but hell, I wasn’t trying for perfection, only a comfortable balance between
what is and what could be with less and less reference to what was and what
might have been.

Yet I saw in Hal’s reference to “treading water” and his offhand
comment about ….” not chasing the garbage truck because it started to rain” as
a resignation to hopelessness, an acceptance of defeat.
Not recognizing that his potential was still within reach and the
ability to achieve happiness within the parameters of his frame of
reference. In my view he had “cashed out” on his early success and abandoned
opportunities to compound his wins, unwilling to keep up the drive, to …” keep
chasing the garbage truck.” When he might have wound up reaching a comfortable
compromise, rather than treading water to keep up the illusion of a success almost
achieved.

So for both of us the search continues, knowing that no answers, none, are achieved
by treading water.

"closed circuit feedback"

2009-09-26T06:41:00.001-07:00

Some years ago I encountered the phrase "closed circuit feedback"
which resurfaced in my consciousness. It sounded like data
recirculating without any new input, a metaphor for monotony or
boredom or dead end reasoning when one refuses to intergrate new data;
same info, same result. I went to the computer and Googled it, out of
curiosity and was confronted with a rash of technical jargon, mathematical
formulae and circuit diagram; I quickly hit the cancel button, wondering if I
needed a security clearance to proceed further. Then again, forget it,
beyond my pay grade and competence. Neat phrase though.

Advice to the aged

Do not go down that lonely road
without saying Thank You
to those who helped.
Apoligize to those you hurt,
and I love you to those you love,
take nothing for granted.

There’s No Place like Home

2009-09-25T03:06:00.001-07:00

In the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy finds her way home by
clicking her heels (encased in the magic slippers) three times while
repeating “There’s no place like home.” Easy for Dorothy.

Lately thoughts of home, a place by that name have come to mind,
provoking some introspection. Perhaps for me there is no such place.
For those of us born and raised in the age of the “atomic family,”
Mama, Papa, and the kids, the concept of a home place has become an
abstraction. Robert Frost once observed, home is where they have to
let you in, or something to that effect. On the other hand, Thomas
Wolfe in “You can’t go home again” places the blame on the passage of
time. But in our century, people constantly on the move, rarely
staying in one town, let alone one house for more than a few years at
a time, there is no longer such a place.

Whether driven by nostalgia, wistfulness, loneliness or just the pull
of remembrances, I have often drifted in my reverie to examine my
memories of places I have lived, to determine if perhaps one of them
might satisfy the need for a home.

With limited mobility I have used Google Maps to examine some of the
places, some of them unrecognizable, some obliterated ,some still standing
but much changed, so much changed that memory cannot find a place
to stand. Even when they look the same, too many coats of paint have
covered the patina of the past,but still I persist.

I think that if such a place were to exist, a repository for dreams,
hopes, disappointments and memories it would be a good thing, a place
to visit, to renew feelings. Surely memory itself is such a place, but
it lacks a certain substance, one cannot touch or feel a memory,
examine and relive it to an extent, sure- but in essence its
insubstantiality is part of its allure.

So to paraphrase Dorothy’s Wizard, there is no place to call home; not
any longer, no physical refuge to run to and feel safe, protected from
the emotional onslaught of time and reality, those who take away
dreams of what was and what might have been and substitute a hollow
disappointment. But for the rest of us, sans magic slippers memory
will have to serve. Like Simon and Garfunkel’s song – “preserve your
memories, they’re all that’s left you.”

Expletive Deleted and other foreclosed terms

2009-09-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

With the passing of George Carlin and his list of seven words you’re not allowed to say, there seems to be no advocate in favor of “salty, slang-communications, words tinged with nuance and innuendo to add spice, a linguistic condiment to communications. Well, I might as well volunteer.

Some years ago a judge admonished me for saying “Hell” several times in the context of a closing argument which I had added to my speech for the purpose of emphasis, chiding me that he would not tolerate such language in “his” courtroom. Passing on the issue of whose courtroom it was I was dumbfounded at this response. This judge, who obviously thought him self a prince of virtue for this act was a corrupt, for sale, always favoring the local boys, the “Bubbas” in anything resembling a close call so as to enhance his re-elect ability saw himself as the guardian of the sanctity of the spoken word. Now I had a list of eight words one couldn’t utter. It set me thinking.

I have been coming to terms with the use of a term current, the “N” word; used to substitute a derogatory reference to people of African descent, a reference now only permissible when mouthed by black comics or “rappers.” Just how this exceptional license was developed remains unclear.

Similarly we now have something called the “F” word, a similar codification of a term used to describe an act of fornication as a disparaging term in a variety of contexts. I thought, briefly of designing a special symbol for these terms, not unlike the one devised by “ the artist formerly known as Prince,” his own personal logo. But no, the world is too impatient for such nonsense. Nevertheless terms henceforth proscribed shall include all things scatological, reference to excrement (in any language) references to sexuality, body parts associated with sexuality, elimination, mammilla, racial classification, countries of origin or any references which might tend to suggest or give offense.

What is lost in all of this sanitizing of speech is that coloration, nuance, spice is deleted from communication, we might as well be texting and with a reduced alphabet at that.

Flower and the garage door closer

2009-09-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Recently our super cat, Flower, discovered that if she ran into the garage while the door was descending it would stop and the overhead light would begin to flash. Rather than puzzle over the source of this new found magic, Flower began to check, to see if this result was constant, whether it could be included in her mojo, the mystique of Flower-power. Accordingly, she took every opportunity to run into the garage after someone started the door descending, compiling a body of data to reinforce her belief that a new power had been added t her mojo, the ability to stop the garage door from closing by merely introducing her magical presence. Now, however we have to wait until the door has fully closed to be sure that Flower is not lurking in the shadows, waiting to exercise her newly discovered magic.

Biography of a Blowhard

2009-09-17T05:05:00.001-07:00

After reading Eric Veltri’s piece on Pat Buchanan, I felt compelled to
add a few, not so gentle comments about that good gentleman.
Currently Buchanan is the poster boy for the quiet conservatives, the
person posing as the pundit who always come down on the side of the
political right. My dictionary describes a pundit as a person of great
learning, yet nowadays anyone with a megaphone or a column seems to
qualify. As to a megaphone (read loudmouth,) his is built in, the
column a frequent, painful, misguided diatribe with distorted history
and unsubstantiated opinions.

Buchanan started his career as president of a group of right wing
students, calling themselves Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) an
early forerunner of the current group of sophomores of a similar
name now worshiping at the feet of Ann Coulter.

Although Pat’s only schooling was in journalism he advanced himself as
a self-proclaimed expert on things political as early as his first
shave. Never one to hang back from shooting his mouth off was spotted
by the Nixon gang as potentially useful with the young republicans.
Youthful stalking horse who now remembers his role as “senior
advisor to the candidate.” Thereafter as a speechwriter he produced in house
“red meat” to satisfy the “base.” He remained a Nixon apologist after the
Watergate and Nixon’s resignation, unwilling to face the fact that his hero’s
corrupt administration damaged the country. From speech writer to pundit in
one easy step. From an overweening ego
this blowhard had the arrogance to offer himself as a presidential
candidate, and now an expert on anything you may wish to name, be it
military tactics, foreign affairs, politics or the human
experience, despite the fact that he has never seen military service,
held elected office nor served in any significant capacity save dispenser
of propaganda, a legal expert without any legal training.

Our history is replete with such “pied pipers” the blind leading the
blind, refusing to admit that the emperor’s new clothes are bogus. My
own distress is that Buchanan enjoys a syndicated column, a
vehicle for spewing his half baked opinions as if he is knowledgeable,
not merely one who has hung around for so long we have forgotten how
little he knows. An original dunderhead. Small wonder the populous
is so ill informed.

Most recently, Buchanan participated in a debate , “Intelligence Squared” in
London on Sept. 9, arguing that Winston Churchill caused W.W.II by resisting
a deal with HIlter, instead supprting a declaration of war after the invasion of
Poland. Battered by better informed English historians, he persisted; as long as
Buchanan can peddle his book, Buchanan the latest Hilter apologist. One wonders how
long it will be before he moves from MSNBC to FOX news ?

Winning in Afghanistan

2009-09-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

In the last few days the dialogue concerning Afghanistan has ranged
from more troops and doubling down to its time to pull out completely.
General McChrystal, U.S. Commander on the ground talks of more
troops and modifying the strategy, his subordinates describe the enemy
alternately as Taliban, Al Qaeda and even “insurgents”. Secretary of Defense
Gates and joint chief Adm. Mullen talk vaguely of “winning” as still being possible
but acknowledge changes are needed as well as more troops. Washington has
yet to develop a new strategy and define our objectives in the country while the
generals talk of more troops and some vague concept of “winning.”Precisely
what it is we will “win” remains ill-defined and elusive?

All of this points to the fact that at the time of our initial incursion into
Afghanistan our planning, such as it was, consisted of getting Osama bin Laden,
and those responsible for 9-11, ie; Al Qaeda. Little or no consideration was
given to the complications of Afghan history, the tribal structure of the culture, the fact
that the Pashtuns , the dominant tribe claimed kinship to Pashtuns in the north
of Pakistan, from whom they were divided from by the “Durand Line,”
arbitrary division of India and Afghanistan imposed by the British in
1893 without regard or concern of its impact on the Pashtun people.
Early on our campaign bogged down, reduced to patrolling the border
and fire fights with small elements of locals be they Al Qaeda or Taliban.

Mission creep followed, largely in response to Taliban abuse of the
Afghanis, although they were not part of any international threat to
the security of the U.S., their sole objective seeming to be domination in
the area.

During the height of the Iraq war Afghanistan festered on the “back
burner,” under supplied and largely ignored. As the action in Iraq
wound down, Afghanistan once again surfaced in U.S. concerns; General
Petraus’ command expanded to include Afghanistan and Richard Holbrooke
was appointed as Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan with an
inter agency team focusing on economic development, road building,
agricultural assistance, banking advisors, counter propaganda,
strategic communication, et cetera. In other words, a full court press
for nation building in the U.S. format, all focused on a
“non-military” solution.

All of this apparently oblivious to the fact that after some 200 years
of being mucked about by foreigners, Afghans have developed both a
distrust and hated for all foreigners, regardless of their announced
intentions. They would clearly be happier left to their own devices,
however backward, barbaric and primitive these may seem to the west.
Meanwhile we talk of elections as if this will be the gateway to peace
and panacea if we help the central government develop an army, police
force sufficient to provide nation-wide security. Some talk of a
commitment of ten to fifteen years. Someone needs to remind Washington,
the White House and the Pentagon that the term “end game” is not merely
a figure of speech.

Health Care and the Pushmi-Pullyu

2009-09-06T11:16:00.001-07:00

In it’s simplest form the healthcare problem is finding a funding source to pay doctor and hospital bills. Complications arise when trying to reconcile employer furnished benefits, tax funded benefits and the insurance policies as the funding sources. Doctrines, philosophies, and former practices also collide to compound the issues, advancing conflicting theories. So-called “stake holders,” persons or institutions with vested interest in the current practices compete to promote their interests in opposition to proposals which may impinge on their positions regardless of the potential economy achieved. Contentious advocates pull us in all directions.

Somehow this brings to mind the pushmi pullyu, the two-headed animal which Dr. Doolittle encountered on his travels. When it tried to move both heads tried to go in opposite directions. Yet on closer examination, employer furnished benefits are really part of an employee’s compensation, tax-funded benefits are paid with taxes paid by the same employee and insurance policy payments are funded by the premiums paid by the insured employees ; again the same taxpaying benefit receiving employee. The reality is therefore that all of the funding which goes to pay for medical costs are in effect paid by the taxpaying, premium paying, employee benefit-compensated patient. Yup, the same guy- not a pushmi-pullyu but a citizen who is paying his own bills but out of several pockets.

If some of these so-called “stake holders” would get their hands out of the employee-taxpayer-premium payer’s pockets the problem might be reduced to a manageable size.

Let’s teach Civics again

2009-09-06T11:15:00.001-07:00

Civics, a course in how our governments are organized, and the rights and duties of citizens was once an all but universal subject in the curriculum of American high schools. Although the presentation of the subject was less than exciting it did give students a bare bones understanding of the interrelationship of the several branches of government, the privileges and prohibitions provided for in the constitution, the organization of the branches of the federal government and how responsibilities were divided among them. State and local government organizations were not neglected.

Unfortunately this subject has largely been eliminated, making room for other subjects, substantially less important to the education of a citizen.

After witnessing some of the ill informed opinions being advanced at the town hall meetings around the country it is clear that many, many of our citizens are grossly misinformed as the how their government is structured, what power they are authorized to exercise and what protections have been built into our democracy over the last 200 years. They are being stampeded by false fears.

Our school boards should immediately address this problem and design and establish a curriculum for teaching civics together with a history of those governmental developments so as to provide our students with a sound basis for understanding how government works and how it got there, the history needed is not one of battles and dates but of movements and developments in our society, the growth of our technology and how these forces coincide to influence governmental institutions.

We can place our trust in a well informed citizenry, but not a misinformed, manipulated mob. Today when calculated campaigns are implemented to mislead our citizens and instill fear where there should be reason, there is a desperate need for facts, not misinformation.

IN THE ZONE

2009-08-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

Whether it is merely coincidence or I am particularly sensitized to
issues of aging I’m not sure but of late I have noted that upon the
death of persons of consequence, in their late seventies or
eighties, the tone of reporting has a slightly different caste, an element of
“well, wasn’t it expected” or “they did lead such a good and
productive life.” What was missing was the tonal of loss or regret or
surprise at an event unexpected.

This, together with newly released statistics concerning life
expectancy and changes concerning longevity points up the fact that I
have thus far beaten the odds, exceeded the quota of time
statistically allotted and therefore a new view, a change in the
characterization of my expectations is appropriate. Innocent questions
concerning the resale value of my pistols or the possible
inappropriateness of considering trading for a new car come to mind,
like little nettles of reminders, - nothing so pointed as “for whom
the bell tolls” but never the less with an underlying reminder that,
after all, time does march on. Part of this new reality is re-enforced by one
of my doctors (after repairing a torn rotator cuff) advised to give up weight
training and other excerise with the sole exception of cardiovascular training.
Having used weight training and stressing machines most of my adult life this
required a further acceptance of the inevitability of aging and the requirements
which resulted. So, although my feet hurt due to diabetic problems, I still walk
one mile every morning for such benefit as I may derive , fully understanding that
I am never the less in decline.

Although I am sanguine and accepting with respect to my increasing frailties, for the
most part they are limited to things physical, limitations on mobility and endurance but
they have not yet impinged on my mental faculties and I still consider myself alert, quick
and well informed as well as being blessed with an extraordinary memory and recall as
well as a well-honed ability to communicate. To accept easily, the judgment of others
which are suggestive of proscribing my activities and range of interests I find unacceptable.

With heart disease, parkingson’s, diabetes, lukemenia and necessity of using a nebulizer
thrice daily I still have an ample reserve of vitality. Perhaps Dylan Thomas ‘s advise
to “.....rage, rage at the dying light...” was intended as an objection to the foreclosures of
activity, not to the final closure.

Although I am comfortable with the idea of my mortality and I think I
am substantially less weepy and cringing at the prospect of passing
than some in my acquaintance. I still find the climatic shift, the
recognition that I am now in the zone as somewhat disconcerting.

Buddhism has taught me serenity and pursuit of wisdom, the letting go
of desire for material things. My clear rejection of the religious
nonsense of after – life and born-again philosophies combine in my
view to give me a quiet, reverence for life absent a fear of
inevitable death . It’s just the final letting go.

My love is shared in many ways; for my wife who has stood by me with
fondness and concern through the years, who helped me heal and grow,
for my children and grandchildren who fill me with pride, for the few friends I have
known and loved, the small animals in my world with whom I share a
love and tenderness uncomplicated by levels of concern or interaction,
free of guile or suspicion. I have tried to leave a catalog of my life
and feelings, urging those whom I have loved to read so as to
understand me. More I cannot do – it is not within my reach, I hope it
was enough.

Still the current political roiling debates about end of life
conspiracies is at least annoying. Better the advice in Proverbs –“ to
everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
Heaven, a time to be born and a time to die …” So why is the idea of
letting go when the time is appropriate so repugnant to most of our
society? We contend about living wills, DNR instructions, contracts
not concerned with feelings as much as cost potential and
probabilities of results – whatever they are in this context. I trust in
Becky’s judgment for my living will. She got me through my last episode
without letting the doctor’s “pull my plug”, supported me in my resistance to
being declared incompetent so I could emerge with a taint on my competence.
The she nursed me back ot health, emotionally and physically.

The societal paradoxes from Christians sure of Heaven but afraid to
die to relegating young lives into almost certain death in the service
of national pride or honor yet maudlin shows of lament and loss when
their young, smashed bodies are brought back, we seem to be unable to
come to grips with a standard, a finality of how much we value life,
depending on whose and the nature of dying.

Euphemisms abound, we have distorted our language concerning death with
phrases like “gone to rest,” ” joined his maker” “find repose, “ or terms like
euthanize, put down, put to sleep for a small creatures of our planet,
but eschew the word “death” as if it’s utterance is the fatal juju,
which brings an end.

As one who does recognize that he is in the zone, now subject to the
frailties brought by time, the susceptibilities to disease, and the
running out of luck, I find I am keenly aware of both the issues and
the paradoxes and I am more than willing to find my own niche of
comfort, away from the dialogues and concerns of society. Long ago I
learned how to “suck it up.” This is no different.

It’s politically correct

2009-08-16T10:02:00.001-07:00

Watching two hours of Senator Specter’s recent “town hall” meeting in
Lebanon Pennsylvania, I realized that a new chapter in the protocol
of political correctness has been written which only applies to
elected officials holding “town Hall” meetings on health care.

In the service of honoring our time honored tradition of free
speech, elected officials must “suffer fools gladly” and permit any
and all grossly uninformed person to vent their anger and rage, scream
and shout obscenities, curses, threats, pointless questions or
distorted misinformed opinions, all the while smiling and treating
the questioners as if they are well informed, rational and raising
important, relevant issues for consideration. Thus, everyone from the
flat earth society to the alien abduction survivors will have their
legitimate political concerns given thoughtful consideration by the
Congress when voting on any health care legislation.

God save the Republic.

The Edge of Anarchy

2009-08-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Watching the recent orchestrated dustups to interrupt the attempts of Democratic legislators to conduct a discussion of pending bills with their constituents I am reminded of a piece of Republican illegal violence from the 2000 election, a full court press organized attack on the offices of the Registrar of Elections for Dade County Florida. Then in the process of conducting a recount of some 10,000 ballots in the Bush - Gore presidential election. The office was attacked by a mob of Republican thugs brought in to stop the recount, stop it at any cost. Then papered over and presented as a “grass roots” protest and called the “Brooks Brothers Riot” by a compliant press, we now know that the first ten protesters in the lead were all Republican staffers and employees of Republican congressmen or soon to become their employees. It permitted George Bush to frustrate the will of the people of Florida and with a compliant Florida bureaucracy, steal our electoral votes and the presidential election.

The current outrages occurring at the town hall meetings are no less sinister nor spontaneous; when the alleged grass roots protesters show up with hand printed talking points, distributed by insurance company lobbyists and Republican neo-cons, supposedly critical of legislation that has not yet been written. What is at risk here is a grave threat to the orderly process of democratic government.

The hand of Karl Rove, old “win at any cost” can be seen in the background together with such anti-governmental types as Dick Armey, Grover Norquist, whose announced objective is to reduce the Federal government to a size that he could “drown it in a bath tub”, and William Kristol, the smirking leader of the neo-cons, whose original claim to fame was that he was chief of staff to the Vice President who couldn’t spell potato. With the strong support of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, a matched pair of unscrupulous agitators - the so-called protests are thinly disguised riots, an attempt at anarchy to bring into disrepute the effects of our recent elections. Not content to abide by the will of the majority and the democratic process, an appeal to mob rule to reverse the results of the election and restore the secret power once exercised by the neo conservatives.

We should all be alert to the danger that the disruption of these meetings is not part of the orderly process of voicing dissent nor intended to inform the voters of the issues. Rather it is a dangerous attempt to shut down and stifle discourse and defeat the attempt of our elected officials to engage in a dialogue with their constituents. Make no mistake, this is not a protest solely concerning health care issues. It is a much more serious attempt to undermine our system of government.