Discarding Christmas

Six A.M. of a rainy day after Christmas; dreary, dark and cold.  Driving to work with the relatively few others of the sleepy and depressed on the freeway; and wondering why.  I guess this is how it is on the day after Christmas.

Christmas Potpourri; 2012 Edition

Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.~ Washington Irving 

Its Christmas Eve morn and I’ve just braved the crowds at Andronico’s, one of the areas high end food stores.  Cora doesn’t see much use for such stores unless we need something that’s actually good to eat; fresh produce, quality meats, cuts that you don’t find at the local market and fish that wasn’t raised on a farm.  Today’s mission was to get some good bread, crusty pain au lavain from San Francisco’s Acme Bakery.  On my way to checkout I grabbed a boxed pandoro, a sweet Italian bread, dusted with powdered sugar to resemble the snow covered Alps. 

Reflecting on Tragedy

Shifting emotions on Friday evening’s drive home; grief, rage, confusion.  Trying to digest the news out of Newtown, Connecticut.  Looking for sense in a landscape of senselessness. 

I’d been in meetings during much of the day.  Getting back to my office a co-worker told me of the news; she’d been at her desk bawling as she read the news.  I took a quick look at a report and didn’t realize the severity of what had unfolded.  Another killing - back to work.

Life is Not Fair

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

~  Suicide is Painless (M*A*S*H Theme).  Music by Johnny Mandel, Lyrics by Mike Altman

"Life is not fair; get used to it."
~  Bill Gates

"The world is not fair and often fools, cowards, and the selfish hide in high places."
~  Bryant H. McGill; Author and poet.

Within the short space of a week I was reminded more than once that life is not fair. They came of course by way of that universally respected organ of philosophic discussion; Facebook.  

One was a debate about 49er quarterbacks.  I’d expressed displeasure over Alex Smith, the starting quarterback apparently losing his job because his understudy had performed well the week before while Smith sat out with a concussion.  My contention was that Smith had been playing well over the course of the season and done nothing to lose his status as the starting player.  There was an exchange of opinions over the merits of one player over the other with one poster punctuating his comment with, “Life’s not fair.”

A few days later a friend posted a commencement address made (allegedly) by Bill Gates in which he listed 11 things that they don’t teach you in high school.  Rule number one on the list of Gatesian sagacity was; “Life is not fair – get used to it.”  Ouch. 

Let me make it clear, these weren’t the first times I’ve come across that pearl, “Life’s not fair.”   You hear it all the time.  At times its glib bullshit – something to say when you’ve really nothing more of any substance to add to the conversation.  Other times it’s used as Gates intended; a sort of hardnosed, Darwinian, tough love approach to survival in this veil of tears.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Sitting amongst the wreckage of Thanksgiving at the kitchen table – some dinner rolls in a zip lock, a cranberry cake (deliciously baked by my daughter I might add), some cornbread and God knows what’s in the fridge.  I’m almost afraid to open the door for fear of being buried by an avalanche of leftover feast.

Black Thanksgiving: A Real Turkey - 2012 Edition

“CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” ~ Ambrose Bierce.

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.” ~ Confucius

“There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.”  ~ O Henry

Inching through Berkeley in rush hour traffic (Why in the hell do they call it rush hour when it takes that hour to go 5 miles? Where exactly is the rush part?) NPR brought the impending holiday season into stark blinding reality.  It reported that this year Wal-Mart will be kicking off the holiday shopping season by opening its doors at 8 PM on Thanksgiving night. 

Last year, in this very space I published a post titled Black Thanksgiving: A Real Turkey in which I criticized the marginalizing of our great American holiday, Thanksgiving, in favor of a new ritual; that of bundling up and leaving the holiday festivities for a round of bargain hunting hysteria.  I protested, vehemently I might add, the decision by Wal-Mart to open at 10 PM on Thanksgiving night.  In its audacity, Wal-Mart not only didn’t take my beef with them seriously, it upped the ante and decided to open its doors two hours earlier than last year.  The very effrontery of it all.  Obviously Walmart doesn’t know who it’s dealing with.  No, really, they don’t.  They don’t have the foggiest idea who I am and even if they did they wouldn’t care.  I’m that gnat on the ass of an elephant (or more properly the ass of an ass). Nonetheless I feel compelled to play David to Sam’s Goliath. 

An Open Letter From a Breaking Heart

This is a post written by Calvin Peña.  I met Calvin, who is one of my daughter's friends, through social media.  This post by Calvin started out as a message that he sent me in response to my last post; America Heal Thyself IV.  His words resonated so I asked him permission to publish it as a post.

An Open Letter From a Breaking Heart

Calvin Peña

Even when I was a regular church-goer I never thought I would break down and cry at a Bible verse.  Think again.  I came across a verse in Matthew 25 recently that brought me to uncontrollable tears: "He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, that whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me." 

America Heal Thyself IV

Final Part

People over Money 

This is the last post of four dealing with healthcare in America.  Before commencing I should point out some important facts about myself to provide perspective.  I’ve always had health insurance through an employer and still do.  I’ve never complained about the premiums or copays.  I would not flinch if my rates or taxes were increased to provide healthcare for each and every citizen.  There are always personal sacrifices that we can make for the good of all.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

From The Declaration of Independence.

Of the thirty-three developed nations, thirty two have universal healthcare.  The lone exception is the United States.  How could that be?  In 1776, when America was just a concept a group of patriots signed a document that established as unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Integral to two of those rights, life and the pursuit of happiness is good health; or at the very least the opportunity for good health. And yet we find ourselves mired in a cantankerous debate over whether we should have universal health care anchored by a robust government system.  If we were a truly civilized society, we would have long ago figured out how to accomplish this. 

Nearly 50 years ago America experienced a similar debate about healthcare.  It was a time when the elderly were tied to their children for survival.  There was no healthcare system in place for the elderly to turn to.  In 1959, George Reedy, the man who 5 years later would become Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary summed up the status of America’s elderly; “Somehow the problem must be dramatized in some way so that Americans will know that the problem of the aging amounts to a collective responsibility.  America is no longer a nation in which grandmother and grandfather can spend their declining years in a log cabin doing odd jobs and taking care of the grandchildren.” Johnson took on the challenge and in 1965, Medicare became a reality.  Oh there was a hue and cry and the alarm of creeping socialism.  Said Ronald Reagan; “If you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”  Well I’m closing in on the sunset years and I still don’t have a portrait of Joe Stalin on the wall and contrary to Reagan’s dire warning Medicare was actually liberating.  America isn’t bound by the shackles of despotic Socialism but the elderly are no longer tied to their children.  They live longer more productive lives on their own, assured that their medical needs are taken care of. Young families no longer have to wonder what to do with the grandparents when planning the family vacation.  They no longer have to choose between saving for their children’s college education and keeping granny healthy.

Once again we’re in a healthcare debate; this time over universal coverage.  We’re told by conservative pundits that if it’s a government program, it’s bound to fail.  Nothing that the government does ever turns out right.  These are words that come from the self-same individuals who will regale us with the greatness of America; a nation that can accomplish whatever it sets its collective mind to. The nation that sponsored the exploration and opening of the West in the 19^th century, facilitated the carving of a canal in Panama, spearheaded the downfall of Axis tyranny, built the Federal Highway System, funded science research that is second to none, possesses the most powerful military ever known, landed a man on the moon and for decades operated a successful space shuttle.  We did all of these things yet we can’t find a way to make healthcare for everyone a reality? When it’s convenient to make their case, the Palin’s and Limbuagh’s will always decry the incompetence of American government.

At the heart of the debate is money; the rising costs of healthcare; an aging population putting pressure on funding and medical resources; the impact on the deficit.  We’ve been told that to have government sponsored healthcare is not sustainable; that it’s impossible.  I have to believe that finding the means to fund universal healthcare is possible.  This country spends mountains of money on programs that nobody bats an eyelash over.  Consider a military budget that dwarfs the rest of the world.  Our two “potential military opponents” Russia and China have combined military budgets of 142.5 billion dollars a figure that is dwarfed by our budget of 739.3 billion dollars.  And while Mitt Romney is ready to add another two trillion dollars to the defense budget he finds that we can’t afford medical care for the citizenry. 

Investing in the health of Americans is a positive investment but if you're looking for investments to fume over there are plenty out there.  How about Pakistan?  Why did we never have a contentious national argument over doling out some 20 billion dollars to Pakistan? Over the last 10 years we poured money into a nation that not only gave aid and comfort to insurgents fighting against us in the Afghan war, it pretended not to notice a tall Arab terrorist hooked to a dialysis machine living next door to their military academy; and then they were outraged when we killed the man.  But Pakistan was Bin Laden’s friend years before he was on our radar.  That was a time when the Soviets had left Afghanistan and we poured countless millions and more millions into Pakistan while it supported Bin Laden and the precursors to the Taliban. Where was the outrage over giving money to a nation playing us for fools?  We can support a rogue nation that works against our own interests but we’re pennywise and pound foolish with healthcare for our own.    

Over the course of three posts, I’ve not discussed the debate over money.  I’ve not delved into the minutiae over the funding of universal healthcare and I certainly won’t begin here.  That’s because at its very core it is not a money issue, it is a moral issue.  And yet the two, money and morality, have become tragically intertwined.  We’ve come to a hell of a situation in which people cannot afford to get sick. Consider that:

     Crushing hospital and medical bills are the cause of most personal bankruptcies. The results of a 2007 study by the American Medical Association states: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001. The study also found that; The share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 50% between 2001 and 2007.

      People put off medical care until such time that they can afford it. US News reported that a woman in New Jersey had a 51 pound tumor removed.  The tumor was not only malignant; it was putting pressure on her interior vena cava which returns blood to the heart.  The tumor grew to its appalling size not because the woman was obese and didn’t know it was there or because she was chronically stupid.  No she was forced to wait until Medicare kicked in before she could have the required surgery. What would have happened to her if she were not on the cusp of Medicare?

     
And then there are those not as lucky as the New Jersey woman; the ones that simply die; something that Mitt Romney assures us doesn’t happen; “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”  Well according to a Harvard Medical School study, some 45000 people a year die due to lack of medical insurance.  The study also found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

     I imagine that someone could try to make the argument that the study is flawed; the numbers inflated.  Okay let’s grant that the numbers are inflated. From what? 35,000?  20,000?  10,000?  Is there a point where the figure becomes acceptable? If there is then please go to the comments section and fill in the blank.
 

Beware the sanctimonious hypocrites; the so called God fearing folks, Huckabee, Santorum and their apostles, the Tea Party.  Phony Christians and blustering humbugs; they claim a franchise on the defense of life and bloviate about the moral decay of America while their actions and policies expose their meanness and cruelty caring not one fig for a family on the edge of poverty that suffers a parent with untreated high blood pressure or a child with autism and no recourse but to simply soldier on.  It doesn’t touch the souls of these "Christian soldiers" that over 35% of uninsured children go a year or more without seeing a doctor. Carrying a Bible in one hand and a bludgeon in the other their twisted creed distorts Christian charity as creeping Socialism.  An inbreeding of right wing ideology, tub thumping evangelical Protestantism and unbridled paranoia seeks to marginalize “the least of these” as Christ called them.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

The Book of Matthew; Chapter 25; 41 – 45.

In my first post on healthcare I quoted a man’s response to an article on healthcare. He said; “if u want insurance buy it, if not pay Cash..if not, go Die..”  As loathsome as I find that sentiment I have to say that I’ve more respect for this fellow than those that choose to remain behind a veil. 

I’ve long ago grown weary of the whiners on social media bitching about Obamacare and how its going to raise their insurance rates and lighten their bank accounts.  Tough shit. I have someone close to me with type 1 diabetes.  She did nothing wrong except sit by while her pancreas decided to short circuit.  I’ve a wife who’s gone toe to toe with cancer three times, won each time and shown more courage and character than some pudknocker sniveling over having to cut back on his Coors ration because my wife deserves coverage as much as he does.  I’ve a friend with a child who has a heart condition.  I’ve another friend with a quirky thyroid that requires medication.  One with a history of spinal surgeries.  These people are all a job loss away from possibly losing health coverage and losing a chance to thrive, to be productive members of society to love and be loved by their families and of losing those unalienable rights of life and the pursuit of happiness.

And so to those whiners I have a challenge and a parting sentiment.

Your challenge is to become courageous and honest and stand up for your view to the people who would be most affected. Your challenge is to go to a friend with some affliction; you must know somebody; we all do.  Look that person in the eye and say these words; "You know if you ever lose your health insurance I guess it sucks for you.”

And my parting sentiment?  I don’t give a good goddamn about your fucking bank account.   

America; Heal Thyself III

 Third Part in a Series

"Just go to an emergency room"

“People have access to health care in America.  After all just go to an emergency room.”  George W. Bush

Mitt Romney recently echoed Mr. Bush in a 60 Minutes interview. If you have a heart attack “you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital.”

“Just go to the emergency room” is a great plan if you have a heart attack, break a limb, have a stroke or get shot. That’s what every rational person does because the emergency room is there for critical conditions that require immediate attention. 

America; Heal Thyself II

 Second Part in a Series 
We Don't Insure a Burning House

I clearly recall the interview that I heard on NPR prior to the 2008 presidential election.  A woman described her efforts to find insurance when she was pregnant.  The charming response from one agent was, "We don't insure a burning house."  By good fortune or the grace of God, her job transferred her to Germany where she immediately was accepted into the health care system and received prenatal and postnatal care.

America; Heal Thy Self I

 First Part in a Series
The Rhetoric

“We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations.”  ~ Studs Terkel

“If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”  ~ Ebenezer Scrooge speaking of the poor. 

Countries with universal healthcare: Norway, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Kuwait, Sweden, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Netherlands, Austria, UAE, Finland, Slovenia, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, South Korea, Iceland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Israel. 

 

Richie Batra’s comment was chilling, “if u want insurance buy it, if not pay Cash..if not, go Die..im not worried about anyone but myself and nobody should worry about me either(sic)."  Mr. Batra’s remark was a comment in a thread responding to an article last December in Think Progress covering then presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Q & A with a group of high school students.

HSB: Warren Hellman's Musical Gift

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

It is now less than 2 months from the start of HSB and I'm already getting into weekend bliss mode. That's what Warren Hellman's annual gift to the Bay Area has been for me.  No matter how shitty life has been in a particular year, for 3 days everything is beautiful. Thank you Warren and I'll be there in October. ~  My dear friend Scott.

For years Scott has suggested that I attend Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and for years I've always had something else going on..until this year.  Even though we went this year we missed hooking up with Scott who every year attends all three days. When he learned that I was writing a post on the event he offered some fodder for the post - an offer which I eagerly accepted. So this post is a shared work. 

It was day two of a weekend (Counting Friday) that the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce couldn’t have conjured in their wildest fantasies.  A convergence of events promising to bring an estimated million visitors and their money, money, money into the city.  That’s what it’s all about, right – money? The Giants are in the playoffs at AT&T Park, an America’s Cup Yacht race on the bay, a Blue Angels air show over the bay, a couple of street fairs, a parade, a 49er home game and in Golden Gate Park, the three day Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival (lovingly known as HSB).  Cora and I opted for HSB on Saturday, with plans to evacuate the house early and beat the hordes across the bridge into The City (“C’mon Cora, aren’t you ready yet? Hurry up!”).

Mr. Romney's Indigence Envy

Here is another of those posts I really had no intention of getting into - I just hate doing politics.  Let’s just say, “The devil made me do it.”  In this case the devil is Facebook. 

In a moment of weakness (not really) I felt compelled to share a commentary about Mitt Romney and his income tax finagling.  The point of the commentary being Romney fudged his returns so that he paid MORE in taxes than he actually had to.  In 2011 he donated over 4 million dollars to charity but claimed only 2 million.  Why?  Because by taking the full deduction he would have paid less than the 13% he claims is the lowest that he’s ever paid.  The commentary went on to describe the many and varied Romney tax avoidance strategies including Cayman Island tax havens and a $77,000 deduction for Ann Romney’s Olympic horse.  My comment on the op-ed was, well, a little caustic towards Mr. Romney. 

Many Thanks Steve

65 toss power trap; 65 toss power trap.  That might pop right open.” ~ Hank Stram

The Autumn wind is a pirate
Blustering in from sea
With a rollicking song he sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously.
His face is weatherbeaten
He wears a hooded sash
With a silver hat about his head
And a bristling black mustache
He growls as he storms the country
A villain big and bold
And the trees all shake and quiver and quake
As he robs them of their gold.
The Autumn wind is a Raider
Pillaging just for fun
He'll knock you 'round and upside down
And laugh when he's conquered and won ~ Steve Sabol

Working For a Living II: Labor's Day

The story's always the same

Seven hundred tons of metal a day

Now sir you tell me the world's changed

Once I made you rich enough

Rich enough to forget my name

From “Youngstown”  Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
From “Solidarity Forever”  Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin

Maybe this year we should call it Labor's Day; own it.  Maybe those of us who are the worker bees should claim it back.  Look to the roots of what the holiday should be about. At one time it celebrated the worker; the worker who fought hard for fair treatment and a fair wage in exchange for the sweat on his brow.  We’ve regressed.  Now it’s just another day off.  How poetic it would be if only the workers got the day off and the CEOs and their high level brethren had to do, just for one day, what the minions do every day and do it thanklessly.  I dare say the first thing that would happen is that they would fuck it up horribly ( Because, "Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn.").

Money; The Root of Regulation

"Regulation is strangling businesses of all sizes in California, and we've got to streamline regulation so it's easy, not hard, to do business."
Meg Whitman 

"That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated."
Dennis Kucinich

"Let me say that I don't like money.  I work and I earn it because it's fundamental to survival. I spend it on necessities and frivolities and I donate it (thought not as much as I should) to causes more worthy than those that get my money for the necessities and frivolities. Let me repeat; I don't like money. It is evil and it inspires the evil in people."
Paul Anderson (Me)

 

This all started with yogurt; Greek yogurt.  Greek yogurt and phony Greek yogurt to be precise.  Then it went to foreclosure and bank regulation and from there it went to a legislator ranting about laissez faire and now it’s grown into an argument about the morality of making money. 

Bamboozled at the Old Ball Game (A Fan's View)

“There is but one game and that game is baseball”  John McGraw

“When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game.”  Joe DiMaggio

The cops just knocked on the door and told us to turn down the music; the bartender skipped last call and stopped serving; mom just told our friends to go home; and the lifeguard just hollered, “Everybody out of the pool.”  The party’s over. That’s how it felt for us Giants fans when it was announced that left fielder Melky Cabrera was suspended for 50 games (the remainder of the season) after he tested for excessive levels of testosterone; dirty.  What is it about left field at AT&T Park?  First it was drug cheat extraordinaire, Barry Bonds; now Cabrera.  

Albert, Carrie and Carl

On this publication date, it’s Albert’s birthday.  He would be 66 today. Coincidentally I’m participating in the Relay for Life in Pinole, California to benefit the American Cancer Association. 

Don't wait to make your son a great man - make him a great boy. 

  

This is a positive story.  But like so many good stories this one has its own gloomy side.  I would completely leave out the tragedy in this story but for the fact that it’s necessary to the telling of the whole; and so we’ll dispense with it at the start. 

A Five Ring Sunday Circus

Alright, so I got sucked in.  I’ve taken to watching the games and in large measure it took track and field to hook me.  Well, it took track.  My cynical side, which as anyone who reads this regularly would know is dominant, tells me that the strength events are PED tainted.  I still feel burned over those two USA Track and Field Championships at Stanford a few years back.  A few years back can be translated to mean “the Balco years.”   I spent top dollar for good seats, hyped the events to Cora and then we found out after the Balco bubble burst that many of the results from both meets were frauds. 

It's The "O" Games - Oh My!

“The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.”
Pierre de Coubertin

“Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you.”

From a little ditty.

Being the curmudgeonly party pooper is a tough job but someone has to take it on.  The “O” Games have begun and the world and NBC are all atwitter.  You’ll notice that I’m not using the proper word to describe these quadrennial events that are equal part sport, nationalism and soap opera (Currently two years separates the winter and summer games.  In years past the winter and summer games occurred in the same year).  I’m staying away from the actual word itself because it has an armor plated copyright, defended with badger-like tenacity and I don’t have a lawyer with the horsepower of the “O” Organizing Committee’s lawyers to fight off any suits over my use of the “O” word (In fact I don’t have a lawyer of any horsepower). 

I’m being extra cautious because according to a story on NPR the “O”, organizers in London are being O-verly zealous this year about protecting the copyright.  The “O” games lawyers (If the games were being held in nearby Dublin, could we call them O’Lawyers?) are working O-vertime making sure that nobody sells fake merchandise, hijacks the rings to promote their laundry business or dog sitting service or misuses the “O” word.  We have an “O” Boulevard here in nearby Walnut Creek; I’m wondering if the town fathers are consulting the city attorneys.

When Success Usurps Honor

"When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness.”
Tecumseh of the Shawnee

“Publicity is like poison; it doesn't hurt unless you swallow it.”  Joe Paterno

“Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.” 

Joe Paterno

It was one of those Facebook debates sparked by a post that was quite a bit deeper than, “I am at Disneyland;” “I just ate spaghetti and meatballs” or “I just ran 5 miles.”  It was more controversial than “Rush is big fat idiot” or “Romney is a whore to business,” or “Obama wasn’t born in America.”

“Not trying to defend the cover up by Joe Pa but why is that everyone's focus? I'm so sick of hearing about that. How about the media puts the focus on the actual person who committed the 42 counts of child molestation!”

Seaside Repose

"But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean."
H.P. Lovecraft

Late of a July afternoon.  Lolling on a wooden bench, hand hewn, sun bleached and weather beaten.  Near the edge of a coastside bluff overlooking an azure Pacific Ocean scattered with diamonds of shimmering sunlight. 

Turning the Century

Every now and again we do something that attracts the admiration of some and makes us the laughingstock of others.  There’s skydiving, buying a motorcycle (or if you’re over 50 buying a Corvette convertible), scaling the face of El Capitan and most recently in my case, riding a bike 100 miles; in one day.  A few months back I signed up to do the Livestrong Challenge bike ride in Davis CA.  My co-worker across the hall expressed a fair amount of admiration.  My boss in the office next door thought I was nuts.  And that was more or less the mix; some thought admirable and others certifiable.    

Why We Ride: John

It was hard to hold a conversation.  He would speak a few words and then be interrupted by a cough; a wet, relentless cough, releasing a malicious fluid that gurgled up from deep within his failing lungs; a cough that convulsed his entire, now frail, body for what seemed minutes at a time.  The coughing seizures seemed to last for minutes and left him spent beyond the exhaustion brought on by the illness itself.  I was visiting John at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland.  John was dying.  I knew it, his friends knew it, his family knew it and John knew it.  By this point John was philosophical about it all.  John was dying of lung cancer.

31 Forgotten - and Remembered

There’s a saying, “It’s always the simple things that change our lives.”  For us maybe it’s the simple things that define our lives.

It’s the 7^th inning and the Giants are working hard at dropping a Sunday get away game to the visiting Oakland A’s.  Cora comes into the room and for some reason I remember that I should be remembering something.  That’s kind of how it works when you start getting up in age; you have to jog your memory to jog your memory; sort of a mental double clutching.

Another Giant looks at called strike three and then it comes to me.  I'm not even sure why it comes to me at this particular moment but I look at the date on my watch and then at Cora, “Uh, isn’t it our anniversary today?”

“May 20.”  It registers with her.  “Yeah; 31 years.”

“Happy anniversary,” I deadpan.

“Happy anniversary,” as she looks back at the score.
She starts to go back to what she was doing and I settle back to watch another Giant futility . 

Memorial Monday Musings

 

It's Memorial Day Weekend.  Today is the day that we celebrate the time honored tradition of  barbecuing pork flesh.  Or is it the day that we honor basketball by watching an NBA playoff game?  It could be Fireworks at the Ball Park Day.  In honor of filling corporate retail coffers it might be the day you get to take twenty five percent off anything in the store and take an extra 15 percent if you use your store credit card (exclusions apply; does not include Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Nautica or Izod).  Maybe it's the day we revel in the great American motor car by getting 0.9% financing on any new car in the lot (FICO score of 720 or better).  Actually those are some of the things that we DO on Memorial Day.  They are certainly not the spirit and meaning of Memorial Day; regardless of the fact that many of our fellow Americans believe so.  

My dad always called it by its original name, Decoration Day.  In 1868, Union veterans of the Civil War set aside May 5th to decorate the graves of Civil War dead with flowers.  Major General John Logan later established May 30th as the day to honor America's war dead; a date chosen because flowers would be in plentiful bloom nationwide. 

The Relativity of Money

Summer weather has arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area.  And my pool is still a deep shade of green.  Just don’t tell the boys at mosquito abatement.  Let’s just keep it our little secret.  Some years I’m good about keeping the chemical balance somewhat in line during the winter months.  Other years the “cee-ment pond” as Jed Clampett used to call his pool, actually looks like a pond; the only thing missing is a few lily pads.  After many springs of spending a small fortune in chemicals, not to mention the hours involved in getting out the green, one would think that I’ve learned the value of a little winter maintenance.  I haven’t heeded the financial lesson. 

Jumping Over the Candlestick

I indulged in a nooner yesterday.  Not that kind of a nooner; cleanse that dirty little mind.  A nooner is a weekday baseball game.  Years ago it was called a businessman’s special.  Take off from work at noon, maybe take a client, catch the game and back to work for a couple of hours.  Men went to the game in business suits; there was no such thing as business casual.  When I was working at a retail hardware store my co-worker Joe would often say, "I'm going to the businessman's special today.  Joe wasn't a businessman, he was the delivery driver.  His "suit" was jeans and a Giant's t-shirt.  The midweek day game is great fun, and usually an opportunity to get a good seat at a good price but unfortunately is becoming a dinosaur.  The reason; grousing about post-game traffic mingling with rush hour traffic.  Let's just take all the fun out of life. There was no work for me this day and in lieu of a client I opted to go with my wife; a definite upgrade.

Riding for a Cause

"The most moral act is one which is actuated by disinterested motives...from the viewpoint of the author of an action, unselfishness must remain the criterion of the highest morality."
Reinhold Neibuhr

“If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them.  When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope?  We have two options, medically and emotionally:  give up, or fight like hell.”
Lance Armstrong

"Cancer changes your life, often for the better. You learn what's important, you learn to prioritize, and you learn not to waste your time. You tell people you love them. My friend Gilda Radner (who died of ovarian cancer in 1989 at age 42) used to say, 'If it wasn't for the downside, having cancer would be the best thing and everyone would want it.' That's true. If it wasn't for the downside."

Joel Siegel

Running I: You Either Get It or You Don't

“Some mistakes we never stop paying for.”   Roy Hobbs; The Natural

The call came over the bullhorn, “First call, 880; First call."  That was my alarm to start warming up; a slow jog around the high school campus in my black fleece, Aragon High, sweats.

I’m sitting here staring at my right ankle.  It isn’t horribly swollen but comparing it to the left I can see a puffed up band running along the front of my ankle between those two knobs of bone on each side.  I can also tell when I slip on a sock that the right one feels noticeably tighter. 

“Second call 880; second call.”  I’d worked up a light sheen of sweat and was stretching on the infield paying some attention to the events in progress and trying to figure out how much time I had before my race. 

Working For a Living: The Retail Years

“Somedays won't end ever and somedays pass on by,

I'll be working here forever, at least until I die.”   Huey Lewis

Mulling over my working life.  I do that on these days when I come home burned out, wrung out, office politicked out and ready to opt out.  It’s been a forty year sampler of jobs.  Stocking shoes as a teenager at Kinney Shoes working for a little dandy name Marvin and watching the letch, Mr. Slick shoe salesmen try to sneak a glimpse up a skirt while forcing a pair of boots on some young thing.  Working one shift as a busboy at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor and quitting because it stunk of chocolate, couldn’t see doing that for more than the brief time I put in and I preferred going home to watch the (then) Los Angeles Rams play the (then) Baltimore Colts on Monday Night Football.  That was a good game in those days.  Beer tended at a local Round Table Pizzeria.  Then college. 

Compassion in America: R.I.P

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
Dalai Lama

Here lies compassion, cherished offspring of Love and Tenderness and sibling to Mercy and Goodwill. You were struck down in your prime by a malignance of ill will.  May you rest in peace. 

The purchasing manager walked into my office and looking past me through the windows at the helicopters hovering nearby said, “That’s not a good sign.”

 I work a few blocks from both the Oakland International Airport and the highway so the sound of helicopters isn’t out of the ordinary.  Could be air traffic, a flight school or traffic reporters.  I had noticed that the sound was persistent and it did sound like multiple aircraft.  Being a busy morning I’d paid them no mind until she called my attention to them.  I looked out the window to count five helicopters, some hovering miles away and one or two nearly directly overhead. 

I offered that, “This might be the work of another upstanding citizen.”

She came back in my office a few minutes later to tell me that early reports were of a shooting at the Wal-Mart nearby and she admonished the staff to stay in the building.  A few minutes later I went on the internet to the website of one of the local news stations to learn that there had been a shooting, not at Wal-Mart, but at a local vocational college.  Oikos University teaches, theology, nursing, Asian medicine and music; an odd mix.  It is a Christian school associated with the Praise God Korean Church in Oakland and Shepherd University of San Francisco.  Most readers by now know that a gunman killed 7 students and wounded 3 others before fleeing and being caught a few hours later in nearby Alameda.   

Throughout the course of my workday I went back to the news station website to follow the progress of the incident.  Later in the afternoon I went to Yahoo news, read the article and, against my better judgment went on to the comments. 

By now I suppose I should be jaded to the content in the comments sections of internet news.  But I still find myself staggered by the level of ignorance, stupidity and downright meanness of my fellow citizens.  Among a smattering of condolences was a host of misplaced humor and searing malevolence. 

Among those who can find levity in just about anything were:

                Pingüino, "They give me B grade! I never get B grade befo. I shoot up the school!"

                CavoretheMoonExplorer, “It's a good thing this happened at a nursing school. Plenty of people who know how to help. There's always a bright side........”

                NObama2012, “Lets see, a California man, in nursing school? Hmmmmm....”

The anti-Christian at all costs contingent weighed in with:

                Hillbilly49, “Where was Jesus, God or the Holy Spirit today; do they get Monday's off?”

                LuisD, “It amazes me that in the 21st century we still have centers of learning that preach myth and superstition. This is the very opposite of reason and critical thinking.”

                Lancegoodthrust, “What a pathetic lot those christians are!”

And finally there was condensed venom:

                Senalvingreene, “WHAT A STUPID SCHOOL. GOOD RIDDANCE.”

There’s a flood of this bile out there, poking fun at Koreans, wagging fingers at Christians and playing a whole deck of race cards.

This kind of “humor” and bile isn’t new.  It just used to be carried on out of earshot between imbeciles who would yuk it up while elbowing each other in the ribs.  Now the moron brigade has unabashedly gone public.

I’ve nothing against humor and irreverence.  Anyone reading this blog would know that.  There is however a line; and it really isn’t a fine line.  It’s one that’s easy to spot and it delineates a boundary that when crossed is hurtful to those who have suffered loss or takes advantage of a tragedy to poke fun at the victims.   

These are people (and I use the term loosely) who really have no soul.  They are in some ways as hollow as the murdered himself because, like the killer they have no feeling for the victims or their families.  The killer was simply more overt.   

Sadly we've become a cold, merciless society, a heartless monster possessed of a relentless and ever growing animus.  I'm reminded of a former co-worker who often spoke of retiring to a deserted island where she could be free of people.  Every time that I give in to my bad judgment and dive into the raw sewage that is the news comments I understand exactly where she is coming from.