new year--new age

It's the last day of 2014.  It has been a year full of changes, disappointments at a global level, festering distrust between groups, blaming, shaming, corruption, exposure, and of course, births of new people and deaths.
My own life has changed little this year--more time with grandkids, workplace alterations, ongoing aging---a positive as my grandmother assured me, as the alternative was not so good. 

But the global stuff; wars, religious animosity, gender issues, women's rights, political corruption, racial tensions--those things loom over my head, over everyone's head, like a dark shadow that moves over the land on a sunny day.
We frogs may all be nearly boiling now!
But, if I'm not an optimist, I'm also not a pessimist.  I keep going with the hope that I will live long enough to see the world turn this around.  That this is not the end of possibility, but rather that final turn of pain, retching, fever, before the sickness passes and the healing starts.
For 2015, I would like to see some signs of humanity opening up to those virtues that all religions spoke of--"love one another", "protect those that are weaker and in need", "don't kill", "don't steal", "respect others", "be true/keep your word", "respect yourself", "live modestly".

 I have heard it said, that all of those are actually--"don't steal"  don't take what is not yours to take, not another's life, not another's money, not another's self respect, not another's opportunities, not another's rights, not another's future  descendants. 

I have also heard that those are all covered by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

But there are other things that get in the wa:.  Beliefs that justify stealing happiness from others, things that have permiated our global society,  Things like  "its just business" used to explain everything from genocide to human trafficking to the subjugating of the least capable as low-priced labor,.  Beliefs that "women were made to serve man" and therefore they have no rights.  Beliefs that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"--great for Spock, but reality is, when the many is just a greedy corporation or a nasty dictator stealing the rights of a few people is wrong.  "Survival of the fittest" used to justify bullying, genocide, not protecting the weak, sick, young--and as they say--"don't mistake kindness for weakness" but don't bully's always do just that.

Am I wishing for a return to "ole time religion"?  OMG--not at all.  I'm wishing for the advent of something new and improved, something that has no factions, no branches, no divisiveness at all.  I don't want a "New World Order" or a "global religion" either.  My wish is for true freedom for all.   A world where every person has the same rights and all those rights are respected by everyone else---equally. 
A lot of things would become moot if this happened.  And such a thing is definitely not going to happen like the sing-along at the end of the "grinch that stole christmas" because such change does not start with a law or by a government.  Such change occurs in individuals.  It starts at the one and travels to the whole as it spreads.  It begins with self-awareness--not "i know who I am" self-awareness, but "the kind of questioning that never ends.  "I feel threatened, why?"  " I think I'm jealous of so-and-so, what do they have that I think I want or think I don't have".  The kind of self-awareness that a good 12-step program encourages.  The kind of self-awareness that a retreat into the wilderness, a vision quest, a few weeks in a monastery would help.  Socrates got it.   Now we need to.

Who are you?  Who are you really?  What do you want from life?  Is what you want measured by comparing it to what someone else has?  Is it material things?  Is it a lifestyle?  Is it a passion?  Is it loving, respectful of yourself and others.  Will getting what you want take anything away from anyone else? 

Are you kind?

Who are you?  Would you be all right in a world where everyone was equal?

OPPORTUNITY!

1. a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.

   "we may see increased opportunities for export"

   synonyms:

   chance, lucky chance, favorable time/occasion/moment, time, right set of circumstances, occasion, moment, opening, option, window (of opportunity), turn, go, possibility; More informalshot, break, new lease on life "this is your opportunity to move on"

   • a chance for employment or promotion.

     "career opportunities in our New York headquarters"

      I have been promised opportunities by fortune cookies, by advertisements, by telemarketers; friends have invited me into the great multilevel marketing opportunities that they received--my lottery ticket provides me a 1:175,000,000 chance to become rich beyond my dreams. 

      

     America really is the land of opportunity.

     
     

     But if you look for poor people that became rich, you get things like

     "15 billionaires that started out dirt poor"

     • Kenny Trout, whose father was a bartender and sold life insurance to pay his own tuition through college."  He had Excel phone company (multi-level marketing company, the kind where the top gets rich and the bottom lose their investment) and made 3.5 billion in the merger with another company. From Texas, white, republican.
     • Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame--grew up in a housing complex for the poor (that says project to me, but his father was a truckdriver which is working class), won a football scholarship and went to work for  xerox.  Then became a CEO of a 16 branch coffee place and grew it to huge. Jewish family in Brooklyn.
     • Ken Langone, parents were a plumber and a cafeteria worker in New York (that was middle-class in my world, blue collar not white), parents mortgaged their house (they had a house to mortgage) and he worked to go to college, he worked with Ross Perot then partnered to create Home Depot. 
     • Oprah Winfrey, born in a poor family in Mississippi, scholarship to college, then a job in TV with a well known rise to fame and money. 
     • Shahid Khan, from Pakistan, worked as a dishwasher while attending the U of C, now worth 3.8 billion.(working your way through college doesn't say poor to me, but most of this story is missing--in Pakistan, his parents were middle-class, father in construction, mother a professor of mathematics) 
     • Kirk Kerkorkian, To financially help his Armenian-immigrant family, Kerkorian dropped out of school in the eighth grade and later would become a boxer called "Rifle Right Kerkorian." During World War II, Kerkorian worked for Britain's Royal Air Force. He eventually turned his interest to constructing many of Las Vegas' biggest resorts and hotels. 
     • John Paul DeJoria, the man behind a hair-care empire and Patron Tequila, once lived in a foster home and his car. Net worth: $4 billion (as of Sept. 2013) Do Won Chang worked as a janitor, gas station attendant, and in a coffee shop when he first moved to America. He and his wife made Forever 21--Paul Mitchell Hair Products.
       
     • Ralph Lauren was once a clerk at Brooks Brothers dreaming of men's ties. Born in the Bronx to Jewish Immigrant, blue collar family.  Net worth: $7.7 billion.

     • Simmons grew up in a "shack" without plumbing or electricity--his parents were both school teachers. He managed to get accepted to the University of Texas where he earned a bachelor's and masters in economics.  Simmons got his first big break buying a chain of drugstores, which would later sell for $50 million. He went on to become an expert in corporate buyouts.  Big anti-environmentalist, white republican.
     • Larry Ellison, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to a single jewish mother, Ellison was adopted by his middle-class aunt and uncle in Chicago . After his aunt died, Ellison dropped out of college and moved to California to work odd jobs for the next eight years. He founded software development company Oracle in 1977, which is now one of the largest technology companies in the world.

     So, the list is shorter than 15 due to the others were not in the good ole US of A.  And "dirt poor" seems to have been an exaggeration--only three of them would qualify by my reckoning though none were well-off. 

      First-generation immigrants seem to have a good chance, and being white and male is helpful.  But Oprah is on there.   And out of 1300+ billionaires, well, less than 1% started out with  little and made it big.. That is less than 1% of billionaires, not 1% of people and definitely not 1% of poor and working class people in the USA.  The poor comprise 20-25% of the population, about 46.5 million people.  The working class comprises about twice that number. 

     
     

     The lottery is not that much more of a long-shot than me taking myself from poor or working-class to rich.  And, yes, I realize that there are a lot of people that have made it somewhere between that 55th percentile and the 90th (where the millionaires live).  I also realize that it is harder now than it was.  How many of those self-starters used college as a springboard.  Now the minimum wage jobs are as full of college graduates as drop-outs and high school students.  Companies do not reward loyalty, do not try to offer opportunities to those people already under their employee, do not make sure that creativity and hardwork (now just products of work, with bonuses to those higher up for bringing in more cash or better ideas). How many of us have researched or created something only to have our immediate supervisors or their immediate supervisors present and take all the credit.  They may rise through the company on the thing I did.  It usually just means that the next time something tough comes up, it gets added to my already full plate.  My opportunity is to work harder.  Harder work with no real payoff.

     
     

     We need our opportunities back, we need to feel the hope of improving our lot in life and our children's lives.

     
     

TWO WRONGS!---are just two wrongs.

I heard the horrible news about the two officers gunned down in their car in NYC.  I was heartbroken for them and their families.  And knew, just knew that it was somebody thinking they were making a statement.
They failed.  All they did was give the world one more view of a violent and dangerous black man.

We know the shooter wasn't smart.  We know the shooter was angry.  We know that all the peaceful activism aimed at raising the consciousness of the rest of the world about the unequal treatment frequently received by people of color and specifically post-pubescent black men, was endangered.

To all those people out there participating in peaceful protests for the good of all--thank you--very sincerely--thank you.  You have put yourselves out there.  You have taken a stand.  You are making a difference.

For all of you out their looting and committing crimes and otherwise doing things that negate the actions of the people trying to achieve a positive change.  What is wrong with you. Are you so stupid and self-serving and unthinking that you don't see you are not part of the solution.  You are the problem. 

In every riot over injustice I have ever heard of, it is not the cause of the riot that is remembered, it is the fact that the looters and vandals and otherwise violent people go out and destroy their own neighborhoods. People that weren't there act as if that means the people in those neighborhoods deserve destroyed neighborhoods and probably deserved whatever offense started the riot in the first place. ( For some reason, when frat boys and sports and music fans get out of hand--its just expected from the excitement and their age.)  

And the stereotype, the profiling that is responsible for the excessive force and murderous response by police officers towards nonwhite men women and children, how does making it seem to be correct, stop the problem.  I would never ask people to put up with disrespectful, overly rough treatment by people that use their authority to act on their own personal prejudices.  Shooting people because they are wearing a uniform is no different than shooting people because of their race or their religion.

But too late, the damage has been done--and done--and done.

The mayor, who was openly supporting the examination of the shootings of unarmed black men, is now anti-police because he doesn't like the shooting of unarmed black men.

I'm having a hard time seeing  the 2 sides.  I'm having a hard time with the polarization that is being expected.  Did all police shoot unarmed black men?  Should police be allowed to shoot unarmed black men without any repercussions?  And how does anyone get to "I'm going to fix this problem by shooting someone."

So now, I'm being blasted with "support your police".  I don't not support the police.  I do wish that there weren't so many men and women going into police work that think the answer to all problems is a gun.  I also wish I had never seen a policeman abuse someone under their care.  But I am not prone to stereotyping.  I have seen acts of greatness and acts of horror--by people, some in uniforms, some not.  They are all individuals.

We need to not feed the machinery of hate.  If we know there is a problem--and I do think that there are places where the police need to be policed--the idea that an officer from a place that lost control of its force due to racism and excessive force is not the person that I would hire--institutionalized hate is not less hateful--it's more.

So no more wrongs should be committed, no more lives should be lost.  The answer is transparency and not secrecy.  Its time to expose the problems and fix them rather than hiding them and pretending that everything is fine.  There is such a thing as righteous anger, but hate and violence are never righteous.  

Hate is not the answer.  If you are angry, and anger is justified, then help.  Participate in the nonviolent demonstrations.  If you have a personal story--put it on the internet, tell someone that doesn't believe such things happen. Be part of the solution.  Its time to do something right.

bought and paid for----again

The now republican congress is busy--no more stalling---they have bills to pass and rich folks to appease.  We are back to business as usual.  We are not only NOT going to stop the flow of money into elections, we are going to raise the amount identified individuals can give.  We are going to let the banks and wall street get rid of some of those ugly regulations that keep them from risking the whole economy with their gambling.  We are busy.
And we, the voters sold ourselves down the proverbial river.  Apparently we really do think that if a person has money they are better/smarter/faster and therefore if a person has a whole stinking lot of money, they might be gods---not bible gods, but more in line with Olympia or Marvel Comics.
We are currently in a strange place in this country.  We have a "President of color".  He is biracial and apparently that is not white enough.  So, while most of his ideas would have appealed to poor, white people, his ancestry implied that there is no real hierarchy of the races.  So, we are back to handing the power to those white men that are so rich and powerful they can make unproven statements, site ridiculous opinions as facts and say racist things without being called out on it.
Our favorite Teapartyer (I thought the name was due to the whole, surreal similarity between their platform and famous scene from Alice in Wonderland heard it is an acronym that had the word taxes and something, so I looked on their site and it's about the Boston Tea Party.  Because a bunch of  colonists that didn't want to pay the tax on the tea from England, so they dressed up native style and threw it in the river. I haven't seen anything like that from the current tea party.  They seem to be either rich white folks that don't want to pay as high of taxes as the poor people do--and yes, percents are comparable, if you only make enough to buy food and have to give 30% in taxes--you starve, if you make millions and have to give 30%, you don't get to buy an extra vacation home.  The party also appeals to a lot of people that think being white makes them better than people of color and a bunch of people who always do what their church says even if it doesn't make sense.
Below is the TeaParty's list of non-negotiable beliefs? (I don't know what to call these)
1. Illegal aliens are here illegally.(hmmm, using the word in the definition, interesting)
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.(unless you have a big company that can make it cheaper globally)
3. A strong military is essential.(war is always good for Daddy Warbucks)
4. Special interests must be eliminated. (What, so oil, defense contractors, wall street, banks, insurance, that isn't special interests)
5. Gun ownership is sacred. (Maybe I should have added the NRA in the line above)
6. Government must be downsized. (This from people that can only agree on their own government raises, interpret this as--no social programs, privatize it all so the rich people can profit from every aspect of life)
7. The national budget must be balanced.(a little digging shows who really gets it out of balance, but if you shout about it loud enough to poor people that want someone to blame because they can't get ahead, they'll buy it.)
8. Deficit spending must end.(See #7)
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.  I didn't hear any complaining about the bank bailout, but apparently keeping working people with jobs is a problem, and when you write the laws, calling something illegal is kind of funny. 
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must. ( I have never seen a meaningful personal income tax break for people in the middle.  Taxing people at the poverty level is counterproductive if you are going to then give them supplements for food and shelter.  But this always translates to "why should rich people pay more than the poorest people-they should pay zero also"  Percent-wise, with their shelters they pay less than the average income already.)
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.  (this is based on the idea that if a business pays fewer taxes, they hire more people---find a business that hires anyone they don't need and pays them a dime more than they have to for the work they need done)
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.(wow, just wow---richest congress ever, where are all those average citizens)
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.  (meaning?  no more laws telling me I can't do things that take advantage of  other people financially, there has been no effort to stop the dozens of government organizations that intrude upon people of color trying to make a living or on immigrants trying to find a way to improve the life of their loved ones,so is this about that intrusive government stopping multimillionaires and billionaires from using tax havens or some other intrusion?)
14. English as our core language is required.  (this is just plain hater-crap,  I bet they wouldn't have been spouting that when their own immigrant ancestors were having a hard time with English)
15. Traditional family values are encouraged. (more hate--whose traditions?  every family has their own,  this translates to Married in a church, One man and one woman of the same race, living in a house with their children.  It explains the legal attacks on women's rights but doesn't address the fact that few men make enough money to support a traditional family without a working wife.

This country is full of hate.  We are not all happy campers.  We have a massive case of sibling rivalry and are being egged on by some seriously devilish haters and salesmen in high places.  Can't rise in the company--blame it on affirmative action,  haven't had a raise in 10 years, it isn't because the executives got million+bonuses, its because we had to pay the people making those widgets we sell minimum wage, house you invested in going down not up?  nothing to do with poor banking practices or a world-wide recession--those brown people that moved into the next block did it--and I think they have an accent--probably here illegally.  Hate.  Hate in response to frustration because we were all raised on the American Dream and have found that we didn't understand the second word very well and someone must be to blame.  It can't be our leaders.  We voted them in.  But we voted them in because they told us the lies we wanted to hear.

Its not our fault--its those other people that did it to us.  If they weren't here, we would be the favored sons.

Hate is selling us down the river.

15 Non-negotiable Core Beliefs

1. Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged.

- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/#sthash.NstNEARf.dpuf

15 Non-negotiable Core Beliefs

1. Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged.

- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/#sthash.NstNEARf.dpuf

Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged. - See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/#sthash.U8Z7iOzN.dpuf

Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged. - See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/#sthash.U8Z7iOzN.dpuf

Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged. - See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/#sthash.U8Z7iOzN.dpuf

Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged. - See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/about-us/#sthash.U8Z7iOzN.dpuf

Entitled?

Politicians and news guys are throwing around the "entitled" word again.  Last use was to describe undocumented immigrants, but in the last 6 years I have heard it used to describe hungry people, poor people, students trying to go to college, people trying to buy a house, sick people without access to healthcare, homeless veterans, owners of small farms and small businesses, people without jobs.....you know, small, powerless, people with no money to to affect the current political powers.
So are we using the word correctly?

Entitle Definition

dictionary.search.yahoo.com

tr.v.

1. To give a name or title to.
2. To furnish with a right or claim to something.
   
   
   Apparently we are.  All of those people should have a right or claim to the things mentioned.  Even those undocumented immigrants that traveled here to escape a place that was not allowing them basic needs like food/shelter/safety (got to love Maslow--he kept it basic) are entitled to find a place that does allow them claim the basics for themselves and their family.
   
   
    Below is a list of rights internationally considered the rights of all humans.
   
   
   •  freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution
   •  freedom of speech,
   •  freedom of religion
   •  freedom from fear
   •  freedom from want
   •  right to a fair trial
   •  protection against enslavement,
   •  prohibition of genocide
   •  right to education 
    
   
   
    That is quite a list of entitlements.  And not one that I can picture anyone using in a negative way.  So why is the word entitled being used as if people are asking for things that they have no right too?
   
   
   When I was young, the children of the very rich were referred to as "born with a silver spoon in the mouth"  They were called "entitled" not as if they had earned their wealth, but with a kind of sarcasm because by no action of their own they were born with more, born "lucky"    While we all know that being born to wealthy parents does not guarantee a happy/healthy/wonderful life, it pretty much guarantees that their human rights will not be ignored except perhaps by their own family.
   
   
   When a child is born into poverty, any and all of their rights might be ignored.  Who will protect their rights.  Their parents will try, but poverty is soul-sucking.  Poor people are NOT free of fear.  They know how easy it is to become homeless, and homeless is not safe,  They are not free of want, they know that their is constant complaints about any aid they receive and that there are no promises for the future.  They did not receive the same education as the children of the wealthy, they have seen their parents and relatives in prison, frequently for such ridiculous things as shoplifting or hot-check writing  or other moneymaking schemes all aimed at keeping them safe, clothed, fed, and sheltered.
   
   
   Those with wealth and power have long used both to influence how those without are treated.  We only protect the religious freedom of the ruling class.  We allow large corporations to keep providing jobs that are under the poverty line in compensation--only falling outside of the realm of enslavement because "they can always quit" if they don't like it.  Our Justice system and prisons are filled to overflowing with people that could easily become the face of next genocide.  The right to a fair trial is a joke,  Most poor people are talked into a plea bargain with threats of longer times based on stats about brown people in prison and the wrong color of jury.  And does anyone believe that the low profile poor person's free public defender is the same as a multimillion dollar "dream team"
   
   
   So, we are all entitled.  But some of us get to benefit from that much more than others.  So maybe we need to stop letting the lucky, wealthy, powerful people tell us what to think and start protecting the rights of everyone equally.
   
   
   
   

We are all in the net!

I'm not referring to the internet, although it is a good dramatization of what I'm referring to.  I'm talking about our interconnectedness.  Every "We are One"   "No man is an island" "three degrees of separation" "a butterfly flaps its wings in...." etc, etc, saying-- cliched, bumpersticker-like, hackneyed and over-sentimental though it may be, may also be quite true. 

The thing about cliches and stereotypes that make them a problem is not that they are false or wrong or completely ridiculous.  The problem is the glimmer of truth.  It makes them seductive, and it makes them routine and acceptable.  With stereotypes, we accept that glimmer of truth and use it to base all our future judgements about the person or thing or event it stereotypes.  Sort of like saying "all carrots are orange".  There are a lot of orange carrots, but what the stereotype does is make everyone suggest that the non-orange carrot is the exception, or that by not being orange, it must not be a carrot at all.  Of course, we chose which color of carrots to propagate and which ones not to.  Reality is, a green carrot, or a white carrot or a red and purple carrot is both possible and normal and a carrot. The carrot has been stereotyped and now is used to judge all carrots.  Unfortunately, most of our stereotypes are about groups of people, not vegetables.

With cliches, instead of it becoming more meaningful, it becomes more invisible.  Its meaning is lost in its repetition.  It's like yesterday's buzzword gone stale.  I think that is why I hate buzzwords.  The popularity of the buzzword, how "in the know" it makes the person feel is much more important than the meaning of the word.
BUT.....
We are all connected.  All events are connected.  Nothing is without impact on the world around us, no matter how small we feel.  No matter how powerless or uninvolved or hopeless.

The internet is blowing up a Chris Rock interview about how it isn't black people that have changed, it is white people.  He could have said it isn't women....its men, it isn't Mexicans....its the U.S. citizens, and the only false note might have been that there is a single group anywhere that hasn't changed a little.

But his thesis was correct---there have always been nonwhite, non-male non-heterosexual,  non-christian and non-moneyed people that could be the president or the head of a huge bank or multimillion-dollar corporation etc, etc, etc.   What has been missing has always been opportunity.  Opportunity---what I used to call luck--- but luck implies more of a chance that I have that opportunity than actually exists.

I went to public school, where we were taught that we could all be anything we wanted if we just applied ourselves.  No one ever told us that we were not in the right school to get into the right university.  No one mentioned that our chances of becoming anything more than a skilled worker making just enough to not need assistance from the government was highly unlikely.  And not one person in our little class made it to the top.  Some of the girls were quite beautiful, and while they married, many of them for a lifetime, they did not marry those men that were most sought after, they married men they met in their lives, and loved, and raised families with, and they will die without ever being the president or the CEO or a powerful woman in some other public venue.  Some of the people were very smart, and they are doing well, making more than the state average, in jobs with actual titles, but percentile-wise, they are at about the 80th.  Only a couple of them became entrepreneurs and they started with families that were the same and three people that chose physician careers--and yes they had relatives that had done the same, have made it close to the top.  And Chris was right---they were all white men.  White female physicians make less than their male counterparts for whatever reason.

The assumption, long held, and well protected has always been that the white race and the male member of that race is superior to every other race and all women.  When Darwin developed his theories, which had nothing to do with race and everything to do with species, it was highjacked almost immediately by white men with a goal of proving their right to power and prestige.  They also used it (survival of the fittest always translates to survival of the meanest, least ethical, least compassionate beast in the forest although in nature it may just mean the most adaptable and least conspicous) to explain every atrocity and nightmare they ever perpetrated upon other races, or people in places where the culture was different, the religion was different, or the person was not male.  That is not to say that in places that are governed by non-white people, that there is goodness.  Social Darwinism seems to have been adored for thousands of years before it had a name. The biggest bully with the most friends wins.

So what about this whole--we are all in this together? We are.  We are all on the same planet and we share that planet with over 3 millions other species of life.  While we humans like to find patterns, put things and people in categories, and make everything hierarchical, there is no evidence that race exists except in our own minds.  The hierarchies that we create for the sexes, races, religions, and other us/them scenarios---part of our need to categorize and make everything better than or worse than ourselves and our group is no more meaningful than Friday Night High School Football.  The Cheer leading in which we puff ourselves up and degrade whoever we are playing against  is even more of a game than the game it is occurring for. So maybe the question is, why do we compete about everything?  Other animals have their own little social structures, some are pretty awful, and they are all aimed at staying in the gene pool.  That is truly the  survival of the fittest's goal.  But what is our goal?   As humans?  As big brained, highly adaptable humans?  Have we become so focused on winning some unknown thing that we are incapable of playing well with others?  Or do we have a ruling class that has gone so far off track that they no longer understand their place in the world.  If the last is true, how do we get them back to reality before they get us out of their reality?    While it might be funny to see them when there is no one to abuse, to wait on them, to labor making their material goods and food and to act as their servants, it would mean that 98% of the population was gone and no one would be there to appreciate the irony. 
 
We really are all in it together.  We need to pay attention and not give away our own little bits of power and influence.  We need to shop in places that benefit the community, not in cheap mega-giants that make the greedy richer.  We need to not just talk about the environment but actually do things that decrease our negative effect on it.  We need to teach our children why to do the right thing, not just tell them what to do.  We need to participate in our own governance while we still have a chance to do so.  We need to always try to find the similarities between ourselves and "those people," where "those people" are the ones we have stereotyped in a negative way.  We all have something in common with every other person we meet or see or hear about.  Maybe it is sharing the same number of chromosomes, or the same sex, or age, or place of residence or employment.  Maybe its that we both hate Valentine's Day or love hamburgers.  Reality is there are many things we likely share based on nothing more than the fact that all life shares certain things in common: The desire to see our children survive and prosper, the basic needs for food, shelter, safety; the desire for justice and equal treatment under the law.  And we can get there.  We need to keep working to get there.  We need to value the right things in life, they things that matter, not just the score-keeping crap created to make us say "I'm better--I win".  Reality is, dying with the most toys is still dead and even if you bought your name onto a bunch of hospital wings and public meeting places, the people impressed didn't know you, they didn't know what you did to get so much you could give away more than most people make in a lifetime of work, they didn't know if they would enjoy a conversation with you, they just know you bought your way into posterity until the next rich person donates enough to have the same place named after them. If you want to leave a legacy, raise you children to be good people, loving, peaceful, sharing, honest, people that know the fallacy of the hierarchies we have created socially.   Our power, all of our power is in our ability to make the world a better place for the human race and all the species we share it with.

We need to be good to each other.
We need to do good.
We need to change the yardstick we use to measure success.

Predicting the future.

We live in an age of reason--sort of.  We don't follow prophets, but we do worry about profits.  We know that the fortune cookie is just for fun.  We read our horoscope, but only consider whether it might be meaningful after the day has ended.  We only spend money on palm reading at fairs and faires and affairs.

We believe in science--mostly. We know about research, making predictions, understanding that relationships are not the same as cause and effect;  realizing that just because somethings works sometimes, doesn't make it dependable, or safe, or cost-effective.  We understand the difference between chance-probability and just plain luck.

But in the news, in the guise of scientific predictions and statistical analysis, we make plans for a future world as if it is set in stone.

Frequently those predictions are off, slower to arrive, faster to arrive, never to arrive.  And when that happens, we treat them the same way as the horoscope that wasn't true. We laugh and go on.  But frequently, the great engine of the world has already spent years working on the predicted event.  Things like space travel for money, controlling the weather, and more commonly, immigration patterns, voting patterns, economic changes.  The stuff that consumes the dreams and nightmares of the power people. The act of predicting a thing changes everything. 

Once a prediction is made, we begin to plan for it, or we start to make the change occur.  Its sort of like a self-fulfilling prophecy only on a grande scale.  We rarely ask what could we do to make this never happen and we don't ask ourselves if maybe the future change might just be a good thing.  We just dig in and start building a dam for the oncoming flood.

Looking at two events, one, a prediction made in the late 1970's---"by 2000, everyone up to our latitude would have to speak spanish to be employable".  The end of any prediction like this is unspoken, but becomes the focus, "if we don't do something now"  We have now spent 35 years trying to "do something now" and it is still a huge political issue and poor people that were born here are still in fear of losing their jobs to those spanish-speaking immigrants. 

Most of us still don't speak spanish.

But what did that prediction cause us to focus on?  Did anyone say "why are people coming up here from Central and South America when they know they are going to face a language barrier?  Did anyone try to help those countries with the problems that were making their own citizens run? 

NO!

We focused on two goals, teaching our own public school children in spanish immersion programs (novel and not a negative bone in its body,  but we never had the number of teachers needed to do this for many places) and targeting "illegals", "undocumenteds" and anyone that has a trace of a spanish accent or that has an hispanic last name.  (I even heard one woman, brunette with the first name Maria, be asked how she learned such good English, she was speechless, but I had been raised near her and knew her roots were Irish, German, English, and Wales.  She qualified for the DAR, old poor families love to brag about that.) 

We don't really seem to know our own history in this country.  Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, , in fact, everything west of the Mississippi was at one time claimed by Spain.  We should be expecting Hispanic surnames in our own citizens that have roots here as old as the oldest settlers to the U.S.A.   

All the original prediction proved, was that when faced with a change, we are mostly bad neighbors, and snobs about our roots and language.

The second event was not a prediction, but a lack of a prediction.  The Ebola scare that is filling the news and the political speeches for purposes of getting a vote was never predicted except perhaps by a few B-movies.  We did nothing to prepare.  The Western African Gorilla population wass nearing extinction from this virus just ten years ago.  If we had treated this information as important, we might now have a cure or a vaccine already.  But they are gorillas so who cares.

The first recognition of Ebola was in 1976.  In Africa,(
 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak
 )  the virus was discovered in a Belgian Nun working in Zaire, translate as first civilized person known to die of this so let's find out what it is, and the virus was identified. It has continued to rear its head, with thoughts that it is contracted from the remains of infected animals.  The eating of primates by humans is not unheard of, although to most of us it is as disturbing as putting chicken remains in chicken feed and cattle remains in cattle feed, there are those that were raised on primate meat, not a preference but an availability issue.  It also lives in bats in the area. 

It is a class 4 infective agent, think anthrax, think SARS, think high mortality and no way to prevent it if there is an actual exposure.  It is not airborne, although Bubonic plague has two ways to be spread, and the airborne is worse, so the fear with any virus is that mutation will eventually go there.  Diseases in horror stories frequently mimic the worst-looking symptoms and take full advantage of the way that humans panic. 

But we didn't predict this, and we assumed that because all the people that went to nursing school and medical school new what was needed to contain a class 4 infective agent.  And they have heard about it, but
1) most places don't have the expensive equipment available to use in case something that has never happened before shows up at their door, 2) don't necessarily remember anything about a thing they heard about in school but never thought they would need to use, 3) and never prepared for because hearing about a thing is not the same as doing it. 

So what does that mean to us?  It means that we have an election in a few weeks and for those politicians that want something better than immigration to beat their dead horse with, they can complain about Ebola, like it is a political issue, like it is new, like it is someone's fault--and obviously not theirs.

Watch those predictions, they are made frequently after scientific research is published, but the populist version is always aimed at creating panic and anxiety in the masses.  Learn to read the actual research.  Or make sure to not get just one version of what it means.  Be wary of predictions passed on by religious leaders, politicians, and rich folks with agendas.  We are all capable of making intelligent predictions based on information and don't need someone else to tell us what to believe.

Think for yourself.

Petty distractions herding us along.

There is nothing I hate more than when someone refers to regular people as "sheeple".
It's derogatory.  It implies that the speaker is more aware than the masses.  It is like saying we all deserve to be where we are because we are:

• too trusting of the system
• eager to believe that someone in power cares about the well-being of everyone
• denying that anyone would ever manipulate things;  the news, the economy, politics, for a personal gain that was not good for the majority of individuals
• stupid

So I hate the word.  And am reminded of that great movie in which the craggyfaced older reminds the younger that "a person is smart, people are .....(read as---sheeple).

We are weeks from an election.  And we are deep in a time of a polarized nation, a time many of us thought was done.  We thought we had moved on from racial tension, from misogyny, from class warfare, from fixed elections, voter manipulation, propaganda usage, and all that stuff from history class that happened a long time ago.

We have a new activism going now.  And I can't argue with it.  But are the activists sheeple?  Or is that term reserved for those people so immersed in their own little worlds, with going to work and coming home, paying their bills, feeding their kids, going to church and complaining with friends, relatives, and neighbors about what is wrong with the world.  You know, most of us, most of the time. 

Anyone ever notice, that while activists want change, the people going about their routine want everything to stay the same?  Some of them are even dreaming of an earlier, rosier time--the 1950's is the most idealized, although I have seen it done with the 1800's, the 1920's, the depression (those particular individuals were farmers, and their families lost nothing in the depression, but they loved watching the Waltons) the 1940's--what is not to love about a nation that pulls together for a common enemy and then wins.

The people that loved the 60's were kids during the 60's, they loved the music, they loved the TV, they loved dads at work and moms at home when you got out of school, and they were white kids, middle-class, running on the momentum of the 50's and with parents that tried to keep them from hearing about race wars and communes and drugs and all those things that were going on at commie campuses and San Francisco and Watts.  The kids knew about TV shows like 'Lost in Space" and "Lassie" and "Flipper".  The kids knew about Barbies and transistor radios and bell bottom pants.

The 1960's may have more in common with this decade than any other time.  We have a Vietnam-like war action going on eternally, and it is doing things to the minds of our young men and women that frankly made for some truly dramatic books and movies and some horrifying homelessness and addictions.   We have a very liberal president that scares the crap out of those happy, 60's-like parents (and no, those original 60's parents weren't into that liberal stuff either, but assassination does make people think hard about talking bad about you,. We have activism---and racism, and feminism and sexism and bigotry and repression and propaganda and just plain crookedness in high places. And Activism. 

But remember, the 1960's were scarey.  Kids heard tidbits on the news, heard backyard gossip not meant for their ears, continued to have drills to keep from being nuked ("get under your desk"  really?) while no one really explained anything about that.  We knew the world was full of danger; there were people like Manson, there were commie spies everywhere trying to take over our wonderful country and they would take all the children to schools that trained them to turn in their parents and neighbors, there was satanic music,  and of course, we were all waiting on the Rapture and Apocalypse.

So are we mostly herd animals?  Do we not think for ourselves?  Are we so reactionary that if someone yells "fire" we all run off the cliff en masse?

Maybe.  I don't know.  I just know that we currently have an election coming up and that in our state, the most climate change denying, oil supporting old codger is now running on his daughter's decision to adopt an African Child, and the time he spent talking to soldiers "like a regular guy".  Do I think the first Ad about this bit of news, where the child is now about grown and its the first I've heard of her, is related to the Ebola scare and the anti-immigration work done in my fine state (or at least an attempt to lessen the negative appearance of those?  Do I think his daughter's decision has anything to do with anything at all? Of course not.  And the stories about visiting with soldiers, that reeks of a belief that we are idiots, drooling fools that fall for any bit of kindness from on high.  I would think that the people that sent our young people to other countries to risk their lives would talk to them with great respect and honor.  Only a politician that thought he was someone very special and better-than would endorse such an advertisement.

Yet three different coworkers have suddenly started supporting him--again.  Because?  I have no idea.  I really don't understand politics at all.  Maybe it really is just a form of sheep herding.

I'm still going to vote. I really do want to believe that we can have a government that is a democracy--and yes, I know its just a republic.  We are all deniers I guess.

I really would like to see us be a herd of a democratic, equal opportunity  species.

humanity's greatest gift

Listening to a songwriter and her song, in which she told the story of a life ended by drug abuse, and yet didn't tell it--- at least not like a news story or a melodram--- it dawned on me that while we are surrounded by panicky news stories and horrible economic predictions, a failing infrastructure and ongoing global mistreatment of those without power, we are daily surrounded by the translation of life, both beautiful and poignant, surreal and comedic, by artists.

Those artists, working in their medium of choice, and there is a lot of choice out there, show us what to look for, how to see beyond the hype of the style-makers and opinion creators.  They help us find the beauty in the saddest situations, and the awesomeness of the most simple.

I do not consider religion our greatest gift, although that feeling, that indescribable exaltation and wordless understanding that mystics and artists seem to give us glimpses of, is what most religions started with.  The dogma, rules, and endless studying of holy writings obviously did not come from that feeling.  (that is a whole, different obsession by a whole different personality type).

I do consider that artists, real artists, are much more common than the news and museums and classrooms would have us believe.  I think maybe we are all artists at heart and have only to let go and reconnect with that part of ourselves.  I have seen essays by 7th grade students that were art, I have seen million dollar sculptures sold to citiies that had nothing to say, although the name of the pieces frequently have amazing imagery.  I have tasted desserts that were art, and smelled perfume that was art.  I have seen quilts that amazed me to the point of speechlessness, ceramic pots glazed into a wonder of the galaxy, and photo's taken by simple people with simple cameras that made my heart melt--not from sappy sentimentality but from their identification of a scene of such intense contrasts, dramatic lighting, and simplicity that it made me want to go there, to be there and see through the  eyes of the photographer.

I have heard chants that lifted me to other realms with no identifiable words.  I have heard poems that left me understanding the feelings of people that I shared almost no life experiences with, and in that understanding I had no choice but to love them. I have seen dances that changed my mood and paintings that filled my soul with questions about my own place in the universe.

There are connoisseurs of almost everything that could be considered art.  But we can all learn to appreciate art.  The first step is to slow down.  The next is to stop worrying about what someone else, what society, what our religion, what our friends would think about that art, and experience it for ourselves.

And while all art is beautiful, much that is art is not pretty or sweet or nice.  William Blake's "flea" is far from pretty, but his poem "tyger,tyger" is one of the most powerful glimpses into that same mind that can be experienced.  That same mind.

People are complicated.  Few people are all prettiness, sweetness, and  nicety.  They are complicated.  Like a good Cabernet, like an amazing orchestra-piece. like a wonderful pie, like a Van Gogh painting. Sometimes complicated like graffiti or like the sound of rain with a violin and piano.  So slowing down, savoring the nuances of a sight, a sound, a taste, a smell, can be the difference between recognizing something life-changing and just having another ordinary day.

I guess that means art requires two people, at least two people to be art, at least one to create it and at least one to perceive it.  The creating only changes the person doing the creating, and it does change that person.  The act of making something beautiful and meaningful and new leaves a mark on the soul of the person  that is creating.  The perceiving, though, can leave a mark on an endless number of people.  And each person will perceive through their own eyes, ears, nose, taste, and even touch.  Our senses may allow us to interact with the world, but our minds, our pasts, our beliefs, allow us to interpret those perceptions.

I have seen people that hate all classical music, that can't stand the smell of  hay but love the smell of car exhaust, that will eat chocolate only unsweetened, others are more ecclectic, enjoying music from all times and places, exploring music like it is a great mystery, trying chocolate covered insects and raw puffer fish like it is an experiment in living.  There are stories for each of those choices.  There are connections within each of us to various artforms that have become friends to us, rituals, omens, connections to our roots and symbols of our hopes and dreams. 

Therefore, art, the greatest gift from humanity--to humanity.  Keep making what you imagine, real.  Keep creating.  Share your art.

spreading it around--germs not wealth

We are currently hearing a lot about Ebola, which is a scary disease that had previously featured in thriller movies and semi-realistic horror books. It has been spreading in West Africa, a part of the continent with high poverty, political unrest, and low education levels.  The problems with containing the virus is caused by those things, fear(read distrust of authority figures)among people about vaccines and medicine, lack of access to healthcare and treatment, crowding, and denial that the disease is real (as opposed to government propaganda).
 
We recently had our first case (other than those that came here for treatment after exposure and immediately went to secured health care facilities) of Ebola show up in Dallas.  A man from Liberia got on a plane, went to Dallas, went to the ER, told them he thought he had been exposed to Ebola while in Liberia, was reassured that was ridiculous and sent home with a prescription for antibiotics.  Several days later he was admitted for (drumroll please) Ebola and is being treated in the ICU.  How many people did he contaminate in the time between going to the ER and returning later?  If he was like me, everyone is safe except for 3 cats that like to steal food while it is being eaten.  Unfortunately, he did not live alone in isolation, and there are already people being tracked for signs of illness.

I get why the places in West Africa are having a hard time with this.  Poverty  and war and corruption and superstition are easy to connect to poor public health control of the spread of a virus.  But are we going to die in the USA of our own arrogance?  For all our fancy equipment and highly trained infection control personnel, it all boils down to whether or not the possibility of the disease is recognized.

"when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras" is to med school what "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is the definition of crazy" is to Narcotics Anonymous.  

Ebola in Texas is definitely a Zebra, and they treated a horse. 

But the world is big, the numbers are big, international travel is common,   We have all now heard of Dr.'s without Borders, but does anyone really think there are any disease causing agents that recognize borders?
While horses are the most common, if there are a couple of million people in a city, there will be any number of zebras found.  If there are only 1 in a million cases of something, you should not be deny that one will appear, you should be expecting a least a couple.  The chances of getting most illnesses is much better than winning our lottery, but we have lottery winners.  So why aren't we expecting the diseases with lower numbers?  Why wasn't the ER in Texas prepared?    Why aren't we doing more to screen people traveling out of the countries with this Ebola outbreak before they get on a plane?  Or off a plane?

Flu vaccines start this month.  Doctors will be screening patient's in the ER for the Flu if they say they have been exposed or have any flu-like symptoms.  Most of them won't have it.  But Influenza is a horse we all expect.  Get you flu shot if that is what you do,wash your hands, avoid touching vomit, sputum, saliva, blood, feces, open wounds, tears, exposed organs; don't hug strangers with red eyes or body-fluid covered clothing, and if someone says they think they were exposed to ebola, don't kiss them.

Use some sense, cover your cough, wash your hands, clean up after yourself or your kids, and consider some nice homebody hobbies.

Perhaps all the creepy, end-of-the-world tv shows are just making us a little paranoid---or maybe they aren't.  

Key facts from WHO

• Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.
• The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
• The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks.
• The first EVD outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests, but the most recent outbreak in west Africa has involved major urban as well as rural areas.
• Community engagement is key to successfully controlling outbreaks. Good outbreak control relies on applying a package of interventions, namely case management, surveillance and contact tracing, a good laboratory service, safe burials and social mobilisation.
• Early supportive care with rehydration, symptomatic treatment improves survival. There is as yet no licensed treatment proven to neutralise the virus but a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies are under development.
• There are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines but 2 potential candidates are undergoing evaluation.

---

Transmission It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.
Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.
Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced.
Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased person can also play a role in the transmission of Ebola.
People remain infectious as long as their blood and body fluids, including semen and breast milk, contain the virus. Men who have recovered from the disease can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery from illness.

Next Time.

Next time I'm going to be an artist.  something visual in 2D or 3D, but that is it.

It does require reincarnation, with which I have no problem, but I do have a problem with regrets.  And I regret that every time a decision came up, it put the possibility of focusing on what I wanted to do most--make beautiful or moving or amazing or bizarre things that when other people looked at them they had to think a little different, look a little harder, wonder, it took that choice out of the decision..

I have spent a lifetime trying to learn to paint, trying, just trying.  I currently get the opportunity about 8 hours every 3 weeks.  That is the most time I have ever had for it, and I have wanted it since I was ten.
But I always had the benefit of other people's regrets.  My parents who did not prepare for well-paid and in-demand jobs;  the family friend that was an art teacher--and hated it because he spent most of this time preparing for the social studies classes he had to teach so that he could also teach art---to a bunch of kids that thought art class was "an easy A" or "free time", my grandmother(who wanted to be a nurse, but trained as a teacher, then got married before ever getting to work) who recommended a solid education in nursing or education (I now have both) which are appropriate for good women, and a school system that not only didn't recommend that I take art, they didn't offer art unless you were in the 2nd grade class that the only art teacher in the system, taught.  (I was in the other teacher's 2nd grade).

I am trying to avoid regrets.  I've had a decent life.  And I my free time is spent on what I want, but I don't have much free time.  Perhaps because when a person reaches a certain age, all that you can interrupt is their hobbies.  Hobbies aren't important.  They are time fillers.  Something for lonely, old people to fill up their time.  But I really would like the time to practice, experiment, maybe take a class or two.  Instead, I work 40+ hours a week, and babysit, and help with other people's current projects around their houses.  Other people are family.  I do love my family.  But family is family whether or not they know you, know what you want, what you believe, how you think. In other words, family is not necessarily a friend and definitely only an intimate friend if their version of talking also involves listening.

Has anyone else noticed that listening is not important anymore.  People that love to talk about themselves, their lives, their complaints, their problems, how stressed they are, how busy they are---well those people can talk about those things for hours without interruption.  WITHOUT INTERRUPTION!  The fact that they can stop interruptions is a sign that it is not a conversation, they are using the listener. 

They need to quit being selfish and get a journal.....

Or a blog.

Well, off to a family birthday party.  Maybe I can paint a while when I get home.

Romance in the 21st century

ro·man·tic

 adjective \rō-ˈman-tik, rə-\

: of, relating to, or involving love between two people

: making someone think of love : suitable for romance

: thinking about love and doing and saying things to show that you love someone.

But what about love?  Surely there is more to a relationship than romance.  Most people realize rather quickly that life is a lot of things. Yet I hear, "he isn't romantic enough"  "she doesn't treat me like she used to"  "the zing is gone"

Good grief.  Turn off the porn and chick flicks and grow up.  People are not there to help you live your fantasies.  If you both want to share some fantasy time--ask for it, and be ready for the other person to say no.  These days people want to compete with their spouse, use their spouse for chores, rely on their spouse for money,  not have to be alone, always have a date for weddings and funerals, etc, etc, etc.

Who ever treats their spouse with the same respect they want to be treated with; who talks to them like they value their opinion; uses them as a sounding board because they know they will be honest; shares their hopes, fears, hateful thoughts about others or themselves without fear of their words being thrown back in their face.  Who treats their partner like family?

If you want to be romantic---lay down the phone, listen to them when they tell you a story, and tell a story back and see if they listen.  And if either of you decide to debate, dissect, judge or minimize any part of the other's story.  You have a problem.  If you can't show your partner the love and respect of hearing them, just hearing them, then there is no hope for a future of happiness (plus your kids are in for a bad time and other people probably are glad when you leave early)  A romantic relationship must be safe.  And both people, if they are competitive, must be on the same team.

So the next time you want to gripe about the lack of romance, ask yourself these three questions?

1. Am I really talking about sex?
2. Do I trust my partner enough to be relaxed and open with them and visa versa?
3. Do I listen like a friend?

 And of course, last but not least,  do you like each other or have you treated each other so badly for not being the person you wanted them to be that you currently hate each other.  

 

I don't know if that can be fixed, but fantasy is only in your head.  If you want a fantasy partner, you don't really want another person in your life.  You just need your imagination.

 

Grow up!

Why all the panic about Social Security running out?

Think about it.
Social security is paid for by everyone that receives a paycheck, every month.(or two weeks, or twice a month or weekly--whatever)  It is not part of your federal taxes or state taxes.  It's not even part of your medicare payment as that is now an additional and separate amount.  I also pay for an employer determined health insurance amount, a dental insurance amount, and the amount to put into my 401k.
(No one has ever called my 401k an entitlement.  But I am putting less in that than I am into Social Security)

Since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and yes, I was short even as a child, there have been news announcements about the Social Security running out before I will ever get there.  It was supposed to run out before my parents got there, but they got lucky, and received their monthly.check and it supplemented them until their deaths.   Both took their social security at 63.  My father received his for 19 years and my mother for 12 years.  Social Security started August 14, 1935, so they both paid in their entire working lives. Both called it their Welfare check.  The humiliation of a government check has long been present.

So why did FDR start the Social Security Administration?  Other than he was some kind of communist and bleeding heart liberal etc, etc?  Before Social Security, the PROPORTION OF ELDERLY WHO were poor was nearly one in two, and it is now less than one in eight.  More than 60 percent of those lifted from poverty were women.

Before social security, each community had their own way of dealing with the destitute.  From providing for them in individual family's homes, indentured servitutude was used.  The family provided food and shelter in exchange for chores.  Frequently this involved children and widows.  The poorhouse or almshouse was another method, and a good many horror stories started with this type of house.  These houses were transitioned to nursing homes and hospitals after social security.  The fear of both nursing home and hospital among those that experienced the great depression was very closely related to the horror and shame of the poorhouse.

But why the constant threat of it running out?  It is tied to the constant threat of more people than ever that are elderly.  The median age in the U.S.A is  37.6 years.  That means half the population is under 37.6 and half is over 37.6.  Projections always imply that this median will go upward as the population ages, but reality is that the population is always being increased.  In 1960 the median age was 29, in 1970 it was 28, by 2010 it was 37.2.    We talk about the baby boomers as the root of all population evil, but the median age in 1950 was about 30 and in 1940 it was about 29.  But in 1920 it was about 23 (men about 25 and women about 21).  We had just finished a world war, we had no antibiotics, we had just gone through a nightmarish influenza season, women died in childbirth, there was no insulin, we didn't get the whole germ theory thing then, so people died and not of old age.  
So it sounds like more people than ever are living long enough to work and pay into social security.  (what?  you have never heard anyone say it like that?)  

So what is the pay-off for constantly threatening that social security is going to run out?  Is the pay-off fear?  Is it a way to try and stop a social program so you can then tax that money--moving it from social security to the general coffers where the politicians can spend it on their favorite pet donator?  Is it to keep people too rattled to ever feel secure enough to think about what else is going on around them?

Am I paranoid?  Sure I am.  I don't trust the current people in power as far as I can throw them.  History should explain why, look at all the long-term corruption that has come to light at various times in our countries history.  We have stories about it daily in our own time.  How much never sees the light of day?  Do I think that the global warming deniers getting massive contributions from the oil industry have only my best interest at heart?  Do I think that the richest congress this country has had for eons is highly empathetic to the plight of the poor.  (Mary Antoinette's famous though probably inaccurate quote comes to mind--"let them eat cake")  

Our power structure encourages people to work until they fall over dead, acts as if retirement is a sign of a lazy user.  All the while they are vacationing for weeks and months each year as part of their due, most of us have been putting off getting to travel, relax with our favorite past times, fish, paint, or do anything we would choose to do---until we can retire.   Since no one ever said "when I grow up, I want to set in a cubicle 40-60 hours a week while a crappy daycare raises my kids and the public schools expose them to poorly paid teachers and undiscipline peers whose parents don't want them disciplined at threat of violence to the poorly paid teachers.  I want to put off seeing the national parks and put off seeing great art and put off relaxing on the beach because I just love this boring, underpaid, repetitive, unappreciated but necessary job I have and that  is why I'm on the planet."  No one has ever said that.  

Is Social Security going to run out?  Only if we keep messing with it until it does.  Its basically an annuity system.  A person that lives long enough could get more than they put in, but every person that dies without collecting has already donated to the annuity.  Most annuities pay the insurance company to keep selling them.  And there are a lot of people profiting off of social security besides the people putting in to the coffer.  

Yet the panic continues.  Why do we panic---I personally am going to be really hacked off if I die without getting to retire.  I don't think I'm alone in that.  I think the panick is from that sick feeling that "I wasted my whole life trying to get to do just what I want, and now its too late."  I have a lot of empathy for those poor individuals that died in slavery never knowing freedom, that died in prison for false or ridiculously silly charges hoping every day for a reprieve, that died at work...... 

I'm taking retirement the minute I can. 

strange connections

Sometimes, when I'm working and it is boring (and how many times can you do the same job with no differences without it being boring) and the halls are noisy, I put on my headphones and turn the classical music on my Ipod to shuffle.  The assumption is that it is to relax me, but boring does not really call for relaxing.  I drink my coffee and the music causes my brain to travel--not far, the job is in no danger, but the computer is slow, so while the little circle slowly spins, I think and with the classics, I remember.

For some reason, when the big drum, or the cymbals, or certain runs on the piano start, I can see the TV of my childhood, and feel my parents sitting to my left, eating popcorn or ice cream while i'm snuggled under a quilt. Late night television; those old black and white movies that were the bread and butter of after-the-news entertainment, almost always used the classics for their soundtracks.  Early Disney cartoons did, also.  But watching the old shows doesn't put me back in my childhood, it just reminds me of how glad I am that we now have color on more than cartoons and how cheezy some of those old movies were.

At any rate, doing my repetitive and boring work with my long gone parents sitting in the dark behind me is very comforting.

My point is, anything can be the connection.  I used to want a blue popsicle every time I smelled DDT.  No one ever purposefully gave me DDT, but they sprayed it on the dump about the same time the ice cream man came when I was four.  I loved blue popsicles back when I was four, and from then till it was outlawed (probably later, those DDT stashes were loved by farmers and all my family were farm folks).

Smells, music, tastes--not like chicken, but like paw-paws or persimmons or really soft blackberries,  and occasionally some strangely perfumed cleaner or body wash that makes me think of the medicine I was given when I was sick.  Kid medicine has changed in the last 50 years, these days its bubble gum or cotton candy.
Sometimes a shadow from a tree will remind me of a conversation sitting on a rock wall with an uncle gone almost 40 years.  Sometimes the memory will almost make me dizzy, as if my feet are fully on the earth, as if I might be hurtling through time.  Sometimes these strange mental connections make me miss someone so much i could cry.  Other times its like I have them back for a moment, a tiny blessing brought by the wind.

I don't understand the human brain or the memory connections that create such things.  I understand the human soul even less, but such memories make me think we have a soul.  Something that hooks us to a universe that is beyond time and space, something behind the physical.  Could it be my own loose screw?  Sure.  But it might be my favorite.

intimidation

To intimidate someone is to make timid or fearful :  frighten; especially :  to compel or deter by or as if by threats <tried to intimidate a witness>  
Policing by intimidation is a common enough technique.
Workplace intimidation is intentionally and maliciously causing an employee or coworker to feel inadequate or afraid. This includes verbal threats, unjust criticisms, sabotage of a person's work or supplies, sexual harassment, and physical violence. Actions like these erode the confidence of employees and affects their ability to do their jobs. In many places, it is punishable by fines and imprisonment, and businesses may also be held liable if they do not respond appropriately. Those who feel they are being subjected to workplace intimidation can get help from managers and law enforcement.
One form of intimidation is bullying.

Physical:  Physical bullying involves harmful actions against another person’s body.  Examples include:  biting, kicking, pushing, pinching, hitting, tripping, pulling hair, any form of violence or intimidation. Physical bullying also involves the interference with another person’s property.  Examples include: damaging or stealing.

Verbal:  Verbal bullying involves speaking to a person or about a person in an unkind or hurtful way.  Examples include:  sarcasm, teasing, put-downs, name calling, phone calls, spreading rumors or hurtful gossip.

Emotional:  Emotional bullying involves behaviors that upset, exclude, or embarrass a person.  Examples include:  nasty notes, saying mean things using technology (e.g. cyber bullying using emails, instant messaging), chat rooms, tormenting threatening, humiliation or social embarrassment.

Sexual:  Sexual bullying singles out a person because of gender and demonstrates unwarranted or unwelcome sexual behavior.  Examples include: sexual comments, abusive comments, unwanted physical contact.

Racial:  Racial bullying involves rejection or isolation of a person because of ethnicity.  Examples include: gestures, racial slurs or taunts, name calling, making fun of customs/skin color/accent/food choices.

The best immediate response to intimidating behaviors is 

1.Walk Away: If possible, remove yourself from the situation immediately.

2. Say “Stop:” If it feels safe, tell the aggressor to stop in a firm but calm 

way. If you feel confident to do so, use humor or a clever response to 

weaken the effect of the mean behavior.

3. Keep Cool: Try to control your emotions in the moment. Showing fear or 

anger may egg on the aggressor.

4. Don’t Fight: Try not to fight or bully back in response—this may just 

continue the cycle of bad behavior.

But if the intimidator is in a position of power, then walking away or saying stop will be seen as insubordination.  If the person being intimidated is young or this is round 57 of the same old thing, staying cool and not fighting is very unlikely.

So the question is, why do bullies and intimidators go into positions that allow them to repeatedly do what they like best.  I know from personal experience that while I'm basically peaceful, if you get in my space, touch me, or crowd me or try to box me into a corner, i'm going to start pushing back.  Its automatic.  I am no longer capable of hunkering down and surviving.  I'm going to let you know that I won't be intimidated and will not be pushed around.  For millions of people that have been victimized/ostracized/bullied/demonized/and treated like they aren't human, that response is also automatic.  

If i'm waving a gun at you or trying to kill someone, shoot me. But if i'm walking down the street and you get in my space, i'm going to try to get you out of my space--its automatic.  And while some people will tell you that you should expect that from people in power, reality is, people in power don't do that to anyone unless they are trying to elicit that automatic response.  

We need to make sure that the people we put into positions of power and control like police and probation officers and social workers and teachers and anyone that interacts with less powerful people and has the ability to use intimidation be educated fully about the subject.  I know that large, urban police departments require 4 year degrees, but a lot of small departments require only a cleet license--which is all about gun law, and not at all about not being a bully.

We need to make sure that people do not get placed in those positions with known prejudices---a hard thing to do, as many of the people doing the hiring have the same prejudices; that people with a history of using intimidation to get cooperation not be given that kind of power over people.

And last, we need to not have such deep loyalties to our fellow coworkers because they are pals or watched our back or "know what it's like out there" that we protect them when they are viciously wrong.  

Repeatedly the citizens of this country have witnessed the way a group of people that has been hired to protect and serve, becomes a criminal enterprise, covering up the bad and criminal behavior of its members because they are family.  Time to stop the "us against them" attitudes that create so many problems in our communities (and the world--its what starts every war).  

We are all in this together.  None of us want to be robbed by anyone, or hit or shot or otherwise victimized.  All of us want to be treated with respect despite our differences.  We have all worked with the person that is dearly loved by everyone up the ladder, but despised for their rudeness, arrogance, and self-aggrandizement by everyone equal or under them.  

The hierarchy is a sham, we are all on the same plane. So, without pushing or crowding, lets all just do this together.