tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88062859514768510342024-03-05T12:43:31.148-05:00The Everyday People ProjectTHE EVERYDAY PEOPLE PROJECT
Making Our Way In A New AmericaSusanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.comBlogger371125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-58232830306955503032017-06-01T09:27:00.003-04:002017-06-01T09:27:27.158-04:00The New World DisorderTry as I may, it is nearly impossible to keep up with the sheer volume of dung being flung in every direction from the White House and Congress.<br />
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American has reaped what we have been quietly sowing. Capitalism has destroyed the republic.<br />
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The rich are in charge and they are going to ram policies down our throats which will destroy us, while whispering soothing assurances that this will make everything better. They'll distract the gullible with divisive rhetoric about minorities, immigrants, anyone who is different.<br />
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There are still some people, apparently, who buy it all and swallow.<br />
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That's a billboard in Russia. Think Vladimir is happy? You bet.<br />
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What I've been looking for is the pattern. What the hell happened and how? Sure, I read all the conspiracy theorists (or at least the sanest-sounding among them) and I am convinced about the Russia connection. But how? For what?<br />
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Today's news that the UK's Nigel Farage is a "person of interest" in the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the US election is finally showing the bigger picture. Farage, if you don't know, is one of the architects of Brexit. He and his big mouth pal Boris Johnson convinced a country they'd be better off without the European Union without offering a single explanation of how it could work and why it would be better. But, like us, the Brits bought it. They thought it meant isolating themselves from the refugees of the world, strengthening their economy and their future. They thought it meant national pride. It's not looking like any of that is true. It never did.<br />
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And who did Trump's dirty-work pal Roger Stone use as an intro to Russia? Nigel Farage.<br />
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The door was opened, the welcome mat dusted off, and Russia infiltrated social media just as Trump asked them to. And he won.<br />
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Who benefits? Putin. Every time. Putin. He's thrown the EU into confusion, isolated Britain, and helped put in a puppet who cozies up to whoever offers him the most money and ego-stroking.<br />
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Trumpuppet was very happy in the Middle East. They treated him like a powerful man. He was very unhappy with EU leaders. They treated him like the bully he is.<br />
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He throws out threats to back out of the Paris Climate Accord. He hints he's giving Russian back their camps in the US. He distracts and he lies and all his toadies do the same. There is not a member of his administration who appears to be clean.<br />
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The Congressional leaders who support him are as covered in Russian influence as he is.<br />
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So who stops this? Who adds it all up, declares this country has been taken over by a hostile government, and slams the door shut? The Democrats? They helped create Trump as surely as Putin did. Until they grow up and remember their principles, they've got nothing.<br />
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Ted Lieu, Chris Murphy, Kirsten Gillibrand, step up. We need you. Take the lead.<br />
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If you don't know it yet, be aware other countries are slamming their doors on us now. Try to cross the Canadian border. You'll find they're being a whole lot more strict than they ever were before.<br />
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We are alone with this. It's our house. We have to clean it.<br />
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The question is how?Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-62616579508056815752017-02-23T09:30:00.000-05:002017-02-23T09:30:00.873-05:00Trumplandia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've gone through all the stages of grief since the election except one: acceptance. Nope. Not doing that. I do not accept that this is "normal."<br />
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I do not accept that the Toddler In Chief has a sustainable presidency.<br />
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I do not accept that my tax dollars pay for him to shoot off his mouth, ignore briefings, spout hate, issue random orders, pander to his fans, then take off to Florida to play golf.<br />
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There is no such thing as "alternative facts" - those are lies.<br />
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Spin is also a way of lying.<br />
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Alt-right is a revisionist word for fascism and white supremacy.<br />
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Bullying is bullying.<br />
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Stupidity is stupidity.<br />
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Cluelessness, intolerance, slogans with no substance...you get the picture.<br />
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I'm done trying to understand people who support this dangerous buffoon. He has shown his hand, then doubled down on it, and if they still think he's okay, then I'm not okay with them.<br />
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I'm not okay with his circle of advisors, the apologists for hate, the fear-mongers.<br />
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I'm not okay with a lazy press, and if CNN tries to tell me there is a "Southern White House" one more time I may lose my mind. There isn't. Trump has a vacation house that is now an amazing investment in Florida, and he's making us pay for his weekly trips there.<br />
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If (perhaps I should say 'when') he's ousted, we get Pence. He is a policy nightmare and used the dreaded Obamacare (thanks, media, for running with that term and confusing the masses who thought the ACA was something different) to solve the disaster he created in Indiana.<br />
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At least he doesn't appear to be emotionally unhinged.<br />
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Sad to think that's an improvement. But it is.<br />
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Don't think I'm letting the Democrats off the hook. The DNC gave us this mess. Clinton gave us this mess. They refused to believe their version of status quo was going to lose the election. They STILL refuse to believe it, and rumors that Chelsea Clinton might run for office makes me want to lose my lunch.<br />
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The Run For Something movement, the Resist Movement, the Indivisible movement, the Brand New Congress movement, these give me some hope. Not much, admittedly, until they all band together...but I have hopes they will.<br />
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Bernie Sanders is a light in the dark right now, and I am grateful for his consistency. He speaks out. He calls a lie a lie.<br />
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Connecticut's Chris Murphy has been fearless in his opposition to Trump's agenda.<br />
We need more of that.<br />
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Congressional Democrats seem to be beginning to see the way the wind is blowing. They need to fight back harder. They don't have the luxury of getting tired. They wanted the job: now they need to do it.<br />
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The GOP is hoping that the opposition will blow itself out. I'm hoping they're wrong.<br />
We are tired already. But if we rest, we lose.<br />
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We've won every skirmish when we stood strong against this pitiful president and his agenda of greed and hate.<br />
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If Trump's fans want to call us snowflakes, that's just fine.<br />
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This is a blizzard.<br />
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-7459737188269701532016-11-13T08:32:00.000-05:002016-11-13T08:35:43.807-05:00Jane<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The 2016 American election has proven we need to have a conversation. We need to hear each others' concerns and try to bridge the massive divide that has been created here. Join the conversation. Introduce yourself at everydaypeopleproject2016@gmail.com.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am Jane, a 56 year old woman. I was born in the mid-west and grew up in New England. I live on the East Coast.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am ever single, with no children of my own, but cherish my roles as “other mother” for a young adult living in Brooklyn, third parent for a teenage boy, and "aunt" for a six year old girl.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was born of privilege – white, Catholic, educated parents, who had sufficient finances for full time nanny/maid services to support raising seven offspring while they both enjoyed professional careers – lawyer and nurse.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It didn't last.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I grew up in chaos. My father died when I was three, my mother remarried, offering an eighth sibling. We moved to a community property state, which yielded a full loss of wealth with the divorce from my abusive step-father. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was raised by a working single mother in financial circumstances vastly different than those I was born. We lived in small towns that were largely conservative and struggling economically. We had the basics covered, yet not much to spare for major expenditures, vacations, etc.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have worked since I was 15, providing for myself, including my college education. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I did not own a car until I was 30. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I lived through the loss of all personal belongings in a fire when I was 33 and rebuilt my life. I was supremely fortunate to have a friend who took me in. During that time, I was without a job (laid off days before the fire) and a place to live, understanding that I was inches away from being homeless. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">At 33, I had employer paid health insurance for the first time in my life. I also began contributing to a retirement account. I made less than $30k a year until I was 38. Since that time, I have contributed 15% of my earnings to some mode of 401k/IRA. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I paid off my student loans and credit card debts without declaring bankruptcy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The year I turned 40, I understood that I had emerged from survival mode to a basic level of financial security – meaning I did not live pay check to pay check in fear for the loss of my job, I was able to pay my bills and I had a savings account. I made a conscious decision to remain free of consumer debt and maintain a standard of living on par with the median income which has informed nearly all financial decisions since. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I bought my first home in my 40’s. It was not one of those crazy mortgage deals.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Due to hard work and opportunity, I have done well professionally, working as an independent contractor for a number of years (paying out of pocket for health insurance) and now working for a Fortune 500 company. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I somehow avoided layoff during a series of work force reductions, but lived for several years in peril of losing my job. I have felt more secure in recent years since gaining enough personal savings to cover 6+ months without work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Politically, I am an odd mix which crisscrosses party lines. I have considered myself a democratic socialist since college in Burlington VT, influenced by my education in political science and the elected mayor, Bernie Sanders. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am fiscally conservative, largely stemming from personal necessity/practice, where I firmly believe it is best to spend wisely and not live beyond one’s means, making me far more akin to traditional conservatives than liberals. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">And, I am socially progressive, with a few blind spots where I could learn and understand more. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am a staunch advocate for the separation of church and state, believing religious values must be held sacred apart from government. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am starting to feel the same about separation of (big) business and government.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">My social construct is influenced greatly by John Rawles’ Theory of Justice. I believe all citizens of a civilized society should be provided a social safety net, ensuring basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing and health care, as well as education and opportunity for meaningful employment. I don’t think we should be discussing whether or not to do this, I think we should be well past that and figuring out how it is done. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe that all citizens should contribute to this system and those at the top should enjoy no more wealth/income than is sustainable while fully ensuring the social safety net for those at the bottom. This system is to cover all citizens irrespective of ability, ethnicity, religion or creed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe it is perfectly reasonable to expect public service in exchange for public assistance. I believe some mode of public service should be a requirement for all citizens, whether part of the military, government, social welfare program, etc. at some point in their lives. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe everyone should be allowed to retire from paid work WITH a pension and healthcare after a reasonable number of years. That is the framework.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">In some ways, I am representative of middle America, despite living a very different existence. I have worked hard all my life. I have lived through hardship, paid my bills, lived within my means and saved for retirement. I have paid my taxes and not relied on government “handouts”, aside from 3 months of unemployment, in nearly 40 years of working. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I paid into a system for Social Security all of my working life, it has been pushed out 7 years and it remains in jeopardy, depending on the source, of bankruptcy, defunding, privatization. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I paid into my own retirement account, that I am not allow to touch without penalty until my 70s, also pushed out, where I have watched my hard earned money/savings disappear, while we give bailouts to Wall Street where folks make more in a year than I will see in my life time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have done everything right – arguably better than most. AND, I am at the mercy of a system where I pay, behave like a good citizen, but have no say and no sense of guarantee or security. I will not be able to retire until my early 70’s if I want to avoid living in poverty. That is 50 years of work!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don’t have a problem with public assistance for those in need, although I suspect our current welfare system would benefit from a financial and policy overhaul. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">My pet issue is retirement and pensions. Public sector employees get to retire after around 30 years, some sooner, fully pensioned with health benefits. I don’t begrudge them this benefit, I resent that I do not get to enjoy the same. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is a great inequity, but with most public sector folks this is an entitlement they have earned, while they fail to acknowledge that others in different circumstances might deserve the same. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I find this particularly vexing with regards to our US elected officials, many whose wealth and income far exceeds mine – in part due to corporate connections after working as an elected official. There is no wealth/income eligibility check on this. Ex. Why should billionaires Bill and Hillary Clinton receive government checks from tax payer dollars? AND many of PS workers who retire return as contractors, receiving both a pension and a paycheck. This is one example of where we need a more balance/checks on government spending and citizen safety nets. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I view our political system as corrupt – run by corporations, elected officials who are beholden to them, and career politicians who are more concerned about re-election than they are about policy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe the American people have been forgotten. Politics has obscured issues and outcomes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want term limits. I want government to return to service of the people. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want single issue bills where citizens understand what is being voted on and can hold their elected officials accountable. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want publicly funded elections that are about the issues and not advancing a particular political party platforms or corporate agendas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want a brand new political party that erases traditional party lines, seeks to return government to the people, actually addresses the issues Americans are most concerned about, AND that seeks to engage the 46% who did not bother to vote.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">And, I want some level of sanity with regards to who and what we legislate. How do we even let legislating public bathrooms become a viable issue, when a crumbling infrastructure is not? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">How many times do we let a body of government vote to repeal AHCA before we say “Uncle”?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"> And, at what point can we just say that abortion is decided? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Funding for ridiculous ventures should not be allowed unless statistically relevant – drug testing for public assistance?! And perhaps folks should first apply for eligibility to run for office with a test that demonstrates knowledge of how government actually functions, of world religions, political systems and geography, and scientific concepts/methods – ex. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The weather today does not equate to climate and evolution is not a belief, there is empirical data that supports this and it is not a Chinese conspiracy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">We expect folks to pass a test to become citizens, why would we not want a test for elected officials? Who knew this would ever be such a problem?!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I fear this sounds like a rant. So, I will end with this thought…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want the notion of government to be rooted in service to our country and its citizens, not an opportunity for wealth, power, or a lucrative career. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want folks to get paid, but not profit from service to our country. Can we shift to this paradigm?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I accept the election results, but I strongly protest Trump as being morally unfit to run this country. He has deeply offended me as a woman, possibly sending the country back decades, he has made a mockery out of our democratic process, and he has thwarted the core values we hold as Americans. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe we need to get busy on right action to respond to a Trump presidency and start work on a long range solution to ensure this never happens again.</span></span></div>
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Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-30945066879476190502016-11-12T15:08:00.003-05:002016-11-12T15:17:08.318-05:00Sheila<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>This is an attempt to begin a conversation - to discuss who we are, what we want, in this America that is so deeply and frighteningly divided.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Write to everydaypeopleproject2016@gmail.com and share your story, too.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">My name is Sheila. I’m 48, barreling perilously ever-closer to the half-century mark. Like Susan, I am an “east coast liberal elite”. To add insult to that title, I even attended an Ivy League school. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But I come from “the other side”, too. I was the first child on my mother’s side to attend four-year college. Great-grandparents on both sides were immigrants: my father’s maternal grandparents were from Finland; my mother’s maternal grandparents were from Wales. My mom comes from hard-working people, people who believe that there is no greater responsibility than providing for their families, people who will work two or three jobs if that’s what it takes, people who are too proud to take handouts. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">My parents split up when I was about eight. My mom had to enter the workforce full-time for the first time since becoming a homemaker, with just a high-school degree. She waited tables, worked at a shoe store, and went to community college to get her associate’s degree in criminal justice. She landed in the Internal Revenue Service and worked her way up to become one of the first female federal agents in the history of the IRS – a gun, handcuffs, the whole works. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">With divorce often comes a degree of economic insecurity, and it was no different with us. I remember government cheese once or twice, one Christmas party for needier children, but, as I noted before, my mom comes from proud stock and wasn’t interested in handouts. She also worried about how we would be perceived if we were seen as “poor”. Though we more than qualified, she never let us apply for the free lunch program at school because she worried my brother and I would be ridiculed. Our clothes were bought at the Salvation Army Thrift store, and I remember her buying old Izod shirts just so she could take off the alligator and sew them onto my K-Mart polo shirts, just so I would feel like I fit in. I remember the worry about making the mortgage payment, getting the car fixed, etc. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">So I can understand the economic insecurity facing much of our nation. The worry about putting food on the table, the worry about whether the bank is coming for the house, how Christmas is coming and your kid believes in Santa, and you have no idea how you’re going to get even a couple of presents under the tree. I started working on the weekends when I was 14. There were times when my weekend job and babysitting money made a difference in the household finances, but I know my mother hated to take my money. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was laid off three weeks ago, after almost 17 years working in the healthcare division of a tech company. I consider myself lucky in that I received a generous severance package, and I am eligible for unemployment. Unlike when I was a child, I don’t worry about my children going hungry, we will not be in danger of losing the house. I am lucky, privileged, really, but my fellow Americans should be able to say the same. No one should have to work two or three jobs just to pay the daycare bill and rent. I believe minimum wage should be a livable wage. A lost job should not lead into an immediate economic death spiral and no parent should have to make the decision between staying home with a sick child – or sick themselves – and losing a day’s wages, or, worse, losing their job. We deserve better. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was diagnosed with cancer almost five years ago now; I am, again, lucky and privileged. Privileged that I have excellent and affordable health insurance through my husband’s company and lucky that this cancer was caught at a very early stage. Surgery is believed to be curative and I am closely followed on a yearly basis. But if my husband loses his job and Obamacare is repealed, I will become 100% uninsurable in an open marketplace due to this preexisting condition, or if I can get insurance, it will be prohibitively costly and with a great many limitations on the coverage. If my cancer were to recur or be found to have metastasized, I’d be screwed. We all deserve high-quality, affordable – I even say free -- healthcare. No one should lose their home or jeopardize their family’s economic situation because of medical bills. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe in science. Data is not a matter of opinion. Yes, we can all come up with examples of where scientists or doctors believed one thing once upon a time and now they denounce that for a new hypothesis, but all of happens because the data, or new data, showed something different. With the new information came a new hypothesis. Climate change is not a matter of opinion, it’s science. I believe we can improve economic prosperity without killing our planet. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">By now, it’s likely no surprise who I voted for; I voted for Hillary, in both the primary and in Tuesday’s election. But some things might surprise you. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It might surprise you to know that I have unfriended or blocked no one during this election season. I sincerely do want to hear everyone’s viewpoint, even if it differs from mine. I even follow Trump and Palin on Facebook. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It might surprise you that, despite being a pretty hardcore far-left, bleeding-heart, hippie liberal, I have, in fact, voted Republican before. I will support whichever candidate I believe will be best at the job. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It might surprise you that I don’t want to take away your guns. I, myself, loathe them. But I grew up with them – my mom and dad both hunted, my mom, as I noted, was a federal agent. I will never own a gun, but I don’t want to scrap the second amendment. I do believe that the second amendment is inadequate when taking into account the assault weapons that are out there now, and I do believe we need stricter controls and background checks. Yes, people hellbent on violence are difficult to stop. A man killed 19 people and injured 25 in a mass stabbing this past July in Japan. But if he’d had a gun, the number would have been much higher, and chances are good that he would have had a gun were he in the States. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It may surprise you that, on Tuesday morning, I implored everyone to vote, and meant it. While I dreaded a Trump presidency, I would risk my life to ensure that someone could cast their vote for the man, because that’s what I believe our democracy is founded on. You may also be surprised that I’m not signing the petition to ask the electoral college to throw out Trump in lieu of Clinton; I believe that the people have spoken, and just because I disagree does not mean I want some kind of re-do. Nor does it mean that I will not accept his presidency. I will not like him, but I will respect the office. Indeed, ironically, my husband and I are in a tax bracket that will likely benefit handsomely under his tax plan. Please note that we didn’t want this. We believe that we should be paying more, that tax breaks should go to those who truly need them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am an agnostic-bordering-on-heathen, so it may surprise you that I don’t wish to attack your religion or your way of life. I am pro-choice, because I heard the horror stories of abortions performed before they were legal. I don’t think I personally could ever decide to have an abortion, but I’m not going to make that choice for anyone else. I know women who have had abortions; it was never an easy decision and it was never made lightly. But I fully respect your Christian beliefs and your right to hold them. I believe everyone deserves the freedom to worship as they desire, in perfect safety, and I will fight for that right. It may also surprise you to know that I’ve read the Bible cover to cover, many times. I’ve also read the Talmud, the Koran, the Buddhist Sutras, the Hindu Vedas. There are universal truths to all of the religions, and far more commonalities than one might believe. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now here’s where I need to be heard. I have twin 9-year-old daughters. Adopted daughters. Ethiopian daughters. Black daughters. Black, immigrant daughters. We live in a blue state, but there are pockets of racism everywhere. I fully expect my daughters to be called the N-word for the first time during this presidency. I fully expect them to be told they need to go back to Africa, even though they are legal United States citizens via the Child Citizenship Act of 2000.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">And it’s not just my kids. One of my sisters-in-law is black. One is an immigrant. My nieces are biracial. I have gay and lesbian friends. I know women who have been brutally raped and assaulted. I have Jewish friends whose kids have been told that they are responsible for killing Jesus. I have Muslim friends, immigrant friends. They are all afraid of what a Trump presidency will bring, and I believe that our fear is not misplaced, not hysterical, liberal, crybaby whining. My grandmother was a recreational therapist for a Jewish nursing home when I was small. I remember the tattoos on those wrists and the horrors that created them, and I believe that it could all too easily happen again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I do not believe that every Trump supporter is necessarily racist. But the Trump presidency will unleash ugliness – is already doing so – and I need to know that people will shine light onto that ugliness should they see or hear of it, every single time. It is not enough to say “well, I’m not racist, there are just some bad apples everywhere”. These actions need to be condemned and denounced, as the North Carolina GOP did with the KKK Trump Victory parade that is planned. Hate needs to be called out every single time. Everyone needs to be held accountable for human decency. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I do believe that, as humans, we are more alike than different, and I hold onto that belief. I believe that we have a great country and are capable of great things, but we are also flawed and capable of horrible things, and it is those things I am fearing right now. Like everyone who voted for Trump, I want a good job, I want a home, I want medical care if I need it, I want to raise my children, I want to live to see them grown, I want them to have a better life than I had, I want them to be safe, healthy, and educated. I want them to be free to love who they love. I want them to have a healthy planet to call home. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Like our founders wanted, I want “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for myself, my family, my friends, and every American, and I’m fairly sure that’s what you want, too. </span></span></div>
Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-75066181487320581122016-11-11T18:30:00.000-05:002016-11-13T08:41:42.152-05:00We are all Americans.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is me. First thing in the morning. No makeup, no coffee, even. I want to put my tired, aging face right out there with no attempt to make it pretty or make you think I'm something other than who and what I am.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I want you to do the same. I want us to introduce ourselves to each other. Because it appears we don't know each other at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">You'll consider me a a progressive liberal, or you'll think I'm an East Coast elitist. You'll be partially right, either way, and partially wrong. Black and white doesn't tell the whole story. Never does.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My name is Susan. I'm 59. I live on the East Coast. I grew up here, I went to college here, I worked here, had my two children here, and will probably die here. Not because it's better than anywhere else. It's just where my life happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I love the Midwest. It's where my mother grew up and where I went to visit every summer. I loved the flat farmland, the way they talked, the fact that everything they ate tested better than what we had at home. I think that huge expanses of farmland are beautiful in the same way the ocean is beautiful. It cuts us down to size, puts us in perspective.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My dad was an East Coast native and my mom's family wasn't keen on him. Likewise, my dad's family toward my mom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So I understand that "them and us" thing that rose up and gave us Donald Trump as our next president. I get it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As an only child, I never felt like I fit anywhere. Maybe that makes me the right person to start this attempt at a conversation. Bear with me. I'll explain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">First, let me tell you who I am. I used to be a television news anchor and that was a pretty big deal in a pretty small city, but that was a long time ago. I've done radio news. I even worked for an NPR station (and if you don't like liberals that's probably really going to tick you off).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've also taught high school English, I've worked in a retail store, I've been a secretary - and a very poor one, I must admit. I did a temp accounting job for a big corporation. I've been unemployed. I even got fired once.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">These days, I sell real estate. I write. I've got novels the world has never seen. Maybe they never will. I did get my short stories published once. You'll probably never find the book. It's okay. I have written for newspapers and magazines. I love to write.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was raised Catholic. I left it behind when my mother died. It was a crisis of faith and I lost.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have two grown children who are the most amazing people on the planet. Really. I believe they are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm divorced. It was a hard, sad time a long time ago and we both share the blame.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I met a nice man and I refuse to get married again. So you might tell me I am living in sin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I pay more than $500 a month for my insurance with Obamacare, but before that, I had none at all. Real estate doesn't offer benefits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My son and his girlfriend are getting married soon. I'm hoping it's my year for going to happy weddings - another of my favorite couples plans to get married, too - but it wasn't legal for them to marry until not too long ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe every human being has the same rights. I don't care what color they are, what gender, who they love, where they live, what or who they worship: humans are humans and as such, they deserve equal respect, equal rights, equal pay for equal work, and equal opportunities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I supported Bernie Sanders. I wasn't rabid about it, but I believed, and still do, that he was the liberal answer to the "outsider" we were yearning for. I agreed with his platform. I reluctantly voted for Hillary Clinton because I could not vote for Donald Trump. But I wish I had had another choice. She was an insider in a system I believe has failed. And now it's collapsed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why not Trump? Here's what I ask you to understand, if you can: I believe what he said on the campaign trail. I believed it when he expressed racist, sexist, homophobic, discriminatory views. I believed it when he encouraged violence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I do not think he is stupid. Far from it. I think he crafted the perfect expression of what a massive block of angry voters wished they could say, but couldn't. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The fact that he said it, out loud, on the campaign trail for the country's most important job, told me he is irresponsible. He erased that line that, until now, we didn't dare cross. And that has made a few truly angry, truly hate-filled people brave enough to begin expressing their rage at other people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm hearing about gays being beaten, school kids making their black classmates move to the back of the bus, women grabbed. Is it just hysteria? I do not know. But no one ever wants to hear this might be happening. Not here. Not in America.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We are beyond that. Aren't we?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe he will support big business and the middle class will continue to suffer. I don't think he'll help the poor. I think he's a bad businessman and I see no evidence he won't be a very, very bad president.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">He doesn't care about anything I care about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Gun violence is an epidemic in this country. I want strict controls on who can have a gun and what kind of gun it can be. My dad was a hunter. He was responsible. But no one needs an assault weapon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Factory farming scares me on a lot of levels. The food isn't healthy, many farmers have been put out of business. I try to be a vegetarian. My vegan friends will be horrified to learn that sometimes I fail. But mostly I succeed. It's better for the environment, it's better for my health, but more importantly it means a few less animals are tortured and killed just so I can eat.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I worry about the environment. I know the weather has changed and it makes no sense to me that we have no impact on the climate. With all the roads, the cars, the businesses...it just has to be connected. And science is clear that it does.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I believe science when it's conclusive. But I know sometimes scientists make mistakes, too.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't think I'm a snob. But I know education is really important, and I think everyone should have access to it. I don't think kids and their parents should go into massive debt to pay for it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If a student wants to learn a trade instead, I think it's important that those jobs and those opportunities exist. And in many trades, there's the opportunity to open your own business. There should be government programs to help them make that happen, in lieu of support for their college education.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I support what we now call single payer health care. I think good health care should be the right of every citizen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe that's socialism. So be it, then. That label isn't frightening to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My America isn't Trump's America. Trump's America scares me. He's let loose something that may destroy us.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What is frightening is a country that is full of hate. I don't want to be afraid for my children's future. I don't want you to be afraid for your children's future.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We haven't been talking to each other. We don't know each other.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let's talk. Introduce yourself. Let's make a start. And let's build a political system that listens to us, and responds to our concerns. Because it's a sure bet that we haven't had that. And I think we can agree on that.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, there will likely be some nasty troll comments if this thing catches on. Ignore the noise. Let's try to build up some kind of trust again by getting to know each other.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Write to me at everydaypeopleproject2016@gmail.com and tell me your story. I'll post it here and link to it on FB and Instagram and Twitter. And don't forget we're all Americans.</span><br />
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<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-68853619457518684412016-06-12T13:19:00.001-04:002016-06-12T13:19:48.143-04:00America is a backward nation.My daughter was out at a club last night, hosting three young musicians from Scotland who are recording songs at my partner's studio.<div>
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I am incredibly lucky we are not in Florida.</div>
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Someone else's children died last night, however. Many parents are grieving today. Many partners and friends and siblings are grieving.</div>
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When the Scots arrived, they looked at us and said, "The one thing we don't understand about America is the thing with the guns. What is that about?"</div>
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<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/florida-nightclub-attack-latest-us-mass-shooting-39791867">http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/florida-nightclub-attack-latest-us-mass-shooting-39791867</a></div>
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We couldn't tell them. What I could tell them is there is a tourist destination in Arizona called Bullets and Burgers. I kid you not. You can pay a fee and shoot any kind of gun your heart desires...and have a hamburger when you're hungry.</div>
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These musicians are in university. They go for free and are expected to pay it back in small, affordable increments tied into their income. Their housing is also paid for.</div>
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Health care in Scotland, they say, is "amazing." Not okay, not better than nothing: amazing.</div>
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One of them had to go to an American emergency care center in New York City during his last visit. He was appalled.</div>
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"It was so primitive," he said. "It wasn't even clean."</div>
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I was born in this country and I used to believe the hype - America was leading the world.</div>
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Let's stop lying to ourselves.</div>
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I listened to a discussion of the presidential campaign on NPR the other day and heard David Gregory, who used to be a network news reporter and now hosts a podcast, dismiss questions about universal health care.</div>
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"It's not going to happen," he said. </div>
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He told his guests they should discuss things that are possible.</div>
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Free healthcare for all is impossible here. Free higher education is impossible here. Ironclad laws to protect Americans from being slaughtered in school or in a club are impossible.</div>
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If that is true, and it may well be, let's admit the truth. America is a backward nation. </div>
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And this election isn't going to change that.</div>
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Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-83293874261766889502016-04-20T12:26:00.000-04:002016-04-20T12:26:26.009-04:00Thoughts On America<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lauramartinez.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/buildingred.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://lauramartinez.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/buildingred.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The New York Republicans and Democrats have spoken. Their choices? Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.<br />
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My reaction? It is time to admit I do not belong in this country anymore.<br />
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I was born here. My parents were born here. One set of grandparents were born here, another were immigrants. All of them were so proud to be American.<br />
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I never considered it, honestly. This is my country. Like everything in this world, it is not perfect and I never expected it to be. But I believed it was based on core values I hold dear - integrity, honesty, compassion, equality. It fell short over and over again, but those were the goals, weren't they?<br />
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Apparently I was mistaken.<br />
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My fellow Americans are creating a presidential election that will pit a bombastic, intolerant egotist (or an even more frightening religious zealot, should the GOP find a way to stop The Donald) versus the second candidate from a family with dynastic ambitions, millions of dollars made through its influence, and a sense of entitlement as wide as the Grand Canyon.<br />
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Donald Trump is clear about what he stands for: business and The Donald. Toss out the immigrants, double down on capitalism, try to bully our citizens and the world and somehow American will be great again. He's the only one who can do it, says he.<br />
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Never mind that most people consider America's greatest moments to be in the post-Depression, "let's pull together," government-for-the-people era of FDR. FDR was undoubtedly a Communist in Trump's book. Or at least a "loser."<br />
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<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Cassidy-Donald-Trump-Americas-Muslims-1200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Cassidy-Donald-Trump-Americas-Muslims-1200.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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Trump smacks of fascism and his supporters baffle me. He spouts hate and they call it "telling it like it is." Sometimes it seems as though he wakes up every morning wondering what he could possibly say to get himself disqualified from this race...but nothing seems to work.<br />
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I have no idea what Hillary Clinton stands for. Neither does she. She evolves constantly. She was against gay marriage but she's changed her mind. She stands for black Americans. Unless they are super-predators. She stands for the middle class but single payer health care will "never, ever happen." She stands against Wall Street but she'd rather not show you the content of her paid speeches to them, thanks anyway.<br />
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<a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03232/hillary_3232486b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03232/hillary_3232486b.jpg" height="199" width="320" /></a></div>
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She stands for strong defense and a vigorous offense. She stands for an aggressive, territory-gobbling Israel. She stands for sending troops to "support democracy," particularly if it's an area with resources we want or if it's strategically valuable to us.<br />
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Hillary Clinton is the moderate Republican the GOP is looking for. Depending on which Hillary you're considering.<br />
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So now you expect, no doubt, some shining prose about Bernie Sanders. You're not going to find it here. He's the best of the lot, in my opinion. But I do not fool myself he is some kind of savior come to create a kinder, gentler America. What I like is that at least he wants to try.<br />
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<a href="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/6B1D/production/_87812472_berniesanders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/6B1D/production/_87812472_berniesanders.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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I wanted a candidate who seemed to believe in people. I wanted a candidate who thought government's role is to help its citizens have a decent life. I wanted a candidate who would rather listen and talk then load up a weapon or send out another battalion. I wanted a candidate who didn't consider corporations people and valued people over profits. I wanted a candidate who knew that each of us, every single one of us, is a person and we are all connected.<br />
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That sounds like Bernie Sanders.<br />
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But our system is so broken, so dysfunctional, and we have been complacent for so long, that I truly doubt he'd be able to make much headway, even with a Congress that agreed to do some work.<br />
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I voted for President Obama. Twice. I like him. I know he's part of the same old machine, but I think somewhere inside that intelligent mind there are ideals, and he's done what he can to live up to them where he can. Not everywhere - I know. There have been some horrifying exceptions. But at least, mostly, he tried. The world was so desperate for an intelligent, reasonable, charismatic American president that they dropped a Nobel prize on him even though he hasn't lived up to it. The rest of the world was disappointed with us, and with him. But at least we weren't embarrassed by him.<br />
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<a href="http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/gty_barack_obama_iran_nuclear)deal_wg_150810_12x5_1600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/gty_barack_obama_iran_nuclear)deal_wg_150810_12x5_1600.jpg" height="133" width="320" /></a></div>
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This time we are offered several embarrassments, an opportunist, and an idealist.<br />
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Perhaps Sanders will manage to outrun the Clinton machine. Perhaps he will run a successful third party race. I will vote for him if I can.<br />
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But I'm looking for my country if he doesn't win. It's not here. I don't know - maybe it never was.<br />
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<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-85413718265910995542016-02-29T15:28:00.003-05:002016-02-29T15:28:32.687-05:00Donald DrumpfI've watched the rise of a wealthy, ridiculous yet frightening blowhard with disbelief. And kept waiting for someone, anyone, to point out the screamingly obvious.<br />
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Thank you, John Oliver. You came through.<br />
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If my Internet would cooperate and let me post it without a link I would - but view it at this link:<br />
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<a href="https://youtu.be/DnpO_RTSNmQ" target="_blank">MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain</a><br />
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I wanted to stand up and cheer. Instead I posted it everywhere I could think of.<br />
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<a href="http://i.idnes.cz/16/023/cl6/PKA619c96_drumpf2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.idnes.cz/16/023/cl6/PKA619c96_drumpf2.png" height="189" width="320" /></a></div>
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This isn't a short segment. But every single word is worth hearing, particularly if you're amused by our reality-show presidential candidate. He is not funny. His popularity is a frightening sign of the increasing madness of this country. Perhaps it is too late for us; perhaps we're too far 'round the bend.<br />
But maybe not. Maybe all we need to do is remember that Trump is just a made up name.<br />
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The damage he can do, however, is very very real.<br />
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<span id="goog_336555796"></span><span id="goog_336555797"></span><br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-32511259549551419812015-12-03T19:22:00.003-05:002015-12-03T19:23:49.471-05:00So...who's packin'?It took something absolutely unbelievable to get me back to the blog, but it's happened.<br />
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The sheriff of our upstate New York county wrote a Facebook post today encouraging anyone with a valid gun permit who is "comfortable and proficient" with their weapon to carry it with them in public.<br />
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<img alt="Image result for cowgirl marksman" class="rg_i" data-src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRYNX48lnoW11TEXcaxu65TESxOJL7s_Yu1yxJ0aDoC9Jvtltl" data-sz="f" name="vgw0cifr-sVWUM:" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRYNX48lnoW11TEXcaxu65TESxOJL7s_Yu1yxJ0aDoC9Jvtltl" style="height: 184px; margin-left: -2px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 142px;" /> <br />
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I did not make this up.<br />
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<a href="http://www.kingstonx.com/2015/12/03/sheriff-van-blarcum-asks-licensed-handgun-owners-to-carry-in-public/">http://www.kingstonx.com/2015/12/03/sheriff-van-blarcum-asks-licensed-handgun-owners-to-carry-in-public/</a><br />
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Paul Van Blarcum, a Democrat who ran unopposed for sheriff last time around, apparently decided that calling his constituents to arms was a good way to ensure their safety after the latest American shooting, this time in California.<br />
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He's made me feel a helluva lot less safe.<br />
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I went to the UK a couple of months ago and was appalled to see how our country is viewed from the outside. We're the radical, gun-totin', wild-eyed Christian fundamentalists of the Western world.<br />
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A news report of the latest shooting from the UK started, "Just another day in America."<br />
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<img alt="Image result for western cowboys" class="rg_i" data-src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqwZ3BKEy3vyQvaJuu6YbPebILdsMMfugB0fIrz_ygk9eCofJv" data-sz="f" name="R6UJxMvoLf2pdM:" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqwZ3BKEy3vyQvaJuu6YbPebILdsMMfugB0fIrz_ygk9eCofJv" style="height: 205px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: -1px; width: 132px;" />So here I am, faced with the knowledge that not only is my country far more in love with its guns than it is with its people (clearly - how many massacres does it take before we decide we've made getting a gun way too easy), but now I have to trust the safety of the ones I love to the tender mercies of my gun loving neighbors.<br />
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I don't feel safe at all. I feel downright threatened.<br />
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Nice timing, Sheriff. When we're all preparing to go out holiday shopping, seeing movies in large groups, going out to eat.<br />
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Now I have to look around and wonder if I'm near a trigger happy shootist who's been waiting for this call to arms for years - all he or she needs is someone to look threatening so they can do a little real life target practice.<br />
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The story's getting national play. The storm has just begun. And it all began in Ulster County, where the woods near Woodstock (remember Woodstock?) echo with the sound of gunshot - it's hunting season, after all.<br />
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<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-22082712532678999552014-06-09T13:03:00.002-04:002014-06-09T13:03:17.090-04:00Life is Life-y<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRRirQdXRwb1lrP74OLhA6_cP_vvwTDcP4qKT5x3aBCRH3oBTK" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRRirQdXRwb1lrP74OLhA6_cP_vvwTDcP4qKT5x3aBCRH3oBTK" /></a></div>
There was a time when this photo was what people meant by family. Mom, Dad, six kids, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and assorted strangers who came to stay and never left.<br />
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That was how I saw my mom's family. Most of them are in Indiana and as far as I know, there's still a massive family reunion each July 4th at the family farm. Just one of my cousins has a dozen children, so I imagine it's a pretty overwhelming clan.<br />
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That was how I saw my dad's family. They were a close knit group of four siblings - my grandmother, her brother and two sisters - and they spent every single summer together in a little farmhouse in upstate New York. The cousins grew up like brothers and sisters. Even some of the cousins of my generation are that close.<br />
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I'm an outsider in both groups, comfortable on the fringes. I was an only child and my mother was separated from her family by geography while my father kept a distance from his family by temperament. I have loved them all, but at arm's length.<br />
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Yet I have my own extended family. There comes a time when all of us have to widen that definition.<br />
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For us, it's kids and parents. My son stayed with us a few summers ago when life was weighing heavily on him and he needed some time to be a kid again. He made the most of that hiatus and roared back into life with all engines firing.<br />
<br />
KB's son stayed with us for a short time, too. He had some family issues to sort out and needed a little space to do it. He did, and he's back to his life.<br />
<br />
Now KB's mother is here just for a few days, recuperating after a serious hospitalization and not yet ready to go home. We're sharing hosting duties with his sister, and it's an opportunity for everyone to get to know each other better, to talk openly, to maybe be a little better than we were before as a group.<br />
<br />
Here's the funny thing - they're all family. And not by blood or even marriage. <br />
<br />
KB and I are family. We chose not to get married; we've done that, we don't choose to do it again. So his family is not technically my family. But I find myself being treated like family and behaving like family. It's okay.<br />
<br />
My son isn't related to KB. But KB has treated him like family, welcomed him, welcomed my daughter, welcomed their significant others.<br />
<br />
One of my dearest friends is my wonderful former father-in-law's second wife. She's no blood relation to any of us. But she has been a magnificent grandmother to my children and the best mother-in-law anyone can ask for. <br />
<br />
Since my mother's death, she is the closest thing I have to a mother.<br />
<br />
None of us is an individual living together in a vaccuum. We accept the friends and families we bring along and understand the obligations that may mean. We accept it with as much grace as we can muster and we do the best we can because that is what decent human beings do for each other.<br />
<br />
I aspire above all things to be a decent human being. I think it's the one thing we owe the world in exchange for the space we occupy.<br />
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-38164245608650714682014-03-28T15:26:00.001-04:002014-03-28T15:26:22.862-04:00Switching GearsI am no less concerned about where our society is heading - but paying the bills has to take first place. So Everyday People have to wait for a bit while I focus on my business. If you want to keep up with me, follow my other blog at <a href="http://nyhousejunkie.blogspot.com/">Adventures of a Catskills House Junkie</a>. I promise it isn't just about real estate - it's a chance to share what I see as I drive around viewing and showing houses.<br />
<br />
I'm fortunate to live in a gorgeous area - New York's Catskills and Hudson Valley offer a treat for the eyes at every turn.<br />
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So come on along for the ride. I'd enjoy the company.<br />
<br />
Susan<br />
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-31250706949984339272013-12-22T09:44:00.000-05:002013-12-22T09:44:03.249-05:00Strangled By Red Tape - Our Journey to Insurance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/07/04/cmHAND_ARTICLE_wideweb__430x392,0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/07/04/cmHAND_ARTICLE_wideweb__430x392,0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Permit me to step from behind the notebook and offer my personal experience. We've been slogging our way through the new health care marketplace, a fetid swamp of rotting bureaucracy populated by malicious trolls and frustrated angels. The shining goal keeps us dragging ourselves forward. There it is, so bright, so beautiful, just beyond our grasp: health insurance!<br />
<br />
I have been uninsured for two years. It was the first time in my life I've had no insurance and it's been scary. I left a state job with a great salary and great benefits to become a freelance writer. It's a long story but bottom line was I had to choose between my wallet and my health. I decided it was better to be poor and not sick. I made the right choice. You won't be surprised to hear that it wasn't long before I had to add another job, but real estate sales doesn't offer insurance either. So here I am, mid-fifties, in great health, but one broken leg or scary diagnosis away from financial disaster. <br />
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<br />
<br />
I looked into insurance. Of course I did - I'm a responsible adult. The cheapest insurance I could find was a terrible plan with high deductibles that was going to cost me a thousand dollars a month. I just didn't have a spare thousand lying around every month. So that meant going without and keeping my fingers crossed that I didn't get sick.<br />
<br />
In case you're wondering, no, I couldn't be on my partner's insurance.<br />
<br />
My partner is a musician. He's been one all his life. And musicians don't have health insurance unless they buy it themselves. And the cost was exorbitant.<br />
<br />
So the prospect of a government-regulated healthcare marketplace sounded like a great thing to both of us. We got on that website and got ready to enroll.<br />
<br />
I actually didn't find the website to be that bad - the federal site directed me to the New York Healthcare Marketplace, where I answered all their questions and got to the point where I could choose a plan. Then I stalled. I hadn't heard of most of the companies and the options chased each other around in my brain without pausing long enough for me to understand what they were. So I waited for the smart one in our family to get involved so he could explain it to me.<br />
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<br />
What followed were two solid weeks of angry howls from his office. Each day was the same: get on the phone and call the number to which the marketplace directed him. Hold for an hour or more. Finally reach a human and ask simple questions. Get the answers, then call the next number for the next step. Wait another hour or more. Begin the next step, then discover the first answers were wrong. Go back to step one. Some days, rather than getting the wrong answer, he'd be told that they just didn't know the answer.<br />
<br />
He's not a terribly patient man on the best days, but this experience sent him way over the edge. Some of the things he yelled after he hung up the phone were concepts I didn't even know were possible. On the plus side, I've learned a lot of new combinations of colorful exclamations. <br />
<br />
"I'm drained," he told me more than once. "This is the most exhausting thing I've ever done. And I'm getting nowhere."<br />
<br />
Chasing your tail <i>will</i> wear you out.<br />
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I'd love to conclude this with a happy picture of us both holding our insurance cards. I may yet get to add that to this post. For now, I can tell you that I have been approved, I chose a plan, and I'm waiting to hear about the next step. I'm told that will happen in January. <br />
<br />
The best rate I could find was about $350 for a bronze plan - nothing special, but it's insurance. I just read a New York Times article where they discussed the cost of the health insurance under so-called Obamacare, and they maintained that a silver plan (that's better than bronze, you know) was about $300 or so for the average middle to lower income person. That's not my experience. If you can tell me where that plan is, please let me know.<br />
<br />
But I'm not complaining. Bad insurance beats no insurance and $350 is a whole lot better than $1000 a month. <br />
<br />
My exhausted partner? He's also supposedly signed up, but he has his doubts. He suspects it's been screwed up.<br />
<br />
We're thinking it might be simpler to move to the UK.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-76348265217063892782013-11-14T19:53:00.002-05:002013-11-15T14:40:52.555-05:00Sari Botton <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sari Botton October 2013</div>
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<i>Ever since I've known Sari, she's
had a million jobs, all of them related to writing. She writes for
the New York Times. She ghost writes books. She's edited story
collections (one of them, “Goodbye To All That,” a collection of
writers' essays about loving and leaving New York City, is currently
selling briskly). She is a co-founder and editorial director of The
TMI Project, a non-profit dedicated to helping people write (and
sometimes perform or publish) their stories. But I wondered – were
these varied projects hers by choice, or by necessity?</i><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=TH&Date=20110909&Category=ENTERTAIN&ArtNo=109090319&Ref=AR&maxH=230&maxW=370&border=0&Q=80" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=TH&Date=20110909&Category=ENTERTAIN&ArtNo=109090319&Ref=AR&maxH=230&maxW=370&border=0&Q=80" /></a></div>
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I like being
freelance. That's my nature. I like to have a few balls in the air.
But I've had to have more balls in the air than I want because of the
economy. I'm just going to confess: I just barely get by. And I do so
much hard work. I have a two thirds time job as editorial director of
The TMI Project. I've edited two anthologies this year and I've done
a bunch of ghost writing, too, on top of it. I'm currently
deeply editing someone's book, and with all of that, I don't know if
I'll ever get in front of the eight ball.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Her husband is
self-employed, too, so neither of them has a steady income they can
count on.</i></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We're both up in
the air. This year his New York City gig ended. We've been in
upstate New York for eight years and for most of that time he
commuted two days a week to Rockefeller Center and a couple of other
locations to do IT for law firms. But it just stopped making sense so
it wound down and it's done, and he's now trying to figure out how to
make this (his storefront computer repair business) work and support him. At the moment we're just eking by,
even though we're so busy. Trying to find that balance of how much
you can pay people, how much you can charge people, how many people
you can have working at once. It's a real challenge. So both of us
at the same time are in a financially challenged place and it's very,
very stressful.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We've toyed with
renting out a part of our house. I mean, how do you stay afloat in
this economy? </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNKzC3jUPtXGKhuu-8LxcUkVxBGnvCFIHtzJUUrbI58VIHnk12XujCoeyBkpo0MdJgD7uH0vKTiWOnvIzZXmZbEgXkh8EDjK0nDt5aCus_Ea7ALuQ9Xz5sYCEOwxVDmNuVADuHprslha0/s1600/Sari-Botton-photo-300x199.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNKzC3jUPtXGKhuu-8LxcUkVxBGnvCFIHtzJUUrbI58VIHnk12XujCoeyBkpo0MdJgD7uH0vKTiWOnvIzZXmZbEgXkh8EDjK0nDt5aCus_Ea7ALuQ9Xz5sYCEOwxVDmNuVADuHprslha0/s1600/Sari-Botton-photo-300x199.jpg" /></a> </div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
One point this year
we almost rented out our whole house, but we weren't ready for that.
So what are the other ways you can stay afloat? Plus I think back in
2005 when we bought our house, a lot of people were going with that
rule of thumb “Buy the most house you can afford.” And now we're
stuck with a lot of house and not a lot of ability to afford it. And
I don't think that people are buying the big houses that they were
and we're kind of kicking ourselves, wishing we'd bought something
that was an income property, or was smaller....it's a tough time.
It's a really tough time.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><br /></i>
</div>
<i>
</i>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>And it's expensive
to live in New York, even upstate.</i></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
That's the
surprising thing. People come up from NYC to visit and they think
it's really cheap here and it's not. We're finding it's not much
cheaper: we had low rent in New York and when it got tripled we
had to leave. You pay for heating oil which you don't when you rent
an apartment in New York City. You need not one car but two –
because it's really important to be able to get around. The hidden
expenses are just astounding. When we sit down and add it up, we find
it's not really much cheaper to live here. And taxes, too – car
repairs, house repairs. We have a bunch of credit card debt because
we got caught by car repair bills at a time when Brian and I are both
struggling.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>What about health
care?</i></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Oh that, too! We
have insurance through the Freelancers Union. But it's not great, though it's good to have. We each have a $3000 deductible and a high prescription deductible. A couple of years ago I
was an adjunct at SUNY Albany, mainly so I could get really great
insurance. I hada major operation and our bill was only $71! But my entire
salary was going to gas and tolls, so no matter how I try to balance
I'm always behind the eight ball.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I was also
marveling - it's really true that we are the first generation that will
have less than our parents. I can't imagine a day when we'll be able
to afford to retire. Can you?</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>No.</i> <i>I've totally given that up.</i></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
We're
considering liquidating what little IRA's we do have if things don't
work out in the next few months. We were feeling ashamed and scared
and then we talked to our friends and they're in exactly the same
boat. We have friends who have already liquidated our IRAs. We don't have any money in it, anyway. And we don't even have kids! How do people do it if they have
kids? I don't know how people do it today.
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The cost of living
keeps going up and what I do as a writer and editor keeps getting
de-valued. The money I am offered for ghostwriting projects gets smaller and
smaller because more and more journalists are doing it; you
can't make any money at journalism anymore. </div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Has this ever happened in history before? Where
the cost of living goes up but not wages? Don't they usually go hand
in hand?</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGyXNb2SYmHpwZIrvxltWFfZepghFTN7ADh3KcKPw5T9xa43RRWFzNjrogOl4x0yyedua_XPbKooHGQ-NewOZju6JnOStN-tlod0feLK0sqth01ThjWt0lP4AQbTUOIQZTfjWPZNscyP4/s1600/sari+botton+freelance+copywriter+in+nyc.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGyXNb2SYmHpwZIrvxltWFfZepghFTN7ADh3KcKPw5T9xa43RRWFzNjrogOl4x0yyedua_XPbKooHGQ-NewOZju6JnOStN-tlod0feLK0sqth01ThjWt0lP4AQbTUOIQZTfjWPZNscyP4/s320/sari+botton+freelance+copywriter+in+nyc.jpeg" width="320" /></a> </div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Doesn't it feel
like we're at this huge shift? And I don't know where it's going.</i></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Unfortunately,it feels like
something awful has to happen – where everything breaks down so we
have to start over again. Some awful storm so no one can pay their
mortgages -it's going to take
something that will make the people with the money suffer. They're not
going to want anything to change. There are no penalties for the
banks because they're too big to fail. Unfortunately, it feels like
something that could make them fail has to happen so that they are at
the table with us.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-84757756940962345112013-10-21T21:19:00.001-04:002013-10-21T21:19:12.830-04:00Charlie Deitz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_QH3bcVWRl0ieha7YQfzc9jmBJuLJOhq7EP1uitHqyFMVpoycRUODqIyyTwiVzJElKrL73wv8hJQDvNVlJuKnIfzLUmNLfbtIo_e9TnpJU0Bk0YImQIfTtBzvTTW9Yoes0G0qExAPmAE/s1600/Charlie+Deitz+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_QH3bcVWRl0ieha7YQfzc9jmBJuLJOhq7EP1uitHqyFMVpoycRUODqIyyTwiVzJElKrL73wv8hJQDvNVlJuKnIfzLUmNLfbtIo_e9TnpJU0Bk0YImQIfTtBzvTTW9Yoes0G0qExAPmAE/s320/Charlie+Deitz+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Charlie Deitz is not one to conform and his career has taken a
number of unusual turns because he refuses to settle for work he
doesn't love doing. I met him when we were both working for a
National Public Radio affiliate – he covered the news in the
Berkshires of Massachusetts and I covered New York's Hudson Valley.
We both left for jobs that paid better, and when we reconnected he
told me a lot has happened in the past five years or so. The latest
news was he's earned his Master's degree from the University of
Oregon. And he's at a crossroads again.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It was a long haul, so thank God
it's done. Now I can start the longer haul of PhD work. I do
instructing and I'm also taking classes, but I'm still a slave. I
don't make any money.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I'd like to have a hybrid job – do
some reporting in some form and teach some classes. There are little
mini-laboratory environments that get created – little projects,
experiments – that's where you find the cool output from the
professional world and academia when they start talking to each
other.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Deitz said before working as a bureau
chief, he'd never been a field reporter. He put together an audition
tape from gigs as an overnight radio news anchor.
</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Before that I bounced around. When I
moved out west from Jersey, I started working for AAA and made it to
mid-level management, but after a few years I wanted to drift. And
taxi driving would fund that project. But I always wanted to get into
NPR. And I think it was after we had our first miscarriage was when I
really felt like I needed ot make good on this life – go after what
I wanted to do. That's when I got into the radio broadcast program outside of
Portland, which opened the door to the overnight radio and then the
affiliate in New York. The change was massive. Enormous. Earth
changing. We were all very excited when the call came that I got the
job. But we found out the Berkshires were a lot more expensive than
we anticipated. And after we finally got a place, we found we were
pregnant. And it was the beginning of the Great Recession. And my
wife couldn't find work and we had to live on my salary. Not to
badmouth the station, but I wished they'd paid me more. We moved to a
smaller place. And after about two years, there wasn't any upward
momentum. We'd gotten a raise – and I was like “Oh my God – I'm
never going to be able to even buy a dinner. Everything's going to be
out of a box.” I was living where the boss told me he wanted to
live, and I was getting paid mileage, which I needed to help make
ends meet. Then they moved the office and I wasn't in a position to
move again. That was another $150 a month hit to our budget and
that's what really forced me to start looking. I started sending out
my resume – sent it both to colleges and newsrooms and figured I'd
let the chips fall where they may. Turns out there's really a glut of
talented people in the NPR world, stations weren't getting back to
me, and University of Oregon got back to me and put money on the
table to get me there.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>They took the Oregon offer, as it also
put them back near his wife's family.</i> “She found work after six or
seven months, which isn't that long compared to where we'd just been.
But to be able to have a house that was nice and clean, I
really felt that difference. In the Berkshires, it seemed like every
other week something massive would break – like the toilet would
drain into the washing machine....”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Most people don't imagine that the
reporters they hear on the radio or see on television might not be
able to pay their bills. And thirty years ago, it wasn't an issue.
But today, producers in a middle market television newsroom work part
time in retail to pay their bills. Reporters for an NPR affiliate
make thirty thousand or less – after years on the job.</i></div>
<i>
</i><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Reporters struggle. Especially TV
reporters – they have to buy suits? I don't even own a suit – I
don't know what I'd do. I'd probably look like some seventies sitcom
extra.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>So what's he doing next?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Right now, I'm at the point where I
really don't know. I'm going through a divorce – nice little
curveball – so I got into the PhD program back in March, then this
happened, we each moved into our own places and split our time with
Penny (their daughter). If this was chess, Katie definitely
check-mated me because I eventually wanted to leave this area and
look for jobs in California or back east. Now I'm kind of stuck here.
Katie's not moving and I'm not even considering being away from
Penny. So the PhD program is kind of a placeholder until I figure out
what I can do here in this town to survive – something that's
hopefully good for the world and pays me enough to pay for my
apartment for say the next fourteen years. I have to play along –
throw the designs out the window. But while I'm here, it's pretty fun
to be in it for now if I don't think about where it's going. I get a
lot of cool opportunities in the program.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><br /></i>
</div>
<i>
</i><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>And I noted he'd get to be Doctor Deitz
when it was over.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />“I get to be Dr. Deitz! And
working at some gas station! Dr. Gas!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><br /></i>
</div>
<i>
</i><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>What happened, I wondered, to that
sense we used to have that if you took a step ahead, you could plan
ahead and be pretty sure you'd land on solid ground?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I think that's what people tell
themselves so they can force themselves to take a step. Like some
sense that history is trying catch up with you and eat you if you
don't move fast enough. I don't know anybody who's just kind of
coasted into some luxurious lifestyle. Most of the people, even the
professors, they had to go through the fire, too. Just like in news,
academia is seeing a shift, towards pulverizing the entry level folks
who do most of the work. It used to be you'd get your PhD, you'd work
a few years, get your tenure. Now people who are associate professors
have second jobs. I just have no intuition for where to go.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-8316304995422784792013-09-27T09:34:00.001-04:002013-10-21T21:27:24.428-04:00Lisa and John<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sept 27 2013<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Lisa and John have what we're
told it takes to succeed. They're smart, they're college educated,
they're hard workers. They're pleasant and attractive. They excelled
in school. They've been together for a couple of years and expect
their relationship to last. They worked through college and are
consequently older than other recent graduates. They're ready to
start their adult lives. And they can't find work. They represent a
generation that feels cheated – they've discovered the American
Dream is a lie.</i><br />
<br />
<i>I haven't used their real names or pictures so they could speak freely. </i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I've been out of school since
December,” John said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I've been out of school since May,” Lisa said. “I've had two interviews before I graduated and three
since I've graduated and no luck. In school I focused on interior
design, both contract and residential. The interviews I got were
residential and one was showroom. But there are about five computers
it turns out I should know and I don't know. And that's preventing me
from getting a job. So I have to figure out how to learn them.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>On her own dime and her own time,
despite her degree?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I have to see if I can download a
trial version on my computer so I can get acquainted with them
without spending the $500 these computer programs cost, see if I can
figure it out on my own.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Lisa's not the typical design school
graduate. She's already been working in the field.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I have three years of design
experience, which is more than any of my classmates had. I graduated
top of the class but there's not a lot out there for me. Everyone
told me I was going to have a job without a problem, but I know
there's no jobs out there. With all the design graduates coming into
the field, I'm not surprised that there's slim pickings. I didn't
know it would be as hard as it is and that there'd just be nothing
out there.”<br />
<br />
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>John and Lisa have been living in
an apartment behind John's dad's house. Their situation has
deteriorated to the point where they can't pay rent and they have to
move back home.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I'm working part time in a furniture
store,” Lisa said. She laughed but it's clearly not funny. “For
ten dollars an hour.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>John was recently hired by an
Internet startup, also as a contract employee at ten dollars an hour.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Prior to that I was finishing up my
degree at night and working at a sports network on a part time basis.
They call it a project employee – it's thirty hours a week, twelve
dollars an hour. I was an editor so what I wrote went directly to six
million subscribers nationwide. It was a position with a fixed
duration and I knew the end was coming. My job ended in April of
2013, so in December 2012 I started sending out applications. I tried
to send out five a week, ten a week. Between December 2012 and April
2013 I would say I'd sent out two hundred job applications, at least,
to various places nationwide. Out of those two hundred applications I
got one phone interview and one in-person interview. Finally in
mid-August I applied at an Internet startup in New York. They hired
me at ten dollars an hour for up to forty hours a week. After a week
and a half they had promoted me to manager. After another half a week
they decided that the position they'd promoted me to had to be based
in New York City, which I couldn't afford to do. It had the promise
of a reasonable salary in the future and some stock options in this
new company, and it didn't work out so I'm back to square one.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>So how many hours a day does he
spend looking for work?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Probably three or four. But here's
the thing – there are only so many jobs boards and so many jobs.
Weekend days in particular are very slow for Craigslist, Indeed,
Monster, whatever. You see a lot of the same jobs over and over. I've
got experience that you'd think would help with sports teams,
colleges, leagues, and I peruse those, too, but nothing. Before we
met you today, I was on the computer for about an hour while my
girlfriend was getting ready. I'll probably look some more tonight.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I wondered if their friends are
having similar struggles to find work.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“A lot of my girlfriends are still in
school,” Lisa said. “They went back for their Masters. One of my
friends is working in New York City, killing herself for no money,
but she's able to live there with her boyfriend.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“One of my friends was an accounting
major and went for his MBA,” John said. “He ended up getting
fired from his accounting job because he didn't really know how to do
the job. This was a kid with a 3.9 GPA in college. You have to wonder
how well the accounting program at our school prepared him for the
real world.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I speculated that both of them would
probably prefer to start their own businesses at this point, as the
job market isn't opening at all.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“You kind of become fed up with
everything. Maybe if you take matters into your own hands you'll do
better than trying to rely on other people. You've definitely thought
of that,” Lisa said to John. “For me, as far as residential
design goes, that's the only way to really do design work. You can
find clients who are willing to spend money more easily than you can
find businesses willing to spend money by hiring someone. One of the
firms I interviewed with have cut their employees in half since the
economic crisis started. Business has started to come back but
they're not hiring new people. They're just having the people they
have take on the extra work. I'm thinking maybe if I can find clients
willing to spend money, that's the way to start. But that's tough as
well because it seems like in the past couple of weeks spending has
just stopped – no jobs posting the past few weeks, nothing really
new to apply for since mid-August. I don't know if it's the
government shutdown talk but the entire industry has just seemed to
slow down.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>John has an idea for a business
startup, but he's hit a different kind of wall. He has no capital.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Good luck walking into a bank and
asking for $500 thousand in seed money with $100 thousand in student
debt hanging over your head and no work history to speak of. I have
no illusions about it. That's life. You can't be self reliant because
you can't get started being self reliant.”<br />
<br />
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
John continued, “It is my opinion
that a college education these days is the biggest scam in this
country.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It's the most fiscally irresponsible
thing you can do at this point, at our age,” Lisa agreed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Unless your parents can pay for it,” John continued, “you're crippling yourself for at least two
decades. That's what I'm looking at, regardless of whether I get a
job or not. Unless I magically get a job that pays six figures,
there's no reasonable way I can expect to pay this down, so any idea
I have to start out on my own just isn't feasible. Unless you get
some kind of angel investor, and then it's like 'Okay, hope you know
somebody.' “</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“One of my other friends ended up
leaving college,” John said. “He's managing a Domino's Pizza,
making almost fifty thousand dollars a year. He's paying off his
student loan and will completely debt free in the next three to four
years. He makes more than most teachers in this country who have five
times the education he does. It's not for everybody. I mean, I need
my brain to be engaged. But he doesn't care what kind of work he does
and once he's debt free he'll be able to do pretty much whatever he
wants.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Are they angry?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Furious. Absolutely furious,” John said. “Because you're told your entire life, 'Go get that
college degree and you'll be set up for the rest of your life.'”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“You'll be living the American
Dream,” Lisa added. “And here we are.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It's a farce,” John concluded.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I wondered if they'd considered
getting involved in politics or policy, to try to change a broken
system.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I was hoping when Obama got elected
that things would get better,” Lisa said. “But I've so lost hope.
I don't think one person can change it. I don't think it's a person
in office, I think it's the entire system and I don't know how it can
be fixed.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I would love to get involved in
politics,” John said. “I've applied for jobs with policymakers.
But again, how many applications can you send and how many
non-responses can you get? And even if I could get a job working on
policy, if it only pays twenty thousand a year I can't afford to
live. I'm 26 years old and I've never actually had my own apartment
away from a parent. Money is simultaneously the best and worst thing
every conceived by man. It's great if you have it and it ruins your
life if you don't.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>How far do they think they could go
if they could just get started?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
John looked thoughtful. “When I was in school I read this
paper, sort of a socio-economic experiment. They went into a rural
school, a suburban school and an urban school and asked the kids
'What do you want to be when you grow up?'” The answers were an
indication of how much support they were getting at home, their
confidence, their self-esteem, the effect of their environment. The
inner city kids wanted to be a subway driver or something like that.
The suburban kids wanted to be CEO of their own companies, a movie
star, something like that. In the inner city it's either 'I want to
be a star athlete and if not that, I just want to be able to pay the
bills because my parents can't.' I'm from suburbia and I have those
high aspirations, but I think those urban kids were more spot on,
honestly. Their aspirations are way more realistic than anything I
have. Do I believe that I could be a high powered CEO or President of
the United States? Absolutely. Do I believe realistically that it's
ever going to happen? Absolutely not.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“That's the hardest part of this
situation,” Lisa said. “You have to reconcile what you dreamt of
when you were growing up to what can actually happen. It's hard not
to get depressed by it. You have to completely re-evaluate the
trajectory of your life, what you thought it was going to be, because
it's not.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Do their parents and other Baby Boomers
understand?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“My mother showed me her tax
information from when she was twenty,” said Lisa. “I was twenty,
too, at the time and making three times what she was making while I
was in school. She had a brand new car, no credit card debt, no
student loan. She was fully self-supportive on six thousand dollars a
year. I was making eighteen, but I was living at home, I could not
even afford car repairs. With inflation and student loan debt, it's a
completely different world. I try to talk to my dad about it and he
doesn't get it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“He's helpful at least,” John
added.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yes, but he just can't grasp what
this reality is like for us.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Simplistic thinking is this
generation's enemy.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I think the biggest misconception
among the older generation is that we just have to get a job,”
John said.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yeah, you're not working hard
enough, stop whining,” Lisa said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It's just not that easy,” John
continued. “I've applied to probably five hundred jobs in the past
ten months. The number of actual interviews, traditional job
interviews, I can count on one hand. I've had one job offer. And that
blew up after two weeks. It's not a matter of working hard, not
wanting it enough. I want to be doing more. I'm 26 years old. My
parents had full time jobs and were married by the time they were 26
years old. It's a hard thing for me to stomach because I want that
and I can't have that.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-83414410107511824522013-09-14T21:28:00.003-04:002013-09-15T09:17:34.990-04:00Jeffrey Dean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jeffrey Dean</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
September 2013</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Walking Across America</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>The last time I saw Jeff Dean, he
was saying goodbye as my daughter moved out of the Brooklyn apartment
they shared. She was moving back to the country and he was staying in
the city.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>They were schoolfriends, two sweet
kids who were part of a crowd at the arts charter school they
attended in Hartford. They drifted apart, as high school friends
often do. But Jeff suddenly reappeared. He'd left New York, he'd been
staying with his parents, but he was now preparing to walk across the
country. At first, he was going to be accompanied by another one of
their mutual friends. But she's always been a volatile person, and
she tried to blow up their plan just two days before their departure.
</i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Jeff decided to go on alone. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>The night I spoke with him, he'd
been in Lambertville, NJ for four nights. He hadn't meant to go
there, but someone told him he should. </i>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It's right on the Delaware
River...and New Hope, Pennsylvania is right across the bridge.
They're very interconnected. Everybody here has been so amazing. I
was actually taken in by a group of girls who work at a place called
Zanya Spa. They saw me on the street and one of them asked me what I
was doing with the stick – I have this giant walking stick – and
when I told her, she brought me over to meet the rest of her friends.
So this will be my fourth night here.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Only a couple of miles is where
George Washington crossed the Delaware River in that famous painting
on Christmas Eve just before the Battle of Trenton. There are so many
art galleries – and the people have made me feel so welcome. Two
days ago the creative director at the salon invited me in and even
gave me a hair cut.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgMh6zc_jZAVVTAfxIMt5Qbuccdl8VQxo5EGrpV5vkCvgCGbnNNfPBem33GKJjzzfxuZqCOeAMZMCkc-KOLWTWk884UzxxD8Hwea9Fn1p5I-Be9262KLSqgRBtNQdhv52FQINeMkB1WiI/s1600/Jeff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgMh6zc_jZAVVTAfxIMt5Qbuccdl8VQxo5EGrpV5vkCvgCGbnNNfPBem33GKJjzzfxuZqCOeAMZMCkc-KOLWTWk884UzxxD8Hwea9Fn1p5I-Be9262KLSqgRBtNQdhv52FQINeMkB1WiI/s320/Jeff.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I asked him what had happened in his
working life since I'd last seen him.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“The thing about waiting tables and tending bar in New York City, it's a cycle that sucks you in and it's
hard to get out. You're making good money, making cash every night.
You work til two or three ayem, go to get a couple of drinks after
crazy twelve to fourteen hour shifts, and you get up and just do it
again. And one day you wake up and realize you're not doing what you
set out to do at all. And you're not getting any younger. So I made
the decision to cut it off – just cut it off. I knew if I didn't do
it very dramatically, it would be harder for me. So I left, went home
to Connecticut for about seven months, regrouped, and I made the
decision to go to California.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>But why walk there? What does he
hope to find along the way?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“That's something I tried to figure
out before I left, and I realized if I waited for the answer I would
be waiting forever. So I decided to leave and let my thoughts sort
themselves out while I'm walking. Let me tell you about this – I
met a guy in Trenton who is an immigrants rights activist. He asked
me why I didn't walk for a cause, that it would help people better
identify with this walk. But here's what I came to after I thought about that for a couple of days – this walk is
not for other people, this walk is for myself. I don't want this walk
to have some kind of agenda. That would mean I couldn't focus on what
I want to focus on. And I want to be very inclusive. And that's
what's happening so far. A couple from Raleigh offered their couch
when I come through North Carolina. A couple from Phoenix that I met
offered the same thing. I'm getting so much positive feedback. And as
I go farther into the South and the Midwest, I'll be meeting people
with different beliefs, different viewpoints from the ones I grew up
with. I want people to see that just because we may differ on
political views or religious views or philosophical views, that
doesn't mean that we don't have so much in common, because we do. I
want to meet people and focus on the common ground that we share and
what we do agree on.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I lost my optimism working in New
York. The biggest reason was my own complacency. If you don't
nurture your self, your soul, that promise that life gives you – if
you don't nurture it every day, it dissipates, it fades away. You're
working to survive. That's not a healthy way to live out your life. I
left there feeling like I needed to not be stagnant anymore. I needed
to find that optimism that high schoolers have – there's so much
before you, it's stretching out before you. But as you get older you
can forget that it's there. But I know that as long as you're alive,
no matter how old you are, there's always promise. You just have to
seek it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I've heard about farms you can work
on in exchange for shelter and food. I have my guitar with me. If I'm
in a place where I can't walk because of weather
and I have to stay for a few weeks, I'd do it. Everything is so open
ended, I have no expectations. I mean, New Hope and Lambertville
wasn't even on my itinerary. I backtracked north because someone said
I should see it. It was a big decision, but I told myself to take the
time to let it happen. The cool thing about walking is things aren't
planned and anything can happen.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-aiQlRgvkChalYGsYBA4Xgu1PVL5TT6xyy4pvOygOGibOiWXwrewfvX9SDPxg9ndtfI2UGXRHreAmaxsHhhm7YEdejHe-vj3eLmM_yR5KtbgtGZEKiPDHFXPb0rwlD7Q2oWr_W6Eg-I/s1600/jeff+nyc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-aiQlRgvkChalYGsYBA4Xgu1PVL5TT6xyy4pvOygOGibOiWXwrewfvX9SDPxg9ndtfI2UGXRHreAmaxsHhhm7YEdejHe-vj3eLmM_yR5KtbgtGZEKiPDHFXPb0rwlD7Q2oWr_W6Eg-I/s320/jeff+nyc.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I wondered about his safety.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I stupidly put myself in a situation
early in this walk. But it's a learning experience. I was walking
through Newark from midnight to three ayem with my whistle in my
mouth, bear mace in my hand and this enormous, Gandalf-stick. I was
ready to fight for my life. It was a huge mistake and I will, in
future, plan out things like that better.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Right now I'm having new experiences
day after day and it's very early in this walk. I'm still organizing
my thoughts. Even my itinerary is still changing. I know at some
points I'll be in the desert – it'll just be me and my books and my
journal and my guitar. It's hard to say how it's going to affect me.
I've been touched by people's kindness. I mean not everybody has been
kind – I've been accused of looking for handouts. I've made it
clear I'm not looking for contributions. But some people have given
me food, or water, or a place to sleep. I've been very touched by
everything. Hopefully in the end I can get in touch with that
optimistic spirit I once had.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLJrLwWs2sBUCXVP_By_vx_oJ2DhuE3__-d4NWkq1HgXoMwAWgscWjHW4BvcvwkWTEh0o44y1OQk7ectsVwJWcNLmQKdsXQdXrVB5Dk3H8wxTPUSSVEhu_onRDNffjwkLniwIESWIJebE/s1600/jeff+dean.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLJrLwWs2sBUCXVP_By_vx_oJ2DhuE3__-d4NWkq1HgXoMwAWgscWjHW4BvcvwkWTEh0o44y1OQk7ectsVwJWcNLmQKdsXQdXrVB5Dk3H8wxTPUSSVEhu_onRDNffjwkLniwIESWIJebE/s320/jeff+dean.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Once he reaches the West Coast, Jeff
is meeting a friend and making a serious effort to be a full time
musician.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I want to dive into my music in a
way I never did in New York. I never gave my music the respect that
it deserves, that I could have. Toward my latter years in New York I
had stopped playing and lost touch with music – and it's my heart and
soul. Since then, I've been writing and writing and writing. And when
I first started, in New Haven, this little girl was dancing to my
music. I noted in my journal that children are the best critics. They
are unabashed. They'll tell you if it's good or if they don't like it. When I get to LA, I want to put my music out there. I want
people to hear my music.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you want to follow Jeff Dean's walk,
visit <a href="http://jeffdeanwalks.wordpress.com/">http://jeffdeanwalks.wordpress.com/</a></div>
Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-42709230274769397842013-09-07T21:26:00.000-04:002013-09-08T08:53:15.967-04:00Malissa Post<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDoloSbVvz_weTjZT7KwHDmh6xdnThdtYrgFgnWbic6WBsMHnlY9L_lFdfHlaqF0P1ig6gmcvVWKPaKn5p4ApMeosYQ7nVceb2espbZoUPUoNx3ykyzpHZDxKpWV_D6pOBNntKltS8wM/s1600/IMG_0064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDoloSbVvz_weTjZT7KwHDmh6xdnThdtYrgFgnWbic6WBsMHnlY9L_lFdfHlaqF0P1ig6gmcvVWKPaKn5p4ApMeosYQ7nVceb2espbZoUPUoNx3ykyzpHZDxKpWV_D6pOBNntKltS8wM/s320/IMG_0064.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Malissa Post Prattsville NY</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I first saw Prattsville in 2012 – a
year after Hurricane Irene nearly swept it down the Schoharie Creek. The main street was one shuttered house
after another, one boarded up window after another, a series of X's
indicating a house that was abandoned, waiting for demolition.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sprinkled in between the desolation
were signs of life – a bar, a diner, a man sitting on his porch.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I met Larry that day, a lonely elderly
expat French Canadian watching the cars go by. Larry's house was
immaculate.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“My family helped me rebuild,” he
told me. “But all my neighbors are gone.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A year later, I stopped at the
Prattsville Diner and asked the lone waitress if she knew Larry and could
tell me what had happened to him.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It's kind of sad,” she told me.
“Larry's such a sweetheart. He's moved to an assisted living center
a ways from here but no one ever goes to see him. Most people didn't
get to know him because they had trouble understanding his accent.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was a sunny late summer day. The
annual Mudfest, the community event commemorating the floods that
nearly destroyed their town, were over.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Not many people came this year,”
the waitress, Malissa Post, told me. “I think a lot of the crowd last year was from New
York City, and this year they're still cleaning up after Hurricane
Sandy.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I had a cup of coffee and watched
Malissa work. There were just a couple of tables to handle, a group
of elderly ladies meeting for lunch, a man in a blue workshirt
sitting by himself, a regular stopping in for “just a coffee,
honey.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of the older ladies left her
styrofoam container of leftovers on the counter.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I'm visiting the little girls room,”
she told Malissa. “Don't let me forget this!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sure enough, she came back out and
shuffled deliberately out the door without it. Malissa went running
after her, waving the styrofoam over her head.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Martha my dear, did you forget
something?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I love my locals,” Malissa told
me. “I'm here Monday, Thursday and Sunday and they know my
schedule. If they don't show up, I worry.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Malissa grew up in Prattsville. She's
worked at the diner for ten years.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I was a CNA (certified nurses'
assistant), got my certificate and worked for just four months. They
paired me with a girl who was a lot smaller than me. We were lifting
a 195 pound man and I asked her if she was ready. She said she was
but she couldn't hold the weight. And you know you can't drop him to
the floor – you have take yourself to the floor with them and take
the patient's weight on you, break their fall. I messed my back up
and I can't do it anymore. Being a CNA was <i>my</i> plan for life.
With them, I was making $15 an hour. Per diems it meant I could pick
my hours. I did not plan on working in a diner the rest of my life.
Nope.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“This job pays $240 a week. But now
I've got no arm strength. None. I have a hard time lifting these
buckets. If we had to carry trays here like you do in most
restaurants, I couldn't work here. I'm so grateful we have a
dishwasher on the weekends, cause those buckets fill up so quick and
I can't lift 'em. When I got hurt I weighed like one fifty, now I
weigh one thirty, but I have no muscles. I'm forty and I already have
back issues. I've lost all this weight walking for six months
straight. I finally just now got my car back on the road. I've been
walking back and forth to work. If I had to go to the doctor's, God
forbid I had to find a taxi. We don't have those.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I work three jobs. I babysit for my
cousin in the morning, she has two little boys. I work from six in
the morning to fifteen minutes to twelve. And, uh, I try to get ready
while I'm babysitting. You know, get dressed, do my hair, my makeup,
so when she walks in the door I'm ready to go. She's my cousin and
it's hard to find a babysitter around here. She pays me twenty
dollars a day. So if I work five days, that sets the salary, what
20-40-60-80, I only usually work four days a week, that's $80 on top
of $240. Well, I say $240 but by the time the taxes come out, I end
up with like $150. So $150 plus $80.”<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDORzk9i1xA7iVNegoC5pBV0wzjziHjcTVCiSZ5LOdYnnS1-61HF0x71crfQNPXXlNeAqPnxJ3EXxEHAWXUhHloOSRoRu7xShjzLtdZ8PjqYeCS4C71L9DQxd6eCfHm3hqbimwKKBU-s/s1600/IMG_0063.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDORzk9i1xA7iVNegoC5pBV0wzjziHjcTVCiSZ5LOdYnnS1-61HF0x71crfQNPXXlNeAqPnxJ3EXxEHAWXUhHloOSRoRu7xShjzLtdZ8PjqYeCS4C71L9DQxd6eCfHm3hqbimwKKBU-s/s320/IMG_0063.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Then I clean for my aunt who has
handicapped children. She went through knee surgery last year and
her knee is worse now than it was before the surgery. Her surgeon
says it will never be any better. So I clean one day a week for her,
she pays me $75 a week. But she doesn't pay me on the day I clean –
because she gets Social Security disability, I get paid the beginning
of every month for the work I did the month before.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I have to basically live off this
job and babysitting. I don't touch that other money – I live on my
tips and my salary here and $60 from babysitting. I live alone. I am
moving into a very small studio. My children are both grown and out
of the house this year. It was easier when they were with me, 'cause
they both had jobs. I said, look, you're this age and this is Mommy's
job and you've got a little summer job and you're going to
contribute. And I made them put the extra away, so in the winter
they'd have their little jobs at the ski mountain and I have my
little job here, but when you need extra money it's there.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“My daughter moved to Florida and my
son moved to Ashland and it's just Mommy now. I moving out of the
four bedroom house I had just a month ago. I'm leaving a lot of my
furniture behind and moving into a tiny little studio. All I need is
my bed, I have an overstuffed chair, a coffee table, two little end
tables, that's all I need. I'm good. It's $500 a month, everything
included. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I noted there weren't many options for
living or working in such a small community.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“There's nothing in this town. Yeah,
I love the owner of the local grocery store to death, but all he
hires is little schoolgirls and college girls. I've put in
applications three times in the past six years. Every time, I say,
'Jim, are you doing any hiring?' and he says, 'I will be in a week.
Fill this out and come back and see me in a week.' And I go back and
in that time he's hired four new girls.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“We've got that, we've got the liquor
store, Agway and one bar in this town is about it. My cousin actually
works in the grocery store. I may end up taking a fourth job cleaning
houses on the days I'm not working here.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I asked if she considered moving to a
bigger community.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“My father lives here and he's in
hospice, dying. I lost my mom two years ago. Actually, July 24, right
before the flood I lost my mother and then we had the flood. No way
am I going anywhere right now. But I tell my friends and even my
sisters, the day he closes his eyes and don't wake up, once
everything's settled that's the day you see me saying, 'Call me. See
ya!' I'm going back to Tennessee.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I actually lived there for two years
before my dad got sick and I loved it there. It's so much cheaper to
live and that's what I'm going back to!”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I'm not involved with anyone right
now – I had a boyfriend for five years and we broke up a few months
ago. So I'm free. I have kids but they've moved on with their lives.
So the only thing stopping me is my father. And I know it's just a
matter of time.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I can't believe he's hung on so
long. He's got something called myesthenia gravis. It's almost like
multiple sclerosis, but instead of paralyzing you, it shuts down all
your major organs. My dad's had surgery three times on his eyes –
he can't have surgery anymore. Now it's started to affect his heart
and his lungs. Hospice came in and he's on morphine. He weighs like
seventy pounds. So it's just a matter of time before he lies down and
that oxygen just won't be enough. And I'm okay with that. I have
three younger sisters and the one he lives with isn't – she thinks
it's horrible. I try to tell her, do you want to see him keep
suffering or do you want him to be free? After the last time in the
hospital he looked at me and told me, 'No more. You tell them no
more, I want to go home to my bedroom to die.' And since I'm his
health proxy, there's nobody can do a damned thing about it. I love
my dad to death. I loved my mom to death, too, but I always had a
closer bond with my dad. When I was growing up, I was working with my
dad. I was hanging sheetrock on walls. I was taping, I was painting.
I was working on cars because my father had two older boys, and they
moved away and then he had me. So I was his tomgirl. My sisters had
no desire to get dirty or greasy, but as long as I was with my dad I
was happy.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-2634770672022422052013-08-29T11:04:00.000-04:002013-09-27T09:42:09.067-04:00We're Still Here - But We Don't Feel WellI started this blog back in 2008. I was frightened by what I saw happening in my country. The American Dream, that belief that hard work, intelligence and ambition could take you anywhere you desired, died. It was a slow, sad, painful death and some of us still can't believe it's gone.<br />
<br />
It is.<br />
<br />
I have gone through all the stages of grief and have finally accepted that the world I grew up in no longer exists. The brave new world is not better. And we need to speak up about it.<br />
<br />
I want to do something. I am not a policy maker (nor do I want to be), I am not a radical (except in my imagination), but I know something has gone terribly wrong and we all need to stop denying it.<br />
<br />
There is not one simple fix for an incredibly complex web of issues. But fixes have to begin somewhere. So I'm focusing on work.We are working harder and longer than ever before, yet the middle class is heading for extinction. When it's gone, so is the society we say we live in.<br />
<br />
I write. I believe that this little corner of the blog universe is my place to shine a spotlight on individual stories, true stories that will illustrate what life is like in what we're told is post-recession America.<br />
<br />
I have begun interviewing people from all walks of life, asking them about what it's like to try to stay afloat in the treacherous seas that are America after the economic meltdown. <br />
<br />
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Some of them are working multiple jobs. Some are trying to find one. Some of them are at the top of their professions. Some thought they'd be retired by now.<br />
<br />
They're young, they're old, they're saddled with college debt or never finished high school. They are us. And their stories are the real stories of what it's like in this country today.<br />
<br />
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</div>
There are other projects out there with similar (or even the same) names. It doesn't matter to me. What I'm doing is not the same as what they're doing, and we're all contributing to what I believe is a vital conversation. I hope you'll look at all of them. They matter. These people matter. <i>We</i> matter. All of us.<br />
<br />
Like most of us, I work several jobs. Time is my challenge. But my intention is to post one story a week here, and I hope you'll read, comment and share. Welcome to Everyday People. Join in - share your story.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-8472179829075653042013-02-28T22:04:00.002-05:002013-02-28T22:05:32.272-05:00Moved...ComeVisit<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
I started a new chapter and a new blog to go with it...<br />
<br />
Stop by and say hi.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://nyhousejunkie.blogspot.com/">http://nyhousejunkie.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<br />
Best always,<br />
<br />
SusanSusanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-75267906921200070372012-09-28T08:51:00.001-04:002012-09-28T08:52:31.974-04:00It's a Desert in the Political CenterBravo. Well said. So why do we settle for this?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/the-unraveling-of-government/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120928">http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/the-unraveling-of-government/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120928</a>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-83372721093810609172012-09-25T08:45:00.003-04:002012-09-25T08:45:49.505-04:00Conservative ImbalanceThank you, NY Times and David Brooks. This is what has been troubling me and I didn't quite know how to express it. What happened to the compassionate conservative?<br />
<br />
<h6 class="kicker">
Op-Ed Columnist</h6>
<h1 class="articleHeadline" itemprop="headline">
The Conservative Mind</h1>
<h6 class="byline">
By
<span itemid="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html" itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by DAVID BROOKS"><span itemprop="name">DAVID BROOKS</span></a></span></h6>
<br /><div class="articleBody">
<span itemid="http://www.nytimes.com" itemprop="copyrightHolder provider sourceOrganization" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
</span>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
When I joined the staff of National Review as a lowly associate in 1984,
the magazine, and the conservative movement itself, was a fusion of two
different mentalities. </div>
</div>
<br />
read the rest.....<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opinion/brooks-the-conservative-mind.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120925">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opinion/brooks-the-conservative-mind.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120925</a>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-68076342033700397332012-09-19T19:07:00.000-04:002012-09-19T19:07:17.654-04:00Why Aren't Our Children Safe?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There's arsenic in our rice. Not just traces - measurable amounts of arsenic. It's in fruit juice, too.<br />
And the FDA says it needs to do more studies before establishing any regulation about how much arsenic is okay.<br />
"Feed your children a varied menu," advises an FDA official on the evening news.<br />
Why thank you. That takes care of it. Why was I worried?<br />
Are you outraged?<br />
Join <a href="http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/blogs/blogger-petitions-fda-to-set-arsenic-limits-for-rice">Anna Hackman.</a> <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-fda-and-eu-set-arsenic-limits-for-rice-protect-our-kids">Demand action.</a><br />
<br />Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-25170157096801069552012-06-24T10:13:00.002-04:002012-06-24T10:13:59.157-04:00Moving Over<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
There's been a lot of words under the blog bridge since I've been active here. This blog began with the recession - a way to vent my outrage over the policies and mindless drift that got us here.<br />
<br />
It's led to online discussions that have infuriated me, informed me, depressed me and encouraged me.<br />
<br />
It's time to move on, to get over it, to focus on what I <i>can</i> do instead of what I can't. It's time to put all that energy to productive use. I'm not disappearing from this blog, but I suspect I won't be visiting much.<br />
<br />
If you'd like to keep in touch, please visit this site's new baby sister, <a href="http://nyhousejunkie.blogspot.com/">Adventures of a House Junkie</a>.<br />
That's where I'm going to share the things I learn and discover as I start a new career as a house matchmaker.<br />
<br />
Thank you, all of you who have read, who have become blogging buddies. Those contacts are a good thing about technology. Where else could I have gotten virtually acquainted with a lovely man who, during a brief victory against cancer, had an entire blogosphere ringing a bell to celebrate with him? We all felt the loss when he finally succumbed.<br />
<br />
Technology is good when it enhances our humanity. I hope you stay in touch.<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
SusanSusanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-32941188870312850322012-05-31T09:07:00.002-04:002012-05-31T09:07:22.336-04:00What is happening to me??<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've got a birthday coming - the big 55. I'm truly okay with it, mostly. A bit frightened about the unknown, but basically at peace with me, my life and my past. Most of the time.<br />
But I'm having a quiet internal fashion revolution.<br />
All my life, I rebelled against "Style." I have been a bare feet, jeans or Indian skirt kinda woman. I taught high school English dressed in Indian print harem pants. I have been defiantly nonconformist.<br />
So why is Audrey Hepburn (who I have always loved but never sought as a style guru) looking so good to me now?<br />
I'm drawn to simplicity, to monochromatic outfits with one splash of color. <br />
When I was a young mother, I went through my cabbage rose phase. Every knit top or dress I possessed had big, fat flowers on it. Somewhere along the line I sent them all back to Goodwill (from whence they came; I'm a lifelong thrift shop denizen) and traded them for plainer fabric or simple, small, abstract prints.<br />
So there's a precedent for this shift.<br />
Let me make this plain: I do not have the Hepburn body. Maybe I could, if I starved. I do not starve. I have hips. And thighs that I prefer to not think about.<br />
But even with my more generous proportions, there's an elegance that I'm shooting for. It's what I think of when someone says "French."<br />
I whacked all my hair off once, very much like Hepburn in this photo. It wasn't me and I grew it out immediately, but what surprised people I knew was that they suddenly found I looked "French" - whatever that means.<br />
So I've got the potential. And I'm undeniably grown up. Despite the fact that I may be, as one person tells me I am, a bohemian artist, that doesn't mean I have to wear Earth shoes and drawstring cotton pants.<br />
So I'm curious about all this fashion stuff. I don't buy into it, and I absolutely deplore the prices women pay to copy it, but I'm interested to see it.<br />
I saw it the other night on HGTV, of all places...and not where you might think. There was a couple from Wisconsin or some other rosy-cheeked middle of the country state who were moving to Paris. Their realtor is someone I remember from another Househunter International Episode. Her name is Adrian Leeds. She looks like a NY deli expert transplanted into France. Her salt and pepper hair is wiry and long, tucked back behind one ear. She has huge glasses, bright red lipstick. And topping it all was a jaunty beret. She looked fabulous - and definitely someone I'd enjoy working with.<br />
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<br />
That's what I'm shooting for - elegant personal style with a bit of whimsy. Nothing you'll find in a magazine and certainly nothing I would copy from anyone else. But it'll take some research.<br />
You'll find a couple of new blog recommendations listed on the side here from "fashionistas" (sorry - I have to go be sick for a sec).<br />
Don't judge me. I'm just curious.Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8806285951476851034.post-68527027137175942632012-05-04T08:15:00.002-04:002012-05-04T08:15:41.160-04:00<h2>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Watering Down the Hate</span></span></b></h2>
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I'm where conflicting groups come together. I'm the place where old hatreds are forgotten. You may be, too.<br />
<br />
That's the realization I had as I was reading <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/marshal-tito-in-queens.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120504">Marshall Tito in Queens</a>, an editorial in May 4th's New York Times.<br />
<br />
In it, a Bosnian man describes the awkward community made up of warring refugees from the former Yugoslavia who now number ten thousand strong in Queens. You don't easily forget the beloved teacher who later swats a loaf of bread from your hands and points a gun at your head. You don't forget hiding from the former friends who later shun you because you are now the "enemy". You don't forget hate.<br />
<br />
And yet you have to. Unless conflict is to continue for generation after generation, you have to move on. How?<br />
<br />
My grandmother was born in Dubrovnik. It was 1900, long before the ethnic tensions bubbled over and tore the country apart. Her parents moved to New York City, where her father, who was half Irish, practiced medicine. But Dr. Mooney and his Slavic wife were homesick. They sought other Yugoslavs, others with whom they could speak their language and relax their struggles to become American. They found other immigrants from their world in a creekside Hudson Valley working town a couple of hours north of New York by train. They bought a little farmhouse down the road from the Yugoslav lady who grew grapes and happily returned each summer to remember where they'd come from.<br />
<br />
Their children, my grandmother and her sisters and brother, preserved some of those memories. Together, they spoke in Serbo-Croation, though they were all Americans. They called it "nashki" - "ours." It bonded them. They used it to cut out people who didn't belong. <br />
<br />
Yet none of them married Yugoslavs. My grandmother married a Jew. So did her sister. And here's where it gets strange. My grandparents never told my dad and my uncle about their Jewish relatives. <br />
<br />
My father, born in 1937, often joined his father to visit a woman he remembered as a "nice old lady." He didn't know until after his father's death that she was a relative. He didn't know his father had been rejected by his family because he married a Catholic. He didn't know his dad had bought a house for his parents and his aunt...and that aunt was the nice old lady who used to make pies in honor of their visit. He didn't know his father's brother. He didn't know he was a hybrid; a Catholic/Jew raised as a Catholic.<br />
<br />
My mother, born a year earlier, was the eighth child of a poor dirt farmer in Indiana. She told of boarding the creaking bus that took her to school, hearing the other kids hoot "Cat-Licker!" Her mother was a Catholic of German descent. Her father was a Protestant who didn't think a fight about the Pope was worth the trouble - he converted. If those kids had known Lou Gobel's secret, my mother would have had a lot more trouble. He was part Native American.<br />
<br />
It was something he told his kids, but my grandmother would quickly deny it. "He's just kidding," she told them. It was bad to be Catholic. It was much worse to be Indian.<br />
<br />
There's no proof. My mother looked for it. Her father said his grandmother came from a tribe he called the PinkaMinks. A ridiculous name. It had to be a joke. But the Iroquois River near Kankakee Illinois is also known as the Pinkamink River. He had the high cheekbones, the deepset eyes I've seen in pictures of native warriors. My mother believed him. I do, too.<br />
<br />
So here I am, the product of intermarriage between religions, between ethnicities, a blend of nationalities both friendly and fraught with tension. I am no longer a Catholic. My children combine all my bloodlines plus the Irish and Polish blood of their father. Their children will blend those lines still further.<br />
<br />
This is how conflicts end peacefully. They end when there is no more "them" and "us." It takes time.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></b>Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350532214928944088noreply@blogger.com1