Everyday People

Fair and Balanced?

2012-02-12T08:23:00.000-05:00

I'm not banging the drum for anyone this presidential election. With one exception, I don't see much difference between them all. Vote for Romney, Santorum, Gingrich or Obama - you're voting for someone who's been vetted and approved by the corrupt system that is destroying our economy and wiping out the middle class.

And the media, which is owned by the same multi-national corporations that control the system, wants to be sure you don't pay any attention to that little man, Ron Paul, who somehow keeps quietly accumulating followers and holding on in the primaries.

Here's today's New York Times Headline: Romney Edges Past Paul in Maine Caucus . He "averted embarrassment", says the first line, by beating Ron Paul by 3%. "Mr. Paul was unbowed, and gave no indication that he would drop out."

I beg your pardon? It would be embarrassing to lose to Ron Paul? The once- assumed GOP candidate loses to Santorum in three states, then finishes just 3% ahead of Paul in Maine, and the question is whether Paul's ready to say "uncle"?

Dear New York Times - time for a little remedial journalism. These headlines would have been objective versions of campaign developments. The copy that followed should have expanded on these themes:

Romney Hangs On to Slim Lead, Paul Is Strong Second in Maine

Maine Rejects Santorum and Gingrich, Pits Romney vs. Paul

As Romney Struggles, Paul Has Strongest Showing Yet

This campaign is a perfect example of what journalism has become. Dana Bash of CNN infamously said, on camera, that many people are worried, as she is, that Ron Paul won't drop out and will weaken the GOP's chances against President Obama in the general election. Ron Paul's supporters are big into YouTube, so you can see it over and over - and see people's reaction. The New York Times says a strong second place finish should be persuading Paul to drop out.

News coverage is not impartial and it is not balanced. It's been a long time since journalists had the goal of finding the truth and reporting it. Corporate ownership and advertising dollars destroyed journalism and now your only hope of at least seeing behind the lies is Jon Stewart - he's the closest thing to a media watchdog we have. After noting the media ignored Ron Paul back in August, he was back to note that nothing had changed a month later.

The media laughed at Ross Perot, hoping American would laugh with them. He scared them to death - he didn't play the game they'd learned to play. Ron Paul is a similar threat. Whether you agree or disagree with him, he is stating views that would threaten a solidly entrenched system of corruption. And the media doesn't want you to notice.

Outsmart them. Listen, pay attention, notice how they try to influence what you think, and then think for yourself.

I WANT My Tax Dollars to Support Social Programs

2012-02-04T10:01:00.006-05:00

The New York Times this morning had two stories about people suffering from the winter cold with no way to escape it. One was a child who froze to death in a refugee camp in Afghanistan. The other was about desperate people who cannot afford heat in Maine.

People on fixed incomes cannot afford oil and cannot afford to retrofit their homes for alternatives to oil. Our austerity measures, designed to help the economy recover from the recession, are cutting programs that used to help. But as the funding is cut, the price of oil continues to rise. So an elderly couple turned on all four burners on their electric stove, rerouted the dryer hose back into the basement, and, in desperation, offered the local oil company the title to their old car in return for oil.

The more I read, the more I pay attention, the more I conclude that capitalism has ruined this country. A system with profit as its end motive, not surprisingly, leaves humanity by the side of the road in pursuit of more, more, more. We are not a democracy - that illusion was discarded long ago but we still like to use the word to describe ourselves. We are not free - the only freedom we still have is the ability to leave. But we stay, hoping to recover the illusion of what we thought America was. We work harder and harder to pay bills that rise faster than our two and three job incomes, education for our young children is de-funded and college is equivalent to buying a Mercedes Benz every year for four years.

Meanwhile, Washington makes the rules - and multi-national corporations (people, according to the Supreme Court) call the shots. They fund the campaigns, they fund the PACs, they pay trillions for lobbyists and they have one agenda: profit. Please find me an administration that hasn't been in bed with Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs and other predators influence policy to create new money making opportunities. And somehow, an entire segment of the population has been convinced that a policy based on profit is GOOD for people.

It's bizarre logic and requires a particular brand of tunnel vision.

Government, they argue, shouldn't be providing basic services for its citizens' welfare. That's socialism. In capitalism, it's every man for himself. Meanwhile, their elderly parents scrape by on Social Security and Medicare while living in subsidized housing.

Capitalism's apologists argue for the tax breaks and loopholes that maximize corporate profits, for to deny those benefits would discourage business. But big business squats in this country like Jabba the Hut while many of the jobs it creates are sent off shore (it's cheaper and there are fewer annoying safety regulations to worry about - right Apple?) and it demands even more tax incentives to create jobs within the US. Local officials pant after them only to discover that they're paying dearly, and constantly, for the privilege of having industry in their communities.

New York's Comptroller this week warned that the state's economic situation is still tricky - it's health is tied to the health of its biggest industry - Wall Street. The message: "Don't mess with the goose that lays the golden eggs." Regulations have been twisted to allow Wall Street and its big business cronies to maximize their profits.

Wall Street is the world's biggest casino and they're gambling with your money. The media breathlessly reports every gasp and burp the Dow utters as though it's a meaningful indication of a trend. It's just the outcome of the latest game of craps. We don't see the profits when they win, but we pay when they lose.

I am sick of it. All of it.

I pay taxes. Like every American (except for those who can afford to hide in the loopholes), I pay far more taxes than I can comfortably afford. But I have no say in how my money is spent.

I don't want to give Wall Street a break. I do not consider them too big to fail. I consider them too big. Period.

I don't want my tax dollars to go to wars that are nothing more than efforts to open up new commodities for corporations. I don't want my tax dollars to help give breaks to the exploitation of finite, unsustainable energy sources. I don't want my tax dollars to give incentives to businesses that don't pay taxes and send most of their jobs overseas. I do not consider a big box store an economic driver - it kills entrepreneurship and competition and creates minimum wage jobs.

I want my tax dollars to provide a good education for every American. I want my tax dollars to provide every American with health care. I want my tax dollars to make sure every American can meet their basic needs - and has access to programs that lead to self-sufficiency. I don't want my government dictating my behavior or limiting my rights so long as I abide by a basic rule of law.

I pay for the privilege of living in this country, and I'm okay with that. But it's not giving me value for my dollar. And that's not the capitalist way.

I am not in need of a Big Daddy Government. Nor am I willing to play serf to a corporate overload anymore.

I want my tax dollars to fund government programs that assure a basic, decent quality of life for its citizens. And I want corporations to pay taxes. And I want all tax breaks withdrawn for every single corporation that ships its work overseas. I do not care if they threaten to leave. Call their bluff. Let's see if they can be competitive from the Third World.

I'm heading for my Howard Beal moment - "Network" has proven to be far more than a movie.

Monsanto Knows What's Good For You

2012-01-29T19:35:00.000-05:00

Another black eye for the president. First, he signed the NDAA - authorizing sweeping changes that expand his powers and move us one step closer to a police state. Now he's appointed the fox to watch over the hen house - making Monsanto-boy Michael Taylor an advisor on food safety for the FDA. Couldn't you just die laughing?

Family farmers are about to go to court, suing Monsanto for contaminating their organic crops with GMO seeds. FoodDemocracyNow.org writes: "In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets.

In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy."

And our president has appointed Michael Taylor, a Monsanto-VP, to advise on food safety.

Did I miss something? Didn't Monsanto make floor cleaners? Now they're a massive chemical company. And we want their advice on food safety?

Monsanto Man to Advise on Food Safety

Michael Taylor - Monsanto's Man in the FDA

Angry yet? Start yelling.

write to the White House

Land of the Tax and Home of the Papagallo

2012-01-23T10:32:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to keep my mouth shut, remembering my mother's advice about what to do when you don't have anything good to say. But what Americans accept as a presidential primary campaign is too much for me. The hypocrisy on every side is remarkable, but the stupidity and mindless acceptance of well-funded lies by the voting public is mind boggling.

I am not immersed in this - it makes me too angry. I can just skim off the top of the headlines and explain why I cannot dive deeper - there is no clean air down there at all.

Yet a nation of bobble head dolls believes what it hears, or worse, knows it's all crap and rationalizes it away.

Allow me to begin with Newt Gingrich (what an perfect name for such a lizard) - the man of the people who will take on the Washington "insiders". He was Speaker of the House, a lobbyist for Freddie Mac (a government agency) and he made millions for other lobbies by helping them gain access to government decision makers. Am I expected to believe that because you say you're not part of the corrupt, incestuous system, Newt, you're not?

In your twisted brain, the answer is probably yes. You live by the mantra of do as I say, not as I do. That is evidenced by your behavior - you were the first Speaker of the House to be disciplined for an ethics violation, your personal behavior is serially repugnant and rather than take responsibility for it, you blame your ex-wives and the press. It's the behavior of a two year old - throw dirt on someone else in hopes your own filth isn't noticed. You are not only an insider with huge wealth amassed because of your public career, you're morally destitute.

Yet I heard a home-schooling evangelical mother who drove several states to campaign for the lizard explain away his behavior, saying, "If he's made his peace with God, and I believe he has, I can't ask for more."

Oh yes you can. And I do. I expect a hell of a lot more from a man who wants to lead a country. Why doesn't everyone?

Mitt Romney - he's the man who seems destined to be no one's favorite, the wealthy handsome guy who somehow just doesn't do it for anyone. There's not a poor man among any of the candidates, but he's become the Richie Rich of the GOP field. That's what seems to bother most voters. Plus he's too moderate, too reasoned and just a little too inclined to waffle. Voters appear to want a snarling, snapping junkyard dog, not a photogenic cardboard cutout. He is running simply because it's his turn to steer.

Rick Santorum - another candidate with a twisted sense of how the rules apply to him. He's not a fan of public schools - in fact his own kids were home schooled. That's a wonderful luxury in a world where most folks can't pay the rent if both parents don't work. But he also enrolled his kids in an online charter school (which came under investigation for other reasons) for which Santorum's home school district in Pennsylvania had to pay the bill. Just one problem - they were living in Virginia. When the story broke, the charter school offered to let the kids stay for free if Santorum would pay just the costs for the technology they used. Santorum pulled the kids out. The state ended up paying $55,000 to the school to settle up.

Then there's Ron Paul. He's got a lot to say that resonates with folks who are fed up with an insatiable system that's only goal is to perpetuate itself. But he's also been the author of a newsletter that's spewed some incredible quotes - were gays really better off when they were forced to stay in the closet, Ron? He's made some sweeping generalizations about minorities that literally make me cringe. He's a man comfortable with conspiracy theory and survivalists. I don't mock the conspiracy theorists - just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you. But there's a thin line between skepticism and paranoia and Ron Paul gets too cozy with the extreme side of those questions.

Lest I leave anyone out, let me say that the irony of the fact that our president, the winner of the Nobel Prize, has proven to be the most effective assassin of any president in recent memory is not lost on me. The massive power grab of the NDAA - giving him the authority to indefinitely detail any belligerants, including US citizens - is a solidification of an imperial presidency that somehow the public is still able to ignore.

This is not a democracy. Let's stop pretending it is. It's not socialism, either. That's a smokescreen.

This is the Empire of America and it is led by an elite ruling class and supported through the taxation of the public, which has the privilege of choosing which of a limited field of elite players will be chosen to make future policy.

In a land where corporations are people and the serfs pay ever-increasing premiums to the empire to be allowed to work until they can't work anymore, where children are sent to centers to be kept safe while both parents work to pay the bills, where those same children are later sent to die in wars that are about profit while a flag of principle waves over the real motives, where health care and higher education are not a right but a privilege, where basic education is increasingly under fire, where the old and the sick must fight for basic care and dignity, how can we use the word democracy?

Let's call it what it is - it's an empire. And don't tell me there's a presidential race that needs to be decided. It's already decided - it doesn't matter who wins - the nuances may be different, but the basics are the same. The machine will not allow any serious diversion from the only path that matters - the path that leads to the continued growth of the machine.

I knew a man who told me his father used to ask him his opinions of world events. When he spewed back whatever he'd heard or read, his father chided, "Papagallo...parrot! Don't tell me what you heard. Tell me what you think!"

If you must participate in this farce, at least do your research and don't rationalize away hypocrisy.
Demand answers and accountability.

If you're not speaking out, you're not paying attention

2011-11-18T21:58:00.000-05:00

Today's story is a farm bill hammered out in secrecy and planned to be slipped into another bill and voted on without debate. That, as I recall, is not how policy is supposed to be made in a democracy. You can read here.
DesMoines Register

The question, to me, is whether I'm willing to take responsibility for knowing what's going on, for educating myself, and for doing something about it. Emails to legislators work. Social media helps spread information. And unless I'm willing to make the effort to be aware and then spread the word, I have no right to complain.

It's hard work. We can't possibly know all that's going on but we can pay attention to what other people reveal. Then comes the harder work - getting educated. Knowing the pros and cons and learning the questions to ask. And next step is to start talking. Bring up whatever concerns we encounter - whether they're the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing, the unhealthy impact of mass production and chemicals on our food supply, the inextricable ties between policy makers and big business, the failure of our educational system and the destruction of the middle class.

It's good work. It's essential work.

Radical Term Limits - a simple solution

2011-11-09T23:18:00.000-05:00

I interviewed Frances Moore Lappe tonight - an inspiring woman who, forty years ago, wrote "Diet For A Small Planet." She's been advocating for a more sustainable food system, and a better, more sustainable world, ever since. Her newest book is "Ecomind- Changing the Way We Think To Create the World We Want."

Hunger, poverty, climate change, war - it all boils down, she says, to the need for a "living democracy." That means a system that actually is for the people and by the people. And the way to achieve that, she says, is to get the money out of politics.

I've been thinking much the same thing, and my idea is simple: Radical Term Limits. Politics was never meant to be a career. It was a public service. Let's go back to that concept. Here's how: no one, absolutely no one, can hold political office for more than two terms at any level. Two terms at a local office, two terms at a state level, two terms at a federal level. Thank you very much for your service. Go home. Someone else has to step up. No multiple offices at any level.

This has to be accompanied by strict transparency requirements for all donations, disclosure of all interests in any businesses, ironclad restrictions on lobbyists. But radical term limits is the key.

We'd have to have a lot more people involved in government. That means we'd better educate our population, because a lot of them are going to have to serve. No one would be in office long and that would make buying politicians a poor investment. No political insiders - the turnover is too great.

Job security wouldn't be a worry - there wouldn't be any. Instead of serving their own wallets and career aspirations, politicians would represent the voters who elected them. Otherwise, one term only. And the two term limit would ensure that there would be a sense of urgency to accomplish something.

Radical term limits. Spread the word.

Corporate America - Meet the New Boss

2011-11-02T07:53:00.000-04:00

I don't consider myself a raving conspiracy theorist. But recent events make me wonder if I should reconsider and become one.

The Occupy Movement's central theme is disgust with what corporations are doing. They control health care. They control media. They control finances and they control what we eat. They control energy and they want to control the earth's water supply.

And the bottom line, for all of it, is profit.

I recently interviewed one of the authors of "Good Company", a book that studied the behaviors of the Fortune 100. They established a list of criteria that studied them as employers, as producers and as stewards of the environment and communities. And most of them scored no better than a D.

The good news is that the study also showed that those companies who scored better also were more profitable. Consumers respond positively to good companies. But most companies studied aim for a quick profit and chew up employees, communities, the environment and produce poor quality products while skirting regulations or break laws while building the cost of fines into the price of doing business.

While researching a story on the shortage of psychiatrists in my region, I found that insurance companies manipulate the market. They collect profits while offering seemingly-sufficient panels of specialists. But those panels are composed of doctors who don't accept new patients, who no longer accept their insurance, or who've been dead for years. Other psychiatrists take only cash because they cannot spend the time filling out the reams of paperwork required by insurance companies. Treatment centers have to fight with insurance companies to get continuing coverage for patients who still need care.

Doctors are pressured to prescribe the newest medicines because they have a better profit margin. Companies spend millions on ad campaigns to get you to ask your doctor for them.

And it's so "normal" we haven't even stopped to ask what the hell is going on. It's capitalism run amok - create the demand to satisfy the needs of an ever hungrier group of investors. Maximize profit, minimize expense. Taken to extremes, it means shortcuts. Cheap labor. Defective, insufficiently tested products raced to market. Minimal care with maximum profit.

Thank you, Occupy Wall Street. You're forcing a second look. And the view is disturbing.

I Should Do Something --- but What?

2011-09-25T09:34:00.000-04:00

I find myself, for the first time, thinking about protesting. With each day's headlines, I wonder if I should make some sort of grand gesture, even if it's futile.The evidence that we're heading down a bad road continues to pile up and I am seeing no signs of an imminent change of course.

1. During Republican debates, the audience cheers at the prospect of letting people die. And executing people.

2. The US supports the Arab Spring everywhere but in Palestine.

3. General Electric paid no taxes in 2010. In fact, we paid THEM to keep making profits.

4. During the recession, the largest banks have made a massive profit; but Moody's is now downgrading them because of the possibility that if their speculative investments begin to crash, it's possible the US government won't bail them out. And that could create the very bank crisis scenario the pundits are dreading.

5. The London riots got front page, first block coverage for days on every news station. Protesters occupying Wall Street are being ignored by most press outlets. But not by the NYPD.

6. Our president will not sacrifice his ambition to the greater good. He made it clear from day one he wanted two terms. Now, when nothing has made much of an impact on the recession, he will continue to play it safe to ensure his campaign coffers are full for his re-election campaign.

7. There is no press but the Internet. Rick Perry didn't win the Florida primary. Neither did Mitt Romney. Or anyone else I'd ever heard of. But I still can tell you nothing about the man who won because the nightly news (NBC, in this instance) simply mentioned what a stunning upset it was, then did another story on the two candidates they already had stories on: Mitt and Rick.
Nice, Lester Holt. Are you executive producer when you're at that fancy desk?

8. College students can't find jobs. So they're racking up more students loans to stay in school, hoping things will improve in a year or two.

9. 8.8 million people worked part time in August because it's the only work they could find. 16.1 percent of American workers are underemployed. 31% of the workforce was underemployed at some point in 2009.

10. Desperation for cash is a major part of the conversation as states consider hydraulic fracturing, the effects of which were illustrated so pointedly in "Gasland".

There is fast money to be made. The long term environmental impacts may be far more expensive to deal with. How much does it cost to import enough drinking water for an entire state? Several states?

That's just ten items off the top of my head. The actual list is far longer. I haven't even mentioned our multiple wars, the fortunes being made by hired mercenaries, our unhealthy mass produced food, our continued discrimination against people who don't look like us.

It's feeling like last days of the Roman Empire to me. And the thought that keeps crossing my mind is that I should just start walking. Walk from New York to California and back to Washington. Criss cross the country, bring a recorder and document what I find along the way. I know I'm a speck in the ocean, but if I did it long enough, maybe it might get some notice. Maybe it'll force a conversation. Or maybe I'm mixing up political activism with Forrest Gump.

Maybe a hunger strike? I suspect I would starve to death before any real change occurred.

And so I feel helpless. For now. But if there were enough people like me, who are tired of emotional toddlers running the world, maybe there is something we could accomplish together.

The UK Is Burning

2011-08-10T07:49:00.000-04:00

I have been listening to the news from the UK and it is both terrifying and heartbreaking. It is also ominous.

Terrifying because the thought of gangs of angry, destructive people roaming the cities in packs, destroying everything in their path, is one that makes me feel particularly powerless. How do you reason with a pack?

Heartbreaking because the "authorities" whose authority is being rejected are reacting like disapproving parents. I actually heard one government spokesman say, "If they'll go home and behave we'll talk to them." Behave? Up until now, they have. And no one talks to them. That's not how the game is played. Power talks to dissent when it can no longer ignore it.

Heartbreaking because there has to be a reason this is happening. People don't just suddenly explode into violence. They burn, slowly and steadily, for a long time. They simmer. If the heat isn't turned down, they boil. And at some point, they boil over or blow up.

I don't condone violence. I don't argue that there's anything justified about the destruction, the looting, the theft. But I know there has got to be a REASON. I found a Londoner's blog today that offers a damned good guess at what's happening. Everyday people have nothing to lose and that is dangerous.

Meet Penny Red. And pay attention. Don't think this is a strictly UK phenomenon, you great embarrassments in Washington.

Panic in the Streets

The Internet Changes Everything

2011-07-14T07:26:00.000-04:00

Have you considered how completely different our lives are since the Internet? It's been brought home to me lately.

Most recently, my guy's new "album" is out. Well, it isn't really an album. It's an mp3 download. The music industry is quickly phasing out the last physical evidence of music recordings - the CD. Two years of hard work is now available (with some soulful backup work by yours truly) on the Internet for your downloading pleasure.

The entire music industry has been gutted by digital audio files because the big players didn't see it coming. Then Napster started giving music away for free. And the industry's been scrambling to figure out what to do ever since.

Anyone can be a rock star, at least in their minds. All you need is Garage Band or some other basic editing program and - ooooh - your music is out in the world. That's generally not a good thing, as some folks should keep their music in the garage where it belongs. But it's also opened opportunities for some truly talented people to be heard by a global audience.

My guy's been a professional musician his entire life and he's watched the industry expand, contract and then go cold like a dying star. He's feeling his way in this new world where anyone can knock on the door; only the truly talented get in.

My area of study these days is the publishing industry. That's changed a bit lately, hasn't it? Writers, for a decade or more, have found it easier to submit their work to agents and publishers. Agents and publishers have become more and more selective as their inboxes fill and crash. And then came the ebook.

My NPR affiliate has a no-ebooks policy. They won't talk about them. They don't think they're real books. It reminds me of the music industry's attitudes toward downloads. They'll be changing their minds soon because they'll have to.

I have an ebook. And it'll soon be a paperback. We're doing it backwards because nowadays we can.

At work? We all have computers and now we edit documents in a program that lets us all see each other's edits. We're phasing out paper, eliminating the need for thousands of square feet of storage space. And where are those documents stored? The cloud. The vast, nebulous, virtual digital warehouse. In other words, they don't really still exist. But they do.

It's a change in concept, in thinking. Just because you can't see it, touch it, taste it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's a transition to a virtual world. And when I think about where it could be going, I think it's time to write a scifi novel.

What do you think the world will be like in ten years?

Turning Tides

2011-07-03T08:23:00.000-04:00

I've got the ocean on my mind lately. Spending a day on the shore will do that to you - that salt air and that constant low tidal rumble stay with you long after you've left. I live within a day's drive of the Northern Atlantic, but I still only get there once or twice each year and each visit is a cherished memory.

This year we stayed on Cape Cod and spent a simply perfect day on Martha's Vineyard. I love my mountains, but I'd leave them behind for a life by the sea in a heartbeat.

When I got home and turned my attention to my radio show, I found a feature story on a Maine woman who has made her living harvesting sea snails, known as periwinkles or "wrinkles", in a sleepy little northern town called Lubec. I've been to Lubec - it's not a tourist town by the sea, it's a working village where the people rely on the sea for their livelihoods. But according to the story I found, fishing is dying there. As one species after another is overfished, the economy crashes further and Lubec's people are struggling.

Julie Keene and her son got by harvesting periwinkles - not getting wealthy, but not starving. Then the rockweed which is essential to the periwinkles' habitat began to disappear.

Apparently rockweed, that bladder covered seaweed that proliferates along the rocky Atlantic coast, is valued by industry as an emulsifier. Commercial harvesters are cutting rockweed off the rocks, leaving a barren landscape of stubs and wiping out a unique habitat.

Julie Keene, a rough, independent woman, has traded her harvesting basket for a camera and has been photographing the devastation left by the commercial harvesters. She testified at the state capitol in hopes of convincing legislators to ban the harvesting of rockweed.

She's not alone. There's a coalition trying to raise awareness of the issue.

There is a pile of swirling garbage hundreds of miles across in the Pacific. There's another in the Atlantic. Industry is scalping the rocks for the plants that grow there. There are environmental emergencies all around us. And it feels too damned big to do anything about.

But Julie Keene is doing something. We can, too, even if it's only to learn more and spread the word.

New York Loves Love

2011-06-25T08:37:00.000-04:00

Marriage Equality legislation passed the New York legislature last night - and Governor Cuomo signed the bill with a flourish shortly before midnight. Bam. We have a new law.

There's no question for me that this is cause for celebration. There was an entire group of people who were not allowed to make the same legal commitment to each other that other New Yorkers can because of their sexual orientation. That's discrimination. And it's so ironic that while the gay population is desperately fighting for the right to make those vows, the straight population is divorcing in record numbers.

I predict good things for the economy (weddings are BIG business!), a lot of VERY happy people and, naturally, a lot of challenges to the new law.

But what struck me most was the contrast between two Republicans. One grandstanded, speechified and insisted on changes to the bill that ensured religious protections. He went so far as to ask Twitter readers which way he should vote. The answer was an overwhelming "yes!" After getting the changes he wanted, his vote was "No."

It was a second, quiet, more contemplative Republican who has always been a supporter of civil unions, but couldn't support gay marriage who found himself in the pivotal role. At the eleventh hour, he said that with the changes in place, he couldn't in good conscience vote against equal marriage rights. And his vote, no doubt one that will anger some voters, made the difference.

Hats off to that rarest of animals - a legislator who votes his conscience, not what will get him re-elected. May he serve for as long as he wishes and may his colleagues learn something from him.

New Point of View

2011-06-13T07:37:00.000-04:00

Greetings to you who stumble into this little corner of the blog world on occasion. We (sweetheart, visiting son, four fractious cats) moved in early June - and there is much to say on the topic, but I will save it for when the wheel slows just a little...

Be well!

I am Remarkably Slow on the Uptake

2011-05-14T18:21:00.001-04:00

I choked up at the frozen food aisle when I was shopping tonight. I haven't cried in a grocery store in a very long time, but tonight I did. It was the frozen dinners.

My dad's been dead almost ten years now, but I guess even when you think you're done grieving, you're not. There's still lingering regret to deal with.

It was a rough time, my dad's illness. His actual illness was fairly merciful, for cancer. After seeing what my mom had gone through just a little over a year before, we were both grateful that dad wasn't in pain, wasn't terrified, just slowly dwindled until he drifted away altogether.

We were both still in shock over Mom, and I think he took some strange comfort in the thought that he wouldn't be apart from her long. I didn't have that - I knew I'd be left to deal with it all in a way I just couldn't deal with it as it happened. There was too much to do.

I was working full time, my kids were teenagers, I was an only child - there were no brothers or sisters to call on for help. So I raced through the days like a robot, trying to do everything that was needed and keep a brave face on for everyone. I did a lousy job, I know now, but I tried really hard.

Each night, before making dinner for the family, I walked across the driveway to Dad's apartment and made him dinner. I sat with him while he ate it and we chatted. I was the only company he had all day unless you count the nurses as he got sicker. He really looked forward to me stopping by on my lunch hour and spending a half an hour or maybe an hour in the evening. I didn't mind, either.

But I didn't really cook. I guess I did a few nights a week, but today in that freezer aisle I remember how he'd ask me to get a particular brand of frozen dinner because he really liked it. He'd ask for them a few times every week.

What he liked was knowing that it wouldn't taste bad and I wouldn't have to cook it. He knew I was running on empty. And today was the first time I realized it.

We didn't get along at all when I was growing up, my dad and I. I think maybe we were too much alike in all the worst possible ways - insecurity,sensitivity, neuroses. I didn't want to be like him. I wanted to be like my mom.

All the defenses dropped at the end for both of us, and we liked each other a lot. And I'm sorry, so sorry, now, that I wasn't able to make him amazing, tasty meals every single night.

But I was so lucky. The night before he died I had the chance to ask him, "Did I do alright, Dad?" And he said in the strong voice I hadn't heard in a long time, "You did great." I guess he knew I did the best I could.

I just wish I could have done better. He was a good man.

The Jesus Story

2011-04-25T07:44:00.000-04:00

Easter was the day for Jesus movies. I didn't realize how many there have been. Mel Gibson's bloodfest was on one station, Max Von Sydow was on another. Jesus Christ Superstar was on, too, as well as well as Raymond Burr looking horribly awkward as the apostle Peter.

Charlton Heston was parting the Red Sea, too, as Yul Brynner wondered if maybe he should have held back the troops.

These movies are influential. There was a recent article talking about the masses who have become Christians thanks to Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings" - made before the talkies, and so more easily understood by non-English speaking audiences.

And for my money, there's no movie that hits the story of Jesus better than the 1961 King of Kings, with Jeffrey Hunter and those piercing blue eyes.

My parents were devout Catholics, and I used to watch King of Kings with my whole heart - sobbing until there was a lump in my throat when they killed him. I got teary, too, when Pilate screamed "Die if you want to, you innocent puppet!" in Superstar. It all seemed so unjust, so unfair. It was.

And I now see the story of Jesus differently - as an outsider, an observer. I now find religion to be a divisive force. And something struck me. We (I'm including me here, too - this is a human we) find something particularly powerful from the story of sacrifice for our sakes. God is willing to kill His Son. Jesus, despite his last-minute doubts, dies for us. And our response to that extreme attempt to finally shake humanity out of its selfishness certainly gets our attention. But I have to conclude that it didn't work. Humanity is selfish, with generous potential that it occasionally taps.

And I find myself understanding Judas' point of view. Whether Jesus' story is fact or fiction, it raises a powerful question. Was it worth it? Were we really worth it?

Recognizing Your Fairy Godparents...

2011-04-17T08:26:00.000-04:00

I wrote a whining, self-pitying little soliloquy here earlier this week, ending with a plaintive cry for a fairy godmother to show up and - poof! - lead me to the land of happily ever after.

And within hours I got, as we almost always do, a version of what I requested. What the universe provides is almost always more interesting than what we ask for.

I've been feeling stretched out. Dried up. So brittle that the next morning's step out of bed might result in a loose pile of Susan dust on the floor.

Negativity's had the helm and it never steers toward anyplace I enjoy. But it just felt like too much effort to try to wrestle it back.

Then a friend called - surprising me with word of mouth about my book (that link's not a hint, Reader - that's to save you looking around going "What book?"). A woman I've never met contacted me to find out about other possible projects related to my stories. Two other people I know want to get together for coffee - just because they want to. My guy's finishing his album and not only didn't laugh when I wondered if bagpipes were what were needed on one rockin' love song, he tried them (jury's out but cool to hear).

What do all these things have in common? A nice treat for the ego, which really needs some love now and again. An assurance that I'm seen, I'm heard, my work has value, that I'm not just a waste of air. Don't you worry about that sometimes? When you get stuck in a routine, going through the motions and going nowhere, don't you wonder if you, the Individual You, even matters?

I woke this morning realizing each of these people could easily be pictured in shimmering gossamer, wand in hand and benevolent smile on beautiful faces. My fairy godparents are everywhere, and they've been stopping by for a visit.

I want to be a writer, she said....

2011-04-15T07:17:00.000-04:00

It feels like a gray morning by the sea lately...I can't see very far ahead and instead of seeing what's around me, I'm preoccupied by the fact that I'm uncomfortable.

Changes are ahead, that I know for certain. Our home base will be changing. We have unanswered questions about how we'll accommodate our unique and particular work needs to the new space. My life in the 9 to 5 world continues to change and I cannot see where it's going.

All the lifestyle coaches tell us we can't get where we want to go if we don't name the destination. I want to write. Full time.

I've got a book out in the electronic world, a book I haven't got time or energy to promote, which is akin to leaving a birthday cake out in the street. Chances are it's not going to be appreciated if it isn't delivered to the right people.

I've become "the writer" at my place of work, which means I'm often editing other people's work. And I don't mind - it feels like at least an imitation of what I'd like to be doing. I write articles and columns for a couple of websites and publications. That's not bad, either.

But I'm losing energy for things I usually enjoy - some work that's usually a joy has become a chore. I circle around writing that is fun like a suspicious dog...sniffing but keeping my distance.

It's a spell, I know. It will pass, as these moods do, and a new feeling will take its place. But I read too many fairy tales as a child. I'm waiting for my own personal fairy to appear, tap me on the shoulder with her twinkling silver wand, and poof! I'm living happily ever after. Somehow after all these years, part of me still thinks that should happen.

When Disasters Are Personal

2011-03-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

The news from Japan is truly mind-boggling. And it just gets more worrisome. This is the first time I've felt a personal connection to what's happening beyond the common humanity bond. My cousin, Tom Byer, has lived in Japan for twenty years. He and his family live in Tokyo. And I worried for them. But Twitter proved its worth this morning - when I went on to see if there were any feeds from him, I found he'd been on CBS news.

Tom Byer tomsan.com

All the News that Fits?

2011-03-10T07:16:00.000-05:00

Did you know protesters shut down a bank in Washington DC Monday?

I've been keeping my political views to myself lately, part of a New Year's resolution to stay on a more emotionally even keel. But this is one I can't NOT mention.

I learned about the Coffee Party recently - a movement to demand the corporations simply pay the taxes they already owe but are dodging. It's a movement that started in the UK, and here in the US they're calling it the Coffee Party. But it wasn't the Coffee Party that organized the shut down.

Six hundred people marched on K Street Monday. Three hundred jammed into the Bank of America lobby and the bank had to shut down. I didn't hear about it on the mainstream news. In fact, I had to dig through the Washington Post blogs to find confirmation. But here's what happened, courtesy Democracy Now:

Protesters Shut Down DC Bank of America

And if you're tired of not hearing what happens, I've found another source besides Democracy Now. Before It's News.

The Internet is finally proving its value. And I have a feeling the bank branch is just the beginning.

Dancing Naked on the Porch

2011-03-04T07:31:00.000-05:00

This is obviously my year for dreams fulfilled. Shortly after posting about my big fun as a backup singer for the talented musician I live with, something else huge happened. I got published.

I didn't have time to think about it much. One day, I was writing emails back and forth with a new publisher called Hen House Press...the next day a collection of my short stories was available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.

The View From Outside

My initial reaction was elation that reminded me of the incredulous, happy shock that followed the arrival of both of my children. There's no gorgeous, warm little person to snuggle, but there is a sense of having helped bring something new into the world.

Things have gotten a little weird since then.

In my initial excitement, I told a lot of people. I told people at work, including my bosses. They were thrilled for me. They're nice folks. I told my FB "friends" and sent out a "Hey! Guess what I did!" email to fifty of my closest friends." I didn't expect anyone to buy one but the sales started.

I went to NYC on a business trip and one of my bosses announced to the high-powered business owners at an evening meeting that I'd written a book that was now published. Three people came up to ask me to repeat the name.

And the weirdness grew.

Cousins I don't know anymore passed the word around the family that "Suzie" had written a book.

And it got totally weird. Because what I realized is every single damned thing I've written has some relationship to my view of reality, and I have just laid that bare for the world to see. Nothing's fact, some is complete fiction, but some characters certainly resemble people who could be recognized by relatives and that's a bit awkward.

It's weird that strangers are reading it, too, as I tend to guard my deepest feelings but in a book they flood the pages. It's painfully revealing.

So now I find myself with the strange feeling of dancing on the front porch, totally naked and feeling completely free, while hoping no one passing by on the street notices what I'm doing.

Who knew that this would be my honest answer when someone says, "You're published! How does it feel!"..........Conflicted.

My Secret Rock and Roll Fantasy

2011-02-27T09:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes remarkable things happen.

I've always loved music in a big way. All kinds of music. And I had a secret dream. I wanted to be a backup singer.

I never seriously coveted the lead vocalist spot - that didn't seem like as much fun. My favorite experiences were singing with other people - doing four part harmony with my girlfriends in high school, harmonizing with my mother, my best friend, my daughter, my son - whoever would sing with me. There's something about that blending of voices that just thrills me to death.

But I'm no musician and probably never will be - my real talents lie elsewhere.

I got to do it anyway.

I live with a real musician - a man whose talent blows me away on a regular basis. And on his latest album, he put me to work. I felt pretty frozen at first, but as time has passed I have gotten more comfortable hearing myself through headphones (and worse, in playback) and I will admit I'm loving it. In a big way.

Go ahead and listen. The amazing wailing background vocal isn't me - I'm no Machan Taylor (she is just incredible!). But the breezy bridge backup vocals? That's my daughter and me. It just doesn't get much more fun than that!

We Are Living in Remarkable Times

2011-02-26T23:14:00.001-05:00

I was young in the sixties and I believed that people, working together, could change the world. And then I watched the world "grow up".

But for better or worse, I was right. The revolution in Egypt proved it. The ripples have spread out to other people in countries that have endured what they consider unjust and repressive governments for too long.

I learned there is now a progressive answer to the Tea Party - the Coffee Party. And their goal is to force government to enforce its tax laws with corporations that have dodged legal taxes.

The Coffee Party

You can go there, look at the number of people who've signed up, and check back a few hours later to watch it grow.

But tonight I am stunned. There are reports that police in Wisconsin marched into the occupied Capitol with orders to evict the protesters by 4 AM. And instead, they have joined the protest.

Brave New World or Two of These Things Now Go Together

2011-02-10T15:27:00.000-05:00

You will think I'm ridiculous, but I feel like the first man to walk on the moon. Or maybe like I've just taken my first ride in one of those newfangled auto-mobiles. Or like Alexander Graham Bell when his telephone worked.

I'm blogging on a bus.

Now this is probably a huge so what for most of you. You've been dragging your laptops around to cafes for years. You have an iPad. An iPhone. You probably Twitter (an unfortunate habit, in my opinion). But understand that this is new turf for me.

I resisted computers for as long as I could. We actually rented our first one from an outfit I can no longer recall and which is undoubtedly defunct - but the deal was you rented the computer and after a couple of years you owned the out of date piece of junk. We kept it for years.
I just went to a flat screen monitor three years ago. Laptop? I still don't own one - but my daughter just gave me her old Macbook Pro and here's where it gets incredible (to me).

I had to go to New York City today. It's a two and a half hour bus ride and it's pretty boring. So, I think to myself, why not bring the laptop? Maybe there'll be a wireless signal, maybe there will be an outlet (her batteries are fried beyond replacing), and if not, I can sit at a Starbucks and look like everybody else for awhile. Damned skippy.

But what to my wondering eyes should appear as I take a seat on the faithful Trailways bus, but an outlet. Two of them, in fact. One for each seat. And it gets better. When I fire up Gideon, as my daughter named this machine, a little message comes up asking me if I'd like to access the wireless remote network "Trailways". The bus has its own wireless signal!!!

So I am, at this very moment, speeding up the New York State Thruway, a young man in the seat in front of me snoring quietly, a woman across the way reading The New Yorker and eating her fourth snack of the trip (she's a small woman - but she's obviously hungry), and I am typing away on the Intergalactic NetWeb!

This is innovation beyond my wildest dreams. This is future shock.

It's not perfect. The bus shakes so much that the ac adapter periodically falls out of the socket and the screen goes black. The Model A wasn't perfect, either. But it was a big switch from the horse and buggy. And rather than staring out the window, which I do plenty of, thank you, I can sit here and blather on to you, my hapless readers. Until you move on to the next blog.

But isn't it amazing that a person in a bus seat can actually communicate with the entire world?
I wonder if we realized what a revolution computers would be...and we need only look at Egypt to know it now - computers started a revolution there!

What a surprise - it's snowing.

2011-02-05T11:38:00.002-05:00

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.” Andrew Wyethe

“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.” Goethe

Writing Dreams Deferred

2011-01-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

I started writing when my kids were small. I'd never considered myself a writer. I never considered myself much of anything - I was someone with a lot of small talents in many areas and no big talents anywhere. I played piano, guitar, flute, a little harp. I wasn't great. I could sing a little. I couldn't write songs - they were awful. My poetry was bilious. And so I admired creative people, drew little Barbie doll sketches and figured I was one of those people who appreciated talent but didn't have much of my own.

Then an old friend asked why I didn't write. He was convinced I'd be great. And for some reason I decided to try. I sat down at an old manual typewriter and banged out my first short story. It was, I was forced to admit, terrific. I got brave, showed it to a writer friend who was astonished.

"This is your first story? It's wonderful! Get it published!"

It didn't get published, but it did lead to three novels (I consider them necessary outbursts to clear the pipes for the good stuff - not anything I think I'd want to see in print anymore), a non-fiction book that's making the rounds - getting good feedback but no publishers, and dozens of short stories as well as some very good virtual friendships with people who liked to gather at Zoetrope.com and workshop stories.

But all those short stories were, I thought, just exercises. A few got published and one was nominated for a Pushcart, but it felt like a fluke. Nobody publishes short stories.

Again I discover how little I know.

One of my more depressing little efforts, "Tweezing", is going to be published at http://www.fiction365.com this week. They're planning to feature a new story every single day. They want short stories! They even pay a nominal fee! So all you closet writers out there, check it out and submit your stories.

Then I learned that e-readers are now creating a demand for short stories and there are venues interested in signing up writers.

I was contacted by Hen House Press - they don't have a website up yet but they will soon. They're looking for short story writers who will given them the digital rights to their work - and they'll split the royalties. There's also BookBaby, the newest venture from indie music mainstay CDBaby.

Will we get rich? Hell, who cares? I never did think writing was about getting rich. It was about finally acknowledging that there was one thing I do that I am confident I'm good at. Do what you love and the money will follow, they say.
I'm happy just to be able to do what I love.

Got writing buried somewhere in the recesses of your laptop? Take a look around at the new opportunities out there thanks to the digital age. It may just be your time to be published!

So you think arts towns are different?

2011-01-22T08:52:00.000-05:00

This picture kind of sums it all up for me. Let me explain.
I live in what is known as the most famous small town in the world. It's super-artsy, the namesake for the most famous music festival ever, the land of peace, love and do-your-own-thing. And don't get me wrong - I love it. But you'd be surprised at what really goes on here.
See that building? See that yellow sun-flourish they added after slapping on a new coat of red barn paint? That was apparently a problem here.
That barn, which is the first thing you see when you hit the main intersection leading to town, was a sickening, washed out pink for a few years. Someone bought it, started a new business, and repainted.
They got in trouble with the town. That yellow design apparently was not approved by the powers that be.
There were rumors they were going to have to repaint.
That's apparently subsided - but do you get the picture?
Let me give you another example.

There's a woman I know who does a remarkable thing - she tows an old trailer around behind her Jeep, parks at places and events around the country, and interviews people for a radio feature. Her name is Sabrina Artel and it's called Trailer Talk.
I have a radio show, too, but I think this is the coolest idea ever. Truth be told, I'm envious.
She decided she wanted to interview me, and we made plans to meet in town. She would park, talk to folks in this famous little town, and I'd stop by and talk to her, too.
She found a legal spot on the street, opened up the door and started talking. I found her and sat down at the kitchen table for my interview. She served brownies!
And then the local official showed up.
"I have a complaint that you're taking up two spaces," he told her. "You have to move."
I knew the guy (he has since passed) and popped out with a big smile. I introduced him to Sabrina, explained what she was doing, pointed out that she was parked legally.
He was not to be moved.
"She has to park out in one of the public lots," he insisted.
That, we pointed out, would put her out of the way of where people were and would make it impossible for her to work. He was sorry, but that was final. She had to move. A member of the town board had seen her there and didn't think she should be doing a radio broadcast from the side of the road.
Sabrina packed up her gear as I apologized profusely. We were both amazed.
"I have NEVER had this happen anywhere else," she said, shaking her head. "Not even in Manhattan."
Then there's the neighbor down the road who sent us an anonymous letter complaining about the pale amber lights on the back of the studio building.
"We moved here for the country ambiance," he wrote. "This is not the city."
A backyard neighbor, now a friend, mentioned the letter to our unhappy letter writer (he was sure of his identity)..."Can you believe it?", he asked. "We LOVE those lights! Who could be so mean - and to write it anonymously!"
Hard to believe, Mr. Cranky agreed.
It's an old town these days, not the mecca for young folks it once was. Now the kids loiter around the convenience store and gather on the wall across from the pizza place. There's nothing much to do. So the town proposed a curfew.
That was a stunner - this was the town where young folks used to camp out on the village green. One strange guy lived in a hole in a tree.
It got voted down - that was apparently just too much. Now the town is figuring out how it can improve its youth program.
It's a great little town and it's always been a little schizophrenic - the free spirits irritate the hell out of the folks with their roots planted deep and they both have had to co-exist for generations here. Plus we've got the we-live-here folks vs. the weekenders or the fresh-from-the-citiers. On and on it goes.
Today it's blisteringly cold and there's a heavy blanket of ice-crusted snow over everything.
It seems very peaceful.
Wait til spring!

Brave New Conversational World

2011-01-17T17:28:00.000-05:00

Facebook, Ning, Tweet, Wordpress
4Square, MyLife, Tumblr, brain mess!

It's a brave new world and I don't think I understand even a half of it. Sure, I blog. I've been doing it for a few years now and I have seen it as a way to write my thoughts, kind of a public journal. I've made some lovely discoveries along the way, finding some wonderful folks with whom I now "virtually visit" on a fairly regular basis. But I'm no blog phenomenon nor have I really tried to be.

But I think it's time to learn the tricks. I'm making serious plans to make use of my pretty hefty resume in the communications and media relations field. So I did some outreach the past few days. Let me tell you - it was an eye-opener.

I spent an hour or so with the very nice Ric Dragon of Dragonsearch Marketing. The economy may be on life support but Dragonsearch is growing, and growing fast. He offers website optimization - which basically means he'll help you spread the word about your business or website. He's good and there's a reason - he told me that if you really want to try to keep up with a field that's changing moment by moment, you've got to become a fanatic.

"Lots of late nights," he warned me. "Lots of reading. Lots of writing."

I'll share with you one concept of the many he threw in my direction: Twitter isn't about promoting yourself or what you do. Its biggest use for business is to create connections - start conversations - develop a wider network of acquaintances.

I hate Twitter - to me, it's an endless barrage of banal announcements.

Coffee's cold. Ew!

Stuck on the LIE!

I hate Mondays!

But Ric left me thinking of Twitter as a massive cocktail party - there are dozens of conversations going on, lots of introductions, short bursts of information. And out of those connections can come real, useful business relationships.

I'm not going to doubt him. I met him on Facebook.

So let the learning begin!

Any of you been struggling with this one? Any tips to share to get up to speed?

On Creative Maladjustment

2011-01-16T17:44:00.007-05:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. gave some remarkable speeches, voiced some beautiful thoughts. But I had never heard this and it may be my favorite yet.

Tipping Points

2011-01-11T07:26:00.005-05:00

I'm considering the world from a different viewpoint these days. Do you ever thing about tipping points?

A woman at work loaned me this book.
The Tipping Point
She said I should read it because she considers me a "Connector". That's a good thing, apparently, and it's defined in this book as someone who makes many connections which then create the opportunities for inter-connections for the people in that group. In other words, I know a lot of people and I like to introduce them to other folks.

But what I'm also getting out of this is a realization that we're surrounded by tipping points. I tend to think of events as gradually building to a crescendo, but in reality, things build to a certain point, then they tumble madly together into an event.

The attack in Arizona: vitriolic rhetoric has been building since the Bush Administration - partisan anger reached a crisis point, and then tipped into violence. One sad, unbalanced, pitiful kid has destroyed his life and many others because he apparently bought into the zeitgeist. He came to believe that he had the right, maybe even the obligation, to kill.

This is not the start of a new day of peace and love. It's not over. The anger at Sarah Palin, the anger FROM Sarah Palin, it's there and building again. I read a thread on Facebook this morning that left my jaw hanging. The initial post called for reflection on the violence and the part that partisan rhetoric played in it - and specifically called for his friends in the Tea Party to find some middle ground with what he called the Bleeding Heart liberals.

The replies were astounding. The debate was played out right there, one comment after another, with escalating anger on both sides, accusation and the obligatory comments by someone who seemed, as we used to say, a few bricks short of a load. It was honestly scary.

Apply tipping points to anything - computers. They got small...a few folks got them, a few more...then everyone had them. Cellphones? Same. Fame? Most celebrities are "overnight sensations" - not because they suddenly started doing work, but because years of work hit a tipping point and suddenly everyone noticed. (The exception to this would be the fake celebrities of reality TV, of course.)

I don't have any wise conclusions on this - I'm honestly just surprised that I never thought of things this way. And once you see it, nothing looks quite the same again.
It certainly gives you a sense that you can see what's coming.

Just Because You Think Everyone's Out to Get You...

2011-01-08T12:57:00.004-05:00

The birds and fish mysteriously dying all over the world have really got me thinking. And not just wondering what's going on. I'm finding my own reaction to my questions pretty odd. Maybe you're experiencing the same thing.

Thousands of birds are dead. We're told it might be fireworks. Millions of fish and crabs are dead. It might be a temperature phenomenon.

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty weak to me. And yet, the minute I start to question whether we're being told the truth, a part of me steps aside and starts to shake her head.

"You're becoming a conspiracy theorist," she says sadly. "Wack job territory lies ahead. Beware."

How have we been conditioned to so blindly accept everything we're told by those "in the know"? Hasn't it been proven time and again that the official reaction to a potential problem is not unvarnished truth but, instead, a bland and comforting message to keep reaction to a minimum?

I understand that. If there is a serious problem, there is some incentive to try to avoid a mass panic. But that breeds mistrust. Far better, in my opinion, to honestly say "We just don't know. We're trying to figure it out." Treat people like adults. Act like adults.

And if there is something going on that might lead to a problem and the link is made, tell people. There's nothing like public pressure to speed up reform and change.

This country was built on rebellion (along with some other traits which I'm not proud of). The settlers who arrived were misfits and outcasts who would not conform. They, of course, then tried to impose their own rules on the new land but eventually the freedom of a wild country won - and the mistrust of authority finally led to our independence from Britain.

The sixties, a time of intense turmoil and upheaval, were a time of intense questioning of authority. It seemed like everything was changing and, perhaps, the harsh light of day might burn away the worst of what had accumulated on this experiment in democracy.

But we've been tamed. We're told we must work within The System. Connecting the dots of motive and corruption is called conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory is a synonym for paranoia.

We've bought it. We're the sheep we never believed we would be. We sit through ten minutes of commercials for drugs, makeup and useless garbage for five minutes of reality entertainment again and again without any action.

We spend hours telling people what we're having for lunch on Facebook. We escape into mindless computer games. Our kids frantically text each other in an effort to prove they're interested in each other's lives.

We are watching life happen instead of living it.

Our food is mass produced junk full of chemicals that is contributing to not only to our obesity and declining health, but animal cruelty and pollution. But say something and you're a crackpot.

Our climate is having wild mood swings that would seem a logical extension of the massive changes we've imposed on the environment. But that's crazy talk.

We glance disapprovingly as Pennsylvania dumps chemically polluted water from its horizontal gas wells into its streams and pure water all over the world is increasingly scarce. Investors are buying up water futures. We know it. And to say we're heading to a global drought is paranoia.

What is wrong here? Why, when you connect the dots, is it crazy? Why aren't we demanding things change? Why do we doubt ourselves?

Conditioning, apparently, has been successful. I'm not convinced there's a single person or group responsible. I think it's our philosophy that's doing it.

Capitalism, the great god Profit, is a master at protecting Its interests.

And even as I write all this, and believe it to be truth, I wonder if I'm just another fruitcake.

Sorry - I'm Not Buying the Fireworks Explanation

2011-01-06T21:33:00.008-05:00

Perhaps I read too much science fiction as a child. But doesn't this whole dead birds and dead fish thing all over the world seem like something straight out of a sci fi story?

This time it's thousands of doves in Italy.

And as birds drop from the sky all over the world, the best explanation we can get is "fireworks"? Really?

Map

Since the first red winged blackbirds died, I've had this song stuck in my head. Do you remember? "...a sound that could kill someone from a distance..."

I found the video:

Experiment IV

The name HAARP has begun to come up on forums where people are discussing these global events. Sounds eerily like Experiment IV.

So what's going on?

Even Christmas trees are trendy

2010-12-12T07:52:00.007-05:00

It's been a few years since I went hunting for a live Christmas tree. My sweetheart has an enormous, very nice fake tree that he'd used for years and it's offered itself each year for the past five. But last year, when it shed more needles than a real tree would, its time was declared over.

This year we are getting a live tree.

"It's got to be Scotch Pine," I was informed.

"That's okay - I agree."

But I told him there would be a hitch - Scotch Pines are out of fashion. Everyone wants Douglas or Frasier firs. We might find some old fashioned Balsams. But I suspected there would be no Scotch Pines. He scoffed.

He's not scoffing now. We stopped at any number of places, small tree farms hidden miles into territory we'd never explored and big box home stores and things in between - no Scotch Pines.

"They don't hold their needles," we were told. "Last time we stocked 'em, some people tried to bring 'em back. So we decided not to sell them anymore."

That's quite a mental image - a family ripping the decorations off their tree, tying it to the roof of the car and carrying it back to the seller, demanding a refund as the poor tree's needles dropped.

My dad had visions of being a Christmas tree farmer. When I was about ten we planted three hundred Scotch pine seedlings in the back field at the rural property we had in Central NY. Years later, my then-husband and I went back with our baby boy (now 23) and cut down one of the massive trees they'd become - we took the top home and it was a wonderful Christmas tree. It seemed right that one of those trees became a Christmas tree - and the rest became an incredible pine forest full of unruly, unshaped and gorgeous tall trees.

I like the idea of a live tree this year, but have no place to plant it that seems to work.

I'd decorate the cedar tree outside my window. The cedar's a lovely thing. I'd fall off the roof.

My heart goes out to the Charlie Brown trees - the lonely little trees that don't get chosen by anyone else. I suspect that if we can't find a Scotch Pine, that will be what we choose.

But isn't it strange that things simply disappear as tastes change? No more Scotch Pines - and no one said a word. They just stopped being sold.

What else has simply faded away?

So What Scares You?

2010-12-11T10:37:00.005-05:00

First, credit where credit is due. Illustration from The Arabian Nights by Boris Zvorykin.

Now - quick - don't think about it. Just say it. What's the answer to that question? What scares you?

Okay, you've scratched the surface. Spiders? Dark closets? Zombies? Failure?

Ah - failure. You're heading for the motherlode.

Here's what I think: fear is what holds us back from just about everything. Fear, which serves a useful purpose as it makes us think long and hard before risky behavior, can also stop us dead in our tracks. And I believe our real, root fear is always a lot deeper than we think.

Trace whatever you're afraid of and it is probably about survival. At least I've found that to be true for me.

So we play it safe, tread the clearly marked paths to make sure we survive.

But I think it's those overgrown sideroads where there's real living to be done. It won't always be happy/carefree/joyous - but it will sometimes. And I think it is always interesting.

I like interesting. If you subscribe to the common belief, we've only got one life. And don't forget the 11th commandment: Thou shalt not bore God. I think it's equally bad to bore yourself.

If I were that princess, I think I'd hop on that dragon's back and see what happens.

Does it have to be this complicated?

2010-12-05T08:27:00.007-05:00

DISCLAIMER: This is a rant brought on by my extensive exposure to technology this weekend. There's no Buddhist calm here whatsoever.

I am on the verge of Luddism. I am sick of technology, sick of convenience, sick of things that make my life "easier". They deliver - but at a price.

1. Let us begin with the cell phone. It's a terrific thing - particularly if you're lost in a scary place or your pre-teen daughter wants to roam the mall with her buddies without you. That, for me, is where it ends.
It has become an appendage, it makes us accessible no matter where we are - and people expect us to answer, damn it.
It's transformed many jobs into 24/7 nightmares because we're always hooked in, always accessible. Time off has become something that means "I'm not at my desk, but you can reach me."
Kids now text rather than talk. They prefer it. Explain to me what the world will become now. Tell me how it's a good thing.

2. Television. It's held sway over us for two generations, maybe three now? It's slowly dying thanks to the computer (that's next) but it's still screaming at us. It began with variety shows, comedy, song and silly sit coms, many of which were live. It is now bloated with not only canned, mindless games shows and sit coms with laugh tracks that make my ears bleed, but reality shows that make me want to find a mountaintop cave where I can move in and pull a stone across the entrance. It is content made to fill the space between the ads.
And the ads! They're loud, they're long and they sell to a society that I cannot believe is really ours, though it must be. I was sick yesterday and sat on the couch for several hours flipping through Saturday morning television. That used to belong to the kids when I was young. Yesterday I found two cartoons - the rest were either selling something or trying to make me enough of a voyeur to sit still until the next ad: perky people encouraged me to exercise with them, perky people tried to sell me hair product, a girdle for my entire body, serious actors tried to solve a bloody crime, naked people speaking Spanish were arguing in bed - when I flipped back there was a woman in a sexy waitress costume and a strange midget man dressed in a clown suit. There were Christians pitching Christ, business experts pitching investment, political experts pitching policy. Then there were the ads: drugs to improve my sex life, drugs to make me lose weight, drugs to handle the diabetes caused by eating too much, fast food at a bargain price, drugs for the cardiac disease caused by fast food...my stomach, already iffy, heaved.

3. Computers. They've revolutionized our world. We can see all over the world, learn anything we want, even share what we know. We can email anyone who has an email address. We have Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Tumblr, blogs (like this one), MySpace and I don't know what else...there are a gazillion ways to communicate our no doubt very important and serious thoughts (like these) to the world. We LOVE to communicate. Particularly if the only feedback is "like" or a short comment. We can find people, stalk people, block people - and never leave our chairs. We're switching books to computers, music to computers, our entertainment to computers. We now are supposed to exercise with computers - hey, video games are good for you - the whole family can watch a screen and exercise together!

Automated Teller Machines (did you remember that's what ATM stands for?) replace dealing with people, problem solving, getting necessary things done within business hours. 24/7 banking. 24/7 gasoline. 24/7 customer service. 24/7 restaurant food. The world is so freaking convenient that no one ever has any time off.

It is ten of nine on a Sunday morning. I am taking time off. I am turning off my computer and going for a walk. It is cold. It is sunny. Wherever you are, you should try it.

Happy Gratitude Day

2010-11-25T14:09:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving has become as twisted as Christmas, thanks to so much baggage that comes along with it.
What do I mean? Think about it. Christmas has been buried under the shopping frenzy and marketing so dear to our capitalist hearts. In fact, the union where I work actually negotiated away a holiday to get Black Friday off so they could shop with the other bargain hunters. But they work Christmas Eve. Huh.
Then there's Thanksgiving. It's supposed to memorialize gratitude and cooperation, but too often it's about families medicating themselves by their favorite method to get through a day with folks that drive them nuts. It's an obligation.
The Native American aspect to this? Forget it.
And how about the turkeys? Some day for them, those poor, engineered creatures who cannot even walk properly because they've been bred to have plentiful breast muscle.
So I've had it with Thanksgiving. But I do believe there's a place for Gratitude Day and that's what I am celebrating.
I am grateful that I live in a place where I see sunsets like the one I photographed and shared with you here.
I am immensely grateful for the wonderful, exasperating, brilliant, neurotic, kind and hilarious man I live with.
I am unimaginably grateful for my son and daughter, who have been the greatest joys, the biggest worries, the most fun and the dearest people in my lives since they first decided to visit this planet.
I am grateful for the insane, stupid town where I grew up and now live again; a place where aging artists invite people to come to their home to dance as an aerobic workout, and where every party I've been to has introduced me to someone else I've decided I'm going to like forever.
I am grateful for the pets I've loved, the life I've lived and the experiences I've had - every single one of them.
I am grateful for the jobs I've loved and the jobs I've hated - they all were the right jobs at the right time for the right reason.
There is a lot more, but it's time to go get ready for the family gathering. And I'm grateful for them, too.
Happy Gratitude Day to all of you!

Sometimes A Storm Is Required

2010-11-17T06:52:00.003-05:00

The wind tore through the Catskills last night. Living nestled at the foot of the mountains generally means we don't get extreme weather. Between the mountains and the Hudson River, the screaming storms tend to soften for us. I've lived in a spot just a couple of hours away that seemed to be a weather vortex - the most massive electrical storms, the heaviest snows, the howlingest winds. Last night it felt like that again.

I woke to a constant roar - the wind was screaming while rain pounded down. I'm a heavy sleeper; storms don't usually wake me. My guy was up on an elbow, peering out the window.

"Is it a hurricane?"

"Sounds like it," he said.

And I went back to sleep.

I really like wind, at least when I know I can take shelter from it if I need to. I've stood outside in 60 mph winds just because it was exhilirating. But I've been outside, a long way from home and lone, buffeted by winds and scared, realizing just how powerful that invisible monster can be.

But inside, safe, hearing it tear around the house and scream up the road, it's wonderful. It feels like the world's being cleansed and it will be all fresh and new in the morning. I don't get that impression when it rains - rain gives the world a dusting. But wind blasts off all the old, rotted, dying things, opens up space for the new, growing things.

The sun's coming up now, I suspect it's cold and not nearly so romantic as I imagine. And I'm sad to know that once I'm out in the car, driving up the highway to work, the wind won't be my friend. Maybe I'll just open up the windows.

Metropolis - Too Disturbingly On Target

2010-11-11T16:10:00.014-05:00

I had never seen Metropolis - the Fritz Lang original. I knew what it was, sort of. I knew it was considered a classic and it's influenced many films that have come after it. I've seen some of those movies. What I didn't know that in 1927, it predicted much of what we have become.
I stumbled upon the restored version on television the other night midway through the film. I had no idea what it was until they went to a shot in the lab and I saw the "Man-Machine." I was then thoroughly hooked, as I've always been curious.
Do you know the plot?

The world is divided into Thinkers and Workers. Thinkers have ideas but no idea how to make them practical. Workers know how to run everything but have no idea what it's for.

There's a saintly young woman (who puts in hell of a performance in her first film) whose appearance is stolen so an evil machine can use the Workers' trust in the girl to make them destroy themselves.

Then there's the Messianic young man whose job is to "unite head and hands...with heart."

He has to act fast - the good girl's trying to keep the Workers' children safe from drowning but she can't do it alone.

The Matrix owes Metropolis a big fat thank you. So does Blade Runner.
It's a visual stunner, with art shots I haven't seen since Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible. But it's much more than that. It's eerily close to modern reality.

It struck me last night as I made Jello. Seriously.

Jello was such an incredible convenience when I was a kid. A dessert that only required that you mix in water and let it chill. Now it seems like a big deal - we can buy it in little individual containers when we're making a treat for someone who's not feeling well.

Soup, too. It's so simple to make, yet we can get it in a can. Why bother?

Dinner? Order out. Go out. Or buy some pre-made pile of mystery ingredients that only requires heating or the addition of meat.

The final straw? There's a new ad for corn flakes. "Give your kids a warm breakfast!" How do you do that? Microwave some milk and pour it on their cereal.
Good god.

Our lives have become so busy, so mechanized, so exhausting, that the thought of preparing a meal is something just too strenuous for many of us. It's got to be simple and fast. Yes, there are people who love to cook but it's more like a specialized hobby now than something we all do.

I'd love to slow down. I'd like to have the time and energy but when I get home at six and have another job that demands my attention within an hour or so, cooking just doesn't fit in the schedule. I have made a couple of meals in the past few days and it's really pleasant - but it's something that requires a conscious effort or I'll just fall into the "I'll heat up whatever's in the fridge" mode.

We're out of whack. We've lost that balance between work and our own time and even when we've on our few free precious hours, we've got our infernal email and blackberry for work to track us down and demand attention. And right now none of us can afford to demand that our free time be respected- we're lucky to be employed.

It's a puzzle and one I'm trying to untangle. But I refuse to concede that this new society is one I have to fall into step with. I'll march for now, but I'm looking for a path that leads elsewhere. The main road leads to Metropolis.

Backup Vocals, Joyless Meetings and a Kitten on My Shoulder

2010-11-05T07:09:00.008-04:00

I started this post before dawn on Friday. I'm supposed to be getting dressed to leave for work. But I've got a kitten on my shoulder and it's just too damned cozy to leave yet.

My morning routine goes this way: Wake up, double check the clock to be sure I really am supposed to be awake before the sun comes up (sadly, I am), go downstairs followed by my much-loved old cat, whose goodness is equalled only by his girth, enter the kitchen to find the other three cats, who do not appreciate his sweetness, clamoring for their breakfast, too.

Everyone eats, (Boris, the kitten and the light of my dark mornings, cannot be predicted - he will either attack his breakfast with gusto or ignore it completely), I make coffee (only a push of a button thanks to the lovely man who loves me), then I go to my computer, sip coffee, check email, Facebook and maybe the day's headlines.
It's a comfortable way to start the day, particularly when Boris finishes his meal and jumps onto my shoulder to knead his paws in my hair. It's a bit awkward, as I need one hand to support him, but it's so cozy that it's well worth a bit of discomfort.

The hard part comes next - walking away from all that, getting dressed and going to work.

I will not gripe about work. I am grateful for the paycheck and I'm incredibly lucky to have gotten a job with a substantial pay raise when many are losing their jobs and their homes.

Here's what I will say - I sat on a meeting on Thursday so horribly dead, so uncomfortable, that it took a real act of will to make preparations to go back to that place again on Friday.

This is what happened: it's a monthly meeting about matters important to my place of work. I attended as an observer for the first time. What I witnessed was a roomful of people not only serious, but sour. I have spoken with many of them individually and they're not that way at all....yet this group had a dynamic so sour that I could imagine their mouths puckering.

They reacted to questions from each other with thinly veiled disdain, they offered information with an "I hope this is okay" plea in their voices; it was a roomful of worried people. Their worry had nothing to do with the content of the meeting; it was their interaction with each other. They targeted one person in particular for a universal sniff of superiority, and that person has been part of these meetings for years. It should have been held in the Google eggs...might have been much better!

I walked out when it was over, nearly ran down the stairs and out the door to breathe some fresh air.

It's not always like that, but some days it is. I don't like it one bit.
But my arrival home was greeted by the news that my composer/musician partner needed me to sing some backup vocals on a track he's working on.

Let the celebration begin!

I love to sing, though I think my voice is of the "that's very nice, dear" variety. It can be strong if required, it's generally on key but I'd love to have a distinctive growl or SOMETHING that sets it apart and makes it memorable. But I have what I have - and fortunately it's good enough for some support work on my guy's records, which is a treat beyond treats for me.

So that horrible, nasty, discouraging meeting was blown out of my head by donning a pair of headphone, cozying up to a microphone and singing along with my guy.
The next day, more Boris-ing in the morning.
I guess the trick is to dwell on the good stuff.

Ghost Bees

2010-10-31T13:30:00.008-04:00

Ghosts sound like bees, at least to me.

I've heard them twice.

Let me back up and tell you that I'm a pitiful excuse for a ghost whisperer. My mom was the real deal. She saw them, she talked to them. She didn't talk about it to many people, but she talked about it to me and I can tell you that she had some stories that were absolutely incontrovertible. My favorite was the one where one of my dad's long-gone relatives told her about things that he swore had never existed - until he asked his aunt about it and she confirmed that yes, indeed, that had been the way things once were. He never doubted my mother again.

I used to wish I had her abilities, but then again I was often glad I didn't. I'm easily scared.

So back to the ghost bees.

We were looking for a home in the country when my kids were young. We looked at a lot of old farmhouses and one in particular seemed to beckon the moment we pulled in the driveway. It was an old white farmhouse with a big front porch and a massive lilac bush beside the two story barn. It looked a bit like this.

Something was very wrong inside.

It was tired, to say the least. Wallpaper peeled off aging plaster. But that wouldn't deter me. It was the buzzing.

It started in the kitchen, as I recall. It sounded like a swarm of bees all around us, yet there were no bees. I mentioned it. No one else heard it.

"Maybe they're in the walls," I speculated.

"I don't hear a thing," the realtor said.

The buzzing got louder as I walked through the house, so I finally excused myself to join the kids in the barn, where they were merrily leaping into a hay pile. No bees there.

Another old house, totally remodeled and in perfect shape, was one we seriously considered buying. But then I had the bloodiest, most gruesome dream of my life the night after we saw it. And when I mentioned it to the realtor, he said he'd had the same dream. Needless to say, we walked away from it.

So fast forward to a big old house that had been in my then-husband's family for generations. Dark, a bit dreary and damp as most lake houses are, it never affected me particularly until I stayed behind one afternoon while everyone else went to the store. I had work to do, work I didn't particularly feel like doing, but work that required a clear head and nimble fingers on a calculator.

But the buzzing was making me nuts.

It took awhile for me to identify it - unlike the incident in the old farmhouse, this was a buzz that I knew was in my head. But it was so loud that I couldn't think. And instead of being frightened, I got angry.

"Okay, knock it off!" I was loud enough that had anyone been home, they'd have heard me, even upstairs. "I know this isn't my house and I don't belong here but I have no interest in your damned house - I'm just here with my husband and my kids and THEY belong here. So shut up and let me get my work done!"

And it stopped. Just like that.

"Thank you," I said with a bit less graciousness than I probably should have, and got back to work.

Not long afterwards, we were all upstairs getting ready to go for a swim. My three year old daughter pointed into the room opposite.

"Who's that?"

"Who?" There was no one there.

"That lady."

Cue the hairs on the back of our necks to stand up.

She described her and said she looked kind of cranky. Sounded like a pretty good description of my then-husband's grandmother, "Harriet" - long, long dead.

So I went to see my mom and told her what had happened.

"Will you go and see what you think?" I asked.

We went on a beautiful, sunny fall day when the house had been closed up for the winter and no one was around. We stepped onto the porch and I opened the front door. My mother looked in and froze.

"I'll stay here," she said.

I went in, took a look around to make sure everything was secure, came out and locked up.

My mother was sitting on the porch.

"I wasn't welcome in there," she told me. "There was a woman on the stairs and she made it very clear I was not to come in."

Her description matched my what my daughter had seen. That night, Mom said she had a dream that that same woman showed up next to her bed.

"What were you doing in my house?" she demanded.

My mother explained that she wanted to be sure that her granddaughter was safe. "Harriet" said family was safe there, but no outsiders were welcome in that house.

"Do you want me to pray for you?" my mother asked.

Her dream visitor snorted and said she had no use for such nonsense. And she left.

That house burned to the ground a couple of winters later.

Rally to Restore Sanity - Isn't This News?

2010-10-30T13:51:00.003-04:00

I'm watching a live feed of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The Washington Mall is packed with thousands of people, all laughing, singing and smiling. News reports indicated that more than a thousand related rallies in foreign countries have been organized by US expatriates. There are thousands more rallies in communities across the country.
But it's not news.
Network news, the nation's "top" newspapers and good old NPR made the decision not to cover this event.
Let's see - thousands of people converge on the mall to sing "It's the Greatest, Strongest Country in the World", a satirical and very funny tribute to the flaw in both sides of the liberal/conservative debate; watch musical acts (I saw the O'Jays and were they dressed to kill!) and pay tribute to some people who made headlines for their civil behavior - and that's not news. Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow actually performed a song about frustration with our society that was good spirited and kind.
Now of course, the "news" outlets are going to have to cave in lest they look ridiculous. But how sad they even tried to avoid reporting on a truly positive event.
As Mick Foley just said, "Civility is cool."
But apparently only fear, loathing and paranoia are news.

Left Brain/Right Brain, Do We Have To Choose?

2010-10-24T10:23:00.012-04:00

I'm living in two worlds these days. At home, the world is sticky with creative juice. Breathe deep, run your finger across a tabletop, taste it, inhale it, it's inescapable, a tune you can't get out of your head, a taste on the tip of your tongue, colors that are deeper, sunsets that catch fire into Peter Maxx/Maxfield Parrish impossibilities.

It's a world where every building should look like the Dali Museum.

At work, all colors fade to shades of gray and black, with frantic crosshatching of detail.

It's work that needs doing, detail that matters, yet somehow the amount of angst that goes into its production seems so out of scale, so truly ridiculous, that a part of me is always sitting back in wonderment, transfixed by the hyperventilating victims of high blood pressure all around me.

I'm torn between the two worlds. The childish, desperate- to -please -and- excel perfectionist wants to be the best damned hamster on the wheel.

The inner rebel wants her solitude and freedom to express herself in whatever way she chooses in her own little world - paint vines on the doors, write fairy tales, take pictures of the world's most minute details.

Circumstance requires income; I continually remind myself to be grateful that my black and white job pays the bills with dollars to spare.

But I so miss the color - and wish I had more energy to spare for those precious hours when that's my world.

Life is Passing Me By on the NYS Thruway or Where the Hell Am I Going Anyway?

2010-08-08T20:53:00.005-04:00

Sorry I haven't been around to write. Even sorrier I haven't had time to catch up with the wonderful bloggers I've found. Life got stupid.

I'm driving an hour each way to work every day, working in an office in a corporate setting, learning the new information I need to know, slowly figuring it out and getting things into a system in my head which makes sense. It took a good three months.

Now I'm able to sit back for a second, at least, and wonder where the time is going in such a hurry.

I'm missing the summer - I just haven't noticed much. I cruise down the highway practicing with my new Spanish CDs.

Tengo trabajar; no ai una hora escribir. Lo siento.

I get home, eat, then march up to my office to work on my other job. I'm still doing a radio show. I still enjoy it. But man - I don't think I'd know how to lie on a beach and do nothing right now even if I could.

I would, however, love to learn again.

My guy, whose new EP is out, is finding himself equally busy. The studio, which for awhile was his quiet haven from the rest of the world, is now hopping with people who want to make records, who need him to compose music for a commercial, and he's still trying to finish off the rest of the songs to release a full LP that coordinates with radio promotion and a tour.

Deep breath.

But I planted some flowers today and I have gotten an inordinate amount of satisfaction from seeing them outside the screened in porch.

Shameless Plug Department

2010-07-24T12:33:00.006-04:00

My guy, the very talented Mr. Kevin Bartlett, has a new album out. If you know anything about indie music, you know it's not easy to get the word out without the big record company machine behind you. So you get help from your friends.

Go here. Listen.
If you like it you can buy a CD or download there or on iTunes.

I have been hearing this EP evolve for the past two years and have fallen madly in love with every single song. I am biased, yes, I am. But I'm not alone. This guy, known for gorgeous, lush, symphonic movie soundtracks has suddenly stood in front of the microphone and recorded songs that are singable, intelligent, interesting and just plain fun to listen to. And that's what other people are saying. I could say much more.

If you want a giggle, pay attention to the white girl church choir backing vocals on "Dear" in the Headlights and the bridge in Cool Thing. That would be me and, on Cool Thing, my daughter.

Another fantasy fulfilled. I got to sing backup on a rock album! My next fantasy is to be able to sing like the way-cool wailing backup on Cool Thing. That's Machan Taylor. Maybe in my next life.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kevinbartlett1

What Did You Used to Love?

2010-07-24T12:15:00.005-04:00

Do you remember what you used to hold most dear? Think about when you were a kid; what were your favorite things? What have you forgotten as you became the responsible, busy adult who you now are?

I forgot the fairies.

I can't believe I did. I loved them from the time I was a little kid and read my "Big Golden Book of Fairies" over and over, my complete rainbow of Arthur Lang's collected Fairy Tales, oohed and aahed over Arthur Rackham illustrations. And yet I forgot.

I recently read a book that reminded me -
"Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World." It's by Signe Pike.

I approached it with a "what the hell - it might be fun" attitude, especially after reading the line where she said she was going to "go find the damned faeries."

I thoroughly enjoyed it and realized I needed to go find me a faery, too. I used to believe there was magic in the world and even after all my reading on quantum mechanics and unified theories of everything, I somehow had relegated the fairies to some dusty back closet in my head.

No more. I'm old enough to be as silly as I like. And I like to be damned silly.

So I went outside, apologized to the fairies for not having greeted them sooner here, laid out a little stone ring with pebbles I'd found at the beach, and told them I'd be a far better neighbor from here on and that I'd like to be friends.

Hopefully, The Folk will forgive me and let me back into their world. I like this world a whole lot better when I believe theirs is part of it.

The World's Gone Crazy - Or Is It Just Me?

2010-07-19T19:54:00.004-04:00

What the hell is going on, people? Seriously.

We've got a long-term oil problem in the Gulf, and suspicions that that shiny cap may lead to gas blowing out from other unstable areas of the sea bed, while BP spins the story to be, "Hey, if you want us to open it up and let it start spewing again, then it's on your head." Nobody willing to step up and say, "Do THIS." And then take responsibility.

The drug companies are trying to get the FDA to approve cholesterol-lowering medicine for kids. It's so much easier to give the kids a pill along with their vitamin, because everyone's working multiple jobs, nobody's able to be home to boot them out from in front of the television or the computer, take away the chips and say, "Go out. Play. Come home when it's dinner time." So the next generation sits on their widening little butts, not even knowing what they're missing. Besides - if they went out to play, there's probably no one else out there to play with.

A science blog actually agreed to let PepsiCo. host a page called "Food Frontiers."
Pepsi knows a lot about good, wholesome food, I'm sure we all agree.

Not surprisingly, they got slammed.

http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2010/07/transparency_regarding_food_fr.php

They took it down after their scientists starting leaving en masse in protest.\

http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2010/07/food_frontiers.php

Now that I'm a corporate type I realize that I'm totally losing touch with the natural world. I wake up, dress, drive to work, spend the day in an office, drive home, and spend my evening inside working on my book, my show, playing Freecell and trying to stay awake until 11. I am a hothouse flower and that is not me at all. But it is who many of us are.

It's unnatural. And it's dangerous. You could almost begin to forget that our lives rely on that world outside our windows.

There is one bright spot. A couple of years back I stumbled upon a small blurb about a proposal to lease drilling rights all over my area of New York for horizontal gas drilling. I did a series of stories and the news started to spread, thanks to some of the environmental groups I spoke with.

The movie "Gasland" is doing the rest. It was shown at a school auditorium nearby this past weekend and suddenly the entire region is mobilizing with online activists who are emailing, writing, calling and visiting their legislators, concerned that the hazards that Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia and other states which are already allowing hydrofracking are facing will be coming soon to a flaming sink near them.

I am impressed with the power of film. Similarly, our friends at Tribe of Heart are opening hearts and minds with their film, "Peaceable Kingdom". It's an attempt to reconnect that mental schism between our love for animals and how we get the food on our plates. They're winning awards all over the country and audiences are reacting thoughtfully, starting conversations, starting to talk - just as they'd hoped.

It's a Mad Mad World, my friends. But I don't think it's hopeless yet.

What Makes A Performance or The Joy of Men in Kilts and Pigtails

2010-07-04T18:15:00.011-04:00

My guy is a prog/glam rocker from way back. He probably has a photo of himself in his silver sequined miniskirt somewhere. And if you're not a performer, you probably think that's just strange. I can now attest that it makes perfect sense.

Here's what happened: we went to see Steve Hackett over the weekend. Steve was part of the original Peter Gabriel era Genesis band. He's a gifted guitarist. What he is not is a showman.

The show opened with the lead performers lined up across the front of the stage. At one end there was a slightly overweight guy wearing baggy black pants and shirt with a jacket (or a vest - I'm unsure). He would have looked at home working in your local hardware store. Beside him was a tall blonde with shiny, straight hair dressed in a loose black top, wrinkled black skinny jeans and high black boots. They were both holding guitars. Then came a skinny blonde with platinum pigtails, chiseled arms, a black kilt, high black socks and clunky black shoes holding a bass. Then there was a young guy in a cap, black version of the shirt the Monkees used to wear, jeans and Chuck Taylor sneakers holding a saxophone.

My guy looked into the wings, wondering when Steve Hackett was going to come out. He was already there. Hardware Store Boy was our headliner.

The show began and Steve was wonderful but my eyes were glued to the Amazon with the bass guitar all night long. I knew it was a guy within 30 seconds but my guy, my daughter and her guy were confused all night long. What was clear, however was that we were watching an amazing bass player and a terrific showman.

Nick Beggs has been doing this awhile. Remember Kajagoogoo? He clearly gets stage performance and he was great fun to listen to AND watch. He moved with the music, he emoted, he was absolutely wonderful. And talented though Steve Hackett is, he was thoroughly upstaged.

My daughter's guy, who is an aspiring musician, totally missed Hackett's guitar abilities. His verdict? "Nothing outstanding."

I'm convinced it was because Hackett looked most comfortable when he finally had a stool, an acoustic guitar and began to noodle some classical stuff. He's not an extrovert, he's not a ham and if you want to put on a good show you HAVE to be.

Kevin Bartlett

My guy will be touring now that his new EP is out. This new CD is new school rock and roll and he sounds like the lovechild of David Bowie and Lou Reed. The music's great - but performance is a whole different challenge.

I have only seen him perform in small venues but I'm sure I know on which side of the performing bar he'll fall. He may be a bit of a hermit, he may be a bit shy, but he's also a ham and when he turns on the personality he takes over a group.

I guess we'd better get the kilt out of the back of the closet.

If you want to find my guy's music, you can download it here or on iTunes. Just look for Kevin Bartlett.
Songs for the Big Kablooey

OverAchievers, Sit Down

2010-06-26T10:33:00.003-04:00

I just did an interview with Marcia Reynolds, the author of the book "Wander Women: How High Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction." I wish it had a different title - it's really much more interesting than you'd expect. Particularly if you're one of those women.

The wandering women she describes are over-achievers, the baby boomers who were raised to believe they were amazing, significant beings put here to achieve great things.

"They were told, 'you can do anything'," Reynolds told me. "What they heard was 'you can do everything!"

And we try, don't we? I've heard the analysis which says that women don't know how to say "no" because they were raised to be helpful. That's never felt right to me. Reynolds agrees. She says women who don't know how to say no say yes to everything because they think they're the only ones who can do the job right.

Bingo. That would be me.

I knew a counselor once who was my biggest fan - as I poured out my frustrations, my fears and my dreams she'd assure me that I was simply amazing, a true powerhouse. But once, just once, she did pull me up short.

"You take on everything because you think you're the only one who can get it done right, don't you?"

I nodded.

"You do know that's neurotic?" she said solemnly.

It is. But there are bunches of us wandering around, women with a burning conviction that they're here to do great things. They do them, too. But it's never enough. We're always looking for the next achievement, the new frontier.

Aren't you tired?

Don't you just want to sit back and let somebody else do it for awhile?

Wouldn't you like someone to step up, grab the reins and say, "I've got this. Relax. Take a break."

Reynolds says the first step is to see what we're doing. Step two is trying to figure out who we are separate from our achievements. What do we want? What do we like?

Finally, sit down. Let someone else do it. Teach them how if you must, but let them do it.

As one person she spoke with in her book told her, "When I raise my hand now, I make sure I know what I'm raising my hand for."

Peace of Mind

2010-06-13T12:53:00.006-04:00

Something's clicked. I don't promise it'll hang around, but it's great for now.
Everything's okay with me.

That's a huge statement coming from an award-winning worrier. If worrying was an Olympic event, I'd have medaled every year since I was a kid.

So what's changed? Damned if I know. But suddenly I've just clicked into "chill" mode and everything that's swirling around me seems like no big deal - all just part of being alive and all small stuff in the big picture.

Money? It'll work out. The future? Who can say? It's okay now. My kids? They've got their worries and their concerns and I'm doing what I can to help, but they'll find their way. Selling the house? It'll work out. Moving into a different place that we like as well or better? We'll figure it out. All my aging relatives and their increasingly scary ailments? It's part of life. We'll be okay. My own future? I've done what I can to make it what I'd like and I'll continue to, the rest is kinda out of my hands.

I have a birthday coming up. The big Five Three. And maybe this is the Universe's gift to me - a break in my constant what-iffing, furrowed browing and restless nights. If that's the case, that's a great present. Thank you very much.

My guy, a stellar human being, is throwing a birthday party for me. I haven't had one in a gazillion years. I think this is going to be a terrific birthday. And I'm going to hang on to this serenity with a relaxed grip and enjoy every second of it.

I deserve it. We all do. So maybe for my birthday I get to wish that for you, too.

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My iLife Bites

2010-06-06T11:43:00.005-04:00

You can have my iLife. You're welcome to it. It was stressful, frustrating, tense and upsetting.

I'm not blaming Steve Jobs, at least not entirely. But he can take some of the blame.

I do a radio show. I guess that makes me a professional. But in reality I'm just a hack who knows how to do what she has to know and that's all.

I had the opportunity to create my own personal studio and so I took a long hard look at the wonderful world of Mac. It looked good.

My guy swears by it (when he's not swearing at it). I wanted to get out of the "oh no here comes another virus" merry-go-round. So, as I so happily announced not long ago, I bought a Mac mini.

She was a cutey. Small, stylish, incredibly quiet.

I navigated the essentials with no trouble; I've worked with Macs before.
But Logic Express was another story.

Imagine you know how to drive an automatic transmission Chevy and someone hands you the keys to a Lamborghini. "You've got five minutes to catch on - good luck."

It's designed for music. I don't do music. It has a gazillion features I didn't need and I didn't have the time to sit and learn it. And I had an impending deadline.

My hair has all dropped out, I haven't slept in two weeks and I've now taken to drinking vodka for breakfast. Okay, I exaggerate. But really - it was just awful.

So I have surrendered. I packed up Minny the mini and shipped her back. I pulled my old PC out of mothballs, loaded a demo version of Adobe Audition and am trying to get back on schedule.

Why, you ask, didn't I just use the Adobe program I can do in my sleep on my Mac?
Here's where Steve Jobs takes the hit. He's in a snark-fest with Adobe. He doesn't let that program be compatible with Macs. He's got Logic and that's what you'll use if you want an Apple, dammit. Or Pro-Tools...yet another program I'd have had to learn from scratch.

So I returned the mini but I'm eating the cost of the extended warranty I bought. AppleCare, apparently, is non-refundable even if you've never used it and you don't own the computer. Register it and it's yours. Thanks, Steve.

I can't return Logic, either. Software is not returnable. Good thing I'm just made of money., huh? At this rate I'll be working six months just to pay for the equipment and programs I need to do the job.

My employer is totally off the hook on this; they gave me a budget to get what I needed. Sadly, I gave it to Apple and it cost more than they gave me. I thought it was money well spent. Wrong. Now it's coming out of my own pocket.

So that's my iLife. Expensive, stressful and, ultimately, not worth living.

My name is Susan and I guess I'm going to be a PC forever.

What's Life About, Anyway?

2010-05-22T09:18:00.006-04:00

My guy often bemoans the fact that when he gets together with his family (every holiday - his mom likes holidays) they seldom talk about things that, in his words, mean something. Big questions, things like what life means, what they honestly think, what ticks them off or delights them in a cosmic sense.

We all get trapped in that mundane conversation sometimes; it's safe. It's unlikely to lead to choppy waters if you stay in the shallows talking about traffic on the highway this morning. And it's deadening.

My daughter was visiting this week and I am happy to say we seldom get stuck in the shallows. She's 21, that age where all the questions are big and the answers are murky. This time her dilemma was one that got me thinking, too. It mirrors my own questions. I bet you've thought about it, too, if you're at all out of step with mainstream culture.

"Should I be planning for a career," she wondered, "or should I be planning for a future that interests me?"

Now don't bother objecting that those don't have to be mutually exclusive; we know. The problem is that for a person who apparently should have been born in the sixties, the professions of today hold little appeal. Lawyer? Economist? Doctor? Teacher? Politician? She sees their value but also sees them as intrinsic parts of a system that she thinks is inherently wrong; a system that holds profitability as its highest value.

She is considering the growing field of sustainability, a place where she sees a possibility of doing work she finds interesting as well as making a positive impact.

But here's the basic problem as she explained it: Do you pursue a career to make money, have a nice place to live and a nice car and spend your life working to hang on to them, or do you create a life that needs little and allows you to breathe, to enjoy the hours of your day and pursue your interests? Do you work in an office and make the big bucks, or do you live on an organic farm commune and dig in the dirt for your keep?

She tells me the organic farm idea is catching on with some kids- it even has an acronym: WOOF. Work On an Organic Farm.

Can you blame them? The job market is atrocious - I listened to an NPR interview with Georgetown law graduates who took on massive student loans anticipating six figure jobs when they graduated. They can't find any. And they think they probably won't; when the economy recovers, the big firms will hire students in that year's graduating class, students who intern with them and who they can train from the start.

So here's my daughter, midway through college, intelligent, idealistic and considering a completely alternative lifestyle. Part of it is the influence of friends, of course, but part of it is something that resonates with her. How do I know? It strikes me, too.

And here's where it gets a bit rattling. I spent my life managing to stay on the fringe of the system; I was a journalist, a teacher, a mom. I was connected, but I never worked in places where I felt immersed in the corporate world. I do now.

I get up early every day, slip into my torturous but very attractive high heels, grab my jacket, slip on my security pass, throw my blackberry into my briefcase and commute to a very nice high rise office where I have a lovely office. I sometimes have to go to New York City and go to our sister office on an upper floor of a very tall building. I am up to my neck in the corporate world.

It's not bad. It's different. The people are great, there's a work ethic and a commitment to doing a good job that I admire. But there are very clear, unwritten laws. Thou shalt not submit anything that has not been edited by at least two other people. Thou shalt maintain a paper trail. Thou shalt always consider any new idea from a dozen angles and vet it through at least that many people. Once part of the system, there is a heavy pressure to not rock the boat, to do a good job without making big waves.

I can understand why. Yet it also stifles creativity. I've heard management almost beg employees for ideas, yet no one wants to stick their neck out and offer one.

And is this where I belong? I rationalize, telling myself that I have spent a lifetime skating across systems that swallow other people, and this is just an interesting and very useful experience that suits my purposes for the moment. I'm still working on radio as well, I'm still writing a book. Who knows what happens once the kids are out of college?

Yet it makes me think about my daughter's question. What's life about? Jobs like mine are about security, making enough money to cover whatever bills exist. Security is a good thing, but it doesn't seem compatible with a life that's full, that's challenging, that's interesting.

And damn it, I demand that of my life. Apparently that's a gene you can pass on to your kids.

So This Is How The Big Kids Do It

2010-05-15T09:41:00.003-04:00

Working for a large organization is different. For me, anyway. My experience has been in newsrooms, which resemble nothing so much as classes for gifted kids; everybody's smart, everyone wants to excel, everyone gets excited about the assignments.
Nerds, really. I fit right in.

There are over five hundred people working for my new employer in just my building. There are more in other locations. And the reality of what it means to join them is beginning to sink in. It's an adjustment.

Here's what's the same: the people are smart. They want to do a good job. They buckle down and work on a project with a clear sense of personal investment. That's my experience since I'm here.

What's different is that individual sense of achievement. Everything is done together, projects are divided among several people. There is limited opportunity to just plow into a project and see it through with the knowledge that its failure or success is due to my own efforts. And there is little opportunity to have any personal victories. That's my experience so far, though I see that my job does offer a places to shine.

And what surprises me is that's important to me. I'm not an egotist, or at least I never thought I was. But I love the highwire balancing act that puts me out all alone on the wire, with a chance to crash to earth or step, victorious, to the other side. I won awards for my work in journalism and much as I pooh poohed it, that was really satisfying. My award in this job will be my continued employment. Maybe once in a while someone will say "good job".

I think I'll be okay with that once I'm confident enough of what I'm doing to know when I've done a good job. I at least have to be able to pat myself on the back. Right now, I'm still not even sure of that.

I'm trying. I'll say that. I'm working, I'm learning, I'm proposing ideas and I'm jumping into projects whenever asked. But what a strange feeling to spend an hour racing against the clock to pull together material and not be sure that what you're doing is exactly what's required. And then to get no feedback except that some of it is included in the final product which five people all contributed to.

Am I looking for someone to pat my head and tell me I did well? Yipes. I hope not. But it's possible.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T18:59:00.004-04:00

I got to spend the afternoon with my two kids for Mother's Day...that makes me very happy.

After they took off, I started thinking about my own mom. I can't spend the day with her; she's been gone for almost ten years now. But I still think about her- all the time.

She loved elephants. I'm not sure why. She grew up on a farm in the Midwest; a fondness for cows or pigs (she had a pet pig once named Henrietta) might be more understandable but no, she loved elephants.

She was musical. If you sang a song, she could sit right down and play it through with accompaniment on the piano. She had an amazing ear, yet she always thought she should take lessons so she could "really" play.

She played trombone in a dance band when she was young and learned to play guitar, fiddle, banjo and harp when she was older.

She loved trashy romance novels and had a massive collection of Harlequin romances. She went through a few summers where she read every Barbara Cartland romance she could get her hands on, even as she laughed at them.

She was interested in the nature of reality. She read Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts' Seth books, all kinds of books on the paranormal. She had a reason; from an early age she saw and spoke with the dead. You don't have to believe me. She did.

My dad was a doubter until she had a conversation with his long-dead grandmother. She told him things about the summer home he'd visited as a child that he hadn't known, things he couldn't confirm until he checked with his aunts.

After that, he listened to her.

She was religious, too, a devout Roman Catholic. But at the end, both her belief in the paranormal and her faith deserted her; she was afraid to die. That broke my heart.

I read a lot of books about theories of the afterlife after she died and one that comforted me suggested that people who'd died traumatically were cocooned in the afterlife; kept in a peaceful sleep in which their "souls" healed from the pain and fear they'd felt, waking only when they were healthy and fearless again.

I hope that's what happened for my mom. I miss her and I've never felt her presence since she's gone. But I believe she's now part of everything around me and with me, my kids and everyone she loved.

Happy Birthday, Son

2010-05-08T08:39:00.004-04:00

My son turned 23 yesterday. He's an immensely tall, lanky young man with a square jaw, a razor-sharp mind and a soft heart. He has been one of the great love affairs of my life, along with his equally exceptional sister.

His arrival changed me forever, as I'm sure it does most parents. Until that point I was the most important person in my life. But he began to move into first place even before he was born; with every kick I felt, every turn, I knew there was a person in my life now who was going to need me to be a far better person than I'd ever been before. He was going to trust me to take care of him, keep him safe and help him navigate this confusing world and I couldn't let him down. I had to grow up.

I was struck yesterday with just how surprising life really is. I was taking a walk on my lunch break, walking up the hill to the state capitol where all the workers in their suits were lined up at the food trucks. I'm one of them now; me, the bohemian who conformed even while she railed against it. I finally know it's just a costume, one I take off when I get home. You bet I can wear your high heels for awhile, pal.

I walked down into the neighborhood where my son's father and I lived when we were first married and looked at the brownstone that was our home. And I wondered if anyone had told me everything that would happen in the intervening 23 years if I'd have panicked.

"You'll have two children and you'll adore them. You'll worry about money a lot. Your parents will get terminal cancer before they're 75 and you'll take care of your father after your mom dies, you'll get divorced. You'll get back into journalism, meet a musician, fall in love and live together. You'll sing back up on his new songs and they'll be on the radio. You'll host and produce a syndicated radio show. You'll write a few books and finally get an agent when you write non-fiction. Then you'll get a swank press job in a building where you need a security badge to get from floor to floor. And you're not done yet."

Much as we try, we really can't begin to predict where life will take us. And if we live by the eleventh commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Bore God", it's going to be a wild ride. But nobody said it wouldn't be scary, that it wouldn't hurt.

I imagine hearing all that 23 years ago, as I sat in my hospital bed with my newborn son in my arms. I suspect I'd have hidden under the covers. It doesn't sound so bad when I write it down, but having lived it, I know that it was more than I would ever voluntarily take on. I have never been that grown up, though I do my best.

Back then, that small person with the surprisingly wide eyes was all the responsibility I could handle. And even that was frightening some times, when I worried if I knew what I was doing, whether I was choosing correctly, whether my mom instincts were enough to keep him safe as he grew into the remarkable person I knew he was.

No, back then it was enough to hold him close and watch William Shatner overact in Star Trek.

"See, little man? This is fun stuff. You're going to like it."

He does.

Multi Tasking With A Multi Pass

2010-05-01T09:52:00.003-04:00

I'm two weeks into the new job. I've made a huge transition: from a work-at-home, two deadline a day gig to a one hour commute to a job with a random pace and many mini-deadlines.

The first week was hell. I was stunned; rolling out of bed, putting on my power suit and wandering through the halls of this massive organization, meeting scores of people and not remembering any of their names.

Week two was better. I'm starting to make associations, I'm starting to understand how it all works and that's good because that's a major part of my job. I'm almost used to walking in heels again.

The commute isn't bad, either, because I had a plan: I'm going to finally learn to speak other languages well. I can stutter in French and Italian, just a little. But I couldn't be considered bi-lingual by anyone who knows what that really means.

So midway through week one my first CDs for "Spanish for Idiots" or something like that arrived. Every morning the unnamed English-speaking host and Luis, my Spanish speaking guide, teach me new expressions. I learned the days of the week, months of the year, infinitives, and how to say "I want", "I like" and "I'm going to." Put that together with the infinitives and you can say quite a lot.

There's a woman on these CDs too and I hate her. Luis speaks clearly, enunciates, and makes sure every syllable is understandable. Then this woman butts in with her mouth way too close to the microphone and zips through something that I can't understand at all. "How do you say, 'Please help me I'm having a seizure?' the host asks. "Mmmmnphhhhgrrrrabbblppppph!" she says.

Fortunately, she doesn't talk much.

Then there's the adventure of the new computerized toll pass. It's a little plastic box into which the information of how many tolls I've prepaid is programmed. "Convenient!" the state proclaims. "Cheaper, too!"

It comes in a plastic sleeve with a warning that it must be kept in there if you don't want it to be read by the scanners. So that must mean that even though they tell you to stick it to your windshield, the scanner might be able to read it anywhere in the car, right?

Well we had to try, didn't we?

We held it up to the windshield for our first pass through a toll both and voila! We were in.

So for our exit, we tried holding it down lower. Like cup-holder level. It didn't work. And we got a note on the toll machine that said to call the state.

I freaked out. I hadn't had this thing more than half an hour and I already had a violation?

"Don't worry," my guy assured me. "I'll make the calls and handle it. If there's a fine, I'll pay it."

He felt responsible since he'd had the brilliant idea of testing the pass's range.

He called the next day and said he got a harried state worker who was not at all amused by the story, but told us they'd let us slide this time.

"Stick it on the windshield!" he advised.

But now we're wondering. Could it read it through a doughnut held against the windshield? How about a piece of tinfoil? What if you held your hand between the pass and the scanner? Could it read it?

Don't you want to know? Quiero aprender.

Some Old Stuff

2010-04-26T19:48:00.004-04:00

Alexandra Barnes - Embracing Chaos

Writing homesite for Alexandra Barnes. Short stories, tidbits of novels finished and in progress, links to published stories, good stuff that's worth sharing.

This was my blog. It wasn't a blog, really. Just a place to put links to stories I'd written under my pen name.

I can't remember the password, don't know how to claim it. Kinda like life, huh?

Sometimes you look back and you certainly recognize yourself, but you're just not quite sure how you could fit yourself into what once felt completely comfortable.

I guess we keep growing, even when we're older.

But this is mine. It's me. And one way to claim it just to put it right out here with who I am now.

A lot of the links are dead now. But some things are still there.

Plus I love that story "The Susan Float".

When Is a Computer Like A Car? When It's Cool

2010-04-23T21:14:00.005-04:00

It's fun to find other people who like what you like.

I remember the fun I used to have driving around with the kids in "The Baby"...a white, 1974 BMW 2002. She looked a lot like the one in this picture.

She wasn't fancy; no modern sound system, no air conditioning, no pedal on the accelerator (the kid who sold it to me told me that "made it easier to floor". Great.). She had a problem that I understood at the time and have forgotten; but the symptom was that if you coasted down a hill then hit the gas, a huge, noxious cloud of foul white smoke poured out of the exhaust. That car broke down more than once. I had to keep a heated dip stick in the oil so she'd start in cold weather and had to clean her carburetor with an old toothbrush once a month. If it rained really hard the water would run down the inside of her windows. Her clock didn't work and her speedometer was broken, too. I guessed my speed by her tachometer. And we've never loved a car more.

I drove her to court right after I bought her to contest a speeding ticket I'd gotten in our old Jeep. I don't speed, so I was determined to fight it. But as I pulled into the lot, a guy called to me and said, "Know what they used to call those? Road Rockets." I figured I didn't have much of a shot with the judge.

Sighting another one on the road was rare, and we always waved madly at each other, giving each other huge thumbs ups. One time we pulled into a parking lot and a man followed us. I had two young kids in the car and was pretty worried. But he pulled up beside us and grinned.

"I used to have one of those! Best car I ever had!"

We spent ten minutes waxing poetic about the virtues of the little box that could.

When The Baby broke down, she always did it thoughtfully. Once she died at a doughnut shop. Once she gasped and wheezed into the lot of an automative shop in a neighboring city. She never stranded us on the road. We drove her three hours to the beach without a problem. We drove home from a long trip once and noticed she seemed a little sluggish. Turned out only two cylinders were functioning and we still were doing 55 mph all the way home.

That noxious smoke? We used it on tailgaters. I'd take my foot off the gas on a hill and let the person who'd been climbing up our butts for miles get good and close. The kids would start yelling..."Hit it, Mom, hit it!" I'd hit the gas and we'd all look back to see the other car suddenly enveloped in a cloud of stinky smoke. There was great rejoicing.

I saw one parked in the lot in town here the other day. A woman with two young kids was driving it, and I applauded as she drove by.

That's what all this Mac clubby stuff reminds me of. They're cool, they're in the minority, and I'm part of the club now.

It's nice.

But I still miss The Baby.

My Big Fat Mini iLife

2010-04-18T14:20:00.004-04:00

It's done. I've converted. I've thought about it for years, listened to my mac-friends rave about their cool computers, watched my daughter, then my son, dive into the Applepond and call to me on the shore - "Come on in! The water's fine!"

I live with Mr. Mac. Most creative people are. And when we met lo those many years ago, he was surprised I was a PC.

"I'd have guessed you were a Mac."

My very first email on my new miniMac was from him, congratulating me on now being among the cool people who can sneer at HP laptops.

I won't be doing that.

But here's the thing:

I am going to be doing a huge amount of audio editing and my aging PC rolled its eyes when I told it what was coming.

"Seriously?" it asked.

I understood. It's at least six years old and the most I've asked of it is to save my writing and avoid viruses. It's done a fine job. This would be like asking a compact car to tow a yacht.

Money is most certainly an object and that seemed to put the Mac out of my reach, until the nice guy at Sweetwater (you want audio stuff? They're for you.) suggested the mini-Mac.

"You can keep your monitor. You can keep your printer. Get yourself a nice backup harddrive and you've got more than enough oomph to do anything you want."

Done. The box arrived and my brain seized up. How do I transfer all my stuff? How do I learn this new editing program? How do I find time to do all this learning with a new job starting, too? AAAAAAAHHHH!!!

But I put my head down, started unpacking and set it up last night. I am writing this with the help of my new friend, Minny.
She's a little white box with wireless and bluetooth (can't see that I'll need them, but I'm impressed), extra memory and one bonus I did not expect.

She's quiet. Incredibly quiet. No fan noise quiet. Until I installed the external hard drive, turning on the computer was a dead quiet experience.

That's amazing for someone used to loud PC fans, a constant whir, that white noise that's just part of computers.

Minny's on the desk beside me, not on the floor collecting cat hair. She's sleek and spiffy and raring to go.

So far, she's even allowing me to use my old PC keyboard, though I know that'll change as I start needing more keyboard shortcuts. She installs hardware without a question, isn't complaining about the fact that I've already got her USB hubs at capacity. She sucks in CDs with a quiet hum and spits them out cleanly on request.

I think I love her.

How I'll feel about Logic Express9 is another question. But I have hopes. And I have the advantage of living with Mr. Wizard.

Transformative Film

2010-04-14T22:50:00.005-04:00

I feel really lucky to have seen this film grow over the past few years.
It's important, it's powerful and it's got a lot of heart.
It's Peaceable Kingdom, the new film from Tribe of Heart.

Follow that link and the music you hear will be my guy's. That's why I've been able to watch this film evolve over the past few years. He's been working with Jenny and James and I've watched them methodically edit, trimming and trimming until what's left is the most powerful movie I've ever seen.

I've written about it before, but writing just doesn't do it justice.
Now they've put up a clip that gives you a real feel for this project's spirit. It's about animal rights, yes, but it's done in a way that works. It doesn't preach, it doesn't shriek. It just asks you to listen to farmers who've changed the way they relate to their animals, and lets you look more closely at those animals to see why. This, for instance, shows a mother hen and her chick. And it makes you think.

Mother Hen and Chick from Tribe of Heart on Vimeo.

This film is kicking some serious film festival butt. It's won three top prizes already. Maybe its time has come. Maybe it's the right filmmakers, the right subject, the right approach, all together at the right moment.

It's not out on DVD yet. But it will be. If it's going to be screening near you, go. If it's not, request it.

I've seen "An Inconvenient Truth," Michael Moore's films - I've admired them. I got a lot out of them.

Nothing has packed the emotional punch of this one, and not in a harrowing, I'm-scarred-for-life way, though it doesn't flinch from showing reality. Peaceable Kingdom makes you rethink what you thought you knew, and encourages you to reconsider your own relationship to the way things are.

Getting to Know You

2010-04-14T10:01:00.004-04:00

This president is revealing himself slowly, proving to be the logical tactician rather than the passionate do-gooder. It's nothing he tried to hide; his speeches may have been full of fire and zeal, yet his measured responses to questions, his thoughtfulness, his logic made it clear that this isn't a man ruled by emotion.

Today's Daily Beast discusses what we're learning about The Obama Doctrine. It is logical. It is measured. And it disappoints me.

I'm not looking for wild-eyed fanaticism that demands every country adopt our form of democracy - it should be pretty damned clear by now that we don't have the corner on functional government.

What I'm disappointed about is that human rights are again taking a backseat to political expediency. I have been immersed in the stories of human rights abuses lately for my show, and I still naively hope that the US should be shaking off its own shortcomings in that area and pushing for the rest of the globe to join it.

We've certainly lost our moral high ground (if we ever had it) but that doesn't mean we have to abandon the principles. It's more important than ever that we examine our own human rights record, cement policy that ensures abuses aren't tolerated, and make human rights an important plank in any platform from which we deal with the rest of the world.

That's not what's happening. I remember hearing the phrase "peace at any cost"...and much as I cannot condone war, bloodshed, violence, I also cannot accept any cost.

We keep posturing and telling the world we're "leaders". How can you lead if you don't stand for something?

Human rights should be non-negotiable issues for any nation which wants to be part of the civilized world. That applies to the US and every other member of the global community.

Is it really possible that in the 21st century we still don't make torture, oppression, murder and human trafficking violations important enough for us to withdraw our friendship?

Are we so embarrassed by our own behavior that we can't?

So sad, America. So sad.

Nyah Nyah, You Can't Come In

2010-04-08T20:33:00.003-04:00

My guy loves the Masters.

"It's the prettiest golf course ever," he says.

But it rubs me the wrong way now that I know girls aren't allowed.

No, I'm not demanding that women be allowed to play the Masters. I'm wondering why women aren't allowed to be members of Augusta National.

It's pretty. Very pretty. And very, very exclusive. One article I read said there are only three hundred members and those are only let in by invitation. Bill Gates has not been invited. So women are in pretty successful company.

But women are not permitted to be members, though they're allowed on the course to watch the tournament and I even saw a woman official helping some poor guy whose ball looked like it had landed next to the privvy in the trees.

But no women members.

The National Coalition of Women's Organizations wrote to Hootie Johnson, the head of Augusta, suggesting that this might be the year to change that policy. Hootie is no red neck but was an official of the National Urban League and helped integrate South Carolina's schools by getting the state to establish the state's only undergraduate business program at a college that was, at the time, only attended by blacks. If you wanted to study business, you had to go there. Pretty smart.

But his reaction to the private letter from the NCWO was a public scold, maintaining that the course would change that policy when it was ready to, not at the "point of a bayonet."

I would have thought a fellow like Hootie would have felt that letter as goad to his conscience, not a bayonet to the gut.

So Tiger Woods, the guy who has a little problem with women, makes his big comeback at a course that won't let women be members.

The timing really was perfect for Augusta National to step up and be better, to join the 21st century and maybe even set an example for its tarnished star.

I'm not a foaming-at-the-mouth, let-me-in-or-else woman, but I'm a woman. And I have a daughter. I had a mother. And I am offended that because we're not men, no matter what our qualifications, no matter what our connections, there's a club that simply will not let us join.

My mom liked to play golf. Hootie, you'd have enjoyed playing a round with her. She was serious about it and she was good company.

Your loss.

Tiny Houses

2010-04-08T13:29:00.005-04:00

I like little houses. Always have.

When the kids were small, we'd drive around the countryside and while everyone else was ooh-ing and ah-ing at the big, rambling houses, I'd get excited about the playhouses, the bungalows.

We'd pass an outhouse.

"There's a Mom-house," the kids would say. And they'd laugh and laugh.

There's something very satisfying about a house that's no bigger than it needs to be, where every square inch has a function. I don't want to bump my head on the ceiling or crash into the walls if I stretch, but I appreciate a house that is compact, efficient and beautiful.

I fell in love with Irish thatched roof cottages. Charm, function, compact design. And then I discovered vardos, known to most of us as Gypsy caravans. I still dream of having one in my yard one day. Secretly, I'd like to live in one.

Why wouldn't you? They're gorgeous, easy to clean, easy to move. Tired of your neighbors? Roll on down the road. I'm good with owning a big old draft horse. I'm better than good with it.

Something new has happened in recent years. I've loved Victorian architecture my whole life, drooled over farmhouses, Carpenter Gothic, Arts and Crafts. I never cared much for the spare, minimalist thing. But that's changing.

Maybe it's a reaction to years of pouring love and money into charming old wrecks that reward your devotion with yet another plumbing crisis. I'm tired.

Really, look at this place. It's absolutely gorgeous in its simplicity. Walls, windows, space for whatever you need. Too small for two, maybe, unless they're very chummy. But okay, then, butt two together.

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses/z-glass/

Set it down amid the trees and it becomes part of its surroundings. Place it in rocks, ditto. Along a stream? Same. It's unobtrusive, so plain as to be a non-issue. It's about the setting instead of the house.

Want to see more? This site is like porn for tiny house coveters. http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

And if you're ready to take a walk on the wild side, check this out.

http://www.modernistmodularhomes.com/steel.php

Be warned: this stuff is addictive.

Does This Mean I Have A Problem?

2010-04-07T07:48:00.005-04:00

I suspect my addiction-free image of myself is flawed. First, there's peanut butter. I have an unhealthy relationship with it. I could live on it, I think. I'd like to try.

Then there's coffee. That reaches an entirely different depth of addiction, the "you can make me stop but you can't make me live" response to the thought of giving it up.

My mom started me. She loved her coffee straight and I grew up thinking that the number one difference between grownups and kids was what they drank in the morning. Hand me a coffee mug and I am a woman.

So when I was eleven or so I announced I was going to have coffee.

"Go ahead," she said. "But if you do, you have to drink coffee. No milk, no sugar, just drink it."

I was a stubborn kid. I drank it, made a bit of a face, then decided it wasn't half bad.

I've been sucking it down religiously ever since.

At first, it bonded my mother and me. There was something really chummy about hanging around together in the morning (when we both could), each of us nursing our coffee.

Then it woke me up. That helped when my first job called for me to be alert and ready to go at five ayem.

It's been keeping me going ever since.

As coffee addictions go, I know mine's middle of the road. I live with a man who is far worse. He has his coffee in the morning, certainly. Then he makes another pot somewhere after dinner and sucks it down as he begins work in the studio. Sometimes he makes a third pot and keeps it going until the wee hours of the morning.

He, however, drinks it light and extra sweet. Wuss.

My daughter drinks coffee and that doesn't surprise me. She's a coffee kind of girl. She's also a vegetarian, a former "I smoke cause it makes me look cool" smoker and a former reluctant slave to the Pepperidge Farm Entertaining Collection. She'll give it up in a heartbeat if she decides to.

What surprised me was when my son drank a cup. He's the family jock, the sports-drink and soda guy, the kid who loves processed foods and kept a bag of chips in his room for emergencies. Skittles? Mountains of them. I just didn't envision him drinking coffee. But he'll be 23 this year and apparently he's learned a few new tricks. He drinks it light and sweet, but he drinks it.

Look what you started, Mom.

Singing My Life With His Words

2010-04-03T09:24:00.007-04:00

I haven't had many deep thoughts lately. I've been busy. I'm preparing to start a new job, figuring out how to continue to do part of the old one on a part time basis. Shopping for career clothes, high heeled pumps, getting my aging car in shape for a new commute.

But weekends are for music around here. My guy works a vampire schedule all week; rising as late as he can, working til the wee hours. And I get up early, so I say goodnight just as he's getting revved up and fall asleep as he fine tunes the songs that apparently will begin to hit the radio this spring.

On weekends, I can push my bedtime back and sometimes I get a call from the studio down the path..."I need ears." That means he's done something new and needs a pair of ears to check it with.

I love being his "ears". I bounce down the bluestone path whose creation destroyed his knees and both our backs and sit down. I listen. Sometimes I have nothing to say beyond, "I love it." Sometimes I have a question. Sometimes, more often lately as I get more confident of my ears, I have a suggestion.

Last night I suggested a backwards calliope was the sound missing behind a verse.

"What are you, George Martin?" he laughed.

"Backwards flutes, then?"

He discovered that there was already a great part that filled the gap perfectly - it just needed to be a bit louder. That's the kind of fine tuning he does endlessly, relentlessly, before he's confident that a song is "done".

We sat and listened to some other music, music he said he thought might have a similar feel to this piece. And I asked about the lyrics.

To me, this song is, as so many of the songs on this album are, a conversation with the human race.

"But that's not what I meant," he said. "I can see how you'd take it that way, but that wasn't what I was thinking at all."

That interests me. I listen to a song and immediately personalize it; I think we all do. How strange it must be for the person to write it to speak with someone who feels like they "get" it.

"I understand exactly what you meant," the fan might say.

But it would soon become clear that they didn't understand at all.

And yet that connection, even if it's a misunderstanding, is exactly what makes a song important to us.

That, plus an unforgettable hook and a beat we can dance to.

Thursday Funnies

2010-04-01T08:52:00.004-04:00

Wonderful and silly.

http://wondermark.com/606/

This Is Going To Hurt A Little...

2010-03-31T07:24:00.004-04:00

Okay, time to take a serious look at our finances now that the health care reform law now exists. There's a Washington Post article that takes a realistic look at what must now follow - major fiscal reform.

Tea Party People have been shrieking about the fiscal mess that this health care reform will add to and it appears they're right. I gather the president agrees with some of what they have to say, too - it's just simple, irrefutable math.

Conservatives have been howling that government spending cuts must come first. But Obama was convinced that without health care reform cutting down that fast-increasing budget item, all the other cuts would be negated. It had to come first.

Now he's got his reform. It unfortunately cannot stop there - the next battle will have to be government spending cuts. And government needs to raise more money.

The long-term picture for this country's economy is terrifying and it cannot be blamed on the president alone. Republicans and Democrats alike have thrown money around, hiding spending, cooking books to keep the public from knowing just how far in the hole we're going.

Remember, please, that the last president waged a war without including the billions spent in the budget. And he did it while cutting revenue with tax breaks for business and the wealthy. It just doesn't add up and we're starting to stagger as we try to keep it all balanced.

The answer isn't tax cuts, unfortunately. Not just the wealthy will have to cough up more. We all will. Can we afford it? Hell, no. But we'll have to do it just the same unless we're going to continue to pile up an unsustainable debt that we'll just stick to our kids and their kids, if the country can continue to operate that long.

You don't have kids? You're not worried about the next generation? Get on board anyway. The country's accounts might just not last until you're dead, and unless you've enjoyed the past couple of years' recession you'll be wanting to get that debt down.

The president, according to this article, plans to propose some of what promise to be highly unpopular changes after the November election. And he's playing poker again, gambling that as investors begin to shy away from US Treasury bills (and he seems to feel it won't be long), he'll be able to begin the slicing and stitching that will cut our spending down while increasing government's revenues by arguing he simply has no choice.

He already has no choice. But because this is a country of people who love to hate (evidenced by some of the most hateful and childish photos of the president I would never want to imagine when I searched for "obama health care reform"), we will only pull together if we're convinced we have a common enemy.

We do. It's the deficit. Whether you agree health care reform was necessary before fixing it or not, I think we can agree the deficit is a damned scary thing.

I freak out if I can't pay my bills at the end of the month. I cut spending, I find extra work. I don't charge it, with interest, to pay somewhere down the road.

There is no credit card, no country, big enough to cover this government's debts and operating expenses within the next ten years. We need to go on a spending diet and we need to do it willingly.

This is a country that collected scrap metal and grew Victory Gardens when it was convinced it faced a common enemy. We're facing another one - and we need our most creative thinkers, efficiency experts and diplomats working hand in hand with realistic fiscal experts to win this one.

Poker Player-In-Chief

2010-03-27T08:44:00.004-04:00

The president's meeting with Israeli leader Benhamin Netanyahu said a lot about this man we're still getting to know.

According to an international intelligence newsletter, the Israelis decided that coming to Washington in the midst of the climax of health care reform was a good strategic move; they figured Obama would be so distracted that it would ease the tensions created by that embarrassing little announcement of new West Bank settlements during Joe Biden's visit.

It didn't quite work that way.

The Israelis had a big bluff planned; they were going to take the offensive, claiming they were being unfairly chastised. They could warn that an important historical alliance was being threatened.

They don't have any chips - Israel needs America far more than America needs Israel. But they're worried that this president is friendly to Arab states and they planned to bluster a bit and bring him back into line.

Reports say the American president was very interested in Netanyahu's explanation for the diplomatic screwup and very unimpressed with his attempts to explain that there was no way he could have known that the announcement would happen just as Obama's Number Two man was speaking about hope for a peaceful Jerusalem.
And then the president played his hand.

He did something no president has ever done to an Israeli leader. He got up, said he had dinner plans and left the Israelis with his staff.

"If you come up with something new," he said, "call me."

It was brilliant. It put Israel on notice that it wouldn't be pushing this president around. It left the Israelis to try to make good on their blunder. And it reportedly freaked them out so much that they left the White House, fearful that the phone line they'd been offered in the White House was bugged.

Israeli newspapers describe their leader as returning home "humiliated".

I want to do a little dance! This is diplomacy!! This is dealing with foreign leaders with brains, not brawn. This is making it clear where we stand without threats...with some finesse. And this is clearly a guy who knows how to play poker.

The Chicago paper did an article on Obama as poker player a few years back. It's enlightening.

I'm beginning to have some hope for this administration again.

Obama The Poker Player

America, Meet The New Kid

2010-03-24T08:40:00.007-04:00

Here's this morning's Daily Beast:

POLLS
1.Americans' Change of Heart on Health Care

It didn't take long for Americans to come around on health-care reform: A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows 49 percent of Americans saying health-care reform is a "good thing," with only 40 percent saying it is bad. This is a marked reversal from polling from before the legislation was passed and signed, which typically showed the public opposed. Forty-eight percent of respondents also say it's just a "good first step" that needs to be followed up with more action. Additionally, congressional Republicans rate the lowest out of all the major players: 26 percent said their work was excellent or good, while 34 percent say it was poor; for congressional Democrats, those numbers are 32 and 33 percent; for Barack Obama, they're 46 and 31 percent.

I'm finding this not only encouraging, but kind of funny. So like me, many Americans in general were just not sure what this new law involved. And like me, the more they hear, the more they're inclined to think it's an adequate first step, though it needs a lot more work. And like me, they're not impressed with the terror tactics of the opposition.

This morning's professional email inbox held a letter from a Republican legislator warning that this bill will "kill more Americans than the 9-11 attacks."

If you want to guarantee turning off everyone but the most extreme, conspiracy-theory, paranoid among us, this is a surefire winner.

I am so sick of the flapping gums in DC. I don't think I'm alone in that either. I am not brain dead and I do not need you to tell me what to think.

Again, I repeat and in a very non-partisan, "this applies to you all" way: Thanks for getting something done, Congress. Now shut up and make it better.

Just What Got Passed, Anyway?

2010-03-22T07:42:00.010-04:00

My inboxes are flooded this morning. My personal email address has thank you's from the president, an exhortation from the BoldProgressives to "hit the Blue Dogs" for their blocking of a public option, a celebration of the Working Families Party's success in helping get a local Blue Dog to vote "aye", and an email from my guy's mom checking on his recovery.

My work inbox, a nonpartisan address, has a letter from NY's governor applauding the passage of health care, a blistering attack from NOW NY on the president's executive order which they say could be used by a hospital to deny a rape victim contraception as part of her post-attack treatment.

There are letters from all the local congressional reps announcing their vote, with the funny part being that reluctant, late-to-the-game Blue Dog announcing his "yes" vote in an ALL CAPS SUBJECT LINE. He wants you to know he got your emails and phone calls.

There a note from an insurance conference pointing out the incredible importance of the health insurance industry to New York's economy. There's a vitriolic letter from the National Republican Committee Conference lambasting one of those local congressmen, referring to him as a " loyal lapdog" who put politics first and his constituents second.

It has become such a mess, such a muddle, that I doubt any of us outside of Washington fully understand what was being debated this weekend. I'm going to try to figure out the big picture.

Here's what I just found on The Daily Beast: "Health-care reform may have been historic, but many of its biggest reforms won't take place for at least a couple of years. So what does the health-care bill change right now? Crooks and Liars has assembled a handy list of immediate changes. After President Obama signs the bill, children will be able to stay on their parents' health insurance until their 27th birthdays. No child under 19 will be excluded from plans because of preexisting conditions. It will eliminate caps on how much care you can get in one year. Adults with preexisting conditions will be able to start shopping online for a plan in a national high-risk pool while waiting for insurance exchanges to get started. Small business can deduct as much as 50 percent of employees' health benefits for tax purposes in 2009 and 2010. It will fill in the "donut hole" of Medicare prescription drug coverage with a rebate. Insurers will have to post their balance sheets online, listing administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments. And you can no longer be dropped from your insurance plan just because you get sick."

And there's a letter from Michael Moore to both addresses, explaining what he believes the new bill means. He sees it as a victory for US citizens over corporate interests and a good start on a decent health care system, but far from perfect. In fact, before endorsing it, he admitted this was one pretty weak piece of legislation. But it's a foot in the door.

Here's what the NRCC says...and I quote (eliminating the attacks on the guy who voted for it): This is..."a bill that fails to lower the cost of healthcare," ...creates " hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes, Medicare cuts, runaway spending and unprecedented government control,"..."this toxic bill will negatively impact small businesses that are struggling to hire in the midst of a tough economic climate."

Here's Michael Moore's letter (with some of the GOP bashing cut where it adds no information - you can read the whole thing at the link): "Thanks to last night's vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.

Thanks to last night's vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.

Thanks to last night's vote, after your cancer returns for the third time -- racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive -- your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.

If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They'll also get to cap an individual's annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they'll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren't poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It's truly a banner day for these corporations.

So don't feel too bad. We're a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered -- and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won't be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that's ok with you.

If you don't mind, we're now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business -- because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, "How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?"

A Daily News poll online this morning asks if you believe America is better off today than yesterday. The No votes are edging the Yeses by six percent. But Mike Lupica wrote a stirring column lauding the fact that when push finally came to shove, the president stood on his principles, telling House Democrats that this was a moment when they could do what they came to Washington to do, vote for a change that makes things better. I believe that is the aim of this bill.

It's not a great bill, not by any measure. But it moves toward reforming a system that is going to bankrupt us. It moves toward assuring health care for every citizen which is, in the long run, not only the human thing to do, but the fiscally responsible thing to do. We cannot afford to care for the growing number of uninsured by forcing hospitals to treat them in emergency rooms. We need to create a system that reflects reality. I believe this bill is a step toward that.

According to a San Diego political commentator, the only impact this will have on us, the regular people, is creating a state-based exchange with subsidies for insurance..in four years. A separate exchange will be created for small businesses.

People and families with income over 250 thousand dollars a year will pay an extra 3.8 percent tax on investment income. And in 18 years, insurance companies will pay a hefty 40% excise tax on insurance plans over 27 thousand dollars. I'm not seeing a problem here yet.

What I see as the result of this bill is a step through a door that has, until now, been closed. With the passage of this bill, there is opportunity to fine tune it, to tailor it, to create a plan that not only stops the devastating escalation of insurance costs and health care costs, but extends basic health coverage to every American.

I won't argue compassion to Conservatives. That's not what moves them. I will argue fiscal responsibility.

I listened to David Walker, the author of Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility during one of my drives back and forth the hospital last week. He's a sane man. He's knowledgeable and he knows government from the inside. He was Comptroller General of the United States and CEO of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008. And he is convinced that, without significant reform, health care will bankrupt us. Of course, we're doing plenty of other things that will bankrupt us, too, but health care as we've been doing it is number one.

So the door is open. We've got something to work with now. And the motiviation to work on it.

Screaming about a government takeover of health care, spreading fear, will not contribute to improving this bill. Of course that's what will happen...screams, lies, fear...no doubt that horrific "death panel" garbage will rear its disgusting head, too.

I give up on hoping for civil dialogue. That's not how Washington works. But I demand progress from my elected officials, I demand the very best health care reform they can design that benefits the public, does not unrealistically enrich the corporations and reverses the growing debt load we're handing off to our children and grandchildren.

That's your assignment, Washington. Congrats on doing something. Now shut up and get to work.

Maybe We've Got Too Few Hats

2010-03-20T09:27:00.004-04:00

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

How many times were you asked that when you were a child? And how many different answers did you give?

I was thinking about this as I read comments to my post on our overworked American nurses...thinking that it's a shame that people who are drawn to a demanding career, one which requires a certain personality, are then burned out with long hours, heavy schedules and demands that they do more with less.

That sent me down a mental sideroad and I wondered: why did we have to pick just one field?

I know the practical answers; there is training to gain expertise, there is experience which is invaluable. These are things which only come from spending time doing something, learning better ways to do it, seeing problems that crop up over and over again and figuring out how to avoid them. It makes sense.

But why just one thing? Why not just pick a theme?

It's our civilization's way: figure out what you want to do, then spend a lifetime getting better at it. Before the industrial age, there were apprentices. They learned blacksmithing or silversmithing, they apprenticed at money houses and trading companies or with healers and surgeons. It took years to get good at their specialty.

We've continued the one career style with college training, internships, young people who "climb the career ladder." And it was okay for a long time; if you were good at your job, you stayed on that ladder, often with the same employer, for your entire career.

Times have changed. I saw my dad hop from job to job and finally get bounced from a major corporation because, despite the fact that he was the best in his field, he was over fifty. He wasn't high enough on the ladder to overcome ageism.

He reinvented himself; an incredibly brave move that I didn't fully appreciate at the time. He and my mother put everything they had into running franchises they bought from one of the corporations he'd once worked for. It was a success and a failure - they made more money than he'd ever made in his career and they loved running their own business, but an economic downturn ended up drowning them and forcing them to sell.

I have always believed that was more because of my dad's personality than a reflection of the wisdom of taking the risk they took or their abilities. Dad could be abrasive, so when times were tough and he needed a little slack, he seldom got it. But his theme was business - understanding what factors were necessary to weight the odds toward success.

They ended up worrying far more than they should have had to at their ages, but they finally worked out a comfortable retirement.

My guy has done a million jobs to make ends meet and probably excelled at all of them, as that's what he does. But his theme is music. It's always been about making room in his life to create music. He knew what he wanted before he graduated high school and he's never wavered. I admire that.

What if we asked ourselves what our theme is, instead of what we want "to be"?

I've been a TV reporter, a teacher, a writer and a radio journalist. I've been a freelance PR consultant, a retail clerk and a massage therapist. I've cleaned horse stalls and organized files. My earnings history, according to the social security records, is pretty sad. But I have had a range of experiences and a chance to learn what I like to do and what I'm good at.

My overall career theme has been communications and my astrological inclinations predicted that. But if you'd asked eighteen year old me what I wanted to "be", I'd have told you "I want to own a local newspaper." I saw a romance in that that I will admit still lingers with me. But I also now know the daily ins and outs of it and am less inclined to want to do it. I have stuck with journalism, but done it in different media.

Fifty two year old me wants to be a writer, though I'm conflicted about that, too.

I'd have been a great nurse, but I'd have burned out in six months. I take everything personally. I'd have been a lousy surgeon. I might have been a lawyer but I suspect I'd have been bored stiff before I passed the exams. I'd love to have been an architect but my math skills are non-existent. I'd have been a great veterinarian but suspect I'd have soon turned my clinic into a shelter. I love to rehab old homes, rescue derelict buildings. I love farms, animals and people's stories.

How was I supposed to choose just one career? How does anyone? And why do we have to?

Thoreau proposed that we turn the current system upside down; let young people wander the world and get a sense of what they want, then let them work until they no longer can. Retirement, he believed, was counterproductive for older people who wanted to stay active and useful, while young people desperately need that time before being pressured into choosing a career that could prove to be a colossal mistake in the long run.

I like that.

So here's my proposal: let's restructure our work lives. After college (which everyone should attend if they're interested in something other than a trade), young people should have ten years to wander. Yes, they should work. They should be doing the low-paying jobs, the jobs that require no commitment. There should be a living minimum wage so they can work around the country, around the world, and figure out what interests them. There should be hostels for them in every city, places where they can live independently for low rent. One year of that time should be spent in service - either domestically or abroad.

At age thirty, time to settle down, start your career. That's when most young people get serious about their lives, anyway. Many will choose their road sooner, settle down, have a family. That's okay. They've had the freedom to choose and the space to make that choice. The rest will join them at age thirty. The system is set up to enforce that - no more hostels. Maybe even age restrictions on minimum wage jobs. Time to enter the skilled labor force as a trainee or with the skills acquired during this hiatus.

Age sixty five? Keep going if you want to. Why do we have to retire? We've had elderly presidents, elderly CEOs. If you choose retirement, there should be health care and a healthy social security benefit. But if you choose to work, there should be options that make that attractive. How about flex time? Four day work weeks?
Sweeten the pot to make older, experienced workers interested in staying and sharing their experience with the new workers. Team them up, create a mentoring program within every company.

I just read that 40 is the new 50 in the business world. In other words, at forty, you're old and the young bucks are driving you out. Stupid stupid stupid.

We're doing it wrong and we're doing it wrong all over the world.

When I get my turn at the presidential lottery (in my world, every citizen must serve in political office for one term, and may volunteer to serve one term in higher offices), that's how I'm going to do it.