I Should Do Something --- but What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.