Who Is Driving This Bus?

What is going on, exactly? Can you tell me?

I voted for our president and I like him. It's nice to have a Nerd-In-Chief for a change. But this latest government stimulus is illustrating a disturbing trend that I have to admit has me baffled.

The Cash for Clunkers program ran out of money - two months ahead of expectations. It left my best friend high and dry - she turned in her car, was given a loaner while "inspections" were done on her new federally subsidized purchase, then was told that the program was out of money and all sales were "suspended". She, understandably, flipped out. Later in the day, after I helped her get some reporters calling on her behalf, she was assured that she'd get her car delivered to her driveway as soon as the program was refunded. It appears that's happening.

But nobody knows where the money went. No one knows how much went where. Reports indicate that the incentive aimed at helping US automakers was spent more with foreign car dealers.

So we've injected two billion dollars into another corporate bailout, we've created an artificial consumer spending spree, and now we've got to pump more money in without monitoring how it's spent.

Sound familiar?

Taxpayers have been propping up business for months now with no system in place to trace where it went or how it was used. My mortgage servicer, IndyMac, was bailed out and was, for a short time, IndyMac Federal Bank. Then it was bought by West One. My mortgage lender, Fannie Mae, is up to its ears in bad loans. It's still functioning, thanks to me and my fellow taxpayers.

But I've been trying to get IndyMac and Fannie Mae to consider me for a loan modification for eight months. I haven't missed a payment but my payment is almost 70% of my monthly income. I'm struggling to keep up, applying for programs only to find they've been revised, that I no longer qualify, or that I have to apply all over again. I'm on my last attempt...this time, going straight for the presidential program. If they turn me down again, my bank and my lender, both of which were saved by me, will continue on with hardly a stutter step while I either sell or give up my house.

I'm working with a local non-profit that's got a staff devoted to averting foreclosures. Their advice? Call every week. Find out the status of your application. I have my doubts that it matters whether I call or not, but I can tell you it's not easy to even figure out what number I should call. IndyMac/IndyMacFederal/WestOne really doesn't want to hear from me.

Yet I've gotten four letters from them, asking if it's getting harder to pay for my house and wouldn't I like to refinance?

You bet I would. Except with my current income level, I wouldn't qualify for a loan anymore.

Is this just all so complicated that no one can figure out how to fix it?

Then there's the health care reform debate. I'm for reform. I'll make that clear up front. But when I see the president having to reassure seniors that they're not going to, as they've heard they will, ward off federal reps who come up to the door asking them "how they'd like to die", it just seems completely hopeless. Seniors think the reform plan is to euthanize them all? Is this country that lost?

I've heard this administration isn't small business friendly - that they're adding taxes and fees on small business to maintain big business. If that's true, it's a mistake. Or maybe it's a scare tactic that's tacked on to the "Let's kill all the old folks" whopper.

The Great Big Bus of the United States of America is still way off course and it's picking up speed. And I begin to think there's still nobody at the wheel. Or maybe the problem is there are too many hands on that wheel.

Fasten your seatbelts.

Enough With the Conspiracy Theories!

It has a name now. The people who are absolutely certain that our president is some kind of a foreign-born 'plant' from left wing revolutionaries or an international 'one government' cartel are now known as "Birthers." Please give me a break.


The questions about Obama's birth certificate have been answered. Several times. But if you want to buy into hysteria, you don't care. You continue to demand to hear the answers again. And again.

Knock it off. There are more important problems to deal with.

We have a health care system that leaves out millions of Americans. We have children, adults and seniors who are forced to wait until a symptom is an emergency because they have no insurance. Then they flood emergency rooms; the only place where the government insists citizens get health care regardless of insurance coverage.

We take jobs based on benefits, not on whether the job is a good one. We narrow our choices to work that provides coverage for us and our families. If we're not married but are in a committed relationship, we turn down work that doesn't cover our domestic partners. Our college graduates choose a career path based on security and benefits, not the work they dream of doing.

Let's talk about our college graduates. They start college needing remedial writing classes. They spent twelve years in schools that are underfunded, poorly managed, teach to tests and reward mediocrity with teachers who are underpaid or unmotivated. Their parents mortgage everything they have to help with college tuition or the students assume backbreaking loans which they will spend at least a decade paying off.

We work in jobs that pay far less than the cost of living. We buy homes with loans loaded with fees. We pay taxes that, in many states, are as high as the principal and interest on the home loan. Then we pay income tax, too.

If you are creative, prepare to starve. The one percent of the artistic population that manages to live well on earnings from what they do are just that - one percent. The rest either work multiple jobs and create in their limited free time or they give up. Our culture pretends to value talent. We don't.

We watch people on TV scream about what's wrong with this country. We hear people on the radio act as though they've got a divine line to the truth. And we sit on our increasingly wide butts and echo the hysterical drivel we hear.

We elect people we believe may be the least bad option to our legislatures. Everyday people are less and less able to participate as government has become a career. Try to run for office without the support of either major political party. Good luck.

Our career politicians are courted by the organizations interested in whatever they're voting on. They cannot afford to run for office without their financial support. Once elected, they can't help but consider that when votes are cast.
They run again and again - it's a great job. It pays well, it's got prestige, it's got power. The benefits are great. And the list of people they owe grows longer and longer.

Don't tell me this president is the problem. Don't tell me his election is the result of some conspiracy. He is the latest in a long line of politicians who have successfully navigated an increasingly corrupt system. No matter his intentions, he comes carrying the baggage every modern politician carries. Don't tell me the president is responsible for problems that have taken decades of bad policy to create.

I had an interesting conversation with a filmmaker from Germany recently. She told me that health care isn't even a concern for people in her country. Everyone's got health care and they're okay with it. I heard the same thing from a family from Belgium.

"Americans," they observed, "have a reluctance to take care of each other. You have this 'every man for himself' philosophy that makes you resent giving up anything to help other people unless you choose to do it. In Belgium, we know we're all in it together. If we all give up a little to help everyone, we all benefit."

Lou Dobbs would disagree. So would Rush Limbaugh. So would Sarah Palin. And if you look at them, I rest my case. My idea of a strong, growing, healthy and admirable America doesn't include the narrow minded hate they spew. Neither does the Christianity I was taught by my very religious parents.

So I am officially putting in my two cents. I am tired of conspiracy theories. I guarantee you there are conspiracies out there and they come from all sides of the philosophical spectrum. It doesn't matter. What matters is what we do now.

I do not believe anyone, including our new president, has the corner on good ideas or answers but I'm willing to listen. And I am convinced that the hysterical hate that comes from any ideology is a dangerous distraction to the real issue, which is that this country is in need of a major reform. And only smart, thoughtful, clear-thinking people who LISTEN and then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT are going to make a difference.

Stephan and Patrick Are Getting Married

Stephan Hengst and Patrick Decker are in love and they're committed to each other, but they're not allowed to get married in New York. Lots of gay couples are in the same boat. Some of them go to other states to get married because New York, ironically, recognizes same sex marriages from other states but still doesn't allow it within its borders.

They promised each other they wouldn't get married until it was legal in New York and it looked like it might happen this year. Then the steering wheel fell off the Senate and legislators spent the month of June staring at each other from opposite sides of the road. Marriage equality became a political hot potato: "I'll give you this if you'll give me that." So despite the fact that the governor says he's in favor of legalizing gay marriage, despite the fact that the Assembly has twice voted for marriage equality, it's still illegal. Which should give Senators pause, as the gay voting block is a very active and well funded one and trust me, Senators, they're angry.

Stephan and Patrick went to dinner at a local restaurant and the conversation somehow came around to I Do I Amsterdam. It's a contest sponsored by the city of Amsterdam - yes, THAT Amsterdam - to show support for equal marriage rights in New York. Why are they getting involved? Henry Hudson, a fine Dutch boy, sailed up the Hudson River for the first time 400 years ago and New York's making a big hullabaloo about it this year. So Amsterdam thought it might be appropriate to nudge the grandkids and remind them that being tolerant doesn't bring on the end of civilization. Amsterdam's still there.

So the contest is this: five couples who meet the incredibly strict criteria will be invited to be married on a wedding barge on a canal in Amstersdam on August first. Four of those couples live in Holland. The fifth couple is Stephan and Patrick.

The rules were that one partner had to be Dutch and the other had to be a New Yorker. And, of course, they had to be gay. Stephan was born in Holland, though he's live in the US all of his life. Patrick was born in New York. Patrick said their friends laughed when they heard they'd won.

"Who else could win? Who?"

So they're pulling together everything necessary for a whirlwind, last minute European trip and they're getting married on August first. The ceremony will be streamed live on the Internet so their friends in the US can see it.

Why did they change their minds about waiting for it to be legal in New York? Stephan says he sees this as an opportunity to bring the issue back to the public's attention and show it for what it is; not an attempt to undermine marriage, but an effort to give an entire segment of the population the same rights as the rest. Marriage offers benefits that are far different from civil unions, including health benefits, the right to file taxes jointly, an unquestioned right to be involved in legal decisions regarding your spouse. Rules regarding gay marriage right now are a hodge podge...in one state you can do this, in another you can't. In one state your civil union is considered a marriage, in another it means nothing.

Stephan and Patrick are sweet guys. They love each other. They're going to make it a legal commitment. They'll be married when they come home from Europe. And if New York ever makes it legal, they say they'll renew their vows in a state that finally welcomes them.





Hear the story on Northeast Public Radio

LA: It Is More Important To Look Good Than To Feel Good

I like LA. I really do. I just went there for the first time in thirty years and saw just a very small area - West LA, Culver City, Santa Monica, Malibu. I think I expected a state full of Stepford People; perfect tans, perfect bodies, perfect smiles. What I saw were people who looked a lot like people in New York. They just dress better in California.

But let me tell you about my experience in Culver City. We stayed at the Culver Hotel. It's a vintage hotel with a great history and some ghosts, which I experienced firsthand. It sits next to a main thoroughfare and in front of a lovely pedestrian mall that includes a movie theater, restaurants and bars. It's hopping. All the time.

And as I sat there in the evening, listening to the raucous merriment of dozens of very well dressed people jammed into the lobby, all of them yelling above the sound of a live band, I was missing something. The crisis. Where's that economic crisis we're told California is facing?

I strolled down the mall past the movie theater - people were lined up down the block to get in. The restaurants were packed solid. The bars were full. Crossing the street to the other side, no less than five more restaurants, some of them quite pricey, were jammed.

Culver City is not glamor central. It's nice, but it's not where Paris Hilton goes to hang out with her BFFs. This crowd was a pretty fair mix of Escalades, Priuses and used Fords (in California, it seems correct to identify someone by their car. They love their cars).

The only signs I saw of any economic trouble were a small tent city outside of Culver City, which looked like it might have been there forever, and a sign in Topanga Canyon. Topanga Canyon, I'm told by KB, is the hip artists' enclave that was, on the day we visited, hotter than the seventh circle of hell. It looked like a good argument could start a brush fire. And a sign on a fence pleaded for support for efforts to save the local state park. Perhaps the governorator is planning to sell off state parks to put a tourniquet on a state budget that we're told is hemorrhaging to death.

But the crowds were still buying lattes at the Urth Cafe, the Culver Hotel lobby was a loud party every night and across the street at Ugo there was a line of people waiting for a cafe table where they could eat dessert and watch the world walk by.

If California is going down, LA sure has a great attitude about it.

Dignitas - Death For a Price

Here's a story from across the pond that's a bit chilling. I found this on BBC's website today:

Renowned British conductor Sir Edward Thomas Downes, CBE, has died at the age of 85, after travelling to the assisted suicide clinic Dignitas with his wife.

He and his 74-year-old wife Joan, who was terminally ill, chose to end their lives at the Swiss clinic, their family said in a statement.

Downes was in failing health and his ballerina wife was going to die. They chose to go to Dignitas in Switzerland where they died.

Assisted suicide in the US is synonymous with Dr. Jack Kevorkian. But he's not the only one on a mission to give people a way to end a painful life or avoid an excruciatingly painful or slow death.

Dignitas bills itself as a humane and professional alternative for people with serious physical or mental illnesses. They claim to have an extensive screening process and, right up until the last moment, continue to offer the client the option of changing his or her mind.

A nurse who has since left tells another story - a horrifying saga of attempted suicides gone wrong, lingering deaths, offers to kill family members as well if they'd take the death of a loved one too hard, squalid, sordid conditions and a bottom line profit motivation.

Assisted suicide frightens me. Whenever you take a decision to die out of the direct control of a person and hand it to a 'professional', you've made dying a money maker. Anything done for profit is likely to become corrupt. And it's such a very short step from assisted suicide to murder, isn't it?

I am conflicted about suicide. My Catholic parents were completely against it; they didn't want to spend eternity in Hell. Yet my mother's final six weeks of agony made me seriously wish she (or I) could end it for her. I was shocked at myself, but how can you watch someone you love suffer the equivalent of torture and not want to make it stop?

My uncle has been a Hemlock Society member from way back. I don't know if he'd truly do it or if he's a theoretical supporter of the right to die. I know his view appalled his brother, my dad. It actually made sense to me.

It must take tremendous courage to decide to end your life in a calm, rational state. I think Richard Farnsworth did it right. The actor was in great pain with bone cancer. He knew he faced an increasingly painful life and slow death. He went outside and shot himself. That final choice, that final moment, had him entirely in control. He wasn't in a setting where anyone else could influence him, even unconsciously. He was free at any moment to change his mind.

How do I feel about suicide, assisted or otherwise? I still have ingrained in me the words "selfish", "cowardly", "wrong" when I think about it. But there's a rational part of me that can understand that sometimes death is the more attractive choice. I've seen suffering. I can understand.

But Dignitas is incorporated death. That, I believe, is very, very dangerous. And worthy of discussion, because this is reality and we must, as a human community, decide whether this is what we want in our world.

Go Katherine! Go Debbie! (Sorta)

Katherine Jackson rocks! I am absolutely delighted yet slightly concerned to hear to hear that Michael Jackson's mom and the biological mother of two of his three children have worked out a deal - the existing agreement which calls for the children not to be informed that family friend "Miss Debbie" is actually their mother, will continue and Debbie will drop her challenge to Katherine's guardianship of the kids in exchange for Joe Jackson staying away from them.

My concern is that a lie is being perpetuated - the kids don't know who "Miss Debbie" is and that's a strange choice when right now they're undoubtedly feeling adrift and lost without the one constant parent in their lives.

But that's overshadowed by my elation that Joe Jackson won't be allowed to continue the cycle of abuse that made Michael Jackson the tragic figure that he was.

Katherine and Joe have apparently been separated for years.

Michael always maintained his mother was a wonderful woman. I now heartily agree. She may not have been able to protect Michael, but she's protecting his children. She'll allow the existing relationship between the kids and their secret mother to continue. (Though how secret can it stay since the rest of the world knows it?)

And "Miss Debbie" may not be a mother in the way we define the term, but she's acting like one. She's put the children's best interests first. Bravo to both of them.

The Glamorous Life

Bet you think those rock and rollers have it made, don't you? Traveling from city to city, roadies unloading your gear, setting it up, nothing to do but soundchecks, hang out, then go onstage and rock out, right? Oh, then lap up the applause and accept the adulation of fans who want your autograph, want to tell you how much your music means to them, just want you to actually SEE them.

I am an outsider to this world, but thanks to KB the veil's been lifted a bit. Last night was a real eye opener.

Do you remember the Australian band the church? If not, do you remember "Under the Milky Way" from the film Donnie Darko? That's them. They've been around since the eighties but now and again they surprise themselves with a hit as they pursue their unique vision of art rock.

They're wrapping up their 2009 tour and we went to see them in New York. It wasn't a big venue, but it was a nice one. They didn't fill the place but there was a respectable crowd and they were true fans. There was much dancing in front of the stage, roaring ovations after the wild, ear splitting, orgasmic guitar bridge and a few faithfuls singing along with every song. They're not the Rolling Stones, but they've got a solid fan base.

Backstage after the show, they were a bunch of tired Australian guys who badly needed some sleep and were dealing with the million and one headaches that result when you can't supervise every single person on the tour. A piece of equipment is missing - the venue staff doesn't have access to the rooms you need to search.

They were grateful for the fan response, grateful for an abundance of food backstage that they pronounced "the best they'd had yet". They were both sad and happy to be wrapping up the tour and going home. Back to their lives. Back to putting the kids to bed at night. Back to the classroom to teach other people how to play guitar.

The battered guitar that's covered with duct tape only comes out in your family room or when you rehearse in some intimate space with the band. Back at home, you're a space walker suddenly thrust back into the gravitational field. And much of your time will be spent figuring out how to get back out to space again.

A musician on tour is a gypsy - but unless that musician is an icon, he's an incredibly hard working gypsy. With luck, someone else sets up the gear, someone else checks the guitars, someone else makes sure the venues are confirmed, the tickets are selling, the backstage passes and press contacts are organized. But even with luck, there are the all night bus rides, the bleary late mornings wondering what town you're in today, the strange disconnection from the world because you're just dropping by. There's a moment of hyper-reality that is the show, when you connect with the music and it connects with the audience and an energy loop is established that leaves you frizzing with energy for hours afterwards. But then it's back to the bus, back to the road, off to the next location, the next show, the next audience.

It's a strange life. And apparently as addictive as any drug.

the church finishes its tour in Canada this week.

I'd link to their original music video, but the record company pulled the audio. Ah well, live will have to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7cJVStGT2Y&feature=related