You Ain't Worth Crap

Summer's been over for a few weeks now. I guess it's time to get my butt in gear and revisit this blog. For starters, here's a piece I submitted to our local paper this past week:

One of my favorite stories by Dr. Suess was published in 1961 and simply titled, The Zax. It is the story of the South-Going Zax and the Nouth-Going Zax who eventually come face to face in their tracks. Neither Zax is willing to take one step to the east or the west and so their they stand, unmoving, face to face, while the rest of the world grows up around and over them; the Zax oblivious to the cost and folly of their uncompromising ways.

And so here we are at October 1st, the government defunded, while our elected members of government stand toe to toe unwilling to budge. Meanwhile, the world moves on and how soon will it be before we wonder, just when did the U.S. become that second-class piece of real estate?


The truly alarming part in all of this is that it’s not about healthcare reform. It’s not about Obamacare. It’s about jobs. For once the congress is taking real and tangible action to protect American jobs: Their own. The alarming piece, from my view, is that this debacle is about re-election strategy. It is the criminal offspring of a political system in which our elected representatives are beholden to the individuals, corporations, and organizations with the resources to bankroll a billion dollar presidential bid, the millions needed each year to elect our congress, the tens or hundreds of thousands needed to elect our state representatives. Our elected representatives claim to represent the voice of their constituents but what constituency is that? With national organizations extending their reach across state boundaries, pouring money and resources into our representatives campaigns for election and re-election, just whose agenda is it that gets carried to Washington—where our valued representatives settle into a job offering income, healthcare and retirement benefits most Americans will only ever dream of.

I used to read of the open political corruption in other countries and I felt both disgust for the system and sympathy for the citizens. Whether the current stand-off in Washington, D.C. continues for only 12 hours, 12 days, or 12 weeks, I think it’s time we open our eyes to the fact we have become that country. We have become that place where representatives, legislation, and votes are bought and sold on the open market. For all the self-righteous back and forth banter one hears about just what the Founding Fathers intended, what the Bill of Rights provides, the sanctity of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I feel fairly certain the current state of affairs is not what they had in mind.

The solution to our current sorry state of affairs has nothing to do with Obama, healthcare, Republicans, or Democrats. It is solely dependent on effective and sweeping campaign finance reform. As desperately as our country needs meaningful healthcare reform, the process by which we allow the unfettered buying, selling, and manipulation of politicians and policy is the rotting corpse on the prairie of American life.

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Two related articles appeared in our local paper the other day, both of which were tucked a bit back from the front page. Back beyond the article dealing with the late president Gerald Ford’s 100th Birthday; well back of yet more coverage of the GOP’s ongoing uncontrollable urge to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies; well past Eagle Scout achievements; well past yet another letter on gay marriage and Biblical interpretations; past, too, yet another chapter in the tired saga of our nation’s Rat Fink #1, Edward Snowden. Back there, on page 9, I found a disturbing article, one that highlights our evolving national demographic and the implications this holds for the economic future and strength of this nation.  “Culture Change Needed” draws attention to the growing non-white majority in this country, a majority that is too often being raised in poverty and without opportunity. Then, on the next page, we find the second article, a smallish item entitled, “Robots to revolutionize farming, ease labor woes.”

Believe me, in 25 years these may well be the only two articles that should have captured our attention, consideration, and political efforts way back in 2013. Careful reading would have informed us that the foundation of this country is largely being ignored. Large cracks and holes in the human masonry are being left untended while we push, push, push to make certain our personal beliefs and opinions as to the quality of our nation’s moral fabric take center stage. We worry over our privacy, national security, and other people's personal choices while the very basic resources needed to fuel the strength and stability of this country are left to wallow in poverty, disadvantage, and ignorance—left to become adults ineffective at working to support this nation, a population unable to grow a future, incapable of contributing to the support of the hundreds of thousands of healthy, long-lived retirees who will be dependent on entitlement programs funded with tax dollars. Instead we worry about the consequences of Mr. Snowden’s actions, misinformed as they may be. It’s easy, gossipy fun and entertainment to read and hear stories of leaked secrets, of battles over abortion, to hear clergy rail from the pulpits and editorial pages about same-gender relationships. Items we find so very important are largely distractions allowing us to ignore complex issues like childhood poverty, ethnic inequality, and the growing numbers of uneducated and disadvantaged. Religion, so-called morals, and a rose colored view of past abundance seem to be the fuel of our social and political engine these days. Youth, race, and poverty are—well—nonissues when it comes to getting elected. They don’t vote.

Another of the popular rallying cries in this era is employment.  We elect “job creators.” We seek out and support those who promise to return us to a robust economy where men and women work at decent jobs for decent pay. Remember, then, that second article in 25 years. In 25 years when everything from a ripe peach to an arthritic knee is subject to a robot’s precision, efficiency, and competence. For the first time in history automation is now eliminating more jobs than are being created.  Where they can’t be exported overseas, “labor woes” are being automated right out of existence. Anyone who thinks the youth of this country simply need a proper work ethic and the will to apply strong backs and callused hands to create and secure their future is delusional. To paraphrase: It’s education, stupid. Brains, not brawn.

Education is the only reliable vehicle to the future. This country had a premier system of public education and a national conscience that embraced that system. The loss of our national support of comprehensive public education is tragic but, hopefully, not fatal. We need to re-invest in education like it is the lifeline for our future—if for no other reason than it is, in fact, just that.

The most difficult problem this country faces, the greatest threat to our personal and global safety, security, ethics, and morals is our failure in the care and keeping of our youth. Not chioce. Not the intrusion of cyber technology. Not sexual orientation. Not even gun control or Al-Qaida. It’s the millions of kids so many of us don’t see. Walking, talking, hungry kids, growing up without opportunity, without resources, without education, without direction and faced with the growing loss of traditional labor related jobs. The very same kids who, in just a few short years, will be expected to economically care for us, and this country.

On Losing One's Pony

My daughter is one of the luckiest people on earth. Literally. She lives a life filled with opportunity. She is accomplishing great things that should provide her with a lifetime of satisfaction, the kind of deep fulfilling satisfaction that carries one the full course. And yet, things happen and sometimes it's hard to see any of it. This weekend, while she was away, she lost the pony she's had since she was two. And, dammit, she was sad. And that got me thinking about sadness and just how incredibly powerful, thoughtless, and damaging an emotion it can be.

Sadness. It strikes me that sadness is one of the most intensely personal and palpable of emotions, the weight of which can physically hold you down, pinned under its emotional mass. And while the event that precipitates sadness can be shared by many, the actual impact and character of the emotion can be so very different, one person from another.

Sadness is a greedy emotion. Too often in its voracity it swallows up all other emotions, a giant vacuum of infinite capacity, pirating every other possible emotion, every other reasonable perspective, and blocking all exits in the course of its action. Recollections of happiness, adventure, growth, and satisfaction are swept up and away. All views of opportunity are effectively obstructed.

And, too, sadness is one of those emotions that has radar. It seems to know when to strike. Somehow, inexplicably, sadness pounces when a person is most vulnerable, when they've had enough, when all they really need is a break. Or, to the contrary, when everything seemed so great, to have finally started to come together. Ha!

I am reminded of an old Austrian waiter we got to know a few years back. He would always remind us that, no matter how good or bad one’s life can be, we should always be grateful for our good health and the wellbeing of the family. Funny how that sentiment is so easy to overlook when everything is going your way and so hard to appreciate when everything seems to be against you. And that’s the problem with sorrow—it tends to consume a person, sometimes seemingly with an insatiable appetite. If happiness is a launchpad, sadness is quicksand.

To the bystander, even the intimate partner or compassionate parent, a loved one’s sadness is able to generate such incredible feelings of inadequacy. You can encourage, console, comfort, distract, and support—but you cannot necessarily fix. And while support, comfort, and consolation are the proper things to do, they don’t excise the emotion. Nothing is fixed by saying it will get better. Nothing stops because you say how sorry you are. In spite of best intentions, the monster that is sadness always seems to get its due, never leaving the table half full.

The older I get the more I do come to realize that time, in fact, does heal all wounds. Sometimes a scar may remain, some more visible than others, but it always does get better. Thankfully, in most cases time does heal and, like the scraped knee that seemed catastrophic as a child, the pain is gone, there is no scar, and the event itself has lost all significance aside from being just another memory, scrubbed clean and tucked away where its force is only able to generate a faint smile and a shake of the head. At the same time, we are once again able to appreciate the good that came, the value, the pleasure, the happiness that sorrow had so heartlessly stolen.

Sorrow takes. But it will only keep as much as a person allows. In short, it does get better. Just like your dad said. And in the end, it’s your health that matters, just like your waiter said.

Social? Media

Walking around Chicago this weekend I saw it a half dozen times: A group of people standing around together where fully 3/4s of the group had phone in hand checking messages, mail, texting, and tweeting. And I looked at this and I had to wonder how much our social fabric is being changed by these incredibly sophisticated and distracting devices.  People on the road behind the wheel are still looking down at their phones, thumb plugging away, in spite of the many studies showing the risk that their activity could seriously injure or kill someone. The most absurd are driving with a 16 ounce cup of something in the left hand and their phone in the right.

Despite the obvious safety issues associated with the latter example, I am curious as to what type of social structure this media is creating. There seems to be a parallel universe evolving that contains the electronic connection of people to an imagined reality. Or, an imagined reality that is becoming real. For godssakes, I sat next to a doctor at a medical staff meeting the other day-- a meeting where important policy was being considered and acted upon-- and she was cruising through her Facebook page on her iPhone.

So what happens when people are no longer able to exclude that other reality? What happens when we can't sit and visit without remaining connected to the constant stream of crap that flows through social media and the vast majority of text messages? All I can say is the guy sitting at the table next to us at dinner Saturday night must have really badly wanted to get laid: There's no way in hell I would have put up with her constant checking and responding to text messages through dinner. (Then again, given the guy she was with, we thought maybe she was fishing for a rescue text.)

All humor aside, and acknowledging how convenient and valuable tex messaging can be, I have to wonder if there isn't a button we've pushed deep within the human brain. It's the button that gives assurance one is needed, wanted, relevant, important all based on the fact you are being chosen to receive information from others. It doesn't matter if it's a WTF, lol, or BTW, it's for you. You matter.

In the meantime, we have neither the ability or desire to carry on a complex conversation. We are no longer able to eat by ourselves in a restaurant, looking around at the amazing cast of characters and life going on around us. We are no longer able to sit at a dinner table with others and create conversation. Suddenly we have become a species that sits around staring at our palms, waiting for the next auditory alert that we are, indeed, important.

Poverty And The "Born Child"

And soon to be poor.

In Texas this past Tuesday, a lone Democrat in a heavily Republican state, stood for over 11 hours and spoke continuously in an attempt to block legislation that would significantly curtail a woman's right to obtain an abortion in that state. Ultimately she was disqualified in her filibuster but not before she had stretched the process to the point where a vote cold not be taken and the legislation died.

The legislation was purportedly offered in the name of women's health. And, like legislation directed to restrict or repeal women's rights to abortion in so many states these days, there is always the cry of concern over the rights of the unborn child.

Apparently, to many in this country, there is a big difference between the "unborn child" and children at large. Apparently, to many in this country, there is a monumental need to spend a mountain of resources to protect and defend the rights of a fetus with absolutely no chance of survival apart from its parasitic relationship with the host/mother. And yet, the Annie E. Casey Foundation reports that the number of children living in poverty in the United States rose to 23% in 2011. And this isn't just inner city and Appalachian poor: Nevada and Arizona rank in the bottom 4. Add to that number the 40+% of children living in low income economic conditions and the picture starts to look less than rosy for the future citizenry of this country being vigilantly guarded in wombs everywhere.

Childhood poverty is treason. It is the undermining of this country's future well-being. It is a problem that is multi-faceted, for sure, and one that requires a multiple task response. Complicated as it may be, it deserves far more attention, discussion, and resources than what is currently allotted. And certainly far more than the time, attention, and money spent on protecting the "rights of the unborn."

Once again, I turn to George Carlin who had it right.

An "F" in Human

Far better than humanity's worst

I heard and read the recent story of the kidnap, assault and murder of an 8 year old girl in Florida and was so utterly disgusted by this report. Years ago I would have argued that an eye for an eye demeans us as a society but I can't find the patience or compassion to hold on to such altruistic beliefs any longer. To me it seems we have become a society that, in the name of caution, justice, humanity, or just plain uncertainty, we carry the accused's rights to sometimes absurd degrees of protection.

I am a firm believer that people don't just choose to be criminal. I feel fairly certain people become criminal as a result of a multitude of factors beyond their control, the foremost probably being a failed home and absence of nurturing in their own childhood. Abuse, neglect, violence, exposure to substance abuse-- all these factors tumble together to sometimes create the most depraved antisocial individuals. And yet, at other times, people survive such gross misfortune and, if not becoming living monuments to the resilience of the human spirit and capacity to grow and heal, at least they manage to live a full life without kidnapping, raping, or murdering anybody.

At some point, as we continue to amass these miserable statistics, read about abominable unthinkable acts of inhumanity, don't we need to come to terms with the fact that some of these perpetrators have simply flunked humanity? Some crimes are simply so heinous, so far outside the boundaries of conceivable human behavior, that it demands a do-over. No jail, no appeals, no lifetime public support behind bars. Just done, out, over, adieu, don't wanna hear the story, better luck next time, gone. Maybe they can come back as a golden retriever. Or a sunflower. Anything. Just not as a parolee

Terminal Timeline

The recent passing of James Gandolfini caught a whole lot of people by surprise-- not the least of whom, I'm sure, was James Gandolfini. There's the buzz from those who liked his show the Sopranos. There's the buzz from those who really understood and admired his skill as an actor. Celebrity deaths are good news/sad news, if you will. Everybody wants to know. Everybody wants to feel bad.

Over the past weekend we had a wing walker and the pilot of her plane have things go horribly wrong in Ohio. And here in Michigan we had a family on a pleasure flight fail to make it more than a mile from the runway. While some activities are inherently dangerous, for most of us we always, always, always expect to come home at the end of our day.

I always look at these events and wonder how many of us take inventory. After all, dying causes great sadness for a handful of people (family), sorrow for a larger group (friends), distress for some (creditors), and for the rest of the world-- if the story's good enough we gawk, otherwise, what day is it anyway? Tuesday? Friday?

Growing up I would always hear reference to the Biblical passage from the New Testament in which the advice is given to "watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour."  Growing up I had always understood this to mean you had better always be on your best behavior: Let down your guard, slip up, and, BAM! One minute you think you're heaven bound, harp in hand, and a moment later you find yourself at an eternal barbecue-- with you as the featured dish.

It's too bad so much Biblical literature is construed as threatening and guilt producing because, really, in many cases, it's the distillation of centuries of sound advice. In the present example of the passage from the book of Matthew, the story shouldn't be about saving your ass from hell and feeling frightened of death. Rather, I take this cautionary passage to be about living your life to the fullest, in the best possible way. James Gandolfini doesn't give a rat's ass that he's dead. (Yes. I'm sure.) But, if he knew he was going to be dead right smack dab in the middle of an Italian vacation he might have made some other choices. And that's the point: For many people they never do know. All of a sudden it just happens. One minute you're enjoying the world's best gnocchi, the next, game over.

In my life it's all too easy to get wrapped up in other people's stuff. I like my medical work and I like my role in leadership at the hospital, but I do need to realize I'm burning time. And, I guess in that light, I'm sorry for his family but a little grateful to learn of the passing of James Gandolfini.  He makes me look in the mirror and ask myself, What are you going to do today? How many quarters are left in my pocket, how many more free games?