All this magnificence everywhere, yet we find ways to desecrate the poor, the under privileged and less fortunate. Is this how human projectile shards shatter the inner sanctum of their circumferential beginning and seek to destroy as they develop?
Tag: Current Events
A Blast From the Past: “The Bitch”
I wonder how many times I’ve been called a bitch? Was I a bitch because I have strapped “them” on and wrestled the proverbial bulls? Did I wear the title because I stood for my beliefs? Is it bitchy because I’m the boss and confident with decision making? I don’t know. However, I suspect that because I have refused (or been unable) to act subservient or lesser-than, that the bitch word has likely been attached to certain conversations about me.
Life & Toes in Drought
See this map? See the blood-red area of California along the coast? That’s where I live. It’s Exceptional-droughtland. And less than a year ago, our local community water providers left Pollyanna-land, and informed us citizens that there was a huge likelihood of our wells going dry by late 2014.
How Apples & Pennies Defeated Terrorism
But something went terribly wrong. On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, horror stuck America. I asked, “Should I cancel the fundraiser?” The resounding reply was, “No! If ever we needed to do something good, and enjoy our country’s harvest, we need a day in your orchard. Keep the event!”
From the Last Vestiges of America’s Middle Class
My grandchildren have wonderful parents, a comfortable home, and a good education. It’s what Americans strive for. I don’t know if I will live deep into my grandchildren’s future, but I do suspect that their future will be much different from what I experienced.
While my life was imperfect, there was always hope and opportunity. The only thing that hampered my future, was my personal lack of confidence. But that is not the point of this post.
My upbringing was solidly middle class. Church on Sunday with a Sunday dinner served in the dining room on a clean white tablecloth. Homemade chocolate cake for dessert. I saw the USA inside a rolling Chevrolet. Fundraising barbecues. State fair on Labor Day. Clear blue skies. Smog was something new in Los Angeles: “It’s when the fog and smoke mix together,” the adults explained over beer and baloney sandwiches.
Political rallies with us kids dressed in red, white and blue. We were Democrats who picnicked at Disneyland with our Republican friends. We liked Ike. JFK a saint. When poverty and segregation lifted its ugly covers, Americans worked to change those wrongs. It wasn’t American to let this continue. The Civil Rights Act. The War on Poverty.
Tucked away from my world view, ideologues sited folly in this mid-century middle class well-being and common good. Meanwhile women unbound their mammaries, men grew their hair, citizens defied a useless war, and President Nixon got caught in a lie, and then kicked out of office. Denizens convened and swore that there was enough of this liberal crap running amuck in America. Values. Moral Majority. Loud mouth pundits. End tax. More guns. More crime and prisons. Fear. Loathing. Separation. Money for war. Nothing for education.
Unfortunately, for the now, and for who knows how long, achieving and maintaining middle class status in America is a fading dream. A recent New York Times headline, “Hardship makes a new home in the suburbs,” reviews the most middle of middle class regions, Los Angeles suburbs, where the possibility always loomed as bright as the California sun. Now some of the industrious sell goodies from their kitchens, and make just enough money to fill in where food stamps leave off. Food stamps? Yes. Former two-income households in newer tract homes fight for their dream regardless of low wages, jobs shipped to other continents, mounting bills, and a plutocratic gang of lawmakers who believe these citizens were not smart enough to reach the pinnacle of material wealth.
So, the woman featured in the NYT story who now makes popsicles to sell in parking lots, maybe bringing in $100 per warm day, earning about a $50 profit, is a slacker and unworthy of compassion and dignity, because the common good is a misnomer to a rising group of philosophical followers.
It wasn’t always that way for the popsicle maker. Three years ago, she and her husband lost their jobs. “We used to have a different kind of life, where we had nice things and did nice things. Now we just worry,” she told the NYT reporter.
Feed em cake! Twist the story. Falsify a new reality.
My head swirls with conspiracy plots, armed militia filled with questionable purpose, and the spin masters who toss about looming threats of Marxism, Hitler, Stalin, and firmly state that black is white, no matter how you look at it. And, oh yeah, let the free market fix it. The free market, however, is, now, another quaint and misused phrase funded by uber-billionaires that care-less for you, me, or the woman struggling to feed her family by making and selling popsicles after they took her job and sent it to Pakistan. She’s inconsequential, as are the men, women and children in Pakistan’s sweat factories earning poverty wages making stuff to sell in America and elsewhere. Profits are the point.
So I’d guess that my last sentence makes me some sort of socialist/communist/marxist. Balderdash! But that’s how some categorize one who looks from the heart and through the words of honored spiritual leaders. “Silly folk. Well meaning, but oh so wrong.”
It’s all temporary. But not really. How we live today will impact tomorrow. And this brings me back to my grandchildren.
I’m comfortable knowing that opportunity can be theirs because they have a leg up over the majority of their contemporaries. The trick will be assuring that they find their connection to the true riches in life: A healthy planet, understanding their heart and soul, and then take their education and make a stand that melds the good from both ends of life’s spectrum for the greater good of all through hope and opportunity.
The Contrast & Dismay Of Gay Rights and Law
This post is also featured in the SLO New Times Billy, a smart and handsome 30-something young man, and I cozied-up over a delightful glass of a… Read more “The Contrast & Dismay Of Gay Rights and Law”
“Would You Sleep With a Black Man?” — Thoughts On Racism
Passionate and powerful writers lay their words on cyber paper about the state of racism in America today. Some scribe and speak (lightly veiled) disgust towards the… Read more ““Would You Sleep With a Black Man?” — Thoughts On Racism”
Hungry For The Warrior Woman
Also seen in SLO New Times & Santa Maria Sun On an August afternoon 36 years ago, my world flipped upside down. I was 27 years old, mother… Read more “Hungry For The Warrior Woman”
Blame Election Hyperbole on Six Moral Foundations
After Tuesday’s elections spouse asked, “What are your Facebook friends saying about the election?” First let me explain: spouse will not, under any circumstances ever, join Facebook—yet,… Read more “Blame Election Hyperbole on Six Moral Foundations”
As Choice and Journalism Fade into the Black and White Sunset
Yesterday the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote its own daily print news obituary. The 179-year-old historic newspaper will put to rest its daily print publication and print just three times a week. Beginning this fall, you can’t begin your New Orleans morning at Café Du Monde for a beignet and a strong cup of Louisiana style coffee and leaf through the inky pages of the award-winning paper. If you bring your iPad or laptop, yes, you can get your daily dose of news from the Times Picayune digital publication.
There’s something innately disheartening in this trend. And it’s a complex trend mixed with economics, technology, changing habits, and even politics.
Newspaper operations aren’t cheap. When competition for advertising dollars creates slivers instead of quarter and half-pieces of a business’s advertising pie, and when subscriptions dry up, something’s got to give. Newspapers are a business. And they are more than just a simple business. They are a community resource. Not every American has access to online news—news about births, deaths, events, high school sports teams, generous hospital donors, free pet vaccination days, neighbors who joined the military, neighborhood crime reports, details about your local school board decisions, community service opportunities, church pancake breakfasts, news from the local pet shelter, profiles of people who make a difference in your community, and even controversial reports about local corruption and exposes.
What happens when the chemical manufacturer upstream from your community river park clandestinely releases deadly toxins into that river and there’s no curious journalist around to investigate the problem? Sure, we now have citizen journalists, but comparing a citizen journalist to a trained journalist is like racing a Rambler against a finely tuned Porsche.
True journalism is essential to democracy. If you disagree, look at authoritarian societies and see how they handle objective journalism.
Freedom of the press, and in this case, I literally mean the press, is the balancing act between capitalism and social responsibility. The dichotomy here is that a newspaper is a capitalist endeavor, but one hopes played within the rules of objectivity. In other words, even if the publisher’s well connected brother-in-law and your state representative, was indicted for rape, and the publication of this news is both a family embarrassment and a financial and personal red herring, it is the public’s right to know that a rapist is loose in the community. Is it not? What if your daughter was dating the guy?
By the time I’m ashes in the sea, my grandchildren will not have smelled a fresh-off-the-press newspaper when they are old enough to order their own subscriptions.
Their news will come from broadcast and internet media. Bloggers, like me, will still craft words to tell a story, but the bulk of us do not (or will not) have training in objectivity. And a blog doesn’t have to be objective. This one isn’t.
Another heartbreaker is the slap-happy dance by alleged patriots celebrating the collapse of some mythical “lamestream” media. I lifted this quote from a commentary in the digital edition of a newspaper, “I vow as of this moment, to get all my news from Fox, Limbaugh, and the rest of those great Americans who uphold a high moral standard of journalistic excellence; who don’t let their personal political views get in the way of the story, and who report the facts as they see ’em, thus separating them from the liberal elitist, latte-swilling left — no matter how sweet-smelling conservatives happen to come out.”
Clearly, the writer is ignorant of reporting versus commentary and opinion. I understand how this happens. On a recent road trip we flipped through the radio for a news station. Rolling over 1200 miles of paved interstate our choices were conservative or religious radio, with a few Hispanic radio interests in between. Most of Arizona’s AM radio provided us with the same conservative broadcasts on four different channels—and the only channels that came in clearly. There were no options. There were no other sources of news. Our hotel television offered the same non-choices . The newsstands displayed in front of Denny’s Restaurant offered us nothing but shabby tabloids and advertising rags. Not one newspaper—even from the nearest metropolitan area.
As traditional news sources fade into the black and white sunset, we the people should listen closely and read with a skeptical eye because choice is dying alongside the Times-Picayune.
The Muse Pallet 