Much That Is Hidden

I am at a point on the timeline of my life in which I have experienced nearly equal parts of being a city dweller and a resident of less populated areas. I was born in Chicago to parents native of it, and by way of “white flight” and ostensibly better schools, raised just a few miles up the shore.

I know from history that in previous generations it was simpler to see the difference between many of Chicago's classic ethnic neighborhoods. Gentrification has made those boundaries much less obtrusive today. Still, in most of the major metropolitan areas of America, short distances of a mile or two can represent worlds of difference. An observant visitor or any realtor worth their salt can still see this, albeit increasingly along socio-economic lines as the cultural ones are being homogenized.

While my upbringing was not technically urban, my specific neighborhood and its proximity to the city provided an experience much more so than the typical concept of suburban life (e.g. Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, etc.). Urban-like diversity was apparent in my high school's student body as well as in real estate, with homes separated by a short physical distance often having disparity of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in value.

We didn't have near as much in the way of direct supervision growing up, much less formal play dates or groups. The bicycle was the ultimate instrument of independence, shrinking my microcosm to any limit that could accommodate being back before the streetlights came on. After outgrowing that rule the bike continued to provide essential transportation since I was not one of the fortunate teens who was either provided or could afford an automobile. I miss those days and have concern that my son may not be afforded the local geography and relatively safe traffic needed for youthful neighborhood bike adventures.

I am often amused by the thought of how distances seemed so much greater in my days as a city mouse. When my eldest brother left the nest I was about eight or nine years old, and the anticipation of the 20-mile drive to go visit him in his new digs was quite titillating - one might have thought I was going on my first plane trip. To not spend the night at his place required a round trip that was practically a pioneer wagon voyage by my excitable pre-adolescent perceptions.

In contrast, the sparser population centers of my past two decades of residency have alternated between the in-town life of a couple of southern micropoli and more rural digs not far from such. By and large I have enjoyed the change, at least enough to give my old northern stomping grounds the status of “nice place to visit - wouldn't want to live there.” But now in the wide open spaces of Georgia I have friends that live 20 or more miles away. Of course the lightly traveled two-lane highways here probably require a third less travel time from the “surface street” routes of the cities and suburbs (a standing joke in Chicagoland is that it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere – in good traffic).

As to the aforementioned timeline, like anyone I hope that it includes many more decades of healthy and happy existence. And while the cultural draws of a city will always be worth the occasional long drive, I lean toward increasing my distance from the magnetic convenience of the modern business district. Years ago I moved from the Bay Area of California to the bucolic (if culturally stunted) environs of northwestern Georgia. After a few years of settling in I began a subscription to Organic Gardening magazine, which guided me in maintaining a small plot of veggies and flowers for two years running before letting expense and laziness become excuses not to.

I want to get back to things like that in the worst way. I confess to the possibility that this is just a pipe dream (my consolation being that currently I am minutes from a symphony and great Thai food). My desire to eschew city life is coupled with a perception that American society has changed too much from the quasi-urban neighborhood of my youth. Sidewalks are rare, old growth trees even more so, and these are superficial things to the real concern that modern parents have of leaving their child unwatched.

I suppose there is irony in having the most desirable areas of rural America gentrified into hobby farms and estates of various rustic-looking excess. I confess that I dream of having a few hundred topographically diverse acres on which to develop a mountain bike park. It would be naturally sustainable of course – no need to remove thousands of trees and install expensive turf that requires bajillions of gallons of water and tons of chemical fertilizers that inundate the aquifer. I guess I could settle for being a thousand feet from my nearest neighbors (none of whom require any sort of gas-powered lawn maintenance equipment), an effective composting system and enough summer sunlight for a salsa garden.

Labels: Chicago, irony, me, the past, The South, US Geography for $1200 Alex

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Labels: Max, photography, video

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Incensed by the continuing wholesale kleptomania of the financial world as described in the Washington Post, El Jefe at Boiled Dinner did that "write to your senators" thing that passionate citizens do when they're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Kudos to Jeff for a succinct and effective note.

As happens from time to time, here is a typical "comment on a blog that became a post instead."

I have fear that increases a bit with each article I read about all this financial stuff. It's a fear that America, like some strung-out junkie, will have to hit rock bottom in order to snap out of the consumerist greedocracy in which it has become so comfortable living. And yes, as Jeff pointed out, rage is something else I have - it's about the only thing that keeps me from being burned out on concern for our nation's future.

It is a frustrating thing to be unable to muster any trust for our elected officials to fashion a proper solution to our troubles.

The only things that I can so far agree to, based on a plethora of news and commentary both organized and informal, are the following rather nebulous points of indeterminate feasibility:

1. Break the grip of the two-party system. One more viable party would great, two seems to be the impossible dream.

2. Declare 100 percent public financing of all elections. How much would this cost in comparison to American military deployments and financial bailouts? Seems like a bargain to me.

3. Reform of corporate personhood designations that facilitate loopholes in everything from liability to taxes to government lobbying.

4. (Write-in)

5. (Et cetera)

6. (Et cetera)

Labels: gummint, justice, law, Nothing about Yoko, politix, rants, terms of enragement

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Labels: death, friends, religion, tragedy

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Labels: Max, photography, video

Federal minimum wage for most workers went up to $7.25 per hour on July 24 (the last of a series of increases over the past three years). But workers who receive more than $30 per month in tips have a different minimum - just $2.13 per hour, a wage that hasn’t been increased in EIGHTEEN YEARS ! !

Tipped workers did have their minimum wage linked to the standard minimum until Congress axed that requirement in 1996. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has now introduced H.R. 2570, the Working for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services (WAGES - gotta love those congressional acronyms) Act, which would set the minimum wage for tipped workers at 70% of the standard minimum wage (or $5.08 per hour). This would end the absurd situation tipped workers are in today where an increase in the minimum wage doesn’t result in an increase in their minimum wage. Many servers must also tip share with bartenders and table bussers, so when they don't get a good tip (or on occasion none at all) it ends up costing them money to work because they are required by the IRS to claim 11 percent of their sales as tipped income.

Friendly reminder: if you can't afford to tip your server at least 15-20 percent (for good service, of course), then you can't afford to eat out.

* Tipping
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Labels: me, money, politix, work

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“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

Dr. Adrian Rogers

This quote, now being bandied about virally through the right-wing haunts of Blogovia, represents what I see as typically disingenuous conservative talking points. Full disclosure – I am, as some 12-steppers might characterize, a “recovering” conservative. I have shifted (or more accurately come full circle) to a belief that government is a tool that, when wielded properly, is very effective for tasks that cannot and should not be done for profit. Am I naive in thinking that healthcare should not be done for profit? It turns out a huge chunk, if not a majority, of healthcare professionals agree with this.

Taxpayers already pay for the healthcare of people who are uninsured. If someone without insurance goes to the ER and cannot afford to pay for treatment, then the hospital gets tax money to offset the costs. We partially pay for most hospitals in this country through public funds. If we didn’t do so these hospitals would go bankrupt, and then the next time you or a loved one needs emergency treatment, it had better not require experts, extensive facilities or after-hours care.

We also pay for a number of things for the common good already. Our property taxes help pay for schools, but do we all have kids? I’m sure you get that an illiterate, poorly-socialized mob of kids who can’t get jobs is bad for you specifically, as well as the country at large, not to mention horrible for the kids. We help pay for police and fire service, but few of us ever need to be rescued by a firefighter. Your actual chances of having life or property saved by these services are pretty dang slim, yet conservatives don’t object to this form of socialism (we can all bitch about the taxes). Military, too - we haven’t had a bona fide military attack on our soil since the War of 1812, so the common good is well served through the provision of the common defense (exponentially - we spend more on our military than the rest of the planet combined. I wonder where we could reallocate some of those billions?). Oh, and the above mentioned things have been done successfully for quite some time in a nonprofit capacity.

With our current healthcare system we also pay in ways that are harder to calculate - lost productivity, inefficiency, etc. It is no good for the common good to have a large pool of unhealthy people who only seek medical care when it’s an emergency, work when they are sick with god-knows-what, get no follow-up care, etc. This creates a standing reservoir of disease. How would you like to see TB come back (it’s making a valiant effort)? It also creates an easy vector for some god-awful strain of the flu, or any other pandemic bug, to rip through this country. A healthy society will always benefit society at large. The minority groups who may not derive benefit from this are small and often have ulterior motives that are counter to the common good (*cough* folks sponsoring anti-healthcare reform rallies).

And characterizing the people who can’t afford health care as ‘lazy’ is the worst kind of derogatory nonsense. Millions of people in this country work jobs that provide no benefits, and unfortunately these jobs rarely pay enough for the employee to afford the exorbitant health insurance premiums of an individual policy. Millions of middle class families with both parents working cannot afford $1,600 per month in premiums, not to mention costs for visits, referrals, tests, prescriptions and procedures not covered. Laziness has nothing to do with it for the overwhelming majority of un- or underinsured people in this country. I believe conservatives either know this and have contempt for people who do necessary jobs that simply don’t pay enough, or they are truly ignorant of this state of affairs. In either case I urge them to read widely, challenge their assumptions, go outside their comfort zone, meet people outside their socio-economic niche, travel, etc. Good news - most of these things can be done easily (and cheaply) on the Internet.

It is easier for me to trust people than entities whose sole aim is to gain as much short-term profit for themselves as possible, and which view all else as obstacles, sometimes including the law. If I had to sum up the progressive ideal, I would say this: Progressives seek to do the greatest good for the greatest number while doing the least harm to the least number of people, using any tools that do not contradict the first part and do not abridge individual rights. Yes, the common good is always tricky, always a dynamically-maintained balance that will change over time. There will always be disagreements, abuses and people who are harmed by measures taken to implement it. The trick is to, again, do the most good for the most people. These town hall decriers of healthcare reform being a “systematic dismantling of the American way of life” are just blowing bogus talking points based on fear.

By the way, the late Dr. Adrian Rogers was a Baptist minister from Memphis, TN and is also attributed with this quote:

"I feel slavery is a much maligned institution. If we had slavery today we would not have such a welfare problem."

I can't say that his statement isn't 100 percent true.

Labels: analysis, facts, healthcare, irony, Lies and Lying Liars, politix, rants

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When I decided that I would vote for Barack Obama last November, I was not as pie-eyed about him as millions of his supporters seemed to be. Despite the fact that Obama was my first winning ballot cast for president, my vote didn't seem any better or worse than its predecessors - it still possessed that hold-your-nose, lesser-of-two-evils feel that has dominated our national elections probably since they began.

So there is an article by Drew Westen that, besides providing some perspective for those who may have been a little drunk on the Big O and his suspiciously meteoric rise to power, brings hearty agreement from me. My apologies to those who have accused me of leaning on my pundit appreciation too heavily, but honestly (Blogovia take note) - what's the point of me blathering on about something when the likes of Mr. Westen can provide so eloquent a treatise. Besides, I think he gets paid better for it.

Oh, and as you read Westen's article, bear in mind the possibility that Bill Hicks was spot-fucking-on:

"I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and the lights go dim and this little film screen rolls down silently from the ceiling. And a big guy with a cigar goes, "Roll the film." And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before. It looks suspiciously like it's from the famous grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come on, and the big guy says to the new president, "Any questions?"

"Um, what's my agenda?"

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Labels: humour, madness, No Ordinary Bill, politix, President Obama

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She smiled from the irony of how getting the old band back made her feel like a new woman. Her tenth anniversary of sobriety was surely significant in the refreshment, but there was something more, something bigger. Or perhaps louder, she thought, as she plugged in and the amps popped.



Mom often gave us a choice back then – turn the television off and get outside or get busy with a mop and broom inside. How different was the world, when sending the kids to play god-knows-where, out of sight and mind, was a natural part of their upbringing.



Often there seem to be “I know who you are” situations, where the various power players are at north and south poles, ready to charge and bash each other’s brains out. And who is in the middle? All of the regular folks who punch time cards and use paper maps.
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Labels: Microfiction, words, writing

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I’ve been looking for part-time work (yes, again), and while I may have become more savvy in job searches over the years, the recent trend of online applications is trying my already thin patience. I understand that the Internet provides convenience and organizational benefits for employers, and most every national and regional corporation is taking advantage of these in some form. And it’s mostly a boon for job seekers as well in providing an application process that can be undertaken from the comfort of your abode.

These coolie points are quickly offset by at least three things. The first, over-arching condition is the sheer length of these buggers. I’d venture to say that an online application takes about 30-40 minutes on average to complete. There is a major contributor in almost all the prolonged ones and I’ll get to that. But first I’ll mention that there is a small, but of course totally rational and reasonable, pet peeve that seems to carry over from the old school course of beating the pavement in search of a decent occupation.

When looking for work in the higher echelons of the full-time sphere of employment, many employers respect that it is an arduous and time-consuming process and therefore are keen to simply accept a résumé with cover letter. In the part-time world, whereby my qualifications limit me primarily to services, retail, restaurant, etc. this is rarely good enough. “You need to come in and fill out an application,” is the common response to telephone inquiries made to establishments offering 25 hours per week or less. I did have a manager at one of my walk-ins, a small local retail shop, request that I e-mail him my résumé, by which I was at first somewhat impressed. It turns out he didn’t have any application forms on hand, and then when I called back the following day he claimed he “had not seen it” in his e-mail (I must confess to really hating this most B.S. of excuses – I double checked his addy before leaving the store, and the e-mail was not bounced back to me). Online there is usually an option for uploading, but in most cases the process also requires you to complete an education and work history section, even when some of the more sophisticated websites have the capability of extracting the personal information from your uploaded document. I’m at a loss as to why I have not seen any sites so far that will extract info regarding “H.S.” or “University” and “from xx-xx to yy-yy.” C’mon IT peeps, get on the stick!

My big peeve is the ubiquitous and time-consuming personality profile questionnaire. Some are quite lengthy - 80 questions is my record so far – and most are overly obvious and quite banal in their attempts to analyze potential employees. You may be familiar with the stuff – silly statements with multiple choices for expressing your world view to the middle managers of the world, and for which there are “no wrong answers.” Right, I should mark “strongly agree” to the statement “People who occasionally shoplift on an impulse are not really dishonest.” That and all of the following are actual statements that I came upon in my work search. Let’s have a looksee:

I recommend these for the “strongly disagree” category:

I understand how someone could get into the habit of shoplifting, without really meaning to.

People who work at cash registers often give their friends a break on what they have to pay.

I don’t like to watch TV shows that make you think about complicated subjects.

When someone doesn’t do things my way I find it hard to be nice to them.

Reading the newspaper is a waste of time.

People don’t realize how easy it is for employees to sell a company’s secrets to their competition.

The following seven items were on the same company’s questionnaire:

I go to parties whenever I feel like it.

My behavior doesn’t change if I’m at a party.

I get more sleep after I’ve been out at a party.

I enjoy going out to bars after work.

My social life is better if I go to bars.

I have a good time with people I meet in the bars.

Sometimes I turn down invitations to go out to bars.

For that last one I believe you could accurately answer “especially from creepy H.R. guys who write profile questionnaires.” Obsess much?

These three would be best marked “neutral” or “no opinion.”

I can talk my way out of anything.

I am a person who likes to stir up excitement.

I have noticed some recent changes in my body.

Be sure to check just ONE box for this:

Sometimes my ideas about things change quickly for no apparent reason.

And I was tempted to scrawl “the bars” at the end of this one:

I behave just as well at home as when I’m out visiting.

Wish me luck !

Labels: jobs, work

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I had not heard the song "Keep Me In Your Heart" for some time when my brother reminded me about it the day Dad died. It was written by Warren Zevon after he knew he was dying from cancer. He wrote it primarily for his wife, but I'm sure he must have known what a beautiful masterpiece it was that Muse gave him for all who suffer loss.


Here is a cover of the song by LiliAna Rose, lovely of voice, face and name:

Labels: music, photography, remembrance

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Sadness with a touch of sweetness. My dad was released from the prison of infirm old age last night. Too soon but still just too damn slow. His decline was more stark than my mom’s, whose prognosis can only be brought to the fuzzy outlook for all Alzheimer’s patients – “We just don’t know.”


At least we knew something of what was in store for mom, and the hope that dad could enjoy his twilight years despite her condition went gradually from bright to dim. He was so happy after they sold the house and moved to the assisted care apartment. It wasn’t his dream of independent living in Tennessee, but considering mom’s condition it was a pretty good deal. He could still drive, still go to a game or get her out to family gatherings on his own (the photo, from Christmas ’05, was the last time I saw them out together).

There are possibly several reasons for his decline. The obvious physical ones of type II diabetes, two falls that fractured a hip and then an arm, and a small stroke each took a toll for certain. But what of the emotional stress from seeing his life partner descend into a mental fog which necessitated them living separate lives while still married? She was the proverbial mother hen over their seven offspring, he the tried and true breadwinner who was comfortable not having much to say about the raising.

The staff at their facility said that a spot was available for mom in the Alzheimer’s care ward, which is for advanced cases. While she was not considered to be in the advanced stage, they recommended the move based mostly on what they said were rare openings. I’m not sure how the rest of my family feels about this, and I don’t recall the entire situation to a ‘T’, but in retrospect this strikes me as convenient for the staff and not very beneficial for my folks. There were other situations that held a similar stink (I’ll spare the details here), but this may have been the watershed event of my parents golden years, putting a tarnish to them from which my dad, as the only one who might have successfully pressed on, ultimately wasn’t able to.

In my highly subjective and inexpert opinion, my mom’s existence, basically unchanged in any positive way for more than a year now, seems cruel and pointless. My first visit after she moved to the ward left me nearly as shocked as I’ve ever been by anything. Seeing her condition and that of the other residents there was heartbreaking – small wonder that mom had declined so rapidly (again, inexpert opinion). So do I hope against hope that Alzheimer's sufferers, if not physically in pain, are given a weirdly blissful way to go with their inability to acknowledge what is going on? It's got to beat terminal cancer or ALS, where the sound mind wrestles the emotions that must come with seeing and feeling the hourglass empty.

I might say I'm at the end of my rope with the societal mores of end-of-life care, but the metaphor seems grossly unfair to my parents and, more importantly, my two sisters aka The Troopers. Not that they disagree, and not that they wouldn't have risen to the challenge as admirably and with as much fortitude as they have. I know that the “caregiver by geographic default” factor has exasperated them at times. I say this because I know it has left this apple feeling a bit helpless in his settling spot so far from the tree.

Such irony there is in a convicted murderer being executed and at last getting released from prison. Out of love we afford the mercy killing of our pets when they have reached the point where misery trumps living another day. But with our own species, society doesn’t take kindly to enacting the suffix “–icide” in any way shape or form when it comes to mercy. Send young people off to pointless death in combat (wrap it up in the flag and call it the cost of freedom), but By God Don’t Allow A Fellow Human To Pass From This Plane With Any Push Outside His Divine Hand.

I stand disgusted, dispirited and disappointed, and if I stand in small company, looked upon askance by “civilized” and “spiritual” beings, then so be it. I’m here to call BULLSHIT on the whole affair of “natural death” and say let this essay serve at least as a temporary living will that if I ever get to such a condition of inviability, my closest kin are hereby directed to procure the most efficient legal means (or not legal if they must and can without retribution) to expedite my demise.

Sadness with a touch of sweetness, and a good measure of bitter it turns out.

Labels: death, family, me, rants