Moving Day

No, not moving as in boxes & bubble wrap - moving as in not allowing my body to sit in a chair in front of the computer all day.

I'm SO sedentary, it's not funny. I need to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 lbs. My diet is reasonably good, and changing it has only yielded temporary improvement. What I need to do is exercise. But I don't. Probably my most active years (true for most Americans, I think) were from birth through about 13. My parents wanted me home & safe, so they installed a swing set in the back yard, and a succession of swimming pools. We had a very large above-ground pool with a rim you could walk around, and a slide, and it was used for at least three years. When we took it down, I was still walking the mile or so to school most days, and it was easy to walk to local stores. But once I got that driver's license, I lost most incentive to walk, and the pounds started to creep on. After childbirth and gallbladder surgery, the gain was steady. Now, more than ever, I'm feeling the multiple effects of being too heavy. Sleep apnea; acid reflux; fallen arches; general achiness and lethargy because my frame is simply bearing too much. Not to mention the frustration of trying to shop for clothes. And the interesting thing is, while so many women have body dysmorphic disorder, in which they are not terribly overweight but visualize themselves that way, my problem is the opposite. I'm always surprised when I look in the mirror and see my "wide-load" self, because in my head, I'm still that rather stringy-looking individual I was for so many years.

But today I resolved to get moving. The local park has a fitness center that costs only a dollar to get into. It's pretty basic, but pleasant, and the only requirement is that you wear gym shoes. "No work boots or sandals" the sign says; I can only imagine some people thinking they can use an elliptical machine wearing work boots...

I got on the treadmill and did 2 miles. About half of that was at 3 mph or slightly above. For any lower speed, I raised the incline to about 4 degrees. It really felt good. I used to do 10K's, but a few years ago, tried a 5K and came in second to last. Humiliating. So I have plenty of incentive to work out, and the fitness center is open until 8pm, so I can go there right after work. Tomorrow I'm skipping church and doing some walking along a local trail. If I'm such a "morning person," I might as well put that to some use.

One of my co-workers has lost a fair amount of weight over the last several months and I think it's about time I started following her example. Click Here to Read More..

One of those "Signs of the Apocalypse"

It's almost a cliche nowadays -- people use "this must be a sign of the apocalypse" to describe an event that was so unlikely, so improbable, it never would have been predicted. Something that upsets the balance and order of the world as we would like to imagine it.

Something like a couple I've known since the beginning of my first marriage (hint: Reagan was enjoying his first term) who are about to finalize their divorce. She's a few years older than he, but both are in their 50s. Always viewed from without as slightly bohemian, though she consistently held down 9-5 jobs while pursuing some artistic pastimes. They seemed absolutely "made for each other," and it did last over a quarter-century. No kids, but lots of pets.

I've only gotten her side of the story, but she described objective, provable events, rather than a slanted POV, so I'm inclined to believe her. It sounds like a classic midlife crisis, complete with a long-distance affair revealed via cellphone records; makeovers; separate vacations and finally just the vaguely expressed desire to be single.

And so, now two people who seemed like puzzle pieces that fit seamlessly to create a pleasant picture are now having to rethink everything about themselves.

It's disturbing because if this couple can call it quits, there are precious few others I know out there that offer any real assurance of permanency. Click Here to Read More..

Two Rants for the Price of One

When I think of two things to be annoyed about between the grocery store and home, it's time to get on the soapbox.

Rant #1: Actually, this is a twofer, dealing with a couple of dumb usage mistakes that I frequently read and hear.

• When you are trying a different approach to something, you do not "take a different tact." The word is TACK -- from sailing, in which you adjust your sails to catch wind so as to sail in a different direction. I think people who use this are thinking of "tactic," which is, of course, another word for strategy or approach... and then they get the two mixed up and come out with "take a different tact." Noooooooo!
• When you are narrowing your aim toward a particular object, you do not "hone in on" it. You HOME in on it. Again, almost understandable. To hone is to sharpen, so yes, you want to sharpen and refine your sights to find exactly what you're looking for, but the word comes from HOMING pigeons, with their natural ability to find their way to a particular destination, and then later, such navigational aids as radar and sonar.
  

Rant #2: In between the grocery store and my house is a hospital. They apparently have adopted the same sort of no-smoking rules that most other medical facilities have nowadays -- NO smoking anywhere on the grounds. Fortunately, the place covers one small city block and the emergency entrance is quite close to the street. The smokers simply walk outside (taking care, presumably, not to get run over by a speeding ambulance) and smoke out on the public sidewalk.

Yes, smoking is legal and they have every right. I can understand a past, present or future patient smoking. Or the next of kin of a very sick person relieving their stress with a cigarette. I know how addictive nicotine is -- my mother lay dying in the hospital 20 years ago, with oxygen, and her last conversation with my father was an argument about why he couldn't bring in her cigarettes and let her smoke in bed!

But what annoys me, beyond all reason, is medical professionals who smoke. This evening I passed the "smokers' corner" and saw a woman in full surgical gear -- gown, cap, booties and even a mask, hanging around her neck -- puffing away.

Sorry, that's just gross. I can visualize the person doing what my husband does: Hold that last drag in the lungs as long as possible and then let it out just before going back inside the building. On goes the mask, and that grungy air gets exhaled into the fibers of the mask, just before the wearer leans down to examine that incision... Yech, ptui!!

I hate to encourage draconian employer policies, since we already have more than enough of those ... but medical professionals who smoke on the job? I'm sorry. I cannot muster up any degree of tolerance for that. Light up the second you clock out, if you must. Smoke all night at home, if you must. But please consider the workplace a sacred space and leave those damn things at home! If you can't go 8 hours without a smoke, you are in a very sad place and need to get some help.

This concludes the rant. Click Here to Read More..

Juneteenth - Check it Out.

June 19 is known as Juneteenth, a timely and forward-looking celebration that encourages education, knowledge and self-improvement.

It hasn't been publicized as well as it should be, IMO. I'd like to see it catch on.

http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm Click Here to Read More..

Good Weekend

The last two days had nearly everything one such as myself might hope for in a weekend:

• A meal out
• Lots of sleep (yeah, baby!!!)
• Money-making potential, via the web
• No crises
• Spiritual uplift
  
• New furniture (it was a hand-me-down from Billy, but less than 30 years old. Some space dilemmas ensued, but it still looks gooood)
• Good weather. No rain, a little breeze, not too hot.
• A chance to get together with some people I hadn't seen in awhile
• A neighborhood association meeting with no drama (though several people tried to coax me back onto the Executive Committee. Can you spell "no," boys and girls?)

A decent weekend like this makes it possible to face a Monday at work. I'll check back at the end of the week and let you know how long it lasts. My co-worker is having surgery this week and will be out probably through the end of the month. This, of course, means overtime but also means TSQ will be in enhanced psycho mode.

Have a great week, everyone... Click Here to Read More..

A Celebration of Prudery, Nonsense and Illogical Legalese

Ellen Friedrichs on AlterNet offers a mind-boggling sampler of sex-related laws throughout the US - everything from "sexting" to what NOT to say when your students (or, for that matter, your own kid) asks you questions about the birds & the bees.

Scare - E. Click Here to Read More..

Messy? Or Messed Up?

One of my little fascinations is people who live lives of out-of-control clutter. Yes, I will gawk at Oprah's show (on the rare occasion I'm home to watch it), when her featured guest is someone whose home is subdivided into "rooms" made of stacked newspapers going back to the Kennedy Administration.

I guess this interest has its roots in my own youth. My dad was one of those people who were terrified of throwing something away. As he got closer to retirement, this propensity got much worse. He decided he had to start recycling, but didn't know how to go about it. His solution was to keep all the trash in the garage until he could get around to separating out the aluminum cans. It's a good measure of how tuned in I was at that age, that I never thought to volunteer for this job. Instead, Mom and I rolled our eyes at each other and shook our heads, watching the bags of refuse pile up ... until we started seeing mice and badgered Dad into just letting Sanitation pick it up.

Anyway, the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization has put together an interesting tool (downloadable .pdf format) for evaluating the degree to which a clutter-bug might be edging into the Need-Help Zone. It's called the Clutter Hoarding Scale - down along the left-hand side of the organization's linked website.

In these stressful times of economic crisis, I have a hunch that more people than ever are finding themselves awash in this type of problem -- less ability to organize, combined with dwindling resources to maintain their home and make disciplined decisions about "stuff." We see more people moving "back home" as they become unable to keep up house payments, or downsizing to a trailer or one-bedroom apartment. Possessions suddenly take on heavier significance. Am I wasteful if I throw that away? I have so little already -- how can I afford to cast off still more? We live in thrifty times. I should save that old _____ and make a _____ out of it, like I saw in a magazine.

I subscribe to a news feed from Unclutterer.com. Check it out if this topic draws you, too. Click Here to Read More..

You Can't Pigeonhole What's Personal

I suspect I'm not alone in keeping a running list of potential book titles in my head. One of those, which perhaps one day I'll actually write and publish, is called It's Always Personal. There's no such thing as "wholly objective" politics or ideology. The convictions that often turn into far-reaching public policy come from the personal experiences of one individual, who perchance connects with others who share similar experiences. When these people and their common bond find themselves in "the right place at the right time," you can end up with new paths in history.

My little thesis gets a boost from this article in the New York Times, comparing Supreme Court aspirant Sonia Sotomayor with the sitting 18-year veteran Clarence Thomas. Two minority Catholics, not too far apart in age, whose worldviews are at distant poles.

So what's personal? Experience and temperament.

Mr. Thomas learned he could rely only on himself. His father left when he was a toddler. A few years later, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents, dumping his possessions in grocery bags and sending him out the front door, he wrote in his autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

Ms. Sotomayor also grew up without a father; hers died of heart problems when she was 9. But her mother was a sustaining force, supporting the family by working as a nurse. In a recent speech, Judge Sotomayor recalled her mother and grandmother chatting and chopping ingredients for dinner. “I can’t describe to you the warmth of that moment for a child,” she said.

And what if these two histories were reversed? Isolate little Sonia from nurturing family connections, and put young Clarence in a warmer, more close-knit and positive-thinking family, and what would you get?

We'll obviously never know. I suspect that with such an upbringing, Sotomayor would still have carved a niche for herself, still identifying with the underdog and championing their rights -- if not at Princeton, then perhaps among less prestigious, more subversive company. And Mr. Thomas may have gained the confidence to push forward and join those elite "insiders" who so intimidated and frustrated him at Yale, rather than hanging back and feeling permanently isolated from everything he really wanted.

It is as pointless to speculate about something that will never be, as it is to dismiss such factors and expect any individual to "put aside" their personal experience when called to the bench. Neither Sotomayor nor Thomas wears blinders that render them incapable of seeing the other side of an argument. Both are highly intelligent and idealistic.

In the final analysis, both are human. No one can expect anything more or less. Click Here to Read More..

Wallyology

I haven't blogged about my son in awhile. He finished his freshman year but may not get to be a sophomore anytime soon. If I thought a "smack upside the head" would make a difference, he'd have gotten one long ago from either his father or me. But he's locked into a pattern of making dumb, impulsive decisions and then lying when the decision starts to go wrong. As a result, he will soon lose his car and basically be disowned by his father, who says Wally has "worn out his welcome."

I think the only thing that will set him straight is being forced to be entirely on his own. No favors, no gifts, no safety net, no second chances, no benefit-of-the-doubt. He tells me a decent-paying job seems to be a sure thing, and I certainly hope he's right about that. He will need one. I'm a long way from giving up hope that he will start behaving in a mature manner. He has the foundation - he just needs a more immediate sense of the consequences when he hatches one of his hare-brained ideas. It can be said that both his father and I made decisions through the last 15 years that have contributed to Wally's mindset...but there is no way to turn back the clock. Even abject apologies from both of us would make little difference. I've used Carl (my husband, Wally's stepfather) as an example of things Wally shouldn't do -- quit school, start smoking, lock himself into a dead-end job and/or "up and move" when things get stressful. I think he understands the truth of this.

He has a girlfriend he seems to be fairly nuts over -- this is the first one he's really gone on about. But I'm uneasy that he may grab onto her as a life raft. I hope her parents are strict and protective, because if they're not, she could be vulnerable to the urge to rescue and take care of Wally as he bumbles his way along to stability. Click Here to Read More..

And a good time was had by all. 'specially me.

Okay, guys, I have just gotten through, truly, the suckiest week at work in a long time. I will not belabor the details; that's not the purpose of this post.

This is going to be a happy post, by gum.

At 5:00-ish yesterday evening, I almost literally limped to my car. I mean, we're talking down, ragged and defeated, despite the author of my pain taking a vacation day. My circadian rhythms make the hours between 5 and 7 pm the lowest point for me, energy-wise. I typically get up at 6 a.m. and for the next several hours am very ready, willing and able to do just about anything, especially when it comes to planning and organizing. But starting around 3:30 in the afternoon, the energy starts to wane seriously. Especially on Friday, and especially if it's been a tough week. A good example of this was yesterday -- made a detour to the restroom and stood in front of the wastebasket with a crumpled paper towel in one hand and my car keys in the other -- needing about three long seconds to sort out which one I was supposed to toss in. There are some evenings when I will walk in the door, say hi to Carl, kick off the shoes and most of the clothes, and just fall into bed and be deeply asleep within 2 minutes, waking up an hour or so later not having changed position. Then, of course, I stay up until the wee morning hours, but...

So, yesterday evening, I had to rush over to the church to catch the tail-end of an important meeting, and then a half hour later it was time to attend dinner at a friend's house. I had to slap together a time sheet, as I always do on Fridays, and would have gotten it started earlier, except for having to fill in on the company switchboard from 4-5. So it's rush-rush-rush, making up the time sheet, shutting down my computer, putting away all the paperwork and getting out of Dodge. In my quest to arrive promptly at the meeting, I took a shortcut along one of the most dismal, drug-ridden streets in the city. Such was my pessimistic frame of mind that I fully anticipated encountering a flat tire, fender-bender, carjacking, or improvised explosive device along one of those 4 blocks. Perhaps my emotional sun started to peek through the clouds as I turned onto the next street and left all that squalor behind.

The church meeting was not unpleasant, but it was a somewhat confused and talk-heavy affair, and having come in so late, there was little for me to contribute. I think everybody was fairly fatigued by the time we broke up at 6:00, but I didn't want to arrive too early at the dinner, which was located just blocks away. But there was no one to hang out and chat with, so I took the long route to my friend's. I'd never previously visited them before dark. Upon arriving, I discovered that they have ample parking space behind their house, making it unnecessary to scope out an appropriate spot at the curb. One of the other guests had arrived just before me; their smiling faces were a balm to the soul as we walked into the house together.

And so went the whole evening. My friend is a wonderful host, along with her husband, and a splendid cook. I've known her just over two years and feel enormously blessed by her friendship. She is a consummate night-owl. If you even try to make conversation with her before 11 a.m. or so, you'd be advised to record it, since she won't remember much of it later. So most of the time we spend together is on weekday evenings. She's walking on air, while my ass is dragging. I was genuinely worried about how I'd hold up for 3 hours' worth of leisurely dining and conversation with six other people.

But I needn't have worried. There was wine (oh, yesss!), salad, a roast, potatoes, squash, a marvelous dessert and coffee. A few auxiliary brain cells kicked in and I was able to converse intelligently about politics, religion and society in general. I indulged briefly in a recitation of the preceding week's miseries, but all of that suddenly, miraculously felt irrelevant.

After about three hours, the inevitable exhaustion reappeared and I was the first to get up and say goodnight. I'd seen one or two discreet glances at wristwatches before that and suspected that I'd provided an opportunity for the others. Six warm hugs and then it was a short, uneventful cruise back to my (thankfully) empty street and quiet abode.

An absolutely perfect end to a day that could have been worse, at the conclusion of a week that many of us thought would just drag on forever.

I'm hoping the momentum will carry me through this weekend and enable me to do something other than stare at the computer and take naps. And then Monday it's back to the battlefield ... freshly armored. Click Here to Read More..

Absolutely nothin'

A fellow blogger has been conspicuously absent the last week or so; today he resurfaced with an explanation that his neglect of an urgent project has made him decide to cut back on his Internet activity until he gets it all done.

At least he's got a legitimate excuse. I check in here every day; see my most recent post growing cobwebs and still can't come up with a decent topic that's postworthy. I comment plenty, both here and on LiveJournal. Just no original posts.

Some of my mental energy has been diverted to one of those sites where you write "articles" for which they "pay." The quotes refer to the fact that no magazine I know would accept the stuff I crank out at its current level of quality, and the fact that the "pay" amounts to pennies and you have to accrue $25 before you can get it out via PayPal. Still, it's become mildly addictive.

Have been catching up with several old friends recently unearthed on Facebook. Trying to come up with a way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Harris' novel Hannibal, which launched my brief fanfiction writing career and some decent friendships, both on- and off-line.

So, in case anybody was wondering, I'm not dead, at least not in the physical sense. Depressed, maybe, a little. Looking forward to the next burst of inspiration. It will come. It always does. Click Here to Read More..

Sol

A gentleman at the church I attend is close to 83, and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a couple of years ago. His declining state troubled me enough to e-mail the minister about it. I'm feeling half-embarrassed about the e-mail, because I picture him reading it, thinking "Tell me something I DON'T know."

Sol has been at the center of church life for decades. I'm a newcomer. So the majority of people know Sol and his large family, most of whom attend the church. They knew Sol when he was the founder and CEO of his own company.

Other people have joined the church since I did. They probably look at Sol and think of him as "the old guy who won't be around much longer." He's always been a quiet sort (at least as long as I've known him). He and his wife sit in their accustomed seats in the front every Sunday without fail (except for a week here and there when one or the other was in the hospital). They're a "fixture" in the truest sense of the word. It's easy to look at him and think "He's here, he's old, end of story."

But I fit somewhere in the middle between those who "remember him when" and those who don't know him at all. When I first joined the church, he welcomed me, fetched me coffee, and made small talk about what we had in common, which is a Jewish background. There was a connection made there, and so I took notice of things he did and said. He was a funny guy, and sharp. He had a wry sense of humor. Another elderly gent in our church tends to be something of an instigator. He'd throw some crack at Sol, and Sol would saw him right off at the knees. It was a treat to see Sol in action.

In the last couple of years, Sol has been in the hospital for heart problems and his wife was treated for cancer. They both "pulled through." But my most recent interaction with Sol was quite different from what I'd gotten used to. Now he barely speaks and is more likely to fall asleep wherever he sits. His breathing is labored and rapid, and his facial expression when awake is one of puzzlement. Sure, the way he has been for five years probably is nothing like the younger version of Sol, but just what I've seen in the last month marks a dramatic deterioration.

Because I spent much of my childhood in the company of older relatives and neighbors, I saw plenty of people "get old," "slow down," etc. But the difference between the natural aging process and Alzheimer's is unmistakable, even in someone of advanced age. It doesn't just sneak up gradually. Or if it does initially, once it takes hold, the effects are obvious, even on a week-to-week basis.

It's scary. I'm glad the scientific community is working to find a remedy.

[Came home, wrote some more...]

Some years ago, I heard a truism I never forgot:

"When the mind goes, the heart shows." That could be why some people who always seemed to have it together in their prime become ugly and foul when they get old and their faculties slip. I also think this applies to intoxication as well as dementia. Other people become childlike and sweet.

That's the case with Sol. Those who knew him a few decades ago describe him as a Type-A, impatient, rather intimidating, driven sort. That was all in the past by the time I joined the congregation. The man I met was gentle, kind, absolutely devoted to his wife. I feel privileged to have met the "heart" of Sol, before the Alzheimer's took that away, too. Click Here to Read More..

"White Light" - Wishin' and Hopin'

I don't pray to a deity. Stopped doing that nearly 7 years ago. Happy to put it behind me. Never looked back.

I don't meditate. But I'd like to learn. I have a great deal of difficulty focusing on one thing, such as breathing, to the exclusion of other things. It's a work in progress.

But without prayer or meditation, there remains the question of what to do when there's a situation that's out of your control, but you've got something invested in the outcome.

Wish ... hope ... send white light, as a friend of mine likes to say.

I'm more than a bit skeptical about the "law of attraction." I've tried it a few times, seen it work, but the track record is almost exactly equivalent to the results gained through prayer. Inconsistent. Closer to coincidence than anything.

So I hesitate, good humanist/skeptic/UU that I am, to delude myself into thinking I can send out "waves" or "vibes" or anything like that to the universe and somehow influence it to alter the course of events to suit me. Pure logic says it's in my head and nowhere else.

But the thoughts persist. The helplessness that has kept religion going for millennia.

Two of my good friends have been vacationing at Ground Zero for the current flu outbreak. They are healthy, vigorous people who always keep a positive attitude and don't generally slouch around talking about their latest ailment. And fortunately, in the event that some microbe may overtake them, they have access to good healthcare. There really is no reason to worry about my friends. They've kept in touch via e-mail and made no mention of any worries other than government offices being closed and the possibility of travel delays. I do sense, though, that they're more than ready to get back home.

I feel tense, restless, and yes, helpless. I have a personal stake in this situation simply because I care about them and think they're undeserving of sickness, bureaucratic inconvenience, or even the worries of friends, who may want them to quarantine themselves for a week or so after they come back, just to play it safe.

I'm as clueless about "white light" as I ever was about prayer. The Law of Attraction folks say I should only visualize the best outcome -- picture them bouncing off the plane with carefree grins and luggage full of whimsical, sanitary souvenirs. A month's worth of amusing stories about the food and scenery. That is, actually, how I see them in my mind's eye.

If that's "white light," I'm hitting the SEND button now. Click Here to Read More..

"Coming Out" as a non-believer

I've copied and pasted an entire letter and response that appeared in Salon.com's advice column, authored by the brilliant and compassionate Cary Tennis. Salon doesn't always provide access without a subscription; this came by way of Google Reader.

This man's dilemma is one that I dealt with last weekend, surrounded everywhere by evangelicals. With all the non-stop drama, the last thing I wanted to do was stir the pot by making reference to my non-religious status. Even disclosing that I attend a UU church was risky, so I kept mum.

There were, of course, plenty of people in the family who were also "on the outside." I guess we all get "prayed-for" on a regular basis...

~~~


April 21, 2009 |

Dear Cary,

I'm "stepping out on faith" here, but could you offer me some helpful advice and/or suggestions? I am an African-American male who, after several years of being a conservative, evangelical Christian, now considers myself to be a "Jesus-admiring, agnostic humanist" who also attends weekly church services at a predominantly African-American Missionary Baptist congregation with my conservative Christian wife. In light of this, I have long agonized over the idea of announcing my philosophical position to my Christian spouse, family and friends.


Click Here to Read More..

A week, and a year

The atmosphere is heavy here at home today, because it marks one week since Billy died. My husband, in particular, feels some resentment at the "life must go on" philosophy. I agree, it seems a bit too soon to just "forget about it." The weekend with family brought back all the never-ending drama that surrounds so many of our relatives. And even 150 miles away, we keep stumbling over little reminders.

One year ago, Billy was in very bad shape. I had saved some of his e-mails. They were all written in block caps with no punctuation or sentence division. You had to read them over a few times to get the rhythm, tempo and shadings. They were brief, almost like haiku. When he wasn't giving Larry the Cable Guy a run for his money with his outrageous, wry humor, he was sending out clear cries for help. But trying to respond was akin to tracking someone out at sea in a dense fog. You'd swear the voice was coming from the east, but once you arrived there, you found nothing, and resumed paddling about, listening for more clues. We had gotten so many "goodbye cruel world" messages from him, interspersed with the clowning, that after awhile, we could do nothing but sit back, wait, and try to offer him friendship and encouragement when he would accept it.

While there won't be a clear cause of death available for a couple more months (pending all the autopsy & toxicology reports), we're reasonably confident that he died of natural causes. The scientific term for this is "Just one a them thangs." The medical personnel at the scene say that his body showed no movement or struggle after he hit the water, unlike a person trying to save himself from drowning. Death must have come very, very fast. Was his state of mind such that he welcomed it? We'll never know. He wasn't in the midst of extreme hardship, as he had been a few months before ... but his relationship with his daughter had to have been at the lowest point possible. He viewed her as flawless, an angel. It appears that in the weeks leading up to Billy's death, she resisted that characterization to the point that she went out of her way to rub her father's face in her imperfection; to make it impossible for him to harbor any illusions. He may have felt great relief that parts of his life (finances, friends, health) were turning around, but doubtless felt an endless void with regard to the one person that really meant anything to him.

I'm just one person among many, surprised again every day at just how badly he is missed. Click Here to Read More..

A Leaf Falls

Carl's younger brother Billy was found dead early this evening, face-down in a shallow pond. Only the medical examiner knows for sure at this point, but I think he probably suffered a stroke or heart attack and fell forward. He was not in good health. Ironically, things were just barely beginning to turn around for him. He'd just turned 50, two months ago. In December he moved into a house on his older brother's property and was starting to make friends and feel less like a hermit. Things were probably at their best in 10 years, despite being on permanent disability and in poor health.

Billy was the youngest of six. The first to go. He also has an 18-year-old daughter who was the light of his life -- her mother died of cancer in 2002. They'd been divorced for years before that but Billy never really loved anyone else. She had remarried and Billy had had one long-term relationship, complete with stepchildren. That relationship ended about 6 years ago and then Billy lost his job. It was a mess, but moving closer to J.R. was a very positive step.

We'll be taking a 150-mile road trip sometime within the next 12 hours. Most likely there will be a long delay before he can be buried, but Carl will want to be with his family. Click Here to Read More..

Sleaze: Individual vs. Corporate

For the first time since at least the mid-1980s I feel sorry for Woody Allen. My personal opinion, just to get it out of the way, is that everything Mia Farrow accused him of is true. And that's all I have to say about that, because other than representing a generation's worth of cinema, the man has no personal connection to my life.

Now, on to American Apparel. This company also has no connection to my life whatsoever, other than furnishing my terminally fashionable son with clothing that is acceptable to him. It makes me no never mind, as my grandma used to say.

But, as anyone who has taken a General Business 101 course can quickly tell you, ya DON'T use the image of a celebrity in your ads without obtaining their permission and/or being prepared to compensate that person for the use of their image. Or go to court...

Heck, I vividly remember Robyn Smith, the former jockey and widow of Fred Astaire, doing serious battle with various advertisers who attempted to doctor film footage of the dancing legend to sell their wares. Fred was dead already; probably could not have cared less, alive or dead, but someone was concerned enough about preserving his dignity and reputation to prevent those intangibles from being appropriated for someone else's gain.

So here's ol' Woody, understandably miffed at the unauthorized use of his image. When you're miffed, you use lots of subjective, opinionated-type words, such as "sleaze." That should have no bearing on the legal proceedings.

But because sound bites richly reward anyone who behaves childishly, American Apparel has chosen to escalate the war of words by getting out their rusty shovels and dig-dig-diggin' the dirt on the plaintiff.

Sheez. Didn't I see this on L.A. Law? Where's Susan Bloom when we need her, other than doing Charlie Sheen's laundry?

I hope the judge hangs these corporate clowns out to dry. Agree with it or not, another judge found Woody Allen relatively guilt-free a long time ago. Taking a "best-defense-is-a-good-offense" approach cannot help American Apparel. All it will help is the ratings on various tabloid-TV news shows (which means all of them). Click Here to Read More..

Uh huh...

I should never randomly surf the web when I'm feeling curmudgeonly, as is the case this evening.

I stumbled onto a blog that shall remain nameless, other than the self-description: "Just an amateur blogger."

This individual wrote an article about making money on the internet.

Here's the first sentence -- copied and pasted:

Get money from the internet with the only writing on the site is very enjoyable.

I'll bet she makes money hand over fist...writing instruction manuals for consumer electronics that are sold at Dollar General.

Click Here to Read More..

Making Lists, Killing Time

Confession: I'm killing time to avoid having to confront the painful reality of tax preparation. And that's all I have to say about that.

As for the lists, I have subdivided my blog list into categories, mainly because the list was getting unwieldy. Some of the categories are pretty easy, especially "Atheist Blogs," because a great many have the "A" word in the title or the "scarlet letter" prominently featured.

I originally had two separate categories in mind for "liberal" blogs and "political" blogs, but truthfully, you're not going to find any "Townhall"-style bloggers featured here, so for me, "liberal" and "political" are a tad redundant.

Skeptic/atheist/freethinker that I am, I still attend a Unitarian Universalist church, as I've mentioned here and there; it's an adventure to sort out objective reality from wonder (or "woo-woo," as our minister calls it). Yesterday's "unknown" is today's science and the same undoubtedly holds true now, for the most part. Yet, there are still questions about how we grow our worldview, and anyone who takes on this challenge full-time deserves recognition, which is why the "Religion/Philosophy" list is separate.

The feminist blog list is small, and I am in the process of remedying that.

As for the rest, a number of my favorites fall into several categories all at once, or offer an unblinking and unintimidated view of the author's everyday life, which I find irresistible and often inspirational. We are, indeed, all in this together and blogging helps provide great reassurance of that. There are a few expert blogs in here, as well as irreverent humor -- in all cases, you'll find an abundance of talent and great writing.

If you're a blog author and you want to persuade me to move your blog to another list, drop a line. Meanwhile, enjoy and have a good rest of the weekend. Click Here to Read More..

Locking KIDS up for life - it's just plain wrong.

I read this story on CNN.com a couple of days ago and have been waiting for a less-busy day to sit and cogitate on it -- I knew it would end up as a blog post.

I've watched our society become more and more punitive and unforgiving over the last 35 years or so. It's time we got down to what lies at the bottom of it.

Here's one bottom dweller:

Jennifer Jenkins, who co-founded the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Lifers. The Illinois-based group has fought legislation in nine states that would remove sentences of life without parole.

It wasn't this quote that got me into Rant mode:

"Victims have the right not to be constantly revictimized," she said.

It was this one from another bottom-dweller,

Harriet Salerno, president of Crime Victims United of California, a group trying to block the passage of laws that would ease sentencing for juveniles.

She founded the victim's group after her daughter, a pre-medical student, was murdered at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California in 1979.

"Many of them have dysfunctional homes, and the crimes will escalate because there is no place to put them." [emphasis mine]

Here's another gem from Ms. Salerno, not a direct quote:

Salerno, of Crime Victims United of California, said that some juveniles can be rehabilitated but that some committed crimes so severe, resources shouldn't be wasted on them.

The story also notes, significantly, that not all of these life sentences are for murder. Armed kidnapping and rape are heinous crimes, for sure, but combine the fact that the victims survived with the age of the perpetrator and it's enough to make you want to bang your head.

Here's what I'd like to say to Ms. Jenkins and Ms. Salerno:
Your statements reflect fear. No doubt, when you lose a family member to homicide, it changes your worldview. But what I'm hearing from you is, even a perpetrator such as Quantel Lotts, who committed a one-time offense and has demonstrated remorse -- the victim's family is even working toward his release -- should be kept behind bars forever because he frightens you.

I'm more than happy to endorse a two-strikes-and-you're-out policy. A person who commits a crime in the heat of passion, or out of a warped value system (such as gang involvement) has the opportunity, while in prison, to ponder his fate and his alternatives. The penal system needs to get back to the business of rehabilitation, BUT, even a typical stretch in a state prison can motivate a reasonable individual to resolve to stay out following release. It's a tough road, but not a non-existent one. So a willful reoffense, to me, does deserve the old lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key. Absolutely.

But to condemn someone to life in prison when there's no indication that he intends to pick up where he left off the second the gate slides open is short-sighted and self-indulgent. It's also a flagrant misuse of power. We might as well throw socioeconomic and racial bigotry into the mix, since it is there in the quotes for all to see.

I don't like what our society has become.

I don't like the vilification of people such as Michael Shane Lasseter, who make goofy mistakes and are held up as the epitome of evil. Once again, we have a pattern: Because of Lasseter's foolish and unthinking actions, coming less than 2 months after the 9/11 attacks, a lot of people got scared. Nobody got hurt. But the guy was made to suffer excessively, in my opinion.

I don't like the fact that you can say the phrase "I could kill you for that" and run the risk of having someone file charges against you. Just the other day at work, I called a customer and left a voice message that part of the problem I'd called him about earlier had resolved itself on its own after we spoke. When he called back, he said "I'm visualizing my hands around your neck." Twenty years ago that phrasing would have been recognized for what it was: ironic humor. Nowadays, it takes courage or naivete to say something like that. People go to prison for saying things like that.

We live in a crazy world. Gradually, the "good guys" are morphing into the villains.

Jennifer Jenkins and Harriet Salerno frighten me.

Let's lock 'em up.

End of rant... for now. Click Here to Read More..

Talking About Israel Some More

Back on October 31 of last year, I reflected on my evolving mindset concerning the "other" side of my religious heritage, i.e. Judaism. The first item on my short list was Israel, and how, for many years, I had been convinced that it represented a more advanced moral standard and a higher plane of existence, as it were. More recently, having rejected religion outright, I was finally willing to take a cold, hard look at Judaism and decide whether or not it was worthy of rejection in the same way as Christianity.

I thought I had the issue all tucked in and put to bed with the lights out, but recently, a new angle (new to me, at least) on the subject has taken shape.

Excerpted below is the article from the NY Times - emphasis mine.

A Religious War in Israel’s Army
By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — The publication late last week of eyewitness accounts by Israeli soldiers alleging acute mistreatment of Palestinian civilians in the recent Gaza fighting ... exposes something else: the clash between secular liberals and religious nationalists for control over the army and society.

...[T]he left-leaning secular kibbutz movement ... showed a distinct impatience with religious soldiers, portraying them as self-appointed holy warriors.

For the first four decades of Israel’s existence, the army — like many of the country’s institutions — was dominated by kibbutz members who saw themselves as secular, Western and educated. In the past decade or two, religious nationalists, including many from the settler movement in the West Bank, have moved into more and more positions of military responsibility.

“The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies... The religious right is trying to have an impact on Israeli society through the army.”

Those who oppose the religious right have been especially concerned about the influence of the military’s chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, who is himself a West Bank settler and who was very active during the war, spending most of it in the company of the troops in the field.

He took a quotation from a classical Hebrew text and turned it into a slogan during the war: “He who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful.”

...[W]hat was evident in Gaza was that the humanistic tradition from which a code of ethics is derived was not being sufficiently observed there.

Mr. Halbertal, the Jewish philosopher who opposes the attitude of Rabbi Rontzki, said ...“The right tends to make an equation between authenticity and brutality, as if the idea of humanism were a Western and alien implant to Judaism,” he said. “They seem not to know that nationalism and fascism are also Western ideas and that hypernationalism is not Jewish at all.”

This brings me back once again to an examination of what Judaism is to me. I realize now that from the very beginning of my exploration of Judaism, the focus was always on philosophy, scholarship, reason. I recall the pleasure I derived in college from independent reading and study -- the leisurely examination of "the meaning of life," and the historical threads that bound all of like mind -- those who sensed that we, as humans, had the potential to rise above emotion-driven savagery and create a world of thought, beauty and constructive action. But the farther along I went, the more room there was for religion to rear its ugly head. Time and again I was reminded by one person or another, that, oh yes, scholarship is fine, but Judaism is about tradition, which holds that women are "ordained by the almighty to be separate from men and to serve a different function. Women, you see, are holy because they can bear children, and that is your supreme calling. Scholarship is nothing -- men study scripture day and night because they can't bear children..." etc. etc.

So while I tried mightily to cling to the humanistic, reason-bound traditions of Judaism, my lack of grounding in it (that is, the fact that my mother was gentile and therefore I did not have "the birthright" as one rabbi put it), made it very hard to fight back against the growing tide of traditionalism. In college, for example, during my sophomore year when I first began hanging out at Hillel, the campus rabbi was a fairly liberal-leaning, egalitarian sort. At first glance, he gave the impression of being rather old-school, but that wasn't where he was coming from.

But then he left, and a female rabbi replaced him. And then came the backlash. Whereas earlier, our functions had been co-ed, as soon as the female rabbi arrived, the more reactionary elements in Hillel demanded a more traditional setting for our social activities. And so up went the mechitza [that's the curtain that separates men and women in orthodox synagogues]. Soon there was a lot of talk about the "authentic Jewish experience," in which we gals were expected to move to a Chasidic enclave and settle into a "proper" existence of early marriage and abundant childbearing, complete with an ugly wig, ugly shoes, and a lifestyle reminiscent of a Polish shtetl in 1901. The Jewish version of Quiverfull, in other words.

This encroachment of oppressive religion was what drove me far and fast from Judaism. Something in me sensed that it was harmful to my psyche. And since the rabbis I consulted were unanimous in saying that I should never expect any encouragement to convert, that I was entirely on my own in this endeavor, backing away was fairly painless. [The followup question of what led me into Christianity is something I'll have to look at later, since it seems to be a clear contradiction.]

But getting back to Israel -- it's a question that I imagine many Jews are having to grapple with, and it parallels the dilemma that many religious Americans have faced over the last 35 years or so, as the religious right has hijacked some fairly benign and humanistic concepts. Equality, dignity, compassion, unity ... those were the values I grew up with as a nominal Catholic, and I have clear memories of a reaching out between Christians and Jews during the post-war years, up to the late 1970s. Suddenly, religion began overshadowing everything again, emphasizing the differences between groups that had been working so hard to embrace their commonalities.

Finally, the question is being spelled out for people to really look at. What is Israel, and more importantly, what is Judaism? Is it an advanced, lofty, scholarly, humanistic and ultra-modern system of philosophy? Or is it, like other western religions, a regressive, patriarchal political system that endeavors to shackle its followers through fear, superstition and brainwashing?

My rejection of Israel in my post from last October was, I think, born out of the intuition of what it seems to be becoming -- what the New York Times article describes. Click Here to Read More..

Yeah, Things COULD Be Worse, Actually...

This was from one of my favorite sites: Not Always Right: Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes.

“When you’re 85 years old and you wake up with a pulse, and your next door neighbor isn’t hitting you over the head with a shovel, you’re having a good day.” Click Here to Read More..

A Dish Best Served ... Not?

I'm LOLing over here. At the top of my Gmail list was this, erm, appetizing recipe title, and I just HAD to click.

This could be the perfect way to discourage visits from people you'd just as soon never see again!

Title: FRENCH FRY SPAM CASSEROLE
Categories: Main dish
Yield: 8 servings

1 pk Frozen french fry potatoes,
-thawed (20 oz)
2 c Shredded Cheddar cheese
2 c Sour cream
1 cn Condensed cream of chicken
-soup (10 3/4 oz)
1 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
-(12 oz)
1/2 c Chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c Chopped green onion
1/2 c Finely crushed corn flakes

Heat oven to 350'F. In large bowl, combine potatoes, cheese, sour
cream, and soup. Stir in SPAM, bell pepper, and green onion. Spoon
into 13x9″ baking dish. Sprinkle with crushed flakes. Bake 30-40
minutes or until thoroughly heated. Click Here to Read More..

Villains

Today, in an idle moment (at work, naturally), I pondered the question of exactly how many people in my life I could legitimately call "the bad guys." People who had a profoundly negative impact on me ... where if it were possible to go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would be sure never to get involved with them again.

My list came out to just over two dozen, which was far less than I'd expected to get when I started. I subdivided it by decades, and what I got was:

Five people during my first ten years (three of whom were teachers);
Five people during middle school, high school and college;
Only two during my 20s and early married life (and no, my ex wasn't in that group);
Nine during my 30s and the years immediately following the divorce (and yes, Doug did make that roster);
Six in the last 10 years.

Making a list like this gives way to the inevitable self-analysis. What made me befriend that person in the first place? What was the attraction? And then what was the fundamental change that later on made me reach for the ejector switch?

The volition factor is there in just under 50% of those on the list. The rest are teachers, bosses and a couple of identity thieves. I had two such incidents about five years apart. In the first case, I'm reasonably sure who the person was, and I naively left myself open to the theft. But in the second case, it came out of nowhere.

It's been an interesting exercise, and the lesson, of course, is to be aware of who comes and goes in your life, and why. Click Here to Read More..

Bernie Madoff: Prisoner No. 419?

A recent CNN piece describes the deluge of anguished and irate correspondence received by the prosecution before Bernard Madoff pled guilty.

Among the sad and at times profane accounts from the convicted swindler's victims, one ironic e-mail stood out:

Penned by an African scam artist whose name was withheld, the letter expressed an urgent need for an American intermediary willing to give up details of his bank account to the author so that he could move his funds from the Republic of Congo to Dubai.

The author promised a return of 10 percent of his alleged $350 million funds, and even offered a preemptive apology in case his proposal offended the readers' moral values.

The only request he made was that the intermediary provide him with "absolute assurance that the funds will be safe and you will not sit on [the money] when it is transferred to your account." Click Here to Read More..

Leave My Elevator Alone

I wish our internets would refrain from spontaneously inventing new games...

Yahoo, where my home page is, has been up to some weirdness in the last 12 hours. First, it took several tries to access my e-mail. Then it decided that my life wouldn't be complete without "instant" access to and from everyone on my list via instant messaging. Just what I need -- people popping up to say hi. I get it on Facebook, and now Yahoo.

Now it (or maybe Blogger) has decided that some of the blogs on my list at the right are more properly enjoyed after being turned into "feeds." So I can't just click my faves and read them; I have to go back to Yahoo. Any time this happens, I will choose to Follow if the option is available and then take them off Yahoo. So far, it's happened with 3 blogs and I was able to use the follow option with one.

So go ahead, change it! Improve it! But at least have the courtesy to ask me first...

Grumble, grumble... Click Here to Read More..

Welcome!!!

I add new blogs to my list all the time (yeah, I'm up to 80 of 'em), but this is the first time I'm making a formal announcement about it.

This is because I'm hoping everyone will tune in to Vyckie and Laura, who were recently featured on salon.com as having escaped from the patriarchal fundie "Quiverfull" movement. Their story is fascinating. I hope they will get plenty of support from like-minded bloggers. Solid backing will help so many other women in the same position gather the courage to save themselves from this lunacy.

Their blog is called "No Longer Quivering." Click Here to Read More..

Workstuff

Having depleted a lot of creative and emotional reserves with the previous post, it's taken me this long to come up with any sort of new topic. And so, I resort to a rather old one: The office.

Several months ago I described my co-worker Fredi. I know that she and her teammate Louise have been very bogged down with a combination of a bug-ridden new software system, new policies and procedures, year-end cleanup, and sheer volume of work. The woman who works with me was even pulled away from her job to help Fredi and Louise a couple of days a week. She came away from it feeling she'd accomplished nothing but fall behind with her own responsibilities. "They are SO disorganized!" she said, with more than a little disgust. Fredi's desk had become the one no one wanted to go near. If someone needed a document that Louise couldn't find, they would simply wait for Fredi to return, rather than take the risk of trying to wade through tottering stacks on the desk, the floor, and the overhead compartments.

In addition to a crushing workload, Fredi is also contending now with her mother, who fell recently and appears to be straying far off the road to recovery. As the elderly often will, she has decided she's "too old" to make the effort at rehab. Fredi had hoped she'd rally, but this seems not to be in the cards.

Last Friday I stayed late and heard Fredi & Louise's manager direct each of them to speak to him in his office -- Fredi first and then Louise. There was a tone to it that put me on the alert, whereas usually I'm so wrapped up in my own work, I'm oblivious to conversations around me unless they become unusually loud. I listened for Fredi, believing that if she got bad news from Taylor (i.e. a layoff), there would be a significant emotional reaction. But, she came out of Taylor's office and said to Louise "Your turn." All well and good, I thought, and went back to my own little world. Fredi left in her usual fashion: At top speed, with nary a word to anyone.

So Monday, I arrived at the office and saw out the corner of my eye that Fredi's cube was empty. This did not alarm me unduly -- with her mother's situation, she's already had to take time here and there for caregiver conferences and meetings to determine future placements. She tries to schedule them first thing in the morning, rather than cut a large chunk out of the day. It's been very stressful for her. She would often tell me how sleep was eluding her, due to worry and the feeling that there was no relief in sight.

A few minutes later, though, after I'd clocked in, hung up my jacket and started focusing on the day ahead, I took a second look at Fredi's cube and saw that all her many, many personal items were gone. Her workspace was stripped ... and her nameplate was blank.

Holy shit, I thought. I had few illusions about Fredi's stellar work habits and doubted very much that anyone else did ... but to pull the plug on someone who's maybe 6 years from retirement, someone with a disabled spouse, a house that won't sell, and now a mother headed into a decline, was truly heart-rending. I hoped they had at least offered her some sort of halfway decent severance -- she'd been with the company about ten years, I thought. And was Louise going to have to pull the entire load now? What was Fredi's husband, who still worked here, going to do? Would he quit in protest, or deliberately slack off at his job?

What a way to start a week.

And I spent the next half hour or so wondering how they'd managed to do this. Did they call her later Friday, or Saturday, perhaps? Or did she arrive first thing Monday morning and receive instructions to clean out her desk? It was, needless to say, difficult to concentrate on much else. I wanted badly to ask someone, but my manager and the others were walking back and forth, making casual conversation a bad option.

Interestingly, it was my manager who explained it. "We've had layoffs over the weekend," she said. I jerked my thumb toward Fredi's cube and said "So I've noticed."

My boss waved her hand in dismissal. "Oh, Fredi's fine. They sent her over to the local branch." The local branch is where all Fredi's closest friends are -- she left their group to come to our office about 3 years ago and has frequently talked about how much she missed them and their informal camaraderie. They are not a "corporate" bunch. They're a half-hour breakfast-at-your-desk and take-an-hour-to-peruse-the-new-Avon-catalog bunch.

It was by far the happiest moment I've had at work in a long time. I'm very glad for Fredi -- she still has her job and has escaped from this pressure cooker the rest of us are in. We exchanged a couple of brief e-mails and she confirmed what I'd surmised -- she's in the best of all possible worlds. She still gets to see her husband, since his work takes him here, there and everywhere.

It's been so busy since Monday, I haven't had a chance to ask Louise how she's holding up. I suppose I'll soon get a taste of whatever she's got going. The other person who does what I do is going in for some surgery tomorrow. It's a repeat of something she had before and that time, it kept her home for a few months. She claims she's determined to be out no more than a week, but I'll believe it when it happens. The timing's bad, though. My boss later went on to tell me that 2 other people DID get laid off Friday, and we're already seeing a lot of doubling-up of work loads.

The frantic pace does make the days and weeks go by faster. There is that. Click Here to Read More..

Attention Creationists: We're Onto You

An entertaining and insightful guide to recognizing a hidden religious agenda.

I especially like the following, having heard far too many of these during my years of being religiously educated via radio:

When you come across the terms "Darwinism" or "Darwinists", take heed. True scientists rarely use these terms, and instead opt for "evolution" and "biologists", respectively. When evolution is described as a "blind, random, undirected process", be warned. While genetic mutations may be random, natural selection is not. When cells are described as "astonishingly complex molecular machines", it is generally by breathless supporters of ID who take the metaphor literally and assume that such a "machine" requires an "engineer". If an author wishes for "academic freedom", it is usually ID code for "the acceptance of creationism".
If an author wishes for 'academic freedom', it is usually code for 'the acceptance of creationism.'

Some general sentiments are also red flags. Authors with religious motives make shameless appeals to common sense, from the staid - "There is nothing we can be more certain of than the reality of our sense of self" (James Le Fanu in Why Us?) - to the silly - "Yer granny was an ape!" (creationist blogger Denyse O'Leary). If common sense were a reliable guide, we wouldn't need science in the first place. Click Here to Read More..

Goodbye to 2 old friends

Relax, nobody died. I'm just lamenting the departure of two online tools that are both on the brink of disappearing this month. One is Yahoo Briefcase and the other is Google Notebook.

Briefcase became obsolete for me some time ago; I hadn't added anything to it in at least 3 years, but figured I'd better clear my stuff out before they pull the plug. I've long since discovered that simply e-mailing documents to yourself is a perfectly good way to keep them safe in case your hard drive crashes.

As for Notebook, that one really did serve a good purpose. Things I might otherwise have printed out and stored in binders could be kept handy for later reference. NY Times articles have a tendency to disappear off their archives sooner than later, so I copied and pasted the text rather than trust that a link would remain viable.

I did some research and came up with Ubernote.com* - they make it quite simple to import your Google Notebook files, which I did last night, even under the influence of overtiredness. I've grown increasingly fond of tools that allow you to instantly "clip" something, be it to Live Journal, Facebook or Ubernote.

It's a pain to have to exit one site you're fond of and get to know a new one, but it's worth it to ensure that my favorite passionate moments (including the "Michael Pollan for Secretary of Agriculture" campaign) can always be revisited.

*That's "Uber" with an umlaut. Click Here to Read More..

Any brilliant folks here?

I figured it couldn't hurt to ask:

My son Wally the college freshman is having a hell of a time with math. Specifically, advanced algebra / linear equations and such. When it comes to practical math, he's fine -- inherited that from his father. But his befuddlement at the more abstract concepts comes, alas, straight down the maternal line. He is taking the course for the second time, having bowed out with an incomplete last semester. He's even considered changing majors to avoid it, but every field he's looked into seems to have math lurking in the wings.

He's doing well enough with homework because it's all online and the program encourages students to keep looking for the answer until they get it right. But when a test is on paper, in front of him, and he has no other resources, he's lost. I don't think this is a "test anxiety" thing, since he's doing fine in all his other classes.

Anybody out there know any good secrets for fooling your brain into playing along with the course material and avoid the "oh, this is that stupid math that makes no sense and will never be used ever again after this" mindset? I'd love to hear from people who consider themselves major math-phobes but who found a way to chop through it and pass.

Any and all suggestions will be cut/pasted and e-mailed.

Thanks,

Wally's Mom Click Here to Read More..

An Even Better Reason to Admire Christopher Hitchens

Warning: This post contains a plague of run-on sentences.

As one of those "quiet types," I harbor a not-so-secret admiration for the biped bull in a china shop who WON'T put up and shut up until a lot of people are listening closely. While the rest of us little angels modestly hide our opinions or diffuse them with diplomacy, people like Christopher Hitchens are on the front lines, writing and acting simultaneously before a live audience, knowing that cheers and jeers are likely to follow in equal measure, but reasonably confident that one day, their truth will become so universal that they will no longer have to hammer at it, because a comfortable majority will have finally adopted it and convinced the rest.

So Hitchens may shock and irritate when he suggests that Mother Theresa was, at heart, an incurably unmarried woman who was willing to do a lot of hard work mainly because she liked the publicity, rather than some ethereal symbol of supernaturally imposed ideals. He slices through the philosophical theories of religious belief by asserting that religion "poisons everything," daring those who disagree to show him where he's wrong. Hitchens, to use a terribly overworked phrase, never declines to "walk the talk."

Last summer, Hitchens took a break from grousing about religion to sharpening the debate over torture, and the US's proper role in conducting it. Is waterboarding torture, or isn't it? he asked himself. And rather than sift through other people's answers, he decided to find out first-hand. He contacted the military unit that originally taught American soldiers how to survive "enhanced interrogation" at the hands of enemy captors, then shifted to teaching them how to perform such tasks.

In his Vanity Fair article, Hitchens describes the secret location, the indemnification agreement (releasing the military from liability in the event that Hitchens didn't survive the experience), the prearranged signal or safe word that would tell his obliging hosts to cease and desist (not unlike the technique used in consensual S&M activities), and finally, the main event.

As he relates it, Hitchens probably lasted less than half a minute before panic set in at having water poured into his face and all breathing blocked.

He was terrified.

And then, when his breathing and heartbeat were getting back into the normal range, he said he wanted to try it a second time.

Hitchens is 9 years my senior and some of his descriptions struck a sympathetic chord. Like me, he suffers from chronic, disruptive "acid reflux and mild sleep apnea," as well as the memory of a near-drowning incident in youth. He is overweight, non-athletic, and a heavy smoker. Other than the smoking and childhood trauma, his age, physical circumstances and sedentary lifestyle could easily describe me. It could also, realistically, describe a nameless, faceless "foreigner" swept up in an ambush and flown 7000 miles to a prison where journalists and lawyers are barred. Or an American soldier, seemingly in top condition, but possessed of all the human characteristics that make prolonged survival under drowning conditions impossible.

Christopher Hitchens' purpose in chronicling his experience with waterboarding was to offer a first-hand, non-simulated look at this highly controversial practice. My purpose in posting this is to express my respect for the courage it took to subject himself to his voluntarily, at the risk of his very life. Click Here to Read More..

Clark Howard - Our Guy's in Trouble

Clark Howard is an Atlanta-based nationally syndicated consumer advocate, who has been delivering a fresh, unpretentious radio and TV broadcast for over 15 years.

He's 53 but could easily pass for 40. However, today he announced that he has been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer. The condition did not sneak up on him -- his doctor found an abnormality in his bloodwork a few years ago and it's been carefully monitored. Prognosis is extremely good. However, Howard is now on the verge of becoming a health advocate, urging men to suck it up, go to the doctor and get checked, rather than ignoring something that can kill you.

I'm hoping Clark sails safely through this bit of turbulence and lives happily into old age. Click Here to Read More..

Pardon the dust...

I suddenly decided to redecorate MSHP. The colors got changed about 14 times; anyone who stumbled in when I was going through my Chartreuse & Bright Yellow phase will be glad I went to more of a vaguely "varsity" look. Sort of like the colors of the New York City Police Department in the mid-1960s.

My most significant contribution is using a larger type font. Hope you find it easier on the eyes.

Still not completely satisfied, but I'll rest for now.

Do you ever somehow think there must be colors out there that haven't been invented yet? Click Here to Read More..

10 Things My Mother Taught Me About Sex

Note: Okay, this really is meant as humor, though everything listed here actually was said to me by my mother, either directly or by implication. This, in the midst of bragging about how open-minded and "hip" she was compared to HER mother.

Not sure why I feel the need to warn that some may find this offensive, but in any case, consider yourself warned.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!

*
1. All men have a "thing."
2. If a man is in your bedroom but doesn't see a bed -- just a studio couch -- he won't think about sex.
3. French kissing? That's when a man tries to kiss you, but then he goes and STICKS HIS TONGUE in your mouth!
4. If you're about to have a romantic moment and then one partner gets distracted for even a second, it will kill the entire mood, and you might as well just forget it.
5. It is the height of rudeness for the man to ask the woman if she enjoyed it.
6. If you're holding hands with a boy and he scratches his finger against your palm, that's a signal that he wants to have sex, so you should avoid him.
7. I've heard that there are some guys who actually want you to put your mouth on "it." Or they want you to let them stick it in your butt.
8. I understand that sex can actually be quite pleasant.
9. Don't sit with your legs apart. Someone will come along and try to stick something in there.
10. One day, if you're not careful, some man will come along and force you to lie down and "connect" with him. ["connect" was the term I invented for intercourse when I first learned about it] Click Here to Read More..

Plagiarizing Myself

Currently suffering from writer's block compounded by apathy, I submit (with some editing) the following, which I originally posted elsewhere a couple of weeks ago. I'm rather proud of it...
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During the past 2-3 weeks my usual lunch routine has been knocked off course. Because I live exactly 1.8 miles from my place of employment, it's easy to run home for lunch. I can take care of minor tasks, eat what I want, have a little time to decompress, and save money.

However, the last few weeks have involved activities that took me away from the office for an hour or two -- physical therapy (6x in 2 weeks), MD appointment, and getting an emission inspection for my car. All of those precluded any home-time.

Last week it became something of a joke between Carl and me:
Q. "What did you do for lunch today?"
A. "McDonald's."
Q. "AGAIN???!"

I lost count along the way, but believe that for the 9 days I had to change my routine, at least 5 were under the watchful eye of Sir Ronald.

There are several factors that led me back to the Golden Arches again and again.

1. Location - There are 3 McDonald's restaurants along the routes I traveled to and from my errands.
2. Hours - Sometimes it was morning, other times lunch, but again, McD's was open for both.
3. Drive-through service with ease of access. There's a popular deli near the clinic that I thought about trying -- even drove past -- but by the time I figured out where to park, I'd gone past with no opportunity to turn around. The next most convenient place was, well, you know...
4. Variety. Not GREAT variety, but acceptable.
5. Price. In a pinch, there's always the dollar menu.

Well, today was my last day of running around, and I was dayum'd if I was going to have McDonald's AGAIN. Besides, I had a hankering for something they don't serve there, even if it isn't terribly healthy -- fried chicken. There are almost as many fried-chicken places around town as there are McDonald's, so I figured it was a fairly safe option, in terms of finding one easily and getting my food quickly enough to arrive back at work without running over.

Bojangles on East 23rd Street. I'd gone past it a number of times but never stopped in. I'd noticed that the restaurant and its property looked clean and well-kept with pleasant landscaping, so I pulled in this afternoon.

The first thing I noticed was that the drive-through lane was separated from the parking lot by concrete curbing. Once you pulled in, it was difficult, if not impossible to change your mind and opt to park and go in, unless you were at the back of the line with no one behind you.

Then I noticed how nothing was moving. One of the things that annoy me about McDonald's is, you don't have time to sit and listen to NPR, because before you know it, you're at the speaker, then at the first window, then the second, and minutes later you're back at work. Not much time to lollygag with the radio.

But this afternoon, I listened to in-depth interviews with correspondents in Afghanistan and Pakistan for about 10 minutes while waiting for the drive-thru traffic to move. I now know more about the Taliban than Colin Powell, probably.

But when they took a break to tell me that support for NPR comes from DeCosimo, I realized that I'd been sitting there motionless for an alarmingly long time. I'd even shifted into neutral so I could lighten the pressure on the brake pedal a little bit. In the rear-view mirror, I saw a pickup truck pull in behind me. Ahead of me, I counted: one, two, three, four, five, six... Possibly more than half a dozen cars in front of me (my view was blocked by the building), and nobody was moving.

I was vastly relieved when the pickup truck backed up and left the drive-thru lane. I was already feeling vaguely claustrophobic and welcomed the opportunity to extricate myself. As I followed the arrows back to the road, I vetoed the idea of parking and ordering at the counter. Every fast-food joint I've ever visited gives priority to customers on wheels. If that group was being put on hold for so long, I shuddered to think what would happen if I had to lounge in the lobby. By the time I got back to work, it would be time to start taking retirement distributions out of my 401K.

By this time, the hourglass was almost empty and I still didn't have lunch. I headed up past the zoo, turned onto East Third Street and was almost thinking about Central Park ... but they were doing some sort of work that involved those little orange sawhorses and I didn't feel like getting stuck in yet another narrow driveway.

There is but one other major eatery along that road. The one that does a crushing business with employees from the adjacent hospital running in for lunch. The lobby is a sea of cheerily patterned nurse uniforms and rubber-soled shoes.

And so, for the sixth? seventh? eighth? time in two weeks, I pulled into the parking lot and settled in for a quick sojourn in the drive-through lane. No sooner had my car come to a halt in front of the speaker, when a rapid-fire voice welcomed me and inquired as to my dining preferences. In case you're not familiar, that goes something like:

"WelcometomcdonaldsmayItakeyourorderplease?"

With one eye on my diet and another on my wallet, I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and small fries.

"Fivefortyfivepleasedrivetothefirstwindow."

Zoom! On to the window. Slam! Opens the window. Whoosh! Out pops a hand to receive my money.

"Thankyouhaveagoodday."

Zoom! At warp speed my car covered the ten feet or so to the next window.

"Grilledchickesmallspritethankyouhaveagoodday--"

"Wait a second!" I interrupted as I was handed a bag and a drink. "I didn't order 'Sprite,' I ordered 'fries.'" [This because I already had a bottle of water with me and didn't need a drink. Just some good old fashioned, sodium-laced, factory-processed spuds.]

"Okayma'amnoproblemwe'resorryjustamomentplease."

And it really was "just a moment." Those fries were literally within arm's reach for the young man, because he had barely finished that sentence when Whoosh! Out came the bag again, this time with a holster of fries inside, keeping the boxed sandwich company.

"ThankyouforchoosingMcDonaldshaveagoodday."

And zoom! again, getting me back to the office before my hour was up.

Did I want a grilled chicken sandwich today? No.

Did I want McDonald's today? Most emphatically not.

Did I have other options? Yes, but none of them would have gotten me back to work on time.

Now, here's the point of my ramblings. Other fast-food restaurants (and various social critics) denigrate McDonald's because they're a mammoth corporation that has influenced the culinary culture of nearly every civilization on earth. They are expensive to set up as a franchisee; they have rather draconian ways of protecting their intellectual property and brand identity. The food's not all that great, and if you saw the movie Super Size Me, you'd be justified fearing for your continued good health if you made a really serious habit of eating there.

And, like me, it's possible to set out with every good intention to eat SOMEWHERE ELSE, and still end up at McDonald's.

I'm sure the guy who owns Bojangles on East 23rd would be disappointed if I wrote to him and described my journey and ultimate destination today.

But would he be disappointed enough? Have any of Mickey D's fast-food competitors REALLY, TRULY gotten the wake-up call?

Here's the bottom line: McDonald's makes SPEED their number one priority.

If you want it fast, you will GET it fast.

And if you can't get it fast enough to suit whoever sets their standards for speed, they will compensate you. Many a time, I have stood at the counter, or in the drive-thru just a bit longer than usual, arrived home and found an extra burger, extra fries, or an extra apple pie in the bag. This was not a mistake. This was McDonald's saying "Sorry we kept you waiting."

This location does it. The one near the high school does it. The one near my office does it. They ALL do it.

The competitors probably cringe when they hear about that. "I'd go broke if I gave away apple pies every time somebody had to wait more than 5 minutes!"

McDonald's doesn't go broke with giveaways because they have developed scientific routines that minimize wait time, AND, because this pays off, MORE PEOPLE automatically choose McDonald's when they're in a hurry. They KNOW they won't have to wait there the way they would at, say, Bojangles.

I'm sure it's not easy working for McDonald's. I'm sure there are managers breathing down your neck every second, because I've watched them -- perpetual motion. But at the same time, smiles are not unknown on the faces of the employees, so there must be something that gets them through the day.

So the competitors should ask themselves if they have extremely high standards that are communicated clearly to the employees? Or do employees know that as long as they show up and have a pulse, they can keep their jobs even if 35% of the customers vow never to return there ever again because the service is so slow and indifferent?

I'm glad my calendar is clear for the time being, so I can start eating at home again. I'm also glad McDonald's was there when I (sadly for its competitors) had no better choice. Click Here to Read More..

Some People I'm Glad Not to be Related To

Picked up this story via Google Reader. It has sort of a "Rashomon" quality -- I can picture different readers having completely different reactions to it. My mother would have certainly related to the mother profiled here. A younger person would identify with the son.

The church itself sounds quite a bit like one I was attending 12 years or so ago ... a startup without a permanent home. A cult? Probably not Jim Jones, as the mother is alleging, but any serious Christian church -- make that ANY religion -- is going to do whatever it can to hang onto followers. It's what they do.

And I find it ironic that the mother talks about Catholic doctrine in which parents are compelled to raise their children Catholic. Seems to me the main difference between the church and the mother is, the church people want Tom to stay with them for some perceived need on their part to save his soul, while the mother wants Tom to stay with her in order to save her soul.

Without religion in the mix, Tom and his mother would still be struggling because she's overbearing and controlling (hello? the young man is 18!), but it would be about something more concrete and objective, and nobody would be worrying about eternal damnation. Click Here to Read More..

No title comes to mind for this post.

Earlier today I was out at "the stores," as we used to call them. Preparing to leave, I started the car, reversed out of my parking spot, put it into Drive and then stopped. Farther down the aisle was an elderly man. From his body language I could see he was waiting for his wife to get out of their car to walk with him. He was standing behind the next car; his feet were pointed straight forward so I figured that once the Mrs. caught up with him, they'd walk directly across my path, so it was better to hang back.

But right about then, the driver of the car he was standing behind began moving backward. Because of the distance, I couldn't tell exactly what I was seeing. It looked like the man was directly behind the car backing up, but I was thinking, no, he must be off to the side a bit.

But no, he was indeed just behind the car, and she backed up and struck him on the hip! He staggered, but didn't fall. Then she stopped, opened her door, and I saw her speaking to him, and smiling. Then they walked on, she closed her door and got ready to back out again. I drove behind her and stopped next to the couple. I rolled down my window and said "I cannot believe she did that!" They just shook their heads; the wife said "Yeah, she did...wasn't looking when she backed up." As I left the parking lot, the woman who had hit him was behind me. Her car was a new red one. I was able to breathe more easily when she turned in a different direction.

The thought of someone getting hit by a car just terrifies me. My classmate Charlene was hit when I was about 9 and I never forgot it. She recovered, but a person is so helpless when faced with a large, moving metal object. That poor man. His life seemed to flash before my eyes more than it did his -- 70-some years, retired, kids grown, just out to pick up a few things on an ordinary Saturday and it could have ended right then and there.

Carl sometimes laughs at my caution behind the wheel. I don't like to drive or park too close to anyone; I hate making left turns when there's no arrow; I swivel my head like Linda Blair in The Exorcist when I'm backing out of a parking spot and can't see. There are times I'll back up an inch and stop suddenly if I even hear voices near the car or see some unidentified motion out the corner of my eye. I'm astonished at how many parents allow their small kids to just bound ahead of them in a parking lot, when people are backing up all over the place. In the case of this man, he was simply standing there. He didn't dart out behind this woman -- she never bothered to check her mirror! At least she stopped. I've heard stories of people who didn't even stop after they'd hit something. Another factor here was how close she had parked to the store, and the crosswalk. She impressed me as the sort of person who will hover like a vulture to grab the closest parking spot she can. If you're that close to the store, you should be doubly cautious, since there's going to be a greater ratio of pedestrians.

I hope she's more careful after today. Click Here to Read More..

Theo-crazy

Viddy well, droogies.

They're firing public school teachers in Texas when they don't pass the religion test. Click Here to Read More..

$mall Victorie$

Anyone who's perused my tags will see "money" far up toward the top, along with "worries," "religion," "Wally [my son]" and "Carl [my husband]".

Do quotes go on the inside or outside of brackets??

Anyway...

Got my stupid-ass car fixed today, again, and yes, it cost me a barrel of money. But I had enough at the ready not to have to worry about (or apply for) credit.

I need to give substantial credit where it is due -- to a very random act of great kindness from a stranger at the repair shop. As I stood at the counter, being told that if all the shop's wildest dreams came true and I said yeah, go ahead and fix everything, it would cost about $1600 ... to which I replied that I needed to focus on passing my emissions inspection so I wouldn't have to take time off from work to go to court and pay a fine ... to which they said that bit of work would cost me about $500, to which I said, silently to myself, "Shit," the woman at the next register nudged my elbow and handed me a coupon for 10% off any service. Just like that. I said thank you, still thinking all my thoughts of fiscal doom, but when he recalculated, it turned out that with the coupon I would have exactly enough (split between two bank accounts) to afford the job. Once I agreed to the work, I went back to the waiting room, but it occurred to me I ought to say thank you to the woman a second time, which I did. She saved me from having to cry in front of Manny, Moe and Jack.

And the "check engine" light is off, finally. Once back home, I had to go into Microsoft Money and rework all my bills, pushing back anything that allowed late payments for a surcharge, such as the mortgage. I still have to borrow ten bucks from Carl and get the car re-inspected during lunch on Monday, and once again I can forget about new clothes, jewelry or makeup probably until at least next September, but as it stands today, I will most likely not feel the urge to get roaring drunk. Which is good, because there's no alcohol in the budget. Click Here to Read More..

While She Was Rubbing My Ankle

I'm now halfway through with physical therapy, and it has helped. The people at the rehab hospital are very nice, very patient, and they listen. From my experience, the stories of "pain and torture" are myths. The therapists I've worked with all say that if real pain starts, the exercise should stop. The goal is not to hurt me, or reproduce the pain, but to strengthen the ankle. It's begun to hurt a bit on the outside now, instead of the inside, which to me is good. When the inside and Achilles tendon hurt, it was a reminder that the two small bones there had ground together, pinching nerves, ligaments, etc. between them. Outside ankle pain is something I've experienced numerous times before; it seems to dissipate quickly, so it's not a problem. I'm almost starting to remember what my real walk is like.

Anyway. My first session was an evaluation, after which they outfitted me with one of those fat rubber bands you use for resistance while exercising at home. The next two sessions this week were actual supervised exercises. The first time I wore my standard work outfit and regretted it as soon as I started perspiring. Next time I wore my church t-shirt under my work clothes and stripped down to it, changing back before heading back to the office.

The therapist wore a tiny cross on a chain. She noticed the discreet logo on my shirt and asked me about it. I was happy to give her a general sort of description of a Unitarian Universalist church, but had no intention of launching into any kind of a spiel. I assumed she was just making small talk. But at one point,
Click Here to Read More..

Inauguration Day

Wonderful, uplifting, historic. Even if it did take about 8 hours to actually see it.

Due to an early morning physical therapy appointment, I had to work through lunch, and clocking out for lunch was the only way anyone at my place of employment would have gotten to see it. One brave soul (about 6 months away from retirement and a true-blue I-don't-give-a-damn-what-you-threaten-me-with type) tuned in on her computer. Everybody else headed over to the break room or continued working as though it were just another day. Maybe those who appeared indifferent were doing exactly as I did -- going home to watch it on You Tube or news rebroadcasts on cable. But the atmosphere in the office was distinctly one of "We didn't vote for him and therefore we have no interest in anything other than making snide remarks to each other about him. And if you leave here to go watch it, well, we know all about YOU, don't we?"

Even a friend of mine from church, who works for a different company in the same building (a major sponsor of liberal events in our city), reported something similar. They had a TV there, but people who went over to watch felt vaguely uncomfortable, as though something were being recorded unfavorably in their personnel file.

I remember about 10 years ago, when I lived in Atlanta, the company I worked for installed a TV on every floor so we could watch -- are you ready? John Glenn participating in a space shuttle mission!

Some people recognize that history is a force that transcends personal opinion.

Best wishes for success and happiness, President Obama! Click Here to Read More..

Yakkety Yak

I seem to be on a roll tonight...not to produce any original, thought-provoking material, but to comment at length on other people's.

Forty minutes ago I was threatening to doze off in front of the tube and drag myself off to bed. Now I'm wide awake and verbose.

Was it the green tea? Click Here to Read More..

The Answer at last.

See? Now we can all relax. Click Here to Read More..

Toby the Love-Hate Dog

Yes, we now officially have a love-hate relationship with Toby. Toby is the dog owned by our neighbor. Description of neighbor: Gets drunk just about every day, has a bunch of cronies who come over and stand around a barrel full of burning trash to stay warm. They pee outside, behind an old wrecked cinder-block shed.

Now. Guess how he keeps his dog.

Yep, you guessed it. Outside, all day, all night, year round, on a chain ... "I love my dawg," he says. You can tell ... he bought Toby a house of his very own. Probably even put a blanket in there. Yeah, that's luurve.

The neighbor's a good guy. Really. He tries. Just because he doesn't succeed isn't necessarily a reason to hold anything against him. He's pathetic and he's a loser, and that about sums him up. But there are many, many worse people in the world and it's one of those things where you say, if he left, one can only guess what sort would move in. The old "better the devil you know" dilemma.

But Toby, true to his tied-up, fenced-in, neglected dog nature, barks ALL DAY, ALL NIGHT, ad infinitum. Loudly. He's a beagle, so he always starts out with a nice, robust howwwwwwwwl! And then the hysterical yapping commences.

Drives Carl nuts. Carl is a nervous individual and a fitful sleeper. He grabs naps whenever he can, and that's generally when Toby decides to howl and yap at something. I bought Carl the loudest table fan I could get and he runs it year 'round, just to drown out Toby. Sometimes even the fan doesn't help.

Last night, Carl tried to grab a nap around 7pm (he wanted to be awake for Desperate Housewives...it's a new season). Toby, however, was in fine form, just off the scale. I even went to the living room window to see if anyone was out there provoking this ruckus. It doesn't take much, but when Toby goes on at such length, it means a group of pedestrians (often with their own dawg, invariably a pit bull) is loitering in front of my house or the neighbor's, just taking their time getting along up the street. I didn't see the expected crowd, just one guy walking at normal speed. Once that lone pedestrian disappeared from view, Toby quieted down, but it was too late for Carl, who emerged from the bedroom grumbling under his breath, cursing the entire canine species.

So this afternoon I get home from work and there's my neighbor outside. He greets me -- we rarely have long conversations, but they're friendly nonetheless. I was pondering whether or not to broach the subject of his little noisemaking quadruped, when he said "Say -- you hear Toby last night barking up a fit?" Um, yeah... I told him yes, and he said "Well, I knew somethin' was up. I looked outside, and there was a man right there--" he pointed to our living room window -- "tryin' to peek in through yo' window. He come 'round from the back, so he probably was casing your back patio too, so make sure you got everything locked up. And then he come 'round and tries to peek in your window. I told him he got no business on your land and told him I was gonna get my gun and call 9-1-1, and he took off right quick." I thanked him, went inside and told Carl.

So much for trying to shut Toby up. No telling how long the trespasser was lurking around; he might have looked in through the window of the office when I was sitting right here in plain view.

Words fail me, trying to express how much I love this neighborhood... Click Here to Read More..