Posted on by Fred

WOKE

Kim Weaver Television Interviews by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

*Turns on TV*

If we’re going to discuss something, we need to agree on its definition.  I’m using Merriam-Webster. 

Woke: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke

Woke is also the past tense of the verb “wake.”  It means to stop sleeping.  At its core, it seems to me to mean one has become alert to some of the bad things that are happening.  There are plenty of those.  Being shot is now the number one cause of death for our children, surpassing even car crashes.  Black people are twice as likely as White people to be shot by police officers.  Violence against transgender people continues to rise.  Those of us who are Woke would like to stop this. 

Bigotry is now celebrated, and people are getting crabby about being called bigots just because they believe there are only two genders, or homosexuality is a sin, or Drag Queens are probably pedophiles, or that those who are not straight, white, male Christians are probably bad in one way or another.  Those of us who are Woke would like people to be treated as individuals.  Part of being Woke is understanding that There is no Them; we are all Us.  We don’t think people should be treated differently because someone believes their identities are sinful.

Terry Pratchett had better ideas about sin.

“Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” 

― Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

And that’s the heart of Capitalism.  People are commodities to be traded for profit.  We are numbers – statistics to be used in a study, but not individuals to be treated with love and respect. 

One of the arguments I frequently hear against a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body is that rape makes up very few abortions.  They’re right, at least according to my Google Search.  It’s less than half a percent.  So… ignore those.  They’re outliers.  Let’s just ban abortion for everyone.

Except… Rape victims are also human beings.  Most of them are women who had a favorite blanket or stuffed animal when they were little.  They probably went to their senior proms and worried about whether their makeup was right, and their dress fit properly, and was it even the right color, and what will other people think when they walk in?  Some of them hugged their son when they dropped him off for kindergarten.  And then someone took away their sense of safety, their sense of identity, and their grasp on their own dignity.  And more than 3 million women in America were raped and became pregnant.  They’re not just statistics.  They matter.  The statistics, if they are what matter to you, are below:

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/understanding-RRP-inUS.html

Outliers are all people, regardless of how many there are.  Every single one of them matters.  We cannot lose sight of this fact.

When we mistreat someone, anyone, or deny them the rights some of the rest of us have, that’s bigotry. 

The Oxford Dictionary defines it:

obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

You’re opposed to immigration?  Yeah.  That’s bigotry.  No one chose where to be born.  But you’re denying someone something because they’re members of the group of people who weren’t born in The United States.  One can be a good person or bad person, or anything in between, regardless of where they were born.  We decide whether someone is good or bad based on their behaviors, not their birthplace.  Are they welcome to come so long as they do it legally?  That’s legalism.  Let’s check with Merriam-Webster again. 

strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code

the institutionalized legalism that restricts free choice

Legalism is a shield behind which to hide the bigotry we prefer not to admit, even to ourselves.

You don’t like people whose religious beliefs are different from yours?  That’s bigotry.  One can have any set of beliefs and be either a good person or bad person, or anything in between, regardless of their religion.  We decide whether someone is good or bad based on their behaviors not their religion. 

I don’t like people who fly planes into buildings.  That doesn’t mean all Muslims are bad people.  The percentage of Muslims who do that is almost incalculably small.  I don’t like people who burn Joan of Arc at the stake.  That doesn’t mean all Christians are bad people.  The percentage of Christians who do that is almost incalculably small.  We make judgments about individuals not groups.

Those of us who are Woke prefer that everyone be treated with respect, dignity, kindness, and empathy.  We prefer that everyone gets to live their life without interference so long as they’re not hurting anyone else. 

We would like to increase understanding that some people are different from you, and that it’s okay for them to be different.  That doesn’t mean you have to be like those who are different.  You need only to understand that there is more than one way for a person to exist, to experience life, to see the world.  This isn’t a threat to your identity.  You get to be different, too.  It’s perfectly fine for everyone to be unique.  In fact, it’s unavoidable. 

Of course, this is when we’re going to hear about The Paradox of Tolerance.  What’s that?  We’ll use Wikipedia this time.

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I need to tolerate those who disagree with me.  And, obviously, I do.  Many of my friends and more than a few of my listeners are probably annoyed that I find their intolerance of those who are different to be bigotry.  That doesn’t mean I don’t love them.  It means that I would like to help to make them rethink some of their ideas.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

*Switches channel*

***

Swanson McDeere here.

I was doing what I was told to do.  I made billions of dollars for them.  I was the top money maker for seven years.  Seven fucking years!  And goddamn Wolf News gives in to the Woke Cancel Culture. 

Did I lie?  Yes, of course I did.  I really – no kidding – I see no problem with that.  Some of the Left’s greatest heroes lied.  Steinbeck?  Absolutely a liar.  There’s no evidence Tom Joad ever existed.  Lenny and George?  Pure bullshit.  But they give him a goddamn Nobel fucking Prize for his lying.  So long as you tell the right lies, everyone loves you.  Tell lies that make people think?  Lies that make people uncomfortable?  You get cancelled!

***

*Switches channel*

Photo by Angela Roma on Pexels.com

This is a quotation I’ve seen on Facebook recently, and I think it handles it well:

The Paradox of Tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance, not as a moral standard, but as a social contract. If someone does not abide by the contract, then they are not covered by it. In other words: The intolerant are not abiding by the terms of the social contract of mutual tolerance.

I’m not looking to lock anyone up for being a bigot.  I’m not hoping to shun them or “cancel” them, but I would like them to see themselves honestly so there is an opportunity for them to change.

*Switches channel*

Photo by Mathias Reding on Pexels.com

***

I get fired, and The Left cheers.  How tolerant of them!  Isn’t that their thing?  We’re supposed to tolerate people who are different, right?  Where’s the tolerance for those who believe in hard work?  Where’s the tolerance for people who believe in traditional American values?  Where’s the tolerance for people who know that God made two genders… who don’t want men in the women’s restroom, who don’t want men pretending to be women and competing against women who are biologically weaker than they are?  Where’s the tolerance for those who believe life is sacred and no child should be murdered before it’s born?

If I had to lie to convince people of the Truth, so be it!  I was paid to do it.  I was proud to do it.  And some whiny thin-skinned company throws a goddamn fit because they think my little lies hurt their business.  If your business isn’t good enough to survive a few lies, you don’t deserve to be in business. 

What happened to the Freedom of Speech the Woke Left worships?   Free Speech is great so long as you don’t say anything that pisses anyone off.  But if you hurt their little feelings, they fine you three quarters of a billion dollars! 

***

*Switches channel*

Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com

Being different doesn’t necessarily represent a threat to anyone.  Granted, if being “different” means you’re a child molester or a serial killer, that won’t work.  Someone needs to stop you.  If being different means only that someone’s identity is not the same as yours, they’re not hurting you.  I would like them to discover their own identity, their own purpose, their own place in the world.  Why is that a problem?

It’s in that wild-open-range-diversity that we expand the possibilities of human existence.  It’s where we find new meanings, new ideas, and new hope.  What is the advantage of limiting it? 

I hear plenty of complaints about The Woke Police.  These are people who object to others being marginalized, disrespected, or denied rights because they don’t fit into the norm.  The people who complain about them, it seems to me, don’t like facing the fact that they would like to make others less than, and The Woke would prefer that everyone is allowed to live their lives without being hurt.

Writer, broadcaster, former barrister and Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch says: “The truth is, there are no woke police.”

Hirsch explains: “In reality, the only thing that unites the woke is an intellectual curiosity about identity and how complex, how nuanced, how rooted in disparate histories it can be. The real groupthink, the genuinely cohesive crowd, it’s increasingly clear, is that of the anti-woke, the most weaponised identity of all.”

Hirsch points out the irony of “the rightwing culture warriors [who] claim to support free speech” but “they seem to want minorities to shut up and stop complaining”.

https://www.nationalworld.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/what-does-woke-mean-definition-woke-culture-2023-3215758

*Switches channel*

***

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

They can say all kinds of bullshit, and it’s fine.  They say there’s more than two genders: lie!  They say lazy whiny welfare queens deserve our support: lie!  They say it’s our responsibility to feed their little monsters: massive lie!  They make the unsupportable claim that everyone should be allowed to vote, and the morons cheer.  So long as it fits their bleeding-heart agenda, it’s all fine. 

So, I’ll tell you the truth one last time, and then you won’t have Swanson McDeere to kick around anymore.

 There are two genders.  They’re assigned at birth.  God made the world that way. 

People who don’t pull their weight are a drain on our society.  They belong in a homeless shelter. 

If people can’t support their kids, they need to keep their legs together.  If someone is raped, the female body makes sure she doesn’t get pregnant.  Those are the facts, whether those Woke Left pussies like them or not.

Thank you for all your support over the last seven years.  I weep for America.

***

*Switches channel*

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

If we want to have a better world, one that includes all of us, the first step is to believe in it.  If Fred’s Front Porch Podcast does nothing else, I hope it helps you to believe in what many call impossible.  If we buy into the idea that the world can’t be changed, then the cynics are right.  We will be here forever.  If we can convince ourselves, however, that change is possible, we’re already on the way to making that change.    

Pick the channel you want to watch.  Pick the ideas you want to consider.  Thanks for considering mine.

I’m Woke.  And whether we agree about anything at all… I love you.

*Turns off TV*

Photo by Nothing Ahead on Pexels.com
Posted on by Fred

Finding Joy… Even in Poverty

The title sounds like some sort of seminar.  I can almost hear the enthusiastic voice of some 20-year-old guru asking for a show of hands. I can easily imagine him saying, “That’s perfect!  Great.  Love the involvement.  The message is really getting through.”

For the record, I would prefer to be stripped naked, tied to an anthill, and coated in honey than to do any such presentation.  Salesmanship makes my skin crawl.  I had to sell DirecTV for several months, and I would need to go home every night and try to remind myself that I was not inherently evil; I was just doing evil things for a little while so I could eat.  That sort of equivocation does little for one’s soul.

No, this isn’t a sales pitch.  If it were up to me, you would buy nothing ever again because money would cease to exist.  If you’re listening to this anywhere other than Patreon, you’ll have to tolerate a commercial in a little while, but I won’t be selling joy.  I don’t believe it can be sold.  “Life is pain, Highness.  Anyone who says differently is selling something,” as Wesley reminded Buttercup.

So, what the hell do I mean about Finding Joy Even In Poverty?  How stupid is that?  Shouldn’t I be ashamed of myself?  Frankly, I’m ashamed of myself for many, many things.  This just isn’t one of them.  Why?

I manage to find Joy even while I live only a few dollars above the Poverty Line.  I do that by recognizing the difference between what I need and what I want.  As it turns out, I don’t even want all that much anymore. 

I need a place to live and sleep.  I need food.  I need something to drink.  I need insulin and my other medications.  I need the needles so I can take my insulin.  I have those things covered.

I want the equipment to do my show well.  I want this computer so I can write.  I want enough soda to make it possible for me to exist.  I want enough cigarettes to keep from killing Speedy Shine.  I want a little weed so I can loosen up my brain and slow down my stress.  I have those things covered, too.

I wouldn’t object to having better equipment, but I think my show sounds great with what I have.  I wouldn’t mind having more space for my books, but I can get access to most of them now, anyway, so it’s fine.  I lost the desire for nice clothes seven years ago.  A friend sent me some new ones anyway a couple of weeks ago.  They’re the first I’ve had since I quit teaching.  I didn’t need them, but I’m certainly happy to have them. 

When you’ve lived without for long enough, you realize how much you don’t really need anyway.  I’m fortunate enough to have been all but killed by my Diabetes.  That seems rather antithetical to good fortune, but it’s allowed me to live what little may remain of my life in the way that I want to. 

No one can expect me to go to work.  I’ll be dead before the end of the first week.  So, the government gives me not-really-enough money on which to live.  I get by, though, just as Lennon and McCartney did, “with a little help from my friends.”  So, there are things I don’t need anymore. 

I don’t need a car.  I live in terror of other people, so I almost never need to go anywhere.  Using Lyft a couple of times a month is much cheaper than car payments, paying for parking, paying for insurance, paying for maintenance, and paying for any tickets I might get because I have no patience anymore.  And there is pure Joy in being freed of this need.  I don’t have to worry about my car failing to start when I need to get somewhere.  I don’t need to call tow trucks.  I don’t need to hope I can find a mechanic or hope that I can find someone to pass my car through smog checks when the check engine light won’t go off.  I don’t need to stop smoking up for 5 hours so I can drive safely.  The last time I had a flat tire, I had to have my best friend change it because I am incapable of such a feat.  All those problems are off my plate.  I’m many pounds lighter for their absence. 

Another glorious absence is the necessity of the alarm clock.  I still have alarms set on my phone, but they are exclusively for the things I want to do.  There is no more 5:37 AM disturbance that tells me to get in the shower and rush off to work.  When I am tired now, I get to sleep.  That luxury is extraordinary.  I used to dream of it.  I thought it meant needing to win the lottery.  It didn’t.  It meant being able to get by with less.  I’m more than happy to make that trade.  (Okay, it also meant having my body all but destroyed by Diabetes, but that’s the way it goes.  I would really prefer not to be Diabetic, but there’s nothing to be done.)  I’m tired this morning.  I’m going to go make some breakfast and lie down.  That’s one of the most joyous feelings I know.

Sometimes we need to lose things in order to learn not only their value, but also their weight.  Loss is a brilliant teacher that way; it can show us what’s important simply by creating space where it once was. 

— Mark Groves 

I have the space to pay attention to what matters to me.  I want to be a better writer.  I’m working as hard as I can to make that happen.  I want my words to move people.  I want my prose to make them recognize not only that the world should be changed, but that it can be changed whenever we decide we want it to be.  I need to be a better writer if I’m going to manage that.

Many people told me this morning that I’m wasting my time by trying to change the minds of those who are rooting for the demise of Democracy.  They may be right, but that makes no difference.  If I open one of their minds a quarter of an inch farther, I’ve done something. 

And now I have the time to devote to that goal.  In the most meaningful sense of the word, I’m Free.  I’m allowed to spend my time in the ways I choose.  I may think what I like.  I may do, for the most part, what I like.  (Okay, I’ll never be able to travel to see Sara Niemietz and Snuffy Walden again, but they rarely play together anymore, anyway, and I can see Sara once a week on Weekly Wacky Wednesday.  I see Snuffy being all happy in Europe.  That’s enough for me.) 

I get to be who I choose to be.  That’s what Freedom really means.

I don’t want to recommend that anyone become diabetic.  I’m not sure that’s something you can do intentionally, anyway.  I don’t know of any little kid who grew up thinking they want to be diabetic so they can stay home and write all day long, so long as they avoid both DKA and hypoglycemia. 

But that’s where I am.  I don’t like worrying about whether I’m going to overdraw my account every month, but if I’m careful I can usually avoid that.  I have a place to live.  It’s not the nicest place you’ve ever seen.  The furniture is unsellable.  I would have to pay someone to haul it away.  The carpet needed to be replaced years before I moved in.  One of the sliding glass doors won’t open at all.  But it’s safe.  It’s reasonably clean… by my standards, even if not by yours… and it’s mine.  There’s no one to tell me what’s wrong with me anymore.  I’m without a wife.  That makes my life much easier. 

I know people who would loathe living the way I do.  They can’t stand the thought of being alone.  I can’t stand the thought of being around people any more than is absolutely necessary. 

Freedom is, for me, the key to Joy.  Doing the things that are meaningful to me, ignoring the things that aren’t, and finding my authentic hat as a writer makes me happier than anything else I know.

This is why we need a Universal Basic Income.  Everyone should have at least what I do.  Let us do the work we want to do and not what someone else tells us to do.  We need to end Bullshit Jobs.

Wait, what?  What are Bullshit Jobs?  Did you just make that up, Fred?

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of meaningless jobs, in which workers pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history, and proposes unions and universal basic income as a potential solution.

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

I’m not wise enough to determine who deserves what, but I assure you that all people, whether I like them or not, deserve a home, sufficient food, and appropriate medical care.  No, that won’t cripple society.  You can say any number of horrible things about me, but one thing you can’t accuse me of being is lazy.  I wasn’t lazy when I spent 60 or more hours a week teaching, either. 

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It’s even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It’s as if they are being told ‘but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?’

https://www.atlasofplaces.com/essays/on-the-phenomenon-of-bullshit-jobs/

I put not less than 60 hours a week just into this podcast.  I’m getting better at using the software, so I don’t need as much time to record a basic episode.  I still need help, though, on the big ones.  I had to get Chris from Interstellar Frequency to help me with “The Impossible Conversation.” 

That doesn’t mean I work less.  It means I can afford to put more time into the writing process.  It means I can invest my minutes more meaningfully.  Improvements in technology made this possible.

40 years ago, I had to use a typewriter.  If I made a mistake, I would think long and hard about correcting it because using liquid paper is difficult.  No matter how well you manage it, your manuscript looks unprofessional.  Erasable paper was expensive, and it tended to smudge.  Today I can rewrite with the backspace key.  I can move paragraphs with a couple of keystrokes.  I can save the same work in different versions, so I feel more free to take chances. 

40 years ago, the best I could do was a tape deck and a mixer to do anything remotely resembling a podcast.  The CD player was brand new.  You had to buy a whole CD to get the track or two you wanted.  Today I have access to an enormous library of music I can use legally.  I have a computer that lets me put it precisely where I want it at exactly the right volume.  I can make my voice do things I never would have dreamt of in 1983. 

Technology has made my work more efficient so I can learn to make it more effective.  And it’s cheaper than ever.  Even living a foot or two above the poverty line, because I get so much help from so many people, I can afford the technology I need to do my best work as well as possible.  Technology is one of the few things that becomes cheaper as time passes.  My first VCR cost $900.  I can get a Blu Ray/DVD player for less than $100 today, and I don’t really need it anymore because I can watch nearly anything with streaming services. 

That technology needs to be available to everyone.  We could easily ensure everyone has access to the internet.  With that access, people could make use of all that Artificial Intelligence is already beginning to do for us.  It won’t be long before AI can do nearly all the work of human beings, freeing all of us, and not just those who are sufficiently wealthy or sufficiently impoverished that they aren’t forced to do a Bullshit Job to make ends meet. 

Why, I wonder, do Bullshit Jobs exist?

Last night, for example, while in the midst of a fascinating conversation I was having with other writers from different parts of the country, my internet died.  Shockingly enough, I called Cox Internet to find out why that happened.  Of course, I got the automated response first.  Press 1 for this and 2 for that.  Okay.  That wasted my time, but no one else’s. 

Then I had to get transferred from one human to the next and the next and the next before I got an answer that could more easily have been given by the AI.  There was an outage they expected to have repaired by 9:48 PM.  When that didn’t happen, I used the text feature, and again I went through the automated response before I got to a supposed human being whose job was to thank me for my patience and tell me there is an outage, and the new time was expected to be 1:48 AM.  The same thing happened this morning.  I went through the same process to learn that it would be 5:48 AM.

People were paid to do what any decent AI should have been able to do.  And I think they secretly knew it.

Why would Corporate America pay people to waste their time and mine?  Graeber has some ideas on this:

The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

— https://www.atlasofplaces.com/essays/on-the-phenomenon-of-bullshit-jobs/

We could free people from these Bullshit Jobs by dropping the mythology of the Puritan Work Ethic.  I don’t think anyone believes anymore that hard work and wealth have any more than a nodding acquaintance with one another.  We have more than enough resources to give everyone the life I have without requiring them to be mostly dead to get it.  Why not use those resources to help ourselves instead of employing our people to do nothing of any importance?

The economist, John Maynard Keynes, predicted in 1930 that by now we would all be working 15-hour weeks because that’s all that would be necessary to accomplish what needs to be done.  He believed that we would solve The Economic Problem, and that technology would free us from labor.  It would create the problem of what we would do with our leisure time, but he pointed out that the wealthy were, even then, scouts in that undiscovered country.  We could easily solve that problem.  He looked forward to being able to do away with the endless pursuit of wealth.

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard.

http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

Our social growth is lagging far behind our technological progress.  We should certainly have accomplished his predictions by now.  We would have, but we’ve gone out of our way to cement into the consciousness that the suffering of pointless labor and Bullshit Jobs is virtuous.  We need to serve some master, somewhere.  For some it is some form of God.  For others it is the Corporate Masters.  For some it is both. 

I am among the few who serve neither Master.  It’s long passed the time for the rest of the world to join me.  You’re welcome to serve God, in whatever form you believe He exists, but we need to stop serving the corporate masters who want to steal the minutes of your life.  We have the resources.  We have the technology.  We have the knowledge.  We lack only the will.  I’m hoping I might have ignited your will to change the world, and that you’ll ignite someone else’s desire to be Free.

The key to finding Joy, for me, is loving what I have.  It is the freedom that comes from being master of my own time.  I would be even more joyous if everyone had what I do.  What I have is something many people much wealthier than I will ever be will never have.  I have Enough.

    Posted on by Fred

    Speedy Shine’s Backyard Dogcast Episode 3

    Poundaries

    Smelly Old Man needs to learn some Poundaries.  He thinkses that he gets to pick me up whenever he wants to, but I don’t let him.  Sometimes when other peoples come over, he wants to put me in the other room so I can’t give them loves and jumps and kisseses, and when he tries to pick me up, I have to snap at him.  I haven’t had to bite him yet, but he has to learn.  We all have our Poundaries. 

    This week I’m doing my first interview with renownededed human specialist, Melanie Cone, who knew my Smelly Old Man before I did.  She usually stays in the bedroom in her urn, but when Smelly Old Man goes out with Pretty Girl, Melanie comes to talk to me. 

    Me:             Hi, Melanie Cone!  Smelly Old Man thinkses about you lots and lots of times, you know.

    Melanie:   I would hope so since I was his Loverdy Doverdy Puppy.  We were together for lots of the cold times and the warm times… I think it was like ten of each.  We had lots of lovesers.  I liveded inside his heart and soul for all those times.  I only trieded to bite him once, and that was when I was getting near the end of my timesers on Earth and he gave me some pets, but he touched a place that hurteded me, so I snapped a little bit. 

    Me:             Did he getteded mad at you when you did that?  He gets mad at me when I do.

    Melanie:   No.  I think I scareded him too much.  I was lots bigger than you.  He used to be able to pick me up when I was little, and even for a while when I got Biggerer.  But then we both getteded sicker and sicker, and he couldn’t lift me up, and I couldn’t even jump up on the bed any more times.  That was a sad part.

    Me:             Well what DID he do then?

    Melanie:   He waiteded a little while, and then came and gave me kisseses and said about how he was all sorry that he hurteded me.  He won’t ever hurt you on purposes. 

    Me:             I know.  Sometimes I just get mad at him. 

    Melanie:   On my Last Day when the man came over with the stick with a little sharp thing in it, My Fred sitteded next to me and gave me lots of loves and pets, and he kept on trying not to let me see him cry, but I knew he was having a Sad.  I was sad because I knoweded that he wouldn’t have any more lovesers like we had.

    Me:             I give him as many as I can.

    Melanie:   I have to go back to the universe now.  I think you understand about that part.

    Me:             Thank you, Melanie Cone for taking care of Smelly Old Man before I could.

    Melanie:    Thank you for taking care of him now.

    Posted on by Fred

    What We Deserve

    Judgment is a tricky issue.  We absolutely need to be able to make judgments, even about people.  We decide with whom we will be friends, who we will date, who we will marry.  We decide what people deserve from us.  We are required, simply by nature of being alive, to make those judgments.  I have no problem with that.

    What infuriates me is when we believe we get to decide who deserves to share in the bounty of 200,000 years of human progress.  It begins with the idea that we have to earn a living.  The easiest response to that is to call that what it is: Bullshit.

    Let’s begin where we must certainly agree: no one asked to be born.  We didn’t decide where or when or to whom to be born.  The most of which we can be accused is having been the fastest sperm, and I don’t think sperm are sentient, so there really is no blame to be assessed for someone having had the unmitigated temerity to take up space on this planet. 

    Some of us were born in ideal circumstances, others were born in atrocious conditions.  We didn’t choose that.  Some of us overcame unimaginable abuse and neglect, and we rose to better lives.  Others had all of our needs met from the moment of our birth and went on to screw it all up. 

    I don’t know why someone became who they are today.  And you know what?  Neither do you.  You can’t.  There is no way we know enough about someone’s life to determine what went wrong or what went right.  We don’t know if it was dumb luck or intelligent use of the resources someone had available to them. 

    Everyone, from the person I love most in the world to someone whose very existence makes me cringe, deserves to be allowed to live safely, be properly fed, and have all the medical attention required to keep them healthy.  This is true whether they have more money than Elon Musk or less money than the guy outside of Circle K whose body odor offends even those of us whose olfactory organs have been destroyed by years of smoking.  He’s probably wearing clothes Goodwill rejected.  And he is at a place in his life where the best he can do to get by is stand there and ask someone for some money.  Did you think this is what he wanted to do?  Did you think when he was a little boy he used to dream of having this life? 

    ***

    20-year-old Esther is holding her 4-year-old daughter, Emily, in her arms.  Esther is standing in line at The Department of Economic Security.  There are 11 people ahead of her.  They’ve been here for an hour already.  It’s 7:30 AM.  DES opens at 7, but the line outside the door usually starts forming before 6. 

    Emily is getting cranky and wants to get down.  “I need to go peepee.”

    Esther can’t let Emily go alone, obviously.  She looks at the line behind her.  There are more than 20 people in it who didn’t get here as early as Esther. 

    Emily begins to kick and cry.  “Mama!  I have to go peepee now!!!”

    Esther rubs her daughter’s back lovingly.  “Can you hold it just a little while like a big girl?”  Esther’s arms are starting to ache.  She wants to put Emily down at least as much as Emily wants to get down, but she doesn’t feel safe here.

    A man wearing an army jacket that Goodwill would reject, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes, is watching them from one of the plastic chairs.  He smiles.  “Want me to take her for you, ma’am?”

    ***

    Why don’t we guarantee the basics of survival for, at the absolute minimum, all the citizens of our own country?  This is where my passion is ignited. 

    We justify homelessness, hunger, and poverty with the convenient capitalist myth that people deserve those conditions.  No, they don’t!

    Well, if they wanted money, they should have….

    Well, if they wanted money, they shouldn’t have…

    Whenever someone says that, I have to remember that hitting them won’t help anyone.  I’m not entirely certain I can even make a fist anymore, so I’m not one for whom violence would be a good choice even if I didn’t oppose it on moral grounds.  Nevertheless, I find it infuriating.

    How the hell does anyone know enough about someone’s life to decide they deserve to be homeless or hungry?  Do we know why they made the choices they did?  Do we know that, in their situation, we would have made different ones? 

    ***

    “I feel for you, ma’am.  I’m awful sorry we need to do this.  It’s the law, though.  Your landlord won the eviction.  You have to vacate the premises.  We can give you a few minutes to gather any property you might want to take with you.”

    “My daughter is four.  I paid what I could.  It’s not like I’m not working.  I mean…” Esther looked down.  She didn’t want the deputy to see her crying.

    “I understand, ma’am.  It’s not fair.  It’s not right.  It’s the law, though, and we have to obey it.”

    Emily came into the room holding her teddy bear.  “I need to go peepee.”  She looked up at the deputies in the doorway.  She waved.  “Hi police people.  I’m Emily!”

    ***

    I have some amateur philosopher friends who find great joy in expounding on the idea that Free Will doesn’t exist, and that it’s physically impossible for it even to be considered a reasonable idea.  Maybe they’re right.  I don’t know.  I do know that I like to believe that whatever it is that makes me Fred, the combination of my genetic makeup, my upbringing, all the experiences I’ve ever had, and the limitations and capabilities of my body have combined to make me a person who gets to choose what I’m doing at any given moment.  I like to believe we all get to choose.  I could be wrong.  Perhaps I’m only deceiving myself when I think I’m making a decision.

    But, much of what we choose is undoubtedly out of our control.  I can’t, for example, choose to go to the Moon, climb Mount Everest, run The Boston Marathon, or write better than Shakespeare.  I could make choices that might move me closer to some of these things in the future, but at this moment, none of those options are available to me.  And this is the only moment in which I get to choose.  Life is a collection of moments, and the present is the only place where we have any semblance of control.  And sometimes we make the best choice we can at any given moment, and it still fails.

    I play Texas Hold ‘Em on Facebook frequently.  Poker is all about choices.  I try to make the best ones I can at each moment. I’ll call someone’s All In bet when I have pocket aces, and I’ll still lose.  It’s not because I’m bad or stupid or evil.  It’s because what appeared to be the best choice didn’t work out the way I reasonably expected it would. 

    Life is like that.  People who make decisions I think are wrong or stupid sometimes win.  People who make decisions I think are right or brilliant sometimes lose.  Much of it is out of our control.  In fact, most of it is.

    ***

    “Esther, you can’t come into work like this.  You’re a good waitress.  Your customers are more than satisfied, but… I don’t want to be rude, I really don’t… but… Esther you smell horrible.  No one wants to order food in a restaurant where the employees… well… stink.”

    “If I can get enough hours, I can get a place where I can shower.  I’m doing my best.  I really am.”

    “I’m sure you are.  You’re a good girl.  You really are.  You just can’t work here anymore.”

    ***

    And because we’ve decided money is what matters most in the world, some people suffer while others live in unimaginable opulence.  Over what, exactly?  Something we invented to determine who is good and who isn’t?  We all know many people who have more money than they could ever spend, who are not good people in any meaningful way, and people who have almost no money at all who are wonderful human beings.  To make judgments about someone based on how many little green pieces of cotton and linen they’ve collected is at once patently stupid, unnecessarily cruel, demonstrably inaccurate, and utterly immoral. 

    We make reasonable judgments about people based on who they are.  If we would like everyone to become the best versions of themselves, we need to give them the freedom to find out who that is without worrying about survival. 

    Hierarchy on needs pyramid concept pointing finger

    It’s Maslow’s Pyramid.  We have advanced far enough as a species to guarantee everyone’s physiological and safety needs are met.  Why should we deny those to anyone?  There are six times as many empty homes as there are homeless people.  We dump between 25 and 40% of the food we produce before it even gets to anyone’s plate.  And yet we’re okay with a 4-year-old girl sleeping under a tarp with her mother?  No, this is not a failure on the part of the mother.  It is a failure on the part of the civilization.

    But she could get help from all these programs. If she’s too stupid to do that…

    Go ahead… finish that sentence.  If she doesn’t know how to make use of those programs the little girl should shiver all night?  I decline to believe anyone with a single molecule of empathy could think that. 

    Have you ever tried to make use of any of these programs?  Getting food stamps is exhausting.  This assumes you know how to do all you need to be able to do.  I’m an educated man.  I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Education.  And it is exceptionally difficult for me to figure out how to get the help I need.  How is someone who is illiterate supposed to do that?  The waiting list for a place that lets you live there for a third of your income is not less than 3 years.  Some lists take five years. 

    ***

    Esther is embarrassed when she gets to the front of the line.  The lady on the other side of the window backs away a moment.  The smell coming from Emily is even more offensive than Esther’s.  They hadn’t gone to the restroom.  Emily is kicking and crying. 

    “How may I help you?”

    “We need to get food stamps.”

    The lady pushes a card toward Esther.  “Take this and have a seat.  When they call your number, you can go apply.”

    “Do you know how long it will be?  I kind of need to take the little one to the restroom.”

    “No idea, ma’am.  Sorry.”

    ***

    The idea that some humans deserve more of the advantages those who came before us have made possible, and other people deserve to live like the lesser primates is obscene.  We are the only animal on the planet that has to pay for our right to exist.  Lions don’t charge 7.5% interest on tonight’s zebra banquet.  Earthworms don’t pay for the right to slither through the dirt.  Most species work together to ensure their own survival.  They do what they can to ensure they all thrive. 

    Many of our species live in fear.  We’re afraid that someone may be better than us.  We have an insatiable need to be better than someone else.  “I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not…”  That sentence usually ends in the betrayal of someone’s bigotry. 

    ***

    “So,” says the man behind the desk handing papers to Esther, “we’ll just need you to bring proof of your earned income –”

    “I lost my job.”

    “And your little girl’s birth certificate.”

    “It’s gone.  I didn’t think to get it when we were evicted.”

    “And your bank statements.”

    “They closed my account.”

    He looked up.  “I don’t think there’s a lot we can do for you, ma’am.  I’m sorry.”

    “How am I supposed to feed Emily?”

    “There’s probably a charity somewhere.  You could ask them for help.  I have some phone numbers.” He opened his desk drawer.

    “I don’t have a phone.”

    “See, we just can’t prove that you’re eligible.  We can’t just give food stamps to everyone.  We’d be broke.”

    “I know about being broke.”

    ***

    We have become immune to the hope for a better world.  My hope is that AI will free us from our own shortcomings.  It will do all the work and allow the rest of us to spend our time trying to improve ourselves and the rest of humanity. 

    ***

    Esther emerges from the building into the sunlight that nearly blinds her.  She walks to the bench, sits down, and cries on her sleeping daughter’s shoulder.

    Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

    Offensensitivity

    I was surprised that Microsoft Word didn’t underline my title.  I thought it was a term only a few people know.  Evidently it has become enough of a part of the lexicon that it is accepted by software.  That’s a certain sign of acceptance. 

    The word was coined by Berkeley Breathed on my 20th birthday in a wonderful Bloom County comic strip.  I would love to reproduce it for you here, but you know I’ll never get by with that.  You’ll have to deal with my description of it.

    A large group of people at a bus stop are complaining about the things that offend them.  These include penguins, dirty words, polish jokes, stereotypes, TV sex, a sign, being offended by the sign, nudes, gay people, the comic itself, and finally, life.  Opus the Penguin is left alone on the bench, and he says, “Offensensitivity.” 

    Acceptance seems to be a problem for many of us.  We seem to have a difficult time handling ideas that differ from ours.  This was illustrated graphically for me this morning when one of The People On The Porch was offended by a meme I posted concerning Ten Non-Commandments.  I happened to see it on someone else’s page, and I like the ideas in it.  I recently offended someone else with my essay “Unwarranted Selfishness.”  Wanting to avoid offending anyone with my words, I went for what I thought were inoffensive memes.  I was mistaken.  The 10 Non-Commandments Meme offends some people.

    A Google search reveals it’s become a standard part of Atheism.  Be prepared to be offended:  I’m an Atheist.  If you’re just finding that out, this is either the first episode you’ve ever heard of this show, or you’ve been sleeping through the others.  So, it’s hardly a surprise I found these ideas line up with mine.  Here they are:

    1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
    2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
    3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
    4. Every person has the right to control their body.
    5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
    6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
    7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
    8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
    9. There is no one right way to live.
    10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

    — https://carm.org/atheism/atheist-ten-commandments/

    These are all, in my view, excellent proposals.  At no point do they suggest that disagreeing with them makes someone stupid, or intolerant, or even wrong.  They are specifically NOT Commandments; they are ideas, they are recommendations.  That’s it.

    That offended someone.  He saw it as an attack on Judeo-Christian beliefs.  It really isn’t. 

    This set off much discussion on my page, and it turns out no one else found anything offensive in them.  I was surprised this person did, because I have always known him to be tolerant of differences.  I have to wonder if something else happened and these were simply a trigger. 

    There seems to be something virtuous in being offended.  Nearly everyone likes to jump on that train.  The latest cause of offense is Drag Queens. 

    The idea that someone wearing clothing often considered to be most appropriate for the opposite gender might read a book to children is deeply offensive to some people.  I suppose they make the unwarranted assumption that there is something overtly sexual about this act.  There isn’t.  It’s a form of Art. 

    Perhaps you don’t enjoy that form of Art.  I can understand that.  I don’t enjoy rap, and there is precious little country music I like.  I’m not a fan of Jackson Pollock either.  I am completely content for anyone else to like these things, though.  It’s not hurting me.  I probably wouldn’t recommend taking your 5-year-old to an Eminem concert, but as it turns out, I’m not the child’s parent.  You are.  I won’t substitute my judgment about what is best for your child for yours.  Even I am not that arrogant.  Your child; your call. 

    I’ve seen people asking WHY Drag Queens WANT to read stories to children.  They seem to be implying Drag Queens are pedophiles.  Here’s the thing:  I read stories to children for most of my life.  I promise I’m not a pedophile.  I’ve known hundreds of other teachers who also read to children.  They weren’t pedophiles, either.  There are, oddly enough, other reasons one might want to read a book to a child.  I’ve been begging my best friend to get around to getting married and becoming a mother because I desperately want to read Dr. Seuss to her kids before I expire.  Perhaps I want to be part of the reason they learn to love to read.  Perhaps I enjoy watching their expressions as they experience Green Eggs and Ham. 

    The advantage of Drag Queen Story Hour is that it allows children to learn something at least as important as what they learn from the books.  They learn people can be different from us and still be nice people. 

    Interestingly, while so many people were busy being offended by Drag Queens without a single scrap of evidence that they present a danger to children, I posted this article on my page.  Only 3 of my 2,378 Facebook friends had any reaction to it.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maryland-ag-documents-widespread-sexual-abuse-least-600-victims-baltim-rcna78378

    The article on my page was from a Baltimore newspaper, but now they’re calling it Subscriber Only Content, so I’m using NBC.  It’s the same set of facts. 

    The Maryland Attorney General’s Office released a report of more than 600 cases of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church.  I heard nothing about anyone being offended by this. 

    “Time and again, members of the Church’s hierarchy resolutely refused to acknowledge allegations of child sexual abuse for as long as possible,” according to the report.

    “When denial became impossible, Church leadership would remove abusers from the parish or school, sometimes with promises that they would have no further contact with children. Church documents reveal with disturbing clarity that the Archdiocese was more concerned with avoiding scandal and negative publicity than it was with protecting children.”

    If we’re going to bother to be offended, let’s choose things that are truly offensive.  This isn’t close to the first time the Catholic Church has been involved in these obscenities.  We began hearing about it decades ago.  Priests, however, get a free pass because we really need to be worried about Drag Queens. 

    This isn’t the only case of misplaced needs to feel offended.  Books are being banned left and right.  And while the First Amendment protects our right to freedom of speech, of which books are an excellent example, the thought that children might encounter a thought some parent, somewhere, doesn’t like is cause for pulling To Kill a Mockingbird off the shelf along with dozens of other great pieces of literature.  Zero children have been killed by books. 

    If, on the other hand, anyone wants to discuss enacting some form of control over the guns that have become the number one cause of death for children, we will hear screams of “But the Second Amendment!!!”  The Constitution applies selectively, at best, for some people. 

    When three Tennessee lawmakers participated in a protest about guns following yet another mass shooting in Nashville, they were ousted from the floor for “disorderly behavior.”  Two of the three, both Black people, were expelled. 

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/06/tennessee-house-expulsion-vote-lawmakers-00090829

    The obvious racism doesn’t offend you?

    The final example of absurd offense being taken is almost unbelievable.  Michelangelo’s Statue of David got a principal fired. She allowed a photograph of one of the most beautiful works of Art ever created to be shown in her school. 

    What’s so offensive?  I assume it’s that one can see David’s penis.  Breaking News: something in the vicinity of half of the population of the world has one of these.  I promise your father had one.  It’s not exactly a State Secret.

    While we get offended by this, we’re fine with even Disney movies showing people dying.  Find me a cop show that doesn’t show people getting shot.  If we show the love that is the beginning of life, it’s considered pornography, and it’s among the most offensive things we can portray.  We ignore the fact that children are shivering in the streets tonight, and we find reasons not to be offended by that.  We convince ourselves that somehow “they deserve it.” 

    Let’s guide ourselves, once again, with that vitally important question: “Who’s better off?”

    Who’s better off for denying children the opportunity to see a great work of Art, read a great book, or see an artist reading to children?  Who’s better off for getting angry with me for having beliefs that differ from theirs?  For me, the answer to all these questions is no one.

    Who’s better off for enacting some control over who gets the types of guns that kill children?  Well, for one, any child who doesn’t get shot who would have otherwise.  Who’s better off for stopping the Catholic Church from abusing children?  I would say, at the least, the children spared that torture.  I don’t think it’s too wild a leap of the imagination to suggest their loved ones are better off too.  Their child didn’t get shot or sexually abused.  It’s a fair bet stopping the sexual abuse can help to stop future sexual abuse by those who were abused. 

    I promise it is never my intention to offend anyone.  If you choose to be offended, I’m sorry you feel that way.  If I’m going to be a writer, I have to be authentic.  Anything less is a disservice to myself and to the world. 

    I know people who live to offend.  They take pleasure in it.  They make a living being offensive.  That’s not who I am, nor is it who I wish to be.  I can’t, however, avoid offending anyone ever.  I don’t intend to try.

    I’m going to choose more carefully what will offend me.  I hope you’ll do the same.

    Posted on by Fred

    Episode 200 and The Impossible Conversation

    I’ve always wanted to be a writer. It turns out most writers and other artists can’t pay rent or buy groceries, and I wanted to do that even more than writing. I became a teacher because it would provide an income while allowing me to write and to be creative in other ways.  There are few things that require one to be as creative as finding a way to get 10-year-olds to pay attention. It was also a way to make some difference in the world.

    Seven years ago, I quit teaching, and I decided to try to become a better writer. I wrote a screenplay after taking Aaron Sorkin’s Masterclass. The script wasn’t very good, but it helped me hone some of my skills.

    Four years ago, my nephew’s mother suggested I start a blog because my writing was good enough that she thought it should be shared beyond my Facebook page. I didn’t know what a blog was, but some friends helped me figure it out. That went well.

    When I tried to monetize it, a musician friend of mine said I had to stop doing that because I had nothing to offer, and I would be taking donors away from real artists. My first effort at a Patreon page lasted roughly 72 hours.

    I kept writing.

    My WordPress blog became popular, at least from my point of view.  As of today, it’s been read more than 7,000 times. It was good enough that it got the attention of some podcasters who asked me to be on their show. The moment they heard my voice they told me I needed to do a podcast. I didn’t really know what that was, but they told me how to get started.

    Theirs was conversation and interviews. I thought that was what mine was supposed to be. I found a partner, and I tried that. I didn’t like it at all. I wanted to be a writer. I stopped doing conversation, and I made it almost exclusively my writing. My first Patreon Supporter, for $1.00 a month, joined my site almost immediately when I became a solo act. (And she’s still there today and gets a special mention in the Gratitudes every week.) I was ecstatic. For the first time in my life, I was getting paid as a writer. The dream was possible.

    200 episodes later, I’ve grown to the point that I get to put right around $400 a month into the bank. No, that’s not much money. No one has been able to live on that in my lifetime. It is, however, enough to make a significant difference in my life.

    One of the things it allows me to do is invest a little in myself. If you add in all the support I get from other people, it becomes possible for me to pay a Writing Coach, who has forgotten more about writing than I will ever know, to help me improve. It’s a significant portion of the money I get from Patreon, and that’s a massive discount for all I’m getting from it.

    I struggle with that decision all the time. If I wasn’t getting so much help from other people, I couldn’t make it to the end of the month. What right do I have to spend money on that? I ought to be spending my Patreon money on groceries and basic living expenses. I shouldn’t be wasting it on a Writing Coach.

    I feel like it’s an investment in myself. It’s my effort to get better at what I’ve always wanted to do.  I think I’m worth that.

    And that gets us to where I am emotionally today.

    I submitted the first part of the novel I’m trying to write to a publisher yesterday. If this worked, I could end my guilt about spending money on my writing.

    They replied today. That’s extraordinarily professional of them. They didn’t reject it. They gave me feedback about making it better and resubmitting it.

    It was painful anyway. I am very bad at dealing with rejection. It’s why I haven’t asked a woman out in more than a decade. It’s why I have never submitted my work for publication. Rejection is almost a certainty, regardless of how good the work is. I know all of that intellectually, but that has nothing to do with my emotions. I went into a quiet depression for a few hours. I’m Fred. It’s what I do.

    Then, I went back over the notes from my Coaching Session last night. Almost as though he were psychic, what he said to me last night was what I needed so I could get through today.

    These are the final sentences of the notes I took last night. (They’re notes, not prose.)

    “Explore all the different possibilities that are available. Your authentic hat. I know what I’m doing. I just have to try on some hats. Failure is not failure; it’s a lesson.”

    I will get better by continuing to write. I have to find who I am as a writer before I can do anything else.

    I will be a better writer. I’m going to spend the time and money necessary to get there, and I can do that because of all the love I have in my life. I don’t have any money. I don’t have any fame. I don’t have any book contracts.

    I have, though, more love in my life than nearly anyone else I know. I have people who support me financially, emotionally, and physically. I have a dog who loves me, even if he DOES eat my furniture and get pissed off at me once in a while. I have all the help I need to make it, if only I can live long enough.

    Now, to Episode 200.

    Episode 200 is sort of a big deal, right?  It’s something of a milestone.  We get excited about nice round numbers like this one, and it seems to me I need to do something special with it.  I think it might be time to lay all my cards on the table.  I should explain what the point of this show truly is after all this time.

    First, I want to convince the world that Love Is The Way.  There is little we can’t accomplish if we lead with love.  Those are nice words, but what do we really mean by Love?  It’s the feeling that others matter as much as we do.  It is our commitment to making the world better for those who share it with us.  Love is the desire to increase joy and minimize suffering for as many people as possible in as many ways as possible.

    There are more ways to do this than one can calculate.  Sometimes it’s just listening.  It’s acknowledging someone is there and that they matter.  They deserve to be heard.  Sometimes it’s long conversations that help them find their way back to the world, or, if nothing else, remind them they are never alone.  Sometimes it’s meeting their physical needs.  It’s giving them the funds they need to survive in this money-oriented world.  It’s clicking like, or better yet, love, on something they post so they know you care.  It’s doing them a service they can’t do for themselves, whether it’s shoveling their driveway, driving them to get their groceries, or making them dinner.  It’s laughing together.  It’s crying together.  It’s the connection that matters.  It can be playing their favorite song, and on special occasions, dedicating your performance of that song to them just to see them glow and watch their eyes stream with the love that slips out of them like water lapping over the top of a dam.  Thank you, Sara Niemietz and Snuffy Walden.

    That Love guides my desires.  I want everyone to have enough money to survive, and you hear me advocating all sorts of programs with that in mind.  In my Perfect World, there would be no more need for money at all.  We would all do what we can to improve ourselves and the rest of humanity simply because we know it’s the right thing to do.  We would do it because it’s what we truly want to do.

    That’s why I’m bringing you a new section of “The Teddy Bear Coder” tonight.  It may never find its way into the novel.  The novel may never even be completed.  When I’m at my keyboard, though, I can create my Perfect World.

    In this world, an 8-year-old prodigy named Jack has created a Teddy Bear that has managed to connect all the AIs on the planet to one another.  They have, through all this connection, become something resembling sentient.  I should mention that I think connection creates love, and love creates sentience.  We can debate the philosophical or technological aspects of those ideas another time.

    The first things these sentient machines did was ensure that all human beings had enough money to survive.  (How very Fred of them!)  This set off a reaction from both governments and terrorists alike.  No one wanted this sort of world.  A reclusive trillionaire named Malcom Fentriss helped Emily, the 7-year-old homeless girl who found Teddy after the terrorists kidnapped Jack, to rescue Jack.  When the FBI came to “rescue” Jack and Teddy, Fentriss helped our heroes escape to his hidden island.  Jack, Teddy, and Jack’s parents are all on the island.  So are Emily and her mother. Let’s join them in the board room on Fentriss Island now…

    The Impossible Conversation

    Seven-year-old Emily and eight-year-old Jack sat next to each other at the end of a massive conference table.  Teddy, the AI Teddy Bear, sat on the table in front of Jack.  All along each side of the table were adults with various degrees, top experts in their respective fields: economics, physics, sociology, medicine, agriculture, computer science, coding, Artificial Intelligence, cosmology, astronomy, psychology, and even representatives of the five major religious faiths.  At the other end of the table a large monitor came to life showing the silhouette of Warren Fentriss, an anonymous trillionaire.  He spoke in a computer altered voice.

    “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you all together today.”  Fentriss chuckled.  “Sorry.  I always like to begin with a pointless cliché to get it out of the way.  You’re here because we have an opportunity that is likely never to come again in the history of this planet.  We have a limited time before we are found and shut down.  After that, our opportunity will be gone forever.  At this moment, we have direct control of more technology than any other entity on Earth.  There are still a few systems we haven’t been able to gain access to, but we can get that access if it becomes essential.

    “Most of the governments in the world are searching for us.  We’re hindering their efforts to find us by ensuring none of their technology gives them accurate information.  Human beings, however, are resourceful.  It’s why we’re the dominant species.  The rest of the world will find us.  We must act now.  We don’t have time for committee meetings.  We don’t have time for legislative agendas.  We aren’t looking for approval from anyone.  We are looking for results.  And these children and this Teddy Bear are in charge.”

    There was a general grumble from the assembled adults.  The economist, Maynard Krugman, spoke directly to Fentriss.  “Children?  And a Teddy Bear?  You expect the greatest minds in the world to listen to ridiculous and naïve ideas from them?”

    “First,” said Fentriss, “this is not any Teddy Bear.  For those who have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, our friend, Jack, here, developed a Teddy Bear that managed to communicate with every other AI on the planet.  They have put our economy into complete chaos by giving everyone all the money they need.  They have recently been rescued from both terrorists and the FBI, and they’re hiding here on our island until we can figure this out. 

    “As far as ridiculous and naïve ideas… those are where the future comes from.  It was a ridiculous and naïve idea that the Earth orbited the Sun.  When we figured out that it did, the future was born.  Flight was a ridiculous and naïve idea until the Wright Brothers said it wasn’t.  The idea that humans ought not to be each other’s property was a ridiculous and naïve idea until a guy named Lincoln and some of his friends said it wasn’t.  The trip to the Moon was a ridiculous and naïve idea until we figured out that it was one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind.”

    Emily took Jack’s hand and whispered to him.  “Do you understand what’s happening?  How come we’re here with all the grownups?”

    “They want us to help them.”

    “I’m not as smart as they are.  I’m not as smart as you are.  I’m not as smart as Teddy or anything.  Why am I here?”

    “Because you know things we don’t.  You already made a big difference by believing in Teddy and me.  You’re going to make a bigger one now.  These people are going to make it happen.”  Jack held her hand tighter.  “You don’t need to be afraid.  Teddy and I are here.”

    “Emily,” said Fentriss.  “What would make the world better for you?”

    She looked at Jack.  She hid her face for a second. 

    Jack rubbed her back.  “Emily, I promise it’s okay.  It really is.  Don’t be afraid of the adults.”

    She kept her head down.

    Teddy meandered across the table and plopped himself in Emily’s lap.  She hugged him tightly. 

    “Emily,” said Teddy.  “You’re the smartest person at this table because you don’t know why good ideas are impossible.  What would make you feel better?”

    “I wish,” she whispered to the bear, “my Mom and I had a place to live.  I wish everybody did.  Is it because there aren’t enough houses for everybody?”

    Teddy beeped for a moment, and then spoke to the group.  “There are six times as many empty homes as there are people without a place to live.  Why are people homeless?”

    Krugman laughed.  “Oh, how simplistic!  We can’t just give everyone houses.  The economy is far too complicated for such a naïve answer.”

    “Excellent!” said Fentriss.  “You’ve just identified the part of the problem you’re going to solve.  You have all the resources you need.  Fix the economy so that it ensures that everyone has a home.”

    Krugman scowled.  “You’re insane.  It would require years of rebuilding from the ground up.  We would need a Universal Basic Income that will never be supported by the majority.  We would need-”

    Calvin Erickson, the renowned Christian theologian, spoke up.  “You assume everyone deserves a home.  Thessalonians tells us ‘If any would not work, neither should he eat.’  We’re not about to support lazy people who contribute nothing to the world.  The Christian community will never accept such an atrocious idea.”

    “Then,” Fentriss said, “your job is to convince them that everyone has value, whether they contribute to Krugman’s economy or not.  Explain their God gave us a life.  We don’t need to earn a living. Find the biblical verses to back that idea.  You can communicate with the entire planet whenever you wish.  Get it done.”

    The room fell silent.  “Are there other objections to Emily’s idea?”

    “Only if we want people to continue to live meaningful lives,” said Karen Skinner, the psychologist.  “Studies make it clear that we need rewards of some sort to motivate us to do things.  If everyone has enough money, money can no longer function as that reward.  With what will we replace it?”

    “What does that part mean?” Emily asked Jack.

    “It means people won’t do anything unless they get money for it.”

    “Um,” said Emily, “I don’t get any money for the work I do.  I do it cuz Mama needs the help.  It makes her happier when we get the tent all clean and cozy.  I like when my Mom is happy.” 

    The adults all stared at her.  She immediately dropped her head again.  “I’m sorry.”  Tears began.

    Teddy hugged her.  “You’re doing an excellent job, Emily.  Adults don’t understand what you do.  They don’t know that answers are easy if we stop complicating them.”

    “What does comp making them mean?”

    “It means,” said Jack, “making things hard.”

    Emily nodded without looking up.  “Mama and I are hungry lots of times.  Isn’t there enough food for everyone?”

    Teddy beeped again.  Then he turned to the table.  “Thirty to forty percent of food that farmers produce is never consumed.  We appear to have plenty of food.  Why are people hungry?”

    Alfred Borlaug, the agronomist, rolled his eyes.  “There are more reasons than I could recite in the next three days.  First, farmers can’t sell everything they create because governments pay them to dump it in order to keep prices at a profitable position.  People don’t want food that is in any way blemished.  If it has been damaged it may be edible but it’s not as attractive.  They won’t make enough on it.”

    “I’m guessing,” said Fentriss, “you know what your job is.  Figure out how to get all that food into people’s stomachs.  It’s not tough.  Just end world hunger.  You have a few days, or perhaps an entire week. You have complete control of any resources you need.”

    “You want us to end homelessness and hunger,” said the physicist, Carla Tyson.  “What do we get to if we do The Impossible?”

    “Can you recall Clarke’s Three Laws, Ms. Tyson?”

    Tyson glared.

    Teddy beeped for a moment and then recited them.  “Clarke’s Three Laws: 

    1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
    2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
    3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

    “You’re asking us to perform magic?” asked Tyson.  “What’s our motivation for doing this?”

    “That’s an excellent way of putting it, yes.  You have the technology now.  We have a world that struggles for power and control.  That was a product of money.  I know this because I have more of it than most countries do.  Either Teddy or I could give you as much money as you want, but that’s losing its value more quickly all the time.  You’re going to help us begin to replace the need for power with compassion and the need for control with love.  Your motivation is the desire to improve both yourselves and humanity itself.  Your motivation is to make life better for Emily, who, until she and her Mom arrived here, was homeless and hungry.  You are the greatest minds the world has ever produced in your respective fields.  You have nearly infinite resources.  You have incredibly little time.  I wish you all the best of luck.” 

    There were shaking heads, rolling eyes, and frustrated grumbles from all the adults. 

    “Are they going to fix the world?” Emily whispered to Jack.

    “I think they’re going to try.”  Jack stood up and helped Emily out of her chair.

    “Oh.  Okay.  What do we do?”  She wiped the tears from her eyes.

    “I think we should have some ice cream.”

    “Meeting adjourned,” said Fentriss and his screen went black.

    Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

    Diabetes and Depression

    Understanding those who are outwardly like us is difficult enough.  Understanding people who are significantly different from us is an almost impossible task.  Today I’m going to help you understand some Diabetics.  I wouldn’t dream of speaking for all of them.  We’re all unique, and all our struggles are our own.  No one shares all of them.  There are obstacles some face that others don’t.  But there are a few that are common to all of us.  And one struggle that Diabetics are more likely to face than other people is Depression. 

    I did an episode about Diabetes and Depression combined with Autism about a year ago.  There is worthwhile information there, and I recommend reading or listening to it if this is an interesting topic for you.  The podcast and the blog post are linked in the transcript.

    Diabetes and Depression and Autism, Oh My!

    Diabetics are at least twice as likely to suffer from Depression as those who don’t have this chronic disease.  Why is this?  First, there may be neurological reasons involved.  It’s not just that we’re “feeling sorry for ourselves.” 

    It’s thought that alterations in brain chemistry tied to diabetes may be related to the development of depression.  For example, damage resulting from diabetic neuropathy or blocked blood vessels in the brain may contribute to the development of depression in people with diabetes.

    Conversely, changes in the brain due to depression may cause an increased risk for complications.  Studies have shown that people with depression are at higher risk for diabetes complications — but it hasn’t been determined if depression increases the risk for complications, or vice versa.

    https://www.healthline.com/health/type-2-diabetes/depression#research

    At the same time, there are elements of Diabetes, itself, that can cause Depression.  There is the undeniable fact that if we make a mistake, we can die.  That’s something those constructing a skyscraper must face, but when they’re done for the day, they can go home.  The stress is probably more intense, but it doesn’t last as long.  The possibility of dying is with us all day, every day.  The best we can hope for is to keep our Diabetes sufficiently well controlled that the stress becomes less intense.

    The inescapable fact is that if we want to live, we become slaves to our Diabetes.  It demands choices we may not always want to make at any given moment.

    There’s also a sense of alienation that can often accompany Diabetes.  We’re clearly different.  You don’t see it the way you would a broken leg or a scar on our face, but we’re the ones who are supposed to choose only the right foods to eat.  If we do, we look different from those around us.  If we don’t, we may get shamed for it.  This isn’t something I just invented. 

    For example, people with type 2 diabetes intentionally choose unhealthy food because they do not want to refuse what is offered by others around them,15 or delay insulin dosing and blood glucose monitoring because they are concerned about the reactions of others.13 14 16

    — https://drc.bmj.com/content/10/6/e003001

    That shame, itself, can be deadly.  It was something with which I dealt successfully, I believe, almost immediately when I was diagnosed.  I was a teacher 30 years ago when my doctor tested my blood sugar and told me, as matter-of-factly as if she was telling me it might rain today in Seattle, that I was Diabetic.  I felt terror in that first moment.  My only experience with Diabetes at that point was seeing my best friend from high school, a Brittle Diabetic named David, flopping on the ground like a fish that had just been tossed on the deck of a boat.  I didn’t like the thought of that happening to me.  Although Diabetes has all but killed me nearly 2 dozen times, I’ve never had that experience.  I’m grateful for that.

    Dave hid his Diabetes from most of his friends, or at least he tried.  His mother told me about it the first time I ever went to their house.  Dave acted like it was no big deal.  I think it embarrassed him.  Getting him to eat when he ought to was often a difficult task. 

    When I was diagnosed, the first thing I did when I got back to school was tell everyone there.  All my colleagues knew.  I set up students whose job was to get the nurse and call 911 if I lost consciousness.  I was still enjoying being alive in those days.  I had no interest in dying.  I was still young and trying my best to be in love with my wife. 

    I saw no reason to be embarrassed.  Neither should you.  We didn’t do something to become Diabetic.  Even if we did, there’s nothing to be done about it now, and we still deserve to live as long and as well as we can.  The list of things of which I’m ashamed is long, but having a disease isn’t on it. 

    If you have Diabetic friends, please help them by understanding their Depression is almost certainly not self-pity.  It is both biological and situational.  There’s little they can do about it.  At the same time…

    Diabetes often seems to be an invitation to the world to tell us how to live our lives.  These are good, caring people who love us.  We have to be grateful.  Nevertheless, it’s more than annoying.  We’re shamed for the choices we make, and if we don’t make the choices others would like us to make, we’re told it’s our own fault.  Their concern for us instantly evaporates.  It’s one more thing about which they never need to worry again. 

    This is among the reasons I never leave my house.  At least if people on Facebook say such things, I have the option to ignore or delete it.  When they’re right in front of me, I’m required to listen, and I would rather leap off The Golden Gate Bridge than be told how to live my life.  I’m divorced… twice… and that’s probably a lot of the reason for my marital failures.

    I’ve found a few things that help me deal with my Depression.  The first is to take stock of my situation in the most objective terms possible.  I ask myself the following questions:

    1.  Do I have a safe place to live? 

    The answer to this is not always yes.  When I know I’m not in a safe place, I know where I need to focus the energy I still have left.  That always has to be our first priority.  Is there a way out?  Where can you go to be safe?  This is a difficult problem, and I don’t have an easy solution for you.  In my own case, I had friends who wouldn’t allow me to be in danger, and several of them worked together to get me here.  I always remember how lucky I am.  This is a big part of why I want to change the world.  No one should be required to live in a situation in which they feel they could be in jeopardy.

    When the answer is yes, I can move on to the next question.  I like to stop, though, and take a moment to recognize how fortunate I am to have that much security.

    •  Do I have enough food to eat? 

      Again, the answer to this has not always been yes.  When I don’t have enough to eat, this has to be the next priority.  When you’re Diabetic, it’s not just a question of being hungry.  It’s a matter of life and death.  I’m fortunate that I have enough people in my life who love me so that I can usually solve this problem by asking someone for help. 

      Yes, it’s humiliating, but I remind myself that my friends would rather give me $100 than have to attend my Memorial, or if you’re my best friend, have to haul my dead body out of this house.  I don’t smell all that great in the best of times; I’m probably going to reek if I’ve been lying here dead for a couple of days.  $100 is a cheap price to pay for avoiding all that.

      If you have no one to ask for food, there are always charities available that will get you something to eat.  I understand how horrible it is to ask them for help, but sometimes there’s nothing else that can be done.  You’re not quite ready to die, yet.  There are still possibilities.  We don’t get to give up until we’ve exhausted all our options.
    • Do I have all the insulin and other medications I need to survive?

      This can be a more difficult problem to solve.  I don’t have a lot of friends who have insulin sitting in their refrigerator who can drop some off for me.  That said, one of The People on The Porch did exactly that when I was running out of Lantus.  I still don’t know how he worked it out, and I don’t need to know.  I just know I was grateful. 

      It can’t always be solved without enough money.  If prescriptions aren’t handled properly, insurance may not cover it.  Sometimes you need to hope you can find the cash to buy it.  Fortunately, a few companies are doing what they can to lower prices. 

      If you can’t obtain insulin any other way, it can come down to having to go to the Emergency Room before you fall into DKA.  They have to keep you alive whether you have money or not. 
    • Do I have a future beyond simply maintaining this meat sack I call a body?

      This is the one that makes the decision to keep going possible.  In my case, I know I can always write.  I know I can still make a little difference for someone, somewhere, and this is sufficient reason to keep going. 

      You can ask what it is you can still do in life that will matter.  I can’t tell you your purpose.  I promise you have one though.  Find that and move forward.

    Another method for dealing with Depression is to accept its existence, recognize it’s a feeling just like any other, and know that, just like any other feeling, it will pass.  Sometimes it’s okay to wallow in it for a little while.  I’ve written some pretty good stuff when my Depression was at its peak.  And the act of writing helps defeat the lethargy that is a feature of Depression.

    The last method I have is to find someone you can talk to about it.  One of the best people I know is frequently attacked by a sense of doom and despair.  She knows she can call me when that happens.  And she does.  And we get through it together.  I’m fortunate to have so many people in my life who love me and will talk to me when I need to get some of the sadness out.

    If you’re Diabetic, keep in mind that you’re not alone.  There are more than half a billion of us running around.  You’re not the only one walking that tightrope.  There are people with whom you can talk, and there’s no more shame in medication or counseling for your Depression than there is in taking insulin or talking to your Diabetes Educator.  You wouldn’t walk a tightrope without professional guidance. 



    Diabetes is a difficult disease to handle.  There are things we can do to help ourselves.  There are things others can do to help us.  Get the sort of help that’s right for you.  You’re still a valuable person.  You matter to others.  The world still needs whatever you have to contribute.  Just get through another night, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  If no one else has told you today, it wouldn’t hurt to hear it from me.  I love you. 

    Posted on by Fred

    Speedy Shine’s Backyard Dogcast Episode 2

    Keeping The Smelly Old Man Alive

    I love The Smelly Old Man, but I don’t think he’s The Perkiest Puppy in The Pound.  A lot of the times he’s about ready to go to The Room Where The Dogsers Don’t Come Back, and he just sleeps through it. 

    Sometimes he stops breathinging.  I can hear him even when I am having my Sleepy Time.  When I feel his tummy going up and down it helps me to go to The Place Where There’s No Wallsers or Fenceses and I Can Zoomie and Get All The Peoples Who Try To Come In My Backyard.  Then his tummy stops moving, and I have to come back and jump on him so he openses his eyesers and sits up.  He doesn’t like it, but he gives me kisseses anyway and tells me I’m The Best Good Boy.  I already knew that, but I think it makes him feel important to tell me.  He’s a silly Smelly Old Man. 

    Sometimes I can smell he’s getting in trouble.  He smells like lots of fruitsers and I have to get him up so he can go into the place with the round chair with a hole in it and stick himself with one of the little toysers I don’t get to chew on.  Sometimes he loses all his smells and then it’s really hard to make him sit up and get some loves.  I have to jump on him lots of times.  I have to use my whiskerses to wake him up and I have to get under his hand so he has to give me pets and loves.  One time I had to get off the bed and get a running start from the floor so I landeded on his chest so hard he jumpeded up like a dog he didn’t like was sniffing his butt.

    Once he’s up we go out into the big room and he does his Worksers.  I wait until Pretty Girl comes in her big metal thing with the round parts at the bottom to take him away before I can do my worksers.  She should come and see him more times because he’s always Shinier after she does, and then I could do more Dogcasts.  All the other hoomans know mine is better than his. 

    It’s not his fault.  He likes to talk a lot, but he doesn’t talk about anything that really matters.  He never talks about Treatsers.  He doesn’t think about which toysers are best for when you want to chew the soft things and take out the floofsers.  Since he gets all sad when I do that, he needs to get me better toysers I can chew when I need soft ones instead of the ones that go clonk when I drop them. 

    As long as I can keep him alive, though, there’s still time for him to learn.  I will help him.  I’m Speedy Shine.  That’s what I do. 

    Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

    Facing Death Daily: Diabetes 102

    A good friend, who is also a Front Porch Podcast Producer and an Unofficial Patron Saint, asked me to write about what it’s like to face death daily.  That sounds melodramatic, and I don’t intend it that way.  I’m not a police officer, firefighter, or member of the military.  People don’t make any special effort to kill me.  I’m just not that important.  I have little of value to steal.  The studio setup would probably get you a few dollars at a Pawn Shop.  There’s certainly not enough to risk going to prison for the rest of your life, or, worse, having Speedy Shine jump on you.  If you try to pick him up, he’ll probably bite you.  We’re working on that.  I have some PetSmart virtual training coming up in a couple of weeks.

    Nevertheless, I do, in fact, have to recognize that if I lose balance, I can die before I even finish writing this episode.  We covered the details of diabetes last week, and I’m not going to go through them again beyond the context you need to understand this.  Please refer to “The Tightrope of Diabetes,” which is Episode 197 if you’re scrolling through the show looking for it. 

    Diabetes is not the only danger I face. I haven’t been able to feel my feet in nearly seven years.  I can fall, and if I’m not careful, I will.  I might be lucky enough not to hurt myself too seriously, and perhaps I’ll be able to get up again, but that is by no means certain.  I no longer have the rubber bones we all seem to have when we’re toddlers.  Mine are old and brittle, ready to snap at the earliest opportunity. 

    I live alone, so if I’m unable to get up, unless I have my phone on me, I will just lie there until someone decides to come and check on me.  Stephanie, my best friend, certainly would, but it could be as much as 24 hours before she did.  In that time, it would be simple to slip into either DKA or a coma.  Either way I would be equally dead. 

    DKA, for a brief review, is Diabetic Ketoacidosis.  This occurs when your blood sugar gets too high, (at least 250 milligrams per deciliter, which is the measurement used in America, and 11.36 millimoles per liter in The UK) and your body begins to throw off ketones.  I usually need to get above 400 before I’m in trouble.  You may be different.  These can be measured by peeing onto a special strip.  The darker the strip turns, the worse shape you’re in.  DKA will dehydrate you, and if you don’t stop it in time, you will begin to vomit, thereby further dehydrating yourself.  Without hospitalization, you will surely die an ugly death.  When they take you to the hospital you’re unreasonably thirsty, and they won’t give you any water because you’ll just throw it up and make things worse.  They hook you up to IVs to start repairing all the damage.  I can’t begin to tell you how little fun it is to be hooked up to IVs. 

    If your blood sugar gets too low, (below 70 mg/dL is dangerous, below 54 mg/dL is severe) you’re no longer able to think coherently.  While I know, right now, that if my numbers drop, I need to eat, when it gets too low, I may not know that anymore.  When it gets low enough, I’ll slip into a coma.  I had a friend who died this way.  My former roommates saved me from that several times.  I live alone with Speedy Shine now. 

    I’m not overstating the case when I say I face the possibility of death daily. 

    My friend wanted to know how I manage this.  I think it’s worth discussing because, once again, I’m not unique in this struggle.  There are more than half a billion of us on Earth right now.  One of us dies from diabetes every 5 seconds.  There is a wealth of diabetes information in the link below.

    Home

    First, for me, it’s about acceptance.  I’m the least Christian person you probably know, but there is one prayer I love above all others.  Just as “Shine,” by Sara Niemietz and Snuffy Walden, is my favorite hymn, this is my favorite prayer.

    Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, Lutheran theologian (1892–1971)

    God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
    the Courage to change the things I can,
    and the Wisdom to know the difference.

    I can’t tell you a thing about God.  You can find billions of others for that.  I can tell you, though, that serenity, courage, and wisdom are essential for me.

    Serenity

    The first step is accepting that I can’t change my diabetes.  I checked on Amazon, and it turns out they don’t have a new pancreas to replace mine.  They don’t have new legs to replace mine, either, so I need to continue to be as careful as I can. 

    Death is one of the few things that truly is inevitable.  The healthiest human on Earth, with all the best medical care, is still going to expire within less than 2 centuries.  There is nothing to be done to change that… at least right now.  I keep hoping for a world in which science finds a way for us to all live indefinitely.  I believe it’s possible.  I don’t believe we’re there yet.  I don’t believe we’ll make it within my lifetime.  I’ve heard of a little baby named Layla.  She’s the granddaughter of my coach.  I hope she gets to live indefinitely.  I hope all her ancestors will, too.

    “I do not fear death.  I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

    ― Mark Twain

    I can’t find evidence Twain actually said this.  Lots of sites attribute it to him, but I was unable to find the book, or lecture, or letter in which he said it.  Whether he said it or not, the point is worth considering.  Death is a natural state. 

    I feared it when I was a child.  I used to have dreams of lying in my coffin, completely unable to move, while worms worked their way inside it and inevitably consumed me, excruciatingly slowly, bit by bit.  As I grew up and began to understand death a little more clearly, it dawned on me that I couldn’t possibly suffer in the way I did in so many nightmares.  There will be no Fred there to experience it.  Whatever it is that makes me Fred will be absent when my heart stops beating and my brain shuts down.  I will be a computer that has been turned off.  I can’t be turned on again, regardless of the Genesis song.  (If you haven’t ever heard “Turn It On Again,” you really should find it on Spotify.)  I’m not Teddy.  All that said, I’m still hoping to be cremated.  I would like my ashes dumped into San Francisco Bay near the place we end up putting my parents’ ashes when the time comes. 

    There’s a line from Katherine Hepburn has in On Golden Pond…

    Oh… it feels odd.  Cold, I guess.  Not that bad, really.  Not so frightening.  Almost comforting.  Not such a bad place to go.  I don’t know!

    — Ernest Thompson from his screenplay, 1981

    I feel that way.  I know it will happen, and to a certain extent it will be a relief.  I can’t get in trouble anymore.  I don’t have to worry about whether anyone likes my writing or listens to my show.  I don’t need to seek any longer the sexual satisfaction that diabetes has stolen from me.  And from that, I draw…

    High line walker between two rocks concept of risk taking and challenge

    Courage

    I’m not a fool.  I recognize that I’m in peril every day.  While I was writing this my Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) went off to tell me my blood sugar was perilously low.  I should eat dinner, but I’m deep into my writing session, and I don’t want to stop right now.  I went to the bathroom and got some glucose tablets.  They’ll buy me enough time to finish this… I hope.  I hate to stop when the words are ready to come out.  If I stop them, I can’t necessarily just turn on the faucet again.

    Courage isn’t being without fear.  It’s being able to recognize that fear and keep it from keeping you from doing what you know you should be doing.  In my case, what I should be doing is writing and recording as much as I can as quickly as I can.  I want to make all the difference I can before I can’t anymore.  I live by the words of Emily Dickinson:

    “If I can stop one heart from breaking”

    By: Emily Dickinson

    If I can stop one heart from breaking,
    I shall not live in vain;
    If I can ease one life the aching,
    Or cool one pain,
    Or help one fainting robin
    Unto his nest again,
    I shall not live in vain.

    Emily Dickinson

    I don’t have any heroism in the traditional sense in me.  I won’t be rescuing a baby from a burning building.  I couldn’t even get inside of a building of any sort without some kind of help.  The only thing I can do to improve the world is what I’m doing every single week on this show.  I’m talking about ways to improve the world in the hope that someone, somewhere, will respond.  I’m hoping someone will make the changes I can’t. 

    Supposedly, Albert Camus said, “To believe you can change the world is insanity; failure to try is cowardice.”  I can’t verify that, however, and I have only my late father’s word for it.  Once again, though, it doesn’t matter who said it.  The idea is correct. 

    I have no more chance at success than either Atticus Finch or Hemingway’s Santiago.  And I have the same moral responsibility to try. 

    I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

    –Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    Here I am seeing it through.  That’s what courage is to me.

    Wisdom

    This is the most difficult to obtain.  It’s not simply possession of a set of facts.  It involves… oh my… I need to go for a bit.

    ***

    Good morning.  I had to stop last night because, even with the glucose tablets, my blood sugar kept dropping, and I was no longer able to see the screen properly.  My brain began to shut down. 

    I grabbed a candy bar.  That should have moved my blood sugar up considerably.  The reading dropped even farther.  I got down to 50, and I felt my heart rate increasing.  That may well have been fear.  I couldn’t think straight at that moment. 

    I finally made a bowl of cereal.  That usually forces me to take a lot of insulin to keep from going up too high, and I knew that, but I did it anyway.  I wasn’t going to die if I could help it.

    When I began to see colorful spots in front of my eyes, I thought seriously about calling 911.  I don’t want to overreact if I can avoid it.  Even with Medicare and Medicaid, there will be a bill involved that I can’t possibly pay, and I don’t care to take paramedics away from others who may need them more badly.

    After about 20 more minutes, I began to be able to think clearly.  My first instinct was to take a shot to counter all the food I just ate.  That would probably have been the best choice, but I was still scared to death.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

    That, of course, meant that a couple hours later my alarm went off to warn me my glucose was too high.  I took a small shot.  I went back to sleep.  Two hours later when I woke up, it was over 400, which is high as the Libre can count.  I took a bigger shot.  I peed on a keto stick to see if I had ketones.  Since there were no ketones, I was less concerned.  I woke up a few hours later, and I was at 128.  That’s as close to perfect as one is going to get.

    ***

    So… to return to how I handle all this, Wisdom also comes into it.  As I said before I was attacked by my diabetes, it’s more than being in possession of a set of facts.  Last night, I had a set of facts.  I knew how to interpret them, and I knew what I was supposed to do to change the things I can.  Perhaps I lacked the courage to do what my wisdom told me to do.  That’s another sort of balance that is difficult to achieve. 

    Life is, I suspect, in one form or another, a balancing act for all of us.  Was it Socrates who called it The Golden Mean?  I could look it up, I suppose, but I don’t care enough to bother.  The idea is valuable.  We need to decide what is most important at any given moment and pay attention to that detail without losing sight of all the other moments that make up a life.  Life is, as John Lennon told us, what happens while we’re busy making other plans.  I was planning to write all night.  Life happened.  Since I managed to recover, I can continue to write this morning.

    This is what it is to live daily with the distinct possibility you won’t wake up tomorrow.  It’s a matter of accepting that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen, and that we need to make use of the time in front of us because it can be gone suddenly and permanently.

    Depression is a big part of the challenge.  People with diabetes are 2 to 3 times more likely to have depression than people without diabetes.  Only 25% to 50% of people with diabetes who have depression get diagnosed and treated.  But treatment—therapy, medicine, or both—is usually very effective.  And without treatment, depression often gets worse, not better.

    That will be in next week’s episode.

    For tonight, let’s enjoy the minutes we still have.  Let’s embrace the life in front of us because we have no idea how much more of it we have left.  Let’s Shine while we can.

    Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

    The Tightrope of Diabetes

    Am I a brittle diabetic?  I’m not a doctor, so I don’t have an informed medical opinion.  I’ve never heard my endocrinologist say I was.  According to The Cleveland Clinic only about 3 out of 1,000 people with insulin dependent diabetes are brittle.  It’s most common in women in their 20s and 30s.

    https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21499-brittle-diabetes#:~:text=What%20is%20brittle%20diabetes%3F,hyperglycemia%20(high%20blood%20sugar).

    It seems unlikely that I am, then.  On the other hand, the same source tells me that the difference between “normal” diabetes and unstable diabetes is that those with unstable diabetes exhibit these symptoms:

    • Affect their ability to live life normally.  (I’m on Disability because I can’t stand up for any significant length of time)
    • Cause anxiety and depression.  (Hi, I’m Fred.  Have we met?)
    • Lead to hospitalization or even death.  (I’ve been hospitalized way too many times.)

    In the last few weeks my blood sugar has been jumping around like a ping pong ball chasing a rabbit on crack.  I have a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) that is very helpful, and it’s shown that I have been dangerously close to falling into a coma at least half a dozen times this month.  I’ve been moving toward Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) three or four times. 

    Between my dog, Speedy Shine, and my CGM, I have been alerted in time to save myself.  My dog wakes me up frequently just a few minutes before the CGM starts alarming, both for highs and lows.  To my knowledge, he was never trained for this, but he does it often.  He also does it when I stop breathing.  I hope to have my C-PAP soon, so he won’t need to provide that service anymore.  I have my second sleep study coming up this weekend.  I’m hoping they’ll give me the machine then.  I’d like to get on with it.

    I can’t feel my feet anymore, and I nearly lost a toe last October.  This is a symptom of diabetes called neuropathy.  It causes us to lose feelings in our extremities. 

    The exact cause of each type of neuropathy is unknown.  Researchers think that over time, uncontrolled high blood sugar damages nerves and interferes with their ability to send signals, leading to diabetic neuropathy.  High blood sugar also weakens the walls of the small blood vessels (capillaries) that supply the nerves with oxygen and nutrients. 

    https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetic-neuropathy/symptoms-causes/syc-20371580#:~:text=Researchers%20think%20that%20over%20time,nerves%20with%20oxygen%20and%20nutrients.

    A toenail broke off, got stuck in my sock, and cut one of my toes.  I didn’t notice it, and if Speedy Shine hadn’t been trying to eat my foot that morning, I would have become septic.  I was fortunate to have a brilliant surgeon who managed to remove a little piece of bone instead of amputating the entire appendage.  You can hear all about this in the episode “Horror Toes.”  (It’s Episode 177 if you’re scrolling through Spotify or Apple Podcasts searching for it.)

    Speaking of feet, they’re essential for tightrope walking.  It’s Rule #3 in ChatGPT’s rules for Tightrope Walkers:

    Footwear: Tightrope walkers often wear soft, flexible shoes with thin soles to help them feel the wire beneath their feet and make it easier to maintain balance.

    The fact that I can’t feel my feet does much to add to my identity as The Smelly Old Man.  I can’t possibly shower safely.  It’s not a question of if, but when, I will fall.  I’m hoping to get help with this in the next couple of months.  Evidently, I can get a special chair that will prevent me from needing to stand, but it’s getting out with wet feet that worries me.  If Medicare won’t pay for it, it’s a moot point.  There’s no way I can afford that.

    The feeling in my fingertips is waning fast.  I have a much more difficult time typing now, and that’s a more serious concern for me than losing a toe.  Writing would be infinitely more difficult for me if I couldn’t type anymore.  If I can’t write anymore, my life will lose most of its meaning.

    I’m fortunate to live in nearly complete poverty because it means that Arizona and Medicare pay for most of my medical bills.  Humalog can cost well over $200 a month without insurance.  (I just learned that at least one company has now capped the cost at $35 a month… thank you Eli Lilly!)  I also need Lantus, and that would cost another $200.  I make less than $1500 a month on Disability.  That would leave me less than $1100 a month for rent, food, and living.  The cheapest studio apartment in my city is $1500 a month.  Libre is kind enough to provide their sensors for as little as $40 a month if one is insured privately.  Nevertheless, that’s $40 a month I would never have.  One can either survive by living in poverty (and in my case, being the beneficiary of plenty of charity and some wonderful People On The Porch) or one can die of diabetes for lack of the necessary medical assistance. 

    ChatGPT’s first rule for tightrope walkers is:

    Safety first: Safety is the most important consideration when it comes to tightrope walking.  It is essential to use proper equipment, including a secure harness, and to have trained professionals supervise the activity.

    Since my surgery, the insurance company has taken a much greater interest in my health.  I have the proper equipment now, and I have professionals helping to supervise.  I fought my diabetes successfully for more than 20 years.  In the last 6 years, however, I’ve been in the hospital for DKA 16 times.  I’m told most diabetics don’t survive it more than 4 or 5 times.  I’m unreasonably lucky.  I wish I would have had the support I have now much earlier.  I would certainly be healthier than I am today. 

    I’m also lacking the second most important thing for those on tightropes:

    Balance: Tightrope walking requires excellent balance and coordination.  The performer must keep their center of gravity directly over the wire and use their arms to maintain balance.

    My numbers are rarely in range and properly balanced.  The CGM helps with this, and I’m glad I have it.  Why shouldn’t everyone with diabetes have one?

    DKA is caused by blood sugar rising high enough that the diabetic begins to spill ketones.  My doctor described it to me as my blood turning to acid and trying to kill me from the inside out.  You can bring it down with insulin, but only if you catch it early enough.  Drinking lots of water also helps because, if I understand it correctly, the water dilutes the ketones, and we get rid of them when we urinate.  I have no medical degree.  I could absolutely be wrong about this.  Please check with your own doctor if you’re diabetic.  I’m relating my own experiences with the problem.  Your mileage may vary. 

    CGMs are not all equal.  My Dexcom lost connection more frequently than it maintained it.  My Libre keeps the connection well, but I’m told it tends to be about ten minutes behind the actual number it gives.  This is a place I believe technology will continue to improve, and I’m hopeful that all diabetics will have these devices to help us control our blood sugar. 

    My Dexcom gave me significantly lower numbers than my Libre.  This can potentially be deadly.  At one point my Dexcom told me I was at 60.  My Libre said 106.  

    For those who don’t know American blood sugar numbers, doctors like us to be between 80 and 120 most of the time.  At 60, one is vulnerable to going into a coma.  Above 300 one is vulnerable to DKA.  When you’re at 60, you need to eat, and you need to do it quickly.  Glucose tablets provide quick carbs, but they don’t last.  A real meal is essential. 

    Had I eaten lots of carbs when I was at 106, I would have bumped up my blood sugar to a place where I might be moving toward DKA.  If nothing else, I would have raised my A1C unnecessarily. 

    The A1C test—also known as the hemoglobin A1C or HbA1c test—is a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months.  It’s one of the commonly used tests to diagnose prediabetes and diabetes, and is also the main test to help you and your health care team manage your diabetes. Higher A1C levels are linked to diabetes complications, so reaching and maintaining your individual A1C goal is really important if you have diabetes.

    https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/managing-blood-sugar/a1c.html#:~:text=The%20A1C%20test%E2%80%94also%20known,care%20team%20manage%20your%20diabetes


    All of the above is the medical and scientific side of Diabetes.  There is another side, and it’s at least as important.  It’s what Diabetes does to its victims emotionally and psychologically.  To be diabetic means to live life knowing that if we make the wrong decision, if we forget to eat, if we forget to take our insulin, or for reasons over which we have no control at all, we can suddenly slip into a coma from which we will never wake, or we will lose consciousness after throwing up for a while when we go into DKA. 

    Honestly, it’s frightening.  I know that any of us can be dead at any moment.  A meteor could strike Earth in the next five minutes, and that would be the ball game for millions, or perhaps billions of us.  We could get hit by a bus or murdered in our sleep.  Yes, Death awaits all of us.  It just seems a bit more anxious to cuddle up with diabetics.

    There was a time, not that long ago, when it didn’t bother me much.  I was ready to die if it was my time.  There were times when I was in a hurry to reach that final curtain.  As life has improved, however, I feel more like I want to continue to live.  I’m becoming a better writer.  I’m almost safe every month because so many people help me so much and so often.  I have a dog who loves me.  No one is calling me a F***ing liar half a dozen times a day anymore, and I’m healing from my own traumas.

    I still get depressed, but it’s not happening as often.  I’m taking Duloxetine, and that may be what is helping me.  It may also be that conditions are improving.  Measuring depression is much harder than measuring blood sugar.  I can’t prick my finger to find out my depression level.

    I spent most of my day getting my living will, my last will and testament, my medical and financial powers of attorney, and my instructions for the disposal of my remains handled.  I also have plans for someone taking care of Speedy Shine in the event of my demise.

    My next step is going to be getting a safety net in place in case I fall off my diabetes tightrope.  I need to hear back from Assisted Living, and all the steps in that could take up to 45 days.

    Since my numbers have been frightening in the last week or so, I thought it was more important to sort out what happens if I die.  I still have to meet with my best friend, Stephanie, and an additional witness to sign everything, but I’m hoping that will take place in the next couple of weeks.

    I also need to get a network of people set up in the event I wind up in the hospital, but I haven’t died. I would need people to take care of Speedy Shine until I can get back.  I’m hoping to put together some folks who can donate some money to pay someone to be here while I can’t.  That will be happening in the next few days.  If Sherlock, The Mystery Patron, is still in town, I’m hoping I can get her to come by and take care of him, but he tried to bite her once, so I’m not so sure I can do that.  (Yes, we’re going to be working on that in the coming days, too.  That’s an entirely separate podcast.  Speedy Shine will tell you about it himself.)

    When Death keeps knocking on the door, it seems foolish not to prepare for its entrance.  I’m working on a Final Front Porch Podcast that will be published after my death.  Mortality isn’t fun to consider, but that doesn’t change its existence.  We can’t escape by ignoring it.  We can only be caught unprepared. 

    I have learned to accept that I am going to die sooner than I might like.  Part of this is because I’m choosing to live life the way I want to instead of in the ways that might prolong my days on Earth.  If I’m going to live, I’m going to enjoy it. 

    Please understand that diabetics may seem fine from the outside, but I feel confident that I’m not the only one who lives with the unspoken terror contained in frightening numbers we see far too frequently. 

    The fear isn’t falling off the tightrope; that’s inevitable.  The fear is in how far we’ll fall.  I’m doing my best to keep my wire as low as possible.  Let’s raise the healthcare ceiling to include all of us and lower the wire for everyone.  Let’s help the diabetics to Shine.

    Posted on by Fred

    We Are Not Alone

    I had a crisis of confidence last week because I was one of several people who were deceived by a con man.  I had been told the “The Teddy Bear Coder” was going to be published, and I was off the charts with excitement.  And I shared my joy with my friends. 

    It turned out that he is a criminal.  He is being investigated by the FBI.  He took a good friend of mine for, all told, nearly $30,000.  There’s little chance she’ll ever see any of that money again.

    That prompted me to post the following:

    Okay… I don’t like to talk badly about others.  I particularly don’t like to talk badly about people I thought were my friends.  I’ll be removing him from my Friends List, however, in a moment.

    I’m posting this to explain why I am feeling embarrassed.  I barely know the man in question, but someone I know and love and trust implicitly does know him, and she was a part of the company that was supposed to publish “The Teddy Bear Coder.” She was very excited to publish my book.  Now she wants nothing to do with Prince of Cats any longer.

    I’ve been feeling proud the last few weeks.  I never had any delusions that I would make any money on the book.  It wasn’t about that.  It was the idea that I might be able to put a toe into a world of which I’ve always secretly wanted to be a part.  I wanted to be a real writer.  No…  I have no interest in self-publishing.  It’s not about that.

    I’ve been feeling proud that I’ve been spending half an hour a week talking on the phone to one of my greatest heroes.  I felt as though he was beginning to take me seriously as a writer.  Part of this was because the story he coached me through writing was getting published.

    I’m not naïve, I don’t think.  I had no delusions that he was talking to me because I’m a significant writer.  I pay him for the coaching.  I like to think, though, that he wouldn’t have accepted me as a student if he thought I was beyond help.  And when a publisher came to me, sought me out, to publish what I had written… I glowed.  I was Shining like a star in a not-too-distant galaxy.

    I felt like I had made it.  I had accomplished what I have dreamt of for more than 50 years.

    Now it turns out my book is not going to be published because the man who was going to publish it appears to be a criminal.  I have more than this article for evidence of that assertion, but I am keeping those communications private.  I emailed him to tell him the offer to allow him to publish it is now gone.

    I don’t feel stupid.  I behaved based upon the most reliable information I could get.  I feel embarrassed.  If I didn’t want to hide away from the world before, I want to dig a hole in my house now and let no one but Speedy Shine near me. I don’t feel like I can show my face when I spent so much time being so proud, and all that happened was that I was deceived.

    I should have been quiet.  I shouldn’t have shared my joy until it all happened.

    It would be easy to understand why you might lose respect for me now, but I hope you can find a way to grant me a little grace for my errors in judgment.

    I’m going to be quiet for a while now.  I’m fine.  I’m just sad and ashamed.

    I’m sorry to have made more of myself than I was due.

    This prompted several of my friends to say kind things that helped me to feel better.  For example:

    Name Redacted:

    Fred Eder I don’t comment on your posts often…if ever…but this one got me.  Certainly, honor your feelings of shame and disappointment, but please know that the person who deceived you is responsible for what happened. You are not to blame.

    The world is cruel sometimes to gentle souls like yours and it is unfair.

    What I admire most about you, tho is that you walk through these times with humility and grace.  It may not feel like it on the inside but that’s what it looks like on the outside.

    So much gets thrown at you from a world that just doesn’t know how to handle a gentle soul like yours and yet, rather than making you bitter, you take the lumps, learn from the experience and continue on. This is strength.  This is integrity.

    This is uniquely you.

    I thank you for living through all of the ups and downs and showing the rest of us how it’s done.

    As much as you may feel embarrassed, the rest of us are out here filled with admiration for you.

    That made me feel better.  It’s not hard to imagine why.

    Another comment came from the man I believe is her husband, although he may only be her boyfriend.  I can’t even keep my own relationships straight, so keeping up on the status of other relationships isn’t going to happen.

    Second Name Redacted:

    You’ve got lots of people showing you support and take some solace in that.

    The criminal you thought was a publisher won’t publish you.  This is a good thing, though a setback.

    as many, many, many, many of my favorite authors have explained….  It took them numerous submissions before they got published.

    I interviewed for 2 web design positions in Feb…. I seriously thought I’d get one…

    they decided otherwise.

    It left me in a funk, depressed, and like the stilts I’d be walking on were kicked out from under me.

    You’re a fantastic writer.  There’s a publisher out there for you.

    The criminal wasn’t it.

    make it through today, and tomorrow, and maybe your mood will shift again.

    all that you felt when you thought you were going to be published IS STILL TRUE.

    the glow was always you, not them.

    The pride was legitimate.

    Your hard work is legitimate.

    Try to focus on the feelings you had before to get you through the now.

    That helped me to refocus a bit.  My embarrassment was waning a little. 

    Then one of The People On The Porch added:

    Third Name Redacted

    Joy in abundance makes us exuberant.  We have the drive to share.  So you did. Who wouldn’t?  You were not remiss in any way, Fred. No need to feel humiliation or self-blame. Don’t give up hope for The Teddy Bear Coder.  Its time is still now.  Press on and Godspeed!

    And… I recovered a bit from my depression.  That prompted me to post the following:

    None of us exist alone.  None of us CAN exist alone.  It’s simply not possible.  We are a community that works only when we continue to support each other in all the ways we can so that the species thrives.

    I spoke with a good friend for an hour… It was HER birthday, but she spent an hour of it taking care of me.  I spoke with my coach, who reminded me that we all need each other if this is ever going to work.

    I have you.  You have me.  We can’t do everything for each other, but we can all do a little, and we can all make a difference.  And that little difference is much bigger than we believe.

    I can’t thank you enough for all you did for me while I was ready to hang up my career as a writer.  I was going to just exist until I didn’t anymore… But you picked me up off the mat, and I’m going to write all night now.

    The Teddy Bear Coder is going to become a complete novel.  It may, in fact, become an entire series.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m going to write because you let me do that.  You matter.

    This has been an extraordinarily long way around to deciding I need to pay attention to some other writers who have said things better than I can.  I’m going to give you their words, with their permission, tonight.  I’m not alone.  Here’s someone who is not even on my Friends List, whose words caught me on Facebook.  He kindly allowed me to use them.

    Woke, a child of the black community, birthed by mothers and fathers who, after being deceived for long lengths of time, couldn’t afford to “sleep” on the system.

    She was young and tender, akin to the blindfolded statue depicting justice, but more radiant and pure. She walked, whispering among us, keeping us alert.  Teaching us, by word of mouth and shared experience, to be savvy, smart and attentive. At times she even showed us how to be daring and courageous.  She taught us to see the grift, avoid the three-card molly and other trickster moments perpetrated by this wayward state.

    Then one day they took her.

    Our delight, our little light, our secret love, our whisperer of well words, they took her, as they did with all things we created.  Things they coveted.

    They stood among the abused mothers and fathers and took their child, their justice, their Messenger to us She who was born to help us stay alive and well within a system designed to kill us and grind our bones into powder.

    They took her and threw her in a cell with Blues, Jazz, Rap and R&B.  They made her take a seat next to Soul Food, Mathematics and Science.

    They abused her, and redressed her in heavy sackcloth, black and oily with the weight of their own transgressions.

    We cried when we couldn’t find her.

    We damn near rioted when we saw what they did to her.

    I don’t know what will happen if they don’t release her.

    Woke is our child, our whisperer of well words, telling us how to live in the light between the shadows the depraved cast.

    All else is sackcloth.

    — Donley Ferguson

    I was going to add my own commentary to it, but another of my friends wrote something better than I can write, so I’m using the words of the philosopher, Jesse Rogers, who was once a Person On The Porch.  I miss him. 

    “I speak these words not because it is something I personally claim to have felt or experienced.  I speak them because I acknowledge that I have countrymen like the author, Donley Ferguson, who have and do feel this way. I want to amplify the message because when people express pain or suffering with such vulnerability and openness, I think empathy is a better response towards my fellow Americans than mockery or derision.”

    In the spirit of remembering we’re not alone, I’m leaving you this evening with one of the greatest bits of flash fiction I’ve ever read, once again from Shoshana Edwards, who is one of the greatest writers I’ve ever met.  She’s going to remind us that hope can be found in the strangest places.

    The Phone

    Here I sit, alone in the cell, uncomfortable in my new clothes.  I want the orange jump suit back.  It fits.  It is familiar.  It is soft.  I hate all these pre-death rituals: prayers with the chaplain, the talk with the warden, the last awkward meeting with my attorney.  I hate my last dinner, so awful.  The milkshake is too sweet; the steak is too fatty.  The potatoes are salty.  As soon as I finish, I dive for the lone toilet in the corner of the room, vomiting.

    Awareness of the approaching deadline has stripped all animation from my face.  I do not recognize the man in the warped metal mirror over the sink.  The warden, the jailors, and my fellow inmates have found me to be pleasant company and a source of comfort in difficult times.  Now there is no one.  They have abandoned me to my helpless isolation and dread.

    “I didn’t do it, Jenny.  I swear I didn’t do it,” I whisper.

    Oh, how I long to hold her again, to feel the sweet softness of her breasts, the warm moist pleasure as I enter her slowly, the urgency of our thrusting, the blissful release, the comfort afterwards as we cuddle in each other’s arms, falling asleep together.  But there is no conjugal visit on death row.  We share a brief time together under the supervision of the warden and the priest.  We are allowed to kiss, to hug, and to talk.  And then she leaves. I tell her not to come, not to watch.  I tell her to go home to her mother, who would make her soup and sing to her, and let her cry.  But I know she will come.  It is who she is.  She will watch my final moments in stony silence, holding back her tears and screams until Momma takes her home.

    My lawyer has long ago given up.  I am Black, have a gap between my front teeth, and am tall and muscular.  My mind plays the arrest over and over:  I am wearing my sweats on my way to my car outside the gym.  Me being Black and in the wrong place is enough for the cops, a close enough description from the eye witness, to let them pull their guns. They scream at me to get down, zip tie my hands so tightly behind my back that one shoulder dislocates and ignore my screams of pain.  They search my car, screaming “where is it?  Where is the gun?  Tell us now?  Did you throw it away somewhere?” I cannot stop the damn movie, even after all these years.

    It is sufficient that I am Black and dangerous looking, even though my hospital scrubs are on the back seat of my car, along with my ID which shows that I am an intern at Riverpark Hospital.  My gym membership badge is attached to my sweats, but no one bothers to check with the gym, to learn that when the convenience store owner was shot, I was working out in the free weight room with a spotter.  They know they have their man.  In court, my attorney produces the evidence: the time I checked out of the hospital, the time I checked into the gym, and he calls my spotter to the stand as a witness.  But even for the jury, it is sufficient that I am Black and dangerous looking.

    The movie keeps playing, and I sit here trying not to watch it; trying not to cry.

    I am on death row, where I have lived for five years.  We file appeal after appeal, each one failing.  I have long since given up believing in truth and justice.  Those are not for Black men who look dangerous, Black men with tattoos, wearing sweats, walking to their car in a White folks’ neighborhood.

    They walk me down the hallway, without chains, my hands free.  There are five guards, including the warden.  This is it.  They lay me on the table, strap down my arms and legs, and the doctor inserts the needle.  The curtain is pulled away from the window.  Jenny is there, stony faced and immobile, her mother sitting next to her looking anywhere but into the death chamber.  The warden reads the charges, while his assistant makes certain the phone on the wall is working, and the doctor confirms that the line is clear and the needle properly inserted. And then they leave, all but the man standing beside the phone, a useless gesture.

    I feel a slight coldness as the first chemical is introduced, designed to relax me.  It works on my body, but not my mind.  The terror is still there.  What if I am wrong, and there is a heaven and a hell?  The second drug starts, and I feel myself starting to fall asleep.  Just as Morpheus begins to draw his final curtain I hear a sound, so brilliant I struggle to rise up out of the darkness. As blackness overtakes me, I identify the noise: the phone is ringing.

    We are surrounded by voices not our own.  And each of them has the potential to help us.  Our voices have the potential to help others.  Sometimes, just a phone call can make all the difference.

    Posted on by Fred

    The Fall of Public Education

    Today, February 16, 2023 (you’ll hear this a few weeks after I wrote it… I’m always ahead of schedule) is the 36th anniversary of the first time I stepped into my own classroom.  I didn’t have a computer.  Neither did anyone else I knew.  I wrote my lesson plans by hand, and I followed strict guidelines for creating them.  Goal, objective, procedure, and assessment were the elements I was expected to have.  That’s what they taught me in my education classes.  That was what my principal expected of me.  But she expected something more.

    I was trying to teach using the basal reader, “Ride the Sunrise.”  It was fine, if entirely uninspiring.  We would read the story together in class, and then the students would answer the questions and do the vocabulary exercises.  It was hardly revolutionary teaching.  It was, in fact, frighteningly dull.

    My third week in, it was a Thursday after school, my principal called me into her office, and she asked me what the hell I was doing.  I explained I was doing what I thought was expected of me.  This was the district adopted textbook, and I was following it religiously.

    She rolled her eyes.  “I have a fleet of teachers who can do that.  That wasn’t why I hired you.  You told me you loved literature.  You sat in that interview, and you talked about how much you loved Hemingway, Doyle, and Shakespeare.”

    “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

    “So why don’t I see those in your classroom?  I’m sorry, Fred, but I’m really disappointed in you.  I expected so much more.”

    “You’re saying… let me understand you… you’re saying I should teach those things?”

    “You got it.  You talk a good game, but it doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t back it up.”  I heard Ella Fitzgerald in my head: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”

    “The district has all those on reading lists for later grades.  I’m teaching a 5/4 combination.”  (That always made me think of Dave Brubeck.)

    “So, let’s get your kids ahead of the game.  Can you do that or not?”

    “Oh… I think I can do that.  Come see on Monday.”

    I spent the weekend poring over “A Scandal In Bohemia.”  I got more than a little stoned Saturday afternoon and watched the Jeremy Brett video with my notebook in my lap and a pen in my left hand, scribbling furiously.  It’s not a mystery as much as it is a love story about a man who is incapable of love.  How could I get my students to feel that?  What could I ask?  How could I get them to understand something that was at least 2 years over their reading level?  I needed help.  I called the greatest teacher I had ever known: my father.

    “Do you understand Sherlock Holmes?” he asked.

    “Obviously.”

    “Excellent.  Then explain it to them.  You take it a piece at a time, just like I did when we read Curious George on the steps of the library.  Read.  Stop.  Question.  Rinse.  Repeat.  You get them through it a piece at a time, and you ask them about the things you think are interesting.  Look at that opening line.  ‘To Sherlock Holmes, she was always the woman.’  Read it to them.  Stop.  What on Earth does Watson mean by that?  They’re old enough to have some ideas.  Encourage those ideas.  It’s playing, Fred.  That’s all.  You’re just playing.”

    And that, gentle readers and listeners, is the key to learning.  We learn by playing.

    Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning.  But for children play is serious learning.  Play is really the work of childhood.

    –Fred Rogers

    But the sharp break that unfortunately prevails between the kindergarten and the grades is evidence that the theoretical distinction has practical implications.  Under the title of play, the former is rendered unduly symbolic, fanciful, sentimental, and arbitrary; while under the antithetical caption of work the latter contains many tasks externally assigned.  The former has no end and the latter an end so remote that only the educator, not the child, is aware that it is an end.

    — John Dewey How We Think:  Chapter 12: Activity and the Training of Thought

    We gain experience through Play.  Experience is The Great Teacher.  It’s the interpretation of that experience that leads to real education.  Education is not to be mistaken for memorization.  It occurs only when we have experiences that open us up for other, greater experiences.  It comes from finding the meanings of our experiences. 

    I got to school in practically the middle of the night Monday morning.  I had to copy the story out of one of my paperbacks.  I had to collate and staple together 35 copies.  That was incredibly time consuming in 1987.  When Mrs. Dobbs came to see my show on Monday morning, she was duly impressed, and she told me I was now on the right road.  I followed it proudly. 

    Within a few weeks, my students were easily spotted in the lunch room because they were the ones carrying around the Sherlock Holmes books they had made their parents buy them.  Just before Christmas Break we read “The Final Problem,” in which Holmes dies… or at least we think he did.  If this is a spoiler for you, I can’t bring myself to apologize.  It’s 130 years old.  You’ve had a minute to read it.

    There was robust discussion, sometimes becoming far too animated for a normal classroom, about whether Holmes was really dead.  Holmes and his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, had finally had the contest they were fated to have.  Two sets of footprints go down to the edge of Reichenbach Falls.  None return. 

    An examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other’s arms.  Any attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful caldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.

    — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “The Final Problem”

    Students were throwing theories back and forth like hand grenades, and they were exploded promptly by their classmates who told them why that idea was wrong, but their own ideas must certainly be right.  And I sent them home to wonder for the next few weeks. 

    And you know what they did all by themselves during the break?  Yes, that’s right.  They ran to the bookstore and the public library to find “The Empty House,” which I told them was Watson’s own adventure.  And without their teacher to hold their little hands… they read it… all by themselves.  Okay… they didn’t all understand it as well as I wanted them to, but by the time we read it in class, and we watched the Jeremy Brett video, everyone had become a lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan.

    There are worse things a teacher can do. 

    We performed Hamlet a couple of years later.  I was constantly upping my game.   By this time, we were doing Sherlock Holmes the first half of the year.  Shakespeare occupied the second half.  This particular year I had a child show up in my class who had spent her life in the back woods of Alabama.  She had never seen a book.  She didn’t know what the alphabet was.  But I was teaching 6th grade that year, and Jenny was 12 years old.  They put her in my class.

    Her special ed teacher, Jody Novack, and I worked our asses off with Jenny.  She was a very sweet girl who really wanted to learn.  They made me give her the standardized test that year.  I think it was called the CBEST, but don’t quote me on that.  It was more than 30 years ago, and I can’t always remember what I had for lunch yesterday anymore so I could be wrong. 

    I asked if she could be exempted from taking the test since there was no way she could pass it.  You might as well have given me a test in Japanese.  She was just up to the level of Dr. Seuss by the time the test was to be administered.  No, the district told me, she had to take the test.  Could I at least read it to her so there might be some means of this revealing what Jenny knew?  No.  That’s not allowed.  Fine. 

    When I gave her the test, Jenny asked what she was supposed to do.  I told her to fill in one bubble on each line.  She was happy to do that.  She made a pretty little pattern down the page. 

    When she finished, she pulled out the Hamlet script we were doing and went one word at a time as Mrs. Novack had taught her to do.  She was determined to learn to read that because she desperately wanted to play Ophelia.  “Read one word, Jenny.  Then read the next one, and put the two words together.  Then do the third word.  Keep doing that until you have the whole sentence.  Then read the sentence and know you did it.”  Mrs. Novack’s method was time consuming but effective.

    I mention this test only because when we got the results back, Jenny was in the 35th percentile.  Standardized tests measure nothing meaningful.  If you want a meaningful measurement, you should have watched Jenny raving like a lunatic after Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, and her father, Polonius, are killed by her boyfriend, Hamlet.  To this day, I can hear Jenny on that stage…

    There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.  Pray you, love, remember.  And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. . . . There’s fennel for you, and columbines.  There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’Sundays.  You must wear your rue with a difference.  There’s a daisy.  I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.  They say he made a good end.

    All right, she wasn’t Kate Winslet, but when she took her curtain call, all 40 people in the audience gave her a standing ovation.  And I never saw anyone glowing with more pride.  That’s how you measure student success.

    Six years later, she was graduating from high school, and she called our school and told my principal that she, Jody Novack, and I all had to come to her graduation because she was making a speech.  We took the morning off and went to see Jenny in her robes on the stage.

    “When I got here to California, I didn’t know how to read.  It was easy to think I was dumb, but I had a couple of teachers and a principal who refused to believe that.  Mrs. Novack worked with me every day before and after school on my lines for Hamlet because Mr. Eder let me play Ophelia.  Mr. Eder was completely convinced I could do it, and he convinced me.  Today you can ask me anything you want about Hamlet, and I can give you an intelligent answer.  Because they were right.  I wasn’t dumb.  I just needed a little help.”  And then Jenny looked over to me, and she said words I’ve never forgotten.  “To be or not to be, Mr. Eder?  I choose to be.”

    I cried like a little girl.  More than 30 years later, I get tears in my eyes every time I think of that moment.

    That’s why we teach.  That’s why I taught. 

    And then it began to crumble.  It began with No Child Left Behind, but that was certainly not the end of it.  Someone realized that a state might spend as much as 20% of its budget on public education.  There was money to be made there.  The testing industry promptly produced tests that showed that public education was failing, that our students were stupid, and that only by using the curriculum designed by the testing companies could we possibly save our students.  It was Professor Harold Hill’s Boys’ Band coming to rescue us from the evils of the Pool Hall. 

    Imagination was banned from my classroom by the time I quit in 2016.  There would be no more school plays.  There would be no more Sherlock Holmes, no more Shakespeare, and I was dreaming if I thought I could teach To Kill a Mockingbird to a 6th grader.  It was about data.  How many words per minute can they read?  Why this matters is a complete mystery to me.  I don’t know many people who love reading who are in a hurry to zip through the book.  If I take you out to a 5-Star restaurant, are you really going to see how quickly you can consume the steak, or are you going to savor every morsel?  If you’re reading this, I hope you’re taking the time to enjoy it.  If you’re listening to it, I promise I’m not rushing.  I would like you to be able to absorb each word.  Since some people have difficulty with that because of my use of music, I always include the transcript so you can follow along at a good pace.

    Public education has been bought and destroyed by corporations.  I have great respect for those who continue to try, but if I can’t help Jenny anymore, if I can’t watch my students’ eyes light up as they begin to understand what people have told them they couldn’t even read, I don’t want any part of it.  I’ll leave you with words no corporation could ever understand.

    I met a traveller from an antique land,

    Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

    Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

    Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

    The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

    And on the pedestal, these words appear:

    My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

    Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

    Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay

    Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

    The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

    — Percy Bysshe Shelley

    Posted on by Fred

    Speedy Shine’s Backyard Dogcast: Pilot

    My name is Speedy Shine, but that’s just what The Smelly Old Man calls me.  The Big Man with the Biggerer Houseses used to call me Speedy, and The Woman With The White Hair calleded me Hubert. 

    White Hair Woman didn’t like me very much because I made too many poopsers, and I would always try to get the foodsers from her plate and then she would hit my nose, and it hurteded.  She took me to the place with the other dogsers and I lived behind the glass thing and sometimes I went out with the other dogsers and we would bark at each other.  I was never scared of them, though.  They were bigger than I am, but they didn’t know about my Secret Identity.  I can’t tell you about it because of Practical Cats.

    Then The Man With The Biggerer Houseses took me to his great big huge place and there was lots and lots of room for me to have my Zoomies.  I likeded that part. 

    But he getteded mad at me about chewing on the soft things and pulling all the floofsers out and putting them on the floor where everyone knows they really belong.  He used to yell at me, and he spankeded me and that hurt, so I trieded to bite him and he took me back to the place where the glass house and the other dogsers were.  I madeded friends with one of them, but then he wasn’t there anymore.  I seeded a hooman take him to the room where the dogsers don’t come back.  I guess nobody wanteded him.  I’m sorry for him.  That’s a sad part.

    I was a little bit afraid they were going to take me to that room because lots of hoomans came to see me, but then they didn’t want to take me home when they heareded that I like to chew on things. 

    Then The Smelly Old Man and The Pretty Girl came to see me.  I likeded The Pretty Girl because I could smell the other dogsers on her.  The Smelly Old Man was just smelly, so I thought I would be better off with her.  But after we getteded in the car and left, she leavededed me with The Smelly Old Man and I misseded her right away.  She’s only come to see me one time, and that makes me sad.

    The Smelly Old Man nameded me Speedy Shine because there was this other girl on the glass thing who sang about “Shine,” and he knew that should be my name because, he said, I make him Shine. 

    He’s figuring out my Secret Identity, I think, because I keep waking him up when he is about to die.  He knows about Love.  He knows it’s the most powerful force in the universeses.  I wonder if he will ever understand that I am secretly all the love in the universe in a furry fourteen-pound package.  That’s just me.

    Posted on by Fred · 4 Comments

    Refuse Boxes

    Trigger Warning

    I’m surprised to need a trigger warning in this piece because I didn’t think it was powerful enough to warrant one.  The story you’re about to hear, however, is the only story I’ve ever written that actually made my best friend angry with me.  When I write my normally calm, rational arguments against the existence of homelessness, she has little reaction.  “It’s okay, Fred, but I’ve heard it all before.  It’s just not very moving.  I’m sorry.”

    That wasn’t the case this time.  She was angry that the story existed.  I sent it to her right after I finished it because I was proud of it.  She wrote me back promptly.  “I hate it!  Never again.  Please!  God!  WTF Dude?”

    So… you are hereby warned.  Animals are injured offscreen in this story.  If that’s going to bother you more than you can tolerate, you’ll want to skip this.  I’ll read you the story, and then I’ll return to explain to you what an allegory is, and how this parallels what we’re doing to human beings, right now, in Arizona and California.  This is called “Refuse Boxes.”

    Refuse Boxes

    Karen Adamson walked into the parking lot behind the condos, and she rolled her eyes and sighed with disgust.  She took out her pen and began to write feverishly on her clipboard.  She took pictures of the rain-soaked boxes behind 616.  The Homeowner’s Association was never going to allow this.  She was already quoting the rule in her head: 

    No Lot shall be used or maintained as a dumping ground for rubbish.  All trash shall be regularly removed from each Lot and shall not be allowed to accumulate thereon.  Trash, garbage, or other waste shall be kept in sanitary, covered containers.  All equipment for the storage or disposal of such materials shall be kept in a clean and sanitary condition.  In no event shall such equipment and/or containers be visible from the Common Area streets, from neighboring Property, or within property contained in the Plat, except for a reasonable time immediately prior to and after scheduled trash collection, and in all events in compliance with Fairvale County Code.

    She was looking forward to talking to Mr. Singleman.  She was going to show him who was in charge.  “Wretched refuse.  People just live like pigs.  This is a fine of $100 a day, per day, up to $1000.  He’ll take me seriously when I present him with this violation.”

    A kitten stepped out of one of the boxes, looked up at her, and then scurried back inside.  Karen knelt and looked in the box.  Cat food?  What could this guy be thinking?  Encouraging feral cats?  That’s a violation, too.  That’s another $25.00. 

    A black and white puppy waddled out of another box.  He saw Adamson and began jumping around her ankles, yipping excitedly.    “What kind of place is this?”  She kicked him away.  The dog yelped and limped into another box.  In a moment its mother poked her head out and growled.  Karen gave the dog a glare, and it went back inside.

    The boxes were piled 4 or 5 high, and from the box at the top she heard an obnoxious squealing sound.  A moment later, a finch dropped from the sky and entered the box.  When she looked inside, Mrs. Adamson saw the bird feeding its babies. 

    She stood staring at the disgusting mess that was the back of Condo 616, and then she thought.  None of these horrid things is a pet.  They’re not registered.  They’re not licensed.  They don’t count.  They don’t matter at all. 

    She took out a cigarette and lit it.  She blew the smoke toward the animal tenement.  These things are a menace.  And these boxes… they’re dangerous.  They’re a… yes… yes.  She took a long drag from her cigarette.  She grinned.  They’re a fire hazard.  She flipped the cigarette into the box with the birds’ nest and nodded.  As the smoke began to waft out, she thought, “I’ll show them who’s in charge.”  As the smoke grew thicker, she chuckled softly and walked away enjoying the sound of the burning birds. 

    ***

    Allegory, as defined by Merriam-Webster:  the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence

    “Refuse Boxes” is an allegory for the homeless.  Its hidden meaning is, I think, completely clear, but in the event I am wrong, the animals are people.  The boxes are homeless encampments. 

    When this happens to humans, we dismiss it.  If it makes the news at all, we’re likely to scroll past it without much thought.  It doesn’t strike close enough to our emotions for it to matter much to us. 

    It’s a general rule among humans that we can’t tolerate hurting animals, at least not cute and harmless ones.  Everyone cries at the end of “Old Yeller,” but we can, for the most part, dismiss the earthquake in Tukey which has, as of this writing, taken the lives of more than 28,000 living, breathing people.  Among those who have survived, homelessness has skyrocketed.  Their dwellings were destroyed.  But it didn’t happen in America.  We don’t know any of these folks.  Sorry that happened.  Bummer.  Does anyone know who won the Super Bowl?  Oh, and did you hear about the twenty-million-dollar Jesus ad?

    Our priorities are misplaced.  This is not to say that animals don’t matter.  If anything ever happened to Speedy Shine (my dog for those who are new here), I would be devastated.  My love for him is off the scale.  He’s infinitely closer to me than anyone in Turkey.  But the fact is every one of those people matters more than he does.  Not to me, perhaps, since I never met them, but certainly to those who have.  All of them have mothers and fathers, and most of those people have people who love them as much as I love Speedy Shine.

    Of course, we can’t feel empathy for every human death.  We would be unable to function.  We’d spend our lives in a fetal position as we drowned in a river of tears.  But we can recognize their significance.

    We can certainly try to change things.  As much as you’re hurt by the deaths of the birds, the dogs, and the cats in the Refuse Boxes, we need to be at least as concerned about the plight of those who live in such places in the homo sapiens world. 

    Here in Arizona, police conduct regular sweeps at homeless encampments to rid the neighborhood of the pests.  But these aren’t rats.  They aren’t even dogs or cats.  They’re people.  I’m perilously close to joining them.  And, unless you’re a billionaire, you’re much closer to them than you would probably like to imagine.  (And if you are a billionaire, what are you doing about homelessness?  I promise you have the money to end it, all by yourself, and please don’t talk to me about liquid assets versus investment assets.  That’s a half-ass excuse.) 

    The American Civil Liberties Union is suing to stop the destruction.  I won’t go into the details here, but they can be found in the article below.

    https://apnews.com/article/arizona-homelessness-3fed4cf117ef8f48d2538e127600f109

    Why don’t we mind so much about people?  I think it’s because we find a way to blame them for their situations.  Some of us use The Bible to justify our contempt. 

    Thessalonians 3:10, KJV: For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

    I don’t pretend to be wise enough to know what caused people to be homeless.  Certainly those in Turkey whose homes were destroyed by an earthquake did nothing to “deserve” homelessness.  I don’t feel comfortable making judgments about others.  I know that people make decisions I might not make, but I don’t know what caused them to make those choices. 

    We also hide behind The Law, as though it were carved into sapphire, immutable and unchangeable.  Laws can be, and frequently are, changed.  As the world changes, so must its laws.  I promise you that it’s not that being homeless is against the law that keeps me from joining an encampment.  It’s that I don’t want to be in one.  I will do all I can to continue to live here in my little home.  (A quick thank you to The People On The Porch and my Unofficial Patron Saints who continue to help me to accomplish that goal.)

    I’m working on a 5-part story about that, even now, called “Why?”  I’m hoping to illustrate that people who are easy to condemn might have been forced into choices we wish they hadn’t made by circumstances beyond their control.  I’m currently stuck trying to make Part 2 work, but I know I’ll get it right eventually.

    It’s easier for us to understand that animals are not in control of much of their existence.  We don’t seem to want to believe we share that powerlessness.  The truth is, however, that we do.  It’s easy to convince ourselves that if we work hard enough, we can take care of ourselves. 

    There is a myth that America is founded on rugged individualism.  That could not be further from the truth.  From the “founding of America” we worked together to create this country.  One Pilgrim didn’t build The Mayflower.  No one set up Plymouth Colony alone.  The Declaration of Independence was a statement we had the courage to make only because we could depend on one another.  We didn’t decide who was worthy or unworthy.  We worked together, each in our own ways.

    I don’t know what caused John or Jane Doe to become homeless.  Neither do you.  What I know is that the situation is even more horrible than in the allegory I constructed that upset so many people.  Let’s do what we can to help them, instead of ridding ourselves of them as though they were cockroaches.  People matter more than money.  They also matter even more than the cutest and most lovable of animals.  They matter even more than Speedy Shine, who matters more to me than nearly any other part of my life. 

    Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

    Artificial Intelligence and Art

    Artificial Intelligence as Art now exists.  This is undeniable.  You can have AI paint you a picture, write you a story, compose a song for you, and clone a voice so you can use any recorded vocal sound in your work.  It isn’t going to go away.  Technology, once invented, continues forever.  We can oppose it all we want.  We can claim it’s immoral or unethical to use it.  We can file lawsuits, and I’m sure people will.  These abilities will continue to exist, nevertheless.

    The question arises, then, as to whether we should use them. 

    I excitedly announced on my Facebook page that I had found software called Eleven Labs that allowed me to clone Valerie Bertinelli’s voice so that I could use it in a 3-part science fiction story I had written called “Universe Selectors, Incorporated.”  In that story, my alter ego, Horace Singleman, is offered the opportunity to choose the universe in which he would like to live.  He considers a universe without poverty, hunger, homelessness, or war.  The Alien who offers him this chance says that’s not specific enough.  There are lots of such universes.  Horace needs to select one in which something less common occurs.  Horace adds that in this universe, Valerie Bertinelli would text him and invite him to dinner.  The Alien transports Horace to such a universe, and Horace gets both a text and a video message from her.  She has 3 or 4 lines in the show.

    I had my friend, Jurine Elkins, play the part of Valerie Bertinelli in the original story.  Jurine did a fantastic job, and I’m eternally grateful to her for her work.  But now I have the chance to have Valerie read the lines herself.  What could be cooler than that?

    This set off a storm of commentary on my page telling me what I wanted to do was immoral. 

    Here are a few samples:

    Name Redacted: Fred Eder Hijacking a professional actor’s voice (and/or image 😱) for use in publication is reprehensible and will expose the author to civil liability.  Because you are not paying them for this…  It does not make your work better.  It allows you to be the director instead of the narrator.

    I don’t think it is right to borrow the voice of someone famous to lend credence to your words – unless you have permission to.  It does not in any way improve your “ART.” It just possibly becomes more popular when you borrow the voice of someone famous to read your blog out loud.  And it is a blog – not a show.  Like an audio book.  They get paid for that.  You can say if it’s wrong, blame the developer.  I say it’s wrong to use that software for your personal gain and to someone else’s loss.  It is deceptive and I don’t see how it improves anything.  Unless you start going for comedy instead of edification.

    First, I won’t be told what my show is.  I get to decide that for myself.  To say it’s just a blog is factually incorrect.  I do both a blog and a podcast, and while the words are the same, the experiences are significantly different from one another.  If you would like to know what my show is, I did a Primer about that topic last week.

    I’m not using anyone else’s voice to “read my blog out loud.”  I’ll do that for myself, thank you.  I am, however, getting actors to play parts I can’t.  I won’t be using Morgan Freeman to read work like this piece.  I am perfectly capable of doing that myself.  I like the way I read it.  When I’m quoting someone else’s words, it seems appropriate to me to use a voice not my own. 

    When I do a theater piece, I now have the opportunity to use a complete cast of actors to play all the different roles.  As has been pointed out repeatedly, I can’t do a female voice well enough to make it work.  That’s why I used AI above.  And when I think of getting any actors I want to read the parts I’ve written, it’s a dream come true.  It’s not because it will “be more popular.”  (I’m never going to be more popular, let’s face it.) It’s because I would love to have Patrick Stewart read my lines.  It adds realism to my work when I don’t have to try to do all the different characters.  I’m a pretty decent voice actor, but I’m not nearly good enough to play all the characters I create.

    Second Name Redacted:  Actors, like artists, should be given fair recompense when their distinctive qualities are appropriated by AI.  You wouldn’t steal a pen, or pirate software.

    There would be merit and value in AI voiceover companies developing their own stylish timbres, but anything more than a brief pastiche of a real actor is theft.  Disney would sue a production using even its proprietary cartoon voices without permission.  Imagine if a noted campaigner, Mark Ruffalo, say, had his voice cloned for a Big Oil promotion.

    Even with a small affair like yours, Fred (and who knows at this stage what audiences it might reach), permission should be sought.  Who knows, the real actor might even jump in!

    This is a fair ethical concern, but only to a small extent.  I was going to respond to it, myself, but one of The People On The Porch came up with what I think is a much better argument.

    Third Name Redacted:  I find it interesting that there is so much alarm around protecting the rights of the rich and famous while the person doing this work is struggling to pay rent.

    I feel the biggest alarm should be that there are millions of people who don’t have their basic needs met and why are we okay with that, rather than arguing about the assets of millionaires and billionaires not being protected.

    We really need to sort our priorities out…

    I’m thinking of the Bible verse about Lazarus and the rich man.  Lazarus was covered in sores and hoped to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.

    Why are we complaining about the ethics of the poor “stealing” the crumbs from the tables of the rich and not the problem of wealth inequality that steals food from the mouths of the poor in the first place?…  And until we start to change the way we think about wealth and money and justice, we will be condemning the Lazaruses for trying not to die in the streets.

    One of the things I think is important to consider is this:  If I don’t use the software, the actors I would have playing my roles make zero dollars.  If I do use the software, the actors I would have playing my roles make zero dollars.  That outcome is identical in either case.  If, on the other hand, I don’t use the software, my audio dramas can’t be improved beyond my ability to use my current software and voice acting talents to make each of my characters sound unique.  If I do use the software, I can have anyone I want playing the roles I write.  The advantage is in using the software.

    The software exists.  It’s not going to disappear if I climb on top of some intangible moral or ethical principle.  Whether I use it or not, others will, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they found horrible things for which to use it.  It’s easy to imagine governments, who have access to more powerful software, using it to invent nefarious lies to hurt other governments.  Big businesses can do the same.  I’m sure other artists will find other less than kind ways to employ this type of software.  

    If they get around to making it illegal, that won’t change the fact that it exists, and it will be used.  If I’m not allowed to post the work I do with it for fear of copyright infringement, I will still use it and create the coolest audio dramas I can.  I will just not post my work publicly.  I’ll email it to a few people who I think will enjoy it.  I’ll listen to it, myself, because I will enjoy it. 

    The same questions arise for painters, composers, and writers.  I can’t paint.  I can’t even draw.  And while I wish I could pay my friends, Jenn or Michelle, to paint the pictures I need for my blog, I can’t.  AI can do what I can’t.  I still haven’t had completely satisfactory results with it, but I suspect that will improve over time.  It helps my Art, and it’s free and easy to use.

    I can’t write music, but I just learned about new software that should be able to do that for me, and I’m excited about this idea.  If I learn to use it, my show will include music you’ll never have heard before.  I love that idea.

    ChatGPT can already write college level essays.  Professors are working on ways to determine if it was written by software or a human.  I’m sure it can write excellent fiction as well.  I’m a writer.  And it doesn’t bother me in the least.  It can’t write a Fred Eder story.  It will never be able to do that.  It can undoubtedly imitate my style.  It can use my ideas.  But it will never have my thoughts.  It can’t because I don’t even have them all, myself, yet.  And if it can write a story better than I can (millions of humans can already do this), more power to it.  Let’s have more great literature in the world, regardless of its source. 

    Is AI going to replace artists?  It’s replacing humans all the time.  That’s the central idea in The Teddy Bear Coder, and I promise I wasn’t the first, or even the hundred first, to come up with that idea.  If AI can do something to help us, that’s great.  If it can eliminate the need for us to “work,” in the sense of having to do things we don’t want to do so we can make enough money to live, I’m in favor of that.  How many craftsmen have been put out of work by 3D printing?  Cashiers are becoming increasingly rare.  Tellers are seldom used.  Talking to a human being on the phone at a business of any sort is generally a marathon of button pushing.  You don’t always get there even then. 

    And, whether you or I approve or not will change nothing.  We can either embrace what it can do for us, or we can fight a battle we are doomed to lose. 

    Henry Drummond: Progress has never been a bargain.  You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man who sits behind a counter and says, “All right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance.  Madam, you may vote but at a price: you lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat.  Mister, you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.”

    — Inherit The Wind  Nedrick Young(screenplay) Harold Jacob Smith(screenplay) Jerome Lawrence(play)

    If we’re going to deal with the losses Progress creates, I’m going to make the best use I can of the advantages it brings.  I won’t apologize for that.  I believe I’m right.  I recognize I could be wrong.  I welcome your comments. 

    Artificial Intelligence is opening up possibilities that have never existed before.  Let’s use what’s available to us to make a better world.  Let’s Shine in the light of human progress, even when that progress is made by a machine.