Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Which are The People Who Should Die for a Lack of Little Green Pieces of Paper?

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

Which are the people who should die because they lack Little Green Pieces of Paper? Let’s identify them quickly, find them, and give them each the shot we use to end the life of the dogs we love who can no longer live a decent life, and then get around to getting health care covered for everyone else.

I am not qualified to judge who is worthy and who is not. I don’t know their whole story, and neither does the worker at the welfare office punching information into a computer that will apply an algorithm to determine if they deserve any help at all, and if so, how much.

I understand the archaic need for The Puritan Work Ethic. I also know that Sloth was once considered a sin. It’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins, in fact. It shares its distinction with other equally evil things such as Pride and Greed. I don’t think Pride is a sin. I think Greed is. I know many people who believe Greed isn’t, and Pride is… and some who believe none of them are sins.

Early in our history, failing to work as hard as one can was, in fact, quite possibly lethal. Per Hansa and Beret, in Giants in The Earth, had to work ceaselessly in order to survive. He had to do all of the work of building a place to live: cutting the trees, making them into something he could use, and then assembling all the pieces to build his house. He had to raise his own food. His wife had an equal portion of difficult tasks to complete. There was no time for them to consider sitting down and reading a book, or even, most of the time, getting around to watching a nice sunset. They were simply too busy. Any moment spent not working put them in possibly mortal danger.

Ben Franklin told us that, “Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden; it is forbidden because it is hurtful.” Sloth was undoubtedly sinful at one point in the history of our world.

Because of Per Hansa and Beret’s work, and the work of hundreds of thousands like them, our civilization has grown and prospered. No one has to build their own houses anymore. We can get our food at the grocery store. We have time to trade ideas on Facebook.

The idea that relaxing is evil, that someone who is unable, or unwilling, to collect large stacks of Little Green Pieces of Paper is somehow worse and less deserving than other people, is no longer valid. It’s not up to me to tell anyone how to live. It is, however, as a society, as a civilization, necessary to ensure that our citizens can all, at the very least, continue to live as long as possible.

No one deserves to be homeless, regardless of how much I may disapprove of how they live the life they have in that home. No one deserves to be hungry, even if I think badly of them. It turns out my values are not the only possible values to consider. I don’t have a monopoly on the truth, but I don’t want anyone to be without the basics of survival.

We all agree that everyone deserves a free and appropriate public education. That’s PL 94-142, and no one objects to the idea that all children go to school. We’ve done it that way for a very long time, and there’s nothing remotely radical about that idea now.

Why can’t we also have public health care?

I believe Health Care is a Human Right. Someone this morning told me it’s not, because I have no right to someone else’s labor. That’s an interesting point.

On the other hand, I never asked parents to pay me to teach their kids. I was paid by the state for my labor. The only right the parents had to my labor was that their taxes paid for it.

Why can’t the state set up public hospitals? Go, when you need to, without insurance, without a bill. You show up. The doctors and nurses fix you. You go home. All done.

Is it because Doctors would have to work for less money? No doctors want to work for teacher pay? Okay… then pay them properly. Are doctors, who I admire and respect, more important than teachers? If so, point to the doctor who became a doctor without any teachers.

Imagine this …

Sylvia is a 23 year old mother of a 16 month old girl, Christina. She works 40 hours a week as a shift leader at Olive Garden, and is earning $16.50 an hour. After taxes, she brings home $568 a week. Her total monthly income is $2272. Rent in her 2 bedroom apartment is $1400 a month. Day Care is $1350. Groceries for herself and her daughter run $250. The cell phone she uses to connect with the world has mobile hotspot and tethering so she can get online with her computer. She pays $150 a month for all that. Gas runs $100 a month. Utilities come out to about $250 a month. For just these basics of survival, she comes out $1228 in the hole every month. If she wants auto insurance to keep her car from getting impounded, that’s another $150 a month. Even though she owns her car free and clear (it’s a 2004 Camry), so she has no car payment, there’s no way she can survive on what she has.

Therefore…

She lives with her roommate, Bethany, a 25 year old Amazon employee who packs for shipping. She makes 15.00 an hour, also working 40 hours a week. This comes out to just under $2000 a month. She has the same expenses as Sylvia. Living on her own, she would be $300 a month in the hole.

Living with her roommate, Bethany has $575 a month left over. Sylvia has $947. They should be fine. They really should. Unless…

A car breaks down. That’s going to cost anywhere from $100 to $1000. They might be able to afford that, though.

Or…

They need new clothes, or they want to see a movie, or go out to dinner, or, God forbid, take a trip somewhere. Suddenly the money evaporates.

Or…

One of them gets sick. See, in the budgets above, guess what we didn’t consider? Yes… that’s right: Health Insurance

.

The average cost for health insurance without an employer paying for it is about $450 a month for an individual. It’s about $1350 for a family. They each need health insurance, and they can’t use the family plan to cover all three of them because Sylvia and Bethany aren’t married. Sylvia’s $947 is now gone. She has a baby to insure, as well. Bethany’s $575 is down to $125… and it’s not even enough to cover the difference between Sylvia’s earnings and her health insurance costs.

Health Insurance might cover as much as 80% of covered procedures. Rarely does it cover more than that. If your hospital stay is $100,000… and that’s a reasonably cheap visit… you still owe $20,000. How are the girls ever going to pay that? They’re finished. It’s really no wonder the suicide rate keeps climbing. When one loses hope, life is pointless.

Add to this problem that when one of them gets sick, the income for the whole household drops. They didn’t have enough to make ends meet in the first place, and now they have even less. Now they start figuring out which bills to pay, and which bills to blow off until they can afford them. And, when they’re late, late fees get added, and they’re in even deeper trouble.

What would be your solution to the problems these women face?

There are some I wish to eliminate off the top.

  1. It’s their problem, not mine! They should have…. whatever. This isn’t a solution. It’s dodging a solution. I have no idea what they deserve. Neither do you. I can, however, observe what they need. They need affordable healthcare.
  2. They should work more. Then they could afford it. I’m not buying this solution, either. You work LESS when you’re sick, not more. And, at 40 hours a week, they’re working full time. There’s little point in living if you can’t enjoy any of it.
  3. They should get healthcare from their employers. That would be helpful, but some employers offer it; others don’t. Even with insurance from their employers, they’re out of pocket any time they need to see a doctor. They really can’t afford to be.

Now, as Sherlock Holmes once said, “… when you eliminate the impossible, what ever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

I’m looking for a solution that allows these women to live a decent life. I have a suggestion.

In a few years, Sylvia will be able to send her daughter to school. This will eliminate much of the cost of Day Care. And… you know how much she’ll pay to send her daughter not only to be cared for, but actually taught, by highly trained professionals? Yes… that’s right. Zero dollars.

No one ever asks how to pay for public schools because we’ve had them since 1635. They’re simply accepted. There’s a LOT of debate about how MUCH to spend on them, and what teachers should be paid, and what they should be doing within those taxpayer funded buildings. But their need to exist is never even questioned. We all understand that education is essential to being a member of society. We actually punish parents who don’t send their kids to school if they don’t at least home school them.

I believe Education is vital. I would go so far as to say it’s a human right.

I believe the same about healthcare. And it seems to me the solution is the same as we used for Education. Let’s make it free and appropriate and public.

Public hospitals exist in which Doctors and Nurse and Staff are all employees of the state, just as Teachers and Aides and Staff are at a public school.

It costs nothing to go to the public hospital, just as it costs nothing to go to the public school. If you’re dissatisfied with the public hospital, you can do just as parents do when they’re dissatisfied with the public school: pay to go to a better one.

Now Sylvia and Bethany can make it again. If they get sick, they’re still going to take a hit on monthly income, but they have the money left to get by for a little longer.

I’m not going into the deep logistics of Economics here. I would suggest that if we have to raise taxes a bit to pay for it, then so be it. We won’t need to raise them so much that it costs an extra $900 a month, and every dime below the $900 is a savings for Sylvia and Bethany. And it’s a savings for all of the Sylvias and Bethanies out there. More importantly, it give us all the means to live a little longer. Isn’t that what we all want for all people?

A life spent doing nothing but working in order to do nothing but survive is a stolen life. There’s no point in living without being able to enjoy living at least a little. We’re not settlers in the wilderness anymore. We’re the crowning achievement of our species working together for 200,000 years to advance to a place where, finally, we can provide more than the basic necessities of life for everyone who wants them. Why don’t we do that, then? Let’s work together to make life better for Bethany and Sylvia and Christina, and all those out there like them, and all those who will follow them in the future. Let’s create a world in which we all want to live.

Posted on by Fred · 3 Comments

Making a Difference

Calvin: When I grow up, I’m not going to read the newspaper and I’m not going to follow complex issues and I’m not going to vote. That way I can complain that the government doesn’t represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn’t work and justify my further lack of participation.

Hobbes: An ingeniously self – fulfilling plan.

Calvin: It’s a lot more fun to blame things than fix them.

That was written more than 25 years ago. It fits the world I see around me now. It’s tempting to ignore it all. Income Inequality, Corruption, Racism, Cruelty, and Hatred seem to be everywhere. The sight of them is always sickening. People argue about the science that tells us that the climate of the earth is changing and represents a threat to our survival. They attack 16 year old girls who want to try to avert that catastrophe before it’s too late, and they invent covert motives for her. They’ve made Science into a partisan issue, as though Gravity were a left leaning lie. We search for dubious facts to support our preferred beliefs instead of accepting the reality that Science shows us. I want to turn away from it all and just read old comic strips. But even those alert me to the fact that, if I’m going to be here on Earth, I have a responsibility to try to make things better.

And, I am trying.

I write a blog that’s been viewed just short of 3,000 times. I was proud of that for a time. Sometimes, when my depression lets me up off the mat for a moment, I still am. I have started a podcast in which I discuss issues of the day and read the occasional short story. I comment on posts on Facebook. I talk with my roommates. I try to spread my Idealistic ideas everywhere I can. And… very little changes.

The little voice in my head whispers, “You’re wasting your time, Fred. Go smoke a bowl, read a book, watch a movie, take a nap, teach your classes, and hope that no one hurts you. It’s enough just trying to make rent every month. Remember that “…just surviving is a noble fight,” as Billy Joel taught you 43 years ago.”

That seems like the thing to do. I can’t seem to make a difference anymore. Few people read what I write, and an alarmingly few listen to my podcast. (I have only 2 plays on my last episode, and one of them is my best friend who hasn’t even finished it. Even my roommates don’t listen to it.)

How can I make a difference? If I can change just one mind, or even get just one person to consider things from a different point of view, maybe, just maybe, I have not lived in vain.

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

If you read something of mine that makes a difference to you, please share it with someone else. Discuss it. Why am I right? Where am I wrong? What is a better way to think about the issue? This way I don’t have to feel the futility of shouting into the darkness of an empty cave. You encourage me to keep trying.

These are the things I believe, and the things that I would like to see everyone believe.

  1. Everyone deserves the basics of a decent life. Which are the people who deserve to die for lack of money?
  2. We must eliminate human suffering in all the ways we can.
  3. Love and Kindness, born of Empathy, are the Highest Form of Humanity.

If you believe those things, too, perhaps you could help to spread those ideas among your friends, and we could become what a Republican President once suggested, “… a kinder, gentler America.”

Captain Kirk told me that the three most important words we can say to someone are not, “I love you,” but “Let me help.” I’ve done what I can for the moment. I hope to find the courage to keep trying. I hope you will do the same.

Posted on by Fred

Little Green Pieces of Paper and Freedom

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

How good can she be? She doesn’t have any money. She never earned any money. She just stayed home and took care of her kids all her life. She’s worthless.

Is it really just your ability to earn money that determines your value? There are good people who earn little or no money, and bad people who earn vast sums of it. The reverse is equally true. So, why are we obsessed with it? By itself, it has no value. You can’t eat it. You can’t make a shelter out of it. You can’t grow food in it. You can’t wear it. You can’t use it to make you well when you are sick.

It’s because money allows us to be more free than a lack of money does. Freedom isn’t just absence of coercion. It’s not enough that you’re not in jail, or that no one is ordering you to do this or that and forcing you to comply. That’s undoubtedly a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of freedom. But, it’s also the ability to choose for yourself. If I have billions of dollars, I can choose to visit the Pyramids of Egypt at any time. If I don’t, I may be lucky to visit Wal Mart for groceries. There are more choices available to some of us than others. I think that is clear.

Now, is it right and fair that some people have more choices than others? Frankly, it feels unjust to me. We are, all of us, human beings on this planet for a very short time, and, it seems to me, we should all be able to enjoy our time here to the greatest extent possible. There are always restrictions to our doing this. That’s a part of Nature. Some of us will never see the top of Mt. Everest. Some of us will never utter a complete sentence. This is unavoidable, and those are restrictions with which, whether we like them or not, we must live. And, working together, we could probably find ways to lift some of those restrictions.

But, what about the restrictions we impose on other humans? We have decided to grant nearly unlimited choices to some of us, and almost no choices at all to others, and we have agreed to do this, and to measure how many choices one can make, based on how many little pieces of green paper they have.

I’m reminded of this moment from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy:

“Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich. […]

“But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut.”

 Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Author
 kalhh (pixabay.com)

Why is money any different from leaves? It’s the peanut that has value, not the leaves.

It is certainly true that one of the things human beings do in order to survive is to work together to accomplish some shared goals. We built all of our civilizations by working together. We would then trade one task, or service, or item for another. Essentially, it was barter. There has been trade since we developed enough intelligence that we were capable of thinking of it. It has occurred in every civilization and every culture on Earth. It is a useful part of our shared humanity. It has allowed us to grow to the point we have now reached.

But, we have lost touch with what the point of all this working together was in the first place. The idea was that we could create a better world in which we could all live. Someone invented the wheel, or discovered it, as the case may be (I wasn’t there at the time, so I’m not sure how we ended up having one), but suddenly life became exponentially easier for us. Heavy things could be moved more easily. We could travel more effectively. In time, the distances we could traverse in our lives was expanded. We had many more choices than we had before. This was an increase in Freedom. And we have had many more since then.

We learned to build houses because someone built some primitive version of one. We found that helping each other to build shelters was better for everyone. We all needed shelter.

Now, of course, we don’t do that very often anymore. We pay someone to do it for us. There are people who are experts in this field. They know how to draw plans, how to implement the plans, how to get the pieces, how to put them together properly, and how to ensure it’s safe to live in this shelter. And it’s almost always a large group of people who have expertise in each of these and many other fields who work together to create the house.

I can’t build a house, myself. First, I can’t cut down a tree. I also don’t know how to make the tree into usable lumber with which to build the house. I can’t work out how to put the pieces together, and I couldn’t pound a nail straight, even if I could do all of the other things. I have to have people do it for me. And, today, that means I have to have many little green pieces of paper. Those are sign of my value, of my right to have something. If I have enough of them, I can get someone to do all this work for me. If I don’t, I can’t.

How did we go from working together to becoming paper obsessed?

Again, there is a value in trade, but the point of trade is to make life better for everyone. We have worked 200,000 years to get to the point that we can now grant everyone the basics they need for survival. We have the materials and the skills to build more than enough houses for all human beings to live in one. We can grow enough food to ensure that every human being has enough to eat. We can fight diseases sufficiently to keep people alive much longer than we once could. We can provide enough clothing to keep everyone warm and safer from some of the elements than we were without clothing.

Why can’t everyone have those things, then? Well, they don’t have enough pieces of green paper. That means they don’t deserve them. Wait… what?

I see a value in trade even now. Obviously we can’t all live in 10,000 square foot mansions, or have wheels that are attached to the best vehicles, or the most artistic clothing, or the most tasty food. We should trade for those. That makes sense to me.

But, should we really have to trade for what our 200,000 years of growth have made possible? Shouldn’t everyone have a place to live? Shouldn’t everyone have enough to eat? Shouldn’t everyone have medical care, and clothing and some ability to make some choices in their lives? In short, why should we limit some people’s freedom so much while granting so much freedom to others?

Is there a way we can make sure everyone has enough freedom to live? Is that an unreasonable goal? How can we get there? I welcome your thoughts.

Posted on by Fred

The Most Intimate Connection

You and I are, at this moment, as intimately connected as two human beings can ever be.

What? You’re deluded, dude. We don’t even know each other!

That’s quite probably true. Nevertheless, the connection we have, which you can sever at any moment you choose, is more intimate than any other connection you can have as long as you continue it.

How is that possible?

Right now, I am inside of your mind. My voice is as you choose to hear it, but you do hear it. It’s inside your brain right now. As long as you leave it there, I am as deeply inside of you as it is possible to be. A sexual connection is an exterior one. Some part of my body would be connected with or, depending on how bizarre you’re getting, to, your body. That’s going on outside of you. You may be allowing all sorts of parts of me to enter into your brain, because of that physical connection, and that would be lovely, but at this moment, I exist only and completely in your mind. If there is a deeper part of you, I don’t know what it is.

What about the Soul? That’s deeper than my brain.

I’m not entirely sure what a soul is. Are you? Descartes, and, subsequently The Police, called it “The Ghost in The Machine.” The idea is that there is some You that exists independent of your physical body. It’s what makes movies like Freaky Friday possible. What ever it is that is Me gets transferred into the body of another person. In other words, whatever it is that makes me, Me, is movable. It exists.

The problem, of course, is that I can’t point to it. I can’t show you what that part looks like. I’ve never seen it. It’s been said, although I don’t know that the evidence is sufficiently compelling, that when one dies, the body becomes something like 7 grams lighter. This is supposed to be the Soul leaving the body. There are even those who claim to have captured the event on a video. I have no idea whether that’s even true. For the sake of argument, however, I’ll assume it is.

If there’s a soul, it is influenced by the brain. The brain I can show you. I know that exists. And it’s because you have one that you can be connected with me in this way. Absent a brain, you would be unable to read, to think, to control your body, to have an awareness of your own existence. The brain is the whole ball game when determining who you are.

And that’s the part to which I’m connecting right now.

When you’re reading, you experience events, emotions, sights, sounds, and often even tastes and smells that are not exterior. You can absolutely experience physical sensations you wouldn’t have felt without the words that are coming into your brain to tell it what they are. This is deeper than simple contact. It is entirely willing. Consent is not an issue because all you need do is look away from the words and you have severed our connection. Because of that, I will also argue that it’s not only the most intimate connection possible, but the most valuable. If it weren’t of some value, you would end it at once. But, when it makes you think, or feel, or experience something you want, it has power that no other connection has.

Okay… Yeah… That’s kind of cool. But what about my connection to you? You’re inside my brain, but I’m not inside yours. If it were physical it would also be mutual. Here’s it’s one sided. Where’s the intimacy in that?

I am more closely connected to Shakespeare, Salinger, Harper Lee, and Aaron Sorkin than I ever was to either of my ex – wives, and none of those people ever heard of me. Shakespeare was dead more than 340 years before I was even a twinkle in Dad’s eye. But, they put their words into the ether for me to consume at will, just as I am putting my words into the world for you to read whenever you wish. They are giving themselves willingly to me. I am giving myself willingly to you. It is both consensual and mutual. It’s intimate.

And, to be honest, you do exist in my brain. I have no idea who you are. I don’t know if you’re male or female, I don’t know how old you are, and I have no clue what you look like. But I am giving the deepest part of me to you. How much more intimately can we be connected?

So… what… are we dating now?

That’s entirely up to you. You can read my words whenever you want me inside you. I have these, and I have lots of others that are there for you whenever you want them. I have my thought of you, The Gentle Reader, and I can talk to you whenever I wish. That said, I’m a writer, which means I’m broke. If we’re going to dinner, you’re buying.

Posted on by Fred

How Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend Can Save The Country

I have always wanted to live in a world where we work to improve ourselves and the rest of humanity, instead of working 40 hours or more a week just to survive. I want human beings to live a life in which they can actually experience Freedom. Freedom is not simply absence of coercion. It is the ability to examine choices, the education to select the choice most likely to lead to the desired outcome, and the ability to act on the choice. And the Freedom Dividend can be a step down that road.

The Freedom Dividend is a proposal under which every American over the age of 18 would receive a check for $1000 a month. There is no means testing. If you’re an American, whether you are the homeless guy hoping to panhandle enough to get a pack of cigarettes, or you’re Jeff Bezos, you get the check. If you’re anywhere in between, it increases your Freedom by adding to the resources necessary to make your best choices.

Why is this such an extraordinary idea?

It will change lives in unimaginable ways. If you’re among the wealthy, and you don’t need it, you’re welcome to donate it to anyone or anything that does. If you’re among the poor, this gives you a chance you never had before. But it does much more.

Its benefits are not only economic. It affects the quality of life for millions. It helps to reduce the despair and hopelessness that leads to increased stress. That stress increases domestic violence and suicide. I have little doubt that it also contributes to mass shootings.

When people are poor, it just keeps spiraling downward. You can’t afford a good car, so you buy a cheap one. But that car requires constant repairs. That’s more money you spend. As Yang once said, “Poverty charges interest.” Let’s see if we can start paying down some of the bills of poverty.

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/03/22/the-spiral-of-poverty/

Why are people poor? Isn’t it their own fault?

There are as many reasons for poverty as there are poor people. Is it the fault of the impoverished individual? I don’t know. I’m not nearly wise enough to decide who is “deserving” and who is not. I don’t believe anyone else is, either. With The Freedom Dividend, we don’t need to make that judgment. It goes to everyone. I can’t speak for all people; neither can you. I can, however, confidently speak from my own experience, and that’s why I believe in the Freedom Dividend. A minimum wage job isn’t enough, by itself. For more on that topic, see below.

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/06/11/hard-work/

I really can’t work very much anymore. I’m 56, my body is shot, and my diabetes lands me in the hospital with startling frequency, almost invariably from trying to push what’s left of me too hard. If you paid me $15.00 an hour, that would be a reasonable wage, and while I couldn’t survive well on it, even at 40 hours a week, it would make it possible for me to find some decent roommates and have a shot at making ends meet. I couldn’t live alone on that. I don’t know many people who could without government assistance.

I quit teaching 3 years ago because both physically and psychologically I was no longer capable of doing it. I teach Defensive Driving now, and I’m getting 4 to 5 classes a month. I make good money, at $200 per class, but it’s clear $1000 a month is all I have to live on. If my means testing works out, I might get disability. I’m too young for Social Security. I have, quite fortunately, state funded medical care and food stamps. That’s the whole ball of wax.

I have a roommate who is on disability, and she gets a monthly check that doesn’t quite cover rent for the three of us. My other roommate makes 15 bucks an hour, 40 to 50 hours a week, at Amazon. Between the three of us, we just barely survive. And that survival is by no means certain.

If there were a Freedom Dividend, my monthly income would double. If we see the three of us a family unit, the additional $3000 a month would cover all of our rent, utilities, and gas. All the money we bring in other than that would be to pay for groceries, vet bills, insurance, gas, and car repairs. We might even be able to afford to go to dinner sometimes, or perhaps see a movie.

A person who is too lazy to work deserves nothing from anyone else. I had to work hard for what I have; so should they!

I understand that feeling too. But I disagree with it.

I believe all people, whether I agree with their life choices or not, are deserving of the basics of human survival. This means all of us should have food, shelter, appropriate clothing for the climate in which we reside, medical care, a decent education, and the opportunity to communicate with others. What would that look like? You can see here:

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/05/07/can-we-have-a-star-trek-economy/

Many people make important contributions to society for which there is no financial reward. This doesn’t make them lazy. It makes them unpaid. Instead of raising our own children, many of us need to pay someone else to take care of them while we’re at work. Wouldn’t it be nice if Mom or Dad could stay home and raise children for $1000 a month? Add to the Freedom Dividend the money they’re saving on childcare, and suddenly it starts to add up. Caregivers for their elderly parents have to find other means to survive, or spend money to put their parents into homes. They also profit from the Freedom Dividend.

What if people waste it, though? I don’t want to pay for someone’s drug habit.

This is their money. If they choose to waste it, that’s up to them. They can either use it to move forward and up in life, or not. That’s true of any money anyone gets. It’s a Dividend in the same way that Microsoft pays a Dividend to their shareholders. You’ve invested your life into this country. You’re entitled to get something back from us. You’re not paying for it. You’re getting paid by it.

Fine, but how are we going to pay for this?

First, I would like to point out that the only time… the ONLY time… this question is asked is when the money is going to be used for programs that help ordinary people. No one asked how to pay for a war that has lasted, with no idea of “winning,” for more than a decade. We decided it needed to be done, and we did it.

Having said that, he does have a plan for it that makes sense. To understand the point of the plan, it’s important to understand why this is necessary: Automation.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI )improves, and it will, there will be more and more jobs lost to automation. We’re only a couple of years away from trucks that drive themselves. We are already checking out our own groceries at Wal Mart. Telemarketers and customer service agents will be replaced by software that is so convincing it sounds like you’re actually talking to a person. Malls are closing all over the place because we order what we want from Amazon. Those are more people without jobs.

Instead of watching homelessness skyrocket as people lose their jobs, we’re providing everyone a safety net. The Freedom Dividend gives them time to find a job that is fulfilling, pays well, and is free from harassment. It puts the job applicants much more in the driver’s seat than the employers. They don’t have to take the first job that is available because they have to pay rent next week. They have that covered. Now, they can spend their lives doing something they like instead of working themselves to death for pennies.

To pay for it, Yang will introduce a Value Added Tax for corporations like Amazon. There are those who hate this idea.

That will only make things more expensive.

I suppose that’s true. However, unless you’re spending over $120,000 a year, you’re coming out ahead. Only about 6% of the population will pay more than they get.

That won’t be enough money to pay for all of it. What about the rest of it?

He’ll also make use of the end of much of Welfare. I would have to choose between my food stamps and my Freedom Dividend. I get $177 a month for food. That’s enough for almost two weeks. Take my food stamps, and give me my $1000 a month. The government will be making fewer decisions for us.

Money will be going back into the economy, creating more jobs. We’ll make more in taxes because more people are working. That pays for part of it.

If you want the nitty gritty details, check here.

What is Universal Basic Income?
What is Universal Basic Income?

https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/

You Democrats want to give everyone Something for Nothing. This is just Socialism, and Socialism never works.

No… it’s not. Socialism is when the government controls the means of production. That’s still controlled by the Private Sector. This is Capitalism that doesn’t start at $0. It just levels the playing field. And we’re not giving Anyone Anything for Nothing. We’re giving it to everyone who has helped to make us among the wealthiest and most powerful nations on Earth. This is Human Centered Capitalism.

We have been trying the Trickle Down Economy since Reagan. What have been the results? Where once a single person working 40 hours a week could earn enough to support a whole family, today full time work isn’t really enough to support even one person. Giving more money to the wealthy “Job Creators” (who don’t actually create jobs at all… that’s done by supply and demand and consumers) obviously didn’t raise the standard of living for the rest of us. They didn’t invest it into their employees, and therefore into the economy. They kept it for themselves.

The Freedom Dividend is an effort at a Trickle Up Economy. Instead of raining only on the top branches of the tree, we’re watering its roots at ground level. The economy grows because the money is injected immediately back into it. Those who have more, spend more. People can now patronize little stores that are more expensive, instead of being forced into Wal Mart where the prices are lower and most of the employees need government assistance even to buy Wal Mart groceries. This keeps small business running and it encourages entrepreneurs to start their own. The Arts, which are for me the most valuable part of any civilization, will grow because artists can now afford to do their work. This isn’t Socialism. It’s a means of saving Capitalism.

So… what’s your point?

I would like to live in a world that is concerned more with people than with little bits of green paper. We have spent 200,000 years getting to the place where we can now feed, clothe, and house all of humanity. But our path here led us to believe we never have Enough. We don’t have Enough Money. We don’t have Enough Food. But, you know what? Yes… we do. We’ve made it, folks. We’re standing on the shoulders of 200 millennia of human beings struggling for survival. We’re their crowning achievement. Instead of wage slavery of the past, we can have fulfilling lives. We have invented machines to do the most tedious and dangerous work. We don’t have to hunt for food or cut down trees to build our shelters anymore. We are a remarkable species who have cause to be proud.

We’re here so very briefly. Let’s try to make a world where we can enjoy the ride.

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Teachers, Administrators, School Boards: Lend Me Your Ears!

Author’s Note: I wrote this essay in October, 2003.  I’m publishing it now because, it seems to me, we have arrived at the Destination described herein. If you disagree, please leave a comment and tell me why. If you agree, you’re welcome to leave a comment telling me what you think about that, too. I’ll probably even answer you.  — Fred Eder

Leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal. Teachers are accustomed to overcoming the enormous challenges put before us every day. Where once we were responsible only for the students’ academic skills, we are now in charge of teaching them the values of cultural diversity, sexual responsibility, and drug awareness. And just as we have met these challenges with overwhelming success, so, too, will we meet the challenge of getting students to reach the destination of our President’s Educational Train, leaving no child behind.

Arriving at the Station

The first requirement for learning to take place is that the students must attend school. Following the president’s metaphor, this would mean that the child must first arrive at the station. I feel sure that my school is not alone in its ever- increasing population of students who miss in excess of 40% of the standard school year. Sometimes students are chronically and suspiciously ill (especially on Fridays), sometimes they are suspended, and, all too often, they simply tell their parents they don’t want to come today, and they stay home and play video games. There is little the school can do to combat this problem. At more than one Pupil Evaluation Team (P.E.T.) meeting I have heard the Team recommend a bus be sent directly to the child’s doorstep to help her get to school. The bus is sent, but the child never boards the bus. A child who never makes it to the station can not help but be left behind. Nevertheless, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

How, though, are we to teach students who don’t attend school? As Mohamed might tell us about mountains, if the students won’t come to the school, the school must go to the students. We could hire teachers who travel from home to home to teach these students between sessions of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 for Play Station 2.

The cost of these extra teachers could come from school bake sales, or perhaps from having students go door to door selling candy, since, evidently, the funding will not be coming from the federal and state governments that promised it to us when they increased our responsibilities. The students might even sell some of their candy to the teachers who are working in the homes they visit.

On those days that these students do attend school, we can assign some of our Educational Technicians to assist them in catching up on the work they have missed while they were playing video games. To leave no child behind is clearly an honorable and achievable goal.

Boarding the Train

Assuming the child arrives at the station, it is next necessary that she actually boards the train. If I understand the metaphor correctly, this would be the equivalent of actually engaging the work that teachers set out for the students in order to help them learn. While many students do come to class regularly, there is among them a population which does no more than breathe the air in the room. Certainly, modifications can be, should be, and are made to assist these students. Educational Technicians work with them individually when the staffing makes it possible. Special procedures are put in place to help spark the student’s interest, encourage participation, and reward effort. For many students, these interventions are indeed effective, but not for all of them.

There are those students who, regardless of the best efforts of the Teachers, Educational Technicians, Administrators, Counselors, Social Workers and Parents, simply will not make an effort. There is, in the final analysis, nothing that can be done to force someone to try if she doesn’t want to. While the student may arrive at the station, she won’t necessarily get on board the train. Nevertheless, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

In order to meet the needs of those who won’t make any effort, we must determine why they won’t try. They may have lacked success in the past. There may have been emotional traumas which make it more difficult for them to put pencil to paper. In order to solve this problem, it is only necessary to conduct a thorough and searching investigation using all the tests we currently have, developing new ones, and bringing in Social Workers, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Family Doctors and, if need be, Psychics who will determine what needs to happen in order for the child to begin to engage the work.

The funding for all of these professionals could be found in school dances, talent shows, or bottle drives, since, again, we can be sure the government that imposed this program on us will not be paying for it. I have also recently observed that the students’ learning time, which is a valuable resource, can be sold to professional basketball teams, who represent a valuable source of funding. For a mere $1,000, the Boston Celtics got a captive and adoring audience for purposes of an hour long commercial for their team. The educational message, which lasted, in a generous estimate, for two and a half minutes, was admittedly important: you should always work hard.

While it’s true that the teachers at my school deliver this message to their students almost daily, we’re not as important as professional basketball players, and the message is much more powerful coming from Jo Jo White, while the Celtics mascot runs around slapping students’ hands, and the team’s Public Relations executive is passing out free tickets to kids who know Celtics trivia.

It’s hard to blame my principal, my superintendent, or even my governor, all of whom attended this “very special” assembly, for their choice. If the money can’t be found in any other way, they need to do what they can. The only commodity they have to sell is time with the students. If it seems to be to the students’ detriment to sacrifice class time for commercials, the case can be made that at least their students may have a few more books or supplies. These are important to the students’ education, too.

If this won’t pay for all the professionals we need to get the students to engage the work given to them, we can assign some of our Educational Technicians to assist them, because, as we know, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

Making the Train Safe for All

There is an additional population that keeps our train from moving safely toward its destination. This group is made up of those who do attend school, and who can often learn, but feel the need to disrupt. It is difficult to blame most of these students for their behaviors. One of my colleagues recently made the observation that he would, under no circumstances, trade lives with some of our students.

We have an ever-increasing population of those who are frequently arrested. We have some who are using drugs. There are others who are dealing with different forms of abuse at home, and whose parents are too drunk or too stoned to give them any sort of guidance or help. If parents do impart their values to their children, the values thus imparted are frequently in direct conflict with those we are called upon to instill in our students. It is all but impossible to convince a student whose father is in prison and whose mother is usually unable to communicate through her drug or alcohol induced haze that the multiplication tables have any relevance to her life, or that putting a period at the end of a sentence is an important part of communication. One student, whose father is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for dealing drugs, told me education was of no importance to him since he would simply take over his father’s business. His intimidation and assaults upon his fellow students is much better training for his chosen future than is anything I can teach him.

Our train, however, being a public train, is required to transport all those who board it, and we will find a solution to this problem as well. After all, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

For the students who are on board the train only to disrupt its travels, it is possible simply to send them out of the classroom, so that we can teach the rest of the students. Of course, these students will miss out on what we are trying to teach, and the test scores that our government has decided will determine our school’s future will show that.

Since this won’t do if we are to leave no child behind, we could have special classes, made up exclusively of these students, with a highly trained and qualified set of teachers who work just with this population. Although my school’s current staffing makes this impossible, our Special Education Director has assured us that these students are manageable if only we will use the staff we now have more effectively.

Since there is neither the funding for specialists to deal with these students, nor the space for them to have a classroom if such teachers could be found, what we really need to do is just what the President’s plan suggests: replace the teachers who are not being effective. If a veteran teacher can’t handle students who yell out in class, bully other students, sell drugs in the hallways, or stand on the desk singing, then we need to get rid of that teacher. Teachers with many years of experience cost way too much anyway, so the obvious answer is to replace them with the vastly superior first and second year teachers that are coming out of our colleges in record numbers.

After all, with all of its rewards, many students in college today must certainly aspire to enter the teaching profession. Surely, teachers with no experience, but well armed with all that can be taught in modern Methods Classes, will be perfectly equipped to handle the problems that students in this population present.

If these teachers require additional assistance to help with these students, perhaps we can have our Educational Technicians take these students in the hall and help them to learn there. See what an honorable and achievable goal it is to leave no child behind?

Serving Our Passengers

Having made arrangements for those who rarely attend, those who make no effort, and those who are a threat to the learning and safety of the rest, we are left with a smaller population who show up on time to meet the train, get on board, and are ready and eager to travel down the tracks toward our destination. Among this population are those who, despite their best efforts, can not seem to grasp some of the material. These are the students that most of us want most to help. Teaching is, after all, a “helping” profession. We are, all of us, here because we want to help others. We are all more than willing to do anything and everything possible to help those who really want to learn. All that is necessary for the success of those students who do not qualify for a Special Education program, but who still can’t quite figure it all out, is some time and attention.

The solution for this group is simple. In Middle School, we have Educational Technicians who are experts in serving just this function. Although in a class of thirty, with 47 minutes to teach them all, a single teacher may not be able to spend the appropriate amount of time with each of these students, our Ed. Techs are ready, willing, and able.

Of course, there is the difficulty of locating our Ed. Techs. Many of them are working with those students who are way behind because they have missed school so often. Others are assisting those students who won’t put a pencil to paper. The remaining Ed. Techs are being used in the hallway to assist those students who are only here to disrupt. What does that leave us to help the students who really want to learn, but just need that helping hand?

Well, perhaps these students aren’t all that important anyway. After all, they’ll probably pass the high-stakes test, even if their scores aren’t as high as they might be. They can read, write and do basic calculations. They’re here in school, they try their best, and they behave well. These students are by no means achieving all that they might, but they certainly aren’t being left behind. And, of course, what is most important is our honorable and achievable goal of leaving no child behind.

Final Destination

Finally, we need to see where we will arrive, once we have gotten all of our students there. It would seem we will arrive at a place in which ALL of our students have at least some minimal skills. They can read, if by this we mean that they can decode words and find at least a superficial meaning in written language. They are certainly capable of comprehending the pop-up ads on the internet, and the advertising in magazines and on billboards. They are probably not ready to comprehend great literature, but, after all, what difference does the writing of a lot of dead white guys make anyway?

They can write well enough to send e-mails and conduct online chats. They know that the word “you” is more properly spelled “u.” It saves time, after all, to write it this way, and we need to have as much time as possible so we can use our writing skills to send vitally important messages, like, “Sup,” (which I am told means, “What’s up?” – a vitally important message itself), and to communicate with others on the same intellectual level.

Certainly they can solve simple mathematical problems, and probably balance their checkbooks. They may not have the ability to do any real problem solving, or to examine alternatives and choose the ones most likely to bring about desired results, but how important is that really anyway? Our students can now get jobs, respond to advertising and use the money they earn to buy the products advertised on TV, the internet and in magazines, and keep our economy healthy enough for the millionaires whose tax cuts are creating the low-paying jobs for which our students have been successfully trained.

Certainly these are the intended outcomes of public education. These are the lofty goals to which I, like all teachers, aspired when I became certified. We should all be proud to have met such an honorable goal. Congratulations, fellow educators. We have left no child behind.

“…and Brutus is an honorable man”

Some Dead White Guy

Fred Eder
Biddeford Middle School

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

The Importance of Language

I’m often referred to as a Grammar Nazi, and many of my friends take delight in finding errors I’ve made in something I’ve posted. I am embarrassed, and I fix the error promptly. But, most people are thinking, “What difference does it make anyway?” The difference it makes is greater than you probably ever imagined. We’re seeing the effects of poor language use on our country daily. It divides us for reasons we don’t understand.

If I use the word “table,” we probably have a similar image in mind. If I use it in context, you’ll probably be more certain of what I mean. If I describe it well enough, we will both have a nearly identical understanding of the word.

When, however, we misuse words, their meanings become murky. “Chill” is a somewhat benign example. It once meant to make cold. People saw that as a good metaphor for relaxing. “Chill, dude!” is not a call to put a beer in the refrigerator. It’s a plea for someone to settle down.

I got in trouble a few years ago for using the word in that context. I have a friend who is a brilliant singer, and a very beautiful woman. She is decades too young for me, but that doesn’t keep us from being friends. I saw on Facebook one day that she was having a difficult day. I behaved as I thought a friend should. I knew she would enjoy the opportunity to relax after all of her difficulties, so I texted her. I invited her to watch a movie with my new access to Netflix, and to relax, perhaps sharing a bit of marijuana. My meaning was entirely benign. The way I phrased it got me into instant trouble. “It looks like you’re having a lousy day. When you get off work, why don’t you come by? We can watch Netflix and chill a while.”

She was shocked I would send her such an offensive text. Evidently “Netflix and chill” has an entirely different meaning. She wondered if, because she wasn’t even 30 yet, and I was in my 50s, I was some sort of pervert. Without intending to, I had evidently invited her to a sexual encounter. I apologized when I recognized my mistake, and we are still friends. It wasn’t a big deal, but it could have cost me a person I enjoy having in my life.

Now, that’s a minor issue. “Chill” is not a terribly important word.

But, what about words that carry greater weight? What, for example, is Socialism? What is Communism? What does Conservative mean? What about Liberal? What is Capitalism? We all throw these words around as easily as “table” or “chill,” but their meanings seem to vary as widely as the people who use them. I will limit this essay to only one of these words, but as much could be written about any of them.

Just today, I came across this definition of Liberal:

“The Liberal: We support terrorist groups. We support antisemitism. We support thought and speech control. We support attacking people in the street for having different opinions. We support sacking people for having different opinions. We support hounding and harassing people for having different opinions. We think all white people are born evil. We teach that all white people are born evil. We support open borders. We support widespread drug use. We support the sexualisation of children. We tacitly support the mass rape of children. We support special privileges for certain groups based on gender, race or sexual orientation. We support hating your own country or your own working class. We support the cruelty of halal. We support welfare cheating. We support pulling down statues. We support you being ruled from abroad. We support everything and everyone that hates you, damages your society or blights your life. And we support you paying high taxes for it too.
The Conservative: Please stop.
The Liberal: Shut up you moron. Why did conservatives become so extreme?”

Bartholomew Chiaroscuro

If that’s the definition of Liberal you believe to be correct, it’s hardly a surprise you despise me. If that were what Liberals believe, in just that form, I would not choose to be one. However… that’s not what the word actually means.

The Dictionary at Google defines the word as follows:


“open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.
(of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.”

Google Dictionary

John Dewey tells us:

“But the majority who call themselves liberals today are committed to the principle that organized society must use its powers to establish the conditions under which the mass of individuals can possess actual, as distinct from, merely legal liberty. They define their liberalism in the concrete in terms of a program of measures moving toward this end.”

Liberalism and Social Action

These are only a few of the definitions of the word. In order for us to communicate with one another effectively, we must agree on what words mean. Without that agreement, we are spitting into the wind. We can accomplish nothing because we can’t understand each other.

How do we manage this?

I think it begins by examining the context in which a word is used. While what we currently call a Conservative might agree with the first, frankly offensive, definition of the word, I know few Liberals who would. And I know many people who call themselves Conservative, in a different sense of the word than is popularly used today, who would also find that definition to be absurd.

Let’s ask ourselves why some are choosing one definition of a word but not another. What advantage is gained for them in argument? If all Liberals, or all Conservatives, or all of any other group you might wish to label in a negative way, are evil, then I don’t need to engage their arguments. I can simply call them, “Typical ___” You may fill in the blank.

I have made no argument. I’ve done nothing to convince anyone that I’m right and they’re wrong. I’ve learned nothing about the opposing point of view that might help me to refine my own. I just get the unwarranted feeling that I’m superior.

If I’m choosing a definition of Liberal that I like best, it would probably be Kennedy’s:

“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”

Profiles in Courage

The function of language is to help us to understand one another more clearly. When we use words as epithets instead of as accurate descriptions of one ideology or another, we are unable to communicate meaningfully. I can’t solve the world’s problems alone. Neither can you. If, however, we listen to each other, understand each other, and learn from each other, together we might take a few steps in that direction.

“The time is out of joint—O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.”

Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5
Posted on by Fred

Combatting Hatred

You can’t change the world; only your corner of it.”
— My father, Alan Eder, quoting my grandpa, Enno Schuelke, September 12, 2001

“We’re on track for a million illegal aliens to rush our borders. People hate the word ‘invasion’ but that’s what it is. It’s an invasion of drugs and criminals and people. You have no idea who they are.”

Donald Trump

Invaders, by definition, need to be stopped. They are almost invariably met with violence.

Look at the examples of the usage of the word.

“To enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany invaded Poland in 1939.” – Dictionary.com

If we believe the mythical “Others” are invaders, the logical response is to kill them, isn’t it?

This is the leadership we have. We are told we are being invaded. How can an American who believes this President be expected to act differently?

We can argue about gun control, but it’s a blind alley. We’re never going to make meaningful changes in those laws. If we didn’t do it after children… CHILDREN!… died at Sandy Hook, we certainly won’t because of a few “others.”

But, why do we have to accept the idea that those whose skin is darker, whose national origins are different, or whose sexuality, or gender identification, or religious beliefs are other than the majority are somehow bad? I’m sick to death of the argument that Mexicans are welcome if they come in legally. That’s bullshit, and the person making the argument knows it. It takes years to become a citizen, if you can do it at all. The first step is to determine eligibility for naturalization. That step alone can take 3 to 5 years. There are 9 additional steps.

The information is here:

https://www.path2usa.com/us-naturalization-eligibility

What they really have in mind is keeping America filled with people who are like them. We want only white people. If that’s not true, why are we building a wall at the Southern border, but not the Northern? We don’t seem to mind Canadians coming in.

My plea is really to give up our hatred. The most important question is who is better off for this?

I am better than some people. I am not as good as others. This is determined by my abilities and my behaviors. It has nothing to do with my race, gender, sexuality, religious or political views. The same is true for everyone else.

If you want to hate me, and there are many who do, then hate me for what I do. Hate my liberal opinions, but not the fact that I’m straight. Hate my Idealism, but not my religious views. Hate my speaking out against Hate. Hate my writing. Hate my reaching out for help. Those are all choices I have made. They are open to scrutiny. I was born male. I had nothing whatever to do with that. I was born in America. I deserve no credit for that.

Why should I hate someone because she’s female, or because he is homosexual, or because her children were born in Guatemala? Who is better off for that? How is my life better because the lives of others are worse? I don’t become taller by pushing someone else down. I don’t become richer by denying wealth to someone else.

We don’t need to be told to hate.

Hate leads to fear. Someone else is going to get something that should have been mine. I know that these people are bad because they weren’t born in America. It’s because of them that my life is no good. I am afraid of them invading and taking what is supposed to be mine.

Fear leads to violence. I can’t let them invade. I have to protect what’s mine, and what belongs to the rest of my tribe. They don’t belong in my country any more than a cockroach belongs in my house. The only thing to do when you’re invaded, is kill the invaders.

Violence leads to suffering. My mother, my son, my wife, my best friend… someone… is dead. I won’t see them again. No more laughing together at jokes that aren’t really funny. No more hugs and love. No more of the joy of seeing their eyes light up when I walk into a room. No more breathing for this person I love. And this hurts like a bitch.

Haven’t we had enough suffering yet?

What if we realized that a person had no choice about being born? No one chooses where or when to enter the planet. No one chooses the color of his skin (beyond tanning, I suppose). No one chooses her sexual orientation. No one chooses his gender. Is it reasonable to hate someone for things over which he had no control?

Hatred can be useful. I hated Osama bin Laden, not because he was from another country, not because his religious views differed from mine, and not even because of his sexual identity. I hated him for stealing my sense of security by slamming planes into buildings and killing thousands of human beings who were every bit as deserving of their next breath as I am of mine.

But I didn’t generalize that hatred to include all people who shared his religion. As it turns out, there are millions and millions of perfectly nice Muslims in the world. I have no cause to hate them. And it doesn’t do much to make me feel better to hate anyone. Do you enjoy hating others? I find it’s kind of a burning sensation in my chest that I would rather not have.

Again, it’s worth asking, before you do anything, “Who is better off for me doing this?” Sometimes, it’s something small. If I make a burrito, I’m better off for doing it because my blood sugar won’t drop, and I won’t be so hungry. But when it’s something that has the potential to hurt someone, it becomes a more serious question.

I understand, to some extent, the need to blame someone else for the conditions of our lives. I certainly don’t like mine. There’s at least a 70% chance I’ll be homeless on September 1. That makes me afraid. I would love to blame someone. But… who will it help? I still have the same problem to handle whether it’s the fault of President Trump, “The Others” (whomever you may choose), myself, my roommates, or the landlord who is selling the house in which we live. Blaming someone won’t get me a new habitation. Since I don’t like being angry, I don’t see any point in wasting emotional energy on hating someone else. I’m no better off for it. Neither is the subject of my blame.

If we can stop looking for scapegoats and start looking for solutions to our problems, we are more likely to be happier. It is intellectual cowardice to decide that someone else is responsible for our lot in life.

I’m told that there are websites called 4chan and 8chan that are dedicated to promoting Hate Speech. They have the absolute right to do this. I would never want to take away Freedom of Speech from anyone. Since I can’t stop them from spreading their message of hate, what can I do? I can fight their words with mine. I do what I can to spread a message of Love and Acceptance. Just as those sites incite violence, so I hope to incite peace.

We can legislate all day and into the night, and we won’t end the problem of gun violence because its root – Hatred – can’t be killed by laws. If we want to end this we have to stop the hatred. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it better than I can, so I will leave you to ponder his words in the context of mine.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.


Will you join me, please, in advocating Love over Hate?

Posted on by Fred

Horace’s Final Five

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering. These are noble pursuits, necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love: these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman. ‘O me, O life, of the questions of these recurring. Of the endless trains of the faithless. Of cities filled with the foolish. What good, amid these, O me, O Life?’ Answer: That you are here. That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

John Keating, The Dead Poets Society

Fifty is a milestone in nearly anything. If you google it, you’ll see people seem to become obsessed with turning 50. Things that happened 50 years ago are more significant than things that happened 47 or 56 years ago.

This is my 50th Blog Post. It’s an effort to tie all the loose ends together, and to answer Professor Keating’s question.

While I’m alive, I hope that I can live a life such that I can have my one strange, supernatural fantasy come out my way. In the last five minutes of my life, Marc Antony shows up at my bedside. I always have him kind of glowing. And he’s clearly Marlon Brando. And he knows everything I have done, and all that has happened to me, from the time I was a sperm racing toward the egg, up until that very moment. And, in my fantasy, Marc Antony can honestly and objectively reach the conclusion that: His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that the nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man.” That’s all I hope to be able to achieve. I feel like it would be enough. After that, Death is a Welcome Companion.
—Horace Singleman’s Blog, April 26, 2019

Extended Stay Inn
Phoenix, Arizona
September 2, 2019
3:14 AM

Horace experienced Nothing. Sleep includes, from time to time, at least, some sort of dreams. “What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil…” Horace lacked awareness of his very existence. Dreams imply a form of consciousness. Consciousness hid in the Nothingness.

A voice flickered into existence. “Horace?”

Horace’s eyes might have opened. They might not have. They existed, though.

Marc Antony floated over the bed on which Horace lay, dying. The entity appeared in every outward way to be Marlon Brando playing Marc Antony in the 1953 film version. But Horace knew it was Marc Antony anyway.

His voice came from everywhere at once. It was both booming and soothing. It echoed without pretense. He spoke the lines Horace had spent his life preparing to hear.

“This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world…”

He stopped. There was a pause that seemed to stretch into Eternity. Finally, he sighed in a distinctly disappointed fashion, and said, “I got nothing.”

Horace regained (or didn’t… he couldn’t be sure) consciousness. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t make the cut, Horace. I’m sorry. The Elements aren’t mixed properly. I can’t call you a Man.”

“Oh.” Horace blinked, or he did if his eyes were still functioning, which was, by no means, a settled issue. “Well, that sucks. I thought I was doing pretty well. I was mostly proud of what I did.”

Antony shrugged. “What can I tell ya?”

“So… to be clear… you know everything I’ve ever done every moment of my life, right?”

“From the moment your Dad’s condom broke.”

“Wait. What?”

“That was more than I was supposed to tell you, probably. Forget it.”

“So, I don’t need to explain anything to you. You know, for example, about Somewhere in Time, Emily Webb and her return from the graveyard, and The Next Generation episode, ‘Tapestry,’ right?”

“And Billy Bigelow in Carousel and George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. They’re all about a second chance. Going back. You’re looking for a do-over?” Antony lit a cigarette with a match. Horace wondered if togas had pockets.

“Are there any options like that? I’ve never dealt with dying before.”

Antony dragged on the cigarette, shook out the match, and looked up at Horace. The smoke smelled tempting to Horace. Antony smiled at him, in the way only Brando could, and handed Horace a cigarette. He lit it for him. Horace inhaled gratefully.

“Well, it’s your last five minutes… or actually… three minutes and 49 seconds… of life. Spend them as you see fit.”

“What about a trip to The Guardian of Forever?”

Antony nodded slowly, contemplatively. “We could do that.” He blew out the smoke from his cigarette, and it became deeper and deeper. It expanded until all that existed was smoke. From within the smoke, Horace heard familiar voices.

“Incredible power. It can’t be a machine as we understand mechanics.”


“Then what is it?”

Now the smoke began to dissipate, and Horace could see his childhood heroes, Kirk and Spock, standing before a 15 foot high slab of rock with a hole carved in its center.


“A question. Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.” The voice came from everywhere, and reverberated through the scene.


“What are you?” This was Kirk.

“I am the Guardian of Forever,” said the booming voice of the rock.


“Are you machine or being?”


“I am both and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending.”

“Cool,” whispered Horace.

“This won’t be long. After they leave, it’s all yours.”

“Can they see or hear us?”

“Were we in the episode?” Antony turned to watch an insane Doctor McCoy jump through the portal. In that moment, everything felt different. There was a sense of loneliness that Horace had never experienced.

He looked over to the crew of the Enterprise.

“Where is he?” Horace’s hero asked The Guardian.


“He has passed into what was.”

Horace told Antony, “That’s sort of what I have in mind.”

Antony nodded. “I get ya. We’ll see what we can do. Soon as they’re gone. We can’t interfere.”

“They could be here for a really long time, and I have, what… like three minutes?”

Antony shook his head. “Closer to two. But you’ve forgotten how this episode comes out.”

Horace looked back to his heroes.

“Earth’s not there. At least, not the Earth we know. We’re totally alone.” Kirk and the crew looked into the empty dark sky.

“I don’t really want to change all of galactic history or anything, you know,” Horace explained to Antony.

“You’re not nearly that important. And The Guardian will only let you go back into your life. You don’t get to go stop the Lincoln assassination or something.”

“So… any moment of my life?”

“Nope. It doesn’t play at that speed. There are certain moments… like docks on the river of time… you can pick one of those, go back, and do whatever you think needs to be done.”

“Yeah, but I can’t do much in the time I have left.”

“Time doesn’t count in The Guardian, remember?”


Captain Kirk turned to Spock, who was busy with his tricorder. “Make sure we arrive before McCoy got there. It’s vital we stop him before he does whatever it was that changed all history. Guardian, if we are successful – “


The Guardian’s voice filled the area: “Then you will be returned. It will be as though none of you had gone.”

Antony turned to his companion. “Do you have a clue what you’re going to do in The Guardian?”

“I’m going to try to fix my life so that the elements are so mixed in me that Nature might stand up and say to all the world –”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. But, what, exactly, are you going to fix? What do you think you can do to remix the Elements?”

Horace ran his thumb over his mustache. “I really don’t know.”


Spock spoke quietly. “There is no alternative.”


Captain Kirk turned to his engineer. “Scotty, when you think you’ve waited long enough… Each of you will have to try it. Even if you fail, at least you’ll be alive in some past world somewhere.”


Mr. Scott’s face showed concern. “Aye.”


Mr. Spock looked carefully at his tricorder, and then up at The Guardian. “Seconds now, sir. Stand by.”

Horace asked Antony, “Those are my seconds he’s spending… how many do I have left?”

Antony didn’t need to look at a clock. “One hundred fifty three.”

“Well, then, I’m pretty much screwed!”


Spock said, “…And now.” He and Kirk jumped through The Guardian.

“By the time they get back,” Horace began. He was interrupted by Mr. Scott. Kirk and Spock jumped back through the portal.

“What happened, sir? You only left a moment ago.”


Dr. McCoy jumped through as well.


Spock spoke in his logical, emotionless way. It was clear, however, to the assembled crew he was holding something back. “We were successful.”


The Guardian spoke again. “Time has resumed its shape. All is as it was before. Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway.”


Lieutenant Uhura glanced up from her communicator. “Captain, the Enterprise is up there. They’re asking if we want to beam up.”


Kirk was defeated and deflated. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

In another moment, all of the shapes shimmered, and then they were gone. Horace and Antony were alone with the Guardian of Forever.

“So… what’s it going to be?” Antony moved toward The Guardian.

Horace moved quickly to the portal. “Guardian? Can you take me back in time?”

“Your transportation is limited to the 56.841 years you have existed. You may choose from any of three… Time Docks… is the simplest way to explain them to your species. They are moments in time that you may enter and change. The rest of the River of Time flows too quickly for you. You would certainly drown.”

Horace glared at Antony. “What the hell is this? Kirk and Spock got all of History. All I get is -”

“You’re not Kirk and Spock. This Guardian is limited to what I know. What I know is your life.”

“What about Ancient Rome?”

“Is this really how you want to spend your last 97 seconds?”

Horace turned back to The Guardian. “What are my options?”

The Guardian displayed a moment in Horace’s life.

“That was the day Grandpa Leal died. I remember that.”

***

Henderson, Nebraska
Sunday, September 28, 1969
2:23 PM

“All right,” said Jim Lange’s voice coming from the TV, “that’s the signal Farrah, and now you must make up your mind… will it be Bachelor Number One, Bachelor Number Two, or Bachelor Number Three?”

“It doesn’t matter who she picks,” Horace whispered to Teddy. “She always finds out later it was the wrong one.”

“Which one gets the date?” asked the TV.

“Number Two,” Farrah’s voice replied.

“Number Two, all right! Can I ask what it was that made you choose him?”

“It was the flower.”

And then a fight broke out between the three bachelors.

“That’s only ‘possed to be on Batman,” said Teddy, while Horace’s lips moved.

“Cool!”

Owen groaned, “I’m up, I’m up, I’m up,” as he woke from his doze, got out of the chair, and walked to the TV. He turned it off, while Horace groaned in disappointment. Grandpa lumbered to the couch, laid down on it, and pulled the blanket off the back of it and covered himself.

Teddy looked up at Horace. “Your Grandpa’s wise, huh?”

Horace nodded. “He’s God’s best friend.” He looked down at his bear. “But we have to be quiet. Grandpa’s going to sleep now.”

Horace watched Owen a while, and then he took Teddy, climbed on top of Grandpa, and fell asleep.

***

The Guardian of Forever
September 2, 2019
3:18:07 AM

“What do I do with that?”

“You blocked it out. No one knew. You couldn’t tell them. You didn’t understand. You were afraid,” said Antony.

“That… my Grandfather died?”

“That you might have prevented it. You were lying on top of him when it happened. You felt his heart attack. You froze. You could have gone to get Mrs. Fertlebom. You could have called 911. You would have become a more courageous man.”

“Why didn’t I? I don’t remember.”

“You didn’t know what to do. When Grandpa fell asleep, don’t you remember what you did that night?”

“I went and turned the TV back on… I figured I could get away with it now…”

“That’s right.”

“And… I watched… was that… that was the first time I saw ‘City on The Edge of Forever.’ That’s when I learned about The Guardian. It’s where I learned about Let Me Help.”

“That’s why it became such a motivating factor… almost an obsession in your life. If you had helped…”

“I don’t see changing that. It’s a core part of me.”

“What about your grandfather?”

“We have only… what… 45 seconds left?”

“49.”

“What’s next?”

A new image appeared within The Guardian.

“That’s Rhiannon’s attic. I remember that.”

“She really did put a spell on you that night.”

“That’s ridiculous!” shouted Horace. “I have no belief in the Supernatural.”

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio…”

***

Wells, Maine
Tuesday, March 13, 1979
10:23 PM

This attic was the only place Horace could find to hide. There were so many people out there, but here, in this empty room, he was alone with the full moon whose light was slipping feebly through the tiny window.

He couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking when he’d accepted Bob’s invitation. It had been so entirely unexpected, though, there was nothing else he could do. The star quarterback of the high school football team had invited him to a party… at the home of the single most beautiful cheerleader who had ever graced the halls of Poe High School. And Horace was the head of the Poe Nothings. Horace knew himself well enough to know that Rhiannon would never actually talk to him, but there was that Glimmer of Hope. Just a little Hope can make the heart beat a bit faster. Horace enjoyed the feeling, so he accepted the invitation. And now he was in the attic, hoping he could find a way out of here.

All of these people were light years beyond his social class. None of them had ever seen an episode of Star Trek. He knew absolutely nothing about the sports that they discussed with the precision of scientists debating quantum mechanics. They were all well built, outgoing, attractive people. Horace was thin, gangly, socially inept, and unattractive in any conventional sense. He was the only virgin in the entire house. What had Bob been thinking?

He didn’t belong. He wanted to leave, but it was awfully cold in March, and it was a 17 mile walk from Wells back to Biddeford. Hiding represented his only chance to survive, and he couldn’t get away with the bathroom for more than about 5 minutes at a time. There were way too many people, drinking way too much, and they all required a restroom.

But this room looked like it was hiding, too. It wasn’t even a full-sized room. It was accessible only by a narrow, winding staircase at the last corner of a very dark hallway. As his eyes adjusted, he was able to perceive that against the wall to his right, there was an old, worm-eaten wooden table filled with what Horace decided must be an artist’s supplies. There were notched candles. There were cloves. There were strangely shaped bottles filled with various colors of oils. When he walked to it he observed seeds, matches, and a shot glass.

He turned around when he heard the door open behind him, and he moved as quietly as he could out of the light. Rhiannon backed into the room, a round candlestick in her hand. She turned and glided silently across the room, and when she crossed the moonlight, the room seemed to glow with her.

She went to the table, and lit the notched candle using the tall thin one attached to the holder. She mumbled something, but Horace couldn’t make out what it was. He could see her silhouette moving her hands up the bizarrely shaped candle, bottom to top, 9 times. He counted. She sighed confidently.

Antony whispered, “Now’s your chance. Just leave.”

Horace shook his head and watched with a nostalgic smile.

When she turned around to leave the room she saw him, and they were both startled. Horace, already in the corner, tried to back away, but just smashed his body awkwardly into the wall. She dropped her candle, and it rolled, lit, across the wooden floor toward him. He knelt, nearly falling over, and picked it up. He stood up, and found her standing directly in front of him. He handed it back to her. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

Rhiannon smiled compassionately at him. “Me too.” She looked briefly over her shoulder at the strange candle, and disappointment tinted her blue eyes.

Horace couldn’t look at her. He noticed his shoelaces didn’t match.

“I really am trying my best.” She looked back at Horace. “To be a decent person I mean. I know a lot of people think I’m stuck up, or whatever, but, really, I’m not.”

Horace said nothing.

“Okay?” She whispered.

He looked up. “Okay.” His stare, while entirely unintentional, was almost rude in its intensity.

There have been, throughout human history, quite a few women renowned for their beautiful hair. None of them, however, had anything on Rhiannon. Lady Godiva and Rapunzel, for example, were each known for the lengths of theirs. Rhiannon’s didn’t come close to such a ghastly stretch. It fell, seemingly effortlessly, down her neck and covered her shoulders as a quiet brown river lightly licking its banks, or a blanket under which the slender shoulders snuggled greedily.

Helen of Troy and Lucretia Borgia were sufficiently beautiful that they seemed almost to be able to cast a spell on men simply by looking at them. They were Anti-Medusas. Horace was as inspired as any Trojan.

When she saw Horace staring through his hormone haze, she smiled shyly and brushed her hair slowly back from her forehead. Then she nervously moved her fingers through it like a tide stealing sand from a moonlit beach as it slides up and down.

“I mean, do you ever ask yourself if it’s even possible to make everyone happy without hurting someone?”

“No… not until just now.”

“If you ever figure it out…” her eyes shimmered in the candlelight. They both smiled. Rhiannon, he decided, was a girl who knew how to run her fingers through her hair. They were having a moment.

The banging on the door made them both jump, but Rhiannon held firmly to her candle, and Horace slithered back into his dark corner silently.

“Rhiannon? You in there?” Horace recognized Bob’s tenor voice.

She took her hand away from her hair. “I’ll be right out.” The moment was over.

“There’s a party downstairs, and you’re being a lousy hostess.”

She smiled, almost tenderly at him, and left the room, the notched candle burning. Horace was alone in the dark.

The Guardian of Forever
September 2, 2019
3:18:19 AM

Horace shook his head. “No. It does no one any good. She was never real for me. But she represented an Ideal. She was my Dream of Perfection, and I would miss that feeling too much.”

“I don’t know how that timeline would go. You might end up marrying her.”

“That’s selfish. She has a life she loves. I would be giving her something less. I would never have had the money to give her what she has.”

“Perhaps something more valuable?”

Horace rolled his eyes. “What’s next?”

Antony shrugged, as though the answer were obvious. “Your Greatest Sin.”

A new image appeared within The Guardian.

“That’s the room we built for Mom in The Shithole. My roommates, Albert and Jeanine, painted it, and we put all of her favorite things in it. It had a special bed the dog could jump on so Mom could still sleep with her.”

“And you took your old Mother’s money.”

“It wasn’t that simple.”

“Yes,” Antony lit a new cigarette. “It was. You just try to rationalize what you don’t like about yourself. You always have.”

“Look,” Horace tried to explain, “just before Dad died, I promised…”

Phoenix, Arizona
January 15, 2017
12:37 PM

“… that you would take care of your mother. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes, Mom,” Horace said into the phone, doing his best not to show frustration. “And I really did do my best. I had you living with me for four and a half years.”

“So why can’t I live where I want? Everyone always decides what’s right for me. What about my feelings? What about what I want?”

Horace sighed. “What do you want, Mom?”

“I want to live with my family. I want to be where I’m loved.” There were tears in her voice. “Are you telling me my own family doesn’t love me anymore?”

“Of course not, Mom.”

“You can have all my money. My doctors will come to the house. We can be together. I won’t have to sit here like a piece of meat waiting to rot.”

“It’s not about the money. I don’t know if I can take care of you well enough.”

“You retired. You have time. And I don’t need much. I just need… I just need…” And now Marie Singleman was crying. “I wish I could just go to sleep and not wake up anymore.”

Horace’s heart melted. His mother deserved better. He could do better. He would do better…

…

And he got his roommates to clean out the extra room, paint it, furnish it, make it ready for her. He got all of the paperwork for her removal from the Group Home done.

And then his family heard about the move, swept in against him, promised legal action that would force his mother to take the stand and finish what was left of her deeply confused brain, and Marie slept in her room only three times before the move was shut down.

He had held her while she cried on his shoulder. He kept reassuring her that they would still talk every night. He promised she would never be alone.

Sunday, February 12, 2017
4:25 PM
Phoenix, Arizona.

Horace sat staring at his computer. There was the bank account. There was enough money to avoid eviction. He could click it, transfer money from Marie’s account to his, pay his landlord, and avoid the Sheriff’s office in the morning. All he had to do was click the damn button.

Antony and his Horace stood invisibly next to the desk. Antony handed Horace another cigarette and lit it for him.

“So,” mumbled Antony, “what’s it going to be?”

Horace exhaled. “You want me to stop him…”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“It would mix the Elements properly?”

Antony nodded.

“And… I get evicted. And Marion and I are on the streets tomorrow afternoon. We’re living in my car. And God only knows what happens to Albert and Jeanine. I’m sure they’ll figure something out. They always do. What happens in this timeline?”

Antony shook his head. He took a long drag off his cigarette.

Horace watched himself fighting an inner battle. He knew all the signs. There was the quivering finger over the mouse. There was the moving his hand away, and then putting it back. There was the glow in his eyes as his mind turned faster and faster. He was about to reach a decision. The moment would be gone.

“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice,” said Antony, although it came out as Geddy Lee’s voice singing “Free Will.”

Horace nodded. He unplugged his counterpart’s computer. The seated Horace looked at the active Horace. He didn’t see him. Seated Horace nodded, inhaled and exhaled deeply, got up from the desk and left the office.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017
3:14:49 PM
Phoenix, Arizona
Bethany Home Road
Horace’s Car

“Ya still got 11 seconds,” said Antony from the passenger seat of the Nissan.

Horace took a moment to absorb his surroundings. The car reeked of puke. His dog, Marion, was licking him frantically. “I thought I died in 2019. What the hell?”

“Changed the time line. 9 seconds.”

“Yeah, but won’t this hurt Mom worse than my taking the money would have?”

“You made that decision a couple years later when you took 50 units of insulin without eating. You knew what you were doing.”

“I was homeless. When the remainder of life is to be nothing but pain –”

“6 seconds. This one isn’t on you. It’s not intentional. It’s untreated DKA. You’re in the clear. The Elements came out fine.”

“So, you can say…”

Antony smiled as only Brando could.

“This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world…”

He put his hand on Horace’s shoulder.

“This was a man.”

A tear of joy started to form in Horace’s eye, but it didn’t have time to become properly liquid. There was no more than a twinkling little star before they lost their light.