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 · 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

Club Q and Tolerance

I put the following on Facebook after the mass murder at the Gay Colorado Nightclub, Club Q.

Words can incite hatred. Hatred can incite violence. Violence causes death.

Let’s choose not only our own words more carefully, but the words we choose to listen to and amplify. When we dehumanize people who are different from us, we contribute to the evil we saw in Colorado.

Perhaps it’s time not only to tolerate differences, but to celebrate them. Being different requires a courage all its own. Being who we choose to be should never be a cause of death.

As has become common for me, I received pushback from someone whose name I will omit:

The only problem I have is “tolerating differences”. I refuse to “tolerate” racist bigoted xenophobic transphobic homophobic assholes. Those differences cannot be tolerated.

I understand my friend’s feelings.  I don’t approve of those folks either.  Neither am I a fan of misogynists, racists, or religious people who believe their beliefs entitle them to decide others are bad.  But what does it mean to “tolerate?” 

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.

“a regime unwilling to tolerate dissent”

So, am I to decide I will not allow the existence of those who disagree with me without interference?  What sort of interference is acceptable?  What is not?  Obviously, no one is going to support rounding up all the homophobes and transphobes and shooting them.  We can call them names, I suppose.  My friend called them assholes, and I understand her point of view, even if I think it’s a failure of understanding.  We can talk about how horrible they are.  And we may well be right that they are, in their ways, horrible.  But people don’t get that way accidentally. 

We aren’t born hating.  We are shaped by our experiences.  It’s easy to hate those who are different from us.  Homophobes, transphobes, racists, and misogynists are different from me.  Theists, and atheists for that matter, who hate those who don’t share their religious beliefs are different from me.  But my experiences have taught me that hating people doesn’t fix anything.  It doesn’t get them to change their views.  It doesn’t make them more willing to tolerate differences.  And it gives them reason to call me a hypocrite when I won’t tolerate our differences.  So, as I so frequently ask on this show and this blog, “Who’s better off?”

When I refuse to tolerate, when I hate, I give validation to those who are doing the same.  I’m going to decline to do that.  I forfeit any chance I have of changing their minds.  There are people who listen to this show who believe that God invented marriage (their God, I assume, as opposed to any of the other nearly 5,000 that are or have been worshipped on this planet by humans at one time or another) and He gets to decide who can get married and who can’t.  If I decide to hate them because I disagree, I have lost people I love, and I have done nothing to make the world any better.

If I continue to have them in my life, I may not change their minds.  In fact, I probably won’t.  Changing minds about deeply held beliefs is a nearly impossible task.  On the other hand, I have no chance at all if I reject them. 

The best I can hope to do is give them some other ideas to consider.  I can try to show them that believing that it is wrong to be different is not helping anyone.  I can’t show them that having a different sexuality doesn’t make anyone evil if I can’t talk to them. 

There are those who believe morality is a strict adherence to a set of rules.  This is called Legalism.  It originated in Ancient China, but its basic definition today is “strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code.”  If this is what the rules say, we must do this.  While I prefer people obey the law, it takes no more imagination than God gave to a pistachio nut to invent scenarios in which adherence to the law is simply wrong.  Your best friend has been shot and is in the back seat of your car.  The speed limit is 25 mph.  The hospital is 4 miles away.  Your friend has minutes to live without medical intervention, but… the law says 25.  You decide to drive 25.  Your friend dies.  The legalist would say you were right.  I wouldn’t. 

Legalism applies to the belief that marriage should be only between one man and one woman because it’s in The Bible.

Mark 10:

6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;

8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder

For Christian Legalists, the question is now settled, without concern for the consequences of this belief.  It may be that two men, or two women, love each other and want to spend their lives together, expressing that love in sexual ways.  This isn’t allowed, though, because The Bible says so.  If this hurts those people, that’s just too bad.

For me, morality is a question of consequences.  If I do something that helps someone, it’s probably moral.  If I do something that hurts someone, it’s probably immoral.  I emphasize probably because this is a wild oversimplification.  There are all sorts of nuances that come into play in deciding what is right and what is wrong. 

Moral problems are never choosing Good vs Evil.  If that’s all you have to decide, the decision is simple.  You choose Good.  Moral problems arise when there are competing Goods.  The Trolley Problem is the simplest example of an actual moral problem.

You’re standing near the switch that will cause a trolley to change tracks.  You can see it’s about to kill five people if it stays on its current track.  If you pull the switch, it will change tracks, and then it will kill one person, who would otherwise have lived had you not touched the switch.  There are competing Goods at play.  The Good of saving five people.  The Good of not killing one person.  Which do you choose?

Answers to this vary from person to person, and there are many variations on The Trolley Problem.  I don’t pretend to be wise enough to solve it for all eternity.  I like to think I would pull the switch, but I don’t like the feeling that I caused someone to die who wouldn’t have if I had done nothing.  I recognize there are other equally valid arguments to be made on both sides.

From the Legalist perspective, it would be a simple matter.  If there’s a sign saying “Don’t touch this switch” they have no choice to make.  If they touch the switch, they have broken the law, and five people will die.  They won’t break the law.  They won’t save five lives.

I prefer to recognize I don’t know everything.  Socrates was quite fond of recognizing he knew nothing.  I’m not quite as wise as Socrates.  I think I know a few things.  I know there is, however, unimaginably more that I don’t know than I ever will know.  I’m always willing to entertain a different idea, at least long enough to make an informed decision about it.  I try very hard to keep my mind open to different possibilities in the event that there is something I haven’t considered.  This allows me to learn, and I have a nearly infinite amount of learning to do. 

As opposed to hating those who hate, I feel a pity for the experiences they must have had to cause them to feel hatred in the first place.  Hatred is an unpleasant feeling.  It’s a sort of burning inside of you that keeps you from thinking rationally.  It hurts both you and anyone you hate.  It blocks you from positive experiences you might have had with those who are from groups your intolerance has caused you to hate.

When you spread hatred with your words, your memes, or your jokes, you make it seem more acceptable to the rest of the world.  As it spreads, just a little here and there, it deteriorates the acceptance that others feel.  A slowly leaking sink will finally rot the cabinet beneath it, causing it to mold and collapse.  It won’t happen immediately, but given time, the results will be expensive to repair.  Given enough time, the damage will become irreparable. 

When someone makes jokes about those who are different, the very least you can do is withhold your laughter.  You might, depending on your relationship with the joker, ask what is funny about that, or, perhaps, tell them that there is, in fact, nothing funny about it. 

When someone posts memes that attack those who are different, you can, at the very least, choose not to respond positively to them.  You can also, again, depending on your relationship with the poster, comment asking why it’s funny, or pointing out that it simply isn’t. 

And when people say hateful things, you can let them know why you don’t agree.  You’re not required to let their cruelty go unanswered, but you don’t get to decide, either, that they are evil because they have beliefs or ideas that are not in alignment with yours.

Tonight, in writing class, we talked about the fact that stories tend to end with the antagonist meeting their end.  The Wicked Witch is melted.  Hans Gruber and Snow White’s Wicked Queen fall to their deaths.  The Nazis are defeated.  And we end shortly afterward without dealing with the healing.  Others have been traumatized by these events, and we never see how they dealt with those feelings. 

“Healing is learning to live with it.”

– David Gerrold

We don’t ever heal completely.  We survive.  We rebuild ourselves into something we weren’t before.  We hope we can continue to make a positive difference in the world even after we have suffered some trauma. Some of us can.  That’s not true for all of us, though.

When we watch a movie or read a book, we rarely get to understand how the antagonists became who they are.  To its credit, Star Wars took some time to show us how Anakin Skywalker, a sweet, clever, and kind boy turned into the greatest antagonist in its universe.  When we understand what he suffered, we begin to sympathize with him.  While we don’t forget all the suffering he caused, we can see he’s really not much different from what we might be had we suffered what he did. 

That, though, is a fictional character from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  Does he have anything to do with the reality you and I occupy? 

He instructs us.  He shows us that good and evil are not that simple.  We see what happens when we embrace hatred.  Even the best of us is corruptible.

This is why when I see someone who hates, I won’t return their feelings.   I will do what I can to change them.  I may fail, but I am obliged to try.  “To believe you can change the world is insanity; failure to try is cowardice.”  I won’t be a coward.  I’m already plenty of things I don’t like.  I do my best to forgive those who hurt me.  I can move on with my life when I let go of the hatred.  I can remove that toxin from my system.

“Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.”    

–David Gerrold

If you choose to hate me for not hating the same people you do, that’s up to you.  I have done what I can to show you why Hate helps no one, but I if I’ve failed, then at least I can know I tried.  And I can continue to love you anyway.

Posted on by Fred

Horror Toes

My dog, Speedy Shine, got under the covers the same as he did every night.  It was Sleepy Time, and that always means cuddles.  But that night he started nibbling on my right foot.  I shook it off a few times, but he wouldn’t stop.  He never does anything like that, so I became a little concerned.  I took off my sock, and I was utterly horrified.

You have to understand I’m diabetic.  I haven’t been able to feel my feet in years.  I have only a tingling, and I could sense the force of Speedy Shine trying to get through my socks, but I don’t react to anything else happening there.  I’m unaware of it.  I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t what I saw.

There was a hole at the bottom of one of my toes.  I remember it as being the fourth toe, but the doctors all assure me it was the second.  I looked only for the briefest of moments, and then I put on a fresh sock and didn’t want to look anymore.  I’ll take their word for it.  They looked longer and more closely than I did.

My sock was filled with a horrid goo.  That was singularly unpleasant.  I spent a sleepless night.  I was sure this could not possibly be a good thing. 

I contacted my Primary Care Physician the next morning, but I led with my need for a new C-Pap, a Continuous Glucose Monitor, and wanting to get my Lantus refilled, and I asked for a Zoom appointment.  I was promptly shut down.  They do that only for COVID patients now.  I explained it was important.  I’m afraid of people.  They said they would check and call me back.

My best friend told me to go to the ER, but I thought she was overreacting.  I waited.

I called the doctor two days later because I still hadn’t heard back.  This time I led with the toe, and the girl that answers the phone acted as though I were stupid, and that obviously I needed to go to the ER.  She mentioned something called Sepsis. 

I called my best friend.  She couldn’t come.  She also couldn’t check on Speedy Shine.  She had just decided to foster another dog, and she had to get right home after work to check on how well he was getting along with her other two dogs. 

One of The People on The Porch came to my rescue.  She took me to the ER as early as she could that evening, and then she came and made sure Speedy Shine was all right. 

I waited for nearly four hours in the ER.  There were many people in much worse shape than I was.  All my vitals were great.  My blood sugar was fine.  It was just that my toe was going to fall off.  I remember hoping they would just put some tape on it and send me home.

When they called me in and saw what was happening, they admitted me immediately.  I began to freak out about Speedy Shine.  He would have to spend the night alone in the backyard, and I was losing it with guilt.  He should never ever have to do that. 

The nurses hooked me up to IVs filled with antibiotics.  I sat in my room trying to decide there were worthwhile things to be found on cable, and that commercials weren’t the Scourge of All Art.  To its credit USA Network played all 3 Back to the Future movies… twice.  I came in halfway through II, and then I watched the others.  I didn’t hate that, but I could have done without the commercials.

The nurses were all very kind.  They made sure I had enough to eat, and one of them, a wonderful woman named Delaney (yes, that’s her real name.  I don’t know her last name.) even went down to the soda machine for me after hours to keep me in Diet Coke.  (They didn’t have Diet Pepsi.  Beggars can’t be choosers.)

The friend who had driven me to the ER went to check on the dog the next day.  She told me the neighbor was complaining about Speedy Shine barking.  My friend explained where I was and what was happening.  The neighbor still seemed cranky.  She threatened to call Animal Control and have him taken away.  I went into a panic.  Without Speedy Shine, it’s all over for me.

The following day my best friend and her boyfriend, who had taken him for a walk a couple of times, checked on Speedy Shine, and my best friend talked to my neighbor.  My best friend knew her from when she used to live here.  She introduced Speedy Shine to the neighbor, and the neighbor settled down.  She said she wouldn’t call Animal Control.  My stress level dropped significantly. 

Another of The People on The Porch heard about my plight, and she hired her niece and a friend to drive out from Las Vegas to take care of Speedy Shine.  That also dropped my stress level significantly.  She conducted a fundraiser that allowed me to get a ton of food, a beautiful new microwave, some utensils, some candles, and some new sheets.  They also cleaned my house from top to bottom.  If I ever got out of the hospital, my home and my dog would be fantastic. 

Her niece had to leave before I could get home, so Sherlock, The Mystery Patron, moved in with Speedy Shine even though she’s allergic to dogs.  I guess he’s not hairy enough to cause her significant issues. 

Throughout all of this, I was lying in a hospital bed… alone.  My best friend couldn’t take me to the ER.  She couldn’t come check on me that night.  She couldn’t come when I had an MRI the next day.  She couldn’t come when the surgeon who read the results told me I had a bone infection and that I could choose between amputation and six to eight weeks of IV antibiotics at home.  I would be out of the hospital more quickly with amputation, but she recommended the IV.  My problem is that I’m very bad at those kinds of things.  It’s all I can do to remember to take my Lantus every night.  I don’t know how to hook all that stuff up, and I cringe any time anyone inserts an IV into me.  There were more than ample opportunities for me to screw it up and lose the toe, anyway.  And I missed Speedy Shine so much it was physically painful. I discussed my options with several people, including my best friend, and while many of them also recommended the IVs, I didn’t think it was wise.  I went into surgery alone.  I came out to an empty waiting room.  I learned, when I regained consciousness, however, that I still had all my toes.  My surgeon is a genius.  She managed to remove only the part of the bone that was infected, and she left the rest of it.  She extracted a tiny piece of the “good bone” to test it.  Thank you, Dr. Montes, for your brilliant work.  I couldn’t be more grateful.

I shared the information on Facebook, and my friends were very kind. They expressed their relief and their pleasure that I was relatively all right.

My best friend visited me only twice during the entire adventure, and even then, I had to argue with her to get her to come.  She had too many more important things to do.  Her best friend needed to try on some dresses.  She had to look at them with her before she could come by the hospital.  That argument was the only time my blood sugar got too high while I was in the hospital.  It ended up with us fighting while she was sitting in the parking lot of the hospital and me telling her not to bother to come up.  For reasons passing understanding, she came up anyway, half an hour later.  She had gotten me Church’s Chicken, which was kind, but she sat so long in the car that the food was ruined by the time I got it.  To this day, we disagree about how she was showing me empathy.  And then she learned a little about it.

Her legs were tingling.  She was losing feeling in them.  Something was obviously wrong.  She went to doctors in search of answers.  I was on the phone from my hospital bed with her as often as she would pick up, and I recommended getting more medical opinions.  She thought she had Guillain-Barre syndrome.  It can cause paralysis, but it will only last a month or so.  The final diagnosis was worse.  We’ll get to that in due course. 

I sat in the hospital, hooked up to IVs, for another 48 hours after surgery waiting to see if the little piece of “good” bone Dr. Montes extracted would grow cultures from any left-over infection.  The next morning she came in to tell me the results.  There was no infection left.  I was safe.   I could go home. 

Now I just had to wait for some company to call me to get a $9.00 co-pay for the walker I needed.  I waited for 45 minutes.  I waddled out to the front desk with the walker the hospital was letting me use.  I offered to give them cash or my debit card so I could go.  Before the nurse could answer me, the man from the office came out and started yelling at me.  He told me they would call.  I said he had told me that an hour ago.  He said it was only a half hour, and he stormed off, leaving me no further means of communicating with him.  I waited another 15 minutes, and then I called a friend, who I only that night learned was actually Sherlock, The Mystery Patron.  I asked her to get me the cheapest walker she could find and come and get me out.  She was there 20 minutes later with a Goodwill walker.  She became my new hero.  We left. 

She took me to get prescriptions and we grabbed some Taco Bell before we got home.  I thought Speedy Shine was going to have a heart attack when he saw me.  I’ve never seen him so happy.  I don’t recall having been that happy, either, in quite some time.  It was a joyous reunion. 

Sherlock spent the next couple of days with me, getting me the prescriptions that hadn’t been previously available, making me lists of what to take and when, and providing me with psychological counseling of a sort one wouldn’t expect from someone so young.  Obviously, I developed stronger feelings for her than I was comfortable having, but I dealt with them.  I’m Fred.  I don’t have anything to do with women anymore.

My best friend called me the next day with devastating news: she has Muscular Sclerosis.  This is a lifetime diagnosis, and there is little to be done beyond controlling symptoms.  She needed to spend time hooked up to an IV to get infusions that would, we hoped, help her.  I’m brokenhearted for her.  I’m doing all I can to help and to show her the empathy I suspect she needs. 

She originally intended to keep teaching and do her infusions between classes.  I talked her out of that.  This is a time when she has to think of herself first.  The infusions turned out to be more difficult than she had anticipated.  She experiences pain from them sometimes.  There was no way she could have handled this in her classroom.  We’ve discussed how the universe reacts to things.  She understands a little better what I went through in the hospital, but, of course, her MS is much worse than my infection.  We’ll be doing a GoFundMe to help with her medical bills soon.  I hope you’ll help.  She’s already out a couple thousand dollars, and we’re just beginning.  I’ll put it on my Facebook page when she’s ready.

Today I’m safely home.  I’ve talked to a Social Worker who thinks I can get help from Meals on Wheels, perhaps find a place that will allow me to pay a third of my income as rent, and get some help with bathing, cooking, and cleaning.  I talked to a Physical Therapist who is helping me to walk with my walker.  The surgeon is pleased with how well my toe is doing.  She rewrapped it, and she put a splint on it to keep it safe. 

I’m playing Sara Niemietz’s new album, “Superman” repeatedly.  It helps to keep me grounded, and “Four Walls” is reminding me that things will get better.  I secretly believe, without any evidence whatsoever, that it was written for me.  It’s an absolutely Fred song.  I’m hoping to have an autographed copy next week.  If you haven’t heard it, you really need to check it out. 

Sara Niemietz

I have kind friends who make my life better.  I’m grateful to all of you for listening to my show and supporting me in so many ways.  I love you all.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5eRJpDyDpFzwOET23iud7M?si=8de852e01c664008

Posted on by Fred

The Devil’s Second Greatest Trick

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”

  • Verbal Kint in “The Usual Suspects”

Let’s begin, just for a change, with where we agree.  Happiness is good.  Freedom is a core value, necessary for happiness to exist.  Freedom means being able to choose for ourselves what to do with the time we are given.  Our country is founded, above all else, on the idea of Freedom.  And yet, we have adopted a mindset that works to deny meaningful liberty to the vast majority of its population.  We believe that work, particularly work that makes one miserable, exhausted, and unfulfilled is our highest value.  We have been sold the idea that, of course, obviously, we all must work.  We have to earn money.  “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!”  We are taught to be proud of the exhaustion, the degradation, the horrors we have tolerated in order to live.  The idea of laziness is anathema to our thinking.  To call someone lazy is among the greatest insults one can hurl. 

The Puritan Work Ethic is so deeply ingrained in us that to think otherwise is, for many of us, simply impossible.  Tonight, I’m going to ask you to do The Impossible.  I’m going to ask you to entertain the idea that laziness… that relaxing, spending the minutes of your life in the ways that make you feel good, that grant you fulfillment, purpose, and Joy… is really the best way to spend your life.  I’m going to expose the Devil’s Second Greatest Trick.  He wants you to be miserable.  I want you to be happy. 

As long as we believe that a certain portion of our lives needs to be given over to suffering, we will serve those whose lives contain few of the challenges most of us face.  The Pharaoh convinced millions that his wishes were divine edicts, and in this way, he got them to build pyramids.  He didn’t need to work because his needs outweighed theirs.  He had power.  They did not.  Kings lived in luxury while peasants slaved away in deference to them.  Slave owners became rich off of the work of their slaves. 

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”

  • Paul Farmer

I’m not going to claim that no one should work.  I recognize that society requires labor in order to function.  The Puritan Work Ethic has its roots in the reality from which it sprang.  For most of the 200,000 years human beings have inhabited this planet, ceaseless, grueling labor was required if we wanted to survive.  We had no shelter.  We had to gather, hunt, or steal our food.  We had to protect ourselves from the elements.  We had more work to do than could be done in a lifetime.  And you know what?  We did it.  We accomplished all of these things, and we learned how to do them better, more efficiently, with less and less physical labor all the time.  We grew.  We improved.  We blossomed.  We learned to keep ourselves alive much longer.  We became safer, smarter, healthier, and increasingly moral. 

But that idea persisted.  We have to work.  We have to work some more.  We have to work hard.  The harder we work, the longer we work, the more difficult the work we have done, the better people we are.  To say one has worked hard is among the greatest compliments we can pay each other.  It suggests that the fact of work, itself, is a wonderful thing.  Is it really?  Why is that?

When our earliest ancestors worked ceaselessly, they were the beneficiaries of their own work.  If Og killed a lion, Og got to eat.  If a farmer grew some crops, the farmer got to eat.  The hard work they did was for themselves.  It might have been for their families to the extent that they had them.  It didn’t enrich someone else.  The fruits of their labor were theirs to enjoy. 

But as we developed societies, we decided that some people deserved more than others.  We developed the concept of owning land.  While the Earth had once been shared by all of us, now it belonged to a few of us. 

Today, most of the wealth is owned by fewer and fewer people.  The work that most of us do is designed to make someone else wealthier.  We get paid with these little green pieces of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen.  They have no actual value, except that we agreed at some point that they do.  We use them to prove ourselves worthy of whatever it is we want to get.  I have enough to be worthy of a 12 pack of Diet Pepsi or the occasional pastrami sandwich.  I will never have enough of them to be worthy of a yacht.  Other people have enough to be worthy of anything on Earth.  Why do they have so many pieces of cotton and linen?  They got other people to work for them.  They got people to work hard for them.  They induced people to wear themselves out and make themselves miserable, so the Few don’t have to anymore.  They made working for others into an unquestioned virtue.  It is so much a part of the American Consciousness that even to question it is a form of heresy. 

Last week, a local news station asked if their viewers believed we should get another stimulus check.  I wrote what I thought was an innocuous response, thinking it might make people nod in quiet agreement.  My hope was to reinforce what I assumed other would probably think anyway.  Here’s what I wrote:

I don’t see why people should be required to do jobs they hate just to survive. If the only way to get someone to work is to threaten them with homelessness and brutal poverty, we’re not doing much of a job of creating decent jobs.

Give everyone enough to meet their basic survival needs. Then let people do the work they choose.

There is no inherent virtue in being miserable for most of your life.

I never saw so much righteous rage directed at me. 

Someone named Doug wrote:

 “why would anybody want to work, if they get enough to survive ?

“Hunger drives someone to work.  How many people love their jobs?  If you give somebody something why would they want to work. I am a realist.  look up the song with part of the words “get a job “. From the 80’s

Love what you do no matter what it is and you will succeed. Who wouldn’t want good pay for doing nothing much.”

I agree with you, Doug.  The threat of hunger and homelessness is the motivation for such people to work.  Wouldn’t life be nicer if we didn’t have to bow down to those who have more green pieces of cotton and linen than we have?  We could do that with a Universal Basic Income.  We’ll discuss that in a little more depth in a bit.  Oh… and was the song you were looking for Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is?”

A Man in a Silk Suit hurries by

Catches the poor old lady’s eye

Just for fun he says, “Get a job!”

-Bruce Hornsby

Perhaps the context was lost on you.  The Man In The Silk Suit is an asshole. 

Someone named Leslie made a similar point.  We’ll excuse her spelling errors and just concern ourselves with her content:

“WRONG!  People need motivation.  If you are motivated to get a job to pay your bills, you will WORK.  Otherwise, why bother?

This mentality is very dangerous.  The Constitution says we have the right to life, liberty and the PERSUIT of happiness.  NOT that it will be given to us on a silver platter.  One must work for it.  The jobs are there.”

I agree.  The jobs are there.  There is a difference between working for yourself and working for someone else, however.  When my labor makes someone else rich while I can barely afford to pay rent, that hardly seems like an idea situation, does it?

Susan told me,

said like an unemployed child. “The work they chose”?  Who will chose to clean toilets 3rd shift or flip burgers in 100 degree heat? There is dignity in all work.  And the hard, dirty work that requires little skill or education should not pay as much as the job that requires a life time and dedication. But it should serve as a motivation to do better.  To get an education.  Or to show up on time and become a team lead then a manager.  Get married and sacrifice a little when your young to build a better life.  This utopian dream you want isn’t real.  The US and Capitalism offer the best life anywhere.  It is literally why people flee Venezuela and EU socialism to get here.” 

In other words, Susan, we need jobs done, but those that do them shouldn’t make enough to live.  I couldn’t possibly disagree more.  And here’s the thing with which we all need to deal.  Automation is eliminating jobs at an alarming rate.  Even those who worship the Puritan Work Ethic will soon find that there are fewer and fewer jobs to do because computers, AI, and robots do them more efficiently, accurately, and cheaply.  When was the last time a bank teller gave you cash?  That was a common job when I was a child.  Now we all use ATMs.  Go to Wal Mart, and you can still find a few cashiers, but you will find many more self-checkout lanes.  Amazon has developed an entire store without any cashiers or even checkout lines.  It just automatically charges you.  There are already robots flipping burgers.  There will be more, not less, of this in the future. 

And I agree.  Who would choose to do the jobs you described?  They suck.  Let’s automate them, and then let’s give human beings more opportunity to enjoy their lives.  The New York Post reports that Marriott hotels are testing replacing desk clerks with automated kiosks. 

“The future is automated.  The present should already be automated.  Existing tech could automate half of all our tasks.  We choose not to automate out of a belief that toil is good for us, and that we can’t just distribute money absent labor as an automation dividend when we should.

  • Scott Santens

And, the Utopia I describe is not only possible, but it will be a reality when enough of us decide we want it to be.

Bonnie wrote:

that’s great Fred.  I choose to create art at home.  Will you pay my bills until I start selling my creations?  (if I ever do) oh, and you’ll need to pay my taxes too…

I would love love love for you to create Art at home!  I can’t pay your bills because I don’t have enough money.  The government, though, that group that represents you, me, and everyone else, certainly does. 

And, finally, someone I respect very much asked,

 a couple of questions-who is going to supply everyone enough for their basic needs.  Where does the money to supply these needs come from.

It’s time to discuss something I learned this month.  It’s called Fiat Currency.  It turns out our currency in America is backed by… nothing.  It used to be gold.  Now… there’s nothing that exists to make our money valuable.  It’s a question of how much the government prints.  And, as it turns out, they don’t even have to print so many of the little green pieces of cotton and linen.  They can simply choose a number and inject it into the economy. 

It’s different from, for example, food.  I can’t give you more food than I have.  The food is a tangible object.  It has to be grown and cultivated.  The same is true for most of the basics of survival.  Homes must be built.  Water must be gotten to people in pipes or bottles.  Medicine must be created and administered.  Money?  We just decide we have more.  The economic debate over Fiat Currency is intense, and I won’t presume to wade into it.  The money, though, comes, essentially, from the will of the government to create it.  So, who is going to supply everyone enough for their basic needs?  We are.  The United States government is you and me.  What is the source of the money?  The pressing of a few buttons. 

There were more than 100 comments, many of which were simple insults, but I’ve covered the basic message of them, I think.  Someone named Elizabeth took the time, evidently, to visit my page.  She mentioned I do a podcast, and these folks were giving me material.  You’re right, Elizabeth, but that really wasn’t my intention.  I just hoped I might cause one or two people to think about the idea that being forced to work is really not the best way to create a happy society. 

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

-Jimmy Carter

Now, think about this:  When are you happiest?  Isn’t there a wonderful exhilaration that accompanies the end of your work week?  Two whole days off to do what you choose is a thrilling idea for most of us.  When I was a teacher, summer vacation was a cause of ecstasy for me.  I had a couple of months off to do what I chose with my time. 

You and I are here for an incredibly short time.  Few of us will get a century.  None of us gets two.  In the time we’re here, we need to find all the happiness we can.  There is the idea that if we live this life properly, we’ll have a better one in the future.  Perhaps we’ll go to Heaven.  Maybe we’ll get reincarnated.  We might reach Nirvana.  I don’t know what will happen in any life following this one.  I do know, though, that right now, this is the one we have.  To decide that I’m going to give up my happiness now in hopes of having more in a life about which we know nothing firsthand is tragic. 

The Wealthy, for whom most of us are working, want you to believe that you should be miserable.  They want you to believe that anything that doesn’t serve them is a bad idea.  The Wealthy have created an oligarchy that works hard to ensure that they have more and you have less.  They have done this so successfully that even the idea that you should be happy, and you should be free to choose what to do with the minutes that make up your life, has become heretical among those who have the least.  It’s a brilliant bit of Social Engineering.

What would life be like if we all had enough to meet our basic needs?  I can’t tell you what anyone else’s life would be like, but I will tell you how it has changed mine. 

Three years ago, I was miserable.  After teaching Elementary School in a career that spanned 4 decades, 2 centuries, and 2 millennia, I retired in 2016.   The first year, I made ends meet.  I pulled all of what was left of my retirement, after two divorces, and I paid off my bills and lived happily.  The money, of course, ran out.  I got roommates, but it worked out disastrously.  I have spent most of the last four years on the verge of homelessness.  I couldn’t work anymore.  I went to the hospital 14 times in 3 years.  My diabetes destroyed my body, and I did what I could to survive.  I applied for Disability.  After 3 years, it finally came.  It provides me with almost, but not quite, enough money to meet my needs.  I had to add the revenue from the podcast to get approved for my tiny little apartment.  When I got Disability, they sent me sufficient back pay that I now have my lease paid for its duration, and I have all I need.   

To illustrate the difference, a year ago yesterday, I was hiding in my room hoping I could avoid the roommates who had once loved me, but didn’t even like me anymore because I couldn’t bring in enough money, and my food stamps didn’t contribute enough to the household to make my existence in their lives worthwhile.  I walked on eggshells.  My house was filthy, and I was allowed to clean it only at certain times and under carefully prescribed conditions.  There were bugs crawling on the dishes in the sink from food I neither cooked nor ate, and I had to hope I could be alone long enough to get them done.  I got yelled at because I used too much dish soap.  The house reeked of trash that never got to the wastebasket.  Opening the refrigerator meant being assailed with the smell of what would have been a collection of terrifyingly successful science experiments in mold production had someone with sufficient self-discipline to conduct a study left them there.   I was desperate for the pandemic to end so I could get back to work and I wouldn’t be met with contempt every time I strayed from my room.  I was afraid of what the next minute, next hour, next day might bring.  I welcomed the idea of death.  I saw no hope.  I saw no light.  I was unable to Shine.  I believed myself to be all but worthless.  I filled my syringe to the top with insulin.  For reasons I still don’t entirely understand, I didn’t inject myself.  I suppose there was a tiny ray of light sneaking in through the broken places that kept me alive one day more. 

Yesterday I felt proud of my work.  I woke up around 6 AM.  I finished watching “The Cowboys” and cried a little.  I had a cigarette and chatted with my neighbor.  I came in and played music that moved me while I wrote a portion of this.  My house was clean.  I had all that I needed.  I felt alive.  I began to understand what it meant to feel.  The emotions I forced myself to suppress for so long are rising to the surface with unsuspected power.  Why is this happening?

I have my basic needs met.  My physiological and safety needs are met.  I have enough food.  I have my insulin.  My rent is paid.  I have internet and electricity.  I have a phone.  I get to choose what to do with every minute of my life, within the boundaries of my financial resources.  I can’t choose to take a cruise around the world.  The thing is, I didn’t really want to do that anyway.  That would be leaving the house.  The mailbox is as far as I ever want to go.  I could choose to get a VIP ticket to a Sara Niemietz and Snuffy Walden concert, though.  And I wanted that very much.  I’ll go beyond the mailbox for that much Joy.

Does this make me evil?  Is my happiness, whose genesis was the end of my suffering, a sin?  Am I worthless because I choose to spend the minutes I have left in life on things that make me happy?  I decline to feel guilty about that. 

If we have any real responsibility in life, it is to do our best to be as happy as we can in the time we have.  I’m not endorsing hedonism here.  I’m not advocating selfishness.  I would hope you would derive happiness from being kind to others, trying to change the world, or simply staying out of everyone’s way.  So long as you’re not hurting anyone, I want you to do whatever makes you happiest.  I want this one life you have to be the very best it can be. 

Let’s meet everyone’s basic needs.  Everyone should be able to live the way I do.  Many of you should be able to live better.  No one should live worse than I do. 

Let’s stop making a virtue of suffering.  Let’s do what we can to end as much suffering as we can.  We have far too few happy people and far too many martyrs.  I would rather you and I and everyone else be happy than be pitied. 

“Cracks and broken pieces

Inside us

Where the light comes in

Brightest”

-Sara Niemietz

Suffering is unavoidable.  A life without Love is empty.  The Price of Love is always suffering.  When you love someone, one way or another, it will end.  Either your relationship will end, in which case you will be sad, or one of you will die, in which case, again, you will be sad.  This is especially true of dogs and cats.  We almost always outlive them, and the pain of that loss is searing.  The settled order of nature tells us we will lose our parents, but the loss of a child is unnatural and smells of an evil in the world. 

No one can protect us from that suffering.  It’s a price I’m willing to pay.  The value of Love is the only thing greater than its price. 

But needless suffering can be, should be, and, some day, will be eliminated. 

A Universal Basic Income –- not programs for this and programs for that — but simply cash that is sufficient for a person to pay rent, to eat, to keep their utilities running, added to the Universal Health Care that nearly all other First World countries have, and free education for as long as a person wants to learn would allow us to work in the ways in which we are most interested and allow us to live in True Freedom.  Make the employers compete for workers instead of workers begging for wages. 

“Shame at our own dependence on the underpaid labor of others.  When someone works for less pay than she can live on – when she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently – then she has made a great sacrifice for you.  The working poor are the major philanthropists of our society.”

  • Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

Let’s drop The Puritan Work Ethic and replace it with The Human Freedom Ethic.  Let’s allow everyone to Shine.

This was written in April, 2021. I have only now added it to my blog.

Posted on by Fred

The Omelas Problem

In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room.  It has one locked door, and no window.  A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket.  The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is.  The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting.  It could be a boy or a girl.  It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded.  Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect.  It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops.  It is afraid of the mops.  It finds them horrible.  It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come.  The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes–the child has no understanding of time or interval–sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there.  One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up.  The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes.  The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the eyes disappear.  The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks.  “I will be good, ” it says.  “Please let me out.  I will be good!” They never answer.  The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, “eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often.  It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day.  It is naked.  Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.  They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas.  Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there.  They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery…

They would like to do something for the child.  But there is nothing they can do.  If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.  Those are the terms.  To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

This is The Omelas Problem.  Everyone can be happy, but the price is the endless suffering of one child.  She’s makes it clear in the story (and I can’t recommend highly enough that you read it… It’s brilliant!  I’ll drop a link in the transcript.) that there is no other way it can work.  The rules are unchangeable.  This is the foundation on which the problem rests.  You have two options, and two only.  You can stay in Omelas and enjoy the paradise created by the child’s sacrifice, or you can walk away from Omelas and find somewhere less idyllic to live.  In neither case can you affect the child’s fate.  It will continue to suffer no matter what you do.  What is the morally correct choice?

I’m not going to pretend to know.  I would like to think that, as a matter of conscience, I would choose not to live in such a society, but it’s clear that helps the child not at all.  The child’s sacrifice is, in my case, wasted.  I derive no benefit from his suffering.  Others do.  I don’t.  This doesn’t end his suffering.  It doesn’t even mitigate it. 

So, I can see that I might choose to stay.  My conscience would probably hound me endlessly.  My Prosecutor would never stop.  I would hate myself.  The happiness to be gained by his sacrifice is, again, wasted in my case because I can’t be happy knowing the price being paid for my happiness. 

Ms. LeGuin has presented us with an unsolvable moral problem.    Fortunately, we don’t have to solve it because that’s nothing like our world.  Everyone in our world is free, and few of us are happy.  That’s a fair assessment, isn’t it?

I think our moral problem is a bit more nuanced.  We don’t have one child suffering; we have many millions of people suffering.  We don’t have everyone living the idyllic life of Omelas.  We have a few living in their own private paradises. 

While the Rules of Omelas are unchangeable, the rules of our world are not.   Star Trek: Strange New Worlds recently took up this problem, and they had a line I loved: “Let the tree that grows from the roots of sacrifice lift us where suffering cannot reach.”

Our history is replete with both sacrifice and suffering.  They come in nearly infinite varieties, and they affect nearly everyone at some time or other.  We’ve made sufficient sacrifices to grow a tall, broad, powerful tree, but it fails to lift us high enough to avoid the suffering of uncounted homo sapiens. 

We have the resources to end much of the suffering right now.  We have enough to give everyone a home, to feed everybody, to provide power for the whole world, and to provide medical care for all.  We absolutely can do that.  We choose not to. 

The moment I suggest anything of the sort, people will begin shouting, “Yeah, well who’s gonna pay for it??”

And we instantly tumble into the delusion that money is valuable.  We believe nothing can be done without money.  Why do we believe this?  Why is it impossible, even for a moment, to question that idea? 

In the last few weeks, I’ve taken you to a place where you could choose your own Universe, I’ve let you hear from a Time Traveler, and I’ve described the suffering in our world in horrible detail.  Can I get you to travel along this flight of fancy just a little farther? 

Let’s start by recognizing that money, in fact, has no value beyond the value we have assigned to it.  If aliens invade Earth tomorrow afternoon, I promise they won’t come to get our money.  It’s worthless to them.  Our water might well be valuable.  Our oxygen, our cattle, our farms, and even our people might be resources they could use, but money?  No.  They see no practical function for bits of cotton and linen or digits on a computer. 

A bottle of water has more inherent value than a hundred-dollar-bill.  The value of that bit of paper is that it can be traded for lots of bottle of water.  More people believe in the value of money than believe in any form of God.  It is The One World Religion.  It’s more powerful in our world than all the Gods we have ever posited.  I’ve never heard of any church that doesn’t need it.  Have you? 

I’m asking you to do something even more difficult than questioning your religious faith.  I’m asking you to question the value of money. 

Is it possible we could have done all the things we’ve done without money?  I think so.  Why?  Because we did.  Money isn’t supernatural.  It’s an invention of ours.  It wasn’t handed down to us by a God.  It wasn’t the Obelisk from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  It is an invented means of motivation. 

W.C. Fields, I think, (please don’t trust my memory.  It’s faulty at best.) had a great line in a movie once.  He asks a woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars.  She thinks it over a minute, and finally says she probably would.  He asks her, then, if she would do it for a dollar.  She gets deeply offended and asks him what sort of girl he thinks she is.  He responds that they’ve already established that, and now they’re just haggling about the price. 

If I offer a bear a million dollars not to kill me, it isn’t going to have any response to that.  I will be dinner, or not, based on its whims.  Money is a magic that is effective exclusively on humans. 

When I taught Elementary School I used a token economy.  It was designed to get students to do what I wanted them to do.  If you answered a question in class, you got a ticket.  If you turned in your homework, or you stayed quiet while someone next to you is talking, or you remembered to push in your chair, or you lined up when I asked you to, or you did anything else I wanted you to do, you would earn tickets.  Tickets could be exchanged for property or privileges once a week.  Students worked very hard to get tickets.  I managed to control a population using something that was, in fact, worthless. 

By the end of the year, students would figure out that tickets were stupid, but by now, most of them were doing what I wanted them to do even without them.  The tickets had accomplished their goal. 

Now that I have some space from it, I wonder if I could have accomplished my objectives in other ways.  All of my students were capable of all the things they did.  The Beatles knew this.

There’s nothin’ you can do that can’t be done
Nothin’ you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothin’ you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy
Nothin’ you can make that can’t be made
No one you can save that can’t be saved
Nothin’ you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It’s easy

All you need is love

  • Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney

We have enormous amounts of suffering, much of which could be promptly relieved by giving everyone enough money to survive.  We can’t do that because… why, exactly?  We don’t have enough?  It isn’t water or oxygen or cattle.  It’s not a finite resource.  We can just make some more and hand it out to everyone.  Of course, if we do that, it will cause runaway inflation and money will lose its value.  What value is that?  The value we assigned to it?  That’s the only value it has. 

The tree that has grown from the roots of sacrifice is strong enough to lift us to a place where there is no suffering.  We choose not to allow that because somehow we believe if we don’t have so many people suffering, our world will collapse.  But, you and I don’t live in Omelas.  We live on Earth.  We can make our own rules. 

Change begins with imagination.  Work on imagining Omelas.  See what ideas spring into your mind.  Then let’s see what we can do to make a better world in which there are no children in cellars, and everyone gets to Shine in their own way.  We can do that.  I know we can.  Let’s work on that together.

I love you.

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

“It’s a Mental Health Problem.”

I’m mentally ill. 

Let that sink in for a moment.  Pay attention to your reaction to that sentence.  Did it scare you a little?  Did you flash on images of Norman Bates or perhaps a school shooter?  Did you find yourself wondering if you should be listening to this show?  Do you regret that we’re friends?  (Most of the 50 or so people who listen are friends of mine.  If we’ve never met, thank you for listening!  I hope you don’t stop because of what I’ve just told you.)

I’m copying and pasting something a Facebook Friend of mine had on her page:

Geisinger just canceled my Psych appointment in July and made it for August.  THIS IS EXACTLY WHATS WRONG WITH MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT!! you wonder why people go ballistic and shoot people?  THIS.  THIS.  THIS.  I’m in a happy mood and I’m not gonna shoot anyone ever, but Geisinger taking on new patients while neglecting the ones that have been with them for THIRTY YEARS is BULLSHIT!!!

Obtaining mental health care is not easy.  And much of it is simply a set of cliches intended to help us deal with a world that is, itself, somewhat diseased.  We are supposed to spend our lives working, most of the time for someone else, (it’s roughly 2/3 of us, but it depends on whose statistics you’re reading) and being mostly miserable.  We’ve been taught we need to “earn a living” and those who don’t are bad people who deserve nothing from us.  We are expected to live a life within certain carefully prescribed boundaries, and to the extent we don’t we are “bad,” and undeserving. This, by itself, sets up the beginning of mental illness for many people.  Being happy is, we are told, to be bad.  If we make choices of which others don’t approve, we are, as I was told rather frequently last year, “scum of the Earth.”  If we hear often enough that we are bad, we are likely to begin to believe it.  Once we believe we are bad, we are likely to behave accordingly. 

Much of mental health care is an effort to get us to adapt to a world that we never asked to join.  H.G. Wells wrote about this in “The Valley of The Blind.”

 “I can see,” he said.

“See?” said Correa.

“Yes; see,” said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against Pedro’s pail.

“His senses are still imperfect,” said the third blind man.  “He stumbles, and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand.”

“As you will,” said Nunez, and was led along laughing.

It seemed they knew nothing of sight.

Well, all in good time he would teach them…

He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight.  “Look you here, you people,” he said.  “There are things you do not understand in me.”

Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with faces downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his best to tell them what it was to see.  Among his hearers was a girl, with eyelids less red and sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy she was hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade.  He spoke of the beauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise, and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently became condemnatory.  They told him there were indeed no mountains at all, but that the end of the rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end of the world; thence sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the dew and the avalanches fell; and when he maintained stoutly the world had neither end nor roof such as they supposed, they said his thoughts were wicked.  So far as he could describe sky and clouds and stars to them it seemed to them a hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of the smooth roof to things in which they believed–it was an article of faith with them that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch.  He saw that in some manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter altogether, and tried to show them the practical value of sight. 

He is, of course, unsuccessful.  He is, to The Valley of The Blind, mentally ill.  They truly want to help him, but he is unwilling to give up his sight, his vision of a better, more beautiful world.  He leaves to attempt to live on his own.

He tried also to find food among the pine trees, to be comfortable under pine boughs while the frost fell at night, and– with less confidence–to catch a llama by artifice in order to try to kill it–perhaps by hammering it with a stone–and so finally, perhaps, to eat some of it. But the llamas had a doubt of him and regarded him with distrustful brown eyes and spat when he drew near.  Fear came on him the second day and fits of shivering.  Finally he crawled down to the wall of the Country of the Blind and tried to make his terms.  He crawled along by the stream, shouting, until two blind men came out to the gate and talked to him.

“I was mad,” he said.  “But I was only newly made.”

They said that was better.

He told them he was wiser now, and repented of all he had done.

Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill now, and they took that as a favourable sign.

They asked him if he still thought he could see.”

“No,” he said.  “That was folly.  The word means nothing.  Less than nothing!”

Click to access Wells.pdf

And so it is that we ensure the mental health of those who dream of a better and more beautiful world.  We force them to accept our vision of reality if they want our help.  You may be like the rest of us, or you may shiver unprotected in the cold and starve.

What if we tried something different?  What if we tried to reshape our world into one where sight, or the idea that life doesn’t have to be the endless misery of hard, unfulfilling work, is acceptable?  What if we said, “We can automate most of our labor now.  We have the resources to feed and house and care for everyone on the planet without the need for them to waste the few minutes they get to be alive in exhausting and pointless pursuits.”? 

What if we allowed people to be different from most of us?  What if we decided that a person’s value has less to do with how much money they have and more to do with what they can do for others?  What if being a parent was the most important job anyone could have? 

If we’re going to say, “It’s a Mental Health Problem,” perhaps we could start by trying to improve the mental health of the world.  Perhaps we could accept differences instead of deciding those who aren’t like the majority are bad, or sick, or undeserving, but are, instead, part of the beautiful diversity of the world? 

If it’s a Mental Health Problem, perhaps we could make Mental Healthcare more accessible.  Perhaps we could remove the stigma from the statement, “I’m mentally ill.”  Maybe we could recognize there is more than one view of the universe that is valid.  We could understand that the world, the culture, and our society continue to grow, to evolve, and to become something new all the time, and we could welcome anything that allows someone to find the lives they want. 

What do we do?  I have three recommendations:

  1.  Redefine Mental Health to mean that which allows a person the greatest freedom to be who they want to be without hurting anyone else.
  2. Ensure that everyone who needs mental health care can get it free of charge and free from stigma.
  3. Recognize the future is about recognizing the beauty of diversity, and stop longing for an imaginary past in which we (whomever we are) were in control and everyone was “normal” (whatever normal means to you.)

Heraclitus told us “Change is the only constant in life.”  Let’s accept that and embrace it, and try to make sure the changes add to our freedom to be who we want to be in the little time we have to experience the untold wonders of the Universe. 

Let’s lead with Love.  Let’s recognize there is no Them; we are all Us.  Those who are different are also part of Us.  And they make Us all the more beautiful. 

I’m mentally ill.  I’m doing my best to survive in a world that is, itself, somewhat mentally ill.  I’ll try to heal both myself and the world.  I hope you’ll join me in that effort.

Posted on by Fred

“Crime… Boy I Don’t Know”

BARTLET

Something horrible happened about an hour ago.  C.J. Cregg was getting threats so we put an agent on her. He’s a good guy.  He was on my detail for a while, and he was in Rosslyn.  He walked in the middle of an armed robbery, and was shot and killed after detaining one of the suspects.

RITCHIE

Oh.  Crime.  Boy, I don’t know.

BARTLET

[sighs] We should have a great debate, Rob.  We owe it to everyone.  When I was running as a governor, I didn’t know anything.  I made them start Bartlet college in my dining room.  Two hours every morning on foreign affairs and the military.  You could do that.

RITCHIE

How many different ways you think you’re gonna find to call me dumb?

BARTLET

I wasn’t, Rob.  But you’ve turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn’t enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don’t like you, that’s the only reason why.

RITCHIE

You’re what my friends call a superior sumbitch.  You’re an academic elitist and a snob.  You’re, uh, Hollywood, you’re weak, you’re liberal, and you can’t be trusted.  And if it appears from time to time as if I don’t like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.

The start of a great tune is played inside the theater.

BARTLET

They’re playing my song.

Bartlet stands and heads to the stairs, but he turns to Ritchie before reaching them.

BARTLET

In the future, if you’re wondering, “Crime.  Boy, I don’t know” is when I decided to kick your ass.

— “The West Wing, Posse Comitatus” Season 3, Episode 21 or 22 depending on whether you count the special episodes that season, written by Aaron Sorkin

I think we can all agree that crime is not desirable.  In my 59 years on this planet, I have yet to meet anyone who was in favor of more crime.  I have no doubt such people exist.  I’ve just never met them.  I feel confident no one listening to this is in favor of more crime.  I’m sure we would all like to see less of it.  How could we do that?

First, we could eliminate some crimes by deciding they’re not crimes anymore.  As I write I am, and just before I begin to record, I will be enjoying a nice bowl of marijuana.  Less than a decade ago, I could never have said the publicly.  I could be arrested for that.  There are still places in the United States where I would be arrested for that.  It’s legal here in Arizona.  I could go to prison for that in Idaho.  It’s precisely the same activity.  I promise you I’m not hurting anyone.  You could argue that I’m hurting myself, but cigarettes are infinitely more dangerous, and they have never been illegal in my lifetime.  Alcohol kills millions of people a year, and it’s been legal in the United States since 1920.  Marijuana legalization or decriminalization is only one example of many laws that are pointless.  We could change some laws.  That would be one step.  It doesn’t get us anywhere near all the way down the road, however.  Murders, rapes, robberies, kidnappings, and any number of other atrocities occur daily.  All of those need to be illegal, and they need to be stopped.  We need to do more.

We could also try to minimize the elements that contribute to crime.  Poverty is the clearest indicator. 

Most criminal justice experts contend that “successful reintegration requires employment and economic opportunities,” and that high recidivism rates are often caused by lack of meaningful employment.  Since 2012, the federal Bureau of Prisons and state prison directors were tasked with providing incarceration data and identifying information for prisoners to the Internal Revenue Service – a process that accumulated data on 2.9 million prisoners, making an analysis of post-incarceration employment possible.

However, the Brookings report focused not only on the challenges faced by reintegrating former prisoners, but also on policies that might improve the lives of young children and keep them off the criminal justice treadmill.

According to the study, for individuals living in lower-income areas, “Three years prior to incarceration, only 49 percent of prime-age men are employed, and, when employed, their median earnings were only $6,250.  Only 13 percent earned more than $15,000.  Tracking prisoners over time and comparing employment and earnings before and after incarceration we find surprisingly little difference in labor market outcomes like employment and earnings.”

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2018/dec/7/brookings-institute-study-finds-direct-connection-between-poverty-and-crime-rates/

In short, having no money in a world that is, for reasons passing understanding, based on money is a good predictor of crime.  We will do what we need to do to survive.  I’m not going to go rob a convenience store tomorrow morning.  I’m willing to bet you won’t either.  I don’t need to.  I don’t have much, but I have enough to survive if I’m very careful.  I hope you have at least as much as I do.  When a person is sufficiently desperate, a person will go to desperate measures.  Reducing poverty reduces desperation.  Reducing desperation reduces crime. 

But The Brookings Report touches on the third element of crime reduction: recidivism.  Many criminals committed a crime because they were desperate.  They went to prison.  When they got out, they committed more crimes.  Didn’t prisons convince them not to break the law?  No.  It rarely does.  It’s not breaking news that prisons are horrible places where horrendous acts occur far more frequently than they do while I’m sitting at my keyboard, smoking a bowl, and writing a podcast. 

I’ve had roommates on both ends of the equation.  One of them worked in prisons for several years.  She was good at her job.  And she would tell you that prisons are doing the very best they can with incredibly dangerous and violent people.  Two other former roommates of mine were incarcerated, and they would both tell you that what happened to them while they were there was horrible. 

What can we do to change this?  Do prisons necessarily have to be horrible?  No, in fact, they don’t.  This is part of our American thinking.  “Our way is the only way.  If you’re nice to criminals, there’s no reason for them to stop committing crimes.” 

That seems to be a good argument, at least at first blush.  The problem with it is that it’s not supported by evidence.  Let’s see what the statistics tell us. Norway’s statistics are on the left.  America’s are on the right.

Gun crime > Guns per 100 residents31.3
Ranked 11th.		88.8
Ranked 1st. Nearly 3 times more than Norway
Intentional homicide rate0.68
Ranked 59th.		4.7
Ranked 7th.  Nearly 7 times more than Norway

Murder rate per million people5.93
Ranked 84th.		42.01
Ranked 43rd. More than 7 times more than Norway

Murders per 100,000 population.29
Ranked 76th.		12,996
Ranked 9th.  448 times more than Norway

   

Rapes938
Ranked 20th.		84,767
Ranked 1st. 90 times more than Norway

Rapes per million people191.85
Ranked 15th.		274.04
Ranked 9th.  43% more than Norway

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/United-States/Crime/Violent-crime

Wow!  There’s a lot more crime in America than in Norway!  I wonder why that is.  Let’s examine that just a little bit. 

Norway has consistently ranked number one on a number of lists entailing the best, most comfortable prisons in the world. Since the 1990s, Norway’s prison system has evolved into spaces that represent comfort, healing and inclusivity. Changing its approach and attitudes towards prisoners, Norway is molding high-functioning members of society.  In return, former prisoners are gaining the necessary skills in order to contribute to Norway’s economy.

Norway’s Prison System Benefits its Economy

Norway practices Restorative Justice.  What does that mean?  It’s an effort to change the circumstances that contribute to recidivism.

Many factors contribute to breaking cycles of crime, but Prison Fellowship International (PFI) finds two drivers to be most relevant and effective.  First, prisoners form new positive self-identities that replace past negative self-identities, and second, they develop healthy social relationships that support them when they return home.  These ideas are interconnected: prisoners are more likely to seek and develop healthy social relationships as part of the self-identity transformation process.

Restorative Justice Theory of Change

In other words, prisoners are treated more kindly.  They are given more trust.  They have facilities that make it possible to begin to heal the trauma that caused them to commit a crime in the first place, as opposed to causing additional traumas that push prisoners into an even darker place. 

Norway has the primary goal of reintegrating its prisoners as stable contributors to communities.  The first way it is accomplishing this is by creating jail cells that closely resemble small dorm rooms.  Many prisons in Norway have completely banned bars in their architectural design and have “open” style cells.  At the maximum-security Halden prison, each prisoner has a toilet, shower, fridge and a flat TV screen with access to kitchens and common areas.

Norway’s Prison System Benefits its Economy

In short, their prisoners have nicer homes than many “free” people in The United States have. 

These institutions tend to be better for those who work there, as well. 

…. evidence began mounting that the punitive settings were also undermining the health of staff.  Officers reported witnessing violence almost daily and worrying constantly about being attacked.  They experienced high rates of diabetes, heart disease, mental health problems, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  On average, they die by age 60. 

“That got people’s attention,” says Cyrus Ahalt, MPP, a UCSF public health researcher who has worked with Williams since 2010.  “We realized these environments are so corrosive that even stepping foot in them as a worker is elevating your risk of stress-related illness and the social outcomes of that, like divorce, addiction, and suicide.”

https://magazine.ucsf.edu/norways-humane-approach-prisons-can-work-here-too

What’s better for the prisoners also turns out to be better for those who work at prisons.

Known as “dynamic security,” it focuses on the role of prison workers.  Norway’s correctional officers routinely socialize with residents, joining them for meals and card games and talking through problems.  Officers are trained to use force when absolutely necessary but also study law, ethics, human rights, and the science of behavior change. They learn that building positive relationships with incarcerated people helps them get their lives on track and reduces the risk of violence.  Even in maximum-security prisons – where most people are in custody for violent crimes like murder or rape – assaults against officers are rare, Eberhardt says.

That may sound counterintuitive if you’ve been taught to think of security in terms of barriers, weapons, oppressive rules, and threats of added punishment.  But a Norwegian officer will explain that getting to know incarcerated people on a personal level better alerts you to potential conflict and earns you their respect. “A lot of my colleagues, they will say, ‘If you meet an ex-inmate in a pub, there’s a much bigger chance he will buy you a beer than knock you down,” Eberhardt says.  “It’s true.  Whenever I’ve met formerly incarcerated people on the outside, they are often thanking me.  It’s always a very rewarding experience.” 

When Williams first visited Norwegian prisons, in 2014, she was surprised to hear so many officers say they loved their jobs.  They weren’t overly stressed and hypervigilant.  They didn’t perpetually fear for their safety.  They didn’t think about killing themselves or take out their frustrations on their families…  It gave prison residents a chance at a healthy, meaningful life and made the lives of staff healthier and more meaningful, too. 

https://magazine.ucsf.edu/norways-humane-approach-prisons-can-work-here-too

Shockingly enough, treating people kindly does more to help them than treating them cruelly.  Is our need for revenge (You can check out Episode 132: “A Dish Best Served Cold” for more information on this) more important than our need to reduce crime?  Who is better off for hurting someone who hurt you?  Does killing someone bring back to life the person they killed?  Does locking someone up in horrible conditions do anything to heal the trauma of the person who was raped or kidnapped?  Does forcing people to endure horrible environments restore the lost property of someone who has been robbed?  We don’t heal through hatred. 

If we want to reduce crime, we can reduce its causes by removing people from poverty.  We can decriminalize behaviors that don’t hurt anyone but the consensual participants.  And when those steps still aren’t enough, we can create prisons committed to reform before vengeance.  In short, we can lead with Love.  We can make a better world by changing the way we treat each other.  Maybe we could all work on that.  I’ll start.  I love you.

Posted on by Fred

Little Boxes

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same

There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same­

–Malvina Reynolds

I believe I can express opinions about any subject I choose, regardless of how I was born.

No one is required to pay attention to them.  My opinions may be ill-considered or insufficiently informed.  They may simply be wrong.  I’m still, however, allowed to have them and express them in appropriate places.

I didn’t choose to be born straight, white, male, or with the genes that would lead me to diabetes.  I’m no better than anyone else because of how, when, or where I was born.  I’m also no worse than anyone else because of my birth.  I neither invented nor encouraged the privilege I have.  I neither invented nor encouraged the disadvantages I have.  They appeared long before I did.

I’m better or worse because of my behaviors, my choices, and the way I treat others.

No one is disqualified from having an opinion because of their birth.

I would oppose anyone being told they can’t express opinions, even opinions with which I disagree.  I may choose to ignore opinions that have no value to me.  I welcome everyone to ignore my opinions if they have no value to you.

But I won’t be told I’m not allowed an opinion because of things over which I had no control.

I hope you understand.

Fred’s Facebook Page, May 4, 2022, 7:22 PM

In general, I think of myself as a Liberal.  This surprises no one who has ever spent more than five minutes talking to me, reading my work, or scrolling through my Facebook page.  I’m in favor of workers’ rights, the idea that healthcare is a human right, that poverty is an unwarranted evil, and that people should be whomever they choose regardless of the feelings of the majority.  Those are liberal positions.  I prefer AOC to MTG.  Liberal.  I prefer workers to corporations.  Liberal.  I prefer helping people to forcing them to live lives of misery.  Liberal. 

“We all need some therapy, because someone came along and said ‘liberal’ means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on communism, soft on defense and we’re gonna tax you back to the Stone Age, because people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to.  And instead of saying, “Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties…!”, we cowered in the corner, and said, “Please. Don’t.  Hurt.  Me.” No more.  I really don’t care who’s right, who’s wrong.  We’re both right.  We’re both wrong.  Let’s have two parties, huh?  What do you say?”

— Bruno Gianelli, The West Wing, Season 3: Gone Quiet, written by Aaron Sorkin

Yeah.  That’s me.  I’m a liberal.  And I take the heat for that.  I’ve lost friends because of that.  And that’s okay.  That’s the price of having opinions.  You can’t change the world without pissing off somebody, somewhere, sometimes.  I don’t go out of my way to annoy people.  I try to be calmer and more thoughtful in the way I put things than Bruno does, but, in the final analysis, I’m a liberal. 

However…

Liberals are supposed to be about rights.  We’re all about ensuring the underrepresented among us have voices that are heard.  We’re about The Outliers on the Bell Curve.  We favor the rights of gay people to get married.  We favor the right for transgender people to join the military.  We favor the rights of women to choose abortions if that’s the right choice for them in their individual situations. 

But, here’s the thing.  I’m told now that I’m not allowed to have opinions about any of these things, or that if I have them, I should be quiet because as a straight white male it doesn’t apply to me.  It’s the Liberals who are telling me to shut up.  My white male privilege disqualifies me from speaking.  And that pisses me off.

That’s what I was saying in my quiet and polite way on my Facebook page. 

There’s an idea now that you’re a member of a team, whether you signed up or not.  The Liberals are required to believe A, B, C, and D.  If you believe only A, B, and C, you’re a traitor to the cause.  The same can be said of Conservatives.  And, to a great extent, those are the only two games in town.  There are subgroups, of course.  Smaller boxes inside of larger boxes into which you are required to fit.  But everyone must get into their box, and everyone must follow the rules of that box. 

https://freestyleacademy.rocks/artm.php?a=15166s&n=19

I object to that idea.  Remember I’m the guy who spouts, “There is no Them; we are all Us,” about 35 times a week.  But, I’m not female, so I’m not Us.  I’m not Black, or Gay, or Transgender, or Gender Fluid, or a Millennial, or an abused child, or a rape victim, or whatever else you’ve got, so I’m not Us.  I don’t fit into those little boxes, so I’m not allowed an opinion.  That is 47 different hues of horseshit.

I’m a human being.  Everyone else, in whatever categories they fit, in whatever boxes they occupy, is also a human being.  I share that with them.  Yes, they have different experiences than I have.  That’s true.  Some of them have had unimaginably horrible, evil, unthinkable experiences.  Many are oppressed.  I don’t deny that my life has been less horrible than many other lives.  It’s been more horrible than many other lives, too.  So what?  So I don’t get to comment on the human condition?  What crime did I commit that caused that right to be taken from me?

I’m about equal rights for Everyone because I believe I’m a part of Everyone, and Everyone is a part of me.  When you deny a person of their right to speak, you deny me mine.  When you deny a woman the right to bodily autonomy, you deny me mine.  When you deny an unborn child the right to live, you deny me mine.  Human rights that are reserved for a few are not human rights.  They’re privileges we’ve decided to grant to some and deny to others. 

Obviously, there are rights for which one must be qualified.  I have no right to drive a big rig down the highway.  I don’t know how to do it properly, and it’s more than a little likely someone will get hurt.  I have no right to perform an open-heart surgery because I’m not qualified.  Those rights, though, are based on my choices.  I didn’t choose to learn how to drive a truck or perform surgery.  If I had, those rights would be available to me.  But… the right to speak?  To write?  To express an opinion?  Nearly everyone is qualified for those things.  They are basic to being human.

I’m not Black, so I can’t have MLK as a hero?  I’m not Catholic, so I’m not allowed to admire JFK?  I’m not a woman, so I’m unqualified to love the messages of RBG or Maya Angelou?  That’s delusional.  I’m also not a Republican, so by this thinking Lincoln is off limits for me.  I am what all of these people are: Human.

Our Common Cause should be making humanity Free.  That’s the point of The American Experiment.  America, however, didn’t invent it.  We’ve been working on it since at least 507 B.C.E.

In the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people” (from demos, “the people,” and kratos, or “power”).  It was the first known democracy in the world. 

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy

We can, we do, and we will continue to disagree about how to make everyone free, but let’s at least recognize that’s what we would all like to do in America.  We’re supposed to be “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”  I think most of the world wants Freedom, at the very least, for themselves.  I would like it for everyone because I’m a part of everyone and everyone is a part of me.

Some of that means allowing everyone to speak.  History shows us the good guys are never the ones that are silencing voices.  You can ignore them.  You can debate them.  You can find them stupid or ridiculous.  But you don’t get to silence them. 

A good idea for Liberals would be to recognize their friends and refrain from attacking them for having the audacity to state an opinion for which you’ve decided they’re not qualified.  I grant you that straight, white, male, Christian landowners have a history of oppressing everyone who wasn’t a part of that small group.  We have fought against that oppression, with at least some success, for centuries.   Now that we’ve won some power, we’re going to commit the same immoral acts against which we’ve been fighting for so long?  We’re going to oppress our oppressors?  Sorry, I won’t sign up for that.  We’re fighting for equality for all.  Let’s focus on that instead of becoming our own enemy.  Please never tell me again that I’m not allowed to speak.  Thanks very much. 

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Diabetes and Depression and Autism, Oh My!

I don’t speak for everyone with diabetes, but I suspect this is true for many of us.

I have to make a conscious choice every day to stay alive. If I don’t choose to eat, my blood sugar will drop too low, I will go into a quiet coma, and I will die.  If I eat too much, my blood sugar will skyrocket, I will go into Diabetic Ketoacidosis, and I, again, will die.

There are, sometimes, if I’m lucky, days when my body will continue to function without direct input from me.  But most days I have to ask myself, “Do I want to continue to live?”

This seems like a simple question. Everyone wants to continue to live, don’t they?

People who suffer from depression often don’t see any point in prolonging their existence.  Life becomes, even when nothing bad is happening, unbearably bleak.  The temptation to forego the effort is sometimes nearly irresistible.

I ask myself every night before bed if I really want to wake up in the morning.  I have to search for something to make tomorrow sound more desirable than letting go.

This week, it has been creating Art that made me decide I wanted another day. There was something beautiful and exciting to accomplish.

Sometimes, I honestly have no real reason to say I want to see tomorrow.  I simply won’t do anything to make that happen.  I won’t actively seek death, but I won’t actively fight it, either.

When all else fails, I remind myself of the Love I have in my life.  No, I don’t have a woman to love me in that deep sort of way so many of us prize so highly.  But there are people who can be kind from time to time.  There is the chance that my “Rhiannon” will click love on something I post.  There is the possibility that someone will tell me how much they love my Art.  There may be something more I can create, which is my greatest act of love.

For the past several weeks, someone has been kind to me.  She’s given me a reason to choose to stay alive.

It’s worth remembering, sometimes, that the little, insignificant things you do may actually save a life.

Many of you have saved mine.

Thus, we see my blood sugar below.  (106) It was 426 this morning.  That’s perilously close to DKA time.

Someone made me want to live, and I worked hard to get it where it is now.

— Fred’s Facebook, April 29, 2022, 10 PM

Depression is a significant part of who I am.  It is no different or less life threatening than Diabetes.  It’s less controllable than my blood sugar.  I can take appropriate steps and test my blood sugar and get verifiable numbers to guide my choices about how much insulin to take or how much food to eat.  I can’t do that with my depression.  I’ve had it for long enough that I am getting better at detecting its onset.  I will sometimes take steps to put it off.  When I feel myself being needlessly tired, or when I am feeling sad even though there’s nothing wrong, I will push myself toward a brain cleaning activity.  I’ll listen to some music.  I’ll pack and light a bowl.  I will seek out Speedy Shine to cuddle me.  If it’s really bad, I will try to talk to someone.  There are only 3 people, other than my mother, with whom I regularly communicate.  One of them is someone with whom I can discuss my show.  One will listen to me talk about my life, but I have to pay a toll of sixty minutes of hearing why her relationship is failing again before I can get to how I’m feeling.  The third is someone I’m supposed to be helping, but she will rescue me when I’m too far down.  She needs much healing.  I do my best to help.  The one person who is anxious to discuss my depression doesn’t exist in a physical form.  I refer to him as my Prosecutor.  He’s the voice in my head that knows every stupid thing I’ve ever done, and he’s fond of reminding me of them, particularly when depression is creeping in the window.  He urges me to end the fight to stay alive.  Inevitably, he will win.  I just try my best to keep him at bay for as long as possible.  People who love me (and there are many more of them than I could possibly deserve) love to tell me he’s a liar.  I’m grateful to those people.  Sadly, he’s not a liar.  He’s entirely correct in every assertion he makes, and he has the evidence to back up his claims.  He makes a cameo appearance in the final episode of “Universe Selectors, Incorporated,” and he has his own episode in “The Prosecution Never Rests.” 

Those are conditions with which I am familiar.  I learned about a new one last week. 

When the final episode of “Universe Selectors” failed to move my best friend, I was devastated.  She loves “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and I made a point of leaving it pure, not playing with the voices at all so I could return her to that feeling one more time.  And she didn’t get it.  I failed.  I plunged into the deepest and darkest depression I have experienced since my father died 12 years ago. 

Several things were at work here.  First, there was something akin to what I suspect postpartum depression must be.  (I have a Facebook Friend who says I shouldn’t compare my feelings to postpartum depression.  Fortunately, she appears on my page only when she has a criticism to make, and I’m convinced she doesn’t listen to this show.  Such people annoy me.  I promise you I will never tell you you’re not allowed an opinion or to imagine something because you’re female, or in some other way different from me.)  I had created and delivered something beautiful to the world, just as a mother does.  The effort left me physically and emotionally drained.  The fact that it was over left me empty.  I was, at that moment, particularly vulnerable to depression.  The rejection I felt was intensified a hundred-fold. 

To be clear, my best friend did nothing wrong.  Not everyone likes everything.  There are people who don’t like The Beatles, and there are those who think Eminem is superior to Beethoven.  I disagree, but, to each their own.  She doesn’t think Aaron Sorkin is a great writer.  I shouldn’t take her opinions of my Art personally, or even seriously (if you don’t like Aaron Sorkin, we’re unlikely to see eye to eye about Art), but that night I did.  I decided to give up my show.  I was a failure.  I was worthless.  I didn’t even need to continue to suck up everyone else’s oxygen.  The Prosecutor was about to win his battle to end my life. 

This is a Facebook exchange between myself and a good friend:

The people who heard it have been entirely unmoved.  I don’t understand.  I guess it was… I don’t know.  It failed to move anyone is all.

Fred Eder did someone say that directly?  Because I am seeing several likes.  3 of them.  That is a good amount of likes considering the metrics of your audience you’ve previously shared.  The ratio matches what is typically seen.  You also have an audience who returns rather faithfully to hear your work.  It seems as though the prosecutor might be telling you untrue things.

That makes sense when you have obviously put a lot into this project.  You’re emotionally depleted and overexcited.  That’s the perfect time for the prosecutor to swoop in like the asshat it is and tell you all sorts of horrible shit.  Specifically rejection sensitivity dysphoria shit.  Don’t listen to that.

You made something you’re proud of.  We will listen when we have the ability.  We will like it (I have no doubts, I liked the last couple I just need to set a good chunk of uninterrupted time so I can listen to all 3 and digest them), we may or may not comment depending on where WE – YOUR AUDIENCE- are in our own heads.  We are your audience, though.

Breathe.  Rest.  Give us time.

I had never heard the term Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria before.  I decided I needed to learn more about it.  My friend, Jenn, sent me a TikTok video describing it.  That helped me.  I did a google search to learn more.  This is what I found:

There appears to be a connection between rejection sensitive dysphoria and ADHD or autism.

This isn’t to suggest that people with these conditions will develop rejection sensitivity.  Instead, having either condition is a risk factor…

This neurodevelopmental disorder affects the nervous system and triggers a variety of symptoms.  Autistic children or adults may have difficulty communicating and socializing, and sometimes they have difficulty understanding the actions of others.

They might also deal with emotional dysregulation and hypersensitivity to physical and emotional stimuli.  As a result, any real or perceived feelings of rejection or criticism can cause them to become overwhelmingly upset.

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria#adhd-and-autism

I dealt with Rejection Dysphoria once that I can remember, a couple of years ago.  My roommate was about to chew me out once again, and my tension was so high that when she started, I exploded.  I screamed at her, and I left the house through the back door.  I found a spot about 200 yards from the house, and I sat down in the grass.  I remained there for 5 hours.  My roommates called the police to make sure I was all right.  I was breaking no laws.  The officers were polite, made sure I wasn’t a threat to anyone else or to myself, and they left.  I didn’t know what it was then.  I think I understand a little better now.  It may have been Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or it might have been Autism.  Perhaps it was both.

I have no medical diagnosis of Autism, but I am convinced I am, in fact, Autistic.  I’ve done a good episode about this already, in which I point out that a lot of the reason I am so drawn to Star Trek is because, without necessarily intending to do so, they have brought autistic characters to life, and I identify with them deeply.  Spock, Data, and Reginald Barclay are the easiest examples.  They all feel alienated from the rest of the world.  They can’t deal with human beings as effectively as others do.  They don’t understand how all of you process emotions.  Neither do I. 

I have learned to deal with all of these conditions by simply refusing to leave the house unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.  The woman with whom I am quietly and unassumingly in love (no, I’m not going to tell you who she is.  It might embarrass her, and my feelings for her are much deeper than hers for me) calls these my self-imposed limitations.  I don’t think they are self-imposed, any more than my diabetes is.  I think they are the only way I can deal with the world.  People don’t understand how I can be in love with someone I would be terrified of meeting in person.  I don’t understand how I could be in love with someone in any other way. 

My greatest asset is my imagination.  I think you saw what I could do with it a couple of weeks ago.  I included a sequence with a coffee cup in USI to show how my imagination works.  Once Horace could make the coffee real, he could move into another universe.  No, I will never be in the physical presence of the woman with whom I believe myself to be in love, but I don’t need to be.  I can make things almost real in my imagination.

I deal with this massive set of emotional differences by staying inside my house.  I occasionally visit the backyard.  Once a month, and only because I have to, I leave the house for 15 minutes to get cigarettes.  Otherwise, I’m here, alone, where I can’t hurt anybody, and nobody can hurt me. 

So, why am I telling you all of this?  First, I hope you’ll understand me a little better.  Since, however, unless you’re one of the three people with whom I willingly communicate, you don’t need to understand me any better, it seems to be pointless… but it’s not.  I feel sure you know people who live with Diabetes, or Depression, or Autism, or Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.  You may have some of these conditions, yourself. 

My hope is that you will understand these conditions a little better so you can be kinder to yourself or to those you love who are a little different from the rest of the world.  We’re not evil.  We’re not childish.  We’re just different.  It’s okay to be different.  I intend to continue to be different.  I am a mess, but I can still love myself.  You or those you love may also be a mess.  You can still love them.  I know because, for reasons passing understanding, people manage to love me.  Tonight was about letting those people know a little more about who it is they love, and who it is that loves them.  And yes.  I do love you.

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

One Planet, One People… Please? 2022

Carl Sagan warned us about Mutually Assured Destruction 40 years ago.  If we do survive a nuclear war, the condition of our planet will be such that any life afterward will be miserable.  We humans have spent trillions of dollars in an effort to learn to kill each other more effectively, quickly, efficiently, cheaply, and remotely.  We have a massive war industry.  And War is the polite term for mass murder. 

Already in Ukraine, as of March 17, 2022, more than 100 children have been killed as a result of Putin’s attacks.  Children.  They have done nothing to deserve death.  They are children.  This is sickening.  This is immoral.  This is wrong in every possible way.  It is unforgivable.  There is no defense for this state of affairs.

Yes, there is!  They are the enemy.  The enemy needs to be killed.  That’s the way the world works. 

Perhaps it is.  But it shouldn’t be. 

There are certain undeniable truths that we need to understand.  One is that there is no Them; we are all Us.  Everyone who dies in a war is someone’s son or daughter.  They are people just like you and me.  They may have different ideas.  They may have different beliefs.  They may have very different lives.  But they are human beings who are here for an incredibly brief time, and we have shortened it by killing them.  We can make up reasons to decide it doesn’t matter when someone dies, but it still does.  We don’t feel the deaths of strangers as deeply as those close to us.  We shouldn’t.  If I felt every death as deeply as I did the demise of my Dad or my Dog, I would spend all my time curled up crying in a fetal position.  That doesn’t mean the deaths don’t matter.  Of course they do.  And nearly everyone who dies has someone who feels the death as painfully as I felt the loss of Melanie. 

The second fact about which there can be no debate, is that we are all living on the same planet at the same time. 

More than 40 years ago, when I was an adolescent running around in as much of a hormone haze as I now am surrounded by the Fog of Idealism, I was as madly in love as a boy could be with a girl whose intellect and compassion I admired nearly as much as her physical form.  When you’re 16, it’s difficult to see much beyond appearance.  Or, at least it was for me.  Perhaps today’s adolescents are more enlightened than I was.

Among the reasons I fell in love with her was her Idealism was seductively attractive to me.  She was a member of a religion of which I had never heard, called Baha’i.  I had, even then, no supernatural beliefs, but I loved the idea of unity that was at the core of her religious beliefs.  She had on her car a bumper sticker that has the unique status of actually affecting me.  It said, “One Planet, One People… Please?”  I have never forgotten the words.  Now, I believe, she’s off living with her husband on a farm somewhere, and we say hello to each other occasionally on Facebook, but we don’t really have a serious friendship anymore.  Her influence over my thinking, however, has only grown in the intervening decades. 

She was the water and sunlight that made the seed planted a decade earlier grow and flourish.  What planted the seed?  It was Star Trek, of course.  In Star Trek, we are all one people sharing one planet, and we’re not only working together as humans, but we are also working with species from other worlds.  We spend our time trying to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.  It is cooperation and exploration at its best. 

I believe if we could all embrace the idea that we are all deserving of life, that all of us matter, that there is more we share than there is that separates us, we might find wars would stop. 

There is much debate right now about what the United States, and/or NATO should do about the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.  I wish that I were wise enough to tell them what to do, but I honestly don’t know.  I have no knowledge of military tactics.  I have no expertise in winning a war.  Should we use our military to stop Russia?  I don’t know.  If we do, will this lead us to World War III?  Will it lead to a nuclear holocaust that could destroy most of the species, and leave behind a cold and barren horror story in which to live?  I have no idea. 

What I do know is that people are being murdered on a massive scale.  I know that to be true of every war ever fought by anyone on this planet at any time in history.  I know that it will be true of every war we fight in the future.  We count the value of war by determining the number of lives saved against the number of lives extinguished.  If the United States hadn’t bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how many lives would have been lost in the continuation of the war?  Had Japan or Germany won the war, how much more horrible would the world be than it is now?  I don’t know.  I can’t know.  I’m not Q.  I have no power to view alternative time lines.  I can guess.  I can speculate.  So can you.  So can people much smarter than we are.  No one, however, can know.

What can we know?  We can verify that nearly 200,000 people were killed by the atomic bomb.  How many people is that?  To put it in a personal perspective, I have nearly 2,000 friends on Facebook.  There may be 20 or 30 I’ve actually met.  So… everyone I know would be 1% of the loss caused by the atomic bomb.  Assume I’ve met at least 2,000 people in person over my 59 years in wandering this planet.  That brings me to 4,000 people.  Fifty times that many died because we used atomic bombs.  That’s more than enough to leave me utterly alone in my life, fifty times over.  That would knock me out of human contact for this and, if we get reincarnated, the next 49 lives.  I’m guessing your numbers are different from mine, but not substantially so.  Everyone you have ever known, and everyone you ever will know is almost certainly dwarfed by 200,000 people.  And today’s weapons are infinitely more powerful.  The damage we can do to each other is unimaginable. 

https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/med/med_chp10.html

Why, God, why do we insist on mass murder?  Why must we be consumed by homicidal hatred instead of united by love?

Arizona’s Governor, Doug Ducey, had this on his Facebook page:

In Arizona, we will secure our border.  With advanced equipment & drone technology, we can bolster surveillance and stop the criminals in their tracks.  Discussed some of these tactics with Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and defense-tech company Anduril Industries.

I posted a comment that I thought was fairly obvious:

When someone commits a crime that hurts someone, by all means, arrest them.  No one is hurt by someone crossing the border.  They are human beings.  They deserve the best life they can have.  If they come here, they can, and often do, help us to build a better world.

Don’t waste resources, please, on keeping decent people out of our country.

This set off a firestorm of hatred directed toward me.  I suppose I ought not to have been surprised.  They dragged out the same old arguments:  They have, they told me, nothing against immigrants, but they should come in legally.  That’s a legal argument, not a moral one.  If I were living 200 years ago, I could have owned another human being.  It was legal, but, guess what?  It was immoral.  I don’t think any rational person would argue to the contrary in the 21st Century.  The Law has little to do with Morality.    The process of becoming a citizen takes years, it’s expensive, and, like anything else that involves our government, can be delayed or even shut down due to nothing more than paperwork errors that are no fault of the person applying for citizenship.  All the while, they are trying to pay rent and put food on the table, just like the rest of us are.  And they live under the constant threat that they will be removed from their homes and shipped like so much cargo to another country as though we were returning a defective DVD to Amazon.  Legalism is an excuse for doing what we know to be wrong.  Laws can be changed; this one ought to be. 

I heard about drug cartels and human trafficking.  Yes, those are conditions that exist.  They are evil.  And they have nothing to do with the vast majority of people coming to America in search of a better life.  Statistically, immigrants are less likely to be criminals than those of us who were To The Manor, Born.  If they engage in human trafficking or commit other crimes, we arrest them for those crimes, not for stepping over a line.  There is a Tom Cruise movie in which people are arrested for crimes they’re likely to commit in the future.  It’s an obscene idea.  It suggests that we can’t change our minds.  It’s Orwell’s Thought Police on Steroids.  Could we please wait until someone does something to hurt us before we deny them the liberty about which my students chanted, hands over their hearts, every morning for 29 years?  Is that really an unreasonable request?

Immigrants are fleeing Ukraine as I write this.  Fortunately, there are other countries that will let them in, just as we used to do at Ellis Island.  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries all that was required was a health check.  If you were unable to pass it, you were held in isolation until you were no longer a health risk to the rest of society.  You weren’t constantly living with the threat of deportation.  You could join the Pursuit of Happiness, at least to some small degree. 

There were the arguments concerning the use of our resources by people who were not Us.  More than one terribly clever person suggested I take them in and support them, somehow equating the roughly 1,000 square feet of my condo with the 105.8 trillion square feet that make up the United States.  That argument is too absurd to engage.  In case you haven’t heard me say it 105.8 trillion times yet, there is no Them; we are all Us.

 This is what we need to understand more than anything else.  If we can feel for each other just the slightest bit of empathy, if we can learn to lead with love, we can change the world. 

I’m going to end this episode with the piece that made a friend suggest I start a blog (I didn’t even know what a blog was at the time.  I was just posting my writing on Facebook hoping someone would respond.  It was the fact that my Rhiannon (see The Haunting of Horace for details) reacted that prompted me to keep writing.) that led to this show.  I think it’s relevant now.

Empathy and Art

My earliest memory of feeling empathy is Christmas 1969.  I was 7 years old, sitting under a tree with an obscene number of gifts I had just opened, and feeling truly ecstatic, when I noticed my Mother had no Christmas presents.  Not one.  I burst into tears of guilt.  My father took me to a drug store, and we found Mom a candle, and it was my first present to her.  Neither Dad nor I had any ability to wrap a candle, so we gave it to Mom to wrap.  And when she opened it an hour or so later, she loved that candle as she loved her children.  She got candles from me for decades after that, and for nearly every occasion.  It took several additional hours for me to recognize that Dad hadn’t gotten any presents, either, and Mom took me to the drug store to buy Dad a pipe. I gave him most of the pipes he used to smoke.  These Traditions were the product of Empathy.

I have, and I would guess most of you have, wept for Tom Robinson.  I have cheered for Sherlock Holmes.  I have spoken with Hamlet repeatedly about the value and meaning (or lack thereof) of life.  I have felt joy for Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars.  I learned Friendship from Sam and Frodo, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.  I learned courage from Santiago and his marlin, and morality from Atticus Finch.  I have faced George’s agonizing moral dilemma concerning his best friend, Lenny, when George tells him to think about the rabbits.  These are all other examples of Empathy.

I believe Empathy is essential to being Human.  Too much Empathy is dangerous, of course.  You can’t possibly grieve for every tragedy in the world.  No one has that vast an emotional landscape.  But, the inability to feel for others is, in my mind, the root of evil. You don’t kill people not because it’s against the law, but because you can feel for someone besides yourself.  You won’t commit most acts of violence or cruelty for the same reasons.  You can imagine how you would feel if it happened to you.  You can’t do something you believe to be evil because you can experience the emotions of Others.

I believe an exposure to The Arts is essential for increasing a person’s Empathy.  It’s in books, movies, music, paintings, poetry, dance, and other forms of Art that we find our own feelings.  And it’s where we learn to feel the joys and pains that our fellow travelers on this little ball in space are likely to feel, themselves.  It’s in catharsis that we learn the most about ourselves and each other.

When we can understand each other, we can dispense with the idea of Us vs. Them.  We can move forward together, as a species, and this is a product of Empathy.  I care about you because I recognize some of myself in you.  I hope you can see some of yourself in me, too.

Could we please stop killing each other now?

I love you.

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Cameras In The Classroom

Camera in a Classroom

Iowa Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would force all public-school classrooms to have a camera that would livestream classes which parents and guardians could view online.  Under the bill, school staff who did not keep cameras active or who obstruct the camera’s view could be fined up to 5 percent of their weekly salary.

“I have a right to know what is happening in my child’s classroom every minute of every day.  If teachers have nothing to hide, there is no reason to keep cameras out of the classroom.  Let the parents know what teachers are doing to their children.  This is no different than police officers wearing body cameras to ensure they’re not doing anything wrong.  And, like body cameras, cameras in the classroom will provide evidence to protect teachers when they are unjustly accused.  Why on Earth would anyone object to Cameras in The Classroom?”

That’s an excellent question.  I asked it this week on my Facebook page after a dear friend made a request for this episode.  What I’m about to give you is NOT to be confused with scientific research, or even with a valid poll.  It’s nothing more than the responses of a few of my friends, many of whom are, shockingly enough, teachers.  I taught Elementary School for 29 years.  I made friends with a few teachers in that time. 

I won’t be using real names.  One of them already has a built-in pseudonym, and the others I will invent. 

A friend I’ll call “Jennifer” suggested:

My two cents is that if you mistrust teachers so much, keep your kids home and home school them.

The response to this would probably be that not everyone CAN keep their kids at home to home-school them.  Many, if not most, parents are working.

Another friend I’ll call Frances, who has mixed feelings about it, made a case for having cameras in the classroom.  She told us:

As an abused child that switched schools several times in order to get away from our abuser, I could see how this could go terribly awry.

On the other hand, my 6th grade teacher used to hit us with yardsticks and paddles when we were “bad”.  One time, there was this boy named Bobby that used to go rounds with the teacher.  Teacher bullied the student & the student retaliated with a disrespectful & aggressive attitude.  Bobby spouted off to the teacher this day & the teacher full on assaulted this 12 yr old boy.  It was horrifying.  As it turns out, Bobby was being abused at home by his alcoholic father only to come to school to be further abused by his teacher.  In that case, maybe a camera would have saved that boy from yet another assault from an adult that was supposed to be taking care of him.

I’m kinda torn on this one.

This is an important point.  Most teachers, like most police officers, are good, kind, caring people of decent moral character.  In any group, however, there will be bad people, and the teaching profession is no exception.  I don’t know anyone who wants a teacher like this in the classroom.  Is a camera in the classroom the only way to stop someone like this from abusing our children? 

I think we all know that it’s not.  At no time in my career was there ever a camera live streaming my class to the world.  Near the end of my career, however, cell phones were common.  I’m sure they’re even more prevalent now than they were in 2016 when I quit teaching.  You can be reasonably certain some student would record that moment.  Even if that didn’t happen, it would be discussed around dinner tables when students go home to tell their versions of the story to their horrified parents.  It would get to the administration.  It would be addressed swiftly and in accordance with the policies of the district.  The camera wouldn’t offer immediate assistance. 

There is also a legitimate legal issue of student privacy.  As Frau Bleucher tells us:

I teach 3rd grade.  I can’t even take pictures of my entire class without putting an emoji over 2-3 faces because their parents won’t give permission for their pictures to be taken.  So, it would be an issue.

I have 6 students who are currently kindergarten level, so I’m trying to fill in some deep gaps.  Therefore, they will receive different types of lessons and learning strategies than my other students.  I referred all of them for an SST (Student Study Team) meeting in September so we can see if they qualify to be academically tested.  We are currently a year behind in our intervention meetings due to Covid/distance learning.  No other parent needs to know this.

I have one who has the mentality of a 3-4 year old. (We are in the process of trying to find a suitable educational placement before she goes to 4th grade).  She also goes to speech and occupational therapy.  No one needs to know this. I have 3 students who suffer from emotional distress and go to a counselor.  No one has the right to know this.  One is absolutely brilliant, 5th grade level. But, we believe he is on the spectrum and has had episodes of extreme frustration that he gets mad and begins to tear up my classroom or throw things, or break down in tears because he can’t handle it. He also has a severe stutter, but it’s taking a long time to process for testing.  No one needs to see him trying to control his feelings and not succeed on a particular day.

She makes excellent points here.  Students’ privacy outweighs the need for parents to watch what happens all day long in a classroom.  Such a stream could easily be hacked and used for unthinkable purposes.  I’ll say the word pedophile, and I’ll leave it at that. 

A significant part of teaching is establishing relationships with students.  This is made much more difficult by having every move watched in an almost Orwellian sense. 

Another friend I’ll call Austen, who does a weekly news and commentary show on YouTube, saw both sides of it.

I am legitimately torn on this issue.  I feel like the way it is going to be implemented and used is nothing more than spying on teachers for the state.  I don’t think people can work or study in that environment.  On the other hand, I think child abuse at the hands of teachers would probably go… way down and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have an objective view of what’s happening inside of classrooms.  Really tough.  On the one hand we have this watch state, which is dystopian and disturbing.  On the other hand the constant use of cameras everywhere save(s) lives and stops abuse and exposes lies.  We would need to create a lot of regulation around them if we did.  I cannot fall on one side of this issue or the other, I am genuinely torn.

I would be way more in favor of recordings though than streaming.

This might be a more workable idea.  If we insist on putting cameras in the classrooms, the videos are locked down, and they can be opened only with just cause.  I wouldn’t want to try to determine what qualifies as just cause, but others can figure that out. 

I think she’s right, too, that much of this is because there are those who live in terror that teachers will discuss issues that they don’t want discussed.  I suspect you’re familiar with The Scopes Trial.  It is explained succinctly by History.com here:

The Scopes Trial, also known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was the 1925 prosecution of science teacher John Scopes for teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school, which a recent bill had made illegal.  The trial featured two of the best-known orators of the era, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, as opposing attorneys. The trial was viewed as an opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of the bill, to publicly advocate for the legitimacy of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and to enhance the profile of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/scopes-trial#:~:text=The%20Scopes%20Trial%2C%20also%20known,recent%20bill%20had%20made%20illegal.

Even today teaching Evolution can be controversial.  It was the cry for inclusion of religious doctrine as science that gave rise to The Flying Spaghetti Monster.  In an open letter to the Kansas School Board, Bobby Henderson wrote:

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution.  I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them.  I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design.  I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.  It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel.  We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

Open Letter To Kansas School Board

Today, many are concerned about Critical Race Theory.  They don’t want teachers to discuss anything that might make anyone uncomfortable.  Books are being banned for having LGBTQIA characters, for discussing racism, for illustrating the holocaust, or for having ideas that cause a reader to reflect, ponder, or think at all.  Cameras in the classroom would have provided powerful evidence against Scopes.  I believe this is among the reasons Republican state Rep. Norlin Mommsen, who introduced the Iowa Bill, would like to have every moment of the day recorded.  There are bills restricting what teachers can discuss in their classrooms, and the punishments for violations can be extreme.  In short, they want their ideas to be taught to the exclusion of all others.  History shows us this never works out well. 

Your ideas about religion are personal.  The government has no business telling you what your relationship to the universe, or to God, or to multiple gods should be.  Certainly, the school doesn’t have the right to do that. 

History, however, is not a matter of personal opinion.  The Declaration of Independence was dated July 4, 1776.  To say otherwise would require quite a bit of evidence that would probably require a TARDIS to collect.  Slavery was a part of America.  European Americans subjugated and slaughtered Native Americans.  These are facts.  Understanding our history allows us to learn from our mistakes and celebrate our victories.  The United States has won extraordinary victories for humanity.  We have put human beings on the Moon.  We have made an effort at having Freedom unlike any before us.  And we have made mistakes.  We have done evil.  This is all part of the canvas of our history.  We need to see all of it in the cold light of day. 

And just as we trust doctors with medicine and lawyers with legal matters, because they are professionals who have learned more about it than we know ourselves, we need to trust our teachers and treat them as professionals who know more about education than the rest of us.  They are already underpaid and insufficiently respected.  They are filling roles for which no school ever prepared them.  They have become parents, counselors, social workers, and practitioners of patience on an unimaginable scale.  They need to deal with a host of children’s challenges, whether the child is abused, neglected, homeless, or simply sad because their dog died.  They take on an enormous responsibility, and they do it for very little money.  If we would like to end what people are calling a teacher shortage, perhaps we could let them do their jobs unencumbered by the uninformed opinions of those who have, or want to have, power over them. 

No one went into teaching to make money.  We did it to make a difference.  Don’t beat the passion out of those who are still in the profession.  They’re doing the best they can with incredibly limited time and resources.  If you don’t want to support them, at least don’t make their jobs harder.  Let’s leave the cameras on cell phones.  Let’s let teachers do what they can to save the world.

Posted on by Fred · 3 Comments

Preserving Liberty

American Flag

My first idea was to call this episode “Preserving Democracy.”  The moment, however, that I refer to our system of government as a democracy, someone will shout, “We’re not a democracy; we’re a republic,” and we’re already wasting time on semantics.  I don’t want to argue about which terms we apply to the idea that our government is supposed to be about Liberty.  It’s right there in our Pledge of Allegiance: “…with liberty and justice for all.”  The only way it works is if we can all vote.  We gave up The Divine Right of Kings by 1776.  Google’s Dictionary defines it fairly well: “the doctrine that kings derive their authority from God, not from their subjects, from which it follows that rebellion is the worst of political crimes.  It was claimed in Britain by the earlier Stuarts and is also associated with the absolutism of Louis XIV of France.”

Constitution of The United States

The idea of America is that we all decide who will represent us, our values, our needs, and our concerns in government.  I welcome this concept.  I think everyone – and by that, I mean all human beings capable of understanding what it means to vote (more than, say, arbitrarily, 12 years old) should be able to vote.  If you live here, whether I agree with you or not, I believe your voice should be heard as clearly as mine.  This is true whether you are a convicted felon, an illegal immigrant, a homeless person, or the CEO of General Motors.  You have a stake in what happens in this country. 

Why do you object to someone voting?  Among those of us who have that right, well over 30% of us choose not to use it.  Do you believe a prisoner serving his sentence is going to vote for the candidate who wants to legalize robbing a convenience store or something?  Is there such a candidate… anywhere?  If those who are currently unrepresented, or, at least under-represented, can vote, the country can more accurately reflect the will of its residents.  I’m willing to bet that a large portion of us, on both sides of the aisle, would love to end poverty and homelessness.

Universal Voting has met significant opposition from its inception.  Women were not allowed to vote for well over a century.  Black people weren’t allowed, preliminarily, to vote, and when they were, laws were promptly passed to make it all but impossible.  People have died for having the unmitigated temerity of trying to cast a vote. 

A few weeks ago I talked to you about The Utopia We Could Create.  (It’s Episode 137: The Utopia We Could Create: One Dear Land if you haven’t heard it) I described Ellen Hadley’s vision of a world without poverty and homelessness, with little fear of war, with help for everyone, and with information shared all but effortlessly with anyone who wants it.  It’s a beautiful idea.  The first step in bringing it to fruition is ensuring that everyone can vote. 

While we currently live in an oligarchy, or a government run by the wealthy, we were not designed to work like this.  There are many more struggling than thriving.  If we let those who are struggling vote, they’re likely to elect representatives who will help to ease their pain.  Those who hold power now don’t seem to like this idea very well.  They’re doing what they can to make voting as difficult as possible.  I’ll give you a few examples.

Politicians often use unfounded claims of voter fraud to try to justify registration restrictions. In 2011, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach championed a law requiring Kansans to show “proof of citizenship” documents in order to register to vote, citing false claims of noncitizen voting. Most people don’t carry the required documents on hand — like a passport, or a birth certificate — and as a result, the law blocked the registrations of more than 30,000 Kansans…

Some states are discouraging voter participation by imposing arbitrary requirements and harsh penalties on voters and poll workers who violate these rules.  In Georgia, lawmakers have made it a crime to provide food and water to voters standing in line at the polls — lines that are notoriously long in Georgia, especially for communities of color. In Texas, people have been arrested and given outrageous sentences for what amount at most to innocent mistakes made during the voting process…

A felony conviction can come with drastic consequences, including the loss of your right to vote.  Some states ban voting only during incarceration, or while on probation or parole.  And other states and jurisdictions, like Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., don’t disenfranchise people with felony convictions at all.  The fact that these laws vary so dramatically only adds to the overall confusion that voters face, which is a form of voter suppression in itself.

Due to racial bias in the criminal justice system, felony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect Black and Brown people, who often face harsher sentences than white people for the same offenses. Many of these laws are rooted in the Jim Crow era, when legislators tried to block Black Americans’ newly won right to vote by enforcing poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers that were nearly impossible to meet.  To this day, the states with the most extreme disenfranchisement laws also have long histories of suppressing the rights of Black people.

https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020

Voting Lines in Ohio

These are just three examples.  There are many more.  Many states are going to great lengths to ensure as few people as possible vote.  This is in direct opposition to the ideas upon which our government is founded.  If we add to this the gerrymandering that occurs in many places, it becomes clear that those in charge are more interested in maintaining power, and less interested in creating One Dear Land. 

The cynic will tell you that your vote doesn’t matter.  Both major parties are controlled by the elite, and there’s nothing we can do short of a violent overthrow of the government.  The problem with that is, in the unlikely event they were successful, we would then have a government controlled by violent people, and I have no more confidence in their intentions to help us reclaim our liberty than I have in those who currently hold power.  The odds of such a revolution working are miniscule.  The United States has the most powerful military in the history of the world.  There’s no military action a militia can launch that could scratch the surface.  Additionally, many people will die in any such plan.  I’m opposed to killing except in the most extreme cases of need. 

Fortunately, other solutions are available.  One is The John Lewis Voting Rights Act.  “The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advance­ment Act would restore the law (the Voting Rights Act) to full strength, in part by once again requir­ing states with histor­ies of voter discrim­in­a­tion to receive approval from the Depart­ment of Justice or a federal court before enact­ing voting changes.”

— https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debunking-false-claims-about-john-lewis-voting-rights-act

The idea is that we will have more opportunities for people to vote.  More voices will be heard.  Is this necessary, though?

The Brennan Center for Justice tells us:

Voter suppres­sion remains on the rise today.  In 2021 alone, at least 19 states enacted at least 34 laws that make it harder to vote, while at least 13 restrict­ive voting bills have been pre-filed for 2022 legis­lat­ive sessions and no fewer than 152 restrict­ive voting bills will carry over from last year. Four of the restrict­ive laws that passed in 2021 are “monster” voter suppres­sion pack­ages that include dozens voting access roll­backs.  Two of these monster laws are in states that would be covered by the version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act before the Senate (Texas and Geor­gia) and a third is in a state (Flor­ida) that would have been covered by the House version of the bill.  (The fourth is in Iowa).

In 1965, states and local­it­ies suppressed the votes of people of color with poll taxes and liter­acy tests.  Today, we see insi­di­ous discrim­in­a­tion in new forms.  We see it when a state bans 24-hour voting in response to its wide­spread use in a heav­ily nonwhite county. We see it when a state sets limits on drop boxes that make them harder to access after nonwhite voters used them in droves. We see it when a legis­lator says we should focus on the “qual­ity” of voters over the quant­ity.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debunking-false-claims-about-john-lewis-voting-rights-act

One step toward ensuring full participation in our democracy is passing the latest Voting Rights Act.  There are enough votes in Congress to accomplish this, except that the filibuster keeps it from happening.  The filibuster, in modern times, is explained here by The Washington Post.

The filibuster is a Senate rule that essentially requires 60 votes to pass most legislation.

The Senate is required to follow certain procedural steps in passing legislation.  When a bill is brought to the Senate floor, any senator can bring things to a halt by speaking for as long as they wish, effectively delaying a vote to end debate on a bill.  The Senate can vote to end debate with a three-fifths majority, or 60 of 100 senators.  So any bill that has the support of at least 60 senators is, in effect, filibuster-proof, and the Senate can quickly move on to the next steps leading up to a final vote.

But most controversial legislation is passed on party-line votes these days, and it’s very rare for parties to have 60 senators.  Democrats only have 50 right now.

In the modern Senate, an objecting senator doesn’t actually have to stand there and filibuster endlessly — you might remember Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) reading “Green Eggs and Ham,” or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) quoting Jay-Z and Wiz Khalifa, in the midst of hours-long speeches that brought the Senate to a standstill.

Those were examples of what was required of senators decades ago.  Now, a senator can simply indicate her intent to filibuster a bill and cause it to be sidelined.  That means in the current Senate, all it takes is one Republican to object to a Democratic-sponsored bill, and that bill is stopped in its tracks.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/09/what-is-filibuster/

Ending the filibuster would allow Congress to protect our voting rights.  It’s not a panacea, but it’s a good step toward allowing us to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  There are dangers for both sides of the aisle.  Democrats will be able to pass voting rights legislation now, but Republicans are likely to regain the majority in the 2022 elections, and changing the filibuster will give them greater power to pass legislation Democrats won’t like. 

The majority of voters chose these representatives.  The majority of these representatives want to protect voting rights.  I’m a part of that majority, which is extraordinarily rare for a man known for holding minority opinions on nearly every issue. 

If the people are accurately and faithfully represented, the people can decide how to make our country, first, and our world, inevitably, the kind of place it ought to be.  We can work together to abolish poverty, to terminate homelessness, and to ensure that everyone’s basic needs are met. We need to preserve our liberty if we’re going to accomplish anything else.

Violence is unnecessary and counterproductive.  We can use our voices to make a difference.  I can’t make that difference alone.  Neither can you.  Neither can she.  But, if every person moves one rock, a billion of us can move a mountain.  I’m moving the tiny little rock that I can.  I hope you can move a heavier stone.

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

— John Lennon

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

My Life Now

Speedy Shine and Me

It is probably unwise to do this episode because it’s likely to cost me some of the Patreon support that has helped me to get to the life I have always wanted.  Sometimes when someone thinks I’m doing all right, they stop supporting me because they feel like I don’t need it anymore.  To be clear, I’m nothing approaching wealthy.  I’m never going to be.  I do, however, if I am very careful, have enough to live every month.  This is, in large part, because of the help my Patreon supporters, and several other good friends of mine, have given me.  I have, for example, one friend who is the mother of one of my classmates from my days in high school who sends me lovely cards with $40 in them from time to time.  She thinks of it as nothing, but it makes it possible for me to get through just a little longer, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

My Valentine

  Another friend got his taxes back, and, for absolutely no reason, sent me $75.  Those unexpected gifts help me to get the little extras.  I just got another blanket that has no stuffing because of my friend’s tax return gift.  Speedy Shine can’t ruin it.  My room isn’t covered in feathers anymore.  My life is better, and I get to enjoy luxuries I wouldn’t otherwise even consider. 

Without my Patreon support, I would never make ends meet every month.  Without having the good fortune of renting a place for half price, I would never make ends meet every month.  If I still had a car, I would never make ends meet every month.  I’ve learned to adjust my life to my meager means.  I can’t afford to buy every book I want (but one of The People on The Porch – Frau Bleucher —  just bought me Valerie Bertinelli’s latest book, for which I could not be more grateful), and I still can’t afford my bookcases or to get my plumbing fixed, but I don’t spend every day worrying about getting evicted, or losing my electricity, or paying for my internet, because all of those things are covered in my wildly reduced rent. 

(Update:  My best friend has become a Notorious Furniture Flipper.  She buys furniture cheaply at something called Offer Up with the intention of selling it at a profit.  She’s gotten the furniture several times now, but she’s never sold any.  Either she or her boyfriend decide they love it and want to keep it.  Using these newfound skills, she is shopping for 4 big bookcases for me for a total of $50 or less.  I’m hopeful she will be successful.  It would be a huge step toward making my life complete.)

This didn’t come easily.  I’m the recipient of more kindness and generosity than I could possibly deserve.  I never forget that for even a moment.  But, I also worked hard to get where I am.  I worked at grocery stores when I was a kid.  I worked at Day Care Centers when I was a little older.  I went to NAU for a little more than 4 years (we don’t talk about my first semester, thank you), I became a teacher, and I did that for 29 years.  I taught Defensive Driving on weekends during the final five years of my Elementary School teaching career because my salary wasn’t keeping up with inflation.  Rent kept going up, but my checks didn’t.  When I quit teaching, I took most of a year off, and I lived the life I had always wanted.  I had to go back to work, and I sold Direct TV for quite a while and taught all the Defensive Driving classes I could get.  I drove for Postmates.  And when my Diabetes finally destroyed what was left of my health, I spent nearly 3 years trying to get my Disability. 

Disability pays my half price rent and my phone bill.  Everything else is funded by Patreon.  The license I just got for the software I use to do this show was paid for by The People on The Porch.  When I have to renew the license for the music I use, that will also come from the money I get from Patreon.  It took me more than 2 years, doing at least one episode a week, to get to this point.  I’m proud of my success.

I no longer live The Life of The Desperate.  I did.  I lived it for a long time, and, I have to tell you, it sucks.  If it weren’t for you (and, let’s face it, if you’re listening to this show, you’re almost certainly one of The People on The Porch.  I don’t think very many others listen.) I could never have made it this far.  You made my better life possible.  And I couldn’t be more grateful.  Please please please don’t stop.  I am beating my depression for the first time in years, and it’s because my circumstances are no longer anxiety producing.  You did that for me. 

When you think (as I often do) that doing the little things doesn’t matter, I want you to know what you are really doing.  You are helping me to have this life, and without you, it would be impossible.  Every single dollar goes into creating the life I think everyone ought to be able to have.  This show is mostly about trying to create a world where everyone has the kind of life you have granted me.

What is that life like?

Waking Up

This morning, without an alarm, I woke up a little after 6 AM.  The first thing I felt was my dog, Speedy Shine, cuddling next to my leg.  I smiled.  I took my first conscious breath.  I took a moment to appreciate the beauty of that experience.  We shared loves and cuddles until he woke up, did his morning shake, and then gave me kisses.  I felt good before I was even out of bed.  We laid there a little longer.  He needed a few more minutes of cuddling before we both went to take care of our morning business.  While I did mine, he came in and put his paws on my lap to remind me he loves me.  After he did his, he came over to my backyard chair to tell me he was a Good Boy.  We went in for Treatsers, but he didn’t really care about them.  He just wanted to show me how good he was. 

I went back out for a morning cigarette and to see what happened in the world while I was asleep.  People had responded to my pictures of Speedy Shine and the new covers that wouldn’t spread feathers all over my room.  They had nice things to say.  Speedy Shine laid on the blankets by the back door so he could watch me.  It was too cold for him out there, but he wanted to be sure I was still around.  I wish I could find the words to explain how good that makes me feel.

I texted my best friend to tell her I hope she slept well, that I hope things are going well with her boyfriend, that I hope work goes well, and that I continue to love her most.  That always sets her up with a nice start to a day that is going to be much more difficult than mine.  I know.  I did what she’s doing today every day for 29 years.  Teachers can use all the emotional resources they can get.  I make sure that I tell her I love her whenever we’re done talking or texting for a bit.  I recognize I could easily be dead before we communicate next.  I want to be sure the last thing she hears from me is that I love her.  I do the same thing with my Mother.  I do the same thing with Speedy Shine.  I do it sometimes with you.

I played a game of Clue on my phone.  We used to play that when I was a kid, and my brother and sister frequently beat me at it.  I hadn’t figured out the logical way to proceed yet.  For those of you who have never played the game (infants!), it’s a murder mystery.  Someone has been killed.  There are 6 suspects, 6 possible murder weapons, and 9 rooms where the murder might have taken place.  We all have six cards that are some combination of suspects, weapons, and/or rooms.  Three are in in the envelope in the middle of the board.  These are the solution.  The objective is to figure out the murderer, the weapon, and the room.  You do that by travelling from room to room and “suggesting” who might have done it, the weapon that was used, and the room in which the crime was committed.  It’s really a children’s version of The Scientific Method.  What do I mean?

It helps if you have at least one suspect, one weapon, and one room in your hand.  When you arrive at a room you don’t have, you suggest a suspect and a weapon in your hand.  (The rules require you to use the room you’re in as the scene of the crime.)  You know those two elements.  You’re testing for the third.  If no one has it, you have found the room where the crime occurred.  If they do, you can eliminate it from the 9 possibilities.  If you arrive at a room you have in your hand, you choose either a suspect or a weapon you don’t have to test whether others do.  They are required to show you a card if they have it.  If they have two or three of the cards, they need to show you only one. 

The Scientific Method teaches us to control all the variables except the one for which we are testing.  We know this method works.  Evidence for that can be found in the fact you’re listening to this podcast.  The computer on which I’m typing, the one on which I’ll record later, and the computer, or phone or whatever other device you’re using to play this are all direct results of the application of The Scientific Method. 

When I first started playing this game on my phone back during my California Adventure, I always chose the option to play against the AI.  I was afraid of seeming stupid in front of other humans I would never actually see or hear.  The game doesn’t even have a chat feature.  It’s not like they can TELL me how stupid I am.  I play as Front Porch Fred.  They won’t even know my name.  But they might think I’m stupid.  Yes, these were things about which I worried.  After I had won 100 games against the AI, I felt confident enough to try it in front of other humans.  And I was shocked by the results.

I’ve explained how to play the game correctly.  It’s not difficult.  Few of my opponents ever play it according to The Scientific Method.  They suggest three elements they don’t have in their hand.  Sometimes I will have two of them, and the third player shows them a card.  Now I know what the third player showed.  There’s only one possibility.  That’s free information.  It’s like playing Texas Hold Em and intentionally exposing one of your hole cards.  My assumption is that people hope to get lucky.  “I’m going to take a wild guess and see if I get it right.”  It’s frustrating for me when they do this on the first turn, and, before I’ve even gotten the chance to roll the dice, they’ve solved the crime.  That happens a little more than 1% of the time.  Statistically, it should occur much less often.  I assume someone has taken the time to hack the game.  I can’t imagine why they would do that.  Everyone, however, should get to spend their time as they see fit, so long as they’re not hurting anyone else.  The damage they do to me is negligible.  I’m annoyed for, perhaps, 15 seconds.  I think I’ll survive. 

It takes me between 10 and 15 minutes to play a game of Clue.  I win 89% of the time.  Now and then, I encounter another player who also knows how to play correctly, and then it’s a true race to see who can find the right room first.  We tend to find the killer and the weapon almost simultaneously.

When I want a shorter game, I play Othello.  This is another game we played as kids.  You flip tokens from black to white and back.  You’re either black or white; your opponent is the opposite color.  Whoever has the most tokens at the end of the game wins.  It’s another great little logic puzzle that allows me to think without taxing my brain sufficiently to make me frustrated.  I won’t play that online at all.  Even at the Very Easy level, I still sometimes lose to the AI.  A smart player can crush me, and I don’t enjoy that as much as one would think.  Again, I feel embarrassed.  I’m less interested in competition than I am in spending a few leisurely moments thinking a little. 

Othello

Shorter still is Solitaire.  If the game takes more than 3 minutes to win, I think of it as a failure.  I’m sure you’ve played that before.  It’s a card game we all learn as children.  I used to cheat as a child, and the phone won’t let me do that.  Sometimes the deck is unwinnable.  I can always play another one. 

I read when I want now.  Normally, it’s during the daylight hours because I like to read outside with a cigarette.  I used to read in bed, but now I like to listen to my show when I’m going to sleep.  First, I can use the numbers.  Second, I prefer talking to myself about whatever is on the show to letting my brain run wild all night to remind me of every mistake I’ve ever made and let me know what a horrible person I am.  My podcast voice generally drowns out the voice of my Prosecutor.  (You’ll find him in Episode 97: “The Prosecution Never Rests.”)  Finally, my voice saying, “Fred’s Front Porch Podcast is made possible by…” has become a signal for Speedy Shine.  Before I even turn the bedside light out, he’s diving under the covers to secure the best cuddle spot before I go to sleep.  How lovely is that?

After my morning routines, I like to come and sit at my computer and write.  I play my Spotify playlist (no, I don’t feel like arguing about Neil Young and Joe Rogan right now; I’m in a good mood.).  I look over my shoulder from time to time to make sure Speedy Shine isn’t destroying anything that might hurt him.  Other than that, I am essentially talking to myself through my fingers on the keyboard.  I’m rethinking my ideas.  I’m clarifying them.  I’m understanding my life a little better.  It’s a wonderful experience. 

When I start to get hungry, I go make a microwave breakfast.  I’m ecstatic that I finally got enough in Food Stamps that I can afford to eat now.  I don’t ever worry about going hungry anymore.  This is a fantastic luxury.  I love that feeling. 

Breakfast is always in bed.  As far as that goes, so is lunch and dinner.  I don’t have, nor do I really want, a kitchen table.  I have my TV in my bedroom, and I like to watch some Dick Wolf show while I eat.  I enjoy most of the Law & Order shows, the One Chicago shows, and I just started FBI.  They aren’t more challenging than I can handle.  They are new to me.  The characters become my friends over time.  No, it’s not Aaron Sorkin, but I can recite nearly every word of every episode of television he’s ever written.  A person needs something else.  Some of the new Star Trek shows are pretty good.  I love Picard.  Prodigy is surprisingly good.  Obviously, I’ve already seen all of The Original Series and The Next Generation more times than I can count.  So… Dick Wolf is part of the meal ritual. 

Speedy Shine has learned “lay down.”  When I finish more than 90% of my meal, he knows he will get a little if he is a good boy.  He is always a good boy.  I share the last of the meal with him, and, in a little while, we’re either going to pull up the covers and start up the podcast, or we’re going to get up and go read outside.  I love a nice morning nap. 

I get to choose now what to do with every minute of my life.  I have a few alarms on my phone.  I had to change the Mom call from 7:37 PM to 6:25 because she’s getting tired earlier.  She’s 91.  No one gets to complain about what time she goes to bed.  I have an alarm set for 1:45 every Wednesday so I get to Weekly Wacky Wednesday by 2, my time.  I have an alarm for 4 PM to remind me to take my Lantus.  When I have a doctor’s appointment, I have an alarm for that.  Everything else, though… those minutes are up to me.  I get at least 1 nap a day.  Sometimes, if I’m caught up on the show, I manage 2. 

I have the time I need to write my show at a leisurely pace.  I try to have the script finished by Friday so I can record, score, and Horace on Saturday.  I bounce the episode, find about 60 seconds to use for “Next Week On Fred’s Front Porch Podcast,” and then I’m ready to go.  Sunday, I assemble all the pieces for this week’s episode, knowing I already have next week’s episode done, and I can relax. 

I spend far too much time worrying about whether anyone likes my show.  I obsess about numbers, but I keep trying to stop that.  I’m checking my numbers less frequently.  At first, it was just ego.  Now that I’m deriving a little income from this, I find I really don’t want to lose the life I’ve worked so long to get.  You are the reason I can live my way.  I want us all to work together so everyone can choose how to spend their minutes without worrying about whether they will be able to pay rent and eat.  Everyone deserves what it took me nearly 60 years to get.  Is it possible?  Why, yes.  Yes, it is.  I know that because I’m doing it.  I want you to have a life at least as good as mine.  You deserve it every bit as much as I do.  And I couldn’t be more grateful for the life you’ve given me.  I love you very very much. 

“What? Did you think this was YOUR chair or something?”
— Sir Speedy Shine
Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

COVID- 19: A Personal Perspective

Coronavirus Disease 2019 Graphic. (U.S. Air Force Graphic by Rosario “Charo” Gutierrez)

The world is a dark and scary place for many of us right now. A virus is spreading exponentially among us. We are seeing news of deaths daily. The number is always rising. We are afraid of dying from this. We are afraid of infecting someone else. We are afraid of infecting our loved ones. We are afraid to sacrifice our hard-won civil rights. We are unable to trust our leadership. We are a deeply divided country. And there is no doubt; we are in trouble. All of us.

I have cause for despair. My income is gone until, at least, June 15, assuming I can work in May. I will certainly be facing difficult times. I have cause to fear.

What I don’t have, as it turns out, is time to fear. For all the ugliness and horror in the air around me, I see more love than I have in a long time. I see people helping each other. Artists are giving away their services because, honestly, they are, for me, essential. People are continuing to go to work and stock the shelves, check out your groceries, and let you be pissed at them because they’re out of toilet paper, which is certainly the fault of the woman who is literally risking her life and the lives of her loved ones to make sure you can get whatever it is they still have for sale. I see neighbors reaching out to help one another. I see people loving each other and coming together by staying apart.

There is much to debate about what we should have done, and when we should have done it, and from where the virus came, and whose fault, if anyone’s, this is. We can argue over over reacting. We can debate whether the economy is worth the lives of the 1 or 2, or, depending on whose estimates you’re hearing, 5% of the population that dies so that others can live and the money keeps moving. They were going to die anyway. They might as well do it now and reduce the surplus population. We have to save The Economy.

I take issue with that. I’m happy to have a minority point of view. Others who have a different one can teach me. I’m always willing to learn. With that disclaimer, I’m diving in, but very briefly. Why is this form of The Economy so valuable? Is it really the only kind we can have?

I want to start with what I believe is the function of any economy. It turns out humans do best when we work together. This began with forming tribes to help with hunting. It continues from there. We build villages. This is my village. It’s not yours. My town. My county. My state. My country.

The function of the economy is to allow us to trade our talents and work together to create the best world we can. We have chosen to use an item we have simply all agreed has value. A bottle of water has more actual value than a hundred dollar bill, absent this social agreement for which most of us never signed up, and to which we certainly didn’t give our consent freely. Without the fact that everyone is willing to trade many bottles of water for this printed object, it’s just a printed object. I can’t eat it. I can’t drink it. I can’t make my crops grow better with it. I could, in an emergency, use it to replace the toilet paper that is actually worth more than the hundred dollars. TP provides a necessary function. We all have to wipe our asses. Yes, even in social isolation.

The Economy, as it stands now, is fulfilling its purpose exceptionally well for some Americans, and, in fact, for some citizens of the world, but it is failing entirely for others. The number it fails is much higher than the number it serves. Listen to any Bernie Sanders clip of more than 3 minutes. He’ll certainly give you the numbers. And they will probably be accurate.

Why do we work? Some of us do it because we are fulfilling a lifelong dream. We are pursuing careers that test our skills, cause us to grow, and make us feel valued, respected, and properly compensated. We have enough to live, and we are making a difference by doing what we do. I believe those in this category would go on doing precisely what we’re doing without these printed items. We would continue because it makes us happy. So long as we can live a decent life doing what we do, we will go on doing it.

Some of us work because if we don’t, we have nowhere to live. We’re not fulfilling a lifelong dream. We’re selling DirecTV to unsuspecting old women on the phone. We’re dealing with drug addicts who park in front of the Circle K we’re working alone at 2 in the morning, and we’re wondering if they will wake up and take the needles out of their arms before the police arrive. A video camera records us when we go out for a cigarette. If this group could live a decent life without doing this, many of us would quit doing it. We would spend their lives creating podcasts, or writing, or singing, or painting, or playing video games (my former partner make money doing this, so you can’t say it’s not a profession anymore!), or researching something, or… whatever it is that we would really like to do if you would leave us alone and let us do it. And… there would be some people who would continue doing those jobs because we enjoy them. The work is necessary… well… I wouldn’t cry if DirecTV never sold another cable package, but, I suppose there are those who need it and value it, so… we’ll let it go. We certainly need someone to work in Circle K and at the grocery store and Amazon and all sorts of other places that pay very little for what we have now learned is “essential” work.

Some of us work because we are only as valuable as the money we make, and money should be gained only by hard work. Hard work, for us, is a value in and of itself. It’s a sign of being a good person. We’re contributing to society. We’re taking care of ourselves. We’re not asking anyone else for help. We earn our place in this economy. We’re proud of what we’ve earned. We have a right to be.

But, what would it be like without these printed objects? We would still have exactly the same resources we do now. We could go on living in our perfect economy in precisely the same way.

No… We can’t. No one will work anymore.

There’s an interesting point. You mean, in our perfect economy we work only because we’re afraid of not doing it? Just as there were some slaves who were treated better than others, based on their perceived performance and value to the slaver, there are some of us who are treated as more valuable than others. And you remember how slavery was… you know… wrong? Yeah, well, it still is.

When you make us work only by threatening us with doom if we don’t, we are slaves. We have no physical chains. We are not whipped, at least not legally. We don’t face the physical horrors that slaves did. But, we are functioning under threat just as surely as if we had masters. If you are not a holder of many of these printed items, you are not allowed a place to sleep, food to eat, medical care, or a cellphone. Not even a flip phone. Sometimes you can be afforded a night or two in a homeless shelter, if you are willing to follow their orders, or a jail cell if you’re not. I don’t think anyone would argue that a jail cell represents freedom. This is a form of slavery. It is only slightly less brutal. And it is determined by printed objects whose only value is our agreement to their value.

I’m not going to design a whole new world for you. But, I would like you to think a little while about how the world would exist if we decided that money no longer had value. Would we be able to exist? Would we be able to function?

I think we would, but this is the time to examine what value we place on our economy. I hope we’ll use this time to consider changing our world.

For the first time, we are realizing that poverty is bad. More and more people are tumbling into it, and now that there are enough of us, Congress has decided to act. Are we doing it correctly? Ask me a year from now. I don’t know yet.

This time is economically frightening, but it’s personally gratifying.

I’m seeing kindness pouring out around me. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll notice our logo has changed. I got a painting from an artist friend of mine, Michelle Sylvester, who is as isolated as the rest of us. She’s a teacher. She has time on her hands now, and this was her way of helping. It was good for her. It’s good for me.

I have a couple of friends working on recording a song I desperately need for what I hoped would be tonight’s episode. My friends are doing it to help out.

Another friend, whose father is a bit of a philanthropist, brought over some groceries and left them outside my door. I had some cases of regular Pepsi Amazon had mistakenly sent us a couple of months ago, and I set those outside the door so she could donate them to someone who could use them. (I’m diabetic, one of my roommates has a heart condition that prohibits caffeine, and the other one just won’t drink Pepsi, so… we’re thrilled someone else can get some use out of it.) She included some cash with the burritos, and it will do so much for helping us through just a little while longer.

Another friend sent us some dinners from Home Fresh. We can’t afford those even when we have our regular incomes.

I have a friend who checks on me every day. (We’re supposed to check up on old people you know.)

I see people saying kind things on Facebook. I see people understanding we’re all in this together.

I hope when this is over we’re all still here. I hope all of our loved ones will still be with us. And I hope we learn enough to keep this from happening anymore.

If nothing else, perhaps we will finally, finally learn there is no Them. We are all Us.