Posted on by Fred

The Path


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

A few days ago, the first principal for whom I ever taught found me on Facebook, and we began corresponding a bit. When I met her, I was hardly a teacher. I was filled with Idealism, but I had none of the skills that experience brings. She nurtured the Idealism, and she helped me to get the skills that finally made me a truly great teacher.

This week she asked me this:

“Can I ask what [possessed] you to choose the path you chose?”

And, suddenly, I had to stop. I have never, in all my years, really thought about this. I’m a big fan of Socrates, who told me both, “Know thyself,” and “…the unexamined life is not worth living.” And I have tried to keep both of those ideas in mind, and to follow them to the best of my ability. But, one of the biggest parts of my life has been left unexamined for decades. I don’t know that the examination is going to yield the results I want, but this is my effort to answer her question.

I suppose “if you really want to hear about it…” I would have to go back to April 6, 1967, when I was not yet 5 years old. That was when Captain Kirk told Edith Keeler that the three words “Let me help” were more important even than I love you: “A hundred years or so from now, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words, even over I love you.”

No, I wasn’t a philosophical genius at age 4. I’m not Salinger’s Teddy. But, I knew there was something important there.

My parents were teachers. My parents helped. I believed in helping before I arrived at my first day of Kindergarten.

When I was little, I wanted to be Captain Kirk, Batman, and, from time to time, Mighty Mouse. There seems to be a theme within those folks.

When I was, perhaps, 7 years old, Dad gave me a Show ‘N Tell record player / slide show projector. The first show I ever watched on it was Hamlet. And I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

If we put all those elements together, perhaps we can see what motivated me to teach. I wanted to help. I wanted to be heroic. When I was old enough to begin to understand the idea of What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up, I saw To Kill A Mockingbird. I also read the book. And, of course, I wanted to be Atticus Finch. It seemed for quite a few years that I would become a lawyer. Starship Captain and super hero were not professions that were widely available to adults in the 1960s.

My sister was a babysitter, rather frequently, when I was a child. She could make a little extra money in her entrepreneurial endeavors if she brought me with her. I was good at playing with little kids. Even then, I told them stories that I made up off the top of my head, just as my Dad did with me when I was little. He would ask the three of us what characters needed to be in a story. My brother insisted on Popeye, who I liked, too, and later he moved up to Winston Churchill, which made for some truly bizarre stories, since I, obviously had to have Captain Kirk or Batman, and my sister seemed to have an affinity for either Cinderella or Snow White. I challenge any writer to invent anything resembling a coherent story with that cast of characters. But… my Dad could do it. I miss him so much.

When I got older, and I wanted to be The Six Million Dollar Man, I would write plays my friends and I would perform in my garage. We did a great Frankenstein piece once because my friend, Tom, had figured out how to do Monster makeup.

I created my own cardboard version of the Bridge of the Enterprise in that same garage. I had a flashlight connected to a hanger that came through the toy pool table to which I had lost all of the equipment years earlier. I could aim the flashlight at different ships I made out of cardboard and stuck on the screen I made out of masking tape. There was a button on the pool table I could press to turn the flashlight on. I could fire phasers at my targets. It was incredibly cool.

Perhaps I should have been an engineer? Lawyer? As it turned out, Engineering required both more mathematical ability and physical dexterity than I would ever possess. Neither my father nor I were ever much good at physical tasks. My mother suspects that, had Special Education been as regulated, understood, and funded as it is today, I would have been diagnosed with something, but she never said what. My roommates suspect Asperger’s. They may be right. I honestly don’t know.

What did it turn out, from all this, that I could do well? The lawyer in me knew how to talk to people. I made pretty good arguments. The Starship Captain wanted a crew. The Writer wanted to see his plays performed. The hero in me wanted to help. It turned out, I found, one needed little green pieces of paper in order to survive on this planet in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Teaching would fulfill most of my desires, and it would earn me a few of those dollars that seem for many to be the mark of my value.

I became a teacher. Simple.

Except, that’s not REALLY what my principal was asking, I don’t think. I think she was asking why I quit teaching, and why I chose poverty and writing.

That was also about my Ideals.

When I began teaching, I was hired because of my Ideals. My principal wanted a teacher who wanted to go beyond the Basal Reader. She wanted creativity, ideas, and engagement. She wanted what might today be called Progressive Education. I was encouraged to stretch myself and the minds of my students. Everything was ripe for me to grow. And I did.

I became a very good teacher. I have known few who were better than I was. I’ve known quite a few who were as good, and more than I would like to admit who were not. I developed a highly functional Token Economy that, by the end of my career, included bank accounts run by students on computers. I had 4th Graders doing Hamlet.

I was living the life I wanted. I was proud of who I was, what I was doing, and what I was producing. I was as happy as I could be. I made a difference.

I wrote my own musicals for students, and I learned to record their vocals so they could sing with themselves over the vocals on the original tracks. The plays were as professional as any Elementary School was likely ever to do. The kids felt the kind of pride that can be gained only by getting a standing ovation. I don’t care whether it’s in the library in your school or at Carnegie Hall. There is a glow that comes with it that can’t be found by getting an A+ on your report card.

One of my students had been terrified of getting on the stage, but he memorized ALL of Hamlet’s Soliloquy when he was in 6th Grade. And when he did it on stage, he nailed it. And the audience of parents and students responded. Today, he makes a living producing and acting in his own plays. Was that me? I don’t know. I know I’m proud of him, though.

The kindest thing anyone ever said to me was said by one of my students when I was in my sixth or seventh year. She had difficulty reading, but when she graduated from high school, she was selected to give one of the speeches because of her many great accomplishments. And she insisted that my principal and I come to the ceremony. We went.

In her speech, she said, “I had two teachers who really believed in me.” She named her Special Ed teacher, and me. “Mr. Eder said if I wanted to play Ophelia, I absolutely could do it. And because of him I can quote Shakespeare today. Really,” she said. “Ask me anything.” And then she sought my eyes in the crowd, and she said, “To be or not to be, Mr. Eder? I choose to be.” And I wept visibly. Thirty years later, my eyes still tear up at the memory.

And that began to change. It changed when I changed principals. When my first principal retired, she was replaced by a new one, who once did an evaluation of a brilliant lesson I had taught in Hamlet, in which I hit every possible goal on any evaluation, by saying, “Let’s talk about what you didn’t do.” I hadn’t used the correct materials, you see. Hamlet wasn’t approved by the District for Elementary School. I should have been using the basal reader. And, thus began the decline of my career.

I fought, of course, valiantly. Capt. Kirk, and later Hemingway’s Santiago, taught me that. And for many years, I was able to continue to teach in ways that made me proud. I was forever fighting principals and district committees and anyone else who was obsessed with test scores, but, I won most of those battles. My students were excited. Their parents loved what we were doing. I still felt proud.

And a few years after my first principal retired, I attended yet another end of the year waste of time with the entire district. They had asked me to create a video… an actual video, on video tape… no cell phones existed yet… combining pictures and music that celebrated the district. I did it for free, and I made it precisely the way they wanted it. And they showed it before the program started. Instead of having the entire district watch the Art I tried to create (on which I had worked for many hours, and of which I was more than a little proud), they used it as Elevator Music. My ego bruised, my wife and I left. There were more than 1,300 people there. No one would notice.

Except, they did notice. When they handed out the award for Hesperia Unified School District Teacher of The Year, I wasn’t there to accept it. And they had brought my first principal out of retirement to present it. Oops.

My career reached its summit while I was teaching in Maine with a group of the most creative people I’ve ever known. We were using professional theaters for my musicals now. We were creating units that had students traveling back in time, interviewing people from the Renaissance, mapping their trip from one side of Europe to the other, creating a log to chronicle their adventures, creating physical models of their imaginary modes of transportation, and solving the puzzle to return a stolen item to its original user, thus saving History as we know it. They were reflecting on their own learning with daily reports of themselves and the other members of their group.

Students were producing their own magazines by buying and selling articles and pictures from and to each other. Their writing was improved not because I insisted it be better, but because it needed to be in order to sell it. They challenged themselves and each other. My job was just to let them know when they had made their articles’ language mechanics perfect. I would stamp the article, and its value would triple on the market.

I could go on and on, but I feel like I’ve already done that. The point is, I was teaching well, I was excited, I was making a difference, and I was honoring the three most important words: “Let me help.”

By the time I quit, they had removed all of it. I was strictly bound to district materials. One of my principals actually shut down my Drama Club. It wasn’t just that he cut funding. I could have raised the money myself. He decided it wouldn’t be allowed at all anymore. Honestly, it was making me too popular with students and parents, and he and I had been at war for a couple of years. He had to remove as much of my power as he could, and he managed it. I changed schools, and it wasn’t long before there was no more fun to be had in my class.

We had to “track data.” We had to have our PDSA wall up to date. We had to have “artifacts” on our “My Learning Plan” website to prove we were good teachers. We had to teach by a set of arbitrary rules, and the scores students made on tests were of paramount importance. Everything that meant teaching to me had evaporated. I couldn’t do it anymore. My students were beginning to learn the only reason anyone reads is so they can pass a mind numbingly dull test on a computer that proves almost nothing, assuming, of course, we can get the computer up and running so the students can take the test.

My once glowing evaluations had become recitations of complaints that I wasn’t a “team player,” and I wasn’t doing all the things that they now believed were vital to teaching.

By this time, after having been divorced twice, borrowing money every month to make the bills, getting roommates who were convicted felons in an effort to avoid eviction, and surviving the Death of my Father and watching the loss of my Mother’s mind, my depression was at a place that my psychiatrist pulled me out of work because he was afraid I was going to hurt myself. At the end of the 2016 school year, I resigned, pulled my retirement, and lived well for several months before I plunged permanently into poverty.

My diabetes kicked into high gear. I was hospitalized a dozen times in the course of 2 years, at least twice when I should have been dead save for the intervention of other people.

I couldn’t teach another day of Elementary School even if I wanted to. I could still teach Defensive Driving, so I got myself re-certified (I lost my certification for a while when I got a photo radar citation), and started making what I could. Prior to that I worked at trying to sell DirecTV to unsuspecting old ladies over the phone. I loathed that. It was the opposite of everything in which I believed. Worse, I was good at it.

I have a couple of roommates now who help take care of me. I make almost, but not quite, enough to survive. I’m on Food Stamps and state Health Insurance. But, I spend more time writing, which, let’s face it, is what I think I really wanted to do in the first place, and I limit my social life to Facebook. I have no retirement. I have no means of ever quitting work again. I hope, one day, I might be able to get disability, and maybe it will be enough to keep me alive.

For all the poverty and poor health, I think I’m actually happier now. I like myself again. I’m still not Batman, and I have retired from the Bridge of the Enterprise. Now, I’m a man who is cuddled by cats, but my body is shot. That’s fine, though, because other than containing my consciousness, there’s really almost nothing else I want to do with it. I’m a guy who sits in the backyard smoking while I rewrite my work with blue inked Uniball pen in my left hand. I’m someone who shares too much of his personal life with strangers… for Some People. I’m too private for the liking of Other People. For Some I need to be more concise. For Others I need to go into greater detail. But, this is who I’ve become now. In short, I think I’m Fred now. I like this guy.

Posted on by Fred

Gratitude


Shall I play for you?
Pa-rum pum pum pum
Pa-rum pum pum pum
Mary nodded
Pa-rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time
Pa-rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him
Pa-rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him
Pa-rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum
Then He smiled at me
Pa-rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum”

 Katherine Kennicott Davis 

There are those who have extra. They have all of their needs met, and they still have some left over. They never worry about paying rent this month, or whether the electricity is going to be shut off, or the car repossessed. They have plenty of food, and they can always get another pack of cigarettes. I have never, in my life, been among them, with the exception of almost a year after I retired, and I pulled the little money I had. I lived on it, and I had more than I needed, for a little while. And it was glorious.

It has been suggested that my choice was irresponsible. That may well be true, but I would never make a different one. The money I had would never have been enough to sustain me throughout the rest of my life. And, if I hadn’t done what I did, I would never have had the experience of living the life I wanted. I will never have it again, and I know that, but I’m grateful that I got to have it once. No matter what happens for the rest of my life, I lived a life I wanted for a little while. I saw people and places I couldn’t have seen otherwise. I wrote a damn good screenplay that still needs work. I made some fantastic videos. I slept until I wanted to get up. I worked until all hours of the night when I wanted to. I was never out of cigarettes or soda, and I ate properly. It was a Wonderful Life. George Bailey would have approved.

I have no money to offer anyone, anymore. I did for a little while, and I helped out anyone who needed it. I allowed a couple of convicted felons to live with me rent free for several months until I couldn’t afford it anymore, and we were close to eviction. They needed help, and I could offer it. I regret that, I suppose, in some ways, but, for the most part, I’m glad I did what I did. It was the right thing to do. And, for a little while, I had their Gratitude. And, that is what made the difference.

When I felt that I was making a difference in the lives of people who needed my help, I got something from it. I got to feel that I mattered. I got to believe that someone was better off because of me. Is that arrogant? Perhaps. I still enjoyed the feeling. It’s the feeling I sought when I became a teacher. It’s the feeling I have always most enjoyed. When they began to take it for granted, and they refused even to try to find work, I admit I grew resentful.

I like to recommend focusing on one’s reasons for Gratitude as often as possible. Not only do other people get something from it, but more importantly, you can keep yourself from feeling entirely defeated. You must be of some value to someone, or they would never do all the things they have done for you. That’s worth remembering when fighting off your Depression.

I’m at a place in life where there is little I can give to anyone, anymore. I’m too old to teach Elementary School, and my diabetes has made those kinds of days impossible for me. As I loathe what has happened to public education, I don’t think I would want to do it anyway, but I have noting but respect for those who carry on the profession. The world needs you. And, I’m grateful to you.

I think Gratitude may be the last, best thing I have to offer. And, of course, I recognize (daily) that I have much more for which to be grateful than many people. I have a home. I have enough to eat. I have a car. I have a cell phone. I have this computer. More than those things, though, I have people who I love and who love me. And, of all the things I value in my life, it is the people I value most.

There have been several occasions in the past several years when I should have been without a home. My nephew was the first to save me from it by getting me an extended stay hotel room until I could get the money together to rent the tiny studio apartment I was trying to get. Without him, I would undoubtedly have been living in my car.

Before I could get out of the 2 week rental of the hotel room, I wound up in the hospital with Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I should have been not simply homeless, on that day; I should have been dead. But, a friend called to check on me, couldn’t get me to answer, and became concerned. She communicated with my nephew, and somehow the decision was reached to have the Mesa Police break into my room if necessary to do a Welfare Check. When they arrived, I was mostly dead. They took me to the hospital, and I woke up a couple of days later.

By the time I got out of the hospital, the room rental had run out, and again, it was people who saved me. One of my colleagues at Alorica, who had called me every day of my hospitalization, offered to let my dog and me live with her and her wife until I could work out my new place. And, it wasn’t long before the three of us, plus their three cats and my dog, were all sharing their place. I wasn’t going to be homeless.

I managed to contribute enough to the household that we managed to avoid homelessness for the last couple of years, although, again, only because people stepped in to save us. My friends and relatives have saved my car, kept me from eviction, saved my life, and made sure I knew I still matter. So have the friends and relatives of my roommates.

I feel now like The Little Drummer Boy. (Although, I have to swap my Writing for my Drumming. I’m not even good enough to be considered a mediocre drummer anymore.) He went to see the newborn king, but he had nothing to bring. Everyone else was bringing cool stuff: Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. He was, like Jesus, a poor boy. All he had was his ability. He couldn’t feed the baby. He couldn’t offer him a place to sleep. He had none of those things, himself. But, what he had to give was his talent. And, when the kid played his drum, the baby Jesus smiled at him. I like to believe that when you read my words, you smile.

I think, if I were The Little Drummer Boy, that smile would have been more than enough to repay me for my performance. Why? The kid knew he made a difference. He made a child smile. He felt Gratitude from the baby.

I can never pay back the people who have helped me, unless, of course, Steven Spielberg decides he can’t wait to get his hands on my screenplay, or I win the lottery, which I can’t afford to play, thereby reducing the already incredibly small odds greatly.

What I can hope to give to others, though, is the feeling I have most valued in my life. I do my best to give my friends and family, and all the people who have helped me, the feeling that they made a significant difference. And, for many people, this seems as valuable as the smile was to The Little Drummer Boy. I do this by explaining precisely how they helped me. I want them never to doubt my Genuine Gratitude. I hope to return the Glowing Feeling they have given me. Sometimes it comes from someone sending me something, and sometimes it comes from something as small as Clicking Like on a post or a blog entry. I glow with Joy. I hope you do, too, when I express my thanks.

They continue to help me all the time. Last week my bed was destroyed by the incontinence brought on by my blood sugar dropping below detectable levels. I mentioned the incident on Facebook, and by the end of the week, people were sweeping in to change my life. I didn’t wind up only with a new mattress that I couldn’t have gotten for a couple more weeks, and then, only at a Thrift Store. I wound up with the most beautiful bedroom set I’ve ever owned. There are new sheets and comforters coming from someone else. There are pillows on the way. People have thrown in some cash to help me. And I asked for precisely NONE of those things. (Well, I did send a close friend a message asking if she could help me out to get the bed… and she came through in an over the top way. And she and her husband kept me afloat just a little while longer. It meant Everything to me. I hope I made her feel that.)

I did my very best to let all of these people know that what they did changed and improved my life significantly. When I got out of the hospital a couple of years ago, all I had was an air mattress on which to sleep. And I was grateful for that. It was all my Little Drummer Boys had to offer, and it kept me alive and going. Today, I have a king bed, a massive mirror, special lights above the bed, and matching bedside tables and a dresser. This was completely out of my ability to obtain, ever again. I feel as though I’m living in The Lap of Luxury.

I know I will never be able to return to people the money they’ve given me from time to time. In the past 3 years, my record for earning in a single month has been $1600, and by the end of that month I was in the hospital with DKA. I usually make just shy of $1000, though I’m hoping for more from the raise I recently got. It won’t be much, but it will make a difference. I’m hoping to train for a new job that would pay me even more, but that’s up to my employer. I’ll do my best.

But, if I can give them the feeling that they made my life better, and let them feel that in a way that is completely free of ulterior motives, so that they can see and experience the difference for themselves, I think I will have given them some little bit of Joy. I know how good I feel when I know that I made someone’s life better. My favorite part of my Facebook page is when a former student pops up to tell me about the way I inspired, excited, influenced, or helped them in some way. Their Gratitude is worth more to me than my paychecks were. I get to feel like I matter. I love that feeling.

This morning, I took $11.00 to Wal Mart to get enough Diet Pepsi to make sure I wouldn’t run out before my roommate gets paid on Thursday. I’m addicted to caffeine, and to be without is not a pleasant experience. The headaches alone are beyond description. I spent $10.44 on the soda, and I had 56 cents left in my pocket.

On my way back to the car, a man who was, based on his attire, in much worse condition than I am at the moment, asked me if I had any change. I recognized his state, and I recognized that I could very easily end up being him in the not too distant future. I have, fortunately, never yet been required to stand in a parking lot asking strangers for money. There’s nothing to say I never will be. And, I can only imagine how horrible that must feel. He was trying to get a bus pass or something, and said he was short. I gave him the 56 cents. And, he was genuinely grateful. The feeling inside of me was worth way more than the quarters, nickel, and penny he got from me. He told me that was great, and he was really close now. I don’t believe for a moment I changed his life. But, Life is made up of Moments. And each of us gave the other a Pleasant Moment by exchanging what we had. I had a little bit of money. He had a little bit of Gratitude. I’m sure there are capitalists among my readers who think what I did was wrong. If I’m so damn broke, what am I doing giving money to strangers? I’m Making a Difference.

Today, for those of you who have helped me, I want to you to know that you matter. I’m doing as well as I am today, in large part, because of you. Without your help, whether it was financial, or emotional, or in the form of something you gave me, or something you did for me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. No, I’m not at The Top of The World, but I AM on the Green Side of the Earth, and that’s a good beginning. I can keep working on pulling myself up a little bit at a time because of the people who love me.

Generosity of Spirit is as valuable as Genuine Gratitude. I offer mine.

If you would like to help out a bit, I will be able to offer you my Gratitude, too, even if all you do is click Like. It will make me glow. If you have a couple extra dollars you would like to contribute to paper and ink, I’d be glad to have that, too, but please don’t feel remotely obligated.

http://paypal.me/HilaryBatty

Posted on by Fred

The Blindness of Ideology

It is nearly impossible to reach objective and successful conclusions if one can’t see beyond one’s own Ideology. I’m defining Ideology as a set of beliefs about the world that shape how you interact with it. Few people share identical Ideologies, at least if they’re taking the time to think everything through. Those with identical Ideologies are usually following a prescribed set of thoughts blindly. It’s possible to be Conservative in many ways while still despising President Trump. It’s possible to be a confirmed Liberal and loathe President Obama. And, it’s possible to have a set of beliefs anywhere in between.

Well, why shouldn’t Ideology shape my opinions about important issues?

I suppose it should, in some ways. At the Core of My Ideology is the belief that people should be helped according to their needs, and that every life counts. To the extent some policy is impeding that goal, I am likely to oppose it. On the other hand, if I reject facts that don’t fit the way I see the world, I am blinding myself to real problems and possible solutions to them. I can wind up working against my own beliefs.

This has happened to me several times. I was once a supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). It sounds to me like a good idea. My liberal Ideology embraces ethics. And I love animals. They oppose testing perfume and things on animals. They don’t like fur. Those are all positions with which I can agree. I thought no more about it.

Then a friend of mine showed me compelling evidence that PETA kills pets. My first thought was that this must be the same sort of Conspiracy Theory as the famous Pizzagate Scandal that nearly cost an innocent man his business. Or, it was like the faked videos of Planned Parenthood selling body parts. This was to be ignored.

But when I investigated what she showed me, I recognized the information was factual, well documented, and included statistical analysis. It included the founder saying that the idea of pets was bad in the first place. “We at PETA very much love the animal companions who share our homes, but we believe that it would have been in the animals’ best interests if the institution of “pet keeping”—i.e., breeding animals to be kept and regarded as “pets”—never existed.” For more, you can follow this link. https://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/pets/

Now, my point isn’t to try to convince you PETA is bad. I think they are, but that’s a part of my Ideology, and I recognize that there can be another point of view. That isn’t the point.

The point is that to recognize I had been wrong, I had to pull off my Ideological Blinders. I still see the world as I see it, but I didn’t have enough facts to see all I needed to see in order to decide how I felt. And, even now, I have to accept the idea that I still may be wrong. There may be other facts that I don’t know that will change my mind again. If I’m unable to adjust my views to fit the facts, I have an unsupportable view. More importantly, I can’t develop an informed opinion.

There is a danger in undue credulity. If you’re going to believe everything someone tells you, even in the face of evidence that he’s lied repeatedly, you’re not going to be able to see things in any other way. Your Ideology outweighs evidence. You are unable to change your mind. And then you can’t have an informed opinion, either.

I may still think of you as a good, close, or dear friend, but there is little point in discussing politics with you if you’re going to use Alex Jones as evidence to support your argument. The source is not credible.

And that brings us to the next argument: The Mainstream Media is unreliable… It’s Fake News! Our President has even called The News Media “The Enemy of the People.”

There may be some truth to this. Media is made up of human beings, and human beings lie sometimes. I admit that.

I don’t know, however, any other way of gathering information. And that’s why our government is designed the way it is.

The Founders of the United States were brilliant. They put together a Constitution that included three branches of government in order to keep any one branch from gaining too much strength and taking over.

The Supreme Court keeps the legislative and executive branches in check by ensuring any laws they pass fall within the framework of our Constitution. So long as The Supreme Court is made up of ethical men and women, who are committed to a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, the Court can protect us.

The Congress can keep the Supreme Court from legislating from the bench by means of proposing amendments to the Constitution that would overturn Supreme Court rulings. (I’m hoping for one to overturn Citizens United, for example.) This was made an intentionally arduous task by The Founders to keep a corrupt Congress from destroying us. It’s been accomplished only 27 times. It’s been attempted nearly 12,000.

The President can keep the Congress from getting too strong by means of the veto. The Constitution grants the President to reject legislation, but the word “Veto” never appears. It’s simply a Latin term meaning “I forbid.”

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law…


Article 1, Section 7 of the US Constitution

There have been more than 2,500 vetoes in the last 230 years. As long as the President is an ethical person, this power can be useful.

The President appoints Supreme Court Justices. In order to keep the President from appointing unethical people the Congress has to approve them.

In short, the Constitution is a brilliant document.

In the First Amendment, the Freedom of the Press is enshrined. This amendment protects their right to gather and report facts. It also protects your right, and that of others, to tell the Press they are lying. I would be unwilling to give up either of those protections.

The Press is the most powerful check on the government. Without them, citizens have no power. You and I know what happens in Washington exclusively through the press. Neither of us will be invited to sit in on meetings. Neither of us is going to have the opportunity to ask the President, or a member of Congress what they are doing. It would be impractical. In order to keep a corrupt government from seizing power, we have a Press to tell us what is happening. Their power is to provide voters with the information we need when we go to the ballot box.

We have, therefore, a Press that does this for us. It is popular nowadays to decide that when the Press says something someone doesn’t like, the Press is lying. Ideology, however, doesn’t determine facts.

I posted an article on my Facebook page from a liberal media outlet called Occupy Democrats. They made a claim that was flat out absurd. They had no credible sources for the story. I posted it as an illustration of the concept of Ideology being separate from facts.

I am a liberal. I am a Democrat. I tend to agree with liberal ideas. On the other hand, just because I like an idea doesn’t mean that it’s true. I called bullshit when I saw it. My ideology doesn’t dictate truth. It can’t, because it’s no guarantee that I’m always right. In fact, I’m wrong rather frequently.

Fortunately, when I am wrong, I can learn why, I can change my mind, and I can be right again. If, on the other hand, I decide that only things that I like are true, then I will see the world only through my Ideological Blinders. I will be barred from learning the facts and making intelligent decisions based on them.

We don’t need to restrict anyone’s right to Free Speech. We don’t need to restrict Freedom of the Press. We need to enhance it. Far from being an “Enemy of the People,” the press is our only real representative.

There are problems with it. The majority of the Media is owned by only a few people. Independence is harder to find. Sometimes they get things wrong.

Nevertheless, real journalists continue to push for the truth, in whatever form it comes. And they do this because they have what I believe to be a sacred duty to all Americans. They have to tell us what is happening, so we may make up our own minds what to believe.

In Russia, there are fewer press outlets, and and most of them are controlled by the government. Given that, I’m amazed to find Putin has, in his own country, only an 86% approval rating. I would expect it to be closer to 98%, particularly when disapproval has wound up killing many people, including several journalists, over there. They are poisoned. They are dropped out of windows. And how do I know that? Because the Freedom of the American Press allows me to know.

Is it possible that all of The Press is lying? Of course it is. It’s also possible that Valerie Bertinelli will be texting me and asking me out for dinner this week. And both are equally likely.

If you choose to believe in a conspiracy, there is nothing that can be done to change your mind. Any evidence to the contrary is simply a part of that conspiracy.

I submit that in order for our form of government to work properly, maximum freedom is necessary in order to combat the ever growing tyranny threatening to overtake us every day. I don’t want to live in a country where the only thing The Press can report is what is approved by the government. I would find it difficult to believe anything they tell me when I know that it has all gone through an approval process.

It was the Press that showed us Nixon was a criminal. There are still those who, to this day, deny the facts. I can’t convince them that President Nixon covered up the Watergate break in, even when there are tapes in which he confesses as much. I can make the arguments against his guilt myself. “The tapes were probably faked. He’s not the only President who did lousy stuff. What about your liberal hero, JFK, who cheated on his wife and screwed up the Bay of Pigs? Why don’t you hate on him and leave Nixon alone? You liberals are all such haters.”

That’s an ideological argument that moves us not one millimeter closer to finding the truth. Such arguments are merely detours on the Path to Truth.

Again, Truth is not just what I say it is. It exists independent of my feelings about it. Donald Trump did or didn’t behave unethically, regardless of what I think. The Truth, whatever it turns out to be, has nothing to do with what I think.

I am probably more of a skeptic than most people. I reject many more arguments than I accept. I always look to see how credible a story is before I believe it. I know that The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, ABC, and CBS have a history of many decades of doing their best to find and report the truth. Like all humans, they have made mistakes. Dan Rather, for example, is one of my heroes, but he reported a story that turned out to be entirely false. He was simply fooled. That doesn’t, however, mean that everything he did before or since is to be ignored. It means he made a mistake.

I would not wish to be defined only by my most public errors. I’ve made more mistakes than I wish I had. But there is more to me than my mistakes.

I wouldn’t want President Trump defined only by his mistakes, either. “Grab them by the pussy” is a mistake of epic proportions, and I think most people would admit that. However, there is more to Mr. Trump than just the fact that he said something stupid once. He is best judged by assessing the body of his work. His credibility is best assessed by looking at his own statements and seeing how well they match up with reality.

We can disagree about how often they match up, but we have only the Press to help us find out what he said and how well it matches with reality. His own statements about his reason for firing Comey, on National TV with Lester Holt, flatly contradict what his Vice President said, what his spokespeople said, and what others in his administration said.

If we can’t agree on that reality, if we just assume the Press is lying to us, then I have no means of determining what to believe. What other source do I have?

If I am to believe only the President’s Tweets, then I am likely to have a one sided view of reality. I like to see more than one side. Russia wants to show us only one. I want to live in The United States.

Let’s all try to beware of our cognitive bias. Let’s all recognize that just because we want to believe something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Let’s all look for credible sources for our information. If we will all do all these things, we have a fair chance at saving our country from the corruption that seeks to destroy it. “We must disenthrall ourselves,” as President Lincoln told us, “and then we shall save our country.” Let’s try our best to do that.

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

The Meaning of My Life



There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

Hamlet
Act 1, Scene 5

Yesterday, not for anything close to the first time, I should have died. I woke up to find a strange woman standing over me while I was lying in bed. She was a paramedic. She had just brought me back to consciousness when my blood sugar had dropped so low that it was undetectable by medical equipment. I’m alive because my roommate checked on me, found me irretrievably unconscious, and called 911. She has done this more than once.

I should have died, in what I think would have been a beautifully appropriate way, a couple of years ago when my blood sugar went so high that it was off the scale. I was alone then. There was no one there to save me. One of my friends, though, became concerned when she couldn’t get me on the phone, and, though she was out of town, she sent the Mesa Police to do a wellness check, and they took me to the hospital. I had gone into Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I would, undoubtedly, have died alone in a cheap motel room had she not interfered. Frankly, that would have been, at the time, my preferred way to shuffle off this mortal coil. It didn’t happen, though. Someone kept me alive.

This has happened at least half a dozen times in the last four or five years. I was at a place where I was unable to help myself, and someone came to my rescue.

When I posted about yesterday’s incident on Facebook, more than one of my friends suggested that there is a reason that I keep cheating Death. Their reasons are, whether they say it directly or not, supernatural. God, or some other force like Him, is not letting me die.

I love my friends, but I reject that answer. Why, Fred? The evidence is there. Some force keeps intervening to keep you alive. It must be God, in some form or other.

Why must it be God? I believe you’re making what is commonly called The God of The Gaps Argument.

What’s that?

The God of The Gaps is defined, as follows, by Wikipedia.

The term God-of-the-gaps fallacy can refer to a position that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy. Such an argument is sometimes reduced to the following form: There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world… (God is required to fill that gap.)

Wikipedia

I’ve been guilty of committing this fallacy, myself, on more than one occasion. How else can one explain the Genius of Mozart or Shakespeare? They are light years beyond what any human being should be capable of doing. Yet, they do. This can only be some sort of supernatural result. They have connected with Something Beyond.

But, that is simply intellectual laziness on my part. Their work exists. It was produced by humans. Therefore, we know, by definition, humans are capable of such feats. They even managed to build the pyramids. We’re one hell of a powerful group, we humans.

Does this mean I entirely reject the idea of there being Something Beyond? No. I don’t. Hamlet tells Horatio, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” I’m sure he’s right. I have absolutely no doubt that there are forces in the universe that I don’t – or can’t – understand. And when Science shows them to me, I’ll accept their existence.

I have, from time to time, felt myself, for as much as a week once, connecting with Something Beyond. I simply had everything working. I was in my stride. My writing was at its best. My social skills were on the mark. Women liked me. I knew how to earn more than enough money to survive. I was feeling music acutely. I was moved to tears by Mr. Banks singing “A Man Has Dreams” in Mary Poppins. I could feel the Jedi Force flowing through me.

However, that doesn’t require a supernatural explanation. It’s a part of human experience. How do I know? Because I’m human, and I experienced it.

I had no special powers. I could levitate precisely nothing. I was unable to fly without the assistance of an airplane. I was entirely unable to read anyone’s mind. I simply was making everything work, all at the same time. And it was beautiful.

I think Mozart and Shakespeare were able to make their Art work all the time. I can’t imagine how wonderful that must have felt. Mozart rarely even did second drafts, that rotten bastard! You will never read a word of mine that hasn’t been through at least 3 or 4 drafts. And even if I did 3 or 4 thousand, it could never approach the level of Shakespeare. That’s not false modesty. That’s an understanding of what Shakespeare is.

So, if I’m not willing to accept a supernatural explanation, what explanation do I accept? I’m not sure I’ve found one yet. But, there is one I’m considering. It has to do with Love.

If you’ve spent any time with my Blog, you’ll see I’ve had more than a little to say on the subject of what Love is. It’s best, and most succinctly, defined as the feeling that someone else’s happiness is at least as important as your own. Well being falls into the same category.

In an upcoming story about my secret alter ego, Horace, his Grandpa tells him this about love:

I guess you might begin to suspect there’s something going on when you can’t stop thinking about some girl. Although, more often than not, that’s just a case of overactive hormones. But, it is a part of it. If you think a girl is really pretty, and you think about her all the time, and if you wonder if she has enough to eat, and if she’s safe, and when nothing makes you happier than making her happy, and all of that sort of thing… well, maybe, just possibly you’re in love. But, I wouldn’t count on it.”

Fred Eder

Love is also a Force. It compels one to do things as certainly as gravity does. When you love someone sufficiently, you can’t tolerate their suffering, and you will take what ever action is necessary to stop it. It really isn’t a matter of choice. It’s just what you do. You can’t keep from doing it any more than you can keep your heart from beating.

The one common thread I can find in all of the incidents of my Salvation is that someone I love was involved. I have reason to believe those who saved me also loved me.

After quite nearly plummeting to his death, Captain Kirk tells his best friends, “I knew I wouldn’t die because the two of you were with me. I’ve always known I’ll die alone.”

Love, in its most powerful form, continues to keep me alive.

But, why should I keep living? Yesterday one of my friends said, “Fred, there’s a reason you are still alive, clearly. Something you need to investigate, learn about, before it’s too late. Any idea what it is? I have an inkling…”

And that is a pertinent question. What is it I need to do with my life while I still have it? This was my reply:

I think I need to learn to write in a way that can help the world see its commonality. Someone I love very much guided my thinking on that idea 40 years ago when she said, “One planet, one people… please?” (It was her.)

I’m trying to figure out how to make that dream a reality. I have no delusions of grandeur. I don’t believe it’s any more possible than it was for Atticus to get a Not Guilty verdict for Tom Robinson, or for Santiago to get his marlin back to shore, but I admire those men for making the effort.

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

I believe in that.”

Fred Eder

What does My Life mean? What is the purpose of my continuing to suck up everyone else’s oxygen?

I think Captain Kirk began to teach me in April, 1967.

Edith Keeler tells Kirk, “Let me help.”

Kirk replies, “A hundred years or so from now, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words, even over ‘I love you.‘”

I’ve often hoped that I might get to be that famous novelist. Since he was talking to Edith Keeler in 1930, I have 11 more years to get there. If I can live that long. Of course, I would have to be living on “a planet circling the far left star in Orion’s belt.” But, hey, one step at a time.

The idea of Let Me Help has guided most of my life. I was an Elementary School Teacher for just shy of 30 years. For me, my classroom was the Enterprise. And, arrogance be damned, I was an extraordinary Starship Captain.

I retired in 2016. I thought, like Kirk once did, that I was done making a difference. As it turns out, I wasn’t. I have found that my words can still make a difference. I can still be of help with them. I can sometimes move people. I can sometimes make them think. I can sometimes reinforce their beliefs. I have even, from time to time, been able to inspire someone.

If I can find a way for my words to help bring the world together, to make the Dream of “One Planet, One People… Please” a reality, I will have made a difference. I don’t know how to do that, yet, but I promise you I’m working on it.

What yesterday most revealed to me was that I still have a desire to live. This is new for me. I’ve been ready to die for several years now. In fact, the last time the paramedics showed up, I was a little disappointed they brought me back. Hamlet tells me, “The readiness is all,” and I felt ready.

I lost a little of that readiness yesterday. It occurs to me there are still things I would like to do before I’m gone. There is Love still to be experienced. There are words I still need to write. There is Music I still want to hear. I find delight in small things people do. I need to talk to my Mom every night at exactly 7:37 so she knows I’m okay. I hope to have another pastrami sandwich someday. I want to have a little ice cream before bed. These are all reasons to want to live.

And my friends have given me those reasons. And those reasons are a product of Love. So… what keeps saving me? I believe it’s Love.

You may believe it’s something else, and I respect your belief, even if we don’t agree. But, for me, Love is the most powerful Force in the Universe, and I believe it’s why I’m still alive.

I’m working on finding the Meaning of My Life. I hope my thoughts might have helped you to find the Meaning of Yours.

Posted on by Fred

Human Rights

I’m not concerned with Women’s Rights. I’m equally unconcerned with the rights of People of Color, or with the rights of members of the LGBTQ community. I have no interest in the rights of this religion or that one. I have even less interest in the rights of white heterosexual males. Why? Because those are all just subgroups of the rights that interest me. I’m interested in Human Rights.

Women’s Rights are Human Rights. All rights are Human Rights. No person deserves special rights for being a member of a particular group. Too many groups, however, are denied rights by those to whom we have given the power to define the rights we have. And that is simply wrong. I’m concerned, at the moment, about laws that ban abortions from the moment a heartbeat can be detected. The claim is that this occurs at approximately six weeks, but, that turns out not to be be true in any meaningful way.


Rather, at  six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.
But the heart is far from fully formed at this stage, and the “beat” isn’t audible; if doctors put a stethoscope up to a woman’s belly this early on in her pregnancy, they would not hear a heartbeat, Aftab told Live Science. (What’s more, it isn’t until the eighth week of pregnancy that the baby is called a fetus; prior to that, it’s still considered an embryo, according to the Cleveland Clinic.)
It’s been only in the last few decades that doctors have even been able to detect this flutter at six weeks, thanks to the use of more-sophisticated ultrasound technologies, Aftab said. Previously, the technology wasn’t advanced enough to detect the flutter that early on in pregnancy.

https://www.livescience.com/65501-fetal-heartbeat-at-6-weeks-explained.html

Some laws seek to prevent abortion even earlier.

There are also laws that outlaw birth control, or that won’t allow insurance companies to provide it for their customers. Birth control is only for the wealthy. There is plenty of information about this topic available here.

jhhttps://www.guttmacher.org/united-states/contraception

Why do we feel the need to deny slightly over half of the population of the Earth the basic right of bodily autonomy?

If I don’t wish to give blood, even to save the life of my relative, I can’t be forced to do that. Understand, an actual human being, whose heart has been beating for quite some time is going to die because of my choice. And yet, no one would deny my right to make that choice. Why? Because it’s my blood. It’s my body. I get to choose what will happen with it.

Why should women be denied the same bodily autonomy that I have?

If a person dies, and his organs could be harvested to save another person, the organs are off limits unless the dead person has signed a paper saying they may be used. And yet, no one would deny the right of the Dead to choose.

Why should living women, with hearts that beat independently, be denied the same bodily autonomy that a dead body has?

Well, the argument goes, she is carrying another life. Her body is no longer entirely her own. She’s sharing it with another human being.

I have a couple of problems with that argument. First, it is STILL her body. Regardless of who or what may be inside of her, the body contains her consciousness. It is her body that is going to experience whatever happens to it.

Yes, Fred, but it also contains another life. That life also has a consciousness. That life counts as much as the life of the woman.

I would argue that, first, I’m not entirely sure when what she is carrying inside her is a life. Neither are you. Certainly it’s not yet a life when the man ejaculates inside the woman. The sperm hasn’t even fertilized the egg yet. On the other hand, it is absolutely a life, worthy of all the rights, care, love, and help necessary for survival the moment it is born. Somewhere between ejaculation and birth, it probably is a human life. I’m just not sure where to draw that line.

There is no doubt, however, that it lacks a consciousness for quite some time. The brain doesn’t begin to form for six weeks. Consciousness, in any meaningful form, doesn’t begin for six months, and even then, it’s open to debate. For more on this topic, see the link below.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2018/04/19/tracing-consciousness-in-the-brains-of-infants/#12e94619722f

There is scientific evidence that tells me that human life begins at the moment of conception. Cells fuse, and this is the first step in becoming a human being.

The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications). Moreover, it is entirely independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos. Indeed, this definition does not directly address the central ethical question surrounding the embryo: What value ought society place on human life at the earliest stages of development?  A neutral examination of the evidence merely establishes the onset of a new human life at a scientifically well-defined “moment of conception,” a conclusion that unequivocally indicates that human embryos from the one-cell stage forward are indeed living individuals of the human species; i.e., human beings.




https://lozierinstitute.org/a-scientific-view-of-when-life-begins/

Well, then, Fred, that’s it! Life begins at the moment of conception. The woman’s body is no longer exclusively her own. She owes those cells the opportunity to become a fully developed human being.

That sounds like a reasonable argument, at least at first blush. But, let’s follow it through to its conclusion. If the life of barely developed cells is as valuable, as worthy of rights, as the life of a fully developed human being, then we must also say that all human lives are of equal value. And, I agree with that idea. All human lives are, in fact, of equal value.

My life is as valuable as yours, and yours is as valuable as mine. The life of the homeless guy at Circle K asking for a dollar is as valuable as that of the wealthiest billionaire. And, if all lives are of equal value, then it follows all lives deserve equal rights. Women, those of different religions, those of different sexual orientations, those of different races, those of different nationalities, those from other countries all deserve the same rights that you do. If you don’t accept this, then I question whether you really believe that the value of a fertilized egg is the same as the value of the woman whose egg got fertilized. Too often those who oppose abortion also oppose helping other humans because they were not born in America. If you’re among those people, I would like you to reconsider your beliefs. How is a fertilized egg entitled to more rights than a fully formed, conscious human being with a heart that beats on its own?

Let’s explore the value of human life a bit more deeply. We have frequently heard that life – at least human life – is sacred. I don’t know why that’s necessarily true, since, finally, it’s brief. Perhaps it’s because it’s so short that it’s sacred. None of us is likely to be here for 150 years. The record, as far as I know, is 122 years. But, if we believe that all human life is sacred, then what does that tell us?

We should care for all human life. This doesn’t mean just me and the people who are most like me. We just said all human life is sacred. That means the life of a refugee from another country is sacred. It means the life of Osama bin Laden was sacred. If it’s sacred, we should preserve and care for it. But, do we?

If a mother has a child, it is, very often, her problem, and hers alone. We will give her minimal, if any, help feeding, clothing, and caring for her child. She has to pay for child care, food, diapers, clothes, doctors, dentists, and anything else the baby needs.

Well, if she didn’t want to do that, she shouldn’t have had a baby!

Yes, well, perhaps she didn’t want to have a baby, but it happened anyway. She was raped. A condom broke. Or, perhaps she didn’t have access to the information she needed. Or, maybe she just made a decision with which I might disagree. Why do I get to decide how, when, with whom, and under what circumstances a woman can have sex? Why do you? Who appointed us The Morality Police? What makes sex moral or immoral? Who am I to decide that for someone else? Morality is an incredibly fraught subject. It’s almost never clear that this is an absolute Good and that is an absolute Evil. And the times when it is clear usually involve a body count.

Forcing a woman to give birth against her will without giving her the support she needs to raise the child is simply wrong. A woman is more than an incubator for a man’s seed. She is a complete human being, with the right to choose for herself what happens to her body. She has all the rights a fetus does, and then some.

So, all human beings deserve the same rights. That includes women.

And that brings us back to my original point. Why do I have the right to decide what will happen to my body, but a woman doesn’t have the right to decide what will happen to hers? If it’s because she’s carrying a potential life inside of her, then you’ve denied her of a right that I have. I will never have a potential life growing inside of me. I can, however, get one started in a woman. And when I do, I should be required to take responsibility for the consequences of my action. The fact is that most men are not required by law to do anything more than pay child support. To believe that paying any amount of money is sharing an equal burden with the woman who is giving birth is absurd.

She will, at the very least, undergo a painful experience. Even the easiest births are no cakewalk. The worst of them actually kill women. If she gives the baby up for adoption, she will have an emotionally traumatic experience. If she raises the child, she will have a good portion of her life changed dramatically and forever.

If the pregnancy came from an experience she didn’t choose, such as a rape, the man might be able to attempt to get custody of the child the victim bore. We’ve probably all seen this meme:

It’s not entirely true that in 31 states a rapist can sue for custody, but there is no law specifically banning it. The issue is a bit murky, but Snopes did a fairly good job of sorting through it. The upshot of their research is this:

What’s True

Some states do not have laws to prevent the perpetrators of rape from seeking custody and visitation of children conceived during that act.

What’s False

No laws restrict rape victims from seeking child support from their rapists.

The complete article can be found here, for those seeking additional clarification. It’s worth your time to read it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rapists-and-child-support/

Rape victims often want to keep as far from their attackers as possible. How can one blame them? It is, therefore, not likely they’re going to sue for child support.

The laws being enacted now are, in my view, less about the value of human life than they are an effort to deny women of rights that I have. Alabama, Ohio, Georgia, and several other states have passed laws that effectively ban abortion, in direct violation of the Roe V Wade decision. Why are they doing this? I suspect it’s because with a very Conservative Supreme Court, they hope to be able to reverse Roe V Wade. Why do they want to do that? I won’t accept the idea that it’s because they value all lives equally. I’ve covered that above. The Alabama law, for example, doesn’t apply to fetuses in fertility clinics.

When Alabama Senator Bobby Singleton, a Democrat, pointed out that Alabama’s new law could punish those who dispose of fertilized eggs at an IVF clinic, Chambliss responded, “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.”




https://medium.com/s/jessica-valenti/anti-abortion-lawmakers-have-no-idea-how-womens-bodies-work-3ebea9fd6015

If the law were, in fact, about the value of the fetus, it would apply to laboratories as well as women. That fetus is precisely as human as one carried in a mother’s womb. But a fetus in an IVF facility is not protected. What do they do with excess fetuses then? I thought this would be a simple Google search. It turns out, it’s not a simple question at all. There has been one widely accepted study done on the issue, and it found the following:

Nearly all (97 percent) were willing to create and cryopreserve extra embryos. Fewer, but still a majority (59 percent), were explicitly willing to avoid creating extras. When embryos did remain in excess, clinics offered various options: continual cryopreservation for a charge (96 percent) or for no charge (4 percent), donation for reproductive use by other couples (76 percent), disposal prior to (60 percent) or following (54 percent) cryopreservation, and donation for research (60 percent) or embryologist training (19 percent). Qualifications varied widely among those personnel responsible for securing couples’ consent for disposal and for conducting disposal itself. Some clinics performed a religious or quasi-religious disposal ceremony. Some clinics required a couple’s participation in disposal; some allowed but did not require it; some others discouraged or disallowed it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16859369

There is no law requiring labs to divulge to the public what they do with extra fetuses. Cryopreservation is the process of freezing and preserving unborn fetuses. This is expensive and can continue for years. There have been fetuses cryopreserved for in excess of a decade. Preservation is often expensive. It is not an option for the poor.

But, please notice 60% of the labs are willing to dispose of the excess fetuses. There may or may not be a ceremony involved, but they are not required to keep it alive. The Alabama law isn’t, in any meaningful way, protecting the life of the unborn fetus. It’s restricting the choices of women.

We have lived, nearly forever, with the idea that women are secondary to men. Their function is to provide us orgasms and give us sons and daughters, and then to raise those children while we go do something else. And this idea is being challenged, frequently and compellingly, in our society. And it should be.

There is nothing that makes women less than men. There is no reason to pass laws restricting their choices while the same laws don’t apply to men. The time of the patriarchy is gone. It’s now time to recognize that women are complete human beings with all the same rights, all the same needs, and all the same value as men. They are no less important, no less deserving of making choices, and no less human than I am.

Finally, let’s be clear about something. Banning abortions is never going to stop people from having them. It’s simply going to stop them from having safe and legal abortions. It’s the same as banning guns. Criminals will still have them. If prostitution and drugs are illegal, people will still hire prostitutes and use drugs. We can just lock them up for those things. And the people passing these laws know that. What they really want is to return to the time when only white male landowners had any rights at all. There is an ancient, deeply embedded idea in the minds of many men (and some women) that males are, by virtue of being male, superior to females. And changing that idea is not going to be an easy task.

Now, what are my feelings about abortion? I wish no one would ever have one. It’s sad to keep a life from coming into the world. I do, in fact, feel empathy for the unborn child. Then, why don’t I want them to be illegal?

I don’t know of anyone who ever wanted an abortion. I want a pastrami sandwich. I want to go to dinner with Valerie Bertinelli. I want to make a living as a writer. Those are things I want.

I don’t know of any woman who feels about abortion the way I feel about pastrami sandwiches. I do know, however, women who may need an abortion. Not just because she was raped, or was the victim of incest, or for any other single reason, but because for any of 3.9 billion reasons, she may not be in a place where having a child is a good choice. The decision whether or not to have an abortion must certainly be an agonizingly difficult one. I’m relieved I will never be faced with that decision. People I love, however, have had to make the choice. Why on Earth should we make that decision any more difficult by threatening to imprison her and her doctor? Who is better off for doing that? If your argument is the unborn child is better off, I can’t agree with you. You’re condemning a child to a life in which he or she is unwanted.

No, I’m not! Do you know how many couples want to adopt children? The child will be loved in deeper ways than other babies!

I understand that feeling intimately. When I was married the first time, my wife and I were unable to conceive. We went to doctors. We went to fertility clinics. We did all we could. It simply wasn’t going to happen. So, we wanted to adopt. A relative of mine got pregnant while my wife and I were hoping to adopt, and we wanted to adopt her child. She had an abortion. I was furious with her. But, I got over it. Do you know why? Because, finally, that was her choice to make. It was her body. She gets to decide what is right for it. My wife and I don’t. My wife and I never did adopt. It turns out to be a very difficult process.

If you would like to adopt, I’m completely in favor of it. There are many children waiting for you to give them all of your love. According to The Adoption Network, “There are 107,918 foster children eligible for and waiting to be adopted. In 2014, 50,644 foster kids were adopted — a number that has stayed roughly consistent for the past five years. The average age of a waiting child is 7.7 years old and 29% of them will spend at least three years in foster care.” https://adoptionnetwork.com/adoption-statistics

There is no shortage of children. There is a shortage of eligible parents. Why? This is because the definition of eligible is narrowing. In many states, gay couples are ineligible. My first wife and I were unsuccessful in adopting because I’m an atheist, and no one wanted their child raised without a church. I would love for you to adopt if that’s your desire. It is a beautiful thing to do. It can, however, be a long, hard road.

I hope you never need an abortion. I hope you find love, you get married, you have children, and you have a family that loves you for the rest of your life, if those are things you want. But, if you do need an abortion, I hope you can find love, support, correct medical information to help you decide, and a safe and legal means of obtaining it. It’s your body, first and foremost. If you choose to share it with someone and become a mother, I applaud your decision. You’ve made what I believe to be a beautiful and deeply meaningful choice. But if you choose differently, I will support your decision, even if I disagree with it. My opinion doesn’t matter. Yours is the only one that’s relevant.

You are a human being. You have a human right to choose what is best for you.

Posted on by Fred

Is Facebook a Good or An Evil?


“Listen, Bob. A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool, a shovel- or an axe or a saddle or a stove or anything. Think of it always that way. A gun is as good- and as bad- as the man who carries it. Remember that.”


Jack Schaefer

Facebook, for me, is exactly the same. It’s a tool. There have been many valid arguments against Facebook. It has the potential for evil. It connects groups of people who share the same small minded, often ignorant or dangerous, views of the world.


“The problem… is that there is nothing special about humans in this information system. Every data point is treated equally, irrespective of how humans experience it. “Jew haters” is just as much an ad category as “Moms who jog.” It’s all data. If Group A has a bigger presence on Facebook than Group B, so be it, even if Group A is trying to demean or organize violence against the Bs. Of course, the reality is that humans are all different, and cannot be reduced to data.” –


https://qz.com/1342757/everything-bad-about-facebook-is-bad-for-the-same-reason/

I recognize its potential for abuse. But I also recognize its potential to be a life changing force for those of us who fear actual human contact. And by no means are we the only group for whom Facebook is a significant benefit. It helps those who want to launch careers. It helps those who write. It helps those who want to share ideas.

For me, Facebook has been the difference between complete social isolation and a feeling of being connected with the world at large. I’ve reconnected with friends I haven’t seen in decades. I’ve found people who share my interests and political views. I’ve encountered ideas I would never have considered in any other way. I’ve been able to get the help I’ve needed when I have had the courage to put my shame aside and ask for it. I’ve found Love, and, being Fred, plenty of rejection.

But it has made me into someone I wouldn’t have been otherwise. It’s changed me for the better. It’s saved my car, kept me from homelessness, and sent me to a Phil Collins concert. It even made it possible for me to meet one of my greatest heroes, who happened to be playing Facebook poker at the same time I was. I’ve become actual friends with him because of Facebook. And because of him, I found more music, more friends, and more acceptance.

I’m accepted in a world over which I have more control. I have a larger audience than I’ve ever had before for my ideas, my passions, my writing, and my creative endeavors. I feel safe, confident, and respected. On Facebook, I’ve been able to celebrate my successes, mourn my losses and failures, and support causes and people that are important to me.

It’s more than just pictures of Cats. (Although, of late, I’ve even begun participating in that. When Cats love you, they change you.) It’s a safe window into the world. It’s a door that can be opened and closed as necessary. It’s a tool… no better or worse than the people using it. I surround myself with the best people I can find. That makes Facebook, for me, the best tool I have.

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Can We Have a Star Trek Economy?


The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century… The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, First Contact

I loved Star Trek, as a child, because of its cool technology. Who wouldn’t want to have a gun that doesn’t have to kill? Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to beam from one place to another? And, who wouldn’t want to carry around an instrument that allowed you to talk to people thousands of miles from you? And, as I grew up, I saw some of those wonderful devices invented. You’re probably reading this on one of them.

There are parts of Star Trek that probably simply can’t exist. In fact, its most basic concept is almost impossible. We’re never going to travel beyond the speed of light. Einstein showed that to me when I was 15, and no one has ever been able to show me he was wrong. If we produce a warp engine, I will be ecstatic to admit my error. And, I will be equally excited to acknowledge my mistake in my near certainty that we will never be able to beam down to a planet as soon as we do it.

We do have weapons that are approaching the phaser. One need not fire lead bullets anymore. Tasers exist. And nearly 2/3 of the population of the planet now has a cell phone which is at least as good as Captain Kirk’s communicator. There are even cell phones that can act almost as Tricorders in their ability to measure certain functions of the body.

While some of Roddenberry’s fantasy can never be reality, much of it already is. And we’re better off for it. But what of the rest of his vision?

I love Star Trek, as an adult, because of its extraordinary society. Their greatest concerns in life truly are bettering themselves and the rest of humanity. Their physiological needs are all met. For the most part, their safety needs are met. They aren’t struggling to pay rent or put food on the table. Much, but not all, crime has been eliminated because people have no need to commit crimes to fulfill their physiological needs. I’m much more likely to go rob a store in order to feed my wife and children than I am to do it for the fun of it. If my physiological needs are met, most of my motives for committing crimes evaporate. I expect the same is true for you, and for the guy next to you, too.

The higher level needs of Maslow’s famous hierarchy are all needs to be met by each individual. How one finds love and a sense of belonging is an expression of identity; it’s not the work of the world, but of each unique person in each one’s unique way. This is also true of Esteem and “Self Actualization,” or the ability to be creative and to work for the benefit of the rest of the world. The world’s interference in those endeavors would be a Borg-like threat to our individuality.

But I believe that we live in a world in which we are now able to meet the bottom two rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy for all human beings. We have the resources and the technology necessary.

It seems to me that The Economics of Star Trek that I admire and envy so much are based on three realities.

  1. A Post Scarcity Society. There are thousands of hours to be done on this subject, and the debate about the use of the Replicator, alone, is sufficient to be worthy of a Doctoral Dissertation, but I’m using this in the limited sense that the world is capable of providing all the basic human needs: food, water, shelter, medical care, clothing, and the means to participate in society (transportation, communication, and education). Our civilization is already capable of meeting the bottom two rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy for every human being.
  2. A Resource Based Society. There’s a group called The Venus Project that is actually working toward achieving this goal. What is it? It begins with the radical idea that the planet is the heritage of all people. We need to work out how to use the resources the planet can produce to provide what people need as efficiently as possible. This is their basic goal, from their website:

The Venus Project proposes an alternative vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilization. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our culture in which the age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but as totally unacceptable. Anything less will result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems inherent in today’s world.

The Venus Project

You can learn more about them here:
https://www.thevenusproject.com/

3. An Empathetic Civilization. The idea is that we extend our empathy not just to our blood ties, or our tribal ties, or our religious ties, or our national ties, but to the entire species, and finally even to our shared biosphere. We know we have the technology necessary for this because we can all feel empathy at the same time in response to disasters. This is true when we hear of horrifying tsunamis, devastating earthquakes, or miners trapped beneath the Earth. We have global communication, and we know almost instantly what is happening to each other. Just as when one infant in a Day Care begins crying, all the others will join them within a few minutes (this is due to something we’ve discovered recently called Mirror Neurons. We are soft-wired for Empathy. There’s a neuroscientist named Marco Iacoboni who’s done interesting research on this ), so will human beings share the distress of others in trouble. Empathy is, in my view, the most important human emotion, even if “The Empath” was something less than Star Trek’s most successful episode. The ability to feel for others is what makes us human. If we have the resources and the technology to meet the first two of Maslow’s needs on the hierarchy, people can spend their lives meeting the last three. In other words, once people no longer need to be concerned with physiological or safety needs, they can spend their lives working on the others.

What would be the result of such a world?

My crystal ball ran out of batteries, so I can only guess. I believe we would see a reduction in crime (but not its elimination), we would see better and greater technologies emerging because people have the time to devote to learning instead of trying to feed their families, and we would see, most importantly, a happier world where people really, honestly can work for the betterment of themselves and the rest of humanity.

I’m told this is fantasy, and worse, it’s Socialism. I reject that idea. It can be accomplished, but it’s a question of changing our mind set. I have written quite a bit about the need to increase our empathy, and that embracing Art is an effective means of doing that. You can find that here.

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/03/27/empathy-and-art/

I believe it is wrong to judge a person based on how much money that person earns. The Value of a Person is much more than their ability to monetize their skills, passions, and abilities. Our Value to each other is in what we can do for one another. Empathy is also a part of one’s actual value. I have also written about that, and it’s available here if you need me to make the case more strongly.

https://frededer.home.blog/2019/03/25/the-value-of-a-person/

So, will we ever live long and prosper? I don’t know. I do know, however, it’s worth it to try.

For Roddenberry to accomplish his society, he needed a Eugenics War and then World War III. The society became a barter system when we had to start over because we had destroyed a quarter of the Earth’s population and many of our resources. One of my friends, a lifelong member of Slytherin House, believes we could manage this right now by simply removing the populations of India and China and replacing them with trees and arable land. While Kodos might admire her thinking and endorse her methods, I can’t.

Can we realize Roddenberry’s vision without the need for violence and destruction? I certainly hope so. I also know that Edith Keeler believed as I do. And, when she managed to talk FDR into delaying our entrance into World War II the results were disastrous. We lost the War and with it the concept of Freedom. However…

“She was right. Peace was the way.”
“She was right. But at the wrong time.”


– Kirk and Spock, “City on the Edge of Forever”

Keeler asked Kirk, “Are you afraid of something? Whatever it is, let me help.”

Kirk answered, “Let me help… A hundred years or so from now I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words even over I love you.”

That happened on Earth in 1930. We’re just about a hundred years from that time, now. Is it time for us to begin down Edith Keeler’s path? I don’t know.

But if you’re afraid of something…

Let Me Help.

Posted on by Fred · 3 Comments

Becoming a Cat Person

“…the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.”

Mark Twain

I never liked cats. I found them arrogant, rude, and dangerous. The first one with whom I ever dealt scratched my hand deeply enough to draw blood. I hated him. He never said I wasn’t allowed to pick him up. I learned… the hard way.

After that experience, I gave all felines a wide berth. My parents inherited a cat from my brother. I don’t actually recall the details of the transaction, but every time I would visit, there would be Jamie, or as he was called by my father, “Stupid Cat of No Possible Value or Worth,” wandering around enslaving my parents. Up and down my father would get whenever Stupid Cat wanted to go in or out. Yes, he was an outdoor cat. Mom required Dad to stand at the door and call him every night before they went to bed. And Dad might be there for half an hour at a time before His Highness would deign to return. I wanted no part of any such ritual. I never understood why my father did, except that he loved my mother, and my mother loved everything with a heartbeat.

Cats had no time for me, and I had none for them. I refused to believe all the Cat People who told me that their cats were sweet and kind and loving. That described no cat I had ever encountered. I was too arrogant to deal with the Arrogance of Cats.

Dogs, on the other hand, I have always loved. There is nothing so wonderful as being jumped by four-legged fur when you come through the door. Her tail is wagging and she’s covering you with kisses as though you were the most important and wonderful being that cells ever combined to form. I have two ex-wives. Neither of them was ever in the league of a dog for making me feel loved. However, neither Missy nor Darilyn ever pooped on my floor, so perhaps it evens out a bit.

In July of 2017, I was in the hospital, and when I got out, I was going to have nowhere to go. My nephew had gotten me a motel room for a couple of weeks to keep me from being homeless. That ran out, though, while I was suffering from extreme Diabetic Ketoacidosis.

I had just recently begun a horrible job selling DirecTV to unsuspecting old women. I made little money, and to make any amount that would give me any chance to sustain my existence, I had to be successful at getting people to trade their little pieces of green paper for something that is mostly worthless. When I made a sale, I was both ecstatic and wracked with guilt. But it was in this horrible place that I met Hilary.

When I was in the hospital, she called me every day. I have almost no memory of that because the entire experience is a blur in my mind. I was heavily drugged, and I was almost entirely incoherent almost all the time. But, Hilary told me that when I got out of the hospital, I could stay with her, and her wife, Rebecca, and their three cats, Cynna, Buster, and Oliver until I could get back on my feet. And my dog, Melanie, whom I feared I was going to have to give away to anyone I believed would take good care of her before I dragged her into homelessness with me, would be welcomed there, too. She would have died on the streets, and my former roommates were about to be evicted from my old house, which is where Melanie had to stay while I tried to find shelter for us both. It was an offer that saved my life, and Melanie’s, and, subsequently, made me a Cat Person.

When I arrived, Rebecca showed me my bedroom, and I collapsed onto the blowup mattress and passed out. I slept for more than 30 hours. I think it was closer to two full days. And when I finally came back into the world, Oliver had to find out who I was. He kept looking at me, and I thought it was a little creepy. What the hell did he even want from me?

It was a couple of weeks before I moved in and Oliver decided I was acceptable. The cats seemed willing enough to tolerate Melanie after their initial meeting. Buster and Cynna, however, wanted nothing to do with me. See why I hate cats?

Oliver came and got in my lap for the first time almost a month to the day after I began occupying his space full time. I was surprised, but it was a nice surprise. He stayed nearly an entire minute, and he let me pet him. And you know what else? He didn’t even scratch me.

Over time, he began to visit me any time I was in the bathroom. Closing the door meant only that Oliver’s little paw would appear underneath it, letting me know he needed to come in. And, being the basically lonely guy I’ve always been, I’d let him in. It wasn’t long before Oliver was following me around, laying in my lap, and doing the things Melanie had gotten too old to do anymore. Melanie could barely make it onto her own personal couch. She couldn’t get on the bed anymore, and Oliver started visiting me there. He wouldn’t stay long, but he would swing by to check on me. When I got sick, as I did with alarming frequency, he would come and lie on my chest. I think it was his way of telling the girls something was wrong. They would look for him, find him, and see whether I was dead, dead tired, or in need of hospitalization.

Oliver stayed close to me all the time we lived in Mesa.

In July of 2018, we all moved to our nice 3 bedroom house in Phoenix. We had a backyard so Melanie could go out and relieve herself without the need for a leash and a trip up and down a set of stairs that would, given time, certainly have killed me. And it was in the new house that Buster decided to adopt me.

For reasons passing understanding, he decided my bedroom was actually his. If I laid down, Buster would join me within less than ten minutes. And he wouldn’t just sit there. He insisted that I be petting him. Having my phone in my hand was simply not allowed. That was giving my attention to something other than him. When he’s not chewing on the tube that goes from my tummy to my insulin pump, we do very well together. He’s become an expert cuddler. He lies with his back to my chest, and he purrs contentedly so long as we’re together. When I leave, he becomes visibly depressed. If I ever meet a woman like that… well… no… never mind. I would rather just have Buster. He takes up much less space on the bed.

Oliver has to be with me at the computer now. He frequently feels the need to add to whatever I’m writing, and if I stop petting him when he’s in my lap, he will hop up to the desk, stroll across the keyboard, and jump to the window above me to see what’s happening in the backyard. He’s managed to obscure 2/3 of the characters now, and I have to try to remember where they all are. I’m hoping to get a new one soon. (A keyboard, not a cat… three is plenty, I swear.)

Cynna continues to be royalty. When the girls went to Las Vegas for some sort of convention a couple of months ago, His Majesty began to take notice of my existence. He made sure I knew when he needed to be fed. And, he assured me, no matter what his Mothers had said, when he needed to be fed was simply constantly. Since their return he has visited me twice, for a total of nearly 90 seconds. I expect that in another year or two he’ll come to see me without the expectation of food. Maybe he’ll let me pet him more than twice. One can only hope.

I will always love Melanie with all my heart. The fact that she is getting too old to walk anymore scares me more than my own death. There is little to be done, but I can still give her loves and kisses while she’s lying on her couch. She simply isn’t capable of giving me all she once did. I know her love is still there. She just can’t express it physically any longer.

The cats can. They’ve taught me there are ways of expressing their love without jumping on me. I’m told that when Buster or Oliver looks me in the eye, and they close their eyes for a moment, they’re saying, “I love you.” I don’t know if that’s true. But I do know, they’ve made me love them because they simply won’t allow my heart any other choice. The cats have become a part of me. I’m a Cat Person.

Posted on by Fred

We Cannot Escape History

“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.”

Abraham Lincoln

We live in the most divided country that The United States has been since The Civil War. People hold strong opposing opinions about issues of great importance. Climate Change, Abortion, Vaccinations, Immigration, and the conduct of the government are just a few. I don’t want to downplay the importance of any of these issues, but there is one that seems to me to override all others. Is it right, or necessary, to impeach the President?

I understand that, again, there is great debate over this topic. There are those who believe the President is doing the best he possibly can, given the circumstances. He is as hated as he is loved, he is constantly attacked in the news media, he is being investigated over and over again, and his every word comes under scrutiny. For all of that, though, his supporters point to the excellent economy, and they tell us Mr. Trump is responsible for those numbers. They will tell us that he doesn’t behave like other politicians, and this is to be admired. Other politicians are frequently obfuscating in every word that escapes their lips. Their words are so measured that they become meaningless. This President doesn’t measure his words; he says what he feels, and many people share his feelings. They approve of his aberrant behavior. They applaud it enthusiastically.

There are others who despise the President. They point to the 10,000 documented lies he has told. They talk about the caging and tear gassing of children. They talk about the government shutdown he proudly said he would, and subsequently did, cause. They object to his payments to porn stars and Playboy bunnies, his promised, but failed, Muslim ban, his Wall, and his broken promises concerning healthcare. They’re appalled at his choices for The Supreme Court, and they believe his latest Attorney General to be a fraud. They boo him enthusiastically.

But, for me, the Heart of The Issue is whether his behavior is what we want from our President, not only now, but for all the Presidents to come. The behavior that I’m discussing is his overt efforts to stop Congress from fulfilling their constitutional duty to oversee the Presidency and provide checks and balances to keep it from becoming a dictatorship.

If the Democrats begin impeachment proceedings, they will almost certainly fail. The Republicans are the majority of the Senate, and it is wildly unlikely they will vote to uphold the impeachment. The political risk is that this will empower the President’s base, and it will help him to get re-elected. The Democrats, obviously, don’t want that outcome, so impeachment seems like a foolish idea. They accomplish none of their immediate goals. Not only does the President finish his first term, but he gets elected for a second one. The politics are very bad for Democrats.

But, we must look beyond present day politics, and consider the future. The last time we were this divided, a better President said this:


The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation… We — even we here — hold the power, and bear the responsibility.

Abraham Lincoln

The day may come when Americans look to 2019, and they decide that our country either stood up for itself, or laid down and let the oligarchy in which we’re living slide into dictatorship. If, as our Attorney General suggests, “That’s not a crime… To be obstruction of justice the lie has to be tied to impairing the evidence in a particular proceeding… If the President is being falsely accused… and he felt this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents, and was hampering his ability to govern, that is not a corrupt motive for replacing an Independent Counsel.”

What does that mean for future generations? The next President, perhaps a Democrat, or an Independent, or, for all I know, an Anarchist, a Socialist, or a Nazi, can decide he can obstruct an investigation into his behavior (or hers), because he believes he has been falsely accused.

Even an ardent Trump supporter would, I think, recognize the danger in that. Whomever your Least Favorite President is, whether it’s Trump or Obama, or Carter, or Kennedy, or anyone named Bush, or even Lincoln, imagine that person, or someone much like him, being elected in 2024, or 2028…. or in your grandchildren’s lifetimes. This President can now do things you loathe with absolute impunity. Anyone who tries to investigate this President can be legally obstructed because this President believes the accusations against him (or her) are lies. In other words, the entire system of Checks and Balances will collapse. Without it, there is nothing defending us from a ruthless dictator, of any party or ideology.

I had concerns about writing this. I find myself, even now, reluctant to publish it. Just as the politics of impeachment are bad for Democrats, the politics of publishing are bad for me.

First, I have friends whose anger I’m all but inviting. I’m trying my best to stay open and objective, and sticking only to the facts, but I am certain someone who matters to me will object. I don’t care to lose friends. I have only a few, and each of them matters to me. I have friends whose opinions of my writing carry immense weight with me, and I have no idea what their political persuasions may be. I would be more than sad if they decided that we can no longer be friends because we disagree about this.

Second, I’m just stepping into the world of writing for strangers. I’ve shown my work, all my life, only to my friends. When a play of mine was performed, strangers saw it, but the script, itself, was seen only by those who know me. I’m not in a position that I can afford to alienate strangers who enjoy my work. I want them to return and read more of what I write. Losing them would also disappoint me deeply.

So, why publish this at all?

I’m publishing because, as a friend reminded me earlier this week, “The internet is forever.” I am living, as are you, through an important moment in history. My power to control what is happening in my government is all but nonexistent. I can vote. And, I can raise my voice, and share my thoughts with others in hopes of either reinforcing their beliefs, or getting them to consider new ones.

There are many writers who are both better and more knowledgeable than I who can, have, and will write better about this than I have just done. I’m perhaps half a drop of water in the Pacific Ocean of Pundits. My personal insignificance, however, will no more spare me than it did those who lived during the Lincoln administration.

I want to be able to say that, at this moment in history, I acted in the only way open to me. I’m too old to protest. The last time I tried I passed out from heat stroke. It was nearly another hospital trip for me. I can’t knock on doors; people scare the hell out of me. But, what I can do is write. And I can find the courage to share my thoughts, even at some small peril to myself.

I may lose friends and readers, but I will also be able to say I did what pathetically little I could to save the country I love.

Our leaders have the power to do much more. I’m hopeful they’ll disenthrall themselves, and then they shall save our country.

Posted on by Fred

The Undeserving Poor

“Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: ‘You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.’ But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.”




– George Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”

What makes one person “Deserving” and another “Undeserving?” Certainly we would all agree those who hurt others deserve punishment in some form or other. Can we also all agree that, simply by virtue of having beaten incredible odds just to be born, we are all deserving of food? Shelter? Clothing? Medical Care? No, probably not.

The Puritan Work Ethic has trained us all to believe that a person deserves only what he or she can earn by trading their time, and some form of effort, for rewards. To the extent we can contribute, we deserve something. This made sense for America’s earliest settlers. If Per Hansa and Beret didn’t work hard, frequently, and faithfully, their family would certainly perish. And their hard work was rewarded with the necessities of life. They were fed, clothed, sheltered, and to the extent possible in that time, granted the best medical care available. (If you haven’t read “Giants in the Earth,” I recommend it. It’s the story of Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Dakota territories in the 1870s.)

But even they depended, to some extent, on other families in the area to help them from time to time. “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” That’s not new information. That’s Aristotle. We need each other from birth. Few and far between are the infants who can survive entirely alone.

So, it seems to me, that at some point, we must grant a person the right to rely on others. We do this, without much debate, at the beginning of life. The overwhelming majority of humans are born into some form of society. It may be a good society or a bad one. The infant has no control over the society into which he or she is born.

We have a choice, as adults, about the society in which we live. We can either accept it, reject it, or something in between. We may criticize it, or we may seek another one in which to live. We may also seek to improve it.

Some place between birth and adulthood we give up the right to rely on others. Is this morally right? I don’t know, but, at least in The United States in 2019, it seems to be true.

Now, we must not only contribute to society in some way, but we must find a way that society values highly enough to pay us a living wage. None of us, anymore, is Per Hansa, chopping down the trees in the area to build the house in which his family will live. We rely on each other for roads, for the production of food, for schools, for military and police protection, for fire departments, and a host of other things. We are a social animal. We cannot live entirely alone. Our work is not for our benefit alone. It is to benefit the society in which we live.

If someone is unsuccessful in that effort, we seem to have decided, that person is undeserving. And that’s where I have my problem . Why is a person undeserving?

We seem to have declared that one must live a life within certain boundaries and norms. We now have the resources to treat every living person as though he or she were a newborn. We can provide everyone with all they need to survive.

Robert Frost is a great poet. He made a living writing poetry. That poetry certainly improved my life. J.K. Rowling is a great writer. She made a fortune writing books that certainly improved my life. I have great respect for both Frost and Rowling.

I feel sure, though, they would both tell you that there are other poets or novelists of whom you have never heard, of whom you never will hear, who are their superiors. And those poets and novelists will work at whatever jobs they can find to support themselves. They weren’t fortunate enough to get published. They weren’t fortunate enough to become popular successes. But they contribute in the same way Rowling and Frost do. Do they truly deserve less? Why?

We’ve moved from philosophy to economic theory. Now we will hear from critics about the virtues of capitalism. It certainly works for some. There are those who amass great wealth under that system. There are others who simply can’t do as well. And so long as we subscribe to the idea that they don’t deserve any more than their skills and efforts allow them to earn, it’s not a problem that many people are poor, underemployed, and not able to pursue what matters most to them because they are required to try to find the funds to survive.

But, what would life be if people didn’t have to do that? Why do we insist that they earn little pieces of green paper to be deserving of a decent life?

I was fortunate to have what I think was an excellent childhood. I had parents who loved me, supported me, taught me, understood me as much as any parents can understand their progeny, and protected me. They allowed me to figure out who I wanted to be. And not surprisingly, I wanted to be Batman. That didn’t work out. I wanted to be Atticus Finch, Santiago, Holden Caulfield, and Aaron Sorkin. None of those worked out, either, though I like to think there are pieces of those men inside of me. Sadly, there’s not a trace of Batman to be found in me. There might be a little Captain Kirk, though. I also wanted to be a teacher. They helped me to work that out. I managed, after a fashion, to make a living.

But, does that mean I deserve more than someone who had no parents, or whose parents were child abusers, or criminals, or simply didn’t love them? How is that the fault of the child? Why does she deserve less than I do?

Certainly, we don’t all deserve jet planes and swimming pools, but is it really unreasonable to ask for the necessities of life for all people when it’s so easily given? If we could be done with, “I got mine; you get yours” I feel like we could begin to make the sort of society of which we can be proud. We provide for our babies because we love them. Is it really unreasonable to ask that we love everyone at least enough to let them live some sort of life?

“You may say that 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 · 2 Comments

A Few Words About Marijuana

“I don’t want the surgeon operating on your father to be stoned,” was the first argument I ever heard in opposition to legalizing pot. And I remember my reply: “I don’t want him to be drunk, either,” I said pointing to the beer in front of my Mom. And I think that’s the heart of the issue.

There have been zero deaths attributed to marijuana. Yes, people who are high have died. They have probably caused car crashes. They may have done something stupid while they were stoned that caused their early demise. I don’t see that as a compelling argument to put people in prison for smoking a plant. Stupidity is not caused exclusively by cannabis, and it’s not its only effect.

Yes, but drug dealers are dangerous people. That’s true. During Prohibition, bootleggers were also dangerous people. People were murdered over alcohol. That stopped happening when alcohol became legal again. The same is true of marijuana. You’d be surprised how few dispensary operators are Al Capone.

What is the real objection to marijuana? I suspect that for many people it’s that pot changes the way one perceives the world. It’s a means of altering one’s relationship with reality. That was once accomplished exclusively through religious avenues. Pot is encroaching on religion’s territory.

That’s not a reason to deny someone their liberty.

I’m in favor of laws. They guide our behavior, and they keep us safe. I’m glad there are laws against people hurting one another. Robbery, rape, murder, kidnapping, and speeding are all behaviors that harm others. Those who engage in such behaviors need to be stopped, and, if necessary, denied their freedom to keep them from doing it again.

I don’t see how a man sitting in his backyard smoking pot is hurting anyone. If he gets stoned and gets in his car, yes, by all means, pull him over. He’s putting himself and others at risk. But, if all he is doing is changing his relationship with reality, leave him alone.

The biggest opponents to legalizing marijuana seem to be those who operate for profit prisons. They need the business. The rest of us have no stake in seeing others locked up, and I can’t support destroying someone’s life over a victimless crime.

There are real problems in the world. Smoking pot is none of them. Let’s change these laws so that people can enjoy their lives in the way they choose.

Posted on by Fred

Love

“Fathers and teachers, I ponder, “What is hell?” I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”


—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

I agree with Dostoevsky, but for that to mean anything, we’ll need to work out what we mean by Love.

The word is wildly overused. I love pastrami, and I love Star Trek, and I love Genesis, and I love To Kill a Mockingbird. But, I think what I really mean when I say those things is that I have a strong preference for them. I’m not saying that I would put the needs of any of those inanimate objects above my own. I’m not willing to die to protect my sandwich.

When I love a person, I mean that I am willing to put their needs above my own. How much I love them determines how far I will go. There are people for whom I would die, without hesitation, if the situation required it. There are people with whom I’ll share my last cigarette. There are people I will turn down, even for that small request.

I wrote earlier that in some ways I like to think I love all people, but not in a way that is likely to change my behavior very deeply. For that to be affected, they have to have secured themselves a place deep in my heart. And, more people than I had thought have done so.

Being in love is, again, something entirely different. I’m not in love with the vast majority of the people I love. For me, being in love requires an element of desire. Yes, a part of it is sexual, but mostly it’s having “grown accustomed to her face.” It’s the feeling of needing her presence in my life in order to be content. It’s the Joy of believing somewhere, somehow, she’s thinking of me. It’s the happiness I feel whenever I think of her. I miss being in love. Valerie Bertinelli notwithstanding, I’m not entirely sure I ever will be again. I joke often about being in love with her, but, honestly, I’ve met her only once, for just over 30 seconds. That’s hardly enough to call being in love.

But, what would life be without the ability to love at all? If I can never see or feel for anyone beyond myself, that would severely limit my ability to feel at all. And, for as much as I worship at the Vulcan Altar of Logic, I believe we all exist to experience feelings. I believe Love to be the first emotion we ever feel. It’s usually to and from our parents. And from there, it expands. We meet people, and we learn to love them. And when we do, our lives are enriched. There is more reason to continue to live, just for the chance to love and be loved one more time.

I don’t try to limit my love. I always hope to expand it. I love my dog. I’ve learned to love the cats with whom I live, but mostly because they forced me to do that by showing me love. When a cat cuddles you as your dog becomes too old to do it, there’s a wonderful feeling of being special, being important. It’s a feeling that you matter.

You matter to me. What does that mean? It means I think about you from time to time. It means I want your life to go the way you want it to go. It means I’m probably willing to make efforts, within my pathetically small abilities, to help you reach those goals. It means that I gain satisfaction from your happiness.

If I couldn’t feel those things, life would, I’m convinced, be Hell.

Posted on by Fred

The End of Minutes

I don’t fear Death. To be clear, I make no claims to being a brave man. I don’t believe I am. I have a deep fear of pain, and people scare the hell out of me. But Death… not so much.

I don’t believe this means there’s anything wrong with me. There are plenty of things wrong with me; I just don’t think this is among them. Why don’t I fear Death?

I have no convincing evidence concerning the Afterlife. I know there are nearly as many beliefs about it as there are people on the planet. They can’t all be right. It’s possible they’re all wrong. I have to begin with this simple truth: I Don’t Know.

If there is an Afterlife, since I don’t know one way or the other, I will deal with it when I arrive. I don’t spend this life trying to secure a good spot in the next one. One of my heroes, a little boy named Theodore McArdle, from the Salinger story, “Teddy” seemed to think he could have been closer to final Illumination had he lived one of his previous lives differently.

“I wasn’t a holy man,” Teddy said. “I was just a person making very nice spiritual advancement… I met a lady, and I sort of stopped meditating. I would have had to take another body and come back to earth again anyway – I mean I wasn’t so spiritually advanced that I could have died, if I hadn’t met that lady, and then gone straight to Brahma and never again have to come back to earth. But I wouldn’t have had to get incarnated in an American body if I hadn’t met that lady…”

J.D. Salinger

Now, I find these beliefs lovely, even though I don’t share them. I don’t know them to be wrong, and because I like Teddy so much, I have no trouble in seeing the Beauty in these ideas. And these beliefs help shape Teddy’s behavior, and I find his behavior admirable, so there is even more cause to like these beliefs. Their effects seem to me to be positive. If you knew Teddy, I think you would share my opinion.

Your beliefs are, I hope, as powerful and useful to you as Teddy’s are to him. And I have no reason to believe they are any more right or wrong than Teddy’s.

My belief concerning the Afterlife is simply this: it’s irrelevant.

I know that I have this life. I’m living it. I’m typing at a keyboard I hope someday to replace because many of the letters have become obscured over the years. I must be alive. Descartes aside, I believe I am who my senses and experience tell me I am. I find the interesting and lovely belief that this is all an illusion to be as irrelevant as the Afterlife. I am capable of perceiving the life I have. I’m not capable of knowing anything else.

My beliefs shape my life, too. Since I Don’t Know what will happen after I die, I want to make sure every moment in this life is the best it can be. If I spend a dollar, I can go to work and make another one. If I spend a minute, it’s gone. I can’t ever get it back. It needs to be well spent because I don’t have an infinite collection of them. They will, in fact, run out. And I haven’t the slightest idea how many of them I have left.

I certainly have more minutes behind me than I have in front of me. I’m 56, I’ve been hospitalized for Diabetic ketoacidosis more than a dozen times, and my body is pretty much shot. I’m more than halfway through my minutes. They could end abruptly at the end of this sentence, much as Teddy’s almost certainly did shortly after he explained his view of the Afterlife. I simply don’t know anything except that I have this particular minute.

Why don’t I fear Death, or The End of My Minutes, then? Because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I could be the healthiest man on Earth. I could take perfect care of myself, and I could live to be 130, perhaps a bit longer. But, inevitably, I’m still going to die. All I can do is put it off.

Being afraid of it would be a product of a belief in some form of Afterlife. Otherwise, Death is just infinite sleep.

To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause… – Hamlet. Act III, Scene 1

I don’t have to share Hamlet’s pause. For me, Death is precisely what I had previous to being alive. I was, to my knowledge, Nothing before I existed. I expect to be Nothing again. I don’t fear Nothing. It’s certainly not painful, and there are no people to scare the hell out of me. There is, in fact, no me at all to suffer.

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

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Unwarranted Selfishness

When I’m down to my last cigarette, and a stranger asks me for one, I’m going to deny him. I’m never going to make it all the way home without it. If I just got a new pack, absolutely, he can have one. I think that sort of sums up my feelings about selfishness. But I will explain it in more detail for those who require Deeper Thought.

First, selfishness is not an absolute evil. I am required to take care of myself because if I don’t, I can’t do anything for anyone else. If I give away all my food, I will starve, or, more likely, go into a diabetic coma. At that point, your tax dollars will go to saving my life, or I will die. Conservatives don’t like that, so it’s best that I reserve enough for myself that I can save their money.

That said, there comes a point where one has enough to get by. Some of us probably have far more than we need. I’ve never had much more than I need, but I’ve been lucky enough to have extra in my life. And I’ve been fortunate enough, from time to time, to be able to help others.

With money, it seems to me, there is a point at which one can have more than one can ever use. If I won $400,000,000 in the lottery, no one in my family, and none of my friends, would have a house payment anymore. That would be more money than I could ever need, and I recognize my ability to help those who have less. (And if you have more than $400,000,000 and we’re friends or family, why in the hell am I still paying rent??)

I completely understand why people want to make money. That’s the way our world has decided to run. It didn’t have to, you know. There have been civilizations that thrived without it. In our world, however, we will do quite nearly anything to get our hands on little pieces of green (usually) paper that allow us to get things we want. And the larger your collection of those little pieces of paper, the better people believe you to be. There are even those who believe the myth that you have worked harder, that you have done something greater than those who have a smaller collection, and you deserve that. Ancient Egyptians believed that about their Pharaohs. They were wrong. Sometimes, someone has; many people deserve their wealth. But it’s hardly earth shaking news to discover that’s not always the case.

I spent my life as a teacher. I’m not going to bother to explain that what I did was valuable to the world. I believe that to be self evident. But I was unable to collect a lot of pieces of green paper. This isn’t a complaint. I managed to live acceptably. I was paid well enough to eat, own a car, and have enough soda to get by. Most of all, I earned the right to believe that I made the world a better place. I’m an arrogant bastard, so that’s important to me.

But we all know of people who did nothing of any particular merit who have stacks of green paper well beyond any imaginable needs. And they insist that they must have more, and that I have to give it to them. So do you. And THAT is Unwarranted Selfishness. And that’s unacceptable in my mind.

Is it naive of me to think there ought to be a limit on how large one’s green stack is? I don’t have a clue what that limit should be, but there are people who spend their entire lives hoping to make rent, hoping to come up with the food to feed their children, hoping against hope that someday they can live in a nice place. At the same time there are people who have more than they can ever possibly need. That makes no sense to me.

I’ve seen Fox News criticize people who get government assistance. They suggested many of them don’t really need it. One of the stats they used was that 93% of them even had refrigerators. Jon Stewart quoted the stat, and added, “Those food chilling mother fuckers!” Why should we decide that some people aren’t suffering sufficiently for us to help them?

We help others not because they are suffering beyond the point that someone has, somewhat arbitrarily, decided is too much, but because we recognize ourselves in them. I wouldn’t want to live a life without food, shelter, clothing, and the other necessities. Neither would you. Neither would anyone else. Since I can imagine how I would feel without those things, I don’t want others to be without them, either.

We live in a Post Scarcity World. That sounds like an intimidating term to frighten those who are not economists, but it’s actually really simple. It means that we are now capable of producing enough for everyone to have what they need. The only reason – the ONLY reason – that some people suffer economically is that someone has decided they don’t deserve as much as someone else. Why don’t they deserve as much?

They don’t work hard enough? I know people who work 60, 70, and even 80 hours a week, and they are barely hanging on. You probably know people like that, too. Ah, but those people should go to school to get better jobs that pay them more. That’s a lovely thought. I’m a huge fan of school. On the other hand, I did go to school, and I worked long and hard for 40 years, and I don’t have much of anything. Yes, Fred, but you should have chosen a profession that pays better. That may be true. Let’s tell that to all teachers. Let’s tell it, also, to the people who work at Circle K, at McDonald’s, at the overpriced clothing store in the mall, or at Wal Mart. Tell it to custodians, garbage collectors, and delivery drivers. But here’s the thing: we need these folks, too. In fact, I need all of them much more than I need any CEO.

If we can produce what everyone needs, why shouldn’t everyone have what they need? The Puritan Work Ethic, or the idea that we are only good if we work hard, was valuable in its time. Hard work was essential for survival. It’s not, today. This isn’t to say no one needs to work on anything. Of course we do. It’s not only necessary in order to ensure the world keeps functioning, but it gives us a reason to live.

We live because there are still things we wish to accomplish. I, for example, still want to change the world. I want to move it just a little closer to being truly free. That means not only freedom from restrictions on one’s movements, but the freedom to choose. A large part of the freedom to choose comes from being aware of the choices available to you. That’s the function of education. You can’t choose to read To Kill a Mockingbird if you can’t read, or you’re unaware of its existence. But, Freedom will be the subject of another essay.

But, what we’re discussing so far is things that come in limited commodities. I don’t have an endless supply of money, or food, or cigarettes. I can’t give more than I have of those things. But, there are things where we all have a larger supply. It may not be infinite, but we can all give Kindness in larger quantities than we often do. The only limit to one’s Kindness is one’s mood, or one’s soul. The only limit to our Compassion is the limit we impose in order to maintain our own sanity.

Even if you disagree with everything I’ve written concerning the economy, (and I’m well aware many of you will call it liberal or socialist nonsense) I would hope we can agree that Kindness and Compassion need not be in short supply. If you don’t want to give others the means to live, perhaps you can at least give them your Kindness. Perhaps you can feel some Compassion for others. To reserve those things for yourself seems to me to be the height of Unwarranted Selfishness. They don’t deplete your stack of little green pieces of paper. And, if you know what you’re doing, it’s just possible it will increase your happiness, as well as the happiness of those who are receiving it.

If nothing else, can we agree that all lives are of equal value? Can we agree that human suffering is bad, and that Unwarranted Suffering is morally wrong? And, if we can agree on those things, can we finally agree that Unwarranted Selfishness is what Lincoln called tyranny? In the Lincoln – Douglas Debates he said something that is equally true now as it was then.

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

Abraham Lincoln

Let’s see what can be done about ending the tyrannical principle of Unwarranted Selfishness.

Posted on by Fred

9 People’s Favorite Thing

My roommate gave this to me today. My entire Salinger collection was lost in the last move, and this was a fantastic gift.

I don’t have to see
What’s ahead of me
Let’s just take our time
And Shine

Sara Niemietz
W.G. Snuffy Walden

A friend of mine told me once that she would rather be 9 people’s favorite thing than 100 people’s 9th favorite thing. I took the words to heart because she was an artist whose work I admire and respect. I don’t believe she was the first to say it. I believe she even said she was quoting someone. But, regardless of the original author, the words helped to reshape the way I see Art, in general. Or, perhaps a better way to say it would be that she sharpened my view of it.

Salinger said the same thing. It’s about the Perils of Mediocrity.

“I’d swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I’d hate it. I wouldn’t even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddamn closet.”

Holden Caulfield

I secretly write for an audience of, perhaps, 9 people. The opinions of the rest of the world mean little to me. That said, please don’t make the assumption that because we don’t know each other you’re not on that list. More than one of the people on my list is someone of whose existence I am entirely unaware.

The others are friends of mine, and they have no idea they are on The List. I can’t tell them. It would miss the point if I let them know that when they click “Like,” or even better, make a comment on something I’ve written, I experience Joy. If it’s only to be nice to me, it loses its meaning. It’s the idea that who I am has connected to these people in a way that moves them deeply enough for them to have felt the desire to respond in some way; that feels good. I am all but a hermit. Social situations scare the hell out of me. What I enjoy most is the connection of minds, or, perhaps, for lack of a better term, souls. For a few moments we are sharing our thoughts.

People are like music for me. Each piece of music creates its own unique feeling. And I keep a large music collection because there are some days when I need to feel what Mozart brings, and there are others when I need Chicago.

Friends are songs in my collection. Sadly, I can’t just have them at the moment I feel like they’re what I need. So, I have music to do what friends can do. This week it’s been almost exclusively the new Sara Niemietz album. I just got it, and it helps me write. At the end, she reminds me to Shine. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Some of you make me smile. Some of you are people whose opinions and ideas I respect deeply. Some of you make me want to write. And one of you is the most important reason for me to write. All of you, however, to a greater or lesser extent, make me want to Shine. I can enjoy as many different people as I can pieces of music. But, like music, I need more of some and less of others.

I have accepted, and even learned to celebrate, that my Art will never be popular. But, if I can join raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens on the lists of 9 people, I feel like I have done all I could hope.

To those of you who take the time to read my words, I offer my sincere gratitude. It matters more than you probably think.

Love,

Fred