Posted on by Fred

Horror Toes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sara Niemietz

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

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

Posted on by Fred

Voting Is a Moral Responsibility

It’s easy to decide that we can’t be bothered with politics.  We have our own lives.  We must make dinner, we have to get to bed on time so we can get up in the morning and go to work, and we have relationships that are more important to us than which politician said what.  Whether your boyfriend texts you back promptly is infinitely more interesting than what The Supreme Court decided about whether you can get an abortion, or religion in schools, or who can marry whom.  Regulating Health Care, whether Medicare can negotiate for better prescription prices, and who will pay for hospital stays are abstract ideas that don’t seem to matter in our practical world.  I get that.

But here’s the problem.  If we see no farther than our own backyard, we are likely to find the landscape outside of it, in which we all have to function, will be changing significantly, but slowly, so we don’t really notice it.  And sooner than you think, what’s happening outside your backyard will make its way into your home, your life, and your soul.  If we don’t think about more than 24 hours in the future, by the time we notice what’s happening, it’s likely to be too late.  When we can’t vote anymore, we will have lost the little power we have to change things, and we will watch our rights being stripped away more and more quickly.  Fascism flourishes in apathy.

I’m not saying you need to quit your job, give up your life, and go work for some political campaign.  I would like you to be aware of what’s happening so you can do what little you can to change it.  

Okay, Edmund Burke never said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” and I don’t know who first did.  I also don’t care.  It’s true regardless of the source.  I would, because I live in 2022, amend it to change “men” to “people,” but otherwise, I stand by those words.  Evil persists.  The effort to take our freedom of thought, of speech, of opinion, and, perhaps more importantly, our freedom to choose for ourselves is constant and ongoing.  Will someone else stop it?  I certainly hope so.  I can’t stop it.  What I can do is vote for those I believe are most likely to slow its course a bit. 

What would I like you to consider when you go to the ballot box?  I would begin with January 6, 2021, and the effort to keep power from being transferred peacefully from one President to the next.

I would pay attention to the efforts to restrict voting rights.  I would look at how many legislatures are trying to pass measures to invalidate the vote entirely if those in charge don’t like the results.   It’s happening here in Arizona already.  I’m including a link, and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to understand that this matters.

https://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/proposed-law-would-allow-arizona-legislature-to-overturn-presidential-election-results/article_c2a70681-59c0-512f-ba86-2bf23128f9ee.html

I would also pay attention to Supreme Court decisions.  They have already stripped bodily autonomy from half the population.  They are going to revisit the idea that we should be allowed to marry whomever we love.  They are going to consider the possibility of banning contraception.  In short, if a woman has sex, she is required to give birth to the child, regardless of the circumstances.  I’ll remind you that a 10-year-old girl in Ohio was forced to travel to Indiana to terminate her pregnancy because after The Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade, Ohio banned all abortions.  It’s doubtful a 10-year-old would even survive giving birth.  I won’t bother to give you links to this story.  It’s easily Googled.

This is enough to help you understand that what’s happening in America today is as important as how long it takes your boyfriend to reply to your text.  The time to stop the transformation into an authoritarian dictatorship is running out.  The least you could do is vote for those who have the best chance of stopping it. 

The Republican Party was, in my lifetime, composed of decent honorable people with whom I often disagreed.  There are still a few such Republicans.  Liz Cheney is one.  John McCain was another. 

What is called the MAGA Republican Party has none of these, or if they do, I haven’t seen them.  And that’s the party that is taking power.  If you don’t know who Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene are, that’s okay.  If you don’t know who Matt Gaetz is, life will go on.  But, these are the people who are elected not only to represent us, but to make laws that will have direct effects on you.   You don’t need to spend an hour a night watching the news, but you should at least know the basics.   This will allow you to be aware of the threats, and it will help you meet them.  If you just want a basic nightly rundown in five or ten minutes, read Heather Cox Richardson’s Facebook page or subscribe to her newsletter. 

When people are threatened by and refuse to engage ideas that differ from their own, they become dangerous because they can’t be swayed by conversation.  When words become worthless, all that’s left is violence.  Nothing good will come of that. 

An authoritarian dictatorship is on its way.  Many people are already coming up with contingency plans to escape America if the fascists are successful. 

It seems to me the only tool we have to fight this is our ballots. I advocate using this tool because once violence begins, it almost invariably gets out of control, and does so with alarming speed. It means, at the absolute minimum, someone will be hurt. It usually means someone dies. Whatever Good we believe we bring about with our violence is denied to The Dead. We have absolutely failed them.

Many, if not most, of us have no means of leaving America. Should it become the authoritarian dictatorship the MAGA Republicans are trying to create, we will be trapped here. We will suffer. Many of us will die.  You may be certain they won’t tolerate dissenting opinions such as mine.  Fortunately, I’m very small.  I won’t be at the top of the list of people who need to disappear in the dead of night never to be heard from again.  This is what happens in dictatorships.  It will, in fact, happen here if we allow it.  The biggest voices will be the first to go.  Sadly, I can’t afford to move out of my place at all.  Getting to another country would be impossible for me.  I would be forced to wait until they come for me.

For this one moment, we still have the power of the vote. I recognize it seems unimaginably small. But enough people doing a little thing makes a massive difference. And that power is one denied to millions around the world. It is one that was once denied to millions of Americans.

People have fought and died for that right. They have been lynched, tortured, and they have endured unimaginable atrocities for the right of all of us to go the ballot box. Failing to make use of that most fundamental right is more than a slap in the face to those who struggled so long and hard to win it for us. It is essentially pissing on their graves as we passively watch ourselves collapse into a dystopian nightmare from which, for far too many of us, there can be no escape.

Of course I’ll be voting. I couldn’t mail it in because I was in the hospital. Where I live in Mesa, there have been reports of armed people watching early voting ballot boxes. They may watch me drop my ballot in one of those boxes and shove their metal substitute penises straight up their asses. I don’t really believe they’ll shoot me. If they do, it will do more for the cause of freedom than my single vote ever would. I can think of many worse ways to die. And I would prefer being dead to living in the Hell to which they would like to condemn me.

The Road to Fascism is paved with claims that what’s happening is no big deal.  For example:

January 6 wasn’t a big deal.  Very few people died.  Everyone was fine. 

That sort of attitude normalizes the hatred, fascism, and violence that were on display that day and are swelling in America and throughout the world. 

I recognize how difficult it is to find Truth.  The Media that tells us what is happening is filled with agendas.  CNN, MSNBC, and Fox all rely on Confirmation Bias, or the idea that we tend to believe those things that best fit our ideology, and we reject those that don’t.  They make money by feeding us what we want to hear.  That’s respectable in Art.  It’s worse than worthless in Journalism.  We can all choose our own media outlets, but most of the time we must separate the Spin from the Truth. 

Since we’re not there to see what’s happening in the places where laws are being made, we are forced to rely on the Media to tell us.  You have your sources.  I have mine.  Neither of us can be entirely sure that we understand all of it. 

One of the rare exceptions is the January 6 Committee Hearings.  We could see every minute live.  Complete videos are still easily accessible on YouTube.  You don’t need to listen to media spin.  You can just watch for yourself if you want to invest that much time in understanding what happened.  Most of the participants were Republicans.  To say that it’s partisan is simply untrue.  Both sides of the aisle came together in a search for the Truth.  They’ve invited the former President to come and tell the truth.  In fact, they have subpoenaed him.  If he complies, I promise it will be worth your time to watch and listen, without Spin.

I sympathize with the idea that you don’t want to put 18 hours or so into that pursuit.  You have a much busier life than I have.  I work when I’m feeling well enough to sit at this keyboard.  You probably spend 40 hours or more at work every week.  I don’t leave the house.  You have a social life.  I get that.  I honestly do.  The best I can recommend to you is to find someone you trust to give you the basic facts.  If you don’t trust me, find someone you do trust, and try to look beyond your Confirmation Bias.  Give them more than 5 minutes to explain.  At least once.  Then… go do your most important civic duty.  Go and vote.  Do it while you still can.  You may never get another chance.  You owe it to those who fought and died for that right.  You owe it to all of us.  It is a moral responsibility. 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2lGBQHL8t1a8hld5PSmEqC?si=e8939fb4d3f54b53

Posted on by Fred

Imagine Enough:

A World Without Money

Coloring the Sea Around the Pribilof Islands by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

Imagine…  Imagine a world where Greed is pointless.  Everyone has all they need.  Why horde food when you already have all you can eat?  What’s the point of having more of anything than someone else when you already have all you need?  Imagine The Unimaginable.  Imagine a world without money.

I know.  The thought is staggering.  Interestingly, while there are 7.7 million other species on this planet, we’re the only ones who ever needed money.  Sharks don’t pay each other for food.  Lions don’t loan each other money at 7.9% interest to partake of this evening’s zebra.  An earthworm never paid for the privilege of slithering through the Earth.  We’re unique.

You can say that the only reason we work is to make money, and in the world in which you and I live, that’s probably true.  But we’ve been on the planet, in one form or another, for as long as 300,000 years, and we’ve used money for only the last 5,000 to 40,000 years, depending on whom you ask.  In any case we went more than a quarter million years without it.  True, we began to advance more quickly when money showed up on the stage, but I have confidence we could have found another way.  Even if that’s not true, it has certainly outlived its usefulness.  We have continued to evolve, and our social systems are lagging behind our technology.

We assume that it is natural — in fact, unavoidable — to be greedy.  We want more than we need today in case we start running low tomorrow.  I understand that.  I just ordered 9 36-packs of Diet Pepsi because Costco had a good deal, and I don’t want to run out… before my next paycheck. 

I wouldn’t do that, though, if I didn’t have to worry about when I would have money again.  Why take up all the space on my counter if I can get more whenever I want it?  I would have enough around for today, probably tomorrow, and, if I had plenty of room, maybe as far as next week, but only because I’m too lazy to push the buttons on my phone to order more every day.  Beyond that, there would be no point.  And I just used the evil word, didn’t I?  Lazy!!!

We’ve been taught to believe the Greatest Virtue is work.  Work earns us money.  Money buys us freedom and progress.  Laziness is a sin.  If everyone were freed from the chase for dollars, we would lie around all day and do nothing.

Except…

I don’t think we would.  “I don’t know about anyone but me,” as Jackson Browne so eloquently put it, but when I have enough, I become truly productive.  I spend my time writing.  I spend it enjoying other people’s Art.  There’s no crime in watching Netflix, or reading a book, or listening to music.  I stare sometimes at the paintings in my house and let them fill me with emotions I can’t quite name.  None of these activities is laziness.  They are all pieces that go into making my life meaningful.  They nourish my soul.

What would you do if all your time belonged to you?  I know several people who would create Arts and Crafts.  I know others who would smoke weed all day and think about someone they love.  The man who saved my life would probably be producing the greatest podcast in the world.  He’s younger and has more energy than I do, and he possesses technical skills that blow mine out of the water.  Sadly, for us, he has to spend most of his time chasing the money he requires to feed his family.  What he does is helpful, to be sure.  I would like that to be, however, something he chooses to do rather than something he is forced to do. 

I have a friend who makes money sitting around playing a video game, and I’m happy for him.  Video games aren’t my gig, but they are absolutely an Art form, and I’m impressed by the creative effort that goes into producing them.    Experiencing Art enhances one’s life.  It gives the artist a little touch of immortality.  Shakespeare is around more than 4 centuries after his death.  (I hope to make it for 4 weeks beyond my demise.)  The paintings on my wall, in their original forms, are more than a hundred years old, and Van Gogh is still with me.  Yes, mine are copies, and I have great respect and gratitude for the people and technology that created them.  Long after I’m gone, my original Agnew painting of Speedy Shine will be staring out at someone who needs a little love.  My uncle’s paintings will still bring a sense of wonder long after he’s gone.  The people who created Gary’s video games will be remembered centuries after anyone is playing their games anymore, if not by name, then by the fruits of their labors.  The person who created Pong opened the door for the most advanced video games you’ll ever play. 

I have no doubt that those artists made some money, but I don’t think that was their primary motivation.  If no one ever had to go to work again, what would we do?  I have no doubt someone would try to create a better video game, not for the money, but for the experience of playing something even cooler.  They do it now.  “Mods” are available for nearly any game, and few people make money creating them.    

We would free scientists of every sort to work on what interests them.  We’ll never know how many Einsteins or Hawkings we lost to Circle K and McDonald’s.  How many times has the next Marie Curie asked customers how they would like their steaks cooked?  And if we freed these folks to work on the questions that fascinate them, no one would need to do those jobs anymore.  We can automate nearly anything now, and we’re getting more efficient at it all the time.  When was the last time a cashier rang you up at Wal Mart?  Instead of hating automation, we should herald it as the first step into a world where money is irrelevant.  It allows humans to be free to turn our attention to our passions.   

“We don’t have the resources for everyone to have whatever they want!”

I’m sorry, but that’s simply not true.  You’ve heard me quote the statistics over and over on this show.  We do have enough food and shelter for everyone on Earth, and, if we made better use of our resources, we could preserve the planet a little longer.  That’s really the biggest problem we all share.  If we continue down this path, it won’t be long before we exhaust those resources.  We’ve done sufficient damage to the environment that within less than a decade we’ll be fighting wars over water.  Forget gold.  Water is the source of life.  We’re only a few years away from The Colorado River being unable to supply us with the water we need in Arizona.  What will we do then?

I’m not smart enough to solve this problem, but other people are.  I don’t want them to spend their lives asking if I would like fries with that.  I want them to figure it out.  So do you.  Whatever it is you love to do, you can’t do it without water. 

When the wars come, millions more will die.  Wars exist because they make money.  People are specially trained to kill so that people can make money.  Children are in cages so that people can make money.  Borders are guarded by people with guns so that people can make money.  Religions are founded and then crumble so that people can make money.  All of this because someone, somewhere, doesn’t have… Enough.

I’ve had Enough of war and destruction and bloodshed.  I’ve had Enough of racism and misogyny.  I’ve had Enough of hatred.  I hope you have, too. 

I have Enough food to eat today.  I have Enough Diet Pepsi.  I have Enough weed.  I have Enough insulin.  I have Enough.  I have no desire for more.  I would certainly take it if someone offered it to me, but I don’t need more.   Not tonight.  I hope you have all you need, too.

People aren’t naturally greedy.  I made my first spareribs in a crock pot tonight because another writer I barely know likes my work, and she gave me both the meat and the appliance.  This is who people are when we give them Enough.

I will need more when what I have runs out.  If I’ve done everything correctly, that won’t be until my next money arrives so I can get more.  It’s not that the planet can’t provide me with Enough… right now.  It’s that we’ve decided I’m not allowed to have it until I have more money.  I suspect you’re in a similar situation.  Millions in my country, and billions on my planet, don’t have Enough to eat tonight.  We have the resources, but they don’t have the money. 

When everyone has Enough, there’s no more reason to fight wars.  There’s no more reason to steal when you already have Enough.  Why would you need to kill? 

Enough allows us to learn, explore, and thrive.  We can pursue our passions.  We can learn to love more completely.  And isn’t everything, finally, about Love?  Whether it’s the love of Art, or the love of romantic partners, or the love I share with Speedy Shine, it’s all still about Love.  Love is what brought most, but not all, of us into existence.  It has nurtured most, but not all, of us.  It needs to be there for everyone.  I promise love is not a finite resource.  It’s love that brings me to my keyboard, thence to my mic, and thence to your eyes and ears.  Love is what brings us together.  And Love doesn’t require money.

Sara Niemietz is telling me to Shine while I write.  And the recording to which I’m listening was made in February of 2020 just before the pandemic hit.  And she dedicated the song to me that night while I sat in the audience.  She is, at this very moment, bringing me back the feelings I had then.  I can see my former roommate sitting next to me catching the glow of me Shining in the light of Sara and Snuffy’s music.  “I’m not crying,” Sara says at the end of the song.  “My makeup’s just running.” Of course she wasn’t.  Of course I wasn’t.  Certainly my former roommate wasn’t.  And Valerie Bertinelli will be texting me to invite me to dinner tonight. 

Art has this power.  To deny the world of artists because they’re chasing rent and groceries is a crime against humanity.  We’re all fortunate that Sara makes enough money from her Art to sustain her.  How many Saras, though, will we never hear because they don’t have enough to do what Sara does?  Why should we lose them when we really do have… Enough? How do we get there?

We begin by recognizing that we are all travelers on this rock tumbling through space.  We’re not Americans and Russians and Mexicans and Jews and Christians and Muslims and White and Black and Brown.  We’re not male or female or something in between.  We’re humans.  Full stop.  Anything else is arbitrary and meaningless.  Start with that idea as deeply rooted in your consciousness as The Puritan Work Ethic is now.  Challenge yourself to imagine something different.  Imagine… Enough.

I’m one.  You make two.  Now we need to get one country to decide that borders are a waste of time and resources.  And then another needs to join that country.  And another and another until the world has become One. 

Then we use our resources to provide everyone with Enough.  We put our best minds to work on the problem of freeing us from the work no one wants to do anymore.  They’re done designing weapons of mass destruction and algorithms that will allow them to corner some market or make money for some hedge fund.  These extraordinary thinkers get to work out how to repair the damage we’ve done to our environment.  They can figure out how we’re going to break the speed of light so we can go explore strange new worlds.  Perhaps some of us could visit the places The James Webb Telescope has recently revealed to us.  We might learn to manipulate Time.  Whom could we meet in Space? 

Humans will learn to cure diabetes, so I won’t have to go to the hospital anymore.  They’ll cure cancer.  They’ll help us to live for centuries… and longer.  They can devote their minds to figuring out how we can get along with others instead of how to kill them.  Competition is left to games we play for entertainment.  Cooperation becomes common.  There are no more patents or copyrights because no one needs them.  We all have Enough. 

Is this world possible?  Of course it is.  We just need a little imagination. It was John Lennon, in music, one of the most powerful and universal forms of Art, who asked us to Imagine:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You

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

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You

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

— John Lennon, Imagine, 1971

John Lennon did his part.  I’ve done my part.  Now you do yours.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XAIFEg5F3er12rwPrhF5X?si=f4fb72c6cb154857

Posted on by Fred · 4 Comments

UBI, The Prosecutor, Speedy Shine, and Me

Speedy Shine and Me

I’m living, as you’ve probably deduced if you’ve listened to my last few episodes, in an untenable situation.  The cheapest place to rent where I live is $1500 a month, unless I want to rent a room from someone.  Those run around $600.  I won’t survive that experience.  I do very poorly around others.  I need to be alone. 

My Disability, after having taught Elementary School for 29 years, is $1363 a month.  I can’t possibly get another job.  My body simply won’t tolerate it.  I was on the precipice of another trip to the hospital this week with Diabetic Ketoacidosis.  I didn’t do anything outrageous.  I spent some time getting up and down from the floor trying to make my monitors work with the beautiful new desktop on which I’m writing this.  That exhausted me.  At 4 PM I woke up when my alarm went off.  It’s to remind me to take my Lantus, which is a long-acting form of insulin, and to call my mother.  I felt like I had been run over by a steamroller.  Everything hurt.  I was nauseous.  I called Mom and faked my way through it so she wouldn’t know I was sick.  I took my Lantus.  I checked my blood sugar.  It was 521. 

For those who don’t know, doctors want your blood sugar to be between 80 and 120.  Anything over 400 is almost always going to turn into DKA.  I’ve been in the hospital with that condition 15 times in the last several years.  My doctor described it to me as my blood turning into acid and trying to kill me from the inside.  It generally requires a minimum of 3 days in the hospital.  The first two are usually spent in Intensive Care.  Statistically, most people don’t survive more than 4 incidents of DKA.  Had I gotten any sicker and survived, I would have made it 4 times as long as science expects me to live.

There was a physical aspect to my flirtation with death.  There was also an emotional aspect.  My PTSD was in full force, set off by someone being incredibly kind to me.  I’m going to refer to her as Lady Dalrymple.  (Read some Jane Austen.)  She has bought me incredibly expensive groceries I could never possibly afford.  She bought me a crock pot in which to cook the spareribs I can’t cook in my oven because it doesn’t work.  She sent Speedy Shine 40 pounds of kibble and more than a dozen cans of fancy food.  How could anyone be any kinder than that?  She found a way.

She’s heard my show.  She’s read my work.  She doesn’t believe I should have to live this way.  She offered me the downstairs portion of her house, rent-free, for as long as I want.  It’s a beautiful home.  It has a fenced backyard for Speedy Shine.  It’s everything I could want.  It’s Paradise.  So, how could this be a problem for me?

Those who have been around a while will recall that just a little over a year ago, someone else made me the same offer. I was properly skeptical. When something seems too good to be true… Nevertheless, after much discussion, I accepted the offer. I haven’t been in a position to decline a place to live for more than a decade. The results were disastrous. The rent-free home with a fenced backyard turned into a $750 a month trailer with water that needed to be changed twice weekly. The privacy I had been promised turned into thrice daily assaults on my character. I spent 64 days hearing about my faults. I spent a lot of money to get there, and when the gun came out and the only friend who had the audacity to visit was threatened, I spent what was left of my Disability backpay to escape. Without the help of my friend, I would certainly have died there. I arrived here broke, and I promptly went to the hospital for 3 days because I went into Diabetic Ketoacidosis.

My California “Home”

I’ve been safely installed here for just shy of a year.

I told my best friend I wanted to talk to her last night because she is the only person with whom I can discuss something this huge. It went poorly to say the least. She was repeatedly interrupted while I was experiencing a low-level panic attack, and my Rejection Sensitivity kicked me in the teeth. She and I have discussed that at length. She is well aware of my condition.  All I had time to get from her was that it would be better for both her and her ex-boyfriend, who is being kind enough to rent me this place at a price I can afford and that, thankfully, covers the internet and all the utilities, if I left.

This underlined in flashing neon lights that I am a liability.  She can’t get married with her ex-boyfriend living with her since few men feel good about such an arrangement.  He can’t sell this place and move on with his life if I’m here.  I live on their charity.  This has been discussed at greater length in earlier episodes.  I won’t go any deeper into it here.

That night, Speedy Shine held me together, and only barely.

We finally had an opportunity the next night to discuss it without interruption. We’re thinking of trying to find me something called Section 8 Housing. All I know about Section 8 comes from M*A*S*H, and I’m really not Klinger.

What was the problem?

The thought of moving somewhere far away and living for free obviously brought back my feelings of terror from a year ago. I flashed repeatedly on images of my cell phone vibrating and sounds of its beeping to tell me that another assault on my integrity was waiting to be read. If I ignored it, you could be sure the landlord would walk the 100 feet from his house to my trailer to tell me what was wrong with me. And he would yell. If I tried to defend myself, I would be called a “fucking liar,” and the yelling would increase. I learned to be quiet. I haven’t been confident talking to anyone beyond my best friend, my mother, and the man who pulled me out of there, since. I don’t believe I ever will be again.

When you hear me talking to you here, you may be sure every word was carefully written, proofread repeatedly and ineffectively, (I can’t tell you how many times I have to correct it during the recording, or, worse I find an error on my Word Press site.) and edited repeatedly. If you hear it on my show, I promise it’s gone through not fewer than 5 drafts. I communicate carefully because I want to be sure I’m saying it as honestly and accurately as I can. I can’t be sure to get it right in a conversation.

I’m perfectly comfortable at my keyboard. It allows me to make mistakes without any more complaint than the little red or blue lines it uses to show me where it thinks I’m wrong. It doesn’t tell me I’m The Scum of The Earth. It just suggests what it believes, often erroneously, is a better way to write something. I’m grateful when it catches typos. I won’t, just yet, substitute an algorithm’s judgment for 50 years of writing experience.

I am going to spend quite some time considering the offer, but first I have to remember that most people are genuinely kind. Most people are caring, compassionate, and empathetic. The evidence to back that claim is overflowing throughout the last 6 years of my life. My friends have saved me, in various ways, more times than I can count. I think someday I may make an Excel sheet in which I try to record them all. There would be at least 15 entries for saving my life by getting me to the hospital when I went into DKA. That doesn’t count the times they have given me money to save my car, to pay my rent, to put my dog to rest, to buy me groceries, or just because they wanted to help me out. At the same time, the memories of California keep haunting me and the Prosecutor Who Lives in My Head keeps taunting me, asking me how stupid I am. Am I really dumb enough to make the same mistake twice?

The Prosecutor

Prosecutor:        You’re blaming me for your problems… again?

Fred:                    I’m simply pointing out that you like to tell me what’s wrong with me.  It’s much less pleasant than one might think.

Prosecutor:       Without recognizing your flaws and faults, you can’t possibly hope to correct them.  I keep you from hiding from reality.  And the reality is that you’re a liability.  Your existence costs everyone around you money.  You are a pathetic dependent child.  I understand why you’re tempted by The Offer, but are you also going to be stupid?  Mr. Scott told you more than 40 years ago, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  You’re inviting shame… Again.

Fred:                Lady Dalrymple has already shown me she is capable of great kindness.  She’s not Anthony Tagonist.  There’s no reason to believe she’s lying to me.

Prosecutor:         She doesn’t need to be lying to you.  It’s a question of how much anyone can tolerate you.  History shows that it’s never long.  And then you will be stuck again.  You must find the means to be independent.  It’s your only chance of survival. 

Fred:                    I can’t imagine how I could do that.  There’s no job I can possibly do.  Someone offered me some proofreading work, but I still miss things in my own writing.  I couldn’t make that work, and I’ll embarrass myself.  It’s not like I can go work at a convenience store or something.  I wind up in DKA from nearly any physical exertion. 

Prosecutor:         We’re pursuing the means to do that at this very moment.  Your podcast.

Fred:                   After 3 years, I’m managing to put between 3 and 400 dollars a month into the bank.  I could stop supporting other artists, but the difference wouldn’t be enough to provide me with any sort of independence.  It would just allow me a few more days before I run out at the end of every month. 

Prosecutor:         Then there appears to be only one solution.

Fred:                   I tried that the other night.  I went into the bathroom and got my Humalog pen.  I took it into the bedroom so I could say goodbye to Speedy Shine.  He turned his back on me for the first time in his life.  He was obviously feeling angry and betrayed.  I told him my best friend would find him another family, but he jumped off of the bed. 

Speedy Shine:    I need your love, not someone else’s.  I give you all the loves and kisseses and cuddlers you ever needed, and you want to leave me.  That is not is a good Fred.  I need you.  Just my Smelly Old Man.  Nobody else for Speedy Shine.  That’s all.

Speedy Shine

So, I don’t know what to do.  I see only one reasonable alternative.  I don’t believe it will arrive in time to help me.  We need some form of Universal Basic Income.  We need to change our priorities from money to people.  The question, “Who’s going to pay for it?” has become offensive to me.  There’s no question that we have the resources to ensure everyone has their basic needs met.  I don’t even want a car.  I would just like to be able to live without depending on the kindness of strangers.  I contributed what I could to the world.  I continue to do that in the only way possible for me. 

This would be the solution for me.  It would be the solution for countless millions of others, as well.  Many people are in worse shape than I am, but you probably don’t know them.  The argument that this would cause runaway inflation has not only been disproven repeatedly, but it also says that money matters more than people.  It doesn’t.  Not on this Porch.

This country began in an effort to throw off the power of a King over the citizens of this country.  The first three words of the preamble are, “We The People,” and they’re written larger and prouder than all the rest.  The idea was to give freedom to all of us.  We wanted to end the idea of serfs and feudal lords.  We wanted everyone to be able to live their lives in freedom. 

We’ve certainly made progress, but we live with an economic system that makes meaningful freedom impossible for millions of people.  Unless I begin to earn $2000 a month from my podcast, I will be dependent on others just to live.  This is no sort of life.  And my life is better than many others.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  It shouldn’t be this way.

Change begins with imagination and conversation.  Perhaps we can get enough people talking about Universal Basic Income that it finally gets the attention it deserves.  This might prompt a politician to advocate it.  That might actually change the world. 

Absent that, I am doomed to live a precarious life, contingent entirely on the kindness of strangers. 

What could we do to help?  We can talk.  We can advocate.  We can vote.  We can try.  I’m begging you to do what you can.  I don’t want to live like this anymore.  I don’t know how much longer I can.  I’m not alone in this.  This world doesn’t work for far too many of us.  Please… please help to change this in whatever ways you can.

I love you.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2TSyk0wZJfRLnMpvwwRKgm?si=7353653d6e2240ec

Posted on by Fred

Approaching Gilead

Better is never better for everyone.  It always means worse, for some.

–Commander Waterford in “Faithful,” from The Handmaid’s Tale, Season 1, Episode 5, and from the novel by Margaret Atwood.  Episode written by Dorothy Fortenberry

There’s much to unpack in that line, and I am not sure whether I believe it.  I’m trying to think of something in which better would be better for everyone.  We Idealists spend lots of time trying to imagine a world that is better for everyone.  I like to think that ending homelessness, hunger, and poverty would be better for everyone.  I suppose a case could be made that for those currently in power, it would be worse.  They would have less money somehow, but I’m not entirely sure how.  They would certainly lose much of the power they have now.  It would make it more difficult for them to tell the rest of us what to do all the time.  We would no longer be their wage slaves, forced to choose between working for them or facing those conditions.  I suppose in the short term it would be worse, but we would inevitably reduce crime by lessening desperation, and people would generally be less angry.  The wealthy would be safer.

Equality and Equity may not seem to be better for everyone.  Those at the top feel like they would be forfeiting their superiority.  I’m not convinced they are superior to the rest of us, but they certainly have the power to force many of us into positions we would rather not occupy.  Equality and Equity would reduce that power.  Justice usually accompanies these two, but I’m reluctant to decide what justice is in most cases.

Perhaps it’s the lust for power that separates those who have so much of it from those who have so little.  I, for example, have little interest in telling anyone else what to do with their lives.  I should like for them to pursue what interests them.  I would like them to be free to explore the world, the ideas that have helped to get us to the place that we have enough for everyone, their own ideas, and their own identities. 

I understand, then, I suppose, why some people are opposed to my Idealistic World.  It will mean less for a few and more for many.  Since the few have the power, they’re not likely to accept any such arrangement. 

The purpose, however, of our Democratic Republic is to give power to the many.  It is intended to rescue us from the power of the few.  We evicted a King in favor of having a President who would be elected by the majority of us.  And there are people now who would like very much to change that.

“​Now I’m awake to the world. I was asleep before. That’s how we let it happen. When they slaughtered Congress, we didn’t wake up. When they blamed terrorists and suspended the constitution, we didn’t wake up then, either. Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”

― Margaret Atwood

This is, of course, fiction… for the moment.  One of the horrifying aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale is its close resemblance to the world we already inhabit.  Margaret Atwood, and the producers of the show, have shown us a dystopian nightmare that quite nearly began on January 6, 2021.  Had that insurrection been successful there’s little room for doubt that those who seized power would have enacted laws similar to those in Gilead.  They have already stripped bodily autonomy from half the population.  They would like to tell us who can marry whom, now.  They have corrupted Christianity, which was never the law of the land in America, to be a weapon of hatred instead of a religion of love.  They declare homosexuality an abomination.  They are working to keep those who choose to explore other genders than those of their physical bodies as far from society as possible.  Rapists are seldom punished.  There are always questions about what the woman did to deserve what happened to her.  The answer, by the way, is nothing.  There’s nothing a person can possibly do that makes them deserve to be raped.

Right now, in America they are banning books.  Reading is illegal in Gilead.  The offense was originally punishable by the loss of a hand.  In their kindness, those in power reduced the penalty to a finger.  One can work more efficiently with the loss of a single finger than the loss of an entire hand, after all.  And a Commander’s Wife loses her finger for reading The Bible.  Fascists frequently turn on their own.  Ask Mike Pence.

While we are certainly perilously close to becoming Gilead, it’s vital that we realize we’re not there yet.  I’m not, in any way, minimizing the danger we are facing.  One of my friends, however, was shocked when I said we’re not there yet.  She’s sure we are.  Interestingly, she made this comment on Facebook, in response to one I made that she must have… read.  She used either her phone or her computer.  I assume she still has all her fingers.  In America, in September of 2022, she wasn’t breaking a law.  Had Offred (or June, which is her real name) made such a comment, the consequences of her words would have been swift and merciless.  We’re not Gilead… yet.

A case could be made that I ought to be careful about what I wish for.  (Yes, I ended a sentence in a preposition.  My late father is hovering over my shoulder telling me to take the corn cob out of my butt.). Gilead, after all, has no homelessness, poverty, or hunger.  Neither do prisons.  If one is willing to sacrifice freedom, some of the challenges in life can be eliminated.  We can simply discard the poor.  They can be executed and used for animal feed in Gilead.  Jonathan Swift suggested serving them as a delicacy at the tables of the wealthy in the 18th century… except he was kidding, at least as much as someone with an 18th century corn cob up his butt could kid. 

Among the reasons people can be convinced that Gilead is a good idea is that it removes our need to find out, for ourselves, who we are.  My father told me once that George Bernard Shaw said, “Most men would rather dig a ditch than think a thought.”  I assumed he was right.  I was accustomed to Dad always being right.  For the life of me, though, I can’t find that quote anywhere, and I’ve read my share of Shaw and done my due diligence Google searches.  So, if it wasn’t Shaw, maybe it is best attributed to Dad.  Whomever said, there’s more than a little truth in it.  

Introspection is difficult.  It is frightening.  When we begin to consider all the sorts of people we could be, it’s not unlike losing ourselves in the stars when we stare too long at the night sky.  I’ve actually become uncomfortably dizzy while stargazing.    While many of us find this exhilarating, there are plenty of us who prefer to keep our feet firmly planted on terra firma.  We cling tightly to the old and familiar.  Questions are frightening.  If something seems to be working for us, we don’t want to change it.

I used to get fucked behind a dumpster just so I could buy a sixth of Oxy and a Happy Meal. I’m clean now. I’ve got a safe place to sleep every night and I have people who are nice to me.

— Ofglen in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1, Episode 5, “Faithful”

Fascist authoritarian dictatorships have their value, too.  I will, however, die before endorsing one.  Freedom has to exist before anything of value can be accomplished. 

The question now is how to save us from the Gilead we are about to become.  The first step needs to be to protect what freedom we still have.  As of September, 2022, we can still vote.  That fundamental right is under attack all over the country.  We need to keep those who threaten that right out of office.  I know it’s easy to be cynical and tell me that all politicians are corrupt, and voting is useless.  I won’t subscribe to that interpretation of our world.  It takes away the only weapon we have in this fight.  It’s tempting to endorse violence, but violence means killing, and killing makes us into what we oppose.  I won’t advocate that. 

We need to open our minds to more than one idea.  We need to consider things we haven’t before.  That doesn’t mean we have to accept them.  I won’t accept Gilead, but I will try to understand how our world might become that way so I can try to keep it from happening.  The only tool I have is my words.  My body is worthless.  My influence is less than insignificant.  I realize that.  And I will keep trying anyway because to do otherwise is to surrender. 

Dad also told me that Albert Camus said, “To believe you can change the world is insanity; failure to try is cowardice,” but I’ve never been able to find that line, either.  I think Dad just didn’t want to take credit for his best lines, so he pretended someone else said them realizing that, since Google wasn’t a thing yet, I would probably never know.  I don’t believe for a moment I can change the world.  I will always continue to try.  I’m secretly hoping you can do it. 

I joined the Patreon of one of my heroes, David Gerrold, last month.  It cost more than I can possibly afford, but I wanted to make an investment in myself and in this show.  I may eat more ramen for a while, but I hope to be a better writer.  One of our assignments was to describe our Ideal Audience.  You’re probably in these words.

My Ideal Audience

My great writer’s dream is that an up-and-coming politician, uncorrupted by the influence of lobbyists, corporations, or PACs, reads my work or listens to my show and decides to pass laws that help that unrepresented majority of us who hope only to make it to our next paycheck.  They change the world.  Everyone has a place to live.  Everyone has all the medical care they require.  Education is free for everyone forever.  Food is considered a human right and not a luxury for the chosen few.  I don’t know this reader or listener’s name, or gender, or age, or sexuality, or ethnic background, and I couldn’t possibly care less.  They’re my Ideal Audience.

I find that my actual audience is made up of kind and caring people who respond favorably to my Idealism.  They are compassionate.  They are empathetic.  Some of them have both of those qualities.  A few of them have a few extra dollars a month they contribute to my Patreon every month so I can make it to next month.  That’s probably more times that I’ve said month than I’ve said in the last… month.  Most of them are older people.  I’m unaware of any children who listen to my work, and it’s not written for them.  I taught Elementary School for 29 years.  I’ve done my bit for kids.  I’m talking to “gr’ups” now.  A few of them are in their 30s.  They seem to be a diverse group.  I don’t target any particular group.

I have a surprising number of Conservatives supporting my show.  I write with them in mind.  If I can avoid pissing them off, I might be able to get them to rethink some of their ideas.  One of them actually said, on more than one occasion, I’ve given him “something to think about.” 

I write for an audience that is at least as intelligent as I am.  I assume they’re familiar with Shakespeare, the classics, and current popular culture.  If they’re not, Google is readily available. 

Finally, my audience is Seymour’s Fat Lady:

“This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind.  I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night.  I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and — I don’t know.  Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air.  It made sense.”

J.D. Salinger in Franny and Zooey

I feel a little like one of the underground broadcasters in Harry Potter when Voldemort has taken over.  I’m sending out messages hoping someone will hear them and do what I can’t.  I’m Piglet, sending out his message in a bottle in “Piglet is Entirely Surrounded By Water.”  I’m Josh Lyman in The West Wing yelling at the President that Bartlett needs to listen to him.  Josh was having a nervous breakdown at the time, however, and I try to remain calm.  And interestingly, Bradley Whitford played Josh Lyman in The West Wing, and he plays Commander Lambert in The Handmaid’s Tale.  Elisabeth Moss played Zoey Bartlett in the former show, and stars in the latter.  That makes the show strangely more personal for me.  I was friends with both of them two decades ago, in the way that we all become friends with fictional characters.  That adds to my catharsis.  Connections add to the power of an experience. 

I hope my connection with you is sufficient for you to help in what ways you can.  The midterms are coming.  This is not the time to sit them out.  Even if you are a very small animal like me, you can still vote.  If you don’t do it now, there is a very real possibility you won’t have the right to again.  Gilead is coming for us.  Let’s stop them while we still can.

Posted on by Fred

Surviving Dependency and Poverty

My life is entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers.  I discussed this at some length in “Willy Loman and Me” last week.  This forces the question of how someone survives this way.  As opposed to the somewhat self indulgent, if, I believe, beautifully artistic whining I did last week, I would like to see if I can offer some help to others who are in similar situations.  

I know many people are worse off than I am.  There are hundreds of thousands of unsheltered people.  I have a home.  There are more without medical insurance.  The state pays for most of my insulin and doctors’ appointments.  They pay for every time I have to go to the hospital.  There are others who go to bed hungry more often than I do.  I have an Unofficial Patron Saint who sends me enough grocery money to eat.  I hope, however, that all of these people have someone, at least a dog, to love them.  Love, I believe, is the key to overcoming the horror of being dependent on others who can, at any time they choose, without any obligation even to provide a reason, stop supporting you tomorrow and leave you helpless.  They are well within their rights to do this.

It’s easy to feel defeated, degraded, and relatively worthless in such situations.  If, however, you can find some love in your life, you can focus on that and distract yourself from the humiliation.  You can remind yourself that what you do matters to someone else.  The love in your life is a welcoming light in the distance.  You can still make a difference for someone else.  The love is a warm campfire.  You can still be the cause for someone to hang on another day.  The love is a guiding star.  You can make someone smile.  Love is the sun. Don’t dismiss these acts of kindness as insignificant.  They’re not.  How do you know?  Someone does those things for you, and you make it through the endless darkness that night can sometimes seem to be.  You don’t get to quit while you can still make a difference.  

I know I won’t be able to change the world, but I look for the ripple effect.  I make just enough difference in your life that you make just enough difference in someone else’s life so that they have the power to change the world.  



Sail away, away

Ripples never come back

Gone to the other side

Sail away, sail away

—  Anthony George Banks, Mike Rutherford

In short, first keep your chin up.  There are a nearly endless set of reasons to feel defeated.  Hemingway,  however, taught us that “Man is not made for defeat.  A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”  Can you find a way to get up off the mat one more time?  No?  Okay, are you still breathing?  You are?  Fantastic!  Excellent beginning.  You just lie there and breathe for a while.  Feel those beautiful, blessed breaths.  When you’re on the mat, if you will just keep breathing, in my experience, someone will come and help you up.  It may take a bit, but as long as you can keep breathing, help is still available.  Believe in that.  Sometimes, that belief is all we have.  

What makes people want to help you?  I’ve been thinking much about this.  I get far more help than I believe  can possibly deserve.  I also spend inordinate amounts of time on the mat.  Why do people keep helping me up, bandaging the cuts over my eye, and helping me to heal the bruises?  I have a guess.  I could be wrong.  I’m wrong with frightening frequency, but when I find out I am, I can move one step closer to being right, and that’s helpful.  I think it has to do with what the Romulans called Absolute Candor.  

I almost never speak with anyone except you, my listeners (all 50… on a good week… of you) with only a few exceptions.  I talk to my best friend on the phone several times a week.  I talk to my mother every afternoon at 4 PM.  (It keeps getting moved up because she keeps falling asleep earlier, and now she’s having physical therapy due to her broken ankle, so that’s the best time.)  That call might go ten minutes.  And every week or two I get a phone call from the man who saved my life.  That’s it.  Why is this?

It’s my reaction to my time in California.  It’s also a cumulative effect of the nearly 60 years I’ve spent doing very poorly in general conversation.  When I was in a classroom, I was masterful.  The moment I stepped outside of it, I was a bumbling mass of nerves.  In college, I would go out dancing 5 nights a week.  Can you imagine?  (Actually, I would rather you didn’t.)  I would make my best effort to talk to people in those days of yore, and it rarely went well for any length of time.  Have you ever tried to talk to someone when the band is playing?  Yelling is essential, and I’ve never been comfortable yelling.  On those rare occasions I accidentally became friends with someone, I frequently talked too much, probably to compensate for the fact that I talked so little to anyone else.  And this was a reaction to the fact that in high school I was among the least cool of the people you would ever meet.  That dates back to the insecurity caused by the fact that the first time I ever asked a girl to dance, which, for reasons passing understanding, was when I was in 3rd grade, she laughed at me.  And there you have it.  A psychoanalysis of my entire life in one paragraph.  

What does this have to with Absolute Candor?  I smoke more weed than you do, so it takes me a little while to get there.  It’s coming, I promise.

I live the overwhelming majority of my social life on Facebook.  I know how to use no other social media, and I’m too old and too tired to want to learn, so while I appreciate the offer you were about to make to teach me, I’m going to decline it in advance.  What I have is enough for my purposes.  There are people I know there, as well as well over a thousand people I don’t, and some of them read what I write once in a while.  They comment.  I respond.  We communicate effectively, and, for the most part, kindly with each other.  I get my social interaction there.  

And the reason, I think, that so many of them seem to like me is that I’m as honest as I know how to be.  If that sounds like I’m qualifying it, it’s because I am.  I feel like I have to because of what occurred during the 64 days I lived in a tiny trailer in California.  The number of times I was called a “Fucking Liar” is higher than I care to calculate.  That would require me to relive memories I would rather forget.  It was “four score and upwards” I’m sure.  And the thing is, I never thought I was lying. (If you’re new here, you can go back and listen to “Episode 124: Unlocking The Gate,” which tells the story of my two months of Hell in The Golden State.) 

I was speaking what I believed to be the truth in every conversation, but there seemed always to be a way to twist what I said into a lie, so… I decided to stop talking to people.  Perhaps in oral communication I lie without knowing it.  I wonder if there’s a psychological condition like that.  I certainly never intended to say anything I knew to be untrue.  I may have been mistaken, particularly about things like what day or time it is, or because my memory is practically worthless about many things, especially in my more distant past, but I never made a statement that I knew to be false.  As far as I know, that’s what it means to lie.

If I can carefully control all my communication, I can be as certain as possible that I’m telling the truth.  I often Google things about which I’m unsure, in hopes of getting it right.  I frequently say, “I could be wrong.”  I could.  

I share my life in the most honest way I know how.  When things go well, I write joyful posts.  When things go poorly, I say so.  I’m as objective as I can be about what I write, and I rarely use people’s names.  I don’t care to embarrass those who have helped me, and I make it a rule to avoid attacking anyone who is not a public figure by name.  When I have unfavorable things to say about an individual, I leave their name out of it.  I have no desire to hurt people.  I don’t wish to soil someone’s name in public.  

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; 

‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands: 

But he that filches from me my good name 

Robs me of that which not enriches him 

And makes me poor indeed.

— Iago, from Shakespeare’s “Othello” Act 3, Scene 3

When someone visits my page, they can feel sure they’re going to hear about my adventures in living.  Many people have gotten to know and love my dog, Speedy Shine, now.  They have been kind about my appearance, even while I recognize it’s not at all one of which I’m proud.  I do my best to behave kindly toward my friends, and many of them reciprocate.  Some are simply unimaginably kind.  

I share what I find interesting in life, and people respond.  I try not to bore my friends by sharing more than matters.  You’d be surprised how rarely I write about my time in the bathroom.  I sometimes feel like I’m writing my autobiography in real-time online.  One of my favorite features of Facebook is seeing my memories every night.  I like to see where I was, and compare or contrast it to where I am.  I like to believe there is growth.  I think people like to see us grow.  I think people like to help others grow when they can.  I could be wrong.

I proceed on the assumption that people are, as a general rule, Good.  I don’t believe most of us have any interest in hurting anyone else.  I know that’s certainly not true of everyone, but I believe it applies to the majority of us.  If I’m right, I can be safe writing about my life.  It’s something like a well-written reality show.  I know… that’s an oxymoron.  We are all drawn to stories.  True stories are often our favorites.  I write mine as accurately as I can.  I believe that’s why I have many friends.  I’m a good writer.  I’m lousy at speaking to people who don’t understand me.  Understanding me requires that you knew me long ago when I was more secure around other human beings.  

So, to survive the feeling of dependency, focus on the love that surrounds you, and add to the world as much of it as you can as honestly as you can.  This improves your chances of keeping the support you have.  Be willing to lose someone if keeping them means compromising your principles or your honesty.  That will cost you more than whatever they’re contributing to your life.

That’s Dependency.  What about Poverty?

First, it’s about minimizing your needs.  The first example that comes to mind is eliminating your car.  For some people who have to get to work every day, this is impossible.  I understand.  (If you’re working, it’s unfair for you to be living in poverty.  This show is trying to change that aspect of the world.)  If, however, you can do without it, you save a ton of money.  If someone gave me a 2022 Camry or Lexus tomorrow afternoon, I would certainly thank them.  They would be an Unofficial Patron Saint in my Gratitudes for the rest of the life of this show unless they specifically asked not to be.  And then I would sell the car as promptly as possible.  It costs me too much to own.  

Insurance where I live is something in the vicinity of $200 a month for a basic car.  For a nice one, it would be much more.  I don’t have $200 a month.  It’s unlikely I will ever have $200 a month.  I can’t pay the insurance.  Gas prices, even though they are dropping and will probably continue to drop, are still prohibitively high.  If the car isn’t new, it will probably require maintenance and repair often.  I don’t have the money for that, either.  If I were to buy a car, the car payment, by itself, would finish me.

So, I live without a car.  If I need to get somewhere, I use Uber or Lyft.  I try never to go anywhere at all.  That saves more money.  

Since I have limited money, I prioritize.  Rent is the first thing I do when I wake up on the morning of the third of the month.  My Disability check is there, and before I even get to the bathroom, I’m paying rent.  Without a place to live, everything else is irrelevant.  

Next is my phone.  It’s due on the 4th.  I have to have that.  I need to communicate.  When those are paid, I ask my Uber Driver Friend, Wally (not his real name), to get me my cigarettes.  I need to make it through the month without a nervous breakdown.  I order groceries, and the first thing that goes in the cart is my Diet Pepsi.  It’s over for me without caffeine.  Then I look to see if I have any money left.  I usually have very little, but I still have Patreon coming in a couple of days.  It usually arrives on the 6th.

The rest of the month is about deciding what I need most.  As soon as Miss Maudie Atkinson (no, that’s not her real name.  She’s the neighbor in To Kill a Mockingbird.) sends grocery money every month, I order pork chops and hamburger.  I need protein.  Those are my special treat dinners.  I don’t eat vegetables.  I eat a lot of frozen burritos and more ramen than I would prefer to eat.

Anything left is saved so I can get groceries for the rest of the month, and for the little things I may need.  This month my ultra powerful Desktop Computer that my nephew built for me when I retired in June, 2016 died.  No, I couldn’t afford to replace it.  I tried to get someone to fix it within my budget.  (I was hoping for $100 or less.)  I was unsuccessful.  The only person I could get to come out wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he couldn’t get inside the computer because it has a lock on it.  I lost the key five moves ago.

I took the problem to Facebook.  Someone offered that night to buy me a new desktop.  I was blown away.  That hasn’t happened as of this writing, but it was still incredibly kind of him to think of me.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he changed his mind for any number of perfectly acceptable reasons that are precisely none of my business.  The thought gave me an evening of ecstasy, and I’m grateful for that.

Many people tried to walk me through repair possibilities.  Nothing worked.  I was grateful to all of them for their efforts.  

Someone suggested getting a dongle that I could attach to my MacBook Air that would allow me to use my big monitors and extend my screen.  He even posted a model I could use from Amazon.  It was $276.  I’m sure it’s excellent.  It’s entirely out of my budget.  

I did several Google searches and finally found something that would do what he suggested for about $45.  That was, if I am exceptionally careful for the rest of the month, within my budget.  I just hooked it up a couple of hours ago.  It’s working beautifully.  I couldn’t be more pleased.  I would still love the new desktop, but if that doesn’t happen, I can make it work with what I have.

That’s sort of a key to surviving poverty.  Find a way to make it work with what you have.  Clothing and furniture need to be functional more than fashionable.  The only furniture I own now is a bed a kind person gave me four or five years ago.  The rest is left over from my landlord.  The furniture is financially worthless, but I can sit in the easy chair, and I’ve slept on the couch several times.  I have a couple of desk chairs.  One I got from a Thrift Store several years ago.  The other was a gift.  I don’t remember the last time I bought clothes.  These are fine.  I need to wash them at some point, but the dryer here doesn’t work, so I have to fit sending them out into my budget.  I’m hoping for next month.  The dongle took precedence.   

Try to save enough money to treat yourself, just a little bit, once in a while.  Sometimes I order Uber Eats. They’ll deliver Church’s Chicken or Jason’s Deli.  When I have a little extra, I get those.  I feel happy until I feel guilty.

I don’t even consider the possibility of cable.  I have a few streaming services that are much cheaper and allow me better choices than 900 difficult to navigate channels filled with enough commercials to make Holden Caulfield suicidal.  I think engaging ideas found in television shows is part of what makes me able to write.  I would be nowhere without Star Trek.  I have just started watching its polar opposite, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the horror causes catharsis that sends me to the keyboard.

Finally, I try to accomplish one thing a month.  I had to get the backyard cleaned out to make it safe for Speedy Shine.  That was one month’s money.  I had to make the kitchen sink stop leaking.  That was some of my money and some of my landlord’s during another month.  I don’t ever want to ask him to repair anything here if I can possibly avoid it.  I’m getting it at half price.  I’m enough of a liability as it is.  I don’t want it to cost him extra for me to live here.  I had to have bookcases so I could unpack my books.  There’s little point in owning them if I can’t actually read them.  I tried lots of cheap ways to do that, but I finally wound up getting some concrete bricks and pieces of wood, and I had my best friend’s current boyfriend pick up the stuff at Home Depot and put them together for me.  That was a couple of months worth of money.  

I can’t possibly do everything at once, so I choose what seems most urgent, and I do that first.

This can all be gone tomorrow, but at the moment, I’m typing at my computer on my big keyboard attached to my little MacBook Air, looking at it on the monitor that is connected to that same surviving set of circuits, which was, itself, a gift.  The Carpenters are singing “Top of the World” to me.  (Someday, I’ll be rich, and I’ll be able to license the songs to which I refer, and I’ll just put them in my show.)  Speedy Shine is lying on the chair behind me.  My soda is on the Home Depot box that pretends it’s a table next to my desk.  My bong is still half full, and it’s sitting a foot or so to the left of my keyboard on the desk.  In short… I’m doing just fine right now.  And right now is all any of us have.

I ain’t gonna dim my light for no one.  Don’t you, either.

Posted on by Fred

Willy Loman and Me

WILLY: Oh, yeah, my father lived many years in Alaska.  He was an adventurous man.  We’ve got quite a little streak of self reliance in our family.  I thought I’d go out with my older brother and try to locate him, and maybe settle in the North with the old man.  And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House. His name was Dave Singleman.  And he was eighty-four years old, and he’d drummed merchandise in thirty-one states.  And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his green velvet slippers — I’ll never forget — and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living.  And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.  ‘Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people? Do you know?  When he died — and by the way he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston — when he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral.  Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that.  In those days there was personality in it, Howard.  There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it.  Today, it’s all cut and dried, and there’s no chance for bringing friendship to bear — or personality.  You see what I mean?  They don’t know me any more… If I had forty dollars a week — that’s all I’d need.  Forty dollars, Howard.  Howard, the year Al Smith was nominated, your father came to me and…  I’m talking about your father!  There were promises made across this desk!  You mustn’t tell me you’ve got people to see — I put thirty-four years into this firm, Howard, and now I can’t pay my insurance!  You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit!

Willy Loman and I have much in common.  We both spent our lives doing what we thought was the best thing a person could do.  For him, it was selling.  I was never any good at selling.  I don’t think Willy was either, but I know that about myself, and I don’t think he did.  

I spent my life teaching Elementary School because I thought it was the best thing a person could do.  It was a chance to change the world by influencing future generations.  I earned enough money to support myself in a modest fashion, and, at the height of my financial success, I owned a house.  Well done, me!  

Funny, y’know? After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive

— Willy Loman

Funny, you know?  After all the classrooms, and the students, and the meetings, and the years, you end up worthless either dead or alive.  

Willy at least had life insurance.  I had a policy once, I think, more than 30 years ago, but I know nothing about it today.  When I die, no one gets anything.  My nephew might want the computer he built for me back.  I hope someone will wipe it entirely clean before anyone sees its contents.  On the other hand, I’ll be dead, so what of it?  I have a TV.  It might get you $20 at a generous Thrift Store.    It won’t cover the cost of getting rid of all my books, and movies, and music that no one else will want since you can get them all now on your phone and they require no physical storage space.  

After 29 years of teaching, the government for whom I taught has decided I’m not worth the money it costs to pay rent in the cheapest place in town.  Forget utilities, ignore groceries, perish the thought of even owning a car, no money for entertainment of even the cheapest variety, and to hell with the dog.  

Willy thought life was about being well-liked.  I never did.  On the other hand, for reasons passing understanding, I seem to be.  I say this because it’s only the fact that people love me that keeps me alive, both financially and psychologically.  

I’m alive because my best friend’s boyfriend is renting me his old place for half price, which is the very maximum I can afford and still make it to the end of the month.  I’m a liability to him.  He could sell this place, pay off all his bills, and have enough money in the bank to live comfortably for quite some time without ever setting foot in a workplace.  I’m screwing up his life simply by being alive.  He would never say that, because he’s a kind man, but that doesn’t change that objective fact.

And that isn’t enough to sustain me anyway.  I have another friend, who I really ought to call a Patron Saint in my Gratitudes if I can get her permission to do so, who sends me grocery money every month.  The state of Arizona believes I deserve $20 a month to buy groceries.  And then they cut it off, apparently, this month.  I didn’t even get that.  If not for my friend, I would live off nothing but ramen and pretzels. 

The generosity of my landlord and my friend still isn’t enough to sustain me.  I couldn’t pay for my phone (one of The People on The Porch tells me I could get a free phone service, but I’m too scared to try.), my cigarettes (yes, I know I shouldn’t smoke.  I’m working on that.  Life is stressful when one’s existence is a liability.  Giving up an addiction of more than 30 years is more difficult than you probably think.  It doesn’t go well for Speedy Shine when I go too long.), any of the streaming services that are much cheaper and infinitely better than cable, or the ability to do anything extra.  I bought a DVD rack a couple of months ago, and my guilt is still overwhelming.  I nearly ran out of food because I did that.  It was $50 on Offer Up.  

With Patreon and Anchor, I make enough to make it to the end of the month.  If I stopped doing my show, I would be psychologically and financially ruined.  Every time I lose a supporter, I go into a depression for at least an hour or two.  Speedy Shine has to remind me that I’m worth loving.  He gives me kisses sometimes, and he knows how to cuddle better than any living being I’ve ever encountered.  

There is always a lot of talk about who deserves what.  I hate all of it.  I spent my life doing what I thought was right, and today I have no sense of independence.  I depend on far too many people just to survive.  And the minute I say that, you can be absolutely certain that someone is saying, “Well you should have…” or “Well, you shouldn’t have…”  Those words always make me angry.  And since anger is caused by fear, I must ask what I fear.  What do those words make me fear?  They make me fear that people will suffer.  They will be homeless.  They will be hungry.  I don’t like that.  And why do they suffer?  They suffer because of Judgmental Bullshit.  

We have convinced ourselves that there is only one right way to live, and it’s ours.  Those who don’t conform to our standards deserve to suffer.  No.  They don’t.  

I don’t know why someone made the choices they did at any given moment.  Maybe I would have made a different decision.  Maybe, in those circumstances, I wouldn’t have.  There’s really no way of knowing.  As it turns out, I’m not God.  Are you?  And, if you think you are, could you please send me a little of whatever you’re smoking?  It’s obviously better than what I can get at the Dispensary.

My best friend of 13 years, who I know better than nearly anyone on the planet, frequently makes decisions that mystify me.  She dates men who don’t make her happy.  I know this because I’ve spent 13 years hearing about them.  She knows they make her unhappy, but she continues dating them for years after she knows this.  Is that the decision I would make?  No, I don’t think so.  So, shall I decide that she deserves to be unhappy, and should I therefore make no effort to help her?  No, I don’t think so.  She’s no better off for that.  I love her, so, even though she makes decisions I don’t understand, I do all I can to help her.  And she’s saved my life more than once.  

If I can’t understand her choices when I’ve known her so well and so long, how am I supposed to understand the choices of a stranger?  How does it help me to pass judgment on the homeless.  “If they didn’t want to be homeless, they should have…” Are you kidding me?  How do you know why they made the choices that inevitably wound them up in a place where they have no shelter for the night?  And who are you to pass judgment on them?  

I made a set of decisions that wound me up being entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers.  How do I know which ones were wrong?  Did I make a decision that caused me to become diabetic?  If I did, what was that decision?  How would you suggest that I go back and change it?  Q isn’t coming by this afternoon to offer me the opportunity to change a moment in my life.  And when he offered it to Captain Picard, it went very badly for Jean Luc.  Marc Antony offered me an opportunity in “Horace’s Final Five.”  You might want to listen to that to see how well that went.  (It’s Episode 50 if you’re new here.)

“Well, you should make more money off of your podcast!”  

I would love to do that, but I’m not a marketer, and I don’t want to spend any of the little time I have left in an effort to become Willy Loman.  I’m not getting on Discord and Twitch.  I don’t understand them, and I don’t have the mental capacity to learn anymore.  If someone wants to be in charge of marketing my show, I will be happy to split with them any extra money they make for me.  It turns out no one is offering to do that.  So, as Kenny Loggins is singing right now, “This is it.”  He and Michael McDonald seem much happier about that than I am.  

Willy Loman had big dreams.  All of them were failures.  I avoid big dreams.  I can fail perfectly well without them, and I would prefer to save the accompanying disappointment.  

I don’t say he’s a great man.  Willy Loman never made a lot of money.  His name was never in the paper.  He’s not the finest character that ever lived.  But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him.  So attention must be paid.  He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog.  Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.

We live in a world controlled by money.  It works out well for some, and it’s a curse for others.  It’s not the world I want.  I work to change it, nearly every week on this show.  I don’t get anywhere.

What a proposition, ts, ts.  Terrific, terrific.  ‘Cause she’s suffered, Ben, the woman has suffered.  You understand me?  A man can’t go out the way, he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something.  You can’t, you can’t — You gotta consider, now.  Don’t answer so quick.  Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition.  Now look, Ben, I want you to go through the ins and outs of this thing with me.  I’ve got nobody to talk to, Ben, and the woman has suffered, you hear me? 

BEN: What’s the proposition? 

WILLY: It’s twenty thousand dollars on the barrelhead.  Guaranteed, gilt-edged, you understand?  

BEN: You don’t want to make a fool of yourself.  They might not honor the policy. 

WILLY: How can they dare refuse?  Didn’t I work like a coolie to meet every premium on the nose?  And now they don’t pay off?  Impossible! 

BEN: It’s called a cowardly thing, William. 

WILLY: Why?  Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?  

BEN: That’s a point, William.  And twenty thousand — that is something one can feel with the hand, it is there. 

WILLY: Oh, Ben, that’s the whole beauty of it!  I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like — like an appointment!  This would not be another damned-fool appointment, Ben, and it changes all the aspects.  Because he thinks I’m nothing, see, and so he spites me.  But the funeral… Ben, that funeral will be massive!  They’ll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire!  All the oldtimers with the strange license plates — that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized — I am known!  Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey — I am known, Ben, and he’ll see it with his eyes once and for all.  He’ll see what I am, Ben!  He’s in for a shock, that boy!

That’s what comes of deciding that money matters more than people.  I understand the choice Willy makes.  (If you’ve never read or seen Death of a Salesman, Willy kills himself after this discussion.  It’s more than 70 years old, so I’m not going to listen to whining about Spoilers.)  It’s a decision I consider every night before I go to sleep.  It’s one Speedy Shine convinces me not to make.  No one gets $20,000 if I die, but lots of people will be financially better off in many ways.  If the world really is all about money, it’s difficult to conclude anything apart from the idea that world would be better off without me.  The government even gets to save $1363 a month.  

Is it just possible that there is something that matters more than money?

LINDA: Forgive me, dear.  I can’t cry.  I don’t know what it is, I can’t cry.  I don’t understand it.  Why did you ever do that?  Help me Willy, I can’t cry.  It seems to me that you’re just on another trip.  I keep expecting you.  Willy, dear, I can’t cry.  Why did you do it?  I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it, Willy.  I made the last payment on the house today.  Today, dear.  And there’ll be nobody home.  We’re free and clear.  We’re free.  We’re free… We’re free…

All the quotations in this episode are from Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

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Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Klingons and Conservatives

“Have we become so… fearful, have we become so cowardly, that we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?”

— Captain Picard, in “The Drumhead,” from Star Trek: The Next Generation, written by Jeri Taylor

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : You want to destroy the ship and run away, you coward.

Lt. Commander Worf : If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand.

— Star Trek: First Contact, written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore

The source of anger, I am convinced, is fear.  I addressed this in “The Problem of Anger.”

Anger is a reaction to our fear.  I felt anger at watching the murder of George Floyd because I was afraid he would die.  He did.  I was angry at watching planes fly into The World Trade Center because I was afraid people would die.  They did.  I feel anger because I’m afraid I could die in the same pointless way.  I’m afraid someone I love might die that way.  The fear becomes anger.  The anger can be a motivation to try to change things, but it can’t be the method of making that change.  … I’m not going to change your mind by forcing you into a defensive posture.  The moment I vent my anger at you, you feel the need to protect yourself from me.  Now, instead of considering my ideas, you are preparing to tell me why I’m wrong, or you are looking for a means of escape. 

Fred Eder, “The Problem of Anger,” episode 123 of Fred’s Front Porch Podcast

Both Klingons and Conservatives, who, under the right circumstances, would kill you where you stand, are angry quite frequently.  To be fair, liberals get pretty angry, too, but not quite so often.  When we do, we have different reasons for it.  Liberals tend to get angry when we believe someone else is being mistreated.  Conservatives tend to get angry when they think someone might mistreat them.

President Biden is trying to get some relief for those who have been victimized by predatory student loans.  Conservatives are having a fit that the money is coming out of their pockets, regardless of the fact that it isn’t.  The government already has their money.  It also has mine, and, assuming you’re an American, it has yours, too.  No one is getting sent a bill for the $2,000 it’s supposed to cost every American.  But the government is spending money to help someone who isn’t them, and this is never okay. 

Breaking News: The government spends money in ways we don’t like all the time.  I would prefer we didn’t spend money blowing up people who have the misfortune to live somewhere else.  I would prefer we didn’t spend money on giving massive corporations, all of whom are doing perfectly fine making rent and putting food on the table, tax breaks and bailouts.  That’s the price of representative democracy.  It might be nice if I got to vote on every single dime the government spends, and if I could say exactly where I want my tax money to go, but it doesn’t work that way.  If there’s a way to change the government so we can do this, I’m certainly open to that idea.  Until then, we have to live with things we don’t like from time to time.

This time, we spent some money trying to ease the burden of people who are trying to learn a little more.  I’m fine with that.  I’m not going to see a dime of it.  That’s fine, too.  Why?  Because I like to help the people who need some help.  If it means one person gets to pay rent for one more month, I am thrilled we spent the money that way.  If it means a kid gets an ice cream cone Mom couldn’t afford to buy otherwise, give the kid an extra scoop.  I’m proud to have my money go there. 

Both Klingons and Conservatives are deeply concerned about who deserves what.  They are both obsessed with what they call Honor.  They both share a fascination with making judgments about people. 

I don’t deny the value of judgment.  It’s essential to survival.  It allows us to make better choices about our lives.  Our lives.  My problem occurs when people think they get to make judgments about other people’s lives.  Both Klingons and Conservatives like to do that rather frequently.  Neither of them can tolerate weakness in any form.  Only the strong should survive. 

When Worf, the most famous Klingon of them all, is injured and is unlikely to be able to walk again, he leaps to the conclusion that ritual suicide is necessary.  He’s not strong anymore, so he’s not worthy of existence.  Fortunately, he has some human friends who help him find another way.  A case can be made that they should have respected his wishes.  I won’t be the person making that case. 

When Conservatives see someone suffering, they are quick to point out how it’s their own fault.  They should have done this, or they shouldn’t have done that.  They deserve to suffer.  Conservatives don’t want to ease that suffering because it’s a sign of weakness.  “If they didn’t want to pay back the loan, they shouldn’t have borrowed the money.  If the degree didn’t get them a job that pays enough to pay back the loan, they should have skipped college and gotten a better job.  If they have a lousy job that doesn’t pay enough, they should go get a degree.  It’s their own fault.”

Both Conservatives and Klingons are fond of distractions that can help to bury the Truth.  In the Next Generation episode, “Sins of The Father,” Worf’s father is blamed for The Khitomer Massacre in which 4,000 Klingons were killed by Romulans who had inside help from a Klingon.  The Klingon who supplied the Romulans with the codes they needed to render the Klingons helpless was the father of the Klingon bringing the charge against Mogh.  Mogh is Worf’s father.  The Star Trek fandom page explains it:

Worf angrily demands an explanation for the Council judging Mogh guilty, despite the fact they knew he was innocent.  K’mpec privately explains the truth: When Klingons captured the Romulan ship with the records, they learned of the treachery behind the Khitomer Massacre; this soon became common knowledge, and someone had to answer for that treachery.  Fortunately, only the Council knew who transmitted his code: not Mogh, but Ja’rod, Duras’s father.

Beside himself, Worf violently points out that Duras should have been made to pay for the sins of Ja’rod, but K’mpec reveals that the Duras family is too powerful and to expose him would likely split the Empire and plunge it into a civil war. In order to avoid that, they decided to use Mogh as a scapegoat, believing that Worf, since he was in Starfleet, would not challenge the judgment. None of them realized that Kurn was Mogh’s second child.  But now things have progressed too far, and both sons of Mogh must die.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sins_of_the_Father_(episode)

At the moment, in our reality, former President Trump is likely to be indicted, not for inciting a riot and trying to stage a coup that would have made him a dictator, but for removing secured documents from The White House.  At the same time, the Trump-appointed Supreme Court has handed down rulings that have angered many voters, including stripping roughly half the population of their right to bodily autonomy.  This is likely to make the elections difficult for Republicans.  They need a distraction.  They need to find a reason for people to be angry at Democrats, and the Student Loan scandal was perfect for them. 

When Star Trek began in 1966, Klingons were the enemy.  They were simply evil, and they needed to be fought every time they appeared.  Had the ultrapowerful Organians not interfered, the Federation and the Klingons would have killed each other.  The Klingons took what they wanted by conquest.  The Federation tried to create unity with other species.  These opposing ideologies were destined for war. 

Neither Klingons nor Conservatives are all the same, however.  In the episode “Redemption, Part 2,” Worf is able to reclaim his honor and his family name by exposing the lies of the Duras family.  Duras’s illegitimate son, Toral, who intended to take over the Klingon Empire, is now held accountable for the family’s treachery.  Gowron, the leader of The Klingon High Council, gives Toral’s life to Worf.  Kurn is Worf’s brother.

TORAL: The Duras family will one day rule the Empire!
GOWRON: Perhaps.  But not today.  Worf.  This child’s family wrongly took your name and your honour from you.  In return, I give his life to you.
(Worf takes Gowron’s dagger and goes over to Toral, who braces himself for the thrust.  Worf drops the dagger on the floor)
KURN: What’s wrong?  Kill him!
WORF: No.
KURN: But it’s our way.  It is the Klingon way.
WORF: I know.  But it is not my way.  This boy has done me no harm and I will not kill him for the crimes of his family.
GOWRON: Then it falls to Kurn.
WORF: No.  No, you gave me his life, and I have spared it.

Klingons are capable of mercy.  They are not carbon copies of one another.

The same is true of Conservatives.  Just as Worf rooted out the treachery that threatened the Klingon Empire, so, too, one of the staunchest Conservatives in the United States, Liz Cheney, rooted out the treachery that threatened our freedom. 

In our hearing tonight, you saw an American president faced with a stark, unmistakable choice between right and wrong.  There was no ambiguity, no nuance.  Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our Constitutional order.  There is no way to excuse that behavior.  It was indefensible.  And every American must consider this: Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

— Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the Attack on the United States Capitol.  Remarks as delivered on Thursday, July 21, 2022

There is no group in which all its members are all good or all bad. 

In the 1968 episode, “Day of the Dove,” the crew of the Enterprise is trapped on their own ship with an equal number of Klingons as they hurtle out of the galaxy at high speed.  An alien entity is feeding off their hatred for one another and causing them to fight.  The Klingon Science officer, Mara, and Captain Kirk discuss the situation.

MARA: We have always fought.  We must.  We are hunters, Captain, tracking and taking what we need.  There are poor planets in the Klingon systems, we must push outward if we are to survive.

KIRK: There’s another way to survive.  Mutual trust and help.

By 1987, the Federation and the Klingons had become allies.  Worf was serving aboard a Federation ship.  Peace is both preferable and superior to war.  It requires understanding. 

The Federation learned to respect the proud Klingon tradition of honor, and the courage that accompanies it.  Worf was among the bravest men ever to show up on the Star Trek screen. 

The Klingons learned to respect the honor of the Federation in putting itself at risk to help others.  The Enterprise-C, the ship prior to Picard’s Enterprise, sacrificed itself to defend a Klingon outpost that had been ambushed by Romulans at Narendra III.  Even those who prefer peace are capable of showing courage. 

I prefer the Federation, or liberal, philosophy, which inspired the words I repeat so often on this show: “There is no Them; we are all Us.”  This doesn’t mean, however, that I have no respect for the rugged individualism that is at the heart of much of the Klingon, or Conservative, philosophy.  There are times when such power is necessary.  I would rather have Worf fighting by my side than either Kirk or Picard. 

If the Klingons and the Federation can be allies, defending themselves and each other from alien threats, and combining their knowledge to produce better lives for both groups, why can’t Liberals and Conservatives do the same?  We’re the same species.  We live on the same planet.  We share the same problems.  We all need water to drink and food to eat.  Climate change is just one example.  There are plenty of others. 

I’m sure there will be Liberal friends of mine who will tell me why I’m wrong to want to join with the Conservatives in solving our problems.  The Conservatives are the bad guys who want many of my friends dead.  I’m a sellout and a coward.  “We all know what a Klingon is,” as Dr. McCoy says while under the influence of the hatred-inducing alien entity.

I’m equally certain there will be Conservative friends of mine telling me that they have no interest in working with whiny bleeding-heart lazy Liberals who want everything handed to them for free.  Conservatives worked hard for what they have.  They’re not giving it away to people who don’t want to work.  Liberals “have no honor!”

I’m going to take you back, once more, to 1969.  Fifty-three years ago, the Klingons and the crew of The Enterprise were fighting each other with swords as they hurtled to their doom, just as we are doing as our water dries up, our forests burn, and our crops wither in the fields.

(A contingent of Federation including McCoy and Spock take on the rest of the Klingons in the corridor.  Spock cheats with his neck-pinch.  Finally Kirk gets the point of his sword at Kang’s throat.)
KIRK: Look!  Look, Kang.  For the rest of our lives.  A thousand lifetimes.  Senseless violence, fighting, while an alien has total control over us.
(Kirk throws away his sword.)
KIRK: All right.  All right.  In the heart.  In the head.  I won’t stay dead.  Next time I’ll do the same to you.  I’ll kill you.  And it goes on, the good old game of war, pawn against pawn!  Stopping the bad guys.  While somewhere, something sits back and laughs and starts it all over again.
MCCOY: Let’s jump him.
SPOCK: Those who hate and fight must stop themselves, Doctor.  Otherwise, it is not stopped.
MARA: Kang, I am your wife.  I’m a Klingon.  Would I lie for them?  Listen to Kirk.  He is telling the truth.
KIRK: Be a pawn, be a toy, be a good soldier that never questions orders.
(Kang looks at the weird light, then throws down his sword.)
KANG: Klingons kill for their own purposes.
SPOCK: All fighting must end, Captain, to weaken the alien before our dilithium crystals are gone.
KIRK: Lieutenant Uhura.
UHURA [OC]: Yes, Captain?
KIRK: Put me on ship-wide intercom.
UHURA [OC]: Aye, sir.
KIRK: Kang.
UHURA [OC]: Ready, Captain.
KIRK: This is Captain Kirk. A truce is ordered.  The fighting is over.  Lay down your weapons.
KANG: This is Kang.  Cease hostilities.  Disarm.
(The fighting stops.  The weird light turns orange.)
SPOCK: The cessation of violence appears to have weakened it, Captain.  I suggest that good spirits might make an effective weapon.
KIRK: Get off my ship.  You’re a dead duck here.  You’re powerless.  We know about you, and we don’t want to play.  Maybe there are others like you around.  Maybe you’ve caused a lot of suffering, a lot of history, but that’s all over.  We’ll be on guard now, ready for you.  So ship out!  Come on!  Haul it!
MCCOY: Yeah, out already.
KANG: Out!  We need no urging to hate humans.  But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house.  Out!

I don’t really believe that an alien entity is causing us to fight.  I don’t think Jerome Bixby, who wrote the episode did either, but I could be wrong.  I never met the man to ask him.  Does the cause matter, though?  The rest of what Bixby wrote is true.  We can just keep fighting for thousands of lifetimes.  I know because we’ve already done that.  Kirk and Kang are characters, but they represent ideas.  Ideas can never be killed.  We will accomplish nothing by fighting endlessly. 

The world Star Trek depicts, and the one in which I want to live, couldn’t exist until humanity came together as one.  Roddenberry seemed to think a third World War was necessary first.  The Time Traveler I interviewed a few months ago agreed.  It was only after we lost so much that we recognized destroying one another was folly.  What if we recognized that now?

Is there a way we could be glad when we help those who need it, and withhold our judgments about the way others live their lives?  So long as they’re not hurting anyone, let them make their own choices, even if they aren’t the choices you might have made. 

Many generations of us grew up being taught that the only way you could be successful was to get a degree, and we worked very hard to do that.  Now we’re being told we shouldn’t have taken on the debt if we couldn’t repay it.  Ask the most important question:  Who’s better off for that?  Going to school is what makes it possible for people to become doctors, nurses, and teachers, all of whom are essential to our society.  Shall we now tell people to stop doing that?  This means either that we will have no doctors, nurses, or teachers, or that those who fill those roles will be unqualified to perform the job correctly.  As I mentioned in the previous episode, there are states that are already doing this for teachers.  Shall we do that for surgeons, too?  If so, I’ve seen every episode of M*A*S*H.  Hand me a scalpel. 

If you don’t like the way the government spent our money, stop being angry, and go to the voting booth.  Yelling at me isn’t going to change it.  I’ll be voting for those who prefer to help people as opposed to helping corporations.  You are more than welcome to vote in the opposite direction.   I will do what I can, calmly and rationally, to convince you to join me in recognizing that people matter more than money, but in the end, I won’t be with you in the voting booth.  You’ll be alone there, doing what your conscience tells you is right.  So will I. 

We’re stronger together.  We all do better when we all do better.

Live long and prosper.

Qapla!

Posted on by Fred

The Teacher Shortage

Mallory, education is the silver bullet.  Education is everything.  We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes.  Schools should be palaces.  The competition for the best teachers should be fierce.  They should be making six-figure salaries.  Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That’s my position.  I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

— Sam Seaborn in The West Wing, Season 1: Episode 18, “Six Meetings Before Lunch,” written by Aaron Sorkin

Teaching is the most important profession in the world. 

I understand one could say that doctors, soldiers, law enforcement officers, and firefighters all save lives, and that saving lives is more important than standing in front of a room full of kids talking for several hours a day.  They’re all certainly more important than making sure a 6-year-old is wearing her coat before she walks home on a winter’s day.  Astronomers are discovering the secrets of the universe.  That’s infinitely more important than lunch or recess duty.  Members of the clergy are, many people believe, saving souls.  That makes vastly more difference than grading essays.  How can I say teachers are more important than any of these people?  Has my arrogance at having been one for 29 years finally exploded into narcissistic nonsense?

No.  I don’t think so. 

No profession exists without teachers.  Until we abandon public education entirely, every profession exists because someone taught its practitioners to read and write, to calculate, and, to a greater or lesser extent, to deal with other human beings.

Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman is presented with the Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his actions to protect lawmakers and others in the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack in Washington D.C., Feb. 25, 2021. Goodman, a former Army infantryman who served in Iraq, is credited with warning and directing members inside the Capitol building to safety. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

By Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States – 210225-D-WD757-1523, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106298519

Eugene Goodman, the police officer who redirected rioters on January 6, quite probably saving the lives of the Vice President and many members of Congress, began his career in 1985 when a kindergarten teacher, probably in Southeast Washington, taught him to sing the alphabet.  The doctor who delivered me into this world started in a one-room schoolhouse, filled with children from 5 to 15 years old, in Hampton, Nebraska at the turn of the last century.  The first responders on 9/11 were taught how to put out fires, ascend dozens of flights of stairs carrying heavy equipment, and treat injuries by hundreds of others, all of whom sat in classrooms all across this country.  Teachers made all this possible.  And they made frighteningly little money for their efforts. 

It can certainly be said that public education is failing.  If test scores are any indication (and I don’t think they’re remotely valid), we are doing very poorly indeed. 

Better evidence of its failure can be seen in the ever-growing number of people who are willing to believe things that make no sense.  Some estimates suggest that fully a third of the country’s population believes that the 2020 election was stolen, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  Anywhere from 4 to 15% of Americans believe QAnon’s conspiracy theories are reasonable.  There are as many as a million Americans who honestly believe the Earth is flat, or that’s it’s a disc beneath a dome. 

This is a failure of critical thinking.  It’s the fulfillment of a desire to believe that nothing is as it appears to be, and we are, therefore, not responsible for the bad things that happen to us.  And while I agree that we are often not responsible for the bad things that happen to us, it’s unreasonable to believe there is some cabal of pedophiles in a pizza shop that is. 

This could have been stopped before it began.  One of the tools we could have used was the actual literature that is now being banned from schools more and more frequently.  Reading books that require us to look at things from more than one angle allow us to use those skills in the real world.  One cannot read To Kill a Mockingbird without recognizing that Tom Robinson is innocent, that Boo Radley is not a monster, and that racism and prejudice are dangerous and difficult-to-defeat diseases of the mind.  Reading Sherlock Holmes teaches us that the truth is rarely as simple as it seems, and that we need actual evidence before we can accept, as facts, conclusions that are hastily reached based on assertions that cannot be verified.  Steinbeck teaches us empathy.  Salinger teaches us to reject the superficial. 

Simply reading these books, however, is often insufficient.  One needs a great teacher to help us to understand what is happening.  It is in classroom discussions that the enthusiasm to analyze, to understand, and to express our feelings about what is happening grows and flourishes.  You can’t just assign the books, give multiple choice tests, and sit at your desk.    You must get the students excited to find out what happens next.  You need to make them disappointed that reading time is over.  This isn’t something that just anyone can do.  It’s a talent, a skill, a craft, and an Art.  It requires a deeper understanding of the material being taught.  It requires an imagination. 

Why is public education failing so badly? 

Teachers need to quit complaining.  They knew how much the job paid when they signed their contracts.  They get three months off every year.  If they don’t like it, they should do something else.  I’m not putting any more of my tax dollars into supporting whiners. 

That’s a big part of why we have a teacher shortage.  Words are powerful. 

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.  Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”

 – Albus Dumbledore (J. K. Rowling)

When I started teaching in 1987, teachers were treated with at least a modicum of respect.  That respect has dwindled to the point that it’s all but imperceptible now.  The beginning of the modern end of respecting teachers began with No Child Left Behind.  Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote the following in answer to President Bush’s program:

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

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

Arriving at the Station

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

If the students won’t come to the school, the school must come to the students.   We could hire teachers who travel from home to home to teach these students between sessions of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 for Play Station 2.  The cost of these extra teachers could come from school bake sales, or perhaps from having students go door to door selling candy.  The students might even sell some of their candy to the teachers who are working in the homes they visit.  On those days that these students do attend school, we can assign some of our Educational Technicians to assist them in catching up on the work they have missed while they were playing video games.  To leave no child behind is clearly an honorable and achievable goal.

Boarding the Train

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

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

In order to meet the needs of those who won’t make any effort, we must determine why they won’t try.  They may have lacked success in the past.  There may have been emotional traumas which make it more difficult for her to put pencil to paper.  In order to solve this problem, it is only necessary to conduct a thorough and searching investigation using all the tests we currently have, developing new ones, and bringing in social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, family doctors and, if need be, psychics who will determine what needs to happen in order for the child to begin to engage the work.  The funding for all these professionals could be found in school dances, talent shows or bottle drives.  Will this be enough?  If not, we can assign some of our Educational Technicians to assist them, because, as we know, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal. 

Making the Train Safe for All

There is an additional population that keeps our train from moving safely toward its destination.  This group is made up of those who do attend school, and who can often learn, but feel the need to disrupt.  It is difficult to blame most of these students for their behaviors.  One of my colleagues recently made the observation that he would, under no circumstances, trade lives with some of our students.  We have an ever-increasing population of those who are frequently arrested.  We have some who are using drugs.  There are others who are dealing with different forms of abuse at home, and have parents who are too drunk or too stoned to give them any sort of guidance or help.  If parents do impart their values to their children, the values thus imparted are frequently in direct conflict with those we are called upon to instill in our students.  It is all but impossible to convince a student whose father is in prison and whose mother is usually unable to communicate through her drug or alcohol induced haze that the multiplication tables have any relevance to her life, or that putting a period at the end of a sentence is an important part of communication.  Our train, however, being a public train, is required to transport all those who board it, and we will find a solution to this problem as well.  After all, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

For the students who are on board the train only to disrupt its travels, it is possible simply to send them out of the classroom, so that we can teach the rest of the students.  Of course, these students will miss out on what we are trying to teach, and their high-stakes test scores will show that.  Since this won’t do if we are to leave no child behind, we could have special classes, made up exclusively of these students, with a highly trained and qualified set of teachers who work just with this population.  Although my school’s current staffing makes this impossible, our Special Education Director has assured us that these students are manageable if only we will use the staff we now have more effectively.  Since there is neither the funding for specialists to deal with these students, nor the space for them to have a classroom if such teachers could be found, what we really need to do is just what the President’s plan suggests: replace the teachers who are not being effective. 

If a veteran teacher can’t handle students who yell out in class, bully other students, sell drugs in the hallways, or stand on the desk singing, then we need to get rid of the teacher.  Teachers with many years of experience cost way too much anyway, so the obvious answer is replace them with the vastly superior first- and second-year teachers that are coming out of our colleges in record numbers.  After all, with all of its rewards, many students in college today must certainly aspire to be teachers.  Surely, teachers with no experience, but well-armed with all that can be taught in modern Methods Classes will be perfectly equipped to handle the problems that students in this population present.  If these teachers require additional assistance to help with these students, perhaps we can have our Educational Technicians take these students in the hall and help them to learn there.  See what an honorable and achievable goal it is to leave no child behind?

Serving Our Passengers

Having made arrangements for those who rarely attend, those who make no effort, and those who are a threat to the learning and safety of the rest, we are left with a smaller population who show up on time to meet the train, get on board, and are ready and eager to travel down the tracks toward our destination.  Among this population are those who, despite their best efforts, cannot seem to grasp some of the material.  These are the students that most of us want most to help.  Teaching is, after all, a “helping” profession.  We are, all of us, here because we want to help others.  We are all more than willing to do anything and everything possible to help those who really want to learn.  All that is necessary for the success of those students who do not qualify for a Special Education program, but who still can’t quite figure it all out, is some time and attention.  The solution for this group is simple.  In Middle School, we have Educational Technicians who are experts in serving just this function.  Although in a class of thirty, with 47 minutes to teach them all, a single teacher may not be able to spend the appropriate amount of time with each of these students, our Ed. Techs are ready, willing, and able. 

Of course, there is the difficulty of locating our Ed. Techs.  Many of our Ed Techs are working with those students who are way behind because they have missed school so often.  Others are assisting those students who won’t put a pencil to paper.  The remaining Ed. Techs are being used in the hallway to assist those students who are only here to disrupt.  What does that leave us to help the students who really want to learn, but just need that helping hand?  Well, perhaps these students aren’t all that important anyway.  After all, they’ll probably pass the high-stakes test, even if their scores aren’t as high as they might be.  They can read, write, and do basic calculations.  They’re here in school, they try their best, and they behave well.  These students are by no means achieving all that they might, but they certainly aren’t being left behind.  And, of course, what is most important is our honorable and achievable goal of leaving no child behind. 

Final Destination

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

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

Certainly they can solve simple mathematical problems, and possibly balance their checkbooks.  They may not have the ability to do any real problem solving, or to examine alternatives and choose the ones most likely to bring about desired results, but how important is that really, anyway?  Our students can now get jobs, respond to advertising, and use the money they earn to buy the products advertised on TV, the internet, and in magazines, and keep our economy healthy. 

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

Fred Eder

Biddeford Middle School

Twenty years later, we’ve decided teachers don’t even need degrees to teach.  Anyone can do it.    In some states, including Arizona and Florida, a veteran, simply by virtue of having served in the military, is now considered a qualified teacher.  If that’s true, I’m qualified to coach The Phoenix Suns because I saw a basketball game once.  I’ve seen a couple of seasons of ER, so I’m almost certainly qualified to perform open heart surgery.  Or… is it just possible that we need more than that to be qualified to do something? 

Unqualified teachers are likely to be as effective as I would be fighting a war.  I need both hands to stand up.  I need to nap after I vacuum a single room and I’m out of breath.  And the thing is, everyone knows that.  Why would we want to have unqualified teachers?  What is the advantage of that?

The advantage is that we will have a population that can’t think.  They are more easily manipulated and distracted.  We can have a President incite an insurrection while people are busy yelling at each other about whether helping others is Socialism, which most people don’t understand anyway because no one ever taught them to think critically.  It’s easier to convince them of the value of fascism, it’s easier to keep them from the ballot box, and they can be made to accept authority without question.  This keeps the wealthy in power, and it keeps the rest of us content to be wage slaves. 

To further this agenda, more restrictions are being put on teachers because those in power know that teachers are the most vital part of society.  Not only are they not allowed to teach any real literature, they are also banned from teaching any history that is less than flattering to The United States. 

One of The People On The Porch sent me a video the other day in which an economist explained how one can predict what is going to happen in the stock market by means of examining history.  Empires, he posits, go through certain cycles that are predictable because they have been repeated over and over from Ancient Rome, up through The Dutch and The East India Company, the rise and fall of Great Britain, and all the way to America.  America reached its peak after World War II, and we’ve been declining since.  And much of this has to do with education because education breeds the innovation that keeps an economy strong enough for its currency to be the Reserve Currency for the world.  The dollar currently has that slot, but China is closing in on it.  When the yuan (Chinese currency) replaces the dollar in this position, America will lose much of its power.  I’m not an economist of any sort, but the video made sense to me.  Perhaps the author is incorrect.  I really don’t know enough to have an informed opinion. 

The point is that there is an advantage to those in power that we don’t know all of our own history.  It’s easier to be fiercely loyal to a country that you believe has done nothing wrong.  America’s history is filled with immoral and inexcusable behavior.  If all we learn is that George Washington told his father he chopped down the cherry tree because he could not tell a lie (and that story isn’t even true, by the way.  It was invented by Parson Mason Weems.) how could we think badly of our country, and why should we try to change it?

Heather Cox Richardson, whose work I read nightly, summed it up this way:

And now, in 2022, we are in a new educational moment.  Between January 2021 and January 2022, the legislatures of 35 states introduced 137 bills to keep students from learning about issues of race, LBGTQ+ issues, politics, and American history.  More recently, the Republican-dominated legislature of Florida passed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (Stop WOKE) Act, tightly controlling how schools and employee training can talk about race or gender discrimination. 

Republican-dominated legislatures and school districts are also purging books from school libraries and notifying parents each time a child checks out a book.  Most of the books removed are by or about Black people, people of color, or LGBTQ+ individuals.

Both sets of laws are likely to result in teachers censoring themselves or leaving the profession out of concern they will inadvertently run afoul of the new laws, a disastrous outcome when the nation’s teaching profession is already in crisis.  School districts facing catastrophic teacher shortages are trying to keep classrooms open by doubling up classes, cutting the school week down to four days, and permitting veterans without educational training to teach—all of which will likely hurt students trying to regain their educational footing after the worst of the pandemic.   

This, in turn, adds weight to the move to divert public money from the public schools into private schools that are not overseen by state authorities.  In Florida, the Republican-controlled legislature has dramatically expanded the state’s use of vouchers recently, arguing that tying money to students rather than schools expands parents’ choices while leaving unspoken that defunded public schools will be less and less attractive.  In June, in Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court expanded the voucher system to include religious schools, ruling that Maine, which provides vouchers in towns that don’t have public high schools, must allow those vouchers to go to religious schools as well as secular ones.  Thus tax dollars will support religious schools. 

In 2022, it seems worth remembering that in 1831, lawmakers afraid that Black Americans exposed to the ideas in books and schools would claim the equality that was their birthright under the Declaration of Independence made sure their Black neighbors could not get an education.

Heather Cox Richardson Newsletter, August 21, 2022

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-21-2022?utm_source=email

Are we actually interested in solving The Teacher Shortage?  If we are, then there are several things we can do. 

First, pay teachers enough to make it worthwhile for someone to do the job.  I taught for 29 years, and I live today in a state just North of Abject Poverty.  I can make ends meet only because I have so much help from others.  The idea that someone is going to take on enormous debt to go to college to become properly qualified to teach is unthinkable if a teacher isn’t going to make any money. 

Second, offer to forgive teachers’ student loans if they stay in the profession for 3 or 4 years.  Burnout is incredibly high among teachers because the job is infinitely more difficult than it appears from the point of view of students, parents, or what you see on television.  Give teachers an incentive to stay.

Third, give the teachers the resources they need to do the job properly.  This includes not only the books they want to teach because they have a passion for them, but the staff they need to help them.  These aren’t just the Ed Techs discussed above (I believe they’re called Paraprofessionals now), but also the technology necessary to teach students to use computers efficiently, space in which to work, and secretaries to handle the tasks that don’t require special training.  Teachers waste enormous amounts of time in the copy room. 

Finally, give them the respect they deserve for doing a job that no one wants to do anymore.  Remove the restrictions on teaching history, trust them to do their jobs properly, and let them apply the Art of teaching instead of forcing them to prepare students for high stakes tests that prove nothing and distract from real learning.  Value their time by freeing them from pointless meetings.  And, instead of criticizing them, thank them for doing the most important job in the world. 

Education is, in fact, the silver bullet. 

Posted on by Fred

In Defense of Socialism

Let’s begin with where we agree.  Regardless of your ideology, we would both like to maximize freedom for as many people as possible.  Because we are both empathetic and compassionate people, we would like to minimize suffering for as many people as possible.  So, where is the conflict? 

The debate is over the best way to do this.  Some people believe Capitalism is the best system because it ensures innovation, competition and allows everyone to participate.  It’s infinitely superior to the Feudalism it replaced.  Others recognize the value of Capitalism, but also see what has become of it.  It has its own shortcomings, too.  It’s transformed the American government, as well as those of several other democracies, into oligarchies where a few wealthy people have nearly complete control of the economy.  They have the jobs and the tools needed to do the work, and they make all the decisions without input from those who are doing the work.  Is there an alternative to this?  Shockingly enough, I think there is.  Let’s explore some other ideas.

Since we first began living in tribes for survival, we have needed a practical means of trading with one another.  You need my chickens.  I need your corn.  We can try to find some fair way of working out how many ears of corn equal a chicken, but this becomes impractical quickly.  So… we invented money.  A chicken costs between $3.00 and $30.00.  An ear of corn goes for around $1.00.  This worked well for a while.  But, soon enough, we began owning land, and that changed everything.  Suddenly, we had lords who were landowners.  The name persists today.  You pay rent to your landlord.

Feudalism was the idea that most of us would work the land for the lords in exchange for a small portion of the value our labor yielded.  Nobles owned the land, and there was little freedom for anyone who was not a Noble.  This gave maximal freedom to lords and minimal freedom to the rest of the people.

Capitalism changed that.  Merchants began to gain autonomy from the lords.  This required enormous social change, including violence.  Capitalism increased freedom for many more people.  Well done, Capitalism!

Under Capitalism, in its current incarnation, the boss has the most freedom.  The boss decides on the money you earn.  You produce something.  They sell it to someone else.  How much that is worth is determined by how disposable you are.  The more people who want your job, the less that job is worth.  If I’ll do it for less money than you will, you’re out of a job.  If someone will do it for less than I will, I’m out of the job I took from you.  It’s not a question of how well we do it, but how cheaply it can be done.  The less spent on wages, the more is reaped in profit.  Slavery did this beautifully.  It was a one-time investment; plus whatever money was required to keep the human alive and strong enough to perform the work.  The labor was free.  The existence of slavery is, however, abhorrent to nearly anyone living in the 21st Century.

Under Feudalism, you worked for the Lords.  Under Capitalism, you work for the boss.  In either case, you work for someone else, and increase their wealth, or you risk homelessness and hunger.  Anthony Tagonist used to tell me I’m being melodramatic when I talk about people starving.  It turns out, I’m not.

In 2018 six million children experience(d) food insecurity.[35] (The organization) Feeding America estimates that around one in seven children or approximately 11 million, children experience hunger and do not know where they will get their next meal or when.[36] The wide breadth between these sources’ data could possibly explain that food insecurity is not all-encompassing of hunger, and is only a solid predictor. 13.9% of households with children experience food insecurity with the number increasing for households having children under the age of six (14.3%).[36]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20USDA%2C%20in,lacked%20access%20to%20a%20vehicle.

While it’s true that few people starve to death in America, this doesn’t excuse hunger.   It’s an exceptionally unpleasant state.  And it’s completely avoidable.  We throw away enough food to end hunger.

USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates that about 30 percent of food in the United States goes uneaten at the retail and consumer level.

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/04/16/food-loss-farm-level#:~:text=USDA%E2%80%99s%20Economic%20Research%20Service%20(ERS)%20estimates%20that%20about%2030%20percent%20of%20food%20in%20the%20United%20States%20goes%20uneaten%20at%20the%20retail%20and%20consumer%20level.

We have enough to feed ourselves.  Capitalism makes it undesirable to do so because there isn’t enough profit in it.

We have enough housing for everyone.  There are many more empty homes than there are homeless people. 

The White House reports that as of 2019, over half a million Americans don’t have a home to sleep in on any given night, while almost 17 million potential homes were standing empty.  If the overall numbers of homeless citizens weren’t shocking enough, between 2017 and 2019, there was an increase of over 34,000 unsheltered homeless people nationally – even before a global pandemic and expected recession.

All this, while the number of empty properties around the country has increased by over 1.1 million since 2010, leaving over 12% of all housing units in the US vacant as of the latest figures in 2018.

https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/

We can’t provide everyone with shelter because it’s insufficiently profitable.  In America, there are few places you’re allowed even to sleep without some sort of authorization.  Sleeping in the woods, if you get caught, can get you arrested if you haven’t gotten some sort of permit. 

There is more freedom under Capitalism than under Feudalism.  It is still, however, not a shared freedom.  It does very well for those at the top, but the majority of the pyramid, at the bottom, still have to struggle just for survival.  There are more ways to ascend the pyramid under Capitalism, but these opportunities are not equally available to all people, and, even under the most favorable of circumstances, still require an element of luck. 

In my Father’s generation, one person could earn enough under Capitalism to support a family in a decent home.  That is becoming increasingly difficult all the time.  Capitalists own the jobs.  They also own the homes.  They are buying them as cheaply as possible, and then they are renting them out at higher rates than ever before, or they are waiting until they can sell them at the greatest profit.  That’s what Capitalism does.  Homes are not seen as places to live.  They are seen as commodities to be bought and sold for profit. 

“One of the reasons housing prices have gotten so out of control, is that corporate America sensed an opportunity,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) last week at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, a panel he chairs.

Brown took direct aim at private equity firms and corporate landlords in particular.

“They bought up properties, they raised rents, they cut services, they priced out family home buyers, and they forced renters out of their homes,” he said. (This happened to my roommates and me a few years ago.)

Investors have been snapping up homes in and around downtown Cleveland at a staggering rate, putting three of the city’s Zip codes among the top 15 nationally in the rate of investor purchases last year.

Sally Accorti Martin, the former longtime housing director for South Euclid, a small city east of Cleveland, testified at the hearing that a majority of the city’s roughly 1,600 rental units are now owned by companies from other states, and that tenants have suffered as a result.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/housing-market-investors/

So now, the wealthy control both the money we make and how much of it we pay simply to stay alive. 

Capitalism is superior to Feudalism, but it still doesn’t provide much freedom for many people.

Is there an alternative?

Before we go any further, it’s important that we have a definition of Socialism.  It’s a scare word that few of us understand.  With that in mind, I’m going with the definition from The Oxford Dictionary.

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

If I suggest we consider Socialism, you’re going to point to the countries that have tried it and would appear to have failed catastrophically.  Ha-Joon Chang tells us in his book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism:

It is not true that almost all rich countries have become rich through free market policies.  The truth is more or less the opposite.

All of today’s rich countries, including Britain and the U.S., have become rich through the combination of protectionism, subsidies and other policies that today they advise the developing countries not to adopt.

We’re taught that Socialism is when we give the government control of everything.  We don’t like much of what the government does.  Few of us trust the government.  Consequently, the idea of handing over everything to the government sounds dystopian. 

I agree.  I’m less than pleased with the efforts to make the American government into an authoritarian dictatorship.  If I tell you that we’re going to give the government more control, you will think of the things you hate about the government.  In my case, it’s trying to deal with any programs: Unemployment, Disability, Food Stamps, and the DMV are all horrible.  It is also the obvious and blatant corruption seen in nearly all of politics.  I promise I’m on your side with disliking much of the government.

When we think of Socialism, we think of economic catastrophes, and we decide that Capitalism is better in comparison.  The problem is that we can’t really do any sort of scientific breakdown of this.  Every country starts in a different place, and comparing one to another really doesn’t work.  Socialist experiments are usually begun in countries where Capitalism is already causing massive economic suffering.  The countries were weak when they started trying to reform them.  To expect miraculous overnight success is unreasonable. 

Salvador Allende tried a Socialist experiment in Chile in the 1970s.  What were the results?

During its first year in office, the Allende Government achieved economic growth, reductions in inflation and unemployment, a redistribution of income, and an increase in consumption[citation needed]. The government also significantly increased salaries and wages, reduced taxes, and introduced free distribution of some items of prime necessity[citation needed]. Groups which had previously been excluded from the state labor insurance scheme (mainly the self-employed and small businessmen) were included for the first time, while pensions were increased for widows, invalids, orphans, and the elderly[citation needed]. The National Milk Plan affected 50% of Chilean children in 1970, providing 3,470,000 with half a litre of milk daily, free of charge.[8][9][text–source integrity?]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Salvador_Allende#:~:text=During%20its%20first%20year%20in,and%20an%20increase%20in%20consumption.

Then why did he fail?  There are many reasons, but one of them is certainly that The United States did all it could to ensure Socialism would fail.

The U.S. administration of U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon, then embroiled in the Vietnam War and Cold War with the Soviet Union, was openly hostile to the possibility of a second socialist regime (after Cuba) in the Western Hemisphere. There was clandestine support by the U.S. government to prevent Allende from taking office after election: On 16 October 1970, a formal instruction was issued to the CIA base in Chile, saying in part, “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup.  It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October, but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date.  We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource.  It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden”.[29]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Salvador_Allende#:~:text=The%20U.S,hidden%22.%5B29%5D

It’s easy to see why The United States would like Socialism to fail.  If it is shown to work elsewhere, a case could be made that it might work here.  If we tried it in America, it would not be ideal for those with the most.  It would mean redistributing the power in this country.  If the people have a voice in the decisions to be made about how to run a company, those with the most money may well have a little less.  The people are likely to want more for themselves and less for the bosses.

The argument against Socialism is that there have been so many failures when it was tried.  This is true.  Socialism fails frequently.  On the other hand, a slightly altered version of it, called Democratic Socialism, tends to work well.  We have seen evidence of this in several countries.

Some argue that there has been no completely socialist country that has been successful, only countries that have seen success in adopting socialist policies.

Bolivia is an example of a prosperous socialist country.  Bolivia has drastically cut extreme poverty and has the highest GDP growth rate in South America.

Other countries that have adopted and enacted socialist ideas and policies to various degrees, and have seen success in improving their societies by doing so, are Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democratic-socialist-countries

Is Socialism the only way to improve things?  I doubt it.  In fact, Socialism already exists in America, and we enjoy it.  Your military, your police and fire departments, your trash collection, your paved roads, and your schools are all examples of Socialism.  The most obvious example is Social Security.  It says, among other things, that your value to the world doesn’t end when you become too old to work anymore. 

Heather Cox Richardson told us something about the beginnings of Social Security.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that.  It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services.  It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

  • Her nightly newsletter, 8/13/2022

It was the idea that rugged individualism doesn’t have to be the only way to be an American.  It realized that we do better working together to help one another than we do with the attitude that “I got mine; you get yours.”

Socialism, for me, is best described in one of my favorite quotes from Captain Picard, in Star Trek: First Contact.  “The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives.  We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.”

For me, the most important question isn’t one of ideology.  The question must always be: how can we do better?  Capitalism is better than Feudalism.  Something else, perhaps some form of Socialism, is going to improve on Capitalism.  And then, we will work to do better than that. 

That’s the way of the world
Plant your flower and you grow a pearl

–Charles Stepney / Maurice White / Verdine White

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Disability Is Not a Definition

I’m Disabled.  How disabled I am is open for debate.  There are those who claim my disabilities are insignificant.  There are those who think I am nothing but my disabilities.  This is probably the case for every disabled person.  People want us to fit into their neat little boxes.  Unfortunately, we can’t do that for you.  If disabled persons have nothing else in common, one thing we all share is that we are more than our diagnoses. 

There can be no doubt that I have physical disabilities.  I need both hands to stand up.  I become more worried about being able to do that every week or so.  My diabetes has all but destroyed my body.  I have to nap, ideally, every six hours.  When I get lost in my writing or my recording for the podcast, I might go as long as 9 hours.  After that, there’s more than a good chance I’m going to pass out at the computer.  If I don’t watch my blood sugar carefully, any day can be my last. 

I’m emotionally disabled.  I have a diagnosis of depression.  I fight it in all the ways I can.  Perhaps, however, I need to learn to accept it, as a friend of mine on Facebook suggested.  This is our conversation on that topic.

As you know Fred, all things come and go.  Including your depression.  Depression often includes certain thoughts that can be very compelling.  These thoughts, however compelling, are even more transient than the feelings of depression.  We are drawn further and further into the vortex the harder we struggle with these feeling and thoughts.  Stopping the struggle, ceasing doing battle with the demons of depression seems like the exact wrong thing to do, but it is also the best way of caring for yourself.  You may have to stop the struggle a thousand times, or ten thousand, but like anything the more you practice the more skilled you become.  This is the way I learned to dance with my depression.  If I feed it with my life energy by struggling with it, it gets stronger and stronger.  If I stop the war, it eventually burns itself out, just like any feeling or thought.

Take the best of care my friend.

Fred Eder

Name Deleted that’s the most difficult part of depression, I think.  I expect myself to be happy, and when I’m not I treat it as a problem to be solved instead of an experience that is a part of who I am.  I feel guilt about being unhappy.  I feel weak.  I feel cowardly.

I need, it seems, to accept it in the same way I accept diabetes or having blue eyes.  It simply exists.  There may be things to learn from the darkness if I would allow myself to live there without feeling the need to escape.

Name Deleted

Fred Eder It is absolutely normal to want to escape experience that is unpleasant – anything from a finger prick when you are testing your blood sugar to the deepest darkest abyss of depression – to push away that which is unpleasant and grasp at and pull in what is pleasant. We begin to learn this probably even before we leave the womb.  It is the hook that leads us to a lifetime of struggle trying to have more and more pleasant experiences.  Each experience ends to be replaced by new experience in the ceaseless flow of experience that is life.  Whether grasping onto pleasant experiences to extend the feelings of pleasure, or struggling, fighting, battling to push away pain (physical or emotional), the effects are the same.  It is an unending struggle to obtain something that is, by the very nature of existence itself, not possible.  All experience is transient – radically transient.  We have no control over any of it.  Influence – yes.  Control, never.  Your expectations (learned thoughts and ideas) for “happiness”, “guilt”, “feelings of weakness and cowardliness” keep you tied to the very thing you want to kill.  Like Ahab bound to the gigantic object of his hatred that is dragging him down into the abyss – Melville’s metaphor is perfect.  If we are trying to get rid of something unpleasant, we have to grapple with it, fight with it. The question is, can we simply relax the fierce desperate grasp we have on the object of our desire (yes, getting rid of the pain of depression is THE desire), and LET GO of it – NOT get rid of it.  Can we stop hating it?  Stop wanting it to go away?  Can we, just as you say, accept it as it is and not trying to make it go away?  And in your case, not punish yourself for having the experience?  Can you accept that depression IS a part of what you are?  Something that comes and goes like the other vast expanse of moments that make up your life.  What if Ahab was able to release his hatred of the white whale?  How would his life and the lives of so many others (including the whale) have been different?  Maybe the white whale would have continued to come into his life at times, but without his hatred, it would have likely journeyed on.

Perhaps some of the things you might learn from the darkness is self-acceptance – how to live there without feeling the need to escape.  These are HUGE lessons in and of themselves.  The kind that liberate us.

I suspect that I am somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, but no doctor has ever confirmed this.  I have many, but not all, of the symptoms.  I undoubtedly think differently than most people do.  I almost certainly don’t process emotions the way you do.  Something will bother me, and I will say nothing about it because I don’t want to burden anyone else.  It will just sit inside me, getting worse and worse, until finally I am forced to confront the feeling in some way.  There is debate over whether Autism is even a disability.  Google tells me it is considered a disability from both a medical and legal standpoint, if you have a doctor’s diagnosis.  One of our producers, Scott Knight, said this on my Facebook page.

Autism in the past was less of a disability and more of a weird neighbor who did strange things and didn’t talk much, but what they did do they did perfectly.  Autism with several comorbidities can be disabling no matter what the structure of society is.  Disability is a condition that leaves you physically, intellectually, emotionally, or in any other way disadvantaged to the point where it makes it difficult to impossible to function within the parameters society expects from you.  Some accommodations allow disabled people to still participate in society, but they rarely create the same ease of access that non-disabled people experience.  Some disabled people cannot participate in society no matter how many accommodations are made.

Accommodations for autistic people rarely help me with any of the things I struggle with.  I am disabled by society because I am autistic.

I believe I may also have Rejection Sensitivity Disorder.  I learned about this only in the last few months, but I exhibit all the symptoms I’ve been able to find associated with this condition on Google.  These are the symptoms I have found most frequently.

  • low self-esteem
  • avoidance of social settings
  • fear of failure
  • high expectations for self
  • frequent emotional outbursts after being hurt or rejected
  • feelings of hopelessness
  • approval-seeking behavior
  • anger and aggression in uncomfortable situations
  • anxiety

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria#symptoms:~:text=conditions%20which%20include%3A-,depression,anxiety,-Although%20symptoms%20of

I do my best to control the most negative aspects of this by avoiding any situation in which I may come in contact with another person who may feel hurt by my behavior.  I rarely, if ever, leave the home in which I live.  I get nervous when I take the trash out across the parking lot.  I went out to lunch with my best friend last month, and I needed several hours to recover from the fear I spent the whole-time masking.  I love her, and I almost never see her, so I was willing to pay this price.  I probably won’t do it again for quite some time. 

Here’s the thing about being disabled.  Many people believe it’s our own fault.  Part of this has to do with what is called “Just World Phenomenon.” 

In psychology, the just-world phenomenon is the tendency to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve. Because people want to believe that the world is fair, they will look for ways to explain or rationalize away injustice, often blaming the person in a situation who is actually the victim.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-just-world-phenomenon-2795304

Instead of recognizing that poverty isn’t a lack of character, or that failure to comply with a police officer shouldn’t be a death sentence, or that disabled people somehow deserve what has happened to us, many people will convince themselves they are immune to oppression, persecution, or any debilitating condition simply because they do all the right things.  Bad things happen only because someone did something wrong. 

The total tonnage of advice I have received about how to “cure” my depression and my diabetes would be enough to stun a team of oxen in their tracks.  If I would only do what they tell me, my problems would be gone.  They want to make me all better so they don’t have to deal with the fact that it could happen to them, too. 

I would have no objection if someone cured Diabetes tomorrow afternoon, but I’m not sure I want to change the rest of who I am.  I don’t really want to be someone else.  I’m sorry if someone is uncomfortable with who I am.

I will be the first to admit to a list of flaws that go on nearly endlessly.  I just named a few of them.  I’m different from you.  I don’t, however, think that makes me worse than you.  I don’t know that I need to be cured of my Autism, and the efforts made to cure me of my depression have been ineffective.  Prozac has the effect of numbing all my emotions.  I fear becoming sufficiently depressed that I finally end my life, but I’m not afraid of being dead.  I’m afraid of hurting others who, for reasons passing understanding, love me.  They’ve done nothing to deserve the pain that my demise will bring.  The price of love is always pain.  I just don’t want to charge you any earlier than necessary.    

Seth MacFarlane, in The Orville makes this point: “People who try to take their own lives are unable to distinguish the future from the present.  There is no problem so immense that it can’t be solved in time.”  The Orville is obviously an offshoot of Star Trek.  I don’t think anyone makes any effort to hide that fact. 

Although one of my friends said, rather smugly, that she doesn’t worship at the Altar of Roddenberry, I have no trouble saying that I do.  Star Trek is an effort to show us that the kind of world of which I dream could be a reality.  And Star Trek does its best to address disabilities intelligently.  Sometimes it does it very well.  Occasionally it misses. 

In the episode, “Loud As a Whisper,” a person who is deaf and mute is brought to The Enterprise to negotiate a peace treaty between two warring factions.  The legendary diplomat, Riva, uses a chorus of psychics who can hear his thoughts to express himself.  When the members of his chorus are killed, it appears all is lost.  As a deaf mute, he has no means of communicating with the aliens.  It is only when he decides to teach both sides sign language that the peace can be made.   His “disability” allows him to solve the problem. 

In the same episode, Riva asks Geordi LaForge if he resents being blind.  Geordi, of course, was born blind, and he uses a piece of technology called a VISOR that allows him to see, albeit in a different way than most people.  Geordi tells Riva he doesn’t resent it at all.  It’s part of who he is, and he likes himself.  There’s nothing to resent. 

In the episode, “The Masterpiece Society,” it’s Geordi’s blindness that allows him to save a planet that is going to be destroyed by a fragment from a disintegrated neutron star that is going to move too close to their planet.  Captain Picard wants to evacuate the human colony there.  The society, however, has been genetically engineered and selectively bred to ensure optimum efficiency and happiness for everyone.  There are no disabilities on Moab IV.  If they leave their planet, their society will fall apart.  Geordi uses the same technology in his VISOR to devise a way to move the fragment and save the planet.  He finds it ironic that his disability allowed him to save a planet on which someone like him never could have been born in the first place. 

A disability doesn’t define who someone is.  It’s merely a part of us. 

We’ve all been brought up in a society that finds disability distasteful.  Sometimes we look at someone with pity when we see them in a wheelchair.  When we do, we are seeing only that one part of them.  We’re missing the rest.  Stephen Hawking did some remarkable things from a wheelchair using an adaptive device to allow him to communicate.  While I don’t envy him his disabilities, I absolutely admire his extraordinary contributions to the world.  The same can be said of Helen Keller.  

It’s easy to miss the fact that I’m disabled.  For a depressed, Autistic, diabetic who suffers from RSD, I seem exceptionally capable.  I write, record, score, and Horace a podcast every week.  I communicate with people on Facebook, and from time to time, on the phone.  I seem fine.  Thank you for that assessment.  I’m grateful that you can overlook my disabilities. 

I don’t believe they detract from what I do.  I believe they make it possible.  First, from a strictly financial point of view, there would be no way I could do this show if I had to work 40 or more hours a week just to pay rent.  My Disability check is tiny, and it keeps me from getting a job, assuming a job for which I could get paid even existed.  If I tried to work a 40-hour week at anything other than what I do, I would certainly be dead within a month.  You’d be surprised how few employers want a worker who needs to nap every six hours. 

They also make it possible from the Artistic point of view.  My depression is the author of “Horace’s Final Five.”  My experiences have made me into the man to whom you are currently listening.  My social disabilities have helped me to learn empathy.  I know what it’s like to be ridiculed for being different.  My insecurities help me to imagine how others may feel when they’re abused in some way for being different from the norm.  One of the reasons I argue so passionately and so frequently for the rights of marginalized groups is because I am a member of so many of them.  That sounds odd coming from a straight white male, but there is more to me, and to you, than conditions we never chose.

I’m also socially awkward, at the very best.  I’m a member of that group.  We’re easy targets, and we have to tolerate the laughter at our expense. 

I’m also a member of the group that can’t deal with rejection.  It’s easy to say we’re melodramatic, and for this reason we are not to be taken seriously.  But just as a lost Teddy Bear would mean almost nothing to most adults, to a 3-year-old it can be as devastating as the loss of a family pet.  The fact that other people don’t experience the world in the same way we do doesn’t mean their experiences are to be discarded.  The suffering is real.

I’m not, however, a member of the most notable marginalized groups.  I’m White.  That eliminates me from a vast number of marginalized groups.  I’m straight, and I have never felt the need to change my gender.  I’m also male.  My disabilities are nothing compared to those who are oppressed in groups of which I have never been a part.

That’s a fair point.  It’s also irrelevant.  It’s Whataboutism.  It implies that because other things are worse than my disabilities, mine don’t count.  I should stop complaining.  I’m actually not complaining about my life, though.  While there are many elements of it that suck, it’s mine to do with as I see fit in the time I have left to me.  Many people’s lives are better.  Many others are worse. 

I like to think I can feel empathy for those who are oppressed because, even though I’ve never experienced the specific abuses they must endure, I have an understanding of what it feels like to be mistreated for things that aren’t your fault.  I do what I can to stand up for them whenever possible.  I would like all people to live lives that are free from unwarranted judgments, and in which all their basic needs are met.  I would like mine to be the bottom of the scale instead of anyone being worse off than I am.   I work for that in all the ways I can. 

What would I like you to do?  I can’t speak for all disabled people.  My experience with disability is mine.  Other people’s experiences are different.  It seems to me, however, that the best thing we can do is to accept people as they are.  Try not to be repelled by variations.  Embrace them.  Celebrate them.  Recognize the richness of experience that comes from us all being so different from each other.  Don’t ridicule those who aren’t as attractive, or as intelligent, or as athletic, or as quick-witted, or who can’t walk, or see, or hear, or feel the same way you do.  Recognize our unique circumstances grant unique perspectives.  The more ways we see the world, the more paths open up for us to find meaning and Truth in the world. 

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations will create a painting of the world that is more beautiful, more honest, and more complete than anything we can produce while seeing through our single lens.  Before you hate someone, ask yourself what it must be like to be them.  Try your best to feel for those you normally reject.  This is how we will create the world in which everyone is loved, respected, happy, and alive all at the same time.  Isn’t that what we all really want?

And yes, I still love you.

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Unlocking Our Minds

We go through life with certain truths about which we have no doubt. 

Faith in God is, for many people, unshakeable. 

Italian, Florentine God the Father about 1430-40 Egg tempera on wood, 12.8 x 13.1 cm Presented by Charles Ricketts and Charles Haslewood Shannon through The Art Fund, 1922 NG3627 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG3627

The idea that hard work makes one virtuous is beyond question.  It is a priori true that laziness is a vice, and lazy people deserve nothing. 

We know, in the same way we know the sun will rise in the morning, that all people are either male or female.  Sex and marriage are to be between one man and one woman, and any variation from this idea is unacceptable. 

Money is essential to the operation of the world. 

Changes in these ideas are not to be tolerated.  This is the way the world, perhaps the entire universe, works, and if someone has a problem with it, they are a troublemaker who is to be shunned, ignored, dismissed, and, if need be, arrested.  Sometimes they are even killed.

It is for us to decide what help, if any, is warranted and what punishments are appropriate for those who are different.  Prisons should be places of unspeakable horrors to ensure they provide maximal deterrent to crime. 

There are two political parties in our country, and no others will be taken seriously. 

And what have all these Undeniable Truths produced for us?

At least half of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.  Some studies place it as high as 70% of us.  These are two links I found quickly on Google.  There are plenty of others that will give you similar numbers. 

https://www.adeccogroup.com/future-of-work/latest-insights/70-percent/

You’re Not Alone: 52% of Americans are Fighting to Make Ends Meet

Our economy is usually measured by how well Wall Street is doing.  The problem is that many of us own no stock at all.  It’s out of the question for most of us because we’re trying to pay rent and eat.  Investing in the Stock Market is, at best, risky.  It can be disastrous.  When the Stock Market crashed in 1929, the myth is that investors were leaping off tall buildings.  That isn’t, evidently, true.  On the other hand…

Behind 1929’s building-jumping myth, however, may be the larger truth that the onset of the Great Depression did correlate to an increase in suicides.  Based on statistics reported by Galbraith in The Great Crash 1929, the suicide rate in the United States increased from 17.0 per 100,000 people in 1929 to 21.3 in 1932 during the worst of the financial calamity.  The pattern was much the same in New York… 

People may not have been leaping off buildings by the dozens, but during the final months of 1929, American newspapers reported terrible incidents involving those who lost nearly everything in the Crash.  The day after Black Thursday, Chicago real estate investor C. Fred Stewart asphyxiated himself with gas in his kitchen.  When the market took an even further dive on Black Tuesday, John Schwitzgebel shot himself to death inside a Kansas City club.  The stock pages of the newspaper were found covering his body.

https://www.history.com/news/stock-market-crash-suicides-wall-street-1929-great-depression#:~:text=Based%20on%20statistics%20reported%20by,the%20same%20in%20New%20York.

While investing in the Stock Market can be profitable if one is both smart enough and lucky enough to make it work, most of us aren’t, and even those who are good at it can be destroyed by it. 

A better measurement of how well the economy is doing might be found in how many people are struggling.  Those statistics are above.  The economy consists of more than the wealthy.  Most of us are not wealthy.

So, our Eternal Truths haven’t done much for simply surviving.  Money is a blessing for those who have it, a curse for those who don’t, and it can turn from blessing to curse in a single day.  This, however, is the way the world must operate, isn’t it?  No other ideas are allowed.

Our faith in whatever God (or lack thereof) we have chosen is supreme.  We learn what is right and what is wrong from that faith, and there can be no doubt we are right because we’ve been taught that to doubt our beliefs is a sin.  And, without doubt, ours is the correct faith, regardless of how many others there may be.

Anthropologists estimate that at least 18,000 different gods, goddesses, and various animals or objects have been worshipped by humans since our species first appeared.  Today, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of the global population considers themselves religious or spiritual in some form.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-food/202107/why-do-humans-keep-inventing-gods-worship#:~:text=Anthropologists%20estimate%20that%20at%20least,or%20spiritual%20in%20some%20form.

It’s extraordinary that we’ve beaten the odds so completely.  There are roughly 50 people listening to this podcast.  I’m willing to bet here on The Front Porch we have at least 5 different forms of Gods.  For me, it isn’t a problem that someone has beliefs that differ from mine.  The problem comes when those beliefs cause them to hate someone else.  Jesus was pretty clear about hatred, and since his is the most prominent view among those who are not me, let’s see what he says in Luke: 27 – 36

27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

One of The People on The Porch, who I believe considers himself a Christian said, “You don’t have to work.  If you choose not to work, I choose not to support you.”  That doesn’t seem to fit well with what the leader of that religion preaches.  To review, Luke 30 says to give to anyone who asks.  It says not to ask for anything in return. 

The retort, of course, comes from Thessalonians.  To be clear that’s not Jesus.  “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Those are the people handing out advice in this book of the Bible.  And what do they say?

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

The Bible can contradict itself.  Jesus says to avoid hating, and Paul and his friends are up for letting people starve. 

Take what is useful to you in your religious beliefs, and allow yourself a few other possibilities.  Let’s recognize there are any number of reasons people aren’t doing what you call work.  Or shall we continue to say, “This, however, is the way the world must operate, isn’t it?  No other ideas are allowed.”

Religious faith is often cited as the reason for intolerance.  A Facebook friend of mine posted the other day, ““I identify as” is synonymous with “I pretend to be.””  I’m told by another friend that pretending doesn’t change the facts.  In both cases, this is said with contempt for people who are trying to understand themselves in a different way.

Who comes out ahead when we limit people’s abilities to find their own identities?  Socrates and several other Ancient Greeks told you to “know thyself.”  That was at least 2,400 years ago.  It’s not a new thing.  Again, however, we’ve decided people may do that, so long as they stay within tightly defined parameters.  I’m heterosexual and quite comfortable being male.  That’s nice for me.  I know people to whom this doesn’t apply.  You probably do, too.  Why can’t they try to become whatever it is they feel they need to be?  How does it hurt me that someone I love very much was declared to be a female at birth, but sometime afterward discovered they were more comfortable being male?  Why do I care what they have in their pants unless I’m in a sexual relationship with them?  How does their quest for meaning in their lives hurt me?  Why should I feel the need to ridicule them for trying to find that meaning? 

If your answer is that God made them a particular gender, my response is that God also made them a person who was not comfortable as that gender.  God made them someone who wanted something different.  If one is true, the other is, too. 

My feeling is that the universe is unimaginably diverse.  It is filled with wonders and terrors beyond our most startling and beautiful dreams.  Humanity is the Universe’s Effort to understand itself.  To gain the most complete understanding, it must see itself from the greatest possible number of perspectives.  To my knowledge, humans are the only form of life in the universe capable of understanding at all.  There is a mathematical likelihood of there being other intelligent life in the universe, but we haven’t met them yet.  Douglas Adams would tell you that dolphins have a unique perspective that may be of some use to the Universe.  I suspect that dogs, cats, snakes, spiders, and maybe even bacteria all have their own ideas about the nature of the universe, but I can’t prove that.  I’m in favor of encouraging as many perspectives as possible.  I’m mostly in favor of allowing people to live their lives in the ways they choose so long as they’re not hurting anyone else.  I’ve only said that about a billion times over the course of this show. 

Or do we need to decide, again, that this is the way the world must operate and no other ideas are to be allowed?  That’s an incredibly limiting way of seeing things, don’t you think?

We’ve taken it upon ourselves to decide who deserves what.  I find that frighteningly arrogant.  I think everyone – and that means all human beings, whether you or I like them or not – everyone deserves to live as well as possible.  I don’t believe only some people deserve a place to sleep tonight.  I don’t believe only some people deserve to eat.  I don’t believe there are people who deserve the horrible atrocities they are forced to endure.  I’m more interested in rehabilitation than I am in punishment.  The worst people in the world became who they are because of the experiences they had.  I don’t have to like them, or what they did, to recognize it’s better for them, and it’s better for the rest of us, to help them become people who find meaningful lives in which they can live in the way they choose, without hurting anyone else. 

Let’s stop despising differences.  Let’s learn to celebrate them.  Your way of viewing the world is different from mine, and I respect that.  I would like us all to respect that others think differently than we do, and that they’re allowed to think that way.  You’re allowed to despise diversity, and I will accept that.  I only ask that you not ridicule others who are different.  I ask that you allow them to live their lives and find their own meanings, as I do for you.  Yes, we disagree.  No, I don’t want you to have less because of that.  I don’t want you to be punished in any conceivable way for that.  I will hope to get you to unlock the treasure chest of your mind to see the world just a little bit differently than you did before we started.  If I can do that, you’re in a better place, and you’re a kinder person than you were before.  That kindness benefits all the world.  How can you object to that? The universe is filled with endless variation.  My favorite Vulcan once commented on that: “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.”  The Vulcans even have a lovely emblem for that.  The idea is the basis of their philosophy. 

Infinite Diversity exists whether we like it or not.  Look at the pictures we saw a few weeks ago that show us a portion of the Universe the size of a grain of sand.  They illustrate how vast the Cosmos is.  The Diversity is mind boggling. 

Let’s embrace the fact that more than one way of life is possible.  Let’s celebrate the differences in ourselves and in each other that add so many more hues to the palette we are all using together to paint our Intergalactic Self Portrait.   

And, yes, like Billy Joel, “I love you just the way you are.”

Posted on by Fred · 3 Comments

                                Yes, I’m Scared

I’m writing in Real Time today because I can’t take my feelings public yet.  There are too many moving parts, and I need things to be within my control to the extent they can be.  I normally prefer to wait until I’ve thought everything through, and I have come to some conclusion I think is worth sharing.  I have no such conclusion today.  I simply have fear.  Last week I asked, “Are You Scared?”  This week the answer is an unequivocal yes.

I call my Mother every night at 6:05 PM.  I have an alarm on my phone for that purpose.  I called last night (nearly 17 hours ago), and I asked, as I always do, if my mother was available.  The man said she was not.  She was in the hospital.  I lost control of my bladder.

Mom fell yesterday, and she broke her ankle in three places.  She needs to have surgery today.  Mom is 91.  There is no such thing as minor surgery at 91.  I asked the man to which hospital they had taken my mother.  He instructed me to call my sister for that information.  This is the place where I face a difficult problem. 

I never speak negatively in public about anyone who is not a public figure unless I can hide that person’s identity.  I suspect anyone who really wants to know can figure out who my sister is, but she’s not on my Facebook page, and I won’t use her real name.  In the Horace stories, I call her Jan.  I will do that here.  I will refer to her husband as Jason, and my brother as Sheldon.  I am going to refer to my nephew as Harold, and his mother as Ann.  None of these are their real names. 

When I called Jan last night, immediately after hanging up with the Group Home, her husband, Jason, answered the phone.  He told me what I already knew, but he declined to tell me where my mother was.  He said they didn’t want me to call her and disturb her.  He said she was supposed to have surgery this morning. 

Naturally, I was upset by this.  I immediately tried to contact my nephew, Harold, on Facebook Messenger.  We haven’t talked in quite a long time, and I didn’t have his number anymore.  When I couldn’t connect with him, I tried the same method for contacting his mother, Ann.  She didn’t answer, but in a couple of minutes, she sent me a message asking if everything was all right.  I told her it wasn’t, and we began discussing the situation.  In a couple of minutes, I was talking to my nephew as well, and everyone was trying to find Mom. 

Harold called Jason.  Jason declined to give Harold any information.  Jason told Harold he would tell me the name of the hospital in the morning.  Harold told me to call Jason again.  I did. 

Jason promised to text me the address this morning, so I could sit in the waiting room while Mom was in surgery.  It’s 11:00 AM.  I texted at 9:15 to ask when the surgery was scheduled.  His reply was, “We have not received a call from the hospital yet.” 

I need to explain how I’m feeling.  That’s the point of writing this. 

I’m angry.  The source of anger is fear.  I’ve covered that in “The Problem of Anger.”  (That’s Episode 123, if you want to listen.)  I’m afraid of Mom going into surgery without me there.  I’m afraid of Mom not coming out of surgery alive.  I’m afraid of going to the hospital because I’m afraid of people, in general, and of my sister, in particular.  She has Power of Attorney over my Mom.  Jan can cut off my access to my Mother any time she chooses.  She has already restricted it significantly.  I can’t take Mom to lunch.  I can visit Mom only if Jan is present. 

I’m angry that I don’t have the chance to be where I need to be today.  I called more than a dozen area hospitals last night.  My nephew, Harold, found the numbers for me, but he made the point that Jan would almost certainly have told the hospital not to give me (or anyone else) the information that Mom was there.  I was unsuccessful in locating my Mother. 

If I find out where my Mom is, I can go see her, but to do this requires getting a ride there from my best friend’s boyfriend.  He’s a good man, but I don’t always think he’s much of a boyfriend.  Nevertheless, he has been helpful to me on more than one occasion.  He brought in the wood and bricks I needed to construct my bookshelves.  He fixed the sliding glass door in the back of my house.  I can’t open it, but at least it’s closed.  We get along all right, but we see the world very differently.  He is not on the ever-shrinking list of people with whom I would willingly choose to spend time.  He is, however, my only way of getting there.  My best friend has been on another vacation, this time in California.  I’m expecting her back tonight. 

Assuming I get the information, and assuming I can get the ride, I have to make myself appear to be a member of your species.  I never like to do that.  It makes me uncomfortable.  It means I will almost certainly be found lacking in public. 

This is all the more true because my sister has found me lacking all of my life.  The only people to compete with my sister in truly hating me are Anthony Tagonist and his family.  I’m not sure if I would rather be in the hospital waiting room with my sister or the trailer on Anthony’s property.  (Listen to Episode 124, “Unlocking The Gate,” for details.)  No matter how this day goes, it won’t be a way I like. 

If I can’t get to the hospital, I will feel like dirt. 

If I get to the hospital, I will have to face the hatred of my sister and her husband. 

I didn’t sleep well last night.  That should come as no surprise.  You wouldn’t have either.  I woke up around 2 AM, and I could feel that my blood sugar was way too low.  My brain was, at best, half functioning.  I made the trek to the restroom to ensure I didn’t empty my bladder in an unwelcome place again, and then I went to the kitchen to test my blood.  My blood sugar was 44.  For context, I’m including this information.

What is Low Blood Sugar?

Low blood sugar is called hypoglycemia.  A blood sugar level below 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) is low and can harm you.  A blood sugar level below 54 mg/dL (3.0 mmol/L) is a cause for immediate action.

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000085.htm

My brain was still working, for reasons passing understanding, well enough that I knew what I needed to do.  I have glucose tablets in the bathroom, and I have ice cream in the freezer.  I need to consume those things to get my blood sugar to a safe place. 

For a moment, I didn’t want to. 

I realized I had less than 5 minutes to make a decision.  After that, I would no longer be able to do what needed to be done.  I would lose consciousness, and I wouldn’t wake up.  I took a solid 20% of that time to think things over.

Obviously, Marc Antony is not going to approve of suicide.  (If you haven’t heard “Horace’s Final Five” you won’t understand.  You need to listen to it.  I’m not going to try to explain here.  That’s not where my head is today.)  The thing is, though, that suicide implies an act.  If I intentionally inject myself with too much insulin, that’s suicide.  I didn’t do that last night.  I was simply unable to eat anything. 

All I needed to do was nothing.  I could decide I didn’t care, go get back in bed with Speedy Shine, and I wouldn’t be in this position this morning.  My best friend, when I talked about it with her this morning, called it Suicide By Apathy.  That’s a fair description. 

I didn’t bother with the glucose tablets that would help get my blood sugar back up promptly.  I went back to bed where Speedy Shine was waiting for me.  He saw, for the first time in his life, tears in my eyes.  He cocked his head to the left just a little, looking at me as though he was confused.  I tried to smile at him, but that part of my soul had been vanquished by the evening.  He hopped over to me and started kissing the tears off my face.  I gave him some loves, and he started whining in a way I’d never heard before.  He gave me another look, and I understood what he was saying. 

In the last seconds before losing the ability to control my own actions, I went to the bathroom and took several glucose tablets.  I waited until I was steady enough on my feet to walk, and I went to the freezer and got some ice cream.  I shared it with Speedy Shine.  Today I can write about it.

My other fear is the hatred I’m beginning to feel.  I can’t let it infect my soul.  It is toxic.  It will keep me from doing what I need to do.  It will dissipate my ability to love.  It will stop my emotional growth.  I can’t have that.  I have to replace that hatred with love, so I’m listening to helpful music, I’m giving Speedy Shine extra cuddles, and I am talking to people I know love me.  I’m pointing the camera of my mind at things that feel better for me. 

The hatred comes from my anger and frustration that I have no access to my mother.  I feel insulted by the assumption that I represent any type of threat to her.  I am frustrated by my own powerlessness.  I am afraid that Mom is upset I haven’t talked to her.  I’m scared that she will forget who I am.  I’m worried that she is feeling alone and abandoned because she didn’t get her simple five-minute phone call.  I feel sorry for Mom’s pain.  I am worried about her inability to walk, even in her walker. 

All of those things are out of my control.  I need to focus on what I can control.  I can’t do anything about Mom’s pain, but I can reflect on my own feelings.  I can’t control those either.  They exist.  What I do about them, however, is in my control.  I’m not responsible for my feelings; I am responsible for my behavior.  I’m choosing to write about it, so I can see it in black and white.  It allows me to examine my feelings more objectively.  It allows me to recognize what they are, and it helps me to find ways of soothing them. 

I’ve learned now that they’ve decided surgery is not a good option for Mom.  Obviously, no one consulted me.  I like the decision, though, I think.  I can’t help but be scared of putting a 91-year-old woman under general anesthesia.  The possibility of not being able to pull her back is significant. 

She will, I’m told, be going to a rehab facility whenever the insurance approves it.  I’m not allowed to know where that will be.  I’m still not going to be allowed to talk to my Mom.  Yes, that causes me more fear and anger.  It’s also out of my control.  It requires more music, a little weed, and some more time at the keyboard. 

There’s a part of me that wants to scream at my sister and call her any number of unflattering names.  A case could be made she deserves it.  No good, however, will come of it.  It won’t help Mom.  It won’t help me.  It would, in fact, hurt everyone involved.  No one will come out in better condition than they were in before I yelled.  You might suggest I will feel better for having gotten that out of my soul, but I don’t take pleasure in hurting others.  I need to exercise self-control.

How will this all come out?  I have no idea.  I have no power to control it.  What I know is that, in one way or another, I’ll come through the other side.  Dying isn’t going to help anyone.  There’s a fair chance it would hurt a few people.  I’m going to do it anyway, so there’s no reason to rush it.  I can contain ugly and painful feelings.  I know this because I’ve done it dozens of times before.  I’m not 17 anymore.  I’ve known pain, suffering, fear, heartbreak, and poverty.  I’ve also known love, redemption, hope, success, and pride.  I know I will get them back someday.  It’s just a matter of surviving until then.

There’s a good chance you’re dealing with your own challenges today.  I’m hopeful that you’ll handle them without hurting yourself or anyone else.  I hope I managed to distract you from your pain and fear for just a little while.  Perhaps the distraction was helpful.

If nothing else, please know that regardless of what else is happening, I still love you.

UPDATE: Jason finally gave me the address of the Rehab Facility.  I still can’t call Mom, but my best friend drove me out to visit her.  This is a photograph from that visit. 
Posted on by Fred

Father and The Lady

Interstate 17, Anthem, Arizona

October 9, 2009

6:17 PM

“Your Dad just passed.”

“Oh, Mom… I’m so sorry.  I’m on my way there now.  I thought… I thought he had more time.  I thought…”

“I felt his last breath.  I held his hand.  I…”  She couldn’t talk anymore. 

“I’ll call people.  You try to get some rest.  Who’s there with you now?”

“Marie Beth got here right after it happened.”

“She’ll take good care of you.  I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“Sheldon and Jan know.  They’re coming.  Sheldon was at a football game.”

“It’s okay, Mom.  We still have each other.  We still have family.  We’ll get through this together.  It’s what we do.”

There was silence, and just a brief sob on the other end of the phone.

“You lie down Mom.  Embee will take care of you.  We’re all coming, Mom.  You’re not alone.  Okay?”

The phone clicked.  The roaring of the road was cold.  Horace’s vision blurred a bit, and he took a deep breath.  “I have to be strong now.  Mom will be coming apart when I get there.  I have to help her through this.”  He gave instructions to his phone to call his best friend.  He would make calls for most of the trip between Anthem and Flagstaff, spreading the news of his father’s demise across the country. 

Henderson, Nebraska

January 12, 1964

6:23 PM

“Lay dee,” said the infant Horace.

Hal was holding Horace lovingly in his thin arms.  “You want to go see The Lady?”  He walked past Marie, and into the living room.

“If he wants to see his Mom,” said Owen Leal, Horace’s grandfather, “you just walked right past her.”

“No,” said Marie.  “I’m Mama.  Lady is The Mona Lisa.”

Hal stood next to the painting, and Horace began to wave.  “She’s a nice lady, isn’t she?”

Horace giggled, and he put his index finger on her lips. 

“She has a pretty smile, doesn’t she?”  Marie asked.

Horace began to dance in his father’s arms, bouncing up and down. 

“I’ll get it,” said Marie, and she went to the record player, and dropped the needle on “On The Trail” from “The Grand Canyon Suite” by Ferde Grofe.   She picked up the camera next to the turntable, and she returned to her husband and son. 

Horace grinned, jumped up and down some more, and pointed at the painting.  “Lay Dee!”

Marie took the picture.

“You’re making an art lover of that boy,” said Owen.  “Good for you, Hal.”

Horace began to wave his hands back and forth, and he tilted his head back.

“Oh, no!” whispered Owen.  “Are the demons returning?”

“No, Dad, not this time.”  Marie shot Hal a glance that told him to let it go.  “He’s conducting.  He’s seen his brother, Sheldon, doing that when we play Beethoven.  Sheldon has decided he will be the next Leonard Bernstein.”

“Is he still having as many possessions?”

Hal was grinning at Horace.  “Yeah, Pastor Leal, he’s still having seizures.  We’re going to another specialist next month after I get paid.”

“You know you’re wasting your money.  I could do an exorcism.  We don’t even need to go to the church.  I could do it here for you at no—”

“Thank you, Pastor, but I believe we’re going to go with the doctors.”

“You’re not rich folks.  You don’t make enough teaching those high school classes to be wastin’ money on what doesn’t work.  You’ve been to seven doctors already, and they haven’t fixed it.  God doesn’t need money.  All he needs is your faith and someone who is ready to remove the demons from little Horace’s soul.”

“He had one this morning right after he drank some orange juice.  I wonder if that’s connected somehow.”  Marie’s face was troubled.

“He’s also had seizures when waking up from his naps, when eating Gerber baby food, after bowel movements, and before them.  Any of those could be causes, but they don’t all line up.  So far, just about the only thing that doesn’t seem to set them off is the Mona Lisa and Music.

Interstate 17

October 9, 2009

6:59 PM

Nat King Cole was singing on the radio as Horace hung up the last phone call.

Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?

He had told his best friend, who cried, although Horace had maintained his composure.  He was all but clinical when he told her.  He was surprised by Monica’s reaction.  She’d only met Hal twice.  Why would this news hit her so hard?  Horace reminded himself, once again, he didn’t understand people.

He was gaining strength with every mile.  He was remembering how, less than a week ago, his sister had screamed at his mother because Marie had neglected to keep Jan up to date on Hal’s condition.  He could see vividly in his mind Marie falling apart.  Her knees had buckled, and Horace had caught her and helped her to the couch.  When Horace asked her to knock it off, Jan turned on Horace with even more ferocity.  He had finally called his brother, Sheldon, to calm Jan down. 

Marie was going to need all his help now.  She would require all his strength.  He was going to be there for her.  He was going to be her comfort and her fortitude.  That’s what he kept repeating to himself.  Comfort and Fortitude.  Just get Mom through this night. 

It wasn’t as though no one had seen it coming. 

Anthem Elementary School

September 20, 2009

9:23 AM

“All right,” said Horace to the eager faced fifth graders.  “What do we know?”

“We know the bed was bolted to the floor,” shouted Yoli, a girl not prone to raising her hand.

“Okay, good.  Now, what does that mean about the bed?”

“It means Julia couldn’t move it, no matter what.”  This was Armando, a kid two sizes too big to be in fifth grade. 

“Hmm,” mused Horace.  “I wonder why Roylott wouldn’t want her to move the bed.  Is there anything around the bed that could be relevant?”

There was silence while the faces of 28 kids contorted in thought.  Horace ambled over toward the vent, and inconspicuously put his hand on it.

“The vent!  The vent!  It’s over the bed!”  These were random shouts scattered through the room.

“So, Amanda, what would be so important about the bed being near the vent?”

“Maybe…” and Amanda put her hand on her chin, as she had seen her teacher do so many times.  “Maybe it was poison gas that he pumped through the vent?”

“How would he keep the gas from killing him?  His room is on the other side of the vent.”

Again there was silence.  After a moment, Jake, a boy two size too small to be a fifth grader, suggested, “Maybe that’s what that metallic clanging was?  It was some kind of special machine that he puts against the vent, and it pushes gas into the room without letting it go through to his side of the room.”

“I like the way you think.  That’s certainly possible.  What do we know about the inside of Dr. Roylott’s room?”

“There’s a safe in there,” said Amanda.

“Yes, there is.  It’s sitting on a table.  Is there anything on the safe?”

Pages began flipping at desks throughout the room.  “A saucer of milk.”  This was the first time Christina had spoken in two days. 

Horace smiled broadly.  “Way to go, Christina!”

“So, he drinks milk,” said Armando sarcastically.  “Big deal.”

“Do you drink your milk from a saucer?” Horace asked him, while shooting him a glare that made it clear we don’t step on Christina when she finally says something.

“I’ve never been kidnapped by aliens.”

The class laughed.

“A saucer is a really shallow bowl.  You can’t, for example, have your cereal in one.  And the only way to drink out of it is—”

“Licking it!” shouted Yoli.  “Like a cat.”

“Do you suppose he keeps his cat in that safe?”

“That would be weird,” Yoli replied.

“Roylott killed his daughter.  We already know he’s weird.”  Amanda looked up at Horace.  “Still, what’s the point of keeping a cat in a safe?  Why not just let it wander around like everyone else does?”

“Good question.  Was there anything else on the safe?”

“What’s a lash?” asked Christina.

“It’s the way Doyle spelled leash.  You know, like you use for a dog?  But there was something weird about the leash.  Do you remember what was weird about it?”

“It’s tied in a weird little loop.”

“Nice, Antonio.  It is.  Why would you tie a leash like that do you think?”

“For something with a really small neck,” called out David, who came to class stoned at least twice a week.

“Sounds less like a cat all the time.  What else could it be?”

Horace was thinking three questions ahead to the bell pull that rang nothing but ran from the vent to the pillow on the bed when his cell phone rang.  Horace was startled, and he pulled it out of his pocket, annoyed.  Everyone knew they should never call him during school.  He looked at the name.  “Mom.”  “Shit,” he whispered.  He pressed the button.  “What’s the matter Mom?”

The class was stunned into silence.  They’d never once seen their teacher answer his phone before.  Their eyes widened as Horace’s face lost all of its color as though it were water slipping through a crack in the pipes. 

“Oh my God…” Horace’s eyes teared up. 

Amanda was out of her seat and running for the door before Horace got the next sentence out.

“Okay, Mom.  I’m coming.  I’ll be right there.  I have to… you know… I have to… I have to get to the car.  I’m coming Mom.”  The classroom ceased to exist for Horace.  His car, the interstate, Flagstaff, and the hospital were all he could see.

In another moment, Emily Johnson, one of the other teachers on his team, burst through the door.  “I’ve got ‘em.  You go.  Just go.”

Horace looked up, tears streaming from his eyes.  “Thank you.  I… yeah.  Um… Yeah.  I gotta go.  I’ll tell the office.”

When he reached the office the secretary ran to him, hugged him, and said, “Emily’s got it.  Go.  And we’re all praying for you and your Dad.”

Horace shot through the door and ran to his car. 

Interstate 17

October 9, 2009

7:21 PM

So you got everything, ah, but nothing’s cool
They just found your father in the swimming pool
And you guess you won’t be going back to school
Anymore.

Billy Joel was singing as Horace pressed harder on the accelerator.  He needed to be in Flagstaff.  He shouldn’t have left.  Going back to work was stupid.  He should have known this was coming sooner than anyone hoped.  In the only time the whole family had agreed on anything in more than three decades, they had voted as one to send Dad home to hospice when the doctors said there was no more they could do.  Dad should die in his own bed, surrounded by those who loved him.  They all believed that.  It was moral.  It was just.  It was what Dad would want.  When Science has reached its limits, only Love remains. 

Hesperia, California

October 11, 1993

4:20 PM

“I don’t think she gets it.  I mean, I try to explain an idea to her, and then she either hates it, and she gets pissed at me, or she goes apeshit and runs so deep with the idea that she twists it into something new and that it was never intended to be.”  Horace glanced at the clock, cradled the phone between his neck and left shoulder, picked up the bong and took a hit while his Dad talked to him.

“And would it have been worth it, after all,” Dad recited,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.”

Horace exhaled as quietly as he could.  “Yes!  That’s it.  That’s precisely it.  Who is that?”

“I thought you had a degree in English.  How did you get through four years of school without encountering TS Eliot?”

“We were dealing with Practical Cats.”

“You needed to deal with Prufrock.”

“So does Melinda.  I’ll show her.  She likes I’ll Fly Away.  I have to give her credit for that.”

“She’s your wife.  I hope there is much more than that you give her credit for.”

“For which I give her credit?”

“You know what Churchill said about ending sentences in prepositions.”

“No idea.”

“An intern was going over one of his speeches, and he told Churchill that he should rewrite a sentence because he ended it with a preposition.  Churchill, quite properly, fired him at once saying, ‘that is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.’ A wise man, this Churchill.”

Horace laughed.  “I want to preserve the language the way a chef preserves his knives.  Every time we make it less precise, it becomes duller.  It can’t communicate as clearly.”

“You’ve heard of evolution, haven’t you?  All things change.”

“But not always for the better.”

“Well, maybe Shakespeare was actually talking about the language when he had Gertrude tell us all that lives must die, passing through nature…”

Interstate 17

October 9, 2009

7:43 PM

“… to eternity,” mumbled Horace.  The road was dark, and there were few lights in the distance.  He felt alone.  The world had never been quite so empty.  He’d made this drive dozens of times, but tonight he was travelling through an unfamiliar abyss.  Mom had never needed him the way she will tonight.  His job was to remain calm.  He needed to hold Mom up.  He needed to give her his strong heart to keep her from coming apart completely.  That meant he was going to need some more strength of his own.  Someone had to put some duct tape on the torn pieces of his heart.  He thought of his cousin, and he picked up his phone.

Flagstaff, Arizona

August 30, 1985

5:46 PM

“… and with one phone call, his future begins,” said Hal, setting his beer on the kitchen table. 

His wife, Marie, smiled at her son, Horace, as he spoke into the phone. 

“Mrs. Burke?  My name is Horace Singleman.  I’ll be your student teacher this year.  I’m calling to introduce myself and to find out if there’s anything special I should do, or bring, or… um… you know… think about for my first day.”

“Eloquent as ever,” whispered Marie.

“He’s nervous,” Hal whispered back.  “Give the boy a break.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Horace was getting control of himself.  “I’ll be sure to bring a lesson plan book, too.  Is there a particular type you recommend?”

Hal laughed.  “She’s not going to let him get by with that, is she Marie?”

Marie shook her head.  “He’s not close to ready to do his lesson plans in those little blocks.  He’ll need to…”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.  I understand.  So probably a wire notebook or…”

“Where should we take him for dinner?  Do you think La Fonda is enough or…”

“No.”  Hal shook his head.  “This is the day his life changes.  Let’s get the boy a steak.”  Hal and Marie had never been so proud.  Horace had never been more nervous.

Interstate 17

October 9, 2009

7:43 PM

Nervous.  That was the best explanation.  He was afraid he would fail his mother.  “But screw thy courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.”  Maybe Lady Macbeth wasn’t the right person from whom to get emotional advice.  She was a murderous bitch.  On the other hand, Shakespeare often put his best advice in the mouths of his villains.  And I’m responsible for who I am.  Testing his memory, and finding his strength, Horace recited into the darkness:

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

Horace had printed that in appropriate script, and he had gotten it professionally framed for his Father.  It had been on the wall in Dad’s office for decades.  He knew Dad understood that they were God’s spies.  No one else ever asked why that was on the wall.  They just accepted that it was part of Horace and Dad.

And Horace had gotten through the whole thing, aloud, without crying.  He was getting stronger.  He would be all right.  He could help his Mom. 

Flagstaff, Arizona

October 3, 2009

8:18 AM

Horace gazed at his Father.  Hal was in and out of consciousness, and he was clearly restless.  He didn’t understand where he was.  He didn’t know what was happening. 

Marie set her hand gently on Horace’s shoulder.  “Why don’t you read him some poetry?  That soothes him.”

“Do you think he’ll understand?”

“Do you think it matters?”  His nephew, Sheldon’s son, Leonard, sat on the other side of the table, and he gave Horace an annoyed glare.

“Good point.”

And Horace read.  Hal didn’t seem aware of his surroundings, and yet, every few minutes, he would finish a line. 

“And I am two-and-twenty,

       And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true,” mumbled Hal as Horace read AE Houseman. 

Horace smiled at his father.  The things one remembers when one’s time is coming to a close.  Hal recited lines about a patient etherized upon a table, and then, with the slowest, most graceful movement, turned his head and looked at his son.  “Let us go and make our visit.”  He almost smiled, but his lips wouldn’t quite go that far before Hal was asleep again. 

Flagstaff, Arizona

October 9, 2009

8:12 PM

Horace pulled into his parents’ driveway.  This wasn’t the house in which he had grown up.  They’d sold that and moved into this much more easily maintained home in the Country Club.  They had been here for five years now, and every time Horace arrived he felt as though he were visiting a foreign country.  Tonight, it felt like an alien planet.  How could it be that he would go through that door without his father greeting him?

“Strength, Horace.  Your Mother needs your strength tonight.  Hold it together.  You’ve got this.  You’re going to be just fine.”

The room wasn’t dark, but it certainly wasn’t glowing with the light he was accustomed to finding when he walked in.  His eyes needed no time to adjust. 

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table.  Sheldon, Horace’s brother, was standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder. 

Hal was lying on what appeared to be almost a stretcher.  His eyes were closed.  The light was dim, and Horace kept waiting to see him take just one breath.  Horace took a deep one of his own, and went to his Mother to hug her.  She needed his strength; he would….

On the wall to the right of his mother was a cheap calendar with the Mona Lisa on the front.  And Horace lost all control of himself.  He crumpled like bad prose on cheap paper to his knees and began bawling uncontrollably.  His mother held him, but he couldn’t stop.

“He’s going to hyperventilate,” said Marie.

Sheldon got him a paper bag into which he told Horace to breathe.  Horace didn’t want to breathe. 

Flagstaff Funeral Home

October 21, 2009

3:47 PM

Horace looked out at the people.  There must have been a hundred of them.  It was standing room only.  And they were looking at him.  He hated that. 

He didn’t want to speak here today.  He and his brother had fought over the music Horace chose for their Father’s Memorial Video.  Horace just wanted to hide where no one would ever find him again, but… here he was.

He had been talking for about ten minutes now.  He had worked for days on what he would say, and he found himself resentful that his father wasn’t here to help him fix his prose.  It was important.  Dad had never let him down before, but now, when it mattered… he was nowhere to be found.  He wished these people would stop looking at him.  He looked down to his pages again.  He knew better.  He knew public speaking.  He’d been a teacher for more than 20 years.  He just couldn’t look at these people, and he buried himself in the safety of the printed word.  He read aloud.

“And so now you’re gone, and while some see no tragedy in your passing, I see little else.  I am grateful for the love I have for and get from all these people you gave me, but none of them, nor all of them combined, can ever give me what you did.  I have no one to check my work.  I have no one to explain to me what John Dewey meant about experience and education.  I have no one to ask me what movies he should bother watching.  I have no one with whom to argue about whether Fried Green Tomatoes belongs on the 100 Great Movies List.  And I have no one to tell me that sentence would have seemed less awkward if I ended it with a preposition.  And it just sucks.

“So, I know we have no Heaven for you.  I know that you simply are no more.  But, much as it would annoy you, I need to steal some other writers’ words now because they’re better than mine.  Yes, I know which of the people listening to this are thinking, “That’s not saying much,” and I would like to direct to those people the napkin I would normally being throwing at you, Dad, for such an insolent thought.  So, forgive me please, but remember that, “Good writers borrow from other writers; great writers steal from the outright.”

“So, “Let us go, then, you and I…”

“And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worthwhile,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
  Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
  That is not it, at all.”
 
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worthwhile,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
  “That is not it at all,
  That is not what I meant, at all.”

–TS Eliot, from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

“When I think of your absence, I am forced, reluctantly, to admit that my mind goes somewhere you would loathe it for going.  “He’s really not dead.  As long as we remember him.” 

“You don’t really need Heaven, though, anyway.

I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards–their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble–the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”

“So, I’ve written too much now already, forgetting that “brevity is the soul of wit.”  On the other hand, “I cried when I wrote this song; sue me if I play too long.”

“I’ll wind it up with just one more quotation.  “It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my …” father, Hal Singleman, “was distinguished.”  You are the one whom I will “…ever regard as the best and wisest man I have ever known.”

“I miss you.

Love,

Horace”

Posted on by Fred

Are You Scared?

A good friend (I’m going to refer to her as Lisa, but that’s not her name) called me today to point out something I had never considered, and she asked me to point it out to you.  I’m doing that now.

When Lisa tells someone that she has a terminal diagnosis, they ask the clinical questions: “How long do they think you have?  What can be done?  How are you feeling physically?”  What no one ever asks is, “Are you scared?”  That’s really the most important question. 

I am practically a Vulcan in my devotion to logic over emotion.  Logic is how problems are solved.  Logic is where we gain clarity about the world.  Logic allows us to examine possible choices and make the one most likely to grant us the outcome we want.  Logic is the basis of the science that I hope will save her life. 

We are, however, all human.  Humans do what we do for emotional reasons.  Emotion is at the core of our existence.  It’s why we get up in the morning.  There is some emotional need we must fill.  Logic is, as my favorite Vulcan reminds us, “the beginning of wisdom, not the end.”  It is a tool to help us; nothing more.  Emotion is our motivation.

Yes, my friend is scared.  Few of us can stare into the face of our own mortality without fear.  We are running out of time to do the things we still want to do.  When we’re gone from this life, we’re gone forever.  When we’ve been dead ten billion years, we will have been dead for only a tiny fraction of the time we’re going to be dead. 

I don’t know whether there’s an afterlife, but I’m sure we only get one life to be the person we are today.  There isn’t a second one unless there’s a Big Crunch that reverses the Big Bang, and we live backward in time.  Perhaps when we’re dead we’ll go to Heaven or (as some of my Christian friends fear) to Hell because we didn’t choose the right set of beliefs.  Perhaps we will be reincarnated as some of my other friends think, but if we are, we won’t be who we are now in the next life.  Perhaps our energy will simply rejoin the universe from whence it came.  It won’t be reorganized into the people we are now.    

Lisa is nearing the place she can pull her Social Security, and she intends to grab it all and go live while she can.  I completely support that choice.  When time is running out, make every day count.  There’s little to be gained by saving for a future that is unlikely to arrive.

And then I began to think a bit wider.  I love Lisa.  I had a schoolboy hormone-hazed crush on her 40 years ago.  In the interim, both of us have had rich, full lives in which our paths only rarely crossed.  I wonder sometimes if our lives would have been different had I found the courage to talk to her in high school.  It’s irrelevant, though.  I can’t change the past. 

I don’t know how much time she has left.  It’s not long enough.  At the same time, I don’t know how much time I have left, either.  I’m nearly 60, I’m a potentially brittle diabetic when my life goes South, I smoke too much (although I have managed to cut it back some), and I need both hands to stand up.  I would like to continue to exist for a while, but the odds are not good.  I’m learning from my friend.  I’m living the best I can while I can.  I have no plans for 30 years from now. 

I started by thinking about her.  I moved to thinking about me.  Then I thought about you.  I hope you have another century to go.  But… let’s take a look at the world for a moment. 

It’s hotter now than it has been in modern times.  It’s unlikely to get much cooler.    The extra heat requires extra air conditioning which adds extra stress to our planet.  Our water supply is running out.  Water is the basis of all life.  With no water, there can be no food.  Climate change is real, it’s nearing the point of no return (if it hasn’t already passed it), and we are, for the most part, just making it worse.  The planet isn’t going to support us for much longer.  The amount of money you have will be irrelevant.

The world is flirting with nuclear war.  We won’t recover from it if it happens.  You won’t be taking your money to the grocery store to get yourself a steak.  There won’t be either a grocery store or a steak to be found.  If you survive, it’s not going to resemble the life you’re enjoying today.

With each passing week, we move, in America at least, closer to an authoritarian dictatorship.  The division between our people is deeper than it has been since the Civil War.  There are more than a few people who believe a second one may come.  There are others who are hoping for one.  (I’m not among them.)

The time we have left to enjoy the lives we have is probably running out much more quickly than we would hope. 

On the other hand…

At this moment, which is the only one in which any of us can live, I’m doing fine.  My dog is sleeping on the couch, and he isn’t even eating it.  I have enough food for the next few days, and I have the means to get more if I run out.  I have plenty of Diet Pepsi and a wonderful bed in which to sleep.  My air conditioning is keeping me cool.  At this moment.

It’s my hope and assumption that you’re doing, at this moment, at least as well as I am.  This is the moment to enjoy.  Bad things may be coming.  They probably are.  While there may be some things we can do, worrying about them isn’t any of the helpful ones.  Ruining this moment with fear of an upcoming lousy moment doesn’t prevent the lousy moment from arriving.  I am simply denying myself of the chance to enjoy this one.  I would rather not. 

I would love to change the world.  That’s why I do this show.  I have no great or intricate plans to do that.  All I have are ideas.  Logistics are best left to experts.  I’m not one. 

What could we do?  We could unite behind a goal I think more than 90% of us share: let everyone their lives, their way, so long as they’re not hurting anyone.  If your way of life is being a serial killer, I will need to object.  If you’re different from me in some other way, I see no problem with that.  Why should anyone else?  Your sexuality might be different from mine.  That doesn’t hurt anyone else.  Your gender, your race, your age, your skin color, your country of origin, your body, and / or your soul are probably different from mine.  Neither of us chose that.  Why should we object to the differences?  Let everyone live their lives, their way.

The number of people who disagree is startling.  Our job is to change their minds.  There are those who want us to live in fear because it helps them.  Money allows them to create that fear.

Think of it like this.  If you had $100,000,000 in the bank right now, would you still go to work tomorrow? 

If you would, you have a job that you find satisfying and that you enjoy.  I’m ecstatic for you.  You’re spending your minutes in the way you want.  You’re living your best life.  Well done.

If you wouldn’t, you’re going to work tomorrow because you want to survive.  You’re scared of homelessness or hunger.  You’re scared of losing what you have earned so far. 

Fascists love fear.  I love hope. 

Fear will get you to do what you’re told.  If someone is holding a knife to your loved one’s throat, the odds that you will do what the criminal tells you to do increase exponentially. 

If we live in a world dominated by money, one in which without money we have nowhere to live, nothing to eat, little access to medical care, and we are living with the constant threat of imprisonment simply for existing somewhere without proper authorization, we live in fear.  Those with lots of money know this, and they use it to force us to do what they tell us, with the same power the knife wielding criminal has. 

My friend, fellow podcast host, (his show is called Interstellar Frequency, and if you want to his real name, you’ll have to listen to that.) and Person on The Porch, Miles O’Brien, told me this week that he was shocked to learn that the President of The United States receives a salary.  Why would a President need one?  What can he possibly want that he can’t get for free?  Money is freedom.  We evidently want the President to have more of it than he already has.

A group called Rage Against The Machine, to whom I rarely listen, made quite a bit of money in the 90s (I don’t know how much.  My Google search didn’t reveal that information.) with a song called “Killing in The Name” in which they repeated a famously unpleasant phrase followed by the words “I won’t do what you tell me” over and over.  It turns out people don’t like to be told what to do.  We want the freedom to choose for ourselves.  Why is that such a radical idea?

I’m choosing not to live in quite so much fear.  That’s bold talk, even from someone who’s not what Robert Duvall called “a one-eyed fat man.” I’m afraid to leave my own house.  I’m afraid of you.  Who am I to talk about living with less fear? 

I’m an old man with a nice dog and enough to eat, who is replacing their fear with my hope.  There is much to fear.  I’m just not dealing with it in every moment of my life.  I do what I can to fight for freedom and justice, and then I enjoy what I can of my life.  There’s nothing to fear in this moment, and this is the only one I’m certain I have.  When I run out of moments, I have no more chances for happiness.  I’m going to enjoy the ones I can.  I hope you will, too. 

If it helps, I’ll remind you once again… I love you.