The Politics of Testicular Fortitude

Does anyone else out there think that our political process suffers from testosterone toxicity?  I am getting heartily sick of the would-be Presidents trying to out macho each other.  Whenever the sound bites stray too far from the terrorism and who has the 'equipment' to deal with that oh-so-dangerous world out there,  someone or something directs it back.  I keep remembering that funny little scene from "Animal House" where the Delta boy swaggered up the the older woman in the supermarket, picked up a very large cucumber, and told her 'mine is bigger than this."  He sheepishly backed off when she informed him that the Dean of the college was her husband and asked if he really wanted to show her his 'cucumber.'  

Each and every candidate assures us that they each one are tough enough to deal with the crazies out there; and that they and they alone are 'man' enough for the job.  Unfortunately, in my mind at least, they are coming after the 'man' who lied us into a war and then asked us to prove our patriotism by going shopping.  

I can understand McCain emphasizing his 'manliness.'  What else has he to offer?  But Clinton?  It is a sad commentary on our political situation that a woman running to replace the macho man who pushed this country into major quicksand on all levels feels she has to prove she has the biggest balls to win.  And Obama?  What kind of change can we expect when he poses the same argument that got the 'man' he wants to replace re-elected four years ago: that he is macho enough to stand up to terrorists?  No matter where the argument starts (economy, jobs, social security, what ever)  it always seems to end in the same place: which one has the testicular fortitude.  Now I will go throw up--again.

The Audacity of Hopeful Optimism

I started this some time ago and between computer problems and other things simply didn't get back to it.  Perhaps that is just as well since many of the thoughts I had earlier have become clearer of late.

I am glad the primary season has finally take off. The results so far are not much of a surprise. I never liked the Republican offerings much. Unfortunately, my first two choices among the Democrats are gone. Now I am left with what is  the choice between Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, and, although I didn't think so when Edwards and Kucinich dropped out, I am not so sure that their exits were a bad thing. What had been disquietingly nebulous in my mind has chrystalized. I have been growing more discontented and uneasy over the last years and had not been quite sure of what has been the problem. The feeling has intensified during this present administration, but it began much earlier.  I feel disconnected by almost all that has come out of Washington and Wall Street.

Let's start with the most obvious 800 pound gorilla given today's political environment--the War on Terror.  I have never felt as threatened by 'terrorists' as I have felt threatened by the actions of this government to allegedly protect me and my fellow Americans from the threat of terrorism.  But I was never convinced that there was a significant probability that I would fall victim in the same way those in New York and Washington did.  Of the 300 million odd people in this country a few less than 3000 died in the attack.  You do the math.  I had about much chance of being hit by lightening.  

But in response to this attack the Bush administration has pushed through the Patriot Act, has the FBI issuing 'national security letters' demanding librarians turn over patrons' reading lists, the establishment of a 'Homeland' Security Agency (shades of the Hitlerian Fatherland) sucking up money and resources to questionable ends, and a seemingly endless war in Iraq founded on lies and cherry picked intelligence.  Bush and his minions promise to make us safe and all we have to do is suspend our reason and morals, and give up cherished freedoms (and perhaps even our identity as a free people.)  This progression continues with the all for 'secure' ids (federally specified drivers licenses) without which people will not be able to enter a government building or board an airplane;  new Social Security cards with photos, bar codes and implanted chip; a Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act establishing (Joe) MacCarthy-esque committees that can go around the country compelling testimony from anyone on the slightest suspicion and accepting whatever evidence (even hearsay) they decide to accept.  This country has gone from 'the land of the free and home of the brave' to "land of the voluntarily shackled and home of the chicken shit."

Now lets go on to the 700 pound gorilla-the economy.  We have become a country of people selling goods made in other countries to other people selling goods made in other countries to other people... until you are ready to vomit.  Seventy percent of the economy is 'consumer' driven.  What happens if the consumer can't consume any more?  I have been asking this for the last 10 years.  Even today with the mortgage mess still melting down, the credit card crisis just beginning, and the worst Christmas retail season in recent memory, NO ONE is seriously asking or answering this question.  What has passed for economic discussion would be a joke if it weren't so pathetic.  Bush proposed a 'rebate' to jump start the economy.  One economic pundit likened it, massive though it sounds, to dumping a glass of water in the ocean and expecting it to make a difference.  Not likely.  He balked like a stubborn, largely unintelligent mule at the notion of extending food stamp programs and unemployment, programs that would provide more lasting help to those at the lowest end of the economy and in the most need.  He has shown a very limited range on the economy: tax cuts skewed to the upper income groups, absolving corporations of any liability for their actions and products,  and gutting the programs the most vulnerable of us depend on in the name of individual responsibility, fiscal conservatism and capitalism.  When he ran in 2000 as a 'compassionate conservative' I said that it was an oxymoron.  He has proven me right.

Although the economy is largely consumer driven, more and more people have lost or are losing the ability to consume.  Here is where we enter a truly unreal and surreal landscape.  For the last ten years the unemployment rate has been below 5%.  Yet there has been hardly one week in which I haven't heard about layoffs, firings, downsizing, or whatever you want to call it.  Often these stories involved large employers shedding thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of jobs many of which paid better than average.   Coupled with the stories of layoffs were stories of the tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of jobs 'created' in the economy.  I usually greet these stories with two related questions.  "Where are all of those who are laid off from good paying jobs with benefits and pensions going to go for work?" And, "Where are the goddamn jobs that have been supposedly created, how much do they pay, and do they offer benefits?"  When 9/11 happened I was studying for a new career I had chosen partly on what I thought was a good fit with my personality and strengths, and partly because it looked like an expanding field.  For the year before 9/11 the local newspapers ran columns and sometimes full pages of ads for job openings in that field.  The week after 9/11 the volume fell to maybe a column and a half.  It never recovered.  Nowadays, maybe, on a good day, there are half a dozen ads.  I can tell you who is still hiring: the fast food joints and the local supermarket.  Low pay, no benefits.  I once figured out that it would take three of those jobs to make a living wage.  In other words, I would have to work 60 to 80 hours a week and still would not have anything to save for retirement and no health care.  I understand why some people would rather rob banks.

None of the usual remedies will work here.  Getting training in a new field, or even advanced training in your current career, seems a waste of effort when the jobs, if they are at all well compensated, are most likely to have gone overseas by the time you finish the training.  Worse, somehow that training has to be paid for.  Most, to this time, have financed their training (I hesitate to call it education) by government sponsored and guaranteed loans which have to be repaid.  The student gets out with a mortgage sized loan payment and a dicey job market.  

Those are the two major sized gorillas in our national life.  So where am I going with this?  We need change and we need it badly.  None of the Republicans will provide it or even try for it.  The status quo for their constituents is working.  McCain lost me when he decided to support the debacle in Iraq and even echoes Bush's claims that we may 'have' to be there for the next decade.  The hell we do.  We can see where the Republicans' hearts lie with the disaster of Post-Katrina relief, the resistance to extending unemployment and food stamps, the willingness to forgive corporate and individual malfeasance so long as corporate profits are maintained.  I have seen nothing about McCain that makes me think he will do anything, even as little as give lip service to economic and social problems.  And it makes me sick to see the continuation, in somewhat milder form, of the Bush fear mongering.

Edwards and Kucinich seemed to me the most likely to try to restore some balance in our social and economic affairs.  They are out and what is left are Obama and Clinton.  There is much in favor of Clinton.  She has tried before to introduce healthcare reform.  She seems to have an appreciation of what the lower half of the socio-economic pyramid deals with.  I am suspicious, however, of her vote for the Iraq authorization and the original FISA authorization.  I am also not sold on her managerial, technocratic style.  It failed in the face of strong ideological opposition before and there is no reason to think that the opposition is any less ideologically driven now.

That leaves Obama.  Interestingly the reason I am tending toward him is precisely the reason one commentator on Barbara Ehrenreich's recent blog entry doesn't.  She said that if she wanted a sermon she would go to church.  I don't say we need sermons.  But I think we need a president who can use what Theodore Roosevelt called a 'bully pulpit.'  We need someone who can exhort, mobilize, encourage and harangue.  We need someone who can make us see the possibility and hope of change and make us enthusiastic about it.  Bush has made us see darkness all around us and encouraged our fear.   Maybe Obama will rekindle our optimism and courage.

The Best Political/Economic System Money Can (and does) Buy

I've been watching the gyrations of the stock market and the feeble minded responses to our 'economic crisis' with fascination--the same fascination with which one witnesses a car crash that happens to someone else. I have witnessed two such car crashes and there was a surreal quality to them. I saw them happening. I knew people were hurt. But I couldn't prevent them; I couldn't help; and, they didn't really affect me in any long lasting way.

As I watched the stock market over the last decade, it's ups and downs had the same quality. Whether the market went up or down, my economic situation has remained fragile. Jobs have become harder to get and harder to hold on to. I have yet to find a job that will pay for my life and I don't live extravagantly. Most of those jobs paid so little, I ended up resenting the time I spent doing them. And the situation has gotten worse over time no matter what the stock market did. Tenuous jobs, few pay raises that didn't even reach the inflation rate no matter how low that was, reduced hours when I did get pay raises. I know the whole trickle down theory says that when those at the top profit some of the benefits will 'trickle down' to the people below them. Unfortunately, it isn't benefits that have been trickling down but a couple of bodily excrements I won't name.

Of course, I am not one of those Americans who have retirement accounts or brokerage accounts or investments on which I am depending for income. However, from what I have been reading and hearing, many of them don't feel very secure or well off at the moment. I wouldn't either if the portfolio I depended on lost between 11% and 20% (depending on where you start counting) of its value. Does anyone remember when President Bush was pushed for the 'privatization' of Social Security and promised a much better return on retirement funds if only people could take control of the money they paid into Social Security? I do. And I remember the stories concerning who would be handling those investments. Because of the volume of transactions and the amount of money involved, only a few of the largest banks and investment houses would be able to do the job. Just the ones that have taken massive write-downs because of the housing melt-down or have taken a big hit on the stock market drop. 'Oh,' you say. 'The market will bounce back. See, it gained back 300 points over the last two days.' 'But,' I say. 'How long will that continue? And do we really want to gamble what we save for our old age, if we are lucky to have the surplus to save, on what is a legalized crap shoot?' That is all the stock market is--a legalized crap shoot.

It amazes me how quickly the President and his minions (including Fed Chairman Bernanke) decided the economy, heretofore described as so strong and robust, needs to be stimulated. And then the package that came out of bi-partisan negotiations (but has yet to be voted on) is something beyond belief. Tax credits to business, which one news story said will be spent on new equipment? Point one--most of our equipment is now manufactured overseas. Buying new equipment will boost other economies not ours. Point two--new equipment usually means companies will be able to reduce the work force, which means fewer Americans will be working and, therefore, fewer will be paying their mortgages, credit card bills, or shopping in the malls.

The Democrats initially proposed expanding food stamps and unemployment benefits as the quickest way to get spending power into the hands of those most likely to spend the money--the poor and the unemployed. But that is something Republicans don't ever want to do. Does anyone remember the scene between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle's father in 'My Fair Lady' where Doolittle responds to Higgins' suggestion that Doolittle was one of the 'deserving' poor? Doolittle tells Higgins that he is one of the 'undeserving poor' and likes his condition just fine, thank you very much. The notion of the 'deserving poor' is a very nice Victorian concept. Some of the poor deserve help and some don't, it is just a matter of deciding who belongs in which group. How this concept works in the current political climate can be seen by the fact that the Democrats dropped extending either program in exchange for the Republicans agreeing to limit the rebate program to middle and lower income people. The unemployed and food stamp recipients are the undeserving poor.

A further example of how this works is the story on MSNBC today involving the State of Mississippi and its intention to divert funds supposed to rebuild public housing, rebuild poor neighborhoods and small business damaged during Katrina. What do they want to do with those funds? Completely renovate and modernize the port area and include, while they are at it, casino and resort facilities. I don't think it is an accident that the amount they want to divert is exactly the sum originally earmarked for rebuilding facilities that benefited the poor. Nor do I think it is accidental that funds earmarked for rebuilding more affluent neighborhoods and benefiting wealthier citizens has already been disbursed. Again, the poor and marginal people are 'undeserving.'

Medical News, Elders in Film and Novels

Last night on the ABC local news there was a brief snippet. It seems some doctors (unnamed) have come to the defense of Zetia and Vytorin (which combines Zetia and Zocor (I think?)). In the check-out line at our local grocery store, Mom was in her usual conversation with one of our favorite clerks when the talk turned to the cholesterol medications. Our clerk recounted the predicament of a friend who had been placed on Zetia and whose doctor was very unhappy with her progress. "She has lost 85 lbs. and she is taking Zetia but her cholesterol has not gone down. They can't figure out why." Mom told her about the story that was on the ABC Nightly News Monday night in which cited the results of a study concluded two years ago and only released that day. The drug company's own after-release study concluded that Zetia was basically ineffective. They did not lower cholesterol any more than placebos (sugar pills). In other words, THEY DID NOT WORK. According to the news reader, the company had held the results back to examine them further. Now, as I understand the procedure, the drug companies last steps to approval involve clinical trials during which they are supposed to test the drugs for efficacy and safety after which the results are sent to the FDA for testing. Questions: How did they test these drugs in the clinical trials? and Why did the new statistics show such a disparate result? That is a kick in the head, isn't it? You pay all that money, trust the doctor who is prescribing the medication and get no results.

Thinking of this situation I remembered a story from a couple of years ago in, I think it was, "60 Minutes" that featured a hospital that tried to get a handle on both the diverse studies on drug safety and effectiveness and on the medication prices. The hospital set up a review board of staff physicians whose job was to collect the data from the various published studies of drugs, compare and critique the results and answer some very basic questions. How safe and effective were the drugs? Were the new drugs safer and/or more effective than older drugs? The committee found that new drugs, usually more expensive and still under patent, were often less effective than older, generic drugs and if they were as effective as the older drugs they often had more pronounced and serious side effects. In other words, new does not necessarily mean better.

On another note, sometime ago Ronni at 'Time Goes By' added another installment in the old saga of older actors who find good roles for them are scarce and getting scarcer. Among those quoted was Dustin Hoffman who mentioned that he might have to shift his efforts to Europe where an Oscar winning actor of any age could still find worthy roles. In the comments, one person suggested elder bloggers start listing
movies featuring elder actors and provide mini-reviews. I think we can go that one better and include books as well because the number of books that feature older characters are also few and far between. In that spirit, here are 'a few of my favorite things.'

Space Cowboys--I am not a great Clint Eastwood fan and most of the films he has done that I would include in my favorites are of the quirky nature. He is in wonderful form as a former test pilot whose dreams of going into space are derailed when the NASA takes over the program and shuts him and his buddies out. Thirty years later as an engineer with specialized knowledge of an obsolete system he blackmails an old nemesis into putting all four back in the game. Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Southerland round out this wonderfully eccentric group.

The Crew--Burt Reynolds is also not one of my favorite actors. The only other film he has made that I like includes two of my all time favorite actors, Jackie Gleason and Sally Fields. That would be Smokey and the Bandit, for those of you who couldn't guess. In this film he teamed up with Seymour Cassel, Richard Dreyfuss and Dan Hedaya. The boys portray aging 'wise guys' retired to Miami who find their comfortable if not affluent life is being threatened by 'gentrification' for lack of a better term.

Brother Cadfael--almost any of the films and definitely any of the books. The only one of the films, featuring Derek Jacobi as Cadfael, I did not like was the Pilgrim of Hate in which the story line changed in a way that made it unpalatable as well as, in my humble opinion, historically inaccurate. Cadfael started adult life as a Crusader and, after spending more than 20 years abroad, returned to England were he became a Benedictine monk. Most of the books are set some 15-20 years after he entered the monastery making Cadfael 60+. He uses the knowledge of healing, herbal remedies, human nature and wounds and injuries to solve murders set during the long civil war between King Steven and his cousin, Empress Maud, daughter of the late King Henry I.

I will have to do more another time because I am running out of steam.

Blog Hopping, Politics, and other random things

I have neglected this for a while. Not intentionally. I just go through silent spells when I just seem to have nothing to say. However, some rambling thoughts do come to mind.

Marian at Elderwoman put up a new post asking why more people aren't going green and why those who have made a stab at it aren't getting greener? Good questions. I can think of a number of reasons. One major one is simply inertia. We get into habits and don't easily get out of them. When I was a kid my father would constantly tell us kids to turn off lights. I am no longer a kid and haven't been for many many years but Mom still reminds me to turn off lights. We buy things because we have always bought them and continue to buy those same items without thinking. We do what we have always done without exploring the alternatives. We just don't expend the energy.

Marian described an encounter with another woman which rang some bells with me. The woman complained that a local food store was going to close but all the while she clutched a plastic bag full of food purchased at a large chain store. She never connected the dot between her own shopping and the demise of an alternative store. I have seen the same thing myself several times over the last few years. In one case, I worked at the store that closed. Over the three years that store was in business, I marveled at the number of people who visited the store, raved about our service, prices, and selection and then walked out never to return. Were they being just polite? If they meant what they said, why did they not come back? Others loved our service and selection but complained about the prices. They were the Wal-Mart or Dollar Store 'gals.' They never connected the low prices at Wal-Mart with the lack of selection and service offered at Wal-Mart. During the 'going out of business' sales we saw many of those people come to take advantage of the sale prices that were still above the Wal-Mart prices. It was all I could do to remain civil.

Granny Geek has a couple of really nice pictures of miniatures her sister-in-law creates. I especially like the one that is an office, compete with antique Coke machine and computer in an empty computer monitor. My own hobby is needlework but I love to see what other people do with their hobbies.

Barbara Ehrenreich has a post which notes that the official definition of what makes a recession has very little meaning for the ordinary Americans who are hurting in these times of economic uncertainty and hardship. You will have to scroll back a bit. I noticed that she just has a new one I will have to read when I am done here.

Ronni Bennet has a new Time Goes By post which should terrify anyone who is getting on in age and is without close friends and relatives. She tells the story of a 73 year old woman who went into the hospital with a broken ankle expecting to go home after a short stint in a re-hab hospital but never got out. Instead, she is a prisoner in a nursing home with a radio anklet that alerts the nurses if she sets foot out of the building. She was committed as mentally incompetent even though she had a long history of managing her own affairs on the terse and illegible diagnosis of a doctor that was not even her primary care physician. This frightens me far more that anything Al Qaeda could do. This is terrorism aided and abetted by law and social prejudice.

On the environmental/political scene, I found a nice article on Grist which tries to deal with the issue of urban sprawl, transportation policy and our current silly season (aka presidential primary season.) Bill Richardson mentioned it once during the debates and it has been since forgotten like so much else in the primary races where the focus has been on personality clashes and non-issues. I would give you a link but haven't figured out what is the matter with the address I have. I will try this again some other time.

I think I will call it a day. I am going to have to start taking better notes so I can link to the right articles more easily. I wish I knew of an easier way to do it than typing the address each and every time. Oh, well!!!

random thoughts and musings

I haven't had a lot to say lately though all kinds of thoughts have been bouncing around in my head. Just nothing coherent enough to write down. So I have been blog hopping and lurking in various places for the last three weeks.

I am still looking for work but the search has gone slowly. I have been looking for new sources of information but haven't found anything consistently useful. Why, you ask. Well the job boards I had been using (Indeed, Just Hired, CareerBuilder, and Monster, etc.) have had nothing useful for me. The lists can be categorized as military, driving, medical and sales. I did my military stint thirty years ago and even if I were in much better physical shape (ie, 80 lbs lighter) I don't want to revisit that job. I really, really, really, REALLY don't like driving. I do it when I absolutely have to and for only as long as I absolutely must. Besides, I don't want to try to get a CDL. I have no background for the medical jobs. And after my last interview for a sales/cashier position I have to seriously rethink that pathway. I wrote about being 'overqualified' for those types of position a while back.

I have come to realize several 'truths' through this very unsettling year. I never realized how much I hate job hunting. But I do hate it--so much that I put serious job searching off for months even though I knew my boss was going to close the party goods store well before she said so. Then I applied for tellering jobs even though I was dubious about doing so. I had resisted that avenue for a long time and had very little success in the application process. Usually I got the dreaded "we have received your application and will consider it carefully" letter followed by silence. Once I did receive a letter saying "Thank you for your interest but we have hired someone else." Mom had been pushing tellering. No heavy lifting, regular hours, decent pay. So when I did get an offer I jumped on it. I was still tentative and dubious but, what the hell, it was a job and I needed one. All too often in the past, I have jumped into jobs because at least that would end the search. And, all too often I have added a new entry to the 'been there, done that, and don't want to do it again' list.

I have also discovered that I don't like to multi-task and I don't do it well. Being the one legged man in a butt kicking contest is no fun and not very rewarding. Psychologically, I am not well suited for multi-tasking. I have a tendency to think ahead and, when interrupted, can easily pick up at the point about which I was thinking instead of the point at which I was interrupted. I tried continuously during my short stint as a teller to control that tendency but it always rose up to bite me in the ass.

Through out my adult life I have had two fall back strategies when things began to fall apart. I would either pursue a different academic goal toward a new career goal or I would find a job for two or three years as a cashier or retail sales clerk. Now neither of those strategies are viable. I don't have the resources or the faith to go the academic route again. The last time through I piled up a large student loan debt of which I doubt I will ever be free. Even if I had no student loan debt, I don't have the breezy faith of youth that there will be good paying jobs available when I finished. The last interview for a sales job ended, for all intents and purposes, when the interviewer pronounced me 'overqualified.' Mostly, however, I don't even get called for an interview.

I have said before I need to re-think my strategies but I don't know where to begin to do that.

weather, csi, miscellany

We just had our second measurable snow of the season and the coldest temperatures. This year the snow doesn't bother me because I am unemployed and can decide not to go out in it. I loved snow when I was a child. We didn't get snow days unless we got more that about 8 inches too quickly to be plowed. But I still had plenty of time to play in it and go sledding. As an adult snow means cleaning off my car and warming it up, driving on slick roads, limited visibility due to glare or blowing snow, and idiots in other cars who refuse to slow down to a reasonable speed. It means bosses who want you there no matter what to take care of the few customers or client who are stupid enough to go out for what ever is so important they are willing to risk their (and everyone else's) lives to get. I used to work in a party goods store and, I ask you, what is so 'fracking' important about paper plates and napkins? That boss was one of the few who would close for really nasty weather. But we always had customers who complained that they came by but we weren't open so they went to Walgreens or Wal-Mart. You can bet the executives of those chains were not out in blizzard conditions, unlike their much lower-paid staff.

But enough of that rant. The snow is still pretty and for the first time in a long time I can enjoy it. Mom and I are planning for the next week since the weather reports indicate a small train of storms coming in. Sunday looks bad which doesn't bode well for a birthday party we were planning to attend. Instead, tomorrow looks good so we will go to the grocery store for the few staples that might not last through Tuesday and will stop off at to see my sister-in-law and give her our presents for the birthday boy (her grandson.) They say there are two seasons here: winter and construction. We call those seasons construction and planning your outings to fall between the snow storms.

I don't have many tv shows I really like to watch. That is watch instead of nap through, read through, or do needlework through. TV is more background noise than anything else. Mom has tinitus and the noise drowns out the ringing in her ears. CSI has been one of those few shows but that may be changing. Last night's show was disappointing. I like these kinds of shows when they have a balance between the personalities of the characters and the 'how to prove who done it" aspects. Right now the characters are predominate and not in a good way. Warrick Brown is melting down under the pressure of a nasty divorce for which his own suspicious nature is much to blame. Under that pressure he has gone from a recovering gambler to a pill-popper. Some of his actions had me asking 'How can he be so stupid?' Worse, Grissom, who has never been highly sensitive to those around him, has made no attempt to understand what is happening to Brown, heretofore a very reliable investigator. Grissom's affair with Sara humanized him and without her he is showing his most insensitive side.

I hope CSI regains the balance before I give up on them.