Selling a House is a Revelation: Downsizing As an Act of Will

In a few days, my house is going on the market. It's time--not only for someone else to make this house their own, but also for me to get into a situation where there is family nearby. This move is proving to be its own learning curve (and I hate learning curves).

In most of the homes I've sold before, there's been some emotional component. In this case, not. That's a big difference. For one thing, I haven't been living here more than a few years, although that's been long enough to amass "stuff." But mostly, it's because after months of packing and downsizing, I've decided that I should have done it when I moved in rather than as I move out.

I suppose we all have some small shred of the hoarder in our souls. It was too easy to say (as my late partner did), "Well, it doesn't eat much," and then keep it because "there's room" and we might find a use for it someday.

Bad idea.

Bad idea is my big take-away with this house. Without the clutter, the house looks bigger, more orderly, and more able to display the things that truly matter.

The Boehm porcelain birds, for example, look regal and artistic in the china cabinet when they are no longer surrounded by things that say "Souvenir of . . .." Admittedly, the kitsch has sentimental value, but when faced with the need to pack it, I developed an entirely new philosophy: I decided I did not need to own it. I decided I could take pleasure in imagining someone else owning it (and polishing it).

With this new idea in mind, I set at the mass of things with vigor, looking for things that absolutely had to be moved to the new house.  In these, I included family heirloom stuff, particularly when it had been promised to someone. Then all furniture in good shape over 50 years old, newer if not made of particle board (hats off Ikea). And things that could lead someone to say, "I remember grandma using that."

Now, I'm not saying that even these first things were all absolute keepers. I packed away the things I couldn't bear to part with (like my grandmother's wedding present, a Wedgwood and silver salad bowl). But the rest definitely could be set out for others to go through to make selections. Why wait until one is dead?  Let them have the pleasure of cleaning the stuff.

This idea applied absolutely to physical books that weighed a ton. Unless they were first edition, signed by the author who might notice if they were gone, absolutely needed for craft or profession, or likely to explode in value like comics, I figured they could be enjoyed on line.  There was one caveat though. A complete collection of  Zane Grey novels with tattered covers that really ought to have gone to charity was saved by the claim of 100% certainty that they would be read yet again. I caved on that one.

And then there was the clothing that we promise ourselves we will wear once we lose a few pounds (particularly if it still has the original tags on it). Just because it was expensive or a steal, though, didn't mean it deserved  space. Let someone else enjoy the thrill of finding it amidst racks of faded t-shirts or by rummaging through your garage sale (if you are brave enough to have one).

On the other hand, I resolved to de-China myself, unless it ought to be made in China. Like Ming pottery or jade. Charity shops are clogged with cheap imitations that people tire of. I kept the real stuff, because its appeal lasts. I felt the beauty of a good European porcelain dish bought at an estate sale. It fed my soul. It got to stay.

All bets were off with appliances and electronics. They're all made somewhere else, so I had to decide how much I used it and what shape it was in. Ripped Teflon coating was an immediate discard no matter how much the use. Burned on food stain, ditto. Out went my oversized electric frying pan. If I really needed it, I'd replace it later. I realized that an electric can opener was not a life necessity and that, in fact, I preferred the hand one I had been using for years. The food processor and blender were not negotiable, though. This is personal and preferably done in private, as when men sort their tools.

Old computer equipment, on the other hand, got recycled immediately. I reasoned that it would not be useful as a backup no matter how expensive it was originally (we had three towers each with a different floppy drive). Unless it was a museum piece, an original PC or Apple for example, I knew that Microsoft wouldn't support the older programs any more. I used to love Xywrite, but it got bought out, and I knew that the old hard drives I kept as well as the floppy discs were not going to be helpful except as discussion pieces. It was a wrench because I remembered what I had paid for the equipment (in the thousands), but if it had outlived its usefulness, it was better to reclaim the chemicals rather than have it sit in my closet.

Today I sit in a streamlined house that I could have had all along if I had only had the drive and the courage to go through the process. It's nice, but only part of the process. What comes next is equally important. I'm going to be doing this all again as I unpack. It will be interesting (to me anyway) to see how well I follow through.

Bohemian Rhapsody and the Critics

It's a rare occasion when I comment on movies. In fact, I don't think I ever have before. In the case of Bohemian Rhapsody, I am prepared to make an exception. Not because of the movie itself but because of what the critical reception says about critics and criticism.

I use the word "reception" very loosely because the critics, or those who fancy themselves serious critics, did not receive it well at all.

From what I can gather, the critics wanted to see a salacious expose of what they assumed to be Freddie Mercury's sex life. Instead of XXX, they got PG13, however, and they were pissed. They wanted what Bill Maher called "the suck dick" parts. When they didn't get them, they tried to overlook the film, including Rami Mallik's stellar performance, by predicting that the other nominated films were more obvious choices for Oscars.

Clearly, Queen fans did not agree. They turned the movie in a money-making juggernaut, indicating that there was only so much personal detail they wanted to know.

It was hardly surprising that the critics should be demanding the "details" because they did so even when Freddie was alive. As he kept pointing out to them, he was a musician and his private life was private. They behaved as if he was withholding information to which they had a complete right.

Well, if that's what the critics wanted, they'll have to wait for another movie made with a different purpose, and I can guarantee them that very few of Freddy's fans will go see it. The fans went to Bohemian Rhapsody to participate again in the songs that defined their age. Freddie's sexuality wasn't the key then or now. Somehow, he was more than whom he slept with.

Bohemian Rhapsody is Freddie Mercury and Queen seen from the point of view of the band itself. Band members were not part of his free-flung life outside the band. They had wives and families to occupy them, so there is no necessary reason they would want to explore his lifestyle. They acknowledge it, since Freddie made no particular effort to hide who he was, but they don't dwell on it because the story is the music, the tours, and Live Aid. These are the very things that Freddie himself asked the critics to focus on.

What the fans wanted was a recreation of a time and a particular set of people who played iconic music. This they got in spades. Rami Mallik simply became Freddie. This is only the second time that I've seen the melding of actor and character. The only other actor who convinced me like that was George C Scott becoming General Patton.

Despite the critics, this movie has stirred interest again in a band that was active in the 70s and 80s. I was not a Queen  fan at the time. My age was folk music. But after seeing the film, I went out and bought the Platinum Collection of the Best of Queen. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

So, critics, from time to time people rebel against you. Please try not to choke on the popcorn as you offer your sneers about things and people that have become icons and are likely to go into history books.

PS: I have advanced degrees in English literature but have read very few Nobel Prize winning authors with anything other than angst. Sometimes critical judgment can be so lofty the writing just doesn't touch the heart.

Families Behaving Badly: Caregiving Unvarnished

Don't get me wrong: there are (must be) families that pull together to take care of elderly relatives. But judging from the reaction when one woman told her support group that she was enjoying the time spent with her declining mother and was willingly giving her life to her, this is a rare. The reactions of the other members of her support group ranged from derisive and resentful to flat-out hostile. The group either didn't believe her or thought she was just showing off. That's how hard it is.

In an effort not to discourage those who have taken on the job of caring for others, most books on caregiving tend to emphasize the positives of caring for a declining relative: e.g. quality time with loved ones and the feeling of doing something worthwhile. What they put only in the tenderest terms are some of the problems. Make that a lot of problems and many of them profound.

Having provided terminal care three times, and still recovering from the last one, I'm not about to sugar coat it. In the most recent instance, I found the caregiving so stressful that I wondered if I was going to die before he did, particularly when I wound up in the hospital with a suspected heart attack (just violent stress-related indigestion thank God).

Unsurprisingly, given the demands, most people are very reluctant to take it on. Within families, when some duck out and leave it to others, the result is a toxic brew of accusations, guilt-flinging, and ultimatums that can resurrect old childhood grievances (you were always  the favorite), spawn suspicion (you only care about what's in the will), and predict unfavorable outcomes (just wait until it's your turn--karma's a bitch).

The usual suggestions that caregivers should take care of themselves and get time off are easy to say and, while comforting, very much harder to do. All I can do is offer my own suggestions to you as a sort of sympathy to tell you that you are not alone:

1.  You'll do better if you to arrange for a day-care or an overnight facility when needed rather than hoping that anyone will offer (people can chip in on cost). Certain members of the family will show up only when convenient, and patients will be appreciative of these yetis because their appearance seems special. You will probably be taken for granted and even abused (if the patient is kicking, spitting, and biting, guess who is going to get it). The others may feel slightly guilty at escaping, but not enough to do anything about it and even when there is agreement, say, on taking the relative for a day or two, it always seems subject to revision.

2. Understand that giving recognition to you implies you're doing something exceptional and that may not be in the best interests of those ducking out in it. Everyone is going to claim that their lives are too busy for them to become involved. When they  do show up, they will behave as if they should be awarded a medal. My friend L's sister-in-law ended spending her time with the father-in-law because when he came to her house, he insisted on using a copper washbasin as a urinal. Not nice, admittedly, but it left everything to fall on L. Yet, when he finally went into an assisted living facility, the sister-in-law showed up for the facility's caregiver appreciation days to have a free manicure. You'll need to speak out and make clear that some special recognition for the primary caregiver (flowers, gift certificate) is a good thing.

3. Non-caregiving relatives are going to be afraid that if they do one thing for you, it will be a slippery slope and you'll make a habit of it. You'll get better response if you give specific assignments and specific dates because they are finite. When D asked her brother to take their mother for a couple of days to allow her and her husband to get away, the brother suddenly had a business trip. When I asked for general relief from my partner's three children, no one responded. When my friend Kimi won a cruise and invited me to go for a week, I was smarter. I sent out specific dates and pointed out that this was one week out of three years with no break. Two of his three children showed up, although it was only my own son traveling for two hours each way for two weekends in a row who made it finally possible.

4. Be prepared to be tough when the time has come for professional care. Finances are often an issue when there is talk of placing the patient into a care facility. All of a sudden keeping the patient at home will suddenly become "essential."  You need to suspect the motivation for this sudden sentimentality. The non-caregivers know how much these facilities cost and may want to save their inheritances. They will cover their guilt (assuming they have any) by criticizing you for not respecting the patient's wish to stay home. Don't be surprised if the relative who has been least involved shows up and wants to take over decision-making.

5. Don't assume that being a workhorse is going to be appreciated. If you try to point this out, your motivations will be misconstrued and peddled as fact (she didn't like the will).  If you are not the first wife, your care-giving will be dismissed absolutely and any money left to you will in the minds of his children will be payment for whatever service you provided. If you doubt this, look at what happened to Robin Williams' wife who had to sue his children to keep things acquired in her marriage. You may very well not ever see the children again--but only you can decide if that's good or bad.

6. Finally, though, don't be afraid to reach out to others. It's sad when you have to watch someone you love slip away from you and go through personality changes. But the truth is that you have become somehow conflated in their minds with their loss of power and physical health. You are seeing them at their most vulnerable, and they have no one else to vent their frustrations on. I've been there. After I told my partner that I could not bring him home to die because I couldn't provide the intricate nursing care he was getting from Hospice, he turned away and never spoke to me again. Of all the things he had ever done, that was the cruelest.  It was only through the kindness of the Hospice counselors that I was able to get beyond that final picture of him, not least because I learned that I was not alone. Others had experienced this rejection as well.

My thoughts are with you all and good luck.

Who the Hell Are We?

Today, the news media (corporate) reports that an executive with a German car manufacturer made the mistake of driving in Alabama (where the company had built a plant) without his passport. He was arrested. When one of his associates brought his passport, he was released, but still has to appear in court.

The reactions to this are both predicable and informative of the great divide among us. Some people said it was a pity to have done this to a legitimate visitor on visa given the fact that the states are trying so hard to attract foreign investment (millions of dollars in incentives for this company). Others are saying, serves him right for not carrying his passport at all times; they cite experiences in Europe where they had to produce theirs.

I've been in Europe, little dogies, I AM European (to the extent the British will admit it) and I thought we were better than them over there. If they want to have police states, deity bless em, but that's not the home of the brave and free. Except I guess some of us want to be nasty and impose the police state over here. I'm left wondering why when so many of us have been trying to escape it.

So who the hell are we?

My answer: we are two different sets of people. One set of us is hell bent on applying the rules--goddam, I conformed, so can you. I was raised on a set of values and I'm going to apply them, because by golly they were applied to me. I listened to those old-time preachers and they sounded good to me, so you'd better go my way or I'll call you unAmerican, and I don't care if the rich keep their money as long as the poor, whom I disapprove of, don't get any of my hard earned dollars.

Before you throw me to the curb here--this has pretty much been the attitude of the Catholic Church through the ages, but also, to be fair, of the protestant evangelical sects that replaced but did not depose the varieties of spiritual experience.

Then there's the group that resonate to the idea of class warfare and raising the banner for the poor and downtrodden. It's easier to sympathize with this group because--well--the poor are the poor. But let's admit it, many of these guys know how to play the system. I've seen it myself. I've also seen companies die from union efforts at creating utopia.

So, who the hell am I?

Like so many of fellow independents, I chose from both sides. This, I think, is the great distinguishing characteristic between us in the middle and the dream-ons who populate both extremes. Increasingly, there will be more of us because we will refuse to be forced into choosing between two equally stupid options that don't fit in the twenty-first century.

To our current political wantabes, who are among the nuttiest I have ever had the misfortune to have rammed down my throat on TV, I want to say this:  back up on the phony religion (there's a whole bunch of us who see it for the manipulation it is); quit with the ideologies (they're boring us); figure out what's going to work with what most of want: a stable workable approach to life; quit with your theories in favor of what works; and spare us your pretenses and hypocrisy.

If the American tradition is hard work and speaking straight--here I am. Catch up with me if you can.

Biscotti Jars and China

I went out shopping today. It's one of life's pleasures, as long, that is, that I can find things that I want to have in my life. It didn't take long, however, before I began questioning whether the things on offer would really meet that criteria. In other words, were the things being offered for me to buy really the things I wanted to have?

There's a bit of a story here. A few weeks ago, I met Kimi in Las Vegas to celebrate our August birthdays. Beides the slots, one of my favorite things is to go see the garden display at the Bellaggio Hotel. It's always artistic and dramatic and once we've taken pictures, I like to browse the shops around it. This time, I went into one that specializes in Italian imports. I fell in love with a biscotti jar. It was terra cotta and showed the Tuscan countryside with a villa, cypresse (cypress trees), and farm implements--very traditional. I debated for a long time and the only thing that prevented me from buying it was the problem of getting it home on the plane. If I'd had my car there, it would have been a done deal.

Back home in Denver, I regretted my decision. So, I trekked off to Park Meadowns Mall (one of our upscale shopping centers) today, looking for a biscotti jar made in Italy or Portugal. I couldn't find one. Oh there were biscotti or comparable jars all right, but invariably, they were what I consider to be fakes. They were made in China. There was no way I would buy one of them. And I'm not talking about Penneys or Sears here. I'm talking about Dillards and Sonoma-Williams. The latter did have things from Portugal and France, for which I commend them, but there were all too many things that were mere imitations, and not always the best.

This led me to consider the larger meaninng of my quest to find something authentic.What does it mean to us as a society? All I can conclude is that for every thing we buy made in China, we deprive someone in Europe and the US of their jobs just so we can buy cheap imitiations. I suppose I should say someones plural because it takes a lot more than one person to make something of lasting value. I can see cheap-o stuff flooding the discount shops like WalMart and Kmart and even Target, but when it invades even our upper scale shops it means that these store also condone peddling this stuff to us. I have to wonder not only about them but also about the corporations supplying them.  Have we become so addicted to accumulation that we don't even care what we collect?

The corporations with their bottom line of squeezing every penny are no small part of this. They slap their names on things they have made outside the country, claiming they need a sweatshop workforce to be competitive. What they are really doing is sending our jobs overseas to get things made more cheaply, and I do put the emphasis on cheap. In going offshore, I think they underestimate us seriously and they run the risk of us boycotting them, which they will deserve.

Today, I went out looking for beauty and quality. I found mere imitations, a cynical assumption of the style of another country to be paraded as real because our corporations have equally cynically assumed we will satisfied by it. From what I can gather, imitation has been China's method--copy the work and design of some other county and sell it cheaper. I, for one, do not see buying cheap stuff as satisfying anymore. In the future, I will look for where something is made and choose accordingly.

I can't be the only one feeling this way. I have to believe there might even be room for a new set of stores called Made in the USA or Not Made in China. Maybe the choices in them would not be as numerous. But I would feel much better knowing where my money is going.

In the meantime, I guess I will just have to go back to Las Vegas and hope they still have the biscotti jar.

The Media Are Us

It used to be fashionable to ask Miss America contestants if they thought the media was to blame mounting violence in society. The young woman's reply was always no, she didn't think so, and she came up with some alternative indictment of parents, or schools, or even a crisis in faith.

I was thinking about this the other day as I watched the Murdoch debacle and the demise of the News of the World, and I realized that if I were to turn back the clock and suddenly become nubile while still keeping my experience of years of living, I would beg to differ. Yes, Mr. Parks (that's how far back I go), I would say, the media have a good-sized share of the blame, but so do we all who lapped up squidgy-gate and the rather vulgar conversations between Prince Charles and Camilla.  Wherever did we think they got this stuff? We didn't ask because we wanted to know and, after all, they were the wealthy and privileged and it's their duty in life to entertain us. It only counts when the media do it to "ordinary people" like us.

But I'm going to go further and also say that the media have a good sized chunk of the responsibility for the roiling anger consuming this country. The media does not come out (usually) to promote political agendas on the front page. Such opinions are supposedly by-lined and put on the editorial pages, where people can pick and choose which op ed pieces confirm their own prejudices.

But there are  subtle ways that the news on the front page can appear to be objective while still presenting a politically slanted view. Let me explain. When I taught college English, I used to tell my students the story of a car accident that supposedly occurred at the bottom of the campus. One car broadsided another. At first I told them that one of the drivers was in his late 80s, just returning from a visit to the doctor's office. The other car was driven by a man in his twenties. Speed was not considered a fctor.

Who might they think was to blame? The wisest ones, onto my ploy, said they didn't know enough. I caught a good number of them assuming that the senior driver was "probably" to blame because everyone "knows" that serniors have declining driving skills.

All right, I'd say, here's some more: the 20 year old driver had a suspended license, there were three other men in the car with him, one of them was partially undresssed, and there were beer cans on the back floor.
My students looked a bit ashamed but then went on to do the same thing. Now, it looked like the younger folk were to blame.

The devil was in the details provided and withheld.  And it happens to us all the time if we rely on the media for our information instead of looking more deeply ourselves.

On Tuesday, July 12, The Denver Post ran a front page story with the headline "Draft Ramps Up Kid Rules: The Child-care Lincensing Plan's Focus on Quality Meets Quikc Skepticism."  The lead paragraph stressed that the proposed (note: only proposed) rules would "impose (notice that word) sweeping changes on Colorado Licensed child-care centers." The second paragraph quoted "some" child care operators as saying the proposed changes were a "vast overreach." The next paragraph named the operator of three centers who didn't say anything about the overreach business but commented that health and safety needed to be balanced with quality and that there be some flexibility.

By then, all those opposed to government intervention in anything were probably thumping their chair arms and yelling about damned government sticking its nose into everything.  This would probably produce a very nice rant if the reader was a tea-bagger, meaning that he or she was probably not going to read the rest of the story on 7A buried inside.  Now, on  that equivalent of a back page, we learned that the proposals are a draft to be negotiated by the parties involved and that many of the suggested policies were recommended by childcare operators themselves because Colorado is one of bottom states when it comes to regulating early child-care providers.

Looks different doesn't it? The devil was in the order of the details in this account and since the "balance" didn't come until the end, one must conclude that the writer intended to stir things up. In other words, we were snookered and it was a non-story. However, the next day, the Post ran an editorial no less saying that the draft policies went too far as if the story had been credible and only the media reporting had "saved" the day.

Having actually served on some of these committees to propose anything, I know how they work. You throw everything in but the kitchen sink so it can all be negotiated and people can work together as a team to discard anything really unreasonable. That is how democracy and consensus work. In this case, though, the media picked out the controversy, played it up irresponsibly to sell papers, and by doing so fanned the flames of division.  Who needs enemies when you have media fighting for readership?

But let's be honest. We get the media we deserve. If we aren't willing to educate ourselves to look skeptically at what is presented to us as fact and if we aren't willing to embrace even a rudimentary form of intellectual engagement with the world--and we're seeing mounting evidence that many of us are not--then we are going to continue being presented with gossip masquerading as truth. Shame on us for settling for this.

What Would Shakespeare Blog

Recently, I accept the challenge to imagine what Shakespeare, the greatest writer in our language that ever was, would blog about if he were alive today. I found the experience both amusing and profound. I'm sure he would have laughed at the same pretensions and lunacy as we do, just as I am sure he would be just as depressed at how little we have learned from those before us. We are still the same people, just in different times and settings and, unfortunately, armed with better and more destructive technology.

Here is what I wrote:

One thing about William Shakespeare, he never met a human being he couldn’t bump up into an archetype. His characters were never just people. That’s not how his brain worked. He looked for meaning and played with life by asking questions. What if Aristotle’s idea of the tragic hero could be tweaked, maybe turned upside down, and used to show how we grubby human beings fall short of anything like true heroism? What if a sociopath were to be dropped into the middle of unreflective, morally complacent people—who would win? What if an ambitious man were suddenly shown a short-cut to real power, how would he handle it? Shakespeare populated his world with people faced with moral, ethical, and emotional problems and moved them on his chessboard while he worked out his answers.


In the end, his “answers” had to be partial because unknowable things can be resolved only in the acceptance that “the rest is silence.” But what a journey he took us on.

Shakespeare took his characters where he found them: from history books, from the ranks of the royal courtiers, from everyday people around him. He turned every one into a moral or intellectual lesson. He found no shortage of material in sixteenth-century England, just as he would find no shortage now. The world is still populated by the same greedy, unaware, willfully ignorant, morally complacent, and unreflective types. He would understand modern politics because he had seen it all before.

For example, he wrote about a king who confused the power of his position with his personal authority. “A dog’s obeyed in office,” was the sad lesson that king had to learn. He could have been writing about George Bush. But the lesson he might have drawn from the Bush administration is that just because one has the power to do something (like invade another country) does not mean one should. At the end of the Shakespeare play, the stage is littered with the bodies of the king’s family (you can never just remove a targeted piece of evil like Saddam Hussein, Shakespeare told us, everyone must suffer in the process). The stage at the end of the Bush drama is littered with the deaths of thousands of people who gave their lives abroad and the near death of our economy. A dram of evil, indeed.

What would he have made of Bill Clinton? Here was a man capable of doing good and admirable in so many ways, yet brought down by his own weaknesses. The tragic flaw, Shakespeare might have pointed out, just as Aristotle described it. The rueful Clinton, apparently having learned his lesson, now says he indulged in a sordid affair “because he could.” Prime Shakespeare material. He might have said the same about Representative Weiner.

Or how about the swath of Tea Party candidates? “A flag upon the waters,” Shakespeare would have said. He never liked popular movements anyway. He didn’t trust the people not to be ignorant and just go for popularity.

All in all, Shakespeare wrote about power. His subjects were courtiers, hangers-on become pawns to those in power, women who encouraged murder but wanted to be blameless, parents who destroyed their children, and psychopaths who ruined others just for the experience. Today he easily could find comparable if not exact duplicates. With the internet, he would only need to read the headlines.

Shakespeare was fascinated by the getting, the keeping, the abusing, and the losing of political advantage. Politics and history were his natural milieu. He showed us the truth of Santayana’s comment that those unaware of the past are doomed to repeat it. So, as we head into yet another election cycle, it would behoove us to remember this cynical and yet hopeful observer of humanity, who would advise us that nothing is new under the sun. We could do a lot worse than to go back and and reread his plays.

Growing Old Graciously

Growing old is something of a conundrum: for something we are told exists only in our minds, people seem to spend every waking hour thinking about it. The problem is that no one quite knows what to do. Even our media is hopelessly conflicted on the subject.

On the one hand, the media hits us with ads for every manner of potion, lotion, hair dye, viagra, and other chemical known to humankind, all designed to prevent or reverse time. We're shown admiring portraits of people who have surgically tightened, smoothed, and sucked away their age, the implication being that if we look like "before" pictures it must mean we are lazy or cheap. Into this category fall those "raging against the light" (to quote Dylan Thomas) and those older men and women who pursue youth by literally pursuing youths, using the mantra, "if I can get away with/afford it, why not?" No one HAS to look old is the mantra that keeps plastic surgeons in their Ferraris.

On the other hand, we are given unctious sermons on accepting ourselves as we are and growing old "gracefully," which seems to mean not whining about getting old, accepting whatever stereotype of age our culture decides to imnpose on us, and showing up on time to babysit the grandchildren. Usually, though, it's tied to appearance as few overweights (even the mild forms) are said to be aging "well."

If we take all this nonsense seriously--which I can't--what, then, are we left with? The apparent choice seems either to take action against a sea of sags ( the solution approved by a society that links appearance to success) or get off the boat and sink beneath the waves (a solution not favored by people who still have alert minds).

Well, I neither desire nor wish to pay for growing old "well," nor do I wish to recede into a rocking chair waiting for the ultimate call. Instead, I propose to grow old "graciously." Allow me to explain.

You are at a busy airport with heavy luggage and someone you don't know offers to help. What do you do?

a.  Say you are perfectly capable of handling your things. You're not a cripple, thank you very much. You've got enough money to pay for a porter if you want one.
b.  Agree to the help but complain about how things are so rushed these days and warn the person not to damage your suitcase.
c. Although perfectly capable, accept the help with a smile and thanks.

If you chose a), you're still trying to compete with the big dogs in the world of power. If b) you have sunk into self-pity. If c) you are gracious.  The person who offered help to a) will walk away muttering about old farts. If b) the person will feel used and manipulated. If c) the person will feel they have done a good deed and, who knows, maybe they'll be a little bit kinder to other people for the rest of the day. The younger folk are so unkind to one another these days, a little genuine humanity and concern for others might go a long way.

Little acts of kindness--the pat on the shoulder I got from the waiter at lunch today, the unexpected offer to open a water bottle with a stuck cap, doors held open a little extra long for me, help pulling my suitcase off the airport carousel--can only be done for children and seniors because we are believed safe to show kindness to. They don't think we're still competing or slighting others--frankly, because we're supposed to be mature and grown beyond egocentrism and greedily grasping for a world that is no longer ours. Some of us anyway.

I believe growing old graciously means providing a model of maturity and compassion for those behind us still locked in the rat race. We don't have to be rich, looking fifteen years younger, and flattening and shaping our aging bodies to compete with the people to whom youth really belongs. We carry with us the marks life has put on us, but we have one thing youth doesn't: we have experience and instead of spouting about the good old days, it would behoove us to behave as a model of them.

Fortunately, experience is one thing that's safe from botox.

Leaders of the War and Peace

As a species, we tend to glorify the creative forces among us--those people who initiate new things like internets, cures for diseases, new government structures, and wondrous works of technology and art. You know, the big stuff that gets an age named after it. The bronze age, the age of steam, the age of electricity. Schools teach the famous names of these movements, well, maybe not the bronze age, but we all know about the Curies, Salk, Whitney, Edison, Crick, and Gates et al. The pioneers of each new field are lauded and feted with prizes of various value and prestige, well deserved, of course, but perhaps inclined to blind us to what happens next. I'm thinking here of the classifiers, statesmen, and philosophers who follow behind, looking beyond the joy of creating something that did not exist before and on to the question of what such discoveries really mean and how they interact with one another.

I found myself thinking about this process the other day by recalling a poignant scene in the David Lean film, "Lawrence of Arabia." It occurs toward the end. One of the sheikhs, played as I recall by Alec Guiuness, tells Lawrence that young men fought the war but must now leave it to old men to negotiate the peace. In that moment, Lawrence's role in the war he has so passionately fought is over and he knows he is no longer wanted. The world is now in the hands of others.

It's not hard to imagine a similar thing happening in regard to the protests in Egypt. The revolution is over, thank you very much, and now the politicians, and the military, and the business-as-usual-men, will take over. The protestors will undoubtedly fight their marginalization and they may earn a few up-front concessions, but eventually their own protests will turn on themselves and become ugly. 'Twas ever so with mass revolutions--they are difficult to control because of the varying purposes and motives within them. Undoubtedly, the idealistic and ethical among the protestors will be indignant about being lumped together with a criminal element, but it will be inevitable. Attacking a CNN female reporter in the square is one example; it smacks of hysteria and thuggism and will be used to show the unfitness of any protestors to play a role in building a new constitution and country.

Yet one cannot be too judgmental on this process. The qualities that build enduring nations are not the same as those that defeat armies and tear down walls and barriers. With few exceptions, revolutionary leaders capable of inspiring men in desperate battle seldom make effective leaders of the peace. It's rather like the current political process in the US these days--I wonder if it isn't easier to be part of the minority party snapping at the heels of those in power rather than being in power and trying to make sensible decisions for our future.

A Little Revolution Now and Then

I haven't felt much like writing of late. Partly it's being strung between two homes--one the 27 foot RV down in Phoenix and the other our main home, both of which require attention when left to their own devices. When we came home this time, the hot tub blew a freeze plug, emptied itself, and fountained water at us. Fortunately, this happened with us on premises or who knows what further mischief it might have done. But I'm fully aware that the RV is lying awake at night without us there, plotting what to do to us when we go back.

It's not as if there hasn't been a lot to write about. Floods and weather everywhere, political upheavals, economic misery--it seems that Sid may be right when he commented the other day that Mother Nature dodesn't like ugly. Since we've been ugly all right, I guess we are being served  the results of our polluting, uncaring, and insensitive behavior.

But there's something more in the air that speaks of unrest. In particular, I've been watching the events unfold in the Middle East with very conflicted emotions. Anyone British with any sense of history has to look at the world's trouble spots and recognize the heavy hand of Victorian empire. India, Pakistan, Palestine, Africa--Britain was right there. And while a case might be made for the advantages of the British raj--language, legal system. education et al, I sense in that argument an echo of Kipling's "taking up the white man's burden" of bringing civilization to those deemed to be in need of it. The native populations seldom took the same view of the garrisons among them.

But quite apart from that, history tells us that empires cannot hold for long. Greece, Rome, France, and Britain--not to mention the German Reich--have been among those to learn that lesson. There are always barbarians at the gate, not to mention local populations who object to seeing their goods and treasure take a one-way journey into the coffers of their conquerors.

History also tells us that when these empires crumble, it is am ugly process. Seldom are fuindamental changes brought about through moderate transition. Telling Tom Payne that he should negotiate a transitional process with King George would hardly be persuasive. The colonial rebels wanted action and wanted it now. It's a given that those in power never yield authority willingly. There must be force or the threat of it to effect change. We might wish that things were different, that everyone behaved in rational ways, but that is not the way of the human species.

But there is more than Egypt. In my opinion, we have two revolutions going on right now--the physical uprising in Egypt and an unrecognized one in this country.

Egypt's is the most obvious since our media is in love with it. One can only shake one's head at the current Egyptian premier who had only to look at his country's demographics to predict the unrest. When a country has a predominance of educated people under 40 who have no prospects for employment and careers, it is only a matter of time before they spill into the streets. This is their version of the tea in the harbor in Boston. There will be change in Egypt. It is inevitable. But it is very unclear whether the change will address the issues of the young or will prove to be yet another corrupt regime that started out idealistically but was coopted by special interests.

The US is on the opposite end of the spectrum, but we have just as many discontents. One look at US demographics tells the story. In this case, the population is an aging one. People over 55 are in the ascendancy. If younger people may be (stereotypically) expected to be passionate and looking for opportunity, our aging population may be expected (stereotypically) to behave like a querulous octagenarian, opposed to change, mired somewhere in a familiar past, self-involved, and dedicated to its own comfort.  The octagenerian will not take to the streets but certainly takes to the airwaves and the ballot box. Given the passion for the status quo, it remains to be seen whether the weapon arsenal built up in this country will be used against its citizens. If it is, it may be the well-armed over 55s against the younger minority population.

I don't mean to be unduly pessimistic. As the captain of Red October said in the novel, The Hunt for Red October, "a little revolution is a good thing now and then." I wish Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and the other countries with oppressive leadership all the best in their search for a brighter future. I just hope that the passion pouring into the streets translates into wise and humanitiarian decisions further down the line.

An Illegal Is Not Just a Mexican Bird

Recently there has been a flap down here in RV land—our park, which shall remain nameless lost its activities director. He had been directing things here for six seasons, long enough to build an empire and have followers. He was given a severance package and twenty-fours notice to remove his rig to another park. Ashes and sackcloth followed. People were in tears, people threatened not to return next season, people cursed the park owners. You would have thought someone had been killed.

The reason for all this heartbreak? It turns out that the activities director was not a US citizen and was working illegally. In other words, he was an illegal alien to the extent he was violating his tourist visa.

The situation (his unlawful employment) came to light when various parks and businesses catering to RVers were called into a meeting and told that there was going to be a crackdown.

Right there, you can tell he wasn’t Mexican. When Mexicans are involved, the IRS raids, arrests, and sorts thing out later. The director was Canadian. The park was warned, he was given a severance package, and he was moved out quickly (probably on advice of legal counsel) since his RV space was part of his pay package. No arrest. No jail. No deportation. Genteel, as these things go, and definitely preferential.

Now what gets my goat and the reason for this blog is that the same people wearing ashes and sackcloth have been the ones passionately complaining about illegals here in Arizona. The law has been broken, they’ve said loudly, and why couldn’t these people wait for work permits and green cards, why don’t they learn English, and why don’t they go back where they came from? The whole matter has been turned in a moral maelstrom in the park.

The many Canadian RVers don’t really understand the seriousness of the situation so think he treated shabbily with only 24 hours notice. The director’s followers see the loss of their little privileges and wonder why now after six years (good question). And the self-righteous among us are busy stereotyping all Mexicans into vicious criminals and drug runners (even the children) in order to defend the director from label of illegal: he was a good guy, why aren’t they out catching the real ones.

Now I’m not in favor of illegal immigration myself (I went through what I call the sewer of the regular process to emigrate to Canada and then the US) but I am a foe of hypocrisy. I am making myself unpopular, of course, pointing out the fallacy to those folk now saying the director “at least came legally into the country.” He came in on a tourist visa, chums, that says specifically that he may not accept employment in the US. The law is the law, and—yes—anglos, I want to tell them but don’t, it applies to you too. I think it says reams that this park is just about one hundred percent anglo.

I’m glad the director wasn’t taken out of the park in handcuffs. I’m glad he’s not sitting in INS jail with all the Mexicans awaiting a hearing. I’m really glad they didn’t shut down the park and freeze assets (which would have seen the lot of us trying to find spaces in 24 hours with no refunds), but I am very disappointed in the park’s willingness to expose all of us to those risks (and, yes, the IRS and INS can do that).

The little legalistic core in me, left over from dealing with federal investigations on campus (which no one in their right mind would ever want—trust me) says there’s a reason the figure of Justice wears a blindfold.

Life's Illusions 2011

Anyone reading my blog through the years will not be surprised by this list. This is where I stand and it lies behind everything I have written. As we start 2011, therefore, I'd like to thank you all for reading my work. It's been a personal adventure for me and I hope a source of interest and amusement for you. Here's hoping that the new year is kind to us all.


• Religion and Politics are not ends in themselves—they are symptoms of the people who support them. If people did not need to feel secure and superior, neither would exist.

• Organized religion is a corporation providing a service: giving pre-digested answers to life’s great questions, licensing human behavior, and providing employment.

• Religions exist for community. They become political when they legislate human behavior and then attempt to enforce it.

• Spirituality does not require an organized place of worship or prescribed ways of recognizing blessings.

o The founders of a religion are the idealists. Followers take and pervert the original ideas as people sign on. It is much easier to gain followers by promising benefits than asking for sacrifice.

o People can create better myths and beliefs for themselves if they go out to a hillside in complete darkness and try counting stars.

o It is entirely possible to be ethical and not part of organized religion.

o Any religion looks ridiculous if its basic beliefs are examined closely. Contrary to religious belief, science is not a religion. It is subject to hypothesis and correction through evidence. Belief and truth are not the same. Try telling the creationists to prove or disprove their beliefs.

o Parents who raise their children in an organized religion without thinking shut down young minds and then act as enforcers for religion if the children start to think for themselves.

o Politics is not the art of the possible: it is the art of the expedient, particularly in lining the pockets of those who know how to play the game. Too often, any good done for society as the result of political action is incidental and accidental. The wisest question to ask a politician is “Who is benefitting from this?” or, more bravely, “How are you benefitting from this?”

o Religion assumes prominence when people are starving and stressed. At other times it is one more form of oppression, purporting to add spiritual authority to human unkindness.

o Religious and political “values” are merely slogans to sway large numbers of people by referring to ideologies and ideas that people know only by name and have not taken the time to examine. Anyone who really studies politics and religion should be scared witless by them.

o Wars are a form of profit seeking and taking. Lunatics start them, people die for them, religion justifies them, and armament manufacturers encourage it all. Money is not the root of all evil. People believing they deserve it is.

Both Sides Now

Recently I started writing my autobiography. Benvenuto Cellini once said anyone who had achieved anything had the responsibility to do so. What Cellini actually said was more along the lines of every important man (of which number he included himself) needed to do so, but I'll make his comment more inclusive.

I'm finding that writing about my life is far more difficult than I anticipated, not the least because I've needed to confront my demons with honesty and persistence, none of which I expected when I started. I'm finding, like Judy Collins in her song about life and clouds, that life's illusions are seductive side alleys.

Writing about life and living means dealing with parts of life that have been neatly (or maybe not so neatly) locked away in the file cabinets that are our brains. Sometimes we have tried to dump these memories because they are painful, or because they reveal us in ways we would prefer not to show the world. Whatever the reason, if one is to write an autobiography rather than a straight history or a journal, it is necessary to deal with feelings, prejudices, fears, unruly emotions--the things that make us human and also make life difficult.  The good stuff in our lives is easy. It's the darker things we learn from--and, as I am learning, we all have them.

I've written many times in this blog about my dismay with religion and politics. Both of these pursuits have been with us since our earliest days as human beings. At least, we assume they have since every time we come across a new cave painting or carving, the first guess we make is that it is ceremonial and has to do with religion. Part of that is extrapolating onto ancient people our own need to find purpose in life and to express the wonder of our own improbable existence. I've been reading a history of the British Isles and have to wonder how my ancestors survived the plundering, warfare, plagues, and natural disasters--why me? why any of us? why didn't our ancestral lines die out? I suppose this is why we pay professional religionists to tell us what to think about these things.

When it comes to religion, I get the human impulse, but at the same time, I doubt the "accepted" answers we are told we have to believe. I cannot accept the idea of some godhead sitting in judgment of the day to day activities of four billion people in the world, and I am offended when someone says that their lucky escape from some disaster was a deity's handiwork when that means that all the others who weren't so lucky were on his s-- list. It doesn't work that way--and herein my problem both with religion and with politics: they are the creation of the human species, born out of our need to feel part of a group, and, even more, to feel superior.

There's a Jewish joke about a town always needing two synagogues: the one you attend and the one you don't. The implication, of course, is that your synagogue (or church, or school, or political opinion) is better than the other. All this is absolute nonsense. Nothing religious can be proved--that's what faith means--yet we are willing to kill each other over it. In politics, I doubt very much that someone asked directly to support a political prejudice (the poor are lazy for example) can produce any data to prove it. It is sufficient only for the speaker to feel good about themselves by judging other people.

If you look back to the last time we were told that the US was going to hell, that freedom as we know it has been lost, and that our children will never know the "real" America, it occurred when Reagan was running for president and he was talking about Medicare (which he promised to oppose). We older folk gratefully accept Medicare these days as undoubtedly we will accept the newest health care reforms in the years ahead. Obamacare may well be one of the cornerstones of our future. Politics is the art of finding people's prejudices and getting out in front of them--all the while hoping that people are too vain to notice.

I think Cellini is right--we all need at some point to sit down to look ourselves in the mirror and ask what the heck we are about. I highly recommend writing an autobiography, finding out why we are so willing to accept the closing of our minds through religion, why we are so willing to give up our individuality in the name of conforming to some political position or other that makes absolutely no sense when looked at in the dispassionate light of day, and why we don't trust our own observations of a universe that deserves so much better from us.

Looking Back Down the Road

These days, we hear endless talk from certain circles about not liking illegals, not liking the national debt, not liking Nancy Pelosi, not much liking the unemployed (but loving the unemployment rate as long as it is going up or down), not liking paying for education, not liking anyone else getting something for nothing all the while greedily accepting whatever pension or public slop comes down the trough. Everyone's unhappy with something; some are unhappy with everything; some just don't want anything but anarchy; some just want change for its own sake.

All this compaining seems to be burned into the human psyche.

I bet when they were building the pyramids, Kufu the stone carver grumbled about all those freeloading illegals come over from Sinai, stealing jobs from the locals and having too many children. And what about the pharaoh, how intelligent is it to run up the national debt just to build a tomb? It has to be the influence of all the homosexual courtiers waving about more than their fans. And what about Ramses, the new wonderboy stone cutter that everyone wants to carve on their tombs? It's all about youth anymore. Now back in the days, life was good: women didn't meddle in politics and children were raised to respect their elders--not  playing in the streets but working to help support the family. There was more discpline and more respect for the gods--today we need to burn more incense, slaughter more sheep, and return Egypt to what it once was.

So as Kufu chips and shapes the blocks of masonry, he dreams of returning to this wonderful past. It's a time he hardly remembers except through the haze of years--choosing to forget the violence, illiteracy, and short lifespans that were part of daily life. It was a halcyon time for Kufu because it was familiar and he had a place within it. The fact that it may not be for anyone else escapes him.

Kufu's unfocused nostalgia continues today. It lives on among our conservative brethren who would like to return us to something, although I'm not clear what.

Is it, I wonder, the days of the early Republic when members of Congress fired pistols in the halls and beat one another about the head with canes? When the South based its economy on cotton and slavery? When a woman who didn't conform was burned as a witch? Or is it the early 19th Century with the settlement of the West when graveyards were full of children dead from lack of medical attention and when law was only as good as the fastest draw? Is it the late 19th Century when women and children were the chattel of their husbands and only men of property could vote? Or was it the early 20th Century when the world was consumed in war after war?  When my grandfather would have denied me an education because teaching a woman more than housework was a waste? When my grandmother would have been startled by my irreligious attitudes? When my greatgrandparents would have sent me to work in the mills to help pay the rent?

I have to admit that I can do a credible Kufu too. I remember happy times from my childhood in 1950s Britain.  People seemed more neighborly. Life seemed less rushed. There wasn't such an emphasis on what Wordsworth called getting and spending. But before I get carried away, I remember my mother and her friends doing a Kufu over the loss of Britain's empire. Having an empire meant prestige for her generation; yet how many among us today would advocate acquiring one? My memories are obviously cherrypicked.

The kids raised today will probably look back on life in the early 21st Century as familiar because it is all they have ever known. Now that is a thought.

Cellphones Mon Amour

A luddite I am not: I do not go around smashing technology because I am wedded to things as they are. In fact, I think I've been very welcoming of most of our advances.

I owned a PC in the 1980s when they first became generally available (don't even ask what I paid for it. Hint: I had to take a loan and pay it off over time and I used WordStar and Xywrite word processing programs). I've even done fairly well learning to use the television remote, which looks like it could launch a space shuttle and has buttons so small you need a magnifiying glass to read them. The VCR programmer was another matter, but the less said about that the better.

What I want to talk about is my new cell phone.

All I really want in a cell phone is basic stuff, like store a number, dial it, answer a ring, let me know if there's a message, and shut on and off in a reasonable manner. I started ther service when I was widowed and wanted to be able to call AAA if I got a flat. My first phone, which I kept for many, many moons was just that. I learned the features as I needed them and I was happy as a clam until I forgot the thing in Starbucks outside Flagstaff and no one turned it in. It must have been someone less savvy than I because who else would bother with something so ancient?

Well, there I was in Arizona, six hundred miles from home and no phone. I didn't feel like driving home on long, empty roads without one and I didn't like the idea of waiting outside the restroom in some rest stop pleading with someone to make a call for me. Something clearly had to be done. I headed into the local Radio Shack. That's where I encountered a glittering world of the modern cell phone. It was culture shock.

When I was a child, I used to watch the weekly serials down at the local cinema. Kid's matinee it was called. One favorite was Flash Gordon, sort of a space cowboy who went from planet to planet and was always in some dire strait or another. The new cell phones were worthy of him.

"Do you want internet access?" the clerk asked me. He had this sort of doubtful look on his face as if he didn't believe at my age I knew the difference between ROM and RAM. Since those phones made my TV remote look deprived and required monthly IP access charges, I shook my head. He looked at me with pity.

"I have internet access on my home PC," I said with stiff dignity. "I use Skype long distance calling through my laptop. I just need a basic phone."

"Games and built-in camera? Choice of ring tones?" he asked. I shook my head. "Well," he said, "they come basic with all phones so it's a matter of quality and choice."

"Won't need them," I said.

"Blue tooth?" He asked. I had to think. I remembered that my grandson had a blue tooth on his game set. "I prefer to use a headset in the car," I replied. He looked at me sadly. His eyes said it all.

"Well," he said, "here's our most basic phone." I looked at the gleaming monster he handed me. It sat in the palm of my hand and cost almost $200. I looked at the others. This was indeed the cheapest as they were costing upwards of $500 amd looked like little tvs. He saw me looking at them and took one down. He turned it one way and it was a phone; when he turned it around he could type text onto the screen. He did it quickly using his thumbs. With my arthritic thumbs, it would take me hours to tap anything in.

"Cute," I said. That must not have been the right thing to say. "These are mini computers," he corrected me. "You can watch movies on them." I smiled sheepishly, not able to imagine watching something that small for hours. I would see double at the end.

I finally left with my "basic" call phone. It came "free" with renewing my two-year commitment to T-Mobile, which I would have done anyway since the service works for me. He had to show me how to open the darned thing (it slides instead of flips). I have used the camera once, just to see how it worked and promptly forgot how to do it except when I get into it by mistake--then it's tricky to get out of it. After several weeks I've managed to figure out how to set speed dial and how to change the ring tones. I can get my messages and finally set my PIN. It works. That's all I asked.

But, just to remind me whom these phones are meant for: my grandson grabbed the phone when he saw it, played everyone of the games on it, told me that it would connect to the internet if I ever wanted it, and asked why I wasn't downloading the cool tunes for sale as ring tones. When I explained I wouldn't be doing all that, he looked at me with the same pitying eyes as the Radio Shack clerk.

The Senior Season at Yellowstone

There's nothing like the national parks when it comes to bringing out stupidity. I don't know what it is exactly. Maybe it's just excitement that breeds obliviousness, but it seems seeing a bison or an elk reduces otherwise normal people to quivering bowls of jelly.

We're just back from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks where we encountered all the best that humanity has to offer. It seems, unbeknownst to us that there is a phenomenon called the "senior season." I guess it must be all those seniors (like us) who figure the regular summer season with kids--make that noisy kids who can never walk anywhere--ends with Labor Day thus ushering in a period with fewer cars and available hotel rooms.

Whatever the reasoning, the period between Labor Day and the closing of the park (starts shutting down the end of September to end of October) is now one of the hot times to visit. We couldn't reserve any rooms in the park lodges even a month in advance and paid $140 a night for a Super8 room in Jackson. The Visitor's Bureau told us we were lucky to have found a room at all.

Yellowstone it appears is as popular as the Grand Canyon as a destination, judging by all the tour buses disgorging their Asian visitors and by the two rows of seating packed with spectators that circled around Old Faithful, which faithfully erupted on time. We stayed at West Yellowstone, which is actually fun as far as tourist towns go. All the animals we saw (bison and elk) were along the park road leading to the town, and the bison indeed did walk down the middle of the road. Herein lies some of the stupidity we saw.

For those who care for details, bison (American buffalo) weigh around 500 pounds. They don't see very well and are inclined to lumber along rolling their eyes and looking unimpressed. Each year, one hundred large animals get hit by cars and cause $150,000 in damage, presumably to vehicles. We were stopped on the road to let three rather large bulls walk down between the rows of cars when the very small car in front of us pops the sun roof just as one passes and a woman suddenly pokes her head out to start taking pictures. It startled me so I can't imagine it pleased the bison. The one next to her car started and then veeered away. Good thing it wasn't in a mood to be cranky as the animal was as large as the car and its head was pretty much on a level with hers. Only thing more silly were the occupants of cars up ahead who were running back down the road and trying to get beside the animals for more pictures.

The presence of animals did really strange things to people. Cars stopped in the middle of the road while the occupants got out. Other cars parked under signs that said do not park alongside the road. I saw one SUV parked across three handicapped parking spaces. Maybe you can't get a ticket if you don't park properly?

But it wasn't just animals. The geyser fields were another source of mischief. Apparently, there were those who didn't believe the warnings about unstable ground that can give way into scalding underground cauldrons. One fellow actually lay on his stomach on a slippery boardwalk because he wanted to dip his hand into runoff water to see if it was hot. Since the signs said the water in some locations could range from 160 to 280 degrees, one can only wonder about him. I suspect this is where the Darwin Awards might have originated.

Then there were the drivers--and not just of the trucks and RVs. I discovered in Old Faithful Lodge that power wheelchairs be a powerful extension of personal aggression just like the large trucks, invariably driven by older men possibly trying to recover lost youth and power by driving 25 in a 45 mile zone and refusing to use pullouts.

Ah humanity! Was it worth it? Of course. The national parks always are. But with visits to Yellowstone now at an annual rate of nearly 600,000 a year and all the others equally being loved to death, I would have to think hard about going back. On the other hand--I'd really like to see Yosemite.

Trust

Aristotle continues to fascinate me as I read further into his study of politics. In his opinion, one of the greatest dangers to demomcracy is running for office because it exacerbates the conflict between rich and poor--the greatest threat in his opinion because it can lead to civil war.

It works like this: The rich believe they should have more say because they have the wealth. The poor think they should have more power because everyone is equal and there are more of them. Both have a point, he says, and both are wrong because whichever one gains the power will govern in their own interest and not for the common good. This, he says, is the flaw of democracy.

I’d add another flaw. It’s quite possible for a group of people to exercise their democratic right and vote in a dictatorship. Hitler was elected to power. But I digress.

Running for office is dangerous to the common good, he says, because candidates for office have every reason to become demagogues and appeal to the naked self-interest of each group. Particularly damaging is what Aristotle calls “the wanton behavior of the popular leaders.” In other words, graft and self-interest, leading to an erosion of trust and the destruction of balance between competing interests. Maintaining a democracy, in other words, requires balance and trust.

How do we compare? Not a lot of balance these days, I’m afraid. It seems that 39% of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of 5% of the population and that 5% has learned it can do without most of the rest of us. Producing wealth doesn’t require a middle class or even much of a blue collar workforce when money is made by manipulating funds across nations.

I’m reminded of what someone once told me about the car rental business. “Hertz isn’t in the rental business anymore. They make more off the insurance they sell. So they’re an insurance company that rents and sells cars on the side.” Same thing can be said for the large corporations. They really aren’t into customer service and producing a product. Their major money comes from creating and spinning off subsidiaries. They manage by crisis. Just ask BP and, for that matter, the Corps of Engineers, the subject of an unflattering documentary called “The Big Uneasy.” But then, who cares? There’s no accountability beyond maintaining stock prices and CEOs are proving to be yet another disposable product.

As for trust—well, the depressing roster of politicos called on the rug—and I’m sure those are just the ones we know about—doesn’t create much of a climate for it. Plus the ravenous media who have turned journalism into pandering create a fertile climate for national paranoia. Those who were screaming about Obama attending the Rev. Wright’s Christian church are now screaming about his being Muslim. The only consistency appears to be that it’s OK to make up facts as long as you don’t like the man.

For those who think I exaggerate on the press, consider the headline (real)” Thirty percent of Americans support the Tea Party.” Impressive? Turn it around: “Fifty-six percent do NOT support the Tea Party.” I don’t about the others who are undecided. I guess they don’t have TV sets.

Aristotle’s point on democracy is that if the friction between rich and poor is allowed to widen and deepen the result is civil war. So he’d say what we need is some balance. Here’s my idea of it:

Tea Party—calm down. You do not have the market on civil rights. In fact, many of your members (male, white, over 50) didn’t support the civil rights movement when it happened; it’s only the most blatant hypocrisy and ignorance that is driving your self-righteousness. You are being funded by corporate interests, which means you are being used.

Media--go back to the days when your profession was honorable and you had some ethics. Mainstream media should not be the same as the paparazzi. Let’s have some Pulitzer Prize winning investigative stories that don’t just confirm everyone’s biases.

Republicans—for heaven’s sake repudiate some of the lunacy. Candidate Maes’ comments that he doesn’t have to pander to the moderates is going to turn off everyone. Remember when you received 1% of the vote with an extreme candidate? If you feel you can’t win without the extremes, it tells me that you have become a party of extremes.

Democrats—will you please stay out of things that don’t concern you. And will you please understand that you are never going to get the Republicans to agree with you on anything until they find their voice and their direction. It wouldn’t hurt you to find a clearer voice either.

If democracy matters more than just using a slogan to beat someone on the head, then it has to matter to all of us. Maybe we can learn to trust that our government really has our best interests at heart--once our collective heads stop spinning. Until then, screaming at one another may be cathartic—but how valuable will that be when this country goes up in smoke and we live under martial law?

Telos

I’ve been rereading Aristotle’s Politics lately, feeling rather glad that our thinking has advanced a bit since he wrote that there are some people who are born to be slaves and that women are naturally inferior. As usual, I had to get beyond those parts and, as usual, once I did, I remembered why I find him worth the time.

Most interesting to me are his concepts of the goal of politics and his concept of telos, roughly translated as meaning purpose or use.

To paraphrase, Aristotle believes that politics exists to train citizens to recognize the good and do noble things. Since contemporary politics seems to exist to aggrandize politicians, enrich corporations, and convince citizens they are being kissed while being screwed, that sounds quite refreshing. Naïve, perhaps—given the enshrined role of greed in every level of our political and social life—but still more attractive than the world of lobbyists and naked self-interest on every level.

The telos of human beings, Aristotle says, is to be happy, which means living what he calls a virtuous life. This, of course, begs the question of what virtue means. Virtue, he says, is doing the right thing because it is right. Note—not expedient and profitable. Someone living without morals and ethics cannot, by definition, be happy no matter how that person feels.

All of which is well and good, you might be saying—but what’s in it for us? I would answer, telos. What, in other words, Aristotle offers us is the challenge to look into the purposes of our own political structures. In this, he invites us to link outcomes to our purposes.

Consider, for example, the former administration’s political purpose in removing all impediments to individual initiative and economic expansion. Who was made happy? Obviously the upper echelons of business and investment in this country. Did it make them virtuous? Hardly, since a bunch of them are in jail. All Bernie Madoff managed to do (beside rob his friends) was demonstrate how unregulated exchange between people leads to economic cannibalism.

If I were someone from outer space suddenly cast into American society (and presuming I could understand the language) what conclusions might I come to about the purposes of the government? Well, for one thing, I might conclude that there is no clear purpose. In fact, there are multiple purposes working to undermine each other. The result of all the tumult being that no one’s better nature is appealed to. Listening to the excuses and posturing offered by those in political power, I would, in fact, have to conclude that the term public service is an oxymoron and the only service provided being what is bought and paid for.

Which brings me back to the question of slavery. We aren’t too hot on the subject of a class of people born to be slaves. Aristotle was talking about physical enslavement, particularly of losers in various wars, so I think there’s another way to consider this. If we define slavery as he does: slaves are people who work and act for other people’s purposes than their own, then I think a case could be made for intellectual slavery. How many times have people spouted unexamined truisms about such things as justice and virtue without ever examining them? War is a dirty business—why is it glorified? Why do some argue that if a majority vote for something then it is all right to tyrannize the minority? Why do we believe that our way of life is the only way? Why do we trot out Jesus Christ to urge him to bless our efforts in some ignoble personal pursuit? Why do we accept some political or philosophical position because our parents did or for some reason of guilty national pride?

It seems to me the way to virtue these days is to look for the rational in every situation, and open up assumptions to the light of day. This requires reason, debate (real debate and not just yelling), and a curiosity to find the truth collaboratively. If we are unable to do this and merely parrot the enthusiasms that clog the world around us, then we are indeed no more than slaves.

Bumping It Up

Just because of who I am, I tend to confront problems by seeing what has to be done, putting my head down, and just getting on with it. It's probably the residual British in me--just get on with it and don't make a fuss, as my mum used to say.

I used to believe this grim sense of determination was how I made my way through a doctoral program while teaching full time and keeping up my end of family life. I just kept plodding until I was there. The race, in this case, nopt going to the swift, who may have won the initial prizes, but to the steady and persistent.

From the vantage point now of an approaching birthday, however, things seem more complex and in some ways more poignant. I find myself asking sbout human motivation and how the impact of a single life is to measured.

When I was in the president's office at the University of Hawaii, one of the regents told me to advise my workaholic boss to take more care of himself. "Institutions have no memory and no gratitude," he told me. Many people would agree with him, and it's almsot a truism to repeat the observation that no one on their deathbed wishes they had spent more time at work. Yet I'm not at all sure that my boss would or could have agreed with him.

The reasons why people behave as they do are myriad and complex, which makes me wonder whether the behavioral research really has the universal application with which it is presented to us. I'm not sure my boss would have been happy kicking back at that time of his life. He was in a drive to succeed mode, building a university legacy. He needed to accomplish great things (which he did) and he had the family and staff around him to support him. Whether the university remembered what he did was immaterial. He had an intrinsic drive to achieve that he measured by his own standards. In other words, he was in control empowered by what he needed to do at that time in his life.

It seems to me that we have constantly shifting needs and reward structures throughout our lives. Those who later regret their efforts at work might have confused their need for respect with the trappings of their career. As King Lear was to find out, "a dog's obeyed in office." Once they left the job, there was no basis for their public authority. But that doesn't mean what they did in their career was unimportant; it just means that the validation of their career did not last for a lifetime and they are stuck in a rut.

It reminds me of the old public relations mantra that when faced with a media blowup (frequent in a university president's office), a good response was to "bump it up a level." For example, when faced with a protest march on the president's residence, talk to the media about freedom of speech. Politicians do this all the time, except they also manage to drop in something about this being a great country.

Bumping it up is probably a good idea when it comes to human motivation. The most profitable question is not necessarily "Am I identifying too much with my work?" but "How is the work I do at this moment and the way I do it an important part of my progress as a human being?" Not "How important am I?" but "How important is this experience in my life?"

For some reason, I must have needed to plod my way to that advanced degree, possibly involving some element of competition. It must have fulfilled an intrinsic need because once I had earned the doctorate, only my assistant ever used doctor in front of my name. Whatever part of me was stirred by earning the degree apparently had been satisfied by completing it.

As I read him, John Milton was dealing with the need for self-examination and self-validation when he talked about the need to test our "virtues": "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."

Perhaps that's what we are all here for: to place ourselves out there in the race for the immoratal garland, whatever that may be for us.

Moving

I remember reading somewhere that a fire is as good as a three moves. At the time I thought that draconian—after all, who could possibly want to lose all one’s possessions, not to mention a house, in a set of indiscriminate flames? After weeks of packing in preparation for putting the house on the market, I have a better appreciation of the sentiment.

Packing is extreme weightlifting for the soul. It’s not just the physical part of finding, packing, and storing boxes that’s the challenge, but the intellectual and emotional workout of deciding just how much of the past is indispensable, how much of the present is worth keeping, and how much the future might have need of anything from the other two.

Of the three, parting with the past is the most fraught because of the emotional baggage that attaches to every little souvenir or memento, particularly if it belonged to departed family members. Getting rid of Mum’s thimble and salt and pepper shaker collection, for example, became akin to rejecting her. She wouldn’t have had any trouble saying 'Oh for heavens sakes get rid of it' if something was worn out, but I struggled with letting go of anything. Once or twice I dumped something and then went and took it back from the trash.

I guess it’s just me. When Mum’s things were delivered to me after her death, I found she’d thrown out my brother’s Hornby train set, something I was never allowed to play with and would have liked to have. Apparently, she didn't have any trouble parting with it where I would have agonized. I was upset because getting rid of his things felt as if she’d shut me out of his brief life yet again. I used my perturbed feelings to finally put the thimbles and salt and pepper sets out for Goodwill, so I guess downsizing can also be a way of settling old scores. I still have plenty of her things, you understand, but my final criteria became keeping the things with happy, mutual memories. It was hard, but I did manage to get beyond keeping things just because they were hers.

Almost as challenging is parting with the present because the memorabilia is connected to lives as they have been lived: family, education, hobbies, marriage, children, career, friendships and everything else. It devolves into “What won’t be missed?” Well—as it turns out--it depends. For us it became three questions: “Is it replaceable? Does it have value?” but most important “Are we willing to pack this and pay for it to be shipped across the country?”

Under this rubric, every object had to prove its own worthiness, even art projects left over from the children’s school years. Of course, certain things had defenders and many times Sid said “It doesn’t eat much,” meaning that it’s something small enough, easy enough to transport, and—dammit he wants it—to slide into some packing box somewhere. In my experience, this part of moving generated the most discussions. We had an ongoing one over a TV table with sixties pointed legs that Sid had had for twenty-five years; our compromise was that it went as long as he was prepared to make the case he would use it in his workshop. Parting with a shabby kitchen storage unit became easier when it was presented as either this or that (that being a favorite kitchen table with a cutting board top).

Which brings me to packing for the future. This part requires clairvoyance. “What kind of life are we going to lead where we are going?” This begs the further questions of who are we? and what are we becoming? The danger here is to assume that moving automatically means we change as people. Probably not. For a time the skiing equipment was in danger, but cooler heads prevailed since we liked the idea of having it regardless of whether we used it as much as we have in Colorado. On the other hand, given my years, I think I can predict safely that I will not be using my ice skates again—white, size 10 ladies, hardly used, anyone need them?) Sid has finally parted with his technical climbing gear in recognition that he and I will probably lowland hike rather than try charging up fourteeners. Similarly, I got rid of a lot of baking pans—cake decorating is not in my future—and a bunch of cookbooks—who am I kidding about how much I plan to entertain?

Yep, moving is fraught. But the difference between it and a fire is vital. I get to choose what we keep. A fire makes the decision without any knowledge of me or what I value. So I’ll take the packing boxes any day although they’ll have to carry me out of wherever we move to—I’m not doing this again anytime soon.