The Lemming Pandemic

It’s amazing to me that many Americans have never seen a lemming given the regularity with which they behave like the little animal. Lest anyone not know, at certain times of the year, lemmings become affected by some strange compulsion to go over cliffs. If one lemming takes the dive, all the others follow. In human terms, it’s as Shakespeare’s Bardolph says: “In faith, I ran because I saw others run.” In lemming terms, it’s a lot of little carcasses heaped one upon another. In human terms, it is the latest panic—or should one say pandemic.

We all know that, for a variety of self-seeking reasons, the media adores creating a panic and then getting out in front to fan the flames. That’s what keeps readers/viewers/listeners coming back for more. The general pattern seems to be create some threat to personal lives, exaggerate the consequences, and then become the savior of humanity by holding the key to salvation. Of course, the media isn’t completely to blame. This system couldn’t work as well as it does if there weren’t people only to willing to succumb to the excitement. Some people are said to be in love with love. Well, there seem to be even more who are in love with panic.

Let’s be realistic. Every year influenza carries off 37,000 lives. This is plain, garden variety, unhyped flu. It picks off the young, the weak, and the elderly. So far, this year’s strain of flu has picked off a couple of hundred, the vast majority having a very unpleasant experience and then recovering. The only difference seems to be that young adults are affected. But is that enough for panic?

I caught the Asian Flu when it came round in the 1970s. That flu was hyped as the flu to end all flu’s. Sure it was nasty, but it never reached its hype. If I sound jaded, it’s becauseI’ve been there and done that. I’ll even go out on a limb and say this one won’t reach the exalted heights of pandemic either.

The fact is that pandemics just aren’t what they used to be. Giovanni Boccaccio wrote about a real one—the Black Death in Renaissance Florence. It began with a sneeze (which is why we say God Bless You when someone does) and rapidly led to skin boils and respiratory failure. No vaccines, no antibiotics, no respirators. If someone caught it, the doors and windows of their house were boarded up with everyone inside. Too bad if there wasn’t any food in the house. If they survived, they starved unless some brave family member smuggled them something to eat. Corpses were piled five or six high on carts and lugged off to mass burial pits. The only solution was to leave town and let the plague burn itself out. That’s what the characters in Bocaccio’s Decamerone have done.

Bocaccio described the different ways that the citizens of Florence responded to the very real threat of death. Some got drunk and lived hedonistically—they preferred to see death coming through the bottom of a bottle. Some tried to live moderately and avoid sick people as if virtue would protect them. Some intensified their prayers as if imperfect faith had visited the disease on the city. Others fled and potentially spread the plague to others. Self-preservation became the order of the day. Families abandoned members who showed signs of sickness, and medical help was non-existent if the fear of contagion, as was any use of law enforcement except to keep those infected locked away.

All we are asked to do is to keep ourselves indoors while yet another set of government contracts are issued to create a vaccine. And if we are sick, no one gets turned away from Emergency Rooms. The citizens of Renaissance Florence—who had real reason to be fearful--would undoubtedly consider us the wimps we are.

Life and People

Life and people are incredibly interesting and sometimes I feel I’d just like to sit back and watch. Such inactivity is, of course, a luxury in a world as frantic as ours, meaning that the closest I come to studying people is watching them at the supermarket. This particular indulgence is both a guilty pleasure and instructive because it allows me to imagine who these people are and what they may think about while they have no idea what I am up to (or so I think).

Leaning heavily on my shopping cart the other day (my knee is giving me the last little drop of trouble until surgery next week)I found myself confronted by a whole spectrum of people. There was one gentleman wearing a dark suit who I took to be some kind of accountant. Then he turned around to reveal he was wearing a wide tie with a rather large star of David printed on it. It was Saturday and I imagined he was probably a rabbi come from services. But then I was confused. If I remember correctly, no one is supposed to be lifting things on the Sabbath and here he was definitely lifting groceries and paying the cashier. Must be from a Reform congregation, I decided.

Then there was the relatively young woman whose rather large buttocks were straining her jeans. I hoped I wasn’t behind her when the fabric gave out. I could imagine her promising herself that one day she’d work on retaining her girlish figure until she stopped at the in-store Starbucks and ordered a venti frappaccino with extra whipped cream. Wow. Even I was impressed. I usually order a grande decaf Americano and for a moment I was tempted to order a non-fat decaf latte as a splurge. Watching the action at Starbucks is always informative. I had absolutely no idea there were so many ways to order a coffee experience or pay $5 for it.

I hopped my way over to the produce department where the aisles were ridiculously narrow and found myself trapped behind a bearded man with well groomed hair, wearing Bermuda shorts and a button-down shirt. He had a cabbage in each hand and was thoughtfully hefting them. Since the cabbage was sold by weight rather than by the piece, I couldn’t figure out why size was such an issue. When I smiled and asked him, he looked at me as if I were insane, put both of them back, and walked away. I guess I ruined his communion with the cabbage.

The deli counter is another study in human behavior. My local store doesn’t have paper numbers, so it’s on the honor system as to who gets there in what order. The rules of precedence are very strict. One man apparently tried to jump the line and got a very sharp correction from the woman who thought she was there first. I just stood back and waited, but both the man and the woman glanced at me with suspicion as if they thought I was going to stake my claim. I could see that they were prepared to unite to defeat me should I be so bold. At the deli counter, there is possible warfare in the counter clerk’s bored question of “Who’s Next?”

My King Soopers has self-checkout stands which are a study in traffic control. The rush is to get to one of the six check-outs but having once laid claim, it is completely permissible to dawdle. Suicidal drivers are not only the highways. I was aced by a young couple with a cart loaded with more than the fifteen item limit. Once they had claimed the check-out, they didn’t look my way once. I hobbled back to the line and could see that the cart that might have been next was quite disappointed to see me return. There’s something special about being the next one in line. I know that because I feel that way in the bank. After a long wait—it’s almost an adrenaline rush to be next in line, trying to guess which counter will open. It’s a let down when someone comes back and resumes their place ahead of you.

Ah human beings. We’re all territorial and we’re all afraid that our rights will not be respected. It’s really a wonder that we get along as well as we do.

Everybody's Fantasy

If you’re one of the very few people who don’t know about Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old who dared to enter herself onto the British talent show (39 million hits over a couple of days on U-Tube—a record), follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

She came out on stage to hoots and derisive wolf-whistles since she is a bit plain and a bit dumpy and a bit like what you’d expect a self-proclaimed non-married, never-been-kissed, lady from a small town in West Lothian to look like. Even the judges rolled their eyes or looked very tentative about her. She just didn’t LOOK like someone who would be worth hearing. People sat back in their seats ready to boo her off the stage,

Then she opened her mouth and sang “I had a Dream,” from Les Miserables. From the first few notes, the audience jumped and started roaring approval, and the judge’s eyebrows shot up. She sounded like Elaine Paige, her idol, and her rendition clearly belonged right up there on the stages of the West End and Broadway. An audience that was opposed to her at the start, based only her appearance, became putty in her hands as she reached the climactic high notes of the emotional song. What a night for her. I, like many others, have been watching and rewatching the clip, still feeling the electric moment when she entered into the song and completely forgot all the naysayers around her.

I’m sure we’re going to learn a lot more about her in the weeks ahead. This is a major talent that has captured the world’s imagination. I can almost predict we’ll learn she never promoted herself because she was taking care of family. Women so often do this. Countering that is why I walked the picket line for women’s rights in my youth. We’ve been deprived of her voice for far too long and I wonder how many others are waiting to be discovered even though I doubt that few will have the impact she has had.

She has captured the heart of everyone who has ever been an underdog. How many of us have wished for that one defining moment when we have the chance to show who we are and what we can do? And not only show it but have it recognized as something not just adequate but brilliant. How many of us, just because we are older, have been brushed aside as she was initially? How pitifully few of us get the chance to completely turn around the mad dash for youth and make the case that we older people still have our songs and some of them are beautiful and some of them cannot be sung by those who haven’t lived them. Just because we look older does not mean that we all are.

I wish her well in the next part of the competition but it doesn’t matter whether she wins or not. Her beautiful voice speaks not only for her but for all the rest of us. For those who worry that she is late in starting a career, I’d say she has another twenty years at least. And that’s a lot of pleasure.

Songs Sung to Us in Childhood

It’s amazing how so many times the things we think we know about ourselves are things we were told as children. They can be completely wrong, yet they will play in our minds like Windows Platform in the background while we write our life in Microsoft Word. The platform is pervasive. Even though we may think we’ve outgrown it, it lurks there as a silent censor. We unconsciously measure things against it, particularly if the things we learn contradict things that flatter us. Finding a discrepancy from the familiar songs of childhood is a time when we may start to doubt ourselves or even, among the people who don’t like change, entrench our opinions in defiance of the evidence. It’s never an easy time.

There’s a lot of this silent censorship going around these days. For example, there are many in this country who don’t like the change that’s happening to America’s place in the world. They are angry because America is no longer accepted as the unquestioned paragon of virtue and upright values that she likes to think herself. Certainly, America has been generous and altruistic, and deserves appreciation for the amazing competence and energy with which she accepted the people of the world and built a new nation with them. But now, after two hundred years, the self-congratulation has been wearing thin in the face of a world that says, “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” What they might tell America is that independence and self-reliance appear to have shaded into greed and self-regard, competition and can-do into ruthlessness, and national pride into judgement and a demand for conformity.

Admittedly, it’s probably easier for someone from outside the country to see all this. I was raised in post-war Britain and watched as that country was forced to accept itself as a post-imperial power. It was burdened with debt from WWII, much of it in loans to America (later repaid). Former colonies had slipped away, gaining the independence promised for their cooperation in the ruinous war. Many things were still rationed long after the war, and any British traveling abroad were severely restricted as to how much money they could take out of the country. When we went to France, my mother and I either rode bicycles or hitchhiked. Still, I watched my mother and her friends cling rather pathetically to the notion of still being a powerful nation. In fact, Britain was making the transition from being powerful and feared into being respected. But Mum couldn’t see that something positive was happening.

Transition isn’t easy. Being respected, for example, has different requirements from being feared. The latter is easy if the nation is willing to pour all its national treasure into maintaining a massive army and developing unpleasant weapons that kill people in ugly ways. Being respected, on the other hand, requires self-awareness, honesty, tact, and, perhaps even more important, a degree of humility. It’s downright hard work. Britain had her re-vision forced upon her through the megalomania of a European madman, who was very probably the product of his own childhood. America’s re-vision seems to be coming from the emergence of a developing world with its own agendas and also from the ultimate fatigue of her own founding principles. Strident individualism may not be the best way to govern—or even possible—in a country of 300 million.

John Stuart Mill defined liberty by saying that it existed except where the government had a legitimate reason to curb it as in causing other people harm. The problem here is the word, harm. Over time, the cultural and political meaning of language can change. Second-hand smoke is now considered harm and regulated accordingly. I think most of us might agree that the result of unregulated derivative trading is harm, given what has happened to the US economy—yet, there are still many who would not agree.

I’d love to see a national debate over this concept of harm and the role of government. I think it would be a major step out of national childhood and into statesmanship. But I’m not going to hold my breath. It’s far too easy to send teabags rather than engage in profound and fundamental thinking.

Canada: Been There, Done That

Well, there’s one thing that can be said about shock media, it succeeds in its aim to offend. I sometimes think that the programmers at FOX must be fourteen-year-old males with raging hormones. At least that would account for the gleeful pleasure they take in tweaking First Amendment rights until they look like salt-water taffy. Don Imus is typical of the type. Loads of ratings when he uses racial insults, loads of ratings when there’s a tearful make-up session, and even more loads of ratings for call-ins about what should be done with the Don Imuses of the world. A lovely bloodbath of phony emotions with the appearance of meaning, and juicy ratings during sweeps week when audience is measured and the price of commercials set accordingly.

Trouble is that some people take all this manipulation seriously and there is no accountability when things get out of hand and become libelous. All that matters is ratings. So in this case, the listeners get what they want (and probably deserve) or at least what the nastiest little parts of the human species find titillating.

Unfortunately, the deer in the headlights this time is Canada, which already feels unvalued by its much larger neighbor to the south. A panel on FOX TV tried to raise ratings by sneering at the Canadian armed forces whose commander said they would need a year to rebuild after their years of service in some of the heaviest fighting areas in Afghanistan. Taking time off for pedicures, manicures, and romping on the beach, sneered one of the panel. Didn’t even know Canadians were in Afghanistan, sneered another. It may have been 3:00 am but You Tube is everywhere and the segment was rapidly made available worldwide. One of the repeatable responses from Canada called Americans morons. The timing was particularly bad for Canadian sensitivity since on that day they were repatriating the latest four Canadian war dead from Afghanistan.

Canada’s war dead land at the Air Force base in Trenton, Ontario, a hundred miles east of Toronto. They are driven in motorcade along Highway 401, called the Highway of Heroes for them. People line every overpass along the way, waving Canadian flags. Larger flags are hung over the railing above the road. Firefighters park their trucks and stand to attention with their hands over their hearts as the procession passes. Police officers salute. It is a profound moment of mourning for the country, televised for those who can not be there.

And into this stumbles FOX media, looking to raise the rabble and gain following, confirming in an instant every negative stereotype about ignorance and zenophobia in the US.

Sad, sad, sad. But in Canada they would say “ever so.” If you watch the movie, “The Great Escape,” you would think Americans (from below the border) were the principals. In reality it was Canadians, British, Europeans who flew with the RAF, and other Commonwealth, but Hollywood figured it needed Steve McQueen to interest audiences. You’d also think that US Americans were the only North Americans fighting during WWII. Again, in reality, Canada fought longer than the US (which only entered the war after Pearl Harbor), trained 307,604 aircrew for itself, the UK, Australia, NZ, and the USA, and of the 125,000 who flew in Bomber Command during WWII, 50,000 were Canadian and 9,919 were killed. That’s a terrible loss for a small country. Now, Canada did not send troops to Viet Nam or Iraq but there were still 35,000 Canadians who crossed the line to join the US forces.

The FOX panelist who claimed he hadn’t known that Canada is serving in Afghanistan reveals not only his ignorance but that of much of the US. How many people know that Canadians have served in every war—including the Civil War when 40,000 Canadians fought for the North and the country took in Confederate wounded? In the Boer War: 7,369 Canadians served, and 224 were killed. They were in the trenches in WWI: out of a population 6 million then, 644,636 served, 60,969 were killed, and 131,166 were wounded. During WWII: out of a population of 11 million, 1,086,343 served, 42,042 were killed, and 54,414 were wounded. In Korea: 5,540 served, 312 were killed, and 1,202 were wounded.

Oh yes, FOX panelists, Canada has always been there.

So far, Canada has lost 114 men to the war in Afghanistan. It is another large loss for a country of only 34 million. Compare this to the US Population of 306 million, some ten times larger. In comparable terms, Canada has lost the equivalent of over a thousand, one quarter of American losses in a war the country entered to support the US and NATO and not for ideology or national gain.

Canada has always stood with the US and Great Britain without getting much credit for it. Without knowing, and certainly without thinking, FOX has revealed both ignorance or worse deliberate oblivion.

But I really don’t blame the pimply, smart-alec cleverness FOX apparently knows attracts its audience. Very probably more people will now stay up to hear what further controversies the late show will stir up. Instead, I blame the lack of any accountability on these media. My husband once was suspended for allowing a guest on his radio program to use a swear word on the air. No one wants the FCC to become a hobnailed boot again, but there really needs to be an intelligence meter set a little above moron—particularly on the day that the Canadian war dead, none over 28, return to their homeland.

Statistics above, courtesy of George Sweanor, 419 Moose Squadron RCAF, POW Great Escape stalag, AKA Ye Olde Scribe because he is a researcher and historian. He’s building his own blog and I’ll link this one to his once it’s up.

Feeding Frenzy

Sometimes it seems too discouraging even to use the energy to comment on the world. Like most everyone else all I can do is hope that Obama’s plans for rescuing us are going to work. I don’t know if they will. We’ve never been in this position before. I just know that what we’ve tried for the past eight years has created millionaires and billionaires for whom competition and power were the issue, leaving me and other little people, for whom money was the issue, to pay for their folly. Yes, economics, like politics, is local.

It's been dismaying to watch these captains of industry circle like sharks in a feeding frenzy swimming with opportunist crooks such as Bernie Madoff, all busy tearing away pounds of our flesh. We’re told we have to sacrifice to save these corporations and yet we learn from Goldman Sachs that the failure of AIG wouldn’t even have made a ripple. It seems corporations and banks wanted the bailout to write off bad debts so they could continue their entitlements like bonuses and Las Vegas conventions undisturbed.

Like many others, I'm bitter. Bad investments? Not a problem. Manipulate the media and Congress, count on (or lobby for) a non-regulatory business climate and a compliant administration, and the party continues. I’m all for breaking up these huge banks and making them accountable to their communities. I’m all for limiting their ability to create new policies that increase charges for their miserable services. I’ve switched to the credit unions, which are community based. I’m all for the regulation that greases the wheels of our economy, restrains the worst abuses the strong can inflict on the weak, and educates all of us that—despite Ayn Rand and what I see as an adolescent theology of the virtue of selfishness—greed and self-interest are not appropriate or rewarding goals for a government representing all the people.

Going further--yes, you can say I’m angry. I am sick of the results of unregulated greed and cutting corners with ethics. Personally, I’m tired of watching the chain effect that started with unregulated loans and moved on to the devaluation of assets, retirement savings, house values, and lives. I’ve done everything I should—paid my bills and saved—yet my house has lost value along with everyone else’s and I can’t help feeling is was so that some corporate Galt could earn a bonus larger than my entire life earnings.

Bad as all that is, though, I have come to resent listening to the architects of our current mess mount personal attacks on the one person trying to do something other than hand out tax cuts to the wealthy. I have been subjected to what passes for humor from the righteous right, including cartoons of watermelons on the White House lawn as if this passes as intellectual insight. When I objected, I was told I'm a humorless liberal. In fact, I'm an independent. I have even voted for worthy Republican candidates. I bet the sender of the watermelons never voted Democratic in his life. When it comes to economic and political theory, give me something substantive and I’ll consider it carefully as I did reading William Buckley. Send me insulting drivel and I’ll not waste my time.

On the more positive side, though, I know things will get better in the long run. They always do. The Salem Witch hunts ended when the so-called victims started pointing to relatives of important people; those important people used their influence to expose the young women accusers for the neurotics they were. So it all depends on whose ox is being gored. Rush and his pals will finally go off the precipice in their chase for ratings. Power corrupts as we’re told and very few can keep their heads when they imagine millions of people listening to them when they flick on the mike switch. They will make some fatal error. People will then stand back shaking their heads and making pious confessions of their own gullibility.

Reversals are the nature of the world. In the Middle Ages, they talked of this inevitable turn around as being on Fortune’s Wheel—sort of an old version of “What goes up must come down.” I firmly believe that one day, hopefully soon, people will regain their ability to judge and not treat the political process as if it is a Super Bowl where their team wins or loses. Eventually, they will understand the world is evolving to reflect what America has become. We aren’t who we were a hundred years ago. Until then, I shall freely use my delete button.

The Discipline of Happiness

The recent death of Natasha Richardson reminds me very much of that of Princess Diana: both were famous, beautiful, pedigreed, around the same age, fulfilling public careers, and mothers to two boys; both were also lost accidentally and needlessly.

Their deaths emphasize that it takes only a moment of time for complete reversal. One moment someone is alive and the next minute they’re not. The Greeks said that no one should be called happy until after his or her death because fortunes change rapidly. In other words, you may live happy but die miserably—and then can you be called happy?

In the Middle Ages, these changes were described as the turn of Fortune’s Wheel. The Tarot pack has a card showing the wheel turning with people rising and others falling off. If that all sounds a bit bleak—well, you had to be there. People in the Middle Ages were dealing with the Black Death that wiped out about half the population and they became a little sour on life.

In the past few generations, we haven’t endured pestilence or natural disaster or wars that depopulate towns. We’ve been spoiled. Our medical profession has been miraculously successful at combating potential threats such as AIDS and Bird Flu. We’re closing in on various forms of cancer. We’ve been prosperous enough for the food that keeps us healthy.

We have, in my opinion, become complacent about life and what we think it may owe us.

I like to quote my friend Kimi who once told me that none of us is born with a guarantee. The wisdom of those words comes back to me when I am confronted with sad losses such as Diana and Natasha. None of us is guaranteed wealth or even health for that matter. Not even long life or enough to eat. If we have those things, we have reason to celebrate because we are better off than many others in this world. If we have been given an education, so much the better. For these things we should be grateful and not just in the mumbled words spoken before a meal. We should be truly grateful for the improbable fact of our own existence and the people who care for us.

This idea was not lost on Natasha who, after her husband experienced a devastating motorcycle accident, said she realized life was vulnerable and every moment of it needed to be treasured. I take that to mean what I call living gratefully in the present, and that requires the discipline to live in the present and not be continually looking forward to some mythical future that supposedly will tip us into happiness.

Living in the present and valuing it is a good message for all of us. In fact, I think it applies not only to the possibilities of losing the people we love but just as much to how we permit ourselves to think (or not) about this life that has been loaned to us.