I was listening the other evening to Our Lady of Wasilla screaming her message to her tea-baggers and found myself reminded of Aristophanes’ definition of a popular politician: “a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.”
Aristophanes, of course, lived roughly 2500 years ago, in politically charged and fractious Greece, the cradle of our political system, so I suppose one can say that politics was ever so, or more pointedly, two thousand years hasn’t seen much change in human beings as they relate to the avenues of power. I think he would recognize us and probably satirize us as he did his contemporaries. He would have much subject matter.
One thing has changed, though, and I have to point to this to us as our unique, modern contribution. We now have the means to broadcast the voice, breeding, and manner over the country and around the world. Not only that, we have created a new form of pundit who fits the definition of popular politician just as well. That idea is both depressing and amusing (in a rather horrible way).
I can picture what Aristophanes would make of Olberman and Limbaugh. He’d probably have recognized the type and written a play about them: Orwell’s barnyard where the animals are equal but the pigs a little more equal, and a raft of other animals, such as the cock of the barnyard, the influential master of the dung heap, try to work around the pigs. The point would be to introduce some levity as well as some perspective into people who take themselves far too seriously.
When I was an instructor in the English Department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I remember one of my fellow instructors (we were very junior and slightly mutinous) having a cartoon pasted on her door. It showed a very large shaggy dog with a dialog balloon coming from the depths of the fur on its back. Inside the balloon were the words, “We junior fleas demand a greater voice in the running of this dog.”
Now that Ms. Palin has become a corporate juggernaut (it was reported tonight that she’s earned $12 million this year), she may be seeing herself as a rather large flea these days. I wouldn’t blame her actually. But she needs to keep in mind that a flea is still a flea. Real power is silent and secret. It operates behind the scenes. The powerbrokers are never seen, not even in the backrooms, certainly not out on the Boston commons carrying a placard.
Loud denunciations and easy slogans are not where the real power is. Such efforts are useful to someone, but not to the person using them. Ms Palin will be well rewarded for her efforts—as indeed she has been—but the real power will continue on the way it always has, in dark places where the principals are known only by accident now and then.
This is the way it was 2500 years ago and it is the way, it seems, it will always be as long as we fleas believe we are running the planet.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
All Politics is Local?
I've been told repeatedly that all politics is local. I don't choose to believe this, because if it's true, it's a depressing indictment of the voters and the people who seek political office. Why? Because it means people vote only for their self-interest and those who seek their vote appeal only to the local vanity and greed. Despite much evidence to the contrary, I'm still naive enough to hope for a degree of statesmanship.
In my opinion, only local politics should be local. National and international issues should be conducted on the national and international level. That means in the interests of all of us. Even people in parts of the world we may not like: it's their planet too.
I used to believe that providing elevation in perspective was the job of the US Senate--until, that is, they started behaving like raccoons. For those who aren't familiar with the habits of the juvenile delinquents of the animal world--just ask anyone who has an outdoor fish pond. Raccoons have a nasty habit of pulling fish out of the pond, taking one bite, leaving the fish to die, and then going back for another--sort of killing for the sport of it.
Lest anyone not see the connection I'm making, this is precisely how the Senate has been behaving and by extension, the Republican side of Congress as a whole. It is full of people, comfortably covered by their cadillac health plans, who don't give a rat's ass about other people declaring bankruptcy over medical bills or struggling to care for senile elders at home; they prefer instead to spend public resources on tax cuts for those who don't need them and provide full employment by sending troops to war.
Oh they make noise about caring about people's physical walfare--but primarily for political gain. That's why the Republicans now vociferously oppose the very same plans they proposed when they were in power. It's all a game: what do we need to say to get reelected? Actually do something---pulllease. If this was a Republican-sponsored plan see how fast the concern for socialism would melt away. Right now, the UK, Australia, and Canada--surely not your average socialist states--are wondering what all the fuss is about. They've been taking care of their citizens' healthcare for generations and haven't slid into moral decay.
Which brings me to another thought. How many of these people spouting anti-socialist rhetoric can even define socialism and distinguish it from fascism, oligarchy, nationalism, and communism? I'll be willing to wager that Ms. Palin can't, yet that won't prevent her from trying to get out in front of the herd and lead them somewhere (maybe to Russia since she has telecopic vision and can see it from her house--I tried this summer at Wasilla, but no such luck).
Well, sorry Peter et al, there is already plenty of precedent for what the health plan proposes. The government already mandates our buying auto insurance. Do you really want to go back to the days before it was required? Drivers have to be licensed to assure some modicum of safety. Do you want to take a chance on who's on the road with you?
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Universities and colleges haven't hesitated to comply with federal requirements if it means money. Businesses comply with federal interstate laws, farmers feed at the public trough by holding back production, medical offices comply with FIRPA--it's all around us. Freedom is a complete illusion until, it seems, it hits the wallet and reminds us we live in an interrelated, interdependent world. How big hypocrites are we? Consider that question when people want the government to protect them from Mad Cow Disease entering our food chain, unsafe drugs appearing on our shelves, and unsafe cars filling our showrooms.
In my opinion again (and I write my own stuff instead of regurgitating other people's ideas), we shouldn't be basing our vote on whether a candidate for office supports moving the state fair from Pueblo to Denver. We're better than that. Or if we're not--then let's stop all the bitching about how the government is not keeping criminals behind bars and preventing drug dealers from fighting turf wars on our streets.
In my opinion, only local politics should be local. National and international issues should be conducted on the national and international level. That means in the interests of all of us. Even people in parts of the world we may not like: it's their planet too.
I used to believe that providing elevation in perspective was the job of the US Senate--until, that is, they started behaving like raccoons. For those who aren't familiar with the habits of the juvenile delinquents of the animal world--just ask anyone who has an outdoor fish pond. Raccoons have a nasty habit of pulling fish out of the pond, taking one bite, leaving the fish to die, and then going back for another--sort of killing for the sport of it.
Lest anyone not see the connection I'm making, this is precisely how the Senate has been behaving and by extension, the Republican side of Congress as a whole. It is full of people, comfortably covered by their cadillac health plans, who don't give a rat's ass about other people declaring bankruptcy over medical bills or struggling to care for senile elders at home; they prefer instead to spend public resources on tax cuts for those who don't need them and provide full employment by sending troops to war.
Oh they make noise about caring about people's physical walfare--but primarily for political gain. That's why the Republicans now vociferously oppose the very same plans they proposed when they were in power. It's all a game: what do we need to say to get reelected? Actually do something---pulllease. If this was a Republican-sponsored plan see how fast the concern for socialism would melt away. Right now, the UK, Australia, and Canada--surely not your average socialist states--are wondering what all the fuss is about. They've been taking care of their citizens' healthcare for generations and haven't slid into moral decay.
Which brings me to another thought. How many of these people spouting anti-socialist rhetoric can even define socialism and distinguish it from fascism, oligarchy, nationalism, and communism? I'll be willing to wager that Ms. Palin can't, yet that won't prevent her from trying to get out in front of the herd and lead them somewhere (maybe to Russia since she has telecopic vision and can see it from her house--I tried this summer at Wasilla, but no such luck).
Well, sorry Peter et al, there is already plenty of precedent for what the health plan proposes. The government already mandates our buying auto insurance. Do you really want to go back to the days before it was required? Drivers have to be licensed to assure some modicum of safety. Do you want to take a chance on who's on the road with you?
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Universities and colleges haven't hesitated to comply with federal requirements if it means money. Businesses comply with federal interstate laws, farmers feed at the public trough by holding back production, medical offices comply with FIRPA--it's all around us. Freedom is a complete illusion until, it seems, it hits the wallet and reminds us we live in an interrelated, interdependent world. How big hypocrites are we? Consider that question when people want the government to protect them from Mad Cow Disease entering our food chain, unsafe drugs appearing on our shelves, and unsafe cars filling our showrooms.
In my opinion again (and I write my own stuff instead of regurgitating other people's ideas), we shouldn't be basing our vote on whether a candidate for office supports moving the state fair from Pueblo to Denver. We're better than that. Or if we're not--then let's stop all the bitching about how the government is not keeping criminals behind bars and preventing drug dealers from fighting turf wars on our streets.
Monday, March 22, 2010
In My Corner, Jack
So they got the first part of health care reform through the house. Good show. But, while it is historic, it is hardly premature. There’s been talk of the need for this for generations, and I even edited the publication of Michael Dukakis’s proposed health reform plan when he was in residence at the University of Hawaii. I left Hawaii in 1993, so that should tell you how long ago that was.
Still, the current plan must be doing something right as no one is pleased. I’m reminded of the song from My Fair Lady where Rex Harrison sings about a quarreling couple: “And rather than do either, they do something else that neither likes at all.” No public option, but loads of good stuff anyway, such as regulating the health insurance industry with its record profits, to whose bleats I can say only that they brought it on themselves just as the financial sectors of this country brought their industry down around their ears.
As far as I am concerned, however, it’s not the health care plan that I am most relieved about. It’s the fact the hate and violence that seem to pass for political discourse on the right did not succeed in derailing the legislation. Had the bill been defeated, we could have looked forward to a generation raised to believe that spitting on legislators, calling them racial slurs, screaming down opponents, and forgetting inconvenient hypocrisy by denying its existence are all acceptable forms of behavior.
As I watched the distorted faces chanting Kill the Bill I was reminded of the disgusting behavior exhibited after the civil rights legislation when whites taunted and menaced black kids entering previously all-white schools. It seemed at the time that the South might go up in flames, yet time passed and the generations after have to be reminded of the struggles leading up to the legislation.
And time does change things. Recently, some of those people back then, whose distorted faces were shown on news television, apologized for their actions. Time has brought clarity. With hindsight and if one wishes to be somewhat charitable, one can say that the sixties were a time of insanity, brought on by uncomfortable social changes.
Today, I suppose we might say we face uncomfortable economic changes. That’s what this is all about—what’s in it for me? If I don’t have a job, what is the government doing taking care of anyone other than me? I feel angry and frustrated and frightened; therefore, I will listen to irresponsible radio figures who sound just as angry and frustrated and frightened as I am, and I will scream and make assassination threats and then –one day—I will look in the mirror and (perhaps) feel ashamed.
The world is not going to end because people earning over $500,000 a year have to bear a tax burden equivalent to what I carry on my comparably miniscule pension. Nor will it end because 32 million more people have the opportunity to purchase (notice: PAY FOR), insurance denied to them because they once had some illness. Nor will it end because 47,000 poor children in Arizona, one of whom has a brain tumor and can’t afford treatment, will get a chance to regain health coverage.
The British have an expression for narcissism and self-absorption: “I’m all right in my corner, Jack,” they say. I can only hope that when people see what is actually in the bill and understand that someone cared enough to get this thing through Congress they won’t give in to the hysteria we can expect in the months ahead.
Still, the current plan must be doing something right as no one is pleased. I’m reminded of the song from My Fair Lady where Rex Harrison sings about a quarreling couple: “And rather than do either, they do something else that neither likes at all.” No public option, but loads of good stuff anyway, such as regulating the health insurance industry with its record profits, to whose bleats I can say only that they brought it on themselves just as the financial sectors of this country brought their industry down around their ears.
As far as I am concerned, however, it’s not the health care plan that I am most relieved about. It’s the fact the hate and violence that seem to pass for political discourse on the right did not succeed in derailing the legislation. Had the bill been defeated, we could have looked forward to a generation raised to believe that spitting on legislators, calling them racial slurs, screaming down opponents, and forgetting inconvenient hypocrisy by denying its existence are all acceptable forms of behavior.
As I watched the distorted faces chanting Kill the Bill I was reminded of the disgusting behavior exhibited after the civil rights legislation when whites taunted and menaced black kids entering previously all-white schools. It seemed at the time that the South might go up in flames, yet time passed and the generations after have to be reminded of the struggles leading up to the legislation.
And time does change things. Recently, some of those people back then, whose distorted faces were shown on news television, apologized for their actions. Time has brought clarity. With hindsight and if one wishes to be somewhat charitable, one can say that the sixties were a time of insanity, brought on by uncomfortable social changes.
Today, I suppose we might say we face uncomfortable economic changes. That’s what this is all about—what’s in it for me? If I don’t have a job, what is the government doing taking care of anyone other than me? I feel angry and frustrated and frightened; therefore, I will listen to irresponsible radio figures who sound just as angry and frustrated and frightened as I am, and I will scream and make assassination threats and then –one day—I will look in the mirror and (perhaps) feel ashamed.
The world is not going to end because people earning over $500,000 a year have to bear a tax burden equivalent to what I carry on my comparably miniscule pension. Nor will it end because 32 million more people have the opportunity to purchase (notice: PAY FOR), insurance denied to them because they once had some illness. Nor will it end because 47,000 poor children in Arizona, one of whom has a brain tumor and can’t afford treatment, will get a chance to regain health coverage.
The British have an expression for narcissism and self-absorption: “I’m all right in my corner, Jack,” they say. I can only hope that when people see what is actually in the bill and understand that someone cared enough to get this thing through Congress they won’t give in to the hysteria we can expect in the months ahead.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Appeasement
Why am I getting the feeling that the Obama is behaving like Chamberlain when he sought peace in our time from Hitler?
Could it be because Obama is trying to negotiate with fanatics who hate us as much as the Nazi’s did? Who see negotiation as blood in the water? Who believe that the poor and the sick deserve all they get because if they were worth tuppence, God would have rewarded them just like the corporate bosses?
Could it be because I am currently in Palm Springs, the original American version of let them eat cake and if they can’t afford to play here, well, piss on them.
I am sitting in a resort where the tariff is over $300 a night ($99 last minute on Travelocity). It’s pretty, Italianate, and pricey—the banquet tonight is $110 per person and will undoubtedly be palatable but unspectacular. That’s the careless way it goes when expenses can be deducted. Today at lunch, one of the medical professionals gathering here held forth on how superior the American medical system is (ranked 37th in the world and behind Costa Rica?) and why a public plan (like Medicare, which they are all on and enjoying) would yield substandard care. I replied, “It would be better than nothing, which is what millions of Americans now have.” He looked shocked. I don’t know whether it was because I had the temerity to speak up or whether he simply hadn’t considered the point.
Obama’s problem is that he expects these resort denizens to give up something for the public good. That’s not what it’s about in this modern America of ours. It’s everyone for themselves and those that have despise those who haven’t. This viewpoint curls around the edges of the Republican positions. It’s not even that they oppose something because the Democrats propose it. It’s because they oppose anything threatening the comfortable niches that have carved out.
I really can’t blame them for wanting to keep the privileges they undoubtedly feel they have earned, Palm Springs among them. After all, once the herd moves into town with trailer parks, fast food, and cheap, carnival thrills –there goes the neighborhood. If there is a public option, after all, more of these (usually) minorities might even live longer and what would we do with the surplus population?
As I say, I can understand the self-protection of these individuals, but at the same time, this is not the behavior I expect of my government. The government of this country was designed to be a system of checks and balances. Obama has forgotten that in his Hawaii-based, Asian philosophy. Checks and balances are by nature confrontational. They have to be. He needs to take a stand for what he knows in his heart is right before he squanders any more of the people’s support who put him in the White House.
I, for one, need a clear call to action from him or else I might as well say to hell with it and go have a cocktail at the pool.
Could it be because Obama is trying to negotiate with fanatics who hate us as much as the Nazi’s did? Who see negotiation as blood in the water? Who believe that the poor and the sick deserve all they get because if they were worth tuppence, God would have rewarded them just like the corporate bosses?
Could it be because I am currently in Palm Springs, the original American version of let them eat cake and if they can’t afford to play here, well, piss on them.
I am sitting in a resort where the tariff is over $300 a night ($99 last minute on Travelocity). It’s pretty, Italianate, and pricey—the banquet tonight is $110 per person and will undoubtedly be palatable but unspectacular. That’s the careless way it goes when expenses can be deducted. Today at lunch, one of the medical professionals gathering here held forth on how superior the American medical system is (ranked 37th in the world and behind Costa Rica?) and why a public plan (like Medicare, which they are all on and enjoying) would yield substandard care. I replied, “It would be better than nothing, which is what millions of Americans now have.” He looked shocked. I don’t know whether it was because I had the temerity to speak up or whether he simply hadn’t considered the point.
Obama’s problem is that he expects these resort denizens to give up something for the public good. That’s not what it’s about in this modern America of ours. It’s everyone for themselves and those that have despise those who haven’t. This viewpoint curls around the edges of the Republican positions. It’s not even that they oppose something because the Democrats propose it. It’s because they oppose anything threatening the comfortable niches that have carved out.
I really can’t blame them for wanting to keep the privileges they undoubtedly feel they have earned, Palm Springs among them. After all, once the herd moves into town with trailer parks, fast food, and cheap, carnival thrills –there goes the neighborhood. If there is a public option, after all, more of these (usually) minorities might even live longer and what would we do with the surplus population?
As I say, I can understand the self-protection of these individuals, but at the same time, this is not the behavior I expect of my government. The government of this country was designed to be a system of checks and balances. Obama has forgotten that in his Hawaii-based, Asian philosophy. Checks and balances are by nature confrontational. They have to be. He needs to take a stand for what he knows in his heart is right before he squanders any more of the people’s support who put him in the White House.
I, for one, need a clear call to action from him or else I might as well say to hell with it and go have a cocktail at the pool.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Elderly and Assumptions
When I taught freshman English at the University of Hawaii, I used to give the students a newspaper headline and asked them to tell me what they supposed the story was about. The headline was "Elderly Couple in Freeway Accident."
Most of them told me it would be about why more restrictions were needed for senior drivers since they were sure the senior driver was at fault. The wisest among them said they didn't know enough to form a conclusion, but that didn't stop the majority from forming opinions based, as they later admitted, on their own thoughts on the subject of who might be called "elderly."
The use of the word "elderly" is interesting because it's another one of those terms that are defined subjectively. AARP has snagged the word "senior" which they define as anyone over 55, to the great displeasure of those under 65 who wish to defer being called that. In fact, some "seniors" say they are offended when the first AARP magazine arrives in their mailboxes. I admit to being a little shocked myself, but I soon balanced it by realizing that all that had happened was I had entered the market demographic that AARP likes to target: those of us, it would seem, who have little to do except become "active seniors" on our way to choosing our pre-need burial sites and caskets.
I think my students learned something that day when I began to give them further details about the accident. I told them that the other driver involved was a teenager. I asked then what they assumed. They said the teen probably had other teens in the car and was texting and/or speeding. Boy--they were tough on their fellow teens.
Then I gave them the actual story, which involved a run-away truck that had clipped the teens' car and pushed them into the elderly couple's sedan, putting the couple into the hospital with serious injuries. My student's were chastened and I thought it was a great exercise in assumptions. Not to be beaten down, though, they became indignant over what they said was the newspaper misleading them. "Sorry, Chums," I said, "you can't blame it all on the media. You were there too."
I was thinking about this other day when I was reading an impassioned article in the Arizona paper about how politicians are "not listening" to the people. Well, I wanted to say, maybe it's because the people aren't worth listening to. If my students had been in charge, there would have been even more restrictions on drivers over 65 and on drivers under twenty, neither one of which would have made any difference to the accident as it happened. All the legislative mayhem and protests that might have followed would have been caused by jumping to conclusions and not taking the time to look at all the details.
I think this happens a great deal of the time. In my more cynical moments, I suspect the media do this in order to generate controversy and have something to report. I will say H1N1 and rest my case, although I could also point to the most famous case of all: Orson Welles and the radio broadcast about alien invasion. People died in the panic caused by that program.
Finding out what really matters takes time and most people, it seems, would prefer the comfort of unexamined assumptions that sound good on the surface and flatter whatever it is they think they already know, or at least fear. This tendency does not give me comfort when I consider it drives political forces in most democracies. My late husband used to say, "Every head a vote, no matter how empty."
I have my own assumptions about things, I will admit. I try to control them because I know better, but that doesn't stop me from assuming that politicans are for sale, that unregulated corporations and financial institutions will gamble with the national capital if it makes them short-term rewards, and that laws are fashionable rather than just (the latter opinion, expressed on a jury selection questionaire, made me the first potential jurist both defense and prosecution eliminated from the pool).
Maybe what we all need is good dose of distrust in what we are told and what we read.
Most of them told me it would be about why more restrictions were needed for senior drivers since they were sure the senior driver was at fault. The wisest among them said they didn't know enough to form a conclusion, but that didn't stop the majority from forming opinions based, as they later admitted, on their own thoughts on the subject of who might be called "elderly."
The use of the word "elderly" is interesting because it's another one of those terms that are defined subjectively. AARP has snagged the word "senior" which they define as anyone over 55, to the great displeasure of those under 65 who wish to defer being called that. In fact, some "seniors" say they are offended when the first AARP magazine arrives in their mailboxes. I admit to being a little shocked myself, but I soon balanced it by realizing that all that had happened was I had entered the market demographic that AARP likes to target: those of us, it would seem, who have little to do except become "active seniors" on our way to choosing our pre-need burial sites and caskets.
I think my students learned something that day when I began to give them further details about the accident. I told them that the other driver involved was a teenager. I asked then what they assumed. They said the teen probably had other teens in the car and was texting and/or speeding. Boy--they were tough on their fellow teens.
Then I gave them the actual story, which involved a run-away truck that had clipped the teens' car and pushed them into the elderly couple's sedan, putting the couple into the hospital with serious injuries. My student's were chastened and I thought it was a great exercise in assumptions. Not to be beaten down, though, they became indignant over what they said was the newspaper misleading them. "Sorry, Chums," I said, "you can't blame it all on the media. You were there too."
I was thinking about this other day when I was reading an impassioned article in the Arizona paper about how politicians are "not listening" to the people. Well, I wanted to say, maybe it's because the people aren't worth listening to. If my students had been in charge, there would have been even more restrictions on drivers over 65 and on drivers under twenty, neither one of which would have made any difference to the accident as it happened. All the legislative mayhem and protests that might have followed would have been caused by jumping to conclusions and not taking the time to look at all the details.
I think this happens a great deal of the time. In my more cynical moments, I suspect the media do this in order to generate controversy and have something to report. I will say H1N1 and rest my case, although I could also point to the most famous case of all: Orson Welles and the radio broadcast about alien invasion. People died in the panic caused by that program.
Finding out what really matters takes time and most people, it seems, would prefer the comfort of unexamined assumptions that sound good on the surface and flatter whatever it is they think they already know, or at least fear. This tendency does not give me comfort when I consider it drives political forces in most democracies. My late husband used to say, "Every head a vote, no matter how empty."
I have my own assumptions about things, I will admit. I try to control them because I know better, but that doesn't stop me from assuming that politicans are for sale, that unregulated corporations and financial institutions will gamble with the national capital if it makes them short-term rewards, and that laws are fashionable rather than just (the latter opinion, expressed on a jury selection questionaire, made me the first potential jurist both defense and prosecution eliminated from the pool).
Maybe what we all need is good dose of distrust in what we are told and what we read.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A Pair of Recluses in Arizona
It’s been six months now since we made the decision to bring the travel trailer down to Phoenix, site it permanently in an RV resort, and turn ourselves into part-time snowbirds. During those six months, much has happened, including an offer to publish my second novel from a commercial publisher, and the end of the on and off decision making process by which I decided not to sell the Denver house just yet. But far and above has been the learning curve involved with becoming semi-gypsies.
I must admit that some of the learning curve was anticipated—living small and spare is different from living in a large suburban house with basement and crawl space into which to stuff things that have dubious immediate purpose and only a “maybe” future ahead of them. Storing the unnecessary in an RV is undesirable if not impossible, so what is not obviously essential finds its way to the well-stocked local thrift shop. I have six hangers in my little bedside closet and that—as they say—is that.
The more important learning curve has, however, has involved something more profound since it touches on who we are and, more definitely, who we are not.
When we started this adventure, we were open (for us) to breaking out of our conventions of social behavior. In other words, we started conversations with fellow campers and looked forward to participating in planned resort activities. There was a morning coffee group of older gents that suggested Sid would not be always looking at me as he drank his; there was a hiking group we both could join; and there were planned social events such as potluck dinners and breakfasts.
While we were happily imagining this world of social contacts, however, we forgot a basic component of the whole equation. We forgot that we were us.
The old gents coffee klatch turned out to be a morning bitch about politics (liberal, black president)and things that go wrong with RVs. A large percentage of the park residents turned out to be blue collar or retired small business owners with McCain-Palin stickers on their trucks. We were fortunate in finding the only other couple (we believe) who are middle of the road like us. They were classier than us—daring to have an Obama-Biden sticker on their truck—but the message to us is clear: Arizona is a red state, the RV is a red zone, and we don’t fit in.
The hiking group turned out to be a group of “getting to altitude and staying there” extreme hikers (extreme for a group of supposedly over 55 anyway). We went with them on the first hike, a fairly simple walk in Lost Dutchmen Park. Ordinarily this park has some of the most mellow walks in Apache Junction, but the group went at a fast clip and ostentatiously stopped for the stragglers (us) to catch up to them. We were holding them back and let us know it. We decided to go off on our own in future. Last time I looked, they went hiking on Picacho Peak south of Phoenix, which has a fixed rope because of the steepness, a trail so narrow around an outcropping that is has a wire cage to catch anyone sliding off, and a reputation for having “no mercy” on hikers. OK—glad we passed on that.
The social events were a study in insanity. No matter how early one arrived, the best tables were marked with post-its as being reserved. This practice was apparently approved since many of the attendees were returners and wanted to sit with friends made over a number of years. Same time next year has real meaning in the park.
Reserving tables ahead of time meant that newcomers without these associations were relegated to the left-over seats around the perimeter with no chance at meeting people. At New Year’s, we got there early only to crushed so tightly against a wall people had to get up to let us out, Even though we’d bought tickets, we left without eating.
The worst evening as far as I was concerned was the so-called Hawaiian night. It was potluck so I cooked a ten pound pork butt, haole kalua-pig style. It made a mound of shredded meat so huge I thought I’d have left-overs to bring home. I don’t know what the others thought was Hawaiian food (one lady brought a small bowl of hominy???) but whatever it was there wasn’t enough. The food ran out before the diners did, something that would never have happened in Hawaii because of the custom of generous sharing.
Then to make matters worse they had “Hawaiian entertainment,” consisting of clowning around in Dollar Store raffia skirts. I was so offended I gave a short demonstration of the few steps I knew to the song they were jumping around to. There’s a picture of me on the web now in which I look a complete and overweight idiot. To me what they were doing was as bad as making whooping sounds and claiming it to be American Indian.
So, we’re now back to being our usual socially reclusive selves. We’re enjoying the weather, the park is safe and convenient, and we’re doing what we want at our own speed but except for Bob and Lynda, we are by ourselves.
And we’re finding it quite all right.
I must admit that some of the learning curve was anticipated—living small and spare is different from living in a large suburban house with basement and crawl space into which to stuff things that have dubious immediate purpose and only a “maybe” future ahead of them. Storing the unnecessary in an RV is undesirable if not impossible, so what is not obviously essential finds its way to the well-stocked local thrift shop. I have six hangers in my little bedside closet and that—as they say—is that.
The more important learning curve has, however, has involved something more profound since it touches on who we are and, more definitely, who we are not.
When we started this adventure, we were open (for us) to breaking out of our conventions of social behavior. In other words, we started conversations with fellow campers and looked forward to participating in planned resort activities. There was a morning coffee group of older gents that suggested Sid would not be always looking at me as he drank his; there was a hiking group we both could join; and there were planned social events such as potluck dinners and breakfasts.
While we were happily imagining this world of social contacts, however, we forgot a basic component of the whole equation. We forgot that we were us.
The old gents coffee klatch turned out to be a morning bitch about politics (liberal, black president)and things that go wrong with RVs. A large percentage of the park residents turned out to be blue collar or retired small business owners with McCain-Palin stickers on their trucks. We were fortunate in finding the only other couple (we believe) who are middle of the road like us. They were classier than us—daring to have an Obama-Biden sticker on their truck—but the message to us is clear: Arizona is a red state, the RV is a red zone, and we don’t fit in.
The hiking group turned out to be a group of “getting to altitude and staying there” extreme hikers (extreme for a group of supposedly over 55 anyway). We went with them on the first hike, a fairly simple walk in Lost Dutchmen Park. Ordinarily this park has some of the most mellow walks in Apache Junction, but the group went at a fast clip and ostentatiously stopped for the stragglers (us) to catch up to them. We were holding them back and let us know it. We decided to go off on our own in future. Last time I looked, they went hiking on Picacho Peak south of Phoenix, which has a fixed rope because of the steepness, a trail so narrow around an outcropping that is has a wire cage to catch anyone sliding off, and a reputation for having “no mercy” on hikers. OK—glad we passed on that.
The social events were a study in insanity. No matter how early one arrived, the best tables were marked with post-its as being reserved. This practice was apparently approved since many of the attendees were returners and wanted to sit with friends made over a number of years. Same time next year has real meaning in the park.
Reserving tables ahead of time meant that newcomers without these associations were relegated to the left-over seats around the perimeter with no chance at meeting people. At New Year’s, we got there early only to crushed so tightly against a wall people had to get up to let us out, Even though we’d bought tickets, we left without eating.
The worst evening as far as I was concerned was the so-called Hawaiian night. It was potluck so I cooked a ten pound pork butt, haole kalua-pig style. It made a mound of shredded meat so huge I thought I’d have left-overs to bring home. I don’t know what the others thought was Hawaiian food (one lady brought a small bowl of hominy???) but whatever it was there wasn’t enough. The food ran out before the diners did, something that would never have happened in Hawaii because of the custom of generous sharing.
Then to make matters worse they had “Hawaiian entertainment,” consisting of clowning around in Dollar Store raffia skirts. I was so offended I gave a short demonstration of the few steps I knew to the song they were jumping around to. There’s a picture of me on the web now in which I look a complete and overweight idiot. To me what they were doing was as bad as making whooping sounds and claiming it to be American Indian.
So, we’re now back to being our usual socially reclusive selves. We’re enjoying the weather, the park is safe and convenient, and we’re doing what we want at our own speed but except for Bob and Lynda, we are by ourselves.
And we’re finding it quite all right.
Friday, January 15, 2010
On the Back of a Whale
The Japanese say that their country rests on the back of a whale and earthquakes happen when the beast shifts its position. I've always liked this concept. Beside requiring an incredibly accommodating whale, it reminds us the planet is not inert but alive in the sense that there is a limit to the nonsense it will endure from us.
Now, I'm not saying we are responsible for earthquakes. In the face of no better way to understand their causes, I subscribe to the theory of plate shifting and continental drift. I lived almost 40 years in Hawaii. People living in the Islands know all about moving hot spots as the plates shift. In fact, the newest island, Loihi, is forming now under the ocean off the Big Island.
What I'm saying is if we can't control earthquakes, surely we can control ourselves. If we believe we are on the back of the whale, then common sense says we should respect the animal and understand it will behave like a whale. Why are we surprised when the whale shifts and brings earthquakes and tsunamis? Why are we wasting our time listening to ignorant claims of a pact between Haiti and the devil? It's the whale, for heaven's sake, just doing what it does.
I feel the same impatience watching people in Haiti being dragged out of sub-standard housing that collapsed around them as I felt when I watched Katrina survivors begging for water and food. Worse, I have every expectation that we'll see scenes just like this again when one of our West Coast cities is devastated as New Orleans was. Just what we will need: the media yet again arriving (when relief workers supposedly can't get in) to report every juicy detail of human misery and then provide fodder for the pundits comfortably back hime to shovel out their uninformed guesses and unhelpful speculations.
In fact, sad though I am for those in Haiti, it's the media that I am most discouraged about. Haitian family members in the US and around the world need to know about their loved ones and old neighborhoods, but this continual replaying of the same scenes recalls those dreadful days after 9/11 when we had to endure hours of watching the planes hitting the Twin Towers. It was pandering to our own worst tendencies to want to be entertained. Panders, in fact, is what the media have become in their desperate attempt to keep ratings.
Back when I was in college, eons ago, Marshall McLuhan was just hitting the circuits. His idea was prophetic: he said the medium was the massage (sic). He used the word massage because he wanted to say that the new form of instant communication and broadcast were inevitably going to shape what was broadcast. Today, our technology allows us to view and review (ad nauseum) human suffering and at the same time distance ourselves from it. We have no way to process what we are seeing except to watch it unfold like a movie or television show.
Our technology has, in my personal and admittedly senior opinion, debased our abilities to think metaphorically. Perhaps if we could envision the earth as a living creature, we might be better at not assuming arrogantly that everything here is for us to use and discard (a viewpoint for which I will not forgive the creation myth in Genesis). We might be better at helping our fellows instead of judging them. We might be better at remembering John Donne's words that no one of us is an island, even if some allow themselves to be smug and comfortable and moralistic.
l
Now, I'm not saying we are responsible for earthquakes. In the face of no better way to understand their causes, I subscribe to the theory of plate shifting and continental drift. I lived almost 40 years in Hawaii. People living in the Islands know all about moving hot spots as the plates shift. In fact, the newest island, Loihi, is forming now under the ocean off the Big Island.
What I'm saying is if we can't control earthquakes, surely we can control ourselves. If we believe we are on the back of the whale, then common sense says we should respect the animal and understand it will behave like a whale. Why are we surprised when the whale shifts and brings earthquakes and tsunamis? Why are we wasting our time listening to ignorant claims of a pact between Haiti and the devil? It's the whale, for heaven's sake, just doing what it does.
I feel the same impatience watching people in Haiti being dragged out of sub-standard housing that collapsed around them as I felt when I watched Katrina survivors begging for water and food. Worse, I have every expectation that we'll see scenes just like this again when one of our West Coast cities is devastated as New Orleans was. Just what we will need: the media yet again arriving (when relief workers supposedly can't get in) to report every juicy detail of human misery and then provide fodder for the pundits comfortably back hime to shovel out their uninformed guesses and unhelpful speculations.
In fact, sad though I am for those in Haiti, it's the media that I am most discouraged about. Haitian family members in the US and around the world need to know about their loved ones and old neighborhoods, but this continual replaying of the same scenes recalls those dreadful days after 9/11 when we had to endure hours of watching the planes hitting the Twin Towers. It was pandering to our own worst tendencies to want to be entertained. Panders, in fact, is what the media have become in their desperate attempt to keep ratings.
Back when I was in college, eons ago, Marshall McLuhan was just hitting the circuits. His idea was prophetic: he said the medium was the massage (sic). He used the word massage because he wanted to say that the new form of instant communication and broadcast were inevitably going to shape what was broadcast. Today, our technology allows us to view and review (ad nauseum) human suffering and at the same time distance ourselves from it. We have no way to process what we are seeing except to watch it unfold like a movie or television show.
Our technology has, in my personal and admittedly senior opinion, debased our abilities to think metaphorically. Perhaps if we could envision the earth as a living creature, we might be better at not assuming arrogantly that everything here is for us to use and discard (a viewpoint for which I will not forgive the creation myth in Genesis). We might be better at helping our fellows instead of judging them. We might be better at remembering John Donne's words that no one of us is an island, even if some allow themselves to be smug and comfortable and moralistic.
l
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