Fighting the Frumpies
I've had enough of the doldrums. Enough of the frumpies. In the past three years (which is how long the caregiving for my mom has successfully eroded those parts of my life that were carefree and convivial) I've gone from Funky Grammy to Frumpy Grammy. (My much loved toddler grandson calls me "Grammy.")
In a couple of weeks I'll hit my 65th birthday, and so I've been taking some photos of myself for my annual birthday post. FRUMPY!!
So I've made an appointment to get my hair styled at a new salon by one of its "artists." As my hair goes, so seem to go I. It's worth a try.
A brisk walk around the park on this cold but sunny Sunday was also worth a try. I breathed. Cold, clean, fresh air -- just the opposite of what fills this building full of old people who always seem to be cold and so crank up the heat. I don't have to turn my own heat on all winter; I'm surrounded by apartment-sized hot-boxes.
I've decided that there's some cause and effect relationship between "cluttered" and "frumpy." My apartment is too cluttered, too full of stuff. Stuffy. Today, I started TRYING to unclutter so that I can unfrump. I'm trying. I'm trying. But it's sooo hard to get rid of books; English majors can't seem to part with their beloved books.
And for me, add to my book obsession, hair and shoes. And then, of course, there's blogging. I'm overwhelmed by my obsessional possessions.
It helps with frumpies and doldrums and obsessions to have something to laugh about. Or at least to smile about. So I checked over at Dick Jones' Patteran Pages, where I remember seeing his post of 2/23 that listed questions that no one seems to be able to answer, like:
-- Light travels faster than sound: Is that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?
-- Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "s" in it?
-- Why do you press harder on a remote control when you know the battery is dead?
-- Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
-- Why do people without a watch look at their wrist when you ask them what time it is?
-- Why is the alphabet in that order?
-- What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?
-- Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?
-- Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.
-- How come Superman could stop bullets with his chest, but always ducked when someone threw a gun at him?
-- Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
-- Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
-- Isn't Disney World a people trap operated by a mouse?
Those are the ones I like the best, but he's got more listed on his blog.
He also has a wonderful poem called "Seeds" that helped a little more to move me out of my Winter Doldrums.
Check out Dick's blog. It's a gem.
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Wallowing in the Winter Doldrums
"Don't I remember crisp, clear-skied and sunny winter days when I spent most of the time outdoors sledding and building snow forts?" my mother-of-toddler daughter asked me not too long ago.
Yup. It seems to me that there were lots of days like that, when kids from toddlers to teens rolled around in pristine snow banks until the sun went down -- much too early.
The sun still sets too early, but it doesn't seem to matter these days. It's dismal, dreary. Not enough snow to be fun; just enough to be sloppy.
There's no sun. I'm eating too much chocolate. Eating too much.
So today I hauled myself out and drove down to the New York State Museum for its annual Gem, Mineral, and Fossil show. I'm not into minerals, but I know from past years that sometimes there are vendors selling interesting jewelry.
I by-passed the jewelry this time and wound up buying several "fossil gastropods" -- 80 million year old mollusks similar to our modern day snail, or so the tags tell me.
I have in my hand something that lived 80 million years ago. Mollusks actually date back to more than 500 million years ago, so the ones I bought are relatively not very old at all.
But they're old enough. And so am I. At least that's how I'm feeling on this dark day that I mostly slept away, except for my journey that ended with finding those delicately etched stone cold fossils that I've decided to use in some sort of ceremony when my group of women friends meet on the day of the Spring Equinox.
Wouldn't it be nice to think that, 80 million years from now, what's fossilized of me will inspire someone to create something -- something to conjure back her 5 billion year old sun.
Categories:
Full Moon. Wolf Moon.
from here:
The full Moon highlights tonight's sky. Like all full Moons, the full Moon of February has several names -- and all of them conjure forlorn wintertime images. The names include Snow Moon, Hunger Moon, and Wolf Moon.
It's hard to say when and where these names first appeared. Most full-Moon names describe something about the season in which they occur. And it's clear that almost every culture on every continent developed its own dictionary of Moon names. It's interesting to note that cultures scattered across the globe devised similar names for the same full Moons.
Throughout the eons and all over the planet -- same moon, same sun, same rains, same wind (some places a little colder, some a little warmer, but still the same stuff of nature asserting its power).
It's no surprise that the hopes and fears of ancient people from Africa to Alaska developed myths about natural phenomena that enabled them to think that they might have a way to control the uncontrollable. Their myths evolved into deities that assumed the traits of those who created them. And those who created them prayed and sacrificed and continued to hope and fear and pray and sacrifice. And so religions were born -- a little different in each of the planet's pockets of humanity, but all still based in the same need to feel that they had some way to influence the randomness of life.
Right now, in the clear sky, the full moon is centered in my living room window. I have the urge to go outside and dance, light candles, make wishes, howl.
Instead, I'll do the dishes, check on my mom, have a cup of tea and watch Jack and Bobby. Or maybe, while the moon is still in my window's sight, I'll turn off all the lights and let my mind wander into the wolf's full hunger.
Full Moon. Wolf Moon. Hunger Moon.
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Attacking the Arctic and the Aged
They're winding up for that powerful right cross -- that maiming Right Double Cross.
SNEAK ATTACK #1.
Right now, the oil industry’s allies in Congress are plotting a sneak attack on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the next two weeks, oil industry allies in the House and Senate will try a backdoor trick to pass the controversial proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge by inserting it into the federal budget bill.
See the website of the Defenders of Wildlife to get a succinct explanation of why drilling for oil in the arctic is not as benign an effort as the oil industry and its flunkies would have you think.
Lend your voice to the those who are trying to stop this sneaky maneuver and save the Arctic Refuge! Click here send a free message to your members of Congress urging them to do everything they can to stop drilling in the Arctic!
And, while you have the Arctic on your mind, check out my Alaskan blogger friend's blog -- Klondike Kate's Aurora
SNEAK ATTACK #2
The lobbying group that orchestrated the Swift Boat guys' misinformation-filled attack on John Kerry is now after the AARP, using the same kind of sleazy tactics and a war chest of $10 million. It's all part of the political ultra-Right's plan to support Bush's intention to privatize Social Security -- an effort that erroneously claims that there is a crisis. But there is no crisis.
(Just like there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction.)
The American Spectator website is running a sleazy and untruthful ad about the AARP in order to discredit its support of maintaining an strengthening the current Social Security system.
Now, I don't always agree with how the AARP sets its positions on issues -- just like I didn't agree with all of Kerry's approaches.
BUT in both cases, I looked at the bigger picture and how close they were to my positions on issues AND I totally resent the evil methods that thr Right uses to launch their attacks on those issues.
Such is the case with AARP and Social Security.
Watch out for that Right Double Cross.
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Another One Bites the Dust
All kinds of famous people have died since the beginning of this year, including actors and actresses whose movies I tend to connect with various stages of my own life. Now it's gotten to point at which my age-peers are starting to add their names to the list.
Like Sandra Dee.
Look at me. I'm Sandra Dee.
No, not really. But I liked her anyway. Hell, she married Bobby Darin!
Sandra Dee. Dead at 63.
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Social Security: Figures don't lie. Liars don't figure.
The following offered to you by non-blogger myrln:
Among Dumbya's usual lies, half-truths, distortions, and scare tactics about Social Security is the point made about how in 1940 there were 40 people to meet Social Security payouts for 1 person but in 20xx, there will only be 2 for every 1.
"Horrors," we're supposed to think, "my salary will be cut drastically for these SocSec recipients (or sponges)."
Well, Dumbya's 20xx number may be right, but you know what? There's a simple explanation which demonstrates there's no "horrors" necessary (save about his usual distortion of the facts).
Below is a breakdown of Social Security facts and figure in two columns. Column One lists figures for 1940; Column Two for 2002 (last year I could find complete figures for). Within each column are the numbers for the item listed at the left. So first, take a look at the info. (Some items have been rounded to whole figures.)
................................................................1940...............2002..............
1) Average Annual Income....................$1,299............$36,764.
2) Average Monthly Income..................$108.25...........$3,063.67
3) SocSec Tax Rate..............................1%................6.2%
4) Annual SocSec Tax..........................$12.99............$2,279.36
5) Monthly SocSec Tax........................$1.08..............$189.94
6) Avg Month Soc Sec Payout................$22.71............$895.
7) Indivs. needed to meet payout..............21................4.7
The point should be clear: yes, there are fewer workers meeting the payout in 2002 than there were in 1940 -- not because the system's in trouble but BECAUSE SALARIES ARE 28 TIMES HIGHER
Therefore, fewer input people are NEEDED per payout recipient. Granted, payouts are 39 times higher and the tax bite 6 times higher than in 1940, but there are still fewer people needed to meet the payout, and it will continue that way because, barring a depression (other than our daily one about Dumbya), salaries will continue upward (until they outsource all jobs). One would think Dumbya would be saying, "See, that's a sign of a healthy economy," but that's another story.
One would also think the dimbulbs in the national media might have worked out the same numbers.
Any questions? See me after class.
Any holes in my analysis, please tell me. Otherwise, feel free to distribute material as widely as you like.
EDITOR'S NOTES:
1. As my dear departed Dad used to say "Figures don't lie and liars don't figure."
2. If you find an errors in this assessment, please leave a comment here for myrln.
Categories:
thoughtful words from an exceptional teacher
A friend of mine who works at Union College in Schenectady emailed me the following text of an award acceptance address given by English Professor Hugh Jenkins. It deserves wider distribution.
It's hard for me to express how genuinely pleased and honored I am by this award. I can't possibly acknowledge all who have contributed to my teaching, so I would like in a general fashion to thank those of you out there for helping me with what I do, and those of you back there for not hindering me in doing it.
I mean both sincerely, even-perhaps especially-the latter. We seem now to live in a country whose discourse is dominated by religious bigots, moral bullies, and intellectual terrorists-most self-appointed, but many elected, and some a strange combination of both. Such people have little use for what we do; they prefer metaphysics to science, prophesy to history, belief to reason, smug righteousness to rhetoric and uncertainty, the closed circle of ideology to intellectual debate, the free market and the profit motive to the free play of the mind. They have created a climate in which debate becomes dissent, dissent lack of patriotism, and lack of patriotism borderline criminality. I've heard in little in their public discourse over the last few years makes me believe these people would thrive at Union; I don't think they would ever get past FYP. And, in an astonishing irony, they consider US-radical professors and ignorant students, or ignorant professors and radical students-the crazy ones in the current culture wars. As Bill Moyers has said, today the delusional is no longer marginal. In fact, it's not even considered delusional anymore. Here's a direct quotation from a current government official: ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." In my experience, two types of people (and I don't mean to equate the two) try to create their own realities: doctrinaire Marxists and complete lunatics. I'll let you decide which one you believe the speaker belongs to.
In such a climate it is a great blessing just to be left alone to do what we do. It's worth remembering that the liberal arts mean the free arts, and a free society cannot survive without them. As my great hero John Milton, writing in the midst of a civil war and in a century of unprecedented religious conflict, wrote, 'give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties.' We have that here at Union. Our weakness makes us strong, saith the Apostle Paul, and I would argue that we are strong and necessary not despite our arguments, with ourselves and the world, and our craziness, for in a mad world only the mad are sane, but because of them. We represent something great at Union and something necessary, and something that is increasingly threatened. If you think I am exaggerating that threat, you haven't been paying attention. Put down your New York Times and turn off your NPR and read and listen to what most Americans see and hear. At issue now is preserving the heritage of free inquiry and the ideals of a free society that have lived for more than two thousand years. The intellectual privileges we have here at Union and at similar institutions are vital in sustaining the basic rights of our society as a whole. This makes them privileges worth fighting for, and its enemies worth fighting. This is not a Red vs. Blue or left vs. right issue. We must all take up the fight if we truly believe in what we preach and try to practice here at Union.
Thank you.
In his statement of teaching philosophy, included below, he describes what should be the basis for all teaching and learning:
So I like to believe that my teaching has a deeply political mission, to create the skeptical, critical, and individualistic thinking real democracy demands.
Here's his total statement of teaching:
I am greatly honored by being nominated for the Stillman Prize. While recognition from one's peers elevates the pride (and vanity), recognition from one's students touches the heart. I am moved and gratified that my students indeed find my classes full of "excitement, joy, and challenge." I certainly do. I find those qualities in any kind of discovery, in any kind of exploration; to me they make up the great mystery and art of learning. I will gladly admit that my best classes are often complete surprises to me. They tend to occur when the carefully prepared outline, the daily quiz, the underlined points in the text, the memorized passages all dissolve before a completely unanticipated question or a previously unregarded thought. At such moments the boundaries between teaching and learning, student and professor dissolve, and the class becomes an aggregate of unanswered questions and developing thoughts: I learn from my students and they learn from me. I believe that is the best I can do in a class, and I think it is where the excitement and challenge develops.
I feel lucky to have learned to teach from real masters of this paradoxical art. I have had terrific mentors in grad school, at Union, and in some cases from birth (my father, a teacher himself, was my greatest inspiration). I have learned from them, and had that knowledge confirmed through experience, that one can only develop such surprising, unanticipated moments of genuine intellectual challenge and discovery in a class through carefully preparing the basics. I always reread the texts I teach, no matter how often I have taught them before, and I always find something new and exciting by doing so. (I will quit teaching when I lose the motivation to do so.) I insist that the students read them carefully as well, something I monitor through daily quizzes and, when possible, weekly essays. But what I call the basics are really matters of caring about what you do-that for me is the real basis from which all good classes and all real learning starts. I feel that if I can demonstrate how much I care about learning, how much I try to learn from each class, I can help instill a similar care and excitement in my students. Only when a student or teacher truly cares can moments of intense personal revelation and realization occur, and only when that student truly cares can he or she communicate those revelations in a meaningful way.
That is why, after establishing the basics, I at least try to give over the primary responsibilities in and out of the classroom to my students. I like to promote an open, student-centered and driven classroom. Daily quizzes are daily talking points: in fact, I will allow students ten to fifteen minutes before a quiz to ask questions about the readings. If they ask the questions that appear on the quiz, it becomes a formality. If they ask really interesting questions-ones that often don't appear on the quizzes-the quiz becomes irrelevant. I often have students present important contextual materials-social or political history, lesser-known authors or texts, critical responses to the texts-to encourage students to read beyond the syllabus. I have found that students tend to present such materials in exciting and creative ways. An example of this would be in my current Restoration Drama class, where students are illustrating the social history of the period's aristocracy by not only dressing as aristocrats did, but also by trying to recreate the cosmetics, the wigs, and various prosthetics they wore. All of this comes as part of a "Restoration Evening," featuring a full seventeenth-century dinner eaten according to proper seventeenth-century manners. Such projects, I hope, convert learning from a passive to an active experience: the texts come alive for the students, and they come alive in the class.
So what I essentially care about is not so much what students think but rather how they think and why. The complex dialectic of text and context, of writer and audience, of student and teacher creates both meaning and meaningfulness, excitement and challenge. The test of such a dialectic remains the student essay, and making that a forum of "excitement and joy" is the ultimate challenge and ultimate mystery of teaching English. I believe, following George Orwell (and Samuel Johnson, and Cicero, and Aristotle), that good writing is good, clear thinking, and good, clear thinking is the first step toward social engagement and, ultimately, political regeneration. If students are to be responsible for interpreting and creating their own texts, their own ideals and values, they must care enough to make them challenging and exciting to their readers. The dialectic of text and reader, writer and audience, is then fundamentally a democratic one: Rhetoric, as the ancients believed, is the basis of responsible, mature citizenship. Like most ideals, though, rhetoric has its roots in the mundane. Thus I insist that essay follow the essential rules of grammar and logic-hence the "grammar tax" I collect on each essay. Students must know and follow these rules or, if they choose to break them, they must explain why they do so. I demand intellectual rigor in essays: I believe that one can't discuss an idea without first defining it, nor can one develop that idea without a logical and specific argument. That applies in a student essay, but it applies most tellingly in the essays of real life.
Yet high-flown ideals are only the goals and grammatical precision and logical persuasion only the components of rhetoric; good writing, as its teachers from Aristotle and Horace to Strunk and White have shown, must delight its audience as it instructs them. I try to teach students to care about their sentences, to construct them so artfully that the art disguises itself. To encourage such care, particularly in Preceptorial, I like to give "sentence of the week" (or "essay of the week") prizes. (In the Restoration class, this has evolved into a "wit of the week" competition, the winner of which I excuse from the next weekly essay.) And, in a way, I try to make my own comments on a paper a miniature essay, constructing them as carefully (and I hope persuasively) as I can, tailoring each to the needs of the individual student. Writing twenty-five to thirty miniature essays a week challenges me as well as them, but I hope the comments provide a model of critical reading and writing. What I care about is making students highly critical readers of their own writing as well as that of others. Only then can one begin to develop a reasonable, educated, yet also personable voice, and make that voice responsive to the shifting desires and perceptions of its audience. Helping that voice develop remains the greatest challenge and the greatest reward of what I teach.
Challenge and reward: in the space between them, for me and, I hope, my students, lies the excitement and joy of teaching and learning. I like to think my teaching is both highly idealistic and deeply skeptical, democratic yet rigorous, demanding yet playful. And as I reread this, I realize that I have largely overlooked the last quality, which might in fact be the most important one. Socrates believed that real education is a form of play. Play is fun. I think my best classes are fun and funny classes, where all that is accepted and formal and known and conventional is questioned by laughter. I think real learning is at least in part subversive, or has to start with a subversive impulse. Laughter can provoke questioning and doubt, and one challenge of teaching is turning such skepticism to constructive ends. So I like to believe that my teaching has a deeply political mission, to create the skeptical, critical, and individualistic thinking real democracy demands. It acknowledges this mission as a challenge and embraces it as excitement-as fun. I like to think I can teach my students to care about basic values and their expression and enjoy doing so. That is what the authors I teach and love have done, that is what my mentors have done, and when I can do so, for a moment the mysteries of the classroom give way to those of life.
I salute my mentors and again thank my students, past and present, for this honor.
Categories:
89 and counting
Today was my mother's birthday. I invited two of her neighbors over for cake and coffee. The two neighbors (one 92 and the other in her late 70s) chatted and laughed together while my mother sat silent. I tried to draw her into the conversation, but the truth is that she couldn't really hear what the others were saying. My mom adamantly denies that her hearing and vision need major correction (and not just new eyeglasses). It's really too bad because she keeps finding herself on the fringes of any group because she has no idea what anyone is talking about. A lifelong habit of "denial" is hard to break.
I hope that, as I get older and lose even more of my faculties, I will refuse to deny my failings. Well, I already have hearing aids that I use so that I can hear TV, movies, and whispered conversations. And I remember getting my first pair of bi-focals when I was in my forties. I just hope that when I start getting paranoid and not recognizing people I still have enough smarts left to be honest with myself ask for help -- medicinal and otherwise.
I'm not sure that I have enough patience to see this caregiving responsibility to the very end. I have arranged for someone to keep my mom company once a week for a few hours so that I can get out into the larger world of friends and massage therapists and book stores.
I am finally feeling overwhelmed by the burden of being responsible for someone who is so dependent emotionally and psychologically.
I am feeling sorry for myself today. I wish I had my old life back.
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and then there's Charlie
I get emails from a guy named Charlie, who shares my views of the Bush administration. Charlie stumbled on one of my more vehement posts and figured he found a kindred spirit. He did.
Charlie tuned me in to
What is BuyBlue.org all about?
Mission Statement: BuyBlue.org supports businesses that share our progressive values and ideals. BuyBlue.org uses our power as consumers to vote with our wallets, supporting businesses that abide by sustainability, workers' rights, environmental standards, and corporate transparency. At the same time, BuyBlue.org focuses sharply on businesses that violate the essential values of a sustainable, fair and profitable society through their policies and the politicians they support.
Why was BuyBlue.org started?
On the morning after the 2004 election, half of the country woke up in disbelief and disgust. Shortly afterwards it turned to anger and bitterness and many were entertaining moving to another country. It didn't take long for all of us to collectively realize that we had lost our country to the other side and we wanted, no needed to do something about it. It was at that moment that the original idea for BuyBlue.org was born.
Values
1. We believe that most politicians no longer serve the public's interest and instead pander to influential corporations and special interests.
2. We believe that America can be great and united again, but first we must embrace progressive ideals that work in the interests of all of our citizens, not simply those in the majority or those who are privileged.
3. We believe that the best way to encourage our political leaders and corporations to enforce progressive ideals is to vote for those ideals the only way those groups understand; with our collective buying power.
4. We believe that as a community we can, will, and must make a difference.
If you go to their site you'll find a constantly updated list of businesses rated from "blue" to "red." I was pleased to find out that Hess, where I buy gas, is a "blue." So are Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Barnes & Noble, and -- of all things -- Fredericks of Hollywood. Hallmark Cards and Home Depot are as "red" as Wal-Mart, Molson Coors Brewing, and the McDonald's Corporation.
BuyBlue.org is interested in identifying as many business as possible that are "blue." You can send your suggestions to mail@buyblue.org
Spread the word.
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Meme-ing Dorian Gray
Over at Stu Savory's blog, the "auld Scot" is challenging us bloggers to follow his lead and post photos from throughout our lifetimes. So, below are sixty-four years of my face.
The top line is from the 40s and 50s, the middle from the 60s and 70s, and the bottom line from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Next month, I'll be sixty-five. I figure I'm overweight about a pound and a half for each 5 years I've been on this earth being photographed -- not that this fact has any relevance to the photos below, but it will have relevance when I post my 65th birthday photo. Most of those pounds found their way to me during the past three years. Surviving caregiving requires lots of comfort foods.
OK, Stu. Heeerrre's the Crone!
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When all else fails, cook.
As my mom continues to slowly fade and fail, I have decisions to make that will affect both our lives. Move or not move somewhere else... Move in with her... Keep relying on sweet and helpfpul neighbors... Hire someone to come in to keep her company when I go out...
I don't know what the right decisions are. On Monday, I take her to a geriatric doctor who, I hope, will make an assessment of her and her future on which I can base some decisions.
So, instead, I cook. Old fashioned chicken soup with lots of garlic. And this easy Black Bean soup, which even my mother likes:
1 cup salsa
2 cans black beans
1 cup chicken broth
1 tsp. lime juice
2 Tbl fresh cilantro
puree 1/2 and add back to regular then heat
I added some corn as well.
When all else fails, I eat.
Categories:
watching life go by
I've spent the last five years feeling that I'm watching my life go by. That's how long I've been caregiver for my mom.
The other day, I sat with her while we watched four hours of old family 8mm movies that are now on videotape -- from my uncles going off to fight WWII to b!X first bath. As my mom -- now understandably more interested in the past than the future -- cried through the whole thing, I found myself drawn to the sensory details that the images in old movies stirred in my lazy brain....
...the itch of the wool hat that I hated wearing as a toddler....the feel and smell of my mother's 1940s skunk coat as I buried my face in its softness....the smell of the clean starched pinafore that my mother dressed me in after my bath on pre-teen summer weekends....the stiff but silky faille of the burgundy dress I wore on my first date to a school dance (a fix-up with the son of one of my mother's friends....the rib-crushing strapless long-line bra under by high school prom dress....the sun in my eyes and making me sweat under the graduation gown as I posed with my college diploma...
I'm always smiling in those early movie years, sitting at the birthday tables and around Christmas trees with the family that seems more like a tribe. Dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles by birth and by appointment. Everyone is always singing. The men are always toasting the camera and downing shot glasses full whiskey. The women look at the camera and wave and smile. We cousins get in line to get our Christmas one dollar bills from our grandfather. Pleasantville.
Then suddenly there are scenes that I don't remember ever being in -- the times I went home from college for family events. My grandparents 50th anniversary -- there I am, still part of the tribe. But I don't remember. My heart and mind were elsewhere. And I'm no longer smiling.
There is no tribe any more -- those generations of aunts and uncles by birth and appointment. Only my mother is left, watching her life go by.
the gathered tribe pre-1940
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Old Lady Rap-Back.
Draft #1
Old Lady Rap-Back
I see you
don't see me
see you dismiss
the miss I used to be
my softness sagging now
my curves
gone to middle thick
I see your gaze
doesn’t stick
on my face
heavy with time's lines
life’s lies
fate’s tricky licks
you think you got it
rough never enough?
you think that's new?
my skin went tough
haulin’ my mother lode
up those Sisyphus hills
and as for fuckin’?
I was mouthing it
long before your sorry ass
first passed a gas
but I see you,
hear your fast talk
and I walk
from your easy lines
to make a choice of voice
that says more, more
than you
think
you
know
© Elaine Frankonis 2/05
Categories:
my hopes, exactly
I'd like to retire there and do nothing,
or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms:
look through binoculars, read boring books,
old, long, long books, and write down useless notes,
talk to myself, and, foggy days,
watch the droplets slipping, heavy with light.
Elizabeth Bishop from "The End of March"
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all the difference in the world
There's hope on the horizon with Howard Dean at the helm of the Democratic National Committee. The first thing we have to do is stand up for what we believe in, Dean asserted in his acceptance speech.
And, at the recent DNC convention, Nancy Pelosi pretty much laid out the difference in what the Democrats and Republicans believe -- as the following, taken from DailyKos-- reports:
To see the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, just look at the budget the President sent to Congress this week. Democrats believe that the budget should be a statement of our national values. But does the President's budget keep faith with the values Americans hold dear? [delegates: NO!] You be the judge.
Is it a statement of our American value of fairness to give tax breaks to people making more than $500,000 a year while drastically cutting children's health care? [delegates: NO!]
Is it a statement of our value of opportunity to give tax cuts to the wealthy few while underfunding Head Start, No Child Left Behind and student loans and grants? [delegates: NO!]
I didn't think so.
Is it a statement of our commitment to security to give those tax cuts while severely cutting funding for the community police and local firefighters who are vital to our homeland security? [NO!]
I didn't think so.
Is it a statement of our respect for those who serve in uniform to give tax cuts to the wealthy while restricting health care benefits for veterans? [NO!]
The President's budget is not only financially reckless; it is morally irresponsible. Instead of being a statement of our values, it is a blueprint for financial disaster. When President Clinton was president, we had three years of surpluses. Those surpluses allowed us to save Social Security first. President Clinton, under his leadership, we repaid nearly $400 billion back into the Social Security Trust Fund. By contrast, President Bush's reckless tax cuts for the wealthy have driven us deeply into debt, and his answer is to raid Social Security first.
Much discussion has been going on about how we strengthen Social Security; well, you can begin by paying back the money you took out of Social Security to give tax cuts.
Now, he wants to make matters even worse: he wants to privatize Social Security. The President knows that privatization isn't popular, however, but instead of changing his plan, he just changed the name: now, he's calling it personal accounts. He can soften the language, but that doesn't soften the blow to seniors, the disabled, widows and orphans. Democrats recognize that Social Security does face a challenge. We are prepared to meet that challenge with ideas that are entrepreneurial, innovative, and will indeed strengthen Social Security. But we will not let President Bush turn this proud legacy of the New Deal into a raw deal for millions of Americans. Democrats insist that any changes to Social Security must not add to the deficit, must be fair, and must not slash benefits.
So, the big picture begins to glimmer with hope.
Not so much for the little picture, however, as I sit around trying to get rid of a bout of bronchitis and sinus infection while my mother goes through bouts of panic, paranoia, and plaintiveness.
I've got a massage appointment for next week -- a little help for the little picture.
Meanwhile, a better big picture, for me, depends on Dean and the Democrats.
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Even though......Social Security
Even though I have a million things to take care of now that my mom is back across the hall from me and our lives continue to deteriorate, I just have to share some stuff about the Social Security debate that I unearthed in response to comments from Tim here.
The following are exerpts, and it's worth reading the entire acticles:
From the Chicago Tribune:
Q: So how would Bush's plan be different from traditional Social Security?
A: Bush's plan, like Social Security as it originally was envisioned, seeks to maintain an income floor but at the same time give workers choices that might generate wealth. In 2011, when the plan would take full effect, workers who were born after 1949 would have the option of annually investing as much as 4 percent of their wages, to a maximum of $1,000, in an individual account. The other 8 percent of their wages would be invested in the current system. Workers 55 and older would remain in the current system. (Under the gradual phase-in, workers born between 1950 and 1965 can participate in 2009, and those born before 1979 can participate in 2010.) Over time, the amount that could be invested in the accounts would grow slowly, by a little more than $100 a year.
Q: Can I use the money for any kind of investments?
A: No. Under the plan, you would choose from a small number of diversified funds, all relatively conservative. They would be administered by the government and modeled after the Thrift Savings Plan now available to federal workers. The standard option would be a "life cycle" fund, which reduces the percentage invested in stocks as you get closer to retirement.
Q: What happens when I retire?
A: Upon retirement, workers would be required to trade in their investment portfolios for an annuity so that a combination of traditional benefits and their annuity payments would meet the poverty level, which was about $11,400 for a couple older than 65 in 2004. But if that income stream is higher, under Bush's proposal, retirees could use the additional money in their accounts as they wished, such as continuing to invest, increasing the size of the annuity payment or taking a lump-sum payment.
Q: What if you decide that you don't like individual accounts after you started investing?
A: You can choose to redirect the money to Treasury bonds, which are the investment vehicle of the traditional Social Security system. They currently earn about 3 percent a year. A worker opting for individual accounts gains if he makes more than that 3 percent rate and loses if he falls below that level.
Q: Would Bush's plan give me more in benefits than the current system?
A: That's unclear. It would depend on whether the performance of the investments over time exceeds the benefit reductions necessary to bring the traditional system into balance. Under a variety of scenarios, the benefit cuts could be dramatic, but administration officials also say that the current level of benefits is unsustainable in any case. Workers can choose to stay in the traditional system, but the White House has said those benefits will be reduced by an unknown amount.
Q: What if the stock market swoons and my total benefit is below the poverty level?
A: The administration has not addressed that scenario. Under some proposals, there can be a poverty benefit. But at the same time, officials do not want to reward bad investment choices.
Q: Wouldn't creating individual accounts require more government debt?
A: Yes. If the accounts are funded out of existing payroll taxes, as the president proposed, then creating the accounts would require Social Security to tap the trust funds even sooner. That is because the system would need to keep paying current beneficiaries while also funding nascent accounts for people who probably will not retire for decades. The borrowing costs of Bush's plan would be more than $1 trillion in the first 10 years of a fully phased plan, and then $3.5 trillion in the next 10 years. The White House believes the costs will even out over the next 75 years--that any debt incurred will be balanced by gains later--but in the short term the country's debt burden would rise. The costs would really begin to soar about the time Social Security is projected to begin withdrawing money from the trust funds.
Q: Are there other ways to deal with a financing gap in Social Security?
A: In the past, payroll taxes have been increased and benefits have been reduced (such as raising the retirement age). Bush has ruled out any increase in taxes. Participants in an individual-account program would be required to accept some benefit cuts to help reduce the transition costs, but the administration has not revealed the size or scope of those cuts. Administration officials acknowledge that individual accounts themselves would not solve the long-term financing gap in Social Security, so other, still-unannounced steps would be needed...
And, I suspect, that's only a hint of the landmines that will be buried and waiting if Bush's plan succeeds.
From CNN:
For two decades, the Social Security system has been creating a "surplus," and that reserve is widely thought to be available to make up for shortfalls projected to begin in 2018, when more money has been promised to beneficiaries than will be taken in through payroll taxes.
But that surplus isn't a pile of cash waiting to be used. In fact, the money -- $1.5 trillion plus interest to date -- has already been spent.
In accordance with the law, the extra money Social Security takes in is loaned to the U.S. Treasury, in exchange for which it receives special-issue Treasury bonds. The actual cash goes into the government's general revenue pool.
The bonds are special because, unlike other government bonds, they can't be bought or sold on the open market, and they can be redeemed at any time at face value.
But just like other government bonds, the special-issue Treasurys pay interest and are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, which has never defaulted on its debt.
When Social Security looks to tap those special securities, starting in 2018, the government will have to come up with a way to pay the money....
SO, AGAIN, IT'S NOT THE WAY SOCIAL SECURITY IS SET UP. IT'S THE WAY CERTAIN ADMINISTRATIONS SHORT-SIGHTEDLY MISDIRECTED THE SUPLUS FUNDS MEANT TO SUPPORT IT THROUGH THE BOOMERS' RETIREMENTS.
[And now, back to dealing with immediate crises. Stay tuned for a report on how Alice Walker's new novel is keeping my spirit fueled -- despite the Publishers Weekly review.]
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Whew!
just got home after a week and a half at daughter's (to help her after surgery) and then grandson got very ill with high fever (waiting now to hear what today's blood tests show) and I had to stay longer than I planned and my mother wasn't happy staying where she was staying while I was away, so I leave daughter and sick grandson and go and get her and bring her home where the Crone is welcomed home by over a THOUSAND emails, 183 noted as Spam by Norton, 15 automatically deleted by my Message Rules, and, I'm sure, another 750 sitting in my inbox that are Spam and that I'm going to have to deal with -- after making my mom supper and the having a shot or two of Absolute.
bleh!
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