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1/1/2008: Something to ponder this election year:
The underlying existentialist philosophy of [Simone de]Beauvoir's memoirs...is that it is "bad faith" to look to another, whether a human being or a god, for a sense of salvation. As individuals we are free and we act in bad faith when [we] try to avoid our freedom. It is not easy, freedom. It brings with it the anguish of choice. It comes with the burden of responsibility.

Hazel Rowley, Tete a Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre




1/22/2008: My newly acquisitive self

I have been thinking a lot in the past few months about where I want the second half of my life to go—I'm nearly 40 and I figure, at best, I have 40 more good years ahead of me, so what do I want to do with it?

Well, the first thing is try to handle my money better in the second half of my life than I did in the first. Not necessarily because I want to be rich, but because I want to be happy, comfortable and satisfied.

As William de Vaughan once sang, I just want to be thankful for what I've got.

I realize my good fortune to be able to ponder this from a position of relative strength, which is better than most Americans can say right now. It's an interesting time to commit myself to no longer worrying about money—investments and 401Ks are bleeding like a sieve these days and the housing market is set to implode from the impact of lending practices that can be called loose at best and predatory at worst.

Unlike many Americans, I worked very hard to free myself of debt and ease my dependency on all forms of credit. I worked very hard to stop spending what I don't have on crap I don't need. I learned to save and, at this point, I've become quite addicted to watching my money grow.

Later today, I'm going to see a financial adviser. I'm willing to do whatever she says because I want to finally act like a responsible adult with money. I wish I'd been able to do visit her years ago, but at least I'm doing it.

Why is this so important to me right now? Well, I've been trying to figure that out. That, however, remains a work in progress. I'll come back to that question when I gain more insight.



2/22/2008: Some (very) random election thoughts

It has taken a while to write this—I've tried about three or four times—because every time I come up with a thought about this election year, something else happens that completely flips my perspective on it.

But this is what I love about it :

For the first time I recall, the candidates for each party haven't been handed to the populace on a silver platter in the December before the election year. People in the later primaries and caucuses are actually going to be able to have a say on who ends up on the ballot in November. This is as it should be.

And, because of this, people are excited about politics again. The populace is more engaged than they have been in a long time. Of course, they're no more informed than they were when they didn't give a crap, but at least they care.

For the first time since I started voting in 1988, the last ones standing were all people for whom I could comfortably cast a vote. While I know its anathema to their staunch supporters, I can vote for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain and still sleep well at night! The Democrats are down to two people who offer just what the nation needs after eight years of Bush/Cheney, and they are running against an experienced Republican who isn't a complete psycho! I had thought the GOP had driven all the folks I could live with out of the party in the 1990s.

It could be that my standards have lowered considerably after eight years of Bush/Cheney, but I'm not looking at any of them and saying, "Eh, I guess they're OK if that's all we have" mainly because I don't do that.

I've always been impressed by Hillary's drive and intelligence, as well as McCain's occasional pangs of integrity. While he doesn't quite reach the Eisenhower or Ford ideal of honesty and integrity, he's the closest we've come in years.

Well, what can I say about Obama? I've been impressed with him since learning that, on the day of the Virginia Tech massacre, he was able to toss away his stump speech and speak off the cuff. He not only knows when it's best to do that, he knows how to do that. I can't recall the last time a candidate was able to do that and not humiliate himself.

But he isn't just a pretty man who talks pretty. I believe he brings to the table a lot of awareness that everyone has overlooked or dismissed outright at this point. He went to school in Indonesia. He knows the Muslim world—and not in the way the Republicans and staunch Clinton supporters have been implying. He has actual African relatives he can contact. Firsthand knowledge of the Third World is more important than ever and that's what he brings to the table.

The "naïve" criticism makes me bristle. What the hell, really, is so naïve about actually opening a dialogue with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? It's called diplomacy, and just because we haven't done much of it in eight years doesn't mean he is naïve to suggest it. Who knows? It just may work—it certainly hasn't been tried.

* * *


This brings me to what I don't like about this election cycle:

The discomfort: You'd think I'd be used to it after unapologetically voting for Ralph Nader so many times, but I'm not. There is so much to be uncomfortable about this time around: Snippy comments about Hillary’s "bitchiness" or Obama's inexperience; occasional offhand comments that electing Obama will only get him assassinated—do you know something I don't? Last I checked, Deval Patrick and Douglas Wilder have survived these trigger-happy white supremacists who are just waiting for a black leader to shoot; the accidental "Osama" now and then; and, worst of all, overexcited supporters who can't understand either how I could still be on the fence or how is it all about what the delegates want because, well, don't we live in a democracy?

No, we don't. We live in a representative republic. I swear I will banish the next person who cries "but that's not democracy" to a high school civics class. Maybe this time they will listen.

The zero-sum thing: My mother always said there will never be a revolution of the "aggrieved" minorities and women because we all see everything as a zero-sum game— a gain for one is a loss for the others. Clinton, Obama and their supporters are playing this game and, honestly, it's making me flirt with casting my ballot for McCain.

As I alluded to earlier, the best thing for this nation right now, short of the second coming of someone like, say, Lyndon Johnson—who had management skills and vision, but look how much that has been appreciated—is a Democratic ticket with both Clinton and Obama. I know of no one who disagrees, but I also know of no one who won't, in the next sentence, stoke the zero-sum thing by saying it can only be a shared ticket with their candidate on top.

That's bull. If either Clinton or Obama cares more about the good of the country than their egos, they will happily share a ticket. If all goes well, we'll have a chance to get 12 to 16 years of what they have to offer. See, isn't it sounding better already?

It's up to the candidates, and their supporters, to start acting like adults and make this happen. Then it's up to the candidates, if they choose to share the ticket, to allow the other free rein to work to their strengths—not just subjugate the vice president to ceremonial posts, because that's a waste of the talents of both. If anyone deserves the benefits of a vice presidential post as powerful as Dick Cheney has made it, it is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. The nation would be so much better for it.

Which brings me to my last issue—the historical nature of the campaign or, more accurately, the flip side of it.

I love "making history" as much as the next person. The first campaign that truly excited me was second one in which I was allowed to vote—the 1989 Virginia gubernatorial race between Douglas Wilder and Marshall Coleman. I drove from Harrisonburg, Virginia, to my home precinct in Richmond and back—a total six hours, no small fete—to cast my vote for Wilder that day.

For me, it wasn't so much that Wilder would become the first black governor in the US since Reconstruction. That was nice, but this was personal: I voted for him because he's from my neighborhood and he and I share an alma mater, Armstrong High School. He spoke at our high school graduation nearly three years before as lieutenant governor. I don't think any member of the Class of 1986 recalls a single thing he said, but we were all happy he took the time to speak to us, knowing full well we weren't going to retain a bit of what he would say.

But making history can be a bitch, too, particularly when you're leading the fickle American public, whose historical memory constricts, it seems, by the second.

Hillary nor Obama should fear each other, a divided DNC, a swift-boating GOP or an assassins' bullet so much as the mess Bush has made: They have to clean it up. It took eight years for Bush/Cheney to make the mess, but will the fickle American public—who are losing their homes, their jobs, their net worth RIGHT NOW—have the patience to give Clinton or Obama (or both) the time it takes to try to fix it all? And what if the legislative branch doesn't cooperate?

And, if they fail to fix things in a "reasonable" timeframe, would that forever ruin the chances for women and/or blacks to hold the highest office?

People want to say "no," because they want to feel they are not sexist or racist. While that's adorable, speaking as someone who still feels in 2008 that she has to be twice as good to get a fraction of the recognition lavished on mediocre white men who do less—the answer is "yes."

Here's something that would never happen to most high-achieving minorities or women: You're just out of college and have an interview at a prestigious investment banking firm. When the head of the firm asks why you want to work there, you reply "Mr. [insert boss here], I don't even know what you do, but if you have such great-looking girls and intense guys, then I want to do it!”

Overlooking the human resources implications of such a remark, no minority nor woman would ever get away with being that stupid and unprepared and still be hired. But that's exactly how Blackstone Group Chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman got his first job at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, according to a James Stewart-penned profile in a recent edition of The New Yorker.

That Schwarzman left six months later after realizing how unqualified he was for the job wasn't much of a consolation, since no minority or woman would be given that time to come to the same realization and walk out the door on their own.

That this happened probably 30 years ago also isn't much consolation, because no minority or woman would have been able to be that woefully unprepared then to be hired, even as a proper token. Despite the assumption of the woefully unqualified affirmative-action hire, what most likely happens is that the hire is prepared for the interview to the hilt, is hired, and then is left to rot in an environment where he or she is just there to be part of the window dressing, not part of the culture.

And companies wonder why they don't retain qualified minority hires. No qualified person worth his weight in salt will ever be satisfied being mere window dressing.

Which brings me to my biggest fear: Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will be given the same chances of a John McCain. While it won't make me shy away from a Clinton/Obama ticket if providence allows it to happen, it will make me extraordinarily angry if their staunch supporters now get disillusioned if "change" doesn't come from day one.

I'm afraid—and I have no indication so far that my fear is unjustified—that both Clinton and Obama will have to fight against a stealth double-standard that will probably damage them, and women, and blacks, far more than anything they can throw at each other. There have been enough white men holding high office that the failure of, say, Richard Nixon, didn't turn people off white male politicians (perhaps Quakers, but then he wasn't exactly a model Quaker), but will the same happen for women, or blacks, if Clinton or Obama fail to walk on water?

It's a question that people seriously need to ask: Are they truly ready to make history by putting a women or a black—or anyone else other than an Ivy League-educated white man—in office? And it is not a question we should dismiss because we are uncomfortable with the answer.

I have been accused often in my life of being naïve—thus the bristling when the same word is applied to Obama—but I'm really a cynic. From what I've heard over the past few weeks, I truly don't believe the average American has evolved to the point that we are ready for such history to be made.

If we were, there would be no comments about Hillary's bitchiness or Obama's inexperience because we'd recognize the baggage attached to those comments. People who use them don't seem to understand how sexist or racist it is, or that it has been slung, indiscriminately and undeservedly, at women and blacks for generations.

In the case of inexperience, it's a disingenuous criticism to start with because George W. Bush has proven that a lack of experience doesn't matter.

Texans like the late Molly Ivins, Lou DuBose, Jim Hightower and Kinky Friedman have told us again and again that being governor of Texas isn't exactly a powerful executive position. Most leadership posts in Texas have more power than the governor. Yet Bush was deemed qualified enough to be the Republican pick in 2000.

So why not Obama? The man is clearly smarter than Bush. He survived the rough-and-tumble Chicago political scene and he didn't run a business into the ground.

If Americans are willing to give Hillary and/or Obama the same chance they'd give a white man in the same position—the same chance they’d give McCain—then we're ready, but what I'm gauging from all the pre-election talk is just how unready we are and that, frankly, puts a damper on all the excitement.

America, you don't want a politician or a president. You want Moses. Do you realize that Clinton and Obama are human, and unable to part the Red Sea?

If you think that's a ridiculous question, take a gander at the "Saint Barack" cover on the The American Conservative at a newsstand near you. Sarcasm or no, to me it's an ominous sign of what's to come.


3/4/2008: Nearly five years later...

We ultimately will pay at least $2 trillion to conduct the war in Iraq, which doesn't include health care and disability costs for veterans who are returning. I'm not even sure it includes what we spent in Afghanistan.

If that seems a surprise, it is because costs for the war have been concealed in plain sight—the insatiable war beast has been fed with a series of emergency appropriations that bypass the scrutiny of the budget process, but they have been reported in the media in little briefs that you've likely overlooked.

We've managed to continue to find funds for the war, but haven't managed to pass a proper budget in the last two fiscal years. It makes you wonder about our priorities.

According to Bob Herbert's March 4 New York Times column, the worst part is no one seems to want to acknowledge this 800-pound gorilla. We are equally silent about the consequences. It’s like we don't want to deal with it all.

This is dialogue we should be having now, not whether the time is right for a black or a woman to lead the country, which one supported the war or who voted for myriad resolutions to keep it going. That damage has been done.

No matter how you feel about the actual war, the nation needs to start addressing how much we've spent, whether that expense was worth it and whether the cause remains worthy enough to continue to burn money on it, particularly with our gaping budget deficit.

Separate from that, we also need to address how much we're going to spend to do right by the veterans who fought it. That money needs to be spent regardless of whether the war itself was worth it.

New York Democrat Charles Schumer's Joint Economic Committee held a hearing last week that I don't recall hearing about until Herbert's sobering column recounting it. Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz and Goldman Sachs vice chairman Robert Hormats weighed in on the war's costs: Stiglitz thinks the overall costs of the war will reach $3 trillion and has penned a book to that effect.

Put another way, that's $2 trillion to $3 trillion that won't be used to trim our escalating national debt. We aren't investing it in a safety net for the elderly, future elderly or the poor. We aren't even investing it in building human capital for the future. We aren't putting most of it in even health care and services for the folks who fought the war.

And, to make matters worse, we've passed a bill to give money we don't have so that people can spend money they don't have to boost our economy.

What kind of screwed-up system is this?


3/11/2008: RIP: James Woolfolk III, 1968-2008

One of my old St. Patrick schoolmates, James Woolfolk III, was buried today.

James, who had become a bail bondsman, was killed early last Thursday as he was trying to bring in someone who had skipped bail. He was shot three times and pronounced dead at the scene.


3/17/2008: Whatever happened to the invisible hand?

I spent a good part of the last few days calling people on Wall Street and in the government to ask one question: 'Can you try to explain this to me?' When they finished, I often had a highly sophisticated follow-up question: 'Can you try again?'

David Leonhardt, The New York Times



It really isn't difficult to understand how we got into this mess. For years, our economy has been an ever-rising house of cards—credit cards, to be exact. Houses of cards are vulnerable to the slightest movement and what we're having right now is the equivalent of a strong wind.

Is that a simple enough?

A coworker and I have been reading news stories, perusing indicators and saying for over a year that a big crash is inevitable because the economy was increasingly based on things that were not sustainable. We are not economists, I'm not even good at math, and we don't really understand all the products that caused this mess to start with, but we were able to come up with that fundamental notion without much deep thought while eating, so why can't Wall Street and government explain it in language a New York Times reporter can understand?

What I really can't grasp is why we just don't allow the free market to do its work? People were big fans of allowing the free market to work when the western energy crisis hit in 2000 and 2001, why, all of a sudden, are government bailouts all the rage?

You need energy to power and heat your home, but you don't necessarily need as many investment banks, particularly those that are not smart enough to reduce or alleviate their exposure to sub-prime mortgages when they knew those mortgages likely were a bad idea.

Nothing amuses me more than when free market proselytizers get into economic trouble—suddenly the free market isn't good enough anymore. Now government intervention is required before failure results in a major market collapse! If you're not smart enough to stay away from financial products that were too creative for your own good, don't you deserve to fail? Why should you get a pass, you big dummy?

So many people and institutions are in trouble now that it's affecting the global economy and making people feel like they can't spend money to boost the US economy, but if an economy is based solely on you buying things you cannot afford and don't really need, is it worth saving? Should you be happy about Federal Reserve actions that appease speculators and credit card junkies, but punish savers?

If you are putting savings in an Internet account, the recent Fed moves have lowered the interest you earn on your money by about 17%. If you're putting your savings in a credit union, you’re essentially just parking your money there as you would with any bank savings account—it isn't earning any interest.

You're doing what you're supposed to do, but since the stock market and consumer spending is deemed more important saviors to the overall economy than you actually doing the right thing and saving some of your earnings up front, you have to sacrifice the interest you earn on your savings for the greater good.

And people wonder why Americans don't save?

So yeah, screw the economic stimuli and the Fed getting further involved in boosting the economy. If investors are so darned nervous, they need to get into another line of work. If you're a consumer, there's nothing wrong with cutting your spending. Unless the Fed is going to give a lot of money to your bank to save you like they did JP Morgan Chase to save Bear Stearns, that's what you should do.

Let's let the invisible hand work, and shake out all these dumb-ass investment banks who can't discern a good investment from a bad one. If they can't do that simple task, they should be selling shoes anyway. Besides, they are required by law to have a separate account to hold investor money, so that's safe—and if it isn't, well, breaking the law is even more reason to let them die a deserving death.

The economy can only work properly, and for the greatest good of all, if the players abide by the rules and are transparent with their information. If they play by the rules, they get to stay. If they don't, they must leave and if we let the markets work—like we always say they should in much more essential things—they will.

I'd much rather use the market to shake out rogue investment bankers than use it to allow Grandma Milly to freeze to death because she can't get a reasonable price for energy.


3/18/2008: Was an explanation really needed?

You cannot effect change unless you attack the very thing that is keeping you down.

Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols and PiL


[Middle America] would never see what was going on if it was up to them. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ seems to be their credo.

Steven Tyler of Aerosmith



Something tells me that Johnny Rotten or Steven Tyler wouldn’t be too terribly shocked about what Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor, has said from his pulpit, but much of America has stumbled over themselves this past weekend to prove me right—that we are not ready for a black president.

Because if you're one of those people who are "thunderstruck" about what blacks say and believe when whites aren't around and further felt that Barack Obama had a little explaining to do as a member—or former member—of the Wright's congregation, then you're not ready for a black president.

If you can't handle, or understand, that black people can be a bit conspiratorial at times and perhaps still have some reason to be a little pissed off considering the nation's history, then you're just not ready to accept one as your leader.

Absolutely, there has been progress—I'm living proof—but that progress hasn't made life a bed of roses for all of us: we're still disproportionately incarcerated, impoverished and under-educated. Even those of us who are free, comfortable and well-educated likely have close family members who are not. If you have all the trappings of American success and your sister doesn't, then are you truly free? If you have all the trappings of American success and a white stranger still gets nervous as you pass her, are you free?

Don't get me wrong, Barack Obama's speech on race at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia was a work of oratory art. I concur that it raised the discourse on race a notch or two, but the most remarkable thing about the speech is that it had to be made at all after slavery, lynchings, the Civil Rights movement, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Ike, Rev. Jesse, Rev. Al, Louis Farrakhan, O.J., the L.A. riots, Public Enemy, Katrina and Jena 6.

What Wright said wasn't all that incendiary unless you've had your head in the sand since the 1950s, haven't cracked open a US history book in 20 years and never paid attention to the news or pop culture, particularly hip-hop. It truly is standard belief in the black community that there are numerous plots to hold us back, but as I said back around Katrina, the only reason I don't subscribe to these conspiracies is I truly am cynical about race in America. I don't believe the US government cares all that much about us to make the effort. God bless those, like Rev. Wright, who believe black people are just that important to the white man!

Wright is pissed off, I think he has good reason to be pissed off and I believe his service in the US military gives him every right to express how pissed he is! He has paid the dues to live his life by his namesake in the Bible—he has earned the right to criticize the US in hopes it will live up the ideals it was founded upon.

Just because Fox News is frightened by the prospect of a Democrat—much less a black male Democrat—in the White House and has made a big fat hairy deal of the fact that Obama spent some time in Wright's congregation, Obama has to make a speech to explain Wright and himself.

Well, screw that, Sean Hannity and the whole lot of the Fox crew: Obama doesn't need to explain himself any more than a Catholic parishioner has to explain why he still attends mass in the aftermath of the pedophilia scandal or why his wife still takes communion even though she uses birth control.

If black people who have attended Thomas Road Baptist Church years after Jerry Falwell preached his own brand of hatred from the pulpit don't have to explain why they choose to worship there and black Mormons don't have to explain why they worship in a faith that once considered them demon spawn, Obama doesn't have to explain his church attendance, either.

Bless him for doing it anyway and giving a brilliantly candid speech that told us what we should already know—Rev. Wright is a complex human being and while Obama doesn't always agree with him and his view of America, he isn't going to deny his associations with him, either. Wright's view of the world isn’t Obama's, but hey, that said, a lot of black people feel that way.

Yes, a lot of black people do feel that way and, if that makes you uncomfortable, perhaps you need to get out a bit more.


5/4/2008: Comedy and music! My two passions!

One of the things I like about the Washington area is there's at least one comedy club. Unfortunately, that isn't reflected in how often I go, which has only been twice since I moved here.

My first show was Taylor Negron about, oh, 10 or 11 years ago. I don't even think he's doing stand-up comedy anymore, but I remember it being a brilliant show. He killed and I'd kill to see him again.

I just broke my comedy dry spell with Marc Maron, who I have totally and completely adored just about all of my adult life. His show reminded me why I have always been passionate about comedy and music, despite there being precious little of either worth being passionate about these days.

I remain passionate because comedy and music are where I've always encountered truth and found God. I feel God completely when I see a superb show from a true talent. God is located when music takes you into a zone that exists outside your body. He is located when a comedian kills.

Don't let anyone tell you differently.

The best of the lot are not mere entertainers—they are priests and philosophers. Like priests and philosophers, they work hard and sacrifice for their art. They are open to the truth and not distracted by BS. They follow their hearts and are willing to bare their souls, if that's what it takes to be a conduit of God.

None of this can be manufactured and I am insulted that pop culture today keeps trying. You're not going to get the same sublime product by cranking so-called singers and comedians through on-air popularity contests. Anyone who loves the likes of Kelly Clarkson or Clay Aiken just doesn't freakin' get it.

It's not the mere ability to sing or tell jokes—hell, I can sing and tell jokes, but I'm not a comedienne and I'm not a singer. There's a difference between hitting the proper note and making the earth move when you open your mouth. If we learn the difference, perhaps something close to Heaven will dawn.


5/6/2008: Spanish es muy facil

Tell that to my left butt cheek.

I am taking a Basic Accelerated Spanish class until June 16, which is much of the reason I haven't been updating my rants. I actually love the class, but it has blown my routine to smithereens and I'm more exhausted lately than I've been in ages. After eight hours of work, I'm amazed that I can still speak passable English, much less anything remotely resembling any Romance language, when I come to class.

I am not a virgin to the language. I took three years of Spanish in high school and two additional semesters of intermediate-level Spanish in college, but ... it didn't take.

Learning other languages is a lot like how many corporations treat vacation: you either use it or lose it. I've used only three phrases—Hola, Como esta usted and con permiso—in nearly 20 years since I last stepped foot in a Spanish class. Granted, that's one more phrase than most people who've taken the language and haven't used it in two decades, but I think after four years of Spanish classes, I should be able to tell my Spanish-speaking vecinos when a bus is coming or direct them to where they want to go in Metro.

I hold myself to higher standards.

I've learned these past few weeks that much of language learning requires sequential logic, which has always been my Achilles heel. I'm more of a creative thinker—I tell bosses and such that they have to tell me, step by step, what they want me to do. Otherwise, my logic-defying thought processes take over, and no one wants that.

My inability to grasp sequential logic apparently gets in the way of mastering languages, all of which have an inherent logic. It also has gotten in the way of mastering music theory, math and English grammar, the latter of which is particularly ironic for someone who would become an editor. I can't do anagrams to save my soul, I can barely work crosswords and I suck at Scrabble. I'm afraid my brain just isn't wired that way.

It took me years to figure out why I am baffled by Scrabble and crossword puzzles despite the fact that I work with words—I live words, I love words, I am fascinated by words, I've always loved vocabulary and I was a school spelling champion for several years.

After I read Word Freak—about competitive Scrabble players—and watched the movie Word Play, it hits me: it isn't about words at all, it's about logic! The best competitive Scrabble and crossword players have mathematically wired brains that naturally grasp sequential logic. The words aren't as important as the patterns they represent.

That aside, my inherent lack of sequential logic comprehension is standing in the way of my Spanish comprehension and likely is why the language didn't take in the first place. It isn't the vocabulary nor is it verb conjugation. It's the niggling details, like where to place the definite and indefinite articles in a sentence, when to use ni, e and u, when to drop the "o" in ninguno and calculations—I can calculate, I can count in Spanish, but I apparently can't do both without an absolutely baffled look.

It is getting better. I managed earlier today hold my own in a conversation with a Salvadorian—who just happened to be a vecino as well—as we were awaiting a Washington-bound MARC train at the Camden Yards station in Baltimore. We probably understood each other because I was practicing Spanish and he was practicing English, but he did say, in Spanish, that I spoke his language very well and I understood him enough to reply "gracias."

And, not once, did I have to say mas despacio to grasp what he was saying. It's a very small victory, but it's why I wanted to take the class in the first place.


5/11/2008: Mother's Day blues...a continuing saga

A longtime friend, who lost his mother a few years before I had lost mine, warned me that I would "start hating Mother's day," but he had no idea just how much.

It's rough enough when you've lost your mother and people constantly remind you near that day to make sure you call your mother or buy her something because, after all, she brought you into this world. Their hearts are in the right place, I guess, but to me it's the equivalent of dancing a jig in front of a person confined to a wheelchair and then challenging them to get up and run a race.

When I kindly try to shut down the discourse by responding with a vague, but technically correct, "I don't have a mother," they turn the knife counterclockwise by saying "Don't be silly, everyone has a mother!"

OK, I was trying to be nice because you have no clue about me and I know that, but here goes: my mother is dead, you insensitive prick. Now get out of my face!

Of course, that's what I want to say every year, but I have to swallow it because the last thing I need is the faux sympathy that would inevitably follow. This person was enough of a jerk to think I was disrespecting my mother by not buying his stupid trinkets, but now he wants to be kind and sympathetic.

No, f**k you!

It has been 11 years since my mother passed and the assumptions that I have a living mother that I can call or visit doesn't annoy me quite as much anymore as the assumption, now I'm nearing 40, that I am a mother.

I am not a mother. Not only am I not a mother, but I intentionally avoided motherhood. I am happy and satisfied with my choice, so do not negate it by assuming otherwise.

Why can't we treat Mother's Day the same as Father's Day? Everyone has a father, too, but it is widely assumed that the relationship with our father is more ... complicated, so everyone seems to respond to Father's Day more like, "Hey if you have a father who is living and active in your life, great! If he didn't try to physically or emotionally beat you into submission within an inch of your life, even better! Get him something to show he's appreciated—how 'bout this stupid tie he will never wear?"

I like that. It assumes nothing.

But here's what seems to be forgotten every year around the second week of May: many people have complicated relationships with their mothers, too. We can't seem to fathom such things, but there are abusive, neglectful mothers. Some have abandoned their children. Some are just annoying and some were wonderful in just about every way, but have simply shuffled off their mortal coil.

Sometimes it's all of the above.

All I'm asking is that we be fair. That would make me feel much better when Mother's Day rolls around.

* * *


You see, my mother wasn't terribly fond of Mother's Day, either—she was born out of wedlock to a teenaged preacher's kid in the 1930s and abandoned to the care of one of her mother's childless sisters. So, there weren't many relationships as complicated as the one between my mother and grandmother.

My grandmother also was an alcoholic and my mom was the only child she had "abandoned"—my grandmother managed to raise all of mom's half siblings and most of their children, but my mother and her progeny were notable exceptions.

When I attended my grandmother's funeral—which was about nine months after my mother's—and heard the minister praise her for all the childrearing she did in her lifetime, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. If my mother had lived to see that, she would have done the same.

To further complicate things, my mother and grandmother had some weird competitive thing going on, which manifested itself in my lifetime with the obligatory Mother's Day call that my mother made to my grandmother. My mother had been ill throughout my life from kidney stones, renal failure and their complications. She was in and out of hospitals and constantly in pain, but it was never as bad as whatever was going on with my grandmother.

When mom lost a foot and her leg a couple years before her death, she managed to joke that she dreaded the Mother's Day call that year because grandma probably would be a stump in a wheelchair.

Needless to say, the complicated relationship extended to me and my half siblings. When searching for a birthday card for my grandmother a few months after my mother's death, I had a hard time choosing something because every Hallmark moment assumed a loving, wise, nurturing, supportive person—my grandmother's polar opposite.

What about those of us who wanted to say "You're a crazy, drunk ol' bat, but I'm wishing you happy birthday anyway because we managed to share genes through no fault of our own and you occasionally say something that isn't cruel and makes me laugh."

So when you feel compelled today, or any other Mother's Day, to cheerfully say "Happy Mother's Day" to random female strangers, please do your best to control that urge. You'll never know who will meet such a well-intentioned greeting with a hostility that is absolutely justified.


5/4/2008: Would you like to change the world, but you don’t know what to do?

I've just completed John Perkins's The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals and the Truth about Global Corruption. Most of it is a pretty depressing look at what the US government has done in our name in the past—with assists from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—in the service of "free trade" around the globe.

If, nearly seven years later, you're still pondering why people around the world hate us, this book is pretty much all you need. Here's a hint: it isn't because they're jealous of our democracy, it's more like when they manage to have democracy we go out of way to undermine it.

So, in the interest of doing what the author has asked, I want to share the best part of the book with you.

John Perkins's ways to help change the world:

Here's your incentive: discussing and factoring in the cost of externalities make local products less expensive than imported goods, many of which have vastly steeper externalities.

So here are my expansions to the list

  • We all fear at least one thing that is keeping us from reaching our full potential. Lose that fear!
  • Invest in language study, preferably with a native speaker, and try to speak it as well as you can. It will not only help you become a better world citizen, but will boost your human capital.
  • Once you reach a level where you're comfortable, go somewhere where you HAVE to use the language and get better. It doesn't involve traveling far—I only need to go three blocks to use Spanish—but don't be afraid to put yourself in a position to use it. It's the only way it will stick.
  • Read something challenging.
  • I can't emphasize the prior point enough: Stop reading books that only bolster what you already believe—they are fine for the occasional inspiration, but don't rely solely on them or you'll be blindsided by reality, which defies ideologies.
  • Use the library. Use the library. USE THE DAMNED LIBRARY!!!
  • If you don't use the library because you don't think it meets your needs do something about it: volunteer, donate your books, donate money if the library relies on private donors or suggest materials for it to acquire.
  • Think and always examine and challenge what you already think.
  • Think before speaking. Make sure what you want to say is what you truly want to say, if it isn't, silence is a great alternative.
  • Always remember The Staple Singers: "If you disrespect everybody that you run into, how in the world do you expect anybody's gonna respect you?"
  • The same goes for the planet—treat it like your mother. After all, it is.
  • Live in the present. Be alert to your surroundings.

    5/26/2008: Hillary-or-die!?! Hold on a minute!

    "It takes a second to wreck it, it takes time to build, we gots to chill."

    Beastie Boys, "Time To Build"



    I know I said earlier that I wouldn't have an issue with the prospect of any of the three remaining presidential candidates becoming president, but let me clarify that it is just resignation to a continuation of a status quo that I've already managed to survive for eight years.

    While I don't want Hillary to quit—and I don't think she should until all the primaries are complete—I will vote for Obama if he's the candidate.

    Not because I'm black and he's a brother (Hell, I am a woman, Hil's a sister, and sexism is more deeply entrenched that racism), but there is no way in hell I'm voting for John McCain.

    On that note, the diehard supporters of both candidates can kiss my butt. I am not supporting John McCain if Hillary isn't getting the nomination and I'm not supporting McCain if Obama isn't getting the nomination. I have my share of pride, but not to the point of stupidity.

    John McCain, granted, is a bit smarter than George W. Bush, despite the fact that he seems to be falling over himself to prove otherwise for the sake of Christian conservatives unwilling to vote for him anyway. That said, he has no interest in stopping a war that I think needs to be ended as soon as possible. For that reason alone, he won't be getting my vote: no way and no how.

    But Jeffrey Toobin gives a better reason the Hillary diehards need to just chill.

    It is not just any old scare tactic. John McCain took a page from the Bush playbook on this one—he made the dastardly smart move of taking advantage of a distracted media to make a speech about exactly what he plans to do with The Supreme Court.

    If Toobin wasn't paying attention, no one would know McCain's plan until it was too late, because no mainstream media covered it.

    As we already know after eight years of Bush, if the masses aren't going to like it, the only way it can still happen is if you do it without calling any attention to yourself. Obfuscate, pass it overnight, ram it through without giving anyone a chance to look at it, and if all else fails, just make it Top Secret, but not doing it because the public won't like it isn't an option.

    In my humble opinion, if McCain knows how to do this and still can sleep soundly each night, he knows how to skirt the rule of law as well, just like Bush. If I didn't know better, I would think Karl Rove was calling the shots.

    Folks, aren't you tired of this crap? Aren't you tired of the arrogance of paternalistic business-as-usual agents of corporatocracy feeding you gruel in the dark because they're too afraid that if they turn on the light, you might throw it back in their faces?

    McCain isn't a maverick anymore and he needs conservatives now more than ever. They're not going to buy from McCain the b.s. that Bush delivered about being born again and relying on a higher power. He'll have to deliver and he has made it clear to anyone who listened—apparently very few—exactly what he plans to do. I, for one, don't like it one bit. I've had reproductive rights all my life and I'm not sacrificing it by scaring the public into making sure that my candidate will be sworn in as president in January 2009.

    So, no, I don't want Hillary to quit if she is close and I'm sure the party will survive a race that goes through June, but Hillary's supporters—and Obama's supporters—also need to be realistic. There can only be one. Something will have to give.

    As I've said before, a shared ticket is my fervent prayer and, honestly folks, the only rational path. We need an Obama-Clinton or a Clinton-Obama ticket. We need whoever wins to be gracious enough to give the other first dibs at the slot and the other to have the dignity to accept it for the good of the party and the good of the nation.

    Just please, Democrats, stop panicking! You have a long history and survived many campaigns far more contentious than this one. Just, for once, do what you need to do to save the country from four more years of Republicans and don't crash and burn yourselves in the process. That's all I ask.


    7/4/2008: Celebrating Independence Day in my own patriotic way(s)…

    First of all, I'm spending the bulk of my weekend reviewing for another Spanish class that will start Monday. In doing so, I guess I'm celebrating not only our nation's diversity, but rebelling against one of the worst things about the US and its citizens—our lack of curiosity about the rest of the world.

    Since we tend not to be kind to nature, either—we attempt to conquer it, not commune with it—I'll spend my weekend being extremely kind to my cat, who lately has been feeling every one of his 17 (about 84 human) years and staying mindful of the beauty of my natural surroundings. As I do each day, I will continue to walk and take public transport to my holiday destinations and continue to find ways to reduce my carbon footprint.

    And third, I'm going to read books that any patriotic American would shun, to his peril.

    OK, so I do that anyway, but one of the books I'm reading currently is Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy, which already has caught my eye, and imagination, with this little-considered rationale for the use of weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq:
    Included in the United Nations sanctions imposed in the early 1990s were provisions that development of the big Iraqi oilfields could not be signed over to foreign companies. On one hand, this gave the French, Russians and Chinese an incentive to get Iraq from under the sanctions, but on another part of the Middle East playing field, the key allegations that enabled the US and Britain to keep sanctions in place were—what else?—Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Without WMD, the UN might have scrapped the sanctions, and the rivals of the US and Britain would have gotten the "biggie" oilfields. In short, even as the weapons drumbeat was significantly tied to oil, and senior officials firmly convinced of WMD existence must have understood that link. [emphasis mine]
    It's just about the only explanation that really makes sense, isn't it?

    This isn't just about the lie that the invasion wasn't about oil, nuh-uh, no way, don't even think it. We all knew that was b.s., but the recent opening up of the Iraqi oilfields to foreign companies does give one pause for thought, doesn't it? Who would get first dibs? Would it be the oil majors that are based in the nations that "liberated" Iraq in the first place?

    But that was just in the introduction. It gets better when Phillips later describes the oil "maps," which, oddly enough, the American troops secured at the same time the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad was being looted within an inch of its existence:
    From the 1930s to the 1960s, in the words of oil historian Anthony Sampson, the reorganized Middle East had "two kinds of maps: some showing the names and outlines of the nations, most of them comparatively new; and others showing the region cut up into squares along the coast, marked with initials—IPC, KOC, ARAMCO, AOC—representing the consortia of oil companies, nearly always including some of the Seven Sisters."
    "Seven Sisters" is the archaic nickname for the world's largest private oil majors. "Archaic" because it's no longer seven: Chevron has swallowed a couple of its old oil sisters and Exxon and Mobil are now one company, but I digress:
    To the companies it was these squares [that] were the real geography. Saudi Arabia was Aramco-land; Iran meant all the seven; Kuwait was Gulf (note: now a part of Chevron, which is formerly Standard Oil of California) and BP.
    OK, if you have any sense of history whatsoever, the plot thickens. If you need a bit of a hint, Kuwait was the country we "liberated" from Saddam Hussein back when Poppy Bush was president. Was it truly to kick Saddam out of a sovereign nation, or to protect the interests of US-based Chevron and UK-based BP?

    I'll paraphrase a bit at this point. Back in the 1970s, there was a lot of nationalization of oil assets, similar to what Hugo Chavez has been doing lately in Venezuela. For the most part, "nationalization" means the assets are used by the nations that have them and foreign companies are cut out of the deal unless they use a portion of the profits for the benefit of the people in the nation where the resources are based. In other words, you want to drill in Venezuela, what are you going to do, in return, for the Venezuelans?

    If you're progressive, well, who better to share in the profits than the people who live in the land where the resources are located? Corporations and free-marketers don't think that way. Doing something for the folks who live in the land you exploit leaves less profit for you, you can only exploit the resources so much, you can't do whatever you want (like kick indigenous people off land that you covet for its oil reserves) and, to add insult to injury, you have to kowtow to some radical (Que horror!) who is stupid enough to want to help the poor at the expense of these oil majors, who are just trying to help . . . .

    This brings us to Iraq. Somehow, it was only able to produce heavily in the 1970s. Every other decade, its production was dogged by some outside circumstance—an oil glut and weak oil pricing in the 1930s and 1940s, a war (which also stanched Iranian oil output) in the 1980s and UN sanctions in the 1990s. So essentially, Iraq is considered an oil "underachiever"—its resources are far from tapped out.

    Now I'll bring you back to Phillips for the rest of the story:
    As the dust from the first Gulf War settled, oil companies from Texas to China began wondering which among them would gain access when the United Nations sanctions were lifted. By 1995, the The Wall Street Journal and other publications were reporting the American fear: that if Saddam Hussein could escape UN sanctions and give Iraq's lush concessions to non-Anglo-American companies, he could realign the global oil business. [emphasis mine]
    If you have read enough John Perkins (the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man), you know that this is enough of a threat to send in the jackals to make life more difficult for Saddam (since we *cough* aren't allowed to *cough* assassinate anymore), but we bypassed the jackals and brought in the military, twice, because by golly, we meant business!
    In the meantime, UN sanctions were essential in preventing Iraq from exporting oil beyond the middling amount allowed and also in preventing competitive foreign investments. So long as the United States and Britain could keep these sanctions in place, using allegations concerning weapons of mass destruction, Saddam could not implement his own plan to extend large-scale oil concessions (estimated to be worth $1.1 trillion) to French, Russian, Chinese and other oil companies. Most analysts concluded that he hoped to enlist those three nations, which had seats on the UN Security Council, to get the sanctions lifted.[emphasis mine]
    Now we know why France, Germany and Russia were "old Europe" who "just didn’t get it." They got it all right. They knew that WMD was b.s. used to keep them out of the party. And the neutral international agencies in charge of investigating these things couldn't find WMD because there wasn't any to start with.

    With all that said, how does that grilled meat taste now?

    * * *


    After all that, I feel compelled to end positively, by celebrating and appreciating the true patriots—not the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfelds and Wolfowitzes who got us into this mess, but the folks who have been fighting against the "American right or wrong" tide to get us out of the mess and try to make all the wrongs right.

    I want to first give a belated appreciation of two recently deceased men who are absolutely part of the reason I am who I am—George Carlin and Utah Phillips.

    John Nichols of The Nation wrote a great appreciation of Carlin and his immense cultural impact on the generations who followed. I could never hope to duplicate what Nichols wrote because I've never had the good fortune to have interviewed George Carlin. I met him once, I think I said something stupid, but he didn't berate me and signed my copy of Brain Droppings anyway. For that I am thankful.

    Musician Ani Difranco brought Utah Phillips to my attention at the end of the 1990s. Listening recently to his "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" from 1996, which is one of my favorite spoken word CDs, has convinced me that what Phillips did was just keep the messages I got from Carlin in the early 1970s alive in my adulthood, when cynicism was just starting to take over.

    I've come to realize that both Carlin and Phillips were contemporaries of my mother, who introduced me to Carlin in the first place and brought me to the mental place where I could also accept what Phillips was saying years later. Is there something about the 1930s that churned out people who were able to think for themselves? If the people born in the 1920s, like my dad, were the Greatest Generation, what do we make of these, well, obstructers and freethinkers? Was being born in the Great Depression somehow a radicalizing mark?

    I don't know, but I thank goodness for it and it frightens me that these people are leaving behind an unthinking, unquestioning, un-curious populace.

    It isn't about education. Young people today are in line to become the best educated generation ever—they have to be to get anywhere now. Carlin, however, only went as far as ninth grade. Most of Phillips' education was outside of the conventional classroom, learning songs and stories and life's lessons from tramps, Wobblies and Catholic Workers. Yet they both imparted so much rich knowledge. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

    But on to the living—Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich is single-handedly trying to keep impeachment on the table to no avail and for that reason alone he deseves to keep his seat. Alas, I live in Maryland, not Ohio, and cannot help, but I have read the resolution and applaud his cojones and pray, truly pray, that he continues to represent Ohio.

    Speaking of prayers, mine have been answered as my representative is no longer Albert Wynn, but Donna Edwards, who overwhelmingly won a special election to replace him after soundly trouncing him in the primaries. As an independent, I could not vote in the primaries and I completely forgot about the special election, yet she made it anyway.

    The times really are a-changin', and not a moment too soon!


    8/29/2008: Random Labor-Day-Weekend Thoughts:

    What is everyone's problem with Michelle Obama? Why do people think she needs an image makeover?

    I may be hot and cold over Barack, but Michelle is his best part and I will vote for him because he's smart enough to be married to her. Yes, insulting Michelle gets my hackles up in a way that insulting Barack never will, because if you attack her, you attack me and every other strong black woman out there.

    For the record, I feel the same way about Condoleeza Rice. I will grant a certain evilness about her, but never NEVER say she's incompetent and, if you value your life, NEVER say that what she needs is a good man. She's secretary of the freakin' state, she has more important work to do than coddle some man's ego. Perhaps, in her current job, she's coddling male egos in a way that actually could make a difference.

    * * *


    The best thing Barack Obama said in his amazing speech last night is that it isn’t all about him, it’s all about us. If you doubt it, consider this: when was the last time you recall that people came across country to hear a man speak? Can you say about 40 years ago? This is bigger than us all and I’m happy to be able to see it happen when I’m still young enough to care.

    * * *


    Isn’t it just like a 72-year-old Republican male to pick someone like Sarah Palin for a running-mate, in a delusional belief that she’s the proper salve for Hillary Clinton supporters?

    Are you kidding me? This woman makes Barack Obama look like a veteran pol. Outside of the very remote possibility that she can manage to get every American the same sweetheart deal the citizens of Alaska have for allowing oil and gas companies to rape their land, I’m not sure how much help she’d be to John McCain.

    Joe Biden, first of all, will have her for lunch, but of course the GOP is going to say he’s picking on a nice motherly type, which will ironically prove my point that she’s not up to the task but not before Biden does something stupid like apologize for treating her like an actual contender.

    One good thing comes of it—McCain can no longer say with a straight face that Obama has problems with judgment.

    * * *


    Michael Jackson is the big 5-0. Oddly that seems disturbing, then I realize that Prince and Madonna also either hit 50 or are going to in the next 12 months.

    Why is it that, although I’m 10 years younger, I suddenly feel old with this knowledge? Is it because I first saw them all as kids?

    I don't know, but whatever it is I need to get it out of my head before it explodes!


    11/24/2008: Consider this a very slow blog...

    Admittedly, it has been months since I contributed to my blog, but I learned in The New York Times that there is a "slow blog" movement going on. If true, not only am I on the cutting edge, I vastly exceed expectations—this is, perhaps, the slowest blog ever!

    While we're on exceeding expectations—I hear there was a historic election recently! It's finally over and for the first time in eight years, the result doesn't make me cringe! Yes, I am incredibly proud that Barack Obama won, but I still think electing the man was akin to giving him a teaspoon to fill the gaping hole to China that George W. Bush is leaving behind.

    But, you know, I will take Obama with the spoon over Bush. Any day.

    So the question remains: what has kept me offline so long?

    Well, we start with an iPod upgrade.

    Since 2005, I have had "the stick"—the original pre-generation (I discovered) Ipod shuffle, which was given to me as a birthday gift by my friend Kim, who swore it would "change my life." It didn't, because I'm too much of a music buff to be satisfied with only 120 songs, but it did make working out more tolerable for three years while I waited for Apple to catch up with what I really wanted.

    This is why I'm not a first adapter to new technology. Whatever it is, it is never how I really want it when it debuts and I wind up paying too high a psychic and physical cost for a product that not only doesn't meet my standards, but likely will more than meet those standards if I just sat tight for a while.

    So, in the case of the iPod, I did.

    Eventually I was rewarded with several of my favorite colors (purple, green, chocolate brown and orange—I settled for purple) at a reasonable price and with a reasonable amount of capacity. I had enough capacity on this contraption to kill the hard drive on my old computer, but not enough to fill the Ipod at first try. I still have about 2 GB left.

    So, first I was obsessed with filling my iPod before two major trips, then my hard drive died, which resulted in two weeks of hard drive resuscitation so I wouldn't have to go back to the drawing board on the iPod project, then another period of trying to get my lovely new computer up to something resembling my old specifications.

    This remains a work in progress. In four words: I hate Windows Vista. With all the heart I lack, being an official heartless bitch and all.

    So I'm doing my blog on a notepad, because Windows Vista Basic Home version lacks a document program, I guess because people with home computers never write. Not even a letter. They also never do budgets, because it also lacks a spreadsheet file. Luckily, I'm a decent speller, but I'd give a good appendage for a grammar check.

    Meanwhile, I hit a milestone birthday—I joined the "40-and-fabulous" club October 29 and spent it with three of my longtime girlfriends at the refurbished Fontainebleau on Miami Beach. After a recovery period of what felt like a day and a half, but was more like a week, I then hopped a plane for Arizona, where I covered an Edison Electric Institute financial conference, spent a couple hours in the same (large ball)room with T. Boone Pickens and spent another five days recovering from that at a friends' place in Sedona.

    Every trip to Sedona brings new surprises. The first time I went, in 2005, everything was new because I'd never been to the desert before. Last year, my second trip, I saw my first dust devil and roadrunner. This time, I was awakened by a family of javelinas gnoshing on my friends' backyard prickly pear. Luckily there was a wall between us, but the sight was pretty cool.

    Then, while there, I learned that I had to put my father into an assisted living facility, because his experiment with living alone again in his 80s failed miserably. So there were power-of-attorney and adjustment issues associated with that. Those are ongoing as well. It's pretty difficult to be reminded, in the space of a few months, that the end is near for both the only parent you have and your feline baby. My Hunter is virtually the same age as my dad, in cat years, and both are equally bratty and cantankerous, so there's no escape for me.

    So my weeks have been filled with plenty to do outside of very slow blogging. I plan to be more active in the next year, because I'm planning soon to resolve all my technological issues with some tweaking, some purchasing of more useful programs (possibly even going back to Windows XP) and an external hard drive to keep my iTunes so, if I have another drive meltdown, or if some bozo walks off with my iPod, I don't have to start from scratch.


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