Cain Has Been Thomasized

 It was bound to happen.  Herman Cain was getting too popular.  He was showing some cojones when he aired one of the dumbest campaign ads of all time and succeeded in having every talking head on North America scratching his or her head, true, but talking about Herman Cain nonetheless.

Even after he had what I consider a faulty outing at the most recent Republican free-for-all debate, Cain’s popularity continued its baffling ascent.  Something had to be done to stop this outsider, this “Oreo” with a coating of smarm charm.

Monday morning’s lead news report on NBC was “Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Scandal.” zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  What took you so long, Mitt?

When Cain was the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 90s, at least two female employees complained about alleged inappropriate, sexually charged behavior from the pizza man.  As was the norm back in the day, the women were paid to leave their jobs after signing agreements barring them from talking about the circumstances of their “resignations.”  Cain, of course, kept his position.

Why am I not shocked and dismayed?  Please.  I entered the work force in 1966.  A not-too-ugly black and female college graduate with oh-so-much potential for curing what ailed corporate America.  I was subjected to so many sexual innuendos and forms of flat-out harassment based on gender, I thought  it was another form of the hazing I had recently undergone to gain access to a sorority membership.  It became the stuff that spawned hit TV shows like Mad Men.

Thirty years later, with all the laws and corporate codes of conduct in place, women were safe from the leering and groping, the cartoons and the lunch-table jokes, and the unspoken but loudly clear suggestions about loss of jobs and such.  Right?  Hah!

I was a young divorced mother of a three-year-old son when I was lured away from my prestigious public relations job at the University of Chicago by a suave and reasonably handsome executive director of a community organization.  He offered to practically double my salary if I left and became the PR director at his non-profit. Where do I sign, was my only response.

How was I to know that the man was staffing his entire organization with young single woman with children?  All the executives, however, were men – younger, ambitious and too-busy-to-be-bothered-with-women men. 

It wasn’t very long before he started making, shall I say, unusual requests. “Let’s meet over breakfast at 7 a.m.“ “We’ll go over those press releases at dinner tonight.”  “Close the office door so we don’t get disturbed.”

The day he decided to make his move, he literally chased me around the desk.  I kept running and said something like “Whoa, Mr. F.  I don’t play that.”  Later that day, I made an appointment to take the management test at Illinois Bell Telephone Company.  When I was ultimately hired in their sales and marketing department, I gave Mr. F two weeks notice. He asked where I was going.  I refused to tell him.  He had already sabotaged a new job for my predecessor in retaliation for spurning his advances.  No way was I going to aid and abet my own demise.

When the courageous Anita Hill blew the whistle on her own sexual harassment by Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas,  the good-old boys in Congress decided to give him a pass and confirmed him anyway.  A black Republican got a job for life, whereas any ordinary black man would have been vilified by the same crowd simply for being married to a white woman. One can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Anita Hill was white herself.

It is not clear what the race of Cain’s accusers might be, but I don’t think it will matter much this time.  I predict there will be no pass for Cain.  Instead, I think he has just received his ticket out of the race.  If I am right about suspecting Romney’s camp as the source of this revelation about Cain’s indiscretions,  Herman Cain will be slinking off into the sunset wearing that black cowboy hat we saw him in last week.

What's the difference?  Expediency.  Clarence Thomas was used by conservatives, in spite of his obvious flaws, to fill a diversity void on the Supreme Court  without having to add another liberal justice.  Herman Cain is in somebody's way.  He is blocking the yellow brick road to the White House, AND he doesn't play by the rules.  He's gotta go.  Whatever his allure is to the right -- and I still believe it is the prospect of pitting one black man against another -- this indsicretion and subsequent coverup is too much to overcome.

Battered Soldier Inspires Me

 

I have a new hero.  I found him in one of the most unlikely places, but I found him and I am smitten.

Meet  Jose Rene Martinez, better known as “J.R.“  If you happen to be a soap opera addict, you already know him as the character Brot Monroe on All My Children.  I haven’t watched a soap since Soap went off the air back in 1981, so I didn’t know Mr. Martinez’s story until he joined this season’s Dancing With the Stars cast.

This Louisiana-born (1983) cutie-pie with El Salvadoran roots went to high school in Dalton, Georgia, where he excelled in football.  When he was permanently sidelined by an injury, his NFL dreams dashed, J. R. joined the U.S. Army.  This is what he looked like when he left home:

In February 2003, J. R. was deployed to Iraq. Two months later, he was serving as a driver of a Humvee when the left front tire hit a landmine and he suffered smoke inhalation and severe burns to more than 40 percent of his body.  Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in San Antonio, Texas. He spent 34 months at Brooke Army Medical Center and has undergone 33 cosmetic and skin-graft surgeries.  Today, he looks like this:

Of course J. R. went through a hellish period of grief and depression, worrying that his life as he knew it was over and he would be alone and unlovable because of his scars.  But after talking a younger burn victim off an emotional ledge in the hospital, Martinez realized the good he could do and started helping other people.  He parlayed a successful motivational speaking career into the role on All My Children, which he began in 2008.

A personality that lights up whole city blocks was not taken by that land mine.  Far from self-conscious about his missing ear and disfigured face, his smile shines through it all while he is tearing up the DWTS dance floor, landing at or near the top of the leader board each week. 

Jose Rene Martinez, you are my idea of a hero.  Thank you for your service, your sacrifice and your shining example of courage.

Murphy's Car Wash Law

My Bichon Frise Coqui says "I didn't do it!"

I washed my car Sunday for the first time in, oh, two or three decades, maybe.

Back before I became a poor senior citizen, my 2005 baby blue baby was always garaged and always detailed by Atlanta's number one car wash.  Dirt didn't have a chance to settle on the shiny metallic surface before it was shampooed off in the all-rag luxury shower at Cactus Car Wash.

These days, I have no garage.  I have no money to fritter away on precarious luxuries.  And I have no shame.  So out came the bucket, the mild detergent, the old bath towels and the leaky garden hose, because I could no longer ignore the thickening trail dust and oak tree excretions befouling the once-pampered vehicle sitting in the elements outside my rented townhouse door.

Now, we all know how these things work.  Want it to rain?  Leave your umbrella at home.  Or wash your car. Don't tell me you've never noticed this law.  It's got to be some kind of a law, because I can count on one hand the number of times I have had the car washed and it hasn't rained within 48 hours, at the most.

This time I tried to beat the odds by checking not one, but three weather forecasts – the Weather Channel, the Internet and a newspaper.  All I could see were pictures of sunlight, with nary a cloud in sight.  The earliest rain in the forecast was far into next week. Surely the odds were in my favor.

Since I am within two weeks of being 67 years old, it is not wise for me to expend huge quantities of energy frivolously.  For one thing,  I don't have huge quantities of energy to expend.  More like miniscule spurts.  And my recovery time is such that I wouldn't be able to repeat the task comfortably for another month.  By then my foot should have stopped throbbing, my shoulders would have unlocked their muscles and my back would allow me to walk to the storage shed to retrieve the bucket again.

I soaped her up lovingly, enjoying the spectacle of soap against dirt. I used an old toothbrush on the wheel rims to release the sooty brake dust. I went over the whole car twice, rinsed it thoroughly and dried it with Downy-infused bath towels whose colors no longer served my purposes. That step back we all take to admire our great work was supremely satisfying.

The very last thing I was expecting when I threw open the front door this morning to leave for my semi-annual dental appointment was to see beads of water dancing in the sunlight on the hood of my car.  The pavement was wet in spots, but not all over the parking lot.  Dammit!  I thought the automatic sprinklers had somehow caused the crime, but a quick inspection proved me wrong. Besides, now that I thought about it, the back patio floor had been wet, too.

Looking around the parking lot, I was not able to find one other car that was similarly doused.  What the…????  There was no other explanation.  It had happened again.

I don't know if this is a phenomenon reserved only for certain states, but this is the only place I've been besides Honolulu where it can rain in one spot while the sun shines brightly all around me.  One charcoal gray cloud will roll in like a drunk and take a random leak long enough to make a mess, but quietly enough to go unnoticed.

Have you noticed how much better your car runs after it has been washed?  Mine was still in a pretty good mood, so the trip to the dentist was pretty smooth.   Until I forgot the dentist had moved.

Sandwich Meat

 

It has become the question I dread most.  It screams judgment and pre-determined disapproval.  “How long since you visited your mother?”

From where I sit, that question is based on so many assumptions, any answer I give is guaranteed to make an ass of only me.  Since my mother is 87 years of age, suffers from multiple sclerosis and severe scoliosis and lives alone in a bi-level house located 700 miles from here, my sister and I are expected to assure her comfort and safety.  To many, how we are doing in that regard is based upon how many times we gaze upon her face up close and personal.

I know I’m not alone when I say I feel like a slice of salami squashed between two slices of Wonder Bread.  Many fifty and sixty-somethings struggle with their dual roles as parents of adult children and as adult children of elderly parents.  We find ourselves so awash in external expectations and filial/parental duties, we wonder why we were delusional enough to expect to spend our retirement indulging some of our long-postponed pleasures, some of which might even be considered guilty pleasures.

I won’t launch a rant about how wrong it is for people to sit or stand in judgment of others – this time.  Instead, I’d like to offer some facts that make such judgment a waste of meddling time for people who would be better served meddling in some other aspect of other people’s business.

For starters, you’d have to know my mother.  Her body has forsaken her, but her mind, especially the part of it that governs her lack of flexibility, is still very much intact. And, yes, I meant to say “lack of flexibility,” for it has been one of her personality traits for as long as I can remember. This is a woman who will sit on her butt and scoot down a set of stairs instead of risking a fall, but who refuses to consider using a walker, much less the power scooter or wheel chair she really needs. 

Back in the late 90s, when Mama was around 75 and not too long after my stepfather died, she fell in the bathroom and ruptured her spleen.  Just a few months before that, the doctor had discovered a mass in her abdomen which required exploratory surgery.  Because my sister and I both live in Georgia, we persuaded Mama to come here to have the surgery so we could look after her while taking care of our responsibilities here.  She seemed to enjoy the two-month visit and the attention she claims not to want. 

So when the call came in to report her bathroom accident, my sister and I decided to locate a one-story house somewhere in the Atlanta Metro area and move Mama from Illinois to Georgia, so we could look after her.  She agreed, we located a cute cluster home, put down earnest money and began to plan the move.  One night after dinner Mama called in tears.  She couldn’t do it.  She hated Georgia.  It was too hot.  She doesn’t know anybody in Georgia.

My sister and I were livid.  Did we understand how overwhelming the idea was to her of just packing up the house she’d lived in for 25 years ?  Of course we did.  We also understood how independent she wished to remain, and the idea of having us close enough to investigate her true welfare at will had to have been difficult for her.  But it was the only solution my sister and I could make work at the time.

After that storm gradually blew over, I told our mother the following:  “It is clear to us that you don’t want us looking after you or trying to get you out of your beloved house.  From now on, we will only step in when you ask for our help.  We get that you are not ready for the role-reversal that seems to be happening; we probably won’t like it much either when our sons try it.  Is that the way you would prefer we go forward?”  She responded with a relieved yes.

When well-meaning (and not-so-well-meaning) people ask us how we can allow Mama to live alone with all her physical challenges, I ask “how can we not?”  She pays her bills, arranges for in-home help with shopping and cleaning, has a visiting nurse and a doctor who makes house calls, and spends her time reading piles of books and watching movies I provide.  Who am I to decide she must disrupt her routine, uproot herself to move into a place that she feels will “take over her life” (we would now prefer she choose assisted living, if we can afford it – a HUGE if.)  She is not incompetent; just frail.

No, we don’t get to see each other as much as other people apparently think we should.  The same is true of my son and me.  None of us can afford to make frequent trips cross-country, but we do stay in touch in every other way.  All of us have been determined NOT to fall prey to the relentless guilt trips my grandmother employed with her children in her later years. Everyone deserves a life.   

If my mother wants to see us, she will tell us, but the truth is she seems to try to discourage us from visiting. She is very uncomfortable with the way she looks, all hunched over and twisted.  She moves on a cane at a pace a snail would consider too slow.  As a result, she has taken to placing things as close to her sitting place as possible, causing a clutter she once would have abhorred.  She knows my sister and I inherited her neat-freak ways and are very uncomfortable in her clutter.  Arms length works better for her.

My grandfather, Mama’s father, was raised in a very religious household, so he often quoted scripture.  His favorite?  Judge ye not lest ye shall be judged.” (sic)

Herman Cain Scares Me

 

My approach to politics hasn’t been blindly loyal since I was a schoolgirl parroting the words I heard my parents and grandparents spouting at supper.  Back then, I sounded like a dumbed-down version of the lackluster array of people vying for a spot on the 2012 Presidential ballot.  Catch words, buzz words, and campaign button rhetoric were about the only things I could say because I didn’t understand what the hell was going on.

Somehow I developed the ability to actually think for myself over the years, so I spend a good deal of time studying what all sides of an issue are saying and doing, so as not to be caught by surprise by an idea that might just make some sense.  And that’s why I tuned in to the Sunday morning talk shows this past weekend knowing full well all the guests were going to be Republican presidential wannabes.

The startling surge in popularity of former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain is curious to me on so many levels, I was determined to hear him out and try to get a glimpse of what makes him tick.  It wasn’t all that difficult to find him – Cain appeared on everything from The View and Jay Leno, to Meet the Press and the Daily Show in a week’s time.

I have come away with that vague but nagging flutter in the pit of my stomach.  I have to tell you – the man is scaring me.  Here’s why:

Nobody seems to care he is black.  Not once have I heard the subject broached in an interview.  While you might think that would be reason for me to rejoice, given my well-documented desire to reach a time in this country when such an observation would be ridiculous, it is making me suspicious.  Would the Republicans even be capable of understanding they could neutralize the whole race issue by pitting one black man against another?  It could work.

The man is smooth.  And I don’t mean slick or smarmy.   His Southern accent flavors a speech delivered without spaces or space fillers.  He knows what he means and he says it without any signs of being guarded or cautious.  When it serves him – and it frequently does – he flashes a smile rivaling that of the current POTUS, with similar, disarming results.  In short, he is a charmer.

He is smart and he flaunts it.  To date I have not seen an attempt on Cain’s part to project an I’m-one-of-the-guys persona.  On the contrary, he comports himself like the CEO that he was and speaks with executive confidence.  And he rattles off statistics and mathematical calculations at warp speed, but on a level many, if not most, of us can understand.

He is as conservative as they come. No sign of victimhood here.  He is a self-made man who was born with all the same strikes against him as any other poor, black child, and he’s proud of his success.  “You don’t have a job? Don’t blame the corporations or the bank.  Blame yourself.” -- music to the ears of Republicans of every stripe, from one end of the continuum to the other.  He does not believe in same sex relationships, much less marriage. When asked about gay issues he stated “Being gay is a choice…show me the science that says it’s not.” Right in step with the far right.

He wants to throw out the entire tax system and start over.  That’s something that most of us can get behind to some extent.  Whether it is Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan, or something close to it, at least this guy HAS a plan, and the plan has very few vague elements.

Herman Cain owes no obvious political debts and no defined base.  In his most recent weekly commentary on his web site: “It’s true that I’m not a politician. Some say that means I can’t understand the government. Washington is full of politicians – how’s that working out for us? And even though the Cain Train is picking up steam – finishing first in this week's Zogby poll with 28 percent, compared to Rick Perry’s 18 percent and Mitt Romney’s 17 percent, many in the mainstream media still haven’t given me a shot.”  Even his own party appears to be shocked by his surge.  Lack of experience, President Obama’s campaign nemesis, seems to be Cain’s ace in the hole.

It is easy to dismiss the likes of Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry.  It seems as if Mitt Romney is serving as the GOP’s fall-back guy who will likely emerge when the rest crash and burn in due time.  But what if Herman Cain doesn’t flame out?  Given the mood of the electorate, Cain could become the Ross Perot of the 21st century and give ol’ Mitt a run for his money.  Yikes!

Banner borrowed from HermanCain.com

Occupy Atlanta to John Lewis: Only On Our Terms

 

Civil rights icon U.S. Representative John Lewis showed up to downtown Atlanta’s Woodruff Park to tell the protesters he stands with them.  If he expected to be given special treatment in deference to his immense status in this city, he wasn’t admitting it.

Congressman John Lewis came out to Occupy Atlanta on Friday, October 7th in Woodruff Park. He even commented on the Atlanta General Assembly's group consensus process saying "this is not something strange or out of the ordinary for me," and he was "not at all" disappointed he wasn't able to address the Assembly. Video Colby Blunt for Occupy Atlanta.

However Lewis felt about the incident, it speaks volumes about the mood of those of us who support the anti-greed, anti-corporation movement spreading like wildfire across America.  It says the 99% the movement claims to represent; i..e., those who are not among the wealthiest 1% of Americans, are not interested in the support of Washington’s elite, regardless of his or her position on the cause.

When Lewis joined the crowd about 45 minutes after the session began, an impromptu meeting of the protesters determined Mr. Lewis could speak, but not until the period in the program when anybody could speak.  I don’t know how others feel, but I kind of like this attitude.  Some DC functionaries might be better than others, but none of them have done enough to deserve deference from a fed up populace that is tired of hearing their platitudes.

 

 

This poster was posted on July 25, 2011 on http://occupyatlanta.wpengine.com, indicating the rally on Friday night (Oct. 7) was far from impromptu.

 

 

 

 

 

 The Faces of   Occupy Atlanta

 

 

 Joeff Davis, Creative Loafing

 

Signs of the times

 

 

 

UPI/Erik S.Lesser

 

 

 

 We’ve been called worse.  Go, Occupy Atlanta!

The History of Crackers

I hope you weren’t expecting to find pictures of the Keebler elves or a box of saltines in this post.  A “conversation” in the comment section of a blog post about the use of racial pejoratives put me in the frame of mind to notice a yard sign in my neighbor’s front garden.

Nothing in my personal history as a multi-racial, self-identified African American from the U.S. North would ever have predicted my current 18-year residence in a place that once had a professional baseball team named The Atlanta Crackers.

In my little world, a cracker, when used to describe a person instead of a salted unleavened biscuit, was a mean, red-faced bigot from the Deep South who talked with a disgusting drawl. He (it seemed always to be a “he”) would prefer that I not exist, and would be more than happy to remedy the fact that I did.

One of the first things I learned about the part of Atlanta I moved into because of a company transfer was the fact that my office was directly across the street from the acreage once home to the “great Atlanta Crackers.”

I was reminded of the shock I experienced when the white man I worked with daily said those words when I saw this on a yard sign on my morning walk.

It was the very first time I had heard the term cracker coming from the mouth of a Caucasian, and I was confused by the off-handed way my partner said it.  Only after I conjured up enough nerve to ask why the team was okay with that name did I learn that the meaning of the term is far from clear, and that everyone recites the etymology that best fits his or her comfort zone.

It turns out the noun cracker has a history that far pre-dates the American South.  Linguists now believe the original root of the word to be the Gaelic craic, which today means “entertaining conversation.”  The anglicized spelling crack was used to refer to a braggart by the English by Elizabethan times, as in Shakespeare’s King John: “What cracker is this…that deafes our ears/ With this abundance of superfluous breath?” [Georgia Encyclopedia]

By the 1760s the English were calling Scots-Irish settlers of the southern American backcountry crackers because they were thought by the English to be great boasters who were “a lawless set of rascals on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia…” [Georgia Encyclopedia]

Over time Southern black people developed a pejorative application of the term to refer to southern whites, but origin of the word remained unclear. One theory holds that the term comes from the common diet of poor whites. From Wikipedia: According to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is a term of contempt for the "poor" or "mean whites," particularly of the U.S. states of Georgia and Florida (see Georgia cracker and Florida cracker). Britannica notes that the term dates back to the American Revolution, and is derived from the cracked corn from which cornmeal and grits, which formed their staple food, are made, as well as corn whiskey.^[2] (In British English "mean" is also a term for tightfistedness.^[3])

A theory that makes more sense to me is that it refers to the white farm hands who worked on plantations who rode on horseback and wielded modified whips to produce a cracking sound and became known as “slave drivers.”  The plantation owners, as well as the slaves, began to call them “Crackers.”

Yet another explanation comes from the cattle industry in Florida.  Because of the dense brush surrounding Florida cattle lands, the cattlemen couldn’t rope them without getting the ropes tangled in the brush, so they used bull whips to herd the cattle instead.  Cattlemen became Crackers there, with no pejorative connotation.  And when South Georgia cattlemen began to drive their herds down into Central Florida’s grassy flatlands to graze, they proudly became Crackers, too.

In Georgia, however, there was something known as a Georgia Cracker. I am told that moniker was given to the original American pioneers who settled in what would become the state of Georgia, probably by the English, which would explain why some native Georgians who are white might describe themselves as Georgia Crackers with a sense of great ancestral pride.

Whichever theory suits you, one thing is certain.  People who were born and raised in Atlanta long enough ago to remember the Atlanta Crackers baseball organization don’t have any problem with its name.

In fact, in 1919 the Atlanta Black Crackers were  founded. They shared the Ponce de Leon ballpark with their white counterparts, the Atlanta Crackers.  And on June 28, 1997, the Atlanta Braves wore 1938 Black Crackers home uniforms and the visiting Philadelphia Phillies wore 1938 Philadelphia Stars road uniforms in a tribute game to the Negro League, which finally disbanded in 1952. [Wikipedia]

 

This Atlanta History Center photo of Ponce de Leon Park  shows the mammoth Sears Roebuck Warehouse in the background.  Almost 2 million square feet in size, this building was sold by Sears to the City of Atlanta in 1991 for $12 million. The City never really did much with it and sold it to developers who just announced a three-year, mixed-use transformation.

The Color Blue

 

Baby blue.  Sky blue.  Mediterranean Teal Blue Metallic. Turquoise.  Caribbean.  Azure.  Navy.  Cobalt. Royal. Breakwater Blue Metallic.

Blue was the color of my true love’s eyes.  Still is.

Blue is good, mostly.  I admire the color blue almost as much as I do the green that decorates the Earth.  I wear it.  I drive cars painted with it.  I gravitate to it so much, I often make a concerted effort to choose something else; like red or black.  Never yellow, though.  I despise yellow, unless it’s on a flower or a butterfly.

Blue isn’t always good.  There is blue humor, which I suppose is good for some people.  I hear jokes about blue balls, although I’ve never known what that really means.  I’ve suffered through many a blue mood, but I didn’t get the baby blues, thank goodness. Black and blue bruises aren’t very attractive, are they?  But I like the idea of once in a blue moon.

Today’s sky is the blue of my happy thoughts.  I think in blue when I’m happy for some reason.  Blueberries on my cereal make my day.  When I spotted a bluebird in a magnolia tree for the first time in my life, it made me feel like skipping all the way home that day.  Probably looked rather strange on a silver-haired senior.

When I wear blue, I get compliments.  I’m told my best color is turquoise or teal.  I think I agree, because I always like my reflection in a window or mirror when I wear those colors.  I feel very feminine in baby blue; very authoritative in navy blue; very elegant in midnight blue.

Blue on walls can be tricky for me.  It can’t be too light or too dark, too saturated or too weak.  Some say it’s cold; I say it’s cool.

Six of the seven automobiles I have owned in my life have been blue.  The other one was a surprise from my husband.  We are divorced now. 

Bluegills are my favorite pan fish. Blue notes in my music are my favorites. Sad, but oh so poignant. The color of the Caribbean Sea off the cost of Negril, Jamaica was a blue I’d never seen before, nor have I seen it since.

Some hydrangeas that grow in my neighborhood are blue.  Mine are pink, but I like them, too.

Blue is for baby boys and TV anchors who wear shirts.  It is for a waltz named for a river in Europe.  It is for the veins on the backs of my hands, growing ever more prominent with age.  That means I’m alive! 

My bridesmaids wore blue velvet.

Photo by L, taken this morning

Propofol and Me

LA Deputy District Attorney David Walgren displays 100 ml bottle of propofol to Dr. Conrad Murray’s jury.

The criminal trial of Dr. Conrad Murray for the death of superstar Michael Jackson centers around the doctor’s use of a milky substance called propofol.  A drug used to sedate patients in order to help them tolerate painful medical procedures, propofol is generally administered only in hospitals by physicians certified for its use, surrounded by machines which monitor the patients tolerance of the drug and tools needed to open the patients airway in the event of breathing difficulties. 

It is alleged that Michael Jackson ordered Dr. Murray to administer propofol to him as a general sleep aid. In fact, according to testimony in today’s session of the trial, Dr. Murray purchased from a pharmaceutical distributor a total of 255 bottles of propofol between May 2009 and Jackson’s June 25, 2009 death. Roughly half of those were 100 ml bottles; the remainder were 25 ml bottles.

My last colonoscopy took place about five years ago here in Atlanta.  After enduring a horrendous 24 hours of preparation I was delighted that this time I would be put to sleep for the actual procedure.  The anesthesiologist explained the process as I lay in my hospital gown waiting for my turn. He said they would be using a new drug that was fast acting and short-lived.  He said I would wake up quickly with very little time needed for full recovery.  It was propofol.

When the anesthesiologist injected the propofol into my IV, it was as if he had thrown a light switch to the off position.  There was no gradual fade out, no funny sounds or twirling visual patterns.  One second I was conscious, the next second I wasn’t. 

Without any sense of the passage of time, I next heard the voice of my charming gastroenterologist gently suggesting that I wake up now.  My eyes flew open and I was up.  I never slurred a word or was the tiniest bit groggy.  On the contrary, I felt a euphoria, a lightness.  I was as refreshed as I have ever felt from a power nap. 

It is easy to see why someone who is plagued with insomnia to the extent that Michael Jackson is reported to have been would crave the artificial sleep-state provided by propofol.  It turns off all mental systems – no dreams, no tossing and turning, no sense of being whatsoever.  On the other hand, there is no lapse of memory or groggy side effects.  What’s not to like?

I have no doubt whatsoever that this powerful drug, administered incorrectly or outside the prescribed guidelines, would be unceremoniously deadly.  One second alive, the next second deceased.  Just like Michael Jackson was.

The Great Leaf Blower Debate

 

A faint memory of an old-fashioned black and white film flitted through my mental movie theater as I watched the latest neighborhood dustup unfold on our Yahoo Group.  The film was for primary grade children.  It depicted all the sights and sounds of a suburban community awakening from its peaceful slumber to forge ahead into the excitement of life: crossing guards tootling on whistles, trucks varooming their ways to the new superhighways, car horns blaring from carpool drivers going house to house to pick up their precious cargo for transport to school.

Back then the sounds of progress and daily chores were celebrated, for it represented the American ingenuity we touted every chance we got.  Car engines got bigger and bigger and louder and louder.  Teens added special mufflers to their souped-up cars to mimic the sexy sounds of Harley Davidson’s piloted by leather-clad bikers.  Little kids used clothespins to clip the Ace of Spades or the Queen of Hearts to the spokes of their trikes and bikes in order to simulate that same sound.

But this is now.  The word sound has been transmuted to noise in some quarters.  What was once the fodder for a delightful instructional movie is now regarded as toxic, polluting cacophony, the scourge of peaceful porch-sitting and afternoon nap times.

This weeks brouhaha started with an oft-repeated lament from a certain resident who despises his neighbors’ efforts to keep their property tidy using power lawn mowers and those tympanic-membrane-shattering gas leaf blowers favored by professional landscapers and zealous property owners with things to do and places to go.

The opinions proffered in the email stream on the subject ranged from deadly serious to downright funny.  One woman opined that she welcomed the sound of gas leaf blowers because they drown out the sounds of incessant barking from dogs left outside by their thoughtless owners. The man who originally stirred up the dust stated that people could close their eyes or otherwise choose not to look at the unsightly weeds or piled leaves in his yard, but he could not find earplugs effective enough to drown out the racket of gasoline-driven power tools.

Inevitably, someone on the listserv becomes annoyed by the rapid-fire give and take that lands in his or her inbox and hurls a high-level, but scathing insult into the ether, suggesting, for instance, that those of us existing on a higher plane of life would prefer the “whiners” take their less-than-trivial mindless banter to, say, Twitter. 

While I find these predictable flame wars amusing, at least for a minute or two, I seldom join the fray.  There is no way to win and I’m not into losing.  But I do have an opinion, as difficult as that must be for you, gentle reader, to believe. Despite the fact that our little community is an historic district and is called Atlanta’s First Suburb, we live smack dab in the middle of the City of Atlanta.  Helicopters chop, chop, chop overhead whenever the Atlanta Police Department takes to the air chasing bad guys, which is frequently.  Buses spew their noxious diesel fumes and ambulances scream their warnings regularly on their way to Grady Hospital or Atlanta Medical Center. 

There are more dogs in this part of town than there are people, or so it seems, and there definitely are owners who do not find their own dogs’ endless barking the least bit offensive.  That’s what dogs do, they say. Mine doesn’t.  I taught her not to continue after one or two arfs. 

My point is, maybe the city is not the ideal place to settle for people who are hyper-sensitive to noise.  I’m told that the rural parts of America are famous for their peace and quiet; well, except for the tractors and reapers and balers and pickup trucks and neighing horses and braying asses.