“Great, Thanks! Yours?”

 

A Facebook friend of mine posted that sign yesterday.  This morning, a neighbor who was driving past me and my dog Coqui stopped, lowered the window and shouted “How was your Christmas?”

“Great,” I lied.  “Yours?”

“Very nice,” she yelled.

So, I am a liar.  I am a terrible person who lies in order to 1) save my breath as well as my face; and 2) Avoid the glazed over stare of the person who mindlessly asked me a question concerning my well-being or lack thereof.

Here is what I would have said, had I not elected to flat-out lie:

“Well, I wasn’t really feeling the Christmas thing to begin with, so I was dragging my ass a bit as I rang my sister’s doorbell at exactly 1:30 p.m. Christmas Day. I arrived as planned, a half hour earlier than the time she said my nephew and his kids were asked to appear.  I knew my retail-employed sister was scheduled to be at her large chain store location at 4 a.m.the day after Christmas, which meant she’d have to arise at 2:30 a.m. (Yikes, that’s pretty unreal!)  So I brought my assigned items (dinner rolls and egg nog, because she thinks she is the only one who knows how to cook, but I do make homemade rolls; but I didn’t because it is a waste of time because the two kids are the only ones besides me who even bother with them at dinner.

Anyway, my nephew, who is notorious for his lack of consideration when it comes to keeping schedules, didn’t arrived at the prescribed time.  He didn’t bother answering his phone when his mother called at 2:30 p.m. to see if he was on his way.  He didn’t answer at 3..or 3:30…or 3:45 either. 

Noting the smoke starting to drift from her ears, I tried to fill the silence by asking what time she would get off from work the next day.  She said 11 a.m., to which I said, “Oh, that’s not so bad…I guess.”

Said she:  “No, it’s not so bad because YOU don’t have to do it.”

I must have looked exactly the way someone should look after having her head bitten off and I did let out a rather long and loud sigh. I slnked off to the farthest away from my fuming hostess and vowed not to open my mouth the rest of the day.  But no, that wouldn’t do either.

Sister Dearest realized what she had done, but instead of apologizing, she acted as if she never took a bite out of my ass and started making small talk about my exercise regimen, my son, etc. I answered as if I weren’t still stung.

But then her 21-year-old grandson, who had driven himself from his home and was on time, decided to try to fill the next pregnant pause by saying something akin to “so how’s it going, Nana?” 

“STOP TRYING TO MAKE SMALL TALK!  YOU KNOW I’M PISSED!”  She didn’t whisper.

At 4 p.m. – a full two hours late – the doorbell rang and my nephew and crew entered. 

And all hell broke loose.   I withdrew to a neutral corner of my mind, but by this time I, too, was rather irritated by my nephew’s lack of respect for his mother.  She yelled something about being disrespected.  He tried to say he thought she told him dinner was at 3, but, of course, that was not working, mainly because it was FOUR O’CLOCK! 

Meanwhile, my sister’s longtime companion arrived, walking into the middle of what must have looked like an episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.  He wisely decided to stay out of it and instead walked over to me, saying:

“How are you?”

“Fine,” I replied with a weak smile. “How are you?”

Later, after I hadn’t uttered a word for nearly two hours, my sister asked me if I was okay… why was I so quiet?

“I’m fine,” I said, feigning surprise.  I really wanted to bolt out the door and drive to the safety of my empty home.

Looks like I really am a liar. If I had told the truth, it would have been necessary to explain why I had responded “It sucked.”  As we all know, the passing driver really didn’t want to know how my Christmas was unless it was “Great.”  And who the hell wants to reveal the truth: that her family is just as screwed up as everybody else’s?

Happy New Year to you, too!

Christmas is a Feeling…and I’ve lost it

Little L would lie in bed and wait for it:  that magical feeling that started right after Santa Claus finally brought up the rear of the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. 

The anticipation of things to come was like a drug to Little L.  She loved the rehearsals for the Christmas play at school and the familiarity of Christmas carols sung at Sunday Mass amid gigantic potted poinsettias and aromatic pine boughs festooning the altars.  Her eyes would grow wide in front of the automated window scenes at Marshall Field in Chicago’s bustling Loop.  She pretended to believe in the poor man in the red velvet suit who endured children peeing on his lap and pulling his fake beard, just so she could get the gift he would pull out of his huge pack, lying beside his throne.

Little L’s family didn’t do any decorating at all until the Big Night.  My sister, our cousins and I believed the floor-to-ceiling silver-painted pine tree was somehow put there by Santa, before he went about the task of arranging the unwrapped toys in a way that told a story, while at the same time putting each child’s presents in easy-to-find groups. 

Little L loved to wake up on Christmas morning – make that the wee, wee hours of the morning, while it was still night dark – and see the blue glow that silver tree emitted from its monochromatic lighting scheme.  The silver tinsels, meticulously placed one-strand-by-one, reflected the blue lights and enhanced the glow. Knowing she was not allowed to get up until the sun was about to rise, Little L would lie there and let the “feeling” of that glow wash over her while she fought the urge to wake her sleeping little sister in the twin bed beside her.

Christmas was a three to four week feast for all her senses.  The sights of blinking lights and precious nativity scenes; the smells of Christmas cookies mixed with the nauseous stench of diesel fuel that lessened to joy of the trip to the Loop; and the sounds of music from the radio or from the sound tracks of televised Christmas specials and classic movies converged to create a very excited little girl.

Even after I became Teen L, long eschewing the magical components of the season, that glow of tree lights worked on me every time.  Somehow that glow, which only worked on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, had the power to elevate even my adolescent moods, although I did have to be awakened by this time, having been out the night before.

Parenthood changed everything.  Mommy L had to create the magic for her tiny, excitable boy.  Year after year, through tight budgets and single parenthood, through work schedules and relentless sinus infections, Mommy L’s job was not to enjoy the run-up to Christmas, but to “make” Christmas. The joy she experienced at the sight of her little son jumping up and down in his footie pajamas with glee was her sensory reward.

Today I am Senior L.  Without grandchildren yet to spoil and help create the magic for, I find myself disinterested in the Miracle on 34th Street, weary of the sound of Jimmy Stewart’s voice and numb, even, to my favorite Christmas songs.  It all feels so artificial, so borderline dishonest.  While I do believe The Reason for the Season actually lived and walked among us more than 2000 years ago, I no longer believe he was anything more than a charismatic leader with superior staying power.  Celebrating his birth, for me, is similar to celebrating the birth of any other person of historical significance. 

When I watch as my sister and her son create the magic for his 9 and 11 year olds, I notice the changes from one year to the next.  I doubt they believe some portly dude flies in at night, parks his inexplicably airborne reindeer on their roof, and somehow squishes his ample girth and a jam-packed sack of presents into modern-day chimney flues.  I doubt they understand that without their generous and doting grandmother, their Christmas hauls would be vastly diminished. 

And yet, when they have children, they will repeat the same seemingly meaningless (to me, not to all of you, I’m sure) cycle.  And their grandparents will sit quietly, nibbling on pfeffernüsse, waiting for it all to be over, once again.

I understand the concept of Bah, Humbug better each year that passes by.

Affluenza* – A Rich Boy’s Plea

Ethan Couch

Now I’ve heard everything!  He did it because his family is too wealthy to teach him any better.

Sixteen-year-old Texan Ethan Couch killed four people last June when he crashed into them at 70 miles per hour, having a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit. 

The other car?  There was no other car.  These victims were merely standing beside the road along with the nine others who were injured in the tragedy.

Rather than vehicular homicide, the teen was charged with four counts of manslaughter, because the court decided Ethan Couch was “too wealthy to understand the difference between good and bad.” Although the prosecutors in the case were seeking a 20-year prison sentence, the maximum for the manslaughter charges, Couch was given only 10 years of probation.

Dr. G. Dick Miller, the psychologist hired by the defense, told the court that Ethan Couch’s life could be salvaged if he spent a year or two in treatment with no contact with his parents.  There have been reports that they plan to send the teen to a $500,000/year facility in California somewhere – probably in some God-awful place like Malibu Beach or Santa Barbara.  Poor thing.

Dr. Miller testified that Ethan’s parents gave him “freedoms no young person should have.”  He said the boy is a victim of “affluenza” because his family believed wealth bought privilege.  He said the parents did not believe there was any link between behavior and consequences.

All this time many of us have understood how poverty contributes to the illegal, irrational and violent behavior of some young people raised in America’s pockets of poverty.  Many a defense attorney has used that excuse in their pleas for leniency for kids even younger than Ethan who commit heinous crimes.  We’ve all known it is possible to be too poor to keep children fed, clothed, educated and supervised properly.

But to be too rich?  Too rich to teach a child not to drink and drive?  Too rich to at least PAY somebody to teach the kid about consequences of breaking the law? I don’t buy it. 

Juvenile Judge Jean Boyd of Fort Worth did buy it, apparently, because by the time Ethan Couch is 26, he will have satisfied his debt to society and have the opportunity to resume his life of privilege and exceptionalism. 

I knew the almighty dollar had the loudest voice in this country, but this is a new low.  Perhaps Ethan Couch’s parents should go to prison.

_________________

*The book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic defines it as "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more".^[1]

When Nothing Seems Good Enough

 

A dear friend’s husband died last Friday.  She and I worked together when I lived in California.  My husband and I bought a home in the same town she and her husband lived in when we met. 

PJ is such a special woman.  She earned her Ph.D. in organizational development when she was well into her 50s.  Age never mattered much to her.  Her boundless energy propelled her in several directions at once, all the time.

When she married H., it never bothered her that he was quite a bit older than she was.  No one has an expiration date stamped on their buttocks, she’d say.  What mattered to her was his heart – the kind that determines one’s character.

The last time I saw PJ, we treated ourselves to a lost weekend in New York City.  She flew from California and I flew from Atlanta.  When we met at the hotel, it was as if no time at all had passed since our prior face-to-face encounter.

We have a lot in common.  She is of Mexican descent, so she has suffered as much discrimination in life as I have as a black woman.  H. was of Portuguese extraction, and while not nearly as pronounced as for PJ and me, he took his share of ethnic slurs.  But none of the three of us allowed any of that to prevent us from setting goals and reaching them. 

Both PJ and H. were soft-spoken and calming.  Whereas I am a true Type A personality, they hovered in the Type B serenity that often served to rein me in.  In short, they are, or were, one of those rare couples that remained madly in love until H.’s very last breath.

I just called PJ.  She answered, “Hi, L.”  Her voice was quivery.  Mine was nowhere to be found.  I finally squeaked out a shaky “how are you doing, Sweetheart?” 

“Funny you should call at this very moment,” she said in that calm, melodious voice of hers.  “I am standing in front of H.’s cremains.  I’m in the process of picking up the urn.”

My heart slammed into the bottom of my gut.  Great, I thought.  Timing is everything, and yours, L, sucks!

“No, it’s perfect timing,” she said, ever the lady, ever the fixer.  “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

No matter how many times I encounter this inevitability – death – I have yet to find a collection of words that come even close to suiting the occasion. 

“I am so sorry, PJ.  I have so many wonderful memories of you and H together.”

That’s it.  That’s all I could muster, except for croaking through the onset of my tearfulness, “I love you, PJ.”

Her tears started then.  I knew she wouldn’t hold me responsible for them, but I felt like crap anyway. 

I guess this is always going to be one of those times when nothing – no words or gestures – will seem good enough to reach the level of gravitas a death commands.

The Murder of Hope

 

So many of my fellow writers here are much younger than I.  Some terrific essays have been posted in the past few days, but most of the true memories of the day John F. Kennedy was slain have been from those of you who were in elementary school or even younger.

I was two weeks past my 19th birthday.  It was the second year of my college education in a place that, in retrospect, was probably as unlikely as it could have been at the time.  Politics were important to me then, but not important enough to have it influence my choice of schools. 

I learned in my first year that I had signed up to attend a small, liberal arts college in the prairies of Wisconsin in a town that distinguished itself as being the birthplace of the Republican Party.

Not only was I the only “Negro” woman enrolled there; I was also a part of a very small coterie of young Democrats.

At 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, I was walking alone toward the Commons, hoping I hadn’t missed out completely on lunch.  My head was swirling with chemical formulas, exhausted from a brutal mid-term exam in chemistry.

Two guys I knew – the school was only 800 students strong, so I knew just about everybody by then – were walking toward me laughing.

“Did you hear, L?”

“Hear what?” I responded, smiling.

“Somebody killed Kennedy.”

Again, they smirked and chuckled.

“Yeah, right.  You two are such lunch buckets.”  That’s one of the many stupid things we called each other back then.  It meant they were “out to lunch” or idiots. I thought it applied particularly well for classmates who claimed to be Republicans.

They passed and I kept walking. 

But they were not joking.  It was true. I heard it from a fellow liberal who approached on that same stretch of sidewalk.  I heard it, but couldn’t process it.  It couldn’t happen in this country.  Not here.  Not now.

I changed my direction and headed for the dorm.  My appetite vanished as quickly as the President’s future.  I needed to talk to my mother.  Now.  I was confused, angry,  and scared. 

The election of President Kennedy had meant to my young mind that things were getting much, much better.  He won, despite being a Catholic.  That was huge for me because I shared that “stigma” with him, although I didn’t  understand why it was such a big issue in the scheme of things.  He talked about what a nation should be and what he was saying sounded very much like he agreed that people like me should have a fair shake.  Maybe I wouldn’t have to be so mindful of my race anymore.  Maybe I could just be another college coed.  Maybe the turmoil that was going on the the Deep South at the time would come to a halt and things would change.

By the time I reached my mother on the hall telephone in the dorm, my hope was DOA.

Urban Decay and Feral Teens

 

It appears the simulated violence in video games is no longer exhilarating enough for some urban teenagers.  There’s a new game in town that is all the rage among seemingly asocial posses of thrill seekers.  They call it Knockout.

The object of the game?  To see if the teen has enough skill and strength to knock unconscious some random pedestrian in one well-placed blow.  When successful, the unsuspecting pedestrian falls like a tree and the posse celebrates. 

Sometimes the prey doesn’t recover.  One man, Ralph Santiago,46, was found dead in Hoboken, N.J., his head and broken neck wedged between two iron fence posts. Video surveillance recorded his assailant delivering the knockout blow.

Apparently, this phenomenon is moving across America’s vast landscape, coming soon to a city near you. There have been deaths as a result of such attacks in Syracuse, St. Louis and New Jersey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u_PEBsEyYHQ

America, what have we done!? How have we allowed our society to decline into a re-enactment of Lord of the Flies?

The proverbial elephant on the table, based on the reports of such incidents to date, is the race of the young people shown in the videos mindlessly attacking innocent people who happen by at the exact moment these feral human beings decided to get their “fun on.”

These are the first two comments I saw when I scrolled down on yesterday’s CBS DC report on Knockout:

jimjenky• 3 minutes ago

• Yep, call me a racist, but soon as I saw the article title I knew the race of those playing this game. Oh, but we need to understand that this is the result of slavery, the break-up of the black family, the on-going racism of America and its effects on the lives of black youth, etc, etc, etc. The biggest problem with black America, especially with black youths, is the continued excuses that are given for their poor conduct, thus encouraging further poor conduct. Face facts, America, the greatest enemy of black America are black Americans. Time to look at whether this is cultural of genetic.

Roxy• 3 minutes ago

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Yes, the guilty parties were black.  And no matter how hateful we find the comments I’ve pasted above, the truth is that I also knew without seeing the video that the kids involved would be black.  That is particularly problematic for me because I am also black and I spend a good deal of my time writing about and fighting against the stereotypes that plague me and other mothers of sons who are black and innocent of such ignorant,feral behavior.

To answer the commenter jimjenky, let me say this:  It is not genetic, it is cultural.  It HAS been looked at to see if this kind of amoral behavior is genetically inherent to descendants of black Africans.  It is not.  So no, it is not about race.

It is about decade after decade of poverty among black families who cannot join the White Flight that renders inner cities dark-skinned and even poorer. 

It is about children in those dark-skinned cities being raised by child mothers, who were raised by child mothers, who were raised by child mothers.

It is about the propensity for residents of these dark-skinned cities to turn to drugs and drug trafficking to both escape the relentless grind of poverty that they can’t hope to escape and to earn the kind of living they think they deserve. 

jimjenky stated: “Face facts, America, the greatest enemy of black America are black Americans.”

This is where it gets difficult for me.  This is a statement I cannot refute.  I, too, am afraid of groups of black teenagers.  As a senior citizen, I am feeling more and more vulnerable to the dangers of simply leaving my house. 

Last week I was afraid to carry my cell phone while walking my dog because young black men and woman are making a sport out of jumping out of cars and snatching the devices right out of the hands of pedestrians.  Now I have to be concerned about being the random target of a so-called game to see if one of those thugs can knock me out in one punch.  The chances that these crimes will be committed by black youths are well into 90th percentiles. 

What’s interesting about my concerns is that I do not live in a blighted neighborhood.  On the contrary, this is considered an upscale in-town neighborhood with a fair amount of cultural diversity, but still predominately white.  In-town Atlanta has undergone an impressive gentrification over the past three or four decades.  In fact, many of those white flyers have reclaimed large sections of the inner-city, pushing the dark-skinned city dwellers outward into the exurban areas and creating new pockets of urban-like blight.

The problem is the feral thugs are mobile.  If they have no car to use to cruise the areas where the stuff they want is likely to be, they steal it.  Their thought process seems to be simply “I don’t have one; I need one; I’ll take yours.”  There is no conscience involved.  It is pragmatic. Morality and conscience have vanished among this group. 

It has vanished to the point that knocking innocent passersby unconscious is a leisurely pastime.  

You and I may disagree about how we got to this place, but this is where we are.  Blaming it on black people will not protect non-black people from the Knockout Game.  Blaming it on white people will not protect non-white from becoming prey. 

America, we have a problem.  There is nowhere to hide.

Better than Sex

 

At first glance, I’m pretty sure I look like a real girly-girl.  I admit to paying meticulous attention to my public presentation – clothes must fit, hair must be neat and the melasma spots on my cheeks concealed.  And I never leave the house without earrings! 

When it comes to what we women commonly refer to as “pampering”, however, I’m not big on it.  Waiting around in a hair salon while people rearrange and transform their follicles is my idea of torture.  I do it once in a while just to remind myself how much I hate it. I usually go straight home and rewash and restyle my hair after dropping anywhere between $65 and $100, plus tip.  Who needs that?

I can think of at least three times in my life when I have been generously gifted with a certificate for a Spa Day at one of Atlanta’s most chi-chi establishments.  They all expired and went unused.  Did I feel guilty about the big bucks I wasted?  Yes…but not enough to pick up the phone and make the appointments.

A couple of weeks ago my son called and asked how I was feeling.  On that particular day I was literally aching in every joint and muscle in my body.  It didn’t feel like the flu or a cold coming on.  I was just achy – like a person in her very latest 60s will be from time to time.

I must digress from the real purpose of this post to explain that my son, as wonderful as he is, sometimes allows gift-giving events like birthdays and Christmas to sneak up on him.  He never fails to produce something, but it is usually something like flowers and candy and teddy bears; things that can be called in and delivered immediately, if not sooner.

I almost threw the thing in the trash, something I do without opening most of the mail I receive these days.  As I stood over the trash can sorting through the campaign materials someone spent too much money to print and send; the ubiquitous flyers about new gutters and carpet cleaners; the countless catalogs that I am constantly asking retailers not so send; and the birthday card from my mother, something told me to open the substantial high-quality ivory envelope.

My son, in his thoughtful kindness, had sent me a gift certificate for something called a Hot Stone Massage –60 minutes.  The certificate was signed “Happy Birthday” from Stephen.   I was so touched by his attention to my needs.  I was also terrified I would do what I had done so many times before and allow the gift to expire, so I called and made the appointment.   I have just come back from the most blissful hour of my life.

The spa is located on the ground floor of a hugely expensive high-rise condominium in the Buckhead section of Atlanta.  For those who don’t know, Buckhead is like the Beverly Hills of the south.  It is full of people like the Real Housewives of Atlanta.  They have money and time to burn and they spend both freely in hair salons, nail salons, and spas.

From the moment I went through the etched glass doors it was Zen, Zen, Zen.  Music sounding very much like it was being played by Andreas Vollenweider seemed to gently invade my pores.  I could practically feel my blood pressure head downward.

Natalie, my Russian masseuse, spoke in a soft, pleasingly accented voice, suggesting I strip down to my own personal level of comfort, which for me meant buck naked.  She gave me plenty of time to slide into a deliciously clean bed of opulent linens.  I almost fell asleep just waiting for Natalie to return.

I was a bit apprehensive about this hot stone situation.  What was she going to do, place them on my tortured muscles and let them sit there?  Would they be too hot?  Could the heat aggravate my constant companion, Eminess*? We discussed all that and decided to proceed.

Never has an hour gone by so fast.  I had only had deep tissue massages before in my life, so those memories don’t bring nirvana to mind.  They hurt, at times.  This was so totally different, I was transported to a place I have only visited for the brief amount of time spent in the throes of orgasmic ecstasy.  No thoughts about sickness.  No thoughts about politics.  No thoughts about anything except how good I felt, body and soul.  And for an entire hour!

When Natalie stopped rubbing me with massage oil and the heated river stones held in the palm of her hand, she covered my body with a damp heated blanket.  I could have slept there for the rest of the day and night.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t part of the gift, so I had to find the strength to arise from the table and re-dress my painless and seemingly boneless body.

I have no idea how much that transcendent sixty minutes cost my son, but I’m pretty sure I can’t afford to do that regularly.  I’ll have to remember to complain about my aches and pains a little before Christmas.  Who knows?  Maybe Santa Stephen will read my mind again.

 

* Eminess is my “pet name” for Multiple Sclerosis

Do You Believe Social Security Will Go Bankrupt?

 

In a recent comment in a thread on Open Salon, one of familiar right-wingers described Medicare as a “fiscal disaster.”  My first inclination was to ask him to back up that statement.  That, after all, is what he would have said to me had I made a similar assertion with an opposite slant.

My second was to recognize it as another one of those well-worn buzzwords used ad nauseum to describe anything President Obama tries to do.

I thought how often I have heard “entitlement” denigrators insist that our Social Security system is headed for bankruptcy.  I’ve seen predictions of such bankruptcy ranging anywhere from next week to 2032.

So I did a little research and found what I consider some pretty strong information that debunks two common beliefs about Social Security:

1) That the Social Security Trust Fund (a fund containing tax revenues collected that were not used immediately to pay eligible retirees) was set up to be raided by the federal government by something done during the Lyndon Johnson administration, and

2)That the Social Security Trust Fund will go bankrupt and add to the budget deficit.

For those interested in learning information with a little more heft to it than knee-jerk buzzwords, I have posted both in their entirety.

_____________________________________________________________________

FROM FORBES.COM, JANUARY 7, 2013

John T. Harvey Contributor

Leadership 1/07/2013 @ 1:13PM 14,037 views

Why Social Security Can't go Bankrupt: Rerun

My very first Forbes.com post almost two years ago explained how Social Security could not fail simply because it ran out of money. As Social Security funding is once again in the news and there appears to be concern that it could, indeed, go bankrupt or in some way contribute to the budget deficit and debt, I’d thought I’d do a rerun!

It is a logical impossibility for Social Security to go bankrupt. We can voluntarily choose to suspend or eliminate the program, but it could never fail because it “ran out of money.” This belief is the result of a common error: conceptualizing Social Security from the micro (individual) rather than the macro (economy-wide) perspective. It’s not a pension fund into which you put your money when you are young and from which you draw when you are old. It’s an immediate transfer from workers today to retirees today. That’s what it has always been and that’s what it has to be–there is no other possible way for it to work.

To explain this, let’s create a simple world. Say there has been some sort of terrible global calamity and we only have ten people left. Further say that these ten decide to make the best of it and set up a society, including an economy. Of course, much of humanity’s technology is now lost to us, so our level of productivity is very low. As a starting point, assume that each of us is only able to produce enough output for herself or himself to survive.

How many people can retire under these circumstances? Obviously, none. Anyone who stops working, starves. It is irrelevant how many people over 65, disabled, or otherwise deserving there are, no one can quit because our level of productivity is too low. Nor is it helpful to have a pile of cash somewhere. No amount of money can change the fact that one person can only make enough goods and services for one person. If there are ten people to feed, clothe, and shelter, then ten people must work. This reality is inescapable and is the reason why the real determinant of the feasibility of Social Security (or any other type of retirement system, private or public) is productivity. If it falls short, then supporting a class of retirees is impossible, regardless of how much cash we have on hand; if it does not, however, financing it is trivial. This will be shown below.

Now let’s say it’s been several years and we have been able to increase our productivity. To make the math simple, double it. This gives us some options:

We could all keep working and just double our standard of living.
Five people could keep working and share half of their stuff with the other five, giving us each the same standard of living as at the start.
We could adopt an intermediate position with more than zero but fewer than five retirees, allowing us both a chance to retire and a higher standard of living.

The third would probably be the most attractive, and it is what we have actually experienced. Productivity growth has been such that, not only have people been able to retire, but we are each better off, too. Assuming we follow this path, what is the next step?

First, we would need to agree on how many people get to retire, what the criteria are, and what their share will be. As that’s more politics than economics, however, I won’t say too much about it other than to say that there is no reason to assume that the retirees should get exactly the same cut as the workers. We could decide they get more, less, or the same. The possibilities are determined by productivity, while the specifics are a function of our sense of justice and our national philosophy (and, if we are realistic about it, the distribution of power).

To make the example concrete, say we decided that three of our survivors qualify for retirement (leaving seven workers) and that we will all get equal shares. This would mean that each worker would get to keep 70% of what they produced, passing the remaining 30% to the retirees (if you grab a calculator, you’ll see that gives everyone the same share–however, understanding this is not important to the rest of the story). And that’s it–we are done. With only ten people, it doesn’t need to get any more complicated. We have a retirement system and we don’t need to talk about money at all. We just say stuff like, “Hey, Bob! I caught ten fish today–which three do you want?”

In the real world, however, there are more than ten people and thus the coordination of this effort becomes much more complex. And this is where money comes in. Its function is to enable the transfer of output from current workers to current retirees in a world where we are not all neighbors. Money does not, to reiterate, have anything whatsoever to do with whether or not we can support retirees, how many they can be, or how much they can have. That is 100% a result of productivity. Money is only the mechanism we use to make sure Bob gets his three fish.

To give it a more realistic feel, change the numbers from 7 workers and 3 retirees to 70 million and 30 million. Now what to do? Even if we have unanimous agreement on our plan, how can we make sure that retirees get their cut if it is no longer as easy as picking three fish from a basket full of ten? The most obvious and straightforward means is this: set a tax of 30% on the salaries of existing workers and give it directly to the retirees–right now, today, immediately. Have the money come straight out of your paycheck and right into your grandmother’s bank account. This accomplishes the goal neatly and directly–and it’s exactly what we do in real life. This is how Social Security actually operates. As you can see, this needs no prior financing or savings, nor would that appear to be particularly helpful. At the national level, maintaining a class of retirees (whether via Social Security or private pensions) means redistributing existing output, not putting money under your mattress. Although you can run out of money for retirement, we, as a nation, cannot.

What, then, you may ask, is the Social Security Trust Fund, the pool of money that people say will dry up and make it impossible for anyone to receive their Social Security payments? It is the surplus that resulted from having collected more in taxes than was necessary to pay out to retirees. Let me say that again: it is how much existing workers were overtaxed relative to the need to pay retirees in the past. It was never the source of the money we’ve been paying to Social Security recipients all these years. Strictly speaking, it’s completely unnecessary if we are able to precisely and continuously match tax revenues and pay outs.

We cannot do that, of course, partly because we are dealing with millions of people in a complex economy. In addition, while the payments to retirees are fairly formulaic and change in a predictable way (we can figure how many people are about to reach eligibility and how much they will draw), the revenues fluctuate with the state of the economy. They rise during expansions and fall during recessions. The trust fund can therefore serve as a place to park excess revenues when taxes exceed expenditures and from which additional funds can be drawn when the reverse occurs. It’s a buffer, sort of like that give-a-penny-take-a-penny tray at the local convenience store. As always, however, productivity and productivity alone determines our ability to support a class of retirees. This is only about how we coordinate that system.

There is another trust fund issue and it is the one related to the expected increase in the ratio of retirees to workers over the next couple of decades. This would presumably cause a net drain on the fund since payments to retirees might increase relative to tax revenues. This is actually the specific phenomenon to which many people are referring when they say that Social Security is going to go bankrupt. However, a) there is no guarantee this will occur since rising productivity could drive up wages sufficiently to compensate (although our trend of stagnating wages relative to profits is frustrating this) and b) even if that did occur, this hardly means that Social Security is kaput. Any shortfall can always be addressed in a very straightforward and supremely logical fashion: raise taxes or lower benefits (and it is exceedingly like that even if this occurs, we aren’t talking about anything drastic). It bears emphasizing, however, that such changes would still be a function of productivity and have absolutely, positively nothing to do with how much money we have or haven’t saved up. Funding, finances, money, taxes, etc. are part of the coordination mechanism, not the feasibility.

The lesson from this is that if we want Social Security to “be there” when we retire, our efforts must be focused on increasing productivity and making sure in particular that these increases get passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. But raising the value of the trust fund is, in this respect, pointless. Even if we had an infinite amount of money in it such that we could reduce all workers’ taxes to zero and still pay retirees, the exact same thing is still happening: Bob is getting three fish from the basket of ten, leaving seven for the original fisherman. Whether we accomplish this via direct taxation or from a pool of funds is absolutely, totally irrelevant in terms of the underlying economic impact (except for the fact that paying retirees from a fund is likely to cause inflation–explaining why is a little complicated so I don’t pursue it here). We are fooling ourselves if we think that taking money from the trust fund is giving us a free lunch. If there are only ten fish, there are only ten fish. Nothing other than changing productivity can affect that. The trust fund is worth having as a buffer, but it has zero to do with the feasibility of the system. If it runs out tomorrow, we can still have Social Security because we still have ten fish.

Incidentally, there appears to be every indication that productivity increases should be sufficient for the Baby Boomers to retire AND allow the rest of us enjoy even higher standards of living (assuming the compression of wages ends). That’s good news. In fact, it’s the only news that’s important.

In closing, I’m not telling you whether you should be for or against Social Security, but the argument that it is going bankrupt is a non-starter.  It is much ado about nothing.

_____________________________________________________________________

FROM SOCIALSECURITY.GOV

Debunking Some Internet Myths- Part 2

(See also, MYTHS AND MISINFORMATION ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY- Part 1)

MYTHS AND MISINFORMATION ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY- Part 2

Myths and misstatements of fact frequently circulate on the Internet, in email and on websites, and are repeated in endless loops of misinformation. One common set of such misinformation involves a series of questions about the history of the Social Security system.

One Common Form of the Questions:

Q1: Which political party took Social Security from the independent trust fund and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
Q2: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
Q3: Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?

Q4: Which political party increased the taxes on Social Security annuities?
Q5: Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

THE CORRECT ANSWERS TO THE FIVE QUESTIONS
Q1. Which political party took Social Security from the independent trust fund and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A1: There has never been any change in the way the Social Security program is financed or the way that Social Security payroll taxes are used by the federal government. The Social Security Trust Fund was created in 1939 as part of the Amendments enacted in that year. From its inception, the Trust Fund has always worked the same way. The Social Security Trust Fund has never been "put into the general fund of the government."

Most likely this question comes from a confusion between the financing of the Social Security program and the way the Social Security Trust Fund is treated in federal budget accounting. Starting in 1969 (due to action by the Johnson Administration in 1968) the transactions to the Trust Fund were included in what is known as the "unified budget." This means that every function of the federal government is included in a single budget. This is sometimes described by saying that the Social Security Trust Funds are "on-budget." This budget treatment of the Social Security Trust Fund continued until 1990 when the Trust Funds were again taken "off-budget." This means only that they are shown as a separate account in the federal budget. But whether the Trust Funds are "on-budget" or "off-budget" is primarily a question of accounting practices--it has no effect on the actual operations of the Trust Fund itself.

Q2: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A2: There was never any provision of law making the Social Security taxes paid by employees deductible for income tax purposes. In fact, the 1935 law expressly forbid this idea, in Section 803 of Title VIII.

(The text of Title VIII. can be found elsewhere on our website.)

Q3. Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A3. The taxation of Social Security began in 1984 following passage of a set of Amendments in 1983, which were signed into law by President Reagan in April 1983. These amendments passed the Congress in 1983 on an overwhelmingly bi-partisan vote.

The basic rule put in place was that up to 50% of Social Security benefits could be added to taxable income, if the taxpayer's total income exceeded certain thresholds.
The taxation of benefits was a proposal which came from the Greenspan Commission appointed by President Reagan and chaired by Alan Greenspan (who went on to later become the Chairman of the Federal Reserve).

The full text of the Greenspan Commission report is available on our website.

President's Reagan's signing statement for the 1983 Amendments can also be found on our website.

A detailed explanation of the provisions of the 1983 law is also available on the website.

Q4. Which political party increased the taxes on Social Security annuities?

A4. In 1993, legislation was enacted which had the effect of increasing the tax put in place under the 1983 law. It raised from 50% to 85% the portion of Social Security benefits subject to taxation; but the increased percentage only applied to "higher income" beneficiaries. Beneficiaries of modest incomes might still be subject to the 50% rate, or to no taxation at all, depending on their overall taxable income.

This change in the tax rate was one provision in a massive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) passed that year. The OBRA 1993 legislation was deadlocked in the Senate on a tie vote of 50-50 and Vice President Al Gore cast the deciding vote in favor of passage. President Clinton signed the bill into law on August 10, 1993.
(You can find a brief historical summary of the development of taxation of Social Security benefits on the Social Security website.)

Q5. Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A5. Neither immigrants nor anyone else is able to collect Social Security benefits without someone paying Social Security payroll taxes into the system. The conditions under which Social Security benefits are payable, and to whom, can be found in the pamphlets available on our website.

The question confuses the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program with Social Security. SSI is a federal welfare program and no contributions, from immigrants or citizens or anyone else, is required for eligibility. Under certain conditions, immigrants can qualify for SSI benefits. The SSI program was an initiative of the Nixon Administration and was signed into law by President Nixon on October 30, 1972.

An explanation of the basics of Social Security, and the distinction between Social Security and SSI, can be found on the Social Security website.

A Town Meeting with the Seniors

 

I don’t usually attend meetings anymore.  I hate them.  Nothing much ever gets accomplished and I have grown weary of watching people lie to my face.  I prefer to get my lies indirectly; i.e., from the media.

Last night was different, though.  My county has run into a significant budget shortfall (read: mismanagement and malfeasance) and must find a way to cut the 2014 budget by some $75 million.  And this time, unlike in prior years, the budget sharks are circling the previously unmolested services for senior citizens.

The county I live in operates four impressive multi-purpose senior facilities and 15 smaller neighborhood senior centers.  I am lucky enough to live within walking distance of one of the larger, multi-purpose buildings.

On one side of the large single-story building is located an adult daycare center for citizens 55 and older who have disabilities that require them to have ongoing assistance.  Special transport units pick them up in the morning and return them to their families in the evenings. 

The side I frequent is designed for the same age group who do not have disabilities that interfere with their independence.  Here is where I attend my 3x a week aerobic dance classes.  In addition to fitness classes ranging from tai chi and yoga to core strengthening abdominal work, members can take water aerobics in the therapeutic pool; learn computer skills in an updated computer lab; learn beginning Spanish; take art classes; learn line dancing or hang out in the back room filled with billiard tables and a gigantic flat-screen TV.  Breakfast and lunch are served for a nominal $2.00 per meal. 

The only other time money is required from members is when they opt to attend one of the many field trips to state parks for hikes or plays in area venues which offer discounted tickets to seniors.  Again, transportation is always included if more than 30 people sign up for an outing.

Now if the county were to suddenly shutter the place and/or cancel all of the classes I take, I would be disappointed but not devastated.  I am rather reclusive and would be fine finding somewhere else to work out and continue to live my quiet life. 

But there are many, many people who go to the center every single day of the week and spend the entire day there.  They take their two main meals in the cafeteria/all-purpose room.  They sit and chat among themselves.  Some are in classrooms creating beautiful paintings, sculptures, needlepoint and tee shirts.  One lady sits in the exact same chair every day crocheting things – one day it’s a table runner, next day it could be a baby coverlet.  There are men and women in wheel chairs, amputees, one man who is recovering from a terribly debilitating stroke and people well into their 80s and even 90s.

For some of those people, changes in that center would be devastating.

So, when the commissioner for our district called a town meeting to discuss the possibilities looming, the center’s staff begged us all to make a sincere effort to attend.  They are a great and dedicated bunch of public servants who truly care about our members.  Sure, they are worried about their jobs, I suppose, but they are also worried about what will become of us.

So I showed up at the meeting expecting to hear my fellow members make statements about how much they want and need the services the center provides.  I went in solidarity, not planning to say much, if anything at all.

Well.  For whatever reason, the “commish” thought it was necessary to drag along a few friends.  There was a full-fledged budget presentation delivered by the County Budget Director who spoke “budget” in the usual indecipherable way for those unfamiliar with budgets.  And he spoke it in a thick, Nigerian accent that made the presentation entirely unintelligible. 

I, however, being the relentless anal retentive that I seem to be, did a little homework on this budget issue prior to the meeting.  I do speak budget.  I managed many corporate budgets, some totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

I learned that the budget shortfall is being blamed on the Great Recession, which makes sense because the largest portion of the county’s revenue comes from property taxes.  When the bottom fell out of the housing market in 2008-2009, property values plummeted and homeowners demanded to be taxed on the newer, lower valuations. 

However…

I also learned that while the economy was tanking in 2008, Georgia’s voters unwittingly approved plans to borrow $275 million to build and renovate libraries.

According to an article in the June 9, 2013 edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

The plans call for spending $167 million initially to build eight new libraries and expand two others. A second phase would involve spending $108 million to renovate 23 existing branches and build a new central library.

Since 2008 the county has been scouting locations and hiring architects and contractors. The May 30 groundbreaking for the Wolf Creek branch near College Park was the first for the new libraries, which are scheduled to begin opening in July 2014 and continue into 2015.

Despite persistent complaints by some residents that Fulton spends too much money, its libraries remain popular. Last year the county’s 33 branches drew 3.9 million visitors – up 5 percent from 2011.

“We have lines of people waiting to get into the library, especially on the weekends,” said Keisha Sawyer, president of Friends of the South Fulton Library. The branch is slated for an expansion in the first phase of library construction.

The voter-approved money will pay for construction and acquiring books and other materials for the libraries. But it won’t cover staffing and other operating costs when they open.

Fulton County, with 33 separate library buildings, has more libraries than any other county in the state…already.  This portion of the budget was the largest by far of all the non-mandatory services.  (Mandatory services are all related to the justice system and they dwarf the human services type expenditures.)

As it turns out, Commissioner Garner brought along with her the heads of services departments, one of whom was the library director.

Suddenly, I had something to say. 

Questions had to be asked from the podium in the front of the room.  When the time came, I was the first one out of my front row seat. 

“My name is L…..I have two very direct questions.

The first is addressed to Commissioner Garner.  I come from the corporate world.  I have seen many of these kinds of meetings, where there is a pretense of taking input from the “clients,” when in truth it is just a procedural exercise to allow the leadership to check it off a checklist.  My question is will what we say in this meeting make any difference whatsoever in the ultimate decision making?”

(Of course she said “yes.”  She gave her word that she would be one commissioner prepared to fight for the seniors.  Very sweet woman, but I didn’t believe her.)

My second question is for the Library Director.  I know that the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, in their Republican wisdom, passed a law preventing any county to raise the property taxes for two years, so that avenue of new revenue is closed.  Why haven’t the construction plans for new libraries been put on hold instead of going ahead with the construction knowing there will be no money to operate them?”

(She blanched.  She said “that’s a good question.”  Then she said we couldn’t have foreseen the shortfalls back in 2008.  That’s all she said about the construction.  Instead they are going to cut library hours!)

I was not allowed to follow up. 

The last straw was when the new County Manager, who had been on the job for three weeks, came under scrutiny when a timid young woman stood at the podium and spilled the beans that she and the other temporary employees working in her division were told that their hours would be cut because of Obamacare.  She asked why and he was compelled to try to answer.

He said that the rules of Obamacare required them to treat any employees working more than 29 hours per week as permanent employees.  That would require giving them benefits, including healthcare.  He said the rules of Obamacare were forcing them to cut hours.

I asked, out of turn, if he was planning to start reducing the number of full-time employees and replacing them with part-time to avoid paying healthcare and other benefits.  Other people were shouting out about companies that are doing the same thing.  His answer to me was yes, they are considering reducing the number of full-time employees to avoid paying healthcare.  To which I replied, “that’s a very poor example to set for the county’s business owners.  So much for fair employment practices.”

He was livid.  He then ordered any other people in the audience who were employees of the county to reserve any questions about personnel matters for private meetings with him.  The crowd murmured and some laughed.

And the sweet, politically astute County Commissioner ran to the podium and changed the tone.

Many of my fellow senior center members followed up with impassioned pleas to leave the senior centers alone.  And another worthless, useless meeting came to a close.  The County Manager was still seething when I passed him on the way out the door.

Coqui Pinch Hits for L

 

What’s up, blogsters?  Coquette “Coqui” intheSoutheast here.  You might remember me – I’m the cutie pie pooch in the pictures in her banner, above.

Her..she…L.

L has been having quite a dry spell as far as writing is concerned.  I know she told you that in her last, pathetic post.  Waaaah, I can’t think of anything to write about!

Well, this bitch doesn’t have that problem.  So, while she’s downstairs staring at her keyboard, I sneaked upstairs to use the Upstairs Laptop – yes, she has it like that, spoiled brat!  She still hasn’t figured out that I am a very technically savvy canine.  I can type AND spell.

The things I could tell you.  For instance, take this morning.  Since it’s Thursday and she doesn’t have to go to her exercise classes, she lollygagged in bed, playing Candy Crush on her iPhone and watching the news on TV.  I played possum, but I had one eye slightly open to watch her, the real show in room.

All of a sudden L jumps out of bed like a spider bit her on the ass and starts unloading the dirty clothes hamper.  Clothes were flying like trash in a hurricane.  She made the usual three piles on the floor: whites, light colors, and dark colors.

I was watching all this from our bed, which it too high for me to jump from anymore.  Hey, I’ll be 12 people years old in a couple weeks!  I’m elderly. (But not like L is.  My hair has always been white.  I don’t look a day over 3 people years.)

Anyhoo, I’m lying there watching this weirdness – did I mention she was naked?  Yep.  Right there in front of God and me and everybody, she took off her pajamas and threw them on the light-color pile.  God forbid she should fail to include every last piece of worn laundry in this load.

Next thing I know she puts me on the floor and starts stripping the bed.  She’s kind of lazy, you know, so instead of putting each piece on the floor below her, she balls up each pillow case and pitches them like softballs towards the laundry room.  I of course, think she is playing, so I start chasing the flying linen.

When L gets in these moods it can get hazardous for a little dog like me.  I decided to park my booty on the white pile, which I’ve loved to do since I was a tiny pup.  They smell like her, so it’s the next best thing to being snuggled next to her. (Did she ever tell you she sometimes calls me Velcro? I am always happiest when our bodies are touching somewhere.)

By the way, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen L in the morning, with or without PJs.  At night she puts her hair on top of her head with a ratty old scrunchy.  Then she puts this hardware in her mouth – it fits over her top teeth to stop the grinding she does all night, thank God!  That noise keeps me awake.

By morning, her hair has escaped the scrunchy and is all over her head, Halloween witch ready.  Then, it never fails, she forgets about the mouth guard and starts trying to talk to me in the high-pitched, fake voice she uses to butter me up.  It comes out mmmph Coqui, mmmph mnnmph mnbph well?  Since I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about most of the time, I just lie there and stare at her.

Well, I hear L coming up the stairs.  I guess she looked up from staring at the Downstairs Laptop’s keyboard and noticed I was not stuck to her left thigh.  Gotta run. 

Oh yeah.  Congratulations on getting your stupid government back up and running.  Me?  I never noticed the difference.  Whether it is running or shutdown, they all look pretty hilarious to me.  But, yeah, I know.  I’m just a dog.

U.S. Politics: Theater of the Absurd

 

A regular reader of my blog recently sent me an email, asking if I am okay.  He hadn’t seen a post from me since September 23, 2013; quite a departure from my tendency to weigh in with a rant or two during times of national political turmoil.

I had to admit to being in a bit of a writer’s slump.  It’s been going on for several months, but something as dramatic as a government shutdown would normally enrage me enough to vent my apparently weary spleen.  Not this time.

What is there left to say about the antics in Washington, D.C.?  A recent NBC poll showed that more than 60% of Americans, regardless of party affiliations, would fire the entire Congress – every last one of them – if only they could.  Count me in.

President Obama, who has the luxury of never having to campaign for office again, has suddenly found his pliable spine and has refused to blink.  The 30 or so Tea Party members of Congress resurrected their angst over their resounding defeat in the 2012 Presidential election and decided to throw a government-closing tantrum. 

And, although it seems like only yesterday that we avoided the “fiscal cliff” of government default, here we are again, peering into the precipice. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the world powers are smirking behind their cuffs, watching what must certainly seem to them to be the funniest display of stupidity they’ve seen since…well, since the last time.

As I walked my neighborhood this morning, I was struck by the fact that none of this nonsense has changed much about what goes on here on a daily basis.  Today is another federal holiday, so no mail trucks are on the streets, and school busses are inactive, but Atlanta’s booming construction projects are in play.  Large groups of hard-hatted, chartreuse-vested workers stood watching a bulldozer move a large hill of Georgia’s red clay from one end of a lot to the other.

There is so much building going on in this section of our city that the landscape changes caused by demolition of large parcels of real estate has actually created some noise problems for me and my neighbors.  An outdoor live concert venue located 1.6 miles from here can now be heard in various spots throughout the neighborhood.  Not just heard, but felt.  The percussion from the drums and bases can be felt at this distance.  Explanation?  The new and popular Atlanta Beltline, a pedestrian pathway that connects a number of Atlanta neighborhoods, is now “funneling” sound in new and unpredictable ways.  One neighbor reports being able to hear the lyrics clearly, as if he were seated in the audience.

One of the workers at the Fulton County Senior Center I use for fitness classes tearfully begged the seniors in our large cardio-dance class to attend a meeting with the commissioner later this month because, for the first time, the county is talking about cutting the Senior Services budget.  Something about $8 million being held up by the City of Atlanta.  That’s certainly business as usual around here.

Sometimes I feel as if I am the only one of my local acquaintances who concerns herself with the asinine behavior of politicians in Washington.  Well, there is the woman down the street who is furloughed from her job at the U.S. Department of Labor, which is shuttered.  Except for my ex-husband, who is a Republican, most of my readers are ideologically aligned with me.  I haven’t even asked my ex where he stands on all this.  I think I’m afraid to hear the answer.  But for the most part, anything more I have to say would be a clear case of preaching to the choir.

So I go about my day, watch the news channels to see what the idiots are currently saying about the shutdown,worry silently about the world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren and wait for the “miraculous” deal that will undoubtedly be struck by the two grumpy old men who lead the Senate. 

What else can I say?

U.S. Open Tennis Reminds Me of Why I Love the Game

 

My carcass has been parked on this very spot since noon today.  Four hours later, two of the world’s top tennis players, Novak Djokovic (Serbia) and Stanislaus Wawrinka (Switzerland) are lurching about the Arthur Ashe court in New York City, still battling through their utter exhaustion, tied at two games each in the fifth set.

I love this game.

When I was an impressionable student in high school, coolness did not include playing tennis and golf when it came to selecting a “status” boyfriend.  The ball involved either had to be much bigger – and inflated – or much harder, as in baseball, although baseball wasn’t considered on a par with football and basketball, either. 

It wasn’t until I was in college and began dating a guy on the tennis team that I came to appreciate the game.  For starters, women could play it!  What a concept. A game that didn’t have different rules or different equipment for us of the “weaker” gender.  If we were foolish enough, we could even sidle up to the baseline of the ad court opposite a wiry and weak-looking man skinny enough to fit into a pair of our Levis 501s.

It may look to the non-playing onlooker like two pretty scrawny people are trying to pound the fuzz off those little balls using nothing more than brute strength.  The truth, however, includes far more than that.

Team sports teach a player to work toward a common goal, with each player executing specific tasks while the ball is in play.  If a player screws up or becomes too tired to execute, the coach has the luxury of pulling him or her out of the game and sending in a replacement.

In singles tennis, my favorite, there are only two people on the court while the ball is in play.  There is no bench from which to replace anyone.  Instead of pacing on the sidelines, the coach is relegated to a seat in the so-called player’s box from where he or she is forbidden to coach (ostensibly). 

Although the opponent is across the net, a singles tennis player’s biggest opponent is his or her own mind.  Just ask veteran greats like John McEnroe or Chris Evert.  Because John was a notorious hothead, his inability to control his temper defeated him far more often than the guy across the net did.  In Chris Evert’s case, she was not the most athletic woman in the game back then, but she was the most mentally tough.  Nothing rattled her.  When she made a mistake, she didn’t brood about it into the next point.  She viewed each point as a separate opportunity.

I played competitive tennis in my late twenties and throughout my thirties.  It was at the recreational level; nothing even resembling what I’m watching as I write this.  I wasn’t even what is called an “A” player; closer to a B-, at my best.  But I learned more about myself and what the game could teach me than I had in any other activity.

Once I learned the fundamentals of the game – the shots, the scoring and the rules – I thought I was ready to be competitive with women ranked in the same category I was in.  I was very, very wrong. 

What I didn’t consider was the strategy.  I couldn’t just wait for the ball to come back over the net.  I had to learn to think two or three shots ahead while still commanding my eyes, feet, and hands to execute the current shot.  I had to learn to size up the opponent in the first game or two, determine her strengths and lay into her weaknesses.  And, most importantly, I had to learn not to base ANY judgments on the way the opponent looked.

My doubles partner was one of the tiniest girly-girls I had ever seen pick up a racquet. Her arms look like two strands of spaghetti hanging out of her shirt. The legs weren’t much bigger. She was meticulous about her grooming.  She even had eyelashes pasted to her eyelids individually, which was quite unheard of back in the 70s.  And she died her naturally sandy brown hair to the height of platinumness.  She was a vision in her designer tennis dresses and warmup suits.

The first time we took the court in a tournament, I think I saw one of the girls across the net snicker when she looked at my partner.  But two minutes later, when my partner shot her first impossible—to-return serve into their court, no one was snickering.  That woman could knock the cover off a tennis ball without breaking a sweat.

While I wrote this, Novak Djokovic managed to squeak out the win over Stan Wawrinka.  After nearly five hours on the court in the heat of the day, the outcome came down to who could will himself to win just one more point, in spite of the fatigue and screaming muscles, in spite of the self-doubt that each man had to defeat over and over again, and in spite of who was considered the man “favored” to win.

Tennis is a game of guts and I don’t mean the cat innards that were once used to string racquets.  Yes, the player must stay in optimal physical condition in order to endure the long rallies and endless points.  But the thing that separates champions from runners up is the mind.

That’s why I love it.

About Syria…Wait. What?

 

I’m so confused.   Here are a list of questions I have about the crisis in Syria that I have no conclusive answers for:

1.  The U.S. government is swearing they are positive it was Assad who authorized the nerve-gas attack on his own people.  Do they really know or do they “know” like they knew prior to the invasion of Iraq?  What’s different about this time to make me feel “sure’ of this assertion?

2. If Assad did this, why aren’t we targeting him, if we are going to do anything at all?  The President is going out of his way to make it clear that is not his objective.  Why the hell not?

3. The chemical and biological weapons the Syrians are alleged to have stockpiled were likely provided from some other world power.  What’s to stop them from replenishing the supply after the U.S. goes in and “surgically” strikes whatever it is they plan to strike?

4. Given the number of sects involved in the Syrian civil war, how does “punishing” the Assad regime help solve those internal issues?  Won’t there be ongoing inhumane actions – some, perhaps, even precipitated by American intervention – that will then become “our responsibility” to respond to?

5. If there is no safe way to destroy the chemical and biological weapons using unmanned technology, what is the point of a military strike?  If it is for the sole purpose of giving the Syrians a symbolic “time-out,” and the weapons stay intact, who will take control of those weapons?  Rebels or Hezbollah?  What then?

 

On the other hand:

If the situation is so deserving of our retaliation, why are we screwing around having broadcast debates and public opinion polls?   And why has POTUS taken a rather cowardly duck under the wing of a Congressional vote, which by definition  not only delays whatever action we’ll take, giving the enemy even more time to prepare, but also appears to be an attempt to spread the blame if our so-called “intelligence” turns out to be bogus again?

Your answers to any one of these questions are welcome.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler: I Was a Spectator at My Life’s Story

 

I am up in years.  I can’t deny that, but the recent release of Lee Daniels’ The Butler really makes that fact take on a bold headline.

No, unlike the subject of the movie, Cecil Gaines, I wasn’t born on a cotton plantation.  I didn’t stand out in the hot sun and watch while the plantation owner grabbed my mother right in front of my father and me to take her off into the bushes to rape her.  And unlike young Cecil, I didn’t watch while that same son-of-a-bitch took out a pistol and shot my father in the head for trying to speak up like a man because his young son said “Aren’t you going to do anything, Dad?” And I didn’t watch my biracial mother lose her mind as a result, leaving me essentially parentless.

But sooner or later, the Gaines family and my own became players in a period of history that will forever be regarded with both horror and pride.  Cecil and I made our ways to adulthood on different paths, but we both made it.  Unscathed we were not.

This ambitious movie lays out the sociology and the political timeline of The Civil Rights Movement by following an uneducated man who was thoroughly educated in the ways to elegantly serve white people.  As we all know, he ended as a butler in the White House and stayed there through the Reagan Administration.

I will say this very simply:  Daniels nailed it.  How he assembled the budget to hire some of Hollywood’s most high-profile and gifted actors is a mystery to me.  Maybe he leveraged his phenomenal success with Precious (2009).  That movie won the American Film Institute’s Best Picture Award for 2009, and it garnered an Oscar win for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mo’Nique.  A second Oscar for Best Writing sits somewhere in the home of the film’s screenplay author.

The acting in The Butler is top notch.  Even Robin Williams in the unlikely role of President Dwight D. Eisenhower is quite convincing, thanks in no small way to the excellent job done on all the characters by the makeup department.  If you see it, pay attention to the small tweaks in the actors’ features, like the noses.

This film has Oscar written all over it.  I predict an Oscar for the incomparable Forest Whitaker for his poignant portrayal of butler Cecil Gaines, at least a nomination for Oprah Winfrey as his wife, and probably a Best Picture nod.

This guy couldn’t disagree with me more, although I doubt he’s even seen the movie:

Actor Harry Lennix

Actor Harry Lennix, 48, says the movie is “historical porn.” He accused Lee Daniels of “niggerfying” the beginnings and subsequent life of the fictionalized Gaines.  The film includes an introductory “Based on a True Story” in the opening credits, but I have seen media coverage that claims the story is based on real-life Eugene Allen, who served in the White House from the Truman through the Reagan administrations. 

Eugene Allen with Actor Forest Whitaker in the background

In a speech Lennix made at the Comic-Con International 2013 at San Diego Convention Center on July 20, 2013, Lennix made the following remarks:

“I read five pages of this thing and could not go any further. I tried to read more of it, and I’m not a soft spoken guy, but it was such an appalling mis-direction of history in terms of taking an actual guy who worked at the White House,” said Lennix in a July interview with Shadow and Act. But then he “ni**erfies” it. He “ni**ers” it up and he gives people these, stupid, luddite, antediluvian ideas about black people and their roles in the historical span in the White House and it becomes… well… historical porn. I refused.”

Shades of the outcry that accompanied The Help from numerous black contemporaries who think such pictures are meant to demean the actors and actresses by putting them in these kinds of roles.  In spite of the fact that actress Olivia Spencer, who played a sassy, back-talking maid in The Help, won an Oscar for her work and has gone on record as saying she doesn’t agree with the negative critics, there are still those who resent these films.

People like Harry Lennix were either not around or too young to witness the horrific injustices that were perpetrated daily on Southern (and Northern to a certain degree) black people in the run-up to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. To many of them, it is something they’ve learned about in school while their parents, which includes me, were busy trying to put all that in the distant past by striving to achieve that elusive American Dream they finally thought possible.  It was not the topic of conversation at the dinner table in upwardly-mobile black families. 

It is for that very reason that I disagree with the Harry Lennixes of the world.  It was demeaning, disgusting, degrading and dehumanizing, the way we were treated, but it happened.  Younger black American’s are starting to forget or never really knew the history of their people, the struggle they endured.  That can’t happen.

It cannot happen because, unless every citizen of this country understands what happened in the past, they will never be able to recognize the signs of the American culture slipping back into Jim Crow…or worse.  Those of us with a lot of age on us don’t have that problem; we know the slippage is already happening.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is a two hour and twelve minute experience of life as a black man in the last 50 or 60 years.  It illustrates vividly the generation gap in black families that I witnessed, experienced and felt.  So much happened during those 5 or 6 decades to drive a much-bigger-than-usual wedge between the ideologies of black parents and their children, it was inevitable that children would feel shame about their parents’ subservient jobs – the very jobs that allowed them to even think about equality – and that the parents would simply not understand our willingness to put ourselves in harm’s way for the sake of The Movement.  

We are currently experiencing a similar generation gap in the black community.  Those of us who fought during the 60s have in many cases raised children who enjoyed the fruits of our efforts and have become somewhat dismissive of the past.  Lee Daniels’ The Butler will help bridge that gap.

Eminess* Strikes Again

 

*my name for my recently diagnosed Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

 

As a general rule, Americans don’t much appreciate conversations about bodily functions.  Have you noticed?  I know I don’t…or didn’t.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a commercial peddling a medication for the dreaded erectile dysfunction.  I was suitably shocked for a woman raised in the habitual denial environment of parochial school.  Bedroom talk in public? Never!

Those commercials proliferated vigorously.  After awhile they were so de rigor I started wondering why nobody had invented a similar remedy for married women’s erroneously notorious lack of interest in intimacy.  Ah, but let’s save that for another blog post.

Anyway, having become accustomed to Big Pharma commercials by then, I nearly cracked a rib laughing when I first saw the commercial featuring these “people”:

The ad is for Vesicare, a drug created to address the symptoms of an overactive bladder (OAB).  The use of plumbing pipes to intimate the embarrassing and inconvenient prospect of one’s bladder “leaking” was both stupid and ingenious.

This ad campaign preceded my MS diagnosis by around four years.  I remember wondering silently if there really were that many people walking around freaked out about the possibility of failing to hold their water, so to speak.  And I remember feeling very very sad for them.

I think I was one of those kids Sigmund Freud described who were somehow traumatized by their toilet training.  I have always been obsessed with the avoidance of that so-called urgency those OAB drugs treat.  To this day, I never leave the house without at least attempting to empty my bladder.

Which brings me to the present.

I don’t know how I missed this, but it turns out that 80% of people with MS develop bladder issues.  Just like all my other symptoms, the reason for what I called an irritable and unpredictable urinary tract went undiagnosed for decades.  When I concluded that coffee of any amount would significantly increase my trips to the loo, I stopped drinking it.  When I realized that even caffeine-free Diet Cokes intensified an intermittent sensation of “having to go” immediately after leaving the restroom, I stopped drinking that, too.  In fact, I stopped drinking everything except skim milk and water.

One of the first questions my neurologist asked when I finally found myself in consultation for a boatload of seemingly disconnected issues was “have you had any problems with your bladder?”  Um… well, yes, I have.

I’m sure you can imagine my horror when one morning, after a very rare night of sleeping straight through without waking to stagger into the bathroom two or three times, I got out of bed and immediately became drenched in urine. I remember practically shouting, “No. No. Ohhhhh, nooooo.”

It happened the next morning, too.  I cried and vowed never to leave the house again.

The doctor had given me a prescription to treat my almost daily tension headaches.  Although I had been taking that drug off and on for other reasons, I had never taken a dosage as high as the one the neurologist prescribed.  Suspecting it was the culprit, I Googled the side effects of the drug and, sure enough, there in black and white were the words “urinary incontinence.”  Aha!

I stopped taking that drug that day, just to see.  Sure enough, although I did wake up several times to urinate during the night, I didn’t spring a leak upon leaving my bed in the morning.  Verdict: It was the drug.

So, Dr. Neurologist reduced the dosage by more than half.  And, aside from the truly exasperating dry mouth it causes, I was able to wake up during the night to tend to my increasingly annoying bladder, thus eliminating the totally uncontrollable and humiliating gush upon rising in the morning… until yesterday.

There is a new questionable TV commercial that has emerged most recently:

Yep. They come in pink and blue.

The Ceiling Fell, My Clothes Shelf Broke, and Then I Trapped a Rat

 

All of the above has happened since Friday.  Am I being tested? 

Two weeks ago my landlord decided to have the air conditioning unit serviced for the first time in three years.  I had never had any problems with the AC. 

As is usually the case, the Tucker AC guys showed up in pairs.  One did all the talking – and by that I mean yammering on and on and on and… while the other one mutely did all the grunt work.  Of course, I needed a “teeny tiny bit of Freon, just to top off the tank.”  There was something very “weird about the way that unit is installed – there’s no filter shelf.”  So they fixed that.  And they cleaned the coil.  

Now, I’m no HVAC technician, but over the years I’ve learned to become very wary of in-house technicians.  They all seem to follow the same suspicious protocol:

1) Bash the work of the previous technician and/or installer.

2) Find something they have “never seen it done like that before.”

3) Declare the problems fixed and I’m “good to go.”

4) But they lie.  Instead of the original problem being fixed, it is not and an additional, new problem emerges.

So, the Tucker AC guys leave and I go about my business as usual for two weeks.

Last Thursday, as I walked through the dining room toward the kitchen, I noticed a small puddle on the floor.  I immediately looked at Coqui, my nearly perfect but aging Bichon Frise.  “Did you pee on the floor?!?!?”  She stared at me with those enormous black eyes as if to ask “What the hell are you talking about?”

I made a pit stop in the downstairs bath and headed back toward my perch on the sofa.  A drop of water fell on my head.  We were in the midst of our obligatory daily thunderstorm, so I surmised that rain water was somehow leaking into the house. 

I called the landlord and told him about the leak. 

Two hours later, I walked to the powder room again – I’d been drinking lots of water and eating watermelon, okay? As I walked back toward the living room water was dripping in a catchy rhythm from the ceiling onto the floor.  Aha!  It’s not raining anymore, so the leak has to be connected somehow to my flushing the toilet.  

I tell the landlord, who has called somebody called Atlanta Fix-it Guy to troubleshoot the problem.  Mr. Fixit arrives, inspects the premises, listens to my amateur diagnostics and promises to get back to the landlord with an estimate.  He instructed me to refrain from using that toilet until he could get back. No problem.  I have another one upstairs.

I tell the landlord I am afraid the ceiling will collapse under the weight of the water, but because of my MS, I am not supposed to get over-heated, so I’ll have to run the AC once in awhile.  He brings in a giant plastic bin to catch the water.

The next day, Saturday, I make the connection between the AC turning on and the beginning of the leaks.  By this time there are cracks in the sheetrock and brown water spots emerging by the hour.  If I turned off the AC, the dripping would stop within three minutes.  Aha!

Just before that eureka moment, I had been stacking newly folded laundry on my closet shelf.  Apparently, I have too many clothes.  The shelving fell when a screw pulled away from the drywall.  I had no more angst to give it, though.  I  just closed the doors and walked downstairs.

A large chunk of the ceiling had fallen to the dining room floor five minutes after Coqui and I walked under it to go upstairs to bed.  My luck is holding out, however.  None of my furniture was hit.  Yet.

Atlanta Fix-it Guy has never called with an estimate.  A follow up call to him resulted in his taking a pass on the job because “he was booked for the next two weeks.”

A local AC company was called and arrived bright and early Monday morning.  “Easy fix,” said the one-who-does-the-talking.  His mute partner was outside staring at the condenser.  The next words out of his mouth?  “That guy from Tucker shouldn’t have left it this way.”  Uh-huh.

Fifteen minutes and $150 later, this dynamic duo leaves and says “You’re good to go, Ma’am.”

The leak was twice as fast as it was before.  The landlord and I were mopping up and stuffing absorbent materials into the hole in the ceiling, emptying my china cabinet and moving it to the other side of the room, sweating like two pigs and swearing to ourselves under our breaths at 9 p.m. Monday.

Just before that, I was standing at the patio door staring into space.  I tend to do that when I get overwhelmed.  Something moved in my peripheral vision.  I glanced down and spotted a pink-eared, fat bellied RAT!  Still depleted of angst, I pulled out the rat trap from the closet, loaded it with peanut butter and put it in the exact spot I saw Ratatouille shading himself under the daisies.

This morning?  Well, the local AC people who failed to fix my “easy fix” are supposed to be calling me when they are about to come out.  It’s 11:30 a.m.  No call yet.  The late Ratatouille is resting in peace in the dumpster outside.  My folded clothing is still sitting in neat stacks all around my bedroom.  And the clouds are gathering, once again, for our daily gully-washer. 

It’s been one of those times when the only thing left to do is laugh.

A Conversation Between My Heart and My Head

 

George Zimmerman is the kind of man who needs a gun to compensate for the things he lacks.  Objectivity. Courage. Athleticism. Self-Awareness. Honesty.

The gun, to the GZ’s of the world, is the great equalizer.  “I might be a wimp, but I have a gun, so I’m on solid ground,” he tells himself.

The gun is what gave George Zimmerman the stones to disregard a suggestion from the telephone cop NOT to follow Trayvon Martin. 

Unfortunately for GZ, he failed to take into consideration that a young man who has just turned 17 and has grown to a scrawny 5’11” might not take kindly to a short, stocky stranger following him around.  Doesn’t he know that one of the first ways a young black person learns we are, for some reason, not to be trusted is when we are followed around in a retail store by a “Loss Prevention” professional?  It’s insulting and it’s off-pissing.

Nobody really knows what happened out in that dark, damp pathway.  We know what GZ says happened.  Let’s take a look at his story.

GZ says Trayvon slipped out of his view for about four minutes.  That was plenty of time for Trayvon to run home and escape the “creepy-assed cracker” he told his friend Rachel was following him.  But I ask you.  How many hormone-hyped 17-year-old boys do you know who would actually run from a confrontation?  Especially a confrontation with a man who is a full four inches shorter.

So let’s give GZ the benefit of the doubt and say that Trayvon circled around and ambushed him on the “T” part of the path.  He probably didn’t jump out of the bushes, as reported by GZ.  There were no bushes.  No, Trayvon simply strolled up to GZ and asked him what the hell his problem was. And he probably hauled off and busted GZ’s nose.

It is not outside of the realm of believability that Trayvon Martin smarted off, jumped bad, swaggered and pranced.  He was an adolescent at an age where, as the old folks used to say, he was “smelling himself.”  And being young and still somewhat stupid to the ways of the real world, he failed to think about the possibility of this “creepy-assed cracker” being armed with a concealed weapon.

So, up to this point, both men made a series of very bad decisions.

According to the law as it was applied to this case, THIS is where the case began.  All the preceding paragraphs do not matter.  All the cause and effect we want to think about, talk about or scream about are not relevant.

A court of law is not a place for feelings.  It is a place for facts – details – evidence.  The prosecution did not even attempt to offer a scenario of this incident that proved that self-defense did not apply.  Even the witnesses they called to the stand failed to say anything that supported that.  Most of them said things that supported the defense, for heaven’s sake.

And what they said is, in a nutshell, Trayvon Martin was kicking George Zimmerman’s wannabe-cop ass. No one was able to prove who was screaming for help, but it was only GZ who had a busted nose and wounds consistent with having his head bounced off a sidewalk.  Yes, the defense exaggerated those injuries. That is their job.  It was the prosecution’s job to tell us, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it didn’t happen that way.  They couldn’t.

Now comes the point in question.  This is the only thing that mattered, according to the laws of Florida.  While Trayvon was beating the crap out of GZ, did GZ believe he was going to sustain extreme bodily harm, even death?  Probably.  If you listen to the screams on the tapes, you hear a person hysterical with fear.  Why he didn’t fight back with his own fists is a question only GZ can answer.  Why he drew the gun instead of kicking Trayvon in the groin is a question only GZ can answer.  Why, when he did pull the gun, he didn’t aim it at a shoot-to-maim part of Trayvon’s body, only GZ can answer.  Nobody asked him.

The jury in this case was as exemplary a panel as I’ve ever seen.  All reports from the courtroom were that they were attentive, some taking copious notes.  Several times they were asked if they wanted a break and they said no.  They wanted to keep working.  Knowing that the finish line was within their view, that jury could have sped along and come to their conclusion within a few hours.  Instead, they worked a total of 16 hours.  The question they sent out about the instructions for manslaughter told me there probably was at least one person who wanted George Zimmerman to be found guilty of something.  But that something wasn’t available to them.  All they knew is that they believed Zimmerman fired his gun in self-defense.  That’s all they needed to find him not guilty.

That jury would have had to totally disregard the insanely confusing instructions they must have had to read a dozen times just to understand, in order to find GZ guilty.  That’s what I think the OJ jury did.  Instead, the Zimmerman jury did their work and did their job by following the letter of the law.

Was justice served?  Hell no!  But I don’t blame the jury.  I blame the State’s Attorney for overreaching in her charges in the first place, probably in response to public opinion pressures.  I blame the prosecution for failing to instruct the jury on the matter of manslaughter. 

George Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin that night.  Race WAS a part of that profile, of that I have no doubt.  Zimmerman foolishly decided to play hero that night.  His personal demons were definitely at work, of that I have no doubt.  But our legal system seems to have little to do with justice for victims.  It seems to have everything to do with a fair trial for the accused. It is the system we have, and it worked.  Just not for Trayvon.