Dooney'sWorld

Inauguration Day

I didn't really think I would get all wrapped up in watching the inauguration and the events in Washington today, and in fact I almost missed it.  Not because I wasn't interested or happy but just because, well, sometimes I don't think things through.  

Its just that I tend to take politics very pragmatically and intellectually and weigh the options seriously and make what I think and hope are the best choices.  I don't really get all wrapped up in idealistic causes, or dreams or hopes or all kinds of emotional issues regarding elections, or I do, but perhaps I am just so jaded about politics and to down to earth about the business of running a government, that I suppress them.  So although I voted for the new president, I didn't make that decision based on hopes and dreams, and although I was even excited, no thrilled, as today approached, I didn't think of it beyond that.

Strange isn't it, that I, a person who firmly believes in the power of rituals could forget to pay attention to this particular ritual and the power it represents  as a symbol?  Not only that but this year in particular held even greater power as a symbol of something that I have hoped for much of my adult life.

So here I was watching people lining up and waiting, and watching the events of the day, listening to the inaugural address (I didn't get to watch that) and generally spending my day glued to the TV.  And I found myself teary-eyed and foolishly happy.  I found myself tapping into some fragment of the hopeful naivete that I felt the first time I watched a Presidential inauguration for a President elected in an election in which I myself had voted.  In fact that was the last inauguration I ever watched:  the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, when I was still a naive young girl who believed that a hope and prayer could change the world.  I guess I still believe that, I just realize that the hope and prayer have to be bolstered up with a lot of hard work and commitment. But I am oh so glad that those hopes and prayers are still there.

Giving Thanks

On this National Holiday of Thanksgiving and Gluttony, we have had a decidedly quiet, decidely nice, and not very gluttonous day.  It seems fitting for all that is going on the world right now, although that was not our intent.

We are thankful for living in this country and all the safety's and freedoms it gives us, despite its problems, for all socieities have problems. 

But this year we are especially thankful for the small things, like a new carafe for the coffee pot, which arrived Wednesday night by UPS.  This allowed us to spend the first part of the day sipping coffee and puttering about the house, reading and doing small tasks in good company.

The lid to the old carafe had been fused to the body and could not be opened, and I had not thought I would miss it as much as I did in the six days we waited for the replacement to arrive.  I have learned that I may love an espresso in the afternoon, but I also love puttering about with a cup of good strong American Coffee in the morning.  This morning we gave thanks for coffee.

In the afternoon we gave thanks for congenial time spent with friends and neighbors.  Good food, good conversation, wine, coffee, indulgence but no excess.  What a lovely holiday.

We are also celebrating because G's test results came back as positive for NPH and we have started the process of getting surgical approvals so that he can have a shunt put in to drain the excess spinal fluid and hopefully regain as much ability to live and function on his own as possible.  This is truly good news.  We don't have a surgical date yet, but are hoping it will be in the next month or two, depending on the various schedules and desires of his numerous physicians. I know that once we get everything moving, the pace might speed up and I am truly happy and looking forward to whatever may happen, setbacks or not.

On less positive notes, if you haven't read this article, take a look.  It is excellent albeit sobering.  And yet even this cannot dampen my mood.  Whatever happens is beyond my control and I know I will cope regardless.  And that is a happy feeling.

Have you seen...

Have you seen the new New Yorker cover?

courtesy of The New Yorker

Thank Goodness its over

Thank God it is Election Day. My votes have been cast, and I am thankful for the privilege, but I am also glad it is over. Never in my life do I recall being so ready to be past election day, never do I recall being harassed to this extent by phone calls, by people extolling me to vote, to vote for their candidate, over 10 calls in the last two days from one party alone, not counting the other side.

Whatever happened to civilized conversation? What happened to the idea that two people could sit down and discuss their different views rationally, considering and respecting the other person’s arguments if they were rationally thought out and well presented? Whatever happened to the idea that people did not judge their friends or acquaintances solely by what political dogma they believed, or what religious beliefs they held?

Yesterday, I was so angry I considered changing my vote for the wrong reasons, simply because I was so frustrated at being harangued by some narrow-minded individual, an individual who was trying to muster votes for his candidate, a candidate for whom I had planned on voting before our encounter (and whom I did in fact vote for). But if I changed my vote out of anger and prejudice, I would be guilty of the same thing that I find so frustrating.

Yesterday we were met by a representative of one of the parties. He asked if we would vote for one of the candidates. We have both been undecided in this particular race, both waffling, but at that point G honestly responded that he was leaning toward the other side, although he had not yet fully decided. Instead of offering arguments and discussion attempting to sway G, this party representative became abusive and harangued both of us, telling G he should “stay home and not vote”. I suppose he thinks you are only allowed to vote if you hold the “right” beliefs.

In an obviously misguided attempt to help the situation, (this person was attempting to block access to our car) I truthfully informed the same person that I was going to vote for his candidate, even though that meant I might only cancel out G’s vote. After another tirade, I was told that I should stay home and not vote as well. When I asked why, I was told that I shouldn’t vote because I was married to “him” (G, the one voting for the other candidate).  I didn’t realize that choice of spouse determined one’s right to vote in this country. Nor did I realize that we had given up the freedom of speech or independent thought.

If this person wanted to increase votes for his candidate, who was up against a popular incumbent, alienating the very voters who were going to support his candidate in the poles seems very short-sighted. To tell the truth I was more offended by his comment that I shouldn’t vote because of my choice of spouse than by the insults tossed at that very same “wrong-voting” spouse.  I suppose I have just become inured to political bigotry, but I cannot accept the idea that the rights our ancestors fought so hard to gain can be so flippantly cast aside.

I once thought that intelligent people could discuss issues and agree to disagree, I thought intelligent people could respect each other’s opinions even if they did not always agree on specifics. G and I have discussed aspects of this election extensively, and although we usually vote alike we do not always. We do however, always listen to each other’s arguments. I can fully understand G’s reservations about both candidates, I have many of the same reservations, but my conclusions are different. We both tend to be independent thinkers and neither one of us has ever been a straight party-line voter. I suppose that puts us in the group everyone loves to hate. The thing we both accept is that if we wish the right to form our own opinions, and respect the intelligence of the other, we must also accept that they will sometimes form opinions different from our own. Respect allows for this.

But I suppose some people don’t feel that we have the right to disagree. And that makes me very nervous, no matter which “side” they are on. I am tired of the left demonizing the right and the right demonizing the left. I am tired of everyone toeing the party line, of no one daring to express a contrary opinion.

I’m glad this election is over. Whatever the outcome, I remain optimistic about the future.

Town and Gown

Usually I read the morning papers with no particular emotional investment in the news.  I read.  Some articles are interesting.  Occasionally I am led to pursue further research on a subject.  Facts, figures and a few interesting tidbits are stored in the mental data banks, but usually it is a quiet process.

This morning however I was ready to spit, over a very minor issue granted, but still, it ticked me off.  Our local paper The Poughkeepsie Journal, reported, like everyone else, on the release of the US News and World Reports college rankings.  No problem there.  Then I came to this paragraph:

    "Locally, Marist College ranked 15th out of 165 colleges and universities in the northern United States that offer a full range of undergraduate and master's level programs. This is the highest ranking Marist has achieved in the U.S. News rankings, up one spot from last year. Other results for local colleges were not available."

Emphasis on the last sentence is mine.  Now within a minute. I had looked up the US News rankings online and determined the rankings of all other  local colleges.  If I, a reader can easily find that information, I would think someone at the Poughkeepsie Journal could do so as well.  If they are going to bother looking up one college they should look up the rest, or if they are only going to look up colleges in Poughkeepsie, the home of The Journal, they could look up both Marist and Vassar College which are both located in Poughkeepsie.  I can even understand skipping Bard as it is, let's say, 30 miles away.

Once again the Poughkeepsie Journal displays shoddy journalism, there are more examples than I care to enumerate, and the general local tendency to praise Marist and decry Vassar annoys me to no end.  Granted Marist draws from a primarily regional population and Vassar does not.  But both put money, education, and added value back into this community.  And despite common myths, Vassar does accept students from local schools, and many Vassar graduates work and live in this community.  My bias is not completely based on my status as a Vassar graduate.  I grew up in a "town and gown" community and I think the whole phenomenon is narrow minded and stupid, even though I can see how it arose.  I can certainly say that the situation must have been worse when students drawn to elite colleges, or any colleges were more affluent than the local residents, but in an age where most college students receive financial aid, a much larger percentage of the population goes to college, and colleges themselves are taking a greater look at their roll in their communities, this kind of narrow-minded bias should be decreasing.  Even if resentment exists, it should not be exploited by local institutions that should know better.

End of rant for today.

Liberal Mis-Education?

In today’s Wall Street Journal there is an article about how several colleges are beginning to offer courses in Intelligent Design.  I think this is appalling.  But then, my beloved reminded me that our local community college offers courses in Astrology. 

What I don’t understand about the current wave of religious sentiment is how closed-minded and narrow it makes the world.  Why can’t one believe in a supreme being or God or religiion or whatever you want to call it, and still believe in science? 

I watched an interview with Jimmy Carter last week, prompted by his new book I believe, and what most impressed me is that he is one of the few (only??) well known public figures who is obviously a Christian and proud of it, but is also rational, and objective.  He is a Christian and a realist and proud to say he believes in God AND Science.

Insider Knowledge and Public "Fog"

The Mann Booker Prize was announced: John Banville won for The Sea , which I have not read.  In fact I have not read any Banville although I have heard good things.  Interesting.. I will have to seek his works out.  I was hoping for Julian Barnes because I think he writes beautifully even though I haven’t read his newest novel yet, although he has won before and so I suppose this is only fair.  Of course Ishiguro has won before also. 

I am terribly behind.  There was a time when I would read all the proposed novels before the prize was announced.  I was more devoted and far less scatter-brained then.    This year I have read nothing on the list, although several novels are on my list.  I did read Ian McEwan’s Saturday, which as you know, I liked very much.  I was somewhat disappointed that it was not nominated, almost as disappointed as I was surprised by Zadie Smith.  I haven’t read her new novel either although it too is on my list.  In the past I have thought that her prose can be beautiful but her story lines weak.  Beautiful prose can be a joy but it is not enough.

Meanwhile, I continue way behind on my reading as well as my blog-reading and internet forums: 

This article  via Rebecca's Pocket caught my attention yesterday and is well worth reading.  The way news is reported and what is reported affects us all and requires much greater consideration. 

I personally was not too concerned about Frist’s insider trading charge only because I don’t tend to worry that much about insider trading.  Yes people abuse the system, yes people make money, extremely large amounts on information that is not general knowledge, but that is the way people and the world work, always have worked, and always will.  I suspect more people are hurt by the secrecy and sneaking around that have to be done because of insider trading legislation than would have been otherwise.  Perhaps I overstate the case. Perhaps I have not considered the issues thoroughly enough.  Perhaps I am overly cynical.

Decisions have to be made based on something.  Someone always knows something that no one else knows.  Where would our society be today if no one had ever acted on insider knowledge.  Yes there are issues.  Yes there are dangers.  But insider trading, like war, is so deeply tied to the human psyche that I think anyone is deceiving themselves if they believe these things can be eliminated. 

Still the article is important.  The implications are important.  The connection between Frist and HCA, his voting record on healthcare issues, the entire way the HCA fraud case was handled and settled, these are unsettling precedents for all Americans.  These, combined with the insider trading issues should give us pause. 

There is no malpractice for news media, for not looking up facts that are not on the surface although such is the case in medicine.  We expect our doctors to do all the research.   We expect them to protect us.  Frist, as a physician, is aware of this, but perhaps as a politician he does not feel the standards need be the same.  We do not seem to expect this from our government.  We do not seem to expect this from our news sources.

Beware of Good Intentions

Beware of Good Intentions
And the Passions in their eyes
For None of them can open
The Gates of Paradise

                                            David Byrne "The Gates of Paradise"

Pardon my ranting, raving, and rambling.  I suppose I have been a little frazzled and as a result, not as coherent as I would like to be.  I should not have inflicted my silliness on you.

Following is a rather long quote I saved to my quote file when I was reading Ian McEwan's "Saturday".  It seemed like a rather apt and well put description of a modern phenomenon, and I still like it:

Have his anxieties been making a fool of him?  It's part of the new order, this narrowing of mental freedom, of his right to roam.  Not so long ago his thoughts ranged more predictably, over a longer list of subjects.  He suspects he's becoming a dupe, the willing, febrile consumer of news fodder, opininion, speculation and of all the crumbs authorities let fall. He's a docile citizen, watching Leviathan grow stronger while he creeps under its shadow for protection.  ....  Does he think he's contributing something, watching news programmes, or lying on his back on the sofa on Sunday aftrnoons, reading more opinion columns of ungrounded certainties, more long articles about what really lies behind this or that development, or abut what is most surely going to happen next ...  Either way, it amounts to a consensus of a kind, an orthodoxy of attention, a mild subjucation in itself.  Does he think that his ambivalence -- if that's what it really is -- excuses him from the general conformity?

No answers, just something else to think about.

                        

Crazy!

I sometimes think the world has gone to crazy extremes and there is no place left in the middle anymore.

FEMA is a joke, brimming with incompetence.   I have to say the same for the government as well.  These are the people who are supposed to be looking out for us?  And they think we are stupid enough not to notice?

The republicans are so far to the right I am surprised that they are even on the horizon, and yet, they seem to have successfully convinced us that they are pretty close to the 50-yard-line and we are going to be OK.  Are we waking up from this nightmare yet?

But the democrats!  Sometimes they too get so wrapped up they are almost rabid!.  At times they act like the poor revolutionaries (remember Nicaragua) who overthrow the Fascist government only to become Fascists themselves when they get in power.  The parties used to be much closer, now they are like polar opposites, and yet they both get so caught up in the screaming and justifying that they forget the ocean in between them.

What ever happened to responsibility and caring for your neighbors and your family/community/country?

Fear, Loathing, and the Moral Nation

I have been avoiding thinking about the disaster in the south.  I have been avoiding thinking about all the people who are suffering, about the cost of rebuilding, of what will happen.  Actual the economic end of it seems unreal, when I think about Katrina I wonder what will happen to all those people, and I can't fathom it.  Then I become angry.  Terribly angry.  Angry that we have allowed this to happen.  Angry.Because.Each.One.Of.Us.Is.Partly.To.Blame. Myself Included.  Better to not think about guilt.

We blame the conservatives.  We blame the Government.  We blame President Bush.  And well we should.  They have handled this very badly.  If the President handled 9/11 well, he certainly has handled this very badly.  A blight upon his presidency. He seems out of contact, as if he doesn't care, and the incomptence spreads and spreads and no one seems to know what could be done, what could have been done, what should have been done. That we can hold ourselves up as a model of what is right in the world and tolerate this total lack of regard for human life from our President and Government is appalling.

Does anyone care anymore?

Of course, I know that by not following everything I am trying to escape and not face the facts, as I suspect are many Americans -- it's not my life -- even though we feel bad for those who have suffered.  Send Money.  Send toiletries and food.  Many of us have done that, myself included.  Still it is another thing to sit here in my comfortable home and wonder what will happen to the poor.  Avoiding the issues does nothing to help, and hence I must accept part of the blame because I have done nothing to help.  Writing about it does nothing to help either, nor does complaining.  It maks the writer feel better, more virtuous.  hmmmm..  we are on a roll here.

As I said it is easy to blame the conservatives.  But truly are the liberals better?  I don't see strong politicians mobilizing forces.  The democrats have been fronting weak, nobody candidates and then screaming when they lose.  Does either side really think about the poor as people, as someone who could just as easily be you or me?  No.  We read the reports.  We complain about the unfairness of it, but we don't really upset the status quo.  We think of the government as apart from ourselves, our lives.  We let it go on its merry way and then we are angry when it disappoints us.   We blame the crooked politicians for paying poor blacks in New Orleans for their vote.  We don't blame the poor, usually black, who vote twice.  The $50 payment is more tangible to them than the benefits or harm to come from voting for whoever.  They don't see that anything will change anyway, might as well collect the money.  Are we any better.  We elect our government.  We elect people who don't upset our comfortable lives, or we read the news and let it slide because we don't really believe anything will change anyway.

Again people blame President Bush.  He has wasted an opportunity.  He has shown gross disregard for human lives.  So have many others.  Would someone else do better.  I would hope so.  Would the situtation have turned out better.  I don't know.  There are too many reports about the failures being widespread.  This was ANTICIPATED.  Even the Wall Street Journal   has reported about the failures.  No one had plans, or more realistically no wanted to pay for those plans. Or the plans were incomplete even though the data was available in many places.   In a market driven economy there is no money in disaster preparedness.  It is a net money loser.  Even though the rebuilding of New Orleans and the relocating of thousands will cost billions, billions more will be made.   The economy doesn't care.  Billions in, billions out; good for business. 

We have lost the human scale.

There was no plan for evacuating those residents who had no private transportation.  This in a city where almost a quarter of the population was poor.  City and state officials must have been aware of this.  Yet they never thought in human terms what this meant for all those poor people who had no cars or way to escape.  Invisible.

When they were finally faced with doing something, they transferred some to the Superdome.  Yet they had no provisions for food or water or medicines, toilet facilities or anything.  They thought they would just dump them there like bags of used clothing.  Invisible.

People were rescued and dumped on th side of the road while military and emergency operations went around them.  Invisible.

No wonder the poor looted and stole.  They know we don't really see them.  It is so sad that they think that getting a high definition TV is what makes them worthwhile, but we have bred that mentaility as well.  Are we concerned?  As a nation no.  Invisible.

Back to the Wall Street Journal.  This time to Thursday's issue: Old-Line Families Escape Worst of Flood  which describes residents high and dry, although granted inconvenienced, with generators, ice and security guards, using Audobon Park as a private heliport to come and go, while people are drowning and dying of dehydration such a short distance away.  Invisible.

It is amazing that these are the people who want to rebuild New Orleans, and will probably be able to do it, without the poor black population, even though the grittiness and mix of cultures is a great deal of what has made New Orleans such an enduring culture.  Invisible.

A Government's first reponsibility is to its people.  All its people in equal measure.  A community's first responsibility is to its people.  All its people in equal measure.  I don't think the United States as a whole is much of a community anymore and this makes me very ashamed.

I was directed to several blogs discussing these issues by various knitting links, most directly by Kerstin from whom I found myself directed to Tom Watson  who said this: 
An unwillingness to lead at the head of government: that is the hallmark of the modern American conservative movement, one that is firmly established (for now) in power over the dwindling Federal might of our country. This administration is unwilling to lead (outside of war and related saber-ratling) - it does not believe strongly in the mission of goverment, in government that can do good, in government that can lead people and improve society. It believes only in the marketplace and in thin, sloganish vitriol.

From Watson, I was lead to Jason Chervokas  and even more interesting thought provoking reading, which pretty much shaped my day.  While doing other things, I was contemplating so much that was running through my mind.  I will end with another quote:

If Howard Dean is correct, if it is time for a new America, the moral purpose he talks about restoring is a very old, very simple one that Conservatism has abandoned: Take Care of Each Other. That's why people join together in groups to live--whether they join in families or tribes or democratic governments: to take care of each other better than they can take care of themselves. A government that has anything else as it's primary goal is a government without moral legitimacy.

Where we DO we go from here?  Will we change our path or is just another little speed-bump on the road?