Some questions actually tell us so much about ourselves

Posted on May 12, 2010 by 40andover

Poor Solicitor General Elena Kagan. Just because she is single, unattractive, overweight and intellectual, she must be a lesbian.

Laura Ingraham is single and, to some, intellectual. So, she isn’t unattractive or overweight. Is she . . . .?

So, former Secretary of State Condi Rice is single and intellectual. She is not unattractive or overweight either. Is she. . . ?

Ok, I get it. If Elena Kagan were hot — or at least not unattractive and overweight, it wouldn’t be an issue.

If she were a man, like Justice Souter, no one would raise the issue. How do I know? Because no one did (loudly, anyway).

Has anyone looked at all of the unattractive and overweight women who are married and heterosexual? Has anyone looked at all the gorgeous heterosexual women who are single? And all the gorgeous lesbians who are “married”?

Maybe she is; maybe she isn’t. But if unattractive and overweight were the markers, there would be only five heterosexuals in middle America.

Who will be the first politician to own up to this attitude? And this “litmus test” only pertains to women. Overweight and unattractive men? Just look at the Congress.

GOP senators don’t have gaydar. How do I know? They didn’t figure out about Family Research Council George Rekers, who hired a gay male escort to carry his bags on a trip to Europe. Or that televangelist. Or the Senator who sits wide in aiport bathrooms.

Democrats assume that the Republicans will raise the issue, so they — including the White House — are “getting out ahead of it”. In some publications, the Democrats are being criticized for not getting out ahead of it sooner.

So, even among the enlightened of our generation — including those in the White House — it is still a “smear” to say that someone is gay. And being gay is deviant but fixable, or so says the Family Research Council. Maybe it should rethink its view in light of the scandal rocking its founder.

We will allow gays to serve in the military so long as they hide under a rock. Think of the patriotism of these men and women. They are willing to shed their blood and give their lives to a country that won’t allow them to live, fight and die in dignity.

Aint that America.

The Health Care Debate

Posted on March 27, 2010 by 40andover

Let’s just hold this space for my rant, once I get it under control. Setting aside what you believe, there are people in the country who have behaved so abominably in the tactics they used and the violence they unleashed. And they are maybe worse than unpatriotic, because what they did undermines our system of government and our society. I believe that these people are traitors to our nation and its government because they want to win at all costs, without thought to the preservation of the union. In contra-distinction, those opposed to government action under the Bush-Cheney years did not physically and verbally attack lawmakers who put us in debt for generations, have rifle scopes put on where lawmakers live, and say things like, “you’re a dead man!”

Sen. McCain wants to repeal some of the very things that were part of his platform, until he changed with the direction of the wind. Some maverick.

Many of our representatives have breached their oaths of office. And in the process, they have stoked class warfare and racial distrust and enabled fringe groups to deny the legitimacy of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

But, still, I haven’t gotten my thoughts together yet, so stay tuned.

The most universal of tragedies

Posted on March 4, 2010 by 40andover

Life is a journey. From birth to inescapable, uncheatable, death. We accept this cycle of life and the orderly progression from youth to elderly to . . . nothingness or life everlasting, depending on one’s view and religion.

But what breaks a person’s (my) heart is knowing — however tangentially — parents who must bury their children, and grandparents unable to comprehend or comfort their own grieving children. Since the 1950s, the death of a child breaks social and religious compacts, both having evolved from greater longevity and higher standards of living. Not long ago, parents buried children in this country all too often. Still, as a parent, I cannot imagine the pain and grief of those parents, just as I cannot imagine the pain and grief of parents of a girl recently found dead in her dorm room at college.

A life and future snuffed out and a family in tatters. And, depending on the cause of death, other young lives guilty for not preventing the loss or complicit in causing the loss. I look back on my college years and wonder how I survived the colossally stupid things I did. I think about the way I cavalierly put my life and limb at risk in crazy, drunken escapades in the snowy mountains of New Hampshire. And, yet, I survived. Why?

There is no rhyme or reason to who lives and who dies, who is born into riches and who is mired in poverty and who is blessed and who cursed. Yes, biblical and epic struggles between humans and G-d are unleashed again in times of gut-wrenching sadness.

It is part of the human condition, I believe, to become inured to the death tolls in far-away Iraq and the famine in parts of far-away Africa, but be heart-sick at the death of a child barely considered “kin”. Maybe because I am a parent. Maybe because it didn’t happen in a faraway place or under circumstances outside my experiences. Maybe because in the America of my hopes and dreams — and those of my parents and grandparents — things like this don’t happen. The “shining beacon to the world” (if that is still true) is a little dimmed by each such senseless death.

There are many riffs on this — political, sociological, religious — but the fact remains that a young life is lost. And that is just too much. And, maybe we ought to think about every life this way. But for right now, I am thinking locally not globally.

I only hope that the family of this young girl find some form of peace in their lifetimes.

Tea Party-ers in Revolutionary Get-Ups

Posted on February 5, 2010 by 40andover

Ok, I don’t get what was so great about the pre-Revolutionary War period.

Milk and water had deadly bacteria, “medicine” consisted of bloodletting and leaches, and the economies of the colonies went through more boom and bust cycles than we have in the 20th and 21st centuries combined.

Also, women didn’t vote, slavery was legal and an education was a luxury. Life expectancy was short and infant mortality high. You were either born into poverty or great wealth — no in-between. There was war and its unspeakable human carnage.

In case the tea party-ers are not students of history, they are in the costumes of either the unofficial American aristocracy who made incredible fortunes from smuggling and the slave trade or those who were the impoverished masses and were controlled by that unofficial aristrocracy. And the Boston tea party was a Samuel Adams’ instigated mob riot intended to rile everyone against the king of England. All engineered by the wealthy colonials, not the “common people”.

If you are looking for grass roots democracy, try the Native American tribes on which Jefferson based his vision of government.

So, tea party-ers, what is your point? If you want to go back to that time, well, have fun but count me out. I would rather deal with a spoiled society on the verge of global devastation, but with the brain power and ultimately, I hope, the conscience and the technology and intelligence, to figure out how to save our earth and our humanity.

But if you just want to dress in knickers and wigs, then knock yourselves out.

The greatest generation

Posted on January 21, 2010 by 40andover

I know, I know. I write about death and destruction a lot. But life is like that. And movies and TV depict death and destruction with a certain enthusiasm that seems, well, ooky.

Today, I went to a friend’s father’s funeral. I didn’t know my friend’s father but I knew about his life. I heard him speak once. And his is a life story worth telling again and again, over and over.

He was born in Turkey and raised — before World War II — in France. He was a Jew and fled to the forests in unoccupied France. There he met his wife and together, with others they met in hiding, fought with the Resistance.

I remember his saying at a talk at our synagogue that he never really thought of himself as a survivor in the same way that those who survived the concentration camps were survivors.

At the funeral, the rabbi asked those who hid with him to stand and three very old people slowly, and with assistance, stood, two of them very stooped over. These old people did heroic things in a world gone haywire and they survived in a jungle of sorts where other humans were hunters and they were the game.

This man did the exact opposite of what was done to him. He loved, he gave generously of his time and his resources, he was grateful for life‘s gifts and, as someone at the funeral said, he didn’t blink when adversity hit.

He is truly the epitome of our greatest generation. He saw the worst, endured the worst and gave his best back.

I didn’t know him but I stand on his shoulders and those like him — my own parents and grandparents — and therefore I need to pay my respects to a man who made possible the opportunities in my life. For the debt I cannot repay to those who so willingly gave to me, I promise to pay it forward to the next generation, all the while telling the heroic stories of those who came before me.

Monsieur Henri, your memory is a blessing to all who know you and your family.

Miep 1910-2010

Posted on January 12, 2010 by 40andover

Miep. A little lone woman who stood up to a great evil machine.

She risked everything to hide the Frank family and others in Amsterdam during the war.

In a taped interview, she was talking to the son of another man she helped hide along with the Frank family. She said simply “[your father] asked for my help and I helped him.”

Miep had courage, kindness and humanity. She should be our next American Idol.

Transportation Safety Administration

Posted on December 28, 2009 by 40andover

We know that TSA personnel are mean and threatening. They enjoy lording over passengers and looking at each pereson suspiciously. And yet, they still seem to effect that attitude of “I’m doing you a favor, so don’t piss me off.”

We also know that having some one’s smelly shoes in a bin next to your bin (and permeating your coat and blazer) is no way to start or end a trip.

My favorite, though, is the full-body glaucoma test, where you are in a Woody Allen-esque orgasmatron machine as jets of air hit various areas of your body. The point is to find any trace chemicals. I also had someone swab my dirty underwear (I was on my way home) looking for trace chemicals. And, G-d forbid, you wanted to pack some hair gel.

We put up with these and other indignities. Why? Because they are keeping us safe.

Hmmm. Then how does a man previously denied entrance into this country, whose family alerted the authorities that he was dangerous, walk on a plane with a syringe and more liquid than “allowed”?

What have we learned? TSA personnel are mean and threatening AND incompetent. Luckily, the terrorist in this case was more incompetent.

There are a lot of very qualified people out of work. Maybe we should upgrade our TSA personnel (and personality).

Afghanistan

Posted on December 2, 2009 by 40andover

WAR. We are a nation at war. We forget that because, since September 11, 2001, no bombs have fallen on our cities. WAR.

WAR. Everyday some of our children go to war and die for our collective safety. WAR.

WAR. Our representatives in Congress voted for two wars. So, these are our wars. We own them. Don’t look away because it is too ugly to watch. WAR.

WAR. You cannot turn it off like the TV. It keeps on even when you cannot stand to hear another word about it. WAR.

WAR. The real enemies are not as easily vanquished as are TV villains. The real enemies want to kill our soldiers and defeat us. WAR.

WAR. And they and we have more and better weapons to inflict wounds than doctors have resources to heal them. WAR.

WAR. Even if soldiers come back in one physical piece, they have sacrificed their minds and happiness to the memories of war that time cannot erase. WAR.

WAR. We didn’t think long enough when we sent young people to die in Iraq. President Obama thought long and hard about Afghanistan, as he should, because this is WAR.

WAR. If my son goes, then I go, too. If there is a cause for which he should risk his life, then it is a cause worth risking mine. WAR.

WAR. I pray that lives lost in Afghanistan are not lost in vain, as they were in Iraq. Let us never be so easy about sacrificing lives again. WAR.

WAR. It is a small word. It is a great tragedy. WAR.

The tragedy at Fort Hood

Posted on November 10, 2009 by 40andover

Brave men and women lost their lives at the hands of one of our own.

Yes, Major Nidal Malik Hasan is one of our own.

Just as much as Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, is one of our own.

We can make all the shallow distinctions but radicalism creeps person by person, as it did with McVeigh and, as we are told, with Hasan. The horror and the responsibility begin and end with the person.

There are always signs in retrospect. And, they allow for a useless free-for-all for Monday quarterbacking pundits.

Yes, let’s look closely at this tragedy and learn its lessons. But, first, let us bury our dead with honor and with thanks of a grateful nation.

Just a few days ago, President Obama stood ramrod straight with a crisp salute as the fallen soldiers were carried off an army transport to be buried by their families.

It is tragic that he must do so again so soon and under these circumstances.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

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