The New Me (In the Test, Day 7-ish)

Posted on March 20, 2011 by 40andover

It is hard to describe how I feel as I watch the events unfold around the world, but let me try:

say you are in a bath (reading a book, sipping red wine in the hypothetical awesomely fabulous Manhattan apartment) and you pull the stopper to let the water drain. At that exact second, you hear a big BANG from somewhere. So what do you do? You put the stopper back in the drain and shiver a little.

Powerless and with shivers of fear. (FYI: I don’t live in the hypothetical fabulous apartment, I am drinking an unfortunate Sauvignon Blanc (I don’t even like white wine) and I have no time to expand my intellectual acumen (maybe when my son is 10).)

In truth, I never thought anything was out of my control until TLP (the little prince) was born. Now, I worry about the world after I am dead because (I hope) he (and his children) will still be alive. THAT makes what we do now even more important. Because we all know that the harvest reaped in two generations will be directly related to the seeds we sow now.

My mom always believed that if you can’t change the big things, then start with the little things, but you must always, always, strive to repair the world (tikkun olam) — תיקון עולם

Here is the difference between Mom and me. Mom just did things. I, first, need a whole new outfit and work-out regimen.

Did you think I could stay so serious and not deflect my fears, hopes and dreams by lapsing into (sometimes, forced) humor? DO YOU KNOW ME?

Sooo, deflectors are engaged.

One has to have strength to repair the world, no?

Ok, so let’s critique my old gym regimen, also known as, NP2 — “no pain, no pain”:

3 times a week, get on the stationary bike for 30 minutes, but quit after 25 minutes. Don’t even break a sweat.

Think about doing sit-ups. Hyper-ventilate about the anxiety of dealing with my expanding midriff. Suck in my stomach and do something else.

Do push-ups because I actually can do them. And not the girl-y ones, either.

Do back muscle exercises because I don’t want to stoop too much in my dotage.

Talk to some people, less now that some gym friends have moved to other locations.

Notice the time and realize I have to get home.

There was a time when I could suck in my tummy, arch my back a little and my stomach would be flat and my breasts “perky”. One cannot leave on memories of prior glory. Starting tomorrow (because I am drinking wine and might hurt myself if I tried it out now):

My new, Spring, regimen, also known as SPB2 — “some pain, but buff”:

Buy some new outfits for my new gym state of mind.

Do Michelle Obama arm exercises because we all deserve to look like we could go sleeveless on national TV.

Do something cardio for 40 minutes. And actually break a “glow” but no sweat because I am becoming more genteel (and eccentric) as I age.

Stop watching the TV because next year Oxford English Dictionary will declare “pundit” a synonym of “idiot” and people who watch pundits “vidiots”.

I promise, Mom, in the midst of my self-absorption, I won’t forget about tikkun olam. For your grandson and your great grandchildren. For everyone’s children and grandchildren.

תיקון עולם

At the shores of Tripoli

Posted on March 3, 2011 by 40andover

Nero, Caligula, Hitler, King George, Idi Amin. These are the names of some leaders who were raving lunatics. They were vicious, evil and certifiably coo-coo.

But Moamar Qadafi really takes the madman bloodlust to a new level.

Does anyone else think he talks like Charlie Sheen and looks eerily like Michael Jackson (odd skin tone and propensity toward make-up).

Except that we mechanisms to deal with a psychotic Hollywood star or a dead and alleged pedophile pop-star.

Qadafi will not leave voluntarily. He will savage his people to stay in power.

A no-fly zone cannot be a unilateral US action. It is hard to enforce and, if we engage, we have to be in for the long haul. Forget what Dick and Rummy told us about easy-win, easy-out strategies in Iraq. Stupid then; stupid now.

President Obama is pursuing the right strategy to make the military re-think killing fellow Libyans. John Wayne McCain is being contrarian. How many wars can we fight? If the US steps in overtly, it gives Qadafi leverage as a revolutionary against imperialist powers.

We have a moral obligation not to allow the slaughter. But we have to be intelligent about it. We have to look before we leap.

May Allah bless and save the Libyan people.

lucky

Posted on February 8, 2011 by 40andover

I hopped a cab tonight because I really, really, couldn’t deal with the humanity that crowds the subway. Well, actually, it was late enough that the trains wouldn’t be crowded, but still. There was a chill in the air (frigid, perhaps) and I needed to get home. A long-ish day. Not like the “old days” but then again I am not in my 20s or 30s any more (barely still in my 40s).

The cab driver was talking on the phone. His driving skills were basic: if your foot is not on the gas (accelerating in a way that gave a born-and-bred Manhattanite motion sickness), then your foot must be on the brake.

Ok, so I needed him off the phone and off the gas pedal. Hmmm. I struck up a conversation.

“Where are you from?”

“Sudan.”

“What do you think of the elections?”

“I don’t think it will change much. There will be fighting.”

“Are you from the north or the South?”

“North. Independence won’t change anything. People will fight each other now in the South. Many different peoples.”

“Same problem in the North?”

“Government there is strong. So, no fighting in north.”

I offered “brutal” as a more apt description.

He said, “way of life there, not here.”

I had no response to that simple statement of relief and admiration for this country. I asked him what he thought about Egypt.

“Now the world knows what has been happening there.”

I was silent. Maybe I should have known before. I just didn’t think about it.

He offered up, “no one speaks to police. too much bribes and danger. not here, government is less corrupt.”

I had never thought of our government in terms of lesser corruption. Not the superlatives we were raised to expect of our government. But he meant it as a true compliment.

My world view, turned on an incline — “less corrupt” as a compliment and an ideal.

Another lesson in life from a stranger.

WTF?

Posted on January 27, 2011 by 40andover

This is now our national discourse? WTF? How about if you don’t like what you hear, instead of tearing it down, Build It, Tough CHick.

Ugh, I have stooped to her level. Soon I’ll be sending my son to appear on Dancing With Famous People’s Children who should be home taking care of their love children.

But the person who out-Sarahs Sarah is Michele Bachmann. Our founding fathers fought to end slavery? Ever hear of the 3/5th Compromise in the Constitution that effectively legitimized slavery and kicked the issue down the road for a century?

Everyone has a right to an opinion. And I have a right to determine that someone’s opinion is stupid, ill-informed and baseless. And I have the right to believe that a scholar’s view has more weight than someone’s who has not studied the topic and relies on talking heads (on any network) for opinions.

WTF, indeed. As in: “Sarah Palin??? WTF is that Grizzly Mama saying?”

Politics, Politics

Posted on January 25, 2011 by 40andover

Ok, the rant is building, building, building . . . here it comes!!

I liked the State of the Union address. The President could have touted that he saved the car industry, that he kept the country from economic free-fall, that the US and Israel disrupted Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but he didn’t. I think he should have because America needs to remember all that he has accomplished. But that is because I am partisan. I think he struck the right tone as willing to make principled compromises. Besides, he had one hour to say all things to all people. Hey, now that’s a reasonable expectation.

The sign that he did a good job was that he was being pilloried by MSNBC, CNN and, even without watching it, FOX.

Oh, and, apropos of nothing, Speaker Boehner has a bad body colorist.

In the GOP retort, Paul Ryan said investment is a code-word for spending. It is not. There is no code. Investment is spending. When I invest in real estate, stocks, etc., I am spending money, with an eye toward making a good return on my investment.

So, the three things that distinguish the GOP and the Democrats is who should do the spending, on what and how much.

I believe in spending on education and innovation. I believe that these will provide a good return on the money invested. The GOP believes that investment should be made by private enterprise. How private enterprise would have developed the Internet and GPS or will develop high speed railways and clean energy without government grants is beyond me. And should we abolish public education? No, but the GOP wants to starve it so that the little money spent on it would be a waste.

We pay the least amount of taxes of the industrialized nations. Before WWII, tax rates had some people paying 80%. So everyone, chill out on taxes. Remember the GOP spent willy-nilly (not a usual phrase for me) on two wars and kept it outside the budget so that the American people wouldn’t know. So, now, NOW, we have to worry about taxing the top 2%? Did you ask me? If you did, I would tell you to keep my tax cut and buy some muzzles for the Tea Party legislators. Now, that is a good investment. Do you think it is really tea? It is a dry weed-like substance. We should try rolling that “tea” and seeing if smoking it give us delusions of intelligent impact on the national discourse, too.

Paul Ryan seems like a lovely guy but I was distracted by his perfect hair and a little freaked out by his Biblical references. And why is your part half way between the middle and one side? Isn’t that radical?

Rep. Ryan said something like our regulations were fine, it was just the corporate and governmental evil-doers that stole our prosperity. But, wait, that happened BEFORE President Obama was president. Remember, that Decider guy? Yeah, that one. He was running the show. And, wait for it . . . he is a Republican!!! Omigod, how embarrassing, Paul. Still, with that gaffe extraordinaire, your hair did not move.

And, will you stop about small government? There are 300 million of us. We need hordes just to pave roads and administer social security and Medicare, run the military and veterans benefits. You don’t mean to scrimp on these things, do you Paul? You even referred to the days of Lincoln as an example of small government. Those crazy, high energy, innovative days when were no fair labor laws, children worked 14-hour days, no food or product safety laws and, oh, yes, no truth in advertising or disclosure by companies. So we could die in the factory, die from rotten food or poisonous products or lose our life savings to corporate con men. And, as a student of history, you know that our nation went through boom and bust cycles every decade because of the inability to regulate the unbridled greed of speculators and market makers.

Oh, yes, sign me up, Paul, for your vision of America. Or I guess I could just go to a third world nation for the same experience.

President, pundits and Palin

Posted on January 13, 2011 by 40andover

I watched the President’s speech last night. He spoke as our nation’s leader, as a parent, as a person and as a professor. He clearly choked up when talking about the young girl who was killed. In that moment, he was a father who couldn’t imagine losing one of his daughters.

It is something that is remarkable about this President. He has young children and he often talks about the world he wants to pass down to them and their generation. They are our future. Last night, as President and father, he asked us to live up to the ideals of that young girl who was killed. Let’s move beyond the cynicism and the vitriol. Let’s make our kids proud. This wasn’t fake rhetoric or soaring oratory; this has been his message and his example since the campaign days.

(And yes, he is professorial, so sometimes you have to struggle through the abstract and long-winded parts.)

I noticed how naturally his and Mrs. Obama’s hands intertwined when he was seated. Theirs seems a relaxed affection that belies his stoic and Mr. Spock-like reputation. That comforted me although I am not yet sure why.

It was startling that it was a rolicking good time at the auditorium. I think those tuning in expected something more somber. But, having been in mourning more than once, I know it is the start of a personal journey and not something to be judged by outsiders.

Then I watched portions of Sarah Palin’s podcast. I am not sure what I would do if people blamed me for the deaths of innocent people. She is who she is: an agitator but not a leader.

The conservative, liberal and middle-of-the-road pundits were out-doing themselves last night. They must get paid by the word and get bonus dollars for picking things apart in ways that become senseless. And I think there is an even bigger bonus if you say something really inane and it gets repeated by another pundit on another show.

All in all, I think we and our democracy are best served when we, as citizens, go to sources — reading the books and listening to the speeches and debates — and making the decisions, rather than relying on talking heads to tell us what we ought to think. They get paid to incite controversy. If we just listened to each other, maybe the tone of the rhetoric would naturally tone down.

Tragedy on so many levels

Posted on January 9, 2011 by 40andover

In Tucson, many are dead and injured as a result of a deranged man with a deranged message.

Let’s put aside the left blaming the right and whether it is foreseeable that a lunatic would do this. That conversation will get us nowhere and misses the point.

I think it is more worthwhile to wonder why politics is a bloodsport these days in a way that we haven’t seen since in perhaps a century.

Let’s think instead about how our politician are so invested in being right that they vilify the oppositional view and the integrity of its proponents. In 2008, when Michele Bachmann said that then candidate Barack Obama and Michele Obama were “anti-American” because they hold views different from hers, that is a code that our country is being infiltrated by enemies. Think about it, she said that the likely 44th President was the Manchurian Candidate of the movies. And in the movies, a lone gunman (the good guy) kills the Manchurian Candidate.

Then Sarah Palin has a website that has a target on Rep. Giffords’ district (“in the cross-hairs”) for some reason or other. Or the famous, Palinism: “don’t back down, just reload” or something like that. Words have meaning, even if you try afterward to refudiate them.

This is war-speak. And in war, enemies are killed, and our soldiers come home to heroes’ welcomes (ideally). But war produces body-bags, brutality, starvation, desperation and carnage.

Is that the fevered pitch we want in our national discourse? So, let us speak gently and with respect when we debate. Even if we have to fake it.

Let’s set some ground rules:

A socialist and tea-party member can love this country and protect the very institutions of government that make us strong.
It isn’t about being right; it is about building a consensus and keeping this country great.
Political defeat is hard to take but you can’t take your marbles and go home or start threatening people.
The media does more to stoke the divisions than provide any useful information.
If our nation tacks to the left or right, some people will not be pleased, but they must always remain the loyal opposition. (It is hard; I know. I had to endure the policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney and even some of President Obama’s policies I don’t like).
Exemplifying and practicing the principles of this nation are essential for this country to move forward in one piece and in peace.

A Quiet Morning

Posted on January 8, 2011 by 40andover

I can’t wait until our son becomes a sleep-until-noon teenager. Until then, as part of our Saturday ritual, he comes barreling in at the crack of 9am to watch cartoons.

POB (partner of blogger) gives him the paper to bring in, and she follows with coffee (and yes, I am spoiled and I am grateful every day). Our son does remember to give me a kiss before he says “controls” with his hand held out expectantly, like a Grey’s Anatomy surgeon says “Metzenbaum scissors”.

Every other Saturday, POB and our son trek off to Hebrew School downtown and leave me to putter or go to the gym or read the paper with more leisure than usual.

As much as I love my family, I am reveling in the quiet. I am focused on not letting the political mayhem, global suffering and warring intrude on these moments of personal calm.

I wish everyone, everywhere, could have a moment of calm and recalibration of priorities. It won’t turn Ahmadinejad or other tyrant into a dove, but it might ratchet down the fervor of his followers. It might even act like a balm over the “Progressives” (on my side of the political spectrum) whose high-pitched whining is indistinguishable from their counterparts on the right.

Ok, maybe those people — the mean, the evil, the obstructionists, the liars and the screamers of every nation and political viewpoint — need a month-long medically-induced coma. Then everyone else could spring into action: air-lift food and medicine and doctors and teachers to areas in need. And, we can show them that we achieved more for humanity while they were asleep than in all the years they were awake.

A month is not long enough. Maybe the calm of this morning is sending my brain into “kumbaya” mode with psychedelic rhythms.

Still, everything good starts with a dream and ends with a “kumbaya”.

No pulse

Posted on January 7, 2011 by 40andover

Dick Cheney has no pulse. Another fact that points to his being Satan.

He had a new procedure (read about it in the Huffington Post — Dick Cheney’s procedure) that inserted a pump that essentially overrides the heart. As if he had one to begin with.

Let’s set aside whether he should be eligible for a heart transplant at his age and physical condition and whether it is right of the living to go hunting and shoot his friends.

Who in America can afford this procedure without insurance? He had a pre-existing condition. Luckily, he is wealthy and has a government health plan that will pay for him. What about a 69 year-old factory worker?

The health care overhaul is designed so that we don’t have to choose whose life is more valuable. So, health care reform is the exact opposite of the “death panel” lies and propaganda.

In fact, those who oppose health care reform don’t want to kill the Grandpa who is rich like Dick Cheney but they will let the Grandpa who is a retired factory worker die.

Zero sum game.

Posted on December 23, 2010 by 40andover

The lame-duck Congress finished a busy month that had me on the edge of my seat. Really. I believe in New START, DREAM Act, 9/11 First Responders Bill, and the repeal of DADT. I was glad for the middle class tax cuts, but enraged over the need for tax cuts for high-income earners (and I am a high-income earner) because it contributes to the deficit that faces a fast-approaching day of reckoning.

Think what you will about these initiatives and deals, but one thing upon which I hope people of good will can agree is that the passage or defeat of any legislation is not a “win for Obama” or “win for the Tea Party” or win for [fill in the blank]”. It is about us, our country and our future.

Someone told me something transformative years ago. In a loving relationship, it should not be about who is right, but rather about whether both people are happy (or okay) with the outcome and remain committed to each other. A loving relationship is not a zero-sum game.

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Sens. Reid and McConnell, please consider our national interest ahead of ideology, what is best for our country rather than best for your political futures. It is okay to have an “evolving” view; I promise I won’t call you a “flip-flopper”. Stagnant views are short-sighted and doomed to defeat.

Most of us learned not to throw mud in the sandbox when we were five. Time you all learned, too.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Category Archives: Politics