You Can't Have It Both Ways

 

Stumbled upon this one on NPR today:

Baby Boomers Own Big Houses and It’s Affecting The Housing Crunch.   

I’m confused.

Last I heard, we Baby Boomers were the villains because we were selling off our big family homes and using the money to pay cash for smaller homes, thereby “cheating” younger home buyers out of starter-level housing.

Seems like NOW we suck because some of us have decided to stay in our big, under-used houses because economic circumstances are not favorable to trading them in on something smaller. Thereby "cheating" millennials with families out of these larger, family-friendly homes.

To me, this looks more like Boomer-Bashing--one of the most popular social media sports these days--than legitimate journalism.  Every bad or even slightly off-kilter thing that happens in American society today is the fault of us evil folks born between 1946 and 1964.

Everything we have, we are hoarding so the millennials can't have it.  

Everything we get, we are stealing from those self-same millennials. 

Apparently, we should hand over the keys to...everything, so subsequent generations can have our stuff; and then disappear, so our children and our children's children don't have to waste any time or money on keeping us alive. 

Look:

Five years ago, we sold our 2200 square foot, four bedroom home, took the money and paid cash for a MUCH smaller place in a city nearer my family. Did it rankle that we paid $40k MORE for this dinky little 50-year-old ranch than we had for our 4-year-old (at the time) beautiful four bedroom home with the 3-car garage 20 years earlier? Yes it did. But the goal was a house with no mortgage in the area we wanted to live in. And that’s what we got. The insane escalating housing market made it LOOK like more of a stupid move than it was.

So I would certainly counsel people my age who CAN trade in the giant empty home the old folks are rattling around in for a mortgage-free, more maintainable single level abode, to do so.  Even if it does drive you crazy that you will end up paying WAY more for the downsized dwelling than you did for the big one.  That was then...this is now.  Deal with it.

Even so, let's face it: In the eyes of American social media, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.  So do what will work best for you and f**k everybody else's bullshit. 

But, really...  Is it too much to ask for a little respect for Baby Boomers?  We didn't have it easy, we worked for what we got; over the past  thirty years we have watched our lifestyles erode just like everyone else's, due to reaganomics and the false promise of "trickle down." Basically, we have stuff that we got before the backward slide, and you're damned right we're going to hold on to it with both hands.  How does this make US responsible for everyone else's suffering?

Maybe the worst mistake we made was teaching our children that they deserved a better life than we had...but somehow, we forgot to pass along that you have to work for your stuff.  It doesn't just get handed to you when you believe it's time for you to have it.

Shame on NPR for publishing this article.  And shame on everybody else for your ageist, entitled attitude toward your parents and grandparents.  We don't deserve your vitriol. Keep in mind: Without us, you wouldn’t even exist.

Saved By...What?

 

This seems an appropriate post for the day that Christians claim is the most important day of their liturgical calendar.

Easter Sunday.

The day their messiah is purported to have rolled away the stone and walked out of his grave alive.

This being the miracle that banished all sin and "saved" the human race.

That, right there, is the biggest single thing that makes Christianity...bogus.

"Jesus died for MY sins.  So I can do anything the hell I want, no matter how horrible, no matter whom it hurts, no matter the dire consequence for anyone (but me...), and all I have to do is screw up some tears and declare 'I'm sorry' and everything is all better."

The history of Christianity is built upon the bad deeds of (mostly) men who horrifically wronged anyone they chose, for any reason they chose, because, hey...if I fucked up, all I have to do is say "sorry," and I'll go to heaven anyway.  

That SO does not work for me.

And it doesn't work for anyone who isn't Christian, who is considered "other" by this tribe who believes it is saved from consequences by their god.

And it doesn't work for the earth, whose grievous injuries inflicted by those who are "saved" are not going to miraculously heal when that "sorry" echoes up to the deity they created in their own image.

And when I see these pumped up, misguided idiots lining up to purchase bibles signed by their own Anti-Christ...

Yeah.

Best argument in the world for atheism.

Somewhere Out There

 Why do we cry when people we love die?

Most of the time, especially when we're talking about people in the age group I inhabit now, the person who has died has been released from suffering. Shed of a body that no longer served. Freed to go on to...whatever comes next.

What is sad about that?

What is sad is that WE no longer have that person.  WE will miss them.  We will have to go on with a loved-one-shaped hole in our hearts and lives.

So, in essence, we cry for ourselves.

Oh, it's not as if this philosophy has made me immune to crying when my loved ones leave.

I have shed many tears since I learned of Jackie's death. They just...come.  Unbidden.  But, I think, cleansing.  

My dear friend.  

The one who stuck with me for all these years.  I was trying to think how many years it has been. More than thirty...less than forty.  Thirty-five?  Thirty-six?

We got each other in a way that no one else got either one of us.  She was smart.  She was bookish.  She was a seeker.  And I could appreciate that.  And be so, too, though I think I had only a shadow of her intellect.  But we both understood it was difficult to be smart and analytical in the minimum-wage world we inhabited.  So we...attached to each other.

And when we no longer lived close enough to see each other face-to-face, we bonded in j-land.  THAT was over 20 years ago.  

J-land and the blogging craze fell by the wayside...and all the "friends" I thought I had made in that ethereal place faded away.

Except Jackie.  

She stayed.  

She came.

She left a word or two, just to let me know she had been by, if nothing else.

That is what REAL friends do.

Our interactions became more and more infrequent.  But I always took comfort knowing she was out there, somewhere.

But knowing the state of her health, I was always aware/afraid that there would come a time when she WOULDN'T be out there.

And now that time has come.

But maybe...

Yes, I think so.

She IS out there.

Somewhere.

And I will let that comfort wash over me.

 

So...That was it.  20 hits on the entry about Jackie even though I linked to it on Instagram.  No comments or condolences left here...a couple on Instagram.  Her family couldn't even be bothered to write a decent obituary for her, nor to allow my tribute to her on her "tribute wall" to be published.  Only two weeks gone, and already mostly forgotten.  How invisible our little lives are, hardly a speck in the cosmos.  But perhaps if there's one person who remembers you and misses you, that's all we can ask for.  I'm that person, for Jackie.  And I'll wear that mantle proudly. 

My Dear Friend Jackie Has Walked On

 

Rest in power, my dearest friend! 

SO many other spirits joined to yours, with whom you are now reunited. 

Have a blast among the stars!

Here is a link to her last post at “Walking With Hope.” 

The Promise of Spring.

Spring has come early for you this year, Jackie!

More Wisdom From REAL Christians

 Another Instagram gem:

 

I have no way of knowing whether this was a photoshop job. Could be, I suppose.

But the thing that spoke loudest to me was that this wisdom was posted on the reader board of a Christian church.

Though I personally no longer adhere to Christian beliefs, I have to remind myself constantly that Christianity is NOT all about the hatred and exclusion, greed, fear and anger preached by the Evangelical MAGA right.

It CAN be a peaceful, enriching, compassionate conduit to the Almighty.

And it still IS that, for many.

We on the left will do well to remember that.

Yes, Viginia…There ARE Still Christians Who Actually Follow Their Christ

 

I maintain my gossamer-thin grip on social media, because I occasionally come across things that shine a tiny pinpoint of light into the bleakness of our American moral landscape.

This one appeared on Instagram today:

Pastor Dave, by the way, lives in Alabama… This maybe grants him more right than some to express outrage against the recent unbelievable Alabama Supreme Court ruling on human embryos.

For more of Dave’s rebuttal of the ruling, I recommend going to his blog and perusing his entry of Feb 22–“Undelivered Mail and the Image of God.” The piece is clearly written by a person highly educated in Christian theology. And, unfortunately, it employs more rational reasoning than any MAGAt—and apparently, any poorly chosen supreme court judge in Alabama—could possibly assimilate.

But it gave ME a little ray of hope, anyway…

Strong Women Melting Snowflake Men

 

 

People seem to think the anti-Taylor-Swift grumbling is a 21st-century, social-media-generated phenomenon.

I...think not.

I think strong female celebrities have been suffering indignities from "fragile" men for...well, forever.

Certainly as far back as Elizabeth I of England. The internet figures in only marginally.

Consider what these women of the 20th century were subjected to:

Eleanor Roosevelt--

She was vilified for acting so un-first-lady-like as to actually contrive to use her platform as a way to contribute positively to society in her own right.

Nancy Pelosi--

This woman has been made into the personification of everything evil that has befallen the USA in the past 20 years.  Because she dares to be female and an adroit politician. 

Barbra Streisand-- 

She was consistently labeled controlling and perfectionist.  In a man, those would be admirable qualities.  But they made Barbra Streisand a "bitch."

Jane Fonda--

I know seventy-year-old men who STILL freak out at the mention of her name.

Martha Stewart--

They put Martha Stewart in jail, for god's sake.  For having the extreme gall to do something that rich, powerful men had been getting away with forever.

 And the list goes on.

So, ladies...

We obviously still have A LOT of work to do.

Turn on the burners and let's work on those snowflakes.

 

Never Too Old To Rock

It has dawned on me (make that, I have been dragged kicking and screaming to the realization) that old age is not for sissies.  Those of us of a certain age understand this clearly.  Our aging bodies present us with difficulties we would not have dared (or cared) to imagine twenty years ago.  If we were to wake up in the morning and nothing hurt, we would be certain that we had passed from this life in our sleep and were standing at the gates of the sweet hereafter.  And we then entrust the care of these creaky yet venerable old vessels to a health "care" system that possesses neither the means nor the will to do them justice.  But that is a different rant.

The manifestation of the perils of old age that I have lately been experiencing, to my utter chagrin and horror, is the rampant ageism that afflicts our society.  Apparently, the only time those of us over 60 are thought of as sentient human beings at all, is when we are brought up on charges of being responsible for anything and everything that ails the world today.  "Boomer" has become an epithet that is spat in our direction any time something evil, unpleasant or difficult vexes the younger generations.  We are held in no regard at all.  We are laughed at, sneered at, ranted at, blamed and scorned.  If a millennial burns his toast in the morning, a boomer surely booby-trapped his toaster.  

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not enjoying being the object of derision one moment, and patronizing pap or even outright neglect the next.  It doesn't set well with me at all.

An article from The Atlantic curdled my coffee one fine morning a couple of weeks ago.  One of their contributing journalists obviously sees himself as a Very Perceptive Music Critic.  This little missive--The Joys of Geriatric Rock--caught my eye.  For a hot minute, I thought perhaps some gen z reporter was going to serve up a tribute to the rockers whose music accompanied the coming of age of my generation.  But, no.  It turned out to be one of  the most blatant, malignant pieces of ageism I have encountered in a long time.

You see, this asshole had already penned an article about how "geriatric rockers" should just... retire.  What business did they have filling huge stadiums with pathetic old fans willing to part with astronomical sums of money just to see a band of their youth onstage one more time?  

"Last year, I applauded rock artists who choose to age gracefully, mostly by exiting the stage. I deplored the acts who were trying to recapture their younger days while cynically vacuuming their fans’ pockets."

...is how he chose to describe his previous article. 

Really?

Fuck you.

Who are you to say when an artist (and musicians ARE artists) needs to walk away from his art?  As far as I know, there is no pull date on rock music of any decade.  If people are willing to pay to see it performed by its originators, they have that right. If you think  70's and 80's rockers are too old to do the genre justice, that's your problem.  These musicians...if they didn't invent the genre, they at the very least expanded, enhanced and progressed it...then handed it on to the next generation--a different and arguably more wonderful thing than when it was handed to them by the generation before.  You venerate those people.  You don't tell them to get the fuck offstage because rock is for the young.  And you let them perform their craft for as long as they are able and willing.  

The most ridiculous, to say nothing of hypocritical, aspect of this guy's point of view was what he featured in his second article.  You see, he was somehow snookered into buying tickets to see one of HIS favorite bands of the 80's doing an emeritus concert...and, lo and behold, THIS concert was exactly right!  THIS band did it perfectly!  THIS was the ultimate celebration of who and what the band was 40 years ago, and a perfect gift to their fans.  

Simply because it was a band he liked and he was, apparently, in a properly nostalgic frame of mind when he went to see them.

What a load of crap.  The article left me seething with righteous indignation at the affront to the artists who rocked my generation to adulthood.  

And livid at the ageism that is so ubiquitously broadcast in our society.  And at the millennials, gen-y, or z, or whatever the hell other little bastards who just eat this crap up with a spoon. 

Talk about "cynically vacuuming....pockets..."

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