I wrote this eleven years ago. Still achingly relevant:
https://mlraminiakcomingtoterms.blogspot.com/2015/12/never-forget-newtown-december-14-2012.html
AAAnd…it appears that the only thing we never forget is how to allow this to happen over and and over again…
…and key in our inspired response:
MAGAs and Dems alike are all agog over Joe Biden granting a blanket pardon to his son for all federal crimes.
MAGAs are screaming “Abuse of power!” as if Trump hasn’t already declared that HE will use that power to pardon January 6th insurrectionists, as well as any and all of his political allies.
Democrats are wailing and wringing their hands that a left-wing politician would (finally!) rip a page out of the right-wing playbook, fly in the face of “precedent” and do something purely for the benefit of himself and his family. “Woe is us! It’s positively Trumpian! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!!!”
Well…
Here is what I think about THAT…
Much as we have tried to put it in the back of our minds, to the extent that we could, election day 2024 is upon us.
I have voted, as have many of my fellow citizens. We've been told that this is the only weapon we as common peons possess to combat the frightening advance of fascism, of oligarchy...the deterioration of our government, of our world, of our way of life. We've been told this is a powerful weapon, and we need to wield it zealously.
But I can't believe that there are not others out there like me, who wonder exactly how powerful our votes are, any more. In a world gone mad, where winning is everything and cheating is as good a way as any to carry the day, how can we believe that our votes will even be counted, much less have meaning if they are?
And then, there is this ominous undertone to our daily lives, a dark voice whispering that election day could be the start of something very large, very violent, and very evil in this country, no matter which side emerges victorious. And if any of us believe that we won't be touched by it, we're fooling ourselves. Before January 6, 2000, we might have been able to entertain thoughts of safety, of immunity from the kind of senseless violence that surely overwhelms only third-world countries? We naively believed things like that didn't happen in the United States of America, so to worry about it was foolish...a waste of emotional energy.
Now?
All I can think is,
"Be afraid. Be very afraid."
How have we come to this?
Yesterday afternoon, I was blessed to witness one of the surest signs of the end of summer in the Willamette valley.
Here in western Oregon, the most reliable harbinger of spring and clarion of the coming of winter is the arrival and departure of a particular bird...no, not robins. Nor any other cute sweet-voiced songbird.
It's the turkey vulture.
In early spring, their dark, v-shaped silhouettes arrive to repopulate the skies abandoned by wintering raptors after the birds of prey head to their summer hunting grounds in the higher hills.
The buzzards, as we call them, spend the warmer months nesting, soaring, and cleaning up winter- and road-kill here in the valley.
Then, in early October, they gather in groups of several dozen birds, circle higher and higher and higher, until they are mere bird-shaped specks in the stratosphere, and file off in a column heading toward California...Mexico...or whatever parts south they choose to escape the winter months north of the Tropic of Cancer.
As I sat on my newly-built studio deck last evening, I spotted a group of about two dozen buzzards performing their farewell-to-the-valley pirouette, spiraling higher and higher, then sailing off to the south. It conjured up a jumble of emotions...a tinge of sadness that good-byes always seem to bring, a sense of anticipation for my favorite months of the year, a bit of envy that I have neither the freedom nor the equipment to do what they do every year. It occurred to me that while we humans enjoy one of the longer lifespans of the animal kingdom, we are destined to spend those many years mostly tethered to one place on the earth.
Maybe a shorter life wouldn't be so horrible, if sailing thousands of miles to new adventures twice a year was part of the bargain.
Summer always seems so fast and frenetic. Long (and hot) as the days are, I never have enough time to do all the things I want to do. Though the list of things I want to get done expands daily, the heat takes all the wind out of my sails, and I spend way more time than I should sitting around being uncomfortable and peevish.
So now that September is almost over with, I feel things slowing down and cooling off a bit...just the way I like it.
And there are a bunch of random things rattling around in my head, that I figured I might as well commit to blog. I considered a "10 things" entry. I'll just start throwing them down here...don't know if I'll come up with 10, but here goes:
1.) There have been a couple of somewhat major life events over the past year plus that I have not written about. In April of 2023, the husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It seems one in eight men will fall victim to this malady in their lifetimes. Scary as the word "cancer" is when it is applied to yourself or a loved one, it was made more scary and ulcer-inducing by the way our current health "care" system deals with it. It was basically treated like not a particularly emergent situation by the health professionals involved. While we were told that his degree of cancer required "action within six months," it took slightly longer than that to line up all the tests, examinations and gobbledegook required to be able to start treatment. Husband was recommended into a course of radiation treatments...45 days "in a row" (not) of 15-minute radiation blasts. Which, after all the bullshit we had to go through to get him started on them, stretched out from a diagnosis in April to "treatment" starting in mid-November and--due to holidays and weekends being "no treatment" days--stretching through to mid-January. Completely fucking up the holidays, of course, and casting a pall on everything for most of 2023 and into 2024.
2.) Somewhat major life event #2--just as the husband was starting to recover from the physical and mental effects of the whole cancer thing, at the end of April this year, he mysteriously passed out in the kitchen one morning while fixing breakfast, crumpled down on to the kitchen floor and broke the shit out of his foot in the process. As innocent as a broken foot might sound, this has been a hideous nightmare from minute one. The foot he broke has been messed up since our days as restaurant owners. It had pronated so far out that he had been basically walking on the end of his ankle bone for years. He has worn a brace on that leg for 15 years just so he can walk without excruciating pain. And then he broke 9 of the bones in his foot passing out on the floor of the kitchen. We've gone through an impressive array of conveyances, ramps, and grab bars just to facilitate his ability to get around the house and the yard. He couldn't drive for over two months, so it was up to me to get him and his latest mobility contraption into and out of the van to a myriad of medial appointments. And I have to say, I just about lost it during this episode. I just had the hardest time dealing with his incapacitation and my having to step into the role of "caregiver" so suddenly and completely. I sucked at it. The fact that we had so abruptly turned into our parents (at the end of their lives) shook me to my core. It was not a gradual loss of ability. It was "Bang! You're old and decrepit! Deal with it!" I am not proud of how I had/have handled it, but I seem not to have a whole lot of control over my reaction. Ugh.
3.) Somewhat major life event #3--In February, one of my nieces--my late sister's middle daughter--died suddenly of untreated chronic illness. You want to wonder how someone so "young" lets her health get so out of control. Young. She was 51 years old, as impossible as that is to believe. But she and her sisters have all been beset by various degrees of psychological problems. For which it is nigh unto impossible to receive treatment in our horrible excuse for a health "care" system. And though my niece didn't die from suicide as many of those with untreated mental health issues do, I'm convinced our lack of health care contributed mightily to her sad quality of life and her ultimate death.
Well. Hasn't this post been a day-brightener?!
I have more I want to write about. Hopefully not as depressing/frustrating as these three bullet points.
Hope I can keep the ball rolling and crank out another slightly brighter post in the next few days.
Oh, and...
By the way...,
If I had had a baby instead of starting a blog back in September of 2003, she would now be old enough to drink.
Word on the street is that it is now "cool" again for liberals to be patriotic.
Really?
Sorry, guys...
I don't think so.
Not even addressing the fact that I find the concept of "patriotism" on a par with organized religion as far as being a tool for the few to control the many through tribalism, exclusion, fear and violence...
Maybe the first step in the direction of patriotism should be making me "proud to be an American"...another concept of which I have not been a fan, nor to which I have subscribed, for many years.
And while I'm excited about the Harris candidacy, and what it might possibly mean for the slim hope of extending the life of our fragile, ailing democratic republic...
I don't see it making significant inroads into ending Trump, MAGA, and all they represent.
As long as a major party of this nation can cling to a monster like Trump as its standard-bearer; as long as a significant portion of our populace--including members of our highest levels of government--will worship and emulate him and all he represents...
I won't even be tempted to claim to be proud of America.
Fix it. End them. Flush them into the black sewers of history where they belong.
Then, maybe we can talk about pride.
Rabbit rabbit it is...
According to folklore, saying "Rabbit rabbit" as the first words spoken on the first of the month brings good fortune for the entire month.
I'll go with that...
Is there a degree of depravity to which they would not stoop?
Hell fucking no….
At first, “tired and used up” seemed appropriate terms for those words we toss around on every national holiday…
But after a little more thought, I realized the REAL problem I have with the old words.
If you are at all familiar with my writings, you know that I LOATHE “The Star-Spangled Banner”…
And, like Old Glory herself, the words to our national anthem have been weaponized by the right-wing crazies.
“Freedom” applies to anything the hell I feel like doing, no matter how loathsome, selfish or evil… But not to anything YOU do that I’ve decided I don’t like.
“Bravery” refers to my propensity to mercilessly bully and threaten those less fortunate or even just different from me.
It’s all very tribal…primitive and un-evolved.
And, I don’t know…
I just don’t think that is the crap the founders meant to encourage when they visualized the “Great Experiment.”
Just sayin’
Who knew that the problem with the US today is that so many Americans had secret dreams of running away to join the circus…?
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.
And, you know... We might even be inclined to give you some of our stuff, if you treated us like human beings instead of the scourge of your existence.
Shame on NPR for publishing this article. And shame on everybody else for your ageist, entitled attitude toward your parents and grandparents, and their worldly possessions. We don't deserve your vitriol, and we don't owe you unrestricted access to the stuff we worked a lifetime to acquire. Keep in mind: Without us, you wouldn’t even exist.
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.
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.
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.”
Spring has come early for you this year, Jackie!
Another Instagram gem:
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…
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.
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..."
