05 Monday Dec 2016
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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR Memorial, Washington, D.C.
With Trump’s choices of ex-investment banker/hedge fund billionaire Stephen Mnuchin to head up Treasury, and the King of Bankruptcy Wilbur Ross to head up Commerce, and self-declared crusader of ACA repeal Tom Price to head up Health and Human Services I thought it was a good time to remember what FDR said as President of the United States:
FDR Memorial, Washington, D.C.
29 Tuesday Nov 2016
The prospect of the Trump presidency has me in knots. He is so quixotic and chaotic in the way he speaks and the topics he speaks on that it can only be characterized as that kind of behavior that can make one crazy. Trump’s recent on-again/off-again sit-down (can’t really call it an “interview“) with The New York Times speaks volumes as to the single issue that he truly cares about most: himself.
Whether he’s bragging:
So we won that by a lot of votes and, you know, we had a great victory. We had a great victory.
or observing:
or whining:
he’s always contemplating his own belly-button.
I would find it embarrassing if a 10-year old was saying these things to me, but hearing it from the future President makes me think I have boarded a rudderless ship and we are heading straight into a glacier. There are some pundits of journalism who have adopted a “wait-and-see”, “give him the benefit of the doubt” attitude. The problem with that approach is that it focuses on Trump’s words, not his actions. He is masterful at channeling the energy in the room and refracting it back. There is a disconnect from the weight and responsibility of governing a country.
His actions have informed us that he will fulfill the agenda of the alt right and throw lots of meaty bones to the corporate elite (the Kochs), the ruling white (Jeff Sessions), the fascist right (Rudy Guiliani).
[WHAT TRUMP SAID]:
[WHAT TRUMP DID]:
WHAT TRUMP SAID:
Which is absolutely hollow when his entire administration is filled with lobbyists from private industry with a vested interest in ensuring government doesn’t interfere with its former employers’ enterprises. Check out some of his choices.
WHO TRUMP PICKED:
WHAT TRUMP SAID:
WHAT TRUMP DID:
Nothing.
Nothing when Richard Spencer, the president of the National Policy Institute, called out “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and then, “Hail victory!” and proclaimed “I think, moving forward, the alt-right can, as an intellectual vanguard, complete Trump,”.
And don’t tell me that his disavowal at the Times interview counts for anything. He was chided into that and it was a weakling’s mewling words.
It is not to Trump’s political advantage to disown his racist supporters. They energize him. They give him the rah rahs he is so desperate for. Mildly put, this is worrisome. In reality it feels like a horror show because Trump will continue to fulfill his destiny as a man desperate for attention and adoration and as long as his current handlers, advisors and counselors are in situ, they will have their vision of a tax-cutted/regulation free platform economy churning out the bennies for the elites, including the Trump franchise which takes front and center stage. He’ll allow himself to be reined in when it works to his advantage and he’ll let loose like a cannonball when he and his phone are hanging out all alone. Nothing is going to change. He’ll be playing the American public for the next 4 years because he is a master of the bait and switch. The question is what will be the cost when we awake from the nightmare.
16 Wednesday Nov 2016
Posted in Opinion
Since Donald Trump was deemed to be the president-elect on November 9, nothing has felt normal. I wore black to work on Wednesday morning and thought the Empire State Building should be shrouded in black. The only place that felt safe was work. Trademarks are neutral.
I got into bed that night and cried. A delayed reaction to the horror show I knew we’d face with Trump as president and the profound sadness at Hillary’s loss, and what it would mean to so many basic tenets that make the U.S. one of the best places to live in the world. Tenets like separation of church and state and due-process under the law. Shattered by — the reasons are too numerous — but the result is disaster.
I cried for everyone that wasn’t white. As my friend A said that if you’re a person of color you no longer have the luxury of feeling safe and secure with a proud racist as the president’s chief advisor. Trump’s choice is the equivalent of a kick in the face to every American. Trump basically said “Screw the 14th Amendment” and guaranteed equal protection under the law.
As A said, “I fear for me, my family and especially my nephew.”
I cried for women because the future president is committed to appointing judges that will opine that an individual has no right to make a choice with respect to their body.
If men bore children, and there was a law that said birth was the only option, better believe the right to choose would be guaranteed. I can’t imagine this righteous right-to- life movement forcing a man who is just about to start college to give it up or to force a man who barely has enough money to pay his rent and eat to have a baby. And yet the electoral college lop is sucking back to the time of illegal abortions. Wacko!
I cried for the 20,000,000 people who will wake up with no insurance.
I cried that 60+ million Americans voted for an ignoramus. Unqualified, duplicitous, sleazy, verbally ugly. The list goes on and on.
It is now a week on and nothing has changed. In fact it’s only gotten worse.
15 Tuesday Nov 2016
What Breitbart News and Steve Bannon, Trump’s carefully considered selection for Senior Counsel, stands for is old news. As Michael Grynbaum and John Herrman of The New York Times wrote in Monday’s print edition: Breitbart has been denounced as misogynist, racist and xenophobic, and it served as a clearinghouse for attacks on Mr. Trump’s adversaries, spreading unsubstantiated rumors about Hillary Clinton’s health and undermining its own reporter, Michelle Fields, after she accused Corey Lewandowski, then Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, of assaulting her.
What puzzles me is why someone who plans to run the country and promises to “unite” us (as hollow as that sounds) would pick a counselor who espouses misogyny, racism, and xenophobia and equally worse has absolutely NO experience. Bad judgment; bizarre; frightening are mild words to describe my reaction and concern.
Those within the Trump team extol Bannon’s resume (Harvard) but just like comedian Samantha Bee said on her program “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” last night — Ben Carson has proven that being a brain surgeon doesn’t mean you’re intelligent. But wait! He was also a Naval Officer. Now that job really qualifies you to be a counselor on issues related to the military, foreign policy, the economy, immigration, Congress. Etc., etc., etc.
But qualifications are immaterial to this particular internet publication because as Alexander Marlow, Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, stated in the Grynbaum and Herrman article:
I do not consider Breitbart a conveyor of factual news. I see it as a troll for a political philosophy of anti-The Other. That its spokesman has such immediate access to the president-elect concerns and frightens me and should concern and frighten us all.
12 Thursday Feb 2015
Posted in Opinion
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A woman with authority.
On top of the $2000 yearly bonus guaranteed G.M. union workers by their contract, Mary T. Barra, the CEO of the company, approved an extra $9000 as a message that said G.M. acknowledges that management, not the workers, were responsible for the ignition mistakes that led to driver deaths.
I said to Steve, “I do not believe any male CEO would do that.”
And Steve said, “I agree.”
I don’t know if our perception is accurate, but it is interesting that our gender differences didn’t come in to play and we both acknowledged Barra’s ability to see the big picture and subsequently make, in our opinion, a compassionate executive decision.
27 Tuesday Jan 2015
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Take me to the desert.
This time of year as I venture outside I often think of the old song:
All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day
I’d be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreamin` on such a winter’s day
The older I get, the more I dread winter. Since my heart attack more than a decade ago I have been excused from any heavy-duty snow shoveling. I still operate the snow blower from time to time, but even that chore is now often handled for me by others. So snow removal is not the issue. Driving in snow is still bothersome, but it’s not such a big deal because I need only drive two miles to my bus every morning.
No, the real issue is the cold. I can’t take it as well as I used to. Maybe I can blame it on losing 40 pounds of fat since last winter. Or maybe my heart medications have irrevocably thinned my blood. But after a week of sub-freezing temperatures I’m ready to move south. But since I still need to work for a living and work is in the windy, concrete canyon that is Manhattan, the best I can do is make a hot cup of coffee and look at pictures of warm places.
In that vein, I was looking recently at some pictures I took of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona last year. I was reading that during the winter months, from November to April, the daytime temperatures in the Sonoran Desert range from 70°F to 90°F. That sounds extremely cozy for a January day. I wish I was there.
As I mentioned, I visited the Arizona portion of the Sonoran Desert last year. This year, I plan to visit the California portion, which includes Palm Springs. While desert living used to be only for the extremely hardy, air-conditioning has opened up these areas to a lifestyle that is Nirvana to a cold New Yorker. Of course snow is not an issue except on the top of mountains. The fact that it rains only a few days a year means almost constant sunshine. Having a dreary winter day in the Northeast? Just dial up a webcam in the desert and you can almost feel the dry heat.
The other thing I do to conjure up the desert is to look at my pictures of Saguaro cactus. These are the large, iconic cacti that grow only in the Sonoran Desert.They live to be as much as 150-200 years old I found them really beautiful and surprisingly hard to the touch. Before I went to Arizona, I had always thought that these cacti were soft, but the Saguaro Cactus has a hard wood-like feel similar to a tree. And in fact, I was told that dead Saguaro cacti are often used as wood for construction of roofs and fences in Arizona.
So as I endure yet another New York winter, my eye is on the calendar. Spring training begins in mid-February and the first pre-season Yankees game is March 4. After that, it’s a hop, skip and a jump until the first day of spring. Until then, I can huddle over a cup of hot something or other, look at pictures and think of the warm desert. California Dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.
20 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Concepts, Entertainment, Men, Opinion
Tags
Black Mirror, Frank Terranella, Her, Joaquin Phoenix, Netflix, Scarlett Johansson, Spike Jonze, The Twilight Zone
The upside of Netflix being shut out by movie studios from streaming new Hollywood movies is that they have had to look high and low for content. The low has been some putrid indie films. The high has been some great British television. An example of the best is a British television series called “Black Mirror.” There are only six episodes available, but they are well worth your time.
Black Mirror has been described as an anthology series like The Twilight Zone, and it does have some similarities in that each episode is thought-provoking and often deals in moral or ethical issues. It’s set in the near future and technology plays an important role in each episode. For example, there is an episode called “The Entire History of You” that envisions a time where we all have video recorders attached to our eyes and implanted in our heads. This allows us to play back everything we experience at will on nearby television screens. While this instantly settles disputes about what people said, it also causes lots of problems. For example, the question “where were you last night?” is not simply answered by words any longer. Now we go to the videotape to actually see what you saw last night. It’s an intriguing concept and one bound to improve honesty. But a young couple with trust issues finds the pitfalls of having all this “evidence” to dwell on.
Another episode that really struck me was one called “Be Right Back” in which a man tells his wife he’s just going out and will be right back, but then gets killed in an auto accident. At the funeral, a friend tells the widow that there is a service available that takes all of a person’s online activity (pictures, emails, tweets, etc.) and creates a humanoid in that person’s form that has that person’s personality including memories, vocabulary and sense of humor. She urges the widow to simply re-create her husband from his online persona. After some initial misgivings, she agrees. The humanoid arrives and is indistinguishable from her husband and has all his online memories. But there are problems in any human-humanoid relationship and the episode shows them and how they are resolved. The episode seeks to explore the question whether a person is really just the sum of his online communications. By the way, the widow is played by Hayley Atwell, whom you may know as Agent Carter in the recent ABC television series.
The “Be Right Back” episode reminds me of another film that explored the romantic relationship between man and machine. It is the 2013 Spike Jonze film “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson. There, Phoenix plays a man who literally falls in love with the Siri-like voice of his computer. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. As computer assistants become more and more sophisticated, we are encouraged to think of them as persons. That’s why they have names. But any relationship between artificial intelligence and real intelligence is bound to be fraught with problems and that is what “Her” shows. Can a person be in love with a dis-embodied voice or is a body necessary? If you think about it, this is not a new question. In the past, there have been dis-embodied, long-distance relationships by mail or later telephone. Most of these did not work out once the parties met face to face, because real life is different from the intellectual life.
About six months ago I wrote about the peril of mistaking a life online with a real life. I urged readers to “Friend someone who lives in your neighborhood, rather than on Facebook. Deliver a Tweet in person. Interact with flesh and blood people and not just their avatars.” Television programs such as “Black Mirror” and films such as “Her” show why artificial friends are as unhealthy as imaginary ones. It’s easy to be seduced by technology. That voice on your phone sounds so real. It’s always polite and helpful. Real people can be bothersome, rude and even hostile. But ultimately an online relationship is a fantasy. And living in a fantasy world, you always run the risk of a rude awakening.
15 Thursday Jan 2015
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I read an article recently in The New York Times about a not-for-profit organization called Final Exit Network (FEN), whose slogan is “Supporting the Human Right to a Death With Dignity.” Humans have a “right” to death with dignity? Tell that to the freight train bearing down on your disabled vehicle stuck on the tracks, with you inside unable to unclick the seatbelt.
Of course, the FEN’s specific focus is narrower: “to work toward obtaining the basic human right of competent adults to choose to end their lives on their own terms when they suffer from irreversible physical illness, intractable pain, or a constellation of chronic, progressive physical disabilities.”
To fulfill that mission, the FEN will tell you how to end your life. They have what they call the Exit Guide program — kind of the opposite of a life coach — where qualified individuals receive “relevant information, home visits if possible and a compassionate presence for individual and family.” First you must join FEN and submit an application, along with a doctor’s evaluation of your condition and prognosis — like a note from Mom telling the teacher it’s okay to send you home early. If you’re sick enough, and if you can attest that neither your family nor your primary caregiver will interfere, the FEN folks will assign you an Exit Guide.
From the guide, you’ll get “detailed information about the method [FEN] recommend[s], and the inexpensive equipment you will need to obtain.” Because in many places it’s a crime to help someone die, FEN never supplies equipment, but the guide “will provide you with information on all alternatives for care at the end of life, including all legal methods of self-deliverance that will produce a peaceful, quick, certain and painless death.”
And what do they often recommend? Asphyxiation by inhalation of helium.
You get a tank of helium, the same stuff they use at the party store to make festive floating balloons. You attach vinyl tubing to the tank, and run the open end into a large plastic baking or turkey brining bag. Then you securely tape the bag around your neck, and turn on the gas.
I can’t decide whether or not this is right or wrong, necessary or not. Instinctively it seems abhorrent; unthinkable. But then, I’m not living in the constant hell of pain that the people who seek out FEN’s services apparently seem to be enduring.
But I’m uneasy with the associations the helium exit brings to mind. I’ve seen people at parties inhale a lungful of helium, which allows them to talk for a few seconds in high-pitched, squeaky cartoon voices. It’s pretty funny to see a burly guy transformed into Tweety Bird at a party. But is it dignified to die that way? I guess if you’re in the bag making your exit, you’re not talking much.
And the bag itself, used to bake a roast, or to brine a turkey, is usually such a happy thing. You put something really good into it and it comes out better. When you’re done using that bag for its intended purpose, you’re warm, well-fed, and very happy. Even the vinyl tubing is a party accessory — it’s just like the tubing that attaches the plastic spigot to the beer keg at our summer parties.
Thank God I’m not in a position to consider using FEN’s services. I just wish they’d come up with a “method of self-deliverance” that doesn’t make me think of so many silly, happy things. Death with dignity? Maybe. But please, not death with Daffy Duck.
13 Tuesday Jan 2015
Fear. Personified.
On March 4, 1933 Franklin Roosevelt took office in the midst of a national emergency. The closest thing in recent times was the economic meltdown in the fall of 2008. The fear on Wall Street was palpable. But then, thanks to the reforms that FDR made that were not repealed by Bill Clinton, there was no run on the banks. Our financial system was saved through an infusion of capital from the federal government.
Ironically, the very people who continually preached that the government should just leave them alone came running to the government when their fear led to panic. And Uncle Sam bailed them out.
Fear is a curious thing. It makes rational people abandon reason. FDR knew that. In fact, he began his inaugural address like this:
President Hoover, Mr. Chief Justice, my friends: This is a day of national consecration. And I am certain that on this day my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency, I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
FDR knew that if he could calm people’s fears, he could get them to act rationally. If he could take emotion out of the equation, people would use their brains and they would find solutions to the nation’s problems.
I bring all this up because just as 2008 was a distant echo of 1933, so too is the fear that ran rampant in the 1930s alive and infecting our nation in 2015 in myriad ways.
We fear terrorists, illegal immigrants, criminals. Democrats fear Republicans and Republicans fear Democrats. Our politics is rampant with fear. Let’s take just one simple example. According to the GunPolicy.org there are about 300 million guns in the United States. These guns killed 12,532 people in 2014. Estimates are that 1 in every 3 Americans owns a gun
Why do people have guns? Fear.
Talk to a Second Amendment enthusiast and you will find a very scared person. Gun ownership increases with fear. And fear defeats any rational attempt to legislate controls on guns. So is it any wonder why the more people are killed by guns, the more people want to own theirs?
Another more mundane example is SUVs. Despite high gas prices until very recently, SUV sales have remained high. Why? Because once you own an SUV you feel defenseless in a smaller car. What if you get hit by an SUV? Many people rationalize that you need to have a light truck in order to survive on the road today. And what’s that all about — fear. So people have flocked to buy these gas guzzlers and some even went so far as to buy Hummers, the assault rifle of SUVs.
Finally, there is the fear of “the other.” This is an ancient fear that rears its head at regular intervals. Currently, the “others” include Mexican immigrants, homosexuals and Muslims. Our political discourse, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court, adds to the problem by using fear as a political weapon. If you really were to pay attention to the political advertisements that are coming our way in the next two years you would be paralyzed with fear. What to do?
Americans have got to get a handle on their fears. Now I know that for many people that is a tall order. But surely the 74% of Americans who believe in life after death can bring themselves to suppress their fear of death enough to act rationally on issues like gun control.
One positive effect of having had cancer twice is that I no longer fear death as much as I used to. So for me the feeling that a gun in my house may hurt someone I love trumps the fear that might lead me to buy a gun for “protection.” The rationality of my decision is bolstered by the recent sad story from Idaho where a 2-year-old playing with a gun he found in his mother’s purse shot and killed his mother in a Walmart. Think it was a freak accident? Think again. The very same tragedy happened a month earlier in Oklahoma. There, the three-year-old child picked up the gun while his mother was changing a one-year-old’s diaper. Why does the mother of a small child who probably has safety plugs on the electrical sockets at home carry a gun?
That four-letter word, FEAR — fear that always results in bad judgment and often leads to tragedy. I could go on and on about the ways in which fear infests our nation. I haven’t even mentioned the overblown reaction to 9/11 that puts military in our bus and train terminals and make us take our shoes off at airports. But my wish for 2015 is that Americans get a grip on their fears and contemplate Franklin Roosevelt’s wise admonition — “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Only then can we begin to rationally solve our nation’s problems.
22 Monday Dec 2014
Posted in Opinion
My cousin gave me this card in 1986.
BY JULIE SEYLER
Does indulgence in our favorite things keep us healthy and wise, if not wealthy? Who knows. But living that theory certainly contributes to contentment. So some of my timeless reliables of favorite things are:
Noodles.
They can’t be too wide (like fettucine), too flat (like linguine), or too short (like penne). No, as a favorite thing, the noodle must be long and stringy and thin and twist like a slimy worm and then they can take on a manifold of ingredients and flavors: cold with sesame sauce and scallions, in a steaming bowl of ramen stocked with miso and pork belly, or slathered with the juice of lemons, garlic and parmesan cheese. While my pre-diabetes scare did put a damper on eating noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it did not put a damper on the joy that I get from slurping them up, (albeit these days I try to make them whole grain).
Traveling.
Of course if I am en route to a destination I am thrilled, but prior to the actual departure date, planning the details, finding the hotels, and figuring out the must-sees is a definite mood booster. And once I return the rehashing commences and ergo reliving what I’d seen and where I was, ergo all the recent post on Romania and no doubt more to come). Then about two months later it’s time to start thinking of the next place to go, like Detroit Michigan for a 2 day sojourn in February? Now how fun will that be?
Art.
It doesn’t matter if I’m seeing it, reading about it, writing about it, or dabbling with painting and drawing, it delivers endorphins.
Swimming.
It’s my exercise of choice and my pleasure. I love being submerged in water.
A Martini
Made with Russian Standard vodka and a single olive.
Julie Andrews sang it and John Coltrane played it, but those are a few of my favorite things.
The Write Side of 59 