Random Stories

With the subtitle: Mostly bad news. The following headlines appeared in today's USA Today.

• Economy shows new signs of weakness -- Well, for the regular people,the 99 percent of us who don't inhabit the realms of unreality where there is no such thing as not enough money to do any damn thing you want, this is not a great surprise. In fact, I would argue that the so-called "recovery" has not arrived for most of those millions brought low by the recession. The real question is whether it ever will.
• Police: Boy's parents researched hot-car deaths -- A mom and dad in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, did some Internet research on child deaths inside of vehicles and the temperatures required for that to happen. Then the dad drives their 22-month old toddler to his job and leaves him locked in the SUV for 7 hours. The little boy died of hypothermia. The father claimed he "forgot" the kid was in the car. I don't know if there is a hell, but there ought to be. With a special place for people like this. 
• Critical need for primary care providers -- Bottom line is U.S. because of population growth, more aging people, and the Affordable Care Act is expected to need 52,000 more primary care physicians by 2025 and we're going to fall far short. There are a number of issues including funding for medical residencies, the rising cost of med school, more lucrative specialty care fields, and the scope of practice laws (states have been slow in allowing PAs and nurse practitioners to take over services traditionally provided by physicians.) I think the only thing this country is going to have more of by 2025 is idiots and poor people. Everything else, we're going to fall short.
• Ebola crisis now deadliest ever -- When does good news come out of Africa? The crisis in western Africa is the worst ever and it's threatening to spread. 400 dead already. This Ebola virus is deadly. Causes high fever, vomiting, muscle pain, diarrhea and can lead to massive internal bleeding and organ failure. It kills 90 percent of its victims. It's spread by simple contact with victim's (human or animal) fluids, tissues, or blood. Traditional African burial rituals, suspicion of foreign doctors, and just plain ole ignorance are not helping in the fight.
• Iraqi insurgents announce new Islamic state -- This Al-qaeda breakaway bunch (ISIL--Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant--they left because Al-qaeda wasn't radical enough) has overrun parts of Syria and northern Iraq. They say they are now a new Islamic caliphate. I guess we'll have to see, but another piece on the editorial page that asks "If the U.S. is going to re-engage, it should do so with the means to win." sends chills up my spine. Can anyone in their right mind think what we should do is get entangled in that shit again?

The Three-Legged Stool, Or Should We Make It Four?

Different Strokes: A GOP candidate for MI state legislature say his “stool of conservatism” is held up by “faith, family and freedom,” and that voters should overlook his many convictions for masturbating in other people's cars. After all, he has “dreams.”

 It's true. Click on the link. If this guy's district is gerrymandered like the vast majority of the rest in this land of the free and home of the brave, he probably will have a good chance of winning. What a country!

Dog's Death

This poem by John Updike always gets me right in the heart.

Dog's Death
 

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

Rare (I suspect) But Out There

Here's something you're not going to run across every day, mainly because you forget that there are such people out there. But there are, and I just stumbled across a couple of web sites that you should know about. It's always dangerous to stereotype, always flawed. And examples like this are the reason why. It gives me a good deal of hope to know that this guy and others like him are out there.

Try this site.

And this one, Wealth for the Common Good.

I hear you, bro! Thanks!

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

My Kind of List

Of course, it's patently ridiculous that I should be getting ready to recommend books to you. I, who have scads of books here on my shelves that I have yet to read, about a half dozen of them only partially read . . . and yet, that's exactly what I'm about to do. Reason is, this is a list of really necessary books. I'm happy to say, I've probably read about ten percent of them already, but I got the idea for a whole bunch more to see if I can download to my Kindle for free. (One of the advantages of being an Amazon Prime member is one free Kindle book to "borrow" every month . . . with no time limit to return it.) My guess is there are a number of these that are downloadable.

The list is from Counterpunch, another of my regular-read blogs. The list is the 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the 20th Century and Beyond in English. Of course, everybody would come up with a different list, and these, mind you, are from Counterpunch. So by definition they're going to be edgy, counter-cultural, progressive . . . and scintillating. They run the gamut of Ida Tarbell's early 20th century expose of the monster that was and still is Standard Oil (Exxon) to the 2nd Edition of The Oxford English Dictonary. From Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire through Francis Yates's The Art of Memory, you are bound to find a bunch of treats for the mind, heart, and conscience here.

Knock yourself out. If you don't find several things on this list that fire you up, then maybe, as one of my old history mentors used to say: "you have reptile blood."

If You Need Any Reminder

Here's a snippet today from one of my never-miss blogs, "Some Assembly Required." This guy is a cynic after my own heart, and he's perfected the pithy entry as I only wish I could.

Anyway this is just in case you needed any reminder that we live in a country that is absolutely insane. And what's more, I firmly believe that most of the populace is proud of it.

Math Class: This fall, Missouri schools will be staffed with teachers who, at $17,500 a pop, have received firearms training at a gun range that promises that in an emergency the teachers will only gun down students 10% of the time. Or maybe they meant that the teachers would only gun down 10% of the students.

The story mentioned that the insurance companies in the state refuse to sell insurance to the schools where teachers are armed. Gee, I wonder why?

Vacation

Yes, faithful readers. I've been on vacation. Self-declared, not real. I have been to Baton Rouge to see family for the past few days, but I'd vacated myself from the blog for longer than that. Truthfully, it's really easy to just not do the blog entries. But it's not as easy to contemplate not doing the blog entries. As I think I've publicly lamented before . . . I just can't drop Powderfinger altogether. It's been, I'm afraid, habit-forming for me, despite the drivel I sometimes produce, the meager number of people who check in regularly to see if Schott has any observations on the dying empire he felt worthy of sharing on any particular day, and the (lately) frightfully erratic series of contributions. I cannot promise to completely amend my ways--better than anyone I understand the rigors of everyday compliance with the imperative to write something (which really puts me in awe of people like my friend Montag over at his "Father Talks to Daughter . . . " blog who actually do write something every day)--but I shall strive to be more diligent.

Thank you for hanging in there with me. Although I could plead the dreadful state of things in general that have gotten me too dispirited to write, that would be b.s. The main reason, as it always has been with me, is sloth.

Sounds Just to Me

Read this story. Lemme give you the bare bones outline of it. Married man repeatedly sexually abuses his step-daughter for four years, starting when she is 12 years old. He goes to trial for the crimes and is sentenced. That's what this story is about. Now, without knowing another thing about it except that the defendant took a plea, what do you think the judge's sentence was? Most of you, I would hope, would think such a crime, even plea-bargained, would rate at least 10 years in jail. We're talking pedophilia here of the most loathsome kind.

Ten years, you say? You fool. What you don't know in this case are some salient details that change everything about justice for this beastly crime. The defendant was one Samuel Curtis Johnson III, a Wisconsin billionaire. Originally charged with a felony (sexual assualt on a minor) for his deeds, he ended up getting the charges reduced to a misdemeanor (fourth-degree sexual assault and disorderly conduct) after two trips to the state supreme court. And the judge, who cited the importance of the Johnson family in the community, sentenced him to four months in jail. He will be eligible to get out after two months.

You will please forgive me for not launching into a rant about the obvious here.

Two Observations on the Economy

Or if you prefer: the economic recovery. Neither of these, I'm willing to bet, will thrill you all that much. 

• Simpleton Math: In the last two years house prices have gone up 20%. Wages have not. After the 2008 housing collapse, more than 7.5 million homeowners lost their houses and even today, about 9 million are still underwater.

• Datapoint: the US Census Bureau says that in 2012 (latest data available) 20% of all American kids were living in poverty.

That goes along with the 20 percent who are on Medicaid. When did the American people lose the bubble on these things. The rest of us are getting royally screwed while the already filthy rich continue to suck us dry and complain about government over-spending (on stuff that actually helps people).

Yaaa Us! Anniversary

PBS Newshour announced that coverage tonight would be all about D-Day. New York Times is talking about "awkward diplomacy" because Obama and Vladimir Putin are going to both be at Normandy today to celebrate the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe 70 years ago. Each year it seems the "celebration" of D-Day gets bigger. Now it's imperative that presidents and potentates go there on the anniversaries. I wonder why this is? Is the Nazi regime the last horror on earth that everyone agrees was so heinous we should celebrate the beginning of its end? Surely not. Not everyone: since we should consider the Italians, Romanians, Japanese, Austrians, Vichy French, and numerous other people in their thousands who thought the Nazis were just fine, collaborated with them, or joined them as allies. And surely not the last horror. We have had genocide and war ever since Hitler. Ever since. And we carry on like we had put an end to these things in June, 1944.

World War II was the last "good war." Which of course is bullshit, but let's leave it. It's the last time we can really applaud ourselves for defeating a really bad guy. And that event is 70 years ago and counting. Ever since then, it seems the question has been: who really is (or was) the bad guy?

What Else is New?

. . . in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Nothing really. Another report of a shooting on a college campus. One dead, two seriously hurt. The news doesn't even shock us anymore. What was it they said after the recent killings--was it 7 or 8 dead?--near the campus of UC Santa Barbara--not one more! Well, here is one more and you can be certain this one will be joined by a whole bunch more before the year is over.

I'm typing this on Friday (full disclosure: I sometimes backdate the blog entries), and the big news is that the shooter in Seattle had a history of mental illness. I am really beginning to catch the drift of the coverage of these events now. The NRA line: the problem is not guns, it's all the mentally deranged in society who are not getting treatment. As if the NRA cares! If crazy people didn't have painless access to guns, which is just what the NRA wants and fights to preserve, we wouldn't have so many crazy people shooting others dead everywhere just because they feel like it. Not one more indeed. This is just one more story in the never-ending story of this insane culture.

The Weekly Jeremiad

I don't know why it is that I find James Kuntsler so compelling every week with his blog entries to "Clusterfuck Nation." (Sorry, but that's what it's called, and I'm compelled to report accurately.) The title should give you the flavor of the overall sentiments he expresses in his blog, and expresses very well, I might add. At least I think so.

Actually, I do know why I find this guy compelling and it's because I agree with his point of view about almost everything. There are a few minor points of disagreement, but in general I find his gloomy assessment of the future of this dying empire pretty well resonates with mine. And believe me, I truly wish I didn't feel this way. I think about my three wonderful children and my pair of gorgeous grandchildren and the kind of world their short-sighted, selfish elders are leaving them to cope with. And I wish I could be sanguine about their future here. And Kuntsler, like me, does not suffer shallow mindlessness easily. The celebrity-, sports-, trivia-, and mass media-obsessed consumer culture makes him angry because he knows it's bigger than anything and beyond the hope of sweet reason to influence.

Here's what he had to say on Monday. I'll just give you a sampling from the opening.

In just about any realm of activity this nation does not know how to act. We don’t know what to do about our mounting crises of economy. We don’t know what to do about our relations with other nations in a strained global economy. We don’t know what to do about our own culture and its traditions, the useful and the outworn. We surely don’t know what to do about relations between men and women. And we’re baffled to the point of paralysis about our relations with the planetary ecosystem.

To allay these vexations, we just coast along on the momentum generated by the engines in place — the turbo-industrial flow of products to customers without the means to buy things; the gigantic infrastructures of transport subject to remorseless decay; the dishonest operations of central banks undermining all the world’s pricing and cost structures; the political ideologies based on fallacies such as growth without limits; the cultural transgressions of thought-policing and institutional ass-covering.

This is a society in deep danger that doesn’t want to know it.

 Actually I think this society in its heart of hearts does know it. It just doesn't want to think about it, or what it would take to start trying to fix it. Way too uncomfortable. Fables make you feel better. And isn't that the whole idea?

Unimaginable

I love all my brother-in-laws. But the one of them who is closest to me in age is special. That would be Lenny Brzycki from Chicago. He's married to my sister Mary Isabelle and they live in Salt Lake City. I could write a whole bunch of blogs about Lenny, but for the nonce what's essential is that you know he is a fanatical hunter and that he has children by a previous marriage, a daughter and a son. His son David is also an avid hunter, and he and Lenny once a year go hunting together. They have a very close relationship.

Here's what happened on Sunday. (This story is simply the bare bones.) A grizzly bear attacked David in the woods of southwestern Montana, and the horrific injuries inflicted upon him were near fatal. His face was mauled, both arms broken, left hand mauled. Only by the dint of heroic effort did Lenny manage to get his boy out of the woods and to hospital. He's now in Seattle hospital, after being med-evaced there by aircraft. Lenny had to drive all the way from Montana in his truck to be with him. Oh, how my heart aches for him. If you believe in prayer, as I do, please hold David, Lenny, and all the family up to the mercy of God in this terrible time.

Update I: David underwent extensive surgery on Monday, is stable in ICU, and faces months and months of restorative surgery yet. He is lucky to have survived. Many of the family members from around the country are up at the hospital. I had an extensive conversation with my sis last night (Tuesday).

Update II: David has had to be given injections for rabies and the feeding tube he's been on now pipes directly to his stomach. He's got more reconstructive surgery next Thursday, the 12th.

Perspective

And There We Are

That pale little blue dot in the tan band on the right is the Earth in a photograph taken from 3.7 billions miles away, near the edge of our solar system. Picture was taken from the Voyager I spacecraft about 13 years after it had been launched from our planet.

I have read the following words of astronomer Carl Sagan before, and maybe you have too. But they bear repeating and repeated pondering.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of  particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every  hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every  "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species  lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in  glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction  of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could  migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the  Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of  human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.