Knock knock knock
"I want to see my mother."
Knock knock knock
"I want to see my mother."
"I'm sorry Mr. Svensson. Visiting time is over."
"God damn it. What's wrong with you people?!"
"Mr. Svensson, we just can't accommodate people here after hours. You should know that by now. We go through this every week."
"I just want to see my mother!"
Mr. Svensson stormed out the automatic doors and back to his 1992 brown Toyota Camry, license plate 721 WJB He opened the trunk and pulled out the 2 handguns he had been saving. He knew he was right. Mr. Svennson was always right. He had God on his side.
He had a special jacket for this occasion, navy, made of a heavy matte denim.
The words "active shooter" rang in his head and he knew what he had to do. He plunged the 2 handguns into the pockets of his heavy denim jacket.
Jacob Svensson, active shooter. He knew he would never see his name on the news that night. He had played it all out in his head, over and over again, how this mass casualty suicide was going to go down.
Now was the day. Now was the time. It was zero hour. He slammed the trunk closed and straightened up. With a feeling of purpose that he had never felt before in his life, Mr. Svensson calmly strolled back through the sliding glass doors. The woman behind the petition glanced up and had barely registered surprise before Mr. Svensson riddled her body and face with bullets. She vanished on the floor behind her desk. He was surprised at how easy this was. Mr. Svensson remembered the girl in second grade who had thrown mud at him. It had stuck to the back of his jacket and all the kids laughed at him. When he got home, his mother had said, "It's ok, honey. We'll just wash it." But that wasn't the point.
The elevator opened. An orderly carrying a tray stepped out and looked at Mr. Svensson, confused. Her mouth opened as if about to say something and Mr. Svensson shot her in the face. There was a feeling of satisfaction that overcame him. She had brown hair like the girl in 6th grade. Mr. Svensson had accidentally gone into the girl's bathroom and she saw him sitting in the stall. The school didn't have doors on the bathroom stalls. That was one thing. The brown haired girl followed him back to class and announced Mr. Svensson had been pooping in the girl's bathroom. The teacher said, "Well I'm sure he will know which bathroom to use next time." But that wasn't the point.
Walking down the hallway of Hillside Gardens, he glimpsed through the open doors the sleeping residents. They all looked dead to him anyway. Mr. Svensson shot in the stomach a nurse who came out of a room. It was pretty quiet here. He had imagined people running and screaming while Mr. Svensson stood strong amid them. There was a girl once, when he was 14. Mr. Svensson tried to kiss her and she ran away. When he told his brother, he said, "What a homo. There's always other girls." But that wasn't the point.
Mr. Svensson approached room 16-A. It smelled bad here. Mr. Svensson said, "Hello, mother." and shot her through the temple. She had told him she loved him once, but that wasn't the point.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Midwest Working Class and the Great Decline
I wonder if The Great Depression was called The Great Depression during The
Great Depression? Or was it history that looked back and named it so?
How did our middle class diminish so drastically? If we have learned one thing in this 21st century, it is that we cannot trust the robber barons not to rob. "Trickle down" economics is a fallacy and a fantasy for the wealthy who long had their buckets in place to catch any spill-over.
I will give history a heads up and name this The Great Decline.
It encompasses more than the decline of the middle class, it encompasses the politics of hate and contempt. We are led to be contemptuous of those who have less. We are embroiled in a war on words. We mention race or racism are immediately called racists. We talk about the disparity of wealth distribution and charges of class warfare are leveled against us. The Relentless Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness is fueled by Fox New Corp and the Koch brothers. It encompasses a populace so divided, and so unsure of themselves that they routinely vote against their own economic interests or vote not at all.
Last summer I moved from a lifetime in Silicon Valley to Iowa. I have moved away from the abstract liberalism of the Bay Area to a place where the reasons we need Bernie Sanders are strikingly obvious. This is not the America I learned of as a child. The America I learned of as a child was full of opportunity so that anyone could pull themselves up and have a decent wage, a good life, and a chance to raise children who could achieve even more.
What I encounter here in this Midwest is starkly different. I do not recognize this America. The American dream is that we are all able to pull ourselves up, but there are entire rungs of the ladder missing here. The rungs of the ladder that one can reach to and pull oneself up with are gone. They have just vanished and people are left dangling at the bottom over an open pit where they will fall headlong into homelessness.
There are great divides in this country. In Silicon Valley, I never felt without opportunity. The culture raised me to believe in my talents and abilities. I feel that I get an equal rate of return for whatever effort I put in and often times more. But here in Iowa, I see hard working people who take on 2 or 3 jobs. Each are twenty-five to thirty hours per week with no benefits, sick leave or paid time off. There are no allowances or leeway. They are "asked" to work holidays. It is reprehensible that we are treating the very backbone of our society this way. Iowa is a very family oriented state. It is a great place to raise children. These parents have to keep their child home from daycare when they themselves are sick as they cannot afford it. Schools and daycares give the children their meals provided by the Iowa Food Bank. 3 out of the 4 public elementary schools in the neighboring Mason City are rated below the national poverty level and children are given their meals there.
Not long ago, I read a Facebook thread regarding people who work in fast food. There were comments like, "McDonald's was not meant to be a career path." and "If you want more money, get a better skill set." There is some ignorance of circumstance in these particular statements and I will raise my hand first to admit that at one time, these sentiments may have come from my own mouth.
From my view, there is not the vast array of job opportunities that I had become use to in the San Francisco Bay Area. People work their entire lives in retail, or restaurants, or fast food here. These people are white. Yes, I will talk about race. In California our Latino brothers and sisters take the jobs no one else wants. Much like my great-grandparents from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland, people come to America for a better life.
Bernie Sanders wants to end this abuse of the American worker. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Bernie Sanders wants to end the corporate welfare that makes taxpayers take up the slack when corporations like Walmart routinely send their employees to sign up for food stamps and other social services. This corporate welfare model applies to nearly every job situation I see out here.
How can we have American companies employ us and we still do not have enough money to eat? Bernie Sanders wants to end all this.
We are Americans. These are American corporations. These are American jobs. We are the richest and strongest country in the world. This abuse of the American working class must end and we must all work together to see Bernie Sanders as President of the United States.
Great Depression? Or was it history that looked back and named it so?
How did our middle class diminish so drastically? If we have learned one thing in this 21st century, it is that we cannot trust the robber barons not to rob. "Trickle down" economics is a fallacy and a fantasy for the wealthy who long had their buckets in place to catch any spill-over.
I will give history a heads up and name this The Great Decline.
It encompasses more than the decline of the middle class, it encompasses the politics of hate and contempt. We are led to be contemptuous of those who have less. We are embroiled in a war on words. We mention race or racism are immediately called racists. We talk about the disparity of wealth distribution and charges of class warfare are leveled against us. The Relentless Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness is fueled by Fox New Corp and the Koch brothers. It encompasses a populace so divided, and so unsure of themselves that they routinely vote against their own economic interests or vote not at all.
Last summer I moved from a lifetime in Silicon Valley to Iowa. I have moved away from the abstract liberalism of the Bay Area to a place where the reasons we need Bernie Sanders are strikingly obvious. This is not the America I learned of as a child. The America I learned of as a child was full of opportunity so that anyone could pull themselves up and have a decent wage, a good life, and a chance to raise children who could achieve even more.
What I encounter here in this Midwest is starkly different. I do not recognize this America. The American dream is that we are all able to pull ourselves up, but there are entire rungs of the ladder missing here. The rungs of the ladder that one can reach to and pull oneself up with are gone. They have just vanished and people are left dangling at the bottom over an open pit where they will fall headlong into homelessness.
There are great divides in this country. In Silicon Valley, I never felt without opportunity. The culture raised me to believe in my talents and abilities. I feel that I get an equal rate of return for whatever effort I put in and often times more. But here in Iowa, I see hard working people who take on 2 or 3 jobs. Each are twenty-five to thirty hours per week with no benefits, sick leave or paid time off. There are no allowances or leeway. They are "asked" to work holidays. It is reprehensible that we are treating the very backbone of our society this way. Iowa is a very family oriented state. It is a great place to raise children. These parents have to keep their child home from daycare when they themselves are sick as they cannot afford it. Schools and daycares give the children their meals provided by the Iowa Food Bank. 3 out of the 4 public elementary schools in the neighboring Mason City are rated below the national poverty level and children are given their meals there.
Not long ago, I read a Facebook thread regarding people who work in fast food. There were comments like, "McDonald's was not meant to be a career path." and "If you want more money, get a better skill set." There is some ignorance of circumstance in these particular statements and I will raise my hand first to admit that at one time, these sentiments may have come from my own mouth.
From my view, there is not the vast array of job opportunities that I had become use to in the San Francisco Bay Area. People work their entire lives in retail, or restaurants, or fast food here. These people are white. Yes, I will talk about race. In California our Latino brothers and sisters take the jobs no one else wants. Much like my great-grandparents from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland, people come to America for a better life.
Bernie Sanders wants to end this abuse of the American worker. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Bernie Sanders wants to end the corporate welfare that makes taxpayers take up the slack when corporations like Walmart routinely send their employees to sign up for food stamps and other social services. This corporate welfare model applies to nearly every job situation I see out here.
How can we have American companies employ us and we still do not have enough money to eat? Bernie Sanders wants to end all this.
We are Americans. These are American corporations. These are American jobs. We are the richest and strongest country in the world. This abuse of the American working class must end and we must all work together to see Bernie Sanders as President of the United States.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
A Place of Integrity: Thy Name is Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders holds a place in my heart reserved for my grandfather and his plain-spoken integrity. On MSNBC and in interviews over the last months, Bernie is led in question to criticize Hilary Clinton. He refuses. In Iowa, August 16, Bernie rebutted a Washington Post reporter by telling him that he would not participate in "that sport you like."
This is the appeal of Bernie Sanders. When I see and hear Bernie Sanders speak, there is a longing, and a feeling for a time and place when people dealt with each other on a more honest level. I am tired of slick politics. I am sick of the hate-filled double speak and fact-free rhetoric that infects our society and turns us upon each other.
I work with young kids. Often houses built from blocks by a child will be kicked over by another, more aggressive child. I then sit down with them both and we work on how we can rebuild together.
There are many things that need to be rebuilt in this country. Bernie Sanders will spur the creation of jobs to rebuild our roads and bridges. But that is just the physical. There is far more that has to be rebuilt in this country and that is the American spirit.
There is so much that has been kicked over. It is our economic certainty. We now worry if our children can ever afford college and worry if paying for food outweighs paying for heating this month. How did we sink to this?
It is our dignity in the American workplace that has been kicked over. We have lost that can-do American spirit from years of abuse at the hands of corporations who hold the strings to our government. That proud slogan of Made in America? How often do you see that?
Our indignity encompasses low wages and abusive hiring practices. Our abuse encompasses routinely being sent to sign up for food stamps, no paid vacations or sick days, no payment of overtime and workers being locked into workplaces. All this has kicked over our home built of trust, our home built on security, and we see our future turning to rubble of which there is no way to dig ourselves out.
This is America and we are a great country full of great people. We are diverse. We believe different things. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate not bought and paid for by the corporate machine. What Bernie Sanders is doing is bringing us together and bringing our focus back to our basic needs which are not those of giant corporations, but the needs of We the People.
The reason Bernie Sanders is pulling record crowds is that we are realizing It Is Not Our Fault. We have been brainwashed, slowly and effectively to forget the protection in the workplace afforded to our parents and grandparents. We forget, as unions are demonized, the hard won benefits that made this country the most upwardly mobile society in history. As wealth accumulates at the top, our ability to move up the income ladder has degraded considerably, and entire rungs of the ladder are missing as we dangle precariously above a pit called economic despair, and yes, homelessness.
We are told to blame ourselves.
Bernie Sanders speaks to this despair. He does not believe families should work full-time and have to resort to food stamps. He does not believe families should struggle just to afford childcare costs. He states that it is a moral outrage that any American go without healthcare. He believes a higher education should be within reach of every American.
Healthcare, childcare, education, and a living wage, these are the building blocks of society. We are rebuilding America anew and Bernie Sanders is the voice of each and every one of us.
This is the appeal of Bernie Sanders. When I see and hear Bernie Sanders speak, there is a longing, and a feeling for a time and place when people dealt with each other on a more honest level. I am tired of slick politics. I am sick of the hate-filled double speak and fact-free rhetoric that infects our society and turns us upon each other.
I work with young kids. Often houses built from blocks by a child will be kicked over by another, more aggressive child. I then sit down with them both and we work on how we can rebuild together.
There are many things that need to be rebuilt in this country. Bernie Sanders will spur the creation of jobs to rebuild our roads and bridges. But that is just the physical. There is far more that has to be rebuilt in this country and that is the American spirit.
There is so much that has been kicked over. It is our economic certainty. We now worry if our children can ever afford college and worry if paying for food outweighs paying for heating this month. How did we sink to this?
It is our dignity in the American workplace that has been kicked over. We have lost that can-do American spirit from years of abuse at the hands of corporations who hold the strings to our government. That proud slogan of Made in America? How often do you see that?
Our indignity encompasses low wages and abusive hiring practices. Our abuse encompasses routinely being sent to sign up for food stamps, no paid vacations or sick days, no payment of overtime and workers being locked into workplaces. All this has kicked over our home built of trust, our home built on security, and we see our future turning to rubble of which there is no way to dig ourselves out.
This is America and we are a great country full of great people. We are diverse. We believe different things. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate not bought and paid for by the corporate machine. What Bernie Sanders is doing is bringing us together and bringing our focus back to our basic needs which are not those of giant corporations, but the needs of We the People.
The reason Bernie Sanders is pulling record crowds is that we are realizing It Is Not Our Fault. We have been brainwashed, slowly and effectively to forget the protection in the workplace afforded to our parents and grandparents. We forget, as unions are demonized, the hard won benefits that made this country the most upwardly mobile society in history. As wealth accumulates at the top, our ability to move up the income ladder has degraded considerably, and entire rungs of the ladder are missing as we dangle precariously above a pit called economic despair, and yes, homelessness.
We are told to blame ourselves.
Bernie Sanders speaks to this despair. He does not believe families should work full-time and have to resort to food stamps. He does not believe families should struggle just to afford childcare costs. He states that it is a moral outrage that any American go without healthcare. He believes a higher education should be within reach of every American.
Healthcare, childcare, education, and a living wage, these are the building blocks of society. We are rebuilding America anew and Bernie Sanders is the voice of each and every one of us.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Body Politics
I have always thought my legs were fat.
Athletic to be more charitable.
Recently I was wearing dark wash skinny jeans and playing with a 5 year old boy. At some point he exclaimed, "Your legs are skinny!"
I blurted out, "I love you! That's the BEST thing anyone has ever said to me!"
Oh God help me. If this had been a girl, I know this would be an issue and a scar for the rest of her life. At 5, the girls at my preschool are already comparing who is thinner.
As it is, my loss of control did not help this boy in anyway. The thing is, I didn't know what to say afterward to mitigate the damage that had just flown out of my mouth.
I damaged him. I damaged future society.
I view my body through a lens of a male dominated and patriarchal society. I grew up consuming the culture of fashion and Diet Pepsi. I don't even know what it's like to view my body objectively. Is any woman capable of that? Is there some magical, mythical land called Body Acceptance?
At 2, I was voted the cutest little girl on Ramona Street in Palo Alto. They somehow missed the future Nobel prize winner in biochemistry that lay latent within me.
Where is the line? Where is the balance? We love beautiful things. At what point is appreciating someone's physical beauty corrosive?
And then there is the measure and standard of beauty. I read a great story by a large (for American standards) woman who constantly had to deal with dismissiveness and sometimes straight up hate towards her because of her weight. She went to Jamaica and people would stop in the street to tell her how beautiful she was. It was an eye-opening piece for me, this idea that beauty is a variable thing, based on a society's preference,
I had an experience on a MUNI bus in San Francisco. I was coming home from working as a nanny. My hair was up in a messy ponytail. I had a zipped up hoody on, and I was wearing what I can only describe as really awful librarian glasses. Three guys behind me started commenting in loud voices how ugly I was. I casually took my ponytail out and shook out my hair. I tied my hoody around my waist, I was wearing a tank top. I threw my glasses into my backpack. I had to walk past them to get off at my stop and as I did, one of them jumped up and followed me off the bus. He began apologizing profusely for his friends as the bus drove away, saying they were drunk. I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say. I just looked at him and walked away.
To this day, I don't know how to think about this event. Why did I feel compelled to make myself "prettier?" What if I had been the age I am now? What if I were 70? If that would have happened now, how would I handle it? I don't even know how to look at my body objectively. I don't know what that is even like. Is any woman capable of that? Is there any woman out there who sees herself beautiful no matter her size or shape?
It starts so very very young for us. I don't think I will ever get away from this damage and critical thinking. I often tell girls how pretty and beautiful they are. I feel they will not believe it of themselves if I do not tell them and reinforce it. Am I helping? Or am I hurting?
I have another troubling story to admit here. I never thought that my mom was beautiful, or even pretty. She would make disparaging comments about her own body and looks and I internalized that. She said it was more important to be smart.
I did not believe her.
Soon after she died, I was in my Menlo Park business photoshopping a picture of her for my dad. A co-worker wandered by and spontaneously exclaimed, "Your mother was beautiful!" And suddenly I saw it. My mother is beautiful.
By anyone's standards, she was beautiful. She was beautiful and I never saw it.
Because of her words, I could not see it.
We can damage each other. We can hurt each other. We hurt ourselves by mutilating our bodies and risking death to obtain some elusive and unobtainable goal.
Acceptance.
I don't know how to do it.
I don't know how that feels.
All I know is I have to be careful with my words. I have to be aware of what I say and how I speak of others and especially of how I speak about myself.
Athletic to be more charitable.
Recently I was wearing dark wash skinny jeans and playing with a 5 year old boy. At some point he exclaimed, "Your legs are skinny!"
I blurted out, "I love you! That's the BEST thing anyone has ever said to me!"
Oh God help me. If this had been a girl, I know this would be an issue and a scar for the rest of her life. At 5, the girls at my preschool are already comparing who is thinner.
As it is, my loss of control did not help this boy in anyway. The thing is, I didn't know what to say afterward to mitigate the damage that had just flown out of my mouth.
I damaged him. I damaged future society.
I view my body through a lens of a male dominated and patriarchal society. I grew up consuming the culture of fashion and Diet Pepsi. I don't even know what it's like to view my body objectively. Is any woman capable of that? Is there some magical, mythical land called Body Acceptance?
At 2, I was voted the cutest little girl on Ramona Street in Palo Alto. They somehow missed the future Nobel prize winner in biochemistry that lay latent within me.
Where is the line? Where is the balance? We love beautiful things. At what point is appreciating someone's physical beauty corrosive?
And then there is the measure and standard of beauty. I read a great story by a large (for American standards) woman who constantly had to deal with dismissiveness and sometimes straight up hate towards her because of her weight. She went to Jamaica and people would stop in the street to tell her how beautiful she was. It was an eye-opening piece for me, this idea that beauty is a variable thing, based on a society's preference,
I had an experience on a MUNI bus in San Francisco. I was coming home from working as a nanny. My hair was up in a messy ponytail. I had a zipped up hoody on, and I was wearing what I can only describe as really awful librarian glasses. Three guys behind me started commenting in loud voices how ugly I was. I casually took my ponytail out and shook out my hair. I tied my hoody around my waist, I was wearing a tank top. I threw my glasses into my backpack. I had to walk past them to get off at my stop and as I did, one of them jumped up and followed me off the bus. He began apologizing profusely for his friends as the bus drove away, saying they were drunk. I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say. I just looked at him and walked away.
To this day, I don't know how to think about this event. Why did I feel compelled to make myself "prettier?" What if I had been the age I am now? What if I were 70? If that would have happened now, how would I handle it? I don't even know how to look at my body objectively. I don't know what that is even like. Is any woman capable of that? Is there any woman out there who sees herself beautiful no matter her size or shape?
It starts so very very young for us. I don't think I will ever get away from this damage and critical thinking. I often tell girls how pretty and beautiful they are. I feel they will not believe it of themselves if I do not tell them and reinforce it. Am I helping? Or am I hurting?
I have another troubling story to admit here. I never thought that my mom was beautiful, or even pretty. She would make disparaging comments about her own body and looks and I internalized that. She said it was more important to be smart.
I did not believe her.
Soon after she died, I was in my Menlo Park business photoshopping a picture of her for my dad. A co-worker wandered by and spontaneously exclaimed, "Your mother was beautiful!" And suddenly I saw it. My mother is beautiful.
By anyone's standards, she was beautiful. She was beautiful and I never saw it.
Because of her words, I could not see it.
We can damage each other. We can hurt each other. We hurt ourselves by mutilating our bodies and risking death to obtain some elusive and unobtainable goal.
Acceptance.
I don't know how to do it.
I don't know how that feels.
All I know is I have to be careful with my words. I have to be aware of what I say and how I speak of others and especially of how I speak about myself.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
How Do We Talk To Our Replublican Friends About Bernie Sanders?:
*or*
(You disagree with me so by definition, YOU'RE WRONG!)
How do we talk to those whose ideals and values are very different from our own?
How do we talk about Bernie Sanders to those who jump to disagree?
How do we find common ground?
We don't have to convince those who agree with us, we have to persuade those who do not.
So how do we talk to a Republican?
We are all Americans. This is our common ground. One of the American values we hold high is family values. We, as Americans, value the strength of family. We value the ideal of our children achieving their goals, and of achieving more. We value education. We value a family structure that if one or both parents are working, the family should not be struggling. A strong family unit can only be strong if the basic needs are met. If the parents are working, childcare should be in place and a family should not have to struggle to make that so. I think we can agree on that. There should be enough food for the family to eat. I believe we agree on that. The parents should be able to reasonably pay rent or mortgage without fear of losing their home if they, or one of their children fall ill. This one, for whatever reasons, we struggle to agree upon. But I think as Americans, we can agree that these values are a baseline.
Unfortunately this is not the America we are living in. Parents working full-time must also receive food stamps. It is shocking how many schools across this country feed meals to their students because entire communities are below poverty level.
These are not American values. These are not Bernie Sanders' values. Bernie Sanders wants to adjust the minimum wage to support a family in 2015 so they can depend upon their own income and are not routinely directed to receive social services by our own American corporations.
Republicans agree than an educated America is a strong America. If our Republican friends are worried about our national security, then they will certainly agree that nothing is more important than a higher education. Our first line of defense starts with our scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Our student loan system is predatory and corrosive. Bernie Sanders advocates college affordability and a college education should not be out of the reach of anyone.
These are just a couple areas, that we, as Americans can find some common ground.
Here are some more thoughts of how we can talk about Bernie Sanders from my conversation with Colin Cole, Field Organizer for Bernie Sanders. We met in a small Mason City, Iowa coffee shop.
"Democracy, if it is working properly, is a good system. It works. The people. and what they want their government to do, should be relatively in sync. So if the majority of your constituency - whether that be in a city, or a state, or the United States - feels a certain way, in a democracy the government will represent those views, and the people will be satisfied."
Our democracy is not currently working and our voices are not being heard. Colin went on to talk about how, yes, we each have one vote in the ballot box, but individuals can spend millions promoting their candidate, and attack others with influence that you and I will never have. Thus my vote really does have less power when another's wealth can influence so many.
As Americans, if we can agree that a properly functioning democracy will lead to a good outcome, then our Republican friends should consider Bernie a "gateway" candidate, - whose goal is to fix the system-, so that you and I will better have our voices heard, AND our Republican friends will have a better chance to elect the candidate of whom they really want and best represents their interests next time around.
(You disagree with me so by definition, YOU'RE WRONG!)
How do we talk to those whose ideals and values are very different from our own?
How do we talk about Bernie Sanders to those who jump to disagree?
How do we find common ground?
We don't have to convince those who agree with us, we have to persuade those who do not.
So how do we talk to a Republican?
We are all Americans. This is our common ground. One of the American values we hold high is family values. We, as Americans, value the strength of family. We value the ideal of our children achieving their goals, and of achieving more. We value education. We value a family structure that if one or both parents are working, the family should not be struggling. A strong family unit can only be strong if the basic needs are met. If the parents are working, childcare should be in place and a family should not have to struggle to make that so. I think we can agree on that. There should be enough food for the family to eat. I believe we agree on that. The parents should be able to reasonably pay rent or mortgage without fear of losing their home if they, or one of their children fall ill. This one, for whatever reasons, we struggle to agree upon. But I think as Americans, we can agree that these values are a baseline.
Unfortunately this is not the America we are living in. Parents working full-time must also receive food stamps. It is shocking how many schools across this country feed meals to their students because entire communities are below poverty level.
These are not American values. These are not Bernie Sanders' values. Bernie Sanders wants to adjust the minimum wage to support a family in 2015 so they can depend upon their own income and are not routinely directed to receive social services by our own American corporations.
Republicans agree than an educated America is a strong America. If our Republican friends are worried about our national security, then they will certainly agree that nothing is more important than a higher education. Our first line of defense starts with our scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Our student loan system is predatory and corrosive. Bernie Sanders advocates college affordability and a college education should not be out of the reach of anyone.
These are just a couple areas, that we, as Americans can find some common ground.
Here are some more thoughts of how we can talk about Bernie Sanders from my conversation with Colin Cole, Field Organizer for Bernie Sanders. We met in a small Mason City, Iowa coffee shop.
"Democracy, if it is working properly, is a good system. It works. The people. and what they want their government to do, should be relatively in sync. So if the majority of your constituency - whether that be in a city, or a state, or the United States - feels a certain way, in a democracy the government will represent those views, and the people will be satisfied."
Our democracy is not currently working and our voices are not being heard. Colin went on to talk about how, yes, we each have one vote in the ballot box, but individuals can spend millions promoting their candidate, and attack others with influence that you and I will never have. Thus my vote really does have less power when another's wealth can influence so many.
As Americans, if we can agree that a properly functioning democracy will lead to a good outcome, then our Republican friends should consider Bernie a "gateway" candidate, - whose goal is to fix the system-, so that you and I will better have our voices heard, AND our Republican friends will have a better chance to elect the candidate of whom they really want and best represents their interests next time around.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Coffee, Tea, or Me
For reasons I will not disclose, I cannot drink coffee anymore.
I like to travel and I absolutely depend on Starbuck's free WiFi, and I NEED lattes with 2-3 extra shots daily. Coffee shops are my home away from home.
"Coffee? I don't drink coffee. Do you have any tea?" SLAP!
SHUT UP! Hear that little superiority dance in their voice? I don't want to be THAT PERSON. I already annoy people enough with my goings on, "Oh, I have such a delicate disposition. Is it gluten-free?" I gleefully bore people to death with my rambling monologues about the glorious future for each and every one of us if we just embrace organics!
So
I
am
drinking
tea.
If I could make that sentence droop and fall off the page, I would.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Moan and complain.
Here's the thing. I have everything I need in this life and mostly everything I want. What's a little coffee in the larger scheme of things?
EVERYTHING.
SHUT UP!
ok. That's my brain going off the rails for a moment.
Like sports, coffee is a great social lubricant. Everyone can talk about coffee.
Except those assholes who only drink tea. AND I'M ONE OF THEM NOW!
I like to travel and I absolutely depend on Starbuck's free WiFi, and I NEED lattes with 2-3 extra shots daily. Coffee shops are my home away from home.
"Coffee? I don't drink coffee. Do you have any tea?" SLAP!
SHUT UP! Hear that little superiority dance in their voice? I don't want to be THAT PERSON. I already annoy people enough with my goings on, "Oh, I have such a delicate disposition. Is it gluten-free?" I gleefully bore people to death with my rambling monologues about the glorious future for each and every one of us if we just embrace organics!
So
I
am
drinking
tea.
If I could make that sentence droop and fall off the page, I would.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Moan and complain.
Here's the thing. I have everything I need in this life and mostly everything I want. What's a little coffee in the larger scheme of things?
EVERYTHING.
SHUT UP!
ok. That's my brain going off the rails for a moment.
Like sports, coffee is a great social lubricant. Everyone can talk about coffee.
Except those assholes who only drink tea. AND I'M ONE OF THEM NOW!
I expect to get slapped upside the head any day now.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Glimmers of Hope
I have been mired in a cynicism that has colored my political views since 2000 and truly, I have had little hope for the future of our nation since the Republican theft of the highest office in the country.
My senior co-worker danced in hate-filled glee across the lobby in my former Silicon Valley business, and all I heard was the sound of checkbooks slamming shut across the country and the crash that swallowed us alive. Republicans had the reputation of not being particularly supportive of tech.
I was accused in a thread, here on Facebook that I profess to abhor this country. I do not profess to abhor, I yearn for better.
The two Supreme court rulings have changed my view from here.
I feel hope for the future. I feel hope because Bernie Sanders exists and is bringing out record crowds who also yearn for better.
I do not believe people should be left on their own.
We are screamed at that unions are bad and welfare recipients cause the deficit. We distrust each other. People are struggling across this country in numbers unseen since the Great Depression. I believe it is government's role, and mine as a taxpayer to care for the weakest among us.
I get in these baffling conversations here, in the Midwest, that one needs to hoard what one has and defend oneself against their brothers and sisters who need it. I feel these deep set fears are controlled and manipulated by the corporations that keep wages so low that all are living on edges of economic ruin.
Bernie Sanders is correct. Minimum wage is starvation wages. No one should live like this in these United States. All this economic uncertainty leads to the misplaced fear among us. Immigrants!
It must be ILLEGAL immigrants. NO WAIT. ISIS! Liberals! It's liberals all wanting FREE health care. And it has to come out of MY POCKET! SOCIALISTS!
I MUST keep what's mine because I WORKED FOR IT!
and I make $7.25/hour.
How does a person feel after working for decades and all they can make is $7.25/hour?
You are worth $7.25/hour.
How does that make you feel?
Fear.
Misplaced fear.
The politics and exploitation of fear.
For the first time in 15 years, a true feeling of hope glimmers inside of me that change is in the air.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
What Does Trust Look Like?
"So you like white socialism? Seems a little racist."
And another. "Mostly White, lest we forget." followed by "Do you believe there are characteristics pertinent to different breeds of Canis Lupis?"
These are just a couple responses on my wall to my recent postings about Denmark and in extension, Bernie Sanders. I find that last statement, comparing people to dogs most egregious, although implying that a society can only work well is based on gradations of skin color is downright insulting.
What if there was a country where everyone is trusted to make good choices? What does a country look like where it is a built in understanding that people will do the right thing?
What does that society look like?
It looks like Denmark.
The default is trust.
There is a lot of foot-stamping in America. "My tax dollars are paying for HIS healthcare?!! SCREW HIM."
The overall feeling in Denmark to that is, So What?
Our economic uncertainty has fueled a distrust of each other. We have fits over how and who we should help. We should help everyone. All citizens deserve this. In a country as powerful as the U.S., we deserve our basic human needs met.
Social policy in Denmark makes sure that almost no one falls into economic despair. Healthcare is a right of citizenship. Childcare, 2 year unemployment benefits, and education are all part of the system that protects Danish citizens. College, graduate school, and even medical school are all free. An educated populace is a productive populace.
Imagine that here.
During my trip, the people I encountered were fit and healthy. They were calm. Their children were calm. Even in the best restaurants, families with children were present. I notice these things because I don't want children in my restaurants, airplanes, or hotels.
Yeah, I'm a horrible person. I work with the little snots so I can say these things.
No, but really, in every situation that I encountered with families, the children were happy and chatting with parents. Not a cell phone in sight either. What we perceive as poor parenting here is a reflection of our overall stress as a society.
What if? What if a parent never had to worry about how to pay for their child's care? What if we never had to worry or debate the right to healthcare? What if we knew we would receive 90% of income during 2 years of unemployment?
What if we could live together without guns? What if we didn't feel the need to arm ourselves against each other?
Trust.
I live in a country without trust and it reflects in everything here.
And another. "Mostly White, lest we forget." followed by "Do you believe there are characteristics pertinent to different breeds of Canis Lupis?"
These are just a couple responses on my wall to my recent postings about Denmark and in extension, Bernie Sanders. I find that last statement, comparing people to dogs most egregious, although implying that a society can only work well is based on gradations of skin color is downright insulting.
What if there was a country where everyone is trusted to make good choices? What does a country look like where it is a built in understanding that people will do the right thing?
What does that society look like?
It looks like Denmark.
The default is trust.
There is a lot of foot-stamping in America. "My tax dollars are paying for HIS healthcare?!! SCREW HIM."
The overall feeling in Denmark to that is, So What?
Our economic uncertainty has fueled a distrust of each other. We have fits over how and who we should help. We should help everyone. All citizens deserve this. In a country as powerful as the U.S., we deserve our basic human needs met.
Social policy in Denmark makes sure that almost no one falls into economic despair. Healthcare is a right of citizenship. Childcare, 2 year unemployment benefits, and education are all part of the system that protects Danish citizens. College, graduate school, and even medical school are all free. An educated populace is a productive populace.
Imagine that here.
During my trip, the people I encountered were fit and healthy. They were calm. Their children were calm. Even in the best restaurants, families with children were present. I notice these things because I don't want children in my restaurants, airplanes, or hotels.
Yeah, I'm a horrible person. I work with the little snots so I can say these things.
No, but really, in every situation that I encountered with families, the children were happy and chatting with parents. Not a cell phone in sight either. What we perceive as poor parenting here is a reflection of our overall stress as a society.
What if? What if a parent never had to worry about how to pay for their child's care? What if we never had to worry or debate the right to healthcare? What if we knew we would receive 90% of income during 2 years of unemployment?
What if we could live together without guns? What if we didn't feel the need to arm ourselves against each other?
Trust.
I live in a country without trust and it reflects in everything here.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Midwest Working Class and The Great Decline
I wonder if The Great Depression was called The Great Depression during The
Great Depression? Or was it history that looked back and named it so?
How did our middle class diminish so drastically? If we have learned one thing in this 21st century, it is that we cannot trust the robber barons not to rob. "Trickle down" economics is a fallacy and a fantasy for the wealthy who long had their buckets in place to catch any spill-over.
I will give history a heads up and name this The Great Decline.
It encompasses more than the decline of the middle class, it encompasses the politics of hate and contempt. We are led to be contemptuous of those who have less. We are embroiled in a war on words. We mention race or racism are immediately called racists. We talk about the disparity of wealth distribution and charges of class warfare are leveled against us. The Relentless Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness is fueled by Fox New Corp and the Koch brothers. It encompasses a populace so divided, and so unsure of themselves that they routinely vote against their own economic interests or vote not at all.
Last summer I moved from a lifetime in Silicon Valley to Iowa. I have moved away from the abstract liberalism of the Bay Area to a place where the reasons we need Bernie Sanders are strikingly obvious. This is not the America I learned of as a child. The America I learned of as a child was full of opportunity so that anyone could pull themselves up and have a decent wage, a good life, and a chance to raise children who could achieve even more.
What I encounter here in this Midwest is starkly different. I do not recognize this America. The American dream is that we are all able to pull ourselves up, but there are entire rungs of the ladder missing here. The rungs of the ladder that one can reach to and pull oneself up with are gone. They have just vanished and people are left dangling at the bottom over an open pit where they will fall headlong into homelessness.
There are great divides in this country. In Silicon Valley, I never felt without opportunity. The culture raised me to believe in my talents and abilities. I feel that I get an equal rate of return for whatever effort I put in and often times more. But here in Iowa, I see hard working people who take on 2 or 3 jobs. Each are twenty-five to thirty hours per week with no benefits, sick leave or paid time off. There are no allowances or leeway. They are "asked" to work holidays. It is reprehensible that we are treating the very backbone of our society this way. Iowa is a very family oriented state. It is a great place to raise children. These parents have to keep their child home from daycare when they themselves are sick as they cannot afford it. Schools and daycares give the children their meals provided by the Iowa Food Bank. 3 out of the 4 public elementary schools in the neighboring Mason City are rated below the national poverty level and children are given their meals there.
Not long ago, I read a Facebook thread regarding people who work in fast food. There were comments like, "McDonald's was not meant to be a career path." and "If you want more money, get a better skill set." There is some ignorance of circumstance in these particular statements and I will raise my hand first to admit that at one time, these sentiments may have come from my own mouth.
From my view, there is not the vast array of job opportunities that I had become use to in the San Francisco Bay Area. People work their entire lives in retail, or restaurants, or fast food here. These people are white. Yes, I will talk about race. In California our Latino brothers and sisters take the jobs no one else wants. Much like my great-grandparents from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland, people come to America for a better life.
Bernie Sanders wants to end this abuse of the American worker. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Bernie Sanders wants to end the corporate welfare that makes taxpayers take up the slack when corporations like Walmart routinely send their employees to sign up for food stamps and other social services. This corporate welfare model applies to nearly every job situation I see out here.
How can we have American companies employ us and we still do not have enough money to eat? Bernie Sanders wants to end all this.
We are Americans. These are American corporations. These are American jobs. We are the richest and strongest country in the world. This abuse of the American working class must end and we must all work together to see Bernie Sanders as President of the United States.
.
Great Depression? Or was it history that looked back and named it so?
How did our middle class diminish so drastically? If we have learned one thing in this 21st century, it is that we cannot trust the robber barons not to rob. "Trickle down" economics is a fallacy and a fantasy for the wealthy who long had their buckets in place to catch any spill-over.
I will give history a heads up and name this The Great Decline.
It encompasses more than the decline of the middle class, it encompasses the politics of hate and contempt. We are led to be contemptuous of those who have less. We are embroiled in a war on words. We mention race or racism are immediately called racists. We talk about the disparity of wealth distribution and charges of class warfare are leveled against us. The Relentless Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness is fueled by Fox New Corp and the Koch brothers. It encompasses a populace so divided, and so unsure of themselves that they routinely vote against their own economic interests or vote not at all.
Last summer I moved from a lifetime in Silicon Valley to Iowa. I have moved away from the abstract liberalism of the Bay Area to a place where the reasons we need Bernie Sanders are strikingly obvious. This is not the America I learned of as a child. The America I learned of as a child was full of opportunity so that anyone could pull themselves up and have a decent wage, a good life, and a chance to raise children who could achieve even more.
What I encounter here in this Midwest is starkly different. I do not recognize this America. The American dream is that we are all able to pull ourselves up, but there are entire rungs of the ladder missing here. The rungs of the ladder that one can reach to and pull oneself up with are gone. They have just vanished and people are left dangling at the bottom over an open pit where they will fall headlong into homelessness.
There are great divides in this country. In Silicon Valley, I never felt without opportunity. The culture raised me to believe in my talents and abilities. I feel that I get an equal rate of return for whatever effort I put in and often times more. But here in Iowa, I see hard working people who take on 2 or 3 jobs. Each are twenty-five to thirty hours per week with no benefits, sick leave or paid time off. There are no allowances or leeway. They are "asked" to work holidays. It is reprehensible that we are treating the very backbone of our society this way. Iowa is a very family oriented state. It is a great place to raise children. These parents have to keep their child home from daycare when they themselves are sick as they cannot afford it. Schools and daycares give the children their meals provided by the Iowa Food Bank. 3 out of the 4 public elementary schools in the neighboring Mason City are rated below the national poverty level and children are given their meals there.
Not long ago, I read a Facebook thread regarding people who work in fast food. There were comments like, "McDonald's was not meant to be a career path." and "If you want more money, get a better skill set." There is some ignorance of circumstance in these particular statements and I will raise my hand first to admit that at one time, these sentiments may have come from my own mouth.
From my view, there is not the vast array of job opportunities that I had become use to in the San Francisco Bay Area. People work their entire lives in retail, or restaurants, or fast food here. These people are white. Yes, I will talk about race. In California our Latino brothers and sisters take the jobs no one else wants. Much like my great-grandparents from Germany, Denmark, and Ireland, people come to America for a better life.
Bernie Sanders wants to end this abuse of the American worker. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Bernie Sanders wants to end the corporate welfare that makes taxpayers take up the slack when corporations like Walmart routinely send their employees to sign up for food stamps and other social services. This corporate welfare model applies to nearly every job situation I see out here.
How can we have American companies employ us and we still do not have enough money to eat? Bernie Sanders wants to end all this.
We are Americans. These are American corporations. These are American jobs. We are the richest and strongest country in the world. This abuse of the American working class must end and we must all work together to see Bernie Sanders as President of the United States.
.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
A Study in Survival /Part Two
I was living in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit.
It was 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989. A friend and I had just turned off Van Ness Avenue looking to get something to eat. Parked cars began bouncing up and down on the street and I did not immediately understand what was happening. Traffic stopped and people leaned out of their car windows.
"Was that an earthquake?"
I witnessed a phenomenon I will never forget. The entire city shut down, emitting an arching low moan that plunged two octaves into silence. Electric busses, restaurants, stoplights, music - everything shut down as the city was muted. We decided the best course of action was to get back to our Potrero Hill home.
As soon as we arrived, we pulled out a small battery-operated black & white TV. There was nothing on the air. After about 15 minutes, KRON/TV-4 came on with their helicopter showing the first views of the city and damage from the earthquake. When the chopper reached the Bay Bridge, my stomach dropped. A section had collapsed and as we watched, we saw cars drive over the edge and fall to the lower deck. The helicopter proceeded to Hwy. 880 in Oakland. The upper level had collapsed down onto the lower level at the height of rush-hour traffic crushing everything beneath. I could no longer breath. Apartments buildings had sunk in the Marina and people were trapped amid fires and explosions. A brick building for transient workers collapsed killing nearly everyone in it.
The occurrence of the Loma Prieta earthquake coincided with an important event. The San Francisco Giants and the Oakland As were playing the first game of the World Series that night. The importance of this cannot be underestimated. There were 62,000 people at Candlestick park. Thousands of others had gone home early that day to watch the game. Bridges and freeways were virtually empty. Sixty-two people died and nearly 3,800 people were injured, but this number could have been far greater if the Bay Bridge and the 880 freeway had been its usual bumper-to-bumper commuter traffic.
It took four days to reestablish stoplights and bring power back to San Francisco. There were closed freeway ramps all around the city that took years to repair and shore up. Due to structural damage, the controversial Embarcadero Freeway, built in the 1960s, was torn down. Property values soared: This elevated freeway that had blocked the views and thrown so many businesses into shadow was now gone, restoring the vistas San Francisco is most loved for.
We are all interdependent, more so in our cities, but even so in the country. We no longer sit alone in the wilderness, like Laura Ingalls Wilder and her pa, twisting hay into burnable sticks to survive the long winter. We depend upon each other. We eat the food others have grown and shipped. We wear the clothes others have made and our transportation is what others have built.
Interdependence, this is what society is built upon and infrastructure is the base we all stand on, connected together.
It was 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989. A friend and I had just turned off Van Ness Avenue looking to get something to eat. Parked cars began bouncing up and down on the street and I did not immediately understand what was happening. Traffic stopped and people leaned out of their car windows.
"Was that an earthquake?"
I witnessed a phenomenon I will never forget. The entire city shut down, emitting an arching low moan that plunged two octaves into silence. Electric busses, restaurants, stoplights, music - everything shut down as the city was muted. We decided the best course of action was to get back to our Potrero Hill home.
As soon as we arrived, we pulled out a small battery-operated black & white TV. There was nothing on the air. After about 15 minutes, KRON/TV-4 came on with their helicopter showing the first views of the city and damage from the earthquake. When the chopper reached the Bay Bridge, my stomach dropped. A section had collapsed and as we watched, we saw cars drive over the edge and fall to the lower deck. The helicopter proceeded to Hwy. 880 in Oakland. The upper level had collapsed down onto the lower level at the height of rush-hour traffic crushing everything beneath. I could no longer breath. Apartments buildings had sunk in the Marina and people were trapped amid fires and explosions. A brick building for transient workers collapsed killing nearly everyone in it.
The occurrence of the Loma Prieta earthquake coincided with an important event. The San Francisco Giants and the Oakland As were playing the first game of the World Series that night. The importance of this cannot be underestimated. There were 62,000 people at Candlestick park. Thousands of others had gone home early that day to watch the game. Bridges and freeways were virtually empty. Sixty-two people died and nearly 3,800 people were injured, but this number could have been far greater if the Bay Bridge and the 880 freeway had been its usual bumper-to-bumper commuter traffic.
It took four days to reestablish stoplights and bring power back to San Francisco. There were closed freeway ramps all around the city that took years to repair and shore up. Due to structural damage, the controversial Embarcadero Freeway, built in the 1960s, was torn down. Property values soared: This elevated freeway that had blocked the views and thrown so many businesses into shadow was now gone, restoring the vistas San Francisco is most loved for.
We are all interdependent, more so in our cities, but even so in the country. We no longer sit alone in the wilderness, like Laura Ingalls Wilder and her pa, twisting hay into burnable sticks to survive the long winter. We depend upon each other. We eat the food others have grown and shipped. We wear the clothes others have made and our transportation is what others have built.
Interdependence, this is what society is built upon and infrastructure is the base we all stand on, connected together.
A Study in Survival /Part One
It was 13 degrees below zero this winter right here in Clear
Lake, Iowa. As a born and raised Californian, I have never experienced
weather like this. I have to think in a whole new way
here. I need to know what to do. I need to know what to have in case
my car breaks down on a lonely country road in the dead of winter.
I loved the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Struggling in the wilderness against tremendous odds
sounded like one fun adventure to me. I
am now pulling out these books and reading them with new eyes.
These are studies in survival.
First published in 1940, THE LONG WINTER, finds her family - including two younger sisters as well as an older sister blind from scarlett fever - spending a winter that starts
October 1st, running out of coal and slowly starving.
They finally run out of coal and must bring hay into the "lean-to" of the house to twist into something burnable. This is no small feat. Laura and her father sit together in the cold of the lean-to picking up handfuls of hay at least 2 feet long. Twisting and twisting it, doubling it over and making these hay sticks as hard as possible so that they will burn as long as possible. They do this until their hands bleed and they can't stand the bitter cold any longer. They bring these "sticks" into the house to burn and get warm enough to go back out and start again ...for months.
On her first attempt, Laura is able to make only six sticks before her hands are cut and bleeding.
The
word has gotten to town that the supply train, now overdue by months,
has no way to get there until spring. People are running out of food
and trying to leave. And if you think (as I did) that this is the olden
days, and everyone helped each other ...well, human nature is human
nature, and prices on any remaining supplies are jacked up. The general
store is long empty anyway.
It is still only January.
"February is a short month and March will be spring." Pa said encouragingly.
A
man in town butchers his ox and sells it at 25¢/pound, a fortune in those days. Pa brings home
four pounds. They do have wheat seed. Ma is able to grind it, in a
coffee grinder that holds a half cup. It is a complicated matter to be
grinding and grinding, making the bread with a sourdough starter, and
stocking the stove with enough straw sticks, so it burns long and hot enough to bake bread.
There is a rumor
of a man, miles away who has a stockpile of wheat. Things have gotten
so dire that Almanzo Wilder (Laura's future husband) and his friend set
out in the general direction to find this person and demand his help as
people are now on the brink of starving to death.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
"Kill Site"
"Kill site."
At dinner with new friends last night I stopped the table.
"Wait, WHAT? What did you JUST SAY?"
"Kill site."
I guess it's self-explanatory.
Everyone there knew the term. I can say with complete certainty that I have never heard those two words together in my life.
Kill site.
Definition: A place where people kill animals and grind them up.
So this is why I work a little job, with little children; To take up the space in my head that is consumed with anxiety, and a touch of sadness.
My grandfather worked at the Armour meat packing plant in Mason City, Iowa. He never worked when I knew him; he was already retired. I assumed he worked behind a desk. But he had an 8th grade education, and today I realized; He did not work behind a desk.
I never considered my mom's words when she told me, wryly and in an offhand way, that my grandfather never ate Armour hot dogs because "he knows what goes into them."
As many older people do, my grandfather often reminisced about life in his early 20s. I loved his story of how, in the 1920s, my grandfather courted my grandmother. He took the electric trolley from Mason City to Clear Lake, and then took the paddleboat ferry across to the south shore. They would walk to one of the dancehalls on the lake and make an evening of it. If my grandfather missed the ferry back to the other side, he either had to walk or sleep in the woods until morning.
He never talked about his time at Armour and I never asked. What I do know is that my mother said my grandfather was a changed person when he retired.
She told me that when she was young, he often came home in a horrible temper. He was abusive to my grandmother in a way that was just shy of physical.
I saw none of this. I only knew my grandfather to be kind, funny, and friendly. He was patient with me. He took me fishing. He taught me how to play pool, and how to drive on the country roads.
Today, with some sadness and guilt, I wonder what it must have been like to have had that job.
I never asked. and anyway, he would have never told a child such as myself these things.
At dinner with new friends last night I stopped the table.
"Wait, WHAT? What did you JUST SAY?"
"Kill site."
I guess it's self-explanatory.
Everyone there knew the term. I can say with complete certainty that I have never heard those two words together in my life.
Kill site.
Definition: A place where people kill animals and grind them up.
So this is why I work a little job, with little children; To take up the space in my head that is consumed with anxiety, and a touch of sadness.
My grandfather worked at the Armour meat packing plant in Mason City, Iowa. He never worked when I knew him; he was already retired. I assumed he worked behind a desk. But he had an 8th grade education, and today I realized; He did not work behind a desk.
I never considered my mom's words when she told me, wryly and in an offhand way, that my grandfather never ate Armour hot dogs because "he knows what goes into them."
As many older people do, my grandfather often reminisced about life in his early 20s. I loved his story of how, in the 1920s, my grandfather courted my grandmother. He took the electric trolley from Mason City to Clear Lake, and then took the paddleboat ferry across to the south shore. They would walk to one of the dancehalls on the lake and make an evening of it. If my grandfather missed the ferry back to the other side, he either had to walk or sleep in the woods until morning.
He never talked about his time at Armour and I never asked. What I do know is that my mother said my grandfather was a changed person when he retired.
She told me that when she was young, he often came home in a horrible temper. He was abusive to my grandmother in a way that was just shy of physical.
I saw none of this. I only knew my grandfather to be kind, funny, and friendly. He was patient with me. He took me fishing. He taught me how to play pool, and how to drive on the country roads.
Today, with some sadness and guilt, I wonder what it must have been like to have had that job.
I never asked. and anyway, he would have never told a child such as myself these things.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
A House Built On Memories
A House Built On Memories.
I guess that's what this is. I guess that's what all houses are made of, memories. This lake house's span generations. Mine and those who have lived here before me. There are memories here of the Fourth of July, of playing cards during summer thunderstorms, catching my first fish with my grandfather, and the time I transformed the fire hydrant into a red, white, and blue soldier for the bi-centennial. They are all here, by this lake. The moment we step over the threshold, memories come to life and the walls listen and watch and take it all in.
And so I am in this house of benevolent ghosts. This house has all my things now. My parents' things are here, as are my grandparents', and even a few of my great grandparents'. If that sounds pretty crowded, it is. These things, and they are just things... each carries on a conversation with me, as I try to sort, donate or throw it away. Every book, every letter, every photo, every piece of clothing shouts, "Look! Look at me! Remember!" It is a daunting task to cram three generations of stuff into a lake cottage.
On arriving, I set out to empty closets and purge and to make space here. But this summer saw me sitting on the floor stuck in time, going through my grandparents' stuff, unable to move forward or accomplish much of anything. There are time bombs planted, ticking with emotion. There are lovely memories that do not bring forth happiness, but rather a melancholy longing that for me, borders the lands of depression where I dare not tread. So the boxes, filled with my life, are still homeless here. They do not know how to fit in until I accomplish the task of making room for them.
My books fill the shelves though. My most important books are downstairs, while their lesser brothers line the walls upstairs. I have too many books. I will always have too many books. I made a concerted effort last weekend to start on a large downstairs closet and tackle a box, three feet high, full of papers my parents had written. letters, cards and pamphlets from every vacation, and correspondence from the days they first met. There was artwork from my days in elementary school and every report card from the time my brother and I started school. Every report card? Do I keep them? Do I throw them away? What if I discover the cure for cancer? Are they important then?
I feel as though I'm living in a time capsule. As a teen, I told my mother that coming to Iowa was akin to going back in time. I still feel that way. Not much really changes here. Businesses may come and go, especially in Clear Lake, where a business must survive the non-tourist months, but entire buildings and city blocks remain in place, and if you look up above the street level facades to the second story of these two story buildings, time stands still.
I come from the heart of Silicon Valley, Mountain View, California. I grew up there. I was born in Palo Alto. This area is the home of Google and Facebook. I was taught to program computers with punch cards when I was 12. This whole way of thinking and the industry surrounding tech started in the 1970s. To see a building over 50 years old in Mountain View is to stop dead in one's tracks and stare in wonder.
When I was three, my family moved from Palo Alto to Mountain View. We bought the first house in a tract home development that replaced an entire apricot orchard. This area was known for its cherries, apricots, walnuts and other produce that grew in a land of such temperate climate. Orchards and farms filled the valley, but by the mid 60s, were vanishing rapidly. By 1980, the place once known as the Fruit Basket of the World had changed forever into Silicon Valley. The last working farm in Mountain View came down in 2006 and 150 luxury homes now stand in its place.
So I have moved here, to Clear Lake, to the lake cottage that was the destination of so many fun summers. I'll reveal my reasons for moving here in a subsequent story. For now, I will tell you that for the first time in my life, I saw snow fall from the sky this winter, and that until now I didn't understand the meaning of the word homesick.
I understand it now.
I guess that's what this is. I guess that's what all houses are made of, memories. This lake house's span generations. Mine and those who have lived here before me. There are memories here of the Fourth of July, of playing cards during summer thunderstorms, catching my first fish with my grandfather, and the time I transformed the fire hydrant into a red, white, and blue soldier for the bi-centennial. They are all here, by this lake. The moment we step over the threshold, memories come to life and the walls listen and watch and take it all in.
And so I am in this house of benevolent ghosts. This house has all my things now. My parents' things are here, as are my grandparents', and even a few of my great grandparents'. If that sounds pretty crowded, it is. These things, and they are just things... each carries on a conversation with me, as I try to sort, donate or throw it away. Every book, every letter, every photo, every piece of clothing shouts, "Look! Look at me! Remember!" It is a daunting task to cram three generations of stuff into a lake cottage.
On arriving, I set out to empty closets and purge and to make space here. But this summer saw me sitting on the floor stuck in time, going through my grandparents' stuff, unable to move forward or accomplish much of anything. There are time bombs planted, ticking with emotion. There are lovely memories that do not bring forth happiness, but rather a melancholy longing that for me, borders the lands of depression where I dare not tread. So the boxes, filled with my life, are still homeless here. They do not know how to fit in until I accomplish the task of making room for them.
My books fill the shelves though. My most important books are downstairs, while their lesser brothers line the walls upstairs. I have too many books. I will always have too many books. I made a concerted effort last weekend to start on a large downstairs closet and tackle a box, three feet high, full of papers my parents had written. letters, cards and pamphlets from every vacation, and correspondence from the days they first met. There was artwork from my days in elementary school and every report card from the time my brother and I started school. Every report card? Do I keep them? Do I throw them away? What if I discover the cure for cancer? Are they important then?
I feel as though I'm living in a time capsule. As a teen, I told my mother that coming to Iowa was akin to going back in time. I still feel that way. Not much really changes here. Businesses may come and go, especially in Clear Lake, where a business must survive the non-tourist months, but entire buildings and city blocks remain in place, and if you look up above the street level facades to the second story of these two story buildings, time stands still.
I come from the heart of Silicon Valley, Mountain View, California. I grew up there. I was born in Palo Alto. This area is the home of Google and Facebook. I was taught to program computers with punch cards when I was 12. This whole way of thinking and the industry surrounding tech started in the 1970s. To see a building over 50 years old in Mountain View is to stop dead in one's tracks and stare in wonder.
When I was three, my family moved from Palo Alto to Mountain View. We bought the first house in a tract home development that replaced an entire apricot orchard. This area was known for its cherries, apricots, walnuts and other produce that grew in a land of such temperate climate. Orchards and farms filled the valley, but by the mid 60s, were vanishing rapidly. By 1980, the place once known as the Fruit Basket of the World had changed forever into Silicon Valley. The last working farm in Mountain View came down in 2006 and 150 luxury homes now stand in its place.
So I have moved here, to Clear Lake, to the lake cottage that was the destination of so many fun summers. I'll reveal my reasons for moving here in a subsequent story. For now, I will tell you that for the first time in my life, I saw snow fall from the sky this winter, and that until now I didn't understand the meaning of the word homesick.
I understand it now.
Friday, March 20, 2015
I Will Help You
Infrastructure is the base that we all stand on, connected together. We are all dependent upon this.
Do people tend towards selfishness, or giving? Is selfishness an innate survival technique or is working together and cooperating how we survive?
I seem to be running across people here in our Midwest that are now fed so much fear, hate, and repression that they themselves, fear, hate, and are repressed.
My most recent baffling conversation started out with a woman, chatting together about organic foods. We talked about how we are inundated with pesticides in our water and food. How do we negotiate this? How do we protect ourselves in a state where pesticides have been found in 100% of the ground water and permeate every inch of soil?
We talked about how to help ourselves as much as possible by finding organic food sources in the local farmer's markets.
We talked about how, in the country, one can grow their own food, but in cities and suburbs we are dependent upon the structures that exist. I feel that's how most people's lives are in this country, dependent upon infrastructure.
Our conversation then took an odd and dark turn. She began talking about, "when the grid breaks down."
This is how I feel. I don't believe those are her own words. She has been fed that thought.
She went on to say we better protect ourselves against those who will "take the middle country's food stores" and "take what's ours." That we better have guns, and "lots of 'em" to protect ourselves and our family.
I said, "Well, it takes 2 hours by car to get here from Minneapolis and gas stations wouldn't be pumping. There would be no food or water. I'd be on foot. I'd never make it. Hahaha."
She replied, rather vehemently that people could go for weeks without food, all they need is water. They could get here.
She had this whole scenario thought out, of millions of people pouring out of New York City and raging across our country because they would know, of course, that food would be on farms.
This mass, apocalyptic breakdown of society... this fantasy. I think that those who feel in the least in control of their lives and economic circumstances believe this. The more that lives are controlled by lack of decent jobs and any social support network, the more these sort of fantasies are embraced. People need to feel in control in some way and this future zombie apocalypse is a fantasy of distraction.
I have guns. I can protect what's mine against you.
Hobos ("and lots of 'em") use to knock on my great-grandmother's back door asking for food. I grew up being told the stories that, even though so many had so little, she would always have some soup, or bread, or whatever she could spare to help others.
Here, I will help you. If you need help, I will help you.
Do people tend towards selfishness, or giving? Is selfishness an innate survival technique or is working together and cooperating how we survive?
I seem to be running across people here in our Midwest that are now fed so much fear, hate, and repression that they themselves, fear, hate, and are repressed.
My most recent baffling conversation started out with a woman, chatting together about organic foods. We talked about how we are inundated with pesticides in our water and food. How do we negotiate this? How do we protect ourselves in a state where pesticides have been found in 100% of the ground water and permeate every inch of soil?
We talked about how to help ourselves as much as possible by finding organic food sources in the local farmer's markets.
We talked about how, in the country, one can grow their own food, but in cities and suburbs we are dependent upon the structures that exist. I feel that's how most people's lives are in this country, dependent upon infrastructure.
Our conversation then took an odd and dark turn. She began talking about, "when the grid breaks down."
This is how I feel. I don't believe those are her own words. She has been fed that thought.
She went on to say we better protect ourselves against those who will "take the middle country's food stores" and "take what's ours." That we better have guns, and "lots of 'em" to protect ourselves and our family.
I said, "Well, it takes 2 hours by car to get here from Minneapolis and gas stations wouldn't be pumping. There would be no food or water. I'd be on foot. I'd never make it. Hahaha."
She replied, rather vehemently that people could go for weeks without food, all they need is water. They could get here.
She had this whole scenario thought out, of millions of people pouring out of New York City and raging across our country because they would know, of course, that food would be on farms.
This mass, apocalyptic breakdown of society... this fantasy. I think that those who feel in the least in control of their lives and economic circumstances believe this. The more that lives are controlled by lack of decent jobs and any social support network, the more these sort of fantasies are embraced. People need to feel in control in some way and this future zombie apocalypse is a fantasy of distraction.
I have guns. I can protect what's mine against you.
Hobos ("and lots of 'em") use to knock on my great-grandmother's back door asking for food. I grew up being told the stories that, even though so many had so little, she would always have some soup, or bread, or whatever she could spare to help others.
Here, I will help you. If you need help, I will help you.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
A Study in Survival
wow.
So was -13° the other morning.
If you think you read that wrong, 13 Below Zero, before wind chill factor. I have to think in a whole new way here. As a born and raised Californian, I have never, ever had to think about the implications of what one needs to do, know, or should have in case one's car breaks down. I was told the story of a man whose car slid into a ditch, was knocked unconscious, and froze before anyone saw his car. I am not cancelling my OnStar for emergency anytime soon. They can find me even if I am unconscious.
I always loved the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved reading about pioneers. Struggling in the wilderness against tremendous odds sounded like one fun adventure to me. There is a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter, with her family, her older sister now blind from scarlett fever, and two younger sisters, spending a winter that starts October 1st, slowly starving and running out of coal.
I am now pulling out these books and looking at them with new eyes. These are studies in survival.
Laura lies in bed one night. "Now she heard the Indian war whoops when the Indians were dancing their war dances all through the horrible nights by the Verdigris River. But she knew it was only the wind."
A study in survival; they finally run out of coal and must bring hay into the "Lean-to" of the house to twist into something burnable. This is no small feat. Laura and her father sit together in the cold of the lean-to picking up handfuls of hay at least 2 feet long. Twisting and twisting it, doubling it over and making these hay sticks as hard as possible so that they will burn as long as possible. They do this until their hands bleed and they can't stand the bitter cold of the lean-to any longer. They bring these "sticks" into the house to burn and get warm enough to go back out and start again ...for months.
On her first attempt, Laura was only able to make six before her hands were cut up by the straw.
The word has gotten to town that the supply train, now overdue by months, has no way to get there until spring. People are running out of food and trying to leave. And if you think (as I did) that this is the olden days, and everyone helped each other ...well, human nature is human nature, and prices on any remaining supplies are jacked up. The general store is long empty anyway.
It is still only January.
"February is a short month and March will be spring." Pa said encouragingly.
A man in town butchers his ox and sells it at 25¢/pound. Pa is able to bring home four pounds. They do have wheat seed. Ma is able to grind it, in a coffee grinder that holds a half cup. It is a complicated matter to be grinding and grinding, making the bread with a sourdough starter, and stocking the stove with straw sticks, so it burns hot enough and long enough to bake bread.
There is a rumour of a man, miles away who has a stockpile of wheat. Things have gotten so dire that Almanzo Wilder (Laura's future husband) and his friend set out in the general direction to find this person and demand his help as people are now on the brink of starving to death.
Obviously Laura Ingalls Wilder lived to tell this story. Obviously people died from the cold and exposure, the isolation, and running out of supplies far more than I have ever given thought to. But it is sunny. The sun streams through my east facing front windows and without that, this experience would probably be much more diificult. Especially in the mornings. These mornings when I think about every little thing.
A Study in Survival. Part 2
I was living in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. B and I had just turned off Van Ness Avenue to go get an early dinner. Parked cars began bouncing on either side and I did not comprehend what I was seeing. Traffic stopped and people leaned out the windows. " Was that an earthquake?"
I heard and witness a phenomenon I will never forget. The entire city shut down. It was an arching sound, a low moan, dropping two octaves to silence. Electric busses, restaurants, stoplights, everything stopped and everyone in the city was stunned into silence. We felt the best course of action was to get back to our Potrero Hill home.
As soon as we arrived, we pulled out a battery operated small B&W TV. After a bit, KRON/TV-4 got on the air with their helicopter. When they reached the Bay Bridge was when my stomach dropped and I began to realize the seriousness of this. A section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed and we all witnessed cars drive over the edge.
The helicopter proceeded to Hwy. 880. The upper deck collapsed onto the lower at the height of rush-hour traffic. At this point the ability to breath left me. Apartment buildings had sunk in the Marina, people were trapped and there were fires and death. A brick transient building collapsed killing nearly everyone in it.
One has a marvelous view of the downtown buildings and lights from Potrero Hill. Potrero Hill is solid rock and suffered no damage. There was a party atmosphere that night, all the neighbourhood was out, watching for the city lights to reappear.
It took 4 days reestablish stop lights, get back to normal, drivers were very polite. There were now closed freeway ramps all around the city that took years to repair and shore up.
The face of San Francisco changed forever. The controversial Embarcadero freeway was torn down and property values immediately soared. Broadway was no longer scary at night. The freeway that had blocked the view and thrown so many businesses and homes into shadow was now torn away, leaving the vistas San Francisco is most loved for.
So what was my point? Oh. We are all interdependent. Especially more so in our cities. To be a rugged individual in an apartment in midtown Manhattan does not have the value it may have on a farm, with sheep and crops, chopping wood, and the ability to build things.
I have always felt this interdependence will work out. I have always felt that this infrastructure which supports me will be there...
I don't have a crystal clear thought on this. Mostly people live in cities and suburbs. Mostly people need to earn money to survive in homes others have built. On food others have grown and shipped. We buy our clothes made by others. Our transportation is not the family horse anymore. Infrastructure is the base that we all stand on, connected together.
So was -13° the other morning.
If you think you read that wrong, 13 Below Zero, before wind chill factor. I have to think in a whole new way here. As a born and raised Californian, I have never, ever had to think about the implications of what one needs to do, know, or should have in case one's car breaks down. I was told the story of a man whose car slid into a ditch, was knocked unconscious, and froze before anyone saw his car. I am not cancelling my OnStar for emergency anytime soon. They can find me even if I am unconscious.
I always loved the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved reading about pioneers. Struggling in the wilderness against tremendous odds sounded like one fun adventure to me. There is a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter, with her family, her older sister now blind from scarlett fever, and two younger sisters, spending a winter that starts October 1st, slowly starving and running out of coal.
I am now pulling out these books and looking at them with new eyes. These are studies in survival.
Laura lies in bed one night. "Now she heard the Indian war whoops when the Indians were dancing their war dances all through the horrible nights by the Verdigris River. But she knew it was only the wind."
A study in survival; they finally run out of coal and must bring hay into the "Lean-to" of the house to twist into something burnable. This is no small feat. Laura and her father sit together in the cold of the lean-to picking up handfuls of hay at least 2 feet long. Twisting and twisting it, doubling it over and making these hay sticks as hard as possible so that they will burn as long as possible. They do this until their hands bleed and they can't stand the bitter cold of the lean-to any longer. They bring these "sticks" into the house to burn and get warm enough to go back out and start again ...for months.
On her first attempt, Laura was only able to make six before her hands were cut up by the straw.
The word has gotten to town that the supply train, now overdue by months, has no way to get there until spring. People are running out of food and trying to leave. And if you think (as I did) that this is the olden days, and everyone helped each other ...well, human nature is human nature, and prices on any remaining supplies are jacked up. The general store is long empty anyway.
It is still only January.
"February is a short month and March will be spring." Pa said encouragingly.
A man in town butchers his ox and sells it at 25¢/pound. Pa is able to bring home four pounds. They do have wheat seed. Ma is able to grind it, in a coffee grinder that holds a half cup. It is a complicated matter to be grinding and grinding, making the bread with a sourdough starter, and stocking the stove with straw sticks, so it burns hot enough and long enough to bake bread.
There is a rumour of a man, miles away who has a stockpile of wheat. Things have gotten so dire that Almanzo Wilder (Laura's future husband) and his friend set out in the general direction to find this person and demand his help as people are now on the brink of starving to death.
Obviously Laura Ingalls Wilder lived to tell this story. Obviously people died from the cold and exposure, the isolation, and running out of supplies far more than I have ever given thought to. But it is sunny. The sun streams through my east facing front windows and without that, this experience would probably be much more diificult. Especially in the mornings. These mornings when I think about every little thing.
A Study in Survival. Part 2
I was living in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. B and I had just turned off Van Ness Avenue to go get an early dinner. Parked cars began bouncing on either side and I did not comprehend what I was seeing. Traffic stopped and people leaned out the windows. " Was that an earthquake?"
I heard and witness a phenomenon I will never forget. The entire city shut down. It was an arching sound, a low moan, dropping two octaves to silence. Electric busses, restaurants, stoplights, everything stopped and everyone in the city was stunned into silence. We felt the best course of action was to get back to our Potrero Hill home.
As soon as we arrived, we pulled out a battery operated small B&W TV. After a bit, KRON/TV-4 got on the air with their helicopter. When they reached the Bay Bridge was when my stomach dropped and I began to realize the seriousness of this. A section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed and we all witnessed cars drive over the edge.
The helicopter proceeded to Hwy. 880. The upper deck collapsed onto the lower at the height of rush-hour traffic. At this point the ability to breath left me. Apartment buildings had sunk in the Marina, people were trapped and there were fires and death. A brick transient building collapsed killing nearly everyone in it.
One has a marvelous view of the downtown buildings and lights from Potrero Hill. Potrero Hill is solid rock and suffered no damage. There was a party atmosphere that night, all the neighbourhood was out, watching for the city lights to reappear.
It took 4 days reestablish stop lights, get back to normal, drivers were very polite. There were now closed freeway ramps all around the city that took years to repair and shore up.
The face of San Francisco changed forever. The controversial Embarcadero freeway was torn down and property values immediately soared. Broadway was no longer scary at night. The freeway that had blocked the view and thrown so many businesses and homes into shadow was now torn away, leaving the vistas San Francisco is most loved for.
So what was my point? Oh. We are all interdependent. Especially more so in our cities. To be a rugged individual in an apartment in midtown Manhattan does not have the value it may have on a farm, with sheep and crops, chopping wood, and the ability to build things.
I have always felt this interdependence will work out. I have always felt that this infrastructure which supports me will be there...
I don't have a crystal clear thought on this. Mostly people live in cities and suburbs. Mostly people need to earn money to survive in homes others have built. On food others have grown and shipped. We buy our clothes made by others. Our transportation is not the family horse anymore. Infrastructure is the base that we all stand on, connected together.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Freedom of Religion?
I think there was a clue in The Daily Show tonight of the reason Jon Stewart is leaving and it was the word "relentless."
The Relentless Hate Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness. My words for Fox "news", Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and their ilk. Jon spoke of the unending use of the word "liberal" as some sort of catch-all for all that's not Christian and American exceptionalism, and he used the word "relentless."
And that's what I think his job is, relentless. It must be an exhausting task to be the voice that brings light to all that is hypocritical and wrong in this country, no matter how well one does it. No wonder he needs a break from it.
Which brings me back to the Midwest. The kettle of paranoia and suspicion has been churned in what was once considered a fairly liberal state, Iowa. I will put the responsibility squarely on Fox "news" and its "relentless" propaganda machine. I see it on televisions in restaurants and homes with alarming regularity. I wonder if people hear what they are being fed. This churning, churning, churning of a faux outrage with an agenda fueled by the Koch brothers, the far right, and the monied interest that has no interest in these people except to see how far they can exploit them.
In my last Midwest Diary entry, I spoke of the prayer thanking God said before each meal in the little school that I am working at. This preschool/daycare has no affiliation to organized religion. And this is my question. Why? Why do they do this?
I have already distinguished myself as some kind of free-thinker and a curious outsider. I have had baffling and frustrating conversations about the freedom of choice, climate change, and worker's rights.
So this is the conversation I cannot have. Why is there an assumption here that everyone is Christian and that everyone does and should believe in God? I am learning that there are things here that I should only observe, and keep my thoughts (for now) to myself.
The Relentless Hate Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness. My words for Fox "news", Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and their ilk. Jon spoke of the unending use of the word "liberal" as some sort of catch-all for all that's not Christian and American exceptionalism, and he used the word "relentless."
And that's what I think his job is, relentless. It must be an exhausting task to be the voice that brings light to all that is hypocritical and wrong in this country, no matter how well one does it. No wonder he needs a break from it.
Which brings me back to the Midwest. The kettle of paranoia and suspicion has been churned in what was once considered a fairly liberal state, Iowa. I will put the responsibility squarely on Fox "news" and its "relentless" propaganda machine. I see it on televisions in restaurants and homes with alarming regularity. I wonder if people hear what they are being fed. This churning, churning, churning of a faux outrage with an agenda fueled by the Koch brothers, the far right, and the monied interest that has no interest in these people except to see how far they can exploit them.
In my last Midwest Diary entry, I spoke of the prayer thanking God said before each meal in the little school that I am working at. This preschool/daycare has no affiliation to organized religion. And this is my question. Why? Why do they do this?
I have already distinguished myself as some kind of free-thinker and a curious outsider. I have had baffling and frustrating conversations about the freedom of choice, climate change, and worker's rights.
So this is the conversation I cannot have. Why is there an assumption here that everyone is Christian and that everyone does and should believe in God? I am learning that there are things here that I should only observe, and keep my thoughts (for now) to myself.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Thank You For Our Food
"Give me FIVE! Give me TEN! Put your hands together!
God is great. God is good. Thank you for our food. Amen."
That is how meals are started at my little preschool and daycare center. Food is provided by the Iowa Food Bank. This food is not all that nutritionally sound, but it is something. Children are served Cocoa Puffs and skim milk for breakfast. A lunch may be white hamburger buns, a chicken type sloppy joe meat, and canned carrots. Dinner is approximately the same. Snacks at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm would be jelly sandwiches, or Jiffy peanut butter sandwiches, Ritz crackers, or granola bars depending on the day. Snacks come with a juice box.
Even though from my viewpoint, these foods are not very healthy, I do not see overweight kids.
What I do see is that after about 25, people begin a decline of acquiring an unhealthy body type. Clear Lake is somewhat of the exception as it has a populace with a bit more affluence and lake activities in the summer lend towards a healthier lifestyle overall.
I am beginning to wonder if my school has "sick building syndrome." Of course in the winter, doors and windows are never opened and some days I feel as if I am swimming in a petrie dish of Legionnaires disease, what with the relentlessly sick kids and toxic chemicals teachers are required to clean with. Yes. Teacher's are required to do the heavy janitorial work here. This is all part of what I see as the abuse of workers in an "at will" state. There is a very caustic floor cleaner that we expose ourselves and the children to daily. We also spray bleach all around while their delicate eyes and little noses are mere feet away. All this could easily be handled by a professional janitor who understands his exposure, takes the precautionary steps to insure his and others safety. I do not believe this would be a huge drain on the budget here. 30 hours/week would certainly cover it and the toys could then be sanitized on occasion too.
People are cowed into some sort of silence and desperation here. People are resigned. Not everyone, but it has been a long time since I have ever had a job that made me unhappy. Stressed, yes. Bringing home the problems and challenges of work in my head? Yes. But this place makes me happy.
Unless I get really invested in the place though, I will not worry too heavily about challenging "their norm."
Today some kids were smashing their granola packs. I basically said, "Hey, if you don't want them, give them back to me. There are other kids who are hungry and would want them." After a derisive snort from one of the boys, I gave them a variation of the, "There are kids starving in Africa, you know." speech. One boy picked up on that and began to tell me how his class had raised money for Haiti. Another child talked about his church raising money to buy some goats for impoverished people so that they would have a source of milk. It was gratifying. Even though a number of these kids live in what I consider poverty, I still wonder, at times, what poverty looks like. There are still refrigerators, TVs, clothes and shoes, cell phones and toys in all these situations. We talked about being fortunate in our country in comparison to other parts of the world.
I guess that's all I can ask for right now. That I can foster a larger view of the world for these kids. This small town, in the center of the United States isn't all that there is.
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