tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-134383492024-03-14T00:32:10.686-04:00Ihm Still HereIhm Still Here: musings that I've just got to publish, but not on Facebook, dammit.cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-23324639959438204192021-10-01T21:28:00.000-04:002021-10-01T21:28:57.619-04:00Hypocrisy?<span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe you’re thinking that if one person holds both of these beliefs, they're being hypocritical:<br /><br />(1) “Women should have choice about their own bodies”<br />(2) “People should be required to get a vaccine.” <br /><br />One statement advocates for personal choice and the other advocates against it.<br /><br />But keep in mind that not getting a vaccine puts people near you at risk - you could have an asymptomatic case of COVID, they could catch it, and they'll have a slim but non-zero risk of death. But getting an abortion affects one person: the woman getting an abortion.<br /><br />To me, the real hypocrisy is between the ideas that:</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(1) An </span><span style="font-family: arial;">embryo the size of a grain of rice (i.e. 6 weeks after conception, I'm looking at YOU, Texas) deserves the same protection as a human being, and </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(2) It's "giving undeserving people free stuff" to provide a safety net for babies, children and adults.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />It’s a shame that people need mandates to make them do things that should come naturally from their kindness towards their fellow humans. <br /></span><br /></div></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-6107204074051760042021-09-25T10:10:00.005-04:002021-09-25T14:59:31.576-04:00Dances with Death<br />Somewhere inside me, the distaste for Florida has increased. I have complained about several things, including the danger I faced on my bicycle, the dearth of pretty views in this flat landscape, the relentless heat. There is also this feeling of “not home” – I miss my old neighborhoods and the friends and family nearby.<br /><br />But I have come to realize that there is another, more sinister problem about living in Florida. Let me explain.<br /><br />In 2017, I left a technology career in the New York area. Having been laid off at age 65 it seemed unlikely that I could find another job at a comparable salary. New York is an expensive place to live, so what to do? We came to Florida, where we could afford to live comfortably on a smaller budget. Deb had friends and family here but not in other places we could potentially afford, so Florida seemed like a rational destination.<br /><br />Florida is known for its many retirement communities. People come down here to enjoy the last few years of their lives in sunshine among friends in similar circumstances. Many “snowbirds” start with a sort of “pied-à-terre” away from the harsh winters up north, and eventually stay here full time. It’s known as the place where old people come to die. (Is that from Robert Klein? George Carlin?)<br /><br />Since we have been here, we have made new friends in our community. But we have also lost a close friend, and have lost several friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, to cancer and other causes. We probably will “lose” some snowbird family members due to the difficulties of traveling while old. COVID has also prevented one of the activities that could have made these things more endurable, or at least escapable: travel.<br /><br />So the problem here in Florida is that we are surrounded by death. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t learn about someone falling ill, whether suddenly or at the beginning of a long decline. They say, “No-one gets out alive” – but must we continually be reminded? There’s even a community down here named, “Journey’s End.”<br /><br />It might be a good thing to be reminded, often, to live each moment in the present and to live each day as if it were your last. But in view of my current health situation, what good will that do me? There is not enough time, and I have too many regrets.<br /><br />I am dancing with death, moving closer, then further away, twisting and squirming like Elaine on Seinfeld. I know the music will end, the dancing will stop. I don’t know when, but it won’t be very long.<br /><br />I had a dream once, in which Deb, Ronni, Allison and I had a joyful dance together in another realm. Perhaps it was one of my premonitions. While I’m still on this Earth where each day should be celebrated, I wait for a time without time in a realm where time is meaningless, and only love, joy and kindness matter. And dancing. There should be dancing.cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-72410995058396325792021-09-23T17:30:00.000-04:002021-09-23T17:30:17.808-04:00<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /> Originally posted Dec. 20, 2018 in FaceBlech.<br /><br />---<br /><br /></span></span><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m old enough now to have begun “living the dream” and moved to sunny Florida, where I no longer have to shovel, rake, or mow. Every time I take a drive around here I pass dozens of gated communities. Each community has a name. When you tell someone where you live, you often give them the name of your community along with your actual address. I laugh when I see the names of some of them. Others leave me scratching my head in confusion. For example:</span></span></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; animation-name: none !important; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Timber Creek, which has neither timber nor a creek anywhere nearby.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Isles of Boca, which is, of course, completely landlocked.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Harbour Green, consisting of concrete and houses nowhere near a harbor.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Tides at Newport Bay, which is miles from the ocean so it’s not YET subject to tides - wait about 20 years, they say.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Sherwood Forest - you mean Robin Hood has a condo?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Coral Trace, in which surely there is no trace of coral anywhere except maybe as an end-table decoration.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Whisper Trace, probably the nearest thing to “it’s not really there”. And what’s with all these “traces” anyway?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Broken Sound — I’m concerned. Was this named for staccato gunshots? Or a body of water that has failed in some way?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Isles at Hunter’s Run, where there have been no hunters for decades, no isles, and a low probability that any of the senior residents do any running.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Hammock Reserve, evidently a place set aside to grow tree-borne beds.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Snow Hill - are you kidding me?? This is Florida, remember?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Mill Lake, where there never was a mill, and the so-called lake is a three foot deep pond.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Waters Edge, which is, of course, at the edge of a five-foot-wide flood-control channel.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Central Park: unhappy with living in Florida, they named the community nostalgically.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Forest Hills - no forest, and flat as a kitchen counter. Also nostalgia-based.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Patch Reef - is that a command?</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">* Waters Bend North, Waters Bend East - I guess it depends which way you’re looking.</span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; animation-name: none !important; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">One community is named Patios on the Park. To me this is nearest to the truth because nearly everyone has either a golf course or park to look at from the patio. Another is named Ashland, which is possibly another nostalgic reference, to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Flushing Meadow.</span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; animation-name: none !important; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now, why are so many communities named “Pointe” (pwant? pointy?)? The word “Point” is too unpretentious, I guess.</span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; animation-name: none !important; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">One developer here in South Florida has created a bunch of projects each named Valencia-something: Palms, Isles, Lakes, Cove, Reserve, Preserve... We seniors have enough memory problems already, and thanks to these names, I don’t know where some of my friends actually live.</span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; animation-name: none !important; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">But my all-time favorite community name is Journey’s End. Finally some truth in advertising: Florida is where you come to get old and die. </span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; animation-name: none !important; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none !important; text-align: start; transition-property: none !important;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">I used to live on Long Island, NY, in a community called East Northport, which was east of South Huntington. I had friends in West Islip, which was north of Islip. So apparently I have exchanged one kind of brain-bending name silliness for another.</span></span></div></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-43777378110115108722021-02-13T19:29:00.000-05:002021-02-13T19:29:18.123-05:00Thoughts About Humans<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What a pickle we are in, as a country and even as a species.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our parents taught us that there are two sides to every story. They were wrong. If only we could all deeply comprehend the concept that life is not win/lose and zero-sum.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There can be many “sides” to a story. In a formal debate (as opposed to the political shows we see in every election season) one “side” is declared the winner by a jury/audience. In American politics, just like in most sports, there are two sides and when the “game” ends there is one winner.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In contrast, when a group has a discussion, many opinions can be exchanged, and there is no winner or loser - everyone wins for having learned something.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Making policy should be the result of a discussion, not a debate or a game. Why is it a game in the American system?</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Is it because our system reflects the game-based, winner-loser society we live in? </span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In our broader set of social norms, everywhere there are winners and losers. Success and failure is measured by power and wealth.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But (reaching back to old maxims) if we are “all in this together” and “we’re all children of God” and “nobody gets out alive” then why must we think of some people as winners and others as losers? Why do we see things as black vs. white, have vs. have-not, workers vs. lazy, other vs. us? Granted that “good” and “bad” DO exist, why is it that, once we’ve made these distinctions, those who fall on the wrong “side” stop deserving our support, love and respect?</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I guess these are questions that we humans have been asking for millenia. Finding answers has been the starting point of most religions. I don’t, of course, have The Answers. They might reside in the way we have evolved, or perhaps in the way we have been taught. Or both.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But we are more than a collection of cooperating cells. Our ability to understand ourselves and our fellow Travelers distinguishes us from all other species. If we could put more thought into that sympathetic and empathic part of our souls, this planet, this realm would be a happier place.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Am I lazy and a loser for thinking this way? Perhaps. Shall we discuss?</span></p><div><br /></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-32360581807520412902021-02-10T21:44:00.000-05:002021-02-10T21:44:04.381-05:00Incitement, Insurrection, Impeachment<span style="font-family: arial;">I spent some time today watching Impeachment #2. Below I have tried to describe what happened neutrally, without inflammatory words and without bias, despite my outrage. This exercise is intended to </span><span style="font-family: arial;">to help me vent, calm down, and dissect the January 6 incident. It is not intended to </span><span style="font-family: arial;">provoke argument, or in fact, any discussion at all.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> So be aware that it's my blog, I'll be deleting any comments that aggravate me. Feel free to post your own summary, opinions, questions, etc. on your own blog, or on Farcebook.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">---</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The problem: people were led to believe that "This is a rigged election" (Trump, August 24, 2020). Certain TV, radio and print outlets consistently and firmly amplified and expanded </span><span style="font-family: arial;">this message,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> stating that early and absentee voting was invalid, that voting machines were hacked, and that votes for Biden were "dumped" into the voting system overnight. So with the help of those media sources, the groundwork for disbelieving the election results, no matter what they were, was in place.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">By the weekend after Election Day virtually all the votes were counted (and in some cases, recounted), and Biden had won. But Trump and his supporters still believed the election was stolen from Trump, who</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> then proceeded to use all legal recourse to try to fix the problem. For the next several weeks, in</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> about 60 cases that were brought by his legal team:</span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Widespread fraud was neither alleged nor evidenced,</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Most cases were dismissed for reasons that might be called "technical", e.g. lack of standing to sue, or (in PA) waiting many months to dispute the legality of the absentee voting process,</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">No court supported the assertion that the election was rigged.</span></li></ul></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The fact that 60 court cases found no widespread problems did nothing to change the minds of those who had been convinced in advance that the election would be fraudulent. Trump and certain media continued to say that Trump had won. In time they went further, saying that it was actually a Trump landslide, and that the election should be reversed. The Electoral College processes of certifying each state's vote count should be reversed by State Governors, and (later) Congress' certification of the overall result should be blocked.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">If you believed that Trump actually won, and that the election process was subverted, your next move might have depended on the degree of passion you had developed. Some people in the public sphere promoted and harnessed this passion, including Trump. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A large crowd from all over the country assembled </span><span style="font-family: arial;">on January 6, organized by Trump's tweets and by other people who were convinced that "the election was rigged". They gathered in front of a podium and screen near</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> the Capitol, where the last step in preparing to inaugurate the new President was about to occur. Here they were urged to "fight for their country" by Trump and several other speakers, and watched a video supporting the patriotic nature of the crowd's genesis. Then </span><span style="font-family: arial;">the crowd walked to the Capitol.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here is where things went south. If you sincerely believed that the November 3 election was fraudulent, that your country's government was in danger of being taken over by bad actors, and that there was a way to stop all that from happening, what would you do?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Some of the angrier participants entered the Capitol violently and tried to find the Congresspeople responsible for finalizing the election results. We don't know what those participants would have done if they had found the Congress members, but many were shouting things like, "Hang Pence", and a few were carrying plastic zip-ties of the sort that would normally be used to detain criminals.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many people were injured, some severely, and a few were killed during the incident. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">We don't yet know the full story concerning Law Enforcement intelligence, preparation and response to the unfolding incident, but we do know that they were unarmed and severely outnumbered. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">They have arrested many people, and more arrests are likely. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The questions in my head include:</span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Was the election fraudulent? There are always some irregularities, but were there enough fraudulent votes to have changed the result?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Since legal remedies had been exhausted, was “stopping the steal” the only appropriate action? Do LEOs think it was appropriate?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Does inviting a crowd, speaking to them about "taking back your country", and telling them to go to the Capitol - does that constitute incitement? Does the bigger picture do that?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">At what point should Trump have spoken out against the incident? Did he wait too long?</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And a little further afield:</span></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Why has government become a zero-sum football game? </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Will we ever go back to discussing consequential issues instead of what enables one "side" to "win"?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Should the Fairness Doctrine be reinstated and apply to all media? Doesn't that just perpetuate the "us vs. them" zero-sum mindset?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">How do we distinguish between facts and falsehood? How do we agree on a set of facts that the Fairness Doctrine would apply to? </span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Who won the Civil War?</span></li></ul></div><div><br /></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-46554249311678051032021-01-29T17:50:00.004-05:002021-01-29T17:58:38.427-05:00Spitting into the wind<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5bBvEcROgAY/YBSTFf8hcCI/AAAAAAACPjc/CrkzdIteF0IBueq54raJPjISRtiLLBKYACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/getImage.gif.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="1600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5bBvEcROgAY/YBSTFf8hcCI/AAAAAAACPjc/CrkzdIteF0IBueq54raJPjISRtiLLBKYACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/getImage.gif.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Today’s rant is a note to the unreasonably wealthy:</span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Many of you earn more in a week than you can possibly spend in your lifetime, and you own so much that all of your descendants for the next four generations will be set for life. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Do you realize it’s in your own self-interest to “redistribute wealth”? It won’t cause you to live in poverty. On the contrary, it will increase your wealth, because more people will be able to afford to buy the stuff you make, or the services you offer. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Do you recognize that people who are homeless, or food-poor, or can’t afford healthcare or a shack to live in, won’t be sending you any cash for cell phones, trips to Disney World or birthday gifts for their friends or kids?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps you could consider voluntarily, constructively redistributing your own wealth? Can you think of ways to help people to live above the level of “just surviving”? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe, for example, you can pay them a living wage, so they could work ONE job instead of three? With all that spare time, and a little more money, think of all the things they’ll be able to do and buy!</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Or maybe you could advocate for separating health care from employment, so if you fire them or they get sick it’s not a death sentence? Dead people don’t spend much, as I understand it.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How about lobbying the government to put a proper “safety net” in place as in nearly all of Western civilization outside the U.S.? Then you can lobby the government to increase your taxes a bit, so that only three generations of your descendants will be set for life instead of four.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe if you reinvested more money into your businesses instead of your own salary, you could justify hiring more people who could then buy your products. You’d be letting your wealth “trickle down” instead of hoarding it. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In fact, a livable minimum wage, a safety net, and universal health care are just a few of the ways you can redistribute resources.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Think of it as an investment. The money you part with today will come back to you tomorrow.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So it's in your own self interest to do these things. How about it?</span></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-23028455784686706472021-01-12T13:12:00.005-05:002021-01-12T13:40:25.344-05:00Off the Screen<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l9qzPlOVXAU/X_3oC3EXhII/AAAAAAACOSs/gESCuIPat9wBzKw4UUpj5DiLZ2fSDi76wCLcBGAsYHQ/s816/fire-tv-blank-screen-on-boot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="816" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l9qzPlOVXAU/X_3oC3EXhII/AAAAAAACOSs/gESCuIPat9wBzKw4UUpj5DiLZ2fSDi76wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/fire-tv-blank-screen-on-boot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />We have endured 5 years of a Media Master. Enough.<p></p><p>Since he announced his candidacy for President, Trump has said or done something every day that makes headlines. I don't think "every day" is an exaggeration. We have not had a break for a very long time.</p><p>Now his removal from office is pending. Whether it's by voluntary resignation, invocation of the 25th amendment, impeachment, or the end of his term, he will no longer be President Trump, but will become Former President Trump. He will lose his "bully pulpit" from the White House, and has already lost several media platforms from which he has long dominated discourse.</p><p>Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Monday that a House plan to vote this week to impeach President Trump is “ill-advised.” I agree, in that Trump will NOT be convicted with a 2/3 majority in the Senate, and that it will delay Biden's efforts to assemble a new government and pass his legislative measures.</p><p>But I also believe that impeachment is a bad idea because it keeps Trump in the limelight. Congressional impeachment hearings will take some time, and you can bet the headlines about Trump's latest statements or actions will continue to dominate throughout that time.</p><p>Better to let Trump stop being the primary focus of the media. I'm sure he won't go quietly. I know the so-called Conservative Media (i.e. Fox, OANN, Breitbart, et. al.) will retain their focus. But even there, the new President Biden and his new agenda will take some space away from the Media Master if only for negative coverage.</p><p>Let's not give Trump any additional reason to keep our attention. Let him, however unwillingly, fade away.</p><p><br /></p>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-62022083499466401422021-01-09T23:06:00.001-05:002021-01-10T17:53:48.054-05:00Comments on "The American Abyss" by Timothy Snyder<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The American Abyss</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">By Timothy Snyder</span></b></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Jan. 9, 2021</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; font-family: arial; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University [that bastion of Liberal thought /s]. I have tried to summarize Snyder’s article to some degree, but you should really read the whole thing.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>In my opinion, Snyder’s article is premature, stating in effect, with his “milling around” observation, that the coup failed. He should have waited for the next two weeks to play out before publishing.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Some of his most important points, with my changes or comments [in brackets]:</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Gamers and Breakers</u>:</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. …</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. </span></p></blockquote>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Social media] supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.”</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters and of experts but also of local, state and federal government institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a conspiracy theory… Trump’s focus on alleged “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by Black people against white people.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Here, I think, is Snyder’s core argument about Gamers and Breakers]:</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.</span></p></blockquote>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Trump’s] pre-fascism fell short of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. … And he could bring his supporters to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">[This is an indirect reference to the "flat earth" theory that “</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">It’s turtles all the way down</a><span style="font-family: arial;">”</span><span style="font-family: arial;">]</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. … Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.</span></p>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-82410503271130308962021-01-09T09:42:00.005-05:002021-01-09T14:00:19.851-05:00Hello again, and Welcome<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4B67F7Ns-30/X_nIXNzrJDI/AAAAAAACOQY/fuVdgLWXOPITzyrhgv5q2qly2OjNd24UQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1320/grumpy-chris.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="1320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4B67F7Ns-30/X_nIXNzrJDI/AAAAAAACOQY/fuVdgLWXOPITzyrhgv5q2qly2OjNd24UQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/grumpy-chris.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;"><br />I'm old. Well, old if 68 is old. I have relatives and friends in their 90s, and THAT's truly old.</span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This site is intended to replace <a href="https://www.facebook.com/christopher.ihm"><span style="color: #dca10d;">my Facebook account</span></a>. There's nothing wrong with this blogspot site except that I haven't used it, so it's bare and sad. As for Facebook, I'm writing this entry two days after the "insurrection" at the Capitol in Washington, DC. That was the most disturbing political event I can recall since the multiple assassinations in the 1960s. Most disturbing to me, however, has been the reaction in some quarters: some people thought it was hilarious, and some people compared the Black Lives Matter "riots" to this mob action. And some people with whom I agree were just as disturbed about it as I was, maybe more so.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I have decided that I am no longer interested in seeing such comments because I react with too much anger, and anger is not something I need in my life right now. I shouldn't be watching and reading the news at all. So I'll spend much less time on Facebook, and I will express my opinions here in this blog. If I react to someone's comment in anger, my action will be to simply delete the comment. It's my stuff, under my control.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So that's the rebirth story of this blog.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I was in elementary school I wrote an autobiography. I called it "Me, Myself and I: The Three Stooges". I might even have a copy of it to transcribe. But at some point I guess I'll write another autobiography. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why? Just before the COVID pandemic disrupted our lives, I found out I had cancer. Pancreatic cancer is one of the toughest to overcome because it is usually diagnosed in Stage IV, where it has already metastasized (reproduced itself in other places besides your pancreas). Mine was at the border between Stage III (local spreading) and Stage IV, at a point where it "might" be surgically removed. After chemo it turned out to be unresectable (can't be sliced out), so I had an intense radiation "trial" instead. We continue to watch for results.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In an ordinary year, between or after treatments I might have travelled to visit all of my grandchildren, done some sightseeing, traveled abroad, and enjoyed the company of friends and family as long as I was able. But 2020 was no ordinary year (duh!) and none of that happened. And I don't know how much time I have left: will the widespread distribution of vaccines soon end the pandemic and allow us all to travel and congregate again? Or will I be gone before I can give and receive the hugs I long for?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So my purpose in writing this blog is to create a sort of autobiography, to let my friends and family in on my thoughts and activities while I'm able to write about them. Call it a legacy of sorts. It's kind of selfish, I know, but it's an outlet for my mind and heart that will survive me, I hope. Don't we all wish that we could live in good health for a longer time? Well, that's not the way life works, so this poor substitute will have to do.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I plan to pull into this blog my most important posts from Facebook and wherever else I have expressed something important to me. And I plan to post here exclusively. Facebook will no longer be a place where I spend much time or energy.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At least that's the plan. Let's see how it goes.</p><div><br /></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-59487162752821475392021-01-08T19:00:00.002-05:002021-01-09T15:36:45.563-05:00Putsch, Coup, Insurrection, Riot...<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jpy7_wRBxXk/X_oTZKef-uI/AAAAAAACOQk/Tjr46E_0Gzklks8iFjlFe-9SxLkmhgqqACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/noose%2B-%2BGettyImages-1230473117-scaled-1280x720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jpy7_wRBxXk/X_oTZKef-uI/AAAAAAACOQk/Tjr46E_0Gzklks8iFjlFe-9SxLkmhgqqACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/noose%2B-%2BGettyImages-1230473117-scaled-1280x720.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Reposted from Facebook. Noose image © Getty Images</span><p></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please read the words below and think about them. I'm honestly not interested in anyone's opinion, so don't bother to comment pro or con. (h/t Mitch Reicher)</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">"In 1923, a fringe, right-wing party in the democratic German Weimar Republic attempted a coup that history remembers as the Beer Hall Putsch. It was amateurish in its execution and quickly crushed by authorities. Democracy was saved...or so it seemed at the time.</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Weimar government's response toward the perpetrators of the coup, however, was timid to say the least. Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party leader who plotted the putsch, was convicted of treason and served less than a year of his five-year sentence. With Germany reeling from hyperinflation and a shattered economy, Hitler was on his way to becoming the dictator of Germany, the initiator of World War II and the mass murderer of six million Jews in the Holocaust.</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our republic cannot afford to ignore the possibility that January 6 represents the same warning sign of creeping right-wing authoritarianism in our own democracy. Our government must act swiftly by seeking the maximum punishment under the law for all those who smashed their way into the Capitol. This is the moment for resolve, not handwringing. The republic must make clear that it will defend itself from this existential threat."</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">Original opinion article by Jeff Weaver:</span></div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2021%2F01%2F08%2Fopinions%2Fcapitol-attack-beer-hall-putsch-authoritarianism-weaver%2Findex.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3R56LkMlWppry5BDFQdC6Zr-7JjqLsQuHEshBUAa65DsEoCjPObZpM5zs&h=AT0f0-1GWYFZEqWMRCNtfna4SV-9nFQg0Tam3wqELDR4ttJnv1JAmyiwPb5N81MBeaZ_5kww8AHOHliulhcwGX9i6brip7rSvQXvGDMJoGWukxhV3RMx0NXFUaBaCSGNcjflH9WM">https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/opinions/capitol-attack-beer-hall-putsch-authoritarianism-weaver/index.html</a></div><div dir="auto"><br /></div></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-18344295417040687742020-12-08T09:35:00.003-05:002021-01-09T09:45:22.117-05:00Homage to Allison<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UbPCil6qfgk/X_nBHbQx69I/AAAAAAACOQM/MYHz29lmjmQyarOmjiXHfOi3nfpe6zwxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1463/mom-ali-jon.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1463" data-original-width="955" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UbPCil6qfgk/X_nBHbQx69I/AAAAAAACOQM/MYHz29lmjmQyarOmjiXHfOi3nfpe6zwxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/mom-ali-jon.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">December, 2018 Originally<b> </b>on facebook.com</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wrote this homage to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allison.schwartz.37?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZU6SVoNYQ5fiXHGHWyU5HSuGnkz1kX3eC80g_aAzSfOsuuQwilD7H1gprVCcuTR0qUokiwBSbzgcuAJFjDMTdsnVbvV0DXjgw1higfVkvOhb8ne1p8PTfyXM7p7e_6BEkWrTp4xNLyoDahrNliZZ4h3pw66opEV9jGrzZaKvuGwOoUdzhyfynjfjxbGG1TKYDA&__tn__=-%5DK-y-R"><span style="color: #dca10d;">Allison</span></a> before what would have been her 42nd birthday. If it's a little bit self-centered, please forgive. It's part of the process...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Allison was the first child of my first marriage. I think such a child holds a special place in any parent’s life, and that’s no less true for me. I’m telling her story to honor her, and to help me heal from her death.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Her conception is lost in the cloud of memory. It happened some time during a period when I was wavering in my commitment to my first wife, Ronni, though I wasn’t at a point where I wanted to take action about it. When I learned that Ronni was pregnant, I felt at first that I was “stuck”. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One morning during the first few months of Ronni’s pregnancy, I woke up from a dream moaning like a baby. It was such a vivid dream: I was in a cave with a cat on a leash; I felt it was time to leave the cave, but when I moved toward the exit, the cave became narrower, and the cat was scratching my face; it became more and more difficult. But suddenly there was overwhelmingly bright light, and I was moving through the air and crying. That’s when I woke up and realized that I was somehow remembering my own birth, including (as my mother had once told me) my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck and my sharp little fingernails scratching my face.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The realization of what I had just dreamed left me with sudden, deep empathy for the life growing inside Ronni, and for Ronni herself who carried that life. The uncertainty I had felt about our marriage and our upcoming parenthood was suddenly gone. I was excited and warmed with anticipation.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The next months were filled with visits to a natural birthing center in NY City in which we eagerly followed the progress of Allison’s growth and did everything we were told would help her be born healthy and strong. At the last, Ronni’s water broke and the birth process didn’t progress fast enough, so we “risked out” and landed in Lenox Hill Hospital under the care of a doctor rather than a doula. Under the influence of pitocin Allison finally arrived very early in the morning of January 5, 1977.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Thanks to the kindness of the doctor and hospital, rather than bright lights and noise, Allison was greeted by her parents in a softly-lit, warm room. There was no crying (except a little by Ronni and me), just the sounds of Allison, Ronni and me breathing. There were Allison’s huge, bright blue eyes taking it all in, as though she was just as awed as we were by the scene unfolding. I got to cut her umbilical cord, and Allison took her first meal from Ronni’s breast.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Allison was a happy, bright, active child. I remember how hard it was to get her to fall asleep - I think she felt she would miss out on something. Over her pleas of, “No go sweep,” many nights we would rock her to sleep on a pillow on our laps. She learned to play violin in a Suzuki program (a cringe-inducing experience for us, but only at first), and we sent her to a Montessori pre-school where she made friends and thrived.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I remember one day while we were living in an apartment in Queens, NY, when we all walked outside to wait with her for her school bus. I would then have driven to work, but we saw that the car had been stolen, and I said, “Holy shit, the car is gone!” And then there was the sound of Allison shouting, “Holy shit, the car is gone!” over and over for the next several minutes. Sometimes I was not the best example for my child.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wonder how Allison remembered our trip to Disney World in Florida when she was 7 years old. My favorite memory of that trip is the Space Mountain roller coaster: Allison screamed and cried the whole time, and when we finally got off she said, all in one breath, “That was horrible! Can we go again?”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ronni and I would have been thrilled to have more kids while Allison was still so young, but by the time she was 8 we had been unsuccessful, so we began an adoption process. Jonathan had been born in Korea in late January of 1985, and his unmarried parents had given him up to foster care; by late Spring we were well on the way toward bringing him home. Allison would finally become a big sister. As has happened with many adoptive parents, while Jon’s adoption was in progress, Ronni became pregnant with Jason. Normally that would have disqualified us from adopting Jon, but we kept Ronni’s pregnancy a secret because we had already fallen in love with Jon. He arrived in September, and Jason arrived in February. We had (and I have) no regrets, although the agency facilitating this adoption changed some of their rules to prevent this ever happening again.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So Allison was a big sister twice over, and both of them were boys. I think there was a little corner of her mind that would have preferred at least one of them be a girl, but that didn’t stop her being the best sister. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Allison’s violin talent blossomed, as did her aptitude for math and science. She was the co-concertmistress with her BFF, Erica, of her high school orchestra, and was in the top tier of students of her high school. She won a nearly full scholarship to Smith College in Massachusetts, where she double-majored in math and music and finished her senior year as the concertmistress of the college’s orchestra.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">After college she lived in our home for awhile but decided to break free and move to Port Jefferson, sharing a house with some roommates. She started working as a temp but soon was asked by Arrow Electronics to become a full-time employee. It’s not a job she liked, but it paid the bills and she liked the people she worked with.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I guess it was mid-2005 when she went on a trip to Italy with Mark. Who? She had met Mark on a group hike, and the attraction was mutual and strong. A few months after they returned, Allison came to visit us alone, prancing around the kitchen helping Mom prep dinner and trying to get her to notice the ring on her finger. It took awhile. Many tears of joy followed.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was early January of 2006, merely two months later when Ronni, feeling a persistent pain in her side, went to her doctor. Tests showed a cancerous mass at the top of Ronni’s kidney. There were many more tears, clearly not tears of joy this time. The tumor was surgically removed late in January, followed by unceasing rounds of various chemical and radiation therapies. As soon as one spot showed up and was vanquished, another spot would show up elsewhere. Ronni’s fight was relentless. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">During all of this, Allison and Ronni set about preparing for Allison’s wedding, scheduled for September, 2006. Mother and daughter pulled off a beautiful event in a beautiful venue.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I have suspected that Allison wanted her mother to enjoy her daughter’s big life events as quickly as possible, given Ronni’s uncertain prognosis. Our grandson Zachary was born in June, 2007, barely nine months after Allison and Mark’s wedding. Ronni happily became Zach’s nanny when Allison returned to work, though the cancer continued to spread regardless of the various treatments she endured. The year and some after Zachary’s arrival became increasingly bleak. Ronni died at home on the Jewish holiday of mourning, Tisha B’Av, which fell on August 10, 2008.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We must barely have settled into a new routine when, around Thanksgiving, Allison had some tests to investigate some recent digestive issues. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer that December, 2008, just four months after her Mom’s passing.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The next year was filled with doctors and treatments again, this time for Allison. She, Mark and Zachary moved in with me, where she could get more help from her grandparents as well as me. Among all the medicines and radiation treatments, she maintained a remarkable strength of will, expecting to beat it and start school again with the aim of starting a career. But the treatments took away some cognitive abilities, scuttling her potential success in school, and caused neuropathy which eventually took away Allison’s ability to play violin. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When the Fall of 2009 came, and it was time for the Jewish Holiday of Rosh Hashanah, Allison was still strong enough and able to attend services. But the following week when Yom Kippur arrived, she sat in a chair and cried bitterly. She said that she could not listen to the part of the service that describes the Almighty as deciding “who shall live and who shall die.” I was unable to speak, and unable to comfort her beyond a hug.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It must have been the end of May when she pointedly asked her doctors how much extra time all of these debilitating treatments were buying her. When she heard, “A few weeks at best,” she told them she’d rather have some more time feeling well, and asked that her treatments stop and home hospice care begin.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The decline was sudden and steep. I don’t think she ever got those hoped-for extra weeks of feeling well. She tried to leave some written notes and stories for Zachary to read after she was gone, a legacy of sorts, but she ran out of energy and time. Towards mid-July she slipped into a coma. We could only give her pain medications and read to her and talk to her. The day after I read the Vidui to her (a traditional Jewish confession usually read at Yom Kippur), I watched from across the room as she suddenly became pale, took one more breath, then stopped. She was gone. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was, again, the Jewish holiday of mourning, Tisha B’Av, which fell on July 20, 2010.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I believe the soul persists after one’s death. I believe that Ronni and Allison each spoke to me many times after they died, and left many signs that they were around. I believe that Allison had something to do with the peculiar weather on the day of her funeral: it rained only while we were indoors, and afterwards the rain, outside the front window of her grandparents’ house, dripped off the tree in huge sun-lit goblets that caused me to gasp because they were so beautiful. She had given me a beautiful moment after she passed.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I had seen Allison leave us, taking her very last breath in my presence. Then I remembered that I had seen her take her very first breath as well.</p>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-25441310279419179732017-02-04T08:43:00.001-05:002021-01-09T09:37:26.944-05:00How to Resist The Regime<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
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Posted here: <a href="http://stephenking.com/xf/index.php?threads/so-what-will-you-do.12875/page-2">http://stephenking.com/xf/index.php?threads/so-what-will-you-do.12875/page-2</a>
by someone who calls herself "<a href="http://stephenking.com/xf/index.php?members/todash.8368/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Todash</span></a><span style="color: #141414; font-style: italic;"> Free spirit. Curly girl. Cookie eater. Proud SJW." </span><span style="color: #141414;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #141414;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #141414;">Echoing her
request: if you know the author, please point me to him/her for proper
attribution.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />I stumbled across this on Facebook this morning. I liked it so much that I cleaned it up and turned it into a post on my social justice blog. I'm just gonna copy the text and paste it here. (If anyone knows who created this, please let me know so that I can properly attribute.)<br /><br />Some pointers going forward:<br /></span><ol>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Don't use his name.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Remember this is a regime and he's not acting alone.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Do not argue with those who support him—it doesn't work.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Focus on his policies, not his orange-ness and small hands.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Keep your message positive; he wants the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which his darkest policies will grow.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">No more helpless/hopeless talk.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Support artists and the arts.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Be careful not to spread fake news.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Take care of yourself; and</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;">Resist!</span></li>
</ol><span style="font-family: arial;">
HOW TO RESIST THE FASCISM THAT WE ARE BEGINNING TO EXPERIENCE (and if you don't think that religious tests for immigrants and citizens are fascist, then you do not know the history of Nazi Germany, Stalinist USSR, Franco's Spain, and Mussolini's Italy—as well as fascist Saudi Arabia, etc., etc.) …<br /><br />These pointers are actually helpful—people have been looking for something; these are a starting point. Some are strategic, like #1 and #2, some are psychological, like #5 and #6. Don't give in to depression and anxiety. Go to #7 instead.<br /><br />"Make Resistance Great Again"<br /><br /><b>1. Avoid using his name</b><br /><br />Every time you use his name, you make him stronger. He has developed a cult of personality around himself that thrives on your hatred. He wasn't kidding when he tweeted, "I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th." He really does extend best wishes to you, the hater, because you give him power; you make him seem like something bigger than he really is, and you are the object of hatred that motivates his supporters. You are his Emmanuel Goldstein (1984 reference -- read it if you haven't already).<br /><br /><b>2. Spread the blame</b><br />Don't allow moderate Republicans to hide behind ambiguity and equivocation. They are supporting a President who is trying to destroy our democracy, and are therefore members of a regime, not an administration. If you focus all of your attacks on their leader, you are only reinforcing his message that "I alone can fix [our problems.]". In reality, he requires the support of collaborators. Call it what it is: "the regime."<br /><br /><b>3. Do not engage the regime's base</b><br /><br />Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine your favorite song; hear the music inside your head. Now imagine someone telling you that the song sucks, and you should never listen to it ever again. How likely are you to be swayed? The regime is music to the ears of its most ardent supporters, and you will never convince them otherwise. Remember when their leader said, "we're going to win so much, you're going to be sick and tired of winning"? That statement was meant to appeal to a base of supporters who feel like they're losers, people who get a high from being associated with a "tremendously successful" billionaire. Now try to imagine how good they must have felt when he won the election. Every time you get mad at them and argue with them, you remind them of how good it felt to win. You motivate them to work harder toward their leader's re-election. If you deny them the pleasure of yelling at you, you will make politics less enjoyable for them, and thus more apathetic about the regime. You will never dislike your favorite song, but you might stop listening to it as much as you once did, and this is the best we can hope for with the regime's base.<br /><br /><b>4. Focus on policies, not personality</b><br /><br />Most polls showed the President's favorability rating around 38% on the eve of the election, but 47% ended up voting for him anyway. That means 9% of his voters already think he's an *******, but, nevertheless, an ******* who's going to do a better job than his opponents will. These are the people we need to focus on; if we can convince them that his policies suck just as much as his personality sucks, we are likely to flip their votes. So, stop focusing on the guy's hands. Everyone already knows, and it didn't work during the first time we tried it. Remember Einstein's quote about the definition of insanity.<br /><br /><b>5. Keep it positive</b><br />The regime feeds on negativity. The policies they support are born from fear and anger. People filled with love and optimism generally do not support policies that are centered upon walls, torture, and deportation. This is why the leader of the regime didn't tell a single joke during his convention speech. He wants the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which his darkest policies will grow. Keep it positive, and spread love; it's poison to the regime.<br /><br /><b>6. Don't spread hopelessness</b><br /><br />Whenever you say "we're screwed," you communicate hopelessness. Saying things like, "I don't understand how this happened" is the same as saying, "I don't know what the solution is and you shouldn't listen to anything I propose because I just don't understand." But, you do have hope; otherwise, you wouldn't have read this far. And, you do have a solution—resistance! It's okay to be down and to seek out other like-minded people for comfort, but try to stay focused on spreading hope and confidence. We got this, okay?<br /><br /><b>7. Make resistance cool and fun</b><br /><br />As the country becomes more political, and more polarized, Americans will feel increasingly pressured into choosing a side (sociology happens). We want healthy, positive people to choose the resistance because we ultimately don't want the entire country to end up resembling one of the regime's rallies. Besides, we ARE cool and fun; just look at all the musicians who boycotted the regime's inauguration. The fact that the Resistance is responsible for the generation of almost all of our society's visual and musical culture is one of our strengths; let's maximize it.<br /><br /><b>8. Stop spreading fake news</b><br /><br />Sorry everybody, but we do it too. Do you remember when Trump went on Oprah and said, "if I ever run for president, I'll run as a republican because they're stupid enough to vote for me?" That never happened. And, you know how the regime deleted all the information about LGBT rights from the White House website as soon as it came to power? Actually, the regime deleted almost all information from the White House website, which is a common practice for all incoming presidents—Obama did it too. When we spread fake news, we contribute to the confusion many Americans are feeling right now, thus contributing to the problem. The regime doesn't need everyone to believe its lies; it only needs 1/3 to believe the lies, and another 1/3 to be so confused that they don't even know who to trust anymore. Let's show them that they can trust us—educate yourself on the issues, hold other members of the Resistance accountable, fact check information before you post it, and retract anything you post if it is later proven wrong. Reality still exists, and we are the communicators of that reality.<br /><br /><b>9. Take care of yourself</b><br /><br />The world will not end if you take a break or have fun doing something that's not explicitly political. But, the world will end if the majority of the Resistance ends up too burned out to fight. Just remember—even when you're sleeping or recreating, you're only recharging yourself for more resistance.<br /><br /><b>10. Resist, resist, resist, and don't apologize for it</b><br /><br />Your constant political posts are not annoying; the regime is annoying, and they are the ones who are inciting us to raise our voices.</span></div>
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cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-26298229846804718072014-08-01T21:46:00.001-04:002021-01-09T10:39:30.418-05:00Mysteries<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For years I have puzzled over what the “universe” is trying to
tell me, when every other year for the last six years, a family member (close
or more distant) dies on Tisha b’Av.
It’s a day when we remember all the tragedies that have happened to the
Jewish People. Was losing Ronni and
losing Allison that kind of tragedy? What is the significance of losing
Allison’s brother-in-law, Jonathan, on Tisha b’Av two years ago? Is it superstitious of me to be apprehensive, since this is another even-numbered year?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I have no answers to these questions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There is still a deep sadness in me that wells up every summer
as these anniversaries pass. It lasts
for weeks and weeks, and comes in waves.
I don’t try to suppress the sadness, perhaps out of love and respect for
my first love and for my first child, or perhaps because it makes me feel
closer to them for a little while. I try
to honor them in little ways, and take the time to think about them. Memories
return, some of which make me laugh, and some make me weep. I will go to synagogue services this year on
Tisha b’Av because I feel I belong there.
All of this will temporarily overwhelm the happiness in the other parts
of what has become my life. It’s not
that I cannot feel joy or love, it’s that the tears blur those feelings. I remain deeply wounded and have not fully
healed. Perhaps I never will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
</span><div class="MsoPlainText">
<span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At Allison’s funeral four years ago, our friend Mair came up to
me and said, essentially, that she hoped that the “universe” would now stop
messing with us and leave us in peace. From
your mouth to G-d’s ear, Mair. Amen.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-86940503307759368572013-08-07T19:12:00.002-04:002021-01-09T10:40:08.045-05:00Hurt<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #222222;">I'm trying to grab out to bits of my life with Ronni now that a large break is imminent (the move to Queens) and an anniversary is nearby. I looked up her name on my phone and browsed some of the things that came up, but it just makes me sad. I don't feel very much guilt except perhaps that I don't like the fact that I'm so self-absorbed about it. It hurts, but imagine how she hurt. I still have my life here, and look how much she missed. Look how much pain she endured before she left, and how much pleasure she lost after she left. I used to think she could see the world through my eyes, and that it was my responsibility to her in the afterlife to see the things she was missing, really see them and feel them, so that she would, too. Now I don't know. I don't know what I believe any more. All I know is how sad I am, and how easy it would be to give in and start bawling like a baby right now. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">Now look at the pain others have suffered, and know that it's part of everyone's life. Look at Deb's friend who discovered she had colon cancer 3/4 through her pregnancy. Look at the two hundred families described in that article I read yesterday, who lost loved ones in a plane crash which was so violent that people's bodies were ripped from their bones. Look at the one who might be about to lose his wife to God-knows-what, and who will be totally lost without her. I was lost without Ronni for quite awhile. What carried me through? Maybe finding a sense of purpose, a mission to focus on - Allison. And then when the mission ultimately failed, and I had to figure out how to go on, how did I do it? Another mission, perhaps, in Zachary, as a responsibility handed to me by Allison. And that mission failed as well, didn't it? None of this was in my control, so there is no need for the guilt of failure. But the sadness of loss is here, deep and persistent. Don't try to shake it, it cannot be avoided. As always, I have to go through it, not back away or go around it. The pain will subside, and it will come back later, a little softer. But allow it to hurt if it must. Because it must.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">A tear is running down my left cheek. I wiped it away but another will replace it. Life will go on for all of us. The pain will remain.</span></span></div>
cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-89233172980643173282013-04-04T20:51:00.004-04:002021-01-09T10:40:26.241-05:00Loss<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
I suppose it was a sign: as I reached for a screwdriver from my desk drawer, out fell a small strip of ribbon with two hearts imprinted on it. I had found this ribbon while I was finishing cleaning out the house so Allison and family could move in; now she and Ronni were signaling their presence and support.<br />
<br />
I had been thinking to go to the cemetery. After a happy, peaceful week in Atlanta with Deb, where we visited family on both sides and where I restarted walking for exercise and weight-loss, circumstance made me go back to 15 Wicks alone. There are many memories here, both good and bad, but when I am alone sometimes the bad ones overwhelm me. I need to give in and have a good cry.<br />
<br />
Last night I had too much to do, and by the time I might have gone to their graves it was too dark. I went to sleep thinking I would rise early and visit them. But this morning I had too much sleep to catch up on and got a late start.<br />
<br />
Debra understands my periods of sadness more than anyone. After talking with her I took her advice and went to the cemetery this evening instead of waiting till tomorrow morning.<br />
<br />
For years I have been aware of what I call a "saw-tooth curve" in my emotions about Ronni and Allison. After some time being able to function quite normally and comfortably, a deep sadness rises in me that I eventually cannot set aside. The only cure I have found is to allow myself to grieve deeply, to cry long and deep. Afterwards I can return to life in the present tense. When Ronni died, and again when Allison died, the period of the curve was measured in hours or days. During 2009 and 2011 it lengthened, and having been laid off in 2011 I had time to go through my grieving as often and as long as necessary. In 2012 I started working again, and met Deb, and got married -- and the sadness returned only intermittently. But here I was, alone at 15 Wicks, nearing the peak of that saw-tooth curve.<br />
<br />
So tonight after testing my bicycle (passed) and my legs (failed) with a ride to Sheila and Al, I drove to Mt. Golda Cemetery, placed a couple of stones on their monuments, and sat between the two markers. And I cried. I cried more deeply than I have cried for many months, in waves and in sobs. And yet, I felt little relief, so I stayed and thought some more, and cried a little more.<br />
<br />
And the third wave of sobbing brought new thoughts: for years I have been crying for myself, for what I have lost. This time I cried for what Allison had lost, and what Ronni had lost. I have been privileged to attend the weddings of my two sons and my nephew, and my niece's Bat Mitzvah. I have seen two more grandchildren come into the world, and a third is on its way. All of this (except Jason's wedding which Allison attended) and so much more was missed by both Ronni and Allison because their lives were cut short. I wept bitterly for them, for the joy they did not get to experience. And I wept thinking about how different Zachary might have been, how different we all might have been, had the Big C not taken them.<br />
<br />
I recognized that my grief had changed character -- it was somehow less about my loss than about theirs and that of everyone around me. The world is poorer for their absence. <br />
<br />
As I pondered all of this I remembered when Allison and Ronni came with me to the hospital when my mother had just died, near the end of April in 2004. We came back to 15 Wicks and I sat on the couch in the living room and completely lost it. I had been holding it in, I suppose, for months while my mother was becoming weaker and approaching death, and now the finality of it hit me. It was time to grieve, and I asked out loud, "I guess it's OK to cry now, right?" and burst into sobs. What I remembered today was how Allison and Ronni sat alongside me on that couch and hugged me until I had finished crying. As I sat between their two monuments, I felt those hugs again. I wept once more and finally felt some relief.<br />
<br />
This is not the last time I will cry over them. But my sadness has that new element of recognition, that the loss was theirs and ours as much as mine, if not more so.<br />
<br />
As I looked up from my tears I was facing north. A storm is coming in from the south, and the sun was setting behind the clouds, but in front of me there was enough open sky that the sun lit the bottom of the clouds in a soft rose hue. I took it as another sign, another hug. And I drove home determined to capture these moments for myself and for everyone who loved Allison and Ronni as I did.<br />
</span><div>
<br /></div>
cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-9312016336692695522012-10-25T22:43:00.001-04:002021-01-09T10:40:48.020-05:00Blessings<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
Haven't posted in awhile. I have deliberated about whether or not a chronology is appropriate here, and I have decided that so much has happened that I can organize my thoughts in no other meaningful way but time order.<br />
<br />
I read somewhere recently that you never stop grieving from a serious loss; you only make space for it in your life.<br />
<br />
Since that September walk along the beach at Robert Moses, my life has gradually and sometimes suddenly changed for the better. It remains true that I can burst into tears in a second, but other, more sanguine truths have filled my life so that those bitter moments are rarer, and softer.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the rainbows and the sunset at the Robert Moses Beach marked a place and time where I turned a corner. Not long afterwards I began thinking about "what to do after the money runs out" at the end of February, 2012, when my Dowling severance package would end. I took some positive steps: started writing my resume in hopes of getting a job; bought some "interview suits," shirts and ties; began spending more time learning about things that interested me, both in technology and elsewhere. I joined a couple of hiking groups and biking groups, and went on hikes in groups as well as alone. (I stopped biking because it was cold and because my back was hurting from a fall.) In retrospect, I think I was starting to come out of the fog that my grief had created. I even made a furtive, though ultimately unsuccessful, attempt at getting friendly with a woman I met at a traffic jam in Huntington.<br />
<br />
I have talked about my belief that the Universe (or God) seems to provide what I need. I wanted to win the lottery, but instead He gave me a job: I was asked by a former colleague, whom I consider a friend as well, to join his staff in a technology company named Vicom, in Farmingdale. The job utilizes my skills and enables me to enhance them, and is stocked with warm, intelligent people. I feel that it's a great fit, and since the first of January I have been enjoying work much more than I had been able to enjoy it at Dowling in the last few years.<br />
<br />
So the "money runs out" problem went away, and in fact, there was some overlap with my Dowling "paychecks" such that I was able to pay most of my debt (except mortgage) down to zero. Truly remarkable.<br />
<br />
It's not that there haven't been bumps along the way. In February I landed in Huntington Hospital for a few days with an irregular heartbeat. I wore a heart monitor for a month so the doctors could figure out the right dosage of medicine to reduce the problem. I have joined the ranks of those taking medicinal maintenance doses for the foreseeable future. But from all the tests I learned that I have very little blockage in any of my heart blood vessels, and a cholesterol level that's "close enough" to be regulated by diet and exercise. Oatmeal, cheerios and long walks in the woods, those are my friends.<br />
<br />
In March, having talked with me about the various scenarios with Raquel and Zachary, Mark decided to move back to Yorktown. It took him only a few weeks to gather everything together and cram it into his family's house up there, though it has taken him months since then to gradually empty the house of unneeded stuff.<br />
<br />
For me, this was a major negative. Allison had frequently expressed a desire for me to remain close to Zach, but that's not possible when he is 100 miles away. By May we had started to find a weekend routine where either Mark would bring Zach to me or I would go upstate. But the house here in East Northport was cold and silent, and it amplified my grief. Early and mid-May were unhappy times for me, as the reality of their leaving set in: it was Spring again and life was blooming outside my window, but not in my house, nor in my heart.<br />
<br />
Cue the dramatic music.<br />
<br />
Around Memorial Day Bonnie (sister-in-law, Ronni's brother Mike's wife) posted a link to a Joe Biden speech to the families of deceased veterans. She urged that we read to the end, where I found this quote: "There will come a day – I promise you, and your parents as well – when the thought of your son or daughter, or your husband or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen." An old school friend of Bonnie's, Debra Davidson, had thanked her for posting, and I posted subsequently: "'It will happen.' It already has. Doesn't make it easier or better. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other... Thank you for posting this."<br />
<br />
Curious, Debra found my blog and private-messaged me, and we started a conversation on Facebook that lasted through two days and many long paragraphs of deeply personal thoughts. We agreed to chat by phone, which lasted three hours the first night and almost six hours the second. The part of our conversations that I remember most clearly was when she choked up about how she felt things had gone wrong in her life and how she wasn't going to have a deep, strong, life-long relationship of the kind I had with Ronni. I felt I already knew her well, and felt already that SOME kind of relationship with Deb would be a good and happy thing. Later she told me that she felt that almost anyone else would have said a quick, embarrassed good-bye at the first sign of her tears, and that she felt very close to me as I stayed on the phone with her and tried to comfort her.<br />
<br />
We met in person two nights later. We have been nearly inseparable ever since. She spent most of July in East Northport while her son, Ethan, was away, then the two of them spent the rest of the summer at my house until Ethan went back to school. Since then I have spent most weekends at her apartment and weekdays commuting from home to work. It's a routine we will endure until I sell the house. Once she gets a job we'll be able to decide on a good location, probably outside Manhattan, where the three of us can move together.<br />
<br />
So we thought about when to get married. Just a few weeks after we met we kinda knew it would happen, but there have been too many unknowns until now so we just kept talking and working out the kinks. A couple of weeks ago we bought Deb an engagement ring. Done! We don't fool around. Between her interviews and job prospecting Deb has been working on the wedding, which is scheduled for December 2 in the home of her best friend who lives near her in NYC. It won't be a big, extravagant, elaborate wedding. But we will do what it takes to make it special for both of us. Why wait? As Ethan said, "At your age you shouldn't wait."<br />
<br />
Why did all of this happen? Because:<br />
<br />
(1) I was ready. A week or two earlier while I was in the doldrums, it wouldn't have happened. Several months earlier and my priorities would have been elsewhere, on Zachary, or on getting settled at work. It was just the right time.<br />
<br />
(2) The Universe intervened. The odds of two people coming together like this on Facebook seem to me to be astronomical. Deb connected with Bonnie through Facebook only last year, and they were not in frequent contact even after they friended each other. And how likely is it that someone sees my "thank you for posting this" and is both motivated AND capable to dig deeper? Deb has made her living doing research, and her knowledge and experience happened to lead her to me. What are the odds???<br />
<br />
(3) We were made for each other. Despite major differences in our paths through life, we seem to think alike, and we have so many things to talk about that, even if the romance wasn't there, we would have become great friends. The romance is a wonderful surprise bonus to this "us" that has arisen.<br />
<br />
I know that Ronni wanted me to find a way to be happy in the remainder of my life without her. She told me so herself. I have taken a four year journey through sadness and despair, to return to joy. I know that Ronni is happy for me now. I feel so grateful for the wonderful things that have happened in-between the bad things: the weddings, the achievements, the grandchildren... I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to all of my family and friends who stood by me and held my hand. I only hope I can give back a little of myself to them and to Debra so that they feel as loved as I do.<br />
<br />
So many people live their whole lives without having found true love. Somehow, in my life, I have found it twice. I am so blessed.<br /></span>
<br />cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-33869997882515089592011-09-24T20:48:00.002-04:002021-01-09T10:46:33.683-05:00Sunset at Robert Moses State Park<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3kANQd1p7Ss/Tn5576DYDtI/AAAAAAAAEXo/ZAKrRIdLrnA/s1600/IMG-20110924-00066.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3kANQd1p7Ss/Tn5576DYDtI/AAAAAAAAEXo/ZAKrRIdLrnA/s320/IMG-20110924-00066.jpg" width="320" /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OM1KuwDimHg/Tn558h3v2-I/AAAAAAAAEXs/_KZrpPgmk08/s1600/IMG-20110924-00069.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OM1KuwDimHg/Tn558h3v2-I/AAAAAAAAEXs/_KZrpPgmk08/s320/IMG-20110924-00069.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mcqzhFnU7t0/Tn559V7xdOI/AAAAAAAAEXw/stzSLmZt70I/s320/IMG-20110924-00072.jpg" width="320" /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mcqzhFnU7t0/Tn559V7xdOI/AAAAAAAAEXw/stzSLmZt70I/s1600/IMG-20110924-00072.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
Sometimes I just need to get out of the house. I get wrapped up in myself, listening to music that makes me sad and surfing the net for nothing in particular. This afternoon I fought it off by making a salad with feta cheese and packing it to go. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">As I left the neighborhood I asked myself, "Where am I going?" On a whim, or maybe under Ronni's influence, I decided I needed to see something different, so instead of turning left to go towards Sunken Meadow, I turned right towards Robert Moses. It's a 20-minute trip across two scary bridges - the lanes across the open water are pretty narrow. Once across, I circled the water tower and headed to the easternmost Parking Field 5. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It was a little cooler than I expected but I had brought a hooded sweatshirt, which I had to double-back to fetch.
The sand felt soft under my shoes, and the ocean waves were loud but somehow soothing. I watched a few Piping Plovers, whose nests on the dunes are protected, scutter along the edge of the advancing and retreating water. There is actually a three foot cliff near the water, formed by what process I don't know. The birds felt safe from me, and didn't seem to mind as I passed them on the cliff above. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I walked along this little beach cliff towards the lighthouse, but didn't really plan to get there. A wooden jetty with a stairway to the beach jutted towards the cliff from behind the dunes, and I climbed the stairs, sat down with my legs dangling, and ate my salad.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's times like these, at the beautiful places, when I miss Ronni most intensely. Sometimes I can remember being in these places with her, and sometimes I must settle for wishing we had gone there together. If she were there with me, we would have said very little; we would have just listened to the sea and the seagulls, embracing side-by-side, with her head on my shoulder.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A couple had pitched a tent on the beach a few hundred feet west of the jetty, and they were wandering the beach looking for shells. I imagined Ronni and I would have talked about doing the same thing at another time; it would have been fun and romantic. This is the time of our lives when we would have been "empty-nesters", enjoying more time together and with friends and family, becoming a couple again after the child-raising years. I felt bitter that we were deprived of that life together. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another couple approached from the dunes side of the jetty with two little white dogs and a baby stroller. For all I know, the stroller might have been empty - they behaved like the dogs were their kids. One of the doggies came to investigate me, not really interested in anything more than a quick sniff while he peered over the edge of the jetty. He let me scratch his head and neck for a minute or two, then retreated to his parents. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Soon it was time to go back to the car, since the sun would set and I didn't relish walking the beach in the dark. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, and walked west at the very edge of the water towards the setting sun. The waves were cool but not uncomfortable, and I felt the sand and sea foam between my toes as I walked. Those plovers were still hunting for crabs and bits of food, but then I scared them off now that I was at their level on the beach. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Finally, at some distance I passed a woman and her 5-ish child sitting high on the beach surrounded by toys and a kite; they were finished playing, and the boy was on her lap as they both looked towards the water. I wondered what their story might have been - a single mother, or dad's away this weekend? Happy, or is she longing for someone the way I am? I did not break their spell to ask. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I walked up the boardwalk toward my car, but stopped short and turned back to look east at a wonderful spectacle: two rainbows, one over the ocean, and the other alongside the lighthouse. The sun had sunk below the cloud deck, illuminating the clouds from below and reflecting the rainbow from the clouds and mist. I moved around on the boardwalk until I got a few good pictures of both rainbows. And then I turned around to look west at the most beautiful sunset I have seen in years. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">As I alternated between taking pictures and staring with my jaw slack, I had to fight back tears. I have long believed Ronni sees the world from whatever realm she inhabits, through my eyes. I felt her presence, and heard her ask me to stop crying because she couldn't see. I obliged, and I smiled that open-mouthed smile you get when you're so happy you're on the verge of laughter. She and I enjoyed the show together. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The drive home was anticlimactic. Here I am at home writing my thoughts and hoping the pictures came out.</span></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-55346696028530713892011-05-01T20:07:00.005-04:002021-01-09T10:57:02.677-05:00Five Boro Bike Tour 2011<span style="font-family: arial;">Last year I recall nicknaming it the Five Borough Bike/Walk/Stand. It was a little worse this year. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I parked in Staten Island again. I happened to follow two cars that seemed to know the area, into a small unmarked lot only one mile from the festival and bridge. From there it was a four mile ride to the ferry. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The morning ride to the ferry was cold and unpleasant. For me, this "tour" is early in the season, so twice in a row I have been less than prepared for it. From where I parked there is a steep hill towards the festival area, and it was almost the first thing I had to navigate. That said, I think my legs are stronger than last year, perhaps even stronger than they were after a season of riding last Fall. Or maybe the bike fits better after my handlebar and seat adjustments. Or maybe I'm no longer ashamed of using Granny Gears when I need to. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The ferry ride was nice. I carried my bike upstairs to Level 2 without too much trauma - had to carry it down also after disembarking. Since so few people did that, I managed to park it right up front of the ferry. Nice view of the skyline from up there. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I followed the crowd and found myself at Church St. and Park Place, three or four blocks closer to the start than last year. I was there at about 7; the ride was scheduled to start at 8, and we actually got moving at about 9, after walking at least 5 blocks north to the starting gate. They had some kind of ceremonial gas flame bursting from two nozzles at the gate, and I could actually feel the radiant heat each time they went off. The air was otherwise was pretty cool, so the flames felt good. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The trip to Central Park was slow and crowded, with a couple of stops and slow walks. Another necessary bathroom break put me further behind the leaders. Central Park itself also had some walks, though not as bad as last year. There were more walks and stops in Harlem, and along 135th street as we moved towards the Bronx. Just like last year, we were in the Bronx for all of 15 minutes. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There was a unicycle on the FDR drive as I rode down. The guy had to pedal rapidly to keep up.
Just like last year there was another walk towards the Queensboro Bridge. Although I stopped a couple of times to catch my breath, I managed to ride all the way up, which is better than I did last year. Hooray for those Granny gears! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I had mixed feelings when I found that Astoria had already been cut off by the time I got there: on the one hand, I had wanted to go, and this proved that I was in the last 1/3 of the pack again. On the other hand, I was getting tired already so I felt it was just as well. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I skipped the Con Ed Learning Center rest stop and kept moving over the Pulaski Bridge, a moderate hill which I was proud to have navigated without stopping. At Commodore Barry Park there was time for a banana and some water refills before I headed onward.
Just like last year, I have nothing but unhappy memories of the Gowanus Expressway. Yeah, it's nice that it was closed and carried bicycles exclusively. But there were a couple of tough hills, and when I tried to startup after resting at one point, I took a spill by grinding the rear wheel of the guy in front of me. It was entirely my own fault, and I assume I had little effect on the other guy, since I don't even think he knew I went down. I earned a skinned elbow and bruised palm (lightly because I had recently found my padded gloves), but no serious injury except perhaps to my self-esteem. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Then later, after a couple of pauses to catch my breath, the entire parade went into standing/walking mode. There was construction further ahead, so everyone had to squeeze into one car lane. We were delayed by about an hour.
As we started to move past the road construction area, we noticed that every piece of Rebar (hundreds of them) had been capped with little red cone-shaped bonnets, probably to prevent injury to the workers. Someone nearby yelled to his friend, "Hey Jim, look at that! I love Spring in New York City, with the Rebar in bloom!" Yes, they looked like flowers. Got a good laugh out of that one. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Once we got going, the period of standing had taken its toll on my muscles and joints, and I found it tough going for the rest of the trip. On the flat Belt Parkway I had to pause several times, and although I made it up the ramp towards the Verrazzano and the Cannonball Park rest stop (just water and potty for me), I completely gave up trying to ride up the bridge. I walked about 2/3 up the Brooklyn side, then mounted my bike and fit-started to the highest point. Going downhill on the other side was quite a relief. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">At the festival, "I rode 34 miles and all I got was this t-shirt." Well, I also got some chocolate milk, but there was no way I would wait an hour on line for a free picture. I found my way out of the park after about 45 minutes and headed towards the car.
Now, where was the car? Here at 3pm I had absolutely no memory of the area that I had left at 5:30am, and I ended up passing the little parking lot where my car was. I rode about 3 miles past it, then back - a very sore 5+ miles after the previous 38. I stopped to rest, then on a hunch, instead of going back along the same route again I went further back towards the bridge. And there it was, less than a mile from the festival site. It turns out that this morning I had parked in the closest lot to the festival.
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">On the drive home I saw that the last few hundred feet of the Gowanus bottleneck was still occupied by bikes, with people mostly standing, not moving. Then behind them, there was a monumental traffic backup that extended all the way up towards the Brooklyn Bridge. There must be a better solution: I think someone opened the road to traffic before it was cleared of bikes. People were leaving their cars to try to figure out what was the problem. Hours earlier, I was through the area fairly quickly by comparison, for which I am grateful. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Takeaways: I should not do this event again unless:
1) I figure out how to get much closer to the front at the start of the ride,
2) I am in good enough condition this early in the season to consistently keep up with the pace.
Since you have to register in early February for this early May ride, I can't know about #2. Perhaps I could figure out #1, but if I'm going to fall behind, why bother?
Also, this really is not a ride, but a ride-hike. The negatives outweighed the positives in my eyes: I did not get enough of a rise from the scenery and from being able to bike on major NYC arteries, to overcome the irritation of waiting, walking, and waiting some more. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Next year, it would be better use of my time and money to sign up for the 50-mile version of the Montauk ride, if it's available, which runs in the middle of May. Last year I did the "metric century" and paid for it with knee and elbow problems afterwards - WAY to much of a ride so soon after the Five Borough tour. In fact, the problems I developed after the Montauk ride are still bothering me - especially my left knee.
Anyway, it's done, I completed it, I'm satisfied. I came home and took a nice, hot shower, turned on my bed massage, and got a good nap.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-16006052373248537752011-03-09T14:57:00.002-05:002021-01-09T10:58:14.927-05:00Status<span style="font-family: arial;">After a long, painful battle with esophageal cancer, my daughter and first child, Allison, passed away on July 20, 2010. It has been 8 months, and I still cannot get a grip. I have said that, in terms of mourning for my wife Ronni, who passed away in August, 2008, I feel like I've gone back to square-one. Some people don't agree. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, now there's a whole new situation to deal with: I have left my job of 23 years effective March 3. My position disappeared in Dowling's ongoing reorganization. Believe me, I would have preferred to stay. I have a little time before I need to get serious about job-hunting. Those lemons are going to need a whole lot of sweetening before I can taste the lemonade. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Sweetening: besides my continued enjoyment having Allison and Mark's son Zachary living with me, I've now got another wonderful grandchild thanks to Jason and Bracha. In fact, I'll be babysitting on Sunday evening. And yesterday we went to New Jersey to attend a bris - Miriam is Ronni's niece, so I guess that makes her my niece-in-law? Who cares, little DJ was beautiful. And my son Jonathan is marrying the love of his life at the end of May, so simchas abound. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">At the moment it feels like I'm shipwrecked, rowing to islands of joy in a sea of sadness. The sea can't rise any higher, can it? Oh, gack, I need to work on my writing skills some more...</span></div>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-9674446178859682082010-05-18T09:44:00.002-04:002010-05-18T10:07:05.486-04:00Montauk (metric) CenturySunday, May 16 I did the 5BBC's Montauk (metric) Century. The length of this entry is appropriate for the size of the ride, but might not hold your attention. Writing about it has helped me preserve the memory.<br /><br />I got through its 68 fairly flat miles by brute force. This was the longest ride I have taken so far, almost twice as long as the Five Borough Bike Tour on May 2. I guess I need to keep working on conditioning, doing hour-long rides several times a week instead of these every-so-often killer rides.<br /><br />I woke up at 5:30 and had oatmeal and a banana for breakfast, for fuel. Check-in for the ride was at the Babylon train station, where the 140-milers from NYC paused and the 100-milers started. For us 65 milers our bikes were trucked to Mastic and we rode the 8:30am train.<br /><br />I joined an escorted "beginner" group which dispersed quickly - I saw few of them for the rest of the ride, probably because they were faster than me. <br /><br />The weather was perfect, and I remembered my sunscreen this time. We inconvenienced several drivers as we monopolized the shoulder. One poor lady honked and shouted so I let her make a right turn in front of me. She was still fussing as I waved and shouted, "Have a NICE day" and the people behind me laughed.<br /><br />I recall seeing two parachutes glide down as we passed Spadaro Airport. Skydiving might have been a less strenuous activity but I think I'll stick to biking for now.<br /><br />Not long after a "Golf Crossing" sign (WHAT's crossing??) we arrived at the first rest stop in Westhampton Beach, where I ate a little and rested a little. I tried to rejoin the group but most had gone ahead already, so I just kept going alone. In a few minutes I was on the famous, not-always-passable Dune Road. I was on Dune Road forever. I was tanking already, and I swear it was uphill the whole time! That was an illusion that I endured several times during the ride. <br /><br />At the end of Dune Road (finally!) I hardly even tried to ride up the Ponquogue Bridge - I walked up, and even that took my breath. Beautiful vista at the top, and a pleasant glide down the other side.<br /><br />I remember passing the sign for Stony Brook University at Southhampton, and the Welcome to Southhampton sign, both indications of serious progress, but it's all a blur - I just kept cranking my pedals. I recall thinking, "Hey, you just rode a marathon!" at the 26 mile mark. My pleasure was tempered by the fact that I was less than halfway there. The glass was half-empty, I guess.<br /><br />Somewhere in here I got the hang of following the painted road signs on the asphalt, which is a good thing because for several minutes at a time there was nobody ahead or behind to guide me. Many turns past beautiful mansions on smooth, quiet roads, and I arrived at the Watermill rest stop in Bridgehampton. Jason texted, "Still got legs?" and I replied, "So far, yes, 29 miles to go." More fuel and about a 20-minute rest, then off I went. <br /><br />On this last segment I remember cussing at my legs and wondering why I was doing this, but I kept going, resting my butt by standing and coasting whenever I could go downhill. I watched the 50-mile mark tick off on my odometer, and kept plugging away. There were many swallows and shore birds, and I saw a killdeer browsing a lawn as I passed. I even saw a field filled with cows, some of whom seemed as interested in me as I was in them. Somewhere in there I crossed the little bridge for which Bridgehampton was named, according to the sign.<br /><br />Where the back roads led us up to Montauk Highway I stopped for five minutes and refueled. By this time my butt was pretty sore, but standing and walking around was all I needed.<br /><br />We were on Montauk Point State Highway, well, forever. It got hilly, one last test for the already-weary. I took one long hill in about 5 chunks, and one short, steep hill in about 5 more. One person asked if I was OK as she passed; I replied, "Yep, just catching my breath." No lie, it's just an indication that I have conditioning work to do. Then I looked at my bike computer and realized that I had just "ridden my age" - 58 miles. It was at that point that I knew I would finish, even if I had to stop once a minute. Which is what I proceeded to do until I got up that hill.<br /><br />I finally got to sail downhill towards the end, as we arrived in Montauk proper. It was only a couple of miles through town to arrive at the train station and the end. If I had rushed, I could have caught the 5:28pm train back to Babylon, but I decided to relax and enjoy the triumph of having completed the ride. They had hot showers (boy, that was nice!) and veggie burgers, salad and pasta. They called it lunch but for me it was dinner.<br /><br />I got off the bike and delivered it to the truck carrying everyone's bikes back to Babylon. Then I turned around and walked towards the celebrating crowd, the food and the biking jersey I had ordered and needed to pick up - my self-styled reward for finishing. I cried, wishing Ronni could have joined me, or at least given me a congratulatory hug.<br /><br />I lay down on a nearby rise after munching, and rested for a deeply soothing half-hour. Jason had left a text message after I told him I had 29 miles to go: "I just wanted to tell you from the bottom of my heart... YOU'RE NUTS!!! :) " Got a good laugh from that.<br /><br />Then it was time to board the train. I setup my iPod to listen to random music, but as I thought about Ronni again, I was moved to listen to David Broza songs. Ronni and I had gone to his Christmas Eve performances at the 92nd St. Y for something like seven years in a row - it was a pleasant escape from the Christmas noise. The first winter after she died I skipped it, but then last year I went, alone. It turned out the seat next to me was empty. I knew I was not alone.<br /><br />So here on the train I listened to Broza, cried, thought about the injustice of what happened to her, and looked out the train window. I saw the long bike ride unwind before me: the route was near the LIRR tracks, so I saw again many of the landmarks I had seen on the way out. There was a stunning sunset on display in the windows across the train aisle. Eventually the light faded, and I dozed.<br /><br />I met my trusty bike below the Babylon LIRR station, and made it home just after 10pm, about 15 hours after I left the house this morning. Except for a few snippets of conversation here and there, I had been alone the entire trip. It would have been a different voyage had I not been alone - but would I have completed it? <br /><br />Observations:<br /><ul><li>I hate port-a-potties. Especially when you have to do #2.</li><li>Having done my homework about nutrition and hydration seems to have helped me survive the ordeal. Getting in better shape will make it less of an ordeal. And putting on sunscreen repeatedly is critical, though I need aerosol because the hand pump doesn't work upside down.</li><li>I guess I can always find something else to buy. I ordered a multi-purpose GPS on sale at Costco - it can route auto, hiking and bike rides. I'll have to order a bike mount separately after I see it. I also think I should change panniers to something that can handle water bottles and sandwiches without crowding.</li><li>I thought about next steps. There's a "Bloomin' Century" in Connecticut next weekend: no freakin' way, nothing but easy local rides for the next few weeks. I'll consider the other Montauk Century for mid-June. Next steps are Jon's graduation and opening the pool.</li><li>Bicycling and playing freecell are two ways that I numb the psychic pain that I still feel. I need to spend more time on the bike and less with freecell. The pain will ease, I hope.</li></ul>If you managed to get this far, you're very patient. Thanks for listening.cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-84799921770569970772010-05-02T22:53:00.005-04:002010-05-06T09:06:41.563-04:00Five Boro Bike Tour 2010Here's a blow-by-blow description of my Sunday on the Five Boro Bike Tour, in which 32,000 people ride the streets of New York in a simultaneous "happening" and test of endurance.<br /><br />Saturday I treated myself to a new multi-tool for the bike, and some chain lube, in case I ran into problems on Sunday. And I treated myself to a fairly lazy day, or rather, a lazy three days before this event. I wasn't all that sure I would finish.<br /><br />I woke up at 4:15 for the Five Boro Bike Tour as planned and left at 4:55, a little late. Right until the BQE exit I wasn't sure I was going to park in Staten Island or Manhattan. I was following an SUV toting bikes and figured he was headed to the tour, and he went on the BQE so followed him. I think he took one of the bridges into Manhattan but I kept going until I got to the Verrazzano, then parked near the ferry. In chatting with some folks later, as we waited to get started, I think that was the right decision. The only think I'd do differently is take the Bike New York brochure's advice and park south of the Verrazzano, so that leaving the festival would have been easier. It wasn't really a problem until I got lost in Staten Island on the way home, stuck in traffic in Bayonne and Manhattan. Geez, all I had to do was pull out a map, but NOOOOO.<br /><br />Thanks to the SUV bomb in Times Square, we got off to an hour-late start: we didn't start until 9am instead of the usual 8. [Edit: my late start was more likely due to my far-back start location in front of Trinity Church.] Thanks to the crowds, the "Tour" was also a "Walk" and a "Stand" at times. The late start was the first "Stand" part of the event. I got some pictures of Cousin Brucie as we passed the gate, and made a quick stop at the first toilet. Riding and sipping, I didn't need to stop again until the next-to-last stop, which was in Brooklyn.<br /><br />In Central Park we met up with other riders who apparently joined the tour late. [Edit: not true, we split from them before entering the park, and merged in the park.] As a result, about 1/3 of Central Park was spent walking because it was so crowded. The hills were OK, though. I think I could enjoy a trip around Manhattan and through the park one quiet Sunday.<br /><br />There were half a dozen other places where everyone bunched up and had to walk: 135th street before the Bronx, 63rd St before the Queensborough Bridge, coming off the QB, climbing up from the Gowanus towards the last rest area at Cannonball Park. That's the ones I remember. The tour is a victim of its own popularity, and on a beautiful day like today, it's just too crowded to enjoy.<br /><br />I think we were in the Bronx for about 8 minutes.<br /><br />Unfortunately I was so intent on riding without crashing into anyone that I hardly looked up at the scenery. In less crowded years I bet that was a wonderful addition to the experience, but not this year, not for me.<br /><br />On the way down the Harlem River and FDR Drives I briefly remembered other times I had been there, with Ronni to or from the hospital. The memories came back in several other places but I didn't dwell on them because I was dogging.<br /><br />The Queensborough Bridge was quite a climb, and my lack of conditioning forced me to stop-and-go on the way up. I walked a bit, too. Once you start coasting down, it's easy to go too fast; marshalls were there with "slow down" signs and megaphones to keep us in check. At least the tour wasn't ALL pedaling.<br /><br />I noticed that there was no option to head towards Astoria, probably because they closed the route at the usual time (whatever it is) despite the late start we all got. [Edit: more likely I was just too darned slow!] I guess only the fastest people got there. The vendors must have been pretty ticked.<br /><br />Queens into Brooklyn is a blur. I know I was there, just don't remember a lot of it until we got to the Gowanus, where there's a very long, mostly slow incline on which I had to stop several times. That's a recurring theme - my legs and lungs still need work.<br /><br />Somewhere in there I stopped at one of the rest stops, parked my bike unattended without fear of theft, and refueled with banana, yogurt, water. Too crowded to wait on line for anything good. I probably stayed a bit too long - have you ever exercised then stopped then started again and found that it hurt like hell to restart? Fortunately, the soreness faded.<br /><br />Soon we were under the Verrazzano and close to the last rest stop (which I skipped). What I remember here is that we slowed to a walk, and that the crowd was booing some bikers who tried to cut the line on the way up the exit ramp (the marshalls sent them back in line). If we hadn't been walking I certainly would not have been able to ride without stopping.<br /><br />Then there was the climb up to the closed lower deck of the Verrazzano itself, which I did as well as I could do in fits and starts. If I had "let go" over the top I would have been doing 30mph on the way down, but again it was too crowded. I noticed they put padding over the grates on the bridge (the gaps are probably too big for narrow bike tires) and I was grateful.<br /><br />Finally at the festival, once again too crowded to enjoy - who wants to stand on line for a half hour for a drink after riding for 5 hours? But I did stand in line for about 45 minutes for a free photo of myself, because unless I got that photo nobody would believe me when I told them I completed this ride. Then I had to stand in line to leave the park, perhaps because there was a collision or someone collapsed from heat exhaustion - I only know there was an ambulance outside the exit, and nobody was allowed to ride away for awhile.<br /><br />Once we got out, we rode 3 minutes and stopped again, for what reason I don't know. Eventually we got going and did the three mile ride to the ferry. I rode to my car while most of the others hopped on the ferry. I then proceeded to get lost in Staten Island and ended up in Bayonne, New Jersey and Manhattan, stuck in heavy traffic. Leave it to me to fail to stop and read the damned map. It's OK, I got in a little more sightseeing.<br /><br />I am surprised that I don't feel too bad. Just wait till the ibuprophen wears off... and I didn't use enough sunscreen - I'll pay for that tonight!<br /><br />I swear I spent two hours standing, between the start area, Central Park and the festival, and I spent another 45-60 minutes walking when it was too crowded. Finished near 5pm.<br /><br />I really did at least 39 miles instead of 32 if you count the ride to and from my car. Would I do the Five Boro Bike Tour again? Yes, but not every year. Maybe it will rain next year and the crowd will thin - I should ask people about last year, because it poured. It sure was a hoot riding on those main roads with nothing to look out for except bikes. Maybe I can gear up for the Montauk ride - the 65 mile version sounds like a reasonable goal to shoot for.<br /><br />I promised Ronni I would take care of myself, and I am. It's slowly becoming possible to enjoy things without missing her so intensely. I still wish she had been here to join me on the ride - I think I would have enjoyed that. But she was with me in spirit, and that will have to do.<br /><br />A few pix: <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=chris.ihm&target=ALBUM&id=5467473038224038929&authkey=Gv1sRgCPHjj42ngLfFygE&invite=CMH-_okL&feat=email">http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=chris.ihm&target=ALBUM&id=5467473038224038929&authkey=Gv1sRgCPHjj42ngLfFygE&invite=CMH-_okL&feat=email</a>cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-63132746493448350562009-05-22T13:20:00.006-04:002011-07-07T18:51:53.699-04:00A walk in Caumsett ParkThis past Saturday I arrived at Caumsett at 7:30 am and took the service path on the right towards the mansion. It seems that in this solitude with beautiful surroundings I fall easily into conversation with Ronni.<br /><br />At first I used to vocalize what I had just thought, then realized I was being redundant. Now I just let the thoughts come and go. I feel she's right there with me, chiding me, comforting me, planting ideas. I forget how I came to this conclusion, but I feel that she is able to see what I see, through my eyes, and that she wants me to look at things and at people full in the face. She wants to see her mom, and Allison, and Zach, through my eyes.<br /><br />As I walked up towards the mansion I saw a tree whose shape Ronni wanted me to see. It must have been 50 years old, had grown at a 45 degree angle from the ground, or maybe had grown straight then fell over. When it fell it didn't die, but curved upward and continued growing until its top leaves were near the crown of the forest. That's you, she said. You've been blown over, but you'll continue to grow and thrive.<br /><br />Later there was the half-inch thick vine spiraling around one tree, then jumping to another. That's me, she said. I grew up in a strong, close family, then I joined with you for the rest of my life. I think I ignored the condition of the trees, not sure if they were still alive, or even if the vine was alive. There was another vine which was actually a cluster of them, wrapped around each other in a rising spiral. That's all of us, she said, dependent on each other for our comfort, security, growth.<br /><br />As I walked along the first path there was a rising and fading drone sound which I didn't recognize, but didn't think much about. It barely rose above the chatter of birds and rush of leaves in the light wind. Later, as I walked near the heart-shaped pond near the mansion, I realized it was a foghorn, or more accurately a fog whistle, since it was not the booming bass sound I would have expected. The sound punctuated the whole walk, but I was barely aware of it most of the time.<br /><br />My middle-aged body sent me to the bathroom, where my thoughts of Ronni turned to the last days of her life. Approaching a complete meltdown, I clenched my hands together tightly and told myself to stop, stop punishing yourself. Ronni said the same. I cannot get past the regrets: how I spent more than half of her last day at work, how many opportunities I missed to be with her and tell her how much I loved her. I will incorporate those regrets into my being, that's how I'll move on. It happened, you blew it, you can't take it back, now move along. It will take years.<br /><br />Then I was at the bench, at the top of the great lawn, where Ronni and I many times sat to admire the scene. Sometimes it was just us walking, for exercise. Sometimes it was Ronni in her wheelchair. This time it was me, alone. I could barely see the pond because of the fog, so I turned away to look at the mansion. It was someone's home, and someone's work place. It held someone's memories, of people who were gone long ago. I remembered reading that the family tore down part of the mansion because it had begun to feel too big; now it was asymmetrical and ugly. Mold and cracks were here and there, as the state (who now owns the building) tried half-heartedly to keep the place up. Ronni saw it through my eyes, wistfully.<br /><br />Down the hill through the forest to the beach, I could hear drops of rain. When a storm approaches, it begins with a few drops, then a few more, then builds to a torrent. Today the rain was stuck in first gear, never going beyond the dripping. I don't know why I found this comforting. There wasn't going to be a torrent, because there was no line of storms on the radar this morning. But the rain would tickle and tease me, soaking my shoes as I walked through the fields, but never soaking my clothes.<br /><br />I sat on a rock on the beach and watched the birds. A flock of geese had settled in the shallow water among the smoothed stones, and their cackling mixed with the plunk-plunk of the water splashing against the hollows. Two cormorants stood guard on two boulders directly in front of me. They watched me warily, then one decided to take off. She jumped towards the water and beat her wings furiously to keep from crashing into the water. She made a wide arc leftward behind the rock she had been sitting on, then straightened out and flew diagonally, gradually fading in the fog until suddenly I could no longer see her. A moment later I looked back and the second cormorant had jumped into the water but had not flown away. His head turned from side to side as though he was looking for his mate. He kept this up for several minutes, swimming away from shore towards the mist. I glanced away at the geese, then back to find the cormorant, but he had disappeared. I suppose he dove for food; I searched for a minute but never saw him again. I thought of Ronni and me, the arc of our lives.<br /><br />Twenty years ago Ronni and I walked in Caumsett and I led us up a trail on the cliffs above this spot. It was fun and pretty, but the trail disappeared, and we found ourselves thrashing through the brush as though in a Peruvian jungle. Just then my pager rang - someone at work was looking for me! Before the time of cell phones all I could have done is find a pay phone, but here in the jungle we laughed, "Oh, well, no response today!" The last two times I have gone alone, and the trail has been clean and easy to follow, and of course, I stopped at the best view and cried bitterly. Ronni told me, knock it off, I can't see how gorgeous it is if your eyes are all cloudy. The drops splashed on my head and nose as I meandered through the woods.<br /><br />You come out near a wide trail that could take you back to the parking lot by several variations in the route. I decided to find the perimeter of the park. Along the way there was a chattering, fluttering trio of birds (Redstarts, I found out later) for whom I just had to stand still so I could watch in amusement. You would have thought there were ten of them, but there were only three. I hope Ronni got to see them.<br /><br />Consulting my map I guessed the direction I should move, but somehow I turned myself around and after about 45 minutes I found myself right back on the same cliff near the beach. In honor of my silliness I ate two "silly cookies" as I called them, then took the direct walk back to the parking lot and made my way home. On the way I listened to the podcast of "Wait, Wait" from NPR. Ronni and I used to listen in the car on Saturdays on our way to lunch together. Today I was immersed in the show as I walked, and it helped me forget the pain in my legs and heart.<br /><br />I tell people I need to go through this, not around it or back away. But am I punishing myself? Am I pushing myself into places that make me cry? And should I? Maybe it's my way to keep Ronni in my life, because that's what I need. I can't have her back, but I can soak myself in my memories of her, even if it makes me miserable.<br /><br />Sometimes I feel intensely alone. I cannot always summon Ronni to talk to her. Then sometimes I can.<br /><br />The foghorn sounds far, far away, barely above the nearby bustle, and I keep putting one foot in front of the other.cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-75115406691153429612009-01-25T00:14:00.005-05:002009-01-25T00:41:54.608-05:00Now what?Told you I wouldn't be posting much.<br /><br />Around Thanksgiving my daughter Allison received the bad news that she has esophageal cancer. Further tests categorized it as Stage III, meaning that it has penetrated the entire esophagus, hit one lymph node, but has not metastasized. She is currently undergoing chemotherapy, the specifics of which have changed this past week. She is about to add radiation to the mix, the idea being to smack it down hard before subjecting her to surgery in early April.<br /><br />This type of cancer hits males over 60. Allison is a female just over 30. There are no stats that can tell us how well she will do; we just have to hope for the best. She does start from a position of strength, since she's young and otherwise healthy.<br /><br />Having her, Mark and Zachary move in with me seems like a good idea. She would be near Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Commack satellite where she's getting treatment (surgery will be in NYC). She would have more close family and many of Ronni's friends available. So I have embarked on a clean-the-house mission, which is going well, with the intent to clear the upstairs so that we can put down laminate flooring to keep allergens low (Mark has a few allergy problems) and put up new sheetrock and paint where needed. Probably need a door, too. The work keeps me busy at night and weekends.<br /><br />Between cleanup and helping Mark and Ali with Zach while Ali gets her treatments, I haven't had much time to be sad. I'm still on that sawtooth curve, though, where I feel my misery building until it pours out in sobs, then subsides for a week or two only to build again.<br /><br />Allison reports being numb. If anyone's numb, it has to be Mark, who has been hit from all sides these past months. All I can do is be there for the three of them. It helps me, too.<br /><br />Check the time of this post: sometimes I need to stay up until I'm exhausted, in order to sleep.<br /><br />I don't have the same conceptions about God that I had a year ago, that's certain.<br /><br />Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Jonathan, now 24.cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-42756925579720031912008-11-29T19:16:00.002-05:002008-11-29T19:36:11.369-05:00MourningFor those who don't know, Ronni passed away on August 10, 2008, after her two-and-a-half year battle with kidney cancer. She was 54 years young.<br /><br />I don't see a reason to blog about it, but I have spent a little time journaling. Putting my feelings in a journal feels like a private diary, while blogging feels like a highway billboard. Don't take it personally, but my private feelings are mine and will remain so, except when I share them with people I select, as opposed to the universe.<br /><br />I will say, anyway, that I am completely miserable. It's been more than three months, six months since the decline to death began. If anything, I'm feeling worse as time goes forward. It comes in waves: I'll spend days off-and-on in tears, have a deep, sobbing, smack-the-pillow session, then vegetate for several days until it happens again. I don't know how to go on. I have so many regrets. Keeping busy helps, but not always. I went for counseling once so far, didn't click, will try again.<br /><br />The things that have comforted me: <br /><ul><li>Late afternoon on the stormy day of the funeral, I looked at the weather radar. Clouds all around, except that a clear patch in the shape of a heart opened around the time she was buried. It moved across the island and broke. I see it as her message to me.</li><li>Towards the end of the shiva week I came home alone, sat on my bed looking at the hospital bed she died in, and broke down. I asked aloud all the usual "why" questions. I could swear she gave me the answers. Mostly "That's just the way it works."</li><li>Coming home from services a few nights later, over the horizon rose a beautiful bronze nearly-full moon. It made me laugh. I could hear her say, "I guess you'll be alright after all, if you can still see the beauty in the world."</li></ul>People tell me to remember the good, to be thankful for the love I had for so many years. I can't yet. My heart is broken and it hasn't had time to heal.<br /><br />I won't be posting often.cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13438349.post-44472872815503571542007-05-18T21:35:00.000-04:002007-05-18T21:39:53.595-04:00This Old BlogIt's been more than a year and a half since my last post. No time! Stuff that's been happening:<br /><br /><ul><li>Ronni dealing with kidney cancer,</li><li>Me finishing my undergraduate degree.</li></ul>Obviously, each of us is dealing with both items. Ask me about health insurance if you want an earful.<br /><br />This blog has been a place for me to post stories that interest me, usually political. Dunno what, if anything, I want to do with it now. It's not for generating revenue, that's for sure. We'll see. Meanwhile, I changed some settings to see if I can clear the old stories to older pages...cihm52http://www.blogger.com/profile/06544467603219685621noreply@blogger.com1