Altruism and the Cartel

Ed.

It all started with a conversation about how the government has lost confidence and is perceived as untrustworthy. A former HS civics teacher who taught and believes in the democratic ideal, pondered about what he could do to help restore faith in the government from a citizen level.

It was hard for him to watch the carniverous gnawing away of his public school's enrichment programs. He was now a highly regarded Superintendent of Schools. And with no fanfare at all, no media, no big newspaper coverage, he came up with an idea.

In a quiet board meeting he offered to retire as Superintendent of Schools conditional on being hired back as a contract employee for the remaining 3 years before his scheduled retirement. The only compensation he asked for was that of a first year teacher, $31,500 a year, and without benefits.  

They decided the money the District would save ($800,000 over 3 years) could be used to support and sustain preschool and kindergarten literacy programs, college prep classes, sports and the arts.  So quietly was this business conducted, that it took days for word to filter out to the community. You can imagine the shock in this day and age of an average guy giving up that sizeable of a salary, and then not wanting anyone to know.

What a heartwarming story to compel us all to give a little more of ourselves. To do the right thing. To help each other through the difficulties we continue to face.

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At the other end of the spectrum are the banks that are standing on our airhoses.  Relief isn't coming for those unsustainable mortgages. We have played the game, paid our bills, honored our promises. And with an audible sense of detatchment are being told that in these hard times there is no money to lend.

The word is out. There is money to lend but the banks are spinning the current financial crisis to their advantage.  By refusing refinancing relief, they continue to capitalize on the older, higher interest rates. There is no hint of altruism, no national conscience, no sense of shame. The banking Cartel gains strength and power through systematic nonaction to rectify this massive calculated misappropriation. 

At first I bought the whole BofA angle, that they made an unwise investment in Countrywide and were unprepared for the financial fallout as a result of their shoddy business practices. I admired their attempt to settle lawsuits and tackle this issue head on. But you know, they too were part of the robo signing scheme at BofA and they repackaged worthless loans to sell to unsuspecting investors. Regardless of consumer responsibility, the banks schemed the angles here and peddled their wares, for corporate profits. They intentionally defrauded their people.

Whether the person peddling the loan or credit limits and falsifying documents works for a bank, a mortgage company or a public trust, it is misappropriation of funds. Felony and prison time. These people are still working and doing the same thing. So I ask you ... without consequences how can there be change?  

The Cartel has this one chance to take the high road for remorse and responsibility, and give us a hand in climbing out of the hole they dug.  Eventually all of this will settle down and turn around, and we will remember the way they played it. But definitely, I think prison time should be included for every last one of them.

A Friendly Sort

Through thick and thin: the feeling you get when you are deep into a relationship and cannot imagine it being different. And then gradually, inevitably, it changes.

Life melds together and seasons what relationships become. Sometimes they fade sadly away and with melancholy over the lost potential. Sometimes it is the unexpected challenges that irreparably changes both the landscape and the outlook. And sometimes it fades away without a whisper.

I have a best long distance friend.  Trying to remember what year we met in the last millennium is useless because it's been so long. She has always been there, on the other end of the line, for over a decade since she moved to the Midwest.  

There were lots of times only her voice helped me through a problem. We weathered shitty marriages, change of careers, raising our boys into men, letting go, hanging on, believing in, and rediscovering ourselves ... together.

I sometimes wonder if the friendship is stronger because of the distance. Advantages abound. For instance, I can be like Jane Jetsen - talking up a storm in my jammies with no make up on and my hair every whichway!! And then there's the magic of being able to stay rooted in this shared emotional place from long ago.

We seem emminently present in each other's lives but filtered by distance. Her life has been one of hard work and self sacrifice, and the planned trip to California next month is the first gift she has given herself in as long as I've known her.

I am a little nervous.  I know her inside out, but how different will it be to be face to face? I imagine it to go something like this:

We will hug at the airport so long that passerbys will think we're lesbian. (I'm in California, after all.) How can anyone know our voices have not been in the same time zone since my youngest was 12?

We will talk late into the night and pay attention to our faces transform into a full blown laugh and hear how the laughter blends as it fills the room. We will take in each other's wild gestures as some of our famous animated stories tumble out about the absurdity of life and love. We will clink our glasses together over home cooked meals with our feet in the pool.

The time will fly by with too little sleep and too much left to say and do. But I really hope we will be able to help her check off something from her Bucket List.

And when we send her home, I hope it is with a bunch of fresh stories, facebook pictures to post, and the joy of having done something just for herself that is long overdue.

An Age-Old Story

For the last few days, parts of our computer weren't talking to each other. I hate family squabbles.

A friend was rushing to meet family and head to a Giants game for her daughter's 21st birthday. When they got a flat tire, they worried they might miss the train. As they were fumbling with the jack and thingie that takes off the lug nuts, a homeless man came up and offered to help. It was a risk in that situation for two women alone in an unfamiliar area ... but the guy was gracious and efficiently took care of it.  Someone on the outs with life still has something to contribute.

An illegal alien noticed a child abduction in progress and jumped into action, pursuing the suspect and fortunately able to return the little girl to her family. His Hero status has nothing to do with naturalization papers or whether he speaks English, no matter what the papers try to make it into. What that man did he did at great personal risk, but he changed the world. Who is to say what that child will become and the lives she will touch because she was spared?

An older customer entered a computer store looking for a computer part. She was ignored as she wandered through the aisles trying to decipher the terms and find what she needs. A new employee noticed her and assisted, and had to stop and ask a supervisor where a particular item was located. The supervisor was clearly irritated and stormed over to the item and literally tossed it at him across two aisles, right in front of the customer. What do you think he took away from the day? I hope it was the appreciative comments by the customer and what a great help he had been.

We can't know what it is like to be someone else, but encouraging each other is obviously a small but important thing we can do. And one step more: today I will try to be less wrapped up in my own world and help someone else.

Post Script: I did help someone the day I wrote this post, and got a hug! And the next day, and the next.  Maybe in not such a grand way I can change the world, too.

Heart to Heart

This hero didn't think twice. New Mexico dad Antonio Diaz Chacon embarked on a wild chase after spotting a little girl being abducted and then pulled her to safety after her kidnapper crashed his car.

The snatching occurred Monday when suspect Phillip Garcia allegedly grabbed the girl off an Albuquerque street and tossed her into his van. Fortunately for the 6-year-old, Diaz Chacon happened to be doing laundry at a relative's nearby and witnessed the whole thing.

"The way he grabbed her and threw her into the van, I knew it wasn't right," he told The Associated Press. "I knew I had to catch him. I had to get the girl back from him and take her home, take her back where she belongs."

'While his wife, Martha, called 911, he sprang into action - hopping behind the wheel of his pickup in hot pursuit through a maze of streets around a quiet trailer park.

After several minutes, Garcia crashed into a telephone pole and got out. It was only then that Diaz Chacon began to worry.

"When he got down, I was thinking, what if he has a gun," Diaz Chacon said.

But Garcia instead fled on foot, and Diaz Chacon went straight to the little girl and told her he would take her home. Aside from a few bruises, she was unhurt.

Garcia later returned to the wrecked van and was arrested. Cops found packing tape and a tie-down strap hidden under a rock nearby and similar binding implements in the vehicle.

"This little girl was very lucky," said Sgt. Tricia Hoffman. "We can only guess what would have happened to this child."

Diaz Chacon said he was proud to help. He said he had thought of his own daughters - one 7 years old and the other 5 months old - while giving chase and hopes someone would do the same for him."

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The story doesn't end there, with accolades and thank you's flooding in from all over the state, because  at the center of this heartwarming and dramatic story is the fact that Diaz is an illegal alien.  This tugged at my awareness of too-often making assumptions about others without knowing what is in their hearts.

The Amazing Choice of Jennifer McKendrick

A Pennsylvania photographer has chosen not to photograph a group of high school girls for their senior portraits after she found evidence of the teens bullying other students on Facebook.

Jennifer McKendrick, from Indiana County, Pa., wrote on her own Facebook page earlier this week that she came across another Facebook page with nasty comments from four high school girls whose names matched her scheduled clients.

She emailed the girls and their parents to cancel their senior photo shoots, while including screenshots of their comments to explain why she was calling off the session.

McKendrick wrote more about her decision on her personal blog in a post titled "I Won't Photograph Ugly People."

"I mean how could I spend two hours with someone during our session trying to make beautiful photos of them knowing they could do such UGLY things," McKendrick writes. "Realistically, I know by canceling their shoots it's not going to make them 'nicer people' but I refuse to let people like that represent my business."

The photographer told WTAE-TV that the comments she saw were more than just targeting other students for appearance.

"It was beyond 'your clothes are ugly' or 'you don't have any brand clothes' or 'you are ugly, your hair is not right," McKendrick told WTAE-TV. "It was vicious. It was talking about sexuality."

Her Facebook page has since been flooded with hundreds of comments from people supporting her decision.

McKendrick blogs that she hasn't received backlash for her decision so far, but she's prepared if she does. Two of the teens' parents responded to her with apologies, noting that they were surprised by their daughters' actions.

"If you are ugly on the inside, I'm sorry but I won't take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside … I simply don't want to photograph ugly people," she writes.

The Mermaids' Song

This gem written by Terrell Harris Dougan, Community Writer:

Many years ago I stayed with some friends in Washington while I attended a national convention. My hosts were well connected in diplomatic circles, and invited me to a fancy reception. As we walked into the reception, one person in our little group said to me, "If anyone asks you what convention you're attending, you may want to hurry and change the subject."


Because my convention was for aerobic dance instructors.

I became an instructor in my forties, because I could not be counted on to exercise unless someone was waiting for me, clapping for me, and paying me as well, and oh yes, I had to be in charge so that I could use my own favorite music and do simple moves that I, and everyone, can remember.

So imagine my surprise to hear I was not to mention my occupation at this elegant Washington reception. Did my pals consider us instructors stupid? Bimbos?


I was truly taken aback. For me, one of the highest callings a person can have is leading exercise classes. The whole country should thank them by approving huge salaries for them. An MBA basketball star gets millions a year to throw a ball in a basket for you, and what have you got when you leave the game? Probably a bigger tush and damaged ears. You leave your exercise class (if you go... honey... if you go) and what have you got? A happier soul, a healthier body, and a lot more energy. Next time you go to class, kiss your instructor.

This particular convention in Washington was for instructors who wanted to lead the same sort of class, but in the water. I was enjoying the whole experience, and learning so much about muscles, and water resistance, and the healing properties of water, and the fun of designing a class with superb music. All my creative juices were in full flow. I learned how to take full advantage of Peggy Lee's Fever, and Perry Como's Papa Loves Mambo, and on and on. Roger Miller's King of the Road and Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons were just made for increasing upper body strength in water, to say nothing of the inner thighs!

I look back on that evening now, and have to laugh, remembering the lovely party, and the distinguished diplomats I met. When one gentleman from an African country asked me what my job in Washington was, I told him I was just visiting, and then I told him the exact truth. His response was, "This sounds wonderful! I would like to be in a class like this! How can I join this class? Can I get one started in my own country? Everyone needs this class!" My well-connected friends were dumfounded.

That was over thirty years ago, and my class and I have been together in summertime ever since. The year my ladies and I became amphibious, my husband and I were just building a new home, and we added an outdoor pool. When I told the architect I wanted a bar in the pool, meaning a ballet bar running along both sides, I got another surprise: he had drawn in a fancy alcohol bar, poolside. But we got it all straightened out, and fourteen of us dance in that turquoise water whenever summer comes and my time permits.

Anne, the oldest of us is now 88, and moves like a teenager. She says her secret to staying young is keeping company with younger friends, and never missing her morning water class all winter at the community pool ("It keeps my body from feeling creaky"). She never wastes a breezy day, and gets her kite out and calls my sister to come help her send it up to the sky.

We share stories, sadnesses, garage sale announcements, good movies and books, and family foibles. We give each other therapy. Those in their eighties counsel the mother of sassy teenagers that this too will pass. At the end of summer, we hold a potluck lunch. (We're trying not to repeat the day that every single person brought brownies. ) And we sit around the table and share our lives.

We are getting wrinkled, and not just from being in the water. Our hair is thinning. Some of us are fighting cancer and determined to win but know that either way, we're living life to the fullest.

We are getting forgetful. Vicky says she was on her cell phone, shouting to her son that she'd lost her cell phone. As she dug around in her purse, the phone cradled to her ear, her son asked, "Mom, what are you talking on, then?"

But the best story of the day was from Ruth. Ruth is 78, and taking care of her mother, who is 98, and forgetting most things these days. One day Ruth came in and her mother said, "Hello, Virginia." Now Virginia is Ruth's sister, so Ruth went over to her mom and put her hands on her shoulders and said, "Now Mom. Who am I?"

Her mother looked at her and then patted her, saying, "You just give yourself a minute, honey. It'll come back to you."

I think it's the best advice in the world.

Human Kindness

In passing, someone hands a merry-go-round ring from their keyring to someone who needs it. For luck and better days ahead, it says.  

A compassionate stranger's voice on the end of the line becomes a dear and trusted friend in no time at all. I want to listen, it says.

A card arrives for no real reason other than someone is thinking of you. No ask for money or to borrow something. You are important to me, it says, and I miss you.

A car pulls up to the window to pay the bridge toll, and is informed it was paid by someone three cars up. Surprise! it says.

Someone in the neighborhood knocks on the door of a large family with a basket of fruit from the Farmer's Market to share. You are a nice family, it says.

A son drops in to take the folks to dinner in the middle of the week. I will never outgrow my love for you, it says. You matter to me.

The world is vicious and brutal, but not always. Be kind and engage, it says, and may the good in us prevail.

A Really Good Read

I've been reading a book that's hard to put down. I knew that when I realized I had taken to carrying it around with me all over the house and on errands. What a pity for the person who doesn't quite finish before life kicks back in. (I had to leave off at page 456.)

A good book creeps back into you, you can count on that. On the way to work I was musing over the developments and characters that have sprung to life. It's fun. And it is interesting to listen to the voices of talented writers talk about so many compelling topics.

It was a rare weekend of leisure to spend in the company of Aibileen and Skeeter. And today, first thing through the door and I was on the book to finish it off, before dinner.

The Kindle deserves equal time, and it sure is handy to carry around 100 books with a six ounce slimline thing that fits right in your purse. People say that print is dead, or dying, and this is the wave of the future, but I'm unconvinced. It just doesn't have the same sensory experience as the rough pages of a cheap paperback with creases in every corner and a dog-eared cover.

I'll get used to it. But for a couple of days, I'm going to just sit quietly and savor the Help as a really good read.

With a Song in Our Hearts

We're doing some little fundraisers to afford a Christmas party at one of the restaurants for the whole staff at work, and so each month there's a different event going on. Last week was a wildly successful Ice Cream Social. We wore red and white and decorated it up with sodajerk paper hats and had lots of toppings and choices. I mean, how can you go wrong with ice cream?

But what really made the day was the music we put together - an assortment of lighthearted hits from the 50s, mostly, which included High Hopes, Crazy Hazy Days of Summer, Swinging on a Star, Cheek to Cheek, Young at Heart, Mack the Knife, What a Wonderful World, Ain't That a Kick in the Head, Standing on the Corner, etc. 

So I have been doing a little experiment on myself. Instead of news, I've been listening to that CD on the way to and from work, and you know what? It is cheering me up. I mean, really bringing up my spirits. Nothing has changed: work is still a pressure-cooker and the economy still sucks  (pffft) and I still have sciatica in my hip, but I am better.

We got to talking over breakfast about what the entertainment industries did during the 20s and 30s with that surge of musicals and upbeat radio shows and silly fun movies. As the country was in the depths of despair, audiences flocked to Robin Hood, the Wizard of Oz, Top Hat, King Kong, Modern Times, and City Lights. And when we forged out a plan and struggled to implement it, they feasted on A Christmas Carol; The Shop Around the Corner; How Green Was My Valley; The Maltese Falcon; Yankee Doodle Dandy; The Pride of the Yankees; The Bells of St. Marys; and It's a Wonderful Life.

There are hundreds of notable comedians and fabulous songs and radio programs from those years and - later on and to a lesser degree - TV shows. I got to looking around at our entertainment choices - movies, music, and tv - and it sure isn't anything like Miracle on 34th Street, Nat King Cole and I Love Lucy.

Hollywood hasn't caught on to their own amazing heritage of helping the country cope and rebuild. What a shame! Funny uplifting music and stories give us the joy of laughter and a much-needed way to blow off some steam. What's more, it lightens our load so we can walk farther and with a song in our hearts until things turn the corner.

The Color of Gossip

A friend wrote about gossip and her sin of complicity in propagating it. I wanted to respond ~ even wrote a long comment which serendipitiously disappeared when I hit the wrong key ~ which is never an accident, by the way ~ and now it is in my head until I post about it. I wanted to tell her how wrong she is about herself, and how difficult it is for all of us to keep ourselves free of it.

This is what I know about Gossip: it takes down more than the person du jour. It is a leaky can of paint, where people stand around thinking it is all about somebody else, maybe thinking how lucky they are for not being caught, and that's when they notice it's leaked all over the floor. They get a rag and try to clean it up but it makes more of a mess. Now it is on their hands and jacket and shoes. And so they must go through the day like that, with others seeing the paint and knowing them for the untrustworthy person they are. How does the little watercooler gab session look now after not only impugning someone else's character, but casting a shadow on their own? 

That's pretty much how it is, sans paint.  The definition of Gossip is potentially any discussion about someone who is not present. I say 'potentially' because that's too broad a description ~ but not really. It should include parents discussing their kids over a dinner out, or a boss and supervisor contemplating an employee's promotion. It should be about family meetings and intimate discussions about difficult situations and relationships which are part of living and intimacy ... because what we are talking about is sharing the content of those confidences without permission at a later time. 

Let's ask Wikipedia: "Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted."

We've all played the game when you form a line and the first person silently reads a sentence and whispers it to the person next to them, and so on down the line until the last person speaks aloud the sentence. Does it ever turn out to even remotely resemble the original sentence? It makes us laugh to be that far off!

Obviously gossip-in-action is not funny at all. It breaks people's hearts. Our media engages in it all the time, just giving a whiff of impropriety rather than prove it is true. And they never publicize a retraction. No matter: the damage is already done. The problem is, Gossip at first appears to be information - and there is a moment when you realize you have jumped the fence, that the conversational motivations have changed.

We are a social species and so naturally know things about each other. Are we invested in the relationship that would encourage keeping those confidences? If we are savoring the juicy tidbits to share with others  and not called to action to reach out and help, we're in gossip mode. Compassion is the antidote to gossip.

Wikipedia continues: "With the advent of the internet gossip is now widespread on an instant basis, from one place in the world is now instant."

When people are ensnared, I play red light/green light:  

If the topic is not derogatory or self promoting, green light.
If it's about someone I do not know or will ever know, red light.
If I disapprove generally of that person, triple red.
If it's a happy ending, or just a great moral, triple green.
If it is a historical moment, it belongs to all of us, green go.
If it is super funny and goofy, green all the way.
                                     
Let them say what they want: you won't hear it from me. Where gossip is concerned, what goes around comes around.

J.W.

I caught it out of the corner of my eye as we wandered around Santa Barbara looking for the freeway: a building covered with metal sculptures that combined all sorts of crazy stuff - coal barrels and gears, bed frames, saw blades and curlykew metal shavings. It was set back from the street, but we u-turned it and parked in the little lot assuming it was a shop. Then we noticed the sign on the fence to the left that said 

 

private residence: do not enter

Darn! It wasn't a business selling sculptures and artwork so we could windowshop. So we hung around the outside discussing the 20 foot sculptures that were unique and interesting and that is when a sparkly blue-eyed fellow wandered out from the back wearing grimy overalls with duct tape wrapped around a finger. We got to talking and in no time JW invited us in. 

We stepped into a world where every scrap was rebuilt and repurposed from something else. Planters from tires and interestingly shaped sheetmetal; rain barrels from old foundery kettles; a giant bellows framed in wood and twisted metal scraps; patios and overhangs held up by welded conveyor belts; kitchen cabinets from an old church; countertops and furniture from cherry and oak cast-offs that otherwise would have gone to the dump.

At first it was a visual shock but soon we tuned into JW's world. The original 650 sq foot building had ceilings easily 30 foot high, and he installed hand-made thick pillars from an old ship on them. There was all sorts of beautiful furniture he built from old flooring and hardware from a retiring cabinet shop owner. It was chock full of his wife's collectibles, each with a story. There were clocks everywhere, but he wore no watch. 

He said he's too old for ladders anymore, but when he was younger, 10 years or so ago, he tripled the space by adding a large upstairs. We headed there on a metal spiral staircase from a ship, the whole while JW continuing with his monologue of what everything was and where it came from. Everything we looked at was one of a kind.

Mrs. JW came in midway through our tour, a little embarrassed by the dishes in the sink and strangers wandering about (there were dishes in the sink?). She sews and sells purses and handmade linens just across the patio. We didn't ask how she lives in the world of an evolving artistic mind but she answered it anyway: everyone has a gift, she said, and this is JW's. We liked that.

In a sheetmetal building behind the house, front to back, we wandered into a Picker's Paradise. The woodshop was chock full interesting things set in and around big lathes and saws and maybe a thousand tools. JW pointed out wood from old school houses and a railing from a Victorian house and from old city buildings, things he bought or was given as scrap.  And the metal shop, same same, only with hunks of huge interesting things off bridges and buildings and large equipment that was partly rusted and incomplete. Valuable to nobody else but an artist.

JW talked of his projects, how he would put this with that, and how it would look. He used the term 'interesting' a lot. We had never experienced the creative process at work on this intimate of a level, and probably repeated ourselves by asking if anything was for sale. No, no, he said with some humility, he had gone that route and didn't go for the commercial artist mentality. We got the feeling that JW thinks SB takes itself a little too seriously. Or maybe that notoriety and money isn't important to him. Or all of the above.

As we listened and laughed together, his well got deeper and deeper. We both saw in him brilliant talent. We were mulling over the possibility of meeting someone important that we didn't recognize, like the time a driver picked up a hitchhiker (Howard Hughes), when Mrs. JW called out that his sandwich, some chips and a beverage was on the counter when he wanted it. She was heading off to have lunch with a friend.

The purse shop was interesting and had knitting and sewing supplies and products for sale. But above it, up the hardwood stairs with a curved banister we found JWs professional artist's studio. 

What a trip! There was a breadth and depth of the kind of artist he is, some of it like what we had seen below in the courtyard but there was so much more. He used all mediums, some framed works, but mostly stand-alone tabletop sculptures, floor sculptures, all titled, all beautiful. Obviously they were show display pieces. Some awards were sprinkled around the room, but he was humble and brought us back to the art: how he made it, what it spoke to him, and why.  

We had two favorites. There was a free-form silver sculpture that had been melted and poured into a warm water bath.  And there was a slab of bronze with three people diving through it - one partway, one halfway and one unable to egress it - and entitled something like Believe it to Achieve it.

JW doesn't see much need for computers. He doesn't have a web page or a cell phone or an iPod. You won't be able to google his name. His life is all about these 2 acres and the joy of creativity. Big smiles, warm handshakes and an hour and a half later, we had found the fountain of youth: living a life fully engaged even at 80. And also the freeway.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"

-- Satchel Paige