Another Update

As I feared I left someone important out of my acknowledgments the other day and I want to apologize to Dianne and rectify my error.

Dianne brought us dinner one night, stayed for conversation, and helped Ann immensely. She helped me too by alleviating my housewife syndrome - you know, no one to talk to but the dogs. Thanks Dianne.

And grandson David, who was home on early spring break, took me to physical therapy last week. He arrived on time, waited patiently, and then graciously and gratefully ate lunch with me at a local spot. Thanks David.

It's been almost eight weeks since I broke my ankle and I am finally pretty mobile. I can drive, which lets Ann off the hook a lot, I read in church on Sunday, I got a much needed pedicure (flaps of dead skin from six weeks of cast were getting really ugly), and I can get myself to physical therapy three times a week.

Tonight I am venturing out to the opera to see Eugene Onegin. I am not taking the train or driving myself - I tire too easily and it's too late. Rather I hired a car and driver to take me and bring me home. I am foregoing the usual dinner with friends who sit in my section (and live in a distant suburb) because the walk from the restaurant, while not far, is still too much.

My goal is to take the dogs to the Dunes soon. They really need a good run since I haven't been able to take them to the dog park or walk them for the last two months.

In other news, we are planning an engagement party next month with the theme of pears/pairs. We're thinking to keep it light and highlight famous pairs like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Spic and Span, Bosc and Bartlett. We welcome any suggestions. We haven't decided what to do with the pairs yet, but we'll think of something. Thanks.

Please comment below.

Term Limits

On Saturday a local Democratic physicist, Bill Foster, beat a well-known businessman, Republican Jim Oberweis, in a race to replace Denny Hastert, former Speaker of the House, who resigned his office in November.

Oberweis has run in four races in Illinois and lost them all. In every one of them he used scare tactics, and I think the people in his district have had enough. When he ran for Senator, he focused on how terrible immigrants have made the United States. His dairy employs illegal immigrants, according to recent news reports, and Oberweis isn’t a run of the mill American name like Smith or Jones or Graboski or Gutierrez or Moser.

In the recent campaign Oberweis’ hate message created mythical families and then showed how some of the policies that Foster espoused would damage them. The fact that Foster wanted to raise taxes on the one percent of wealthiest Americans, and that Oberweis applied the new tax rates to lower middle class mythical families, didn’t seem to bother his campaign, but it certainly riled voters. In Oberweis’ television commercials, he had families making less that $50,000 annually paying up to $8,000 more in taxes each year. Where would they get the money, they asked? From their retirement or kids' college funds? It was beyond belief that Oberweis thought voters were so stupid.

Bill Foster’s victory was an upset for Republicans who traditionally had easy campaigns in Hastert’s district. Pundits in the Tribune suggest that the Republican party in Illinois is in disarray, and that may well be true.

However, with Rod Blagojevch (blag – O – ye- vich) as the current disastrous Democratic governor, the Democrats seem to be in disarray in Illinois, too.

As I have said before, it is time to end party politics and start doing what is best for the country. That may well mean giving every single politician in power an unofficial term limit.

America for Americans is a nice slogan until you look at the connotations, the anti-everyone else bias in it.

I’d like, however, to suggest a new way of looking at the slogan. Let’s broaden our definition a bit. All citizens are Americans, and if people are from north or south of us, citizen or not, they are American, too. If we truly want our country to be for its residents and citizens, it has to stop being for politicians. I don’t mind the occasional statesman, but they are too few and far between. Let’s make America truly for Americans and vote against all the incumbents – and their parties. Unofficial term limits in action.

This is radical, I realize, but if our representatives realize that voters put them in office not lobbyists and heavy contributors with axes to grind, we might start getting some representation.

As always feel free to comment below.

Update to my Update

I went to therapy this morning and met with Doug, who was not only kind and personable, but competent.

I'm down to one crutch and doing much better. Ann and I even plan to do some light shopping this afternoon. Woohoo!

Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers.

Brief Update

I got my cast off on Friday. My leg twitched like a science experiment on chickens when the tech guy used the vibrating saw on it. He cut the cotton stockinette off and exposed the leg, covered with - dry skin.

I went home, ran a bath in the soaking tub and climbed in. I lay there about an hour and a half, periodically adding hot water, and reading. It was glorious, especially after having help to get into the shower twice a week for the past month and a half. When I got out my skin was just as scaly and flaky. I have been slathering various kinds of skin cream on the foot and leg regularly. It hasn’t helped. Three days later the bottom of my foot still looks as if I dipped it in wax and haven't gotten around to peeling it off.

Today I can walk – with crutches. Tuesday [tomorrow] I start physical therapy and hope to discard the crutches soon. By next Friday I hope to be able to drive, and by next month to bound up steps two at a time. As it is I still hobble up them one by one.

In the meantime, I’m still pretty much stuck at home because Ann is out and about and I don’t have the energy to be upright long enough to join her.

Be all that as it may, I have discovered I have the most wonderful friends in the world. Ann waited on me hand and foot and put up with my impatience. Tim and Jonathan stopped by to keep me company and helped me in the shower -without even snickering, although Jonathan spent more time flying around the house on my crutches and declaring they weren't so bad. Grandson David drove me around when I needed it. David across the street also carted me around whenever I needed help.

Lynn walked our dogs and took me to lunch a couple of times. Shannon, of course, and Ray, who helped bath me - again without snickering - and Shannon just dropped by unannounced to walk the dogs. Ray and Sherri who walked dogs. Bill who came over with Carter and did a couple odd jobs, kept me company and Carter helped Ann with dinner.

Theresa who stopped by with a wheel chair and conversation. Rochelle and Peggy who made sure I was comfortable and stopped by just to chat and check on me. They also brought great meals from Flavor Restaurant. The Rev. Orr, who stopped by several times with the Eucharist and great conversation. Sue, Audrey, Kristy and Jack who stopped by with cards, gossip, and more conversation.

All the people in the watercolor class, especially Carol the instructor, and Jerry who sits next to me, who worked to make me comfortable and do whatever they could for me. Sandi and Sandie who brought pizza one night. Cindy and Peter who brought a whole dinner - including great vegetables - another night.

Derek who pushed me around in the wheel chair at a birthday party. Mary Agnes who stopped by for conversation and also took me to the doctor to get my cast off. Connie from the dog park who called on a regular basis, and Beth, Gary and Maryanne, Val, and Jim C-D who kept up through email. Karen stopped by and kept up through email. I'm sure I forgot someone, and I don't mean to. Again, what wonderful friends I have. I thank you and wish blessings on you all!

As always I welcome your comments. Click below.

Let's get down to work

I'm tired of the campaign for president.

I'm tired of listening to conservative Republicans whine about John McCain. I'm tired of Mike Huckabee's last name being turned into a verb, as in He's been huckabeed.

I'm tired of the Clinton campaign making snide comments about Barck Obama and then withdrawing them and firing the person who made them, all the while repeating them in the statement of apology, as in, "We're so sorry we pointed out that Barack Obama's name got changed from Hitler when his father emigrated to the United States. It was unprofessional of us to point out that Barack Obama's surname was orignially Hitler, and we won't mention that his name was Hitler again. It makes me puke.

I'm tired of Barack Obama revealing personal details that are totally immaterial to his -- or anyone's -- qualifications to be president.

I'm tired of the media sensationalizing every time Barack Obama burps (he obviously dare not fart), scratches his nose (again, not his ass), spends more than a half hour working out in a day, chewing nicotine gum because he's trying to quit smoking. And I'm tired of the media taking every word any candidate (or spouse) says out of context and blowing it into treason.

The three main contenders at this point to be president are Senator John McCain (R., Arizona), Senator Hillary Clinton (D., New York), and Senator Barack Obama (D., Illinois). It's time these people step off the campaign trail for a while and rejoin their colleagues in the Senate.

Maybe between now and the election in November, they can start doing things for the good of the country instead of the good of their parties: stop the hemorrhage of dollars to Iraq, start us toward affordable universal health care, provide finances for soldiers who suffer mental problems after returning from Iraq (I think I heard that it's 25 per cent of them), do something to make sure the housing collapse doesn't happen again and that we don't fall into another Great Depression. In short there's plenty for them to do besides campaign.

Working at their jobs could earn them votes, respect, and would give one of them the Presidency.

That wouldn't be all bad.

As always, please post your comment below.

The Village

It takes a village to raise a child, according to an old African proverb, and Hillary Clinton capitalized on it with her book of the same name. I haven’t read the book, but I certainly subscribe to the theory.

When my son was alive, a lot of people helped him: volunteer soccer and wrestling coaches, Sunday School teachers, godparents, teachers, neighbors who had very little stake in his behavior as long as he didn’t bother them, and a host of others. It turned out that in addition to us, his parents, an entire metaphoric village raised him. These people did things we were not available to do or didn't have the expertise to accomplish.

There is no way we can pay back all the people who helped him – and us. What we can do, however, is to be kind to others and to help out those we can. All of us need “safety nets” of all kinds: emotional, financial, and even physical. We all need someone to catch us when we fall. I wouldn’t have broken my ankle on the ice a month ago if someone had. But since breaking it, the number of people who call, who volunteer to bring in food, to come and chat, who bring and send funny get well cards, who walk dogs, who drive me around. That number of people in my village is amazing. And humbling.

At a recent family gathering – and we are involved with chosen family because our blood families live so far away – I found a lot of people willing to be part of my village. One piloted my wheel chair up a ramp and to a table, many made a deliberate effort to stop by the table where I was sitting and give me and my wife hugs and chat at length, and a few stopped by to tease me good naturedly about being klutzy (I slipped, in truth, and in a fluid graceful arc landed flat on my back looking at the sky. Nothing klutzy there, thank you very much!). I enjoyed seeing and talking to all of them. I am at least twice as old as most of them, but I feel as if I am their contemporary. I have to step back and realize I am their parents' (or grandparents') age.

And so it distresses me when people reject the village. At the family gathering, some extended members of our chosen family made it a point to avoid me and my wife. This is the second event that these people have made a point to snub us. I suspect they think we are trying to “alienate the affections” of the ones who chose us. In their narrow view, it seems, there is only a certain quantity of love that exists, and if we get some of it, they get less. This is an attitude I don’t understand. The more I love, the more capable I am of loving and receiving love.

On the other hand, their cliquish attitude kept these family members in a tight little circle and few of the people who greeted us also greeted them. Maybe they are afraid, maybe they are jealous. Maybe they are angry because I am a loud person, too frequently profane, too outspoken. For whatever reason, they got less of the available affection that infused the room because they couldn’t accept it.

At first I was angry and felt rejected. But I realized I had a much better time (despite or perhaps because of being stuck in the wheel chair), I connected with more people, and I can merely feel sorry for people who are not open to love. I cannot survive without others, and I don’t feel joy just by being alone although I need time by myself.

My village is large. Their village is very small. What a pity.

Public Integrity

I have to admit first that I currently vote Democratic although I consider myself an Eisenhower Republican. The party has made an about face since his time, however. I didn’t vote for George W. Bush either time he ran, and I have a bias that Florida and the Supreme Court gave him the election in 2000, and that election fraud, particularly in Ohio, gave him the election in 2004.

My reasons for not voting for W the first time are probably silly. I couldn’t vote for a man who couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t vote for a man who had no lips. As I say, pretty silly. And I knew voting against him was a lost cause in 2004 because we just don’t switch presidents in the middle of a way, all things being equal. And somehow things were more than equal.

When terrorists demolished the World Trade Center, I felt violated, horrified, and strangely disconnected because little really seemed to change in my life except that flying was more arduous than it had been previously. My blood pressure went up, I’m sure, because my son Derek (you can read about that in early blog entries) was in the Navy as Communications Officer at NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain, since closed. He talked to all the bigwigs, Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, that day and on the orders of his supervisor grounded the commercial airlines for the following few days while we regrouped. I was terrified we would lose Derek too.

In the weeks and months following September 11, 2001, the propaganda machine shifted into overdrive. When I was in college, propaganda was a way of putting the best face on facts. Since then, however, it has become outright lies.

That is why I am not surprised at the following report issued jointly by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, both of which I checked out. They are independent think tanks without any bias except independence and integrity. That is to say, they are funded by neither liberals nor conservatives. They merely seek the truth.

Because of copyright laws, I am unable to replicate the report here. The highlights, however, are that Bush and seven of his top advisors conspired to lie (over 700 times) about Iraq’s involvement in the destruction so of the Twin Towers so we could invade Iraq. The media, sadly, didn’t investigate the lies and thereby became implicit in the current quicksand we call the War in Iraq.

I have a masters degree in journalism. I am an American. But I feel ashamed that we allowed our “leaders” to fool us with their emotional blackmail and outright lack of integrity. They pushed us into a totally unnecessary war. They pushed us into quicksand and we are slowly drowning.

Read the entire report at Center for Public Integrity site.

As always I am interested in your comments. And since I am housebound after breaking my ankle, I especially need a little intellectual stimulation.