Category: political animal

unbelievable

unbelievable

i cannot believe this sort of thing still happens. but today, a member of a list to which i’ve belonged for years, DC Web Women, shared this awful tale. i’ll let her tell it in her own words, as mine would add little.

On Tuesday, March 16, 2010 my daughter and I were refused service and
ordered out of McDonald’s by its manager. This McDonald’s
is located at 4803 Leesburg Pike, Alexandria VA (in Fairfax County). We were
ordered out because she was accompanied by her service dog – Grizwald. I
handle him for her because she is too young and her disability is too severe
right now for her to handle him alone. My daughter’s service animal has over
500 hours of agency training as well as specific training to mitigate her
disability.

I am tired of her being treated as a second class citizen. This was the
third McDonald’s that challenged her dog but the first to actually put us
out of the restaurant and refuse service. I did not call the police because
that act would have made my daughter’s anxiety and fear worse than they
already were. I did, however, contact the Fairfax County Police later that
day. The FCPD logged the incident and made a record of it. They told me if
that ever happened again to call them.

On 3-16-10, We were on our way to her weekly occupational therapy
appointment. We managed to get everything ready earlier than usual. So I
decided to go to McDonald’s on our way to her appointment.

We went to the drive thru window. I gave the McDonald’s employee the exact
change and she shut the window. She didn’t come back for what seemed too
long a time so I thought maybe I needed to drive to another window. I drove
around the corner but there was not another window.

I thought about whether to just leave or go inside but decided to go inside
to pick up my order.

I helped my daughter get her shoes and coat on and put on Grizwald’s red
cape. We went into McDonald’s. We waited in line. It didn’t take more than a
minute for one or two of the employees behind the counter to say (rudely),
“You can’t have that dog in here.” I told them I could as he was a service
dog.

Next the Manager yelled at me to get the dog out. I told her he was a
service dog 2 more times. To which she replied she didn’t care ” what kind
of dog it was”, that I would have to get it out of there.

I told them at least 3 times (maybe 4) that my daughter’s dog was a service
dog. I was completely ignored by all employees in my attempt to explain to
them they were violating both federal and state laws. I also said I may call
the police. I decided against that because I knew my daughter was already
upset.

I then asked the manager “Are you refusing service to my
disabled child and me”? She continued to ignore me so I repeated the
question. She continued to ignore me and then told me again to leave. I
asked her to write her name down. She ignored me but I persisted in asking
for her name. After asking at least 3 times she did finally write her name
on a receipt. I couldn’t read it so I asked her name again but she continued
to ignore me. She rudely replied she wrote it on the receipt. I told her I
could not read it. Finally she wrote her name more legibly on another
receipt. She gave me a $5 bill with the receipt. I asked if she was paying
me to leave. I couldn’t understand why she gave me the $5 Dollars when I
only spent $1.69 but she continued to ignore me. I told her I didn’t want
the money but she continued to ignore me. I wasn’t pleasant to her but I
wasn’t ranting or raving either. I tried to remain calm but very direct in a
firm voice. This was a humiliating experience.

My daughter’s service dog is always dressed (vested) and has service dog
tags. I also carry a certification identity card for him. He has more than
500 hours of specialized training and he is specifically task trained to
mitigate my daughter’s disability. He was placed with her in December of
2006. We were required to help the organization (that placed him) fund raise
to offset the training expenses. Our fund raising commitment to them (a
nonprofit charity agency called 4 Paws for Ability) was $10,000. My daughter
and her service dog’s story just recently (December 2009) came out in a book
called “New Lives: Stories of Rescued Dogs, Helping, Healing and Giving
Hope” by Joanne Wannan.

Two years ago I requested help from Adam Ebbin to update and change the
service dog laws in VA. I specifically asked Adam to write the “three unit
teams” definition into the law. My family (including Grizwald) had a photo
taken with Gov. Kaine at the bill signing in April 2008.

I usually try to teach and educate when we are challenged but there was no
teaching or educating [the manager] or any of her employees. I am very tired
of the discrimination my disabled daughter faces daily but this from
McDonald’s is inexcusable. This kind of blatant disregard for the rights of
those who are disabled needs to stop.

This was a humiliating experience for us both and I am out $100 dollars for
missing my daughter’s occupational therapy appointment today unless we can
schedule a make up session and she is out her much needed occupational
therapy for this week. But that isn’t really the point. I think if
McDonald’s is going to place people in their stores who are not properly
trained they should have to pay a price. This was disgusting and despicable
behavior. My daughter has experienced enough degrading and humiliating
neglect and abuse before we adopted her and I am not going to stand for this
any more. I know this is against both state and federal laws. The night of
the incident my daughter did not sleep more than 3 hours. Interactions like
this cause her anxiety level to rise. This response can last several weeks.

I called McDonald’s corporate customer service and asked who owned the
store. They would not give me that information. Someone from a “Bland
Corporation” called the same afternoon admitting this was a violation of the
law. I don’t want to speak to them. Instead I am looking for someone to
speak to them for me. I want this injustice to be made right. I want someone
else to speak to them on my little daughter’s behalf — this is just wrong.

It is just unbelievable for these things to continue to happen 20 years
after the ADA in 1990.

if anyone out there is connected either with mcdonalds or the media, i would be glad to get you in touch with this person who deserves to be heard.

when we grow up

when we grow up

yesterday at girl scouts, the subject was careers.

BC’s troop sat around several tables while one of the moms graciously volunteered to lead a discussion about opening up young eyes to all the possibilities in the world of work.  each girl made a list of five things they like to do; then each girl made a list of five things they are really great at doing. (often, there was a bit of overlap on the lists.)  then, several moms, including me, spoke about what they wanted to be when they were 10 or 11, followed by the often torturous path our lives took as we attempted to gain meaningful employment (sometimes reflective of our young aspirations) while balancing the rest of our lives.

i think the moms found it more fascinating than the girls did.

each of us, professional women all, had a story. and every story was a winding road. one told of a father who wanted her educated but assumed that a man would take care of her. she ended up going back to school in her 40s as a mother of two children and becoming a nurse.  another told of her lack of direction — though she knew that she loved language and travel — but thanks to the encouragement of some pivotal college professors discovered opportunities she would have otherwise missed, the fork in the road that made all the difference.  and of course, my life has been the ultimate case of the longest path to the most central aspect of my being: i have always loved writing, but when told it would be better as a hobby and not a profession, i avoided it for nearly 40 years before accepting it as a calling.

and yes, i remembered what i wanted to be when i was 11. i wanted to be a writer. or the president of the united states. or a rock star.

anyway, i was astonished at how far we women have come. we moms speak of times when we could not apply, much less hold, certain positions. in my feminist studies at college, i thought that sort of thing was reserved for my mother’s generation and earlier. however, i know full well — at least at the early part of my career — how differently women were still treated. i still sting knowing that with the same masters degree that my BS possesses, i had to take a typing test. i do not believe he had to do the same, though i could be mistaken.

and there is this wonderful ignorance these girls maintain. they don’t know of a world where girls are barred from little league. they haven’t heard about women not running companies, or women not holding positions as government leaders, or women not emerging as leaders in science. it is all assumed. it is as it should be. in fact, the only position the girls could muster when asked if there are any jobs left that women cannot hold was as an NFL player. (i whispered sperm donor to another mom as another entry into that competition.)

the girls went around the room, sharing their ideas for their future professions. there were several cartoonists, an FBI agent, some writers, a psychologist, an oceanographer. my girl announced she would like to be a physical therapist. i’m so glad my history of injuries has been the big influence on my daughter’s career choice. still, i give her props. it combines her interest in medicine with her desire to help people.

in this failing economic climate, it is hard to think about these dreams, wishes that are light-years from materialization. still, i fervently hope that my girl’s dream — and her friends’ dreams — are not hampered by the state of the world.

perhaps in time, i pray that the dreams of our children may buoy our planet into a safe harbor.

waiting for the end of the world

waiting for the end of the world

you may see them drowning as you stroll along the beach,
but don’t throw out the lifeline till they’re clean out of reach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP4D-nTnWv4

as time goes by, i am increasingly fascinated by the state of politics in our nation. the obama election fervor gave way to tea party people to now the coffee party movement.  (hot chocolate is inevitable.) everyone is flailing around, waiting for the end of the world. now,  i’m not from the big joiners of the world, but i’ve just signed up to get more info from the coffee party. for one thing, i like the fact that they don’t see government as a fundamental part of the problem.

see, we all know government has a way of FUBARing things. any large organization hits a point where the right hand and the left hand may be actually attached to different bodies without realizing it — and they may also have had that artificial extra arm put on for good measure, which maybe the other two arms don’t know about… that being said, to basically discount government completely and advocate solutions that completely ignore it’s existence is absurd.

government is HERE.

(if you don’t like that, start building your spaceship now.)

frankly, i am tired of all the talking heads on television — on the left, on the right, and everywhere else in between. so many of these people are not actually journalists. they are entertainers. they don’t require any sort of allegiance to journalistic integrity. they do, however, owe an allegiance to their sponsors. and as such, they try to be as bombastic as possible to get the best possible ratings.

now, i know it’s a free country, and i’m all about free speech. but there was a time when those who imparted news information did so with adherences to certain principles. can you ever have news that is bias-free? not unless you can create a human that is bias-free. but, that being said, these individuals took their responsibility to the american public very seriously. there are so many amazing journalists, it is difficult to pick one. but i’ll pick a talking head who was very well-known to people from my generation and older: walter cronkite.

now, whether you liked ol’ walter or not, he read the news. he read news that was as factual as possible. he didn’t usually froth at the mouth about that damned viet cong or those dirty hippies or that absurd idiot president known as nixon. he just told you what happened. and that’s the way it was. i think his most famous out-of-the-box moments that were not labeled as commentaries involved his amazement at the lunar landing and his tears when he had to report the passing of president kennedy.  when he winces after reporting the president’s death, and his voice breaks just a tad, that speaks volumes.

and that would be pretty acceptable commentary from a news anchor.

but these talking heads — and i don’t need to list them — they incite, they froth, they manipulate people. these heads use the decades of credibility built on the shoulders of people like cronkite and murrow and so many, many others. people who taught the television audience: if news is reported here, great care has been taken to give you just the facts as we can best present it.

these modern marvels take all that good work and they twist it.

and now, americans used to getting information from people with integrity assume that the people they are watching are giving them factual information. the heads have made our government and political processes into spectator sports. there are clear winners. there are clear losers.

anyone who has been a student of politics knows that no such thing exists in a functioning legislature. orrin hatch and ted kennedy became best pals not because they shared any ideology; they became best pals working in the congress while developing compromise. things most important to them, they fought for. but they also gave way to the other and tried to make legislation that was a workable peace. to think you will successfully develop legislation without compromise is to not know anything about the legislative process.

and yet now, these talking heads are whipping the public into all-or-nothing scenarios. if legislation doesn’t end up looking like this — or if it isn’t completely killed — we are somehow marching toward armageddon. and the public, in turn, gets mad at any legislator who attempts compromise, as if that is not a noble pursuit.

anyway, i am glad to learn more about the coffee party. i, for one, think the end of the world is avoidable if we all start to communicate in realistic ways. if we stop seeing each other as the enemy. if we see the world as it is and start to incrementally work toward a future in which we can all live.

see, i’ve got kids. and i’ll be damned if the world ends on my watch.

it’s all too much

it’s all too much

if eight was enough, what does that make 19?

the other day, i spied BC watching yet another taped episode of  the duggars: 129 and counting. BC really enjoys a lot of the programming on TLC, and while i think TLC has probably begun going down the supersized family and little people tracks a bit too much, there are some programs i personally enjoy. for example, i loveloveLOVE the cake boss.  the way buddy corrals his nutty family and employees and customers is a tour de force. and usually, his show is not something i give a second thought to my kids watching…as long as no erotic cakes are involved.

anyway, back to the duggars. i guess someone in programming thought, well, hell, if people loved the religious jon and kate before they imploded, people will really flip for this bible-thumpin, homeschooling, small city of a family. and of course, these people are not evil people. they have values, they want to share their values with their kids, and perhaps one day, they will breed enough to inhabit a small city as the city’s only residents. (KIDding. what sort of crazies would want to actually do that?)

obviously, they live their lives and we live ours.

but the bright side of this show is that it has opened BC and i up to all sorts of teachable lessons. and i mean, ALL SORTS. because they are all about imparting their values to their kids. and so i, too, sure as hell am about imparting lessons to mine.

teachable lesson number one:  is it really fair to continually bear children when there are so many on the planet who do not have loving parents? BC jumped right onto this one, citing yet another TLC/Discovery  special she and i watched together about this couple in georgia who adopts special needs children — lots and lots of them — and tries their damndest to help them develop as much independence as they are able to develop. of course, one does wonder why all of these people collect children in quantity the way some people collect coins. but at least, in this case, the latter family is accepting children who, for whatever reason, were not accepted by their own parents. and they are loving them.

meanwhile, mrs. duggar continues to be a breeding machine. apparently, she is accepting all the children that the Lord will give her. are these children considered a reward for her goodness? it does beg the question then about infertile couples — is G-d punishing them for being bad people? i doubt it sincerely.  so of course, the duggars have inspired a conversation around here about birth control. i’m sure it isn’t what folks like the duggars would have intended, but kids need to know that you don’t just have to make a baby every blessed time you have sex.

teachable lesson number 2: is it fair that the older kids have to babysit and teach the younger kids in these huge families? this was an interesting point to ponder. the eldest duggars appear to be responsible for teaching their younger siblings and looking after them. i’m all about family; and of course, there are moments when the eldest are called upon to help out in ways in which they are capable (for example, i remember some times when i was growing up where my oldest brother, BTD, babysat me.) but there’s something patently unfair about this expected regular indentured servitude.  of course we all want our children to grow together and to help each other; but even BC noted that these teenagers never get to be teenagers.

it just didn’t sit well with BC or me. children always want to please their parents; it’s that whole approval thing. as a parent, i try to encourage my kids to share their opinions and ideas, regardless of whether i would agree or disagree. we discuss. sometimes, we end up agreeing; sometimes, we don’t. but i wonder whether those duggar children would ever complain or point out to their parents respectfully that they do not, in fact, work for them. i doubt it.

teachable lesson number 3: is it enough to help when someone you know needs help? or is it good to help just because it’s the right thing to do? this one stemmed from a moment of mommy behaving badly. (yes, that would be me.) i was rather annoyed when jim bob duggar notes that he was donating blood for the first time because his baby (#19 for those of you keeping track at home) needed his blood.  it goes without saying that any parent worth his or her salt would give up anything for his or her child. i know i would do the same.

but a grown man who never, ever donated blood before? ever? that upset me.  BC and i talked about how there are things in life you do because they help other people. yes, one day, perhaps you might benefit from these gifts; but you don’t do these things for the personal benefits; you do them because they are the right thing to do. i explained how when i was in high school, i didn’t make the weight requirements for donations, so instead, i helped to run the school blood drives.  (and yes, i was scared of the needles, which didn’t help things.) in time, i made the weight requirement (and how!) and donated blood. the last time i donated was a day or so after hurricane katrina hit new orleans. i remember it quite well; BS and i were to have gone to six flags on a grown-ups only date, but it was raining. we decided to go donate instead.  i felt honored to do it.

who knew that a few months later, i would be a beneficiary of someone else’s donation?

i’m not the most religious person in the world, but i like to think i am somewhat spiritual at times. and i have often thought that it isn’t about what G-d can give to you; it’s about what you can give to the world. you don’t have to be a person of faith to see that we humans are all in this life together, and we all should try to help each other.  i’m sure the duggars are lovely people. but i wonder if inherently, they spend more time looking inward instead of outward toward the world.

and as for BC? she certainly picked up something in sunday school. her observation? mom, the best kind of mitzvah is when you do something to help someone else and it’s anonymous.

i hope she carries that in her heart and it instructs her actions in life.

world aids day 2009

world aids day 2009

(no awful ’80s earworms today. promise.)

today is world AIDS day, a day started in 1988 to bring awareness and education to the plight of those living with HIV and AIDS. years ago, when i worked at the US Dept of Education, i had the privilege of putting together two years’ worth of WORLD AIDS Day commemorations plus helping to develop training materials for fellow employees so that they would understand how to deal with employees who were HIV+/AIDS patients. (in short: treat them as you would want to be treated. you won’t catch the disease from working with people.) i was proud to volunteer the Department’s building to house part of the AIDS Quilt, which was at the time laid out on the National Mall for all to see.  while sadly, the quilt has gotten larger, we seem to be learning more about slowing the disease and helping those afflicted live longer.

i know people who have died of complications from AIDS. i also know people who are living with HIV/AIDS.

yesterday, i was talking with my kids about AIDS, which is not easy to do when the kids are 10 and 6. i explained that it stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. BC looked at me a little scared. don’t you have immunodeficiency, mom?

in fact, when i was first diagnosed with CVID, some people thought i had AIDS. i do, honey, i replied, but that’s different from AIDS. the A in AIDS means “acquired” which means doing something to get the virus. i didn’t do anything to get this immunodeficiency; i just was born with these particular genes. and you can’t catch it from me unless you have the same genes, too.

hellboy wasn’t getting this, really, but girlfriend was. and she continued. so what do you have to do to get AIDS? she asked.

well, basically, you can get it from other people’s body fluids.

she crushed up her nose. you mean, like pee?

once again, i am the one with the fun topical conversations, not BS.   well, things like blood, for example. before they knew more about HIV, they didn’t know much about the blood supply, so people who were hemophiliacs who got transfusions sadly ended up dying of AIDS.

what are hemophiliacs?

people whose blood doesn’t have the stuff in it to help them stop bleeding. a little cut could kill a hemophiliac if not treated properly.

girlfriend was connecting dots again. you mean, like when you had no platelets and were bruising? she looked sad.

that’s a different problem, and i’m better now. but sort of. (time to divert the attention in order to get her away from the thought of my demise.) anyway, people who share needles when they shoot up their drugs can give it to each other. so don’t do drugs and that’s one problem solved.

ewww! who would do that!!!! she exclaimed.

not anyone with any sense, i said. anyway, another way of getting HIV is… i looked over at the boy, who was probably busy thinking about star wars and continued cautiously…through sex.

girlfriend’s eyes now got HUGE.

we can talk about that part away from your brother right now since i don’t think he understands this the way you do. but know that there are things you can do to keep yourself as healthy as you can be.

girlfriend seemed satisfied with that answer, only stopping to note: mommy, isn’t that guy on EastEnders a guy with AIDS? (we’re so far behind in our episodes here in the US that Mark Fowler is still alive.)

yes, honey. and he still is living like everyone else on the show.

i got a nod from her, and then we moved on.

it’s never easy talking with your kids about AIDS, but i figure if i start early at ages when they can understand and in words that they can comprehend, maybe i’ll help them out somewhere down the road.

then again, maybe somewhere down the road, there will be a cure for this scourge and moms won’t have to have these sorts of conversations.

egregious '80's songs: i want your sex (george michael)

egregious '80's songs: i want your sex (george michael)

wham! bam! no thank you, ma’am!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x9rtEHtubI

after splitting from wham! partner andrew ridgeley (a duo which created the much covered, wretch-worthy careless whisper), george michael put out a solo album in 1987, faith, which simply became HUGE. a big part of that hugeness was caused by the controversial song i want your sex. despite the fact that michael kept towing the proverbial party line about the song being about monogamy (a particularly important and interesting message during the seemingly and sadly uncontrollable early days of AIDs), there was a lot of discomfort with the song’s content. MTV would only play if after hours. american top 40‘s casey casem couldn’t even bear to utter the song’s title. apparently, there’s something very naughty about a man writing explore monogamy on a woman’s back in lipstick. who knew?

anyway, i had a few issues with the song myself, but none of them involved prudery.  for starters, there’s something so crude and dull about a chorus where michaels just sort of drops the words i want your sex… i mean, who the hell talks like that? i would expect that sort of stilted conversational style from those wild and crazy czech brothers, but that sort of line in real life would probably just earn you a smack for being so forward.

secondly, by 1987, did ANYONE think that george michael was heterosexual? SERIOUSLY? well, i certainly didn’t; and i have a serious problem with people who masquerade as something they are not. i recognize that coming out has got to be one of the hardest things to do for a GLBT person; much of society has yet to just get over it and live and let live. we still don’t recognize gay marriage in most of these united states, so i get the whole stigma — everyone from your family to your nation has an issue with your sex life.  i don’t even think i can understand this sort of pressure, having never experienced it; but i can only imagine it as being horrifically, horrifically challenging for some. lord knows it leads to suicide for so many. even so — it is one thing to live closeted. it is another thing to try and portray this wildly hetero (and wildly false) image. and that’s what george is trying to do with this song.

in short, that infuriates me.

years later, i have read the stories of his drug use; of his arrests as he cruises around for anonymous sex. i know he’s out now, but i feel sorry for him.  i just don’t think he’ll ever be comfortable just being who he is.

and that saddens me.

egregious '80's music: what about love (heart)

egregious '80's music: what about love (heart)

what about your career?

i heart heart. as a girl in the 1970s, i loved to hear ann and nancy wilson kicking ass musically. they wrote amazing songs, they intrepidly covered zeppelin, and they showed that ladies could rock as hard as any guy out there. they were utter inspiration to me and to millions of girls. when i was 13, i thought you could do a lot worse than be ann wilson.

but times changed. they needed a hit in the ’80s, something slick and refined that would garner airplay and MTV play. and on the video front, record company management supposedly didn’t like the fact that ann fought with her weight — apparently, you need to be skinny and hot to be a major rock star. (go ahead. watch the videos for this or anything else they did in the 1980s. you’ll see plenty of shots of blonde nancy and her svelteness. you’ll get tighter shots of ann from the chest up. it’s unreal.) so ann and nancy made some schlocky records and kept the lens focusing away from ann, a giant slap in the face of a rock queen.

the schlockiest of the schlock, what about love, makes me cry to see how the mighty had fallen.

there are few words to share how much i loathe this song. they sound like they’re shouting the chorus, sort of  like barking dogs. between this song and never, i pretty much shut them out for the rest of the decade, hiding myself in their old records. we can’t go on running away they sang, but i was willing to try to run as fast and as far as i could from their newfangled image until it stopped.

blog action day: like the weather

blog action day: like the weather

every year, i participate in blog action day.  i like to tilt at windmills as much as the next grrl, and they always pick topics about which i tend to care.

this year, the topic: climate change.

as a mom and as a somewhat crunchy being, i tend to worry about polar bears and glaciers and all sorts of seemingly unnatural alterations to our present time-space continuum. i often wonder when the day will come when kansas develops coastal waterfront property. i ponder whether my kids — and, G-d-willing, their kids — will inherit a world that continues to turn and continues to exist as we know it. and, being one whose own health is a somewhat fragile topic, i also do imagine the potential health issues that happen when climates go awry.

greater heatwaves hit people, especially those poor folks who don’t have air conditioning or who choose (insert tongue firmly in cheek as that word is said) to live al fresco.  (well, that’s what my conservative friends tell me. homelessness, apparently, is a life choice. and apparently, climate change is a complete farce. next, they’ll be telling me that i should trust in big business and the free market. but i digress. per usual.) and when it gets very, very hot, all sorts of diseases can become even more of a problem before. for example, mosquitoes would dig climate change, if they had brains bigger than an atom, because it increases their ability to find a date and dinner, which of course can lead to all sorts of happiness for mosquitoes but also a whole world of trouble for us two-legged buffet tables.

and when it’s cold, well, in short, people freeze to death.

i suspect there are potential long-term problems in the offing. agriculture can suffer, which could mean people could go hungry, people might have to move.  while in the midwest recently, i saw a news segment about a farm that had a bumper crop of pumpkins thanks to the hotter, wetter summer. however, every other crop of theirs — tomatoes, etc — went straight to hell thanks to rot. i’m not especially a fan of pumpkin pie, and i don’t want to face a future where i have to eat any sort of squash in order to maintain my existence.

see, one can only eat so much zucchini before one contemplates something drastic.

now some people think that global warming is a crock of shit.  but i find that a lot of the commentary on global warming tends to be from people who cherrypick their data. i will freely admit that as someone who doesn’t study the topic 24/7, i try to comprehend the information that bombards me. but i cannot understand people who shut down the discussion. i have plenty of friends who think the whole idea of global warming is bunk, and they pull my tail at all turns (and they will likely pull it in the comments section as well. go for it, kids.) even if you believe global warming is bunk, can you not fathom the idea that perhaps looking toward some better practices could only improve health on the planet? is it so wrong to try to develop and use new technologies to use fewer amounts of non-renewable natural resources and possibly, just possibly, make the air cleaner and easier to breathe? is it wrong to try and work on agricultural solutions that don’t employ so damn many chemicals, some of which are polluting not only the earth but ourselves, thanks to the toxicity of these antibiotics and other supposedly-safe substances on our systems?

i get very tired of the naysayers who don’t want to explore solutions and who only want to piss on the progress parade.

so all right. who knows whether the ice age is coming. who knows whether we’ll all evaporate into vapor. who knows whether animals as we know it will die out.  we could all be drinking beer with jimi hendrix in heaven tomorrow for all we know. but i believe that  it is our responsibility as people on the planet to encourage anything to help us all live healthier lives, and that includes voting on policies that encourage safer and environmentally-friendly industrial practices. who knows: there may be an economic stimulus in there somewhere that will help us get out of this global financial rut we’re in as well.

it could be a win-win on the health front: our health, and the health of our world.

guilty pleasure monday: millworker (james taylor)

guilty pleasure monday: millworker (james taylor)

perfect for labor day.

when i was about 17 or so, i remember one afternoon, putzing around, watching TV. we had recently gotten cable, so i was happily clicking the giant buttons on the big brown cable box (years and years before a little remote would enter my life.) lo and behold, i landed on PBS, which was showing a musical, working, based on the book by the brilliant author studs terkel. i was transfixed; it was one of those moments where i realized that other people were fascinated by the exploration of the lives of people, whether thrilling or mundane. different composers wrote songs for the musical; james taylor contributed three.

but the song that stopped me in my tracks was millworker. in the song, a woman explores her life as a millworker, noting the path that her life took to bring her to that awful boring job. it’s moving in its simplicity, it’s anger, and its poetry. she knows she’s a cog in a tiny corporate machine; she’s resigned to the fact that this is her apparent destiny.

So may I work your mills just as long as I am able
And never meet the man whose name is on the label

(it’s still)me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
And the rest of the afternoon (and on and on and on…)
for the rest of my life

i think it may be the most beautiful song james taylor has ever written.

on this labor day, i am thinking of my friends who have lost their jobs in the past year or so. i am thinking about the difficulties they face; i am thinking of the courage they have been displaying.  i have known so many of these people while i was that TV-watching teen; it pains me to see them struggling, as i feel like they are family to me.

americans let it happen; it was all about the almighty dollar. first, the trend was to take jobs away from more expensive company people — you had to pay them benefits, you know — and then contract those jobs out to others who required no benefits from the company. then, the trend seemed to take the jobs away from those contractors and move the work overseas, where labor is cheaper. eventually, greed sold a lot of people down the river in this country, and it has imploded on itself.

anyone who inherited the mess of the past nine years was bound to hit an uphill struggle. it’s a pity that the President is making efforts to improve the plight of people, and he is being fought every single step of the way. sure, question authority — but this is a time when things are bad and getting worse. these are times when we all need to pull together as a team. while people are wasting time on non-issues (the President’s birth certificate, the President’s ethnicity, etc.), we lose time and traction on trying to improve things. sure, it isn’t nirvana — but some people don’t have the luxury at present to sit and pontificate over bullshit. they need a home; they need food; they need health care.

and they need jobs.

and i’ll leave you with this particularly fine cover of the song by none other than my beloved bruce who, i believe, really makes the song speak for working people everywhere.

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Cape Town, South Africa