The Stories We Tell

The other night some of us watched a recent Canadian semi-documentary called (I think) THE STORIES WE TELL. It's an attempt to reconstruct the life of a dead mother, her marriages, etc. It starts off slowly, but then it gets engaged in the fact that the various family members knew her in different ways--and then in vastly different ways--and who has the right perspective on her and so on.   An unusually complex film and the best I've seen in some time. 


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Andy Lopez has become a story we tell. Yesterday I went to a demonstration at the courthouse. A 13-year-old named Andy Lopez, carrying a toy gun that resembled an assault rifle, was walking through his neighborhood. A deputy sheriff approached him from behind and yelled at him to drop the gun. When the child turned around to see what was happening, the deputy shot him seven times in eight tries, killing him. The demonstration cried out for justice, but what would that be?

The FBI

The FBI has decided to look into what happened this week when a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy mistook young Andy Lopez's BB gun for an assault rifle and shot Andy seven times, more often than he really needed.

I have been wondering what the officer thought after shooting the 13-year-old the first three times. He went on to fire four more rounds into the perp's body. Maybe he figured: (1) In for a penny, in for a pound. (2) Department regulations say always shoot a child seven times--they make small targets.  (3) Hey, I'll have to clean my piece in any case.  (4) You can't have too much lead in the air. (5) Keep shooting, you need the practice. Or (6) Gee, I might be unsuited for police work.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 Now when I read THE ROAD NOT TAKEN,  I laugh.

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I have always wondered what the heck "The Road Not Taken" was about. I understood, of course, that our American convention is that it is a poem about a person who walks a yellow road, comes to a fork, takes the less traveled fork (the unconventional fork), and in old age celebrates the difference this choice made. Unfortunately that is not what the poem says, according to Sarah Goss.
 
This is what the poem actually says. Some dude was walking along a yellow road, which forked. Both roads were "grassy and wanted wear." Other walkers "had worn them really about the same." Both roads "that morning equally lay/ In leaves no step had trodden black."  In other words, according to the narrator, there was no discernible difference between the two roads. Neither road had been traveled recently. (There was no unconventional road.)

Then Frost concluded the poem by saying that when he is much older, older than the Higgs boson, he will sigh theatrically and claim that the road he took "made all the difference." That is a nice turn.  He doesn't say if it was a good or bad difference, because that doesn't matter. And who knows, anyway?  (When you get really old, you can invent the past you want and make it comic or tragic.)

Sarah scoured the 'net and soon learned that she was the not the first to read the poem closely.


1. The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   
And sorry I could not travel both   
And be one traveler, long I stood   
And looked down one as far as I could   
To where it bent in the undergrowth;           

Then took the other, as just as fair,   
And having perhaps the better claim,   
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   
Though as for that the passing there   
Had worn them really about the same,           

And both that morning equally lay   
In leaves no step had trodden black.   
Oh, I kept the first for another day!   
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,   
I doubted if I should ever come back.           

I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:   
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.

Why the Web Site Stumbled

 The basic problem faced by the Affordable Care Act Web site has been that new federal software, produced by the lowest bidder, is usually third rate and in need of fixing. According a column by Clay Johnson and Harper Reed in the NY Times, 94% of "large federal information technology projects over the past 10 years were unsuccessful." Then most of them got fixed.

Also from the Times: "In 2011, the British government formed a new unit of its Cabinet Office called the Government Digital Service. It’s a team of internal technologists whose job it is to either build the right technology, or find the right vendors for every need across the government. It gives the government a technical brain. It has saved the country millions, and improved the way the government delivers services online."

Real Men Don't Vote

Someone on TV recently observed that voting makes you gay. Instead of voting, go hunting or drink beer with bar flies. Wake up late and down a few shots to steady your hand. But don't vote--voting is for the ladies.

Xenophobes

 Below is part of an essay by Sean McElwee.

 "The Tea Party has all of the hallmarks of a nationalist xenophobic (dare I say Fascist) movement:  89% white, 58% keep a gun in their house, a faction believe that violence  against the government is justified, most believe America is a country in decline, they are anti-immigrant, authoritarian, opposed to social progress, anti-gay and anti-abortion. overwhelmingly support the death penalty, really dislike Muslims, very much dislike immigrants (to the point of militarizing the border) and they’re really, really racist. Obviously, the Tea Party is not a single cohesive group, but it’s clear that the anti-immigrant wing holds major influence in the coalition of crazy. Sinclair Lewis summed up the situation a century ago, 'When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.'"

Sean is wrong about the teabaggers being Fascists (Fascists worshiped the State). But the baggers are weirdly nationalist--as if the nation consists only of white males--and obviously xenophobic. They represent a political mental illness that has always been with us in one form or another. 

Idiotic

The Republican position on the Affordable Care Act is (1) it is the worst thing that has ever happened in the United States and (2) It's just terrible how long it takes people to sign up for it.

A Satisfied Mind via Ian and Sylvia

How many times have you heard someone say,
"If I had his money I'd do things my way,"
but little they know that it's so hard to find
one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.

Once I was winning in fortune and fame, 
had all that I needed to make a start in life's game.
Then suddenly it happened, I lost every dime,
but I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind.

For money won't buy you youth when you're old
or a friend when you're lonely or a heart that's grown cold.
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
compared to man with a satisfied mind.

When my life is ended and my time's run out,
my friends and loved ones, I'll leave them, no doubt,
but one thing's for certain. When it comes my time
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.

Passing Means Testing 43 Times

According to Kaiser, as reported by ABC, at least three federal agencies were already set to check all ACA applications, including the IRS, which has begun to verify the applicants' incomes. Of course. Of course. I have no idea why means testing was added to means testing in the stuff that congress passed yesterday. Maybe it was repetition or maybe a refinement. The point is that the Republican "win" on means testing, which everyone supports, seems a lot like passing 43 bills defunding the ACA. It's awesome. . . .

The Lindberghs

People keep asking me how many families the famous flyer Charles Lindbergh had, as if I would know. He was married to Anne Lindbergh, historians tell us, and they had six children, if memory serves. Along with that family, he had three German families, in which he fathered seven additional children, as established by DNA tests. Two of the women involved were sisters. That brings the total to 13,  but what about the many delightful if short encounters he had with women on darker continents? Lindbergh flew from place to place. He was a great joker who used false names, so he might have had another 10 or 12 children we haven't heard from. The important thing is that Lindbergh was a great hero, much like John Wayne. Anne Lindbergh wrote books and had an affair with her doctor, but the two had no issue.

Remaining Dead

According to the AP, Donald Miller went to court this week to ask a judge in Ohio to declare him alive. He had been declared dead after deserting his wife and children and vanishing for many years. "You're still deceased according to the law," the judge told him. And then things got odd. While the judge was following the statutes in Ohio, he was also doing the right thing. Miller's wife and children had lived on Social Security benefits during his death. If Miller is declared alive, his wife will have to pay back those benefits. (I think this is what my mother called "a good death.")

Wall Street Takes Command

I've been waiting for the tea party to crumble for some time now. In my lifetime, the Republican Party has always belonged--ultimately-- to the 1% of America that is unimaginably rich and greedy. Let's call them Wall Street, although of course it is not that simple. Wall Street decided which Presidential candidate the party would back: Dewey, Eisenhower, etc. Goldwater was the exception. The genuine Republicans might be small town bankers and Episcopalian grocery store managers, but their choices for President (with names like Bricker and Taft) seldom won the nomination. That is why I have not believed that the Republicans would refuse to raise the debt limit. Wall Street would not like that. But I was beginning to get nervous.

Today the billionaire Koch Brothers, primary financial backers of the tea party degenerates and neo-confederates, gave up on enforcing the debt limit, which they were supporting yesterday. I think there were two factors involved. (1) Although rich beyond measure, the Koch Brothers could not afford to alienate Wall Street, whose terrible swift sword they had reason to fear. (2) Enforcing the debt limit would crash the economy and reduce the holdings of Koch boys. Although they sponsor the John Birch Society (which means they are nuts), they now had to decide between ideology and greed. In that situation, greed usually wins. It might take a few more days, but Wall Street has taken command. And, yes, the President saw this coming months ago. 

An American Story

My Cousin Mary was visiting on Saturday. Our county sponsors a yearly bike ride called the Gran Fondo that draws nearly 8,000 people from all over the world; and we hold our annual family reunion around that event. Most of us ride bikes. At dinner Cousin Mary, who lives somewhat rustically on the edge of a national forest in Orange County, retold the turkey story. This is, unfortunately, a true story. Her husband, a retired fire fighter, is a nice guy, very handy with tools, and one of a kind.  He sometimes feeds the abundant wild life and so on, but some years back he decided to raise turkeys for food. A few weeks later he was carrying a young turkey around and accidentally dropped it, breaking its leg. After some thought, he decided that the leg was not going to mend, so he cut it off and  replaced it with a wooden leg he made from Popsicle sticks. As you might suspect, this story does not end well. The next morning the turkey was found drowned in an inch of water.  Mary claims it was suicide.

Great Books

I have never believed that reading ANNA KARENINA would make you a better person. I've known too many asshats who've read great literature. My friend Marlene took the opposite view, and at last she has been proved right. In an article in SCIENCE  researchers conducted a series of experiments (having subjects read a short piece of literature, pop fiction or non-fiction and then take a test designed to measure empathy and understanding of others). Those lucky enough to read the lit scored markedly higher in the good things. And there you go. Those like me who read popular fiction did not score well. . . . 

Let The Negotiations Begin!

You have probably noticed that Republican drones on TV have been calling for President Obama to show leadership. By that they mean that he should open negotiations with the neo-Confederate congressional terrorists. He should give them something, anything, so their countless attempts to scare us won't look foolish. The Democrats, on the other hand, see firm leadership in the fact that President has taken a no-negotiation stance on Obamacare. Can these opposing positions find a compromise in which both sides agree that the President is a leader? According to a local Letter-To-The-Editor writer, the answer is yes.

The Republicans have a demand they want to discuss. The problem is that the Democrats have put no demands on the table. If we hold a negotiating session, the Republicans can demand, as they currently do, that the Affordable Care Act be postponed for one year. The Democrats can demand that the Glass-Steagall Act be reinstituted, that private funding for political campaigns be banned, that gun owners be registered, that oil and coal companies be taxed to fund green energy, that we return to the tax rates we had under Eisenhower and that the force of gravity be weakened by 9% over the next two years.

I say, let the negotiations begin. 

The Lilly-White Districts.

Today's Republican party has become neo-Confederate, Christian fundamentalist, and John Bircher, financed by a Birch founding family, the Kochs. And another large faction owes its heart to Wall Street. In an effort to keep power, Republicans have successfully Gerrymandered a majority of the congressional districts in America, rinsing all the color from them. In short, the Republicans represent lily-white districts. Meanwhile the country is becoming multi-ethnic and multi-racial. In California white voters no longer constitute an absolute majority. Soon that will be true for the nation as a whole. You can see the problem. Republican congress members live in white bubbles that are out of touch with the cities developing around them.

Classic Koch, Pronounced like Coke

If you are like me, you may have wondered where the Koch brothers dedication to sociopathic nuttery came from. Tim Porges had the answer. You can find it by checking out the John Birch Society. Fred Koch, the family patriarch, was, according to Forbes Magazine, a "founding member (1958)." Fred financed the Birchers, and his sons have financed the Birchers-Grown-Huge, aka the teabaggers. 

What was once the radical right 
Is now the Kochs' delight.