In The Great Walled Country

In the Great Walled Country

Away at the northern end of the world, farther than men have ever gone with their ships or their sleds, and where most people suppose that there is nothing but ice and snow, is a land full of children, called The Great Walled Country.  This name is given because all around the country is a great wall, hundreds of feet thick and hundreds of feet high.  It is made of ice and never melts, winter or summer; and of course it is for this reason that more people have not discovered the place.

 

               The land, as I said, is filled with children, for nobody who lives there ever grows up.  The king and the queen, the princes and the courtiers, may be as old as you please, but they are children for all that.  They play a great deal of the time with dolls and tin soldiers, and every night at seven o’clock have a bowl of bread and milk and go to bed.  But they make excellent rulers, and the other children are well pleased with the government.

               There are all sorts of curious things about the way they live in The Great Walled Country, but this story is only of their Christmas season.  One can imagine what a fine thing their Christmas must be, so near the North Pole, with ice and snow everywhere, but this is not all.  Grandfather Christmas lives just on the north side of the country, so that his house leans against the great wall and would tip over if it were not for its support.  Grandfather Christmas is his name in The Great Walled Country; no doubt we should call him Santa Claus here.  At any rate, he is the same person, and, best of all the children in the world, he loves the children behind the great wall of ice.

               One very pleasant thing about having Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor is that in The Great Walled Country they never have to buy their Christmas presents.  Every year, on the day before Christmas, before he makes up his bundles for the rest of the world, Grandfather Christmas goes into a great forest of Christmas trees, that grows just back of the palace of the king of The Great Walled Country, and fills the trees with candy and books and toys and all sorts of good things.  So when night comes, all the children wrap up snugly, while the children in all other lands are waiting in their beds, and go to the forest to gather gifts for their friends.  Each one goes by himself, so that none of his friends can see what he has gathered; and no one ever thinks of such a thing as taking a present for himself.  The forest is so big that there is room for every one to wander about without meeting the people from whom he has secrets, and there are always enough nice things to go around.

               So Christmas time is a great holiday in that land.  They have been celebrating it in this way for hundreds of years, and since Grandfather Christmas does not seem to grow old any faster than the children, they will probably do so for hundreds of years to come.

               But there was once a time, so many years ago that they would have forgotten all about it if the story were not written in their Big Book and read to them every year, when the children in The Great Walled Country had a very strange Christmas.  There came a visitor to the land.  He was an old man, and was the first stranger for very many years that had succeeded in getting over the wall.  He looked so wise, and was so much interested in what he saw and heard, that the king invited him to the palace, and he was treated with every possible honor.

               When this old man had inquired about their Christmas celebration, and was told how they carried it on every year, he listened gravely, and then, looking wiser than ever, he said to the king:

               “That is all very well, but I should think that children who have Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor could find a better and easier way.  You tell me that you all go out on Christmas Eve to gather presents to give to one another the next morning.  Why take so much trouble, and act in such a round-about way?  Why not go out together, and every one get his own presents?  That would save the trouble of dividing them again, and every one would be better satisfied, for he could pick out just what he wanted for himself.  No one can tell what you want as well as you can.”

               This seemed to the king a very wise saying, and he called all his courtiers and counselors about him to hear it.  The wise stranger talked further about his plan, and when he had finished they all agreed that they had been very foolish never to have thought of this simple way of getting their Christmas gifts.

               “If we do this,” they said, “no one can ever complain of what he has, or wish that some one had taken more pains to find what he wanted.  We will make a proclamation, and always after this follow the new plan.”

               So the proclamation was made, and the plan seemed as wise to the children of the country as it had to the king and the counselors.  Every one had at some time been a little disappointed with his Christmas gifts; now there would be no danger of this.

               On Christmas Eve they always had a meeting at the palace, and sang carols until the time for going in the forest.  When the clock struck ten every one said, “I wish you a Merry Christmas!” to the person nearest him, and then they separated to go their ways into the forest.  On this particular night it seemed to the king that the music was not quite so merry as usual, and that when the children spoke to one another their eyes did not shine as gladly as he had noticed them in other years; but there could be no good reason for this, since every one was expecting a better time than usual.  So he thought no more of it.

               There was only one person at the palace that night who was not pleased with the new proclamation about the Christmas gifts.  This was a little boy named Inge, who lived not far from the palace with his sister.  Now his sister was a cripple, and had to sit all day looking out of the window from her chair; and Inge took care of her, and tried to make her life happy from morning till night.  He had always gone to the forest on Christmas Eve and returned with his arms and pockets loaded with pretty things for his sister, which would keep her amused all the coming year.  And although she was not able to go after presents for her brother, he did not mind that at all, especially as he had other friends who never forgot to divide their good things with him.

               But now, said Inge to himself, what would his sister do?  For the king had ordered that no one should gather any presents except for himself, or any more than he could carry away at once.  All of Inge’s friends were busy planning what they would pick for themselves, but the poor crippled child could not go a step toward the forest.  After thinking about it a long time, Inge decided that it would not be wrong if, instead of taking gifts for himself, he took them altogether for his sister.  This he would be very glad to do; for what did a boy who could run about and play in the snow care for presents, compared with a little girl who could only sit still and watch others having a good time?  Inge did not ask the advice of any one, for he was a little afraid others would tell him he must not do it; but he silently made up his mind not to obey the proclamation.

               And now the chimes had struck ten, and the children were making their way toward the forest, in starlight that was so bright that it almost showed their shadows on the sparkling snow.  As soon as they came to the edge of the forest, they separated, each one going by himself in the old way, though now there was really no reason why they should have secrets from one another.

               Ten minutes later, if you had been in the forest, you might have seen the children standing in dismay with tears on their faces, and exclaiming that there had never been such a Christmas Eve before.  For as they looked eagerly about them to the low-bending branches of the evergreen trees, they saw nothing hanging from them that could not be seen every day in the year.  High and low they searched, wandering farther into the forest than ever before, lest Grandfather Christmas might have chosen a new place this year for hanging his presents; but still no presents appeared.  The king called his counselors about him, and asked them if they knew whether anything of this kind had happened before, but they could tell him nothing.  So no one could guess whether Grandfather Christmas had forgotten them, or whether some dreadful accident had kept him away.

               As the children were trooping out of the forest, after hours of weary searching some of them came upon little Inge, who carried over his shoulder a bag that seemed to be full to overflowing.  When he saw them looking at him, he cried: “Are they not beautiful things?  I think Grandfather Christmas was never so good to us before!”

               “Why what do you mean” cried the children.  “There are no presents in the forest.” 

               “No presents!” said Inge.  “I have my bag full of them.”  But he did not offer to show them, because he did not want the children to see that they were all for his little sister instead of for himself.

               Then the children begged him to tell them in what part of the forest he had found his presents, and he turned back and pointed them to the place where he had been.  “I left many more behind that I brought away,” he said.  “There they are!  I can see some of the things shining on the trees even from here.”

               But when the children followed his foot prints in the snow to the place where he had been, they still saw nothing on the trees, and thought that Inge must be walking in his sleep, and dreaming that he had found presents.  Perhaps he had filled his bag with the cones from the evergreen trees.

               On Christmas Day there was sadness all through The Great Walled Country.  But those who came to the house of Inge and his sister saw plenty of books and dolls and beautiful toys piled up about the little cripple’s chair;  and when they asked where these things came from, they were told, “Why, from the Christmas-tree forest.”  And they shook their heads, not knowing what it could mean.

               The king held a council in the palace, and appointed a committee of his most faithful courtiers to visit Grandfather Christmas, and see if they could find what was the matter.  In a day or two more the committee set out on their journey.  They had very hard work to climb the great wall of ice that lay between their country and the place where Grandfather Christmas lived, but at last they reached the top.  And when they came to the other side of the wall, they were looking down into the top of his chimney.  It was not hard to go down this chimney into the house, and when they reached the bottom of it, they found themselves in the very room where Grandfather Christmas lay sound asleep.

               It was hard enough to waken him, for he always slept one hundred days after his Christmas work was over, and it was only by turning the hands of the clock around two hundred times that the committee could do anything.  When the clock had struck twelve times two hundred hours, Grandfather Christmas thought it was time for his nap to be over, and he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

               “Oh, sir!” cried the prince who was in charge of the committee. “we have come from the king of The Great Walled Country, who has sent us to ask why you forgot us this Christmas, and left no presents in the forest.”

               “No presents!” said Grandfather Christmas.  “I never forget anything.  The presents were there.  You did not see them, that’s all.”

               But the children told him that they had searched long and carefully, and in the whole forest there had not been found a thing that could be called a Christmas gift.

               “Indeed!” said Grandfather Christmas.  “And did little Inge, the boy with the crippled sister, find none?”

               Then the committee was silent, for they had heard of the gifts at Inge’s house, and did not know what to say about them.

               “You had better go home,” said Grandfather Christmas, who now began to realize that he had been awakened too soon, “and let me finish my nap.  The presents were there, but they were never intended for children who were looking only for themselves.  I am not surprised that you could not see them.  Remember that not everything that wise travelers tell you is wise.”  And he turned over and went to sleep again.

               The committee returned silently to The Great Walled Country, and told the king what they had heard.  The king did not tell all the children of the land what Grandfather Christmas had said, but, when the next December came, he made another proclamation, bidding every one to seek gifts for others, in the old way, in the Christmas-tree forest.  So that is what they have been doing ever since; and in order that they many not forget what happened, in case any one should ever ask for another change, they have read to them every year from their Big Book the story of the time when they had no Christmas gifts.

 

Raymond MacDonald Alden

From the book, Why the Chimes Rang

Bobbs-Merrill Company, Publishers, Indianapolis

Copywrited 1906, 1908, 1924

Torture? What Torture?

When I was much younger in the early 1940’s, I was attending a small Methodist church in the north east corner of the San Fernando Valley.  The teacher was giving us a talk about sin.  Now this is a subject I never spend much time on, but the visual I got in my brain from what he said is still with me today.  He said that crossing the “line” over into sin was like a bird that was talked into plucking out a feather.  The bird was convinced that it wouldn’t make much difference, it was easy, and so it was.  Well, the bird kept on plucking out feathers (indulging in sinful activity, so to speak), and over time the bird had no feathers at all, and there it was, naked before God and all the other birds, and all could see what a sad repulsive creature it was without all of those moral feathers.  So, don’t cross that line!!”  Obviously, that really made an impression on me if I can still “see” that poor naked bird!

The actual lesson, I believe, was that what may seem like no big deal at first, and could have a whole lot of really good reasons for doing it, can harden one’s moral sense to a certain extent.  That little simple hardening makes doing a little more of what one really shouldn’t a tad easier, and on, and on, until something happens that all of a sudden shines a light on what one has been doing, and there you are, naked without your moral feathers.

I hadn’t thought of that Sunday school talk in years, but with the torture report that was released this past week, it popped back up, along with some other memories.  Over time as various countries have actually become fascist countries, the manner in which they did so followed a rather distinct pattern.  First, a group needs to be identified as causing all of the country’s problems.  Then somehow the group needs to be singled out.  In Germany that took the form of requiring Jews, for example, to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing.  After that, all sorts of lies need to be said and written about how awful the group is, and what the group has done to merit the disdain.  It then becomes the group’s fault that it is being singled out.  After that, it is easy to begin to mistreat the group, because if they weren’t such awful people they wouldn’t need to be treated so badly.  In fact, they are so awful, they are not even fully human, and thus one needn’t feel compassion for them.  And if abusing, torturing, or otherwise physically abusing them gains the group in power something tangible, that is OK because it is the singled out group’s own fault they are so awful.  In Germany, the group singled out originally were the Jews, but soon was expanded to people with disabilities, homosexuals, non-Aryans, or people who disagreed with what the power structure was doing or saying.  Here in the United States we didn’t need to single out a group since our singled out group already had skin of another color than the power elite. 

Now it is Muslims.  Although only 19 were actually involved, ‘they’ attacked the World Trade Center, and thus all are complicit in that outrage.  It was OK that we, with a really horrific 21^st Century war machine, attacked Afghanistan which really had nothing to do with the attack, and further, had a war machine right out of the 19^th Century.  All sorts of lies were told about the Afghanis, and later the Iraqis.  They were described as indulging in all sorts of terrible actions, and thus deserved what they got.  Lost in the rhetoric was the fact that it was actually 19 people from Saudi Arabia, and, relative to Iraq, there was no terrorist group active in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.  He wouldn’t tolerate them. 

Because these people whose countrymen had done such awful things, and are thus less than human, it is OK to physically abuse them to get information out of them about future attacks, or whatever information the power elite thought they had.  What was being ignored completely was the absolutely immoral, unethical and evil act that torture is.  So, how to solve that problem?  Change the name.  It obviously is not torture if we do it, so call it Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, or EITs.  Not a problem.  Now, who is next that is causing our country problems?  People who have not accepted Jesus as their personal savior? Liberal college professors?  People who write pesky blogs?  It wasn’t so bad torturing those others now was it?  Let’s see who else is causing us problems.

From an Editorial, ncronline.org, 12/12/14, “The use of torture by U. S. Government personnel is an indelible stain upon the nation’s conscience.  It will not wash off.  The release of the report is a first step in truth-telling, but reconciliation requires more.  It requires justice.  None of us should be naïve about the threat terrorists pose.  But all of us should have the moral intelligence to recognize that our strongest weapons in the fight against religious extremism and terrorist violence are our ideals.”

We have crossed over the line, and have begun plucking our national feathers.  If we don’t stop plucking feathers now, in the not too distant future, our country over time will be the country that has no feathers at all, and there it is, naked before God and all the other countries, and all can see what a sad repulsive creature it is, naked without its moral feathers. 

 

Racism and the Police

Once again there were so many issues to write about this week, it was hard to choose just one.  ISIL? I don’t know enough to write about that.  Benghazi?  Give me a break, literally and figuratively!  Mary Landrieu’s loss in Louisiana?  Why vote for Republican Lite when you can have the real thing?  Besides, she just came off as a hypocritical politician.  However, racism and some police I am very acquainted with.  I can’t imagine anyone who reads this blog doesn’t know my youngest daughter has just resigned this year from active law enforcement.  I also have a grand-niece who is an officer in another state.

Before I get into the police bit, it would be helpful, perhaps, to describe my own background with racism.  In the 1930’s my mother would load me and my violin into our old car, and she would drive me into downtown Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley to my violin lessons.  If I had practiced enough and had a good lesson, she would drive us back, along Sepulveda Pass, I think, past three or four shacks besides the road.  Black families lived in the shacks, although we didn’t call them that then, and often the tiny children would be out in front playing.  I loved seeing them because they fascinated me with their black skin.  One time I told my mother something to the effect that they were so cute.  To which she responded with some disdain, “But they grow up!”  My father was also very prejudiced.  But other than the comment that the black children grew up, my parents never talked about their prejudices much.  I think they thought it was genetic – sort of was in the bones or something, so my brother and I pretty much grew up without being taught, “to hate, by the time we were six or seven or eight”.  There were, however, no black or brown people in any of the movies we went to unless they were servants or natives, and were killed.  Except Tonto, of course, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick.  I used to worry that he would get killed.  I didn’t realize until I was an adult that what we were being vicariously taught was that black or brown lives didn’t matter.  It was OK that they got killed – just not the white hero.

When I was a Social Worker in Santa Clara County in the late 1940’s, I had an incident wherein the police ignored the fact that one of my clients, an Hispanic woman, was a victim of domestic violence.  Even when she showed them her stab wounds, they just ignored her.  Why bother?

I have listed these three issues above to indicate that I am not oblivious, nor naïve, when it comes to racism and policing.  There are some really rotten apples in law enforcement, and out in the general public.  My mantra when I was in office and we had an incident wherein some Sheriff deputies were accused of police brutality, was to investigate the matter fully, let the media know that the investigation was proceeding and how, and, difficult as it was, wait for the process to go forward.  If the deputies were found to be innocent, hallelujah.  If not, throw the book at them.  They were, hallelujah,  found innocent.

But according to the media, and many other people, my daughter and grand-niece are, by definition, racist because they wear a uniform, and have an attitude.  Of course, some officers are racist, and some have an attitude.  But for the attitude, even before I was elected, both here in good old SLO county, but even before in Fresno, I always found the police to be my friends, and very cooperative.   I realize that I am very obviously a white woman.  I don’t know if I would have received the same cooperation if I were not.  I have been spoken to rather firmly when, oblivious to my surroundings, I inadvertently walked near a police action.  But that was for my safety, and when I recognized what was going on, I really appreciated it.

When my daughter was still active in law enforcement, she was the “go-to” person for the homeless mentally ill who wandered the streets of downtown SLO.  One day, she had been tracking one of the most unstable of them across town, and had finally gotten him to stop and talk to her.  During the conversation, a citizen, thinking this was a police brutality situation, got himself in between the two.  Since the mentally ill man was very unstable, this citizen could have gotten himself really injured.  And, there was a police officer, doing her best to deal with a potentially violent situation, having to deal with someone who thought she had an “attitude”.  She managed to get rid of the citizen, then talk the ill individual to go to the Psychiatric Facility for treatment.  She was livid that the citizen interfered just because he saw an officer talking to someone, and assumed the worst.

There is in this country a streak of racism that those of us who are somewhat older, were taught by just living.  It will take time, education, patience and some good governance on everyone’s part to undo the damage done covertly and overtly in a society that believed, and still believes in many places, that it should be run by white males only.  Let’s not forget the slogan, “Take back our country”.  For that we got voter suppression laws encouraged by a ragtag majority of conservative white men on the Supreme Court. 

Don’t get me started on sexism!!!

 

Rambling With a Point

Below are some thoughts that may seem unrelated, but I will try to tie them together in a coherent manner later on.

When we first moved back home again in 1979, after a few years I became sort of bored.  Our daughters had all “flown the nest”, so life for me was pretty dull.  I read the usual yearly request for citizens who might be interested to apply for the County Grand Jury, so I applied, and was accepted.  During the year we were given a potential criminal case to review.  The issue was a shooting in Reservoir Canyon, north of the City of San Luis Obispo where three homeless men were camping.  Three or four young men from SLO went up the Canyon one night and began firing their weapons near the homeless camp.  One bullet ricocheted off a rock and struck one of the homeless men in the head, and he died.  We were given the case to determine whether it was Murder One, Two, or Voluntary or Involuntary Manslaughter.  We were given a whoop-de-do lecture about how this was a secret procedure, we were not to discuss it with anyone including our spouses (yeah, like that wouldn’t happen), and we were sworn to secrecy even that we had been given the case.  I drove home a little later than usual that night, walking in our house to the KSBY 6:00 PM News and a picture of the room to the Grand Jury on the screen, and the news that the Reservoir Canyon shooting had been given to the Grand Jury!!  After much testimony, but not being allowed to visit the site where the shooting occurred, we came to the decision of Murder Two.  What shocked me was the shock on the face of everyone from the judge on down.  They had not expected that decision, and actually we had to wait while the powers that be had to have new papers drawn up with a new verdict.  We were never told what verdict they thought we had come up with!!  Later, my law enforcement daughter and I visited the site, and we could see why we weren’t allowed.  It was obvious that the decision we had come to was closer to a correct one than what someone in the government center wanted.

One of the things that really intrigue me, as a former elected official who was actually a pretty lousy politician, is how people will comment in my hearing how all politicians are corrupt.  It actually happens more frequently than one imagines.  It never seems to occur to the speaker that he or she has just called me, by definition a politician, corrupt.  I used to take these comments personally, but overtime I have come to realize that it says more about the speaker than it does me.  I also recognize that a whole lot of politicians are corrupt, but that it is no more just to paint all elected officials with the same brush than any other group.

On another matter, while I was in office I carpooled with my Legislative Assistant, Richard Macedo, because he lived in Cambria and it seemed pretty stupid to me to drive almost right past his front door and not car pool.  For us it worked out well because we could spend the 45 minutes or so it took to drive from his front door to the Government Center gearing up for the day, and on the way home, discussing what went right, and what we could have done better.  It also gave me the opportunity to explain to him why I had made, or would be making, policy decisions that he either didn’t understand completely or actually disagreed with.  When not discussing those things, however, Richard would frequently go over what he had learned in a safe driving course (or courses) he had taken in his past.  Even though at the time I would become a tad exasperated, which I never let on to him because he was driving, his words stuck in my brain, and recently when my husband and I were not injured in an accident on Highway One, Richards’s words echoing in my brain caused me to make decisions that very likely saved our lives.

All of this ties into what has occurred in Ferguson, MO, and its aftermath.  I know from my experience that not all District Attorneys are people of integrity, but that most of them are.  I know from my experience that some politicians are corrupt, but that most of them are not.  And I really know because of my family and friends in law enforcement that not all people in law enforcement are “racist jack-booted thugs”, as my daughter the ex-law enforcement officer was called after an incident in San Francisco where she was a police officer.  The San Francisco Chronicle had her name and that of 7 other officers involved in the incident all over the front pages, but when the officers, including my daughter were cleared of any wrong-doing, there was a tiny 3 inch article on a back page announcing that.  I also know some officers are “racist jack-booted thugs”.  I know from experience that a well-run department which requires qualified personnel results in well-trained officers and have a lot fewer complaints and down-right trouble than a sloppy department, and that the “thugs” are not tolerated.  Look at the professionalism of a department when making a determination about the conduct of an officer.

The point of all of this rambling is stop blaming every police officer you see for what some rogue officer from a lousy department someplace else did.  What the Federal Attorney General wants to do is the correct course.  Investigate what law enforcement does that is correct, and if a department is not complying, straighten them out.  Further, make available to all officers body cameras and audio recording devices, if necessary.  I know from experience that patrol car cameras have been very effective in providing accurate records of what actually occurred between the officer and public, and in some instances have cleared the officers.  There is data indicating that body cameras are a very good addition to the gear the officers carries.

We also need to make sure that cities and counties across this nation have the tax dollars to train, train, and train again officers in what to do in the few seconds in which a violent incident can occur.  There is no time to think, only respond with what is in your brain in those split second decisions.  To cut funding to law enforcement for training at the local level is beyond stupid, in my opinion. 

Because of my experience with people making blanket statements about politicians, I know a shadow of what people in law enforcement must feel.  I must add, however, that I have never had PTSD problems from my years in politics, nor have I ever had nightmares from what I have personally experienced, as so many people in law enforcement have had.  My plea is, please recognize that the officer on the street, by and large, does have your best interests at heart, and vote for elected officials who recognize the importance of enough funding for their training.  I, for one, salute them.

 

 

 

 

An Other Irrelevant Matter

While everyone else is getting ready for Thanksgiving, I smile because we have already had ours!  It turned out that so many of our family could not be here for the real Thanksgiving, but could be here over Veterans Day weekend, we had Thanksgiving then.  One snag was finding a turkey, but one was found in Atascadero, although several pounds larger than I had suggested.  We started the day figuring on having 8 people, but ended up with 12.  Which, of course, turned out OK since the turkey was several pounds larger than expected.  We have one great grand-daughter who loves, yes, loves, to peel potatoes!!  She is five years old, and put her on a stool, wrap an apron around her little self, give her peeler, and she is non-stop on a five pound bag.  What a gem of a kid our Alyssa is.  Since we are still a tad water short, I had all paper stuff so one of the younger ones just walked around the table with a garbage bag, and voila, the dishes were done, almost.

But the most exciting thing that has happened in the past week was my driver’s license renewal.  Bill had not made an appointment earlier this year, and had to watch people walk in who had appointments, and walk out while he sat there for an hour.  So, he convinced me to make an appointment.  Which was a snap on the internet.  Once I found out how to locate the DMV, that is.  I found a time that was convenient for me and sent off the form.  I received a nice printable confirmation back, which I did print and put with my renewal notice.  About two days before the dreaded day, I also received a robo call from the DMV reminding me of the appointment, and asking if I wanted to cancel please press some key.  If I wanted to keep the appointment, I was to just hang up, which I did.  That was easy.

For a couple of weeks ahead of time I had been scanning the on-line drivers handbook, and had been taking the sample on-line written tests, which was really helpful, it turned out.  Had I taken the time to read the renewal notice carefully, I would have noted that I only needed to take the written test, not the driving one.  I always dread that one because I have never learned to parallel park.  This always concerns the DMV drive-along person for some reason.  Once one of them got really upset and asked what in the world I did if I needed to park.  Whereupon I told him I drove around until I found a parking place I could use, then got out of my vehicle and walked to where I wanted to go.  I reminded him about walking – that it involved putting one foot in front of the other in the desired direction.  He didn’t get the humor.

When I got to the DMV location in Paso Robles and opened the door, there was a red carpet leading to the window that was for people with appointments.  How nice!  The lady there took my printed confirmation form and renewal notice, put it together with another form and sent me off to Window 5.  Another lady took my check, printed off some other forms, put them together along with the dreaded written test, and sent me off to the tables behind Window 8 up against the wall.  So there I was, looking at the first question, and I didn’t have a clue as to what answer of the three they wanted!  Not an auspicious beginning, to say the least.  So, I finally calmed down, thought about what I do all of the time, and checked that answer box.  Most of the questions were pretty straight forward, like crossing over a yellow double line or parking when the curb is painted red.

Then I came to one that really stopped me.  The questions was if you see a driver texting while driving would you: 1, leave as much room as possible between you and that driver, 2, alert the police, or 3, signal the other driver to stop texting.  That last one was a no-brainer since if the driver was texting, the driver wouldn’t see you signaling, and to signal, you had to stop watching the road ahead of you.  Definitely not that answer.  In my mind, considering where I live, the first answer was the only reasonable one – keep as much distance between yourself and the texting driver as possible.  But then I thought that probably this test was written by someone who lives in the city (Sacramento), has blue tooth in the car with a voice activated smart phone which would make it simple to alert the police.  But, hey, when you live where I do, with cell phone usage iffy at best, and generally sheriff response some 20 minutes away minimum (not their fault since they have to cover a very large geographical area), this is not the optimum answer.  Since there was no way anyone could know these little nuances to the test, I answered to alert the police.  There were other answers that I just guessed at.

With trepidation I took the test back to Window 8 where a gentleman took the test, then told me I had gotten 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I guess all of that looking at the handbook and taking those sample tests had really helped.  And thank all of the saints in heaven that I didn’t have to explain that I have never learned to parallel park, and have never found it to be a problem.  I just walk.

 

 

Words, Words, Words.

Yes, I know.  I have an obsession with the appropriate definition of words and phrases.  Words, after all, are the very foundation of any interaction between two people or among millions of people and their governments.   

When I first became involved in politics in SLO County, phrases such as, “We support agriculture” bothered me a lot.  Either the speakers were Herculean in their physical abilities in order to “support” all of agriculture on their shoulders, or it was an incomplete sentence.  They supported agriculture to do what?  Stay in the business of providing food and fiber for the general population, or for the owners of the agricultural land to sell their properties into ever smaller economically non-viable parcels, or to sell the whole parcel to real estate developers.  These last options were based on the proviso that the land owner had certain inalienable property rights.  Which they do have to a certain extent, but the citizenry as a whole also has the right not to have their properties, or lives, impacted in such an adverse manner that they could no longer live on their properties in a safe and healthful manner.  Thus, government has the right under the police powers of the state to restrict the use of land for the general good.  That is, a land owner cannot begin operations of some noxious business next to an elementary school, nor can an elementary school be permitted next to a noxious business.  Noxious in the sense of contaminating the general physical environment.  This explanation is very simple.  It requires land use lawyers to completely understand the whole process, and applies in my experience to California only. 

When speakers of any stripe, but particularly politicians who use such trite phrases, the populace ought to stop and ask for definitions.  When I hear politicians such as Mitch McConnell say that he wants the President to work with him, what does he mean by that?  Does he mean that he wants to sit down with the President and work out some solutions to some of the major problems this country is suffering from, or does he want the President to sit down with him, listen to what McConnell has to say, and then do what McConnell wants?  There is a big difference here.  I strongly suspect the latter action is what McConnell intends.   

Speaking of Mitch McConnell, I nearly screamed at the TV the other night when I heard McConnell say that he keeps telling the President what the President should do, and if he doesn’t do it, the President will be sorry.  McConnell is telling the President what to do?  Frankly, I interpreted those words to mean, and I could be wrong, “Listen, boy, you do what we tell you to do, or else down the river with you.   And to prove our point we’ll file articles of impeachement against you and shut down the government.  It must be what you want to happen because if you didn’t want it, you would do what we tell you to do.”  Talk about the classic abuse syndrome!!

Further, all of this yammering by the radical right about impeaching the President if he takes a stand on immigration reform and issues an executive order is absurd.  An impeachable offense, they say.  I don’t remember anyone wanting to impeach W. over his Executive Order #43944, 2007.  That was the one that stated if anyone, citizen or otherwise, was determined by the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury to be undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon could have their property confiscated.  No trial.  No nothing other than that determination.  There were some vague criteria on which such a determination could be made.  Could writing an article for a national publication which the two entities determined to be undermining the sovereignty of Lebanon result in the loss of any private property owned by the author?  You doubt this?  Google George W. Bush Executive Order #43944.   

One of the things that disturbs me the most about this last election is the fact that there are more Republicans in the House and Senate than any time since 1920.  My God!!  Remember what happened then?

To Whom Are They Speaking? Not Me!

All during this past election season, and before, the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, radical right or more centrist, was the same.  Marvelous populist rhetoric that extolled the virtue of job creation and working for good wages along with the need to get government out of the way of businesses in order for the economy to grow so people could have jobs.  It all sounded very populist and wonderful.

My suggestion to the electorate is to imagine that the speaker is not talking to you, but to a wealthy white man, preferably one with a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) last name, and preferably one whose income is in the millions of dollars.  The whole rhetorical direction takes on new meaning.  That is because it is not directed at those of us who live in the middle or lower economic classes. 

As an example, I heard many Republicans say that the minimum wage is irrelevant (Paul Ryan), or that $7.25 is fine for a starting wage for a high school student.  They didn’t discuss if the high school student is in school trying to get an education to get a job that pays more than minimum wage, who then was working at the mythical student’s job.  Many commented that it was up to the business to set the wage they are willing to pay.  What hog wash!!  The minimum wage was set in the first place in 1938 because corporations and businesses were not willing to pay a living wage.  No more so then, than they are now.  When the minimum wage was on state ballots in this past election, it won overwhelmingly.

One statistic that has been bandied about is that about 2/3^rds of minimum wage workers are women.  Everyone knows that these women should be home taking care of their children, and their husbands will provide for them.  Another bunch of hog wash.  If their husbands, or significant others were doing just that, the women would be home.  But the men are not stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for their own actions.  Or, the men might not be able to find jobs that pay them more than minimum wage, and like the old cliché, two wrongs do not make a right, or two minimum wage jobs don’t make a living wage.

Our country has come a long way in opening some doors for minorities.  This is obvious when all one has to do is watch the news on MSNBC, for example.  But for the vast majority of minority men and women, the jobs they can find are definitely not those that provide a living wage.  These are the people who are destined by the oligarchy to do the scut work required in any society.  Someone has to clean the toilets in restaurants and malls, scrub the kitchens and floors, and collect the garbage, to name just a few of the jobs to be done by “those people”. 

If the Republicans can get women out of the workplace, at whatever level, that will open up more jobs for white men, who have a divine right to have them, as they claim is in Scripture.  Men won’t have to compete with women who may be much better at the job than they would be.  It reminds me of the old statement at the beginning of the feminist movement, “For a woman to get ahead in the workplace, she has to be twice as smart and work twice as hard as a man.  Fortunately, that is not difficult”.  Also, by denying women access to birth control or family health services whether that is abortion or not, women return to being restricted in their employment capabilities.  It is difficult to have a high-powered job with no birth control assuring the woman that she will not become pregnant at the most inopportune time possible.  Further, by restricting funding for child care services, women will be obligated to either attempt to receive some sort of government subsidy in order to care for the child, or try some other method of providing for herself and her child or children.

Try connecting the dots on this false populist rhetoric yourself.  You will probably come up with even more disturbing rhetorical pictures.  Force politicians to actually, in detail, define their terminology and/or rhetoric.  What emerges is truly, at times, amazing.  Not rational, but amazing.

So VOTE, Damn It!!!

In my opinion, it is absolutely vital that all American citizens vote on Tuesday if they haven’t voted already.  Of course, in my opinion, it is absolutely vital that all Democrats and Independents vote. 

Why?  Look at the record of what has happened in states that have Republican legislatures and governors.  Michigan is probably one of the worst with Gov. Rick Snyder having the state legislatures give him the power to arbitrarily set aside duly elected Boards of cities for reasons known only to him.  Needless to say, this did not sit well with me – a former elected official.  To outsiders, however, it appeared that the cities where he got rid of duly elected representatives were predominately cities where minorities were in the majority of those duly elected representatives, and where the cities had assets that could be sold off for profits. 

There are the other states where voter suppression is rampant, poor women’s health clinics are closed for spurious reasons, laws are passed to take away women’s freedom of pregnancy decisions, laws are not passed to guarantee equal pay for equal work for women.  Probably the worst of these pending laws regarding women’s reproductive choices is the so-called “personhood laws”.  These laws would deem that the moment the sperm and egg meet, that zygote has all of the protections of a fully formed and viable outside the womb human.  Forget the fact that ¼ - 1/3 of all pregnancies end in a spontaneous abortion, and thus women may be criminalized because of the terminated pregnancy even though they may have ardently wanted to become pregnant.

The rights of workers to organize and bargain for decent pay and working hours is being eroded by so called “right to work” laws, which are nothing more than the right to work without benefits for the workers, but great benefit for the employers.  In May, 1891, (yes, 1891) Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical, Rerum Novarum, in which occurs a paragraph which could easily be written today:

3. In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself. 

It appears that this is what the Koch brothers, et al, would like to have this country go back to.

So VOTE, damn it!!!   (Unless of course, you already have.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now It Is Future To The Back, Not Back To The Future.

I have had the following quote printed out and stuck on my old wooden filing cabinet for so long, it is yellowed and crinkles when I take it off to copy it in my blog to make a point.  It is from Paradise Lost, II, John Milton.

                              On the other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane;

A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed

For dignity composed and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow, though his tongue

Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels:  for his thoughts were low:

To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

Timorous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear,

And with persuasive accent thus began:… 

In my mind I’m thinking, “…up rose Belial,…” every time I hear a right-wing radical start talking about the “job creators”, and how we must cut their taxes, or how they are tired of hearing about raising the minimum wage – that what people need are not higher wages but opportunities to get ahead, while at the same time educational programs are cut, student loan interest rates are burdensome to the new graduates, and food supplement programs are cut back, and head of household jobs are scarce. 

After WWII, taxes were progressive.  The more you made, the more you paid.  It was apparent to almost everyone that not only did we have to pay for that war, but that we needed to make sure that the returning veterans had every opportunity for an education or job training.  That their medical needs were taken care of through a then pretty functional Veterans Administration.  Veterans were given priority in hiring, with very few if any complaints.  After all, they had saved us, literally, from a fate worse than death.  They were never displayed for political, commercial or religious purposes. 

An education was readily available for anyone who wanted one.  If a student didn’t have family to chip in, it was possible to work and be able to pay for tuition, books, and living expenses.  One didn’t live high end, but had the hope of doing so with that degree.  All of this was paid for with taxes, and because we all knew that when it came our turn to pay the taxes, we would be willing to do so for the next generation, and to pay back what we had used.  There was a sense of we’re all in this together.   

Some of the downfall of that era can be attributed to the overreach of Lyndon B. Johnson, who tried to fight a war overseas (Vietnam), and a war on poverty, as he called it, here at home.  He was completely optimistic about the resources of the country.  We simply could not sustain such economic drains on the national economy.  Jimmy Carter reaped the seeds that Johnson had sown, and thus the groundwork was laid for Ronald Reagan and his “Morning In America”.  Because of the lingering sense that we were “all in this together”, it didn’t occur to the majority of people that Reagan was only talking to those who could profit off of his, “We have to get government off the back of business”.  At the time I remember thinking of my very small childhood years when the mantra was getting business off the back of the American people, and were we going into that cycle again. 

Well, we have.  And because of the smooth-talking, smooth acting of politicians like Reagan, the Bushes, and now Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Darrell Issa, Scott Walker, Rick Scot, John Kasich, Chris Christie, et al, it all seems so very reasonable.

               “On the other side up rose Belial…”

 

 

 

 

Truthiness Just Won't Go Away

“If you believe it, it’s not a lie”, or a variation on that theme, seems to be the foundation the Republicans are functioning from these days.  As a result, they can say anything they want to, anytime, anywhere for any reason whatsoever.  What a freeing feeling that must be!  Never having to look up and verify the source of your statements.  Just think of all the time one can save by not having to verify.

“I wrote a blog about this sort of thing in October of last year, True Facts vs. Truthiness, because it was already beginning to be such a problem that Stephen Colbert created the term, truthiness, to cover it.  Truthiness as a word is pretty funny, one has to admit, but the cause for the need for such a term is not.”  6/29/12  Shirley You Jest.

When I wrote this back in 2012, I wrote it about Republicans on the Federal level, but the use of “truthiness” has dribbled down to the local level as well.  For those not familiar where this local level is, it is San Luis Obispo County, located on the coast in Central California.  We have a candidate for County Supervisor asserting that she will not vote to do away with Proposition 13 as her opponent has done.  Well, Prop 13, as it is called, happens to be law voted in by the people of California to limit property taxes, and it was voted in 1978. About the only way it can be voted out is if the people of the state have another initiative to overturn it.  Further, since her opponent could not vote to overturn Prop 13, this is an out and out lie. 

In California our government system is tiered.  In our county, at the very bottom are Advisory Councils.  These councils have no government authority, but are the listening posts for county supervisors to hear what constituents have to say during meetings about issues that are of interest to local citizens.  Above that are Special Districts.  These districts have specific duties related to why they were formed in the first place.  Cemetery Districts obviously deal with cemeteries; School District deal with schools; and Services Districts deal with providing their constituents with water supplies and systems, waste water treatment systems, lighting, fire suppression, and perhaps ambulance service in remote areas.  The next level up is cities, then counties, then the State. 

Right now our local services district is having a really hot election.  Since I don’t live in the district, my concern is sort of academic except for the fact I have good friends who do.  As anyone who reads a newspaper or watches TV knows, California is in a real drought situation, with the bull’s eye for this drought the central coast.  The topography of our region consists of several creeks that provide water either to ranches or, in two cases, communities as well.  This year, however, the watersheds that feed into the aquifers that supply the water are extremely dry.  How dry is that?  Usually CalFire (our California Fire Department) requires that there be two inches of rain in the autumn before they call and end to the fire season.  This year they are requiring 3-5 inches. 

As a result of the drought, and some particularly bad decisions made by past Boards, the community that gets its water from the creek we live by that drains into the aquifer that supplies the larger community, is just about out of water.  The creek is virtually dry, with an occasional puddle of pretty yucky water.  The Emergency Water Project, both brackish reclamation and ultimately desal, will be very expensive for the community, but it is either that or take a 50% to 50% chance it will rain enough this winter to recharge the watershed.  And with climate change, one doesn’t really know what the future will bring.  The people who oppose these projects are opposing for some really shaky and, at times, bizarre reasons.  One person wants to build a reservoir to supply the community with water.  He does not discuss what he will fill it with if it doesn’t rain.  Another is afraid that the method used to dispose of the treated water effluent will contaminate everything in its way.  He does not discuss the fact that the location has already been contaminated by years of secondary effluent disposal.  Another maintains that the District only wants to have the desal so it can issue more building permits.  Ignore the fact the District cannot, by law, issue building permits.  And on and on. 

I first wrote several years ago, “Does anyone else out there feel like he/she has fallen down a rabbit hole?  Only instead of the Red Queen threatening to cut off everyone’s head, we have a bunch of whackadoodles saying anything they want, because if they think it, it must be true.”