Scared Moderate Female

Work Ethic

2011-08-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

I have been stewing about this for about 24 hours and the only way I am going to let this go is to write about it. Writing keeps me sane.

My daughter is embarking on a career as a paralegal. She has a challenging, good-paying job with a former professor of hers—as far as I am concerned, the ultimate complement to your worth, skills and knowledge is being hired by a former professor. Heck, I’ve been lucky to have been hired for freelance jobs one of my former professors at SJSU, and he is the current department head! He’s asked me to do research for a mass communications textbook, and to prepare a collection of papers for the department’s certification process. I’ve also worked for another of my former professors, a practicing PR professional with her own business, providing written materials if she gets too busy and bogged down with work. I guess you could say having lived it, I know how meaningful it is to have a professor’s respect.

So I couldn’t be any more proud of this kid—she’s overcome a learning disability and has emerged into a good writer and researcher and problem-solver. In other words, she’s inherited some of my skills. She would never in a million years acknowledge this, but she did tell me once that her friend Sara said to her “You know where those skills came from, right? Your mom.” Quite the complement.

Yesterday she was working on something—she maintains confidentiality as well as I did when I was working as a nurse, perhaps even better. I have no idea what kind of cases she is working on other than sometimes she will say “People are disgusting.” Whatever it was, it was making her crazy and she had a hard deadline of 7 p.m.

Anyway, she called her dad, or he called her, to ask if a money transfer between his bank account and hers had gone through. She jokingly said to him, “I want to retire.”

His reply: “Well, I hope your work ethic is better than your mom’s.”

SAY WHAT???

Okay, here is a bit of my personal and work history. I was married three months shy of being 19 years of age. No I was not pregnant, and I had finished only a couple of semesters at a community college, taking prerequisite classes toward applying for a nursing program. My college career was not an immediate success; as a matter of fact, I dropped out of San Jose State after about 10 weeks into my first semester a year and a half before I married. I was 17 years, 2 months of age when I started college, utterly unprepared and way too young. My grades were fine, I just was socially inept and terrified.

In other words, the only work I could do was in the fields (yes, farm labor) and assisting my mother with farm labor payroll. But that was in no way going to be my career, and my husband and I both knew that.

I hurt my left knee in November of 1976, dislocating my kneecap and eventually requiring surgery. After a couple of years (still working for my mother and working in the fields for cannery tomato harvest and chili pepper harvest in December) I was able to jump with both feet into finishing the nursing degree, driving 80-plus miles a day for classes five days a week. I finished the nursing degree in January 1982, took my boards in February, and reluctantly took a job at the local hospital in June, a dinky 42-bed place that I really did not want to work at. While going through nursing school, I worked hard to impress the staff at the hospital in Carmel, about an hour-and-fifteen-minute drive from where we lived in the hopes I’d be hired there. My left knee was slightly problematic pain-wise, so during breaks and meal breaks I’d ice the knee so I could finish the shift. The pain was not horrific and I did not need pain medication. We did not own a home, but my husband did not want to move from the city we lived in, so I compromised and worked where I did not want to work, ever.

I was hired as a part-time employee, because that is pretty much how they hired nearly all nurses. At times, part time meant three or four days a week, an 8-hour shift. After orientation, I found myself on the night shift, and did not adjust well. Every dime I made, we saved for a down payment on a home. Eventually we had nearly enough in savings to buy a home, and along with a gift of $8K from my parents, we found ourselves homeowners, and I was 5 months pregnant.

I was able to work until my 28^th week of pregnancy, and was working nearly full-time hours, when I woke up one morning with a horrific headache. I was supposed to go to work that afternoon but thought I should have things checked out before I was to go to work (by then I was working the 3–11 shift, much better for me, and I really wasn’t needed on the night shift as there were some nurses who actually preferred that shift). Instead of reporting to work at 3 p.m. that day, I reported to the hospital as an inpatient with pre-eclampsia. No more work for me until delivery, which was accomplished at 37 weeks. I was back to work six weeks after my daughter was born.

For the next several years my knees got worse and I suffered a few back strain injuries, but I was one of the go-to nurses, living less than 10 minutes away from the hospital I’d frequently be called in to work different shifts if things got busy with labor and delivery patients. There are too many times to count when I’d receive a phone call at 1 a.m., be asked to come in to help out, and then be asked to stay for the day shift, or be asked to work a p.m. shift after working the 7 to 3 shift because of multiple laboring women, consequently working anywhere from 12 to 16 hours.

Not bad for someone with no work ethic…

Because my back and knees were getting a bit worse (at the tender age of 32), I went to work at a nursing job that was a bit more sedentary, one where I would not have to do bedside care nursing or any janitorial clean-up work (on the p.m. and night shift, because there was no janitor on duty between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.). I’d hurt myself a couple of times slipping in amniotic fluid and lifting and moving heavy equipment. At my new job I had inmate workers who did patient care and custodial duties; all I had to do was vital signs twice a shift, pass medications, change dressings, and chart. Easy job, and finally a full-time job with great state benefits. Except I got hurt one night, blowing out two discs effectively ending my career in April 1989.

The next several years are a blur, three major spine surgeries, dealing with disability pay and eventually a permanent disability settlement, and three years driving to Seaside on nearly a daily basis to take my daughter to a private school. I did manage to get a job in nursing, sort of, as a worker’s comp case manager, which I did for about 18 months as a part-time worker, perhaps 20 hours a week. The job required lots of driving, something that irritated my back and caused much wasted time, as the bulk of my work was an hour north of where we lived. There was no talk of moving. Our daughter started club swimming after she finished at the private school, so that was a daily trip 80+ miles roundtrip every day after school for three years or so.

I quit the worker’s comp job around the time my father died. All of the driving was not good for my back, so I returned to my mom’s business for a couple of years doing overflow work for her until I decided I had to do something with my life, build on my education and perhaps find something new to do. I started as a full-time student in September 1997 at the same community college I’d earned my nursing degree, attending classes 5 days a week, and transferred to San Jose State in September 1999. I graduated in May 2000, taking 18 units a semester and one winter session in order to get out of college quicker, driving 100+ miles 4 days a week, and maintaining a 3.75 GPA. My degree was in PR, and there was no work in south Monterey County. I needed to move north, but again, not happening. I did get a part-time job editing for a transportation study department associated with the university; the job was do-able by telecommute but they were happier having me onsite. That job started the month I graduated from SJSU.

While I was attending SJSU, my daughter was attending community college. She was desperately unhappy at the local high school where she was getting no assistance for her learning disability and was failing from school. She was much happier being able to take only two or three classes at a time in college, though math remained a problem for her.

Finally in the summer of 2001, I was sick of driving several times a week to San Jose, and my daughter needed to go to school without the distraction of two hours in a car every day. I elected to move north, leaving my home, and I am sure a not real upset husband (other problems in play not worth discussing here). Ever since I moved up here, I have been looking for full-time proper work, and until the economy tanked, I was able to pick up enough work to pay rent and keep a roof over our heads and food in the ‘fridge. I returned to school in December 2003, graduating with a master’s in sport management in May 2005, that degree coming from the University of San Francisco, and again with a stellar GPA.

I apply for jobs at least once a week, and have applied for so many these 11 years I cannot possibly count. I do not get interviews, and the one I did get, I was passed over for a person of the correct ethnicity who could not do the job, but she was Latina, and that is what it was all about. I apply for PR jobs, writing/editing/desktop publishing jobs. Things I can do. I let my RN license lapse last year, I could not afford to pay for required fingerprints or the licensing fee. Yes, all under $200 but I did not have it to spare.

Meanwhile, whenever any freelance opportunity comes my way, I grab it. No job was too small, and I’d even edit grad student papers. But this spring with the budget crisis work came to a screeching halt around June.

Not that 2010 was a great year. I earned less than $20K, supporting myself and my daughter, who was in school full-time and not employed. Her father claimed her as a deduction on his taxes. I haven’t done my taxes in several years because I can’t afford to pay anyone to do them for me.

I have pushed my body to do things it has no business doing, put off dealing with health problems because I cannot afford to go to the doctor even with insurance. I have gone without medication for weeks at a time—and one really should not take chances by not taking medications for asthma and high blood pressure. But I have, and I am about to do it again in a couple of weeks.

This year I will be lucky to earn $12 to 15K. I made it this far with help from my mom and stepdad, something I feel really guilty about. I earned enough to pay rent through July, and that’s about it. There is no work available to me until October at the earliest because of the federal and state budget crises, unless of course I manage to get another job before then. My daughter does not get her first paycheck until early October.

On a regular basis I go without meals. I have not bought clothing for myself, other than redeeming gift cards from my mom, since March 2008. I need new bras. I need new shoes. My cats need vet visits and dental cleanings. My car needs new tires and an oil change, which doesn’t matter, because I am not supposed to be driving a car with a clutch and I know it’s not safe for me to do so. With my daughter finally getting a job, there is hope for paying rent. In the meantime her dad has had to help, as many of the paralegal jobs are in the Bay Area, as are my daughter’s friends and her life—and he doles out the money, enough to pay rent, enough to keep us a month behind on utilities, and a food budget of $100, maybe $200 for two people. My daughter eats elsewhere, and her social life is utterly unaffected. I was able to buy groceries myself until early July.

I am usually hungry, in pain, perpetually looking for work and I have no work ethic (I was given some money to get some groceries, so I bought brain food for my daughter as she's going to be working from home for a couple of weeks). I am not looking for martyrdom, but all of a sudden he’s Mr. Perfect, the victim in all of this? I am sure he’s not missing any meals, gets his prescriptions when he needs them, and enjoys his paid vacations going gambling God-knows-where. He has sacrificed so much to get our kid through school... if he had his way she'd have struggled at Hartnell, dealing with the driving like I did, never finishing a course of study, and probably getting married to some local chump. So much easier.

Karma is a bitch … and I do hope I live long enough that my daughter gets what I have done for her, to ensure her success, to make sure she has a great career and a fulfilling life.

Exercises in Frustration

2011-08-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

I really don’t know why I believe any economic news coming out of Washington, D.C. nowadays. All I have to do is look at my situation and I can say with all honestly I am not better off than I was in 2008, and I am probably worse off this year versus last, and last year was a real stinker! I’ve not bought groceries since just before July 4; there is no milk in the ‘fridge, and I’ve not had a loaf of bread in the apartment for three weeks now.

I’m self-employed only because I cannot get employment from someone, anyone, other than contract work. Yes, working from home allows some flexibility but it is so full of uncertainty and frankly, at times it is just not fun working alone! There are times that I wonder if I had known the future—that I would still be under- or unemployed after earning both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree—would I have worked to get those degrees at all?

My answer is still yes—my brain enjoyed the challenges of college and as an older student I was eager to learn and better able to sift through the bullshit that college can be. I enjoyed being a mentor to 20-somethings and being mentored by 20-somethings. I made friends in college who remain friends today. Working with others is what I miss most about this self-employment crap.

I am beginning to wonder though—will I, and the millions of talented under-and unemployed people over 40 who are just waiting for a chance to rock a job going to have to wait until January 2013 for the pendulum to swing back and hopefully change the job hiring climate to looking for experienced and motivated workers, and those job applicants becoming a prized commodity?

Growing Old is Not for Sissies!

2011-05-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this by saying that 54 years of age is not and should not be old!

But in the past several months, I have nagging little health issues that are probably a consequence of my younger days atop a horse. Specifically, I have nasty pain in both hips, pain in my right shoulder (probable rotator cuff) and female problems. Of course my back and knees are ongoing issues but I am pretty used to them.

I have been holding myself together trying to get my daughter “raised.” And she has been getting job interviews and I am hopeful something will come to fruition—and soon. I am so tired of trying to maintain a household on my crappy income—two people living on what really isn’t adequate for one person.

I have a perfectly good house and husband located two hours to the south of where I sit at this moment. Had I not moved up here to at least try to get good work for myself (and I define good work as work with benefits… which I have not gotten anywhere close to in 10 years of trying!) and live closer to several colleges, my daughter might well be married to some local guy, utterly dissatisfied with her life, living in a place with limited opportunities.

If she gets a job, I think it’s just fine if I choose to move back home; the limited work I do can be dome remotely, with maybe a trip to San Jose once a month, if that. I could also start dealing with my health issues, having what little income I can earn go toward co-pays and doctor bills. At any rate, I am hoping my daughter gets a job soon … now if only I could make her understand just how bad my hip pain is, and how it’s turning me into a hermit!

Sleep-Deprivation and the Blessed Pope John Paul II

2011-05-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

I do need to get a good night’s sleep in the worst way! For a change it’s not pain keeping me up, but television. First I pulled a nearly all-nighter watching the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton early Friday morning. Just as I caught up with sleep, I remembered that this weekend was to be that of Pope John Paul II’s beatification ceremony, and tripped over a live broadcast.

I have no doubt that John Paul was someone special and utterly worthy of sainthood. Maybe he isn’t as flashy as many of the “older” saints, but in our time, when a miracle has to be something very special to attract the Church’s attention.

John Paul II was so charismatic, something that is impossible to see on television. No doubt that is where most have seen him. I was one of the lucky few to have breathed the same air as he, at Carmel Mission in the fall on 1987. I’d volunteered to provide emergency medical services for media covering the Pope’s visit to the Monterey Peninsula. He presided over mass at Laguna Seca raceway, and following that mass, was headed to the mission for lunch with priests, take a short nap, and then head to his next stop, which I think was San Francisco.

The Monterey Diocese set up big-screen televisions for us to watch the mass, so we could feel closer and also know what was going on. I can’t remember the exact time John Paul II was to arrive at the mission; I believe it was noon or 1 p.m. The media room was at the back of the mission, situated in such a way that we would not be able to see him arrive or depart. Yes, all of us volunteering were disappointed we’d not see him, but there was a kind of peace in knowing we’d served him somehow…
As the day drew to a close, we were told that John Paul wanted to thank the volunteers who were not able to lay eyes on him. A decision was made to have him depart the mission from a different entrance/exit; he would exit into an open area, walk to his limo, and then the limo would drive on a circular path so as many of us could see him as possible.

Watching him walk out was so unreal… John Paul II was still very active and fit, and had some sort of energy around him. I know that sounds stupid, but it was just a feeling I’d not yet ever experienced. I was far enough away I could not see facial expressions; I was standing quite far from the limo. But the Pope had decided he wanted us to be able to see him, and he wanted to thank us. He drove right by me, and though I am sure everyone felt the same, I just know he looked right at me.
There was a grace, a sense of peace and a sense that I was close to someone extraordinary. He did his famous wave, and kept it up until the limo was on the straight driveway and out of our sight.

I know the moment was extraordinary, because to this day, I can close my eyes and recall a 20-second memory clip of John Paul II in the limo, driving in that circular drive, looking at me. I do not have any other memories that play in my mind’s eye that long. Yes, I have flashes of special moments, but Pope John Paul II is a full 20-second memory clip that I can recall by closing my eyes and asking for it. When John Paul II lay mortally ill, I could recall that memory and would pray for him while it was playing. When I heard he’d passed, I was at an Oakland A’s game. There was a moment of silence announced on the loudspeaker, and I closed my eyes and recalled that memory.

Okay, so that might not be a spectacular miracle. To me it is enough to know that John Paul II did and does have God’s ear. Last night I prayed to the newly-Blessed John Paul II and congratulated him and gave thanks for him giving me the opportunity to lay eyes on him. John Paul II is no doubt the only pope I will have seen in person in my lifetime. Sure, I wish I had a photograph of John Paul II during that visit, but I think my 20-second memory clip is far more valuable.

A Cautionary "Old Age" Tale, and Some Advice for New Nurses

2011-04-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a bit of a rough day today with pain and all… my back aches, my left hip hurts. I’m getting my neurotomies on Tuesday so the end, for awhile at least, is on the horizon. I need to earn a little more money to see an ortho doc about my hip. I have three projects in various stages of readiness; two have tight deadlines that I won't meet if I can't sit at my desk.

So it’s been one of those days I have been reflecting on how I got here, all beat to shit. There are two reasons why I am such a physical mess today: horses and working as a nurse. One gave me pleasure, the other money and heartache.

I rode daily from fifth grade to my senior year in high school. I rode anything with a mane and tail that I could climb on. Several times that meant I climbed on something a bit rank and paid the price by hitting the pavement. But I wouldn’t change a thing, because horses kept me out of a lot of trouble and you truly do not know companionship with an animal until you have teamed with a horse. I miss contact with horses on a daily basis. I love my cats, I really do, but there is nothing like the challenge of an equine.

The second reason I am paying physically is from working as an RN in a small community hospital that enjoyed being understaffed. I suffered too many back injuries to count, doing work that should have been done by housekeeping or a nurse’s aid. Might I have put up with the pain longer had I been properly “engaged” in the job?

I remember a pair of days when I showed up to work and the other RN was an older woman, older than I am now, who worked v-e-r-y slowly and was usually better at passing medication all day. It was all she could do to keep up with the medication needs of anywhere between 10 and 24 patients. There was everything at that hospital—med/surg, OB & newborns, pediatrics, and a 4-bed ICU/CCU. As I recall there were no critical patients in that room those days. During the day shift an RN would be called upon to stay with a patient in post-anesthesia recovery, which was the ICU. Same location, slightly different duties.

One of us had to be charge nurse. I stepped up, but the director of nurses said “Rose is older than you, so she’s charge nurse.” So I passed pills, took care of a couple of post-op patients, and took care of a woman in labor while Rose sat on her duff and took “reports” from nurses’ aids. I did the work of two RNs that day. I didn’t even have time for lunch. Rose took hers. And both breaks.

The way that hospital was set up, all the meds nurse did was pass pills (scheduled and as needed) and make sure she charted what she had done on the medication record. IF she had time on her hands, she could volunteer to help where needed. Because Rose was so slow, that seldom happened. Because Rose was so slow, if I had a patient who needed a pain med, I’d get the chart, find out what I could give, go to the medication cart where Rose was no doubt hanging around, ask for the narcotic key and medicate the patient myself. Rose usually made patients wait awhile, because she didn’t want to wreck her train of thought.

Fifteen minutes before the shift was to end, there was a medical admission from the clinic next door—I believe the guy was a possible pancreatitis, because the doctor told me the patient was an alcoholic and to give him some Librium STAT to keep him in the bed. Rose should have taken that patient and prepared his nursing assessment, but she said, “I am busy charting and getting ready for report, you do it.” She wouldn’t even take the doctor’s call—I was called to the nurses’ station from another patient’s bedside to take the admission orders! Again, something Rose as charge should have done.

So when I claimed 2 hours of overtime that day the supervisors flipped. (I did not finish my paperwork and the paperwork of the new patient until 5 p.m., shift “over” at 3:30 AND I’d had no lunch break that day, because if I didn’t do it, no one on my shift would have!) I told them Rose had been utterly useless, that I had done the bulk of the work that day (easily verified by looking at the patient charts, I was flying!) and that I would NEVER be put in that situation again. “You either work me as charge, pay me that differential and I’ll run around and do the work while Rose plugs along passing her pills, or you will not expect me to work with Rose as the charge nurse EVER again.”

A month later I looked on the schedule, and lo and behold, there were two RNs scheduled for one anticipated slow day—me and Rose. There was a “C” by Rose’s name, which meant she would be charge nurse. I went to my immediate supervisor (the one who made the schedule) and said, “I told you that I will NOT work in that situation, and if you don’t fix it, I won’t show up. I will NOT do the work of two nurses because one is too slow!”

Their excuse for doing it again: “We want to engage Rose more.”

Mind you, she was retirement age then. I was in my late 20s or so, and had worked as an RN for six years at that hospital. I was the nurse who never refused a shift. I was the nurse physicians inquired about regarding my availability to take care of their laboring women or women who needed elective labor inductions. I was the nurse who would come in for the night shift and stay for the day shift, or work the p.m. shift and stay into the night shift to help.

And which nurse SHOULD they have tried harder to engage?

I did not work that shift. Well, I didn’t work it as it was… I was taken off the schedule for that day, but the place got busy and asked me to come into work, which I ALWAYS did. There was Rose, plugging along with her precious pill cart, where she needed to be. I delivered babies, covered ER, and had a great day with a nurse closer to my age who worked as charge twice a week.

So what is the moral? Don’t kill yourself doing your job, because 20 years later, no one cares. You have to care for yourself, NOW. Be careful, and make smart priorities. You will thank me in the end.

Perceptions

2011-04-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

You never know who you will trip over using Facebook. Today I reconnected with a classmate who I thought “had it all” in high school—ran with the A-group, was popular, and got good grades effortlessly. I’d seen her name in common with other friends I’d reconnected with, but because she was part of that A-list, I figured she would not at all be interested in connecting with me. She was never really nasty toward me; we simply went in different circles. I wanted to be where she was; to the very wise movie “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion,” sums up high school society and pecking order well: I was not part of the A-crowd, or the B-crowd, or the jocks, or the C-crowd/dorks.

One of my oldest friends was part of this A-list. I’ll call her Lee because her name is very unusual and if she’d ever Google herself, this would pop up! She and I met when we were four years old; we lived about 5 miles out of town within walking distance, perhaps a half-mile from each other. I remember one of our early play dates, playing with Barbie dolls and Breyer model horses. Lee and I took dance class lessons on Saturdays; her mom drove us into town because my mom didn’t drive at the time. A few years later, Lee would walk to my house on Saturday mornings to watch “The Beatles” cartoons, because her television wouldn’t get it. This was in the days before cable, before satellites. Because we lived in a canyon, television reception was limited, and her family didn’t have access to a high enough hill to place an antenna like my father had. Consequently, our television got two stations and hers only one. Take that, kids of today with hundreds of channels!

When Lee missed a month of first grade with a kidney infection, I had to face her scary teacher and get her homework every day on my way to the bus. I was released from my class five minutes early to pick up the homework, and then her mom would come over and pick it up, and give me stuff to take in the next morning. In fourth grade, when I was sick with both kinds of measles and missed the entire month of February, she did the same for me. When each of us finally got horses of our own, we rode all day every weekend, and would jump off the school bus at our respective stops, change into riding clothes, catch our horses and ride until dark.

But around 4^th or 5^th grade, Lee started hanging out exclusively with a bunch of girls who were simply the “it” crowd—wanna-be cheerleaders, girls who had high fashion clothes, girls who wore hairpieces, girls who were getting attention from the boys that you wanted to get attention from, girls who were getting breasts! We’d ride the school bus into town, and she and I would sit together several stops until one of the A-listers got on the bus. Then I had leprosy and she pretended not to know me at school at all.

And the people she ran with were, in hindsight, bitches. Probably the two worst were Penny and Ann. They started sprouting breasts before junior high. Penny in particular was very pretty, the youngest in her family, the treasure. And she expected to be treated like one. She was always picking verbal altercations with me, saying stuff like “So and so told me you were talking shit about me.” This continued from 4^th grade all the way through high school.

Ann also had breasts and a waistline. In seventh grade her mother bought her a fall to wear in her hair. She wore an actual bra with cups. She and I should have been friends because we had the same knee problem—dislocating kneecaps. I remember it happening to her several times in physical education. I felt so bad for her, but she was such a bitch at other times, I stopped trying to be sympathetic or give her comfort when her kneecap dislocated.

There was a Cathy, like me. Her family lived down the street from my aunt, who lived in town. Her younger sister was one of my younger cousin’s best friends. No matter to Cathy, she was dismissive and treated me as a subhuman.

Paula was the daughter of a farmer, so because our fathers ran in the same circles, she was nicer to me. Same with Deanna; she lived on the same street as my aunt. Deanna had an older brother who was pretty cute, with longish blonde hair.

I’d read Deanna’s comments on friends’ Facebook pages. I knew who she was but did not reach out to her. I figured she still had the A-lister attitude toward me, though in adulthood, Stacey was nicer to me—our daughters were close in age—and Lee and I had carpooled our kids to a private school over an hour away for two years. And horrors of horrors, when I married, Ann had the guts to show up to my wedding uninvited. Her brother had been our best man, her parents were of course invited but I purposefully omitted her name on the envelope. At least she was nice to me on my wedding day, and was nice to me when her brother married a year or two later.

I’ve avoided class reunions because until ten years ago I did not think I measured up. I hadn’t finished a 4-year degree, and had kept in touch with few in my graduating class. I hated high school and wanted to distance myself from it.

I connected with Deanna today and learned that they HAD seen me throughout school, or at least she had, and remembered some specific things/incidents we had in common, most notably the recollections of a school play in 6^th grade where I played the lead. Yes I was quite the actress.

She remembers me, as I was—a sarcastic, smart gal with strawberry blonde hair who didn’t have a boyfriend because I didn’t play stupid. And she shocked me when she told me she’d been on the periphery of that A-list, and it was only after she’d moved away to college that she realized what having a true friend was, and they apparently weren’t that.

Moral of this story: Isn’t it strange just how erroneous your perception of things can be?

Writing Inspiration

2011-04-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

George again. He was a beautiful man. What is sad about this photo is the cigarette he always had in the 1960s—that is what killed him.

I’ve tripped over an excellent writing opportunity today and I need quick inspiration! It’s a pretty heavy-duty bit of writing that must be completed by May 1. So instead of staring at a blank computer screen or blank piece of paper, I decided to try an old technique from fifth grade. That was a long time ago, okay? Like 1966… so their “old stuff” works best for me, from Sgt. Pepper (summer of 1967 between fifth and sixth grade) and before that. The “new” stuff, except for a few songs, usually something by George, just wasn’t as inspirational for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because they weren’t as inspired anymore, at least until 1969’s Abbey Road, which was released when I was in 8th grade. I was old enough to be able to appreciate their music but a few years to fully participate, and by that I mean ever see them live. I have two friends who did just that, and I am so jealous, though it wasn’t about the music, hence the Beatles gave it up in August 1966, when I was still 9 years old.

I used to get much inspiration from listening to the Beatles music. I don’t know why. It clears my mind, points me in the right direction. I sing my heart out to the music and for some reason, what I need comes to me. Perhaps it’s a case of what
George Harrison said about songs—they are out there, you just have to find a way to grab them.

Tonight I found myself listening to their music but taking a conscious effort to hear George’s voice where I knew it should be, as he didn’t sing on every song. He had a distinctive nasally voice that didn’t fit every song. And yes, the inspiration came to me and I know exactly what I am going to write, but I have this overwhelming sadness remembering how I felt in late November 2001 when word got out George wasn’t doing well at all, and was about to lose his battle with cancer. And the day he died I simply could not hear any Beatles music or look at his image. Of course I bought all of the commemorative magazines but I stowed them away. It took me a good two or three years before I could hear a song with his voice somewhere in it and not get teary-eyed. And less than a month later, when my grandmother died of the same thing George did, I was still so empty over losing him that I could not properly mourn her.

Anyway, I write these few words to thank George for sending me inspiration, like he always did. Thank you for leaving the music you left… I have my lead and the angle I am going to take on a difficult bit of writing. You always come through for me.

Lost Music, Sometimes Found

2011-03-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

George Harrison and his Turkish Angora cat Corky

It’s an early Sunday morning and I’ve just watched the movie “Now and Then” for the second time this week. For those who may not have seen it, “Now and Then” is the female version of “Stand By Me.” It is set in 1970; the main characters a year-and-a-half to two years younger than I was at the time, but there wasn’t much difference between what they did to keep themselves occupied during the long summer months. I remember the summer of 1970 very well; I’d graduated from 8^th grade, and we started the summer in Lodi looking for Nazi gold (seriously! One of my father’s dearest friends from childhood felt there is Nazi gold buried on a property near Lodi, and my dad and uncle gathered the brood and we all watched and waited for a bulldozer to find it—needless to say we didn’t!), and I ended the summer with a bang by starting my period a week before reporting to high school. In between we’d ride horses during the morning and evening hours (sometimes with a transistor radio looped over the saddle horn, though the local AM station really played poppy stuff unless you requested something else), and hang out by my parent’s new pool during the heat of the day. Probably the “worst” thing to happen that summer was coming to the understanding that the Beatles had indeed broken up, the breakup having been announced that spring—and just as I was getting old enough to fully appreciate their music to the point of picking up a guitar and teaching myself to play.

Music used to be a big part of my life. From the 5^th through 7^th grade I took clarinet lessons in school, so I used to be able to read music. The clarinet doesn’t really have a place in rock music though… I have always loved guitar-driven music with creative vocal harmonies and catchy lyrics—not to the point of being a fan of the really “poppy” stuff, because the guitar licks just were not there. Besides loving the Beatles’ music, I also liked Cream, and the Beatles’ protégées Badfinger, and I especially remember a song called “All Right Now” by a band named Free being all over the place that summer. Notice a trend? They are all British, and all very guitar-driven!

Unfortunately for me, I chose not to have a whole lot of fun in my high school classes. I’d wanted to graduate early, so I took nothing but college prep classes, which left no time for any music classes. I changed that my junior year when I finally had enough and dropped out of Spanish III to take guitar; during my senior half-year I took choir, where my voice was identified as being contralto and when I discovered that when acting I could do nearly anything, including sing, though I did my best singing when stoned on pot. Yep, I was quite the little pothead.

I bought all of the Beatles sheet music and taught myself the rhythm parts (I had two sets of Beatles’ music books—one with rhythm guitar tabs, the second lead, which I never really got good at). I came to appreciate just how hard the guitar is to learn, and I’d chosen to learn to play on a steel-stringed Yamaha acoustic I bought for $75 with my own money. I learned to change strings, to tune by ear, and by the summer of 1972 was comfortable enough to play in front of people, to the point I traveled around Spain for 6 weeks carrying that Yamaha acoustic and jamming at night. I’d never be a George Harrison (though he was my favorite by that time, hence I’ve used this photo of him I recently tripped over—what a beautiful man he was!), but I could play and sing most of the Beatles’ songs, a couple of Badfinger’s songs, and some Neil Young stuff, too.

Every so often I’ll hear songs from the early 1970s and remember that there was good music despite disco being shoved down everyone’s throats by the middle of the decade. I’ll wish I still had that Yamaha acoustic—my stepbrother learned to play on it and I think he sold it, which makes me very sad, that guitar had truly gone to battle! I’ll listen to certain songs that fit my vocal range and sing my heart out. Tonight’s song was from “Now and Then”—Badfinger’s “No Matter What.” That lead to a pair of Badfinger songs: “Baby Blue” and “Day After Day.” And yes, I used to be able to play those songs, and in public, too!

There are times I am tempted to buy another acoustic guitar—I’m betting I still can find my Beatles’ sheet music! I wonder if returning to music might be good for me …

Jaded? Cynical? I Guess I Am …

2011-03-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

Jaded: 1. fatigued by overwork : EXHAUSTED 2: made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by surfeit (jaded network viewers; jaded voters)
Cynical: 1. CAPTIOUS, PEEVISH 2: having or showing the attitude or temper of a cynic: as
a : contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives (those cynical men who say that democracy cannot be honest and efficient — F. D. Roosevelt)
b : based on or reflecting a belief that human conduct is motivated primarily by self-interest (a cynical ploy to win votes)

How has this bit of self-assessment come about?

While watching coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan over the past couple of days, I could not help but notice the difference in behavior between the Japanese people and how Americans behave in time of disaster. Specifically, thus far I have not seen, heard or read a thing about widespread looting and vandalism anywhere in the affected areas. I vividly remember seeing news videos during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, including people openly stealing from stores—and not stealing food or other things one needs to live, but stealing televisions, electronics, pretty much anything not tied down. I remember that people affected by Katrina demanded that “the government” do something for them. I remember stories about FEMA queens demanding their government assistance, receiving debit cards intended to provide assistance in acquiring food and lodging, and using those federally-acquired funds to buy flat screen televisions and designer handbags.

I’ve not seen any of that behavior from the Japanese people. From the outside, it looks like many people heeded the tsunami warnings, and though I expect the death toll will be in the thousands, the fact that so many people did survive tells me they did not sit around waiting for the government to “do something” for them, specifically evacuation. No one expected the tsunami wave to reach 6 miles inland.

I am glad there are United States military assets able to help in search, rescue and recovery. That’s one reason to ensure our military is always at the ready for humanitarian missions. I expect the Japanese people will rebuild their nation quickly and efficiently, and find a way to improve things. I also expect that Japan does have the economic backbone to finance rebuilding efforts themselves.

Here comes my jaded, cynical attitude.

Why is it in time of natural disaster it’s expected that the United States pick up the pieces for every damn country that suffers a natural disaster or war? While Japan is indeed a reliable ally today, a little thing called Pearl Harbor and World War II is still an important piece of history and there are still people alive today who vividly remember these events.

It was the United States, or rather U.S. dollars, that rebuilt Japan. Japan’s economy is in much better shape than ours. We have millions of people who are un- or under-employed through no fault of their own, people whose unemployment “benefits” may be long gone or expiring soon. We have American citizens and families going hungry and without creature comforts that many others take for granted. But it’s not glamorous to talk about them, and it’s not glamorous to donate money or goods in our own nation. You don’t see celebrities making appeals for the regular American who may not have endured a natural disaster but who is enduring joblessness through no fault of his or her own.

Charities are of course popping up to help Japan in this time of crisis. However, I’d think that what is really needed are goods and services, provided by human beings, not money. Japan has the money; Japan can pay for those goods and services. American farmers certainly can produce what the Japanese people need, but it’s up to Japan to ask for what they need. A story on CNN revealed that there are food shortages, specifically rice, bottled water, fresh produce and bread. I think the United States produces those things in abundance and I’m sure the U.S. will be happy to provide those goods.

My second question is why the crappy behavior from Americans in time of disaster, a la Katrina or even times of civil unrest—why do Americans find it so easy to commit vandalism and thievery? They aren’t breaking into stores to steal food and water—they are taking physical goods. Those same Americans expect the government to “do something,” to fix whatever they think is wrong or unjust by giving them something. I’m sick of people being so non-self-efficient, and I look at how Japan is coping, and wish that Americans could be more like the Japanese.

I also wish that people residing in the United States, citizens and those here legally—people enjoying economic success and who are in a position to help Americans less fortunate would do so—but I suppose helping American citizens simply isn’t glamorous enough.

Why am I such a Negative Nelly? I really didn’t used to be this way. I want to believe that people are inherently good and honest, but the past ten years have taught me otherwise. Especially since late 2008, times have been very tough for others and myself. It seems that the ability to get good gainful work is a crapshoot and it’s a case of who you know and if you are lucky enough to run in a circle where cronyism is the way of doing things. It doesn’t matter if you are good at what you do, or know you could really rock a job, if given the chance. It hurts like hell to see people less qualified get that great job—and it hurts worse when racism is involved.

I am cynical and distrustful because of the job that community college district did to me. I purposefully grossly underbid my services in the hope—and with the promise from the chancellor herself—that my thoughtfulness and lack of greed would be rewarded by hiring me for the job once the district was able to budget for the full-time position. Once she’d hired someone else for the job, she didn’t even have the decency to speak to me about why I wasn’t awarded the job after doing the job for nearly two years—and doing that job well. Or at least I was told I was doing it well. So much for kindness and trust—where does that get you? Screwed over, I guess.

Same goes for the place I’ve provided editing services to for over ten years—I turn my work over quickly, I have not asked for a pay raise in 6 or 7 years, yet for some reason, I haven’t received any work from them since December. Why? One of my guesses is one of the usual over published, full-of-herself Ph.D.-educated authors doesn’t like for me to edit her work because I catch holes and biases in her research, so she’s made complaints and the new research director found it easier to sell me down the river as opposed to say to this researcher “Well, maybe she is right about errors in your stuff.”

Submitting resumes is an act of futility, but I guess I enjoy self-flagellation?

Being burned as much as I have, it’s pretty hard to see any good anywhere in humanity. Hence, I trust my cats more than pretty much any human right now!

This doesn’t mean I won’t continue to try to deliver a random act of kindness whenever I can—but I will stop believing that I will receive any kindness or consideration from others. Today I let an elderly Japanese woman cut in line ahead of me at Costco. She had an armful of foodstuffs; I had a full cart. Why make her stand behind me, I said to myself, and motioned for her to get in front of me. She said “Really?” and I replied, “Of course, why make you stand there? You go ahead of me!” Once she was done, she turned to me and with a huge smile offered her sincere thanks.

It’s just that easy to melt a jaded cynic’s heart, if only for a few seconds.

Musing on Academic Success and Failures …

2011-02-17T00:58:00.000-08:00

Me as a hopeless 17-year old with my friend Marie Sprugasci, who was my maid-of-honor at my wedding. Marie was just so darn spunky! She's now an elementary school teacher. I'm the blonde.

I don’t romanticize my academic career prior to working toward my B.S. and M.A. I seriously hated high school, except for a few teachers and classes. I was not popular, and never really found my niche. Some teachers accused me of being lazy. In hindsight, I probably had a learning disability that affected me ability to grasp the abstract thinking required in algebra. But because I was supposed to be “bright,” any problems I had in algebra were of my doing, out of laziness or spite.

Thing is, I really didn’t have a problem with math until 6^th grade. My teacher, a fine instructor named John Andes, took a group of his brighter kids, including me, and wanted to “introduce” us to some higher-thinking math. It had to do with thinking of math systems in different “bases.” The “base” we work in is base 10, in other words, numerals are grouped by tens. That’s really as much as I got out of it. By the time the school year was done, I was hopelessly confused.

Then came junior high, switching teachers and subjects throughout the day for the first time. I found myself in “A” rail everything except for math, which was “C” rail. My math teacher was a man Mr. Yeager. We called him “Bird” because he had severe, sharp features like a bird and wore his hair in a crew cut.

He was the first teacher I had that I hated. I was so confused in his math class, confused to the point that I didn’t even know how to ask questions. I received my first D from him—up until then my lowest grade had been a C in penmanship in 4^th grade!

My lot got no better in 8^th grade. I was still C rail math because I was too smart for D rail. I was again stuck with Yeager. And again I learned nothing. Adding to my problem was my English teacher, Mrs. Grote. She too looked like a bird, except she was small and skinny, and an even worse teacher than Yeager.

I received my first F from her, in English, a subject I’d always excelled. My mother came in and had conferences with Mrs. Grote and Mr. Yeager. To this day I think the only problem I had in English with Mrs. Grote was I didn’t understand any of the directions she’d given—ever. The math problems were chalked up to laziness. I was getting high marks in social studies, science, and Spanish.

Things did not look much better for me going into high school. Because of my crappy grades in math and English, I was going to be put on the “career” track; in other words, enrolled in office classes in the hopes I could work as a secretary. At the time I had aspirations to be a veternarian, but the high school counselor, Mrs. Olsen, suggested I not think about pursuing that as a career. It was only at the cajoling of my mother that I was put into the “college prep” path, and put into one of the higher-functioing English classes, because by that time it had been determined I was simply bored with whatever it was Mrs. Grote had tried to teach me.

I was lucky that I ended up in the classroom of Dan Hoffman. Sure he frustrated me (Can anyone remember diagramming sentences? I thought “How useless,” but I confess that I use those skills whenever I am editing a poorly-written academic study.), but I learned from that man. I went on to take drama and journalism classes from him, and in a large part, he gave me the confidence and knowledge to craft powerful words.

Of course there is also the bad, and he came in the form of Mr. Quatre. He was the algebra teacher, and because algebra was required for college, I was put into a 2-year Algebra I class—designed to cover the subject a bit slower for students who struggled.

I never made it past the first year of that two-year course. I re-took the class my sophomore year with the same results—Ds and Fs. The only time I got an acceptable grade was the semester we did word problems. To this day I can set up word problems, but the operations just confuse me.

The traumas I endured in algebra stuck with me well into my 40s. I was math-stupid, and pretty much any and all four-year degrees required some sort of math. Even while earning my AA which allowed me to write the RN boards, I avoided taking pre-algebra. In order to graduate, I had to take a basic math test and pass with a 75. I waited until a week before my coursework was done, and passed with a 76.

In my early 20s I again tried algebra at the college level, at a night class. I cannot remember the teacher’s name, but I know I worked my butt off doing homework, which I earned As. However, at testing time, I’d go blank, and was grateful for a C. Going into the final I had a B based on my homework—I didn’t show up for the final, knowing I’d tank. The teacher offered for me to make up the final or accept a C in the class.

I was no dummy—I took the C!

A good 15 years later, I decided I really wanted a 4-year degree. By this time, the math required for a PR major was statistics. The prereq for statistics was intermediate algebra. I was still math-phobic, and spoke to a counselor at Hartnell College (the community college closest to me) who told me they had teacher on staff named Ken Rand who had a way with math-stupid people. I was lucky to be able to get into his class.

I worked harder for those 4 units than I have in any other class before or since—including nursing classes, science classes, and anything at San José State or the University of San Francisco. Mr. Rand gave his students the opportunity to have a signed “contract”—a promise from the student that he/she would ask questions in class, would do all homework, attend all classes, and participate in class. If you did all to his satisfaction, the lowest grade you’d get was a B. But it was no cakewalk. I spend at least two afternoons a week in his office, learning about quadratic equations. I also spend 4 to 6 hours a week in the special math lab Mr. Rand has sent up. He’d also give us a practice exam the night before an exam—and that practice exam consisted of the kind of questions we’d be asked on the real exam.

I earned an A from Mr. Rand. To this day, I give him full credit for my academic success. I was able to take statistics the following semester, and although I liked the class, my math anxiety came back in full force. I’d get As on my homework, earned an A+ on my class project, but when it came to exams, I’d look at the questions and ask “When did I learn this?”

I am done with math, period.

To end this entry, I’ve made a list of my favorite, and least favorite, teachers or professors I have had the pleasure or mispleasure to know.

Elementary School Favorites: Miss Dvorak (2^nd grade); Mr. Andes (6^th grade)

Least Favorites: Mrs. Bryan (4^th grade, she just scared me, she was so strict!); Mrs. Nunley (5^th grade, a waste of a year. She was very discouraging toward my creative writing attempts. I had a thing for science fiction…); Mrs. Pitcher (physical education; she did not believe I had knee problems…)

Junior High Favorites: Raymond Miller (social studies, 7^th and 8^th grade). LOVED his class and his way of engaging students. He’d have a weekly current events “college bowl” quiz and I’d usually end up on the winning team.

Least Favorites: Mr. Yeager (7^th and 8^th grade math); Mrs. Grote (8^th grade English)

High School Favorites: Dan Hoffman (9^th grade English, drama 10th through 12^th grades, journalism 11^th and 12^th grade); Larry Sonniksen (Agriculture 9^th and 10^th grade). Yes I was an aggie, in FFA and all that; Stephen Highfill, 9^th and 11^th grade Spanish. My Spanish used to be good enough that was a teacher’s assistant for Mr. Highfill in 11^th and 12^th grades.

Least favorite, and the one who had the most negative effect on my life: Ed Quatre, 9^th and 10^th grade Algebra I; Mr. Campbell, 10^th grade science—KILLED my interest in science until I had to take biology classes for nursing school.

College/University Favorites: Ken Rand, Hartnell College. The MOST influential teacher I have ever had; Dr. Lucindi Mooney, English 1B and Literature. Ultra-picky when grading my writing, which in the long-term has been very helpful to me. Debby Figurski, RN program at Hartnell College; threatened to fail me when I did not thrive in my ICU rotation, she made me get off my butt and want it more. Judy Duffy, RN program. Taught OB nursing, which ended up being my favorite area of practice; Connie Powell, RN program, taught pediatric nursing, which I hated, but she so obviously loved it she could not help make you care more about it.

Chris DiSalvo, San José State University, public relations instructor; Dr. Bill Briggs, SJSU, mass communications instructor. Sad thing about Dr. Briggs is I did not appreciate how brilliant he is until he was no longer my professor. Dr. Dennis Wilcox, SJSU, public relations professor. Dr. Wilcox is another of those brilliant, but I got it too late types… Dr. Kathleen Martinelli, SJSU public relations professor. Just makes it look so easy … Dr. Dan Rascher, University of San Francisco, master’s program sport management—made economics fun. Dr. Maria Veri, USF. Reminded me of the importance of accepting and embracing cultural differences.

Least Favorite:

Ms. Brown, SJSU, marketing professor. I HATED her class, 120 bodies and most were in the class because it was required of their major. I still don’t really get the point of her class—and didn’t until grad school.

A pair of female professors at USF, I have conveniently forgotten their names. One was a marketing teacher who did not understand the NHL or how inept it can be; the second was the sport law professor who was confused by my research paper about civil RICOs and the Alan Eagleson mess with the NHL Player’s Association in the 1970s. My lowest grades in grad school from the two—a pair of B+, messing up my grade point averages. Hags.

My Last Word (maybe) on the Michael Jackson Stuff

2011-02-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my conspiracy theory friends for contributing to this entry. You know who you are!

Let me remind anyone tripping over this that I am not a fan of Michael Jackson, the Jackson 5, or that genre of music. So when I heard that Jackson had died in June 2009, I thought, “How sad for those kids,” but not “Oh my God, the world has lost a living saint!” as it seems so many people think or feel. They argue, “Look at his humanitarian efforts, look at how much money he donated to causes for children! He cared about the earth!”

Well that’s all fine and dandy. No one really knows where Jackson’s heart was on those issues. Was his “famous” generosity actually a way to pay less in taxes? Was it his way of atoning for possible questionable behavior around pre-pubescent boys?

I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again: At worst he was a pedophile, at the minimum he exhibited some confusing behaviors around elementary/junior high-aged boys (never girls). At best he was a very talented entertainer, at worst someone who came along at the right place at the right time and was discovered. What I can write with certainty is he was a human being full of self-loathing because of what his father did to him. And that’s a fact—how many people go through so much effort to distance themselves from their father by subjecting themselves to plastic surgery to look less like him (and ultimately look like an alien, related to no one on earth, except for his sister LaToya)?

My friend Sprocket at her blog Trials and Tribulations attended the hearing for Conrad Murray, the physician responsible for Jackson’s death by abandoning his heavily sedated patient. Her blog entries brought out the best and worst in Jackson fans. I believe it is possible to be a fan and be able to understand that Jackson’s death was utterly avoidable, that Jackson’s behavior in seeking a doctor to put him to sleep using a drug that is NOT approved in any way, shape or form for insomnia, and that he has left a legacy of music that many people love.

Said rabid fans are also convinced that Murray is being undercharged, no matter how concisely it is explained to them that the law, currently as written, does not allow for anything other than involuntary manslaughter at the time of Jackson’s death or today. In other words, if the same thing happened today to a person as famous as Jackson, or a nobody like me, the worst that could be charged is involuntary manslaughter, unless there is malice. (“I want that person dead, so I’m going to do it with propofol.” That’s malice.)

But oh boy, the conspiracy theories surrounding this death are friggin’ hysterical. I refuse to “visit” any links sent to T & T proving those conspiracy theories. AEG did it, Sony did it, I am sure there are more but I refuse to investigate. I think for shits and giggles I will share some of my own, along with theories brought by friends.

1. The “this case is just like a repeat offender drunk driver running over someone and killing them while drunk, hence malice, hence second degree murder” argument. Proof: Conrad Murray delayed calling 911 and then made himself unavailable immediately after Jackson was pronounced dead 'cause he was chemically impaired on whatever.

2. The “This is a federal case and the FBI should be involved ‘cause Murray was on the phone to someone in Texas when Jackson stopped breathing in California” argument. Only problem is Murray wasn’t doing anything illegal by flirting with a girlfriend in Texas, unless he was trying to sell her something stolen or illegal.

3. The “Jackson died of sleep deprivation” argument. So to best buy into that one, you must embrace what you remember (erroneously) of your high school biology and assume that Jackson’s sleep deprivation caused hallucinations. The ensuing stress response caused kidney failure and cardiac stress. The chest pain, renal failure, and hallucinations drove MJ to recklessly climb onto the roof of the rented mansion, seeking relief from insomnia, whereupon he slipped and fell, impaling himself on a large syringe of propofol held innocently by Conrad Murray who was busy making dates. Sadly, AEG had not anticipated this situation, thus no insurance coverage. The beneficiaries of this conspiracy were Tito and LaToya, who placed the banana peel on the roof, in the hopes MJ would just accidentally fall to his death and allow them to take over MJ’s bankrupt empire.

4. (This goes with the above) Jackson was being held by AEG and was tortured and deprived of sleep to get him to comply with showing up to rehearsal. MJ was being a bad boy and not practicing, so they had Dr. Murray take care of the problem.

5. G.W. Bush did it.

6. Dick Cheney did it, and waterboarded poor MJ, too.

7. Bush, Cheney, Obama, bin Laden, Kadaffi, and Kim Jong Il did it. It was the one thing they were able to agree upon.

8. It was Kim Il sung, who ordered the hit from his deathbed. (In 1994.) MJ's music has always threatened stability in that region. Kim Il Sung was a huge MJ opponent, and feared MJ's music would drive the North Korean empire into ruin.

9. PepsiCo did it. They meant for him to burn alive when he had his little "accident" that got him hooked on drugs. They didn't mean for him to live long enough to do that. Joe Jackson told them to do it!

10. There is also a distant association between the Jackson family and JFK’s extended family (former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, married to JFK’s niece Maria Shriver), which had something to do with the conspiracy faking the lunar landing. Jackson knew the lunar landing was fake, and his dance step, the moonwalk, was a secret code in acknowledgment. Both MJ and JFK (both of whom have "J" in their names) are now dead. That is no accident.

11. A pentagram has 5 points—and the Jackson 5 had five members. The “hit” on MJ was ordered by the devil!

12. Conrad Murray was born in Grenada. Grenada contains the letters A, E, and G. Murray was chose for that reason—AEG knew he would comply because they shared letters of the alphabet!

13. The Vatican is involved, too, because the Jackson Family are practicing Jehovah's Witnesses. It had to look like the Muslims or Hindus did it.

14. Paul McCartney ordered the hit, because MJ bought the Beatles’ catalog before Paul was able to buy it for himself.

15. The executors of the will did it so they could play around with all of the recordings Jackson left, so they could have full-time work and get paid lots of money by Jackson’s estate.

I am a firm believer in Occam’s Razor, that the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected. The more people involved in a conspiracy makes it more likely that conspiracy will be uncovered. Over 2 ½ years after his death, no one has stepped forward (other than conspiracy theorists) to say there was indeed a conspiracy to kill MJ. No one has been able to prove how the main so-called conspiracists, Sony and AEG entertainment, were going to benefit from a dead Michael Jackson. There is not enough insurance in the world to make it profitable to have a corpse on their hands, allowing them to collect the insurance funds.

I also believe that the LA County DA performed an extensive investigation and would have upped the charges had they been able to find a reliable witness who could say Murray showed malice toward Jackson. Truth is, Jackson himself hired Murray, and demanded AEG hire/pay him to be Jackson’s personal physician. MJ did not need a cardiologist, he needed multiple specialists, doctors who would have said “no” to his request for propofol and benzos. While Murray is responsible for abandoning a patient receiving unacceptable medical care, MJ is the one who picked that incompetent physician.

If Jackson fans want to pursue any of their conspiracy theories, I suggest they form a group, collect the funds, and hire a private investigator or ten. Build an unshakable case. Look at both sides, pro and con. Make sure your evidence is valid and admissible in court. Only then do you take your unshakable case to the DA. They will appreciate all of the work you have done."

Or let LaToya and and the rest of the Jacksons pay for it. Just don't spend a dime of taxpayers' dollars on investigating something that has already been investigated and is going through the courts in proper fashion.

A heads-up to would-be negative commenters: Don't bother to send me links proving the various conspiracy theories. I will not approve the comment nor will I check out the link. However, I will approve people who see this post for the tongue-in-cheek entry it is, and want to add their own conspiracy theories to the lunacy. This is MY blog and there is no freedom of speech unless I like it!

Happier Things

2011-02-05T15:01:00.000-08:00

I have not written much about my first love, horses. It’s about time I do.
I was always a horsey kid. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love them. My mom has a photo of me, perhaps at the age of 12 to 18 months, sitting atop a neighbor’s horse (the horse’s name was Sammy), holding onto the saddle horn. I have no memory of that photo.
One of my earliest memories, perhaps at the age of three, is that of me feeding a horse from our backyard in Eureka. In hindsight, that horse might actually have been a mule, but that’s of no matter. I remember waiting for that equine’s daily visits.
My first horse was a pony named Dynamite. My non-horsey dad brought him home one day while I was at dance class. I vividly remember being dropped off by the neighbor, whose daughter was my age and at that time my BFF. The gray pony was tied to the swing set in the front yard. I think my dad was busy building his pen.
Years later I learned that the pony was a stallion and probably only half-broke. My dad borrowed a saddle from one of his cousins, and the bit we used on him was a ring snaffle with no stopping power. My riding lessons consisted of being put on Dynamite’s back, and being told to kick and cluck. I am sure that he ran off with me too many times to count, straight up the hill behind our house, toward the low oak trees that grew on the property surrounding the house. I remember one time that Dynamite had done just that, and my dad was not going to climb that hill and rescue me. I was crying, kicking that little devil, trying to pull him around and point him down the hill.
There was also the time Dynamite cornered me and bit me on the shoulder, managing to get his mouth and teeth all the way around my scrawny left shoulder. Again my dad rescued me—that pony was like a pit bull, with his laws firmly locked and me screaming hysterically.
That pony was gone by the time I started kindergarten. I bought my first real horse when I was in 5th grade, with my own money earned from babysitting and working in the fields. From that time, until 1997 or so, I was owned by at least one horse.
Here I am 50 years later, horseless. So I try to live vicariously by looking at horses from afar, wishing I had a place to keep a horse, brave enough to defy my doctor who told me that horseback riding was not a good thing for a fused back.
So for today, I am sharing two images of horses that have touched me and made me miss my horses all the more. One of the photos, that of the dark bay horse, is Zenyatta, 2010’s Horse of the Year, and one of the best thoroughbred mares to grace the track. She’s only the second racehorse I have been attached to, the first being the immortal Ruffian.
We know how that ended. Zenyatta’s story is much happier—she’s recently retired and waiting to go into heat, when she will be bred for her first foal. Z’s handlers have a website for her, with a daily blog entry. It’s so sweet that her people love her so much, that she is more than a machine. Z herself has obvious personality, and I am excited to meet her first not-yet-conceived baby.
The other two photos are of a paint mare that recently went through an auction ring in New Jersey. I do not know her name. With the economy in its present slump, many well-loved horses find themselves at auction, with no buyers, and no hay at home to feed that horse anymore. This mare, said to be a family horse, lived that nightmare on Wednesday night. She ended up in a feedlot pen, that is, she was headed to slaughter in Canada. Of all the horses that ended up in pen #10, she is the first one I would have taken home.
She had until today (Saturday) to find a home, or there was a very good chance she would be headed to Canada. Last night I learned she was still there, and I just sat here by myself and cried. Not only am I on the other side of the country, I had no money to buy her or even call the sales barn and offer to pay for her food for a week, just to buy her more time.
This morning I learned that pretty paint mare been purchased and would be rescued from pen #10. It was a nice way to start my Saturday.
Even though it makes me sad, I think I will take the time to write about my horses. Now if I can find photos …

Observations on the Craziness that are Michael Jackson Fans ...

2011-02-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

I certainly have been neglectful in writing for fun, haven’t I? It’s certainly not due to being too busy with work, but that’s a rant for another day.

I’m still crime/trial watching, but not as much as I would like, because my daughter thinks I am a doddering nutcase when I do so. However, how can anyone who grew up in the 1970s miss what is going on with the manslaughter trial of Conrad Murray, the physician who was Michael Jackson’s “personal physician,” a man about to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for gross negligence in Jackson’s death in June 2009.

To me it’s a cut-and-dried case, and I won’t write about that in more depth at this time. What I will write about is how the crazies come out whenever Jackson is mentioned.

My friend Betsy, who not only enjoys reading and writing about crime, lives close enough to the courthouse in Los Angeles to attend trials that pique her interest. She’s worked very hard to be a professional when writing about crimes, and because of her professionalism in blogging about other trials (most noteworthy most of Spector I and every day of Spector II), has earned the respect of the courthouse’s public information officer, and is now considered a member of the media—and that’s a big deal.

Last month she braved LA County public transit and attended the aforementioned Dr. Murray, knowing she would likely “watch” the proceedings from a media overflow room. Working against uncomfortable chairs, less-then-perfect visuals and challenging audio, she took notes during prosecution witness testimony, and posted to her website, Trials and Tribulations.

That’s when the lunatics came out in force. Said lunatics are fans of Michael Jackson who honestly believe a saint was murdered and that Jackson was the victim of a widespread plot.

Hey kooks, here’s the truth: your hero, who was most likely a child molester at worst, someone who no doubt crossed the line with inappropriate behavior with children, a man who bought his three children, a man who hated himself so much he endured who-knows-how-many plastic surgeries, died because he wanted to dictate his own medical care. After he found a doctor who would do what he wanted, he hired the man, a cardiologist by trade, Jackson told the doctor what he wanted and got it. Jackson could have, should have, bought the very best multidisciplinary health care for himself—sleep specialists, pain control specialists, addiction specialists—any of which could have made a difference and helped him sleep at night.

Jackson made a poor choice of doctors. He did not need a cardiologist—he needed sleep. And being knocked out with whatever general anesthesia agent one desires is not a treatment for insomnia. Period. Plain and simple, Jackson must have liked the feeling of being woozy—isn’t that what addicts do? I watch enough Intervention to see common threads, regardless of what the chemical of abuse is, addicts love the effects, be it feeling down and drooly or wired and paranoid. So what if narcotics were not found in Jackson’s blood after his death—there are plenty of ways to get that floaty feeling, and benzodiazepines fit the bill nicely. I am sure that Jackson’s postmortem hair sample is chock full of interesting information.

It’s been quite amusing reading some of the comments Betsy’s gotten from readers from all over the world. Some are pretty rational, but many are rants about how she should make the district attorney’s office charge Murray with first-degree murder and give him the death penalty immediately. Others are certain Murray is a scapegoat for a larger conspiracy, that AEG wanted Jackson dead and because AEG does business in LA County, the DA’s office won’t really properly investigate and find the masterminds of this “horrific” crime.

Recall that Jackson’s child molestation trial was heavily populated by fans that dressed like Jackson, wore t-shirts with Jackson’s image, and waited outside just to have a glimpse of their hero. There is no doubt that Murray’s trial will bring out the same kind of kooks.

So I guess this is my rhetorical question for today: what is so lacking in those people’s lives to defend a very flawed human being years after his death? Whenever anyone says or writes anything they believe is unflattering to Jackson, they become unhinged and accuse the writer of bias, prejudice, being a “hater,” jealous of Michael’s God-given talent—on and on. What makes a person be a fan of something to the point of blindness? I truly loved the Beatles, but I understood from a young age each was an individual, each flawed, and perhaps John, Paul and George worthy of my admiration for their musicianship and ability to write memorable music.

I don’t immerse myself in all things Beatles. I don’t spend money on memorabilia. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could worship anything or anyone like Jackson fans worship him? Why waste so much effort on someone who simply made music? And why make other people miserable with rantings, ravings and unkindnesses—especially toward those who do not fall in line with their thinking?

I’ll be researching and writing an article for T & T about the psychology of conspiracy theories. Perhaps I should also research why some people become so fanatical about someone (usually a celebrity), to the point of being blind and oblivious about that person’s faults. There is only one perfect thing in our universe, and we’d be better served being fanatical about Him.

P.S. Can you tell I am not a fan of Michael Jackson? Never was, never will be.

Why I am not Electable to Any Public Office

2010-08-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

One of the very best things about social media such as Facebook is connecting with like-minded individuals. The title of this blog indicates that I feel I am a moderate Republican. Actually I am more likely to be a Libertarian.

Many times after making a quite-opinionated post, friends have said “I’d vote for you,” and “Why don’t you run for office?” So, in the name of fun, I’ll put my platform out first, then tell you why I cannot run—the so-called “skeletons in my closet.”

Catherine’s Platform

I tend to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative. For this reason, I could not run as a Republican. So let’s put the some of the stuff out there that makes me a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Here are the things I am for—I’ll write about what I’m against in another entry.

I am pro-choice. I am not pro-choice as a method of birth control.
I am okay with gay marriage. I do sort of squirm when the term “marriage” is used because of my Catholic upbringing, but if marriage is looked at as declaring love between two people and then expecting that couple to remain faithful to each other (and what I mean by faithful is sexually exclusive), then so be it.

Those two issues are between an individual and God. Yes, I know in God. God will take care of everything. If abortion and gay marriage are wrong, He will make each of us answer to it.

The above two positions are enough to brand me a RINO. It’s a shame, but I certainly can understand conservatives’ beliefs, and know they are entitled to it. Call me a Libertarian then—I think that political ideology fits me best.

I believe that the United States must secure its borders. I’d put priority on the southern border first, of course. I do think Canada tries its best to control who comes in—have you looked at Canada’s immigration requirements? Now you might argue here that Mexico’s immigration laws are pretty strict, too, though the corruptness of those in public service means anyone can buy what they want in Mexico, including turning the other cheek. But there are people getting into Mexico who have no business being there—potential terrorists—and I don’t think Mexico’s southern border is terribly tough to get through either. Securing the border comes down to two reasons: one, to keep potential terrorists out; two, to keep people who will be an economic drain out; and three, to protect the jobs of Americans or people in the United States with proper work visas.

I think the 14th Amendment needs to be clarified to omit the “anchor baby” loophole that is being so overused and abused. It doesn’t have to be complicated—children born of U.S. citizens are citizens. Children born on U. S. soil of one U.S. citizen and one legal immigrant (that’s me) can be U.S. citizens if the parents choose (there are times I wish I had dual citizenship with Germany). Children born of a couple here on a green card/work visa can be U.S. citizens if the parents choose. Children born of a parent or parents in the U.S. illegally (no green card, no work permit) are not U.S. citizens. A birth certificate will be issued, but marked “not valid for proof of citizenship.” Contact information for an embassy of the parent’s home nation will be provided so they can follow up and obtain documentation of the child’s nationality. ICE will be informed and the parents and child, or children, are subject to deportation.

I am for the federal health care legislation being repealed. I am for tort reform.
I am for education vouchers for parents of children who live in districts where the schools are sub-par. However, those vouchers should be for no more than the current national average—around $10,000 per student. And those children must be U.S. citizens or have a green card. No more free ride for non-citizens.

Yes, I know making children “pay” for the crimes/mistakes of their parents is cruel and un-American. Perhaps people who cross into the U.S. illegally to birth those anchor babies would think twice about breaking the law when there are no benefits to be gained—no welfare for a non-citizen infant.

I am for limits on how long a person can receive welfare. I prefer that welfare recipients be subject to drug testing, and for able-bodied people, community service. The idea that families are on welfare for generations has got to stop.

I am for a strong, prepared military outfitted with the very best equipment possible.

I am for term limits for elected officials. “Career politicians” will become a thing of the past. Sure, a person seeking a career in politics, and I’m fine with a person starting at the local level, and working his or her way through the state and federal office, but NOT occupying an elected office for more than two terms.

I am for responsible spending. I think every elected official who takes part in creating a budget or spending government funds (which are really our tax dollars) need to honestly ask if he or she would spend his or her own money in that way. Spend each dollar as if it is an investment. Spend it in a way that benefits the majority of Americans, not a special interest group.

What is a Liberal? and other rantings ...

2010-06-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading a though-provoking article by George Will on Investors.com. First, let me say I am not in a position to invest anything (I have $48 in the bank until the education non-profit decides to pay me for several large invoices they have in hand, which can be anywhere from now to the end of the month, whenever they feel like it, and their ain't shit I can do about it). I was reading an article that had been posted on Facebook critical of' the way the current presidential administration has handled the uncapped oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, and all of the politics behind it, including BP being a big cash contributor for the current president’s campaign (I hate to type his name) and how that same president’s Interior Department gave BP a categorical environmental exception in April 2009. Very interesting … can’t blame Bush.

The linked article, “Progressivism and Limits of a Welfare State” was quite eye opening. Living in the Bay Area, one is surrounded by “progressives,” yet when you sit down with many of these people, they like, and dislike, the same things government or American society does as I do.

I ask my Democrat friends if they like paying high taxes, having no say where the money goes, and if they are fine with lifers and generations of families who have made welfare their way of life. They of course say no. I ask them if they are fine with government expanding and having a say in everything they do, from banning fast food to penalizing people who can’t or won’t buy health care as forced in the wonderful health care bill that was shoved down our throats. Mind you, most of these people are employed and have cadillac insurance, so they don’t worry about that. I ask them if they are okay with the courts letting violent criminals off with a slap on the wrist and way-too-short prison sentences. Most aren’t. I ask them if they are fine with H1-B people potentially taking their jobs because they will work for less money. Most are not. I ask them if they are fine with unchecked immigration from the south and H1-B workers overstaying their visas. Most aren’t.

They ask me about civil and gay rights. I reply I think they need to stop being an issue in order to promote true equality. I reply that I think no group of Americans (operative word: Americans or people here legally) should have preference over another. And, yes, I think Americans and people here legally have rights, and those here illegally forfeited their rights when they came here illegally. Those people don’t deserved to be harmed or victims of violence, but they do not have the right to say “the Europeans took this country from Native Americans.” That was hundreds of years ago. Get over it. Besides, aren’t most Mexicans of Spanish descent anyway? Last I looked, Spain was in Europe. At least it was when I went there one summer in high school to learn Spanish …

While I’m ranting about race, there was a story in yesterday’s San Francisco paper about children panhandling (under the guise of selling snacks) in the Embarcadero BART station, and on the streets of SF itself. These kids were brought over in a van from Oakland, during both school and off-school hours, in the name of soliciting funds for their Baptist church school. The race of the kids: black. The pastor of the church who compelled the kids to climb into the van and beg for cash: black. The reasons for fundraising have been found to be untruthful (an expansion of the school, with no building permits in place or concrete plans for building; a trip to Washington, D.C. on May 5 that didn’t happen), but because it’s black-on-black, no outrage? No outrage that black-on-black or Latino-on-Latino violence is so prevalent and epidemic? Are we adopting the attitude that it’s okay if they kill themselves? Where is the outrage? Stop perpetuating stereotypes in your own people, damn it.

So I guess I am firmly a Libertarian, but because of the two-party system, have to identify as a Republican. I do not believe government is responsible for making the United States a utopia; that’s best done by individual effort. I do believe that government has a role in regulating certain things: why was BP given that environmental exemption so quickly into the current presidential regime? How is it that drilling for oil doesn’t have worst-case scenarios in place before this happens? Oh yeah, it’s because the current prez says it’s okay …

If you are in California and registered to vote, please do so next week. And consider ridding yourself of any incumbent, regardless of party affiliation.

(Insert plug about Tom Campbell here. If he’s the only Republican senatorial candidate who can beat Barbara Boxer in November, yet he’s behind Carly “buy an office” Fiorina in the polls, we are in deep shit, my friends. Expect more of the same from our state: broke, overrun with illegals, gangs, and crime).

Happy aside: I had my three-level bilateral rhizotomy on May 20, and it’s working. I hope to get lots of mileage out of it, though it can last anywhere from 5 to 18 months. Worker’s comp was found to be out of compliance in its notification to the physician, and my worker’s comp attorney was mobilizing to make inquiries when the procedure was okayed. Now the carrier doesn’t want to pay for pain pills anymore … for heaven’s sake, my lower back is fused, and it was 18 years ago. The facet pain is gone but the forever backache isn’t! Fortunately I need a lot less pain med now than I did two weeks ago.

The worker’s comp game

2010-04-09T00:59:00.000-07:00

Not my spine, but I did have instrumentation like it in there for about 18 months, along with bone grafts at the front of the spine.

Let me tell you something up front—this is a game you never want to have to start playing. It is a merry-go-round from hell if you receive an on-the-job injury that will require ongoing care.

My odyssey began in late April 1989. I’d hurt my back at the previous hospital I’d worked at, but nothing to the point of daily back pain. Actually my knees gave me more trouble back then. I left that job thinking the job at the prison would have been easier. And it was, physically that is.

Like all acute back injuries, a little bit of time, a little bit of physical therapy and you are right back at it. This one was different. The next day the pain radiated down both legs, and I felt like I’d been driven over by a truck. I went to my internal medicine doctor who prescribed me muscle relaxants and a referral to a neurologist. I seriously should not have seen that neurologist. What an arrogant quack!

Unfortunately for me, he’d examined my sister years before he’d examined me. But with her drug-seeking behaviors, he assumed I was just like her, faking or acting out an injury looking for drugs. So he ordered an MRI scan which he claimed showed no reason for my out-of-control back pain. Yes, there might have been a tiny herniation or two, but that wasn’t the problem. This doctor eventually released me back to work because he did not believe I was as crippled as I was.

I then went to the prison’s comp doctor who referred me to the Spinecare Group in Daly City. Up to that time I didn’t even have a diagnosis, a full eight months after the injury.

So for 21 years now, I have been a patient of Dr. James Reynolds. I don’t doctor-shop, I don’t poly-pharmacy, and I don’t supplement my meager pain medication with street drugs, marijuana or heroin. I take only what this ONE doctor prescribes for pain. And I have not been on pain medication continuously for 21 years!

To read one of the worker’s comp reports, you’d think I am a drug abusing faking malingerer who should be out of their hair by now. So, State Fund denied treatment my doctor ordered back in November, and they sent the denial notice so late that the doctor’s office could not file a timely appeal.

Yesterday I got a letter in the mail saying the procedure was denied, and that they would no longer approve the refills of pain pills. The reason for denial was that my doctor did not specifically define what makes me "bad" and what I can do when I am "good" after a rhizotomy. His stating "she is more active and improved after she receives the injections" and "she does not walk very far and has more pain when she needs the injections" is not specific enough for some quack who has never seen me and doesn't have half the surgical skills as Dr. Reynolds.

Mind you, this is a case that was settled back in 1995. You’d think the rules that applied then apply now.

Nope. They write ‘em up as they go. The scheduler at the doctor’s office assured me that this is the usual game of a worker’s comp carrier after the worker’s comp reforms were voted in. Delay delay delay; deny deny deny. Eventually the patient will give up and deal with it in whatever way possible.

I voted for those reforms, because there is much waste and malingering and misuse. But you’d think that three prior spinal surgeries indicates that there was indeed something wrong, and despite “fixing it,” something of that magnitude needs follow-up care.

Back when the case was settled, State Fund offered me $65K to walk away from medical benefits. I did not.

I’m guessing State Fund has to be such a bunch of assholes to a legitimate claim to save face for being so screwed over by Octomom.

At any rate, the doctor’s office was going to call the comp carrier and complain that they did not receive paperwork in a timely manner, and I told the clerk that she could tell the insurance adjuster that I am no longer driving, that I can’t sit at my desk for any length of time because my formerly perfect special chair doesn’t work anymore, and that in the morning the pain is so excruciating I cannot stand straight and walk with a shuffle for about an hour. It takes about 3 hours for my back to loosen up enough to move around like a semi-normal person.

I don’t sleep well; the pain breaks through the medication. And I am not taking anything particularly nasty—Double-strength Vicodin, which does not impair me in any way. It takes the edge off and I accept I will never be pain free.

So the timetable is another doctor’s appointment on May 11, then another THREE months before the comp carrier has to make a decision. UNLESS of course my doctor gets pissed off and calls someone while I am on the premises.

All I need are four little needles stuck into the facet joints on either side of L3-4 and L2-3, and zap the little buggers. I won’t be pain-free, but the nature of the pain will change and I’ll be able to walk the three blocks from the light rail to work, when I am required to work onsite. I’ll be able to take my cats for strolls around the neighborhood. And I might be able to sleep more than an hour or two at a time.

I am beginning to see how desperate people with back pain can become though. I am seriously considering packing it in, giving up trying to get jobs in the Bay Area, and return to crappy rural King City where there will be no jobs for me. I guess the advantage would be is I’d have lots of time to work on novels that may never be sold.

And it really scares me thinking I may be denied pain medication—will I turn to alcohol? Try pot? Or do what killed my sister and sister-in-law—go get stuff off the street? It makes me sick thinking about it, but I am beginning to understand the desperation.

Single Mom Breaks Stereotype

2010-04-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve been sitting on this one for a couple of weeks, but after a conversation with a friend who works in higher education, I guess it’s time for me to purge and share some thoughts again. As usual, things are a bit of a stretch for me, so be patient.

There is this stereotype, all too often proven correct, that a child born to a single mom is destined for … nothing. Right now in college (especially community college, which certainly can be nothing more than a place for people to hide and avoid adulthood!) there are so many kids, especially males, who give their professors grief through disrespectful behavior and the attitude “You owe me, my life’s been rough thus far.” Plenty of these kids are from single-parent households.

The “you owe me” attitude is something people learn at home. My opinion, it’s all about the entitlement attitude that the United States has created through its welfare system. Start with one female, most likely with no education herself and coming from a family with the “you owe me” attitude herself. A baby equals a nice government check.

An attitude like this creates communities like Oakland, chock full of gangs and aimless young men who disrespect women. And they perpetuate the cycle, and their sisters, who may not be in gangs, perpetuate the cycle.

So when you come across someone who breaks—or rather, shatters—the stereotype, you can’t help but wonder why more families can’t get it right.

The mom in question was 15 or 16 when she became pregnant. My own daughter was a preschooler at the time. This young woman (let’s call her B) decided to keep the baby and finish high school. Her family rallied around her. Sure, they would have preferred she not do things that way, but her pregnancy and the eventual baby were never viewed as a tragedy or a source of a government check.

The baby, a boy, J, had plenty of good strong male role models who were not his father. He has a loving grandpa, uncles, cousins, and an uncle who was right there. His mom did eventually get married and when J was around junior high age, B had another son.

Fast forward 23 years. B is again a single mom, finishing prerequisite classes to apply for an RN program. She’s raising her second son, a great kid. J attended college and today is a talented journalist and gifted writer. Talented journalist and gifted writer are terms I do not toss about lightly.

Did I mention B inherited her grandmother’s cooking abilities and if she chose to do so, could probably support herself as a baker of fancy cakes?

Never has B looked at her boys at a source of cash. Her family circled the wagons and offered support and guidance to the young woman. Nothing but success was ever expected of her and her boys. B’s family is firmly middle-class, by no means wealthy, but they sacrificed to make sure B was able to care for J. J grew up knowing nothing but love, and his family expected nothing but good things for and about him. No excuses.

Why do B and J have to be the exception? Anecdotally, how many single moms do you know who did NOT end up on welfare for years, who did NOT continue to have babies (and plenty of deadbeat baby daddies), and whose babies used every excuse in the book to explain their eventual failures?

B will make an excellent RN within the next couple of years; I have no doubt J will someday end up winning a Pulitzer Prize, he’s that gifted. Son #2 will do whatever he wants and will no doubt be as successful as both J and his mom.

This family needs to write an instruction manual on how to successfully raise a kid! High expectations + no excuses + no sense of entitlement = successful young adult/human being who will make a difference in this world.

good people dealing with bullshit ... why is life so damn unfair?

2010-03-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

I had dinner with a dear friend on Thursday night. This woman is one of the kindest, most honest people I know. She loves her job and never loses sight that her job is in the service of college students, no matter how frustrating their behavior may be sometimes!

She is having trouble at work thanks to a supervisor who is clueless about the job she does, but he's throwing his weight around as an "office manager." She's been at the job four years longer than he has ... I think the only reason she was not/can not be promoted to a position of authority is the fact her college degree was not earned on U.S. soil and although it's called a B.S. or B.A., it's really not in the eyes of the college she works for,

For as long as she's held the job, her start time and hours were from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. That *hour* for lunch she seldom took in its entirety; the students needed her and she is pretty much always available. She never leaves work at 5:30. I can't think of a single time she's met me in the parking lot at 5:30 ... if she's working with a student, she finishes that exchange.

Her new boss, on the job for a year, has never said anything to her about her work hours being any different. But last month, he wrote her up for being "late" and deducted time from her timesheet. She was always careful to make up that missed time: if she came in ten minutes late, she stayed ten minutes later.

His main bitch: She was consistently 30 minutes late from her start time of 8 a.m.! She had no idea she was supposed to be at work at 8—AND said supervisor never verbally counseled her, but rather kept notes and confronted her with a written warning about tardiness.

This woman does not deserve such treatment!

Why is it when small insecure people get into "power" they do stuff like this? I have a feeling he's trying to look *tough* and protective toward the college, making sure every employee gives good value for their wage. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is forgetting you are dealing with human beings ... and how important it is to foster a sense of teamwork and openness at work.

My friend has yet to pull her union into this. I am not a fan of unions but this is why people pay dues: when they are treated unfairly, the union is supposed to be her advocate. I also told her that if her hours are 8 to 5, then she needs to start work at 8 and walk out the door at 5:01. Never mind if there are students waiting for her assistance. Let her boss deal with the students' complaints. Maybe he will be forced to learn her job ... maybe he will understand the nature of working for a college. It's there for education and not pissing matches.

Obviously doing a good job and caring about said job is really not important anymore.

Musings on What’s Wrong with the World

2010-03-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

It’s tough to be positive sometimes the way things work in the early 21^st century. I really try to live the motto “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.” I smile at cops. I hold my tongue when people I know and care about do silly, selfish things. I try very hard to keep my promises, even pushing my poor crippled back past its point of tolerance.

Which brings me to today’s bitchfest. I’ve been waiting for THREE months for approval on a procedure on my back which will allow me to walk more than half a block and not have to take pain medication every six hours (needing it more often than that, but ever-mindful of my family’s history of drug abuse). A couple of weeks ago, I received a denial notice in the mail. Why was the procedure denied? Because my doctor, a man with 30 years of experience in delicate spinal surgery, did not chart the specifics of how improved I was after the procedure. Nope, it’s not enough for him to say “She’s better and has less pain” after the rhizotomy. He’s supposed to go into a narration of specifics—for example, “When her back doesn’t hurt so bad, she can drive or sit in a car for more than five minutes without pain,” or “When her back doesn’t hurt so bad, she prefers to take the light rail to work and walk a couple of blocks to the office” or “When her back is better, she can go for 12 to 16 hours without needing pain medication.”

Because he failed to do that, some physician who has never met me has ruled I don’t need the procedure. Furthermore, this same god has ruled that narcotics for pain is bad, bad, bad, and that I should not take them, and that I need to be drug tested to make sure I’m not buying anything on the street or having multiple doctors write multiple prescriptions, or using multiple pharmacies.

This crap is a result of new worker’s compensation law here in California, something I voted for and still am in favor of. There was so much abuse in worker’s comp when I was hurt and worked in the industry in the mid-1990s. But taking a case that has been settled since 1996 and deciding someone with a back that’s been cut on three times is NOT in need of treatment or medication is taking things a bit far.

I have not yet had the energy to fight back yet.

Bitchfest #2: attorneys. They are all that is wrong with the world.

Don’t get me wrong. Some perform very necessary functions, like estate planning or prosecutors or defense attorneys to protect the public or wrongly accused individuals. Imagine this: what if everyone managed to live by “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you,” and we were kind and honest and ethical toward each other? And by “ethical” I don’t mean lawyer ethics, because those aren’t anything close to the ethics I believe are in the Bible. I guess if lawyers went by biblical ethics, defense attorneys could not defend their clients by shifting blame to others.

Attorneys run around wielding power and threatening action against people who have different beliefs than they do. There are some who choose to blog and share their own rants and irrational thoughts, and go on to read other people’s blogs and threaten the writer if they write something the attorney disagrees with. Many love to toss the terms “libel” and “slander” about to silence people who disagree with them.

I guess what ties these two thoughts together is truthfulness. Just be truthful … treat people the way you want them to treat you. If you disagree strongly with someone’s opinion, don’t threaten to hurt them physically or legally. Unless it’s life or death (and it seldom is, really), just shrug and forget about it. Don’t lie about the person whose opinion you disagree with to make yourself feel superior. Throwing around terms like “You are an uneducated trailer trash bitch,” or “You are stupid and delusional” are childlike and show a lack of rational thought.

Chose your battles carefully. And let people fight their own battles.

And to end this with something positive: in the race for California senator, a fiscal conservative, Tom Campbell, is polling ahead of the incumbent Barbara Boxer. I pray there are enough intelligent Californians who understand that today’s fragile economy is the most important thing we are dealing with, and that the democrat’s answer of “tax and spend” simply doesn’t work. It’s time government enjoyed some serious belt-tightening, and that elected officials start living like “regular” people and not elected royalty with bottomless pockets!

So frustrating ...

2010-03-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

For a brief period of time in the mid-1990s, when my surgically-repaired back was as good as it was ever going to be, I worked as a worker's compensation case management nurse for nearly two years. I was hired because I myself was an injured worker, having been injured on April 25, 1989 at Soledad Prison. I destroyed my back one night while keeping an inmate from flopping off a gurney onto the floor. I should have let him flop—when we arrived at the hospital, the ER physician quickly determined the inmate had been faking his seizures. I'd just completed an 8-hour shift with two inmates having uncontrolled seizures. Part of the treatment standard was to put their mattresses on the floor so they couldn't hurt themselves. But I'd have to squat or kneel every time I needed to re-medicate one of those men. At the end of my shift, and as the medical crew declined into a skeleton crew consisting of LVNs only, it was decided to transfer the seizing inmates to Salinas. I took what was thought to be the most unstable one.

Long story short, by the end of that 14-hour workday, my back was destroyed and my career as a bedside nurse was over.

It took eight months (and three physicians) to get a proper diagnosis and 10 months to have the first surgery. From April 1989 to early 1995, my life was consumed by surgeries, recoveries from surgeries, physical therapy. I honestly don't have a good sense of what was happening in the world at that time.

While I was working in worker's comp case management, I came to a conclusion about injured workers. They either are or they are not, and the ones who are not injured are the most troublesome. I had several clients who just did not act right, who claimed they were unable to do certain things after their "accident." We had a plague of deli workers at Nob Hill grocery store who "fell" and injured their backs. It was nearly impossible to get those people back to work. I had another client who claimed he could not raise his arm over his head following a shoulder dislocation and repair by a physician in Santa Cruz. I talked the carrier into a repeat surgery, this time by a doctor associated with the SF 49ers, thinking this injured worker would be impressed by this doctor's results with football players. Well, the guy had the surgery and claimed he was no better. I felt he was bogus, and he was surveilled and found to be repairing cars while drawing temporary total disability pay.

My back injury is long settled, and I am supposed to have lifetime care on my back. Sounds good, and when I get that treatment, it's great because I don't see a bill. But every since the worker's compensation overhaul we've had here in California—something I supported and voted for—it's been hell to get treatment.

Right now what is happening to me is a consequence of a two-level low lumbar fusion. The vertebra immediately above the fusion are not designed to bear the weight they do, nor are they designed to function like the lowest two vertebra. I'm having what is called facet disease, and according to my doctor, it's coming right on time, 15+ years after the fusion (fusion was in 1992). The treatment is pain medication and something called a rhizotomy, which is simply locating the offending nerves that are causing the pain and zapping them with an electrical current. Then I'm good to go, the pain is less, and I don't need to take as much pain medication orally.

After waiting three months for approval, I got a notice in the mail that the procedure was denied because my doctor had failed to document in specific ways how I improve after a procedure. It's not enough that he says it's so anymore. So I dashed off an e-mail and described what I do when a rhizotomy is working, and how I feel when it's not working, and the impact on my life.

And for some reason, the worker's comp carrier thinks I should not be having narcotic medications to treat pain. Huh? It's prehistoric thinking like that which will drive patients to do maladaptive things ... drink, acquire and abuse street drugs. I honestly don't know what to do if my doctor stops prescribing pain meds for me. I am very responsible with them; I don't mix alcohol with them, and I take them when I need them, or try to put off taking them.

So in a nutshell, when a neurotomy is on board and working, I can walk up to a mile and sit at my desk for hours, working. I can take the light rail to work and enjoy the three-block walk from the station to the job. I can do light housework and not be in immediate pain.

The consequences of not having the procedure: I do not sleep well, I wake in the middle of the night in severe pain and it takes up to two hours for the medication to work. I have my daughter drive me to work on those days I need to work onsite. I cannot work more than 4 hours, and need to take a pain med while at work because the chairs are so crummy.

I need an attorney to take on the fight and remind State Fund that we agreed on this years ago and they need to hold up their end of the bargain.

If I have to wait another three months for this, I may well be driven to drink.

Seems like I've dropped off the face of the earth ...

2010-02-21T13:44:00.000-08:00

It sure does seem as if it's been forever since I've done any fun writing for myself. I've been blessed with a bunch of work, greatly appreciated, and between that work and still waiting for the Worker's Comp carrier to give its blessing for treatment (they hope I die in the meantime, unfortunately for them what I have isn't fatal ... directly anyway) I've neglected sharing any random thoughts.

I am trying to be a bit better about going to my internal medicine doc. I don't like going to the doctor. I have insurance, but I just think what a waste of money to have to go at least four times a year, mostly for lab work because of statin therapy for familial high cholesterol. Strange though, I've been getting what could be perceived as good news at my last two visits.

At my November visit, the scale, never my friend, revealed a 17-pound weight loss from the last time I'd been seen, a tick less than a year previously. It hasn't yet equated to a full drop in clothing size, but stuff hangs on me. At my full physical 10 days ago, the scale said I'd lost another four pounds... that is over the Christmas holiday, without extraordinary effort.

In part the weight loss is due to scary low income. There have been times I have one "meal" a day which might consist of ramen noodles and cheese, and a glass of milk. College student fare, and if it keeps them going, I guess it's good enough for me. Combined with the stress of slow work and pain, I'm just not hungry.

We've also switched to nonfat milk and I do not drink carbonated beverages at all, not even the diet stuff. I don't know if weight loss is all that easy, but imagine how nicely a weight loss might progress with an increase in exercise?

I can hardly wait! This time, I will be rid of my "fat clothes" as soon as I possibly can!

Yay for work!

2010-01-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

There is nothing that feels as good as having work, being productive, using the skills that God and a good education gave you and allowed you to develop, and learning new things from students to boot.

'Twas a good day today. Maybe 2010 will indeed be a better year?

Holiday depression crap

2010-01-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

As I get older, I dislike the holidays more. Not because I don't like or believe in the reason for the season—I know that over two thousand years ago, a remarkable man was born mortal but under extraordinary circumstances, and that this man had gifts and abilities that we have not had on this planet since. Unfortunately I don't think we remember this is why we have this holiday, and it's become something else, a time of reflection I suppose.

Today my daughter left open her Facebook page to her cousin, my deceased sister's daughter. I do not consider this young woman to be my niece, but it's her choice. She has totally embraced my deceased father's widow and her family as her family—something I cannot do. This girl posted a bunch of Christmas photos taken with my father's widow and her children. It was like a stab to the heart. They celebrated the holiday in the huge house my father built his second wive; it's a 4 or 5 bedroom home, and it was built for the two of them, plus plenty of extra bedrooms for "visiting family." My father has been dead longer than he was married to this woman, yet she continues to live like a queen, and her daughters continue to benefit from their mother's good fortune to marry an older man who fortunately for her, died and left a crummy will.

I look at those photos of that house and see no sign that my father lived there. The furniture is not what was there when he was alive, except for the ebony baby grand piano that no one is able to play. There were gifts strewn about everywhere. Everyone is wearing nice clothes.

When I was a kid, my father was quite thrifty, and drummed it into my head that we were sacrificing for the future, that he in his old age would not want for anything and that his children would have his investments to help them to live comfortably long after he was gone. I believed everything my father said. I did what he asked. I did not report him to the cops when he hit me when I was a teenager, convinced I was a slut (believe me I wasn't). When my father remarried, his new wife was quite a bit younger than he, and I was warned by a co-worker that she was a golddigger, out for the money. But what could I do about it? Nothing.

Her three daughters became his perfect new family. He took them on vacations to Mexico, Hawaii, and places I don't know about. Vacations we did not take when I was a kid because we were sacrificing for the future. They had designer clothes; we had mail-order clothes from Spiegel. They had anything they wanted; when I was a kid we couldn't afford it.

One constant was the promise that there would be a piece of property for each of my paternal grandparent's grandkids—that promise had been made by my grandparents, understood by my father and uncle. But my dad kept stalling, saying he needed to transfer the property in the most beneficial manner tax-wise. A couple of years before he became ill, we decided on which lot he would deed to me, and I had house plans drawn up. My father knew I wanted to have a place to keep horses. My dad had also had numerous conversations with me regarding his estate, his wishes, and how I was to be executor even though I wasn't so crazy about the idea.

He wanted his widow to have income from certain investments, and I agreed that was the right thing to do. However, there were certain real estate investments he wanted held in trust to benefit his heirs, and that included an apartment complex, mobile home park, the 350+ acre ranch owned by my family from before my birth, the house I grew up in and the house he built to be held in trust.

Long story short, that's not what happened, and I had to endure my father's widow telling the cops that I'd made a death threat against her while his last-minute non-attorney written will was being probated. It was easier for me to leave the area rather than deal with her threats and accusations. She lives on $12K a month, most of that from his investments and his social security benefits. I am having a good month if I earn $3K. Usually it is quite less than that.

While my father was alive, I never asked him for money. My siblings did. I should have gotten a piece of the pie while he was still alive; I'd have at least gotten something. As it is, I don't have the promised acreage, and my beloved horses are gone. I thank my father for his cruelty and mind-fucking abilities daily. (note sarcasm)

It's not healthy to wish ill on someone. It's also not healthy for a kid, even if that kid is an adult, to not be able to remember one truthful thing a parent has said to her. But I cannot help wish that somehow something my father said would become the truth. I look at those photos and feel a hollow emptiness toward my father that is not healthy, and his widow has done her level best to keep me feeling that way.

Someday her lies will come back on her, and she will be made to face up to her greed and cruelty, if not this life, the next. And my sister's daughter hopefully never needs her mother's blood family for any reason.

Patriot Rally (there are good people in this world!) and more on the community college thing

2009-12-02T02:04:00.000-08:00

The rally was held at San José's Discovery Park. Yes that's the World's Largest Monopoly game board. The light rail station is at the back.

I wish I had photos to share, but I spent a nice fall afternoon with about 200 like-minded patriots who came together to talk about the plight of the San Joaquin Valley farmers who have had their water turned off because two environmental experts said that irrigation was bad for the delta smelt, a pretty worthless little bait fish.

So to keep the delta smelt happy, the water that farmers need for their orchards and fields has been shut off. And for the most part, democrats in Sacramento and Washington have utterly ignored this whole issue.

Small towns in the Central Valley are dying. Some are suffering a near 50 percent unemployment rate. Fourteen percent of the produce we eat in the U.S. comes from the Central Valley. When farmers cannot farm, they cannot employ farmworkers, let alone taken care of their own families.

There was no media coverage in this overwhelming liberal area. I’m not surprised one bit

The Patriot movement isn’t about Republican or Democrat. It’s about upholding what the U.S. constitution says. It’s about less government intrusion. There were conservative independents, Republicans and Libertarians at the rally.

Why the media insists on calling this gathering of people “teabaggers” (and then they snicker at the double meaning like Beavis and Butthead) is beyond me. All these people really are is a gathering of individuals who remember what a great place America can be, and want to restore this nation to prosperous times based on sound economic principles.

My mother joked and said I was too old to go protest, and then reminded me not to resist arrest. Not a cop in sight and some members of the group walked around the park and picked up garbage that had been there before we were! I parked my car at the light rail station and rode the 3 miles into downtown.

Back to the community college thing …

One of the local televisions stations presented a two-part report about how mismanaged the community college district’s funds have been since August 2005. I watched in disbelief as I learned that things were worse than what I knew about! The reporter showed a large table full of documents, all public information and there for the asking, and started weaving his story.

In August 2005 the District had $14 million in the bank. Today, it’s cutting programs left and right, firing employees, cancelling classes. All while the chancellor, who is on leave of absence until the first of the year (and who will retire on June 30), is earning $300K a year, has a travel and expense account, yet still is reimbursed for coffee and Mentos! Yes, she asked for reimbursement for a pack of Mentos! I presume she did receive the money back, too.

I knew she did lots of traveling. When I first started doing some of the PIO job, I was informed as to her availability, for how long she was gone, and at first, where she was. I didn’t know about the Scotland thing in until the news report.

I’m not even going to get into sexuality and race here. Any person of any race or sexual orientation could have done what was done in this case. The community college district paid for a membership to an exclusive club called the Capitol Club, $5K for the chancellor, and I presume her life partner and the two community college presidents. There was a receipt for a $1200 dinner at said Capitol Club.

She promoted her life partner into jobs she was minimally if at all qualified for. I very nearly applied for a job working for this person, but there was a little voice in my head that said “Don’t do it. The great state benefits are not worth what you will go through. No one else can work with this woman. You get along with her now but every day … maybe not.”

As it is, that department is probably no more and I’d be unemployed again.

I think what bugs me most is how flawed my thinking was when I accepted the contract job. I could have charged up to $150 an hour for my services. Seriously, that was the going rate. But I felt that any dime not spent on me would be spent on students. Boy was I wrong! Any dime not spent on me was spent on travel!

I think of two marketing pieces I wrote trying to persuade employees to sign up to make automatic payroll deductions to the SJECCD Foundation “for students.” I went looking for heartwarming student stories, convinced people to give money so those students could get an education and give back to the community. What I was really doing was unwittingly stealing from those good people. I had no idea that their donated money would be used for recruitment trips to Thailand (where they didn’t recruit one single student!) and a trip to Scotland to see a K-12 program (That’s not higher education, why do college administrators need to study K-12? Anyone?).

If I were still working there, I'd have written those pieces about two weeks ago.

Watch the reports for yourself. Tell me you aren’t angry about it, even if you don’t live in the Bay Area.

Chancellor's lavish spending questioned

Chancellor's lavish spending went beyond travel

God works in mysterious ways, and I am thanking Him yet again …

2009-11-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

I’ve written ad nauseum about my disappointment in not being hired for a public information officer job for a community college district—a job that I met every single job requirement for. I did much of the job for over two years, and had been promised the job by the chancellor of the district and her assistant, whom I now know to be her lesbian life partner.

Instead of me getting the job, a less qualified Latina was given the job and the job description was rewritten, taking duties that she was unable to do, away from her so she’d fit the job description.

I knew this district was living high on the hog. When I accepted the contract job, it was “name your price” to take the position. I grossly underbid and under billed, thinking what I was doing was the right thing to do when you work in education. Seems I was the only person doing that …

In today’s local paper, a second article has popped up about the chancellor of that district and the misuse of funds, how her salary grew by 47 percent while programs and classes were cut.

The chancellor announced her retirement “due to health reasons” effective at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2010.

Today’s story about a possible misuse of funds is here: San Jose area community college chancellor enjoyed big benefits as class offerings shrank

I’ve known about this for a long time. In the summer of 2006, the district sent a contingent of board of trustees members on a marathon trip to China and Vietnam, in the name of “recruiting” students. That same summer a contingent was sent to the Salzburg seminar, and every year since the district has sent several instructors and deans. In December 2007, a contingent of students and faculty went to Vietnam for a week. The chancellor and her life partner were scheduled to go until there was a public outcry by a small but vocal group of Vietnamese, objecting to a trip to communist Vietnam. I know this because I was going to go and blog about it for the district, but I didn’t have the money to self-pay at the time, as my beloved elderly cat became ill and needed vet (and my) care.

The chancellor is also very fond of co-sponsoring education conferences that further a liberal and one-race agenda (Hispanic). I know about two or three while I was still with the district.

In January of this year, the chancellor and a group went to El Salvador in the name of “service learning.” Both colleges in the district have service learning programs. One of the colleges sends a group of students every two years or so to do public works programs in impoverished towns in Mexico and Central America. This particular trip was more of a vacation for the chancellor and her contingent, described by the chancellor as “going home,” though she’s American-born.

It’s no secret I’ve been struggling big-time as far as work is concerned this year. The PIO job would have paid $80K a year plus great state benefits. I am lucky if I earn $25K this year. I am five months behind on my student loan payments, can barely pay my utilities, and have lost 17 pounds because I can’t afford to buy food and have three meals a day. But you know what, I have my integrity, I did not take advantage of a situation where everyone else was milking the cow and taking advantage of taxpayers’ good will, and perhaps I will get the last laugh after all.

I promise to write about the patriot rally I attended on my birthday, but this one comes first. Thank you Lord for looking out for me, even though I had no idea you were looking out for me …

No title good enough ... a flight of ideas

2009-11-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

I just a pair of Veteran's Day themed-television movies/documentaries. The first was "Area 60," an HBO documentary which was about the location in Arlington National Cemetery where those military persons killed in Iraq and Afghanistan now rest. The second was the movie “Taking Chance” with Kevin Bacon. It’s an HBO movie, a true story of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl (played by Bacon), who volunteers to escort the remains of a 19-year old Marine, Chance Phelps, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. Chance enlisted from Strobl’s home town, so he decided to volunteer to escort Phelps’ remains home. Pehlps’ hometown was actually Dubois, Wyoming, several hours from Billings, Montana, the nearest large commercial airport

With today being Veterans’ Day, and the crap our president is pulling with his indecision about his little war in Afghanistan, I guess this documentary and the movie touched me deeply. I am sitting here crying.

Over the past several weeks, there have been violent crimes such as gang rapes, the attempted murder of two pre-teen boys because one was wearing shoes favored by a Mexican gang, another boy murdered in his back yard within 2 miles of where I live. Then there was the massacre of good military people in Ft. Hood by a Muslim wackjob who was an enlisted military psychiatrist. I honestly have come to the conclusion that what is wrong with this nation is our tolerance ad our desire to think everyone deserves to live like we do in America, with plenty of freedoms (that our current government wants to take from us).

Why do we allow people who live in America to do un-American things? Why do we let Mexican (and black) gangs do what they do? Why do they deserve the freedom to be alive at all? And why are American youth fighting in the Middle East, supposedly fighting for freedom that isn’t even a way of life for the people who live there. Do they even want us there? What is the United States getting out of it? We aren’t even taking their oil—we pay for a war with our tax dollars and young American lives and what is the reward?

Do we honestly expect people in Iraq and Afghanistan to ever thank us for helping them be more like us? They don’t want to be! They have been killing each other for hundreds of years. It's their way of life, and they could stop it anytime if they really wanted to. It’s not going to stop.

If you choose to live in the U.S., you live like an American. Period. You don’t embrace little violent subcultures and expect people to sit by and understand that what you are choosing to do is cultural. If you don’t fit in, you don’t belong here. Deport what’s deportable (of course make damn sure the border is secure), and throw the rest in prison. Or send those big bad gangstas to fight in the Mideast if they are really so badass tough and like to kill.

If the U.S chooses to be in a war, fight it to win, and fight it for people who want to be like us. Period. Either our troops are given the assistance they need to win a war over there (and then annex whatever territory into something and call it the U.S. annex or something). And if they aren’t going to be given the best equipment and the manpower to win a war, then get each and every one of them out there now, all at the same time. No cautious withdrawal, Americans leave immediately and let those people kill each other.

Bless the family of Pvt. Chance Pehlps for letting Lt. Col. Strobl share your story.

NASCAR Mayfield saga continues, and it's laughable!

2009-11-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

There's a story on CA$HCAR's website about former driver Jeremy Mayfield's failure to pay his attorney, Bill Diehl. Diehl represented the driver, who failed a random drug test back in May, but was replaced when Mayfield hired "celebrity lawyer" Mark Geragos.

I am hysterical with laughter over that one. How'd Geragos work out for Scott Peterson, eh?

Charlotte-based Diehl bills $1,000 an hour for his services. Not a typo. One thousand dollars an hour.

Back when Diehl was representing Mayfield, court documents stated that the suspension deprived Mayfield of the ability to earn an income, and Mayfield does not have funds to cover basic living expenses.

Yesterday the attorney said that wasn't true.

But Mayfield will be auctioning off 475 acres of land, a home under renovation, jewelry, guns and cars from Mayfield's personal collection. He claims it's not for the money, it's for "fun" and not necessity. He says he buys stuff at auctions all of the time and sometimes just ends up with stuff he didn't need ...

All of this was avoidable had Mayfield manned up and said "Yeppers, I was bad. Put me in NASCAR's drug program... I'll be a good boy." Instead, he blamed the Adderall he "forgot" to tell NASCAR about... his ongoing behavior tells me that random drug test was right ...

The Richmond rape case, and why race is relevant or irrelevant

2009-10-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

Does this look pleasurable to you? Me neither.

Again I’ve put my best work on T & T, so go there for a summary of the Richmond Homecoming rape case that happened a week ago today. As of this writing, one man who was questioned has been released from custody (not enough chargeable evidence … yet), and five remain in custody with no or very high bail. The three underage suspects are being charged as adults.

The 15-year old victim is out of the hospital but I am sure not out of the woods. Seriously, will she ever be out of the woods, even with the very best of therapy?

When I first heard about this crime, I confess I thought exactly what the majority of people thought when they heard about the actual location of the crime. Richmond is a formerly nice town, especially when the military was still in the area. But with the de-militarization of the United States, something else moves in when the military moves out, and what moved in caused Richmond to become a hood.

Now before you jump all over me, “hood” does not mean an exclusively black or Hispanic neighborhood. There are plenty of areas that could and are described as “white trash,” and hood is just a more politically correct term in my eyes if that’s possible. The word “ghetto” evokes strong feelings toward one race, “barrio” toward another, and those ill-feelings toward the people who may live in those areas is entirely too destructive.

So knowing a little about what kind of people live in Richmond now, I figured this was going to be more black-on-black violence (like the epidemic in nearby Oakland) or Hispanic-on-Hispanic or white or black (like most of the Bay Area). Didn't matter to me, it was still disgusting that a female was taken advantage of yet again by uncivilized males.

Let me say that the black-on-black violence sickens me, but what sickens me more is the attitude of black opinion leaders who virtually ignore what happens in Oakland. Toss a white or Hispanic person into the mix (a la the Oakland cop massacre earlier this year) and you get Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson all over the place decrying how unfair everyone treated the black perp—it wasn’t his fault he was a felon, it was all about lack of opportunity, blah blah blah.

I feel the same about Hispanic-on-Hispanic gang violence. There’s outrage, but no opinion leaders stand up and offer suggestions as to how to stop it. More often than not, it’s shrugged off as being a “cultural thing.” How that cheapens life!

When the Richmond rape occurred, I believed the victim was more likely to be black or Hispanic. But when the usually predictable overblown response (or lack thereof) from black or Hispanic opinion leaders didn’t pop up, that was a big red flag that the victim was white, which is the case.

The boy who lured her over to the group of boys and men who were drinking on the Richmond High campus was white, and a friend. At Richmond High, whites are the minority, big time. Most of the group of male (thus far) appear to be Hispanic, though there is one black boy charged as well.

The black boy’s family say he was arrested because he’s black, and they are threatening to sue the city of Richmond for targeting the boy because of his race. The family claims he walked by and left the scene.

But Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton haven’t rushed to the black boy’s family and started their rhetoric. They must know something the family is denying ...

So far none of the Hispanic boys/men or the white boy’s family are squealing about race being the reason they were arrested. Of course media accounts have said that none of the males took questioning seriously—until the cops told them how grave the situation was and just what they were facing. No reset button. No do-overs. No taking it back.

I keep saying this to anyone I speak to about this horrific crime—it’s not about race. Bad people come in all colors. And do I think the girl was targeted because she was white? I honestly don’t know. I am inclined to believe she was just an available girl, that the group didn’t talk about targeting a white girl—it was more like any girl would do.

But we have to know about the race of the perps to know which “audience” to target in order to figure out remedies. Rape is not a crime about sex, it’s a crime of control. Standing by and watching an unconscious girl be raped is not entertainment, it’s a symptom of something much bigger—the lack of empathy and accountability. And neither the cause nor the solution are going to be easy to figure out.

You’ll get people who say this negative change in attitude and caring is because of absent fathers and irresponsible mothers on welfare. You’ll get people who say this happened because the United States is turning away from Judeo-Christian principles. You’ll get people saying this is a cultural thing (for example, me la robo bride-selling in the Trique culture), especially in a culture that devalues women and treats them as possessions. You’ll get people saying the boys/men were bored and the girl was a tart (by all accounts she was a churchgoing kid trying to fit in on campus, and went to the dance dressed nicely). You’ll get people saying it’s because of violent video games which facilitates a break from reality because of the reset button. You’ll get people saying it’s because of rap and hip-hop music that teens of all races listen to, and a common theme in that music is devaluing females (“hos”).

Maybe it’s all of that.

Yes, the school itself needs to take part of the blame. According to friends of the victim, boys/young males who were not Richmond High students were hanging around on campus. Back in the 1970s when I was in high school, that simply would not have happened—school administrators, chaperones or the cops would have chased them off. To be let into a school dance, you needed to show your student body card. If you wanted to bring in a date from another high school (or someone who had already graduated), you had to submit that person’s name to the office early in the week for approval.

And kids weren’t wandering to and hanging around in the dark, poorly-lit areas of campus—there were adults patrolling. I know this one for a fact, being the stupid little pothead I was in high school, being chased from a nice dark corner trying to toke up.

Race is relevant only in it helps sociologists, anthropologists and educators study why stuff like this happens. To make a blanket statement that says Hispanics and blacks are more likely to rape is wrong. To embrace that believe is to perpetuate racism and rape, and the devaluing of females of all colors.

Young men need to be raised with a sense of accountability and empathy. They need to be told—repeatedly—that despite what pornography tells them, rape is not fun for the woman. And they need to suffer the consequences when they cross the line.

I hate the idea that we need to raise our daughters to be more paranoid and less trusting of males, but until males understand the gravity of rape (and that means prosecute it, period), it’s up to us females to minimize their opportunities. And being a strong, assertive and streetwise female is definitely not a racial thing!

Slow news week, I guess ...

2009-10-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

You know it’s a slow news week when you find yourself riveted to the television for a couple of hours and watch a “flying saucer” floating over the state of Colorado when there’s supposed to be a 6-year-old boy “inside.”

Not to say that nothing bad happened in our dysfunctional government but I’m sick of self-flagellating over that mess, for this week anyway.

Actually there were two news items that caught my attention: the aforementioned balloon boy and the justice of the peace in Louisiana who refused to marry an interracial couple.

First “Balloon Boy.” A wackjob family in Larimer County, Colorado claimed their son had climbed aboard a weather balloon that was shaped like a flying saucer (more like a container of Jiffy Pop popcorn) and was adrift, with no way of bringing the balloon back to earth, and no oxygen aboard. I admit to watching coverage, but my first thought really was “What kind of dumbasses have something like that in their backyard when there are three boys under 10 years of age living in the home? That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” and “It’s sad that child will pay for his parents’ mistake and bad judgment.” I never made it to physics so I really couldn’t figure out if the balloon was really capable of lifting the child at all, but I’ve read plenty now, enough to know the balloon was too flimsy to pick the kid up at all (probably couldn’t even pick up my nearly 20-pound cat Ryan …).

The father is an amateur scientist (whatever that means, I guess he reads a lot and fancies himself self-trained and superior to all) who also claims to be a meteorologist, and he and his meek-as-a-mouse Japanese wife chase bad weather with the three boys in the vehicle.

Then I learned the family had been on a lame-ass “reality show” called “Wife Swap.” I’ve never watched this show; it’s my understanding that two married women “switch places” and become the mom to a family that is as unlike theirs as possible. In the case of the Heene family (the people pulling off the balloon incident), you could put pretty much anyone into that situation and she’d be out of place. The three boys are rude, crude and run around uncontrolled; the father is a chauvinist of the worst ilk. Apparently they’ve been on the show twice.

But they claim not to watch television … although when the balloon went adrift, the dad first called the FAA and a local television station to report the “flying saucer” was adrift. Only then did he call 911 to report his son was aboard.

Long story short, no kid on balloon, thousands of dollars on emergency resources to track the balloon and figure out how to get the kid down safely, a closure of nearby Denver International Airport, and a farmer’s plowed wheat field were all affected. Once the balloon came down on its own, with no kid aboard, there were fears the boy had fallen out of the balloon, or out of a basket said to be on the balloon, so more helicopters and ground crews became involved in the search/recovery effort.

Perhaps an hour later, the family claimed to have found the boy, hiding and asleep in the garage attic. He was “afraid” he was going to get in trouble for playing with, and being part of accidentally releasing, the balloon.

Police searched the family home, the father “searched” the garage.

The ruse unraveled when the family did the talk show circuit later that night—and I mean full force. The 6-year-old, when answering his dad’s question “Did you hear us? Why didn’t you come?” said “You said it was for the show.” Dear old dad became flustered and confrontational with any media type who asked for a clarification.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Thus far, the only possible charges are filing a false police report. Certainly there have to be some sort of federal charges for causing actions that shut down an airport. Certainly somewhere in the false police report are provisions for restitution for the public agencies that responded. Certainly child protective services need to look into a family who has a “weather balloon,” and all the stuff required to maintain it, lying around in disarray.

Oh and to any network considering giving this family a “reality show” of their own (that they won’t watch since they don't watch network television), just say no. I think it may be time for that type of programming to die a quick death anyway …

As for the justice of the peace thing—I disagree with the concept of interracial couples not being allowed to marry. But I got to thinking—and this thought might be controversial, so bear with me—perhaps it is that man’s right to refuse to do so if he believes it is so wrong? Much like a nurse who is against abortion is not forced to care for a woman undergoing an abortion, maybe it’s this guy’s right to refuse? The couple was referred to another justice of the peace.

I also refuse to believe this is the first time in 34 years that this has come up. Why are we hearing about it now for the first time?

Of course his beliefs are wrong in the eyes of the law, but he holds those beliefs. Much like pharmacists who refuse to sell Plan B, the morning after pill, because they erroneously believe it’s an abortion pill, it’s their right to refuse to sell it as long as there is another pharmacist who can and will sell it. Let the people of his parish in Louisiana decide—don’t use his services for weddings. Certainly the word had to have been out on this guy and interracial couples had avoided utilizing his services before? Now the word is out for everyone …

Seriously we need to do a better job of being color-blind. Even if it’s hard to do, we need to try harder.

balloon boy

justice of the peace

Thoughts on today’s gay rights march in Washington

2009-10-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

Gay rights is another area that I tend to not hang with my Republican brethren. I don’t believe that gay, lesbian or transgendered people choose to be gay, lesbian or transgendered. Seriously, why would a person choose to be homosexual? It is what they are, it is in their wiring it is in their brain.

I have no problem with gay people serving in the military—as long as they serve, and not recruit. And to be honest with you, the homosexual people I know don’t run around recruiting—but I am sure they are out there (look at the current administration’s “Safe Schools” czar’s past actions. It would not surprise me that he was pushing an agenda on kids, he’s not going to make a kid who is wired to be homosexual homosexual any faster, but he sure could be in a position to take advantage of a non-wired kid who has a bad home life, further messing that kid up). The schools are not the place to teach children that there are people who are homosexual, that they are good people, they are not dangerous, and they deserve to be treated the same as any heterosexual person—no job discrimination. Acceptance and understanding starts at home—except for most kids it doesn’t.

I’m even okay with committed homosexual couples forming civil unions. Sorry but the Catholic school girl in me still says marriage is a hetero thing, set up for people to be monogamous and raise a family. I know that’s old-fashioned and that homosexual couples raise families, it’s just my hang-up.

I do object to the president giving lip service to this group, refusing to put a date on when he’ll take up “don’t ask don’t tell,” and other issues important to homosexuals. Why does this group think anything is going to be done by this current president?? He’s already worried about his re-election—he’s not going to alienate blacks and Hispanics who think that Prop 8 was the way to go.

But I also believe that homosexuals do deserve exactly the same rights as heterosexual people—and I mean exactly. Instead, the government wants to put them in the same “protected” category as minorities, and I object to that. This places a specific group of people to be of more value in the law’s eye. Hate crime legislation should not apply to any group (hate crime legislation should not apply to anyone—unless it works both ways. Right now it’s a hate crime if a white person kills a black person, but not if a black person kills a white one or a Hispanic one kills a black).

Personally I wish the Republican party would take a lesson from the Libertarians and just decide certain things aren’t worth fighting about. If homosexuality is wrong in the eyes of God, we will all face his justice someday, just like in the case of abortion. There are certain things government is supposed to do—maintain and train a competent military, maintain vital infrastructure such as highways and railways, provide police protection. If I have learned nothing else, you cannot legislate what you perceive as morality. So why waste the effort?

More musings on racism, or is it insanity that worries me?

2009-10-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

You experience the best and worst of humanity on a light rail train.

Earlier this week a video was posted on YouTube which was taken by a rider of San Francisco’s notorious MUNI system. The video, taken with a cell phone, showed two women, one black, one Asian (probably Chinese) arguing on a seat on the bus. The back story was this: the black woman was taking up two seats, one for her behind, the other had packages. The Asian lady asked the black lady to move over, thereby necessitating the black lady to put her packages on the floor or on her lap.

The black lady refused to do so. The encounter quickly became a shouting match with the black woman finally throwing a punch at the much older Asian lady. The older Asian lady fought back, and finally another female passenger broke up the fight (the person who took the video, a male, stated he’d been confronted on the bus the previous week, so I guess he wasn’t into the idea of getting between those two women). He bus driver did not stop the bus, nor were the police called, nor was anyone tossed from the bus.

SF authorities claim to be investigating.

Today on my way into work on the light rail, a very loud Hispanic man boarded the train two stops after I boarded. He looked to be in his 40s, and he was disheveled in appearance. Did I say he was loud?

(Let me preface this by saying I was in a good mood, the light rail operator waited for me to gimp to the train at my stop, instead of driving off as I’m moving my crippled legs as fast as they can carry me. I was feeling nothing but love for my fellow man. Nothing like an obnoxious person to kill the good vibes.)

This loud man sat next to a quiet Asian man across from two young white women and me. I was wearing sunglasses and tried my best to ignore the guy, to not encourage any sort of conversation. He turned to the women and said something about their noses, his speech was garbled but not in an “I’m drunk” way. It was the kind of speech I remember hearing during my psych nursing rotation—words strung together in meaningless sentences that make sense to no one but the speaker. Of course he got angry when the women said “Huh? What are you asking?” He then turned to the man in the seat behind him, another Latino, shook his hand and then started speaking very loudly in Spanish, talking about burritos and tacos. Eventually the second man returned to his book.

By this time the women had left the train and the guy slid across the aisle to the empty seats. I’m still sitting there going “please God I’m not in the mood.” At the stop where the women exited, a black male with his hair in dreadlocks boarded. He was wearing Oakland Raiders gear and looked benign.

The loud Hispanic man said “Do you ever wash those things?”, referring to the black man’s dreads, which were obviously clean. The black man asked the Hispanic man to repeat the question, and then he answered, “Of course I wash them every day.”

The Hispanic man asked “With what?” At this point this sounded like a young child asking obnoxious questions that people don’t tend to get irritated by because it’s a kid asking. But coming from a 5’10” poorly groomed Hispanic man, it’s not so cute.

The black man said “With shampoo, of course.”

Hispanic man said, “Looks like you use motor grease.”

Black man turned away, obviously looking to avoid a confrontation.

Hispanic man asked, “Are you homeless?”

Black man replied, “No, are you?”

Hispanic man said, “I know I look homeless but I’m not. I think you have lice. You smell bad.”

Black man just stood there, I am sure not believing what he’s hearing. I looked up at him and just shrugged, shook my head.

Hispanic man said, “Can you go stand somewhere else? You smell and you have lice. I don't want to get lice from you.”

Fortunately it was my stop and I was glad to exit the train. I probably would have anyway for fear that little encounter would escalate.

Of course I am wondering if the Hispanic man was mentally ill. But let’s say he wasn’t.

More and more I am seeing people of color “attack” each other, and even “attack” within their own group. For the life of me I can’t understand why that Hispanic man felt it was okay to insult the dreadlocks-wearing man like he did. He did not smell, and while I’m not a fan of dreads on anyone, it’s his right to wear ‘em.

The way things are in the U.S., if a white person had been the Hispanic person in this story, you can bet that the other Hispanic people on the train would have read the riot act to the white guy. But why is color-on-color racism not as serious?

I was sick, and wished I could have walked to the front to the train faster to let the operator know there was a problem back there.

Why do people pull crap like that simply based on skin color? What’s so hard about being color blind and being humane to one another?

Should he, or shouldn’t he?

2009-10-07T19:43:00.000-07:00

I have written a whole bunch about the Roman Polanski thing on T & T.

But I tried pretty hard to not inflict too much of my own opinion on the three articles.

Here’s the place to spill my guts and be a whole lot less tactful.

I have come to the conclusion that every person involved in the rape of Samantha Geimer is a pretty despicable person. And I mean everyone—Polanski, Samantha’s mother Susan, Samantha herself, the friend of Samantha’s family (Henri) who suggested Samantha for the photos, Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston (for being such good friends that Polanski was comfortable enough to give Polanski access to their home, and for Huston not demanding Polanski put an immediate stop to what he was doing in the bedroom), and even the caretaker who gave Polanski permission to open a bottle of champagne that was in Nicholson/Huston’s fridge.

I am seven years older than Samantha, barely out of my teens and too young to legally drink at the time of the rape. And yes, I believe what happened was rape, even though this trainwreck could have been derailed by any one of a number of people. But as I wrote over at T & T, everyone involved was a famewhore.

Polanski at the age of 45 was trying to hang onto his reputation as a continental playboy and swinger.

Susan, Samantha’s mother, was described by Polanski as being an actress, so why not get attention from a famous director any way you can? Maybe if he likes the daughter he might like the mother and see that she’s worthy of casting in a movie? She’s the latest undiscovered talent in Hollywood!

The friend, Henri, wanted Polanski to give Nicholson copies of the magazine he wrote for, a fringe publication extolling the virtues of marijuana.

Samantha herself probably got caught up in the potential glamour of becoming an international (!) model and all that would lead to. Oh well, so she had to put up with an old man to get there. Perhaps she’d already seen that sort of behavior from her mom. The 13-year old Samantha no doubt had limited parenting; she claimed to have lost her virginity at age 8 (eight!!) and at the age of 13 not only had a 17-year old boyfriend that she had an intimate relationship with, but she also told Polanski she’d been drunk and taken Quaaludes. ( I waited until the age of 15 for my first experience at alcohol abuse while in the company of age-group peers, and never touched downers.)

She may have been young, but Samantha had been around the block a time or two.

Over 30 years later, there is evidence of possible judicial misconduct. But did this misconduct consist of railroading an innocent guy into taking a plea deal? Nope. It was as simple as the judge thinking that perhaps he needed to give Polanski a bit more time in prison to think about what he’d done, before he was deported from the U.S.

Polanski took a plea, plead guilty to the least serious of six charges, and did 45 days of a court-ordered 90 day psychiatric evaluation. Before he returned to court for formal sentencing, Polanski split.

There is no deal in place. Polanski didn’t show for sentencing, the terms of his plea have not been met, and he is a fugitive from justice.

Some people argue that the State of California is broke, let the now 70-something guy out of that Swiss jail and let him live his life in peace. “He’s been through so much,” they say. And not every person who clings to that train of thought is a limousine liberal. My daughter thinks it’s stupid to tie this up in court, especially because the victim and her mother want it left alone.

Because Polanski ran, this crime is no longer about them. At this point, he should have to do the year in prison, the maximum time for failure to appear for a felony case. He will no doubt care much about the $5K fine associated with this.

Samantha says that the civil court remedy was adequate for her, although it appears by court records that Polanski hasn’t paid her fully. But at this point, why is she not cooperative? She went public with her identity in the late 1980s when she initiated the civil suit. The facts of the case are well known. Yes, she and her mother are going to face criticism for her behavior—her mother should never have let Samantha leave with a 45-year old man who was proud of his swinger image. And Samantha may have been sending mixed signals to Polanski—the caretaker who let Polanski and Samantha into Nicholson’s house said the two behaved toward each other as if they were lovers. (Ick.)

Polanski would have been better off facing that judge all those years ago versus taking his chances with a judge or jury who probably do not embrace the “everything goes” disco attitude of 1977. I have no idea what the LA DA has in store for Polanski once he is stateside, but I have a feeling that he won’t be permitted the sweet deal he had back in 1977.

He needs to enjoy a little time in prison alongside Phil Spector to think about what he did, and then he needs to be unceremoniously deported. Consumers (that’s you and I) need to remember the names of those Hollywood types who voiced their support for Polanski and start talking with our wallets. What he did in 1977 was wrong, just as wrong and despicable as it would be today.

Too bad castration isn’t an option.

Is a candidate’s point of view on abortion rights enough for me to vote, or not vote, for him or her?

2009-09-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

I was looking through my Facebook comments this morning and read one comment directed toward Tom Campbell, my choice for California governor in 2010. This person wrote, “Tom, I’m disappointed to hear you condone abortion.”

My pro-choice beliefs are where I draw the line with the Republican party. I have been pro-choice forever, but I also believe there is a higher power at work who will ultimately let each of us know if our individual abortion beliefs are enough to keep us out of Heaven.

Still, I have more in common with the Republican party (or libertarian, if only it were a major force politically, because that is really where I am at) so that’s not enough to drive me over to the other side!

I have had to use this option twice, the first time with an ectopic pregnancy, the second when I had pelvic inflammatory disease bad enough that I was hospitalized for 10 days, treated with some nasty antibiotics that are known to cause major birth defects. Did I take each decision lightly? No. Do I think about those lost children 30 years later? Yes. And yes, I think of them as children, not as tissue, though had I been asked, I would have donated the contents of my uterus for stem cell research.

Just because I am pro-choice doesn’t mean that I take abortion lightly. Far from it. There are times I wish that government could be more intrusive when it comes to women who use abortion in lieu of birth control, and make that decision as lightly as a decision as to what to eat for lunch. I have no problem whatsoever with involuntary sterilization for repeat offenders, let’s say for a woman who has three or more abortions in a 12-month period, or women who have more than two children whose births were paid for by public funds, or men who have multiple baby mamas and kids they do not pay for.

But, we live in the United States and one could argue this is something that China would do, and we like to think we are far more civilized than China.

Let me also say I am against any sort of abortion later than 12 weeks into a pregnancy. I suppose there are rare instances where a pregnancy needs to be terminated to save a woman’s life, but that should not be the first treatment offered, for example, a woman with preeclampsia at 18 weeks has an abortion instead of a trial of medication and bedrest. If I were currently back at bedside nursing, I would not take care of this patient if another nurse was available. You can bet I’d be working most of my shift in silent prayer, asking for His forgiveness, if I had to provide care for her.

Is a political candidate’s view on abortion enough for me to vote or not vote for him or her? For me the answer is no—there are far more pressing things an elected official should be worrying about. And with our form of government, I don’t believe any one person would be able to ramrod his or her opinion about abortion into the law of the land in this day and age.

With the availability of so many birth control methods today, there is little reason for a woman to not be using some method of contraception (not to mention HIV hasn’t gone anywhere and condoms are still the second-best method to minimize risk [the first method being abstention], so I am not letting males off the hook as far as pregnancy prevention is concerned). Yes, birth control can and does fail, but using something is certainly better than using nothing at all.

I also have no problem with government funds being used for abortions, with a caveat that I hinted to above. Repeat offenders need to have an IUD placed or their tubes tied or an endometrial ablation that will render them unable to carry a baby. Period. No more trusting these women to seek birth control or act responsibly. Two babies on welfare and a subsequent abortion=sterilization. Two or three abortions in a calendar year=involuntary birth control, including sterilization. (I admit it’s harder to chase down baby daddies and give ‘em a clip and snip, which would be far more economical.)

I appreciate Tom Campbell’s view on a woman’s ability to choose. I suspect he feels it’s not a decision to be used lightly, and I suspect he’d prefer pregnancy prevention to pregnancy termination. Is it the only reason I will vote for him? Not at all. And if he were against a woman’s right to choose, I’d still vote for him, knowing there are checks and balances in government and that right now the political climate overall and the law of the land leans toward a woman’s right to choose.

Right now politicians need to concentrate on things that affect everyone currently living in this nation—curbing government spending, securing borders, repairing infrastructure, and giving our troops the support they need to be successful in whatever mission the federal government sends them into. Once every single problem that we have in this country is solved (haha!), politicians can revisit stuff like this.

The Mayfield saga continues

2009-09-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

I used to love watching NASCAR races, especially back when it was still called “Winston Cup” and my favorite driver Bill Elliott was still competing full-time. Now, I’m kind of meh on it because I think the sport has lost its way with the emphasis on “youth” and “marketable drivers.”

But I admit I’m enjoying watching the Jeremy Mayfield saga unfold. It's much more compelling than the stupid "Chase for the Cup" crap they cooked up a few years back. yawn. Mayfield's providing plenty of amusement to a waning fan like me.

I wrote about it back in June here:

http://scaredmoderatefemale.blogspot.com/2009/06/nascar-and-its-youth-movement-drug.html

Today CA$HCAR (my name for the sanctioning body today) has asked a judge for a full examination of Mayfield, to determine if he has a substance abuse problem or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Recall that he was “diagnosed” with ADHD in March during a 30-minute doctor visit.

Mayfield conveniently forgot to tell CA$HCAR that he’d been diagnosed with ADHD and was on Adderall for it. I’ve also told you how easy it is for drivers to update their medical records, which travel with the series. You just go into the infield care center and tell someone and it’s added to your record. Takes five minutes.

Well, Mayfield forgot to do that, at least until he had a positive test for amphetamines. He then said “oops forgot to tell y’all about the Adderall, and I took a Claritin D, too.”

From what I know about drug testing, yes, Adderall will give you a positive in a screening test, as will the “d” in Claritin D. However, there are additional tests that will tell you just what the amphetamine is, and apparently Mayfield’s tests say methamphetamine specifically. He has also failed a second random test.

I honestly don’t think CA$HCAR has any sort of vendetta for Mayfield. He’s not a star in any sense of the word, but he was a regional good old boy never meaning no harm. Just there, you know. He’s never been a driver I’ve liked at all, but that is more of a personal thing, not that I know him, but because of his dumping his wife who’d stuck by his sorry ass while he was working his way through the stock car racing ranks, supporting him monetarily and physically.

But Mayfield’s dumb as hell. He could have avoided this whole thing by saying “Yep I have a problem, put me into the substance abuse program.” It was his first offense, and the whole thing would have been done and forgotten by now.

But Mayfield fought the positive test tooth and nail. He’s now pretty much bankrupt himself, blackballed himself from the sport, and is acting like a paranoid hillbilly on meth with his countersuits and protestations of innocence.

If he’s got Adderall I don’t believe he needs it. I think that he found himself less full of energy, running his own team as driver-owner, and at the age of 40, needed a little umph. So all you gotta do is take one of those little online “are you ADHD” screening tests, know what to say to your doctor, and viola! You have a prescription for Adderall. In a non-ADHD brain, Adderall is simply legal cocaine. Or legal methamphetamine. No need to cook up a batch in the shop anymore!

Thus far CA$HCAR has three witness affidavits stating that Mayfield has been observed using meth.

His goose is cooked. He should have just taken the treatment option even if he felt he didn’t need it.

And I hate to say this, I think CA$HCAR is doing the right thing, no matter how ugly it gets.

NASCAR asks judge for full examination of Mayfield

Right now Mayfield is his own worst enemy

more anger directed at my father ... at my age,no less!

2009-09-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

I hate that the crap left by my father is still running through my head and causes me grief and pain. I try to think of something, anything, he said to me as a kid or young adult that did indeed come to pass. My dad Robert was a master manipulator and I let him do it, I did what he asked because he was so good at saying that everything he did, he did for his family, so we could live comfortably and not worry about finances.

While he was alive I seldom asked him for anything. My brother and sister were real good at asking for stuff, and getting it handed to them. My father provided a house for my sister and her daughter, and on a regular basis, my brother would ask my father for money, either for business (he had a satellite installation business and drove long-haul trucks for awhile) or his hobby, racing cars. My dad handed over thousands of dollars to my brother, $10,000 at a time usually.

When my daughter needed to attend a special school, I did not ask my father for a dime of the annual $13K tuition (she was at that school for three years). Nor did he offer any assistance. He was too busy buying my stepsisters cars and trips and designer clothes and family vacations to Hawaii and Mexico, luxuries my siblings and mother never had because we were “sacrificing for the future.” He'd even paid for two years at that same school for his youngest stepdaughter, the one he ended up adopting.

He promised there would be money for college for his eldest granddaughter (actually all of his granddaughters). That didn’t come to pass either.

My dad lead me to believe that his estate would be somewhat pro-rated, that he was keeping track of what the other two cost him. From the late 1970s he held the promise of acreage over my head; he subdivided property and at one point, actually told me to go ahead and install a driveway, trees and a watering system on a 5-acre lot. We spent about 6 months planting, digging, and grading a home site, only to have my father say “My brother says we cannot afford to give you that lot, but I will give you a lot when the ranch (in my family’s possession since before I was born) is subdivided.” I shrugged it off, figuring my father had no reason to lie to me, and made plans for another home site. My father said that he would sign over the lot once his accountant told him he could do so, and he’d sign over his half of about 100 hilly acres so I could keep my horses.

Again we grated a home site and a driveway, looked into fencing and housing for horses, and acquired house plans. Again my father said “My brother says he cannot afford to sell you his half of that 100 acres at a discounted price. Pick another lot and as soon as my accountant tells me how I can maximize tax benefits, I will sign the lot over to you.”

I had house plans drawn up for that third promised lot.

Three promises, three promises unfulfilled. Why did I keep believing him?

When he died, his widow knew which lot my father had promised me. She conveniently “forgot” or claimed no such promise had ever been made. The lot was next to my father’s palatial home, and we joked I’d be able to take care of his dogs while he and Norma were off enjoying their retirement.

I wonder if my anger/hatred should be 100 percent directed at my father or his greedy widow. Perhaps they deserve it, 50-50. Her daughters now have the ability to go to their mother and ask for money at any time.

I do not have that luxury. I’m living from check to check, scared shitless, trying to get my kid through college. Much of the real estate owned by my father was sold by his widow and she took a full 50 percent of the proceeds. She receives all income from the investment properties. She bellyaches how she has to pay for everything as far as maintenance is concerned, and thinks the estate should have to pay. How can I pay for anything when I have no income from the properties at all? I’m supposed to pay out-of-pocket so she can have an income?

I had to give my horses away because I had no place to keep them. I’d like to think that my father would not have allowed that to happen, he knew how much they meant to me. His wife of course did not share his feelings, and she didn’t give a damn about what happened to my horses. I miss those horses every day, wish I had a place where I could have a horse in the first place.

When the widow dies, I will receive 1/6 of my father’s estate. I am forever tied to her daughters, including the youngest one who cared so much to be adopted that when she married, I (her "sister") wasn’t invited to the shindig.

I’ve said this before—I know it’s unhealthy to pray for karma to come back on someone, but I do. I want that woman to know that now I hate my father, that any pleasant memory I have of him ends up going by the wayside, thinking of the lies he told me to keep me in line all those years. Psychotherapy is probably a good idea, but I can’t afford that at all right now.

Random half-thoughts

2009-09-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

Half-thought #1

I promised I’d write a bit more about Tuesday’s presidential message to school kids, and why I had a problem with it. Actually I had several problems with it …

The first issue is trust. I totally did not trust this current presidential administration to stay on topic—which was supposed to be “stay in school.” If that was the message, why was part of the original lesson plan to write a letter to the president and tell him what you will do to help him. Excuse me, but the president works for us. He’s there to help us, to serve this nation and do what’s right for this country, including upholding our Constitution. I’d have been angry if this had been an assignment from a Republican administration. Politics have no place in the classroom. I remember as a child that teachers stayed from very heated subjects—and remember, I was in elementary school in the 1960s. Teachers didn’t talk about how bad (or good) Vietnam was, about why we were there, or which president put us there. They’d say the U.S. was at war to defeat communism and left it at that. I remember in 1968, in seventh grade, how we had mock elections in my civics class and the discussion was utterly student-driven. No doubt kids got their talking points from parents, but teachers did not reveal their party affiliations in any way, shape or form.

The second issue is that of timing. This message could have happened anytime in the school year. Why on the first day of school for many districts? Was this so parents would not be able to object to the lesson?

The third issue is audience. No need to preach to primary-aged kids about staying in school—if they have parents with only half a brain cell, those parents have to be smart enough to know that kids need to finish high school at the minimum. Better to give that talk to junior high and high school students, and be honest enough to say that college is not for everyone, but there certainly are trade schools and vocational education that will meet nearly everyone’s needs.

One of my friends told me about something that happened to her high school-aged kid the first week of school. This kid had a homeroom/core teacher who had two boxes of pencils, and asked students to take a pencil from one of the boxes. When her kid took a pencil from one of the boxes, the teacher said “Ewwww, you don’t want to take a pencil from the Republican box!”

Her child has been moved from that teacher to another, and she reported what that teacher said to the principal. I hope she doesn’t stop and also reports it to the district superintendent. No place for that in our schools today, period!

Half-thought #2

I wish that Representative Joe Wilson hadn’t felt the need to apologize for thinking out loud during the president’s delivery of his latest propaganda. Perhaps that wasn’t the time or place to say, “You lie,” but the truth hurts, doesn’t it Nerobama?

I bet over 50 percent of U.S. citizens who can legally vote agree with those words.

Half-thought #3: The “N” word

There are two words in the English language that I have a real problem with: the word cunt and the word nigger. And I hate the “n” word whether it’s uttered by a white person, black person, brown person, or whatever color pops up. Of course if a non-black person uses that word it’s racist, but it’s perfectly okay for black people to call each other nigger or some rap music-inspired version of it.

On Tuesday I was waiting for the light rail by a park that is frequented by lots of homeless people, drug addicts and people who would have been better off at a place like Agnews used to be. I’m always a bit nervous sitting there, waiting for the right train, so I am hypervigilant almost to the point of paranoia.

A pair of buses pulled up into their spaces, and passengers began to board. Suddenly a very obese black man with no shirt on came running as best he could across the street, hollering for the bus to wait. No problem, there was a line.

In the meantime, a black woman came from the end of the block screaming every racial epithet used on black people. She was screaming for the bus driver to not let “that motherfucking nigger-ass onto that bus!” She was screaming so incoherently I have no idea what he did to offend her. As she got closer to the bus the man jumped down from the steps (he now had a shirt on) and he took off walking (this guy was seriously obese, a la Fat Albert). The gal stepped halfway on the bus screaming at the bus driver to call “fucking 911 on that nigger’s ass.” Apparently the bus driver didn’t do as she asked, and she jumped off the bus, screaming racial epithets at the Latina bus driver. The gal starts running after the guy, and I realize I am between them. What if either or both had a gun? Then I thought how much it sucked that I thought that, probably because both people were black and the gal was so obviously out of control.

Fortunately a cop had the misfortune to drive by and she flagged him over, screaming incoherently yet again, the epithets flying. The cop flipped a U-turn and went after the fat guy, who had walked to the end of the block, not once breaking out into a run. Who knows what happened, because my train came and I was happy to climb aboard.

I hate to make blanket statements about a group of people, especially because I know so many good friends whose skin color happens to be black, and I know those people do not use that word in any way, shape or form. But the double-standard in its usage pisses me off. It’s a nasty word, a negative word. Use it and the world around you thinks a whole lot less of you, and may be scared of you. To me, it’s offensive regardless of the skin color of the person using the word.

Half-thought #4

The San Francisco County District Attorney Kamala Harris announced that her office would not be seeking the death penalty against Edwin Ramos, an illegal alien career criminal gang banger with his very own anchor baby, who murdered a SF man and two of his sons in broad daylight in June 2008. The worst that can happen to him is life in prison without the possibility of parole (haha right that's easy to change!) if he is convicted. Remember we are talking about an San Francisco jury—those people are who elected Kamala Harris in the first place! Even though one of the Bologna sons survived the attack and is now an eye witness, that may not be enough to put Ramos away!

To contrast, the San Joaquin County DA announced that it will seek the death penalty against Melissa Huckaby who is accused of killing eight year old Sandra Cantu and stuffing her body into a suitcase. At least that is being put on the table for the jury to decide.

Both cases have special circumstances attached which makes the murders death-penalty eligible. Thing is, Ramos will be a hero in prison, a gang leader, someone for the little gangstas to look up to. At least if he were on death row his contact with other people would be limited. If he ends up in prison he'll be a big man ...

I don't know if a San Joaquin County jury would be able to give the death penalty to Melissa Huckaby. I still think that one's going to get a change of venue. Here in Santa Clara County would make it possible for me to attend that trial; the superior court building is just 10 light rail stops away from where I live.

Enough for now. I think sleep can come now ...

Where do God-given gifts go?

2009-09-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

Seems as if I’ve not been doing any writing; most of my stuff is on the Trials and Tribulations blog or Facebook.

August of course was a month for loss. I’m not going to say anything about Ted Kennedy ‘cause my mom said if I can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. She also said “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” So to quote Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

I am more torn up about the loss of Dominick Dunne.

I’m not going to write a mini-bio of his life; Google it yourself. I admire Dominick for his gift with the written word, his ability to include his readers right into whatever event is was covering or commenting upon. His work was readable yet intelligent; opinionated but relatable by every man (and woman). Everyone knows what a passionate victims' rights advocate he became after the travesty of justice involved in the conviction of the crazy who murdered his beautiful daughter, Dominique.

With the loss of Dominick, I wondered what happens to those extraordinary abilities God gives to some people. Are those gifts simply lost? Do they float around waiting to be reincarnated into some child somewhere who may or may not ever nurture those abilities?

About a week after his death, I started having a very vivid dream about what happens to those abilities. Three days later, I started writing an outline and character profiles. I am leaning toward the story itself being a bit of a gothic horror story/cautionary tale, if you will. I also signed up for November’s National Novel Writing Month. I’m not sure if it’s cheating, working on the character profiles, or having an outline, or even having decided it’s a gothic horror story instead of chick lit, which also worked for the story.

Did Dominick hear me? Did God hear me? So many of my friends tell me I write well; when I was in elementary school my teachers encouraged me to write fiction. Did I have those abilities all along or did someone kick me in the butt?

I’m also working on a friend’s story, a children's story—the plot is 100% her idea but she has problems writing characters … or even a story for that matter. It’s tough to keep a story to someone else’s vision, even if you know that person’s vision may not be giving the story very good service or readability. This thing that is in my head—it’s so completely thought out, it could not have possibly come from me alone.

I plan to aggravate my bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome in November if I haven’t already done it.

P.S. To keep my thoughts a bit political, I would be keeping my kid home from school on Tuesday. I promise to take time on September 8 to share my feelings about that little bit of propaganda coming from Washington, D.C.

His true nature ...

2009-08-08T12:30:00.001-07:00

Look at this photo:

Remember the little incident at Harvard where a woman called the police to report a man breaking into the house across the street from her? The resident of the house is the man walking with a cane, a professor at Harvard. The man assisting him down the stairs is a police officer who responded to the breaking and entering call. The pair are at a White House beer summit, organized by the messiah to improve race relations (stop laughing).

Note who is helping the elderly professor down the stairs. Yes, the guy who arrested him a few weeks ago for disorderly conduct. Note who is utterly ignoring the elderly man's need for assistance.

The man in the front wants to change health care. He will change it by encouraging people like the elderly man who uses a cane to seek end-of-life health care counseling. He secretly hopes that people like the elderly man who uses a cane accidentally fall down the stairs and die outright from their injuries (it would be counterproductive for that person to survive that accident, 'cause that would cost more money to treat him or her).

To me that photo says much. It shows what a narcissist that other people voted into the White House. I did not vote for the man. I have too many questions about his character and thus far, any concern I had about his character is coming to pass.

As far as I am concerned, 2012 can't come fast enough. Yes, I will do my best to ignore some birthdays between then and now, but I truly hope this country survives what this man wants to do TO US (not FOR US) in the next few years. There needs to be a purge of congressional incumbents in 2010 and seriously, this nation needs to get back to the principles it was founded upon.

Lying Parents

2009-07-25T05:16:00.000-07:00

I guess it’s just the way things are. Parents have kids so they can mind fuck ‘em every which way. I try to be honest with my adult daughter, to not make promises I can’t keep. I only wish my father had done the same.

My dad died in 1996 from complications of chemotherapy for treatment of acute mylogenous leukemia. He was 67 years of age. He did not expect to die, and left his multi-million dollar estate as a class A clusterfuck. He created a copy and paste “will” before he went into the hospital, I assume trying to save a few bucks. He’d had previous wills drawn up by actual attorneys; I saw one a couple of years before he died, and the only reason I saw it was because I was one of the executors. I had to sign some paperwork associated with that will, and I never read the will nor was I given a copy—my dad told me that there was no need for me to see it, that his estate was being left to his “children” (at the time me, my brother, and sister, and one of his stepdaughters, who was in the process of being “adopted” by my dad, God knows why. Well, actually I do know why now.), but that he wanted income from certain family investments to go to his widow for the duration of her life.

There was real estate that he was leaving to his children (including a subdivision of property that was owned by my dad’s family before I was born), and he intended that each kid received one lot to build a home upon. The income-generating investments, an apartment complex built in 1972–73, a mobile home park, built before my father married his second wife (not going to call her stepmother, because that assumes she’s acted anything like a mother to me, which she hasn’t), and a water company that provided water and sewer treatment to about 5,000 homes, were to stay in a trust, with the widow getting the income.

My paternal grandfather, my father and his brother were farmers. My grandfather was born in West Virginia, and worked in the coal mines as a youth. He came to California in the 1920s, and got work as a barber. He married my grandmother, who was born and raised in the same small community I grew up in. Her family’s claim to fame was her father James McCoey, who was active in the community. My grandmother made much of telling us kids that her father donated the flagpole in the city’s cemetery, and that’s why he was buried underneath it.

When I was very young, my dad and his brother used to run a few head of cattle on a 350+ acre ranch they bought in the early 1950s. I have a vivid memory of being in the barn after a cow had delivered a calf. I was maybe 3 years old at the time.

I’m not sure when exactly they got into farming, but they leased a couple of different ranches from something called “The Land Company.” The property owners lived in Southern California, and the rural roads that lead to and bisected the ranches had names like Hobson and Lagomarsino. The acreage my dad and his brother farmed was Hobson Ranch.

Only I don’t remember my uncle actually working … apparently he had some sort of nervous breakdown and was unable to work. So my dad did, working 12+ hour days while his brother stayed home and started to dabble in real estate.

As kids, my dad and uncle would drag the six of us (my siblings and I, along with our three double-first cousins) to the ranch to weed crops. The ranch was right off the freeway, and I was teased too many times to count for being a “farmworker” when classmates’ families drove by on the freeway and saw the six of us, all blonde, weeding and thinning crops. We were saving money, you know, sacrificing for the future. So said my dad and uncle.

We never went on family vacations. My dad said we had to sacrifice things like that for the future. So while classmates’ families went away during Christmas vacation or even had summer vacations, we didn’t. I think I was probably 11 years old when we had our first family vacation—but with my dad’s brother’s family, one of their business partners and his family (4 kids), and eventually my mother’s brother (2 kids at the time). The vacation consisted of a winter outing, and between the 3 or 4 families, they’d rent a house at Squaw Valley or Alpine Meadows and stick anywhere from six to eight adults AND 10 to 12 kids into a three- or four-bedroom vacation house. There is no way that “vacation” was any fun for the adults—I remember my mom and aunt doing not much more than cooking and keeping clothes dry for us kids.

That was the “family vacation” for about three consecutive Januarys. Throw the kids and dogs into a station wagon, load up one of the farm pickups to take clothing, rented skis and toboggans, and foodstuffs from coastal central California to the Sierras. We did get to miss school, though, because my dad and his brother made sure to not rent around Christmastime—to save money for the future of course!

The first “vacation” where we stayed in an actual motel happened when I was 12. Of course it wasn’t just my family; my dad and his brother’s family came along, too. We stayed in three rooms across from Disneyland (my dad and mom in one room, my aunt and uncle in one room, along with my 6-month old cousin, and the six of us older kids [four girls, two boys] in one room with two beds).

That’s just the way it was, my dad and uncle told all of us kids we had to sacrifice for the future, so they could invest in real estate and be financially secure someday.

I believe they started buying properties when I was 13 or so. The first was acreage off of I-80. They sold that and reinvested in a pair of good-sized lots in Fremont and in Watsonville. The lot in Fremont is now a multimillion dollar office building. The property in Watsonville is housing. My dad and uncle didn’t develop it. My uncle’s pipe dream was putting himself and my dad into position as investors for a world-class hotel in Monterey, on Cannery Row.

That property is now a parking garage.

In 1972 they decided to build a 26-unit apartment complex at what was then the edge of town. It was the nicest apartment complex at the time it was built, with a swimming pool in the courtyard, and covered parking. To save construction costs, my dad and uncle would drag us kids to the property and we had to clean up for the next week’s construction. I was in high school at the time. We’d go in and pick up nails and scrap lumber and cut-up sheet rock and sweep the concrete foundation so things were nice and clean for the builders. We weren’t paid, because “You need to pay into this, because someday it will be yours.”

Again, it was humiliating work, especially for me, a high school junior. Classmates would drive by, stop and honk and get out and laugh. I endured it because this was something that belonged to my family.

Eventually my uncle's family started taking vacations on their own. I believe their locations of choice were Catalina Island and Palm Springs. My family, of course, didn't do vacations. Gotta save for the future, you know!

Fast-forward to adulthood. My parents divorced when I was in my mid-20s. My mom just wanted out and let my dad keep pretty much everything, he threatened to hurt her and he told her if she took her fair share, there would be nothing left for “the kids.”

Cautionary hint: If there are sizable assets between a couple, and they divorce, the woman should get everything due her, and not let the husband tell her she’s harming her childrens’ future. ‘Cause she’s not. She’s harming them by NOT getting what’s due her, because the man will have enough to look attractive (financially) to other women, and then we have the “new” family who is now worthy of inheriting those assets.

My dad married a woman with three daughters. They became his second family, the perfect family. My dad was in the process of developing several properties, and always assured me that I needed to be patient, that he’d make sure I’d receive the acreage from the 350+ acre ranch, just like his mother had wanted. He built and sold houses, built a mobile home park that paid for itself quickly, and became a wealthy man.

His new daughters benefitted greatly. The family went on vacations a couple of times a year. Hawaii, Mexico, Ireland. One of the girls went to Russia; the youngest (the one who was "adopted") I believe got a trip to Hawaii when she graduated from high school. When the middle and youngest girls turned 16, they received cars. They never worked in the fields or cleaned up after any construction crews. No sacrificing for the princesses, no siree!

When my father died, long story short, his wife (of less than ten years) of course inherited the beautiful 5,000 square foot home he’d built for her, with only $40K left on the mortgage. She also inherited the family home, the house I grew up in. She promptly sold that off, keeping every dime of those proceeds. I knew my dad wanted her to receive the income from the apartments and the mobile home park, so no fighting there. But the bitch got greedy, and she ended up pretty much owning everything: basically 50 percent of the 350+ acre ranch, and she quickly sold off those lots, grossly undervalued. Her extended family bought several of them.

When the funds were dispersed, she received 50 percent of the funds; the four “heirs” each received ¼ of the remaining 50 percent. To do the math, she received $200,000 from selling an asset that was part of my family from before my birth. She had written in the “settlement” that I was never allowed to buy property or live on the development, because she was delusional enough to believe I was going to have her killed! Where she got that idea, I have no idea. I was never anything but nice and respectful toward her while my father was alive, and even afterwards.

The estate attorney’s fees were over $250,000. The estate paid for the widow’s attorney’s fees. My brother and I scraped to pay what little we could afford to an attorney who rolled over and played dead—$8,000 that took us two years to pay off after the estate was “settled.”

Oh, need I remind my readers that during the 1990s, I was unemployed and unemployable because of my on-the-job back injury in 1989. I never asked my father for a dime after I got hurt at work ... nor did I receive a dime, either.

Today the widow receives $10K a month from my father’s assets. (She also has his social security benefits, her teacher’s retirement benefits, and her own social security.) I earn … not a dime. Her daughters all own homes that she’s bankrolled. They want for nothing. She lives in her mansion on the hill like a queen. In the 12 years since he died, I received about $30,000, with 1/3 of that paying “inheritance taxes” and going toward my attorney’s fees. At the time of my dad's death the estate was valued at nearly $2 million, mostly in real estate.

I was supposed to receive my grandmother's sterling silver flatware (I am the oldest grandchild). I don't have it, I have no idea where it is. Shortly after my dad's death his wife said I could come up anytime and get it. Only thing was, she lives behind gates and I don't have the code. Nor would she pick up the phone if I called. Lying bitch.

I worked in the fields, picked up construction trash, and accepted the need to sacrifice while I was growing up because it would “all belong to us kids” someday. My dad lead me to believe my sacrifice was the right thing to do, that someday I would own something (even as partners with my cousins which was fine, we used to get along) and giving up things to ensure that future was the right thing to do.

I lie awake nights trying to remember one truthful thing my father said to me, one promise that he made that he kept. I can’t think of one. (Which explains the time of this posting; I am on such shaky ground financially, no matter how hard I try to get into a better situation, to work harder, to find more work. I want to get my daughter through college, at least through paralegal school, and perhaps be in a position to help her if she decides to do law school in a few years.) Did my father consciously choose to lie to us? I want to think not, but it’s entirely possible he did. Heaven knows he wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone except his biological children.

And people wonder why I hate my dad, why I’ve not gone to his grave, and why I moved away from that community. To see his golddigging widow and his precious second family live like wealthy people (‘cause they are!) while I have memories of working so my dad—our family—could have those things they all have now, is just too painful. And I was sick of explaining to people why, upon my dad’s death, I wasn’t all of a sudden “wealthy.”

And for the rest of my life, I am tied to his second family, those three girls who got the vacations we didn’t do because of “the future,” the girls who got the designer clothes while my mom shopped at Spiegel mail order because of “the future,” the girls who each have homes bankrolled on my father’s estate because he was able to lie to his kids and assure that the sacrifice was good for them.

I guess at least I have nothing to promise my kid, so nothing for her to sacrifice for. My father even promised college money to my daughter. That never materialized either. (He promised college money for all of his grandchildren. Only my deceased sister's kid got any money from the widow, because her father kissed the bitch's ass. I have no relationship to my sister's kid, and that kid has made it clear that she considers my father's widow "her grandmother" and the widow's daughters "her aunts." Hope she never needs any bone marrow ...)

My father was cold and selfish enough that he never once attended a single swimming competition that my daughter participated in—she was his only grandchild who took after him in the swimming ability department. He was chock full of excuses why he never could make it. But if one of the stepdaughters did something, you bet he was right there, beaming!

I wish I could retrieve one positive memory about my dad that didn’t end up having strings attached. And I know it’s not cool waiting for karma, but I pray that I live long enough to see my father’ widow pay for her greed and cruelty.

Sins of the Parents

2009-07-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

photo from SF Chronicle

There was an article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle about a little boy named Gavin. Gavin is thought to be four years of age, and he’s homeless. He spent much of his time panhandling with his mother on the mean streets of SF and at the Embarcadero BART Station.

After months of watching this child live this life, SF’s Child Protective Services finally got on board and took Gavin into protective custody. The article is here if you want to read it. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/17/MNJ518R40V.DTL

Gavin is the child in the picture. Yes, he’s clean and clothed and looks fed. Apparently his parents are together, but he’s seen with his mom nearly every day, asking passersby for money.

But does he deserve to be on the streets begging for money?

From prior articles in the Chron, plenty of assistance has been offered to Gavin’s mother. Temporary housing, beds, child care so Gavin doesn’t have to hang out on the streets. She refuses. No doubt there is a mental illness component, probably even drug abuse, and for now in the United States, you can’t drag people off because of poor decisions like she’s made.

Obviously handing a monthly check over to these parents isn’t going to get the job done. Taking care of Gavin is probably way down on their list of priorities.

I’m not saying that Gavin’s parents don’t love him. He’s just perhaps not their #1 priority in life.

The foster care system in this country leaves a bit to be desired, but it’s certainly better than having no system at all. One can’t help but wonder if group homes/”orphanages” could be better places if they were given more public funds. Where do those funds come from? They are the funds currently handed over to adults in the form of Calworks, SSI, and any other “entitlement”* program out there that sends a check to a family so the child can be taken care of. No doubt there are people out there looking to work with children, people with degrees in early childhood education who would relish helping children get on their feet, help them grow into responsible adults and not end up like their parents.

Weed out the foster parents who like getting the check from the county and who don’t necessarily have the children’s best interests at heart.

Kids don’t ask to be born, but some adult humans have the thought processes of a cat or dog in heat. No idea of the long-term consequences of having sex and the implications. In the case of a dog or cat, those babies learn to fend for themselves quickly. Human babies of course cannot. A four-year old should be playing, carefree, secure in a home with at least one parent who puts the kid’s care as the #1 priority, not worrying about his next meal or where he is going to sleep that night. The kid gets fed before the grown-up. The kid gets clothing before the grown-up. The kid goes to the doctor before the grown-up. The kid gets shelter before the grown-up. the kid goes to school and is given every opportunity for an education.

So why is it that irresponsible behavior gets you a check from the government (in various forms) for 18 years?

The kid deserves to be cared for, and if that’s in a group home (or loving foster care) where he or she will enjoy a stable life, so be it. Perhaps streamlining the adoption process would encourage more people to open their hearts and homes to children in need. Sometimes severing parental rights are the best thing for a child.

As a society we seem to forget who the victim is in Gavin’s scenario. By forgetting who the victim is, we set up a child for a life of failure—no education, no sense of personal responsibility. Gavin's parents' choices are what keeps them on the merry-go-round cycle of homelessness, joblessness, perhaps substance abuse. Gavin has no choice but to follow his mother to her day job of panhandling, and face it, he's an adorable prop. I'd give my last dollar to that kid, knowing he will be giving it to his mother for whatever it is she wants first. Maybe Gavin gets a Happy Meal out of it ...

One child at a time … someday Gavin may understand and thank CPS. For now, I hope he is surrounded by people who aren’t afraid to hug him and tell him that things will be better.

* I really really dislike the use of the term entitlement. No one is entitled to anything—government is not the teat that nourishes us all. It kills the productive members of society and keeps the dead weight fed, clothed and in some situations, housed. I’m not talking about someone down on their luck, someone who has lost his or her job due to the current economic situation our wonderful government has gotten us into—I’m talking about the generations of families who believe entitlement programs are a way of life.

Racism crap: Oh My God, You are Racist!!!!

2009-07-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

I love it when I have the intestinal fortitute to face the 900-pound gorilla in the room.

I made a comment on a blog regarding racial differences in the jury and perhaps that might be why that jury is having a hard time coming up with a verdict.

Okay, I should have used the word “cultural” because the term “racial differences” is a crock of crap. There is only one “race”: Homo sapiens, human beings. We are all the same regardless of skin color; our genes are the same though different groups manifest different appearances, different health problems.

Cultural differences are a very real thing though. If they weren’t, why is it that so much time is devoted in a liberal arts-based education on looking at cultural differences, and why it is so important to be understanding (but not necessarily accepting) of different cultural norms.

People, we live in the United States, and unless you are a 100 percent Native American (I guess the proper term is “Indian,” but I get confused between “Indian” from North America, and “Indian” from India), you came from somewhere. As your family assimilated into the U.S., you kept hold of some of your cultural things (usually associated with food or cultural celebrations), and others went by the wayside. There are cultural norms in the United States that are just “how things are done” and frequently there are laws that back up what those norms are.

Those laws were written by people WE put into office.

Just because something is a cultural norm back where you came from does not make it acceptable here in the U.S.! Tripping horses as a Mexican rodeo event is not acceptable in the U.S. Nor is dog or cock fighting. But we tend to shrug and say “Oh it’s cultural” and that makes it sort of okay.

Here’s a good example that I wrote about earlier this year:

http://scaredmoderatefemale.blogspot.com/2009/01/embracing-cultural-differences.html

Just because it's normal to marry a 14-year old girl back "home" doesn't make it right. "Not knowing" about the law because you are living on the fringe of society because you are here illegally doesn't make it right. I'd be expected to adhere to laws in Mexico, and for me to scream "but I wasn't culturally aware what I was doing was wrong" simply doesn't cut it.

Now here’s my concern with this case I made the blog comment about: It’s a child molestation case where the victims (that were presented) are all WHITE males. The accused exclusively abused males aged 9 to 14 or 15. The jury is a nice representation of the Bay Area; however, there is only one African American juror who is actually an alternate. But I digress.

Right now white males are the lowest of the low. They have been for some time. Basically they are the scapegoats for everything and everyone because they have “worked” to keep everyone else oppressed. (You need to appreciate my sarcasm here—white female is just one rung above white male. I’ve experneiced plenty of “sorry, but the position is filled” only to learn the person hired was not white and not really able to do the job, but because of racial posturing, that person was hired. So much for color blindness.)

So could there be people on that jury trying to send a "message" to middle and upper-middle class males that what they experienced was nothing compared to being a "person of color" every damn day? I don't know. But I'm thinking like an anthropologist here, and why not? It's a valid thesis question that might need answering.

I argue that we need to become more color-blind. Seriously. I do not identify friends and co-workers by a description of their skin color or family’s place of origin. But I understand (from non-white people) that is the wrong thing to do. So what am I supposed to do? I don’t make a decision to be someone’s friend (or not) by a cursory glance at their skin or eye color, or their accent. I don’t walk down the street and when I see a group of young Hispanic men, quickly go to the other side of the street, though I guess I need to rethink my way of doing things. I do NOT look away from an African American person walking down the street toward me. I usually smile at everyone, even if they are not making eye contact.

So I’m the idiot. Guess I will be if and when one of those groups of people thump on me because I'm white and I was there.

When does a person become aware of “cultural differences?” I’ve written about the hurt I experienced in 5^th grade when some of my friends came back from Christmas break and decided since I was a gringa, I was bad. To this day I wish I knew what happened those two weeks we were away from school. I tried to stay friends; I tried eating lunch with them, inviting them to my house for overnights, anything to keep them my friends. But I was bad now, not their friends.

So that’s okay because I’m white?

Why is it that so many classes in a liberal arts education are all about “race” and culture? I had to take cultural anthropology to get into a nursing program (of course those peoples studied were not anywhere near North America; I got so sick of hearing about Trobriand Islanders I could puke! I wasn’t going to trip over a Trobriand Islander in my nursing practice?), and then within the program, cultural awareness coursework within each specialty. Back when I was in nursing school, there was much education given to us about the Hmong, a group that had immigrated in large numbers to our area. It is vital to give people space in the health care setting; their cultural norms help keep balance and are a source of comfort.

I then moved on to a “media and race” class earning my undergrad degree, and that class was the biggest waste of time. Anytime I tried to say I do not pick the people I know based on race, the teacher, an African American man, said that was bullshit.

Was it my fault I didn’t grow up around Asian people or African Americans? I grew up in a white and Latino community.

During my master’s program, I took two semesters of “sport and culture,” and my classmates were black, Latino, and white. I got more insight in that class than any other, because I was able to ask those black and Latino people “what do you want from me? What can I do?”

Eventually once you pour through the shit you get “Treat me like anyone else, and accept me for what I am.”

I know everyone’s perceptions are different. We are products of our generations, our parents (though I am not like my father, who was notoriously racist against black people, and I could not get why.), our educational upbringings, and our life experiences. I don’t want to be less tolerant, I really don’t.

But when I am damned for my skin color and my sex and my disability status, I can’t help being a bit bitter and suspicious, now can I?

Not a place to make cuts…

2009-06-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty tied up attending the child molestation trial of San Mateo County psychiatrist Dr. William Ayres, and I had every intention of writing about that here today. Check out the Trials and Tribulations blog to see what I’ve been up to most of the week.

I observed something at the courthouse yesterday and it’s been troubling me.

During the lunch break, I went to the opposite side of the second floor to wolf down my lunch. There was a young woman with her young son in a stroller, waiting for an office to open. Her little boy was adorable—sandy blonde hair, green eyes, laughing. Every so often she would take a cell phone call and while I couldn’t hear her words I could hear her frustration.

The little boy was an absolute flirt, smiling and giggling at women when they walked by. Quite the little lady killer! So as I prepared to schlep over to the other side of the second floor, I stopped and asked the young mom about her boy, whose name is Andrew, and his age is 16 months, though he looks much closer to two.

I mentioned how cute Andrew was and how happy a baby he seemed to be. She said, “He misses his daddy.” I then asked “Where is his dad?” and she said “He’s in jail—the police arrested him for domestic violence and I didn’t want them to.”

I then asked “Did he do it?” and she replied, “Well, yes, he pushed me but he didn’t mean it.” She then said “I don’t even know if I’m doing the right thing—my emergency custody papers expire at 5 o’ clock today and I don’t know what will happen if they expire.”

Our conversation went on. She proceeded to explain that her husband hadn’t hurt her, though she was a bit sore from being pushed in the chest. But she did say that he is mean to her, calls her fat and stupid and lazy, and aligns himself against her with his 8-year old daughter, who is also abusive and cruel. The 8-year old regularly calls her stepmother ugly and fat, and then makes cutting motions at her own neck, saying “Someday soon it’s just going to be me, and daddy, and Andrew. You will be gone.” The husband pulls a knife out of his pocket and points it at her and says "Bye bye."

(This woman looks like a young Elizabeth Taylor, and she doesn’t need anyone telling her she’s not a size 2, okay?)

So I asked, “What do the authorities tell you to do?” She said, “When the cops took my husband, they gave me this,” and produced a piece of paper with a list of domestic violence resources. She claims to have gone to one of the places listed on the paper, but it sounds like it’s a support group and not anyplace to get legal aid.

She then burst into tears and said “I am all alone and no one will help me and I don’t know what I am supposed to do.” Her family is in SoCal and she planned to drive down there once she had her paperwork in order—she doesn’t want her husband to snatch the boy up and disappear with him.

Her overbearing mother-in-law called her early yesterday morning to get her son’s “nice clothes” so he could meet with his attorney, and she was encouraged to drop the charges. (There is a restraining order against him, something she didn’t ask for, but an automatic thing in her county when domestic violence has happened. The husband has to pay rent and maintain the household but he can’t have any contact with her, even by phone.)

Only thing is she can’t drop the charges: she didn’t bring the charges! As I understood, the police had been summoned by a neighbor because of the yelling. As the woman gave her history, the police made the decision to arrest the husband.

Andrew is her only child; she lost a sibling to Andrew from gynecological complications, and the pregnancy with Andrew was a difficult one.

So there’s this poor woman, has no idea what to do or how to do it, with a husband who already has the advice of an attorney, trying to keep her baby under her care.

And I had no way of knowing what she needed to do. Her name was on a “list” of walk-up appointments to presumably have the custody order extended. But she was afraid they’d take Andrew because she made him wait in the stroller, because she’d forgotten to grab socks for him (it was very warm outside), that his face might be dirty because she fed him. “I don’t want them to think I am a bad mom.”

She told me her husband controls the family’s money, and when she asked him for money for baby wipes and milk for Andrew, he gave her $6. The stepdaughter said, “Oink, oink, you gonna go get yourself a Big Mac?” at the prompting of her father.

While pregnant with Andrew, her Latino husband told her he wanted her to be a stay-at-home mom. But now he wants her to get a job, but only certain hours. Why? He doesn’t want to pay for child care, so he and his 8-year old daughter (Andrew’s half-sister) will watch Andrew, but only during the hours between 4 and 10 p.m., or overnight, because the father claims that the stepdaughter doesn’t want to be around her stepmother.

The ultimate clusterfuck family. A 33-year old woman whose self-esteem is in the toilet, and when she goes back into that situation (which she no doubt will), she’s allowing the adorable Andrew to become just like his dad, to hear his mother be berated, to learn how to be cruel to women.

All I could do was listen, and then tell her I suspected she did not deserve to be verbally abused or pushed ever.

I fully agree with the police arresting her husband. What I wish would have happened is a social worker or even just a social worker’s administrative assistance be available to guide this woman through the system. What are her rights? Does she need to file official child custody papers?

I know this costs money but I’d sure prefer my tax dollars to help U.S.-born women and children out of their quagmire instead of giving that money to programs like Calworks—as long as Calworks continues to give support funds for anchor babies (who are the citizens) so their parents can learn a trade (which they can’t legally do anyway because they don’t have authorization to work in the U.S.!). Calworks was intended to be a program for people like this woman, so she cold become self-sufficient and get away from what is no doubt an abusive situation.

This is another case where the perpetrator/criminal has more rights than the victim. Makes me sick.

I hope the woman got what she needed and was able to get to SoCal to the arms of her family.

Sears Point NASCAR weekend—why I miss it and why I don’t

2009-06-22T02:13:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my post from a couple of days ago, I used to be one of the nurses in the “infield care center” at Sears Point (now Infineon Raceway—I hate those naming rights things!) from 1992 to 2000. I earned the right to work at the “clinic” for those four days by becoming a member of the San Francisco Region Sports Car Club of America (SSCA) and volunteering to provide emergency medical care at club races at Laguna Seca (close to where I live), along with some professional events. Once a year I’d venture up to Sonoma to work the Sears Point NASCAR race. It was my vacation, the one thing I looked forward to each year, my Christmas and New Year’s all rolled into one.

When I first started to work the race, the NASCAR guys actually took to the track on Thursday for practice, then qualifying on Friday afternoon after several more practices, a couple of Saturday practice sessions and then Sunday’s race. But in the mid-1990s NASCAR decided to “cut costs” and let the big boys play on the track starting on Friday. So on Thursday, only club racers and the lesser NASCAR series, called the Southwest Tour, were on the track. There was a skeleton crew but I was there—even if few other on-track workers were. I put in 10–12 hour days, made sure that the proper paperwork and medical charts were filled out when a driver or crew person came in (I didn’t see civilians—only NASCAR or SCCA people). The doctors were also volunteers and were usually very devoted to providing the very best medical care possible, even with limited supplies or medications on hand. On race mornings, I was there at 6 or 7 a.m., as soon as the garage area opened, in case something happened before the doctors got there at 9.

The first race I worked was at Laguna Seca, an IMSA event, in 1991. I’d attended the Sears Point race and went looking for information on how to be one of those people on the track. I hit the jackpot—being an RN, even one with a bad back, my skills were needed. And I would be given unique access to both tracks, able to go places that spectators could not go. The people in the club itself were fun, and the medical people, all much older than me, were people I could learn much from.

My first NASCAR event worked was 1992’s race. We didn’t yet have the nice building that is there today—we were in a dusty trailer truly in the infield, at the start line at the drag strip. The garage area (there was no garage, only the team haulers enclosed within a temporary cyclone fence) was across the track—very inconvenient! But we did out level best, and did treat people. Most of the problems were due to oversampling of Napa Valley wines. I spent my time sitting in an ambulance, or on a rescue truck, as the clinic had a couple of nurses older than I with much more “seniority” if you will.

That year was also the first time I was plopped in front of Bill Elliott. The EMT I’d been working with that weekend and I were dispatched to one of the rigs to check up on a crew person that one of the docs had treated, and the doctor wanted me to be able to make a final note and close the chart. The EMT I was with, a gal named Annie, had suffered a career-ending ankle injury. So there we were, two gimps, getting to walk into the garage area, past civilians standing by the gate waiting for their favorite driver. On race morning, when all of the mechanics were frantically doing last-minute tweaks to their cars.

Annie took me to Bill Elliott’s hauler, and spoke to one of the guys. I stood back, nervous as all get-out. I am not shy, but this was Bill Elliott! The guy motioned for me to come toward him, and he said “Go stand by that door [at the side of the hauler] and wait there.”

It happened too fast—out came Bill, I was speechless. I babbled something about he was the reason I was there, the reason I watched NASCAR, and that when he quit, I quit. He laughed and said, “You should be more grateful I have a guy like Henry (the truck driver) who drives the rig here. He’s the hero.” [It had been Henry who plopped me in front of the hauler door.]

Anyway, Bill signed my brand-new #11 Budweiser jacket across the shoulders, I posed for a photo that Annie took, and off I went.

For that race, I worked on the rescue ambulance at the hairpin turn. (I think it was called turn 7, it’s no longer used by NASCAR, replaced by something very boring called “the chute.”) That day, Bill lead the most laps, but because of a set of slightly off tires at the last pit stop, he was unable to hold on to the lead and ended up fifth. That year, Bill was in the hunt for the championship, too.

I walked off the track headed into the garage area to use the bathroom. Lo and behold, who was walking off the track at the same time as me? Yeppers, Bill. I asked him where that finish put him in the points and he held up two fingers. I said “good luck the rest of the season and see you next year,” and he said goodbye and thanks for being there. I could hear spectators ask the gate guard, "Why does she get to go in there and who is she anyway?" It was awesome. People were jealous of me.

My worst nightmare would have been having to work on Bill after an accident, but that never happened. Yes, I did work on some drivers. One year, when Bill did not make the trip to California because of a bad wreck at Talladega (he fractured his femur), I chewed out the driver who was taking Bill’s place (Tommy Kendall) when he wrecked what was a very good car during a Friday practice session. He had to come in and be checked over after taking a pretty hard lick. This was the #94 car, Bill’s team, a car that did not win a single race, an exercise in futility for Bill and frustration for his fans who knew he was a better driver than his finishes showed.

Eventually we got a proper building to use for our clinic. The track of course had no money for decent equipment so most of the stuff we had was Navy surplus, as the doctor in charge was retired Navy. We had beds, and privacy partitions, and IVs and a simple pharmacy stocked with sample medications.

The volunteer doctors eventually shared duties with proper emergency room doctors who were paid to show up. A couple were excellent clinicians, though one irritated the heck out of me when he asked for freebies after he’d treat a crew person, owner or driver. He did this for two years, until the third year, we asked him not to do that anymore and he refused to take the gig again.

Toward the end an LVN joined the club, and time and time again I watched her do things that were outside the practice of an LVN’s license (even stuff beyond the scope of my license!) and I began to fear that she’d do something and I’ be held liable. I actually watched her “try” to treat an insulin-dependent diabetic who’d left his insulin at home by giving him oral hypoglycemics she’d taken from the doctor’s office where she worked. I told her to send the guy to the hospital, period. Only by the grace of God was that man not harmed by her actions.

So the writing was on the wall that the SCCA’s medical team would no longer be needed. Every year was supposed to be our last from about 1997. The last year ended up being 2000, though we had no way of knowing for sure.

That year, I watched the Saturday support race from the garage area, standing on a slightly raised area, right next to Dale Earnhardt. There was no question that I would bug him for anything—by that point I was beyond asking the drivers for autographs or freebies. It just wasn’t right.

That year was Dale Earnhardt’s last Sears Point race. He died at Daytona the following February.

After Dale died, the powers-that-be of NASCAR (Bill France and his son Brian) started making changes to the sport that I just didn’t like. Supposedly sponsors wanted young talent, up and coming kids, pretty guys, marketable guys. There were drivers who had little talent but who could string together a sentence and not have a heavy southern accent.

Bill's last full season of driving in a competitive car was 2003.

My heart was not into the idea of attending that race as a spectator, so I quit the club, quit volunteering for even Laguna Seca races, and let that part of my life go, something that had made me feel of value while I struggled through my back surgeries.

I wonder if I’d still be working that race though. Bill has mostly retired from the sport, and I seldom watch a race unless he’s in it, and even then it’s frustrating because he doesn’t do well—subpar equipment, subpar part-time crew, underfunded presumably because Bill’s not a 20 or 30-something guy without a southern accent. Bill will be 54 years of age in October, and can still drive the wheels off a car.

I tried to watch today’s race, the tenth one that’s gone on without me (I missed the inaugural event in 1989, having suffered my career-ending back injury mere weeks before the race). There is no way I could traipse up those hills to the seats that have been installed at the top of the hill. There is no way I could deal with the grandstand that replaced the Southwest Tour’s garage area and parking lot. I don’t have a favorite driver and I’m sick of Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson being shoved down my throat. I was used to watching from the clinic, with a television monitor, waiting for something to happen.

Seems that event, like so many others I’ve had to let go because of my back, might not be worth my time anymore. But I miss the people and I miss the simple heartfelt thank yous I used to get when I gave my best effort in getting the crews, drivers and their families the best medical care possible in a MASH setting.

I don’t have anything in my life right now that made me feel as whole and valued though …

Well that was easy ...

2009-06-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

I have been seriously thinking about which Republican candidate for California governor I'd like to throw my hat behind. I've decided who gets my vote—the candidate who speaks most for me.

Tom Campbell.

He's pro-choice, pro-gay rights (listen people, we have bigger problem right now then to put great effort to opposing these things. God will sort it all out in the end...), and most importantly a fiscal conservative who understands economics. No throwing a bunch of paper in front of him and dazzling him with political bullshit. He's well-educated but he's also done plenty of time in the trenches (unlike a certain "community organizer" who is currently running the United States into the ground!). He's an attorney and earned a Ph.D. in economics.

Perhaps most importantly, while serving as a member of the 102nd Congress, Campbell was named the most frugal member of Congress by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

Easy choice for me! Now I need to find a nice candidate to become a Senator and hopefully be rid of the two tax-and-spend liberal wackjobs we are currently stuck with!

NASCAR and its “Youth Movement,” drug testing and the Jeremy Mayfield fiasco

2009-06-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

Bill Elliott after he won the Winston Million, 1985 (Getty Images)

You might be wondering why in God’s name am I even thinking about this! Come on, NASCAR is a redneck southern state sport!

The truth is I used to be a passionate follower of this sport from the mid-1980s up until 2003. I started paying attention to the sport after reading about a driver who was eligible to win a million dollars if he won the race at Darlington (Southern 500) on Labor Day weekend, 1985. His name was Bill Elliott.

Bill and his brothers were truly a rags-to-riches story, except the riches never seemed to go to their heads. The Elliotts never went all Hollywood like today’s NASCAR drivers. They were honest, clever, and did much with limited resources early in Bill’s driving career, which started in 1976. Bill ultimately won his first race at Riverside (the location of that challenging road track is now a bunch of tract houses, how sad!), and was the first NASCAR driver to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

After Dale Earnhardt died following an accident at the end of the 2001 Daytona 500, NASCAR went bonkers with really stupid changes. All of a sudden there was this emphasis on youth, “Young Guns,” and for whatever reason the “old guys” (anyone over 40) was squeezed out of his ride (Sterling Marlin, who was dropped by his team because the sponsor, Coors, wanted a younger guy) or saw the writing on the wall and retired (Rusty Wallace). After the 2003 season, Bill went to part-time after helping Ray Evernham Motorsports build a competitive team. Bill was in the Top Ten in points that last season. He had plenty more in him, but he claimed he wanted to spend more time with his young son.

Since that time, Bill’s been kicked around, taking rides as favors to owners here and there, and is now in a very part-time effort for the legendary Woods Brothers (#21). The car is usually not very competitive.

Consequently, watching the races is no longer must-see TV for me. (Somewhere I have two photos of me with Bill at his hauler at Sears Point in 1993 and 1994.)

As for the Mayfield thing …

NASCAR implemented random drug testing this season after a Truck Series driver admitted he used heroin the same day as he’d race. So every weekend NASCAR would have a computer randomly select drivers, owners and crew for random testing. NASCAR never really released a list of banned substances, but come on. This is about performance-enhancing drugs.

For nine years, between 1992 and 2000, I was one of the nurses at the infield care center (actually in the garages at Sears Point). We had copies of each driver’s physical exam and list of prescription drugs the driver may have been on. If we needed to prescribe anything, we were asked to use good judgment and not give anything that could impair the driver or give him an unfair advantage. That meant no decongestants or antihistamines with pseudoephedrine. There was one time when we needed to prescribe an albuterol inhaler for asthma that was induced by allergies, and we asked NASCAR for approval. One of the side effects is an elevated heart rate and wakefulness (but only if the guy overdid it!). The driver was given permission to use the drug that weekend only, and had to follow up with his personal doctor when he got back to NC.

Mayfield tested positive for three drugs on May 9—and he quickly manned up and admitted to those drugs being Adderall and Claritin-D, which would react as amphetamines. However, there was a third drug identified, an illegal street drug with no therapeutic value. It has since been leaked that drug was meth.

Mayfield isn’t one of my favorite guys. Just as he was beginning to become successful on the NASCAR circuit, he dumped his first wife, Christina, who I believe was working as a hairdresser and supported Mayfield while he hung around the NASCAR garage looking for rides, building race cars for local Kentucky tracks. He left Christina for the person who is now his wife. I remember seeing Christina in the garage area—not gorgeous, but a sweet unassuming person. This new one was a total Barbie, and I laughed as she followed Mayfield all over the garage area, dressed to the nines in strappy sandals, her hair impeccably cut and highlighted, sitting on the pit box, following him to the port-a-potty and standing outside waiting for him.

I question his need for the Adderall. I found a timeline for Mayfield’s troubles, and he was prescribed the drug after a 30-minute appointment just this past March (2009) with a non-specialist doctor who gave him the drug for ADHD. Please. The guy is now 40 years old. I’m speculating he asked for the drug for weight loss or to help him withstand the rigors of owning his own racecar team. He claims NASCAR knew he was taking the drug.

I cannot imagine NASCAR just saying “oh that’s cool, you finally decided you have ADHD at the age of 40.”

NASCAR is a dictatorship and most all of the decisions made by the guy currently in charge have killed any interest the sport used to have for me. But drug testing was long overdue. And common sense should dictate—just look at the list of banned substances for the Olympics, the NHL, MLB, etc. Heck, there are therapeutic drugs that elite swimmers aren’t allowed to take, even if they need them to live (albuterol comes to mind for asthmatics). And one current NHL player, Jose Theodore, is banned from international competition for another year or so (I think) for using Rogaine for hair loss (Rogaine is used as a masking agent).

Mayfield should be suspended permanently for the Adderall alone. I could understand his needing the drug if he had the actual chemical disorder that causes ADHD and ADD. But he’s gone for nearly 40 years without a publicly-disclosed diagnosis, why now?

NASCAR did the right thing in this case, and I don’t say that very often.

Now if someone would give Bill Elliott a good ride for a year or two, I might be lured back to the track and making NASCAR must-see television on the weekends.

Lock the cell and throw away the key!

2009-06-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

I know there are more pressing things to worry about in the news (I’ve been mulling over some of the outrageous things that TOTUS and his band of merry kool aid drinkers have done) but the recent arrest of the teenager who has been killing beloved pet cats in Miami area just got me angry enough to type yet again.

Look at the two faces at the bottom of this page—my cats Ryan and Cammi. I have others I love just as much—Scottie and Matt, a pair of tabbies. These cats get food before I do—if money is short, I’m eating ramen and cheese, they still get their Royal Canin 33 premium food. My cats are important to me, and I am sure the owners of the cats carved up in Miami loved theirs just as much.

The authorities began to investigate this case when residents and pet owners in two neighborhoods, Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay, reported finding beloved pet cats killed and mutilated in their yards. There have been 30 cat deaths in the neighborhood, and 19 of those have finally been traced to a single killer—18-year old Tyler Hayes Weinman. I’m not going to post his mug shot, but suffice it to say he sure doesn’t look terribly upset that he’s been arrested. Basically, he looks smug.

Four of the cats killed lived on the same street as Weinman.

Reporters who went to the suspect’s home, presumably to interview his mother, found a welcome mat with pictures of pawprints on it, and the message “Wipe your paws,” along with a sticker near the door informing fire and law enforcement that a feline resided in the home.

Weinman graduated from high school this spring. Instead of looking for a summer job, he’s in jail on a $154,500 bond. Guess he decided his summer job would be killing cats …

If there is anything in this horrible crime to be happy about, it’s that this kid killed those cats in Florida, a state that’s a bit tougher on crime than here in California. Weinman is charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body, and four counts of burglary related to the deaths. If convicted, he faces pretty much life in prison (158 years by one report).

Here in California, we’d be asked to “understand” him and be told “he’s sick and needs therapy.” He might do a bit of time for burglary, or some DA would let him plea to something that amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.

I am not a tort-crazy person either—I hate the idea of frivolous law suits. But in this case, I hope that the owners of those poor felines get together and sue the socks off of this kid and his custodial parent. I also trust that the Miami-Dade County DA remember a lesson from Serial Killers 101—that many serial killers start out by practicing on small animals. I am sure a Florida jury will also do the right thing—guilty as charged. Put this kid in the big house with the big boys—I think pet killers rate as high as rapists and child murderers.

Next time I promise to rant about TOTUS. Or my father’s greedy widow. Whichever irritates me the most first…

AP story about the arrest of this despicable kid here.

P.S. Cammi cat is feeling much better, too! She's back to her little princess ways, demanding a can of Weruva or Tiki Cat (fish flesh) canned food twice a day!

sick kitty

2009-06-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

My little girl cat, Cammi, is a bit under the weather and took a $350 trip to the vet on Saturday. She started vomiting on Thursday night and she's really not been much interested in food since then.

She had lab work drawn, which will be back on Monday afternoon. Poor baby also got 100 ml of subcutaneous fluids and a shot of Reglan. She's going to get Reglan twice a day. Earlier she ate about a tablespoon of Tiki Cat tuna and then some tuna juice and a few flakes of people tuna, which she upchucked about an hour later.

Poor tiny thing is crying and just wants me to make it better.

I sure hope she gets to feeling better soon. Bless her sweet little heart, she's miserable and I'd happily take her place. I'm easier to reason with. She doesn't understand how important it is that she eats. I'm going to get some plain Pediaylte tomorrow and try to sneak that into her. She's not even interested in Gerber baby meats. Yes, she's a sick kitty!

I'll sneak into work on Monday morning so I can take her back to the v-e-t if need be on Monday afternoon.

Publications that could make a difference

2009-06-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the bulk of this week working on a publication titled “The Role of Transportation in Campus Emergency Planning.” I know, it sounds like a yawner, but it’s actually interesting and the author is a very well known expert on emergency planning and implementation of those plans. Her name is Dr. Frances Edwards.

Under normal circumstances I am surrounded by raging liberals at work, some of whom create “studies” that promote their liberal way of thinking or promote socialism (or thoughts toward socialism). Sometimes it’s hard for me to read some of it, and I’ve been going through hell with one author who created a study that I don’t agree with at all! But this publication I’ve been working on has been a pleasure to work on, and the author herself has so much knowledge of emergency stuff, and has extensively studied 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina—what went right and what went wrong. And yes, some things did go right in both situations! Don't hear about those in the media now, do we?

Dr. Edwards is the Deputy Director, for the National Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute. She used to be the Director of Emergency Preparedness for the city of San José and is now a professor of political science at San Jose State University. She’s one of those rare academics who has been out in the trenches, full of life experiences and knowledge and she’s working toward educating the next generation of emergency planners. It has been my pleasure to work with her on a couple of publications—they are always readable and there is no hidden agenda whatsoever. She’s so smart and so easy to communicate with—I’m almost sorry I have her publication nearly finished; she writes chapters for books on emergency services so to be able to do one of her publications is an honor and inspirational. Because of her writings, I’ve volunteered for my county’s emergency services corp, and I’m taking classes to bring me up to speed. Okay so a hospital doesn’t want me, but if there’s an emergency, I’m better than not having anyone around!

Anyway, I was fortunate to be able to visit with Dr. Edwards for awhile, asking for her input in creating this most recent publication to ensure maximum reader usability. She knows so much about 9/11 and the Katrina aftermath and events that lead to so many of the things we keep reading about in the media—why are there still people living in FEMA trailers? Why are so many homes not repaired or rebuilt? Is the neighborhood that was most flooded going to become open space, because rebuilding is asking for trouble?

Dr. Edwards’ publication should end up in the hands of college presidents and perhaps even high school superintendents. It’s hard to think of a college campus as an asset in time of emergency (it’s easier to think of the campus itself being under attack a la Virginia Tech) but a campus can be an excellent community resource—it’s just a matter of planning for whatever potential disaster is out there!

There is another author that I enjoy working with as much as working with Dr. Edwards, and that is Brian Michael Jenkins. He served as a Special Ops Green Beret in the Dominican Republic and in Vietnam, and is a decorated combat veteran. He is a walking encyclopedia on counterterrorism measures. He authors publications on terrorism and how to protect transportation against acts of terrorism. He’s not in the Bay Area a great deal, so getting the time to steal any sort of conversation with him is a real treat. For Brian, 9/11 isn't a matter of "if"—it's a matter of "where" and "when." He has definite ideas as to where ...

When I am given the opportunity to work with Dr. Edwards and Mr. Jenkins, I feel as if I am doing something that just might benefit the United States—provided politicians take that advice and don’t get into pissy posturing.

Which unfortunately happens all too often. If those pissy politicians would just be a bit more worried about individuals and organizations and other nations that don’t like the United States, I’d feel a whole lot safer. I don’t feel safe with the current commander-in-chief groveling at the feet of Middle Eastern “princes” and dictators.

Strollin’ with Ryan

2009-05-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

I am sick of feeling like crap, so on this fine spring day I decided to take a stroll with my dear friend Ryan.

Ryan’s photo is on the bottom of this page, too.

Ryan has a bit of a colorful history. He was born in ‘da hood region of San Jose, somewhere around Quimby Street, the last week of March, 2007. A week before he ended up at San José’s Animal Care and Control, animal control officers had picked up a 5–6 week old tuxedo kitten with a medallion on his chest, and that kitten ended up at Unconditional Love Rescue in Los Gatos. A week later, some kids walked up to the same animal control officer with an identical kitten and told the officer to take the kitten or they were going to drown it. That kitten was Ryan, who was taken to Animal Control and then picked up by Unconditional Love and named Franc (his twin was Florian).

I adopted Ryan on June 1, the same day he was neutered. He was still high on kitty pain meds when I brought him home. I'd lost my 16 1/2 year old cat that March, about a week before Ryan was born. I missed having a tuxedo cat around the house. Ryan is so different from Elliott it's scary.

Ryan used to really enjoy strolling with Scottie, but Ryan is now too big to share the stroller with anyone. He’s a bit of a tough guy wanna-be thug who is scared of strangers and likes to chase my daughter upstairs. He’s quite the stealth gangsta killah kitty so he wears a bell collar so he can’t sneak up on anyone.

The photo on the top of this entry is Ryan with Scottie back when they could still share the stroller.

I wasn’t fussy as to who went with me for a walk. I am so tired of not being able to walk any great distances due to pain in my foot, knees and back (and of course being out of shape sucks!) so I pulled the stroller out of the corner (it doubles as Cammi’s bedroom) and I grabbed the first cat who showed any interest. That happened to be Ryan. We did a pretty decent walk, a bit over a mile—for me that is quite the feat. However, I chose to walk along Capitol Expressway, which of course is busy with cars and Ryan wasn’t real happy with the cars. He laid down in the stroller and peered out cautiously and miaowed when I waited to cross the street.

I am sure I will pay for this dearly tomorrow. I am not as sore as I expected to be after walking down the incline at the BLVD Tavern last night after checking out the Vinyl Trees. Nothing like a bit of live music and people-watching. In previous entries I’ve talked about former NHL player Mark Smith’s band, and I was curious about the music. I mean come on, how many bands can you name that feature the digeridoo? Hmmmm? Former Shark (current Avalanche player) Scott Hannan showed up to support Smitty. Unfortunately the bar was also full of hockey groupie girls who were all three sheets to the wind, no doubt helping Smitty and his band earn a decent percentage of the bar take. Between Patricia and I, we had only three drinks. And NO I wasn't there in the capacity of hockey groupie, though yes, I have worked with Smitty and Scott back in my Hockeycorp days. I doubt either would remember me out of context, and I did not approach either. Wasn't the place ... no reason to do so.

Drunk people are funny. I was not one of them last night nor was my friend Patricia. But I think it’s safe to say that some of the idiocy we saw was pretty damn funny.

Off to ice my back and hope I am not too sore tomorrow …

Why Didn’t He Do It Two Weeks Ago?

2009-05-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

It will never happen in wackjob California, but yesterday the Governator announced his proposed budget cut plan … and I agree with most of it, actually!

He proposes eliminating CalWorks, which in theory should be a beneficial program, but in reality is a big fat waste of taxpayer money.

As I understand it, illegals themselves don’t get the living allowance check (it’s given to their citizen anchor baby children) so the parent can go to school and eventually support the family. Of course U.S. citizens are eligible for the program, and it seems that there are a lot of single moms using this program.

I have no problem with single mothers trying to benefit themselves, though they really should have thought about exactly where there life was and where it was headed before they made a decision to have a baby. Thing is, from what I know about CalWorks, they are training people to do jobs that just aren’t abundant. Medical billing anyone? Doctor’s office technician (nurse’s aid)?

The Governor also proposed deep cuts to the “Healthy Families” program, which is supposed to be a preventative health program for the children of working poor. I would like to know more about the demographics of this program—are the parents of these families here legally or not? Being born in the U.S. should not mean automatic eligibility for a welfare check. Yes, the kids of a family whose parent(s) are really trying to make it should receive assistance (but I’ll say it again—look at where your life is and where it’s going before you elect to have a baby!).

Another cut was for non-emergency care for illegals. WTF? They got non-emergency care? My daughter is currently uninsured and needs to see her ortho surgeon for some simple maintenance, but she can’t. I knew illegals got emergency care, no questions asked, because I used to deliver that health care (and their anchor babies).

Of course the raging Dem state senate and legislature will never allow any of this! If deep cuts to welfare programs had been part of the California budget, I’d have been more likely to vote for those tax increases. But nothing was cut … Dems demanded their pet social programs remain untouched.

But face it, the people who are working are being bled to death! When they start to flee the state in great numbers, what is our economic base going to consist of? Oh yeah welfare queens with absent baby daddies who are busy cooking meth and impregnating other young women.

Yeah that’s going to work.

I wish Alaska wasn’t so darn cold. I understand there’s plenty of opportunities for people who want to work …

P.S. Don’t get me started about the newly-nominated Supreme Court justice. Oh my. Nothing is more out of control than a Latina in a position of power.

Propaganda for our kids…

2009-05-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

I just finished editing a publication for the SJSU-affiliated university transportation center I have done work for following my graduation in May 2000. To be honest (and not surprising), much of the stuff I edit ultimately has a liberal slant.

I actually have a couple I can talk about, but for now, one at a time. The one I’m writing about today is a transcript proceedings of a ninth annual sustainable transportation contest for junior high school-aged kids—It’s called the Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Symposium. It’s a teleconference event, with usually 5 to 8 schools participating via videoconference from places such as Caltrans or Hampton Roads Transportation, for example.

Of course there are politicians involved, usually the secretary of transportation or his representative. For years that has been Norman Y. Mineta, who did a great job of keeping political remarks to a minimum, even though he was a Democrat working for a Republican administration. After all, the event is for kids, to get them thinking about creating innovations in transportation, be it creating a solar-powered light rail system or a hydrogen-fueled automobile. The winning team gets a trip to San José to attend the Mineta Transportation Institutes’ Scholarship Banquet and graduation (for students earning their masters in transportation management). It’s really not a place to get kids pulled into political dogma.

This year’s symposium went a tick off-script. The new secretary of transportation made his first appearance and for the first time in nine years (at least the nine years I've edited or read the raw transcripts), the remarks were politically charged. Please remember, the audience is junior high-aged kids. And I want to know your opinion … am I overreacting?

Secretary LaHood: … thank you to the students for participating in the program. Norm Mineta, my predecessor in this job, called me and asked me if I would participate, and so I’m delighted to do that. I know this is a very important program to try and get young people involved in issues of transportation and knowledgeable about transportation.

As a former teacher, I can tell you that during the time that I taught, I really wanted to teach because of the teachers that I had when I was growing up and I can tell you, when I was your age, as a student, nobody in my class, none of my classmates, would have ever predicted that Ray LaHood was going to be the secretary of transportation. And I can also tell you none of my classmates would ever have told you that Ray LaHood was going to be a member of Congress; but my point in saying that is that I feel privileged to be a part of a very, very historic administration.

(Here is where it really goes off-template)

President Obama is a young man when it comes to this position that he holds and he was a member of the United States Senate before he was elected president, and throughout his campaign, he talked about the importance of getting young people involved in many different aspects of public service, and so I’m delighted to say to all of you, you’re a part of a very important program. The idea of public service, whether it’s transportation or any other aspect of public service, is very, very important.

And the reason that I mention that, people would be surprised if they went back to my classmates and asked them, “Can you believe that Ray LaHood’s the Secretary of Transportation, or was a member of Congress?” Because when I was growing up, and when I was your age, the one important thing that I knew is that getting a good education was the one thing that would lead to my success. Whether it’s a Congressman or the Secretary of Transportation, or a teacher, having a good education is absolutely your ticket to, really, success in America…

So I encourage you today to participate as much as you can. I know that you’re going to be judged on some essays that all of you have put together, and projects that you have put together, …but you’re all winners. Everybody’s a winner here today, because you’re a part of the program. You value the idea that learning more about transportation, learning more about the different things that we do, has value to building on the other things like reading, writing, and arithmetic, which are pretty basic, but are the foundation for lots of other opportunities.

So I encourage you to continue your educational opportunities as long as you possibly can. We never stop learning. The formal part of it is what you’re involved with now, but the more informal part will be when you go out into the workplace and seek careers and really become a part of the fabric of America that has made our country so great, a knowledge-based [citizenry] that can really do what needs to be done. So I’m delighted to be a part of the introductory part of your program today and maybe if there’s a question or two from any of the students that are gathered here, or that are gathered in California, you know, I’d be happy to answer them. Does anybody have a question? Yes? Could you just tell us your name?

(We are supposed to assume this question was generated by a seventh grader …)

Q: Secretary LaHood, with the present economic crisis, what challenges do you (inaudible)?

A: Well, when the president invited me to be a part of his administration, what he told me was that his number-one priority was to get people to work, to get people to work in good-paying jobs and part of his strategy for doing that is what we’re doing in the department. The Congress passed a bill that allocated billions of dollars to build new roads, new bridges, to get people onto buses, to give money to transit districts so they can buy buses. To pay the people that are working in the transit districts to develop a complete rail system around the country, high-speed rail and so we have been working with the governors and the people in the states to provide money to them to put people in good-paying jobs building roads and bridges and helping our transit districts and so one part of what the president really has tried to accomplish is, this spring, summer, and fall, you’re going to see an enormous number of people working around the country in good-paying jobs as a result of the legislation that the president proposed and the Congress passed that will help people get to work.

Our economy is very bad right now. There are a lot of people out of work and at DOT, we’re trying to help people get back to work in good-paying jobs and the president is also working with the banks. He’s also working with the real-estate people to try and get both of those industries back into a position where they can really be strong again and the combination of what the president’s doing with the banking industry, with the real-estate industry, what we’re doing at DOT with the money that Congress has given us, you’re going to see an enormous number of people working in good-paying jobs and hopefully getting our economy back to where it once was, where we don’t have so much unemployment and people are working.

The Department of Labor has money that they’re getting out to train people for new opportunities; but we believe, over the next year, that we will have many opportunities to get people back to work, to get our economy back in a position to where it’s in a much better shape than it is right now. So I don’t know if that answers your question, but I think that addresses some of the things you were asking about.

(Yet another question “generated” by a seventh or eighth-grader)

Q: What exactly is the Department of Transportation doing for sustainability?

A: Sustainability is now something that we’re really focused on as we get into development of a new, what we call “highway bill,” a new transit bill, really trying to sustain the assets that we have in our country. We have a state-of-the-art interstate system second to none anywhere in the world and part of what we need to do in the highway bill is to make sure we protect those assets, that we have the money, the resources, to make sure that those assets are really protected.

And we want to do that with other forms of transportation, whether it be rail, whether it be light rail, or whether it be what we’re doing with our assets at airports, where we know that a lot of people fly in and out of airports, and so we’re right on the cutting edge, or the beginning of developing sustainable opportunities for the assets that we have, and the way forward is to make sure that there is sustainability in everything that we do.

(And yet another "student" question … perhaps)

Q: What do you believe is the greatest problem in the environment today in America? And what would you like to change about it?

A: Well, first of all, I think that one of the big issues that America is now addressing is the awareness that we have some very serious environmental problems and concerns that need to be addressed by this administration and by Congress. You have to identify the problem, and people have to be aware, and I think people are becoming aware, for what Vice President Gore has done, and the work that he has done, and others have done, to say, “We’ve got some serious environmental problems.”

And it’s not just the United States. It’s a worldwide problem, worldwide issue. So, first of all, the awareness of this is certainly the first way that we identify we have a problem.

The president has a team of people working in the White House on clean air, clean water and developing standards with the automobile manufacturers, with those in the United States that want to be a part of the solution, to really come up with some standards to clean up the air and to set fairly high standards so that as the way forward is, is that we recognize there’s a problem, we identify what the solutions are and we have to get the stakeholders, the automobile manufacturers, those people in the coal industry, those people that produce energy, to recognize they have to be a part of the solution.

And eventually I think the president will send to Capitol Hill, will send to Congress, a list of principles that he would like to achieve to make our air cleaner, to make our water cleaner, to really make our environment much more livable. And so we’re right in the beginning of that process, and we’re making progress. So you’re going to see a lot more written about this, and you’ll see a lot more activity because of the leadership of President Obama, who feels very strongly that we have to address the environmental concerns of our country.

Am I overreacting about this? I think it is so wrong to be feeding kids propaganda like this. I wanted to editing out much of the exchange I’ve shared with you, because it does not add to the proceedings at all, but I was asked to leave it in.

And for those who may not know: Ray LaHood is a Republican (in name only, methinks) from Illinois who has little to no experience in the transportation industry at all. Ranking House Member (Democrat) James Oberstar is likely pulling his puppet strings, much like the mysterious puppet masters who keep TOTUS in line…

Google Garrett Morgan. He's an interesting story. But it figures that for the first time that I am aware of, this program designed for kids was turned into something political. Or was it? Have I lost my objectivity?

Who Needs Homecoming to Revisit College—There are plenty of better opportunities!

2009-05-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

Photos by Bob Rucker, one of my former professors at SJSU:
The fellow in blue is Dwight Bentel’s older brother—yes, OLDER. One hundred four, to be exact.
Dr. Dwight Bentel blows out the candles on his birthday cake.

I am neglecting this blog again—when I get work thrown my way, I take it, and I do it as quickly as possible so I can get MORE work as it comes available. In the summertime, we tend to get a lot of completed publications; our writers are academics and of course an academic is most productive during breaks—publications are often completed over summer vacation and winter break. But I have been doing some other things … like attend the reception for Dr. Dwight Bentel.

I’ve not strayed terribly far from San José State University following my graduation in May 2000. I returned as an older adult student in the fall of 1998, and kept myself on track for four semesters and one winter session in order to graduate on time. My coursework was challenging but not as difficult as my nursing classes in community college at the end of the 1970s, into the early 1980s.

I have found myself on campus from time to time when I did some work for the director of the Journalism and Mass Communications department. Up until April 23 I’d resisted attending any departmental fund raising efforts, not because I didn’t care, but more because I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t resist attending an event last night though… how often do you get to see an actual living, breathing person that was important enough to a university to have a building named after him? The “party” was a 100th birthday bash for the JMC’s department founder, Dwight Bentel. Bentel also founded the university’s newspaper, the Spartan Daily. SJSU’s journalism building is named Dwight Bentel Hall (DBH for short). There were events in the department all day, the theme being “Visual Journalism Day.”

Bentel is a journalist and photographer. For a 100-year old guy, he does pretty darn well. He’s ambulatory, and his caretaker says she doesn’t have to do anything around the house, that he does his own laundry, cooks and cleans. I suppose she’s around to drive for him, because some of his former co-workers who spoke last night claimed he was a scary driver—nothing got in his way in his quest to travel from Point A to Point B.

You can learn more about him here: A Pioneering Journalism Educator—and 'E&P' Writer—Hits Age 100

Also in attendance was his older brother, all of 102 years of age.

It was very nice to see some of my former professors that I’ve not seen in the past few years. Most remember me. Most complemented me on my darker hair color. I did go out of my way to thank my magazine journalism editor—because of three semesters with him, I work as an editor. I’d rather be a writer, but a buck is a buck!

Probably one of the funniest things that happened was the singing of the SJSU song. There’s an SJSU song? I had no idea. It sucked and has lyrics like “Hail Spartans! Hail SJSU!” Very inspiring—NOT!

Anyway, people who graduated anywhere from the 1950s into the 1970s (including what would have been my graduating class had I stuck with it, 1978) knew that gone. A couple of them were disgusted I had no idea about the melody or words (they passed out a paper that had the words), and they asked “How can you not know this?” “I came here to learn journalism and public relations, not how to sing some dumb school song.” “It’s not dumb. If you’d gone to football games, you would have learned it.”

BFD. I think I did fine without it. Besides, the song was written in 1933 and it in gross need of updating.

I didn’t attend this soirée alone—I dragged along one of my classmates, Patricia, one of two of my friends who are as conservative as I am. Patricia, Sean and I could be counted on to get into political arguments in most any class we took. Last night it was the same old thing, minus Sean, who is living in Portland, Oregon.

While at SJSU we took plenty of heat for being conservatives during the reign of Bill Clinton. We three were the only ones who laughed during Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, which were widely broadcast throughout the journalism building (the main lecture hall, when not in use, had the trial up on a big screen television, and students came and went as they wished) and who thought he deserved to be impeached. Most of our professors couldn’t understand why we’d ever not be supportive of anything Clinton had ever done. One proudly displayed a photo taken of herself and her husband with Bill Clinton at one of Clinton’s inaugural balls. She was horrified to learn I had not voted for Clinton, would never vote for Clinton, was against most policies put forth by the Democratic party. “You voted for Dole?” she said to me, horrified. “You plan to vote for a Republican in the fall of 2000? I am so shocked and disappointed in you.”

Here is my point: is there such thing as a conservative educator? Other than attending a Baptist university in the deep south, are there any colleges or universities that embrace a conservative slant? The private university I attended for my master’s degree, a Jesuit university, of course toed the Catholic churches’ values, yet its outlook was as liberal as anything. Why is it so wrong to promote a conservative agenda?

Is it possible to be a compassionate conservative in education? We believe in opportunity but we also believe that you need to earn that opportunity, not just have it handed to you based on the fact you are alive and breathing. We believe in personal accountability—that there is honor in paying for our education and in the accomplishments we work for while working for anything, be it a degree or our careers. There is nothing racist in those statements—why am I accused of being racist because I’m conservative?

Lose a gig, get a gig

2009-04-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

No, not me. I will be underemployed forever.

I'm talking about former Sharks' center Mark Smith and his band the Vinyl Trees.

With the Sharks out of the playoffs, adios to Smitty's job as a Comcast in-studio talking head. Back to another paying job ...

The Vinyl Trees have a bunch of dates at the BLVD Tavern in Los Gatos, the first on May 29 at 9 p.m. They'll also be doing a gig with the Tragically Hip (those Canadians gotta stick together, right?) on June 14 at the Fillmore in SF.