I choose to celebrate today

I had intended to blog more this year.  You can see how that worked out.

I’ll give some details as to why I have been silent a little later.  For now I want to talk about today.

That post title refers to the anniversary days of my time in the hospital.  It’s been a while but those days are still very present in my life.  Apparently I’ve been dealing with the effects that remembering those days has on me by ignoring them this year.  An effective but not a productive strategy.

So, since I wanted to start in with an attempt at blogging again, I am going to look at today.

Today in Beatthereaper history.  Or something like that.

September 12^th is the day I think I started to remember things sequentially again.  I think I remember things from the 9^th on, but even as I was in the ICU I felt that the first three days’ memories were mixed up.  Oddly I knew that even though I was remembering things, I was not remembering what order those things happened.

Then, on the 12^th, things seemed to fall into place.  My thinking was not clear, but the memories were keeping in line.  I can’t really describe how that felt or why it’s so important to me.  It was like returning.

Somehow my brain knew that I had been in the hospital for a long time even though I had been unconscious.  Then when I finally was conscious I had those days of confusion.  That left me feeling disoriented.  The ICU is an unreal place to begin with and that just magnified the problem for me.  But then I started to remember.  Sure, being in the ICU was not the best place for the remembering to start up again, but you take what you can get.  And remembering is an important thing.

So I choose to celebrate today.  I have ignored the other significant days, I intend to keep ignoring them for now.  As much as I cherish memory and believe that it has an important role in making us who we are, I do not want to dwell on those days right now.  Yes, I’m taking the easy way out and frankly I don’t care.  I have other things I want to spend that energy on right now so that’s what I’m going to do.

This day is important.  I’m going to focus on that.  I’ll work on that other progress later.

Now, this has been a rather haphazard post, very much in keeping with my blogging this year.  But I felt like giving it a try again.  We’ll have to see where it goes from here.

I hope you all have important days that you want to remember, moments in your life that mark positive times, improvements and maybe even joy.  We all need them and we all deserve them.

Here’s hoping we can also all build some more of them.

Hi there, remember me?

It would only seem to be inevitable that the year I start out stating that I want, and intend, to blog more often I would go for 3 months without a single entry.

With any luck, yesterday will mark a return to more blogging.  Today, really, since yesterday was not, shall we say, original content.

I was away for good reason even if the underlying cause was not good.  In other words, I was doing things but my current state means that the activity left me too tired to do anything else.  You take the good with the bad.  You may not like it, but what else are you going to do.

I will refrain from further use of platitudes, clichés or trite expressions.

Watch this space.  I will be back.

IN CONGRESS. July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

     WE hold the Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that when any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.  Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.  The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

     He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

     He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

     He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Rights of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

     He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

     He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

     He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

     He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

     He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

     He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

     He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

     He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

     He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

     He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

     For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

     For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:

     For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

     For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

     For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

     For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

     For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

     For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

     For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

     He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

     He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

     He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized Nation.

     He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

     He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

     In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury.  A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

     Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren.  We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us.  We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here.  We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence.  They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.  We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

     We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Nice weather

I like a nice summer evening, just not in April.

That’s all I have to say today, I’m too tired for anything else.

Still here

If you were wondering, there will be more posts.

When the year began I intended to post more frequently than I had been, but that went the way of so many other resolutions and was overcome, once again, by life.  It’s been a hectic year, and one of those years where I needed a month or two just to recover from the previous year.

Well, now it’s April.  What could possibly interfere with blogging in April?  OK, a lot, but I’m going to try anyway.  Maybe I won’t go for a month between posts, but I make no guarantees.

One of the reasons I stopped for so long was that all I had to talk about was politics and health.  I didn’t want to keep doing that because it felt too negative.  So, I will try to limit the politics, though I am sure that it will pop up frequently.

Health issues will also be discussed here, but since that’s what I started this blog for in the first place I don’t see a problem with that.  I just don’t want it to be the only thing and I will try to be more positive.  That will depend on how much progress I make, so give me time on that one.  Still, sharing is important.  If anyone stumbles across this blog I want them to see that they are not alone, should they be dealing with similar problems.

As cheesy as it sounds, it helps to know that you aren’t the only one going through something. 

As often as I can I’ll write about things that I am doing that help deal with the problems.  And with any luck I’ll come up with some other topics.  I’ll probably start in with the posts about my health and condition, but I’ll work on the rest of it.

There’s no telling what I might come up with.

Things I do that make me go wtf

So I’m watching Jeopardy!.  I don’t remember the category but there was a picture of a woman shown as a clue with one answer.  Even before I read or heard the answer I knew it was Theda Bara.

I can’t remember what I did yesterday.  I probably wouldn’t recognize most of the people I’ve ever known, maybe even some relatives.  How the heck can I recognize Theda Bara?

I have trouble recognizing actors from the last 50 years and I pull the name of an actress from the 30s out of my head?

My brain is weird.

The Oscars

I don’t watch awards shows these days, not for any particular reason, but when I was a kid I used to enjoy watching the Academy Awards.  Recently I was wondering why I used to like it so much.  Sure, I liked going to movies, and there were only a handful of stations to watch back then.  (For you younger readers, growing up I lived in an area with a lot of TV stations – we had 7).  I considered that the show hadn’t changed that much over the years, except for the host and production elements and the opening routine and – OK, it’s changed, but the essence remains the same.  So does the length no matter how hard they try to speed things up.

But the question remained, why did I like it before but today I’m just kind of meh about it?  So I thought about it a bit and rather quickly came to a conclusion.

I think I used to like it so much because it was a celebration of creativity. 

Sure it’s an enormous self-congratulatory ego fest, but who cares.  The Oscars are all about every aspect of making movies.  OK, the technical awards always get short shrift; I guess they get almost as much time as one of the production numbers.  But the idea is to award excellence in creativity.

I like that.  Watching the Academy Awards was a common and acceptable way of celebrating Art and creativity.

I may not watch them tonight, but I used to really like them and I’m glad they’re still around and a big deal.

Medicare costs

With everyone talking about how to lower the deficit, has any pundit or network talking head mentioned that health care costs have stopped rising at twice the rate of other spending?

Which means that projected Medicare spending for the next 10 years has dropped by about $500 billion dollars.  Half a trillion in savings already and no cut to benefits needed.

Do you think they’ll stop insisting that cuts are the only way to go, and need to be done now?

Me neither; just like I don’t expect them to stop acting as if Social Security increases the deficit (it doesn’t).

The Chained CPI

Changing the way Social Security cost of living adjustments are calculated will reduce benefits but it will not help lower the debt.  Social Security has never added one cent to the debt.

But if you switch all government calculations to the chained CPI you will also lower VA benefits.  That will save the government money but screw over veterans.  And tax brackets will adjust more slowly so a small raise may push you into a higher tax bracket even if you only make $20k a year.

Talking about Social Security and COLAs and the debt is either just a disingenuous – or stupid – way to cut Social Security benefits without helping the debt at all, or it’s a smokescreen to cover cutting veterans’ benefits and increasing taxes on the poor and middle class.

Or it could be all of the above.

Medicare, the budget and funding

There seems to be a commonly held belief among media personalities, pundits and members of Congress that Medicare is in trouble.  They also seem to think that Medicare is the big problem we face with the budget.

Of course the major problem with the budget is unfunded wars and declining revenues due to tax cuts, but to take the second point first, Medicare costs have declined over the last 3 years.  Medicare costs have declined faster than any other measured medical cost and they have declined before the changes to reduce costs in the Affordable Care Act have taken effect.

As for the funding issue, the numbers show that with the current rate of funding Medicare will go broke in about 11 years.  That sounds ominous, except that the numbers have said that since Medicare started almost 40 years ago.  Medicare always seems to be on the edge but it won’t go over unless it is pushed.

Yes, reforms are needed because Medicare is not perfect.  But there is no crisis.  Like seemingly all of the recent economic crises this country has faced this one is manufactured.

The State of the Union

If anybody was wondering, and it’s not that I think you were, I didn’t watch the State of the Union.  I’ll read the transcript and watch the video later.

I expected there to be talk of gun control and entitlement reform.  Was I right?

Anyway, what he needed to say was that we should be borrowing money by the boatload.  People are paying the US to buy bonds so they can park their money in US dollars so we can borrow at less than 0% interest.

If you could do that wouldn’t you?

Then we spend it as fast as we can fixing roads and bridges and schools and water mains and the electric grid.  We build schools, hire teachers and fire fighters and police.  That will put millions back to work and the money they spend and the taxes they pay will fix the economy and reduce the debt.  It really isn’t rocket science.

Then the President should have talked about Medicare for all, allowing negotiation for drug prices, and eliminating the FICA cap and then doubling Social Security benefits.  Both of those would also improve the economy and reduce spending on medical coverage.

I imagine none of that was mentioned last night.  It should have been.  Austerity will hurt the country and a lot of people as well.  Spending will fix our problems – it worked during the Depression and WWII and led to the growth of the world’s biggest economy and greatest middle class.  Some talk about unions might be nice but maybe that’s asking too much.

At any rate I might check out the speech later, but I don’t expect to see anything I want to see in there.

Richard III

The bones of Richard III have been found, and apparently he didn’t need a horse so much as a parking space.

Some articles have mentioned that his face was reconstructed from the skull to show the real Richard, since some historians seem to think that historic portraits deliberately made him look more sinister.  Assuming the reports are true, historians need to learn more about disability.

I think the reconstruction makes him look too serene and I don’t think it’s accurate.  Take a look at the pictures of that skeleton that have been all over the Internet lately.  Maybe the artists who painted those portraits weren’t trying to make Richard III look more sinister than he actually was.

Maybe they were just accurately portraying the face of a man suffering from severe chronic pain.

Take a closer look

Chris Christie is not a good governor.

Yes, to be fair he did a good job handling the disaster of superstorm Sandy.

But also to be fair, that just means that he was doing his job.

You know what else Christie did to New Jersey?  He canceled the commuter tunnel to New York which cost the state more than $300 million, thousands of jobs and millions in business revenue.  He also cost the state more than $400 million in education funding.  He cut $1 billion from education spending, increased taxes on the poor and disabled by cutting property tax rebates, funneled tax dollars to corporations to support charter – not public – schools, and basically is a bully to anyone he doesn’t like, particularly teachers.  Apparently he doesn’t like public school teachers, or union members, but maybe that’s the reason.

He also vetoed a minimum wage increase which have helped hundreds of thousands of people, created thousands of jobs and put hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy.  New Jersey is currently near the bottom in economic growth.

So yeah, Christie did what he should have done to help the state after a natural disaster.  To quote someone on the Internet, what does he want, a cookie?

Being governor is hard, but you have to spend a lot of time and money to get that job so if you don’t want to do the hard work, don’t run for office.  It really is that simple.

Doing good in one case and so bad in many others does not help the state.  He may look good from far away across the country because he looks strong and committed to New Jersey, but up close Christie is not a good governor.

Not by The Human League

I’ve read the second novel in the Library of America American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s collection, namely, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon.

My first and last thought about this book was ‘Wow’, in appreciation of the writing and the intensity of the story.  I can’t think of anything to compare this to.  The concept of More Than Human is amazing.  The book is not perfect, there were a few things about the structure and plot I didn’t like, but it does what it does very well.  Around any of its shortcomings the novel wraps a strong and intriguing story.

Don’t expect rocket ships and aliens, this is not nuts and bolts science fiction.  More Than Human is sociology, psychology and biology, exploring the potential of humans as individuals and as a society.  It looks at what makes someone human and what it is that you do if you are human.  

In the ordinary 1953 world of this story there are humans with extraordinary abilities.  Yet for all their powers they are subject to all of the problems of growing up in human society, with the added challenge of being absolute outsiders.  You could easily see this as a metaphor for the average person, or even society, developing and finding their way in the world.  It’s about making those first halting steps, stumbling, growing, being an adolescent pain and being surprised every step of the way – especially when you think you’ve reached the end and know it all.

Are we our parts, their sum or more than that?  Should we be solitary individuals, interacting with society only when we need something, or is it important to be a part of something larger, or some interesting variation in between?  How should you use extraordinary powers and how do you know, and then do, what is right?  It’s complicated.

The book isn’t really as boring and ordinary as I just made it sound.  Sturgeon has built a unique story that I found compelling, if enervating.  I needed a rest after this one and I fell back on a comfort reread of Dorothy L. Sayers to recover – Unnatural Death if you’re curious.

Some people seem to think that the book is racist.  Some of the characters are, but while it may not do it the way everyone would like it to, the book itself is against racism.

I won’t put any spoilers in here, but I will say that for me, it isn’t the central gestalt human of the story that the title refers to; it is all of us together that are more than human.

When reform isn’t reform

So Harry Reid, and some Democrats, apparently want to keep the filibuster blockade in place in order to use it as a campaign issue for Democrats in 2014.

Isn’t it great when politics is placed before country?  The Republicans do it with the abusive use of the filibuster and Democrats are doing it by letting the Republicans do it with the abusive use of the filibuster.

In case I wasn’t clear, I think this is a ploy to get votes for more Democrats by letting Republicans make themselves look bad.  After Reid’s repeated claims that he was serious about reform, that’s the only thing I can think of to explain this move.  Just reverting to the 1970s rule of a talking filibuster wasn’t exactly a radical idea, but apparently even that is too much to ask for right now.

Maybe it’s enough to help, but with gerrymandering and electoral vote games, any gains in the Senate in 2014 will be much too little and way too late.

Because they can

I think the next Presidential election will see a Republican win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote by 5 million votes.

Selling Venus by the pound

No plot spoilers.  I tend to review on readability, plot, character and the quality of the writing – which is distinguished from readability in that the former refers to how easy or fun a book is to read and the latter concerns the structure of the words.

So, I just read The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth and here’s my immediate review without taking time for much cogitation.

This is in some ways a disturbingly prescient story.  As SF does, especially SF of this time, the story tried to describe a possible future extrapolated from what the authors saw as the significant – or what would become significant – social trends of the time.  Nothing has happened quite the way the book predicts, but some of it has come close.  Of course using hindsight I could be very critical, but that wouldn’t be fair, and these things could happen yet.

Also like much SF of the 50s this is a short novel, but the authors got a lot into those pages.  Some of the plot points are sudden pivots, but, well, events are compressed a bit.  The concepts keep coming and the ideas and attitudes that the authors want to explore permeate the story.  There isn’t much character development, come to think of it, there isn’t any character development, but this story is not about the characters.  It’s about the ideas and attitudes.  Things are painted in very broad and very bold strokes and some may find it heavy handed.  There are more subtle satires, but this is not out of step with the times or the genre.

The Space Merchants is an enjoyable read.  It is intelligently written and well paced and fairly well thought out.  There are a few conceits that I thought were out of place, used just to emphasize the futuristic nature of the setting.  You get the idea that this is the future very concisely in the first few pages, which I like and which I think is enough.  The rest is just superfluous and, I think, not as well reasoned.  But that was only a small part of it and probably easily ignored by everyone else.

The gender roles are only superficially advanced from standard 1950s fiction.  Job titles without active roles by the female characters may get people thinking but they don’t adequately counter the problem.  I wouldn’t normally focus on this in a book from 1952, but since there is a hint that there might be stronger action from the female characters I was disappointed when it didn’t pan out.  It could have been done easily and in line with the other social commentary in the story.

Be aware of what you’re getting into with a 1950s SF novel, but don’t avoid it because of that.  That’s a reason to read it.  The book is now as much a look at the past as it was an attempt to give a view of a possible future.  This is well written, clever and entertaining.  Things happen fast and you’re pretty much hit over the head with the class dichotomy, but that’s often how things were done back then.  This is a good look at some of the best of early SF and a landmark novel.

Their hands are out but their hearts and minds are closed

(language warning)

Part of me thinks that the next time the Midwest or South is hit by a natural disaster and needs help from the Federal Government the Democrats in the Northeast should be rational and responsible and magnanimously vote for the disaster relief.

But then I think, fuck ‘em.  If they don’t like the Federal Government but they think that they should get help but the Northeast shouldn’t, then they shouldn’t get anything either.

But I know that that isn’t right.

Now, if we could help the people but screw the politicians who are opposing relief for Sandy, that I could get behind.

Filling in the gaps

I used to read a lot.  I read all the time.  I read everything I could get ahold of.  I still read as much as possible these days.  Yet with all that reading over the years there are a lot of things I haven’t read.

Oh, I’ve read some of the classics:  Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, the Foundation trilogy, Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space.  Still, there are many that I never got around to reading.  Well, for Christmas I received the new Library of America 2 volume boxed set American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s and I am making my way through it.  Most of them are new to me and what I have read I want to re-read.

I’ll try to post about these as I read them or as soon after as possible.  Then, once I finish these two volumes, there are still a dozen or so Tom Swift, Jr. books left to read.

Handy topic

OK, OK, I haven’t posted anything in two days.  Everything I think about has been negative and I wanted to avoid focusing on that.

How about a goal, albeit one with negative aspects or at least motivations.

I want to use my right hand more.  I avoid doing so because it is weak and I can’t use it well.  I have ulnar nerve damage at my elbow, a common enough spot, most likely from prolonged pressure against the frame of the hospital bed.  There were a lot of things in that arm so it couldn’t be moved much.  Anyway, the ulnar nerve handles the hand from the middle of the middle finger to the outside (little finger side) of the hand.  So most of that hand has limited sensation and I can’t use it very well.

The problem is that this leads to continued atrophy of the muscles.  The lack of nerve feedback also causes a problem since it seems to reinforce the atrophy.  The muscles just don’t seem to respond to use by getting stronger or building mass.  But I want to try to improve the hand anyway.

I use my right hand now, but not as much as I used to and maybe not as much as I could.  So I want to try to use it more and see what I can do with it.  I’ll be careful.  Not knowing where your hand is does reinforce the need to be careful and I (usually) am careful.

You know the really aggravating part?  After decades of writing and programming I had finally started touch typing 2 months before this happened.

Isn’t it ironic?  (No, it’s not, no matter what that song makes people think.)

Now, if I said that that was the perfect time to learn to touch type, that would be ironic, mostly.

I guess that wasn’t positive either.

Let’s just leave it at: I am going to strengthen my right hand.

Seasons

I know that ranting won’t do any good, but I just have to say, I miss winter.

Content

I just had to put up that last post.  It’s one of those things that really bugs me.

But you know what?  I need to post more positive things on here.  It’s hard, considering the current state of politics and a lot of other things in the world.  But I should.

Not right now or anything.  It’s late and I’m tired.  But I will try.

Still not like Greece

Even with spending, taxes and debt the way they are, the US is not like some countries politicians and pundits like to use to try to scare people.  The only way the United States could ever become like Greece is if someone deliberately makes it that way.  Like, say, by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.

Just more lies and bullshit

When a member of the House of Representatives talks about spending all they need to do to find the person responsible is look in a mirror.

A lot of congressmen, apparently all of them Republicans, are complaining about how much the President is spending.

All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives.  All of them.  It’s in the Constitution.  If the money is being spent by the federal government then the House of Representatives passed a bill saying that it could be spent.

Forget about the debt limit, forget about the platinum coin, if money is being spent it’s because the House of Representatives – including the Republicans – said yes.

Resolutions

Yes, I missed two days of posting, but I was still really tired and recovering, and it was a weekend, and I haven’t been sleeping well, and the sun was in my eyes, and the dog ate my homework.  It wasn’t my fault!

Well, anyway, to continue.

I still don’t have much to say today.  Since I was so tired last week I didn’t think much about resolutions so today is the day to start on that.  Except that I don’t really do resolutions.  They’re too rigid and fragile so they break too easily, and then it’s too easy to just give up on them since they didn’t work and they aren’t flexible.

So I try to examine what I am doing in my life and look for ways to do things better, to be more productive and less wasteful.  That is some very high-minded sounding stuff there and also very easy to get wrong.  But I really do try to make it possible to change things and not put resolution shaped obstacles in my own way.

Those are also very vague notions and easy to finagle and make it possible to not really do anything.  So I try to set some definite goals and leave the means flexible.  I also set some very blue sky goals for some outrageous ideas.  I think it’s good to have that kind of goal in your life.  Something crazy to shoot for.  You shouldn’t make it too crazy or let too much ride on it because then when it never pans out – as it most likely won’t – you won’t be too upset.  But use that sort of thing as a framework to improve your life.

Also use those ideas to remind yourself to dream big and not impose limits on yourself.  The world does that for you, don’t help it stop you.

Blogging

I did decide to start blogging more, in case the current uptick in posts was an indication to you.  It’s not that I think there are a lot of people getting anything out of this blog because I don’t think I have that many readers.  I just want to for my own sake and just in case someone does read this and get something out of it.  I’m looking to get something out of it myself, but I don’t know what and I’m not sure there is anything to get in the first place.

But I am going to try to blog more.  And I want the posts to make some sort of sense and to mean something.

It would be easy to post every day if I wanted to post a lot about politics.  But I think that might be a little less than uplifting.  Which is not to say that I won’t blog about politics.  There’s just too much nonsense going on for me to ignore.  It’s just that I’ll try to put in more on other topics as well.

This is not a New Year’s Resolution, just something I’ve been thinking about doing.  So now I’m going to try.  This counts as a post, however meaningless it might be, because that makes this whole thing easier.

Grace period

For anyone who has made resolutions for this New Year, or who was planning to and hasn’t quite gotten around to it yet, don’t worry.

It isn’t too late.  You don’t have to start your resolutions at the stroke of midnight January 1^st.  You have until Monday before you have to start work on anything.  Some resolutions can be instantly begun and others require a ramping up period to get things going.  Either way, take a breath, relax and take some time. 

Nothing’s official until Monday – and even that’s flexible.

If anything was muddled of late

I stand by my positions in my posts, I’m just not sure that I’m making them the way I want to.

I have been and am exhausted.  Trying to think or form coherent thoughts requires a lot of energy and I’m not sure I have the energy or if I’ve been using what I do have to good effect.

To get an idea of how I’ve been operating, and how I do many days, when trying to think, imagine trying to take a calculus final after being awake for three days.  That’s sort of how I feel.

Lert me be clear

The damage done by Sandy is a natural disaster.  It is accepted – or was until yesterday – that aid for that sort of thing is automatically given.  I agree with that.  Supporting people in time of need is part of living in a community and it makes us a stronger nation to do so.

So how do I equate that with other forms of government spending?

Natural disasters are sudden, unexpected and devastating.

So are catastrophic illnesses, disabling accidents and illnesses and monumental job loss that happens because bankers decided to roll the dice and crashed the economy.

All of these things, the personal and the natural disasters, are not the result of things that the people who fall victim to them have done.  Neither is being unable to get rich.

To be consistent, people who oppose government support for these latter problems should be telling the victims of Sandy to just suck it up and get on with their lives and pay for the recovery themselves.

Infrastructure – building, streets and utilities – are only part of a community.  Disaster relief pays to rebuild these things.  But without people there is no community, no society, no country.  Help that keeps people alive and fed and healthy is just as important as repairing a building after a hurricane.

Somehow politics allows asking for and using government money to rebuild a city but not using it for rebuilding lives.  It’s all tax dollars.  There isn’t a magic source of money for disaster relief, but there does seem to be magical thinking that lets people feel compassion and outrage for victims of flooding but not for victims of life.

That is the hypocrisy.  The victims of natural disaster are seen as innocent, but the victims of a unbalanced economy are seen as somehow complicit.  These decisions should be about how to help people not how to get more votes.

When doing your job is actually monumental hypocrisy

It’s good that Rep. King and Governor Christie complained about the House not voting on relief for the devastation done by Sandy.  I’m glad they did it.  There are people in New York and New Jersey in desperate need of assistance right now.  Some people are living in tents in freezing temperatures.  The House of Representatives needs to pass legislation to get money to the states to help those people and to help the states and communities rebuild.

You know what else would be really good?  It would be good if Representative King and Governor Christie stopped voting against and blocking legislation that helps people.

There are people across the country who need help even though they haven’t been hit by a major storm.  Yet King has voted against funding for food stamps but for tax breaks for the rich.  Christie has cut taxes for the rich and cut tax breaks for the elderly and disabled and is also opposed to health insurance exchanges.

Both men, and the Republicans in Congress they both just railed against, have opposed food stamps, unemployment insurance, student loan reforms, the ACA, higher taxes on the rich and stimulus spending that would all help individuals in need as well as the economy.

Sure, they should fight for Federal disaster relief to help their constituents.

They should also fight to help the people in their states and in the country who need help every single day.