Voice in Wilderness Orlando

Decency: Come Back, Back, Baby

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:30:00 +0000

I am not a prude. I don’t blanch or even wince at the F word. I have even been known to use it myself, if rarely. I suspect that there has been profanity as long as there has been language. It serves more than one role in our culture: emphasis, machismo, daring for the young, and probably a host of others. But the point has always been that to use profanity is to step outside the norm for behavior in most settings.

One of the places profanity did not rear its ugly head was in media, cable notwithstanding. Lately, the casual use of formerly unthinkable language has begun to creep onto our airwaves and into our print media houses.

I’m not sure how you fire a billionaire CEO, but Tribune Company should certainly consider at the least muzzling theirs, or perhaps just not letting him address the troops. When was the last time the head of your company said “Fuck You” in response to a question you asked? It happened at the Orlando Sentinel for all the employees and, since it was videotaped and this is the 21^st century, all the world to hear. Thinking perhaps Mr. Zell must have been provoked? Not so. His uncouth language was a punctuation mark in response to a rather soft-voiced young woman’s mildly posed question about journalistic policy. Hear it for yourself at Gawker.com.

Was Sam chastened by the uproar that resulted? Apparently not. In a subsequent visit to the Los Angeles Times, while touring a printing plant in Orange County, Sam appeared shocked to learn that Times’ policy banned accepting advertising from strip clubs and gun stores. His response, “Everyone likes pussy. It’s un-American not to like pussy.” There are several accounts of this incident. This one provides a lot of detail and context:

Lest anyone think that Sam Zell is merely a one-man profanity parade, MSNBC anchor David Shuster on Thursday asked a guest on air, “Doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” referring to Chelsea’s calls to celebrities and party super delegates seeking support for her mother’s Presidential bid. Hear it yourself:

Huh? Are you kidding me? In his grudging, halting apology the next day on MSNBC, Shuster referred to the phrase “pimped out” as slang and said that he didn’t mean it in “a pejorative way.” Right, he meant the warm and fuzzy way you say to a woman, “You bein’ pimped out? or are you just a ’ho all by yourself?

Of course, the common denominator in all of this is the imprimateur of business-as-usual and societal norm on the age-old pastime of men demeaning women. I attribute some of this phenomenon to the mainstreaming of rap. When rap first routinely referred to women as ’hos and regularly characterized them as disposable, worthless, and meant to be used by men, there was some outcry. Sadly, the people doing the complaining were simply labeled as unhip, even racist for not seeing the raw poetry and art in the form. If there was truth in the latter, it still did not negate the truth of the former. Recently, a number of noted members of the black community have begun to deplore some of the trickle-down impact of the negative portrayal of and language about women that rap has fostered. I hope very much that we all stand up and protest loudly. We can stop this very ugly trend.

Shuster’s mealy-mouthed non-apology was in no way enough. Hey, David, get your dick out of your mouth. As for Zell, billions of dollars apparently render one apology-proof. That does not mean that the rest of us should not speak up long and loud to say that his behavior is unacceptable. I want to hear the men of America, led by the men in the media, stand up and say that decent men do not use expressions like fuck you or pussy, or refer to others as pimps or to women as being pimped out in conversation or public discourse.

Sam Zell, grow up, old man. Apparently, your money was not enough to buy you a replacement for your thin skin. Oh, and by the way, there is a power imbalance in the employer-employee relationship that means you are held to a higher standard of conduct.

David Shuster, you disgust me. “Have you no decency, sir?” Oh, that’s right, you don’t. You’ve shown us that already.

Finally, from the Voice to the men of MSNBC including the usually level-headed and fair-minded Keith Ohlberman: I don’t care one whit about David Shuster’s body of work. It does not excuse, nor does it atone for his outrageous remark. Fire him. That’s what you would have done if he had called Barack Obama a pimp. This is no better.

Don Quixhotelier

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:37:00 +0000

One sign of a city’s development is its spawning of a pantheon of colorful characters. Of late, hotel magnate Harris Rosen seems determined to move from business and philanthropic leader into the “Oh, there he goes again” head-shaking category.

The first of his quixotic quests was his petition drive and simultaneous threat of a lawsuit aimed at stopping the city from proceeding with plans for the three new downtown venues. Mr. Rosen seems to believe that the citizens of our fair city are just not quite as smart as he is. Cloaking his self interest (he had lobbied hard prior to the votes to have the venues built on I-Drive near his major hotel properties) in the guise of helping Orlando, he seemed to be saying like the Great Oz, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Fortunately, the people are a lot smarter than Mr. Rosen gives them credit for. Needing 31,000 signatures to get on the ballot and coming up with less than 10% of that number, Rosen finally threw in the towel on this venture with his usual ill grace.

Mr. Rosen and his colleagues need to stop regarding the tourist taxes as their personal slush fund. While they collect the tax, it is not even their properties that attract the tourists in the first place. Since all Orlandoans bear the brunt of playing host to the tourists, all Orlandoans should be among the beneficiaries, through public projects, of the taxes. Not to fret, boys, no one is suggesting that we cut off our nose to spite our face. There will always be a big chunk of those funds dedicated to ongoing promotion of tourism for the area. That’s not enough for Harris Rosen, though. He wants to codify his ridiculous notion that all tourist tax dollars should be reserved by law for promoting tourism. Nice work if you can get it: Having state and local tax dollars doing most of the work of driving guests to your hotel while all of the profit from those guests goes into your pocket. Hmmm. Maybe the state would pay marketing expenses to promote me as a writer…nah, they’d never go for it.

Not content to stop there, Mr. Rosen is now tilting at the big windmills, uh, I mean wind storms, or at least at those who predict them. Last month, Mr. Rosen threatened to sue Dr. William Gray regarding his seasonal hurricane forecasts, which Rosen says are hurting his business. Huh? I never saw anything in any coverage of a Colorado State team forecast that said a lot of hurricanes (or any) were going to hit Orlando—or even Florida in the last two years. Those predictions label the season active, and attempt to predict the number of storms, the intensity, and the likelihood of a certain number of them making landfall somewhere. Lucky for us and sad for them that this year it was primarily Central America that took it on the chin.

What next Mr. Rosen? Want to sue the almighty for bad weather? Perhaps sue the people who are not staying in your hotels? Give it a rest, Mr. Rosen, before the rest of us don’t listen to anything you say—or worse, laugh at everything you say. As it is, we will definitely be looking for what’s in it for you when your next pronouncement comes out.

The Bluetooth Blues

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:07:00 +0000

My Luddite tendencies caught me out again the other day. I was having lunch with a new friend this past week. I arrived first, and as I stood up to greet her when she came in, I saw her Bluetooth earpiece. The lunch was fun—a new place and writing talk (this is a buddy I went through November’s NaNoWriMo with). The whole time, however, stray thoughts kept drifting into my head about that Bluetooth. All the while that we were talking, was she receiving signals that she was missing phone calls? Was her attention split? Did she long for things to wrap up so she could count her voice-mail messages?

She wasn’t a good enough friend that I could have just blurted, “What’s that thing on your head, and will it go off?” For all I know, she could have turned it off before getting out of the car—leaving it only a strange, inert ear ornament. Meanwhile, I was the one with split attention. Trying to focus on what she said, but all the while wondering about this new implement of connection. In my reading lifetime, we are coming sooooooooooo very close to the science fiction I read as a youngster in which people were permanently plugged into “The Net” through implants. I’m afraid that early Sci Fi has stuck with me and informs some of my opinions. I just don’t think being always available is a good thing. I also think it is hard to be “in the moment” fully while festooned with communication devices.

Is there an etiquette for this? Should sporting a Bluetooth headset while in a public place be as much a faux pas as talking on one? Or have I already been marginalized, because I find it wildly annoying that people in the grocery line ahead of me or the coffee line at Starbucks are talking way too loudly about stuff I don’t want to know all the while transacting business? Transacting their business slower and with pauses, of course, since you can’t really do two things at once—at least not well. If I’m annoyed, what about the poor service person or cashier relegated to a status lower than that of some anonymous person not even there in the eyes (but not the ears) of the talker?

Excuse me, I have to close now. The inbox on my email just dinged.

Physician, Heal Thyself—You're Not Doing So Great with Me

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:19:00 +0000

Hey, Doc, are you wondering why we, your patients, are flocking to alternative medicine? Arrogant cretins (the word I wanted to use here also has six letters, but rhymes with sticks) that most of you are, you probably attribute it to patients’ ignorance and not your own failures. You would be wrong.

Once, years ago, I was going through a particularly rough patch with my physician. He was hectoring and paternalistic and would badger me about my weight no matter what I went into his office for. Now, don’t misunderstand me. Yes, I am overweight. Yes, I should lose weight for my health. Yes, he had a duty as my physician to address that issue with me. My problem wasn’t that he brought it up. It was how he delivered the message. He would sit in the chair across from me with his large, rotund stomach sticking out and his shirt buttons straining, showing me glimpses of his hairy belly through the gaps—while angrily telling me I was wasting his time because I would not lose weight.

Finally, after one of these sessions, I snapped and did something I have to be very pressed to do. The very next time I had an appointment, I confronted the doctor and told him that the last time he saw me he had been rude, patronizing and paternalistic. Further, I said that he needed to look at his own weight issues before being so angry about what he called my “failure to deal with” mine. He was extremely taken aback. It was probably like being bitten by his stethoscope. In a movie, he would have had an “Ah, ha” moment and taken a look at his bedside manner. In real life, he said that if I felt that way about it, perhaps we would both be happier if I found another physician. I said, “Perhaps we would, but this is an island, and there aren’t that many choices.” From my point of view, things improved after that. He was more respectful and consultative, rather than condescending, in subsequent visits, if a bit wary. He seemed quite happy, though, to tell me a few months later that he was leaving the island to take a position in another state. I was happy too with his successor, a woman. In fact, I believe he was the last male primary care physician I ever had.

I have wandered a little off point here. During those same years with Dr. Fat Daddy, my husband and I were in a car accident in which we both suffered significant soft tissue injury when our car was rear-ended on a freeway. I had gone to my doctor after the accident, where I was told to take ibuprofen and, effectively, don’t call me back. Not literally, but Western medicine has lots of little areas where doctors simply eschew to practice at all and one of those is soft tissue injuries. Probably, without costly drugs and procedures, there just isn’t enough money in it. A friend that I trusted suggested going to a chiropractor, something that I would never have done, thinking that alternative medicine was practiced by medieval quacks that couldn’t get into medical school. (Yes, the propaganda arm of Western medicine is highly efficient.) When my back continued to fail to hold the adjustments after a few weeks, the chiropractor referred me to a naturopath. It is here that we reach the crux of my point.

I remember that first visit so clearly. I am sure that I was struck by the contrast to all of the medical experiences that had gone before. The waiting room was full of soft, vibrant colors and eclectic pieces of art the doctor had collected. When I walked in the door, I was greeted by the receptionist with a broad smile and genuine interest. I asked to use the restroom, and I remember that the medical personnel that I passed in the hall all stopped and greeted me. Before I saw the doctor, a medical assistant snapped my picture with a Polaroid. That photo was attached to my file so that when anyone spoke to me or referred to the file, they were looking at my image. The doctor listened intently to my responses after asking me why I was consulting him. When I finished speaking, he asked me if there was anything else I wanted to tell him, and he waited while I thought about it.

Now, the point of this piece is not: Western Medicine Bad, Alternative Medicine Good, Unhhhh! It is that patients today are losing respect for Western medicine and flocking to alternative medicine because as Western medicine is being practiced, it has completely lost its focus on the patient. And, doctors, arrogant creatures that they have trained themselves to be, don’t get it. They don’t understand that much of the exodus is their fault. Fellas, let me put it in terms you understand. Dollars. People, your patients, your potential customers, are so disgusted by the level of care they receive and the manner in which you dehumanize them, fail to meet their needs and fail to treat them with basic respect, that they are willing to seek out alternative treatments FOR WHICH THEY HAVE TO PAY FULL PRICE OUT OF POCKET SINCE MOST ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IS NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE. That is how much what you are doing sucks.

Let me give you another example. A couple of months ago I began experiencing worrisome symptoms. I went to my primary care physician who gave me the alternative of going immediately to the emergency room (in the Orlando area, an ordeal straight out of Dante’s Inferno to be in no way desired unless your demise is otherwise imminent) or to a specialist’s office that had the equipment she did not.

Since the series of visits to that specialist’s office would be a tale all by themselves, let me cut to the bottom line. After two highly unsatisfactory office visits and a battery of tests, like Daisy the Cow jumping the 10-foot wall of the slaughterhouse cattle chute, I bailed. Taking the time to do some research, I found another specialist who got high marks for competence and for patient care. And, in a relative sense, this doctor is a luxury sedan to the first’s cheap import sub-compact, but only in a relative sense.

In terms of the absolute, all of the problems of the Western Medicine System remain. In this system, patients are cogs traveling a conveyor belt that the doctor focuses on for only a few minutes (as few as possible since time, after all, is money) before the belt moves on bringing the next cog into focus. This system has been streamlined for the convenience and benefit of the doctor and of the system itself NOT TO MEET THE INDIVIDUAL NEEDS OF THE PATIENT AND THE PATIENT’S SITUATION.

Example One, Patient Records. After my harrowing experience at the hands of Specialist 1, I wanted a second opinion. When I made the appointment with Specialist 2 for the second opinion, part of the process was to sign a release to get my records from Specialist 1. I very much wanted Specialist 2 to have all of the results of the series of the expensive tests that Specialist 1 had performed on me. When I asked if those test results would be included in the records released to him, imagine my surprise and dismay to be told by both the staffs of Specialist 1 and Specialist 2 that “No, only the doctor’s notes about the test results would be sent.” But, I reasoned with them (in vain), how could Specialist 2 draw an independent conclusion and make his own analysis of the test results if he could not see the test results for himself? There was no answer. I was just told it was not done that way. Medical records person for Specialist 2 told me that there was no way she could get the actual test images. If I wanted them, I would have to personally go to the office of Specialist 1 and get them. Specialist 1’s Medical records person, expressing complete incredulity that I would want such a thing, did finally allow it was possible, but said that I would have pay $5 a page for each test results image I got. So, a patient and the patient’s insurance company may pay for tests and procedures, but the records of those tests and procedures are treated as if they are the property of the physician. Having ascertained this, it still took one solid week, myriad phone calls, and physical visits to both Specialist 2 and Specialist 1’s offices. (Medical records person at Specialist 2 lost the authorization form I hand-carried there—at her request.) Medical records person at Specialist 1’s office referred us to someone else in the office who never returned our phone calls. I emerged, bloody but unbowed, with the images from the key test, but never got those from the other tests performed. It was all worth it, however, when Specialist 2 referred to the images during my consultation, and the one he considered key was not the same one I had been shown by the medical staffer at Specialist 1’s office. (Never saw Specialist 1 himself about my test results—part of that horror story.)

Example Two, Make ’em Wait. My symptoms and the underlying medical situation were quite serious: A situation that involved possible mortality; a situation, depending upon the outcome of the tests, which could involve major surgery. In other words, something that was very anxiety producing. I remember that one of my reactions was to start a list of all of the most special moments of my life, in case that life was to have not much more to it. While I certainly had so much more I wanted to be and do, I remember being quite joyful and relieved at how long my list of special moments was. It was a list I could live with if it was to be all that I was given.

The end result of my consultation with Specialist 2 was that I had to have yet another test procedure. Because of his office’s possession of some cutting-edge technology, it was NOT the invasive procedure Specialist 1 had recommended. There was a chance it would not be definitive and Specialist 2 might still recommend I undergo the original procedure, but, to me, it was a chance well worth taking. At last, 42 days after I first went to my doctor with the symptoms, I was going to have the procedure that would supply the needed answers on the course of treatment. WRONG! Imagine my surprise that I underwent the test and my appointment to get the results of the test was set for 33 days later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I still don’t have those results today.

Do you know what I have been doing in the interim? Telling myself that if the tests had revealed something immediately life threatening surely they would have called. So, no news is good news, right? I can just relax and wait until I see the doctor.

Now why would I have that confidence in the people, remember these are the good, competent practitioners, who have so far: 1. Lost, then miraculously found, my medical records release authorization. 2. Failed to set up the separate follow-up appointment their own office procedures call for regarding receiving my other lab test results. In the case of the latter, I learned that when someone else from Specialist 2’s office called me to ask about my lab tests. When I said that I had undergone the lab tests at their office and was awaiting the results, she informed me that I should have had a separate appointment set up at the time I had the blood drawn. It was then up to me to follow up and call to ask if I was supposed to have this other appointment scheduled, and to learn (they apologized) that “Yes, I did need to have it?”

Oh yeah, so there is no way they could screw up and make me wait 33 days only to tell me I might die any minute and I need major surgery or tell me the tests weren’t definitive and I need the invasive procedure anyway, but only after 33 days of waiting torture? Right? Hah!

And the real point here is why is this system set up to keep me in suspense about my health situation? Surely anyone in my position would be anxious about the results? After the doctor reads the results, why can’t someone in the office be designated to call and say, “The doctor wants to go over your results and treatment options in detail with you at the appointment, but he asked me to call and let you know that the tests do not show anything that is immediately life threatening or that will require major surgery. There were some important findings that will impact your lifestyle and that dictate your future course of care, and he will go over those with you at the appointment.” The relief would have been tremendous. But I have been denied that relief.

Perhaps if every doctor was forced in medical school to be a patient, really to be a patient. To be denied all except minimal information regarding their own body. To be forced to wait ungodly periods of time in institutional waiting rooms, or at home waiting for results more than a month. To be treated regularly with impersonal disdain, as if they had they IQ of a plant, as if their medical care was the concern only of the physician and not of the person receiving the care. To be called by their first name by strangers who then expect to be addressed by their professional title and last name.

Perhaps then there would be changes to this broken system. But until then, patients who are angry or disheartened or disillusioned will continue to seek care from providers who express interest in them as individuals rather than as billable items.

Meandering Musings

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:05:00 +0000

Rest well, valiant Barbaro. You captured us with your heart and courage, and you displayed those qualities throughout your brave fight. We’ll miss you, and we’ll remember you. Run free.

Self-destruct ’08. Why is announcing one’s candidacy for the Presidential race suddenly a signal for exhibiting all the oratorical grace of John Kerry? Could the Senator’s affliction be contagious? Perhaps we should ask Hilary. Hey, Hil, you don’t indulge in public man bashing while you’re still married to the bozo. Also, in the “Kids, Don’t Try this at Home” vein, leave the lightening up to people who were born with a sense of humor. Not to be outdone, Sen. Joe Biden launched his Presidential bid by referring to opponent Barack Obama as, among other things, articulate and clean. What, Joe, did you forget thrifty and brave? You have many defenders for this indefensible speech. I am not one of them. When is the last time you ever referred to any white person as either articulate or clean? My take? If it quacks like a racist . . .

How very sad that Molly Ivins will not be here to enlighten and amuse as we head into this campaign. Too soon gone, sister. Your unique voice and keen perspective will be sorely missed. Breast cancer has taken another light from our world.

Poor Charlie Crist. First, he missed out on an extravagant gubernatorial inaugural, forced by public outcry to settle for the good cloth coat version of a ball, and now he has to miss the Super Bowl freebie as host governor to show sensitivity for all the Floridians who lost lives and homes in this past week’s dreadful overnight storm. C’mon, govs just want to have fun.

Finally, bless all of the victims and survivors of the Central Florida storm. It seems to me the terror of being torn from a cozy bed into the total insanity of an F3 tornado makes the experience so much more dreadful, as if there was no safety in the world.

2007 Here We Come Ready or Not

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 06:01:00 +0000

The best thing about the New Year is that favorite pastime of human beings: the chance to reinvent ourselves. Here is a whole year with no regrets, no mistakes, no missed opportunities laid out all shiny and clean in front of us. The flip side of that is the chance to pause in the act of moving along the slipstream of time to look back, to view our time just past from a broader perspective than today, this week, this month. I love both of those aspects of the holiday.

The part of the New Year celebration that has never quite worked out for me is New Year’s Eve. It is one of those occasions so freighted with societal expectations that for me the poor thing always withered on the vine with no chance to achieve the magic I was hoping for. Perhaps the worst was experiencing New Year’s Eve during my single years. It was a critical date night, but for some reason I never seemed to be in a relationship on New Year’s Eve. Writing that, it seems impossible that that was the case, but it is the way my memory records it.

Not having a date on New Year’s Eve meant that one was left open to the slings and arrows of their friends’ ideas of fun things to do on New Year’s Eve. Going along with that got me into some strange predicaments. Once in the 70s, a girl friend talked me into going to a New Year’s Eve party with her at one of her co-worker’s homes where I would know absolutely no one. Strike One. The house was beyond the suburbs out in the wilds where new developments were being completed, but no one lived there much yet. It was an enormous split-level monstrosity with three full floors of partying that became so packed with humanity that, had anyone checked, clearly would have violated local fire codes. Strike Two. The décor was ghastly. Now, mind you, this was the 70s when all décor was ghastly so this was pretty horrific. I remember it included a games room, complete with pool table, which had a safari theme—lots of faux (I think) animal skins on the walls, crossed spears, etc. Naturally, I lost contact with my friend in the crush. I felt totally isolated moving through this crowd thinking I must have been out of my mind to agree to come. Until midnight which brought us to Strike Three. That happy event apparently caused most of the males at the party to feel they had been granted an open license to grope, forcing me to evade several hands, tongues and, well, you get the idea.

By the mid-80s, I was married. Some of my favorite New Year’s Eve events took place at a friend’s cabin on an island north of the city. These were sort of adult pajama parties in that we all spent the night. Each couple or single brought some food contribution assigned by the hostess, kids were left with family members or babysitters and booze flowed freely. I look back fondly on that era when I had passed much of the angst-filled years, but was still young enough to party and recover. And, except for the occasional newly rotated-in girl or guy friend of someone, the core group were all very old friends, many of whom I had known since college. So, it was a comfortable group, where I felt free to be myself.

Even that tradition eventually gave way to mostly quiet New Year’s Eves at home, many of which we did not make it to midnight before going to bed! Now, life has moved on again. My recent New Year’s Eves have all been solo acts while my husband is working. I usually don’t go out, which would entail leaving the pooch alone to face the fireworks and other noise. In Florida, I spend a few minutes always hoping that no yahoos will be celebrating by firing guns into the air with the resultant stray bullets.

Now, 2007 has dawned all shiny and new. I can’t wait until I get up tomorrow and start mucking about in it. My wish for your New Year is the same as for my own: peace, plenty, and joy in the moments that make up our years and our lives. Happy New Year!

So This Is Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:43:00 +0000

Christmas is a complicated season. For me, there is a gulf between my idea of Christmas and the reality of Christmas. For example, as the season approaches and I am far away, I long to be with my family at Christmas. If I were to be magically transported home, would it be good? Sure, I would love to see them all, love to experience all the family rituals, foibles, in jokes, genuine love and warmth. But would it be the experience of my pre-Christmas longings? Hardly.

Somehow the memories that make up the tug of longing and love and nostalgia do not include some of the harsh realities. Like a Christmas some decades ago when everybody drank too much, and we all watched my brother-in-law crawl down the hall on his hands and knees toward the spare bedroom in my Mom’s house. Or the time I stormed out in tears in 1986 after the family’s efforts to fit me back into the fold as if I was unchanged after 10 years living in another state hurt my feelings, only to have two of my sisters arrive at my nearby house in tears to beg my forgiveness, and we all ended up sobbing. Comfort and joy, indeed. Or going all the way back to when my Dad was alive and not a single holiday ever took place—or if it did, it was only a single one—without him erupting in rage over something.

How do we lose that complexity when we store the idea of Christmas?

The whole thing is such an emotional set-up. In the holiday-light glow of the Phantom Christmas, the Real Christmas with wrought-up feelings, dashed expectations, and a crushing burden of mostly imagined societal perfection cannot stand a chance.

I try to avoid the yawning gulf between Christmas Never and Christmas Present. My husband and I, both veterans of different types of crushed expectation wars, elect to downplay the holiday. We often choose not to exchange gifts with each other. We set up a low-key Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with only a few things that we enjoy doing. Walks, long drives, nature trips, movies and quiet meals together are among the activities we usually choose from. Our very favorite Christmases are the few we have allowed ourselves to be absent from both sets of family, and to travel somewhere. No tree, no stress, just us.

Still, just when I least expect it, it leaps out with a gotcha again. Like this year, when my mother told me not to try to call during the family Christmas Eve celebration, that she would call me. We had coordinated clocks, and I knew what time the get together was starting. Two hours passed. “Well, they had to eat and open gifts,” I reasoned. Three hours passed, then almost four. I knew very well these things seldom lasted much more than three hours, because everybody wants to get home and tucked in relatively early. Still, I fooled myself. “Well, they are just waiting until the end of the football game.” Then, there were no more excuses—and there was no call. And even though this kind of cavalier disregard of my feelings is not at all uncommon with my loving-in-their-own-way, but less-than-sensitive family, like Charlie Brown and the football, my hopeful view of the great Christmas that never really is, had me falling for it yet again.

May the gap between the Christmas you long for, and the Christmas you create be a narrow one. I wish you all some joy and much peace during these stressful days.

A Journey Home Through My Taste Buds

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 05:40:00 +0000

Since coming to Florida I have done a lot of searching for two types of cuisine that are pretty hard to find. One is the stuff of my ancestors, southern food, and the other is authentic Florida regional cuisine.

For some reason, I thought Florida was in the south. Really, though, it is a place and state of mind all its very own. For example, I searched for traditional southern BBQ. It was darn hard to find. None of the biggest chain names are at all authentic. One of them served sauce and even vegetables so sweet that diabetes seemed the obvious end result of eating there often.

Sweet greens? Sweet black-eyed peas? I shudder. I can find grits in Orlando, but they are usually not cooked right. Most of the time, they are too runny. It is clear they are cooked by people who have no tradition of grits. Just as well, since I shouldn’t really eat them. I can also get fresh greens at the store, at least around holiday time, turnip greens and even collard greens. Yum! Best of all, there are fresh black-eyed peas available and pretty decent biscuits, excellent ham and fabulous tomatoes.

But it’s sort of like being able to assemble the pieces of my heritage, not finding it intact in a vital state. Truth be told, though, my recent travels through the south have shown me that its once distinctive and vibrant food heritage has been diluted even in Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama. You can find pockets of it, but you have to hunt for it. The great northern incursion has brought with it people who have no drawl and would not know a field pea from a crowder pea if you paid them to tell you.

The homogenization of our culture through technology is probably a good thing overall, but it does bring losses.

Similarly elusive here in Florida is true Florida cuisine. First, you’d have to define it, and there are a lot of claims. There is Cracker Cuisine, such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings practiced at Cross Creek that includes the classic swamp cabbage, actually made by combining the heart of the cabbage palm with varying ingredients but usually salt pork, salt and pepper, and then sometimes tomatoes, sugar or even cream. There are Cajun influences such as crawfish and gator, Caribbean island influences like jerk seasoning, and of course there is the official state pie, the Key Lime pie, even though Key limes are actually Persian in origin. Remember, true key lime pie is NEVER green, but always yellow in color like the flesh of the Key limes.

Probably among the most important and authentic is the seafood. In Florida, there is water, salt or fresh or both around us everywhere. I enjoyed smoked mullet last year on Pine Island, which is a mangrove island on the West Coast of the state that still retains a lot of old Florida charm. Mullet was a Florida staple and considered a fine breakfast food. There are also grouper, yummy just about any way you get it, and stone crab claws, which do not, in my humble opinion rival the Maryland Blue Crab or even the Dungeness Crab in flavor, but make up for it by their renewable nature. Then, of course, there is Florida citrus. It is a disappearing treasure with the pressures of development and the spread of citrus canker. If you have lived your whole life only tasting navel oranges from California, you have no idea how good a navel orange can be.

While it takes some traveling and searching to find these bits of Old Florida and original Florida cuisine, it is always a trip well-rewarded by the glimpse of the past and the taste of someone’s ancestral fare.

Bon appetit, everyone! As we head into the holidays when food is an important part of our rituals and traditions, take a journey home through your taste buds.

Wealth and Goodness Not Equal

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:40:00 +0000

In this season of Thanksgiving, I am, of course, counting the many and huge blessings in my life. What’s on my mind, though, is a trend I am not thankful for. I almost never find myself allied with property rights advocates, whose causes seem to be that their need for something, usually money, should trump all other needs of the community and the planet, laws or no laws. There seems to be an exception, however, in which we have become foot soldiers in the same cause.

The first ripple of this trend that I refer to happened in Connecticut a couple of years ago. The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 split decision in June 2005, upheld a decision allowing the City of New London to use eminent domain to take land from a set of working class individuals and families and transfer that land to private developers “for the public good.”

Now, there is a disturbing echo here in Central Florida. In Daytona Beach around 1970, two 13-story high rises were constructed by the Federal Housing Authority. Today, each building houses 150 units occupied by elderly, many disabled, low-income senior citizens. What has changed since 1970 is the value of the Halifax River and city marina view that the apartments enjoy. Today, that view and the land the buildings occupy is worth multimillions to avaricious developers. They are drumming on city officials and the federal authorities to move the residents and sell them the site for luxury condominiums.

There is a seriously shameless message here in each case from the pro-development side. They state, with nary a blush, that homes for the wealthy and upscale businesses are “better” for the community. Is it just greed for higher tax revenues? Maybe, but there seems to be a subtext, particularly in the Daytona case, that the poor and elderly should not have the million-dollar view, that they don’t “deserve” it since they haven’t had to pay through the nose so some developer can build his own million-dollar real estate.

It harks back to the days when the wealthy and landed automatically enjoyed, in the eyes of their peers and the law, reputations for truthfulness and when they automatically had right on their side. In an incident pitting one of them against a member of a poorer class, there was no contest. Debtors, the poor, went to prison. Virtue and wealth were equated.

Since that is no more true now than it was then, and has been proven not to be true endlessly over and over again in our streets, our towns and our courts every day, I find it disturbing that the increasing trend to materialism, accumulating things, wealth and the value of name brand goods may be leading to a return to the clearly erroneous idea that having wealth makes one somehow deserving.

So, in this season of thankfulness and blessing counting, let us remember what real virtue is—not what you have, but what you do. That is what makes you who you are, none of us more deserving of life’s bounty than any other.

Paean to the Potato Chip

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 18:10:00 +0000

I love them all. The thin ones, rendered translucent by their hot oil bath are probably my favorites. I’ve been known to search the bag to find those. Probably if I stopped after that, I’d be fine since there are only a handful of the perfect, crisp, translucent ones in each bag, but once those special chips are downed and gone, I console myself by eating the less perfect, slightly thicker ones. Then I move on to the ones with major imperfections, breaking off and throwing away any blackened bits or odd green-tinged spots, and, finally, even the ones that have been ground, on their journey from factory to home, into little chip crumbs, until, at last, only the inside of the bag, shiny with grease and rough with salt, remains.

Yes, that is the problem; I love them all. When Frito-Lay’s commercials used to trumpet “Bet you can’t eat just one,” it was as if they were announcing my guilty secret to the whole world. Just one? I couldn’t even eat just 25 or just 50. Chip addiction is a terrible thing.

Mind you, chips have been mostly off my food radar for years, decades. There’s the fat and the salt, and even worse, there are the carbohydrates. Eating a bag of potato chips is, chemically speaking, just like eating a bag of sugar. Pure, simple carbohydrate. Any possible food value the lowly potato might have, and it does have a little, although even in its natural state it is a bit on the starchy side, has been stripped away in the production of the potato chip. No skin (fiber) to slow the absorption of that glorious carbohydrate. No vitamins and minerals after the high-temperature oil immersion. Just starch, fat, and salt. Three of the most highly desired food groups.

I wish I could say that it was only potato chips that I crave, but it wouldn’t be true. I have a fierce Frito Jones, created in childhood. A family Thanksgiving tradition, as we waited for the big meal to be ready, was snacking on clam dip (homemade only, please, and wonderful) and Fritos while watching football. Never POTATO CHIPS. I loved the Fritos with the dip, but when the bag of chips outlasted the dip, I was happy to have them naked too. Fritos, with their delicious corn toastiness, are fantastic, alone or in partnership. A software company I once worked at in the 80s imported a bunch of programmers from Texas. With them, they brought one of life’s perfect food combinations. You know what I’m talking about: a dish where the whole exceeds the sum of the parts to the point that a manna of taste ensues in each bite. This food consisted of two things I had never tasted separately, much less together, in my Northern eating experience, RoTel and Velveeta. By now, I am sure you have had many versions of this exquisite glop. At the time, I had never heard of RoTel, which is now found on almost any grocery store shelf in America, and which I find has many uses in cooking, but back then it was as alien as their okra pickles. RoTel, in case you have been living on another planet the last 15 years or so, is canned diced tomatoes with green chiles. It has just a hint of heat. To make the dip, you put the can of RoTel in a crock pot (or fondue pot or on the stovetop, but you need some way to keep it warm [read: uncongealed]) and add a two-pound block of Velveeta cut into chunks. The tomatoes and chiles heat, the Veleveeta melts, you stir it all together and the most delicious slice of artery-clogging, TexMex heaven is created, which when scooped with a Frito, results in a perfect food.

Since clam dip with Fritos was the only dip experience I had as a child, I was quite surprised to emerge into the world and learn that most people ate their dip with potato chips. It seems quite alien to me, even now, and sort of criminal to render a perfect potato chip wet and soggy with dip. But there are other good choices for dip besides Fritos, and they have become favorites in my chip pantheon too.

Once again, we must look south for this new staple of American cuisine, the tortilla chip. These versatile little blank slates of starch take well to many treatments. They are good alone with salsa, which has surpassed catsup as the largest-selling condiment in the US, they are great as the bed for nachos or the vehicle for conveying another near-perfect food, Mexican seven-layer dip, to the mouth. Like their American cousin, the Frito, they have more body than a potato chip, the better to stand up to dipping.

For the most part, I am a bit of a food purist. In childhood, I believed that dinnerware design peaked in the 50s with those melamine plates with dividers that mimicked TV dinner trays. That way, foods didn’t run together and “contaminate” each other. I was appalled by one of my uncles, who possibly because he had lost his ability to taste or possibly just because, would mix all of his food, no matter what it was, into one large puddle on his plate (cutting his meat up as necessary first) and eat it. He explained that it all went the same place so why not, an argument that did nothing to change my scandalized mind.

I mention this by way of explanation when I tell you that, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions, I do not care for flavored chips. Your nacho cheese tortilla chip, or your sour cream potato chip, these strike me as abominations. Since coming to Florida though, I have found a new exception. I don’t know if you can buy these in stores even, but in some vending machines there are tortilla chips with avocado and lime that are really good. Another classic exception, for me, is the barbecue potato chip. It is like a whole separate thing from the regular potato chip. You have the addition of sugar, a fourth most highly prized food group, to your salt, starch, and fat.

There is one other style of chip that does nothing for me and that is the formed (Ruffles-style) or extruded (a la Pringles) chip. Gross. If one wants to eat a completely unredeemable fake food, there is really no comparison to Cheetos. I ask you, from where else can you obtain that lovely orange glow?

Mostly, I just taste the memories, the ghosts of chips past. Then, this week, the store that offers three free items if you purchase $25 or more was giving away a free 5 oz. bag of chips. Cogitating feverishly, my child-of-Depression-era-children brain came up with a reason not to leave the free chips on the table. My husband, whose cholesterol count indicates he does not need them either, could take them in his lunch. Yeah, right. I am sure it comes as no surprise that the chips did not live out the evening.

So, now, I am back to memories of chips and, most of the time, glad about that.

How Dare They? How Dare We?

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:00:00 +0000

I’m ashamed to be an American tonight. How can I live in a country with so much wealth where greedy, profiteering men run hospitals that dump the indigent sick—so ill they must be transported by ambulance—out on the street on Skid Row, hoping that they will become someone else’s problem. If the worst happens and they die, at least it won’t be near the hospital.

There are many things that make this story even worse, if that is possible.

First, in at least one of Sunday’s cases documented by the Los Angeles police, a man was transported to Skid Row and dumped against his will, even after he told the hospital personnel he wanted to go to his son’s home. His family is horrified and outraged. They had not even been notified by the hospital the man was to be released. I have to believe this cannot be the only instance like this where the individual’s wishes were ignored and overridden.

Second, the hospital administrators are lying through their teeth about what has happened in the face of police video and still photographic documentation, as well as officers who witnessed five cases of the dumping. Further, some of the rats (in this case one of the ambulance companies) are deserting the sinking ship. Their employees are singing like birds and say that this practice has been going on for some time and involves other hospitals in addition to the one caught last Sunday.

We have plenty of shame for how we handle our homeless problem in this country, for how we have ducked the difficult issue of the mentally ill, going from one extreme, forced institutionalization, prior to the Supreme Court decision, to simply dumping them on the streets if their families are unable to care for them.

But not to provide medical care? To say to the homeless, we don’t want you in our nice suburb, you go downtown to the smelly, dangerous, dirty Skid Row, the only place you are fit for?

And lest we feel somewhat smug here in Florida since this, after all, happened in California, our news has been filled this past year with stories of indigent people refused medical care by local hospitals. Even the poor woman shot in the eye by the stray bullet on New Year’s Eve had difficulty receiving proper care. And then there is Orlando Regional Medical Center. Flying in the face of all common sense, they say that the poor healthy expectant mother who went into the hospital just to have a baby and contracted a superbug (known to flourish in hospitals) causing her to lose her arms and legs and very nearly her life must have brought the infection in with her.

Our city council has made it against the law to feed the homeless near City Hall in the parks.

How dare they? How dare we?

Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in a 1985 opinion that the plight of the disabled, prior to the ADA, exemplified a "regime of state mandated segregation... that in its virulence and bigotry rivaled, and indeed paralleled, the worst excesses of Jim Crow."

We are now doing the very same thing to the homeless. We can do better than this.

• Let’s require our lawmakers to make hospital dumping illegal.
• Let’s require private for-profit hospitals to do their share of charitable care.
• Let’s go to our churches and schools and clubs and talk to our fellows about these horrors.
• Let’s all rise up and say, “This is NOT what we want. This is NOT who we are. We are all human beings.”

We are all worthy of the bare minimum of medical care, food, a roof overhead, and the freedom to obtain them in whatever part of the land we want to be in—not herded into a segregated area of another’s choosing.

Too Soon, Too Soon

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 04:40:00 +0000

Like many others, I was impressed mightily by Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and I have followed his career since with quite positive feelings. Until tonight.

Senator Obama has disappointed me by saying that he is considering a run for the Presidency in 2008, or at least by not ruling it out. On what grounds would I choose to vote for Barack Obama as President? His handsomeness? His oration skills? Certainly, it could not be on his record, because there is scarcely enough of it to justify choosing him as a U.S. Senator, much less as leader of the free world.

Mind you, I am not saying he has accomplished nothing. I am not saying he has made hideous errors. I am merely saying that more is required of a Presidential hopeful than a couple of years in the Senate.

I want a seasoned politician and man as my President. I don’t want someone who is bound to be still learning on the job.

It is my fervent hope that wiser heads will provide Senator Obama with counsel on this issue so that he makes the right decision. It is not yet his time.

Barack Obama is the biggest star in the firmament of black leaders to come along in many years. Can he someday be the first African-American President of the United States? It may well be that he can. But not in 2008. At least not with my vote.

What, Me Sorry?

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:12:00 +0000

There is a recent trend in public intercourse that I find very disturbing on many levels. Not the least of these is the fact that my being bothered by it may be a sign of impending old fogeyhood, which I would abhor. Truly, though, I don’t think so. If this had occurred during my youth, I would have found it just as disturbing and just as much a source of consternation.

OK, Voice, so what are you talking about here? Well, I am not sure what to call the phenomenon, but here is tonight’s example. I was replacing some membership brochures in the holders of the local dog park tonight, when I watched a woman leave the park and leave both the inner and outer gates of the main airlock gate standing wide open behind her and walk to her truck. I had seen it happen before with total disbelief, but this was one time too many, and I could feel my dander rise.

I quickened my pace to catch her before she left, but I need not have worried. She was standing rooting around in the front seat of her truck.

“Excuse me.” She turned and looked at me.

“Excuse me, but you left both of these gates standing open. This is an off-leash park; dogs are loose. They could have gotten out.” And here it is, the phenomenon. She looked at me, said nothing, turned her back, and began to root again in the front seat of her truck.

Other times when this has occurred, I have simply shaken my head and walked off, but tonight it was just one time too many. I could feel the old BP begin to climb. I closed the gates she had left open (fortunately, no dogs except mine, who was on a leash, were in the immediate vicinity). I walked up to her.

“You left the gates open. When I told you, you looked at me as if I hadn’t spoken and said nothing. You didn’t even apologize. Dogs could have escaped. A dog could have been run over.”

“OK, I’m sorry,” truculently. “My boyfriend is watching my dog,” defiantly.

“Right, and none of the other dogs matter? Is that it?” Me, sarcastically. I turned and walked away. It was pointless.

My husband has suggested that we should post signs that say “Please close both gates behind you.” Most of us feel, however, that the kind of blithering idiot or hopelessly egotistical asshole that would do this would not be bothered to read that sign either.
But that’s another post.

What I find flummoxing tonight is how someone can speak to you, and you can simply not respond, simply turn your back and walk away as if nothing had happened, particularly if the speaker is taxing you with some lapse of common courtesy or common decency on your part.

Whatever happened to: What was I thinking? I’m so sorry . . . I was in a hurry and thinking about the call I had to make, but that’s no excuse . . .or the simple You’re right.

Is acknowledging that you screwed up to a stranger now some weird loss of face? Is it impossible to believe you could have done something wrong?

Yesterday, I stopped at the grocery store’s courtesy counter to attempt to boost my upcoming retirement income (translation: buy a lottery ticket). It was as busy as they usually are on Saturday afternoons. There were three people behind the counter, one on the phone, one counting some money and another running to and fro. None of the three seemed to be interacting with customers, but all seemed engaged in some task. Finally, the running to and fro one made the mistake of slowing and looking over toward me. “I need one lottery ticket, please,” I said. She held out her hand and took my money and headed toward the lottery machine. It was at that point that I saw that the man standing in front of the lottery machine talking on his cell phone had a filled-out lottery card in front of him. When he looked up hopefully as the woman approached the machine (still talking on his cell phone, though), I realized what I had done. There was no fixing it. Ms. To and Fro was already punching my ticket into the machine. But I said to the man, “I am so sorry. I think I inadvertently cut in front of you. I didn’t realize you were waiting for lottery.” He said “That’s OK,” and seemed unperturbed. As I took my ticket, I said again, “Again, I am sorry I did that.”

Could I have just pretended that I didn’t realize he was waiting for the lottery ticket and walked away saying nothing? Sure. Would I? I can’t imagine it. Not from virtue, just because it seems unimaginable to do that. (It could be the tiny Southern lady and gentleman that live inside my head and coach me when I stray from the polite straight and narrow. They were created by years of early parental indoctrination that saw me well into my twenties before I could call a supervisor by her first name without my throat closing up.)

I have to wonder in this age of increasing violence how much could be avoided if we would only say I screwed up . . . I’m so sorry . . . I never meant to cut you off . . . I didn’t see you signaling . . .instead of engaging in this kind of group defensiveness and self-righteousness.

So, if I have offended you, it was inadvertent, and I am so very sorry.

Getting the Bird

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 03:20:00 +0000

I experienced “wild Florida” today right in the midst of downtown Orlando. Orlando, the self-named ‘City Beautiful,’ is a city of lakes. Lakes are everywhere, as you find when you are learning your way around and you head down a street that ought to lead from Point A to Point B, but instead meanders around a lake. That can, of course, have its charms. One of those is that a city of lakes is also a city of water birds. Ahingas, blue herons, white herons, white ibis, cattle egrets and snowy egrets among others. The latter are quite urbanized, and it is not uncommon to drive down a residential street and see one on someone’s front lawn.

Today, however, I experienced one very up close and personal. I went to the grocery store near our home, which is on a major arterial. As I pushed the cart toward the car after shopping, I was quite surprised to see a snowy egret sitting in the middle of the hood right up near the windshield peering into the car. He seemed to be staring at my dog. (I had left the car running so my pup had AC, locking the car door with a second set of keys while I ran in to get something—it’s a Florida thing.) Much to my surprise, my dog was sitting perfectly still in the back seat staring back at the egret.

There were two women outside the pick-up truck parked next to me and I exclaimed, “Well, this is something I haven’t seen before.” One of them said, “No, we haven’t either. We’ve been taking pictures.” I expected him to fly off when I opened the trunk and put the groceries away, but he seemed unfazed. I thought to myself that surely he would fly away when I went to get in my car, but he just looked calmly back at me and did not move as I opened the door, said to the dog, “Some bird dog you are!”, climbed in and slammed the door.

So, there I was in my car with an egret on the hood. We stared at each other. I have no idea what he was thinking, but I was wondering what the heck to do next. Animal lover that I am, I was reluctant to move the car with him on it. I was afraid he might fall under the wheels or snap one of his stilt legs or something. But, we were at an impasse and eventually something had to give. I never once contemplated attempting to shoo him off the hood. If you have ever seen an egret or heron lunge for food with its spearing beak, you know that they are lightning fast and their beaks are wicked sharp.

“OK, I thought to myself. I’ll just back up a few inches and he’ll fly off.” So, I put the car in reverse, backed a few inches and then stepped a little hard on the brake to cause a slight lurch, just a little momentum ‘nudge’ to start him off. He lost his balance, swayed onto one leg, flapped his wings slightly to recover and settled back on the hood with both feet, giving me a rather indignant look.

Sighing, I decided I was being a little too ginger, and I began backing slowly out of the space, thinking that any second he would fly or jump off of the moving car. Wrong. I was all the way out of the parking space and the bird seemed to be getting his driving legs, doing a fine balancing act and swaying on the turns like a natural.

I stopped. I knew I could not just drive away with my new hood ornament. Once I picked up speed the wind would buffet him off. I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get his wings open in time. It was becoming clear who had the upper hand in this situation—the one with no hands. I started forward. The bird remained unmoved. I angled the car across the aisle of the parking lot so that my hood was adjacent to an island with grass and a tree that jutted out from the first row right across from where I had been parked, and stopped the car.

I now had cars lined up behind me and was blocking three vehicles in their spaces. No one honked. Everyone seemed fascinated by the byplay between me and the bird. A man was loading his groceries into his truck (that I was angled alongside). I rolled down my window and said, “Umm, I’m not sure what to do. I seem to have picked up a hitchhiker.”

The man said, “I’ve got just the thing,” and turned and began to rummage in his front seat. I had a momentary twinge thinking this was Florida with its liberal gun laws, so when he came out with a digital camera, I was at first relieved. He began snapping pictures of the unperturbed bird, who was quite at home being photographed, even turning his head to give the guy a profile shot.

I began to be a little annoyed. Among other things, he was “my egret,” and I was going to be the only one who didn’t have a picture of him. And I didn’t see how the camera was “just the thing” to help the situation at all. I said to the guy, “Look, I don’t want to just drive off. I’m afraid he might fall under the wheels or break a leg.” The guy said, “OK, let me see what I have.” I was skeptical at this point, but he seemed to have ladders and other paraphernalia in the back of his vehicle that indicated he was a painter or contractor. He came up with a towel-sized rag or drop cloth and headed around the back of my car toward the passenger side, seeing by my angling of the car what I hoped to do with the bird. He never got close to the bird to flap the cloth or anything. The egret, which had been only inches from me when I climbed in the car, took one look at this man approaching and decided the jig was up. As neat as you please, he hop-sailed off the hood onto the grass.

I rolled down my window, thanked the gentleman, wished the bird a good day, and admonished him not to try to cross the arterial, and drove home, shaking my head and grateful my Florida wildlife encounter was with a bird and not a leopard spotted ray, a shark or an alligator.

Plutokrat Manner

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 04:13:00 +0000

I find the Representative Foley mess disturbing on so many levels. Of course, another weirdo from Florida. Surprise, surprise. What he did and was doing—appalling. The acts of thinking about and, worse, writing to minors in the ways that he did are totally disgusting. I hated it when his team kept saying he never had a sexual liasion with a minor. His acts were sexual. Those sexualized contacts are damaging. Then, there is the whole added layer of the imbalance of power. Member of Congress coming on to a Congressional page. Hmmmm, the last time something like this happened the politician was impeached and, in that case, the recipient of the attentions was not even a minor! Foley presenting himself for years as a defender of the young and abused? Well, the best response to that is the one that one of the young men made about a Foley approach: sick, sick, sick, sick.

As disturbing as this whole business is, though, it is a sadly typical tale of a pedophile. Often, they were abused themselves as children (not any sort of excuse in my book since there are millions of sexually abused children who do not become abusers). And, very often, they elect to work with children and families, the better to be closer to their victims. Shudder.

Where this story has diverged from other stories of pedophiles, is an attempt by conservatives to drag out once again that mythological supposed connection between homosexuality and pedophilia and/or child molestation. How convenient to make gay men, those ever-so-popular whipping boys, once again the boogeymen. The facts are these: adult sexual orientation has not much, if any, relationship to pedophilia. Most pedophiles who even have an adult sexual orientation are either heterosexual or bisexual (with no preference for male partners) according to one of the few studies that has any scientific rigor. Further, it is erroneous to assume that male on male acts of child molestation are perpetrated by homosexuals. Canadian researchers have also shown that homosexual men are no more likely to respond sexually to sexual images of young boys than heterosexual men are to sexual images of young girls. All of this information and more can be found on a UC Davis Web page titled “Facts About Homosexuality and Molestation.” I have placed the link in the sidebar and recommend it.

Everybody in this mess is kicking sand just as fast and furiously as the Whiskers clan in Meerkat Manor, if for different purpose. Instead of trying to unearth a juicy morsel, these Congressional ’kats are covering up, or attempting to cover up, everything in sight. Congressman Foley himself uses the celebrity Southwest Airlines Maneuver, “Wanna Get Away?” and heads, like other famous people caught doing no nos (recent examples being Mel Gibson and Congressman Patrick Kennedy), to the Rehab Ranch, a convenient way of diving out of public sight for a protracted period. Then, using the “he did it first” whine and the answer to the riddle “What is the only thing more disgusting to the public than a pedophile Congressman?” (Answer: A pedophile man of the cloth.) Foley’s attorney announces that from his self-imposed exile the Congressman has told him that he wants us to know that he was molested by a clergyman as a child. Sigh.

But there are a lot of other sand kickers working side by side with Mr. Foley. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has employed the old Sergeant Schultz defense: “I know nuttink, nuttink!” But, on the theory that multiple jabs are better than one (must be that wrestling background) Speaker Hastert also kicks some sand on the media, repeatedly making the point that they had the same emails Congress did and did less. Hmmmm, scratching of head. Isn’t it Congress’ sacred pre-rogative (thank you, Pogo) to police their own? Doesn’t Speaker Hastert usually condemn the media for spending a lot of ink on allegations Congress has not yet officially investigated? But this time, it is a failure of the media to do so that is bad? ’Tis a puzzlement. (Wonder how many pop culture references I can cram into this post?) Then there is the chorus of far-right conservatives trotting out the Congressional staffers homosexual cabal cover-up theory, and even (this is my personal favorite) attempting to link Foley’s behavior to the Democrats.

All of this would be extremely funny if it weren’t for the very sad reality that these people are scrambling to keep all of us from asking them, the people in control of both legislative houses and the executive branch, how they could have failed to protect our most precious possession, our nation’s children, from themselves.

PC Equals Poor Choice

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 19:13:00 +0000

Remember the old joke that made the rounds a while ago? It postulated what the world might be like if cars were made like PCs? Its humor was based on being so close to reality. You never have to reboot your car in the course of everyday operation. Your appliances don’t get viruses, etc. Lately, I have been thinking about this in terms of the Microsoft Operating Systems, their software and Internet Explorer. I am not finding the joke very funny when I am the punch line.

From what other product in our lives would we tolerate this level of non-service? When we buy a car, we drive it off the lot. We may take a quick peek at a manual later to browse certain cool features or to look something up, but we can depend on the car operating efficiently and instantly. When we buy a new TV or appliance, either it is a simple matter of plugging a couple of cords in or the company sends a technician to install it.

Besides my recent experience with my IP regarding the problems their very invasive software client had caused for me (I guess they call it Total Control for a reason, but I don’t want them to have “total control” of my computer or my life.), I wrestled this weekend with Microsoft Word’s Mail Merge function. This is the single most poorly designed functionality I have ever come across. Have a list of names and addresses in a Word document that you want to print out on a sheet of labels? Good luck. Now, this seems to me to be a common problem or task. Why does Microsoft make it so that I have to jump through database-esque hoops of source documents and data sources? After I spent two hours figuring out the instructions, it still did not work properly. At that point, I was too frustrated to troubleshoot the problem and just threw in the towel for the day.

The last keeper of the list I was trying to turn into labels was that dinosaur of modern word processing technology—a Word Perfect user. Guess what? It is incredibly easy to print a sheet of labels from a list of names and addresses in a Word Perfect document.

Let’s face it. Microsoft is a real world example of that old adage: Eat s**t, ten million flies can’t be wrong. When I was moaning about these recent technological headaches to a friend and saying, “Why can’t they make a computer that does what I need it to do instead of making me stand on my head and rub my stomach and whistle before I can do what I want to do? He said, “They do. It’s called a Mac.” And he would be right. No compatibility problems. No operating unreliability. No viruses.

I have used Macs and even owned one once, at least, I had an Apple. I guess I went down the PC path because that is what everyone in every workplace I have ever been (except those graphics arts guys) had. Thus, it was easier to use the same thing at home. Plus, many of my computers ended up being surplus buys from office start-ups going T.U. or from companies upgrading everything.

Habit is not always one’s friend. I wish I had not just bought this new computer. I am too much the product of depression-era children to toss it with so much “good” left in it. (a somewhat debatable point).
I will get my mailing labels done eventually. I have two months before the next newsletter to figure it out, after all. But why, why, why does it have to be something I have to figure out? In Seattle, techies often refer to taking a job at Microsoft as going over to the Dark Side. I think maybe I can see that from the consumer standpoint right now. BTW, the instructions from my IP’s offshore tech support guy do not seem to have completely eliminated my connection problem, although the interval before it is cut off seems to be longer. Why this should be so, I have no idea. He certainly did not give me any information from which to extrapolate or figure it out.

And, right now, I haven’t the heart to call anyone or go online anywhere for any more “help” on anything.

A Luddite Lost in Live Chat Land

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:41:00 +0000

The following is an exact transcript (with typos and their commercials) of an actual live chat session I had with Earthlink tonight.

Welcome to Earthlink LiveChat. Your chat session will begin shortly.
Not at home and you want to read your email? With EarthLink Web Mail you can check your email from any computer with an internet connection!
Please wait for a site operator to respond. While you are waiting, please feel free to begin typing your issue in the box below. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Once an operator responds, click SEND to transmit what you have typed.

'Stanley C' says: Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat, how may I help you today?
The Voice: Ever since I installed Earthlink Total Protection if I leave my computer for a period of time when I tap the keyboard to bring it up out of power save Earthlink has disconnected my cable connection and I need to restart my computer in order to get it back. I don't want to have to restart my computer multiple times a day. I ran the cable connection several weeks with no problems prior to loading the Earthlink software so I am sure the firewall is the problem. How do I reset it not to do this?
Stanley C: Hello Voice, I will be glad to assist you in resolving the issue.
The Voice: Go to it Stanley
Stanley C: It seems that the powermanagement is enabled on your computer.
Stanley C: If powermanagement is enabled, the system will disconnected.
Stanley C: I will help you disable powermanagement.
Stanley C: http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=1291
Stanley C: Please make use of the link to disable powermanagement.
Stanley C: Please go through the link and let me know if you have nay doubts.
The Voice: Bad answer Stanley. Did you read my message? I was having absolutely no problems with uising power management and my cable connection until I got Earthlink Total F'ing Control. I would rather dump your stinking software. And while we're at it, how do I take the overbearing earthlink home page off as my default? I have changed it to something else as Use Current Page, but I want it out of the default setting. I am this close () to dumping Earthlink all together. I still have no resolution to an email problem I was told the engineers were working on three or four weeks ago!!!!!!!!!!
Stanley C: I see that you have 3 issues.
Stanley C: First, I will help you setup the Earthlink.net page as the default page.
Stanley C: Then we shall move forward to troubleshoot other issues.
The Voice: Stanley, dearest, Upon which continent are you located? I am guessing it is not North America. I do not want earthlink as my default home page. When I installed your software it placed earthlink as my home page, which I did NOT want. I want to take it out of the default.
Stanley C: I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.
The Voice: I shall also apologize to you. It is not your fault that these issues have been stacking up like cord wood and you are at the tail end of my frustrations.
Stanley C: When you open Internet Explorer, you get EarthLink page as default. You want me to help you remove it as default. Am I right?
The Voice: You are correct.
Stanley C: Thank you for your understanding. Please be patient with me. I will help you resolve all the issues today. If I am unable to help you, I will let you know.
Stanley C: Open Internet Explorer.
Stanley C: Click Tools --> Click Internet options.
Stanley C: Click on General tab.
Stanley C: In the Homepage region, you will see www.earthlink.net in the field that reads Address. Please delete the contents in the field.
Stanley C: Click the button that reads Use Blank.
The Voice: On mine it reads http://www.google.com which is what i am using currently. If I click on Use default it reads as you suggested.
Stanley C: Do you want to use google?
The Voice: For the nonce, yes. What I want to know is how to I erase earthlink as the default?
Stanley C: In the field, you need to have an email address other than www.earthlink.net
Stanley C: I suggest you to click Use Blank button and then type www.google.com
The Voice: Ok, I can do that. If I try to erase earthlink from the default, it just restores itself when I click Use Default. Your solution is the same kind of workaround that I have been doing. Obviously, the earthlink software insinuated itself deeply into the bowels of my computer. This makes me paranoid. this makes me want to have nothing to do with the earthlink software and be very tempted to uninstall it altogether. Are you telling me that you don't know how to change it from the default position either?
Stanley C: I will help you.
Stanley C: Click Tools.
Stanley C: Click Internet Options.
Stanley C: Click on the Programs tab.
Stanley C: Click on the button that reads Reset Websettings.
Stanley C: Click Apply --> Click Ok.
The Voice: Worked like a charm. Thanks Stanley. Now, on to the loss of connection?
Stanley C: Now close and reopen Internet Explorer.
Stanley C: Thank you.
Stanley C: Please let me know the second issue.
The Voice: Ever since I installed Earthlink Total Protection if I leave my computer for a period of time when I tap the keyboard to bring it up out of power save Earthlink has disconnected my cable connection and I need to restart my computer in order to get it back. I don't want to have to restart my computer multiple times a day. I ran the cable connection several weeks with no problems prior to loading the Earthlink software so I am sure the firewall is the problem. How do I reset it not to do this?
The Voice: Stanley, still with me?
Stanley C: Yes.
Stanley C: It seems that the powermanagement is enabled.
Stanley C: If you leave the system idle, it disconnects..
The Voice: It never never never disconnected no matter how long I left it until I got earthlink total protection on the machine. It is a cable modem it is supposed to be on all the time.
Stanley C: I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Stanley C: We need to create a new cable location and connect with it.
The Voice: OK, I'll bite. Why?
Stanley C: As it disconnects due to PPPOE, we need to create a new location for cable connection.
The Voice: PPPOE? What is that?
Stanley C: I will provide the link to create a new cable location.
Stanley C: Sorry, I meant to say DHCP.
Stanley C: Click Start --> Click Run --> Let me know the items related to EarthLink listed there.
The Voice: While I am deeply appreciative of al you have done to help me, this has taken very much longer than I anticipated. (Not your fault). I will need to undertake this project later.
Stanley C: I will provide the link. Please wait.
Stanley C: You can create it on your own.
The Voice: OK
Stanley C: Let me know the version of TotalAccess you are using.
The Voice: It says 2005 on the disk. If that is not what you need to know tell me where to find it
Stanley C: Yes, you are using TotalAccess2005.
The Voice: You are not waiting on me are you?
Stanley C: Yes, I am typing the instrcutions for you.
The Voice: OK sorry I will be patient.
Stanley C: In order to resolve the issue, you just need to create a new Location in your TotalAccess. To do so, follow the instructions given below:
Stanley C:
Stanley C: 1. Double-click the EarthLink icon on your desktop.
Stanley C: 2. Click on Settings.
Stanley C: 3. Go to Connections tab.
Stanley C: 4. Click on New button.
Stanley C: 5. Select Other, type a name (like EarthLink DSL) and click Next.
Stanley C: 6. Select Home/Office Network.
Stanley C: 7. Click Next.
Stanley C: 8. Click Finish.
Stanley C: 9. Now, connect using this Location.
Stanley C:
Stanley C: Note: In case you are unable to find the Connections tab as in #3, you can look for Locations tab.
Stanley C: Please follow the instructions and the issue will be resolved.
Stanley C: To print this chat, right click in this window and choose Print.#PFR#/BOS/Pc/PrintChat
Stanley C: Shall I mail the instrcutions to you>
The Voice: Thank you Stanley. I will follow the instructions. Could you email them without difficulty to yourself?
Stanley C: I will mail them. Please wait.
Stanley C: I will mail them to The Voice
The Voice: Fine. I suppose I would be asking too much to ask why this will fix the problem and what the problem is?
Stanley C: As you are bale to use Internet without any problems without TotalAccess, that is the reason I suggested you to create a cable location.
The Voice: OK thank you Stanley. Are we finished here?
Stanley C: Please follow the instructions and the issue will be resolved.
Stanley C: Yes, I am mailing the instructions.
The Voice: Thank you again. I apologize for my ill temper.
Stanley C: Thank you very much for being patient with me.
Stanley C: It was pleasant assisting a friendly and understanding customer like you.
Stanley C: You are most welcome. Your satisfaction is what we strive for.
Stanley C: Is there anything else I can help you with?
The Voice: Au contraire, ma cher Stanley. It is you who are patient with me although I noted you did not answer my question about your continental location. No doubt against earthlink corporate policy. Have a nice evening. The Voice
Stanley C: Do you want to know where I am located?
The Voice: Yes.
Stanley C: I am located in India, but our headquarters are in Atlanta.
Stanley C: I have sent the instructions to you, Please make use of them.
Stanley C: Is there anything else I can help you with?
The Voice: I will. Thank you. I am sure it is long past evening so have a nice whatever time of day it is there. Goodbye The Voice
Stanley C: Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat.
Stanley C: Take Care.
Stanley C: Bye.
Stanley C: Please press and hold Ctrl and click the Close button.
Of All the PCs You Can Buy, Only One is Purely You. $699 Inspiron™ E1405 Notebook with 14” display or $479 Dimension™ B110 Desktop with 19” flat panel monitor after instant savings.
Offer ends 9/27.
Click for details. http://www.earthlink.net/go/chatsupportoffer <>
You are not currently in a chat session.

Tell Someone You Love Them Right Now

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 05:25:00 +0000

Tonight, the rudeness of death interrupted my world again, as it seems to have so often lately. I learned that Orlando Sentinel business columnist, Susan Strother Clarke, died suddenly and completely unexpectedly today at the age of 47. I did not know Ms. Clarke, except through her words, which I enjoyed. She was a columnist I chose to read regularly even though the business section is not the first part of the paper I turn to. It wasn’t really a matter of whether I agreed or disagreed with her. What I liked about her work was her clarity of thought, her thoughtfulness, and her lively way of presenting those thoughts to her readers.

One of the reasons I am so very sensitized to death these days is that I lost my own sister, also a Susan, in March of 2005. She died at the age of 49, also way too young. But, in the case of my sister Sue, our family had a blessing, a benefit, that the Clarke family did not have. My sister was diagnosed with a rare condition that has no cure and results in death from heart failure. For her, it was hard. She was a very active person, and her disease made her life very restrictive. The expensive and complex devices and medications that kept her alive had awful side effects. I am certain she did not let us know how bad it really was. I know, though, that she valued having the time to adjust, to make plans, to mend fences, to do all the things we don’t, as a rule, plan for or think about in our day-to-day lives. She learned of it in 2001 and had enough time to do many of the things that were important to her. She bought a house that she loved and made it into a home. She developed a lovely relationship with her only grandchild. All of us who loved her got to spend a lot of time with her. Once they told her that it would soon, I made immediate plans to go home. As it turned out, she died a week before I was to leave. I regret that a little, but so much less because we had all the memories we had stored up, the talks we had had, the laughs and the meals. Before she died, she and I got to say everything that was important, everything we needed and wanted to.

The pressures of modern life, the rush, rush, rush that technology enables and feeds too often distract us from what is really vitally important. There is not one Type A workaholic who has ever gotten to the end of life and said, “Oh, my gosh, if only I could have spent more hours at the office.”

Sunday before last, Mitch Albom had an article about his new book in Parade Magazine. It trumpeted on the cover, “What if you had one more day with someone you’d lost?” I knew I wanted to read that article, but before I even opened the magazine to see what it said, I decided to think about that question for myself. I thought about having one more day with Sue. At first, I imagined us taking a trip together, but it really didn’t feel right. I knew that if I could have one more day with her, I would want to do exactly the things we had done so many times, eat a meal she had cooked (she loved to cook for others), look at some new plant in her garden, sit down and play a game (we both loved games), tell each other our latest spider anecdotes (we were both frightful arachnophobes), and, most of all, laugh. That was also the conclusion of the article. Most people would like to have back those ordinary times with their loved ones that they did not remark as particularly special at the time. I found it comforting, then, that during those years we knew our time was measured, we did just those things. We did take a trip once. But the most special times were those everyday, homey things we had always enjoyed together.

I was walking on a trail through the woods in a nearby park a few evenings ago. The house band of insects was just tuning up to prepare to play during the sun’s exit stage west. Suddenly, I heard the soft greeting of one of the resident pair of owls, “hoo, hoo.” He (or she, I’m afraid I cannot tell them apart having only encountered them in the deep gloaming), began this courteous practice after he swooped down quite suddenly and totally silently, as is their way, for a flyby to check me out on the evening when we first met. His wingspan was enormous, much wider than the body silhouette would suggest. Seeing my startlement and being the refined creature he is, ever since, when I come near his perch of the moment, he politely advises me that he is in the neighborhood. I greet him properly and we pass in the evening. So much more civilized than the man we encountered walking his gorgeous German shepherd and completely oblivious to the breeze, the lovely quiet woods, the pine needle duff sprinkled over the pure white sand that passes for soil in Florida, the singing insects and the owl, because he was walking, head bent, talking on his cell phone. He was still talking on his cell some 20 minutes later as I was driving out of the park and he missed all of that evening’s beauties. His loss.

Ms. Clarke’s death is a wake-up call to us. We need to not sleepwalk through the everyday moments of our lives while thinking about something else or talking to someone on the cell or checking our email on the blackberry. Those things will never have any long-term meaning. We need not to rush out the door with a quick peck or no goodbye kiss at all thinking that we will have time later to tell our mate or our child or our friend how very much we love them, how truly special they are, each and every one.

My family, close but not demonstrative before, is changed now. Not one of us ends a call or a letter or an email without saying that we love each other.

My hope for Susan Strother Carke’s family is that they can, when the enormity of their loss eases a little, know that the special shining treasure of the everyday, the football games, the meals, the laughter, that they had with her were what mattered—to her and to them—even though they did not get a chance to say goodbye.

Tell everyone you know and love and value that you do. Tell someone who has touched your life what they have meant to you now before the chance is taken away.

All Stirred Up and Nowhere to Go

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 04:28:00 +0000

Orlando Sentinel newspaper columnist Mike Thomas has a habit of regularly bustin’ out in something not often seen in public discourse these days, common sense. He displayed that trait in abundance recently when he wrote a column taking area and state leaders to task for failing to step up and open their arms to the Nemours Foundation and its offer to build and provide ongoing funding for a top-notch pediatric hospital in Orlando.

In a second column a few days ago, Thomas discussed the topic again and referred to the large volume of response he has had from readers who agree with him. And therein is the rub. Mr. Thomas has used his column as the bully pulpit to focus public attention on the potential loss of a great community asset because of infighting by existing medical institutions and chicken-hearted fence-sitting by public officials (big surprise there, right?), but to what end?

Many of the letters from aroused readers said things like “I want to help.” “Just tell me what to do.” So, bravo, Mr. Thomas, now what? Modern journalistic practice, even for columnists, bears a more than passing resemblance to that political fence-sitting. Having started the stone rolling down the hill, now what will you do?

It is your column that provided the spark, who will blow on it to expand the fire? How will the ready-to-go readers find one another? You are the only one who has their contact information. How can they organize? Who will lead them? What will they do? Or was the whole thing just more hot air?

So, if you really believe that Orlando is missing the boat here and someone should step up to the plate, we’re waiting. You brought it up, after all.

Sign Me Up

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 04:15:00 +0000

I’m puzzling over an aspect of human nature I don’t understand. What causes people, I include myself, to care about something strongly enough to get involved, to actually spend time and effort on it?

This is on my mind because right now I am struggling to put together a large event for a non-profit off-leash dog park I am involved in with only a handful of people helping at all and many of them in very limited ways. What’s puzzling to me is that every time I am at the dog park, I have at least one conversation with someone who talks about how great the park is, how much they value being able to go there with their dog, and, yet, most of the time, these people are not even members of the support group, much less volunteers.

Please don’t misunderstand my position. I am not feeling any judgment about why these people feel the way they do and act the way they do. This example is only what got me to thinking about the issues.

My reasons for being involved with the group seem to me to be a fair bit about self-interest. First of all, my very high-energy dog requires a lot of exercise. When he was a puppy, I surely would have gone insane had it not been for the off-leash dog park that opened not far from our house. We took him three times a day until he was about a year and half. Then, we were able to taper him down to two times a day. He is six now and one 45-minute run suffices if I supplement it with a half hour on-leash walk at night, but he is always eager to go back to the dog park on the days we do take a second trip.

So, working to maintain and promote off-leash dog parks has been a great personal benefit to me. Further, during a period when we moved three times in five years for my husband’s career, becoming involved in the off-leash dog parks in the new areas helped us make friends. Dog people make great friends.

Then I think about all the other things I believe in, many of them passionately, with some of them, I even believe I should become involved. Bringing about political change in this country since I hate the way it is going right now, domestic and/or sexual violence against women and children, the hospice movement, bringing new kinds of education into our schools, the list goes on quite a ways. Many of these things would seem on the face of them to be more important than the cause I am involved in. I think about these issues, and sometimes I even think about becoming involved in them, but that is as far as the impulse goes.

Perhaps it is because, to me, dogs represent pure innocence and love, and yet are regarded mostly as chattel in our world. Their senses and what they know and value, so much better than ours in some ways, are so alien that they are totally discounted by much of human society. And, against us human beings, like so much of the world, they are defenseless.

Perhaps some of the other issues I care about seem too global, too overwhelming, too much like dashing myself against a rock. Perhaps these other issues are so painful I must keep my distance in order to stay whole. This one little local issue, off-leash dog parks, is one where I know my efforts can make a visible difference, and where I can bear it most of the time.

So, for other people, what groups, what causes, what efforts they make in the community, shaped as they are by that person’s experiences, needs, etc., can be completely different from my own or anyone else’s. I guess I am OK with that. There seem to be enough causes to go around.

Marketing’s Abiding Target

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 04:08:00 +0000

Major scariness happened today. In the mail, I received a postcard promoting the theatrical release of an upcoming film, Love’s Abiding Joy, directed by Michael Landon, Jr. and based on a book series by Janette Oke. Sounds innocuous, right? What’s the big deal, you say? Just round file it and forget it.

Well, to me, the big deal is why Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC would assume I had a bit of interest in such a film and how they would have obtained my name and address? Interestingly enough, there is only one possible answer.

You see, I have never visited or registered on a web site of theirs or their subsidiaries or the director or the author. I have never read or purchased any of the books the film is based on. But the name of the film, the director and the author of the books did ring a bell with me.

A few months ago, I saw a couple of episodes of rerun TV shows in quick succession in which a B actor named Dale Midkiff, whom I had seen off and on through the years, appeared. I sort of got interested in Dale as I occasionally do with various B or character actors, as I once had, for example, with Kevin Spacey after seeing him in The Negotiator. This summer, when there was absolutely nothing on TV that I hadn’t seen or cared to see, I spent any TV watching time idly surfing through the online guide. I came across a movie on the Hallmark Channel and saw Dale Midkiff’s name in the credits along with Katherine Heigl and Corbin Bernsen, both of whom I like, and I decided to watch it. That film, whose name I can no longer recall, (but which I can almost guarantee had Love’s Something Something) in the title was, the credits said, based on a book by Jeanette Oke. It wasn’t really my cup of tea, being sort of like Little House on the Prairie finds Jesus and becomes a Harlequin romance, but I watched it anyway. Being on my Dale kick, I watched again, a few nights later, when Dale starred in a sequel. By the time the third movie in the series appeared, the level of actors had descended substantially along with the quality of the scripts. There was no sign of Corbin or Katherine, and Dale himself made only a cameo.

So, imagine my surprise when this post card touting the theatrical release of a fourth movie in the series, appeared in my mailbox today. There is only one explanation. Bright House, my cable service provider, is not only recording in a database what I am watching on television (via the Trojan horse they installed in my living room that they call “an interactive digital cable box” in their sales pitches), THEY ARE SELLING THE DATA TO THIRD PARTIES ABOUT WHAT I WATCH ON TV—not anonymously, but WITH MY PERSONAL INFORMATION INCLUDING NAME AND MAILING ADDRESS AND GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE—ATTACHED. I am confident that absolutely nothing I ever signed authorized them to do either of these things.

Why do I find this so scary? Beyond the fact that if I wanted Corporate America to know what I watched on television I would tell them myself? Hey, this is Bush World, where the Administration claims that it has the right to access and datamine and sift and combine any and all records of any and all Americans to find terrorism and terrorists without any legal oversight of any kind. If Ken Starr can look at Monica Lewinsky’s book purchases, what makes me think that Dick Cheney and the vile and insidious John Poindexter won’t check out what I watch on TV?

We Americans are all asleep at the switch or resigned to the no longer slow and no longer subtle erosion of any right to privacy we ever claimed to have. I got a wake up call today. I urge you to look around you for your own.

Where Ya Headed, Lady?

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 05:00:00 +0000

I’ve had some interesting experiences in taxicabs. A witty and puckish friend of mine from LA asked me today after reading last night’s post, “By the way, what is rain?” It sent my mind back to an incident I experienced on a business trip to the Bay area some years ago. I had flown in to Oakland, rented a car and driven to Walnut Creek. When I arrived back at the Oakland airport several hours earlier than planned, there were no seats available on earlier flights, and I was going to have to hang out in the airport for some hours. There was, however, a flight with seats available leaving from SFO. I had already turned in my car so I grabbed a cab, told the driver I was in a hurry to make a plane, and we headed down the Freeway to the airport.

All of sudden, it began to rain, hard. The cab driver turned on the windshield wipers, but all they did was make a ghastly scraping noise and smear dirty mud all over the windshield, making visibility even less that it had been.

“When is the last time you changed those wiper blades,” I asked?

“It does not rain here,” my cab driver replied, clearly inaccurately.

“Should you pull over? I asked. I am not so eager to make the plane that I am willing to risk my life.”

“No problem,” he said, and rolling down the driver’s side window, half standing up in the driver’s seat and hanging out as far as possible, he proceeded to periodically swipe ineffectually at the mess with a filthy rag he got from somewhere in the bowels of the cab, all while not slackening his 75 mph pace a whit.

Since further protests did not move him, I gave it up, sat back, closed my eyes, and left it up to the fates as to whether I would reach my destination alive.

Another time, I was going to a business meeting in Cambridge and was in a cab with my boss. We got stuck in the infamous Big Dig traffic. My boss, as was his custom, was spending the entire journey on his cell phone, a process that seemed to prove to him, and I believe also was supposed to affirm to me (See the post of the 18th and the reference to me and propinquity to large egos.) his own incredible importance. When he finally looked at the time (I had been attempting to point out we were going to be late and should call), he whipped a large bill out of his pocket and asked the cab drive to fix the problem. The driver pulled out of the line of cars and weaving dangerously in and out of holes and heavy equipment and narrowly avoiding scraping cars and the bridge raced ahead until he came to a bottleneck where we were pinned between the legitimate line of cars and the wall of the bridge (my side, of course). Using tactics seen only in a demolition derby, he cut into the line to the righteous outrage of a lot of Boston drivers. We were almost clear of the mess, when the cab was stopped by that truth-based cliché, a Boston Irish cop. He threatened the driver with a ticket, because several motorists had reported that he cut in line. The driver denied it all. The cop turned to my boss, the author of the whole affair, and said, “Sir, did you see what happened here? Did this driver cut in line, which is a criminal offense?” My boss, long on ego, but rather less so on ethics, replied that he was so sorry that he couldn’t help. He had been involved in a complex conference call and was not concentrating at all on what was happening around him. I answered, quite honestly except for an omission as to why I was in this condition, that I had had my eyes closed because I was feeling somewhat sick.

Cab drivers, as a breed, have to have chutzpah to do what they do every day, but in that department, probably there is no equal to the New York City cabbie. One morning I arrived at Penn Station on a train from Philadelphia, grabbed a cab out front and headed uptown to my first meeting. The cab smelled like smoke, but I assumed a smoker had just gotten out of it. As we proceeded, block by block, a little haze seemed to appear in the air. Suddenly, flames erupted from the ashtray in the door. I pounded on the glass partition.

“Sir, sir, the cab is on fire. You need to pull over.”

He glanced casually over his shoulder at the rising flames and said, “It’s not so big. You can put it out,” and turned back around and kept driving.

I wasn’t sure what I was madder about. His calm assumption that I would be happy to put out a stinky fire in his cab ashtray or that he wouldn’t pull over when I asked him to. I tossed him some money and jumped out at the next light, but it was too late. My hair stunk and my clothes stunk so badly that I had to go buy a new dress and get my hair washed before I could complete my round of meetings.

A New York cabdriver once drove off with my briefcase and plane ticket home (never recovered) because he was angry that I only wanted to go downtown and not to the airport. A Philadelphia cabbie asked my boyfriend, who had walked me down to the street to see me off and told him to take me to the airport, if he knew the way to get there. I almost got out right then, but he called the dispatcher to get directions, and I made it safely. Don’t they at least show them the way to the airport during training? In the days before cell phones, a girlfriend and I were taken for a ride by a cabdriver who would not let us out or take us where we were going until he ran up a large fare. I was so grateful we were together, and that we made it out OK with only the loss of the money.

But these scary or angry or dangerous cabdrivers are not the worst of the breed by far. That distinction goes to the “This is my big chance. I have a captive audience cabdriver.” Thirty minutes of “I gotta a great idea for a biziness, you should invest,” or “You’re and (sic) editor? Let me tell you about this great book I’m thinkin’ a’ writin’. Maybe you could help me get it published.” Horrors. It’s almost enough to make me give them up forever until the next time I need one.

Happy traveling.

The Rain in Spain Is Plainly Not the Same

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:11:00 +0000

From whence The Voice came, rain is a very different animal than it is in Florida. How can something so universal in the human experience be so completely different in different places?

I was used to a constant light rain that could go on for days, that seemed almost as if you were enveloped in a cloud that had come to rest on the Earth for a while. Everything around, trees, roofs, all dripped endlessly and softly, while plants nodded their heads gently under the burden of the moisture.

In Central Florida, rain, like so many things here, has attitude. It pelts from the sky almost daily in the height of summer in impenetrable sheets, as if someone had suddenly opened the heavenly sluice gates, pounding the ground relentlessly and falling at a speed the land cannot possibly absorb, quickly forming streams, then rivers.

Outside my corner house, a body of water appears mysteriously, like Brigadoon, only when there is a heavy rain. I call it by the hyphenated names of the two cross streets with the appellation Lake in front. You laugh. It has currents that are visible, wavelets during the storms in which the rain is joined by lashing wind, and tides that lap the yards and driveways when foolhardy cars brave its depths. In a storm that occurred a couple of weeks ago, said by a friend of mine who has lived here in Orlando virtually his entire life to be a 50-year rainfall, the Lake got so big a rather large knobby branch that was bobbing along just peeking out on its surface made it appear for all the world as if my Lake had its own alligator, just like the permanent lakes dotted almost everywhere around the city.

It’s really not surprising that such violent rainfall, which I characterize as 1940s jungle movie rain, occurs here so frequently. Meteorologically speaking, Central Florida is a war zone in summer. Situated almost evenly between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, and only about an hour by car from each, Orlando is the place where the relatively cool onshore sea breeze from the East and onshore Gulf flow from the West meet and tangle with the hot interior air rising from the land to clash like titans above us, producing an average annual rainfall of 50.1 inches a year. That coffee place, also known as the Rainy City, experiences a paltry 38 inches a year.

Of course, these monumental clashes of cool and warm air produce more than rain. I have always loved thunderstorms. The sound and fury of nature is a free show. Florida’s bubble as lightning capital of the world may have been burst when satellites and NASA scientists proved that actually that title belonged to Rwanda, but it is still the lightning capital of the US and even of the Western Hemisphere. On average, more than ten people die from lightning strikes in Florida each year.

Really, I only thought I had experienced a thunderstorm prior to coming here. Lightning blasts from the sky hundreds of times an hour. Thunder shakes the house. Appliances are unplugged from the wall, and one is advised to stay off the telephone. The primitive thrill of being safe under shelter with all of that going on outside dances along the nerves just shy of the edge of fear. If we are lucky, the torrential rain and lightning are the only things that occur. Sometimes, it is hail or even tornadoes. It gave me a real “Well, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” feeling when I first arrived.

Some things about the rain are universal, though. Assuming conditions are not too apocalyptic, I still love to tuck up in bed with a book and listen to it drumming on the roof. One of its huge benefits in Florida is to briefly and blessedly drop the temperature. When I venture outside afterwards (usually with my dog, who maintains steadfastly that if forced to go out there and pee during a rain, he will melt) the world is washed clean and seems fresh and bright again with strange, enticing scents and the new-penny shine of water everywhere.

It is both renewal and benediction.

Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 03:08:00 +0000

I just learned that a man I once worked with died a few weeks ago. It had been many years since I had seen him or spoken to him, but I am diminished nonetheless by his loss. Why does it seem there is so much loss of late in my life? I suppose this is one more unasked-for consequence of the aging process.

Many would and did describe John as a difficult man, and other adjectives in a similar vein, but often quite a bit saltier. He was terse, and he could be rude. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and if he thought you foolish, he let you know in no uncertain terms. I liked him a lot though. He had a keen intellect and a sharp wit.

What makes someone like someone is a topic I have been thinking about, a kind of offshoot of last night’s post. There seems to be a lot of alchemy or, at least, chemistry in it all.

Why else would there be people that you hit it off with immediately (knowing little or nothing in depth about them), while there are others you are sure you will most heartily dislike (and your feeling is usually right) when they have done nothing to you? Others may make almost no impression at first or we are indifferent to them, but gradually they grow on us until we count them among our most trusted allies.

I have found, as I stumble through life, that I usually cannot separate some traits of people for admiration, while finding other traits despicable and shrugging my shoulders. (This is where this post intersects with last night’s on the nature of genius). No, somehow, my internal rating system, mostly without my conscious direction, puts them in the “I like and admire this person” pile or the “Not my cup of tea” pile.

On the whole, I like people so there are only a few characteristics that really rule someone out for me. In co-workers, I have found that no matter how attractive or amusing someone is, I can’t respect them if I don’t respect their work and their contributions to our mutual endeavor. Overtly or regularly hurting people deliberately is something I find intolerable. Great ego raises an imp in me determined to burst the bubble of self-importance as often as possible (a trait of mine I consider not very admirable).

On the plus side, being smart will get you points, and wit and a sense of humor will cover a multitude of sins. And ever since David in junior high, a young man who, as my mother would say, was “homely as a mud fence,” and who had a D average (he was flunking everything academic, but had As in Choir, Band and Jazz Band), a gorgeous tenor will get you just about everywhere. (C’mon people, it was 7th grade—not that kind of everywhere.)

John, the man who died, could be very cutting, but it was always done with wit. I don’t think he was deliberately hurtful to people, he just didn’t hide his contempt for weak argument or stupidity. He smoked so many cigarettes, his clothes and breath stank and his fingers were nicotine-stained. Now, this needs to be understood in the context of the times when a lot more people smoked and everyone smoked in the office—no place was smoke-free. Non-smokers who protested second-hand smoke were regarded as “nuts,” essentially. I, who have never smoked, (Not by dint of virtue—I just never liked it.) was so inured to smoke, I dated smokers, ate lunch with them (what non-smoking section?), rode in cars in which people smoked, all with no problem. But, John, well, even smokers noticed. His attire always seemed dapper to me. He was fond of tweedy sports coats, and he wore a Ulysses S Grant beard, when being hirsute was not that common in the echelons of upper management (Corporate America of the 80s). He rose to a senior editorial position in a major national publishing company with only a high school education, but more than held his own, even among the j-school boys. In his middle life, he had sustained some serious injuries that resulted in his having to cope with chronic pain in an era when doctors were still pretty puritanical on the topic of pain relief. Through it all, he still retained his sense of humor, and he always had a kind word for me or a sincere inquiry about how I was, even when we were just passing in the hallway.

Like all of us human beings, he was complex and unique. Johnny, you are too soon gone, but not forgotten. I am so glad you were a part of my life.

The Nature of Genius

noreply@blogger.com (The Voice) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 06:10:00 +0000

I watched a documentary the other evening about someone whose work I have long admired and whom I view as a genius, Frank Lloyd Wright. I had read and seen much about Wright’s work and a little about his life, but this PBS documentary, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo, gave substantive weight to his personal life and demons. On the heels of watching an old 1970s-era interview with Woody Allen on the Dick Cavett Show, it got me to thinking about the nature of genius.

Frank Lloyd Wright, whose designs embody beauty, perception, clean lines, restfulness, a kind of light and music, was a man who took what he wanted personally without much reference for the feelings of others. He abandoned a wife and family for a sexual liaison and, later when his wife would not divorce him, co-habitation with the widow of a former client. This was an act so scandalous in his time that it cost him enormously for decades in terms of his career. Later, after her death, he took up with a woman 30 years his junior. More significant to me, personally, was the lopsided nature of his patronage relationship with Buffalo industrialist Darwin Martin. Through the years, Martin and Wright corresponded. Martin did not abandon Wright after the scandal, instead lending him money repeatedly and continuing to give him commissions. Though their financial positions reversed after the stock market crash of ’29 destroyed Martin’s fortune, Martin died still owed $70,000 by Wright, which was never repaid even though Martin’s daughter was forced to close the doors to the Martin family compound that Wright had designed and just walk away, a fact about which Wright seems to have had little or no compunction.

Woody Allen, arguably a cinematic genius, certainly a talented and unique voice in film, is another man whose art for me is stained by his personal failures. Then, there are Henry Ford and Wagner, men whose anti-Semitic views are totally unacceptable to me. Luckily for me, I am OK not admiring Ford, since his theatre of genius is one that I can largely ignore in my daily living even as I benefit from it. As for Wagner, while sections of his works stir me, overall, I find them so heavy-handed that I am quite comfortable striking him from my listening pantheon.

The word genius comes from the Romans. It has morphed quite a bit from the original concept to that which we know today. To the Romans, each man, woman, city, and home had its own genius (or, if a woman, juno), a guardian spirit attached to them from birth to death who gave them their gifts. The Romans sacrificed to these spirits on their birthdays.

I wonder if gifts of genius do require sacrifices? Perhaps they cannot coexist comfortably with everyday sensibilities. But after watching that documentary, I had very little doubt as to which was the better man. Darwin Martin, whose childhood had made him value family above all things, who cherished his wife, who was generous to others, and forbearing with his friends, won hands down over Wright. But it is the nature of human beings that it is Wright whose name has lived on and whose work cannot help but inspire.

My husband asked me today when we were discussing this topic if we require our geniuses to be more than average in all aspects. I felt instantly and definitively that that wasn’t it for me. It’s not that I expect geniuses to be more than the rest of us, but that, for me, the gifts of their genius, beautiful and alluring as they are, do not excuse them from standards in other areas. When they don’t meet the standards of basic human decency, their genius is tarnished.

In the end, I love Wright’s work so much that I can’t stop myself from admiring it, but when I see it from now on, I will also remember that without Darwin Martin, Wright would not have been able to go on, to get work, to have a roof over his head. Wright’s work is therefore, in my mind anyway, a monument to the work and love and faithfulness of another man too.