Limits

What better day to face limits of ability than your birthday? Any day will do, of course, but when the birthdays accumulate to higher numbers previously unthinkable, then fate’s face appears in the mirror.

I was summoned for jury duty in the federal courts downtown Chicago. This is something I had hoped for many times. The legal system. The courts. Justice. The cutting edge of critical questions concerning one person, one act, one accusation. Guilt. Innocence. Which would apply? What are the facts. And the logic.

Yes. I wanted to face those difficult questions because I felt the need to both test my ability to focus and maintain logic, while holding someone’s fate in the palm of my hands. This work is done every day. By ordinary people coming from ordinary lives and neighborhoods. The same applies to me. How would I function in that setting? It is a duty solemn and central to our form of governance.

Of course, I accepted jury duty.

Now, on the cusp of actually doing that duty, I realize I would have trouble fulfilling it. The jury would be in the federal court building downtown on Dearborn Street. They would pay for parking, mileage and daily compensation. Money was not the issue. The issue embraced these realities, my realities: limited ability to stand, walk without help. I have a walker/rollator for that; it has a seat in the event I tire and need to sit. The energy required to drive downtown, not get lost, find the parking garage, maneuver into an appropriate space near an elevator, and then find my way out of the facility and toward the court building. All of that would take concentration and energy. Then the concern of how much oxygen it would take and if I should bring my portable oxygen unit? Once there and ‘on duty’, the return trip home loomed: finding the car, exiting the garage and entering traffic, then home, I began to have doubts.

Rocky was horrified I had agreed to jury duty. All he could do was shake his head!

Tomorrow I am to call the court jury system to learn if I am likely to be scheduled for a case; if so, I make the trip the next day. If not, I have a reprieve of one day; I am to call the following day for status and every day for my term of duty for one week or the length of a trial, whichever is longer.

As the date approaches fear builds: can I do this? Would I fail getting there on time? Would I fail getting there at all? How complicated would the consequences be? How embarrassing?

I hate admitting I cannot do this – the jury duty itself – or the logistics of the coming and going. Health is one thing; stamina is another. Saving face yet another. Which is more difficult – being unable, or admitting it?

Stamina of mind and logic is not the question. The question centers on the body supporting the physicality of the doing. Am I ready to accept such limitation?

This is the reality of aging and learning to live with the consequences of it.

I still do not know what I will decide. Perhaps that alone should keep me from jury duty!

PS: I called the Juror's hot line and left a message. Later the same day they provided me an email letter excusing me from jury duty. That part is over. Now on to life's limitations!

June 18, 2021

 

 

Making Good

An artist thinks of life, his or hers, or the world, or nature, or something much larger than the self. It has dimension, texture, and value. How to define all of these? In relation to the original thought that spurred the pondering?

The creative urge is forming. The artist selects the medium and resources to express the thinking, the core of the thought. An image in paint or charcoal or pen and ink take shape. A three dimensional shape emerges from unsculpted materials. A figure? A radical shape that creates a sense of motion or final thrust? Toward what? To what end?

The same with a potter creating shape, function and emotion from clay and elements of chemicals that bring color to the palette. A painter. A writer. A poet. A musician who plays the music or composes it. The singer, instrumentalist. Whatever. Whoever.

Something is made from ‘nothing’ to you and I, but to the artist the nothing is something to be worked with and created from. They are making something, bringing it into being. Something that will enrich our lives in some fashion. Will it be beautiful and ennoble our existence? Will it inspire us to act in a way that will benefit others, fix problems, build something beautiful for us to live with, in or through?

Making good has so many meanings. A young person who struggles day by day for many years to complete her education so she may pursue interests that will support her livelihood and accomplishments that will expand lives of others. That is making good. The architect who designs a building or residence to meet the needs of the residents or users of the space makes good, too. Some buildings are pure function; others are imaginative and motivational; we do less good in drab surroundings and soaring achievements in spaces that inspire thinking and doing.

Government is a tool to do good. Like libraries, schools, power grids, highway systems and so much more, we live in an environment both made by nature and mankind. Not all is perfect. Not all functions well. We labor to improve what is imperfect and soon learn all is imperfect.

Doing something about what needs improvement is making good, too. At the base of this work, however, some decisions need to be made. Is the project addressing what is important? Do we know what we want at the end of our struggle? Have we defined the outcome we desire? Is this a universal desire or value? Or are we creating something in direct opposition to what others deem better?

Making good requires community engagement in most situations. The artist can act alone. His is a statement about life’s condition. That statement helps us understand the scale of the condition; perhaps it needs our involvement to improve on it. The art informs us of a reality, a problem, a beauty, a thought or value that must not be lost. What we do with that realization is up to each of us.

Making good needs others who desire to make good. Sharing the context of life is a step that must be made if we are to move toward purpose and valued outcome.

Making good needs me, you and we. Together we can do so much.

Much needs doing.

When?

June 17, 2021

 

Manchin Puzzle

Not really a puzzle, is it? Isn’t it a simple matter of power, personal power, political power?

Joe Manchin, Democrat Senator from West Virginia, holds power over the slim math of balance of power in the US Senate. If Democrats – President Biden – want to change public policy by action in the Senate, they need all the Democrat votes they can muster. Losing one vote – Manchin – means defeat of the legislative proposition. The ‘agenda’ of Joe Biden and Democrats in general is blocked.

Manchin revels in this power. He resides in a hugely poor state. A state that has felt powerless for generations. Having their day in the sun is important to them. And to Joe Manchin. It does not hurt that this attention, this power, comes with goodies from republicans in the form of party support, party campaign donations, contracts and public projects that benefit the citizens of West Virginia, and all the rest. This is what power looks like up close. And Joe Manchin gets it.

The rest of America suffers from this pettiness. Here are projects Joe Manchin is blocking:

·        Infrastructure improvements: dams, highways, bridges, stormwater control projects, improvements to the electrical grid and protection from foreign hacking.

·        Expansion of access to the internet for all citizens: this is the emerging infrastructure the old does not yet include; this will expand career opportunities, educational access, and much more.

·        Voting rights: we say we are a nation of voter rights and one person-one vote, democracy and all the rest; but we then make it difficult to exercise that right to vote? That makes sense in what we believe is the world’s greatest democracy? Really?

·        Investments in people: health, education, career preparation, and dignity. Indeed, this is the investment that will enable each person to seek their own level of achievement. It will also increase our competitiveness in the global market for goods and services.

There are other issues Joe stands in the way of. Filibuster rule is just one of those. Of course, killing the filibuster would neutralize much of Joe’s power of the moment.

There are plenty of people who make Joe Manchin out as a hero of principle and values. Hogwash. He is a petty manipulator for selfish aims. The tragedy is the programs he blocks are the very thing his fellow West Virginians need to better their lives.

Tragedy? No; travesty.

June 16, 2021

 

Yearning

Whatever your age, you want something. It may be a sunny day that smells fresh and beckons early positive thoughts. Feelings. It may be a favorite aroma that tickles the tongue for eggs, bacon, or something else. Perhaps it is a sticky bun dripping with pecan chunks buried in cinnamon and caramel goodness; warm would be good, too, especially accompanied with a pat of butter melting into the ooze.

Or, your yearning may point toward a car, maybe new, maybe an old classic, possibly sporty and loaded with special features. Or other shiny objects may be in your want column? It might be a new appliance, a kitchen makeover, or a new audio system connected to a giant screen TV.

Others yearn for a better job, a grander home, perhaps an exotic trip to a foreign land.

Yet others – still others – ache for food, fresh water, better health, a family made whole by recuperation from serious illness, or a death of a loved one. These are the basics most of us take for granted.

On Sunday we seek calm, solace, personal space, and peace. Sensing a lack of these, we go to church or some other place of worship and enlightenment. We listen for words of comfort and meaning. Words that will help us during the week to cope with what bothers us. Words that guide us and quiet our fears.

Wanting. Searching. Aching. Yearning.

Common feelings. Sensations of need? Or are they only wants?

Wanting and needing are two different things. Wanting is a sense of lack needing to be filled. So much wanting is really a sense of incompleteness, a vacuum begging to be filled. How much of this is worthwhile? How much is mostly meaningless?

In the larger world many of our wants are narrow, cheap and of little actual value. These are the things that make us feel better about ourselves or maybe feel better than other people?

In America, we are conditioned to want. That is what advertising is all about. It creates in our minds the sense of lacking, the need to fill that lacking, and the purchasing of whatever to fill the gaps in our lives. We all feel the pull of advertising. We all feel the lacks in life. But when we feel an aching large gap we mix helplessness to the mix of emotions. A crisis looms until the ache is fed a solution.

Best if the want, the yearn, is well understood. Is it vital? Is it important? How much of it is necessary, if any? Focus on the important. Train resources on the needs and get to work.

Doing this for others usually lessens the ache within ourselves. Filling the needs of others fills an invisible need of our own we did not know we had. Doing this finds peace. Feeding this purpose fills aches and yearnings.

It makes the old car seem new again. And the hungers fade away.

We can hope so.

June 15, 2021

 

Misuse of Public Authority

The title of today’s blog could have been ‘Bits and Pieces’ and you will see why. However, the subtitles included all demonstrate a common thread – misuse of the People’s power.

Ours is a democracy, built on the model provided by the Greeks millennia ago. Changes were made to the model to produce the American Republic. The final model of the 1790’s favored landowners who were mostly white and wealthy. The result was distorted representation of We The People. That result has been modified through the past 235 years to broaden the democratic process. Yet the white privilege and wealth standard was maintained in many ways.

The morphed result has led to these actions experienced during the trump administration:

               DOJ investigates press, corporations, and others as political enemies

               Pentagon budget used for southern border wall building

               Congressional inaction on January 6^th Capitol Attack

               Congressional blockage of infrastructure bill

               Federal tax policy vs Democracy

Not only has the federal model of governance been misused for the above purposes, it remains ‘in power’ to frustrate correcting the problems and 'clear and present dangers' presented by this situation. The crisis grows worse while the system is given a chance to correct itself under Democratic leadership. Republican leadership – now in the minority – plots methods to restore power to the House and Senate to continue manipulating and blocking progress to repair all the damage.

Delay tactics are the largest strategy. The system is loaded with nefarious means that are used to waylay progress. GOP leadership has mastered this approach and Democrats appear powerless to counter.

Abusing public power on a grand scale has been the hallmark of the last 30 years of our federal governance. The proof of that resides in the subtitles listed above. Ponder that long and hard. Take your time. Think on what needs to be done to correct the situation. Then think how we get the federal government to address these problems adequately and fairly. Such does not appear possible currently.

That is precisely the problem.

When did We The People become such a charade? And how?

Can we fix this? Ever? If yes, how and by whom?

June 14, 2021

 

 

 

Fixing Immigration

The problem with immigration is not at the border with Mexico. The problem is not with other countries. The problem simply is:  What does America want its legacy of immigration to be? 

Are we to be a land of inclusion? Are we to be a nation of hope? Are we to be a country that welcomes others to become one with us?

Or are we a nation with high bars and standards to exclude people different from us?

It is our choice. It is our freedom. We have the right to make this decision and be whatever we say we should be.

However, there is a big IF. That IF is: we are a democracy and We The People make the decision. Currently we are not doing so. Elected politicians are making the decisions and they are at odds with our history and with the polls, and with the will of the people.

So, the problem is not immigration of people from without, it is with the people within our borders. You, me, them.

We don’t need to visit the US/Mexico border to see a crisis unfolding. That is not where the crisis resides. It is much closer to home. It is within us. You and I. Just the two of us multiplied by 160 million. Stop blaming outsiders. Stop making this a political party problem. It is not any of that.

No; it is a problem with you and I. Do we include or exclude?

Make that decision. Then deal with the consequences honestly and openly. Either decision has consequences. Which set of problems do you want to solve? Which pathway will you take?

More importantly: what does the decision say about the kind of person I am? You are?

June 11, 2021

 

Open Letter to President Biden

Dear Mr. President,

I am happy you won the election and am very supportive of your early days in office. You are doing a great job. Keep doing it!

I have a few suggestions I would like to see you pursue:

1.      Do not make the mistake Pres. Obama made in trusting republican congressional leaders to compromise and cooperate. That wasted two years of political advantage in congress and nothing has happened to tell us republicans are trustworthy or collaborative.

2.      Pass the infrastructure bill at the full value you originally proposed.

3.      Invest in people: education, healthcare, social security, infrastructure.

4.      Continue to preach competitive advantage of America over China and Russia. That is the truth, but we must continue to make it true long into the future.

5.      Putin is a putz. Know this and merely seek his collaboration and cooperation. He must prove that or be isolated from the global village.

6.      China is not a putz, but they do not control the world nor should they. Neither should we. the global village should ‘control’ the world through cooperation and collaboration. Those who do not are outsiders and isolated.

7.      Military should be defensive, not offensive. Kindly remember that.

8.      The American people are our greatest asset. Invest in them. Believe in them. The good will follow.

Listen only to those who are willing and able to be a part of solving problems. Those who do not are in the battle for themselves, their power and wealth. They do not speak for the American People. Avoid these people at all cost.

Thank you and bless you and your difficult work.

Sincerely,

June 10, 2021