Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

Spriggs’ Weekly - Week 4, January 2019

Anybody

Well, you have to admit that at the very least Trump has proven one old adage to be true. Anyone really can become President.

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GasTV

The new gas pumps now have LCD screens that aim information at you as you fill your tank. I was topping off the tank this afternoon and the pump was spewing commercials at me, the weather, and the “Word of the Day,” Today’s Word of the Day was “subborn,” as in, to suborn perjury. Seems that GasTV is up on the times.

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Weather Report

 

The week started off being run of the mill January in Boston weather. Then we had a day of record lows (6 degrees)  followed a couple of days later with temperature almost in the 60’s. In between, we had 2 inches of snow and then freezing rain and sleet.

 

Glad that we’re not having that extreme weather conditions that the climate change people have been warning us about.

Spriggs’ Weekly - January 2019, Week 3

Authority Numbers

 

Reading How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt that is mainly about how authoritarians can rise to subvert democracies. They present some interesting numbers for some of the most famous authoritarians in American history:

 

Hugh Long - (1934) Mailing list of 8 million names at the height of his power.

Father Coughlin - (1938) 27% approve, 32% disapprove.

Joseph McCarthy - (1954) pre-censure approval: 50%, post-censure approval: 40%.

George Wallace - (1968) 40% approval.

 

It seems that the American predilection for strong men has been with us throughout the past century.

 

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Founding Father

 

“History will teach us that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the great number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.

 

— Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers #1 

 

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Thin Mints

 

Girl Scout Mother:  We have thin mint cookies for sale.

 

Questioner #1:  So, do you keep them in the freezer like I’ve been told to do?

 

GSM:  Personally, no. They don’t last that long.

 

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Annual Report V.25.0 - 50th Anniversary Edition

NOTES FROM THE CAFE FIASCO

Marshall T. Spriggs

Volume 25, Number 0, Winter Solstice 2018

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Annual Report – V25.0 – 50^thAnniversay Edition

For some reason, it seems like it’s gotten dark earlier this year. This could be because I’m still getting used to being back in standard time, but I think that it has something to do with the fact that, at 68, my perception of time is such that everything is going just a little bit quicker – days, projects, seasons. The wheel is rotating a bit quicker as I get older and my grasping of what it offers simultaneously has become more precious and also something that’s harder to do. Or maybe it’s just my reaction to American politics.

But now, for whatever reason, we find ourselves at the bottom of the curve of light for the year again. More darkness but, thankfully, headed toward more light. And again, it’s time to evaluate the year.

Health

Health (and the lack of it) has been the prime focus for both of us over the past year. On the plus side, it was finally determined that the chance of my prostate cancer recurring was miniscule – I’m out of the woods on this account and very much relieved. For anyone who has had the disease, it never really goes away – it’s always in the back of your mind – but this does put it even further back there where it’s harder to trip over it.

My Graves Disease seems to be quiet and in a couple of months I’m hopeful that this also will be determined to be “in remission.” So far, so good.

On the negative side, early in the year I determined that the knee problem that I’ve had for the past year after falling on ice, was not really not going to go away without some intervention, so I dragged myself off to the orthopedic surgeon. He did the X-Ray and the MRI thing this summer and it was determined that he needed to go in and clean out several loose things and some arthritis out of the joint and fix my meniscus that was badly torn. So, on September 11^th,(an auspicious date if there ever was one), I had arthroscopic knee surgery, in anticipation of the fact that, if I didn’t, I was setting myself up for a full-scale knee replacement later in life. I came through the surgery without a problem, but recovery has been slow and I’m still limping and sometimes using a cane. I’m told that recovery might take a while (like a year). Yuck. This makes me feel like I’m 68 or older.

D.’s migraines seem to come and go according to their own irregular schedule. Medication has reduced their number, but has not relieved her of their presence. Too much medication results in weird GI problems, too little results in more migraines. The balance keeps on shifting, but her amazing ability to cope with the pain combined with the effort to find a balance is keeping her busy.

Retirement/Work

I’m three years in and maybe I’m getting the hang of this thing. Maybe. In reality, I really don’t have a choice. It is very difficult to think of going back to doing computer work (not to mention that computers have moved on without me over the past three years) and these are, at least at the moment, the only “professional” credentials that I have to offer a prospective employer. This was, to some degree, an accidental career, but it’s the only one I had. I can do lots of different things, but it’s hard to make a case for hiring me to do them. And then there’s the ageism thing, which still seems to be very active. The assumption is that if you’re over 60 you’re nothing but dead weight.

So, until the MacArthur or the Nobel rolls in, I’ve made myself busy running the house (at least more than I ever did), worrying about the 401K, and continuing as a TA in the Sustainability Program at Harvard Extension. I’ve got a great faculty to support, but the Harvard attitude drives me nuts (the reason that I quit the job that I had there years ago). The saving grace is working with the students who are bright and committed to saving the planet and some of which I actually teach how to write better.

The answer to the question that everyone still asks d. is, “No, the Huntington Theatre Company is not shutting down.” At least we don’t think so. The divorce with Boston University is now complete, and now that the HTC owns the physical theater, the Huntington people are looking forward to a bright new future. Unfortunately, this bright future seems to lie on the other side of a huge and very necessary fundraising effort to renovate the building. So, stay tuned.

d. got a new boss this summer who seems to have her head screwed on straight and actually cares about her staff. This has made the chaos around the future easier to take, but when the renovation, which will include moving D’s shop, starts is still up in the air so there’s only so much you can do.

d. also continues (as she has for the past 25 years) to teach part-time in the Boston University Theater Department.This, of course, makes for interesting comparisons of notes between she and I on student “problem children” as well as the dreaded “academic politics” that is always so much fun.

Marshall Arts

      Iaido – I keep swinging the sword every Saturday morning and Sensei Laliberty keeps patiently correcting me. Over and over. Such is life in the Japanese martial arts. I am no longer a beginner, though I seem to be going back to the elementary parts of the art to correct mistakes that I must have been making for years. Sensei quotes his teacher saying the in the art of iaido it gets harder the longer you do it. How do I get myself into these arts where there’s a beginning but no end?

      Visual Art – Not drawing much these days (it’s been a while) and it’s something that will go back on the agenda now that the health issues seem to be moving into the background. (Let us pray). Denise has expanded her efforts to paint by taking a class in acrylics. She’s doing good stuff but, of course, is dissatisfied with her progress.

Learning

To many books to read, too little time. A problem of having too much time is that there is still too much to learn. Yes, I’m retired, but the book stack just seems to be getting higher as my generalist interests expand.

Environment

Twelve years to turn the climate situation around. That’s what the IPPC says we have. Combine this with the 6^thGreat Extinction that we are currently in the middle of and we have a full-blown Environmental Emergency on our hands. But, of course, a large number of people refuse to acknowledge this. It’s as if your house was on fire and the Powers That Be had determined that having firemen were inefficient since they don’t do much anyway and they work for socialist institutions and therefore we should do without them. Great idea, until …  I’m reminded of an old quote from David Crosby:  “You can’t bullshit the ocean.  You know, it’s not listening.”

We know all know what we have to do and we better get on it or else. The clock is ticking. Hear this North Carolina?

Politics

The American people don’t like politics all that much. Most people just want to be left alone to live their lives without interference from the government and they’ve evolved this wish into the idea that they’ve gotten what they have solely through their own efforts without the help of anyone else, let alone their government.

This would probably be okay if it were true, which it is not. This fantasy also leaves the population open to people who would play upon this lie, by promising them a return to a simpler life of an era that never really existed (in the form of a sanitized 1950’s) in return for turning their political life into a techno-enabled version of the Gilded Age.

In November of 2016, a majority of Americans (in the right states) bought this well-articulated lie and the result is the mess that we now find ourselves in: a narcissistic authoritarian leader who promises to make everyone “safe” while wrecking the government and it’s associated social structures – especially those parts that kept us safe from the ravages of the corporate one percent for whom he and his party work.

I can’t see how this situation will change over the next two years even as the probes of administration corruption slowly circle an increasingly embattled group of grifters. I think that the best we can do is think about what we have learned from this process and what kind of world we can rebuild from the ruins that they will leave us. Some parts of the government and country will not be rebuildable – think of endangered species totally wiped out or people who will have died for lack of health care – but we will have the chance to move forward without much of the thinking of the past that has held us back. This is small recompense for the damage we will have to endure, but at least it’s something.

Gratitude

I have to admit that I find the latest fad of the creation of a “gratitude list” to be slightly amusing. People are urged to sit down at the beginning or the end of the day and list the things for which they are grateful. Not a bad thing to do and something that helps with keeping everything in perspective. I’ve been doing this virtually everyday for 50 years now. Everyday I wake up, I get out of bed, and marvel at the fact that “I’m still here.” I’m not sure if this is would be considered a “gratitude” practice within the current definition, but it sure feels like it and it always has.

It’s been 50 years today since I nearly drowned in a sea of grief over the loss of my mother and my family. During the two weeks that I was “gone” and in unbelievable pain, there were people who threw me a life preserver (quite literally in this case), took care of me (most prominently Sandy Heywood), and gave me hope that I could actually come back from the hell that I was in. Because of their efforts, I very slowly started to emerge from a very dark period in my life. And from these ruins I started the long, long process of rebuilding a shattered personality off of the strong foundation that my family left me. I was grateful for the chance for resurrection then and now, 50 years later, I am still grateful. And I still wonder why I’m here.

I remember talking to an HR professional some years later at the Harvard Business School who was patiently explaining to me that I could change my benefits structure if I had a “significant life event.” I remember her puzzled look as I immediately broke up with raucous laughter.  There was no way to explain to her that I considered getting up everyday was a “significant life event.” This has not changed.

Many people have helped along the way to where I am now half a century later. I hesitate to list exactly who is among this number since the list is so long. But I do know that because of you I function in the world much better than that scared, devastated teenager of 1968. Of course, it would be hard not to a still be alive. But I am still here and my gratitude to those of you who have helped with this simple fact is both great and deep. 

I can only hope to have earned the trust and energy that you have given to me over the years. I continue to strive to do my best to carry forward your faith in me. Thank you all for being so generous with your time and essence over the years.

Extro

For going on the 50^thyear, the light now returns for me and for you. My personal darkness of the late 1960’s returns from time to time in different forms. Sometimes, as we’ve seen, in political forms. But the light always returns. If I have faith in anything, I have faith in this. And, of course, in all of you.

Have a great Solstice season and take care of yourself and of others. The light returns.

Much love,

MTS

 

 

 

Annual Report - V24.0, December 21, 2017

It’s the Winter Solstice here in Boston. And, yes, it’s dark. It’s been dark for a while now. And it looks like it’s going to be dark for a while more. And it’s not just the afternoon setting of the sun that’s the problem. The irrational and the immoral have come to rule the day over the past year here in America and, as a result, for many of us, the night is just a little bit longer than it has been on other Winter Solstices.

The Mad King is both an authoritarian and is narcissist and he’s in league with some of the most politically and personally corrupt individuals that could rule a government. Not only are they just out for themselves, but they think that this is what we all should be as well. In fact, this is the philosophy (if you want to call it that) of the whole ruling political class in Washington these days. It couldn’t come at a worse time.

They are ripping up the federal government (except for the pork barrel laden Department of Defense that doesn’t need the money) and gutting any sort of protections that common people have historically had for the past 80 years. This is done in the name of giving everyone “more freedom.” More freedom to be sick if you’re a child, more freedom to be homeless, more freedom to have your pocket picked by corporations, large and small, with no recourse to these actions.

And this is a problem since, as the old saying goes:  “It takes a skilled carpenter to build a barn, but any jackass can kick one down.”

The jackasses have been in power now for almost a year and all they know how to do is destroy.

Not that the federal government was a bed of roses before the axes started flailing. There was much wrong with the over-regulated state; it was inefficient, in places it was intrusive, and for the most part, it responded only to myopic short-term problems.  But you don’t rip up your coal furnace in the middle of winter without an alternative because it’s been costly and smokey.  And the US is in a place where it really needs to function because the United States is in decline.

After running the world for the better part of 75 years, places like the dictatorial China have finally caught up to us and are moving to surpass us in global leadership, and the current political answer to this situation is to pull up the draw-bridges and become Fortress America.  Somehow we have convinced ourselves that we don’t need anyone else and we couldn’t be more wrong. We are simply giving up on global leadership at a time when the globalization of the world needs to be moved in the direction of democracy. Not to mention that fact that when things start falling apart, that is exactly the time that you need to consolidate your forces.

None of this seems to be in bully’s playbook - just more posturing and insulting as a way to making the US seem bigger than it is as it slowly melts away.

And there’s more damage to come. The 2018 federal budget has not yet been approved and this will probably be the first time that people outside of Washington really feel the sting of large-scale budget cuts. The cuts will be massive and they will be justified on the basis that there is no money.  Of course, there is no money due to the fact that the Oligarchs and the corporations were just given $1.5 Trillion dollars in tax cuts. (How much is a trillion dollars? Well, consider the fact that it takes you 32 years to live a billion seconds (including the time that you’re sleeping).  A trillion is a thousand billion.)

As I said, things are dark. And if the Democrats can’t get it together to stop the slide later in 2018 so that they can retake at least one house of Congress, things are going to get darker.

These political events of 2017 have, to some degree overshadowed the personal events in our lives this year and have put a dark tinge on what has been a somewhat hard year over all. It has been a difficult year in the Spriggs/Wallace household as well, but for different reasons.  Main among them is health.

Health

As for me, different aspects of Old Age seem to be creeping up on me. Damn.

Late last year, I was diagnosed with Graves Disease - a hyper-thyroid condition that made be feel like I was in my 90’s rather than my 60’s. I’ve been treated for this for the past 14 months and things are going well with the medication that I’ve been taking. I’ve got another few months of gulping pills, and then we will see if things stay stable once I’m off treatment. So far, so good.

In the world of more minor (or at least less systemic) stuff, I had a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder (physical therapy did most of the trick until I’m now back to about 90%) and I had a fall in March that aggravated arthritis in my knees (too many years of falling down during Aikido class, I guess) and the rehab there is on-going. From walking with a cane in the spring, I’ve now progressed to the point where there’s minor pain everyday, but I can get around pretty well until my legs get tired. This has probably made me feel older than anything else this year.

In the good news, my Prostate Cancer numbers are good (as in zero) for the second year in a row and if I manage to keep it this way for another year, I can be considered “cured” after the 12 year drama. Good riddance there.

Denise’s old demon of Migraines came back earlier this year (at one point, one every other day) until her neurologist put her on anti-seizure medication that seemed to work.  The problem with it was that it gave her a pain in her stomach, so she had a couple of months of playing with the dosage of the medication trying to be the benefit without the “side effect.” of gut pain. She finally worked it out, but she still get’s occasional headaches that are severe enough to be disabling.

Work/Life

As you can see from the laundry list of maladies above, a lot of energy this year has gone into retrieving and maintaining our health.

Besides this major focus, in my “retired state’” I’ve had two part-time jobs: House Husband and Almost Faculty Member at Harvard. 

I’ve always hated housework (the result of having too much of it when I was a teenager) but I’m slowly (sloooooowly) coming to terms with keeping the house up while Denise works two jobs, takes in freelance work, and teaches workshops. It’s only fair, even if it’s not one of my favorite activities. I’m overly proud of the fact that I have managed to avoid watching the soaps and, most of the time, the dishes are clean.

The “real job” this year has been continuing with being a Teaching Assistant at Harvard Extension. Dr. Rick Wetzler and I try to teach the students how to do research and put a credible professional face on this research before Harvard kicks them out the door with a Master’s degree. Sometimes this is a challenge.  But it is always interesting and I learn a lot in the process of going through student papers.

Denise still works in the Costume Shop of the (BU-less) Huntington Theater Company in the same physical place that it’s been for 33 years. The year consisted of parting the ways between the HTC and the University and eventually finding out that the new owners of the building would be giving a low cost lease to the Huntington for the theater building. (Thanks, Mayor Walsh.)  This is a mixed blessing.  The building is nearly 100 years old and hasn’t been touched in years.  Good news: you have a home; bad news: the place is a wreck. One sees mucho fundraising in the HTC’s future.

Though the Huntington has parted ways with BU, Denise has not. She still teaches millinery and dyeing in the BU Theater Department. Only now she has to go across town to a new (and still unfinished) space in order to do this. The physical separation of work and work has made things logistically more difficult, but she expects that things will calm down once she has a permanent shop from which to teach.

Besides these two jobs, she also did a couple of workshops in Baltimore and Salt Lake City and a killer freelance job for the Pittsburg Light Opera Company (bonnets! bonnets! bonnets!). This all makes me feel very lazy given my householder status. I have not yet been moved to go out and find a job in solidarity however.

Marshall and Non-Martial Arts

Denise somehow finds time to draw and she’s going be a part of a group art show in February (Difficult Women). Not to mention the crochet projects she takes on.

I’m still swinging the katana in Iaido class under the supervision of Sensei Don Laliberty.  Since the passing of Tom Putnam (how I miss Tom), I am now the most senior (read: aged) of the students (if not the best or highest ranked), so I just stay in the back and slash away as best I can, trying to not be a danger to myself and others. Sensei is indulgent of my lack of skill and balky knees, for which I am thankful. I seem to have gotten beyond the raw beginner stage (I can get the sword back in the scabbard on a regular basis) and am now firmly in the “correction of detail after detail stage” where it seems I will stay for the rest of my life.  As Sensei Paul Keelan used to say, “Only a beginning; no ending.”

Further

I made a major step in my spiritual life this year by becoming a formal student of Roshi Melissa Myozen Blacker, a Soto Zen teacher based in Worcester. After 40 years of sitting mainly by myself, I’ve take the big plunge to develop a relationship with a teacher and a community. This should be interesting. Lots of sitting still with other people sitting still in the future.

Dave

Let it be noted that my good friend of 50 years Dave Brennan exited this plane in May of this year. He had had prostate cancer for a number of years and his skein finally ran out.  With the help of John DuBois and other friends, he managed to stay at home right up until a couple of days before he died. He was a cantankerous old poetic cuss, but I loved him and I will miss him.

Travel - Norway/Sweden

Given the health issues noted above, Denise and I decided that it would not be a wise thing to put off travel what we wanted to do for later years, so we booked a trip to Norway and Sweden so that we could see our old friends (it had been four and half years since our last visit).  It was a whirlwind trip that we just returned from - four cities in ten days including a trip to Tromso (way above the Arctic Circle) to see if we could catch the Northern Lights.  We were in luck in many ways.  All the old friends are doing well (lots of grandchildren have sprouted since our last trip) and we did get to see the Lights for a couple of hours. (Pictures available) Good, but somewhat tough trip for me due to ice vs mobility issues. The Scandinavian countries are easier to visit in the summer.

The Future

In plain English, it doesn’t look good on a political level. Once this Tax fiasco is finally installed, I expect that the Republicans will try to come up with some sort of way of getting those ever so friendly corporations to fund infrastructure improvements (good luck there) and then they will go after entitlements (which have been a major target of Paul Ryan for years). The Mad King will continue the chaos that he’s addicted to and to try to install idiots to the federal bench (the recent ones only have a passing acquaintance with the law) and he will get some of them on. So, we will be stuck with these clown for years even if the administration goes belly up.

But, we know that there are roads back. Many of these roads mainly consist of the way that we treat each other on a daily level - our family, our neighbors, our communities, and our planet.  Also, the roads back will depend on how loudly we object to being divided from our democracy. God will be in the details.

Should we lose the way in this process, then we have really fallen into the pit and, this time, there may be no getting out. The stakes are high.

This isn’t some sort of plea for an airy-fairy existence. This is about all of our physical survival and the survival of our humanity until such time that we can restore the balance and allow reason to govern us once again.

As a political observer for the past 50 years, I’ve never personally seen a worse time than this, but as a historian I know that the Gilded Age of the late 19th century was just as bad. The difference between then and now is that there is so much more to smash this time around and our place in the world is very different. And once you give up that spot at the top of hill, it’s very difficult to get it back. If we want democratic values to survive in the world, it’s time to get active.

As I have said, we get through this together or we don’t get through this. I have been an extremely lucky individual over the years in that people have been there to pull me out of bad situations in which I have found myself. I most surely wouldn’t be here otherwise.  I write you every year to thank all of you for your support over the years and I mean it. I may be getting old, but my memory does not fail.Yours shouldn’t either.

Let us return to the light as best we can.  Happy Solstice!

Much love,

Spriggs

 

 

 

ACHA

The interesting thing to me about the Repub.'s AHCA is that, if enacted the way that it is now configured, it will result in killing off, literally killing off through disease and bankruptcy, the constituencies that support the current Republican party - white working and middle class women and men.

 

The party and it's leaders have become such a captive to money and ideological purists that they can not see that the lack of medical care embedded in the new structure is going to destroy the Reagan Democrats as a group. These are the people that have supported them for over 35 years and will allow them to rule for the next two or possibly four years. You would think that they would like to keep them around over the long-run, but they don't seem to care. This will inevitably end up in the Repubs cutting their own throats.

 

If it wasn't for the medical carnage that I see coming, I won't be sad to see them go.

Annual Report - V23.0, December 2016

It get’s dark very early in Roslindale at this time of year and, somehow, especially this particular year. There’s an air of disappointment, disorientation, and an underlying fear of the future that makes the dark seem more suffocating. And what makes life worse is seeing an assault on the 21^st Century coming and the helplessness of not being able to do anything about it. Things have got to get better after the turn of the Solstice.

This is the nadir of the year and the light must return. At the very least, the light will allow us to see what we are going and what we have to deal with. It has been very difficult year. The light will be welcomed.

WORK/LIFE

For those of us at 35 Amherst, it has been a year of adjustment and, for Denise, accomplishment.

After six years of work and many classes, Denise received her Master’s of Fine Arts degree from Boston University in May. This conferring concluded weeks of twelve-hour days where she completed literal masterworks in support of her development of a costume craft curriculum. And she looked very cute in her red robe at Commencement.

This year d. also received the Dr. Adrian Tinsley Award for Achievement in the Arts from her alma mater Bridgewater State University for her 30 years of working in the Boston theatre. This recognition was long in coming, but was very much appreciated.

This all happened in the context of big changes about to happen at the Huntington Theater where she has spent the bulk of those years. In November of last year, Boston University announced that they were selling the physical theater in which the Huntington had been producing shows in for the past 33 years and the University was also ending it’s association with the HTC. The sale of the theater was accomplished later in the spring with the buyers being a private group of real estate investors and a final separation between Boston University and the Huntngton to be concluded on June 31^st of next year.

With some significant arm twisting, the new owners of the building were “encouraged” to provide the HTC with a lease for the theater proper (adjacent buildings to be torn down and condos will be built) which they did. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the HTC will be responsible for raising money for the very much needed renovation of the theater space and this will cost many millions of dollars. As to exactly this renovation will happen is anyone’s guess. It may take a while to fill up the piggy bank.

For Denise, all these organizational negotiations have been particularly uncomfortable since, for the past 25 years, she has worked for both organizations, teaching in the BU Theater Department at night while working for the HTC as their Chief Crafts Artisan during the day. She expects to be able to continue to do this, but it may take a while for the relations between the two organizations to heal and things to sort themselves out, creating a complex environment for anyone associated with both.

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As for me, after two years of not being able to find “work” as the culture currently defines it, I’m still trying to deal with the disorientation of being “retired” and what that means for someone who has worked and supported himself and others since he was 18. After not being able to convince anyone to hire a 65 year old for computer support work for a year and a half, I finally declared myself “retired” on my 66^th birthday this past June. Thankfully, two days later, old friend Dr. Rick Wetzler came out of the woodwork to hire me to be a part-time Teaching Assistant at Harvard Extension’s Sustainability Program, partially solving my existential problems. As in many times in my life, I wasn’t particularly seeking this out but it just sort of happened, which is a bit spooky, but I am very thankful to whatever cosmic forces allowed this to happen .

Rick teaches the “Capstone” course for the Master’s Program in Sustainability at Harvard Extension (among other things) and this means that we try to teach our “mid-career” students (out kids have an average age of 34) how to think clearly while doing action-oriented environmental research. Rick has had a long and distinguished career as a teacher and environmental scientist and me, well, I’ve been around and I’ve put many words on paper. We make a good team and I very much enjoy working with the students, who are all bright and want to save the planet in one way or another. Being back at Harvard after ten years is a bit strange, but I did get my old carrel in the Weidner Library back and this covers many qualms I might have.

HEALTH

Health, and the lack of it, has been the second main theme of the year.

Denise, who has been prone to migraine headaches for years, started to get into a headache cycle with a vengeance as she finished the Master’s work in May, with a result of her being debilitated by them every other day throughout the summer. This pretty much ate up her time away from the HTC for the summer season and finally, come fall, they started to back off. Currently, she’s having a headache about once every week to week and a half and is mostly managing to go into prevention mode as they approach - no picnic, but not debilitating like they were this summer. We’re both quite thankful for this.

In the late fall, I received good news on the cancer front - my PSA number is at the “undetectable” level, meaning that there is a very, very small chance of recurrence of my prostate cancer. One more year and I will be officially be pronounced “cured” and I can go on to other more interesting diseases.

Unfortunately, one of those diseases has already shown up. During the summer, I had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. By the fall, I was starting to get tremors in my hands and didn’t have the physical energy that I was used to having. Just old age? Possibly. But I wanted to know if there was something worse going on, so I checked in with the docs. After ruling out Parkinson’s, some blood tests revealed that my thyroid had somehow kicked into overdrive - I had what is called “Graves Disease.” And this was something that was starting to land me on the couch with pretty extreme exhaustion. There have been a bunch of other wonderful symptoms for the past three months as well (muscle cramps, sleepless nights, hot flashes, etc), but the main one was that I always wanted to take a nap. And that’s after getting up from a nap.

The good news here is that after two months of treatment, I’m starting to get my energy level back and my thyroid levels are getting back to normal. I’ve got over a year of treatment left and that means more pills but, heh, I’m an old guy - pills are part of the territory.

One thing that I’ve observed is that the older that you get, the more time and energy has to be put into keeping yourself healthy if you’re to have any chance of staying functional. Though this is a pain in the butt, this seems to be the price for having an extended time to be complaining about how you aren’t what you used to be.

MARSHALL AND NON-MARTIAL ART

D.has started painting again since she took another painting class during the summer. She’s progressed to the level of trying to figure out different materials work as well as what to put on the canvas. I like her stuff. If you haven’t already, you should check out her Facebook page to see what pops up.

In terms of my study of the Japanese sword, I seem to have gotten to the point where, most of the time, I can get the sword back in the scabbard after I draw the blade. So I guess that after 4 years I’m no longer a beginner in the art. Now I’m on that long, long plateau of learning that an art like this demands, and I’m looking forward to years of very, very slow progress. Luckily, my teacher, Sensei Don Laliberty is a very patient man and puts up with my struggles week after week.

As far as my art career, D. has been the (non-martial) artist in the family for this past year. I’ve been either too sick or too busy (yeah, I know - too busy while retired?) to keep up with drawing (something other than the sword). This may change with the new year though as things settle and I have more time being conscious.

POLITICS

This piece of the Annual Report has been rewritten in my head multiple times as we’ve gone through the loony election cycle over the last year. This process has been like trying to get a grip on a fistful of Jello. No norms of political behavior were left untrampled this year and this made it difficult to see where we are going. If what is below seems a bit jumbled, I plead a jumbled situation that I’m analyzing. I sincerely hope that this will not effect my career goal to replace David Brooks at the New York Times.

As Robert Reich has written, the American public is about to be on the receiving end of the Largest Bait and Switch in US History. Somewhat less than twenty-five percent of the American electorate wanted change and they picked Trump to give it to them. They are certainly going to get it (as are the rest of us), though it is probably not going to be the change that they thought they were going to get. No one along the way seemed to remind these folks that, no matter how bad things are for you, not all change is good and they could have been a bit more discerning in their selection of a Change Agent.

Currently we are presented with a struggle for control of the Republican Party (Conservative elites vs. Trumpistas) and a large fight within the Democratic Party, who have their own corporate masters to worry about. Factions of the Repubs will eventually control the government (which one is unclear) and it is also unclear if the Democrats will be able to mount an effective resistance to a standard or wonky Republican repressive agenda. Domestic governmental resistance will undoubtedly come from further down the governmental ladder in some states, cities, and issue-based communities and this will slow down the process of Kansasifcation of the country as a whole. Limiting the damage will be the hallmark of politics on the Left for the next four years as it was during the St. Reagan Administration.

On the Presidential agenda side, things continue to be murky since Trump still has not given specifics about any program that he will install (and if he does, he has no compunction about contradicting himself in the next breath), but now, with the start of the appointments process, things are starting to take shape. Looks like what we will have is Billionaires and Generals - both of which have a propensity to authoritarianism though of different flavors.

Since Billionaires have all that money, they obviously know what’s good for all of us and Trump as loaded his cabinet with them. Here he is cutting out the middlemen of those the political class. With the election of Trump, the Billionaires probably feel that they don’t need these politicians anymore, they will run the country themselves. However the Trump Assumption that if everyone gets a certain amount of money, everything will be okay may be a necessary, but not sufficient state to cure what’s wrong with the country. I doubt if the Billionaire Buddies agree with me, but we will see who is right soon enough.

America’s quest for simple answers to complex problems brought on by corporate America’s 30 year denigration of government through their primary political arm, the Republican Party, and Right Wing talk radio is now bearing fruit. We will see how well the Corporates work together in the federal bureaucracy environment. My guess is that it’s not going to be a happy arrangement.

The Corporates may find that things are not as easily manipulated in the public sector as they are used to in the private. People in the Federal bureaucracy are not so easy to command as those that you control by holding their jobs over their heads like the sword of Damocles. And there are many more factions with more interests involved than they are used to and the all Holy Pursuit of Profit is not the only metric by which you measure success. I expect that many of these people will not last for very long and will be replaced by other economic acolytes. Large-scale turnover at the highest levels will not make for the most calm policy formation environment.

The doctrinaire Cultural Conservatives also seem to be carving out a large slice of the Cabinet and this will create havoc in the country as they will no problem with jamming retrograde policies through the Congress since God is on their side. The Billionaire wing generally won’t care about the cultural aspects of America, only their ability to make more and more money and will not object until it starts of effect the bottom line. This will take a while.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that nothing can probably be done to stop the damage to the country internationally, where Trump will have a free hand approaching delicate negotiations with a sledgehammer. We can only hope to be able to pick up the pieces once he’s gone. Let’s hope that some of these pieces are not whole European countries that have been turned over to the Russians.

So it looks like we are going to have a rough four years as the Repubs battle each other, the Democrats, and us while trying to turn back to the clock to a 1953 that never existed. Resistance to this process is going to be necessary to limit the damage to our environment and our lives. The cultural progress of the Obama era is not going away. Women are not going back into the kitchen, gays are not going back into the closet, and black lives will continue to matter. The world has changed for the better over the past decade, and this part of the genie is not going back in the bottle. That’s at least some good news.

Then there’s The Donald himself. He may think that he can break all the rules, but he will eventually find that there are some rules that have legal backing, not just norms and tradition that he can flout at will. This will not be a happy time for him. He may think that, as President of the United States, he can do whatever he wants as he always has but, I’m afraid, he will learn that he is sadly mistaken. Eventually he will piss off people who have the serious ability to fight back, probably many people, and with his famous thin skin and his whining Twitter account he’s going to be spending more and more time on defense. I doubt that he will like this.

At the very least, Trump will probably eventually lose the support of the people who put him into office, simply because he won’t be able to deliver what he promised them. What happens when all those “poorly educated” people figure out that they’ve been conned and how long does it take for them to wake up to this fact? He will undoubtedly blame everyone else for this fact when it does happen, but this tactic will not also not hold up for long. He will discover that Harry Truman was right - the buck really does stop at his desk. At some point, he will be accountable to his base, the only question is how long it will take. You can’t tap dance forever.

In a larger sense, the plain fact is that you can not hold out against history forever. His constituency may want to go back to a mythical 1950’s that they have imagined, but they will ultimately be unsuccessful. The flow of history will not allow this. The only question is how much damage they will be able to do before they are despondently swept back into a 21^st Century that they despise with the rest of us and it is not clear what they will do as a result. What happens when you’re parallel universe deflates?

Can you run or even live in a country based solely on anger? If so, for how long? We seem to be poised to find out. For us who would oppose the Repub agenda, our biggest challenge over the long run may be finding something to be for rather than just so much to be against. Can we avoid the contagion?

THE FUTURE

My Magic 8 Ball says: Don’t know. Try again later.

It is true that we don’t usually know what’s in store, but we all don’t know even more than usual given the political situation in the country. This can be disconcerting in the extreme. I try to remind myself that it doesn’t make sense to get upset about stuff that hasn’t happened as yet. Not only is it a waste of energy, but it may very well get in the way of an actual effective response. Besides, I have a feeling that there will be enough to be upset about fairly soon.

EXTRO

And so the wheel of the wyrd turns again and the light returns even after this disaster of a year. And, though without a doubt, the wyrd is going to get weird and we are reminded by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson that” When the going get’s weird, the weird turn pro.”

Time to buckle up, boys and girls. I have the feeling that the next couple of years are going to make 2016, as grisly as it was politically, look like a Sunday school picnic.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Wallace-Spriggs, the goofball cat, also reminds me that there are many times during the day where it is appropriate to take a nap.

And before I close, I would like mention that, besides tough times politically, this was a year where we lost a number of people important to us and this is also the year that we in the martial arts community lost Tom Putnam from the Iaido mat. A kind and gentle person, Tom and I were the senior members of the class. Not that we were particularly skilled in our swordwork, but Tom, who trained hard at an advanced age, was an inspiration to us all. He went unexpectedly and, mercifully for him, quickly. We miss him. I miss him. The mat is and will not be the same without him.

As always, a heartfelt thanks for helping us getting us through yet another Winter Solstice. We couldn’t have done it without you. The light always returns. It is good to remember this at the nadir of the year.

Much love,

MTS

Government by the Disengaged

As we come into the first debate tomorrow, the polls show a razor thin advantage to Hillary Clinton. Since the opinions on who should be our next President are so polarized this season, this must mean that the final deciders of the race will probably be those who are, as yet, undecided who to vote for. This begs the simple question:

How the hell, if you're paying attention, can you be undecided with the emotional, dirty, in-your-face, campaigns that the candidates have run?

Over the past year, anyone who has had half an civic ear has been inundated by charges and counter-charges both in the primaries and the general election. Sure, there have been a huge collection of lies and false charges that citizens have had to cut their way through in order to make a choice, but things have been set up pretty well for a while now - most politically aware citizens are either for Crooked Hillary or Temperamentally Unqualified Donald.

Unless, of course, you're not paying attention.

Americans, by and large, don't like government (even those who receive government assistance either don't believe that the help comes from the government or it somehow is their "right" to receive it and therefore is not tainted by politicians). And as a result, Americans generally have the election participation of some third world countries. But this campaign has been the equivalent of ignoring the riot that's been going on in front of your house. I have a hard time understanding how you can do it.

So now the choice for the Presidency is up to the confused and the disengaged? I find this fact scarier than the choices that we have in front of us.

 

 

Jobs

There's been this thing on the Internet asking people to post their first seven jobs.  This set me to thinking: how many jobs have I actually had?  A fairly complete listing is below.  I guess that I've been around.

•  Grease monkey in a garage - Attleboro Massachusetts
•  Machinist in a diamond needle factory - Attleboro, MA
•  Floor boy in a plastics factory - Central Falls, RI
•  Mail Clerk - Providence Journal, Providence, RI
•  Handler - Lecture Notes Program - Umass Amherst
•  Library Assistant - Umass Amherst
•  Chair - Academic Affairs, Student Senate - Umass Amherst
•  Cab Driver - Boston, MA
•  Regional Organizer for an education project - New England
•  Assistant Director - Teacher Evaluation Project - Umass Amherst
•  Assistant to Chancellor - Umass Amherst
•  Reading Teacher - NYC Schools
•  Cab Driver - Boston
•  Regional Organizer - Mass Office for Children, Milford, MA
•  President - Vocations for Social Change, Boston, MA
•  Managing Editor - Boston People's Yellow Pages, Boston, MA
•  Publisher - Mass Poverty Law Center
MPLC - Acquistions Editor
MPLC - Book Designer
MPLC - Book Production Manager
•  Freelance Editor/ Graphic Designer - Commercial Books
•  Technical Editor - Textbooks
•  Operatiions Manager - International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, Canbridge, MA
•  Director - Environmental Information Project - Tufts University
•  Director of Information Services - ICLEI, Toronto, ON
•  Project Manager - Local Communication Initiative - Fredrikstad, Norway
•  Computer Support Engineer - Harvard Business School, Boston, MA
•  Computer Support Engineer - Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA
•  IT Operations Director - Harvard University
•  Computer Systems Administrator - Boston University Med School
•  Computer Support Engineer - MIT
•  Independent Businessman/Bookseller
•  Uber Driver
•  Teaching Assistant - Harvard University
•  Yoga Studio Janitor

Convention Day #4: The Coronation

(These are my rough notes from Day #4, which include my editorial comments. My reaction to the speech was wanting to immediately wanting to hide under the couch because of all the violence which DT will be saving me from. The strong man speaks - don’t look for detail.)

• “The Donald” - a film about a boy from Queens who started in just a million dollars and the ability of his father to extort millions of dollars of loans from bankers. Then he helped New York City rediscover its soul by getting tax abatements from the City to build his very first building. Then he got his children involved in building stuff.  Now he’s rebuilding the United States, sacrificing the making millions of dollars for political power.  DT is a leader, not a politician. Standing up for everyone (except, of course, Hillary and Ted).

•  Lady Ivanka -  Number One Daughter (#1) and Power Behind the Throne (PBT): DT is the people’s nominee (sounding vaguely Communist). She, like many millennials, is not Republican or Democrat, but she knows who she’s voting for. Donnie is a fighter (though not in the military). What daddy taught us kids:  {insert working class values}. He’s empathetic, he’s strong, he’s kind, he’s compassionate, he’s fair, he’s a meritocrat, he supports women, he’s colorblind and gender neutral, he’s a builder, he’s a listener, he pays women equally, he’s pro child care, (she will fight for this too), he will turn the economy around, he makes things happen, he will make America great again, he will set lofty goals, he will not let you down, he is the only person to say “I’ll fight for you.” Judge him by what he does (Don the Builder). He’s your CHAMPION.

And now, here’s Donnie ……

•  Donnie entrance stage right (no blue smoke this time). Crowd goes wild.  He “humbly” accepts the nomination for President. He then leads a chant of “USA, USA” Who would have believed how successful we’ve been?  Safety, Prosperity, Peace! (And Law and Order - shades of Nixon). There’s a crisis - our way of life is threatened. (He’s running against Hillary and Black Lives Matter).  Violence will come to an end. On January 20^th, safety will be restored. (Law and Order)

Here’s the facts: we can’t be politically correct anymore (there will be no lies at our Convention), there’s an outbreak of homicides in large cities, police officer’s killed have increased 50% this year, illegal immigrants are being released into our communities by the tens of thousands, (Law and Order) (Now a story about a young girl in Nebraska being killed by an immigrant - who has not been caught, one more child sacrificed …), 58% of African American youth are not employed, 14 million people have left the workforce entirely, trade deficit is $800 billion dollars last year, budget - national debt has doubled, roads and bridges are falling apart, 43 million on Food Stamps.  Foreign policy:  national humiliations one after another, iran deal gave them $150 billion and we got another, Syrian policy, Libya.  World is now more unsafe because Obama made Clinton SofS. “Let’s defeat her in November.”

All the stuff that’s happened internationally in the past 8 years are the result of Hillary being Sec of State. Death, destruction, and WEAKNESS.

All this crap requires a change in leadership (to guess who?). The Plan: Puts America first. (Crowd goes wild).  Americanism, not globalism. We deserve respect! Plan begins with safety at home (Law and Order!). Economy:  Millions of new jobs. These policies will upset the special interests (who support Hillary - she is their puppet). Things have to change - right now.  Unfair trade deals.  I am the voice of the forgotten American worker!  (Interruption as security deals with a protester and the crowd shouts at her). How great are our police (who reinforce our values)? No patience with injustice.  Hit’s Hillary on the email server (she puts our country at risk) shows that corruption of the system. She hid her terrible, terrible, crimes. The time for action (what action?) has come. (Law and Order)

Nobody knows the system better than me - so that’s why I alone can fix it.  The system is rigged (it was rigged against Bernie Sanders too).  Millions of Democrats will join us because we will fix the system.

Introduces Mike Pence.  We will bring that same success to America that he’s brought to Indiana. Mike sits down.

Pivot to all the current violence against police officers. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans.  He will restore (Law and Order) to the country when he’s in charge.  He’s talk to prosecutors.  I am the (Law and Order) candidate. Obama has used the Presidency to divide us by race. He has fail America’s inner cities. All of our kids will be protected equally.

Threats from Outside the Country:  We’re going to defeat ISIS.  (Law and Order International).  Litany of islamic attacks in America.  Highlights Orlando - we’re going to stop it.  Will protect LGBQ’s from violence.  (Thanks for cheering for that.) 

Focus on three things:  best intelligence, abandon nation building and regime change, work with allies to stamp out Islamic terrorism.  Fast!  Includes working with Israel (bit applause). NATO:  we are picking up the cost - not fair.  Finally, we must suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism.  No refugee increase over the massive flow of refugees come in already.  They have to “love our people.”  We will have an immigration system that works for the American people.

Example of three representatives of people who have been murdered by immigrants.  I have to solve the violence spilling across our borders. (Law and Order).  We will save countless families from having to go through this - we will build a Great Border Wall. He’s got the endorsement of Border Patrol Agents.  Illegal crossing and peace will be restored (Law and Order).

January 20^th - laws are enforced.  We will be considerate and compassionate to everyone, but the greatest compassion will be for our own citizens (leads a short USA chant).  Hillary wants mass lawlessness (Law and Order).  Economic policy begins with a new fair trade policy.  I’m going to make our country rich again - using the greatest business people in the world to renegotiate trade deals.  Bill Clinton signed NAFTA - never ever again. Hillary supports all of the trade deals.  He will make individual deals with individual countries.  We will enforce all trade violations (Law and Order) including China’s currency manipulation.  We’re going to start building and making things again.

Reform of taxes - I’ve proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate.  Taxes will be simplified.  Will make economic development.  Regulation is costing us $2 trillion a year.  Energy:  go back to steel and mining.  Makes for trillion and trillion of dollars will come into the country and we’ll use it to repair infrastructure.

Schools:  supports “choice.” Hillary protects bureaucrats.  Replace Obamacare. Fix TSA at the airports.  Work with students drowning in debt.  Completely rebuild the depleted military - countries that we are protecting will be asked to pay their fair share.  We’ll take care of veterans (like they’ve never been taken care of before).  They will be able to visit the doctor or hospital or their choice.

Eliminate wasteful spending in the first 100 days.

Appoint Supreme Court Justices like Scalia. Hillary wants to abolish the 2^nd amendment, but I have the endorsement of the NRA.

Thanks the Evangelicals for their support (not sure that he deserves it).  Should be able to have political views without jeopardizing their non-profit status.

We can do all this, we just have to believe.  Time to tell the world that America is back.

So lucky to have my wife and family!  (And did Melania and Ivanka do a job?)

Fred Trump was that smartest and hardest working man I ever know - it’s because of him that I learned to respect the dignity of work and working people.  Mother Mary - strong, warm, and fair minded.  A great judge of character.  His sisters and brothers.

Sole and exclusive mission is to deliver a victory for the American people.  We are going to start winning again.  To do this, we must break away from the past.   Love defeating the people who said that we didn’t have a chance.  They will do anything to keep the rigged system in place.

 

“I’m with you”  the American people.  I am your voice.  I will win for you.

 

We will make America safe again (Law and Order).

We will make America proud again.

We will make America strong again.

We will make America great again.

 

God bless you.

Vice Presidential Politics Redux

Normally the Vice Presidential pick for a presidential election doesn't mean much. The last VP to "balance a ticket" was Lyndon Johnson (who did bring Texas into the fold for JFK), but in the past few cycles just who was selected to be the second banana hasn't been important  Of course, you could argue that Cheney as an important pick since Bush let him run a large part of the government, but generally the job consists of going to State Funerals and that's about it.

Of course, in this particular election season you could also say that, like everything else about modern politics this time, things have changed. In particular, who Donald Trump picks to be Vice President is particularly important.

If Trump wins, I think that there's at least a 50/50 chance that he will be impeached - not only because he's probably going to do some crazy stuff if he is elected, but this will be a neat way for the Empire, er, the Republican establishment to strike back and re-establish control while keeping their hands clean. And then there's the stuff that Donald has managed to duck for the past 30 years as a business man that he won't be able to stiff arm if he's president. Yes, Donald, there are different standards for politicians and there are large bureaucracies (some of which you won't control) that uphold them.

So that makes his selection of a Vice Presidential nominee particularly important, because that person may be running the country at some point.

President Pence?

Just when you thought that a Trump presidency could just about be the scariest thing that you could imagine ...