Displaying 4,321 To 4,350 Of 5,146 Comments Capitalism: A Good Kid Gone Bad WTS – you are very kind to her. I don’t think she deserves it. She loathed working people, and she erroneously believed that the government was thwarting business, never seeing that business of the types she admired existed on ONLY government largesse. She was a nasty person in many ways. I’ve never found a single thing about her that was admirable, even though I do agree that she was passionate and in her way honest. Today – she’d LOVE what greed and unfettered capitalism has become. She’d be arguing for less regulation, and she’d not mourn a thing, not even after all that’s gone wrong. She’d blame the collapse on too much governmental interference, not too little. Nothing would ever persuade her she was wrong. Nothing. » Posted By choicelady On May 12, 2010 @ 10:01 pm AdLib, KQ and all- For decades I’ve thought about this. In the dissertation yet unwritten (life intruded), I looked at the micro level for what had been the foundation of our colonial economy and what changed. Drawing on the work of E.P. Thompson, the English historian who coined the term “Moral Economy”, I found that in Europe between the end of feudalism and the rise of industrial capitalism, the majority of the economy worked – and worked well – for ALL people. We are taught about the 7% that gave rise to enormous wealth, the international traders, mercantilism, and all that – but the remainder, the stuff of everyday life, was vastly different. In Europe and England, the economy was guided by principles that promoted the greatest self sufficiency for the greatest number. Markets were regulated – and we’re talking open air markets with goods present and visible – where the first fruits of the markets were reserved for the poor: windows, orphans, the infirm, the old. Prices were regulated by the locality and sought a balance between what the producers needed and what people could pay, much of which was barter. Higher level producers such as weavers, silversmiths, candle makers, or anyone who traded with merchants, often worked in guilds that trained the newcomer, and then set the prices, controlled the process, and established the quality of all goods. The merchants did NOT. Men and women were equal in all but three guilds in England (I’ve never learned which three) so “master” was a gender neutral term. The Court of Assize watched that there was no gouging of market prices. The famous “baker’s dozen” 12 plus 1 – was so that no one got unfair weight or quantity. Unfair practices were controlled by the Court of Assize. Rich or poor, you were subject to the issue of absolute fairness to those whom you served. Period. Was that true in the colonies? Indeed! As far as the northern colonies, it offered an enormous degree of equality as well, since the foundation of price, sale, transaction, and the governmental regulations that monitored them, was the town. Women held local offices, women voted, and free people of color had equality as well. Everyone was to work, everyone was to benefit. Yes, I am skipping over slavery because I don’t know the laws of the southern colonies, but in the northern colonies, the Moral Economy gave great prosperity. Everyone in a town voted. “Property” meant the tools of your trade as well as real estate, so voting was extensive. Voting was by household, one vote per household,so if no man was present, the woman who headed the household did vote. I found the records. Most towns kept none, but where they recorded votes, you will find women, and where they did not you will find women listed as the head of the household. Women owned their own property, bequeathed it and inherited it, and did not require a man to control it. Manufacturing was usually small mills, given as a “privilege” to those who promised to produce high quality goods for the town first. Surplus could go to the regional market, but not before the town was served at the price the town set. Violation of this agreement meant the dissolution of the privilege. This was NOT capitalism. It has no good term. It was not socialism nor communism. It just was the operation of the economy on the principles of morality. Period. After the Revolution, I watched, law by law, as every bit of that eroded. First they removed the requirements that towns control the privileges, then they took widows’ “thirds” – the part guaranteed to her by marriage – and refused to allow women to claim unimproved lands. Women kept title and income from their property, but husbands or other male relatives invested it – for their own use. By 1836 MA just cut to the chase and declared women the property of their husbands. Much tidier. Shay’s Rebellion, the little known story, was crucial to the transformation of the moral economy into the utilitarian capitalism we know today. The Great and General Court had declared that all debts be paid in cash – and if it could not be, property, including the tools, could now be seized. That’s what the western MA, CT, and NH and VT farmers feared since they had no means to GET cash. And is it not interesting that in the crescent that gave rise to Shay’s Rebellion, you find the outworkers – the hand weavers – who later served the new spinning mills. They became the first waged labor – it had not existed at all as a condition in the colonies – because they were tied to cash. Later they and their offspring moved to the mills and became permanent labor. And thus the division between work and ownership, taking orders and giving them, establishing work process in time with machines and making people full time laborers all arose. Brick by brick, law by law, the system of capitalism with owners at the top and dependent labor at the bottom all came together. It took over 50 years, but they got the job done. So what of today? We fought the very fights we’re waging once before, 100 years ago. We had the rise of the Robber Barons coupled with the Labor Wars for nearly another 50 years before regulation kicked in. It is not true that ‘human nature’ is impelled toward greed. But once the structures of the society reward greed and NOT work, the jig is up. We see the same thing in Socialism and putative communism. Centralized decision making over other people’s lives does not differ regardless of the system. We ask – what is power? We tend to answer – getting what you want. But REAL power is not just getting what you want but making sure everyone else is dependent on you for what they want. That dissassociation of work from decision, is the crux of ALL modern economies. Even in feudalism, power was tempered by the fact peasants controlled production – the Lord could not extract too much from them or they would die or rebel, and then where were you? But in capitalism – workers are utterly fungible. One dies, another is there. In socialism as well – one dies, another takes the place. Corporatism is the real enemy here, and we need to challenge that. It is why I harp on worker ownership AND management of business. On a tiny scale, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the most radical film EVER because in the guise of a happy Christmas story, it challenges the benefits of corporate control. Yes – you can have very individualized, “petit capitalism” that works well. You even do today – to wit, the wonderful story of Malden Mills whose owner kept people paid after the mill burned. That’s petit capitalism at its finest. But once you divorce ownership from responsibility (investors) and you separate work from decisions (corporations) and especially when you lard on mangers who never built the company (almost anything today) you have an entirely dehumanized system. Socialism did the same – remote managers making decisions about how to do things about which they knew nothing at all. Greed is certainly a factor as power consolidates UP. But power itself I think is the issue. Inside every economic decision is an interior political one. Now it’s our turn. This is the new Progressive Era. We need to start making it easier for workers to acquire control over decisions. They were systematically put out by Taft Hartley, and that has to be altered. The people who work in a plant or business usually know best how to run it. And for that knowledge – the wealth of the company lies under the worker’s cap – for that sheer amazing mass of information and wisdom, working people have to be rewarded by being again the first, not the last, to benefit from what they do. It will not be enough to regulate business. We must fundamentally alter how decisions are made and who makes them. Communities once again must have an equal say in their own destinies. The salvation of nations and states and cities and towns and then ultimately of people all begins with this one question – who controls? When we said, through the 60s, “power to the people” we did NOT even know how true that was, and we had few precedents for what that meant. But now we do. We understand what we can do and how we can benefit. It’s not taking to the street – it’s taking BACK the streets and the businesses on them. That’s how we will regain equality, equity, and democracy. We can coexist with petit capitalists, but we no longer can coexist with mega corporations. This must be our goal. It’s the only way we can regain our civilization. » Posted By choicelady On May 12, 2010 @ 9:52 pm AdLib – even from afar, you are writing amazing things! I want to peruse this at some length, but it is simply dazzling in its implications. Thank you. More thoughts to come, but for the moment, just thanks. » Posted By choicelady On May 11, 2010 @ 3:44 pm Friday Night Open Thread – Britcoms Thanks, KQ for all this. Somewhere, in my benighted youth, I missed most of this. I was and am not much of a fan of Monte Python, but I love most British humor (humour?) most of the time. I spent quite a lot of time in England – lived for a bit in a small Suffolks town with the love of my life who now is not, and then again in London right on Abbey Road near the famous Zebra crossing where the Beatles did their thing. I have found the Brits delightful for the most part, and I still like the BBC better than most anything we have save for the business news that carries Thatcherism into the new millennium. That needs work, IMHO. These clip were ALL unfamiliar, so I’ve enjoyed seeing them. There’s a lot of “yeah, boo, sucks to you” in some of it, but they still get a good smack at the upper class and pomposity at all levels. I agree with you, javaz – STILL don’t much like Benny Hill! He’s a one joke guy, but he’s not all that different from US comics that I also don’t much like. My favorites are older, the BritComs of the 50s and Flanders & Swann in the 60s. We resurrected the latter in our discussion of cannibalism since they did the great song, “The Reluctant Cannibal” that simply cannot be topped. Thank you for a trip down memory lane, KQ even if these particular bits are things over which I have NO memory! They were fun to see! » Posted By choicelady On May 7, 2010 @ 6:19 pm General Election 2010 – Results and Aftermath Live Blog Becaue I did not grow up in Scotland, even though my paternal grandmother was a Scot, I’m somewhat at odds with Scottish nationalism. What IS the big deal in this day and age? Smacks of the Confederacy in some ways – golden age, long gone. Hell – the GOT the Stone of Scone back (I was one of the last tourists to see it under the coronation throne) so move on already. I actually support breaking up large and highly diverse nations and certainly the EU now that we’re watching the collapse and burning of a merely theoretical “union” that can bring everyone down when one falters. I am quite sure that my quandries about Scotland and Wales are based entirely on the fact – I haven’t a clue what the issues are, and I don’t live there. But then, I’m prepared for Texas to seceed and actually rather hoping they do. Soon. » Posted By choicelady On May 7, 2010 @ 6:27 pm But not around the clowns, OK? It’s the least we can do for our Moderator. » Posted By choicelady On May 6, 2010 @ 4:05 pm Well have a good time. If we promise not to party near your clown collection, is that cool? Hate to waste a good non-supervised moment. » Posted By choicelady On May 6, 2010 @ 4:04 pm Thank YOU, KQ! What a nice thing to say! » Posted By choicelady On May 6, 2010 @ 2:04 pm Mightwoof – this is both heartbreaking AND enormously hopeful! What an amazing man this is! Thank you for reminding all of us – and especially me who is often under siege from the Religious Right – that anger is one thing, hate is quite another. I have spent the morning replying to Christian extremists who are attacking the Military Religious Freedom Foundation that my organization supports. MRFF just got extremist Franklin Graham dis-invited from being the prayer “warrior” at the Pentagon, and all hell has broken out from his supporters. I have taken this message you posted to heart in my replies to people who say we are the Devil’s spawn, not Christian, and worse. My replies have been firm but not hateful for how can I rebuke Graham for his virulent anti-Islam rhetoric and then USE vitriol myself? I take the doctor’s lead – I Shall Not Hate. Thank you for telling us of him, his experiences, his writings. He is a hugely important figure for good and for justice. I deeply appreciate your posting this! » Posted By choicelady On May 6, 2010 @ 11:53 am My Fair Lady, Where Did You Go? Yeah, sigh, we are. I used to walk to work, then my office had to move for downsizing and money saving. It’s “only” 7.9 miles each way, but there is NO feasible public transit option, so I drive. I drive as little as possible – drive from Sacramento to El Cerrito then take BART into the city. Take Amtrak when I can (but I can’t be coming home very late or I hang all night at the Amtrak station). I do what I can, but unlike my growing up days outside of Chicago, there is NOT good public transit in CA. If you’re on a line, you’re affluent OR dirt poor but the line goes nowhere you need. I drive an old (2000 Saturn) car that gets 39-41 on the open road, 34 around the city, so I hang onto it since I’ll not top that again without expending megabucks. I do what I can there, too. Who Framed Roger Rabbit told the true story about the oil companies and auto companies that trashed LA’s Red Line and put people in cars. Electric cars are NOT the answer not just because of the short range but because every one means more electrical generation – coal, oil, nukes. Nope – solar, natural gas, biodiesel – but not something that ties you to the grid. I hate that lady. She is SUCH a liar! Worst of all, she believes what she’s saying. And makes US feel OK about what we’re doing. Bah! » Posted By choicelady On May 6, 2010 @ 6:33 pm Patsy – I never liked the bitch. » Posted By choicelady On May 6, 2010 @ 6:27 pm The Birthplace of Democracy in Ruins Indeed. And the missing piece of civilization’s history is that after the fall of Rome, when that learning was so terribly threatened, it was the MUSLIMS who kept it intact and whole for later generations. Centuries of protection in Constantinople kept the knowledge from Egypt, Greece, and Rome all safe. Learning grew, slowly to be sure, from the open nature of Constantinople and its scholarly community of Jews, Gentiles, and Muslims. The fall of Constantinople in 1483 (I think that’s the date) set off the Renaissance as all that knowledge got dispersed back to its roots and througout Europe. So the Greeks need to thank the Muslims, and WE need to thank the Muslims for holding precious all that we treasure today. Life is very weird. One’s allies are never whom we think. We in the West did not invent EVERYTHING. We need to get used to it. We need a new Resnaissance. Problem is – I have no idea where it would start. I just hope that Greece survives to be a part of it once again. » Posted By choicelady On May 5, 2010 @ 6:33 pm Marion – I’ve read a lot about the Greek public, ummm, employment plans. But much of that comes from a private sector that will not hire. Obviously it’s foolish in the long run, but it’s precisely what Tammany Hall was about – finding some way to keep people working (sort of) when the nation was crushed by depressions every 3-8 years. There are no clean hands here, and Germany is hollering that they are bailing out the idle public employees, but in contemporary corporatocracies – what ARE people to do if the private sector will not hire its own people? Back to the Global Plan of 1975 – the Trilateral Commission’s hired statement on what nations need to do to compete. If you can find an old, used copy of “Crisis of Democracy” it spells out the systematic erosion of developed nations’ economies to make way for dirt cheap labor. It proposed that private sector jobs all go to the lowest expense and that middle class jobs were expendible. Countries such as Greece were the first to feel the hit. No one will lie down and die (thought the RW would like that). People find a means to keep on keepin’ on. In this case it was national in scope – “Gangs of New York” was how we did it in the 1800s in the US. Crime, graft, grifters, phoney public employement – whatever it takes. People will NOT lie down and die. Suddenly the Euro doesn’t look so hot. Suddenly the EU doesn’t look so hot. Suddenly the global market doesn’t look so hot. This was all predicted in 1973 (before the Trilaterla Bible was written) in Barnett and Mueller’s “Global Reach”. They SAID these things would happen. We did not listen. Well, OK some of us did, but we were not people in power. I’m not all in favor of Balkinization, but there are reasons for borders that have to do with history AND with economic self sufficiency. Small IS Beautiful (if you have not read the book, please do) and what is most sustainable is that which is divorced from the global market in terms of sovereignty. We can buy and sell, trade, exchange, whatever – but we all need a base from which we have surety and stability. So Greece made some bad decisions based on need, and they got screwed by GS. If GS had not entered the picture and been dishonest, Greece STILL might have run out of money, but it would have been nowhere this awful. I have always wanted to be there – this cradle of my Western civilization. I hope upon hope that they do NOT go as they did in the 60s with a military junta. I could barely stand “Z” (if you have not seen that film, please do – and keep a Kleenex handy) and the entire story of triumphant fascism and its terrible costs to Greece. Pray they do NOT have that happen again. I WANT the global market to fall. It is horrific. But first, I want Greece to survive. They are marvelous people, marvelous heritage, and it must not fall because of this crisis. Do NOT know what to do. But I do know that we have the responsibility to rein in GS and other global predators based in our midst. THAT we can do, and we owe it to civilization to see that happens. » Posted By choicelady On May 5, 2010 @ 6:24 pm Wow – WTS – magnificent and simply stunning in its implications! Thank you for being part of he Planet and sharing your amazing talents with us! MIND boggling and beautiful! » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 12:50 pm Low Blows and Old White People Marion – no did NOT see it and wish I had! » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 8:41 pm Kes – thank you, dear heart. You are spot on – the issues MUST be discussed. As someone who walked women into doctors’ offices and clinics for 12 years, the issue of “when life begins” was HUGE for me and all of us. We were lucky to have a doctor on our volunteer group who told us that pain cannot be felt until the brain stem and spinal column fuse – about 23-24 weeks. So 20 weeks – not likely since that simply does not happen. Roe v Wade is VERY clear that the state has interest in the third trimester (24 weeks on) in large part because this is not only when pain is sensed but when viability occurs. Viability – the ability to live outside the womb with or without intervention. PRE viability – no matter what you do, the fetus cannot live. CANNOT. Now what gets dicey is that 22-24 week period since gestation is hugely uncertain which is why yes, ultrasound is incredibly important. The ONLY time a viable fetus can legally be aborted is when there is something terribly wrong with it – and if it dies in utero, it will harm the mother. So I read up on all of this and at one point, ESCORTS at one clinic REFUSED to volunteer there because the doctor who owned it wanted to do late second trimester abortions (17-23 weeks) – without ultrasound. We said NO WAY since we did not trust he could possibly be accurate. He backed off. We really do care. Viability is a huge issue. Twenty weeks? Never. That is an effort to pretend something that does not exist – pain in fetuses that in fact cannot feel to garner anti-abortion sympathy from the ordinary folks. I am fine with the restrictions on late term abortions – totally fine with that. I am NOT fine with lies and deception. The “partial birth abortion” rant? No such thing, and a lie start to finish. If you do not like abortion, you do NOT have to lie about it. That just sucks. And we do NOT get a chance then to talk about it! And I escorted them into the offices because women are terribly valuable, too. Women are NOT just empty vessels waiting to give birth. They hold up half the sky! » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 8:38 pm Sorry VegasBabe (I always wanted to be choicebabe, but it was taken) – largely the problem of some of us who are “high context talkers” meaning we tell you more than you EVER wanted to know about absolutely ANY topic. I’m the worst. Marion did a superb, carefully parsed analysis. My reply is just rant. Sorry! » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 8:27 pm Hi Khirad – I know nothing at all about either Scientology OR Mormon. What I know is what I get from NON participants, and I no longer trust it. Scientology bashing took an ugly turn a couple of years ago when “Anonymous” (look it up on Google) targeted them – and then mainstream religion and destroyed web sites. Anonymous members adopt “Guy Fawkes” masks which makes me very confused since Guy Fawkes was a symbol of resurgent Catholicism in England and behind some of the Gunpowder Plot. So where does an anti-religious group get off wearing masks of the most religious fanatic in modern history? Zany to say the least, and creepy to boot. I know one Scientologist, and she’s nice as all out doors. So what am I to think? Mostly – MYOB. Not my problem. I hear they’ve issued death threats against people who leave, but…????? I just have had a belly full of comics passing as philosophers. Enough already. Most of us are not as awful as the rest of us would have it be. Probably not even the teabaggers if you were to sit down with coffee. Might have some agreement. Shouting and sneering are our national distemper. Arrogance is our hereditary disease. » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 8:25 pm You nailed it, KQ. Thank you! » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 8:19 pm Marion – this is brilliant. The care with which you have dissected this absurd conversation is incredibly helpful. I detest Maher for the gross superficiality he brings to every conversation, all with the sneering disdain of someone “in the know” who in fact knows very little. I can listen to or read conservatives such as David Brooks who is very careful in his analysis, gives credit where credit is due, and has regard for his opponents’ intelligence. I can eagerly listen to Rachel Maddow who, in her progressive critique is equally careful to document her sources and reasons. But I simply CANNOT abide people who have slippery values, sneering disdain for democracy and anyone who practices it, and is impressed by one and only one thing – his own ideas no matter how ill formed or poorly conceived. I never gave him a pass on being anti-union, anti-women, anti-Muslim, and anti-religion. Everyone here knows I work for a large progressive faith organization. I’m not at all “religious”. I’ve not seen “Religulous” because the trailers let me know it was a set up – pick the WACKIEST religious people you can find and knock ’em down to prove your point. But he does that with everything that sticks in his craw and does so without regard to the breadth of the field he’s dissing. Find something (usually an anomaly) to sneer at, and work it til it caves under his superior intellect. He creates straw men then kills them off, and he is SOOOOOO impressed with his own wit. Bill Maher defines the term solipsism. He is the darling of people such as Araianna who do the same. I asked a progressive analyst of the US financial system if following Arianna’s “move your money to community banks, dahling” would make a difference, and he said not really. It’s great for individuals, might help beef up capital for community investments, but the financial system is multi-layered and huge portions of it are untouched by our personal decisions. But it’s Arianna’s idea, so it MUST be the answer, right? So we do have huge numbers of well educated, self-styled progressives looking to Maher and Arianna and deciding, without evidence, that Obama is the cause of all bad things and that he’s a liar and failure and needs to be replaced. This is a disaster for the nation if they then decide “they are too good to vote” since they will repeat 1980 with that tactic. What the hell is wrong with Americans? I saw this narcissism rampant in my boomer peers back in the 60s – we ALL knew EVERYTHING about ANYTHING. We were the leaders – messianic in no small measure – and no one could tell us or teach us anything. It led to gross generalizations about everything from what Black people wanted (WE knew even if we were white suburban kids) to contempt for blue collar workers, to disdain for people’s struggles. As we aged, many of us were no longer were radical, so we started creating justifications for our decreasing concern for others (not that it was that high in the first place – symbol over substance) so we worked for Wall Street or in academia, or whatever and found ways to make real victims less victimized than, well, our own selves. I say “we” knowing Cher will keep me honest and honorable because of course it’s NOT everyone. Many of us defied the process and got MORE radical as we aged – how, I ask, could one NOT with all the injustices and pain we see every day? That is what makes people such as Maher and Arianna so pernicious. Adopting the ‘progressive’ label means when they dismiss people – union folks, say – as awful, others think that IS progressive and just being “honest”. When my friend, Eyal Press, contributing editor at The Nation, wrote about the murder of Bart Slepian, the abortion provider in Buffalo who was assassinated, Eyal’s own father was the sole surviving doctor. Eyal wrong an amazing book, “Absolute Convictions” about Buffalo’s abortion wars, telling his family story about the aftermath. He mentioned that his father, deeply committed to women’s reproductive health, might not have been so comfortable with abortion had his patients all been practicing free love. Well – Katha Pollitt at The Nation went nuts and screamed in her column that Shalom Press had done more damage to women’s right to choose than any RW Christian with that comment of Eyal’s. I know Shalom Press, he was my doctor whose office and patients I protected for over 12 years. I know that his concern involves physical health, that multiple abortions as birth control is physically very damaging to women’s bodies. Pollitt took it as a MORAL judgment which it was NOT. We want doctors who care about us and our health – until it comes to abortion when some seem to want Mr. Goodwrench who just fixes things, no comment. Because of HER column, many women came to believe that Shalom Press was a bad doctor and a bad man. How absurd! Pollitt has NO skin in the game – never put her butt on the line for anyone – and has pilloried an outstanding practitioner because he dared to have a medical judgment she misunderstood and thus could give full vent to expressing = as a progressive. Well, she is not. And Bill Maher and Arianna are, at the core, capitalists, and we must NOT forget that! We have way too many phony progressives who are just seeking ego gratification rather than genuine change in America and the world. Time to call them out. Time to emphasize what real progressivism IS, and it’s not the cute quip, the phony rhetoric, the sacrifice of our best people. This is carrying “political correctness” into the realm of the damning. If we lose in 2012, this nation may never recover in our lifetime. But maybe that’s what the whiners want? Bitching is SO much more fun than working for change. When I see Maher and Arianna actually doing something, I’ll know we have achieved paradise on earth. I’m not holding my breath. » Posted By choicelady On May 4, 2010 @ 12:21 pm I saw him interviewed on MSNBC or CNN (switching back and forth) saying he’s NOT running and will remain sheriff. Bah. » Posted By choicelady On May 3, 2010 @ 7:19 pm AdLib – I thought they’d done #7 some years ago when she was pretending she was smart enough to run for CA governor. No one noticed. » Posted By choicelady On May 3, 2010 @ 6:43 pm Indeed, KQ – Marion needs not to be so shy and retiring. I did not see this “discussion”, but you captured it SO WELL, Marion, I don’t need to. She did recap it on HuffPo, so she must have been very pleased with herself. She’d be alone in that. » Posted By choicelady On May 3, 2010 @ 6:42 pm Lise- He’s everything you ever hoped he’d be. He’s warm, funny, sharp, and – yes – sexy. Big flirt, made every woman in the room feel attractive, even one who was nearing 90. Grace, humor, dignity, wit, growliness, and sarcasm all rolled into one very principled man. I indeed would give up my Big Mac or even a Double Down to talk with him again. Best night in many a moon. Save for the guy with the gun. But hey… » Posted By choicelady On May 3, 2010 @ 6:39 pm Oh – neener, neener – last Friday April 30 I was pinch hitting for Jeff Sharlet at a banquet in Albuquerque. He was ill, and I accepted his award, the Thomas Jefferson First Amendment award, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The other award recipient? Ed Asner. So I got to sit with him all evening and listened to him gripe and grumble about the Reeps and the Religious Right. He’s a stitch and a delightful man! I had a MUCH better time with MUCH classier company! And Ms. Huff Pooh was nowhere in sight. Only real excitement? While I was speaking, a guy outside was arrested while casing the joint. With a gun. Now you tell me – which event was more fun? And we did not have unemployed people either waiting on us (we waited on ourselves buffet style) or as chairs. We were TRES cool! Bite me, Arianna! » Posted By choicelady On May 3, 2010 @ 3:14 pm LOL!!! Maybe that’s why some cases of older people co-existing with long dead spouses happen. They did not notice. I see that happening more with living wives than husbands since generally the old guy’d notice no one had made his coffee. (She said cynically.) » Posted By choicelady On May 2, 2010 @ 8:11 pm Lise – yes and no. No because I see so much of it (well, this IS California) that I despair, but yes because younger people NOT born in wealth seem much better integrated into the society they make. There is an energy about shared experiences and values that does seem to transcend the superficial and ultimately entirely personal. But then – do look around at young people who are entirely into looks and material rewards, who make slackers older than they appear energetic. It’s kind of depressing. I think it’s probably NOT something we can generalize by class, race, age, sex – people are all different. I REALLY hope you’re right and that we’re finding community once again! » Posted By choicelady On May 1, 2010 @ 6:26 pm Thanks, e’cat. When he died a year later, I was very upset. I’d not been close to my mother but was to him. I went out on my front porch to sit and cry, and I SWEAR I heard my mother call his name, and I FELT him grin that grin that I loved that he got when he saw her. Oh, I know – I needed that. But I don’t care. It made me feel better. Hope it’s true! » Posted By choicelady On May 1, 2010 @ 6:16 pm My late uncle, a delightfully attractive and distinguished man with a glorious sense of humor, suggested his wife mount his head, pipe clenched in mouth, and put it over the fireplace with the fireplace smoke curling up out of the pipe. It would have suited him. » Posted By choicelady On May 1, 2010 @ 6:09 pm Questinia – VERY interesting if creepy! Thanks for confirming a report I’d heard once on NPR that Americans are the only people that think death is optional. I’d seen an exhibit at the Strong Museum in Rochester, NY about our weird post-mortem practices. People used to make jewelry – brooches, necklaces, bracelets – out of the hair of the dead. And WORE it. It’s SO hard to accept the hole in the fabric of our lives that is left when someone we love dies! But we’re only a cut above very primitive people who wore the bones of their loved ones (or victims of their wars) and sometimes the teeth. My very non-believing father could not accept my mother’s death. He, a life long atheist, began “seeing” her – she came to talk with him in his nursing home. He asked me how he would ever find her among the billions and billions of people who had died. We had an amazing discussion of life after death, mostly my assurances that he could find HER because she’d already found HIM. I was making most of this up since – who knows? Anything at all??? These embalming and display issues, however, are not reflections of the survivors but of the person who died. This is an ages old reflection of our own fears of “after” AND our horrendous narcissism. “I’m gonna live forever…everyone will remember my name.” So if and when we accomplish little that is itself memorable, we find ways to keep our Selves front and center. Damned if you’ll forget ME! In your FACE, Dude! It’s pathetic but understandable. None of us wishes to be of no consequence, do we? And yeah – I’m one of those people who irrationally thinks death is optional. Keep a good, positive hold on life, and you will not need to die! And you will look great while still living! I know better intellectually, but… However, I’ve left NO instructions to be stuffed and displayed. Be grateful I have some rationality left! » Posted By choicelady On May 1, 2010 @ 11:32 amComments Posted By choicelady
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