Book Event

I thought I’d mention this book signing by Tony Press, a friend from the Iowa writers’ workshop. His book has been published and he’s having book signings at a number of places. The tour starts off in Columbia, Mo on this Tuesday. If you know anyone who might be interested in this book or any of these signings please pass this along.

I liked his book a lot. 

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 2:41 PM, Tony Press <tonypress108@gmail.com> wrote:

This Press Release announces, with delight:

Big Table Publishing will be publishing my short story collection - the estimated release date is sometime early 2016. It's a small operation based near Boston.

 The title is Crossing the Lines 

Tuesday, April 5th, 7pm, at Yellow Dog Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri.

Saturday, April 9th, 11am, at Burlington by the Book in Burlington, Iowa.

If you know anyone -- anyone at all! -- in/near these places, please let them know! 

And

Sunday, April 17th, Berkeley, CA

Saturday, April 23rd, San Francisco, CA

What Are Clean Water and Safe School Buses Worth to You?

Do you ever wonder how we set our priorities? How we decide how much we should pay in taxes? And where we should spend those same tax dollars?  We hear the politicians say they will cut our taxes and still provide all the government services we need and want. Do you ever wonder about that?

No doubt you’ve heard about very high levels of lead in the drinking water in Flint, Michigan. Children suffering brain damage and drinkers—of water that is—facing a variety of health issues. Now it turns out other American cities have the same problem.

Just the other night on the national news a school bus carrying a high school basketball team on its way to a tournament overturned. Luckily, no one died. But many were injured and many more were lucky they were not more seriously injured or killed.

The photos of the overturned bus and the young people scrambling or being pulled from the wreckage were awful. And this type of accident is not unusual. It seems almost every other day there’s a story about a school bus accident.

The news channel ran a brief illustration of how the kids in that bus were bounced around--as compared to what would have happened if they had been wearing seat belts.

Those images have been bouncing in my brain the last few days. I wondered why our school children have to depend on luck rather than seat belts to keep them from serious injuries in the event of an accident.

My brain tends to digress into seemingly unrelated matters. So as I turned off the TV, I wondered how many TVs, cell phones and other latest “must have’s” we all own. USA Today reports the average home now has more TVs than people. According to the Pew Research Center, 90% of American adults own a cell phone; 64% have a smartphone. You know I could go on with these statistics. But you get the drift.

Then a little phone survey caused me to do some more thinking.

The first question was, “Do you think you pay too much or too little in taxes?”

I answered “Too little.” In my head I was wondering how much higher the taxes would have to be to require seat belts in all school buses. If we paid a little more in taxes and bought fewer TVs could we buy some of those seat belts?

Back to the survey. A brief intake of breath revealed the surveyor was startled but, to his credit, he stuck to his script. He said “OK. Thank you.” Those same words were used to respond to all of my answers.

His next question was: “Do you think we have too much or too little government regulation?

I answered. “Too little.” Those kids bouncing around the school bus was still bouncing in my head.

Again, the surveyor stuck to his script, though I thought I could detect a note of panic. Maybe he had encountered a Bernie Sanders supporter—or even a communist—in his midst or at least on the phone line.

There were a few other questions. Like going through a box of old school papers you get the drift and don’t need to read every word on every page.

The surveyor was true to his word, the survey was short—or else he gave up on ever getting the answers he expected.

So much for the enthusiasm of the young. No doubt I killed this young man’s hope of making a difference in politics, at least if he supported the obvious political agenda of the survey perpetrators.

Or, maybe he was just a young person doing a job and getting paid. And he’d never before encountered someone who answered the questions in a way other than agreeing all federal taxes and regulations should be decreased to the point that the federal government would be small enough to be drowned in bathtub—the self-proclaimed goal of small government Tea Party activists.

For the record, if you are keeping score—I am not a Bernie Sanders Socialist—even though I think he has a lot of good ideas and has helped at least the Democratic Party talk about issues we might not otherwise be discussing.

I am not any kind of socialist, let alone a communist. I’m just a mother and grandmother who believes our country has a number of serious problems, to name just a few--climate change, consumer safety, clean water, even school bus safety—that are big enough and complex enough the federal government needs to be involved if we have a hope of doing a better job protecting the American people.

Who would have thought five or six survey questions could have caused me to do all this wondering? And probably not the kind of thought process the survey creator intended.

What I also started to wonder is why children in one of the richest nations of the world suffer permanent health issues and brain damage from high levels of lead in their drinking water.

Just another wondering thought: have more Americans been injured in school bus accidents, or through environmental issues, like contaminated drinking water, than in terrorist attacks. I haven’t looked up the answer but maybe you or I should.

The TV announcer said only six states require seat belts for school buses. That means in 44 states the State governments did not have the money, political will or whatever to require seat belts on school buses. The announcer also said the NTSB once again is looking at whether the federal government should require seat belts for school buses. The only problem is it costs a lot of money.

Of course it costs a lot of money. And I, like most people, would rather spend my money on my needs and wants rather than pay higher taxes. Lord knows my bills are going up all the time. It seems there always is something else that is broken, needs fixing or replacing. And also, I have to admit--that new iPhone-mini I just saw online looks awfully interesting.

There’s a saying--the Good Lord helps those who help themselves. But I don’t think that means I should refuse to pay higher taxes and not consider the health and well being of everyone else.

I hope you, like me, are willing to ask yourself, “What is more important for us to invest in than the safety of our children?” That is not a rhetorical question. If you ask yourself that question and can answer there really is something more important to spend your money on than making sure our children have safe drinking water, clean air, and safe school buses then maybe we don’t need more government regulation. And then maybe we also don’t need higher taxes.

On the other hand, if you agree that kids growing up in this country ought to have a chance to reach their full potential with safe water, safe air, safe school buses, then you should also consider before you pull that lever when you vote, how the Presidential candidates and other officials you elect will answer those questions.

A Philosopher-Therapist at the Nail Salon or Why Are You So White?

I was at the nail salon, that place where women go to indulge their beauty fantasies: a few bucks and your nails look pretty for a week, two weeks if you get the gel. Your life and finances may be going to hell in a hand basket. Your weight and mental health out of control. Even your hair may look like seaweed. At least one thing in your life, your nails, is under control if you go to the nail salon.

We were on Maui. The gel on my nails was at three weeks and starting to peel and taking the top several layers of my nails with it. So I went to a nail salon. This was not one of the spas in the fancy resorts but a nail salon in a strip mall, next to Long’s Drugstore, or the Hawaiian CVS. Still, removing the gel from my nails was going to cost $25.99 to remove and replace it with just a clear coat. But then a loaf of bread is about $10 on Maui, so the price list was not a big surprise.

The lovely young woman who was doing my nails was Vietnamese. She spoke very correct English and was quite talkative. She asked where I was from. When I told her Kentucky she asked what was the capital city. She asked how many places had I traveled. She also told me of the many places she wanted to see. Then, looking me square in the eye she said she wasn’t sure she wanted to see Kentucky.  “That’s one of those states with all the guns everywhere, isn’t it?” she asked. As she said how frightened she was of all the guns in parts of this country, I agreed there were a lot of guns. At the same time I tried to reassure her that her chances of being shot were not all that large. I felt like a hypocrite. Every day there are articles about more random shootings, accidental gun deaths, and other gun violence.

We changed the conversation and talked about languages. She asked me what languages I spoke. I was embarrassed to admit I speak only English. I told her I’d studied Latin in high school, taken German in college and also had studied Spanish for ten weeks because many members of our future daughter-in-law’s family speak Spanish. But I told her the truth--which is that I only speak English. She had an earnestness that somehow made me want to tell her the unvarnished, simple truth.

She then said, “Go back. What Latin language did you study in high school? Was it Italian or Spanish?”  I replied. “No, neither of those. I studied actual Latin.” And she asked, “Who speaks Latin?”  To which I had to admit, “”Only dead Romans. Even Catholic priests don’t generally speak Latin any more.”

Then she tried to teach me how to say her name. It’s one syllable, starts with an “N” and maybe an “h”, and ends with some sound on the roof of your mouth. I tried repeatedly to say her name. I thought I was making progress. Finally, Nhu smiled and said I’d done a good job but would never be able to pronounce it -- people who speak only English never can.

It was about that time Nhu was massaging my arm with lemongrass lotion that smelled divine. She stopped and looked at me, asking, “Why are you so white?”

Now I had not gone to a nail salon frequented primarily by African Americans. It’s true, as in most nail salons, the technicians primarily were of Asian descent. At this salon the staff apparently was from Vietnam. But I can’t say any of the staff were particular dark complected. Most of the customers were Caucasian. But also, most were in some state of tan or red from the sun.

I, on the other hand, am of the really white persuasion. I laughed and thought for a moment about how to respond. Again with that urge she evoked to just tell the simple truth I admitted,”I don’t tan.”

But some time has gone by since this nail salon visit. Since then, I’ve been trying to come up with a fitting response if someone should ever again ask me, “Why are you so white?”

The truth is really boring. I’m of German heritage. I was born a pale blonde. Originally I had some red highlights in my hair but those have long since faded to silver, making my hair an even paler shade.

I spent my teen years trying to turn my skin a darker shade, only to discover every summer that my skin would burn, blister, peel (sometimes repeatedly from the same sunburn) and then return to the same whiteness--or even more so. Freckles occasionally dotted the whiteness. By the time I was in my 20’s, being in the sun unprotected for even a few minutes resulted in sun hives.

Even the skin care products designed to artificially tan a person’s skin just cause mine to break out in hives. So to steal a George Carlin line, “I don’t try to tan. I just hope to stay even with flesh tone.”

But I have been trying to come up with a better response to the Nhu’s of the world who should ask that question. Here are the contenders so far.

The trendy horror movie version: “My mother was an albino. My father a vampire.”

The musical / philosophical version: “The cosmic baker took me out of the oven a little too soon.” (With credit to Jimmy Buffett and the “Fruitcakes” album.

The snide but clean version: “I shower with bleach every morning.”

You may have other contenders. If so, please share.

Epilogue:

When my delightful manicure was finished I asked the young woman named Nhu, since I could not properly pronounce her name, whom I should ask for if wanted to make an appointment with her for a manicure again. She promptly smiled and responded “Chloe”. I did visit Chloe / Nhu again and we had another delightful conversation while she again provoked me to consider a variety of issues and give truthful responses as she helped me to bring order to at least one aspect of my life.  Oh, and she also manicured my nails. A bargain at $25.99 plus large tip.

Some of Us Like to Call Ourselves a Christian Nation

I’ve read several messages and postings about how Christians should put their religion first and politics second. That Christians don’t count anymore and are in danger in the United States. This also is then translated into an attack on Democrats, especially President Obama, with claims he really is a Muslim who is attacking our Christian nation.

 The Christian upbringing and religious instruction I had growing up, as well as my civics and legal education are contrary to this message.

First, for anyone who says they are a Christian I cannot see how they reconcile this hateful message with the teachings of Christ. I understand Christ to have embraced and urged his followers to love everyone, help those in need, and love one’s neighbor as one’s self. In the Sermon on the Mount He said blessed were those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked and were peacemakers. He offered no religious test for showing love to others.

Second the facts do not support the things said in these messages. Our Constitution does not establish a Christian nation. Christians are the majority in this country but our government does not support any religion over another. Here is a link to a brief explanation of the facts.

 https://www.au.org/resources/publications/is-america-a-christian-nation

On the contrary our fundamental document, the U.S. Constitution, assures freedom of religion and also expressly forbids any religious test for office. Based on the Constitution and U. S Supreme Court decisions, no religion is taught in our public schools. Everyone is entitled to learn and practice the religion, or no religion, as they choose.

It’s worth noting that the mistaken belief the U.S was established as a Christian nation comes from the era of our grandfathers rather than our founding fathers. Not surprisingly, this idea was generated by rich capitalists who opposed Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal to help average people in serious need.

But the big companies and extremely wealthy did not want what they saw as “give-aways” and tried to defeat FDR’s help to suffering Americans through the use of religious slogans. They also enlisted preachers to try to convince people that Christ supported greed, something that clearly is contrary to Christ’s teachings as stated in the Bible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/a-christian-nation-since-when.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad

AMERICA may be a nation of believers, but when it comes to this country's identity as a “Christian nation,” our beliefs are all over the map.

Some claim Muslims now are favored and Christians threatened by President Obama’s policies. That is just not supported by the facts. Nor are there any reliable facts showing our President is anything other than the Christian he professes to be. Christians are not persecuted in this country. Rather, some elements, most notably Republican extremists, again to favor the rich, claim to be Christians and use this smoke screen of a “Christian nation under threat” to serve their own interests. However, they neither practice nor preach the teachings of Christ. They are concerned primarily with their own success and getting richer as they use religion and fear to hide their own self-interest.

I read and see a lot of news articles that try to stir up fear and hatred for those perceived as different. President Obama, much like President George W. Bush did after September 11, has tried to bring people together and help us all see it’s not a particular religion that causes terror.

We’ve had a lot of media hype of Islamic terrorists. And ISIS is a threat in some parts of the world. There are differences of opinions about how to best deal with this radical group. But that does not mean everyone who is a Muslim is a terrorist or that ISIS is a big threat to our country.

Here in this country a lot more people are killed in gang violence, or by home-grown extremists who claim any number of religious faiths, Christian as well as others.

Donald Trump is just one of the many who are either very rich or catering to the very rich. He claims to be acting as a Christian but is anything but. Here is a link to an article that details just how un-Christian Donald Trump is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/opinion/frank-bruni-trump-ward-christian-soldiers.html

In today’s politics a lot of so-called religious conservatives again try to exploit our religious beliefs to their own political and financial ends. Religion can be a factor for good. But we should strongly object to its use to spread fear and hatred of people who are of other beliefs.

Review of “The Dude” on Maui

Last night “The Dude”, a/k/a Jeff Bridges performed at the Kaanapali Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa as part of the Maui Celebrity Series.

There’s a big temptation to just say: The Dude abided with the audience. And then quote some Big Lebowski lines, say he performed a few songs and hang loose. After all, he performed on Maui where hang loose is the island motto—and it was The Dude. But I’m going to resist that impulse and tell you about Bridges’ performance. Because it is worth recounting.

Bridges did not wear a bathrobe or an Hawaiian aloha shirt. Instead, he started out wearing a woman’s straw hat that he said he’d bought in the Sheraton’s gift shop, with loose pants and shirt and boat shoes. Sporting a full, white and neatly-trimmed beard, and collar-length gray hair he was relaxed but not quite Dude-like.  He sang, played guitar and keyboard, answered questions from the audience, and even danced in the aisles to get loosened up. His performance was great.

Bridges, who has a nice voice and good musical skills, was well supported on guitar and vocals by Chris Pelonis, a member of Bridges' musical group, The Abiders. One too-smart audience member yelled out maybe the group should be called “The Old Timers”. Bridges took that  comment in good spirit as he did other audience participation. He said maybe he should change their name. Very Dude-like.

Bridges sang a number of songs (including “Going Where I Shouldn’t Go”, “Hold On To You”, rocked out “I Use To Be Somebody”,  and crooned “No Place For the Weary Kind”) from “Crazy Heart”, the movie. He performed songs by T Bone Burnett, John Goodwin, who Bridges confided he has known since they both were in fourth grade. The set list also included a Tom Waits song (“Never Let Go of Your Hand”), a Creedence Clearwater Revival song (“Looking Out My Back Door”) and ended the encore with a Bob Dylan song (“The Man in Me”). The audience seemed to appreciate the Dude’s musical taste.

Bridges pleased the audience with several stories, and also good-naturedly answered questions from the audience. He said he probably was smoking Lucky Strikes in “The Last Picture Show” with Cybil Shepherd. He also said he’s smoked loco weed but  was not smoking pot in “The Big Lebowski.” The audience took that with a grain of—you know. But he also said he’s now given up those substances. 

The audience was treated to a couple of Bridges’ ocean-related stories. One, just from this trip to Maui where he went whale watching and was “whale-mugged”, that is, when whales surround a boat. The whales are protected and the boat has to stay put and wait for the whales to move off. Another story dated to a dive with his famous father, Lloyd Bridges. Jeff said he’d dived off the side of the boat, a bit of show off in his water-entry. His father, well known for the TV series. “Sea Hunt”, was experiencing some queasiness from an inner ear issue next entered the water but signaled Jeff to go to the surface. Jeff refused only to discover his dad, the man famous for diving, had been signaling  to surface because  he was “puking” in the water.

Maybe the Dude should be in politics. In addition to good music and a little humor, Bridges brought a level of intelligence, civility and compassion to the evening. Bridges talked about the charity he’s supported for decades: Ending Childhood Hunger. He also said he supports causes that deal with climate change. Bridges said that like a lot of people he’s been intimidated by the enormity of climate change. He said he now realizes that maybe one person can make a difference. He told a story about "Bucky" Buckminster Fuller , who compared an individual to the trimtab, a tiny rudder that turns the bigger rudder on a big ship. Bridges said he was inspired by Bucky’s epitaph “Call me trimtab”.

Jeff Bridges is a lot more than just the actor who played “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski”. In the hearts of a lot of people he will always be The Dude first. But he's also a great musican, a humanitarian and an Oscar-winning actor who has made numerous roles memorable or even haunting. Think the most evil character he has played, Barney Cousins, a very scary (still-gives me the creeps) killer in “The Vanishing”.  

Jeff Bridges, on the other hand, apparently has not an evil bone in his body. Instead he seems to be following the advice he says his mother, and his wife now give him when he heads off for an acting job, “Have fun and don’t take it so seriously.” Yes, very Dude-like.

Rockford as Maverick

Another example of shorthand "couple-speak" for actors we've gotten to know in a particular role:  James Garner, a veteran of TV and movies and many, many roles will forever be Jim Rockford to us. 

Lately, we have been watching old black-and-white TV episodes on DVD of Maverick. In our lingo, "Rockford" is playing Maverick. 

The old Mavericks are in black and white and set in the old west. But, essentially, James Garner plays the same role—a little younger and riding a horse rather than driving a Firebird. He’s still scamming and charming his way through plots with the same style that made him a fixture in our hearts from his Rockford days. 

How many ohter actors can you think of who will forever be a charachter they played sometime. Whenever you see them in something else you flash back to the first memorable character where they stole your heart? More on that next time.

2 Hour Mega-Crossover or Sleeping Through Your Favorite Programs-II

As I noted recently, staying awake long enough to be able to go to bed at a reasonable time is a plight for those of us who are creeping up in age. Or if you like—geezers. But as long as you have a viewing companion who will take notes while you are sleeping and you are willing to do the same for him or her, there’s no harm, no foul. And only occasionally do I play fast and loose with the plot details. Assuming I remember them.

We recently watched a two-hour, mega-crossover TV event: NCIS and NCIS-New Orleans. We’d recorded it so we wouldn’t drift off during the commercials. Everything was fine until the beginning of the second hour. The young NCIS agent Ellie was transporting (from Washington DC to New Orleans—hence the “crossover” between the shows) the body of some Russian—a diplomat or spy or someone--who had been poisoned. That’s when I drifted.

 So when I woke up, the bad guys and some redheaded woman were shooting it out with some other guys, I thought one was the rich guy's bodyguard. But I couldn’t tell who was doing what to whom. My spouse came to the rescue.

I asked, quite logically to me—“Why is Longmire’s daughter in a battle with the billionaire’s bodyguard?”

 My husband understood my question. It helps if your TV companion has similar viewing habits. So you can use a shorthand for the characters. He knew I was referring not really to Longmire's daughter but to the pretty, young, redheaded actress, Cassidy Freeman, who in the mega-NCIS crossovers was playing a Russian spy.  But she is best known to us as the daughter (also a pretty young redhead but a lawyer in that program) of Sheriff Longmire in the series of the same name.

We  recently had binge-watched the series Longmire, well, more like watched an episode or two at a time, before one or both of us dozed off. Took us a few months to get through the first three seasons. The mysteries in each episode are enticingly plotted and the acting and scenery are outstanding.

As a result of that well-known phenomena that an actor is often remembered for the most prominent role you first saw them in, in our parlance, this young actress is forever to us known as Longmire’s daughter.

We were happy to hear that the Longmire series has been picked up by Netflix for a fourth season. So we have a lot more TV programs to snooze to.