The Containment of ISMs

After President Obama's speech last night, someone commented, "It's about time... Reinforcements were needed months ago! Just do what's needed to get the job done and then get out."

But what IS "the job"? Is it "the end of terrorISM? Does "terrorISM" live in Afghanistan? Therein lies the rub. No matter how many troops we throw into Afghanistan, no matter how long we stay, no matter how many more lives we sacrifice in that country, those of our soldiers and Afghan civilians, "terrorISM" will still exist in the world. Can we wipe out the "threat of terror" with more terror?

In Vietnam, we were supposed to "contain CommunISM". It didn't work. "ISMs" cannot be contained or wiped out. They are philosophies not physical entities that you can kill or build a wall around. Yes, physical beings carry out those philosophies, sometimes in ways that we find horrible, but for every Communist or terrorist that we kill or imprison, 100 more take his or her place.

What finally brought the USSR to an end was not the containment of Communism, because lord knows that still exists in China, Russia, and many of the other countries that once made up the USSR. What brought that nation down was military failure in Afghanistan.

This is the sad lesson that President Obama and all his advisers are ignoring. They have the benefit of a historical perspective and the insight of many great minds who have studied the Middle East for decades - but they continue to resort to military tactics that are doomed to fail.

My friend replied, "My father gave his life to our Country for Vietnam. I know the costs & I know the gains of our foreign / military policies. The job is to defeat or keep occupied those that would like to repeat 911. As a former policy maker & student of cold war history, I've considered the pros and cons... the war against terrorism is a war that we must win! ... The beauty of America is that we're able to have disagreements (which was not the case in places like Iraq & Afghanistan) prior to 2002. Obo should have authorized the full troop request without a timetable for withdrawal. I'm not for staying forever, clear goals should be set and accomplished. This can only be done with sufficient resources. It is also time to hold the parties involved responsible for their own freedom as well as demand that the rest of the globe (who always benefits from our sacrifice) start equally sharing the burden in either blood or treasure. I've said my peace. God bless our troops!"

Clearly he and I disagree on the way forward and it is terrific that we can do so.

So many young men sacrificed their lives in Vietnam. My heart goes out to him and all the families of the fallen, many of them close friends of mine. The lessons from that war should teach us about the futility of continuing to wage war for years in Afghanistan to end up at the same place we began, or worse.

My friend believes that Iraq and Afghanistan are better off than before US involvement when he says, " The beauty of America is that we're able to have disagreements (which was not the case in places like Iraq & Afghanistan) prior to 2002." But the people in those countries are NOT better off. Human rights violations in Afghanistan have increased under Karzai's regime, which the US created and continues to support. Free speech is rewarded with imprisonment or death.

The people of Iran are handling their government crisis better. They are protesting in the streets for better government. They do not need the US to come in and "save" them.

Finally, I asked my friend, why do you think "the rest of the globe" is not jumping in to "start equally sharing the burden"? Because they understand the futility of the Afghan conflict.

Ani DiFranco at The Egg, November 17, 2009

I fell in love with Ani DiFranco last night. It's not a leave-your-wife-and-become-a-groupie type of love or a physical thing, although she is a Righteous Babe (her record company's name). It's love for an artist who is sincere and a singer, songwriter, and guitarist extraordinaire. I knew very little about Ani except for a few YouTube videos I watched and that my 20-year-old nephew was a huge fan of her music. But last night at The Egg, when she walked on stage with a slightly out-of-tune baritone ukelele and sang a heartfelt song about anarchy, socialism, and the woes of our economy that began with the "evil Reaganomics", I was hooked. She is a courageous feminist, socialist, and anarchist and one hell of a singer. The energy that came from her on stage electrified the room. At one point, one of my fellow ushers said, "Now THIS is a concert!" The front of the stage was jammed with enthusiastic fans waving their arms and singing along with her. It didn't hurt that she also said, "I like this room a lot," referring to The Egg, its great acoustics and the very appreciative crowd. "You're all kind of enclosed in apostrophes," she said waving at the room.

Regarding her older, more personal songs of heartbreak and relationships, Ani said, "But I'm looking for new stuff to sing about." She's an avid environmentalist, and as I said before, a populist voice in a world that desperately needs one. Plenty of material there.

I hesitate to use the word performance to describe her show because she is a sincere woman on a mission to save Mother Earth. Reflecting that mission was the simple stage setting – Persian rugs on the floor and a ruffled drape as a backdrop that reflected the various colored lights designed to match the mood of each song. Also, the sparse band; Ani on guitar, backed by a drummer and double-bass player. Then, of course, there were numerous mentions of saving energy and lightening our carbon footprint on Earth.

At one point in the evening, I wandered out in the lobby where I spoke with a woman who is a backstage caterer for some of the acts that perform at The Egg. Her unsolicited comment was, "Ani is the nicest person I've ever worked with. She's real, approachable. I'm going to go buy her CDs!" And with that she headed for the merchandise stand.

Ani mentioned that she got married "to a boy" last December and went to Hawaii on honeymoon where she wrote a love song that she proceeded to play. It was a great song but sounded like a dirge. I'm not sure if it was intentional but it was very effective considering some of her statements on stage about mistakes she has made in relationships.

She also played a song for Utah Phillips, a folk singer, tax evader and self-proclaimed anarchist who seems to have had considerable influece on Ani's politics. Another political activist selection was Pete Seeger's "Which Side Are You On" that she performed at his 90th birthday party at Madison Square Garden. The fact that a thirty-something woman from Buffalo was invited to perform at the 90th birthday party of an American legend says quite a lot about Ani's acceptance as one of the great folksingers of our age. And regarding her song selection, I was thrilled to hear someone supporting things aloud in front of 1,000 people in our state capital – things like support for socialism and anarchy that have been hushed for many years now. I was reminded of Jim Hightower, another famous populist who says, "It's not about left or right; it's about top and bottom." Ani refers to "the top feeders" disparagingly in another of her songs.

Lastly, I learned another important thing last night – her fiirst name is not Annie, it's ANI (pronounced AH-nee). Remember that! I will never forget it nor will I forget the first time I saw Ani DiFranco live. I don't expect it will be the last.

Why I Am Voting "NO"

I received my absentee ballot yesterday and was particularly interested in PROPOSAL NUMBER ONE: AN AMENDMENT that appears at the top of my absentee ballot and will appear above the offices you will vote for in the upcoming elections on November 3. It is an Amendment to the New York State Constitution, which to me is a big deal.

Here is the way it is presented –

Amendment to section 1 of article 14 of the Constitution, in relation to the use of certain forest preserve lands by National Grid to construct a 46 kV power line along State Route 56 in St. Lawrence County. The proposed amendment would authorize the Legislature to convey up to six acres of forest preserve land along State Route 56 in St. Lawrence County to National Grid for construction of a power line. In exchange, National Grid would convey to the State at least 10 acres of forest land in St. Lawrence County, to be incorporated into the forest preserve. The land to be conveyed by National Grid to the State must be at least equal in value to the land conveyed to National Grid by the State. Should the amendment be approved?

In case you're interested, section 1 of article 14 of the New York State Constitution reads,
"The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed."

I decided to do a little research on what will this amendment do if approved by the voters.

The “Forever Wild” clause of the NYS Constitution prohibits any development in the Adirondack Forest Preserve, including the building of power lines, unless the constitution is specifically amended to allow it. A constitutional amendment requires passage by two separately elected state Legislatures and then approval by the voters. This amendment has been passed unanimously by the Legislatures that took office in 2007 and 2009, and is now being presented to the voters on the November 2009 ballot.

But here's the biggie!

This amendment will make constitutional an action that has, in fact, already taken place.

The building of a back-up power line through forest preserve land was approved by the NY Power Authority (NYPA), the largest state-owned power organization in the USA, that sells power to government agencies, to community-owned electric systems and rural electric cooperatives, to job-producing companies, to private utilities for resale—without profit—to their customers, and to neighboring states, under federal requirements. http://www.nypa.gov/

It was approved allegedly with the involvement and agreement of the interested environmental and municipal groups to protect the health and safety of the residents of the Village of Tupper Lake. The line was built and activated in May of 2009.

Before this new power line was built, the Village of Tupper Lake had frequent power outages caused by damage to its single electrical supply line, principally from falling tree limbs in forested land along its route. There was no back-up line in the event of power failure, and during the winter alternative shelter had to be provided to village residents. This was considered an urgent situation that could not wait for the completion of the constitutional amendment process for relief, since it affected the health and safety of the villagers.

According to the NY Power Authority, the most environmentally friendly route for the new line went through two miles of Adirondack Forest Preserve land. The new line could have been detoured to avoid forest preserve land, but the detour, according to the NYPA report, would have involved a six mile cut through old-growth undeveloped forest and wetlands, endangering the habitat of wildlife. The chosen route along an existing road through previously cleared preserve land was judged more ecologically friendly.

National Grid will compensate for the loss of existing preserve land by conveying at least 10 acres of land to the State. According to the PROPOSAL, this new land must be of equal or greater value than the land that was lost. According to the NYPA report, environmental and civic organizations are supportive of this remedy to what was a serious and persistent public health and safety issue. The report goes on to say that since the amendment is specific to this situation, it does not give broader constitutional permission to other such solutions; each would require another constitutional amendment.

I don't disagree with providing service that will promote the health and safety of the villagers of Tupper Lake. I do have a problem with amending our State Constitution to give land to National Grid even if they will give back equivalent property.

The argument that this does not give broader constitutional permission to other such solutions because each would require another constitutional amendment doesn't work for me either. First, the Legislature rammed this through without an announcement to the voters until now. Second, it sets a precedent for such action. Of course we all know and love National Grid, a foreign-owned company that gets every rate increase approved by the NY State government. I'm sure we would have no problem with the Legislature giving them, or some other large corporation with deep pockets and a non-environmental agenda, any parcel of our precious forest lands without giving the voters their say on such action until after it was already completed.

I vote "NO" because I disagree with the methods used in this transaction. I vote "NO" because I don't trust a Legislature that kowtows to National Grid and I definitely do not trust National Grid. I vote "NO" in principal because the voters in NY State were an afterthought when their Constitution was being amended to serve a giant corporation.

I have lots of questions.

Could we have solved this "persistent problem" without amending the Constitution? It sounds like we could have by fixing the problem with the current line, but now we will never know.

What are the names of the environmental and civic organizations that supposedly supported this "remedy"?

The new line could have been detoured to avoid forest preserve land but was supposedly sent through this area because it was "more ecologically friendly". Who determined that? Someone from NYPA or National Grid? Don't they think the citizens of New York State might have been interested in reading such a report before we allowed our forest lands to be "taken by any corporation, public or private"?

What's going to happen on election day?

Most people won't even read this proposal or vote on it. If they do read it, it will be a quick read in the voting booth and then they may or may not vote on it based on a snap decision with little or no information. It certainly sounds benign the way it is presented, and nowhere in the proposal does it tell the voter that it's already a done deal.

I'm sure the State and National Grid are counting on almost no participation by the voter in the venerated process of amending our State Constitution. I hope this blog gets circulated around the State and at least a few voters question this convoluted process.

I will vote "NO" if for no other reason than to see what happens if the voters do turn the proposal down. What recourse do NY State, the NY Power Authority, and National Grid have at that point? If we rally and vote "NO", I will definitely keep up the quest to find out.

Resources:
http://www.adirondack-park.net/history/article14-text.html
http://kingstonnavigator.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/november-general-elections-amendment-proposals-citizens-need-to-know/

RETIREMENT? NYAH! HA! HA! HA! HA!

My friend in LA writes, "My job is making me crazy. My boss said he could fire me for forgetting to do stuff like leave the subject line blank in an email and if I can’t do it right, he has to do his own e-mail and then what does he need me for. Now, that’s a Friday statement that ruins your weekend. I have done it a couple of times - shit. I have worked there since 2003 and something like a blank subject line is grounds for termination?"
Sadly, the story she tells about her job situation sounds all too familiar in this economy. Employers are using the uncertainty as an excuse to abuse employees, even loyal, long-term employees. They're threatening them with the loss of their job over little nothings and asking them to relinquish pay and benefits at a time when they should be helping their fellow woman/man/person. My own pay went DOWN 5% this year because I had to absorb a hefty increase in the cost of health insurance. I received no bonus or cost of living pay increase. I cried the blues to my agent but she just shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Not my problem – if you don't like it, look elsewhere." Then, if we were in the old-timey movies, the villain would have curled his moustache, snarled and laughed an evil villain laugh – NYAH! HA! HA! HA! HA! That's what your boss is doing.
At our age we should be thinking about retirement and taking it easy. Instead we're having to make life plans for survival. My friend went on to say, "I don’t think I can work like this any more. I have to figure out what I’m doing with my life – there are changes I should start thinking about making."
It's sad that we have to think like this at a time in our lives when we should be living the high life and playing with our grown-up toys, like cameras and guitars.

Using American

The term "American" seems to have become synonymous with "citizen of the United States of America ". I protest its use because the Americas are so much more than the United States. I protest it for semantic and geographic reasons not for patriotic reasons. I'm a citizen and patriot of the United States of America, but I'm an American by virtue of living on the North American continent.

It would be equally inaccurate for us to use the term Asian to mean someone from China and exclude all the other nations that make up that continent, or African exclusively for someone from Nigeria, or European exclusively for someone from Italy. They are all correct geographically in the larger sense, but the continents include so many other nations.

"I'm an Australian" is about the only accurate statement covering both nationality and the geographic continent where the person lives. The other accurate statement is, "I'm an Antarctican," and that is reserved mostly for penguins.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here is a list of American countries, territories, and dependencies.

Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Clipperton Island, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Falkland Islands (UK), French Guiana (France)[D], Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Isla Aves, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Navassa Island, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint-Martin, San Andrés y Providencia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, United States, United States Virgin Islands, Uruguay, Venezuela

There are 43 North American countries and territories, including both sovereign states and dependent territories. This list considers North America to be the continent and associated islands north of the Panama-Colombia border.

There are 13 countries and one dependency in South America based on the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas.

So, there are 56 areas that can lay claim to the statement, "I'm an American."

So what do I suggest? I've tossed around a few ideas for an abbreviation for United States citizen. I'm trying for something simple like Canadian, Italian, Chinese, French, German, etc. Someone from the United Kingdom may say, "I'm a Britain," or "I'm British." Maybe we can say "I'm a USAN," or "I'm USISH". Any ideas?

Elevator Buttons

The Return of the Flophouse

I live in Albany, NY, the state capitol. I found a studio apartment in a nice, secure building, for reasonable rent, and within walking distance to work. The building is condominiums and many of the tenants live in their apartments. One person who bought a condo as an investment rented their studio to a friend who was down and out. The friend immediately took in five or six "tenants" of questionable character. Eventually, the tenants association decided enough is enough and had the man and all his roommates evicted.
A friend in Los Angeles wrote me about a situation in the building where she lives. The property owner showed up at her door last night and brought a man who recently got out of jail (we will call him Joe) who rents out cots in his one bedroom apt in the building. Joe doesn't even live in the building and doesn't even have a key to his own apartment. The other tenants have no idea who rents the cots. The landlord, described by my friend as a belligerent man, confronted Joe in front of my friend's apartment and told him the tenants were complaining. The landlord said he wants the transients out immediately. Joe said he has to give his people 30-days notice. The description my friend sent of the landlord's reaction is not worthy of repetition. Put yourself in his shoes and use your imagination.
Renting floor space or cots to short-term tenants is equivalent to running a skid row hotel in a residential zone. In the 30s, they called them "flophouses". Joe's idea is similar – to provide a lot of beds in a small space for a lot of people. He is technically the "tenant", but doesn't live there and doesn't even have a key. He has a racket going. I wonder if he actually makes money.
In any event, my friend doesn't want this going on in her building. Who knows the mentality or the desperation of the people who need to rent a cot to have a place to sleep.
When I lived in Sarasota, I rode my bike to work and passed a park-like area with lots of trees and high grass. The homeless slept there at night. The grass shielded them from view so the police, who knew they were there, didn't bother them. If I rode by early in the morning, I saw the homeless folks starting to rise up out of the tall grass like human plants. There were flophouses in Sarasota but they filled up fast.
Sarasota is one of the wealthiest cities in the US, but because of their climate they have one of the highest homeless rates in the US. During the day, those who could afford it went to storage sheds to hang out with their few possessions. Not everyone could afford the cost of the flophouse or storage shed so they wandered aimlessly during the day and retired to the field at night.
In Albany, I see the storage-shed concept in practice. On one of the side streets I walk down, there is a row of garages in a single-story building. Two people run a perpetual, daily garage sale out of one of the units. I see a little old woman lift the door to another unit, pull out a battered lounge chair, and spend a good part of her day sitting there.
It's a sad sign of the times. There are rental signs everywhere and vacant buildings galore but many people have to find flophouse style accommodations because they are jobless and homeless.
The situation in my building was resolved, but I wonder where all those men moved after they were evicted. I hope the situation in my friend's building is resolved peacefully and without her having to be involved as a complainant or witness. Even more, I hope the situation in the United States improves so that flophouses are not necessary.

The Correlation of BLAH to ZZZZ

Technical meetings are always a thrill for us non-technical people. The techies get their chance to spout their wisdom about subjects that just sound like "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah..." to us. They speak in acronyms like everyone in the world knows what they stand for. Invariably, their voices take on a deep, droning tone. My eyes begin to close and my breath slows.
Today at such a meeting, I drew a chart correlating the Blah Blah to the ZZZZZ factor.

You Know

Heard on the train today - a conversation between two young (20-ish) people -
Person 1 - "Like, I could like make this like happen, you know."
Person 2 - "Like, for sure, like you really could like do it."
Like it or not, this is youth speak, but it isn't a new phenomenon. I attended a party in the late 60s hosted by my friends Leigh Lassen and Terry Logan, two soap opera stars in New York City. Leigh is a beautiful redhead who could trace her lineage to Russian royalty. One of the guests at the party was a Russian princess who was then in her 80s. Her family was forced to flee Russia during the revolution in 1917. They emigrated to the U.S. where their children received an excellent education. The princess and I had a conversation about language and she lamented the state of English usage in the U.S. It seems she was an avid listener of radio talk shows. She cited the comments made by several people who called these shows to offer their opinions on different subjects and followed their comments with "YOU KNOW."
"No, I DON'T know," she said. "I want them to explain their stand on the issues clearly."
I wonder how she would feel trying to translate some of today's slang and jargon. We have many different dialects in this country, sometimes several in one region or city. The phrase "YOU KNOW" is still widely used as evidenced by the conversation between the 20-somethings on the train today. Thanks to the princess, every time I hear the phrase I think, sometimes out loud, "No, I don't know. Please explain."
Sometimes it makes for an interesting conversation - other times it ends it.

Work is Just Work

I observe people as they come to work. Most of us are just here for the paycheck. Direct employees hang in for their excellent pensions and benefits. But for some people, this is their LIFE. They come to work all fired up and dead serious. They have an inflated view of their importance and they play office politics in earnest. It's amusing in a way, watching their gait as they walk through the hallway, like they're headed for a meeting with the president. Then in meetings, these "company people" are super-intense and sometimes verbally abusive to people who they feel are their underlings.
I was sitting here calmly at my desk early this morning and I could hear two people coming down the hall involved in an animated work discussion. One of them was talking like the subject was nuclear disarmament when, in fact, it was about someone doing their paperwork.
I may have been intense at some point in my career. I remember talking about a "sense of urgency" regarding projects and feeling that everyone involved should have it. I took my work home with me too, thinking that I was doing work of value and lasting importance. Thank goodness I transcended that phase.
I'm not saying that work isn't good and I believe that we should always do our best in whatever we undertake. What I believe, however, is that our jobs are a very small part of who we are. To give work your "all" is to diminish the really important parts of your life - love, family, and friends.

To Save or to Throw

A friend gave me her business card recently and said, "Send me an e-mail sometime." I went to my office and sent one off immediately before I lost the card in a pile of ever accumulating papers. I do throw some things out eventually but not until the fire marshal threatens to have me and my piles of paper hauled away.
Several years ago, I learned the principle of expected use. What that means is you look at an item and determine how likely it is that you will ever use it. It may be an actual physical item or something like an e-mail. Since I put this principle into practice, I am much better at sorting through e-mail.
I used to try to save everything on the possibility that I would use it for something someday. After moving all my "stuff" around several times and not finding any practical use for much of it, I decided to sell, give away, or throw away much of it. As I sorted through my papers from grade school through college that my Mother saved for me for posterity, I became less and less nostalgic and more and more practical. Then I started tossing all of it. Then I started tossing out the papers that I saved for my children thinking, "I'm saving them from having to do the same thing I'm doing." It was liberating to simplify my life and my next move. One hundred boxes of "stuff" became twenty, my treasures became someone else's junk, my load was lightened.
Of course as soon as I settled into my new home, I started accumulating new "stuff". It's time to purge again.

Back On Track

OK. I started this bloggy thing in 2006 and forgot about it completely. It's now part of the Google Empire (what isn't? Oh yeah, Microsoft!). It took me a while to find the way to get my old blog back but they had a fix for that, or as the ads say, "There's an app for that!"
I'm going to try to be a dutiful blogger now.