F16’s Don’t Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People

Years ago, when I lived in Boston I was having lunch with a group of coworkers. One fellow, from a somewhat (eh, what’s the polite term for Irish Ghetto?) "tough" corner of town was holding forth on how he spent summers as a child. I don’t recall the particulars except that at some point it involved throwing rocks at one another (or large pieces of broken pavement-something like that, I can’t remember). Sitting next to me was a kid who had only recently moved there from Missouri. Finally, Southie boy asks us:

"So, what do youse do for entertainment in the Midwest?"

Before that moment, had anyone suggested that the area I grew up in was even geographically similar to where the Missouri kid was from; I’d have been shocked. Certainly, to me rural Missouri was a hell of a socio-cultural distance from where I was from-which makes the fact that we both responded;

"Tractor Pull", in perfect unison, awfully amusing.

The truth was I’d never been to a tractor pull-still I knew; I had an idea, that people in the Midwest attend tractor pulls.

So today, as my husband gawked at the tractor-pull in Gretna, Nebraska.  I nodded knowingly, knowing nothing-but I had the idea that people in the Midwest have tractor pulls.

Growing-up, we did make the journey north into Wisconsin for German Fest and the State Fair because, apparently, the bratwurst you could get year-round in Kenosha didn’t taste as good as the ones prepared in the open air to the musical accompaniment of an oompah band.

This weekend the nearby towns of Gretna and Ashland are having their town festivals. This evening we attended the rodeo in Ashland. For the uninitiated, the Ashland "Stir-Up Days" are exactly like the Calgary Stampede, except there were thousands upon thousands less people-I’d estimate about 150-200 but the numbers were probably reduced by the fact that the street-dance was starting at 8 PM and the beer garden opened early. So yeah, maybe not exactly like the stampede, but there were a number of people in cowboy get-ups. Of course, they were actual cowboys (and girls).

Danny thoroughly enjoyed himself, and somewhat surprisingly, I did as well. About halfway through the events they had a one-shoe race for the children. All evening I’d been on the boys to watch where they stepped as there was horse poop everywhere. I particularly liked the fact that the announcer, in calling the children into the corral, told them to go ahead and get messy-"Mom said it’s Saturday night and you can get messy", running with one shoe off through poop-laden dirt. The idea is that the kids all take off one shoe and place it in a pile. Then, they stand against the fence until ready, set, go! They race to the pile, find their shoe, and the first one back won a free hamburger and drink from the concession stand. It was awfully cute, even if they were running barefoot through horse manure.

There’s a community dodge-ball game tomorrow. I wouldn’t miss that for anything.

Honey-crunch coffee cake with pineapple and coconut.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Exactly.

Well, I (and just about any other ill person) could have told you that meditation does not work to ease illness. Great, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, done the studies, spent the money, etc. can we start giving the chronic pain sufferers their medication so they don’t need to suffer? You know, stop telling people with MS to "visualise a pain free place", or any of the other rubbish that’s been offered to ease their misery in place of treatments that actually work (and no, anti-depressants and anti-convulsants that carry more side-effects than good old fashioned pain medication are not a suitable substitute).

And while we’re at it, could we stop telling people with dread diseases to "embrace their spirituality"? Suggesting a cancer patient pray seems a bit vulgar.

I realise it’s been a nice run for the pain management centres that contrary to their names don’t actually do anything but collect a fee from desperate people, but fair is, fair-now that the shamanism has been unmasked it is time to try some reality based medicine. Oh, don’t worry; it’s still billable (you’ll just need new illness codes).

Of course, the study doesn’t deny any benefit whatsoever, but come on, the NIH who sponsored the study has a very real interest in proclaiming people’s suffering to be manageable without real treatment-particularly when they are part of a government that has decided to wage their absurd "war on drugs" on doctors and sick people.

Anyway, for those of you just joining this blog-let’s recap:

If You’re…

Poor; you have no rights and your role in society is to be exploited and suffer.

A minority; see above and add a 5 to 1 likelihood of incarceration.

Sick; oh hell, you’re just fucking screwed-but could you please suffer quietly because it makes people uncomfortable to have uppity ill/disabled people around.

Well, I could go on, but you get the idea.

I wonder how much money is being spent investigating welfare recipients? Government workers don’t come cheap you know (benefits, paid time off, etc.) and you’d need a hell of a bureaucracy in place to have enough case workers with adequate time on their hands to go rummaging through people’s sock drawers. Wouldn’t that offset any savings they might get in kicking people off the dole?

Of course there’s the obvious constitutional issue, though as we found out after hurricane Katrina if you’re poor, those protections don’t apply to you (if paid mercenaries want to take away your legally registered gun-they’re going to do it).

Years ago (ok, many) when I was in High School our political science teacher brought in someone to explain the injustices of the welfare system to a classroom full of children from wealthy homes. That was a pretty daring thing to do even back then-today he’d probably be sacked for it. It was Deerfield High School, Deerfield, Illinois in case you’re wondering which educational institution to blame for my obvious inability to punctuate (the least the school could do is reimburse me the cost of a Fowlers, and a used copy of Strunk and White). I wish I could remember more about the woman (if she represented some organization or group) but I don’t. What does remain quite clear in my mind, these many years later were tales of families being broken apart by the draconian rules set in place to prevent "cheats." We heard about sons being kicked out of the family apartment when they turned eighteen or the mother would lose her benefits for having an adult male living at home. That in particular struck me as awful being about to turn eighteen myself and having no clue how I would support myself if I suddenly were forced out of my home.

By the end of the class period I was numb. I’d been more fortunate than many of my classmates in having been exposed to the difficulties the poor and minorities faced in their daily lives. I didn’t grow up in Deerfield (actually I was living (if you want to call it "living") in Highland Park, but attended Deerfield in the same district because I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes at Highland Park High School) and had actually known real, live minorities. Even so, I had no idea what sort of hoops they were required to jump through to keep a roof over their heads or food in their children’s stomachs. That 45-minute class/crash course in suffering was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It is a strange environment to live in, socially. There is so much (new) wealth and blatant ostentation that the only sane reaction to it as far as I was concerned was to embrace voluntary poverty. I’m not saying the North Shore is a breeding ground for Catholic Worker types (oh, that it were, what hope there’d be) but I’ve met more than a few in my years since fleeing the hell out of there, with similar stories. I have stories. Many stories.

You’d think I’d be nearly impossible to shock when it comes to government instituted cruelty against the poor (I mean, making it illegal to feed people almost sounds too over-the-top to be true) but this situation in San Diego is really appalling. I’ve been fortunate enough to never need public assistance but good goddamn, I’ve been paying taxes into the system all these years-what right have they to torment people for what is essentially there to help them? It is theirs. Ours. How dare they treat human beings and their lives as State property? How dare they?

The Lincoln police are busy today searching for a mother they allege left her newborn in the hospital after giving birth-and disappeared. You know they are going to find her, charge her with something absurd like child abuse or neglect, and saddle her with a criminal record for the rest of her life-for essentially doing the right thing. She didn’t bring the child home and abuse it. She didn’t leave it in a dumpster. The police will argue that she didn’t follow the proper procedure, but really-how was this child harmed? There’s no doubt that this baby will be adopted quickly (newborns don’t languish in foster care) and the hospital is about the safest possible place she could be. Yes, the "law is the law" but I cannot believe the police are devoting resources to pursuing this young woman-how on earth is she a threat to society?

If anyone is guilty of criminal doings, it is the rest of us. This is the world we’ve set up for women, particularly poor ones. Teaching abstinence does not work. Making birth control impossible to get does not work. We (and I include myself here) insist that abortion is murder, yet we offer ZERO support to women that would prefer not to be parents. There’s a whole lot of prevention that can take place before abortion becomes necessary. Do you know what poor women have to go through in some places to get free birth control? No? Well let me enlighten you.

When I lived in Boston I met someone that had just spent seven hours waiting at the pharmacy at the City Hospital to get her monthly packet of birth control pills. Seven hours. Once a month she had to lose a day of work, pay bus fare each way for a month’s worth of birth control-because she already had five children by the time she was thirty and didn’t want anymore. I’m sure if she just did as the abstinence folks would have her and said no to her husband, she’d have been a single mother trying to support five children. It’s just so very, very easy to point fingers and declare what someone should or shouldn’t do and why don’t they do as we’ve instructed, etc. etc. There’s a simple answer to it-sometimes they just can’t. So quick! Ring up the police and arrest that girl for leaving her baby at the hospital.

I can almost predict how this particular case will turn out. They’ll find the mother and lock her up in the bughouse for an evaluation. After a few days (after her mug shot has been plastered in the newspaper under the headline "child abuser") her public defender will try to argue post-partum psychosis and she’ll probably be sent to the Regional Center for "treatment" (God knows what constitutes treatment these days on our State Budget, but it is fair to guess she’ll be pumped full of whatever pharmaceutical is popular with the state psychiatrists at the moment) and eventually she’ll get out and be forced to try and find a job, rent an apartment, or do any of the things we all take for granted saddled with the label "crazy criminal child abuser." Good luck. When she ends up homeless, or a prostitute we can all cluck our tongues and know we were correct in sizing up her character. See how simple that is? And we have the arrogance to call ourselves "civilised." Shame on us. If anything, we as a community ought to be seeking this woman out to apologise for having placed her in such an unbearable situation to begin with.

Eventually we will pass a Safe Haven law here, until then, we’re just encouraging more abortions and infanticides-while we pat ourselves on the back for being morally superior.

Conversation during dinner this evening:

Danny: (pointing to my antique mantle clock) Have that clock?

Mummy: Someday you can have it, when you’re bigger.

Danny: Instead, can I have a Ferrari car? (Pauses to think) Possibly red?

Mummy: (Hysterical laughter)

Yes, he’s only two and a half.

We’re still in the throes of a heat wave that is expected to last through this weekend. Of course that meant a trip into Omaha in our car without air conditioning to take Danny to the paediatrician. Nothing serious-just an eye infection, but bad enough that we had no choice but to make the drive in. The kid is being a real champ with the drops. Granted, I have to make farting frog noises to humour him (what? You didn’t know that flies are gassy? Oh my goodness, you don’t want to get within a hundred feet of a frog after he’s been eating flies-no sir, you do not. Stinky) and encourage him to open his eyes really big with big frog eyes like a frog that just ate a mess of flies. Oh fine, you still don’t believe me about the frog farts. As the kids say, whatever. I’ve been on the wrong end of a frog more than a few times in my life (it doesn’t matter why) and I know what I’ve smelled, friends-oh yes I do. Smell for yerself. Next time you come across a frog, pull that fella up by the hind legs, bring him up nice and close to yer sniffer and tell me if you don’t think that sweet rot smells exactly like a fly passed through the digestive system (what? You don’t know what that smells like either? Geez, you people need to get out more).

Anyway, we’re gettin’ by.