Happy Holidays to All

There's no denying it. Sometimes what makes me happiest and most optimistic is not to blog. The pressure of even a self-imposed deadline--and the guilt of missing it again and again--are detracting from my efforts to savor the warm fuzziness of this time of year.
So I'm taking an officially sanctioned break. Back in a week or so. Merry New Year and Happy Christmas.
Before I go, here's an item I found in the London Evening Standard about obesity and Santa. Normally I applaud every effort to exercise, but this is pretty weird. It sounds like one of those news hoaxes people are so fond of, but there are quite a few comments and no indication it's fake. So enjoy!

Feeling the pain

Just in time for the holidays, the New York Times--my perennial cheerer-upper on the economy--has a new poll on the emotional and financial toll of unemployment.
Among the results: Almost half of the unemployed polled have suffered depression or anxiety and 4 in 10 notice behavioral changes in their children.
Although this was primarily about people who had lost their jobs, the Times did give a nod to the underemployed (e.g. those with huge wage cuts of those forced to become part-time workers) toward the end of the piece. Another poll, done at the same time with CBS, holds that 3 in 10 people have had wage cuts the past year. It didn't mention their mental state.
There's no question that people who have completely lost their jobs have it much worse than those still employed. But with a big enough cut in pay and benefits, we still feel a kinship with those other struggling families.
How close is our experience to theirs? Let's take the poll and find out:
Question one: Have you taken money out of savings, including retirement accounts, to make ends meet? That's complicated. After six years of college expenses, we didn't have any savings left. And since the cutback, we can't afford contributions to the 401K any more. But so far we haven't raided it. So our answer is...kinda yes. Poll results--60 percent yes.
Question two: Have you borrowed money from family members or friends? No, although they've kindly offered. National results--53 percent yes.
Question three: Are you more stressed than usual, less stressed or is your stress level no different? Are you freaking kidding me? Of course we're more stressed! National results--69 percent more stressed.
Question four: Have you had any trouble sleeping? Yes, quite a bit back when it was news. Not so much any more. National results--55 percent yes.
Question five: Have you experienced emotional or mental health issues, like anxiety or depression? Not sure how they define this. But no, nobody's sought any medical treatment. National results--48 percent yes.
Question six: How often have you felt embarrassed or ashamed about being out of work? Here's where the toxic bloggers who ridicule Mike have actually done us all a big favor. They've deflected the depression that might have set in, and caused our extended family and friends (and even a few strangers) to rally around us. Any embarrassment or shame has been quickly converted to anger and resolve. Thanks, guys. National results--46 percent some or most times.
Question seven: Have you cut back on doctor's visits or medical treatments or not? We're fortunate to still have health insurance. Even so, there's still a deductible. So when a dog bit Mike's leg a few weeks ago, and it wouldn't heal right, he stubbornly resisted my urgings to go. And since eyeglasses no longer are covered, I find myself Super-gluing my broken ones. But we'll still go when we really need to. National results--54 percent yes.
Question eight: Are you currently without some form of health care coverage? No. National results--47 percent yes.
I don't see a sample question about behavioral changes in children. But I can attest that financial strain has caused a lot more dust-ups and tension with my daughter. One way kids do their fact finding about just how bad the money situation is, is to keep asking for stuff and see where parents draw the line. But if you're on the parental end, you get a little dragged down by constantly having to say "no."
So yeah, not much to be happy about if you're thinking about the unemployed and underemployed this Christmas.
But there are a couple of good things out of this poll. First, I'm grateful that the Times is keeping this in front of people. It would be so much easier to just go with the flow, declare the recession over and forget about the people who have been dumped off the boat.
And second, a part of the poll asks who people blame for all this economic misery. The favorite: Former Pres. George W. Bush with 26 percent of the vote, banks with 12 percent, job outsourcing 8 percent, politicians 8 percent. Only 3 percent blamed Obama.
Now it's time to get to work on the current administration and get tough on those big money boys.

God Wars

Weird, how everything I'm reading this winter seems to come back around to religion.
First there was The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlett. Then a Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol. Brown always seems to be writing about religion and science, in one way or another.
Most recently, I finished The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright.
Add to that the recently announced efforts by conservatives to rewrite the "liberal bias" out of the Bible, and you have a really strange convergence of thoughts about religion in the news lately.
What on earth is going on?
On the one hand, Brown's immensely popular novel (it set a new sales record for adult fiction) is all about the New-Agey sounding mystery behind a Masonic secret, which is that people have within themselves unrealized and god-like powers. This, he backs up by citing research in to the mind powers by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
On the other side are clandestine fundamentalist Christians (I think they call themselves that) who work behind the scenes to ensure their members access to the highest reaches in the American power system. They seem to have a creepy affinity for citing Hitler and other despots (as good examples of how far strong leaders can go with the right use of power) and for getting the US to support some of the worst tyrants on the planet.
Out there somewhere else is Andy Schlafly (son of anti-feminist Phyllis) who leads an effort to man up the Bible by getting rid of gender-inclusive language, eliminating the story of the adulteress ("Let him cast the first stone." That one.) And emphasizing the free market parables. He fits right in with an increasing right-wing tendency to wipe out anything pro-feminine in the Scriptures. I've come across some of these guys on the radio, preaching how God is a vengeful, warrior like god and Jesus has been portrayed as too gentle.
Only after I read Wright's book did any of this begin to make sense. The Evolution of God is an interesting, if somewhat slow read looking at the order and translations of the Bible and Koran and matching them with what was going on in history at the moment. On the way, he also looks at pre-Abrahamic gods and hunter-gatherer gods.
After you take a moment to ponder how breathtakingly difficult a task this would be, you begin to understand how the different kinds of God in the Bible (vengeful, forgiving, etc.) match the different political needs of the times. Even the names--Elohim, Yahweh--seemed to be subject to the political fortunes of the worshippers, according to Wright.
The fundamentalists and the New Agers are doing the same thing people have always done when societies change. They're recasting God to meet society's new needs. God is evolving.
In the Family's case, anxiety over globalization has caused these "Christians" to seek power above all else, securing America's god as the primary god of all the earth. Ancient Babylonians would be proud.
In the New Ager's case, intelligent people are trying to reconcile belief in unknown forces with facts presented by scientific research.
And as for the muscular Christians, it seems like mostly push-back from the anxiety brought on by seeing women's fortunes rise in industrialized countries in the past 50 years.
I don't know why, exactly, but this makes me feel better. The bellicose nature of organized religion the past few years has driven me away from church attendance. Every kind of optimism advice tells me you need some kind of faith to keep up your attitude. Yet here I am, feeling more like an outsider to my religion.
Maybe what I need instead is just a different god. Just like everyone else, apparently.

The third quarter

There's been a lot of jubilation since the jobs numbers last weekend showed a loss of way less than predicted. That, plus the rallying stockmarket, has caused some people to wonder if the capital Great capital Recession is on its way out.
We can only pray so, though there are those who argue that we'll have another trough later on. It's early, yet, to get too happy while there are still plenty of people suffering.
Our own personal recession is now in its ninth month. So maybe it's time to reflect a little on the changes we've undergone since that first traumatic pay-cut news on Friday the 13th of last March.

Our finances--As the family's checkbook guru and resident worst-case-scenario imaginer, I was prostrate with worry when I heard the news of a 33 percent pay cut and cuts in benefits to part-time. Trust me, I didn't even want to get out of bed.
But so far, most of my biggest fears have not come true. We had to put a couple of college loans on deferment for a year, and that will be a problem if things haven't improved by April. But we have little other debt, can still make our house payments and buy groceries. We've foregone any birthday or anniversary presents for us adults, and we've had to dip into savings sometimes, for appliance or car emergencies. But not often.
To pay for bigger things--like registration, books and other fees for public high school, or a camping trip to Michigan--we've sold stuff. The lumber left from our home's previous owner. The boys' bunk beds. The old weight machine. There's not much left worth selling for next year, though.
We haven't been able to afford to contribute to our savings. So far, we're just happy to hold the line and keep our cushion from drifting completely away.

Career-wise--Make no mistake about it. This has been a painful, gray plod. But in one respect, it has been good for us. Our desire to have fun again, become upwardly mobile (and give our daughter a college education) has caused us to cast about for other ways to make money. In the process, we've both gained skills that will make us more salable once the job market improves. We have a vegetable gardening book we're proud of. We have improved our networks and our on-line skills. And I don't think any of this would have happened without the kick in the butt provided by the downsizing. Hopefully, we'll end up with more options once things start to recover.

Emotionally--There have been some ups and (horrific) downs. But on the whole, the downs are less frequent and not as bad as they were. I no longer stay awake for hours with worry, nor do I cry quietly into my ears during the meditation time at yoga. Possibly it's because I've accepted a depressing new "normal." But more likely, it's the feeling that we're beating them. By refusing to use the credit card, by keeping up the house payments, by refusing to buy crap "budget meals" at fast food places, we are beating all those hotshots on Wall Street who have come to think of American working people as stupid, weak, and not deserving of decent pay.
(Hey, I'll still admit to some anger issues.)

What's worked for me so far--Funny thing about the aforementioned downs. Usually, when I'm having one of my crappy-attitude headaches, I'll ask myself a question. "Did you exercise lately?" And know what? The answer is always "no." I hardly ever get depressed on a day that I've run, lifted weights or swam laps. Just sayin'.
As for all the New Agey stuff...Yeah, the laughing yoga and brain waves and affirmations help. A little. Maybe for a few hours.
But you can't argue with numbers. And by my scorecard, meditating on positive outcomes has the best results, hands down. In just a couple of short weeks doing this as I'm falling asleep, there have been four--or maybe five, depending on how you count--good things that have happened.
Coincidence? Probably. But you never know...

Odds and Ends

It's been too busy to collect much for a blog post the past week. So here is a little mish-mash of things that have been blowing through my head but never took off to become blog posts:

The movies
One of the best things about Thanksgiving weekend is that it's an opportunity to sink low into the couch and watch movies until your muscles start turning to sugar.
I'm always reading how extended laughing is a cure for all sorts of things, as well as good exercise. If that's true, I've discovered a cure for cancer and a possible substitute for ultra-marathon training in Troll II.
My eldest son brought this over to watch after the big meal. I can't remember laughing so hard at anything in...oh...nine months or so. This was released as a completely straight-faced horror movie, but since has become known as one of the worst movies ever made. It is hilarious. Seriously, my gut hurt afterward from the helpless laughter. Here's a clip:




I understand there's now a documentary out about the making of Troll II, called Best Worst Movie. Unfortunately, it is not playing in Kansas City yet.
A less funny (though somewhat cheesy) film we saw on TCM was The Devil and Daniel Webster, circa 1941. This is a black and white bit of fluff about a down-on-his-luck farmer (Jabez Stone) who sells his soul to the Old Scratch in return for seven years of prosperity--after which time he would be expected to pay up by going quietly to hell.
I don't want to spoil it for anybody so I won't tell the plot. But it had one moment that spoke to me.
Shortly after Stone got his gold from the devil, he strutted in to see the bank officer who held his loan. When the smug banker started to make noises about how he couldn't give Stone another break, the farmer started flicking pieces of gold at him. Take this. And this. How do you like me now, sucka?
And I caught myself thinking, "Gee, it might be worth selling your soul to the devil to be able to do that just once."

Prayer and meditation
The name of the farmer in the movie above reminded me of The Prayer of Jabez, an inspirational book by Dr. Bruce Wilkinson. I read this a few years ago, at the urging of a friend who, I guess, noticed that I needed a bit more spiritual vitality. For a while, this book was all the rage, and also a little controversial. It cites a somewhat obscure prayer (1 Chronicles 4:9-10) of a man named Jabez asking God to bless him and keep him from evil. Wilkinson made self-help prominence by urging people to pray this every day and watch God's power transform their lives.
This little book generated miles and miles of type (here's an example) from people worried about one thing or another. Wilkinson degraded the verse and turned the prayer into a superstitious chant. And isn't it bad and dangerous to pray for our own blessing? Shouldn't we be praying instead for others? Etc, etc.
Which is why I don't go in so much for prayer any more. It's all the self editing and worrying that I'm not doing the right form. Did I ask according to God's will? In Jesus' name? How can I be sure my prayer isn't just selfishness?
Bleah.
I'd much rather meditate, as I have been doing lately, on things I'd like to change but have no control over. It's nice to be able to just run good outcomes of these various problems through my mind and let myself feel the warmth and comfort. It probably doesn't do any good at all.
Or does it? I have to say that, shortly after I started this, two--no, make that three--good things have happened. And these are things that I had no hand in doing.
So maybe it's worth it.
Or again, maybe that's just old Scratch playing a trick on me.

Running
I've been working on changing the way I run, after reading Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superatheletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen, by Christopher McDougall. McDougall writes about a Mexican tribe of long distance runners (50-mile, 100-mile runs) and how their gait differs from that of modern runners in expensive running shoes. The shoes, in fact, can cause more harm than good, he claims.
But it's more than just a book about running. McDougall makes a case that the running done by this tribe also brings about a sense of joy, equality, peace and good health.
So, okay. I'm game. I can't afford the fancy "foot glove" running shoes, but I can try and change my gait. The last two times out, I've tried to run the first mile more on the front of my food and not my heel, concentrating on kicking my feet backwards rather than reaching forward heel first.
After a couple of days of very sore calves, today was just a great day. I felt I was flying around that hated indoor track. It was even euphoric, for just a couple of laps.
So maybe there's something to it.
Now to find some chia seeds.

Good to be Bad

I feel great today! Maybe it's the meditation, or maybe it's the idea of a four-day weekend coming up. But--just for a day at least--the world seems right-side up.
Possibly it's a study on moods from Australia that's making me high on life. This morning I was reading a story on the MSN health page about improving your mental attitude. It was a 31-point list of the usual stuff about exercising, eating right, etc, etc, etc. But there, nestled in the middle of the first page was a little network news video about this study that claims bad moods might actually help you think.
The psychologists showed their subjects sad or happy movies in an attempt to induce a mood, then asked them to rate the believability of urban myths and rumors. Apparently the bad mood people were less likely to be gullible, less likely to make snap decisions and more careful and analytical in their thinking. Oh, and also, they were better at presenting a written argument.
"Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages," the study said.
Well all right then. We in the negative attitude community get tired of being beat up all the time in the media. For the past few decades, it's been nothing but a drumbeat of scapegoating. We're apparently to blame for economic downturns, social meltdowns and, most recently, our own illnesses. It's about time we had a study to call our own--one that claims the clear thinking and cogent writing that is our birthright. It's those positive people who are the ones sending money off to Nigerian princes and veering wildly between national policy viewpoints.
So there, positive people. How's it feel?
Then, while I was still gloating and chuckling, I checked into an article on GOOD about new software that can detect your mood by the type of words you use. The use of "I", for instance, shows not that you're an egomaniac, but that you're less powerful and more self conscious. Should I feel depressed about that? I'm sure I don't know how I feel yet, do I?
Toward the bottom of this article, the software's inventor said that the words were a gauge, but not a means of changing a person's mood:
"...you can’t ask someone to mindlessly repeat more “positive” words and expect them to become less depressed or suicidal. (The software's) real use is in detecting problems such as excessive worry or anger and then showing when progress has been made. When we become more mentally healthy, our language changes unconsciously, because we are changing perspectives."
Wow. Not only is it okay--no, good--to be in a bad mood, but you can't expect to change your mood by mindlessly repeating positive slogans. Like, "I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feed terrific!"
It's not usual for me to find two news items in one day that I love as much as these. Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about being negative. Maybe I don't have to change my personality after all.
The idea makes me feel...happy?
Uh-oh.

Book Corner

Just when I thought I was through with all the "mind over matter" advice givers, along comes Dan Brown with his newest, The Lost Symbol.
Now normally, I don't look to works of fiction for thoughts on how to become more optimistic (although maybe I should). The Lost Symbol was meant to be a little escape from my daily cares and worries. And it was fun, just like his other books, The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, though I think my favorite is still The DaVinci Code.
The age-old battle between belief and science is at the heart of the newest book, just as it was the others. But what makes this one different--and worth a look in the "Cockeyed Optimist"--is that it explores the way in which things that were once thought to be beliefs are becoming science. Things like meditation, biofeedback, the existence of a soul were once thought to be in the domain of a somewhat loopy new age belief system. But more and more, they're being tested by something called Noetic science. (Check out the Institute of Noetic Sciences site.)
This is not a book review. If you want the synopsis on the book, check out the official website.
Suffice it to say that as part of the plot, we are asked to buy into the idea of a set of ancient mysteries, purportedly unlocking powers of the mind that would bring about a utopian new world (or a distopian one, depending on whose hands hold the mysteries.)
[I read this book right after The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet. This book explores real life people with a plan for a Christian empire on earth, wrought by the United States. Talk about your creepy juxtaposition. Here are two books, out at roughly the same time, looking at the potential power of belief to bring about the upheaval of most of the world's stability. Whatever happens, I just hope it doesn't turn out like The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.]
But, to get back to optimism for a second...We already have a lot of studies about self-healing and biofeedback. Here's one from the Washington Post, 2005, which says experienced meditators show a marked increase in activity in an area of the brain that deals with happiness and positive thoughts. Here's an excerpt from the Post story:
Davidson's research is consistent with his earlier work that pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex as a brain region associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions. Using functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) on the meditating monks, Davidson found that their brain activity -- as measured by the EEG -- was especially high in this area.
Want something more recent? Here's one from Science Daily with this year's date saying Zen meditation appears to help alleviate pain.
Well, I've tried meditating on positive things, but I do not notice a marked increase in my happiness. Maybe I just haven't been consistent. Or maybe I'm rebelling against the idea that it's me--not the world--that needs to be fixed.
But, if I interpret the ideas of noetics correctly, we can also use our minds to point a laser beam at things outside ourselves that need to be changed. If that's true, I have quite a list.
So, beginning this weekend, I'm spending a little time each day visualizing things that I want to happen, but have no control over whatsoever. I guess this would be kind of like praying, but without all the self-editing.
We'll see what happens. In any case, it will be better than helpless worrying.

The Money Museum

Everyone needs a day off, now and then. I've found my brain just works better if I can have some time to completely squander on selfish interests. With the scramble of the past eight months, I've lost a lot of that time.
So it was that I decided to take a mental health day last week. Forget the book marketing, forget the unsent emails, the promises to my daughter.
What I wanted was a morning at the Money Museum.
The Money Museum, in case you haven't seen the billboards, is an educational area at the Federal Reserve in Kansas City. For years, I've heard about scout and school groups going there, but our kids missed out on it somehow. So last week, I decided, it was time to go.
I must admit, part of the appeal is the free souvenir--little bags of shredded money visitors can take home. Supposedly they're cut too fine to be able to piece together into a bill. But then maybe the Fed underestimates my determination.
Really, though, I just like the idea that the Fed has something called a "Money Museum." I think of museums as places you go to look at something formerly common but now rare. Like tepees and paddleboat wheels and dinosaur teeth. So it seemed perfect that I should visit one to see what this thing called "money" used to look like.
To get to the museum, you first have to go through a scary marble and glass security area with full airport x-ray equipment and guards in a glassed-in booth. Once inside, the museum occupies a corner of the building's first floor.
There are little touch-screen kiosks that tell you about various aspects of the Federal Reserve--the reason "why you can trust your bank," as one sign says. And there was a movie screen in the middle. But the thing that caught my eye was a long wall with examples of coins minted during each administration. Half-pennies, half-dimes, double eagle gold pieces. Who knew money used to be so interesting and fanciful? (How much were those gold pieces worth? And how, exactly is a half-dime different from a nickel? There wasn't any script to answer those questions.)
There were a lot of other things there, too. A gold bar worth $471,139, tantalizingly close in a display case that invited me to pull the lever to feel how heavy it is. Some war money from the Confederacy and World War II. (Didn't see any scrip from old company towns though. Probably, it's a sore subject now.)
Best was a long time line with objects from the Kansas City Fed over the years. You can start at the right and take a walk down memory lane of Federal Reserve red-letter days. I looked tenderly at the Glass-Steagall act of 1933, and then at its repeal in 1999, which has been widely blamed for the banking speculation that brought the economy almost to collapse last year. I spent a minute pondering 1935, when married women were kicked out of their jobs to make way for the men. And at that day a few years ago when banks could electronically process checks, thereby erasing the "float" on which our budget always depended.
Last stop, around the corner and down a hall, was an area I like to call the "crying room." On one side is a wall of bills (or facsimiles) behind a transparent barrier. This, we are told, is what $40 million of $100 bills looks like. You'd have to spend a dollar every second for 15 months to unload it all, according to the sign. Personally, I doubt that. How about we set up an experiment so I can test their data?
And at tour's end is a window to one last room. Two or three workers are loading stacks of bills into a conveyor on a low, gray machine. I see a window into the machine, with a flashing strobe. Apparently it's reading the money. Look closer, the visitor center greeter advised me. See that tube blowing dust up into the ceiling? That's worn out bills, on their way out of the shredder.
Aaaauuugh!
On my way out, I picked up a couple of pamphlets, a box of colored pencils (non-toxic. Made in China!) and, of course, my little plastic bag of shredded bills.
"There is approximately $165 of unfit currency in this bag," reads the label. Hmmmm.
Well, gotta go now. Got some work to do. Don't call me. I'm going to be busy for a while.

Color my glasses

There was a story in the New York Times last week. And I tried to write about it. I did. Day after day.
But as you see, I was unable to. It just didn't help in the optimism end game.
The story, by Michael Luo, was about unemployment's impact on families, particularly children. It quoted studies that suggest children in families where the primary bread winner has become unemployed suffer emotionally--to the extent that they may be more likely to drop out of school, were 15 percent more likely to repeat a grade and may have lower earnings as an adult.
First reaction: I'm grateful, for my daughter's sake, neither of us has become unemployed. But on second thought: Has anyone studied what mega pay and hours cuts do to kids? When you add the unemployed to the underemployed, you're talking about a lot of people right now. If these things hold true, then Wall Street's greed and mismanagement are even more detestable than previously imagined.
Not only have large corporations taken their workers, wrung them out and cast them off, not only have they stolen huge amounts of taxpayer dollars, but now they are stealing from our children's futures as well. And on another front, an insidious group called "the Family" has worked its tentacles into US and world politics, using religion to defend the status quo. (More about this another time. But seriously, everyone should read The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet.)
Deep breath here. See what I mean? This line of angry thinking is not very useful to me at the moment. It is not helping me be an optimist.
So instead, I'll meditate today on another story I found, this time in Slate and Newsweek. In it, Daniel Gross argues that job recovery may be sooner rather than later. He cites big gains in productivity over the past few months--meaning fewer workers are doing more work. (Economists call this productivity. Another name would be under-paying your employees.) These gains will force companies to hire sooner, because there's only so much you can squeeze out of an employee before he or she collapses. "Hamsters can only run so fast on their treadmills," is the way he puts it.
This could be very good news for all of us.
Assuming the hiring takes place in the United States.
Sigh. There I go agin.

Don't jump!

MSNBC.com did an interesting (and rather long) online post today about suicide rates and the current recession. I just finished reading it, and I have the feeling this is going to be one of those things I'll be waking up to think about in the wee hours.
The writer, JoNel Aleccia, examines suicide spikes in a few places where the recession has been longer and stronger than the national average, then looks at the possibility that we're in for an increase in suicide because of the economy. (Whole story here)
Of course, full data won't be in for a couple of years (the most up-to-date figures are as recent as 2006). But the gist is that, despite these spikes, there isn't enough evidence to say that the recession itself is to blame. Maybe some of the recession go-withs--like home foreclosure, bankruptcy and job loss--provide the last straw for already-depressed individuals. But again, you can't just pin everything on the recession.
As an occasional already-depressed individual, this intrigued me. I've certainly felt the despair, shame and anger that go with seeing your spouse downsized. But why would it be worth taking your life? Why?
The easy answer would be that it's not the money. It's the way the money affects you. It's the daily drumbeat of disappointing your kids when they ask for something even as simple as an ice cream or a movie. It's the public shame of seeing your home go for auction, and perhaps hearing malicious or clueless strangers laugh at your distress.
It's the feeling of becoming invisible.
As a work-at-home mother, I'm familiar with this feeling. In America, your job defines you. When you no longer have that corporate-employee stamp of approval, you see your self worth drifting away. Self-employed won't cut it, either. Self-employed gets you asked for your spouse's job info.
Unemployment seemed to be more visible during the Great Depression. You had bread lines, hobos, skinny kids. But because of various reforms from that era, it's less visible now. Is that a good thing?
During my lifetime, attitudes have changed to make the loss of job and money even more unbearable than it might have been in the hippie 60s where I spent my childhood. I've watched as, during the Reagan years, the ultra wealthy and those "masters of the universe" became the most celebrated beings in America. People of lesser means were blamed for their own conditions, told to "take responsibility" for their misfortune.
Weird coincidence: I just started reading The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet. I'm not very far into it--only up to the chapter on how the religious right gained traction among power brokers during the bloody battles with organized labor in the 1930s. The pitch to the executives then was that labor strife could be eliminated if only the Christ-led top men of the companies treated employees like children (presumably instead of beating them out of their pay, as was then the custom).
A lot of unions have been busted, in the intervening years. Maybe the corporate honchos took that advice. But if they're the daddies and we're the children, then I think it may be time to call Social Services. Get us a foster family. Because too many children are being booted out the door each day with no coat and no lunch money and no doctor.
So, rather than ruminate on how bad things are, we the already-depressed nation need to take some action. We need to mold society back to suit our own needs. (And why not? It's been done for decades by the other side.)
The way I see it there are two ways to go: Take up the picket sign and the megaphone (or just the regular phone) and do what you can to make things better. Or return to the lazy hippie ways of the '60s. Tune in and drop out, man. Become The Dude.
Now pardon me while I take some time to decide.

Godspeed

Call me an overemotional, preachy, patriotic spendthrift. But when Stephen Colbert announced his fundraising effort to help the US Olympic speed skaters, I couldn't resist.
The team lost it's main sponsor this week when DSB Bank of the Netherlands was declared bankrupt in Dutch court, leaving the team scrambling to find $300,000 with a short time before the competition. (ESPN story here)
I don't know what exactly it is about this that got me. Maybe it's the infuriating image of America it presents to the rest of the world.
Yes, folks, that's us. Unable to represent ourselves on the world stage because we are indebted to a foreign bank. Here are our best and brightest, helpless against the forces of high finance. Just like the rest of the country, they're willing and able to do the job, but someone else has all the money tied up.
It makes you just want to rise up, doesn't it?
And so I did. Despite our 30 percent (plus) pay decrease, I put in an online donation this morning.
And you know what? It felt pretty good to be giving to this team. If a lot of other people do the same thing, maybe it will send a message to the rest of the world.
Take that, big money elitists. When Americans decide together that we want an Olympic team (or health care, or public schools or fire protection) you don't have the final say. We do.
Now that's a message of optimism.

Just for the Fun of it

Every so often I get a link to something called The Fun Theory. It's a project developed, apparently, by the European advertisers for Volkswagen, although the videos have nothing to do with cars.
The campaign is about using fun as a motivation to get people to do things they normally don't like to do. Here's the first video, which appeared in a music list serve I'm on:




There have been two other videos since. In one, a trash can has been rigged up with a sound speaker to give the impression that whatever is thrown inside is falling miles before it hits the bottom of the can. And the latest one has a scoreboard that turns glass recycling into a game. (Apparently, the Swedes don't get compensated for recycling glass--just like here.)
It's worth mentioning that this is a contest with a 2,500 euro prize. If you go to the site, you can look at all the videos, plus other submissions, which include singing bathroom hand dryers and light switches, to name a couple.
So VW, when are you going to start a fun project here? Because I gotta tell you, we Americans are in serious need of some fun. All the celebrity gossip and judging of our neighbors is beginning to wear thin. And there's only so much Jon & Kate and American Idol and Runway you can absorb before the thought hits you: This is just second-hand fun. I'm just sitting at a distance, judging someone else's fun. I want to play on the funny stairs! I want to drop stuff in the whistling garbage can! I want to win 2,500 euros!
According to the statistics kept by the contest organizers (Yes. They kept statistics of how many people walked up the piano stairs, versus the obesity-friendly escalator), we can change human avoidance of unpopular chores by adding a little fun into the mix. More people used the "fun" machines in all three of the videos, according to the site.
So I have a bigger proposition for Volkswagen: Can we also get large corporations to behave differently by adding fun? After all, corporations are considered people by the law.
So let's see...
You know what's fun? Dominoes!




What if we used a domino reward for, say, corporate morality and health care? Each domino could represent a person who's life was saved by the public option, then whichever insurance CEO's company lost the most money could knock...Uh, wait a minute.
How about this? Each domino represents $500 saved by small businesses and taxpayers for health care reform. Then when it was knocked over, it would reveal a valentine heart and message, "Thank you, insurance industry, for the sacrifice you made for your country."

Know what else is fun? Houses of cards.




What if we tied a house of cards reward to the mortgage industry? These mortgage guys hate the idea of Washington regulation, don't they? So OK, hire this card stacking guy to build replicas of the hated government symbols, the Capitol, White House, etc. Knocking them over can be the consolation prize for the reforms that disallow some past business abuses. No hard feelings, guys.

OK. One more. Mandalas.






You know the go-go financial whizzes we've been reading about? The Masters of the Universe? The ones who like to bet everything on risky derivatives? They should each be required by law to do one of the ceremonies illustrated above each year. Just sit there, staying out of the marketplace, concentrating on the sand and the god of compassion. And they should have robes and bells and headgear, too.
If it didn't help their chi, at least they'd be in a place where they couldn't hurt us for four days. Problem solved.

Hit the button

Why isn't there a Reset button for weeks like this? Surely, if there was such a thing, I'd be slapping my palm down on it repeatedly today. I'd restart the day without the dog-induced tension at 6:30 a.m., without the cat in my face, without the last-minute bleary-eyed run to school. And without the near miss of my daughter's friend's car, parked on the side of the street. (It's a state trooper car.)
I'd rewind to my morning check of Facebook. Once there, I'd skim over a link to a money advice columnist named Kat Hnatyshyn. I wouldn't click it. I wouldn't read it. Because I already have too much free-floating rage going this morning.
The blog post in question can be found on Kat's Money Corner on KansasCity.com, entitled "Show me some attitude."
Kat's topic is reining in your spendthrift urges, freezing that credit card in a block of ice, quelling that unchecked frivolity that so many of us have these days:

Saying “no” to those little indulgences – like a $4 mocha latte – may be the hardest change of all, but those little expenses add up. Use a goal-setting technique: Start a savings account for something special, such as a nice vacation. Every time you feel the urge for one of those indulgences, stash that money instead in a place reserved especially for that....

Are there really people left out there who still have difficulty with the $4 mocha latte question? Is there someone, right now, in Kat's office (at CommunityAmerica Credit Union) saying, "I'm not sure what I should do with all this extra money and vacation time I have. Do you think I should put it in savings, or should I splurge on a flat-screen TV?" If so, I definitely don't want to read about them.
Right now we have less than $100 of "mad money" to cover our gas and milk purchases until a week from Friday. And our daughter's birthday is this weekend. We'll have to go into savings if we want to give her any kind of present (and we do).
Not that I'm asking for any pity or sympathy. We're still better off than a lot of people who are completely unemployed.
Just about everyone I know has suffered some kind of major lifestyle cutback. If they aren't laid off, they're dealing with an unpaid furlough or a cutback in the business they own. No one is having any trouble saying no to the mocha latte. As for the impulse to run up the credit cards--well, JC Penney just sent us a note saying their new store credit card rate will be 23.99 percent! So I'll have no trouble staying off the card (and perhaps staying out of their stores, as well.).
Believe us, Kat, we'd all love to be optimistic enough about our futures to go on a little spending spree. Maybe replace that bathrobe with the gaping hole in the elbow. Or go all out and buy a toaster oven from a store, rather than a garage sale. Or maybe just buy our families something nice for Christmas after a grindingly long year.
But we're not stupid. Every indication is that things will continue to be bad for a long, long time.
Oops. Sorry about the angry, downer ending. Guess I need a

All I'm asking...

I went to the psychic fair.
The readers and shamans were there.
Went into a trance
Now I'll take a chance
On McClatchy, five dollars a share.

OK, maybe I'm overdoing the optimism a little, here. At last look up, McClatchy was at 3.42 (down .23, or 6.3 percent)
Silliness aside, I did go to the psychic fair this weekend. Or maybe that's silliness front and center.
I've been wanting to go to this event for at least five years--ever since seeing the signs up along Wornall on my way to UMKC. But usually I only saw them after the fact, when the fair had already happened. This fall, however, the stars were perfectly aligned. The fair was on a day I could go. Add that to the fact that the economy has quadrupled my interest in seers and omens. I put it on the schedule. Mike went, too. Hell yes, take the whole family.
The Psychic Fair, put on twice a year by the Psychical Research Society, is made up of tarot readers, shamans and other psychic advice givers doing their thing, surrounded by vendors from every crystal, herbal, aromatherapy and acupuncture place you've ever heard of. Off in one corner, there were various lectures on the hour.
Two were of particular interest: Changing negative energy into positive energy! and Animal Totems (for previous post on my interest in animal totems and the Great Blue Heron, click here).
Talk about your slam dunk.
Sixteen of us waited in the curtained-off lecture hall for AKA Santa Shaman to enter. Here's how the brochure described the talk:
This experiential lecture will help you transcend negative thoughts and feelings, and instead, think and feel more positively. It will help you create a totally different energy and conjure up hope and joy in your heart.
Well allrighty then. This sounds like just the thing.
At around ten past the hour, Santa Shaman entered. He was a diminutive man with long salt-and-pepper hair and beard tucked under a ball cap (was that Kokopelli on the front? I forgot to ask)
He walked slowly with a cart and some plastic tubing at his nose. He explained he'd had a bout with cancer and heart disease, and in fact, was supposed to have died in 2003.
Then he took a handful of bright, artificially colored feathers and shook them at us. "Hey, hey, hey, hey."
"Does that make you feel better?" he asked afterwards.
Um...
"Who wants to come up and heal me? I've been having some trouble with my knee."
A young lady who said she was a healer went to the front of the room. He made some motions over her open palm, first one hand, then the other. Then she bent down, touched his knee and fell a little sideways to the floor.
Santa Shaman then launched into a lengthy story about his quest to become a medicine man, his life as an ordained minister and truck driver, his law degree and his favorite horse (who was struck by lightning the same day the shaman was supposed to have died, which was also the day he had cancer surgery. This horse will be awaiting him when he crosses the Rainbow Bridge, he said he believes.)
"Who wants to be empowered?" he asked us.
Um...
And again with the shaking of the feathers and the "Hey, hey, hey." About a half hour had passed and still no mention of the advertised talk on optimism. Are there any questions so far?
"What about the positive energy?" one of us asked, timidly.
"You are all natural healers," he replied. Then he had us put our hands to our foreheads at the "third eye" and wait to feel the warmth. When that happened, we would put our hands on top of our heads, and SS would draw another volunteer.
He called on another lady, who stood patiently at the front while SS talked some more about his experiences in the armed services and the force of the pendulum. She got to sit down, without doing anything.
A few people got up to leave.
And then, he remembered. When you get those negative thoughts, he said, "go back to your inner child" and think about the things you did that were the most fun to you. "You'll be amazed how fast the gloomy days will go away."
End of lecture number one.
I saw Mike, as I waited for the animal totems lecture. He was just coming out of the talk on guardian angels and looked blissed out. Apparently there'd been some group hypnosis involved. "That was all right," he said, dreamily. (Read his experience here.)
The animal totems talk, by Cliff Humphrey was a little easier to follow. Animal totems are like guides that come to us to offer help and wisdom, if we are still enough to listen. You sit and wait and see what appears. And even though you may not be able to get into the woods for solitude, you can still look for them on a park bench (although, presumably, they'd be ants, pigeons and dogs. Or, if on the beach, seagulls, though I would think everyone who's ever visited a beach has a seagull totem.)
But apparently it's more complicated because it takes a wiser elder, like a tribal grandmother, to notice what particular animals you attract--say a dragonfly in your hair--and tell you to look to those animals for answers and...just as my thoughts began to wander I heard him say "Great Blue Heron."
What? What about the Great Blue Heron? My head snapped up.
And what does it mean that a Great Blue Heron swooped down during a wedding anniversary ceremony...I didn't catch it all.
"It's a blessing."
Well, I tried.
During the hour I had to kill between lectures, I looked around at some of the vendors' booths. At one was a Magic Eye game, which is kind of like a Ouija board only with a pendulum. You hold the pendulum over the dot in the middle, which seems to be magnetized, and the pendulum swings to and fro to spell out answers to the question you're thinking. It was free.
OK. I picked it up.
"Will the Kansas City Wizards win their last match tonight?"
NO
And they didn't (sigh). But they didn't lose, either. They tied, ruining DC United's hopes to get a playoff spot. That made me happy, in a mean-spirited kind of way.
One more question: "Will Mike's employment status change for the better?"
I watched it swing. Yes, No, Luck and then...
Earth.
Earth? Really? I started to walk away but turned around. This was much too important a question to ask with my non-dominant hand. I picked it up again, this time left-handed.
Yes, No, Yes, Luck. It swung wildly. It started to settle on No, so I moved my hand just a little. And the final answer, ladies and gentlemen: Air. Or Money.
Money it is.

Do Not Pass Go

It's all too easy to be glum about the way things have gone this year. But as it's Friday and the beginning of another beautiful weekend, I'd rather end on a happy note of gratitude.
Yes, that's right. I'm grateful that my prayers, such as they are, are being answered.
Back when another administration had just won it's second term and I was a little less jaded about church, I used to pray. I didn't pray for specific election results, or particular things to pass or fail in Washington. I didn't pray for public officials (or Supreme Court justices) to die. I'd just, once in a while, pray that the true character of elected officials would be revealed and that the people would take note. That left room for me being wrong.
And, as the term went on, my prayer was answered--event after character-revealing event. We had hurricanes and financial meltdowns (not that I'd ever pray for any of these things) and the officials reactions were noted.
I don't pray as often these days, but when I do, it's still the same prayer. And it's been making me nervous lately. Sure, we've had the push for health care reform. But it was beginning to look like the true character of this administration was to hand over everyone's money to the upper crust and trust in the same, sorry old "trickle down" theory that got us into so much trouble in the first place.
So I was heartened this week when the White House demanded 50 percent pay cuts and caps on benefits for the top management running companies that got so much government bailout money.
(Here's a story on Bloomberg.com.)
At last, evidence of a spine. Despite the fact that, just the day before, Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths made news for defending the obscene pay packages the financial industry was preparing to shower on it's top earners. Sachs suggested banks make larger charitable contributions (a public relations ploy to salvage their reputations, I suppose.).
And he went on to say:
“It was the failed moral compass of bankers which was primarily responsible for why we had this crisis,” he said. “The question is: what can we do in the culture of institutions to make them behave in a more socially responsible way?” (whole story here)
Failed moral compass? Really?
If you want to see where these guy's moral compasses have been the past decade, check out this depressing chart of Wall Street bonuses versus average annual pay in the Huffington Post.
I've always wondered at the affinity that certain Christian church leaders have for laissez-faire capitalism. Considering that money changers, rich people and hypocrites were often sore points with Jesus, why is unrestrained capitalism the only economy accepted by them?
Capitalism has no moral compass, beyond self interest. Just ask Ayn Rand. The only point of capitalism is to make money, pure and simple. If that means using tax money of the strapped middle class for a second home, or throwing out a worker because his illness costs your company too much, so be it. Moral compasses are for clerics and philosophers.
So Pres. Obama. Keep it up.
Oh, and here's a great screed from Bob Herbert earlier this week in the New York Times.

Way to go, Einstein

The inevitable happened yesterday. When I wasn't looking, the dog (Einstein) ripped a gash of several inches in the largest cushion of our sectional couch.
I'm doing a great job of staying very, very calm about the whole thing. See how steady I'm holding my hand? I haven't dissolved into a screaming fury or wept or done any of the other things I usually do when something is ruined that costs major money that I don't have to fix. Instead, I quietly step back and observe Roxie's life of the past year as if watching it happen to someone else. Psychologists call this "dissociation," I think.
After it happened, I spent some time perched on the arm of the couch, discussing it with Mike in rational, adult tones. The couch was already threadbare on this particular cushion, which could not be turned over. And it was probably seven or eight years old, and nothing lasts forever. And it wasn't my fault because I couldn't be expected to follow the dog around every second.
No angry rants about evil forces beyond my control. Just resigned acceptance. See? I'm learning.
Of course it was tempting to look over at the blank space next to the couch which was once occupied by the recliner that fell apart several years ago. Because we've been trying to live with little debt, we've gone years without replacing that recliner. Same with the minivan, which was hauled off to the Salvation Army when it could no longer be repaired for reasonable money. Living with one car has been a challenge, but we've managed.
But still, I can't help wondering whether trying to reduce debt has been such a great idea, given the circumstances we're now in.
Even before Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, we were big believers in keeping our debt to a minimum. So while others lived it up, we went without a lot of things, and put off repairs. We did borrow for certain things: The house, the car, medical care for the dog, college. But except for vacations, which we repaid ourselves within a year, that was it.
We thought we were building a secure life for ourselves. But now that the recession has cut our income by a devastating amount, we find ourselves with a lot of big-ticket items on their last legs and no resources to repair or replace them.
I can't help wondering if we--and others like us--would have been better off if we'd just gone into debt and bought a new car or stove or couch that would last us through these bad times. We'd have the payments, sure, but there would have been hope of negotiating lower payments, or simply paying the minimum for a while until things get better.
Oh, well. Probably not. I've never been the type to gamble and anyway, it would take a huge personality shift for me to gamble my daughter's college on the hope of things getting better.
Guess I'm just not that much of an optimist.

It's Here

Top of the list of things that cheer me up this week:
We have a book. It's no longer just in our imaginations. It's a real, concrete thing you can hold in your hands.
After thinking about it and planning it and worrying about it for months, it is now, miraculously, off the press and available for sale. I'd compare this to childbirth, but that would be trite (and anyway, childbirth is much, much more painful. No contest.)
Mike made the short trip over to the warehouse yesterday and picked up copies of Mike & Roxie's Vegetable Paradise so we could have some to show--and hopefully sell--at our booth in the Lenexa Chili Challenge this weekend.
I should be tap dancing on the tabletop, right?
But honestly, I feel a little...freaked out. It's been a long time since the last time I worked in the print media. My freelancing pretty much ended in the 1990s. In the time since, I've watched Mike's column and seen how people--some people--discuss things in the 2000s. And it doesn't encourage me to change any of my natural hermit tendencies.
Can we do a garden how-to book without death threats? I guess I'll find out. But it does feel good to have it out there. And hopefully it will entertain a few people and help some others get started on their own vegetable gardens.
The warehouse just got them yesterday, so they'll be in stores (the two that I know of are the Kansas City Store and Borders) in a few more days. But they're available online at The Kansas City Store right now. And of course, if you stop by the Chili Challenge, we'll sign you a copy.

That's better

As I said in the last post, this week is devoted to digging myself out of the huge funk of last week and finding things to cheer me up.
Last week, I was not a pleasant person to be around. Well, ok. let's say I was even more unpleasant than usual. I moped. I picked fights. I obsessed on our finances.
But things are going to be different this week.
And, so far...so good. I forced myself to run and lift some weights. More than just once in the week. That's helped, no denying it. But with the downsizing at the six month mark and things not that much improved, it will take more than just exercising.
So today, in an effort to keep a happy face, I'll be writing exclusively about things that lift my spirits.

1. Well-timed focus groups. If you're lucky, someone will call at just the low point in your pay cycle and ask you to drop by and spout opinions about some products, for which you'll be paid. Of course, they'll also make you disavow any knowledge of their existence. Which is why I'm absolutely not saying I'm going to be in one, or that I've ever been in one, or what the subject matter would be. But it does cheer me up when they call, just at the precise right moment, and I have the time free and I qualify. Is all I'm saying.

2.Beautiful goals. The Wizards haven't been consistently that great this year, so I don't necessarily mean them. In this case, I'm talking about my daughter's goal Sunday. Not just a goal, but a game-winning goal. It was beautiful, an arcing shot at speed from the left side that looked so high I was sure it wasn't going in. Then at the last second it dropped down and into the sweet spot in the far corner of the net. And off her right foot, too. I replayed the mental tape of that goal several times, when I was having trouble getting to sleep.

3.Elephants that paint pictures. Or maybe I should say elephants who paint pictures. I came across this video, which has apparently been verified enough to be on National Geographic.



Now if she'd only sign it.

4. Engrish. Those badly translated signs from Japan (China or other Asian languages) are always fun. Here's one I lifted off the Oddee site. Click here for more examples from this site.

("A Time Sex Thing") Should have said, "articles for daily use."

The Loop of Doom

"Doom loops," and "self vandalism" are two interesting terms that came up last week with regards to the Great Recession. (Seriously, we've got to think up a more colorful name for it.) They're the terms a Harvard professor uses to describe what happens in a company when cost-cutting becomes the only goal and everyone's afraid of being laid off. (Read Mike's column about it here.)
In a doom loop, the scared-s**less employees clam up just when their innovation and brain power is needed most. Because they are afraid of offending the boss in any way, they don't mention how some process could be done better or cheaper. And that leads to the "self vandalism."
The column's emphasis was on doom loops in the workplace. But I think they can also loop their evil way into your head and affect your home life as well.
Example: I didn't get in enough running (or do much of any exercise) last week, which put me in a very bad mood. The depressed and gloomy mood then kept me from running because, really, what's the use of anything? The more the days went by, the worse I felt and the less I wanted to exercise.
Instead, I did what I wanted to do, which was watch television. I watched the Food Network. I watched Alton Brown--not in his normally excellent "Good Eats" but in some bizarre staged 10th anniversary show of a type I would not normally sit still for. I did not cook, because I was so, so defeated from a heroic (and ultimately futile) attempt to keep the two-week grocery bill for the three of us under $200. I should have been able to do that with all the garden stuff, shouldn't I? Proof again that no matter what you do, you lose. Might as well lie still as a stick on the couch watching Food Network until you die.
In fact I've spent the past week curled up in a tight mental ball, wishing for time to pass more quickly (until the financial troubles have passed) and yet more slowly (so we have more time before the college forbearance loans expire). A tight little ball of fermenting cabbage in the dark and gloomy basement (another Alton Brown episode).
Doom loop indeed.
The trouble is, you're not very receptive to new money-making ideas when you're hunkered down, waiting for things to pass. And that's a bad thing indeed.
So this week is dedicated to thinking of things that cheer me up. For instance: I made up a toe-tapper about a...um...little walk I'd like to take the dog on. Humming it brightens things up a little. (Don't worry. I'd never really do any of those horrible things in the song.)
It's a start. Maybe I'll think of more things later. But right now, I've got to get my shoes on and head out to exercise.

Those optimistic Norwegians

When I was more of a churchgoer, I used to hear a lot about "stepping out on faith." The concept: It isn't enough just to believe you know what God wants. You also have to act. And sometimes you have to trust in your beliefs enough to act, even though you're not sure what the outcome will be.
The big example of this usually came at pledge time, when everyone was urged to commit their dollars for the coming year, even though they were unsure of their future bank accounts. After all, "His eye is on the sparrow."
What makes me think of this today is the announcement that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. This despite the fact that he has been president nowhere near long enough to have much of an impact on world peace. The committee apparently felt his election was enough to give hope of world peace after such a long reign by the Bush family.
It's the ultimate optimistic act. In naming Obama, the committee has stepped out on faith--warranted or not--that good things will come of his presidency.
Okay. So the message is, take action based on your trust in a good outcome.
But I don't mind admitting, even as a committed leftist, liberal hippie wannabe (fill in more character slurs of your choice) I have trouble with this concept, because it has so much to do with what's gone wrong with everything. Sure, that house (or car, or computer) is a little more than we can afford. But things are looking good. Let's overextend our credit--just for a year or so. And no, we don't have much saved for college, but with the way the stock market is going, it will double in no time. In fact, maybe the markets would be the best place for everyone's Social Security.
We all know how well that would have worked out.
Nevertheless, the Nobel committee apparently believes in stepping out on faith. Let's hope Obama doesn't let them (or us) down. As for me, I'm happy to reserve judgement until some data starts coming in.
What's that saying of Obama's I was so fond of a few months ago? Oh, yeah.
"I'm an optimist. Not a sap."

Ayn it a Shame?

The name Ayn Rand kept popping up today. First it was in an ad I scanned on my way somewhere else on the web. Something about downloading Atlas Shrugged on your Kindle. ( As if!) Then, as I was looking about for items on optimism, I came across this on YouTube (Reasons to be Optimistic about Ayn Rand's Influence on American Culture). From March, 2008. (Sorry for the length)




This is so touching. Here's this guy, from the Ayn Rand Institute (? !) all earnest about how we need to get schools to teach her books so then her ideas will sound mainstream and not so nutty and far out. You gotta love it.
The Institute will pay your kid big bucks for a little indoctrination, BTW. First place in the high school essay contest brings in $10,000.
I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in college--not because they were required but because my friends recommended them as good old-fashioned bodice rippers. They were all full of virile men with strong jaws battling society and winning their women by the sheer power of their macho manliness. Not much sex in them, as I recall, but they were hot, in a repressed college girl kind of way.
Now I hear middle-aged Republican men are totally into Ayn Rand, and I can't get past the hilarious image of some balding guy in tasseled loafers up in his bedroom all engrossed in the plot. Honey, have you done your homework yet?
Reading Ayn Rand and actually paying attention to the ideas on capitalism is a lot more painful. Ideologically, she has all the subtlety of one of those 1930s posters from the Soviet Union celebrating the masses. Only everything is in reverse. That guy with hands on hips facing into the wind is not a farmer or factory worker but a determined corporate CEO or top investor, fighting the mewling complaints of those envious of his life.
To read these books you had to suspend reality to get around the completely ridiculous plot. In Atlas Shrugged, the hero, John Galt, is a wealthy industrialist so enraged by demands on his genius by the inferior masses that he drops out of capitalism, takes some others with him and retires to watch the end of society as we know it. Because as we know, all the credit for any successful business goes to the two or three guys at the top. They could put out the product all by themselves. We should just be thankful they're generous enough to give out jobs to us undeserving users.
For a time after Obama took office, you'd hear a lot about outraged upper class guys wanting to take their marbles and go home, "go John Galt." You don't so much any more, though.
Maybe it's the realization that this is real life and real money. It's one thing to go Galt on your family, but quite another to abandon your business. Or maybe the ego bubble is beginning to deflate. Maybe they realize that it wouldn't be that hard to find somebody else in short order who could do a better job.
So, reason number one to be optimistic about the influence of Ayn Rand: Recent economic deveolpments have finally proved how ridiculous she was.

How many dead peasants does it take to screw in a revolution?

They say that even a "great recession" has its up side. Talented people, who might have stayed comfortably as small cogs in the great wheel of industry, get booted out into the cold. They invent dynamic new businesses. They create inventions. They branch out and bring new ideas to the new careers they are forced into.
Or, as in my case, they obsess on get-rich-quick schemes.
How, oh how, to get some of that money back? Because I've got news. My daughter is going to college. Thanks to a weekend trip to see Michael Moores' Capitalism: A Love Story, I now have a plan.
I'm taking out a life insurance policy. On Rupert Murdoch. Or Bill Gates. Or Warren Buffet. Or--oh hell, who cares? One of those top-paid CEOs we're always reading so much about. (For an interesting graphic look at executive pay, check out this from GOOD)
Apparently, taking out life insurance policies on lower-rung workers in a large corporation, has been all the rage the past decade or so. The employer takes out a policy in secret on, say, a deli meat cutter, and names itself as the beneficiary. Then, if the meat cutter dies, the company collects--and does not share with the family--the tax-free benefit. It was controversial long before Moore's film, but seeing it again just reminded me of its evil genius. (There was no mention in the film of possible conflict of interest the company has as it doles out health insurance benefits. Or am I just being paranoid?)
It's called "dead peasant" insurance. Revealing, huh?
My version would be called "dead plutocrat" insurance.
I know what you're thinking. "But Roxie, the dead peasant has a relationship with his employer. If he dies, the corporation suffers. You, on the other hand, are not related to any of these high-rollers."
Tut, tut. If you mull it over, if you obsess for hours, the evil logic will come. Have a little faith.
Here's my thinking:

1. All of the company's brains are in the highest rung of its management. In fact, they are the only smart people in the country. Otherwise, why would they be paid so much more? I've resisted this idea for years, but now I see the truth. These people are getting paid so much because without them, the corporations would collapse within seconds. We have to keep paying them protection money, otherwise the corporations and, yea, the whole United States, will be brought to a crushing monetary (and maybe even military) disaster that none of the rest of us are smart enough to deal with.
2. I depend on these companies for my daily existence. This computer I'm using right now, the Internet. What would happen if they suddenly quit working? Or if the power went out. How would I go on? I wouldn't, is the answer. I--and perhaps my family--would die. Or we'd at least lose our livelihoods and go bankrupt.
3.Ergo, the leaders of these mega-corps have life and death power over me, the unschooled peasant. What could be more practical than a policy to propect myself should one of them suffer an unfortunate accident?
Of course, it would be barbaric to root for the death of our country's great fiduciary leaders, and I'm certainly not suggesting such a thing. But on the other hand, we sure do need a new stove. Or money for college. Just one payoff might allow us to swing an extra degree of heat from the furnace this winter.
Think about it.

In related news
Mike Hendricks, Kansas City Star columnist and my husband, posted Monday on executive "incentive" pay at the Tribune Co.
Yes, his blog is back, and open to the general public. The name is changed from "Mike's Place" to just "Mike Hendricks."

Action speaks louder

Sometimes it seems the cosmos are trying to tell me something. The morning of an eye exam, one of the NYT crossword answers will be "glass eye." (True! But everything turned out OK.) Or I'll notice a large spot of bird crap on the car window looks like a blue heron, and then I'll round a corner in a Lenexa park and be surprised by a heron standing in the water while other trail walkers go chattering on. (Don't they see it? Or is it a heron just for me? Spooky!)
This week, soon after I'd read Newsweek writer Julie Baird and author Barbara Ehrenreich questioning whether the whole positive attitude industry is ruining America, I found another item in my new favorite web site, GOOD, headlined "Political activism is good for your head." (Read it here)
This post came about as the result of another study by psychologists that found that engaging in some kind of political activism made people happier and more fulfilled. Here's more.
If you read any of Ehrenreich's other books (Nickel and Dimed, This land is their Land) you'll know she has often sought fairer treatment of the poor and working classes. And--I haven't read the newest book yet--it appears she does the same in her critique of the "positive thinking" industry. If you're always concentrating on your shortcomings for complaining about your life, chances are you'll never take any action to do something about it.
I find myself agreeing more and more with the "take action" approach. Not that I haven't enjoyed the laughing yoga and brain waves tapes (mmmm. Brain waves). They are enjoyable in the short term. But so far I'm learning that anything with a lasting affect on my sour mood usually involves some kind of action. It's a choice: I can sit around, wondering what new fresh hell will come from my way and what I ever did to deserve it. Or I can go on the offense. No question which feels better.
There was one caveat in the new psychological study, though. It seems extreme activism--say the kind that gets you arrested--did not make the subjects feel happier. So no dripping deer heads, please.

Thanks
That said, I still may try some positive attitude self help because--I don't know--because I just can't help it. So I'll try to get some reason to be thankful in here on a semi-regular basis. I can't promise every day. And I can't promise they will all be serious.

Today I'm thankful that the final proofreading on Mike & Roxie's Vegetable Paradise is almost done and the book will be released in only a couple of weeks. You're all invited to come see us at the Lenexa Chili Challenge (Oct. 17). We may have some copies there. In the meantime, here's the cover: