Not who, but what we are voting for

I haven’t blogged for a while because it seemed so futile to put my little puff of gas into the air in the midst of a virtual maelstrom of rants and raves from both sides of this year’s political, to-the-death cage match.  But the mid-term election for control of congress has reached a crescendo of mud smearing so far beyond the minimum of what constitutes reasoned debate, I’m compelled to comment.

 It’s clear to me that we no longer have a choice between candidates with individual strengths and weaknesses to evaluate.  That was the case when it was normal for bi-partisan legislature to result after input by both sides of the aisle met in the middle of the debate.  In today’s climate of extremism, however, the candidates are merely sounding boards for ideology spawned by party leaders with agendas that have become all too clearly defined.  The Republican of 2010 who screams with rage, “We want our country back,” bears no resemblance to the voter who favored the moderate to liberal views of Nelson Rockefeller back in 1964 or the pre-Watergate Nixon who created the GOP coalition that survived until now. 

I grant you the many shades of gray in the following paragraph, but it appears as if the Democrats stand for “the people,” the disenfranchised who desperately need help to make it from one day to the next, the ‘little guy’ who is helpless against the dictates of ‘the ruling class,’ the African Americans and Latinos struggling to get a share of the economic pie. It appears as if the Republicans stand behind the giant corporations, Wall Street, the country’s 10% of the population who own more than 70% of the nation’s wealth (the top 1% own 38%… the bottom 40% own less than 1%).

Threatened by the inevitable realities of shifting demographics, Republicans have not adapted nor embraced the contributions of diversity.  Reluctantly I have come to believe that the message behind the “ObamaCare” catch-phrase and the venomous hand painted signs depicting the president with a Hitler moustache and the patently crazy claim that he is a Moslem have nothing to do with traditional politics or congressional policies.  They are blatant expressions of overt racism.  As former President Jimmy Carter reiterated, “When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds.”  Regreftully the radical fringe he referred to was the crowd at a rally for a republican candidate, a scene repeated on dozens of occasions all across America.

Cautionary tale

I haven’t posted a blog in some time.  “Why bother,” I had concluded, “my voice is a whisper amid a media maelstrom of right wing rant and left wing ax-grinding.”  (Typically I receive a comment or two ranging in rational thought from “Right on, bub” to “Shut your a-hole, moron.”  The most intelligent discourse was prompted by a reference to Esperanto, which drew dozens of adherents out of academic cubbyholes citing the future of a globe-spanning language and eulogizing “One World” Wendell Wilkie.)  But today I need to vent my over-heated adrenals.  I’ve been hoodwinked by an on-line marketing ploy. 

Like thousands of average Joe’s I clicked on the web ad offering information about newly reduced mortgage rates.  Ordinarily I’m wary of any deal, product, service or ostensibly free offer found on the Internet but this seemed safe enough – in bold red type I was assured that my privacy would be fully respected.  So I dutifully typed in my email address and phone number.  Estupido!  For the past three days I’ve been besieged by mortgage brokers calling incessantly and emailing me ceaselessly.  So beware.  Think twice, then twice again before responding to any presumably innocuous offers on cyberspace.  Venders will say virtually anything to snag your electronic address and once they get it, be prepared to add a gig to your Spam repository because it will fill up rapidly.

Curiously how this infringement on my trust frosted me to the level it has.  I should have known better, particularly after forty years in the ad game where weasel words and small-print disclaimers are familiar to any copywriter worth his bloated salary.  But to deliberately do what they said they would not do… that is callused cynicism and disappoints me mightily.  The Internet has given new meaning to the old chestnut, Caveat emptor.

Walking off the New York Times

Every Sunday morning I read the New York Times, eager for a more detailed update on events taking place around the world than provided by the woefully abridged Chicago Tribune.   Lately it’s become an increasingly unsettling custom as story after story describe horrific events taking place in every corner of the world.  This past Sunday the news seemed worse than ever, leaving me with a throbbing headache and a deep-rooted pessimism.  I read stories about a hundred innocent people slaughtered in the Congo by a group calling themselves the Lords Liberators; the murder rate in Chicago at new highs; bombs exploding in Afghanistan, floods on a rampage in Tennessee killing several and destroying whole city blocks; a terrorist bomb scare in Times Square; an oil slick the size of Delaware engulfing the coast of Louisiana; continued unrest in the middle east; disgustingly blatant racism evident in the Arizona immigration bill; more contemptible lies spewed by immoral talk show hosts,,, and I had not yet opened the Business Section with its accounts of greed and borderline criminality on a unprecedented scale.

No wonder my head was aching when I tossed aside the paper and stiffly rose to my feet.   There appeared to be a common thread to the stories, the massacres, murders, suicide bombings, congressional gridlock, Tea Party lunacies, celebrity debauchery, even the ravages of nature could be traced to an incipient Us versus Them bunker mentality.  People were fighting to keep their identities, striking out violently to avoid being absorbed into a One World community.  It occurred to me that the technological advances shrinking the world were scaring people into retreating into smaller and smaller like-minded groups – sects, clans, tribes, NRA clubs, Roe v Wade protesters, neighborhood gangs – identities they believed would keep them from irrelevancy.  And inversely, as comfort levels shrink, the extent of fear-based fundamentalism expands.  If left unchecked I could see the gathering momentum leading to increasingly isolated, ideologically entrenched groups intolerant of any religious, political or philosophical viewpoint varying with their own.

The warm temperatures and unseasonably bright sunlight drew me outdoors.  It was a glorious day.  Within sight of my bedroom window I saw a nest built by a pair of crows.  Two babies, their beaks opened wide, cheeped loudly calling for mama to feed them.  Crossing the street and entering the park I watched a father and his young son launch a homemade kite into the wind.  The trees lining the walkways were budding, millions of bright green Q-tips ready to burst open.  I walked along the lakefront, doffing my sweater and rolling up my sleeves.  The marina, empty a week ago, already was half filled with sailboats bobbing in the gentle swells.  The whimsical Frank Geary designed bridge that connects Millennium Park to the lakefront was open to pedestrians, wide-eyed at the architect’s avant garde music pavilion opening out to the great lawn, the soaring stainless steel sails surrounding the presidium arch spread like angel’s wings.  Blankets blossomed on the lawn itself, families enjoying picnics, the languages of Chicago’s stew pot, Polish, Spanish, Asian, Pakistani, a dozen dialects harmonizing.  I grinned at a little girl in pigtails swinging on her mother’s arms; she smiled back.   I noticed that my headache was gone.  I felt positively jaunty.

Seniors should lead the dialogue, not follow the mob

When I see the predominance of older men and women in the forefront of the turbulent mobs, behaving more like hooligans than dissenters with a valid position to advocate, it comes clear to me what the so-called “Tea Party” movement is all about.  On the surface it appears to be a political group protesting the government’s growing involvement in our everyday life.  But lacking any thoughtful rationale to warrant the sound and fury – the angry signs and vicious epithets so disturbingly racial and malevolently hateful – it becomes clear that something more than political dissent is the goad prompting the ugly displays.  I think it’s an expression of the fear that infests older people when they feel reduced to irrelevancy by a technology-driven, youth-oriented culture.  Terrified at being pushed to the margins of society they scream to be heard.  Unfortunately, ramped up decibels are taking the place of measured dialogue.  It’s completely illogical for seniors to scream that Obama is a socialist, followed with the next breath by howls that “he better not take away our MediCare.”  And just what do the cries of “take back our country” mean?  Obama was elected by a majority of voters, not secreted into power by an armed coup.

It’s often said, when you’re young you feel invulnerable.  I guess by definition, when you’re old you feel quite the opposite, regardless of the reality.  I understand that living as a retiree in today’s mad, mad world is disquieting.  I too am a senior citizen who grew up in the depression followed by the unifying years of WWII; then benefiting in my prime to an unprecedented degree from the uplifting prosperity of the post-war years.  So yes, because of this background I often feel detached from the cyber world that has replaced my comforting daily paper.  But my dear fellow septenarians, being senior carries with it a responsibility to the generations that follow.  We are their sages, the teachers, the philosophers with the perspective that only comes with age.  We are betraying our societal task and subverting our patriarchal duty when we take to the streets with a bunker mentality, fearing attack from an enemy that doesn’t exist.  This is not mature leadership.  This is crackpot behavior fueled by illusions of a revisionist past.  If we want our sons and daughters to respect us and continue to make space for us at the tables of influence we have to lead the dialogue, not follow the mob.

Old enough to remember, wise enough to act

I can remember when being a politician was considered an honorable profession.  It described a man or woman who was engaged in conducting the business of government.  If the politician was a Democrat, that indicated a belief in a government that participated more actively in the lives of its citizens, particularly when it came to the protection of “the little guy.”  If the politician was a Republican the implication was a belief that government should keep ‘hands off’ particularly when it came to regulating the free market and interfering with the conduct of business.  In either event, the disagreement between the two parties was ideological and there was a tacit agreement that compromise from both sides of the aisle was the goal and in the public interest.  

 Today, however, a spirit of acrimony prevails.  Proponents of bills originating from one side of the political spectrum are belittled and abased by opponents on the other side.  Obstruction rather than compromise is the goal.  It has come to the point where the vitriol has drowned out debate, reducing it to shameless attack and counter-account with virtually no regard for corroborating facts and reasoned argument.  To Americans who revere the political process the current climate is reprehensible and unconscionable.  It’s tempting to point the finger of blame at one side or the other.  But that just adds to the bitterness. 

 What to do?  Perhaps reading “The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth or re-reading “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis would be a start.  Is Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann that much different than Father Coughlin, the father of hate radio?   Many of today’s politicians and talk radio agitators apparently lack a shred of conscience.  We don’t have to listen to them.  The votes we cast in November and in 2012 should reflect a very real concern with the dangers of demagoguery.

“Hope” doesn’t mean waiting for something to happen

I am not a guru on how to age.  Quite candidly I skip those “how to” sites.  All too often the instruction they provide winds up with a polemic about giving yourself over to whatever version of “the way” for which they’re proselytizing.  As if there was one, single path to “the light” or whatever they call the Holy Grail.  Which totally turns me off because the suggestion is that what you’re searching for waits for you at the end of the tunnel; a long way down the line given today’s medical advances and the wonderful quality of life we enjoy.

 Me, I’m all for the here and now!  I don’t hope for a better future because that can translate into waiting around for something to happen rather than taking responsibility for creating the circumstances necessary to make whatever it is you’re “wishing” for, actually occur through your own efforts, not some divine intervention.

I think all too many folks “of a certain age” refuse to buy green bananas, so to speak, because they are so pessimistic about their futures they relegate themselves to lives much more confined than need be.

The Cantankerous State of the Union

This piece is about the State of the Union speech but not about politics per se.  It’s an equal opportunity harangue applicable to neo-cons, left wing dems, tea baggers and populists alike. 

I’m responding to what the cameras showed me as they scanned the faces of the pols, court justices (I almost wrote court jesters, an understandable subliminal slip considering the noble nine’s supreme descent from trusted adjudicates to sycophantic clowns), cabinet members, military brass (looking for all the world like caricatures of third world despots) and assorted mucky-mucks occupying both sides of the historic chamber’s aisles.  I saw misanthropic old men, their frowns of negativism permanently etched into disdainful, mistrusting glares.  On cue, in unison, they nodded agreement or deepened their grimaces into derisive scowls depending on “the side” they represented. I saw not a soupcon of genuine civility never mind a respect for the honored tradition of the speech and a benefit of the doubt afforded to the proposals tendered.  It was “us” and “them” entrenched in unmovable cordons.

The observation saddened me.  In school I was taught about a democracy that served the people, all the people from all levels of our society.  But it was clear that these politicians not only represented narrow constituencies but tightly defined ideologies that claimed sole representation of the vastly broader tenets of democracy that birthed the country and gave it its strength.  I saw our nation floundering in demagoguery; strangled by political party fundamentalism.  I saw in those faces a political system that serves only the minority of the populace, the people who seek, and wield power.

What saddened me more, for the most part I was looking at the faces of men who were in their fifties and sixties and seventies.  These were America’s senior citizens, the AgeWise demographic who by this time in their lives should have substituted compassion for contempt, tolerance for prejudice and a one-world, universality for isolation behind battlements of self-righteousness.  I was disheartened.  The example these men were setting would only breed more rancor and more stalemate and more of the now-precipitous decline in the majesty of our country.  I wondered if these men, so contemptuous and petulant, were collectively the face of America’s senior citizens.  I hope not.  If we seniors want to be respected as patriarchs rather than pariahs, we have to start behaving as teachers rather than political terrorists.

What is this thing called love?

Valentine’s Day is around the corner.  Romance is in the air.  Heart shaped candy boxes and bouquets of flowers offer up syrupy sentiments of love, sweet love.  Alas, all too often come February 15 the Hallmark card is in the trash and we’re back to struggling with the ups and downs of our relationship with the significant other in our lives.

So just what is the answer to Cole Porter’s haunting lyric, “What is this thing called love?”  If there is anyone who can accurately answer the question it’s us seniors who have survived being impaled by Cupid’s arrow.  We’ve got the perspective that comes with age (and for most of us, the scars that prove it!).  Looking back with the help of my therapist wife’s monthly newsletter, four stages of a relationship come into focus.

First there’s the falling in love stage, becoming infatuated with our idea of the other rather than the true identity that is the other person.  Next comes the disillusionment; inevitable because our ideal is not based on reality but rather is a product of our own making.  Many relationships end here, dissolved by failed attempts to hold on to the euphoria of the “in love” feeling. 

The third stage – confrontation with reality – may be the most difficult, requiring us to go beyond flighty and ego-centered cloud nine feelings, willingly opening ourselves to consideration of the other person’s motives.  To propel a relationship past this phase it takes unequivocal honesty and genuine listening skills to determine the existence of a shared reality and common cause.  The effort is worth it because it leads to the final stage, true love, an appreciation of the other’s unique strengths, personality and character… a view of the person as he or she is, rather than as we idealized them initially.  In essence we fall in love all over again, this time with the reality of who our partner is rather than the fantasy we had in the initial stage of the relationship.

Of course if it is as simple as one, two, three, four, why do half the couples that hitch up each year, split up?  In actuality it is no easy matter to understand what the barriers are within yourself, let alone understand your partner’s perspective. I do have one bit of advice for my women readers.  If you’re looking for a man find one with pierced ears.  He’ll be better prepared for marriage having already experienced pain and purchased jewelry.  Not to end on a frivolous note here’s a quote from the Course Of Miracles that’s on the mark when it comes to love, “Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Bring back Esperanto

The first time I went to Mexico I literally bumped into the language barrier before getting to the hotel.  Posted everywhere on the two-lane road from the airport were roadside signs indicating Tope, 200m.  “Evidently a local town is just ahead,” I thought to myself.  But after passing a half dozen of the ubiquitous cryptograms with no town in sight I wondered aloud when the mysterious Tope would come into view.  “Donde esta Tope” I sputtered in my best Spanish accent retrieved from the cerebral cortex archives where it had been stored for decades after three torturous years of classes at la escuela superior de Passaic, New Jersey.   “Aqui,” laughed the driver, bouncing over the formidable speed bump that kept Mexican drivers from turning the highway into a mach speed, drag racing strip.  “Y aqui,” he added, as the taxi’s shocks creaked over still another bump in the road.  Finally it hits me.  “Tope” means, “speed bump.”  Red faced, the gaff reminded me of my visit to Spain several years earlier when I asked the barber to use the mantequilla on my sideburns, meaning to say “machina” or clippers, but asking instead for the butter!

 I’ve attempted to learn Spanish a half dozen times, most recently when I instructed Sonia, our maid from San Salvador, to try to communicate with me in English while I made an effort to respond in Spanish.  We ended the experiment when the neighbor next door banged on the wall and asked us to keep the yelling down.  It seems that people talk louder when they can’t be understood, simply repeating the same kindergarten phonetics louder and louder as if raising the decibel level to jet engine amplitude is the key to comprehension.  As I found out, however, sometimes screaming Pidgin English at the top of your lungs can be dangerous, particularly when a Para-military Ukrainian border guard is interrogating you on the night train from Budapest to Munkachevo.  It can be frightening when the officer in charge becomes increasingly irate because of your inability to understand his demand that you fill out a document printed in the Cyrillian alphabet.  “Ma-don-nah, ma-don-nah,” he shouts louder and louder, growing progressively more red-faced as we stare back blankly.  The veins in his neck are looking like a snarled telephone cord when my wife Arlene, bless her heart, suddenly “gets it.”  The guard wants to know if we’re bringing any religious objects into the country!  Our hasty disclaimer cools the situation and explains the apoplectic fit that took place earlier while he was screaming “Nar-cot-ticks, nar-cot-ticks” into our uncomprehending ears.

 I think the inability to communicate with each other is the primary reason the world’s populace is about ready to tear itself apart.  People seem so sinister when we can’t understand what they’re saying, particularly if they’re sporting a gold tooth or an ear-to-ear tattoo that looks beautiful in Micronesia but doesn’t have quite the same cache in Lincoln Park.  A Puerto Rican kid from Logan Square walks up to you and asks paso subterraneo? and we’re more likely to give him our watch and run like hell rather than direct him to the subway on the next corner. 

 A century ago French was the second language of the cognoscenti.  To the common man, however, it was more like Greek.  Nowadays international travelers to the major capitals are apt to find a cab driver able to overcharge them in English as well as the local lingo, but the language of MTV and the Home Buying Network still falls far short of universality and the Brooklyn accent remains indecipherable.  Spanish is making a move toward global usage but is stifled by the anti-immigration forces that mischaracterize hard working, family oriented Mexicans as illegal agents of the devil. 

 What the world needs to do is resurrect the Esperanto movement!  

 Esperanto is an artificial language that dates back to 1887 when it was invented by Polish physician Ludwig L. Zamenhoff to enable people of different ethnic backgrounds to communicate, person to person, on an equal basis, making it possible to talk out their differences and resolve their mutual problems.    Esperanto – the name comes from the pseudonym (“Doktoro Esperanto”) used by the author in his first textbook – can be learned much faster than a typical natural language because the grammar is consistant, with only one paradigm for nouns and one paradigm for verbs. There is a simple relation between written and spoken text with about 70% of the vocabulary coming from Romance languages, 20% from German and English and the remainder from Slavic languages.  At the turn of the century the Internacia Lingvo began to gain popularity, people from several dozen nations talking together in a language suitable for transnational intercourse of all sorts.  The World Almanac estimates from two to ten million people spoke Esperanto prior to the Second World War when the great numbers of Esperantists killed in the Nazi death camps effectively decimated the movement throughout Europe.

It’s amazing how quickly rapport is established among foreigners when they are able to exchange even a few words that are mutually understood.  We go from being disconnected and alien to becoming participants taking part in the interaction rather than feeling isolated on the outside looking in.  Oftentimes it is the intention rather than the intonation that can ignite a smile and create rapport.  Looking for an ATM in Ixtapa I shared glum glances with a middle aged lady standing disconsolately by a machine that was unexpectedly out of order.  She patted her stomach and said slowly Deseo dinaro para el desayuno.  I understood instantly and responded, Si, no dinero, no comida.  Bonded by common interest we laughed and made our way to another ATM station that she knew of, and that I otherwise would never have found.  For a few minutes we were connected, struggling with our dialogue but finding pleasure in our momentary alliance.  My gracias and her de nada resonated with far more meaning than ordinarily carried by that desultory exchange of Conversational Spanish 101.

 Perhaps the best translator is the smile that accompanies your query  “¿Dónde está el baño?” is an earnest stab at speaking the language but somehow or other the waitress at the Mexican restaurant cheerfully points my wife toward the door marked Damas.   In the Mercado at Zihuatanejo a shopkeeper asks, “Shmattehs?” an unexpected icebreaker that doubles me up in laughter since he’s used the Yiddish word for rags or anything worthless as his sales pitch.  It’s clear his mastery of the idiom is only a bisel (a little) but I wind up buying a belt with a silver buckle and a tee shirt with Ixtapa embroidered on the front and “Made in Taiwan” printed on the tag.

From the corner office to a corner of the den

In the past I’ve held prestigious titles familiar to the world of advertising and business: Creative Director, Marketing Manager, President, and Chief Executive Officer.  As the new retiree quickly learns, however, the lofty nameplates no longer apply when you bring your working career to a close and move from the corner office to a corner of your converted second bedroom.  The challenge is to avoid the label of “Old Person” by staying vital and actively involved in the flow of life rather than idling on the sidelines.  The title I’d like to assume is “New Archetype,” a description of a retired businessperson who has successfully put down a revitalized underpinning on which to build his self-esteem.

The difficulty lies in replacing the old means by which one gained his “props.”   Primary to the process is going inward, adding a more kindly, spiritual component to your outlook on life rather than looking only to the external and material rewards of “power” and clout.  The New Archetype is compassionate, without ego (a continuing struggle) and teaches by example, obtaining reward by standing in the wings taking pleasure from accolades earned by the young men and women who call him their mentor.

I started writing after reading still another disappointing novel, thinking to myself, “I could write a better book than that turkey.“  Having just turned 73, facing the vicissitudes of getting older, I had a mother lode of relevant material.  The stories in “73” revolve around an essential theme:  “When old age hits you can either fall down or hit back.”  Living in a celebrity-worshipping culture that regards people in their seventies like old cars ready for the junk heap, I write about heroes and heroines who refuse to look at the odometer (and a few definitely too old to drive!).  What stands out is the cumulative impact of the collection taken as a whole – when the reader closes the cover on the final story he or she definitely will know and feel what it’s like to grow old, struggling to resist becoming irrelevant in a youth-oriented society.  I’m currently working on a follow-up to “73” entitled “Bottom of the Ninth,” which continues the theme.

Writing is a welcomed change after a four-decade career in marketing and advertising working for several of America’s leading agencies. The field has changed considerably since I was a young copywriter.  My goal was to write headlines that lit a light bulb over the readers’ noggins.  (The one I always tried to emulate was the famous Volkswagen ad…”Did you ever wonder how the man who drives the snowplow gets to the snowplow?”)   That’s what I try and do with my short stories – invite the reader to participate in the process.