Penni's Story

From Dallas Morning News: 12/15/08

Baylor team helps families face death together 

12:15 PM CST on Monday, December 15, 2008

By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News

Sonya Hebert / DMN

David Bourque stands next to his wife Penni to make sure she is comfortable as she nears the end of life.

LIVING UNTIL THE END

Janet St. James reports

We can't beat this, David Bourque thought, staring at ghostly X-ray images of his wife's ovarian cancer.

They'd rushed 60 miles the night before from their home in Canton, Texas, to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. His wife, Penni, writhed with a bowel blockage as their 8-year-old, Michelle, sat wide-eyed in the back seat of their Pontiac Vibe.

Mr. Bourque tried telling Michelle that her mom might not make it. The little girl set stuffed animals and a purple-and-orange squirt gun on her mother's emergency-room gurney like talismans.

The Bourques were medical people. Mr. Bourque, 44, was a pediatric ICU technician starting nursing school; Mrs. Bourque, 45, was a pediatric respiratory therapist. They couldn't kid themselves, but it wasn't clear how much their daughter understood.

They'd tried to spare her, and sensed that Michelle was trying to protect them, too. They all needed help to get through what was coming. But nothing else could happen as long as Mrs. Bourque was trapped in agonizing pain.

At 10 a.m. on a Wednesday in June, Dr. Roberto de la Cruz of the palliative team came to the glass-fronted ER bay where the family had spent the night, sleeping on a gurney, cot and chair. He checked Mrs. Bourque, who was heavily sedated, and then took her husband to show him the X-rays.

Mr. Bourque had the quiet wariness of a man who'd taken hard blows and was bracing for more. They'd endured ovarian cancer nearly four years, longer than most women survived it. Married 15 years, he and Penni were soulmates.

Mrs. Bourque's tumors had caused her first painful, inoperable bowel blockage in summer 2007, as they drove to New Mexico for her father's funeral. Cancer's cruelty enraged Mr. Bourque, killing his father-in-law with pancreatic tumors and sending his wife to another hospital instead of her father's burial.

From what Mr. Bourque read, she should've been dead 90 days after her first blockage. But she somehow got through, saying in her childlike voice that she just kept swimming -- like the plucky fish Dory in their favorite movie, Finding Nemo.

TDMN

Kelly Fuller (left) and nurse Min Patel (right) help patient Beverly Freeman sit up in her bed at Baylor University Medical Center.

After a second blockage last April, Mrs. Bourque's oncologist called in Baylor's palliative team. Dr. Robert Fine, the team leader, had talked alone with Mrs. Bourque and then sat down with the couple.

"Penni understands that her disease isn't going away, barring the miraculous hand of God," Dr. Fine told Mr. Bourque in their first long meeting. "She understands there is a future for you and your daughter that doesn't include her."

Michelle needed special guidance, he said. "You guys are still the parents, but you've never been through this before. And how we help the children of terminally ill parents is very important, even if you have a few years left. I don't know how much time you have."

Mr. Bourque pushed back. Why the dramatic change? His wife's oncologist had spoken only of hope and chemotherapy.

"We're getting a mixed message," Mr. Bourque said, his voice quiet but pained. "What's going on?"

Dr. Fine responded carefully. "I hope you perceive me as open and honest and not mincing words. I use the 'D-word.' When I was a young doctor, you never said death was coming. It was a taboo. You never had the chance to say goodbye. You never talked to the children. You never treated pain well."

He hoped they would get more chemotherapy, too, he said, but it could only buy time -- not a cure. And medical data on terminal cancers suggested that a scorched-earth battle might do them more harm than good.

"It may feel mixed," Dr. Fine said. "But my hope is for quality of life."

The Bourques had always feared that ovarian cancer was a death sentence. "But I was trying to push that away," Mrs. Bourque told Dr. Fine.

"I'd like you to go toward that for a while -- for your sake, for your husband's sake, for your child's sake," he gently responded. "So you can plan."

Palliative nurse Min Patel visited a few hours later and, for the first time, Mrs. Bourque voiced her anguish over not being there for the milestones in Michelle's life -- her 18th birthday, her graduations, her wedding day.

"I have so much more to say," she said, "and so much more to do and so much more to teach her."

In their first visits last April, the nurse also encouraged Mrs. Bourque to write down her hopes, her life lessons and all the values she wanted Michelle to know as she grew. She also could put aside heirlooms and tokens of her love for Michelle to receive gradually, in the same way that one of Ms. Patel's patients made special bracelets for each of her 3-year-old daughter's future Christmases and Easters and birthdays.

"You have a blank canvas," Ms. Patel had said. "You know a lot of people fear, 'Oh gosh. The memories of my mom will fade.' And this way, the memory will stay."

So her daughter would know the battles she had fought for her, Mrs. Bourque spent the next several weeks putting together scrapbooks -- starting with Michelle's premature birth, six weeks in neonatal intensive care and a trip halfway across the country as a toddler for surgery to remove a growth on her neck.

She wrote letters -- one for the day she died, another for Michelle's 18th birthday, and another for her daughter's wedding day. When her husband got goggle-eyed about what he'd say when Michelle had her first period, Mrs. Bourque was able to laugh, "I'll write a letter for that, too!"

Reverse nesting, she'd say, for death -- not birth. She was desperate to leave pieces of herself, to keep them connected somehow.

It was a relief, she said, that doctors were no longer shielding them with silence -- protection she once welcomed but now saw as doing more harm than good. She wished she'd had the help of palliative care sooner.

"It's helped focus me that we need to get things done," she said. "It's very hard facing your own mortality, and this has given me time to work things out with God, to work things out with the family."

But by June, they were back at Baylor and Mr. Bourque said it felt like the last ground beneath his family was giving way. Looking at computer images of his wife's tumor, he could sense their existence collapsing. There was a divide his wife would cross alone.

"She won't last the year," he told Dr. de la Cruz.

How would he tell their little girl?

Their plan to visit New Mexico one last time might not be in the cards. Mrs. Bourque had longed to see her father's grave in Santa Fe, say goodbye to family and show Michelle the mountains where she and David married. They had a flight that next week.

But pain changed everything.

Painkiller patches and narcotic lollipops couldn't ease Mrs. Bourque's ordeal the night they rushed to Baylor. And Mr. Bourque was terrified of overdoing the drugs.

"Oh my God," Ms. Patel said to the Bourques as she walked into Room 421 that June morning."You've had your hands full."

Mrs. Bourque said she was feeling better, thanks to intravenous pain drugs. She looked monastic, with her chemo-shorn hair, pale skin and sunken blue eyes. Ms. Patel explained that Dr. de la Cruz and the palliative team's pain-management nurse were working on a plan.

Other clinicians could be reluctant to prescribe narcotics because of red tape and the stigma of those drugs, and patients hesitated to ask for them, fearful of drug dependence or seeming weak. But the palliative team knew the medicines could extend quality and quantity of life. Addressing pain and other symptoms aggressively freed people to focus on emotional and spiritual transitions, and the team had seen profound moments of transcendence as a result.

"You've been great," Ms. Patel reassured Mrs. Bourque. "We may just have to try something new."

They'd try to get a portable intravenous pain pump, Ms. Patel said, so the Bourques could stay home and enjoy life.

The question: What kind of life would that be?

Mr. Bourque saw hospice on the horizon but confided to palliative team members that he didn't want his wife to feel they were giving up on her. Mrs. Bourque couldn't bring herself to look there -- not yet.

"Sometimes I wake up and think I'm ready to go, to quit, but I just keep swimming," she said, her voice breaking. "I know we may be coming to the end of what might be possible."

At the next day's palliative team meeting, heads nodded around the basement conference table when Dr. de la Cruz mentioned the Bourques. A third of the team had seen them in the last two days -- Dr. de la Cruz, Ms. Patel, the pain-management nurse, a social worker, an occupational therapist who gave a guided meditation session, and a child-life specialist who visited with the couple about Michelle.

Dr. de la Cruz told teammates that Mr. Bourque was "ready to face facts." But he was scared to tell his wife that he needed to drop out of school to take care of her. "I said that's what he has to do," the doctor added.

Child-life specialist Emily Mulkey said she planned to talk with Michelle that morning.

Specialists from Baylor's pediatric rehabilitation hospital helped out informally with the palliative team and were trying to get funding to do more for palliative patients' children. It was too easy for kids to get lost in grown-ups' hospitals.

Would insurance cover a portable IV pump? someone else asked. Some companies rejected such equipment requests, and they'd have to work fast to get the Bourques on their way to New Mexico -- a trip that was one of the few unfinished entries on Mrs. Bourque's self-styled "bucket list."

Ms. Patel set her jaw. "We have to make that happen."

The purple book, Mama's Going to Heaven Soon, had a childlike drawing on the cover of a woman flying through the night sky with an angel.

The Bourques lacked the words to tell their daughter , so Ms. Mulkey, the child-life specialist, brought the purple book along for her meeting with Michelle, a spunky towhead with hazel eyes and a Tinker Bell T-shirt.

She was 4 when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. She had no memory of her mother that didn't include illness, treatments and hospital stays.

After Ms. Mulkey led her to an empty office near her mother's hospital room, Michelle insisted that her mom was OK.

Swinging her legs on a rose-colored vinyl chair, the little girl showed off her stuffed animal, a snow leopard, and bantered about friends named Emily and cats outsmarting dogs. "The old saying of 'Cats rule and dogs drool'?" she said. "Dogs actually drool!"

Smiling, Ms. Mulkey held up the purple book and read its title aloud: "Mama's Going to Heaven Soon."

"It's got pretty long pages," Michelle said, doubtfully.

Ms. Mulkey read and Michelle fidgeted until the part where the storybook mom stayed in bed. She called out: "My mom does, too!"

What, Ms. Mulkey asked, might the storybook girl want to tell Mom?

"Please play," Michelle said, her voice suddenly small.

How might the little girl feel?

"A little prickly and funny," Michelle said. "Sometimes I might smile a little bit, but not much."

Hearing that the storybook mom had cancer, Michelle said cancer was a germ that grew and grew. She thought that she might've made her mother sick.

Ms. Mulkey shook her head. Kids often worried like that. "I don't want you to feel like it was you," Ms. Mulkey told her.

"My body doesn't believe in cancer, except my mouth," Michelle declared. "I talk about cancer a lot."

Cancer sent her grandpa to heaven, she added. "I still miss him, and I have a picture."

"Can you call him in heaven?" Ms. Mulkey asked.

"He doesn't have a phone," Michelle said. "Maybe we can send an e-mail."

Could her mom talk from heaven?

"You have to listen closely," Michelle said.

As Ms. Mulkey read how the storybook mom went to heaven, Michelle's face darkened. Her eyes darted around the cluttered office, looking for relief in the stacks of papers and files.

"I do not get it," she finally said, her voice flat.

The storybook girl felt sad and scared, Ms. Mulkey said. How did Michelle feel?

"The S-word," Michelle whispered, curling around her leopard.

Ms. Mulkey asked how her mom might be when they went home.

"Probably feeling better," Michelle declared.

Ms. Mulkey leaned in and spoke with care. "The medicines for the cancer aren't working. Your mama's getting to where she's not going to feel very good. And she's going to get sicker, and she'll eventually die."

"Sometimes," Michelle said, trying harder to sound brave. "Maybe not."

Her mom's doctors were very sure, Ms. Mulkey said, "she's not going to get better."

"Why can't they cut the cancer away?" Michelle blurted. "Why can't they cut her open and take some of the cancer again? They took some of the cancer out. Why couldn't they take all of it out?"

"When people can't get better," Ms. Mulkey said, "they die."

The little girl curled into a tight ball, hugging her leopard.

Ms. Mulkey offered her a plush bunny with pockets for keepsakes and said she could decorate a white memory box, too.

Michelle wrote "Penni" and drew a heart on the box and glued cotton balls and feathers inside. She tickled Ms. Mulkey with a fuchsia feather and talked about how the bunny might fit in with her family of stuffed animals.

Returning to her mom's room with the bunny and the book, Michelle climbed in bed to cuddle. Mrs. Bourque put the bunny in her lap, opened the purple book and read its title: "Mama's Going to Heaven Soon." She whispered to her daughter: "I'm not going to cry."

Michelle, wide-eyed, held her leopard tight and chewed gum fast. She giggled nervously when her mother read that the storybook mom felt too bad to get out of bed. "That's what you say, too!"

"I know," Mrs. Bourque replied. "Sometimes I'm just too tired."

When Mrs. Bourque read that the storybook girl didn't know why her mom was sick, Michelle giggled again.

"I know why you're sick!" she said, leaning her head on her mother's shoulder. "You have cancer!"

"I pray for my cure," Mrs. Bourque said softly.

She looked stricken as she read how the storybook girl wondered why her mom wouldn't come home. "I can't read this part," she said.

Michelle recited for her: Don't you love us anymore?

Mrs. Bourque fanned her face with her hand and looked away.

"I will always love you," she whispered, wiping tears.

A technician came in to take Mrs. Bourque's temperature.

And then the little girl in the Tinker Bell shirt tried what magic she had left. She threw the purple book off her mother's bed and reached for a Mickey Mouse coloring book.

"Alrighty-righty!" she declared. "Which side do you want to color?"

Penni Bourque began that Friday, the 13th of June, happily wandering the airy, yellow fourth-floor hospital hall, past larger-than-life paintings of women living heroically with cancer. Pushing an IV pole in her pink pajamas, green chenille robe and fuzzy slippers, she was giddy about going home.

Her daughter seemed better, too, chattering on the phone with her mom the night before about a movie. Michelle had said matter-of-factly that she hoped her mom lived to see it. She didn't seem as sad or distant or mad at the cancer.

By noon, however, no one had come to discuss Mrs. Bourque's discharge. That meant she'd probably be stuck at the hospital all weekend and miss her flight to New Mexico.

She was hunched on her bed, crying, when Ms. Patel appeared at 12:30 p.m. "My favorite patient!" the nurse called.

"All my doctors are gone," Mrs. Bourque wailed. "I'm all alone."

Ms. Patel was instantly at her side, arms around her.

"We all know what's going on with you," she soothed. "We'll make sure that we take care of you."

"I just can't stay in the hospital," Mrs. Bourque cried. "I was getting to go to Albuquerque."

"It's going to be OK," the nurse told her. "We'll fix this."

Ms. Patel sprang into action. Her 16 other patients would have to wait. She punched numbers on her cellphone, as she dashed down the hall to the nurse station, where she grabbed a second phone.

"She's going to go home today," Ms. Patel declared to three nurses. She grabbed Mrs. Bourque's medical chart. "I need to sort out this mess," she grumbled.

Scooting in an office chair over to the medical records clerk, Ms. Patel waved a prescription form for Mrs. Bourque's pain medicines that would have to be signed in triplicate.

"Girlfriend, would you do me a favor?" she asked the clerk. "I know you will for me. I know you will. Will you fax this over to [Dr. Mark] Casanova's office? I'm good, I'm good. I'm good at begging. Let's fax it over to his office so I don't have to run over there now. Then I can run over later and pick this up."

She then rode herd on a home health company, corralled a pharmacy, and spurred a medical equipment provider to do in minutes what usually took a day.

Fourteen phone calls and an hour later, the nurse walked back into Mrs. Bourque's room with signed prescription forms and a final hug to send her on her way.

Michelle bounced in soon after, declaring herself invisible. Smiling, she said her mother "has been with the angel."

Mrs. Bourque and Michelle headed down to a patient-discharge door where Mr. Bourque had the family car waiting. Michelle shadowed her mother's wheelchair, play-acting. She was a tiger, growling. She was a monkey, hooting. She was invisible, dancing.

Her mother watched her, laughing the whole way out of the hospital.

If cancer had taught them anything, perhaps most important was how seemingly random moments -- like this one with Michelle -- could be the greatest gift. Mrs. Bourque had grown up hearing she had a purpose, and she'd always puzzled over what that might be.

She giggled at her daughter dancing down a busy Baylor hallway, toward David and home. In such moments, she would later say, everything was so clear. Touching and sharing lives and seeing her love move outward to others wasn't that purpose enough?

It felt good, too, to know where they were headed. Death would come. But Mrs. Bourque was going to live as long and well as she could.

As the Bourques drove off in the family car, with Michelle waving goodbye from the back seat, Ms. Patel was already speeding into another room upstairs, calling out, "How's my favorite patient today?"Last of five parts

Need Hanky

Last summer Penni came out here to visit our father's gravesite. She brought along a reporter who took video and pictures of the trip for the Dallas Morning News. They've just released a video about her struggle. Here is a link to the clip. Keep in mind when watching to have a hanky or tissue close to hand.

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/?z=y&nvid=311685

Encouraging news

On Penni's Caringbridge page today she's mentioned that she still has some vision in the eye that is giving her problems, and that she's out of pain. Mom's flying down to be with her today. We don't know how long that will be which has our Christmas plans up in the air.

Grinnygranny and I had part of our Christmas a little early yesterday. We had massages (massage massages). Oh my well worth the money. Nothing rejuvenates you better. 

Put in a new ink cartridge in my printer at school, ran off my finals and it came up low on ink. Oh for the good old days when the printers used ribbons, which were a whole lot cheaper. Curses on Bill Gates and Microsoft who have made us phase out dot matrix printers starting with NT, and XP.

Hard times

These next few days are going to be dark and gloomy. Mom is flying back out to Texas to be with Penni. She's had an ulcerated eye for the last few days, and today she's lost it. They've superglued a hard contact onto her eye to keep it from  ulcerating any further. Mom's not sure how long she'll be out there.

Mad rush time

Turkey day is over (nice to have four days off). We've just about eaten all of the left-overs.

Now comes the mad dash to finish the semester, give finals, grade papers and look forward to a couple of weeks with grandson. Mom's going to have him stay with her, but we'll have plenty of time with him.

So far the weather has been nice for this time of year; good news for golfers like me, but the skiers are not so happy. Santa Fe has been trying to manufacture snow, but it keeps melting on them during the day. Sandia Ski area doesn't open until after the first of year. I'm hoping for good weather so I can get more golf in. I put on ten pounds each winter when I can't get out. The exercise helps me maintain my weight, but it doesn't help me lose it once it's on.

Here's hoping everyone is going to have a fine and wonderful holiday season.

Belated Thanks

This is after all my Friends and Family blog, and I just noticed that my toasts for Thanksgiving only dealt with family.

I wish to express my thanks to Michael Manning, Irina, Brian, Russ, and many other friends that visit my blog and leave comments. May you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends and they made you feel truly rich in love.

A Day For Gratutude

Happy Thanksgiving to all and may we truly appreciate that which is the greatest form of wealth on this planet -- our families.

To my mother: Thanks for giving me life, manners, belief, and being the driving force that helped me finish my education and becoming a teacher. May your days be filled with peace and good friends to help you through this time of sorrow.

To my wife: Thanks for giving me thirty years of your love, support, toleration, and opinions as we shared our life's joys, sorrows, triumphs and tragedies. May we have many more years.

To my children: Thanks for your being in our lives these many years. We love you both dearly and wish you much happiness in your lives. You have made our life interesting and fulfilling. May you both be able to become independent and find the same kind of happiness from your children as we found in you and our grandchildren.

To my brother: Thanks for your strength and righteousness. Congratulations on the prospect of finally becoming a grandparent. May we continue to keep in touch even if only by internet.

To my sister: Thanks for you admiration as we grew up, your smile and good humor, your strength as we faced tough times while in our father's last days. May you enjoy the time you have with your family and know how much you are truly loved.

What I Found

Here's a quote I found today. It is so eloquently put I just had to post it. Sara Robinson

Talking Turkey: Ten Myths Conservatives Believe About Progressives.

5. Liberals are a bunch of elitists who hate decent working- and middle-class Americans.

...as opposed to those sainted corporate men-of-the-people who fly around in private jets and pull down eight-figure salaries while closing plants and cutting 10,000 jobs at a time. That's what real populism looks like, you betcha.

Liberals are funny people. We think that sending well-paid American jobs overseas is a bad idea. We think the minimum wage should be big enough to cover life's necessities, with some left over. We think it's insane that over half the bankruptcies in the country are due to lack of adequate medical insurance. We think everybody who has the grades should have a shot at college. And we believe that middle-class prosperity is absolutely essential for maintaining a healthy democracy—because history (via Kevin Phillips) has taught us that no democracy that's tolerated our current levels inequality has ever survived for long.

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many conservatives making this accusation have never stopped and taken stock of the role government has played in making their own middle-class life possible. Their dad or granddad got through college on the GI Bill. They financed their own education with Pell Grants and federally-guaranteed loans. They grew up in FHA or VA-funded houses, and collected fat mortgage interest deductions—which, right there, ensured their family's place in the middle class. They went to decent public schools—and, perhaps, state universities. They're several thousand dollars richer every month because they're off the hook for Grandma's living expenses, thanks to Social Security and Medicare. They or their parents may have started businesses with help from the Small Business Administration, or relied on government advice and subsidies to keep the farm going. They work for businesses that depend on government contracts.

And then they'll sit there over the second helping of candied yams and loudly insist that they made everything they had, all by themselves, with no help from anybody and especially not from the government.

All you can do is laugh. And then, because they're family, go back to 1945 and start re-telling the family story—this time with Uncle Sam's forgotten role in the drama front and center.

No Brainer

For twenty years some kind of a national health care plan has been one of those issues that for me has been a "No Brainer." As most manufacturing jobs were outsourced to other countries and we became a servie oriented workforce nation there were fewer and fewer employers offering health care benefits (outside of government workers municipal, state and federal). By the 1990's it was more than apparent that with the elderly having Medicare and the welfare class having Medicaid, that there needed to be some kind of national health care for the working poor.
It's hourly wage earners that face economic disaster with any kind of hospital stay, or may die because doctors and hospitals won't provide services to those without insurance or cash on the barelhead.
It looked like the working class was going to get some kind of national health care when Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. The health care industry, Republican party and a fear factor ad campaign stopped it cold.
Sixteen years later the need for a sensible health care policy has reached critical mass. It's to be understood that the Republican party, being the fiscal conservative, free enterprise, government hands off party, and up for sale to the highest corporate bidder will try to block any attempt in the next year to pass a national health care bill. Again this is a no-brainer. The country needs it. The automobile industry needs it, most employers squeesed by rising health insurance costs need it. This economic slowdown needs it, the tax payers need it NO BRAINER.

So why is the Republican Party still so adamant about oposing it? They're kind of spitting in the wind here. U.S. News and World Reports have figured it out: If a nationalized health care bill is passed it will kill the Republican party!
They need the working poor to vote against their economic best interest on taxes, support waging logistical unwinable wars that ruin or kill their children, and turn a blind eye as they starve education while burdening it with unfunded mandates and useless testing. Will anyone listen to those like the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robinson, James Dobsen or Rush Limbaugh if it means voting against your health care coverage? Not bloody likely, and they have Europe's experience with National Health Care to prove the point. Or as the Republican party is saying openly:

Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute,... puts it succinctly in a recent blog post: "Blocking Obama's health plan is key to the GOP's survival."

Having a father who the VA on two different occasions nearly killed by their rationing of health care (refusing to treat the problem by saying he didn't have it), and his life was prolonged only by a private health care plan. I'm going to look with a skeptical eye at any plan offered, but what is the 'NO BRAINER" here is that something is better than nothing, and right now too many people in this country have no health care at all.

Robo Complaint

From Automatic Complaint-Letter Generator

And a heads up to Russ for posting it on his blog

The purpose of this letter is to outline a plan to suggest the kind of politics and policies that are needed to restore good sense to this important debate. With this letter, I hope to lay out some ideas and interpretations that hold the potential for insight. But first, I would like to make the following introductory remark: If you think that this is humorous or exaggerated, you're wrong. Mr. Patrick M. Prescott wants us to think of him as a do-gooder. Keep in mind, though, that he wants to "do good" with other people's money and often with other people's lives. If Mr. Prescott really wanted to be a do-gooder, he could start by admitting that he is a human leech dedicated to sucking the life out of our doomed corpses. This is equivalent to saying that he likes to cite poll results that "prove" that there's no difference between normal people like you and me and the worst sorts of dangerous crackpots I've ever seen. Really? Have you ever been contacted by one of his pollsters? Chances are good that you never have been contacted and never will be. Otherwise, the polls would show that that is no excuse for anything. To say anything else would be a lie.

In contrast, Mr. Prescott may unwittingly expand, augment, and intensify the size and intrusiveness of his coalition of callous spoilsports and temperamental, insensitive proletariats. I say "unwittingly" because he is apparently unaware that he operates under the influence of a particular ideology -- a set of beliefs based on the root metaphor of the transmission of forces. Until you understand this root metaphor you won't be able to grasp why I am not fooled by Mr. Prescott's homicidal and eristic rhetoric. I therefore gladly accept the responsibility of notifying others that the biggest supporters of Mr. Prescott's scabrous publicity stunts are cruel pests and power-drunk, froward sewer rats. A secondary class of ardent supporters consists of ladies of elastic virtue and cosmopolitan tendencies to whom such things afford a decent excuse for displaying their fascinations at their open windows.

Similarly, I strive to be consistent in my arguments. I can't say that I'm 100% true to this, but Mr. Prescott's frequent vacillating leads me to believe that our national media is controlled by the worst types of careless, dour traitors there are. That's why you probably haven't heard that Mr. Prescott's statements such as "Space aliens are out to lay eggs in our innards or ooze their alien hell-slime all over us" indicate that we're not all looking at the same set of facts. Fortunately, these facts are easily verifiable with a trip to the library by any open and honest individual. As this letter draws to a close, I want to challenge you, the reader, to tell Mr. Patrick M. Prescott how wrong he is. That's what I intend to do until my last breath.

Time For Real Happiness

Everyone is forecasting the largest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. There are many similarities. The news, government and it seems most people think this is an attack on the American Dream, our pursuit of happiness and that our lives will not be worth living. They focus only on the bottom two levels of Abraham Maslow's pyramid and equate this with happiness. My thesis for this post is that hard times makes us stop and try to figure what is true happiness as opposed to the propaganda spread by social scientists, government experts and advertising agencies.

The Great Depression and perhaps today are the two most significant times in the last century that the physiological needs (air, water, food, shelter, clothing), and safety needs (protection from crime, loss of income and/or retirement, health care) have been in serious jeopardy for a significant portion of the general population. Natural disasters like hurricanes, fires and earthquakes hit only an isolated area. Economic depressions hit the country (even the world) as a whole, thus having greater impact. In all of these tragedies there is loss of life, and great pain. This also produces great soul searching. People step back from the rat race, ask themselves if losing their house, car, furniture, etc. is really the end of the world?

In time all material things lost due to these circumstances, though missed, can be replaced. And when they look at how much energy and effort went into the accumulation of all they lost thinking that these things would make them happy they realize how foolish they'd been.

• Happiness is not a house, or a car, or expensive clothes. This only covers steps 1 & 2 of the pyramid.
• Happiness is not to be found in a job. Again this covers steps 1 & 2.
• Happiness is not found in the family. Steps 3, 4 & 5 all have to do with love, togetherness, emotional well being, accomplishment, serenity. Things we all need. Happiness, but just because we need it does not make for happiness.
• Happiness is not to be found in Religion or running away from it all.  Sidharta Guatama (The Buddha) chose enlightenment over temporary fame, chose poverty in order to focus on his mind and spirit. In Christianity those who retreated to monasteries or convents chose a small cell and meager food to devote their lives to prayer and meditation. Others chose a life of helping and serving others. Other religions have similar practices of either escape or altruism. Giving up steps 1 & 2 and 3 to focus on steps 4 & 5 doesn't mean you'll be happy either.

So then what is happiness if it's not any of the above. Happiness is all of the above (for some) and none of the above (for others)! There is no equation for happiness, you either have it or you don't.

 

For me, happiness is balance, completion, striving to reach a goal no matter if its ever reached. The good times are always the ones where you are climbing the hill not coasting down it. When you're coasting down it's easier to appreciate the good times than when you're focused on going up the hill. 

I like the visual of Maslow's pyramid. Happiness, what he calls self-actualization is not connected to the pyramid, it's removed and sits above. Is it possible to be happy and have little or none of the other parts of the pyramid -- yes. Is it possible to be happy and have all of the pyramid -- yes.

In summation in good economic times people get caught up in the acquisition of material possessions thinking this will make them happy. Hard economic times, disasters, or tragedies make us take stock of things that have real value not just monetary value. Real value like real happiness is unique to each individual. Read the Beatitudes, Jesus chose as blessed (happy) those society thought would be most miserable. Society can only use Maslow's bottom two steps as an indicator for happiness which is a pretty lousy yard stick. 

Each person has to figure out for themselves what makes them happy. This is a time where there's a collective "gut check." It's a time to be enjoyed, savored, appreciated not feared. It's a time to learn what really matters in life and focus on that instead of possessions.

Another one on the way

It seems that Grinnygranny and I are going to have another grandchild in six months. This is making for a full house. I never thought we'd turn into The Waltons, and most importantly that we would become the eldest generation.

My Apology

Definition: Apology (pronounced ap/a/low/gee) to defend vigorously.

Michael Manning left a comment on my last post. I've responded to it, but since many readers don't look at the comment section I've decided to print a portion of my response to his supportive comment.

Preamble to the point I want to make. Many people I encounter understand the difficulties of being a teacher today. Many wonder why people become teachers. First and foremost it's not about the money. Not everything in life is. A salary commensurate with the level of education is better in other fields. 

I was fortunate to get a college education on an athletic scholarship which did not leave me with a huge financial debt. This allowed me to become a teacher and weather the professions low pay. It takes about fifteen years before the salary really becomes a living wage. None of the other professions requiring the same level of education take this long and many have starting salaries higher than what a teacher makes at twenty years experience.

I fear for the profession and the future generations that need even more eduction that I did at their age, and for the well being of the country that needs a well educated society to advance us technologically and economically. I've seen too many baby teachers take a look at their first paycheck and realize they can't possibly live on it, after they make their college loan payments. The salaries of teachers have not kept up with the basic educational requirement for certification. That is the real problem facing education today.

My reason for being a teacher is part of my answer to Mr. Manning.

Every time I get disgusted with the hassles of teaching I start looking at other professions and figure if it was easy and wonderful they wouldn't call it work. All jobs have their unpleasant aspects. This one has many rewards (seeing students learn and graduate), security (a biggie in this economy), benefits (health and retirement) and summers off to spend with children and grandchildren and write. It may not be many people's cup of tea, but it's mine.

In The News

Reading the online New York Times today there was an article about the Chancellor of Washington D.C.'s public schools trying to abolish tenure. The woman is trying to get teachers to decide which economic package to sign up for, the tenure track with little money, or the non-tenure track with double the money. The extra money coming not from the taxpayers, but undisclosed private interests.

1. Tenure: a person after attaining three years of probationary teaching has the right to be informed of the reason for being terminated or fired. In other words if an administrator wants to fire a teacher they need to say why!
2. The red  herring being bantered about is that teachers unions are trying to save the jobs of bad teachers. Nothing could be further from the truth. If there is a teacher who is not doing his or her job, or is in violation of the contract, good riddance to them. All the union and tenure requires is that there has to be a good reason for the termination. How many workers feel that before your boss fires you that they should have a good reason for doing so? Come on raise your hand. Isn't that the way things should be done in the workplace?
3. Is anyone else bothered that a non-disclosed private source is funneling money into one of the largest public school systems in the country on the condition that tenure be abolished? Who's trying to buy our public schools? For what reason? What's next, mandated curriculum or they pull the gravy train?
4. When there is a teacher shortage that is only going to get worse as the baby boomers (like me) retire, why is there so much emphasis on how to get rid of teachers?
5. Public schools are too important for them to be placed in the hands of the highest bidder. Corporations have already seized our universities with their research grants and have turned them into their own research and development departments and in the process tying them up with contracts that limit their academic freedom. Do we need them grabbing high schools too?

Here's and anecdote:

When I was at another school the teacher in the next room had a student teacher. The student teacher blew up at her. He screamed and yelled, called her every name under the sun, and as a result he was dropped from the program. When I left that school a few years later to teach where I am now I was surprised that he was an assistant basketball coach here and teaching in my department. That year he blew up at the head basketball coach and they nearly got into a fist fight in front of the students. My classes were large and nearly half of my students came into my class from parents requests to get them out of his class, because he wasn't teaching them anything. I talked to the dept chair, told what had happened at the previous school and asked how he even got certified as he was dropped from the program. He came in the back door through the internship program and they grabbed him because he would coach. The next year he was gone. Two years later I attended a dinner as a sponsor for the department to honor a selected student, where they received an award. This teacher was there from a private school. It gets even better, last year I was at a career day representing Southwest Writer's Workshop with a fellow teacher from another high school. Sitting there with a lot of time to talk he complained that an assistant principle at his school was giving all the teachers living hell and he came from my school and they would sure like to send him back. I asked who he was talking about and when he said the name it proved to me where bad teachers eventually wind up -- as principles.

My Take

In a humorous approach, here's my take on the last three Presidential elections:

Dateline USS Enterprise-Earth

Stardate 111108.0930

• USS Enterprise-Earth has experienced eight years of inept and bumbling Romulan-Republican Captain Archer-Bush. Proceeding blindly into the unknown without a map even resorting to torture to get what he wants. The only reason he was in office was because the Federation-Democrats could only find Spock-Gore and Tuvok-Kerry, emotionless Vulcans, to run against him. The real disaster of this Captaincy was that Archer-Bush chose 7 of 9-Cheney a Borg as Science officer. 7 of 9-Cheney's attempt to assimilate the entire world has nearly destroyed the USS Enterprise-Earth.
  
• This last election primary pitted  Captain Janeway-Clinton against Captain Picard-Obama. It was nip and tuck, a knock down drag out, and even when everyone else was telling the scrapy Janeway-Clinton it was over she stood her ground to the very end. Janeway-Clinton's handicap in the race was that she had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant under countless attacks for years from the Romulan-Republicans and was a little too battle scarred for the crew. Pickard-Obama's approach was a "corporate board meeting leadership style" being inclusive to all members of the crew giving them a seat at the table. His confident, well reasoned fatherly manner galvanized the young, and previously dispossessed which has inspired the crew and USS Enterprise-Earth. Particularly his choice of Sisko-Biden as science officer, though not a star ship captain he does have years of command experience in Deep Space-Senate. 
• The Romulan-Republicans gave it a valiant try by bringing out of mothballs, over the hill Captain Kirk-McCain. His shoot from the hip, bed every female he picks up in a bar, swaggering maverick style was once very popular with the crew (after all they chose Captain Kirk-Clinton twice) why not a third time? Unfortunately Kirk-Clinton was wise enough to choose Spock-Gore a dependable Vulcan as science officer while Kirk-McCain was letting the little head think for his big head and chose Yeoman Rand-Palin. Bad choice, as she turned out to be vain, expensive and inexperienced and worst of all: upstaged him. For Kirk-McClain it just shows that age does creep up on even the most vibrant of mavericks.  There is grumbling by the Klingon and Borg factions of the Romulan-Republicans over who lost the confidence of the crew, but there will always be malcontents in any crew.
• With the USS Enterprise-Earth in the hands of the Federation-Democrat Pickard-Obama the crew has the audacity to hope for a resolution to the Federation-Cardassian conflicts, better living conditions and salary. 

Good Deal

For the Holidays, I'm offering Optimus: Praetorian Guard for $15.00 which is listed at 21.95 at both amazon.com and publishamerica.com. E-mail me at jtenebrae.com to make arrangements for a signed collectors item. I'll even pay for the shipping.

White Peacock

All thanks to my special twin: Anne Littlewolf who sent me these pictures. I hope she's working on a painting that would incorporate it.

Perfect weather

Today was the best it can get for golf. Not a cloud in the sky, no wind, fifty to sixty degrees, surprisingly not that busy on the course. Shot a good round and had nice company while getting the exercise. What makes life good.

Didn't have all that quiet of an evening last night. Penni's brother-in-law came over to help E on a computer and M's boyfriend showed up, so we had a house full.

Tonight C, E's girlfriend, fixed a nice dinner, Mom came over with a cake and we had a late anniversary party. Sat around and talked for a little while. It was nice.

A Quiet Evening

What I'm looking forward to tonight and for the weekend.

Thoughts

• Reading all the news articles and blogs have to say about the past election and being grateful that NM for once isn't having to wait a week to know who won which race I have to say something about it. 
• One thing you can say about Sarah Palin as she heads back to Seward's Icebox, it was nice to have a candidate for that high position that could have been picked for the Tonight show's Jaywalking.
• Everyone offering advise to President elect Obama: The din is so loud no one can hear you or remember what you wrote or said after ten seconds have passed.
• Ten weeks is one hell of a long time for all kinds of things (both good and bad) to happen. I will rejoice the day he takes office. I will not trust Bush or any of his storm troopers until the day I die.
• It would have been nice to watch the returns with those of like mind, but circumstances mostly quite good found us surrounded by truly wonderful and decent people that have political blinders. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I did have to make a few snide comments about watching Faux News and why I would want to listen to comments by someone still in contempt of Congress. We went back to our room and celebrated our anniversary once Obama was declared winner.
• Too many people are rejoicing at the demise of the Republican Party. Not so fast. They were saying the same thing about the Democratic Party four years ago. The 2010 elections could just as easily reverse the political course as the 2006 one did. The electorate wants results.
• Today's lead article in the Abq Journal was about everybody rushing to buy assault rifles before they're banned. My father did that when Clinton was elected because all his VFW and State Defense Force buddies were just sure the big bad Democrats would take them off the market. When he developed Alzheimers I had to take his six hundred dollar AK-47 to a pawn shop that had ten of them in stock and they generously gave me twenty bucks for it. Clinton only stopped the sale of imported assault rifles, ones made in the U.S. were not affected. Had a Republican done the same thing he would have been praised for protecting American business. Let's see, ten weeks before he's sworn in and it took over ten years before the Brady bill was passed to require background checks on the sales of handguns. Yeah, Obama's going to be banning guns in the blink of an eye. At least it's nice to know one part of our economy is doing a brisk business.

30 years today

Everyone else may be glued to the tv to see how the elections going, but Grinnygranny and I are in Glorieta celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. This is where we met, and where we have shared numerous joyous days and nights over the years.

We stopped off at the factory outlet mall in Santa Fe and we each bought an anniversary present. That way we get what we want while still thanking each other for the gift.

We're not alone as this is actually a retreat for all those that GG works with, and there was one meeting already and another scheduled in a few minutes. We've had a nice lunch and dinner in the dining hall with pleasant conversation and there will be a couple of meetings tomorrow before we head back. Nice to have a couple of days like this and I only had to use one personal day of leave.

Everyone is having to watch tv to see how the election is going when they all know the final tally is a good three to five days off in the tight congressional and senatorial races.

Favorite Author

First major book signing March 2007 at B. Dalton's in cottonwood Mall.

Halloween has become extremely easy for me this year. The English department came up with the idea that teachers should dress like their favorite author. When they ask me why I'm  not in costume I reply that I am. My favorite author is me. Duh!

My Mood

Just to look nice

Frieze from Cistine Chapel, Michealangelo

Things settling down

• Most of the heavy stuff E and M's boyfriend helped move for Mom. She's not completely out yet, but soon will be, her next problem is to try and find a place for all of it. I see a huge garage sale in the future.
  
• After a couple of crazy weeks at school things are back to as normal as possible on this stupid schedule.
• Weather's been nice the last few days, but a storm's supposed to hit tomorrow, hope it's gone by the weekend so I can hit the golf course. This is the best time of year for golf, you don't have to get up so early to beat the heat and the weather isn't as windy like it is in the spring, the only real problem is trying to find your ball under all the dead leaves.

The system

Belief in the system

After I wrote my last post, which I freely admit is biased by the fact I teach history at the high school level, I read an article in the latest Harper's Magazine by Roger D. Hodge entitled Creative Destruction.
The article is coming out this week, but that means it was probably written end of August or early September right after the conventions and the polls were showing a dead heat between the two major candidates.
Mr. Hodge was terribly upset that the race was this close and blamed it on the Democratic ideology that elections are about the People's will. In essence the major points of my last post. Mr. Hodge's assertion is this:

America’s
narrative concerns “democracy.”
According to the classic theory that
appears in our civics textbooks,
modern democracy is a political system
in which the people decide how
they wish to be governed by electing
representatives who carry out their
will. The ultimate source of authority
in the democratic system is thus
the individual voter, whose solemn
and heroic responsibility we celebrate
at every national, state, and
local election. The basic premise of
the classic view is that the people
rule, and so we are told ad nauseam
from the time we enter kindergarten—
and that, we tell one another
at every opportunity, is what
makes America the greatest nation
in the history of the world...

The direct
strategic corollary to this mystical
belief in rule by the people, and the
central flaw in the Mondale,
Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Obama
campaigns, is the idea that a party
can win a national election by appealing
primarily to Americans’ reason
and better instincts—to faith,
hope, and love—by presenting sensible
programs, together with respectful
criticisms of the opponent’s
record, detailed critiques of his policy
proposals, and polite refusals to
engage in the politics of personal destruction.

His attitude is that this is a school boys' dream and that the Democrats need to grow up and fact the real world of dirty politics or McCain and the Republicans will win agan.

I too was worried in those dark days of Sarah Palin's basking in media glory. Since the debates and a steady pulling away by Obama in the polls since then I am less concerned, but as Russ says at his blog the only poll that counts is in on election day. (Grinnygranny and I voted today -- so glad that is out of the way)

I am not the total idealist that Mr. Hodge would think all Democrats are. I believe in the system and trust its premise, and this election is supporting my belief. It was hard to swallow that "The People" drank the Kool-aid in 2004, but in 2006 there was a healthy dose of buyer's remorse. Candidates are now packaged and sold to the public like any other commodity. I've heard the story (unsubstanciated, but it sounds good) that Ronald Reagan in 1984 walked into the advertiser's meeting planning his re-election campaign and said, "I heard you were selling a can of peas, though you'd like to see the can."

The only blessing after eight years of Bushco is that he has left such a huge stench on the Republican brand that even the bumbling and inept Democrats should walk a way with a congressional landslide and regain the executive.

The article was written before the economic meltdown, so Mr. Hodge can be forgiven for his doom and gloom. After all there is a sure fire way that Democrats win elections: IT'S THE ECOMONY STUPID!

Rule of???

Scott Horton on his No Comment blog, David Iglesias when here speaking to the students, Bruce at Mainstream Baptist, and more bloggers than I can count are all decrying the need after bushco's raping of the Constitution to restore the Rule of Law. Which has had me pondering over the weekend (since I teach a high school class in law) What is the Rule of Law?

I don't think what we need is the Rule of Law.

We need a return to Common Law and move away from Civil Code.

Here is where I go back to being a basic high school history teacher. I cover the Constitution and no I don't make the students memorize the Pre-amble, like I had to when the same age, but it still says: WE THE PEOPLE...

Not God and the Ten Commandments, not Rome's twelve tables,  not even Alfred the Great's Dooms (which actually is closer to our legal system than the Bible). This country is founded on the RULE OF THE PEOPLE not the Rule of Law. We vote for and against those who make our laws and execute those laws, and if we don't like the laws they pass or the way they are executed we vote them out of office and replace them with people who respond to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. 

Divine Right of Kings (or Presidents according to Roberto Gonzales) is what is at the heart of Bushco's raping of our Constitution. Under this kind of legal system (Civil Code) the leader (King, Emperor, whatever) is the law and everyone must obey their laws or suffer the consequences. That is a true Rule of Law. The law is king, because the King makes it. This is what we rejected in the Declaration of Independence referencing Natural Law.

In short we don't need a return to the Rule of Law, we need a return to the Rule of the People and the Spirit of the Law: our checks and balances so our next executive leader can no longer make it up as he goes along like Der Decider has for eight years. 

Civil Code (Letter of the Law) Legal system updated by Napoleon and used in all the countries he conquered or the colonies of those countries.  System was devised by Monarchs, Emperors, and dictators; earliest form Rome's Twelve Tables circa 600BC.

Common Law (Spirit of the Law) The law held in common by Germanic Tribes of Northern Europe. Since England (Germanic country) was not conquered by Napoleon the legal system used in all the British Empire. Everyone is subject to the law, even the ruler. Greatest examples being the Magna Charta, English Bill of Rights, American Declaration of Independence and the American Bill of Rights. Allows for Jury Nullification and Judicial Review.

The Spirit gives life, the Law gives death.  ---Jesus of Nazareth

The Wellness of the Soul

Penni had a very touching post on her caringbridge site today. It gave me a sense of warmth and tears at the same time.

Those who come by here please click on the link, read her post and leave a message on her guestbook, and if inclined offer prayer, it will be greatly appreciated.

Surprise speaker

I was notified yesterday that David Iglesias would be speaking to the students today. It was a shame that my Law class wasn't meeting today. I took my World History class to hear him and saw a number of my Law students in attendance, so on Monday we'll have something to discuss.

I was right by the door when he (Iglesias) walked in, shook hands with him, and he went on down to the stage. His wife and daughter were there as well. She was very gracious asking all of us what we taught. I gave her my card for Optimus.

He had a nice little talk about the importance of getting an education, working hard, and doing what is right, no matter how much that might hurt your career. It was a good message for the students to hear. Their behavior was very good considering every seat was taken in the auditorium and I knew some of them to be rather disruptive. He left plenty of time for questions and it was gratifying that the students had more questions than time allowed. It's a shame all of my classes didn't get to hear him.

Jumbled thoughts

• Penni seems to be doing well, I wish to express my deepest and warmest sense of gratitude to all those who have added her to their prayer list, and have left a message on her caringbridge site.
• Balloons went up Saturday morning and there was a balloon glow last night, too much weather between times. It was too windy this morning, but the rest of the week looks for good flying weather.
• I've posted some balloon pictures and an interesting op-ed piece quoting Kippling on the Captain's Log blog
• Paul Krugman had this to say about McCain's health care plan today in his op-ed piece: In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.” I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.

Treading water

• Mom came home yesterday. She needs to get moved into her new house and Penni seems to have rallied enough for her to get some things done here.
  
• Finally got a new computer in my classroom. It's a desktop instead of a laptop, but it's better than using a computer meant for the students. I couldn't have my test generator programs on it and had to keep my grades on a flash drive.
  
• It's surprising how fast four bags (two bushels) of apples are disappearing. They are good!
• I keep running into supporters of McCain here at school, who are against Obama because he's a "Socialist." God in Heaven, so was FDR, if you use the Republican definition for socialist. "How horrible that anyone would dare think of regulating businesses again, just look at  how wonderful Wall Street is working right now! he said sarcastically."  Are these people living in the real world? A return to the New Deal that the Republicans have systematically dismantled since 1981 is the only thing that will save our economy.
• I supported Hillary Clinton over Obama in the primary, but made it clear I would support either candidate in the general election. Since that time (Feb of last year) Obama has been a pleasant surprise. He's grown into the position. I'm pleased to see that after the smoke screen McCain threw up in late August and early September that there is more distance between the two and Obama's numbers keep going up. I've noticed that in the local election races for Representatives and Senator that the sleezy, negative adds are working against the Republicans: about bloody time. Waiting for early voting to start so we can get that out of the way.

Too much of a good thing

Today was Grinnygranny's flex day, so I took a day off and we went up to Dixon's for apples. It was their first day. The apple orchard is just past the Cochiti Golf Course fifty miles from Albuquerque. It's down in a valley between two towering bluffs and the area is magnificent. Atn nine thirty in the morning about five miles from the small cinderblock building where you get the apples we hit bumper to bumper gridlock. It took two hours to get to the dirt road that leads down to the orchard. Auntypesty and I joined many others in hiking down to get in line for the apples. By the time we walked the three miles down, waited in the hot sun, got our apples and back up to the gate where the parking is, Grinnygranny and E's girlfriend with her child had finally reached it. We then turned around and went home. Four hours to get four bags of apples (half bushel bag for fifteen bucks). These are Champaign apples, and they are fantastic. There were still cars stacked up at the spot where we hit gridlock four hours earlier. Last year when we went on the second weekend they were out of Champaign apples after the first weekend. This year everyone decided to be there on the first day. It was nuts.

We've been going to get Dixon's apples for twenty five years. There have been years where they had a late frost and didn't open, but most of the time it's always been a nice drive, get the apples maybe have a picnic by the stream that runs through the area under big cottonwood trees then head back. It didn't take more than three hours from the time we left home and got back. Add two hours travel time to the four hours sitting in the hot sun and wasting gas it's just not worth it anymore.

Such a shame. Golden Delicious apples that you get in the grocery store come close to the Champaign, but not quite. We'll have to savor these while we can.

I don't think we'll go back again. Such a shame.

Penni's husband is posting on her caringbridge site. His posts are not encouraging. Please keep her in your prayers.

This was in the Saturday paper.

Sad news

Mom received a call yesterday that Penni is being put on stronger pain medication that will cause her to sleep most of the time. She left today to be with her for what time is left.

The hardest part right now is the waiting.

Grinnygranny's Mom, in Nebraska, was in the hospital for the last few days with Pneumonia, but is getting better and will be in a nursing home for a few weeks until she is well enough to go back into her apartment.

If all holds we're planning on going up to Dixon's on Friday to get apples. It's the first day they're open and if you want to get those Champaign apples you have to be there early.

Cassandra speaks again

To those without a classical education, Cassandra was the daughter of Priam who was blessed by Apollo with the gift of prophesy, but because she rebuffed the god's advances he cursed her by making it so no one would believe her.

Today we have an economic Cassandra, his name is Paul Krugman. Ever since Ronald Reagan proposed Trickle Down Economics he has eloquently and succinctly refuted the conservative economic philosophy of Phil Graham and all the other kingpins of their economics.

For the past seven years he has written article after article in the New York Times explaining just how stupid the tax cuts were, warned of the housing bubble years before it happened. Today is his latest explanation and prophesy. It's eye opening.

Cash for Trash

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.

There’s justice in the gibes. Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Mr. Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself — and for his successor — to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense.

Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.

So let’s try to think this through for ourselves. I have a four-step view of the financial crisis:

1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities — assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.

2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital — too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.

3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.

4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the “paradox of deleveraging.”

The Paulson plan calls for the federal government to buy up $700 billion worth of troubled assets, mainly mortgage-backed securities. How does this resolve the crisis?

Well, it might — might — break the vicious circle of deleveraging, step 4 in my capsule description. Even that isn’t clear: the prices of many assets, not just those the Treasury proposes to buy, are under pressure. And even if the vicious circle is limited, the financial system will still be crippled by inadequate capital.

Or rather, it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial firms — and their stockholders and executives — a giant windfall at taxpayer expense. Did I mention that I’m not happy with this plan?

The logic of the crisis seems to call for an intervention, not at step 4, but at step 2: the financial system needs more capital. And if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place.

That’s what happened in the savings and loan crisis: the feds took over ownership of the bad banks, not just their bad assets. It’s also what happened with Fannie and Freddie. (And by the way, that rescue has done what it was supposed to. Mortgage interest rates have come down sharply since the federal takeover.)

But Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency,” and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.

I’m aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.

But I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded — if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.

 

Pleasant weekend

Had a pleasant weekend. Golfed on Saturday and just took it easy on Sunday. Broncos and Cowboys won, so that's a plus.

Ann Littlewolf sent me some pictures by e-mail that just make your eye pop out. I posted them at the Captain's Log blog. Take a look.

Mom had E over to help get her new house ready before she moves in. The walls are being painted, weeds pulled up, a couple of trees taken down, and then the planting begins. Should keep the kids busy for awhile helping her out. 

M's boyfriend is going to school in Santa Fe, but he makes it home for the weekends which makes her happy. Not too sure his parents or we are that happy with it.

Penni's last post on her caring bridge has me concerned. She needs all our prayers.

Temporarily back to normal

Grade book is now up to date, and I'm making due. It will be a while before I get a new computerf from the tech department (I'm on the list). I miss the laptop, it had seen its better days, but you don't work with something for six years without a certain amount of attatchment. When I got it, boy was it miles better than the first one which had Window 98. This was XP with Office Professional, twice the speed, CDR and what even most laptops today lack an RCA jack which could hook up to a TV to show powerpoint and movies. Hard to think that before lightpros came down in price that was the best way to have students see a powerpoint presentation. Two years ago it crashed and I had to reinstall, it just never worked the same again. It was slower and I lost the video drive so it wouldn't show movies. By that time the school had purchased everyone cheap DVD players so that wasn't a problem. Still what was cutting edge just a few years ago is now little more than scrap and of little value. I had to go into all my e-mail addresses and other sights and change the passwords, which I should have done more often anyway. The computer I'm using now is so slow and freezes up anytime you try to get it to do more than one function that I'm ready to take a sledge hammer to it. The hunk of junk is wanting to install updates so I need to get off right now.

Long day

Walked into my classroom today to find it was broken into over the weekend. The laptop computer I've been using was stolen. It was six years old, had crashed and been restored, not the best computer in the world, but it did my grade book just fine. I had a backup disk, but it was over a week old and I've had to update it some, not a total grade meltdown.

Had to move over one of my desk tops with a huge monitor onto my desk. I won't get another laptop, but the Tech dept should get me a better desktop hopefully with a flat screen monitor.

The one drawback of being in a portable.

What were you doing...

In my generation the What were you doing? question was about JFK's assassination. For some it was MLK's assassination, or RFK's or John Lennin's maybe even the day Elvis died. In Oklahoma it's about the bombing of the Murrah Builing. The rest of the country seems to have amnesia on that one. This weekend it's the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. I really have nothing to say about it that Bruce has not already so eloquently expressed in a speech delivered on the Oklahoma State House chamber on Feb. 11, 2003.


We must especially beware that any liberty we suspend for fear of terrorists could easily be forfeited for generations to come. The freedoms we enjoy in our democratic society are worth whatever dangers we will face, whatever risks we must take, and whatever sacrifices we choose to make. America must not retreat from two and a quarter centuries of hard won civil liberties. Never before have we settled for being the land of the safe and the home of the secure. We’ve always had the courage to strive to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.Instead of the frightful overreaction we have witnessed since September 11th, our nation would do better if it would respond to terrorism the way the people of Oklahoma responded to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. That bomb did not prompt us to surrender our civil rights or to infringe on the rights of others.
Unlike our federal government:
We did not suspend the constitution.
We did not send the police out to round-up, lock-up or expel all the foreigners and immigrants in town.
We did not hold suspects indefinitely without access to the courts or to counsel.
We did not tape conversations between suspects and their lawyers.
We did not suspend the laws requiring probable cause for wiretaps or search warrants.
We did not expand the role of the military in domestic law enforcement.
We did not torture suspects to obtain information, nor did we allow surrogates to torture suspects for information.
We did not create a military tribunal to try and execute suspects without applying the Constitution or state and federal laws.
We did not endorse assassination as an alternative to capture.
We did not create a private foundation to issue ID cards to all citizens.
We did not create a network of free-lance spies to report anything that might be considered suspicious.
We did not create a massive computer system to keep tabs on every aspect of our citizen’s daily lives.
And, we did not use the bombing as an excuse to suspend the first, second, and fourth amendments and then attack militias or invade white supremacist compounds to make them disarm.
What we did was to rescue survivors, clean-up the wreckage, rebuild our city and bring the criminals to justice.
The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building did not destroy the freedom-loving, risk-taking, self-sacrificing spirit of the people of Oklahoma. Neither should the criminal acts of a few terrorists destroy the freedom-loving, risk-taking, self-sacrificing spirit of our nation.
Since September 11, 2001 it has become commonplace to say that the world changed that day. Some things did change. Several thousand precious, unique and irreplaceable lives were lost and the lives of many more were irreparably harmed. I must object, however, to assigning any significance to the evil that transpired that day.
In my mind, the most important lesson to be learned from that day is to be found in the images of heroism and the examples of self-sacrifice demonstrated by the men and women of the New York City fire department and police department and others like them. We need to learn from the people who left places where they were safe and secure and walked courageously into harm’s way to rescue the victims of a grave injustice. From them we learn that there are some things in life that are more important than safety and more valuable than security. Only those who have learned that lesson have the capacity to truly calculate the price of freedom and security.

Science Under Attack

Michael Prescott (no relation) has an excellent article on the media tempest in a teapot over the Large Hadron Collider.

It seems like everytime science tries to advance there are the luddites screaming the sky is falling in.

I was reluctant to watch Fox's new show The Fringe because of the way they advertized it. A group of special agents to stop the evil scientists that are producing tissue regeneration, teleportation and other awful science. I called it the anti-Star Trek. In all of the Star Trek incarnations the science and technology advanced mankind (and alienkind) in the future and it was a good thing. It remains about the only part of Science Fiction that was positive instead of negative. The Fringe was interesting more about pitting 1960's idealized science against todays big corporation, greedy use of science. I was rather amuzed by one of the character's being Blair Brown when the special agents using the 60's scientist (released from a mental hospital) uses an old sensory deprivation tank right out of Altered States (which Blair Brown was in though in this show she's working for the big bad corporation)

It is still disconcerting that most Science Fiction is negative and one political party is able to get votes by leading the charge in denouncing science and fueling the general populations fear of it.

Technology is the practical  application of science. Think of all the nice technological gadgets that we just can't live without anymore: cell phones, lap top computers, the internet, video games, planes, trains and automobiles, air conditioning, etc. None of them would be possible without the science that blazed the trail. How can a society so tied to technology be anti-science?

Smooth sailing

Finally getting adjusted to the new schedule at school. I still think it is the stupidest schedule ever devised, and tell everyone within earshot what I think of it and how much better the 4X4 would have been -- not that anyone is listening.

Mom is signing the papers on her new house tomorrow and then there are the joys of packing and moving, but the rewards of getting her out of that awful apartment make it well worth it, and besides she'll be coming to get her couch and microwave that much sooner.
Last I heard Penni is doing well.
We're still trying to get M a job so she can start filling up the Windstar with her own money.
There was a nice truck parked at the car lot down the road from us. a new model, V8 engine with automatic transmission and very reasonably priced. I was thinking of trading in my truck (I don't drive it much except to the dump and the golf course, but I'm really tired of shifting the standard transmission.) anyway I took a look at it and decided to keep what I have, the windows were tinted so dark it would have been like driving in a cave.
E drives the truck some, his 3 year old step son really likes looking out and seeing everthing he can't see from his seat in the car.

Captains Log new look

I'm revamping my Captain's Log blog.

Last night at the Writer's to Writers meeting the presentation was in how to use the internet to promote our books, and the using blogs was brought up. I used to have the novels I'm working on blogged and did get some excellent comments that helped as they were in the creation process, but they got a little too unwieldy so I closed them down. Now I'm going to us Captains Log as a snippet blog. I'll be posting snippets of my writings. It will keep me working on the craft, the creative juices flowing and maybe more comments on my writing that will help me grow.

Political Post

I've purposely not mentioned the name of the Republican VP nominee, though I have given my impression of her. I would really rather not sully this blog by mentioning either of that party's candidates.

The Yikes blog summed up my thoughts pretty well:

Look at what’s happened since the closing night of the Democratic Convention. Sen. Obama gave what was indisputably a great speech — a historic speech. A speech that people should have been talking about for DAYS. But did they? NO, because politics is war, and McCain shot back immediately with his Gov. Sarah Palin assault rifle. And guess what has happened? For more than a week now all people are talking about is SARAH PALIN.
McCain had a full week of publicity for his campaign, while Sen. Obama pretty much fell off the radar screen.
And guess who is helping fuel the fire? The so-called progressive blogosphere.

Political ju-jitsu -- use the other person's strength agains them. The political party of indignation using the dems indignation to give their candidates a week of free publicity because they don't know how to shut the @#$% up. I've watched two Bill Maher specials on HBO and on both of them the women on his panel kept telling him to lay off of her, that any jokes he makes against her only makes him look like a bully and she gets the sympathy vote, and he's too stupid to listen.

For those who have been faithful readers of this blog during the primary season I supported Hillary Clinton, my choice was not supported by the others voting at the time. Time to move on. 

I had great respect for Barak Obama at the time and have seen him grow in the process. I felt that Clinton would weather a brutal mudslinging campaign better than Obama, but he proved by winning the nomination that he has the resilience to back bounce from the body blows leveled at him. He has my full support.

My take on this election is that it is a referendum on the American Spirit. The dividing line between the Democrats and Republicans is Reason and Superstition.

Reason is based on the real world and trying to figure it out in order to solve problems. Listen to Obama's speeches whether it's on race or the economy, or health care, terrorism or taxes. He difines the problem and lists ways in which they can be solved. I know, I know it's academic, dry, boring, makes the average listener actually have to think, but he approaches the American Public as equals and has a basic belief that we can vote for someone who knows what they are doing. 

The Republicans love to quote Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, yet in that book is one of the best examples of how reason works I've ever read: "When two men disagree on a subject they may discuss and debate the issue, but they let reality dicide for them which one is right. One may be right and the other wrong, but both profit." (I didn't feel like scanning the entire book to quote this word for word, but you get the idea)
Notice what decides the issue is reality. This reinforces my opening statement: Reason is based on reality.
Notice Republican advertizing: It has a complete disconnect with reality.
Think of all the things in the last eight years that Bush has said that are unreasonable. "I know in my heart I'm right." concerning his invasion of Iraq.
"I looked it his eyes (Putin)..."

Are the current Republican candidates any different? They have a one size fits all explanation for everything: "He was a POW."

Superstition: is based on blind faith or "belief" which is determined by emotion. In politics the emotion that is played on is fear. The Republicans have used the fear card since 1948 and fall of China to Mao ZeDong. Richard Nixon's entire political rise was do to being a "Red baiter" 

Superstitious people don't think for themselves they get everything they need to know from an authority figure who has a simple solution to a complex question, and a catch phrase that acts as a manta. . 

God said it, I believe it, that settles it.

My Country Right or Wrong.

America Love it or Leave it.

 When you try to discuss an issue they only know the talking points they've been coached in and that's all they can say even if it makes no sense compared to the facts. If the facts don't fit their belief then obviously the facts are wrong. How else can you explain the disconnect for over a hundred and fifty years between the facts of evolution mentioned even in the Bible with Creationism? Why they still stubbornly insist Iraq had something to do with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when from all gathered facts Iraq in no way threatened us. Why? Because Bush said so, because Cheney said so and God elected them to office.
There is no arguing with a person who has their mind made up, don't confuse it with facts.


Will Obama reason with the American Public and will the voters look at the reality that Republicans have done to the system of government since Richard Nixon to destroy our checks and balances?

Will they understand the reality of the bankrupt policy of "Trickle down economics" refuted in 1896 by William Jennings Bryan in his Cross of Gold Speech, buried temporarily after the nightmare of the Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal, only to be revived by Ronald Reagan that has led to the last 28 years of Savings & Loan and banking corruption that is now culminating in the economic and real estate melt down?

Will they realize that in those 28 years the only time of peace and prosperity (with a ballanced budget) we've enjoyed came under a democratic presidency, who only had 2 years with a democratic majority in congress?
Will the voters look at the reality of so many other problems too numerous to list or discuss here or listen to the fake father figures that blame everything that has happened on the political party out of power for the last eight years and then say "Trust me?"

It's an election of reality versus media spin. A real nailbiter!

Time to relax

I thought this would be a nice weekend to golf every day. Actually the courses aren't that busy on this holiday weekend. I went out walked nine holes Saturday and tried to do 18 on Sunday. I made it to 12. It was misting and it came down rather hard while on hole 11, we waited it out and went on. On the next hole there is a steep hill to walk down after the tee box. On the way down I slipped on the mud hit my back on the ground and my back tightened up. I walked back to the club house, called grinnygranny to bring me a change of clothes as my backside had a half inch of mud all over it. The back's still a little sore today so I don't think I'll get in any more golf this labor day weekend.

Today is just take it easy, don't make any sudden moves and watch tv.