Author: cheriebell69@hotmail.com

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To Russia, with Love

I’m a little confused about our love affair with Russia, alias the USSR, alias the Soviet Union, alias the Red Menace.  As a Baby Boomer, I certainly grew up feeling the big chill of the Cold War.  In those decades of the mid to late twentieth century, Americans had one arch enemy: the red communists from the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic.  The Soviets, in turn, saw America as the big evil on the planet, capable of launching nuclear war—just as they could, too.  It was spy versus spy: the freedom-loving Western world versus the Godless communist Soviet Eastern bloc.  We were taught in school the Cold War was about democracy versus communism.  Really the ‘war’ was about economic theory, capitalism versus socialism, than political philosophy.  There was blatant hypocrisy in communism, which in theory sounds Utopian: Everyone is equal, even paid equally.  That’s not how it worked, though.  The rulers were always fat cats while the majority lived in deprivation, just happy to be alive, sort of.  Time and again, history teaches that the human masses will topple governments that just don’t work in the best interest of all the people.

In 1980 President Carter campaigned to continue diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union to reduce the threat of a future nuclear war.  But the Republicans—backed big time by the so-called Silent Majority, the religious right—maintained the USSR would never be a friend to the United States.  Their candidate Ronald Reagan felt the same way, innately distrustful of the Soviet Union.  That year would be my first presidential election, so I discussed the issue with many adults.  And I could not believe my ears: Most folks I knew, all Texans, were voting for Reagan.  I loved Jimmy Carter—despite the gas lines, inflation, lay-offs, energy conservation, and Iranian hostage crisis.  He was a Democrat, and that was good enough for me.  I was idealistic and believed Carter should try to make friends with the Soviets.  I did not see them as people to fear, though I clearly recall their iron-fisted government as foreboding.  Life in the Soviet Union featured food lines; cramped dingy apartments; criminal black markets; forbidden music, art and religious expression; censored news; lots of lies; and mandated job quotas.  They had one thing going for them: Everyone had housing, something America still wrestles with.

While debating my support for Carter with a conservative Christian friend, I explained the one thing I liked about the president was his willingness to talk with the Soviet Union.  Appalled by the very idea, that was exactly why my friend refused to support Carter, because the Soviets were just evil and could not be trusted.  I realized then America needed to maintain the Cold War and dis-ease with the other world power.  Once Reagan was president, he frequently criticized the Soviet leaders and often suggested the Soviet people compare the quality of life in America to their own.  Later Reagan dubbed a state-of-the-art nuclear protection system for our hemisphere as ‘Star Wars,’ and that really upset the Soviet man on the street.  They seemed to view this possible protection shield in outer space as some sure sign we were going to nuke them first.  The ‘shield’ was to keep the nukes in outer space so no harm would come to our side of the planet.

What no one knew during the 1980s was the West had already won the Cold War.  Democracy had won.  Capitalism had won.  How?  Besides the Soviets’ love of jeans (yes, American blue jeans!) and black market rock albums, American television in communist nations probably had the biggest impact.  Glamorous soap operas like Dallas opened the eyes of the masses living in the bleak Soviet bloc.  But the biggest thing that really broke the Soviet Union was CNN.  Once everyone on the planet could see with their own eyes what’s going on around the world and that there was nothing to fear especially from the West, the Eastern bloc dictated by the Soviet Union began to break away, country by country—because the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed it.  Finally the Berlin Wall was busted to smithereens.  It was a beautiful moment in human history.  Freedom had won over tyranny, trust over fear, love over hate.

She sold seashells by the seashore

The Soviets and others who experienced an entire economy based on socialist-Big Brother theory and propaganda were going to have to think differently about every aspect of their lives and livelihoods.  Economically, they were going to have to turn around very quickly if they wanted to emulate what Americans take for granted: supermarkets with plenty of food, houses, reliable fuel and energy, cars, clothes, stuff, honest business dealings and money handling, plus competing for jobs and salaries and even self-employment through privately-owned businesses—all this because of total and complete individual freedom: of thought, word, deed, art and media.  The New Russians tried.  But one generation can’t create what has taken America and Western Europe hundreds of years to develop.  They were starting from scratch.  And an overjoyed America, still chanting “We’re Number One,” did not do much to help the Russians transform their lives in preparation for the twenty-first century.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia became the new-old name of the largest part of the former communist empire.  Maps were redrawn and redrawn.  It was messy for a decade or so.  As the Russians continued to suffer trying to catch up with American capitalism—which in itself is cold blooded and ruthless—the days of the former Soviet Union became glorified memories.  Enter a new leader: Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent with a hard-line penchant toward restored communism.  He has proven to be a leader who insists upon total control and is willing to go to any extreme including imprisoning and killing enemies and of course censoring the media, incredulous in this internet age.  President Obama slapped economic sanctions on Putin’s Russia for a military encroachment into Ukraine, a nearby European country that was begrudgingly part of the former Soviet Union long ago.

But President Trump has some kind of bromance with Putin, speaking admiringly of his counterpart in the First World.  And why does Trump want to make amends with Russia?  Oil, glorious oil!  So both of our conflicting economic and governance theories have come full circle.  But alas comrade, communism supports the government as controller of all mineral rights—not private citizens, land owners or businesses.  Americans, the hardest-working people on earth, crave gasoline.  How we gonna get to work without it?

President Trump is a businessman first.  Putin is a communist first.  America and Russia are like a divorced couple who are dating again.  It’s crazy to outsiders, but the two lovers can’t fight the attraction.  They are the magnet, and we are the steel.  In communist Soviet Russia, there was a saying: You see one thing, hear another, and think a third.  With Trump’s tough talk, twisting the truth, and blasting the American media—with its constitutional role to ensure a lasting democracy—perhaps now the old Soviet adage applies to the New Americans.

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The student outsmarts the teacher

(Squelch)  Is this mike on?  Pop, pop, pop.  (chuckles)  So, did you hear the one about the teachers who are evaluated by their students?!  (laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh)  Well, let’s just say the kids are getting away with a lot more stuff than they used to.  (laugh, laugh)  No, I’m serious, this is a thing.  Schools are making students as young as third grade rate their teachers.  (laugh, cough, chuckles)  Teens evaluate their teachers, too, now.  This newfangled mandate comes from the ‘world of academia’ where college students have been evaluating their professors.  (sniff, chuckles)  Can you believe we’re allowing school-age kids to rate teachers, like this means anything?  And the student ratings count, like 15 percent of a teacher’s overall evaluation score.  (gasp, uncomfortable gaze)  Yeah, swear to God.  And this is going on in practically every school district around and throughout the nation.  (sobering stares)

I mean, can you imagine parents being evaluated by their kids?  The likes of us rating our parents?  (laugh, laugh, laugh)  The people who raised us back in the day?  (laugh, laugh)  Boy would my butt be sore!  (laugh, laugh, laugh)  Oh, but the student evaluations are anonymous!  Talk about payback!  (laugh, laugh, laugh)  You know in our day, a lot of kids would’ve scorched certain teachers especially if they flunked a class or were paddled.  (“Yeah, really!” laugh, laugh)  I can think of a couple of teachers that every kid hated.  I won’t mention names, but these were ladies—and yes, for some reason now that I think about it, they were all women who every school kid happened to hate—who paddled some butts or sent kids—usually all boys for some reason—to the principal—who was always a man.  Then the principal would heave-ho the paddle and lay on a few whacks, probably just practicing his baseball swing.  (laugh, laugh)  Remember, the boy would return to class, cocky disposition effectively obliterated (laugh), looking at the ground, sniffling and wiping tears, then dive into his desk and lay his head down in folded arms and cry like a baby.  (laugh, laugh, chuckle, clear throat)

So now we’re letting Eddie Haskell and Larry Mondelo evaluate their teachers?  (laugh, laugh, laugh)  How fair is a kid, especially in elementary school, gonna be?  (chuckle)  No other profession allows kids to rate them, seriously anyway.  Can you imagine kids rating police officers?  Store clerks?  Therapists?  Doctors?  Dentists?  Oh and the kids do not rate the school principals, who as everyone knows have long ago put away the paddle or any remote sort of painful reprimand to effect discipline in our public schools.

Rough Room

Here are some sample questions from the student teacher evaluation.  Really, these are statements that kids rate, like: My teacher is always in a bad mood.  Or ‘My teacher is always very pleasant.’  Or ‘My teacher always takes time to work with me when I don’t understand a problem.’  Or ‘My teacher never supports my community.’  That last one, what the hell?  Why is that an issue today?  Wouldn’t a kid be led to believe that his teacher is supposed to live nearby, grocery shop, attend church and every baseball game with the kid’s family?  (laugh, chuckle)  What is this, 1959?  Like we expect teachers to reside in the communities or cities where they teach?  Do we expect all other professional working people to live in the communities where they just happen to have a job?  (chuckle, chuckle)

The student answer choices are literally: Never, Hardly Ever, Sometimes, Most of the Time, Always.  (laugh, laugh, snort)  Yeah, you adults know what I’m talking about here.  Sounds like quite a few of you have been in ‘couples counseling.’  (laugh, laugh, laugh)  You know, where we are told to avoid telling our partners things like “You never clean the house” or “You always lose your keys.”  (laugh, laugh, laugh)  Psychologists remind us no one is ‘always’ or ‘never’ a certain way.  To even use the terms ‘always’ and ‘never’ when referring to someone is a sign of an immature mind.  It just may seem like someone screws up every day, especially if we don’t like the person anymore.  (laugh)

The student teacher rating is just unbelievable considering kids see everything as black or white.  They are not old enough to understand nuance, mood, life as shades of gray.  We know a person is not the same way every minute of the day.  Am I right?  (“Yeah!”)  So kids are going to check the Never and Always choices when assessing their teachers.  That would explain why most of our teachers do not receive a 100 from their student evaluations or even rate an A.  In fact, a large number are actually failing, in the minds of their students.  (chuckle, laugh)  No wonder so many teachers quit.

Education Major

Look, there isn’t an adult I know who wants to be a teacher.  Come on, show of hands: Who wants to be a teacher, in our public schools?  (laugh, chuckle)  OK, I see a few hands, very few.  I see that group of women back there raising the arm of the guy with you.  Very funny.  (laugh, giggle)  You know why adults don’t want to be teachers?  Because adults don’t want to hang out with lots of kids all day every day … even with summers off.  You like your own kids, right?  (laugh)  OK, you love your children, I know.  But you know kids can get on our nerves.  They can disappoint us sometimes.  And sometimes we don’t react well when a kid says some smart (bleep) thing to us or rolls the eyes or snickers—like they know more than we do.

What I’m trying to say is those who go into teaching are literally doing the Work of God.  (applause, whistles)  They are living, breathing, walking saints of God.  (applause)  They spend all day trying to teach and often end up having to handle kids from a variety of family structures or no structure at all.  And now society is making school kids, including quite a number from rough childhoods with parents in prison or on drugs or overworked and too tired to raise them, rate their teachers—who usually come from a completely different background.  Doesn’t seem funny anymore, does it?

Well, let me leave you with this final thought in praise of teachers or just to feel sorry for them.  (chuckle, chuckle, “Good.  Go.”)  Wait a minute.  Am I being heckled out there?  The state of our schools and the teachers who still work in them is not comedy material to you?  I find it quite laughable sometimes.  Nevertheless, I have a couple more minutes before my set is through.  Someone engage the heckler in a more scintillating topic like Trumpian politics till I’m through here.  (chuckle, “You suck.”)  All right already.

The heckler does prove another point.  The other reason why some folks—maybe like you, just enjoying a comedy club tonight with a drink or two—don’t care much about teachers or the profession.   It’s because we all had bad teachers when we were in school: the grumpy, the overbearing, the smug, the air head, the touchy-feely, the elderly, the chain smoker, the beauty queen, the jock, the disinterested, the loafer, the wannabe cool friend, the creep, the Hitler.  What can we say?  We were raised in a different era maybe.

I grew up with a teacher, and the one thing that struck me during my childhood was how professional she was on the job, not necessarily at home where she expected her kids to behave.  Mom could swing a belt!  (laugh, laugh)  So I looked at my teachers in a different light.  I had a little insight into them as people, unlike my peers who just didn’t like school, being in school, having to be in school, and having to follow rules.  (laugh)  I liked school a lot, not every subject like math and science, but I liked being in school, the formality and the structure.  And I’ll make a confession: As a kid, I always thought the summer breaks were way too long.  Like, why don’t we have year-round school already?  (scant applause)

Like you I suppose, most of my teachers did not leave a great impression on me.  But several did, even a lasting effect, perhaps life altering.  Even in elementary school, I was mature enough to understand every teacher is different.  My job was to try to get along with a variety of personalities, do what they said, and learn their subjects.  I think today by letting students rate their teachers (which really is a way to prevent raises for the less-than-popular types—pssst, most teachers) we are sending a message.  What is the message exactly?  That kids count?  That what children think of their teachers is important?  That what a kid thinks is accurate and reliable, fair and honest?  Have you spent a day in our public schools lately?   (laugh)  Kidworld is cruel, not unlike The Simpsons or Southpark.  (laugh, chuckle)

So my guess is this latest experiment in trying to improve our public schools is solely to whip the teachers into a frenzy.  It’s just continuing the illusion or delusion that our schools—a reflection of our society—are fine, just fine.  (laugh, applause)  You’ve been a great audience, thank you!  Have a good evening everyone!  Enjoy time away from the boss!  (And for teachers, that would be the kids.)

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American fear: of guns and immigrants

The only thing Americans have to fear is … more guns than people in the United States.  And most people with a gun in the home are not trained to shoot it.  There are twice as many gun accidents than gun deaths—combined, however, they are in the tens of thousands every single year, and this excludes suicides.  Gun proliferation in our country, our communities and neighborhoods, is more of an immediate threat to our security and sanity than immigrants from the Middle East or Central and South America.

Our own home-grown American crazies who have taken to high-powered assault weapons, the kind used by combat soldiers, are our most pressing concern—screaming for a solution.  The political argument used to center on mental illness or gun control, as if we have to impose on the freedom of the chemically imbalanced or the proud American sportsman.  By now we’d best deal with our own personal national epidemic of gun violence.

And our fearless leaders did just that, by eradicating a late-ordered Obama mandate that would have kept people with mental illness from buying guns.  So the insane along with the rest of us can enjoy our American right to bear arms?  What’s there to be afraid of if’n we’re all packin’?

But it doesn’t work that way.  Time and again, we are caught off guard by a maniac or maniacs shooting up high schools, elementary schools, churches, mosques, playgrounds, cinemas, restaurants, funeral processions, Wal-Marts, shopping malls, apartments, residential streets, Christmas parties, birthday parties, courthouses, police stations, protests, police officers, nightclubs.  Most of these mass shootings had nothing to do with Muslim terrorists and everything to do with easy access to assault rifles and unchecked mental illness.

1980

Remember the issues behind gun control—way back when Americans really thought reason and sanity would win over fear and power and money?  First John Lennon was shot multiple times, then a few months into 1981 President Reagan and James Brady, then Pope John Paul II.  Only one of these men died, another left with permanent brain damage, and two survived—Reagan and the Pope recollecting with a chuckle their brush with death.  Their assailants were carrying only a handgun, and the movement against guns was underway.  No one was safe since anyone could buy a gun even illegally.  Many guns linked to crimes were stolen, usually during home burglaries and then passed down by sale or pawn.  No questions asked.

Oh and then in the 1990s the uproar for the seemingly rational government background check for anyone wanting to purchase a gun.  Those years of heated debate have faded into black and white memories.  A decade later, shooting deaths not only continued (by the tens of thousands every year) but mass killing sprees were accomplished by high-powered rifles to ensure multiple deaths in a frenzied lust for bloody murder.  The movie Bowling for Columbine about the Colorado high school massacre and the student assailants didn’t change Washington or the nation.  Instead, Americans were more vocally adamant for carrying guns at all times anywhere, any place … just in case.  They seemed to be chasing the very real opportunity to play hero, Clint Eastwood with a .44 Magnum—just like in the movies!  Make my day, punk.  It didn’t matter that every police and law enforcement association was against ‘any and every body carrying a gun.’  They had a point, being the ones who legally wear a gun and are without a doubt trained and licensed to shoot one.  They know all about criminals, drunkenness and doped-up delusion, human passion, depression, and how quick guns kill.  Yet society just didn’t feel safe letting cops fight their battles, real or imagined.

Holy terror, Batman  

We got caught off guard by 9/11 and subsequent attacks like the Boston marathon and San Bernardino.  During the presidential campaign, I had tweeted: If Trump wins, it will be because of San Bernardino; if Hillary loses, it will be because she always includes a Muslim-dressed woman among a multi-ethnic crowd of supporters for speeches.  That was a turn off to Americans after two long, hard, vicious wars trying to combat Muslim terrorists.  Call it prejudice, but it’s how Americans feel pain.

The terrorists who attacked our homeland wanted to bring what people in the Middle East deal with every day and have for decades.  Terrorists are usually not highly educated and come from dire poverty unimaginable to anyone growing up in the U.S.  An unschooled mind within a poor family and community is a dangerous thing.  There is no hope … except for religion.  Many Christian families can relate.  The Great Depression drew throngs of folks to church, hoping things would turn around … and we would find God’s favor once more.  Terrible times often bring people to their knees in prayer to God.

In these admittedly dangerous times in which we live … there still is no comparison between the numbers of Americans killed by terrorists in our country and abroad to the number of Americans killed and maimed by guns and assault rifles at the hands of our own.  Many Americans will not part with guns because they have the Constitution on their side.  In the beginning Americans were given the right to bear arms to form a militia—probably because in those more dangerous times there was the likelihood a ruler might attempt to overthrow our newly born democracy.  It’s happened throughout history and still does in nations all around us.

But since 1776, guns have become awfully powerful … and fast!  Our forefathers never could have conceived of such a thing in the days of muskets and reloading powder.  A modern gun’s sudden death and damage today is faster than a speeding bullet—irreparable, perhaps doing more damage to our collective psyche than to the doomed human life.

We are the ones with the sickness, the mental defect, the dangerous and deadly personality quirk when it comes to our ideas about personal safety and guns.  Our nation’s history was built by our own people who had to quickly size up an enemy: from Redcoats to ‘red skins’ then black and brown and yellow.  By  now it’s in our genes, our perpetual need for an enemy.  So we shoot first and ask questions later.

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Texas public schools need 21st century spending

I stand corrected: The Texas Legislature IS making a top priority of fixing public school finance.

All right now, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work here.  Everything’s on the table, that’s our motto (for now anyway).  Let’s get this thing fixed here and now.  After all, funding our public schools is pretty much required of the state.  Besides, how hard can it be?  It’s just numbers.

So a quick look-see across the internet reveals Texas ranks rather low in funding our public schools compared to big shots like New York and Connecticut and Oregon and Nebraska and dozens more of these United States.  The national average for per-pupil spending is somewhere around $10,700 to $11,841.  Texas ranks 38th as we spend $8,075 to $8,299 per student.  Dallas spends $9,559 per pupil while Brownsville spends $9,815, and out in Sulphur Springs each kiddo is allotted $9,262.

Seems all we need do is get the big picture.  The Texas education budget is $37.4 billion—a whoppin’ fourth of the state’s whole budget pie!  Now, the other thing we need to know is the number of public schools kids.  That’s close to five million, give or take.

Why don’t we just divide the school budget by the number of kids (still) going to our public schools?  No, this can’t be right?  That ends up being $7,480.  Blasted online calculator!  Let’s take these two enormous figures to paper and pencil: 5,000,000 into 37,400,000,000.  Owww, these zeros are making us see crazy!  Brain hurts!  Can’t think!  Let’s just condense this: 5 into 37.4.  We can tack on all those zeros later.  OK, this can’t be right neither: still near $7,000 per little Texan?

Time’s a-wastin’

Texas public school finance has been made up of lots of convoluted mathematical formulas, which for decades ensured kids living in wealthy districts got a better education than kids in poverty.  But that was supposed to have been fixed long ago by the Robin Hood plan to even out per-pupil spending in all Texas school districts.  (Remember the rich districts were to give to the poor, until the biggest cities in the state ended up being on the list of the state’s poorest districts?)  While figuring the figure, federal and local tax dollars kick in, and that might explain how our per-pupil spending is more than $7,000 allotted by our state education budget.  Maybe we’re going about this all the wrong way.  Instead of starting with a pile of money, maybe we should analyze exactly how much it costs to provide a quality education to a kid nowadays—ahem, these days being the 21st century and not the 1900s.

A kid needs highly-educated teachers, and in Texas we are proud to proclaim we still insist our public school teachers be college educated and degreed.  A kid needs to learn reading, writing, math, science, history, computers, health and physical education, and it would be nice to give ’em some arts like music, art, drama, and dance.  A kid needs to eat while spending all day in school, but breakfast and lunch should be covered by federal programs, right?  A kid needs textbooks [as we continue to witness the transformation to online texts, meaning eventually laptops with internet access for every Texas student] for at least twelve years.  And a kid needs quality equipment in science and computer labs as well as gyms and sports and art and music rooms.  And a kid needs a comfortable schoolhouse with heat and air within a consistently maintained and modernized building.

A kid learns best in a clean decent size classroom with subdued wall colors, more blues and off whites, no reds or orange.  Kids learn best in small groups; the Texas elementary school standard of 20 per class is just too many kids.  Kids need to see a nurse about assorted childhood scrapes and illnesses.  Many kids need counseling.  Yes, they do.  Kids need recess or a couple of breaks during the day like any employee in the workforce.  They need clean restrooms with toilet paper, soap and hot water to wash their hands, and operable water fountains.  They need coats in the winter.  They need parents who ensure their kids are at school on time and promptly picked up at the end of the day.  Many kids need tutoring after or before school; they need one-on-one instruction to fully master each lesson less they fall behind.

Kids in school need to learn at their own pace, so that means more staff and teachers instead of less.  They need to have their eyes and ears examined every year as well as checks on their emotional health and physical development.  More health care assistants, nurses and counselors are needed.

Now getting down to brass tacks, Texas students learning English need a lot more assistance especially seeing how we consider this a big problem in need of immediate solving.  Before any learning can take place, we all must agree that classroom discipline is a must.  Student discipline and self control must be the first priority and teachers supported instead of criticized and politicized.  And poor kids—who make up a great deal of our public school student population, if we’re being honest—will always need a leg up.  They need to start school earlier than age 4 or 5.  They need parents who know how to raise kids.  We’re talking even more social programs to gain parental support and trust.  Public schools should be run like private schools where there is no question about the final product: a well-educated student.

So given all it takes to educate a kid in Texas, in the 21st century, to ensure he and she have a chance for a viable future as a productive citizen and by age 18 are ready for college or the workforce, $7,000 or even $10,000 or $11,000 per pupil doesn’t seem near enough, now does it?  It’s an illogical equation in our fast-paced technological evolution where now the year is 2017.  When it comes to spending on a kid’s education, there’s no time to waste.

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The give and take in government

Government giveth, and it taketh away.  They get it from the Bible.  So why is anyone shocked about dismantling the Affordable Care Act (passed during the Obama administration and referred to as Obamacare)?  Our Government has a history of creating social and education programs—even lofty science ones like NASA—and then eroding or removing them through budget cuts, often when a new administration comes to power.

Back in the 1960s, old-timers tell of the Republican fight against Medicare and Medicaid.  But since then, generations have forgotten all the fuss.  Today not a single elderly person or the poor and disabled and disenfranchised and, well, everyone living in the middle and lower classes would want to see a single dollar cut from these programs.  [Medicaid might take up less than 5% of the federal budget while Medicare is close to 30%.  The military is around 15% while education funding is not even 5%.]

A quarter of a century before Obamacare, our federal government looked into passing universal health care, whereby no one would be rejected or dumped by an insurance company due to circumstances such as pregnancy (or just being a woman of child-bearing age), chronic health ailments and pre-existing conditions, or a previous cancer battle.  The Clinton administration tried and tried and tried to get something passed along the lines of universal health care—like every modern country provides its citizens except the good ol’ USA.  The President’s wife, First Lady Hillary Clinton, was appointed to lead the charge and instead found through round-table discussions with physicians, insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceuticals, no one could or would come to a consensus.  Issues of conflict centered on lowering health care and prescription costs, cutting a physician’s salary basically in half, and increasing insurance rates to expand coverage.  There could be no compromise.

Higher ideals

During the Bernie Sanders’ campaign, I learned of an era before my time, 50 years ago or so, when Uncle Sam would pay tuition of any American attending a public university or college.  How kind of our government leaders in those bygone days, how unified they were for the common good:  ensuring fellow Americans a college education.  It had to do with the American Dream of the house, the car, the summer vacation—in short, pulling folks financially decimated by the Great Depression into the middle class.

When I chose to go to college in 1981, the times had changed.   America was on edge with a rough, punk attitude.  No one cared about anybody.  Recession and inflation were common daily language, which for a high school kid left little hope for optimistic dreams or a brighter tomorrow.  Those of us growing up in that gloomy era understood government could not help us.  Don’t even ask.  Nevertheless, I did.

I received a federal student loan to cover my first year of college, plus I took on a couple of part-time jobs.  During my college years under the Reagan administration, budget cuts greatly affected government assistance for college.  By my second year, I was eligible for only half the loan amount with triple the interest.  Later I received a federal Pell Grant (thank God) and was eligible for college work-study.   Throughout the remainder of college, the Pell Grant was cut in half year after year, though it always covered tuition.  Incredulously, during my final year of college, I no longer qualified for work-study.  What kind of crazy government policy was that?  Reagan seemed to support kids working their way through college.

Other college students had government assistance taken away, too, affecting their plans and aspirations.  One student was on the GI Bill, having been a Vietnam-era veteran but not one that saw combat.  That was the new hitch in trying to balance the federal budget, I suppose.  Another college friend had to leave when Social Security could no longer afford it.  The government program used to provide a college education for youth whose parent or parents were deceased.

Those programs benefited millions of Americans until funds were cut.  Education programs like those could only help our nation and future generations.  The Social Security fund for college came from President Johnson whose programs and purpose was to ensure that any American who wanted to go to college ought to be able to do so.  I grew up with that mindset, a natural assumption (maybe because I am an American) that I could go to college even if my parents could not afford it.  I was grateful for the federal government supporting young people to achieve a worthy goal and a bright future for all.

Here we are today.  Our federal government and millions of Americans do not support tax dollars funding a college education.  Not only do we have a generation of college grads who cannot pay off their loans in their lifetimes, we have the same generation and younger disbelieving in college as the only way they can get ahead in life even if they are living in poverty.  They are affected by negative government, family, TV shows, movies and pop culture with sarcastic online references that play down a college degree as making any difference.  This cynical worldview has penetrated school kids who do not see the benefit of education or even a high school diploma.

Here’s the truth: Work options for people with a degree are much better than the vast number of jobs that do not require higher education whether from college, trade school or military training.  Here’s another fact: Businesses desperately need workers at every level who can read, write, calculate and think to make quick assessments and decisions ON THEIR OWN.  And businesses continuously lack the kind of employee who is overall intelligent, self sufficient and well rounded.  For decades businesses have complained workers with only a high school diploma or less are not smart enough to keep up with technology.

Government budgets reflect what’s important to people already in power.  It’s up to us Little People to let Washington know: We know how our tax dollars are spent, how the budget is divided, and what the government’s priorities are—because we know what used to be important back when America was great indeed.

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Texas toilet patrol

Toilet patrol is nothing new in Texas.  Our elected officials assume our moral compass—carrying on every odd year like that big fat-mouthed, uncouth, boastful cartoon rooster Foghorn Leghorn.  This year in the Texas Leghorn, job number one is not ensuring public schools are adequately funded but instead plunging head first, eyes and nose closed, into the ethically and morally divisive issue of forcing transgender students to use a male or female restroom based on their birth certificate instead of their maturing rational human brain.

 

In Texas when it comes to complex physiological matters like s-e-x—and all other cutting edge scientific research that ends up radically changing moral presumptions while eroding blissful ignorance—our legislators remain shamefully behind the times.  From civil rights to women’s rights, children’s rights, gay rights, workers rights and just plain human rights (air quality for instance,) the suits in Austin have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.  They insist on being seen this way nationwide.

 

Biological scientists nowadays are proving that the transgender brain is different [not necessarily abnormal, but if this is easier to understand, then fine].  It has to do with brain and chromosome development in the womb.  Wehhl … such advanced medical advancements are way above the average elected official.  But when these findings were made well known nationally on a major and lengthy TV news report centering on Caitlyn Jenner (former American Olympic champ Bruce Jenner), the Obama administration summarily mandated all public schools in the U.S. will not discriminate from that rare student who is transgender, thereby allowing said student to use the restroom of his or her brain’s choosing and his/her emotional comfort.

 

Look what I’ve stepped into here!  And in my beloved Texas where legislators wouldn’t understand this even if they could.

 

Small town toiletries

 

Another Texas toilet controversy I inadvertently stepped into occurred when I was a city government reporter in a small Texas town.  Having been on the job a few months, one day some old feller called me to get down to city hall.  He would not give details but could not contain his mischievous laughter.  I called city hall, having no clue what to ask.  No one answered the phone.  Though my tipster had been laughing, I never assumed anything along the uncomfortable moral sphere.

 

So I got in the truck and drove a few blocks to the town square and walked into city hall.  Sure enough, everyone was gone—all four of ’em: the city manager, city manager secretary, city secretary and office assistant.  The police station was next door, so I walked over there and asked the police chief if he’d heard anything about city hall.  The seasoned chief remained poker faced with a slight smile, his usual countenance, and as he put out a cigarette said nonchalantly he had no idea what the matter could be.

 

I returned to the paper and summarily called the mayor at his cable TV outfit.  In his usual stiff manner, he claimed to know nothing unusual and added all was well at city hall.  “Yeah, but nobody’s there and this man called,” I pressed.

 

Not ten minutes later the mayor with the city attorney walked into the newspaper office, darting at me while meeting the editor for a private conference.  I couldn’t hear anything.  But after the guys left, my editor quietly motioned me in, barely able to contain his laughter.  Red faced and in a joking manner, he told me that the city manager had bored a peep hole between the men’s and women’s restroom at city hall.

 

I was speechless, maybe with a slight smile to fit in.  I didn’t see anything funny about it at all, felt sorry for the city manager’s all-female staff, then recalled the time when the city manager asked if I needed to use the facility before an interview.  I felt sorry for the city manager, too.  He was young, educated, professional, clean cut, church deacon, married with kids, committed to his very serious public job—and I often noticed his vehicle still at city hall way after hours.

 

Of course he was taking no calls even when my editor left numerous messages at his home.  We wanted a comment for the inevitable article.  The media storm was immediate with area TV and radio calling me for information.  The city council was trying to stifle the story, trying to be gentlemen and not get into a rather disgusting matter.  They did not want to go public, preferring the city manager just leave his position (and town).  That night the city council held its monthly meeting, and I was there covering anything that might come up off the agenda.  The councilmen could not look the city manager in the face as he read through ordinances and other business, keeping his voice monotone.

 

Then the next day, the city council realized they were going to have to go public and called a special session with the media.  All of us showed up, one radio personality jokingly calling the ordeal ‘pottygate.’  The mayor proceeded to tell everything: how pieces of sheetrock kept peeling off the wall around the women’s single-stall toilet, how a hole was discovered when the paper towel dispenser above the toilet was removed to restock, how the city manager denied any knowledge, how his staff believed him, how they all laughed about it at first.  Then a private detective was hired, unknown to the city manager, and the report came back: He was the only one who ever used the men’s toilet at city hall.  The two restrooms were side by side separated by a wall in a building built decades ago.  The city manager confessed.  He explained to his female staff that he just had to ‘see something.’ Embarrassed and humiliated, the women tried to file charges for ‘peeping Tom.’  But there was no crime other than defacing public property.

 

A few months later, Texas Monthly called me about the incident, wanting to include it in the annual Bum Steer awards.  The writer asked my perception of the former city manager.  He came across to me as ‘tightly wound,’ all business and no pleasure, always talking water and sewer lines and budgets and city improvements.  And that should have tipped me off because small town folks love to shoot the breeze and get to know people.  In that way he was odd.

 

A friend of mine in the big city read about the ordeal (the editor sent the articles to the Associated Press).  She told me about a book she had read on male predators.  Men of this nature start with an obsession with pornography.  Then they need to spy on females in their private moments, may start acting out by driving in the nude or engaging publically in self gratification, before finally attempting to assault a female for sex.

 

The three-letter word

 

Sex and sexuality are as wild as nature itself: complex, unexplainable, against the rules of some societies and religions, compulsive to some extent, sometimes haunting our very dreams.  There are laws against molestation and rape, and for the most part females are protected and certainly encouraged to alert police of assaults or suspicious behavior even a gut instinct.  Women know very well about the creepy man, the weirdo who may stalk us in a public restroom or lurk around in the next stall.  We teach our girls to always be on the look-out for such strange men.  But our biggest fear is that a man, in his craven desire to rape, will don a wig and women’s apparel in order to walk right in our public restrooms, waiting for the right time to attack.

 

I imagine this happens, but I do not know for a fact that it does or ever will—not with all the cameras and cell phones and mirrors and females with their guards up.  When and if a man masquerades as a woman to enter the women’s restroom to spy or attack, it’s a crime.  The very thought is one of our many fears as women.

 

Getting back to our state Lege, some of our officials may think that allowing transgender women (who physically still may be men) to use the women’s or girls’ restrooms would be a temptation to molest us, especially little girls in our public schools.  A transgender man or boy thinks he is a female.  He/she would not want to harass or assault or even bother us.

 

Flip the scenario: A transgender boy (who physically is still a girl) is forced by state law to use the girls’ restroom at school.  Not only would girls be uncomfortable and maybe even malicious toward a student in their restroom who looks and acts like a boy, but the transgender student would be going against his/her nature, too.

 

Texans like everyone else are going to have to keep an open mind about advanced discoveries in biology, chemistry, sexuality and brain science.  New information sometimes forces people to change their thinking and how we treat fellow human beings.  Perhaps we should start testing political candidates, too—allowing only the top ten percent on the ballot.

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80’s the magic number

My dad just turned 80 years old.  He was a Depression baby born in the winter of 1936.  I felt this milestone birthday needed major celebration.  So I prepared a party for him.  I thought about everything I knew about my dad: poor country boy from rural Oklahoma, classic car enthusiast, auto mechanic, junk yard roamer, electrician, plumber, home builder, repairman, jack of all trades, country music lover, down-home guitarist.  In short, he is the salt of the earth.

 

When I arrived for Christmas, I presented him with huge party balloons of the ‘good time rock ‘n’ roll’ theme: round helium balloons in solid colors of burnt red, black, and teal with one larger balloon shaped like a classic car detailed with flames.  The story goes a long time ago, when my father was a young man, he drove a car detailed to read “The Wild One.”  Presenting the balloon bouquet to him, I said with a smile, “Happy birthday!” and then decided to spill the beans about his surprise birthday party.  His quick response was a commanding “No!”  Mom and I smiled calmly and remarked about how there would be more cake and fun and prizes for us.  His relatives had been invited, so Dad decided to go with the planned occasion that would take place in his home the following afternoon.

 

For fun I created games called “Who Knows Dad?” and “Who Knows 1936?”  Anyone who correctly answered a question got a small gift from a grab bag.  I came up with about fifty questions for both games, most partiers choosing to answer questions about Dad’s life.  The night before, I asked him if he wanted me to read over the questions about him.  [I figured he might think I would include something embarrassing from his past.  No way!]  As I read the first question, “Dad was born on what day of the week,” he looked confused.  He said he had no idea.  I told him an internet search of the year showed he was born on a Sunday.  I went on with the next question: “What was Dad’s nickname on the baseball field?”  He looked even more confused.  He told me he did not know his father’s nickname when he played baseball.  I explained the game was about him, my Dad, not his father.  For a moment he seemed to think he would be put on the spot at the party to answer questions about his life.  I assured him the questions were for the party-goers, not him the Birthday Boy.  Yet I knew given his age, the whole thing might confuse him, maybe stress and upset him, as he initially seemed to me.

 

A few years ago “60 Minutes” aired a segment on the nation’s growing elderly and skyrocketing costs for hospitalization and medical care, most of which may be unnecessary.  A noted geriatric physician wanted to bring home one hard fact: The human body is built to last 80 years.  It doesn’t matter how well we take care of it, 80 is like nature’s expiration date for human life.  If anyone lives longer than that, it is a blessing or luck and maybe genetics.  I paid attention to everything the doctor advised, especially when it came to loved ones who turn 80, when the geriatric physician strongly advised family to have a serious talk.  So now The Talk between parent and child is not about sex but about death and dying and final wishes, specifically Do Not Resuscitate directives in case of end-of-life scenarios.  Since the initial airing of this vital report, I have managed to come across it while watching TV again and again and again.  Still I haven’t had The Talk with my parents.  In fact, when I first told them about seeing this report, they were offended.  They honestly believed the doctor was advising society to do away with anyone over 80 years old instead of help them or heal them but just let them die.

My parents, however, are wise and pragmatic.  They’ve already purchased their cemetery plots, paid for their funerals, and even showed me a picture of their lovely double headstone in pink marble shaped like a heart.  Surely they have made their DNR wishes known to their doctors?

 

As for me, I went ahead and typed up all my final desires and arrangements, knowing life can expire way before reaching age 80.  Once as a topic of discussion during a visit, I told my parents about my end-of-life preparations, hoping to open the door to full disclosure about their wishes … before something happens.  All right, when the time surely comes.  But neither of us was direct.  So the issue remains awkward.

 

Aging and the brain is major research today with already helpful findings, such as dementia is averted and the brain more youthful when the elderly are taken back in time to a favorite era of their younger years.  For my parents that would be the 1950s: of Elvis and hot rods, rockabilly, jukeboxes and burgers and malt shops.  In their mind, the time is full of vitality and color, not faded black-and-white pictures.  The clothes, the music, the fun and fads, home furniture, TV shows and cars can bring back very happy memories—and this can help revitalize the brain.

 

My dad looked at the napkins I chose for his party.  They where white with a specific teal color, the exact blue-green shade of the teal balloon and the teal plates, bowls and dinnerware I purposefully chose for his birthday party.  He was showing the color to a relative while recalling he once had a car that exact color.  I remember it well: a ’55 Chevrolet with whitewall tires.  He’d fix her up every now and then and take us for a ride while we were growing up in the ’70s.  He’d floor the engine on the highway, gleefully passing up modern cars with no pizzazz or distinctive body design.

 

By the end of his birthday party—an event he declared to be his first and last—Dad seemed to have pepped up quite a bit.  The stroll down memory lane, his lane, with numerous and fondly recalled anecdotes from the life he lived his way proved therapeutic.  That’s the reason for an 80th birthday party: to celebrate a life well lived now.

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So long Charles Manson, so very long

Charles Manson’s not feeling well these days.  Sniff, sniff.  The infamous lifer guilty of mass murder was moved from his prison cell to an undisclosed hospital.  At long, long last, maybe society will finally be rid of this notorious sociopath.

 

For almost fifty years, Charles Manson has remained so well known he’s like an uncle in prison.  Because of him, much has been debated on the nature-versus-nurture theory in child development: Would Charlie have turned out the same if he had come from a loving home, or is he indeed proof of a born sociopath?  With several books and autobiographies, TV movies and news magazine specials, interviews, articles, websites and perpetual interest, Charles Manson’s life and crimes are like a tattoo on our society—perhaps never to be removed.  Even his heroes the Beatles commented on him back in the day.  (John was more sympathetic; George was not.)

 

Did you know that Manson and the attorney who prosecuted him were born the same year, in 1934?  Prosecutor and defendant—clean-cut suit with college, unkempt hippie with prison smarts—were the same age during the trial.  Vincent Bugliosi was always available to comment on Manson through the decades until his own death a few years ago.  Sharon Tate’s mother, a physical presence at every parole hearing, also passed away.  Alas, Manson and his aging girls live on behind bars.  Originally after their collective trial, they had received the death penalty in California.  But that punishment was later deemed cruel and unusual in our society.  That was during the liberal ’70s when even the likes of heinous murderers, though never forgiven, were going to be treated in the manner of a loving society.  Life without parole was considered fair and just.

 

A lot more vicious crimes have occurred since 1969, back when some hippies on a hot August night went on a senseless rampage of carnage not once but twice, leaving blood-smeared taunts and warnings at the police and society.  More discreet mass murderers roamed free in the decades to follow—each news account a revelation that scared us, mostly women, out of our wits.  Nowadays no one sleeps with the windows open and doors unlocked, and those who can afford it place a premium on home safety by adding dogs and alarm systems.  Manson and his creepy crawlies had a lot to do with ushering in these commonsense changes in the American home.

 

Another decade or so after the Manson trial, the death penalty was restored as being perfectly sound in the case of certain kinds of murders.  These crimes had to meet criteria such as involving a child or police officer and taking place during another offense such as burglary or rape and being particularly gruesome.   In the past decade, Texas boasted the number one killer of capital offenders.  And more of the condemned were black than white.  Once upon a time, lethal injection was deemed a viable solution that lets the punishment fit the crime without offending society’s growing inclination against other forms of execution.  As the years rolled on, however, we became increasingly aware of many men in prison who were proven innocent through DNA.  So now, like the ’70s, society is questioning the death penalty, and many states already have banned it—because it stands to reason some who died in the death chamber were innocent.

 

I am against the death penalty and support life in prison.  A lifelong prison sentence is exactly how some murderers should pay for taking one or more human lives.  We have to pay more money to provide lifers with housing, food, health and education.  But doing so reflects a society’s clear conscience.  I am a product of the ’70s after all, having grown up knowing about Manson and the murders and his commuted sentence from death to life in prison.  So I shed no tears about Charlie or any mass murderer spending the rest of his life in prison—even if living to be 100.  We have all the time in the world.

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Heart Attack still number one

Like most people, I assumed Carrie Fisher would survive a heart attack.  Given that she was only 60, the constant news watch was evidence to me of a slow news day.  I think the self-deprecating Carrie would have agreed.  Then the next morning, she was gone.  Women and heart attacks are no laughing matter and are dead serious.

 

Women of a certain age, post menopausal, are not only equally susceptible to heart attacks as men but are more likely than men to die from them.  Why do we place this in the back of our minds instead of at the forefront, like men do?  Like we all do when it comes to men and their health?

 

Women’s heart attack symptoms are often different from men, not always the classic left arm numbness and crushing chest pain.  Women’s heart attacks are much more subdued.  Their complaints are more like emotions, vague and hard to describe in physical or medical terms.  A woman’s heart attack can feel like simple indigestion without a thought of anything more serious.  Prior to my mother’s heart attack, she had been feeling ‘anxious’ and ‘off’ and a little ‘queasy.’  Those symptoms could be about anything, even matters of the psyche.

 

Carrie Fisher had a fabulous life, really living several lifetimes.  Hers was marked by fame at birth, unanticipated movie mega-stardom in “Star Wars,” spiraling drug addiction mostly to pain pills and cocaine, partying with celebrities like John Belushi, rehab, and writing semi-autobiographical books—one made into a major Hollywood movie with the great Meryl Streep and legendary Shirley MacLaine acting out the presumed mother-daughter relationship of Carrie Fisher and her mother, Hollywood sweetheart Debbie Reynolds.  Around this time, the real mother-daughter duo did not speak to each other for ten years.  That’s got to wear on the heart, aging it prematurely.  It’s hard to cling to hate and animosity toward the same person, year after year.  Forgiveness and communication allow love to flow, heart to heart.

 

At the heart of Carrie’s chemical makeup, however, was not addiction as much as bipolar disorder.  She talked candidly about possessing an over-fueled mind, one that is constantly ‘on,’ never off even when she was exhausted.  Lack of rest, mental and physical, can age the heart, too.

 

Once mental illness was diagnosed and properly treated, including occasional shock therapy with pills instead of bolts of electricity, her mania calmed and at some point she and her mother made amends—even to the point of residing as next-door neighbors.  Their story is quite poignant, demonstrated by Debbie Reynolds’ sudden death practically at the news of her daughter’s departure from the planet.

 

For the rest of us women of a certain age, Carrie Fisher’s sudden death is a warning to take care of our heart by exercise and diet including medical checkups and cholesterol and blood pressure meds if prescribed.  In retrospect Carrie lived each day as if it were her last, leaving us one final postcard from the edge.

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Bedmates and Politics

Like a nation divided, so is my marriage.   I’m a lifelong liberal Democrat married to an equally dedicated conservative Republican.  But somehow for 15 years, we’ve managed to keep the peace that seems to have eluded our fellow Americans especially at this point in time.  My background is in liberal and perhaps dreamy-eyed causes and insecure professions: newspaper reporter and music teacher, the latter having suffered two job cuts as a choir director in the public schools.  Admittedly, a decade in the public schools has opened my eyes to many a Republican’s perception and stereotypes of minorities and the poor: crime, gangs, drugs, run-down neighborhoods, broken homes, perpetual chaos and drama, overworked parents, tough kids feeling unloved and unwanted, and an overbearing collective sense of despair and more urgently a disbelief in education making any difference.

My husband, also a college graduate, works in an upscale community as a cubicle cog within the tech industry.  A recent cancer battle meant he would have to take on an additional part-time job.   He would describe me as altruistic, the last of the bleeding-heart liberals.  I would refer to him as the consummate Angry White Man.  Yet together we have seen our income not only shrink as taxes increase but our growing medical needs and household bills escalate while salaries remain stagnant.

We know we work hard.  He has taken few vacations.  I completed a master’s degree, hoping that might open doors for a salary increase.  Still we float along together on the ocean of life, holding tightly through storms and managing to laugh along when an unexpected wave slaps us silly.

We’re both 54 and have lived through many presidential elections (my husband voting in all local elections, too).  So during the summer when the political dust cleared and we knew the choice was between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, without saying a word we agreed to disagree.  He put up with my ferocious laughter during “Real Time” while I held my tongue as he listened to right-wing radio and FOX News meme about crooked Hillary.  Time and again, he allowed me to call Trump a lying sack of *()& to his TV face while I accepted my husband (and just about everyone I knew on Facebook) referring to Hillary as, well, the worst kind of woman.

Working where he does, he assumed everyone nationwide shared his views.  I the same.  But we were both equally alarmed and surprised at the election results.  I was seething the next morning, clearly foreseeing the worst recession ever and bracing for another music teacher job loss.  Yet he refrained from an ‘I told you so’ smirk.  He really could not believe his guy won.  Like the rest of the country and world, we were reeling in shock and maybe uncertainty.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day he offered to take us out to eat, a sign between us that we, like the country, will go on.  Over dinner he remarked with a pleasant surprise about my lack of anger or even tears.  I wasn’t crazy for Hillary to begin with.  She’s no Obama.  But I did not believe Trump should or would win the election especially the way he did.  With a sigh of resignation, I told my husband I’ve lived through Republican administrations before.  After all, the America I know elected Reagan twice, Bush I, and then Bush II twice.  Nothing is shocking. Nothing lasts forever.  I think half the country had forgotten that.  It’s our deal.

So what advice could my mixed political marriage offer to help bring together fellow Americans, seemingly divided more emotionally than politically? First I’d say we win some and we lose some; deal with it.  I and millions of people will be watching the new president like a hawk.  A review of American presidents, 99% rich white men, will reveal Trump is nothing unusual and nothing our nation hasn’t dealt with before.

Finally I would say politics is not as important as marriage.  In a country with a high divorce rate, maybe we forget this.  Plus, our democracy allows us to throw away presidents every four years, and that’s how it should be.  The people are in charge, not the president who represents always only about half of us.  Marriage, if at all possible, should not be thrown away after four or eight years, especially over political views or affiliations.

Our divided nation is going to have to find ways to get along, to not let emotions overrule knowledge and truth, to not take American politics so devastatingly serious.  We’re still living in the land of the free and home of the brave.  (A marriage like mine proves it!)  And by the way, humor goes a very long way in bringing people together, including married couples, because laughter is a product of love.