Big Brother

I always wanted a big brother, no offense to my older sister. I always wanted someone there to defend me from bullies, and look out for me on the schoolyard. Well, Big Brother is watching over me, but not in a good way.
This week we learned that our government is now using a Predator unmanned drone aircraft, on loan from the Department of Homeland Security, to survey the valley that is flooding in North Dakota. High definition videos are shot from high above the area in question, then reviewed in some cozy office at Homeland Security. This creeps me out in so many ways. When ever there is a disaster, people are vulnerable and will follow direction without question. Sending in drones to take high definition video is not in itself a threat, but what it does is inoculate us as a nation to the use of these drones. "Don't worry my little friends, the drones are our friends. This is the wave of the future. See how it's helping us?" We already have Google earth street version to pinpoint our exact location, but the technology that is emerging is so intrusive, it frightens me.
I was sitting at my computer yesterday when I received an email. It was from my car. No kidding. It emailed me, via the Onstar program, and informed me that my right front tire pressure needs attending. I was stunned. There is another example of a "helping" device, that could also be used to "track" me if needed.
Then there was the incident three weeks ago. My sister and I arrived at a friends apartment to find him disoriented and in need of an ambulance. She called 911 on her cell phone, then we both realized that we didn't have the exact address, but again, no problem. As she was talking she heard an unusual bell sound on her phone. Yep, they had tracked her down via the cell phone and were sending help straight away. Did we feel helped? Hell no, we felt extremely creeped out.
This technology is watching our every move through traffic cameras on street corners, ATM cameras, parking lot cameras-hell you can't even straighten out your pantyhose on the elevator anymore as there is some 18 year old kid watching you from the security booth!
Is there anywhere to jump off the grid anymore? I doubt it. Our government is doing a heck of a job scaring us into compliance about the amount of surveillance it is doing. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I continue to vote for LESS monitoring systems when ever possible.
Big Brother is an impostor and he is not protecting us, he is hoping we will all fall in line and fall asleep so that he can do what ever he chooses and we won't even blink an eye. Silent drones overhead-think about it.

Suffering

It seems as I grow older my peripheral vision is expanding, and what I see from every direction is suffering. Three people I know are struggling with cancer, another two are grieving the loss of children, another the loss of his marriage, another few the loss of jobs, of homes. The losses are monumental, and the courage it requires for them to keep going is enormous.

What can we do for each other, as we grow older, as we become even more familiar with these losses? Because let's not fool ourselves, with great experience and age, comes loss. We can keep our heads down, turn up the music and pretend it isn't happening. But better still I think we can link arms and walk together, heads held high with full stride.

I think life can be juicy and fun, breathtaking and heartbreaking and dangerous. I also think at times it can be boring and dull, or crushingly painful and cruel. What ever comes, we face it not alone, but in a community of family and friends. We can and must reach out to each other when we are feeling the lonliness that nips at the heels, or the fear of the unknown, or the known, when the suffering is so raw that we wonder if we can bear it another day.

I found a quote today that I love:

"I'd rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is". Albert Camus

Loving matters. Caring and comforting each other when we see the need matters. Sometimes I feel so powerless to do anything to comfort some, who suffer so much, with no resolve in sight. I try to remember that what most of us need more than anything, is just for someone to be present. Someone to stay with us for a bit, and not wince at the sight of our ugly, gaping lives.

I want to grow older with vigor, and with passion but more than that, I want to grow older with deep and genuine compassion.

During this economic dark storm, we don't have the power to change the deficit, but we can look around our own little world and try to be present. That's what I am trying to do. A little candle in the darkness to find our way to each other.

And the Oscar goes to . . .

I'd like to thank the Academy for the recognition awarded me tonight. I'd also like to thank the following people for helping me to make it to this point in my life:

Sound familiar? I won't lie, I do love the Oscars. I love the gowns, and I love the people who trash the gowns. I love the camera panning out to to see reaction of the one's who lose. I love that it's live and that someone just might trip on their way up the stairs.

But back to the thanks. I'm thinking a lot lately about Karma, about life, and about teachers. I really believe that every incident that comes our way throughout our day is a teacher. Every person who cuts us off in traffic, every email that hits our inbox asking for us to do more work than we can possibly accomplish, every first date that makes us feel like a kid, and the ones that never call again-all of them are our teachers.

If we sit back and learn, we can matriculate through this period and go on to the next, but if we sass back to the teacher and resent the lesson, we are doomed to repeat the grade.

I'm trying really hard to PAY ATTENTION. To just be aware, and awake. To live consiously, not just stumbling along. I want to love with gusto every soul that comes into my path, and forgive those who hurt me along the way too. Sometimes it's like paddling upstream and other times it feels like floating along with the current.

I'd like to thank all my teachers past and present, and hope to be open to learning from those still to come.

The song of my country

Today I was lost in the middle of a big hospital. I asked a staff person to direct me to the right area and he motioned for me to follow him and he would show me the way. He was tall and lanky, very dark and shy. We walked up and down many hallways and the entire time he was singing a beautiful song, very quietly to himself. When I asked him what he was singing he seemed embarassed, as though he didn't know I could hear it. He said "Oh, it's the song of my country, that's all". I asked him what his country was and he told me he was from the Sudan. He said he missed it and would be going back.

This made me think today, what is the song of my country? I don't think it is the Star Spangled Banner, or even God Bless America, though both of these make me weep every time I hear them.

Today, on the eve of the most exciting inauguration of my lifetime, I feel the song of my country is a homogeneous blend of so many cultures. It is the song of zydeco from the bayous of Lousianna, it's the sound of smoky jazz from Chicago, it's salsa and the blues, it's hip hop and reggae and Chopin and klezmer, it's the native American flute and rock and roll and it's all of us from all walks of life. Our song is a chorus, not a solo.

There has never been a time when I felt more hope for a country that is so broken at the tender places. We are humbled, we are in need and what we need is each other. We are hungry for the partisan politics of the past to be replaced by the unity of a nation.

Barack Obama will not be a perfect president. He will let us down, make mistakes and come up short to be sure. But he is the first man in politics in a very long time who has the ability to call out of us that which has long been in slumber-hope.

My song today is "It's a New Day" by Will I Am. It speaks to my soul and it makes me happy.

I Dream A World By Langston Hughes

I dream a world where man no other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn

I dream a world where all will know sweet freedom's way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white, whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl,

Attends the needs of all mankind- of such I dream, my world!

I am deeply touched by the men and women who have gone before us. These luminaries who bore our sins and dared to dream of a future that they themselves could never see. I am ever grateful to the dreamers, the poets, the long suffering grandmothers and grandfathers who, with quiet perserverance kept the faith.

Some of those wishes will come true tomorrow when the United States of America swears in Barack Obama as it's 44th president. We should bow down in thanks to the ones who cleared the way, both black and white, who marched against the water hoses and tear gas, who sang out hymns of peace while being spat upon by those with hooded robes. We have not conquered all of our demons, but it's a good start.

I feel so hopeful, so proud to be an American today. I feel the anticipation of something brand new up ahead. I know there will be mistakes, and there will be danger, but we are coming together now more than we ever have before and defining ourselves in a broader more integrated way. We will do our part, and then those behind us will do even better.

We can be proud that the day has finally come when a black man can lead this country. Yes we can. We can relax and know that torture will no longer be tolerated, yes we can. We can rest assured that in time, everyone will have affordable heathcare, yes we can. And we can know that the international community will open it's arms in collaboration, yes we can.

The call to service is one I will ponder. There is much work to do, but together we can do it. Yes we can!

This is a stick up

Bernard Madoff was arrested this week for ripping off untold numbers of investors in the amount of 50 billion dollars.

Wait now, let me repeat this: 50 BILLION dollars.

If a twenty year old with a drug habit and a hankerin for heroin holds up a liquor store for 50 bucks his ass lands in jail that VERY NIGHT. There is usually no one to pay his bond and he is not likely to have a well dressed attorney to reduce his bail terms. He gets no special treatment and can go to jail in a heartbeat.

So, if you are a white collared rich dude with an expensive attorney here is what you get for STEALING 50 BILLION dollars:

"Out on bail with a curfew, defendant must be remanded to his home between 7pm and 9 am. Passport is surrendered and defendant must wear anklet device".

Oh, wow, what a statement of the seriousness of the crime huh? What kind of a legal system do we have when someone can rob people, albeit rich people, of so much money and get some little lightweight slap on the hand?

I'm appalled, I'm just completely agog. It almost makes one want to go to law school just to level the playing field.

Okay now, I said almost.

But for real, 50 billion?

Of cigarettes and longing

It's Christmas time, and I want my mom. It's been over 18 years now, and the gut wrenching grief is long gone, but the ties that hold you to your mom never come undone, even in death. I was shopping last week, in a great mood, looking at some Christmas ribbons, when all of a sudden my mother's favorite Christmas song came on the store speakers. I instantly started sobbing in the middle of the aisle, I came completely unglued in the middle of the dollar store.

Christmas was cookie heaven at our house growing up. We didn't have money, but we had a lot of baked goods. We decorated cut out cookies so much my sister Nancy refers to that time as our "cookie sweat shop" period. We loved decorating them but there really can be too much of a good thing! After a few dozen ginger bread cookies made just so, we would just sprinkle on the glittering sparkles as fast as we could to get them done. But everyone loved my Mom's baking, and Christmas was the time when her talents really shined. Like making Hajji, everyone had to come at some point and taste my mother's baked goods.

What kind of solace is there for the deep, primal loss of your mother? What-that she's in heaven? Or that she's reached Nirvana? Or that she's in Purgatory working out her sins? Or that she's dust?

If I can take license for just a moment I would like to picture my mother in Heaven like this: She is wearing her turqoise polyester pant suit, letting her nails dry from just painting them cherry red. Her permed-up hair is sprayed up good and it has the artificial look of Clairol #5 Strawberry Blonde. She's sitting at a table with a cheap cigarette in one hand, and a beer in the other. Sitting next to her is her wild, untamed, chain-smoking, crazy ass sister Rosie who is borrowing a Vicodin and a beer from my mom and dealing out the cards for them to play KIngs in the Corner. They are in hog heaven, praising Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Halleluia and pass the ashtray! Both of them had childhood trauma's and a lifetime of addictions, but my mother had a heart of gold. I miss that heart.

That's it, that's all. Just that, although my heart is full and I am happier in my life than I have ever been, I still miss her. Always will I guess.

Purple Haze

Chicanery- I love the sound of this word, it sounds like a fun pink and black striped candy that you could buy at the candy counter in a movie theater, but the meaning is more like what you find on the floor of the theater after an all-day film fest.

This week we found out that Chicago politics are more corrupt than we even knew. The Governor was auctioning off the vacating senate seat of our president elect for payola, and wanted other perks as well. So many pundits are chiming in on this dung heap, it's hard to find anything else to say, but as I am rarely at a loss for words, I have some thoughts on the matter.

Why is it that so many times in various different settings, people lose themselves when they gain recognition and success? You see it in corporations, in school boards and especially in churches. The humble servant seeks to serve and before long he expects that all should serve him (or her). Are we destined to just have the most base and coniving of our species rise to places of power because the rest of us have no stomach for it? I'd like to think that there are those among us who, given the challenge, could overcome the temptation to morph into the egocentric goons that seem to occupy the highest seats.

I saw Ann Coulter on Fox News today. Her whole aura seems to be one of gloating, self righteousness. Her comments are snide and her world view is so negative, it's hard to imagine her being in any relationships with friends who would feel safe around her. I confess I would love to lock her in a room with Bill Mahr, the room would combust with their two egos in full throttle.

In the end I believe that Jimi Hendrix was right: "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

I'm hoping with all my heart that Mr. Obama will raise the bar for our government, and our country as a whole. I want to aspire to be a better person for the higher good. I want to live in a country where we aren't all jaded about our leaders, where we feel that they are making decisions that will benefit the many, not just the few.

Am I naive? Perhaps, but I love the idea that we can all evolve, that life is an ever changing ball of wonder, and that the impossible can come still come true.

Now where did I put that screw driver?

This week in the news we heard that Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper, one of the astronauts on the International Space Station, accidentally let her tool bag slip away while she was making a repair on the outside of the space station. I hate when that happens! The photo of this is priceless, actually pretty unreal. I kept thinking about this incident all week and now I'm just going to jot down some thoughts for your ponderation.

1). How can we manage to send people into space for months at a time and plan out each and every element, from oxygen delivery to waste mangaement, food and temperature control, and yet someone couldn't think to attach some velcro to the tool kit?

2) Why is it that the first time a tool kit goes missing it's the girl's fault? I hope she isn't blonde.

3) I think it's hilarious that at the moment the astronaut saw that the tool kit was floating away the NASA ground crew overheard her say "Oh Great!" If you drop your cell phone in a mud puddle it's "Oh Great" if you drop your bagel on the floor it's "Oh Great!" but come on people, if you drop a $100,000 tool kit in space in front of the entire world via satellite? There would have to be a seven second delay for what I would be saying.

Somehow this whole incident serves to make me step back and realize that we can plan our lives, we can set it up and have every detail lined up a certain way, but then life can just come along and BOOM, your tool kit is floating away. I feel that way sometimes when my stress level gets up to DEFCON 5. I feel my coping skills just floating away in space and as I try to slo-mo my way over to get them, they just slip further away. At that point I have learned that the best thing to do is hunker down and wait. Call the cavalry and let them know that there's been an incident and then make a new plan. Usually the waiting brings about renewed ideas and the stamina to implement them. Or, like the astronauts on the International Space Station, someone with their own tool kit can come along and help you.

Now all we have to do is be watchful. If you are walking a beautiful beach some night at sunset and you look up to see something hurling at you at the speed of light, I would say DUCK because a wrench coming full tilt from space is gonna leave a mark.

Time's up!

Rootin Tootin Vladimir Putin and Mayor Michael Boom Boom Bloomberg have lots in common. Both have delusions of grandeur that convince them that the world as we know it will collapse into ruin if they are not in power-again. To that end both are seeking to change the term limits laws in their prospective communities. Mayor Bloomberg succeeded last week, along with the city council, but it remains to be seen whether or not this will withstand the challenge it will certainly recieve.

What is interesting in both instances is what we see often in corporate America. People claw their way to the top and once they get a sip of the power, become addicted to the high and will do anything to keep it.

It is as ridiculous as it is narcisstic to think that they alone can lead their people. Term limits were enacted for very good reasons. Cronyism and corruption are the two that come to mind. I remember working for a company where I watched as the most ruthless and corrupt persons rose up in the ranks, feared by most and respected by none. They wielded their power like bludgeons and had no sense of the collective good.

Term limits are our way of saying that we know that power can corrupt, and that no one person is ever the only person who can lead. We need people in leadership positions both in and out of government who are going to lead with a sense of the collective good. This will only happen when competent people step forward and agree to serve. Good people who will not let the stench of the good ole boy network turn them away. Dedicated people who cannot be bought, and will not sell out.

Bloomberg and Putin, get a grip. You had your fiftteen minutes and your time's up. If you are so concerned about the future of your people, then stick around in an advisory position and continue to serve. Emphasis on serve.

I'm just saying . . .