Before the crisis in the mortgage market, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for teaching people the basics of money management, and even a game designed to teach people how to get out of the "rat race" of a working life, into the life of a property owner, making passive income from the ownership of property - or a piece of something - that we have lent our capital to.
There is a fundamental problem with this method, and I cannot be the only one who sees it. If everyone is an owner and no one is a worker, who makes the stuff we make our enlightened profit from?
If everyone is a property owner, who rents?
I don't particularly like games where somebody wins only if someone else, even in the smallest measure, loses. It may be an effective way to transcend class, but it only works by exception. Unless, that is, we all rent from ourselves.
I heard a bit of complaining from working class "Joe the Plumber" sorts, being interviewed about class warfare and how "hard" people making executive salaries worked for their money. I know some entrepreneurs and CEO's who work pretty damn hard, but not, I think, 410 times as hard as the average salaried bank manager with three kids facing unemployment.
I believe in the creativity of the American people, put to test, to generate enough wealth to take care of themselves, their children, with enough left over to safety net the less fortunate. I believe in the fundamental generosity of the American people. I believe that, if provided with leadership, we can transcend anything we are presented with.
But we are not going to do it working 100 hours a week at Walmart taking amphetamines to stay awake.
Just a thought, but the greatest return on investment, via GNP, that a country can make is in education. The rate of return is 25% for every year of education.
But to do that we're going to have to spend money. And to spend it, we're going to have to collect it.
I'm willing to pay my share to take care of my neighbors' children, the old, and I sure as hell am willing to pay to have the mentally ill housed rather than sitting on the street corner on my way to work.
And I think we should take a close, scrutinized look at those who are unwilling to be of service to their neighbors to the degree they have prospered.
Government isn't some other entity to fear. It is a social contract between us and us. It can be as honest and trustworthy as we hold it responsible to be.
And holding it accountable means participating. I don't know what the outcome of this election is going to be. Like most Americans, right now I am hoping, praying, working and talking about it when the opportunity presents itself. I could not be more proud of the contingent of young people who are not allowing their elder's cynicism to infect them.
So while we're at it, lets begin to ask some questions about the basic assumptions we hold near and dear.
Biblical scholars will tell you that some commandments are held more highly than others. The commandment not to kill or, conversely, not to let someone die, preempts the commandment not to work on Sundays.
Perhaps it is time to look at the presumptions of property ownership and, most of all, at the rights of a corporation which cannot be held criminally or morally responsible for its collective behavior. Does the corporation who turns the family out of their homes for failure to support an unwise mortgage deserve our community support while the now homeless family does not?
The only thing that keeps us from bringing this sort of common sense argument into our political conversation is a short lived rhetorical tradition of labeling progressive ideals as somehow less than American.
It's all American. The right to have these conversations is American. The right to make decisions about what kind of society we want to live in is American. The right to grow and change through peaceful revolution is American.
Barack Obama was accused of being an advocate of wealth distribution, with his tax plan that calls for those who make more to return to graduated tax system. The interviewer called it socialist.
The candidate laughed, graciously, and said: "That's not socialism. It's being neighborly."
I was born between classes, mother moving up and father moving down. It gave me all kinds of concepts to sort out, from a wounded sense of entitlement, to the final ownership of a quality of pride that I have worked all my life, and probably will work the rest of my life.
My father's family came from money and land. My grandmother came from the land too - but she never presumed to own it. Ultimately it is her words that I find the easiest and most satisfying to live by.
Be your brothers' family
Share in time of plenty
Share in time of need
Work, trust, love, and be grateful for what you have been given
None of us makes it through life alone
The concept that I may be my brothers' keeper is as old humanity, from every people on earth.
It might be a concept that we can circle America around.
The question that pivots before this generation is how wide do we make the circle?
Do we include our neighborhood, our city, our outcasts, our country?
Do we include the people who don't agree with us?
And, eventually, do we include the world?
For when we do, then there will be no economies that we profit enormously from if we are not invested in their long term well being.
If every man is my brother, can I take his money to pay my mortgage on a piece of property I then call my own?
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The Map of Ireland – Making Friends with My Face
I grew up not knowing what I looked like. This is not surprising, as there were few mirrors in our home, and I was not encouraged to spend time in front of them. My husband, on the other hand, has a pretty good idea what he looks like, because he studied his expressions learning how to draw. That’s why even the most hideous ghoul in his repertoire has that mischievous smile of his.
Mine is not the face that launched a thousand ships, but it does seem to be a face that has been claimed by almost everyone as “One of ‘Us’ “. When I was younger, Greek people was sure I was Greek, Jewish people were sure I was Jewish, Irish – Irish, French - French, Italian, Hispanic – and so it bordered on humorous. Visiting Boston, a little Hindu girl adopted me and called me “Silky”, and her family invited me to come and live with them. Upon a chance meeting with a young Swede (and I definitely do not look Swedish), he was sure he met another European traveler.
As I grew, there were a few years of grief – actually about ten of them – where this stopped happening. I think, in truth, it’s because I stopped smiling. Life happens to people, and during my 30’s there was a little more than an average amount of loss.
But as much as life does happen, it does not stand still, and through no small amount of work, love, help and nurture, I seemed to find my mislaid self. And people started to find themselves reflected in my face again.
I started to notice it when women began to gravitate towards me, and I found myself with an unusual number of social obligations. But then strangers began passing me, smiling and nodding, as though they knew me – as they had done most of my life. Strangers stop to talk to me in grocery lines. The last one told me I had “The Map of Ireland” on my face.
I went back to the mirror to study. My friends will tell you, I don’t like mirrors and I don’t like pictures. The images of myself that I’ve seen seem hideous to me. They do not look like I feel, nor do they look like the person people seem to be responding to.
There was a test done not so long ago about the difference between how beautiful people are treated, both male and female. Theoretically, beautiful people are treated better,
I am not a beautiful people.
Not by media standards of beauty.
But then, I don’t believe in media standards of beauty.
It is a rare person I’ve met that I do not see beauty in.
And sometimes the most beautiful people I’ve ever met are lined, wizened, with thinning hair and bright sparkling eyes.
Or tiny men, with loving, open faces.
Or tough, spunky women covered in construction debris.
Or an alcoholic who manages not to drink, just this one more day.
Or tall men, stooping at the waist, with soft gentle voices, trying not to intimidate others.
There is such beauty in the world. There are so many infinite ways in which human beings grow themselves to be integrous and brave.
We have a culture that worships youth, and I love the young, with their power, and speed and optimism. And yet, I think people become more of who they truly are as they age. They settle into themselves. They have less time for what does not matter to them, so you can see what truly does matter emerge with clarity.
And, little by little, I see that person who knows what matters to her emerging from my eyes.
I don’t see it in the mirror. I see it in the lady by the checkout stand, who thinks I could be her daughter.
I don’t believe that people respond to “beauty” in conventional terms nearly so much as we might suppose.
It has been my experience that people most strongly respond to what they see.
Which is far more than can be captured in a mirror or a photograph.
Mine is not the face that launched a thousand ships, but it does seem to be a face that has been claimed by almost everyone as “One of ‘Us’ “. When I was younger, Greek people was sure I was Greek, Jewish people were sure I was Jewish, Irish – Irish, French - French, Italian, Hispanic – and so it bordered on humorous. Visiting Boston, a little Hindu girl adopted me and called me “Silky”, and her family invited me to come and live with them. Upon a chance meeting with a young Swede (and I definitely do not look Swedish), he was sure he met another European traveler.
As I grew, there were a few years of grief – actually about ten of them – where this stopped happening. I think, in truth, it’s because I stopped smiling. Life happens to people, and during my 30’s there was a little more than an average amount of loss.
But as much as life does happen, it does not stand still, and through no small amount of work, love, help and nurture, I seemed to find my mislaid self. And people started to find themselves reflected in my face again.
I started to notice it when women began to gravitate towards me, and I found myself with an unusual number of social obligations. But then strangers began passing me, smiling and nodding, as though they knew me – as they had done most of my life. Strangers stop to talk to me in grocery lines. The last one told me I had “The Map of Ireland” on my face.
I went back to the mirror to study. My friends will tell you, I don’t like mirrors and I don’t like pictures. The images of myself that I’ve seen seem hideous to me. They do not look like I feel, nor do they look like the person people seem to be responding to.
There was a test done not so long ago about the difference between how beautiful people are treated, both male and female. Theoretically, beautiful people are treated better,
I am not a beautiful people.
Not by media standards of beauty.
But then, I don’t believe in media standards of beauty.
It is a rare person I’ve met that I do not see beauty in.
And sometimes the most beautiful people I’ve ever met are lined, wizened, with thinning hair and bright sparkling eyes.
Or tiny men, with loving, open faces.
Or tough, spunky women covered in construction debris.
Or an alcoholic who manages not to drink, just this one more day.
Or tall men, stooping at the waist, with soft gentle voices, trying not to intimidate others.
There is such beauty in the world. There are so many infinite ways in which human beings grow themselves to be integrous and brave.
We have a culture that worships youth, and I love the young, with their power, and speed and optimism. And yet, I think people become more of who they truly are as they age. They settle into themselves. They have less time for what does not matter to them, so you can see what truly does matter emerge with clarity.
And, little by little, I see that person who knows what matters to her emerging from my eyes.
I don’t see it in the mirror. I see it in the lady by the checkout stand, who thinks I could be her daughter.
I don’t believe that people respond to “beauty” in conventional terms nearly so much as we might suppose.
It has been my experience that people most strongly respond to what they see.
Which is far more than can be captured in a mirror or a photograph.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Bag Lady Part II
There are those we judge in society, for so many things, and perhaps the one's we judge most are the one's we are afraid of becoming - or the one's we are jealous of.
I have been, more than once in my life, without a home. Not for many years, thankfully.
Having little family to speak of, my life was often one or two mishaps away from falling between the cracks. There was, I thought, no safety net for me. I never took money, save scholarships, from public institutions. And I have been employed, in one manner or another since I was 8 years old.
Still, with all that bootstrapping hard work, I have been without a home as a child and as an adult. Never did I beg. Never did I steal. And never was I on the street for long before some kindness was disposed upon me and I was given shelter until I could get my feet under me again. And, because of my vantage point on the world, I came away with some amazing stories.
I know, and have seen that people are, overwhelmingly, unerringly kind, almost all of the time.
And when they are not, I generally trust that they have been hurt in some indelible way.
The other day a co-worker of mine asked me to quick, think of a prank she could pull on a third co-worker. It was not mean spirited, but I had to tell her that my imagination just didn't run in that direction.
I don't do funny, at least I try not to do it at other people's expense.
But I do hope.
I do hope in spades.
I have been, more than once in my life, without a home. Not for many years, thankfully.
Having little family to speak of, my life was often one or two mishaps away from falling between the cracks. There was, I thought, no safety net for me. I never took money, save scholarships, from public institutions. And I have been employed, in one manner or another since I was 8 years old.
Still, with all that bootstrapping hard work, I have been without a home as a child and as an adult. Never did I beg. Never did I steal. And never was I on the street for long before some kindness was disposed upon me and I was given shelter until I could get my feet under me again. And, because of my vantage point on the world, I came away with some amazing stories.
I know, and have seen that people are, overwhelmingly, unerringly kind, almost all of the time.
And when they are not, I generally trust that they have been hurt in some indelible way.
The other day a co-worker of mine asked me to quick, think of a prank she could pull on a third co-worker. It was not mean spirited, but I had to tell her that my imagination just didn't run in that direction.
I don't do funny, at least I try not to do it at other people's expense.
But I do hope.
I do hope in spades.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Bag Lady
I've been called any number of hurtful things in my life, and this one came from a fellow writer.
Just finished Maya Angelou's "Letter to My Daughter", and I highly recommend it. In it she describes, among other things, lessons in humility found in foreign countries where she did not know the customs.
I have slipped in and out of handfuls of cultures. Sometimes I managed to be invisible. Sometimes I managed to seem to fit in. Sometimes, when I thought no one was paying much mind, I gathered about me antique skirts, luscious vintage sweaters, sturdy boots, and a bag big enough to carry all the tools I needed to observe and record the world around me.
I would sit in cafes where the staff knew me by name, if not by profession, and where I had my regular table with just the right light for the sketches no one would ever see, the endless note books, reference books, legal pads, and of course - at that time - one really clunky computer.
In the middle of the city, I would fade into my corner and work, hour upon happy hour.
Until someone said "She looks like a bag lady traipsing around Capitol Hill".
Somehow, I was then less free. Less free to wander the parks. Less free to let my imagination wander. Less free to watch the world go by.
Shamed.
I put away my vintage. I moved off the hill. I ceased to wander.
A sweet woman, with a beautifully lined face and a quick, facile smile, told me that women regain themselves in their 40's. The world stops noticing their every move, and we are free, once again, to wander the streets.
Grace, humility, forgiveness, all those things that come on the good side of age, will go in my bag of all work and I will learn to leave the stingers behind me. I hope.
And still, there is a set of the teeth that Maya has that has often made me wish I was born with darker skin. Nope. Just a mixed breed, working class writer.
I think Maya grew up knowing something it has taken me a lifetime to learn.
God didn't make no garbage.
Not even me, Charles.
Not even you.
Just finished Maya Angelou's "Letter to My Daughter", and I highly recommend it. In it she describes, among other things, lessons in humility found in foreign countries where she did not know the customs.
I have slipped in and out of handfuls of cultures. Sometimes I managed to be invisible. Sometimes I managed to seem to fit in. Sometimes, when I thought no one was paying much mind, I gathered about me antique skirts, luscious vintage sweaters, sturdy boots, and a bag big enough to carry all the tools I needed to observe and record the world around me.
I would sit in cafes where the staff knew me by name, if not by profession, and where I had my regular table with just the right light for the sketches no one would ever see, the endless note books, reference books, legal pads, and of course - at that time - one really clunky computer.
In the middle of the city, I would fade into my corner and work, hour upon happy hour.
Until someone said "She looks like a bag lady traipsing around Capitol Hill".
Somehow, I was then less free. Less free to wander the parks. Less free to let my imagination wander. Less free to watch the world go by.
Shamed.
I put away my vintage. I moved off the hill. I ceased to wander.
A sweet woman, with a beautifully lined face and a quick, facile smile, told me that women regain themselves in their 40's. The world stops noticing their every move, and we are free, once again, to wander the streets.
Grace, humility, forgiveness, all those things that come on the good side of age, will go in my bag of all work and I will learn to leave the stingers behind me. I hope.
And still, there is a set of the teeth that Maya has that has often made me wish I was born with darker skin. Nope. Just a mixed breed, working class writer.
I think Maya grew up knowing something it has taken me a lifetime to learn.
God didn't make no garbage.
Not even me, Charles.
Not even you.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Returning to Writing
My husband and one of our best friends Derek went to the Lovecraft Film Festival this weekend. We took a tour through Powells (world's best book store), and I got cold sweats in the fiction section.
I took a stab at writing comics some long time ago, but was missing a key ingredient for the genre. Why, I asked Derek, would a writer be born without an imagination?
Nonsense, says Derek.
But no, compared to Derek and David, I don't have the library of cultural mythical references in my head. I wasn't allowed access to that sort of thing as a child, so I never developed the habit for fancy.
It's isn't that my imagination isn't full of musings, observations, wonderings and wanderings - but I seem to notice the small things: gestures, expressions, language, currents of culture three generations back.
I notice hands.
All my life I have found the world a wonderous, marvelous, terrifying, hopeful, constantly surprising place. I love, love, love an imaginative yarn - but never myself found the need to wander outside the world I knew to find things to occupy my mind.
For a long, quiet time now, I rather thought that there wasn't anyone other than myself interested in these observations.
Derek runs a podcast radio studio. Several of the features are up and running, more in the pipeline.
And, apparently, the flier features a noir detective series with a psychological twist -- mostly taken from short stories out of my trunk.
Yep.
Sneaky way to set a fire under my butt.
Can't disappoint a friend now, can I?
We'll see.
I'll keep you ...uh ... posted.
I took a stab at writing comics some long time ago, but was missing a key ingredient for the genre. Why, I asked Derek, would a writer be born without an imagination?
Nonsense, says Derek.
But no, compared to Derek and David, I don't have the library of cultural mythical references in my head. I wasn't allowed access to that sort of thing as a child, so I never developed the habit for fancy.
It's isn't that my imagination isn't full of musings, observations, wonderings and wanderings - but I seem to notice the small things: gestures, expressions, language, currents of culture three generations back.
I notice hands.
All my life I have found the world a wonderous, marvelous, terrifying, hopeful, constantly surprising place. I love, love, love an imaginative yarn - but never myself found the need to wander outside the world I knew to find things to occupy my mind.
For a long, quiet time now, I rather thought that there wasn't anyone other than myself interested in these observations.
Derek runs a podcast radio studio. Several of the features are up and running, more in the pipeline.
And, apparently, the flier features a noir detective series with a psychological twist -- mostly taken from short stories out of my trunk.
Yep.
Sneaky way to set a fire under my butt.
Can't disappoint a friend now, can I?
We'll see.
I'll keep you ...uh ... posted.
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