Here in Boston, Mayor Tom Menino is running for re-election for the n-th time.  Senator Ted Kennedy’s death has given us the first new Senator since the 1980′s.  Senator John Kerry is now our senior Senator, but he’s also been in office as long I can remember.  Rep. Barney Frank has been so long in the House that new interns think he’s a ghost.

What do these cases have in common?  These are all men that have been in office too long.  I don’t know any of these men personally and therefore have no way to determine their competence except by hearsay and the admittedly biased local press.  But they are old and stale and should head off into the sunset of a well-deserved retirement.  Term limits would force them to do so (for Senator Kennedy, of course, this is a moot point).

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So now the Senate committee has officially announced there will be no public option.  The healthcare wunderkind are just beginning their task of pruning away all features that might make this bill a true reform.  Before too long we will be back to the status quo except that the insurance and drug companies, without any government control, will have more people to financially rape and plunder.

Yes, it is true that a just system can be built on the basis of private insurance, but, as I have argued before in this blog, that can only happen if the government steps in with a mighty big stick to control the rapacious greed of the corporate participants in the healthcare system.  Germany and Switzerland are good examples of such a system that works because of heavy government control.  Think we’ll ever achieve that here?

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A close friend of mine invited me to the National Corvette Restoring Society’s (NCRS) regional show in Marlboro, MA this last Saturday (Sept. 19, 2009).  He is a judge but we hit him at the right time.  Judging duties were over and he was able to give us a nice tour of the ‘Vettes in the exhibition center, from the very first to the most modern.  I particularly liked a little silver ’63 roadster, although I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in it and couldn’t get out if I could.

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The debate is hot and heavy now about whether we need more troops in Afghanistan.  Mr. Obama outlined a strategy during his campaign and replaced the commander in the country at the time with General Stanley McChrystal, supposedly a smart guy, who now is saying either change the strategy or send 10,000 – 45,000 more troops.  Such an escalation is sounding a lot like Viet Nam and, indeed, if the number of troops is increased, Afghanistan may start looking a lot like Mr. Obama’s Viet Nam.

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I watched the incredibly popular show “Dancing with the Stars” most of the first season and off and on for two more, but now I have given up on it.  Tom Bergeron has become annoying, a large percentage of the contestants are buffoons, and the idea of letting the vox populi overrule three expert judges is carrying democracy to absurd limits.

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Review of Jim Ciullo’s Maracaibo, Mainly Murder Press, ISBN 0-615-29012-4, Jim’s website):

Publishing today is a buyer’s market.  There are so many good books out there that the average reader can use the internet to have access to a large number of good books to read.  He can read e-books at his computer or with e-readers.  Or he can still trot off to his nearest brick and mortar bookstore to get his cup of java and browse.

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When Digital Equipment was bought by Compaq Computer, it was preceded and followed by massive layoffs.  When Enron and WorldCom folded, thousands of people lost their jobs.  The list goes on and on as our unemployment numbers have skyrocketed to around the ten per cent range.

We seemed to be numbed by the large number of the people affected.  Out of necessity, perhaps, we focus on the big picture, ignoring detailed stories of pain and suffering.  It’s like the physicist that describes a gas – he’s going to use statistical techniques and not focus on the individual molecules, because there are too many of the latter.

That is why the case of the Hyatt Hotel chain in Boston is both encouraging and worrisome.  In its three Boston hotels, the chain has decided to outsource a number of service jobs while it lays off the long-time employees that held those same jobs.  The outsourcing is to a company in Georgia that doesn’t pay benefits, of course, so Hyatt pays less.

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“Harvard to offer a doctorate in education leadership” read the title of the Boston Globe article yesterday morning (Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009).  I was bewildered and amused.  Education is something I am more than acquainted with, having worked with high school teachers in Colombia and taught university and college classes in many places.

We must put the headline in perspective.  Education in America is in a sorry state.  Reform is needed.  But adding so-called leaders is not the reform that is required.

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Writers use stereotypes all the time.  Their characters often play against stereotypes and they often speak about other people using stereotypes, just like real people do.  There are so many people we don’t know, especially famous (or infamous) ones, that we tend to stereotype them by what they say – in particular, when what they say shows lack of respect or is insulting.

Three recent cases have motivated me to write this post: the cases of Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kanye West.  They relate to my personal battle with stereotypes.

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This is yet another entry into the Odri genealogy.  Enjoy.

Hexenkoph

Copyright 2008, Steven M. Moore

“Witches.  Demons.”

Children repeated the words as they played on Williams Township Common on a summer evening in 1798 Pennsylvania.  Holding onto their kerchiefs, they danced around a ring, their cotton shirts and calico dresses billowing in the light breeze.   The German immigrant parents gave a wink and a nod to their play, although for them witchcraft was more serious business.  Only a few months earlier jurors under oath swore the widow S. B. had bewitched a horse so that it “worstened and wasted” away.¹

The children then sang the witches’ song their parents brought from the old country:

“Merrily dance we, merrily dance we, round this old oak tree,

Full many will dance this terrible night, but none will be merry but we;

The ships shall dance on the yeasty waves, the billows shall dance and roll,

And many a screech of despair shall rise from many a sin-sick soul.” ¹

***

Odri e’Mon Ruspi e’Fom tested the air.  Many centuries had passed since this planet was last visited.  It was necessary to be prudent.  The dominant species could have permitted an industrial revolution to slip into run-away mode or turned the area into nuclear slag.

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