I'm on Frontier Flight 790, flying from Portland to Denver on Christmas Day. It’s remarkably quiet and peaceful, and my row mate, her infant son and I have as a gift that rarest of modern travel situations, an empty middle seat. The air is remarkably smooth, and the snow-covered Sawtooth Range below me is a beautiful sight. I’m returning home to Mr. Gunn and the Dauphin, Tick Tock bin Trouble after a bittersweet visit with my mother – not because there was any particular flaw, fault, or fight – but because it’s painfully clear that with each day, a little bit more of what made Virginia Jean Kuehner Cory so special is lost to her, to me, and to the world.
For as much as we live in a material world, most of what matters to me is intellect, experience and memory. Thirty years ago, I rather spectacularly celebrated Christmas by buying my mother a stereo so we could listen to classical music for Christmas (never mind that I bought it out of money that I neither had, nor had any right to expect – but that’s a different story). Mom has used that stereo off and on for the last thirty years, happily pushing the analog buttons and turning the weighted tuning and volume knobs to pull classical and jazz music, and news out of the turntable, tuner, and CD player.
So watching her punch vainly at the buttons of the television and DVD remote, and seeing her increasing agitation with its failure to effect a desired response from the old stereo equipment was painful beyond words. My mother’s loss of what seemed to be an almost intuitive skill shocked me. I’ve long been accustomed (if disconcerted) to her memory lapses, her increasing repetition, her agitation at the new or unexpected. But this, this was completely other – every bit as disconcerting as her reaction to anesthesia after her most recent knee surgery. Here was something she had known and used for 30 years – 30! – and she was incapable of understanding that the modern remote would not work on her vintage stereo.
So much of what I’ve shared with my parents has been experience. That I can’t share that with my mother any longer is a cruel gift to receive. Was she happy I was with her, and that we shared a few simple meals, a couple of games of Scrabble, and some simple kindnesses? Yes, without doubt or question. Was I happy to be with her? Of course; and yet not one moment spent with her was without an underlying sadness and questions. How much more of her is there to loose? How long will she be able to live independently, as she does now? How pained is she by her loss?
I’m grateful that I spent four days with her, and that we shared some of our cherished holiday traditions – decorating the tree, shopping for clothes (for me – she wasn’t interested in shopping for herself), eating ridiculous Belgian chocolates – which seemed to bring her real happiness.
The greatest gift to her, however, will be peace: to sleep, perchance to dream, and to gently leave this life. I can’t offer that gift – but I hope and pray that she soon finds it.
01 January 2011
05 December 2010
Enough!
Let the Bush-era tax cuts expire. Create pressure for real, substantive, and economically and socially beneficial tax reform. This paper is a good explanation of the reasons why this is what's required. Progressive taxation is a prerequisite for a liberal democratic society. The last time I checked, that's what the United States Constitution created (although recent Supreme Court rulings seem determined to interpret it somewhat differently).
The United States faced a similar situation after the Gilded Era, and the set of political and social changes (which included an unsustainable 90% rate of taxation on the wealthiest Americans) also produced a physical and social infrastructure that created real productive capacity, human capital, and real wealth creation which lasted roughly from 1946 - 2006. The radical restructuring of taxation that began with the Reagan Administration and was completed by the Bush Administration has gutted our productive capacity and human capital, and has spawned bubbles and ridiculous schemes to create notional assets (see: derivatives, credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities) that masquerade as "wealth". What they failed to do was support an educational system and physical infrastructure that trains people for all types of work, and allows rapid development and implementation of new technologies. Anyone interview recent graduates recently for positions that require thoughtful analysis? Notice real gaps in achievement and accomplishment among mid-career professionals due to a lack of ability to manage lifelong learning? Thought these might strike a chord. Drive anyplace, and tell me that roads today are better than they were in 1990. Don't even consider that our water and electric systems have been appropriately maintained. As for mass transit and rail transit, join me and my fellow commuters on Washington's Metro system to see just how badly that's failed.
And for my affluent and wealthy friends, a gentle reminder: countries with great inequality in wealth and opportunity have a tendency towards violent and uncontrolled change. See, for example, 18th Century France and 19th Century Russia.
Finally, a very simple truth: if you want something good, you have to pay for it. States are not magical unicorns that poop cupcakes. They take real individual sacrifices to create common goods that provide individual and collective benefits greater than what can be accomplished individually.
The United States faced a similar situation after the Gilded Era, and the set of political and social changes (which included an unsustainable 90% rate of taxation on the wealthiest Americans) also produced a physical and social infrastructure that created real productive capacity, human capital, and real wealth creation which lasted roughly from 1946 - 2006. The radical restructuring of taxation that began with the Reagan Administration and was completed by the Bush Administration has gutted our productive capacity and human capital, and has spawned bubbles and ridiculous schemes to create notional assets (see: derivatives, credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities) that masquerade as "wealth". What they failed to do was support an educational system and physical infrastructure that trains people for all types of work, and allows rapid development and implementation of new technologies. Anyone interview recent graduates recently for positions that require thoughtful analysis? Notice real gaps in achievement and accomplishment among mid-career professionals due to a lack of ability to manage lifelong learning? Thought these might strike a chord. Drive anyplace, and tell me that roads today are better than they were in 1990. Don't even consider that our water and electric systems have been appropriately maintained. As for mass transit and rail transit, join me and my fellow commuters on Washington's Metro system to see just how badly that's failed.
And for my affluent and wealthy friends, a gentle reminder: countries with great inequality in wealth and opportunity have a tendency towards violent and uncontrolled change. See, for example, 18th Century France and 19th Century Russia.
Finally, a very simple truth: if you want something good, you have to pay for it. States are not magical unicorns that poop cupcakes. They take real individual sacrifices to create common goods that provide individual and collective benefits greater than what can be accomplished individually.
29 October 2010
"Do we need anything at the store?"
Four days in Portland for elderwhispering and elderwrangling with my mother: I knew it would be a difficult four days, but what I could never know is how difficult.
First, the good news: my mother's knee surgery was completely successful, and she is both mobile and as pain-free as an 87 year old is reasonably likely to be. That's a great comfort to me, as I saw her become more and more lost in both chronic pain and in the desperation of being shut in -- to her home, her body, and a collapsing world.
Next, the bad news: my mother has senile dementia. I hoped that the relief from chronic pain might also relieve some of the confusion that Mom increasingly displayed. For years, my mother repeated herself in conversation. I attributed it to not being engaged, and not engaging in, challenging intellectual activity. Crossword puzzles and Scrabble aside, I'm not aware of my mother having bought a new book in years, nor had she expressed an interest in politics and current events since 2003. "No blood for oil" was her mantra, and coming from a woman who was a lifelong Republican (though to her credit, she voted for Clinton both in '92 and '96, Gore in 2000, and Kerry in 2004) it was a testament to the cupidity of the Cheney-Bush Administration.
But after that the world changed: We occupied Iraq, we muddled on in Afghanistan, our economy and society floundered, and the losses in Mom's life kept piling up: the deaths of high school, college, graduate school, and professional friends were noted. The fellow residents of Mt. Angel Towers moved in, settled in, and died. Her sister, Monica Kuehner, died. My father, George Cory, her divorced second husband, died. Her closest friend, Edith Throckmorton, medical librarian extraordinary, compulsive hoarder, and fierce curmudgeon, died.
And I suspect that beyond the cumulative losses and failing joints, bits of my mother's body were betraying her. Perhaps it was the neurological changes that 50 years of hard living -- by which I mean smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish -- can cause in a body: Decreased bloodflow to the brain; loss of glial support cells; loss of neurons in the cerebral cortex; accumulation of toxins. Who knows for sure, but the cumulative effect is the same: my mother is losing her short and medium term memory and other elements of adult cognitive function.
To be clear -- this is not Alzheimer's disease. I haven't faced the horrors that other friends and acquaintances have with parents and spouses and friends who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. My mother is still there, is still (mostly) content, and is still aware. But things I've taken for granted -- like setting up a daily schedule, or organizing a bill paying and filing regimen, or even having a conversation with Mom where there was information exchanged and integrated -- none of these can be assured at this point.
I realized this completely and irrevocably when on our last day together, my mother asked me not less than five times in 15 minutes if we needed to buy anything at the local grocery store. We had, two days earlier, purchased milk, cookies, cranberry juice, and toilet paper to add to mother's collection of all of the above. I threw out the existing milk, added the cranberry juice to the four bottles in the pantry, and wedged the toilet paper into the closet with the other 25-30 odd rolls. (We ate one of the two bags of cookies). So with each iteration of mom's question, I'd work through the list of items she'd likely be asking about, and assured her that she had many more of them stored in her house that she was likely to use. I was for the most part patient with her -- though our family is infamously inpatient with each other, and my patience is often suspect.
What I'm trying to come to terms with is how to accept is that at the end of my mother's life -- and for many people, at the end of their lives -- the person who we know and love is lost to us before they die.
And what I need at the store is the grace to understand just how to do this.
First, the good news: my mother's knee surgery was completely successful, and she is both mobile and as pain-free as an 87 year old is reasonably likely to be. That's a great comfort to me, as I saw her become more and more lost in both chronic pain and in the desperation of being shut in -- to her home, her body, and a collapsing world.
Next, the bad news: my mother has senile dementia. I hoped that the relief from chronic pain might also relieve some of the confusion that Mom increasingly displayed. For years, my mother repeated herself in conversation. I attributed it to not being engaged, and not engaging in, challenging intellectual activity. Crossword puzzles and Scrabble aside, I'm not aware of my mother having bought a new book in years, nor had she expressed an interest in politics and current events since 2003. "No blood for oil" was her mantra, and coming from a woman who was a lifelong Republican (though to her credit, she voted for Clinton both in '92 and '96, Gore in 2000, and Kerry in 2004) it was a testament to the cupidity of the Cheney-Bush Administration.
But after that the world changed: We occupied Iraq, we muddled on in Afghanistan, our economy and society floundered, and the losses in Mom's life kept piling up: the deaths of high school, college, graduate school, and professional friends were noted. The fellow residents of Mt. Angel Towers moved in, settled in, and died. Her sister, Monica Kuehner, died. My father, George Cory, her divorced second husband, died. Her closest friend, Edith Throckmorton, medical librarian extraordinary, compulsive hoarder, and fierce curmudgeon, died.
And I suspect that beyond the cumulative losses and failing joints, bits of my mother's body were betraying her. Perhaps it was the neurological changes that 50 years of hard living -- by which I mean smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish -- can cause in a body: Decreased bloodflow to the brain; loss of glial support cells; loss of neurons in the cerebral cortex; accumulation of toxins. Who knows for sure, but the cumulative effect is the same: my mother is losing her short and medium term memory and other elements of adult cognitive function.
To be clear -- this is not Alzheimer's disease. I haven't faced the horrors that other friends and acquaintances have with parents and spouses and friends who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. My mother is still there, is still (mostly) content, and is still aware. But things I've taken for granted -- like setting up a daily schedule, or organizing a bill paying and filing regimen, or even having a conversation with Mom where there was information exchanged and integrated -- none of these can be assured at this point.
I realized this completely and irrevocably when on our last day together, my mother asked me not less than five times in 15 minutes if we needed to buy anything at the local grocery store. We had, two days earlier, purchased milk, cookies, cranberry juice, and toilet paper to add to mother's collection of all of the above. I threw out the existing milk, added the cranberry juice to the four bottles in the pantry, and wedged the toilet paper into the closet with the other 25-30 odd rolls. (We ate one of the two bags of cookies). So with each iteration of mom's question, I'd work through the list of items she'd likely be asking about, and assured her that she had many more of them stored in her house that she was likely to use. I was for the most part patient with her -- though our family is infamously inpatient with each other, and my patience is often suspect.
What I'm trying to come to terms with is how to accept is that at the end of my mother's life -- and for many people, at the end of their lives -- the person who we know and love is lost to us before they die.
And what I need at the store is the grace to understand just how to do this.
02 October 2010
McFly Shrugged
This may well be the best critique of Rand ever:
That said, it’s a totally ridiculous book which can be summed up as Sociopathic idealized nerds collapse society because they don’t get enough hugs. (This is, incidentally, where you can start your popcorn munching.) Indeed, the enduring popularity of Atlas Shrugged lies in the fact that it is nerd revenge porn — if you’re an nerd of an engineering-ish stripe who remembers all too well being slammed into your locker by a bunch of football dickheads, then the idea that people like you could make all those dickheads suffer by “going Galt” has a direct line to the pleasure centers of your brain. I’ll show you! the nerds imagine themselves crying. I’ll show you all!Go. Read. If you must, read "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" (an arguably better novel than AS). But recognize that it's genre pornography.
28 September 2010
American Exceptionalism
I loathe most aspects of American Exceptionalism. Except for this: The Bill of Rights -- one of the towering achievements of political philosophy -- defines what it means to be a human being in terms of inalienable rights, and from that, what it means to be American. We -- and other countries, too -- have over time, accepted and extended the Bill of Rights to include more rights applying to more people.
Women and people of color didn't do so well at first. Minorities -- ethnic, religious, and sexual -- still have issues. The same thing is true for economic inequality. We're still working on this -- and as long as we as a people continue to work on the extension of rights for all, then I'm satisfied with the American experiment.
This idea -- that we as a people need not be afraid of the other -- is the one part of American Exceptionalism I both embrace and hope to see written large across the world.
26 September 2010
Wherein the present becomes the future
No, I didn't take a video of William Gibson as he was reading from "Zero History" or responding to questions from the audience. I sure as hell used my 'berry to record my thoughts. And here they are:
Obsessive need to buy books. "Zero History," of course. Picked up trade paper copies of "Neuromancer" and "Count Zero." Fanboy nervous. Also Killcullen and McPhee. The Killcullen is for MMF. Will read first. Kilcullen's the most important military thinker since Lawrence.
Watching and listening to the staff and acolytes is funny. From Eno c. 1973 to Comic Book Guy and the usual washington technorati.
Powell's v. Politics and Prose: no contest. Powell's. Why do we stay in this miserable town?
And the battery is dying. Can I be surprised at my 'berry's intransigence? Of course, an iPhone wouldn't be any better.
Men to women ratio: ten to one - at least. I've seen more women at The Eagle!
Glad I got here early. It's packed.
Gibson looks like an Oregonian. Yah Oregon!
Gibson sounds like a less fucked up William Burroughs. And reading, it becomes a real profound similarity.
And the Bigend/Bell connection - terrifying.
Milgram is more fascinating all the time. And Bigend - more terrifying.
Gibson talking on his characters and his process is fascinating.
Cornell boxes. Ah. I never saw the Bridge as a great Cornell box. But it makes sense. And I am eternally grateful to Gibson to introducing me to Joseph Cornell with "Count Zero."
Gibson is wicked smart and savvy. Imagine this is what a reading with Twain would have been like.
Comparing Hollywood movie production to slime mold. Brilliant.
Does no one know how to ask a question? Answer: yes.
Obsessive need to buy books. "Zero History," of course. Picked up trade paper copies of "Neuromancer" and "Count Zero." Fanboy nervous. Also Killcullen and McPhee. The Killcullen is for MMF. Will read first. Kilcullen's the most important military thinker since Lawrence.
Watching and listening to the staff and acolytes is funny. From Eno c. 1973 to Comic Book Guy and the usual washington technorati.
Powell's v. Politics and Prose: no contest. Powell's. Why do we stay in this miserable town?
And the battery is dying. Can I be surprised at my 'berry's intransigence? Of course, an iPhone wouldn't be any better.
Men to women ratio: ten to one - at least. I've seen more women at The Eagle!
Glad I got here early. It's packed.
Gibson looks like an Oregonian. Yah Oregon!
Gibson sounds like a less fucked up William Burroughs. And reading, it becomes a real profound similarity.
And the Bigend/Bell connection - terrifying.
Milgram is more fascinating all the time. And Bigend - more terrifying.
Gibson talking on his characters and his process is fascinating.
Cornell boxes. Ah. I never saw the Bridge as a great Cornell box. But it makes sense. And I am eternally grateful to Gibson to introducing me to Joseph Cornell with "Count Zero."
Gibson is wicked smart and savvy. Imagine this is what a reading with Twain would have been like.
Comparing Hollywood movie production to slime mold. Brilliant.
Does no one know how to ask a question? Answer: yes.
09 September 2010
21 August 2010
Grumpy
Really, I didn't need to fill out a stolen passport application. Or deal with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department -- who have yet to call Apple to follow up on the "registration" of my stolen computer. Or deal with Apple, to restore the iTunes purchase on my stolen computer. Or try to reconstruct drafts of my mother's obituary and the outline of a novel. Or pull the weeds from the garden gone feral. Or deal with overcompensation from colleagues who've made teeny little mistakes in the past and have to cover their asses in the present. Or play midwife to our -- yikes, I said it -- very pregnant cat, abandoned by our former neighbors and now in our care.
Really, what I'd like more than anything is to escape everything for a few days.
That's all.
Really, what I'd like more than anything is to escape everything for a few days.
That's all.
07 August 2010
Wherein I take notes (on my ‘berry)
(edited slightly for format and content. Sue me)
LCD Soundsystem, Roseland Theatre, Portland, OR May 29th, 2010
Intro music "I'm not in love" 10cc. Best FU ever. I knew Murphy was a fan.
Us and Them (Better than TH Stop Making Sense tour? It’s really close. Nancy Whang moment - she's from Portland? Was her mom really in the theatre? Cool!)
Drunk Girls (Murphy: "those are the two fastest versions of Us and Them and Drunk Girls we've played in a long time")
Get Innocuous!
Yer City's a Sucker
Pow Pow!
Daft Punk is playing at my house (channeling Nirvana)
All I want (“St. Elmo's Fire” meets Morrissey, wherein I remember (in tears) running, stoned out of my mind, through Raleigh Park on an August night in 1984)
All My Friends (with I Zimbra as a reference) - un-fracking believable.
I Can Change (Murphy can really sing, if he chooses)
Tribulations (Mosh pit w 30 and 40 year olds. Cool. Sorta glad I chose the balcony. Moshing in Spanish boots and an Armani shirt not so good)
Yeah (think "swamp thing by the Cramps." Really, I only need a cover of "take me to the river" to die and go)
Encore
Someone Great (bawling – really!)
Loosing My Edge (the live Rock Snob's Version. I admit to shouting out the lyrics I know)
New York I Love You (more SPM, through the NY Dolls -- only much, much better.)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
05 August 2010
Signs of intelligent life in the Senate, etc.
1. This is reasonably good news. I had written here that one of the ways in which we can get governance back on track is to clean out the arcane rules of the House and Senate, including reforming the rules around cloture and filibusters. That the most static of the status quo Democratic Senators (that's you, Diane Feinstein and Chris Dodd) are amongst the most vocal opponents of rules reform is telling. If memory serves me, there are a number of Senators -- Democrats and Republicans -- who in fact support reasonable rules reform in both chambers.
2. Cat Scratch Fever exists, and is extremely unpleasant. In fact, it may be more unpleasant than even the horrible Ted Nugent song. The inflammation on my wrist, combined with one particularly swollen lymph node, fever, and headache are making my life extremely unpleasant right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)