Strange Bedfellows
sketch copyright©by Krandel Lee Newton artist
Bedrooms in our condo are situated pretty much the same throughout the building. When an upstairs owner decides to eliminate carpet, what happens upstairs, does not stay upstairs. Our new upstairs neighbor is unaware her downstairs neighbors, through no fault of their own, can hear her nocturnal, amorous bedroom escapades. She does not know her antique bed frame exacerbates the staccato echo. Read more »
Wonder Why…………
sketch copyright©by Krandel Lee Newton artist
Cuisine:
People who turn up their noses at grits are snobs who believe those of us who eat them have three teeth and a third grade education. At your next dinner party announce you are serving polenta; add a nice wine and smile while the hypocrites devour.
If the special ingredients for homemade chili are not part of your DNA, don’t insult a Texan by serving beef and tomatoes, seasoned with black pepper, cooked until it is the consistency of a watery glob and announce you made chili. (Big hint, we don’t put beans in our chili). Unless you are native Texan, you will fail at this endeavor. Serve something else.
Medicine:
According to a cancer research study in the UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats “Ovarian cancer is predominantly a disease of older, post-menopausal women with over 80% of cases being diagnosed in women over 50 years.”
Medicare does not cover annual pelvic exams for women. Medicare does cover a vacuum erection device. There is a small payback for the inequity in services as noted by the following:
“Obviously this isn’t the most spontaneous thing,” says Tobias Kohler, M.D., assistant professor of urology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. “You can imagine someone having sex with a partner for the first time and pulling out this lunch box.”
Women’s Fashion:
The Mad Hatter reincarnated as a shoe designer this season. Who wears these clunkers? The lady who trolls the restaurant area down the street has quite an extensive collection of lace up booties, but her profession requires avant garde attire.
Not content to screw up shoes Mad Hatter progressed to sports attire. Lace shorts……in the summer…..in Texas….anywhere? An after five attire option?
Television:
The programming genius who decided to cancel Brian Williams’ Rock Center must have interned at Fox news. Brian Williams is intelligent, credible and devoid of histrionics. His followers rely on him for news that is not sensationalized, regurgitated sound bites.
Poetic Justice:
The Republican congress overwhelmingly opposed Elizabeth Warren’s appointment as the head of her brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They feared the position was too powerful. Liz got even. Elected to the senate; she serves on the committee for Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs. Those who opposed her have the opportunity to work with her every day.
Progress:
How long will it be before Monsanto appears on the food guide pyramid? Return of The Killer Tomatoes may become a reality. Genetically modified food, grown from seeds owned by Monsanto’s patent, served with farm raised fish could soon appear on the dinner table if it hasn’t already. Grass and moss from the tundra, served with whale blubber may soon be the remaining source of organic, natural food.
Maxine, Where Are You?
sketch copyright©by Krandel Lee Newton artist
Are women becoming less independent? After reading some of the advice columns, it would appear many watch too many episodes of the Bachelorette. We are nurturing a generation of whiners. I am discouraged to see how submissive we are becoming. We wonder why the glass ceiling remains intact.
The following issues prompted young women to write advice columnist:
A volleyball mom overheard two women talking about her. They went on and on about how awful she is. She was shocked and had no idea what she had done to create this impression. She could not decide what to do or how to act around the two women. She was avoiding her daughter’s game.
- The advice guru suggested she invite the women for coffee and question them in a non confrontational way to see if she could find out what she had done. Why should she waste time and espresso on two backbiters? At some level the woman knows if she is an awful person. She should BE awful and make sure their names appear on the next sign up list for volunteers to host team cookout and sleep over.
A newlywed woman stated before their marriage her husband had a liaison with a woman who lied about her marital status. She discovered since their marriage hubby had maintained contact with this woman. He will not address the wife’s resentment of the intrusion in their marriage nor cease contact with the other woman. The woman wanted to know if she should leave her spouse.
- Behavioral specialist suggested counseling. Where is her sense of outrage? A better suggestion would be to check out the movie “Waiting to Exhale”. She could learn about the healing properties from the glow of a bonfire. The money saved from counseling would pay for a bull-dog attorney and a nice vacation.
Another young woman was in a quandary as her parents had threatened to stop speaking if she and her new husband move to a different city. The parents had cut two of her sisters out of their lives because they moved away. She was beside herself.
- The columnist advised her to reach out to her parents. Why? If wolves raise you the best way to leave the pack is to move quickly under the cover of darkness several states away.
I have never been a fan of the cartoon character “Maxine” as I believed she reinforced negative stereotypes of older women. I was wrong. Maxine should expand her endeavors to writing advice columns. There is a whole generation of young women who could benefit from her wisdom.
Texans – One Size Doesn’t Fit All
sketch copyright©by Krandel Lee Newton artist
Online bashing roars to life after Rick Perry’s press conferences. Comments from our neighbors to the north are especially vitriolic. They say Texans are ignorant, uncouth clods and Perry is a reflection of those qualities. They conclude had we been intelligent, we would not have elected such an individual.
The East Coast effete, with their implied sense of superiority, depict Texans as backwoods, ignorant, toothless hillbillies who dwell in shanties with a pit bull tied to a rusty pickup truck in the front yard. These pseudo intellectuals might be surprised to discover that southern women, like many of them, qualify for membership in the DAR and in fact many Texas women are members.
Californian’s comments range from mild, “while you might be able to get a job in Texas who would want to live there” to stating “executions as being a good thing as they serve to eliminate Texans”.
Comments from people in Illinois were generally more charitable. They referred to Texas as a cesspool and stopped short of saying its inhabitants are slobbering idiots.
With a few simple tweaks of history, Texas might have avoided some of the negative stereotyping.
• If the Bush dynasty, with their New England connections to European royalty had stayed in Massachusetts, New Englanders would have to explain Dubyah.
• Ted Cruz was born in Canada. If he’d stayed there then the Canadians would have to deal with him.
• If Rick Perry’s college career as a male cheerleader had been successful, he might have moved to New York and starred on Broadway.
The next time you read or tempted to write something negative about Texans, I hope you will reflect and count your blessings. We are doing the entire country a public service by dealing with the fallout from these casts of characters. Give thanks; it could have been your state.
Everyday People
2013 arrived with nonstop devastation. We hardly recover from one horrific event, until another presents itself. The past week inflicted more sadness and terror than anyone should have to bear, yet everyday people endured.
Everyday people prove over and over that we are resilient. In the face of tragedy, we manage to find strength and courage. We rise to the occasion and meet whatever challenges we face. We persevere.
The past week’s events reminded us of the everyday people who choose to become firefighters and law enforcement agents. Their commitment to perform the job the public has entrusted them to do does not permit them to compromise the well-being of those they serve.
This past week congress chose to ignore the wishes of everyday people and defeated a compromise plan to expand background checks on firearms sales as well as a proposal to ban some semi-automatic weapons modeled after military assault weapons.
Everyday people elect representatives with the belief they will deliver what they promise. We trust them to reflect our values. In short, we expect them to create laws that benefit most of the people, most of the time. We expect them to compromise when necessary for the greater good. We expect them to adhere to the same standards and moral code of everyday people.
Everyday people deserve better.
Age Discrimination – Does it Ever End?
In recent years television comedians entertained us with sketches about funny older people. None were mean spirited and seemed innocent enough at the time, but, I wonder if they paved the way for it to be acceptable to portray older people in a negative way.
In 2007 when I wrote a piece about employment ageism for the Beaches Leader in Florida, I was somewhat surprised they published it given the demographics of Florida. Then again, the editor of the paper was a woman, probably well versed in discrimination of all kinds.
Enter 2013 and we continue to have conversations about ageism in the workplace. Last week, our local newspaper featured an article that outlined the job hunting efforts of a woman, fifty-four years old, who cannot get a job despite her credentials, experience and appearance. The writer asked business professionals to vet the woman’s resume, interviewing skills and appearance. All responded the woman was charming and articulate. Her skills and experience indicate she would be an excellent employee. Their only rationale for the woman not receiving employment offers is “probably her age.”
This week a study concluded some Facebook groups focus on negative ageist stereotypes. To be fair, Facebook provides a platform for older people to stay in touch with friends and family. Facebook is the “goto” for younger adults. If misinformation is there, there is a good chance they are going to accept stereotyping as factual.
The other side of not finding a job due to ageism is getting one due to negative stereotyping.
Several years ago, I interviewed for a position with an international wine distributor to coordinate in-house events. There had been a great deal of turnover in this position and this created a problem with the overall vision of an upscale operation. It was a perfect fit for my experience and skills. A day or so after the interview, the owner called to tell me the job was mine if I was interested and asked that I come in to discuss and meet staff.
My joy quickly evolved into shock, utter disbelief and dismay as the owner announced he and the hiring managers felt that hiring a “senior citizen” would be an advantage. He theorized, considering how difficult it is for older people to get a job, I would not be likely to leave.
He further theorized an older person, not being as quick and having fewer outside activities, would be a better fit as they would not get bored. I suppose he believed it would take me most of the day to shuffle to my computer, figure out how to operate it, then it would be time for lunch and if I managed to remain upright and awake, I would only have to be productive four hours of each day. Why would an employer consider hiring such an individual?
I got my answer when the question of compensation arose as the salary appeared to be based on four hours of compensation for eight hours of labor. I declined the offer and wondered if it was time to have my aura cleansed. The company folded several months later. I would be lying if I didn’t admit I did a little dance for joy and had an aura cleansing.
A lot of people, over 60, want to remain in the workforce. Older people who want to work are computer savy because they want to be. Most will tell you they’d give up anything but their electronic devices. We don’t have a false sense of entitlement that comes from having arrived at a certain age. We want to be informed and vital. We are eager to remain in the mainstream and look for ways to reinvent ourselves to remain employable in today’s job market.
In the past ten years, I have observed no progress and zero interest in eliminating ageism in the workplace. All the congressional screaming about Medicare and Social Security “entitlements” budget drain does little to ease ageism discrimination. Is it a subtle means of bullying to a different segment of our population? Faced with negative media perceptions or depicted as entitlement leeches that contribute to the deficit of the government what should an older worker do?
Rick Perry and The Welcome Wagon
Governor Perry never passes up an opportunity to bring more embarrassment to Texans. When he discovered Austin, Texas is on North Korea’s hit list he stopped short of sending an engraved invitation. He left no doubt that he is a few bluebonnets short of a bouquet. You do not tell the enemy that Austin is the epicenter of technology. Ratcheting up the risk factor to turn Texans into toast is further testament to the man’s questionable IQ.
If North Korea had a major city in your state listed on their strike list you’d probably consider it prudent to maintain a low profile. You’d want their weeble wobble head of state to believe he had made a huge mistake and there is no such place as Austin, Texas. At the very least you’d attempt to promote it as a worthless, barren unimportant piece of real estate.
You would spin Texas in such a negative way, that Kim Jong Un would not want to waste a crumb of neutron on us. You would tout the fact women have fewer rights. Poor people have limited access to healthcare if they are unable to pay. Those conditions are so similar to North Korea that Kim wouldn’t bother to leave home. You’d bombard the media with the fact that Texas would be dead last in literacy rates if it weren’t for Mississippi. If we need further evidence we are lacking in appeal, we have Ted Cruz, John Cornyn and Louie Gohmert.
Considering Perry has criticized the federal government for not doing enough to maintain protection for border states and joked about Texas succeeding from the union, I wonder what his defense strategy might be should we require protection.
Somehow the threat of Governor Good Hair standing tall in front of the Capitol with his coyote shootin’ iron is not a comforting defense strategy. If history is any indication, I’m not counting on him to protect us. The last time our state required help he prayed for rain and we got wild fires.
Maybe we can tap some of those Medicaid funds the gov is refusing and send Kim buckets and buckets of the new KFC boneless chicken. The little dictator apparently likes to chow down, so if diplomacy doesn’t distract him, maybe a carb and fat buzz will.
Mercury Retrograde
My horoscope (I check it faithfully each month strictly out of curiosity) said to back up computer, make no changes, sign no new contracts as Mercury would go retrograde from February 23rd through March 17th.Common sense and logic insist that pandemonium can visit anytime. So did I take this warning to heart? Noooo, I always believed such predictions are hooey.
We selected science over superstition and forged ahead to change internet and cable service providers. The installer appeared on schedule and all the devices hummed along as they thumbed their nose at Mercury. After the installer left, I tried to download web mail to my Outlook program. The mail refused to relocate. Called internet service provider and for the neat little sum of $99.00 they would give me the number of the correct outgoing port. Well after I told them what I really thought about their ransom, I made it my mission to get the cussed web mail to pop over into Outlook. After consuming numerous glasses of wine and attempting every numerical combination known since Pythagoras, I gave up. The only ports I am somewhat familiar with come in a bottle. After explaining the situation to my tekkie daughter, she had the thing popping and humming along in two seconds.
A software program I purchased online before Mercury descended backwards refused to play with the program it was supposed to enhance. After countless email advisories from the vendor it still would not perform. When I requested a refund to my PayPal account for the software I had to uninstall, I got no response.
That had to be the end of Mercury having a blast with my stuff or so I thought. In the wee hours of the morning we awoke to discover water trickling from the bathroom basin. Our upstairs neighbor’s plumbing issues spilled over into our basin. An adrenaline rush at 5 AM is not how I choose to stir from slumber.
The horoscope warned about computer crashes, floods and contracts. There was absolutely no mention of hair and styling issues. I had no reason to believe it might be best to postpone my appointment for a haircut. After all, Mercury retrograde, so the believers say, is a time for a make-over; an opportunity to see things in a new perspective.
My new perspective should be grown out in about four more weeks.
Mixed Signals
Members of the legislature cite second amendment rights to guarantee ordinary citizens the right to own military weapons. These same lawmakers think nothing of passing legislation sanctioning government interference in women’s lives. Whatever your position to pro-choice issues doesn’t their argument about protecting the sanctity of life suffer short term memory loss when it comes to weapons?
American Airlines pays millions of dollars for naming rights to public arenas. They pay millions of dollars to get rid of upper level executives. However, the retirees whose labor funded those endeavors are the first to get the boot as cost cutting measures.
Cancelled White house tours got you in a snit? Well get over it, check out the virtual White House tour http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/03/youre-invited-take-virtual-tour-white-house.
What about the cost of the congressional gyms? House members pay $20 a month and the senators $40. Many Medicare recipients pay much more on drug co-pays per month. Does anyone know if congressional gyms are on Paul Ryan’s hit list of “entitlements”?
Has anyone in Washington considered eliminating painted portraits of departing cabinet secretaries? Do members of congress get painted portraits too? The idea of John Boehner’s orange likeness gazing in perpetuity is a scary thought.
Speaking of likeness, does anyone else see the resemblance between Ted Cruz and Baby Huey the cartoon character? Aside from the physical resemblance, Cruz’ platform is circa 1949, same vintage as Baby Huey’s premier.
Why are we still minting pennies? They are annoying to carry. Retailers would have to price everything in whole dollars. One prominent retailer’s member discount coupons exclude certain brands. When sale day arrives, in addition to noted exclusions, you discover everything you wanted to purchase has ninety-nine cents tacked on the end. So much for your valued membership. Eliminating pennies, at the very least would require retailers to come up with another way to stick it to consumers.
I find these situations puzzling and my only take away from these situations is this:
- In the United States, owning an assault rifle is a priority over women’s health issues.
- Employee’s retiree benefits are disposable.
- If you are a member of congress, the definition of “entitlement” depends on the recipient.
- A portrait of a departing cabinet secretary is worth a thousand words and the going price is over a dollar per word.
- Ted Cruz is beyond embarrassing.
Outside the Box
I rarely read anything other than the genre that engages me. I occasionally change my television viewing habits just to see what’s on the other side. I doubt that I will ever care much for Dog the Bounty Hunter, but it was exposure to a previously unknown element.
It occurred to me there is more at play here than changing viewing or reading habits. Stepping outside comfort zones requires effort and an open mind.
I wonder if the reason most of us don’t have an understanding of opposing views is because we are complacent in our belief system and don’t want to risk the possibility we might be wrong. Discovering other political, health care or cultural systems raises questions that could cause us to question our own values and then we might actually have to act on them.
It is not comfortable to be with people who share radically different opinions. But don’t we miss out on an opportunity to expand our own perspective? We might become more interesting or at the very least expand shrinking brain sizes. Viewing other choices does not require us to embrace them, but is a small step toward remaining relevant to our surroundings.
Getting stuck can occur across all age groups and social structures. Young adults most likely would never check out Doc Martin or listen to Frank Sinatra or watch a movie about old people, such as Quartet. Conversely, older adults are not too likely to watch a young adult sit com, listen to Maroon Five or see Snoop Dog in concert.
It is easier to put down whatever genre we are not comfortable with or don’t feel fits in with our social or cultural guidelines. Could this be the reason why there is such a divide politically?
Stepping outside comfort zones requires effort and an open mind. Maybe I’ll start today to test my mettle and read the editorial about Ted Cruz.
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