Saturday, June 30, 2012

Writing is re-writing

When I re-write I can brutally remove what I don't like.
I can cut.  I can paste.  I can re-arrange a hundred times---if I feel like it.
And I can refuse to publish, or I can annoy my friends with my drafts.

In life I enjoy no such freedom:
Who I am and what I am,
where I am,
and what I have become,
all sit there staring at me,
like an ill-formed chunk of granite,
and I haven't got the tools the stone requires.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Importance of Graham Greene's "Quiet American"

Today when economic issues dominate discussion of the  situation in the USA, it is frequent to hear about the relatively more prosperous period after the war.  That period is precisely the setting in Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American."  But, what that novel shows is how imperfect USA culture was even during this period of relative prosperity.


The eponymous American, Pyle, is a devotee of the idea that the USA does good in the world, and he is willing to sacrifice innocents to re-make a country as he sees fit.  The book also has something to say about the puritanism of Americans......


To be sure, today many citizens of the USA are suffering needlessly, and the future is dim.  However, it would be wrong to be content with a partial description of the way things used to be.  Thinking of Pyle's fanaticism, one might be more inclined to notice that whilst the economy goes to hell, the USA continues to murder abroad---always with the latest technology.  

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Gossip and a fallacy

I have heard it said that my older sister is under no obligation to help our elderly parents---- because her husband did not help his own parents......Well, perhaps it was never said. Perhaps I have misunderstood, .....but it is worth pointing out what a stupid and barbarous thing that is to say! He should have helped his parents! And if he did not: Shame on him! He has nothing to be proud of. To repeat an error on grounds of consistency is not clever or just; it is idiocy. It is no virtue to be consistent if the first thing you did was wrong.

I hate driving, yet again...

How many times have I heard someone say, "Oh, I like driving"?----Like driving?! --- like DRIVING? Are you an idiot? Or, I suppose you have never been someplace with decent public transport--- say Copenhagen or Vienna? Have you really got nothing better to do than sit behind the wheel of a car? I mean: in the metro, you can sleep, read, let your mind wander, think about what you are going to do next---- all with no worries about some idiot crasing into you or some policeman stopping you because you failed to notice a change in the speed limit.....like driving? Maybe it is the rocking motion of the car? That primitive sensation of movement that soothes babies? If so, you would be better off in a train. Anyway the roads in El Paso, Texas ( where I am currently trapped--- but not for long if I have any luck...) are so bad that a car does not gently rock. It bounces and thuds and rattles due to the poor condition of the roads! Oh yeah, Mexican politicians squander tax money! What a laugh! As if the USA were not corrupt! Don't know whether to laugh or cry.......let's spend a few more millions on remote control killer spyplanes. After we perfect them on foreigners, we can use them to control the population of the USA. ( I can just imagine the wise men talking about this public spirited idea....) Don't you realize, my friend, that driving is work?! And you have been brain- washed into wasting years of your life performing this unpaid work!? In fact, you pay to perform this work. The stupidity of the whole operation is staggering.......gmooh!

After-thought:  (27 June Wed. 2012)
I must confess that I was bothered by my examples:  Copenhagen and Vienna.  What if you've not got the money for a plane ticket?  Well, I did once meet a relatively ordinary American who complained about the crowded Paris metro; so, it can't be so uncommon for USA people to travel abroad.  And there are places in the USA with relatively and better more public transport.  However, it is a curious fact about the North American mind-set that cities are associated with crime.  And, that is, as well, partially a matter of racism.  As in the young woman who explained that she didn't like the idea of public transit because she experienced it in Washington DC.  But, upon further discussion it emerged that she did not feel "safe" in that city, and so it was hard for her to separate her use of public transport from fear of crime.......

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Incomplete thoughts about the involuntarily acquired rootlessness characteristic of the USA and the blindness of capitalism


(edited, revised, and partially expanded Monday, 25 June 2012)

Someone who signs himself as "bob mcmanus" had an interesting remark at "Crooked Timber" on 24 June:

"'My contention is that to become an American is to become deracinated in principle, capable of living anywhere, including your home person over there, so extremely rootless as to devalue and be contemptuous of other’s “rootedness” or sense of place or past. This is not and can never be a true cosmopolitanism, in accepting others traditions, we despise all traditions and aggressively attack them in the name of “freedom”, economic, political, individual.


We are the country of rationalistic nihilism, and imperialistic, culturally destructive, and genocidal not simply by history or accident but in our deepest natures. And evangelical about it."


(Note:  I confess that I do not understand:  "including your home person over there".--Perhaps it would make more sense in context, but I can't check it just now.)
The original post by Henry Brighouse on 22 June 2012 ("Imperialist Doublethink") dealt with a Washington Post editorial about Julian Assange's request for asylum in Ecuador. It is worth reading:   http://crookedtimber.org/
With respect to the quote above:  I do not find myself "capable of living anywhere.".  (Hence the existence of this blog.)
I also believe that I am not contemptuous of other's 'rootedness'....Largely because I have known and envied people who did feel a definite connection to a place.---And it can be quite beautiful to see.
I was amazed when a Spanish friend showed me around her "hometown".  She had both personal memories and shared long-term memories--stories about locally famous possibly mythical lovers--- which she shared with me---as if she were writing on various buildings the history of the people living there and her own personal history, as if the blank stones became, with her telling, covered with calligraphy or elaborate designs......

So, I wonder whether my current discomfort in the USA---a daily sensation, like  pebble in your shoe which can't be removed---is not due to my failure to share these elements of the USA psyche identified above.....(those elements and others.....)........
On the other hand, prior to living abroad, I had been forced to move within the USA many times.  And my parents were forced to leave behind their families in order for my father to secure employment.  
I used to wonder--quite often, in fact---whether Americans had not lost something very valuable, via a process in which there was no debate......no discussion.......Another feature of their uprootedness is the casual way in which (at least sometimes) one talks to complete strangers.  This was once parodied with the claim that if you meet a North American on the plane, he will tell you about his divorce, offer to lend you money, and then forget your name......But the alleged informality of USA culture might be a result of this need to move, to move for a job or a "career". If you move frequently, you need to make friends fast.

But, wait a minute!  Maybe you cannot make real friends quickly.  Maybe it just takes time!  It simply has to involve getting to know someone gradually, over time.   If so, the mobility expected in the USA is a bad thing.  (And that is my current opinion.)
On the other hand, there is a kind of myth of the American small town, which some people find appealing..... But for most Americans (I suspect), it is axiomatic that you might have to move to get a job, or to get a better job.  (To be honest, that used to be an axiom for me and my family.  Were we unique?) I believe that it is a goal of the European  Union to encourage young people to move around within Europe, in search of work.  That could change things in the direction of USA-style rootlessness......

There are genuine psychological limitations---how many names one person can remember, or how large a group can become before what's said won't be heard clearly by everyone.  (I seem to recall that the anthropologist Dunbar gave the figure as seven or eight.  In a group larger than that, when one person speaks, at least one person wont' hear what's being said.)

And, at the risk of saying what's obvious, capitalist forces are peculiarly blind.  It is most characteristic of capitalism as a system not that it is dynamic, but that its dynamism is blind. --Blind from the standpoint of genuine human flourishing, genuine happiness.  In other words, capitalism encourages actors to ignore the consequences of their actions.  They aim at profit, but profit is neither happiness nor justice, but competes with those two genuine goods.  So, to that extent, I shouldn't wonder if the human race continues to  move towards greater unhappiness (unhappiness for the vast majority of human beings) so long as we continue to allow ourselves to be organized in this fashion.

tentative thoughts

If you spent most of your life in the USA, were educated there, and then find yourself living in a country which was once dominated by the Soviet Union, it is natural enough to ask yourself about the differences between the US system and the Soviet one.  That difference is often described using the labels "capitalism" and "communism".

"Communism", however, does not correctly apply to the Soviet Union.  A communist society is a classless society--It has neither rich, nor poor, nor middle class.  One might say that a truly communist society was the goal of "communists" in Eastern Europe, and it might be thought that this intention suffices to justify use of the term.  In that case, there needs to be a further defense.  It's not enough to proclaim classlessness (or social justice) as your goal; there need to be steps taken if that proclamation is to be something more than hot air.

In the case of the United States, the trick is to align capitalism with democracy and freedom, and then drop the word capitalism.  Here, one must ask whether those under the sway of the USA (both citizens and non-citizens) are, on account of their location in the space of politics and power, more free and more able to exercise democratic rights.

The trick of USA propagandists is to define "freedom" as narrowly as possible, so that finally it comes down to the ability to sell one's self (for most people) or the ability to participate in markets.  ("Sell one's self" may be too strong; more accurately, you rent  yourself for 40 or 50 hours a week.......You sell your "labor power", if I've correctly recalled Marx....)

That is a drastically curtailed notion of freedom and human happiness.  It is, in fact, a notion which removes justice from the goods of human life---unless one can mount an economic argument to the effect that a capitalist economy has a certain structure, an argument whose conclusion is the Leibnizian claim that no better arrangement is possible.

Here, the ideologists of capitalism have over-reached themselves, and continue to do so.  The assert that capitalist economies tend toward so-called "equilibrium".

Unfortunately, that is not true.  As Richard D. Wolff has been stressing, the current disaster is only the latest in a long line of train wrecks....... Every time there is a so-called economic downturn, people lose their jobs, suffer anxiety, families fall apart.  People die sooner than otherwise they would have, and the lives that they have are not pleasant.  But this is invisible within the ideological framework instilled in the breast of every red-blooded American.

And a thought I've come across in various forms lately needs to be registered:  The very fact that the Soviet Union existed (with all of its imperfections), and existed as an alternative to the USA system, made life better within the USA.  that might not be quite right.  It could also be said that compromises were made with labor after World War Two because capitalists feared losing everything to a revolt.  (Richard D. Wolff seems to be saying that.)  However, workers in, say, communist Czechoslovakia had a kind of grey security not enjoyed today by workers in the USA.  And workers in the USA during the Cold War had (until the 1970's) advantages and comforts that have disappeared or are disappearing today.

Further Details/Recommended Reading:

See, e.g., Quiggins "Zombie Economics", or Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics", or (even more sharply) Yanis Varoufakis recent apology on behalf of the economics profession  "And the Good Ship Greece Sails On" (24 June) at http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/,  or Richard D. Wolff's "Occupy the Economy"

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Medicare, MediDoor

The door, it seems, used to be a gate,
As much to keep you out,
as to let you in.

And many times today,
it's only half open.

Not a perfect metaphor,
but a pregnant one:

Not fully open,
Not fully shut,
Not adequate,
Actually inadequate,
But open just enough,
to let in a bit of air,
and light.

Not adequate,
painfully inadequate:
the assistance allotted to my elderly parents by "Medicare".

convicted (without trial) of villainy


Being my sister,
my elder sister,
shares with me,
the same mother.


And she, 
(my sister, not my mother)
though sharing with me,
has convicted me of treason and villainy.


She won’t speak to me or discuss it.
No need for that!
She knows my deepest thoughts and feelings,
knows my mind,
from my actions,
which,
incidentally, 
she need not see,
in person.


After all, 
Her husband’s wisdom,
fills in every missing detail,
when he hears my sister say,
what my mother said I’ve done.


My sister shares with me a common mother,
But,
she cannot see the harm she does by hating me.


If the President of the USA uses his secret armies,
to capture, torture and imprison,
for crimes unspoken and not existing,
my sister merely mimics him.


That's just the way it is in the land of hierarchy:
those at the bottom imitate those at the top.


So, if my sister convicts me without trial,
without evidence, 
and on the basis of what she's imagined,
I really shouldn't be surprised.



Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Grouch Reads

The Grouch reads (badly, slowly....)


Someday I'd like to write an essay about reading badly.  I've done more than my share of it lately.
I've not yet sunk to the level of the Austrian student who complained that something was too long to read during a brief trip on the U-bahn,....however....


I've just got hold of a series of conversations between Richard D. Wolff and the journalist David Barsamian.


I had wondered if it was worth purchasing.  I've been listening to Wolff a lot lately and I had worried it would be too much repetition.  Nevertheless, I have bought the book, and seem able to imagine Wolff's voice as I read.  Nonetheless, it was worth getting it.  There are some details I hadn't come across previously, such as his analysis of what's going on economically in Mexico.


So, I can without qualification recommend this book.


http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100033850


I do confess, however, that I'm not quite sure that Wolff doesn't fly in the face of clear facts about blame and responsibility. We are all part of a system, and that sort of analysis is important, and importantly unlike anything one usually hears in the USA.  Nonetheless, there is a clear difference between the comfort and power of members of the .1 percent (or even the 1 percent) and me, or you.
I am not a fan of punishment.  However, if you simply talk about causality, I have much less ability to perpetuate the system than do, say, the richest 100 men in the USA.  They benefit more, and they must know what's going on----unless,perhaps, they are all psychopaths.  But, if they are psychopaths, then that point needs making.

(I am always attracted to the Socratic thought that people act badly from ignorance; can I believe it in the case of the one percent?  Surely they have access to more resources than I do?  What is wrong with them?  They cannot justify their privilege; they can only obfuscate.  So, how can they be innocent?  How can I believe they act ignorantly?  --Only if they are psychopaths, or have psychopathic tendencies.....)  Of course, no one will be permitted to have a Socratic conversation with such an individual.  That is one of the first things they buy with their money.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

A Euro moment

Who really runs your life? In all probability, you spend most of your life in a workplace where you mostly follow orders and have little room for independent thinking. -- especially you are not allowed to have an opinion-- or not an effective one-- about the most basic elements of your life--- about whether your country goes to war, or what is to be done with the surplus which you produce. Into that picture, add the fact that your rulers, your unseen real bosses have been gambling, and they want you to pay for their debts......in Europe, the Euro is failing because the bosses over there screwed up big time. It is not just a Greek problem, but as one economist put it, Greece was the first to fall because it was the weakest link in the chain.....and here I am in a house that is out of control with junk my parents have accumulated, and they wont do anything -- or cannot due to their physical incapacity---and my sisters are sceaming at me, telling me to do something, and also blaming me. But the situation is unsustainable. I did not create the problem, and I am not getting help. Recommended reading http:www.yanisvaroufakis.eu

Monday, June 18, 2012

my three year coma

Quand je n'ecrits pas, je suis comme dans une sorte de coma" ---Corina Veleanu---(et pour mois, une coma avec une durée de trois ans!)

hyperbole watch

USA language tends to be needlessly puffed up.  "Have a great day!"
Now, we are being encouraged to emulate the habits of people who are not merely successful,
but also "radically" successful.

Oh, how ugly this place really is!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Medicare

I understand very well that the capitalist class would like to destroy Medicare, public education, and eliminate any rights for workers in the workplace. And I believe that so long as there is a capitalist class, there will be no true democracy. Nevertheless, Medicare, as it currenly exists, is inadequate. It should be more generous. For years when I was in Europe, my mother complained about pain--- and that pain prevented her from doing routine housekeeping. Hence, when I arrived here three tears ago, I stepped into a deteriorating position. Things have slightly stabilized, but we continue to be faced with problems left over from the many years when my mother received no help. And even today, the help she receives is inadequate.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Cruelty and Heedlessness of Visiting Nurse Supervisors, the Inadequacy of Medicare, and the ruthlessness of the ruling class....

For the past hour or so, I have attempted to sit down and do some writing, reading, and thinking---the sort of work I am most competent to do...


And I have been interrupted numerous times...


--my father needed me to re-charge his electric razor.


--my mother wanted to complain that the mail carrier had  written on one letter, "no mailbox' and then added the date.


The claim that we have "no mailbox" is, in fact, not true.
and the story behind this annoyance is illustrative of the way my time here is destroyed by a thousand small, idiotic activities.


Two years ago, or so, my parents had a mailbox perhaps five or six feet off the ground, on the exterior of a fence surrounding their patio.  I moved that mailbox to a lower location inside the fence in order to make it accessible to my now eighty-six year old mother.  Prior to that, my mother was engaging in dangerous activities to reach the higher box.  Remember that for the frail elderly a fall can be fatal.


I have also word-processed a notice for mail carriers: "Attention Mail Carrier" in which I explain where the mailbox is now located.


What happened?  I imagine the mail carrier was in a hurry and did not see the message---or noticed it but did not read it.


Why was the mail carrier in a hurry?  The elites that run the USA would like to destroy unions.  The postal workers have a union,and so, they are under pressure.


In the meantime, I've got to waste my time with such inanities.


As for the other problem.


--My mother complained about an insurance bill.


As it turns out, there was a mistake, made by the insurance company.
However, the cause of it all was the disruption caused to our household by a VISITING NURSE SUPERVISOR---ten days ago.


Please allow me to repeat the point:  Ten days ago, a nurse supervisor entered our home without adequate prior warning, and engaged in rude behavior, disrupting the household, and setting in action a chain of events which continues to create problems today.


I am still paying for the chaos said "nurse" supervisor created.  In brief, I shall be force to make a third, additional trip to my parents' insurance agent, to correct a mistake made because the so-called-Nurse-Supervisor disrupted our lives.  That means I shall have lost a minimum of an hour's time spent traveling and talking, not to mention the irritation. ---Irritation because, once again, I shall have to launch into an explanation with not very helpful employees of the insurance company, and assuage my mother's anxieties.  Note well:  These disruptions cause anxiety for me and my mother----and that is the evil fruit of the Visiting Nurse Supervisor's visit. 


And, let's not forget why she was here doing damage:  because "Medicare" required it.  But "Medicare" is itself little more than a name for evil men who manage the money which my parents and others like them contributed during their working lives.  


How dare I call them "evil"?  They are not evil as is the mythical Satan.  But, they are evil in the only way a human being can be:  They cause unnecessary suffering, and they do not give adequate thought to the consequences of their actions.


About Medicare:  Note well, the creeps who run the USA would like to get rid of it.  But, even as it is, it is not good enough. It does not give people what they need and deserve.


"Visiting Nurse Supervisor" in contemporary American does  not mean someone who visits the home to care for the elderly or sick; rather it means someone who visits the home to be annoying and set up an irritating chain of events.


Am I wrong to suggest she intended to create chaos?  Well, she probably did not have it in mind, but she also did not have it in mind to avoid creating chaos.  She was going to do "her job'----very narrowly defined---and she did not care whose toes she stepped on or what harmful (for us) consequences resulted.  She was heedless and arrogant.  Not at all kind or gentle.....


After-thought
One might simply say that once a Nurse becomes a manager (a "supervisor') she ceases to be a nurse.  So, too, a teacher who becomes a manager...

misogyny?

The distinguished scholar, Alfred Thomas, thinks that the prisoners in Kundera's "The Joke" who indulge in exaggerated descriptions of female anatomy, and crude references to the sexual act,
are thereby instances of "misogyny".


I'm not so sure.  There is a powerful emotion there, and it is connected (essentially) to women and
sexuality.  There is frustration and anger at their imprisonment and their inability to run their own lives, and there is a desire to be in the company of a woman, as well as a desire for sexual contact.


But, is all of that, at its core, accurately described as "hatred" of women?  I suppose the bundle of emotions I describe might well result in violence against women, and, really does, all too often.


Yet, I still doubt whether what's indicated by Kundera's book or the movie version is, in essence, a form of hatred.


I think that the emotion is not understood if we simply call it hatred.  Rather, at its core, it seems to me to be anger and frustration at the absence of women, along with the other components of happiness the men have lost.....


Do I myself objectify women if I say that the company of women was a lost "component of happiness" for these men?  In a purely grammatical or linguistic sense, perhaps.  But the core thought is that a life worth living (a.k.a. a happy life) is one in which one has satisfying relationships with other human beings, including sexual relationships.  And, I accept the Socratic thought that an unjust relationship can't finally be a satisfying one.


Reference
Alfred Thomas, The Bohemian Body, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007.

Friday, June 15, 2012

I am going to throw up!

Dear citizens of the USA, you really have my sympathy, living as you do in such a wretched country--- the country of lies...,But, I AM WARNING YOU: cut the crap! You have got to change the way you talk. It can only lead to tragedy if you continue with your idiotic patterns of speaking and thinking. I hereby recommend that there be a ten year moratorium on the use of the word "great". Very few things in this life deserve that term, and you over- use it and abuse it. If the word itself were a living creature, it would be bruised and bandaged from your rough treatment. " Have a great day" --NO! NO! Please, do not say it! I really think I am going to throw up.  And I am not going to have a great day.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

I can't take it in.
This broken man is my father.
But yesterday,
--It was only yesterday!--
He was healthy.


I cannot,
I do not want to believe it.


But, no!
He can laugh.
He can smile.
He can make a joke.
He can still see that I am upset and want to help me!
He still wants to help me.


My mother?
She can just walk.
I cannot help her.
The pain in her leg doesn't go away.


And I know what I remember,
that I cannot now say,
how she loved her children,
---to say it the easy way---
no, there is a better way to say it:
that she gave herself, completely, and without holding back,
freely,
with love,
all the love she had,
and she has not stopped even today 
when everything has become so difficult. 


And nothing I can ever do will be enough.
There aren't enough words to say:
it is cruel,
and it is frightening.....
That their lives should be ending in this way,
with pain and fear,
frustration:
Old age is a punishment that no one deserves.



Medicare

I do not forgive Medicare
for its inadequacies.

I do not forgive the United States of America
for its broken promise.

Because

I remember when my parents
were young
and how they gave themselves freely.

And I also remember how once I did the same.

And now I curse Medicare,
I damn Medicare,
and the greedy men who dare to set themselves as managers
of all that my parents and others like them
have earned,

dribbling out merely enough medical care to avoid complete destruction,
but never enough.

The USA:
Land of never enough,
always just a little bit,
to postpone complaints,
but never enough to guarantee decency.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Elderly parents

Why shouldnt they live with their children? (I believe this is more common out of the USA than in it.) Who will care for them with more genuine concern? Why should everthing be reduced to business? Of course if elderly parents can live alone and want to, fine. But what of parents who need help?

The sheer stupidity of the residents of El Paso, Texas

Here is another thing that makes me want to throw up. If you mention the word Mexico, one word immediately pops out: corruption. But the people who say that do not stop for one second to think about the role of the USA in Mexico-- how NAFTA destroyed the agrucultural sector, or how drug money goes into USA banks... Nor do they think about one trillion dollars plundered from the citizens of the USA to pay the gambling debts of the bankers, the1%--- nor do they think about how Obama murders children and women, and men every day in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhwere using planes that cost millions and more, nor do they think about the murder of wedding parties in Pakistan and Afghanistan, etc., etc., sheer stupidity...,,nor do they think about the way that public education, at every level, is being dis- mantled in the USA--- in short, they do not understand that Mexico was only the first victim of "neo- liberalism"----- because they prefer to sit around smugly remarking that Mexico is corrupt, as if they thereby revealed their intelligence and wisdom..,, as if this were truly insightful.......

Accounting and control for the 99%. Not the 1%!

Here is an example of typical American stupidity and arrogance. Thanks to the wise men at Medicare who have their hands on other people's money, every three months we are tortured with an idiotic set of questions. Here are some of my favorites: Do you have two weeks of food in the house? Without a refrigerator? Just what are you thinking about?Idiotic! Two weeks of spam? And by the way, two weeks worth of water would be a hell of a lot. Then they ask where we would go in an emergency? There are countries where, in an emergency, the government helps--- and that saves lives (eg in Cuba which lost no lives during its hurricane in the same year when people in New Orleans were suffering and racially profiled...... But the message being sent is : every man for himself.-- and when I asked about it the nurse thought it was funny. But it is not! Global warming is real, and in this part of the world, it means brush fires...but the attitude in the USA is: every man for himself.....but our visiting nurse is too stupid and brain- washed to see that. This is, truly, a miserable country. When they ask where we would go, and whether we are prepared, it is as if they were saying: be warned in advance! We won't help you! My response: these people are assholes, and there is nothing subtle about them! Oh so generous...my ass!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Visiting nurses and re- certification

Essentially, visiting nurses--- those who only show- up for re- certification are a nuisance. They are bossy and they intrude unwanted. In general, from what I have seen, they know very little. Oh yes, I know they have passed the required courses, but this does not translate into helpful behavior. Their judgments and opinions seem case studies in fallacy, jumping to conclusions, and relying inappropriately upon intuition, They cannot explain themselves because their judgments lack any deep basis. Yet they are arrogant and pushy. Moreover, they are capable of disrupting a home for days by their brazen stupidity. 


 The most recent visit of a nurse- supervisor on Wednesday had harmful consequences on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The smooth functioning of our household was turned upside down by a pushy, not especially clever or articulate woman. She created havoc and chaos where previously there was order. And whay's worst of all, the harmful consequences of her ignorant assertiveness lingered for days after her visit. 

 Is there no Hippocratic oath for nurses??!!



Note for a Nurse Supervisor


I am also going to warn you of two related dangers.


Don’t you dare think that you „know“ us because you have gone through a list of questions generated by someone else, prying into our lives like the secret police in a totalitarian state.


You know how we answered those questions (quesitons you did not create) but you do not know us.


I realize that as a citizen of the United States you are at a serious disadvantage.  Like the other visiting nursees who have disrupted life in this house, you speak an extremely limited version of Informal American.  (I say this to you as an experienced teacher of English who has heard English spoken outside of the United States.)


Your language (informal or colloquial American) is not rich in levels of formality or devices for expressing distance and respect.  Essentially, there is (in practice) only one level of colloquial American.
Therefore some of what I say will be hard for you (or any other monolingual speaker of American) to understand.


However, you should not be fooled into thinking that you understand or know anything significant about me, or either of my parents.


To suppose you know us in any deep sense would be arrogance and hubris.


Consequently, regarding many matters extreme modesty is required.  


I can put the point differently:  your knowledge of me and my parents is at a very superficial level. I fear that, here too, as an American, you are disadvantaged.  American commercial culture encourages brief but superficial friendships.  Nonetheless, you have spent very little time with us, and always only in a very artificial and strained atmosphere.  I do attempt the fiction that you are our guest; in truth, you are not.
We would prefer to live without you or your visits.
It is only your threats that make me pretend a friendlier relationship.  (Perhaps I, too, am hemmed in by the limitations of the American language.)


And that word „threat“ is accurate. So, don’t think you are going to be loved by people who only see you when you are threatening to take from us the very small bit of help that the wise and corrupt managers of Medicare see fit to drip out to us.   (You might want to think about whether threats are not bad psychology anyway----even from a merely managerial point of view......they certainly won’t win you any friends.)



Saturday, June 9, 2012

visiting Nurse Supervisors

The trouble is that a Nurse/supervisor shows up once a month or every three months....

They can say whatever garbage they like,  and then they leave.  In the meantime the garbage is floating around in my head.

This is not acceptable.  I am pasting below a draft of a letter I'll be sending to one such person..

Letter to Nurse/Supervisor:



We need to establish some ground rules for future conversations. You have got to stop talking nonsense.
I have already pointed out to you that I am not your employee. Therefore, in the future you will never give me an order or employ the imperative voice. You may, of course, politely recommend with such formulations as "please consider this." And if you make a recommendation, please be prepared to explain why you are making the recommendation.
On the subject of "nonsense":  memory, you said, is like a river. That claim fails to square with the fact that my father's short- term memory loss occurred after a blow to the head and a loss of consciousness.  You may perhaps say: You see the blow only damaged the shallow streams. But that makes no sense at all. The organization of the brain is not like a river, or if it is, you have not yet explained why.
Neurons and neural structures have different features than rivers. Perhaps some functions are localized.  But this river fairy tale doesnt wash and you insult me by telling it. I dont need you to tell me a fairy tale about memory. If I want to learn more about memory, there are books by experts.
What is more, you seemed to be answering a question no one asked. We told you that my father cannot remember to use his walker. Your answer is -- when you get rid of the river picture-- nothing more than saying that some things are easier to forget because they are newer. But that suggestion is inconsistent with the fact that my father has learned to put the oxygen tubes in his nose and he doesn't forget that!  But if those are streams of a river, they are very new, and very shallow! So, your river theory does not work.


Furthermore, you commanded me to stay, so I was a captive audience listening to nonsense. You wasted my time with nonsense of no scientific value. If there is some basis to your story, it is in no way evident from what you said. 


So in addition to your inappropriate stance, and giving me pointless commands, time- and money- wasting orders, you waste my time talking nonsense.


All in all, I do not believe that re- certification either needed my presence, or if it did, it would have been better done without ordering me and without superfluous pseudo- explanations.  After all, people can forget things that correspond to your deep streams---like their name or who their wife is or the names of objects.


What is more, you did not treat my mother with the respect she deserved.  My mother was a care-giver before you were born.  And, she was a care-give before the term was coined. She deserves more respect.


In the future, I will expect you to be more polite both with my mother and myself. It is evident that you have misunderstood my concern to have the best care possible for my parents. You misinterpret my kindness and openness as weakness; but, now you have gone too far.  



Friday, June 8, 2012

in home "care"?

To mention again what low quality is actually offered to the elderly in the USA....

I was just looking through the folders which my parents received when they started paying (through Medicare----but it is still something they earned) for this help.

First of all, the photocopied documents are barely legible ---Evidently someone was saving money and made copies even though the ink should have been changed.  Some, in fact, are not legible.

Moreover, the "case worker" or head nurse in charge has changed.  I do not think we even have a document with her full name......

disgusting and shameful

"care" for the elderly? ha ha ha

The company we've got tied up with seems inefficient and inept.  I won't mention their name because my mother does not want to lose contact with the good people who help us.  The problem seems to be managers, not the people who work there....
On the contrary, the individuals are good:  specifically, the man who gives my father a shower, and
our visiting nurse.

But the management!  Jezis Maria!  taka katastrofa!  (Please excuse my lapse into Slovak.)

Today, on account of their stupidity and ineptness, I've missed paying a bill.  I started to pay that bill twice, and was twice interrupted by nurses who wanted  (in once case, demanded)  me to stay.

The problem they (managers) seem to have is that they seem unable to understand the following sentence:

We cannot be reached before noon. The best time to reach us is after 2pm.


Or, if they (management) can understand it, they seem unable to communicate it widely
to employees.

I have heard numerous complaints that this or that party was "unable" to reach us.

Indeed, I have even heard the claim (once, at least) that an individual called at 4pm and got
no answer.

I do not know how that is possible.  On the day in question, I was actually here at 4pm.   I would have heard the phone ring. Might the person have mis-dialed?

Well, apparently to solve this problem, and because "re-certification" was necessary, the Nurse-Supervisor showed up---unannounced--on Wednesday, when I needed to go out and pay a bill. She prevented me from doing so.  In fact, she ordered me to stay.  And she had other orders for me, which I have discussed elsewhere on this blog.  In general, words like "please" don't come out of her mouth frequently.

[Digression:  What is 're-certification'?  My understanding is that this is dictated by the administrators at "Medicare".  I cannot see that this is anything more than a mean-spirited insistence that elderly, ill people prove--again and again---that they are in need of assistance.  But, as I said, this is dictated by those who manage the public medical insurance program for the elderly, not by private medical entities.]

Now her visit on Wednesday was unexpected. Another employee had given us to believe she would come on Tuesday, but she did not show up.  (She says the employee arranging her Tuesday visit never got back to her after I had agreed to the visit.)

However, Wednesday, I spoke to the Nurse Supervisor as we were leaving.  And, we agreed (or so I thought) that I would phone her once I returned from our doctor's appointment.  However, she jumped the gun and was waiting for us when we returned home.  So, she shows up without waiting for my phone call on Wednesday, and forbids me from going out.  (I wanted to pay a bill.)

Now this may all seem very petty, but the fact about living with two elderly people is that I am often prevented in mid-stream from finishing a thought or an ordinary activity (even from using the toilet).

So, by interrupting our activity, and not following the plan we had (I thought) agreed too, the Nurse Supervisor, was adding to my cognitive stress.

I know her reason:  Medicare requires re-certification.  (I am not convinced that is anything but stinginess, but this is not the place to discuss that policy.  In any case, it is not a policy of xxxxxxxxx,inc. or the Nurse Supervisor, but was decided, I take it, by our wise law-makers.)

Now, in fact, the great achievement on Wednesday was that my father was re-certified.  The nurse also, in an unnecessarily bossy manner (in my humble opinion) wanted to suggest that my mother's way
of handling medications could be improved. (Note well:  bullying, in however measure, a eighty-six year old lady is not nice.  And you can bully by withdrawing customary signs of good will such as smiles, etc.  It is not necessary to shout or threaten violence.)

I am not sure why it was necessary for me to be there. Actually the nurse-supervisor did not explain.  She did, however, demand that I stay.

Perhaps I should have insisted that I had a bill to pay. (I wish I had.)  If she had not been so bossy, I am sure I would have escaped to pay the bill.

Well, the next day, exactly as I was about to pay the bill, another nurse shows up. She was actually thirty minutes early.  She is a friendlier, altogether more humane and human person than the nurse supervisor.  So, I once again missed my bill payment because she, too, needed my presence.---Or, she said/thought she di.

I am not so sure my presence was necessary.  You see, I actually am literate and educated.  (I have a Ph.D.) and putting pills in the right boxes ("labeled ''morning lunch, evening, etc.) is really not so hard.---It doesn't take a Ph.D. or a B.A. or anything!  All you have to do i know how to read and know the days of the week!  It is common sense!  I do not need someone to teach me.  I can figure it out... (So what is that when they tell me I have to be there to "learn" (puke)????I call it "paternalism", but fascism would be closer.)

I have it in mind to send xxxxxxx, inc.  a bill for the money we are going to lose because I could not pay that bill.  You see, the bill is not late, but you have to pay extra if you don't pay it early----and the employees of "XXXXX, inc." prevented me from paying that bill.  As I said earlier, one (a nurse supervisor) actually ordered me to stay. (Which, by the way, was a bit rude.....)

I am very unhappy and even disappointed.    So far as I can tell, there is a tyrannical atmosphere among the owners and managers of XXXXX, inc..  They expect their customers to be available at their convenience.  I don't know that, but I don't know how else to explain my numerous unpleasant experiences.

The nurse and the guy who gives my dad a shower are great!  They are super human beings.
However, for some reason, the company they work for is not so super as they are......




PS:  Incidentally, why am I making my complaint here?   Why not write the company directly? I have sent several emails to xxxxxxx, inc. and whenever I send an email
to "Don't Care, Inc." they don't even bother to acknowledge it.  I have no guarantee that anyone is even reading the messages I've sent them. So, either they are not reading them, or they have not received them.

Note, too, that answering a letter, email, message, or whatever is a basic courtesy. It is not necessary to make a lengthy reply; it would be enough to acknowledge receipt of a message.  On the other hand, sooner or later, it is mere courtesy to make a reply that indicates the message has actually been read and understood.  The failure of "XXXXXXCare" on this point of basic politeness is egregious.

And, when it comes to bills:  What about the anxiety and worry caused by this lack of organization and chaos?  My mother and I have experienced wholly unnecessary anxiety because I missed paying the bill...... My life is chaotic enough caring for my invalid father, in a chaotic house.  And the house is chaotic because for many years my mother got no help, and could not handle the dual jobs of managing the household and caring for my father.  (Indeed my mother is an invalid too, but only younger and more mobile than my father.....) So, all around, I think the USA system of so-called Health Care (sic) is a bad system.  In the case of my parents, not only does it fail to give them what they really need, but at every step along the way, the bureaucracy is disrespectful and unpleasant.  And I am being insulted and bullied too.  I don't like it.






memory

We never asked why my father can't remember.  However, the visiti ng Nurse-Supervisor launched into a fairy tale to explain:


You see memory is like a river.  When it runs long, it runs deep.  If it is temporarily diverted, those small branches are nothing as compared to the long-running, central stream.


ERGO, by implication, she seemed to suggest:


Don't be surprised if, when your father wants to get up, he simply forgets his walker.


And I thought to myself the following:  Who is her audience?  My mother?  Or me?  Or both of us?
Do I need a fairy tale to aid my understanding?


Sorry, but this is nothing more than a new version of the old story of the drug with power to put people to sleep---say it in Latin, it's more impressive.  It has a sleep-inducing power or virtus dormitiva.


I'm not going to get more detailed, but the nurse's words were worthless.


We already knew that my father has trouble learning new things---or remembering new things.


And if the nurse had been listening to me, (and supervisors/managers by definition never  do)
she would have realized the idiocy of her little story-----because I went on to say:


But my father can learn.  He has gotten in the habit of adding the cannula to his nostrils, so that
he gets oxygen while sleeping.  


And what I didn't say because I'm polite (and will add now to make the point clear)  And that's not the product of eighty or sixty or however-many long
years of the river rushing onward.  At best, that's the result of four months of practice!


So, how come this new river-stream is running so strongly?


The comparison with a river is empty.  It is no better than saying:  Some things he remembers; some things he doesn't----because some things he has done many, many times in the past.


But, my example illustrates that some recent additions to memory survive.  And the pseudo-explanation makes no room for that.


Now, as a Nurse, someone should get some basic appreciation not merely for random facts, but also for the scientific method.  In this case our Visiting Nurse-Supervisor has shown her lack of a basic grasp of scientific method.


You may say, her story only helps people accept reality.  yeah, right, after three years of living with my father who is increasingly senile, I need someone to remind me----Someone who only sees him every month (at best).  Neither I nor my mother need an outsider to interrupt our routine, and get on a soapbox with a bit of pretentious puffery to remind us of facts we see every day.


The whole business is not only absurd but also insulting.

I hate driving.

I hate driving.
I hate being in the car.
I hate the laborious and awkward activity of maneuvering myself into the car.
I hate the insanity of locks and safety systems and honking horns.

I hate the seat.
It is uncomfortable, pushing my spine and my legs in such a way that I cannot find my sit-bones.
I am both slumped and bent,
after driving a while my shoulders seem to have been dislocated.
The ceiling is too low and I feel as though I will bump my head.
It is claustrophobic.

I hate driving.
Down a straight road for miles and miles and miles.
Nothing to see:
everything is ugly, flat, nothing to distinguish one low ugly building from another,
except perhaps a grotesque sign, neon or not....
Signs, ugly signs on the right and left.
I must avoid large trucks which threaten to spill into my lane.

Distance is imperceptible, meaningless.

Roads rise and fall, with no meaning, no significance,
barely marked.

The flatness and sameness is overwhelming.
The motion of other cars is meaningless and has no dynamic qualities;
it is mere motion stripped of beauty or music.
Machines replace people.

The sun light is fading,
But the Car Lights are bright, penetrating, distracting,
not pleasant.

Nothing is clearly marked.

What a waste of time!

What an unpleasant experience!

And people talk as though driving ten miles to purchase some ordinary item
were insignificant. I think it's very significant.  It is a god damn unpleasant
waste of time, and it contributes to global warming and the wealth of a class
of people whose only business is to exploit us.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

email to a manager/nurse at a "home care" company


Dear XXXX,
I am not one of your employees.  (Thank God!)

And I understand that a manager's lot is not a rosy one.  I know that managers face pressures too, but managers
have a special level of responsibility.  With their added power comes greater responsibility. And I doubt whether
you have realized that.

Yesterday, you gave me an order to purchase pill boxes for my parents.  You have a fancier name for them, but
I am sure you will understand what I a mean.

I complied----and spent time and effort finding what you want.  Moreover, they were not free or even cheap.

But, now I've got to go back to the store and ask for my money back.  They are inferior to the free version
which was provided by the nurse who visited today, YYYYY.

Why did you not know that it was unnecessary for me to rush out and purchase them?  And "rush out" is
the right word.  You insisted I had to buy them before YYYY came today.  But that was your mistake!

And, believe me, I did not need that added demand upon my time on that day!

How dare you boss people around when you don't know what you are talking about!

Secondly, you set up a meeting time that conflicted with the regular staff at your company.
We had to solve that problem with XXXX.

Great, you try to solve problems.  You get credit for that.  But you don't do your research first.

Please try to think things through before you act!

Don't do this to me again!

Okay, we will now get our med's organized by XXXX.  Maybe that was your idea. And it is a very good idea.
But XXXX will be doing the actual work.  And even if I give you credit for suggesting it, by my count,
that makes you one out of three for success.

Sincerely  yours,

exotic/heaven

I. Exotic


Why do you use archaic language?
Modern poets don't do that.
Who do you think you are?!---John Donne?
And your names are exotic.


Don't you get it?
I am not a modern poet!
I am not like you,
and you are not like me.
Incomprehensible,
mutually,
and conclusively.


Go stuff your exotic:
Jan and Jana, Lenka and Miro,
They are all my friends.
There's a big, big world outside the walls of your cruel empire!


II. Heaven


Don't give me the soft, mushy, overly sweet fruit of summer!
No!  I don't want peaches or pears with their rotten juices.
A crisp apple is quite enough,
tart or sour with just enough moist.


In heaven I will eat lemons.

The cautious and subtle tools of visiting nurse-manager-supervisors.....




The presumption of the Visiting Nurse/Manager/Supervisor:
„Oh we all love your father’s stories.“

„We“—you phoney!
What do you know about my father?
--OR me?

What do you know of my father’s ruthless authoritarianism,
his worship of the upper classes----generals and merchant-tyrants, robber barons and mass murderer-Presidents?

What do you know of my father’s youth?

Or his father’s life?

You know nothing.

What do you know of the events he describes,
or their significance?

What do you know of imperialist wars,
or the sacrifice of lives in pursuit of domination?

In all probability you do not even acknowledge their existence.

What do you know of my father's unconscious absorption of lies and propaganda?----all necessary for survival in a flourishing empire.

What do you know of the shame of poverty and the desperate flight from public shaming?

What do you know of civilization when you yourself are forced to lie every day in order to survive?

And, yet you speak with the assuredness of one who knows.

Disruption, imposition, arrogance:

These are the tools of the nurse practitioner.

In a country where everyone has been bought and sold for too low a price.

Where misery is dressed up in fancy but cheap dress, paraded into the market-place and placed under the spot-light,
which shines only on the front of the apparition,
while the worms crawling on the back remain in the dark.

a lack of basic civility

Over the past year I have had occasion to write the Company which provides a few basic services to my elderly parents.  (A man comes to give my father a shower.  Physical therapist's assistants occasionally come, and more  rarely an actual therapist comes.

Be that as it may, I regard the actual help my parents receive not only as inadequate, but also
as a breach of a promise made to my parents when they were working----not an unusual occurrence today.

However, it is merely basic civility to acknowledge the receipt of a message, an email, a letter. Yet this health care company cannot even manage to say:  "We received your letter and we will consider what you have said. " Neither was any sort of verbal acknowledge made.  Not even, "Oh, yes, I received your email."

That's simply rude.
It can't be excused by saying "We were too busy."  The message being sent to me is that they don't really want to know what I think.  Ahhh, so the customer is always right? ha ha ha-----tell me another one.

No freedom of info in capitalist USA

My mother has a friend who wears a medical alert bracelet. Apparently the thing is too sensitive and goes off too easily. Something like five times it has gone off and that is a nuisance.  Within one month or one year?  My mother could not say, but her friend was complaining that it is a nuisance?


 How common is that malfunction?  How many false positives do these bracelets produce?  I would say we have a right to know, but all of the info on the web is advertising, which naturally doesnt answer that sort of question. 


When I asked the visiting nurse today, she knew nothing about this problem. Well if you recommend something, you should know, shouldn't you?  (And she had just made a recommendation, or, at any rate, a suggestion.....) Damn right. Another case of the problem noted here before with health care in tnis country--- not my job, not my job description
And don't tell me she was trying to avoid a lawsuit or avoid endorsing a product.  That is irrelevant.  The point is that I am not getting the information I need to help my parents.  And that is a problem with the system in the USA!  She may be acting rationally, but the end result is that we are not getting the information we need.


That sort of stupidity is fully compatible with Auschwitz- type behavior.....incidentally, the same nurse suggested I go to television for more "info."! ---Now,  that really is stupid.....TV is nothing but adverts....It is not a reliable source of information!


I will stop now because I am getting angry thinking of the stupidity and exploitation that is taken for granted in this moronic country....


I want to stress:  There is nothing by way of independent information about these bracelets.  Everything I found on the web is advertising.   And the nurse knows nothing, and had never even thought about this possible problem.  Call this country:  the land of the lost....


Note
Of course, there was recently a man murdered in his home because his emergency bracelet mal-functioned (and because he was black, and cops are racists...)
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/29/killed_at_home_white_plains_ny

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

sisters who cheat and manipulate......

Now, I do not intend to criticize the nurse who said these things.  However, she is not fully aware of the situation, or she has forgotten what she knew, or (most probably) she mainly has the well-being of my parents in mind.


But, when the possibility that I might actually leave this place and get a job elsewhere---after three years of unemployment and no health insurance living in a place which is definitely not my home, and where I have no friends---


She did begin to tell me what I must do/ should do.....(Implicitly:  If I am to be responsible).


And I do appreciate her thoughts, which were appropriate and not out of line....


HOWEVER,


There is a fucking assumption here where which I have NEVER agreed to,
and was never discussed with me,


namely:  that I should exclusively and solely be responsible for taking care of my parents.


(My life counts for nothing. ----seems to be another assumption.
My older sister's dog/dogs count for more than, say, my job or my friends....)


So, I would say freely and openly:  my sisters should take more responsibility.
I am being cheated, misused (not by my parents, but by my siblings)...
taken advantage of......


There are no words adequate to express my anger and frustration with this situation...

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Perverse EL Paso Texas

a city in name only
eptx has all of the crudity of a stone in your shoe,
all of the grace of dust in your eye

the merciless sun dominates
and so at sundown they all go out onto the streets
to do what?
pluck weeds from between the grass and stones?

a fulfilling occupation?

and, so, if you do go out as the sun sets
you will be seen,
watched,
spied on,
commented upon

just like in the smallest village

hell comes in many flavors
but the ugliest is called el paso texas

Monday, June 4, 2012

Surely you exaggerate....

A friend recently suggested that I was unfair to myself:  Think of what you have achieved. -- An interesting thought, but I would prefer to ask what might I have achieved in better circumstances, and how might I have been (and be) less distraught, less anxious and fearful, less worried about the future. So, to be concrete, how much time have I spent since 1988 looking for jobs, writing job letters, worrying about what to say and how to say it, arranging and going to a job interview? Because every year since 1988 I have had to look for a job and/ or think about/ worry about renewal. I have never had a contract for longer than a year.  That's twenty four years during which I have wasted time I could have spent more profitably-- "achieving" something, rather than merely worrying about survival. Yet how many million people in the USA and around the world have worse insecurity, working without a contract and able to be fired at a moment's notice? ...And there are evil or misguided people who dare to call that "flexibility".... No, I do not exaggerate, and I really am not happy to be alive....


Sunday, June 3, 2012

God Bless America!


My father cannot go poop  without my mother's help
And he's moaning and groaning.
And she is pissed off.
the little old lady screams at him.
the tall ex-athlete is in pain,
groaning,
and moaning:
It won't come out.
And then, when it does:
Miracle of Miracles!
USA-Technology:
It wont' go down!
It just plugs up the toilet!
God Bless America!
Our shit is the best,
and we want to keep it.

And then there's the smell!
Our wonderful EL Paso "air conditioning" brings in so much fresh air,
so quickly,
clean air,
cool air
that:
Guess What?
The smell won't go away!
---And half the house smells like a sewer.

God bless America!
What a wonderful way to live!

A little old lady's revenge

My mother is not happy unless she is making noise.
Her beloved metal pots bang and clang away,
(scientific instruments
lovingly crafted
by skilled artisans
who love noise)
And in the kitchen I hear her improvised symphony:
BANG!  CRASH!  BANG!

My little, bent-over mother----An aged grandmother,
 ---no!--A Great-grand-mother!---
 makes noise like a Punk rocker:  Bang/Crash!/Bang!-
----I don't need an alarm clock!
But I wish I could get eight hours of sleep!!!

El Paso Engineering: Air vents between the rooms carry every sound from one room to
the other, and my bedroom is nearest the kitchen:

CRASH!
BOOM!**
BANG!**!

Who would believe a little old lady could do some much damage?
Maybe this is her revenge upon the world for the affliction of old age.