I Dreamed a Dream

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."  Eleanor Roosevelt 

I began this year with great hopes of social progress, economic recovery and the restoration of America's image internationally.  We were going to have a new president, one whom I admired both for his oratory as well as his ideas.  One who stood in stark contrast to the bleakness, despair, secrecy and questionable moral and ethical values of the out-going administration.

After the election, I said that Mr. Obama had won mainly on one issue:  hope.  He talked about a hope tempered by the reality that nothing would be easy, but that he firmly believed the greatest country in the history of the world could solve its financial problems, expand social justice, restore our country's position in the world and be moral, ethical and open without compromising security.

He promoted an ambitious agenda, and one that I supported whole-heartedly.  After 8 years of psychic darkness, I kept remembering the little girl's mother in "Poltergeist":  "Run to the light, baby. Mommy is in the light."  Like many others, I ran to the light.

The President definitively achieved one of those goals early on:  restoring America's stature internationally.  Europeans celebrated his election, as did others all over the world.  And once in office, he immediately replaced unilateral bullying with multilateral diplomacy.

On other fronts, progress varies.  He used extraordinary means to avert a financial crisis that would have been worse than the Great Depression.  Had the government not intervened, even the largest banks would have probably failed, GM and Chrysler would have sank and taken Ford with them and ordinary citizens would have seen their retirement investments become worthless.

However, his policies and actions have received a mixed reaction.  Some say it's not the government's place to prop up the private sector.  Others say it's not enough.  That more needs to be done.  Both sides are right, but there’s only one practical solution:  limited and targeted federal money to keep the entire economy from collapsing.

As far as torture goes, his prohibition of it also garnered mixed reviews.  The far right spins it as losing a tool to combat terrorism, when, in reality, the use of torture produces almost no benefit and creates many problems.

First, torture provides very little useful information. Second, it reduces our country to the level of the enemy.  It makes us as bad as them.  Third, it's illegal under the Geneva Convention.  Fourth, it lowers our country's stature internationally.  Most importantly, it's just plain wrong.

On the social justice agenda, health care reform leads the bill.  It remains as contentious as it has been for the last 50 or 60 years.  And while some might not see it as a social justice issue, it is and always has been.  It raises the question of whether life and death should be determined by the size of ones pocketbook.

As far as the year goes, it's been a mixed bag.  Some things are better; some are worse.

The economy didn't implode, but unemployment and foreclosures remain unacceptably high.  Health care reform will pass, but it might end up looking like Frankenstein's monster.  The right and the left will remain as far apart as they ever have been.

Still, I have hope.  I hang on always.  Sometimes only by my fingernails.  But I hang on.

On many fronts, it's been a very bleak year.  On others, not so bad.  Bold and unprecedented moves by the government stabilized the economy.  We are no longer teetering on the precipice of an unprecedented depression.

Health care reform will happen, but the shape it takes remains dubious, at best.  The economy hangs by a thread:  any upset in the markets could precipitate another sell-off that puts us three steps back.  Problems in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen and/or Pakistan could explode.

Still, I hold onto hope.  In the absence of guarantees, it’s what I have.

Mr. Roosevelt understood one principle that Mr. Obama understands:  monetary policy can only go so far to heal a nation.  Healing comes through hope and faith.  Roosevelt held the country’s hand through a depression and a world war.  Obama is doing much the same.

Some say that our president is over-exposed in the media, but I would argue that, in times of crisis, people want to know what’s going on.  That means keeping them informed, and not through leaks to selected press outlets.

In the end, I cling to hope.  We’re all living in scary times, and we’re all in the same boat that might sink any minute now.

And yet I believe that things will be better tomorrow than they were today.  Naive, perhaps.  But I refuse to believe otherwise until I see otherwise.

In the midst of it all, a 47 old British woman walked out on stage and stunned the world.  For a few minutes, I forgot that the stock market had crashed, that we were fighting two intractable wars in the middle east,  that the only thing that remained certain was uncertainty. And when she finished, I found my faith in hope reaffirmed.

Hope can move mountains.  It can elect a black president (something I never thought I would see in my lifetime).  It can turn the stock market around.  It can make a frumpy middle-aged woman a star.

Most importantly, it helps me sleep at night.

Christmas Card 2009

 

Let Them Eat Pie

I've been eating this pie for as long as I can remember. Mama's been making it all my life. That's one of the things mamas are good for: good pie.

Ingredients:

· 1 cup sugar (I prefer raw or turbinado)
· 2 tbsp. cocoa powder (I like organic)
· 3 tbsp. flour (white, unbleached)
· 1 tsp. vanilla extract (not imitation – don’t go there)
· 2 egg yolks (yard eggs, if you can find them)
· 1 cup milk (the real stuff - none of that milk-lite)
· ½ stick of butter (don’t even think of using margarine)
· 1 graham cracker pie crust (for this, you’re on your own)

Preparation:

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl (preferably a round-bottomed one – you’ll need to mix the wet ingredients and mix them well). Add the vanilla, egg yolks and milk. Stir until the ingredients are well integrated.

Melt the butter over medium to low heat in a cast iron skillet. (Any heavy-bottomed pan will do, but I’m convinced that, for some things, nothing beats a good cast iron skillet. They distribute heat more evenly than just about anything else. They are God’s perfect pan.)

When the butter is sizzling nicely, pour the mixture in. Stir continuously until it has the consistency of a thick pudding. (You’ll probably have to cook it longer than you thing you should. This part may take a couple of tries to get right.)

Pour the mixture into the piecrust and leave it alone. If the texture is too thin as it cools, pop it into the fridge for a while. Let it sit on the counter or in the fridge until it has a firm consistency.

It's the perfect chocolate pie, and now you know how to make it for yourself.

Live long. Be happy.

Eat more pie.

Un-Civil Rights

Watching an episode of Ken Burns' "The Civil War" reminds me about how important the fight for a cause can be. The South insisted on states' rights superceding the federal governments'. The North didn’t have a consensus in the state vs. federal power issue (and still don't), but they wanted to keep the Union intact.

Slaves were freed along the way, but that had little to do with the war.

A conflict of ideas fueled the bloodiest war ever fought in the western hemisphere. Also, the most deadly in American history.

Our worst war was spent fighting among ourselves.

It also reminds me that nothing's much changed. We don't use guns as often; we are divided still, but along other lines. "North and South" has become "Republican and Democrat". And there are no easy geographic boundaries to separate the two.

The Mason-Dickson is no longer relevant.

We are as divided as we have ever been, but now on social issues, not political ones. Social issues masquerade as political ones, but they're not. They often boil down to nothing more than rabble-rousing.

The Stonewall riots of 1969 illustrate this well. The NYPD decided to raid a gay bar on Christopher St. in Greenwich Village. What they didn't take into account was that Judy Garland had died that day. They were met with a bunch of angry queens whose icon was dead and were sick and tired of being harassed.

They fought back. It was the birth of the gay rights movement. One that continues today. You can only push someone so much before they get pissed off.

The movement has become the focus of political groups on both the right and the left. It’s either demonized or lauded. They don’t seem to realize that real people are involved.

They argue about ideas while real people are affected by their actions. And none of them seem to realize that.

Civil rights are not a political issue and never have been. They're a matter of social justice.

But civil rights are still a political issue, practically speaking, years after Stonewall and over a century after Mr. Lincoln unilaterally proclaimed social justice to be the law of the land.

I sometimes wonder if we'll ever learn anything as a nation from the past. I'm not sure that we'll ever, as a body, separate political concerns from social justice. We've had any number of chances, but have done little to nothing to address the issue, except listen to politicians using the issue as a political hot-button.

We've come far, but not far enough. Not yet.

And I’m not giving up.

On the Wings of Angels

We were at the Temple, TX, VA hospital the day of the Ft. Hood shootings. I had been outside to have a cigarette and check in at work. They don't like to call me when I'm off, so I check in with them, instead. Plus, I needed an excuse for a smoke, and I hate talking on a cell phone in a crowded public place like a hospital waiting room.

Things were fine at the office, but when I got back upstairs to waiting room, all eyes were on the TV. They were covering a breaking story, and it was breaking not too far away. There was a mass shooting one town away at Ft. Hood, which abuts Killeen.

Everyone in the room had some connection to the military. Many were veterans; others were there with spouses or parents who were veterans.

It was kind of a surreal moment. As I struggled to wrap my mind around it, I realized I didn't know what to wrap my around yet. The information changed every few minutes or even seconds. All I could comprehend was that something very bad had happened, and not very far away.

I went back outside to make a couple of other calls. One to a friend who retired from the Army a few years ago and still lived in Killeen. I needed to know that none of his family had business on base that day. Early reports included civilian fatalities.

Another to my mother to tell her that she was going to hear about something very soon, but that we were not near it. Or at least not close enough to be in danger. She knew we were going to be at the VA that day, and she would have heard "military", "central Texas" and "Ft. Hood", then gotten worried. I told her that there was a noticable increase in police outside the hospital.

At the time, reports stated that there were multiple shooters and that some were still on the loose. While those reports eventually turned out to be inaccurate, I didn't want her worrying too much.

While I was out, I noticed a helicopter that seemed to be circling the city. I thought it might be looking for the people that might still be on the loose. The local schools were on lock-down, so I thought maybe someone might have been spotted in the area

I went back out a little later for a cigarette. My nerves were raw, I needed to pace. That outweighed the possibility of meeting a shooter in the lobby.

That helicopter was still circling.

Then I saw it stop and hover near Scott & White. It's a major hospital that sits on a hill above the VA hospital. It stayed there for a good 10 minutes before I went back in.

I could see it from the window of the waiting room. I got distracted, looked away for a minute and it wasn't there, any more. But then it was back a few minutes later. I could hear it before I could see it.

The doctor we were there to see was held up in a surgery that ran long, so I went back out again to pace and smoke and watch the helicopter circling. When I’m upset, I can’t sit still.

The doctor we were there for cut the appointment short once she finally got done in surgery because she'd been told to prep for overflow. And that she and other medical staff could not leave for the time being.

Turns out, it wasn't a helicopter circling. It was one after another coming in to land at Scott & White. It's where most of the shooting victims went. It has a very good trauma unit that can handle mass casualties.

The helicopter kept coming in for as long as we were there. And I'm guessing the one that was hovering was waiting for a place to land.

When we leaving, I looked up and saw several helicopters in the air, not one just circling. They were coming in one after another in a strict arc formation that allowed one to land and take off before the next one got there. The first ones had come in farther apart.

From the VA hospital, Scott & White looks like the proverbial "shining city on a hill". It doesn't shine physically. It's built of mostly brown masonry. But knowing what it is and what it does, then seeing its massiveness on high from afar, it shines spiritually. It's a city of hope. A city of last and best hope for some.

As it was that day. One helicopter at a time.

"Other" Wise

In case you missed it, the world shifted Sunday night. It’s not the same one I woke up in. In a moment that rose almost to the level of Stonewall Inn pushing the cause of equal treatment, regardless of sexual orientation, a young man impetuously kissed a male keyboard player on live national TV.

And not just a peck on the lips. It was a tongue-meets-tongue and then have fun kiss.

It was a sexually-charged component of a sexually-charged performance.

While some might think it was planned, I’m not sure it was. It reminded me of New Year’s Eve 2000.

I had gone downtown to see Lyle Lovett with my sister, and when he had finished, we made our way to where the light show was going to be. She got a little out in front of me, and as the clock rang in a new millennium, someone walked up from behind, grabbed my ass, said “I’d like some of that”, and kissed me like I was coming home from a war. Then he disappeared into the night.

I have no clue to this day who he was or why he groped me. He was cute enough that I didn’t mind being groped. I may have even returned the favor. I probably did, but I can’t be sure. It happened too fast to remember details.

Adam Lambert is taking a huge risk. He’s betting that enough people won’t care with whom he sleeps. Some will, though, without a doubt. But he refuses to live unauthentically.

But I’m not sure how much that will hurt record sales. The people that won’t buy them because of his open sexual orientation probably wouldn’t have bought them, anyway. Those of us who are fans of glam rock from the 70’s don’t really care.

He can scream a lyric in a melodic way that must make Mick Jagger jealous. As well as Rod Stewart.

I wish him well. I pray that God protects him, because he’s probably already a target of bigoted cuckoos.

Living an authentic life is not always easy. Regardless of the progress our culture has made, it still overwhelmingly treats “gay” as “other”. An otherness that is acceptable as long there is no overt evidence of it.

I always end up back at “Animal Farm”: “Some animals are more equal than others.”

That seems to be the dominant cultural argument, and I applaud young Mr. Lambert for pushing the envelope, yet again. Until it gets pushed far enough, we will never have a fair and equitable society. Until then, I will not enjoy the full range of civil rights that most people I know take for granted.

I’m tired of being less equal, and if a guy kissing another one on live TV, tongue and all, helps advance the cause, I say go for it.

From all the hoo-hah, you’d think he had a “wardrobe malfunction” and shown everyone the finer details of his package. I’m sure the details are fine, but we didn’t get the chance to find out. He’s a big boy with big feet, so I’ll just let my imagination run wild.

It was no more a provocative one than many Madonna performances I’ve seen on live TV. But making “other” overt seems to have raised some hackles. It harkens back to “separate but equal”.

The fact that it was a male-male lip lock and tongue exchange didn’t help. The taboo on men doing that is infinitely greater than the one on women doing the exact same thing. They’ve been doing it for years on stage.

It’s accepted for a woman to grab her crotch suggestively, stroke it and then shove it into a dancer’s face. If a man does that, it’s considered almost pornographic. All the more so if the person who gets a face full of crotch is also a man.

An obvious double standard is in play. It’s okay to be a woman and do provocative performances. It’s even okay to do provocative performances with another woman. But throw a gay man in the mix, and all hell breaks loose.

That standard is patently unfair and utterly impossible to defend on any logical basis. Impossible, that is, unless you believe that some animals are more equal than others.

"A rose is a rose is a rose," said Gertrude Stein.

"Other is other is other," I say. But not because I want to. I say so because that is reality. I have no choice but to be "other".

I dream of a day when "other" has gone away. When that entire concept has been subsumed by a larger understanding and acceptance of people, then I will be as equal as anyone else.

I await that day with bated breath. I don't know if it will occur in my lifetime, but it might. Many people don't care about who you sleep with as long as you don't ask them about with whom they do the same. I can't deny progress on that front.

Still, inequities exist and are so common that most people don't even see them. And if they do, they don't understand why eliminating them is important.

I live in a world where people pay lip service to the principle of universal equality but who also dismiss the validity of a ten-year relationship. Since it's not sanctioned by the government, it just as well not exist.

And whether or not the powers that be realize, their decisions and policies perpetuate a culture that looks highly intolerant from the inside out.

Only because it is to a degree higher than they would want to admit.

They sweep "other" under the rug.

We are "other". And I am not happy.

I want equality across the board. In every way, shape and form. And now, not down the road.

I want simple things, like the ability to make medical decisions should one of us not be able to make them for himself.

Perhaps I shouldn't care so much, but I want think we deserve recognition of our status as a family. If that happens in this life time, I'd be surprised. Maybe my next incarnation will fare better.

I'll leave this challenge open: surprise me.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Over the decades, the U.S. Congress has come to see itself as the arbiter of all issues, whether congressional hearings are a proper forum or not. For instance, what business exactly did Congress have investigating professional baseball? So far as I know, it’s not a federally-regulated industry. What public good was served, and if there was any, was it worth what the hearings cost?

One could argue that, because many steroids are considered controlled substances, there is a need for congressional oversight. But one could also point out that they are controlled substances because Congress gave them that distinction after another series of such hearings in the 80’s. In doing so, it acted against the advice of the AMA, the FDA and the DEA, among others.

The congress has a nasty habit of sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. I’m not sure if this began with McCarthy and HUAC, but at least since then, the legislative branch has become little more than a hearing mill. Instead of debating and enacting or defeating legislation, it holds endless hearings that often amount to little more than an opportunity to publicly humiliate someone.

While I sometimes enjoy seeing powerful people being taken to task in a public forum, that seems to be the only purpose they serve. Our senators and representatives generally have all the information they need before the hearing, so the hearings do little to nothing to provide new information. They simply provide a platform for pompous politicians to appear relevant.

And some almost scream usurpation of power over other government entities.

Right now, it’s the Ft. Hood shootings. Some are clamoring for immediate hearings, even before the FBI and Defense Department can complete their investigations of the facts or review of policies that might prevent a similar future attack. They want to put the cart of the larger issue of possible systemic problems before the horse of professional investigators conducting a professional investigation and determining the facts of the case.

The congress, collectively, seems to have read too many Hardy Boys and/or Nancy Drew books. Or maybe they’ve seen too many episodes of “Murder She Wrote”. These shootings don’t need amateur sleuths poking their noses where they don’t belong. They need a thorough investigation, analysis and review by professionals. Professionals who are not running for re-election.

In Iran, North Korea and China, show-trials are par for the course. Sentences are determined before the trials begin. Congressional hearings aren’t far from that, often. Legislators, armed with all the information that they’ll be asking about, seek to either excoriate and humiliate or praise the witness. The outcome is predetermined.

At this point, the legislature is not a proper venue for investigating the Ft. Hood shootings. One cannot legislate sanity, and that seems to be a pivotal question in this case. As to how it happened, we should give the pro’s a chance to address the issue before we let the congress stick its big nose in.

I could probably answer all their questions based on my own experiences.

• Is it possible to distinguish mental illness from political, religious or ethnic zealotry? Not always. Mental illness often takes one of those forms. It provides a footing, a kind of self-validation, that isn’t otherwise available.
• Can someone be outspoken and not have the likely potential to go “postal”? Yes. I’m mouthy, opinionated and passionate about what I believe, but I’ve never had the urge to pick up a gun and shoot people.
• Could or should someone have seen this coming? Not really. The shooter had never been violent before. Whether we want to believe it or not, we base expectations of future behavior on past behavior. His past behavior suggests, if anything, apathy. He was not a rigorous student, nor was he dedicated to his work.
• Should he have been removed from duty? Probably. Everything points to a recognition that he was an obvious liability. Although the Army needs doctors, it doesn’t need every particular one.
• Was this attack premeditated? Most likely. One does not wake up, go to prayer, get a cup of coffee and then start shooting without thinking about it before.
• Was he sane? I don’t know. Probably. But I suspect his defense will hinge on that issue. It’s possible he was having a psychotic bi-polar episode, which would qualify as insane. On the other hand, he could have been having a bad day and decided to take it out on other people. Not insane, just pissed off. His career wasn’t going well, and like many under-performing individuals, he probably blamed other people for his own lack of achievement.

In the end, the legislature needs to let the investigative bodies that it over-sees at least complete an investigation before it drags the whole matter into what would amount to a show-trial. I’m not sure what public good congressional hearings would hold at this point.

They would most likely be an exercise in futility that undermines the justice system. Instead of being tried in a court of law, he would be effectively tried in Congress. Futile, at best. A dog and pony show that presumes guilt and does not take into account the simple constitutional principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

I suspect that he will the first person executed by the military since 1969, but I’d rather leave that in military hands. For now, so should Congress.

Senses and Sensibility

The very best food satisfies 3 senses: smell, vision and taste.

Of them, taste is second only to smell in its ability to evoke memories and provoke feelings. The two are inextricably linked. Taste has as much to do with smell as the flavor taste buds detect. And any good dish requires both those elements.

Presentation matters, also. If it doesn't look good, it won't taste good. Our brain plays tricks on us like that. But no matter how nice it looks, if it doesn't taste and smell good, it's waste of time.

For me, Thanksgiving and Christmas are as much about those smells and tastes as anything. When the holiday dinner is in the oven and I return from the inevitable last minute trip to the grocery to get what I forgot the last 3 times I was there, the smells overwhelm me.

I feel immediate peace. The aromas of a roasting turkey, sage dressing and boiling potatoes intermingling remind me that, yes, no matter how bad things are right now, they will be okay. That all life's complicated issues will work themselves out, and that, today, I have a feast.

It's the Scarlett O'Hara principle of time management: "after all, tomorrow is another day."

I have 3 or 4 favorite holiday dishes, but since I cook by touch and not by measure, all the measurements below are estimates. One of the joys of cooking is doing it to your own taste, so consider these to be guidelines only.

It's not baking, where your have to be more precise. That's why I don't bake.

Easy Cranberry Relish
This one I stole from my mother, but, as I told her, what good's a mama if you can't steal her recipes.

Ingredients:
1 can whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 cup raw celery, sliced or diced (at your discretion)
1 Granny Smith apple cored and cut into small chunks (leave the skin on or peel it, again at your discretion)
3/4 cup roasted pecans (I like them chopped and reserve a few halves for garnish)

Directions:
Roast the pecans. I like to use a little butter in a cast iron skillet under medium heat in the oven. If the pan smokes, it's too hot. Just turn it down and roast until semi-crisp.

Then throw everything into a bowl and stir.

It helps to make this ahead of time and refrigerate overnight. The flavors meld better.

For a quick and easy topping, use equal parts of cream cheese, whipping cream and sour cream. Mix them until they achieve a uniform consistency. It should be smooth but stiff.

I don't make the topping any more because of a horrible dairy allergy. (You don't need to know the gory details.) But you can enjoy.

Holiday Fruit Salad
This one can be adapted for almost any season. For the Fall/Winter holidays, I like to use traditional spices to give it darker, richer tones. And you can put whatever fruit you want in it. The only constant is the mixture of citrus and honey. This is my favorite variation.

Ingredients:
1 small to medium cantaloupe, cubed (the riper the better)
1 can pineapple chunks
2 peaches (if you can find them and they're good), peeled and cubed
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
1 can mandarin oranges
1 cup each of white and purple grapes cut in half (they absorb the flavors better if they're cut)
1 mango cut into chunks
1 cup sun-dried cherries
1-2 cup honey
juice of 2 oranges, 1 lemon and 2 small limes
cinnamon to taste
nutmeg to taste
clove powder to taste

Directions:
Prepare the fruit that isn't canned. Toss it into a large bowl and add the canned fruit, including the juices. Immediately pour the citrus juices over it to keep some of the ingredients from discoloring. Then, pour the honey over it. Put in enough to achieve a consistency in the liquid that you like.

Season with nutmeg, cinnamon, clove powder to taste. I like a strong clove presence because of the contrast between its flavor and the acidity of the citrus and the sweetness of the honey. A little clove powder goes a long way, as does nutmeg, though, so be cautious. Season, then taste, and tweak the flavors to achieve what you want.

I like to serve it as an appetizer in antique champagne glasses I picked up for almost nothing a few years ago. (I love thrift stores.)

Again, it's best to make it the day before and let sit in the fridge overnight.

Christmas Duck
Duck is a much-maligned meat in this country. But that's because most people don't cook it properly. Well-prepared, it can transform from gamey and greasy to the sublime. It's one of my very favorite Christmas dishes.

I stole the idea from a chef I worked with many years ago and the method from a PBS cooking show.

Ingredients:
1 duck (obviously)
1 medium to small white onion (don't substitute yellow or red)
3-5 cloves
1 stick of butter (don't even think about using margarine)
juice from 2 oranges
1 cups honey
salt to taste (I prefer sea salt)
freshly cracked pepper (If you don't have a pepper grinder, go get one this minute. The difference in flavor between freshly ground and the other kind is nothing short of a religious experience.)

Directions:
Mix the honey and orange.

Soften the butter and then rub it into the bird. Don't be afraid to use your hands. Cooking is, and should be, a very tactile experience. Just wash your hands first.

Poke the cloves into the onion and insert it into the duck's cavity. Cover with tin foil (make a tent), and place it on a wire rack on top of a shallow baking pan.

Throw it into a preheated over (400 degrees or so), and let it cook until a meat thermometer says it's almost done.

Take the tent off and pour 1/3 of the honey and orange mixture over it every 15 minutes.

Let it cook until the skin is a crispy brown.

To make a good sauce for it, take a little of the drippings from the pan, add some red wine (I prefer a decent merlot or cabernet), finely diced white onions (a half a cup or so) and sun dried cherries. You can also use veggie or mushroom stock instead of wine. The wine is better, but a hearty stock will suffice.

Throw your chosen ingredients into a heavy-bottomed skillet with a couple of pats of butter and reduce until it coats a spoon.

Let the bird rest for at least 15 minutes before serving. That's about how long it takes to make the sauce.

With duck, I advise keeping the number of flavors in play to a minimum. You will want to elicit the natural flavor without overpowering it.

If you want to make a statement, do it with the sauce.

Sage Portabellas: a Vegetarian Alternative
We have a vegetarian friend who has Parkinson's and whose only real family is a daughter in Houston. His wife, Molly, died many years ago, and his daughter comes up when she can. He doesn't have the physical ability to do much in the kitchen, and I'm sure the last thing on his daughter's mind after the drive is shopping and cooking.

They're going to spend Thanksgiving with us, so I will cook a parallel meal for John. If you've ever had to make a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal that still tastes like Thanksgiving, you will appreciate the creativity necessary to pull that off without resorting to a tofu loaf.

Stuffed Portabellas are nothing new, but making them taste like Thanksgiving isn't as hard as you might think.

Ingredients:
Four Portabellas with stems attached
Veggie or mushroom stock
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced onion
3 hard-boiled eggs
2 tbls butter (margarine won't work)
2 cups crumbled cornbread
Fresh sage, julienned, to taste
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Directions:
Make cornbread. I use a mix from Sun Harvest. I usually make it the night before and let it sit out. That way, it has to time to lose enough moisture to crumble nicely, but not so much that it could be used to pave a road with.

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and wash the heads and stems. Dice the stems into fairly small pieces. Chop the eggs into random small pieces.

Pour about 3 cups of the stock into a medium size heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add 1/3 of the celery, onion, mushroom stems, eggs and some sage. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover.

Take a nap. It'll be a while before it's done.

When you wake up, add the remaining ingredients to the crumbled cornbread. Mix it well with your hands (if they're clean, they're your best mixing tool). Ladle enough of the stock over it to give the mixture a soft consistency.

Spoon the cornbread mixture onto the mushrooms' bottom side. Place in a pre-heated 350-400 degree oven on a baking sheet, stuffing side up.

They only need to cook 15-20 minutes, so time things well. They can keep in a warm oven for a while, but don't overdo it. Otherwise, they come out dry.

While they're cooking, turn the heat up under the liquid in the saucepan and reduce it to a thin gravy. Once it's reduced by about 50%, toss in the butter. Reduce it by another 1/3 or so and take it off the heat.

I like to serve them with some of the gravy on top and a little drizzled around the sides.

In the End
These are just suggestions. Cooking is, and should be, a dynamic, creative process. It should challenge, but not intimidate. It should open your mind (and your palate) to the rich bounty we enjoy. It should feed the soul as much as it nourishes the body.

The first of these recipes I learned from my mother; the second two I developed myself, mostly by trial and error (many errors); and the last I adapted from my mother's methods.

I would love to tell you how to make her chocolate pie, because it's the best I've ever had. But since I don't bake, I've never really paid close attention to how she does it.

I don't cook very often these days, but when I do, I do so passionately. Since the time my grandmother pulled a chair up next to the stove when I was 5 or 6 and let me help her make salmon patties, I've known the true joy of cooking. It is the gift of being able to give something special, whether it's a simple side dish or a luscious duck.

Have fun with the guidelines. None of them are precise. Explore. Innovate. Create. Improve. Make them your own.

If they fail, they fail. That's how we learn. We often learn more from failure than success. Take risks.

That's why God made trash cans and garbage disposals. I've used them more than enough, believe me.

Above all, be ambitious and have fun. Find joy.

Let's Talk

Public discourse about things political and social has descended to the level of a school yard brawl, complete with accusations, misrepresentations, name-calling, button-pushing and down-right lies. The habits and tactics that define the contemporary conversations about these topics reduce exchanges to something less than conversation. Much less. Much, much less.

We have become a culture where rants pass for conversation. We talk a lot, but few listen to anything but the sound of their own voice and those that agree with them. Ideological polarization runs rampant and is condoned and even encouraged by our leaders.

I’m reminded of a passage from Macbeth, an apt description of what passes for public discourse today:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

We have become the idiots, loud and furious, but amounting to nothing at the end of the day. One side yells and makes accusations. The other side yells back and makes its own accusations. But neither seek the truth.

Talk radio epitomizes this culture, as well it should. It’s largely responsible for it. I would suggest, however, renaming it “rant radio”.

That’s usually what the shows consist of: a host ranting, making unjustified or unsubstantiated and undocumentable accusations, whipping a radio audience into a lather. All that froth might be good if one is making meringue, but it does nothing to further civil discourse.

The rabble-rousing rant format has spilled over into cable TV and the internet. Someone picks up a rant and forwards it to everyone they know. Pretty soon, untruths and half-truths become urban myth.

The media that pays its bill by supplying the rant pipeline say “It’s just entertainment. It’s not news.” Even as they present the rants in formats that mimic news. They encourage them because they drive ratings.

Both ends of the spectrum are guilty. Guilty as sin.

We live in extraordinary times with extraordinary problems. Problems that we cannot solve by ranting at each other. The problems are too big to be reduced to political fodder. They are real problems that call for real solutions, and today, not tomorrow.

The media has a responsibility to report the news and label opinion as opinion and not try to pass it off as legitimate news. Nor should they hide behind the cover of “entertainment”. They shouldn’t have it both ways.

Until we have civil discourse, we will not be able to solve the big problems that need to be taken care of today because they didn’t get taken care of over the last 40 years.

It’s time.

Famous All Over Town

I will never forget the June afternoon I was driving up Lamar Blvd. and spotted a middle aged man with a beard in a bikini and pumps dragging a cart along the side of the road. I consciously thought, “Now I’ve seen everything. And maybe more than I wanted to see.”

I didn’t know it then, but a local celebrity was having his debut.

He was homeless, and his name was Leslie, I found out later. A nice, ambiguous name for a cross-dresser with a beard. (Remember Leslie Howard from “Gone With the Wind”?)

He slowly became a living legend in Austin, known as much for his affability as his uniqueness. He was fixture downtown, trading on his burgeoning celebrity for drinks. I know I bought him a few, at least.

And he was never shy to pose for a photograph. Most of the time, he loved it.

That has all changed over the weekend. He suffered a head wound that left him in a vegetative state. He’s conscious now, but will have to go to an assisted-living facility, most likely. The outlook was much more dire yesterday.

I know all this because it’s in the paper. How a homeless man in a thong can get major local coverage is a good measure of his celebrity. I’m pulling for him, as is my partner.

We both are acquainted with him, but he probably wouldn’t recognize my name. He might recognize my face, but that’s about it.

Still, I care. I’m not sure Austin would be Austin without him.

Have Mercy

I watched my first episode of "Mercy" last night, and I was impressed, both by the performances and the presentation. I've spent much more time in ER's, CCU's and hospital rooms than I care to remember, so I was surprised that I enjoyed the program. Medical dramas usually end up with me running for a different TV in another room where I can't even hear the other.

I'm more of a PBS guy. I can watch entire civilizations be obliterated by natural disaster, horrific wars and petty dictators who commit atrocities, but I can't watch the hospital shows. My aversion to hospitals runs deep. They remind me of death in a way that even film-noir doesn't.

Still, I enjoyed the show. Like most TV dramas, it exercises a bit of hyperbole for dramatic effect, but that doesn't interfere too much with the story. And that is where the value of a program exists: the story.

Tonight's episode touched on a number of prominent issues, including the nursing shortage and nurses’ professional interaction with physicians. It didn’t portray doctors in a particularly good light, but I’ve often found them to be arrogant and high-handed, unwilling to listen to anything that contradicts their preconceived notions, so I didn’t mind.

When my father was in the hospital and things looked God-awful, his nurse in the CCU told me not to bother with visiting hours, which were only 15 minutes a few times a day. She said that she'd buzz me in any time I showed up.

And since I was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it another day, I couldn't sleep. I wandered over to the CCU and spent the night talking to him. I don't know how much he knew I was there, but at one point he squeezed my hand, ever so gently.

The nurse may have broken protocol, but she was a human being long before she was a nurse.

I’m just glad I wasn’t dealing with a doctor.

When we were leaving the unit for the last time, the same nurse told us that she knew he must have been an extraordinary man. She said that some people come in, die, and no one even visits. We had a roomful of people singing old hymns and saying goodbye. She knew that he had been well-loved.

I could easily see that as a sub-plot line on "Mercy". Maybe a contrast between a patient that is so obviously loved and one who dies alone. And one that draws a line between humanity and protocols.

I'm not sure I could watch either one, though.

Overall, I liked the show, though. It was as realistic as TV can be, and it created sympathy for the characters that made it compelling.

Aristotle first proposed that drama requires sympathy for the protagonists, no matter how flawed they might be. When their flaws brought them down, it became tragedy.

It's very often flaws that make characters interesting, and everyone on "Mercy" seems to have them. They could probably all benefit from a few rounds of good therapy.

But I could say the same about any number of people I know. Including me.

I give it a thumbs-up. It's a compelling, character-driven (and sometimes humorous) melodrama. It addresses not only contemporary nursing issues, but also what life's like when the scrubs come off.

Things like how one copes with the constant exposure to death, disease and debilitation. The absolute, sheer frustration that comes from not being able to fix things. Not being able to make someone better.

I am the eternal optimist that refuses to give up or give in until the bitter end. I hide behind a persona of a jaded, cynical pessimist, but I never give up hope until I have no other choice. The persona is a mask I wear for reasons I only partially understand.

My instinct is to make things better in any way that I can. And that seems to be the underlying theme of “Mercy”. It’s about nurses who sometimes hide behind a mask, but in truth will not give up until they have no other choice.

That kind of drama is more acute and poignant in a hospital setting, where life and death are not abstractions, but a daily reality. Where every choice and action could be the difference between the two.

It’s a job I couldn’t do. I’ll stick to my numbers during the workday and my words at night.

Lines in the Sand

I never knew sand could be a medium for performance art, much less animation, but apparently it can be. You will have to see it to believe it.

The clip is from "Ukraine's Got Talent" (yes, the franchise has gone Baltic). It tells the story of the Nazi invasion and occupation in WWII through the eyes of two young lovers. The skill with which it is done is rivaled only by the artistic vision that conceived it.

Art doesn't often have venues like televised talent shows that give it a mass audience. I'm glad this piece got the chance. It's stunning, amazing, thoughtful, calculated and unlike anything I've ever seen in my life.

Behold, and prepared to be awed. And moved.

And if you want to cry, that's okay. Everybody else did.

Paradise is Burning

Lion in State

The name Ted Kennedy triggers an immediate response in most Americans, a response either very positive or very negative. But from those who knew him, the response is overwhelmingly positive. Even his most powerful political foes speak highly of him, highlighting his willingness to work across party lines and his commitment to helping people everywhere he went.

Although he was a Senator from Massachusetts, he often represented the disenfranchised across the country. His home state is among the smallest in the nation, but his vision stretched from one coast to the other. He cared deeply about the big issues that affect us all, whether we’re in Texas or Maine.

Civil rights. Education. Gay rights. Universal health care.

He was a leader on all those fronts, and many more.

His personal life often distracted from his political accomplishments, but in the end, it will be his 47 years in the Senate that defines how history views him. And I think it will do so kindly.

He had a family name that he leveraged every chance he got. He didn’t talk much about being a Kennedy, but he used the power of that name to achieve more than either Jack or Bobby did. He took longer, but most of his fights were long-term projects. They would have taken longer than a presidential tenure.

In the end, the country is better off that he never became president. Instead of 8 years to pursue his goals, he had 47. Like Martin Luther King, he didn’t live to see all his dreams realized, but like MLK, he got a lot done.

He’s lying in state tonight at his big brother’s library and museum, and people have been lining up since the early hours to pay their respects. Thousands lined the roads along the route of the motorcade that took him there. It’s the kind of response one would expect for a president.

That he commanded the respect and affection of his opponents as well as his supporters paints the full picture of the man. And that in spite of his personal foibles.

No man is perfect. None will ever be. But some are more perfect than others when it matters. He was a horribly-flawed human being, as most of us are. But he never lost sight of the world he wanted to help create.

One that was better, fairer and more just than the one he inherited. And that will be his legacy, one earned over decades of relentless work.

He was called "the lion of the Senate" for good reason, and I will miss his roar deeply and profoundly.

We loved him well. He was not ours to keep.

Fear Factor

When Sarah Palin goes out stumping and using the phrase "death panel" to try and re-define end of life care and counseling, my stomach turns. I can't imagine what her motivations are, other than a pure and unadulterated attempt to stoke fear in the far right wing of her party. It amounts to nothing more than pandering, and it's in very poor taste.

I have dealt with more than one of her "death panels", and they have been composed of health-care professionals who wanted to give everyone involved the information they needed to determine treatment for the person they loved. They were straight-forward and painfully honest. They told us things we didn't want to hear, but they did so honestly.

That's what end-of-life counseling boils down to: having the right information to make the right decision, whether it is the patient or the family making those painful decisions.

The way the radical right has framed this debate, I would be a murderer for asking that treatment be withdrawn from a terminally ill patient because I knew what was going on and what the outcomes would almost certainly be.

If you follow this debate to its natural end from the Palin point of view, I should not have been informed or had the opportunity to withdraw care. And no doctor or nurse should have been able to give me the information I needed to make the right choices, much less mention that it was available. That the right to counseling on this most difficult issue shouldn't exist.

It is pandering on an obscene degree that belies a gross lack of conscience or sense of moral justice.

Terminally ill people deserve the right to good medical counsel. They need to know the possible outcomes and the implications of them. And so do patient's families.

That anyone would question this centrally important part of health care leaves me walking around with my hands in the air saying "What? What? She didn't really say that, did she? Oh, my God. She did."

Campaigning on a platform of restricting end-of-life care (and she's campaigning-you betcha') should give every voter pause. Apart from restrictions on free speech and professional practice, it's just plain old wrong.

Limiting health-care providers' speech in those situations is not only immoral: it's irresponsible and unethical. It would leave the provider in the position of violating the law or violating the oath they took as a licensed professional.

Given all the problems we have with health-care right now, this is one more thing that should not be politicized or bastardized. And it has been.

When people are dieing, they deserve the ability to determine their futures. And when they can't make those decisions, their family needs to be able to do the same with the best information possible.

As a people, we should not let our cultural reticence to talk about death infect the debate about health care reform that is decades over-due. And politicians who use blatantly false statements to exploit that fear do their constituents a great disservice. All Americans would be better served by a healthy and honest debate about the issue.

Mouthy Redux

What follows is a letter I sent to the Austin American-Statesman. They require letters to the editor to be short (150 words) and to the point. So this is the condensed version of my opinions about health care. For a more complete version, go here. For Daniel Gross's insight go here.


Rationed Health Care and Why We Aleady Have It

Its time to set the record straight about rationed health care: we already have it. I am insured and can see a GP almost any time I want. But I usually have to wait 2-3 months to see a specialist. With a very good plan.

I watched a friend with similar coverage grow sicker with cancer as his doctor battled the HMO for the best care and not the cheapest. Weeks after diagnosis of an aggressive and fast-growing tumor, his insurance company finally let him get the treatment his doctor had first recommended.

It was too late. He died a few months later.

My partner has coverage through the VA, and, yes, they ration health care. But not to any degree larger than my private insurer does. He gets high-quality health care that is as good as what costs over $600/month for me.

Rationed health care is a moot point. Its already here. And its spelled HMO.

Bite Me

I am sick to death of hearing about “death panels”. I wish someone would put either me or Sarah Palin out my misery. She’s taken one of the most sacred trusts anyone of us hold, that to care for a loved-one when they can’t care for themselves, and perverted it into nothing less than a blatant political tool. For someone who has experienced end-of-life counseling more than once, it makes me nauseous to see what has been a part of quality health care since professional, trained doctors have existed singled out and labeled a “death panel”.

If you’re lucky, you will have a doctor or a panel of doctors assemble to tell you or those responsible for your care the truth that you may not want to hear but need to know. How does one make a decision without knowing the facts? The options? The probabilities?

That’s what end-of-life care has always been, and it continues to be one of the most important components of health care. Withdrawing care is never easy, but withdrawing care without adequate information is unconscionable.

I’ve never had to do that and hope I’m never faced with that situation.

I doubt that doctors will cease the practice, whether they’re paid for it or not. It’s part of being a doctor. Or a good one, at least. Most private insurance would pay for it.

When Daddy died a little over two years ago, the team of doctors that was treating him assembled to talk to us about the grim prospects and what our options were. They provided information and described what can only be called cascading organ failure: his liver had failed, causing his kidneys to fail, causing his blood to thin, causing his heart to require medication to function. His eyes were bleeding and he was hemorrhaging under the skin all over his body. He could not be stabilized to the degree required for a liver transplant, even if one were available.

They gave us all the God-awful truth, but we made the decisions. The hard ones. The ones we didn’t want to make.

That is what end-of-life counseling is, and also what Sarah Palin is calling a “death panel”. Such rhetoric is ingenuous at best and appalling in general. It ignores the simple but obvious truth that end-of-life care is called that for a reason. It seeks to politicize what is often the hardest thing someone ever has to do. It cheapens the grief of those who have made hard decisions after getting the information they need to make those decisions.

Life and death should never be political footballs.

Mrs. Palin apparently doesn’t realize this. She created the concept of “death panels” out of whole cloth. And then got the media to report it. Never mind that not even the semblance of truth has come out of her mouth in the last several weeks.

No doubt, she will continue to contort, distort and generally misrepresent any proposals for health care reform. She will continue pandering to the extreme right wing of the Republican party rather than being sensible or even honest.

I think she might very well put herself out of her own misery (and mine, too) by imploding on a national stage. She’s made some pretty big claims that she can’t substantiate with real evidence, and the press is getting closer and closer to biting her Alaskan fanny real hard.

If only I could.

The Big Chill

I'm being mouthy again, but sometimes I think have to or I will die. This is what I sent both my national Senators tonight. I have no idea if it will do any good, but I don't think it will do any harm.

Dear Senator,

Two nurses in Kermit, TX (Winkler county) were recently indicted and arrested because they reported a doctor to the Texas Medical Board. While the Medical Board has informed the DA of Winkler County that the nurses in question (Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle) broke no laws, the case is moving forward.

They had concerns about the quality of care in their rural hospital and could not find anyone to address their concerns within their hospital. So they filed a complaint.

Texas law explicitly prohibits retaliation against nurses for exercising their legislatively-mandated role as whistle-blowers. You can read details of the case here: www.texasnurses.org.

While I realize that you have very clear constitutional limitations when it comes to judicial branch issues, after you review the facts, I ask you to intervene on whatever level you are able and, at the very least, put a corrupt and unjust county government on notice that it is being watched.

The illegal acts were done by the county sheriff and the DA, not by the nurses who acted in good conscience and faith, trying to make sure their patients had the best quality health care available.

A strongly worded letter to the DA deploring this injustice would be appropriate in this situation. That is probably the limit of what you can do, But anything you can do to put them on notice that they're being watched will advance the cause of nurses advocating for their patients.

Nurses are both the first and last lines of defense for their patients. Without the protection to advocate for them, the quality of care will plummet.

It may seem like a small story from west Texas, but the implications are staggering. If speaking up about sub-standard treatment leaves one facing a $10,000 fine and 2-10 years in prison, the quality of health care will continue to deteriorate. If these charges stand, the effect will be chilling.

Any number of health care workers will not report concerns about quality of care. The prospect of a large fine and 2-10 years in jail for reporting someone for sub-standard practice will do nothing to advance health care in this country for any one.

Please do anything you can. Make me want to vote for you.

And I vote.

On Race in America

Several years ago I dated a black man for about a year. I gained a new perspective on race in America in the process. It didn't surprise me that my mother, who grew up and has lived all her life in the deep South, was more upset that I was dating a black man than that I was dating a man. What surprised me was the reception we received from other black people.

When we were out for the evening and I slipped away for a few minutes to get drinks or use the restroom, someone invariably came up to him and demanded to know why he was with a white boy. They told him things like "You need to be with a strong black man." Or a "righteous black man". That was my favorite.

He always laughed it off. He was a peace-maker, and that was one of the things I loved in him. But those incidents always disturbed me.

We obviously didn't care about the race issue, but other people did, on both sides. I always wondered what business it was of theirs, anyway.

We aren't together any more, but our parting of ways had nothing to do with race. We had different priorities: I wanted a long-term commitment, and he couldn't make that step.

I always wonder, though, if we were still together, would we still be getting the same chilly reception from both sides?

The gay thing was over-shadowed by the race thing. Two things that are basically nobody's business, any way you look at it.

As a country, we've come a long way, but we have a long way to go. We are achieving the "more perfect union" that our forefathers wrote about so eloquently, but we have not reached perfection. I've seen the racial issues go from civil rights marches when I was a boy to protests and riots in the 70's and 80's to the entrenched race-baiting we live with now.

Racism is no longer fashionable or socially acceptable, but it lives underground, popping its ugly head up at times like now with the Harvard professor and the cop. Who was the racist? I don't know. Maybe both.

I've seen stranger things, but it’s not a call I think I could make.

What is also unfashionable is talking about it openly and honestly, leaving preexisting assumptions on the doorstep; forgetting the politics and speaking as true, authentic people without agendas of any sort. But it's our only hope to get beyond the stalemate we find ourselves in. Until we drag ourselves out of this quagmire, we will not get much closer to achieving the "more perfect union" that should be our ultimate goal.

I can understand resentment on both sides of the spectrum, but isn’t it time we moved forward? We are a 233 year old country acting like third graders on the playground. Doing so benefits no one and harms every one.

When it comes to race in America, it’s time to quit throwing blame around like bullets and grow up. Act like adults instead of third graders. Walk the extra mile, if necessary. Whatever it takes to move us forward, because we’re idling in neutral right now.

Reset

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft CEO who almost never has anything interesting or that makes much sense to say, broke the barrier of irrelatively this weekend. In an interview with "Fortune" magazine's web site, he made the distinction between the economy "rebounding" and "re-setting". It's an important distinction.

The crash started last year and accelerated in the first quarter of this year. All the markets hit rock bottom on March 9, taking 40% of the value of our collective investments with them and dragging once-powerful companies down in the undertow.

Lehman Brothers collapsed under the pressure. GM and Chrysler went begging to the Congress. Merrill Lynch had a shotgun wedding with Bank of America. One unit of AIG brought them to the brink of global failure.

Since then, GM and Chrysler have both declared bankruptcy and are depending on government money both to operate and to drive customers to their dealer outlets. Bank of America alleges that it was coerced into acquiring Merrill Lynch, even though their website displays both names. And AIG is quietly liquidating its portfolio of companies (including the one that manages my retirement account, for disclosure purposes).

These companies shared a culture that rewarded speculation and not actual real-money profits. GM and Chrysler kept churning out cars that people increasingly could not afford to buy or operate. The price of gas skyrocketing didn't stop them from pushing tricked-out SUV's that got 15 miles a gallon. And they gave their executives huge bonuses for doing so.

Merrill Lynch failed, but before the wedding with the shotgun, it paid out executive bonuses that defy imagination for a company that is going under. AIG did the same thing.

I have to shake my head and think "what were they thinking?"

Before they crumbled under the weight of reality, they were reporting profits based on unrealized gains. What people thought their assets were worth until they found out the truth.

Cascading mortgage defaults were the precursor of cascading credit defaults, country-wide in all industries. Credit that had been too easily available to anyone suddenly dried up for almost everyone.

The Dow has gone from over $13,000 to $9,171 today. It's under-valued as a rule, but it won't see $13,000 for a while. Expectations have changed. Companies have to earn real money to see their stock price go up. They have to reset their values to account for the bad debt they've taken on.

I have accepted that I’ve lost at least 15% of my IRA portfolio, after it reset at a more realistic valuation. From a 40% loss, I’ve gained 25% back. Anything more will be slow coming.

The markets and the economy in general is in the process of resetting to a more realistic standard. One that doesn’t record income from highly risky loans and investments that on the broader scale undermine the entire system. And I accept that. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

While critics of the infusion of government cash into the system via multiple bail-outs and subsidies of the private sector rant and rail about principles, those very bail-outs and subsidies have averted a depression that was potentially bigger than the one Roosevelt tried to fix.

The Great Depression is called that not because it was great for the people affected, but because of how it affected them. The destruction of the economic system that the Hoover administration refused to address on principle hit almost everyone in the country. They lost their homes, their farms, their ability to provide for their families.

The latter is the most debilitating blow a man can take. It makes a Great Depression a greater depression on a personal level.

We have avoided that outcome, to date. We’re not out of the woods, by any estimation. But the concept of resetting expectations makes more sense than anything else I’ve heard. And I’ve heard a lot.

We cannot and should not expect or wish for a market that is over-valued because of risky loans and questionable financial products. We should instead seek a market that is driven by real money profits and not speculation on credit-default swaps.

Lehman's is history. Bank of America doth, I think, protest too much. GM and Chrysler limp along, trying to sell their existing inventory even while closing or preparing to close factories right and left. No one even talks about AIG anymore. They've gone from being the largest insurance conglomerate in the world to being largely irrelevant.

We’ve made our bed, and slept in it. Now we must try get the sheets untangled from the pillows and the comforter.

We must reset. Call it collective rehab, but we have to adapt to a more realistic world.

Angel of Morning

We had some old film developed, and this picture was in there. I tried to crop it at first, but the resolution isn’t good enough. Then, when I looked at it again, I realized that it was perfect in spite of, and because of, its imperfection.

The bed is messy, there's a cat moving, and my fingers got in the way of the lens. But all of those bad elements emphasize the light that hits just where it should.

It captures an imperfect human in an imperfect moment in an imperfect way. It's a picture of simple reality. The beauty we sometimes miss even though it's right in front of us to be be appreciated.

He is beautiful, inside and out.

My angel.

Morning.

Noon.

Night.

We strive for perfection spiritually, and we fall short. But we're at least half way there.

Les Faux Amis

Anyone who speaks English and has tried to learn the irrational complexity of the French language knows the phrase "les faux amis". Literally, it translates as "the false friends". It refers to words that look the same or are similar in both languages, but that have totally different meanings. On the scholastic level, they are also called "false cognates".

They look like one thing, but mean something totally different

One of my favorites is "formidable". In French, it's pronounced "for-mi-dah'-bluh". In English, it's "for-mid'-a-bull". The former means really, really good; the latter means really, really difficult. Not that difficulty doesn't ever lead to good, but the words are worlds apart.

Health insurance companies are, as a rule, faux amis. They gladly charge as much as they can for coverage, but then will try anything to keep from spending money to treat a life-threatening illness that will lead most probably to expensive care.

I've seen it first hand.

My best friend was diagnosed with a serious tumor that extended from the top of his throat around the top of his brain. His doctor wanted to send him to M.D. Anderson in Houston, one of the premier cancer centers in the world. His health insurance company decided, against his doctor's judgment, that he could live with a local, less advanced treatment center.

His doctor protested, and the peer-review panel of doctors who reviewed his case upheld his doctor's original decision.

However, it took too long for all that bureaucracy to act. He died a month or so later.

I don't know if getting into the hospital he needed to be in when he did made any difference, but the simple fact that his insurance company stonewalled and tried to deny treatment that his doctor thought was his only chance to survive dumbfounds me.

The myth is that if you have private health insurance your provider will take care of you. The truth is that, if you’re seriously ill, your insurance company will fight tooth and nail to keep you from getting treatment they deem unprofitable.

And if he had access to health care earlier, he might have survived.

Everyone is up in arms these days about government-sponsored health insurance. They say it will lead to sub-standard care. That rationing will mean they have to wait six weeks to see a doctor about a cold. That emergencies won't be dealt with in a timely manner.

That's all smoke and mirrors thrown up by the health insurance industry lobbyists.

While this is anecdotal and I have no hard numbers to give you, I can say that my partner's coverage through the VA is easily equitable to, if not better than, the insurance I pay $150/month for. My employer pays the other $450 that it costs.

The VA is one of the best-run health care systems in the world. And, yes, they do ration care. But so does my health insurance company. Faced with enormous budget cuts a decade or so ago, the VA reorganized and invested heavily in technology. They now treat more patients who receive better care because of the efficiencies they've achieved. And they do it for less than they used to.

A few years ago, my doctor wanted me to see a neurologist because of chronic shoulder pain. I had to wait 2 months to see her. In the mean time, I had an MRI, which cost at least two grand. Between the neurologist that I had to wait 2 months to see and the MRI, my insurance company dropped about $4,000.

Turns out all I needed was a new mouse. I bought a trackball mouse for $20 and it solved my problems. I haven't seen a doctor about that problem since I got it.

The experience enlightened me as to how the health care system works: people with insurance get endless referrals to specialists who charge way too much and keep referring them to other specialists when a $20 solution should be obvious.

I told them all that I did a lot of mouse work, but they either didn't understand the relationship between using a mouse all day and shoulder pain, or they just didn't care and wanted to take my insurance company's money.

It costs about $7,200 a year for my health insurance, and for that I get a network of doctors who want to refer me to someone else that I can see in two months.

By contrast, my partner with government-provided VA coverage gets as good or better treatment. He doesn't wait any longer than me to see a specialist.

The VA focuses on preventative care. It also has digitized records to the point that we can got to any VA facility in the country and they can pull up his full record. Their investment in technology has lowered the cost of his care.

These days, I'd trust the government to provide adequate and essential health care more than I would my private health insurance company that costs $7,200/year.

I don't have all the answers, nor will I pretend to. I'm not sure anyone does. As a nation, we've ignored this problem for way too long, and now we're left trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and mold them into something coherent that provides health care to all the people in what is usually the greatest nation in the world.

We've dropped the ball on this issue too many times; the number of uninsured people in this slice of the world is disgraceful and cannot go on for much longer.

Providing universal coverage isn't an easy problem when times are good. And, to be blunt, things suck right now.

But it is a necessity. One of the reasons (beside the endless referrals to specialists) that my health insurance costs so much is that I'm subsidizing people that aren't lucky enough to have coverage.

And lucky isn't the wrong word. Working as an independent contractor, I went a decade or so without any insurance. I couldn't afford it.

I have it now and feel very lucky to have the benefits that I do.

There could be worse things than a government-administered health insurance program. The VA has proven that the government can run an efficient and responsive health system.

They do as good if not better than Aetna and cost a damned lot less.

Some paint grim pictures of socialism (waiting months or years for a critical operation) into any proposal for universal coverage, but I suspect that they have either never not had coverage or have never been sick. Those artists work pretty much at the behest of a health insurance industry that wants to keep a monopoly that allows them to make life and death decisions arbitrarily, ignoring or contesting doctors’ recommendations.

The people that have and pay for health insurance don’t have the standing that stock holders do.

Whatever the stock holder wants, the stock holder gets.

In any case other than healthcare, I'd agree with the stock holder principal. But when it comes to profit and loss, I have to raise the question of what loss they're worried about. Certainly not the loss of their customers' lives.

Trying to fix healthcare is very much like trying to understand how (and why) cats purr. No one knows what makes cats purr or how they do it exactly. We only know what it means: a purring cat is a happy cat.

Universal health care in the US remains much like Sir Winston Churchill's observations about the Soviet Union: "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

He understood that Russia was a false friend, much like the health insurance industry is to American consumers. They gladly take money, but deny claims when it matters the most.

It pains me to say that, as the most powerful and prosperous country in the world, we can't find the wherewithal to take care of our own. Until this disparity is rectified, we are all, as a nation, faux amis.

False friends throw the word "socialism" like candy at a small town parade without even thinking about what it means to have to choose between going to a doctor and buying food. They seek to demonize anyone that would change that equation without acknowledging the crisis of care in their own back yards.

I come from a tradition where people take care of each other. If there's a death in the family, clean out the fridge, cause you're gonna need the room. If you get married, remember to take the checks and cash that got slipped to you out of the tuxedo before you take it back to the store. If your neighbor's sick and the yard is getting a little unruly, mow it for them, but don't accept anything more than a glass of lemonade or iced tea in return.

It's a small-town mentality, I know. But there's nothing wrong with that. We need more of it, not less.

And it's high time that a bank balance didn't determine access to competent medical care.

Any one who says otherwise is false. And definitely not a friend.

To paraphrase Jesus, "What you do to the least of these, you do to me." It's a simple statement about social responsibility. It means that, to one degree or another, I am my brother's keeper.

We need more keeping of our brothers. Being grateful for what we have and helping those who aren’t so lucky. We have to ditch partisan rhetoric and deal with the reality that we’ve created. One where healthcare is not available except on an emergency basis for too, too many people. One where children and old folks are not guaranteed basic healthcare services.

Even providing for the kids and the oldsters, we would leave out a few generations in between.

There is no easy answer, and anyone who says there is lies or is the victim of propaganda, whether from the right or the left. Either that, or they’re just plain stupid.

I don’t have an answer, either, easy or otherwise. I just know it’s a mess. One where the Judeo-Christian ethic might be of use: we need to be the true friends of people we don’t even know.

The task is formidable in both the English and French senses: it's an incredibly difficult task to take on, but facing it head on is an excellent thing.

I'm purring already.

A More Perfect Union

I always loved the 4th of July. In many ways, it’s the perfect holiday: no presents to buy or cards to send, no pressure to spend it with family if they're 750 miles away or to do much than be a slug. Sitting around drinking beer and eating good food are usually the only items on the agenda, whether it’s with friends and/or family or not at all.

Laid back, low pressure, low key: that’s my description of the perfect holiday.

I also love the fireworks, whether I see them in person or watch them on our incredibly large TV. It’s not a plasma wide screen, but it’s about as big as you can get otherwise and has the best picture short of a TV that costs as much as a car. Granted, it takes two grown men to lift it, but the picture is great. And even though I’m too cheap to pay for cable, with the digital converter box, the picture is even better than when I bought it at a pawn shop several years ago. I don’t know who needed the money, but I don’t care.

But I digress.

What I like most about the 4th is what the day stands for. Our founding fathers said the day should be celebrated with entertainment and great spectacles. That it should be a day of celebration of the freedoms we enjoy.

In the late 18th century, freedom and self-determination were new concepts. The idea that citizens had inalienable rights didn’t exist anywhere except here. There existed benevolent monarchies, republican monarchies and tyrannies. Democracy (even the republican form that evolved) was a totally new concept. Mr. Jefferson called it a “great experiment”. The experiment that he shaped probably more than anyone else has grown into a great country that changed history.

And not by invading other countries. We have led by an example that has created many, many new democracies.

Granted, many are imperfect, as is ours. I think that’s why the preamble of the Constitution says “in order to create a more perfect union.” They realized perfection was out of their grasp. Or anyone’s. But it could be more perfect than it was.

And it has continued to become so. In my short lifetime, I’ve seen civil rights guaranteed for all citizens, many who have gone from being marginalized to accepted. I’ve seen racism fading away (although it’s still there). I’ve seen my relationship with my partner decriminalized.

We aren’t where we need to be as a country yet. But that’s the beauty of the Constitution: it leaves many questions unanswered and sticks to broad principles. Those principles’ meanings change with every generation because of the broad language they employ and changes in public discourse.

In historical terms, we’re a young nation. Rome, Greece, the Chinese dynasties and the Persians ruled for thousands of years. Also, the Egyptians.

But in our scant history, we’ve managed to create a totally novel form of government that has survived revolution, civil war, world wars, depressions and recessions and even some leaders who were less than enlightened or competent.

Still, even in the most contested elections, we’ve had peaceful transfers of power. We’re not unique in that aspect, but there are still too, too many countries where the inverse is the norm.

I like the 4th because it reminds me of where I live and how lucky I am to be able to live unmolested and without political upheaval. I can live as I choose with laws that do not define me as a criminal because of things that the government has no business even knowing about. And while I've not always been happy with the results of closely-called elections, I live with them because I know that I'll have another say in a few years.

I won't deny that there are repercussions of contested elections. The winner loses a modicum (or a bit more in some cases) of legitimacy. As long as questions and speculations float around in the press, the winner is damaged goods. However, riots do not ensue and the military does not attempt to take control of the government.

And while my country is imperfect, we, as a people, are working our way to a more perfect union, still. After 233 years, we’re still growing up. We're still learning how to include everyone in that endeavor, but we are more perfect than we were when I was a kid.

We're all God's children, and I think that, as a country, we're getting closer to recognizing that than we've ever been.

Having said all that, "happy birthday to us", imperfect and flawed as we collectively are.

Let the fireworks begin.

Fathers' Day

Today is Fathers’ Day, and it falls bittersweet. It will be 2 years in July when we had to bury him, but his legacy and memory live on as strong as ever. While I couldn’t call him up today and chit chat about cars and laugh with him about the general dysfunction that the American auto industry is flailing through (with the exception of Ford), I still talked to him.

All day.

About how good it made me feel when he visited Shannon and I a few years ago in what was an obviously 2 bedroom apartment with one bed. The other bedroom was filled with computer junk and a very uncomfortable couch. He never batted an eyelash. As long as I was happy, so was he.

He’d known or suspected my sexuality for a long time, but never asked any questions or seemed to care one way or the other. That was his greatness: he didn’t care about a lot of things. Just if someone, child or not, was a good person who was carrying his or her own weight and helping out others when he could.

I called Daddy the night I bought our car in February 2007. He thought I bought a good car (it’s a Ford) and got a good deal. Both are true, but his approval made it all the more important. The Daddy seal of approval was always the highest honor we could attain.

Not that he was that hard to please.

One of my most vivid memories of childhood (a kind of Mayberry moment) was him coming home late one Friday afternoon in the summer after having worked all day 60 miles away with candy bars in his pockets. My sister and I got to choose a pocket, and we kept what we found. I don’t know if I got a Baby Ruth or a Three Musketeers, but I know it was good.

Like I said, it’s been a bittersweet day. Remembering a man I love but can’t call up and talk to when I want.

I’ll keep what I have: memories about and stories of the greatest man I’ve ever known.

Happy Fathers’ Day, wherever you are. When you were in the hospital there at the last, I could see my new car from your room. I was hoping you’d at least get to see it.

No matter. Trust me: she’s good. She looks like a cat getting ready to pounce even when she’s sitting still. Her name is Baby. And Baby gets good mileage when I let her, but she doesn’t mind getting up and going, either.

You’d be proud, Daddy. I am. Of the both of us.

Spinach and Cheese Pasta: Good Food that Doesn't Have to be Chewed

Shannon’s been going through dental work for what seems like a lifetime. In reality, it’s only been a couple of months, but each trip to the dental school in San Antonio is an ordeal. We have the choice of leaving before the sun comes up or coming back to Austin with rush hour in full flower.

It's an ugly flower at the very least.

Since I can’t see very well when the sun is down or barely up, we opt for the latter. My vision has deteriorated to the point that I can’t safely drive on highways when it’s dark.

As bad as the trips are, they pale in comparison with preparing menus for someone who’s having his teeth systematically taken out.

I have to make sure the food is good and nutritious, but also prepare it in a way that doesn’t require chewing. In the process I’ve come up with some really good recipes.

Thus, my newest creation: orzo with spinach and gouda.

If you’re like I was a week ago, you don’t know what orzo is. It’s a very small pasta that plumps up to the size of a very large piece of rice. But it tastes better than rice because it’s made out of wheat, not rice. It’s a hearty addition to something as simple as spinach and chicken soup.

Ingredients:

1 box of mushroom broth (organic, if available)
1 pound of spinach, julienned
¼ cup of carrots, julinenned
1 pound of orzo
4 slices of fresh ginger
Sliced green onions (but only the white parts)
2 tablespoons of white pepper
2 teaspoons of salt
½ cup of smoked gouda cheese
fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Putting it together:

Dump the mushroom broth into a medium to large sauce pan on medium heat. Slice the spinach into strips. (Rolling them up and using scissors makes this much easier.)

Julienne the carrots. (There is no easy way to do that.)

Cut four substantial slices of ginger from a fresh root (dried ginger will not work)

Toss the carrots, spinach and ginger into the brew. Add the white pepper (do not use black pepper at this point—doing so will fundamentally alter the flavor of this dish) and salt.

Let it come to a boil. Turn the heat down and dump to the orzo in.

Cover. (If you don’t have a lid that fits the pan you’re using, I’ve found that skillets make very good lids. Especially the cast iron kinds. They’re good and heavy, and won’t blow off if the heat gets too high.)

Stir occasionally to keep the pasta from sticking. (Orzo has a nasty habit of sinking to the bottom and sticking to the pan, and you don’t want to lose any of the flavor to stuck pasta.)

When it’s approaching done (it’s done when the pasta swells to about 2 or 3 times its original size), toss in the white parts of the green onions. Stir them and remove the whole thing from heat. The onions will continue to cook as you finish the rest.

Stir in the smoked gouda and let the whole thing sit for a little bit.

Add black pepper to taste (freshly ground, of course).

Serve and enjoy.

Not having teeth doesn’t have to be so bad. Even for those of us who have some left.