WAITING IN THE WAITING ROOM (Poem)

They quietly sit there, waiting to be called, except for a young lady
Saying something to her mother, unheard by others,  or is it her
Grandmother, an obese woman on a portable oxygen tank.

They wait for a doctor or for a test or for an outpatient operation to
Find out – What or to cure what?  They wait with vacant eyes to
Find out the news or maybe they know the news.

(I muse.  If you know the news, is it still news?)

Quiet, waiting, looking, mostly staring into space as time passes by.
A few are looking at old magazines.  Some stare at their lap.
But they too will vacantly stare into space.

Every so often, a name is called by a cheerful nurse.
Without joy, someone gets up, perhaps accompanied by a spouse or
Someone else, and walks to a door, passing inside.

Sometimes someone comes out of that door and quietly walks to
The exit, without comment, and none asked for.  Was there
Good news or bad news or will another visit be needed to get news?

For the rest of us, we wait in the waiting room.

 

Written December 2005

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 & THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

I realize that there are tens of thousands of people whose lives have been changed to various degrees: loss of a father or mother or brother, etc. It is not only the pain at a missed relative or friend, it can mean selling the house, maybe not going to college, all sorts of things. And it did change our nation in that we have been at war ever since in Afghanistan and Iraq (the big two), but Yemen and other places too in different degrees. In addition to the thousands of Americans and foreigners who died in 9/11 or suffered life changing injuries, there are more thousands who have died or suffered life changing injuries in our subsequent wars in lands far away.

But in my case, and that of millions of others, 9/11 didn't change our lives at all, as nearly as I can tell. I had already been retired for 6 years. It is true that the tech and biotech bubbles burst affected our investing style to a significant extent, and we incurred significant financial loss. I had never gotten involved in corporate bonds before or preferred stocks. But I do not see how these are related to 9/11. The housing boom affected our life in that we sold our home and moved to a lower cost state with some tax advantages just before the housing crash that has been with us since. The low interest rates in effect since the burst of the housing bubble certainly have consumed a lot of time trying to find something relatively safe that has a decent yield. Can we sell our current home and move to a retirement center? I don't know.

If I had to pick something that affected my life in this century, it would be the collapse of our financial industry due to deregulation and lack of regulation of the financial industry by the Bush Administration.* All those weird derivatives and synthetic derivatives left unchecked. It ruined our economy for the rest of my life and maybe forever. Places that have heavy regulation of their financial industry have done rather well such as Texas (a surprise) and Canada. You can deregulate industries like trucking and maybe the airlines. There will be pain, but the entire economy is not at hazard, and, maybe after some years, we come out ahead. The financial industry is different. They can't be left unchecked. As much as 9/11 may have affected America, it is the collapse of the financial industry that has most affected America. For example, Federal revenues are at a 60year low as a percent of GDP.

Where was I when the economy collapsed? I don't know. Perhaps September 15, 2008 was the date. That was when Lehman Brothers declared Chapter 11.

* President Clinton helped by signing repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act.

WHAT IS GOD TRYING TO TELL US?

I have previously written on The Theology of Natural Disasters (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/theology-of-natural-hazards.html). There are those in the evangelical movement who have their own theology and believe that God is trying to tell us something through various natural and man-made disasters. Usually what these people say God is trying to tell us has nothing to do with the disaster. Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, said that 9/11 occurred because we don't allow God in our schools, government, business and marketplace.* Prominent among those who link disasters to God's message is Pat Robertson, for example, who felt that the Haiti earthquake happened because of their revolt against the French under Napolian.** And somehow Pat Robertson also linked Katrina to the abortion issue.*** John Hagee, on the other hand, linked Katrina to God’s anger over a proposed homosexual parade in New Orleans.****

And that brings us to Michelle Bachmann, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, on why Hurricane Irene occurred, that it was a warning to Washington to cure the budget deficit.***** I have wondered if she could keep herself under control for the entire nomination period. You better believe that her handlers told her to go back out there and say she was joking. This follows her previous gaff when she signed a document that contained a passage indicating that Black children were better off during slavery. Bachmann said she had not read the entire document. Later the offensive passage was removed.***** Let’s give her a pass on this one, but expect more in coming months. And I sometimes wonder if late on a clear moonlit night, Rick Perry, the evangelical governor of Texas and another candidate for Republican nomination for president, just might wonder if the drought and wildfires in Texas, unbroken by an official three days of prayer, that God is telling him that anthropogenic global warning is real? Naw, it is probably due to Texas having the highest percentage of adults in the nation without health insurance - 27.8%.******


Supporting Information on the above:

Anne Graham Lotz:
"I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. "*

Pat Robertson said:
“[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”**

John Hagee
“Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” Hagee said, because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”

Machele Backman
"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the
politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to
start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people
are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to
rein in the spending.”*****

The Family Leader
The Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative activist group, removed a sentence Saturday from the introduction of their “Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” that said: "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.” *****

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/
07/family-leader-under-fire-over-slavery-comment-in-marriage-defense-pledge/

* http://www.prayerfoundation.org/billy_grahams_daughter.htm
Note: Hmm. I thought the message of 9/11 was that we need to strengthen our defenses against terrorism.
** http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/01/13/77141/robertson-haiti/
Note: The sad thing was that things were just looking up for Haiti. They were beginning to get some industry. The French ruined the crop land growing sugar so agriculture is difficult there. But I agree that Haiti is a very sad country.
***http://mediamatters.org/research/200509130004
**** http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/04/23/22152/hagee-katrina-mccain/
Note: The people most affected by Katrina were the working poor, not the indigent, say, who lived on the top of a hill. I don't know that the working poor have a more sinful lifestyle than any other group, but their problem, of course, was that they were living in a coastal area below sea level. I'm surprised God would make these people suffer because of abortion or a proposed homosexual march. I think maybe what we were being told was to build higher and stronger levees if we are going to have people live below sea level.
***** http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/29/news/la-pn-bachmann-hurricane-god-20110829

(http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/

07/family-leader-under-fire-over-slavery-comment-in-marriage-defense-pledge/).

Note: Bachmann got her law degree at Pat Robertson University.
****** http://www.e-wisdom.com/news/insurance/more-than-a-quarter-of-texans-do-not-have-health-insurance-110230036/

A GIFT TOO MUCH IS TOO MUCH OF A GIFT

A poor baby boy was orphaned when his parents were killed in a tragic airplane crash. He was raised by his uncle. Upon graduation from high school, his uncle asked him what he would like for a graduation present. The groovy teenager replied that he would like some wheels -- that is, a sports car. The next day, when the boy got home, the uncle told him that there was something to drive around in, in the back yard. The boy ran to the back yard with great anticipation, but all that was there was a brand new Army tank, heavy category, with treads and all.

The boy tried to hide his disappointment while he said, "Gee thanks, Unc. It's a nice heavy tank, but really a light sports car would be just as good."

"What's the matter with it."' asked the Uncle, none too kindly.

"Well, it just won't a-go-go, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, I admit it wont go as fast as a sports car, and it may be a bit more difficult to maneuver, but it'll go anywhere a sports car will go and a good many places an automobile won't."

"But Unc, I'm not worried about assassination. What I'm interested in is assignation."

"Well, I don't have a spare car," the Uncle replied. "It's a nice new tank of the finest make, and you should be happy."

Moral: Sometimes it is all right to look a gift horse in the mouth.

1965

Note: The above short story in the style of James Thurber was written in response to trying to order a light duty lath in our branch of the government. This order was resisted by the central shop that was way overloaded with work, yet wanted all the work. Finally, we were offered a new heavy duty lath that the central shop had just received and was a great overkill. For example the chucks weighed as much as 70 lbs and had to be loaded on with a hoist.

IT'S THE FLOODS, STUPID!

While I don't want to minimize the physical effects of large earthquakes and hurricanes, we have witnessed that the biggest damage in two recent events in 2011 was caused by floods rather than the shaking or high winds: the tsunami in Japan and the floods accompanying all the rain in the hurricane Irene.

I have been in many earthquakes up to magnitude 6 as I spent four years in Pasadena, CA, and three months in Japan. I also lived in a suburb of Denver, CO, for 15 years that included the time of earthquakes increasing in magnitude that got in to the 5-6 range of magnitude on the Richter Scale (remember that a magnitude 6 earthquake has a factor of 10 more energy than a magnitude 5 earthquake). These Denver earthquakes turned out to be due to disposing of pesticides down a 12,000 ft hole and greasing a horizontal fault. A former classmate of mine and then a colleague recommended pumping out the column of highly toxic pesticides to reduce the head (How would you like to be in the crew that did that?). It was controversial as some said this pumping might increase the earthquakes; however, he prevailed and was proven to be correct. For one experience I had with an earthquake in Japan, see: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-so-lucky.html

While I have never been in a hurricane, I was involved in a false alarm that was scary enough because I was on unsecured scaffolding: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/12/hurricane-warning-biographical.html

For an account of the Theology Of Natural Hazards, see: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/theology-of-natural-hazards.html

MORE

As stated elsewhere, America is a consumerism society (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/our-consumerism-society.html). Knowing this , companies do all they can to get us to want ever "more," "more" whatever. But we are well into the new normal of this country where we cannot always want more. We are going to have to decide when enough is enough. When we are happy with what we have and concentrate more on maintaining that. The effect on the economy of the country of not always wanting "more" will be severe. In fact a new economy will have to be invented.

There are people who have decided that we have far too much government. Unfortunately our previous president ruined the economy of the country, and we now have Federal revenues of what they were in 1950 as percent of GDP, though we have twice the population we had then. In the meantime in order to keep the country from sliding into a 1930s style recession, our government spent a lot of money; however, the situation is so dire that our government is running up huge deficits that are making some people very nervous. A recent article suggested that we need to cut the Federal budget by $7.4 trillion over the next decade. If we do this, it will put us into a deep depression at least as bad as in the 1930s.* Think of things we have now that we didn't have in 1950, for example, but with twice the population we will have to go back farther. So one better think of what is enough to make you happy and try to arrange your life to protect that. Even the Debt Ceiling Compromise, if totally enacted, may put us into a recession toward the end of the 10 years: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/08/debt-ceiling-compromise-effects.html

The topic of "more" has been in some movies too. For example take Key Largo. At a point in that movie Humphrey Bogart says to Edward G. Robinson (the crook), "I know what you want." Robinson replies, "Whaaat?" Bogart replies, "You want more. That's what you want." Robinson sort of looks off into space and says, "Yes, yes that's what I want. At least I always have." These are not direct quotes but close enough.

Another is The Treasure of Sierra Madre. The grizzeled old prospector says to his two tenderfeet, "Before we go to search for gold, we have to set a goal for how much we want." The tenderfeet don't like it, but go along. In the end the grizzeled old prospector has none of the gold but is being well taken care of by a tribe of Indians because he saved one of their children. He is happy. One of the tenderfeet who has the gold, Humphrey Bogart, gets captured by benditos who don't know what gold dust is and let it be carried away by the wind while Bogart gets killed. The other tenderfoot leaves the gold to go in search of the wife of a dead prospector and apparently he is happy too. I very much like both of these movies because of their morals.

*Recall that Social Security was in existence then but there was no cost of living increase.

PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS SAID TO ME .....

Awhile back I went to my dentist for some work. I was in rare form and share my following quips:

Dentist: "You know, you have a small mouth."

Me: "And here all my life people have been telling me, 'You and your big mouth.'"

Dentist looking at reddish purple marks on my arm: "How'd you get those marks on your arm?"

Me: "People my whole life have been calling me thin skinned. Now I am 80, and I really am thin skinned."

Dentist asking what I was doing before coming to see her: "Well, I was out to lunch. In fact people have been telling me that I've been out to lunch my whole life, but this time I really was."