Meet the New Boss ~ Same as the Old Boss

Occupy Wall Street has drawn our attention, but trying to understand them feels too much like trying to find Waldo:  Lots of details and no center of focus.  We’re unclear where we should be looking.   

When asked by news media what their cause is, protestors at each location have answered with a remarkable range of hopes, dreams, frustrations, and non-sequiters.  One said, “We’ve got to get the money out of politics.”  Another said, “These corporate dollars should be going to schools.”  A third said we should be growing corn for ethanol!   

Even those who seem to be targeting the unpunished bankers of Wall Street haven’t articulated what they want.  In the unlikely event that a Fat Cat in a high rise had even the mildest inclination to inquire, who would step forward and speak for the protestors?  What would she say? 

No doubt there is unrest in the United States.  Something’s wrong and Americans don’t like it.  At the very least we know that Washington’s infuriating partisan charade has settled into our living rooms.  While politicians play-act, they seem to mirror the malaise drifting across the countryside, through our towns and businesses, tugging at us, weighing us down, contributing to our economic doldrums.

But the thing is, most of us don’t understand the conglomerated behemoth of a financial system that has swollen and continues to swell.  What does it want?  More?  Shouldn’t it be on our side?  After all, if it saves us, we save it.  Right? 

We do know that we resent “them” and blame them for the joblessness sleeping on our couches and standing in the kitchen in front of the fridge at midnight.  We feel them reaching into our pants pockets when we know they have money of their own.  We don’t like the arrogant, indifferent attitude that shrugs its shoulders and looks away when asked what has gone wrong. 

Even the analysts don’t seem to understand our economy; otherwise it wouldn’t be so easy to find “experts” with views diametrically opposed.  They’re giving it their best guess, God bless them everyone, but “black is white” and “up is down” just aren’t helpful.  Have the banks flexed and the government flinched?  Who’s in charge?  What are the rules?  Who’s the enforcer? 

When pelted with fact after conflicting fact, that is, opposite statements which all may be true, we cannot surrender just because we’re unable to spell out our own internal certainty that we’re being messed with on a national scale.   

That’s where the Occupy protestors come in.  But they didn’t think it through.  They haven’t done their research or planned their arguments.  They don’t have a spokesperson or a point to stay on.  So they camp out and shout out the Tommy Smothers retort, “Oh Yeah?” 

They know they’re right about the gut of the American people:  We know in our hearts and minds that those whom we’ve trusted are screwing us over, either through their greed, their cynicism, their self-interest, or their incompetence. 

We know our protestors mean well.  We also know the road to hell.  One of several fates looms for Occupy Wall Street.  First, they and their affiliates could slip into that pale corner of the conversation inhabited by those who failed to plan and thereby planned to fail.  They could become the shooting star, the flash in the pan, the limp noodle of grass roots movements. 

They could, God forbid, lose control, vent those frustrations borne from their own lack of focus, lack of leadership, lack of response, and ineffectiveness.  They could be put down the hard way.  Ill portent for all involved. 

And a third, most intriguing option presents itself:  Occupy Wall Street has amassed a mountain of food and supplies, filling a cavernous space near Wall Street with those donated goods to sustain their movement.  

Even more interesting, they have collected $300K and opened a bank account.  That’s right.  Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States, is the repository of Occupy Wall Street funds. 

Who signs those checks?  Who will be paid to do what with that money?  Will the cities “hosting” these occupations be repaid for the added sanitation services, for example?  Will Occupy Wall Street redistribute these funds among the other Occupy groups across the country?  With no stated goals and no pact with anyone, the imminence of irony arrives.   

Will “Occupy” go corporate?

Just Send Smoke Signals

Washington politicians could take a lesson from the process for selecting a Pope employed by the cardinals of the Catholic Church.

 As you recall, when a Pope dies, cardinals from around the globe assemble at Vatican City, huddle up in the Sistine Chapel, peruse the resumes of all the prospective Pope candidates, and haggle, haggle, haggle.  When they finally agree on a new Pope, they send up a plume of white smoke, thus proclaiming their decision to the world.  

Hooray!  Well done!  For us, painless.  For them, mission accomplished and dignity retained. 

In those intermediary moments, when they’re bickering and disagreeing, when the extremists among them will not budge and even threaten to bring down the Church before they’ll compromise, they send up a billow of black smoke.   

That’s how we know things are unsettled in the cloister.  We sigh and exhale, shrug our shoulders.  What’s taking them so long? 

There may be multiple iterations and repeated puffs of sooty effluent.  We wait.  Even we Southern Baptists twice removed sit at seat’s edge.  We’re intrigued.  We’re titillated.  We wanna know. 

Of course, we find out who the new Pope is, but we never get to know who voted for whom.  We never learn which radical cardinal dug in on what point of contention.  We don’t know who caved.  We never realize how close to the brink the Church teetered. 

Could the Cardinals improve the process by sharing their deal breakers with the masses before going into the huddle?  Maybe they could draw strength for their positions from the perceived moral support of Catholics around the world who agree with them, “Yeah!  The new Pope better not relax the Fish on Friday rules.”  (Forgive my flippancy.) 

I wonder how it would go for the new Pope if all good Catholics knew he was a compromise candidate.  Would they sandbag him if they knew their first choice for the top dog was vetoed by a recalcitrant conservative or hardline liberal cardinal? 

No.  The process would not be improved.  It would be worse. 

The new Pope’s ability to lead would not be enhanced.  He would have a more difficult time asserting himself.  

I think our congress should consider this process for the upcoming Gang of Six “negotiations” on the remaining trillions of dollars of cuts mandated by the recent debt ceiling deal. 

Both parties seem likely to send their dug-in, hard-nosed, party-line perfect representatives instead of the moderates among them who might actually be able to negotiate effectively.  We’re already bracing ourselves for the process of disingenuous proposals, haranguing, lamenting, insincere counter proposals, gridlock, and at last, compromise. 

Why not lock them in to a beltway backroom and let them slug it out like the cardinals do – in seclusion? 

The cardinals surrender their cell phones and iPads.  They even sweep the Sistine Chapel for “bugs” before the conclave, so adamant are they that their deliberations remain secure, no tampering occurs, nor outside influences allowed to creep in.  The cardinals don’t come out between ballots and complain about their colleagues’ well-known ideological stances. 

How could our representatives decline being treated like cardinals?  We can ferry in food and fresh shirts.  Heck, we can sing a song and buy them all capes.  They can send up smoke signals to let us know what we already know:  They’re still fighting.  They haven’t decided.  It’s hard. 

We wouldn’t have to listen to their infantile whining and complaining.  They couldn’t take false encouragement from mindless press coverage of their fingers pointing hither and yon.  We would view the dark vapors wafting from the chamber, recognize them as the typical emissions we’ve come to expect from our elected officials, and wait. 

I know, I know.  Transparency.  Sunshine.  But must we hear every cry of “wolf”?  Must we reel in all red herrings of proposal and counter proposal?  Must we endure the artificial anguish of falling skies again and again? 

I say No!  Lock ‘em up.  Don’t let ‘em out until the white smoke flies.  We will be just fine out here, living our civilized lives.  And, as always, when they’ve reached an agreement, we will deal with their decisions.   

Just once, save what’s left of your dignity by doing the difficult dirty work away from the cameras and out of earshot.  Spare us the maddening and predictable blow by blow.  Just send up the smoke.

Congressional Priorities like Lost Rainbow Toads?

The Rainbow Toad of Borneo gives me hope.

Last seen in 1924, the spindly-legged creature was dismissed as extinct by the less-than-faithful among amphibian specialists in the scientific community.  Yet, it lives.  It survived in obscurity. 

The precise location of the adult male, adult female, and juvenile toads found in three separate trees in the Penrissen Mountains of Borneo is protected by the scientists of Washington-based Conservation International.  Poachers seeking brightly hued amphibians cannot be trusted.

Think of it – not seen in 87 years, but alive, well, and perhaps most remarkable, not forgotten!  If the Rainbow Toad can resurface, why, so could good manners in public places.  Even generosity.  We might find and revive courtesy on the roadways.  Dare I say it?  We could see cooperative policy making in Washington, D.C.

Maybe it’s not too far-fetched to harken back to the days when our elected representatives recognized the common goals of our country.  They worked on our country’s issues with a problem-solving approach, once, ‘way back when.  They understood the well-being of our country ranked above their party loyalty and their re-election didn’t they?

If scientists can find a 2-inch toad in Borneo after it spent 87 years alone in the rain forest, maybe politicians can find courage in Congress today.

If that little toad survived all this time, minding his own business, clinging to trees, being beautiful, contributing to the ecosystem, doing his part when we weren’t looking, maybe Democrats and Republicans can take a lesson.

Of course, there is another, less encouraging angle on the “long lost” phenomenon.  It’s reflected in the love letter rescued from the dead letter purgatory of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, post office, and now on its way to its intended recipient after 53 years.

Since the letter, signed, “Love forever,” was written to Clark C. Moore, he has married twice, fathered 21 children, retired from teaching, converted to Islam, and become a Muslim cleric.

The 74-year-old Moore, now known as Siddeeq, currently lives in Indianapolis and says he waits with mixed emotions for the letter to arrive in his mailbox.

"I'm curious,” he told reporters, “but I'm not sure I'd put it under the category of 'looking forward to it.’”

He and the letter’s author married later in the year it was written, 1958, and had four children before divorcing.  They no longer speak.

Siddeeq told reporters that the romantic piece of mail is "just a testament of the sincerity, interest and innocence of that time."

Well I wouldn’t entrust the fate of the Rainbow Toad of Borneo to him!  How cold!  How cynical!
 
OK, maybe we can never recover our innocence.  But sincerity and interest forever gone?  Say it ain’t so!

I hope our elected officials can reach into their hearts and minds and find the sincerity and interest that inspired them to seek office in the first place.

I hope they will muster the mettle to step up in the face of the jaded around them.  It’s pretty important. 

We don’t just need a new debt ceiling; we need thoughtful restructuring of our borrowing, spending, and raising of funds.  We need stable funding, I repeat, stable funding for our schools.
 
We need accountability and justice for the engineers of the bank failures.  We need jobs!
 
We need to stop spending $10 billion per DAY on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We could feed hungry people at home and around the world. 

No more blaming.  No more posturing.  No more lost interest in the work or false sincerity of effort.  The American economy is not a lost love letter.  The sentiments of the American people cannot be dismissed as a quaint reminder of times gone by.

Washington scientists placed the Rainbow Toad on the “Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs” list (really).  They persisted in their search and found him.  Let’s hope his location doesn’t become his undoing.

Some of us are like the lost Rainbow Toad of Borneo, making it just fine on our own, thank you.  We often wish Washington would quit focusing on our stuff and leave us alone. 

But too many of us are not doing fine.  Too many may be unable to survive and thrive without a team of representatives who will go to the ends of the earth on their behalf.

Maybe Washington could establish a “Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Priorities” list and start working on that.

No Worries, You Go Ahead

Reverend Howard Camping, the independent Christian radio preacher who predicted the end of the world for last Saturday, might be looking only at the upper part of the glass, the empty part. That would explain his wish for the world to come to an end.

Sometimes the world as we know it overwhelms us with pessimism. It appears to be flush with liars and killers and thieves. Oh my. Yearning for a guilt-free escape may be appealing. But escapism reflects a narrow view. Maybe relief comes by widening one’s field of vision.

Like most of us, I gave a cursory thought to the Reverend. I did not divest myself of all my earthly stuff. I like my stuff, but not too much. It is just stuff after all. Nevertheless, I kept it, dusted it, mopped it, fluffed and folded it. Just like always.

I did make a mental list of all the things I wouldn’t miss about life on earth if, in an unlikely turn of events, I found myself drifting upward into the sunlight and clouds and the open arms of God. It’s a long list of nasty stuff, probably not dissimilar from your list, if we were to compare.

War, for example. No regrets in leaving war behind. Partisan politics. No pangs of conscience at its vestige shrinking on the curvature of the earth. Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump. No lamentations.

Then there’s the small stuff, the mundane. Yet even though it’s tedious and redundant, I just want to go on doing it. Go on doing the laundry and cleaning the litter box. Buying groceries, cooking them, eating them, and buying some more. Washing dishes only to dirty them up again.

I made another list of the things I would sorely miss. It’s even longer: Water, shimmering water, fountains, birdbaths and the birds on their edges. Fresh paint and generosity. Smiles, laughter, and new mown grass. But maybe we’ll get that in heaven.

Not to imply that my husband would be left behind, but I don’t want to go before him. I’d miss him so much I’d have to haunt him. I’d like to think I’d be a benevolent haunt, but who knows? Those of us caught between here and the nether regions sometimes behave badly. I could be impish. How could I forgo the opportunity to tweak those tiny details that hold him out of perfection?

Our son has taught me more than perhaps anyone else on the planet has. I hope I do die before he does, of course. But I reserve the right to hang around in the ether and nudge him (that’s a nice way of saying nag and pester him) into finding a smart and beautiful young woman who will take up the process where he and I leave off.

Someone said if there really were a rapture cats and dogs won’t be going. Well that’s just stupid. Of course cats and dogs will go. The definition of heaven includes cats and dogs. Look it up.

The Reverend said he’s “flabbergasted” his doomsday prophecy did not come to pass. He’s recalculated now and I must say I am glad to have another five months to reflect.

When I worked in the schools I told the kids I knew the meaning of life. It’s easy I would say: Make the world a better place. That’s why we’re here. As soon as we formulate the question and recognize the answer, duty binds us to get after the task. Get ‘er done!

It sounds daunting, but we just need to adopt the Okie version of completing a large project --- break it into small pieces and work on it “slow by slow.”

That’s where faith comes into play. We go about our daily business, doing our granular part with a gentle spirit, knowing somehow we’re fulfilling our obligations and contributing to the good of all.

Then, if on October 21st, or whenever that giant roulette wheel in the sky lands on our number, the harps begin to play, and our eyes are drawn upward, we can defy gravity without regrets.

If there’s anything left undone, it won’t be that we should have been kinder or more generous. We won’t be yearning for that one last chance to say, “No worries, you go ahead.”