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Speech

September 10, 2009 - View Single Entry

I don't listen to political speeches. It's been a long, long time since I listened to a presidential speech. For years not having a TV made it easy to ignore these speeches. If post-speech scuttlebutt suggested that the speech was worth paying attention to, I'd find it online. Since the beginning of this year I've had a reliable high-speed Internet connection. So I can no longer hide behind not having a TV and being unwilling to go park my butt for an hour in front of somebody else's. If I don't watch a particular political speech, it's because I don't want to watch that particular speech.

From the moment last week that I heard it was coming, I knew I wanted to watch President Obama's speech on health care. Last night I got home from the barn after dark, around 7:30. By 7:45 I'd poured myself a beer and settled in at the computer. CNN.com seemed a good bet. First I had to update my Flash Player. Then I had to set through several minutes of inane commentary. This almost did me in. In my disgust with the bilious, small-minded bellicosity of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and their ilk, I think I've devoted too little attention to the corrosive effects of political twit journalism on the American mind.

I hung in. I'm glad I did. Over the last few months I've occasionally wondered just why it was I was so excited about voting for this guy last November, and so euphoric when he won. Now I remember. The last few months have been all about digging the country out of the hole its leaders have been digging us into for the last 30 years. Rescuing us from the crimes, stupidities, and short-sightedness of the past doesn't leave much energy for thinking about the future. Early in the speech, President Obama said, "But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future." That's when I knew that he's still got his eye on the prize.

What he made clear from the beginning is that it's not just the lack of insurance that's ruining people's lives. People who have insurance are getting nailed, and those who haven't been screwed yet fear with good reason that they might be in the future: "More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you'll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care."

The president nailed the insurance companies. It was wonderful to hear. And he did it in terms that market worshippers might be able to understand: pointing out that "in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies" (and in Alabama "almost 90% is controlled by just one company"), and that this results in higher costs and lower quality, and "makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly." He also quoted a former insurance executive who noted that the root of the problem was "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."

YES! He also took aim at the demagoguery and scare tactics used by opponents: "Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost." He was talking over the heads of those opponents, trying to reach the people behind them whose lives are affected by limited access to health care. Here's hoping the message gets through.

True, at some points I rolled my eyes -- would a single-payer plan really look like "starting from scratch" if we thought of it as eventually expanding Medicare to cover the entire U.S. population? Promising that illegal immigrants would not be covered and that no federal dollars will be spent on abortions was meant to placate certain strong interests that have to be placated.

Toward the end, though, the president talked about Senator Ted Kennedy. Last May Senator Kennedy wrote a letter to be delivered after his death. It was delivered last week. The president read from it: "What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

Said President Obama: "Ted Kennedy's passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick; and he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance; what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent -- there is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it."

And that's what I love most about this speech. The specifics were pretty good -- promising, at least. But more important, he appealed not to our fears and resentments but to our "large-heartedness." The president said it's part of the American character. I'm not so sure about that, but for so many years our leaders have been appealing to our fears and resentments that maybe they've grown uncharacteristically large. "We did not come here to fear the future," he said. "We came here to shape it."

That's the guy I voted for. Yes, we can.

Reservations

September 07, 2009 - View Single Entry

Travvy and I started Rally Obedience class in early spring. Rally Obedience -- also known as Rally O or just Rally -- is less exacting and more practical than traditional obedience. Dog and handler navigate a course of between 10 and 20 "stations," at each of which handler has to persuade dog to perform a certain exercise. These range from simple (halt, sit) to complex (call dog forward, take 1, then 2, then 3 steps backward with dog sitting at each pause, then finish right or left). At novice level, the dog is on a leash, but the leash must be loose; you lose points if it's tight, and you're not supposed to be hauling your dog around with it. At advanced and excellent levels there's no leash at all.

At the first class Travvy was so excited by the other dogs and the horsey smells (it was held in the indoor arena at Arrowhead Farm) that his brain was barely engaged most of the time. He was so out of control that I thought of withdrawing then and there. The second class we missed because he took off while we were out trail riding and didn't return to the barn till after dark. Maybe we'd flunk out for missing a class? No such luck. We showed up for the third class. By the last class, Travvy was a different dog. He could focus on learning exercises and doing practice courses even with other dogs around. Luring him away from particularly enticing smells still took a few treats, and if he got too close to another dog, he'd lunge in his direction, but the improvement was amazing.

When the course ended, most of us continued to practice informally with our teacher, Karen Ogden, who has two dogs doing Rally herself. Trav and I have participated in two Rally demonstrations with the group, one at a sedate dog celebration at Sunset Park in late June and the other at the high-intensity ag fair last month. Trav's ability to handle distractions has gotten better and better. He pays closer attention to me, I pay closer attention to him, and all in all we spend more time on the same wave length, or at least in the same ballpark.

So by July I was thinking what would never have occurred to me in April: maybe Travvy and I should go to a real Rally trial? I poked around on the American Kennel Club (AKC) website and learned that there were two trials on one mid-September weekend in Falmouth. Once you get across Vineyard Sound, Falmouth is close. Pretty soon almost our entire group was planning to go. Entries opened on August 3. I signed us up. Were we ready? I thought we were heading in the right direction, and the trials were still more than a month away. We'd see how things went at the ag fair. Karen said that if your dog could stay focused on you at the fair, then the trials would be like practicing in a library. Travvy handled the fair very well, other than snapping at a judge who came out of nowhere and tried to look at his teeth. ("Teeth? You wanna see my teeth? Here are my teeth!")

If you live on Martha's Vineyard, signing up for an off-island event is only a first step. The big hurdle is getting a ferry reservation for your vehicle. I kept putting it off. Were we really going to do this? Were we ready? The entry fee for each trial was $27. That I was willing to lose. A round-trip ferry reservation this time of year goes for $88, and since I didn't have anyone to crash with in the area, I was going to need two of them. When Travvy and I were in sync, I'd be ready to whip out my credit card. When he was more interested in sniffing the ground than in listening to me, I'd be thinking, This is nuts. Not to mention -- not only have I never watched a Rally trial, I've never even been to a real, recognized dog show. I call myself a recovering perfectionist, but when contemplating a totally unfamiliar situation where absolutely nothing is under my control, recovery tends to go into remission. My worst-case fantasies looked a lot like Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare.

Yesterday I took out my credit card, sat down at the computer, and logged on to the SSA (that's Steamship Authority if you live on this side of the water, not Social Security Administration) website. I got the on/off times I wanted, both days. Turns out we're all on the 9:30 boat Saturday morning, which answers one of my 101 scary questions: How will I find my buddies when I get to the fairgrounds?

We had a good practice today at the school playground. I managed to do one practice run with no treats at all -- you can't carry any food into the ring with you, which is just as well because treats that someone else dropped are a major distraction for Travvy and his classmates. Handler error is a big reason for lost points; I remind myself that I know the stations and I'm pretty good at reading signs even under stress. My worst-case scenario at the moment is that we'll enter the ring, Trav will sit, the judge will ask, "Are you ready?" and I'll answer yes, whereupon the judge will say, "Forward!" -- and Travvy will look at me and say, Where's the hot dog bit? I'm not going any further without a cookie!

Malamutes are renowned for their sense of humor, and this is exactly the kind of thing that Malamutes tend to find funny. This is why Malamutes are great dogs for recovering perfectionists. No way are they ever going to be entirely predictable, so you better just enjoy the ride. Progress, not perfection, as they say -- and since April we have made some serious progress.

Amalgamated Sourdough, Inc.

September 02, 2009 - View Single Entry

What was I doing with two sourdough starters? Through spring and summer I've been alternating, using the starter in the cylindrical glass pitcher for one batch of bread and the starter in the quart Mason jar for the next. Being determined to give each enough exercise so that neither would die on me, I've baked no regular yeast breads since whenever it was -- end of March? beginning of April? -- that the new starters were ready for a test rise. One of the starters is somewhat more pungent than the other, but neither is as sour as the old one. Sourness develops with time, and exposure to the wild bacteria wafting through the kitchen.

So yesterday morning I poured both starters into my big beige bread bowl, whisked them together, added about 3/4 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of very warm water, and whisked well again. By early afternoon they were happily fermenting together. Before bedtime I poured a little less than half the amalgamated starter into the cylindrical glass pitcher, the one that had been home to my old starter for at least 20 years. To the rest I added the ingredients for a "sponge" -- that's what it's called when the first rising is unkneaded batter, rather than kneaded dough: orange juice, molasses, vegetable oil, a little baking cocoa, two cups of rye flour and almost two cups of whole wheat. (This was the bread I was trying to make for the fair, when the heat made the loafed dough hyperactive and my attempts to use cold water baths and refrigeration to slow it down made for a heavy, less than pleasing texture.)

In the morning, thanks to the cool overnight temps (it was 48 outside when Travvy and I headed out for our a.m. walk), the sponge had risen light and not too high. I added caraway, dried cranberries, salt, baking soda, and flour, whole wheat and unbleached white. I kneaded and loafed and by not long after noon the bread was in the oven and the apartment smelled wonderful. The bread, I'm pleased to report, lived up to the smell, both in taste and in texture.

My two sourdough starters are now one. So closes a chapter of the saga that began in March with the sourdough starter that died of neglect.

August License Plate Report

August 31, 2009 - View Single Entry

Kentucky and Arizona bring the YTD total to 40, which since I count D.C. means there are 11 to go. Some of the absentees are hardcore, like Mississippi, Hawaii, and (surprise) North Dakota, but Tennessee, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana aren't all that rare, so here's hoping fall will improve the score.

Fall is around the corner and in the air, and two of the school buses have returned to the back parking lot at the West Tisbury School, probably with duct tape, sealing wax, and baling wire applied to their innards so they'll run another year.

Don't Buy the Shortcuts

August 29, 2009 - View Single Entry

"Wolf, wolf!" and "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" are pretty good ways to get people's attention -- until, as the original stories point out, they're overused. Then we go "Oh, yeah?" and maybe glance briefly upward before going back to whatever we're doing.

Quite a few lefties like to cry "The fascists are coming! The fascists are coming!" A few of them are convinced we're already living in a fascist state. I don't believe that most middle-class white people are living in anything close to a fascist state, but the day-to-day lives of, say, illegal immigrants (and anyone that might be mistaken for one), and anyone who the authorities think looks like a terrorist, and people of color who some authority thinks are in the wrong place -- well, it's not hard to see how fascism can insinuate itself into a society that claims to be liberal.

Long time ago, the late, great professor Jack Reece started his Modern European History lecture on the subject by asking, "What is a fascist -- other than someone you don't like?" He then, with assistance from us, proceeded to break European fascism down into its component parts. In the process we identified the warning signs that fascist movements have been so good at exploiting. I look around now and you bet I see plenty of those signs: great inequality, a sense that not only is the deck stacked but there's no way to unstack it, a continual stream of flawed information drenching people who haven't been encouraged or educated to analyze it critically, lack of faith in the future. Everyone's got ideas about how to remedy this, from improved education to publicly financed elections to a reformed tax policy that reduces economic inequality instead of exacerbating it, and so on. Good ideas all, but very often there's an important one missing.

Local, real-time, face-to-face organizing. Successful unions are built on strong locals, the women's movement at its height was built on small groups, the anti-nuke movement had its affinity groups, the Communist Party had its cells, and the civil rights movement had its churches.

To me one of the scariest signs that fascism is genuinely possible in this country is the widespread assumption that elected leaders have the power to fix -- or wreck -- things singlehanded. Look at the people who turned against President Obama when he'd barely been in office a month: He hadn't cleaned up the gargantuan mess that the Bush administration dropped in his lap, so throw the bum out! If Dennis Kucinich / Ron Paul / Cynthia Kinney had been elected, everything would be fixed by now.

These people aren't looking for a leader, they're looking for a savior who's going to wave a magic wand and solve all the country's problems in a few months. This mindset is a prime prerequisite for fascism. Anyone can promise to solve all the country's problems in a few months, but only someone with dictatorial powers can actually do it. And their idea of a solution probably won't look much like yours or mine.

Most people who've ever worked on the local level -- in political groups, cultural groups, organizational groups, any kind of groups -- know this. We know that accomplishing anything worthwhile takes a lot of hard work, compromising, talking, swearing, and teeth-gnashing. We also know that sometimes people we don't 100% agree with or don't especially like turn out to be invaluable allies.

Local organizing. It's key.