What Now!?!

Here I am having completed a tedious but necessary task - a bit more onerous than cleaning your teeth, yet more satisfying than washing the dog - when I take a break to check out my tabled email. So I open up an apparently innocuous update on various public good foundations and organizations and what do I see:

"The National Geographic Society has announced an expanded partnership with 21st Century Fox that includes the sale of National Geographic magazine and other media properties to a for-profit entity."
[Philanthropy News Digest.support-b941fycbfbtsg6aupky9rbys5bbk97@e.foundationcenter.org Copyright © 1995-2015, the Foundation Center. All rights reserved. Permission to use, copy, and/or distribute this document in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes without fee is hereby granted provided that this notice and appropriate credit to the Foundation Center is included in all copies.]

I include the citation in the body of this blog so you can check it out for yourself - because I'm guessing you can't believe it, either.

They go on to say it's just the magazine and other publications/media that's being sold for $725 million to the Fox-in-the-philanthropic-fowl-sanctuary, not the philanthropic society. Just our favorite magazine.

That's all.

That's enough.

Co-operation

The goal of the co-operative economic model is to have both parties to a financial exchange benefit equally. Capitalists will tell you that is their goal as well, but they are being less than forthcoming. In practice, one side of the capitalist exchange benefits and the other gains something perceived to be vital by giving up something much, somewhat, or slightly less vital. “Vital” here being defined as something needed for perceived 

well-being – if only for the moment. By definition, the exchange is unequal. Imagine my surprise – having arrived at that conclusion - when I figured out that Capitalism always benefits the rich to the detriment of the poor.

After I got over the shock, I became a co-operator.

The co-operative model works. Not because it appeals to our sense of justice or our concern for the good of the community. We mostly don't have any of that when it comes to money. It works for two reasons:

* A few of us are idiot enough to be proponents of social justice and to see long-term benefit to ourselves in it;

* The rest of us of us have, from earliest childhood, a solid sense of “No fair!” that covers the loss of any privilege deemed beneficial.

Some of us have parents who point out that “No fair!” should cover all parties and that we must share in this fairness deal. Some have parents who think that's a load of crap and it's every man for himself (and sometimes he helps the women, too). The latter group may seem to dominate, but maybe not. Popularity of the various interpretations of “No fair!” seems to vacillate over the decades. The point is, it's always defined somehow.

When things get tough, which they always do, the (initially few) proponents of social justice are right there waiting to tell the rest of us how co-operation is the path to fairness. And, as it turns out, if things are really tough (which they always are, eventually) helping each other succeed financially is reasonably fair for the 99 percent. And when things, ultimately, get worse than that, everyone in the 99% pretty much agrees that the 1% can go attempt to procreate without benefit of partner.

The only real question (in my mind, because I can only hold one question in mind at a time) is how far this current economic disaster of Capitalism will continue to destroy large mammals before the ship rights itself and will it be too late for most large mammals?

I wouldn't care about this question - my mind is cluttered enough already - if it weren't for the fact that my progeny and all my offspring-by-marriage are, themselves, large mammals.

Hopefully, that isn't a problem for you.

About Whom Do We Care?

OK. Yeah, nobody uses that "proper" form of avoiding the prepositions you shouldn't end a sentence with. But it's nice to reminisce. That's what you do as you get older. The "you" in this case being me. Who knows what you two do?

So I've been reminiscing about the olden days when people were nicer, kinder.

Only I can't recall exactly when that was.

Was it in ancient China when the dynasties had everything organized and torture was a fine art that... OK, maybe not ancient China.

Was it in the Middle Ages when Christianity was spreading throughout the known world (that is to say the world known to the Romans)?  Not if you read your Ivanhoe it wasn't.

Was it in the great days of the spread of Islam. Well, if you were male and on the winning side, maybe. Or lucky enough to be one of the widows of conquered rulers that Mohammed married. But anyone else, not so much.

Was it more recently, in the United States in the 1950's, like my old fogie friends on Facebook seem to think? Back when lynching African Americans was a popular white Christian activity, various children were treated obscenely and not heard, and no woman in her right mind admitted to having been raped. Well, I guess not for everyone, at any rate.

So maybe this is it; this is the nicer, kinder time.

But I'm not so sure we don't have some room for improvement.  I'm not sure we all agree about whom we should care about. To coin a phrase.

Now, at this point, all of you politically correct folks who are offended when humor is used to mock the apparent excesses of some identifiable-with-one-word group the members of which are currently living, please stop reading and get to some serious and politically correct endeavor. The following is not guaranteed to conform to anyone's notion of inoffensive observations.

I don't call myself a Christian because too many people have given it a bad name.

My Christian heritage is also the proud heritage of some very devout people who would force a 14-year-old to have her baby after she was raped by Uncle Willie but not lift a finger to help her and said baby when her parents kick her out because they don't believe her that it was Uncle Willie.  It seems unfair to me that the devout Christians get the warm glow and the 14-year-old gets the blame when her kid doesn't turn out so well.

My Christian heritage is also the proud heritage of people in group A who think they have the right to make rules for the people in group B about whom they can love, or whom they can get away with loving not-so-consentually, or whom they should hate unreservedly, or whom they should incarcerate, or whom they should have a legal right to shoot, and so on.

And of people in group C (for Capitalist) who have rules about whom they can cheat legally so that they can screw all the other good Christians in town, especially the non-white ones, as long as they do it financially, and be pillars of the community because of it. I won't go into what kind of pillar that would be.

So my question is, about whom do we care?  How many whoms does it take to give us the good name we humans expect we should have? Whom is in charge of that?

The Benefits of Aging

Well, first off, if you don't believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, you don't die.

And secondly, if you do believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, you don't have to really face the consequences of your actions.  At least not just yet.

Thirdly, you may not be 62 any more (see photo above), but you don't look a day over 70 (see photo to the left).  So far.

And, of course, there's the fact that you develop some compassion for all the things older human beings do that used to really irritate you - now that you're doing them yourself.  For example:

** If you used to be irritated by that little old lady at the checkout counter who took several years to put stuff back into her purse, you have compassion for her now that she is you.

** If you used to interrupt people with questions, thinking that any fool could answer a question and then continue with his or her train of thought, you now have compassion for the other fools who have as much trouble as you do catching a train, any train.  Or retaining a thought, any thought.

** If you used to get angry about the idiots in Congress who think they have a right to stay in office until the cows come home... Well, you still do.  Some things don't change.

It goes without saying that none of the above excuses the little old person driving as though everyone had all day and there was no one else on the road other than himself or herself.

Unless, of course, the little old person is you. Or me.

The Joys of Aging

Um...

Welcoming the New Year Chez Sherry – 2014 in Review and Predictions for 2015

I know, I know, I'm later than usual this year. But you've got to remember: I'm older than usual. You've got to for the obvious reason. I can't. Remember. Much of anything.

As 2014 comes (came) to a close and we (belatedly) recall with nostalgia days gone by (blocking out all the unfortunate ones, of course) and think back on the past year:

** President Obama still couldn't do anything right, according to pundits at Fox News, not even when he did what they praised in others.

** Facing reports of the hottest year in recorded history with – very possibly – the most severe weather/geothermal conditions ever, the Koch brothers turned around and faced the other way.

** Those with extremist tendencies reminded us forcefully that joking about religion really isn't funny.

** On the other hand, Pope Francis continued to put taking religion seriously in a really hopeful light – so much so that Facebook enthusiasts bought all the over-the-top stuff attributed to him (me included until I checked).

** The economy in the US of A improved because of President Obama's economic policies that everyone knew were wrong. Meanwhile, the European outlook continued to be bleak because of the general failure of the austerity programs that everyone knew were right.

** With the largest percentage ever of its citizens in prison and more than half of its pregnant women being certifiably hungry (as certified by WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), those who praised the US of A as the land of freedom and opportunity came up against that reality we heard again last year, "It used to be."

And now, predictions for the New Year:

!! Joblessness will diminish and Republicans will, for once, neglect to blame President Obama.

!! Trickly-down economics (by any other name) will continue its historic lack of success while its supporters will remain steadfast in their inability to absorb facts.

!! The European Union will continue to respond appropriately to those who reject austerity as being inhuman and unworkable: Belt tightening is the Answer. (We might agree if we were clear about the Question.) (But probably not.)

!! President Obama will (wait for it, you'll have to) be recognized as one of our greatest presidents, restoring more international good will, introducing more reforms, and solving more economic and social problems than any president in recent memory. (And, face it, all we citizens of the US of A have is recent memory.)

!! The Republican-dominated House of Representatives will engage in at least one more ritual-cleansing vote against the Affordable Care Act and may well do other things to avoid being useful.

!! Global climate change will be generally accepted as a viable theory of why we have global climate change. Details about who's at fault will remain. It ain't us, of course.

!! Nation-wide hunger will join the ranks of world-wide hunger while everyone tries to ignore the growing evidence that natural and organic foods might actually be a more viable solution than manufactured "food" products. Using the term "viable" (loosely, of course) to mean "giving life" or some such.

!! The use of "air quotes" will increase, as will the use of "quotes" in general, but when using "spoken quotes," everyone will still forget to say, "close quote."

Be well and prosper. And remember to (quote) write when you get work (close quote).

Speaking of being well:

:( More children will die or be permanently impaired from vaccine-preventable diseases in the US of A this year than since the "every child by 2" campaign to vaccinate children against deadly childhood diseases began declaring its success.
And that's tragic.