Seeing Clearly

Here's what I can see now: that all the unpleasantness of my life's last six months were only the tiniest pieces of a most spectacular puzzle that was created with order, intelligence, and absolute love.  Nothing is ever lost, no one becomes less and setbacks are always temporary.  And no matter what has happened, everyone lives again, everyone laughs again, and everyone loves again, even more richly than before.  With due deference to The Universe, thank you barn, for burning down.

Where's Barbie?

Is this man for real?  Doesn't matter that he got caught red-handed by the FBI acting the political fool, selling patronage like a high-priced hooker.  Just when confidence in our form of government, in those we elect to referee the public good, and in their good friends in industry is at an all-time low (other than for President-Elect Obama who is getting 79% approval ratings), we get this.  Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.  Ken Doll.  What were you thinking?  Go away.  Get better hair.  Get a clue.

Where's The Shame?

While the Little People in America are getting their asses kicked by this economy, we have the specter, or should I say spectacle, of Wall Street and now Detroit coming to the tax payers for a bail-out.  A sobering look at hubris, I highly urge one and all to check out Thomas L. Friedman's piece, All Fall Down.  The "unabashed (smirking) complicity of the upper class of American capitalism..." says it all.

The Big Boys ask, "Where's the love, America?"  I have to answer, "Where's the shame?"

During China's Cultural Revolution, the capitalistas were paraded before jeering crowds with dunce caps and bound hands or had to stand in public reciting their "crimes" and asking forgiveness.  No doubt, a harsh response.  But at what point are the Masters of the Universe going to get a clue?  They should at least say, "We're sorry."  And mean it.

We've All Got A Stake In This

Here's something scarier than the actual mess in the economy: The public's response to all the job layoffs seems to be, "They deserved it!" or "Just glad it wasn't me!" or worse, "I should be getting a raise!"  Where's the empathy and compassion?  What happened to the "better angels of our nature?"

If our sense of being our brothers' and sisters' keepers is this far from realization, we will end up with only the sharp-elbowed (and tongued) in the economic survival boat.  Is that what we want?

Those lucky ones with jobs or ample resources should reach into their hearts and ask, "If I don't sacrifice at least something to help others keep their jobs, what will happen to us all?"  Think about it.  The more people with jobs--even at reduced wages and benefits--the better.  That's the kind of "wealth" spreading we need to be doing until the current melt down rights itself.

December 6, 2008 - Post Script

This just in.  A cogent argument for sharing.

Change Your Life

Seth Godin is a marketing guy who isn't so much into selling stuff as selling the power of ideas.  His many books, including his most recent, Tribes, tap stories of remarkable people doing remarkable things, and by virtue of their example, they define a new direction, they gather like-minded and push the envelope around. Oh yes, and they make a lot of money too.  Google him and see what I'm talking about.

Today Seth made an offer I hope some of you won't refuse.  An apprenticeship for six months with him, in New York, learning, working on projects, connecting to amazing people.  Instead of staying in school because you can't find a job, or if your job is iffy or worse, gone, you just might want to throw caution to the wind and see if you can measure up to Godin's expectations.  The people he tends to attract are all ages and range from software designers, dot.com entrepreneurs to feed the hungry, micro-enterprise venture capitalist types. And average folk who happen to have good ideas that take hold and change the world or some part of it.

I'd try out for this thing in a New York minute but I have a mortgage and can't commute that far, which by definition, makes me too chicken-hearted to be who he's looking for.  But I sure can cheer the intrepid--maybe you on.  Check out his offer here.  Go ahead; change your life.  Or if you are too squeamish, please pass the word on to your kids, your friends or even that clever enemy at work you can't seem to get off your case.  In the end, they'll thank you for it.

Talk Hard

There's a scene in the cult classic film, Pump Up The Volume, in which Christian Slater's character, Hard Harry, loses his voice disguiser while being chased by FCC vans for illegally broadcasting his hip, outrageous and teenage angst-laden rants on a pirate radio station he's rigged to his mother's jeep.  Stripped of his cover, he and Samatha Mathis look out over the athletic field of his high school, at the hundreds of adoring fans listening to their radios, hoping that Hard Harry will stay on the air, not be intimidated by the authorities closing in on him.  "This is me now," he says.  "No more hiding behind the phony voice."  And what follows is an adrenalin-soaring soliloquy to all listening and assembled to use their voices to say what needs to be said, to clear their throats and unburden their hearts.

I'm always thrilled every time I watch this scene because it's me up there, just wishing so bad I had the nerve to say out loud what needs to be said, to question the established, politically correct order, to probe assumptions without fear, to throw a pie or two in the face of organized thuggery, no matter the form it takes, to talk hard.  So in the spirit of emancipation....

The Sacramento Bee headline told the story:  "Judge rules only nurses can inject insulin in kids." Score: 1 for the grown-ups, the California School Nurses Association, the California Nurses Association and "other nursing groups;" 0 for the 14,000 kids with diabetes who go to public schools.  In California, there are 9,800 public schools and 2,800 nurses to serve them.  Do the math.  Someone's getting screwed here.  And all in the name of "scope of practice," "work to union rules," and flexing political muscle through the courts.

What started out as a desperate attempt by the parents of diabetic children and open-minded school personnel to expand the number of people at school who are willing and who can be trained to give a shot to kids when they need it during the day, crashed and burned last Friday.  Now, only a licensed nurse may administer that insulin.  Unless of course the parent can rush to the school from his or her job or from home, before little Johnny or Maria goes into shock.

It's a bully's play.  It's about putting unimaginable pressure on the schools to hire more nurses.  It's about salaries and benefits, not about solving the problem of how to keep diabetic kids on their meds, able to function and learn in school.

A letter to the Sacramento Bee's editor from Chris Andre, a former school nurse, a diabetes educator, member of the CNA and parent of a child with Type 1 diabetes: "Learning to give an injection is a piece of cake and does not require a license.  A license is needed to develop safe parameters to give the injections...Remember, unlicensed parents are injecting their children every day."

I have spent some good years toiling in the mines of health care workforce issues, the nursing shortage and the dominance of medical doctors over the scopes of practice for all of the healing arts.  That rigid, politically-charged paradigm, the one where Our Father (or Mother) the Doctor, the Nurse, the Business & Professions Committee shall dictate the pace and reach of innovation for providing care, well that's running headlong into the other charging train called the Economic Melt Down Express.

Those 14,000 kids and their inability to get a shot when their lives depend on it are emblematic of what's wrong with health care today.  The doctors, nurses, technicians--the whole pecking order--have worked themselves doggedly into these tightly engineered, legally defined slots, totally at the expense of those in need of care.  Talk about rationing!  Embargoing health care, holding patients hostage for wages and benefits, is no different than OPEC jiggering the cost of gasoline or Detroit refusing to make a fuel-efficient car.  You can see how well that's working out.

P.S.  This just in: According to a November 15, 2008 USA Today survey, "those touched by childhood diabetes seek more support from schools and about half of young people with the condition have trouble coping.  Eighty percent of parents and seventy-three percent of young adults thought that teachers should be better informed about diabetes."

Down Is The New In!

We're dancing in my house tonight, while loud strains of Stevie Wonder and hope and jubilation fill the rooms!  WE did it America, WE have turned away from our darker impulses to embrace one another, to form a new and miraculous tribe, to be led by someone with probing intelligence, calm and a commitment to the change we all hunger for.

God Bless America for being such a cool country that we could produce Barack Obama, could nurture his ascendancy to the highest office in the land and allow all of us, Red State, Blue State, all the States to unite again.  

Yes.  Yes We Did!

Shoes Do The Talking

When I was in Florence, Italy two years ago, I was really, really depressed, for good reason.  But that's another story, probably a book.  A particularly striking memory was sitting outside a laundromat, waiting for my clothes to dry.  As crowds pushed down the cobbled alley passing for a street, and my friends shooed Gypsies away with shouts and hand gestures, I aimed my Nikon Cool Pix at people from the knees down.  Changing the different settings I was able to capture hundreds of shoes in stride, people moving toward something but all I could know of them if I looked back at those photos was their shoes.  

It soon became a thing with me, to shoot pictures of people from the knees down, lest they feel self-conscious or lest I steal their soul without their permission.  You can tell a lot about someone from their shoes, what they buy, how they care for them, how they wear them, if they have any sense of style or care about how they look.

I have been a shoe nut for many years, collecting them since I was in high school.  I spent most of my babysitting money buying shoes to match my outfits.  We had very little money but having cool shoes was somehow my way of keeping up appearances and I guess it stayed that way until recently when I no longer needed to clip-clop around the Capitol's marble floors in three-inch heels because now I work from home.

Over the years I must have purchased hundreds and hundreds of shoes, really nice ones.  Everything from designer sling pumps to hiking boots for the now-famous Eco-Nazi Boot Camp Trek from Hell (another story, starring the Most Reverend Jeannie Shaw-Connelly and seven women who would dare the wilderness of Yosemite without her permission to use toilet paper lest we despoil the environment.)

In my experience shoes do a lot of the talking, they can tell a story or a lie, they can serve to remind you about what you were doing when you wore them, the heads you might have turned or the compliments..."Nice kicks," I used to hear frequently, mainly because I worked at making the shoes work for me.

So when I got home from Italy I loaded my photos into the computer, to take their place along with 17 years of other photos, data, articles, work, writing, chronicles of my life, and there it all sat, mucho megabytes, unbacked, until last August when the trusty MacBook's hard drive crashed.  Leaving nothing to grab on to, to look at, to recall or to take pride in.  Gone, pffft, like that!  

Beyond the obvious lesson of backing up, there's something to be said for starting over.  Here's the start of a new collection, taken in the foyer of a movie theatre on San Pablo Avenue in Albany, CA, just before sitting down in comfy couches, to drink red wine and watch the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men.

No Reservations

Make the Chef Happy

I'm standing in line at the grocery store, jotting down menu ideas for the week.  Tonight: Filet of sole meuniere, zucchini fritters and an argula salad with sauteed mushrooms, toasted pine nuts and shaved Parmesan.  Organized and relaxed I assemble ingredients.  I rinse the filets and put them in a bowl of milk to tenderize and sweeten the fish.  I throw some flour, salt and papper and a little paprika for color into a bowl and mix it with a fork.  I pull out a lemon and some butter from the 'fridge and grab the jar of capers, just for added zing.  Ok.  We're set for the meuniere.

Zucchini Fritters Aren't That Fattening

Now it's time to make the fritters.  Grate the zucchini, toss it with kosher salt and let it drain in a colander.  Go outside and snip some mint from the potted herb garden, sniff it and realize that it's grown too rangy and skunky, no good for use any more this season, except maybe to dress a dessert plate.  (Mental note: pull it out to give room for the basil and chives; replant next year with peppermint, no more of the spearmint.)  Mince some parsley, green onion and basil, set aside.  Whisk an egg.  Pull out the flour again.  Rinse the zucchini, put in an old dishtowel and wring the zucchini dry.  Put it in a bowl and add the herbs, egg, flour, salt, pepper and a dash of cayenne. Toss in a bit of mixed, grated cheeses and stir.  It's all gloppy and ready for frying by the tablespoonful. Little, pretty golden zucchini rounds.

It's all coming together in record time but I'm in no hurry, just enjoying the feel of the food in my hands, how silky salted and rinsed grated zucchini can feel.  The cheeses smell strong, especially the Romano, and I know they will mesh nicely with the herbs.

Even Frogs Taste Better With Butter

In the meantime, I'm sauteing sliced mushrooms in a little butter and olive oil, until they are golden toasty and have rendered their moisture to the pan's even heat.  I love the smell of mushrooms and butter cooking.  It's earthy and French and in this moment I forgive the French--at least temporarily--for being such pompous cultural and food snobs.  I'm reminded too of a line from No Reservations, a pretty bad remake of a French film about love and trust and cooking, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.  She's the head chef, has drunk too much red wine and asks him, her sous-chef, in a sort-of test, "What are the three secret ingredients of French cooking?"  Helping her up the stairs to her apartment he says, "That's easy.  Butter.  Butter.  And butter."

Arugula Is Italian for "Downy-Stemmed Plant"

Mushrooms done, I add them to several handfuls of arugula--and let me say right now what a boon to food prep bagged, pre-washed salad greens have become.  I sprinkle in a tablespoon or so of toasted pine nuts and finish it by using my potato peeler to shave a few thin pieces of Grana Padano Parmesan.  What's nice about this cheese is how it's drier than many Parmesans but still holds together for smooth, uncrumbled shavings.  Then, as I was instructed by Dr. and Mrs. Marco Missaglia, while a guest in their home in the lovely town of Mandello del Lario on enchanted Lago di Como, Italy all you need here is a tablespoon of good balsamic vinegar, a tablespoon of your best olive oil, some kosher salt and pepper grindings and you've got a simple, fantastic salad dressing that holds up well to the arugula.  I think even George Clooney, vacationing and shooting it with his salonista pals at his nearby villa in Bellagio would approve.

With all the elements assembled and ready for execution, I saute the flour-dipped sole quickly in butter, pull the filets out and add lemon juice and capers, swirling everything in the pan to a nice, glossy finish.  What a wonderful smell comes wafting up as I pour this tangy glaze onto the fish!  There.  It's all done.  I assemble it on the plate, add a little garnish for color, and Voila!  As Stimpy might say to Ren: "Dinner is sah-erved."

Lost and Found

I found a $20 bill the other night, lying on the filthy, bird-doo-stained concrete concourse at the Greyhound Bus Station.  A friend and I were just leaving a dinner meeting which was held at a great restaurant which is unfortunately located in one of the seediest, smelliest and most depressing areas in Sacramento.

An embarrassment to any and all of the City's governing pols or 'crats, the intersection at 8th and K consists of a gaping hole in the ground, the Darth Vader Building looming loopily onto K Street, obsolete before they were installed light rail cars whizzing noisily past and a handful of businesses struggling to put their best foot forward with no help from the City, thank you.

There was no parking on 8th or K so to get to the public lot on 7th near the entrance to the Downtown Cowtown Mall we had to go through the Greyhound Bus Depot because the alley next to our restaurant was gated and chained shut at 7th Street.  "More of the City's brilliant planning," I thought.  "I see they're making it easy for us to get around in downtown Sacramento on a week night."

So that's why we were walking through the concourse when I spotted the $20.  At first I thought it might be fake; it was folded, as if to bait someone foolish enough to pick it up.  I looked around to see if anyone nearby might have dropped it, but the place was deserted except for a few homeless and hapless people propping up the walls to the Greyhound lounge and ticket counter.

Before my friend could snag it I bent down and slapped it into my purse, feeling only semi-guilty that someone less fortunate than I might have lost it.  I started to wonder if perhaps a student had dropped it, or a grandmother, just in for a visit to see her son's new baby.  Maybe it was a bus driver's or maybe it fell out of some hooker's bra.  The whole proposition felt a bit cootie-fied but then I reminded myself, all money is dirty.  Even the honestly earned and deserved cash.  It has been handled by thousands of unwashed hands.  It is funky, no matter where you find it.  Just be grateful for the gift.

As we rounded the corner, putting distance between ourselves, the buses and the waiting passengers, I turned to my friend and quipped, "Money comes to me easily and frequently."  We both laughed.  It was funny because this is a well-known mantra, one I have started to repeat, in hopes that it will become true.  A verbal talisman against my fear of loss and failing.  Like so many dreams in this life, you have to believe they are possible, have to visualize and invest positive energy in them.  What you put out there, you will receive.

Yes We Carve!

There's a thrill in the air as we ease into October's end.  It's the sense that something momentous is happening all around us.  Watch this video, at this site:

 http://yeswecarve.com/

See for yourself, feel the fun and the inspiration of these people.  A huge tribe is forming right before our eyes: Voters for Obama.  All over this country, joined by the idea of a better, fairer, more equal nation, built by our better selves.  Other nations are cheering us on from the sidelines.  Celebrate what is happening and be part of it.  This is history!  Exercise your franchise.

Why I Love HBO's "Generation Kill"

[August 19, 2008]  David Simon, the crabby genius who brought us The Wire on HBO, has managed to outdo himself.  With the help of his writing partner, Ed Burns and guided by the original work of Rolling Stones reporter Evan Wright, through Generation Kill we are seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling and hearing--mostly hearing--the grit and gore of the Marine 1st Reconnaissance Battalion's advance of the "first U.S. boots on the ground in Mesopotamia."  And I love every word of it.

I feel like a voyeur, watching with both horror and glee, men be men.  Listening to them speak in arcane military speak, ruthlessly rib each other, go sleepless and bathless and dig holes to do their business, not the least self-conscious.  Sweaty, filthy brothers in arms.

I marvel at their training, the lethal accuracy of their bullets, the shape they are in and cringe watching the chain-of-command bitchiness and foolishness that creeps in, threatening to undermine or ruin the rational and earnest Lieutenant Nate Fick.  Sometimes I get angry at the incompetence that is covered over or allowed to slip sideways: Captain "Encino Man" and "Captain America" come to mind.  Idiots in charge while my favorite grunts Corporal Ray Person and Sergeant Brad "Iceman" Colbert ride point, take the flak and do their best to stay on task, even when the task is a waste of time and resources.

I love Generation Kill because, through the words, the gestures and expressions of the characters, we are reminded how incompetents kill.  How bureaucracies harbor and even promote them.  That those who would question authority have to find support in sick humor and camaraderie because the outcomes of stupid egos run amok are wincingly painful.  No different than The Wire's Avon Barksdale boys taking each other out over territory; the Mayor of Baltimore reneging on his promise to let the police do real policing and not juke the stats; kids slipping through the cracks in the schools; no different than newspaper reporters making up stories or cops faking serial murders.

But mostly I love Generation Kill because it arrives at a time the whole country needs to see up close and bloody what going into Iraq--without a plan, without the right equipment, without any thought to exit strategy--was really like and what it has wrought.  We've all had our heads in a recession-fearing fog and even before then, we partied through the war.  Busy consuming and wasting and inflating home prices by buying what we could not afford.

Maybe Generation Kill--showing up and finishing just before the Democrats nominate Barack Obama and the Republicans nominate John McCain--will resonate a little with those of us watching those spectacles.  Maybe we'll begin to see that what we've started in Iraq--never mind the reasons, they are now irrelevant--we must finish.  We must find a way for those thousands of U.S. troops to come home where we will treat their wounded minds and bodies, welcome and thank them for their service and hope that history will not punish us more than we deserve.  And next time we send such well-trained human forces into battle, let's for God's sake know why and have a plan.  For more on the seven part mini-series go to http://www.hbo.com/generationkill/

We're almost there

On October 18, 1968, the United States Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a "black power" salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.

We have come so far since that time of pride and turmoil, yet as we stand 17 days away from likely electing the first African-American to the Presidency, we still see awful and enduring ribbons of racism and ignorance.  This from the belly of the heartland, on the manicured streets of suburbia, in the hollows of long-neglected and failing towns.  The anger and fear is so palpable it has taken on a life of its own.

What Barack Obama promises is a redemption, another chance for us to get it right, to realize at last MLK, Jr.'s compelling dream.  From our current economic and political chaos, we can as a nation emerge stronger, less fearful and more hopeful than ever.  One by one, family by family, community by community, from the ground up, We The People must step up, take responsibility, not expect someone to fix it without our help and sacrifice.

It's our last, best chance to restore ourselves and we're almost there.

Thinking is good

Welcome to The Ink Tank.  A place for intelligent, thoughtful and whimsical discourse on topics like politics and culture, film, food, fun, art, music and entertainment. My goal is to use The Ink Tank to riff on what, in the words of "Jerry McGuire," we think but do not say, to spur ideas and eventually spread them.  Like viruses only the good kind.  I hope to have some guest bloggers add their 2c's as well.

I invite anyone reading to comment, to participate and to have fun.  Points given for well-written posts and insights, for checking yourself before you wreck yourself (self-editing).  I'm also hoping to identify people who will later be invited to participate in a selective, private Ning.com on-line community where we can create a spirited, private and safe place to bring our personal and professional challenges in hopes the collective experience, wisdom and wit can lend ourselves a hand.  If you want to know more about what I'm talking about, check out http://www.triiibes.com/ or Seth Godin's newest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.  

Gotta start somewhere...