But He's Staying On Message

Second terms are always a bitch, aren’t they?

Ronald Reagan had his Iran-Contra Scandal. Bill Clinton had his impeachment hearings over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Lyndon Johnson had the Viet Nam War go south on him.

So George Bush shouldn’t feel so down about his latest poll numbers.

Well maybe he should.

Remember back in 2000, he won (well, sort of) running on the platform of bringing honesty and integrity to the White House? He said he’d hold his administration to a higher ethical standard, "not just what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves.”

With the indictment of Dick Cheney’s right hand man I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, George Bush is not looking as much like the stand-up guy he presented himself to be back in 2000 and the polls are showing it. In a recent ABC news poll, 58 percent of those polled said Bush was not honest or trustworthy, and only 40 percent saying he was.

He even lost ground on his perennial favorite, values. Again, 58 percent said he did not share their values, with only 40 percent saying he did.

The hallmark of the Bush administration has been its members' steadfast, tight lipped loyalty to the president. Now with the indictments in the investigation over the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name to the press, it’s all falling apart. Bush is out there, staying on message just like he’s been taught, but let’s be honest here, he looks pathetic without the help of Vice President Dick Cheney and chief of staff Karl Rove, who are a bit distracted right now.

It’s been a bad year. His national tour to replace Social Security with individual retirement accounts did no more than rack up the miles on Air Force One. With the dismal performance of FEMA director Michael Brown followed by the nomination of his good friend and chief counsel Harriet Meirs to the Supreme Court, it became absolutely clear that the Bush administration ran on the principal of “You take care of me and I’ll take care of you.” Good old boy cronyism in its purest form.

And despite protestations to the contrary, the administration is now advocating torture. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has submitted an anti-torture provision to the senate, but Cheney wants an exemption for the CIA and has made the rounds drumming up support among Republicans, as well as suggesting that the White House would veto this bill.

Okay, this president has never once vetoed a spending bill, (remember those damn bridges in Alaska?), or any bill for that matter. So the first time he goes against the will of Congress is to allow people to be tortured. What a guy.

Now the president maintains it’s not torture, it’s self defense. In other words, it’s okay to torture bad people to keep them from doing bad things.

I've always had a hard time with this president. I've never been able to stomach the fact that the most powerful man in the free world was a worthless drunk until he turned 40 and found Jesus. What happens to the country if he loses Jesus and finds Jack Daniels? It’s been known to happen.

I just wish the Bush administration could have imploded at this time a year ago. Could have been a whole ‘nother ball game.

In One Woman's Lifetime

August 11, 1902. On that day, at the very beginning of the twentieth century, my grandmother, Marjorie Cook Sherman, was born.

She lived well past 47.3 years, the life expectancy for a female at that time, dying last month at the age of 103.

I try to imagine what it would be like to live that long–-what would it be like to wake up and look at a calendar that reads July, 2059? Or, to turn it around, realize that when my grandmother was the same age as me (49), it was the fall of 1951. The Korean war was not history, it was front page news.

When Marjorie Cook came into the world, there were 8,000 cars in the United States. Henry Ford had yet to open up his factory in Detroit. The US population was around 76 million with 45 states, and the world population was 1.65 billion. Theodore Roosevelt had been president for less than a year, taking over when William McKinley died of the bullet wounds inflicted by an assassin in Buffalo, NY. The average salary was $12.98 a week for 59 hours. Forty hour work weeks were a long ways off. The United States Treasury was not yet in debt, but had a positive balance of $46,000,000.

I’m sure the American population of 1902 would be aghast to find out that in the future the national debt would go into the trillions.

It boggles the mind just to think about all the innovations and events Marjorie saw in the course of her lifetime. Women voting, automobiles, movies with sound, World Wars I & II, the Cold War, air travel, television, automatic washing machines, dishwashers, men on the moon, personal computers, the fall of the Soviet Union, the world wide web.

Of course, like most centenarians, Marjorie never thought much about living past 100. She was busy with her life. Growing up in Snahomish WA, she went to teacher’s college and taught first grade. With a sense of adventure, she decided to take a teaching job in the US Territory of Hawaii, where she met a naval officer named Warren Sherman, who was the divorced father of three children.

With the death of Warren’s ex-wife, those three children came to live with the newly married couple. It must have been a challenge, suddenly finding yourself with two stepdaughters and a stepson, ages 9 to 15. My mother was the youngest, and Marjorie won her over with her butterscotch pudding.

Being a stepmother can be a losing proposition no matter how hard you try. It is the mark of a great character when your stepchildren speak highly of you. My mother and her siblings maintained a close relationship with Marjorie throughout her life. Though she never had any children, she was the best grandmother any kid could ask for.

Marjorie was also a breast cancer survivor–for 45 years. In 1960, her doctor found a lump in her breast and insisted she have a mastectomy right away. Proof that even in the 1960s, breast cancer did not have to be a death sentence.

It’s sad to think of a world without my grandmother in it, a woman who loved life and stayed positive and alert well into her last months. But 103 years is long enough for anyone, even Marjorie Cook Sherman. It’s time to rest, now.

BUT DOESN'T IT MELT BY THE TIME YOU GET IT HOME?

What is the deal with delivering ice to hurricane victims?

Last night the news networks showed footage of the long lines of people in South Florida, waiting not so patiently for bags of ice. They had been without electricity for two days and were desperate for it.

I can see the need for ice if you're on medication that requires refrigeration, but most of those people standing in line looked pretty healthy to me.

So what do they use all that ice for?

To keep food from spoiling? To cool their drinks? To rub on their foreheads because there's no air conditioning?

OK residents of South Florida. You live in an area prone to hurricanes. You need to be prepared. That means you understand the fact that you could be without electricity and water for a few days and you plan accordingly. You have enough non-perishable food on hand to last at least three days. It's not what you're used to, but you can live just fine on Spam, crackers and peanut butter sandwiches.

You can't say you don't have any warning. I live in North Carolina and I knew Wilma was heading your way at least three days before it hit. Plenty of time to get to a grocery store for food and water. And if you don't want to spend the money, before the hurricane hits, you fill up bottles with water and then you go fill up the bathtub.

Personally, I think all those FEMA ice trucks are a waste of money.

Warm water hydrates just as well as cold water. So what if you have to drink your Coca-Cola at room temperature? Deal with it.

The Bridge To Nowhere

I have not done a scientific poll on this issue, but I’m reasonably sure that an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters are opposed to spending $230 million of their tax dollars to build a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska (pop. 8,900) to Gravin Island, (pop. 50). And not just opposed, either. We’re outraged, we’re appalled, we are hopping mad about it. Especially when Congress is cutting funds on Medicare and Medicaid to cover the costs of damage from Hurricane Katrina.

So when Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposed a bill to withdraw the funding for the Alaksa project and use it to rebuild the bridge across Lake Ponchatrain in Louisiana, you’d think that every senator would vote the will of their constituents and the tally would be 98 to 2 in favor of the change.

Guess again.

Apparently the Senate is far more concerned about placating Ted Stevens (R-AK) than they are about the will of the people in their own states. A huge majority of senators (82) voted to let Stevens keep the money for the bridge, which, as Senator Coburn pointed out, is enough to buy everyone on the island their own Lear jet.

Senator Stevens argued that it was unfair to take money away from Alaska and only Alaska. He threw a hissy fit on the Senate floor, saying he wasn’t going to let his state be singled out like this and he’d quit if the bill passed. And he got his way.

Obviously, the real motivation behind the vote was that the senators from the other 49 states were afraid for their own pork projects. If Alaska loses its bridge, you might lose your highway bypass in your state and we might lose our traffic control study money in our state. We can’t allow that to happen.

Yes, you can. In fact, you could even do the right thing and volunteer to give up all the bridges and the highway bypasses and the traffic control studies approved in that monstrous transportation bill.

I’m proud to say that one of the 15 senators who voted against the bil was Senator Robert Burr who represents my state of North Carolina. He’s a conservative Republican and I didn’t vote for him, but I’m with him on this issue and I sent him an e-mail telling him so. To see how your senator voted, click here.

And wihle you're at it, send your senator an e-mail telling him/her what you think about his/her vote.

Credit Counseling--Don't Get Sick
Yesterday, the bankruptcy “reform” law went into effect. Now it’s more difficult to have debts wiped clean and start over again. Individuals declaring bankruptcy will be required to pay back at least some of their debts, depending on their income.

The law also requires that people filing for bankruptcy get credit counseling.

Having worked as a customer representative in the credit industry, I spoke to more than a few callers with poor money management skills. These are the people who don’t realize that if they only make minimum payments while continuing to buy items on credit, their balances get bigger and bigger. I would definitely agree that these people could use some help in getting out of debt and some guidance on how to stay out of debt.

However, the number one reason for declaring bankruptcy is the inability to pay medical bills. I have to ask, what good is credit counseling in these cases?

Will credit counseling teach people how to avoid becoming castrophically ill? Will they learn where they can go for low cost health insurance when their employers don't offer it? And what about the unemployed, self-employed, or those unable to get insurance because of a pre-existing condition? Can counseling help if you've racked up a pile of hospital bills because your health insurance turned out to be one of many scam policies which cover the small claims, but disappear when it comes to covering the expenses of a serious illness?

Even people who have insurance coverage can be caught up in mounting debt. Many policies pay 80 percent of medical costs, requiring their customers to pay the other 20 percent. If you need something extreme, like a kidney transplant, it can cost up to a million dollars or more. That means you have to come up with $200,000. Right now.

Requiring people in this situation to sign up for credit counseling is not only a waste of everyone’s time, it’s literally adding insult to injury. Yes, I’m sorry, next time I have children, I’ll make sure they don’t have cystic fibrosis or congenital heart disease. Next time I’ll marry someone who won’t get cancer.

The obvious solution, is of course, universal health care. But Congress has never been very good at recognizing the obvious.

Low Ranking Author Blues

I never thought much about my standings on Amazon.com. Until recently, Amazon charged a whopping $20.00 for Caviar Dreams and it took forever for them to ship it.

Then I read somewhere that your standings don't depend on sales, but how often people click on your book, as well as reviews given. Of course actual sales don't hurt. In an effort to boost my authors' rank, I've been clicking on Caviar Dreams every day.

And it's not working at all.

When I started the project I was at 1,750,000 or thereabouts. Today I am at 1,801,113, right below The Other David, a novel of suspense by Carol Coker (out of print) and above Contracting on a Capitated Basis: Managing Risk for Your Practice (Apa Practitioner's Toolbox Series) by Lybrand, et al. A few days ago, I was right below the Sarasota/Bradenton, Fl Atlas by Inc. Trakker Maps, now it's seven spaces above me at 1,801,106.

I expect by the end of the year, I'll hit 2,000,000. But I'm in good company. Along with Ms. Coker and Lybrand, et al, there's The Cook It and Freeze It Book by Margaret Deeds Murphy at 1,801,104, Two Novels: The Natural and the Assistant by Bernard Malamud at 1,801,121, The Wit and Wisdom of Wall Street at 1,801,115, and my favorite Guns N'roses In Person - Biography by Guns N' Roses at 1,801,122.

I should add that all of these books are out of print with limited availablility. Which I believe gives me a slight advantage. You can buy my book.

Anyway, if you'd like to help me catch up with Mort Walker's Beetle Bailey: Dog Gone (1,801,101), click here. Leave a review. And (dare I ask?) buy the book from Amazon

Singing The Baby Blues
There is new hope for childless couples living in Connecticut. The state legislature passed a law requiring insurance companies to cover fertility treatments for residents of the state.

But there’s a catch. It’s only for women under 40.

NPR aired a tearful protest from a 42 year old woman decrying the unfairness of the decision, She felt that if her doctors believed she was able to have children, she should be entitled to the coverage as well. Of course, this woman and her husband had already spent $100,000 on fertility treatments without success, so there had been plenty of unfairness in her life already.

I can sympathize with her. I know what it’s like to want a child but not be able to get pregnant. However, I knew very well I was not infertile. Just too old.

At the age of 38 I got pregnant so quickly with my daughter, it was frightening. If I’d gotten an early enough start on it, I’m sure I could have given birth to five or six children, assuming there was a willing father in the picture and enough money to support them all. But at age 40, my childbearing years were over and I just had to deal with it.

These days, women are able to have careers and put off having children, but there’s no guarantee that their ovaries will cooperate when they finally do find the right guy and want to start a family.

The reality is that we live in a modern world of choices and opportunities, but our reproductive systems are still back in the dark ages. They’re geared for a time when survival of the species depended on young girls having six or seven babies by the time they were 23, before they died of infection or small pox or just shear exhaustion. Even though we’re nowhere near ready to have children then, we still hit our peak of fertility in our teens and gradually lose it over the years. By the time we reach the age of 35, it’s doubtful we can get pregnant at all.

Sure Madonna had a baby when she was 42. So did my great aunt Margarite. And Tony Blair’s wife had one when she was 45. The end of fertility is different for everybody. But the fact remains that a majority of women (60%) will not be able to conceive after the age of 40.

During those dreadful months when I wanted so much to get pregnant, I checked into fertility treatments. What I found was not encouraging. As you grow older, your eggs grow old too. After age 40, they are no longer viable, making in vitro fertilization with your own eggs virtually impossible. All those movie stars you see having babies at 46 and 47 are giving birth to someone else’s biological children. There’s a whole new industry springing up in recruiting young women to be egg donors. Kind of creepy, if you ask me.

So the Connecticut legislature is just following the rules nature has already set up. And until modern science finds a way to change those rules, we have to learn to live with them.

Working
For the last few weeks I've been getting in my car and driving downtown to answer the phone in a real estate office, among other things. It's a temp job while the person who usually does these tasks is on vacation so I won't be getting comfortable here.

I've forgotten what it was like to work. I love feeling useful. Stay at home moms do not often get to feel that way. At my house, no one notices what I do until I don't do it. And there aren't those little kudos from the boss like "Great job on changing that last diaper," or "You handled that sibling rivalry situation so well. Way to go!"

Every day when I leave, the desk is neat and cleared of clutter, and it will be that way when I come back the next day. When I leave work, I know that everything that was supposed to get done got done. And I don't have to vacuum.

The downside is that all the things I did at home still have to get done. My husband is helping but the house is pretty grungy by Saturday.

It's exciting to have life out in the real world. I think I'll stay in it for a while. And I can tell you where you can stick that vacuum cleaner.

Send Rita To New Orleans
Okay, I'll say it. I believe that the best possible outcome for Hurricane Rita would be if it makes a direct hit on New Orleans.

Think about it. There's no one there, 90 percent of it's been destroyed. Would it be such a tragedy if whatever was left was gone as well?

Everytime I turn on the news, the talking heads are lamenting the fact that New Orleans would be even further devasted.

So what?

In the words of Bob Dylan, when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.

The people who lived there are already homeless. They've already lost everything. Would anyone really care if the rubble that Katrina left behind was re-arranged?

I realize that whatever I say makes no difference in the direction Hurricane Rita takes. But I find it hard to imagine that we'd prefer that the hurricane destroy thousands of homes in Houston and Galveston instead of rearranging the ruins in New Orleans.

Similar to An Unwanted Houseguest

Hurricane Ophelia took her time getting here, and took even longer to leave. Like a dull-witted relative who just won't go away, she stayed and stayed, boring us to tears.

One of the radio stations said she should have had a man's name, as she couldn't commit and she wouldn't ask for directions.

We managed to make it through the day without power, but we hated it. I tried to get my husband to tell me stories of his childhood and sing songs, but he claimed sickness (really bad cold) and spent the day sleeping. My daughter and I played a couple games of chess, then I forced her to write thank you notes for her recent birthday presents.

All that time and nothing to fill it with. Except for eating. Everyone eats a lot during a hurricane. It's the only fun thing to do.

But I can't complain. Ophelia was a cake walk. Aside from the loss of power, which is really just an inconvenice, we came out just fine. No damage or downed trees to take care of, just a yard for of leaves and branches. And so did most everyone in the Wilmington area. To the south of us there was flooding, but it's nothing compared to the devastation caused by Katrina.

We count ourselves lucky, although I'm not all that keen on getting the storm debris out of the pool. Want to help?