Will there be tanks in the streets?

I am truly worried about my country. As I wrote last week, I see it weakened by the increasing divisiveness. And that this is mostly ideological in nature. It's been around for a long time. Back in the 60's, the US went through a period of divisiveness that was triggered by a war in a land far away. I found myself in the middle of all that. We had a draft then. Selective Service was the "500 pound gorilla" in the room. It couldn't be ignored.

The specter of being drafted influenced most of us in the 18-26 year old male demographic. It hung over our heads as we made decisions about our futures. We enrolled in college more for the student deferment than for the educational opportunity. I enlisted in the Navy because I did not want to be drafted into the Army. I probably would not have enlisted at all if there had been no draft active at the time.

Outside the military, the division grew stronger. Fueled by the fear of involuntary servitude, college campuses became hotbeds of unrest. Protests and peace marches were regular events. Student radicalism grew. Distrust of the government grew. The idea of revolution grew. I thought, at the time, that it was very possible that I would see civil war break out. I thought it would be unsuccessful but I still considered it a real possibility and a real tragedy. It didn't happen, of course, that revolution. But the radicals didn't go away. Instead, they began working inside the system.

In the late 60's, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had a schism of their own. A small band of these radicals (and they were radicals) wanted more than peaceful protest, they wanted that revolution, and formed the Weather Underground. They cooperated with other splinter groups and committed quite a bit of violence. Bombings of some campus buildings, pushing peaceful protests into riots, and the active push for violent change. A few died in the process (mostly victims of their own activities) but most didn't. And they didn't go away once the Vietnam War ended. They slipped back into society and found positions of influence. Some became professors, some became teachers, some ran for office (and won) where they pushed a muted call for the change they wanted.

They believed they had a better way, a more equitable way, for society to be structured. They believed socialism was better than capitalism. The concept of a democratic society, to them, was communism.

Socialism does work, by the way, on a small scale. Communes, cooperatives, families all use a socialism of sorts. The problem with any socio-economic system is when the construct is large. The complexity tends to defeat it. In the Soviet Union, socialism worked poorly and well at the same time. It did a fair job of distributing the wealth of the country but a very poor job of growing it. The result was a rather poor society. The lack of growth was, in my opinion, due to the lack of incentive inherent in socialism.

Capitalism provides incentives and, therefore, enhances and encourages growth of wealth but does not (and cannot, in my opinion) do a good job at distributing that wealth.

Today, we seem to be fighting that old battle between socialism and capitalism again. I should say we are in an escalation of that battle because the battle is a constant one in human history. And a long running one in the US.

The battle makes us weaker at a time when we need to be strong. We are under assault by yet another ideology, this one having a religious foundation. And there are signs that the socialist radicals are aligning themselves with the religious radicals. The hope, I think, is that out of the chaos, an opportunity to seize power will emerge.

We are in for troubling times, much worse than we have seen for some time.

A need for speed

When I was a youngster, I often dreamed of having a flying carpet. I wouldn't soar very high over the houses and trees, but just high enough to not run into anything. It was about escaping, I suppose. When you are a small child, you are like a prisoner, dependent on and controlled by adults and older siblings. I'm sure I was not the only child to have that recurring dream. I daydreamed about this more than I dreamt it at night.

It's easy enough to transport yourself as you lie on the cool grass and watch the clouds drift across the blue sky. I wasted a lot of hours doing just that. I spent a lot of time in trees, too. It's a wonder I never learned to fly. Maybe I would have if the jet age hadn't started. I was never a speed demon. I rarely wanted to go very fast. Though I did from time to time.

Even when I had a motorcycle, I never let it run full out. Well, except for one time when a friend and I rented a couple of little 90cc thingies in Long Beach when I was stationed there. Ran up and down Pacific Coast highway with the throttle twisted tight. Top speed couldn't have been more than 60 MPH or so. Not really fast. Made it a little hairy on some curves but had no problems, I cruised my BSA and Triumphs at 85 a few times.

I've only taken a few cars above 100 MPH. One time I did it, I was forced to take a 90 degree turn at 45. That came close to being the last time I drove. It was my brother's XK140. The weird part was it didn't feel like I was going that fast until I started to approach the intersection of US 1 from Sunny Isles Causeway. It came up awfully fast and the light was against me. I was braking and downshifting like a madman. I was just lucky there wasn't any cross traffic at that time. I slid around the corner and headed north just like I knew what I was doing.

It's all about escape, though, isn't it? A way to avoid thinking about the mundane things of life. The mind has to focus on the tasks at hand or risk a crash. And I never thought a crash would be something I would walk away from. I had friends who had crashed while racing or just cruising. A couple with who broke legs, laid up for weeks.

When I was 15, a close friend and several kids I knew smashed up a couple of cars while joyriding. There were about 8 kids in the two cars. My friend was driving one of them. The other car clipped his rear bumper on a turn and the both cars spun out and were eventually stopped by trees along the side of the road. The driver of the other car broke a couple of bones and somehow managed to get smacked in the head by the gearshift. His girlfriend had her pelvis crushed by the transmission when it was forced back and up at impact. There were no seat belts then, no airbags. People flew all over the inside of the cars and some were ejected.

My friend was found about two blocks away, wandering around. With a head injury. In a daze. It made the news, of course. The 11 o'clock news that night. I already knew about the wreck because the word of it spread fast. The TV news reporter talked about one boy being wheeled into the emergency room shouting, "Take my picture, I was in the wreck!" I immediately knew who that was... my friend, Steve.

When you're young, you rarely think of consequences.

Attorney daze

Different days bring different woes. Golf days bring misery in the form of wasted shots and unlucky bounces. Exercise days bring little aches and pains that nag and annoy. But the worst day of all is a Lawyer Day.

And that day, my friends, is today. I have an appointment with my attorney this morning. I have never met the man so I am not sure why I call him "my" attorney rather than "the" attorney. I don't own him, just renting him at the usual exorbitant prices.

A quick recap: Mom worked for an attorney for 35 years, retired, developed Alzheimer's and came to live with me after my father died in 2001. Six months later, her former boss died and left her a stipend of $1000 per month. The Trustee chose not to locate her and inform her of this stipend. When I learned about it some six months after her passing, the Trustee wanted to pay it out in $1000 a month payments. No interest, no lump payment. So I engaged a lawyer. That was two years ago.

Seems a simple matter, doesn't it. There is no question that the money is owed to her estate. But the Trustee and his attorney have been uncooperative and stall on any request for information. It seems silly to me. It seemed that way when it first started.

Now it just seems expensive and annoying.

Maybe more later today after I talk to "my" lawyer.

Whatcha watchin'?

I watch a lot of TV, maybe too much. I'm a baby boomer, TV came of age as I was growing up. While it wasn't my baby sitter, I spent a lot of my younger years in front of it. We humans seem drawn to images and sounds. I suppose it is in our genetic makeup.

Few dogs or cats pay any attention to the TV. Do they know something we don't? Or do they quickly realize the noises coming from that thing are not real and the images are flat, without dimension, and cannot be real? Maybe it's because there are no scents from the things in the pictures so they know it is unimportant to their world.

Not humans, though, we perceive the world mostly with our eyes and ears. Even when we hunt, that most basic skill of animals, we use our eyes and ears more than any other biological sensor. We are limited that way but it certainly hasn't held us back.

One of the things I have been watching of late is reruns of Gunsmoke on Encore's Westerns channel. 7 PM EST 5 days a week. I record them while I channel surf through the History, Discovery, Science, and other channels. I surf those channels mostly for things about WWII. I am fascinated by that period of time; the decade leading up to it as well as the first few years after it. The Korean War doesn't interest me as much, nor does the war I was involved in (Vietnam). Neither does WWI, which many say caused WWII. I suppose that's true, the results of one war often create the reasons for the next. Who knows what might have happened if the victors in WWI had rebuilt Germany instead of punishing it.

I like Gunsmoke for very different reasons. It depicts a society we could not understand today. Marshall Dillon is not a smart big city detective. He's not a cop like you find on any of the Law and Order series. But his cases aren't all that complicated either. The outdoor scenes appear to be shot in Southern California. I don't believe the terrain around Dodge City, Kansas looks much like what you see on that show.

But the really interesting thing about Gunsmoke is the characters and the relationships between them. You cannot see that sexual tension that should lie beneath the surface of the friendship of Dillon and Miss Kitty. I also like the glossing over the of the job Miss Kitty has. She's a madam, after all. She owns the saloon, she hires girls to work there. You don't really think those girls are there just to sit and drink with the cowboys, do you?

You want more realism? Then you need to watch Deadwood, the HBO series. That was definitely more in line with what went on in the Old West. And, yeah, I watched that too... twice, actually, all the way through the series. Faye thought it was because of the gratuitous sex and nudity. Same reason she thinks I watch Spartacus on Starz. It's not entirely true. I watch all of these because I am interested in the human condition.

And I wonder if I could have survived any of the eras which interest me.

Time is just not on my side

I don't have any spare time anymore. Since I retired, I have more scheduling problems than I ever did while working. I thought retirement would get me out of the grind, as they say. Instead, I now do things I didn't do while working. I get up early in the morning to play golf 3 days a week. I get up early to go exercise 3 days a week. The seventh day, I get up early so I don't miss out on coffee. And because everyone else in the house is up. I end up wanting to go to bed at 10 PM.

My "free" time is Tuesdays and Thursdays after 10 AM. I'd add in Saturdays and Sundays but there are no doctors, lawyers, or other businesses that I need to deal with that are open on those days. I occasionally make appointments for the golf day afternoons but I'd rather be taking a nap if possible.

I notice that, for retirees, doctor appointments are important matters. I have no idea why. Just going to the doctor's office is an ordeal for me. I hate waiting rooms and I hate waiting. In fact, I refuse to wait more than a half hour after my appointment and I have taken to showing up only 5-10 minutes early. So, if my appointment is for 2 PM, I am there about 1:55 and I leave at 2:30.

The staff personnel are getting tricky, though. I notice they often bring me in to an examining room by 5 minutes after my scheduled time. Then I sit there for a half hour or more waiting for the doctor to show up and give me 5 minutes of his precious time (for which my insurance will pay him handsomely and I will give him some chump change $20 as co-pay). I will have to re-think my strategy on this.

In addition, I have this legal thing going on which means the occasional appointment or legal errand. This is not a regular thing but it is something which intrudes on my life. For instance, two weeks ago, I was asked if I would be available for a telephone conference call at 10 one morning. Though I was available, there was no call. I suggested that next time it happened, I would send a bill for my time. It's difficult to get any respect from lawyers.

I gave up trying to get it from doctors long ago. They enjoy robbing you of your dignity anyway. I don't think they went into medicine because they want to help people but for the power they can pretend to hold over the patient. And most of us patients enable them.

I always think that next week, or next month, I'll be able to just kick back for awhile.

I'm just fooling myself.