Absolutely right, Miriam.
While our imaginations have us back in the late 1800's, down on the
farm, small town USA, extended families, over the river and through
the woods to grandmother's house we go, our real world has changed to
the point that many of our basic values, once believed to be handed to
us by God Almighty, no longer apply.
When I first entered college in 1954, my Sociology professor talked
about the shift from the "Extended Family", to the "Nuclear Family".
That began with a mother, a father and 3.5 children. In a quick move
that nuclear family became, A Parent or Guardian and those for whom
they are responsible.
Today we have trimmed down to a definition of a single unit. The
Libertarian. I'm for me, First, Last and Always Me! Self Serving.
"Get it while the getting's good". "Them what has, gets".
And so what appears to be an act of kindness and generosity, building
a pretty prison for our Seniors, turns out to be linked to our move
toward Isolated Libertarian ism.
Of course it's a complex situation, not clear cut. Since we are
driven by our Capitalistic Culture, it is important that we place a
monetary value on everything. We exploit our children, our health,
and our Seniors. At the rate we're changing, the day will come when
we will simply dispose of any part of our population that cannot
generate profit.
But back to those long forgotten days of the 40's and 50's when
grandma or grandpa had a back bedroom in the family house. And often
times it was actually their own house. But they were a problem,
cleaning up after them, feeding them, listening to them bitch and
complain. We convinced ourselves that it was for their own good to
move into a "Senior's Center", where they could "enjoy" retirement
with other folks of similar age. Financial investors saw this as an
opportunity to turn a buck. Build a fancy facility and then put it on
the market. Large corporations began to figure how to squeeze profit
out of these Elder Care Facilities by cutting corners just a
little...at first. We've seen, over the past 25 years, beautiful,
well staffed facilities trimmed back to bare bones. Light
housekeeping extended from weekly, to twice a month. Activity
directors terminated. Office staff reduced to part time. Dining
room servers replaced by volunteer high school students. The list
goes on, anywhere a corner can be cut. But worst of all is the fact
that these Seniors have been placed outside of their communities.
They are in a pretty prison. A few "busy" activities, but no real
purpose in life. Just waiting for the grim reaper to wander through.
One day Cathy and I entered the Willows, an upper end Senior Apartment
Facility, with all the amenities, and we beheld the most beautiful
display of quilts. It was the culmination of a quilting contest. At
the time I said to Cathy, "next thing you know, they'll be selling the
quilts to pay for some of the "free" services." About ten years later
we entered the same building and beheld the display of quilts and
other home made items, with price tags on them. The money from the
sales of these items would go toward paying the building's van driver.
This service had been provided as part of the huge rent folks paid,
but had to be cut back because of the cost. One client told us that
she had been there for five years, and each year her rent had gone up
$50 a month. In five years she was paying $250 per month more than
her original rent. But her fixed income had barely increased. She
feared she would not be able to afford another increase.
And here's the sad news. Many of these folks living in the Senior
Apartments are good, lifelong Republicans.
My grandma Ludwig(1892-1985)proudly said, "I'm an Abraham Lincoln
Republican". But old Abe had been dead 27 years prior to Grandma's
birth. Abe would not have recognized the world Grandma lived in.
Which reminds me, I just deleted a Spam Message telling me that FBI
statistics show that States with laws permitting concealed weapons,
have 8.5% lower crime rates than those States without such laws. Of
course the note was placed by a company selling me hand guns and
ammunition via the internet.
What a delightful plan! We really ought to drop any age limits to
purchasing guns. After all, it seems that Idiocy knows no age limits.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/20/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
Those luxury facilities for the elderly which you mention and which,
immediately deteriorate because of lack of funding, they are the symbol of
how our society feels about the elderly. Everyone else is so busy making a
living, trying to care for themselves and their children, that segregating
old people has seemed like a perfect answer. That doesn't happen in
traditional cultures and it never used to happen here. Jusst as children
were integrated into families, so were the elderly. Now we talk about child
care and elder care. It's a sign of the times. It's a whole change in family
kinship systems. And what kind of work do we honor? We honor tech experts
and experts in finance. We don't honor people who care for our children or
our elderly or our sick. Yes doctors, the people who look at our charts on
computers, but not so much nurses or nurses' aides.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2019 10:10 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Attempted murder
Hi Miriam,
Yes. I do understand. But I'm also driven to do what I can do to prevent
our clients from killing themselves, or others.
Because of our Capitalist System, we are constantly struggling to make gains
in conditions for older folks. We gain a little ground, and some
corporation swallows it up and triples the cost, or shuts it down as
unwanted competiition.
We arrived where we are today, as much through Greed as through Compassion.
One day we enter a new senior facility full of all sorts of amenities. A
couple of yuears pass buy and some national corporation buys the facility
and begins cutting services iuntil the building is falling into disrepair
and the staff only work part time.
We fight for door to door transportation. We finally begin to see a system
that meets the basic needs of Seniors and Disabled folks. Then the next
budget cuts funding, and it becomes harder and harder to arrange for basic
transportation. But we got ourselves into this mess, and we'll need to be
the ones to get us out. The Ruling Class finds ways of diverting our tax
dollars, insisting that we can take care of our own special needs. Let
churches and volunteer services pick up the services being cut from our
budgets.
It's taken many years to come to such a social mess. It's going to take a
long time to get out of it...if we have enough time.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/19/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
The thing is that we have a society which has been organized to depend
on individually owned vehicles. Becoming old, finding that one's
health isn't as good as it was, losing some eyesight, some hearing,
becoming forgetful, all of that is terribly hard for people in a world
which worships youth and beauty. And then their independence is taken
away. Being unable to drive in our world means for most people that
that you are like a dependent child. I understand why they will hold onto
driving for as long as they can.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2019 8:20 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Attempted murder
Roger and Miriam,
I'm assuming that your adventure happened at the time you still had
decent vision.
But it brings to mind many, many stories Cathy and I have heard from
older clients who just can't face the fact that their sight has dimmed
to the point that they should quit driving. Because of never having
had decent vision, I grew up knowing that driving after dark, or at
dusk, or on grey rainy days, would endanger both myself and anyone
within striking range. So I seldom drove, and as a result I did not
miss the freedom which so many of our clients missed. Even so,
because I learned to drive with only one eye, it took a great deal of
energy to "see" all that was going on around me.
Also it took considerable luck.
"Oh, I can see distances just fine," they tell us. "It's just up real
close that things get fuzzy." We patiently explain the impact on the
Retina, and how our brain can trick us into believing we're seeing
more than we really do see, but they are wanting to believe that they
are the exception. "Even if you do see distances well enough", I
insist, "what you miss is the ability to see quickly enough to avoid
disaster in an emergency". And in today's heavy traffic that is a daily
event.
One dark winter evening a year ago, Cathy and I were coming home
after a rather long day. We came off highway 101, onto Snow Creek
Road, our county gravel road, and made the long sweeping right hand curve
up a steep hill.
Suddenly Cathy hit the brakes. I felt the thump. "Oh God!" Cathy
groaned, "I hit a deer. It just jumped from the hill right into our
path". After driving that road since 1987, this was the first
encounter we'd had with a deer...or anything other than a suicidal
bird. As many miles as she's driven, and as sharp as her night vision
is, there was no way of avoiding that deer. Our headlights confused
it and it bolted for the far side of the road, and the safety of the
forest. It rolled and then jumped up and dashed into the brush.
Hopefully it was just bruised, not damaged fatally.
But our new Toyota Tacoma had over $1,000 damage to the grill. That
repair, which, thankfully, was covered, reminded me of how cheaply
today's vehicles are put together. Inside our truck we feel safe.
But when one bump can cause so much damage, what would we look like if
we'd struck an oncoming vehicle at 25 miles an hour, each?
Carl Jarvis
On 4/19/19, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I didn't hit him. He jumped out of the way just in time. That image
of him that I have burnt into my brain was the sight of him in mid leap.
---
Christopher Hitchens
“ What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without
evidence. ”
― Christopher Hitchens,
On 4/19/2019 9:18 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Other people might not have laughed in that situation. I've never
driven a car, but if it were me, I'd have been horrified that I'd
inadvertently hit someone whom I hadn't seen, relieved that he
wasn't hurt, and terrified about being arrested. I suspect that if
you were African American, he probably would have arrested you for
attempted murder, and you might not be here to tell the tale.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2019 10:10 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Attempted murder
Since I was using attempted murder as an example of how one could be
charged with a crime when the intended crime was not committed I
reminded myself of the time a cop threatened to arrest me for
attempted murder. I tell you this only because I thought you might
find it amusing. In retrospect I do. I was driving along once at
night. I came up to an elementary school on my left and sitting in
the parking lot was a police car with its blue lights flashing, its
headlights on and a door standing open. There was no cop in it nor
outside of it that I could see. That made me curious and so I was
looking at it wondering what was going on. As I passed it I returned
my eyes to the road just in time to see the cop. The image I saw was
burned into my brain and I still recall it in detail.
Right there in my headlights was an airborne cop. He was actually in
the air above the road with arms and legs spread out, with a
flashlight also in the air and detached from his right hand by
several inches, and a look on his face that could only be utter
panic. I hit my brakes just in time to avoid hitting the stopped car
that was partially in the road and partially in a deep ditch. I
could see that the car was stuck and that the cop had been directing
traffic around it, but because I was distracted by his cop car with
all of its lights flashing I did not see him until too late. It was
his leap that I caught part of in my headlights that saved him, not
my application of the brakes. The application of the brakes only
saved me from hitting the car. Once I had stopped here came the cop
from the foliage that he had leaped into. From his mouth came a
flurry of invectives each of which was preceded by the words god
damn. It was god damn idiot, god damn moron, god damn fool and god
damn everything else.
Between the god damns he threatened to arrest me for reckless
driving, attempted murder and numerous attempted other crimes. Even
while all this name calling and threats were going on I was hard
pressed to not laugh.
What struck me as so funny were all the leaves and twigs adorning
his uniform and his hair too. He must have landed in a real thicket.
Amazingly enough, though, he finally said that he had other things
to deal with other than me and he told me to get out of there before
he really did arrest me. I left without even a ticket.
