There but for fortune

Woke up this morning with this Phil Ochs song going through my head. Not sure why, other than the fact so much economic news recently has been so grim, both personally and in a more general national way. The S.O. and I are doing okay, but I worry about the Older Daughter, several blogpals are hurting, and a number of other friends and acquaintances are wondering if they're going to be standing in line at the food pantry or homeless shelter sometime in the not too distant future.

One of my younger cousins had been cruising along happily for a number of years, making good money as an engineer and feeling relatively immune to economic woes. . . not true anymore. He worked (insert ominous background music here) for the Cadillac division of General Motors. He did everything right: served in the military, then went to college using the education benefit (end result -- no crushing burden of student loan debt when he graduated), got a good job, worked hard, got promotions, and now where is he? Standing in the unemployment line with a pretty large cohort of fellow former GM employees. I can't think of much he might have done to avoid his present situation -- he's a smart guy, I'm sure he saw the handwriting on the wall well before the axe actually fell, but it's hard to change jobs in a shrinking labor market.

Other friends and acquaintances are either teetering on the brink of total financial disaster or have already slid into the abyss. And each time I hear the horror stories, the worrying about how to keep up the car payments, pay the winter heating bills, avoid foreclosure, manage to keep fresh fruit in the house so the kids don't grow up wondering what an apple is, etc., the temptation to give advice starts sneaking up on me. After all, I'm in the perfect position to tell other people how to run their lives -- I'm doing fine with mine, no current major financial worries, ergo, I'm an expert. I'll just share my secrets, whatever they may happen to be (always buying generics? figuring out that Great Clips does cheap haircuts before 10 a.m.?) while conveniently ignoring the biggest secret of all: sheer dumb luck.

The truth is you can do everything right -- live frugally, buy all your clothes at Goodwill, stash money in savings, drive a beater instead of making car payments -- and still have the ceiling cave in. Everyone of us is subject to forces we cannot control. The Atlanta paper has been full of stories lately about people who thought they had it made: from self-employed developers who went from being millionaires to worrying about ending up homeless over the course of the past two years to low level hourly employees who thought their jobs were secure and are now unemployed following company cutbacks. They're all victims of a struggling economy, the collateral damage caused by structural forces, and they all share one thing in common: they're all feeling individually guilty, like they did something personally to 'deserve' the raw deal they just got handed. After all, the Great American Myth is that anyone can succeed if they just try hard enough -- so if you're hurting financially, it's all your fault. Not the banks. Not the economy. Just you. Which is why everyone is sitting there eager to give you advice on What You Should Have Done Differently.

And admittedly there almost always is something You Should Have Done Differently. But no one really needs to hear it. When you're staring disaster in the face you're generally already engaging in self-flagellation. Everyone has a mental list of "should have" and "if only" scenarios, each of which has the ability to make you think It's All Your Fault. The last thing anyone needs when his or her world is crumbling around them is someone standing on the sidelines making them feel even worse. So I'll just keep my mouth shut, offer help if there's something useful I can do (help with the yard sale? volunteer our pick-up truck for moving stuff into storage or a smaller place? provide a reference?), and hope things work out in the long run.

Milestones and miscellania

Welcome to my 200th post. Time flies when a person is having fun. Back in February when I started blogging I wasn't sure it was a particularly good idea.

I'm still not sure, but it's definitely addictive. Not to mention the added benefit of it giving me something to do when I'm awake several hours earlier than any sane person should be.

The S.O. and I are in east Texas this week, enjoying the relative serenity of the piney hills and scenic Sabine County. I was a little surprised yesterday by how quiet it was here where the Younger Daughter lives. She's in a subdivision on the Toledo Bend reservoir, a neighborhood that is a mix of houses with year-round residents and vacation homes. I was expecting it to be relatively busy -- when we were here for Christmas there were a lot of people around, the infamous weekenders from Beaumont and Houston (you want to hear contempt in a local's voice? Ask about people from Houston). Both Christmas and New Year's were celebrated with lots and lots of fireworks and other rowdiness. But Thanksgiving was quiet.

For those who might interested in such things, the cheapest gas we saw between here and Atlanta was at the Evil Empire in Alexandria, Louisiana: $1.69.

The past week or so was an odd one. My detail and the assignment to edit that strategy document at Large Nameless Agency is winding down. The most recent draft of The Strategy went out to multiple agencies and "stakeholders" for comment on October 31. All comments were due back by November 26, so when I get back to the office I'll get to start collating them all and integrating them into the document. That's if there's anything to collate or integrate. As of Tuesday afternoon the response had been, well, a tad odd. And light.

Of the potential hundreds of responses, as of Tuesday we'd heard from maybe half a dozen entities. Two provided actual comments, but not many and nothing truly substantive. The Office of the Vice President (and yes, the e-mail did give off a faint hint of brimstone) said simply (or as simply as anything is ever written in bureaucratese) "Thanks for letting us see this." Several of the professional associations that have an interest in the topic made no comments on the document itself and instead merely reiterated their support for the work the unit is doing. Another reviewer said he felt the strategy was too ambitious and too generalized, but didn't give any specifics on what to do to bring it down into the real world of being SMART (setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound).

I, of course, have been wondering if this silence constitutes another smoke signal from inside the Beltway -- with a new administration coming in, The Strategy now falls into the category of irrelevant old news. I hope not. The problems in public health the document details are real and do need to be addressed. Maybe not in the same way the Bush administration would have gone at it (talked a lot about supporting various programs while quietly cutting funding and hoping no one noticed), but nonethless addressed.

An alternate explanation for the lack of response, and the one I'm hoping applies, is we went through so much thrashing things out with passing early versions around and asking for feedback and contributions from the numerous stakeholders (for a ~50 page manuscript we have two full pages of acknowledgements done in microscopic type) that this latest version really is something everyone from the professional paranoics in Homeland Security to the people inspecting eggs over at USDA can live with. Which means it's either really comprehensive or it's totally vacuous. I've been too close to it for too long -- I can no longer tell the difference.

Third explanation, of course, is that most people are procrastinators so a ton of comments will come in at the last minute -- and I'll get to deal with those when I return to the office on Tuesday.

In any case, my association with The Strategy should end December 12. All edits will be done by then, it'll get posted to a website hosted by one of the partners involved in the document's development, and I'll be free to go back to my quiet cubicle, back to functioning primarily as an author's editor, and back to enjoying my morning walk to work. I haven't much liked being a bus commuter, nor have I enjoyed the days when I drive -- Atlanta drivers are all insane. And I've missed the people who inhabit the offices and cubicles near mine. We may not work in the same program area (writer editors are "embedded" all over Large Nameless Agency, and may never work directly with the folks whose offices surround them), but when you see the same faces every work day for over a year, you get to know and like people.

For the next couple days, though, I won't have to worry about the document or work. Instead I get to think about playing tourist and doing some small-scale shopping. I know today is National Do Not Shop day for those of us who like to talk about sustainability, but I'm interpreting that as "do not patronize big box stores/avoid the Evil Empire (aka House of Satan)/don't go to the mall." We're driving up to Nacogdoches to wander around its historic downtown (not to mention checking out its historic cemetery that dates back to around 1830) and pick up a souvenir or two. Tomorrow we're driving to Natchitoches, Louisiana, to enjoy a craft show there, tour Cane River Creole National Historical Park, and then enjoy the Christmas lights and fireworks on the riverfront once the sun goes down. There's a free evening concert, too.

I'm hoping that this year the guy who has the "get your picture taken with a gator" booth is there. We went up to Natchitoches on Christmas Eve last year and, although the atmosphere along the riverfront was festive and there were numerous vendors selling food and drink, the gator guy's booth was closed. If he is there tomorrow, we may have found the family portrait for this year's Christmas cards.

A Thanksgiving Tale

Ranger Bob has finally gotten around to explaining to the world how he wound up sharing his house with a whole herd of Newfoundlands. If you're a dog lover and you haven't heard the story before (and even if you have), you'll want to read The Thanksgiving Puppies.

Photo lifted from The Retread Ranger Station, of course.

A collective action problem, aka sustainability

A couple days ago I made the rather libertarian assertion that people should be free to spend their own money on whatever stupid thing they felt like spending it on, including humongous gas guzzling SUVs (e.g., that triumph of marketing over common sense, the Hummer) and sports car pecker extenders like Vipers. I just don't want to hear any whining from the buyers about the cost of fueling those vehicles once they've got them. Then Lisa administered a dope slap in a comment and reminded me about the elephant in the room, the thing we materialistic, shopping mall worshipping Americans keep trying to ignore: Sustainability.

The cold hard truth is that the typical American lifestyle is not sustainable. Collectively we're resource hogs. We live in houses that are too big, drive cars we don't need, eat foods that are farmed in ways that are destroying the planet, and do most of it in blissful ignorance. We've managed to convince ourselves that if we just switch our incandescent lightbulbs to fluorescents, haul newspapers to a recycling bin, and occasionally shop at a thrift store instead of Dillard's we're doing our part to save the planet. We're kidding ourselves.

In fact, in one of the great ironies of our times, we buy magazines like Real Simple that tell us that the way to simplify our lives (and, by implication, live more environmentally sustainable lives) is to buy more stuff to organize the stuff you've already got. Places like the Container Store exist solely to sell us containers in which to stash the stuff we don't need and never use but seem to believe we have to have anyway. If alien archeologists exist they're going to have a field day picking through the ruins of our society.

In philosophical terms, what we have is a collective action problem. If I ignore a do not walk on the grass sign one time, my foot prints on the lawn have minimal impact. If I walk across the lawn the same way every day, over time a path develops. If dozens of people ignore the sign, the social path shows up faster, the soil is compacted, the grass dies, the path widens, becomes a rut, encourages run-off and soil erosion. In short, my individual selfishness may not have much of an impact, but multiply it by a zillion other people cruising along in their own bubbles, all ignoring the world around them and thinking environmental awareness consists of buying a free range heritage turkey at Whole Paycheck and using a stainless steel water bottle instead of a plastic one, and we've got a planet that's in a death spiral.

Would it make a difference if we all switched to fluorescents? Yes. Will that difference will be totally negated if we then turn around and get a 50-inch plasma television for the "media" room? Can you say understatement? We all keep saying we need to use less energy while adding gadget after gadget that eats more. And I'm as guilty and short-sighted as everyone else. What keeps my life relatively simple and low impact (smallish carbon footprint) isn't heightened awareness; it's lack of money.

I could go on, but I'll just suggest you take a look at the November/December issue of Mother Jones. It's devoted to the economy and the environment. Read it, especially the piece by Bill McKibben, and weep.

No one takes the train anymore

Inspired by DCup.

Where were you?

Today is November 22, the 45th anniversary of the day John Kennedy died. I was in study hall when the principal gave us the news, and then sent us all home early. There was, of course, a general air of total disbelief. It took a day or two to sink in that it had really happened.

What made it even more unreal for many of us, I think, was the fact we had been privileged to see Kennedy in person not long before. Kennedy had visited northern Wisconsin, flew over the Apostle Islands, and on September 24, 1963, spoke in Ashland on the importance of preserving natural resources. Every school district for miles around loaded its students on to buses for the day so we could see (and maybe hear) Kennedy speak at the Ashland airport. That C-47 behind my friend Diana Bluse is Air Force One.

I can't remember a word Kennedy said; I just recall that the man radiated charisma. He walked down the line shaking hands and we teenage girls all reacted the same way we would have if he'd been Elvis or Fabian. It's still a little hard to believe that less than two months later he was dead.

Speaking of bail outs

h/t to Swiftspeech

Selling ice boxes to Eskimos

The S.O. and I got to talking this morning about the auto industry, the economy, and the role advertising plays in pushing products people don't really need. Not surprisingly quite a few of the blogs we both read have been opining on the first two, maybe not so much the third.

We're pretty much in agreement that the typical American consumer can be an idiot when it comes to falling for auto industry advertising claims. Nothing new about that. Back in the 1920s Charles Kettering knew people wanted to buy status, so he developed a hierarchy for General Motors: Chevrolet was the el cheapo line of transportation and marketed to the ordinary working slob, then it went on up the income and status scale: Pontiac to Oldsmobile to Buicks (well known as doctors' cars) and finally the ultimate, Cadillac (the ride of lawyers). Kettering was a marketing genius -- he also came up with the idea of planned obsolescence: make minor cosmetic changes annually, and so convince consumers they need new cars when they really don't. Car running just fine? Still looking good? Doesn't matter -- the new models have more cup holders, and everyone knows multiple cup holders are worth going deeper into debt for. No one wanted to be the poor soccer mom whose mini-van had only four cup holders when everyone else's mini-van had six.

In recent years I've been amused by the way people fell for advertising claims that promoted vehicles using language that was so dishonest it would have made a politician cringe. Manufacturers wanted to discourage station wagon sales because although station wagons were popular with families they were classified as passenger cars so had to meet the same safety and emission standards. Solution? Develop the mini-van which was classified as Utility Vehicle with different standards than cars, and then push it as being "safe" when the opposite was true (higher center of gravity, making it much more prone to rollover than a station wagon), and watch the naive soccer moms line up to buy it. Ditto SUVS: Explorers, Jeep Cherokees, Suburbans, you name it. Less safe but promoted as more.

I don't want to come off as too judgemental. I'm as susceptible as the next person when it comes to falling for bogus sales pitches. In all honesty, if I had the bucks to buy a new vehicle I'd be driving a 2008 Nissan XTerra to work instead of our mid-90s Ford. I think people should be free to spend their own money on whatever weird indulgence they want, and if that includes over-priced humongous SUVs then that's their privilege. I can even empathise a little (but not much) with someone who makes the mistake of buying a gas hog just before gas prices sky rocket, although I'd also be thinking that anyone who can afford $600 or higher car payments monthly shouldn't be fazed by gas prices doubling. If they are, they were obviously living much too close to the edge on their budget. (Translation: If you can afford it, buy it, but don't whine to the rest of us when you discover you guessed wrong about the amount of slack in your budget.)

Up too early again

Woke up this morning from a rather odd dream -- I was either dropping off or picking up film from a CVS drugstore, and it was definitely the CVS that's at the intersection of North Druid Hills Road and Buford Highway here in northeast Atlanta, but nothing else looked familiar. All the other businesses on the block, like the Rusty Nail with its nifty barbecue, were gone. And it wasn't like post-apocalyptic gone (piles of rubble or vacant lots with rats scittering through the kudzu), it was gone like they'd never existed. The CVS was just sitting there, alone, in the middle of nowhere on what appeared to be tundra. Cotton grass was blooming, the sky was a deep beautiful smogless blue. No skyscrapers on the horizon, no multiple lanes of traffic whizzing by on either Buford or North Druid Hills. So then I found myself wondering -- am I having a nightmare or is this some sort of idealized fantasy based on wishful thinking? City amenities (if CVS qualifies as an amenity) without the city. One can dream.

Apparently, however, one cannot sleep in. I'm in training this week so do not have to report to work until the class starts at 9 a.m. My normal start time is 7. I could have been lazy, but my body obviously had other ideas. I have heard that once a person gets to be a woman of a certain age sleep disorders are common. I'm not sure I believe that. I do know that research has shown that older people sleep less than younger ones, which strikes me as incredibly unfair. A person retires, finally has the time to do absolutely nothing but snooze in a rocking chair, and then discovers he or she can't fall asleep.

As for the training, it's four days devoted to substantive editing. Large Nameless Agency is finally getting around to training me to do what I've been getting paid to do for the past 18 months. The training has actually been quite good so far. I've learned another technique for helping to make sense of disorganized manuscripts (marginal captioning) and have also had a chance to engage in bitch sessions with fellow editors. The nature of our work means we don't get to actually talk with each other very often -- we're scattered around LNA, embedded like ticks in the different centers we support, surrounded by researchers and scientists who never worry about parallel construction or dangling participles -- so don't get many chances to ask colleagues face-to-face if they've experienced similar weirdness with manuscripts or to share tips on dealing with problem authors. The social aspect of the training may be more useful than the technical.

Writer's block