The Three Amigas in the 20th Century

Linda and Ariella and I have been friends since grad school -- almost 40 years. This week Ariella came for a visit from Israel, and I made a photo collage of our friendship. What struck us was how many different places we have been together.

From left to right, starting at the top: Raymond Street in Venice, CA, where Linda and Ariella lived in grad school; Swarthmore Avenue in Pacific Palisades, where the three of us lived in grad school; at Linda and Frank's house in Sacramento, where they got married in 1971; in Israel at Ariella's Tel Aviv apartment; on the deck of Linda and Frank's Pacific Palisades home; also in their home; in Yosemite National Park; in New Mexico; also New Mexico (?); in San Jose, Costa Rica for a women's conference; at Judy's Pacific Palisades house; in New York for Elaine's wedding. The years covered are 1967 to 1998, in order.

I Dream of Jeanie Really

In the early morning of September 10, 2016, after having fallen back asleep at 4:30 am, I had one of those very vivid early morning dreams. I was going to a mall to buy some jeans. For some reason, I stopped first at a movie theater. I stood in line and when I got to the window, the man said, “I have only three tickets left, one for a single and two for an individual and their equal partner.” I decided to go on to the jeans store. On the way, I saw my mother. She smiled and said, “Hello, Judy, I have a surprise.” Then Jean stepped forward, smiling and looking young and beautiful. She said, “Hello, Judy” in EXACTLY HER VOICE (I could hear it so vividly). I was puzzled and amazed, and we hugged. I could feel her body in my arms so vividly. I looked at mom for an explanation and she shrugged. Then they both evaporated away, Jean just slowly vanished from my arms, and I woke up crying. I called Dan and he came and held me while I cried and told him the dream. He said I got to be with them for a few seconds. At first that didn’t make me feel better, but now it does. 

I think this is my first dream of Jean. It is certainly the first one that was this vivid and in which she spoke to me -- and I could HEAR her and  I could FEEL her. I was going to the “jeans store” and Jean’s birthday will be in two days. She would have been 70. Oh, I miss her! 

Mother's Day 2016

On Sunday, I seemed to have a nice mother's Day, with adult children saying all sorts of kind things about me and grandchildren making me cute cards.

On Monday, I couldn't seem to stop crying.

On Tuesday, I kept thinking of this song my father used to sing to my mother every Mother's Day:

Do not throw stones at your mother
You won't have good luck if you do
Do not throw stones at your mother
For she never threw them at you

Do not throw stones at your mother
For some day dear mom will be dead
Do not throw stones at your mother
When you can throw brickbats instead

Mom would always laugh or groan or both at this song.

Curious, I googled it. Apparently, it was an old childhood song, possibly of Irish origin. Dad didn't make it up. There were several versions, most beginning with "Never throw stones at your mother" and ending with "Throw rocks at your father instead." There is no one left alive who can appreciate the levels of painful irony here.

Actually, It Does Sort of Matter

On further thought, I realize that my last blog post is sort of wrong. It doesn’t matter who’s President as long as it’s not a Republican. Neither Hillary nor Bernie will be able to get much done. But if one of the current contenders for the Republican nomination becomes President, then with a Republican majority in the House, it is possible that some of the worst parts of their agenda could be enacted into law. That’s worth trying to prevent.

So it does matter who’s President, since it should not be a conservative Republican. “Conservative Republican” seems redundant, since I don’t see any centrist Republicans like Eisenhower or Gerald Ford or even Richard Nixon among those running for the Republican nomination. So despite my last post, be sure to vote!

It Doesn't Matter Who's President

Political Rant in the 2016 Presidential Election Year:

The Presidential Election is an Irrelevant Circus

Writer Garret Keizer recently examined why Donald Trump appeals to people whose interests he actively opposes (L.A.Times, January 31, 2016, p. A27). He also raised the question of why so many Americans view the government as their enemy and not the rich and the transnational corporations. His answer was that this belief is affected by people’s self image. To view the government as the enemy is to be oppressed, but also a heroic resister, on the same side as everyone else -- to be “equal” to the rich and the corporations, who are also oppressed by the government. To view the rich and powerful as the enemy is to be a “loser,” a failed competitor in the “Free Market” and therefore inferior to the wealthy, a much less appealing self image. 

Beliefs may determine voting behavior, but the reality is that the ultra rich and the corporations exploit and oppress everyone else in the current system of capitalism (see Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert Reich or Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty). Money equals power, and the super rich and the corporations have managed to arrange the laws of this country to their own advantage and everyone else’s disadvantage. 

The only check on the power of the moneyed class is organized groups of ordinary people working together in unions or to elect a representative government that will actually protect their interests. It is in the self interest of the rich and the corporations to destroy unions and to make sure the government doesn’t work. They don’t actually have to elect or run the government to benefit; all they have to do is render it ineffective so they can pursue their own ends without any regulation or limits. They have been successful in making the government ineffective and inefficient enough that they have also succeeded in making it appear to be the enemy. 

One of their strategies is to starve the government. Since Reagan, the moneyed class has dramatically reduced its share of taxes paid to fund the government. It’s not that they want the money, but rather that it helps reduce the government’s power and therefore the power of ordinary people. They accuse the government of being bloated, wasteful, and inefficient, and stir people up to be upset about paying taxes (though Americans pay less taxes than citizens of most other developed nations). Underfunding the government makes it ineffective, and that ends up annoying people. Anyone who has tried to deal with the underfunded Social Security administration, for example, ends up frustrated, angry, and resentful, and therefore more likely to agree that the government is the enemy. 

The rich and powerful can argue that they are taking a principled stand, that the best government is the one that governs least, that the government should not “interfere” with people’s freedom, etc., but the end result is still the same -- reducing the effectiveness of one way ordinary people can protect their interests.

A second strategy has been to make sure that a Republican majority in the House of Representatives blocks any action by the government. Some wealthy conservatives have managed to gerrymander enough congressional districts that the House will have a Republican majority for several years. It could be argued that they have done it in especially conservative regions that ensure rather extremist conservatives get elected. The moneyed class does not need to elect a certain President or to spend money on Senate campaigns; it only needs to be sure that a Republican House majority blocks any government action. That plus underfunding the government means that all the money they have can lead to unfettered power.

This second strategy has the beneficial side effect of making the government seem like the enemy to ordinary people, since it doesn’t get anything done and seems to be wasting their tax dollars. The very rich and the transnational corporations don’t care who is President. All they need in order to continue to gain wealth and power is for the only check on their power, the government, to be dysfunctional and for it to be viewed by the people they oppress and exploit as the enemy. I have to hand it to them -- it’s a clever strategy and it’s worked.

I Dream of Jeanie

As suggested by one of my art teachers, I have been creating works that are drawn from the memories of my sister or that honor her in some way. I put them all together in a photo book, show in order below. The book began with this poem:

I Dream of Jeanie

Two sisters had thought
They would grow old together
It was not to be

The one who stayed in this world
Made these tributes to
The one who left it too soon