August 2008 Archives

Fox news is making much of, of all things, the columns that will be the backdrop for Obama's acceptance speech. To seek impartial expertise on the subject, they turned to special contributor Karl Rove. Of course.

Here's my special handy diagram of what he's actually saying:

It's pretty much all there in black and white. I'm just sayin'.

Yet another article about unhappy Hillary supporters who are having trouble bringing themselves to support Barack Obama, even when the only alternative is John McCain.

I've had trouble believing that anybody who REALLY supported Hillary Clinton could bring themselves to vote for the extremely Republican McCain instead. (There was that one day I was listening to NPR and they'd organized a round table of Clinton voters, and it was obvious that at least one of them was a regular Rush Limbaugh listener who barely had memorized his lines. "Uh... Obama may be Muslim... um..." ) The PUMA movement isn't as big as they'd like you to think that it is.

But then again, it's not fair of me. After all, I'm real - a woman who supported Obama during the primary and was actually disappointed when Hillary decided to enter the race. I always thought the issue was not that the country wasn't ready to elect a woman, but that she wasn't the right woman. More than that, though, Obama seems to me to be the right man.

And even if he's not the greatest choice (though to me he seems like a better one than many others we've been faced with lately!) it's so obvious to me that John McCain is a terrible choice - and he is in such direct opposition to many of the things Clinton and her supporters profess to care about - that why anybody would consider voting for him even for a second is beyond me.

Please, people - for the sake of the country, and for the women you're hoping to boost - get over yourselves! I realize that sounds arrogant, but please realize this is coming from a woman with a daughter who does not want to see another 4 or 8 years of the crap we've been living with since Bush took office. This is not just a setback for one woman, this a setback for women, men, and children all over this country.

On Saturday, we took the toddler to the beach. She was distracted by the sight of two children playing with something in a bucket. I followed her over to learn that they were playing with chunks of dead jellyfish, squishing the lumps in their hands, dumping them into the bucket, and pretending to pee and poop on them. "That doesn't seem like a great idea to me; don't they sting?" was the best I could come up with. "Oh no, they're dead, they don't sting." said the little monsters. I walked away muttering under my breath, "But if they did, it would serve you right!"

This morning the toddler didn't want anything for breakfast except for a dish called "Bagel bagel jellyfish." I hope she didn't get any strange ideas.

...or at least that's the gist of many of the comments in response to this provocative New York Times blog posting. What was it that set people off? The admission by the author, a childless single woman, that she's worried about who will look after her in her frail old age.

For sure, my long-term care insurance policy will buy me a home health aide and pay to retrofit my house if I'm able to remain here, or contribute to care in another setting. I have the luxury of savings and a mortgage that will be paid off by the time I'm 70. If I need a geriatric case manager, I'll probably be able to afford one. I count my blessings.

But, having witnessed the "new old age'' from a front-row seat, I'm haunted by the knowledge that there is no one who will care about me in the deepest and most loving sense of the word at the end of my life. No one who will advocate for me, not simply for adequate care but for the small and arguably inessential things that can make life worth living even in compromised health.

Responses range from "What, me worry?"

Why the scaremongering? I am 40, single, and childfree, and plan on remaining in the last two states for the rest of my life however long that may be. I see plenty of little old ladies in my neighborhood going along and getting along just fine-if anything, living in New York City, a place with phenomenal public transportation and an array of "full service" neighborhoods (ie nearby shopping, medical help, and other services) would seem an ideal place to grow old in.

Also, isn't it as selfish as hell to regret not having kids just so that they can take care of you?

As far as healthcare proxies-I plan on sending mine to a very good friend, because I think someone should have it. In fact, I think everyone should have one with someone they trust. Having said that, as someone who loves their solitude, I can't think of anything WORSE than a group home or needing someone to take care of daily things for me. I hope it never gets to that.

For me, this whole article smacks of "you see, you silly feminists, what happens to you if you try to make a life for yourselves without breeding?" No thanks; I won't take the bait.

to the downright nasty:

Legal status for friendships? How completely ridiculous. Friendship will always be secondary to family, the nuclear family being the basic organizational unit of society.

There are many people who opted not to have children because they didn't want to make the sacrifices necessary to have a family. It's obvious though that if you are unwilling to make sacrifices for family, then you will have no family to sacrifice for you when you need help. You can't have it all.

and

This is a harsh reply, but I want to put it out there:

Those who have not raised children have, in a some ways, sown the seeds of their own troubles later in life.

One could argue that raising children (of course, including by adoption) is not only a blessing but a duty. Especially if you have the financial means to care for yourself at the end of life, this failure is all the more glaring. In the end of the day, bringing up the next generation with one's lessons of experience, bringing a life into the world to enjoy all of the wonders that you've experienced, may be the single greatest contribution a person can make on this earth. Perhaps we should have limited sympathy for those who turned their back on this responsibility (and I would not count Ms. Gross among that number) who now say: "But who will care for me?"

to the reality check:

How amusing! You assume that those people with children are somehow not going to be magically stuffed into a nursing home and ignored by those children.

The purpose of having children is not to make sure someone's there to take care of you in your old age. That's a harsh thing to accept. Life is full of harsh things. Dying is one of them.

Even if I had children, I would forbid them from feeding me and bathing me and so forth. I wouldn't keep my cat alive in those circumstances, why would I do it to myself?

I worry sometimes that if we stick with just the one kid, we'll end up putting a lot of pressure on her later. But I definitely don't think that's reason enough to have a second on its own. Lots of other things have to be in place too.

The bigger issue, it seems to me, is that there's a general "I look after me and mine first and only" attitude among many people. Coupled with an eroded safety net, that spells disaster.

I mentioned that Katy Perry song a few days ago (not gonna link to the YouTube video; I'm not that cruel). But I keep hearing it on the radio, which gives me further opportunity to ponder what exactly it is that annoys me so much.

1. The singing. It's so unsubtle. She's shouting, and it's unpleasant. There was another song that came out about 15 years ago, also called "I Kissed a Girl", by Jill Sobule, and while I wasn't particularly fond of that one either (it was also overplayed), the singing was much sweeter, and it had some humor. Which brings me to...
2. The lyrics. "I kissed a girl and I liked it / The taste of her cherry chap stick / I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don't mind it" HURLGHHHH. Makes the 1980s hit "Boom Boom Boom" ("Boom boom boom / Let's go back to my room / So we can do it all night / And you can make me feel right" seem downright subtle.
3. The message. It's 2008, people. Kissing a girl, even when done by another girl, is not shocking. Or it shouldn't be. "It's not what / Good girls do / Not how they should behave" Um, yeah. the "hee hee, I'm being naughty" message in the song is annoying at best.

Maybe I'm just a humorless old fart, but it makes me want to scrub my brain out with some good music. Like the Magnetic Fields.

I just upgraded to MT 4.2. I broke some things when I did it, so if you see anything weird on here (besides the usual) then that's why.

The American Psychological Association says that there is no increased risk of mental problems from a single abortion.

"The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy," said Brenda Major, PhD, chair of the task force.

Tell me about it. As I or many other mothers could tell you, the first few weeks/months of motherhood can be a mindf**k. Worth every minute of it, and no regrets, but if you'd given me a mental evaluation at that time, I'm sure I would have flunked!

The anti-abortion folks need to come up with another argument. Or better yet, just admit that improving access to birth control would do far more to prevent abortions in the first place!

I've scheduled this post; let's see if it publishes.

I just got a call at 12:30 from "Mike with the Yellow Pages."

Me: "Hello?"
"Mike": "Hello?"
Me: "Who is calling?"
"Mike": "Is this Katherine Falk?"
Me: "May I ask who is calling?"
"Mike": "Uh, this is Mike with the Yellow Pages."
Me: "Can you please put me on your do-not-call list?"
"Mike": "No thanks!" (Hangs up.)

WTF?!!? And the number was blocked on Caller ID, too. Great.

Listening to La Grosse Radio, I heard track, a catchy little ditty by somebody named MoOt. Lyrically, it seems to detail the cab ride from hell, but the cheerful Beatles-ish music makes it sound fun...

We recently acquired a Chumby in our household. So far, I'm quite fond of it, and the small child clamors to look at pictures of doggies on its screen every morning.

I was especially taken with the attractive and quirky graphics it features in its interface and the introductory video. Turns out the creator of said graphics, Susan Kare, also designed the graphics for the first Mac OS. She is interviewed here.

You know that ClearPass system, the one that lets you pay $100 a year to be prescreened so you can go through security more quickly? Well, apparently, if you have one of those sexy little clear blue cards, your data is stored in unencrypted format. Which became known when a computer with more than 30,000 people's data stored in it was stolen from a locked office at SFO.

So NOW the private company responsible has stopped taking new signups until they start using encryption. Gee, thanks guys!

Animal rights nutcases zig for great justice. Because it's OK to risk killing children to save laboratory animals..

I've written about this before. Not much to add, really...

I have this small plastic easel from somewhere— can't remember where — and decided it would make a useful iPhone stand. Add two rubber bands, and hey presto!