Eating Lunch

     I had a turkey club, but it could have been a BLT or even egg salad which is what came to mind as the corner of the sandwich first touched my tongue and my teeth and I breathed in the smell of white toast.  (I'm particularly fond of egg salad but rarely order it, preferring the way my mother made it, the way I make it.)  Then there was the lettuce and the mayonnaise and I was in a small diner, Main street Hackensack (NJ), with my mother.  We had just come from the allergist, Dr. Berkow, a short, square, hairy man who had given me a couple of shots and who explained to my mother the sources of allergies and asthma talking to her like she was a child, maybe because he was a doctor and she was not, or maybe because he was a man and she was not, or maybe both.  And my mother looked at him in the way (I had seen this before) that let the speaker know that she was letting him go on with his nonsense, that she knew the source and cause but she wouldn't bother to tell him because he wouldn't get it anyway.  It wasn't hostile, it just wasn't worth her while.
     So there we were, sharing silence, (we are not big on talking, especially when eating, we are, both of us, quite fond of food), when my heart shook, hit with a wave of what felt like love coming from my mother, more like a sea swell really, slow and strong, and warm.  I looked at my mother who was not looking at me but was holding her sandwich in both hands and staring off somewhere in thought, looking angry as she always did when thinking, but she wasn't angry, that was just her face.  If you didn't know her you'd think her's was a cold, hard love but that wasn't the case it just seemed that way because the heat of her heart was held in check by a will of steel, tempered in the fires of suffering, hammered by pain.  She was less given to loving looks than actions: we had ridden the bus to the doctor together and now we were sharing a meal, she cared for me and it made me want to cry, but I didn't.  After all, to the rest of the world I appeared to be at my desk at work and if I were to cry there it would prompt questions the answers to which would prompt more and I would find myself explaining myself when all I really wanted to do was spend some quiet time with Mom.  So I didn't cry then and there, I saved it for later.
     

Psychopaths, CEO's and Boss Christie

     Other than the possibility of supernatural retribution in some dark future it is hard to see a downside to being without a conscience.  The world, especially one dominated by Capitalist economic principles, favors those who simply take what they want, whose focus is primarily, sometimes solely, amassing personal wealth and power.  In this environment compunctions are a handicap, morality a luxury reserved for later in life when one "gives back" by using the money squeezed from the sweat of others to create foundations ostensibly for philanthropy, but really to buy a reputation for humanitarianism which had played no part in their lives.
     But what I really wanted to talk about is Jon Ronson whose latest work, The Psychopath Test, has landed him on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," as well as NPR.  I have neither seen nor heard any of these, and I haven't read the book either, so, armed with this ignorance, I can blissfully disregard Ronson's real purpose and focus on the part that struck me as most curious in the NY Times review and in an interview by Jeff Bercovici for Forbes: the qualities of a psychopath that would contribute to his/her effectiveness as a CEO, namely a lack of empathy, remorse or loving kindness.
     We really ought to question the morality of any system in which these virtues are a handicap but that for another time.  What really strikes me right now is the curious coincidence of some comments made by Mrs. Christie.  She was asked if her husband, Chris, would make a good president.  Of course she said yes but she didn't stop there she also added, unbidden, that he would make a very good CEO and it seemed to me that she preferred that course which is not surprising as her world is the world of Wall Street.
     Now I have never met Boss Christie and he may be a very different person in private but his public persona is that of a bully, uncompromising, vocally aggressive, and certain that those who oppose him are not only wrong but stupid.  His wife, who does know him privately, thinks he would be a good CEO.  He does seem a good candidate, having demonstrated a marked absence of empathy, remorse, or loving kindness, and maybe someday he will take his abilities into that arena but for now he is our Governor here in New Jersey.
     I know it is Quixotic to believe that public servants should actually serve the public and not just themselves but I believe it nonetheless.  For the most part our elected officials have put up something of a good front, appearing to care, and sometimes I believe they even do.  Boss Christie doesn't even bother to pretend.  Shouldn't we be fearful?

Postscript:  After writing this I read that Christie was saddened by the death of Clarence Cleamons, I wondered is this empathy?  But no, his reason was, "I was struck with the overwhelming feeling that the days of my youth were now finally over."  Yes, it's all about you isn't it Boss Christie?
    

Headline: Hiking Naked in Germany

     So I clicked on it.  I did not consciously imagine that I would see large, trim German women striding by a sylvan stream, or maybe I did, I can't remember, but of course that is not what I saw.  I should have known better.  No, what appeared on the screen was a vision of three old men dressed only in sneakers.  Spindly legs, no asses, and stomachs that were large enough to provide some measure of modesty, hiding their otherwise uncovered unders. 
     It occurred to me that it had to be men.  Women whose bodies had arrived at a similar state through the ravages of time and gastronomical abuse would never parade the spectacle of their ruin for all to see.  Their sense of their physical appearance is either realistic or skewed to the negative, so they are prone to conceal, not so with men.
     Somehow men are able to believe they are seventeen, so these three gentlemen could gambol about the hiking trail like fawns in the fauna.  They are nature boys, fresh and vital, and their nakedness a blessing on the natural world.
     I have never gone hiking naked in the woods and I likely never will, but I am often of a similar mind. 
     My father, in his seventies, would say he had played or would be playing golf with the old guys, though they were likely younger than he.  And he meant it, others grew old but he did not, it was a gift.
     I too have the gift, not always, but often, and I believe most men have it too.  We can ignore the popped buttons on the waistband above the fly, we rarely actually see ourselves in mirrors, we move through the universe like sleek and agile cats until irrefutable evidence to the contrary momentarily shakes the illusion.
     I think this is a good thing and women should join us in this happy illusion, but we ought to keep our clothes on in public.
     
     

It's not about the money

     The Christie, Sweeney, Norcross pension deal is another salvo in the war on the freedom and rights of the American middle class.  They are exploiting the financial meltdown of the pension system caused by underfunding and a collapse of the economic house of cards built by Wall Street to attack worker's rights.  They say the system needs fixing but when all interested parties agreed to serious discussions they launched a preemptive strike because it's not about the money, it's about eliminating collective bargaining rights.  It rankles Christie that these uppity wage slaves have the nerve to fight for a better life for themselves and their family, so he is doing something about it.  Christie is a cunning political operative, he knows what to grease and when to grease it, he knows how to play on the basest instincts of the people he is supposed to serve, to play one group against another, to inspire envy, to make greed a virtue.  A check of his record makes his motives and modus operandi clear.  Those he finds useful profit and the people pay the bill.  Take a look at who stands to benefit from the sale of the networks.  Why would we want a man who has intimate connections to a Newark political power broker controlling our news?  But I digress.  

     The point is simple: the man believes in power, he makes no bones about that and it is why many people like him.  We want to believe that there is a hero who can save the day, witness the explosion of movies inspired by Marvel Comics, but it doesn't work like that in the real world.  Fans of Obama have seen that even he cannot leap tall building in a single bound, but that for another day.  Chris Christie knows the corruption of New Jersey politics, he is an insider with intimate knowledge of how things get done and he is getting it done.

     Will we in New Jersey let Boss Christie strip away worker's rights or will we stand up to the bully.  I'm hoping it's the latter, better to be bloodied than to be bled dry.