Everyone who is not either ignorant or cynical recognizes that private health insurance must go, and be replaced by a publicly financed single-payer system such as those that exist in virtually every civilized democracy on the planet. Once again I picked up my quill and penned another missive to my Congressman and I urge you to do the same without delay.
Dear Congressman:
I write to urge you to co-sponsor and support HR 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All bill re-introduced by John Conyers.
Everyone knows Obama’s healthcare “reform” is coming unravelled, as was to be expected. Based on the thoroughly dysfunctional private insurance system we now have, it was doomed to fail from the start. Many people — not only the right — rightly detest the individual mandate because it compels the purchase of a defective product. It is truly a dreadful idea, and yet the Obama legislation can never be even minimally effective without it.
Meanwhile we have the likes of Scott Walker and Chris Christie doing their best to destroy the public sector, as if firefighters and librarians were to blame for the budget crises many states are suffering. One of the recurring themes in these confrontations is the cost of healthcare. How can we take this contentious healthcare issue off the table and save our society billions of dollars, while achieving superior public health outcomes at the same time?
The solution could hardly be more obvious. We have been needing a single-payer, national health insurance plan for decades, but the need has never been more desperate than it is today. Single payer has been proven to work in other countries and it will work here. The time has come to discard Obama’s ill-conceived, private-insurance-based debacle and start over. Healthcare is a human right, not a commodity. The struggle will not be easy, but that is no excuse not to do the only morally and economically sound thing: single payer, Medicare for All. One publicly financed national health insurance plan for everybody.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.
2010, another good year
It’s interesting — and sometimes, gratifying — to look back at the previous year after the completion of another cycle through the Gregorian calendar. And I enjoy the narcissistic satisfaction of celebrating my achievements. So here’s a look at noteworthy events in 2010, from my self-centered point of view:
- I got married to my wife on May…. something (no worries, I have until May 2011 to remind myself of the exact date). That was a courageous act for both of us. Yet I can state in all honesty that I have no regrets — and I do believe she can say the same. If you think that should go without saying, think again. The hard truth is that all intimate relationships have their difficulties, and why shouldn’t they? People are imperfect. How could their relationships with one another be otherwise? In a recent conversation with my beloved wife, we concluded that a good marriage is in a sense comparable to raising children: it makes your life harder, but better. (Whereas a shitty marriage simply makes your life harder.)
Don’t feel bad if you weren’t invited to the ceremony — almost nobody was. We had the obligatory two witnesses, an officiant, one witness’ spouse as photographer, and our kids. We stood barefooted in our back yard and the whole thing was over within three minutes.
- I let go of my formal Zen practice for the time being, withdrawing from the zendo at which I had been a student for three plus years. The reasons are somewhat complex. Suffice it to say was time to move on. I might have liked to join some other zendo, be part of a sangha, work with a teacher. But I had to accept the fact that I while I may have a pretty good shot at doing most of what I want to do sequentially, I can’t have everything I want all at the same time because there simply isn’t enough time. Raising kids, having a substantial commute, being married, and maintaining a committed running practice — that’s about all I can handle. I sit as much as I can when I can, generally at least 15 minutes every day save a very few days per year. I sit longer when I can.
- Speaking of running, I ran no marathon in 2010, but nailed personal records in shorter distances, such as
- a 10K race in March that I jumped into spontaneously — i.e., without training for it explicitly — and surprised myself with a 6:55/mile pace, 5th in my 50-54 age group. I didn’t think I could run it at a sub- 7:00/mile pace; my previous best had been 7:18. This meant it was time to raise the bar.
- the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May, where I was aiming for a 7:25 pace and ran at a 7:22 average pace. That was good for 17th of 169 in my age group, which might not sound stellar except that this popular race draws a pretty strong field. Not the least satisfying aspect was that it felt like I was pressing to maintain a quality pace the whole way and was actually concentrating on what I was doing for almost the entire 1:36:35. I probably could have done better if I had trained with a coach and run more strategically — but rare is the race in which you cannot say you might have done better if this or that.
- a 5K race in August on Martha’s Vineyard with over 1500 runners, at which your servant finished 5th in his age group at a 6:39/mile pace. Not two weeks before I had run another 5K in hot and humid conditions and had gone out too fast, finishing at a 6:52 pace — which happened to be good enough for 2nd in my age group, but I went out too fast and struggled later. This one was pleasing because I kept up a reasonably even pace the whole way and did better. My wife also ran it just for the pleasure of running.
- a five mile New York Road Runners race in November, an event in Central Park with over 2000 runners. My 6:46 pace was good for 4th place in my age group. It’s exciting to come this close to actually being given some sort of award.
This bragging may be unseemly. All the ass-kicking runners I know around town are genuinely modest. But I am still getting over my astonishment at the sudden and unexpected gift of being able to run this well, because I never knew what it was to attach a timing chip to a shoe, pin a number to my shirt, and run seriously until three years ago. I am a kid who is thrilled with his cool new toy.
- We acquired two more cats.
- Our daughter Mylie got two guinea pigs whom she named Calvin and Hobbes.
- Speaking of kids, all four of ours got a year older, got bigger, moved up a grade in school, kept on inhaling and exhaling, kept us on our toes — and for this we are boundlessly grateful.
U.S. politics as professional wrestling
One time many years ago I bought a T-shirt that depicted a donkey and an elephant doing battle inside a wrestling ring in typical pro wrestling style: extravagant, flamboyant, over the top. The caption read something like “US Government Wrestling Federation: It’s All Fake.”
Sagacious commentators like Gore Vidal and many others have been telling us for years that our political system is dominated by a duopoly which is really two wings of one Business Party, one of them slightly more moderate than the other, but both fundamentally subservient to the oligarchy. I think you would have to be either seriously deluded or disingenuous to disagree.
During the fake health care reform debate of 2009, Anthony Weiner remarked that Democrats show up at a knife fight carrying library books. And traditional, gullible liberals often lament that their leaders aren’t mean and ruthless enough to go up against the evil Republican opposition. I think Anthony’s remark is profoundly insightful, perhaps even more so than he intended. Assume it’s true: Obama carries an armload of library books as he goes up against his vicious knife-wielding foes. Why? Why on earth would you do such a thing… unless… he doesn’t really mean to win. Oh dear me, it’s all fake!
I am reminded of the pro wrestling analogy as I watch the Obama administration pretend to care about the interests of ordinary people.
Here he comes, approaching the ring: Barack “Mister Main Street” Obama, wearing his coveralls and hardhat, carrying his lunch pail. He is lucky enough to be employed, it seems. Before entering the ring he punches his timecard on a clock installed outside his corner by the promoters, and the crowd goes wild — their hero, a working man!
And now, here comes The Republican, in full evening wear. Cigar in hand, pocket watch on a gold chain, he steps into the ring, removes his top hat and hands it to his valet. Mostly jeers and boos come from the crowd but you can hear he has his supporters as well: those who like to imagine that their own interests coincide with those of The Republican. Now he pulls out a wad of cash and starts counting, driving his enemies in the crowd into a screaming rage. He jeers at the rabble, finally hands his cigar to his valet and gets ready to rumble.
The action begins, the Republican and Mister Main Street pound the shit out of each other for several minutes. Oh, the drama! Oh, the entertainment! How diverting! Finally the Republican beats Main Street senseless and wins the match once again. Tax cuts for the rich, billions for criminal wars of imperialist expansion, austerity for the rest of us.
open letter to Congressman Pascrell
I urge you to oppose Obama’s freeze on federal pay. According to press reports, this measure would save a mere $5 billion over 2 years. Meanwhile, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are still on the table, and reportedly would cost $700 billion over 10 years. And the cost of our criminal misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan is of course obscene in terms of both blood and treasure. Clearly, Obama’s gesture is no more than symbolic in terms of deficit reduction. But it is a good deal more than symbolic for federal employees who were expecting a paltry but nevertheless welcome cost of living adjustment of 1.4%.
I speak from self-interest, as a federal employee. I will feel the impact, but am fortunate to be relatively well paid and will more than likely be able to suck it up. But the same cannot be said for countless workers whose wages are low. There are federal workers who push mops, clean toilets and do their best to get buy. I exhort you in the strongest terms to stand up for all of us federal employees and not let Obama throw us under the bus for the sake of this cheap and cowardly gesture of submission to the deficit hawks of the right.
South Mountain, November 2010
we run before dawn
two pairs of feet trotting along
dark silent streets,
then up the mountain.
a few feet off the road
three deer
foraging in the woods
silhouetted in the dim cold
they look up for a moment
then ignore us
as we continue down the road
the horizon now swelling pink
through the bare trees.
Lily and Jack join the crew
Click the thumbnail images to see larger versions.
We are proud to announce the addition of Jack and Lily to our distinguished roster of felines. The hero who rescued this pair from the street was advertising them on Facebook, and people were expressing interest in adopting one but not both. Amy was appalled at the idea of splitting up this pair, and had been sort of interested in acquiring kittens anyway. We already had the incomparably magnificent Vernon T. Bludgeon and Master Lin-chi on our payroll, and knew there was a risk that the introduction of kittens into their world would be disastrous. Anecdotal evidence suggests that sometimes it works — eventually — and everyone gets along; sometimes it results in a fragile truce with intermittent hostility; and sometimes there is relentless, evil persecution of one cat at the hands of others, and the stress ends up shortening the lifespan of the unlucky one. But — what the fuck! We went for it.
As we expected, the big cats were not amused when we brought in the little ones in late October. We kept Jack and Lily in protective custody in our bedroom. Vernon went nuts and started redirecting his aggression towards Lin-chi. They had several truly nasty fights and for a while we were running a cat prison with the kittens, Vernon, Lin-chi and all separated. The drama between the latter two provided an insight into their relationship, for those who hitherto had been too dense to see: Vernon is the alpha cat. Lin-chi has always been bigger by a factor of 1.5, and when they were kittens he would kick Vernon’s ass from one end of my Jersey City apartment to the other. As they grew, Vernon became the one who always initiated the mixed martial arts matches. Vernon doesn’t give a shit about Lin-chi’s size advantage. Lin-chi usually lies on the floor and plays defense while Vernon keeps attacking until finally the Master gets up and retreats. I realized that in these play-fights Vernon is establishing who is boss by driving Lin-chi away from wherever he is hanging out. When the kittens encroached on Vernon’s scene, he flipped, and since he couldn’t take it out on the intruders, he went after Lin-chi instead. I came to appreciate that when I named Vernon after the Vernon of vernontbludgeon.com, it was not just in honor of Vernon; it was prescient.
Lily is shy, and hid under the bed for most of the first couple of weeks. Jack is the polar opposite: extroverted, fearless, feisty. To our great relief, Vernon’s aggression towards Lin-chi fell away as both kittens started coming out and exploring the house. At first Vernon, being Vernon, would routinely attack and harrass the kittens. But little Jack, the kitten with balls of steel, thought it was a joke. 
Undaunted, he started coming right out and playing with toys in front of the big cats, who would watch as though dumbfounded by his chutzpah. Soon he was walking right up to Vernon, getting in his face and fucking with him — with none other than Vernon himself! Now they practice kicking, striking, biting and grappling with each other every day, and though he may say otherwise — growling and snarling as he does — Vernon is loving having a fresh young opponent to spar with. And they have begun to rule the dining room table together like it’s no big deal.
Lily is still timid, but she too is gradually establishing her presence. Her brother Jack is extraordinarily 
affectionate, playful and vocal — and quite a pain in the ass when he insists on climbing onto your sleeping form several times a night, getting right up in your face and exclaiming ack! ack! Minor nuisance notwithstanding, we are thoroughly delighted to have four stupendous cats populating our household.
Back pain, bane of human existence
I wrenched the holy fuck out of my lower back while getting into the car to drive my daughter to school last Friday morning. That simple act seems to have triggered it, but an accumulation of insults must have contributed. I had never had a back experience quite so bad in my 50-plus years. I could barely walk, and had to miss a couple days of work. I could not dress myself without assistance, and was only just able to maintain that essential, minimal autonomy and independence: lower myself onto the toilet to take a shit, and wipe my own ass.
The back is hard to ignore, being right in the center of the body, the hub of everything: arms, legs, head. For the first day or two or three, I tried to be tough. Pain? Fuck pain, I can deal with it. But after about four or five days of it, when you are stiffly shuffling around in your bathrobe, staring out the window at the rain falling from the quiet gray sky… then you understand how a person could get depressed.
I had planned to run a local 5K race Saturday morning, even indulging fantasies of winning my age group. Indeed, the guy who did win it is an acquaintance, and his pace was 2 seconds per mile slower than my last 5K, on August 14. There would have been a dramatic battle to the finish line! (I could have this, I would have that — yeah, so go into a bar and brag about “could have” and see how many people you impress.) Instead, as runners were milling about the starting area, I was struggling just to get from bed to toilet, taking tiny baby steps, gasping and holding the walls for support.
Debilitating injury and pain get to us for any number of compelling reasons, but foremost among them is that such episodes are prefigurations of our eventual, inevitable death. Yeah you heard me: one of these days you are gonna go down and stay down, and your life will end. We should regard these illnesses and pains of our decaying bodies as opportunities to reflect on impermanence.
And yet there is a hilariously comical element mixed into this mess. A couple of times I burst out laughing at my predicament, stuck somewhere in the middle of a room, unable to stand still, unable to move forward. The vibrations from the laughter made my back hurt worse, of course, so I laughed all the harder — erasing from my wife’s mind any lingering doubt that I am crazy.
Why I am a de facto semi-vegetarian
The short answer is The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I was already generally aware of the atrocious ways of meat production in the United States: extreme cruelty to animals; adverse impacts on human health and on the environment. But the gory details were sufficient to compell me to decide not to participate any longer. There is no excuse for treating chickens, pigs, and cattle the way large industrial producers do, and I refuse to be complicit in a system of which I so strongly disapprove. Indeed, it would be hypocritical of me to do otherwise.
That doesn’t mean I am a full-blown vegetarian. Homo sapiens is one of those animals that eat other animals in order to survive, and I have no problem with that in principle. If you can serve me a piece of pork that was once a pig who was raised and killed in as humane and environmentally sustainable a way as is reasonably possible, I will happily eat it, mindful of the pig’s sacrifice. A roasted rabbit, who led a natural bunny life hopping around and eating and fucking until dispatched so skillfully that Mr/Ms Bunny never knew what hit her or him? Bring it! But getting that kind of meat requires substantially more expense and effort than does the supermarket kind, and as of yet I haven’t made the effort, so I have gone without eating the flesh of cattle, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and so forth.
Fish is another matter. Figuring out which kinds are harvested in an environmentally responsible fashion also takes some homework, and they have faces, and they probably don’t like suffocating any more than you or I would. But I am content to rationalize that a sardine does not have the cognitive functioning to realize how bad it’s getting fucked before it ends up in a can. Maybe I will eventually change my position. For now, I need protein and don’t want to depend solely on nuts and tofu. So I eat fish with some qualification.
One might say, let’s see you kill and butcher that animal yourself, and then see how you feel — as Michael Pollan did. I would certainly be willing to give it a try some day — killing my own food sounds kind of cool, in fact. But for now I am a creature who lives in the suburbs, works in a city, and going hunting with my crossbow is not really a practical alternative. The idea is certainly not forever foreclosed, but for now I am content to allow someone else to kill my food animals for me.
Opting out of industrial meat has not required any difficult adjustments in my diet, because I was already eating a lot of vegetarian meals, rarely consuming red meat, and increasingly eating fresh and local food. I have had to renounce that Cambodian style noodle soup from a Cantonese place near my office, a delicious concoction made with sliced and ground pork as well as shrimp and egg noodles in broth probably made from ducks who undoubtedly fare no better than the pigs.
As for eggs, we generally buy the most environmentally correct ones available, and willingly pay a premium over the industrial kind (think of it as insurance against salmonella poisoning courtesy of a mass producer in Iowa who churns out millions of eggs a week — you don’t need to be a Slow Food connoisseur to see the problem inherent in production on that scale). But that’s also a tricky game, since what you read on the carton — “cage free,” for example — may be bullshit. But I eat salads from a deli near my workplace, sometimes containing a hard-boiled egg about whose origins I know nothing. I am not a purist; I compromise. When I eat my kids’ left-over pepperoni pizza, I peel off the pepperoni and eat it, unconcerned about the pizza being tainted with pepperoni residue. And maybe — maybe — when Thanksgiving rolls around I will decide to go along with the program and partake of the turkey. We’ll see.
The result of this modest dietary change is that I feel fine both ethically and physically. I like to burn a lot of calories running, and have kept on setting personal record times since quitting the meat. Over time, I suspect our family will be eating still more local and fresh, and adjusting our diet according to the seasons in New Jersey. The rest of the family might even phase out the industrial flesh consumption. For now, this is working well for me.
My happy transition to the Vibram FiveFingers
If you’re a runner, then you’ve undoubtedly heard a great deal of hype about the barefoot/minimalist running movement. Like countless others, I read Born to Run and was intrigued. The prose style is so dreadful that I was tempted to quit, but forced myself to suck it up for the sake of the content.
For context, here’s a quick running résumé. At 52 years of age, I have been running for about 23 years, but only casually for the first 20 — about three times a week, four or five miles at an easy pace. In January 2008 I ran my first half marathon, and loved it so much that I ran a marathon in October 2008 and another in November 2009, the latter fast enough to qualify for Boston. At present I am not formally training for any event, and I run as much as I can in light of my substantial commute, work and family responsibilities — about 120 miles per month.
After seeing some online discussions (at my local running club) about the Vibram FiveFingers miminalist foot-glove, I decided to order a pair. Scouring the web I found that my size was out of stock everywhere. It was clear that the VFF’s Warholian 15 minutes are in full swing. Vibram can’t make the damn things nearly fast enough to meet the demand, and one has to beware of scammers who have popped up selling counterfeit versions. I finally back-ordered some VFF Sprints from an outdoor gear place in Oregon, and they kept moving the shipping date back so that it took a full six months for mine to arrive at my door.
Under the influence of Born to Run, I had decided that rather than replacing my Mizuno Wave Elixir 4s, I would just continue to beat the cushioning out of them. They were pretty well-worn by the time I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May 2010 (in NY Marathon-qualifying time, thank you very much), and had over 500 miles by the time I put them aside.
Put them aside, because I ran out of patience while waiting on my VFFs and got what seemed to be the next best thing that was readily available: the Mizuno Universe 3 racing flat. The things are so light they might as well be made of paper. The soles and heels are scant enough to qualify this shoe as minimal. I took them out for a easy-pace ten-mile spin on day one, and felt only minor soreness in my calves the following day. I adopted these Mizunos as my full-time shoe and perhaps not coincidentally, started running faster. Have I changed my stride? I think so, but I don’t know. I haven’t consciously done anything radical.
At last, three days ago, the VFFs showed up. The first time I put them on it took some doing to get my toes into their individual — whatever you call them, the counterparts of what we call fingers of a glove. But one learns quickly to become more toe-aware, and the VFF is a fascinating new sensation.
Now comes the potentially treacherous part. There are reports of a lot of people getting injured by transitioning too quickly into minimalist footwear, attempting too much too soon. Maybe I should have gone for a mile or two the first time out. But I like to run, so I went for five miles on a treadmill: the first three at an easy pace, the next couple moderately fast, the last .75 fast. It felt fine. I took the next day off, waiting to see if there were any ill effects. Experiencing none, I got on the treadmill again today for a 1-mile warmup followed by a 5-mile hill climb followed by a level half-mile to cool down, all at an easy pace. All good, and I was feeling strong the whole while. I plan on some more treadmill tomorrow, and will make my street debut the day after tomorrow for around 10 miles.
Thus it turns out that I have made a gradual transition into minimalism in three phases: (1) running in a conventional, fairly light shoe until it was beaten to hell; (2) running in racing flats full-time, then finally (3) running in the VFF. I should also mention that I am uncommonly fortunate and not prone to significant running injuries. But for me, this approach to VFF adoption seems to be working beautifully.
South Mountain, May 2010
running
feet and ground
through the damp spring air
infused with honeysuckle