Hello, again!

Hello, again! After an extended (now that's an understatement) absence, I'm back. No promises, no statements of intent. I'm thinking about things and writing helps me to clarify my thinking so I'll give it another try.

I'm thinking about kicking the politics habit entirely. I've been a political junkie my whole life and particularly in the last two years. I was very optimistic at the beginning of 2009. Suffice it to say that I am now deeply pessimistic about the possibility of any real change in this country that I love. I believe the huge, multinational corporations are now very close to complete control of the economy and the government. The Supreme Court's 5 - 4 decision granting corporations the total freedom to spend whatever amount they'd like on campaigns and candidates guarantees special interest domination of elections. Both parties will jump further into bed with the corporatists. The Democrats will do so with some guilt and prattle about the need to be bipartisan. The Republicans will do so without any guilt whatsoever and will prattle about the triumph of the free market and the virtues of free speech. The result will be that corporations, including foreign owned or dominated ones, will have a totally free hand to dominate our electoral process.

Given that reality, I'm much too old to be tilting at windmills. My time may be spent more productively being of service in other ways and, frankly, enjoying my life more by cultivating mind, body, and spirit.

At least, that's what I'm thinking today!

OK, Already

Okay, Already. No promises about discipline or frequency of blogging! Been busy with the usual things and have gotten myself involved in our local campaign for barack Obama. www.mohawkvalleyforobama.com. Work has been a drag. I'm trying to read more and rest more. Stuff around the house, etc. Golf now and then. Life its own self! So, no attention to this blog for two months. I'm not going to try and be ambitious or write long pieces as I have in the past. Just whatever pops into my head on any given day. 

Today, I'm thinking about Jon Katz, a wonderful writer whose blog I depend on to brighten my day. Jon lives and works Bedlam Farms in upstate NY and is a bear of a guy with enormous energy, multiple interests, and a great love for animals, especially dogs. Check him out! www.bedlamfarms.com.

Dis-Inviting the Disabled

Had to go to downtown Albany this week for work. Interesting thing about Albany: the capital city of one of the most progressive states in the union basically invites anyone with a disability to stay the hell away. My meeting was in the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building directly across from the Capitol. The parking situation downtown is terrible for everyone. There are just not enough garages, lots, or spaces for all the bureaucrats and those doing business with them. State workers, business people, and local residents all complain, and they’re right. It is more difficult to find a parking space in downtown Albany than it is in Manhattan.

What is for most people difficult and daunting can be overwhelming or impossible for someone with a disability. Most of the time I walk with a cane, gimping around with a bad back and knees derived from poor genes and bad habits. As these things go, I don’t have much of a disability nor much to complain about but under the right circumstances, even my minor disability can be handicapping. Negotiating the Empire State Plaza is such a circumstance. There were some disability parking spaces in front of the Smith building but they were time restricted and I did not want to have to leave my meeting several times during the day, negotiating security each time to get back in the building after feeding the meter, presuming I could locate enough quarters. I knew enough to get to Albany early and, after some frustration, happened upon a lot that wasn’t full. The lot had no handicapped spaces so I found myself at its back, with an uphill walk of perhaps ½ to ¾ of a mile on a cold and windy morning. The lot and road surfaces were uneven and pot-holed from the winter’s wear and there were small mounds of snow and ice on the sidewalks, necessitating greater caution than usual to avoid ending up on my ass in Albany. As I approached the Smith Building, stiff and hurting, I saw that the entrances were not easily handicapped accessible – no ramps, and steps that were for whatever reason higher than usual. I know this because I tripped on one and looked at it to see if the cause was the step or my clumsiness.

As I entered the building I thought about the people I know with significant disabilities, most with much more limited mobility than I, some in wheelchairs. What was for me mainly annoying and irritating could for them become insurmountable. There would simply be no way for them to gain access and conduct their business with or for the State of New York. More than 17 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and equal access is an illusion more than a reality. That is unacceptable

Winter March

When I was a kid, I loved the winter. Couldn’t wait for it to snow so I could build an igloo in our tiny back yard in the housing project, or throw snowballs at the city buses, or rejoice at the rare snow day. I much preferred the cool and the cold to the warm and the hot. Fall and winter were “way better” than spring and summer.

Even as an adult, well into my thirties, I liked the winter more. There was something about the challenge of the cold and the snow that was invigorating, that somehow emphasized the sharp edges of being alive. The first winter we were in upstate NY was brutal – 24 inches of unexpected snow on Christmas day, the thermometer at our old farmhouse barely registering 0 for the first two weeks of the New Year. Slogging buckets of water out to the barn for our few but definitely hardy animals. It was wonderful. I don’t know that I ever felt more aware of and connected to my environment. Even driving was stimulating, though the 37-mile commute to work got old by March. I was generally much happier in the fall and winter than any other time of the year.

No longer. Over the last 20 years and especially the last few, winter has become a burden to endure rather than a joy to experience. The cold stiffens my arthritic joints and it is painful and sometimes debilitating. Snow is a mess to be moved – and moved – and moved again, not a scene of sheer beauty and exhilaration. The constant gray skies and short days depress the body, mind, and spirit. I dread the coming of winter, despair in the middle of it, and guard against intimations of its end just in case it doesn’t.

My relationship to the month of March has changed. As a child in Connecticut I simply didn’t like the month at all. Its arrival meant winter would soon end, although it always seemed to snow the first day of spring, even if only flurries. Now I experience ambivalence with a negative tilt. The days are definitely longer so that is good. The roads clear of snow much more rapidly so that is a relief. The time until golf begins can be measured in weeks (6 to 8) rather than months, so that is wonderful. Yet I fundamentally don’t trust the month. Some of the worst blizzards in memory occurred in March. The rapid warming is often followed by bitter cold spells, a chilling slap in the face of hope not dared earlier in the season. Experience teaches that although spring is around the corner, the corner is a long way off, no matter what the damned Pennsylvania woodchuck reported on Groundhog Day.