The Little Things

In this hustle and bustle world of ours it sometimes feels that only the “big” things count. For myself, as well as many others, the big thing we want to accomplish is affordable health care for everyone. I know I am doing what I can as one person to push the idea. I am onto my congressmen and probably boring my friends and colleagues to tears urging them to try and get health care reform accomplished. There are times though when you need to step back and take a breather and look around you. We focus so much on the big things that we fail to see that there are other things that still need to be done.

Where I live we have a lot of squirrels. My Mom’s cat Pixie loves to watch the squirrels play. She will race from window to window trying to keep track of them as they run outside from tree to tree in our yard. My Mom has a statue of St. Francis in the front yard and the squirrels know that she will put bread and cookies and other food out for them. The statue happens to be in front of the dining room window that Pixie loves looking out of the most. Feeding the squirrels and the birds may be a small thing but it is important in the fact that it shows a love for animals and helps them in their daily lives in finding food. The statue is their place to go for free food and safety as it is away from the street.

Little things can mean a lot. I have a nasty respiratory infection and didn’t feel like going out yesterday. My mother is sick again with a bad sinus infection. I knew she would sleep most of the day and I tried to make sure the house was as quiet as possible. I had Pixie with me most of the day. I knew I couldn’t help make Mom feel better, only rest and the antibiotic kicking in would do that, but I also knew I could do something that only I could do to bring a smile to her face. I am a graphic artist and I recently acquired a nice 3D model for a squirrel. I already had a nice one for a cat that I could do a black short hair with gold eyes to stand in for Pixie. A collar and her little white spot could be added. I did Mom a picture of Pixie and her squirrels. This time the Pixster actually got to be outside with them.

The picture was a small thing requiring a couple of hours of work. It is not going to change the world. It did make an 83 year old woman who felt lousy smile. Sometimes we need to pull back for just a bit in fighting the big battles to take care of the little things.

The Road Less Taken

“A work of art is the unique result of a unique talent.” Oscar Wilde

Lately at work I’ve been getting some “light-hearted” flack about my age. I was born in 1948, do the math I’m not making it easy for you on a Saturday morning. ;-) I am the oldest in the office except for one person. Kathy is our person in charge of trying to guide people through the ever complicated and unfriendly skies of getting Medicaid and financial help. The next closest in age in probably my friend Suzette. She is one of the hardest workers in the office. In a supreme irony we are the only ones in the office to know the tornado that is hitting our office come Monday morning.

When many people think of the older generation they think of the stereotypes of the inflexible set in their ultra conservative ways who knew life was better in the old days before government or uppity foreigners or women or gays or take your pick of boogie men tried to destroy this great country of ours. The people who rail against the perceived storms and who are in reality frightened of change.

I laugh at the ladies as work who are really only less then 10 years younger then I am because I know what I have accomplished in my life. I can look at my life and know that I have loved and been loved. I can look back at the young people I worked with who have grown up to get involved and work to make life a better place not only for themselves but for others. I have learned my strength and weaknesses. I have worked to use my strengths wisely and tried to improve on areas where I am weak.

All three of us “senior citizens” at work have some things in common. We all love animals. We hurt when we lose a pet. We share pictures of our cats and dogs. We don’t care if the non animal lovers roll their eyes up at the ceiling when we talk about our pets latest escapades. We know that you can tell a lot about the real person by observing how thy feel and act towards animals.

Suzette and I share a love of science fiction, a genre that most of the office feels is silly. The rest of the office however feels that good television is the “reality” shows. I don’t care who won American Idol or who the biggest loser was or who was thrown out of the Big Brother house. I would prefer to watch the Stargate team trying to figure out how to defeat the Ori. I was glued to my set during the five night Torchwood mini series “Children of Earth.” In both of those shows there were serious questions about real life that reality shows don’t touch. In Stargate the fanaticism of the Ori pushing their religion as the only way and you must believe and follow them or perish resonates in our own world with religions refusing to tolerate and live with other religions. “Children on Earth” dealt with the politics of giving in to the demands of the strong and the profiling and the way that many in power regard others who are “not like us.” It showed in full horror that what is disposable in society are its people.

Suzette was the one in the office with whom I shared my John Barrowman CDs. She is chuckling her way through his outrageous autobiography. I knew she would be interested in his works because of the science fiction connection to Doctor Who and Torchwood. She is also one of the few people in the office who wouldn’t condemn him because he is gay.

In age for all three of us ladies is a continued work ethic. We are the late shift and our boss knows that we are actually there working. We aren’t on the phone or the internet or gossiping. We work. We do the jobs we are being paid to do. We are the ones who know that Monday morning our boss is moving to another position. The new manager is the new girl on the block who saw through the pettiness and childishness in the office from the start. She came to us through Clarion Health Care and the hospital announced the other day that we are now in an agreement with them. The day of the free ride is over.

Looking back at my life what do I see? I learned I could survive an abusive marriage and I had strength I never knew I had. I learned I could help my niece out of her abusive marriage and into a loving a stable relationship because I told her she had to give herself permission to love again. I can look back at the science fiction conventions I ran for charity. I know there are people literally alive today because we bought a Resusci Annie doll for our local Red Cross. I know that there are babies with AIDS whose dying has been spent in loving care because of the money we donated to Starcross Community. I know when arthritis made it impossible for me to do the kind of artwork I always had done that I could turn to the computer and I have the art awards that show others love my art work. I can look back at my poems and short stories that have been published in papers and on the internet. I have photos of my own Princess Bride, my niece in the dress I designed and made for her for her wedding day. I see the love and gratitude in my mother’s eyes daily that she doesn’t have to spend the end of her days alone. She knows that I will be there for her to help her in any way I can. Most of all I have learned compassion. The three of us at the upper age range in our office are the ones who care the most about others. We have found a personal happiness in being able to help those less fortunate then ourselves. In walking away from the pettiness that is the norm where I work come Monday morning Kathy, Suzette and I will be able to smile and go with the flow. We may be goofy about our animals. We may like silly science fiction and chuckle at one of its outrageous stars. But with even a little decade separating us from most of the others we have found a serenity that they are missing. I made a conscious decision at the beginning of my life to take the road less taken. It has taken me to some very strange and wonderful places. It is a road that has been punctuated with activism because I am determined to leave the world a better place. It hasn’t been an easy road but damn I have had fun along the way.

Please Excue Mom

Dear Death Panel:

Please excuse Mom from appearing in front of you for determination. She is just so busy right now. Look I know she is 83 and in bad health but she has a lot of things on her to do list. Right now all of the carpets haven’t been cleaned three times apiece although she is giving them a good go. That happens when you let her go out and buy a new rug shampooer. Also she replaced her old washer and dryer with fancy new ones and is in the process of washing every thing in sight. And she wonders why Merlin is hiding under the bed until I get home from work to protect him. He doesn’t want a bath that bad. Mom also needs to get all her paperwork together and on Quicken. You know how long it takes to get an elderly person to figure out these new fangled machines. Her dinosaur still has Windows 3.5 and we can’t upgrade because she doesn’t like the newer stuff. She is also still trying to find all of the things that have gone missing over the last 30 years in the house. This place has at least 9,000 cupboards, cabinets, hidey-holes, basements with multiple rooms, attic, and who knows what else where these things could have been placed for safe storage. I think Mom should be done in about 30 years if you want to check back.

Thanks,
Her Only Daughter

PS: Pixie says she needs Mom to do the most important job of all and provide quality lap time in increments of 30 minutes to 3 hours at her bidding. You are well aware of course that the “kitty rules” out way your silly meetings aren’t you?

The Insurance Pledge

We have all heard the phrase “put your money where your mouth is.” In spite of the polls to the contrary their are politicians and political commentators saying that we don’t need or want medical insurance reform. It is time for them to put their money where their mouths are. If they truly believe that then they need to take “The Insurance Pledge.”

The Insurance Pledge

I (insert name) believe that insurance reform is not needed and the government needs to keep out of health insurance. To prove that I believe this I have instructed the government to drop the (choose all options that apply to your situation) a. Government Health Insurance I receive as a member of the Senate/House/Branch of Government b. Medicare c. Social Security d. Tricare or other Government subsidized Health Insurance for myself, my spouse or significant other, my ex spouses whom I am mandated by law to pay for, my children, grandchildren, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, nieces, nephews and their assorted spouse and significant others. As a result I will be turning over to the government the sum of (check your annual Social Security entitlement form, the monthly Medicare deposits, the premium amount you would pay for health insurance or Tricare etc.) To prove that anyone can get insurance here is my certificate of insurance for all of the above named persons with (name of company) for the monthly amount of (show the exact amount your are paying) that I am paying for by (show method of payment i.e. checking, savings, yearly check, name of lobbyist paying for the insurance and whom he works for.)

If they truly believe that we don’t need health insurance reform make them prove it. They have to put their money where their mouths are. Put up or shut time folks. The above needs to be signed, witnessed, and presented in long form with a raised seal.

Peeking Through the Rain

Nature likes to show you that it is the boss. You can control a lot of things but weather control still comes under the heading of science fiction. Yesterday’s storms were really bad in our area with lots of trees down. We were fortunate in our town but ten miles away wasn’t so lucky. Enjoy the pictures of the flowers as the real things are a bit soggy at the moment and will continue to get wet for the rest of the week.

Winning the Health Care Arguement

My older brother is an extreme conservative Republican and I deal with his politics on a daily basis. I am thrilled to have a week’s respite while he is on vacation to visit his daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren. It is all the more delicious knowing that his only child and her husband are staunch Obama supporters and that their state (North Carolina) went blue this election. No Faux News for a week whoo-hoo!

What makes the trip even more delicious is winning the war over health care right before he left. My brother started by saying that something has to be done about health care and then before he could go on I just jumped in. I got him on the lady who had seven heart attacks but couldn’t get a heart monitor because Medicaid wouldn’t cover it. That took out argument number one that the States are doing okay and can handle the increase in health insurance recipients.

He works registration at the local hospital and knows that the numbers of unemployed and people who have lost their insurance are rising. That point he had to agree with me on but before he could go on I hit him with argument number two the number of insurances that drop patients for “preexisting” and life threatening illnesses. I see that all the time in the Business Office. I then hit him with one of my biggest arguments that neither his mother nor I could get insurance if she wasn’t on Medicare and if I wasn’t getting it through the hospital where we work. He had to admit that he couldn’t get insurance on his own when he tried because he had been in one auto accident years ago and the medical insurance companies were holding it against him.

He then tried the “how do you like our current insurance” angle and I told him it was doing okay so far but under the government program we could keep it if we wanted but I bet they wouldn’t be as picky about what medicines they would cover if they had government competition. Considering that they won’t cover the stronger Ambien that he needs to stay asleep but only the weaker one cuts out an argument there.

My biggest success was a preemptive strike when I said it was stupid to argue against a government run program when the most successful programs out there are Medicare and Tricare. Mom is on Medicare and they pay for most of her services and he is on Tricare that picks up what his regular insurance doesn’t. He couldn’t argue with either one. By that time he ran out of steam and I was able to wish him a nice trip and retired to my computer with a smile on my face.

The Unsung Heroes of Iwo Jima

“Were it not for the Navahos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima,” Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division

It was from my father, who served in the Pacific during World War II, that I originally heard of the Navaho Code Talkers. While Pat Buchanan tries to claim it was only white men who won the war the truth is that many people, men and women, from all walks of life and of all races, were responsible for the success in both the European and Pacific fronts. As a small child I lived in New Mexico and that started my fascination with the Navaho people. This is the story of the brave men who risked their lives to help us win in the Pacific.

One of the biggest problems for the U.S. Armed Forces in the Pacific was communications. Japanese cryptographers were breaking our codes as fast as we could come up with them. Many of the Japanese code breakers had been educated in the United States and were familiar with American colloquialisms, slang terms and even profanity. This resulted in American battle plans being known to the enemy sometimes before they were even operational. We needed a code that could not be broken.

In spite of their treatment by the white man, the Navahos took an active part in World War I and World War II. In World War II 3,600 Navahos fought for their country. This represented one of the highest population of any ethnicity in the U.S. military. Most of the Navahos fought in the battlefields with ordinary soldiers. Over 10,000 Navahos worked in military factories during the war. 375 to 420 Navahos, however, worked as Code Talkers.

Philip Johnston was the son of Protestant missionaries and grew up on the Navaho Reservation and lived among the Navahos for 24 years. He was one of the few non-Navahos who spoke the language fluently. Johnston was a World War I veteran and knew that in that war that Native American languages, notably Choctaw, had been used in codes. He figured that the Navaho language was perfect for an unbreakable code since it was an unwritten language and included a number of words that, when spoken with varying inflections, may have as many as four different meanings and its verb forms are particularly complex. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, makes it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training. With no alphabet or written form available for others to study it was a language that could only be understood by another Navaho. It has been estimated that only 30 non-Navahos could understand the language at the outbreak of World War II and none of those 30 were Japanese.

Philip Johnston, with the aid of four Navahos residing in the Los Angeles area and another who was already on active duty in Naval service in San Diego presented a demonstration to Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet and his staff. In simulated combat situations the Navahos demonstrated that they could encode, transmit, and decode three-line English messages in 20 seconds. The encoding machines in use at that time needed 30 minutes to perform the same tasks.

In May 1942, the first 29 recruits attended boot camp in Camp Pendelton in Oceanside, California. It was this first group that developed the code and a dictionary and numerous words for military terms. The initial code consisted of translations for 211 English words most common in military conversations. An additional 200 words were added making a total of 411 terms that needed to be memorized. The code was never written down and was always only spoken. Chester Nez was one of the original code talkers. He said, “Everything we used in code was what we lived with on the reservation every day, like the ants, the birds, bears. Thus the term for a tank was turtle, a tank destroyer was tortoise killer. A battleship was whale. A hand grenade was potato and plain old bombs were eggs. A fighter plane was hummingbird, and a torpedo plane swallow. A sniper was pick em off. Pyrotechnic was fancy fire.”

The Navajo Code Talkers took part in Guaalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jimo. They took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units during the war. They had to prove their worth but once they did it became obvious that we would need them to win the war. The Navahos had an additional problem because many of the young recruits had trouble with thinking that the Navahos were Japanese. It was at Iwo Jima that any doubts anyone had about the Navahos were laid to rest. The six men attached to that Marine Division worked around the clock during the first two days of the battle and sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.

The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to crack the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps they were never able to break the Navaho used by the Marines. These were truly valuable people.

So what did these heroes have to look forward to? They weren’t given the right to vote in Arizona until 1948, in New Mexico until 1953, and in Utah until 1957. The world didn’t even know about them until 1968. Many feel that a factor in this was the fact that while the Code Talkers were risking their lives during the Second World War at home their children were being punished for speaking their native language. Finally however in December 1981 they were awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the President of the United States. The Navaho Code Talkers were the unspoken heroes of Iwo Jima and World War II.