Posted in Politics

Do U.S. Politicians Think “Let Them Eat Cake?”

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

 

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I don’t talk much about politics on this blog because it is such a travesty here before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. When I saw the word cake this morning, I was both amused and horrified. Marie Antoinette, Queen of France before the French Revolution, and wife of King Louis XVI, supposedly said “let them eat cake” when told that the French peasants had no bread to eat. Clearly, that was a slam against her own people because if they could not afford bread, how could they afford cake?

I think of both our Presidential candidates when I hear the “let them eat cake” quote. Donald Trump rails against the fact that the manufacturing sector has failed in America and jobs have been sent overseas. All the while, most of the products made by the companies he owns are made somewhere else……China, Vietnam, Bangledesh, and more. HIllary Clinton rails against the same thing but until recently, she has been for every trade agreement that came along, including the TPP and NAFTA. Both philosophies kill our own manufacturing sector, slide the U.S. Economy into a service economy status, and take away jobs from skilled workers.

Let them eat cake?

These skilled workers who used to work in steel, coal mining, engineering, technology, even teaching, are now restaurant workers, retail employees, who work without many benefits, have to work odd shift work, and have no retirement plan and often no health insurance.

Let them eat cake?

Neither Trump nor Clinton can relate in any way to middle class America. Trump is a rich man, though not as rich as he would like us to believe. He has been only a moderately successful real estate developer. He really is not a good business man and has lost so many of his ventures in casinos, restaurants, and other venues such as Trump University, and many more. Clinton is probably more down to earth than Trump but she is going to owe debts to so many lobbyists by the time she is elected, if she is, these lobbyists are going to want to be paid in some way. She is going to be held accountable to her campaign donors far more than to the American people.

Let them eat cake?

Trump nor Clinton really have no understanding the problems of the middle class. They just let us work at a menial job, or read, or play on Facebook, hoping it will dull our enthusiasm for the political process and we will vote for whoever has brainwashed us most effectively. Of course, they don’t want us to really understand the issues.

Let them eat cake?

Who are YOU going to vote for? #amwriting #writing #blogging #realDonaldTrump #HillaryClinton #2016PresidentiaCampaign

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Labor Day and its History: Workers had to Fight for it

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

In 1887, Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday, with Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York quickly following suit.

–Brendan I. Koerner

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When I decided to blog about Labor Day and its significance in the United States, I went to the obvious first source for information — the US Department of Labor. There  I found some excellent information that I will share with you. But, I certainly did not find full information. I had to dig deep for that and I will share that with you as well.

To many of us now, Labor Day means a three-day weekend/holiday in early September. To workers of the past, it meant a nod to the hard work they had done during the year and that nod was hard won.  It is a national tribute to the workers of America and was created in the late 1800s by the labor movement itself. There was a movement toward establishing the Labor Day holiday in New York CIty in 1882 and the holiday was actually established in 1884 by the Central Labor Union in New York. It was called a “workingman’s holiday.”

Labor Day was established by one state and then another until 1894 when an Act of Congress finally approved the holiday for the entire country.

That, my friends, is the sanitized version of how Labor Day came to be. Now let’s look at the real story which is pretty bloody. There was a recession in America in the early 1890s. That recession led to a lessening of demand for railway cars which caused the management of railway organizations to lower wages and lay off workers. The workers became angry and the situation worsened as riots started to happen. Things were bad in 1894 when Labor Day was proclaimed by then-President Grover Cleveland. Many people died due to the railway strike.

It should be noted that, throughout history, working people have had to fight for their rights and often had to oppose management. Instead of just considering the first weekend in September a holiday, let’s reflect on how middle class working people built this country while fighting for their rights. #amwriting #LaborDay #writing #blogging

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, Uncategorized, weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare 9/3/2016

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Time for this week’s #weekendcoffeeshare and since my friend, Jenn, can’t join me for coffee this week, I would like to share my coffee with all of you. So, grab a cup, pull up a chair, and help me deal with a subject that has made me quite contemplative this week.

That subject is mortality. A subject that makes most of us, including me, uncomfortable. But, bear with me. This week, I have had a dear uncle and the father of a first cousin, once removed, pass away and mortality is quite on my mind. First, my uncle. He was my uncle by marriage. You couldn’t find a better man. He had been chronically ill for years and passed away at age 85. A good long life for a man with more chronic illnesses than you would wish on your worst enemy, let alone a fine man. Then, my cousin’s dad passed away at age 79. He, too, had been chronically ill for years, some of his illnesses possibly brought on by lifestyle, and he, too, had a good long life.

My uncle was a church-going, spiritual man or that is the way it appeared on the outside. He was good to his family and friends and lived life as he seemed to want to live his life. My cousin’s dad would probably have been described as “fun-loving” back in the day when he was still well. He was described as living life “on his own terms” which is really just another way to say that he did what he damn well pleased. I’ve thought a lot about those descriptions of these two men – both of whom I liked immensely.

A question tickles my brain. Given what I’ve just told you about these two men, didn’t both of them “live life on their own terms” even though it was only my cousin’s dad, the fun-loving guy, who was usually described that way? I’ve found that when someone is described in that way, it may be derogatory. Not always, but often. But, my uncle, a religious man, probably lived life on his own terms as well, though they were different terms and perhaps more socially acceptable than those “terms” under which my cousin’s dad lived. Who’s to say my uncle didn’t have just as much fun in his own way? Or that my cousin’s dad wasn’t spiritual in his own way?

I’m tired of placing people in boxes and stereotyping. We don’t know what goes on in other people’s heads. I am sure both of these men had good and bad qualities as do we all. They had flaws and wonderful characteristics. They were just different. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt and a break. #weekendcoffeeshare

Posted in Music, Uncategorized

Fall is Like a Song

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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In my part of the world, fall is starting to arrive. Although not according to the calendar quite yet. Yesterday, I spent some time relaxing outside on my front porch. My porch looks out into the forest and onto the lightly traveled county road in front of my house. More often than not, there are more deer than cars trooping along that road, and in my front yard, making their way to the feeding troughs we keep full for them. As I sat on the porch, I was musing about how the woods look like fall and I fell into a reverie thinking of the melody, harmony, and beat of life, particularly in the fall.

Sometimes I think fall is my favorite time of year. Then I wonder why. Fall, in so many ways, is the end. The end of the summer, of good weather, of good times with our friends outdoors, of easy travel and easier living. I look around me as I sit on my porch and i see the beginnings of fall. My clematis are trying to produce a few of their fall blooms. The black-eyed susans and purple coneflowers are frantically blooming the last of their flowers. The oak, maple, and poplar trees are turning a dingy green with some yellowing of leaves. The sycamore maples will be the first to go. The underbrush is starting to die off.

The wildlife are particularly affected by the changing of the seasons. I hear the Canadian geese as they fly overhead. Heading south, honking as they go. Chipmunks are everywhere with their cheeks full of any nuts they can find, storing food for winter. The deer even look like fall. In the summer, their coats are a chestnut red. Now they are turning gray in order to blend in with the winter forest. I have seen the antlers of the two large bucks who come to the feeding troughs and they have gotten huge. At least eight points each. The fawns the does started to bring to feed early in the summer have grown up, except for a few, and are losing their spots and becoming less dependent on their mothers. We still have a few very small fawns and i am rooting for them to grow and grow fast so they will survive the winter.

The butterflies and hummingbirds are mostly gone now. Headed south on their long journey. Some of the birds are gone but many of the species indigenous to this area stay, foraging for food.

Where I live in the U.S., we have four distinct seasons, though not as distinct as they once were. Summer has been hot and humid this year. We have reached 90 degrees many days which is odd for this corner of the world. Of course, the world is heating up. The humidity has been higher than usual, more like the Gulf Coast than the Ohio Valley. Winters used to be hard with a lot of snow and ice. Not so much now with the heating of the earth. We once had big snows and we still sometimes do. But, they are an anomaly rather than a normal occurrence. It is still cold here in the winter but usually not the brutal cold of days gone by.

Still, there is fall, that in-between time. The time between hot and cold, between summer and winter, between the lush greenery that surrounds me and the stark hardness of a deciduous forest in winter. Fall is sometimes warm, sometimes cool. Preparing us for the cold of winter, for the hardships of winter. Making us forget the uncomfortable heat and humidity of a summer that has grown too hot for the place we call home. In the fall, we try to hang on to the rituals of summer as long as possible.

It occurred to me that the changing of the seasons is like a song. There is a melody and a harmony. Music has a melody and a harmony and so does seasonal change. Melody is usually defined as the main series of notes of a song that stand out and enable us to remember a song. I think of summer as the melody of the year. It is the main event. The series of notes that stand out to us, when the world is fresh, green, alive, singing. The transition to fall is the harmony. Harmony is the series of notes that are counter-melody. It is chords that are pleasing to the ear that complement melody much like  fall complements summer and eases our transition into winter.

The change of the seasons corresponds to the concept of beat in music. A constant rhythmic pulse that is never-ending. The beat is the skeleton of the seasonal change while the melody is summer and harmony is the seasonal transition. Beat, in music, in life, in the change of the seasons, is what you feel in your heart. Fall is like a song. #amwriting #writing #blogging #fall #music

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, Uncategorized, Writing

#SoCS – The Fall

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Eliza had passed away three weeks before. She had suffered from pancreatitis for the almost 14 years of her life, off and on, but that wasn’t her cause of death. I suppose her cause of death was a combination of old age and canine dementia. You’re in danger of inducing canine dementia in your dogs every time you put them under anesthesia when they are old. Eliza had a tooth that was infected and it had to be extracted. There was no choice but to use anesthesia. When she came home from the veterinarian, I knew she wouldn’t live long when she collapsed into the middle of the living room floor for the next 14 hours.

When she finally got up, she was never the same again. She barked at closet doors to go out. She thought night was day and day was night. She forgot that she was hungry. But, I knew her. I could keep her safe and comfortable, at least for awhile. At least that’s what I told myself. That lasted a few months until one morning I saw the look on her face. Somewhere in her little confused mind, she knew things were very wrong. That day, I told my heart dog goodbye and had her gently put to sleep. It didn’t take much. She was mostly gone already.

I felt very alone. She had been with me through many trials and tribulations as well as through good times. She centered me. I had anticipated her death and had started to think about another dog, not being able to imagine being without a canine companion.   I started making some phone calls and heard about a breeder who had two puppies. One needed to find a home. Her sister was going on to be a show dog. The puppy who would come to be my Betsy didn’t have a purpose. Her purpose was to be my companion.

We drove five hours to see the puppy. To a house that was new construction. There was no question that Betsy would come home with me. We spoke at length with the breeder. Dark was coming and we were far from home so we got ready to leave and take Betsy with us. We stepped out onto the porch of this new home. It was dusk and the porch was high off the ground. I stepped forward as I had noticed the wide steps down to the ground. I stepped off the porch……into thin air. There was no railing around the porch and the steps were not the width of the porch. I hit the concrete flat on my face.

I thought at first I was fine. Then, I watched in horror as my vision drained away out of my right eye. The next day, I found out I had suffered a complete detachment of my retina.

Dogs are truly our best friends. Here is a gallery of the dogs who have owned me over about the last 12 years. Bear is the black dog on the top row. He was a Puli. Eliza, a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, is also on the top row. She was my heart dog and lived 14 years. Smart, wonderful, loyal. Betsy, my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, is now 3 1/2 years of age, and is a wonderful companion, is on the second row. Arlo, a Treeing Walker Coonhound, is on the third row. Arlo was my foster dog. I will also put up a gallery of dogs who came before.

 

Bear – Puli
Eliza – Cardigan Welsh Corgi
Eliza
Betsy – Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Arlo – Foster Dog – Treeing Walker Coonhound

National Dog Day Photos

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, Uncategorized

Making Mistakes

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. – Theodore Roosevelt

What a wise quote by President Teddy Roosevelt. We can all make a mistake. If we don’t, we are sitting at home with our hands folded in our laps. Mistakes can be large or small. Irrelevant in the grand scheme of your life or life-changing. Usually, when we make a big, life-changing mistake, we surely don’t realize it at the time. We either think what we were doing was not all that important or we were convinced we were doing the right thing. It’s only when things start to go wrong and we look back do we realize we made a mistake.

Why does making a mistake bother us so much? I think the reasons are many but one is that it shows us our vulnerability. We have analyzed a situation incorrectly. On top of that, many of us may not realize it, but we have limited and fragile support systems. Those support systems may collapse if we make a mistake as there may be judgment and criticism involved. Some societies even cast out those who have made a mistake. In the United States, people who make a mistake are usually not cast out explicitly, but they may be implicitly. They certainly may be shunned. For all these reasons, along with the fear of being hurt, we have a deep-seated fear of making mistakes which makes us less creative in our lives.

We cannot avoid making mistakes due to changes in the world around us. Most change in the world we cannot see. It happens slowly and subtly and our actions often cannot keep up with it. So when we take an action, it is a mistake because change has happened that we are not aware of. The older we get, the more we usually fight change. The more we allow ourselves to be flexible and bend with change, the fewer mistakes we will make.

Even though it doesn’t feel like it when we make a mistake, there are benefits to be had. Some of them are: Mistakes deepen our knowledge. They help us see what matters and what does not. They allow us to see if someone in our life has changed or has not. They can teach us to value forgiveness. They can serve as a warning. They can give us a new insight.

There are many more lessons we can learn from mistakes. But we have to get beyond the pain we feel at making the mistake in order to learn the lessons.

When we realize that mistakes are part of the inevitable flow of life, we can relax and handle them better. It won’t take away the pain of making the mistake, but it will help us understand why we made the mistake and learn the lessons we should from it. #amwriting #blogging #writing

 

Posted in Appalachia, Food, Low Carb, Recipes, Uncategorized, Women's Issues

Recipe for Cole Slaw

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Here is a lightened up version of a old-fashioned recipe for cole slaw. It’s very easy and can be used just for supper at night or for big family dinners:

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded green cabbage (easy way is to shred in food processor)

1/2 cup both thinly sliced red bell pepper and red onion

2 tbsp both seasoned rice vinegar and extra virgin olive oil

1/4 tsps salt

1/8 tsps freshly ground black pepper

Toss all ingredients together, cover, and refrigerator for at least an hour. You can double or triple this recipe for bigger gatherings. #amwriting #blogging #diabetes #healthyeating

 

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized

Looking Back, Part 3

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Looking Back, Part 1

Looking Back, Part 2

Now, Looking Back, Part 3

Serena gets up, wearily, from her table and dries her tears. She rinses out her cup and looks out on the landscape she has held so dear for these past years. She came here to find peace and she did but only for awhile. She knows it’s time to leave her home. She doesn’t have much of importance to leave behind. In some ways, she has always traveled light. She has one child, Kenneth, but he and his family live away and she can contact him later. She has some cousins left. She doesn’t think any but a few will miss her and she will let them know. She has some good friends who she will call. They will keep her confidence. Serena has made her decision. Now to act on it before the man comes back.

What do you take with you when you are never coming back? Serena will, of course, take Maggie, her small dog. She goes about making room in her car for Maggie, first and foremost. What she takes now depends on the room she has left. She will need some of her clothes so she quickly sorts some summer and some winter clothes into two small suitcases. Her good jewelry is precious to her and she might have to sell it so it also goes into her car. She pulls several of her grandmother’s old quilts out of the closet along with one set of good sheets. Either she or Maggie or both can use those. That’s it for the bedrooms.

Her computers go with her. She will have to depend on establishments with free WiFi. A few canvases and her paints and there is only one more thing to take out of her storage. Her family pictures. She struggles with the boxes and dumps them all into one box. Out of her bathroom, she stuffs the bare necessities into one of her suitcases. Her makeup, some hair products, and all of her medicines.

In the living room, she stops in front of the fireplace and looks around her as she tries to calm her dog. Maggie is sensing change and is getting agitated. Almost everything in Serena’s house has meaning to her. Her legs start to shake and for a brief moment, she doesn’t think she can do this. Doesn’t think she can leave it all behind. What is the alternative? In order to continue on in this life, she would have to sell her soul. That would be the price of peace. She knows that price is too high. She knows that superficial “things” cannot buy her happiness. She knows she cannot live with herself if she makes that bargain with the devil.

Serena walks into her kitchen, grabs Maggie’s dog food, bowl, and medicine, and a few bottles of water for herself. She carries everything, except Maggie, to the car and begins to pack it.

Within a few minutes, the car is packed and Serena picks up Maggie and settles her in the car. She lays her cell phone on the seat beside her so she will have use of the GPS.

Serena has been thinking of this plan of action for days now. She went to the bank earlier in the day and cleaned out the accounts. She is leaving the man the house and everything else. At least the money will help keep gas in her car for awhile and food in Maggie’s belly. She will arrange for the income she gets to make its way to her when she decides where to stop. She hurriedly gets in her car, tears streaming down her face, and pulls out of the drive. She stops briefly, looking back, remembering the peace she once found here.

As Serena drives away, amid the devastation she feels is a tiny glimmer of hope. She doesn’t know if she is going north, south, east, or west. But, she thinks maybe something good awaits her at the end of her long road away from what was once home.

 

 

 

Posted in Creative Nonfiction Essays, education, Higher Education, Lifestyle, Uncategorized

The Millennial Generation: Overtaking the Baby Boomers?

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

The millennial generation is generally defined as that group of individuals in the U.S.  born between 1980 and 2000. We are hearing a lot about the millennials currently, particularly with regard to how they may affect the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and how they are affecting the workplace. My series of articles on the Baby Boom generation, born between 1946 and 1964, would not be complete without drawing some obvious comparisons between that generation and the millennial generation.

  1.  The millennial generation is now the largest generation, in sheer numbers of people. They actually outnumber the huge baby boom generation by about 10 million people, even though their population is increased by immigrants. The Brookings Institute says that by 2020, 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. will be a millennial.
  2. Baby boomers married, in 1970, when the men were about 23.5 yrs of age and women were a little over 20. Millennials marry when men are, on average, 29 and women are 27. Up to 25% of millennials will never marry at all.
  3. Millennials are a more diverse group than baby boomers. Only 57% of millennials are white and 72% of baby boomers are white. Both Hispanic and Asian immigrants have increased the diversity in the U.S.
  4. About 2/3 of millennials ages 25-32 do not have a college degree. Those that do earn almost $20,000 per year more than those with only a high school diploma. It is an impossible comparison in this category with baby boomers since a high school diploma bought much more for them than it does for millennials. You will hear that millennials are over-educated and underemployed. You can see from this statistic that is not necessarily true, though millennials may think it is true. One truth is that, those who sought a higher education, are paying dearly for it in student loan debt.
  5. We often hear about the unemployment rate of the millennials. If the millennials went to college, their unemployment rate is only 3.8%. Without the college degree, it is over 12%. So, if millennials further their education, their unemployment rate is much lower than that of the general population. They are pickier about their jobs than the baby boomers. They will take less money and have a job they enjoy more, unlike the boomers. The baby boomers would work at just about anything in order to survive. Many millennials have had a safety cushion in the form of parents and family to fall back on. That was not necessarily true for the baby boomers.

There is quite a disparity in the characteristics of the baby boomer generation and the millennial generation. The U.S. now has a service economy and we surely need workers for that type of economy. However, with two-thirds of the millennials not having college degrees, this writer wonders who is going to teach our children, do our research and development, be our medical doctors, innovate products, and so many other jobs that need those credentials. Does this mean that we will have to import foreign labor that place a higher value on higher education to do these skilled tasks, such as the Asians? I understand that higher education is expensive and that student loan debt is high. Our politicians must address this if we want our young people to take over our country as the older generations retire. #dailyprompt #writing #blogging #amwriting #millennials #babyboomers