Maybe driving three towns away for practice might have been worth it? I do not know, but I doubt I will be telling my son about the achievements of the team we left. I was debating whether to have him try out for the team next season, I am sure this will make competition for the squad much stiffer.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
My Bad
I thought the idea of my at the time 6 year-old son playing for a U7 soccer team that played in a U8 league with three practices a week was overkill and overly ambitious at least. Well that team playing up a level won all of their games, and just won a national tournament at Disney World.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Reading Stamina
I am getting into the heavy reading for the Spring semester and man my reading stamina stinks, I should have read more during Winter break. A pleasant side note, I discovered quality yellow crayons can serve as decent highlighter replacements in a pinch. I tested a few brands of crayon and cheap waxy brands clump up on the page and will leave stains, so avoid those.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Extreme faith in the heat retaining abilities of our house
Last week on a particularly cold night we told our boys to wear heavy pajamas so they could stay warm, my 6 year-old said, "If we don't open the windows we won't let the cold in and we won't have to worry about it."
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Life ends but it never stops
Died in a quarter way house of a stroke while asleep, I am studying social work and I never heard of a quarter way house, I guess it is like a holding pen or a realm for a holding pattern, cleaned up enough to get out of the half-way house, no place to put you, hey what's between half way and all the way there, between half and nothing, between half and out of our hair?
My brother that I have not seen in about four years and have not spoken to in about three died 19 days ago and it took two weeks ago for the word of mouth to get from two new friends made some where along the line in the 3/4- 1/2- 1/4 way system, to the street to the guys he got high with to his x-tai chi students, to his daughter on the other side of the continent via his phone which was in the hands of some other person that let her know that her dad died a little while back, to our mother, to a hysterical message on my answering machine as I was getting dressed to leave for my niece's (brother-in-laws daughter) fifth birthday party in the skylands of deep suburban McMansiondom in what passes for mountains in New Jersey. I usually don't answer the phone unless I am getting a call from someone who I am in the process of meeting some where, but there is a hysterically pained tone of a mother whose child has just died that is unmistakable even from an answering machine heard from distance.
So naked I have this conversation and begin melting down the aluminum three step ladder that I was sitting on sobbing from a pit inside myself that is only accessed on especially painful occasions; realizing you are not loved by someone anymore and nothing is going to change that no matter how you try to perfect yourself or how you try to hurt yourself their attention is irredeemable, realizing that some small maneuver on your parents part or being three minutes late or one block over could have irreparably changed your life for the better, being akin to a tragedy and feeling that you were not deserving of the luck that shielded you from it or as in this case having something so awful and yet so foreseeable occur that you reserved a space in this pit because you knew it was going to come to pass and only the foolishness of magical non-logical thinking gave you any hope of another out come but you would allow yourself to think, "Anything is possible, right?" So when he came to mind there could be a trap door that would allow you to slip out before the downward spiral built up the speed of inevitability.
My son's, one of whose name is a combination of my brother's and mine, are confused and distraught at hearing this wailing that they of course wind up in fight and the younger one comes out the other side of it with bruises on his face reminiscent of Franck Ribery's signature scars. So I snap back from being a naked crying infant to being a father.
Now for the sad parts, the parts that I think about when I am alone in the laundry room, or in the car for over 25 minutes, or making an iTunes playlist of music that he turned me on to;
ironically and heart breaking-ly his last "new-friends" of literally hundreds upon hundreds of new friends this man made in 49 years on the planet, their names were the Spanish version of my name and our older and long dead of AIDS from IV drug use brother's name. He was estranged from most of his family but he recreated some sense of it out of the x-cons and state funded rehab residents of the half way house, one telling my mother, "He was like a father to me."
The next is "his stuff" he called from prison after having fits of violence acted out on those closest to him in proximity and to his heart, asking if I could help him pay for his storage space. His soon to be x-wife had moved, his newest baby's mama had fled and no one else was in a position to help any more. I thought, if he gets his life back together as some point in the future it would be a shame if he lost everything from the approximately 10 year period of mostly good living, or mostly overcoming the visions and voices and traumatic memories and torment to earn a nice living, starting a martial arts school, writing for men's health magazines, appearing on TV, owing a Manhattan apartment on the Park by the Cloisters, unbeknowst to him until meeting her family in Japan marrying an wealthy women, having a new (third) daughter, a pretty good life for a schizophrenic with multi-addiction issues suffering from post traumatic stress from being raped as grammar school student by the teenaged son of a neighbor and later sexually assaulted by the 17 year-old daughter of another family friend while babysitting, leading him to ponder, "Why is everyone making me have sex?" Which was not a surprising precursor to many of those new friends I mentioned being of a sexual nature, and I mean many many.
So all his stuff martial arts trophies, swords, an eclectic music selection, Asian art, if I do not help right now, it will be all gone, possibly showing up on some storage space reality TV show. Could I move it to my attic my garage? If this all ends badly at least I would have his stuff. No, I can not get involved, when violence and a loose grip on reality is what we are dealing with I can not have him showing up on my doorstep looking for his swords or asking for more money.
"No I can't help you right now."
"I understand sorry for having to ask."
My last conversation I had with the man that was my idol for many of my childhood years, whose reputation for fighting prevented me from getting my ass kicked by older boys in the neighborhood many times.
So he gone and so is his stuff, I can't cry as I decide should I integrate his CDs into my collection or keep them in separate box, if you know me you know my relationship with CDs. Can we put this trophy on display some where or will my wife shoot down the idea on the grounds that it does not fit the decor? I have nothing to visit with him with.
But ultimately the safety of the family that I have chosen to create was more important than enabling the one fate bestowed, or having the ability to get lost in the melancholia of memorabilia and the sounds of memories.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Lamest Trick or Treater Ever
Even though my town tried to cancel Halloween, or actually postpone it until Friday, the kids were out in force dodging downed power lines and hurdling 50 year-old 10 foot tree limbs with aplomb. Anyway adding to my anecdotal evidence for my on going study into the loss of social graces of those under 25 was the worlds lamest trick or treater that I encounter a few days ago.
Neither the 70% of children who did not bother to say "trick or treat" nor the 40% who did not say thank you after receiving candy and worse than my 16 year-old cohorts and I who went trick or treating sans costumes and when questioned about it one of the group replied, "We're dressed as professional kick ball players, now give us some candy," not fully realizing how scary a gang of teen aged boys could be to a lone adult, but the lamest trick or treater darkened my door last night, not really wearing a costume, accompanied by three friends, all about 17 years-old, with a pillow case in one hand, his cell phone in the other, in mid conversation, tucked the phone under his chin to continue the conversation so he could free up his other hand to open the pillow case wide enough for my candy, does not acknowledge that I exist, turns away while without saying thank you while continuing to talk on the phone.
Four seconds later as I am giving candy to his friends I began to think that I just missed a "You god damn kids get off my lawn-esque" crabby old guy opportunity, I should called him out on his rudeness and made the kid get off the phone if he wanted my butterfingers and kit kats, the punk assed bitch. Sometimes you are so surprised that the witty comeback or opportunity to stand up for yourself or for decency and decorum slips through your fingers, and to try retrieve it only makes your reveal yourself as being unstable.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Lost Posts from May 2011
My almost nine year old son asked his mother yesterday, “What do you pee out of?”
Mother: I don’t have a penis.
Then he demanded, “Let me see it!”
"Don’t you miss having a penis?"
"You need to shave down there, that’s disscusting."
Mother: Daddy has hair down there and you will too,
Son: He should shave it too.
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3rd grader, "I’ve got lead in my eye, I’ve got a pencil in my eye, I’m going to die!"
He did not have pencil in his eye, pencils are not really made of lead, he did not die.
OCCUPY WALL STREET & Policy blog postings
Protesters Against Wall Street
NY Times Editorial
States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare
Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%
by Joseph F. Stiglitz, Vanity Fair
The issue raised in this article is how “the upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.” 25 years ago those figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. The author points out that “the more unequal a society is, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend on common needs. The rich don’t need government benefits - they can buy these things for themselves.”
This situation can perpetuate itself leading to more and more disparity in the future. We need only need to look to what is happening in Arab world right now to see what can happen when “a fraction of the population controls the lion’s share of the wealth.” With this in mind our nation needs to ask itself if this is the direction it really wants to go in?
The last main point of the article is that Alexis de Tocqueville noticed long ago that Americans had “self-interest properly understood” in that they understood that paying attention to everyone’s self-interest or the common welfare, is beneficial to their own well-being.
Basically when the nation is better and more secure, it is better for the top 1%, more stable markets etc.
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NO ONE REALLY WANTS SMALLER GOVERNMENT, COMMENTS ON PAUL RYAN’S BUDGET
Reading “The Radical Gradulism of Paul Ryan,” http://budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=235261 about the budget proposed by the House Budget Chairman just reiterated to me those on the right always seem to stay on message no matter what the current political or economic environment. They will alway have a drive for lower taxes, no regulations on business and smaller governments and see every national success or failure as an example of why we need, you guessed it, lower taxes, a laissez-faire view of the business sector and smaller government. Never mind that the government and deficit both grew under their watch during W. Bush’s two terms.
The truth is that people on both sides of the aisle want the government to come down strongly behind the issues that they feel are most important.
“What the Ryan budget offers instead is a gradual, manageable change of course that might allow us to continue to experience the kind of growth and stability we have seen since the Second World War.” Strange does columnist Yuval Levin mean the growth and stability that were made possible by a large middle class, a strong safety net, strong unions, government regulations of the corporate sector that characterize the post war era?
“A plan that sought to address our fiscal problems by raising taxes far higher than this historical norm—as Ryan’s detractors on the left would have to do, though they are loath to say so—would almost certainly yield weaker growth, and therefore have a harder time restraining the growth of the debt.” As I discussed in my last post from a few weeks ago, statistics show that we currently have a historically low tax rate, so it could be raised and still not be “far higher than this historical norm.”
I may have missed it, but in this article and in what I have heard from the right the military budget is left in tact. Another area that the right never looks into cutting is the cost of enforcing morally driven laws against consensual activities, the cost of police enforcement of prostitution laws, tax revenue lost from the illegality of gambling and the cost of imprisoning non-violent drug users. A closer look at the war on drugs reveals that after 40 years and $1 trillion was deemed as failing to meet any of its goals. Think about how much one trillion dollars is, “If you started a business when Christ was born and lost $1 million a day, it would still take another 700 years before you lost $1 trillion,” REPRESENTATIVE PHIL CRANE.
Beside Rand Paul, his dad, and at best one million actual libertarians, no one is actually for less government, they are just for government doing less to help issues they don’t care about, and more for their issues, on the right, moral and law and order issues, strong military that stimulates the economy and helps America have an empire that keeps foreign markets safe for our business interests, or helps open new ones, as opposed to the left wanting the government to focus on trying solve societies ills and inequalities.
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I was not able to find one specific issue that moved me but looking at a number of issues I noticed a real disconnect concerning the amount of money our nation spends on its military, the high rate of profits our corporations have continued to earn despite the recession and the lack of money we have to fund our public programs and jobs that are leading to the need for so many cutbacks and lay-offs.
In last Sunday’s Star Ledger I read articles with headlines like, “Next fight: Contracts for state workers. Talks expected to be ‘pretty ugly’” where state employees are afraid to anger Gov. Christie because they don’t want to vilified in the way he did to teachers. Also “Energy Department staff to face cuts ...” “Budget ax poised in Millburn district” schools, and “Laid off Newark cops are moving on.”
Yet one can still find headlines like “Pentagon requests its largest budget: $553 billion” where the Pentagon is asking for its 14th year in a row of spending increases even with the winding down of the Iraq War. We do not have money for teachers and cops and blame welfare queens, pensions and the stimulus package for our national debt but some how the cost of our two wars at over $1,153,594,999,999 at 11:15 AM today and counting (1) is not brought into the conversation? So it seems there is plenty of money for war.
Looking at the corporate world over the last year most aggregate economic indicators are up, the GNP (2) has gone up the last five quarters, the top three stock exchanges NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX all show growth in their trading volumes over the last 52 weeks (3). The financial papers are littered with headlines such as:
“U.S. Corporate Profits Surge” - The Wall Street Journal (4)
“Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter” - The New York Times (5)
“U.S. corporate profits rise most in 25 years “- MarketWatch (6)
Still many want to cut federal and state employees like social workers, teachers and police, stating that this will free up funds to help our economy grow. Like all other areas of human endeavor public jobs contracts are far from perfect and there is much room for improving on abuses like “double dipping” holding two state jobs and getting pensions from both, large buyout clauses in some higher level state administrators and board members, and other areas like pensions and tenure can be looked at with new eyes and made more responsive to success in the work place.
The facts that these conflicting headlines bring to light point not to a lack of finances in America but a lack of interest in helping those in need and a choice to use hard economic times for many Americans as an excuse to push forth an anti-middle and working class political agenda that has been in the works since the 1960’s.
LINKS
(1) Cost of War http://costofwar.com/en/
(2) GNP http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=231&page=3&count=100
(3) NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX trading volumes over the last 52 weeks http://research.scottrade.com/qnr/Public/Markets/Statistics
(4) “U.S. Corporate Profits Surge” - The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956604576110612955564394.html
(5) “Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter” - The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html?_r=1
(6) “U.S. corporate profits rise most in 25 years “- MarketWatch http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-corporate-profits-rise-most-in-25-years-2010-03-26
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Many conservatives and libertarians only value private sector jobs as if they are superior to public sector jobs, as if the morgages and rents, goods and services and college educations they pay for do not help strenghen our ecomony as private sector job It is as if they believe only jobs that increase their profit margins are valid, and those that serve the interest of the middle class and in turn the nation as a whole are without value. During a recession where affluent Americans profits are rising, middle class job killing legislation and budgets cuts do not appear to be the best way help those actually feeling the pains of this recession to lift themselves up to a better future.
Especially jobs that help lay the foundation for a strong middle class, jobs in education and public safety. A strong, financially secure and educated middle class is imperative to having a functioning democracy, and many of these current conservative and libertarian ideas such busting unions and ending free public education (“Education, like any other service, is best provided by the free market” ) run completely counter to what has made America the strongest nation in world.
Picture a senario where you already have high unemployment and very few good jobs where you do not need a college education. Then cut police jobs and make our cities less secure, you cut jobs in education which makes it harder to educate our children and in turn harder for them to go to college and get good jobs. Now not only have good middle class jobs that are within the grasp of poor and working class people been eliminated, you add a percentage of those formerly middle class laid-off people the ranks of the needy.
The short term gains from many of these cuts will be drastically over shadowed by the harm they are doing to society’s ability to produce citizens with highly employable skills. Those on the right look to the corporate world where one can raise their profit margins by laying off employees and see no reason not to apply the same logic to essential public jobs all so they can have more money by lowering their taxes.
National debt more than tripled from 900 billion dollars to 2.8 trillion dollars during Reagan's tenure.
There is not less money in America, their is less money available to the middle class.
Eisenhower
"Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
There is a jelousy on the part of many who work in the private sector, they see their jobs being cut, they see pensions as a thing of the distant past which they came along too late for, and they have not gotten rich in the corporate world and see public workers making as much as they do with more benefits and they have been told that they are lazy union workers who do not deserve to be well compensated.
So rather than unionize fight for the jobs in their own industry, or complaining about paying 1.99 for a bottle of coke when it costs 18 cents to make
(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_it_cost_to_make_a_bottle_of_coca_cola) and being angry about the exorbitant bonuses that corporate executives are paid with your money, being angry that they make their profits of the back of that usury usurious mark up,
many in the public are so brainwashed that they hate those in the same boat as they are and worship those above them, those who control how society is set up and do infinitely more to keep them in their troubled possition than those next to them, one step ahead or behind them in the pecking order of financial success in this nation.
People would rather have a dream of becoming rich than a reality of being secure.
Veblen pointed out. The poor don't want to fight those above them, they want to be like them. http://www.bolenderinitiatives.com/sociology/thorstein-bunde-veblen-1857-1929/thorstein-bunde-veblen-leisure-class-author/critic-may-ha
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
I have started my first official year in a MSW program this week. I have been pissed off about my profs emailing reading assignments that are due at my first class, completely inappropriate, the class starts on a certain day, that's when the work should start, it's like having to check your blackberry every few hours on your vacation, technology has eradicated all boundaries, when you are affiliated with an institution it's like no time is solely yours anymore.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Deep Sleep
>first relax, then clear your mind, don’t think of anything, don’t think about what you did today, think of nothing
930 pm tonight, my six year old teaching my 9 year-old how to fall asleep quickly
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
‘Brain-eating amoeba’ claims second victim this month
Great, any more stuff the world wants to add to the list of things parents have to worry about?
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Nagged
My kids are out of summer camp and it has taken three days and bout of asthma reinforced by hysteria to derail the best laid schedule of Daddy Camp!
I have to catch up on some chores, but some how telling my 9 yr old to read to pass the time is like telling him to pull his nails out with pair of pliers. "Why isn't anyone home when we call for a playdate," and after we leave a message, every time the phone rings, "Who's that, who's that?!?"
How old are kids when they become in charge of their own social calendar?
I guess the plus of not being nagged for things to do by your kids is negated by the fact that parents are usually no longer considered when planning their tweenaged agendas.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Kid Sun Bake Soccer Cup, last team not suffering heat stroke wins!
I am torn, it is 100 degrees out and will be the same tomorrow, and my 9 year-old son has a soccer tournament this weekend, where they play two games a day. My wife is freaked out because some cadet at West Point died in the heat yesterday, and the tournament in Upstate NY. We decided to not have him play. I called out doctor for his opinion, he got back to us after we made up our minds and my wife and kids went to the shore for the next day and a half.
The doctor said it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to make sure the kids stay very hydrated, get frequent breaks and stop playing as soon as they get any symptoms like dizziness or nausea.
My gut feels like things would have been okay, and I do not want to be the kind of parent that gives into fear because something bad happened somewhere once in the world in a similar situation, but when I called the tournament and they said there is no set temperature where they would cancel the games, I was like fuck it, they seem more concerned about not cancelling games and having to refund teams than playing it safe, so hopefully the second day of the tournament will be under 100 degrees.
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