Not a happy time

I normally am involved in the holiday season getting a tree, shopping for gifts and helping Janet decorate.  This year, I just can't get into the spirit.  Too many things have happened in my life and all around me: the death of Janet’s dad, her mom's illness, the elementary school shooting, Hurricane Sandy and the Fiscal Cliff.  I'm not only not festive, I'm depressed.

 The passing of Janet's dad certainly puts a damper on the holiday spirit.  In addition, Janet's mom has bone cancer which is contained for now but won't be cured.  She's putting on a positive face for her youngest grandchild, but I feel the pain in her heart and body.

The elementary school shooting in Connecticut is horrific…The loss of 20 young lives and their generations' loss of innocence. When I was growing up, I felt safe in my elementary school even when I thought the outside world was going crazy.  It was stable and secure inside James H. Johnson Elementary School -- who could imagine a crazed person killing my classmates?

 Hurricane Sandy devastated the Jersey Shore where I spent my summers from a very young age.  We had a house at Ocean City, I worked in Stone Harbor, and hung out with long ago friends in these and other Jersey border islands.

 I'm distressed about the Fiscal Cliff which is looming over everything.  The rich Republican white men want to protect their lower tax rates and the country be damned!  

 So in a nutshell, why should I be depressed? In the past month I've been surrounded by grave illness, death, loss of innocence and looming financial disaster. It's going to take me a long time to put a positive spin to this but I’m trying…

 

Memories of Josh

Janet's father, Josh Tye Williams Jr., passed over a little after midnight on December 1, 2012. Before he passed, his family had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with him when he was mentally with it. They were able to have some positive interaction with him. The memorial gathering and the military funeral were very low-key and simple and would've been to his liking. After all the events of the day, some of us went out to lunch and spent more time remembering him.

 

Unfortunately, I did not get to see Josh during his better moments. The last time I saw him was Thanksgiving, when I made him angry at me by trying to reason with him about staying in the nursing home until arrangements were made for him to come home. Let's just say our last moments together were not positive or endearing. It's not enough for me right now to know that the reason he was acting that way was because he wanted to die at home with his wife.

 

I feel a need to share some special memories of Josh, perhaps selfishly, so that I can change the picture of him that is stuck in my head… Of him snapping at me, although I have so many more positive thoughts about him.

 

I have many memories of Josh; Of him being annoyed with his computer and trying to help him with it, of him sitting in his big black recliner watching TV really loud, of him cooking, of him sneaking me little pieces of country ham before it was served and of having casual conversation with him and his dry, occasionally biting sense of humor. The most important ones to me though were of him at our handfasting. He was one of three males in attendance and the other two were under the age of seven. My father was not feeling very positive about my life choices at the time so none of my family was in attendance. I started to explain this to the gathering when Josh loudly announced that this was not a problem because I was now a member of the Williams family. I immediately went over and kissed him right on top of the head! I think I knocked off his hat. During the party afterwards, I remember Josh dancing from one group of women to the next. I can see him now, a straw wide brimmed hat on, moving from group to group, not really dancing with anyone, just having a good time.

 

I think we have a picture of him dancing in our handfasting photo album and I wanted to add it to the photo boards that Janet and Terry, her mom, were making for the memorial but I didn't think of it until after they were done. But I think I achieved my goal, I now have a snapshot in my head of him dancing with his hat on amongst the lesbians…

47% uneditted

When my MS symptoms started to get progressively worse over my 10 years of working at the college, I saw importance in publicly struggling with my disability. Although I tried to hide the most personal aspects of my illness, I felt that I was perhaps one of the few working disabled people that students and staff might be exposed to and I wanted to be a strong example. A coworker sometimes referred to me as The Face of MS. I was proud of this role that I played. In retrospect, I realize that I may be making myself out to be some sort of heroic martyr in this blog post, but it's how I genuinely felt.

 When I had to go out on disability, I felt defeated; as if I had allowed the MS to win. Although I had been working for almost 30 years and paying the appropriate taxes, I still felt guilty and inadequate when I had to start collecting Social Security and Medicare. I had paid for these benefits but I did not feel right taking them. It sounds very dramatic, but losing your job, no matter what the reason, is demoralizing and humiliating.

 It took a long time, but I finally got over my feelings of inadequacy… Mostly. When I heard Mitt Romney’s comments that he made on the secret tapes of the fundraising event, I felt he was speaking about me. I had a new role; I was now The Face of the 47%. I was one of the 47% that he didn't feel was worth his time. I realize that a candidate always concentrates his campaign energy on those people he feels he can get to vote for him. But what I understood his comments to mean was that unemployed people receiving public support like me, no matter what the reason, were drains on society. If he were to win the election, I feel as if he would act as a master plumber and clear up all the drainage problems he feels are caused by the 47%. He has acknowledged that his comments were not misinterpreted or taken out of context by the media; his only stated regret was that he had not spoken more elegantly.

Mr. Romney cannot be President of the United States and only recognize half of the population of the country. I hope that the 47% and their friends and family will vote on November 6 and show him that his attitude and statements are unacceptable and not befitting the leader and chief of the country.

disenfranchised unedited

My mother was a stay-at-home mom and I spent a lot of time with her when I was little. When election time rolled around she always took me with her when she voted. I remember her picking me up in the voting booth so I could make her selections. This is a strangely poignant memory for me. Her civic mindedness rubbed off on me.

 Although I didn't begin voting until after college, I did begin my political career by protesting and campaigning for favored politicians while I was at the University of Delaware. I have acted on behalf of local, state and national politicians and attempted to influence them ever since. I haven't missed voting in an election since finishing college. It's clear that the political system and voting are very important to me and the country. I'm sure you can understand how the recent events in other states have affected me. I'm so glad I live in little foreword leaning, Democratic Delaware.

 

I was very alarmed when threats to the voting process moved close to home, to the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is joining the growing list of states that are attempting to disenfranchise their populace. Pennsylvania is requiring that all voters provide a different form of picture ID beyond what they've ever had to show. This change will primarily affect the elderly, disabled and poor who don't have the money or means to get the new identification. The methods of identification that have been used for years will no longer be sufficient. Those that will primarily be affected are traditionally Democratic demographic groups.

 

I agree that the current security conscious climate requires additional steps to be taken to protect the voting process. However, this change should not take place a few months before a major presidential election, causing large numbers of people to potentially be unable to vote.

This situation is not unique to Pennsylvania. Texas attempted to pass a similar voter ID law, but it was overturned in appeals court on the grounds that it was unfair to the lower income and minority voters.

 The Republican Party in several other states is taking different measures to block people from voting or to make it more difficult to vote. Ohio is attempting to disallow early voting, an option often used by the Democratic demographic groups. The primarily Republican government of the state passed a law to stop early voting and this issue is currently being fought in the courts. In Florida, Republican officials have attempted to place restrictions on voter-registration drives. Republican-imposed rules made it almost impossible for progressive groups to register new Democratic voters. These restrictions have since been overturned but several months of registration time were lost. Who knows how many people could have been registered to vote during that time? There will be a limited window of opportunity to continue the voter registration drives before the presidential election so Republicans did succeed to a certain extent in their efforts to suppress the Democratic voting effort in Florida.

 I am very disturbed and disappointed that the right of every US citizen to vote has fallen victim to party politics. If a political party cannot nominate a competitive candidate, then please concede the election rather than disenfranchise potential voters.

Mrs. Romney's MS unedited

I was watching the news a few days ago and they were discussing how Romney is defending himself against the accusations that he is out of touch with the experiences of average Americans. Mrs. Romney said that they were very aware of struggle like the average person because they deal with her MS. I know MS is difficult to deal with for anyone, but her statement really got my goat.

I really don't believe that the experiences of a chronically ill multimillionaire are even vaguely similar to the experience of the average person with this illness. Mrs. Romney has practically unlimited resources at her disposal whereas the average person must depend on insurance to meet their health needs. As I've said often before, insurance companies view a patient with chronic illness as someone who will not benefit from many services and treatments because they will show no improvement. Thus these services and treatments are not medically necessary.

For example, Mrs. Romney can afford a home health aide out-of-pocket if there is a problem with the insurance. An average American with insurance receives home health aide service for a limited period of time from the date of the onset of the disease. Someone on Medicare receives this service for an unlimited period of time, but only three times a week. In another example, although physical therapy is known to be beneficial to an MS patient according to doctors and physical therapists, insurance companies find it to be not medically necessary. If the patient cannot afford to pay a physical therapist out-of-pocket or make other arrangements, they will not receive this necessary treatment. These are just two of many examples I could give that show that a patient with unlimited resources has an advantage over someone reliant on insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.

From its initial onset, the progression of MS is different in each patient. The level of disability, the symptoms and the speed at which it progresses varies from person to person. I have the most severe form, chronic progressive multiple sclerosis and I've been dealing with the various symptoms for over 20 years. Clearly from observing Mrs. Romney in her various public speaking events, she has a very mild form.

I don't doubt that Mrs. Romney faces many challenges because of her disease and I don't want to give the impression that I wish her ill. But as a multimillionaire, her experiences cannot compare to those who have the illness but have limited resources. I think Mr. and Mrs. Romney be to find some other way to prove some point of commonality with the average citizen. Their struggles are not mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACs uneditted

Because I am bedbound and have a lot of blocks of free time, of course I end up watching a lot of television. The political advertisements have been driving me crazy, but more so than in previous election times and for different reasons. Janet has mentioned her dislike of the advertisements on both sides because of the backstabbing and muckraking. Of coarse, I don't find these qualities redeeming but I've noticed something else about the advertisements that bothers me even more.

After about 7 PM every night, each grouping of advertising includes at least one pro-Romney or anti-Obama commercial. The majority are not directly sponsored by Romney’s campaign, but are paid for by different Republican Political Action Committees (PACs). These PACs are run by various influential Republican multimillionaires and billionaires. Because of political campaign funding laws, these multimillionaires and billionaires are limited as to how much they can fund Romney's campaign directly, but they can " hide" behind these groups and support their candidate on a much larger scale.

 I know it's all legal but it shouldn't be. There are campaign funding limits and there shouldn't be loopholes to get around them. I don't care which candidate takes advantage of these loopholes, they are wrong and shouldn't exist. The limits were made with the idea that they would help keep candidates from being overly influenced or bought.

 Similar laws exist to limit the influence that lobbyists can exert on candidates or politicians and the politicians have been brought up on charges for showing favoritism to different lobby groups. I'm trying to figure out the difference between millionaires and billionaires trying to get one of their own group into office and thus having influence over him versus a lobby group trying to buy influence over a politician. I know these situations are different, but I do see some marked similarities.

 I really appreciate the fact that Obama refuses to attempt to get much millionaire support. He started out his campaign years ago as a man of the people and he has continued to stand on that philosophy. I know that if the PAC money was taken away, Romney and the Republican Party still could personally pay for a lot more commercial time than Obama and the Democrats; it just might be a little fairer. I like the idea of getting rid of all Political Action Committees and going back to the old way of doing politics.

The O

Those of you who know me know that I enjoy women's basketball and Eagles football. I guess it's not a stretch to find out that I actually like almost every single sport known to man. Just to maintain domestic harmony, I don't subject Janet to my sports desires on a regular basis… Except every two years, at Olympics time.

 Right now I'm in seventh heaven… Every sport you can think of is available during a two-week period and Janet humors me during the O. You can watch all sorts of sports both common and unusual; table tennis, water polo, beach volleyball, equestrian, team handball, swimming, gymnastics, soccer, basketball etc. And with the advent of free cable television channels, I can find a sport I want to watch 24 hours a day. One of my pet peeves has finally been addressed; women's sports are being given equal television coverage!

 For a week leading up to the start of the Olympics, I was practically jumping out of my skin with excitement. On Friday, the day of the Opening Ceremonies, I told my health aide to watch for it that night. She acted excited, and then got a concerned expression on her face. She turned to me and asked “Those eye countries aren't going to be in it, are they?" I expressed confusion… I had no idea what she was talking about. She then said," You know, the ones we're fighting." I then figured out that she meant Iran and Iraq. I chose not to tell her that we hadn't been at war with Iran, that we were finished fighting with Iraq and we were now fighting in Afghanistan. For once, I chose to avoid the politics and the recent history lesson. In my current frame of mind, it was more important to me to tell her about the O, clearly she didn't get it.

I explained that the Olympics are not supposed to be about wars or politics; they are supposed to be above all that. They are a tribute to good sportsmanship and national pride overcoming world politics and squabbles between nations. I tried to explain how Muslims and Jews, North and South Koreans, Iraqis and Americans and Muslim men and Muslim women all of whom have disagreements for different reasons but march together peaceably during the Opening Ceremonies. Any differences they have are resolved civilly at the different athletic venues.

 I knew my argument had fallen on deaf ears when, after I thought I made my point, she then proceeded to say, “So I guess they are allowing those countries in, anyway." Sighe

 I managed to get over my annoyance and enjoyed the opening. I hate to admit it, but when I hear some of the Olympians stories, when I watch my favorites win and I see the medal ceremonies I get teary-eyed. They don't have to be American (although it helps); like the South African amputee sprinter or the British teenage diver, they or their families just need to overcome some sort of obstacle to get there. The Games turn me into a bit of a sentimental sap but I seem to like it that way.

 Unfortunately, every night NBC has the local late-night news after their prime time Olympic coverage. Every night, my cocoon of sentimental warm fuzzy feelings is burst by stories of murder, rape and robbery. Welcome back to reality. I wish the Olympic spirit would pervade our everyday lives although I know some people will say I'm being too simplistic and unrealistic.