Gloria Ferris

Lately, in news stories and on blogs I have read a lot of criticism about my generation–the boomers.  Some of it deserved. some of it written by journalists and bloggers who are obviously not boomers.  Even when we were younger, our parents’ generation called us the “me” generation so a lot of what is written is nothing new.  We have heard it time and time again throughout our lives.

We grew up in a time when thinking about “me” was possible.  it didn’t mean that we were not aware of what was going on all around us or that we didn’t care.  I graduated in 1968.  Graduation is a time when the whole world is right there in front of you ripe for the taking.  This is what was happening in my world and my friends’ worlds-The TET Offensive,  Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination,  The Chicago 7, the looting and burning of our cities,  many of my friends, at 18, went to Vietnam. Yet, we dared to hope. We hoped that someone with the vision of MLK or RFK would step up and be able to right our world.

In 1970, things had gone from bad to worse.  The invasion of Cambodia began.  On May 4, Kent State experienced a tragedy that no college campus should have in their history, and ten days later on May 14, Jackson State experienced the very same tragedy.    Many of our friends who had been to Vietnam were now home telling us that the stories in the press didn’t tell the truth.  “If you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem” cropped up everywhere on campus-sidewalks, walls, signs.  Nothing was safe.  The environmental phrase had ventured in to every aspect that we who could not vote were trying to change the only way we knew how by shouting, by writing, by standing up and refusing to believe what we were hearing and seeing were the only alternatives open to us.

In 1973, we were beginning our lives in the “real world”-the world of opportunity and work.  The fall of Saigon happened.  Soldiers coming home from Vietnam were met with contempt, disdain, and unemployment as if they were some how to blame for America’s plight.  College students were met with distrust and unemployment.  Everyone suffered from high prices, inflation, and the threat of unemployment.  Me,  a month before the school year started had no offers of employment.  Two weeks before the school bells rang,  I had three.

Today, the world is changing quickly.  What my cohorts and I experienced is the past.  We can do nothing about the past, but we can do something in the present.  Someone very close to me says that we are getting a second chance.  This time we need to get it right.  I believe that.  And I believe that as a boomer I have the chance to make things turn out differently this time.  Sometimes, we need to go through troubled times to understand what can be done differently.

As boomers, we have real choice in the coming election,  we can vote.   What we cannot afford to forget is what we experienced in 1968 when we did not have the right to vote.  This time the future is in our hands.  This time we can change the world.  I hope that we all have the nerve to look back, remember, and jump feet first into uncharted waters.  After all, what do we have if we don’t have hope.

l                      

Again, from the New York TIMES, a commentary from Bob Herbert on the blindness a culture of panders for years to the wealthy–the investment bankers and venture capitalists and big businesses, those who provide the richest emoluments for our elected representatives–and then tries to mitigate the country’s losses by putting a band-aid on the problems of people who work and have no lobby. He concludes:

I’d start with a broad program to rebuild the American infrastructure. This would have the dual benefit of putting large numbers of people to work and answering a crying need. The infrastructure is in sorry shape. New Orleans comes to mind, and the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

The country that gave us the Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe ought to be able, 60 years later, to reconstitute its own sagging infrastructure.

There are also untold numbers of jobs and myriad societal benefits to be reaped from a sustained, good-faith effort to achieve energy self-sufficiency. Think Manhattan Project.

The possibilities are limitless. We could create an entire generation of new jobs and build a bigger and fairer economy for the 21st century. If only we were serious.

Required reading, from Paul Krugman. I’ll quote a little bit below, and you can then go to the New York Times and read the rest for yourself.

The global origins of our current mess were actually laid out by none other than Ben Bernanke, in an influential speech he gave early in 2005, before he was named chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Bernanke asked a good question: “Why is the United States, with the world’s largest economy, borrowing heavily on international capital markets — rather than lending, as would seem more natural?”

His answer was that the main explanation lay not here in America, but abroad. In particular, third world economies, which had been investor favorites for much of the 1990s, were shaken by a series of financial crises beginning in 1997. As a result, they abruptly switched from being destinations for capital to sources of capital, as their governments began accumulating huge precautionary hoards of overseas assets.

The result, said Mr. Bernanke, was a “global saving glut”: lots of money, all dressed up with nowhere to go.

In the end, most of that money went to the United States. Why? Because, said Mr. Bernanke, of the “depth and sophistication of the country’s financial markets.”

All of this was right, except for one thing: U.S. financial markets, it turns out, were characterized less by sophistication than by sophistry, which my dictionary defines as “a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.” E.g., “Repackaging dubious loans into collateralized debt obligations creates a lot of perfectly safe, AAA assets that will never go bad.”

In other words, the United States was not, in fact, uniquely well-suited to make use of the world’s surplus funds. It was, instead, a place where large sums could be and were invested very badly. Directly or indirectly, capital flowing into America from global investors ended up financing a housing-and-credit bubble that has now burst, with painful consequences.

We just received this notice from Lou Tisler, executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services.  Thanks for the heads up, Lou.  Jim is receiving lots of national attention for his leadership in addressing the foreclosure crisis in our city, county, and state.  His testimony in Congress on Wednesday sheds new light into a national  problem that is not going to go away any time soon unless some changes are made.  Jim is an original hometown boy doing some good.  As many of you know, Jim grew up here in Brooklyn Centre and our neighborhood remains quite dear to him.  We are also quite fond of him and proud of the good work he does. 

77% of Americans surveyed were able to name at least 2 of Snow White’s 7 Dwarfs, compared to only 24% who could name at least 2 of th 9 Supreme Court Justices.  The most remember dwarf was Sleepy.  Clarence Thomas was the justice named most often.  (source:  Zogby Int’l.)

I laughed when Tim shared this statistic with me this morning.  If I hadn’t, I would have cried. 

Word of Mouth’s  Scott Bakalar posts Part 3 and Part 4 of Lorraine Ritchey’s recap of the Washington D.C. seminar on eminent domain for private development.

In part 3, I quote Lorraine who quotes

the words of Sandra Day O’Connor – prophetic words in her dissent ring clear “All private property is now vulnerable to be taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded. The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent(local government) from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”

She also cites someone who does not face eminent domain but says:

“I don’t have to be the one being mugged to see that someone who is being mugged –needs help!!!”

In part 4,  Lorraine Ritchey outlines the past year since the SCOTUS Kelo decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.  And, the facts are scary, folks. 

Those who look out for the little guy are the Scott Bakalars and Lorraine Ritcheys who post about the continuing quest for private land by developers who believe that everything is about money, the private individuals who take time out  of busy lives to attend seminars focusing on the growing problem in our country, and supreme court justices who dissent and in that dissention write opinions which spells out the ramifications of rampant eminent domain in the quest for more and more profit.  And last but not least, it is every one of us that realizes that we must stand up for each other on this issue because if we stand alone we will fail as a country.  

When I was reading the NYTimes today, I came across yet another article about voting irregularities in Ohio, but it was this paragraph that really hit home to me.

But there is one clear way that Ohio’s election system is corrupt. Decisions about who can vote are being made by a candidate for governor. Mr. Blackwell should hand over responsibility for elections to a decision maker whose only loyalty is to the voters and the law.

Exactly what I have been saying for MONTHS about Mr. Blackwell and his candidacy for governor while he is the sitting Secretary of State. If this man does not see the conflict of him overseeing an election where his name appears on the ballot for another office, what kind of judgment could we expect him to use if he should become governor of Ohio?. Aside: I shuddered as I wrote those last words. This article picks up on the impropriety of this whole mess as well and it is a mess, and mess leads to confusion, and confusion leads to voter reluctance and voter reluctance leads to people staying home on election day, and staying home on election day eases ballot spoilage. Kind of like The House That Jack Built, only The State that Ken Demolished. And if he would sit down with Meet The Bloggers, I would ask him questions based on this very topic.

We recently received a note from our friend, Valdis Krebs, telling us about a killer conference he’s attending in Washington, DC, this coming week. He’s in the Over the Horizon session.

I got so excited at the possibilities of what he’s going to participate in that I wrote him a note, and I liked the note so well that I’m going to share it with all of you. I must say that I’m having an extremely lucid day.

Valdis:

I think that it might be wise to look at how political parties gained power in the frst place. It started at a grassroots level with people banding together because of an issue or need in their community. For instance, back in the day, precinct committeepeople were usually the leaders in their small community; they then had access to councilpeople and political party bosses. These precinct committeepeople were courted by the powers-that-were to in effect make them more infleuntial in the power circles. Over the years, the grassroots portion has atrophied as the power structure has been come more and more disassociated from the everyday citizen and voter.

Today, we are at a point where a Minority of the American public choose our political leaders.

We are now at a crossroads where people can become reengaged in the political process through citizen journalism, blogs, Meet The Bloggers and other avenues using the internet. We are at a critical point where the grassroots portion of the political process can again be influential. This possibility could be very disturbing to the hierarchy in place now, on both sides of the aisle. In fact, we have seen a few instances right here in Ohio where that has probably been the case.

This is an exciting time in America when issues can again become the driving force behind politics rather than money and influence. I worry that censorship and control will hinder the explosive nature of this movement. I know that it will not be quashed, but it can be slowed down by a hierarchy threatened by networking and community building.

I am so glad Valdis that you are part of the conversation, and I am honored that you asked us our thoughts on the issue.

Enjoy the interaction and I am wondering, would you share your thoughts, observations, and conclusions in an MTB interview?

Gloria

This morning I picked up my Saturday PLAIN DEALER and read the following headline:

“Could miners have lived?… By following procedures, they may have missed best chance for survival”

In my usual rational way, I began to rant and to rave in the general direction of my husband, Tim, who has learned to listen with one ear and continue whatever he is doing with the other. How can they be so insensitive? Aren’t these miners families’ facing enough without all of this second-guessing? And then, Tim says, well what does the article say?

Silence filled the room. Then I quietly sat down in the rocking chair with a cup of coffee and proceeded to read an article that actually was not badly written and did nothing more than state that the miners could not have known that less than 1500 feet away from them was good air. By the way, this article was written by two NEW YORK TIMES reporters. To read the article go to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

I am referring you to the NEW YORK TIMES because the headline in that publication was,

“Miners Went by Book, but Time and Air Ran Out”

I don’t know exactly why, but for some reason, it just hits me as being a much more accurate headline. What do you think?