Ruminations in October

Patrick and I are alone. Joan is visiting her sisters in VA for a few days. The major change that occurs when we are alone is that the phone seldom rings! This demonstrates that Joan is the major link to the outside world! Without her, I would be so much less! However, Facebook has come to my rescue, at least to some extent.

I am amazed how much I enjoy reading what so many (many I know but only seldom see and talk with) share on Facebook. To know that children are being loved, family life appreciated, anger at our political and economic malaise, and photos of what appears beautiful and meaningful to them, makes me feel good. One may consider my armchair enjoyment of a social life to be such a poor substitute for the real experience. One cannot argue with that assessment, but I conclude that my experience with Facebook is so much better than nothing that I treasure it. And in addition to the people that I know through family and long-standing friendships, I am sharing life with their children who I would seldom, if ever, see and with new "friends" that are shared in Facebook. I cannot say enough positively about Facebook to do justice to my experience.

On another and more pedestrian plateau, I am again having problems planting grass. I know that I have successfully done it in the past, but during the past year, I have failed three times (assuming that the present attempt fails, as it seems).

I have noticed that, over the last year, I watch virtually no sports on TV. I still have an interest in the sports world which I satisfy by reading. But, I am finding that the time spent watching it is frustrating since it is so slow and filled with ads. Of all the sports, I watch some football which I find the best of the lot, but even that is a relatively limited amount.

Tonight will be a precious moment. I found out that Lang Lang is giving a concert in Philadelphia during the celebration of Litz's 200th birthday. The performance is being simulcasted into various movie theaters throughout the nation. I anticipate having a fantastic experience not only in listening to one of my favorite pianists, but to experience in a forum that may be more intimate than if I were in the music hall itself. I realize that this is not a brand new attempt to create a larger audience for the arts. For $20, I will see what the people in the hall will spend most likely more than $100. Attempts have been made to have opera broadcasted in similar venues.

Finally, Patrick came to the realization today that His Woman was not returning as quickly as he anticipated. So, he finally got desperate and jumped on my lap three times for some love, albeit less satisfying than if he had the real McCoy!

Occupy Wall Street

Even though I have not participated directly in OWS protests (I was physically a part of one in New Orleans, but I did not actively do anything), I am a supporter.  One of the observations of these protests is that there is no one thing that unites them, except possibly that those with power are excluding so many.

My focus has been on the power of those with money. I refer to the phenomenon as the power of money. Our nation is essentially run as an oligarchy.

Over time, I have referenced issues that flow from the intrusion of money into our government. One cannot be elected without tons of money and tons of money influence the decisions of government. Without a system to control the massive infusion of money, we will have problems.

Problems arising from this influence of power through money are the terrible and growing inequity  in the distribution of wealth, the inability of control the size of banks to avoid the problem of too big to fail, the failure to address the economics of health care because our government is controlled by pharmaceutical companies and health care insurance companies. In short, money controls the power that influences every aspect of our government.

Over this, I join the OWS crowd!