In the past four or five weeks I have read three novels by Dickens: The Pickwick Papers, Little Dorrit, and The Old Curiosity Shop. It seems that the best authors are often British, and Dickens was one of the best British authors. His ability to create characters and use symbols to expand upon his characters and novels (fog in Bleak House, prison – representing society – in Little Dorrit) is a testament to literary genius. Beyond that, Dickens was a commentator on society, and a natural advocate for the poor, hungry, and forgotten. Like many authors before and after him, Dickens wrote about the world he knew, and the world he knew was influenced by his father’s brief stay in prison. I think it was the debtor’s prison, and Little Dorrit centers around the real British Debtor’s Prison of Marshalsea.
What I’m writing about isn’t well-crafted fiction, or a book review. It was necessary to expand upon Dickens to recall that there was once the Marshalsea, and advocacy by Dickens and changes in acceptable social proceedings led to the end of the Marshalsea. His fiction was based upon fact, and his introduction to Little Dorrit shows rejoice in its removal. However, if we thought it good that debtors had some recourse besides prison, and there have been positive changes in society, we seem to be regressing.
Kelly Wiedemer of Westminster, Col., spent four nights in jail this month because she hasn’t paid fines and restitution she owes from a car accident that happened nearly two years ago….
As the cost of Wiedemer’s penalty increased, her ability to pay it decreased. She says she missed a payment while recovering from an emergency hysterectomy in October 2009. When her unemployment benefits ran out in May 2010, she stopped paying altogether.
She’s unemployed, like many of us. She’s not particularly uneducated; she has a BS and more than ten years experience, and it does her no good. There is no room for making mistakes, much less accidents. There is now a world where those who pursue and education and do not have a job (generally through no fault of their own) are punished for misfortunes of car accidents. This is a world that defies its own laws:
It’s unconstitutional to lock people up for being poor, and most states abolished debtors’ prisons before the Civil War, but many municipalities these days have been jailing people for defaulting on legal financial obligations, or LFOs, in what the American Civil Liberties Union has called “the rise of America’s new debtors’ prisons.”
“Imprisoning those who fail to pay fines and court costs is a relatively recent and growing phenomenon,” says an October report by the ACLU. “States and counties, hard-pressed to find revenue to shore up failing budgets, see a ready source of funds in defendants who can be assessed LFOs that must be repaid on pain of imprisonment, and have grown more aggressive in their collection efforts.”
“This whole unemployment thing –- it destroys people,” [Wiedemer] says.
In addition to a ‘To Do’ list I keep an unofficial, constantly changing, ‘Things Not To Do’ list. That list includes such brilliant things as not being run over, not going sleep-deprived, not being injured, and all sorts of other Things Not To Do. Here’s another Thing Not To Do:
John McGee, a four-term Republican state senator from Idaho, was arrested early Sunday morning on charges of grand theft and for driving under the influence.
Do not be arrested while in charge of the Transportation Committee and the “Regional Substance Abuse Authority Legislative Committee.” The article, and the representative’s website, do not describe what the “Substance Abuse Authority Legislative Committee” does, but it might include not drunk driving and grand larceny.
Things Not To Do.
It is so easy, when traveling to another country, to fall into the habit of speaking English. I remember using English with a Hungarian in France, and English in Israel, and English all day long. I spoke English in China – more Chinese speak English than do Americans – until the street merchants, noticing Americans, encouraged us in English to buy their goods, at which time we switched to French. However…
That’s about the extent of my semi-fluent linguistic abilities, and I’m losing even that. I last studied French in high school, which has been a good seven years. I’m trying to read Le Vimomte de Bragelonne, byDumas; you can guess by the title that I’m reading it in French. I recognize the words, but gathering a real meaning is difficult, at best. It has been too long since I studied French, and the intricacies of the book are being lost on me.
I’m no Colonel Chamberlain (yes, I know he was a brevet major general) – he spoke Greek, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac fluently, not to mention English – few of us are, but it is disappointing to contemplate my (our?) lack of linguistic ability. I know a few scattered words in many languages fairly well – French, Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Norwegian, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic, and Farsi – but I have not learned any of these languages well. The closest I have come is French, which my attempt to read Dumas proves I’m losing.
My grandfather immigrated to the U.S. at around age ten, fluent in five languages. This is a normal state of affairs for Europeans, and unheard of for Americans. Americans are in a hard position, linguistically. Besides those who are stubbornly xenophobic and think that only American English should be spoken in America it is hard to know what language to learn. When I chose to study French in high school, I was in school in Southern California, which, beyond all stereotypes, really is a place where Spanish is more useful than French. I wasn’t going for useful, though; I just picked a course to study and stuck with it. However, what language do we Americans really pursue? Besides the Spanish that’s useful in much of the South-Southwest, we don’t have much use for ‘foreign’ languages. To develop respect for other cultures, we have to learn other languages, and to learn other languages we have to be interested in other cultures.
I’m sorry that Congressman Weiner resigned today because of, well, weiner problems. And pretty minor ones at that. But it may be a case of ‘I resign, you resign, we all resign.’ Not only were several Republicans with much worse sex scandals on their record encouraging Weiner to resign, several Democrats wanted a resignation as well. However, if every elected official resigned because of errors in judgment, we’d have no elected officials left. If the media seriously pursued this story about Anthony Weiner, I hope they seriously pursue the story about House Speaker Boehner.
Boehner has been involved in extramarital affairs with at least two women, according to a new report in the National Enquirer.
I agree with the author, Roger Shuler, that The Enquirer is not my first source of news. In fact, The Enquirer doesn’t even make my list of news sources at all. But they are excellent at revealing scandals. Unusually for ‘real’ news sources, The Enquirer also listed real facts with real names.
Will the same people who encouraged Weiner to resign encourage Boehner to leave office?
Today’s headlines include “Mitt Romney Says Nation Undergoing ‘Agonizing Reappraisal’ Of Obama” and (just beneath that article), “GOP Cuts Food Assistance For Low-Income Families”. I’m not sure what kind of post-reality world Mitt Romney lives in, but apparently he is so dissatisfied his own idea of providing health care for people that he is no longer in favor of his own idea.
Generally, people appraise and reappraise situations they find themselves surrounded with. This includes houses, relationships, driving down the road,conversations; in short, politics. It should be no surprise that we appraise and reappraise our elected and unelected officials. I think only those who lost food assistance will agonizingly reappraise those officials, and if they have access to the news, or want to take a shot-in-the-dark guess, they might know who to agonizingly reappraise.
Thankfully for some of us, and to the dismay of others, there will never be an absence of topics to write about. If you hadn’t thought about it recently, how about fighting a lion to make a point? A young Egyptian is doing that.
Essawy: When I defeat the lion – which I will – I will pull an Israeli flag out of my pocket, and drape it over the lion, and put my foot on it. Israel led me to this, through all their atrocities which, as a child, I grew up watching on television. The message is that even though Israel and America may be as strong as a lion – the strongest creature on the planet – they too can be defeated.
Al-Masry: By you?
Essawy: By the Arab youth, which is about to explode. Soon, they will be ready to take on the mightiest foe.
Al-Masry: But, technically, the lion’s only fighting because you’re forcing it to.
Essawy: Yes. It’s a caged fight, so there will be nowhere for the lion to run. I have challenged the lion, and I will defeat it.
Al-Masry: So, to dismiss this as just some really crazy guy beating up an innocent lion would be, in your opinion…
Essawy: Completely inaccurate and misleading. I’m not a crazy person. There’s a political reason behind what I’m doing.
…
Essawy: This will be my first battle with a lion, yes. I have fought other animals, mainly dogs. On separate occasions, I have fought three of the most ferocious dog breeds.
Al-Masry: You punch dogs?
Essawy: I punch and kick them.
Al-Masry: How are you training for this specific event?
Essawy: By doing a series of mental exercises. Nothing physical, just brain-training. I visualize the fight for two hours at a time. I visualize the lion, and all the possible ways it could attack. Will it go for the head, or will it grab me by the feet? I ask myself these questions and visualize how I will dodge these attacks.
I’m not sure who I want to win. Perhaps the dogs?
Generation X quickly gave way to Generation Y. Just as quickly, that became the Millennial Generation, which is simultaneously the Obama Generation – if they voted in 2008 – and the “Lost Generation.”
…Instead, what economists call the idleness rate is rising: The share of Americans younger than 24 neither at work nor in school has steadily increased since 2007. That disconnection creates the risk of what Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz calls “a lost generation.”
Faster overall job growth would be the best antidote to that threat. But the particular problems of young people demand more-targeted responses. Colleges and universities must see to it that more students don’t just start their degrees but also complete them. As Segal says, those institutions must also accept “greater responsibility to ensure” that those graduates leave with skills employers need. Washington, meanwhile, should consider further expansion of AmeriCorps and other service opportunities for this civic-minded generation.
Europe has become known for its austerity. But while we point and laugh at public sector work cuts and pension freezes we are pursuing the same policies. In the meantime we are indeed creating a Lost Generation.
Last week I did the unusual. I went to a movie. Even more unusually, I went to a screening. It becomes more unusual than that. It was the second screening of the movie Beginners; the first screening was in Los Angeles, this second screening in Santa Barbara, about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. In the words of the writer and director: “this is a strange screening for me. I grew up in this town.”
Paul Mills was the director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The movie ‘Beginners’ is written and directed by his son Mike Mills. My family had reason to know the director of the museum; naturally, along with that comes knowing the son of the director. I never met Paul Mills, and I met Mike Mills for the first time at this screening, but Mike knows my family well. He came to our home before the screening to say hello – in the manner it was done, it seems he came to pay his respects, though the feeling should be mutual – before collecting his entourage – there were seven of us – and heading off to the theater.
Mike Mills met as at the door. And he led us into the theater. It can be difficult, when doing something unusual, to keep your wits about you. So we entered a packed auditorium and said ‘we usually sit a third of the way up’ (that’s two-thirds of the way down), so down we went. But the auditorium was packed. It took a moment to notice that row which we had passed “RESERVED FOR THE GUESTS OF MICHAEL MILLS”. That’s us. It produces a feeling of self-consciousness to sit in a row marked for the guests of the director.
I hope you find a theater near you with “Beginners.” Watch a good movie.
When we speak about a subject, it is usually a subject we have knowledge of. If it is a conversation about a subject whose topic we started, it is likely that we know the topic exists. But will we get facts right? If another person begins a conversation about a topic, we must educate ourselves about the topic, sometimes in mid-conversation. But will we facts right? More importantly, if we are running for political office, or had that honor in the past, will we get facts right? Will we even try?
Well into the twentieth century a preponderance of our presidents read Latin, quoted Milton and Shakespeare, and drew from an immense mental repository of human history in making crucial decisions of state. The founding fathers, to a man, regarded themselves as latter-day Roman Republicans, and often signed their letters to one another as Cato, Publius, Cicero, etc. They understood that the revolution they undertook was not singular, but part of an ongoing struggle for human liberty that predated their efforts and would continue long after.
Presidents look to the actions of their predecessors for guidance and warning. Beyond that, with a wider field to draw from, they also look to events seemingly remote, yet crucial: the English Civil War, Alexander’s campaigns in Persia, the legal reforms of Justinian. A greater knowledge of history means a broader field of precedents, and thus better-informed decisions. This does not guarantee success, as for every precedent there is usually one to counter it. But to argue that ignorance is preferable — or even possible — is to hand the controls of the jet to a five-year-old.
The Dole Blog 