Friday, October 30, 2009

*Headline to the Washington Post article by Paul Farhi, Thursday, October 29, 2009.

According to the article in yesterday’s Washington Post which led me to write this piece, 1 in 8 American women will have invasive breast cancer at some time in her life, 1 in 35 American women will die from it. I have a wife, a daughter, a sister and women who are friends. Breast cancer is very, very serious business, an horrific disease which is attacking half our population in epidemic numbers. Nothing I say in this piece should be construed as diminishing the critical nature of this disease or the need to do absolutely everything we can to fight it.

So here comes WJLA, Channel 7, the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC. In a four part series which began last night, WJLA public service programming on the subject of breast cancer awareness will be featuring the fully exposed breasts of two women who have volunteered as subjects to demonstrate self-examination techniques. Let me encourage you to read the entire Post article for yourselves, and then view the first installment in the series through the link at the end of this post.

The series is timed to coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness month which ends Saturday. It’s also being aired during the first two days of “Sweeps Week,” the month during which the drawing power of specific shows will be measured and advertising rates set for the year ahead.

What a coinkydink. Or, if you prefer, you can imagine me pretending to sneeze while uttering a certain 8 letter word in the process, “Ahhhhhh bul…” Either way, you get the point.

WJLA management, while admitting that they’re in a business in which ratings count, claims the station is trying to get people to watch because it’s that important a story. It’s an important story alright, which is precisely why it shouldn’t be exploited as a tool for increasing viewership.

News broadcasts are exempt from FCC indecency rules which is how the station gets away with it. Fine, but why is nudity, however tastefully presented and however noble the cause, essential to accomplish the station’s public service objective? Who are the additional viewers these segments will attract and why will they be watching? And perhaps most telling, why wait until now? National Breast Cancer Awareness month is just that, a month long. Why not run the series at the beginning of the month or at any other time during the month? Why now? Ratings.

Not to be cute, but will WJLA – which, as far as anyone knows, is the only television news program in the United States using nudity to discuss breast cancer – give equal time for other cancers and disorders involving body parts that wouldn’t otherwise be exposed on prime time and late night broadcast television? I doubt it – at least not until Sweeps Week 2010.

No question, this stunt – the nudity part of their series – at WJLA is all about ratings. We can only hope it doesn’t diminish the power of the all-important message which is the legitimate story they should be telling.

Judge for yourself. Here’s the link to last night’s segment on WJLA… “Touch of Life: The Guide to Self-Breast Examination”

-wf

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Our Constitution defines a Congress in which the people are represented as individuals in the House of Representatives, and as states in the Senate. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that money gets to vote.  

It’s a free country. Other than campaign financing laws which limit contributions to political campaigns, there’s no stopping anyone or any organization from arguing its point of view in public. Companies do it all the time. It’s called “marketing.” Wealthier people and organizations still have an advantage, but at least it’s out there for all of us to see, judge for ourselves and, if necessary, do something about it.

Lobbying is far more insidious. The problem is access, direct and discreet access to the Congressmen and women, Senators and their staffs who make our laws and spend our money. It’s access we, as citizens, can’t afford and seldom get.

Why do our elected representatives pay attention? Why do they allow, even encourage such privileged access? Because it takes lots of money to get elected? Yes, but it’s not so much that the costs of getting elected have risen so dramatically, as it is that the money some candidates have been able to raise to buy their election has, and everyone else either keeps pace or loses.

The problem isn’t the money per se, it’s the influence it buys. Better, more extensive campaign financing reform will help, but we need to get to the heart of the matter, to deny lobbyists the access they crave. Without access, there’s no point in their spending their money to pervert the election process in favor of those candidates who may or may not end up supporting their objectives.

How do we do it? Lobbyists are already required by law to register. The next step is simply to make it against the law for them meet or otherwise communicate with our elected representatives or their staffs. Think of it as similar to the rules in our legal system which recognize the inappropriate nature of “ex parte” communications. From www.Dictionary.com…

1. From or on one side only, with the other side absent or unrepresented.
2. From a one-sided or strongly biased point of view.

No question about it, I’m making it illegal to “lobby” in the conventional sense of the term. Lobbyists will just have to resort to using their considerable persuasive skills through the media along with the manufacturers of Cheetos and adjustable beds – as long as they talk issues, and not specific candidates. Enforcement will be a problem, but time and the electorate will out those officials who continue to behave badly in opposition to the letter and spirit of the law. Pretty soon, old school lobbyists won’t have anything to do, no lobbies they can hang around waiting to make their pitch, and that will be that.

Sure, it’s way easier said than done, mostly because the lobbyists themselves will be lobbying against this new legislation I’m recommending, and because the Congressmen/women and Senators they support will be very reluctant to lose the advantage their “ethical flexibility” allows them. Hard, yes, but worth it don’t you think, and high time we returned control over our government to the people, regardless of how much money they have.

-wf

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

There’s disagreement among Senators about whether or not healthcare reform legislation should have a “public option.” Rather than take the time and make the effort to develop the concept to the point where it either makes sense or doesn’t for all Americans, the Senate Democratic leadership and the Obama Administration chose instead to negotiate a deal in the worst possible tradition of Congressional and Presidential politics.

It’s simple. Senators represent states. If your state doesn’t like the public option, you can opt out of it. There. Now we have legislation all the Democrats in the Senate can support. What could be more perfect?

Either the public option makes sense or it doesn’t, but to give individual states the right to participate is contradictory is to the primary objective of healthcare reform legislation, that being the part where it’s supposed to be “universal,” regardless of where in these united states you happen to live.

I know, I know. Technically, we’re a federation of states. And yes, I’ve made the admittedly radical argument in a previous article that I believe the Senate has long ago outlived is usefulness. Believe me, this deal that Harry Reid struck with President Obama and his team has nothing to do with the historic basis for our country or any constitutional issue. It’s about getting legislation passed before the end of the year and the hell off everyone’s plate. What started out to be a noble cause has turned into a pain in everyone’s Congressional and Presidential butt – which is not the context in which you want to devise complex, expensive, literally life altering healthcare legislation.

Forgetting about the politics of it, or my concerns about states’ rights, how would it even work? Won’t people who can, and who want the public option, move from states that don’t offer it to those that do? How will private sector health insurance coverage, what’s left of it after the public option goes into effect, vary from state to state? Perhaps most importantly, how will the presence or absence of the public option affect the way healthcare services providers are compensated in different states, with what implications for the extent and quality of local healthcare?

What a mess. Just what, exactly, has the Senate added to the debate over healthcare reform? Or President Obama, for that matter, whose leadership has been woefully inadequate.

You might also want to read, “Did you hear the one about Medicare and the Public Option?” published October 22 on the WordFeeder.

-wf

Thursday, October 22, 2009

You see those feet in the picture across the top of my home page? The ones on the right are my son’s, taken on the day he graduated from law school.

Well, he made partner today at his law firm. Very impressive.

His mother and I are very proud and, while we were proud of him anyway, this is a particularly wonderful moment for which he deserves extra special credit.

Way to go, Son!

We love you.

-wf (aka “Daddy”)

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Proponents of the Public Option are fond of pointing to Medicare as an example of how effectively the government can provide healthcare insurance. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Medicare is, in fact, the perfect government program with no funding or administrative issues – God’s gift to healthcare for Americans over 65. So it would seem, given that almost all of our countrymen in that age group are covered by Medicare – and that’s precisely why it’s not an argument for the Public Option.

If there was ever proof positive that a Public Option will put private sector healthcare insurance out of business, it’s Medicare.  Whatever the program’s shortcomings, it is apparently so well designed and priced that almost all Americans who are eligible subscribe to it in one form or another. The private sector, having no demand for its own Medicare-independent competitive coverage, has been relegated to the role of marketing and administering Medicare programs. These private sector programs for people 65 and older offer various additional benefits, but make no mistake about it, they’re all about Medicare.

We’ve all heard the suggestion from people frustrated by the mess that is healthcare reform legislation, “Why don’t we just lower the minimum age for Medicare to cover everyone?” And, you know, maybe it’s not such a bad idea – if you believe that private sector insurance has no place, serves no role in facilitating the delivery of quality medical services. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe healthcare insurance should be a government service. I don’t think so, but it’s debatable. Let’s just stop pretending that a Public Option isn’t tantamount to a government takeover of the healthcare insurance market with who knows what implications for the larger healthcare services industry itself.

If a Public Option is anything like Medicare, why won’t private sector programs for Americans under 65 suffer the same fate? At the end of the day, the Public Option will be serving the vast majority of Americans. That makes the Public Option a virtual monopoly, with the power, however inadvertent and well-meaning, to remove competition from the market rather than encourage it – while wrecking havoc on the entire healthcare services industry which Public Option insurance is paying, with consequences no one can adequately foresee.

By the way, as a monopoly, the Public Option will, by definition, have no competitive basis for setting the prices of the services its insurance covers. Rather than fixing the imperfections in the market in which the prices for healthcare services are now determined, our government will have replaced that essential market mechanism with its own judgment of what those prices should be, and that is a disaster waiting to happen.

Here’s a simple, but nonetheless powerful observation: Having the government go into competition with the private sector for the purpose of encouraging competition is an oxymoron, and is neither the only or best way to cure a market that is behaving badly. Far from it. The Public Option is little more than an example of a President and Congress that lack the intellectual patience and creativity to craft more effective, far less disruptive legislative solutions.

-wf

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Economists are worried that the jobs we’ve lost in this recession are not going to be coming back when the economy recovers. Unfortunately, the economy is not going to recover until the people who have lost their jobs find new ones, and that’s the rub. How are we going to get all these people back to work if the jobs they had are gone for good?

Traditional monetary and fiscal policy aren’t going to help here, nor will our government’s fixation on the stock market and solving large company problems. The problem of jobs that aren’t coming back is structural. The economy is changing, and has been for years, in ways and at a pace which dictate a new topography of business and employment in the United States. It’s going to happen, one way or another. These are changes which are inevitable, ongoing and essential to our prosperity. Maybe there is more our federal government can do to facilitate and encourage the process, to leverage this metamorphosis, between what the economy was and what it will be, for our collective advantage.

The government’s answer to disappearing jobs seems to be training. Go back to school, academic or vocational, and learn how to do the jobs that the future of our economy will be creating. The problem is, no one knows for sure what positions and how many of them there will be, or when and where they’ll be available. Odds are, the majority of people investing in further training and education are not going to be reaping the benefits of their re-invention anytime soon, if ever.

Understandably, even if we could predict the future with precision, there’s no one coordinating any of this education and training to make sure there aren’t more people pursuing a given job type than even a robust economy is willing to hire, and not enough preparing for other positions. It’s not a new problem. High school students grow up in an economy in which there is a shortage of a given profession, only to find that shortage having been resolved four years later when they graduate from college. Through no fault of their own, they’ve prepared themselves for a career in a market in which the supply of qualified candidates for entry level positions now exceeds the demand – while other, newer career paths for which the graduate is not prepared are paying a premium, begging for qualified applicants. Now what?

The solution is easier said than done. (Aren’t they all?) I’d like to suggest a much faster and far more certain strategy for re-employing the unemployed, and for minimizing the likelihood and impact of future recessions. I want our government to offer a series of incentives and support services which facilitate a fluid, continually shifting national topography of business and labor. Quite literally, in the short-term I want to move the unemployed to where the jobs are for their current skills and experience, while encouraging the longer-term expansion and development of new businesses in communities which have the requisite infrastructure and qualified labor, need new employers, and are worth saving.

The US economy isn’t so much a national entity as it is an agglomeration of many, many overlapping and interlinked local economies of varying size and character. Even in the worst downturns as measured by national statistics, there will be communities, large and small, which are less affected and may even be experiencing economic growth because of their particular mix of industry and other factors. The question is, how can we help unemployed people from one community – people who had the jobs that we believe aren’t coming back – take jobs for which they are already qualified, without the need for extensive retraining, but which are in other communities too far away for them to commute? …jobs that may be hundreds, even thousands of miles away in different parts of the country?

People – even the most motivated, financially viable unemployed people – tend to stay put. They’re used to where they’ve lived, in some cases, for their entire lives, where they have family and friends, where their kids go to school. Knowledge of employment opportunities in distant markets may not be readily available, particularly to the employed in the lower paying, less financially viable strata of the workforce where unemployment and the other ramifications of a recession are most severe. And even if they knew there were jobs in other markets, how could they be sure they would be hired if they moved there, and how could they afford to relocate?

The good news is, our government can help, and for far less than the ridiculous $533,000 per new job we’ve spent so far. Here’s what we need to do…

1. Ask the employers who are hiring to participate in a government program which will enable them to consider candidates at a distance who are also willing to participate. Participation is voluntary, but employers will cooperate because drawing from a broader geographic area will give them a greater pool of prospective employees from which to choose, enabling them to find better people willing to come to work for them, quite possibly at lower cost than they would have paid in a more competitive local market.

2. Identify the specific jobs, wherever they are, and publicize that information via the Internet. I’m talking about a national job bank of biblical proportions.

3. Match job requirements to worker skills and experience and notify the unemployed. Participation should be voluntary in general, but required as a condition to receiving unemployment compensation.

4. Cover the cost of pre-qualified prospective employees coming in for interviews, and on-the-job training. (No institutional re-training is as good as on-the-job training by your new employer.)

5. Get the new employer to guaranty a full year’s employment for the new hire – which the employer will do in return for our subsidizing the cost of the new hire, either directly or through tax incentives.

6. Give the family a financial incentive to move which the employee can use either to relocate his entire family and/or to live in the locale of his (or her) new job until he’s sure in makes sense for his family to join him.

In effect, I want our government to encourage the immigration of the unemployed from one US market to another, on a scale previous federal, state and local employment programs have never approached. How would we fund all this? In part, perhaps in large part, from the money we save from no longer having to support these unemployed families, from savings we will enjoy at all levels of government from the discontinuation of lesser employment programs this new, national effort will render unnecessary, from the tax revenues we’ll receive directly from new jobs salaries and wages, and from the multiplier effects of spending by these newly employed consumers.

Would people be willing to relocate for just a year’s commitment of on-the-job training and new employment? Well, what would you do if you were unemployed, had been for months, with no real prospect of being rehired in your current market?

Moving the unemployed to where the jobs are now is one thing. Getting existing and new companies to open facilities in communities with under-utilized infrastructure and workforce is quite another.

Take Detroit, for example, long known for its depressed economy and devastatingly high unemployment largely due to changes in the automotive industry which is going to recover, in one form or another, but not in Detroit. Either we, through our federal government, bring new employment to that city, or we allow it to continue to decline, its problems festering at our expense.

If the current recession has taught us nothing else, it’s not that Wall Street can be reckless and irresponsible in its pursuit of wealth. We’ve always known that, and early evidence is that the Obama Administration’s bailout has done little or nothing to alter this reality. What we should have learned is that the recession is the consequence of long coming structural changes occurring within our economy, that the topography of our economy is changing in ways which may have nothing to do with the historic reasons for the development of this or that city, and that what happens to Detroit and to its counterparts elsewhere in the country is not just a problem for that city, or even Michigan, but for entire country.

We, all of us, support the unemployed and the economically devastated communities in this country. They are a drain on our national resources. They contribute in no small way to our budget deficit. Most importantly, we are deprived, every one of us, of the contribution these out of work Americans would make to our collective success were they gainfully and continually employed.

It’s high time, and long overdue, that programs to facilitate changes in the topography of employment and business development be given equal standing with traditional monetary and fiscal economic policies which are proving themselves to be less and less effective.

-wf

Friday, October 16, 2009

It’s fashionable nowadays, particularly in the Oval Office and halls of Congress, to talk about healthcare reform legislation that is “deficit neutral.” The President has promised never to sign a bill that increases the budget deficit. The idea is that any legislation he approves will somehow be self-financing by virtue of the savings it makes possible and/or new tax revenues it generates. It’s an extraordinary promise from a President who, at least so far, his already increased our budget deficit, with reckless abandon, to levels that make the Bush Administration’s accomplishments seem thrifty by comparison.

The problem here is that the concept of “budget neutrality” is off point. Way off point.  The objective, to stay with the example of healthcare reform legislation, is to fix the problems which necessitate that reform, and to do so as effectively and as inexpensively as possible. If, in the process, it turns out that we need to spend more money than the program generates in savings and new taxes, well then, in order to keep the overall budget deficit from increasing, we’ll have to reduce spending somewhere else. It’s a big budget. I’m sure we can find something to cut.

Promising deficit neutrality for a single piece of legislation, even one involving this much money, is sort of like believing you can clean up a polluted river by showering the next time you go swimming in it.

In effect, the President and Congress are telling us that they’re willing to pass inferior legislation, as long as it, and it alone, doesn’t create any additional deficit – which begs the question of what they should be doing to reduce the ocean of red ink in which our government is already drowning.

“Deficit neutrality” is a distraction. See how concerned the President and Democrats in Congress are about government waste and overspending? Come hell or high water, they’re not going to let anything as important as healthcare legislation make the budget deficit any worse – as if that’s really something they can control or predict. (Predicting the cost of legislation this complex is hard enough. You also have to accurately estimate federal revenues.) Who cares if it means settling for something well short of universal coverage or failing to meet other major objectives of healthcare reform?

Just pass the damn legislation, and let me get on with the other items on my campaign checklist before the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan get any worse!

Ooo. Did President Obama say that out loud? Forget to take off his mike when he went to the men’s room? Of course not.

To be precise, here’s exactly what President Obama promised during his September 9 speech before a joint session of Congress and a national television audience:

And here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.

And then he added,

And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.

What’s the point of limiting the quality and scope of healthcare legislation for reasons of deficit neutrality, as he promised in the first three sentences of this excerpt from his speech, if only to be willing to make cuts elsewhere if it turns out it wasn’t deficit neutral after all?

The American people deserve better, but we are forever hopeful and easily fooled. The first is one of our most endearing attributes as a nation. The second is why we keep electing the wrong people to Congress and The White House.

-wf

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, October 18, 2009

Herbert never did like his first name and had labored his entire life, from elementary school until today, his 24th birthday, to have people, especially his closest friends if he’d had any, to call him anything but. To be precise, he detested “Herb” and especially “Herbie,” too. “Bert” reminded him of “Ernie.” …“Jake.” That’s what he wanted people to call him, thinking it was cool, manly and cool, a name that the ladies would find compelling. …”Jake,” because he needed all the help he could get.

Lying there in his hospital bed, the expression on his face was somber. His eyes closed, arms by his side, he was surrounded by a handful of his coworkers from The Acme Inventions Company wondering what took the life of their colleague. Herbert was dead.  It was official now that the nurse had turned off the equipment that had been monitoring his condition just a few minutes ago. The flat-line tone they had heard in the hallway still lingered in their heads. Don, the group manager, was standing at the end of the bed, as far from Herbert as he could be without seeming as if he didn’t really care, even though he didn’t. Lisa was to the left about even with Herbert’s shoulders. Denise was at her side, between Lisa and Don. Joanne was to Don’s right, and Robert was on her right, across from Lisa. They were just standing there, still wearing their coats.

“So, uh, what did the doctor say,” Robert, who had the carrel next to Herbert’s, had been the last to arrive, “..killed him? Was it… Did he…”

“Kill himself?” Denise always said what she was thinking, however irreverent or impolite. They’d all been thinking the same thing, but only Denise had the balls to put the idea out there.

“Of course, not.” Joanne was the only one in the room that was really upset, her eyes glistening with the anticipation of tears she couldn’t rationalize, not yet. Joanne was the unrequited love of Herbert’s life. Everyone knew it. The way he looked at her. His inability to speak in whole sentences when they were at a meeting together. The way he waited for her to go the lunchroom refrigerator so he could happen to be there at the same time. The supposed-to-be-casual invitations to join him for dinner when they were working late that she never, ever accepted. Well, you get the picture. He was crazy about her. He wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

“If anything,” Lisa looked up at Joanne, blaming her for Herbert’s current situation, “I’d say he died of a broken heart. …Maybe if you’d…” she thought a dramatic pause might help make her point. “Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?”

Herbert was bright. Very, very bright, and exceptionally creative. In fact, he was the only one of their new products specialists who actually developed his own products, working evenings and weekends in the unfinished loft where he had his laboratory and shop, and where he slept on the futon that was the only piece of real furniture he had. None of them had much money. Inventions were a labor a love, and a lot like prospecting. Some would search their entire career and never make any real money, addicted to the dream of striking it rich.

“Well, you know,” Don, their group leader was emotionless, “he’d been struggling lately.”

“Maybe we should have asked him to go out with us after work,” Joanne wondered out loud. “Once or twice. How bad could it have been?”

“They’re not sure,” Lisa had spoken to the nurse. “His cleaning lady found him passed out when she came in this morning. By the time the paramedics got there, he was already in a comma until a few minutes ago, until his heart stopped. Short of opening up his chest, they tried the usual to bring him back. Nothing.”

“And then we got here.” Don gave them off to go the hospital. It was the right thing to do, and they weren’t that busy anyway.

“Didn’t they open him up, you know,” Joanne, for reasons she didn’t understand, was having trouble holding it together, “massage his heart? Hook him up to machines to keep him alive the way they do on TV?”

Robert offered her an open pack of Kleenex he’d had in his back pocket for who knows how long. Robert had chronic nasal drip, and there was lint on the top one she would have taken. Joanne faked a polite smile and waved him away, preferring to suck it up, literally, instead.

“He had one of those ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ cards in his wallet. ‘No Extraordinary Measures.’” Lisa always had the tone of instant authority that made her less likeable than she thought. “And he’s not an organ donor.”

There was a spontaneous moment of silence while the five of them just stood there, contemplating their own mortality.

Denise was first to talk after the break. “Here today,” was a far as she got.

“I think he died of a broken heart,” Joanne seemed to be blaming herself. The other four looked at her, and then at each other.

“I don’t know,” Robert thought it was time to say something nice about the recently departed. “I thought his ‘Bagel Cheese’ and the ‘Bagel Cheese Roll’ for delis had potential.”

Denise had had lunch with him once. “He was such a perfectionist.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Don butted in sarcastically.

“I remember,” Denise continued choosing to ignore Don, the way they did at the office, “how he would cut off the corners of the cheese squares they gave him, and the hole in the middle to keep the ratio of bagel to mild cheddar constant over his entire sandwich. He just overestimated the market.”

“‘Soap Pits.’” Lisa had her personal favorite.

The other four nodded their concurrence in unison.

“Who among us,” Denise took the lead, but they had all helped Herbert with the story boards for the presentation, “doesn’t find the find the little pieces of soap that are left over when the bar is nearly done annoying?”

Joanne kept it going without losing a beat. “You can try to smoosh them into a new bar, but that’s unsightly, and they don’t stay attached. And, in the meantime, they turn yellow in your soap dish.”

“Or you can try squeezing several of them together to make a bigger piece.” That line had been Robert’s contribution, and he was proud of it.

“Mostly,” Joanne would never forget the ending, “I just try to put several of them in my hand and use them all at once to make enough suds – and then one or two slip out and get stuck around the drain in my sink. And then,” she continued, the lump in her throat making it hard for her to swallow, “and then I have to ask myself, do I pick it up and save it, or try to push it in all the way, raising and lowering the drain cover to make it go down?”

Even Don was impressed, although he wasted no time distancing himself from the idea as soon as Lever Bros. turned it down. “Our solution is to make the bar of soap with a cheap, disposable, but recyclable hollow plastic center – a bar customers could use right to the core, which would still be a convenient size, and there wouldn’t be any remnant pieces.”

“We call these core’s ‘Soap Pits,’” Joanne finished up, the pride rising in her voice as she did, “like the pits in a peach, while your brand name materializes in raised letters and contrasting color.”

“Herbert even thought producers could put prizes in the pit that would encourage customers to use the soap more quickly.” It was an important detail Robert thought he needed to add.

“Brilliant,” Joanne and Denise said, lowering their heads.

“On the other hand,” Don couldn’t suppress his need to remain superior, at Herbert’s expense, of course, “there was the ‘I Stink!’ line of bad breath mints and ‘odorants’ for people who wanted their significant others to break up with them, rather than having to do it themselves. …What was he thinking?”

“Everyone,” Robert turned toward Don, coming to Herbert’s defense, “has an off day.”

“Had he lived,” Joanne mused, “it would have been remembered has his original work with alternative fragrances. Who knows where that research would have taken him?”

“I’m just saying you can’t…” Don was too insecure to leave even mild criticism unchallenged.

“Don,” Lisa looked at him, and then over at Joanne who was sniffling and fumbling through her pocketbook that she’d set on the side of Herbert’s bed. “Give it a rest.”

“Well,” Joanne lifted her head, giving it one final sniff, having found what she was looking for, “I think we will all miss Herbert. …Certainly, I will,” she added, punctuating that thought with a deep breath. Opening a plain, unmarked tube of lipstick, “Robert,” she demanded while looking carefully at the glistening red surface of what rolled out of the tube, “give me one of those Kleenex.”

He paused, and then reached into his back pocket to comply. “Here.”

She took it, wiping off the lipstick she was wearing, and began applying the lipstick from the unmarked tube.

“What is that?” Denise wanted to know.

Joanne quickly finished applying the new, electric red gloss, and returned the tube to its case. “It, uh… Well, as it turns out, it was Herbert’s last project. He’d been working on it for weeks and gave me a sample on Monday. It’s a new product he called ‘The Lovestick.’ He… He told me it had special recuperative powers. This is the least I can do.”

“Is she serious?” Don thought he must have missed something.

Rolling her lips together, Joanne was determined to do this. “He joked and… and told me that only on the lips of the perfect woman would his formula realize its full potential. I want him to know… Well, excuse me.” And she pushed Robert aside, taking two steps toward the head of the bed. Bending over slowly, she gave Herbert in death what she denied him in life, a firm kiss on his lips, the classic lip stain of his latest and last invention evident on his mouth, it’s aroma rising up his face and into the room.

“Wow,” was all Denise could say.

“Fragrant, isn’t it?” was Lisa’s comment, having watched the kiss from the other side of the bed.

One sigh to punctuate the moment, and Joanne was done. “Let’s go,” and she turned, herding Robert in front of her, and Don in front of him toward the door.

“Hey,” Lisa was still bedside. “He wasn’t smiling before, was he?”

They stopped and looked back for a moment. “…Nah,” Robert and Denise agreed, and the four turned and resumed their exit, Lisa hustling up to join them.

Three weeks later…

What? You were expecting Joanne’s kiss was going to bring Herbert back from the dead? As if that were even possible. Well, doctor-patient privilege prevents me from telling, but you should know that Joanne, after an unexpected knock on her apartment door two Saturday mornings later, resigned from the Acme Invention Company that afternoon via an e-mail to Don – and then canceled her e-mail and cell phone accounts and left keys to her condo with an agent on her way to the airport for a week of unwinding at one of the $10,000 a day cottages at Nassau’s Ocean Club – where more than one member of the luxury hotel staff complimented her on the extraordinary fragrance of her luscious red lip gloss, to the pleasure of her friend, “Jake,” who had made the reservation for the two of them.

-wf

Additional short short stories are available at www.WordFeeder.US. Just click on the tab labeled “Short Fiction.”

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

That scared little rodent in the picture is a Lemming.

Yesterday’s 14 to 9 vote by the Senate Finance Committee is being touted by the White House and Senate leadership as a “bipartisan” endorsement of the Committee’s proposed healthcare reform legislation. Of the 10 Republicans on the Committee, only Olympia Snowe of Maine voted for it. Good news for The Red Team: Notwithstanding Senator Snowe’s reservations and caveats, the Republicans are no longer officially the party of “No.” One of them has said “Yes.” In fact 10% of Republicans on the Committee, if you like using percentages for small numbers, support the Baucus plan.

What everyone seems to missing is that Snowe’s affirmative vote is not what’s striking here. What’s notable is the complete lack of dissenting votes among the 13 Democrats on the Committee. It’s frankly unbelievable that not one Democrat on the Committee – although there are a few elsewhere in the Senate –found enough wrong with Chairman Baucus’ legislation and had the balls to say so by casting a “No” vote.

No mistake about it, there are significant concerns being voiced by Democrats in both houses, but those concerns will be resolved soon enough by a combination of compromise that produces junk legislation and old fashion political pressure from Congressional leadership and The White House.

This is historic alright, but not in the same league as, for example, civil rights legislation. There’s no huge social principle at stake, although the President and Congress would like us to think so. This is about fixing a malfunctioning market for medical services. This is technical and “technical” isn’t something our government does well.

Only nincompoops – not a term I get to use frequently, but entirely appropriate in this instance – would try to resolve the myriad of issues that are involved in correcting this market in a single comprehensive piece of legislation to the satisfaction of 535 legislators and their various constituencies. This has been a botched effort from the beginning, initiated by an inexperienced President in cooperation with a Democrat controlled Congress with a herd mentality and leadership, particularly in the House, that is woefully inept. (Can you imagine Nancy Pelosi as President of the United States?)

Whew. Quite the rant. Sorry. Can’t help myself. (I’m not a Republican, in case you’re wondering, but a registered independent in a heavily Democratic state.) In any case, getting back to the unanimity among Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, I ask you: Should the Democrats stay with the Donkey which they’ve had since opponents of President Jackson called him a “Jack Ass” in 1828, or update their image to something more cuddly like the cute, but cowardly Lemming pictured above? Hmm? Pretty much a toss-up, now that I think about it.

-wf

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, October 11, 2009

The strong rap, rap of the knocker on Doctor Mazor’s front door was still in his head when the doctor’s wife pulled it open with her usual enthusiasm. “Hi, Alan,” she smiled in a way that made perfect strangers feel welcome, “Com’on in. Charlie’s in his study waiting for you.”

“Hey, Arlene,” he responded, barely raising the corners of his mouth. She didn’t understand, of course, but it was the best he could manage. He tried looking at her, but couldn’t hold it for more than a second. Avoiding the usual polite chit chat, he started down the hallway alone.

“You know the way,” she reassured him, her voice trailing off to nothing, realizing their neighbor and long-time friend obviously wasn’t in the mood to be sociable. This was a professional visit.

“Com’on in Alan.” Charlie Mazor, 62 year old psychologist, planned to give up the downtown office he’d had since graduate school. Today’s impromptu session with Alan would test his feelings about using their home for a retirement practice. “You sounded like crap when you called. …Here, take a seat.”

In a reversal of tradition, Doctor Mazor took to the couch, pointing toward the comfortable leather chair, half on and half off the small Persian rug that covered the wide plank hardwood floors between them. “There,” he said, kicking off his shoes and making himself as comfortable as he felt appropriate under the circumstances. (“If he was a real patient,” he thought to himself, “I’d probably have to take the chair, makes notes, pretend to be listening.”) “What’s going on, Alan? What about this beautiful fall, star-filled Saturday night that makes it so important that we talk?

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice. …and you’ve got to promise to charge me this time or, or I’m not coming back.”

“Okay, already, I charge you. What they hell, I’ll overcharge you. Feel better now?”

“Much better. Thanks.”

“Maybe you want to take off your jacket?”

“Sure,” and he did, quickly, impatient to keep talking, dropping it on the floor next to his chair.

“So what are you doing here? You know, I charge extra for curing writer’s block. I figure 2% of the gross on your last three books…”

“…and you’d be able to take Arlene out to dinner, maybe.”

“Stop faking it. No one sells as many books as you do without getting rich. Not to mention the movie deals.”

“Did you buy any?”

“Any what?”

“Any of my books?”

“Why should I? You keep giving me free copies.”

“Okay, so I’m rich. I’m not here to talk about money.”

“Is it writer’s block? I mean, because if it is, I was just kidding about charging…”

“No, anything but. I can’t stop writing. My ideas come out of nowhere, one right after the other.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? You’re at your creative peak. You’re…”

“Hey, guys. Sorry to interrupt,” Arlene came through the open door to the study with a tray in her hands, “but I thought some homemade lemonade and brownies with fudge on top would help.”

[Backspace to “Hey, guys.”]

“Hey, guys. Stop talking for a minute,” Arlene came through the open door to the study with a tray in her hands, singing the old Pillsbury jingle the best she could. “‘Nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the oven….’ “Well,” she paused, seeing the blank looks on both their faces, “anyway, I thought some homemade lemonade and my special recipe chocolate chip pecan cookies would help.”

“Honey, it’s October. Do really think lemonade…”

“Oh, who gives a rat’s ass.” Being married to a psychologist, Arlene had given up mincing words decades ago. “It’s great lemonade, and if my cookies don’t cure Alan, well then, he’s had it. …There.” She put the tray down on the coffee table, pulling his journals out from under it and tossing them on the open end of the couch. “Enjoy.”

“Goodnight, Charlie!” It was their granddaughter popping into the doorway. She was visiting that weekend while their son and his wife were out of town. “Are we watching the game tomorrow?!”

“Wouldn’t miss it, sweetheart. You grill the hot dogs, I’ll get the beer.”

“Sure thing,” the 10 year old tried to act like he was serious. “Just don’t tell Grandma,” she pretend begged him in loud whisper, knowing full well Arlene was still in the room. “You know how upset she gets when we go bar hopping. I don’t want her to know I’ve started drinking again.” And then she giggled and ran for her life, Arlene right behind her.

“You’re a lucky man, Charlie,” he said with remorse.

“You could be, too. You’re what, 34, reasonably good looking, bucks deluxe. What’s not to love?”

“I don’t know. None of my relationships ever seem to last more than a couple of dates.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Can we talk about my writing, please?”

“If you insist,” Charlie seemed seriously perturbed, “but it can’t be as interesting as talking about the women I see you with.”

“Charlie! Focus, please.”

“Sure.”

“You know how it is with me. I write, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. My fingers move on the keyboard, the words show up on the screen, the characters take on a life of their own and seem to… to write their own dialog, interacting with each other at will. I…, I don’t have any conscious process, no outline, nothing. They even suggest the changes I make. This one thinks one of the others could be more friendly, that one complains the other is superfluous. I can’t…”

“Okay. Okay, already. I get it, but isn’t this the same creative process you’ve always talked to me about, about how your stories seem to come alive while you’re writing them?”

“It’s different now. Unrelated storylines are beginning to overlap and intertwine in ways I can’t seem to control. And I’m having trouble separating myself from what I write.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Charlie,” Alan moved forward to the edge of his seat, his elbows resting on his knees, as if being physically closer would make what he had to say any easier to understand, “listen to me. …I’ve actually become a character in my own stories, a figment of my own imagination. I’m more comfortable, sometimes, more at ease with the characters I create than with the people in my life. The fiction I create feels real to me, while reality,” Alan shook his head, wincing in disgust,” like the crap I used to write in high school, …trite, boring and fake. …Charlie,” Alan could see the expression on his friend’s face changing for the worse, “I’m not only losing my ability to tell which is which, what’s fiction, what’s real, I’m not sure I care anymore to make that distinction.”

————————-

“Alan!” his wife, Verna, was screaming from their kitchen, “dinner’s ready.”

No response from Alan, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his notebook on the flee market table he’d refinished and used as a desk in the small study they had in their apartment.

“Alan.” She was standing in the open archway now, curved – the way it was in older buildings – with heavy molding. “Com’on, Alan. Give it rest. The words will still be there after we have something to eat.”

No response.

“Alan, please,” she pleaded with him. “…It’s been, I don’t know, a week, what with my schedule at the hospital, since we’ve both been home for dinner. …I’ve made penne pasta with my own tomato sauce that you like, and fresh bread from that new bakery. …Please, Alan?”

————————-

“Hey, sorry I’m late.” Jerry was one of the two attendants that were working the nightshift that evening at the “spa,” as they liked to call it, where people – people who could afford it – went to detox or just clear their heads, under careful supervision, and without the press and paparazzi. Here’s a tip: It helps to like arugula and goat cheese, the curative powers of which are legendary, if yet to be scientifically verified.

“Don’t worry about it,” Frank reassured him. “…It’s been quiet.”

“Who’s this guy,” Jerry asked, referring to the “guest” they could see through the interior window to his room, the one sitting on the floor, his back up against the corner, his computer on carpet between his legs… [No. Backspace to “..sitting”] … in his bed, typing on his computer. There were blinds if the guest needed privacy, but this particular guest couldn’t have cared less.

“‘Alan.’ No last name. Never married. No family. He’s a writer. One of Dr. Mazor’s people.”

“Who’s ‘Mazor’?” They were talking to each other, but continued to stare through the window to Alan’s studio apartment, fascinated by his intensity.

“I don’t know. Never heard of him. He was the physician’s reference our guest gave when he checked himself in.”

(How pretentious. The word “patient” was strictly forbidden. Everyone was a “guest,” as if the place were some five star hotel. Alan was supposedly free to come and go at will – just not without the referring physician’s or psychologist’s permission.)

“Writes constantly whenever he’s awake.” He was reading the notes from the previous shift’s attendant. “Seldom looks up from his screen except to go to the bathroom and sleep – even then, with a pad next to his bed to make notes during the night. Eats at his desk. No interaction with any of the other guests.”

“What’s his problem?”

“He’s, uh, ‘confused,’ it says here. That’s all I know.”

It seemed that Alan heard them talking, although it wasn’t likely. Whatever the reason, he looked up through the window where they were standing, at each of them, one at a time, thought for a moment, turned back to his computer, scrolled up a couple of pages and resumed typing.

“Say, what happened to Marianne,” Jerry couldn’t find her when he punched in that evening. “you know, the new receptionist, the one with red hair, …and the perfect rack.” He laughed to himself and turned, sensing that his cohort, Frank, had stepped away.

“Jerry,” the voice was feminine and came from behind him, “I’m Mariane, you know, the babe with the nice rack. … Alan wrote Frank out of the story so that…” She was shy and more than a bit embarrassed. “I think we’re going to hook up in one of the empty apartments, while Alan leaves without our noticing. I mean, I find you attractive. You obviously like me. It’s not like there’s anything we can do about.”

Jerry wasn’t sure what to say. “Didn’t your hair used to be red?”

-wf