Whinny All The Way: Of Horses And Economies

Farmer Brown bought a horse. He didn’t need one to farm with, but prices were down due to the economy and he had always wanted to ride, so he bought ‘Lucky,’ one bay gelding with four white feet.

At first, Farmer Brown only rode his horse in the evenings, but he quickly became enamoured with the beautiful and spirited creature. After a couple of weeks, he was often seen riding across his property on the prancing Lucky.

With the increased workload, Lucky began to demand extra rations and that concerned Farmer Brown. Money was in short supply, so he cut portions and poor Lucky paced in his stall with a hungry stomach.

After a few weeks, Farmer Brown noticed that Lucky’s pace had slowed and all the kicking and finger snapping in the world did not entice the poor horse to run. Weaker and weaker he grew until Farmer Brown, knowledgeable about animals, recognized the caloric deficit.

What if, he wondered, instead of increasing Lucky’s food supply, he just reduced his activity? Would he be able to save money? With a heavy heart, he stabled the beautiful gelding and resigned himself to look at him over the stable wall. To make up for the inactivity, he cut Lucky’s food rations in half. Grinning, he rubbed his hands together in the knowledge that he would save a good sum of money by the end of the year.

The problem with Farmer Brown’s reasoning is that he is missing the point. He didn’t buy the horse, so he could stare at him in the evenings. He bought him to ride. Lucky, shut inside the stall day in and day out, became moody and mean. He developed digestive trouble and dropped weight. He stood, listless in his four walls and sulked. He picked up bad habits and chewed on the food trough. The vet had to be called for broken teeth, rotten feet and colic. Farmer Brown worried.

Farmer Brown reminds me a lot of those lawmakers who oppose an economic stimulus bill. They call loudly for spending cuts and yell for tax reductions. They refuse to feed the horse and instead try to stable it. The point of a healthy economy is that people make money and spend it. The point of having a horse is to ride it.

If we want to ride our horses, we have to feed them. We give them the best food money can buy: rich, sweet smelling hay and clean horse-approved oats and sweetfeeds. If we want a functional economy, we must also feed it. With job incentives and progressive spending. We must not stable it and let it starve.

Those who oppose the president’s stimulus bill are missing the point. Farmer Brown missed the point. An economy has to flourish, a horse has to run. It’s the law.

A Subtle Shift

Of course, I’m floating on air! It has been days since the landslide election and I still have trouble hitting solid ground. What once seemed an impossible dream now lights up my every waking hour in countless, hopeful ways: A thoughtful, intelligent, eloquent multicultural democrat ousted the bush-infected rightwing reactionary, male supremacist good-ol’-boy administration. While I write these lines, he is busy tightening the nuts and bolts on an enormous, wide-sweeping machinery of honest-to-goodness change that will roll through the staunch White House and leave us breathless and excited.

The tide has turned. Years of Bush/Cheney-induced depression seem to fall from my soul. There is a light on the horizon and its name is Barack Obama. I still pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. I pick up Time magazine umpteen times a day to look at the headlines and make sure it really happened. We, the people have spoken. King George’s reign is over.

I went to work the day after election, all smiles and with a Tigger-like bounce in my step and studied my coworkers. In a notoriously red state, emotions were mixed and not openly displayed. To my surprise, nobody gloated, but I did not hear any negative rants either. What I did see, was a subtle shift in the bearing of some of my non-white coworkers.

I saw no arrogance anywhere. No loud celebrating. No in-your-face nyah-nyah-nyah, as so many white folks feared. Only a gentle pride and a sense of their own brighter destiny. A quiet satisfaction that now, at long last, Americans of Color have come home. It seemed as though they were saying, “We were always here. We were always Americans, you just failed to notice.”

While white America was busy categorizing, judging and stereotyping African Americans, we did fail to notice the real depth of black culture. And perhaps, tired of our ignorance, black people stopped bringing it to our attention. Who can blame them if they resign to a ‘what’s the use’ philosophy? Why continue to try to prove that they are smart and strong, creative and resourceful if nobody wants to hear it?

Now, with an intelligent, sensitive, popular and incredibly cool non-white man heading for the Oval Office, my African American friends and coworkers suddenly find themselves written into history. With one of their own heading for leadership, they no longer need to doubt themselves or prove themselves. I notice the gleam of hope in their eyes, but also something greater: a sense of destiny and self we whites have long taken for granted.

A black janitor stops to glance at a newpaper, carelessly tossed on the counter. It is not his paper, but it headlines his president. He simply must read it. A black nurse quietly scans the internet for updates on the election. Two black clerks discuss the unbelievable in hushed voices. When I greet them, they respond. And they seem just a little friendlier. This is their moment. Yet, in the long run, it is opportunity for all Americans to grow in friendship and understanding. It is our best stab at racial equality.

They were always here. Strong, smart and black, they were always Americans. It is time for us white folks to get with the program…

How Not To Fall For The Gidget Act

I know it is difficult not to be charmed. Last night at the debate, Sarah Palin pulled all the stops and turned on every ounce of Alaskan girly-girl-ness. She winked at the camera, smiled, and told us the secrets of her inner soul in a most endearing, conspiratory whisper. How can we not be taken?

With all the finesse of a Victoria’s Secret model, she flirted and teased and covered up her ineptness at debating. For every point Jo Biden made, she gave us a flurry of lace; for each of Jo’s solid steps, she produced a can-can. For every fact, a fantasy, for every question, an evasion. And we sat with our jaws agape with a silly smile on our faces, overcome by so much genuine femininity.

How can we not love a voice so bubbly, even if it tells us the most incredible lies? How can we not fall for a smile so sweet, even if it covers up the fact that we’re about to experience the most vigorous butt-screwing in recent history?

It’s difficult, not to be charmed, but it is possible. Before we can free ourselves from the beguiling personality of Sarah Palin, we must first re-engage our brains and try to think.

Let’s eliminate first some key phrases from Ms. Palin’s speech, such as “The American People” (used at least fifteen or twenty times and sometimes without context), “This great country” (two or three times out of context), “Do the right thing” (although she never mentioned what the right thing is), “Freedom and democracy” (out of context), “Government, get out of the way” (while in the same sentence demanding more government oversight), and “Alaska” and how she faced down the bad, bad oil companies. Now, let’s see what’s left.

She says ‘nookeelar’ like George W Bush. OK, I guess I can forgive her for that. And it did get Bush elected. She has no clue of alternative energy or any interest in pursuing it, because she has not grasped the reality of Global Warming. She can’t put together two sentences without repeating herself or running in circles. This also reminds me of our current president. She is against gay marriage and did not affirm that she would actively work toward granting basic rights to same-gender couples. Her exit strategy from Iraq is to continue to do what Bush is doing. No exit strategy at all. She want tax breaks for the wealthy and reduction of government spending and we all know where that leads with Republicans: Cut the programs that help our poor and sick and elderly.

In light of all these facts, perhaps it is not so hard to resist the seduction and stand fast against the conspiratory whisper. Perhaps it is easier now to understand the reactionary politics of the McCain/Palin ticket without falling for the sweet Gidget smile. Perhaps you will send your man to the nearest strip club to find a more straightforward seductress, one who does not hide behind the hockey-mom image, but stands by what she does without apology. And when she winks at him and whispers her sweet secrets into his eager ears, remember that at least she won’t be living in the White House on tax dollars.

My Best Friend

In the long nights
When shadows scurry through my mind
When there is that clank of memory
Making me want to rant and scream
You hold me
Though you are miles away.
I sail across the oceans of my soul
Until the wind turns sour
And then you are beside me
With puffed up cheeks
Blowing until your lungs give out
And my sails billow once again.
If I sass you
You’re apt to push me from the boat
But if I sink
Eyes filled with fear, and pale
You bravely chase me into soggy depths
Where fate and karma dance like star-crossed lovers.
You battle
Tooth on tooth against my many demons
Shredding skin and thought with vicious claws
I’m safe, but thick and crimson
All that blood
Is mostly theirs - and yours

Are We That Dumb?

You wanted a woman, he said
Well, here’s one!
A slap in the face
Of all who supported Hillary
No matter that the other one stands
For all things unprogressive
That life is sacred only when
It isn’t born yet
That we are to be
One nation under one church
That our rights and strengths
Are to be squashed once again
Our children to be spent
In a holy war
Our sick and needy
Forsaken yet again
To fatten Alaskan Oil Sheiks
No matter all that
Which insults the woman in me
Still by the scores
Dumb white women
Abandon their cries of hope
And plummet to the low regions
Of Republican corruption
Sell out your families if you must
I won’t!
I’m still voting for a Democrat

The Birds

When I leave work in the evenings, my car seems as eager as I to get home. I rarely stop, except to fill up the gas tank and I don’t dally on the way. For one, I can’t wait to see my son, to pet my cats and to relax in my newly refurbished living room, but I also hurry each day, so I don’t miss The Event.

Each and every evening, between six forty and six forty-five, as I drive toward the setting sun, The Event takes place on the highway. My sun glasses mellow the golden sky to a fiery golden-red and against its glorious backdrop, hundreds of birds sail high above the tall East Texas pine trees across the highway in front of me. They fly in V-shaped flocks or in disorderly multi-flock swarms and they all fly at the same unhurried speed, light-winged as if floating on a stream of water. Each day, I ambition to count them, but give up after the first few flocks. And each day, I drive, spellbound, into the glowing sunset.

How is it that those birds know time? Do they travel by a secret schedule? Or do they simply wait until they spot my little gray MINI Cooper before taking to wing? Perhaps they swarm to honor some avian deity and paint the sky with their tiny wings. Or perhaps they greet the sun with their graceful dance.

The truth is probably much more prosaic, but it doesn’t take away from the splendor of The Event. They fly from feeding grounds to nesting grounds, where they sleep, perhaps on an island, heads tucked under wings and safe from predators. A change in the light conditions of the sky most likely triggers their migration and I just happen to pass through at exactly the right time every evening. Yet even in their mundane pursuits, the birds teach us something. As ordinary as our lives are, nothing keeps us from creating our own Event each day. Nothing prevents us from turning humdrum into inspirational, if only we open our eyes and hearts.

If we do all things with beauty and grace – not the commercial beauty that’s sold on TV and in department stores , but the true, long-lived grace of a magnificent soul; if we inspire with kindness our friends, family and co-workers, if we arrange our homes and lives thoughtfully, if we treat strangers with compassion, children and animals with love, and if over all our actions, a glorious sun-kissed disposition rules, we cannot help but bring beauty into our own lives as well.

Each small, insignificant bird covers only one inch of sky, but together, they form a painting that takes my breath away. If, like the birds, we humans weave together our color-rich fabric of experience and goodwill, we too can create such a painting. If we all step up to the challenge, some day, we will ourselves be The Event.

I Used To Swim

I used to swim
Head proudly above water
Long hair streaming
Behind me in the stern wave
Strong and even strokes
Propelled me effortlessly
From here to there
I used to relish the wet
Fresh water’s gentle buoyancy
Like tender fingers
Ever so lightly on my skin
I cherished the soft scents
Of navy blue and aqua
The sounds of golden spray
Sweet droplets’ quenching taste
But today, I struggle
Breath by breath I fight
Dark water, thick and angry
Rolls through tortured lungs
My hair has fallen
Like black sea grass
To the lake bed
And my love fell with it
Now that you carried my trust
Into another woman’s arms
My muffled screams go unheard
When the lake spirits
Pull me to their silent depth