Symbols I Have Known

 

I recently ran across some little articles with pictures of Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, wearing necklesses with gold crosses.  As you might imagine, those attract responses from ardent supporters and ardent haters, going from “lovely and devoted” to “cartoonishly large cross.”  It is nearly impossible to conceal an opinion.  I found that when I selected “automatically” the words “supporters” – a largely neutral term – and “haters” – a negatively loaded term - in the last sentence.  But I decided to keep it there both because I like them and to make this minor point. 

One of those articles asked “should be it allowed” for them to wear the crosses.

OK, that’s one’s easy in the U.S.  Certainly it’s “allowed.”  That is the First Amendment in action. 

A better question is whether it is appropriate, and that’s where the juice of the matters of the symbols that we wear and display lies.

We wear and display on our cars, our homes, our walls and anywhere else we please various symbols.  Some symbols are obvious – Cross equals Christian; Star of David or yarmulke or menorah, Jewish; star and crescent (Hilāl) or hijab or Arabic calligraphy for Allah or the color green, Islam.  Let’s see, the Maltese cross (fire fighters), the Star of Live (EMS), the square and compasses (Masonic), the gavel or Scales of Justice (the law), the Rainbow (LGBTQ, etc.), the beehive (Mormon), the Eagle, Globe & Anchor (Marine Corps), and on and on.  If one chooses to wear a symbol, one identifies themselves[1] with a particular identity and a set of rough ideas.

One big issue is that symbols are not static.  In my lifetime, the rainbow has gone from either a pretty little symbol or the solemn promise of the God (pre-Christ) to not flood the earth again (which if you think about it was globally impossible and valid only regionally) to a symbol for the LGBTQ part of society.  A few years ago, some folks bought a clapboard home right across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas.   That Church was known at the time for traveling across the US to protest at anything remotely connected to the LGBTQ life.  (The churches website is at “GodHatesFags.com,” which is just another demonstration of how far the First Amendment truly goes.)  The folks across the street painted the clapboards in a rainbow.  (I thought it looks nice and happy and sunny, and I love bright colors.)  The church freaked, but there was nothing they could do about it.  (Other than bitch.)[2]

 

Have you ever seen a swatiska displayed seriously?  Some few guys have swastika tattoos, and we know what they mean.  I mean, we know NOW.  If one had a swatiska tattoo around 1900, we might have said “Nice tattoo” or even “What’s that?”  The swastika was then known as the hakenkreuz, a common symbol used by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and other as a symbol of good luck.  The Finns used it as a national symbol.  When the Soviet Union tried to invade Finland in the 1930’s (frequently a forgotten conflict buried in WWII), the aircraft of the Finns bore the swastika.  The Finns had zero to do with racism, anti-semitism, and the rest of the German-Aryan stuff at the time.  But if you were to see some picture or painting of one of those aircraft, you would – naturally – assume the worst.

I play strange little games with myself and occasionally share them.  Sometime back, I posted two flags:

And

Nobody bit.

The first symbol is the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” which was one of the flags of the Confederate States of America.  It even had a lively song written about it, “The Bonnie Blue Flag.”  The second symbol is the flag of Somolia with the five-pointed “Star of Unity.”  So do you salute one and abhor the other?   OK, which?

They are just flags.  The represent something in each case but they do not of themselves mean squat.  Neither does the swastika or hakenkreuz.  Neither does the bald eagle holding arrows and olive leaves.  Neither does any symbol.  They only remind us of things,

That is not to say that symbols are not important TO HUMANS.  I might wear a cross or chalice (the latter being the symbol of my brand of Christianty.)   I have one tattoo:

Works for me.  If you don’t want one, don’t get it.  It won’t bother me.

I display other symbols  - the EMS Star of Life, the world and American Scouting symbol, Masonic symbols (in some cases foggy ones, for instance a visual demonstration of the 47^th problem of Euclid, which I find funny for some odd reason).  I have a Gadsden flag that I wear on some lapels, and I resent the fact that some radical people have tried to reduce that to a simplistic political badge.  If people misread what I mean when I wear it, screw ‘em ‘cause I know what I mean. 

I use other symbols for no reason at all, they are just pretty. 

Some symbols that I see are obscure.   There is this:

I think only Gary will immediately recognize that one.  It’s maritime flag codes for India-November-Romeo-India, in turn a REALLY cryptic Christian symbol.  It’s impossible to use commonly because it take too many bytes to use as part of a signature and so forth.  But the thought counts.

There are times when the use of some symbols are ill-advised.  I never wear any symbol when I have a jury trial.  That might lead an odd juror to make conclusions contrary to the facts of whatever case I’m trying.  I resent that and I should not have to do that but I don’t make the rules and as long as I practice law I have to live with it whether I like it or not.

And sometimes, symbols are merely pretty and nice to look at.   I was at a luncheon put on by the local Scout council this weekend.  The fine lady sitting across from me had a delightful lapel pin, a large (an inch or so) yellow rose.  Maybe she spent time in Texas.  Or maybe it was just a pleasant decoration.  I might copy it.

It’s not for me to say what symbols you wear or display.  I try not to care, but I have to work at it occasionally.  In an ideal world, people would tolerate symbols and ideas commonly associated with them.

It’s not an ideal world.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t quit trying and stop to try to understand one another. 

Mizpah!

 

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[1] Yes, I know that’s technically bad grammar as the little gremlin stuck in my computer points out.  I don’t know how to get the little bastard out without deleting my whole word processor and I might not choose to just so I can grump and grumble.   In any event, I’m not yet happy with my screed on the need for our language to include “permissible” gender-neutral words, so I will continue to use the plural.  So there.

[2] That remind me of the time that the Westboro Baptist Church came to Fairmont after a gay guy was killed for being gay.   A lady deputy friend told me to “Cut the shit and leave, Roger, or I’m going to arrest you for inciting a riot.”  Doris was serious, but mistaken.  I was NOT trying to incite a riot.  I was trying to provoke the head Westboro guy into a fight.  I accused Doris of being a spoil sport, but I settle down ‘cause she was serious.  Anyway, I was younger and having some fun.

Engine 91

 On the way home from work, I came up the Ohio side of the Ohio River.  In a field, sitting alone, I saw a fire engine, obviously "retired."  It was a white custom cab, trimmed in blue, and had "Engine 91" in big blue letters on the side.

We tend to "personalize" the apparatus we have ridden on. The first ambulance at Station 20 was a 1960-something International Travel-All which was donated by the Power Company.  It had seen HARD use as a power company vehicle, but the gang which founded Station 20 rehabbed it into an ambulance.  You had to crouch over in the back, and it had an old fashion pursuit-light mechanical siren. It sounded like a REAL siren, not the sick imitations that are used now.  It was called "The Goat."  It was not used to transport patients by the time I started, but it still was used as a utility vehicle,  It was a standard shift, and I don't think it had synchronizers, but the Goat would RUN.  I still remember taking it through the gears smoothly and feeling all superior.  The Goat set the record for the Fairmont General to WVU Hospital at 14 minutes with John Green driving and Dr. Dollison on board yelling "Can't you make this thing go faster?!"  John used to tell that story and we never tired of it.

We had a Dodge van converted to a high-top by Wayne (which still builds school buses), and it was named "Proud Mary."   John's son-in-law, Roger Plyman, named it, and I never figured out why.

What was Engine 91 named?  That it has the "1" says it was at least for a time the first due engine.  It was old enough and in good enough condition that it probably was an engine at a volunteer company.  I just know that as the fire fighters came to the station, some chief told somebody to drive 91, and someone to drive the squad or the ambulance or whatever else went.  Seldom does only one apparatus leave the station.  When I'm teaching somebody to drive, I tell them that apparatus are like wolves, they run in packs.  91 appears to be about 30 years old.  I bet it has some stories to tell - asleep at night until the dispatch set the tones off, which in turn set the house siren off.  Then, she shook herself awake and waited for the driver and crew to charge into the night.  She knew - everybody knew - that they were all needed.  Everybody knew that they were running some risks.  But they were needed.

A few years ago, I saw Station 20's first squad, Squad 29, sitting in a field on Dudley Fork in Marion County.  The Baker boxes had already been removed and presumably it was destined for farm duty.  It was a 1957 GMC which started life as a radio van for civil defense.  The same people who converted the Goat converted it into Squad 29.  It was also a standard shift, no synchronizers, with a splitter on the rear end.  It would also really roll when you got it into fourth-high.  Whoever put the air horn in put the switch a little too low, so when you shift it to third-high, the air horn blew.  It did end up with a big dent in the side.  I was riding officer, JT was driving and we crossed the interstate and were hit by an elderly couple who stopped for us but were hit in turn by a drunk.  JT still claims that I told him it was clear to cross, and I will deny that to my dying day.  Since JT is not here with me to speak, I'll leave it at that.  But seeing Squad 29 in that farmer's field was sad.

I also bet that people who drove and rode Engine 91 are sad when they see it.  And I know that they remember fires and accidents they went to with the engine.

That's one of the minor sadnesses that emergency service - and age - presents.

But I bet Engine 91 still dreams of what was its best and its exciting years.  I can't help but wonder, will Engine 91, the Goat, Squad 29, Proud Mary and so many other trucks be present in heaven?  I hope so.  

Mizpah!

R

Please "Americanize" Your Name

 OK, the title is a “joke on the square.”  Who is dumb enough to know me and accept that I would say that seriously.  Oh, probably some humorless bot someplace will squeak, but another part of the joke is that it raises some legitimate concerns in a trans-cultural society. 

Yeah, I just made up that word.  “Multi-cultural” sounds like a permanent thing, like a half-full jar of green marbles into which your slowly pouring some yellow, purple and red marble and occasionally stirring.  We’re really in the first phase of a transcultural society, where we live the very beginning spirit of “E pluribus unum,” that hopeful (yet so far unfulfilled) statement that “out of many, we make one.”

This little writing started when I was doing a card to a doctor today.  The doc saved my life (by recognizing some potentially fatal condition and then no-kidding curing it) and doing so in the kindest manner I have ever encountered.  I had to have my PCP write her name down, because it is obviously a transliteration from another alphabet to English. 

That got me thinking about names generally and “foreign” names in particular.  By “foreign,” I mean not common in the country I live in. And there has long been in America – a probably everywhere – a push (or maybe a pull) to have a more common name.  Igor Igorivich Borodin is harder to spell that John Smith.  Oddly, we expect that when we meet either one, we have different expectations.  That’s on us, not on John or Igor. 

My surname first appeared with an 7 or8 times great grandfather who stepped ashore in the seventeenth century at Hampton Roads, probably as an indenture servant.  Without doing the math[1], the paternal surname tradition in our culture caused me to bear a surname born by less than 2% of my ancestors.  I could just as well be named Gates, Smith, Elliot, or Staib or things I don’t remember as I write.[2]  There is a family tradition – totally unproved – that there is some American Indian name from a foundling in the nineteenth century.  However, the American Indian naming tradition was/is far different from the Main Line American custom. The surname I bear is “Curry.”  My great times 1 or 2 grandfather changed it from “Currey.”  According to the late Rev. Truman Lawyer and the late Marilyn Greenleaf, the custodians of family records, it came from “Currie” about the time when the lowland Scots where chased from Scotland and ultimately arrived in the Western Hemisphere.  The surname “Curry” is modestly unusual, short and easy tp pronounce, so it serves me.

When people emigrated from elsewhere to North America, they often changed their name to something they thought was more American.  Part of the reason is that (probably) genetic us-them thing that leads us to make judgments WAY before we have enough information.  In the movie The Untouchables, there is a scene where the old, tough police sergeant (Sean Connery) engages a rookie officer (Andy Garcia) about whether “George Stone” (the Garcia character) had changed his name from an Italian one.  That was common – and we here in the 21^st century say shameful – practice.  It turns out that Connery was provoking Garcia to observe his behavior under stress.  (It worked.)  People have changed names later on in life for similar reasons.  Dwight Eisenhower came from a paternal family called “Eisenhauer,” and that was changed to “de-germanize” the name.  (DDE graduated West Point – I think[3] - the Class of 1911.  German names were a problem and it only got worse.)

So what should we do about the practice of changing names.

First, relax.  It’s legal.  The patronymic naming system is part-law and part-custom.  It has served for hundreds of years on the one hand and on the other, it’s not written in stone.  Also, maybe there’s a “who cares” somewhere in my mind.  What you call yourself if your problem and your business.  Xi Jinpeng defected, his new buddies would have a hell of a time pronouncing his name correctly.  For that matter, were I to print “Xi Jinpeng” in a Chinese newspaper, the only comment that would produce is “who stuck some random English letters into our paper?” 

Now, back to the doctor.  She is from the Indian subcontinent and her name sounds like the letters and cadence that names from there seem to me to.[4]  I find that some doctors from that region are referring themselves to patients they meet briefly as “Dr. Dev.”  Apparently, the surname “Devabakthuni” is common in India, sorta like “Smith” and those doctors frequently shorten it to “Dr. Dev,” which is short and easy to pronounce, without diphthongs, digraphs or consonant blends.

Back to the jar filled with marbles.  That won’t last forever in a truly transcultural world.  The image should be a jar of especially thick paint.  Sure, you can still see the colors that go in, but sooner or later, everything will mix.  America is STILL the primary place where people emigrate to.  First the freely possible off-the-books immigration and the current press to reverse the off-the-books thing have  NOT changed the direction that many people want to move.  We will have more and more “strange” surnames moving to the U.S.  Oh, how about not “strange” but “sounds strange and is hard to pronounce for someone whose milk language is English. 

The answer?  Oh, yes, I have an answer, but it’s not an immediate fix-all.  It’s patience.  Native English speakers, try to pronounce someone’s name as they pronounce it.  If it’s tough, ask them.  Americans are largely polite people.  “XI Jinpeng” knows that an English mouth has a rough time wrapping itself around his name, probably as much as a Chinese mouth has trouble pronouncing Donald Trump or  Marco Rubio. 

We will have more names to learn how to pronounce.  Do it patiently. But do it.

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[1] It’s late.  I’m sitting up in bed.  I’m lazy.  Do your own math if it bothers you.

[2] And, again, am too lazy to look up.

[3] See above reverence to my being in bed and lazy.

[4] A grammatical note:  A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.  Unless you don’t have anything else to end it with.   

Don't Blame Me, This Post Just Grew - Beaver Dams, Watercourses, and Ranting

 A former partner, Susan McLaughlin (a truly super lawyer!) replied to one of the endless things I've been posting on Facebook, this one about beaver dams.  It requires more than an acknowledgement in a reply.  In fact, it just grew into a short blog post.  I’m ready for the endless parade of hearings I have tomorrow, so I got time.

Watercourses are - from the source to the ocean - connected ecosystems.   Some people think a word like "ecosystems" is some sort of liberal, modern-day doublespeak and means nothing.  How silly.  It means that nature has slowly evolved, with only rare, occasional sudden changes (think the Mt. St. Helen's explosion, the Tunguska event, etc.), and any figurative grit between the stones has slowly been worn down over geological time.  Nature fits neatly. 

Humanity is the first creature who has had the ability to change nature abruptly and my goodness have we done so with a will!  The examples are legion: carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (bad, good, climate change, non-climate change, whatever, it's still at a high level due to some extent or near-total extent due to humans), the "harmless" cloroflorocarbons which still are wreaking havoc with the protective ozone layer in the mid-statosphere, microplastics in damn near everything (the effect of which we aren't sure about, but it's either neutral or bad, and I'd prefer not to eat plastic), yadda, yadda, yadda.

Yeah, I know I'm on a rant.  Either live with it or ignore it, I can live with either decision.  The Guy From Boston passed away, so I’m using a little of his thunder, although he was a master as cursing which I will never, never match.  Hey, I miss Joe and his cigars.

If you do something to any part of the watercourse, you change it.  Destroying beaver dams because they are damn inconvenient is common, but we don't know what we are doing to the whole system.  Maybe very little; maybe a great deal.  

One major contributor to humanity effects on watercourses is common in Appalachia, mountaintop removal mining.  When you fly over it, even at commercial altitudes, it is fugly.  Fugly is reason enough to quit it, but I’m in a small majority that think that.  They remove the "overburden" (the stuff above the coal seam), take out the coal and burn it, and toss what is not coal in the valleys below where the coal seam was.  That destroys the upper part of the watercourse and the flora and fauna necessary to the completeness of the ecosystem is gone.  Aw, it might kill some fish or mollusks that we never heard of, how sad.  Well, dammit, it IS sad, because we don’t know the importance of those creatures to the health of the ecosystem.  We just don’t know.  Look, we have seriously impacted the bee population.  No bees, no pollination; no pollination, no vegetation; no vegetation, no food; no food, we die.  That’s more than an “oopsie,” that’s serious shit.  We don’t know all of what we are doing.  We know SOME of what we are doing.  By mountaintop mining, we are exposing lots of silicates.  (Remember the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel dug in the 1930’s?  A large number of the people who worked on the project died of silicosis, which is a particularly nasty way to go.)  We are exposing other products which nature has kept underground for Her obscure purposes – Purposes that we will not realize until something comes up and bites humanity.   We sit in the lap of our Mother the Earth, and make a holy mess.  Humanity ought to have our collective asses kicked.

I don’t pretend to know nearly as much science as I need to nor am I amongst real nature nearly so often.  Ok, that’s my fault.  That doesn’t keep me from considering that we might be digging ourselves into a hole that sooner or later, may kill us.  As I tell my client who have dug themselves into a hole, the first thing you do is quit digging.

Mizpah.  I hope.

Someday, I might explain that.  If you knew my beloved late brother Oce Smith, you might already have a clue.

The Lawyer as the Sin-eater

 As a legal advisor and advocate, we lawyers fill a critical role in the lives of our clients and indeed all of those with whom we come in contact.  I still remember the first time I was addressed as “Counselor” by a senior lawyer.  I startled me then and still startles me now.  It is not just a title, it’s a description of what we do and the difference we make in people’s lives.

But it does have a cost.

We are aware of the role of secondary trauma, aka “compassion fatigue” in a lawyer’s life.  That from chronically dealing with direct trauma victims.  Oh, the spirit of “I can take anything, bring it on” still lives on, but the effects of secondary trauma are there.   You can admit them, you can deny them, but they are still there.  The burdensome effects get worse and worse as we take more and more on ourselves.

Prosecutors deal with crime victims.  We deal with juvenile victims of crimes, who are too young to realize that it’s sometimes a very dirty world.  The young ones often believe that their bad experiences are their fault, a sort of vast justice for something they must have done.  Defense counsel must give a “zealous defense” to the perpetrators and then must endure, privately, the effects of encountering a little victim.  Personal injury lawyers – on both sides of the cases – deal with the grievously injured.  They must keep a straight face as victims recount the details of direct trauma and the continuing effects of them and their families.  For that matter, every lawyer who deals with real people faces with what is, to them, terribly traumatic events.  The lawyer cannot help but having the client’s trauma “rub off” on the lawyer. Often, after months or years or decades of helping or wounded people, a lawyer with a shred of humanity in them will develop severe pain from another’s trauma and a genuine case of post trauma stress disorder (PTSD) will result.

If a lawyer has started out with PTSD, perhaps as an abused child or a combat veteran, the secondary trauma brings trouble on all the quicker.

For the client, for the lay person, talking to a caring lawyer – “getting it out” – can be a relief and a start to personal healing.  The lawyer can be skilled at diminishing some of the crushing burden of the client’s prison of trauma.   Often, the lawyer is the first professional to notice – and care – that what the client has refused to believe is a “big deal” really is a “big deal.” The lawyer may be the first one to give the client permission to experience their hurt and deal with it.

Trauma is almost a physical manifestation.  It doesn’t just go “poof” and vanish magically.  Where does that trauma go? 

Often, it goes right to the lawyer.  Then, it the LAWYER who experiences that wakefulness that comes at 3 AM, where the lawyer is the one who counts the holes in the ceiling tile in their bedroom.  It’s the lawyer who has unbidden anxiety and depression.  It’s the lawyer who starts to hide a little booze in their desks.  (Oh, use vodka – it has less odor!)  It’s the lawyer who feels that they need to always be guarded in their environment.  PTSD is real, no matter how you get it.

The lawyer is no more free and available to take on the burden of the client's experiences and sins than the next person, but it is our JOB to do so.

Sins?  Well, yes.  You see, the lawyer has become the new “sin-eater” in our society.

The practice of “sin-eating” is as old as these hills and valleys of ours.  In its original form, “sin-eating” was a mixed Christian-pagan practice brought to Appalachia from the British Isles (mainly Wales and Scotland) in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  It  endured actually and secretly into the 20^th century and still endures a little bit even in the 21^st century.  We lawyers do it today, even though we call it something different.

Sin-eating starts with the obvious truth that humans are not perfect and, from time to time, they sin.  To a “believer” in one or more Deities[1], to accumulate sin is to “earn” some sort of negative reward after your death.  That negative reward is usually something physically punishing and really bad.  However, in most religious practices, a human can earn a reprieve by practicing good works and faith.  All it takes is the time to do good works and be faithful. 

Everyone can change their negative behaviors.  According to Jacob Marley’s Ghost, Scrooge has no idea of "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"  Even Scrooge has a chance:  “You have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.  A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."[2]  All it takes is time to bank up good deeds and thoughts.

What if you don’t have time?   What if you don’t really want to live the good and moral life?  How do you escape that post-death experience? 

Simple.  Your friends and relatives find a sin-eater.[3]  The pure sin-eating experience requires a “wayfaring stranger,” unknown to the deceased.  They are shut in the room with the “sin-eating expert” and the deceased.  A loaf of salted bread and a cup of water are located on the body.  The designated sin-eater repeats the “expert’s” incantation and, poof, the sin is translated to the sin-eater.  The soul of the deceased goes to its reward unburdened by sin.  The wayfaring stranger is sent on their way, never to return.  (Do not despair for the Sin-eater!  After good works and faith, they work themselves into good graces with Deity.)

The Sin-eater does what the modern lawyer, with their computers, cell phones, and fancy offices do.  We invite the client to tell us the truth, no matter how bad it is.  We either genuinely don’t judge them or we at least conceal the judgment.  We assure them that while they may have screwed up, everybody screws up now and then.  And then we try to fix it.  Simple, right?

Maybe to the client it’s simple, and relieving.  But then, in our own minds and hearts, we need to process what we have heard.  Then, we must fix the damage to OUR hearts.    We might do it in a healthy manner.  We might go for a walk, go swimming, or practice meditation. We can spend time in nature.  We can ourselves talk with a valued friend.  In some cases, some medication may help. (Booze is NOT a helpful medication.)  We can even (shock!) get some “professional help”!

(Hey, relax, it’s not a huge deal.  Besides, if I can do it, YOU can do it.) 

The first time you ever represent a client, you have absolutely guaranteed only one thing:  There will be a LAST time.  The time between is called your “career.”  And you career is way too important to you, your family and the many people you touch to take lightly.

Take good care of yourself.  You are worth it.

Mizpah!

 

 

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[1] The author is quite comforted and comfortable as a Christian.

[2] Dickens, C.  1843.   A Christmas Carol.  Chapman & Hall.

[3] What follows is a delightful (to the author) discussion of Sin-eating.  It’s drawn from A Wayfaring Sin-eater and other Tales of Appalachia, by James Gay Jones, 1983.  McClain & Company.  You can obtain virtually any out-of-print and low-volume printed books from “Bookfinder.com,” which uses the ABEBooks, Alibris and Biblio condition rating system, so you’ll know what you are getting.

Would You Like to Round-Up for Ronald McDonald House?

 I’m mildly addicted to Diet Coke.  Not the way the President is, I don’t have
a button on my desk, and if I did, I’d get told to go straight to hell.  I’m still mildly addicted.  I get lots of Diet Cokes from McDonald's, as there seems to be one every two miles.  

Every time I’ve hit McDonald’s to feed my craving, some young person at the drive-thru says, “Would you like to round-up to benefit Ronald McDonald House?”  

Hey, who can say no?  What kind of skin-flint, cheap, miserly, old bastard would or could even say “No, thanks.”   Let alone just a brusque “No.”

I know one.  It’s me.  “No.”  Not even “No, thank you,” and I surely will not make any lame excuse.   Just “No.”  If the McD world can’t tell why I do, screw-'em.

It’s Sunday morning.  Am I going to say “No” to the church?  If you want to know the answer to that, you got too much time on your hands. My rule: What I give to others I do not discuss.  If you watch me constantly, you probably can tell my level of public participation, but you will never tell it by my words. 

Maybe I am a skin-flint; maybe I am generous to a fault.  It’s none of your business.

Now, that strangely violates one my rules for making money for charitable causes.   You are supposed to sincerely thank a donor and let them - if they want - let other’s know about the donation.  It’s sort a “to-each-his-own.”  For the last several decades, I have raised money for non-profits, and I have raised a good bit.

  
Now, in my typical aside - I just can’t resist getting side-traced - I came up with a method some years ago when a non-profit we were heavily involved in needed $10,000 BADLY to balance the books.  I came up with a pretty nifty method which depended on knowing-the-right-people, cajoling, pride, preening and a free bar.  (We even found a was for free - to us - booze.)   We got the 10 grand.  But since, that organization has turned that little idea into a major fundraising method.  To be brutally frank, I did not and do not have the skill to convert it from what it was to what it is now.  (And Amy and company, I doff my chapeau to you!)

Oh, there’s a minor rule of fundraising for non-profits there.  Don’t get cocky when you get a good idea, because others can make it a lot better.

But how about the Ronald McDonald House?  Why do I resist?  Let me count the ways:

1 - For the owners of each McDonald’s, it exists to furnish food and thereby make money.  That’s OK.  That’s American.  But don’t get all high-minded and pretend that you’re in it just for the Ronald McDonald house, because you are not.

2 - The McDonald’s corporation apparently has let us down on telling us what the Ronald McDonald house is.  Lots of people don’t know.  Unlike the cute and annoying “Kars-4-Kids,” they don’t have sufficient confusion to hide whatever it is they are collecting for.

3 - The poor, underpaid employee - who probably has to save their money to but a shirt with a collar to wear to work - knows damn well that they are put in spot to pressure customers at the point-of-sale, in the presence of other customers, to make a donation and either (1) be thought normal and a trifle nice or be (2) an irrational, miserly old bastard.  If you’re going to hold someone up, even for change from a dollar, surprise them: It’s so much more effective.

And the big, overwhelming reason: Neither the local franchisee nor the McD’s Corp. has shown that they have skin-in-the-game.  Maybe they do.  Maybe they don’t.  I don’t know.

Let’s assume that McD’s corporation has “Ronald McDonald Houses.  They no doubt do.  Presumably, they give people a place to stay near a medical facility where - I think - their children are being treated.  Oh, I can look it up on their website and since what THEY say they do, but it that’s not my job.  If they want my money, they have the responsibility to tell me what it’s for.

They benefit from modest advertising as being the sponsor of Ronald McDonald Houses.  That is a minor asset to the franchisees and the big corporation and so far, that only appears a modest plus. 

How can they prove “skin-in-the-game”?  By showing some commitment apart of urging customer for “rounding up.”  What costs and what effort do (1) the franchisee’s give up and (2) the big corporation give up?  We don’t know. 

All we know is that WE are asked in an overtly publicly direct fashion to donate.

I get gas & pop in to get a coke at a regional gas-restrooms-and-food mega gas
station called “Sheetz.”  (Buc-ees, Pilot, Maveriks, WaWa’s, etc., are very similar.)  At Sheetz, they run occasional fundraisers for good causes.  (Hey, nearly EVERYTHING is a good cause - taking care of parent while their kids are sick is a good cause - If McD’s does so, they need to explain what they do a whole lot better.)  Sheetz does the collection for whoever by announcing it on their speakers (along with ads, jingles and allegedly happy sounds that make you want to buy more stuff), and then they prove that they have skin-in-the-game:  

“WE MATCH WHATEVER YOU DONATE.”  

If you offer to match me, you’re not just a Salvation Army band with a kettle - You have become my partner, and you can be guaranteed that I’ll pony up.  “Would you like to round-up?  WE’LL MATCH IT.”  That would generate a donation from me every time.  If Sheetz can match it, I’m all in.

I LIKE to find people who spend my money better than I can.  I prefer being asked politely and informed what they will do and that they are indeed my partners.  I have had former life partners who all commented that “You are giving too much money” for a donation, a tip, or such like.   Buzz off.  It ain’t your money.  (A couple of individuals may be afraid for the comment they might believe I’m tempted to make there.  Relax, girls.) 

It is good and it is gratifying and it is culturally a magnificent thing to share what we have earned or been given to improve even a little part of life.  But we don’t to it blindly.  Even as it is our joy to give, it is the users responsibility to tell us what they will use it for and to prove that they really do have skin-in-the-game.

So I’m sure that the Ronald McDonald House donation process can be greatly improved.  Right now, it sorta sucks.

Mizpah!

Free at Last, Free at Last - Escaping the Medical Profession; Well, Maybe.

Everybody claims they “don’t watch TV,” with the hint that they are above that pastime.  Bushwah.  TV (and other passive media choices – in other words, stuff that just lets you watch passively) are universal.  As for me, I often have TV (etc.) on as background noise --  Sometimes it’s some sort of news, sometimes an old movie that I know by heart, but it fills up the room with something predictable.

Of course, the oligarchs know that and try to sell me stuff endlessly.  (Hey, they might not be oligarchs – in fact, I’m not even sure what that term really means, but Bernie’s against them and the term is a part of the current evil-speak.  It makes me sound up-to-date.)  Part of what they want to sell me is drugs or “natural” preparations which you use like drugs, but being natural are something different.  (There is a post there lurking somewhere, and perhaps I’ll get around to writing it.  Perhaps not.  Depending on my muse is a chancy proposition.)

Some well-known physician – “Dr. Drew,” a TV personality – is pushing an “Urgent Care Kit.”  It's available at "UrgentCareKit.com," which redirects you to a site called "twc.health". The kit purports to free you from going to the doctor sometimes.   It provides eight drugs which - I understand - require prescriptions from a doctor.  Dr. Drew, etc., tout the convenience of not having to go to a doctor or an urgent care center when you get sick. 

Ok, forewarned is forearmed.  We can all count on occasionally needing some sort of drugs.   And, yes, it is a pain in the ass to be sick and go to the doctor’s office.  At first blush, it sounds like a good idea.

Now, it sounds to ME like a good idea, but my doctorate is not in anything related to medicine.  Perhaps someone with a medical education will have a different idea.  How about it?

TWC must do alright – What they are selling as a “medical emergency kit” costs $299.99.  (The site also has other products.)  Beats me if they ship for free.  The website has 1500-plus reviews, so we know that they’ve taken in $450,000 anyway.  That qualifies as the low end of “real money.”  They must be serious.  And I’ve seen Dr. Drew commenting on the news about health, so I bet he’s a helluva doc.

 Obviously, they have to prescribe these drugs, but I have zero idea how they do it when the patient is not yet sick.  Well, that’s their problem.  I suppose they have solved it to the satisfaction of the government.

 According to the website, the “kit” includes:

     Amoxicillin-Clavulanate (generic Augmentin™)

    Azithromycin (generic Z-Pak™)

    Doxycycline

    Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole (generic Bactrim™)

    Metronidazole (generic Flagyl™)

    Ivermectin

    Fluconazole (generic Diflucan™)

    Ondansetron (generic Zofran™)

 I can pronounce the names of the drugs.  When I do that, I feel tingly all over.  But I bet pronunciation is only a minor part of understanding what they do.  Surely medical schools teach more than good pronunciation.

 The makers also include a “booklet.”  I bet that must tell you when to take which drug.  (Is that how doctors learn, from a "booklet"?  I hope not.)  No doubt the makers tell you how often to take it and how long.  I also bet they tell you that if you don’t get better, you should . . . take another drug? Punt?  Maybe go to a doctor?

 I know roughly what an antibiotic is supposed to do.  Whenever I picture an antibiotic, I think of Alexander Fleming trying to figure out what is killing the bacteria in his petri dish.  I bet they do things differently these days, but I’m not sure.   Beyond that, I hear that drugs work even if the patient doesn’t have a clue how.  As to whatever is on the list which is not an antibiotic, I’d bet good money that they work on some illness, or they wouldn’t be included.  But what illness they make better is a mystery to me.

 That whole idea of the “booklet” bothers me just a little.  If I am a medical-ignoramus, am I really qualified to figure out what’s wrong with me?  Does the booklet include some advice which can be understood by the average person?  In the US, the average reading level is 8^th grade.  One-fifth of people have trouble with 4^th grade materials.  This seems rather like a challenge for the authors of a really good booklet.

 I’d love to have my medically educated friends try to steer me to understand if this whole thing is a good idea or a waste of money.  I'm not qualified to know.

 But, hey, if you are charged with murder, I'll get you off.  Or at least wave as you are led away by the sheriff.

 Mizpah!