Give No Fucks

I decided to have that made into business cards and simply pass them out anytime I have an encounter that crosses the line into aggression. I am exhausted trying to please, pretend, ignore or avoid the endless stupidity, rudeness and lack of tolerance by others. This was always a part of society but the pandemic put the accelerator on full when it comes to the issue of public versus private. We can assume that when we are in public settings there are protocols and expectations but those are often not mutually agreed upon, have differences between cultures and can be hard to maintain when again you are not all in agreement about said behaviors and expectations. A good example is walking down the street, it used to be said to walk to the right and watch at corners for crossing lights, traffic etc. The birth of the magical 3×5 card has made that a complete non-existent rule and is why now I see on corners literally pasted on lights, notes on how to cross. Are you fucking kidding me? This is taught in grade school, reinforced by parents and well over time etched into one’s brain. Now I frequently cross against lights but that look both ways guide plays into that and that I boogie regardless, I do not leisurely cross a street, ever.

But today we also have a narc or cancel culture that has crossed the line to obsessiveness. Watching or caring about others behaviors seem to some to be a full time job and I wonder how you are “living in the moment” when you are monitoring everyone else’s behavior. This is why even before the pandemic I rarely subbed in Elementary Schools, the need to tattle to be the hall monitor among the little people is deeply annoying. I know that in fact is a way of reinforcing and cementing what they have learned about expectations and rules but to an Adult who is not in the business of teaching those it is annoying. I was telling the Barista at the coffee shop about how I see children, like annoying co-workers whom I have to tolerate on a daily basis. They just happen to change out like the great resignation where you barely know them and then they quit but a new crew of equally annoying ones are just outside waiting to come in. Kids are annoying and germ carrying and despite all the bullshit about schools being safe, they are not in so many ways when it comes to transmitting disease. Funny how now schools are the lifeblood of the community when a few years ago they were responsible for ignoring bullying and of course violence that became school shootings. Have not heard one single word about that last one? No cause then it cancels the message that schools are safe. Are they? The perpetual conundrum, it is like living in the South where they say one thing, promptly ignore that and do an completely different thing. No it is not hypocrisy to them, it is a way of life. I never got used to it and never will. If anything I am a straight shooter, no pun intended.

Then we have the new Covid protocols and rules which seem to change on a daily basis, thanks to the ineffectual messaging of the CDC. The one thing certain regardless of the Administration in charge, this is one agency determined to remain utterly useless. And yet I hear so many citations and quotes you would think it is Moses come down from the Mount every time Fauci speaks. I have been quite clear in my distaste and distrust of this man since the days of AIDS and he has done little to change my mind. But to white people he seems to be their deity. There are others, you just have to turn off the TV and read some.

So far I have not been wrong yet about Covid. Again this comes from being in schools, teaching seventh-grade science enough you learn a thing or two. Virus have different R Factors and different times of airborne lifespan. In the early days the CDC was certain it was only droplets that led to the spread and that they could travel six feet. I went to a production of Assassins (an oddly prescient musical by Stephen Sondheim that addresses gun violence and the need to be infamous over preserving Democracy…hmmm) and there I could literally see the spit, droplets coming from the mouths of the cast. They flew about a foot. Try spitting let me know. But right there in a small theater for over one hour and half that would have been a close call for superspreader event for all the cast and those sitting in the front row. Again liquid turns into gas that becomes what? Airborne. But the issue is how long does it survive in air? And finally a study was made, it breaks up in about 5 minutes. There is something to know! I was row two and I recalled the Teacher who transmitted Covid, maskless to her students all in the front row during story time. And then the virus (via the now newly infected students) moved literally down row by row. And that again is easy, that happened over the course of the day, through the biggest event of children in a school day – lunch. A table of four children in a cafeteria, one student is pos, the other three will follow. And with this new variant that is a given. 1:4. Old covid 1:3.5 and kids shed faster thanks to smaller nasal passages. And then they go home and share away. One mother in the Washington Post told the story of her son and how he brought home a special treat from school. The entire family of 4 had covid and he was the only one not vaccinated but he like his family were lucky. Note that schools are safe. Sure they are… not.

But regardless of where I sit now in theater I wear a KN95 mask which has a 2.5 hour staying time for infection contraction if NO ONE is wearing masks and the theater require those so I assume they are all garbage and go from there. That is all I need to know and the type of mask and the length of time in presence of an infected person is 15 mins for no mask up to 25 hours in KN95. So if you are running to the store and you are masked even in cloth and the room is varied in type or lack of mask, you have 30 minutes to complete your task. Again type and time matter. That has never changed. In the beginning I went everywhere in a cloth mask with a 30 minute clock to finish the job. And I kept moving. I have changed that now with the theater but the mask has changed. I wear KN95 in schools and I keep windows open as that ventilation issue has not changed either. And now in the gym with others I avoid it but windows if possible or a K95 but frankly working out at three am is fine by me. That has NOT CHANGED.

I am fortunate I don’t live with anyone and my largest risk is where – in the schools. Mask wearing inconsistent, vaccines inconsistent, ventilation inconsistent and the number of bodies roving in and out, constant. And with that being in the public settings. I don’t congregate and find a bar or restaurant where it is me and few others. and yes they exist. I had a Champagne at the Wolfgang Puck’s the other day and it was me and a man seated on the far other end of the bar. That is the way I like it. How long was I there? Less than 30 minutes that much I am certain.

As for New York handling the Covid surge? As they always did, oblivious. Now the spread is rising in the wealthier areas as they believed that rule that they made up that they were impervious to the disease and the vaccine protected them. Sure, whatever. The Cognitive Dissonance exhibited by many New Yorkers, largely the wealthy and white is astounding. They have a sense of entitlement that belies a privilege that enables them to live in one of the world’s expensive cities and regardless of their own net worth they exude an arrogance that Southerner’s would be proud to call their own. They are just missing that level of ignorance that the South has cornered. You cannot live in a major urban city and be that bereft of some intellect but New Yorker’s are not exempt from that at all. That is why the city is often attributed to being the rudest. And yet Southern Hospitality is not all that either but few have lived in both and with that I have this thing called perspective and with that I call it as I see it. So the cards on are on the way and it will save time in trying to have a conversation that leaves me lacking. I recall that from my days in Nashville and I have no desire to repeat them here. For what it is worth I am glad to be living here versus anywhere else.

An Addendum

Normally this means an item of additional material, typically omissions, added at the end of a book or other publication and at times I think it means a daily blog post. 

I started writing about Construction and Green Building 10 years ago and since that time I have transitioned into writing about Criminal Justice and Medical care largely due to my own experiences with both those industrial complexes.  I have written about Education due to my own involvement with that industrial complex as education is now a business more than it ever was.  What was once a part of the public sphere, free, accessible and owned and managed by the Government the free market’s single involvement was via private education and those were largely non-secular and not for profit.   Education like criminal justice and medical care have all evolved into for profit businesses with much of it outsourced, unregulated and at high costs.  Some are obvious and up front and some are more subtle and show up later in secondary affects to the bigger picture or in this case the taxpayer but they all are very connected.

How so?  The school to prison pipeline, the lack of medical care and particularly mental health and addiction issues that lead to higher crime which of course is connected to higher public health costs, legal costs and back to the biggest mental health provider – Jail.

The supposed tool of meritocracy to prevent much of this and in turn flag and tag those who need special accommodations are schools, that for decades have been underfunded and poorly resourced with the idea of providing not equal but definitely not separate education. Again that too has failed as schools are as segregated and as crappy as they were before Brown and there is no imperative nor reason to change this.  Even a blue blue State as California proved that with its recent Teacher strike so it has everything to do with color and the color is green.   Money matters and nowhere does it show it more than the South.

If one wants to understand the South I suggest watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta or the spinoff, Don’t be Tardy.  Neither does women of color or not any favors in demonstrating the obsession with money, the lack of education, the violence and the concept of Southern Belles or Hospitality more.  I used to laugh at them now I just watch in horror the few times I do watch as it does nothing to make me feel better about women, about Black women or the South.  The men are not much better from shady businesses to just throwing shade it makes you wonder if any of them had ever been given an education and opportunity to be independent and secure would this be any different?  I cannot live with the constant excuse phrase: This is the South.  No its everywhere it just matters more elsewhere.  They may not be any more successful but at least they acknowledge the problems and try at some level to make change.   Here in the South there is a resignation and acceptance that this is how it is and the attempts to make change usually over the long term fails so I see their point.

As Nashville is on the “rise” the reality is that it has opened the Pandora Box of truths that have been buried for decades, the illiteracy, the racial divides, the insufficient infrastructure including public education, roads and transport.  The political climate has turned even deeper red and the Plumber is sure his self interests are the priority while professing to see the bigger picture. That is the South, say the words, act on some of them and bury the rest with the truth.

I have met FEW and by few I actually mean FEW people who are even remotely intelligent.  And by intelligent I mean well informed, articulate, educated and more importantly polite.  I see that across ages and races and at times exhausted me, angered me and upset me.  I have become much like the people here resigned to that reality and why I count down the days to leave.  I spend a great deal of time validating my beliefs by finding list after list, comment after comment that somehow enables me to find a cold comfort that “its not me” when it comes to the level of rudeness and idiocy I encounter. My least favorite thing to do is speak to Teachers as they make me feel utterly conflicted as to how bad they are and their role in this system that is beyond broken.  In the crime world they would be accomplices.    Yesterday was one such day and I had to remind myself that I did not have to speak to students unless absolutely necessary and that was something I could control. I don’t always manage to control my emotions and that pushed the limit with the encounters that I had earlier that lent to another day where I wanted to bury my head in the sand.

Perhaps that is many people’s reactions to the world around them and I empathize but I find social media lacking and as without some way to vent I turn to the blog so it has become an addendum to the notes I take as I write the books about living here and the other about education.  I cannot actually sit and compose the formal texts as I am too distracted, to angry, sad, lonely, afraid and bored to truly dedicate the time needed to do so.   Trying to plan my move has lead to more frustrations than I thought even taking clothes or furniture to consignment has turned out to be more complex than it should.  Thankfully the Antique broker is solid and convenient but the rest is more hurdles and bullshit than I would like and that is all on me.  The endless closing of businesses due to bankruptcy, losing leases or simply closing up all seem to be in utter opposition to how the city presents itself but the truth is again buried beneath the dirt and when dug up is promptly shoveled to another pile for another time.

This is the state of our Country with the oddness that defines the Trump Presidency and to wake up to the failed nuclear talks made me laugh out loud and then the rest of the day proved to be its own bomb where I lost it at another coffee shop behind my house when I asked about the closing of our local grocery, Sassafrass.  .  They are a new business and they are worried about making it as anyone should and I expressed concern about the ever changing landscape in local business and restaurants which are not a good sign for supposedly an it city. And with that my building going condo and largely now slowly self evicting with no management in place leaves one wonder what the fuck is going on here in this supposed “it” city.  At that point I turned my back for a moment to pick up my coffee and heard the exchange between the two Barista, what was said I was not sure but I saw through the window glass the faces and eye rolling I have come to learn here as a standard response to me.  I used to think it was just me and then I sat one day an watched person after person do this to another, the staff do this to other customers and in turn I realized I was doing it something I had never done before nor will I now or ever again.  So I did what I have been doing over this confronting them about it.  There is no possibility of shame here it seems to be the new standard and yet I do it regardless to at least educate and inform them that I won’t tolerate it and I am aware of it.  They did not apologize nor care to explain this behavior as something passive people do and I said no that it is passive aggressive was when you do it within earshot or sight range it is aggressive and the presumption is that most will respond passively by ignoring it.  Now that seems to be backfiring here as the shootings, the fights and the violence tell otherwise so the purpose has to be what?  Again, no response. So I asked if it was about me as an individual and what it is about me that causes this reaction would it be simpler to simply over a coffee explain why I am laughed at or dismissed as I have been a customer who tries to be polite and respectful and true I am not a big ticket person I do tip and try to come regularly to support my local business so it has to be something I said or did that led to this incident and what can I do to either change my behavior so it does not happen again or chose to not come back again. They simply stared at me.  I sat down for five minutes and the coffee was undrinkable at that point so put in on the bus tray threw out my napkin and as I walked to the door one shouted, “Have a nice evening” all while looking in the other direction. I turned and laughed and said, “It’s daylight.”  And then I departed and realized that while the charm of Americano is that the coffee is just below average and I was done there is another one just up the street and another around the corner so we went from coffee desert to a virtual tap and I can go anywhere to have a latte and once again I have learned that less is more with Nashville.  You cannot speak to these people as a single individual without a tribe, a posse, a partner whom you can prove you are worthy to be acknowledged and I go back to that night at the Symphony when the woman behind me gesticulated and spoke to her husband clearly directing the comments about me not to me when I sat down alone and that too led to my confronting them that their actions seemed directed about me and since we had two hours confined in a box we need to resolve any issues that they had with my presence.  They denied it but again at times even actions speak louder than words.  No not paranoid but I am very hyper vigilant when I walk into a room and my years of being a Teacher gives one eyes in the back of ones head so it explains why I am also over aware.  But the rudeness and general demeanor of people here belies and anger and pettiness that is something I find all over the landscape and it has made me afraid of living here on a daily basis.

And then add to this the insanity of our branches of Government who seem intentionally to sow divisions the parallel is not lost.  I have long said Trump is a Southern President and his Attorney confirmed that the other day when he described him as a Con Man, a Racist and a Liar.  He is a man in perpetual outrage emphasis on the rage. He tilts at windmills, then falls off his horse as a result and blames naturally Sancho Panza for that failure and in turn is sure that everyone who is not for him is against him.  It is why he adores these odd DICKtators and strong arm theatrics as it comforts him to believe that they get him.  Stupid is as stupid does says another fictional character and that too was another one from the South. The South seems to have an arena of the “type” of idiot brother who is smarter than those around him and is just misunderstood.  Yes that is the ticket!  And the idea of working hard and self made bullshit is another doctrine that fairly composes most of the Southern jet set who have made a name for themselves in either the political or private sector, usually both as they like to cross those lines as an act of self preservation and gratification.  Welcome to Trump Country I have been living in for three years just a year ahead of the nation and no it does not get better. 

I wish I had some wisdom to provide some sense of perspective that enables me to pass along a coping strategy but bitching about this endlessly does not seem to ameliorate my rage or pain. I will go ahead and write the book about living here composing of the essays that began here on the blog but at some point I need to focus on the things that matter but its funny I can’t seem to find out what those are anymore.   I can’t go to concerts and shows as it puts me in a surrounded environment with the enemy and in turn my fear factor of being harmed by a stranger likely a teenager grows with each and every day.  It is exhausting so I am finding music and books and taken up doing The Artists Way again as a means of keeping me focused on the moment, not the future, not the past but the moment.  I think we all need to live in the moment for that is what matters.  It is not an addendum.

Die Old Bitch Die!

This week I read two different articles by two different individuals discussing their experience with regards to racism. The first was a  rant by a black man whose neighbor in classic passive aggressiveness left a nasty note after listening to him pace and rant all night. The young man presumed it was because he was black, in turn wrote an  eviscerating (but well written) rant on his door in response. Turns out the neighbor had no idea his upstairs neighbor is black, highly educated or well anything about him at all. So, basically there are two things happening here: The Ta-Nehisi Moment (I named it after the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates who sees everything under a racial microscope) and the Mr. Rogers is Dead Moment (after Mr. Rogers who sang since we are neighbors let’s be friends) as this idea is as dead as Mr. Rogers.

And I found it interesting that after much hype and hysteria about the movie Birth of a Nation and the story behind the story that overtook the movie, which like many movies was never good in the first place.  Controversy sells but the timing and backstory could not have been more badly timed.  I know the story of Nat Turner and it is a worthy one to tell but tell it well and with a point. The review of the movie in The Guardian explains I think why no one gave a shit about the movie.  The same could be said about Spike Lee’s Chi-raq.  When a movie isn’t good it isn’t good.   We have a problem with racism in this country but I truly think the movie theater is not where it will be resolved.  

Then there is the concept of 15 minutes of fame which now too is another dead icon; Andy Warhol, once commented about everyone having their 15 minutes of fame in a media obsessed society is now relegated to the ubiquitous hashtag moment ## on Twitter. As was the next article about an Asian writer the the New York Times exchange, which was clearly racial, on the streets of New York. And as this was New York where people yell at you for whatever reason I was not sure I cared about this either. But I did think it reflected the new MEME where everyone has a Donald Trump rage moment and can be unhinged about whatever upsets them that moment, day, hour, etc.

Then I read the article below and thought “really, is there a point here?”  I think this is something that has not changed, like racism.  We have an ageism problem and we have a sexism problem we have more isms that we have solutions.  I think that Paula Span wanted to write about her friend and she could have a blog to do this but by placing this in the Science section of the Times claims it is a valid study of import. 

So what we know is that when you are a woman/black/poor/old/underemployed/alone you will be in worse shape than wealthy healthy people.  And women are the loneliest number whose neighbors won’t even know when you are dead unless the smell gets them and they will paste a nasty note on your door.  Or if you are still alive yell at you on the street for taking up room with your walker.  Wow thanks! Now I just hope I can get an article in the Post or the Times about my indignation.

The Gray Gender Gap: Older Women Are Likelier to Go It Alone

Paula Span

THE NEW OLD AGE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OCT. 7, 2016

Every few years, a group of federal agencies publishes a raft of data on every conceivable subject affecting older people. Housing. Employment. Leisure.

The numbers that jumped out at me from the latest report, called Older Americans 2016, concerned a more intimate matter: gender differences in marital status. To be blunt, they’re enormous, with consequences beyond the purely personal.

At every age, the report shows, older men are far more likely to be married than older women.

About three-quarters of men ages 65 to 74 are married, compared with 58 percent of women in that age group. More surprisingly, the proportion of men who are married at 75 to 84 doesn’t decline; among women, it drops to 42 percent.

Even among men over 85, nearly 60 percent are married. By that point, only 17 percent of women are.

Life expectancy explains only part of this gap, said Deborah Carr, interim director of the Institute for Health at Rutgers University who has studied marriage and widowhood.

Yes, women tend to live longer and to marry men older than themselves, so they’re more likely to be widowed.

The other factor, though, is that “men are much more likely to remarry than women,” Dr. Carr said. With 2.55 women for every man among unmarried people over age 65, and 3.27 unmarried women for every unmarried man over 85, “a man who wants to remarry has a very large pool.”

At older ages, these differences can have significant repercussions.

Consider living arrangements. Among people over 75, the report points out, 23 percent of men live alone. For women, the figure is twice as high.

Healthy, solvent people can flourish on their own, of course. Take my artist friend Frieda Kasden, in Rockville, Md. Elegant (and still blonde) at 89, Frieda has been widowed twice and had significant relationships since, but remains happily single.

“Men don’t do well alone,” she told me. “Women thrive. They go to shows, they travel, they play cards.”

Well, Frieda thrives. She has stopped driving, but knows all her Uber drivers by name. Women struggling with financial burdens or social isolation, on the other hand, might benefit from couplehood.

And many older unmarried women do face economic difficulties.

“Women take more of a hit financially from widowhood and divorce,” said Deborah Umberson, director of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

How much of a hit? Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, has calculated poverty rates based on the federal Current Population Survey. Her findings: About 8 percent of married older adults are poor or “near poor.” Among unmarried men, the percentage rises to about 20 percent. For unmarried women, it’s 27 percent.

Research has long demonstrated a health benefit from marriage, too. “Divorce and widowhood are terrible for your health,” Dr. Umberson said.

Older men may be hardest hit, she said, because “women are the health experts within families,” the ones who arrange doctor’s appointments and monitor medications and diets. “When men lose that, they suffer the health consequences.”

But older women suffer, too. “Economic hardship is bad for your health,” Dr. Umberson said — and, again, unmarried women take the brunt of that.

I’d always assumed that the disproportionately female population of nursing homes resulted from longevity. But maybe women fill nursing homes not only because they’re ailing and need care, but also because they’re more apt to be single.

Unmarried Alzheimer’s patients, for instance, enter nursing homes significantly sooner than married ones, according to a study led by Susan Miller, a gerontologist and epidemiologist at Brown University.
Sign Up for the Science Times Newsletter

Every week, we’ll bring you stories that capture the wonders of the human body, nature and the cosmos.
Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times’s products and services.

See Sample Manage Email Preferences Privacy Policy

Gail Schwartz, for example, spent five grueling years ensuring that her husband David, who had vascular dementia, could live and then die at home in Chevy Chase, Md.

“He’d be more comfortable and calm with familiar objects and people around,” she reasoned. “It was something I wanted and planned to do, something friends had done for their husbands.”

She served as his solo caregiver at first, then hired aides to help. And she succeeded in avoiding a nursing home: Mr. Schwartz was 85 when he died at home in July 2015.

Ms. Schwartz, 79, still recovering from the loss, has returned to her volunteering, her swimming and walking, her book group. Buttressed by family and friends, she’s likely to do well on her own.

But she knows that if she needs caregiving, there’s no one at home to do for her what she did for her husband.

Lest this picture seem entirely bleak, let me point out that social scientists have also documented ways in which many older women flower after widowhood and grief. In Dr. Carr’s study of older Detroit residents, for example, the women most emotionally dependent on their husbands while married showed the highest levels of self-esteem in widowhood.

“They had to learn new skills,” Dr. Carr said. “Within about a year, you see boosts in things like personal growth.”

We know, too, that many marriages aren’t idyllic and that marital strain itself takes a toll on older people’s health. Moreover, older women have a not-so-secret weapon: stronger social ties. Those kaffeeklatsches, book groups and friendships pay off.

“Women have more close, confiding relationships, and they’re excellent for your health, mentally and physically,” Dr. Umberson said. “Women also tend to be closer to their adult children.”

Cohort changes may eventually torpedo a lot of these gender and marital differences. The divorce rate among those over 50, known as “gray divorce,” has doubled since 1990, for instance. Since the divorced are more likely to remarry or cohabit than widows or widowers, we could see a lower percentage of older adults living alone in coming years.

A host of other sociocultural changes, from less stigma about divorce to more women in the work force, could also play out as boomers and their children age.

“We’ve seen tectonic shifts in health care, in beliefs about what constitutes family,” said John Cagle, a professor of social work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, who has studied marital status in older adults. “It is in flux.”

He points out that race and ethnicity also play significant roles. Older African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to face financial burdens regardless of marital status, for instance.

My friend Frieda is among those with no interest in partnering again. “I’m too old to be making someone’s dinner every night,” she told me, laughing. She’d rather paint.

Gail Schwartz, not ready to date but finding her empty house lonely, thinks “it would be wonderful, at some point, to have a partner to share my life.”

But she’s realistic about being an unmarried woman at almost 80 who may one day need the kind of help she’s more accustomed to providing.

“I’ve talked to my kids about it,” she said. “I can’t expect them to take me in. They have lives of their own, children of their own.”

If she needs hands-on care, she told her three daughters, they should find her a pleasant care facility, and visit. “I gave them permission,” she said. “I wanted them to know that that’s what I’d want them to do.”

Tea & Sympathy

I love an old movie and that one is one of my favorites. For those not in the know, it is the story of bullying.  Wow sounds quite current actually.

As you sit down with friends, family and probably strangers to somehow put aside differences and simply enjoy a meal or some sports or whatever one does on this day of thanks, try to find some sympathy or more importantly empathy for those who do not have such fortune.

We are a divided and more importantly divisive country.  I read today’s op ed by Nicholas Kristof and it is quite telling and of course the comments that follow equally so.  I always love the vitriol and anger that seems to preclude a newspaper article or editorial. Rarely, if ever, do you read commentary that has any logic, sense, intellect or even politeness.  It is why I don’t allow comments to the blog until screened.  It is not that I am against opposition or even disagreement, but when it denigrates into personal attacks or hate speech then I turn my Constitution upside down and ignore the First Amendment.  It seems to be a document that we can pick and choose from, so why not?

I don’t know what it is nor why it is but we have a bullying culture.  From top to bottom there is no other excuse or explanation.  Look to our Government, look to our news media, to our own cities and law enforcement, look to the sports you are going to watch later, look to your own family around that table.  My mother used to say “you get more flies with honey than you do vinegar.” And of course “if you can’t say anything nice about someone say nothing at all.”  Then she promptly introduced me to Dorothy Parker whose wit, snark and wisdom was all I needed to somehow find my first loophole in life.

I hear bullying all the time and sometimes directed to me.  I am amazed when I hear a service individual respond to a query of mine with a nasty sarcastic retort.  I speak fast and I was asking a County Court clerk with regards to papers, her nasty retort noticing my coffee in hand, “well you certainly don’t need anymore of that clearly”  Uh okay and that does what to answer my question you underpaid undereducated moron was my THOUGHT but instead I went “thanks I will take that under advice and now with regards to my question..” 

See I do think that but in company of friends I usually am quite sarcastic but for many the idea of restraint seems to be something of a loss.  And often I hear that people are surprised that I was not equally snarky back.  

But I am extraordinarily polite.  I go out of my way to mind my manners and treat others in that Golden Rule.  I have certainly had it bite me in the ass and right now I am having trouble sitting comfortably but I still believe in the power of people and the energy that it generates. It is a shame that we generate so much negativity.

And I also think it is a mark of well stupidity. When you are not an intelligent person and have no skills with regards to how to express oneself in polite company, as they used to say, you say things that are often rude, inappropriate or well just stupid. So when I am often reprimanded, scolded or told what to say, I think wow you are stupid to to think I am.  And in turn I often ask if that individual is my parent or guardian since they seem to think telling me what to do is their right.  It is wrong and I try also despite the obvious not presume that people are stupid.  Yes I do the snark but this is the right place, the right time and the right forum for such. 

Times they are a changing and they are blowing in the climate changed wind.  It is time we grew up and stopped being playground bullies everyday not just a few days a year.

Give thanks but mostly give some empathy.   I picked the title of this piece to match the movie of the same name.   Have a cup of tea on me.

Where Is the Love?

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
 Published: November 27, 2013

When I’ve written recently about food stamp recipients, the uninsured and prison inmates, I’ve had plenty of pushback from readers.

 A reader named Keith reflected a coruscating chorus when he protested: “If kids are going hungry, it is because of the parents not upholding their responsibilities.”

A reader in Washington bluntly suggested taking children from parents and putting them in orphanages. Jim asked: “Why should I have to subsidize someone else’s child? How about personal responsibility? If you procreate, you provide.”

 After a recent column about an uninsured man who delayed seeing a doctor about a condition that turned out to be colon cancer, many readers noted that he is a lifelong smoker and said he had it coming. “What kind of a lame brain doofus is this guy?” one reader asked. “And like it’s our fault that he couldn’t afford to have himself checked out?”

Such scorn seems widespread, based on the comments I get on my blog and Facebook page — as well as on polling and on government policy. At root, these attitudes reflect a profound lack of empathy.

A Princeton University psychology professor, Susan Fiske, has found that when research subjects hooked up to neuro-imaging machines look at photos of the poor and homeless, their brains often react as if they are seeing things, not people. Her analysis suggests that Americans sometimes react to poverty not with sympathy but with revulsion.

So, on Thanksgiving, maybe we need a conversation about empathy for fellow humans in distress.

Let’s acknowledge one point made by these modern social Darwinists: It’s true that some people in poverty do suffer in part because of irresponsible behavior, from abuse of narcotics to criminality to laziness at school or jobs. But remember also that many of today’s poor are small children who have done nothing wrong.

Some 45 percent of food stamp recipients are children, for example. Do we really think that kids should go hungry if they have criminal parents? Should a little boy not get a curved spine treated properly because his dad is a deadbeat? Should a girl not be able to go to preschool because her mom is an alcoholic?

Successful people tend to see in themselves a simple narrative: You study hard, work long hours, obey the law and create your own good fortune. Well, yes. That often works fine in middle-class families.

But if you’re conceived by a teenage mom who drinks during pregnancy so that you’re born with fetal alcohol effects, the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against you from before birth. You’ll perhaps never get traction.

Likewise, if you’re born in a high-poverty neighborhood to a stressed-out single mom who doesn’t read to you and slaps you more than hugs you, you’ll face a huge handicap. One University of Minnesota study found that the kind of parenting a child receives in the first 3.5 years is a better predictor of high school graduation than I.Q.

All this helps explain why one of the strongest determinants of ending up poor is being born poor. As Warren Buffett puts it, our life outcomes often depend on the “ovarian lottery.” Sure, some people transcend their circumstances, but it’s callous for those born on second or third base to denounce the poor for failing to hit home runs.

John Rawls, the brilliant 20th-century philosopher, argued for a society that seems fair if we consider it from behind a “veil of ignorance” — meaning we don’t know whether we’ll be born to an investment banker or a teenage mom, in a leafy suburb or a gang-ridden inner city, healthy or disabled, smart or struggling, privileged or disadvantaged. That’s a shrewd analytical tool — and who among us would argue for food stamp cuts if we thought we might be among the hungry children?

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let’s remember that the difference between being surrounded by a loving family or being homeless on the street is determined not just by our own level of virtue or self-discipline, but also by an inextricable mix of luck, biography, brain chemistry and genetics.

For those who are well-off, it may be easier to castigate the irresponsibility of the poor than to recognize that success in life is a reflection not only of enterprise and willpower, but also of random chance and early upbringing.

Low-income Americans, who actually encounter the needy in daily life, understand this complexity and respond with empathy. Researchers say that’s why the poorest 20 percent of Americans donate more to charity, as a fraction of their incomes, than the richest 20 percent. Meet those who need help, especially children, and you become less judgmental and more compassionate.

And compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but a mark of civilization.