April 3, 2015--Best of Behind: Good Cop, Bad Cop

First posted November 25, 2013, would it be nice if this fantasy were true?

Thinking about the deal just struck with Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for some loosening of sanctions, wouldn't it have been brilliant if Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu had had this conversation three month ago--

Obama: Bibi?

Netanyahu: Barry?

Obama: Can you talk?

Netanyahu: As long as your NSA isn't tapping my phone. (He chuckles.)

Obama: Or your Mossad. (He chuckles.)

Netanyahu: I told them to take the afternoon off. I'm all ears, Barry.

Obama: So here's what I'm thinking, Bibi.

Netanyahu: Shoot.

Obama: That's why I called.

Netanyahu: I'm not following you.

Obama: About shooting. Actually bombing.

Netanyahu: Go on.

Obama: Look, we both know we don't want to bomb Iran.

Netanyahu: True. Though we have to keep the heat on them and the best way to do that--we both agreed--is to convince them we're prepared to do so. Israel especially.

Obama: That's what we agreed to. You'd be the bad cop and we'd be, sort of, the good cop. You'd publicly put pressure on me to draw red lines. To state that though we want diplomacy to work every option is on the table. Including military action. But we'd emphasize negotiations while you'd press for bombing.

Netanyahu: And I'd keep prodding, critiquing your Iran policy, and playing your Israel Lobby both in Congress and the Jewish community in the states. To convince the Iranians that though you might be rational and reasonable we're out of control. Particularly your control. That we're prepared to go it alone, go rogue--to quote one of your favorite politicians. (Obama chuckles.)

Obama: So, here's my new plan.

Netanyahu: I'm listening.

Obama: We get Kerry to start talking with the new Iranian regime, telling them that our Congress, including all sorts of Democrats, are chomping at the bit to increase the sanctions--they're so serious that they're even willing to override my veto--and that you guys are getting ready to arm your nukes. He tells the Iranians that if we don't get some sort of deal done in the next few months who knows what the Israelis will do. That I can't keep you on hold.

Netanyahu: Great plan! So as soon as we hang up I'll give the order here to move to a higher state of readiness as evidence of our seriousness or, if you prefer, our craziness.

Obama: Exactly, Bibi. The more we ramp up the diplomacy the more crazier you behave. We have to scare the you-know-what out of them.

Netanyahu: I love it. You'll work out some kind of deal that's good for us--at least the beginning of a long-term deal--which will also be good for you. It will get the Republicans off your back--talk about crazies--at least for awhile.

Obama: Maybe for half an hour. (Netanyahu chuckles.)

Netanyahu: I hear clicking on the line. Are you sure the NSA doesn't have this phone bugged?

February 13, 2015--Best of Behind: The Middle East? Hands Off

This seemed pertinent in June 2014 when it originally appeared and feels even more so today as President Obama is asking Congress to retrospectively authorize military strikes against ISIS Islamists and many in the House and Senate are pushing back against what some feel is the next step to our getting more directly involved in Syria and northern Iraq where ISIS poses an existential threat--

As President Obama feels the pressure to provide military assistance to the collapsing regime in Iraq, he and we should step back and review the last 2,500 years of history. Just a few pertinent highlights!

The major lesson is that no outside power, from Alexander the Great of Macedonia to the French and British imperialists, from the Soviet Union and now the United States, no one has been able to impose their will on the region.

All interventions, all attempts to subjugate proud and defiant peoples have failed. And worse--have reverberated back disastrously on the invaders, colonizers, and occupiers.

After 330 BC Alexander never recovered; the British and French colonial powers after the First World War never recovered; the Soviet Union collapsed and never recovered; and the United States lost treasure, power, and influence in the region and I suspect will also not recover.

So what to do now?

The right answer is nothing.

We should get out of the way and allow the people living there figure out their own futures, very much including their own borders.

If we could impose a sane and just plan of our own that would endure, I would consider supporting it. But the long reach of history teaches that any attempt to do so is doomed to fail and, worse, will only make things worse.

Look at the current situation in Iraq. The Sunni jihadists have already overrun a third of the country, a country that was arbitrarily constructed at the end of WW I. From the videos showing ISIS's triumphant advance, while the so-called Iraqi army discards its uniforms and attempts to blend in with the benighted civilian population, we see the invaders already in possession of American military equipment that also was abandoned by the Iraqi army.

This was reminiscent of the experience in Afghanistan where the U.S., still entangled in the Cold War, armed the Mujahideen who were fighting the invading Soviets and, after defeating them (which contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union), morphed into the Taliban which proceeded to overthrow the Afghan government and then turned its weapons, the ones we supplied, on us when we invaded at the end of 2001. And does anyone doubt that as soon as we finish leaving Afghanistan the Taliban will once again take over?

Sounds like current-day Iraq to me.

Seven years ago, presidential candidate Joe Biden was ridiculed when he said that Iraq should be allowed to devolve into three countries--Shiite in the south, Sunni in the middle, and Turkistan in the north.

He was right.

In fact, he could have advocated similar things for the rest of the region, from at least Tunisia in the west to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east.

Few of the countries in that geographic span have cultural borders--Iran (formerly Persia) and Egypt are perhaps the exceptions--but rather ones drawn for them by various conquerers and occupiers.

For centuries, for their own strategic and economic purposes, dominant Western powers have attempted to contain and control the essentially tribal people who live in this vast region. Since the end of the Second World War, country-by-country this has been unraveling. And at an accelerated pace for the past four or five years. Recall the Arab Spring of 2010.

The emergence of jihadist and terrorist groups--ISIS is just the most recent example--feels especially threatening to our national interest. But it may be more dangerous to attempt to continue to contain these aspirations and energies than let to them play out.

The genie of various forms of liberation cannot be stuffed back in the bottle. It is much too late for that.

It may be less risky to step back and allow these contesting forces to work things out. We may not like this idea or the potential outcomes; but, in reality, do we realistically have the ability and resources to impose an alternative scenario?

Do we see ourselves intervening on the side of the Shia-dominated government in Iraq allied with Iran's Revolutionary Guard? As unlikely, even as preposterous as this may sound, it is being seriously discussed.

Frightening as that prospect is--very much including the blow to our national ego--it represents another reason to back off. If there is to be fighting, and of course there is and will be, at least it will be focused within the region, internecine, and less directed toward us. That could be truly in our national interest.

January 1, 2015--Best of Behind: Temporarily Suspended

We begin the drive to Delray Beach Friday morning and, as I do each year, I made a round of calls to the cable, Internet, and telephone companies to suspend service while we are away. Since I had the same kind of frustrating experience I had in December, 2010, I thought to reprise the Snowbirding piece I wrote on that occasion--

It seemed simple enough. We spend winter months in Delray Beach as snowbirds and thus need to forward our mail. It also makes sense, and saves money, to suspend our utility services.

So one cold afternoon before heading south we trudged over to the post office to fill out the mail-forwarding forms and I made a round of calls to Verizon (for our phone) and Time Warner to suspend cable and Internet service. And, I also phoned Con Edison to ask about turning off our gas.

When I had done all of this I proudly announced to Rona that by my estimate we would save at least $750 while sojourning in Florida. She smiled and said, “That’s good. But of course you know this amounts to less than what we pay for one week at the house.”

“But we love it there,” I retorted, “And we never thought about how much it costs until just now when I figured out a way to save some money.”

“That’s they way I am,” she confessed, “If you raise money as an issue it sets off my money-spending anxieties. But we’ll be more than fine. We can easily afford whatever it costs. You did very well,” she was smiling affectionately at me, “But it’s always good to be careful about money. And why give Verizon and Time Warner and Con Ed money they don’t deserve?”

I sensed she was about to go off on a corporate-greed rant, and so I put my arm around her and said, “We’ll have a wonderful drive south and everything we be ready for us when we arrive. You know how much you love the beach and . . .”

“And, I know what you’re about to say, ‘No matter how much it costs!’”

After an easy four days on the road, we are now settled in and as part of our routine, in addition to stocking up on groceries and household goods at Publix and checking to see if last year’s favorite restaurants are still in business (so far, they all are), we have been making a series of phone class to check to see if Verizon and Time Warner did what we asked them to do.

My first call was to our New York phone to find out if the recorded message was correct, especially to see if the forwarding number is as it should be. They did get the Florida number right but the message says that our phone number has been “changed,” not, as I asked, “temporarily suspended at the customers request.” So I called customer service.

The representative agreed that they had used the wrong message for our phone and that she was changing it while we were speaking, though it would take until the end of the day for the proper message to be in place. Ignoring for the moment why one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies with all the latest technology couldn’t do this virtually instantly—I try to relax while down here by the ocean—I thanked her and told her I would check the message that evening.

Which I did and found it still to be incorrect. Over two days, four attempts later, one of the customer service managers told me that, yes, it is true, that earlier in the year when we were in Maine and had our number temporarily suspended the message said that to anyone who called us but recently Verizon had changed its practice and now there were only two options available—the number has been “changed” or the number has been “discontinued.” “Temporally suspended” was no longer an option.

By now, much less relaxed when this all began, I tried to get them to explain the logic of this seemingly unfathomable change in practice. What, I more and more insistently and heatedly wanted to know, is the logic behind this? It certainly couldn’t be a cost-cutting strategy. Verizon’s systems are all automated. What was the big deal? In fact, as I steamed about it, I thought it probably cost them a few dollars to eliminate the “suspended” option.

No one of course could tell me. So we are living with it. Maybe a person of two who calls us in New York during the next few months will wonder if we have left the city permanently rather than snowbirding for the winter. But then they will also hear about our “new” 561 Florida number and if they call us and wonder what’s going on we will take aggressive pleasure in telling them the story and how, how else to put it, arbitrary and even stupid a company such as Verizon can be.

Verizon had the chutzpah to call us the next day, after my final exasperated conversation with them, to see if there were any additional services of theirs in which we might be interested. I said, “Yes, in fact there is--a call forwarding message that says our number, at our request, has been temporarily suspended.” Needless to say, even for an extra fee, that service is not available.

I next called Time Warner to check about the suspension of our cable and Internet service. “Oh,” the first person I managed to actually speak with me said (up to that point I had been routed trough a series of automated options—“To continue in English, press 2; to change service, 3; to . . .”), “weren’t you told, when you called us before leaving that it is only possible to suspend service for 90 days?” No one had. “Or that since your building is a coop in order to suspend your service for even 90 days a board member from your building has to write to us to ask permission to do so?”

“What?” I couldn’t help myself from screaming. Relaxation was out of the question. “Why do I have to have their permission? What does any of this have to do with the coop itself? I’m your customer; not the board or the building's.”

“Well,” the well-trained and calm representative, clearly from her accent and the static on the line based in Bangalore, said, “in truth the building is a customer of ours. We offered the building a special rate if more than half the residents ordered their cable service from Time Warner. So, in order to suspend any resident’s service, we need the approval of the board. To give the building the benefit of the special rate everyone has to behave the same way.”

“I was never told that. And by the way what does this have to do be behavior? I find that offensive. The point is that I was never informed about this arrangement. If I had been I would have switched our service to Verizon. [Forgetting for the moment the fiasco with the call forwarding.] Or had a Direct TV satellite dish installed or given up TV altogether. Watching it makes me aggravated anyway. Almost as much as talking with you!”

“I am sorry to hear that sir. But of course you are free to do whatever you want with your TV service. You are in America, aren’t you? The land of freedom.”

I did not sense that she was mocking me or America and decided I needed to hang up before risking a stroke and that it was time for a calming walk on the beach.

When I got back and told Rona what had happened she said, “Why are you aggravating yourself? You know how these kinds of things work these days. It’s all about big companies figuring out ways to make as much money as possible. Actually, to extract as much money as possible from people like us. But I too am trying to remain calm and don’t want to get into one of my rants about the current state of capitalism.” I was pleased to hear that. “So I think I’ll go for the mail. I’ll be right back, I want to check to see if our mail is being forwarded.” And with that she left.

By then I was feeling quite calmed down. The beach walk was just what my cardiologist ordered.

But when Rona returned it was immediately clear that she was not the same serene person who ten minutes before had left for the mailbox.

“What’s going on?” I asked as she stomped about the house.

“Here, take a look at this.” She tossed a handful of mail at me.

“What is it?” I was rooting around on the floor to gather all the letter and envelopes that had missed the kitchen counter. I could tell from the yellow forwarding stickers on the envelopes that the mail was being successfully forwarded. “It looks as if this is mail that was sent to our New York apartment and was then sent on to us by the post office. No? Am I missing something?”

“Indeed you are. But take a look at this.” She ripped a letter from my hand. “It’s from the postal service. Here, read it.”

“I will if you give it back to me.”

Instead, she read, “See what this says. It’s from the postal service: ’A customer temporarily moving may have mail forwarded for a specific time, not to exceed twelve months total duration.’”

“And?” I asked.

“And,” Rona said, they are claiming that by February 17th, our forwarding will have ‘met,’ to quote them, ‘the one year maximum duration.”

“This I do not understand,” I said, again feeling my blood pressure rising. “Is there anything we can do about this?”

“Read further. See, down at the bottom.” She was still holding onto the letter and I couldn’t in fact see. “They apparently have something they call Premium Forwarding Service, and there is an 800-number to call to find out how it works.”

“So let’s call them,” I said, trying to sound chipper and optimistic.

“I’ll do the calling this time,” Rona said, “Considering how you did with that person in India, let me handle this one.”

Surprisingly, it took only a few minutes for her to talk with an actual person. Rona, smiling, mouthed to me, “I think she’s an American.”

But then I heard her saying with increasing ire, “What do you mean you don’t know anything about how this works? How the 12 months is calculated? By February we’ll have only been here two-and-a-half months, not twelve.” Rona was rolling her eyes up in her head and in frustration holding the phone about a foot away from her ear.

“But this is the number the letter said to call about Premium Service and you’re telling me that not only can’t you tell me about how the 12 months is calculated—and as I said in February we won’t have been here for even three months—but that you also don’t know about this special forwarding service? I am totally confused.”

I passed Rona a note saying, “Go for it!”

“What do you mean you have to open a ‘complaint file’? I’m not complaining, I’m just trying to understand. But you’re saying this is the only way you can get the information to me? Unbelievable,” Rona exasperated sighed.

“So, OK, open a complaint file.” She covered the phone with her hand and said to me, “Can you believe this? I think I’m going crazy.”

“Remember,” I said, “we’re here to get and remain calm. Now both of us have high blood pressure.”

“I am having the nightmare,” Rona said, holding he head, “that we’ll have to go to the city every week or two to pick up our mail after they stop forwarding it in the middle of February.”

“Or, maybe we’ll have to find someone who can go to the apartment and mail us whatever seems important.”

“This is some way to relax,” Rona said, sounding defeated. “What? Can you say that again?” She was back on the line with the person from the postal service. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Rona said, and with that hung up.

“See what? Believe what?”

“She told me that I will hear from someone in two working days. That’s how they handle complaints. What are the odds that . . . ?” Rona let her question drift off into space. “I think I need a nap.”

While Rona was napping, tossing and turning on the bed, I masochistically decided to call Con Edison to see about the suspension of our gas service.

“What do you mean it was already suspended?” I was incredulous when the Con Ed customer service representative told me that there was no service to suspend. That we did not have gas service and thus there was nothing to cut off. “We’ve been living in the same apartment for 19 years and we’ve had gas all that time. How else would we cook?” I didn’t tell her that we eat virtually all our meals out and thus rarely do any cooking. But we do do some. Mainly, in truth, we boil water for tea or heat up soup that we take in from our local Ukrainian coffee shop.

“Our records show no gas usage for the past six years,” she said, calmer than I. “So there’s nothing to suspend.”

“That’s not true. That’s impossible.” By then I was shouting and woke Rona who staggered into the living room.

She mouthed, “What’s going on? Why are you yelling?”

I asked the Con Ed person to hold for a moment and, covering the phone, told Rona what they were telling me.

Rona said, ”You’re being silly.”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked them to suspend service so we could save, what, $15 a month and they are telling you it’s already being suspended and we haven’t used any gas for years, whereas we have--at least a little—and thus haven’t been charged for gas for all that time. So, if you convince them we have had service and have used gas won’t they then want to back-charge us for years of service? And who knows, maybe apply additional charges and penalties? You want that?”

We both pride ourselves as being honest and never wanting to take advantage of anyone or anything, but after our experiences with Verizon and the post office and Time Warner, I said to the Con Ed woman who had been holding on the phone, “Sorry to have bothered you. Have a very nice day and a happy holiday season.” She was as nice as could be.

“While we’re on a roll,” I said, “let me make the one last call, again to Verizon, but to a different division, to check about our hopefully-suspended telephone land line.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Rona solicitously asked, “Haven’t you, we I mean, haven’t we had enough aggravation for one day?”

“As I said, we’re on a roll after Con Ed and the gas so let me take care of this one last thing. How complicated can that be? Though maybe they’ll tell us they haven’t been billing us for five years.” Rona glared at me. “Just kidding I said,” and dialed the Verizon wireless 800-number.

Again I was drawn into the proliferating world of automated responses. I pressed 2 to Continue in English, 4 to Suspend Service, and then 3 to Get Information about it. Zipping right along, feeling pleased and surprised that all was going as I had hoped, I pressed 3. What harm could there be, I thought, to see what I could learn without speaking to an agent, even one based in America.

From recorded messages I learned that there were a variety of options about how to proceed and all, after our previous experiences with Verizon and Time Warner and the postal service, seemed sensible and varied enough to cover all circumstances—there was no 12-month rule, no need to seek anyone’s permission, and no need to file a complaint. All I needed to do, I was directed, was talk to a representative about whether or not I wanted to suspend service "with or without billing." Curious about what that might mean, I pressed 0 to talk with an agent.

She was as polite and articulate as I could have hoped. She assured me that my service was already suspended and that it would be resumed, just as I had requested, in April. No problem at all with that. “Good I said. I am so happy to hear that all is well. You don’t want to hear about my other experiences with Verizon. Or Con Edison or the post office.” I could hear her chuckling knowingly. She was obviously very experienced and had heard it all.

“But, there is one thing I’m confused about.”

“What’s that?” she asked compassionately. “That why I’m here. To answer all your questions.”

“It’s about the billing-no-billing option.”

“Oh that. Many of our customers are confused about that. I can help you understand the differences. It’s all rather simple.” I could feel my blood pressure dropping to the normal range. “With the no-billing option you do not pay any monthly fee; with billing you pay your monthly fee.” She sounded as if she was smiling, satisfied with herself.

I could feel my heart beginning to thump again. “About this I am now totally confused. You sound like a very nice person and I know it’s not your policy but Verizon’s, but why would anyone opt for the billing option when suspending service? Why would anyone want to continue to pay the monthly fee while not getting the service? That doesn’t make any sense at all.” I paused to let this sink in. “That is,” my suspicions had quickly returned, “unless there is a difference between the two options. Maybe if I choose the no-billing option I’ll lose the telephone number associated with it?”

“No, sir,” she said, still as chipper as ever, “that won’t happen. There really is no difference from a customer’s point of view. I could sense her smiling even more broadly.

As nice as she was, I couldn’t control myself. “You, or should I say Verizon, are making me feel that I’ve lost my mind. First you took away my temporarily-suspended option and now there is this crazy billing-no-billing deal that makes no sense whatsoever. You understand that since this is so ridiculous on the surface that someone like me, of for that matter any of your customers, would be suspicious that something else is going on since no one in their right mind would want to pay for something they’re not getting when they can avoid paying for the same thing they’re not getting. Am I making any sense?”

By then, hearing me shouting into the phone again, Rona had returned to the living room where I was talking on the phone while pacing about and gesturing wildly. “You’re going to give yourself a stroke,” she whispered to me in an attempt to calm me down. “What’s going on?”

“Here. You talk to her,” I said handing the phone to Rona. “The Verizon customer service person. Ask her about the billing-no-billing option for our phone.”

Frustrated with me and my behavior Rona snatched the receiver and after a minute she too was stomping about the room and gesturing wildly, “This is crazy,” she said, echoing what I had just been saying, “It makes no sense at all. But to end this once and for all, to retain our health and sanity, we’ll go for the no-billing option and not pay the monthly fee. That’s how it'll work, won’t it? The service will be suspended and we won’t be charged for it?” She was nodding her head. “Good. Thank you. And, yes, you too have a wonderful day.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “We both could use the beach.”

“One good thing,” Rona said with a wink, “when they stop forwarding the mail in February we won’t be getting any bills from Verizon for our monthly charges. Or from anyone else.”

“Didn't you just take care of the no-billing option? And I thought you already took care of mail forwarding.”

“Dream on,” Rona said. “But let’s forget about all of this. We’re here to relax.”

December 26, 2014--Best of Behind: TMI

Something literally light spirited from December 20, 2006--

I'm not all that big a fan of Census data.

I do not need to know about what and how much "average" Americans eat and drink in a year (no surprise—too much); how many square feet their apartments have (twice as many as mine); or, for that matter, how much they weigh (also too much). 

I always thought that the Census was carried out every ten years, as required by the Constitution, to see how many of us there are so that congressional districts could be apportioned among the states based on the size of their populations. To accomplish this, Census Bureau folks used to send out forms to every household and, to follow that up, they would hire canvasers who would visit every household to see if you were hiding anyone up in the attic.

So how did they get from that into counting how many gallons of bottled water we drink each year (23) or how tall we are (24 percent of Americans over 70 years of age are shorter than 5-foot-6)?

It's enough to make a small-government, strict constructionist out of me--someone who, like Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia, wants the Constitution to be taken literally: just count the noses but stay out of my medicine cabinet, or bedroom. For example, do we have to know that 11.2 percent of women admit to having had same-sex "contacts” but only 6 percent of men were willing to fess up?

I’m most fascinated by the statistic that reveals how much more bottled water we have been drinking in recent years. Ten times more than in 1980. Has the quality of municipal water declined so precipitously? Or is it that we are going to the gym more and are taking bottled water along with us to keep us hydrated or looking cool? Or is it because of all the Wall Street bonuses, splurging on a $7.00 a bottle of Evian or Pellegrino makes a better impression than drinking plain-old New York City Tap?

Which brings me to another point—I’m getting a little worried, from a national security perspective, about our growing dependence on foreign bottled water. With the price of these, gallon-to-gallon, actually higher than the cost of imported gasoline, aren’t we putting ourselves in danger of being held hostage by our enemies, including and especially the French?

What would happen, for example, if France and Italy and Poland (Poland Springs, no?) were to form OWPEC—the Organization of Water Exporting Countries—and imposed a bottled-water embargo?

Now I’m beginning to understand why President Bush just announced that he’s going to increase the size of the army—not for deployment in Iraq but to mobilize when we have to preemptively invade Perrier.

December 19, 2014--Best of Behind: A Different Perspective

This is from November 24, 2009, after Barack Obama had been in office for just 10 months. My friend Dick, who contributed this different perspective, got it more right than I. I was already growing restive and he was counseling me to be patient and to look at the unfolding Obama agenda and leadership style in a different way, not as things are traditionally viewed in Washington and New York.

Considering the stunning announcement on Wednesday that Obama is moving to fully normalize relations with Cuba, I thought this was worth a second look--

If you’ve been paying even casual attention to these posts, you could not help but notice that I have been raising questions about President Obama.  

Is he being forceful enough in advancing the agenda he laid out so clearly and hopefully during the campaign? When it comes to health care legislation what does he really want? Is he committed to a single-payer option or is he willing to sign anything Congress sends him so he can claim he was the first president since Lyndon Johnson to reform the system?

What was he up to during his recent trip to Asia? It was good to see he was paying attention to the region after eight years of neglect by the Bush administration, but what did he actually achieve? After so much bowing to the Japanese, what happened in China? He seemed unwilling to make any demands on the leadership there in return for various U.S. concessions. Yes, they are our bankers and we will need them to lend us more money during the coming decade, but how about a word about human rights? How about receiving unfettered access to the Chinese media? He met with a handpicked group of university students who asked him pat questions—an event that was not televised throughout the country—and he wasn’t allowed to hold a press conference. Not impressive it felt to me.

And speaking of Asia, what is going on with regard to Afghanistan? Dick Cheney called it “dithering”; and I, help me, have been thinking that the former vice president may just have gotten this one thing sort of right.  

None of this has been seeming very presidential. Not the change I enthusiastically voted for.

Even my 101-year-old mother—an early and fervent supporter of Obama's—has been getting into the act, raising questions about the effectiveness of his leadership and how out of touch he appears to be with average Americans who are still very much hurting more than a year after his election.

But then there is the perspective of a friend who goes back about as far as I and has had through the years an excellent record of sensing shifts in the country's political culture. Before anyone I knew, for example, he not only recognized Obama’s talents but also foresaw the likelihood that he would be elected. He does not allow himself to be distracted by day-to-day instant analyses of who’s up and who’s down but rather sees things in broader, generational terms.  

So last night over dinner I was eager to get his views of Obama’s first ten months in office.

He felt that things were going rather well. He calmly reminded me about all the extraordinarily difficult problems that Obama inherited. “I know,” he said, “that most people by now are getting tired of hearing him talk about the legacy of ‘the previous eight years.’ But though that understandably might be the emotional and political case—that by now we would like to see more problems solved at home—they are so complex and deeply rooted that it will take much more time to chip away at things much less change them than even one term in office will allow.”

“I agree with that,” I said, “but shouldn’t he be more forceful about what he wants from Congress, our allies, and trading partners?”

“He is a different kind of person, a different kind of leader. He sees what that kind of blustery leadership has achieved—economic precariousness and a disenchantment with America among even our friends. He realizes how difficult and complicated it is to get Congress as it is currently constituted to pass transformative legislation. Or any legislation. Things are so partisan, special interests are so powerful, that to reach any sort of consensus, even among Democrats, is daunting.  

“So, for example, to leave health care legislation to the Congressional leaders, though it is messy and it looks as if he is indifferent, may very well be the one strategy that has a chance to succeed. And getting even a flawed bill passed may not only be as much as can be expected but may actually do some significant good. Just as though Medicare and Medicaid were and are flawed look how much benefit they have provided to the elderly and indigent.” 

“You may be right about this. But what about Afghanistan and the way he appears to be ineffective with, say, China and Japan?”

“I see the same things operating. His is a new and refreshing way. Perhaps just what is needed. We are no longer either the hegemonic military or economic power. At the end of the Cold War many felt that there would be a Pax Americana that would be the result of our unquestioned power and inclusive values, but that view turned out to be very short lived. Faced with terrorism and insurgencies, our vaunted might has turned out to be ineffective and of course our near economic collapse has shown that our form of capitalism is not a viable model for most of the rest of the world. In fact, even our cultural and ideological power has been shown to be compromised and inappropriate for most people and nations.”

“So you are agreeing with me.”

“Perhaps with your diagnosis but not your pessimistic views about Obama. If you hold on for a moment, let me complete my thought—about how the ways in which he has been acting domestically, in this new collaborative mode, is consistent with his view of diplomacy.”

“Go on.”

“I both cases he is displaying patience in the face of seemingly intractable problems. He knows none of these can be quickly or easily solved. Much repair work needs to be done before anything significant can occur. Trust needs to be reestablished. In regard to our role in the larger world, perhaps trust has to be established for the first time in nearly a century as we move into our own version of a post-colonial role.”

“Perhaps.”

“And in order to do so, to begin to achieve this, Obama appears to have decided to spend down some of his national and global political capital. Even at the risk of appearing to be weak and indecisive. Though many here are eager for certainty—for a leader who will tell them what to think and do (take note of Sarah Palin’s current popularity)—Obama is neither inclined to offer this nor does he believe it to be the best way to lead. His is an entirely different approach. He seems to be willing to build trust in others by actually trusting them. Not necessarily naively but with an understanding that they as well as he and we are always motivated largely out of self-interest.

“By doing this he is showing respect, rather than arrogance, because I feel he both respects others—or at least doesn’t underestimate them—and recognizes the roles that everyone needs to play to reach reconciliation and mutually-beneficial consensus.

“Remember, he is not only our first African-American president but is also our first Asian or Pacific president. He was born in Hawaii and spent formative years in Indonesia. So he combines within himself some of the cultural qualities he assimilated from those early years. It is of course dangerous to oversimplify what it means to be at least in part ‘Asian,’ but one thing that characterizes what that might mean is an understanding of the power or being yielding and indirect. And, make no mistake, these are powerful qualities. At least potentially so. And may turn out be in Obama’s case.”

As I suspected, he had given me some new things to think about, including what to order for dessert!

December 5, 2014--Best of Behind: The Fall of Roman Numerals

Hedy, featured here, is one of the friends with whom we had dinner at the Yale Club the other evening. Back in August 2005, after another evening with her and her husband Tony, I wrote and posted this. It was during my first week of blogging--

As promised Hedy, I will reveal here the answer to the centuries-old question: Why did the Roman Empire fall? 

This is not simply an academic issue; many today are seeking answers because they perceive the U.S. to be an empire and thus are looking for similar evidence of our potential decline and fall. Either in an attempt to prevent it or, as in the case of our enemies, hasten it.

Historians have cited many reasons: there was political corruption, unemployment, inflation, urban decay, excessive military spending. See the parallels? Some even claim Rome fell because of Christianity--among other things Christianity turned Romans into pacifists. 

Parallels cease.

I have learned when facing complexity and contradiction, turn to the New York Times.

Bear with me. Look carefully at the very top lefthand corner of the front page. Note the "All the News That's Fit to Print" box. See just below it: "Vol. CLIV . . . No. 52324." I ask you to turn your attention to "Vol. CLIV"--Roman Numerals! CLIV=154 in Arabic Numerals. This notation indicates that 2005 is the 154th year in which the Times is being published.

Though many of us learned our Roman Numerals in elementary school their only current uses seem to be for publication volume numbers (check your magazine subscriptions), crossword puzzles, and Super Bowls--the next being Super Bowl XXXIX (39 for those of you who did not go to elementary school.)

So you may be wondering, how did Roman Numerals lead to the fall of the Roman Empire? Learning that I=1 and V=5 and X=10 is easy. Try doing addition using Roman Numerals. Allow me to illustrate:

Let's add 23 + 58. In Roman Numerals that's XXIII + LVIII. How to proceed? 

We need to begin by writing the two numbers next to each other: XXIII-LVIII. Next we arrange the letters so that the numerals are in descending order: LXVIIIIII. Now we have six Is, so we rewrite LXVIIIIII as LXVVI. The two Vs are the same as one X, so we simplify again and get LXXXI, or 81 as our final answer.

Don't ask me to do long division.

Suffice it to say, when the Arabs came along with their Arabic Numerals (and swords) the Roman Empire didn't stand much of a chance.

November 21, 2014--Best of Behind: Black Friday

From November 25, 2012, here's a report about Black Friday. I mentioned Occupy Wall Street. Remember them? I hadn't thought about them for some time. How easy, how quickly we forget--

Every year all the newspapers and every TV station run reports about Black Friday, the day retailers hope that on their P&L statements they will finally begin to show a profit, move from the red into the black. 

The stories are always about how much sales are expected to increase over the year before, how early the stores will be opening, and then the frenzy when the doors finally are opened and shoppers--many of whom have been lined up for days--literally trample each other in a race to buy the latest flat-screen TV for 75% off.

This year, thanks to Occupy Wall Street which, if nothing else, has raised awareness about growing economic inequality, some of what is being reported includes inequalities in holiday shopping itself. Would the following have appeared even in the "liberal" New York Times--replete this time of year with ads for Tiffany and Rolex--if not for the Occupy folks?

One the front page, above the fold, under the headline, "Opening Day For Shoppers Shows Divide," the Times reports:

As the busiest retail weekend of the year began late Thursday night, the differences between how affluent and more ordinary Americans shop in the uncertain economy will be on unusually vivid display.

Budget-minded shoppers will be racing for bargains at ever-earlier hours while the rich mostly will not be bothering to leave home.

Toys “R” Us, Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Target will start their Black Friday sales earlier than ever—at 9 and 10 p.m. Thursday night in some instances--with dirt-cheap offers intended to secure their customers’ limited dollars. A half a day later, on Friday morning, higher-end stores like Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nordstrom will open with only a sprinkling of special sales.

The low-end and midrange retailers are risking low margins as they cut prices to attract shoppers, while executives at luxury stores say that they are actually able to sell more at full price than in recent boom years.

“We’re now into a less promotional environment than we were before the recession,“ said Stephen I. Sadove, chairman and chief executive of Saks. In the third quarter, for instance, Saks reduced the length of an annual sale to three days from four, and excluded the high-margin category of cosmetics from another regular sale.

The Times goes on to note that Neiman Marcus, via their "fantasy" catalog, which traditionally features very high-end stuff, this year, within 50 minutes, sold out of Ferraris at $395,000 each. All 10 of them.

November 14, 2014--Best of Behind: Now That's Funny

Here is something from just two years ago--November 29, 2012--about the need for humor when things seem bleakest--

When was the last time Barack Obama said anything really funny? Excluding the jokes scripted for him for White House Correspondents' dinners. Like at the one in 2011 when he made fun of Donald Trump's birth certifcate. Funny stuff, but not really that clever much less spontaneous.

I ask because times like these demand that our leaders display a genuine sense of humor. Not just to help us deal with our fears but also to rally the public and make it possible, when struggling with tough issues, to reach consensus and strike deals. It's easier to come to difficult agreements if things are not always portrayed as portentous and grim. Humor has the ability to cut through the dire.

Case in point, the so-called Fiscal Cliff.

It's scary stuff even if you don't feel that it represents the coming of the apocalypse. On January 1st taxes will go up for all, especially for the hard-pressed middle class and working poor; all sorts of social safety net programs will automatically be cut; we may not be able to pay our sovereign debt; our credit rating which is already down a notch will decline further and this will lead to all sorts of nasty international ramifications; and . . .

I take it back--maybe this is the apocalypse. 

If so, then we desperately need to do a little laughing, and not just at the snarky jokes available every night from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but more the self-deprecating kind that is suffused with hard, often unpleasant truth that can best be raised with humor and, as a result, goes down much easier

There is one helpful example out there--Alan Simpson of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. It was created by Barack Obama in 2010 to identify "policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run."

And, amazingly, even as bipartisan as it was (it included the scold Paul Ryan), the commission did come up with a tough series of recommendations that call for real tax increases and heavy-duty cuts in all federal programs, very much including for the Pentagon and Medicare. Ten members, five Democrats and five Republicans voted for it.

But then nothing happened. Facing a tough reelection campaign, Obama thanked them and promptly ignored the commission’s politically unpopular proposals, and the Republican leadership in Congress blanched at the recommended tax increases. So it went nowhere in a hurry.

But now, like Freddy Kruger, it's back because Obama decisively won a second term (he got 53 percent of the popular vote) and all sorts of tax increases and spending cuts will take place automatically at the start of the new year unless Congress and the president work out a comprehensive deal. So Bowles and Simpson have been resurrected and are making the rounds on Capital Hill and on the cable and Sunday talk shows.

Wyoming rancher that he is, the star of the two-man show is former Republican senator Alan Simpson. In addition to being at least as good as Bill Clinton at explaining things, he is also very funny, and this helps him get his difficult messages across; and, if we are lucky, may help save our economic day. He delivers hard truth in humorous, folksy ways and that makes the truth more palatable.

Here are some examples of Simpson unplugged, about the budget as well about other matters--

"If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountaintop and praise the east or something. But if you want to be in politics, learn to compromise. And you learn to compromise on the issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains."

"I watch Republicans. They give each other the saliva test of purity, and then they lose and bitch for four years."

"But the thing that is really impossible to believe is that whatever adjustment we make and whatever has been suggested for the last 10 years in Social Security reform, from top to bottom, none of that affects anybody over 57. Where do I get my mail? From those old cats, 70 and 80 year-olds, who are not affected one whiff. People who live in gated communities and drive their Lexus to Denny's to get the AARP dissent. This is madness."

"Grandchildren now don't write thank you cards for Christmas presents. They are walking on their pants with their caps on backwards, listening to the Enema Man and Snoopy, Snoopy Poop Dog."

Ronald Reagan was funny--just look at videos of him fooling around with his political "enemy," Tip O'Neill as they figured out how to do business together. Then there was patrician Franklin Roosevelt, whose humor helped Americans get through the Depression. And, in spite of how he is portrayed in the current Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln was a great raconteur, which enabled him to get things done with his frequently contentious team of rivals. 

In fact I try not to miss Stephen Colbert; but maybe if our leaders would sit down over a Scotch and while negotiating make each other laugh while poking fun at each other and, more important, themselves, we'd get somewhere.

October 31, 2014--Best of Behind: Take Back Halloween

This is a reprise of my first Halloween posting from back in 2007. It's rough around the rhetorical edges but, I think, still pertinent--

Not too many years ago when we first moved to Greenwich Village, the Halloween parade was called the Children’s Parade and all who marched down Fifth Avenue into Washington Square Park were children in costumes accompanied by parents in regular clothes. Now, no right-thinking parent would bring a small child out into the current mayhem. Yes, there is a separate rump event for kids, but it’s a sideshow. The real action now goes on for miles up and down Sixth Avenue and it is pretty much for adults-only raunchy affair.

Crank back in time some more, as I am quite capable of doing since I have a few years on me, and Halloween in the city and suburbs was totally for and about children. We even made our own costumes (see below). Tricking and Treating went on in a serious way with the emphasis on the tricks. Kids carried on on their own—parents stayed home. Some of the tricks were ashamedly rough and even violent. Since no one was interested in gathering candy treats we set off stink bombs on people’s doorsteps even before they could answer the doorbell.

Accuse me of indulging in nostalgia, but isn’t there also some sort of cultural shift reflected in adults purloining this formerly kids-only day?

The first evidence of this takeover was adults attempting to turn the treating into something benevolent—to defang it, taking all the perverse pleasure out of the soft-core wilding. They did this by pressuring kids to collect money for UNICEF rather than scrambling after Hershey’s Kisses and mini Three Musketeers bars. Then, either out of fear that their kids would be molested, poisoned, or kidnapped they began to accompany them as they made their rounds.

We now live in a doorman-protected apartment house and you would think parents who live here would be comfortable tonight turning their tikes loose in the hallways. But no, when our doorbell rings, 100 percent of the time the children will have parents tagging along with them. Parents, by the way, frequently in costumes more elaborate than their sons’ and daughters’.

You tell me what this all means. I suspect it has something to do with adults feeling the need to escape adulthood, or their current identity, by reliving childhood—this time as they wished they had lived it back then.

Me? I’m going out tonight as Alex Rodriguez in an LA Dodgers uniform. And, like A-Rod, I’ll be collecting money for myself.

October 10, 2014--Best of Behind: Gay Wheels

A piece of fluff from April 13, 2007--

Here I was all excited about the car we rented for an upcoming trip to Europe. For years I’ve had my eye on the Mini Cooper, thinking it’s not only fuel efficient but also pretty cool. I’ve been fantasizing about tooling around in one along the shores of the Mediterranean.

But now I read that if I’m seen in a Mini everyone will think I’m gay. At least according to the New York Times. They report that everyone on the TV show The L Word drives around in Minis so what will they think of me? I’m pretty secure in my sexuality, but then again . . . 

Maybe I should switch to a Land Rover.

If I’m reacting in this homophobic way, you might think that the last thing in the world an auto manufacturer would want would be to have one of its models come up on About.com’s list of “Top 10 Gay Cars” or on Gaywheels.com’s. You will be surprised to learn, then, that a number of car makers are unabashedly pitching their products to the gay market. For some years, Subaru most prominently featured Martina Navratilova in print ads with the double-entendre nature-nurture tag line “It’s not a choice. It’s the way we’re built.” The campaign was so effective that Subaru Outbacks have become known as Lesbarus.

This could easily be seen as a sign of progress. Not only have more and more gay people become liberated by emerging from the closet but many are becoming increasingly comfortable either throwing off or embracing homosexual stereotypes by driving, for example, cars such as black Mazda 3 hatchbacks that they consider butch.

On the other hand, some nervous straight guys drive “gay” Miatas by day but when dating rent Escalades to fend off the perception that they might be . . . you know what.

And I naively always thought that the dudes who drive Muscle Cars are the gay ones.

September 5, 2014--Best of Behind: Inspiration From the Gutter

This first appeared September 17, 2007--

About a year ago we found ourselves in Springfield, Illinois. We were driving east en route to New York from Wyoming and put in there less out of an interest in things Lincoln than because there were tornado warnings posted in the area.

We were lucky to find a hotel room; and while hunkered down with little to do we read about the local attractions. Of course to be visited there were Lincoln’s law office, the old state capital building where he served in the legislature, and the home from which he left to assume the presidency and to which his body was returned.

Also in Springfield, we read, was one of the earliest of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style structures, the Dana-Thomas House, commissioned by the silver-mine heiress and socialite, the widow Susan Lawrence Dana who had total control of her inherited fortune and spent much of it to satisfy her taste for the avant garde. Thus she turned to Wright who, at the time, represented the cutting edge of American architecture. Completed in 1904, the guide book claimed, the house is a fully realized example of his organic architecture and reflects the flat landscape of Illinois and the influence on his work of Japanese prints. She wanted something primarily for entertaining and therefore the public rooms got the most attention.

Since we were serendipitously in the land of Lincoln and Wright we planned to visit both homes the next morning if we survived the twisters.

Lincoln’s place was a little less modest than I had imagined, having been raised on stories of his growing up in a log cabin. But he had become a successful lawyer after all and in his middle years could afford to stretch out a bit, especially considering his height and wing span. And as further evidence of his relative prosperity, he did manage to get himself elected president.

The Dana-Thomas House was a very different sort of place—immense and lavish in its entirety. In fact, the docent-guide spent more time pointing out every lamp, vase, and sconce than talking about Wright’s expansive and paradigm-shifting architectural vision. The focus was on the totality of his design, how he not only planned every fresco and piece of fretwork but also all the furniture and even Mrs. Dana’s clothing.

Just how total was Wright’s aesthetic control was revealed once we got to the barrel-vaulted dining room—clearly entertaining central. He not only took complete command of the design of the chairs and table and dishes, glasses and flatware; but by basing his furniture designs on what appeared to me to be monastic models, he also was insisting on determining exactly how guests would be forced to physically sit for hours around that stoic table.

To get a sense of just what such an evening would feel like on my body, when the guide wasn’t looking I slipped into one of the rectory-style chairs and realized that if I had been forced to sit there for more than ten minutes I would need to be taken to the hospital and placed in traction.

I began to wonder what might be the intrapsychic source of what could only be thought of as Wright’s architectural sadism. Was this an expression of some inner urge to frappe the rich that bubbled up from memories of his deprived childhood? All I knew, and this was confirmed when I asked to see examples of the severely boned clothing and shoes he designed for his patroness, was that though everything that met the eye on both the interior and exterior cried out for featured inclusion in any serious history of 20th century American architecture, this was not a place in which to actually live or to be comfortable. It was a place to be admired in hushed, worshipful, and painful tones.

I was reminded of the Dana-Thomas House just last week when I read a review by the NY Times architecture critic, Nicolai Duroussoff, of a new condo being built on the city’s rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side. Though reluctant to seem a shill for Bernard Tschumi’s 17-storey, very commercial, so-called Blue Building that is nearing completion, Durousseff nevertheless couldn’t control himself. He wrote:

The building avoids the ostentatious self-importance that infects the design of so many of the new luxury towers. Encased in a matrix of blue panels, its contorted form has a hypnotic appeal that is firmly rooted in the gritty disorder of its surroundings. It reminds us that beauty and good taste are not always the same thing.

The building twists and bends, growing and bulging from the compressed “footprint” out of which it soars. Every square foot downtown after all is precious. There is so much squeezing and compressing that, to quote Duroussoff again, “The entire composition appears wonderfully off balance.”

And where did our architect find inspiration for this piece of real estate art?

Much of the inspiration comes as much from the gutter as from museum walls. The building’s milky blue colors bring to mind the cheap illuminated plastic signs still found on some old East Village storefronts.

And what might it actually be like to live in the off-balance, gutter-inspired Blue Building since it is after all still supposed to be a home? Read on:

As you reach the upper floors, the apartments get increasingly idiosyncratic. Exterior walls tilt backward or forward; rooms are tucked into what seem like leftover spaces. Big canted columns are set just inside the facade, as if bracing the rooms against some invisible force.

Sounds to me as if it would be a great place to hide in a tornado.

August 8, 2014--Best Of Behind: Asiento Inodoro

This tongue-in-cheek piece is from September 29, 2011:

At the risk of alienating my progressive friends, I need to make a confession.

Yesterday, we went to Lowe's to buy a new toilet seat. This should have been routine enough, but what we were shopping for is not the subject of the confession.

What is is how much of everything in that huge barn of a store was in Spanish.

It made me understand the causes for some of the clamor on the part of the political right to pass a constitutional amendment to make English the "official" language of the United States.

Of course that's ridiculous--English already is our national language and doesn't need an amendment to affirm it.

But my confession is that I kind of understand the chauvinistic impulse.

All the signage was bilingual, from the welcome at the entrance, to the labels on all the aisles, to the product packaging itself. Everything in the store was equally in English and Spanish. Even directions to the water fountains. And this is up in Maine where few Latinos are in residence.

Following those parts of the signs that were in English, we found our way to the Bathroom/Baño aisle and then located the toilet seat/asiento del inodoro display. After careful consideration we were attracted to an American Standard HOMESTEAD toilet seat with something called an "EVERCLEAN surface." It was the most expensive available, nearly twice as much as the next-most-costly, and we assumed that might have to do with the EVERCLEANness since it was the only one that promised to be "permanently" clean and, we assumed, hygienic.

Rona, especially, is interested in everything that is or purports to be hygienic and so the price--$33.00--didn't deter us. But we did want to know more about this EVERCLEAN business--

For example, was the seat made and painted in China? We found that of course it was. Did this then perhaps mean there might be something toxic about the painted surface? Like so many toys and dishes made in China?

Hygiene is one thing; having a toxic tush another.

So we needed to know more. And we did, with the Spanish explanation more helpful than the English. I quote:

Exclusiva superficie antimicrobiana a base de plata EverClean. Inhibe en forma permanente el crecimiento de bacterias que causan manchas y malos olores, moho y hongos. La superficie EverClean no protege contra enfermedades provocadas por bacterias.

Excelente, no? Rona was very pleased about the moho y hongos part as she hates mold and mildew.
I confess to having been discombobulated by the whole thing and was becoming increasingly conflicted about my support for MoveOn.org.

What, I thought, will I say to my Delray Beach friend, Harvey, when I see him in a few months. When he reads this he'll think I've come over to the other side and take delight in exposing my confusion--read flip-flopping. My only counter will be that his candidates invented flip-flopping. Think Mitt Romney.
I suppose it wouldn't help to note that the HOMESTEAD EVERCLEAN box also includes French.

EverClean à base d'argent, antimicrobien, exclusif. Empêche, de maniere permanente . . .

This is not helpful. Politically helpful. It will only make Harvey crazier. Things French are not among his favorites.

August 1, 2014--Best of Behind: Midcoast--Cutting Back

This is from September 17, 2010. I thought about it because we are entering eggplant season here on the midcoast of Maine. 

“See what’s going on over there?” We were at Rose’s Farm Stand up near Thomaston and she was pointing at something across the road.

“I’m not following where you’re pointing,” I said, squinting into the sun. It was a perfect end-of-summer day. The air recently washed by a quick shower which produced such clarity that I wished I could paint or draw. It was not surprising why so many artists have been attracted to the coast of Maine.

“That tree,” Rose said still pointing, “The big maple. Look how wide around it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s 200 years old.”

“Really?” Rona said. “I had no idea they got that old.”

“And then some,” Rose said.

“But I still don’t see what you’re getting at,” I said. And with that a massive limb came thundering to the ground.

“That’s what,” Rose said with a snarl.

“What’s going on over there?” Rona asked.

“That’s what I’m getting at,” Rose said. “That old bitch—forgive my French--who bought that house right next to it is having it cut down.”

“For what reason? It looks healthy enough to me.”

“See that field over there?” She pointed then at a plot of land adjacent to the house. “Well, there were three other big trees there. Must have been 150 years old, the two of them.”

“I don’t see any trees over there,” I said.

“My point exactly. There were two there and she had 'em cut down. Now she’s got a big old lawn but no trees. Must be doin' the same thing with the maple. ’For you know it, there won’t be any trees left ‘round here. Or anywhere for that matter.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Rona said. “That would be very sad. It’s so beautiful here and the trees are a big part of that.”

“Well, if the storms don’t git ‘em people like her will. I don’t know what’s wrong with ‘em. And I know what you’re thinkin’, that the owner over there is new to the area and she wants to ‘improve’ things. Which is not the case. Her family’s been here for as long as that tree. And when I talk about people new to the area present company is excluded. I know you two well enough by this time to suspect that’d you’d never do a thing like that. Quite the opposite. I’ll bet by now you’ve joined every conservation group in the state.” She broke into a broad grin.

“Not exactly all,” Rona said, "but by this time next year you may be right.”

“Nothin’ wrong with that,” Rose said. “In fact, my Lewis and me, if we had the means, would do the very same thing.” 

I nodded. We had come to buy some eggplant and onions right out of her field for a vegetable lasagna we were planning for dinner. Rose’s eggplants are the best I’ve ever had.

“Speaking about ‘means,’” Rose said, “Guess how much she is payin’ to have that done. Removing the maple, I mean.” She paused for a beat then quickly continued, “You’ll never guess but I hear at least twenty-two hundred.”

“Wow,” Rona said, “But it is a big tree.”

“Which is my point—a tree like that deserves to live. If anything, she’s the one who should be removed!” She doubled over with laughter, coughing up cigarette smoke. “Gotta stop these before they kill me.” That made her laugh and cough even harder and I was concerned that she might pass out from choking and lack of oxygen.

“On the other hand,” Rose resumed after catching her breath, “I s’pose work is work and twenty-two hundred isn’t to be sneezed at.” With that, again from the smoke, she sneezed three quick times. “Not that that justifies what she’s doin’, but those tree guys can sure use the work and the money.” She paused, “And frankly so can we.” 

Rona was nodding compassionately. “My Lewis, he works construction. He’s an electrician and there’s not much these day for him to do. He’s lucky enough to be finishing a job now on a new house but his boss says there’s nothing waitin’ in the pipeline. So we’re strugglin’. Lot’s of folks can’t pay their taxes. Tomorrow’s tax day here. Real estate taxes are due then.”

I began to interrupt and Rona poked me as she knew I was going to say that we had paid ours early at Town Hall last week. To avoid the lines. I appreciated the poke as it for sure was what I awkwardly was about to say could rightly have been seen as insensitive. We are very fortunate indeed to feel as financially secure as we do.

“Like I was sayin’, lot’s of people, Lewis and me included, are having trouble keeping up with our payments. I know it’s going on all over but it doesn’t make it feel any better here. We’re thankful to have folks like you around who can afford to pay a premium for our corn and tomatoes. And of course our eggplants.” She winked at me.

“Well we . . .” I stammered.

“No need to be getting all guilty on my behalf,” Rose said reassuringly, “I meant that as a genuine thanks. I don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have this.” Her gesture took in the entire little shop where she sold her remarkable veggies. “Probably have to live in our van.”

“I hope . . .” Rona this time stammered.

“I’m bein’ lit’ral with you. Things are that bad.” We both lowered our heads slightly and broke off eye contact. In spite of Rose’s dispensation we were feeling guilty about our relative secure situation.

“We’ve had to do a lot of cuttin’ back. As we sensed things getting’ bad, more than a year ago, we began to pull back. At first we had enough extra cash to do a few fun things. Like come home from work Fridays and get all spiffed up and go out for a nice dinner. But we cut that out more than a year ago.”

“That sounds . . .” I said without looking up.

“. . . about right,” Rose put a finish on my interrupted sentence. “That’s what we did and I’m sure glad we did. ‘Cause now we’d have no choice but to cut back on even more things. You know we both work hard—two, three jobs if we can fine ‘em.” We both raised our heads at the same time and took to nodding at Rose with as much respect and understanding as we could generate.

“Why not more than six months ago when money became even more scarce, we stopped eatin’ breakfast out on Sundays. We really enjoyed that but had no choice. It was either that or maybe lose the house. We’re playin' things that close to the margins.”

“That sounds . . . well, I mean, what you and Lewis are doing . . . if there is no choice, I mean . . .” Again I could not complete a coherent sentence.

“I ‘preciate what you’re sayin’. I know you folks are doing as well as can be expected in these times. I don’t have any bad feelings about that. I really don’t. You’d be the first to know if I did! I know you worked hard and all that. And you deserve what you got.”

“Thanks but we . . .” Rona was no better at finishing her thoughts than I.

“Look, we have to keep on goin'. In life I mean. With whatever it is that we have or don’t have. It’s not about that, I’m sure you’ll agree. The most important thing we have is life itself and we have to make the most of it, whatever else we’re lucky enough to have or what gets dealt us.”

“We try to think that way and live accordingly,” Rona said. I was still struggling with the image of Rose and Lewis having to live in their van.

“So maybe after all that bitch is doin' her part to make things work. Don’t get me wrong, what’s she’s doin' to her trees is a crime. Or at least it should be. But maybe if she is spendin' as much as I think on the job, and what with those other trees I told you about, well she is doing some good in the process.”

“Do you really . . ?”

“I’m trying to put the best spin on what’s happenin’ over there.” The chain saws had resumed their high-pitched whine and more huge limbs were plummeting to the ground. The massive tree was by then a forlorn shadow of its former majestic self, more like a tree for hanging people than shading them. 

“As a result maybe at least one less family will have to live in their car.” She sighed and we were left to contemplate our own fortunate reality and to figure out what to make of the larger picture she had sketched.

“So what can I do for you today?” Rose was again her old chipper self. “Did I hear vegetable lasagna? I love that. You want a couple of my eggplants? I could have misheard you what with them damn chainsaws and all.”