Hillary for VP

I was at my son's wedding reception in St. Louis this weekend when a rumor swept the hall that Hillary had been chosen as Vice President nominee by Obama. I think Randall (the one whose life, I argue, has not been a failure) got a call from his wife and started the rumor. I told several people myself. Later we all ran to the TV and the internet to confirm the story, but no one else seems to have heard of it.

Dr. K thought Obama would pick Caroline Kennedy or a Republican Chuck Hagel so he was surprised. I thought ultimately Obama would pick Hillary so I felt vindicated. But now it appears my gloating was premature. However, I still think she should be chosen.

I am not a big fan of Hillary's and did not vote for her in the primary, but I think she would be a good choice for several reasons. First, it would be the democratic thing to do. She did after all get the second most votes. The Constitution originally gave the Vice Presidency to the second place winner, regardless of party, so this is not exactly a new concept. Second, she appears to have a base of support different from Obama's. I don't know why this is, really, but if it is so, it would be ticket balancing. I assume Obama will carry New York without Hillary, but I do know my wife, mother and sister all supported Obama and they would be happier with her on the ticket. Third, my wife, sister and mother all supported Hillary and I don't want to have to hear about it if Obama picks someone else and loses.

In the primaries, just 1.3 million Texans voted Republican compared to almost 2.9 million who voted Democrat. The Nation magazine has an article this week that makes the argument that Texas could turn blue. The enthusiasm shown by Hillary supporters, especially on issues like health insurance and mortgage relief, at the county convention make me think a Texas upset might be possible.

When All the World Dissolves

I recently read Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limits. This is an article by novelist Wendell Berry that appears in the May 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine. Berry says:

We seem to have come to a collective delusion of grandeur, insisting that all of us are “free” to be as conspicuously greedy and wasteful as the most corrupt of kings and queens. (Perhaps by devoting more and more of our already abused cropland to fuel production we will at last cure ourselves of obesity and become fashionably skeletal, hungry, but–thank God!–still driving.)

When I was in college my economics teacher, Clifton Grubbs, talked about what it would be like if gas were $5.00 per gallon. It was actually then about a quarter a gallon, so he was talking about an increase of twenty times the price. Even accounting for inflation, gas is more expensive than it was then. That quarter of a gallon gas would still be under $2.00 now, so the $3.50 or so we are paying at the pump is less than double, but a 75% increase.

Under Grubbs' scenario, gas would cost about $40.00 per gallon now. His idea was that if gas were really to pay for the costs involved in its use, including the clean up afterwards, prices would be this high.

If gas were this expensive, society would rapidly reorder itself. I have trouble imagining it but it seems, as a beginning, downtowns would become prime real estate and people would walk and ride bicycles more. Probably, also, whole other industries would come to a screeching halt: vacations, airlines, trucking. And then the industries that rely on those things would collapse such as hotels and grocery stores.

A friend made a trip to El Salvador last week. He has been traveling back and forth for most of the forty years he has lived in Brownsville and he tells me that with the price of corn and rice so high, conditions are dire. People are starving.

Berry in thinking of our predicament is brought back to Christopher Marlowe's Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: Berry describes the desire of Dr. Faustus, so much like our modern approach to control "all Nature's treasury," to "Ransack the ocean.../ And search all corners of the new found world..."

The warning is that where we have no limits, hell also becomes limitless.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one self place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be:
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that are not heaven.

Berry is a farmer first and a writer second, so a local economy based on growing much of your own food does not intimidate him.

The distributists also are big on locally grown food on personally owned, mortgage-free land. With the price of grain spiking, it is easy to be held for ransom if you have no control over your own food.

Now my tomato plants have always died and I'm too fat to keep a garden comfortably. Do you suppose sloth and gluttony are kin? How about control of our food and control of our freedom?

Sans teeth, Sans eyes...

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

My first reaction to the Dylan Thomas poem is, "Typical old drunk. You'll accomplish not much raging against the inevitable."

But he, at least, has a plan for aging. I haven't gotten there yet.

People will give subtle hints that you are aging. For instance, I went to a comedy show with Austin and Kate a while back and all the comedians called me "Old Dude."

I do have some aging coaches who give me some ideas on how to do this hard thing.

My mother works cross-word puzzles every day and calls me to discuss some of the hard ones. She is the determined wordsmith at 85. She is planning a 100th birthday celebration with two of her sisters. She would be the oldest if they make it. She has an aunt on each side of her family who lived past 100, so she is hopeful. She heads out most days for a long walk around tiny Romney, WV. She must be some type of town fixture by now.

My old Grandma Stapleton was reciting poetry until her last year at 88. She was formidable and aggressive, too, until the end.

My friend Dr. Kuri, also, has given me much guidance. At 82, he still works seven days a week, preparing patient histories and doing pre-employment physicals. During a cross-examination today, he defended his opinion, despite his age, by noting that he is still 6 years younger than Justice Stevens. True. John Paul Stevens was born April 20, 1920 and turns 88 this month. He remains active on the Court and if he can last three more years he will pass Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to take the record. Dr. Kuri could also have noted he is still 9 years younger than Holmes was when he was still writing Supreme Court Decisions. (Stevens authored Atkins v. Virginia, the case I discussed yesterday, that banned execution of the retarded.)

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I used to worry about not having saved any money for retirement. It was Dr. Kuri who let me off the hook on that one and told me I could not retire anyway, because I would deteriorate much too rapidly.

The worst thing about longevity: you outlive all your friends. I watched as my Grandma Stapleton's last friends and relatives died. She would watch the obituaries closely. There was a sense of triumph that she had outlasted another one, but also the sad realization that she was being left more and more alone.

Normal changes with aging. Dr. Kuri notes about teeth: it is not normal to be toothless at thirty. It is normal at 90.

I find that I am not always sure whether something is wrong or it is just a little aging. I was having a little trouble with my knees getting up and down stairs recently. I thought, "Whoops, aging." Then it get better and went away. I think I had too much incline on the treadmill during my once-monthly attempt at exercise.

One option is to try not to age. You know, comb overs, prematurely orange hair.

Another is to accept the course as the poet describes it:

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." — Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)