It’s been almost a year ago that I got my Nexus card renewed; that would be the time at which the Nexus agents gave me a new name, one that I have never, ever used, and insisted that that was to be my real name from now on. Next time I have to renew the card, I guess we’ll go through some further unhappy conversations since my Nexus card now has a name that doesn’t match any of my other official ID cards.
But in the meantime, they’ve issued us all NEW Nexus cards. These cards are said to contain some amount of private data (which I take it means data that they have, not data that I have, although I may have it as well, I suppose), encoded in their little plastic bodies by means of microchips. And, this fabulous little microchipped card comes with its own secret covering, which looks to be the same kind of covering that the bank gives me for my ATM card, but may, indeed, be made of Kevlar, or have its own microchips for all I know.
I must always keep my Nexus card in this little coat. I must immediately destroy my old Nexus card, which has no coat and no microchips upon activating my new Nexus Card. I don’t know what happens if I don’t destroy it, but my first intuition was that the new one probably wouldn’t work, so I’d better hang on to my old one for awhile in case I need a backup.
But I used the new Nexus card yesterday, and it did work, so I guess I can bear to get rid of the old one. Actually, I’d be happy to get rid of the old one: it has a picture, alleged to be of me (with the odd name, of course), but it actually looks like a fish with glasses. The new Nexus card has the same picture, but it is covered up by some kind of holographic seal or something which almost completely obliterates the picture. Couldn’t happen to a worse picture. An act of kindness from Nexus.
But my question is about the little coat that the Nexus card is obliged to wear at all times. I am told (by whom I do not know—street talk) that I must keep the coat on the Nexus card at all times because people driving around with radio frequency scanners (And who would that be? The police? Terrorists? Identity thieves?) will pick up the secret information off my Nexus card and drive away to do something with it. Become identity thieves? Become terrorists? I really am not easily able to imagine this happening with any frequency. But it is technology and I’m not all that techno-savvy.
So I accept that you have to keep its coat on at all times (except when going through the border because if it has its coat on then the border people can’t read it anymore than the scanner thieves can read it) to protect something. But what’s actually on the card that needs protecting? My name? Well, actually, not. My Social Security number? The places that have my social security number are legion. When I lived in Massachusetts (1970-75), that’s what they used for your driver’s license number, which was then copied onto every check you ever wrote. My passport number? My awful photograph? My bank accounts, my brokerage accounts (not much left there), my insurance? My secret diary? My passwords????
Somehow, I have the feeling that this is just one of the last acts of incompetence brought to us by the Bush Administration. After all, if it’s so dangerous to have this information floating in the air, couldn’t it be encrypted? And if it’s so dangerous to have this information floating in the air, maybe the government shouldn’t have the information in the first place or shouldn’t be putting it on a card that is highly likely, sooner or later, in my hands or those of someone else, to lose its coat, its hat, its mittens, its every protection? And then will it be my/our fault if the terrorists come again? I'm checking with Dick Cheney about that.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Help Needed
Many years ago—in 1968, to be specific--I had three very young children and was divorced. It was the late 60’s; could have happened to anyone in those times. And, like anyone in that situation, there wasn’t much money. I had had a job since I was 15, but for the previous 4 years I’d been raising little kids instead, which certainly was work but not work that paid money. One day, I found myself standing in the kitchen and thinking that if I ate only twice a day, I could save X amount of money. And then I found myself thinking that that was crazy. I needed to get a job, despite the fact that I had three little kids. Eating less than I needed was not a choice I wanted to be making.
And, I didn’t have to make that choice because I was lucky in most other ways: the kids were healthy; their dad was available; I had a M.A. from UCLA; and the job market was reasonably good. I found a job pretty quickly (as a research assistant for a U.S. Congressman in his district office). It was a great job and the kids managed with the additional help of some hired folks. And we all continued to eat three meals a day.
But that is not everybody’s story in such a situation, so since then, I’ve always been particularly sensitive to the idea that people in America, the wealthiest place in the world, ought not, at the very least, have to worry about having enough to eat. And yet, here we are in the wealthiest place in the world (even if not so wealthy as it recently was), and there are people without enough money to ensure adequate food. Oh, they may not be facing malnutrition or starvation, but they are having to feel some sense of alarm about the price of milk and cheese and chicken (even though we in Washington pay a lot less for them than our neighbors in Canada do).
Now, with an unemployment rate slipping upward rapidly, there’s going to be a bigger problem and fewer people anxious to respond to the need. Does that stimulus program include additional food stamp money? What’s the state of local food banks that help to make up the slack for people like I was that day who just didn’t have quite enough money for quite enough food? Are their donations dropping? Probably, as most non-profits’ donations are.
Even in tiny, remote, peculiar Point Roberts, there are people who need some help getting adequate food. Fortunately, Point Roberts has a food bank that is run entirely by volunteer efforts. Nobody in that outfit getting salaries, let alone bonuses. The P.R. Food Bank helps 30 or 40 households here on the Point to not worry about adequate food. They may still have to worry about their rent or their car insurance or their gasoline, but at least, there’s help with food. However, that help doesn't just arrive from the sky: the Food Bank has to solicit help from the community both in terms of funds and in terms of time in procuring, storing, packaging, and delivering the food.
People always talk about how generous Americans are, and I’m sure they are when they see some need for generosity standing right in front of them. But people who need some help with food don’t stand in front of you and ask for help. Who stands in front of you, at least at this moment, is somebody who once could have used some help but had no one to ask. I was lucky and found another way out. For those who aren’t so lucky, who don’t have a lot of job experience, education, work savvy, and a good job market…well, they are still there needing help. Money, a permanent storage space for food, and actual time spent picking up, packaging, distributing food: all of that is needed by the Point Roberts Food Bank. If you are here on the Point, think about offering to help.
And, I didn’t have to make that choice because I was lucky in most other ways: the kids were healthy; their dad was available; I had a M.A. from UCLA; and the job market was reasonably good. I found a job pretty quickly (as a research assistant for a U.S. Congressman in his district office). It was a great job and the kids managed with the additional help of some hired folks. And we all continued to eat three meals a day.
But that is not everybody’s story in such a situation, so since then, I’ve always been particularly sensitive to the idea that people in America, the wealthiest place in the world, ought not, at the very least, have to worry about having enough to eat. And yet, here we are in the wealthiest place in the world (even if not so wealthy as it recently was), and there are people without enough money to ensure adequate food. Oh, they may not be facing malnutrition or starvation, but they are having to feel some sense of alarm about the price of milk and cheese and chicken (even though we in Washington pay a lot less for them than our neighbors in Canada do).
Now, with an unemployment rate slipping upward rapidly, there’s going to be a bigger problem and fewer people anxious to respond to the need. Does that stimulus program include additional food stamp money? What’s the state of local food banks that help to make up the slack for people like I was that day who just didn’t have quite enough money for quite enough food? Are their donations dropping? Probably, as most non-profits’ donations are.
Even in tiny, remote, peculiar Point Roberts, there are people who need some help getting adequate food. Fortunately, Point Roberts has a food bank that is run entirely by volunteer efforts. Nobody in that outfit getting salaries, let alone bonuses. The P.R. Food Bank helps 30 or 40 households here on the Point to not worry about adequate food. They may still have to worry about their rent or their car insurance or their gasoline, but at least, there’s help with food. However, that help doesn't just arrive from the sky: the Food Bank has to solicit help from the community both in terms of funds and in terms of time in procuring, storing, packaging, and delivering the food.
People always talk about how generous Americans are, and I’m sure they are when they see some need for generosity standing right in front of them. But people who need some help with food don’t stand in front of you and ask for help. Who stands in front of you, at least at this moment, is somebody who once could have used some help but had no one to ask. I was lucky and found another way out. For those who aren’t so lucky, who don’t have a lot of job experience, education, work savvy, and a good job market…well, they are still there needing help. Money, a permanent storage space for food, and actual time spent picking up, packaging, distributing food: all of that is needed by the Point Roberts Food Bank. If you are here on the Point, think about offering to help.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Disappearing Names and Objects
The All Point Bulletin brought us the news this month that the Whalen camp site over on the northeast side of Point Roberts has been sold to someone who needed a lot of land for an estate and all the people who have had trailers there over the years were given a month to get out. Not friendly, but it’s business, you know? And the needs of and for estates are considerable.
I’ve been thinking the last few days about this. It seems like a loss. Well, it is a loss of trailer space and part of the mystique of the Point is all these families, generations of whom have been coming here for years in the summer for a few weeks, a couple of months even, to partake of the local amenities. For some, it’s a tradition that should be not only acknowledged but honored and maybe even made sacrosanct (and give us back our trailer park!). And maybe that’s true. Like going to the same summer camp every year. On the other hand, maybe it’s just an inexpensive vacation place for Canadians and not a part of national (international?) cultural values. I don’t know.
The Whalen trailer park also has some economic value for the Point, I assume, so its shuttering will mean some economic loss. Those summer visitors are people who won’t be here buying food and hardware goods and beer and tourist objects, or going to restaurants and bars. And there are a decreasing number of trailer facilities here (although for many people who are full-time residents, that would be considered a feature, not a bug). So, it’s something of a mixed bag, I suppose. Change; never easy.
One significant loss involved, I think, will be the historical loss. Whalen is one of those names on the Point that is to be reckoned with, which is to say, old time resident. When we were constructing the outbuilding where I work on my quilts, we hired a nice guy named Gary who also ran the Whalen trailer park to work on the framing. I can’t remember his last name now, but I do remember how people would say to me, “Oh, sure, Gary. He’s married to the Whalen girl.” Who was, of course, no longer a girl, and hadn’t been one for many a year, but that’s how it is with the old families. They sold the trailer park a couple of years ago to someone from California who was going to run it as it had always been, but then the Californians ran into some family illness and that was the end of their plan. (Another instance of Point Roberts being a place where dreams go to die, I’d say.)
After Gary and the Whalen girl sold the trailer park to the Californians, they moved away, I think, and I don’t know if there are even any Whalens left here now. But there are still Whalen artifacts. About five years ago, somebody gave me a heavy window frame with glass intact because I was, at the time, putting some of the abandoned house quilts into window frames. “It’s from the old Whalen house,” I was told. Nothing more needed to be said. So I take care of that frame because in some not quite explicable way, it is a piece of Point Roberts history that is now my burden.
The Whalens are gone, the Whalen Trailer Park is gone, but the Whalen window frame is available for viewing upon request.
I’ve been thinking the last few days about this. It seems like a loss. Well, it is a loss of trailer space and part of the mystique of the Point is all these families, generations of whom have been coming here for years in the summer for a few weeks, a couple of months even, to partake of the local amenities. For some, it’s a tradition that should be not only acknowledged but honored and maybe even made sacrosanct (and give us back our trailer park!). And maybe that’s true. Like going to the same summer camp every year. On the other hand, maybe it’s just an inexpensive vacation place for Canadians and not a part of national (international?) cultural values. I don’t know.
The Whalen trailer park also has some economic value for the Point, I assume, so its shuttering will mean some economic loss. Those summer visitors are people who won’t be here buying food and hardware goods and beer and tourist objects, or going to restaurants and bars. And there are a decreasing number of trailer facilities here (although for many people who are full-time residents, that would be considered a feature, not a bug). So, it’s something of a mixed bag, I suppose. Change; never easy.
One significant loss involved, I think, will be the historical loss. Whalen is one of those names on the Point that is to be reckoned with, which is to say, old time resident. When we were constructing the outbuilding where I work on my quilts, we hired a nice guy named Gary who also ran the Whalen trailer park to work on the framing. I can’t remember his last name now, but I do remember how people would say to me, “Oh, sure, Gary. He’s married to the Whalen girl.” Who was, of course, no longer a girl, and hadn’t been one for many a year, but that’s how it is with the old families. They sold the trailer park a couple of years ago to someone from California who was going to run it as it had always been, but then the Californians ran into some family illness and that was the end of their plan. (Another instance of Point Roberts being a place where dreams go to die, I’d say.)
After Gary and the Whalen girl sold the trailer park to the Californians, they moved away, I think, and I don’t know if there are even any Whalens left here now. But there are still Whalen artifacts. About five years ago, somebody gave me a heavy window frame with glass intact because I was, at the time, putting some of the abandoned house quilts into window frames. “It’s from the old Whalen house,” I was told. Nothing more needed to be said. So I take care of that frame because in some not quite explicable way, it is a piece of Point Roberts history that is now my burden.
The Whalens are gone, the Whalen Trailer Park is gone, but the Whalen window frame is available for viewing upon request.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Cousin Caterpillar
Another Internet treasure hunt and a real treasure at the end. This morning, Ed was looking at one of those photo collections that somebody is always sending to somebody via the email and I looked up at the screen just as a funny picture of a dog and a hedgehog slid into place. Looking at the hedgehog (and thinking of hedgehog/groundhog/badger day having just passed), I remembered the wonderful, bouncy, funny song of the Incredible String Band, a U.K. band of the 60’s, and called ‘The Hedgehog Song.’ I once had a much-played LP of the album that included that song, but it went away 20+ years ago when I let go of all my vinyls and 33’s and LP’s and committed to CD’s. Lots of albums got replaced, but The Incredible String Band didn’t because, at least at the time, it wasn’t there in that format so that I could replace it.
Ed doesn’t remember the song; I try to sing it, but I can barely croak anymore, let alone get out a complex tune like that one (whose refrain begins ‘Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes, but you never quite learned the song she sung’). On a flyer, I Googled ‘The Hedgehog Song’, and up came a YouTube with a static visual and the original album cut. What a treat! And there’s more like this if you can just remember song titles or lyrics. (How can we have lost sight of the ‘Minotaur Song’ over the past eight years???? Or ‘First Girl I Loved? ) I also found “My Cousin Caterpillar’ (also by The String Band), which begins with the immortal line (given the title), ‘My cousin has great changes coming one day…’ And ends, ‘Come on, Do Your Thing!’ That may perfectly capture how we felt in the 60’s, those of us who were doing a lot of feeling in the 60’s, anyway.
Inspiration for our times, maybe. We are certainly hoping for great changes and we could surely use them. It’s just not clear that we any longer have ‘a thing’ to do. But at least the String Band is on YouTube; there’s a comfort. Here and here. Just poke around and you’ll find the other titles too there on ‘related video’s’ at the YouTube site.
Ed doesn’t remember the song; I try to sing it, but I can barely croak anymore, let alone get out a complex tune like that one (whose refrain begins ‘Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes, but you never quite learned the song she sung’). On a flyer, I Googled ‘The Hedgehog Song’, and up came a YouTube with a static visual and the original album cut. What a treat! And there’s more like this if you can just remember song titles or lyrics. (How can we have lost sight of the ‘Minotaur Song’ over the past eight years???? Or ‘First Girl I Loved? ) I also found “My Cousin Caterpillar’ (also by The String Band), which begins with the immortal line (given the title), ‘My cousin has great changes coming one day…’ And ends, ‘Come on, Do Your Thing!’ That may perfectly capture how we felt in the 60’s, those of us who were doing a lot of feeling in the 60’s, anyway.
Inspiration for our times, maybe. We are certainly hoping for great changes and we could surely use them. It’s just not clear that we any longer have ‘a thing’ to do. But at least the String Band is on YouTube; there’s a comfort. Here and here. Just poke around and you’ll find the other titles too there on ‘related video’s’ at the YouTube site.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Odds and Ends
1. Today is Candlemas Day (40 days after Christmas), but it’s a day more celebrated in books than in life, I suspect. It’s also Groundhog Day, and my understanding is that the groundhog in Pennsylvania did indeed see his shadow this morning, prognosticating another six weeks of winter. Originally, in Germany, it was a badger who made this prediction, but when German settlers came to the coal mines of Pennsylvania, they found no badgers, so they had to rely on groundhogs for information. And now, we have the Internet! Up here in Point Roberts, we have neither badgers nor groundhogs as far as I know, but we have lots and lots of voles, and voles were not seeing their shadows this morning, so maybe Pennsylvania gets six weeks of winter and Point Roberts gets spring right away. I’m okay with that; and last Saturday made spring seem like a reasonable prospect.
2. For the past six months, reading the events of the world, I have pondered from time to time whether Point Roberts is a good place to sit out the arriving/already here bad times. I can’t say that I’ve progressed too far in my thoughts. It doesn’t seem like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is going to be much of a guide to action, but Point Roberts does seem like as good a place as any if you don’t have a lot of debt and do have a little ground in which to grow vegetables. However, last week’s New Yorker (January 26, 2009) has a fascinating article on ‘The Dystopians,’ describing the 'forward thinking' (as the financial types speak of predictions) of various non-religious types’ apocalyptic visions. Unfortunately, the full text isn’t available on the Net, but there is a summary of the article here. These are all people who are getting licenses for pistols, I note, are living on boats, or cataloguing their gold acquisitions. All pretty interesting if you’re not someone who is too susceptible of imagination. In any case, it made me think Point Roberts might be a good place with respect to lack of weapons: a nice gated community and with the gate operated by Homeland Security. Oh, we could end up being grateful to the border agents just as we could end up being grateful to the bulk mailers. We’re not done with irony yet, I guess.
3. With respect to on-going bad times, I find myself checking the status of Sterling and Banner Banks each day as demonstrated by their stock prices. Both have continued to plunge, and at $1.53 (Sterling), plunging much more could be very painful. Banner dropped too, but not quite as hard; now at $2.99. I have no idea what happens when a stock has no value at all.
2. For the past six months, reading the events of the world, I have pondered from time to time whether Point Roberts is a good place to sit out the arriving/already here bad times. I can’t say that I’ve progressed too far in my thoughts. It doesn’t seem like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is going to be much of a guide to action, but Point Roberts does seem like as good a place as any if you don’t have a lot of debt and do have a little ground in which to grow vegetables. However, last week’s New Yorker (January 26, 2009) has a fascinating article on ‘The Dystopians,’ describing the 'forward thinking' (as the financial types speak of predictions) of various non-religious types’ apocalyptic visions. Unfortunately, the full text isn’t available on the Net, but there is a summary of the article here. These are all people who are getting licenses for pistols, I note, are living on boats, or cataloguing their gold acquisitions. All pretty interesting if you’re not someone who is too susceptible of imagination. In any case, it made me think Point Roberts might be a good place with respect to lack of weapons: a nice gated community and with the gate operated by Homeland Security. Oh, we could end up being grateful to the border agents just as we could end up being grateful to the bulk mailers. We’re not done with irony yet, I guess.
3. With respect to on-going bad times, I find myself checking the status of Sterling and Banner Banks each day as demonstrated by their stock prices. Both have continued to plunge, and at $1.53 (Sterling), plunging much more could be very painful. Banner dropped too, but not quite as hard; now at $2.99. I have no idea what happens when a stock has no value at all.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Superbowl Sunday Excess
I suspect that today is the Super Bowl, but I think it’s a little late for it. I mean, doesn’t it usually happen in January after the New Year’s Day bowl games? And aren’t we about a month past that? Maybe it was postponed as a patriotic gesture so as not to take the attention away from Obama. As if. (I say that and it feels like whistling in the dark. I HOPE as if.)
I’ve never watched the Super Bowl, don’t even know whether it’s one word or two, and have no idea who is playing in the game on this particular day, nor where they are doing the playing. I am sufficiently connected to know that it is football, just as I know that the Gray’s Cup (the Grey’s Cup?) is about hockey [except that I don't know that: it turns out that it is the Stanley Cup that is about hockey....I'm hopeless on this, I guess.] . I last watched a football game in 1955, when Idaho State College played somebody else on Homecoming Day. I realized at that point that it was unlikely I would ever figure out the game, would ever figure out, even, who had the football at any given moment. They all run around looking as if they have something like a football tucked under their arm, and I’m ready to believe them. It made for a confusing experience, all round, so I gave up on football. (Despite the fact that I am an American, born and bred, I do much better with hockey, but that is because I graduated from Saint Lawrence University, a New York institution up on the Canadian border, and hockey was the only thing to watch for about 5 months of the year. Also, I can see the puck against the ice.)
So, the fact that today is a great American celebration in which we all participate by gathering with our friends in front of a giant TV and eating a lot of high calory snack food, or even a lot of high calorie main dish food, and drinking a lot of beer: well, it’s largely lost on me because I don’t have a TV, don’t know anyone nearby who has a giant one, or if I do, don’t know anyone with a giant TV who is watching the Superbowl, and don’t drink beer. So disappointing. So out of it.
But this past week—the Internet will help you to do anything—I ran into a series of links about food that would be just terrific for eating while watching the Superbowl. One link led to another, of course, and while I’m not sure that all of the things I saw were intended for the Superbowl Nosh Fest, here’s what I found on offer that captured my fancy: barbequed turkey wings (those chicken wings are so 90’s and also so tiny); a 2-pound mat of woven bacon stuffed with sausage and an additional pound of cooked bacon, which is then rolled up and either barbequed or grilled, and then I assume you just use your hands to slather it around on yourself; and fried cheese.
This is a nice range of choices, I think, so for tonight, in celebration of Superbowl Sunday and just to feel a part of things, I fried some cheese and ate it with my fingers. This recipe involves cutting a thick slice of some kind of cheese—I used jack and cheddar, but I imagine some kinds work better than others--and cooking it over a medium-low flame in a non-stick frying pan for 8 minutes. At the end of the eight minutes, it’s turned into a very thin, crispy kind of cracker-like item. You mop up the extra oil with a paper towel before you eat it. Which probably can’t be done with the roasted bacon mat stuffed with sausage: that’s said to come in at 5,000 calories per recipe. Awesome! Just like the Superbowl. But the fried cheese is pretty nice, too.
I’ve never watched the Super Bowl, don’t even know whether it’s one word or two, and have no idea who is playing in the game on this particular day, nor where they are doing the playing. I am sufficiently connected to know that it is football, just as I know that the Gray’s Cup (the Grey’s Cup?) is about hockey [except that I don't know that: it turns out that it is the Stanley Cup that is about hockey....I'm hopeless on this, I guess.] . I last watched a football game in 1955, when Idaho State College played somebody else on Homecoming Day. I realized at that point that it was unlikely I would ever figure out the game, would ever figure out, even, who had the football at any given moment. They all run around looking as if they have something like a football tucked under their arm, and I’m ready to believe them. It made for a confusing experience, all round, so I gave up on football. (Despite the fact that I am an American, born and bred, I do much better with hockey, but that is because I graduated from Saint Lawrence University, a New York institution up on the Canadian border, and hockey was the only thing to watch for about 5 months of the year. Also, I can see the puck against the ice.)
So, the fact that today is a great American celebration in which we all participate by gathering with our friends in front of a giant TV and eating a lot of high calory snack food, or even a lot of high calorie main dish food, and drinking a lot of beer: well, it’s largely lost on me because I don’t have a TV, don’t know anyone nearby who has a giant one, or if I do, don’t know anyone with a giant TV who is watching the Superbowl, and don’t drink beer. So disappointing. So out of it.
But this past week—the Internet will help you to do anything—I ran into a series of links about food that would be just terrific for eating while watching the Superbowl. One link led to another, of course, and while I’m not sure that all of the things I saw were intended for the Superbowl Nosh Fest, here’s what I found on offer that captured my fancy: barbequed turkey wings (those chicken wings are so 90’s and also so tiny); a 2-pound mat of woven bacon stuffed with sausage and an additional pound of cooked bacon, which is then rolled up and either barbequed or grilled, and then I assume you just use your hands to slather it around on yourself; and fried cheese.
This is a nice range of choices, I think, so for tonight, in celebration of Superbowl Sunday and just to feel a part of things, I fried some cheese and ate it with my fingers. This recipe involves cutting a thick slice of some kind of cheese—I used jack and cheddar, but I imagine some kinds work better than others--and cooking it over a medium-low flame in a non-stick frying pan for 8 minutes. At the end of the eight minutes, it’s turned into a very thin, crispy kind of cracker-like item. You mop up the extra oil with a paper towel before you eat it. Which probably can’t be done with the roasted bacon mat stuffed with sausage: that’s said to come in at 5,000 calories per recipe. Awesome! Just like the Superbowl. But the fried cheese is pretty nice, too.
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