overwhelmed by the injustice of our times

I so want this to be true:

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. 

From "Letter to M. Nadeau" (30 March 1973) from E.B. White, American essayist, columnist, poet and editor. He is best known today for his work in a writers' guide, The Elements of Style, and for three children's books Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan.

Please tell me the guy who wrote The Elements of Style isn't wrong (required reading for all Western Kentucky University journalism majors back in the day - still have my copy).

I feel like that, even if it's not a contagion, it's still worth having hope if there is still just one upright woman and one compassionate man who are refusing not only to be a part of this madness right now, but are also refusing to be silent about it. It's still worth fighting.

But I fully admit, I'm getting tired.

What private healthcare insurance is like in the USA

I got this from a friend in Kentucky. I have her permission to post it, with the name of her husband's former employer, through which she got her insurance, redacted. This is a great illustration of how the private health care system works - the one so many Democrats think the USA should keep:

I haven’t been back to the therapist I saw because there has been this big pissing contest between Medicare and Anthem over who is primary for me. It’s taken weeks to get it settled. Just got it worked out on Friday so now I can get back to seeing my providers.

Anthem has been paying as primary for over a year and suddenly decides they shouldn’t be. So they went back and pulled payment from EVERYONE they had paid. So all of my providers are calling me...pissed. Which I understand. So I call Anthem. They can’t explain it. They tell me to call Company Name Redacted. Company Name Redacted can’t explain it. They contact Anthem. Anthem can’t explain it to them. Send them higher up the chain. Still can’t explain it. Send them even higher. Finally someone explains it. Company Name Redacted notifies me. I call Medicare which is a nightmare of being sent from department to department. Finally get it straightened out.

Now it all has to be rebilled. It's fucked up. 

She has stories like this ALL THE TIME. She is someone who NEEDS her health insurance. I hear these stories and think, shit, what am I going to do when I need more than an annual checkup? 

Not anodyne

anodyne. adjective. Not likely to provoke dissent or offense; inoffensive, often deliberately so. Synonyms: Unremarkable, unsurprising, innocuous. Antonyms: provocative, provoking, objectionable, me.

Happy birthday, me.

women can save the motorcycle industry

I am a motorcycle rider. I have been a motorcycle rider for just 10 years. I took a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course when I was 43, after thinking about it for many years. I've now ridden almost 50,000 miles, touring Oregon, Washington state, Northern California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Western Montana, British Columbia, a bit of the Yukon and Southern Alberta.

I am regularly approached by women in their 40s and 50s who, when they see me in the parking lot of a convenience store or realize I am a motorcycle rider say, "I always wanted to ride a motorcycle!" And I do my best to be super encouraging. I strongly suggest to them that they take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course, or whatever is available in the area, explain that they don't need to have their own motorcycle or helmet, that that's provided (they have NO idea), that they will NOT be the only woman in the class, and on and on. I try to tell them all the things I wish someone had told me years before I finally took the MSF course.

But I can't do all this convincing alone.

The market for new motorcycle riders is MASSIVE - among women specifically. But the motorcycle industry is just not reaching women. At a time when motorcycle sales are plummeting, the industry should be looking to expand into new markets among women - and, instead, they just keep trying to appeal to white men over 40. Women hold the key to expanding motorcycle sales, but motorcycle manufacturers just keep ignoring us. I do a better job in convenience store parking lots than you do in any of your advertising or sales pitches.

First of all, the best ads for motorcycle riding don't come from motorcycle manufacturers - they come from Geico, Progressive and Booking.com (the last one made me literally burst into tears, ya'll - I gasped and then I bawled). These commercials are about seeing beautiful places, feeding your soul, being with friends or enjoying being alone, and being more than your job or whatever role you need a break from. They are far more motivating than anything coming out of the motorcycle industry.

Motorcycle manufacturers and the Motorcycle Safety Foundation need to take a cue from these inspirational, fun commercials by non-motorcycle manufacturers and produce their own. And they need to come up with commercials specifically to encourage women:

• a woman in a typical office, open floor plan, pulled in various directions, getting passed up for a promotion, seeing a work plan she developed get shade thrown at it by Todd in IT, etc., and as she goes through her typical workday, she gets a secret smile and a far-away look - and we see what she's going to be doing this weekend: riding her motorcycle somewhere beautiful.
   
• a woman in her home, managing kids and her husband and a broken washer and driving kids to this and that and, as she goes through all these home duties, she gets a secret smile and a far-away look - and we see what she's going to be doing while the kids are at school: ride her motorcycle somewhere beautiful, meet other women for coffee, etc. 

Come up with a whole series of these kinds of commercials. Come up with other themes that would appeal to women. And, please, NOT JUST WHITE WOMEN.

Remember that, just like among male riders, there are going to be very different ways women approach motorcycle riding: some are going to like cruising, some are going to like traveling and camping by motorcycle, some are going to want to do back-country discovery routes, some are going to want to ride alone, some are going to want to ride with others, and on and on. That means you are going to have to appeal to the different kinds of potential motorcycle riders.

Also, you need to retrain everyone working in your motorcycle dealerships: salespeople need to welcome every woman that comes through the door, whether she's alone or with a man. Assume she IS a rider, or wants to be one, and talk to her as such. I cannot count how many times I have been utterly ignored when walking into a motorcycle shop.

Other ways to inspire thousands of new motorcycle owners and riders among women:

• Dealerships need to have images of women riding motorcycles posted all-around their shops - not the greasy, almost naked women with boob jobs, but actual women riders - representing a range of economic levels, ages, body types and ethnicities. And they need to use more of these images in their own advertising.
   
• The Motorcycle Safety Foundation needs to have flyers at motorcycle sales shops and need to train salespeople on how to push them.
   
• The Motorcycle Safety Foundation needs to have a representative on particularly busy days at motorcycle dealers, and greet women with, "Hey there, are you a motorcycle rider? Do you want to be one?" and have lots of material to hand out about upcoming classes, be ready to talk in an encouraging way about attending classes and becoming a rider, etc.
   
• Dealerships need to have events like the Harley fantastic women-only "Garage Parties." I am NOT a Harley rider, but I went to their event in 2010 in Gladstone, Oregon and it was OUTSTANDING - and had way more attendees than they were expecting. It was staffed entirely by women (all-male staff left), because new women riders tend to be very self-conscious and self-deprecating, and there's nothing like watching a woman smaller than you pick up an 800-pound bike (362.87 kilos) and then tell you, "YOU can do this." There was great food, short demonstration stations, gift bags, and free t-shirts with I am not a backrest on the back that I still wear. And, of course, Harley doesn't have these events anymore, because why continue a wildly-popular event that, over time, will build momentum for more women to ride motorcycles?
   
• Exploit movie moments like Captain Marvel on a motorcycle. Right after I saw that movie, I went home and started Googling images of her riding her motorcycle. And I was stunned - they were EXTREMELY hard to find and weren't very good - certainly not anything I wanted to share online. Social media should have been FLOODED with her image on that bike! What a missed opportunity!
   
• Pay for product placement in TV shows and movies - pay to have some female characters to be motorcycle riders.

I just gave the motorcycle industry outstanding, excellent ideas that will easily and vastly increase the number of motorcycle owners and riders in the USA. Ya'll should pay me $100,000 for this. $200,000 for this, in fact. And I just gave this to you FOR FREE, you dumb asses at Harley, BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, Royal Enfield and on and on.

Two more things:

• not all women motorcycle riders want pink riding apparel. I have a pink mesh jacket ONLY because it was the only one available. I would have preferred gray or blue.
   
• having the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia showed me just how much a lot of people in the motorcycle industry think of women. #boycottdakar

2019 in review

Celebrated 10 years a motorcycle rider.

Had a challenging, awesome long motorcycle-riding weekend in Oregon, including seeing Fort Rock and the last Blockbuster.

Toured Northern California and Southwest Oregon by motorcycle, and had an amazing time.

Took some great day trips by motorcycle, including up in rural Washington state across a covered bridge, and various gravel roads around.

Got a great photo taken of me by Stefan, celebrating both motorcycle riding and a lot of weight loss - and BLM Oregon and Washington really liked it.

Read Lone Rider by Elspeth Beard (highly recommend).

Got visited by Stray Moto Cats, by Frank the motorcyclist and by Sönke the motorcyclist, all from Germany.

Saw Robbie Fulks in concert. TWICE.

Read comic books curated by a friend.

Got dressed up with Stefan for a wedding reception and was able to wear a dress I haven't worn since the 1990s.

Appeared on a local public access TV show, talking about bicycling. Stefan also was on TV, for a second time.

Forced Stefan to volunteer with me at the move for a new library in the next town over.

Did lots more local volunteering and civic engagement.

Lost out on a job that I really wanted, that would have turned my life around in every good way, because they didn't believe I was invested enough in the local community. Never recovered and, for other reasons as well, slowly quit most of my many volunteering gigs and civic roles.

Had a former client show up after an uncomfortably-long period of unemployment, and provide some very much needed income for a few months.

Got to present three times for international visitors at World Oregon, something that reminds me of who I used to be...

Got to see a friend from Austin I hadn't seen since 1999 or so - he's now a Jesuit.

Went to the Purple Rain sing-a-long in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portlandia.

Went to the Portland Art Museum for the first time, to see an exhibition on the Paris 1900 International Exhibition (world's fair), and while in Chicago, went to the Art Institute for the first time.

Looked at my revised DNA testing and found out my ancestors aren't nearly as interesting as I thought they were.

Pissed off a friend with this blog.

Saw the definitive version of Julius Caesar.

Enjoyed a newspaper from August 1, 1946, found in a steamer trunk Stefan restored (he restored TWO, actually).

Went to Chicago and saw a friend from Afghanistan for the first time since 2007, and a best friend since junior high school I rarely see as well.

Shared something I never have.

Went to see Avengers End Game.

Saw the latest Star Wars movie.

Cooked my first goose (it was delicious).

Spent a couple of nights in April in a cabin in Silver Falls State Park, doing a lot of hiking, and spent a couple of nights before the year ended in a cabin in Stub Stewart State Park, and doing a lot of hiking.

Did a lot of hiking where we didn't camp, including to Niagara "Falls" in Siuslaw National Forest and Beal Wetlands.

Adored my dog, and discovered she's a secret agent.

Discovered Kipling.

The Star Wars

Here I am with one of my best friends from high school back in Kentucky at Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Friday night in Portland, Oregon. It's just a fluke that we've ended up living so near each other after all these years. It's been wonderful to see every Star Wars movie released in the last four years with him and his family.

I was 12 when I saw the first Star Wars movie. I'm going to be 54 next month. I've said it before, I'll say it again: the original trilogy of Star Wars saved my life, got me through a horrific period of my life, and fueled my soul to pursue all sorts of dreams. It sat inside me and I retreated to it whenever things got too bad, too horrible. It kept me away from all sorts of bad influences that a lot of people around me got caught up in - boredom and discouragement are at the heart of so many bad choices by kids, and because of Star Wars and all it inspired, I was kept away from boredom and I could navigate discouragement. I will forever be grateful to anyone and everyone who made these movies.

I don't think there will ever be something cinematically like Star Wars again, something that makes millions of people collectively gasp and delight and repeat its dialogue over and over and over, that years later parents later lovingly introduce to their children and they enjoy it together, that's characters feel like our family - at least the family we wanted.

Since everyone else is doing this on Twitter, I'm going to do it too, on Twitter and here: Star Wars theatrical releases ranked on how I feel about them, from most-loved to absolutely loathe:

LOVE SO SO MUCH:
A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (tied for most awesome)
The Force Awakens and Rogue One (tied)

LIKE:
The Rise of Skywalker
Return of the Jedi and Solo
The Last Jedi (actually, while it had its moments, more meh)

CRAP:
The Phantom Menace 
Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones (tied for crappiest)

I can't believe I didn't review Rogue One! I loved it so much! But I didn't...

And now, here there be spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker. Please don't read anymore if you haven't seen the latest film. Go to the movie fresh and unbiased, make up your OWN mind.

What did I think of The Rise of Skywalker? Honestly, I'm mostly just SO glad it got made. When Carrie Fisher died, I thought it might not get made at all, or would have to be re-written so drastically that it could never be any good. Come on, you all know how it was SUPPOSED to end: with Leia Organa redeeming her son, Ben Solo - bringing him back from the Dark Side. Everything was pointing to that. And the scenes between Leia and Kylo/Ben would have been glorious and heart-wrenching. And I would have been a puddle on the ground in the theater as a result. I pretty much was a puddle when Han showed up in this film- both because I was thrilled to see him and because I knew it was supposed to be Leia.

With that huge challenge of Carrie Fisher gone, I think the filmmakers did a good job of ending not only this trilogy, but the entire Skywalker saga. It's not a great film, but it's satisfying, and better than The Last Jedi (and it really needed to be better than that). I really liked the clever banter between characters - that was SO needed and so missing in The Last Jedi and entirely from the prequels. Snappy dialogue is an essential part of what makes the best of this series the best - if a Star Wars movie is not quotable, it had FAILED. I want to love the characters, and I can't do that unless they say things that establish chemistry between them and make me want to fall in love with them. I do love the new good-guy three and their interactions with each other: Rey, Poe and Finn. I thought Ben/Kylo was a terrific character and the exploration of the dark side via his journey was very well executed in all three of these last films - it's an exploration that flopped miserably in the prequels.

It must have felt like an overwhelming challenge to take Leia's scenes and dialogue unused in the other films and create entire scenes around them to make her appear to be there and a part of the story in The Rise of Skywalker. While I think the CGI was obvious, it was done with such love and care, I didn't mind. Carrie Fisher deserved to be in this film.

My favorite part of the film? THE MUSIC. Bringing back the music from A New Hope, Empire and Return of the Jedi was brilliant and perfect and conveyed hugely important plot points. Absolutely brilliant.

Only a few things were displeasing to me, if anyone cares:

• Rose. She was barely in this. She was really the only person I was intrigued by in The Last Jedi, except for Rey, Kylo, Luke and Leia, and I wanted to see her a part of the core group - or at least play a super key role. She was an afterthought in this. That's shameful.
• The kiss between Rey and Kylo. What. The. Hell?!? Unnecessary. Distracting. Weird. And please note: I am staunchly pro-kissing.
• C3P0's dialogue. Just like in Return of the Jedi, he says things that he should NEVER say. 
• The Sith. If you have only watched the theatrical releases, you don't know who they are, where they came from nor what they do. 
• All those Final Order ships. Who in the hell built all those? Are we really so jaded that one damn big star destroyer no longer impresses us?
• Destroying planets willy nilly. It was my only criticism of The Force Awakens as well - Empires don't destroy resources like that. Leaders, yes, certain groups of people, sure, but not minerals, fuel, irreplaceable labor, places to station their troops, places to build vacation homes, etc. The big thread in Star Wars movies cannot always be lots of planet destruction. 
• The new droid. I mean, whatever. The first characters seen in the original Star Wars were R2D2 and C3P0. They were essential characters in the first two movies. I'm sorry that they became so superfluous to the stories. 

But, again, overall, I found this last movie satisfying. And, in fact, I'm planning on seeing it again.

I hear that the Skywalker saga is over, but other Star Wars movies, that don't continue this particular story, will be produced. Further adventures of Poe, Finn and Rey? Please only do that if it will be AWESOME. I hear there will be a prequel to Rogue One with Cassian Andor and I am ABSOLUTELY READY FOR IT.

I don't know if I'll watch in The Mandalorian - quite honestly, I don't have the money to invest in all these pay channels. I also never watched the Clone Wars TV show, though I heard great things about it - I think I'm just too bitter about the prequels crap to try to care about that period of the Star Wars universe.

For me, Star Wars, the real Star Wars is... well, it's over.

I'll end with this - and I made myself cry while I wrote it:

We - humans - need adventure stories. We need stories of people seeking some important thing and the battle between good and evil and the good guys ultimately being stronger and more clever and winning, we need stories of a few brave, inspirational fighters somehow winning, we need stories of someone weaker outwitting someone more powerful, and we need to see romantic, victorious battles - but we need more than even all that. At least I do. But we also need stories about the possibility of redemption of bad people. We need to see very imperfect people work to be a part of the fight for what's right, and stumble along the way as they try to do what's right, and sometimes be not-so-good guys and have to come back from that. We need stories of different people answering the call and working together to fight against evil - only succeeding, ultimately, because they all come together and keep fighting despite their flaws. We need to see that the sacrifice of home, families, comfort and lives isn't, ultimately, in vain. That's what hope really is. And that's what Star Wars, in the end, gives us. At least, it's what it's given me. I honestly never realized any of this until the end of The Rise of Skywalker. I never realized what really, truly made it different - not better, just different - than Star Trek or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter (I love those too, BTW).

May the Force Be With You.

Discovering Kipling

While he was in the US Air Force back in the late 1950s, my dad bought a set of books published by Blacks Reader Service Company. You've seen them for sale at garage sales: more than 20 books, usually with red covers, and each volume is by a dead white guy whose works are now in the public domain. Shakespeare. Ibsen. Longfellow. Poe. He bought them for $10 from another Air Force guy. He never read any of them. He just thought it was a good deal and that maybe he would have kids someday that wanted to read them.

I. Am. That. Kid.

Well, I'm almost 54, not really a kid... but I loaded up these books when I moved out of the house decades ago and have schlepped them all over the US every time I've moved. But I had read only the Shakespeare volume before I was 30, until Buster used it as a chew toy. I didn't take the set to Germany. But once I got back to the USA 10 years ago, I pulled them out of storage and I've read various ones over the years since. Stefan has too: when he found out one of his favorite writers, Jules Verne, was influenced by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allen Poe, he wanted to read it and, ta da, there it was in the Poe volume in my set.

Since about 2002, I have tried to read at least a few books a year that are so well-known, have been made into movies so many times or are referenced so frequently, that no one reads them anymore, because we all think we know them, that they hold no interesting or unique insights, that they are just like pop culture has told us they are. Often, they are books that aren't considered great literature, but, wow, some of them have been FANTASTIC. Like Tarzan.

The other day, The Man Who Would Be King was on TCM. I freakin' love that movie. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are AMAZING together. There should have been a prequel! I am so ready to write Danny and Peachy prequel fanfiction... and I wondered, do I have this story in my Blacks Reader Service Kipling volume? Welp, yes, there it was. So, I read it. And it was terrific. And I kept reading other stories. And... yeah, I've really enjoyed Kipling, more than I ever dreamed. Departmental Ditties and Other Verses is, at times, hysterically funny. I'm a veteran of administration in foreign lands, including Afghanistan, and when it comes to silly bureaucracy, not much has changed since Kipling's time. That he can make me laugh about paperwork 100 years later is a testament to his incredible wit. His ghost stories are chilling. The Finest Story in the World is so incredibly imaginative - took turns I was not at all expecting. For any story, the descriptions of scenes, even just going down a road or sitting in a room, are so rich - you see the surroundings, you hear them, you smell them. His understanding of the complicated nature of boredom, or jealousy, is expressed so beautifully in his writing - often making me uncomfortable in how close-to-home it hits. And the sweeping, adventurous, reckless nature of some of his characters... I admit it, I've missed those lately. No wonder I'm so happy about a new Star Wars movie coming out...

There's not much quotable, though I did love this, from My Own True Ghost Story:

It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make a man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that he intended to commit if he lived.

Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not easy. The lap in the bathroom threw the most absurd shadows into the room, and the wind was beginning to talk nonsense. 

Indeed, Kipling was a racist, expressed mostly through his colonialists views, but I'm surprised no one ever mentions the far, far more common sexism - he did not at all think much of women. Neither did most men of this time (and now?). Why are we outraged about racism from authors 100 years ago but we gloss over the sexism as, "Oh, well, you know, that's how it was then."? Why is sexism interpreted as less painful than racism? And he glorifies war and patriotism, two things that just aren't my thing at all. But it is fascinating to read such devotion to such.

I'm one of those people that can cringe at this, and more, and, usually, still acknowledge the greatness of a work. Like enjoying the Ride of the Valkyrie while also knowing (and hating) Wagner's racism and that Hitler dug both the music and the artist's political views. Like hating war but adoring the movie The Dirty Dozen.

So, for all of you horrified I'm delighting in a dead white male writer... don't worry, I'll go back to more diverse voices soon, I promise.

My favorite Kipling piece that I've read so far? "My Rival," one of his only stories - a poem, in fact - devoted entirely to women and that isn't painfully sexist. It is so delightful, I've read it probably half a dozen times already. I may memorize it.

My Rival

I GO to concert, party, ball—
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right     
They burn before Her shrine;
And that’s because I’m seventeen
And she is forty-nine.

I cannot check my girlish blush,
My colour comes and goes.       
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to my nose.
But She is white where white should be,
And red where red should shine.
The blush that flies at seventeen       
Is fixed at forty-nine.

I wish I had her constant cheek:
I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
Not quite the proper thing.       
I’m very gauche and very shy,
Her jokes aren’t in my line;
And, worst of all, I’m seventeen
While She is forty-nine.

The young men come, the young men go,       
Each pink and white and neat,
She’s older than their mothers, but
They grovel at Her feet.
They walk beside Her ’rickshaw-wheels—
None ever walk by mine;       
And that’s because I’m seventeen
And She is forty-nine.

She rides with half a dozen men
(She calls them “boys” and “mashes”),
I trot along the Mall alone;       
My prettiest frocks and sashes
Don’t help to fill my programme-card,
And vainly I repine
From ten to two A.M. Ah me!
Would I were forty-nine.       


She calls me “darling,” “pet,” and “dear,”
And “sweet retiring maid.”
I’m always at the back, I know—
She puts me in the shade.
She introduces me to men—       
“Cast” lovers, I opine;
For sixty takes to seventeen,
Nineteen to forty-nine.

But even She must older grow
And end Her dancing days,       
She can’t go on for ever so
At concerts, balls, and plays.
One ray of priceless hope I see
Before my footsteps shine;
Just think, that She’ll be eighty-one       
When I am forty-nine!