Tag Archives: Life

Do you like my book idea?

Cary,

You asked for it! I am a writer on a new journey. Stuck in the workaday world for money most of my life, I was recently given the gift/nightmare of being laid off just before my 52nd birthday. My serious attempts to get hired during the past two months are quickly confirming that myth we hear about the impossibility of getting hired after 50. I am facing the reality that, likely, I have a year ahead of me of collecting unemployment checks and not working, simply because that’s what has fallen into my lap.

Of course, I struggle with writer’s procrastination and fears about losing inspiration, not finishing, getting a job, not getting a job, husband turning on me for being a freeloader, dying alone under a bridge on a 10-degree night with a cheap bottle of vodka — need I go on. But perhaps those are other letters for other days. Today: a more practical question.

Continue Reading…

Read More

When entitlement reform meets immigration reform

I was born in 1946, just when the boomer wave began. Bill Clinton was born that year, too. So was George W. Bush, as was Laura Bush. And Ken Starr (remember him?) And then, the next year, Hillary Rodham was born. And soon Newt Gingrich (known as “Newty” as a boy). And Cher (Every time I begin feeling old I remind myself she’s not that much younger.)

Why did so many of us begin coming into the world in 1946? Demographers have given this question a great deal of attention.

My father, for example, was in World War II — as were the fathers of many other early boomers. Ed Reich came home from the war, as did they. My mother was waiting for him, as were their mothers.

When it comes down to it, demographics is not all that complicated.

Fast-forward. Most of us early boomers had planned to retire around now. Those born a few years later had planned to retire in a few years.

But these plans have gone awry. First, boomer wages didn’t rise as fast as we expected they would. In fact, over the last thirty years the median wage has barely budged, adjusted for inflation.

As a result, most of us haven’t saved as much as we’d hoped.

Continue Reading…

Read More

Illness is big business

WHEN I WAS in my early twenties I lived in New Zealand for several years, working on a television series. Our series was stunt based and one day I almost broke my ankle. New Zealand has a national healthcare system. Even though I was not a New Zealand citizen, I still was taken to a doctor who x-rayed my ankle. Once he deemed the foot not broken he prescribed me a regimen of physical therapy. A trained therapist came to my house and rubbed my swollen and quite purple foot twice a day. None of this cost me anything– of course the production company was taking care of that– but that original doctor was a public one, in a public emergency room. When he finished up his exam and knew that my foot-bones were still intact, that simple extra step he took prescribing me physical therapy was his way of treating his patient’s whole care, not just the condition.

Continue Reading…

Read More

Fox News host doesn’t believe rape happens on college campuses

Sometimes Fox News is like Christmas, conveying an endless array of gifts. And as such, it would be ungracious to ignore their many pearls of wisdom, like this latest gem, in which four people discuss a piece of Colorado legislation that would ban concealed weapons on college campuses in an effort to prevent sexual assault:

Greg Gutfield throws down the gauntlet thusly: “It’s the rapist who should be crapping — not victim. And that means being armed.”

Then, pondering the crapping of rapists, Dana Perino says (I’m paraphrasing here): Uh, I don’t know. Maybe but I don’t know! What do I know? I don’t know anything!

Next, Bob Beckel wakes up from his grandpa sleep and things get really lively.

He mumbles, “When was the last time you heard about a rape on campus?

The hosts share a rare moment of united lucidity, informing Becker that sexual assault on college campuses is rampant, using date rape to make their point.

Continue Reading…

Read More

Reproductive freedom also means choosing not to have an abortion

In Texas this week, a pregnant teenage girl and her lawyers won a victory for reproductive freedom. She’s been granted the right to not have an abortion.

The teen, who was 10 weeks pregnant and known in court documents only as R.E.K., recently sued her parents for trying to strong-arm her into having an abortion. According to the suit, the girl’s mother threatened to “slip [the teen] an abortion pill,” took away her phone and her car, and kept her home from school because she refused to have an abortion. The mother also allegedly told her she was “making the biggest mistake of her life” by going forward with the pregnancy. Her father, meanwhile, allegedly told her he “was going to look into canceling” her health insurance and said she “needs an ass whoopin’.” The girl also says he told her “he was going to take her to have an abortion and that the decision was his, end of story.”  Oh, look, a man saying he’s got the right to make choices about a woman’s body. How refreshing. And that’s when she got the Texas Center for the Defense of Life involved.

Continue Reading…

Read More

DC Comics has gay marriage storyline in the works for Batwoman

As Rick Johnston wrote for comic industry site Bleeding Cool, we’re putting up the “Batspoiler signal” on this one.

DC Comics has a surprise twist in store for the latest issue of their “Batwoman” comic: A gay marriage proposal.

In addition to a “massive conclusion to the current storyline as Batwoman and Wonder Woman struggle to defeat Medusa and a horde of villains,” readers will also see Batwoman pop the question to her longtime secret love, captain Maggie Sawyer. Sawyer once served on the supernatural task force with Superman, but was transfered to Gotham City to head their Major Crimes Unit. Oh, and have a tortured but super hot relationship with Batwoman!

DC Comics has been making a serious — if imperfect — effort at diversifying their super squad with reboots of various characters, Batwoman being just one.

Continue Reading…

Read More

Gay man attacked on NYC subway while other riders looked on

Urena Morel Frankelly and his partner were verbally harassed — and Frankelly brutally assaulted — on a New York City subway while other riders looked on and did nothing.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, Frankelly and his partner were on a downtown No. 2 train when a woman took a picture of the couple.

When Frankelly asked her why she was photographing them, the woman allegedly shouted:

“Feed your face, faggot.” Another woman also chimed in, apparently asking Frankelly’s partner: “Why you with that faggot?,” he told the Daily News.

A fight broke out, and the woman and three others — including one man — began attacking Frankelly, the report alleges.

His partner tried to break up the fight, but no one other subway riders attempted to help. The group continued to punch Frankelly repeatedly in the face, leaving him with his left eye swollen shut and a deep cut above the socket.

Continue Reading…

Read More