Madonna and Malawi, the dangers of adopting a third world country, or not

In the general scheme of my life, I couldn’t care less what happens in Madonna’s life. I do like some of her music. But this latest soap opera is too crazy not to notice.

Madonna wants to take a little orphan girl from a pathetically poor country where most of the parents died of AIDS. And a group of nutty people, perhaps the same bunch that claim white people shouldn’t adopt black children because it is better to live in black poverty and foster care than it is to escape into the wicked white world, have lobbied loudly for the little girl remaining right where God put her. In a country where the average life span is approximately the length of time it takes to get a decent education.

And some judge, who probably routinely accepts gifts of chickens and bags of rice, rules against Madonna, who has pumped millions of dollars into this awful country, none of which the judge has apparently seen. This is all because Malawi, believe it or not, has a law that people adopting children from there have to reside in the country for 18 months or some ridiculous length of time.

Now how completely crazy is that. But, wait, there is more. This morning I was listening to an interview with a Western charity worker in Malawi on public radio who said that Madonna should be supporting thousands of children in Malawi, not just trying to save one. Because the Malawi Government and the Western press had identified the little girl in question, Madonna was now obligated to care for this child forever and as many other Malawi children as her “riches” would allow. Does that sound not so vaguely like a black mail threat? I thought so too.

Joe’s Ocular Odyssey

In the early fall I noticed bright, vertical shafts of light when I looked far to my right or left. I turn this way when backing up my truck or changing lanes on the highway. It was most noticeable at night but I confirmed that the light was there during the daytime by doing this in a darkened room.

I mentioned it to my Internist. I had suffered something different, but still along the lines of fuzzy lights in one eye, just before my stroke. I was nervous that these lights might be the harbinger of something similar.

The Internist said I should see an Ophthalmologist and his office gave me the name of a local practice. I called and explained the situation. They arranged an appointment for about a month later. Meanwhile, I suppose, I could just buck up.

The day arrived, the appointment was kept, my eyes were dutifully dilated and the Ophthalmologist said it sounded like blocked carotid arteries to her. She thought my eyes seemed fine “for my age”. I put my sunglasses on and drove to work without truly seeing a single thing clearly.

I reported back to the Internist who arranged for an ultrasound of the carotid arteries several weeks later at the local hospital. The day came, the appointment was kept, my neck was greased up and the images taken. A week or so later I was informed that one side was clear and one side was 70% blocked, which I already knew, but that was not nearly enough to cause the lights or to worry about. The Internist suggested I see a Neurologist and recommended a practice.

I called and an appointment was arranged for several months later. Neurologists, even Russian Neurologists, were obviously busy people. In the meantime, I needed to have an MRI of my head so I arranged for that. Our local hospital has an MRI machine in a rusting tractor trailer hard up against one side of their otherwise immaculate and modern building. I swear, it looks like it arrived in that truck and no one bothered to move it into the hospital proper for fear that they might not be able to escape fast enough should that be necessary.

MRIs take place when you are inserted, lying on your back, in long, rather narrow tubes of solid plastic. You should not be claustrophobic to do this successfully. I closed my eyes and went to my “happy place”. I listened to generic public radio from their subscription radio system. When the banging stopped I was asked if someone was there to drive me home and I said, “Of course. The girlfriend is waiting at the main entrance”. Thank god for the mythical “girlfriend”. I drove back to work.

I arrived at the appointment with the Neurologist. She said she had no idea why I saw the lights. My MRI showed my brain was pretty good “for my age” except for one little blockage that might explain my erratic behavior but had nothing to do with my lights.

She suggested I have two more MRIs. One of my head and one of my neck with contrast. She also suggested I see a specialist, an Ophtha-neurologist. On leaving, the Neurologist’s office lady said both tests would be arranged once my health insurance agreed to pay for them

Two weeks later the health insurer agreed and the tests were scheduled a week after that. I went, eyes closed, this time with an intravenous line so “contrast” could be injected. My marvelous “girlfriend” picked me up again and I drove back to work.

The Neurologist called on Friday and left a voice message suggesting there was nothing to worry about. But what, I wanted to ask, what about the bloody lights!

On Monday I went to the specialist with a DVD of my latest MRIs. When I finally got in the office, I handed it to him. “I don’t read MRIs”, he said. “I can’t imagine why they suggested you bring it.” I told him that I thought the report on the MRIs was included. Reluctantly, he took the disk and put it in his ancient computer attached to the largest cathode ray tube monitor I have seen since the deluge. It whirred and clacked and brought up the report.

He examined my dilated eyes. The trouble with problems like the lights I was currently experiencing, he said, was that I was unlikely to drop dead from the condition any time soon. Since, in his opinion, a thorough autopsy would be needed to accurately pinpoint just why I was seeing lights, he probably couldn’t tell me. Talk about bedside manner!

After the exam, he told me that his best guess was that the “viscous matter” in my eyes has shriveled up, much like a raison. When I turn to the right, my now shriveled viscous matter tries to go that way and pulls on the retina, causing the lights! Nothing to worry about; nothing to be done. Perhaps it will get better over time but that’s just a thought. In the meantime, should I drive at night, perhaps I should only go “straight ahead”!

I wonder why...

Help me with something I am unable to fully appreciate. Why would the government spend so many billions of dollars to resuscitate an insurance company that committed financial suicide, yet not be willing to spend 15% of that amount on two of America’s auto firms? The auto makers employ more people. The suppliers to the two automakers employ more people. They actually manufacture a useful product. They don’t just speculate wildly in derivatives of nothingness!

When I have asked this, folks have suggested one of the following: that the failure of the insurance company would have panicked Wall Street, would have cost us more in the end, would have left businesses looking for insurance. So it seems, the people I’m asking don’t know either! Is there only one insurance company in America? Why didn’t the collapse of Lehman Brothers do Wall Street in!

Has anyone asked bankers or insurance company employees to reduce their wages, to pay more for health care? Has it been suggested that we abandon all retired bankers and former insurance company executives to lives without health insurance at all? Then why do we propose such actions for auto workers? If health care is a concern to this administration and General Motors is the largest private health insurer in the country with a million employees and retirees covered, why would we let it go into bankrupcy and end all that health insurance?

I read recently that former employees of bankrupt financial firms had had no difficulty finding new work. Something like 90% were already working again, no doubt hoping to bankrupt additional firms.

Here’s an odd thought: where did all the TARP money go? I don’t think it all went to bonuses for boneheads. No, I think banks are holding it all, waiting for the next big thing, the next derivative of a tulip bubble so they can make a killing! Why squander it on your silly little 5% mortgage? If they waste money like that how much will they have to invest when Son of Madoff comes along with a guaranteed 12%!

Besides, when was the last time you paid your auto worker a bonus?

Raising New Hampshire

My wife Martha and I had our daughter, Jessica, when we were quite young. I was 22, she was 21. That was 39 years ago. We were the one and only couple in our social group at that time, 1970, with a baby. At least one guy we knew from college was so horrified at the thought of bringing a child into this wicked, wicked world that it ended our acquaintanceship.

Other folks were more circumspect and simply shook their heads in wonderment at some people's foolishness. What about careers, income, success, getting up in the world, people asked. And Jessica was a challenge. She was beautiful, smart and stubborn, like her mother. I have often said Jessica was preparing for her career as a lawyer long before she went to law school!

Her birth was also relatively easy. We both assumed we would have another baby whenever we felt ready. And, eventually, we tried. Three miserable miscarriages later, we resigned ourselves to one wonderful child and I had a vasectomy so Martha wouldn’t have to continue with birth control pills.

As we neared forty, and Jessica graduated from high school, everyone else we knew was about to have their first child or desperately trying. Suddenly, the world appeared less wicked, overpopulation fell into the background and babies were everywhere. And we were empty nesters before the term had even been invented.

We could run around the house naked as jailbirds, whatever those naked birds are, as much as we liked! Everyone else we knew was debating breast versus bottle feeding.

I’m not recommending everyone get married young or have kids while they are still kids. But, while sometimes very rocky, it worked best for us in the long run.

Jessica now has three daughters, ages 10, 7 and 4. I do not envy her raising these children in this day and age. Has the world or this part of it changed so much in 40 years? Or have I just gotten older and more risk adverse?

How fast is fast enough?

I commuted long distances by car, back and forth to work, for many years on the crowded and inadequate 1950’s Eisenhower highways of the Northeast. Our home was in Milford, NH for twenty five years and in that time I worked an hour or two north or south of home. Certain times of day were clearly more dangerous on the road than others. I'm sure a review of highway accident reports would show that to be true.

Some drivers became especially determined at certain times in the morning. A few minutes before 7:30 or 8 am, 8:30 or 9, some cars would pass you at tremendous speeds, more so than at other times. Their drivers would frantically weave in and out of traffic passing all and sundry. I concluded that they were about to be late for work for, perhaps, the third time that week and they knew the boss would be furious. So let’s endanger all of us on the road, but get to work close to on-time.

I’m still amazed by drivers, usually very young ones, who come right up to your rear bumper in the passing lane of the highway and then when you shift into the right hand travel lane they follow you, still within inches of your bumper. The reason, in about half the cases, appears to be that they are going off the very next exit at 100 miles an hour! Might they be late in picking up their dry cleaning? The other half simply drive continuously on someone’s bumper apparently for miles and miles. They must live in fear of any open road in front of them.

Some people still insist on blinking the high beams when they wish to pass at 85 miles per hour. What that means is, “I am speeding more than you are speeding so get out of my way, you idiot!” Sometime later, when you come upon them driving sedately in the travel lane you wonder if it might have been some kind of temporary insanity. Or perhaps someone in the car screwed up their courage to say, “What are you, nuts?”

Glory Vanderbilt, I was told, said that you can never be too thin or too rich. Well, we know that one of those isn’t true. Likewise, you can never go fast enough on the highway. Someone will always be going faster!

Driving in a Mercury

Driving Stella

I have always generally enjoyed driving an automobile. I drove to West Virginia in January to meet my daughter and grandchildren to go skiing. I love the feeling of setting off early in the morning in “the machine” as my grandmother called out beat up station wagon and driving all day.

I think that may be because I started driving so young, when I was thirteen in fact, that fall right after my father passed away. I had been starting the old Ford beach wagon each day as my mother asked when, one afternoon, she rushed out and got in the passenger side. When she said, “Let’s go”, I explained, as if to a child, that not only didn’t I know how to drive but I also did not have a license.

“That’s alright”, she replied, “The oldest son of a widow can drive as long as the widow is in the car with him”. That sounded suspicious even to me but there wasn’t anyone to check with so I said, “Okay”.

She wanted to go to the market on the upper road but first we had to get out of the driveway. It was a long one that sloped down from the two lane road passing by up above to an old, tiny one car garage. We were actually in the garage.

I had played a bit with the clutch and had a vague notion where reverse was located but I had never worked the clutch so as to move the car. With a modest grinding of gears I got it into reverse and almost immediately stalled out. My mother sat stiffly beside me on the red and white bench seat and said not a single word.

I started the car again, popped the clutch giving it plenty of gas this time and we flew out of the garage and up the driveway like a small rocket. Thinking almost as quickly as the car was traveling I hit the brakes and we were in the middle of the road stalled once more. And we were both suffering mild cases of whiplash. I wanted to get out of the car and go hide somewhere, perhaps for the rest of my life. Luckily, there was not another car to be seen on Riverside Avenue!

My mother saved me from panic when she said, “This car is always doing that! Pay no attention. Let’s just go to the market.”

I started again, found first, let the clutch out slightly more slowly, gave it slightly less gas and, tires screeching, tore off down the road.

I still enjoy downhill skiing in New England in the winter even at my advanced age! I like to take easy trails and stop from time to time and look at the frozen lake, the mountains, the village below, whatever that particular ski slope has to offer. I actually want the run to last a while.

I learned to ski as a high school student, way too late to have developed much of an expert form. My daughter skied from the time she was in first grade as did her daughters. They all put grandpa to shame on the difficult trails! Once each youngster began to take the chairlift I took her into the ski shop and bought a helmet on sale.

I bought my first pair of skis and boots my senior year in high school and kept them for twenty years or so. Near the end of that first pair’s life, I was riding up in a double chair lift with a teenager who looked over at my double leather boots and asked, “Say, is that something new?”

My next pair were more high tech, at least for that time. The boots were plastic of some sort and the skis were fiberglass. Two years ago, skiing with family at Loon Mountain, the toe of one of my boots actually broke right off while I was underway. Old guys should not have to get to the bottom of the mountain on one ski! It must have been a sight to behold.

My daughter helped me select my current boots and skis. These are parabolic or shaped skis. They are shorter in length and bigger at both ends. My boots sit high in the biddings. Turning on icy slopes is a breeze. I really like these skis.

And it’s important that I proceed cautiously. Because if I fall down I will have to wait for spring to get up!

Here are some books you might enjoy on skiing.