15 December 2017

Dear Interested readers,


Introduction

Thousands of years ago this time of the year, as the days die in the mid afternoon, was a period of uncertainty. The question that our distant ancestors kept asking was whether or not the sun would ever come back. When would things turn around? They built fires. They did a lot of dancing and chanting. The whole idea was to turn things around before they got worse. They coupled their plees to their gods with magical thoughts and wishes for a new beginning. It was all about waiting for the days to get longer, and give everyone the hope that more sun would eventually force the return of spring.

The letter this week is not a typical letter. It is not about strategies for success. It is about looking for signs and evidence of miracles that might suggest that the attack on programs to improve the status of the underserved might someday end. Are we close to the end of the losses or are there more that we will be forced to bear before this winter of discontent ends. The letter begins with the report of an unexplained experience on the road. It continues by celebrating this week’s big miracle, the election of Doug Jones as the forty ninth Democratic senator from Alabama, the most unlikely of places. It concludes by asking for one more miracle. With all the tension over the election in Alabama and the ongoing craziness in Washington this week, I just could not get it together to talk about the road toward the Triple Aim. I’ll do my best to recover by next week. I must believe in miracles based on the failure of the repeal of the ACA and the election of Doug Jones. I just want one more miracle for 2017.


Is It Too Much To Ask For One More Magical Experience For The Holidays?

Last Sunday was a nice bright day after snow that fell late on Saturday. I took advantage of the sunshine and a temp in the low thirties to keep up my weekly mileage making up for some shorter walks in the woods earlier in the week. As is often true, I was walking along listening to an audio book. My book ended before my walk did so I switched over to the playlist of my youngest son’s music. It’s quite a playlist. As of last Sunday there were 368 songs. That’s one song every week for over seven years. To listen to all of them would take almost eighteen hours. Don’t we live in amazing times? Between my iPhone and “the Cloud” all those pieces plus the lyrics are available to me anytime, anywhere. I always listen in the “shuffle” mode so that the songs come up in random fashion and not in the order they were written.

The first song to come up was an old one from January 23, 2012, “Is This The Shape of Things To Come?” As I listened to the words, I was struck by how appropriate they felt at this moment in time. Was there anything that could be done to change the flow of events that have been so distressing to me over the last year? Some of the lines that moved me were:

Is this the shape of things to come?
Is this the ground we walk upon?
Is this the way we live and die and carry on?
Is this the day we hoped would come?
Change what you would. What’s the use?
The unmistakable truth:
We’d do it all the same

And somebody out in America
Has found a new belief to push their heart away
And who would have thought
That the shape of things to come
Would just reveal the things that never change

In the verbiage that goes with the song he had written:

This week’s song was written in anticipation of an unknown future. The words are a play on the old concept that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Is the shape of things to come the same as the shape of things as they are now? Do people change? Do fortunes change? Does the country change, or are we merely playing out roles in a repeating history on a loop? Can anything or anybody ever change if we are too cynical to believe that it can?

Before I could completely finish my consideration of this old favorite in the context of current events I was started by the words of the next song. It was as if some digital god had put together a playlist with a message and funnelled it to me for my enlightenment. The second song was a more recent production from the Monday after Donald Trump’s election, November 16, 2016. It was appropriately entitled “Mourning In America” and described the mood of many as they tried to find their way through a world they had never expected to inhabit.

It’s morning in America
Anyway, can’t we all sleep in today?
‘Cause all the safety pins and words we say
Aren’t even nearly making up for this mistake
And I wonder, are we strong enough
To stop the coming war?
Is there love enough in our righteousness
To fathom what it’s for?

We’re in mourning on the subway train
Heading back and forth forgetting from which way we came
And our silence is a bitter frost
Its crystals spreading over every love we’ve lost
And I wonder, have we lost enough
To stand for what we’ve got?
Is there love enough in indignity
To move us from this spot?

It’s sunset and I break my stride
And ponder all the fighters who have lived to die
And if anger seeks revenge
I’ve said let love proclaim that justice must be done instead
And I wonder, have we heart enough
To brave the coming storm?
We must love enough
And in loving so decipher what it’s for


In the accompanying essay he explains what doesn’t need an explanation:


We have a winner and now we must make sense of the new future ahead of us. This is a mopey song, and a self-indulgent song, because I wrote it as much for therapy as to make any kind of commentary. At face value, this song says, “all we need is love” but I’m not naive enough to believe that’s true. What we need is to do a whole lot of hard f------ work. The question at hand is what the emotional source of our work ethic will be.

And yes, I know my heart is bleeding through my shirt as I write that. That’s because it’s broken. I’ll tell you one thing, though. It’ll never mend through anger. Only love can mend a broken heart.

If you have read many of my letters recently as my pot began to boil over the impending tax bill, you may realize that this was a sermon I needed to hear. I’ve tried to talk myself into acceptance and understanding. I believe all of the economists who say the promises dished up with the bill are wrong. I do not believe proven liars like Secretary Munchen who say good things will trickle down to the ordinary people who are just trying to keep body, soul and family together working multiple minimum wage jobs, but I don’t buy it.

I’ve talked about the respect that is necessary to inject into the discourse at every level from the local to the national level, but often I can’t hold that position in my mind for more than the few minutes till the next invasion by a presidential tweet or some disgusting comment from Mitch McConnell or Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I don’t go to Washington anymore to lobby for better care or even to the State House in Boston. If I can’t have a civil conversation with my Republican neighbors or a close relative with a different point of view, how can I ever expect to live in harmony with a total stranger with a Trump bumper sticker on his pick up and the battle flag of the Confederacy in his rear window? Anger is easy and it scratches the itch for the moment. Sustaining love and respect for people who attack what you care about is a full time uphill climb. Whew!

I was feeling really strange after getting these two messages from a cosmic source that seemed intent upon lifting me out of my anger about the upcoming Alabama Senate election and the way the president seems to wear a teflon coating when it come to the injustices that he continues to dispense as “the leader of the free world” while John Conyers and Al Franken go home in disgrace. Just as those thoughts were rising out of the interconnections of my neuroanatomy, the cosmic disc jockey that was selecting the tunes I was to hear spun another thought provoking piece my way that was perhaps a little out of sequence, but in a strange way made up the final leg of a triplet of meaning for me. The tune was from October 3, 2016, a time when Nate Silver at 538 and most of the media, now referred to as “fake news,” were still passing out confidence in the idea that there was nothing to worry about other than how Trump would exercise his anger after he lost.

The song is titled “Authority Figures.” I heard it as sage advice from my son. He explained his intent:

I have pondered lately that authority figures in our collective consciousness are often used for dual contradictory purposes, both somehow working toward the same end. In our discourse, a figure of authority is both that which we rail against to justify our own actions, and that which we revere in order to legitimize our prejudices. In either case, our gods, our government, our books, and our founding documents exist as containers for whatever feelings we’re having about our own power or lack thereof. External power either makes us feel bigger or smaller, but in both instances we can use it to avoid having to rationally engage notions of ownership over our own thoughts or deeds.

I will warn you to listen or read realizing that the major literary mechanisms at work are sarcasm and irony.

Oh what’s the Bible say about
Watching the evening news
Thinking anti-social thoughts?

Oh and the Constitution says
I can say whatever I want
To anybody I please

So I’ve got strong opinions
About the things you do

Oh what’d your mother say about
Making a face like that?
It’ll stick, then what’ll you do?

Oh and the 10 Commandments say
That you can’t do anything right
And that God is a dirty word

So I’ve got strong opinions
About the things you do
And if you’ve got your own opinion
I really don’t care
I honestly don’t

What does your weapon do for you
When you often disagree
With the strangers that you meet?

And what does a bullet mean to you
When you hold it in your hand
With your knuckles turning white?

So I’ve got strong opinions
About the things you do
And if you’ve got your own opinion
I really don’t care
I honestly don’t

I stood in the road and shook my head trying to get my thoughts to fall into place. Wow!

External power either makes us feel bigger or smaller, but in both instances we can use it to avoid having to rationally engage notions of ownership over our own thoughts or deeds.

Have I just been fooling myself into thinking that what I think makes any difference? Or is it true that what I do or think in response to what the powerful do is more important than I think it is? What is one person to do in response to the mix of injustices and the occasional opportunities that flow from the authorities that make the decisions that seem to control the future? Do we shake our fist and just hunker down? It feels like living with a chronic disease that impairs every movement and discounts every pleasure.

I was disappointed when the fourth song played broke the string. I don’t even remember what that song was about. Perhaps it was one of those “Somebody Done Me Wrong Kind Of Songs” or Looking For Love In All Of The Wrong Places kind of songs. I doubt it because those subjects are rarely what’s on my son’s mind. Whatever it was, I decided that I had gotten more than enough to chew on over the last couple of miles of my walk.

I was a little dizzy from the experience, and a good strategy until I made it home was just to keep my eye on the footing to avoid slipping on the patches of ice that were planted like land mines between where I was and my door---both literally and metaphorically. I had received more than enough enlightenment on the road for one day. Could it all be so simple as that I just needed to trust more that there was a wisdom afoot among all of us that would eventually get us back on track to making progress toward a more equitable and just America? I hope so. I hope that is not magical thinking.

During the next two days after “the walk” my mind drifted back toward its usual routine. I tried my best not to think about how awful it would be for Roy Moore to win in Alabama. I was afraid to posit much meaning in the election because I did not want to repeat the disappointment that I had experienced when John Ostroff lost the election for the seat from the sixth Congressional District in Georgia vacated by Tom Price when he served briefly as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I was looking for something new to read as a distraction from the election. An old friend had sent me a book recommendation, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Pulitzer Prize winning author Frances FitzGerald. I read the New York Times review and decided that it was worth the effort to wade through the 700 pages, particularly given the way Roy Moore equated his campaign for the Senate to a “crusade for christian values.” I had been raised by “Evangelicals” back when the last thing on their mind was getting involved with the government. When and how did things change,and when did Jesus became a Republican?

Finally it was eight o’clock on Tuesday night and the polls in Alabama were closed. I turned on CNN and settled in for a three hour emotional roller coaster ride. At first Jones was ahead by a few thousand votes, but then he began to fall behind by as many as 40,000 votes as the rural counties were Moore’s supporters lived tallied their votes faster than Huntsville, Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery, Mobile and Tuscaloosa. Around ten PM the urban centers began to report, and it became clearer and clearer that Jones was gaining ground, and then he was in the lead. My only thought was that I wish this had happened last November when I watched Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin go the other way. By the time Doug Jones appeared to give his thanks to all the people who had worked so hard to make a difference, I was an emotional wreck, just a limp rag. A Democratic victory in the reddest of all states was surely a miracle. I’ll leave the analysis of what it means to the talking heads. For me it kept the flame of hope alive that maybe we had hit the bottom and were beginning the slow climb out of the doldrums of the last year.

I am grateful for every unexpected gift. Is it unrealistic to ask for a third miraculous experience? One of my favorite songs of childhood was “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” I’ve had two really good plastic front teeth since my days of playing football so that has not been my Christmas wish in a long time. This year I am asking for one more miracle for 2017. I want the tax bill to fail. Well, maybe I want two more things. I would also be happy if the Children’s Health Insurance Plan was finally renewed. I don’t understand how we can justify passing a bill during the holiday season that will end the mandate and cost thirteen million Americans their healthcare coverage and drag our feet on CHIP which covers nine million children while voting tax windfalls worth hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaires. This law will not make America great again. It will pull America down to a new low of sacrificing the vulnerable to increase the affluence of those who already have more than they need, but not as much as they want. It is an abomination built on self serving lies. Real people will be hurt if it passes. What more can I say? It’s time for one more miracle.


It’s Cold! Isn’t That Great?

As the header to this week’s letter demonstrates, Wednesday was a cold dark day in my neighborhood. We got about 10 inches of snow on Tuesday to go with the 3 inches that had fallen on Saturday. As is often the case, what followed both storms was a very cold and windy day. The picture was taken around 3 PM from a favorite spot on one of my frequent walking routes, the top of Burpee Hill looking west across pasture that is often populated by cows, toward Mount Sunapee which is just a shadow and Lake Sunapee which stretches out East toward me from the base of the mountain.

I was not walking when I took the picture. I drove there on my way to the Post Office. On top of the hill in the wind I was frozen in the few minutes it took me to find the view that best suited my desire to shoot something that looked very cold and dark. I had already had my walk earlier in the day over a less exposed route with Tom Congoran.

Tom is my good friend and former colleague. He lives about 25 miles closer to Boston down I 89 in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, but we frequently get together to solve the problems of the world as we once tried to do as our regular day job when he was the very effective CFO of Atrius Health. We had planned a walk on Saturday morning, but canceled the plans based on the prediction of early snow. For once the weatherman was wrong. We could have easily done the walk before the flakes fell. We rescheduled for Wednesday and that was nice because we were able to talk about the Alabama Senate race, the tax bill, and the future of healthcare interlaced with dissections of our shared successes and failures and the world that we were leaving to our grandchildren. It was 13 degrees when we headed out wearing cleats so that we would not slip on the recently plowed roads. We broke a little sweat as we walked at a pretty brisk pace for four miles which not bad for a couple of septuagenarians. It is amazing how fast the walk goes and how little you notice the chill makes when you are deep into exchanging ideas.

I like to keep an eye on the future and that includes the weather forecast. The weather app on my iPhone tells me that the next time we will crack 32 will be next Tuesday when it may make it to 35 for a few hours. There’s more snow scheduled for Monday and Friday, if the predictions hold. I’ve always been a sucker for the smaltz of a “White Christmas,” and once I see some other brave soul set up shop on the ice, I plan that this will be the year I will try to figure out how to fish through a hole in the ice.

Where I live, the highs for this Friday, Saturday and Sunday are predicted to be 22, 26, and 19. I say, “Embrace it!” I hope that wherever you are, you will record the football games for later viewing, and find a friend like Tom for a walk in whatever weather is headed your way.