Author: Jnana Hodson

In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.

MEDICAL SYSTEM RX FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

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In the heated objections to health-care reform in the United States, I never heard a recognition that in many places we already have a single-provider system. Almost unseen, the local hospital has bought up the physicians’ practices and much more – capped by high-paid executive officers and maybe interest dividends. Moreover, the hospital itself may be owned by an out-of-town corporation.

The national plan we came up, however, seems to have ignored this shift, even while keeping the insurance companies in the game.

With a single provider, though, I’m left wondering: Where’s the real difference for the individual compared to a single-payer approach?

Or even something along the lines of the Lakeside method of public services, where a municipality shops around for its providers from a variety of possible sources, rather than relying on just itself?

THAT THIRD-PARTY ALLURE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Count me among those who’ve long felt there’s a place for a viable third party in America. Or maybe even a fourth. Some place my positions won’t immediately be lost in tactical compromise. Some place I’d feel more identity than I’ve long sensed in the so-called representatives serving in most of the places I’ve lived.

To date, though, what I’ve observed is that most of the minor-party advocates and candidates have cast their eyes exclusively on the biggest prizes – the White House, especially, or perhaps a governorship or U.S. Senate seat. If you consider the scope of the Executive Branch and the number of qualified appointments to be filled, however, you soon realize there’s no way these individuals are prepared to take on that level of leadership. These are things that come out of big party organization and contacts.

At the other end of the spectrum, the reality is how rare the two-party dynamic is in most locales – it’s usually long-term control by one or the other – meaning the national parties are really just coalitions of 50 state parties. I happened to grow up in a state where regular sweeps of the state offices, from one party to the other, tended to keep things clean, especially in the voters’ welcome of mavericks.

Even closer to home, though, is the reality that getting candidates to run for local office is often a challenge. They don’t even have to be good – just a name willing to attend the meetings, if elected. Yet this is the bedrock of democracy and community.

Party affiliation – apart from ideology – can soon disappear in the practical decisions of garbage collection, fire protection, and street repairs. A Socialist city councilor did a top-notch job for our district, as is the plumber we keep reelecting.

An effective third party, then, would need to be built from ground-level up, not top-down. And that, I assume, would also mean region by region.

How else do you think it would shake out?

 

BOTTLED UP EMOTIONALLY

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Laboring behind the scenes in the subculture of daily journalism (Newspaper Traditions) meant bottling up a lot of my own feelings. My talent took place in near anonymity, advancing others and hoping to help the wider community and broaden the readers’ vision.

It was like being a teacher without any of the affection or apples. I suppose it took its emotional toll, too.

At least, I’m in the rush of a sensation of release now, even if so many of my recent postings look like history. Just remember, it’s unfinished history.

If you want to see what it was like inside the newsroom, especially in the escalating pressures of budget cutbacks, I’ll invite you to my novel, Hometown News. No matter how surreal the action turns, it’s not that far from the bigger impact of multinational conglomerates on local communities like the ones a daily newspaper covers. Or at least did.

Hometown_News~*~

For the novel, click here.

IN ITS URBAN DECAY

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It’s life in the inner city, usually not far from downtown and often in an enclave near the river. High density population, at least compared to the suburbs, and filled with children. Usually blue-collar or poor or a mix of students added in, it’s noisy and lively, even colorful in its urban decay. You can walk to the store or corner bar.

We lived on the second floor and later, a street over, on the third.

That’s where these poems originate and resonate still.

Riverside 1~*~

For your own copy, click here.

FREEZER DISASTER TIMES TWO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Somewhere early in our time of living in this house – the property that includes the Red Barn – my wife and I bought a freezer. And then we got another, free, which also found a space in the barn. (Somebody was moving and couldn’t take it with them. So we came to their rescue.)

These two upright chests were great for stocking up on grocery specials, as well as banking our garden harvests and a lot of prepped dinners. How did we ever live without them?

When I was employed, these towering white caches were a source for many of my dinners at the office – and I was surprised by how much money we saved as a result. Cuban black bean soup, anyone? Just one of the specialties made in quantity and stored in serving-size plastic containers. As for our side-street harvest of real tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, blueberries and raspberries, eggplant, and more? Or loaves of homemade bread? Or the marked-down meats found at Market Basket? How could we live without them, indeed.

Both freezers were packed to the proverbial gills. And maybe then some.

From my perspective, this was glorious. What would we do for Sunday dinner? How about a roast chicken? How perfect! Some weeks we needed little more than fresh milk from the store.

But! This winter brought two disasters. First, one freezer died, and that meant salvaging what we could, seeking homes for some of the packages elsewhere (elder daughter, especially, rushing to the rescue), along with an orgy of using up what treasures we could.

All this happened, mind you, before the scheduled defrosting of the freezers and reorganizing of the contents, a delay prompted by other household crises.

My, what feasts while they lasted!

And then, before we’d cleared our way free, the other freezer died. This was getting serious! There was no margin left.

Some of the meat, having thawed, went straight into the trash. No value in having people getting sick. A few hams and pork tenderloins were gifted to neighbors, if we could catch them. Elder daughter had a few more spaces in her freezer and refrigerator, bless her. (Younger daughter, the vegetarian, lives too far away for consultation.)

Skip ahead a few steps, and we have a store-bought new freezer. The second one, cross your fingers, seems to be working again. The dead one’s gone to the city dump aka recycling center, via a borrowed pickup. (Yes, my back and ribs are still aching.) Some of the thawed meat has been cooked into sauces and the like and returned in new form to the new freezer. And we’re grilling each chance we can.

Oh, there’s so much more I could be saying.

But at least our life seems to be back in some kind of balance.

I hope. Now, back to the intense rounds of planting the garden. We’ve got to stay ahead of the weeds — and the advancing daylight.

HARDLY WHAT I’D ANTICIPATED

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Here I am, a little more than three years since formal “retirement,” though I hardly feel retired, whatever that is.

As I mentioned the other day, I’d long anticipated this time in my life as one of intensified spiritual and literary focus. What’s been happening is something altogether different, and from my inner perspective, what I’m feeling is a sensation bordering on spiraling out of control. Or maybe it’s just sliding into oblivion or the like.

Earlier there were a few patches where I had a taste of what I thought my life would be like these days. Much reading, attending free concerts at the neighboring university or jazz night at a now defunct downtown spot, preparing dinner and then meeting my wife when she got off work (well, at least she’s home full-time now – yay!). But then I started spending much of that space working random shifts at the newspaper before the pension kicked in and then, well, as I’ve also noted, I took up new, unforeseen activities like singing in a first-class choir, swimming laps in the indoor pool, and blogging plus its related social media.

The daily nap, for several reasons, just hasn’t materialized, and I’m not taking days “off” to head into the mountains or rove the seashore. (You did catch the glitch in trying to get away, as if I’m still tied down to an office?)

My joke is that I’m not retired, it’s just that my work’s not generating an income. Think of Donald Hall’s distinction among Work, Jobs, and Chores – or what Gary Snyder’s called the Real Work. If I look closely, I have to admit to spending more time on that focus these days, no matter how much more I’d wish to devote.

Could it be I just have never intended to follow a course that more closely resembles the stereotype of retirement? Things like golfing and extended leisurely travel and nights playing cards at the club? Let’s be honest, that’s not me. By the way, gardening is hardly a hobby around here, so don’t consider it along the lines of retiree at play. In the ashram, we called it Karma Yoga — part of life in our holy boot camp. The mere memory of that puts other things in focus, reconnecting me to early adulthood and the pathway since. So here we are.

Well, if I ever get bored, I guess there’s always politics. It might be fun becoming the cranky protester at public meetings or holding a sign at the intersection of Washington Street and Central Avenue. Maybe that’s closer to my expectations, after all. Maybe in another decade?