Post Election Thoughts, Part 2

The campaign money from anonymous sources is bad, but it didn't actually determine this year's election results overall.  I expect there are a lot of millionaires and billionaires who would like to have their money back and will re-think contributing so generously next time.

But the real problem it modern politics is re-districting.  That's the decisions that are made about the borders of districts in your state.  You vote within your assigned district.  In a very real sense, you are competing with all the other voters in your district to make YOUR vote count.

Let me give an example or two.  If you are in a district that has an equal number of Republican and Democratic voters (and a smidgeon of 3rd party voters) your vote matters a LOT!  It could be the ONE that decides a state or local election (rare, but it has happened).  More possible, you and a few hundred voters make the difference in a state or local election.  That really does happen more than you would think.

Statewide candidates come from local winners.  National candidates come from Statewide winners.  Presidential candidates are usually Governors or Senators and they almost all started in local elections.  That local County Comissioner who won by 100 votes Tuesday may rise to the Senate or even President some day by that few 100 votes the first time.

Here is where the redistricting comes in.  The winners want to get re-elected; they can't play in the game if they don't stay in the game.  Did you know that district borders are NOT set in stone?  They can be changed.  And they GET changed.  The winners get to redefine their voting districts almost at will (well, there are ballot questions, but they almost never lose).  Their goal is to redefine their voting district to include as many of their own party/voters as possible.  That insures that they will stay in office until they win a higher office or until their cold dead bodies are pried from their chairs.

In a general sense, I don't blame them.  In the course of my office career, I had to defend "the existence of my job" through arguments and tactics I would not defend in my retired life.  Every organism strives to live...

Originally in the US, voting districts were defined by close-knit communities, logical geographical boundaries, and county lines where possible.  Then, some "genius" got the idea of arranging the voting districts to his benefit.  His names was Gov Elbridge Gerry and he did this in 1812 in Massachusetts.  To preserve his party control, he redrew the voting districts, one of which resembled a salamander.

It was dubbed a Gerrymander...  The head, wings and feet were added for effect by a newspaper, but you can see where the image arose.

The practice has continued for all the years, but with the advent of computers,  has become much more  precise and effective.  Today, registered voters can be identified by party affiliation right down to street level, so Gerrymanderying is routine.  It has even been beneficial to minority groups in the recent past.

But the process has gotten out of hand.  The original idea of local campaigns was that several qualified individuals, all well known to the communities, would be considered, and one chosen.  Today, routinely gerrymandered voting districts are arranged by incumbents to assure that they will seldom, if ever, lose office.  Incumbency reigns supreme!

Gerrymandered voting districts means that each one is more and more of one party.  And when the district is more one-party controlled, it encourages the kind of extremism we see today (on both sides).  The only vote that matters is the one-party primary, and that encourages the candidates to take position on the far edges.

I suggest a solution.  A simple one, just for discussion.  I want a great big inked grid stamp.  Allow some one person to push it down on the state map blindly.   Demand that the PRIME PURPOSE of district borders be "political competitiveness".  Then demand a NON-partisan committee to arrange adjustments according to general population evenness for voting districts in best alignment with that grid.

Honestly politically competitive voting districts in every state would go VERY far in eliminating the extremism of candidates and winners in both parties and promote political competition.  I can't think of anything else that would improve US politics so immediately and positively.

Post Election Thoughts, Part 1

I'm not saying this to be mean.  It's because I think the country is best served by having 2 major parties with differences but close enough together that co-governance is workable.

The Republican party has been moving steadily to the right for a couple of decades.  Over those years, they have managed to bring most of their constituency along with them.  But groups have been falling (or jumping) off the wagon for years.  The party has survived by improving the turnout of its base in recent elections.  That can't continue; there are limits to the "turnout strategy".  If ythey were to (impossibly) achieve 100% turnout in a shrinking base, where can they go in the future.

Extremism is a strength and a weakness.  Yes, it improves the percentage of the turnout, but it increases the opposition turnout as well.  There were some startling examples of the extremity in the Republican party this year.  Looking back on the primary elections, it is clear that almost all of the candidates were actually to the left of the base.  This drove all of them to make ever more extremist statements.  Whoever the eventual nominee was to be, he was going to be dragging extremist views (and perhaps more importantly, soundbites) into the general election campaign. 

The extremism also affects campaign planning.  I saw an interview with some Republican strategist (forgive me I lost track of the name) who was genuinely shocked by the election results.  He had watched all the Fox News channel discussions, he had followed the Rasmussen polls carefully.  And they were WRONG!  Shocked, he said, SHOCKED...

I hope I am not saying anything controversial here, but Fox News was created to be a media outlet for (and controlled by) conservative Republican views, unfiltered by standard mainstream news channels.  The idea was originally proposed by top Republican strategist Roger Ailes to fellow Republican leaders in the 1990s.  Guess who is the president of Fox News?  Roger Ailes.

Equally, Rasmussen appears to be a polling company created to present positive Republican spin on voter preferences for the political benefits of influencing voters who can be swayed be wanting to support a "winner".  They are politically (as opposed to professionally) convinced that Republican voters are under-represented in the mainstream neutral national polls.  So they deliberately over-weigh their own Republican poll numbers to "correct" the perceived inequity.

So when Rasmussen gets ties, they increase the Republican support a few percentage points.  If behind, they make it tied.  If ahead, they make the Republican candidates more ahead.  Their professional Republican customers know this, but then they believe it!  So when Rasmussen said Romney/Ryan was ahead by 5% in most of the "swing states" where they were actually slightly behind, and had an even chance in other states where they were actually well behind, the Republican leadership and candidates acted on the Rasmussen polls and ignored ALL THE OTHER (more professional) polls.

The results were a substantial Presidential electoral defeat and shocking (to them) Senate and House defeats.

Next time:  Why this is all happening...

[Disclaimer:  I have an undergraduate degree in "Government and Politics" (with a minor in History - American Politics), but mostly, I have maintained a possibly unhealthy interest in the practices and strategies of modern political campaigns.  My favorite book is 'They Also Ran' the story of the men who were defeated for the Presidency, Irving Stone]

Election Results

Well, I'm pleased.  I know some people won't be.  In fact I'm sure some people will be positively angry.  I've been on that side of the fence more often than not, so I know the feeling.

Fun Fact:  Who was the last Republican elected president WITHOUT someone named Nixon or Bush on the ticket?  (see end)

To a great extent, I'm SO glad that this election is just plain OVER!  I'm sure there have been nasty, more negative campaigns, but I don't remember them.  Hopefully, this election will teach us that anonymous money needs to be removed from political campaigns.

And maybe some degree of bipartisanship will now return to national politics... 

(Fun Fact Answer:  Herbert Hoover, 1929.  Nixon was on the winning ticket in 1952, 1956, 1968 and 1972; a Bush was on the ticket in 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004)

You Can't Fall Off The Floor

But Dad can now fall out of bed.  Happened last night for the first time.  I was just sitting here typing at 4 am (I take free time when I can find it and I wasn't tired) and there came a THUMP from Dad's bedroom.  I ran straight over, to find him on hands and knees on the floor.

Its awkward trying to get Dad up.  I'm not trained at it.  I could just lift him up brute force, but that's not what he needs...

I learn gradually (maybe as slow as a giant tortise walks).  He wants help to let himself get himself up onto the bed again.  Pride matters.  But he knows what he needs to do better than I do, and that matters too.  He says he gets cramps when I lift him myself, for example. 

I can't tell what he feels when I try to lift him.  If he says lifting him my way causes muscle cramps, I have to believe him.

Are there classes I can attend for this stuff?  He weighs more than I do.  I know emergency techniques.  I could get him upon my back and carry him out of the house if needed even if it hurt him.  But him as dead-weight on the floor, non-emergency,  baffles me.

I am sure I am doing all this elder care stuff wrong.  I thought common sense would get me through these stages.  I THOUGHT I was smart enough (and able enough) to know what to do when the falling-down stages happened.  Apparently, I'm not.

And I should have known.  Years ago, a friend did that cartoonish unbelievably stupid "foot on the boat and foot on the dock while the boat moved away thing".  Yes, he fell in the water.  But I could NOT get him onto the pier again.  He was just too heavy.  OK, if it had been ME, I would have just heaved myself up on the dock and never mind that it wouldn't have happened to me in the first place.  But I'm not a total klutz like my friend.

Dad is now officially a klutz.  Its not his fault, he can't help being old.  But he is and I have to deal with that now.

The point is that Dad was dead weight and I couldn't begin to lift him without cramps on his part.    You don't realize what lifting dead weight is until you fail at it...

Problems With Standing Up

Dad has trouble getting up from chairs.  I understand why.  His balance isn't what it used to be and it takes strength to get up.  I actually sat down in the same chair and made myself think of what's involved to do it.  Not to be insulting, but Dad is making it harder than it needs to be.

First, he puts his feet too far forward.  So he has to push himself up AND forward way more than he needs to.  Second, he won't lean his body forward when he STARTS to stand up.  He tries to start leaning back in the chair.  I normally just watch and observe in case he starts to fall.  He is very independent, and whatever he CAN manage to do is a good thing.

But a few days ago, I made him put his feet closer to the chair and slide his body forward in the chair so that his center of balance is closer to being over his feet to start with.  It worked GREAT!  He was thrilled.  He forgot the next time.  I reminded him.  He forgot the next time, I reminded him again.

He will never remember that...

He will never remember that the same way he will never remember that I eat my dinner on a TV tray on front of the TV.  The way that he will never remember that he gets TWO monthly statements from a bank because he has two accounts there (he always thinks they are duplicates).  The same way he will never remember that he can't look at a calendar to tell what day of the week it is.  The same way he can't look at a map and tell that a hurricane in Cuba isn't hitting us later that day.  The same way he thinks he is living in FL (or PA, or NH or VA) but never in MD (where his is).

Helping him pay his bills is an exercise in frustration.  It has been for months, but it is getting worse.  I write out the checks and all he has to do is sign them.  But he insists on entering them in his check register (well, at least he remembers that needs to be done).  A few months ago, I did that with purpose.  Last month, he did that when reminded.  Today, he barely comprehends what to enter.  I had to point out each white space today for check number, date, recipient, and amount.  He still got some parts wrong.

I am going to have to take over with that completely...  I hate the idea.  It would make things simpler for ME, but its one of the few things Dad actually has left to do in important matters.  If I could just pay Dad's bills myself it would be SO MUCH EASIER!  For me, for sure, but for Dad too.  He struggles to understand the simplest bills now.  I know he doesn't want to give that up.  But I also know it would be a lot easier on him.  He HATES getting bills in the mail.  He KNOWS they are confusing.  But he can't get himself to ask me (a mere child, LOL) to do it.

Mark

Ah, Dad...

I thought today was going to be the end of my struggles to finish up Dad's 2011 taxes.  His tax prep firm (not as impressive as it sounds) thoughtfully filed an extension request in April when they realized they had stopped getting tax info from Dad.  By the time I learned the forms hadn't been filed, it was July and I thought there was plenty of time.  When I finally (it was like pulling teeth) got through Dad's records, I realized there were problems. 

I sent all I could find to the tax prep firm, thinking they could get the missing stuff.  A couple months later, I learned that WE had to get them (hey, MY taxes are simple and I'm not familiar with Dad's finances).  They sent me a list of missing documents.  Some of them were ones I was sure I had sent, so I concentrated on the ones I didn't know about.  Some requests went unanswered.  When it takes weeks to find out there was no response, that uses up a lot of weeks.  2 govt forms were to take 3-5 weeks for reply, so when they didn't show up...  ARGH.  Apparently website requests don't work very well.

By today, I had all the forms I thought were needed.  "THOUGHT were needed" is the operative phrase here.  After all was compiled, I discovered that the property tax payment receipts for 2 rental condos in NH were only HALF present.  I pay my property taxes annually, and I had his condo tax forms for 2011.  Even had it checked off the list.  But HIS are twice a year and he didn't have the one for the 2nd half of 2011.

No problem, he writes a check for them, it will be in his checkbook.  Now, understand that Dad doesn't actually balance his checkbook.  He just writes in the dollar amount and trusts the bank to get it all right (and they do - I haven't found an error in a bank statement in my life).  Except that he didn't write down the amount of the check in his register.  2 failures of that in the entire check register and THAT had to be one of them.  OK, maybe no problem.  I'll just look at his monthly bank statement and get the amount from there.

Right...  No such luck.  Dad thinks monthly statements aren't worth keeping for long.  The check amount I needed was for November 2011.  His records go back to December...

Three completely independent ways of getting one single dollar amount, and he has none of them.  

Since he moved here in May, I have constantly fought with him about keeping financial documents.  He doesn't like to "because the folders get too fat".  He could live to 120 and not fill up the file drawer...

I know the check number of the missing property tax payment, and I called his bank to see if they will just tell me the amount over the phone.  But that will be tomorrow at best.  And now a stock form I got last month is missing.  I may have left it on the table.  In which case, Dad may have decided he didn't need it or stashed it in a folder somewhere.  I'll have to search through his entirely unorganized folders and hope he didn't just trash it.  It gets stranger than I can actually describe.

Did I mention that he has started putting grapes in his martinis.  He is thinking of olives, I assume.  Well, the grapes ARE green and round...

Dad vs The Hurricane

The newest surprise has been hurricane fears.  It's happened before.  Dad hears a weather forecast about a hurricane or other serious weather and wants to take immediate action.  The problem is (among many, of course) that his sense of distance and time are pretty much all shot now.

One time last month, there was a tornado alert.  The path was a good 30 miles away and no threat.  But either "30 miles" seems "down the street" or he thinks tornados are very large.  I can't tell by asking.  But he wanted to know where we should seek shelter, what foods we should bring into a shelter, etc.  I explained that the tornado THREAT was quite far away, and I did explain to him that the house shelter is under the basement stairs.

Its a reasonably good shelter, for not being constructed as one.  The basement is cinderblock walls.  The basement stairs go down from the front door.  The space under the basement stairs is covered with 1/2" T1-ll plywood on one side and a heavy workbench on the other. I made a 2'x3' cutout in the T1-11 panel for access years ago.  So an area about 4'Wx3'Hx8' (sloped under the stairs) is surrounded by heavy plywood, cinder blocks, cement steps, and stairs above.  Not that I expect to ever need it (it was all happenstance of construction),  but its nice to have.  Still, it took a while to calm him down.  Now his concern is that it might take too long to get into it, LOL!.

Hurricane threats aren't all THAT sudden, but I said I would drag him downstairs and into the basement shelter if necessary (with a smile in my voice) but such drastic steps won't be required. 

It really started when I was smoking a pork shoulder on the deck on Friday.  He came out and said my plans were about to be ruined.  I asked why (looking at the sky for a thunderstorm). He said a hurricane was coming and would ruin the cooking.  He said it was on the TV, so I went in to look.  Hurricane Sandy was down level with  Florida and about 500 miles east.  Moving at about 4 miles per hour...  I told him it was about 3 days away if it even came past us, but he didn't believe me.  After all, CNN was warning about a hurricane and "it was close".

Actually, I was glad for that because I knew it wasn't an immediate threat.  But Dad was convinced we were going to get hit by Hurricane Sandy that afternoon.  Again the worries about power loss and no food.  We had to make preparations for being without food and power for days, he insisted.

I went through the drill.  We have underground cables and almost never lose power.  We have plenty of food frozen and that will stay good at least a whole day.  I have canned food.  Potatoes and corn are good for days at room temperature and I could cook on the grill on the deck if we needed to (not that we would need to).  Heck, if I had to, I could trap a few squirrels and cook them in the fireplace!  I've skinned and cooked a few squirrels in my life.  And the closet has a few weeks worth of cat food (for the cats).

Dad shouldn't be all that worried about hurricanes.  He never had a traumatic experience with one (well, OK, he lost a boat to one in 1968, but it was never a personal threat).  Its the developing fear of "threats" that I am seeing now.  I do my best to make sure he feels secure and safe these days.  There isn't much more I can do to convince him that I will take good care of him that I'm not already doing. 

It saddens me that he does not trust me factually or in my judgement.  I understand that he fears things that won't actually happen because he has difficulty understanding that a hurricane striking Cuba isn't going to strike us here in Maryland later that day.  But I guess it is difficult for a parent to realize that a (adult) child is knowledgeable and experienced.  Even when the "child" is 62.  LOL!

Living with an elderly parent is a lot like living with a young child.  Only opposite.  They both don't have knowledge.  The difference is that a child will slowly become more competent and an elderly parent will not.  Its that "not" that is so hard to deal with.   

Living with a child is (generally) seeing it learn. Living with an elder parent is seeing it forget.  Watching the forgetting is very hard.  Very frustrating.  Very confusing.  Children don't even notice a sound in the kitchen.  A parent is in there, so it must be OK.  Dad reacts to every strange sound.  If a knife falls off the cutting board, he hobbles in and asks what that "explosion" was.  If I tap the veggie scrap bowl into the compost can, he thinks someone is "banging on the door".  Yet he can't hear the phone ring.  I think he hears better when he is dozing off in his chair and a sound gets into a semi-dream.

I'd sure rather be raising a child with some promise for the future than dealing with an elder parent for whom things are only going to get worse...  Knowing that things are only going to get more confusing in the coming months is sad.

I'm trying to get past arguing with him when he says things that don't make much sense.  But he SEEMS rational most of the time.  The change can happen without a sign one moment to the next.  I have to "let go" (thank you Nellie's Mom) and not be corrective about the small things.  That's going to be difficult.  Father/Son dynamics, and all that.

I guess that, in this matter, the hurricane is a good thing.  There ARE serious concerns that are not basically irrational, just mis-estimated in time and place.  Well, better something real than him worrying about Black Helicopters and Aliens...

More Dad

Yesterday it was "acorns".  We have a huge basket oak over the house and deck.  The acorns are falling like hail!  Dad asked me what all those "things" were on the deck.  When I said "acorns", he said "no, no, I know what acorns look like.  Those are something else."   

Here we go again...

I assured him that they were acorns, they were falling from an oak tree, and oaks make acorns.  "From tiny acorns, mighty oak trees grow", and all that...  In return I get "I know what acorns look like and those aren't acorns, and that's not an oak tree." 

Well of course they're acorns, and it is an oak tree.  I let it go because I don't want to upset him and in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter.  But acorns are one of the first seeds children learn to recognize and since elderly people remember older memories better than new ones, it really surprised me.  Dad ought to remember acorns.  Its like forgetting what grass is, or a bicycle, or a mailbox.  Some things just seem so basic.

Today, he raised the issue again and was insistent about it.  He kept fussing about them not being acorns and it not being an oak tree.  He tends to do this when I'm busy, of course.  He can watch TV for a couple hours and be nearly absent, but when something gets at him, he doesn't care what I'm doing.

So I lowered the book on him.  Literally.  I went out and pulled a leaf off the tree (one branch is in reach of a corner of the deck).  I grabbed an intact acorn.  I got out my Petersons Tree Guide.  I opened it to the white oak page and showed him the picture of the basket oak leaf, the acorn associated with it, the actual leaf from the tree, and the actual acorn from the tree.  I showed him that the page said "acorn".  He had to allow that "those things" appeared to be acorns and that the leaf seemed to be from the picture I showed him.

I'm not trying to be mean...  But there is a deeper issue here.  As Dad's memory fades and he loses track of what things are, I need him to trust me on things.  If he can't trust me that an acorn is a acorn, what is he thinking when I discuss his finances?  Is he secretly thinking that I am stealing his hard-earned money but that just what happens when you are old?  When I give him his daily prescribed pill with dinner, is he (or will he soon be) worried that I am poisoning him? 

The acorn thing is just symbolic of where things are going.

Dad and Cat

Dad has always claimed that he doesn't really like cats.

HAH!

I looked out the window today and Dad was on the deck looking out toward the back.  Iza was sitting up on the rail right next to him.  And Dad reached over to scritch her.  Not "scratch", "scritch", he knows how to do it right.  But by the time I got the camera, they had separated. 

But the special thing was later, after dinner.  Dad sat in his usual chair, and had to evict Iza from it to sit down.  Iza is getting used to that routine and doesn't complain as much as she used to.

The special part is that she stood up next to him and hopped up!!!  First time she has really done that, though she has made a couole of tries before.

This time she curled up on his lap.  The pictures show it all.  Don't mind the uneven photography; I had to try some different settings to get a few good ones.  The point is that Iza curled up on Dad's lap and he enjoyed it, stroking her furs "just right". 

He's a natural cat person, even if he WON'T admit it...

Super-special picture!

And Dad seemed thrilled...

And "thank you Iza".  You'll get extra treats later...

I switched to non-flash so as not to disturb them.

Maybe my discussions with Dad about the wonderment of having a wild animal happy on your lap have had an affect...

Dad fell asleep stroking Iza!

Not About Dad

Well, I don't want to go on and on about Dad.  He still asks strange questions and makes no sense sometimes, but let me leave that alone for today.

I DO still have a life, and things to do all my own.  Projects especially.  The house is 26 years old, and now that some things like roof and siding have just been replaced, I can go on to other maintenance issues.

The framed raised garden beds are 20+ years old and are falling apart.  The deck is 20+ years old and, well "not falling apart", but was never great or "to code".  I started flooring the attic 15 years ago and only did half of it (the other half had electric wires resting on the joists and I never could quite decide what to do about that).  My utility trailer has exterior plywood sides but they are rotting.

So there are those things that I have put off in favor of the larger needs.  Now it is time for those smaller ones. 

I've designed new framed garden beds.  They will be wider and higher (15' H x 4' x 8' instead of 10" H x 3' x 8'), have 6" of sheet metal flat on the bottom to stop grass growing up against them (for easier mowing),  and have boards on the top edges for sitting.  With 4" x 4" posts along the outsides to suport the board on the sides and on the top.And I will be cutting down some trees to allow for more sunlight on the garden.  I regret losing the trees, but I have too much shade as the trees have grown taller for 26 years.

The trailer will get higher sides, and a solid bottom.  And of ACQ treated plywood.  The previous plywood rotted to fast and the bottom was boards with gaps.  I had to keep using tarps to keep compost and sand from falling through.

The attic came back to my attention when I had to "duck walk" across 30' of joists when the roof started leaking to place collection pans under the leaks.  I've figured out how to avoid the electrical wires of the joists without making them inaccessible for repairs.  I have 1" x 2" x 8' boards that I will cut into 6" lengths.  I'll screw those on top on the joists next to the wires and along the outer edges of where plywood can be screwed in place on top.  That may not be clear...  I'm raising the plywood just above the wires on the joists, but using screws so the plywood can be removed if there is a need to get at the electrical wires.

I need a new compost bin, too.  The old one is in shade (it wasn't in the shade when I built it), was too small, has no top to keep varmints out, and leans over badly.  It wasn't my best design...  So I am designing a better one.  Larger, more air circulation, tops, in sunlight.  I drew up a framed hardware screen panel 4' x 4', and I will just make 6 of them to attach to sturdy 4" x 4" posts set in the ground, hinged on the front and top.

There are other projects too, but those should take a few months, LOL!