Cindy Bonner's Blog, page 4
July 5, 2018
My Thoughts, Beliefs, and Opinions
<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -->
Not in any particular order of importance-- My Fundamentals: I believe in a woman’s right to chose. I do not want the government to legislate morality or make decisions that are deeply personal. I support gay rights. I believe the LBGT community should have the same civil rights as the rest of us--to marry, to raise children, and to purchase a wedding cake from any damned bakery they please. I believe in the separation of church and state, and I support the notion that when churches become political, they should lose their tax exempt status. Religious activism has caused many people to turn away from religion and caused a precipitous and unfortunate drop in church attendance. I believe in public education. One of the reasons our ancestors came to this country was for the public schools. I consider 2-year community colleges public schools and believe they should be tuition-free. I believe in the arts in public education. The arts (great literature, visual arts, dance, music, and film) enrich us and expand outward our minds and our souls. I think corporations who have been lucky enough to exist in this country should pay their fair share of taxes, without loopholes. I do NOT believe in “trickle down economics,” which has been proven time and again not to work for the middle and lower classes. I believe billionaires can live on less and therefore should be taxed at the same rate as the rest of us. I once read that a billion dollars lined up end to end would encircle the earth three times. Now, honestly, who can’t live on a billion dollars? I believe in labor rights and that the minimum wage needs to be doubled. It’s expensive to live in this country and workers need to be paid accordingly. And I believe corporations that move their businesses overseas to avoid paying state and local taxes or to avoid hiring American workers should be penalized with a higher tax rate and with the tariffs that apply to the country where they have moved. I believe that health care is a human right and should be given freely by a country as wealthy as the United States to ALL of her citizens. I believe in humane immigration laws. I believe in a guest worker program that will regulate the wages paid to non-citizen workers, and provide a work force willing and able to do the service jobs that most Americans do not wish to do. However, I do believe that the United States is an English-speaking country and should designate itself as such.I believe in legalizing marijuana and decriminalizing other illegal narcotics. I believe in the death penalty, but only in the case of heinous crimes, such as serial killings or mass murders. I believe that Federal Judges should be elected by the people and not appointed. I believe in a strong military force that provides career opportunities and education for enlistees, and gives them the lifetime benefits guaranteed by the G.I. Bill. In return for their service to the country, I believe we should pay our soldiers more. It’s a disgrace that a newly enlisted serviceman earns so little that they qualify for welfare programs. In addition, I do not believe that our military force should be used for extended periods of conflict without a formal declaration of war. I believe in a national gun registry, title included, the same way we do with our cars and trucks and RVs, so that when a gun is inherited or bought from a friend or person other than from a gun store, the title to that gun will transfer from one individual to another. I believe in regulating magazine capacity to 6 rounds, and that ammunition sales should be tracked and reported to the gun registry. You can’t buy too much decongestant from the pharmacy within a given month. I know because I have been denied. So if that can be tracked so can the purchase of guns and ammunition.I believe Election Day (first Tuesday in November) should be a national holiday. I also believe that all states should have the same election laws and conduct their elections in a uniform manner nationwide. I believe that a voting ID with a picture and bar code should be given to every registered voter and that this ID should be the only item required at the polls. I believe that voting districts should be determined by population and by a regulatory committee and those districts should remain the same so long as the populations of those districts does not change. Voting districts should not be determined by any Political Party.As regards the office of President of the United States: I believe that any candidate running for the highest office in the land should be REQUIRED to show five years of tax returns. I believe that once elected, all presidents should be REQUIRED to divest of their business interests in the form of either a blind trust or a straight divestiture. I believe that the power to pardon should have judicial oversight and be used sparingly. I believe that the FBI, CIA, and DOJ should fall under the Judicial Branch and not under the Executive Branch of government. I believe that the President should be held to the same standards under the laws and ethics of this country as any other citizen. I believe that he--or she--can be arrested, tried, and convicted just as the rest of us. We do not have kings in this country. In fact, we fought a long war to get rid of our king.As regards campaigning and lobbyists: I believe that it should be illegal for any campaign to go on for longer than 1 year. I believe that all campaigns should be paid for with public money and that “dark money” or PAC money should be illegal. I believe that there should be term limits placed on all elected officials of 8 years, the same as there is for the President. I believe that lobbying should be strictly regulated, and consist of only verbal or written solicitations and not monetary campaign contributions. I believe that Third parties should be included in the Party Primary system and should also be included in all public debates and town hall meetings. We must remember that we "hire" elected officials to work for us. We should be able to set the rules.
Above all, I believe in fairness and equality and the absolute meaning of both of those words. I do not believe that one race or the wealthy or any class of people should have more rights than another. I want an open and ethical government that is transparent to its people. I want a moral but secular country where all people are free to practice their religious beliefs--or not--without bias. I want government FOR the people and BY the people.I love my country but I do not love the place where I presently find all of us who live here. We have strayed, I believe, far from the fundamentals of our Founding Fathers, partly because they could not, in the late 18th Century, have foreseen the changing and globalizing world we have now. And we have been divided by people and corporations with ulterior motives, a division that worries me greatly, and I think worries most of us. We have to remember, once again, the old Golden Rule we were all taught as school children: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. That doesn’t mean we all have to have the same emotions or opinions; it just reminds us to respect one another. Anyone who has read this far might not, and probably won’t, agree with everything I have laid out here. That is perfectly OK. We are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs. That’s what makes this a “free country.” My opinions are mine, developed over 60+ years of watching, reading, and paying attention to the goings on around me. I own them, and actually, I’m proud of them so don’t expect me to change them easily. I’m hardheaded and I’m actually not looking for debate. I simply want some understanding of the positions I hold dear. We all make the mistake of assuming someone feels the same way we do about a subject, and that assumption is often deeply offensive to me. Yes, I am a liberal-thinker, and I am certainly not ashamed of that. When I look up the word “liberal” here is what I find: “Open to new behavior or opinion; broad-minded; tolerant of individual rights and freedoms.” I proudly accept that label. Onward....
Not in any particular order of importance-- My Fundamentals: I believe in a woman’s right to chose. I do not want the government to legislate morality or make decisions that are deeply personal. I support gay rights. I believe the LBGT community should have the same civil rights as the rest of us--to marry, to raise children, and to purchase a wedding cake from any damned bakery they please. I believe in the separation of church and state, and I support the notion that when churches become political, they should lose their tax exempt status. Religious activism has caused many people to turn away from religion and caused a precipitous and unfortunate drop in church attendance. I believe in public education. One of the reasons our ancestors came to this country was for the public schools. I consider 2-year community colleges public schools and believe they should be tuition-free. I believe in the arts in public education. The arts (great literature, visual arts, dance, music, and film) enrich us and expand outward our minds and our souls. I think corporations who have been lucky enough to exist in this country should pay their fair share of taxes, without loopholes. I do NOT believe in “trickle down economics,” which has been proven time and again not to work for the middle and lower classes. I believe billionaires can live on less and therefore should be taxed at the same rate as the rest of us. I once read that a billion dollars lined up end to end would encircle the earth three times. Now, honestly, who can’t live on a billion dollars? I believe in labor rights and that the minimum wage needs to be doubled. It’s expensive to live in this country and workers need to be paid accordingly. And I believe corporations that move their businesses overseas to avoid paying state and local taxes or to avoid hiring American workers should be penalized with a higher tax rate and with the tariffs that apply to the country where they have moved. I believe that health care is a human right and should be given freely by a country as wealthy as the United States to ALL of her citizens. I believe in humane immigration laws. I believe in a guest worker program that will regulate the wages paid to non-citizen workers, and provide a work force willing and able to do the service jobs that most Americans do not wish to do. However, I do believe that the United States is an English-speaking country and should designate itself as such.I believe in legalizing marijuana and decriminalizing other illegal narcotics. I believe in the death penalty, but only in the case of heinous crimes, such as serial killings or mass murders. I believe that Federal Judges should be elected by the people and not appointed. I believe in a strong military force that provides career opportunities and education for enlistees, and gives them the lifetime benefits guaranteed by the G.I. Bill. In return for their service to the country, I believe we should pay our soldiers more. It’s a disgrace that a newly enlisted serviceman earns so little that they qualify for welfare programs. In addition, I do not believe that our military force should be used for extended periods of conflict without a formal declaration of war. I believe in a national gun registry, title included, the same way we do with our cars and trucks and RVs, so that when a gun is inherited or bought from a friend or person other than from a gun store, the title to that gun will transfer from one individual to another. I believe in regulating magazine capacity to 6 rounds, and that ammunition sales should be tracked and reported to the gun registry. You can’t buy too much decongestant from the pharmacy within a given month. I know because I have been denied. So if that can be tracked so can the purchase of guns and ammunition.I believe Election Day (first Tuesday in November) should be a national holiday. I also believe that all states should have the same election laws and conduct their elections in a uniform manner nationwide. I believe that a voting ID with a picture and bar code should be given to every registered voter and that this ID should be the only item required at the polls. I believe that voting districts should be determined by population and by a regulatory committee and those districts should remain the same so long as the populations of those districts does not change. Voting districts should not be determined by any Political Party.As regards the office of President of the United States: I believe that any candidate running for the highest office in the land should be REQUIRED to show five years of tax returns. I believe that once elected, all presidents should be REQUIRED to divest of their business interests in the form of either a blind trust or a straight divestiture. I believe that the power to pardon should have judicial oversight and be used sparingly. I believe that the FBI, CIA, and DOJ should fall under the Judicial Branch and not under the Executive Branch of government. I believe that the President should be held to the same standards under the laws and ethics of this country as any other citizen. I believe that he--or she--can be arrested, tried, and convicted just as the rest of us. We do not have kings in this country. In fact, we fought a long war to get rid of our king.As regards campaigning and lobbyists: I believe that it should be illegal for any campaign to go on for longer than 1 year. I believe that all campaigns should be paid for with public money and that “dark money” or PAC money should be illegal. I believe that there should be term limits placed on all elected officials of 8 years, the same as there is for the President. I believe that lobbying should be strictly regulated, and consist of only verbal or written solicitations and not monetary campaign contributions. I believe that Third parties should be included in the Party Primary system and should also be included in all public debates and town hall meetings. We must remember that we "hire" elected officials to work for us. We should be able to set the rules.
Above all, I believe in fairness and equality and the absolute meaning of both of those words. I do not believe that one race or the wealthy or any class of people should have more rights than another. I want an open and ethical government that is transparent to its people. I want a moral but secular country where all people are free to practice their religious beliefs--or not--without bias. I want government FOR the people and BY the people.I love my country but I do not love the place where I presently find all of us who live here. We have strayed, I believe, far from the fundamentals of our Founding Fathers, partly because they could not, in the late 18th Century, have foreseen the changing and globalizing world we have now. And we have been divided by people and corporations with ulterior motives, a division that worries me greatly, and I think worries most of us. We have to remember, once again, the old Golden Rule we were all taught as school children: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. That doesn’t mean we all have to have the same emotions or opinions; it just reminds us to respect one another. Anyone who has read this far might not, and probably won’t, agree with everything I have laid out here. That is perfectly OK. We are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs. That’s what makes this a “free country.” My opinions are mine, developed over 60+ years of watching, reading, and paying attention to the goings on around me. I own them, and actually, I’m proud of them so don’t expect me to change them easily. I’m hardheaded and I’m actually not looking for debate. I simply want some understanding of the positions I hold dear. We all make the mistake of assuming someone feels the same way we do about a subject, and that assumption is often deeply offensive to me. Yes, I am a liberal-thinker, and I am certainly not ashamed of that. When I look up the word “liberal” here is what I find: “Open to new behavior or opinion; broad-minded; tolerant of individual rights and freedoms.” I proudly accept that label. Onward....
April 18, 2018
Brother
<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;}
My brother is dying, and he doesn’t want me to tell anyone. He didn’t even tell me until he was through with all his treatments, until they told him there was nothing more they could do and put him on hospice. Then he calls me to tell me he has a tumor in his liver and it is too large to remove. He has 6 months, he tells me. But that turned out to be an erroneous estimate. He made that call to me on the 22nd of March. It’s now, April 16th and we are already at the end.
Two days after this revelation, we drive up to see him. He has lost 50 pounds and almost all his hair, but the main thing is his color. He's jaundiced, sitting in his lounge chair, which he stayed in for most of our visit. He was still fully engaged, talking a lot, eating tangerines and drinking Cokes. We reminisced a little. My brother has a skewed memory of his childhood. Or maybe mine is skewed. I remember happy times and he does not. It has been the great divide between us for many years. His bitterness and anger have made it hard for me to be around him, and so, for the last 20 or so years, we haven’t seen each other much.
Before this visit, the last time we got together was about 18 months ago, when I was still working in the county job. A law seminar took me to Austin. They picked me up at my hotel and we had dinner at a catfish place. The old bitterness arose and tainted our time together, as it has done so many times before. But we have always talked on the phone a half dozen times a year, birthdays and Christmas, and other times, too. We usually end up talking about our pets. Nice, safe subjects--maybe some movies or television shows we’ve seen. I catch him up on family news I might have, which he never seems to care about much. Maybe he would make some flippant remarks about it all. But it wasn’t always this way.
I don’t have any one particular early memory of my brother. He is five years older than me and he was just always there. He was my mentor, my protector, my Bubbie. He held my hand a lot. He guided me through the world, choosing the food we liked, the games we played, the movies we needed to see, and television shows we should watch. He was in many ways, the most important person in my life. My confidant. My cohort. I told him everything, and he did the same, although not always with such openness. If something terrible happened at school, a kid got shoved down on the playground or got licks from a teacher, I raced home to tell my brother all about it. His unremarkable responses instructed me that these things were part of life, and nothing to get excited over. Bad things sometimes happen, and that’s just the way it was.
Because of my brother I became an avid reader. Not because he sat me down with books and forced me to read. But because he put books in my way without realizing the effect they would have on me. We regularly took the bus downtown, usually to go to a movie, but the bus stop was right outside the library, which meant we spent a lot of time inside, waiting for the bus. We could see through the plate glass windows in the library when the bus arrived and raced out there in time to hop on it. My brother had important things he wanted to research, things that entailed microfilm and old magazines and newspapers, which meant I was free to roam the big three-story library at will, as long as we were back together in the lounge at such-and-such time to run for the bus. He gave me my orders and taught me how to read the big round clock beside the elevators.
The third floor was where the kid’s books were and I spent all my time up there, sitting at pint-sized tables with stacks of colorful books. I couldn’t wait to read them all, and usually got through one or two before I had to make the difficult decision about which three I would check out and take home. Three was the maximum back then. Eventually, our library started running a Book Mobile out to our part of town. My brother learned the schedule and where they would stop, and we walked hand-in-hand down our long block and over two short end blocks. I always wanted to run ahead as soon as I saw the bus-like vehicle, with “Book Mobile” emblazoned on its side. I can still remember the wonderful bready smell as I climbed the two stairs. It was like stepping into a book cave, absolutely magical to me. These were the wonders I would never have known without my brother to show them to me, and they defined me all my life.
There are so many other memories, so many things we did and told each other. We loved one another without question. I could have had a mean brother, one who didn’t like it that as the baby of the family and the only girl, I got special treatment at times. If he resented it he never showed that he did. His teen years were difficult, and I remember hurting for him. I remember taking his side against nagging parents. I remember missing him terribly the summer he spent in California with our aunt and her family. I missed him so much I slept in his empty bed the whole time he was gone. We used to sing for each other, and dance. We used to play like we were in movies and make up our own scripts. We were inventive children and we didn’t even realize it at the time. Sometimes it seemed like we were in our world together.
But time passes. Children grow up, get their own circle of friends, their own outside interests. It happens to all siblings. We no longer lived in the same town, sometimes not even the same state. We saw each other less and less, but for me those bright shining memories of our childhood continued to glow in the back of my mind. But as the years passed, he seemed to dwell on the wrongs that he felt were done to him by our parents. Not imagined wrongs, they were real enough but so long ago wrongs. He never could seem to turn that page, and it became more and more of a roadblock in our relationship.
And now he is about to die. My feelings are hyper-emotional and complicated, all mixed up with my childhood devotion and my adult resentments for the support he couldn’t give to me when I needed it. I love him dearly; maybe in the back of my mind I knew, since he was older, that he might go before me, but I never imagined it would be this soon. And once he is gone, I will truly be orphaned, with no one else in the world besides myself, who shares all my history from the beginning. Part of me cannot believe this, or fully accept it. I guess in a way, my brother was my first FIRST love. I will miss knowing I can’t pick up the phone and call him. That will seem odd, and awful. I miss him already.
My brother is dying, and he doesn’t want me to tell anyone. He didn’t even tell me until he was through with all his treatments, until they told him there was nothing more they could do and put him on hospice. Then he calls me to tell me he has a tumor in his liver and it is too large to remove. He has 6 months, he tells me. But that turned out to be an erroneous estimate. He made that call to me on the 22nd of March. It’s now, April 16th and we are already at the end.
Two days after this revelation, we drive up to see him. He has lost 50 pounds and almost all his hair, but the main thing is his color. He's jaundiced, sitting in his lounge chair, which he stayed in for most of our visit. He was still fully engaged, talking a lot, eating tangerines and drinking Cokes. We reminisced a little. My brother has a skewed memory of his childhood. Or maybe mine is skewed. I remember happy times and he does not. It has been the great divide between us for many years. His bitterness and anger have made it hard for me to be around him, and so, for the last 20 or so years, we haven’t seen each other much.
Before this visit, the last time we got together was about 18 months ago, when I was still working in the county job. A law seminar took me to Austin. They picked me up at my hotel and we had dinner at a catfish place. The old bitterness arose and tainted our time together, as it has done so many times before. But we have always talked on the phone a half dozen times a year, birthdays and Christmas, and other times, too. We usually end up talking about our pets. Nice, safe subjects--maybe some movies or television shows we’ve seen. I catch him up on family news I might have, which he never seems to care about much. Maybe he would make some flippant remarks about it all. But it wasn’t always this way. I don’t have any one particular early memory of my brother. He is five years older than me and he was just always there. He was my mentor, my protector, my Bubbie. He held my hand a lot. He guided me through the world, choosing the food we liked, the games we played, the movies we needed to see, and television shows we should watch. He was in many ways, the most important person in my life. My confidant. My cohort. I told him everything, and he did the same, although not always with such openness. If something terrible happened at school, a kid got shoved down on the playground or got licks from a teacher, I raced home to tell my brother all about it. His unremarkable responses instructed me that these things were part of life, and nothing to get excited over. Bad things sometimes happen, and that’s just the way it was.
Because of my brother I became an avid reader. Not because he sat me down with books and forced me to read. But because he put books in my way without realizing the effect they would have on me. We regularly took the bus downtown, usually to go to a movie, but the bus stop was right outside the library, which meant we spent a lot of time inside, waiting for the bus. We could see through the plate glass windows in the library when the bus arrived and raced out there in time to hop on it. My brother had important things he wanted to research, things that entailed microfilm and old magazines and newspapers, which meant I was free to roam the big three-story library at will, as long as we were back together in the lounge at such-and-such time to run for the bus. He gave me my orders and taught me how to read the big round clock beside the elevators.
The third floor was where the kid’s books were and I spent all my time up there, sitting at pint-sized tables with stacks of colorful books. I couldn’t wait to read them all, and usually got through one or two before I had to make the difficult decision about which three I would check out and take home. Three was the maximum back then. Eventually, our library started running a Book Mobile out to our part of town. My brother learned the schedule and where they would stop, and we walked hand-in-hand down our long block and over two short end blocks. I always wanted to run ahead as soon as I saw the bus-like vehicle, with “Book Mobile” emblazoned on its side. I can still remember the wonderful bready smell as I climbed the two stairs. It was like stepping into a book cave, absolutely magical to me. These were the wonders I would never have known without my brother to show them to me, and they defined me all my life.
There are so many other memories, so many things we did and told each other. We loved one another without question. I could have had a mean brother, one who didn’t like it that as the baby of the family and the only girl, I got special treatment at times. If he resented it he never showed that he did. His teen years were difficult, and I remember hurting for him. I remember taking his side against nagging parents. I remember missing him terribly the summer he spent in California with our aunt and her family. I missed him so much I slept in his empty bed the whole time he was gone. We used to sing for each other, and dance. We used to play like we were in movies and make up our own scripts. We were inventive children and we didn’t even realize it at the time. Sometimes it seemed like we were in our world together.
But time passes. Children grow up, get their own circle of friends, their own outside interests. It happens to all siblings. We no longer lived in the same town, sometimes not even the same state. We saw each other less and less, but for me those bright shining memories of our childhood continued to glow in the back of my mind. But as the years passed, he seemed to dwell on the wrongs that he felt were done to him by our parents. Not imagined wrongs, they were real enough but so long ago wrongs. He never could seem to turn that page, and it became more and more of a roadblock in our relationship.
And now he is about to die. My feelings are hyper-emotional and complicated, all mixed up with my childhood devotion and my adult resentments for the support he couldn’t give to me when I needed it. I love him dearly; maybe in the back of my mind I knew, since he was older, that he might go before me, but I never imagined it would be this soon. And once he is gone, I will truly be orphaned, with no one else in the world besides myself, who shares all my history from the beginning. Part of me cannot believe this, or fully accept it. I guess in a way, my brother was my first FIRST love. I will miss knowing I can’t pick up the phone and call him. That will seem odd, and awful. I miss him already.
