A Day in the Life of Chaos

Lost among the many things President Ronald Reagan did to America during his eight years as president was one particular budget cutting measure.  Perhaps in these days of fiscal austerity it is good to look back to the past as a guide if for no other reason then to teach us about the ignorance of our as of yet "unmade" decisions.  Prior to Ronald Reagan you didn't see many homeless people on the streets.  Those that existed tended to live outside of society.  They were the "Hobos" of yesteryear.  America had a system of mental hospitals and for better or worse these institutions cared for and accommodated the nations mentally ill.  Reagan wanted to reduce corporate taxes and to find the money for this he had to cut the welfare state.  The result was the de-funding and closing of most of the nations large public mental hospitals.  The theory was that mental health care could be more efficiently provided by private companies.  Of course this only works with those

As we grow old we can't help but notice the effects on our bodies.  Age is not kind.  The young body is viewed as the ideal, the old body is the result of living life.  It is like an old car.  It is no longer shiny and beautiful, it doesn't run as well but while taking longer, it still gets you there.  It is almost as if we are a product.  When we are born we are wrapped in the cellophane of our mother's womb.  We enter the world free from blemish, our minds have yet to be written and our bodies yet to be scarred.  Like an annual growing from a seed we seem so free from declination.  Our flower has yet to bloom and our seeds have yet to fall.  When we do flower, in our minds we reach perfection.  As a father I remember the day when my son scarred himself for the first time.  The beautiful product once protected by plastic was no longer new.  The problem with aging is that for many of us, our bodies change yet our minds never do.  While we collect life experience and wisdo

Like everyone else I look on in horror at the pictures of Japan.  The tragedy and the pain.  The suffering people have been brought to their knees in a scene horrifically similar to the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  Miles and miles of rubble is punctuated by fragments of still existing standing structures.  They rise from the debris defying the destruction around them yet isolated and alone.  With each day it seems like the horrors grow, thousands of bodies washing up on the shore line, lives shattered seemingly beyond repair. As if to add a punctuation mark on the horrific scene we learn of nuclear plants melting down.  It has been 66 years since the atomic bombs dropped yet once again the nuclear nightmare has returned.  It is always hard to know how to respond to suffering when you are an ocean away.  I sent some money to the Japanese Red Cross but it seems like a hallow gesture when they need so much more. Shinichi Izumi Over the years I have had a number of Japane

This morning as I put on my shirt for work for some reason I took note of the label.  It read simply, made in China.  Okay, no surprise right?  There are precious few articles  of clothing made in America aside from a few fraudulent labels attached in the Northern Marianas Islands saying Made in the USA.  The peculiarity of American territorial law allows these less then minimum wage workers the chance to pretend they are American by earning two dollars an hour to make our underwear.  No, this shirt was made in China.  As I often do at 6 o'clock in the morning, pre-caffeine and still trying to remember if it is shampoo then conditioner or conditioner then shampoo I had a vision. I wish it had been a saintly vision.  An apparition of the Virgin Mary in my shaving cream perhaps, or possibly a feeling of the divine as I washed each of my toes.  No, nothing so dramatic.  I simply thought of the factory in China where my shirt came from and how horrified the Chinese must be at the amo

A story I love to tell is about my child and when I took him to a pride festival.  He was probably about eight years of age and when we entered the event we were greeted by men holding hands with men, women with women and even elegant cross dressers and transvestites.  I consider myself a very tolerant person but I couldn't help but look.  "Wow, look at those guys." I thought, or "man, he is a good looking woman, check out the size of those hands though."  My son on the other hand entered the event and went straight for a sticker table festooning himself with ribbons and stickers.  The moral of the story is that he didn't see a thing.  He didn't see two men hug or two women kiss.  He didn't see the awkward transsexual or the flamboyant queen.  All he saw was an opportunity to score some cool stickers and pins.  Maybe snag some carnival beads. I tell this story because it is an example of how much a parents attitudes are reflected by their children.