Sticks and Stones

Published Sept. 21, 2016 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     I walked into the post office the other day to pick up my mail and received a new bile aperture in the process, which some of you doubtless think I deserve.

           

     “I’ve been reading your articles,” the younger woman started carefully, realizing she’d just been handed the opportunity she’d been dreaming of:  telling me face to face what she thought.  It turns out she’s a Trump supporter and was offended by my anti-Trump sentiments being expressed in print.  "I don’t think you should say those things in the paper.” she continued.  “Everyone knows you're a liberal already.  You don’t have the right.”

           

     She grew angry as she developed her argument, and shaky as a result.  I could empathize, since the same thing happens to me when I suddenly have the opportunity to express my discontent to the person I think is causing it.  As we left the post office, she ended her testimony with a string of expletives about the presidential candidate she assumes I am supporting, all unprintable even as a quotation.  As we parted, she told me her name, which I think was Patricia, although, to be honest, her name disappeared as I digested what she had spoken.

           

     People are entitled to their opinions.  People are entitled to express their opinions in print, so long as they are identified as opinions and not a news article or a factual report.  There are other limiting criteria as well, like profanity and libel, for instance.  But as long as the speaker/writer claims his/her words as their opinion, the hearer/reader can keep opinion separate from fact.  The airwaves are kept free, and it maintains equality in a way:  each of us is entitled.

           

     Equality can be damaged by the presentation of opinion as fact:  it sets up a kind of authority that is unearned.  Reporters and even researchers sometimes slip their opinions into so-called factual writings, and detecting those becomes the art of critical thinking.  It is a painful art to practice because it leaves a person at odds with the promoters of these “facts,” as well as those who have bought into them as truth.  But without critical thinking we are simply sheep on the way to being shorn.

     Which brings me to the subject of name-calling.  I don’t know if kids these days still hurl this little saying around the playground, but when I was young we truly believed the rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  On the east coast or in previous generations, they might have said “harm me,” but we used the word “hurt.”  The truth is, that was a lie.  Being called a name over and over again, especially a name that demeans, can cause long-lasting harm which can take decades to mend, far longer than it takes bones.

     And that’s what I’ve got against your candidate, Patricia.  He name-calls.  He name-calls over and over again until people start to believe it because nobody’s made him stop.  It’s libelous, what he’s done with “Crooked Hillary” and all the other disparaging names he made up for his Republican rivals.  It’s also juvenile.  It reflects an unwillingness to debate the facts, which he also avoids by spouting “facts” that he’s made up just for the fun of watching otherwise serious people scramble to identify the false portions of his half-truths, the most serious one being the promise that he’s on your side.

     It’s a con job, friend.  If you-all elect him, it’s going to be a rude awakening and a serious disappointment when his policies take you to the cleaners along with the rest of the country, while his rich friends (and himself) get richer.

           

     In my never-very-humble opinion (and that I admit,) Donald Trump is a name-caller.  And in order not to get hurt in this election, we’ve got to remember what we learned on the playground:  how to avoid being hurt by name-callers.  The lesson is simple in principle, but difficult in practice:  don’t listen. 

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural resident writer who still has to practice what she preaches.  Thanks to Patricia for speaking to me directly.  You can send your anti-name-caller experiences c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

little luxuries

Published September 14, 2016 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     Last week I stopped in at one of my favorite cheap chain stores, the kind where nothing is over one dollar.  I try to keep my purchases there to a minimum, but when I need a little freehanded spending, the kind that makes me feel like I really do belong in American society, it’s the place to go.  That’s where I find the little luxuries that add spice to my life without making it impossible to pay my water bill.

           

     One of the things I brought home from that little splurge was a jar of raspberry jam.  It was a squared-off jar like some of the classy imported jams arrive in, holding 12 oz. of deep ruby red fruit, with the words “world class” and “premium product” on the label.  The label, when I finally got around to reading its backside over my first cup of coffee the next morning, also informed me that it was a product of Egypt, imported indeed.

    

     And that’s when the shame moved in.  One dollar American paid for a glass jar with a metal lid, raspberries, sugar, and pectin; it paid for the energy and labor for processing, and even more for shipping half-way around the world.  What could the Egyptian berry farmers have received for their fruit in this product, or the sugar producers?  The jar manufacturers, the jam makers, the longshoremen loading cases of jam aboard ships?

           

     And what American product did my purchase displace?  The fine jam makers in Fresno County may get $2.50 or $3.00 for their jars of jam produced only an hour away.  Why would I not pay $2.00 more for this little luxury to keep my neighbors in business, reduce (or at least not contribute to increased) greenhouse gases, global warming, pollution of the oceans?  I didn’t even need a new jar of jam:  I found two in the cupboard when I got home.

            And this is the issue I tripped over as I girded up once again to protest the proposed location of a new Dollar General store in Lindsay:  I’m up against the wall of my own buying behaviors.  I know what it could mean to Lindsay’s buying public to have something like a general store back in town, especially one with discount prices where you can snag little luxuries for yourself with the justification of getting a real bargain.  How many of us in our now-not-so-prosperous town can afford to pay full price for things, at least in our minds?  And if it eventually drives stores out of town with higher prices for the same goods made in China or Thailand or even Egypt, like Rite Aid or Art Serna’s hardware store, can we ourselves be blamed?  We only bought one little jar of raspberry jam for ourselves.  Each one of us cannot bear the responsibility for a marketing system gone mad through global trading.  Heck, at least the raspberry growers in Egypt made something instead of nothing in this transaction.

      In many ways the race is already lost, at least for the moment.  Those of us who would, if we could, vote anti-trade in November’s election in honor of the jobs lost to foreign countries in years past, will be standing in line on Dollar General’s opening day, waiting to dive in for the bargains from this globalized fact of life.  I will have eaten all my raspberry jam and begun to save thumb tacks or paper clips in the convenient little squared-off jar, hoping to remember all that little luxury has cost us.

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Trudy Wischemann is a native-born bargain hunter who writes.  You can send her your stories of little luxury hunting c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

Blessed Assurance

Published Nov. 5, 2014 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     We got rain this weekend, over an inch.  It was an answer to prayers, some spoken, some silent in the hearts of many.  I prayed, or said I did, that it would come but not until the kids got done trick-or-treating Friday night.  That prayer was answered almost as if by design.


     The children were all so beautiful, they and their guardian angels.  It was still balmy, that pre-storm calm, so the scantily-dressed Cleopatras and Ladybugs had no more problem staying warm than the Draculas and Spidermen.  We had around 400, a moderate Halloween considering it fell on a Friday.  I particularly want to thank the two Bananas who came to the door and sent two little boys into peals of laughter.


     Then came the wind, swirling leaves down the street, the first drops falling on the kids headed home.  I brought in the pumpkin and battened down the hatches while thunder rolled and lightning flashed, then came inside as torrents came down, remembering to put pans under the places where things leak.


     But the real blessing came the next morning when I opened a window to scare off  stray dogs in my yard, and got my first breath of fresh, rain-washed air.  It was like being home in Washington.  I’d forgotten how wonderful that smell is - that smell that tells the frightened heart that everything is going to live after all.  The calm before a storm is trumped by the peace that comes after.


     And perhaps that’s what we’ll be feeling on this Wednesday following Tuesday’s election.  It will be a morning-after for some, triumph for others, but perhaps peace for all.  No matter the outcomes, we will take the results and live with them, work for the improvements we hope and see needed, regardless.  Think of an election as a much-needed rain...


     What I loved about the rain this weekend is what it did for the people I meet through my job at the market.  It slowed them down, took the edge off their spirits, revived them from their worrisome desiccation.  One mechanic, an owner of a repair shop who said business has been up and down, explained the systemic release from fear better than most city planners comprehend.  He said:


     “This rain will help plump up the oranges.  The people will have more work, and so they’ll have money to buy things and fix their cars.  Everything will be better.”


     I think this rain was also a preliminary assurance that this drought may not be Divine retribution for the follies of our kind, visited on the good and evil alike.  Perhaps we are not facing the total destruction of our rural way of life portended by the mega-drought scenarios, in which every drop of water is commanded and controlled, industrialized for those urban enclaves we think are the pinnacle of human existence.


     Perhaps we’ll recognize in time that pure bliss is getting soaked in the first rain of the year, and waking up the next morning to birds singing and damp soil, to trees breathing huge sighs of relief -- and the prospect of oranges plumping and there being enough work.

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Trudy Wischemann is a seriously refreshed writer who lives in Lindsay.  You can send her your Halloween rain observations c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below. 

 

 

Vote Lindsay OPEN

Published October 22, 2014 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     For the second time in two years, candidates' lawn signs decorate Lindsay’s streets and neighborhoods, telling us it’s time to make up our minds.  I see it as a sign of improvement, though not everyone feels that way.  Perla Soria, who was elected to the school board two years ago, mentioned that she received an anonymous letter during her campaign saying the signs had ruined the town.

     There were no lawn signs before the 2012 election.  No one ran against the sitting city councilmembers; they simply re-appointed themselves to those positions and saved the taxpayers thousands of dollars in election costs.  Of course, that carte blanche situation cost the community millions in wasted grants and loans that have strapped and will continue to strap Lindsay for the next 40 years.

     It also cost us in community participation, a dearth from which we are still trying to recover.  The words “openness” and “transparency” were not uttered before the Townsend dynasty collapsed - there was no point.  It wasn’t until the recall effort was launched, triggered by the appointment of Rich Wilkinson as permanent city manager under the leadership of Mayor Murray, that what was wrong with Lindsay was identified.  It was closed to citizen participation, and opaque to public scrutiny.  Even the press couldn’t find a way in.

     The two incumbents running for city council are the last two non-elected appointees from Mayor Murray’s reign.  At least they were forced to run - we can thank the other candidates for making that happen.  Danny Salinas was appointed somewhere around 2001 to fill the vacancy left by John Stava, who was the only councilmember to cast an occasional “no” vote until Steven Mecum and Roseana Sanchez were elected in 2012.  From Danny’s appointment onward, Scot Townsend and crew got whatever they wanted from the council.

     Under Mayor Padilla, with leadership from Mecum and Sanchez, things are beginning to change.  When citizens do attend city council meetings, they are treated with more respect, although the rules for engagement are still preventing real participation.  The staff can no longer rest assured that their desires will be met with Council’s automatic approval.  But what Council truly needs is one more pair of eyes examining the staff’s proposals for flaws and half-truths, one more good mind open to solutions appropriate for our community, one more good heart willing to take on the task of opposing the insider machine.

     Lorena Vazquez, in her candidate’s statement printed in the Sun-Gazette’s Oct. 8th issue, said “transparency is the number one issue.”  She also listed the need to create an environment, both at council meetings and city hall, where the citizens will be treated with courtesy and respect and their concerns addressed, as well as much-improved street and sidewalk maintenance, water quality, and police protection, which she believes is hampered by poor morale. 

     I agree with her on all these points, and know that Lorena has the chutzpah to work to make things better.  She stood up against the wall erected to protect Scot Townsend’s departure and was one of the avid workers on the recall campaign.  She has invested in herself through her education and positions of employment, and these things would make her a real asset to the Council.  I think we would begin to experience Lindsay in a new way if she were elected.

     So use your ballot wisely:  vote to make Lindsay OPEN to its residents and responsive to our needs.

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Trudy Wischemann is a writer who misses going to the polls in November.  You can write to her with your concerns c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.