enough

i went to the post office today to pay my phone and cable bills. and to buy some stamps. i've been sending cards to the states and i think it's nicer to have a stamp on each one than a big post office printed thing. it's similar to how they do it in the US. so, since i was thinking about it, i decided to buy 15 stamps for the cards i have sitting at home waiting to be written.

i haven't bought stamps in a while so i asked the woman how much was a stamp for a letter to the US. 18kc. great. i'll take 15. she gave me a look and said, ok, let me take care of your bills first. no problem.

after the bills are done she takes down the big book of stamps every teller has. it's not like in the states where they have them in books of 20 or rolls of 100. nope. each teller has this big (bigger than legal size--it's like a coffee-table book) book of heavy paper with stamps of varying denominations paper-clipped to the pages. this is true in every post office i've ever been in here.

at the main post office there's a special window just for stamps where you can buy all kinds of all denominations. again, more common to buy one or two or four than 100. at my post office, you have to go through a special door to do anything in bulk. but i only wanted 15. that's not bulk. right?

so the teller finds the 18kc stamps. and she says something about how 15 is quite a lot and did i really need that many. before i knew what we were working with, i said, well, maybe 10. she kind of screwed up her face in dislike. but then she found the right stamps. and it didn't look like too many...until she unfolded the second page and lo, there were more than 40! she asked again, how many? and i said, well, 15. you've got plenty. again with the discomfort on her face. as if i was taking something precious from her. reluctantly she tore off half the page and returned the other 20 or so to their clip in the book.

what happened there? are tellers specifically instructed to sell as few stamps as possible? keep as many in the book as you can. we'll be grading you on how few you sell and how many you retain. this is all you get for the month. if you run out, you'll be humiliated into asking other tellers to dig into their own books to help you out, and you don't want to do that. because there's not enough.

i think that's key. not enough. i think that's a basic principle in this country. for many decades there really was never enough, and now that there is, no one knows how to deal with it. my local grocery store regularly runs out of milk and sugar and eggs. if i run over on a sunday evening, i can't be sure i'll find milk. no kidding. somehow they haven't gotten the hang of ordering the right amount. that, or they just don't bother to put it out.

but there is enough. there are certainly enough stamps. there is certainly enough milk. but someone wants people to believe there isn't. i don't know what it is. keep the people frustrated? don't bother running a store or post office well? don't try to serve the people? fight them at every turn when they want something you think they shouldn't have?

it's not uncommon here to be scorned by a waiter, shop assistant, post office teller. why? we need each other to conduct our business. they have something i want. i have something they want. why are they so mad at me?

getting back to enough. i read an article about the idea of enough a while back. i wish i remember where. but it talked about the idea that, if we all realized there was enough of what we need or want in this world, we wouldn't be in such a hurry to trample other people to try to get it faster. complicated to try to tell this to people starving in africa or without medicine in asia, i know. but, for us westerners who really do have enough. why do we always think we don't?

goodwill

i wasn't in europe on 9/11. i moved over here a brief month later. i'd lived in prague before and was somewhat surprised at the goodwill feelings shown toward americans and the desire to hear our stories about that day. most people liked america then (clinton had been adored) but this was at a level beyond the norm.

that didn't last very long. i'm not really sure when it changed, but certainly by the start of the war in iraq in early 2003 people in europe didn't display such good feelings toward america.

within a couple years i was constantly asked my opinion on the war (this has waned in the last 2 or so years for some reason), and my opinion on bush (laughter always ensued when i said i didn't think he was an idiot). and most europeans i talked to, while they still enjoyed the company of american people, had nothing nice to say about america as a whole and her government, specifically.

it's hard to explain what i'm feeling today. watching tv and reading stories online and seeing people around the world (and not just the expats living elsewhere) celebrating...what? american government?! it's unreal. and i can't help but compare it to 9/11.

i heard someone say that, on 9/11, everyone in the world felt the pain and all were new yorkers. i feel the same now, that the world is proud of america and everyone wants to share in the joy of what we have done. something great has happened and everyone wants to participate.

and, just as after 9/11, decisions were made and that goodwill swirled down the drain, there are choices to be made. and this goodwill will either continue or it will slip through our fingers. i hope obama makes good decisions. i hope that having a president with the middle name Hussein will indeed make radical islamists think twice about the evil of america. i hope that our country, which has been gashed and slashed by divisive and deceitful politics, can heal and come together.

we'll have to see.

Vote.

i don't write that often anyway, but i've been avoiding writing about this election. well, barring that sarah palin thing. couldn't help it. mostly i've been avoiding it because i've been angry.

for months i have been receiving emails from family and friends. emails filled with lies, untruths and half-truths. all generated with the purpose of scaring people away from this man obama.

i can't watch pundits; i can't watch mccain or palin anymore either. i can't take sarah's snarky sarcasm (from someone well-versed in sarcasm). i can't handle mccain's exaggerations and anger.

i've lived overseas for most of bush's presidency. which doesn't mean i haven't felt the pain. i've defended my country countless times and regularly asked people to consider a perspective other than their own before judging. i've offered a different viewpoint and asked them to think about it.

i grew up in an extremely republican county (dupage) situated right next to an extremely democratic county (cook) in illinois. i considered myself republican and voted accordingly for most of my voting career. it made sense to me. or at least didn't seem offensive to me.

that has changed.

i have my thoughts about abortion, taxes, healthcare, greed, joe the plumber, socialism, muslims, same-sex marriage and everything else that has been thrown at us. and i don't want to talk about it any more, frankly.

our country has been so divided by race, by age, by education level, by coast, by state color, by religion, by ______. i feel it when i'm there and i can see it from here. i'm saddened that mccain and palin would resort to calling some of america the real america and letting the rest of the country wonder what part of america they are in, then. i'm saddened when people who want to see change in america and criticize where it currently stands are called unpatriotic or un-american.

cornel west said something like this: loving america is like being in a marriage. you don't always like it. but you love it. you say what is wrong because you love it and want it to be the best it can be. i think that criticizing what you see as wrong and doing something to change it is the most american thing you can do. it's in our blood. it's how we got to be americans. (it's what those prop-8 supporters are doing but don't like when others do.)

our country needs to heal from these last 8 years of darkness, lies, division, hatred and fear.

i don't see mccain as capable of helping that healing. he doesn't even see the need or he'd realize he's making the gashes deeper.

i wasn't convinced that barack obama was capable of helping, either. but i've listened to him talk. i've seen the other people who listen to him talk. i see that he's thoughtful, careful, a thinker. we haven't had that in 8 years.

i don't think i'll agree with or like everything he does if he is elected. i think he'll make mistakes and joe biden will keep putting his foot in his very big mouth.

but i think he can be the president who starts america down the road toward healing and unity, and who brings us back to the global stage as a model and not a cautionary tale.

let's not be afraid. let's refuse to be manipulated into fear. we need not fear who know Peace.

on sarah palin

so, i've been thinking about this a lot and have decided to weigh in on the sarah palin circus, because i have a perspective that i haven't heard anyone else mentioning.

now, to start, i agree with barack obama and others who are saying family is off-limits and should not be a factor in people deciding whom to vote for. and i think it's ridiculous to blame sarah for bristol and levi's stupidity and carelessness. we all know that parents of 17-year-olds can't possibly control their every move. you raise them as well as you can, but they start making their own decisions and some of them are pretty stupid. (topic for another day=why teaching only abstinence is also careless. you'd think kids would know by now that, if you're going to have sex, for pete's sake use a condom. correctly. clearly, they don't. oh, and even nice Christian kids who go to church and all that are also having sex. it's a fact. realize you have to deal with it!)

sarah palin's qualifications or lack thereof for vice president do not begin or end with her abilities as a mother or the dumb things her kids do. running a country is hardly the same thing. this i can agree with and stand behind.

and as to dr laura's claim that palin should never have been picked because her responsibility is to her family first and that will be a hard call should she have to choose... well, plenty of women are able to find a way to make it work. not all can juggle it well, but it's not up to me to decide how much time she gives her kids--won't her husband be there for the kids, anyway? this sounds like a copout as i write it, and, while i'm inclined to think dr laura has a point, i'm not sure i can fully stand behind her on it.

no, my problem with sarah palin is this: how dare she thrust her daughter bristol and her out-of-wedlock pregnancy into the international spotlight like this? i keep hearing that this is a family matter and the family should be allowed to deal with it in private. yes, i agree. but clearly sarah did not. she knew her daughter was pregnant; she knew it would become news, all her 'how dare you's notwithstanding; she knew that everyone in the world with access to CNN would know the names bristol and levi, and be able to pick them out of a lineup. (honestly, i can't believe i do. i would never have known which kid had which phoenix-familyish name except for the pregnancy and poor trig.)

the one to blame here is mommy sarah. had the family already been on the campaign trail before the pregnancy, that would be one thing. but sarah knew about the pregnancy, knew what would happen, and pressed on with her own agenda anyway.

how mortifying must it be for bristol? she's 17 and pregnant, and now the whole world knows it. she was probably dreading the day she'd start to show and her friends would notice it. now, bump or no bump, we all know about it.

and this levi kid gets flown down to the lower-48 to be trotted out with the others so he can hold bristol's hand through the whole thing. ugh.

sarah palin is a young woman. she's in her early 40s. if she is such a valuable and clear choice for a running mate, she would certainly be asked again in 4 or 8 years. and then this mess with bristol would be completely behind us and just a footnote to her mother's life, instead of one of many sideshows. her time did not have to be right now.

i think it's rotten that sarah palin would knowingly subject her 17-year-old daughter to such intense scrutiny and publicity about her pregnancy. it's one thing for 600k in alaska to know the story; it's another completely for everyone with a tv on earth to know about it. (and don't tell me she couldn't know that; that's what they pay teams of people millions of dollars to know in advance.) this was a mother's decision and she placed her own career before the emotional and psychological health of her underaged child. ugh.

and, while i'm on the subject, i might as well say what i think about bristol and levi marrying. don't do it, kids. you're too young. this is such a brilliant possibility for demonstrating the beauty and selflessness of adoption. so you won't abort? great. but don't ruin your lives. give the baby to a couple who are ready for a child and have the resources, emotionally and financially, to care for it. that would be beautiful and a real power move for the pro-life folks to show that there's a third option beyond aborting or keeping for youself.

tell me all you like about how hard it is to give up a child you've carried for 9 months. i believe it. i've never heard anyone saying adoption is easy for the bio mom. but it's about the child, isn't it? abortion might be a selfish choice, but so is keeping a child you're not ready for.