Canine Comments and Two Fine Columns

Can you identify the seaside city pictured to the right?  The previous picture was of Honolulu, but this one isn't as easy. 


Although the Supreme Court heard arguments on the consitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act, contemptuously referred to by its opponents as Obama Care, this week, they won't announce their decision until June or July.  The counsel for the government did not do a very good job and might be the "fall guy" if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional.  Over the next few months, in anticipation of the Court's decision, this blog will include occasional articles on the case.  Your comments would be very welcome!
JL

                                                              

Canine Commentary: 

I am not intimately acquainted with the dogs in my neighborhood, but occasional contact with them is unavoidable.  Some of the nearby canines have names like Baxter, Cooper and Bailey.   I don’t think there is a Fido or a Rover in my neighborhood, any longer.  Back when we had dogs, they were named Muppet (after the TV puppets) and Cujo, after a Latin American terrorist.  Those were good solid names.  Today’s anglophile-style canine names are similar to the sterile monikers bestowed on children nowadays.  
Getting back to the dogs in my neighborhood, Baxter, Cooper and Bailey combined together sounds like the name of a musty old law firm where all of the partners came out of Ivy League schools back in the days when those institutions still had quotas discriminating against people who didn’t have these kinds of names.  Most of the folks in my neighborhood today still don’t have names like these.   

I wonder, if you visited a neighborhood inhabited by people who actually had such last names as Baxter and Bailey, you would find that they had named their dogs something like Goldberg, DeMarco or Karapopolis.  Can’t you just see one of these Brooks Brothers attired gentlemen directing his well trained Dalmatian, “Sit, Goldberg, Sit!”  

Frankly, if I were being sued, I would prefer that my lawyers came from the law firm of Goldberg, DeMarco and Karapopolis rather than from Baxter, Cooper and Bailey.

Jack Lippman

                                                            

Here’s a piece reproduced from the Jerusalem Post, where Dr. Ludman’s psychology column appears weekly.  

Aging - All That It Is Cracked Up To Be And More

Dr. Batya L. Ludman  

Realizing that I'm single digits away from the age my Mom was when she died, I see just how young she was. We all know people who seem old in their 40's and others who seem young in their 80's. While physical health and genetics contribute, they aren't everything, and our mental health and outlook play a greater role than most realize in determining just how well, and how long, we live.

When we think of aging, our first thoughts are often negative – we envision our body falling apart, memory lapses, and loss in all aspects of life. In reality, as we age, we have the potential to become more comfortable with who we are and therefore more content within ourselves and in our relationships. We can choose to accept our past and seek pleasure, while creating our present and future. 

Aging involves change in almost every aspect of our being and forces us to reexamine and redefine who we are and what we hope to achieve. Our bodies, thoughts, abilities and interests evolve with time. Our personality in large part determines how we respond to these changes and ultimately shapes how well we cope with, and adjust to, life's little surprises. We can choose to look at these changes with excitement and humor, or with fear, frustration, and sadness. 

As I watch my beloved octogenarian parents-in-law with schedules far busier than most people half their age, I smile and hope that my aging is as gentle as theirs. Many of us have at least one issue (if not more) to deal with while still in our early forties or fifties! Headaches, sleep problems, muscle and joint pains, dental concerns, memory problems, digestive issues, high cholesterol, and tests checking out all kinds of unmentionable areas, not to mention vision issues and thinning hair, are just the tip of the iceberg.

Although Mom and Dad joke that they have frequent “organ recitals” with their friends (the kind where they sit around and discuss various body parts), they now sadly see themselves making more hospital visits and Shiva calls. Nonetheless, aging also involves many positive opportunities and experiences, and if open to these, we can enter our senior years feeling blessed with what we have attained and what we have to look forward to. Enjoying the empty nest with a partner, not having to prove oneself, attending classes simply for enjoyment, having time to indulge one's grandchildren, doing what one wants rather than meeting other's expectations, moving at a more relaxed pace, and enjoying being with loved ones, can provide clarification of what's really important in life.

As we attain greater sophistication in neuropsychobiology, we've started to realize that our attachment to, and relationship with, others, the anger we carry, and our ability to forgive and move on, play a vital role in both our sense of wellbeing and longevity. In other words, our own personal feelings of contentment are more relevant in good aging than we have imagined and brain scans now help support this. We also know that being positive and proactive, practicing relaxation and mindfulness, and being grateful and appreciative can all lower stress levels, which ultimately lowers your risk for developing diabetes, cardiac problems and other medical issues. 

Judaism values aging and equates it with wisdom. Since we are all getting older, here are some suggestions for becoming wiser: 

Take time for self-reflection. Do you like yourself? How does your attitude help you or get in the way? What do you appreciate now that you didn't a decade or two ago? How have you grown?

Make the most out of relationships. Surround yourself with people who you care about and make you feel good. Broaden relationships to include friends of all ages and those who make you laugh and bring meaning into your life.

Help your children and grandchildren tap into your talents. Spend time doing projects, reading, watching a movie, taking a walk and just being together. Each of us has something valuable to learn from another. Your experience and wisdom are incredible gifts to the younger generation.

Value yourself as a contributing member to society. Get involved by giving back to your community. Those who volunteer and help others are significantly more content.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle. Look after your medical, physical, emotional, and nutritional needs in order to feel healthy, safe and secure. Add spirituality, prayer, meditation and relaxation to your daily life and learn to be best friends with the new you. As you change, your relationship with others around you will take on new meaning.

Be positive. Look for the good in people and in everyday events. Appreciate the moment. Have an “attitude of gratitude” and take time to smell the roses. Focus on what you have and not on what is lacking.

Use your time wisely. Determine whether you control your time or time controls you.

De-stress. Notice when you feel calm and how your body reacts to stress. Let go of relationships and things that weigh you down and are unimportant. Forgive those you need to and don't carry around emotional baggage. Put your life in order. De-clutter your home, organize your finances, and simplify your daily routine so you can make room for the things you value.

Challenge your brain. Study, play scrabble, attend a lecture, or take up a new hobby. Be passionate and don't be afraid to dream.

Create a memory friendly environment. As we age, we learn more slowly, retain less information and our memory is less sharp and reliable. We may go blank when trying to recall a person's name, retell a story or enter a room. Utilize a calendar, watch, a daily journal and a "to do" list to keep organized. Minimize distractions and visualize your actions. Use repetition, rehearsal and reinforcement as ways to enhance memory, be it putting your keys in the same place or recalling someone's name after meeting them. 

While aging has its ups and downs, with the right attitude one can feel blessed. Happy 80th and 85^th birthday, to my very special Mom and Dad.

Dr. Batya L. Ludman is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Ra'anana, Israel. Send correspondence to her at ludman@netvision.net.il or visit her website at www.drbatyaludman.com.  Her book, Life's Journey. Exploring Relationships - Resolving Conflicts, has recently been published by Devora Publishers.
 

 

                                                               

The Right’s Etch-a-Sketch Imperative

 E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: March 25 in  the Washington Post

Clarifying moments are rare in politics. They are the times when previously muddled issues are cast into sharp relief and citizens get a chance to look past the spin and obfuscation.  Americans were blessed with three such moments last week.   (For clarity, I added the numbers on the following paragraphs. J.L.)      

                       

1. Rep. Paul Ryan made absolutely clear that he is not now and never was interested in deficit reduction. After a couple of years of being lauded by deficit hawks as the man prepared to make hard choices, he proposed a budget that would not end deficits until 2040 but would cut taxes by $4.6 trillion over a decade while also extending all of the Bush tax cuts, adding an additional $5.4 trillion to the deficit. Ryan would increase military expenditures and then eviscerate the rest of the federal government.

Oh yes, Ryan claims he’d make up for the losses from his new tax cuts with “tax reform” but offered not a single detail. A “plan” with a hole this big is not a plan at all. Ryan’s main interest is in cutting the top income tax rate to 25 percent from the current 35 percent. His message: Solving the deficit problem isn’t nearly as important as (1) continuing and expanding benefits for the wealthy and (2) disabling the federal government.

Robert Greenstein, president of the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is tough on deficits, careful in his use of numbers, and measured in his choice of words. These traits make his assessment of Ryan’s proposal all the more instructive.

“It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation’s history),” Greenstein wrote. “Specifically, the Ryan budget would impose extraordinary cuts in programs that serve as a lifeline for our nation’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens, and over time would cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their health insurance or become underinsured.”

Thanks to Ryan, we now know that this election is not about deficits at all. It is about whether we will respond to growing inequalities of wealth and income by creating even larger inequalities of wealth and income.

2. Last week the nation also focused seriously on the “Stand Your Ground” laws that the National Rifle Association has pushed through in state after state. These statutes came to wide attention because of the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.

George Zimmerman, the man who pulled the trigger, was not under serious investigation until there was a national outcry because under the Florida law, a citizen has a right to use “force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

These laws perfectly reflect the NRA’s utopia. No longer will we count onlaw enforcement to preserve the peace. Instead, we will build a society where all citizens are armed and encouraged to take the law into their own hands. If you feel threatened, just shoot.

Since when did conservatives start believing that laws should be based on “feelings” and subjective judgments? What kind of civilization does this create? Surely this moment should inspire the peaceable majority to challenge the entire gun lobby worldview — and that most certainly includes the legions of timid Democrats who have been cowed by the NRA.

3. There was, finally, that toy metaphor from Eric Fehrnstrom, a top aide to Mitt Romney. Asked on CNN if the primary campaign had forced Romney “to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election,” Fehrnstrom replied that “everything changes” after the primaries. “It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch,” he added, “you can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”

The context matters because Romney later said Fehrnstrom was talking about post-primary changes that would be made “organizationally,” a claim that is plainly untrue. Ironically, the semi-denial reinforced the lesson Fehrnstrom taught: To win, Romney is willing to change not only his own positions but also reality itself.

Conservatives will need an exceptionally powerful Etch a Sketch to wipe the nation’s memory clean of the education it received during the 2012 campaign’s most enlightening week so far. 


                                                            


                                                                                                                                       
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