birdsonawire - Blog

A look back at a bloody time

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:49:48 -0800

This week marks the 45th anniversary of the March to Montgomery, a pivotal moment in the US civil rights movement. To give some perspective, it took place one year after the passage of the US Civil Rights Act and three years before the death of its organizer, Martin Luther King, Jr.

That heady week in Alabama changed the course of civil rights, but left one dead, many wounded and most of the country horrified by images flashed on the news of well-dressed protestors—black and white—bloodied by police, dogs and water hoses, for the crime of insisting the state of Alabama adhere to the law of the land.

If you click on 1960s Sit Ins in the right-hand column of this blog, you’ll find a collection of my own memories of these times, including one story about a Selma martyr, and several about my brief involvement in the Freedom Rides. Always in the margins of the movement, I won no awards for bravery or accomplishment, yet these events changed the course of my life.

Like many of my peers, I did not grow up in a particularly liberal home. Although decent, honest and law-abiding, my parents spent far too much time in Kansas to feel comfortable around people unlike themselves. I could easily have followed their example, but the circumstances of my life were different. They spent their late teens and twenties trying to live through the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, while I grew up in the great upheaval of 1960-1975.

The tumult of the times was not limited to the streets. Looking back, I see how my own young life reflected the nuances of change, experimentation and transformation that was playing out in the budding civil rights, anti-war and women’s rights movements.

Although stories in this series are told through the long lens of time, they are told with the advantage of the enlightenment that comes with age. I hope they’re meaningful to our children, grandchildren and anyone else who cares to read them.

I recently discovered another blogger who is sharing memories of sit ins. For a look at what things were like in Tennessee and North Carolina during the late-1950s to early 1960s, see Sit-ins, Nashville, Civil Rights, the ‘60s and me, by Connie Wilson. If you have similar stories, please send me links and I'll put them up.

Walking Down Freedom Road -- Part 3

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:57:33 -0800

James Reeb, 1927-1965

Halfway through college, I got married. (Who knows why? Don’t ask.) Len and I would have been quite happy with a civil ceremony and raucous party, but Maryland law demanded the blessing of clergy. So, we found a Unitarian minister who agreed to do a small, very informal wedding in July, 1963. I was 19, he was 20.

Unfortunately, the next six months were hardly a honeymoon. We rented a small furnished basement in a poor neighborhood, and lived from hand to mouth by waiting tables, sorting mail, taking classified ads and washing cars. Even worse, we found ourselves under an avalanche of misery after being blindsided in a 7-car pile-up on a highway near Baltimore. Both injured and uninsured, we lost our jobs, our driver’s licenses and, tragically, our only valuable possession, a “new” 10-year-old Chevy. It had cost us the equivalent of a month’s rent. I was still trying to finish school, so this was a major setback.

Overwhelmed by the situation, my young husband fell into a deep depression and probably suffered a nervous breakdown. He was immobilized, sleepless and hallucinating. Worst of all, he made a half-serious attempt at suicide.

Looking back, I see how foolish I was to not contact our parents but, at the time, didn't think it was a good idea. None of them had forgiven us for marrying one another, especially while we were so young. They knew about our accident but didn't offer any help, and made it clear we were completely on our own. Instead, I sought help from the kind man who married us, and he referred me to a minister at All Souls Church, just a few blocks from our apartment in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of DC.

Jim Reeb was a godsend. As assistant minister of a large, inner-city church, he served as chief social worker for an active neighborhood outreach program. Several times a week, I went to his office for counseling on how to help Len through his breakdown. As things improved at home, he gave advice on how we could get out of the pit we had dug for ourselves.

Jim Reeb never pretended to be a therapist but knew a lot. And, it didn't hurt that he had God on his side! I felt at the time -- and still believe -- that without his help, Len would have succeed in doing away with himself. Terrified of being locked up, he refused help for himself, but didn't stand in my way when I said I needed to see Rev. Reeb for my own spiritual needs. It was silly, he said, but he put up with it.

Not only did Jim Reeb step in and support me emotionally, but he suggested I use one of the church’s many pianos for music lessons. He knew a few parishioners who might be interested in piano lessons. Hmmm. I loved that idea!

Until my teaching business got off the ground, Jim gave us one month’s rent and enough money to buy a few groceries. I think that came to about $65. As he predicted, three or four students signed up the first week and, before I knew it, I had almost more work than I could handle.

Those piano lessons brought in enough money to pay our basic bills, and even bus fare to school, once in a while. When it didn't, I collected bottles for refunds. In a few months, Len improved enough that he wanted to go back out into the world, and maybe even work. (Obviously, he wasn’t fine, but I didn’t know much about mental illness at the time.)

Once Len was ready, Jim got him an interview for a sales job at a stationery store on 14th Street, about three blocks from home. Jim also provided a tweed wool jacket he could wear to the interview, and a few dollars for a haircut.

Without Jim Reeb’s help, I don’t know what would have happened to us, but it could have been catastrophic. Later that year (1964), as were getting on our feet, Jim Reeb moved his wife and four young children to Boston so he could take a job with the American Friends Service Committee. I sent him a note through All Souls, thanking him for saving at least one of our lives.

On Sunday, March 7, 1965, Jim Reeb answered a telegram Martin Luther Kind sent to clergy across the country, asking them to join him in Selma, Alabama, and march with him to the state capital. Several hundred protestors had already run into intensive police resistance trying to reach Montgomery that weekend, and had been ordered to stop at the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma.

According to one account, “When ordered to end the march by state troopers, the marchers were given three minutes, but within one and half minutes they were attacked by dogs, beaten with Billy clubs, tear gas, and chased by posses.” (http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0214523/selmamarch.htm#second.)

Jim and two colleagues flew south the next day and, at the end of their first full day in Selma, they were beaten by a group of white men with clubs and pipes. For some reason, Jim didn't reach a hospital for several hours. He died there from his injuries three days later. He was 38.

To read a portion of the eulogy Martin Luther King gave at Jim Reeb’s memorial service, click Read More.

… [On Tuesday, March 9, after that day’s leg of the march] Reeb and two friends got some dinner in a local restaurant -- not one of the "whites only" restaurants, but one run by local black citizens. When they had eaten and left, they were walking to the church where marchers were meeting again to plan for the next day. James Reeb never made it to that meeting. Four white men attacked him on the street. His two friends recovered from being kicked and beaten, but James was struck from behind by a heavy piece of wood. It crushed the left side of his head.

At his memorial service, held in Selma on the day that President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, Martin Luther King concluded his eulogy with these remarks:

Naturally, we are compelled to ask the question, Who killed James Reeb? The answer is simple and rather limited when we think of the who. He was murdered by a few sick, demented, and misguided men who have the strange notion that you express dissent through murder. There is another haunting, poignant, desperate question we are forced to ask this afternoon. It is the question, 'What killed James Reeb? When we move from the who to the what, the blame is wide and responsibility grows…

James Reeb was murdered by the indifference of every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained glass windows. He was murdered by the irrelevancy of a church that will stand amid social evil and serve as a taillight rather than a headlight, an echo rather than a voice. He was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician who has moved down the path of demagoguery, who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.

From http://www.stolaf.edu/news/speeches/benson.html

For some recollections of Reeb’s two daughters, see
http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2008/11/12/news/doc491b50f509276949150920.txt

Fun: This Too Shall Pass

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:44:16 -0800

Here’s a little sherbet between courses, to clear the palate. Enjoy!

Perhaps the last word on health care reform

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:57:01 -0800

The New York Times
March 7, 2010
Editorial

If Reform Fails

As the fierce debate on President Obama’s plan for health care reform comes to a head, Americans should be thinking carefully about what happens if Congress fails to enact legislation.

Are they really satisfied with the status quo? And is the status quo really sustainable?

Here are some basic facts Americans need to know as Congress decides whether to approve comprehensive reform or continue with what we have:

HOW REFORM WOULD WORK: Let’s be clear, the changes Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are proposing are significant. But, despite what the critics charge, this is not a government takeover. And the program is not only fully paid for, it should actually reduce the deficit over the next two decades.

Under the new system, all people would be required to have health insurance or pay a penalty. If you are poor or middle class you would also get significant help through Medicaid coverage or tax credits to pay the premiums.

The legislation would create exchanges on which small businesses and people who buy their own coverage directly from insurers could choose from an array of private plans that would compete for their business. It would also require insurance companies to accept all applicants, even those with a pre-existing condition. And it would make a start at reforming the medical care system to improve quality and lower costs.

46 MILLION AND RISING: If nothing is done, the number of uninsured people — 46 million in 2008 — is sure to spike upward as rising medical costs and soaring premiums make policies less affordable and employers continue to drop coverage to save money.

The Congressional Budget Office projects 54 million uninsured people in 2019; the actuary for the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects 57 million.

It should be no surprise that people without insurance often postpone needed care, and many get much sicker as a result. That is morally unsustainable. It is also fiscally unsustainable for safety net hospitals — which foist much of the cost on the American taxpayer when the uninsured end up in the emergency room. As the number of uninsured rises, that bill will rise.

The Senate’s reform bill would reduce the number of uninsured by an estimated 31 million in 2019. The Republicans’ paltry proposals would cut the number by only three million.

BUT I HAVE INSURANCE: While most Americans have insurance, many pay exorbitant rates because they have no bargaining power with insurers.

That includes many of the tens of millions who buy their own insurance — the unemployed, the self-employed, and those whose employers do not offer insurance. The recently announced plan by Anthem Blue Cross in California to raise annual premiums by 35 to 39 percent for nearly a quarter of its individual subscribers is a chilling harbinger of what is to come if reform fails.

There are another 48 million people who work in relatively small firms that often cannot get the better rates of large-group coverage. All of these groups should be able to get a better deal if they can buy their insurance through new, competitive exchanges.

If current trends continue, the number of underinsured Americans — those who have coverage too skimpy to pay substantial medical bills or protect them from high out-of-pocket spending — will also rise from an estimated 25 million in 2007 to 35 million in 2011, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a respected research organization.

That will increase the risk that this group will forgo needed care and will expose many more of them to potential bankruptcy if they cannot pay huge medical bills. Some 72 million adults currently have medical debt or problems paying their bills even though most of them have insurance. Reform would help them by setting minimum standards of coverage and providing subsidies to tens of millions of low- and middle-income people to help pay their premiums.

BUT I LIKE MY INSURANCE: Most Americans get their insurance through large companies, with large group bargaining power. While they complain about premiums and paperwork, most seem satisfied with their coverage.

For them the real fear is what happens if they lose their jobs or decide to change jobs. Will they be shut out of coverage because of a pre-existing condition or forced to pay high rates to buy their own insurance?

For this group, the real advantage of reform is security. If they get laid off, decide to be self-employed or switch to a smaller employer that offers no insurance, they will still be guaranteed coverage — even if they are a cancer survivor or have heart trouble or any other pre-existing condition. And they will be able to buy insurance on the exchanges.

I’M JUST WORRIED ABOUT COSTS: You should be. The cost of medical care is rising far faster than wages or inflation. And despite all of the talk about reform “bending the curve,” no one is yet sure how to do that.

Many reforms that people instinctively believe should cut costs — computerization of medical records, paying doctors for quality not quantity of services, and prevention programs to promote healthy living and head off costly illnesses — cannot yet be shown to lower costs.

Pending reform legislation, specifically the Senate bill, would launch an array of pilot projects to test reforms in delivering and paying for care. It would also create a special board to accelerate the adoption of anything that seemed to work. That seems a reasonable way to go and a lot better than standing by as costs continue to spiral out of control. The Republicans’ proposals — including their call to cap malpractice awards — would make only a small dent in the problem.

WHAT ABOUT THE DEFICIT?: Republican critics of health care reform have done an especially good job of frightening Americans with their talk of bankrupting the Treasury. The truth of the matter is that the pending reform legislation has been designed to generate enough revenue and savings to more than offset the substantial cost of expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to the middle class.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate bill would reduce deficits over the first 10 years by $132 billion and even more in the second decade.

What critics certainly do not talk about is what happens to the deficit if Medicare costs continue their relentless rise. That is something that should keep Americans up at night.

The pending reforms would cut the growth in Medicare spending per beneficiary in half — from 4 percent a year to 2 percent — by demanding productivity savings from Medicare providers and cutting unjustified subsidies to the private plans in Medicare.

There is some skepticism that Congress will stick to its guns if health care providers say they cannot survive on the reduced rations. But Congress has stood by most previous Medicare cuts (physicians excepted) and should have its spine stiffened by new pay-go rules requiring that any Medicare increases be offset by other savings or taxes.

If reform is defeated, it seems likely that most of the proposed experiments designed to cut costs — first within Medicare and then throughout the rest of the health care system — will die as well. The legislation needs to be passed to establish a structure to force continuing improvement over the years. That is the best chance of restraining soaring medical costs that threaten the solvency of families, businesses and the federal government.

Any change as big as this is bound to cause anxiety. Republicans have happily fanned those fears with talk of “dangerous experiments” on the “best health care system in the world.” The fact is that the health care system is broken for far too many Americans. And the country cannot afford the status quo.

This editorial is a part of a comprehensive examination of the debate over health care reform. You can read all of these editorials at: nytimes.com/edhealthcare2009.

Spring has sprung?

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:28:30 -0800

The thermometer reached well into the 40s today. Can spring be far behind?

Here are a few photos taken in southern Vermont yesterday, March 4, 2010. We checked on the cabin, and everything was fine. I guess we could have cleared the patio furniture off the deck last summer, but why?

Truth in lending

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:43:55 -0800

FYI, I made a $25 loan in December to a woman in Peru through KIVA and, so far, 1/3 of it has been repaid. Thought would like to know that the KIVA loan program is legit.

When it’s fully repaid, I’ll loan the money someone else. I think this is a great way to make good use of a very small amount of money, don’t you?

Honest Scrap Award

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:42:28 -0800

Thank you, Darlene Costner, for nominating Birds on a Wire Blog for an Honest Scrap Award! It’s not every day this (or any) blog is recognized by fellow bloggers.

We join some luminaries in the awards circle, including Darlene’s own Darlene’s Hodgepodge, Tome of the Unknown Writer and many others.

In the interest of protecting the server from unwanted critters, I opted to not post a copy of the actual award on this site. (Trust me, it’s exactly as you envision it!) Still, I wanted to alert readers to the honor, and to thank Darlene for her thoughtfulness.

I promise to keep everything on this blog honest. And, I was taught at a young age that every scrap counts.

Coffee, anyone?

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:20:00 -0800

In case you’ve missed the birth of the anti-Tea Party movement, this is from today's The Guardian, in the UK:

In just a month [the Coffee Party’s] Facebook page has acquired more than 50,000 fans, and supporters of this left-of-centre alternative were logging their interest at a rate of a thousand an hour today.

On the face of it, the rivals share features beyond their beverage titles: offspring of social networking websites; self-consciously harnessing energy unleashed by populist frustrations with the political establishment; and strong views on the nature and role of government.

There the similarity ends. The Coffee Party crowd believes government is not an enemy of the people but the voice of the people.

Annabel Park, a documentary filmmaker who started up the Facebook page from Silver Spring, Maryland, said: "We want to see people representing us moving towards solutions to problems rather than strategically obstructing any form of progress."

In a video on www.coffeepartyusa.org (motto: wake up and stand up) she says she decided to act after "listening to news coverage that made it seem the Tea Party was representative of America.”

The earth moved -- really!

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:03:15 -0800

Two very interesting stories about the Chile earthquake. First, an op-ed:

In Chile, Life Between the Tremors
By ALBERTO FUGUET
Santiago, Chile

IN Santiago, we feel both lucky and guilty to have been stricken with an earthquake registering 8.0 instead of an 8.8, as it was in Maule and Bío-Bío to the south. Still, most people now keep a glass of water close by as a makeshift seismometer, to see if the rumbles they keep feeling are real or imagined.

We are as shattered as the windows and mirrors that tumbled when that 300-mile fault tore open in the middle of a late-summer night. People are shaking, living in a daze of anxiety, sadness, exhilaration, gossip and a tremendous need to connect with one another and feel that the quake is over.

It is not.

Not all the country is down. Friends got together in cracked buildings with no power for Sunday lunch with not-so-cold chardonnay, to swap stories from the front. People lined up at the local hot dog franchise, reading sold-out editions of all the local papers.

For the rest of this beautifully written witness to disaster, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02fuguet.html?hp

Second, scientists looks at the geologic importance of the event. Hold on to your hats for this one:

Chile Earthquake May Have Shortened Days on Earth
By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 02 March 2010
10:02 am ET

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update.

The story continues, at http://www.space.com/news/chile-earthquake-earth-days-100302.html

Earthquake!

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:21:26 -0800

Thinking of friends in Chile. Praying for their safety and well being.

Looking for a survivor? Google offers this search tool: