Updates On Funeral Arrangements

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has written to express condolences and/or those who have generously donated to help us get through these last few days. It has meant a great deal to Cathy's family and I not to have to worry about money on top of everything else.

Catherine is being cremated tomorrow, her family is arriving tomorrow evening and we will be leaving for Orlando on Sunday. Her ashes will be interred with her mother, as per her wishes. When my time comes, I will also be cremated and my ashes mixed with hers. The burial ceremony will take place Monday afternoon at 2:00 pm.

For those of you who care to send flowers, here is the address of the cemetery:

Glenhaven Memorial Park
2300 Temple Drive
Winter Park, Fl 32789
407-647-1100
Plot area: Sect. T, Arch & Cross, Column Barium, West Elevation, Line 5, Niche 11b

For our friends in the Atlanta area, there will be a Shiva/Wake next Saturday. As this will be at a private residence with limited space, it will be open to friends and family only, so my apologies to those of you in the blogosphere who might wish to attend.

Once more, on behalf of Catherine and myself, I want to thank everyone who has sent their condolences and/or donated.

Dealing With It

So here I am and it's 1 a.m. and even though I got up at 8:30 this morning and I'm dead tired I still can't sleep. I haven't been able to sleep properly for the not quite three months since Cathy went into the hospital. Funny, I slept alone all of my life until she came to be with me, and at first I was worried whether or not I would be comfortable with someone else in my bed. Now, after five years of being together almost every night, I'm uncomfortable without having someone to reach over to.

My friend Phyllis Huster told me how remarkably strong I've been through all of this, and to be honest I'm taking it all a lot more calmly than I expected. Maybe it's because I had an idea how bad off Cathy was and I've been mentally prepared for it, maybe it's because, as always, I handle the big things much better than the small things, I don't know. But one day soon, I think, it's really going to hit me and I wonder how I'll react. Because Cathy and I were perfect together, we were absolutely comfortable with each other's company, and even on the rare occasions where we were mad at each other (and that happens to every couple regardless of how much in love they are) we never, ever doubted how we felt about each other. We had the kind of relationship where we could tell each other anything, anything and not have to worry about it. That's a rare and precious thing, and even though we only had it for a short time we're both happy we had it at all.

But thanks to so many of you, I know I won't have to deal with it alone. From the bottom of my heart, I'm glad you're out there. And if Cathy is indeed looking down on us from elsewhere, I know she would say thank you, too.

Catherine Susan Vecchio 1959-2005

She was my wife, the only woman I have ever loved, the only woman I will ever love. She was the most selfless person I have ever known, totally devoted to her children and to me. I don't have the words to express how empty my life will be without her, and the short time we were together were happy days for each of us despite her persistent illness and our poverty. She was the kind of person the world needs more of.

Her spirit still lives on in me. Whenever I hear a good joke I will recall how she would laugh (or groan), whenever I hear a romantic or sad song I will remember how she would put her arms around me. I will still reach out for her late at night, because she will still be with me. And if there is an afterlife I know I will meet her there when my time comes.

The good people at Grady Memorial Hospital did a fantastic job keeping Cathy alive as long as they did. If you can, please donate to them in her name in recognition of the wonderful work they do.

Update: Even though it's possible the state will handle the bulk of the costs for her cremation, there are still expenses involved and as you all know I have been out of work for quite some time. Some of you have donated already, and I thank you for that, but if you care to make a donation you can do so here. I can use all the help I can get.

Catherine's ashes will be placed at her mother's grave site in the Orlando, Florida area, if all goes as planned that will happen Monday. At present I plan to have a memorial service for her in Atlanta over the weekend as soon as I can find a place to hold it, details will be up as soon as I know. The service will be a simple, informal one where we will share stories about Cathy and socialize in general.

Updates

My wife has taken a turn for the worse, so obviously I've been a bit distracted these last few days. Just FYI.

Further Update:
My wife is still in critical but stable condition, though she seems to have passed through the worst of it over the weekend. The road to recovery for her will be long and dangerous, though in my heart I know she is strong enough to endure it. She is in what the doctors call "third stage", a lethargic, semi-comatose state that allows the body to heal. I've decided to just stay home (for the most part) and let the doctors do their work: I can't do anything for her, and if I'm going to be a nervous wreck it's best I do it in private, and not hassle the doctors. Also I know they are fighting for her as hard as I would if I were a doctor. I call twice or more every day to check on her.

My mood changes from day to day, sometimes depressed, sometimes calm, but the hardest part is just not knowing. Every time the phone rings I get nervous, and it's impossible for me to think of anything long-term until the situation resolves itself one way or the other. I've tried to do some recording and some writing but every time I start I have trouble concentrating. So again, please just bear with me until this crisis is over.

Go Figure

It's funny the things that get me upset. Big things rarely bother me: for example, a few years back when my wife had an accident and wrecked the car (she was unharmed, the car was totalled), I didn't get angry with her. I've been through a couple of evictions and some financial disasters that would have sent some people into an emotional tailspin, but it never seems to faze me.

And yet, I get very angry over the most ridiculous things. I get road rage. Hell, I get sidewalk rage: I absolutely hate it when people get in my way when I'm walking, even when I'm not in a hurry. Today I was screaming at the TV when the Braves blew a four-run lead in the bottom of the eighth, and even though they wound up winning the game anyway I was just furious that they couldn't hold a lead.

Is anyone else like that? I mean, the things I get angry at are the most trivial things, is being angry at that stuff the way I deal with the bigger stuff? Or am I just an asshole? Probably a bit of both.

Four Years Later

I'm really far too involved with personal issues to write a long dissertation about the fourth anniversary of the biggest terrorist attack on the United States. Of all the ones I have seen so far, this one by Juan Cole is, I think, the best. But I think that if anyone who is not a member of the Bush cult takes a good look and asks themselves two questions: Are we safer now? and Am I better off now? since 9/11, I think I can safely say that the overwhelming majority of answers would be "NO."

The bigger question, whether the GOP will ever pay for the combination of hubris and incompetence that got us into the mess in Iraq and cost us a major city, will be answered a year and a month or so from now.

SPQA

The so-called "History Channel" is doing a series of specials on ancient Rome this week, I watched the first one yesterday about their brilliance in architecture. Today they had a piece on vice and sex, which was far more boring, mostly because they did their best to gloss over a lot of stuff. They can show a guy with a sword through his gut but they have to blur a picture of a fresco showing a sex scene. Good old American hypocrisy at work.

Anyway, the whole thing got me to thinking about the inevitable comparisons between Rome and America. I still make them from time to time as part of the larger point I usually try to make about how humans haven't changed a whole hell of a lot since the days of Julius Caesar: hell they haven't changed a hell of a lot since the days of Assyria and Babylon, days before even the great Egyptian Empire. The only real difference between then and now is technology.

But from a political and cultural point of view, there are still some important similarities between ancient Rome and modern America. Rome began as a Republic, yet they had slaves. So did we. And even though we technically threw off the chains of our slaves almost a century after our Republic was founded, slavery still existed in the sense of indentured servitude and Jim Crow segregation. Even during the era when the "working man" gained more control over his life, that control did not extend to every member of our society.

For Rome, the change from Republic to Empire did not happen overnight. The years before Julius Caesar were a tumultuous time for Romans: politics was becoming more and more violent as Rome's wealth and power grew. It became a game that could only be played by those with great wealth or who had an army to enforce its will. Eventually enough people decided that they had their own problems to deal with and that they couldn't do anything about politics, so they simply abdicated their responsibilities as citizens and allowed themselves to be ruled by all-powerful Emperors.

You can see that change happening here and now. The Washington establishment: that is to say, the political leadership of the Republicans and Democrats, the financial backers and lobbyists who work behind the scenes, and the people who report on them, operate in a world very different from the lives of people elsewhere in America. A world where a President can make tasteless jokes about why he went to war. A world where the reporters whose primary responsibility is to keep the public informed will laugh at those jokes. A world completely insulated from the disastrous effects of bad power politics and bad policies. A world not unlike that of Rome's nobility.

How we react to the disaster of New Orleans is going to determine the future of this country. Already the powers that be have been absolved of responsibility for their lack of preparedness (or complicity?) that allowed 9/11 to happen, the inability to apprehend those responsible, the hubris that involved us in an aggressive, imperialistic war with Iraq and the incompetent handling of it. If they escape responsibility for the fiasco that has practically destroyed New Orleans, they will continue to believe that they can get away with anything, and that will make them bolder still. And judging from what I have seen, it's quite possible that they are indeed getting away with it.

In giving up their power as citizens, the Romans asked only that the Emperors leave them alone; that the civil service would keep the roads in repair, that there was food enough to eat, that there was plenty of entertainment, and that they could be free to live their lives in peace as long as they posed no threat to the elite class. That's all most of us want, too: let the politicians play their games, we have better things to do with our lives.

But it doesn't work that way. Thucydides, in his journals on the Peloponnesian Wars years before Rome, wrote that those who have money and power are always hungry for more of either. Things haven't changed since then. George W. Bush has as much wealth and power as any man can possibly have, yet he and his allies still want more. The "why" of it isn't important, that's the fact. How we deal with that is up to us.

Keenun Thomas 1970 (?) - 2005

Only a few local readers of this blog knew Keenun, I only met him a few times in conjunction with the DeKalb County Democratic Party and I was instantly impressed with him. That's him on the right, standing next to Gov. Howard Dean. He was a strong, talented, and dedicated activist, the type of person we have too few of already and can scarcely afford to lose now.

A memorial service for him will be held Wednesday, Sept. 7th at 8:00 pm at the Community Center at 139 Ralph McGill Blvd. here in Atlanta.

Goodbye, Keenun. We'll miss you.

Updates

As you can see, some of the graphics are back up, and you can stream the show again, thanks to a listener who will remain anonymous at his request. Unless bandwidth is a problem, the show will remain where it is until DirectNic gets back up again, which may take a while. But as I said, they have far more important issues in New Orleans right now.

Reagan Was Partly Right

Republican governments are the problem.

FYI

Apparently, the server that hosts the site I keep the show on (DirectNic) is based in New Orleans, which is why you're not seeing some of the graphics, and also why you won't be able to listen to the show. The blog itself runs off Blogspot, of course, so it's not affected. For those of you trying to listen, I'm sorry, but obviously there are far more urgent issues in New Orleans than getting the server back on the air. I'll see if I can make some other arrangements, but if I can't, well it'll be back when it's back.

Ethnic Cleansing

Numerous and horrifying reports on the news are showing that thousands of people in New Orleans are stranded and many are dying because no one, apparently, can evacuate them. Most, if not all, of these people are those who couldn't leave the city because they couldn't afford transportation or because they were unable to move for medical reasons. Most of them are black. They are being left to die because the Bush administration, the Republican leadership, their financial backers, and the assorted delusional fools that vote for them love the idea of social Darwinism even if they reject evolution. The black are poor because they're lazy. The poor and the sick deserve to die because they're weighing the rest of us down. The government not only has no right to interfere with this ethnic cleansing, they should encourage it, weeding out the lazy and the weak to make us stronger. Never forget: this is what they believe, and if they can't kill us outright, they're perfectly happy to let us die by attrition. Those who die in New Orleans don't even count as human beings.

New Orlean's environmental situation was well known for years, and steps could have been taken to alleviate it, but because it was costly and went against the ideological skew of some people, nothing happened. Meanwhile, George W. Bush plays his guitar and Condi Rice buys shoes. Is this the America so many millions died for? If it is, I don't want to be an American any more.

Some Personal Notes

Haven't had much of anything to say in a while after a flurry of activity last week. Mostly I'm just depressed. I get into funks like that sometimes as I know many people who suffer from depression do: you just don't feel like getting up or doing anything. It can weigh down on me pretty hard. But I've had enough experience with depression to know that there's nothing for me to do but to let it run it's course, which it kinda sorta did the day before yesterday.

Before I went to visit Cathy yesterday, I went down to talk to the lawyer who's handling her disability case. He wasn't in but I spoke with one of his paralegals, a very nice young lady who had a fantastic view of Atlanta from her 19th floor office; the kind of view that makes it difficult to work. Anyway, I explained that Cathy was in the hospital and asked if there as any information they needed from us as far as medical history or general condition is concerned, and if there was a way to expedite the proceedings (it takes months just to get to the hearing stage when applying for disability, it can take months just waiting to get a hearing once you reach that stage. My wife first applied for disability nearly two years ago). I was told that the lawyer had seen her medical records and has written a letter asking the judge to issue a ruling without a hearing. This is good, because Cathy is in no condition to attend any hearings. And as I believe I have mentioned before, if she gets accepted, she will receive benefits retroactive to when she first applied for them, so depending on how much they authorize monthly, our first check could be anywhere from $25,000-30,000, part of which will pay the lawyers. The rest will go towards back rent, and then we can figure out where we go from there.

The paralegal said that considering what she has seen, she believes we are almost certain to get approved. That would be good, because her illness combined with a lousy economy and my shortcomings in finding and holding employment have put a terrific strain on our finances. Well, really, that's putting it mildly. We owe a ton of money in back rent, and I can't even think about that right now: we're negative in the bank account, I have a final car insurance premium to pay (the balance owed before I had her scrapped last week), plus the phone bill is a week late, I don't know how long it will be before we're cut off. And since today is the first of September, my August bus pass is no longer any good, which means I won't even be able to visit Cathy. All that combined, I need about $400 just to take care of these immediate expenses, so if anyone wants to help out a bit please do so here.

Finally, I have been watching the events in New Orleans, and I wish I could do more than just offer my prayers and my sympathies to the thousands who have lost their homes, and perhaps their city as well. I've never been to New Orleans so I don't have any personal experience s to relate, but I know it's a very special city and if they decide it's not worth saving it will be a great loss. I'll let others talk more in detail about how we need to start taking the environment a lot more seriously than we do.

Anyway, that's it for me for the present. Since I will be home the next couple of days or so I should get the opportunity to do some writing and even record a couple of shows.