. . . y a a a a w w w w n n n . . .

I wish Ellen Goodman continued growth, one senior citizen woman to another, feminist,too. Much of the writing over the years was wonderful, but -
I hope Ellen Goodman will revisit the ideas in the column of on/about May 7, 2009 on suggesting the need for rationing health care for the old, which was distorted, and imbalanced and wrong as the comments below the article indicated.  Good luck Ellen Goodman, from one older, very ill, senior citizen feminist.

Re: KISS

Your comment: “Molly Ivins, you weren’t.
Please stay retired.”

I find your comment incredulous.  Was Ms. Goodman SUPPOSED to be Molly Ivins?  If so…. why?

I’ve enjoyed your articles and learned more than just a little by studying them.. including from your recounting of your farewell luncheon.. That is; Be careful what you commit to writing! .. it comes back to us at one time or another.

Certainly, you have less to fear on that score than many who frequent blogs and feel the need to make a contribution!

Enjoy yourself.

Molly Ivins, you weren’t.
Please stay retired.

Thank you Ellen.

The New Decade Desiderata   empirePie   January 1st, 2010

We are one people on this universe,
so step lightly.
Make your path a footpath to a garden,
in our garden home.

Go purposefully for peace requires more than silence.

The noise, confusion, and despair are our making.

Remember that peace, tranquillity, and enjoyment
don’t depend on achievement, status, or desire.

We are all one people of the universe
to cherish our many cultures and stories.
Let them enrich us to unfold in harmony
as the petals of our changing groups in time.

Avoid vexatious visionaries selling exclusionary truths
for their is no monopoly on truth.

Our choices have an impact on the universe.
We may have time to heal our spaceship home.

Choice need not be capricious.
We may choose a path of peace.
You may make your footprint on Gaia light.

We are one people on this universe
step lightly and enjoy the dance of life.

We are one people on this universe
We can make peace the choice.

casbar you left out confiscation of everyone’s assets for the good of the worker, its worked well ever country it was tried in Cuba, Russia china NKorea etal

“Declaration of Interdependence” by C. Marcus Parr

As a species, to insure our survival and well being, for the protection and restoration of our environment, for the benefit of all the people of the world, we must commit ourselves to the following:

Article One [THE GOLDEN RULE]: We must devote ourselves to nonviolence against fellow living beings.

Article Two: Resources that nation-states devote to the manufacture and deployment of war-making materiel must be redirected to peaceful means for an investment in the well-being, education, happiness, and health of all people.

Article Three: [TRUE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM]: Wealth must be deemed an unacceptable condition in the presence of human suffering, poverty, and/or disease. In order to eliminate inequities between the rich and poor, and toward the redistribution of all wealth, to that end we must create an economic system in which no one is “too rich” and no one is “too poor.”

Article Four: All organized religions and cults that preach a gospel of favoring one group over another must be either changed or banned. References to war, discrimination, and violence must be stricken from all “holy” scripts, and the religious practice of violence in word, practice or deed against another human being or group must be strictly prohibited and enforced against.

Article Five: Language must no longer be manipulated to propagandize, persuade, or influence people to kill others, consume conspicuously, waste resources, and act to dominate or enslave other human beings.

Article Six: Education, including self-improvement leading ultimately toward self-realization, must become the central focus of human endeavor for the enrichment of human intellect. What is spent on the practice of war and violence must be redirected toward cultivating the intellects and creative talents of all people.

Article Seven: We must limit the runaway growth of world population.

Article Eight: We must eliminate all poverty, human suffering and disease.

Article Nine: We must become more self-reliant and considerate to the preservation of natural resources.

Article Ten: Although admittedly all of these proposed articles cannot be implemented at once, immediately, we must dedicate ourselves, our resources, to work toward a world in which peace prevails everywhere, where human beings have dignity, where intelligence and talent is highly valued, where the arts are universally supported, and where people may live non-violently and in harmony with the natural order of the world environment.

DieDaily, January 2 at 5:28 am

You need to remember the original definition of a
yuppy; A yuppy is a hippy who discovered money.
But not all of us went over to the dark side.

Don’t give up that deadline ... just make it your own.  Enjoy that Maine summer and then tell us about it.  Find challenging assignments for yourself and then dive head long into them.  You have spent a lifetime on the front lines and now you can take all that knowledge, all that experience and help us, young and old, make sense of the insanity we see everywhere.  There are so few voices of reason anymore ... we need your as a counterweight to the shrill and stupid.

Don’t take this the wrong way, I appreciate your efforts, but:

1. Your generation’s accomplishment vis. civil liberties have been undone [by your generation]

2. Enjoy your actuarial, your generation’s legacy is that our generation will all die younger that you. Ours is the first generation this is true of. Congrats on that.

3. As hippies you did wonders. As yuppies you destroyed us.

4. As the Rep/Dem cycle continued and inverted interminably while nothing changed, you remained divided and passed along the illusion that there is a left vs. a right. How could you people not have noticed?

5. Now it’s liberal to make war as long as the war leader is a minority (sort of a minority, 6% I gather). Now it’s liberal to support GMO foods and obey lobbyists. Now it’s liberal to fight the war on drugs.

Please don’t stop writing. Please just look back and realize what it is you should have been writing about and start doing so. It’s never too late to rebuild your karma. And don’t worry, your legacy will ensure that you will outlive many, many, many people much younger than you.

What am i going to use to line by bird and rabbit cages now that she no longer writes

Thank you, Ellen, for all you gave to us. It was valued even when it was too often
unacknowledged.

They say that with age comes wisdom.  I feel like I have just read not the last writings of Ms. Goodman, but the beginning of writings that will share that wisdom.  As one poster pointed out, writers do not cease to write - in fact we cannot, there always seems to be something left to say.  I have agreed with most of what Ms Goodman has written over the years, and disagreed with some.  But as she points out, at a certain age, we allow ourselves to own what we have learned, and let ourselves live with it.  This is the first sign of wisdom.  Now comes the adventure to share that wisdom with others and to use it to make our world a better place through not just words, but actions.  That is the lesson of this generation, and it may be the most important lesson of life - you change, you evolve, and you can change the world.  Good Luck, as you let go, Ms. Goodman.  May you share your wisdom with the rest of us for a long time to come.

Well it seems my favorite restaurants close to never return, though writers can write until the cats come home, how does one retire from writing? Become a Monk or a Nun and contemplate life?

Years ago when I worked in the city, across the street from the warehouse I worked, the street was lined with two and three story houses which sat right on the side walk no lawns or gardens.  The garage doors opening to the side walk. This was in San Francisco Marina District.  Every day an old Italian guy named Geno would sit in his chair with the garage door open and when asked how he was doing he would always reply with the same thing, “Just waiting to die”.

Retirement does not have to be like Geno’s, good luck Ellen.

Ellen Goodman

Editor’s note: This is Ellen Goodman’s final column.
=================================================

As one who has recently retired; I would offer that
the end of one thing is the beginning of another. Go
gracefully from a life of striving to a life of contemplation and reflection. Do not lessen the
passion for living; but rather mature it to a passion
of understanding. And let that be your cause to
continue the fight for the thing that drives you.

One thing should be crystal clear is that politics, at this point in America, is an abysmal failure. Our political parties have been bought out by the corporations, who have not only poisoned almost everthing we consume, but have taken control of the federal agencies that are supposed to protect us from them. 

Progessives, who were supposed to be different than Republicans turned out to be, not only be spineless, but devoid of the guts to represent the people who voted for them. Favoring instead, symbolic posturing, and rhetoric, while their country disintegrates.

Interesting, that you mentioned Gay marriage in Mexico. It’s just another example of how progessives fail to support real civil rights, and instead talk out of both sides of their mouths. 

So where is the legislation, where is the bill, where are the speeches, where is the action to suggest, that the Democratic leadership, the progressive leadership will do anything, until the next election?

It’s sad that our ageing population, will face an nation in marked decline, more concerned with monitoring their phone calls, as they starve in the cold, while their pensions, and homes are canabalized to support the corporate right.

No wonder Democrats, call themselves progressives, it’s a safe, bland alternative, that provides a cameleon like cover to their political identity. 

Bascially, what it boils down to, is I got mine, so now I’ll no longer take any responsibility for the mess were in.

Don’t let the soreheads spoil it for you!

“Good night and good luck!”

I doubt we’ve seen or heard the last of such an eloquent proponent of progressivism. At least I hope not.

Re: Ms. Goodman

Quote: “We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives.”

Well put.  We own our lives.  Agree or disagree, the BEST OF US own it.  The better parts of the humanity have definitely engaged this reality and have stepped up reality.  Put in gambling terms we’ve “upped the ante”.  My premise is that as “older folks” we need to double down, not ideologically but moreso because necessity dictates.  (Some say you work harder in retirement….)

I have HOPE….lol.  All rhetoric aside, I do.  I have hope.  You bet I do, and it’d be ignorant to consider that there isn’t an ARMY of caring, concerned and educated people, America and otherwise…. that demand justice.

I had an ex-friend who told me that he couldn’t wait to get old simply because…. according to him “you DON’T argue with ol’ folks”......  Truthfully, there’s truth and POWER in his premise…. could the “ol’ folks” be a force to be reckoned with…?  I couldn’t refute it, can you?

Happy New Year to ALL.  Enjoy.

“We’ve been the change agents for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights.”

Stop patting yourself on the back and look around. We are still in the stone age with those issues. Argentina and Mexico City support gay marriage and we have a president who is afraid to set aside “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Religious pressures on pubic policy rival Muslim countries. Our drug laws continue to destroy entire communities and consequently we incarcerate the highest percentage of our population in jail. And like China and Muslim countries, we are the sole supporters of capital punishment.

The state of women’s rights is summed up in the fact that Sarah Palin is the second most admired woman in the U.S.

And you have the gall to trumpet all that your generation has accomplished?

hello. may God bless you with the rewards of continuing along your lifetimes, with peace and tranquility, until you have to write again. i pray you use your skills to invoke your interpretation of life into a thought provoking soliloquy, and never fall away from a feeling of usefulness; and grow with time.