UM’s Most Popular Post So Far

I thought it be interesting to see, since I hadn’t written for a while, which of my archived posts was getting the most on-going traffic since Unsigned Masterpiece began in July of 2008.

It is “Sorry for Any Inconvenience” posted October 20, 2008. Here it is:

Sorry for Any Inconveninece….

In my opinion, “Sorry for any inconvenience.” has to be one of the most insincere phrases in the English language, tossed off usually in a manner that leads you to believe the person, corporation, telephone company, cable provider or government service is anything but sorry.

In that vein here is an announcement from the government of my home province. For some reason, it makes me think about the CAS – that’s Children’s Aid Society – and asking them how they feel about issuing a few apologies.

Attorney General Chris Bentley says a proposed apology act for the province would help make the justice system more affordable and punctual.

The provincial government last week rolled out proposed legislation that would remove the risk of civil court liability for individuals and organizations that issue apologies.

The government said the new law would help victims’ recovery, improve accountability and transparency in the health-care sector, and aid the justice system by “fostering the resolution of civil disputes and shortening or avoiding litigation.”

Bentley said, “The goal of the legislation is to encourage sincere apologies — saying sorry for a mistake or wrongdoing is the right thing to do.”

So maybe I should call the CAS. Let’s see what would I ask them to apologize for. Maybe the fact that they knew at the time I had my son that there were no Catholic homes looking to adopt a child. Maybe for not telling me that they had a policy that said he could not be adopted by a family of another faith. And for not telling me that my son, therefore, would go straight to foster care. And that he sat for almost 10 months until finally a family showed up. Not the perfect family, just the first one.

Yes that might be a good place to start. They should apologize don’t you think.

After all, it’s not going to cost them anything.

Peace

UM

Twittering like a little birdie….

I was in New York recently and ran in for a whirlwind tour of the MoMA on my first night in town -  Friday night when it’s free (Courtesy of the good folks at Target.)

One of the pictures there was called Twittering Machine.  It’s by Paul Klee.

This is what the MoMA Highlights book says about it:

The twittering in the title doubtless refers to the birds while the machine is suggested by the hand crank.  The two elements are literally a fusing of the natural with the industrial world.  Each bird stands with its beak open, poised as if to announce the exact moment when the misty cool blue of the night gives way to the pink dawn.  The scene evokes an abbreviated pastoral – but the birds are schackled to their perch, which is in turn connected to the hand crank.

Upon closer inspection however an uneasy sensation of looming menace begins to manifest itself.  Composed of a wiry nervous line, these creatures bear a resemblance to birds only in their beaks and their feathered silhouettes; they appear closer to deformations of nature.  The hand crank conjures up the idea that this “machine” is a music box, where the birds function as bait to lure victims to the pit over which the machine hovers. We can imagine the fiendish cacophony made by the shrieking birds, their legs drawn thin and taught as they strain against the machine to which they are fused.

…In Twittering Machine,  Klee’s affinity for the contrasting sensibilities of humour and monstrosity converges with formal elements to create a work as intriguing in its technical composition as it is in its multiplicity of meanings.

This made me think, of course, of the latest social networking phenomenon – Twitter – on a number of levels.   Do the folks at Twitter have an  artsy  sense of humour?  Are people being lured into something they think is one thing when it is really something else.  Who we are and what we are doing is a valuable commodity these days when the advertising how-to book is being re-written every day.

In the Wikipedia entry on Twitter I read this:

Privacy and Security

Twitter collects personally identifiable information about its users and shares it with third parties. Twitter considers that information an asset, and reserves the right to sell it if the company changes hands.

I’m a little concerned about that.

Do I need to draw you a picture?

Peace

UM

The Credit Crisis….

Where to start? Where to start?

There are many draft posts here on my good old Unsigned Masterpiece WordPress site.   Some about my son.  Some about my father, who died on January 7th.  Some about my father and my son who could be twins.   Some about how my father never really got to know my son because – well – because of all the stupid reasons that existed when my son was born.

During the month after my father died, every day mail arrived telling us that he was in debt to an extent none of us could have imagined.  As much as you are thinking; it is more than that.  Dealing with this crisis, adding up accounts, consulting with lawyers, wiped out the main event, the death of my father.  No one, not even my mother, (She swears and I believe her.) knew the extent of the problem.

How my father lived with this secret I do not know.  He was not well but I think in the end it killed him.  Time was running out.  Credit card companies who let him run up way more debt than a man of his income should ever have been permitted to run up were starting to cut him off.

January and most of February I wondered at times if I was going to have a stroke, a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.  I phoned my doctor’s office and said I either needed drugs or a long talk with her. (Regular readers, if there are any of you left out there, will know that she is a very wise woman.)

My family doctor is the one who would say “That’s abandonment talking,” when I told her things my son was writing to me in his emails.  And still not one to mince words, when I told her about my dad, she said, “That’s quite a betrayal.”  And that’s exactly how it felt.

She didn’t give me drugs of course.  I didn’t ask for them and even if I had she would have said no because she is a wise woman.  But she did tell me you need to grieve and that is where I am running into trouble.  I feel nothing. Angry.  I don’t know.  I see a picture of my father and I think – whatever.  How could you do this?

I said to my doctor that I thought pride kept my father from telling anyone what was going on.  She said, “It wasn’t pride, it was shame.”

Shame – that’s a familiar word.

Everyone else in my immediate family wants it to be a family secret.  After he died, we got many letters from cousins or kids I grew up with, even one from my son’s father, saying what a great and good guy he was.   The cousins all said he was their favourite uncle.  Everyone mentioned his great sense of humour.  He did have a wonderful sense of humour.  It’s true.  They all thought he was a hell of a great guy.   His best friend since the age of 12 was in tears.

But having been the subject of the last BIG FAMILY SECRET, I have no desire to go down that road again. So they are silent but I am talking.  Talking to my close friends about my own little version of the credit crunch, the greed of credit card companies who, realizing they had a money maker, encouraged him to get ever deeper into debt.

In his desk drawer, I found letter after letter from one credit card company saying “Now every day can be payday.” and enclosing cheques that would allow him to increase his debt to them, by paying off someone else.  At the end, I think he was borrowing from one to pay another and the day before he died it  was all starting to collapse around him like a house of cards.  He was not a big spender.  I think he just got into some trouble and then the interest and the silence did him in.

I feel sick to my stomach when I see a credit card bill now.  And I pay mine off every month!

I overreact in the bank when the very nice and friendly teller suggests I could put overdraft protect on my chequing  account “for free.”

“No,” I say in a voice that is way too loud.  “I don’t want that.”  And then I tell her about about my father.

My doctor says this is happening all over the place.  So many people, so over extended, owing money they cannot possibly pay back.

At some point you have to wonder who is responsible.  We all are responsible for our own lives but I think the people who held out the equivalent of a drink to an alcoholic in the form of every increasing credit limits unsupported by income deserve to take a large part of the blame.

Watch This Space

UM returns March 15th

This little light of mine…

Well I have had time to think in my little hiatus. The year ended with the death of another friend who was only 51 years old. She had been struggling valiantly over the past eight years against breast cancer but lost the fight mid-December. The end of the year is also the time of my son’s birthday. I sent him a present and good wishes from all of us here but we have heard nothing. I can only hope some deserving homeless person got the benefit of the gift we sent.

But onwards and upwards…

This is one of the things I wanted to write about but never quite made it.

The death of Odetta in December.

Odetta played a role in my life, although she didn’t know it. A few years ago, maybe seven or eight, I was in a small city. There wasn’t too much going on but I noticed there was a music festival and that Odetta was appearing at it. Her name was familiar and I knew she was a big deal in the sixties, she sang at the march on Washington etc. so off I went to see her. She put on a good show, singing and sharing stories from her life.

For her last encore she sang what I guess was a big hit for her back then, This Little Light of Mine. I didn’t remember her singing it particularly over the years, more memories of singing it around campfires. But when she started to sing and invited us all to join in, the tears started falling because I knew I was not letting my light shine.

Those of you who are birth mothers out there know we are pretty good at putting a clamp on our emotions. It is the only way some of us have survived. But I recognized for the first time listening to that song that I must make some changes in my life. I was in a job I didn’t like very much, not because of the work, but because of the boss. I was hanging in hoping things would get better. But after listening to Odetta I acted. I got out of that job, I took a creative writing course, I won a prize, I had a play produced, etc.

I feel I owe some of it to Odetta.

I heard she was not well but was trying to last until Obama’s inauguration. Unfortunately she didn’t make it but I’m sure she will be there in spirit.

Peace

UM