THE GIFT OF THE MAGI by O. Henry: Wishing you the spirit of Christmas.

 

The Gift of the Magi

O. Henry

1905

         One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

     There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

     While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.

     In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

     The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

     Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. To-morrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling - something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.

     There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 Bat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

     Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

     Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

     So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

     On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she cluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street.

     Where she stopped the sign read: 'Mme Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.' One Eight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the 'Sofronie.'

     "Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

     "I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

     Down rippled the brown cascade.

     "Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

     "Give it to me quick" said Della.

     Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

     She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation - as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value - the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 78 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

     When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task dear friends - a mammoth task.

     Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

     "If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do - oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"

     At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

     Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please, God, make him think I am still pretty."

     The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two - and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was with out gloves.

     Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

     Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

     "Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again - you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

     "You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labour.

     "Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

     Jim looked about the room curiously.

     "You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

     "You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you - sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

     Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year - what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

     Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

     "Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

     White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

     For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jewelled rims - just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

     But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

     And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

     Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to {lash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

     "Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

     Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

     "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

     The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfully wise men - who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL.

Poop makes the world go 'round... or so it seems. (Parental alert: This blog contains a little potty humor... not unlike TV's Charmin commercials. )

Let's get one thing straight right upfront... we all poop. 

But I suppose what distinguishes us humans is our sophistication. We are the only animal that uses toilet paper. Oh, and we don't eat ours as is common of the 'lesser species.' Woohoo! We are on the top rung on the ladder of life which we regularly prove once or twice every day.

There is more to say of course, but first, a little story to showcase my expertise on the matter so you know you are hearing from a pro: A number of  years ago, my wife and I were walking our dogs with our son and his dogs. Along the way, two of the dogs pooped at the same time. As our son dug for the plastic sack every good pet owner carries, my wife held him back saying, "Jerry's got it. He is the King of Poop."

Of course! At that moment it dawned on me that I had found my true self and was justifiably proud. I did my thing with a flourish (high fives, etc.) Then I thought, wait  a second. King of Poop. What is better than that? I guess I could go for my brown belt and become the Ace of Poop. And with a little hard work and lot of practice, maybe the ultimate.... the mustard-yellow belt. I could become the Joker of Poop... or am I already there?

Yes, many animals eat their own and others' poop with relish (not the condiment but the emotion.) Why? Because it tastes good to them. What dog doesn't love deer poop? It tastes sweet, I was told, though I have no personal experience in the matter. Makes me wonder how 'they' know. 

Must have been something he ate.

Gorillas have been seen catching other gorillas in the act and whisking it into their mouths before it hit the ground and got all 'germy' and cold. (True!) People expert in the field say they seem to savor every chew.

The Koster Site 

Way back in my working life I helped an archeologist publishing a magazine that served his field. In return I was invited to come with him to the Koster Dig, a prehistoric archeologist site on the U.S. national register of historic places, at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi river near St. Louis. 

There I saw dozens of working archeologists and college volunteers, patiently and with dedication, using small brushes to help sift through and examine every inch earth from many different shallow and deeper depressions, in search for answers. Who once lived there and what was that like? At the Koster site, their meticulous work has uncovered 25 'horizons' or strata of civilization that occupied that fertile valley, amazingly going back to the archaic period, BC 7500!

They find human and animal bones, shards of clay pots, arrowheads and other early tools, evidence of housing and some of everything used by its prehistoric occupants. They were able to track migration and much more by looking at long-dried feces and noted eating habits. They found fruit pits, digested seeds and remnants of anything that may have come from different parts of the continent and elsewhere in the world. They used every clue and indicator the earth left for them. When all was put together in context, they could understand who these people were, where they came from, how they got there, wars they fought, how they lived and how they died.

From what they continue to find they are building a comprehensive history of past civilizations in that area.

It was all totally amazing... and poop was one of the primary indicators. "It talked to us," I was told. Imagine, history written in talking poop? I can only imagine. 

So what do you think of poop now? 

I feel like Rocky atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as I raise my arms in triumph and proudly proclaim, I AM THE JOKER OF POOP! (Has anyone heard when the statue goes up?)

A tale of two worlds... and I forbid you to say, "Yes, but... " in response to the second world.

This is MacKenzie Scott. She was married to the world's richest man, Amazon's Jeff Bezos until recently. She is the world's richest woman at somewhere around $60 billion net worth.

Don't feel too bad for ex-husband, Jeff Bezos. Even though his amicable divorce cost him billions, he remains the world's richest man, having to get by on only $113 billion. If he were to see a one-million dollar bill (not that there is one, because there isn't) lying on the street, it would cost him more--measured in time spent in the effort to pick it up--than he would typically earn for that moment. That's how rich he is.

What does one do with all that money? The answer: anything he/she wants, pretty much.

While I have repeatedly talked about how the most rich have benefitted by every tax break and option in life to increase wealth, which they have, many have shown a benevolent side. MacKenzie Scott has, in the last few months, given $4.1 billion to 384 most worthy causes helping fulfill basic needs for many Americans struggling in these times.

"This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling," she says. "Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires."

Recipients of her 'no strings attached' benevolence include community colleges and universities like Blackfeet Community College in Montana; food banks and meal providers like Feeding America, America's Second Harvest and Meals on Wheels' and other non-profits.

Many billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are benevolent with large foundations organized to donate to worthy causes in the United States and around the world to fight poverty, disease and hunger. Some donate to further their own interests and political influences. Those who have billions can spend without fear of going hungry. It would seem that no billionaire can go broke even if they tried.

That is the world at the top.

This is the world at the bottom as told by one incredibly articulate woman who lives it. 

No writer could tell her story better than she does. Watch! It's just five minutes long-- five of the most real and revealing  minutes you might ever spend. This is Amy Jo Hutchison of West Virginia giving her testimony on February 12, 2020 in front of a Congressional Committee on Oversight and reform about poverty guidelines in America.

Watch here... and don't say "Yes, but... " when finished. 

(you can "skip ads" after a few seconds.)

This is the same America, isn't it? Depends on who you ask. Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour remains unchanged for the last 11 1/2 years. The cost of living has risen 23.4 percent in that same time. Really! We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

I have a brilliant win-win idea that will make a big difference in today's world... really I do.

 

Have you ever seen a change belt?

 But first, a riddle (everybody loves a riddle, right?) for you to   solve which gives a hint of how this great idea came about:

Q.  How much change could you have in your pocket (or purse) and still not be able to make change for a dollar?

A.  Answer at the bottom of this post. If you get it right (or wrong), then you, my friend, get your second cup of coffee free at McDonalds.

Now you may ask, what problem (one at a time please) are we going to solve?

About 26 million Americans don't have enough to eat each week according to the latest census data. So many children need food assistance, breakfast and lunch, at school or they go home hungry. Many non-profits, religious groups, food kitchens run by volunteers, food banks and other benevolent actions are working as hard as they can to fill that void but there is much more help needed as the scale is just too great. The enormous effort this Christmas time is evident and more-so is the need.

According to The Washington Post, "We're long past the old debates about welfare and self-reliance. Thousands of Walmart and McDonald's employees count on SNAP food stamps to feed themselves and their families.

"What is the federal government doing about this crisis hitting 1 in 10 U.S. adults? Not nearly enough. The federal government gives food banks just $500 million in a normal year. That's about $20 per hungry American (children included) a year. Now, in this pandemic, Congress is struggling to raise SNAP by 15 percent, which would add just 80 cents to the maximum daily benefit for each member of a family of four. Thats literally less than a can of beans."

Now, to my brilliant idea:

I started this blog post titled, "The Day I Stopped Using Change," before I realized this could turn into something much more meaningful. I literally stopped using change (pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters) early in this pandemic. Seldom do you see a half-dollar. 

So the person at the McDonald's drive-thru window says your order comes to $6.31. You hand in seven dollars. What do you do with your change--4 pennies, 1 dime, 1 nickel and 2 quarters perhaps--because that's what the cash register said you got back. Sadly, many can't make change in their heads easily today. Or, write cursive... but that's another story.

Now you have a bag with sausage biscuits, a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee. Then you get a receipt and a fist-full (8) of coins. You really need three hands, but you manage. Some change falls on the floor or goes between the seats never to be spent again. Sound familiar?

There must be a better option. And there is. Just say to that eager to please worker on the other side of the plexiglass, "Just round up my order to seven dollars to help feed the hungry please."

McDonalds, or any other server, automatically records the 'round up' change by a keypad touch and 'viola!' the hungry just got 69 cents for food. Now was that too hard?

OK, here's a better explanation: Loose change is often a 'pain in the neck' to us consumers. Moreover, one penny costs the U.S. Mint (us taxpayers) 1.99 cents to make and a nickel costs 7.62 cents. Kind of unbelievable, right? We make millions and millions these little valued coins at a loss! In 2018 we manufactured 7.5 billion pennies and 1.2 billion nickels. That's $280 million dollars more that all those coins are worth. Taxpayers automatically lose that much every year. At this pace, In 10 years we lose $2.8 billion on minting pennies and nickels alone. Is that smart?

Now just imagine if the IRS gave businesses a specific tax credit of 'round up' dollars and cents collected as an incentive to every business that allows customers to 'round up' for this specific purpose, it would be a real 'win-win-win situation.

Would consumers 'buy in' to the idea? The bottom line is that most of us are very benevolent minded. We always have been. And the pennies, nickels and more are little valued by most of us. Most would hardly miss it. The 'round-up' decision is entirely at the option of those tossing pennies, nickels and more back to a great cause as to when if any and how much of a 'round-up' (anything from a few cents to whatever).

It could be promoted by the government who would have to administer the process and agree (if that could ever happen again) to disperse 100 percent of the net dollars (less the modest tax incentive to the collecting businesses) and perhaps even reduce current but modest government expenditures.

As for value of change in America, we throw away $62 million in coins every year according to Bloomberg. "The coins get swept off restaurant tables (what's a restaurant?), mixed in with scraps when people empty their pockets and vacuumed up from carpets or sofa cushions." The average American has $28 of change just laying around, one study showed, with a caution that the belief is, the totals are underestimated by at least twice the amount. And this is just for 'lost change.' We have proven we are far more generous with our 'found' change. 

I have blogged about two trillion in free money for all Americans, somewhat tongue in cheek, somewhat real, but fun. You might enjoy it. 

BUT REALLY, HOW ABOUT MY IDEA? OK, LET'S DO IT. I know this is really simply stated and may have a detail or two yet to work out, but the concept, I believe, has merit and is simple-- something the government would make complex and polarizing in a second. But there should be no person or family in our country that can't put food on the table. And about those pennies and nickels? Come on. Get real 

Now about the riddle answer: You can have as much as $1.19 cents in your pocket or purse and still not be able to make change for a one dollar bill. In that case, you would have one half-dollar, one quarter, four dimes and four pennies-- $1.19. Did you get it? 

 

Beep - beep - beep- beep - beep... Beep - BEEP!

 

Come on, admit it. You fell for this and then smiled after you said it.

In our world today with Covid-19 having taken so many and threatening every one of us, our divided country of Trumpers and Bidenites, global warming largely untended and millions of hungry, what have we got to smile about?

Well, everything really! If we haven't yet learned that a smile, a laugh or light-heartedness of any kind has a sanctifying place in creating a coping mentality and staying sane, then we are doomed. The human spirit will always be there, deep down, even as it strays far from the surface many times. We can't laugh when we cry, but we can and do survive long-term because that's just what we do.

Tip from my daughter--the same one who urged me to loudly say "Marco!" in a supermarket aisle and listen for someone within hearing distance to return "Polo!"-- try honking when sitting in your car in a parking deck and wait for a return. My record is two out of five tries... and a couple of odd looks.

When times are dark we often have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and look for a stress buster. Life always has its ups and downs. The ups when we are happy, the downs to tell the difference.

I had a friend who was bipolar. When he was down, he was really down. But when he was up, he was almost euphoric. He told me that he had found peace with medication but it came with a cost. The medication "leveled him out," in his words. He never dipped so low that he had dire thoughts... but he also never reached the joy of living he sought. "Life for me, " he said, "was one even path down the middle without notable highs or lows... and it sucked in its own way."

So I looked for some sage advice on life and found it in a most unusual place. Monty Python had a brilliant movie that told it all. 

If you were born later, you may never have known the Monty Python experience. The Pythons, as they referred to themselves, had an almost 'cult-like' following until they all started dying, damn-it. They first shared their incredible sketch comedy on Britain's BBC in 1969 and hit the big screen 10 years later with award-winning Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Then there was Life of Brian followed by The Meaning of Life. 

Blogger's Hint: if you haven't seen any of these, you haven't yet lived. I loved them all but perhaps The Meaning of Life was my fave. They were absurd and they were great.

The Meaning of Life consists of five different brief stories including the lead story's feature song, "Every Sperm is Sacred." And if that doesn't give you a hint, then you wouldn't go very far on "Jeopardy." (Note: I've got this song and that whole story on an earlier blog post here.)

This blog post is about balancing our stress-filled lives with a dash of perspective, done lightly as an example. So here are the lyrics to Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," written by Python member Eric Idle, to cheer you up... or not:

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse

When you're chewing on life's gristle

Don't grumble, give a whistle

And this'll help things turn out for the best

And always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the light side of life

If life seems jolly rotten

There's something you've forgotten

And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing

When you're feeling in the dumps

Don't be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing

And always look on the bright side of life

(Come on)

Always look on the right side of life

For life is quite absurd

And death's the final word

You must always face the curtain with a bow

Forget about your sin

Give the audience a grin

Enjoy it, it's your last chance anyhow

So always look on the bright side of death

Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit

When you look at it

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true

You'll see it's all a show

Keep 'em laughin' as you go

Just remember that the last laugh is on you

And Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the right side of life

(C'mon Brian, cheer up)

Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the bright side of life

I mean, what have you got to lose?

You know, you come from nothing

You're going back to nothing

What have you lost? Nothing

Always look on the right side of life

Nothing will come from nothing, ya know what they say

Cheer up ya old bugga c'mon give us a grin (Always look on the right side of life)

There ya are, see

It's the end of the film

Incidentally this record's available in the foyer (Always look on the right side of life)

Some of us got to live as well, you know

(Always look on the right side of life)

Who do you think pays for all this rubbish

(Always look on the right side of life)

They're not gonna make their money back, you know

I told them, I said to him, Bernie, I said they'll never make their money back

(Always look on the right side of life)

Want to see Eric Idle sing  it while hanging on a cross like a thief, not like You Know Who. 

And yes,  kinda funny. It caps the final story and is really not sacrilegious... much. Ya gotta see it. 

(Available on Amazon plus, Showtime and Netflix)

The stock market just hit new highs. The Dow Jones index broke 30,000 for the first time. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

What's wrong with this picture?  It's just not the whole story. In fact, it's not even close for the average American.

Don't misunderstand, it is good the financial markets  are doing well but that is just one part of the puzzle. 

The top ten richest in America own 84 percent of the stock. In a democracy, rich is good because it is obtainable. And according to a Modern Wealth Survey from Charles Schwab, if your personable net worth is $2.3 million, you can call yourself wealthy.

And we do, for the most part, love, respect and need the rich... the athletes, coaches, tech giants, business figurers, entrepreneurs  and more, because it is entertaining, sustaining, providing needs for others and out there to be had. So much happens from the top down. That's democracy. 

Then there are the others of less than that. In the perfect democratic world, they perhaps by default, have the most clout of all. Forget the not-so-rich and lower classes and we have a top spinning wildly out of proportion to the whole. Money is power and power can corrupt the system if it is misused or abused at the expense of the lesser of us. We've seen and continue to see it happen. That's my point.

Nonetheless, congratulations middle class, you can still put pretty good food on the table. But sadly, the middle class, which was 50 percent of us in 1980, is just 36 percent of us today.

Woe to the bottom tier. You, working poor in many cases, bear most of the real world problems with no easy stairway to climb. Median household income was just $63,179 in 2018, the latest figure measured, and that would vary depending on how many in a household. In 2016, poor is classified at earning less that $25,000 for a family of four. From 1980 to 2014, the number of people living in poverty in the United States grew from about 29.2 million to 46.7 million. In this great, richly resourced country, that is unconscionable.  

Black or African American persons account for 2.6 times more covid19 infections than the general public, Hispanic or Latino persons are 2.8 times higher.And yes, the virus does currently play a major role but because of how we discriminate status, a great percentage of these are the lesser advantaged. This is a triple negative: In relation to their human peers, they are most likely to have less money, less power, less opportunity and shockingly, less respect. We should be ashamed if we are not already.

There are 12.6 million unemployed in the United States at this moment. 

There are about 1.5 million sheltered homeless plus more that do not lend to an accurate count.

There are 30-40 million at risk of losing their homes in 2020.

The coronavirus epidemic has left millions of families without stable employment.  More than 50 million people, including 17 million children, may experience food insecurity in 2020. That is most obvious in the massive efforts to put Thanksgiving food on the table for those who have little or none. You've seen evidence of that in your every newscast.

In 2018 (latest figures) 8.5 % (27 million people) had no health insurance.

Meanwhile, US billionaires have increased their wealth by $1 trillion during the Pandemic and welcomed 24 new billionaires into this elite group. The stock market's record high and the 2018 tax cuts skewed to the wealthy. And let's face it, a six percent break on even $100 thousand is considerably less that six percent on $1 million and more.

The take-away: If America is the Titanic, the bow, amidships and stern sank, both port and starboard if I know my history. We lost the richest and the poorest because, after all, we were all on the same ship. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew, 705 survived. Not good odds at all. 

(Here is a nice synopsis from the well documented cemetery of 150 of the victims, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Visited several years back. Lot of stories here.) 

We cannot continue to grow without tending to those who must not be left behind: children and families, hungry, homeless, devaluing education and teachers, ignoring climate change, believing some of us are more important than others by race, gender, religion or any other bias that divides,  thinking we can make it by ourselves in a world where the farthest point from where we are now standing is less than a day away... come on, get real. In a win-lose game of life there are no winners, ever.

Oh, nice going Stock Market. Now, for the rest of the picture.

JOHN JACOB JINGLEHEIMER SMITH: A tribute to Robin Williams and a good laugh

John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith. 

His name is my name too. 

Whenever we go out, 

The people always shout, 

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

Da da da da da da.

(repeat 1,000 times)

Robin Williams was John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith in his 1995 movie, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Yep, that's the actual title and, as you might guess, it didn't go well. Rotten Tomatoes only gave it 39%... but Robin's fans loved it 71%. Robin always made everything better. His voice and comedy is much needed today... and sadly missing. And so is a good laugh.

Last night my wife and I were texting with several of our kids. And because it somehow fit our silly conversation, I told them I changed my name to John Jacob Jingleheimer Jones thinking that would be funny. My wife reminded me that it wasn't Jones but Smith and, in our stupid funny mood, we both laughed hard and continuing off and on for the next few minutes. Something that simple and not funny out of context just broke us up. That's humor for you... it's a mental disposition to laugh when it's easy.

In those minutes, we were in a different world than the one beset with global warming, a year of 'the plague' and more than a decade of ever-worsening political divide, wider than The Grand Canyon... none of which seemed getting better.

You remember the last time you laughed that way? I didn't.

Humans have five basic senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Science now believes there are more subtle senses that most people never perceive. One would have to be a sense of humor to round out the whole body experience. If you can't/don't laugh or smile, you really can't say you've lived.

I know people who just don't seem to know how to laugh, or smile, or be light-hearted or make you laugh or smile once in a while. Bet you do too. My advice: don't be one of them... or get too close to when they go from somber to serious to dead serious, because that's all they have.

Life is short, then you die. Rest easy, God has a sense of humor. Just look at us. Can you imagine a divine creator not laughing out loud at some of the things we do with the free will he/she has given us?

Here's Robin Williams telling a story (a repeat, I know. Sorry) about his friend, Bono, that made me laugh:

Bono was performing a save the earth benefit in Scotland before a crowded house. Bono started slowly clapping his hands and told his audience, "Every time I clap my hands, an elephant dies in Africa!" A man in the back row stood up and hollered, "THEN FOR GOD'S SAKE MAN, STOP CLAPPING YOUR HANDS!"  See? 

A sense of humor represents more 'life in balance' than almost anything else because it comes from the reflection of the world as seen through your eyes. Carry a grudge... seek revenge... harbor hate... see seven shades of gray... fail to appreciate life's delights? Then my friend, I'm sad for you because you only have one crack at it.

Here are a few examples of how funny (and/or stupid and/or ironic or just plain ridiculous) we can be in real life:

• A Nebraska man is in prison for shooting his girlfriend with a pistol. The 22 caliber bullet cut right through her tattoo that read, "Happiness Is A Warm Gun."
• Car-jacking isn't as easy as it seems. When the thief ripped-off the car of a handicapped driver, he didn't know how to use the hand controls. So he got out of the car and handed the wheel-chair bound victim the keys, then stripped off his ski mask and said, "Just kidding."  
• A woman from Arkansas is suing her college for a classroom exercise of 'musical chairs' that went wrong. She claims in her suit that the game was played wrong because the instructor had asked her and two other students to play with only one chair. The resulting game scramble that ensued, she claimed, cost her two broken fingers and forced her into "years" of surgery and physical therapy. She asserted that "everyone knows Musical Chairs should be two chairs for three people." She asks for $75,000.
• In Australia, a man about to board a 14 hour flight to Vienna was stopped by authorities who discovered he had 35 geckos under his clothes, all taped to his skin. Sounds like the kind of guy I get stuck next to on a plane.
• A recent demonstration of 100 people outside Britain's Parliament to protest legislation to curb psychoactive drugs, passed out gas-filled balloons containing nitrous oxide--laughing gas. The demonstration turned funny as the group took hits from their balloons and "erupted in fits of laughter."
• From the 'New Product' department: A Yom Kippur workaround for "fasting" coffee addicts: caffeine suppositories.
• Extensive research by Animal Behaviour Science magazine cautions pet owners that they may be petting their cats all wrong! Felines seem to prefer face-caressing, especially between the eyes and ears, and are negatively aroused by tail-petting, especially at the base.
• The Welsh language is such a severe mutation of the original English spoken in the Middle Ages that it is barely distinguishable from Klingon. In fact, the Welsh government, responding to queries about a possible UFO sighting near Cardiff airport, playfully issued its galaxy-friendly response in Klingon: "jang dvlDa je due luq." And if you wish to say "I cannot understand in Welsh," simply respond "nad oes modd i ddeall Cymraeg."
• In Arkansas, a man representing himself on a disorderly conduct charge was found guilty. So he took down his pants and mooned the judge. Not one to take a joke, the judge added 5 months for each cheek.

Live life to your principles... WITH GUSTO!  What that does for the soul... that is something that amazes me most.  

Elsie had it right: (with thanks to Fred Ebb and John Kander who created the song and Lisa Minelli who made it come alive in Cabaret.)

What good is  sitting alone in your room?

Come hear the music play.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret.

Put down the kniting,

The book and the broom.

Time for a holiday.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret.

Come taste the wine,

Come hear the band.

Come blow a horn,

Start celebrating;

Right this way,

Your table's waiting.

No use permitting

Some prophet of doom

To wipe every smile away.

Come hear the music play.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret!

I used to have a girlfriend

Known as Elsie,

With whom I shared

Four sorid rooms in Chelsea.

She wasn't what you'd call

A blushing flower...

As a matter of fact

She rented by the hour.

The day she died the neighbors

Came to snicker:

Well that's what comes

From too much pills and liquor.

But when I saw her laid out

Like a Queen,

She was the happiest corpse

I'd ever seen.

I think of Elsie to this very day,

I remember how she'd turn to me and say:

What good is sitting alone

In your room?

Come hear the music play.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret.

Put down the knitting,

The book and the broom.

Time for a holiday.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret.

As for me,

I made my mind up back in  Chelsea,

When I go, I'm going like Elsie.

Start by admitting,

From cradle to tomb

Isn't that long a stay.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Only a Cabaret, old chum,

And I love a Cabaret.

FYI: The ditty, 'John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith' seems to go back to vaudeville days of the early 20th century as comedians of the day used malapropisms and fun-to-sing made-up songs for sure-fire humor.

Huh? The mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with amusing effect, as in, for example, "dance a flamingo" instead of flamenco. 

"John Jacob etc. etc.' was first noted in print in 1931 when a newspaper reported , "At a Boy Scout gathering at Seneca Lake, Troop 18 , upon entering a mess hall, burst into a rousing chorus of John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith," and it has been a popular refrain that most of us have heard and/or sung at some time in our lives. Many more like songs, of course, have followed. Personally, I recall '100 Bottles of Beer on the wall' but get lost because, since the lyrics change in every verse, I can't remember them.)

Grand Finale (I promise):

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD: listen to someone smarter than you... if that person exists.

This is Greta Thunberg. She is just 17 and her mission is to save the world... and she will, if we listen.

She makes it sound easy. ""We just can't continue living like there is no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow. That's all we are saying."

As Time Magazine said when naming her one of the "100 most influential people in the world" and its current "Person of the Year," "For decades, researchers and activists have struggled to get world leaders to take the climate threat seriously. But this year (2019) an unlikely teenager somehow got the world's attention."

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To better understand who this young person with Asperger's Syndrome--a developmental disorder related to autism and characterized by higher than average intellectual ability coupled with impaired social skills and restrictive, repetitive  patterns of interest and activities--is, and her total focus on perhaps the most important problem of our lifetime, you must watch the just released documentary, "I am Greta," on Hulu. (Here's a 2 minute trailer) It will show, better than words can tell, who Greta is and how she has captivated the world and led the charge to seriously focus on what we must do to preserve tomorrow. It is most compelling and shows what a voice with passion to match can indeed change the world.

There are those who disbelieve climate change but that is no more credible than those disbelieving the coronavirus... it doesn't matter. Nature will do what it will do, no matter what you believe or not wearing a mask because it violates your rights. It's not like Santa Claus you know. It just is. Period. And it will have its way.

You think she is not direct and can't make herself heard? Here she is at the United Nations Conference on Global Warming in New York last September.

My message is that we'll be watching you.

This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

Fifty percent may be acceptable to you, but those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice.

They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

So a 50 percent risk is simply not acceptable to us, we who have to live with the consequences.

How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than eight and a half years.

There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us, but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up and change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Thank you.

The sad story of Henry Bemis, ironically is the foretelling story all of all us readers of the world. There is a book-saving moral here.

 Henry Bemis

"Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself... without anyone."

That's how creator Rod Serling introduced "Time Enough at Last," one of the most popular episodes of his show, The Twilight Zone, a 1959 sci-fi television series. The show, in black and white back then, was loved for its clever plot twists of incredible circumstances.

You see, due to an H-Bomb explosion while Henry Bemis had locked himself into the bank's vault for a lunch hour of undisturbed reading, the outside world was vaporized, leaving him alone, with all the books of the world and all the time in the world to read them, totally undisturbed.

Sadly, just as he had surrounded himself with piles of books to read, he dropped, then stepped on his very thick eye-glasses, breaking them unfixable. And Henry was almost blind without his glasses. 

Unbelievably, his utopia was gone just as fast as it had come, and all the books in the world were left without readers. 

Now jump to today, all you book-loving Henry Bemis's. Remember Borders, a Barnes & Noble rival, no longer in business? Remember possibly your favorite book store, gone. Remember the libraries of the world, shut down to browsing because of the coronavirus?

LittleFreeLibrary.org

There is, of course, Amazon, where almost everything can be bought, books and all, no matter the virus. Thank you--I think--for that. But really, support your local bookstore if you still have one. They need you but in reality, you need them more.  

And cities like Seattle, and others where culture allows, have dozens... or perhaps hundreds, of neighborhood mailbox-like Little Free Libraries where anyone can take a book/leave a book, never a question asked because readers are like that. (You too can have one of these Little Free Libraries by your house. Click the link to see what it's all about. It is exciting for everyone who dreams books.)

Of course there are books on tape and ebooks but those aren't really books, are they? OK, they are, sort of, but not everyone wants to read on a computer or Kindle. And those who like books to be read to them are no doubt fond of being read to. Maybe it takes them back to the time mom or dad would read them The Three Little Pigs or Cinderella at bedtime. Not my thing, thank you, with the possible exception of a long, boring road trip by yourself.

Give me a book book... in any form, really, or a newspaper (what's a newspaper?). Social media or television is not reading. 

The Strand

How much do we miss bookstores (but are thankful and loyal to those we have) here's a story of true love: One of a most noted bookstores is the Strand in downtown Manhattan. If you've been there, you know you can spend happy hours there with every visit. Sadly, the famous Strand is struggling with revenue during this coronavirus era down 70 percent. "HELP!" it's owner asked... and help it got.

On the following Saturday, it received a single-day record of 10,000 online orders, crashing it's website. In the next 48 hours, the store processed 25,000 online orders (compared to about 600 in a typical two-day period. Employees have canceled vacations and coming in to help with the surge. 

You do know how much readers love their bookstore. 

l"es bouquinistes"

It's not all roses though. If you've ever been to Paris, you most probably totally enjoyed 'les bouquinistes," the 230 or so open air booksellers in carts, tents and tables that line four miles on both sides of Seine in the shadow of Notre Dame. Now THAT is a market to love. Sadly, it seems to be a tragedy in the making as the coronavirus lock-downs and its concerns make this, "a sinking ship," as a good number of the booksellers fear. Sales have plunged 80 percent and survival is in question.

Hey Madames et Monsiers, (Excusez mon francais, or thereabout) have you tried a Strand strategy yet? From all the book lovers in the world, good luck. We need you.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORES... AND RETAILERS WHENEVER POSSIBLE. WE NEED THEM AND THEY NEED US!

Is it a Milky Way or The Milky Way? Depends on if you like chocolate, I suppose.

 

I LOVE chocolate, but the other Milky Way will just blow you away! This was just a tease to get you to our Milky Way galaxy in more detail than ever before.

Our galaxy, THE REAL THING!

This is a 26-second video of our celestial home, the Milky Way, that, if you click the link (THE REAL THING) you will zoom straight into the enter of our galaxy... one of the billion galaxies we know are out there, and see an amazing sight. (Sorry if you have to put up with an ad for a few seconds to get to it, but that's YouTube for you.)

And why would you do that? Because you will see our most incredible universe as never before, filled with billions of other  suns in addition to ours. One of the billion or so of those eensy-teensy white dots is VY Canis Majoris, a sun 2,100 times bigger than ours, 3,900 light years away from us. It's so big that it takes 8 hours, at 186,000 miles per second, for light to travel around its own equator. Then there is the Pistol Star, 100 times as massive as our sun and 10 million times more bright, and more... much more, as they say in commercials.

In case you haven't noticed, I am fascinated by all this that was created, so science says, in the first mili-second of the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago.

To read a good take on what's it like to feel so small Dr. Seuss has great human-like perspective in Horton Hears a Who.  It all puts a different light on who's a big shot and who's not. Hint: certainly none of us.

Now sing a few bars of  Disney's "It's a small world," and see if you can get that out of your head before bed time.

IT'S A MIRACLE! ... or so it seems. Three incredible, unrelated occurrences that you'd never believe were even possible, just happened!

Still think he looks like Stan Laurel

In your wildest dreams these 3 things happened and are hard to believe. But they happened! They really happened!

1: Credit Pope Francis, a man who knows miracles by profession, for the first seemingly miraculous revelation.

The Pope, whose word is seen by Catholics as the word of God, professed, in 'Francisco' a film about his life: 

"Homosexuals have the right to be part of the family. One doesn't have to believe in God to go to heaven. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it."

This news should, it is believed, send an undeniable message to Catholic families with LGBTQ people, that all family members are deserving of acceptance and support. 

To that, I add, "Amen."

Pope Francs also assured atheists, "You don't have to believe in God to go to heaven." In a written open letter responding in a non-Catholic owned newspaper, La Repubblica, he wrote, "You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don't believe and who don't seek the faith. I start by saying--and this is the fundamental thing--that God's mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience." 

Earlier, Pope Francis signaled a more progressive attitude on sexuality asking, ( Best quote ever: ) "If someone is gay and looking for the Lord, who am I to judge him?

God, er, I mean Gosh, I love this Pope. One small step... one giant leap.

Depiction of landing on asteroid Bennu

  2: OSIRUS-REX is the name of the NASA mission  that sent a spacecraft from earth, 200 million miles into the heavens. to actually land on a carbon-rich asteroid named Bennu. (Asteroids are fragments of the early solar system, largely unchanged since they formed 4.5 billion years ago.) The spacecraft has already landed safely but--now get this--is collecting dust and specks of what the surface may hold--which we can see as it is happening with the camera on the spacecraft--and will return to earth with its collection in 2023.

The findings could provide us with an understanding of the building blocks of life on earth.

Here's the take-away on this: We, the people of earth, have actually figured what might be 'out there', what we may find, send a spacecraft millions of miles and actually land on target, all the while with both earth and Bennu moving disproportionally through space at thousands of miles per hour, collect samples of the surface and return to earth for us to analyze and understand how we happened to be. That is 'mind-blowing' unbelievable incredible. 

Are we super intelligent or not? Before you answer, ask, Do we wear a face mask or not? Heaven help us if we can solve so many answers about the universe but still can't put the toilet seat down, agree on anything... or, whatever. 

3. Scientists stretch every absolute boundary of the measurement of time and space while we marvel at what seemingly can't be, but is. 

Today, we know know the smallest fragment of time ever measured:  One trillionth of a billionth of a second. That is the timing of changes in an atom in zeptoseconds (That sounds made up but it's not. A zeptosecond is a decimal point followed by 20 zeros and a 1, like this: 0.000000000000000000001). 

There is, in theory, a yoctosecond, a septillionth of a second. And then there is Planck time where things start to get really ridiculous. Divide that into one second and you realize how fast you'd have to be with a stopwatch just to time it.

If we ever got this on an NBA scoreboard, the last 3 minutes of an NBA game could take lifetimes. On the brighter side, that would be called commercial heaven.

The beneficiary of all this... quantum computing and superconductivity, whatever those are.

This all goes back to Albert Einstein who supposed that this, theoretically, was out there. Science has now proved him right once again. What a brain! (ednote: I saw that brain in the Muter Museum in Philadelphia where all good brains must go.)

All old measures are now passe. So much for the old Catholic question posed by nuns to open-minded little children: 

How many angels could fit on the head of a pin? Answer: An infinite number. Heck, rumor has it that Chuck Norris was so tough and all-accomplished that one time he counted to infinity... twice.