Tulips Everywhere!

Rich planted 300 tulip bulbs last fall and now we are surrounded in such beauty!!

Even the Buddha is happy!

Middle Class Gone Missing

Once upon a time, most everyone I knew belonged -- or wanted to belong -- to "the middle class."

It was simple. You went to school, got a good education and a well-paying job. You married, bought a house or a condo, had kids, and you all took a vacation once or maybe twice a year. You retired and lived a decent lifestyle thanks to retirement benefits and savings.

For some immigrant families, like my own, it took a couple of generations before all the cousins were going to college. Still, it didn't take that long for us to arrive squarely in the middle class.

Now comes the hard part. Sometime in the last 30 years, the middle class has gone missing in the U.S. Increasingly, corporations have shifted high-paying jobs abroad where labor is cheaper. More and more union jobs have disappeared. More and more Americans have been forced into lower-paying service jobs, most of which don't offer benefits.

The real kick in the pants came in 2008 when the housing bubble burst, sending millions of Americans scrambling to pay their mortgages. Millions of homeowners foreclosed.

So where does that leave us? The term "middle class" doesn't mean what it used to. It makes a lot of Americans nervous, because the economy is a lot more precarious that it used to be, particularly for those closer to the bottom. We can no longer assume that we can afford to get to college, or that getting an education will pay off. We can't count on getting ahead the way we used to. And we certainly aren't sure about how our kids and their kids will fare.

And so along comes a piece in The New York Times today on why the Presidential candidates are no longer referring to "the middle class."

"The once ubiquitous term 'middle class' has gone conspicuously missing from the 2016 campaign trail, as candidates and their strategists grasp for new terms for an unsettled economic era. The phrase, long synonymous with the American dream, now evokes anxiety, an uncertain future and a lifestyle that is increasingly out of reach."

What term replaces "the middle class?" 

According to the Times, Mrs. Clinton refers to “everyday Americans.” 

"Scott Walker prefers 'hardworking taxpayers.' Rand Paul says he speaks for 'people who work for the people who own businesses.' Bernie Sanders talks about 'ordinary Americans.'”

The tricky part is that in order to win, a Presidential candidate must appeal to those of us in the middle. So keep your eyes and ears open. Listen closely to what the candidates would otherwise call the middle class. Better yet, pay attention to what these candidates promise to do to try to help Americans struggling in the middle.

Oh, one more thing: According to the Times piece, approximately 51 percent of Americans now consider themselves middle- or upper-middle class (that according to a Gallop poll. Compare that number to 60 percent who identified themselves in the same way in 2008.

Great Barrington's downtown is devastated!

Anyone who lives in southern Berkshire County certainly knows what's happened in recent weeks in Great Barrington.

It looks a little bit like a war zone.  The streets and the sidewalks have been torn up on Main Street. All the white flowering pear trees -- which would normally be in bloom -- are gone.

Walking down the street you get dirt blowing in your eyes. It's harder to park. It's difficult to walk.

To some people, the city project -- to replace Main Street -- is hard to fathom. According to Red Crow News, a blog that covers Berkshire County, the decision to rip up Main Street is the stupid idea of GB's town officials, who were lured to use a pot of state money for a project that is of dubious value. Says Red Crow, a quirky website that has its finger solidly on the pulse of the Berkshires:

"But I can’t be the only one thinking there is something really weird about ripping apart The Best Small Town in America for a summer or two for a mere four or five mil. Granted, it’s the State’s money, not ours. Gettya free money! Free money! Right over here!

"Some folks thought we should replace Main Street over ten years. But they were merchants. And some of them actually lived outside of town. A little bit of work for a manageable amount of money each and every year. Find a crack, fix a crack.

"But the Town Manager and the Select Board and the State are convinced the free State money will make the Best Small Town in America even Bester.

And you can’t be Bester without some pain. Lose a few small businesses. You can hear the coaches yelling: “Dig Deeper!”

It was Smithsonian magazine that in 2012 hailed Great Barrington (along with Taos, New Mexico) the best small town in America. What would the magazine say today? 

According to the Berkshire Edge, another local on-line news source quoting town officials, the project will “improve sidewalks, drainage, curbs, traffic signals, crosswalks, and lighting.” The reconstruction will also better the town's bike lanes.

Pittsfield's main newspaper, The Berkshire Eagle, says the $6.2 million state Department of Transportation project has the approval of many merchants who say that buckling sidewalks are dangerous. Still, Main Street's merchants are suffering. Who cares to brave this colossal mess to stop into a toy store, or a photo shop, or to check out Tune Street's musical offerings?

The Edge says the upheavel will "proceed throughout this construction season, and into the following year. During the tourist season in July and August, work will be suspended in the downtown core, from Bridge to Elm streets."

It's hard to imagine how suspending this mess for two months will make things all right for the summering and vacationing crowds that descend on Berkshire County each year. Memorial Day is right around the corner. How can the town possibly replace the sidewalks by then? (If they do, I will definitely let you know!)

The only way to keep things in perspective is to think about how minor this situation is compared to a real disaster the likes of which we've never seen in the U.S. I'm thinking of course about the gargantuan earthquake in Nepal.

When I see photos of that devastation, I am reminded of something my daughter often says, that we Americans have a whole lost of "first world problems." Granted, the GB situation is one pain in the butt, but you know things will be righted relatively soon. The devastation in Nepal, and in so many other areas of the world hit by earthquakes and tsunamis (Haiti comes to mind) are beyond comprehension. The war zones there don't go away.

  

The Cardinal, Again and Again and Again

The cardinal has been knocking at the window almost every morning while I meditate. Once he's got my attention, he hops from one swaying branch to another. A surefire way to make him take flight is for me to hold up my camera.

Ahaaa! Later on in the morning I saw him at the window again and this time I snuck into the living room from the dining room door. I crept closer and closer hugging the wall and took a series of shots. This was my closest photo.

When the world is still largely winter brown, it's wonderful to have this splash of color.

But it's more than that. The cardinal has become something I can depend on. As they say, a feathered friend. (The cardinals have been coming all winter.)

One problem though. It's hard to stay focused in meditation when the tapping begins. I try to compensate by meditating for longer periods of time.

GINNY WILBER, PAINTING BIRCHES

A dear friend and neighbor, Ginny Wilber, will laugh if you say that you LOVE her paintings. She has been painting for more than five decades, and at least one of her paintings won "Best of Show" when she entered competitions years back.

I happen to love the way she paints birch trees.

She has painted dozens of landscapes and portraits and they hang in her home in Spencertown.

Often when I cross the road and visit her and her husband, Ken, she and I gab and gab about art and painting. She tells me that when she 

and a friend took painting lessons together years ago, they would have a great time 

laughing and painting 

together. 

Today, Ginny is in her eighties, and she is still painting birches, no matter that she has trouble standing. The painting below is her most recent birch painting, and it has already been promised to Ginny's granddaughter, who loved the painting as much as I did. (I told Ginny about all my stories about red cardinals battering at my windows!)

Try to get Ginny to call herself a terrifically talented painter, and she will laugh and say it's just 

what she loves to do. 

One thing Ginny does is encourage me to paint. I show her my crazy abstract paintings

and she

always tells me to keep painting no matter what anyone says! I have been in a bit of a painting funk 

lately, unable to get myself to the easel.

Last week when I visited Ginny she had a wonderful suggestion. She said that I should
put my acrylic paint

in a straw and just blow it onto the canvas! I am going to see if that works!

Meanwhile, thanks to you, Ginny, for all our "arty" conversations, and for so many years of wonderful friendship. You are the best neighbor in the WORLD!! 

Spring's Springing and Singing

Finally it's here. Hard to believe. In our yard it was winter-looking even on Sunday.

The pond still had some white ice.

The small glacier in the backyard was still the size of a long sofa.

And then. Whoosh! Monday's mild temps erased the ice. The glacier was no bigger than a dinner plate.

There's a hint of spring in the lawn. Green shoots have popped up everywhere, and amidst the crusty brown leaves appears the first purple crocus!!

The birds are doing their sweet singing, and those wonderful spring peepers are making a racket, which always sounds a bit extraterrestrial to me.

One other thing: the cardinals are coming back more and more frequently. Just now, the red bird was knocking so hard at the window that he once again caught my attention.

More often than not, the red bird is now accompanied by his pale green girlfriend.

Together they sit in the tree branches facing each other and fluttering their wings.  I'm wondering where the nest will be. It's hard to imagine, but wouldn't it be amazing if it showed up right outside the window!

Disappointing Results from Colorado's Marijuana Dispensaries

So we are going to Colorado next week to visit our amazing daughter, Lindsay, and while we are there we will definitely visit a couple of marijuana dispensaries. It's really quite mind-boggling to think that you can walk into a store, say, the Fresh Baked marijuana dispensary in Boulder, and select your clear little baggy of weed and have it weighed and then after it's paid for you go home and invite your friends over to smoke.

I never was much of a marijuana smoker, but one funny thing I haven't told my daughter is that back in the 1970s (yes, way back then) when I was living in Berkeley, I had marijuana plants

growing on my window sill. I was no druggy but everyone I knew smoked marijuana in those days, and sometimes we ate it in brownies too. I remember going to a concert with my friend Greg and eating a couple of bites of a brownie first and then getting so stoned that I couldn't remember the concert the next day.

One disappointing thing I have to tell my daughter: she's been saying for months that the state of Colorado is getting rich by taxing marijuana sales, that the state has so much money coming in that they don't know what to do with it.

Alas, yesterday's New York Times reported that the amount of taxes being collected by the state of Colorado aren't as high as officials expected they would be. In February of 2014, the governor of Colorado projected that in the first year of legalization, $118 million in taxes would be collected on recreational marijuana. Now it looks like the real figure will be more like $69 million.

Part of the problem is that legal sales of marijuana aren't what officials expected they would be. That's because customers of medical marijuana have been slow to switch to the recreational drug market. The reason? Medical marijuana is taxed at a lower level.

Still, it's quite an amazing thing that Colorado has done, legalizing a drug that is less dangerous than alcohol.

Will keep you posted on our visit next week.

/////////a/rt

By Claudia Ricci

Art

starts

and stops

for reasons

too mysterious

to ignore.

One day, you sit down at your computer and out pours

A perfect little poem. Your heart soars and you send the litte gem

-- your adorable child --

Out into the world and wait for the applause.

Ah, you say, I am quite the poet. I am 

An ARTIST, sigh, what a glorious thing it is to

To imagine yourself sitting in a sunny café in Paris

The tower soaring above your

Your head is adorned in a beret

You are penning poems all day long

When suddenly with no warning 
along comes a nasty spell
that lasts more than one day
one week
one month
OMG one year?
Before you know it,
you are dead inside 
because you cannot write a thing.

The well is absolutely dry

The soul shrinks

The heart is wrung out

Like a dishtowel after

The dryer spins is spinning

so loud you feel like you are inside!

"NOT FAIR" you shout you scream

You try everything you know 

But the mind will not budge

You think you are going

You ARE going crazy and

NOBODY IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD CAN FIX IT.

So what do you do besides wait and drink and smoke 10,000

No, silly, you don’t smoke.

You sit there feeling yourself choking

What is the word for living and dying all at once?

You beg you plead please God

Please just one more just one more

and then one morning 

even before

you wake

out of nowhere comes a voice 

“You will write again today!”

Did somebody actually say that?

If I didn't then WHO? 

Did I say that

BEING THE ARTIST is no

Smooth road?

Feeding on Light

By Claudia Ricci 

Maybe because so many late winter days are white and overcast,

the dawn of a clear sunny morning brings a thrill.

No matter that there is still frigid air biting your skin if you step outside.

No matter that the sun may not last past noon.

It's still a gift to open your eyes to see the pine-treed hillside outside the window

turning gold in long lazy rays.

Downstairs, the sun streams across the kitchen, bathing the

cabinets orange. The same rays cross the threshold into the laundry room and leave a tiny square of spring green light on the washing machine.

I set my finger into that delightful green spot.

It's got promise, that spot.

The fruitbowl, with its orange, green and yellow curves and shadows, becomes a still life painting.

And in the dining room, the long strips of light spread across the rug beckon to me.

I stretch out flat in one, as if I'm lying in a chaise lounge on the beach.

I stare right into the flood of sunlight coming through the window

and I am delighted to be blinded. I smile. I think Florida, I think emerald waves and long white beaches. Palm trees and the smell of ocean breezes. Bathing suits. Flip flops and suntan lotion and the grainy touch of sand.

Maybe because this morning's light is so rare, and I know there is no holding onto it,

(just now the sun slipped behind the clouds and all turned shadow)

Every place my glances happens to land -- on deeply furrowed grey bark, on the white pond, on green pine needles --

I let my gaze dally.

The day becomes a meditation, eyes feeding on light.

Obamacare's Nine Lives!

By Richard Kirsch 

If Obamacare survives the newest Supreme Court challenge, it will really be the cat with nine lives.

The death of what became the Affordable Care Act has been predicted regularly ever since President Obama’s election in 2008. Right after Obama’s election, I got a wave of calls from reporters, each highly skeptical that the President-elect would really try to get health care passed. When you consider the relentless attacks and near-death experiences ever since, the reporters’ skepticism was understandable.

So when I found myself with a fresh wave of anxiety before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday on the latest assault on the law, I decided to list all the times that the survival of what became the Affordable Care Act was up in the air. And when I then counted them, it turned out that they number eight. So if Obamacare survives this last, desperate challenge at the Supreme Court, it really will have nine lives. Here they are, in chronological order:

1. The Great Recession: After Obama’s election a chorus of pundits predicted that the new President would have to give up his promise of health care reform because of the economic crisis. Instead, the President worked to get the economic stimulus passed, while paving the ground for health reform moving. Just a few weeks after the stimulus became law, the President went on a national tour to push for action on health care. 

2. Tea Party August: The tea party movement came to national attention, with loud, vitriolic attacks on health care at congressional town meetings held by Democrats in August 2009. Republicans gleefully predicted they had killed the bill. But by the second half of August supporters of health reform had rallied at dozens of town hall meetings, usually turning out more activists than the tea partiers. The press didn’t give the same attention to meetings that were not marked by raucous demonstrations. But Democratic members of Congress were sent back to Congress knowing they had support in their home districts to move ahead.

3. Scott Brown’s Election: The surprise election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in January 2010, on a platform opposing health care, looked like it might kill the bill. But having voted to pass the legislation in both houses, Democrats were not going to turn back. President Obama rallied the public by finally attacking the practices of health insurance companies and even without a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act became law.

4. The Supreme Court Challenge: Immediately after the ACA’s passage, opponents launched a legal attack, which – shocking most legal scholars – was taken seriously by the courts. And by the time the Supreme Court heard the challenge, the odds were that the Court would gut the key provision of the law that enabled insurance to be affordable to individuals. But Chief Justice Roberts saved the day  – and much of the Court’s credibility.

5. The 2012 Election: If the Senate had gone Republican in 2012 – as was widely predicted – and Mitt Romney been elected, Obamacare would have been repealed. Instead, the ACA emerged with a new electoral mandate.

6. Government Shutdown and Congressional Repeals: I hesitated to put the 50 or so Republican votes to repeal the law, culminating in the government shutdown in the fall of 2013, on the list, only because of President Obama’s veto pen. But even if the ACA always had the presidential veto as armor, the barrage of repeal missiles has got to be counted. Texas Senator Ted Cruz led the government shut down before health insurance enrollment opened up because, as he said, “no major entitlement has ever been implemented and then unwound.”

7. Healthcare.gov: And then, with the disastrous launch of the website to enroll people in health care, Ted Cruz appeared to have gotten his wish fulfilled. The ACA might not be legally dead, but much of it was functionally comatose. Then the administration resuscitated the website, and millions were enrolled and started benefitting from the coverage. It looked like, As Cruz feared, the ACA was here to stay.

8. Supreme Court Redux: That is until the Supreme Court agreed to hear a desperate, last minute challenge to ACA’s for millions of newly enrolled people in the King v. Burwell case. Could this be like one of those movies where the soldier survives the war, only to be killed by a bullet on his way home, fired by an enemy that hadn’t heard the war was over?

The news reports of the oral arguments yesterday were encouraging, particularly Justice Kennedy’s raising of a constitutional issue with the plaintiff’s case. And there are a host of other legal reasons to believe that the lawsuit is groundless. But then it did get this far. The opponents have been relentless. They haven’t gotten the message that the war is lost.

In June, we’ll find out if the ACA is the cat with nine lives. Easy to laugh at, if not for the fact that the actual lives of millions of people who rely on the law for life-saving health care are at stake. 

Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a Senior Adviser to USAction, and the author of Fighting for Our Health. He was National Campaign Manager of Health Care for All. www.Fightingforourhealth.com. This piece ran first on the Huff Po: http://huff.to/1H0whey and on Next New Deal: http://bit.ly/1NlmKDj

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