Doing something

I do not intend for the previous post to be nothing but self-indulgent emoting. I've been thinking a lot about what I can do.

In the discussions about what to do with any of the migration and humanitarian issues of the day, I've seen lots of criticism that we must look to our own citizens first. I've also seen critiques of aid agencies as being corrupt, or concerns about moral hazard exacerbating the power of smugglers and criminal elements, or -- in my view -- less rational arguments about racial or religious purity, terrorism, and claims that "we shouldn't have to do more if country/group X isn't doing anything".

I find all of them inadequate. Some may be grounded in a speck of truth. But I believe that ultimately, we as individuals shape our values and destinies by our actions and inactions.

I know that not everyone feels equally able, or equally responsible. The discussions tend to focus on one extreme or another, all-or-nothing views of service and duty.

I know, in my heart of hearts, that even images of drowned children will not cause me to part with everything I have, with the life I am building here. Nor, perhaps, should it. Philosophically, intellectually, and perhaps even at a bare emotional level, I do feel that our first duty is to our own citizens.

But it is not our only duty. And all-or-nothing thinking tends to rationalize inaction on all fronts.

So I've decided to be a bit more systematic, to explore and define where that line lies with me. It's potentially shameful how little I might find myself willing to do, but by looking for that line, and choosing to go up to that line, I'll do more. And that might have to be enough.

Direct Involvement:
Volunteering in Syria for at least a year
Volunteering in Syria for any amount of time
Volunteering in Turkey/Egypt/Jordan for at least a year
Volunteering in Turkey/Egypt/Jordan for any amount of time
Volunteering in the EU for at least a year
Volunteering in the EU for any amount of time
Volunteering at a local NGO for at least a year
Volunteering at a local NGO for at least 4 hours a week.
Volunteering at a local NGO for less than 4 hours a week.
Searching for a local NGO involved in relief efforts

That's all I feel capable of doing for now. It's depressingly low on the list, but it's more than I would do otherwise.

Financial:Donate life savings to an appropriate nonprofit
Donate $5,000
Donate $2,000
Donate $1,000
Donate $500
Donate $250
Donate $100
Donate $50
Donate $20
Donate $10
Donate $5
Donate nothing

I had Donate $500 highlighted for a good minute. But I struggled, and caved in to a lower amount. I'm not proud of that. It's been a good year for me. But it's more than I would do otherwise. I think I'll donate it to Doctors Without Borders -- they appear to be working at train stations directly, which seems like a good place for the money to work.

Now what about Americans? Don't I have an obligation to people here? Absolutely.

Direct Involvement:
Volunteer for more than 10 hours a week
Volunteer for 5-10 hours a week
Volunteer for less than 5 hours a week.
Look into volunteer opportunities.
Don't volunteer.

It's not a lot. I don't know how I found more time to volunteer at Mudd and carry a full courseload. Maybe I'm underestimating how much unpaid work I do. Maybe I am rationalizing my laziness. But I'm willing to cut out some Youtube and Wikipedia time to do so.

Now, what specific volunteering action should I take? I've long wanted to tutor children in shelters. I'm not sure if it's the best approach, given the limitations on shelter stay -- perhaps a long-term tutoring commitment at a local library or school is more important. But maybe I'm focused too much on my current skills/job. Brush clearance and trail cleanup might be a better option, though I think food pantry work would be more important.

Financial Involvement, Domestic:Donate life savings to an appropriate nonprofit
Donate $5,000
Donate $2,000
Donate $1,000
Donate $500
Donate $250
Donate $100
Donate $50
Donate $20
Donate $10
Donate $5
Donate nothing

$100 to the Inland Valley Hope Partners. Done. Sorry Bernie, but I'll give you something later.

Now, psychological research says that saying you're going to do something makes it less likely that you'll actually do it. To avoid that, I've submitted the donations before I posted this.

***

Look, I didn't do this to be a goddamn Pharisee about the thing. I don't think I did much. But again, I did more than I would've done otherwise. I had to grapple with just how little I was willing to do, but I made sure to do that.

It's important to really not give in to helplessness and figure out what exactly you will do. Not what you can do, but what you will do. And then do it. It's humbling, but it's necessary. It's perhaps not optimal, but what is in this life?

Make a spreadsheet. Conduct a more rigorous audit of your nonprofits. By all means conduct a more nuanced budget, building in persistent support instead of one-time gifts. But whatever you do, do something. Our values are reflected in both our actions and our lack of action.

Remember: you have something to give this world. Those who are most bitter, who are most angry -- they are the ones who feel the world owes them something, who feel, in their heart of hearts, too vulnerable to say, "I am of value, I have value to offer, and I give it with the confidence that, after I have given, I will be elevated, not diminished, as a human being." I know this because I struggle with it as well.

You do have value. Within my calculations of distant offerings, I am mindful of my need to also look nearer, and embrace you. I am rediscovering my better nature, and so I hope it will be manifest in my friendships, too.

Sorry for my long, lonely absence. I'm back. After a long, long journey, I'm back.

Korea Day 4: A Tale of Two Koreas

Sunday, June 17, 2013

I've been waking up early, and today was no exception. I spent the early morning reading some more of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. In preparation for feeding the homeless, I also looked up some articles about the homelessness situation in South Korea.

The total number of homeless individuals in South Korea ranges from estimates of 1,500 to 4,000 -- even the higher figure might be an underestimate. About 15% of Koreans fall below the poverty line, which, I found to be interesting, is defined as half the median household income.

There are some private efforts to fight homelessness, including at least one effort at microfinance/co-op banking. Christian churches and organizations are also involved. There is a welfare program, though I don't have a clear sense of whether or not the payments are sufficient to guarantee necessities, or if the payments have been subject to pressure from morality politics, as in the US.

In the recent past, Seoul station had been a gathering place of sorts for a sizable portion of the homeless population. That has changed somewhat: the authorities, in response to complaints from travelers, have started clearing out the station on a regular basis.

This is confirmed in anecdotes from my friend and her group. They mention that there's been a reduction in the number of homeless men in and around the station. Some plaintively, perhaps naively, hope that the absent transients somehow achieved better circumstances.

Each member/couple in the group (7 total, excluding me) had brought something to contribute. Whenever we met someone who appeared to be homeless, we provided a sandwich, a banana, a juice carton, and two choco pies. The group had evidently done this for a while. There was a moment of unexpected humor when a guy wanted a banana -- "Wow! He never wants bananas!"

The group consisted of four young women, idealistic perhaps, but not naive. There were a couple instances when they preferred to hang back, and let the men deliver the foodstuffs. An older man, a professor at the new SUNY campus, mentioned that the group avoided a certain area where the men tended to be drunk and more aggressive.

In general, all the men were very grateful and polite. One even said "Thank you!" multiple times in English. Another man was memorable for having makeup and appearing to be at least somewhat in drag.

I haven't fed the homeless, or done any poverty-related volunteer work, since college, 8 years ago. The whole experience reminded of one of the things that made me uncomfortable when I was working on a homeless lunch program during college. Is this something that helps? Is this something that I use, subconsciously, to avoid doing something more substantive, more structural? Of course, doing nothing because token efforts are determined to be token is not acceptable, either.

In the end, I decided that the intentions of the people I was with were noble. They weren't naive, or overly idealistic. Although they were all affiliated with one of two churches, and were all expats, they didn't project their sense of morality on broader Korean society (e.g., "Why don't they do something about this?"), and they weren't proselytizing, except, of course, by example.

If a good person does a good thing, however small, the whole of humanity benefits.

After a lunch with this group, I returned home, and watched Man of Steel. It was a glimpse, of course, of another Korea -- comfortably middle class (movies are, perhaps, relatively expensive and more of a treat than in the States), young, attractive, and hopeful. The movie was subtitled in Korean. I confess that I was impressed that the audience got the jokes sprinkled through the movie quickly, and laughed heartily. I'm not sure why I expected otherwise.

I spent the final hours of the evening wrestling a bit with how to use boolean logic to impose my will on a spreadsheet of vocabulary words. As with the beginning of the day, I decided upon an incomplete, but sufficient, approach, and slept soundly.

My dad taught me a little bit about being poor

The story of my father is long, but interesting. I'm truncating it here - it deserves several posts.

My father worked as a mechanical engineer for about ten years for Hughes aircraft in California. He was grateful for the opportunity - jobs on Maui, where he grew up, were almost nonexistent, even for, and perhaps especially for, a college graduate. (He was an insurance policy salesman for a few months after graduation.) The new job meant $900 a week - about a 400% raise from what he was expected to earn in five more years at his old job.

He was charismatic and competent, and got to work on satellites -- including Marisat and some secret military projects that, bless him, he still feels are secret and won't talk about. (I doubt any of the projects are operational, or classified, but I don't press him about it.)

He fell in love, married, bought a house, a car, a ridiculously expensive fishing boat he rarely used, and occasionally bought classic cars he started to fix, but usually ended up selling for a loss. He hosted dinners, and was well-liked.

He was also bipolar.

He began to have problems in high school and college. But they didn't come to a head until he was around 32. He started missing work. At some point, he began using drugs - a lot of them. He once handed me a list of two pages, double-column, of all the drugs he had used. No doubt some barbiturates probably were repeats under different names - but it included angel dust, cocaine, heroin, and things called yellow jackets and little bennies.

It was during this time that my mom became pregnant. They had tried for nearly ten years, and finally, during this time of crisis, they were successful.

Meanwhile, my dad lost his job. He was admitted to just about every mental health hospital in Southern California. At one facility, he told my mom he met Brian Wilson. She thought it was a schizophrenic delusion, until she stopped by and saw that it was, indeed, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.

Eventually, my mom decided, reluctantly, to get a divorce. It's kind of tragic -- I think if I hadn't been born, she might've been tempted to stick it out. I think sometimes she still regrets it -- even though I've told her she made the right choice, and even her traditional Japenese parents supported her. Divorce is always at least sort of sad -- but it's quite sad when the parents still love each other.

We moved into my grandparents' house for a few years. He lived with his sister for a while. But it was too much to manage a man with unmanaged bipolar disorder. He lived in his own apartment, but that didn't work out well.

Eventually, he found some stability in a series of board and care facilities, large group homes, sometimes numbering about a hundred mentally disabled adults.

I visited him every other weekend. Sometimes he was a scary nut. Other times, he was lethargic and barely responsive.

Due to frequent visits at these large institutions, I learned patience and tolerance of aberrant behavior, which, oddly enough, served me very well at Havery Mudd College, and, I believe, in life at large.


The rooms were small, with musty air, but they were clean. He always had a roommate - some of whom were really creepy.

I remember Ed, a schizophrenic with a knack for guitar. Once, we walked in, and he had only a hand towel over his genitals, as he giggled having whatever conversation/experience he was having in his own head.

Believe it or not, I liked Ed overall, even if I was reluctant to shake his hand after that.

He was better than Tom, who was always drunk and/or angry.


He was always broke, and dependent on Social Security Disability payments for rent, and Medicare-Medicaid for treatment/medication.

Dad spent what spending money he got from his sister and my mom on cigarettes. Everyone smoked there - I probably inhaled tons of secondhand smoke, but I was honestly more worried about my dad busting out his (fake, but I didn't know at the time) kung fu during his manic episodes. He'd buy the cheapest, nastiest cigarettes available. He quit periodically -- sometimes because he ran out, and sometimes because he promised me. It's from him that I learned about clove cigarettes, that extremely rare luxury -- they were expensive, incredibly bad for your health, and wonderfully aromatic.

He outlived three girlfriends, all of whom died of lung cancer. Two were in their mid-fifties, and one was in her late-thirties.

For a man who loved food, I was surprised how he adjusted to the kind of boring food. When he moved from one of these large facilities to a smaller halfway house, he was treated to home cooking. He still didn't have any money, but he was happier. We would go to Taco Bell, or Winchell's, where he would relish unlimited refills and enjoy a beef Meximelt, or a glazed donut, courtesy of Mom.

Those who know me may be surprised to know that my dad is an eternal optimist. Every time he moved, he said, "This is the best place! The FOOD is amazing!" Every time. He was either a liar, delusional, or an optimist. Over the last decade, his medication balance got reasonably good, and so I'm willing to conclude that it was optimism. He was definitely not a liar, at least not a habitual one.

He is currently living in a larger facility in Long Beach, an odd mix of mental institution and retirement home.

Through the years, he'd been hospitalized many, many times -- and not just for mental health reasons. There were many of those -- unpleasant rants, either in person or over the phone, were something that was painful, but eventually expected. I was surprised -- after many years of relative calm, he called in October 2008 to tell me I was a horrible son, that he was a four-star general Aztec emperor, etc. Even at the age of 26, I admit, I cried, but I managed to keep my voice calm, and tell myself that this was not my father talking, this was The Disease.

He almost died many times. But because it happened so frequently, I eventually got used to visiting him in a hospital. Apparently he has a very strong heart, one which has saved his life multiple times.

There were good times, too. He taught me gin rummy. He had an interesting (read: vulgar) sense of humor. I'm lucky -- many sons can't poke fun at their fathers like I can.

We almost lost him last year from kidney failure. My relationship with him, even as death approached, has always been a conflicting set of emotions.

But it was only today, as I was picking up a hot-n-ready $5 pizza for our lunch, that I realized he taught me about poverty.

***

As long as I can remember, he was always poor. He didn't have money for gifts; his sister would send me a bit of birthday and Christmas money. I don't know when or how I understood this, but I did, and didn't ask him for stuff, even as I was spoiled rotten by my maternal grandfather. Mom never asked him to help with anything, including college -- and how would he have helped anyway? Asked his sister?

I think it was hard for him to take bits of spending money from my mom, and, for many reasons, hard for my mom to give it.

He'd borrow money. He'd borrow from Peter to pay Paul. A couple times, he borrowed money from me; much later, his sister would find out and yell at him. He'd apologize, and give me the money that his sister gave him to pay  me back.

My mom and I remember only one time when my dad was scared. We were at Winchell's, and he approached a tough-looking guy. He told him that he would return his $20 as soon as he could. Later, he asked my mom for that money. At the time, he lived in a neighborhood where getting beat up, badly, over $20 was pretty likely.

He wasn't a saint, and, even in his poverty, would sometimes use what he had recklessly. At one point, he got admitted to the hospital for a ridiculously high blood pressure - it was something like 220/180. I'm not joking. He claimed it was caffeine -- later on, I found out he had bought meth from a dealer somewhere in the neighborhood.

He never wanted to walk in the park down the block. I don't remember if he had been jumped, or harassed. We'd go by car from Norwalk to Cerritos to nice parks.

Meanwhile, I lived a relatively comfortable middle-class life. My mom was a public school teacher, and therefore not at all rich, but it was just the two of us. I never went hungry; I always had clothes to wear; I always had shoes. It wasn't extravagant, but it was comfortable. Hell, I even had a NES and, a couple years after it came out, a SNES. We never owned a computer until some time in high school, and to my everlasting shame and regret, it was a Macintosh Performa.

So I wasn't poor.

My dad was.

But he didn't starve. He had adequate medical care. He was able to live with some dignity - once he accepted he was never going to be an aerospace engineer ever again. He had fantasies of going back, even after Hughes got absorbed and resold and redundancied and everything else during the passing decades.

He was dependent on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (in California, Medi-Cal).

He's a flawed man, even ignoring his bipolar disorder. And, to be honest, I don't know if he's an example of what's wrong with the social safety net in this country, or what's right.

The only thing I do know for certain is that, without exaggeration, he would've been homeless, and ultimately dead, without those programs.

It's not because his family didn't love him enough to house him -- his sister, a schizophrenic, lived with my grandparents her entire adult life.

I believe that because, without the luck we had with treatment and facilities, he would've found some way to disappear and die.

Had he continued to live in his apartment, he would've had an overdose, or done something that would've gotten him shot by a drug dealer, or a cop. Even at his sister's house, he was unsupervised during the day; I don't know if he did run off during that time, but he definitely engaged in self-destructive behavior including drugs, alcohol, and reckless driving. (He once zig-zagged on the freeway with toddler me in the backseat. Perhaps fortunately, I thought it was a game at the time.)

So I can say, with a measure of confidence, that my dad would've died decades ago without that safety net.

***

I'm writing this mostly because I want to. He's an interesting person, and, quite frankly, it helps me to process my emotions and thoughts in written form.

There's a part that's also writing this because I've seen many criticize welfare, Medicaid, and other programs designed to help the poor. Most do not cite any numbers, and some cite numbers without context, e.g., the number of people on food stamps does go up during a recession. It's designed to do that: that shows the program is doing its job, regardless of whether you think it should be doing it or not.

He's not a "welfare queen". But he's as close as it comes in my personal experience. And so, it's tough for me to disentangle conversation about the poor, and about welfare, from these thoughts about my dad.

In my volunteering in college, I've met homeless people who would drink chunks of their Social Security checks and buy electronics. I met homeless kids for whom homelessness was, at least part, an ideology -- quasi-hippies/anarchists, sharing and creating cheaply made magazines containing their literature. I cleaned human shit out of a food pantry, which means someone -- assuming it was a client, not a volunteer -- decided taking a shit in the storeroom was a good idea. I met two guys who were, in retrospect, probably doing a drug deal, whom I cluelessly interrupted, offered sandwiches to, and left alone to their meal, realizing at some point that one held an almost-but-not-quite-concealed blade in his hand the whole time.

I know poor people who seem so helpless and hapless that I sometimes want to scream at them and hit them and tell them to get their shit together, because they have kids and grandkids who depend upon them. I know friends whose parents worked in sweatshops, in the United States, and never forgot it as they went off to college, got good jobs, and participated actively in public service. I met illegal immigrant, the occasional homeless woman, and a de facto leader in the group at Pomona that showed up at the HMC graduation in an old, but clean, suit -- not for me, but perhaps just to wish the graduates well.

Being poor is simple and complicated.

It restricts opportunity, which can be simplifying. It's complicated, because there are multiple stories, multiple reasons, and multiple outcomes.

Anecdotes don't lend themselves well to analysis, even as they reveal things about the people we meet, and ourselves. But they do inform our values.

I admit -- my support of these programs are a product of the distillation of these experiences, and not based upon statistics of efficiency, fraud rates, longitudinal progress, or anything that's really needed to analyze poverty programs objectively.

But that's not how we decide whether we think something is good or not. We don't start from the statistics -we start from principles, formed by our experiences, our learning, and our environment. I think its the same for the critics of these programs.

It comes down to a moral assumption about certain things:

Do the poor deserve it?

Does it lend itself to abuse or dependence?

Can the country afford it?

I think that anyone claiming, one way or another, that their views on these programs don't rest upon some assumptions on these questions, based on our personal feelings, is not being completely honest. Objective metrics inform whether something works or doesn't - but our values determine the definition of "works" or "doesn't".

Maybe in the coming days, I'll investigate the statistics of these programs - how much they cost; the detected rate of fraud; the specific conditions that must be met; the proportion of funds, if any, that go to illegal immigrants. I suppose these are things I should know, as someone who has, in the past, advocated for the poor, and who continues to believe that the measure of our nation is in part based on how we care for the most vulnerable of our people.

For those who care, I do ask that you consider that, in my case, there is a real person who I care about in these figures.

Based on what I've said, maybe he's part of the problem. Maybe I should feel guilty for having had help taking care of my dad.

If it makes you feel better, I do have guilt.

But I'm also glad that they, and he, continue.

On the State Option to Cover Family Planning Services (American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009)

I decided to write this in response to a note that a close friend had up about the House Democrats removing a provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 from the Act of the same name (ARRA). (ARRA passed a House vote today.) While I think that particular section is necessary, I understand the reason for its removal. I hope it will be redrafted in another bill and passed as law soon. Note that this post is in favor of the specific part of the legislation dealing with family planning.

FT: The Global Food Crisis - Interactive Media

The FT has that contain a ton of information on the global food crisis.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif