My Favorite Comic Strips

9 Chickweed Lane and Pibgorn, by Brooke McEldowney

I'd have to say, "9 Chickweed Lane is my absolute, number 1, best liked comic strip.  Can't get it in the local paper so I follow it online (here) http://www.uclick.com/client/spi/cw/  .  (David Horsey is one click away for here)  Mr McEldowney is a Julliard-educated musician and clearly is drawing/writing this tale with the background of a classical education.  I have, several times, either dived into a dictionary (I still have a big, print BOOK for that purpose!), Google or  some other reference to fully get the meaning of a panel's story, while reading. A character recently said something about "Some people cannot lay down the fardel of honor".  Do YOU know what's been said there? I did not until I'd looked it up.  The strip challanges you, as it entertains you. The strip basically follows the members of a family - Mom's a college professor, daughter is a young ballet dancer in New York City. Mom's mom is now Europe, living with an old flame from WWII.  A host of incredibly HUMAN supporting characters have complex stories all their own.  Like most great cartoonists, he has a few trademark things he's known for.  One example: when he wishes to convey that a couple have consummated their relationship physically, all the reader sees are two pair of hands.  Incredibly erotic and quite innocent, at the same time.

 Mr McEldowney recently showed us the story of "Mom's mom" during WWII and how she met the two important men in her life.  The theme ran for around half a year, and now, has been gathered up into a collection.  The author runs a blog and sells the books there:   http://chickweedcafe.blogspot.com/    "Edie Ernst, USO Singer - Allied Spy".  It's an utterly fantastic tale of love, people and the losses of war. The below is from that story arc:

He also draws a second strip - Pibgorn.  While one attribute of 9 Chickweed Lane is the humanness of the characters, with Pibgorn, the characters are fairies, succubuss, and assorted monsters.  A church organist (who has a relationship with the fairy Pibgorn) is the one human who recurs in this strip.  The dialog follows the same high standard as 9 Chickweed Lane.

The strip is archived on a couple of "tribute sites", going back for a few years.  Alas, the first few years are not available anywhere (at least that I could locate).  Checking in is always a pleasurable few moments every morning.

Black Friday vs Buy Nothing Day



BUY NOTHING DAY!

Draw something!

Sew Something!

Cook Something!

Sing Something!

Build Something!

Make Something!

Ring a bell for the Salvation Army!

Buy Nothing!

Occupy Christmas!

What Would Jesus Buy?

The same folks that originated the Occupy Wall Street movement also started the idea of National Buy Nothing Day. Adbusters, a group dismayed at all the commercialism of Christmas that hit a high point on the Friday after Thanksgiving, came up with the idea of a "holiday FROM shopping". Twenty years ago, they started promoting the notion of "just saying No" to the whole thing. This year, the grotesqueness has grown some more, with a number of stores and malls opening ON Thanksgiving Day, in the evening or at midnight. Will we once again view video clips of herds of obese people, bursting through Wal Mart doors and trampling each other in their dash for the big-screen TV? America! What a country!

A number of cities are seeing their "Occupy" camps moving their focus, for this weekend, to the Buy Nothing Day. In Boise, for example, the large mall will see an invasion of "shopping zombies" between 2 and 3PM on Friday. You might as well have fun while making your point, right? As Emma Goldman put it long ago: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution!"

I don't think Adbusters imagined what the impact would be when someone posted the idea for Occupy Wall Street on the Adbusters' email chat list this last July 17th. One person, sharing an idea! The idea has taken on a life of it's own and doesn't seem to be departing anytime soon. Too many people KNOW that the "one percent" are really out there and that they are running our society into the ground in a constant quest for "more". Do other folks seem to notice that your friendly policeman now resembles a member of Seal Team Six? Perhaps THIS will be the year that Buy Nothing Day actually becomes part of the national consciousness. I have hope. Other than an online purchase of some ball bearings from overseas for my BMW repair activities, I will "buy nothing" today....





Why I ring the bell for the Salvation Army



My spot, at the (West facing) entrance to the Unitah Gardens
King Soopers market.  The shadows illustrate how I am positioned
 to receive the afternoon sun.  I also can count
on seeing a few friends, as I live about a mile away.



                         Why I Ring the Bell for the Salvation Army
A couple of days ago, I just put in the first of four shifts I signed up for with the local Salvation Army.  Why am I out there, for these four-hour blocks of time, when I could be doing something more "fun", and, vertainly more comfortable? I can cite a number of reasons....

They do good work.  The loval Salvation Army operates the local homeless shelter.  The R.J. Montgomery Hope Center offers emergency housing for up to 200 people every night.  They also operate Fresh Start, an apartment-based transitional housing service, where families with children can stay up to two years as they rebuild their lives after homelessness.  The "Soup Run" uses the mobile canteen to provided a hot meal Monday through Friday evenings at a Downtown location.  It serves about 75 folks a night.  Family Services provides aid to individuals and families struggling with un-employment, rent, utility bills, medical needs and the like. They operate a church with the attitude of "Heart to God, Hand to Man".

They do good work very effeciently  No-body is pulling in a large salary as they work providing the above services.  The officers who "run the show", draw astonishingly low wages (sometimes with a provided house to live in).  No-one is "doing well by doing good" here.  I have sat on the Salvation Army Advisory Board for a number of years and see the numbers.  Money dropped in that kettle goes an long, long way to help people in our community.

The good work is increasingly needed  The rough economic times have definitely hit "the 99 percent" in our community quite hard.  The assistance and sheltering services in our community are seeing more and more "middle class/working class" individuals and families who "don't know what to do".  The "chronic homeless", the group our services were built up to serve over the last few years, know "who does what" in our town.  The "new homeless", having recently dropped off the bottom rung of the ladder, have no idea of where to go and who can help.

Ringing the bell REALLY helps.  The Salvation Army does hire people to staff the kettles.  There are also a lot of volunteers.  Service groups like Rotary sign up to help out, year in and year out. A lot of individuals do this too. The Army has found that a volunteer-staffed kettle tends to receive a larger number of dollars than one staffed by a paid person.  This is really "the season" for the Salvation Army to raise funds to support what they do all year.

It's fun!  I look forward to doing my bell ringing.  I always sign up for a specific spot (the Uintah Gardens King Soopers) at a specific time (11am to 3pm - to catch the afternoon sun).  I count on seeing and cating up with friends and acquaintences I haven't seen for a while as I stand by the one entrance to that store.  Of course, when I get corralled by the Kettle Coordinator to sign up, it late November and I have NO idea of how the weather will be on my appointed shifts.  If it is a cold, windy day, it feels slightly better that Basic Training Guard Duty at Fort Lewis, Washington in January!  You just dress for the weather and soldier on.  My shift this time around started cold and then warmed up.  During the cold first hour, a VERY kind lady brought me a cup of hot chocolate from the Starbucks inside.  That mitzvah warmed me on several levels!
It also feels good just to be a small part of such a good effort in our community.  Things like that is why "ringing the bell" is part of MY Christmas season!

It's not too late to help!  You are needed!  You can call the Kettle Coordinator and talk to her about helping out.  Her name is Adrianna Watson and she is at 719-884-1042  or adrianna.watson@usw.salvationarmy.org    

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Comics I Like to Follow

I like to start each day by running down a llist of about a dozen comic strips and blogs.  The comics are ones that I cannot get locally, as they are not carried by either the daily or weekly papers.  A couple of days ago, I talked about Horsey, the Op-Ed cartoonist at the Seattle P.I..  There are more.....  I balance Doonesbury, for example, with Mallard Filmore.  Doonesbury I grew up with, almost from Day One; Mallard Fillmore is a right-wing talking duck who is a newspaper reporter.  Both point out very real issues with a stated point of view.  An online comic I JUST ran across - "Day by Day" (it's been around since 2002!) is a great story, featuring "yuppies" (can we still use that term?) who live in New York (I think) and struggle with politics and making a living.  Very well drawn, sharp humor and it requires a real keen awareness of what's going on to fully appreciate.  An example is below:



It as available at:  http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/   

The website archives strips back to late 2002 when it began. 

Another, more of a "silly" nature is the "Meaning of Lila".  The day-to-day adventures of a single working woman who has adopted a brilliant young girl with cancer.  Her best friends are all gay, it seems and she spends a LOT of time in Starbucks and bars.  She's kind of a bimbo, but a kind hearted bimbo.  It too is archived back to 2005.  Occasionally there's some political comment mixed in with the humor but it's mostly just well-thought out entertainmant. 

This one's at:   www.gocomics.com/meaningoflila/  

The last one I'll review today is certainly the wierdest.....Skinhorse

Project Skinhorse is a government-funded agency, set up to look after the results of various "mad scientist" experiements, that resulted in an assortmant of really odd beings.  A STOL aircraft with a human brain implanted to run the controls is one.  A bright talking dog is another.  "Unity" resulted from a zombie experiment.  The "Boss" is a hive of bees that thinks collectively.  The leader of the group is a cross-dressing psychologist. Moustachio the Thinkonium is a steampunkish wind-up clockwork brain.   And on and on.... 

The archives go back a couple of years to the start of the strip.

 From the cartoon's website:

 

                                                                     "About Skin Horse

Somewhere in this great nation is a top-secret government agency in charge of providing aid to America's nonhuman citizenry. Perpetually overworked and underpaid, these dedicated civil servants soldier on with a dedication exceeded only by their respective passions for heavy rifles, stylish footwear, and good sturdy squeaky toys. They're not our country's best nor our country's brightest, but to all the lost and lonely creations of misguided science wandering the wild places of this country, they are a beacon of minimum-wage hope. This is their story. "

                                    This bit of oddness is at:  www.gocomics.com/skinhorse/

There's more but I'll stop here for today!   -Matt

Ever Get a "Fund Lowering Letter"?

Well, HAVE you?  I have, twice, from the same folks - the Bijou Community.  The first such letter arrived in 1981.  The Bijou Community folks, Steve Handen, Mary Lynn Sheetz, Peter Parker, Bill Sultzman, Peter and Mary Sprunger-Froese, Esther Kinsimore, Donna Johnson and others were realizing their dream of opening a "house of hospitality", patterned after the Catholic Worker houses that Dorothy Day and others set up in the poorer parts of large American cities.  Steve and this small group had been running the local Soup Kitchen for almost ten years by this time and were well known as being real "helpful" to those in need.  They also, by then, had gained a reputation for doing very well with what ever was given to them as "charity".  They had not set up as a "501-C3" agency so there was no tax deduction for giving them money, food or a car.  They found a house, very appropriate in size and location, at 411 W. Bijou.  They "did the deal" and needed to come up with a down payment for the house.  The Ithaka Land Trust was created to actually hold title to the House, in perpetuity for the use of the community.  For the first time ever, the Bijou Community sent out a fund raising letter to those they knew or those they thought might be of help.  To their humble surprise, within a VERY short time, they not only received the funds needed to pay the down payment, they received enough to RETIRE THE ENTIRE MORTGAGE!  Hence the "fund lowering letter"..... I, and the rest of their supportive community, received a one page letter; thanking us for the support for the Bijou House and suggesting that now, "You could direct your generosity to the many other worthy agencies in town that help those in need".  Ever get something like THAT from any "charity" in town?

About 5 years later, in 1985, the Bijou folks needed to relocate the Soup Kitchen from First Baptist Church to St Mary's Marian House facility.  The Marian House, across Bijou from St Mary's Cathedral, housed a part-time senior's program, had been used as a temporary emergency shelter for a couple of Winters when the old County Poor Farm was full and not much else.  The Bijou folks figured they needed about $50,000 to upgrade the house kitchen and fit the place out as a soup kitchen.  So, the second "asking letter" went out from the Bijou Community.  Almost immediately, they had the money needed and sent out their SECOND "fund lowering letter".  Before they could "shut off the flow", they had acquired enough "extra funds" that were put to the community's use by purchasing the vacant lot next to the Bijou House.  They wanted to own this lot for a few reasons.  They preferred that that land NOT become a 7-11 type of commercial enterprise, right next to the Bijou House.  They thought the land might be needed at some future time to expand the Bijou House's mission into.  In the meantime, they cleared out the vacant lot and put in a very nice "vest-pocket" park, with plantings, benches and a basket-ball court.

The Bijou Community folks eventually stopped running a House of Hospitality.  The group is getting older, there just weren't enough people or energy to keep going the intensive supervision, that the Bijou House required.  The House remains in that hands of Ithaka and is now used as far-less supervised housing for poor and disabled people.  I helped out there for at least ten years as a "relief over-night supervisor".  I was also sort of the "house nurse" there and would come over in answer to calls like "Does he need to go the E.R."  It was a wonderful effort to be part of.  The Soup Kitchen is now in the ownership of Catholic Charities, having been given over in 1995 for pretty much the same reasons as the Bijou House - they were just too tired to keep up the day-to-day heavy lifting that running the Soup Kitchen entailed.  I helped out there too, sharing the Sunday brunch meal supervision duties, every Sunday with Bill Sultzman.  I also supervised the Clinic attached to the Soup Kitchen.  Started soon after the move there, in 1986, I and a small group of volunteers staffed it Monday through Friday, even on the holidays.  It is now operated by the SET agency.

It WAS nice to receive those "fund-lowering letters" however. Wonder if I'll ever see another one....

My favorite editorial cartoonist, Dave Horsey



One of David Horsey's latest

For many years now, I've been a follower of David Horsey, the editorial cartoonist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  The PI is now "all online" so you have to visit their website to see his efforts.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/

He's a bit Left-of-Center and expresses his views quite elegantly.  Given the events of the present and recent past, he won't run short of material any time soon!  He occasionally posts a thoughtful essay as well as the visual stuff.  He's part of my morning routine of running through about a dozen URLs of comics and cartoons our Gazette does not see fit (or can't afford)  to print in our daily paper.

My LIfe as a Guinea Pig

The ad that launched my new career.

In early Summer, I ran across the above advertisement in our local paper. Take lots of pain medication?  Suffer from constipation because of the side-effects of the opiod pain relievers?  Hey, that's me!  I called the clinic in the ad and after a bunch of questions, they said I'd likely be a good candidate.  My motivation to drive or ride across town and spend hours with these folks?  Wasn't to serve mankind, it was the $50 a visit they were offering (with $75 for one half-day session).  I had to delay the start of this process as we were travelling during the Summer.  Come September, I showed up for my initial appointment with the clinic.  The "research company" was running a number of these sort of studies, and had taken over a wing of the CSHP facility out at Barnes and Powers, so it is a bit of a journey for me over on the Westside.  The drug being investigated was methyltrexaline.  This is a "narcotic antagonist" that negates the effects of opiod medications.  It's been used for years to help addicts withdraw from narcotics.  The "methyl" version of this drug works in the body but can't cross the blood-brain barrier to work in the brain to take away the pain-relieving action of the drugs I use to deal with my chronic pain. The idea is that it would block the constipating action of the opiod in the gut but NOT the pain-relieving effect in the brain. I have been dealing with serious pain for years, following a broken back in 1996.  This problem was then made much worse following that septic coma, after the botched gall bladder removal at Penrose Hospital in 2008. I take a fair amount of powerful drugs....

 They drew a number of blood tubes, did an EKG, took a lengthly history and generally poked and prodded me for a couple of hours.  The time spent there was made easier by the fact that the staff was a trio of young, bright (and really cute) women.  After the labs were processed, they called and said I was "Good to go".  I reported back in for the "long visit", where I would get the first dose of the experimental medication and we'd "see what happened".  There were three groups, a "control" group that got a placibo.  There were two other groups - one got "X amount" of the test drug, the other group got "2X" of the drug.  I'm pretty sure I was in the "2X" group.  After an hour or so, I was really gurgling and rumbling.  The issue of constipation was a distant memory as I made several dashes from the room I was assigned to the clinic bathroom!  This went on for three hours or so.  Finally, as the clinic closed down, I left for  home.  I was given a Palm Pilot type of computer to record health and bowel activity data every day.  I took the test drug every morning and without fail, found myself having to stay REAL close to the house bathroom for several hours, every day.  The cramps weren't any fun either.  Finally, after a week of spending 1/3 to 1/2 of my daytime hours in or near our bathroom, I called the clinic and bailed out of the test program.  They didn't seem surprised at all and I made one follow up visit to de-brief and give them back the equipment.  This methyltrexaline has been researched for at least ten years for this use and still remains off the market.  I left the experiment feeling that using HALF the dose I was taking, WHEN I had a constipation problem, would be a reasonable way to go.  I made a couple hundred dollars and had an interesting experience.  Got a thourough physical work up in the process.  One more line on the resume!

(Told you this Blog would cover more than homeless issues!)

Starting up for Real

Hello all,
I'm starting to run this blog on a regular basis now. I am in the process of closing down the website "Avenues of Escape", that focused on homelessness in the Colorado Springs region. Attached to that website was the Email Discussion List. We've had as many as 120 members but between my being the main (95%) contributor, a couple of hackings, the rising expenses of maintaining the website and declining interest, I am calling it a day, after just about ten years. When I started the site, and the Discussion List, in 2001, homelessness was a "hot issue". As the List started up, we had a half decade or so of rapid expansion of services, as we created agencies like Colorado House, Harbor House, Crawford House and Urban Peak. The Salvation Army took over the operation of the Montgomery Center, our main emergency shelter and improved services. We created Homeward Pikes Peak. I'm proud to say I helped find the inspiration for this community "homeless services oversight" agency by finding and communicating with Homeward Richmond. Setting up Homeward Pikes Peak was the final act of the Southern Colorado Commission on Homelessness. This commission was created by the El Pomar Foundation after the hotly contested "mega-shelter" concept was abandoned by El Pomar. The creation of Homeward Pikes Peak was one of five recommendations the Commission made to El Pomar and the City of Colorado Springs.

I have to say, after that lively five years, we, as a community have kind of slowed down in our momentum in both the creation of services and the conversations about what more can be done. I personally have given up on seeing the last bit of possible services I found in my research of "what's out there". The idea of "community case management" and/or the issuing of "homeless ID cards" is NOT going to happen in this town. It has been successfully demonstrated in Clearwater, Florida (Homeward even flew the director of that system out here to speak to the agency heads about six years ago). It also is working well in the Saint Paul area. Because the Soup Kitchen has declared that the handouts will always be limitless and 'no questions asked', even if we set up a card system, it would be undermined by a culture of "freebies" in our community. As I am fond of saying: "this town has two well-established tracks of service for the homeless - the Stay on the street track and the get OFF the street track." These opposing tracks of service are offered by the same agencies.....As long as we remain "one of the best towns to be homeless in", things will not seriously improve as far as moving folks OFF our streets. At one time a stated goal of our community was "To be known as a good place to exit homelessness and a bad place to pursue a homeless lifestyle." We sure don't hear much of THAT anymore!

I believe the Discussion List felt the effects of these doldrums of the last few years. I will, of course, continue to follow the efforts of our providers to help folks off our streets. I personally, have left the "front lines" after my disability really set in. (That 'adventure' will be the topic of another Blog entry or two!) I continue to sit on a few Boards in town here but that's about it. I'm sure I'll recount a story or two from my almost 40 years of working in Colorado Springs in a number of volunteer (and a few paid) positions. It all started in early 1972, when I was settling into this quiet little town after a tour in VietNam as a medic. While this is not a "discussion list", thoughtful comments are welcome here at this Blog. Welcome aboard!

While homelessness will be a recurring topic here, I'll be commenting on a LOT more. I have a variety of interests and still pursue a number of them. Even "things in past" might be of interest to my readers. Thank you for being a part of the conversation.
(and we'll see you at this Thursday's CHAP meeting!) -Matt