The SNAP or Food Stamp Kiada

 

I am retired and living on a fixed income of around $20,000 dollars a year. Even with a $400 dollar car payment—I bought a car before I was forced into retirement by vampire capitalist SUNY—I was doing OK. Then I got sick.

My sickness started when I took a generic version of Advair. After taking it I immediately struggled for breath and subsequently I developed stomach tightness and consequent deep breathing difficulties and bowel problems. I went to the doctor and have now been sent to a heart doctor, a pulmonologist, two allergists, an ear nose and throat specialist, and a Gastro-Intestinal specialist, including recently a GI liver specialist since I have liver and kidney cysts,  My doctor now wants to send me back to an allergist and to a urologist while the liver GI specialist is sending me back to the GI generalist. 

Needless to say, this merry-go-round that seemingly never stops is costing me monies even though I have Medicare and New York state retiree health insurance. As I told me GP after I brought this up when she wanted to send me to more specialists the copays of $25 dollars, $50 dollars—trips to an urgent clinic—and $100 dollars—three trips to the accident and emergency—not to mention three CT scans and two MRI’s, add up. And this is why, along with car issues, my savings are almost gone.

Because of the decline in my savings I decided, after looking at the qualifications—which I met--to apply for SNAP or food stamps through New York state, the state in which I live. I went to the online website and filled out the forms and provided pictures of my Medicare, NY state retirement income,  Ny state driver’s licence, and a host of other necessary documentation they demanded. About a month or so later I got a letter from food stamps saying they needed information about my pension. I assumed they meant my TIAA CREF “pension” of $70 dollars since they didn’t specify what they meant and I had already provided them with a picture of my NY state retirement income. So I sent it to them. In fact, I sent them the original since I no longer own a printer and wanted to get the documentation in as quickly as possible. Why they could not have asked me to send a picture of this online as I did the earlier ones is beyond me.

Several months later my application was denied. They said that I did not send them the requisite information. Did the post office lose the letter with document I returned four days after I received it? Did the SNAP office lose it? Was this intentional so that roadblocks where put in the way of applicants again and again hoping that the applicant would simply, at some point, give up? I immediately appealed the ruling by writing, calling, and emailing. 

Recently I received a call from the Albany County Government, the public bureaucracy that handles food stamp applications in Albany County, and which I assumed was related to my food stamp application given the timing. Though my phone is working and I had it near me I apparently missed the call. Is it one of those bots that lets the number ring once or twice and no more? I missed it again while at the doctor’s office. I tried to call and tell them when I would be home but got no response after I left a message. So here I am stuck in the hard place that one is always stuck in in a Kafkaesque and Voinovichian bureaucratic world.

Boo Hoo Hoo: Musings on Trauma and Free Speech

Ah, traumas and free speech. The one never seems to come up anymore without the other in modern Boo Hoo Hoo America anymore. Apparently many don’t grasp that free speech is different from action, I can say, for example, and traumatise many in the process by doing so, that god gave this land—Judea and Samaria, the land from not so shining sea to not so shining river—to me and mine. However, if I start to go out and engage in violence to make it so (shout out to Jean-Luc) extralegally—war doesn’t fall into that category oddly since most humans seem to have coded it as legalised murder if selectively—well there are laws as they say.

As to feelings the putative feelings of the traumatised they are, as the song says, nothing more than feelings. And many of those who have them faiil to have to provide evidence of physical violence to back up your traumas, something everyone has for a variety of reasons. Some of us apparently are able to kind of deal with those traumas—traumas we all feel and can hence sympathise and empathise with if some of us only selectively due to parochial political and ideological correctness--whether they be jealousies or some other form of human stupidity--something it is impossible to stop as history shows--thanks to Freud and his children and other coping mechanisms such as Buddhism or the serenity prayer or whatever. We have to if we want to continue slogging our way through the crap and pain that often is life. Life is not and never can be flower child bliss even with the assistance of psychedelics.

One must comment on the commitment of those supposedly traumatised to free speech, you know that little thing that is in the US Constitution. Hypocrisy on a general scale about this is not surprising. Just look around at those right wingers who proclaim free speech out of the gilded side of their gobs and violate it out of the others when it is not their politically and ideologically correct speech at every other turn.

The TIAA-Cref Kiada: Part Three, the Bureaucratic Cyclops

 

Bureaucracies, unlike suicide at least according to the M*A*S*H* myth, are definitely painful. I know because I have had several painful experiences mostly with private bureaucracies including three painful experiences with TIAA-CREF, a private financial service bureaucracy based in America’s Dixie. 

The first painful experience occurred sometime in the early 21st century, precisely when I don’t recall and, to be honest, I don’t care to recall as it is not really important to me. Anyway back to the tale: I had taken a job with the Research Foundation, SUNY, the State University of New York, a research arm of an educational system that is larger and substantially more mediocre than the demographically larger state of California. The Research Foundation decided to close my TIAA-CREF account rather arbitrarily, something bureaucracies, like monarchs, do constantly, of course. It took me three days of a painful series of emails and telephone calls, and associated headaches in order for me to have the monies accrued—a couple of hundred dollars at most, if memory serves-- from the Research Foundation SUNY account folded into another TIAA-CREF account I had taken out, this one with another SUNY bureaucracy, the State University of New York with which the Research Foundation, SUNY twain did not, and intentionally so, meet. 

After I retired from SUNY in 2021—a forced retirement since SUNY was not going to give me two classes and the health care that came along with those two classes--I decided to close my TIAA-CREF SUNY account a year later in 2022. I called the labyrinthian bot based TIAA-CREF number and was eventually transferred to the relevant bureaucratic department and bureaucrat. I was told I could close my account that day via the phone if I wanted to. I, however, decided to do it via a form which I assumed TIAA-CREf would ultimately need anyway. Moreover, I did not feel well, something that has become quite common in my retirement. I was sent the form and closed the account taking mental note that in the period between the phone call and the time it took the form to reach me and for it to reach them my account went down in value. But then that is what happens with modern capitalist stock markets. They go up up up thanks largely to casino capitalist speculation, and they go down down down thanks again largely to casino capitalist speculation, which is what happened to my no more than $3000 dollar account in the short interim.

2021 was also the year 1 I took a part-time job at the Albany College of Pharmacy Library. In retrospect I wish I hadn’t done this since ACP was one of the worst paternalistic and adolescent bureaucracies I have encountered in 69 years of life. I also—stupidity at work here again--took out another TIAA-CREF account when I took the job at ACP thinking that I would work at the college for more than three months I did before I quit because I could not stand the paternalistic nature of those administrative bureaucrats who ran the place.

In March 2024 I decided to close the ACP account, an account kept open in case I wanted to put more monies in it for me or my son. So I did what I did before but only after trying to do it via my online accoun—I also needed to update my email and phone number--an account which I had not used more than once or twice since I set it up and which would not accept my user ID and password, despite the fact that I had not only written down both and had saved my user id and password in my computer saved passwords page. Needless to say this is just one more of the many banes of life in the brave new digital pain in the arse age in which we are all now forced to live. So, I called the TIAA-CREF number, waded through the press x's for the y’s. When I got to an actual human I asked to be transferred to the account closing bureaucracy. My request was denied. When I asked for a form to be sent to me at the address they had on file so I could close my account that request was also denied too. I was, miracle of miracles, provided with an address that I could write to in order to request the account close form. And that is what I did. I even sent this request on one of the original pages of my quarterly earnings report to them requesting the form so I could close my account thinking that might help.

Long story short it has been awhile and I have still not received a response from this Orwellian meets Three Stooges bureaucracy even after sending a second letter. As a consequence I am now proceeding to the next step. I am going to contact the New York Attorney Generals’s office and contact a lawyer though paying my lawyer really to contact them probably isn’t worth the $72 bucks in my account as of the end of March or the hassle. Hiring a lawyer to deal with the absurd TIAA-CREF bureaucracy would no doubt set me back much more than what is in my account. But hey, $72 smackers is $72 smackers and I am retired on a limited monthly income from Medicare and the pension fund of the state of New York. Hmm, I really probably should rethink that last shouldn’t I?

The Books of My Life: A History of New Zealand (Sinclair)

 

Though many historians, caught up as they are in their parochial historical boxes, parochial historical boxes that often provide the scaffolding for various civil, civic, public national faiths, it is essential, if we are to understand the history and culture of the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, to compare and contrast those national and far too often mythic histories, with the history and culture of other similar English and British settler societies. Given this it is necessary and essential for historians of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to read the history of each of these other English and British settler societies lest they play into and validate the myths of exceptionalism that are at the heart of the civil religions of each of those new nation-states. Some scholars, of course, Louis Hartz, Thomas Bender, James Belich and others, have attempted to do just that over the years. Nevertheless, despite these comparative histories of these comparative historians, the comparative history of English and British settler societies remains very much in its infancy and very much a marginal practise within the social sciences even today, to, I would argue, their detriment.

Keith Sinclair, one of the second generation of professional Kiwi historians, while punctuating his history of New Zealand with comparisons between New Zealand with the United States, Canada, Australia, and, of course, Great Britain, has written a book on New Zealand history that, since it first appeared in 1959, has acquired the status of a classic among histories of New Zealand. In A History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, revised edition, 2000) Sinclair takes readers on a journey from the settlement of New Zealand by those who we now know as the Maori to the late 1990s.Along the way he touches on the high points of Kiwi political, economic, and demographic history, as any good history should do, and on New Zealand cultural and identity history, the last an exploration that was somewhat novel in 1959.

There is much in A History of New Zealand that should be grist for the comparative English and British settler society mill. Comparative English and British settler society historians will find much of interest in the history of European interactions with the Maori, in the attempt by the British to learn from their treatment of indigenes in what became the United States, Canada, and Australia and apply these lessons to Aotearoa. They can learn much from the impact of utopian ideas that originated in Europe and in how they played themselves out in New Zealand. They historians can learn much from the role capitalist land speculation played in the colonisation of New Zealand. They can learn much from the impact of World War I on New Zealand identity. They can learn much from the impact of depressions on New Zealand. They can learn much from the difficulties associated with an export based economy which NZ was and is almost from the very beginning of European colonisation. They can learn much from the delayed adoption of the Westminster Statute in Aotearoa compared to Canada. They can learn much from the movement of New Zealand out of the orbit of Imperial Britain and into that of Imperial America, particularly in the wake of World War II. They can learn much from the increasing ethnic diversification of New Zealand. They can learn much from the development of the welfare state in 19th and 20th century New Zealand, a welfare state, some argue, that was a leader in progressive and neoliberal reforms thanks particulafrly to the Labour party. And they can learn much from the integration of core nation New Zealand into the modern global economy dominated by the United States in the wake of WWII. 

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the basics of New Zealand history.

The Day We Freaked in Reno and Lake Tahoe

When Lea and I planed our excursion up the Pacific Coast of North America we also made plans to go to Yosemite National Park. We learned from our guide books that one not only should one but must reserve a tent campsite in the park given how many tourists come to the park even in April, which is when we planned to be there.

So, we made a four day reservation for a tent camping site in Yosemite and headed north. These four days determined our entire excursion in California and the Pacific Northwest. 

On our way away from the Pacific coast we decided to stop at Lava Beds National Monument which we could only reach by going through Oregon, We were only one of two campers in the campsite the two evenings we spent there. After awakening on the next morning we hiked one of the lava tubes that the national monument is famous for. In these tubes one hikes in total darkness.Despite this we only hit our heads twice, as I recall, as we felt our way along the walls of the lava tube from one cave to another. Thankfully we wore the hard hats which the rangers had provided to us in preparation for the hike.

After leaving Lava Beds we backtracked through Oregon and headed for Reno, Nevada. There we, much in need of a respite from tenting, stayed for four days in Circus Circus enjoying the hot tub, the television, and the cheap food that Reno, like Vegas, was then famous for. On one of our days in Reno we drove up to—and I mean drove up to--Lake Tahoe driving completely around the lake. It was, to say the least breathtaking. We had hoped to do some skiing but the temperature at the time we were there in April was in the 90s so skiing was inadvisable if not impossible.

Back in Reno we prepared to head to Yosemite. The we learned to our horror that the roads in from the Nevada side were closed during the winter months and April was considered a winter month. We panicked as we had to be in Yosemite the next day by, if memory serves, 6 pm or our campsite was first come first serve for others. Frantically we headed across the snowy Donner Pass to Sacramento then to Yosemite. We got there with a half hour to spare. We claimed our camp site noticing those waiting and hoping that those who made reservations, like us, would not show so they could claim an open tent site.

We, of course, did the usual things those who go to Yosemite do. We went to the lodge. We went to Hetch Hetchy whose beauty had been sadly destroyed to provide water for water hungry human animals in San Francisco. We took in the marvel that was El Capitan. We hiked along the river feeling its enveloping mist as we did. And we hiked up the 823 metres or 2700 feet of Yosemite Falls. 

As we hiked the Falls out of Yosemite Valley we had never seen so many people on the trail during our various journeys across the Canadian and US Wests. It was as if we were, and paradoxically so, at the mall since, as one ranger told us while we were at Glacier National Park in Montana, people will walk for miles in a mall—one of the temples of capitalist consumerism—but not in the great outdoors. In Yosemite, at least, they were hiking for the moment outdoors. By the time we reached the table where the falls fell and then fell again, however, most of those hiking the Yosemite Falls Trail had disappeared  hiking down the trail instead of hiking all the way up it. We were overjoyed to be away from the maddening halfway covenant crowd.

Truth be told, it was a difficult hike for Lea and me. This was in the days before I was treated for my asthma with Advair and Singulair and both of us, despite having hiked for months, had to stop a few times and catch our breath, resting for a half hour or so before beginning the hike up the mountain again. We were not the only ones having problems. We noticed a man in military fatigues who was in slow motion heavy breathing mode. There were other hikers, however, who made us feel deeply inadequate. Several young children, for example, seemed to have no problem hiking, nay running, up while a marathon runner in training passed us twice as we hiked up, once as he was on the way up the mountain and once as he was on the way down.

We finally reached the top and immediately went to where the falls fell off the mountain. We laid down on the pier at the top that stretched out to where the falls fell and watched the water fall. It was an amazing experience, an experience almost of free flight.

After we left Yosemite we went to nearby Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park.  The weather remained absolutely gorgeous.There was hardly anyone at either campsite. At the Kings Canyon campground one of the RV campers made biscuits/cookies for everyone in the campground bringing them to each tent or RV. We were so happy and they tasted so good. We met an Australian couple who were taking their one year vacation to travel across the US and Canada. We saw a couple travelling in an RV having trouble negotiating the roads in and out of the campground. We saw an RV break down and have to be towed out by a wrecker. The things one sees when camping!

 

The Day I Whirlpooled in Niagara Falls Ontario

 

I don’t remember precisely when it was anymore. It was, I am sure, sometime in the early mid-1990s. I was doing postgraduate work at university and borrowed a friend’s car—she called it the Beast—and drove down to Niagara Falls, Ontario to camp with my son Alan, who was still in his teens, and his mum, Rachel. 

Rachel, who had lived in India for a time, made us a very tasty meal of Indian—which region I don’t recall—for dinner that first night. I love Indian cuisine. The next day we did the usual things everyone does in Niagara Falls. We drove through the city taking in the touristy sites. We went to the Falls. We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist and got misty. We had a meal in a beautiful landscaped local park. We went to the Niagara River Whirlpool. 

At the Whirlpool we hiked down the trail and onto the rocky beach of this geological wonder and marvel where the water spins like a whirlpool. For some reason I decided that I wanted to feel what it was like to be whirlpooled by the river though it was probably illegal and certainly moronic. So I got into the river, grabbed on to the rocks and soil of its bottom and let my body move with that of the water. It was an amazing experience. Alain and Rachel eventually came in to the water as well though I don’t remember if they followed my idiotic example or not.

I paid for my stupidity later, however. For about a week my asthma acted up and my breathing was laboured. Was it the chemical bath? I did eventually recover living to tell the tale of the day I whirlpooled in the Niagara River near Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The Day I Was Surrounded by the Russian Navy

 

In 1997 I visited post-USSR Moscow for the first time. I was visiting relatives something that helped me cut through and around a lot of the red tape of getting a visa and getting official residency in the Russian capital.

I flew to Moscow via Aeroflot. I left JFK Aeroport in the morning and arrived in Moscow around 8 in the morning the next day. One of my relatives met me at Sheremetyevo Aeroport northeast of Moscow. I had packed lightly, carrying only two bags with me which I could put in the overhead and as a result got through customs and past the militsiya pretty quickly an with no problem. Tanya, my relative, and I left the aeroport, hoped a bus to a metro stop, and eventually made our way to her home near the Universitet metro station and near Leninsky Prospekt. I felt so good I didn’t need go to bed so me and my relative headed to a nearby park near the German Embassy.

I did finally go to bed, but at the normal time, and woke up feeling great the next morning. During my several months in Moscow I did the usual things. My bowels got messed up. I visited the museums. I went to the Kremlin. I went to Kolomenskoye, one of my favourite places in the city, lounging in the old orchard and watching the Moscow River flow. I went to Gorky Park via the embankment across from Luzhniki and did not have to pay as a result of going in the back way. I did the Mikhail Bulgakov tour visiting the Patriarch Ponds, Bulgakov’s model for Master’s house near the Arbat, the Sparrow or Lenin Hills, and the flat where Bulgakov lived which was covered with Master and Margarita graffiti from the bottom storey to the top. I visited the marvellous Mayakovsky Museum. I walked past the Lubyanka several times. I walked the French like boulevards of Moscow often making my way to Chistye Prudy to have a sit down, always making sure I went there by the street with Dunkin’ Donuts on it in just case I needed to use the wash room or water closet. I went to food and goods markets. I went to the USSR exhibition grounds. I saw the impotent’s dream. I went to Novodevichy and wondered about the cemetery finding Yesenstein’s, Oistrakh’s, and Bulgakov’s graves. I visited my relatives dacha east of Moscow near where the Soviet military stopped the German advance and picked fruit to put up for the fall. I went to hordes of churches which seemed to be on every block in the city. I visited the Choral Synagogue and went in after winding my way though those begging for alms out in front. And I went to bookstores, lots of bookstores.

There were some great English language bookstores in Moscow when I lived there. There was the famous one on Kuznetsky Most. There was Shakespeare and Company somewhere in, if memory serves, the south part of the capital. There was another one near Shakespeare and Company, if memory serves. There was one near the Arbat and the Master’s House. And there was one near the circle line in the south of the city. 

One Saturday in July I decided to go to the bookstore near the circle line. It was a beautiful day in Moscow, sunny and somewhere in the 70s, a lot like many other summer days in the capital. Generally the usually busy circle line was not that busy on Saturdays. What I did not realise until I got off the subway at a metro station I recall as having frescoes or icons of Soviet glory days. As I was walking through the station I was fascinated by the fact that you could clearly see the indebtedness of Soviet era heroic art to Orthodox Christian heroic art of earlier day.

After I exited the stations it very quickly became clear that it was Navy Day. Soon I was “surrounded by Russian sailors clearly having a good time on leave in Moscow. At first I was a bit scared. Booze, the military, out having fun, hey what could go wrong with that? Very quickly, however, my fears were allayed. The sailors were, and in retrospect not surprisingly so, in a very good mood. One of them asked me what I was up to and I told them I was heading to a nearby bookstore. They split from me almost immediately feeling, I suppose, that they could find a much better time elsewhere than with boring old me who could barely speak Russian in the first place.