Poor reading skills predict death

A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine concludes:

"Inadequate health literacy, as measured by reading fluency, independently predicts all-cause mortality and cardiovascular death among community-dwelling elderly persons. Reading fluency is a more powerful variable than education for examining the association between socioeconomic status and health. " (Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:1503-1509)

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/167/14/1503

Call Me Crazy by James Robert Daniels

PORT TOWNSEND, WASHINGTON, USA, 2006—Our local newspaper conducts a poll. This is the question: “How should we respond to the problem of homelessness in Jefferson County?”

A quarter of the people think that we should “urge the creation of affordable housing.” However, only 2% favor subsidized rent. This is in a county where many working persons search for two, three or four low-wage jobs to pay the rent. This is at a time when the minimum wage in our country is $5.15 per hour. Twenty-five percent of the working families in the United States of America don’t earn enough to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

This American small-town paper suggests the choice of allowing tent cities in public parks. Less than 6% of the citizens like that idea. We know about the tent city that Seattle has had for years. It began secretly in the woods in the middle of the city. Those people have been moved around constantly, ever since the city cracked down and bulldozed the encampment. The latest site is a clean and quiet church parking lot—surrounded by a worried neighborhood—in the suburbs.

There’s another option for us: crack down on illegal camps and prosecute offenders. Seattle has responded to people with nowhere to go. They’ve passed a law against sitting on the sidewalk. Another recent proposal there is to cut down the trees and remove the benches in public parks. Apparently the parks won’t be so attractive (to the homeless) then. New York City responds, as well. The homeless move on when prodded by police or they face arrest. How an unemployed, destitute, homeless person who has been prosecuted is supposed to pay the fine remains a mystery. A quarter of our home town’s survey respondents are all for “cracking down.” Just like the big cities, we would love to kick homeless people out. Let them go to the next neighborhood, the next town, city, county or state.

No word on how the individuals, the families, the elderly and the children we throw out will travel. Where they will go is not our concern.

Nobody seems to know who these people are—these people with no homes and no money, these people we want to fine.

Elaine was one of them, once. She quit her job and moved in order to be with her daughter who, pregnant with twins, was in a car accident. Elaine’s sister kindly opened her home to Elaine and her three children until Elaine could find work. Because of the car accident, Elaine’s daughter gave birth 12 weeks early to twin girls. Less than three weeks later, with those two babies still fighting for their lives, her sister’s house burned down. They were, all of them, suddenly homeless.

Carol had been out of work for three years and was still looking for a job, any job, when her unemployment compensation ran out. Katherine, a stranger, helped Casrol out until she found work. Then Katherine’s employer (perhaps the largest retailer in the world) fired her because of her disability (in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, incidentally).

Elsewhere in the land, Madeline, her husband and their five children found out the hard way that a water pipe under their house had been leaking. They suddenly got an unbelievable water bill from the City of Baltimore. They fixed the pipe and paid extra on their utility bill for months. That wasn’t good enough. The city sent them a notice that the land under their paid-off home would be seized and sold at auction for the balance they still owed: $310.09.

These folks are the lucky ones. With a little help from family, friends and strangers; with perseverance and hard work, in time, they’ve all got back to living from one paycheck to the next. The thing is, this can happen to anyone.

Elaine and Carol and Katherine and Madeline were not homeless. They have faced houselessness. Jessica, on the other hand, was homeless at age 20. She was completely alone in Union Square in New York City, with nothing but a few clothes and a tin cup. Someone cared enough to give her shelter for five days, until she could get herself into a place to live and a new, self-sufficient life. Jessica collected $2.68 in her tin cup on that day. She used it to help another stranger, a mother of three children, pay her rent.

I’ve been houseless in the past. I have not yet been homeless. Houselessness is not something to be feared, however awful you may think that would be for you. Like poverty, being without a place to live is just another obstacle. Sure, it can be overwhelming. When you are poor in America, everything is a struggle. If you have to give blood to get gas money to look for work, to make enough to go somewhere and apply for a “permanent job,” you are afraid of failure. When you wonder whether you’ll run out of gas at the end of the day and end up at the side of the road, with no way to even get back to your temporary “home,” you know fear.

But that is not the meaning of “homelessness.” Homeless means that you have nobody to turn to. It means that you have not only no shelter, but that you have no community, no family, not a single person in the world who will take you in. This very real fear rules the lives of many Americans today.

A survey conducted recently by Woman’s Day Magazine asks, “If you were laid off from work today, what could you afford to buy?” The overwhelming response, at 68% across the land, is this: “A pack of tissues to sob into.”

So what about that survey in our town? Here is the overwhelming, number-one response. The question: “How should we respond to the problem of homelessness in Jefferson County? Our answer: Focus on social programs that deal with mental health and substance abuse.”

Well, such programs may be a good idea for all of us. There are crazy people on our streets and drug addicts in our parks. Just as there are crazy people and drug addicts in our towns, cities, suburbs, offices and, yes, even in our capitol. But I thought the question was about homelessness. Call me crazy.

This essay originally appeared in Spring Hill Review, June 2005.

Donations in Honor of Jonny Z/Jonathan Zanin

This is a repeat of an older post. We have posted this again as Jonny Z was a friedn to Popular Ink and we hope to get the word out so that people who want to donate to his causes can.

If you wish to send a donation to honor the late musician, activist and artist Jonny Z you can send a check to Chop Suey Books. You can support the nonprofit group dedicated to feeding the hungry, Food Not Bombs, or you can contribute to the Nonesuch Fund to help pay rent on the store that will be in serious straits because of Jonny Z's death.

Chop Suey Books

1317 West Cary Street

Richmond, VA 23220

(804) 497-4705

info@chopsueybooks.com

(To post a memory, a link or other info or to read memories of Jonny Z or view links relating to Jonny, see the entry “Jonathan Zanin: A Kiss for Jonny Z”)

Jorn Ake on Ryszard Kapuscinski

I have a reading and a show of photographs coming up in June in Warsaw, Poland, so I thought to get into a traveling Polish mood I would read some of the work of Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist who had the tremendous good fortune and indeed, a tremendous amount of guts, to be given the opportunity to travel outside of Poland during the Communist era (basically from 1950 to the fall, and then to the present - he is still living) and write back about world events he experienced. The book of his that I am reading is called The Shadow of the Sun, a book which demonstrates all over again that Africa is not a sudden occurrence but a cycle of increasingly depressing intersecting spirals of Colonialism, tribalism, environment, poverty, corruption and famine. On the other hand, the respect with which he writes about the people he meets is sympathetic but not patronizing, nor is he unwilling to point out hypocrisy, bad people and absolutely bad ideas. He is not perfect - some passages are a bit dated - but he is good and fair. Here are a few quotes:

(from his introductory remarks) "This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there - about encounters with them, and time spent together. The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa.' In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."

(on the Ethiopian famine in 1975) "A human being always dies alone; the moment of death is the loneliest moment of his life. 'Mass death' means that, somewhere, a man is dying alone; but at the same time, another man, also alone, is dying as well, and, equally alone, another one still. It means that by coincidence - most frequently against his will - each of them, experiencing in solitude his own, singular death, finds himself in proximity to many others experiencing the same thing."

(upon visiting an African colleague's village home) "The yard's second focal point, besides the ancestral grave, is the kitchen. This consists of a hole in the ground surrounded on three sides by clay walls, and in it lie three blackened stones arranged in a triangle. You place the pot on top of them, and light a wood fire beneath. It is the simplest of appliances, invented during neolithic times but still useful."

(on wizards and witchcraft) "Our contemporary suspicion of and antipathy for the Other, the Stranger, goes back to the fear our tribal ancestors felt toward the Outsider, seeing him as the carrier of evil, the source of misfortune. Pain, fire, disease, drought, and hunger did not come from nowhere. Someone must have brought them, inflicted them, disseminated them. But who? Not my people, not those closest to me - they are good. Life is possible only among good people, and I am alive, after all. The guilty are therefore the Others, the Strangers. That is why, seeking retribution for our injuries and setbacks, we quarrel with them, enter into conflicts, conduct wars. In a word, if unhappiness has befallen us, its source is not within us, but elsewhere, outside, beyond us and our community, far away, in Others."

J Ake

The Bitter (Ex) Curator:

Exciting, insightful news will be forthcoming about the pretentious and contentious world of contemporary art and curating. At least it will be after I escape San Francisco and drive across the country to return to my native Tennessee. If only I was of a slightly older generation, I’m certain I would know of a Grateful Dead song that speak to all the emotions I am feeling now. It promises to be a long, strange trip but I don’t know if “Truckin” properly captures this Diaspora.

JONATHAN ZANIN: A KISS FOR JONNY Z

Jonathan Zanin, known as jonnyz (this was his preferred way of signing things) or Jonny, was a friend to Popular Ink. His Bizarre Market in Richmond, VA carried our shirts and books. An advocate for the arts and a number of worthy social causes, Jonny Z helped us with our initial promotions and always cheered us along the way.

Yesterday, I read that Jonny was killed on the Boulevard Bridge in Richmond when he was riding his bike home from a fund-raiser on Sunday night. Reports say that the police have not determined how Jonny Z died. (See article from The Richmond Times Dispatch below.)

I cannot imagine that anyone who knew Jonny Z would want to hurt him. He was, in all aspects, a lovely person.

Just last week, I went by his shop to check on Popular Ink’s stock. I had in tow my eighteen-month-old daughter, May. Above his store (which he shared with Nonesuch), located in the bottom of a converted row-house, someone was practicing on drums. Jonny Z was leaning against a wall out front, smoking a cigarette and intently listening.

When he saw us, he stood up. He was wearing a tee shirt, jeans and sneakers. With his slight frame, unkempt sandy hair and guileless smile, I thought to myself that he looked more like a kid than the proprietor of a popular store.

“Her eyes just lit up with the drums,” he said, motioning toward Baby May.

“She loves to dance, but that might drive me crazy.” I gestured at the open window from where the drumming boomed.

Jonny Z nodded thoughtfully and set down his cigarette. “Not me. I love it. I love it when anyone tries to make music.”

After we went into the store and talked inventory, Jonny Z carried a box out of for me and put it in the trunk of the car. Ever polite, Jonny Z waited as I tried to get May into her car seat.

May deftly slipped out of my grip and situated herself proudly in the empty booster seat that belongs to her older brother, Henry, who was at school. She leaned over and peered at the open car door to see if Jonny Z was watching her sit in the big-boy seat. He was. He grinned at her.

Then Jonny Z stood by for almost a half an hour while I tired to coax May out of the booster and into her own car seat. Finally, Jonny Z convinced May that she should get in her own car seat so that she could show him how to buckle up the harness. May fumbled with her seat belt and got the latch to click.

“There!” she triumphantly announced to Jonny Z.

“There!” he said, giving her his trademark, boyish grin. “Perfect!”

As we drove away, May blew a kiss to Jonny Z, a gesture she reserves only for those in her inner circle.

“There!” she said.


Excerpt from The Richmond Times-Dispatch

By JIM NOLAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

An abandoned bike, a pair of sneakers and blood on Richmond's Boulevard Bridge were among the pieces of evidence detectives pored over yesterday as they tried to solve the death of a popular city musician, artist and activist.

The body of Jonathan Raymond Zanin, 26, was found about 4 a.m. beneath the north side of the bridge.

Police were unsure yesterday whether Zanin's death was an accident, suicide or homicide. The pedestrian walkway where his bike and sneakers were found is narrow, and the fence that protects walkers and riders on the outer edge is about 5 feet high.

"We're still actively working to determine not only the cause of death, but the circumstances surrounding his death," said Richmond police spokeswoman Cynthia Price.

She said there was no preliminary indication that Zanin had been robbed, but the investigation is continuing.




Links to things of Jonny Z

Style Weekly Story on Jonny Z

A photo tribute from Nonesuch

Photos of Jonny Z

The Bizarre Market

WRIR will feature a show of Jonny Z’s music, including Tigershark and Castle Danger

An NBC news segment on his death

Tigershark’s MySpace page

YouTube video of Castle Danger with Jonny Z on drums

Reality Creates Irony in Champa's Fiction

Paula Champa’s book, Admissions--recently released by Popular Ink--features a dean of Admissions from M.I.T. A strange irony as the Dean of Admissions from M.I.T. made news today.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 27, 2007

Dean at M.I.T. Resigns, Ending a 28-Year Lie
By TAMAR LEWIN

The dean of admissions at M.I.T. admitted that she had lied about having an undergraduate degree.

My Rediculously Difficult Life

Was made more complicated last weekend when my five year old son asked a broken hotwheels car, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"