Author: David Gittlin

I’ve published thirteen novels, including the popular "Silver Sphere Series" and"The AndroBiotica Adventures." Before quitting my day job, I spent more than thirty years in corporate communications as a marketing director. My most recent novella, "The AndroBiotica Adventures," is now available on Amazon.com and other major online book retailers.

For more information about my novels, please visit www.davidgittlin.net and www.davidgittlin.com

Categories
fiction issues life profiles short stories

Too Late For Remorse


The words resounded against the dripping walls.  “Shut up.  Shut up.  Shut up.”

Blood trickled from the corners of Trevor Hartigan’s mouth.  His awareness flickered from the pain coursing through his broken fingertips to the oppressive heat in the room, to the crooked expression on the interrogator’s ugly face.

“If you lie to me again, you’ll beg me to kill you after what I do next,” the Confessor snarled, baring his nicotine-stained teeth.

Trevor’s spine ached from about a half-hour of confinement lashed to a straight-backed wooden chair.  The duct tape wrapped tightly around his upper body dug into his back and chafed the skin on his abdomen.  It seemed he had been sitting in this tiny dungeon for hours.  He cursed himself for whatever carelessness had landed him in this predicament.  He suspected it was the girl.  He had let down his guard in a moment of weakness.  Blanca had to be one of their spies.  He worshiped her, had asked for her hand in marriage, and she had betrayed him.

He focused on the gap between his tormentor’s chipped front teeth.  The gap reminded him of a missing board in a white picket fence.  He imagined crawling through the hole in the fence to freedom.

“Save your energy and kill me now,” Trevor said in a low voice.

The pain in his body only served to sharpen his mind and resolve.  He carefully hid this fact with every word out of his mouth, every subtle gesture.  He had to convince the Confessor he was telling the truth.

“I’m a professional, Hartigan.  I’ve seen every trick in the book.”  The Confessor picked up a scalpel from a row of surgical knives glinting on a steel tray next to Trevor.  “You’ll tell me what I need to know or I’ll cut out your eye.   I want the names of your confederates.”

Beads of sweat ran from Trevor’s forehead.  He blinked reflexively to keep the moisture from stinging his eyes.

“I’m a loyal citizen of the Conglomerate, Brother Confessor.  I’ve been falsely accused by inferior minds jealous of my position.”

“You are a traitor and a fool, Hartigan.  You enjoyed wealth and privilege as the Conglomerate’s Master Architect.  You had the opportunity to design buildings that would have lasted for centuries.  Your fame would have spread around the world.  You threw it all away when the girl convinced you to join the resistance.”

The Confessor ripped off his cowl.  His head began to transform into the head of a Praying Mantis.  Long, spindly legs sprouted underneath the Confessor’s navy blue robe.  The garment burst apart as the insect grew taller.  The roof of the room suddenly blasted skyward, as if it were the second stage of a rocket.

Trevor was so terrified his heart nearly stopped beating.  Blanca had told him the resistance knew very little about the aliens due to the group’s limited resources.  Trevor imagined no amount of training or preliminary briefing could have prepared him for what was happening before his bleary eyes.

The Confessor-turned-insect continued to grow past the height of the former ceiling.  Trevor stared upwards just as the giant creature’s claw reached down to pluck him out of the cell, chair and all.  He turned away, unable to look at the monster’s bulging eyes and chewing mandibles.  He felt certain the Mantis was preparing to eat him alive.

Looking down from the twenty-foot high vantage point in the giant insect’s grasp, Trevor saw a honeycomb of cells on the ground similar to the one he had occupied seconds ago.   On either side, a straight rock face soared hundreds of feet from a makeshift pine wood floor.  It was hard to make out more details in the bluish-gray light emanating from a source somewhere above them.

Trevor figured the interrogation installation had been carved out of a massive cavern somewhere underneath the city.  A huge construction crane positioned in the middle of the complex plucked the triangle-shaped roof off another interrogation cell with its multi-story steel arm.  Another poor soul was about to be scared further out of his or her wits, it appeared.

Trevor thought of Blanca again.  It was impossible to keep her out of his mind for more than a few minutes since the time he had met her.  How could she have done this to him?

“The girl isn’t a double-agent, as you suspect,” the giant Mantis said.  She will be arrested soon after she leads us to more members of the resistance.

How could the creature know he was thinking of Blanca?

“To answer your question, I can read a human mind when I get in the same room as one.  Your thoughts during our session have revealed most of the useful information you have to offer.  This final stage of the interrogation process makes any remaining secrets as easy to suck up as fresh meat off a dry bone.”

All of the nerve-endings in Trevor’s body went numb.  “I’m glad Blanca showed me I was working for a race of alien monsters instead of what I thought was a multi-national energy corporation.”

“You are the monster,” the Mantis said.  “The Conglomerate will soon be well established in every country of this world as more of us arrive.  In ten years, it will no longer be necessary for us to transform into human form.  The human race will cease to exist.”

Trevor heard his bones cracking as the creature’s claw closed around him.

He screamed.

“Shut up.”  The harsh voice came from far away.

Trevor’s eyes opened.  The first thing he saw was the gray ceiling of his solitary jail cell.  He rolled off the bunk bed and sank to his knees on the cold concrete floor.  The smell of disinfectant and urine filled his nostrils.  He moaned.

“Shut up, goddammit.”  The guard appeared on the other side of the bars dressed in a gray shirt and olive pants.  His right hand rested on the .38 revolver strapped to his waist.

All of the colors in this hellhole are drab, Trevor thought.  It seemed like a lifetime had passed since he had taken to wearing bright colors shortly after meeting Blanca.  After a year of dating, they had decided to marry.  He had never been happier in his entire life.

“Quiet down and go back to sleep,” the guard said.  “You make any more noise an’ I’ll call the shrink back in here to shoot you up with sedatives.   You’re gonna’ learn to settle down and do your time quietly, if it takes a fist in the teeth to teach you how.  You got that?”

“Yeah,” Trevor croaked.

The guard stepped away.   His boots made a hollow echo down the concrete and steel corridor.

They had placed him on suicide watch.  He had tried to hang himself with a belt.  They stripped his cell of anything he might use to end his life.  Padding protected the walls of his eight by ten foot cell.  He had no such protection against the recurring nightmares and the memory of the accident.  That night replayed in his mind like an endlessly looping horror film.

They had gone out with some friends to celebrate the latest job offer.  He remembered Blanca pushing back her silky red hair and laughing gaily all night long.  They drank and ate at the South Beach bar and restaurant until two o’clock in the morning.  The hours swept by and the drinks went down without Trevor taking much notice.  When the time to leave arrived, Trevor was too embarrassed to admit he was higher than a kite.

At first, Trevor thought an animal crossing the road had hit the front tire when he heard the thunk on Blanca’s side of the car.  Blanca turned to him, wild-eyed.  He had never seen the pedestrian jaywalking across the deserted street.  Trevor had been speeding through the residential neighborhood to make it home in time to get a few hours of sleep before his nine A.M. job interview.  He never made it to the interview.

The victim was a man in his early thirties, the father of three children.  His wife was waiting for him across the street at the front door of their home when the accident occurred.  She told the police exactly what happened.  The man died from a brain hemorrhage on the way to the hospital.

He had dreamed about a career in architecture from boyhood.  After completing Architecture School with honors, he had received job offers from the top firms in Miami.  He looked forward to bringing beautiful buildings and bright, creative children into the world with the passion he felt for his work and his soul mate, Blanca.

Now, all he had to look forward to was a fifteen-year prison sentence.   After the accident, Blanca wanted no part of him.  His future as an Architect looked dim at best.  What firm worth its salt would hire an inexperienced, middle-aged man with a felony record?

One careless act.  One night of celebration.  A single, poor decision.  The lives of six people tragically altered forever.  If he had the chance, Trevor would gladly change places with the man he had accidentally killed.  But now, it was too late for remorse.

David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels. Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.

Categories
Essays fiction humor life memories profiles reflections

Zeda and the Jumping Fish


We sat on a flat rock overlooking the pond with the lines of our fishing poles dangling in the fresh water.  Actually, the poles we used were not real fishing poles.  They were made from tree branches strung with nylon lines and hooks my Zeda bought from a nearby bait and tackle shop.  My Zeda could not afford to buy real fishing poles, so he made them instead.  I didn’t mind.  He said they would work just fine.

The early morning sun glinted off the pond and the side view mirror of my grandfather’s 1953 Plymouth sedan.  The reflected light was so bright I had to squint to see.  My stomach rumbled.  I thought of the roll beef my mother had packed for lunch.  The roll beef and Kaiser roll sandwiches wrapped in wax paper sat in a brown paper bag next to my grandfather.  We had found one of the only shady places to sit in this tiny corner of the Essex County Reservation.  We had the pond all to ourselves.

“You said we would have a better chance of catching fish if we got here early.  I think you were right, Pop-Pop.”  I always called my grandfather Pop-Pop when I wasn’t calling him Zeda.

“The water is cool near the surface in the early morning,” Pop-Pop said.  “Fish like cool water.  They go deeper in the pond as the sun rises and the water near the surface gets warmer.”

“I hope we catch a lot of fish,” I said.

“A good fisherman is always patient, tateleh.  It is important to remain patient in any situation and twice as important when you are waiting for a fish to bite.”

I wasn’t used to sitting still for very long.  It was almost magical, however, how calm I could be when spending time with my Zeda.  I found everything that came out of his mouth interesting.  I loved the way he played the role of different characters in the stories he told.  He could do anything he put his mind to.  Right at the moment, he was fishing with one hand, reading from a small book in the other, and talking to me.

Something big crashed into the mirror of the pond’s surface.

“Pop-Pop.  I think a meteorite just fell.  We learned about them in school yesterday.  The big meteor comes into the atmosphere and breaks up.  Then smaller pieces fall out of the sky.”

“It’s not a meteorite, bubaleh.  The fish are happy.  They freulich in the water and jump out when the spirit moves them.”

“Wow,” I said.

There was a second splash about a hundred yards away.  “There goes another one.  I’ll bet they all start jumping now.”

“They aren’t going to make it that easy for us to catch them,” Pop-Pop said.  “Fish have more brains in their Kuphs than the average person gives them credit for.”

“If fish were stupid, it wouldn’t be fun to try and catch them, right Zeda?”

“Correct,” my boy.

“Could we go fishing every day before school and on the weekends too?”

“Well, we could go on any day during the week, but not on Saturday.  Saturday is for the mitzvah of observing Shabbas—something your parents seem to have forgotten, ankeleh.”

And so it went, back and forth between us the rest of the morning, until it was time to eat our delicious roll beef sandwiches.  We didn’t catch any fish that day.   I can’t say I was disappointed.

Categories
fiction inspiration life musings reflections short stories

Something More Than Telewars


Grayson found it hard to breathe.  Sweat poured from his forehead, down his crimsoned cheeks, onto the stiff collar of his white shirt.

The cubicles surrounding Grayson in the sprawling call center buzzed with activity.

“This is Grayson Sellers speaking.  May I have your contract number please?”

“Habla Espanol?”

“I only speak English,” Grayson replied.

“Where are you from, Amigo?”

“We’re not supposed to disclose personal information.  Please describe your problem so that I can help you.”

“Don’t get excited, hombre.  I ‘m just being friendly.

“I appreciate that.  The problem is we have to complete a certain number of calls in an hour.  If we fall short, we have to have a good explanation.  Now, how can I help you?”

“Do you like your work?”

Grayson made no reply.  They hadn’t given him a script for a situation like this.

He peered over his cubicle walls in all directions for signs of his supervisor.  She was cruising three rows to the south in a bright pink dress and one-inch heels.  Despite the low heels, the sturdy woman easily topped six feet.  Her keen eyes scanned the room for the slightest hint of operator error.

“To be perfectly honest, I’m not crazy about working here, but the pay is great.”

“I’m a landscape architect—love my customers and they love me.  Business is booming like you wouldn’t believe.

“I’m happy for you.”  Can we please get to your insurance issue?”

He imagined the explanation for losing control of his temper and the call.  The customer was excessively friendly.

“Working indoors is not my gig,” the caller elaborated.

“I get panic attacks.”  The words tumbled out of Grayson’s mouth by themselves.

“I feel for you, Hermano.”

He heard heavy footsteps approaching.  The supervisor pulled up like an army tank reversing on its treads.  “You’re sweating, Sellers.  Do you have a fever?”

Grayson dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.  “Just a little summer cold, Mrs. Wilson”

“Be sure to cover your mouth when you sneeze.”

A few rows away, an operator raised her voice.  Mrs. Wilson’s head turned like a turret.  She clanked away.

Another casualty of the telewars, Grayson thought.

“I could use another good man.  Why don’t you call me after your shift?”

“You don’t even know me.”

We’ll talk.  Then I’ll know you better.”

It was against the rules to use customer records for anything except work for the company.  There was a rule attached to almost everything he did inside these walls.

Against his better judgment, Grayson jotted down the name and phone number on his computer screen.

The call proceeded smoothly to completion.

That night, Grayson dreamed of a plant nursery in South Miami he had visited as a boy.  He played tag with his younger sister among acres of Royal Palm trees.  He wandered between rows of potted orchids blooming in beautiful pastel colors.  He inhaled the rich floral perfume.   The warm sun and a cool winter breeze kissed his cheeks.

Categories
humor life musings reflections

Chicken Necks


Why would anyone want to be in the same room as a chicken neck, much less eat one? Consider the shape of a chicken neck, for starters. Does it remind you of a piece of cow intestine, or a giant snail without the shell — or maybe a biceps muscle severed from the bone? Now imagine one of these succulent items simmering in a saucepan flanked by mushrooms, carrots and celery. Add pepper if you like. Hold the salt—it comes with.

In China, chicken necks are a delicacy. This, no doubt, is a direct result of the overabundance of Chinese people and a perennial shortage of food in the country to feed them. In addition to the Chinese, dogs and pigs enjoy chicken necks as a regular staple. Cats, on the other hand, are much too dignified to eat them.

Here’s a thought. It’s entirely possible chicken necks could become a popular dish in America. If the banks fail, we might all find ourselves homeless, grilling chicken necks on street corners surrounded by the few sticks of furniture left over from the foreclosure sale.

If you are wondering what chicken necks taste like, please ask someone else. If, however, we turned out to be the last two people on the planet due to a natural disaster, I might hazard a guess. In such a case, I would be in the unenviable position of the sole remaining authority on chicken necks. It would be my duty, out of human decency, to attempt some sort of an answer. After considerable thought, I’d say chicken necks probably taste like dark meat chicken—very stringy, dark meat chicken accented with a gristly texture. They might also taste a bit like stuffed derma, a Jewish folk dish I have only seen but never eaten. On second thought, stuffed derma probably tastes like ice cream cake compared to a fried or boiled chicken neck. I can’t really be sure of this because I never summoned the courage to ask what stuffed derma is made of. As far as the smell of chicken necks is concerned, let’s not even go there. We’ll just say that chicken necks don’t smell. They stink.

If you are the curious, adventurous, or self-loathing type, you may wake up one morning with an uncontrolable urge to experience the taste of a chicken neck. To these people I offer one final word of advice. Chicken necks may taste better in a strong chicken or meat broth. Remember, this is only an assumption. If you must try a chicken neck, you do so at your own risk. Please also note that a serving of chicken necks will provide you with a decent amount of vitamin A. The idea that they are a good source of vitamin C is, sadly, only a rumor.

Categories
musings reflections

Light In The Tunnel Of Youth


I heard his footsteps enter the kitchen. I sat at the breakfast table, afraid to glimpse the advancing Bengal tiger, my father.

I didn’t have the stomach to gaze into his piercing green eyes. My mind saw those eyes jumping from the bushy, long hair straggling down the back of my neck, to the rumpled, black T-shirt I had pulled on shortly after stumbling out of bed. Those X-Ray lamps of his would finally come to rest on the doodles and paint droppings on the blue jeans I had worn for most of the past year in art school.

The footsteps halted. I imagined the Bengal tiger crouching on all fours, sizing up its prey. Minutes passed. The silence became unbearable. There was nowhere to run. The tiger had me cornered. I turned in my seat, almost like a revolving door. I held my breath as well as the awkward position.

My father leaned on the kitchen counter dressed in a navy, pinstripe suit accented by a red silk tie and powder blue business shirt. His eyes focused not on me, but on his perfectly manicured nails, like a high-priced trial attorney adopting a nonchalant pose before tearing into a hostile witness. He looked up at me suddenly.

His eyes always darted back and forth when he was angry. My father’s gaze was rock steady on this day. I did not perceive him to be calm, however. His slack posture spoke to me of something else, something entirely new, and horribly unexpected. My legs grew numb, perhaps from the ridiculous position I sat frozen in.

“Please say something,” I managed to blurt out.
His face held no expression now, as if a gremlin somewhere inside his body had flipped off an electrical switch.

“When you finish art school,” he said, “my responsibility for you will be finished. You’ll be on your own. If you end up ‘nowheresville’, it will be your unhappiness, not mine.”

My father continued to regard me with that terrible, neutral expression. His keen eyes bore into mine. I was certain he could hear my heart beating double-time inside my chest.

“I have to go to work now,” he said, and marched with a purposeful stride out of the room.

I turned and stared vacantly out the kitchen window into the back yard. I saw myself as a teenager, smashing plastic golf balls across the lawn for hours with the rusty seven-iron my father had given me from an old set. I blinked. The memory vanished.

It took a full five minutes to convince my legs to lift me up from the table.

In the next few days, I realized my father had done me a favor by bluntly pointing out what the consequences of my actions were apt to be, at least as far as my relationship with him was concerned.

His words shed a cold, clear light on my attempted escape from the pain of growing from a boy into a man. This recollection may have made my father seem cruel, but he was never an unkind man. Perhaps he could have “gilded the lily” more in his advice to me while growing up, but not on this occasion. He did not speak to me with malice or hurtful intent. He spoke honestly and with deep concern, and his words altered my future indelibly for the better.

Categories
life musings

Random Inspirational Thoughts


What you believe to be your upper limit is only the cracked ceiling you have been staring at for too long. You can go higher—Guaranteed.

Surrendering to self-doubt is the same thing as making a deal with the devil. Instead, make a deal with your dream and soar.

God never says, “I hear ya’ knockin’ but you can’t come in.” Keep knocking.

If you want to be great, stop trying to fit in.

The greatest challenge is to enjoy the process of getting from here to there.

Don’t judge yourself by the bad things you’ve done. Focus on the good thing you are about to begin.

Get to know the genius inside you on a first name basis.

It is necessary to develop a tough mind as we mature, but not at the expense of a sensitive heart.

The secret to lasting happiness is a heart full of love connected to a mind full of positive thoughts.

Categories
reflections

Miss Crisson


The name Miss Crisson fit her. Words come to mind, like “crisp,” “sharp,” “cross,” and “criticism.” I remember a six-foot tall, middle-aged woman with regular, Germanic features and wide, hazel eyes peering from behind big-rimmed glasses supported by a clunky plastic frame.

She wore an expression of perennial disappointment punctuated by frequent, angry outbursts. I thought then her mood was the direct result of our consistently delinquent behavior — the student body of Miss Crisson’s fifth grade class. Now I think there may have been other factors involved.

Miss Crisson did not carry her statuesque figure gracefully. Instead, she stood in an ungainly posture in front of the class, arms crossed, daring anyone to misbehave. She never seemed to feel comfortable inside her own skin, or perhaps the small print, cotton dresses she wore like uniforms were all a half size too small.

Looking back, I imagine men might have considered her sexy if she had dressed in a more colorful, modern style. Regular trips to the beauty parlor would have helped too. But she had no use for fashionable clothes or fixing herself up. Her thinning hair drooped in unenthusiastic curls. The humidity in the spring and early summer made the hair from the buns she wore march in a column down her neck like AWOL soldiers.

I recall her first name with great difficulty: It was, or is Doris. Is she still alive as we speak? She took great pains to keep us at a distance, in our place. Miss Crisson the teacher, the person in charge, we the students, there to obey.

It was not so much the things she did that I remember. It was rather the things she didn’t do. She never, for instance, sat on a chair in front of the class with her legs crossed, or in a more casual moment, on the side of her desk. She always stood, implacably, a permanent fixture in front of the class. She sat at her desk only during study periods, often holding her head while reading from her lesson plan or papers that looked to be terribly important. We spent six hours a day, Monday through Friday, with Miss Crisson, surely enough time to get to know someone well, at least enough time for her guard to fall occasionally. Yet, I can’t recall any informal moments with Miss Crisson, never the spontaneous joke or appreciative laugh from the student audience.

She never spoke of children or relatives. I never learned a thing about her personal life after spending a year in her classroom. Did she spend her childhood years in a middle class tract home at the mercy of bible-toting, God-fearing parents? Did her classmates taunt her for being too tall? As a teenager, did she have many boyfriends? Did she ever have a boyfriend? Did she eat dinner at home alone every night in a terry cloth bathrobe and slippers, her hair liberated from the customary bun, hanging in loopy strands? Did she sometimes wake up to an alarm buzzing from the bedroom, slumped on a sofa in front of the television?

She came to class every day, in the full bloom of womanhood, apparently without suitors or romantic prospects of any kind, already resigned to premature spinsterhood. Perhaps Miss Crisson was a lesbian, stuck in the unenlightened nineteen fifties, a prisoner of her strict upbringing, afraid to explore her sexuality, without compassion for herself or anyone else. Her sharp rebukes for the slightest infringement of class decorum were, I realize now, a sign of frustration, the invisible weights Miss Crisson carried on her broad shoulders. We didn’t see those weights because children see only with their hearts. They respond to kindness, humor, patience and love. They don’t understand why an adult would possibly want to act any other way.
 

 

Categories
Essays international issues

The Destruction of Our Rivers: Business as Usual


The earth is one big ecosystem. Think of it as a human body. Every cell, every organ, every system of organs is interdependent. Think of the water in the earth’s rivers as blood in the body’s circulatory system. What happens to the body when infection invades the blood stream? What happens when the body cannot produce enough cells to maintain a sufficient, systemic blood level? The answer, of course, is illness.

Industrialization, urbanization, and global warming have adversely affected the rivers of the world. Pollution and insufficient water levels pose a serious health threat to all life in the surrounding regions. The problem is common to big cities as well as rural areas. The best way to illustrate this point is to cite specific examples.

From approximately 1947 to 1977, the General Electric Company poured an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River from manufacturing plants at Hudson Falls and Fort Edward.

The health of area residents is at risk due to the accumulation of PCBs in the human body caused by eating the river’s contaminated fish. Since 1976, high levels of PCBs in fish have led New York State to close various recreational and commercial fisheries and to issue advisories restricting the consumption of fish caught in the Hudson River. PCBs contain carcinogenic substances known to stimulate the growth of cancer cells in humans. Additional adverse health effects include low birth weight, thyroid disease, nervous and immune system disorders. PCBs in the river sediment also affect fish and wildlife.

Runoff in urban and rural areas can easily affect a river’s health, putting local wildlife and human life at risk. Nitrates from fertilizers and pesticides collect in rainwater draining from surrounding land into rivers. These chemicals stimulate the growth of algae, throwing delicate, ecologic relationships out of whack. The result is a clogged, dysfunctional river system.

Runoff from acid rain and rain falling through polluted air is another source of contamination. A recent report states that pollution from urban runoff has become the Potomac River region’s fastest-growing water quality problem, threatening the quality of drinking water for 86 percent of local residents.

Several Abandoned mines located in England and Wales have caused significant pollution in nearby rivers. Dangerous metals such as iron, aluminum, tin, lead, mercury and cadmium from old mine workings contaminate drinking water extracted from regional rivers fed by polluted tributaries.

Phosphorous from detergents in sewage flushed into rivers is another dangerous pollutant. The chemical stays in the system for a long time, threatening plant life by taking up oxygen and poisoning the drinking water of animals and humans alike. The impact of a slow buildup of river pollution in a wide area can be devastating. In the 1950’s, the otter population in England was nearly wiped out by the accumulation of toxic wastes in major rivers throughout the country.

Rising weather temperatures caused by global warming have had a dramatic effect on fresh water levels in rivers around the world. Persistent drought conditions in Australia’s major farming region, the Murray-Darling river basin, threaten the nation’s food supply. The Murray-Darling crosses most of southeastern Australia and is one of the region’s most important river systems. It provides water for growing 40 percent of the nation’s vegetables, fruits, and grains.

Corey Watts, of the Australian Conservation Foundation in Melbourne, told reporters that drought conditions were becoming the norm in the area instead of occurring once every 20 to 25 years.

“We’ve had a string of official reports over the last fortnight painting a pretty grim picture for the climate and the future of our economy and our environment,” Watts said. “So now we’re looking at a future in the next few decades where drought will occur once every two years.”

The 2,000 year-old Yamuna is a river that “fell from heaven,” according to Hindu mythology. The residents of New Delhi worship the river and depend on it for life. Residents tossing coins and sweets into the river, or scattering the ashes of dead relatives from bridges jutting across the waters are a common sight. Unfortunately, the actions of the citizenry and the New Delhi governmental water board do not coincide with this feeling of reverence.

As the Yamuna enters the capital city, its waters are still relatively clean after a 246-mile descent from atop the Himalayas. New Delhi’s public water authority, the Jal Board, extracts 229 million gallons from the river daily for drinking water. As the river leaves the city, residents pour an average 950 gallons of sewage into the Yamuna every day.

As it winds through India’s capital city, the Yamuna transforms into a filthy band of black ink with clumps of raw sewage floating on the surface. Methane gas bubbles to the surface. The river is hardly safe for fish, let alone bathing or drinking water.

A recent government audit condemned the Jal Board for spending 200 million dollars on the construction of sewage treatment plants with minimal results. One of the city’s Pollution Control Board Directors said the situation “has not improved at all because the quantity of sewage is always increasing.” The regular occurrence of power failures adds to the problem.

The above examples are only a tiny representation of the problem. The health of the world’s rivers and their effects on plant, animal, and human life is a complex problem difficult to summarize in one short article. Governmental water management boards worldwide are struggling to deal with the problem now to avoid catastrophic water shortages in the next twenty years. Bold, new initiatives are under consideration along with traditional methods. One point is clear, however. Change in the way we treat the environment, collectively and individually, is essential.

The new movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” explores this theme. The story posits the theory that painful and necessary change can occur when it becomes obvious that doing things the same old way will lead to certain destruction. Certainly, we have reached this point with respect to the environment. Two questions remain. Will we change? Can we change in time to prevent a complete breakdown of the earth’s life sustaining ecosystem?

Sources: Gertner, Jon, “The Future Is Drying Up,” Time Magazine, October 21, 2007; Government of Australia — Waters and Rivers Commission, “Water Facts,” July 1997; Sengupta, Somini, “In Teeming India, Water Crisis Means Dry Pipes and Foul Sludge,” The New York Times, September 26, 2006.

Categories
Essays international issues

Internal Conflicts Hold India’s Future Hostage


Modern India is much like a newly minted land mass; cooling on the surface while bubbling with volcanic activity underneath. Red-hot economic growth masks the nation’s underlying socio-political problems.

The utter economic desperation of Indian pastoralists has provided verdant soil for Marxist Leninist ideas to flourish in rural hamlets. Maoist guerillas recruit these tribal villagers in their crusade to replace the Indian Democratic Republic with a socialist state by means of armed insurrection. The urban-centered Indian press has chosen to downplay this story, preferring instead to focus on the country’s recent industrial boom. Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister, stands apart from the Indian Establishment in his assessment of the matter. He calls the Maoist guerilla activity “the biggest internal security threat” the country faces.

The Maoist activists, known as “Naxolites,” have found a receptive audience in the Indian pastorals, known as “Tribals,” for two major reasons. The Tribal population of eighty million is the most disadvantaged segment of Indian society. Twenty-three percent of them are illiterate. Another fifty percent lives below the poverty line. In addition, the Indian Government, acting solely in its own interests, has expropriated Tribal land rich in minerals and other natural resources. The politically powerless Tribal people have nowhere to turn, except to the Naxolites, who press them into bands of roving militias, hunted and killed by government forces.

The Tribal people are not alone in their economic and political plight. A relatively thin veneer of privileged middle and upper class citizens covers a population of more than eight hundred and fifty million people who exist on two dollars a day or less. India’s corrupt and overly bureaucratic government cannot begin to cope with the nation’s staggering poverty. The outdated Indian caste system makes it more difficult for the poor to improve their lives. The predicament of India’s massive underclass is a persistent disease that constantly threatens the future well-being of the country’s entire society.

Another flashpoint of tension within India’s borders is the struggle with Pakistan for control of the Kasmir territory. After India won its independence from British rule, the country’s princely states enjoyed the freedom of choice to join either India or Pakistan. The Maharaja of Kashmir chose to join India because he was a Hindu. This decision was a bitter pill to swallow for the majority of the Kashmiri people who are Muslims. The agreement to annex Kashmir included a provision for a plebiscite to confirm the Maharaja’s decision. India never allowed the plebiscite to occur.

These seeds of conflict have erupted into three wars between India and Pakistan over control of this beautiful, northeastern territory. Tension has escalated even higher with the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both countries. In addition, militant Islamists in the territory are waging a bloody struggle for an independent state of Kashmir. With the separatist militants folded into the mix, the situation is as unstable as homemade nitroglycerin.

The conflict in Kashmir is indicative of a deeper, more serious problem; an innate hatred and distrust between Indian Hindus and their Muslim counterparts. This centuries old antagonism is rooted in religious intolerance. The rift began when Islamic fundamentalists invaded India in the sixth century. A noted scholar deemed this war as “probably the bloodiest in history.”

There is a basic incompatibility between the aggressive, xenophobic tenants of Islam, which proclaims Allah as the only God, and the polytheistic nature of Hinduism. Throughout the history of India’s independence movement, a series of political clashes between Muslims and Hindus echoed the animosity between the two groups. Even a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi failed to generate lasting cooperation between these factions. Splitting off Pakistan from India as a separate Muslim state has similarly failed to provide a solution. The hatred and distrust doggedly endures.

Undoubtedly, India faces major challenges in its quest for a peaceful and prosperous future. Surely, a more streamlined and efficient government would provide part of the answer. However, it is the people of India themselves who must learn to cooperate and share with one another to move forward into a brighter future.

Categories
Essays humor life

David and the Insurance Goliath


You would think a company like Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida has its act together. Think again. Dealing with this company’s bureaucratic minions is a nightmare and a slapstick comedy rolled into one.

My eighty-six year old mother needed to convert her supplemental health insurance to another carrier. Since Medicare provides her primary coverage, I thought switching the supplemental would be no big deal. Just to make sure we got it right, I enlisted the help of an insurance agent referred to us by Blue Cross.

The fun began when my mother received a letter from Blue Cross denying coverage due to her application arriving outside of the annual enrollment period. The agent explained without apology that she was apparently confused about the application period. Three subsequent calls to this agent netted zero results. I was on my own in trying to resolve the problem — David vesus Goliath.

I called the 800 number listed in the rejection letter. The Blue Cross telephone representative promptly told me they could not help me. I had to call the Jacksonville office. “Where, by chance, am I calling?” I inquired. “The Sales Department,” the rep replied. “Aren’t you in Jacksonville?” I wanted to know. “No. You’ll have to call them tomorrow. They’re closed for the day now.” The telephone rep gave me the local number for the Jacksonville office. I had to ask for the toll-free number.I called the Jacksonville office the following morning. The experience turned into a multi-call ordeal for a number of reasons. Each time I called, the operator routed me to the wrong department. After copious delays, I finally reached someone who could help me. Each telephone rep gave me a different answer before putting me on hold for what seemed like forever.

I kept hanging up and calling again in the hopes of finding someone who actually knew what they were doing.The first telephone rep told me Blue Cross rejected the application because my mother’s supplemental insurance policy had lapsed. I told the rep, a nice woman by the name of Yvonne, that my mother’s policy was still very much alive and kicking. Yvonne then told me all we needed was the current policy number to resolve the matter. Great, I thought. I’ll just call my mother, get the policy number, and call sweet Yvonne back. Finally, we were getting somewhere.

Ten minutes later, I called Yvonne’s extension. “The line is busy,” the operator informed me. “Would you like to speak to someone else?” “No,” I replied. “Yvonne understands my situation.” The operator told me I had reached a call center where the reps take calls back to back. In other words, my chances of reaching Yvonne again were on a par with winning the Florida Lottery.

I was not going to ask if the call center existed within the confines of the Jacksonville office. I did not want to find out that the telephone reps who held my mother’s health insurance future in their hands were quasi-employees, or worse, independent contractors who cared exclusively about their hourly wage.I spoke to the next person, and the next one, until I reached David, my namesake, who seemed to fathom the arcane rules and closely guarded secrets governing the Blue Cross insurance application process.

David convinced me that we had to resubmit the application for insurance during the official enrollment period. I then discovered during the ensuing conversation that the application mailed with the rejection letter was misprinted. David promised to mail a corrected application form.I next asked David when Blue Cross intended to refund the first month’s payment mailed with the original application. David advised me to speak to my agent. I reminded David that I was speaking to him due to my agent’s total and complete incompetence, not to mention her unrepentant attitude.

After more haggling, David agreed to look into the refund. Five minutes passed during which I listened to irritating music interspersed with promotional messages aimed at motivating me to use more impersonal and less costly means of contacting Blue Cross to resolve my problems. I was about to hang up when David came back to advise me the refund would be mailed within two weeks. I asked him to fax a copy of the new application to me. He eagerly promised to do so. The fax never arrived.