pbmaltzman

Folks, I have gotten permission from Debbie Gregg to post contact information for her and Ken. If you choose to e-mail Debbie regarding Ken, please put Ken's name in the subject line. e-mail for Debbie Gregg: queenbee2@cox.net Snail mail: Kenneth and Debbie Gregg (also daughter, Katherine) 4033 Lighthouse Avenue Las Vegas, Nevada 89110 Phone: (702) 452-8234 May I suggest that if you wish to call them, e-mail Debbie first. Pam Maltzman

Ross, as far as I know, Ken did not attend classes in New York in 1967 and 1968; but he has definitely been around Objectivisty and libertarian circles for decades.

Hi, Barbara: I think I will e-mail Ken's wife, Debbie, again, and let her know, and she will read it to him. I only found this out a few days ago, and it explains why he hasn't been posting anywhere... literally, he can't type or even read anymore. One of the things I always liked about him was his love of children... a very different attitude from my father's, and one that was a happy surprise for me. This has all been very tough on his wife and remaining daughter, Katherine, too. Katherine has dropped out of school. I sincerely hope she is able to turn her life around again. I wish there were something we all could do for him. Pam

Fran, I'm not technically in the Los Angeles area anymore, but I wish you luck and a pleasant visit. Santa Monica is indeed pleasant, near the ocean--pricy. Because of rent control, it's very hard to find an apartment there at any price, and hardly anyone moves once they've got one. I'm up in Lancaster, in the high desert above Los Angeles (60-70 miles or about 1-1/2 hours), so I'm not a good bet. Pam Maltzman

For anyone here who knows or knew Ken Gregg... I just briefly spoke with him this evening. Many years ago, we were a couple for about three years, and I also knew James well (I was, in effect, his stepmom for that time). I ended the relationship, but have always considered him a friend, and I have always wished him well; in fact, I attended his wedding to Debbie. Ken, Debbie, and James moved out of So. California to Las Vegas, Nevada. As has been reported here, James was killed some years ago by a drunk driver at the age of 26. The perp was apprehended but never even arrested. Ken and Debbie adopted two little girls (full sisters), the younger one of whom was also killed about 1-1/2 years ago in Las Vegas by a hit-and-run driver (never been found, AFAIK). All this tragedy has taken its toll on Ken, physically, spiritually, and every way possible. He has been in home hospice for about the last year with end-stage congestive heart failure. Just talking is an effort for him. He can no longer type or even read. I can't express how sorry I am that so much tragedy has happened to a good man and his wife and family. Pam Maltzman

When I read things like this, it almost makes me glad that I don't have enough money to throw away on Objectivist conferences. Sheesh. Who needs stuff like this? I surely don't.

Yeah, I'm in the midst of dealing with this myself. I do medical transcription as an independent contractor. I got an approximately 30% pay cut within the last couple of years (they changed the way lines were counted for production pay). This was on top of a work slowdown, then a learning curve with a second hospital client, new computer, and new software. For a while I was only making maybe half of what I'd done previously. NONE of my bills went down at all. And my live-in wasn't working for much of the past several years. Out of panic and desperation, I had gotten payday (and other) loans to help out. I've been working more hours and working harder in an effort to bring my productivity back up to where I can handle the bills again without desperation measures. And my live-in is working again. Now I'm just hoping that my hands, wrists, and elbows will hold up under the stress. Yeah, it's my fault that I didn't have a pile of money saved up before all this happened... but the live-in's situation didn't help either. Had he been working when I got my pay cut, things would have been a lot better around here. My boss (small local company) still pays better than a lot of the big national companies (thankfully). But when the outstanding bills are paid off, we're either getting the hell out of Southern California permanently (moving to where the cost of living is cheaper), or perhaps I'm going to look into a mobile home. My guy loves Southern California weather (he can't drive), but it's gotten to the point that other things are beginning to trump the nicer weather. Maybe Third Worlders can live on a low income and 15 people to one room, but this has been grueling for me, and I'm sure a lot of other people are in the same boat, even if they initially had more savings than I did. I realize that I don't own my job... however, some days I feel as if all those Indians and Filipinos are getting jobs at my expense. They may think three cents a line is just dandy, but they don't have to deal with U.S. cost-of-living, taxes, and regulations like native-borns do. I can't see anything positive in this situation either--not from my point of view. I wasn't living very high off the hog to begin with. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's been financial hell clawing my way back to some semblance of normalcy. Finally, the more-frequent changing of jobs is a reality for many of us now. I am in my 50s and have not had long periods of unemployment, but I have done a couple of different jobs which have either become less plentiful, changed radically, or practically disappeared, such as low-level commercial artist, headline setting, typesetting, proofreader, word processor (once a hot job category with lots of classified ads), etc. I don't think that medical transcription will disappear any time soon... but right now I'm hoping I can stay employed in this field until I croak. If all the clients are looking for is a cheaper price, well, they can surely get that by outsourcing overseas... but I have also heard that this outsourced work is pretty variable in quality (literacy in terms of vernacular speech) and must be heavily edited by American editors. Maybe this will change as overseas personnel become more literate, but all I can say is that judging by the e-mails I get looking to take my job, they're not there YET.

ROFLMAO! That's priceless and, as you pointed out, oh-so-true. I just finished work tonight. Thanks for the giggles. I needed some.

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year back at you, Kat, and everyone else here. I second Barbara's comment about this being a place in Objectivist-land where there is very little or no blood on the floor... and I want to add that I also appreciate that. Best wishes to everyone.

Two comments: There are pet-friendly landlords, but they're getting harder to find these days, especially in the big city. WRT moving to a lower cost-of-living city: I guess I'm lucky in this, because I can take my job with me. I do medical transcription in my home office, and I can work for my boss from any of the contiguous 48 states, wherever I can get DSL and/or cable modem. I've already gotten one pay cut, and he won't cut my pay any further if I move elsewhere. Luckily I'm not working using dial-up internet anymore. If you're in a place like big cities in California, however, even in the big city, for a lot of jobs the wages are pretty stagnant, and you may not be able to make enough to overcome the insane costs of housing. I guess that some folks will do okay buying houses in this slumping market... when the bubble has burst and real estate prices come down at least somewhat, those with money saved up could probably snap up some bargains (okay, maybe not in So. California, but in other places). A friend recommended to me that I consider places in the Midwest such as Indianapolis, Indiana... housing prices are still relatively cheap. When I get some bills paid off, it's possible that I could move there, take my job with me, buy housing for the first time (maybe even income property), and have some passive income. At any rate, it's something worth checking out.

Hi, Brant: Northern Arizona is on my list of places to check out; maybe Phoenix (depending on the condition of the A/C). But frankly, although I've heard good things about Tucson, I'm not sure I want to live that close to the U.S./Mexico border. I'm a libertarian, but not really an open-borders libertarian. IMO gotta get rid of the welfare state first. Heh... beachfront property is expensive everywhere. And while I realize that the idea of beachfront property in Arizona is a long-standing joke, it's my understanding that because of the way the earth is actually moving along the faults, and because of the way Baja California is drifting, California isn't about to fall off into the ocean. Sorry about that, but I guess Arizona will stay desert for the foreseeable future. I'm in the desert here in Lancaster, too... about an hour's drive north of L.A. Pam: Come to Tucson; when California slips to the North and into the SEA, you'll have beachfront property! --Brant

Well... I've never smoked. I buy some things used (when it makes sense to--I usually refuse to buy anything used if it has to do with food preparation). I absolutely refuse to give up my cats. I dread the day one of them gets seriously ill, but they keep me sane. Truthfully I need to have pets. I like critters better than a lot of people. I have both cable and DSL for work (medical transcription); one backs up the other. I can't afford to visit a foreign country, regardless of the health care available there or here. I want to either get out of California within a few more years, or else see if I can buy a mobile home for relatively cheap. I look on Craiglist and see decent houses being sold for far less than in So. California. The prices here are simply insane. Good suggestions, all of them. But I absolutely refuse to do without pets. Here's a tip: Feeding your pet the best food you can afford (such as putting a dog or cat on a mostly-raw-food diet) can save you money in the long run. The animal will be less likely to get really horrific degenerative diseases. For example: Feeding the kitty good food is less expensive than taking her to the vet because she got kidney failure from eating nothing but dry food.

Over the years, there have been more than a few programs for people to improve their vision. I believe the granddaddy of them all was William H. Bates, an ophthalmologist, who survived into the 20th century. His techniques are still in use today. At one time they were also widely used, I think, by some public schoosl system in New York (later on the optometrists and ophthalmologists banded together to outlaw his work for a time--they didn't like the competition!). Two of Bates's students were Margaret Darst Corbett and Charles R. Kelley (the latter was also a student of Wilhelm Reich). There is also a book by Dr. Marilyn Rosanes-Barrett (or Berrett--must check spelling), and I have run across more in the years since I took some classes from students of Charles Kelley's (with the old Radix Institute, 30+ years ago). I guess you could google this subject, and also look up these books on Amazon.com. I wear glasses now, but for a time in my youth I did indeed see better with this kind of program. I'm unevenly nearsighted, and my eyes don't work together all that well, but I did notice a difference. Now, however, I have blended lenses with titanium frames--two pairs, one specially made for computer use, and one for outside the house (such as driving). They were very pricy; between the examination, titanium frames, and the fancy lenses, I spent something like $1200 or $1300 for both pairs together. Ouch! Maybe next time I need my prescription changed, I'll take advantage of the information which Michael has posted here. I will say, though, that these glasses are the least intrusive ones I have ever worn. The thickness of the lenses, with the newer materials, is dramatically pared down from other glasses I've worn, and the trifocal progressive lenses don't distort my face nearly as much as older pairs do. Wish I could have had glasses like this back in high school!! B)

Yeah, Peter, that's a real doozy, all right. In medical transcription here in the U.S. we get many doctors for whom English is their second language--so I suppose they should get a little more leeway. But I get a lot of supposedly native (American-English) speakers who massacre the language pretty badly too. Whenever a doctor tries to spell something, whether it's a drug name or a patient name, I shake my head and look it up. I don't have as much sympathy for doctors as some people might... after all, they're higher up in the hierarchy than I am (and usually with an attitude to boot), and they're supposed to *know* what those big words are. Pam - sound alikes in English cause many pitfalls....but consider this poor opera singer rendering the Croatian National Anthem before a recent international match in London between England and Croatia... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7109058.stm Its right up there with "Ich bin ein Berliner" Peter

But, but, Chris--the ones who are going around talking like that are almost NEVER the ones who choose to save the planet by offing themselves, because of course they are the elite who get to tell the rest of us benighted humans what to do with ourselves.

Personally I was never enthusiastic about having children, but it had more to do with personal involvement in the living hell that was my parents' marriage than anything else. Back then, marriage and children seemed (to me) like a trap which would leave a woman helpless, without job skills, and high and dry if the man decided to dump her. Among other things, I resolved never to be without job skills, so that I wouldn't end up as a middle-aged woman who had to work at a fast-food restaurant because I had no more lucrative skills. In high school, I knew girls who definitely wanted kids, and their main goal in life was to find the right man to sire them. I also knew one girl who--at the ripe age of 16 years old--was adamant that she never, ever wanted children, and she was highly indignant that no physician would tie off her tubes until she was a certain age. I can respect someone's personal decision to have or not to have kids, but not for the stupid reasons of "saving the planet." That makes me want to barf. I spent a couple of years in Colorado (left over a decade ago). I briefly worked at a hospital there which had pretty decent cafeteria food (especially the mushroom soup and the desserts). One night, they served me some kind of entree on paper instead of styrofoam (because they had run out of styrofoam plates, probably). As I was in line to pay, the blue-eyed, blonde-haired bimbo of a cashier told me I was "saving the planet" because my food was on paper rather than plastic. She was so pretty, and such a waste of protoplasm... I imagined that I could almost hear her pea-brain rattling around in her empty head as she nodded her head from side to side. . The whole encounter made me want to barf. Oh, yes, and Colorado was the place where I first heard the saying "Humans are a cancer on the face of the earth," uttered by a wacko. Colorado State University is infested with people like that, and I hear that Boulder is even worse.

Michael, for a moment there, I thought you were resurrecting the discussion on circumcision! I think of howlers like these whenever some schmuck tells me that (1) spelling things correctly matters not at all, and (2) the ability and willingness to spell words correctly doesn't mean a person is intelligent. HAHAHAHAHA... I do medical transcription for a living. If I didn't know "to" from "two" from "too," or "perineal" from "peroneal" (and MANY other sound-alikes), I'd be fired... and I'd richly deserve it. Michael

Hehe! Michael, thanks for the giggles! I'm going to sit down and transcribe now.

Matus 1976, I forgot to say this before directly to you, but the can of goat smegma is rolling-on-the-floor hilarious. I just couldn't stop laughing! Ah, the wonders of photoshopping software!

Chris, I didn't mean to offend you. But I thought the can of goat smegma was rolling-on-the-floor hilarious!

Michael, ROFLMAO... I don't think it is an indictment against American women, because I don't think the guy has ever had a DATE with any American woman. If anything, maybe he thought American women had too much of a soap-and-water fetish. I will, of course, assume that his wife smelled the way he thought she should--that is, up until the time she divorced him and cleaned him out. I have run into the fellow several times at libertarian events, over the intervening years (since Toastmasters), and most of his conversations have consisted of rants against his ex-wife. I understand why some men are very afraid of marriage and divorce because of the financial havoc it can wreak. Not a pretty sight. But foreign women are obviously not always less larcenous! One of our friends married a crazy, paranoid, controlling South American woman, and they are now in the process of separating. She ran through his nest egg when they married (in debt up to their eyeballs), and I'm afraid of what it will do to him when they divorce. He'd have dumped her a long time ago were it not for their son. I agree that kids are always trouble. But then, merely being alive, in general, is a passel of trouble! (I think there is some sort of Jewish/Yiddish proverb to that effect.) Pam

Hi, Michael: Heh... well, I might get brain cancer someday! Why not just off with my head RIGHT NOW? It'd save me a lot of trouble later on! Seriously, though, I have typed up medical reports for women who had "prophylactic" removal of their breasts and ovaries. Another of the weird people I met in my Toastmaster Club days was a foreign fellow who was about as assimilatd and hip as the "Check Brothers" from the Saturday Night Live skits with Steve Martin (and I forget who else). This guy was always saying stuff such as "a genital should smell like a genital." His hygiene was more or less okay, but he was well known for his off-the-wall comments, mostly about sex. Anyway, the foreign guy, at some point, went back to the "old country" and bought himself a bride, who eventually fleeced him at divorce just as much, or as more, as American women are reputed to do, and also turned his kids against him. Pam

Oh, darn, everyone's moved on already! No more SMEGMA!! I think that the can of goat smegma was hilarious, just forgot to post about it before!

Smegma is supposedly what the uncircumcised penis secretes under the foreskin. However, I have never seen this in person, having only seen pictures of uncircumcised men and their penises. It supposedly can have a texture similar to curds or cottage cheese. From what I've read and heard, it can acquire an unappetizing odor and appearance if not cleaned out regularly. At least one woman has told me that she found it unpleasant to perform oral sex on an uncircumcised man, although many other people argue that uncircumcised means better sex.

Selene, I have met satire before. I just wasn't sure that what you posted was satire. Sorry. I can't always read delicate nuances in the printed word on a BBS. My bad.