Jaded Objectivity

I have a theory...

2010-12-06T10:33:00.004-05:00

There are actually 8 theories about leaders and leadership according to Kendra Cherry, but I'm going to focus on these three:

1. Great Man theory- Great leaders are born, not made.... They're heroic, mythic, and destined to rise to leadership when needed.

2. Trait Theory- People inherit certain qualities and traits that make them better suited for leadership.

3. Behavioral theory- Belief that great leaders are made, not born. People can learn to become leaders through teaching and observation.

That's nice.

Over the years I've given a lot of thought to the Great Man theory, and the Alexander the Great's and King Arthur's of history, legend and lore, and one thing that surrounds every "great man" story is that:

1. he believed himself to be destined for greatness, and

2. others around him believed it too.

There is no mystical book that gives us a list of great men that we're supposed to believe in and rally behind... yet we make leaders to follow, including sports heroes like Michael Jordan and pop stars like Michael Jackson. Why? Because someone else believed in them first.

Maybe it started with their parents, then they believed in themselves, and later they grew their talent so big until others couldn't help but notice, but no great person was truly picked out from nothing and told they were now great... they began with some trait, some talent that caught the attention of another.

That seems to go hand in hand with trait theory... but I don't believe that traits are inherited -- that seems predestined -- but rather that they are learned and honed into skills. And that becomes the behavior theory... they learn to become leaders. In many ways, and depending on how it's interpreted, these three theories are just redundant spins on the same basic principle: that leaders lead.

Guess what that means for those that aren't leaders?

It means you're following.

Choose your leaders well.

Cultural individualism and hand-picking traditions

2010-11-04T08:31:00.010-05:00

Perhaps you've heard about the 10 year old that recently gave birth in Spain. If not, check out the link, or take in on faith when I tell you that she is Roma (Romanian gypsy), the father was 13, and they are no longer together.

In the Roma tradition, young women are "married off" to slightly older young men as soon as they hit puberty. Although the practice is not recognized nor condoned by the government, it is still an active cultural tradition for the roughly 1.5 million Roma.

People in Spain (and on facebook) are outraged that this ten year old gave birth. They are outraged that her mother is happy for her. Well, opinions are free and we can all have several if we like.

Some of the cultural traditions that Americans enjoy as a society include: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Black History Month, Breast Cancer Awareness month (and purchases of pink products), the 4th of July, baseball, football, and Mom's Apple Pie. Some less iconic cultural traditions include getting drunk on a 21st birthday, getting a driver's license at 16 (or 18 in some states), the high school prom, elaborate weddings with brides in virginal white dresses, regardless of whether or not they're actually virgins, frat parties, bachelor parties, and cars reflecting status. Some of those traditions don't really make a lot of sense -- such as getting slobbering drunk on a 21st birthday -- but it's a rite of passage in our culture, and who can tell us differently? No one, in part because we would pitch a hissy fit if anyone tried. The same goes for white wedding dresses. Have you ever heard a bride say "I can't wear white because I'm not a virgin!" Nope, although you might hear a very adamant and vocal defense of wearing white even though she bears little resemblance to Queen Victoria when the queen wore white. It's just one more detail that is part of our current culture that we cling to.

I'm not advocating ten year olds having sex and giving birth. But I am stating that if you accept cultural individualism then you need to accept all cultures, whether you agree with them or not. This ten year old was not raped, had consensual sex with someone close to her age, and was acting within the bounds of her culture and culture identity. Who are we to get outraged because we don't like those traditions! Maybe some Europeans think our mandated drinking age is ridiculous and that we should ditch the arbitrary age of 21, so that we might enjoy less drunk driving and less drunkenness in general. (They would have a point worth discussing, too). But before I take off on tangents about Prohibition and alcohol in this country, let's get back to the point.

Standing on a pedestal does not secure one's position nor superiority; the pedestal can be knocked out from underneath, or one can simply be knocked off.

Judging another culture for a human rights violation? That's understandable and worth investigating. Condemning one for traditions you don't agree with? That's a double-edged sword that can cut both ways. Next time you celebrate your traditions, ask yourself how you would feel if your neighbor told you you were wrong and tried to forcibly have your practices stopped.

Cultural individualism = what is right for a culture is indisputably right for that culture.

Trout a la Penzoil

2010-07-19T09:53:00.004-05:00

Who loves fishing? Who loves tinkering with their car in the backyard? Who loves Jiffy Lube so they don't have to change their own oil? Gimme a hoo-yeah!

Economic rationalism believes that if we divvied up the land and gave everyone an equal stake in it, that they'd take care of the land and its resources because they've be personally vested. Lemme ask you, is your neighbor as interested in taking care of his front yard (or side, or backyard) as you are? If the answer is "no ma'am, my neighbor don't take care of nuthin'!" then please be patient with me while we talk a little about the Utopia economic rationalists live in.

Economic rationalism assumes too much in the way of individual persons accepting adequate responsibility for the land. Some people have standards that would be considered "sub par" and their interests in the land may or may not include antifreeze and old engine oil seeping into the soil after a Saturday spent in the backyard several months ago.

In fact, I know a mechanic that runs his business out of his home, and all his work surfaces are dirt, and there is no collection practice in place for various car lubricants that drip or spill out of the vehicles he works on. He also lives just up the hill from an all-weather creek that is used to water horses downstream, and eventually feeds into a major fishing river. Yummy yummy, trout with a touch of Penzoil. Now, he's a nice man, and he's very smart about how an engine works, but he may not know so much about how ecosystems work, and he may not care. It costs money to collect all those fluids and tote them twenty miles into the nearest town to dispose of them properly, and pay someone to dispose of them for him at that; this is where economy and ecology are at odds. It's hard to wanna do something good for the fish down the river when it directly affects how much milk a person has in their fridge, or whether or not they can pay the electric bill and have a fridge at all!

Now, I wanna make a statement here about Earth. It's the Axiom*, folks. We can't send a shuttle to Mars for more coal or clean water. Whatever is on this planet is all we've got. When it's gone, it's gone. The idea, therefore, is to find a way to work with the Earth, not against it, for survival and thriving of us all -- humans, animals, and plants alike. We even need insects; they're part of the ecosystem. I'm okay with killer bees staying in their native environments, though. No need spreading them around outside their indigenous zones....

I'm not the greenest person on the planet. I drive a car that runs on fossil fuels. I light my home with CFL's and run the AC like my comfort is all that matters to me. I try to avoid using paper for anything, I reuse shopping bags, and I try not to purchase something with the intent of throwing it away, with the exception of stuff like toilet paper. I like my vegetables with a side of chicken or cow, and I understand that there is a need for farm-raised meats and a place for leather goods. I like my seal-skinned boots; they keep my feet warm and dry in the snow. I'm what Ed Begley Jr. would consider a travesty to conservation everywhere, but Ted Nugent and I could agree on a thing or two.

I do "get it" though. I don't necessarily agree with the melodramatic "doom and gloom" approach to conservation and the finite resources of the environment, but I do get it. We need to realize that we are part of the ecosystem, not in control of it. Ask any natural disaster survivor how much control they had at the moment they went through that disaster, and that's us folks, all of us, every day. We can no more control Mother Nature than we can understand where she'll rage next. But we can learn to accept that we are a part of her, and we can work with her. Course, that's something everyone is gonna have to decide for themselves. We can't mandate or legislate giving a damn into anyone. But maybe if we chose to give a damn, we could minimize legislation, and find something that works more practically than economic rationalism.

*the space ship in Disney's WALL-E

Results may vary

2010-06-07T09:17:00.009-05:00

Sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed. Sometimes, it pays to stay in bed. Just think, you too can be your own boss of your self-generating web site that auto ships your products to your customers! You too can receive checks in the thousands every single Friday!! Just pay $2.95* (*recurring billing is $49.95 a month after 14 days) and you'll have access to all the tools you need, plus 24/7 customer support that even builds your website for you! Get your own check just like I did!

Oh please. If it actually worked like that -- if the "results [didn't] vary" -- then no one would go to work at the ole nine-to-five.

Sometimes I wish I had a time machine. I'd like to know what the world was like pre-McDonald's. How did society deal with the grind of patience, before the drive-thru, before fast-food, when families cooked meals from scratch instead of out of boxes and cans, when instant gratification wasn't so instant. When microwaves weren't kitchen staples.

Our living history gets older every day. People who remember the Great Depression, remember WWII, remember JFK and MLK and the civil rights' movement of the 60's... remember McCarthyism and the Cold War and the Bay of Pigs... they're all getting older and that history is slipping away from the oral tradition into the pigeon hole of written tradition. Myself, I have no grandparents left to tell me stories; I lost them all before I was old enough to appreciate them. And it seems that we're so consumed by the pop culture of the moment that by and large, those stories aren't getting told like they once were. Perhaps I'm jaded in this opinion, but that's to be expected** (**see blog title).

I think it would be incredibly interesting and poignant if a grandparent somewhere created a series of you tube postings telling stories. Stories about outhouses and the use of a JC Penney catalog in the mid-twentieth-century Midwest. Stories about growing cotton and what "fair to middlin'" really means. Stories about how their family got through the Great Depression. Of course, results would vary, but then, that's the point! To record for history more than the text books ever will, to talk about things that were never interesting enough to get written about in newspapers, to give that slice of life that means something when front-porch sitting and drinking tea. To pass on life lessons in the oral tradition.

Nostalgia is in many ways the greatest history we have, with 20/20 vision and wisdom and romanticism that nothing else can touch or replicate. The real color of life is in the details, and the details are often opinionated. No reporter can ever accurately give us the color of life, as they're trying too hard to be objective to the point of monochromatic grey. No flavor, no color. "Just the facts, ma'am." No, I want the color, the flavor, the aromas, the sights, the feel of history. I want what only our eldest generation can give to the rest of us, and moreover, I want it to be desired by us all. Cue the coca-cola jingle "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony...."

Aiiiyyaaareeeeevaaaah! Or, "Let's dance!"

2010-06-02T07:34:00.002-05:00

The border issue between the U.S. and Mexico is a hot debate, particularly in places like California and Arizona right now. So I did some brainstorming, and have come up with as viable solution as anyone has offered about handling the issue:

Perhaps the problem is not any more difficult that "party envy" or "fiesta envy" if you prefer. If it's one thing we Americans have learned how to do, it's throw a good party. From tailgating to fraternity parties to Mardi Gras, we know how to really live it up. I think, in part, that's why Cinco de Mayo is so celebrated here; for one, it's another excuse to drink and have fun, and secondly, it's how we show other cultures we appreciate their customs -- by adopting* them and making them our own (*read "stealing" if you prefer). But even if you think we hi-jacked Cinco de Mayo, at least we kept the name, which gives credit back to Mexico. And Ford has recently reintroduced the Fiesta, so isn't that another great American display of brotherhood? But I digress....

Let's take the party back to Mexico! Not just any party, either, one that really lends itself to supporting economic and cultural expansion. Let's open a string of strip clubs!

Why strip clubs? Well, let's look at two of the (stereo)typical types of strippers: drug users and young women/mothers trying to pay their way through college to get better educations. As for the drug users, well, we're just taking the demands back to the supply. Think of all the issues that will be solved if Mexican drug lords don't have to worry nearly as much about all that interstate/international commerce. Not to mention, prices can be cut or profits can be increased by simply removing some of the travel currently involved. Moving on.

As for the women who are dancing for their education, I say we partner these strip clubs with U.S. and Mexican universities, where these women (and men, if you want to expand as such) can work as exchange students, stripping for their schooling, but also immersing themselves in the Mexican culture and language. Think of it as supporting the arts and education at the same time.

Now this all may seem a little cheesy, but let's think outside the box. With these new strip clubs, we create jobs in Mexico such as bouncers, DJ's, bartenders, cocktail waitresses/waiters, and club management openings. With bouncing and bartending, opportunities for education open up, including trade schools related to both jobs. That would produce a demand for educators in bartending and in crowd control/self defense. The increase in bouncers alone could stimulate entertainment sales, with everyone purchasing a Mexican dubbed version of "Road House" to learn how to be Swayze cool on the job! Not to mention that with the demand for house music and DJ's comes the opportunity to give play to an untold number of currently popular and yet to be "found" musicians, with no preference to nationality! Can you imagine the artistic expansion of salsa into a stripper routine? Well, try for a moment. It's like breaking down a cultural Berlin Wall! (ok, not really). But with all this expansion in entertainment, there will be a need for an increase in public works and government employees (trash removal, police -- don't get me started on the current system, and this is my Utopia here), all night diners would have a place, thus creating a new demand for Denny's, IHOP, or something else in their place. That means cooks' jobs, waitress jobs... pretty soon Mexico starts looking like downtown L.A. or the Vegas strip, depending on how it's all planned out, and then WHAM! no one cares about the border, because the party is in full swing in Mexico and it's Fiesta all the time! and suddenly Arizona goes back to making headlines for golf courses and Maricopa County and North America collectively drinks a margarita and says "thanks for the great advice!"

**This is meant to be read tongue-in-cheek for all those that do not recognize my brilliance, and is meant to cause laughter in everyone else. If neither of these options fits you, oh well.

Teaching lessons revisited

2010-05-19T14:01:00.005-05:00

"The English did to us what we did to the Indians, and the Americans did to the English what the English did to us. I demanded revenge for everyone. I saw cities burning, I saw movies falling into blackness. I saw the maize on fire. I saw the Jesuits punished. I saw the trees taking back the long-house roofs. I saw the shy deer murdering to get their dresses back. I saw the Indians punished. I saw chaos eat the gold roof of Parliament. I saw water dissolve the hoofs of drinking animals. I saw the bonfires covered with urine, and the gas stations swallowed up entire, highway after highway falling into the wild swamps."

--Cohen, Leonard, 1966. Beautiful Losers. Pg. 187

I did to my friend what my enemy did to me, and her best friend did it to her. We all wanted revenge, none of us deserved retribution, but we sought it because we were angry. We were angry because we were insecure, selfish, full of pride and envy. We were full of pride and envy because we were immature and didn't know any better, hadn't been taught any better. We weren't taught any better because the knowledge was lost in translation; our parents didn't listen, or had forgotten, or their parents didn't know.

We pass on the history we learn, the history we memorize, remember, care about. We ignore the rest. We pretend it doesn't pertain to us because culturally or religiously it cannot apply to our system of beliefs. We pretend it doesn't affect us because we weren't directly affected by the missing bits. We pretend we are wiser for forgetting or ignoring what we didn't care about. We lie, shuffling our feet, and try to excuse our ignorance as simply incomplete education, because we "haven't gotten around to learning that yet" or "didn't have very good teachers."

Poor us. Poor you; poor me. Full of excuses and bloated on ignorance, forgetful and feigning amnesia, we blunder through daily life, making up stories as to why we parent the way we do, why we keep the prejudices we have, why we like or dislike an ideology, a political platform, a geographical region. Do we even tell ourselves -- in our deepest darkest nights -- what our rawest truths are, or do we cling to our illusions like Linus to his blanket?

European mirrors

2010-05-17T12:20:00.009-05:00

I just finished writing a research paper about the unification of Eastern and Western European countries since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I will not bore you with the 10 pages of quotes from 7 authoritative sources, but I will share some of my own observations by extrapolation.

For starters, the same obstacles that face the EU since its current configuration beginning in 1992 are the same obstacles that have faced all of us -- persons and countries alike -- since the beginning of time: money and power. In the case of the Eastern European countries, I mean the financial instability of their new post-soviet independence, and the political power that those fledgling countries strove to build out of the ashes of their former U.S.S.R.-military-backed selves.

In short, one of the largest problems was that the dream of having the democratic advantages of the Western European countries was far less complicated than transforming that dream into reality.

The Western European countries, for their part, were a bit skeptical to quickly admit the Eastern ones into the EU, and take responsibility for the financial ramifications of the fledgling nations. Can you blame them? Think about the current debate over Puerto Rico becoming the 51st state, if you need a current reference.

But back to Europe. Ideally, the fall of the Berlin Wall represented hope for all of Europe to be united as one continent, one smorgasbord of peoples, one allied group of nations. Realistically, there were not only financial obstacles to overcome with the Eastern countries disparity troubles, but also political corruption in the new countries, where emergent governments were still rising in their own yeast. Trust had to be built -- trust in one's own country, trust in neighboring countries, trust in the EU... trust everywhere! Trade had to be established, commerce had to begin and then begin making a profit. No longer was the statist government going to do it all for you, so there were even some bootstraps that had to be pulled up.

Nostalgia set in. "Oh, for the good ole days when the government just told us what to do and we did it." Now it's "work work work, and there's no guarantee at the end of the day."

Ah, capitalism, how comfortable you are to me. Risk and reward, ventures gained, ventures lost; opportunity abounds regardless. But not everyone thinks as I do, which is fortunate, because then the choir would be singing and I'd just sit down from my pulpit bored with the sound of my own voice.

So these fledgling countries finally got the chance to graze in that greener pasture of the Western European countries that they had so longed to graze in and found out that it takes work to move from one patch of grass to the next. They floundered, they scraped by, they fought with themselves, they argued with the EU, they whined, they picked themselves up, they cried blood and shed their own skin and they redefined themselves in spite of, if not because of themselves. Hoorah! Possibility can begin to become probability and even fact. History evolves before our very eyes, and fiercely we charge into the future.

So what? So what! You tell me. There is a mirror before you. Do you dare look at it?

Kumbahyah

2010-05-03T08:16:00.005-05:00

Comments I've been privvy to recently: "the world would be a much better place if everyone was color blind," "it breaks my heart seeing all the innocent animals that are washing up dead or covered in oil along the gulf coast" (referring to the recent oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico), and "[she] has a low tolerance for scripted puns and allegedly witty repartee from news anchors." I'd like to comment on that last one only because I sympathize, and could have quite a bit of fun with that one, but it will have to wait.

Now, I've opined extensively on racial arguments, including an anthropological stance that all humans evolved from Africa and are all one race. And it is heart breaking to see man err so gravely that innocent duckies suffer. Forget the fact that 5,000 barrels of crude oil are pouring into the gulf because of complications in sealing off a broken pipeline, forget the economic implications of not only the loss of the crude, the loss of the rig, but also the side effect to the Obama administration and their approach to future drilling. For now, let's just forget that anything has any importance beyond how we feel about the devastation to the innocent wildlife.

Would we feel any better if it were man-eating tigers and killer grisly bears covered in oil? Would we sleep better at night if the destruction eradicated any of the millions of unwanted nutria rats in Louisiana?

I don't think so. I think it's nothing more than pseudo-political dribble meant to make people look far more compassionate than they are at their hearts. Honestly, how many of us want to load up our cars, drive to the coast, forgo our jobs, our families, our mortgage payments, and go volunteer all our efforts to bathe and save every single oil-soaked animal we can find? That's right, virtually none of us want to do that. Some of us soothe our wounded hearts by donating money to organizations that help out. Others bake cookies, let the kids sell them for 50 cents a piece, and mail the money to Red Cross. Some of us simply go about our lives while saying things like "poor innocent creatures... they didn't do anything to anybody."

I feel the same way about the race card. "It would be better if the world were color blind." Really? So if we just couldn't see the changes in pigmentation of the skin, then we'd all get along? Would monochromatic greyscale actually accomplish that? No, it wouldn't. The eye is too highly sensitive to see subtle changes in skin tone and shade for it to be that simple. And really, color blindness, per se, is not the problem. The problem is that once again, people need something to unite and divide them by. How do you know that you have friends if you have no enemies?, one might philosophize. We are naturally divided by family, by neighborhood, by city, state, country. We are divided by beliefs, cultural norms, by religious practices, celebrations, festivals, by burial traditions, wedding traditions. We are divided by child-rearing approaches, by the side of the street we drive on, and by the colors in our flags. We are divided by damned near everything you can mention, and we are united only by sharing interests in some of the aforementioned divisors.

It has nothing to do with color of the skin. It has to do with culture.

If we sit around the camp fire singing Kumbahyah and other such songs, then all we did was breathe carbon dioxide into the trees and pat ourselves on the back for giving a damn about something. Well, at least there's no accountability in feeling bad for innocent animals and wanting a colorblind world. There's only accountability in doing something about it.

Holy Roman Church, Batman!

2010-04-22T11:40:00.006-05:00

Recently someone said to me that they believed that of all the churches, that the Roman Catholic Church would not have need to standardize itself in order to safeguard themselves against a downturn in religious interest.

Obviously they don't know me very well.

Seriously? The Roman Catholic Church? The very same church that took the practice of sprinkling (as opposed to immersion baptism) from the zealousness of Constantine? The very same church that promoted the Holy Roman Crusades in an effort to spread Christianity by killing off those that wouldn't convert to it? The same church that uses iconography as a religion unto itself -- what with putting The Blessed Virgin Mary up there between us poor sinners and God, instead of letting us talk to God Himself. Please, let me stop now, before I continue to go on and mention pagan rituals taken from various solstices, equinoxes, rituals and celebrations -- including Ishtar -- and before I go on a soap box rant about saints and martyrdom and the Roman Catholic Church owning more land, titles, money, and gold than any other entity on the planet. Not to mention its extensive library of works kept so closely guarded that even most priests in the church never get access to such a body of literature.

And lets not forget the selecting of the Canons, and thus the setting aside of some "biblical" works, because they weren't holy enough, or something, that resulted in the Gnostic bible. And there was that Protestant business, when an entire faction broke off, rebelled, and started a new system of worshiping God, because the Catholic way was offensive to that many people. And then there's the argument that it's really the Catholic Church at the original complaint with the whole "church and state" argument. Sure, the Catholic Church is obviously so pure an entity as to need not bother with wondering for its own survival. Surely the rest of the heathen of the earth will simply catch fire and burn up if they attempt to overthrow such a righteous institution.

If you are Catholic, dear reader, then let any offense you take to this post only anger you into researching my claims. Of course, don't ask your priest... that's not researching anything, that's being too lazy and too spoon-fed to bother to do your homework. If you're amused, as I am, as to the claim of the infallibility of the Catholic church, then laugh with me, and understand that the laughter is empty so long as people are still so undereducated as to not know our own world history.

One day we will see hot dog vendors selling high school and undergraduate degrees at sporting events. You wait and see. "Get your ice cold bachelors in world religions right here!" "How much?" "Five dollas!" "Mmm, too rich for my blood. You got a hot dog instead?"

the way we were

2010-04-21T08:11:00.005-05:00

Growing up as a child of the 80's, I am familiar with excess, luxury as commonplace, and the outdated idea that if you just put in 40 years with the same company, you can retire with a gold watch and a nice pension.

The beginning of the 20th century wasn't so spoiled as the end was.

It wasn't until the 20th century that a pension or a retirement age even existed. "In 1881, 3/4 of men in Britain over 65 were still working. It was only in 1898 that the British civil service began to enforce a retirement age*." The average life span changed dramatically in a short amount of time as well. "For a French person born in 1820... the average life expectancy was 40; in 1900 is was 47, and in 1992, 77.... The prospect of a sustained span of life in retirement also focused attention on pensions and savings. Out of this attention, government-backed pension and insurance plans came into being*."

Another fun fact is that unskilled labor is not a new issue. In short, people went where the jobs were, and before WWI, there was much demographic shifting in Europe as persons and families moved from country to country in search of work, and before immigration laws really cut out much of that movement. "Migrants tended to move into low-paid unskilled jobs, often ones which locals no longer wished to perform*." I know I remember hearing something quite similar to that about United Stated agriculture jobs....

In my relatively short lifetime, I've heard a lot of whining about not being able to find a good job, not being able to have the job security to earn a pension, not having enough life insurance, not having enough leisure time, having to work too many years to be able to retire... it seems that someone is available to whine about any and everything.

A mere one hundred years ago, pensions were virtually non-existent, insurance plans unheard of, retirement ages didn't exist -- you merely worked till you died. And on top of all of that, if you didn't save your own money, then you had no savings, simple as that.

Today, we suckle at the government teat for everything, complain it's not enough, and bitch that the government is too involved in our personal lives and wallets. Well, what is it? What it is, is that we are spoiled. We are the fatted cow, ready for the slaughter; too drunk on our own excess to notice that we haven't learned from our past, don't even know our history!, and are blindly willing to follow the best sounding politicians down whatever road they lead us. How hard is it to take charge of one's own financial responsibilities and hold no other accountable for one's own life? Hard, apparently. For all the higher education we seek, we don't bother to learn basic fundamentals of accounting -- where you spend less than you earn, and put some back into savings for a rainy day and retirement.

*James, H, 2003. Europe Reborn: a history, 1914-2000. Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, Essex. Pgs 31-35.

Returning with a Flourish

2010-04-07T08:57:00.004-05:00

It's been a long time since I wrote here. Let me say now that it's not for a lack of things to say, rather it has been a question of focus as well as some forces beyond my control.

To that end, I'm part zombie now. More specifically, I've undergone a reconstructive surgery that put cadaver parts in me; apparently my own parts were too broken to be useful. At this moment, I'm in-between surgeries, while I await further zombie transformation into the person I've never been before. Wanna guess what I'm going to be for Halloween this year? You guessed it; I'm going as Bill Murray*.

For the last 8 months or so, I've watched the world whirl by with as much a keen eye as a blind one. There have been moments when I've wondered what we've gotten ourselves into and moments when I've known with a shudder. After some good conversation and imbibing with friends, what I really don't want to do is turn this blog into a political rant (very often, anyway). I'm at a place in my life where I can't say I believe that the 1st amendment protects the rights of any basic citizen to free speech, and my reason for coming to this conclusion is long and mostly boring. Since I'm not part of the free press and I'm not a politician, and since therefore my rights at free speech aren't really rights anymore, merely ghosts of privileges, I'm going to protect myself and keep my mouth shut instead of sporting my foot in it.

To the end that even the blogosphere is becoming an opportunity for the political monitoring of ideas and thoughts in awareness of the grass roots mindset, if not in any appreciation for it, I cry for the broken notions that once established this nation under an ideology that reminds me of Atlantis: completely missing and buried in time and under water.

Young girls in America have been raised for decades to believe in princesses and white knights -- at least for their wedding day -- and many have had those dreams smashed at the altar and other places. Me, I dream of the next Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock... of all the flawed and brilliant men brave enough to demand better than they had, and with the foresight to set up a model that was as scientifically brilliant as any experiment in that it was repeatable. What did we do with our social contract over the last 150 years to use our Constitution as metaphorical toilet paper? Even more importantly, who's figurative asses do we wipe with it now?

But I digress into a disappointment that bends towards anger. Politics is what it is, and I am no politician. Journalism is what it is, and I am no journalist. I am something (in my own mind) far better than both, because I've been bought by no man to spin any tale.

And so it is a jaded return indeed!

*An homage to Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson and with a hilarious cameo appearance by Bill Murray.

The truth in the lie

2009-07-14T12:29:00.007-05:00

For my birthday, a very intelligent and thoughtful friend of mine gave me the book Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine. I suggest it to anyone that wants to read a non-partisan opinion about our state of affairs.

Something that has been brought to my attention lately (not by Mr. Beck), is regarding finding the truth in the lie that has been told. In this case, the truth is that our country is not in trouble because of flat screen tv's, economic disparity between the classes, or any single politician. The truth is that the underlying reasons behind such effects (as to why people go into debt for material possessions, why some people strive to work hard while others beg for handouts and freebies, and why our leaders have taken America down a road we did not entrust them to go) have far more to do with where we are today than do the effects themselves. Finger-pointing doesn't fix anything, and it often doesn't even illuminate much if anything. It just avoids getting down to the real business of fixing what we broke.

We need to stop pointing fingers. Yes, taxation is strangling us (the taxpayers), debt spending is crippling us, our foreign policies can be compared to a circus, our leaders are selfish and do not often work for the benefit of anyone but themselves. The lie is that knowing all that stuff is enough to do anything about it. The truth is that we need to take a hard look at insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is insane for anyone currently holding office at the national level to get another crack at the job they're doing. Show me a congressman (or congresswoman, for you P.C. types) standing up and standing out trying to change the partisan bickering and actually writing bills that address the real needs of the taxpaying, law abiding citizens of this country, and I'll show you a con-artist.

When we quit voting for people's character, we quit voting for morality. When we made excuses for our elected leader's personal behavior, we quit holding ourselves to any standard. How can we expect someone to go in and "clean up Capital Hill" when we overlook the fact that they have been accused of tax evasion, racketeering, insider trading.... If we turn a blind eye to our elected leaders' criminal activities, how can we be angry at them for turning blind eyes to corruption around them? The truth is that we can't.

We tolerate things from our elected public servants that we would never tolerate from our kids or even our next door neighbors. Why? Because we believed the lie when we were told it didn't matter.

So the question becomes, what are we going to do about it?

Get over yourself Ma'am

2009-06-18T12:41:00.005-05:00

Senator Boxer* would like it if you would remember her station in life. In short, she got offended that an Army Brigadier General called her "Ma'am" instead of "Senator". The article goes on to explain in brief the Army protocol for referring to pretty much everyone as "sir" or "ma'am".

So let's look at what "ma'am" means:

dame: a woman of refinement; "a chauffeur opened the door of the limousine for the grand lady"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Madam, Madame, ma'am, or Mme is a title for a woman. It is derived from the French madame (see different meanings of madame here), the equivalent of Mrs. or Ms., and literally signifying "my lady." The plural of madam in this sense is mesdames. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma'am
A contracted form of madam
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ma%E2%80%99am
Replaces sir, when addressing women officers in particular and all women in general.
toysforkidsvt.com/index.php/marine-dictionary

I'm not sure how anyone can see any of those definitions as anything other than respectful, but that's not good enough for Senator Boxer.

"You know, do me a favor," an irritated Boxer said. "Could say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am?'"

She didn't say "You know, General, do me a favor". She spoke to a military general as if he was some punk kid disrupting class, and she demanded that he show her respect through her title, because his actions and words weren't respectful enough.

I am offended at her littleness. This is arrogant and ridiculous, and all because "ma'am" does not defer enough authority to her. Please. One day she'll just be a has-been, once-was ex-senator, and then she'll just be a "ma'am" again, unless of course she's in the company of the general public, where she'll be lucky to get that.

I did enjoy Gen. Walsh's response to her request:

"Yes ma'am."

Hooah, Sir.

*read the whole article.

All the things we carry

2009-06-02T17:32:00.007-05:00

The average civilian carries around not only the trappings of their profession -- briefcase, laptop, purse, diaperbag -- but also the trappings of their mind -- worry, stress, guilt, shame. This is called "normalcy", despite a growing belief that such weights can be regulated in anti-depressants and vacations to Cabo or Maui. Each of us individually drags around our respective weights, and while what we carry is uniquely ours, it is by no means unique. Forgetting that we share the common bond of suffering is the most dangerous step towards apathy as well as cultural elitism. But today my focus is on the stuff we carry, not the effects of humping it around.

Tim O'Brien was a soldier and then an award-winning author. He wrote about his experiences as a soldier. His work of fiction "The Things They Carried" does a great job of putting a fine point on an often intangible thought process with regards to the Vietnam War. In the following excerpt, there is the burden on the reader of thinking about all that he says and all that he writes between the lines. Carry this around for a bit:

"The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water. Together, these items weighed between 15 and 20 pounds....

What they carried was partly a function of rank, partly of field specialty.

As a first lieutenant and platoon leader, Jimmy Cross carried a compass, maps, code books, binoculars, and a .45-caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds fully loaded. He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men....

As a medic, Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry, including M&M's for especially bad wounds, for a total weight of nearly 20 pounds....

As PFC's or Spec 4s, most of them were common grunts and carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault ifle. The weapon weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded, 8.2 pounds with its fulll 20-round magazine.... The riflemen carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines, usually in cloth bandoliers, adding on another 8.4 pounds at minimum, 14 pounds at maximum....

In addition to the three standard weapons -- the M-60, the M-16, and the M-79 -- they carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive.... They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.

They carried USO stationery and pencils and pens. They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades, chewing tobacco.... Taking turns, they carried the big PRC-77 scrambler radio, which weighed 30 pounds with its battery. They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections.... They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery..... They carried the land itself -- Vietnam, the place, the soil -- a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces.... They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous.... And for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry."

Tim O'Brien carries the reader into his memories with this short story, and asks the reader to carry his burden with him for a few pages. Put down your Blackberries and your Mac's, push aside your mocha lattes and your Coldstone ice cream, and be quiet about your own complainings long enough to listen to someone else unload their burden for a bit.

We don't even have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. We just need to carry his literal and metaphorical backpack around for a while.

The Pre-Natal Agreement

2009-05-27T13:09:00.005-05:00

For your consideration, I bring to you the "Pre-Natal Agreement"! This is my little creation and gift to the legal world. In short, it works like a pre-nup, but gives one parent complete control of child-rearing in the event of a divorce. No more arguing over visitation, over dental benefits, over who's going to pick up little Johnny up from soccer practice! This gem gives it all to one parent! How easy will your custody battles be now!! In fact, it even comes with a built in addendum that the non-custodial parent can choose to pay child support or sign away parental rights, no questions asked!

This is a culmination of years of me shaking my head at the evils that parents will do to their children post-divorce, but now it includes court involved evils. Recently that boy and his mother who ran away to get away from a court-appointed chemo treatment incited me to dream up the "Pre-Natal Agreement". Depending on which article you read after googling the boy and his story, you get various views on who has custody of the boy and his medical rights, and why custody is in question, and why there is a court-appointed chemo treatment in the first place. You also occasionally run across their religious beliefs (like them or not) that are against non-hollistic medicine in the first place.

The questions that this boy's case raised for me include:
1. who gets to decide the patient's rights in this and other cases and what are the guidelines?
2. what about his own rights to decide his quality of life and/medical treatments?
3. how far can the courts and the doctors go to force treatment upon patients?
4. will these treatments be directly related to the business of medicine? i.e. will there be a harder and perhaps court-backed push for more costly treatments?
5. when does patient care count as more important than patient treatment?
6. will personal beliefs towards medicine -- be them religous or cultural -- be subservient to the sickness itself? In other words, will the patient be little more than the vehicle to treat the illness, while the illness is the real interest?
7. how will the insurance agencies lobby and for what ends? Will this be one more area where we-the-people have little say in how we are treated and billed?
8. Did this all start from a divorce and shared custody rights? Some articles suggest that it did, others suggest that the state interfered on behalf of the boy because his parents did not believe nor wish to participate in "traditional modern medical practices".

The easiest way to avoid such convoluted situations is to stay married after procreation. But since we don't live in a society that encourages such unions, the next best thing may be to have ultimate rights over one's progeny.

Of course, this brings about several other basic issues that need to be understood:

1. children are an 18 year commitment at minimum. If you are not financially nor emotionally prepared to dedicate 18 years of your life to a life-form other than your own, then do not procreate or sign away parental rights if you do.
2. children are not playthings that are for your amusement in pride issues and control battles over custody. Grow up before you procreate, or agree to act like a grown up once you have.
3. understand that if you play by the rules of society, you just may scrape by under the radar. Draw unnecessary attention to yourself through any means of stupidity or irresponsibility, and you may find Social Services at your door, and then your parental rights could become a moot point anyway.
4. how you feel about someone the day you decide to procreate with them will be very different from the day you decide you're tired of their antics. Think beyond the moment to the worst possible scenerio and plan to deal with the worst, not the best.
5. use your head for something other than a hat rack. If you don't already have the answers you need to the questions you have, go get them from someone who does.
6. you are not half as important to everyone else as you think you are, but you are ten times as important to your child than you think you are.

I look at the situation we are in as a nation with regards to child-rearing and custody arguments and "a village raising our children" from social services to public education and I wonder how humanity survived long enough to get to this point. To all those people in power that are now making decisions to "safeguard our children" I ask you this: did your parents do such a horrible job with you that you now feel that we should grow up in a bubble until we're 18 and then register to vote to support the social programs you think are inalienable rights to our citizens and illegal immigrants?

United we stood

2009-05-19T13:08:00.008-05:00

I recently took a very casual poll and discovered that most people consider "nationalism" to be the same thing as patriotism: love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it. However, ask a history buff knowledgeable in the emergence of Nationalism, and you'll learn something a bit different.

"Nationalism proved to be the single most powerful European political ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (pg. 744)". Yes, European political ideology. And nationalism is very simple, really. The idea is simply the "concept that a nation is composed of people who are joined together by the bonds of common language, customs, culture, and history, and who, because of those bonds, should share the same government [such as a democracy, a monarchy, or other governmental form]" (pg. 745). Ideally, any group can form its own nation, "but in reality nationhood came to be associated with groups that were large enough to support a viable economy, that had a history of significant cultural association, that possessed a cultural elite that could nourish and spread the national language, and that could conquer other peoples to establish and protect their own independence" (pg. 747)*.

Such relatively simply ideology helps really put a fine point on why there are so many conflicts and wars in this world, doesn't it? We want to be united and have the right to be united and protect ourselves from other groups. And by "we", I mean just about every single individual culture on the planet.

Now if you read my previous post, "Out of Africa", you already know that I posed a very dramatic pitch for peace by way of understanding and respecting our genetic similarities as a species. Genetic similarities do not define cultures, however, and the European Nationalists saw a problem in Europe that ended up redefining borders and bringing about nation states such as Italy and Germany, as well as tying peoples together in a way that had not ever occurred before.

You'd think we, the fledgeling U.S. and "Republic experiment", would have learned something. Apparently we did not.

Take another look at what nationalism means: "peoples joined by common language, customs, culture, and history...." Who in politics is trying to keep this country united at all? No one, that I can think of. Every single politician that comes to my mind is focused on segregating this country by focusing on various economical or cultural differences within our borders. Abortion activists' tend to define that entire argument based on a difference between the sexes, supported by the rhetoric of "a woman's right to do what she wants to do with her body". The entire political plank of illegal immigrants recognizes and thus divides culturally the Mexican/Latino culture from the "American" culture. Arguments over health care tend to alienate economic classes and to some degree also includes ageism by focusing on Medicaid and Medicare. The argument over taxes divides the working class, the upper class, and the tax exempt class.

In short, how does this country stay together at all? We are no longer joined by a common language (we're increasingly bi-lingual), we have no common culture or customs, and our history is used as a political tool to divide us instead of unite us.

With cultural globalization we are increasingly losing whatever vestiges of culture we had as we embrace individuality and increase our integration of other cultural norms into our own melting pot. This in and of itself would not be a bad thing if we actually had an "American" culture that united us. When this country was founded, it was in response to religious oppression and persecution. It was a break from the tyrannical rule of a monarchy. It was to separate from a government that failed to allow equal representation. It was also a chance to pursue personal wealth without strict adherence to a caste system, and a chance to encourage and participate in free trade.

We seem to have abandoned everything that once united us. With no commonality as a nation, of course we're at the whims of our president and congress. Of course we're turning towards socialism and communism and away from the republic that our forefathers established. And until we understand our history, we cannot begin to change our future.

*Craig, Graham, Kagan, Ozment, Turner (2009) The Heritage of world civilizations, (vol. 2, 8th ed., pp. 744-747). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Out of Africa

2009-05-14T14:42:00.007-05:00

Anthroplogists believe that modern man comes from Africa. “...Geneticists found that characteristic DNA sequences called markers on the Y (male) chromosome in a huge sample of men in Asia and Oceania could be traced to forefathers who lived in Africa in the past 35,000 to 89,000 years. Two other groups studying Y chromosome markers have come to a similar conclusion. Together with a variety of studies showing that mitochondrial DNA is of recent African origins, anthropologists now have two strong lines of evidence in favor of the 'Out of Africa' model, which says that the ancestors of living humans swept out of Africa in the past 200,000 years and replaced all indigenous people they encountered.”*

This means that either the government should start passing “racially” preferred handouts to everyone, or quit handing them out at all. It also means that the NAACP needs to widen it's recipient base. Finally, it means that affirmative action really is discrimination. But most people with any sort of common sense already knew that.

But outside of poking fun at governmental policies that allow for any particular group to get any specific favor based on the “color of their skin”, there is another and deeper meaning to being “African American”... the anthropological belief that we're all one race. “In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic 'racial' groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within 'racial' groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.”**

With all the religious, political, sexist, demographical, “racial”, cultural and economic diversity on this planet, realizing that we are, essentially, no different from one human to the next, we can de-value the constant bickering and warring over inconsequential stuff – like whether or not the color of someone's skin reflects who they are as a person, or whether or not it reflects how capable they are to perform a task. It should also be broadened to consider such things as whether or not acts of terrorism is performed against truly different persons (it is not), or instead just different ideologies (it is). Perhaps human identity is not the way to peace, but perhaps if we focused on our genetic similarities and less on our cultural differences, PERHAPS we could begin to value human life enough to pursue avenues of peace that typically and historically have not worked, because of a shift in fundamental beliefs about what it is to be a human.

"Photograph is courtesy of American Anthropological Association and Science Museum of Minnesota"

*source

**source

This year's ode to mothers

2009-05-09T13:00:00.003-05:00

I have had very little time to dedicate to something worthwhile here in the last couple of weeks, and I finally get a few moments and find myself less than 24 hours away from Mother's Day.

For good or ill, we all have opinions about our mothers, and even without the Freudian approach to how our mothers have affected us, we can probably take a moment to tell a tale of humor or woe that closely connect our heartstrings where our umbilical cords once connected us. Too graphic? Fine, go visit FTD.com and send her some flowers and call it a day.

But before we cut off our reflections so quickly, have you ever stopped and really thought about how your mother's presence or absence in your life has structured you as a person? Think of all the stories of soldiers that die calling out for their moms. Think of all the people that fall into deep depression when their mothers die, regardless of how they connected with their moms while they were alive. Despite the traditional need for a sperm and an ovum to create life, children bond at a deeper level with the mom.

So tomorrow is Mother's Day; the one day a year we are federally told to appreciate our mothers, buy them Hallmark cards, and take them out to overcrowded restaurants to show them how much we love them. Maybe we'll buy them jewelry -- some family birthstone related thing that we can get at Walmart -- maybe we'll buy them chocolates. Maybe we'll remember them with a phone call, a visit to the nursing home, or a visit to the grave. Maybe we'll go out of our way to ignore them altogether.

However you do, or do not, remember your mother tomorrow, remember that the one person who is acutely aware of what "day" tomorrow is... is your mom. The only day that she will be more aware of her motherhood is on your birthday, and that day is set aside for you.

Also remember that she could've aborted you, and without any social accountability after 1973.

don't you forget about me

2009-05-01T14:15:00.003-05:00

The 80's was a decade of great songs. Sure, better music has come out of other eras, but arguing "what musical era or genre is best" is like arguing any other opinionated topic -- no one is going to ultimately win.

It reminds me of the nonobjectivist approach to ethics, which states that there are no moral truths, but instead morality is simply a reflection of opinion and societal norms. For example, say you like Mozart and I like The Kinks. Instead of being able to sit down and rationally and calmly discuss the talents of either, with the intention of deciding one to be better than another, we will ultimately become inflamed and start spewing rhetoric and name calling. A.J. Ayer says that this will happen in any conversation where there is disagreement, and that ethics is therefore nothing that can be argued about as it is all opinion. "Lying is wrong" is as nonsensical to him as "Elvis is alive" or "Bread is tasty" because they're all opinions and cannot be proven as universal fact.

You know, when researching the Na of Southern China, or reading about the Ik of Central Africa, or even just considering dissenting opinions regarding abortion and same-sex marriages in our own country, it's easy to give a lot of credit to the idea that there is no moral truth and we're all arguing our opinions and feelings.

How dare you tell me that I have to agree with you because you're right and I'm wrong!! And do those that believe in abortion have any more right to say that to those that believe abortion is wrong? Do monogamous heterosexuals have the right to force their notions of morality onto sexual "deviants"? If I tell you that you are wrong for thinking that the sky is blue because in reality it is not blue but is merely reflecting blue as all other colors are being absorbed... do I have the right to force you to agree with me?

Ah, morality. How difficult it is to explain you, how impossible it is to contain you.

So maybe there are no universal truths. I mean, even "murder is wrong" is heavily debated by those that think that motive plays no part in murder, therefore even "killing" is wrong. Jainists would be among them; to them, I'm a murderer because I stepped on a cockroach and killed it. I meant to, as well, so maybe I am guilty -- universally speaking. I mean, either taking life is wrong or it is not, right?

Do I have the divine right to define what "life" is? Do I have the moral responsibility to set boundaries? Is making motive an acceptable cause and therefore exception simply making morality more comfortably fit? Just because I did not take human life, I did take life... a cockroach may not be a desirable lifeform to many of us, but we would all agree that it is indeed alive.

Does it become abominable for me to kill something because it's cute -- like a kitten? Where is the line drawn? Who gets to decide? If I accidentally kill it, because it runs out in the street and I run over it with my car, am I absolved of all moral responsibility? Aren't I surely a monster if I hack it up with an axe, however?

So if there are universal truths, then some of us must uncomfortably admit that we've done some universally morally reprehensible things, even if they weren't done to humans.

I remember a mouse I once killed in my house. I was not particularly kind to it, although it was no cold-blooded killing, but instead a rage response because I found the mouse in my cereal box that I retrieved from the cabinet to pour myself a bowl. But the circumstances notwithstanding, I took that mouse's life. The fact is, that mouse died at my hands.

It seems like something of a nicety that we only include humans in our societal ethical norms. How very Kantian of us. How ignoble. Do I have another solution? Are you kidding? I'm an amateur at this stuff.

Guarantees and opportunities

2009-04-14T21:51:00.004-05:00

John Rawls was a contemporary philosopher that put his own spin on the social contract theory -- that of the "veil of ignorance". In short, his idea was that if we were all disembodied spirits in space and not yet humans on earth, would we choose to live in a society that put restrictions on women or minorities, or inhibited peoples by class? He poses that we would not support such ideas, as we could very well end up with the short end of that individual freedom stick once we were assigned an earthly body. He believed that we would all sit down and script a social contract with equality for all.

But he mentioned class in his illustration. Does he mean that the wealth should all be distributed equally, or simply give the opportunity equally to everyone to pursue wealth? The differece is fairly profound, I argue.

If he meant to support equal distribution of wealth, then one could argue that a successful social contract means little more than setting up a socialist or communist government, designed primarily to control the wealth of the people and distribute it evenly. If he meant to support the idea that every person has the same rights to pursue individual wealth, then arguing for a free market society and capitalism is the way to go.

But even if we take political application out of the equation and remove all labels, then let's just look at the primary difference between "equal wealth" vs. "equal opportunity":

To simplify this idea in terms of survival, let's pretend that there are only 10 of us on earth, and we live together in our own village. Let's say I go out and gather 2 pounds of berries, another guy hunts down 1 rabbit, and our village has some chickens that laid 5 eggs today.

With equal wealth, if just two of us gathered or hunted any food, it doesn't matter, for we all will get some of the loot. That means that the village divides the 2 pounds of berries, 1 rabbit, and 5 eggs between us. We each get 3.2 oz of berries, 1/10 of the rabbit, and half an egg a piece. Without even arguing over who gets the pelt or how it's equally shared, what about the different body types? Should age or health matter in the distribution of the food? If there's a small child that doesn't eat that much or a large warrior that requires more than that to keep his strength, or a sick person that needs additional nutrition... what do we do? Our social contract insists we share it all equally. While members of the village may decide to share above and beyond their own wealth, they are not required to, so there is no guarantees in the social contract for it. And what about the people that actually did all the work? Do they deserve no reward for carrying the whole of the village on their back? And what about those that did nothing? Should they be rewarded for their laziness? These are but some of the many difficult questions that arise from the idea of equal wealth.

Equal opportunity, on the other hand, would allow for every member of the village to go out and hunt or gather, regardless of sex, age, color of skin, etc, and would allow them to keep their rewards. The result is that while luck and skill would play a part in daily fluctuations of bounty, there would be no limit to the possibility that a member of the community had to gain wealth, and thus it is often argued that the village would be inspired to work hard to pursue their own wealth. In this system there is no guaranteed foodstuffs to be distributed at the end of the day, but it is argued that people would be generous with their neighbors when their neighbors tried hard and fell short, as they would want such generosity to be returned to them in tough times.

While equal wealth is a more Kantian approach to a social contract -- by this I mean the village would be doing good because it is their duty to do so -- it also does not encourage anyone to go out and try harder than any other, because even not hunting and gathering at all will still result in being given bounty. It could be argued that nothing besides hunger would ever drive any member out to hunt and gather. Such base needs would not warrant a generous spirit when doling out equal portions to any one else, when instead they would wish only to fill their own bellies. Perhaps such starvation could drive a member of the community to steal from the others by eating out in the field and not bringing back the whole bounty to the others. Perhaps they would begin to wish members of the community to die or be killed off to lessen the burden.

In the equal opportunity, a person could become discouraged that others go out and successfully bring home more bounty than another, but an encouraged person could desire to try harder, learn better methods, improve efficiency. Perhaps a person who has no luck could desire to quit trying, or harbor grudges against the successful members of the village, wishing to kill the successful members off and steal their wealth. It is here where the social contract becomes so important, as a social contract -- as per Hobbes's definition -- exists to unite warring persons in that they agree to live under a set of rules because the rules are better than the lawlessness and anarchy that would otherwise exist.

Is one system better than another? Yes, in my opinion. But it's going to take more than just my opinion to work towards any sort of social contract that transcends the political strife we bathe in in this country. It's far easier to talk about how things should be than do anything to create a better community; and if you don't do anything at all, but promise to do everything, you can keep getting re-elected on the grounds that you still have work to do. HA!

Have you thought about this lately?

2009-04-07T10:26:00.005-05:00

"Abandoning an absolute ethical moral standard leads irresistibly to the absence of ethics and morality. Each person determines his own ethical/moral code. That's anarchy. Humans become their own gods and decide, each in his own way, what is good and what is evil. Evil becomes good -- good becomes evil. Upside down morality! Good is ridiculed!! Evil is dignified!" - Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the U.S. Senate

Can you say he's wrong? For those of you that just blurted out "yes", think about all the times that "good Samaritans" are punished for doing good works. Some are sued because they are not doctors or EMT's and pulled an accident victim from a burning car but causing bodily damage by not using accepted emergency procedures. You've heard of these horror stories, don't make me look them up; my time is valuable and if you're that big of a curmudgeon, then I will be wasting my efforts proving my points to you.

So we as a country struggle with cultural relativism (the idea that no culture is more "right" or "wrong" than another, and that all aspects of that culture -- including its ethics and morality -- are no more right or wrong than any other, and that furthermore no one has the right to judge another culture. Basically, it says that "what's right for me is right for me, and what's right for you is right for you".

Take the Ik tribe of Central Africa. They "acknowledge no moral or social obligation to anyone or anything. Their standard of value is the self; their rule of life, to do whatever they wish. At age 3, children are put out of their parents' huts and thereafter sleep in the open, rain or shine. To survive, they gather in bands and form not friendships but temporary alliances, which are betrayed whenever convenience dictates... children learn to cry tears of malice, anger, or hate, butnever of sorrow.... The Ik's sexual expression typically is adulterous and is driven less by passion than by the desire to profit at someone else's expense. A neighbor's suffering evokes not pity or kindness but malicious glee. (observations by anthropologist Colin Turnbull, from his field study in the mid-1960's)*".

To tie this all together, according to cultural relativism, the Ik have the right to continue to behave as they do, treating others as they do, and no one else has the right to tell them that they are in the moral wrong to do so. Halverson would say that this is anarchy and reprehensible, and he might even liken this sort of dignifying of "evil" to issues we see arise in our own country, as so many criminals get off on some technicality or another, thus invalidating the point that they committed a crime and owe reparations to society.

The Ik live -- as described by Turnbull -- without any sort of moral conditions tying them to one another nor any other group. They are the basest culture I've ever heard of, where pleasure comes solely from enjoying the pain experienced by another. "They live without love, and they die alone*".

I argue that this is the inevitable end of people who cannot or will not "draw lines in the sand" for what is right and what is wrong. I argue that even if a 5 year old steals something, and that it is successfully argued that "she didn't know any better", that the crime of stealing remains unchanged, and that reparations to society are still appropriate.

Here's where I become unpopular in my thinking, but bear with me dear reader! It is only here that the details of the case should be considered. Only in judgement, not in deciding whether or not there was a crime committed. If something is stolen, it remains stolen regardless if a toddler took it, a seasoned criminal, or a forest animal. Even if it is successfully argued that Big Foot himself stole, the argument is not whether or not something was taken, but WHO took it.

Before we get way off track, let's get back to the thieving toddler. Should the toddler have her hand chopped off as might happen in some cultures as penance for stealing? No, that would be overkill. Should she be forced to serve time in prison? Nah. Should she be forced to return the item she stole? Sure, that's appropriate. I'd even go so far to say that she could spend an hour of her life in service to the person from whom she stole.

I personally that it is admirable to punish according to crimes. That upholds a standard and a consistency in society that would give the members of the society something they can count on, and a moral base by which they can decide their actions. This crazy society we have, where pleas of insanity often are used as some form of excuse, where deals are made to catch bigger fish or simply plea bargain to a lesser sentence, where repeat offenders do not necessarily receive stricter sentencing with each offense... this to me is anarchy. This is a lack of moral structure and substance. While everyone is fighting for individual rights, the "greater good" is completely forgotten or shoved aside. Cultural relativism is winning, and yet the result is that we have no culture.

For according to its own definition, we have no right to judge or be judged by another culture. So who wins? No one. It has no choice but to exist as "every man for himself". Slowly we are slipping into looser and looser cultural morality. I dread the days when I'm old enough to sit on the front porch and talk about the "good ole days". I fear that I've alredy seen the best this country has to offer its citizens, if things continue to progress as they have been.

If you disagree with me, I'd like to hear a detailed account as to why. I could use some cheering up.

*source: Vincent Ryan Ruggiero, Thinking Critically About Ethical Issues, 7th ed. pg. 52-53

who's Margo Crawford?

2009-03-27T17:42:00.002-05:00

Many of you have read my blog under my pseudonym for some time. Most of you know my real name by now, either cuz we grew up together or because we've gotten to know each other a bit outside this blog.

So who's Margo Crawford?

I am. And I'm ready to tackle Shakespeare's eternal question "Would a rose smell as sweet by any other name?" by simply going by my own given name. And for those of you who no longer find the metaphor of an empty ink well of any significance, or were merely curious as to what "the face of Margo...er, Catherine" looks like, I've even updated my photo to an actual picture of me.

What does this mean for the blog? Not much. I'll still be me as predictably as I always am. What does this mean for humanity? I dunno... these changes may usher in the end of the world.

At any rate, welcome to the next phase in my own evolution.

You're yes then you're no....

2009-03-20T16:52:00.005-05:00

If you knew that Proposition 22 and Proposition 8 may not have ever been necessary propositions, would it change your mind about them?

In short, these two propositions were brought before the people of California to vote on whether or not marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman or broadened to include same-sex unions.

It turns out that the California Family Code, sections 297 and 297.5 allow for same-sex unions to exist:

"Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses."

These registered domestic partnerships are equal to marriages, legally, and are protected from discrimination and partners in such a union are legally considered spouses.

If there already exists a legal union of same-sex partners, then why is same-sex marriage even an issue? Is it because of the definition of the word marriage? If so, then the people of California have twice said that they -- as a majority -- want a marriage to be exclusively between a man and a woman. Does the California Supreme court have a right to overthrow their passing of Prop 22 and later Prop 8? Is the court imposing legislating from the bench or upholding the law?

What are your thoughts?

Hot Topic: abortion and rhetoric

2009-03-01T15:53:00.009-05:00

"Someone against abortion might define 'abortion as 'the murder of an
innocent still-born person'. This definition carries a negative connotation,
as the term 'murder' suggests that abortion is wrongful killing, and it also
assumes that the aborted fetus is already a person. Such a definition is
surely not appropriate in a rational debate on the moral legitimacy of
abortion, even though it might be useful as a rhetorical tool" (Joe Lau
Department of Philosophy, The University of Hong Kong, August 2003).

Someone might also describe pregnancy as having a parasite growing inside the uterus.

But let's look at "murder" and "abortion" beyond their trigger words. "Murder", according to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, is "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought". Well, I'm not sure how many people get an abortion out of malice for their unborn child. Most probably do it out of fear: fear they don't have the money nor the education to raise the child, fear that the father of the child will beat them, fear of their parents, fear of the unknown, etc.

And let's look at the rest of the definition: "the crime of unlawfully killing..." well, thanks to Roe vs. Wade, it's not unlawful to have an abortion, therefore there is no crime. So, strictly speaking, abortion is not murder. Ok, moving on.

According to Lau's definition, the abortion is the murder of an innocent still-born person. Answers.com says that the definition of "stillborn" is "dead at birth". Well how, Mr. Lau, can you kill something already dead? (I'll let it slide that it also has to be born and dead to be considered stillborn.)

Mr. Lau's definition doesn't work.

But let's go on. He assumes that those against abortion consider the fetus a person. Now, I am not going to argue the philosophy, psychology, biology, or morality of whether or not a fetus is a person. I'm going to argue that there is nothing to kill if the fetus isn't a person, and you can't even kill it if it's dead, as in the aforementioned definition, so why are we discussing abortion in Mr. Lau's terms?

Let me ask you this: if we can legally kill something that doesn't exist anyway (not my definition), we morally wrap our minds around genocide (in this case, infanticide). Why can't we, therefore, euthanize our elderly like we do our old dogs and cats? Why can't we "put them out of their misery" of old age, cancer, dementia, brittle bones, etc. Come on, we kill our kids in the womb! What's the difference between deciding the first breaths of infants and the last breaths of the elderly? The difference is, I offer for your consideration, that fetuses have no eyes, no smiles, no names, no faces, no emotional to pull at heartstrings. But are they any less alive?

Is a plant a viable organism while it is still a seed or a seedling and still growing? Is it "alive" before it shoots out of the ground and grows leaves? Is it "born" only after it has sprouted roots?

No, I'm not going to go off on the tangent of the evils of eating plants, because "plants have feelings too". I honestly don't care if you eat cows or elephant ears. (For those that don't know, an elephant ear, in this context, is a large green leafed plant, not the actual ear of an elephant).

But I am going to say that Joe Lau, by his own definition, uses rhetoric to attempt to argue that those who oppose abortion are wrong to do so. I say it's wrong to grow peas in a 5th grade science class because they are only going to be discarded after the experiment and not planted into soil to continue to grow and thrive and become mature plants!! Plant Killers!!!!

Now go hug your grandmother.

Little Mystery in Big China

2009-02-26T14:36:00.004-05:00

I have stated on more than one occasion that education can solve any issue. Imagine my smug little self after reading about the matrilineal society of the Na.

Most people have never heard of the Na tribal people, from the Yongning hills of the Yunan province in southern China. Clifford Geertz wrote an article (“Life without Fathers or Husbands”, copyright 2001 NYREV, Inc.) reviewing the work of Chinese Anthropologist, Cia Hua, describing the society of the Na.

"[Among the Na]... there is no marriage, in fact or word. Mothers exist, as do children, but there are no dads. Sexual intercourse takes place between casual, opportunistic lovers, who develop no broader, more enduring relations to one another.... Almost everyone of either sex has multiple partners, serially or simultaneously.... There are no nuclear families, no in-laws, no stepchildren. Brothers and sisters, usually several of each, reside together, along with perhaps a half-dozen of their nearer maternal relatives, from birth to death under one roof -- making a living, keeping a household, and raising the sisters' children."

Now before you, dear reader, consider rushing off to live in the Yongning hills of China, please understand that over the span of several dynasties, China has addressed this issue in several ways, from decreeing that the Na "must marry in the standard way" to passing a regulation "designed to encourage nuclear family formation by distributing land to men who would set up and maintain such a family" to "pronouncing it shameful not to know who one's genitor is, and imposing marriage by simple decree on any villager involved in a conspicuous visit relationship" to finally passing laws stating that "1. everyone under fifty in a relationship... must officially marry...; 2. every woman who has children must publically state who their genitor is, cart him off to headquarters, and marry him; 3. those who divorce without official sanction will have their annual grain ration suspended; 4. any child born out of wedlock will also not get a ration and must be supported by his genitor until age 18; and 5. visiting, furtive or conspicuous, was forbidden".

All these efforts failed, largely. It wasn't until 1992 that any real change in the Na culture occurred. The means that succeeded? Education.

"The expansion of the state school system, where 'all the textbooks are impregnated with [more universal] ideas and values', is leading to rapid and thorough [cultural change in] the Na:
When students graduate from middle school, they must complete a form that includes a column requesting information on their civil status. Unable to fill in the blank asking for the name of their father, they suddenly become aware they do not have a father, while their classmates from other ethnic backgrounds do..... The message... is clear.... There is only one culture that is legitimate, and that [is not the Na].

"In China, as elsewhere, it is not licentiousness that powers most fear. Nor even immorality. It is difference."

Did you notice that the education that is "fixing" the Na culture, is the state school system? Now, if you're a member of the Na society, you are probably enraged at what your kids are being taught as your people are entering into a state of cultural upheaval.

Can't the same thing be said of other cultures nearer to home? What is it, exactly, that "the state" is teaching? Is it the education that we want for our kids? Are we, like the Na, being conditioned to accept a particular knowledge that is "in line" with the government? And who's government? Can it be accurately defined by party lines, socio-economic lines, cultural lines? Sure, education can solve all problems, but "education" is a bit subjective. It's a bit like history, you know; the winning side gets to write the books.

Throw me something, Mister!

2009-02-24T12:24:00.005-05:00

I am not Catholic. In fact, my personal experiences with Catholicism can be traced to a single wedding that I attended back in 1984. I am, however, a Louisianian. So tomorrow the devout Catholics can celebrate Ash Wednesday, but today is for me and my ilk. Laissez les bon temps rouler!!

Mardi Gras is steeped in Catholic beliefs, but leave it to the city of N'Awlins (that's "New Orleans" for those needing translation) to claim the twelve days leading up to Fat Tuesday -- as well as the day itself -- and turn it into one big philanthropic party. Carnival and Mardi Gras is when the people of New Orleans and South Louisiana throw themselves a party, paid for by the people, and gifts are showered onto the crowds.

To be fair, Mardi Gras is celebrated all over the world, and N'Awlins isn't the only place that throws a good party. But, I'm not from the rest of the world, so you get my slant. And today, my slant is a short list of sites:

New Orleans Mardi Gras explained Go learn something, Mister!
Mardi Gras 2009 with live video Go watch a parade, Mister!
History of New Orleans Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras Past and Present

Funny, how I'll rant about Christmas and vent about Valentine's Day, then laud Mardi Gras. No, I"m not nuts... although I do predict an eccentric old age. Here's the thing about this seeming hypocrisy: I was raised to understand that Mardi Gras was, yes, a time for parades and asking for trinkets ("Throw me something, Mister!"). But I understood that the money behind Mardi Gras came from people's pocket linings, not a government agency or a hand-out. This was the hard-working taxpayer taking their own money and throwing their community a party, complete with gifts to the parade attenders. If ever there was a spirit of community involvement, it was Mardi Gras. People set aside money, they built floats together, they made costumes, they threw a parade, and then they had a ball -- literally. The whole point is to enjoy life and celebrate abundance. I've always contented that point of view goes a long way to defining such intangible ideas as "abundance". If you have all you need, and are content with that, then life itself is abundant. If you have a huge case of materialism and are so deep in debt that you actually quit dreaming of your next big purchase, then you will never have enough, no matter how much you have.

For me, Thanksgiving is for being thankful and giving thanks. It's a time of intimacy, looking inward to find peace in having what you need, and appreciating what and who you have in your life. Mardi Gras, however, is about celebrating life. It's about dancing in the streets because you have your humor, your zest for life, and you want to share yourself with your community. It's about throwing everyone a party, just because you can. I love that even in financial times of hardship, the members of the New Orleans Krewes find a way to keep the parties alive, year after year. I love that the area-wide celebration lines the streets and anyone can attend, be them a local or a tourist. Sure, my reflection on Mardi Gras may be a bit utopian, but that's my point of view, and sometimes we all need a reason to celebrate life.

Educate me!!

2009-02-21T19:48:00.003-05:00

Have you heard that there are folks out there busily rethinking our education system?

How about a return to the one room schoolhouse?

Here's a fun link I found regarding an experiment with just such a setting:
http://www.countryschoolassociation.org/Modern%20One%20Room%20School.pdf

And another about project-based education in Hawaii:
http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/rebuild/pdfs/wheareport04.pdf

Project-based education, btw, is exactly what it sounds like. Education through working on projects. Hawaii has a few charter schools that are outdoor schoolhouses. They are also bi-lingual, speaking English and Hawaiian. The idea is not only to preserve the Hawaiian culture, but also to encourage kids to embrace their heritage and understand how they can help protect their environment. That it also gives them some real-world experience is just gravy. Personally, I can get behind a system that puts kids to work on how to apply algebra to rebuild a storm-ravaged building, or uses diving to study science and biology and the reefs (I read a written article about such a school, but the link takes you to one that deals with other cool projects related to energy).

Would't it be great if learning and practical application could be used to better prepare graduates at every level for the rest of their life, or the next level of education?

I remember that my dad (a high school teacher for 27 years) was often frustrated when he was told he had to pass a student onto the next grade because they were too old to remain where they were. I remember the year he got a half-dozen new students as freshmen that had moved into high school only because they were turning 15 and could not stay in the 8th grade anymore. They did not know how to read or write, they had no incentive to learn, and when he asked them what they wanted from high school, one replied with "I want to turn 16 so I can get my own welfare check".

Yes, I realize this group of students is not the majority, however, with our current system, what grade you are in correlates with age more than it does ability, and often a child who is functioning well above their "grade" level is not encouraged to challenge themselves and jump ahead, while a child that is lagging behind can be dragged along. It isn't ideal for either situation.

I remember "back in the day" when Associates Degrees covered a more "general education" and the Bachelors was more specialized, with increasing specialization as one earned higher degrees. I feel a bit as though Bachelors degrees have lost some of their...punch... in the workplace, and an Associate's degree doesn't do much for anyone anymore. I fear that this is because there is a desire to have the titles that come with the terminal degrees more than it is a reflection of learning. In a race to stay competitive, have we really increased our learning to match our pedigrees? It is something I don't have an answer to yet.

This has been more food for thought than anything else, but I will leave my readers with some rhetorical questions to think about. Isn't our education supposed to prepare us for the workplace? Why does the workplace find our education inadequate or lacking? Shouldn't the gap between education and application be a narrow one?

my boring valentine

2009-02-13T14:17:00.003-05:00

It's the day before Valentine's, and true to form, I'm planning on all the things I'll be doing tomorrow: housework, playing with my son, going to the park, avoiding restaurants, wearing something decidedly NOT red.

For my loyal readers, you know that I loathe this holiday.

For those who have not been previously privy to my Valentine's rants, let me sum it up like this:

There are 365 days in a year. Why is it that on this one particular day, men are socially required to go out and spend a bunch of money buying baubles and trinkets to "prove" their love, to satisfy some romantic need to feel adored? What about the other 364 days a year? Shouldn't he be showing his love every day, and not storing it up, like a tax refund check, for February 14th?

Really, I think that holidays like this one exist for government workers to have a day off and to stimulate the economy. And we can follow up this big holiday for jewelry stores with the furniture store's holiday: President's Day! (and all the related sales). Next is breweries and St. Patrick's Day, then Childrens' retailers and Easter.

Now, I say all this tongue in cheek, as I continue to learn about the human sciences, and am forming new opinions all the time. But those revelations are for later. As Jack Nicholson one yelled to Tom Cruise, "You can't handle the truth!"

Speaking of Gitmo, ponder for a moment how future generations are going to receive movies like A Few Good Men and stories from the latter half of the 20th century, when Gitmo was such a formidable presence. I suspect it's a lot like hearing about the Great Depression for our generation. We kinda get it... well, a bit... I mean, look at the current state of the economy... gas last year was $5 a gallon in some parts... that's rough!... ok, we don't get it at all.

Time keeps on tickin', tickin'...
into the future....

(and don't worry fellas, you still have a few hours to get to Jared).

My No. 1 New Pet Peeve

2009-02-12T14:38:00.003-05:00

It takes a lot to top my list of pet peeves, especially to jump from not even on my radar all the way to #1.

Recently I met a woman. During our correspondence, I noticed that she writes in sentence fragments. She has clauses that don't identify anything. She refuses to capitalize proper names, misuses pronunciation, and is a terrible speller. She forgets identifying pronouns and leaves off modifiers. At least she doesn't use leet-speak. Now, all of these errors are forgivable -- certainly I'm guilty of every single one of them at some time or another. However, their frequency is annoying. Even this is forgivable, largely.

What is not forgivable is that this woman -- this questionably literate woman -- is an ENGLISH TEACHER!!

The next generation needs help. And how did we put someone in a position to teach them, that can't even properly use her own subject matter? HOW? Are our standards so low? Have we lowered our qualifications for our teachers? No Child Left Behind?!!!! HA! How about No Teacher Left Behind! (That might begin to take care of the children issue) I am so angry over the thought of illiterate teachers teaching English (of all things!), that I cannot continue this blog in a logical or sequential manner.

horror and science

2009-02-05T11:24:00.005-05:00

Science fiction is attributed to pushing science and technology into the future. Mostly because Welles or Vonnegut wrote about some completely cool gadget, and somewhere some brilliant-but-geeky mind decided to try and invent it. Star Trek is responsible for a whole slew of scientific advancements and/or experiments, like hand-held computers and such (come on, who doesn't want a tri-corder?) Star Wars can contribute a few things to science as well, even though the light saber hasn't been perfected -- not even as a child's toy.

So what about a Stephen King contribution? How about remote locks for cars! I postulate that somewhere, some guy was watching Christine and said "hey, I wish my car doors would lock themselves!" and Ding!! He had to go about making it happen. Now remote entry on autos is as common as Microsoft bundled with new computers.

day of change

2009-01-20T11:47:00.004-05:00

Back in November, the U.S. collectively voted for a change. Today we inaugurate a new President -- one that ran a platform promising change. Nothing but hindsight will enlighten whether or not we receive the change we desire.

This historic inauguration not only places the first African-American in the role of President, but I hope it also opens the door for women in upcoming elections. It is certainly just a matter of time, but perhaps now time becomes inconsequential in the equation.

Mr. Obama has been likened to a celebrity. Perhaps that is what this country needs right now. President Bush was not followed as a celebrity, and our country has many inhabitants that could not even recognize his photo, nor the name nor photo of Vice-President Cheney. Perhaps we need a figure that the paparazzi cannot wait to follow, that the magazines salivate over the opportunity to write about as he and his family appeal to fashion and entertainment. Maybe this man's charisma and charming good looks can bring about a social consciousness and political awareness in this country. Maybe with a face in office that people are excited about seeing, maybe he can unite us in a way we have not been united since JFK.

And for the first time in my life, I understand a very little bit about how crazy the country could be about John F. Kennedy. With his charming good looks and winning smile, with a beatiful and graceful woman by his side, the country paid attention to what he did and therefore, what was going on around him. I was not there, but I've heard about the "I was _____ when JFK was shot" stories. Everyone remembers that moment, just as I presume that this country will remember where they were on January 20, 2009.

Regardless of how votes were cast back in November, this day we inaugurate the one man that won the election. There is no point in mourning the loss of some other outcome. This is where we are in history, and it is from this moment that we will move forward. I am hopeful that when we look back on this administration we do indeed see positive change in not only foreign policy and economic policy and such, but in ourselves as a united people.

Owls and Songbirds

2009-01-19T15:56:00.003-05:00

"There are many peaceful and monogamous birds in the Animal Kingdom who provide a model for loving human relationships. Mourning doves, sparrows, and finches all have their tender and caring courting rituals and share jointly in the nurturing and protecting of their young.

There are, however, a few bad birds. And the baddest of the bird world Bad Boys is the rare male great tit (Parus Calioptrus). Ornithologists are usually excited when the see a pair of great tits in the wild, as you can well imagine.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever had to suffer through an episode of Benny Hill that the great tits make their home in England. While there are also blue tits and mouse tits it is the great tits who are notorious for being among the very few songbirds that actually murder other songbirds. Male great tits have actually gotten so aggressive that they will steal food from humans, using their sharp beaks to open freshly delivered bottles of milk on people's doorsteps.

You'd think great tits would have their own milk, but of course, they don't.

This tendency for great tits to go wrong (thus becoming killer tits) is avenged only when they themselves become victims of larger birds of prey like hawks or owls. There is almost no sight in nature as ugly as a battle to the death between a pair of big hooters and some killer tits."

-Cathryn Michon, The Grrl Genius Guide to Sex (with Other People)
Pages 36-37, First Edition, copyright 2004

You can't always get what you want....

2009-01-06T17:46:00.003-05:00

.... but sometimes you get what you need.

I've ranted and rampaged for years about hand-outs versus hand-ups. I've railed against something for nothing and lauded the importance of pulling one's self up by one's own bootstraps.

It is within my own personal experiences that I could draw enough analogies, anecdotes, and tales of woe and hardship to bore the reader right off of this page. Suffice it to say, I did not form my opinion on the words of my parents.

For the last few years I've pondered my greater purpose, sometimes eloquently, sometimes not. And recently I got quieter and quieter as the voice I most heard was my own. The world sat by and patiently let me puzzle out my own Rubik's cube.

When I was done, I pulled up my bootstraps.

This year is going to be the beginning of a journey for me that will not end until I walk across a stage to accept my Bachelor's degree and then following with my Master's. I mention this because some of you have been loyal readers since I first started this blog, and have known me to spend time procrastinating, in introspection, and in self discovery. So many times I found myself lacking, simply because I refused to live up to my potential.

It was never anyone else's job to drag me up to that potential, but I have some good friends that have contributed in their own way at propping me up while I struggled to stand on my own. Thank you, good friends.

For several months I've been looking into schools, searching for the right one, the right program. I have completed searching, and am enrolled and already back at it. So now, while I'm still excited and passionate, I announce my plans, in part so those that have always supported me know where we're headed next.

The blog will continue as always, but if things show up slower than they used to, at least my avid readers will understand why.

I have indeed embarked on exactly what I need, and I'm fortunate in that it's also exactly what I want. Sometimes you get both.

Here comes Santa Claus

2008-12-14T14:47:00.004-05:00

As another year quickly speeds to a close, once again I'm taking time to reflect and wonder what my greater purpose on this planet is. My biggest purpose is to be a good mom to my kid, but it's not my only one.

Sometimes it seems my other purpose is to be a messenger. With that in mind, I've found two links I think all my readers should visit at least once: The One Dollar Diet Project blog and Styrophobia website.

I'm not green. I drive a car that runs off old-fashioned petroleum-based fuel, with no hybrid option. I ride a motorcycle the same way, as opposed to a bicycle. I choose plastic over paper because plastic has handles. I dream of a day when I can build a home with solar panels and a yard harnessing wind power and a garden water feature that utilizes hydro-electric power. More simply, I just wish I could remember to take those recyclable bags I bought into the grocery store so I can quit choosing plastic.

The more I learn about my planet, the more I want to know. One thing I've come to realize though is that we can each do something mostly painless to improve our wasteful habits.

Normally this time of year I'm ranting about the commercialism and material gluttony of Christmas.

I'm not a complete Scrooge. I still believe in the spirit of Santa. I believe in giving... but I believe that it takes more than one day a year to be a spirit of anything. Otherwise it's just a salve to ease a guilty conscience. But I digress.

This year, my spirit of Santa is giving something back not just to my community, but to my planet as well. While I stuff the back of my car with glass beer, wine, jelly, and salsa bottles that have been accumulating... so that I may go trade them in for approximately 50 cents to the recycling center, I am also bringing to you two foods for thought this holiday season.

The One Dollar Diet project takes a look at what it's like to eat on a dollar a day and is an ongoing journey to answer questions including "what does it cost to eat healthy in America". Styrophobia is a site dedicated to replacing the use of restaurant styrofoam with bio-degradable products. They are a Hawaii-based company that offers a complete line of alternatives, as well as educates the reader.

My gift to all of you this year is a season rant-free, combined with the two places I'd like you all to visit: here and here (repeated from above). May you find more meaning this season that in some gift-wrapped gift under a decorated tree. May you find an intimate kinship not only with your friends and family, but with the world around you. If you'd like to give me a gift, please find a place you can give of your time and yourself and make your community a little bit better.

Falling

2008-12-01T15:57:00.006-05:00

I got to live out my lifelong dream of swimming in a waterfall. Well, mostly, in the "this will have to do" kind of way. The waterfall was a 45 ft. tall thing, throwing water and sticks and such into the pool where I swam. The pool was guarded by lifeguards, so that stupid people couldn't climb the rocks and dive in, nor could they try and swim up right into the falls themselves. This kept those sticks from being hurled right onto their heads.

Now, to get to this wonderful thing, I had to hike 3/4 of a mile into Waimea Valley. That is not a big thing for most people, but most people walk with ankles that move. Mine do not, when wearing my braces. So after plunking along up and down the valley trail to the falls, I was nearly in tears. Some of that was due to the emotional excitement I felt at getting to swim in the falls, but quite a bit of it was pain as well.

Just before the final push down the valley to the falls was a snack stand. They sold juices and teas and waters for $2 and up. By the time you get there, you are thinking that $2 is a real steal. I also asked him if I could get a ride back out of the valley. Ya know, help -- a rescuing as it were. He said ask the lifeguard. So I did.

I was seated at the stadium seating at the falls. Apparently it used to be used for a dive show and hula exhibition*. Now it's a place to put shoes and towels while swimming in the falls. Anyway, I was seated there, unlacing my bulky afo's/ankle braces, and he asked if I needed help back out. God bless him. I answered that indeed help would be wonderful, and he guided me into the water and arranged it so I woudln't have to walk out. He even arranged for the whole party to travel with me, which is not normal.

I played and splashed and swam with my munchkin until we were too cold to stay in. Then we were gloriously whisked out by a golf cart. It was not the whole do-it-yourself experience I would've savored, but it was beyond words.

Waimea Falls. I got to swim there. As in, actually in the water at the site of a waterfall. It'll very much "do".

*Used to: according to the lifeguard, the cliff diving/hula show doesn't happen anymore.

Climbing Tree

2008-11-13T17:08:00.005-05:00

I remember the weeping willow tree in my grandparent's front yard. I would dangle from that tree as a kid -- upside down, right side up -- hanging like the little monkey that I was. That was my hiding place, with its long green fingers stretching all the way to the earth, it was like being behind gauze netting. The wind got in, diluted. Light got in, dappled. I got in, with little regard for whether or not the tree minded me climbing all over it.

Seems to me that climbing trees are getting harder and harder to come by. That wonderful willow, for example, was cut down by the new owners of the property. And so it goes these days. I see trees with fabulous limbs outstretched begging for children to climb them, but the limbs are all out of reach, the lower ones having been cut back "for safety".

Yeah, I had friends that fell out of trees; a couple of them broke their arms. I'll bet not one of them became an arborist. But we enjoyed the challenge of climbing up, and then swinging our feet from the branches enjoying the view we had earned ourselves. We even enjoyed laughing at younger siblings too scared or too small to join us.

Sounds a bit like a corporate job, doesn't it? Makes me wonder if the problem with finding a good climbing tree is that they've all been cut down to make ladders.

A fresh breath of air

2008-11-07T15:19:00.007-05:00

Political change is riding the wind. Sure, we have the heightened culmination of the last year this past Tuesday, and since then it's been a blur of activity, what with choosing the new cabinet and making first president-elect speeches, reminding us of the lame duck president and current administration.

Lame duck is not an insult, by the way. it's a term used to describe a current president leaving office but before the new one is sworn in. I felt I had to take a minute to clarify that after what I've seen out of people's "understanding" of politics lately.

Anyway, the air. It's a changing folks. Some people think it's starting to smell like sulphur and others think it's infused with ozone and rose petals. I'd like to take a look at this breath of fresh air at a more grass roots level.

For starters, there are breath mints and chewing gum. Gum's scope includes choices for denture wearers and kids that like candy flavors and of course the minted varieties. Altoids are a long-time favorite. Mint flavored dental floss is another good one, especially after a lunch or dinner date. And speaking of "scope", there's mouthwash, too.

But it's not just the quick fixes that really freshen up a breath of air. It's the everyday habits in the master bath, like water pics and toothbrushes that run off of batteries. More important -- if you ask toothpaste manufacturers at least -- is choosing a toothpaste with tartar control and long-lasting results. There are various ways to whiten teeth at home, and even if white teeth don't really freshen the air by themselves, they give a solid appearance of it.

Some people will argue that it's not just how you clean your teeth, but what you put in your mouth, that affects the breaths of air. Onions are a long-standing scapegoat of bad breath, but some other foods accused of fouling up the air are pickles, beans (though mostly for their end results), and various alcohols.

Getting a good fresh breath of air shouldn't be a national issue. It should begin with the individual, and it should be taught at home to the next generation. Regardless of party lines, everyone should be focusing on what they can do right now, right where they are, to change the air around them. Beginning at the local level will begin the changes that ripple all the way up. Then everyone can breathe a little easier.

Abracadabra debunked

2008-11-02T16:40:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was out with my toddler, and had the privilege of encountering a street magician. Now, street magicians like young audiences, because they're so easy to amaze. Or so it was with this guy, at least. So he turned all his slight of hand skill to my boy, in hopes of wide eyed wonder complete with "how'd you do that!?"

Not with my boy. But the magician was yet to learn that. He started out with the old coin-behind-the ear gag, drawing an audience in, and not really fooling the toddler, who replied with "no, I'm not, you did that!" to the magician saying "you're magic!" when the coin "disappeared" only to "reappear" behind my boy's ear.

The magician was enjoying how the bright lad was able to feed off of him so cleverly that the audience was drawn to the hamming up going on. The magician played to the audience, using the boy as bait, with "well ya can't fool this one, can you?" and winking and such. At this point the magician had everyone eating out of the palm of his hand, just as he wished.

Then the tables got turned upside down.

Out came an animal cracker cookie with a flourish. "I'll show you the very first trick I ever learned" he said to all, focusing on my boy again. With large sweeping arm movements, he "placed the cookie" in his left hand and made a fist. He then sprinkled "fairy dust" over the cookie with his right hand and said "abracadabra" and Poof! the cookie was indeed gone from his left hand. Now, this was meant to bring everyone into the magic, as only my boy was supposed to be fooled by this. But in the next moment, the toddler not only stole the show, he ended it. For my boy, just 4 years old, said very directly to the street magician with absolutely no hesitation nor doubt whatsoever, "You didn't make the cookie disappear! You just crumbled it up with your other hand!"

Everyone had a good laugh. A very good laugh.

Camo thoughts

2008-10-10T15:54:00.003-05:00

I am a veteran's daughter. My best friend is currently serving in the military. I have so many friends that wear a soldier's uniform that I'd bore you listing them all. So this post is not meant with any disrespect whatsoever. It is meant to make you think.

Recently I asked a former soldier why he quit the job after 12 years instead of going the distance to a pension. Idle curiosity, ya know, wondering why he'd get over half-way there and stop. It's a question I ask of a lot of military folk. Consider it an ongoing survey. I digress... He replied that all the money from a pension would never bring his fallen friends back.

Granted. But no money in the world from any source will ever bring those buddies back.

I've had friends die in automobile accidents. I still drive my car. I'll even trade this one in on another one someday.

I've had family members die in the hospital. I still go to the doctor. I even let insurance pick up the tab.

I've burned myself cooking in the kitchen. I still use the stove. In fact, I'm planning out dinner as we speak.

Point is, I found a real lack of reason in his reason for not finishing out the 20 years. "I found the love of my life and she didn't want to be an army wife" I would've nodded to. "I have other dreams and didn't want to put them on hold any longer" I would've thumbed-up. But "that pension money won't bring back my dead friends"? Well, neither will quitting the military.

Strange the things we say when we don't really think about what we're saying.

Sans Segue

2008-10-10T11:16:00.004-05:00

Isn't it funny how time changes things we never think possible? Ten, twenty years after high school you run into someone you dated or had a crush on and think "oh thank god I didn't marry them!" Or you find out that that one person that used to make your life miserable and you swore you were going to learn voodoo just to put a hex on them turns out to be your best friend in the absence of peer pressure?

That didn't happen to me. Ok, maybe the first one did. But that's not the point. Without segue of any consequence, I bring you "why people are superficial":

I had a lovely conversation with a lovely lady the other day. We spoke of all that she had accomplished since her own graduation from high school. Names were dropped: Lexus, Mercedes, Stella McCartney. She explained how she and her husband labored to have a new home build for them. She regaled me with a tale of how they spared no expense with regards to marble floors and hard wood cabinets and top of the line jetted tubs. She complained at the cost of building a driveway. She lamented that her lawyer friends had it done for far less. She told me who all was at the open house they gave, and listed a bunch of hot shots that make her world complete. She continued to explain how disappointed she is that she didn't get a new car for her birthday, as hers is two model years old now.

It went on: past cruises, next year's planned trip to Disneyworld and how she wanted a safari instead but the kids.... I swear, this woman knew no bounds to how unhappy she was having everything she could possibly dream up.

Ergo my point. I've seen 42 of the United States. I've been to the Grand Canyon, Niagra Falls, Carlsbad Caverns, both coastlines, the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountains. I've seen Canada, Mexico, and South Korea. I've been in the deep South and the Northernmost Mid-West. Chicago, DC, Atlanta, New Orleans, San Antonio, St. Louis, Denver, San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu. I've driven all but 200 miles of the original Route 66. I've got piles of photos, so what.

I've owned a Mercedes. 5, actually. All my German luxury cars were 1978-1984... the tanks. Man I loved those cars. The rode like clouds and handled like demon sports cars. I wouldn't give the taxes for a new Mercedes. Not since Crysler put its fingers in that pie. But I digress.

In this life, the things that have made me the happiest have been the small things that aren't worth anything to other people: snuggling with my son, walking hand in hand with my love, spending a day at the beach with my family, a dinner at a Denny's with good friends that was about the laughs and nothing more. No one talked about what kind of car they drove there in because my friends don't measure worth by the emblem on the front of their car. And I love them for it.

Chasing such superficial self-worth is stupid. No address is ever going to make you feel like a better human being for living there. It might make you feel safer at night, but that's about it. No job title is ever going to define you as worthy of character and moral fiber. No social status will ever make your kids love you more when you tuck them into bed at night. Now, tucking them into bed at night might make their eyes shinier when they look at you, as opposed to some nanny doing it, or no one tucking them in at all.

But we collectively chase ridiculous ideas of what is "successful". For me it's simple. A loving family and a group of friends that respect and love each other. German engineering not required.

Moms are Snobs

2008-10-09T10:45:00.003-05:00

Well, the good ones are.

Good moms snub their nose a little bit at kids running around a restaurant with ketchup and mustard all over their face... cuz good moms wipe their kids' faces and teach their kids to wipe themselves.

They get upset when some kid on the playground goes unchecked for throwing sand in other kids' faces, and discipline their kid when he/she starts throwing sand back.

They think it's a little nasty when a toddler is waddling around in a diaper so full that it's obviously about to explode any moment, and the toddler's parent doesn't swoop in to change that thing.

Good moms know that as much as a child really wants to wear their new favorite shirt for 36 hours straight, it's not a clean shirt after the first day. And they make them change it.

They also get a little irked that other moms will sit in the corner and say "Now Jimmy, you need to share that crayon" instead of walking over to the child, taking it out of his hand, handing it to another child, and saying "Jimmy, this is called sharing. You give the blue crayon to Sue, and she gets to use it. You can use this red crayon."

Ultimately, good moms get accused of being snobs for their child rearing. I hope that every mom gets accused of being a snob.

Slant

2008-10-07T03:48:00.004-05:00

Everything in life is a metaphor, if you choose to have the point of view to support it.

A sewing machine is a metaphor for stitching relationships together. A motorcycle is freedom, metaphorically. To some people their car is a metaphor for their sex life... or lack thereof.

Oddly, what means something today will lose meaning tomorrow. Emotions ebb and flow and the constancy of change brings about new meanings, new metaphors. Where all of this becomes bigger is in slant, bias, optimism and pessimism.

Today I felt completely out of whack, decided that the metaphor of the day was a water-weighted kid's toy clown punching bag. Cheap, gaudy, short-lived. Decide how you will how it might possibly fit. Point is, tomorrow my emotions will be something else entirely. Probably they will be influenced by media, political propaganda, and other peoples' opinions as they are dumped upon me. And sooner or later, all that will find its way here in some form or fashion for me to share my slant with you.

Today though, I'm gonna go punch on that vinyl clown bag and see how I feel after going a few rounds with a dummy.

blank stare

2008-09-30T16:33:00.003-05:00

Someone recently asked me about being a military spouse. Specifically, they asked "how can you follow him all over the place like that?"

The question came from a young woman who is finishing some sweat equity on a house she and her fiance recently bought. With bright eyes at her own imagined future, she asked me a question she wasn't prepared to hear the answer to.

"He is my home" I responded. "All our stuff is just junk that fills the rooms of whatever home we're living in... it's not necessary; it can all be replaced. All that is superficial -- where we live, what roof we sleep under. What matters to us is us."

She stared at me with a glazed over expression for a moment and then got her wits about her again. It seemed that she wasn't ready to be told that owning a home and putting down roots is superficial.

Then again, not everyone gets married to someone they'd follow anywhere, at whatever geographical cost it is to them. Some people get married to someone they can own the same roof with until they trade it in on a larger roof or divorce or grow old and die.

As she nervously went back to talking about finishing up the paining in her living room and relining the kitchen cabinets, I returned a blank stare.

Youth

2008-09-23T20:07:00.004-05:00

Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? I'm talking back before knowing how to drive and sweating begging parents for gas money. I'm talking back before the drama of junior high where today's best friend is tomorrow's arch-enemy. I'm talking about back when you imagined that play grounds were castles that needed storming, and jungle gyms were pirate ships.

Remember what it was like to find entertainment out of a stick and a pile of leaves? How about thinking that paper airplanes were the coolest toys on the planet and wanting nothing more than making a better one than your buddy?

I laid in the grass at a city park today and just listened to the sounds of my son playing with other children, and remembered it all like a surreal dream. I stared up into an evergreen tree and watched the green needles grow out from the brown branches and heard young imaginations in action as an eavesdropper would.

There is no Peter Pan in me now. I can occasionally dredge up enough youthful exuberance to chase my kid and climb on the playground, but it's no longer a castle needing storming. Now it's an organized pile of metal and bolts and ropes and I envy the days when I could traverse it like a monkey in a tree.

Being an adult is depressing. Not so much the responsibilities... bills, time management, savings, balancing a budget, grocery shopping... but the loss of youth. The desperate attempts to reclaim the little girl that played with toy horses and imagined herself riding real ones across the countryside end up as reminiscing old memories and nothing more.

As the blue sky floated overhead, occasionally sending eastward silky threads of what might eventually become a puffy cirrus cloud, I lay there listening to my child play, hoping he does a better job of containing Peter Pan than I did.

Shoes

2008-09-18T15:45:00.006-05:00

Today I gave 12 pairs of shoes to charity. I threw one pair away. Then I sat down and cried.

A couple of days ago I finally got the orthotic braces I've needed for years. But braced ankles don't wear high heels well... or at all. So all the carefully chosen, pretty-but-still-functional pumps, strappy sandals, peep-toe heels, and leather boots... they all had to go. It wasn't only hundreds of dollars of fashion going into a 13 gallon kitchen trash bag, it was years of memories and some of my identity as well.

One of my favorite pairs in the pile was a sandal variety that was part peep-toe, part ballerina lace-up, part wedge heel. They were satin and hemp and sparkly canvas, if you can imagine that. I bought the pair because they were on sale and in part because I could get away with wearing them to the Army post dining facility back when I did such things, because sandals were not allowed, but apparently peep-toes were. They were neutral enough to go with anything, and worked for casual or dress. They were everyday, they were evening. They fit my personality to a tee. They were....

Another pair was a black pleather pair of knee-high boots with silver buckles that was one part Van Helsing (Kate's character) and one part haute couteure. I loved them. That I found them in a 1 1/2 inch heel was a bonus, since anything over 2 inches destroyed my ability to walk for days. I used to wear them with this pencil skirt that flared into a gourd at the bottom. And jeans. And just about everything else. They made me feel sexy.

Finally, I threw out a pair of shoes that were made of something that resembled leather, cut into fishnets. Yes, fishnet shoes. Peep-toe fishnet heels, to be exact, with 40's era bows in leather on the heels. I picked those up in Korea for 20,000 wan and they were the most comfortable pair of heels I'd ever owned in my life... right up until the very last time I wore them and broke the sole right at the heel. I thought I'd look into getting them fixed, but finally, today, I threw them away.

Even if it's possible to transcend social comparing of ourselves to the Brad Pitt's and Heidi Klum's of the world, going back to the days of the pin up girls of the 1940's, shoes have been a core part of what's "sexy" about a woman. Her shoes complete her ensemble, and heels have always played an important part. Throwing away 12 pairs of heels is like throwing away something about me that is sexy. Strapping on a pair of orthotic braces and shoving the whole mess into Vans is... not sexy.

I also know that I have a wardrobe of dresses to follow the shoes.

So I cried. As I learn to redefine what is sexy for and about me, and how to express myself as such, I have to cast off not only what I've always been, but what society expects me to be. I have to find a new "sexy" and make it believable for me, if no one else. I also know that once I believe in myself, so will others.

In the meantime, I have extra space in my closet. And it takes me less time to figure out which pair of shoes I'm wearing today.

Tick Tock

2008-09-11T21:01:00.005-05:00

Use a clock.

For the love of all things organized.

It's amazing to me how many people actually think that sun revolves around them. Newsflash folks: even Galileo figured out that the earth -- and all things on it -- revolve around the sun.

Let me go back a bit. Recently I've been exposed to a particular person who thinks that time is something that answers to them, instead of the other way around. So when they asked me to help them out in a pinch, I quickly learned that how that really works is that I am at their whim until they decide to "let me off the hook" as it were. I'd rather not elaborate.

No, I will. I decided to help this person by watching their kid. But they never showed up to reclaim the kid until hours -- 2, 3, 4 -- after they got off work. No phone call, no explanation.. sometimes an excuse or two. Usually I'd call their phone to get the voice mail. Sometimes they'd call back and say "I'm five minutes away" and show up 45 minutes later.

Do I need to tell you how sick I got of it? Forget the fact that it's chaotic for the kid, and not at all an example worthy of setting... but it annihilated my schedule, elevated my stress, and to call a spade a spade -- it pissed me off.

So I said something about it. Blamed it all on me even. Said "I didn't function well being left out on a string like that. Didn't know how to plan for anything, couldn't make any plans of my own, and that I didn't know what to tell the kid when he asked when he could go home. Please start calling me. Just a call. Just let me know what's going on; let me know you're alive at least." So I've almost started getting calls. At least they answer the phone when I call now. "Five minutes" still means 45 minutes. And the 3-4 hours has shrunk to 1/2-2 hours. It's better. It ain't great, but it's better.

I'm thinking of getting them a watch for Christmas so they can better tell time for their next sitter. And maybe a scale model of the universe... with the sun in the center.

music and kids

2008-09-01T12:57:00.004-05:00

I'm learning about kids and their attention spans with regards to learning a musical instrument. I'm also learning about how this particular attention span is a bit different than the one they have for sports or watching TV. I chuckle at it all, however.

When I ran across Karla Kuskin's poem "Lewis Has A Trumpet", I just out and out guffawed. Talk about a bit of perspective:

Lewis Has A Trumpet

A trumpet
A trumpet
Lewis has a trumpet
A bright one that's yellow
A loud proud horn.
He blows it in the evening
When the moon is newly rising
He blows it when it's raining
In the cold and misty morn
It honks and it whistles
It roars like a lion
It rumbles like a lion
With a wheezing huffing hum
His parents say it's awful
Oh really simply awful
But
Lewis says he loves it
It's such a handsome trumpet
And when he's through with trumpets
He's going to buy a drum.

Sunny side of paradise

2008-08-27T12:44:00.003-05:00

The beautiful thing about Sunny California is, well, the sun. I haven't seen rain in months, and only one cloudy day since April. It really adds to a feeling of paradise and I am starting to see why people born and raised in Cali get a bit snobby about visiting other drearier parts of the world.

But I love rain and thunderstorms. So why would I be excited about living in a place where I have exactly never seen a thunderstorm? Well, because the barometric pressure associated with storms drives me into a painful fit with the arthritis in my ankles. And because the humidity with rain pushes me right over to the couch where I curl up under blankets and cry in pain.

I've decided that living in New Mexico or Arizona is probably perfect for my ankles, though I'll miss the coast horribly. Making that decision and moving are two different things, however. I'm too stubborn for that. Instead, I hope to bounce around a few more places and see the world -- or at least parts of it.

So in Sunny California, for the first time in 19 years, I have found a doctor willing to really help me find some solutions for my ankles. I'm finally getting ankle braces (afo's, similar to those) that will actually stabilize me. Hopefully a nice side-effect is a reduction in swelling and maybe even pain. When all that fails, I'm hoping to get a referral to one of the big universities out here that specialize in cutting-edge technology and experimental surgeries.

My hopes are that when I do leave sunny paradise for other parts of the world, I won't suffer the same agonizing pain I've had in the past, just because of a little weather.

And the moral of the story is, if you beg enough doctors in enough places to take you seriously, you too can have some measure of success after only 19 years of waiting.

Corn Fed Kitchen

2008-08-24T18:47:00.005-05:00

I'm excited to announce my new blog: Corn Fed Kitchen (link also at right).

It's a place for me to share all my favorite recipes collected over the years. Some are passed down through generations of Crawford's, others are ones I've created myself, and a few are some that I've borrowed (and usually tweaked) from others.

Corn Fed Kitchen's sub header is: Said of a woman, corn-fed means an individual who is strong and healthy, but lacks sophistication, typically... from the Midwestern United States (from Wikipedia). These are recipes from a strong, healthy kitchen, often lacking in sophistication, with strong roots in the Midwest and the South.

It doesn't get any simpler than that. CFK is a collection of not only my favorite southern and mid-western dishes, but it is about cooking simply, without lots of pomp and circumstance, but with lots of flavor.

I'll also be sharing some of my favorite memories related to those recipes, in hopes that by sharing my love of food, I inspire you to make memories of your own in the kitchen and at the dinner table.

Please enjoy my new blog and share your own experiences with recipes you find there, or some of your own favorites. See you there!

Korean Condoms and Hotels

2008-08-18T11:54:00.002-05:00

Last year I promised I'd retell my tale of condoms in the amenities baskets of the hotels I stayed in. Now I'm making good on that promise.

I made a point of never staying in a "Western" hotel while in Korea. I only stayed in local places, sometimes by chance and sometimes by invitation*. In each place I stayed, there was a basket of amenities in the room. The baskets always included a large bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner. There was also a large bottle of lotion. There was a tube of toothpaste and two brand new toothbrushes. There was a disposable razor, a comb, and a bar of soap. Most of the time these items were reusable, meaning that they were neither individually sized, nor were they meant to be taken from the room.

Most of the rooms also had micro-fridges and two 20 oz. bottles of water and 2 8 oz. cans of Chilsing Cider (think 7-up, only better). A few of the rooms I stayed in had complimentary condoms in the amenities basket. Of course, Korean porn is on regular cable, as well. They fuzz out the genitals, as apparently that's a taboo thing to show, but other than that, it's straight-up porn.

I found that staying in the locally owned hotels was a far more amazing experience that if I'd stayed at American chains. Frequently only Koreans stayed in them, and several times doors were left open. I did always get a Western room, with a mattress and box springs, as opposed to a traditional Korean room with just floor mats to sleep on. I was a bit disappointed by this, but it was their way of trying to be good hosts by giving me what I was used to. I actually wanted to sleep in a traditional room, but didn't want to offend them by asking for one.

*And back to that invitation I mentioned earlier. In Seoul we found a cab right off of the train depot (we took the Korean Rail everywhere... from Seoul to Waegan to Daegu to Busan and back). The cabbie asked where we wanted to go and we said "a local hotel". After his shock that we didn't want to stay in the high-rise Westin that he pointed at, he smiled and said "I know just where to take you. You give me 10,000 wan, and I'll take you there."

We agreed. And we got in his cab. He drove us exactly one and one-half blocks away from where we started and turned down a very crowded and very small street off the main road. Half a block later he parked the car in the middle of the street and hopped out.

Ten thousand wan was about $13 at that time. So we paid $13 for a 2 block cab ride. He came back a minute later and said "You stay here for 35,000 wan." He was accompanied by an almost smiling but very gracious hotel owner. He had just gotten us an invitation to stay somewhere very few Americans ever stay. He told us that it was very prestigious for the hotel that we stay there, and that they only had a couple of western rooms in the whole hotel, so we were lucky to get the invitation to stay there.

We stayed, of course. For starters, he went to a lot of trouble for us, and refusing would be one of the rudest things we could do to him and the hotel owner. It was very conveniently located to the train station, so we wouldn't need a cab again, we could just walk. It was very close to the subway, so we could spend the night getting to the shopping/dining area of Seoul we intended to go to. And it was pretty inexpensive to boot. If I ever go back, I'll only stay in local hotels, and I recommend the same for anyone else visiting Korea.

mama needs a new rant

2008-08-16T09:18:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been on a parental soap box. Not that that's a bad thing, seeing as how parenting is one of the last things we can do in America without a license or degree. Sad, really....

Anyway, I thought that I'd give my single readers a break from... no, no I'm not. Sorry guys.

Anyone can become a parent. In case you don't know -- or forgot how it works -- here. Don't worry, that site assumes you already know the birds and bees of it, and just focuses on the fertility tips.

My point is not that anyone can get pregnant, but that there are plenty of people that shouldn't get pregnant. I'm even going to focus on American culture for this, so please don't bother responding with comments about 9 year olds in Africa giving birth or stereotypes surrounding boys being the preferred sex in China.

If you get pregnant and don't want the kid, you can abort it pretty easily. If you're too young or have some other "handicap" (read: no job) that keeps you from being able to take care of the kid, there are some lovely social programs like WIC and welfare. Or you can give the kid up for adoption and go on with your life, letting your mom or maybe your big sister raise the kid. We may even still have orphanages; I know there are all sorts of private and government-funded adoption agencies and programs.

Here's the kicker. If you want to adopt or foster through a state agency, you have to take a series of parenting courses. They send out social workers to check your home for the physical and environmental safety of any potential child living there. They screen you to make sure you can 1. afford the changes a child would bring to your lifestyle, 2. aren't a listed sex offender or have a record of abuse, 3. don't have any outstanding warrants for your arrest, and 4. the list goes on.

So if you want a kid you didn't create in your own bed, you have to apply for the proper licensing/credentials to get one, unless you can fork over the cash to adopt privately.

Otherwise, all it takes is a couple of beers and a broken condom. Or not even that. No agency is gonna come make sure your 6 or 8 month pregnant self has prepared a "proper environment" for your kid. No one is gonna come see if you have lead paint on your walls or outlet plugs in your sockets. No one is gonna force you to give up the kid for adoption or by abortion if you smoke and drink. No one is gonna take the child from you at the hospital if your baby-daddy beats you. No one is gonna keep your kid if your house just got raided for being a crystal meth lab. Well, maybe the last one, but only if you were there with the kid when it happened. If you were at the hospital giving birth, you're probably ok.

My point is simply that our society handles all life's newest footprints much differently than say, getting a job or a driver's license. You need all sorts of documentation to prove you're responsible enough to handle a car or the demands of flipping burgers. You need nothing... not even a photo I.D. ... to create life.

We have agencies that pass out free birth control pills and condoms. We have all sorts of school sex ed programs. We even have arguments over whether or not abstinence should be taught as a form of birth control.

What we don't have, beyond some lame reality shows and daytime talk shows, is any sort of hands-on litmus test for whether or not a person is individually and rationally ready for the responsibility of having and raising a child. This includes those stupid school projects where you have to keep an egg cared for and unbroken for a week as if it were your child.

Even babysitters have to take some sort of infant/child CPR classes and child care classes now if they want to be credible and make decent dough these days! And those kids/adults can at least tell you their honest opinions of themselves as potential parents, because they already know that they don't want to give up their prom to change diapers.

So do I have a solution? No, I just like ranting.

The final decision is up to us individually, which is quite possibly the last great freedom we have in this country. (You even have to have a license to get married....)

But it shouldn't be a casual decision. Kids require far more than just the 18 years it takes to legally be able to kick them out of the house again (or emancipation, but that's another story). They bring with them neat little things like... grandkids. And they never quit calling home for money and advice. They want to visit and bring their brood so they can show off their significant other and maybe get a free meal. Sometimes they even want to move back in.

And some people really should not breed. People that don't much like themselves, let alone anyone else, really should not have children. People with tendencies to self-destruct or harm others should think a few times about having a baby. Folks, it's okay to get an abortion, but as soon as that kid takes a breath, you can't kill it anymore! Shake it to death and you go to jail for murder!

My solution is the same as I have for every other real pet peeve of mine: education.

Get educated on what being a parent is all about. Read books on what pregnancy is like. Ask young parents and your parents and grandparents questions. Ask strangers if they'd do it differently if they could do it again. Ask about the ups, the downs, the unexpected. Ask about the cost of ER visits with broken arms and health insurance options for families. Ask if you can babysit your older sibling's kids for an entire weekend and try out the parenting thing.

Then ask yourself what you want for your life. Is it college and a career? How will a child hamper those? Do you want to make lots of money and then have a kid? Do you want to get pregnant in your junior year in high school? Why? To force your parents to emancipate you? How will that affect your child in the long run?

The minute you bring a life into this world, you never make a single decision that doesn't affect more than just you. Think beyond right now, this minute, and think beyond yourself and consider all the options and consequences of becoming a parent. Think, rethink, and think it through again. When you become a parent, it's the most incredible and irreversible thing in the world. Be as ready as you can be, and become the kind of parent you said as a kid you wanted to be.

Go Jim!

2008-08-14T12:02:00.005-05:00

Now it's back to your regularly scheduled jaded objectivity.

In a world seeming lost in chaos, thank the lord there's Jim. He's a single dad of a 10-yr. old who has recently reclaimed his child from her free-spirited (read: mutually exclusive drug-addicted and self-absorbed) mother. He has cut back his hours at work to stay home more and keep a close eye on a girl who's used to raising herself. He's adjusted his budget to pay his bills and be there to teach her all the things she's managed to not learn so far, and correct the ones she has.

The kid, by the way, is a great kid. She went shopping the other day and spent her own money buying workbooks to help her get ready for a new school and a new grade by reinforcing reading and math skills (who does that at the age of 10??!) She is very mature for her age (imagine that, she's raised herself so far). She's good at solving problems and puzzles and plays better with adults than kids (ok, so maybe that's not such a great thing for her). She's also quite a bossy little thing, demanding that it be her way or the highway (not good for her age, but one day she'll grow into that attitude and take over companies with it).

But in a culture where the schools would ask for counseling, more control, and some parental signatures... in a society where her parents are encouraged to live their own lives, make more money, and set a good example by being stellar employees... her dad is cutting back to be a parent and take control of his daughter's environment.

(insert applause here)

It's so rare in this country that you hear about a single parent -- let alone a father -- putting the kid first and the job/career on the back burner. This kid is going to be just fine.

I hope there are more parents out there like Jim. If you know about any, please comment and add their stories.

Paris for Prez

2008-08-06T12:26:00.002-05:00

I'm assuming all of my loyal readers are aware of Paris Hilton's ad-rebuttal to John McCain. (In a perfect world that link will still work 8 hours from now). I am not a fan of Paris Hilton, but I've gotta admit, she had a decent point about the energy crisis.

That aside, I thought I'd take a rare opportunity to blog about a current event from my ever so (cough cough) objective point of view.

It is my not even remotely humble opinion that she just validated McCain's claim that Obama is little more than a celebrity candidate by simply replying with her own ad. It also amuses me that she just may have enough smarts somewhere in that bleached blonde brain of hers to actually be a viable candidate for public office.

Other seeming dingbats have done such a good job at playing dingbats because they were actually very intelligent. Could it be that Paris sports cerebral function enough to make a useful difference in this world? If so, her reputation as a ditz without a care could be at stake.

Then again, I can't think of a better job for a bad actor than as a politician.

Me, me, no ME dammit

2008-08-05T15:33:00.002-05:00

I can't believe how much selfishness goes uncorrected in children. Yes, kids are selfish. They come into the world not caring about anything about their creature comforts: food, warmth, snuggles from mom and dad, and whatever else is handed to them to play with.

They learn early that "no honey, that's the baby's toy... give it back to them" when they cry gets them catered to. Somewhere along the line they grow into adults that expect to be catered to unless someone says "no, you most certainly WILL share that toy or I will take it away, because you will not be a selfish brat in my home."

Hello, Parents!!! The "someone" I'm referring to in that last sentence is YOU!!! They don't take a high school class on etiquette. They don't go to college to major in manners. That's YOUR job!!!

In my house, southern grace and hospitality rules. If I have pie or cake, it's for the guests first. My refrigerator is an open bar of milk and juice. Toys are community property when friends come to play. It's my way or it's nap time. Because I will not allow rudeness to rule in my home.

I wish more parents did the same thing. I get sick of hearing "but _____ doesn't share her/his toys when I'm at her/his house" whined to me. I get sick of saying "so sorry to hear that, but I'm not his/her parent, I can't make them share their toys in their home. In this home, however, you'll act like you have some manners until you actually have them."

Come on people. How hard is it to actually parent your child? Probably not nearly as hard as you'd like to claim it is right now... if you'd quit being so selfish.

Brats and Crybabies

2008-07-25T20:59:00.004-05:00

I'm reading a new book: 13 Cent Killers: The 5th Marine Snipers in Vietnam by John J. Culbertson. And I'm enjoying it. So here's an excerpt from pgs. 56-58. The quote is from Ho Chi Minh himself (ever heard of the Ho Chi Minh Trail? Well, that guy). Minh was discussing the Vietnamese war (that's 1967, folks) with General Giap, a ruthless and brilliant strategist that had successfully routed the French from Vietnam in 1954, and was doing a good job of keeping Americans off-balance. Giap had brought up "the American body politic and its timidity and the lack of faith and patriotism expressed by American college students."

This is Ho Chi Minh's response:

"'The Americans are only interested in the 'commerciality' of their venture. They lie to their soldiers about our intentions and say that all Southeast Asia will fall to Communism.... The American industrialists grow fat like the greedy blood-bloated louses they are. We will let them feed, and when they have had their fill, they will go away and gloat over their profits. The American public is slow to learn, but not stupid. The cowards in their universities and the news media will infect the people with hopelessness and panic. You must give the Americans many casualties to unsettle their determination. Our people will suffer greatly, but we will hide the losses and the enemy must never discover how close to victory he is even now. Our soldiers are being beaten in every battle, but they understand the hardships and will do their duty. Yet the Americans, for all their reckless bravery, forget their duty. Hold the course and we shall prevail. I am certain of it!'

...Giap recognized that the American soldiers and Marines had shown implacable bravery time and again against the best troops he could muster. Giap scratched his chin and wondered how a country that produced such deadly Marines and Rangers who seemed to fight his soldiers for the mere sport of warfare could also produce the spoiled brats and crybabies that filled the halls of America's colleges and universities. Giap finally decided that there was little moral conscience or patriotic leadership at hand. .... For a people with no faith and little courage, personal greed and the love of money would always dominate the requirement for self-sacrifice and loyalty."

I could draw parallels to the US in 2008 till my head spun, but I couldn't say it any better. Ho Chi Minh understood this country better in 1967 that most of our own citizens do today.

id's, ego's, super-ego's, so what?

2008-07-24T10:25:00.004-05:00

Someone recently commented that they're always amused at how serious and cynical this blog is when I'm so light-hearted and funny most of the time. I got a good laugh out of it, and even compared the tone of the blog to the title of the blog, but then I got to thinking: could it be that this little aspect of my life is an outlet for my cynical side? Probably.

So then I started thinking about the breakdown of Freudian psychology; you know -- the id, ego and super-ego? And then I got to thinking "so what?"

Fact is, everyone -- in literature terms -- is a dynamic character full of multi-facets. If I were funny all the time I'd be boring to myself if no one else.

To that end though, I almost need to apologize to my readers. For if all you see here is my cynical side, then you're seeing me through a narrow lens. However, if I got all sappy or goofy, you'd wonder why this blog were "jaded" at all.

So in reality, you just wasted two minutes of your life that you could've spent looking at porn to read this little introspection without a point. However, you came here wondering if there'd be anything new to read, and now you know. So hold onto that for your silver lining, and see you next time!

Big D and and egos

2008-07-19T21:01:00.004-05:00

It seems that some people cannot get along with their exes to the point of insanity. I get that divorces are rough, unpleasant things that cause strife, stress, and tension. I really do get that.

What I do not get is how you can spread your legs/unzip your fly for someone and create a child, and then act like such an infant yourself when it comes time to separate. If you have children and are getting/have gotten a divorce, can you not be big enough to act like responsible grown ups in front of and for the kids?

Come on people. "Hey, it's my weekend with lil' Johnny, so I'll swing by about 6 pm on Friday" isn't a big deal. Why must the childish exes act like it's the end of the known world? "Oh, I can't talk to my ex. He'll/ she'll just have to drive up and honk the horn." Get over yourselves. This is the same person you once loved enough to create a child with. Now love your kids enough to give them as much emotional stability as a divorce can possibly offer and pretend to get along with your ex. Please.

I was a child of one of those divorces where my parents couldn't be in the same room with each other. I was afraid to ask them both to my high school graduation. I was terrified to ask my dad to walk me down the aisle because my mother was going to be at the wedding. I planned separate visitations for each of them to see their own grandchild so they wouldn't run in to each other.

Honestly, my dad's death has freed me up from a lot of that ridiculous stress/nonsense.

And quite frankly, parents who do that to their kids SUCK. If you're one of those parents, you're as big an ass as my parents were.

My suggestion: act like your kids are as important to you as you say they are and do right by them.

*note: victims of abuse are exempt from this little rant. In that case, keep yourself and your kids as far away from the abuser as possible unless and until you are ordered by the courts to allow visitation.

Grand Canyon

2008-07-11T10:41:00.006-05:00

It's a big hole in the ground, that scientists believe to have been carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries, with none of those rivers being any wider than they are now.

It's hard to stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and imagine this itty bitty trickle of water some mile down carving that whole thing. The rocks seem sturdier than that. I even have a hard time imagining the whole thing being filled to the brim like a large lake that drained out leaving those formations.

I believe that the Grand Canyon would be even more impressive from inside the canyon. The only ways to do that include rafting the river, hiking, or riding a mule down. All of those take prior planning; we just left I-40 and drove on up.

As it is, I have some neat shots from the South entrance to the state park at mid-morning. I've seen the photos indicative of how different the canyon looks at different times of the day. These two are from 8:30 am to 10 am.

Carlsbad Caverns

2008-07-07T15:58:00.003-05:00

I took these with ambient light and no flash. So if that last one isn't perfectly crisp, you know why.

The "entrance" to Carlsbad Caverns is an 850 feet walk down through several small rooms. Then the big room, the guided tours, the bottomless pit, the restaurant that serves sandwiches and chips, the souvenir stand, the restrooms, and the elevator back out of the place.

The day we were there, the restaurant ran out of sandwiches. We could choose between some half-dozen varieties of Gatorade, water, or coffee. The only thing to eat was a snack bag of Fritos. So much for my great idea of eating in the cave.

Even so, dragging my four year old to the bottom of this big cave turned out pretty well. He got a little cranky after two hours and all that walking, but the kid held up. What does he remember? The restaurant with the Fritos. Good thing I took photos.

Happy 5th of July

2008-07-05T19:04:00.002-05:00

I'm late with my merry wishes.

It's because I spent the 4th barbequeing, eating watermelon, chasing kids, lighting sparklers, making s'mores, and standing on a pickup camper shell to peer over a privacy fence to watch fireworks.

Hope everyone else enjoyed the 4th as well.

By car at 70 mph

2008-06-30T11:28:00.005-05:00

It's time to flex my fingers again. I've been away sightseeing North America. What I can tell you is that West Texas is a long trip across an interstate. Hell, all of Texas is. Also, the road heading north from I-20 into Carlsbad, New Mexico is loud, meaning lots of tire noise. I believe it's highway 285, but I could be wrong after all the highways I've been on lately.

I can tell you that even though the Johnny's Pizza south of exit 114 in West Monroe, La is a bit farther off the interstate than I thought it would be, the pizza is as good as any Johnny's Pizza anywhere.

As far as "tourist spots" go, Carlsbad Caverns is worth the trip north from I-20 or south from I-40. It's just overwhelming. Wear tennis shoes; try to take photos in the cave without flash, with long shutter speeds.

Roswell is neat. I saw more police officers patrolling the roads in and around Roswell more than every other location in over 3500 miles. I got there too late to visit the UFO museum and research facility in downtown Roswell, but I did find a neat little tee shirt and gift shop across the street. In the downtown area, there are plenty of them. In the rest of Roswell, it's an ordinary town in the middle of nowhere.

The Grand Canyon may be one of the 7 wonders of the natural world, but it was a wonder to me how anyone can enjoy visiting it by car. We stayed in Tusayan, one mile south of the south entrance to the national park, and that was fine and all, but truly underimpressive for the cost. But then, we drove up into the mountains due north of Flagstaff instead of taking hwy 64 off of I-40, and we had one of the top 2 most incredible drives of the whole trip by doing so.

But back to the canyon: we went in the park early in the morning, before it got hot and full of people, and while the park service has done a great job of providing a shuttle to take sightseers to each of the main overlook sites (for free, with your $25 per car admittance), it takes a lot of walking to get to the overlooks, and it eats up a lot of time waiting for the shuttles, riding the shuttles, etc. We did that for one spot, then we went back to the car and just did it ourselves after that. We saw what we wanted to see, we had minimal difficulty finding parking, and after an hour, we were more than done.

Yes, it's a big and amazing hole in the ground. Maybe time of day factored into it, but the haze in the canyon was a bit disheartening for me (wielding my camera and all), and the view was pretty similar everywhere we stopped. Our conclusion is that the best way to see the canyon is from the Colorado River by raft, on a mule ride into the canyon, or hiking it. At any rate, I left with a large sense of "ho hum". You could say it was a mile deep sense of "ho hum".

Still to come: photos, more about the trip, and some of my favorite moments on any vacation ever.

Sword of Truth cuts

2008-06-12T22:51:00.002-05:00

Warning: Spoilers included.

For years I've been a faithful reader of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. It began with Wizard's First Rule and ended with Confessor. In between I followed the characters through some very smart twists, turns, beautiful developments, and read them to life as complex beings in a multi-dimensional universe wholly created for the series.

And I loved every single page right up until the end of the series' last book: Confessor. There, in the last pages, his main character -- his hero -- goes off on a diatribe about God. Up until that very monologue, any spiritual references were to "The Creator" and "The Underworld" and the "Keeper of the Underworld". No God, no devil, nothing. Out of nowhere Goodkind's protagonist, Richard, uses "God" in specific reference to theological belief on several occasions in just two short pages.

What the hell, Goodkind? There was no God before your little rant! Why is there one now?

I can't even begin to fathom what the author was thinking the day he wrote those pages. Or what the editors were thinking when they overlooked it. Suddenly "The Creator" became "God" and no one notices. Except for me, and I still am pretty steamed over it.

For you see, until that very moment, Goodkind had done an impressive job of spinning a tale so thoroughly detailed that it was far more ideological than theological. It was a balanced statement about faith, politics, beliefs, free will, free enterprise, creative expression, capitalism, prophecy, education, magic... and an open mind could take it all in and come up with their own interpretations, their own significant and personal meanings, without feeling pressured to have chosen to side with or against the author. Goodkind had done that kind of good writing... where the author takes no sides in his work, just tells the tale as true to the characters he's writing about, and the reader can do what he or she wishes to with the subtle possibilities within.

But then, in this rant of Richard's at the end of Confessor, Goodkind makes a statement, and a powerful one at that. When Richard sends a group of people who blindly support an ideology bent on submitting themselves to a belief in the will of The Creator and a desire to utterly vanquish any who stand opposed to their beliefs (and support freedom of personal choice)... and then he calls that creator "God", he is making a pretty strong statement about his own beliefs of how religion and free will mix.

I found it abhorrently out of character for the Richard I had come to know and respect over more than 6000 pages of the series. I found it to read a bit redundant, as well. In fact, that whole section sounded like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum.

And I lost a good deal of respect for the entire series because of it.

I saw all sorts of potential parallels in that series with possible references being drawn to economics, politics, party lines, Christianity -- including the Crusades --, Jesus, Satan, Democracy, Communism, Socialism, the occult, afterlife, ecology, biology, zen... just to name a few. And through it all, what I enjoyed the most was how well thought out it all was, so that I didn't feel like the author was drawing me in to agree with his point of view, instead maintaining a great story while remaining ambivalent in his statements. Until God showed up.

I felt that Goodkind punched me in the gut. I felt that the entire series was a ruse to lure me in and give me a sense of security that my own thoughts and opinions were protected and respected by him, only to have him then demand I make a choice to side with him or against him in the end. I didn't want to side at all! I wanted to see him end his series with the same strengths that had carried me through years of following his story line, contemplating his philosophies and analayzing his strategies and learning on my own and coming to my own conclusions about the challenges he presented me.

Yes, I realize that this is just a book, written to sell copies and make money. I realize that after all this time Mr. Goodkind could indeed be bored to tears with his own creation, and his rant could've been a finalizing touch to over a decade of work, through which he has more than likely changed, himself. But getting sloppy as a writer in the last few pages is not how you handle it. Unprofessional, sir!! It wasn't Mr. Goodkind's time to make a personal stand in the shoes of his hero Richard. It was Richard's time to speak, and I feel that Mr. Goodkind very cheaply stepped into his hero's shoes in Richard's stead.

But that's just my very heated opinion.

Romantic Poets

2008-06-05T12:46:00.003-05:00

I've been reading a lively tale of the Romantic poets of early 19th century England: Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge. The book is Wildly Romantic by Catherine M. Andronik, and I doubt it's the last thing I read by her, but I digress.

Inside its pages, I learned that Lord Byron was infamous as an incestuous, bi-sexual, abusive, irresponsible nomad. My favorite line about Byron is also by Byron: "I felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured was true -- I was unfit for England, -- if false -- England was unfit for me."

Percy Bysshe Shelley was the inadvertent mastermind behind his wife's -- Mary Shelley -- most notorious novel, as he was one to enjoy experimenting in the lab with things that went "boom" and with electricity. His experiments included sending shocks of electricity into dead frogs' legs to watch them twitch and wondered about the possibilities for reincarnation. His penchant for telling horror stories and Mary's own interest in her husband's eccentricities were all pieces of the puzzle that became Frankenstein. The Shelley's were also fiercely and publicly atheist.

Wordsworth was self-indulgent and pompous and was very sure of himself. In his youth he enjoyed the ideals of "free love" and in his old age he looked down upon the up and coming poets who embraced his earlier fanciful ideals. Coleridge was an opium addict, and it cost him much throughout his life.

Between the lot of them (and their wives and children) there were more illegitimate children, adulterous affairs, divorces, suicides, and illicit behavior than even Jerry Springer could cover in one show. If some wise professor of English literature had bothered to give me something behind all those antiquated words in their poems, I not only would've enjoyed studying the genre and the poets, but by now I'd have completed that damned P.h.D. and be a happy professor teaching the next generation of the scandals of literary legends that helped flesh out their greatest works.

Think on it. While the English Loyalists took up arms against the American Colonies, these poets lived morally loose lives and wrote and published poems meant to be read in "plain" language accessible to everyone. These fellows were pre-Victorian era, in a time when almost anything went, although the winds were changing towards the end of Byron's life, so he became a "guilty pleasure" before his death. His sister and ex-wife saw to it that his autobiography manuscript was burned to salvage what was left of his reputation and to protect their own.

I'm so intrigued by it all that this one book alone has rekindled a love of literature for me that has been missing since my university years. But perhaps it's not so much the literature as it is how the literature can be utilized to tie in real lives to real times, and how it all is strangely timeless in that it is no more sensational than what is occurring in modern society, and how such lifestyles can be traced even farther back to earlier eras. It gives complete weight to that well-known and depressing fact: no new thought is ever original.

There is so much philosophy in that fact.

Fun with Randomness

2008-05-28T17:33:00.005-05:00

My grandparents didn't have a home phone way back in their day because they couldn't afford one. I don't have a home phone because it's redundant; my cell phone does everything I need from a local line. Seems only my parents' generation needed a land line.

Of course, with a cell phone as a main number, it takes more than one phone and more than one line to cover one household. So where's the redundancy now?

Then again, my generation got away with riding in the rear deck of the family car, with their noses pressed to the back window. Car trips meant stretching out on the back seat (unless you had siblings) and comfortably sleeping, reading, or playing your way to the destination.

Somewhere between the age I didn't need a car seat anyway and pregnancy, the laws changed, and the cost of toting kids around went up to include infant carriers, then car seats, then boosters. Quite frankly I'm surprised there isn't a "tween seat" out yet, as a way to eke even more money out of parents. Then again, parents might stand in long lines to get their hands on something that ties their tweens down in a five point harness. Someone would probably call it sadistic, and that would be the end of "tween seats".

Today I walked past an end cap in Target only to see Hanna Montana beach towels temporarily reduced to $8 and it made me wonder, does Miley Cyrus use/wear Hanna Montana products?

And that thought was followed by "what ever happened to Lizzie McGuire?" I think she re-ran herself out.

But the Olsen Twins still peddle their merchandise successfully to young girls. Maybe Miley and Hilary should consider taking their faces off of everything (but the removable tag) for longevity. Ya can't argue with 50 billion dollars. (Isn't that what the twins are worth these days?)

I peruse movie shelves in just about every store I enter that sells movies. I like seeing what's new in boxed sets. I noticed recently that He-Man has made it to DVD, but where's She-Ra? And I've seen Strawberry Shortcake, but no Smurfs?! It's a travesty of my childhood that I actually have to try and describe a little blue creature "3 apples high" to my kids. Showing them season 1 would be like having Cliff notes. I researched the Smurfs, and it seems that there is indeed some merchandise out there for fans, but since my local Best Buy doesn't sell it, I've never seen it.

Finally, let me tell you a brief bit about me and my bike. We go somewhere almost daily; I'm really fond of my big iron horse. Okay, so it's more like an iron Shetland Pony. Moving on. I drag my helmet around with me, because I've found that upside down it is the perfect bucket for my gloves. And with the chin strap fastened, it makes the cutest fashion accessory! Anyway, Usually I carefully place it in the child's seat portion of a basket rather than drag all my gear around a store. Yesterday a woman saw the helmet in the basket and asked "oh, do you ride?"

True to Bill Engvall form, I really really really wanted to say "Nope. I just carry it around for a purse. (Here's your sign)"

These random thoughts today are brought to you without segue as I can leave it like it is and call it "freethinking". If I put segues in, it's more of a news bit. Perish the thought.

Nup'chuls

2008-05-20T13:07:00.003-05:00

In the not-too-distant future, a very dear friend of mine (of 14 years! We're getting old....) is getting married to the red-headed realization of his wildest dreams. Sadly, I cannot attend this magical event unless they plan on making a video-conference of it. But they have my best wishes for them and their future together.

To my friend: it's about time! You deserve the comforts of the home you have found in your red-heads arms.

To your bride: I'm sure you'll be busy for years to come wiping tears of laughter from your eyes. Take care of him and insist he takes care of you in the manner you both deserve.

Congratulations to you both.

old photo

2008-05-18T11:41:00.006-05:00

I look the same as I did last year, the year before. Maybe even better, younger. But there's an innocence that's gone from my eyes. I didn't notice it as it was passing. I just shocked myself today by glancing at an old photo and failing to recognize the eyes in it.

Lately I've been thinking about my dad again. How I always felt that I failed him and in so doing, failed myself. The truth is I just never got over being self-absorbed and naive long enough to listen to him when he had something to say. I'll credit my mom for that; certainly a woman who's still very naive and doesn't listen well can't teach someone else to do better. But it's more than that.

I suppose I thought my dad was immortal. He was a Vietnam veteran, he was a school teacher, a historian, a methodical thinker, a puzzle solver. He was a hero in a grandiose way to me, and I never bothered to do much more than scratch the surface as to why.

When I wasn't proud of him, I was crying because of him. I never grew enough backbone to just learn from him and let the rest pass like water off a duck's back.

So even in his death, my wide-eyes innocence was untainted by any greater self-discovery. Even two months after his death, four months, the reality of my own potential and the wake of what he tried to teach me had not yet begun to sink in.

Yes, he treated me like another of the young men under his command -- a horrible grievance and disservice to a would-be "daddy's princess", but he did it with the only love he knew how to give.

That I never learned how to accept that love unconditionally while he was alive was my disservice to him.

My face looks the same now, but my eyes look more like my dad's. Not a lot more, but a little. I'm beginning to understand things that I should've begun to grasp years ago. I remember one day, not long before he died, that I said jokingly over some then-insignificant moment "there's hope for me yet". Typical of him, he said nothing save for a small chuckle.

When he died, I took that small chuckle along with various other nuances from him to mean that he considered me a failed attempt at parenting and teaching; a mistake he made, a regret he carried to his death. Of late I'm starting to see those moments as his pride that maybe, just maybe, I'd get it all figured out on my own.

I'm beyond the point of acting in the manner to make him happy, even in death, of who I am. The best I can do for myself is make myself happy, forge a path that brings me peace and allows me to respect the reflection in the mirror, the image in the photos. If the best I can do to honor my dad is to honor myself, then he'll have to settle for that.

For the first time in a very long time, I don't feel like I'm "settling" at all. I also feel that it's time to get a new photo of myself.

Green Machines

2008-05-12T12:41:00.002-05:00

I saw an older gentlemen get into his brand new Toyota Prius today. It made me wonder, after a brief conversation with him, if he had a former love affair with the late 60's American muscle cars. I'd bet a cup of coffee he did.

So then I got to wondering about all these people driving around hybrids. I doubt that they really gave up their love for the double-barrel rumble of a finely tuned holly carb on top of a finely tuned large block engine. My love affair with those iron beasts of the past has not ceased.

The reality is that it's an unrequieted love. Certainly the price of gas discourages me from loving them too closely. I watched that Prius pull out and away and realized that it's hard to love something so sterile as the new Toyota, and I've driven one! I find them oddly nice and simultaneously alien. There's no engine rumble -- in fact, one can barely tell that the engine is on! But the pocketbook doesn't cry as much when you hit the fuel station.

Maybe it all has far more to do with a fixed income than saving the environment. It does make me wonder if in another 50 years we'll see Prius's at classic car shows.

Summer's Coming...

2008-05-08T12:15:00.002-05:00

....How will you spend it?

Day of Prayer

2008-05-01T15:11:00.003-05:00

Thank you God for enabling us with the desire to pursue our freewill in setting aside one day a year when all believers in America theoretically take time out to bow their heads out of reverence.

We can add this to Christmas and Easter as the things Christians are supposed to participate in to keep calling themselves Christians.

I have so many snide, snaky comments about faith-based PR for the sake of PR, not faith. Ask a Christian that actually prides him or herself on following Christ, and "National Day of Prayer" will not make the top ten list of things they do. Read the Bible daily, lead a Sunday School class, teach at Vacation Bible School, sing in the church choir, volunteer at the local library/homeless shelter/soup kitchen/insert other organization here... these things they will mention.

But pray on National Day of Prayer is not mentioned. Because I can't see for the life of me how it's about prayer. It's about reminding the nation that prayer is no longer tolerated in schools and government buildings, and that a large contingency is still upset by it. It's about flexing freedom of religion muscles by forcing people to remember that there is a difference between freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion. It's about claiming one day besides Easter and Christmas that is decidedly more religious than pagan anymore. But it is not about prayer. And it never will be. Prayer is something that occurs very privately between a believer or a group of believers and their god. There are even biblical verses against praying for the sake of showing others one prays.

If I thought any of my readers cared about what they were, I'd look them up. As it is, I reiterate that this day is one for pomp and circumstance. Someone cue the organist as we bow our heads in benediction. Don't forget to leave your tithes and offerings on your way out.

rain and earthquakes

2008-04-29T13:55:00.003-05:00

Ever had one of those days where it's overcast, the promise -- or threat -- of rain is heavy in the air, but no real relief comes? Yesterday was like that.

The clouds were heavy and fat with water, demanding attention as they threatened to pour out their contents in a fury. But they never did. I watched the sky, smelled the air, and turned my attention to my ankles. Neither hurt with the barometric changes that always precede a rainfall.

I knew it would not rain. That saddened me. It's been a long time since it rained here. The ground is dry and the spring green grass is already turning brown. But it's not just the ecological need for water that saddened me.

I love the rain. Oddly, one of the first songs I can remember at all is "I Love a Rainy Night" by Eddie Rabbit. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to credit Eddie for my love of rain, however.

Today the sun is out again. Today, I experienced my first earthquake. It was a 3.9, and I didn't even feel it. Apparently tectonic plates do nothing to affect the arthritis in my ankles. Had the news not told me that there was an earthquake in my county, I never would've known it. Apparently it will take more than a 3.9 to move the earth under my feet and have me know it.

Juicy Fruit

2008-04-26T17:46:00.003-05:00

Forget the gum by Wrigley's, I'm talking about strawberries here. Big, red, sweet, juicy berries.

As a Louisiana native, I was raised with home state pride in the strawberries found in and around Houma, La. They were succulent things of fantasy for a kid that had to rely on grocery store strawberries to satisfy her taste buds; grocery store strawberries -- in every state I have ever bought a strawberry in -- do not satisfy. They are hard, flavorless, and even the best aromas are met with a sense that the growers have not mastered the art of growing a tasty berry.

Every year I bought the brightest, best smelling strawberries in the grocery store, and a tub of whipped cream to wash them down. You see, my love of berries is as strong as it ever was, even it I could not eat them as I liked -- rinsed with water alone.

When I was in Houma, La, I purchased strawberries from roadside stands and gobbled them down. When I was in Augusta, Ga I acquired them by the pint or by the flat straight from the source and gorged myself on them.

Now I have California camarosa strawberries available to me locally and I am in berry heaven. Just yesterday I went to a festival in Santa Maria dedicated to the strawberry -- my kind of festival. There was strawberry tasting (and rating), strawberry shortcake, strawberry daquiris (and the most expensive non-alcoholic drink I have ever purchased, made with syrup instead of strawberries.... grrr), and strawberries to ride in. I left having learned something about the berry I so love and a new appreciation for the growing season and my relative geographical nearness to my favorite fruit.

While I doubt that grocery stores will soon be offering strawberries for sale by variety (considering they generally offer barely edible berries as it is), if you get the chance to sink your teeth into a camarosa or camino real variety of berry, I highly recommend it.

If you're stuck purchasing grocery store berries because no one grows them anywhere near you, let me make a few of my favorite serving suggestions: Use whipped cream or a light sprinkling of sugar on your berries. Slice them and add strawberry syrup and place over shortcake. Blend them into shakes, smoothies and daquiris. But my best advice would be to skip the grocery store and road trip to a roadside stand or local grower.

Then again, if you don't like strawberries, you just wasted three minutes of your life reading this. I'll get off the berries for the next blog, so come back for more jaded objectivity.

Journalism

2008-04-24T10:50:00.001-05:00

Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Lengt

If I were going to be a journalist, it would have to be for The Onion. Don't get me started on how much I love irony, parody, and satire.

white screen of doom

2008-04-23T14:36:00.003-05:00

Many people fear the blue screen of death. I don't; a hammer and/or practicing my shot put out an open window fixes that up quite permanently. So do computer gurus, down at the local shop that equates to 3D Greek-to-me.

I fear the white screen of doom. That would be a notepad, office document, or even big empty window in blogger before I start filling it with words, strung together in compound complex sentences, the occasional dangling participle, some unnecessary and potentially redundant adjectives and predicate nouns, and the infrequent ambiguous verb. In other words, my utter nonsense.

In the past I've referenced Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, because it's filled with many inspirational tidbits that encourage writers to just get to work and push letters down into words and words into sentences, until they've written something -- anything -- every day.

To keep from being a complete hypocrite, I'm pushing letters around today. It's been tough for me to blog of late because I'm too numb to come up with anything to be jaded about. That numbness is a mix of emotional stress, exhaustion, and bad habit.

Surely being "just a mom" can't be to blame for it. I mean, that's only a 24/7 job with no salary, no benefits, and no severance package. Hell, some might even claim it's just a volunteer position anyway.

And it can't possibly be relationship issues at fault. I mean, if the guy's a jerk just one day, it's grounds to kick him to the curb, right sisters?! To think that I actually WANT to contribute to the relationship by cooking for him, or cleaning the kitchen without bitching that he should be in there doing his part or cleaning it FOR me as thanks for cooking for him in the first place.... well.. I'm setting the entire Women's Lib movement back 50 years!!

And my selfish commitment to myself, where I spend time of each day improving some hobby/craft/art/talent of mine, with the forward thinking goal of building a career for myself once my kid doesn't need (or want) me around 24/7... well that's just too cold-hearted for words.

>:)
oh well.

My grandmother raised me to not talk about sex, politics, or religion... at the risk of offending someone. I'll try to include all three in my next blog.

Impress Her With Your Goods

2008-04-17T13:09:00.005-05:00

This is for all those spam advertisements about enlarging male genitalia.

This is the answer to "Does she want a bigger penis?"

The answer is "don't be stupid."

(and you thought it was 42, didn't ya Dach!?)

If you have a 3 inch penis, then yes, I'm sure she would like it bigger. Unless it has the girth of a coke can, and then perhaps she doesn't care. Or if you use any assortment of adult toys. If you have one of those monsters that belongs in the porn industry, chances are she either 1. hopes you're very good with it or 2. hopes your very careful with it or 3. wishes there were less of it.

Here's the honest truth about size: girls think that either extreme is pretty undesirable. Middle of the road is better. But even then, what the real secret is to making her mad with desire is this: know how to use it.

Skill will go a very long way with a woman. And not just the parts that can be enlarged with any variety of cream or pill that can be acquired right now through your inbox and the spammers that lurk there. It's a whole body experience -- tongue, fingers, penis.

In the bedroom, how you use your equipment is far more important than what equipment you're sporting. A woman would rather have her body worshipped and ravaged at the same time, and a good lover is never remembered in inches. Any woman that tells you differently is either 1. shallow beyond belief, 2. lacking in good experience with a good lover or 3. lying.

good reading

2008-04-14T12:21:00.002-05:00

This is a plug for the book I've recently stuck my nose in -- Death Sentences by Don Watson. "How cliches, weasel words, and management-speak are strangling public language."

I recommend it for anyone that looses their minds trying to read, write, or listen to over-fluffed up, jardon-filled nonsense that reminds one of Walter Mitty or Newspeak.

When I was a child, I detested the King James Bible, Shakespeare, and all pastoral poetry. Now as I read this new book, I miss the days of words having purpose, concise meaning, and the writers that could put together a string of words to move your soul. Now it seems I am exactly where I was -- but with more respect for the King James verse, and the great poets of the past -- and the world has shifted around me.

It's strange to look back now and reflect on "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", 1984, The Giver, and so many others and begin to realize that they are frighteningly more accurate than I ever thought they could become.

Some theorize that science fiction imitates culture and others contend that culture/society patterns itself after science fiction. Perhaps it is both, perchance it is coincidence. To play the "what if" game for a minute, if I were given the opportunity to ask George Orwell any one question, it would be this: "Did you ever think that the current language used in corporate settings would ever get so ambiguous, meaningless, and useless?"

Here's a random example of the language I mean, as cited by Don Watson in his book: "Third generation strategy maps have been designed to overcome the limitations that have made balanced scorecards notoriously difficult to fully implement.... The strategy map begins with a strategic goal, is followed immediately with a strategic value proposition and end with a cause and effect systems diagram that outlines what needs to be done to achieve results." (Watson quotes from the Oregon Health and Science University).

What the hell is that anyway? A bunch of gibberish to claim that somewhere, someone is paid to come up with graphs and charts reiterating that there are in fact graphs and charts to make claims to cause some board of directors, CEO, or pompous pigs in suits somewhere... to smile and pat themselves on the back for a job well done? It's like proving that 95% of all statistics are made up on the spot, isn't it?

But the absolute uselessness of that paragraph, beyond "we've got evidence to support our claims" in over-fluffed, over-stuffed language, is that is doesn't even lay out any claims. It just occupies space on a page and discourages anyone from reading it, let alone thinking about it. And this empty language is what Watson claims in his book is infiltrating "public" language, or the everyday conversation. He begs the reader to pick up a paper, listen to the news, the sports, or commercials, and look for it. So I have been. And God help us, he's right.

I'll come back another day to how if I'd written something that vapid, I'd have failed 8th grade and senior Engligh. Thank you to those two educators that taught me the value of words and made me write stuff that made sense. Thank you to both of them for forcing me to write over-fluffed stuff as assignments to teach me the difference.

I recently had to rework my outdated resume into something a little more current. When I was done it would make any PR or HR guy proud. It is so over-the-top over-inflated with important and impressive sounding crap that I nearly vomited a bit in my mouth. But it has to be done that way, because "at-home mom" sounds like I was a failure as a post-childbearing adult, while "executive associate in child development with 8 years of research in the field and in a laboratory environment, overseeing and implementing practices in learning-based education with an emphasis on autonomy and cognitive thinking, with the forward-thinking goal of producing positive patterns that can be replicated indefinitely" sounds far more lucrative. How sad is that?
All of this has led me to borrow from a popular song with a slight twist:

"WORDS! Huh. What are they good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"

I am a holdout. My words still have meaning. They always will.

theology according to Yossarian

2008-04-01T15:13:00.002-05:00

I'm a big Joseph Heller fan. So much so that I refer lovingly to a friend of mine as "Yossarian" based on his striking resemblance to the character of the same name from Heller's book, "Catch 22". As I'm rereading it for the third time in my life, I have been amused almost to the point of reprinting the whole thing here. Since that would be awfully time consuming and probably illegal, even with proper crediting of the source... I'll just share this tidbit from pags 176-178 of my paperback version dated 1990, printed by Dell Publishing. And if all that's not enough to properly credit Joseph Heller with the following excerpt from his book "Catch 22", then let me reiterate that the following quote is NOT originally written by me.

Yossarian speaks about God:

"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossairan continued, hurling on over her [Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife] objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about -- a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His diving system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"

"Pain?" Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife pounced upon the word victoriously. "Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers."

"And who created the dangers?" Yossarian demanded. He laughed caustically. "Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbel instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't He?"

"People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads."

"They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupefied with morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It's obvious He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping-clerk!"

Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife had turned ashed in disbelief as was ogling him with alarm. "You'd better not talk that way about Him, honey," she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. "He might punish you."

"Isn't He punishing me enough?" Yossarian snorted resentfully. "You know, we mustn't let Him get away with it. Oh, no, we certainly mustn't let Him get away scot free or all the sorrow He's caused us. Someday I'm going to make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgement Day. Yes, that's the day I'll be close enough to reach out and grab that little yokel by His neck and--"

"Stop it! Stop it!" Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife screamed suddenly, and began beating him ineffectually aout the head with both fists. "Stop it!"

Yossarian ducked behind his arm for protection while she slammed away at him in feminine fury for a few seconds, and then he caught her determinedly by the wrists and forced her gently back onto the bed. "What the hell are you getting so upset about?" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

"I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. "But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be."

80 children

2008-03-27T11:41:00.004-05:00

80 children sat on the floor on a very large rug. In the middle of the rug was a stack of blank paper and a box of crayons. Well, two boxes of 64... because there were 80 children.

One child only wanted to color in blues. Another one wanted stencils and tempura paint because they didn't want the responsibility of a blank piece of paper (too much imagination required). Another child wanted to peel the paper off all the crayons. Yet another wanted to break the crayons, complain that they were broken, and demand new ones. Some kid just started yelling because they wanted control of the boxes of crayons, and no one would give the kid the boxes. Pretty soon 80 kids were crying and whining and generally making so much noise that the crayons and the pieces of paper seemed to be the entire problem.

Ironically, they'd be the solution if the 80 kids would just shut up and do something productive... like start drawing and coloring.

No one's making these 80 kids even sit in this room. No one's telling them who they can and can't color with, and no one's telling them they can't color by themselves.

Seems that one kid colored on another kids jeans and won't apologize for it. The kid that got colored on, hit the first kid in the face, and he was told to apologize and get over it. That first kid? Some adult gave him a new piece of paper and some crayons and used one of those pacifying voices that says "now Johnny, you know you shouldn't have done that" and then turned their attention back to the book they were reading when all the kids were still quietly coloring.

But that kid with the color on his pants? He's still pretty pissed. Pretty soon he's whined to the kid next to him, and everyone else who would listen. An inadvertent game of telephone was started. That other kid? He overheard his name mentioned and started talking to his friends as well. Now we've got an "us vs. them" situation with two groups of kids, and a third group of kids has returned to coloring quietly, too afraid or simply uninterested in choosing sides, and just wanting to stay out of the way when the crayons start getting thrown.

There are 3 adults overseeing this group. They are tired, bored of whining about crayons, and sick of trying to get anyone to do anything. I think they'd medicate all 80 kids with Ritalin if they could.

The stupid thing is that when that one kid colored on another kid's pants... that kid should've been dealt with better. But you know, he was the child of a wealthy parent, so he wasn't gonna get really dealt with. That other kid... the one with color on his pants... his dad isn't so wealthy and respected in the community. So he's told to act right and fly straight, despite the fact that it's HIS pants with crayon all over them.

That kid asked for help from the adults. He asked for the adults to make it right, make the rich kid apologize. The adults said that it was the rich kid's responsibility to apologize if he wanted to. Well, that just pissed off the kid with the crayon on his pants even more. Even his dad got pissed. Now most people know about the crayon incident, and even if the kids still color together on that rug, now some are wary of getting their pants colored on and others are afraid there's nothing they can do if it happens, and they don't trust the adults to take care of them. The adults don't really care that they aren't trusted; at least, they don't do anything to change the perception. For example, that rich kid still hasn't had to apologize, even though he's managed to draw on that poor kid's shoes, his paper, and even tore one of the kids drawings in two and laughed about it.

Many of you will find this amusing because we've all heard of kids acting like this. Some will think that no one in their right mind would put 80 kids under the supervision of 3 adults. Fear not, this is just a parable and an analogy for 80 adults and 3 leaders.

Quite frankly, I think that some adults need to quit being kids already.

Tattoos and eggs

2008-03-24T13:51:00.002-05:00

There is nothing like going to a tattoo event. The ink displayed, the artwork displayed, the artists drumming up interest and business.... It's awesome. You can get body parts pierced and/or tattooed. You can buy a new tee shirt; two for $30. You can get a new purse.

What's even better than a tattoo event is dragging three small children to a tattoo event. They LOVE wandering up and down isles, being scared out of their minds by guys getting their heads tattoed and girls with pierced rings up their calves with laces running through them.

Even though the oldest of the young kids (8) was particularly vocal about her dislike for all things inked or pierced, there was hope in the form of an Easter Egg hunt. Because I always think of going to a tattoo event for my Easter Egg hunts, don't you?

So begrudgingly I feigned enthusiasm at the egg hunt, as it was better than a whining child belittling all things that did not interest her. And then, wouldn't you know it, she whined about the hunt, citing all its faults, adding up to "boring". Sheesh. Some people simply cannot be pleased.

I wrangled the three kids for a bit, allowing my partner in crime to peruse the tattoo parlors in search of one that was "close" and "good" -- subjective as that is. We ended up at the car drinking mango juice and snacking on pretzels, as the acres and acres of green grass wasn't entertaining enough either. Kids these days....

(While some of you wonder if this one is fiction or fact, ask yourselves... could I make this stuff up?)

sand in your face

2008-03-19T11:07:00.003-05:00

"Quit throwing sand or you're in time out" said the distracted mother to her young daughter, in the "I don't really mean it cuz I'm busy talking to my friend here" voice.

The young daughter was playing with what I assume were her older siblings and the child or children of the other woman, but I can't be sure. My son joined them for some good sand piling. He loves building sand castles.

I had the distinct pleasure of eavesdropping. Well, not so much pleasure, but those two women were loud enough that I'd have to abandon my child and the playground altogether to not hear them.

They discussed how much they hated "those other women" who "are quick to discipline everyone else's kids, but never bother correcting their own", and that little girl threw two fists of sand in my son's face. He laughed and threw some back.

And I called him out on it with a stern -- and loud -- "No" in my "and if you don't think I mean it mister... just push me" voice.

They started citing examples, incidents, and a long list of offended parties. That little girl threw sand again. My son retaliated and I reiterated that I'd had enough of it. He said, with predictable child candor "But Mommy, that little girl threw sand at me". I replied with absolute certainty that I was loud enough to be heard by the mother of the child, "I know she threw sand at you, but I told YOU not to throw sand."

The mother of the child did nothing, said nothing about the sand, and kept right on with her list of offenses made against her in the name of parents who do not discipline their children.

It happened a third time. I called my son to me, and informed him we were leaving. He asked "Why Mommy? She threw sand at me..." to which I replied, "Yes, I know honey, but I told you not to throw sand at her, and you disobeyed me. We are leaving because you did not quit throwing sand when I told you to."

To the best of my knowledge, that mother did nothing.

To add, she only said something in the first place because one of her own kids told on that little girl when the sand throwing started. It seemed to me like she was there to talk, and the kids were there to watch each other.

Oh, the inordinate amount of things I wanted to say to her, given her topic of whine at that moment. The things I wanted to say to that little girl, including "go sit by your mom until she finally asks you why you're there, then tell her because you disobeyed her and threw sand anyway and now you're in time out like she said you'd be."

But I have no patience for people that speak out of both sides of their mouth, and my temper is not always the most rational one. So I did what I had complete control of. I took my child, and we removed ourselves from the situation before I said something I'd regret.

As we left and my son continued to plead his case that he had not started it, I educated him on the rules about minding me and participating in things he knows he will get in trouble for, even if he simply follows along. He's young. I'm sure we'll have this conversation many times over the next 15 years. Maybe even longer.

No, I am not a perfect mom. I'm just trying to raise my kid with the attributes I want him to have.. like honor, manners, common sense, kindness, and a real sense of cause vs. effect -- including responsibility for his actions.

For those that think I'm too harsh as it is for making my son leave the park for disobeying me... well, be glad I'm not your mom. For mothers (and fathers) out there that think empty threats are a way to raise your child... you're idiots. I can't wait to listen to all the horror stories by parents like you when your kid is a teenager and has long since figured out that you don't mean one word you say, and you don't do one thing you say you'll do.

Easter

2008-03-18T12:56:00.003-05:00

It's Easter week. Good Friday is fast approaching, followed by Easter Sunday and daylight services and lilies and resurrection and bunnies, chocolates, eggs... kids in clothes they hate and family photos that punish everyone involved if so much as one person doesn't want to be there.

a great link for the origins of Easter from various religious perspectives.
pagan origins
Ishtar

There are so very many sites dedicated to debunking the religious myths about Easter and its origins, that I might as well just name the blog "devil's advocate to religious ceremonies by holiday: Easter -- a guide in links" and call it a day.

But that would bore all my lovely fans that come here to read my wit, my insight, and ponder my jaded perspective.

Easter is no different for me than Valentine's Day. It's a great opportunity to sell chocolate, expensive Sunday clothes that girls will wear on Sundays and boys will wear under duress, and it's a date on the calendar that makes it okay to wear white shoes again.

Granted, it gives the C&E Christians a purpose for being C&E Christians (Christmas and Easter, for those of you that aren't aware of the practice of certain peoples of entering a church building on only two events a year... that being the already mentioned holidays).

And it gives grandparents everywhere the excuse to jack up their grandkids on even more chocolate than the parents bought. And where would we all be without chocolate ears to bite off every year. Well, that last one is pretty sarcastic, as I don't remember the last time I bit ears off of a chocolate rabbit, but I must've been in junior high or before.

It amazes me that the same people that bitch about the state of the economy follow with news bites about the chocolate industry and holiday sales. Maybe we should add a few more holidays that we could promote to keep the spenders spending. I suggest "Guy Day" where women buy the men in their lives tools and beer as a thank you for birthdays, anniversaries, and Valentine's Day. Or how about "Friend Day" where we splurge on the one person that's best kept our secrets, covered our ass, partied with us, and lied for us. I like "Disposable Day" where disposable crap we've been hanging on to for far too long gets replaced -- like cars, appliances, and bad relationships.

But back to Easter, and a side note about it. Did you realize that the Catholic church changed St. Patrick's Day this year to March 15th because the 17th was a holy Monday as part of Easter week?

Ya know, now that I'm thinking about it, I should go support the economy and buy some Peeps. If I don't do my part, the stock market may be adversely affected.

Joy

2008-03-16T14:15:00.003-05:00

My heart broke twice this week. Not the "that really hurt me" heartbreak, the "I lost 9 pounds in 4 days" kind of heartbreak. The kind that wrecks the body, the kind that makes a person gag when food hits their tongue, let alone gets swallowed. The kind that there is no absolution from.

Somewhere in all of this, I'm starting to find me. I'm starting to identify myself as an individual, not part of a larger puzzle. There's joy in realizing that anything that causes unhappiness or discomfort isn't worth holding on to. There's joy in realizing that I may be heartbroken, but I am not broken in spirit.

I'm digging real deep to find this joy. But I tell ya, it's there. It's not big yet, but it's there. It doesn't make the nausea go away, or food more tolerable, but it's a start. Pain and heartbreak isn't unique anyway; it's a universal human emotion. Not wallowing in self pity is a place for me to start. There's no words that another human could say to me that would diminish my pain nor heal my heart. It's just something that will take time and personal strength. Well, no one can give me personal strength more successfully than me.

My quest is to find the best me there is and give that me to the world, without fear that I may get my heart beaten up or broken again. I cannot control someone else's capacity for giving of themselves; only my own.

Now as for the human emotions of the heartbreak, I'm going to go curl up in a ball and wait for the nausea to subside again.

avoiding tags, labels, and links

2008-03-12T11:18:00.002-05:00

I'm usually pretty good about avoiding links in my blogs. It's by choice. But to speak of something that is outside my own world or mind, I often feel like I need to link. It's a credit thing. Ya know, avoiding plagiarism, building empirical evidence to make a case, and the like.

But sometimes I just can't help myself with my odd sense of humor. Sometimes I just have to be weird. Occasionally I have to be quirky, eclectic, and full of piss and vinegar -- though some say women can't be, to which I say I have a 20 oz bottle of water and some apple vinegar. What else will I be full of in a couple of hours?

As for tagging my own blogs, well, that's another thing. When people start begging me to do so because they want to read all my wit and charm, I might. Or when I get so bored with every other aspect of my life that I feel like taking the time to do a thorough job on it.

*note: I would've added a link to a photo of a dog begging, but my search pulled up lots of commercial stock photography or free clip-art sites that wanted me to put more effort into registering than I put into this blog. And really, why would I do that if I won't do tags?

I've gotta start blogging in my sleep

2008-03-04T12:59:00.002-05:00

I had the most awesomely terrible dream last night. It involved big waves, massive flooding, and some guy surfing right into my house through my window that he opened when the waves flung him up against it. Then he grabbed one of my kayak paddles and ran out the front door to do it all again (presumably not through my window though).

When the water rose high enough to submerge the apt I was living in, I was happy to see that the seals around the windows kept the water out. Then I started watching sea otters swim by. It was quite odd. And I'm still not sure how all that water got back out again after the surfer came through the window the first time.

Prior to all of this, however, I had a great idea for a blog. It was part rant, part soap box, part statement of common sense. I know, how dare I. Don' t worry, the downside of not blogging in my sleep is that the good ones like that get forgotten. Apparently in favor of sea otters and strangers stealing my kayak paddles.

drying out

2008-02-25T14:57:00.002-05:00

California has not been sunny lately. No mind. My post-lasik eyes don't like bright light anyway. The rain, however, has been cold and biting. Cold like a Missouri rain can be. My last experience with a Georgia rain was a hot one, where steam rose from the streets, making the raindrops seems acidic.

I'm not a sommelier or a wine maker, but I do know that this part of Cali is far wetter than usual. I could be remembering it wrong, but I think we have already topped our annual average. It does make me wonder how the local grapes and therefore the resulting wines will fare.

Me, I'm a cheap wine drinker. I don't like dry wines, prefer full-bodied and fruity... okay, I really prefer mead. But I do like the almost overly-sweet reds and whites, sangrias and muscadines and dessert wines. Label and year mean little to me. But then, I'm not a big wine-drinker, and could care less about impressing people in my home with my wine collection. Good thing, too, as I rarely have more than one bottle at any given time.

My dad and his widow were like that. If they could buy it for $5 in a box, they considered it a good thing. I was always amused when they'd come visit me, as they'd stop off and get a box of wine just before checking into the hotel. By the time I'd driven over to see them, they'd each be nursing a lukewarm plastic hotel cup of wine.

They always kept a box in their home, as well, right by the microwave. A glass of wine was an evening affair, just to change the palette after dinner. His widow used to hand me a glass of wine and sit down for the evening to talk with me. I'm not sure if it was because I felt I had to be social enough to talk until she was done or because she felt as though she had to host me until I was done, but we usually sat up talking until ten or eleven at night, and until we were both exhausted. It always struck me as odd that she couldn't just watch tv with me, she had to talk. It was also nice, in a slightly strained way.

After my dad died, those long conversations seemed to give us something to anchor ourselves to. Otherwise we were strangers that shared two very different sides of the same man.

She tells hilarious stories, from flying in a plane altered for skydivers: only a pilot seat, and no doors... to cross-country trips by plane or car that ended in some wild adventure.

I tell stories of a man that pushed me in directions I had no interest in, and shared little of himself at all.

The man she knew was loving, caring, a friend to all, available, accessible, and quite the character. He was good-spirited, light hearted, and hilarious.

I have no idea who that man was. I never met him.

For a while, the tears fell like hot Georgia rain after he died. Certainly I questioned whether he loved me, or even if he ever liked me. I debated asking his widow. I never did.

jaded love

2008-02-19T11:52:00.003-05:00

Glutted on the commercial buffet that is Valentine's Day, I strolled through the 75% off V-Day stuff no one wanted in the end yesterday. And I didn't want it either. Man it is amazing what is sold to celebrate that holiday.

Stem glasses etched with long, skinny hearts. No twisted stem, no gold or silver edging. Quite frankly, I would've expected to find them in a $1 at full price rather than retail at 3/4 off.

Those hollow chocolates shaped and wrapped to look like long-stemmed roses, though these looked as if the box they'd come in had been used as a soccer ball in the warehouse.

Plush animals in every possible nauseous combination of fabric, color, and style imaginable. We're talking about stuff I wouldn't have wasted my dollar on at the balloon target game at the fair. And I used to waste plenty of dollars throwing darts at balloons.

Left over valentine's cards. The kind you take to school and give out. These were signature characters that went "out of style" two High School Musical's ago. Or nondescript ones that no self-respecting fourth grader would give out, even under duress, for fear of cruel mockery by peers. And what are we supposed to do with these now? Give them out for a late gift? That just reeks of "I was too cheap to buy them when they were $4.00 a pack, so I waited until they were $1" and that reeks of "I'm too snobby to shop the dollar store in the first place...."

By now, dear reader, you must be thinking that I'm one of those bitter women with strings of ex-husbands and lots of lap dogs. Not true. Well, I don't have lots of lap dogs (or house cats). As for exes, my string of failed relationships is fodder for future stories, but unremarkable otherwise, from a legal sense. And at present, I'm in a functional and dare I say joyous relationship.

Really? you ask. Didn't see that one coming. So what does one of your, um, jaded approach to love do to enjoy Valentine's Day? Feed mice to snakes? Watch cichlids devour guppies?

Well, no. First of all, I don't have a snake, nor work with any. And I enjoy watching cichlids devouring live food any day of the year. The hunting methods of a fish can be entertaining. At present though, I'm fresh out of carnivorous fish.

For Valentine's Day, I did what most of you did or strove to do. I enjoyed good company, I shared some giggles and kisses and finished it off with a romantic flourish. The great part was that that's how most of my days go, so it wasn't extraordinary as a stand alone moment. There were no cut flowers, no chocolate, and I received no jewelry. That's just fine, too. Just two days before the big V Day, we bought 2 kayaks and gear.

No, I don't see that as akin to receiving power tools for Christmas (which also doesn't happen to me). Because with two kayaks, the whole family can spend a day out on the water or cross over to a small island and spend the day relaxing, share a picnic lunch, and enjoy a break from cell phones, busy traffic, and the chaos of daily life. Oh, and I get away from the dishes and vacuuming; I find this very romantic indeed!

Love is something I enjoy very much, and I take the art of loving another quite seriously. I just don't need all that pomp and circumstance to create a smoke screen.

Maybe one of those aforementioned exes jaded me with a sad illusion for love with a large piling on of pomp and circumstance. Hmm... now there's a story for you....

Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T12:41:00.003-05:00

I noticed the civil calendar has today listed as February 14th. I haven't been to Wal-Mart, Albertson's, Target, or any other retailer or grocer to see if all the celebratory baubles are on sale at half-off yet. For my own sick sense of humor, I might go later on. That will give the employees a few hours to start replacing all the red with green in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day.

My planned activity for today includes... nothing, actually. I did the dishes last night, getting them out of the way. Laundry's all done as well. I might go out to lunch with my favorite little man, and I might even start planning his 4th birthday coming up soon. So far I cleaned the bathroom, tidied up the living room, and made breakfast. Yep, just another day on the calendar is racing by too slowly.

Now don't think me too jaded, dear reader. I have plenty of unromantic days that have highly romantic connotations. There was a day in October a couple of years back that still stands out as particularly remarkable; it was a Saturday. There was December 29th one year... I couldn't tell you the day of the week now. I am still particularly fond of a day in May back in 2000 that stands out in an unconventional sense, but romantic just the same, and there was a January 7th of particular note that rings out as well. I have hundreds of these... associated with places or events... that are so poignant that even the most carefully planned textbook notions of romance carefully executed on any given February 14th would pale by comparison, and I even have a highly memorable Feb. 14th in my stable of memories as well.

I believe I might have Wendy's for lunch. My son loves it there, even though he never gets a toy like at McDonald's. Maybe he'll ask for Applebee's instead. If I drank them, I'd get a Bloody Mary as a personal metaphor for celebrating the martyred saints. But I don't drink them; I prefer my vegetables non-liquified.

Maybe I'll buy my son a new movie. We've watched The Return of Superman all week, and quite frankly, I'm a little sick of it. Not that I don't love the scene where he gets shot in the eye and the bullet bounces off to the ground -- I do. But I can only watch a movie so many times in succession....

At the end of the day, I'll probably curl up with my latest read: Straight Into Darkness by Faye Kellerman, set in 1920's Munich. Germany was a political hot spot at the time, for those not paying attention. I just finished a very entertaining read: Tim Green's Exact Revenge. Maybe I'll watch CSI:, more than likely I'll play City of Heroes.

How will you/did you spend this particular day, dear reader? Please leave me your comments and regale me with your stories!

La La La

2008-02-11T14:04:00.001-05:00

I'm sick. My voice sounds really sexy, all gravelly and sultry and very much like a bedroom voice. It's the one thing I'd actually keep about being sick. Usually though, it disappears for a week or so as a mousy squeak that comes out better as a whisper or not at all. It happens every year or so. Honestly, it's part of why I quit singing, but it's not the real reason.

After over 25 years of sining in choirs, I can sing. Not great, mind you, I'm never going to be the next American Idol (I'm too old, anyway), but I can sing backup on pitch, in key, and in the 3rd or the 5th. No one has ever said "Ooh, you're an awesome soloist", but I've been accepted to plenty of professional ensembles/choirs over the years. Even got invited to sing at Carnegie Hall with one of my groups. But not being a diva isn't the reason why I quit singing either.

My mother was a double music major in college. She taught me as much as any other source about singing, playing woodwinds, percussion, beat, rhythm, music theory, and how to hear how flat or sharp I am. That's not to say that I'm an expert in any of those things, by the way.

When I was thirteen, I sang my first solo. At thirteen I also sang my second, third, and fourth. In anticipation of sining that first one, however, I started taking singing lessons from an opera enthusiast. He taught me how to breathe, he taught me how to force a vibrato, and then he slightly told me how to let go of it again. Apparently my mother thought I sang much better before the lessons.

Nonetheless, I sang my first solo in one of the only two performances my father attended, I sang in front of my unimpressed mother, and the song was met with tepid response. But even that is not why I quit singing. That song, that solo, was supposed to be a piano solo by a classmate of mine. One day I was listening to him practice and started singing along. He asked me to sing to his accompaniment and I agreed. We practiced for two months and a week before the performance he backed out stating he didn't feel good enough. It was already planned, so I went on with another pianist. But I felt guilty for stealing his thunder.

That happened again when I was 16 and an understudy for another soloist, except this time the soloist was murdered*. I just simply refused to sing the part, given the circumstances.

It seems that when I might actually have a chance to step up, I back down. I quit singing because of a complete lack of confidence. My mother used to tell me "sure, you sing well enough, but it's not what you're best at". She forgot to tell me that "well enough" was indeed good enough, even if I had stronger talents. I always felt untalented at singing. So I learned to not trust my own voice.

I think she apologized for this after I sang with the opera a few years back, but it seemed too passive, too permissive of her for me to believe it. Besides, by then I'd turned it into a hobby, and nothing more.

*see "Thanks for Giving Us a Break" Nov, 2007 for the related story.

mean people

2008-02-05T15:53:00.000-05:00

Mean people suck. We've all read that on the back of some beat-up old Ford Aspire that looks like the butt-end of a bad automotive joke. Sometimes that particular bumper sticker is tempered on the other side of the clear coat chipped paint with "Visualize Whirled Peas". I've always like that last one.

Last week, I had the misfortune of a confrontation with a mean person. I'm too much of a peacekeeper and not enough of a boat rocker. In this instance, I was liked to Churchill to "his" Hitler. Nothing could've been closer to the truth.

While I was busy trying to appease him time and time again, he was hard at work trying to invade Poland, France, and starting to bomb England. Okay, not really, but every time I backed down, he asked for more; and until last week, I kept giving it to him.

This guy was a bully. He was self-serving, a user, and generally a fair-weathered "friend" in the most optimistic definition fathomable. When he didn't get what he wanted, he cried like a baby and whined like a toddler and resorted to games that even most self-respecting high schoolers abandoned by their sophomore year in school. In short, he acted a good 20, 22 years younger than he is.

When it was just me he bullied, I turned the other cheek. Then I kept turning and turning until I became dizzy. Turns out that he wasn't placing all his attention on me, just the brunt of it. So I decided to stop being so nice, er, placating.

For a while he pestered me, then he blamed me, then he apologized for my shortsightedness, then he played the victim as though I'd wronged him, then he wimpered as a wounded puppy. Finally he resorted to anger, and then frustration, and now... blissful silence. He has given up, at least for the time being.

My point it that Winston Churchill had great intentions as a diplomat, and Adolph Hitler still conquered most of Europe and was working his was into Africa and Russia when he was finally stopped. Churchill's diplomacy failed, and it almost changed the world map as a result. Three short weeks separated the U.S. successful use of an atomic bomb from Germany's having one ready to go. Three weeks.

Now while I'm not discussing international politics in my specific instance, this guy was never gonna stop badgering, bullying, and bruising his way to meeting his own ends at whatever means he saw fit.

My point is, sometimes being diplomatic is really just postponing the inevitable conflict and enabling your adversary to empower themselves over you. I for one, am crossing back from "wounded bird" and will not bow helpless and cowering to the next person that asserts dominance over me. For those of you that have known me for a few years, please reserve your "it's about time!" comments. Let's see how I do "the next time".

*edit: Yes, LBB, I did mean Chamberlain. Pardon me for naming Churchill falsely in the above blog.

Neville Chamberlain's history of appeasement
a bit about Winston Churchill

Overthinking the Family Vacation

2008-01-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

Pack the car, it's vacation time!!

Parents. You've been planning for this since last year's tax return. (Or, for chronology's sake, you're planning how to spend this year's return.) But did you OVERTHINK the whole thing?

Probably.

Let's face it. Movies like National Lampoon's Vacation and Uncle Buck gave us plenty to think about when it came to planning a decent time for all family members (dead grandmothers tied to the roof rack aside).

But did you over plan the whole thing?

Chances are, if you're the type to demand perfection, you did. Now me, I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of vacationer. Pack some clothes, head in a direction, and see what we see along the way to somewhere and take lots of pictures. I ended up staying a block off of Bourbon Street in the executive suite at a hotel during the Carnival season in New Orleans for $59 a night. (Was that enough clauses for you in one sentence, dear reader?) Yeah, $59 a night. And valet parking was included at that price. So let me tell you, when I fly by the seat of my pants, I tend to soar.

But anyway. YOUR trip. Have you planned out every meal, every activity, every waking moment (including allotted time for each family member in the shower each morning)? Chances are, if you have, the trip will be far more work than fun, and you'll return needing a vacation from your vacation.

Chances are also that each family member will want something different and remember something different out of the experience than you will. Someone probably doesn't want to be so strict with the itinerary that parades, rides, and meals are dictated down to the hour. And the younger the child, the less chance they recognize that time has any meaning anyway. What they'll remember is the smiles, the laughter, the break from routine and video games and cell phones and computers and primetime TV. And even if they're old enough to whine that they'd rather be hanging out with their friends, the reality is that they're gonna make memories that they'll cherish one day.

Relax, have fun. It's a vacation for crying out loud. Not a business meeting. Take a deep breath. Whether you're fishing for trout or visiting Cedar Point or taking a cruise, throw your watch in your suitcase and let the winds of change blow you where they will. You just may have more fun than you ever expected.

Are You Ready to Move Out of Your Parents' House?

2008-01-28T17:50:00.002-05:00

They just don't get you anymore. Your parents don't understand your friends, don't approve of your choices, hate the way you dress, wish you'd go to school, join the military, get a real job. Maybe it's all of those, maybe it's none of those. But for reasons of your own, you want to move out, and you want to do it now.

Are you ready? Yes, I see that you've already packed up your stuff and are taking it out to your car's trunk, but are you really ready?

Understand your budget. Whether you work for minimum wage at McDonald's or have just graduated from med school as a doctor, you are on a budget whether you like it or not. Balancing your bills against your paycheck and figuring out how much is left over is a good place to start. Consider your car payment, auto insurance, student loans if you have them, any credit cards you may have, and that cell phone that until now your parents have been providing for you, and you'll have a small idea of how much a month you can spend on rent.

But before you go rent a place that's out of your budget, you need to ask a few questions of your potential landlord. Are utilities included in the rent? If so, which ones? If not, what do utilities run on average? If the landlord has no idea, consider running away from the location, but if you just love it, then ask for the names of the water, electric and gas companies that the place usually does business with, and call them and ask them for a rough estimate.

For the entertainment portion of your budget, how much do you have to spend on internet or Netflix or purchasing X-Box games? It's very good to know the answer to this question before ordering DSL internet and a premium subscription to cable.

Not to be forgotten is fuel for your vehicle, and a plan for oil changes and tire rotations and even tire replacement. Such maintenance is fairly predictable, and can be easily included into a budget so that you don't find yourself unable to take care of your transportation.

Can you even afford a place on your own? If not, do you have friends that you plan on sharing a place and therefore rent with? Can you trust them? What I mean is, are they the types of roommates that will pony up their portion of the bills religiously, or will you get stuck working overtime to make sure you all don't get evicted? If they are the latter and not the former, let them rent the apartment in their name and not yours.

If you are moving in with anyone else - be it a significant other or a best friend - know before hand who's name the utilities are going in. It's your social security number that will be tied to this stuff... protect your credit. Friendships have been lost over much less.

Don't forget that you'll be buying your own food and clothes now. How much is left in your budget so far? Remember to make a place for groceries and household goods as well as eating out. Sooner or later you will get sick of Ramen noodles and want a nice juicy quarter pounder. Likewise, sooner or later you'll just want to go home and make a pb&j. If you're getting a roomie, how will foodstuffs be accounted for? It sucks when your roommate drinks all your soda and eats all your Pop-Tarts and doesn't replace them, leaving you to go fork out the money twice for the same food.

And have you considered that tattoo you want to get? Good tattoo artists aren't cheap. Do you have a savings plan for this and that trip to Cancun you want to take on your time off next year? Planning for the future is an important part of moving out. Getting married, having kids, needing a bigger place and a mini-van... it's always good to consider that you will not be where you are right now in another five or ten years.

And even if you are in the same place, chances are your beer budget will be bigger.

The bottom line is that being fully autonomous demands that you pay attention to the details that your parents took care of up till now, like medical insurance and renters' insurance and car repairs. Be prepared by knowing exactly what you have and exactly what you can spend. Live by a budget and live within your means. If all your i's are dotted and all your t's crossed, then spread your wings and fly, little bird. There's a whole new world waiting for you.

Kettle calls Pot collect

2008-01-25T03:39:00.000-05:00

...and the conversation rang up quite the tab for Pot. But what really struck a chord was the ringing in Pot's ear after the 2x4 hit the pot broadside.

Seems I've been slacking on my posting.

Figures. I get a couple of new loyal readers, and they're already heckling me for new and constantly changing content. Sheesh the masses can get demanding! :D

Here's the thing about new content. I've gotta have some to post it.

Okay, okay, I have some. I'm just a slacker.

Let me tell you about Monday, as it's some new content:

On Monday, I went kayaking again. Get used to it, it's a new habit. And it gives me content.

Anyway, I went out and had a great time in the boat, and came back to grab my camera and shoot some local wildlife: birds, otters, and a bucket. Don't worry about the bucket, that's a whole 'nuther story.

About this time, another kayaker came around the bend, as it was, and got swept up by the current and pushed up against the pier I was standing on, and he dumped. For a few moments I was concerned that he wasn't coming back, as he was in a sit-in kayak, and had to fight the current to get out of the craft. When he did surface, it was for just a moment, as his boat tumbled on top of his head and submerged him again.

By this time, which was only a few seconds in real time, I had put my camera down on the pier and was scurrying over to help him. He, specifically, was out of my reach, so I grabbed his kayak, which was very quickly sinking as it filled. We stared at each other for a moment, and I realized that the 50-ish degree water he was trying to tread was far too cold for his blue-jean and sweatshirt clad body to tolerate for long.

At that moment, however, he was not understanding the words that were coming out of my mouth.

"Shimmy down the dock to the edge" was Greek to him. "Shimmy down and get out of the water" was no better. "I have the boat, just worry about you" didn't really register either. After repeating it a few times, however, the fear and shock in his eyes cleared enough to realize that he wasn't going to ever get that boat out of the water by pulling up on it from in the water.

He agreed that getting himself out was a good idea. So he shimmied down the dock after all.

By this time a passerby raced down the pier to join us and he grabbed the kayak. I moved to grab the aft end and lift it out of the water, forcing some of the water back out. Good thing this guy came along too. My fingers were getting numb from the water temperature, and the kayak was fully submerged just below the surface, held visible only by my cold stiffening fingers.

We wrestled the craft topside and rolled it belly up onto the pier. We even managed to locate and retrieve the paddler's paddle, which had conveniently caught on the opposite side of the same pier. Fortune smiled on that guy, let me tell you.

We got his boat back to the truck, and I left him with the piece of advice to get out of those wet clothes ASAP so as to avoid hypothermia setting in. Then I returned to my normally scheduled day, glad that my kayak was a self-bailing sit-on-top model, and that no matter what else happened that day, at least my boat would be afloat.

Churning Sea

2008-01-17T16:52:00.001-05:00

January 5th, 2008. The storms that flooded southern California and blanketed northern California with snow gave central Cali huge surf, as large as 20 ft. waves in places. I went on a two-day coastal road-trip with my camera in hopes of capturing some of the biggest waves.

Here are some of the waves I captured.

Reverse Golden Rule

2008-01-15T18:52:00.001-05:00

I think I have 5 readers now. Just to pander to them in attempts to gain their loyalty, I thought I'd write another tidbit from the depths of my mind.

Problem is, I'm fresh out of fascinating stuff from the depths of my mind.

So I looked in shallower waters and found this nugget of wisdom:

The next time someone really good and ticks you off, ask yourself if you were a victim of the golden rule. Were you treating them the way you got treated?

I bring this up at all because I recently got my head snapped off for being coldly succinct. Imagine that, someone accused *me* of being succinct. Anyway, for a few moments I felt remorseful and slightly ashamed, then realized that I was simply responding in kind to how I was being treated in the first place. Well, that allowed me the freedom to feel indignant, ergo this post.

Point is, chances are if people are often nasty to you, you're a nasty person.

Deal with it or fix it.

As for my new readers, there's no pressure to leave a comment, a complaint, or a tip of the hat in appreciation (I prefer tips *in* the hat to tips *of* the hat, truth be known). However, if you want to participate and make this an interactive experience that we can all benefit from, you're gonna have to pony up in the comments department. Suggestions are appreciated as well. They are often ignored, granted, but they are appreciated.

rereading, digressing, and romantic tangents

2008-01-11T16:20:00.000-05:00

I just reread my own blog for the last couple of months. Man, I do believe I've been embracing the jaded side a bit! Scroll all the way to "Hats" (or visit October 2007, maybe November. Hell, hit them both, there's good stuff there!) to find something juicy to wrap your tongue around! Mind!! I mean Mind!!!!!

Funny, that the last couple of months have coincided with some of the most personally stressful times I've gone through in years, also reminiscent of years past. But I digress.

Now that Christmas is behind us (and all the other holiday terms centered around the winter solstice), I can start turning my evil eye to Valentine's Day. You remember Valentine? Patron Saint of "how much money can I spend proving to my girl she's worth more than all those other girls out there in an egotistical competition to win the next-day water cooler story about how romantic I can be and therefore land her in the sack for some much deserved and paid-for-at-a-premium-in-gifts sex"?

Ooh... the snark bug has already bitten me.

But really... why do women need the validation of love in the form of roses, chocolates, an expensive dinner at a nice restaurant, and the expectation of jewelry to boot? Why do men need to prance around like horny peacocks showering ladies with more material pomp and circumstance than even Christmas can muster up, just to prove their worth as a man? And by worth.. I really mean their bank accounts, assets, investments, holdings, real estate, legacy worth here. In the famous words of Cuba Gooding Jr... SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!! Just make it in the form of diamonds, rubies, lobster tails, and long-stemmed red roses. Oh, and wrap it in a romantic holiday for two at a secluded spa complete with couples' massages.

Does anyone even know *why* Valentine became a patron saint at all? It wasn't for rejuvenating the diamond industry for DeBeers... that's for sure. He was a martyred saint of Ancient Rome. Read about him here. If you scroll all the way down, you learn that there used to be 11 St. Valentine's Days a year as recognized by the church. Makes one glad for separation of church and state, doesn't it? Valentine's Day came out of legends about the man. Imagine that. You mean someone blew the story of him up into a whopper of a fish tale? Oh, and there are speculations that the date was chosen to supercede a pagan holiday. Imagine that. And just wait till I get to Easter....

Digressing again.

Leave it to Geoffrey Chaucer to be responsible for the romantic notions associated with Valentine's Day. Damn notions of courtly love... though I remember Chaucer more for pastoral poetry than courtly love. Oh well, Wiki must surely be right, right? Shakespeare got all caught up in that too, which his sonnets. My favorite was Sonnet 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

Yeah, romantic as hell, right? Well, in that "man you've got flaws girl! But I love you anyway" sort of way. He wrote that to save his own neck. He was a court poet at the time, and his "mistress" was an earl that commissioned a poem from him. The "sun" was the king, so of course he had to write a poem that kept his head on his shoulders and still flattered the paying party. Delicate business, that poetry writing stuff, back when it could cost you your life. But great way to end it, too, with enough vagueness to please everyone, flatter nicely, and allow for sequels.. i.e. more clients.

And digressing again.

So.

Men. There are 365 days a year to be romantic.

Women. There are 365 days a year to appreciate *how* your man shows his romanticism.

Let's try something really innovative. Let's try to bring romance back to the average ordinary Tuesday night and the not-at-all special Thursday lunch. Let's try not to impose such monetarily-based notions of love surrounding one miserable day where half the planet mourns no love at all.. and let's even attempt to bring daisies or carnations back as a gesture of affection.

I swear, I hear so many people complain about "it's roses or nothing... the cheap S.O.B. can fork out the money for roses once a year...." that it's no wonder they don't get flowers the rest of the year. They have no appreciation for the sentiment behind it.. just the item itself.

Think on that next time you look at the wedding set on your finger you shallow, self-centered, over-glorified wives who wonder why he'll cheat on you with a woman that just wants to feel his arms around her and his kisses on her neck.

Oh, and because I refuse to do it come Feb. 14... Happy Valentine's Day.

The Cracked Crab

2008-01-09T15:13:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while one experiences something so impressive that one must shout it from the rooftops.

Since the invention of the internet, rooftop-shouting has become unnecessary.

Segue to The Cracked Crab, Pismo Beach, CA. It's on my short list of must-do's for all central coast visitors.

Their menu changes every single day, so you can be assured that the seafood is fresh-and-I-mean-fresh. They are known for their buckets -- $48 for one person, $68 for two. Choices of snow crab, dungeness crab, rock crab, a shrimp or two, and possible substitutions like lobster (at a higher price) are all available for the bucket. It comes with potatoes and corn on the cob, rolls and all the tools one might need to crack into shellfish.

I had the crab-stuffed domestic gulf shrimp at $21. Some 6 days later my mouth still waters at the thought of that delectable meal.

And just to really go all out, I added a cup of crab bisque for another $6. The only thing I've wanted to eat every single day since I first visited the Cracked Crab was another cup of that crab bisque.

The menu has a shrimp po' boy at $9, a couple of melts in the $18-$20 range, and caters to high rollers with lobster entrees that rate up there with the buckets. Kids meals are $6 as well. They have a nice wine list, the atmosphere is both cozy and casual, and while they have no ocean view dining, it's a short 4 blocks from the beach. Okay, maybe 6 blocks. They're still short.

So whatever your budget is, you can be well fed and have orgasms in your mouth. Well, maybe not orgasms, but your taste buds will not be disappointed.

*disclaimer, Margo Crawford is not a paid endorser of The Cracked Crab, though she would be willing to consider any offers.

one way to dock a boat

2008-01-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

'08 started here in Central Cali with a wonderful storm full of photographic opportunities... like this one.

I said photographic opportunities, I didn't say great photographic opportunities.

This photo, btw, is untouched. I mention it because I recognize fully that it's dark, fairly monochromatic, and looks like there's a ton of camera noise. There isn't a lot of camera noise; that's called "rain".

As for the boat, I"m sure it will be fine once it's not beached on a sand bar. But you should've seen the surf this vessel avoided! For those photos... come back in a few days. I have some post-processing to do.

Christmas Day and Sand Tarts

2007-12-25T18:12:00.001-05:00

So it's Christmas Day, 2007. It happens to coincide with my 200th post. Thank you and big cyber hugs to the three readers who've stuck with me through ups, downs, daily postings, and weeks in between nuggets of wisdom, sarcasm, wit, and the occasional inspiration. Without you three... well, I probably would've quit altogether some months ago.

Today, seeing as how some people actually celebrate this holiday with warm fuzzy feelings, I will not embrace my inner snark, and instead be of good cheer. Well, be of decent cheer. Today I will bestow glad tidings of great....

No, I won't go that far. But surely you loyal readers saw that one coming.

Today, I will share with you my grandmother's recipe for Sand Tarts, a traditional southern Christmas cookie:

Sand Tarts --

1 lb. oleo
3/4 c. powdered sugar
2 c. flour (add slowly)
2 T. ice water
2 T. vanilla
2 c. chopped pecans

Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes

The recipe is wholly wrong.

I followed it and I did not end up with anything sandy or tarty. I ended up with an oozed cookie with a pecan in the center. When I tried to remove it from the cookie sheet, it crumbled. Though this recipe will make your house smell incredible... I'll give it that.

For a real, workable sand tart recipe written by someone that didn't have dementia when she wrote it, go here.

Aftertaste

2007-12-20T13:14:00.000-05:00

I still haven't washed the commercial after-taste of Christmas out of my mouth. Maybe that's because it's only December 20. More than likely, it's because when I bite down on a grudge, I really grip it hard and it mixes with my saliva for a while before I give it up again. And Christmas is one big humbug for me.

In fact, were I a biologist that discovered a new species of bug of any type, I'd name it the "Humbug" because I could.

It's not that I don't share a soft-spot for Christmas songs and hot wassail and kissing under the mistletoe. I do. In fact, I can be quite romantic over chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The key here is that I *can* be. Once I've vomited out ever kiss beginning with Kay and the one-day-only sales at JC Penney's and Kohl's and whatever the toy of the year is and however long the lines are to get it. That remind me, I need to go buy High School Musical 2 as a gift.... At least I can put that one off till tomorrow, as it's not in the stores yet.

Today I'm especially enlightened towards the jaded side. There is no reason. No cosmic cause. It's just fun to embrace the cynic in me during a time when I have nothing better to do than be cynical.

As a mom, I find it necessary to feed, bathe, and love my kids. I don't feel the need to put up a Christmas tree and decorate the house with garland and lights. So when presents wrapped in red and green paper arrived by post, I piled them "under" a side table with a lovely floral arrangement created by me in silk flowers reminiscent of the exotic plants for which they were inspired. By chance, the arrangement also happens to be red and green. Yay for Christmas spirit.

A dear friend of mine has it exactly right. She and her husband are leaving on a jet plane Christmas Eve to spend a week in Jamaica. "To hell with this holiday" is my paraphrased version of her thoughts. I'm jealous; why didn't I think of that?

Here we go a Caroling

2007-12-03T15:43:00.000-05:00

Time to start humming off-key as we gear up for a month long celebration (read: exploitation) of Christmas events. For those of you who prefer your religious affiliations to be something else, make a mental change of "Christmas" to whatever you prefer.

I've already attended one parade, turned my car stereo to the channel playing holiday tunes 24/7, and have begun mailing gifts and planning meals.

So how many know the history of Christmas? Not the "celebration of Christ's birthday" (O Holy Night...) -- which is closer to August or September rather than December -- but the pagan-based celebration that was tied to the winter solstice? The one where they hung bull balls to a tree as symbols of fertility? Think of that next time you look at the Christmas ball ornaments you've so carefully hung. (O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...) Mistletoe has origins in fertility customs as well. Yule logs are tied to the Sun God, among other things. Reindeer are symbolic of the Stag God (Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer....). The list goes on and on. Christians adopted the holiday as an opportunity to worship in secret. And there's plenty of controversy as to whether or not the pagan origins and the Christian meanings should still be tied together, in religious as well as secular sects.

Link
Link
Link

And when you get bored with those, google "Christmas pagan holiday" and overfill your cup of eggnog on facts and tidbits of knowledge.

(Mary did you know....?)

For me, it's just another opportunity for commercial giants to lure me into purchasing stuff people don't need in my greenbacked attempts to prove some superficial measure of love for them. On that note... it's time for me to go shopping for those last-minute gift ideas. (City sidewalks dressed in holiday style.....)

counting calories

2007-11-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

I am not a successful calorie counter. I find it takes all the enjoyment out of eating. And I do like to eat. Now, while many of you will get preconceived notions of a pint of ice cream or a bag of chips, that would be wrong. i like grilled zucchini and fresh salads and local strawberries and slow cooked meats (chicken, turkey, beef).... I am eclectic as a fan of food, and I do enjoy the occasional piece of pie... but the whole thing is "enjoy". I like to enjoy my food.

So occasionally I read labels for caloric content. Usually I read labels for sodium content, being allergic to iodine. But occasionally, I get kick out of calorie counting. Take Doritos, for example. Roughly 13 chips is equivalent to 150 calories. Now who eats 13 chips? I'd say that on estimate, the average person eats a third to a half a bag at a time. Let's just call 13 chips an ounce. It's actually a little more, as roughly 11 chips are considered an ounce. But for easy math, and because my easy math will drive my Statistics friend nuts, we're going with this.

So a 12 oz bag is 12 servings totallying 156 chips. If one eats a third a bag at a sitting, or 52 chips, then one is consuming 600 calories. Now many people consider a 600 calorie meal somewhere between "acceptable" to "high". But this is no meal, this is a bag of chips. and many people eat half a bag or better at a time (so I'm told).

Leaving the snack of a bag of chips alone, let's consider a 2 serving handful of Doritos in a lunch with pb&j and a soda. An average brown bag for a school kid, minus the soda in many places, and an easy lunch for an employee on a budget or a timeline.

2 oz Doritos = 300 calories
can of RC soda = 160 calories (and 50 mg of sodium, I might add)
2 slices wheat bread = 140 cal
2 tbsp peanut butter = 210 cal
1 tbsp blackberry jam = 60 cal

And let's just replace that soda with some orange juice... 120 cal per cup (not per glass, per measuring cup). That's also 28g of sugar per cup too. But this is just because people see fruit juice as so much healthier calorically than soda. Realistically it's not that much different. Given that that soda is 160 calories for 12 oz and the OJ is 120 for roughly 8 oz... *shrug* do your own math.

But back to my example. A few chips, a pb&j, and a can of soda is a snack lunch of 810 calories. If you're on a 2,000 calorie diet, then you just ate almost half your daily allotment of food, unless you're gonna spend the rest of the day eating celery with no spread at all.

Now for the segue. No one looks at you like you're a horrible person for eating an 810 calorie pb&j with a soda and some chips. But got help you if you bring in a McDonald's bag, even if it's a salad and a bottled water. The marketing giants have done a good job of making the "Golden Arches" a nasty trigger word associated with slovenly people hell-bent on eating themselves into obesity and early death. It's ridiculous. And McDonald's, for their part, have gone a long way to introduce a menu filled with grilled chicken, salads, fruit options, and even "specialty coffees" for the latte set. Sheesh. While I understand that economics drive both the marketing ploys set forth -- one to promote health foods, diet pills, health care and insurance reform (and by "reform", I don't really mean true reform), the other side works to reinvent themselves as part of a "healthy choice lifestyle".

Fact is, you can get fat on pb&j's and chips if you're not gonna bother exercising. Fact it, you can eat McDonald's quarter pounders if you're going to baby your body in overall health. Not "baby" like treat it delicately. "Baby" it like you would a classic muscle car in cherry condition. Keep it well oiled, tuned up, and taken around the track to blow out the engine and keep it running smooth.

What the marketing giants have not addressed with all of this is perhaps the single most important factor in eating, dieting, and just about everything else in life -- COMMON SENSE.

Ooh, but those are trigger words no one wants to touch.