Michael's Meditations

Cry Havoc

2010-03-19T07:45:00.000-05:00

As a man who is not native to yet still considers Minnesota his home, there are many things about this state that I like.

Obviously, there are the lakes. A body of water's rarely that far away when you live in the Land of 10,000 of 'em. My introvert's dream-come-true would be to buy a nice little hidden-away cabin by a secluded beautiful lake where I could read or write to my soul's content. Just thinking about it relaxes me. And, for a while, I can even believe I could live the rest of my life in such a cabin...that is, until I remember I'm married to an extrovert. So the cabin would probably end up being a summer thing. But that's alright, too.

Then there are the seasons. I like to see variation in mine and Minnesota delivers in this regard. Summers can get hot and winters definitely get cold. Plus, I usually see a lot of snow, although not nearly as much as I did when I lived in Syracuse.

And the list goes on. However, there are some thing I don't like so much about this state. The bugs. Well, one bug specifically. I can tolerate most bugs just fine; I grew up in the South and saw bugs there I haven't seen anywhere else. Fuzzy red and black ants I learned not to get too close to, for example. Then, of course, there were the cockroaches. I've seen teeny, tiny ones, great big ones, black ones, brown ones, flying ones. The common sentiment is that in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, roaches would be the sole survivors as the fittest of all species.

Now that might be true, but I have my doubts. I've never seen a cockroach in Minnesota, so I question whether they could even survive a winter here, let alone a nuclear holocaust.

But there is one bug I've became well-acquainted with over the years and I think it might just give the cockroach a run for its money. It loves trees and is, in fact named for one, but also likes to branch out and go places it hasn't been invited.

The Box Elder Bug is small, winged, reproduces like a rabbit in heat, and they're everywhere I don't want them to be. They like heat, the sun, clinging to surfaces that are exposed to heat and/or sun and fellowshipping with one another in great, massive, orgiastic clumps.

Box Elder Bugs are relatively harmless as bugs go; they don't bite, sting, eat anything indoors, and only reproduce outside. They're also easy to kill. Yet they are a nuisance because if they can find a way into a house- my house- they will take it. And for every one I successfully subtract from my the world, there's another and another and another itching to fill the void. Every year around this time, I can count on two things: my allergies will vigorously renew my dislike of early Spring and the Box Elder Bugs will renew my dislike of winged, flying bugs.

I used to try to eradicate them both outdoors and in, but it has become exceedingly difficult with two indoor dogs and two indoor cats. Also, no matter how much I might wish it, I simply can't eliminate the world's trees. In recent seasons, though, we've reached a kind of detente: I only take up arms against them when I finally get tired of seeing them in the house and they do their best to keep their home invasion numbers in the single digits for as long as they can so I get to the point where I feel compelled to do something about them later rather than sooner.

It's a futile fight in many respects because we both know that they'll- like the Governator himself- be back, more determined than ever.

But I think it might finally be time to let slip the dogs of...

Sorry. I had to squash one just now.

Yes, I definitely foresee a trip to my friendly neighborhood Target in the very near future.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Sticking Points

2010-02-12T14:48:00.000-06:00

     It's no secret that I have a wonky memory. Some things- usually nerdy, school or trivia stuff- I remember quite clearly. But there are also whole swaths of childhood (up to and including portions of my teens) that have been ripped from recollection. My sister likens my brain functions to a Windows OS. She is not giving me a compliment. She believes I have either taken those memories and password protected them, placed them in the Recycle Bin or allowed them to become corrupted. Unfortunately, I either don’t remember the password, have chosen to 'Empty Trash', or do not know how to defrag my mental hard drive.

     There are a few things I do remember, though, some things that are able to rise above the haze of time to become visible again. Here's one such memory:

     When I was 15, I said the 'N' word. Out loud. Here's the backstory. I'd recently seen the movie, "Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon" for the umpteenth time. For those of you not in the know, imdb.com describes the plot of the movie in this way: A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as The Glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.

     Yes, it was a cheesy movie. Yes, it suffered from poor writing and laughable special effects. But it was about a kid learning the martial arts, so it automatically received cool points with me. And it had Vanity in it. Prince's Vanity from Vanity 6 and she was indeed beautiful. I watched that movie again and again and loved it in a way that makes me cringe today.

     The nemesis, of course, had a catchphrase: "N-, please". The "N-" being the "N" word, spoken in a manner consistent with how rappers use it today. I suppose I should point out- though it really shouldn’t matter- that the nemesis was Black, as was the young man in search of The Glow. I thought "The Last Dragon" was the coolest movie ever. One afternoon, while sitting in the backseat with my 11-year old sister during an extremely long and excruciating road trip to visit my grandparents in Texas, I grew frustrated with her. So frustrated, that I uttered that catchphrase. I thought I was being funny.

     Epic fail. My Mom heard me, turned around in her seat and smacked the crap outta me. My parents are old-school Southerners (yes, with a capital "S"), born and raised in Texas. They were and remain hearty proponents of the 'Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child' philosophy of childrearing.

     "I don't ever want to hear you say that word again! Do you hear me?"

     "Yes, Mom." My compulsory response was appropriately meek. I knew I was only getting a fraction of what I would have gotten had we not been cooped up in a car traveling 1100 miles to visit relatives. I'm sure there were other things my mother said during the exchange, like how what I had said was denigrating to myself, my heritage and ancestry and such, but I no longer remember them; the rest of that particular memory file is irretrievable.

     But the experience reminded me that there are some words that should never be spoken by anyone. And it is an experience that even my swiss cheese memory has retained.

     Sarah Palin and I don't agree on much, but there have been a few instances when we’ve been simpatico. Last year, back when she was still a Governor and his scandal was still largely unknown, Palin took David Letterman to task for making a joke about one of her children. Though the joke had been meant for her oldest child, 18-year old Bristol, Letterman flubbed and said a younger child's name, 14-year old Willow, instead. The cultural milieu was still so charged and heated that some people went from 0 to pissed in less than a millisecond. Palin said, "It was a degrading comment about a young woman. I would hope that people really start rising up and deciding it's not acceptable. No wonder young girls especially have such low self-esteem in America when we think it's funny for a so-called comedian to get away with being able to make such a remark as he did and to think that that's acceptable."

     Letterman apologized publicly to the Palin family saying, “These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl.... Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No."

     Letterman's joke did cross a line of taste. Taking aim at the progeny of politicians can be a hazardous venture; even the most thick-skinned politician will go Mama or Papa Bear when one of their children is made the butt of a joke. As they should; most children don't ask to be made pawns in their parents' plea for votes, no more than the children in a reality tv show or preacher's kids ask to be subjected to the constant scrutiny of the public eye. It is done because the public expects it and will slight the candidate or clergy leader who isn't able to offer up a photogenic family.

     Last week, there was a big flap over Rahm Emanuel's use of the word, 'retard'. Apparently, the infamously short-tempered Chief of Staff called a liberal group 'f--ing retarded' during a private White House meeting. When Palin learned of the statement, she fired off a quick retort in the form of…a Facebook status update:

     "Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities - and the people who love them - is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking." I agreed, though I couldn’t help but notice another example of how technology has- once again- forced us to lodge protests in the form of neat little statements that fit within a prescribed number of characters and words.

     She was right. There are terms that have become a part of the American lexicon, words kids, teenagers, and adults have used for decades. This is one of them. That doesn't make it right. That doesn't make it ok and Emanuel deserved to be taken to task for his words. Palin also called for Rahm's termination, something the administration ignored.

     But Rush Limbaugh did not. He came forward and took an issue that was already a contentious one and made it a thousand times more so. How?   "Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards...There's going to be a retard summit at the White House." That was Rush Limbaugh on his radio show referring to Emanuel's comments and a planned White House meeting with- of all people- disability advocates.

     When I heard of Limbaugh's statements, I became curious. The issues of special needs children are quite important to Sarah Palin. But Limbaugh's voice holds sway with millions of conservatives, Sarah's core supporters. Bigger men and women than Palin have ended their careers by taking on the man behind the golden microphone. What would Sarah do? Surely she wouldn't chide Emanuel and call for his resignation with one breath and excuse Rush Limbaugh for using the same words (if not identical, then certainly identical in intent) with the next. Or could she?

     Yes, she could. "They are kooks," she said on Fox News this past Sunday, "so I agree with Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was using satire ... I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with 'f-ing retards,' and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there."

     From where I sit, there wasn’t that much- if any- difference at all. I found myself feeling oddly disappointed. Yes, Sarah Palin might have gone down taking a swing at Rush, but she would have gone down honorably and for a just cause. Or she might have given Goliath pause, maybe even drawn a rare clarification or statement of apology. We'll never know. Sarah Palin did the politically expedient thing: give the person you know, like, or need a pass for behavior you would have condemned the other guy (or woman) for engaging in. That’s why I was disappointed.

     Excusing Limbaugh on the grounds that he was exercising satire is absolutely-to employ a word of the age- redonkulous. There isn’t a big difference in the use of the word, whether we like or dislike the person or population that uses the word or not. Can a word be acceptable for some to use and not acceptable for all? It's a question that's asked often enough. It's the same question I hear when people- white, black, brown, etc. - debate who can use the 'N" word. And why. It's the same question I hear when people debate how the word, 'gay' can and cannot be used. And why. The same question I hear when people debate whether the cast of 'Jersey Shore' should refer to one another as-

     But I don't have answers to these questions, only perspectives. What I do know is that just because we can say a word, doesn't always mean that we should say that word. And that's not political correctness. That's not sugar coating some perceived belief or truth. It's called acting according to how you were raised. As my Mom tried to teach me when I was 15.

No Love Lost

2010-01-21T14:30:00.002-06:00

Letterman and Leno may not be paragons of professionalism, but they sure do personify ‘must see tv’.

Seems like everyone’s taken a side in this NBC late night kerfuffle. Even me. For what it’s worth, I agree that Conan O’Brien got the short end of the stick in the affair, but given his reported $45 million settlement, the stick’s really not all that short. If you ask me. Or the average American that lost their job last year. For $45 million, I would gladly let a TV network fire me. Not just today, but every single day for the rest of the year. I could definitely think of a few things I would do to occupy all the free time I would have.

But that’s just me.

Maybe I’m missing the point, but from where I sit, these guys were given opportunities with their Fall ventures that most personalities on a television show- drama , comedy, or even late night- wouldn’t have received. Just ask Chevy Chase, Joan Rivers, or Pat Sajak. Their late night shows disappeared so fast, most people barely remember them.

None of this should be surprising. The entertainment industry has its own brand of meritocracy and it is not and never has been based on talent. In the era of big cable, cancellations are common. Some shows go away after one or two episodes. More than a few never see the light of day. They might be truly great shows with critical acclaim, fantastic writing, superior acting, impeccable sets, and quality production value, but they are still euthanized before they get the chance to mature, to hit their stride or find their audience. That’s just the cost of doing business: there’s always risk. Actors are let go, sets are shut down and either dismantled or destroyed, crew are released to pursue other opportunities. Can you remember the last time you heard a TV actor speak out against the network that let him or her go? It doesn’t happen often because in the entertainment industry, everything (and everyone) is connected. Anybody seen Isaiah Washington in anything since Grey’s Anatomy? Most actors choose not to criticize their current network of employment because they’re smart enough to know that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. And you especially don’t bite a potential hand that might feed you in the future.

Late night is different, though. A late night host can take public liberties the average employee would only engage in tactfully and diplomatically. Under duress. Or with their friends behind closed doors and in hushed tones. That’s not the case here. Here, the former and current NBC late night hosts are engaged in a free for all, unified in their attack against the very same network that employed, elevated, and issued the paychecks that made them both millionaires many times over. I can’t say I blame them. But I don’t have all that much sympathy for either of them, either.

What I do think interesting are the very public barbs and insults Letterman and Leno are hurling at one another. Of course, there’s history between the two. If Leno and O’Brien appear to be in a free-for-all with their network, Letterman and Leno are engaged in a scorched earth campaign to utterly obliterate one another. I am now making time to watch these two shows that I really didn’t care that much about before just to hear what will be said next. It’s fun to watch, but that odd feeling of discomfort and awkwardness I’ve felt while listening to their monologues have far exceeded anything I’ve ever felt watching ‘The Office’ (the British original, of course).

I highly doubt Dave and Jay will be hugging it out anytime soon. Perhaps a beer summit might be in order. I hear those work wonders.

Tony Soprano is Dead

2010-01-08T12:09:00.000-06:00

Not that Tony Soprano. I don't think anyone but David Chase really knows that one’s fate. And Chase ain't talkin'.

No, I'm referring to the other Tony Soprano. The fish. My fish. You might recall me mentioning my daughter's desire to receive a puppy for her birthday last year? Well, I hemmed and hawed, but finally gave in and granted my daughter's wish. Along the way, we acquired a small aquarium and a few fish. I thought of them as training wheel pets as opposed to the real thing, because my opinion back then and now is that fish aren't really pets. All told, we had 4 fish- two goldfish and two mollies. We didn't get them all at once, though. Like Noah, we collected them in twos.

Initially, all was well. The mollies had their places and the goldfish had theirs. There was some occasional mixing, a couple of meet and greets, but not many. Birds of a feather and all that, I suppose.

The weirdness began a few days later when fish started to disappear. One after another. First a goldfish and then, a little later, a molly. Nothing was left behind, not even the tiniest of scales. I think a member of the CSI team would have been hard-pressed to find the slightest trace of evidence.

Except maybe Grissom.

Though we had no proof, my wife and I theorized that one of the fish had gone cannibal. I can't remember who, but we joked that the molly seemed like Tony Soprano and was systematically whacking the competition. The name stuck.

An uneasy truce, punctuated by the occasional frenetic sparring match, emerged between the goldfish and Tony Soprano. For the most part, they kept their distance until the morning I awoke to find the final goldfish gone and Tony Soprano floating serenely in the tank. And why not? Soprano had taken out his last rival and was now running the neighborhood.

Of the two of us, my wife Linnea has the bigger soft spot for animals. Much, much bigger. She's kind, compassionate, and loving towards just about every animal on earth and they respond to that. Their devotion to her causes them to unintentionally trip her because they have to be near her at all times. They give me a wide berth, though. I'm not mean to our pets, but I'm not her and I think they resent that.

Linnea didn't like Tony Soprano, but I did. I admired the fish’s tenacity, his strength, his patience to hang in there and get what he wanted by any means necessary. Linnea wanted him to just die already.

As I've written before, I believe goldfish have a death wish, that they live to die. I suspected that Tony had that same trait. Morning and night, I would steel myself, to check on the molly’s fate. Today's the day, I would think to myself. Today's the day Tony Soprano goes belly up. But when I would check the tank, he'd still be there, floating serenely.

After a while, I stopped checking as frequently. Every day became every other day and every other day became every few days.

And then it happened.

"Tony Soprano is dead," my wife said to me earlier this week.

"What? No way," I replied, already moving towards the aquarium to see for myself.

She shrugged. "Go see."

Soprano was at the bottom of the tank, floating in an odd fashion for any fish. He certainly looked dead, but closer inspection revealed that there was still the slightest bit of life left in him, though he was clearly at Death's door. Each movement of his gills appeared to be a labor. I silently hoped he would pull through the way his namesake did after getting shot in the gut by Uncle Junior, but that did not happen. By morning, Tony Soprano was dead.

I'm still a little sad about Soprano’s passing and I can't quite put my finger on the reason why. In fish years, you could say that Tony Soprano lived a long, full life. He died pretty much the same way Michael Corleone did at the end of The Godfather, Part III.

But that would be stretching it. He was, after all, just a fish.

Lists, Damn Lists, and Predictions

2009-12-31T10:32:00.001-06:00

Here we go again.

After all the last-minute shopping, the parties, gift giving, and awkward, yet obligatory photos with relatives barely known and hardly ever seen, we, like Orpheus leading his wife Eurydice out of the depths of Hades, will take a final glimpse back over our shoulders. We’ll hear the talking heads and talk show hosts review the ups and downs of 2009, its accomplishments and failures. We'll dedicate the minimally-acceptable amount of time to remembering those who are no longer with us- those we believe were taken before their time (whatever that means), those who went out with their boots on (whatever that means), and those who would go only after they’d exhausted themselves kicking and screaming.

No doubt, there will be lists. Lots of them.

Everybody loves lists. We love them because of the creating and counting and crossing off of items. Lists are like bonsai trees; we find comfort and enjoyment in the effort a well-maintained list requires. And so there will be best song, album and video lists, best game lists, best drama or sitcom show lists, best movie lists, best actor lists, and biggest political snafu lists to name just a few.

There will be plenty 'worst of' lists, too, because it’s never enough to discuss the ‘best of’ anything without also giving face time to all the things that disgusted, bored, or brought us discomfort. We have a need to remind ourselves and others of people or experiences we wouldn’t care to see or repeat in a thousand years.

But we are not counting down the days of any regular old year. This is 2009, the end of a decade. It was, like all decades, filled with particularly bleak periods. If the decade could speak, it would probably ask us what we expected, especially when it began under incredibly dire circumstances. This was, after all, the decade that was supposed to usher in chaos, destruction, and death on a grand scale. Wasn’t that what all the Y2k fuss was about?

Only those things didn’t happen at all. Or at least they didn’t happen as the direct result of computers that would not/could not tell the difference between the year 2000 and 1900.

And that brings us to the last thing we’ll see and hear plenty of in the next few days: predictions. The role of the prognosticator is similar to that of the meteorologist. It's, admittedly, a tough gig. When you issue a negative prediction, no one really expects you to be right. In fact, negative predictions aren’t taken all that seriously unless a recent one that wasn’t heeded resulted in a lot of pain and anguish. And when you do manage to get it right, people believe that you were somehow responsible for what happened because you didn’t give them enough warning or didn’t warn them strenuously enough. I feel for prognosticators.

But I don’t pay much attention to them, either.

So strap yourself in and hang on. The ride might get a little bumpy and a little boring at times, but it- like this decade- will end soon enough.

Unless you’re one of those Gregorian purists who believe that the new decade begins in 2011 and not 2010.

Childish Things

2009-12-17T23:01:00.007-06:00

If becoming a man is, as the Bible says, all about putting away childish things, then becoming a parent has to be about putting away adult things. At least when your child is around.

I’m sure I will have some very interesting and occasionally awkward conversations with my daughter as she gets older. She will openly question why I do or did certain things. Not bad things, per se, but things that are seemingly inconsistent with the image she might have of me, things that may even be inconsistent with the image I hold of myself.

I have a few things like that. I suppose we all do.

I think the biggest point of her curiosity will center on my love of television. I just don’t get people who say they never watch TV. In my mind, they’re akin to people who brag about the fact that they never watch the news or that never-ending pool of people Jay Leno seems to encounter for those Jaywalking skits he used to do who couldn’t recognize or recall the name of the current Vice President of the United States. Yes, I know the time I devote to watching television could be spent doing other, more enriching things (e.g., becoming fluent in reading and speaking a foreign language like French or Swahili, learning to paint, taking yoga, etc.), but so what? I like TV. I like its dramas, comedies, horror, police and forensic procedurals, courtroom dramas, science fiction, you name it. I am fascinated by the interaction of personalities, by arcs of character development and the infinite possibilities of personal action and response an hour of programming can bring. If those pieces are present and are entertaining, I can watch just about anything. Even a Lifetime movie.

But there is, admittedly, a degree of disconnect between public me and private me. For example, I love to watch the show Family Guy. If you ever want to hear me laugh out loud uncontrollably, put on an episode- any episode, really- of Family Guy. I simply cannot believe the stuff that the show’s writers are able to get away with week to week.

Recently, I’ve discovered the now-defunct show Prison Break and can’t seem to watch the episodes fast enough. In the past two weeks, I’ve blown through three and a half seasons and will probably finish the entire thing before Christmas.

As a parent, I know that I cannot watch most of this stuff around my daughter. She has a way- like all children- of absorbing what she sees or hears and then parrotting it back either seconds after exposure or during inopportune moments later. Inopportune public moments. It only takes one experience to drive that lesson home.

I generally can’t watch these shows around my wife, either, but that’s entirely different. Her tolerance for the shows I like is only slightly higher than my tolerance for any of the so-called “reality” shows on Bravo that tickle her fancy. As a result, we’ve learned to appreciate the beauty and utility of our DVR. It allows me to record EastEnders, Skins, Doctor Who, and Torchwood (see a pattern here?) to my heart’s content, while she can record as many of those ghastly Real Housewives, Million Dollar Listing, and Top Chef shows her understanding of technology will permit.

It's not a perfect arrangement, but it works.

Now that my daughter's a little older, her questions have become more profound. There are times when I can almost see the little gears turning in her head as she poses questions and digests their corresponding answers. It's frightening to behold because I know that my time for giving what I call "nonsensical Cliff Huxtable answers" is coming to an end; she's getting too smart for my own good.

It might be easier to have the dreaded, yet obligatory sex talk in a few years with my daughter than to talk about these seeming inconsistencies. At least with the sex talk, I know the answers. Or at least I would hope I do. I don’t have any good answers for my personal inconsistencies, at least none that would make sense. Not even to me.

2009-12-08T15:29:00.003-06:00

Somebody's Watching Me (and I have no privacy)

How do you spell "world domination"? Google.

This is not the first time the thought has occurred to me and I'm certain it won't be the last. I am not a technophobe; I love technology. I stopped wearing watches years ago when I realized that I always seemed to have three or four digital clocks in eyesight at any given moment and didn't see the need to strap one to my arm anymore. Even now as I write this article on my BlackBerry Bold, I need only press a few buttons to know the time not just here in my piece of the cold (25 degrees) and currently windy state of Minnesota, but pretty much anywhere in the world. And I have no fewer than four other devices within an 8 foot radius.

Technology is very cool. But the things we are doing with it are also very scary.

This week, I was killing some time tooling around with Google Maps and managed pull up a bird's-eye aerial satellite view of my street. I also pulled up an interactive photograph of my house from that street, where I could clearly see my wife's car parked in the driveway. I could pan around and get a continuous view not only of my house, but any house I wanted to see in my neighborhood. It was, beyond receiving a live video feed, the next best thing to actually being there.

It was a simultaneously cool and frightening experience.

I started to contemplate all the little ways Google has managed to infiltrate my life. Its search engine is usually one of my first stops in indulging my frequent nonlinear flights of mental whimsy, like the time I wanted to find out when "Bust a Move" was released (1989) or yesterday when I had to know the top five Google search terms for 2009 (Michael Jackson, Facebook, Tuenti, Twitter, Sanalika).

Google Maps can use my BlackBerry's built-in GPS or a form of cell tower triangulation (and for the techies out there reading this, I know it's not true triangulation) to not only determine where I am at any given moment, but also show me where my friends are, local traffic patterns, bus routes, stores and restaurants, user photos of the area's sights and sounds, and even pull up Wikipedia articles submitted by people who have far more time on their hands than me to write about such things.

My Google Wave account provides me with a new and frequently confusing way to connect with others both near and far. Google Reader follows the myriad RSS sites to which I subscribe in my ongoing efforts to remain aware of what's going on in the world. Google Calendar combines and consolidates my numerous schedules so that I know when I need to be where. Google Voice allows me to make free phone calls within the US using my cell phone and can even store and transcribe voicemail messages and forward the transcriptions to my GMail account.

All free of cost. But is it really? Is there a price to signing away one's privacy?

Granted, in my case, I freely and voluntarily contributed much of this information. But there's a lot of it that Google already knew long before I had even heard of these services. And even removing Google from the equation, it seems to me that we are all giving away elements of our lives for some payoff or other. That little supermarket swipe card that we use to save money when we go shopping gives the store fresh data about our buying habits (when, where, how much). Downloading a free version of software or signing up for an e-newsletter gives the company permission to install spyware directly onto our hard drives to track our web browsing patterns. That mobile phone we use to stay connected to family and friends probably contains a SIM card or GPS device that allows the phone company to track not only who we call, but also our location.

This information doesn't simply sit in some isolated database, either. It's being used all the time, every day. An article in PC World revealed that in the last year, Sprint responded to 8 million requests for customers' whereabouts from law enforcement. The same article mentioned the fact that Palm's devices frequently sends data on users' location and usage data back to the company.

I don't doubt that these are all generally valid and legal things companies can do in return for their services and products. We're used to these things in light of the Patriot Act, so much so that the average citizen today is far more concerned about whether Facebook is going to use subscriber photos and other images in ads without their expressed permission. But where is all of this data collection ultimately going to take us as a society?

Are the benefits of convenience, savings, speed of service, or safety really worth the data we're exchanging for them? The information probably does help emergency service personnel respond more quickly to those who need them. The data probably has led to the apprehension of criminals and even the deterrence or prevention of crime. But, like the people who use it, it's far from perfect. Our technology might have enabled troops overseas to find Saddam Hussein in a hole in the ground, but we still can't touch Osama bin Laden. Nor did technology stop two wanna-be celebrities from crashing that White House State dinner the media seems to think we need to know everything about.

Tiger Woods recently said that public figures should have the right to a "simple, human measure of privacy". While it's debatable how far that privacy should extend for the person who uses their public status and image to endorse products and services for compensation, I do think Tiger has a point, although it is one that should extend to everyone.

But I also think Tiger's probably not the biggest fan of cell phones at the present moment.

Must See TV

2009-09-24T13:21:00.000-05:00

Summer has officially come to an end. I know this not because of the date or the temperatures or even the falling leaves. I know because of the return of football. Some men- most actually- look forward to the start of a new football season. Little league, high school, college, NFL, you name it. There's just something about the game- two teams pitted against one another in a battle of brawn, strategy, and chance- that gets the blood going.

I like football. I'm a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan and that's something that, in and of itself, doesn't make me new friends. At least not often. It takes some guts to admit to being a Cowboys fan and I should know; I've lived in the South, the Midwest, and the East. If there's one thing that unites the people in all those regions of the U.S., it's their overwhelming dislike of America's Team. Oh well. They're all just a bunch of haters.

Or so I tell myself. It make me feel better.

I like the Fall. Of all the seasons of the year, autumn is my favorite. The heat of summer is gradually receding into memory and the bitter cold of winter isn't due to arrive for several more weeks. Fall is a thing all its own, a season of transition between two extremes.

The fall brings us football and that is a good thing, but what I like even more about the fall is new television. I watch what most (my wife included) would consider to be an embarrassing amount of tv. Give me a night of the week and I can easily rattle off two, three or four shows I regularly watch or record to watch later.

Fall is like a mini-Christmas for me. Shows I know and love return all wrapped up in big, shiny season premieres. The conflicts and cliffhangers of the previous spring get wrapped up in an episode or two and new territory (hopefully) is laid out to entice me to keep watching. I also get to acquaint myself with intriguing new shows that I think have promise.

This season is no different. The networks have put a lot of money and hype behind a batch of shows they think I'll want to watch because they're the next big thing. I continue to find it funny how the next big thing always looks a lot like last season's big thing repackaged with different actors and locales. I'm also old enough and wise enough to know that the majority of these shows will be gone before the year has ended. It's a Darwinian strategy I've become all too familiar with, much like that tired old college orientation speech where I was told to look to my left and right and ponder the fact that one or both of the people I'd glanced at wouldn't be graduating with me.

The big powerhouse programs also return and I get to see if they're still as good as they were the season before. Some undoubtedly will be, but others will fall and fade into obscurity. A few shows will enter into rebuilding seasons, where talent is consolidated, staff are let go, and a new vision for the future is plotted out, all with the ultimate goal of bringing in more money.

Which shows will have what it takes to make it through the season without being canceled or put on hiatus? Which actors will be released because of disagreements with the cast, crew, or the show's executive producers? What sleeper hit will emerge as the one to watch due to casting chemistry, compelling story lines, outstanding writers, or beneficial scheduling? Only time will tell.

I guess football and fall TV have a lot more in common than I'd initially thought.

A Line in the Sand...maybe

2009-09-19T19:14:00.004-05:00

My four year old wants a dog. Next month will usher in her 5th year of life and Phoebe has decided she wants a dog as a birthday present. Well, she wants either a dog or a Mamma Mia party.

But she doesn't want just any dog. She wants the kind that has a shrill, yippy bark and can be dressed in little doggie skirts, doggie necklaces, doggie booties and other doggie accessories. She wants a dog that, fully grown, can be placed in a purse or handbag and carried around as though it were a baby kangaroo. A very small, very baby kangaroo.

Sigh.

One thing I’ve learned in my years as a parent is that kids can be manipulative. My own little girl is no different. She has brought every weapon- every last bit of charm, resourcefulness and adorability- to bear in her Phoebe Wants a Puppy Campaign.

The strategy is simple. So simple, that nearly every child has used it: tell people not what you want, but what you are going to get. Tell them over and over again. And then, just for good measure, tell them a few more times. And so my daughter tells people she knows, people she doesn’t know, kids she’d like to know that she’s getting a doggie for her birthday. It will be a tan dog, small and cute. And she will name it Butter.

The name alone has melted the hearts of more adults than you could possibly imagine.
Never mind that we already have a dog- a beagle- named Dexter. Never mind that we already have two cats, named Sinatra and Columbus. My daughter wants a dog of her own.

There is at least one barrier standing in the way. For starters, I have allergies. I’m allergic to just about everything. No lie. If there is a substance- organic or inorganic- that can cause an allergic reaction, I’ll probably experience said reaction if I am in the vicinity of said substance. I have lots of prescribed pills, nose sprays, and eye drops, all created to keep me from becoming a sneezy, sniffly, puffy, headachy, red-eyed mess at certain inevitable seasons each year. The success rate of these medications varies, so I still end up sneezy, sniffly, puffy, headachy, and red-eyed. There are simply times when it isn’t so bad.
But, of course, I am allergic to both cats and dogs. This has not stopped my family from collecting two cats and a dog over the past 10 years- three pets more than I ever had growing up. My allergist simply shakes his head in pity and gives me a resigned sigh when he sees me during our annual visits.

The second barrier is poop. Pet poop. I hate pet poop. Especially dog or cat poop. You know how some people have weird little phobias over funny stuff like bunnies or butterflies? I have a phobia towards pet poop. Well, bats and pet poop. Well, bats, Mamma Mia birthday parties, and pet poop. Thankfully, I do not have to see bats every single day of my life and I’ve learned to make myself pretty scarce when Mamma Mia is requested for the umpteenth time this month.

I suppose I could look at this as an epic battle of the wills between what my daughter wants and what I don’t necessarily want. It isn’t. The truth is that while I’m opposed to getting another pet, I’m only mildly opposed to it. This means that I have not told my daughter that she cannot have a dog for her birthday. I tell her “maybe”. The first time she asked me what “maybe” meant, I told her it meant “maybe yes”, “maybe no”. She, as kids will, took that to mean “maybe yes” and has incorporated it into her conversations with everyone who will listen to her talk about the cute little dog she’s going to get for her birthday.

“My Daddy says maybe I can have a puppy for my birthday. He says maybe no, I can’t have a puppy, but I think it means maybe yes I can.” As the days pass by, I find my already weak resolve further diminishing. And so my wife and I will probably get my daughter the dog of her desires for her 5th birthday. Anyone know of a good pooper scooper service, preferably one that will clean up your lawn for you after your dogs have done their business?

Eye of the Beholder

2009-08-24T19:20:00.001-05:00

There are some words that are just fun to say (or write), whether you know their precise meaning or not. Kerfuffle does it for me these days. As in, have you heard about the big kerfuffle over that Lady GaGa footage?

(It's ok if you haven't. To be honest, it's not worth the brain cell you'd waste remembering it anyway.)

But there is another kerfuffle I do find interesting. It concerns Kelly Clarkson. If you don't know, Kelly Clarkson is the pop singer with the distinction of having won the very first season of American Idol. She's done quite well for herself, too, having recorded several hit songs, won a number of awards, and become a household name.

Clarkson’s weight has always been something of an issue for the media. Sometimes she's up, sometimes she's not. For her, though, it’s an issue she could care less about. In a recent interview, she said, “Sometimes I eat more; sometimes I play more. I’ll be different sizes all the time. When people talk about my weight, I’m like, ‘You seem to have a problem with it; I don’t. I’m fine!’ I’ve never felt uncomfortable on the red carpet or anything.”

Good for her. And that, as the saying goes, is that. Or at least that should be the end of it.

Self magazine recently did something that drew heavy criticism, however: they digitally altered their cover photo of Ms. Clarkson. This should come as no surprise because it’s certainly no industry secret that magazines perform liberal amounts of airbrushing with the images that appear on their covers. The technology has been around so long that it’s cheap, affordable and comes bundled on just about every computer purchased these days. Everyone can change the way they look and since a bad magazine cover can kill that month’s sales, cover pictures are important. So, of course, alterations were performed on the September cover of Kelly Clarkson.

It wasn't the act of airbrushing that raised eyebrows. As I said, we know that the images we see in magazines are not truthful. More often than not, they don’t reflect the audience purchasing them. And why should they? We buy the magazines not because they show us as we are, but as we might look like one day.

However, there are a number of bloggers who believe that the alterations to Clarkson’s face, overall appearance, body type and even bone structure crossed the line for a magazine whose philosophy is to help women be true to themselves while cultivating a sense of inner beauty and personal fitness.

The editor of the magazine, Lucy Danziger, feels otherwise. She likened the act to choosing the best picture for the family Christmas card or deleting vacation pictures because an individual has a scowl instead of a smile on their face. Airbrushing did occur, Danziger says, but it was all done in an effort to make Ms. Clarkson look her personal best.

If Lucy Danziger and Self magazine seem to be struggling with the concept of truthfulness, they have a lot of company.

As news, commentary, and entertainment merge, I can’t help but think that truth is being overshadowed by opinion, flash, poll numbers, and Q scores. The Daily Show, as wonderful as it can be, is not specifically a news show. It is comedy. And yet it seems to be more accurate, truthful, and insightful in presenting the news than most commentary shows today on either television or radio.

A little over a month ago, we lost an endearing public figure: Walter Cronkite. It’s no surprise that Americans of a certain age considered him to be the most trusted man in the news; it was a reputation he worked a lifetime to earn through painstaking attention to fact and detail. He sought to present the news in an unvarnished a manner to let the people decide for themselves what to do with it.

I think that somewhere in the quest for higher ratings and subscriptions, something important has been overlooked. When we have to wait for the tell-all book from Dick Cheney, a former John Edwards aide, or a former child beauty queen to get the truth about what really happened or what a person really meant when they said x or did y, it makes me question whether I’m ever hearing the truth about anything at any time from anyone. I have a hard time believing that the truth should have a price tag attached because- when it does- it’s really no different than a digitally altered fitness magazine cover photo of a pop star. Isn’t it?

Under the Hood

2009-07-25T15:36:00.003-05:00

If I had to choose a word to best describe my knowledge about cars- how they work, why they work and how to repair them- ‘extensive’ is not the first one that would come to mind. 'Limited' would probably be more accurate. I can check tire pressure and fluid levels. I can add appropriate amounts of said fluids. I can replace windshield wipers, the car battery, and even a car’s headlights with a minimum of permanent scarring. And in nearly 16 years of driving (I started late), I've changed exactly one flat tire. That's about it. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have never been forced to expand my working knowledge of automobiles.

I've often wished I knew more about cars than I do, but the topic has never really interested me that much. I'm more into reading. My father-in-law, however, is quite different. He collects cars the way I collect books and has forgotten more about them than I could ever hope to know. As a man, I'm ashamed of my lack of knowledge. I feel that I should know more. But wishing and wanting to know more about a topic does not translate into knowledge. Would that it did.

One thing I do know, however, is that you can't judge the overall reliability and soundness of a vehicle simply by its appearance. Looks- and used car salesmen across the nation count on this fact- can be deceiving. To see what a car really looks like, you have to get under the hood. Even then, you've gotta know what you're looking at as well as what it's supposed to look and sound like in order to determine whether everything truly functions properly. You may even have to take it for a test drive.

In today's economic climate, assumptions about financial standing based on the car a person drives or the house they live in are equally likely to be flawed. That multi-million dollar mansion owned by the guy with the stable full of exotic cars could be in foreclosure, the cars set to be repossessed day after tomorrow.

Looks can be deceiving.

But what about a person's health? Can we make accurate assumptions about their health based on their appearance? Most of us believe so and it is this belief that is at the heart of the debate with President Obama's pick for Surgeon General. The issue? Her appearance.

Dr. Regina Benjamin is a doctor of distinction who also happens to be the founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama. She has dedicated her life to providing quality medical care to impoverished patients at her clinic in a community still reeling from effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Based on her appearance with the President last week and various other photos, Dr. Benjamin is believed to be a full-figured woman. This observation has some questioning whether her installment as Surgeon General would send the right visual message to Americans and the rest of the world about the importance of our nation's health initiatives. They feel Dr. Benjamin’s credibility in turning the tide on our obesity epidemic is severely compromised.

And it's not just the medical experts who are asking questions. "My father taught me to never take financial advice from a poor man," I read on an opinion board. "Why would I take medical advice from a woman who has made unhealthy lifestyle choices?"

The other side- seemingly composed of a similar number of medical experts- argues that Dr. Benjamin’s weight might be a more valid concern if it weren't for the fact that medical research has determined that what's under the hood- a person's blood pressure, their cholesterol, their exercise regiment and various other measures- is a far better indicator of health than their waistline.

I’m not sure how I feel about this issue. On the one hand, I can understand the reservations of the critics. If an administration said it wanted to end corporate corruption and then turned around and nominated an individual known for shady practices in his or her brokerage as the next head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, I would see that as a counterproductive and hypocritical effort at best. And justifiably so.

But I also believe that a role model can be particularly effective when they have had first-hand experience with the issue at hand. Would Michael J. Fox hold as much credibility and influence as an advocate for Parkinson’s research if he himself were not afflicted with the disease? Perhaps. Computer security companies have been known to hire former hackers because they know all the tricks and trade of the industry. Alcoholics Anonymous and other organizations operate on the principle that someone who has faced the same temptations as those they seek to help are in the best position to truly provide counsel and guidance. To be honest, I’m tired of seeing so-called experts and talking heads whose knowledge of what they are advising and chastising the rest of us about is…

Well, the word ‘limited’ comes to mind.

One Size Fits All...Until It Doesn't

2009-07-18T20:40:00.002-05:00

This week finds Judge Sonia Sotomayor in the middle of the job interview of a lifetime. Every U.S. Senator has pretty much accepted the fact that- in sports lingo- Judge Sotomayor, ‘controls her own destiny’. That is to say that barring some monumentally stupid remark, she is a virtual lock for the job. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee will still put her through the paces.

Ordinarily, it would be a fairly uneventful proceeding for me. But there are a couple things of interest.

A few years ago, long before President Barack Obama tapped her to become the next Supreme Court Justice, Judge Sotomayor made some comments that are coming back to haunt her. In a now infamous 2001 speech, she stated, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

It was- in retrospect- a surprisingly unwise statement for a judge with higher aspirations to make and one she is now repeatedly being asked to account for. Yet Sotomayor’s statement is one we all hear every day: women presuppose that their opinions are superior to those of men. Men believe their judgment is superior to that of women. The young assert that their opinions and views are superior to those older than them. Conservatives believe their views are superior to those of liberals and independents. And so on.

But where the law is concerned, people like Judge Judy, Judge Alex, and Judge Joe Brown tell us that a judge is supposed to be impartial, free of bias and prejudice. Opponents of the Sotomayor nomination believe that President Obama’s pick will be unable to separate herself from her experiences and values in the interpretation and adherence to the rule of law.

I would agree. In fact, I would venture to say that this is true not just of Judge Sotomayor, but of all past, present and future Justices. And not just those on the Supreme Court, but those at all other levels of office as well.

To be blunt, I believe impartiality to be…well...a myth, one that runs contrary to our very nature. And I believe there are at least three reasons why.

The outside always comes in

The acquisition of our values, beliefs, and philosophies begins at an early age and we spend the rest of our lives either confirming or rejecting the values and opinions we are exposed to as children. They define and anchor our identity- who we’ve been, who we are now, and who we hope to become. Even when we are not aware of them, our values are quietly operating in the background, influencing who we choose to associate ourselves with, where we shop, what we buy, watch, listen to, read, crave and even fear.

We are- for the most part- proud of our values and experiences. And we should be. They comprise our heritage, shape our family traditions, and connect what has come before to the ever-present now.

There should be no doubt that such things influence our decisions, in ways we are still unable to fathom. To go against the grain of our values takes a conscious, occasionally monumental effort to overcome and frequently exposes us to stigmatization and various other sanctions. It is not impossible for us to go against our values, but because we are creatures of habit who don’t like to stray far from our areas of comfort, we don’t do it often. Not if we can help it.
This would explain why I have heard so many politicians, presidential candidates, and Supreme Court nominees trumpet and showcase their personal stories: it makes them more human. It celebrates the unique qualities and characteristics that have made them who they are. It wasn’t so long ago that we were all talking about how Wall Street needed to learn a few things from Main Street, and how Washington needed more Joe Six Packs and fewer elitists incapable of relating to the everyday American. Where did that sentiment go?

We value the consistent, even application of rules for everyone. Everyone except ourselves, that is.

We believe that there should be an inherent fairness and equanimity in our approach to everything and everyone, yet we make snap judgments about people based on appearance, accent, education, status, and income all the time. And when we it is shown that our judgments are wrong, we fight tooth and nail to justify why that experience or individual was merely an exception that might bend our general rule, but not break it.

Parents often say that they raise their children exactly the same, supervisors and managers say they supervise and manage their employees in an identical manner. Judges say they decide all their cases based on its merits as opposed to the emotional arguments presented. But I believe the honest truth of the matter is that we do not. We may attempt to, but there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences. We play favorites. We craft black sheep. Right now, there are countless sons and daughters in therapy or on their own seeking to deal with the fact that their father or mother didn’t love them as much as they did a younger or older brother or sister. Right now, there are numerous lawsuits clogging the system alleging that a boss made exceptions for everyone else except them. Clearly, something isn’t connecting between what we say and what we do.

It is this disconnect that allows someone like Republican Mark Sandford to demand the resignation of Democratic President Clinton for sexual improprieties with Monica Lewinsky, but to then ask for a pass when his own are discovered (or confessed…repeatedly). It astounds me how politicians of all kinds fail to recognize, let alone admit, the blatant hypocrisy in the application of two different standards for the exact same offense- one for the members of their own party and a separate one for their opposition.

The ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality

Judge Sotomayor got into trouble because she played the ‘better than’ game. I don’t believe it was the acknowledgement that her experiences were different that raised eyebrows so much as the supposition that her experiences were better than those of white males. But this, again, is something that we all do almost daily: we engage in the game of pretending that our values and experiences- and those like us- are superior to the values and experiences of our competitors or those different from ourselves. I call it the Lake Wobegon Effect: we are all above average. And because we are all above average, our views and experiences are automatically better than anyone else’s. Although this is a flawed mindset, it does make us feel special.
The retail industry has known for quite a while that we lead with our hearts and justify our actions later with our heads. For centuries, it has developed elaborate campaigns designed to appeal not to our sense of logic and reason, but to our sense of desire. It is why one out of every three commercials aired during a football game will feature alcohol, automobiles, or both. Yes, we will always buy things that add practical value to our lives, but it’s just so much more fun to buy things that make us feel good.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe impartiality to be a noble aspiration. And no, I don’t seriously believe that it is a myth. Not entirely. But the wink and nod our justice and various other systems and institutions pay to it now is an insult to anyone with even a modest understanding of legal or political history. And it only leads to continued bitterness, resentment, and cynicism. A change is due, if not overdue.

I also believe that there should also be an equally important place for empathy and compassion in our lives. I think our world would be markedly different if we were all more compassionate and empathetic. Leaders would think twice about declaring war if they had to experience firsthand what it felt like to send their son or daughter to war and lose them in battle. Companies would be less likely to let employees go or relocate overseas if their CEOs and top management had to live on the salaries their employees averaged. Politicians and policymakers would spend more time trying to understand and advocate for all their constituents if they had to live out the results of their decisions and legislation.

Maybe that’s the true myth- that we could ever achieve such a state of existence.

As Seen on TV

2009-07-18T20:37:00.002-05:00

Written 7.7.09

Yesterday, I had a genuine moment of déjà vu.

It happened as I watched the Michael Jackson memorial procession heading to the Staples Center. When I saw the crowds of people standing on highway overpasses hoping to catch a glimpse of the hearse carrying the Gloved One and its convoy of black vehicles, I was reminded of another California highway procession from nearly 15 years before: a white Ford Bronco trailed by a dozen black and white police sedans.

The infamous OJ Simpson slow-speed chase.

I saw it on television. I know because I still remember how annoyed I was that the Knicks-Rockets playoff game was being interrupted for what had to be the worst car chase in the history of car chases. But once I started watching, I couldn’t stop. I was glued to the TV long into the night, listening to Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters give voice to my thoughts about what was going on and why it was happening.
From time to time, I would think about doing something else. Anything else, really. Maybe I should go back to the office and get some work done. Maybe I should read a book. Maybe I should go to bed and get some rest. But I was hooked. History is happening right in front of my eyes, I remember thinking, and if I stop now I’ll miss whatever happens next.

I wonder if that thought captures my generation, the MTV generation that has spent more hours in front of a television than we would ever care to admit? For us, the TV has been a friend and looking back on it, all the major national and international events of my time seem to have unfolded on it.

The Nixon resignation. The Iran hostage crisis. The Challenger explosion. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The first Gulf War. The Columbine Shootings. The Oklahoma City bombing. Diana Spencer’s wedding and funeral. The Rodney King beating, verdict and LA riots. The OJ Simpson chase and trial. The Clinton impeachment hearings. The death of JFK, Jr. The 2000 Election night coverage. The September 11 attacks. Hurricane Katrina. The Obama inauguration.

I had that same grandiose sense of history unfolding before my eyes yesterday and I was just as hooked then as I’d ever been. Only difference was, I watched this moment unfold not on television, but on my computer screen. And from what I could tell, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of other people doing the exact same thing. I know because I watched and read their moment-by-moment feedback.
Ah, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. What did we ever do before you?

I believe that a shift of sorts has occurred in the 15 years since Al Cowlings became the answer to a 1990s Trivial Pursuit question. The news is still covered, but the medium of receipt is rapidly changing. Though the television is still around, there’s now the internet and there are more of us turning to it as our first source for news than ever before. In my more cynical moments, I imagine that the internet is the technological equivalent of WalMart, coming in and slowly elbowing out the Mom & Pop media mediums. First it was radio, then the small town newspaper and now the big boys like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Next up: metropolitan television stations and cable news networks.

That’s what I think in my more cynical moments. But I’ve also witnessed any number of transitions, too. The cassette tape has replaced the 8-track, the Walkman has replaced the boom box, the iPod has replaced the Walkman, the CD has replaced the cassette tape, the DVD has replaced the VHS tape, and most recently, the digital TV signal has replaced analog.

And so it goes.

Progress is good. Everyone says so. The internet is just another link in a long chain of technological progress. I know I should probably take this latest transition in stride, yet I can’t seem to shake that small sense of foreboding I feel in the pit of my stomach.

Change is good, right? Right?

The Long Goodbye

2009-07-18T20:34:00.002-05:00

Written 7.1.09

Last week, Death easily earned the title of Hardest Working Man in Show Business.

During the week, three iconic individuals shuffled away their mortal coils to go wherever it is such people go when their time among us has come to an end. While I could always look up into the night sky and find their places in the constellation of pop stardom, their stars did not shine as brightly as they did at the height of their fame and popularity.

Each left behind a legacy of significance, although the term- much like beauty itself- lies largely in the eye of the beholder. To me, Ed McMahon was and will always be the quintessential sidekick, whereas Farrah Fawcett was among the last of the great pinup girls. And Michael? Well, Michael always defied explanation. Talented musician? Yes. Superb dancer? Absolutely. Trailblazer? Without a doubt. I have never been able to imagine MTV reaching the status it has today without thinking of the days and nights in the early 80s I spent watching and waiting for the latest Michael Jackson video event to debut. It is a nostalgia that will never wane.

The arc of Ed’s and Farrah’s degenerating health was long and their deaths, though sad, came as little surprise to me. Michael Jackson’s passing, however, was different. It hit like a supernova. There are many who have expressed discontent that the media’s coverage of Michael’s death so obviously overshadowed Farrah’s. I would submit that a person’s essence- their life’s work- cannot and should not be defined by the day they died. It is shaped instead by the days they lived and what we remember of them afterwards. And that’s a good thing. Otherwise, Mother Teresa’s unique contributions might forever be concealed by the trivial fact that she and Princess Diana died on the same day in 1997.

In spite of the suddenness of his death, I suppose I’ve been saying goodbye to Michael for several years now. I first started when the first accusation of child molestation surfaced in 1993. Although the state of California closed its criminal investigation of Michael for lack of evidence, his reputation took a major hit and would never fully recover either with me or the public at large. The eccentricities that had been interesting when I was a teenager- the hyperbaric chamber, the chimp, the changing appearance- were no longer quite as interesting. As a teenager, I could dismiss the oddities because his talent and genius were much greater. But in 1993, I was no longer a teenager and viewed through the lens of age and rationality, the eccentricities now seemed downright weird. And though Jackson was still a talented singer producing some of the best singles of his career, the questionable decisions he made in his private life could no longer be ignored.

Over the years, I’ve realized that the ability to compartmentalize and separate the personas of the public and private, of character and creed, is an adult talent. Children and teenagers tend to see the world in absolutes, whereas most adults are able to perceive and argue nature’s nuances. It is something we do for presidents and pop stars and everyone we fancy in between.

Success can be an albatross, particularly when it is achieved in youth. If, when we are children, we first meet the demons with whom we will spend the rest of our lives wrestling, Jackson’s must have been legion. But Michael’s success did not drive the demons away. If anything, it merely provided a spotlight by which he could always be found. In spite of everything Michael accomplished historically, musically, and racially, I can’t shake the belief that his was a life that could have been so much more. Instead, the Michael Jackson story is as much one of inspiration as admonition.

Death, like fire, has a way of burning away flaws and impurities and allowing us to once more embrace absolutes. In death, an icon can be remembered in ways he or she never could in life. Sainthood, reverence, and immortality are just a few such ways and I already see these labels applied selectively not only to Michael, but to Ed and Farrah as well. Perhaps the toll fame exacted in each of their lives warrants such treatment. Perhaps such treatment is something we do more for ourselves than for them. I don’t know.

What I do know is that there are three stars that no longer light my night sky, though I continue to search. Maybe one day I’ll find them.

Back in Time

2009-07-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

Somewhere along the way, probably in between the recognizance of sentience and the discovery of fire, humankind decided to begin measuring stuff. This was generally received as a good idea because without measurements, we wouldn’t know how far to go to get from where we are now to where we’d like to be. We also wouldn’t know how much detergent to add to a load of clothes to get them clean, or even whether there’s enough gas in the tank to get us to the movie theater.

I’m cool with measuring things; the measurement system works. One of the measurements I struggle with, however, is time. I don’t know if this is the way it is for everyone, but for me, time has a way of folding in on itself. My sense of time is a lot like my sense of pitch: it’s relative.

While the accepted demarcations of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years) seem to work well-enough for most, it doesn’t for me. No, I’m not saying that I’m chronically late or utterly undependable whenever the element of time is introduced. It’s more sinister than that. Time is a sworn enemy, a nemesis always looking to do me in. It’s slippery, time is, and has a tendency to get away from me. Especially when it comes to remembering what happened when. Consequently, I’ve had to develop techniques to supplement the conventional means of marking its passage.

I suppose it began when I was a child. I remember the years based on the toys I possessed or the books I read at the time. If you mention a year- 1978 perhaps- I’ll immediately relate it to a toy or book. Later- from my early teens to my early twenties- music became my mistress. I was a shy kid (sorry...that should read ‘introvert’) and music was my constant companion. As a result, I now have an almost savant-like ability to tell you the precise year a song from the 80s was released. I know everyone has a similar ability, but mine is positively freakish. I’ve had to restrain myself more than once from arguing with folks who can’t seem to recall the years “Billie Jean”, “Who Can it Be Now?”, or “Jump” were on the Top 40.

Yeah, it’s that bad.

After graduating from college and getting married a few years later, music- though still important to me- became less so. Life intervened and I quietly and unceremoniously aged out of the hip MTV and 106 & Park crowd and transitioned into the less-cool VH1 bunch. I lost an important anchor, something I’d used to help me accurately remember what happened when. These days, I can’t seem to pinpoint time very well. I’ve never been a big fan of pictures and photographs (except for maybe a three year period of time in my mid-to-late twenties), so that one’s out. Over the years, I’ve tried relying on cars, houses, apartments, jobs, and even clothes help me to remember time’s march, but they’re simply not precise enough. I need a new measurement.

Where are Doc Brown and his DeLorean when you need them?

State of the Union

2009-07-18T20:27:00.000-05:00

In May of 1999, a Republican governor told a writer from Salon.com that his secret to winning reelection at a time when most Republicans were fighting tooth and nail to hang on to their posts stemmed from a refusal to “play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another”. His gubernatorial campaign was noteworthy because he had received the endorsement of every major Democratic politician in his overwhelmingly conservative southern state. This was, to be sure, no small feat. That distinction almost certainly played a role in his subsequent election as President of the United States, perhaps as much as name recognition, a deep campaign war chest, and a resemblance to his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

Two terms later, our nation is not more united than it was before. It is as fractured and splintered as ever. If not more so. In all honesty, however, one cannot solely place the blame for our segmented society on President W’s shoulders. We were moving in that direction long before George Bush had ever even heard of Salon.

Politically, our leaders and representatives are members of increasingly polarized parties. The days in which a Republican and a Democrat could effectively draw the line between their work and their personal personas in order to sit down together for a beer at the local Washington pub after a long day spent debating the others’ principles on the floors of the House or Senate are over. Spurred by a media that seems to have abandoned its principles of ‘just the facts’ reporting in favor of providing us with their own informed take on the news, the Republican/Conservative versus Democrat/Liberal hype reminds me of the East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry of the 1990s.

And we appear to have bought into that rivalry hook, line, and sinker. Yes, there are legitimate and genuine differences between the two major parties. But to believe that the stakes of putting one party in power over another represents nothing less than the very salvation or damnation of the entire country is not only insulting, but absurd.

Racially, we’re no better off. As I’ve written previously, the great Postracial Rapture did not occur when Barack Obama was elected President; we were not swept up into a distant hereafter where race no longer matters. Instead, we must deal with such things as the aftermath of death created by an 88-year old white supremacist who decided that, like that news anchor in the movie Network, he was as mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. We have Bonnie Sweeten choosing to pull a Susan Smith to provide cover for her to take her daughter to Disneyworld. And we have a South Carolina GOP activist who decided to publicly note on a popular social networking site that a recently-escaped gorilla was no cause for concern since it was probably just an ancestral relative of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Economically, we are what John Edwards termed, “two Americas”, one of haves and one of have-nots. As a student of sociology, I’d been hearing for years that the middle class was shrinking. In this economic climate, it is not surprising that the population of the have-nots (or “have-littles”) is on the rise. But addressing the systemic problems of poverty must go beyond knee-jerk cries of socialism if we are to accomplish anything meaningful.

In the weeks and months following September 11, 2001, the country was awash in a wave of nationalism and unity unlike anything I’d ever seen before. For a memorable moment in time, we were reminded that we were all Americans, brought together by four horrific acts. We were as close to being of one mind and one spirit as possible, supportive of a leader determined to exact penance for the loss of innocent human life. Yes, the price of that unity would ultimately be the loss of civil liberties and a blow to our standing in the international community, but it sure was a sight to see so many “United We Stand” billboards and bumper stickers everywhere.

We are not a nation of uniters. We are, instead, a nation of individuals who define ourselves not by what we support, but by what we stand against. It’s a subtle, but crucial difference. It means that we rally and riot reactively, not proactively. Maybe that’s the way it’s always been; after all, the country was founded by a group of activists seeking to take a stand against a powerful British monarch.

For a democracy to be worth its salt, perhaps unity should come at a price. Here in Minnesota, deliberations over whether Al Franken or Norm Coleman should represent the people have gone on an incomprehensible seven months. But what’s the alternative? Elections like those in North Korea where a candidate (typically the candidate currently in power) receives 100% of the popular vote? We all know those elections are a joke, a farce designed to bolster some dictator’s brittle ego.

Although I do wish it were just a little easier sometimes, when all is said and done, we are doing what we must as a democracy: exercising the freedom to disagree.

The New Normal

2009-07-18T20:23:00.001-05:00

Written 6.2.09

Our minds can deceive us. I don’t know whether they mean to play tricks of perception and perspective on us, but they do. And they do so whether we’re looking through a glass darkly or a clear one straight on.

A few days ago, my Dad underwent a sextuple bypass.

I still remember getting the call. I’ve set up my Blackberry to ring or beep or buzz for just about anything from a text message to a wake up alarm, so it’s not an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. The rings are usually phone calls and typically, they’re calls from my wife, Mom, sister, friends, and even the occasional call from my 4-year-old daughter. This one was from my Mom and it was the kind of call most sons dread receiving.

“The doctor says your Dad has a few clogged arteries. He’s going to need to have a bypass either tomorrow or the day after.”

It was serious, so serious that my father had been flown to a hospital specializing in cardiac surgery and admitted that same day. Do not pass go and do not collect $200.

“Oh,” I said after a pause that felt like it was much longer than it probably was. “Let me talk to my boss.”

After 30 minutes and two conversations, I was on my way home. 12 hours, two plane flights, and a rental car drive later, I was back at the home place.

During my stay, I found myself experiencing an almost continual number of “sea changes” (the new buzzword of the year), odd moments where I would come to the realization that there was now this whole different reality within my perception that I’d either been ignoring or hadn’t been aware of in the first place.

On the whole, I tend to avoid surprises. As I’ve mentioned before, I prefer to be prepared, even for the worst-case scenario. Even if that preparation is primarily mental in nature. The night before your father goes in for a major medical procedure, the worst-case scenario is an obvious, albeit a morbid, one. Although I didn’t want to imagine losing my Dad, I knew I had to prepare myself for the possibility. That, of course, made for a very long night.

Up until about 8 years ago, I considered myself fortunate. Beyond a great-grandmother who’d passed away when I was barely a teenager, my family and friends had a funny way of staying alive. Eight years ago, that began to change. I’ve since lost a mentor, two grandparents, a nephew, and various other people I’d grown to know and love. Their losses have not always been easy for me to bear and I don’t think they should be.

The morning he underwent the procedure, I remember being struck by my father’s appearance as he lay in the hospital bed waiting for the hospital staff to come and prep him for surgery. He was still himself; he laughed, joked, and seemed quite relaxed. He told us that he loved us, told my Mom not to worry even though we all knew she would. Yet there was something different about him. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but when it hit me, it hit me all at once: the previous night, I’d been mentally picturing my Dad as I remembered him when I was a teenager. The man lying on the bed before me was decades older.

I began to think about all the people I’d lost over the past few years. Their mental pictures were younger, too. And then I started to wonder: How long do we carry around the snapshots we have of our parents from childhood? What leads us to fix on the images that we do? And how am I viewed by those I know and love?

It was an experience that, all these days later, I am still trying to wrap my head around.

Fortunately, the bypass went smoothly and my Dad is back at the home place. His recuperation seems to be going well and, if he follows doctor’s orders, should emerge with a brand new lease on life. I now have some time to allow my perspective of my Dad to expand so that I can see him not as he was when I was 16, but as he is now.

I couldn’t ask for a better Father’s Day gift than that.

The Price of a Present

2009-05-13T11:49:00.002-05:00

It’s a bit of a minor mystery.

Over the past few weeks, 15 colleges and universities have received the gift of money. Lots of it. All told, it’s amounted to $76 million dollars. Michigan State University has received the most ($10 million), while Kalamazoo College has received $1 million.

No, I am not referring to a new bailout or stimulus initiative from President Obama. I think we’ve had quite enough of those for a while, thank you. Although to be honest, the educator in me thinks it would be great if there were such an initiative. What better way to improve the long-term prospects of our economy than to blow the doors off the hinges of higher education and allow more individuals than ever before to obtain a quality education at a low or discounted price? And all as they learn how to create, manage, or work for the businesses of the 21st Century? The real estate and mortgage industry gave everyone and their dog a house and look where that led us. Why not indulge another, less-prominent part of the American Dream and give away college educations?

Anyway, there are strings attached to the gifts. First: the money has to be used to establish scholarships. Second: the recipient institution cannot make an effort to track down the donor(s).

So far, all of the schools have complied with the requests. But people have become curious and the clues and commonalities are sparse enough to spur numerous theories. Consider the facts: All of the institutions have female presidents. 14 are public institutions. The overwhelming majority are located either in the Midwest or the East Coast.

Interesting, but what does it all mean? Your guess is as good as mine.

The usual suspects have all been contacted and the appropriate denials have been issued. It’s not Oprah, Bill Gates, or Ted Turner. It’s not Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, or any of the remaining Waltons. With those bases covered, the media (specifically ABC News) has done what it usually does when they don’t have a clue: assembled a team of experts and tasked them with the development of a profile projecting the identity of the donor. Call it forensic philanthropy. Of course, part of the process means canvassing the colleges, returning to the scenes of the crimes and asking the schools what they might know about their benevolent donor(s).

But the schools have remained silent. They didn’t see anything, they didn’t hear anything, and they don’t know anything. Good for them.

In this age of war and recession, where some of us have suffered the losses of Job, it’s good to know that silent Samaritans are behind the scenes doing good works. Their efforts can and will change the courses of countless lives, destinies and maybe the country itself. And if all they ask of me is my silence, and my willingness to let a single sleeping dog (or two) slumber, then I am all too happy to comply.

Right after I say, “thank you”.

Boldly Go

2009-05-07T08:44:00.003-05:00

I blame Steven Spielberg. Or maybe Francis Ford Coppola.

In the 1970s, Hollywood became obsessed with the concept of the sequel. And why not? They were cash cows. 1975’s Jaws made so much money it was almost mandatory that it be followed by Jaws 2, Jaws 3D, and Jaws 4. Most of the time, a sequel is like a mimeograph; yes, the basic elements are all there and the document is legible, but even the most casual viewer knows it’s a copy. And a bad one at that. Outside of The Godfather II and a few other gems, sequels are rarely as good as the originals they succeed. That doesn’t stop them from making money at the box office. As a result, we have Smokey and the Bandit 3, Leprechaun 4, and Flight of the Living Dead.

Anyone who knows me knows there are two things I’m really into: lighthouses and Star Trek. The lighthouse conversation will have to wait for a day far, far away. Today, it’s all about the Trek.

Yes, I’m a geek. I grew up watching the original intergalactic swashbuckler, Captain Kirk, smirk his way through the galaxy, blow things up and bed green women. In college, I fell in love with The Next Generation because it was science fiction that could hold my attention right up to the commercial breaks. For a college student contemplating thousands of dollars of student loan debt, the idea of a society where money didn't exist was appealing.

I must have watched those episodes dozens of times. It’s a little sad to think that I have tied up vital gray matter creating and maintaining a mental compendium of Next Generation episodes, but c’est la vie. I can't tell you where my dress socks disappear to when I'm not looking, but I do know my 23rd Century.

To my wife’s dismay, other Trek incarnations cropped up and I’ve watched those as well. Some, admittedly, have been better than others. For the record, my favorite series is Deep Space Nine. I have my reasons, of course, but I’d sound ridiculous articulating them.

On Friday, the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot drops and I have been impatiently waiting like a kid counting the days ‘til Christmas. And I will be there. Oh, yes. I will boldly go.

This Trek is a prequel and apparently creates new backstory for key characters. As someone who dabbles in stringing words together on the page, the idea of a do-over can be freeing. Sometimes you just gotta scrap what came before, no matter how extensive, and start fresh. It usually turns out better.

Will Abrams succeed in creating a grittier, edgier, cooler Star Trek? And if so, what will that mean for the shows I've come to know and love?

I have no idea. Probably nothing.

One thing’s for sure: I won’t be standing in line wearing some silly costume. I may be a geek, but even I have limits.

This Is the Way

2009-05-01T15:05:00.001-05:00

It’s getting a little difficult keeping track of all the different ways I could die.

As a child, teenager, and even through a good chunk of my twenties, I believed I was bulletproof. I swallowed thumbtacks and chicken bones (long stories, those two), shook off colds, sprains, and broken bones as though they were nothing. I could run for miles at a time and enjoy the feeling of walking home drenched in sweat. I could burn the candle at both ends, grab a couple hours of sleep and wake up ready to do it all over again.

Those were heady, hearty days.

Now, in the latter part of my thirties and with a birthday around the corner, I must accept a new reality: threats exist everywhere.

Some are internal. My own body has the potential of becoming a turncoat. It’s the cycle of life, I guess. As a result, I now do things I never thought would be such a concern when I was younger. Things like eating vegetables, consuming vitamins, supplements, and taking hard looks at food labels.

Other threats are external. In the 80s, AIDS was the bogeyman and there were all kinds of wild myths and rumors about how it could be contracted. Over 20 years later, though, AIDS is barely mentioned. It’s still out there, but has fallen a few notches on the list of urgent national issues. Who needs AIDS when there’s Kim Jong Il?

Last week, I read that an asteroid will come so close to Earth we’ll be able to see it without a telescope in 2029. There are mixed opinions on whether the rock will miss us entirely since there is a 1 in 500 chance of it striking our planet. I found it somewhat humorous when an astronomer noted that although the odds were slim, they had never been worse. Yet another way I could die.

In recent years, I’ve been introduced to flesh-eating bacteria, SARS, Avian Flu. Now we have Swine Flu. Funny how something you’d never heard of before can quickly become all you hear about no matter where you turn. I suppose I already knew pigs could get sick. I didn’t know they could pass viruses on to humans. This knowledge doesn’t particularly improve my quality of life. It mostly means reading emails from University Health Services telling me to wash my hands and stay home if I’m sick. I suppose I knew that already, too, but I’ll play along.

I try to take all these health threats seriously, but with each new potential epidemic, a part of me grows a little more cynical. Kind of like that old, hardened Gulf Coast resident who knows a hurricane is coming but refuses to leave because they’ve lived through so many others.

It’s been a while, so maybe we’re due an epidemic. Or pandemic. I just can’t bring myself to believe that the way the world ends is not with a bang, but a sneeze.

The Bias of Beauty

2009-05-01T15:01:00.001-05:00

We all do it. Although we might say we don’t, the truth of the matter is that we all make judgments about one another based on appearance. For proof, we need only look to our national fascination with Susan Boyle, the latest YouTube and Britain’s Got Talent singing talent.

Without a doubt, the woman can most certainly sing. But it isn’t merely her voice that’s garnering attention. It’s the observation that such an unassuming- both in personality and appearance- woman can not only sing, but sing well. I would expect such a thing from a panel of judges on an audition show; they are, after all, television personalities paid to reveal their thoughts on talent and appearance. In the television industry, appearance can be cold, hard currency. Talent is secondary because if there’s anything Dancing with the Stars has shown us, it’s that given enough time and training, anyone can be taught to do just about anything. Not everyone can be attractive. Even the stars have difficulty managing their public appearance.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Beauty is currency in just about every area of life and we are our own private Simon Cowells, issuing split-second opinions about everything and everyone around us.

The Susan Boyle phenomenon is fascinating to me because it challenges an assumption regarding appearance: the more attractive a person is perceived to be, the more likely we assume the person to be kind, good, and talented. Conversely, the less attractive a person is perceived to be, the more likely it is that we will assume that person to be cruel, bad, and untalented. It is, of course, a stereotype and it is one that has been studied extensively. I call it the Beauty Bias.

Would there be as much discussion about Ms. Boyle if she was perceived to be attractive? Maybe. Yet the cynic in me tends to think that the excitement would have died down long ago, maybe wouldn’t have even reached the heights it has if this was only an international conversation about ability. But let’s face it: the world is full of talented individuals, most of whom will never get the opportunity to showcase their abilities.

No, I suspect that there are a number of things at play, things I believe go beyond appearance. Here’s my take on just a few of them.

One: Ms. Boyle reminds us that talent can come in the most unlikely of packages. This isn’t some new revelation; ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is a phrase most kids are well-acquainted with long before they graduate high school. The vast majority of us simply choose not to live by it. Maybe that’s because of our Society of the Instant. There’s so much instant information coming at us from so many different sources that we have to create ways to filter out what is or isn’t credible or important, lest we be consumed by useless, unimportant data from unreliable sources.

I find it fitting that the first video played on the fledgling MTV in 1981 was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’; indeed, it was not long before image did triumph over voice. We can debate whether that was a good or a bad thing for the music industry, but all these years later, it is refreshing to see a singer’s voice triumph over her image.

Two: Ms. Boyle’s story, I think, touches on the belief that there are a lot of square peg people wedged into uncomfortable round holes. It’s no secret that more than half of us hate our jobs, particularly in today’s economic environment. How many potential opera singers are out there living quiet, ordinary lives as plumbers or insurance agents? I suspect that there are more than we may ever know. But it is the desire to break out of the box of the ordinary that compels people to audition for shows like American Idol or America’s Got Talent, to rush tryouts for America’s Next Top Model when they can’t sing a lick to save their lives or walk a runway if their very soul depended on it. On some basic level, we know we’re meant to do more than we are currently doing. We are Superman masquerading as Clark Kent, biding our time for a clarion call that may never come.

Finally, Susan Boyle highlights the importance of pursuing our dreams. If a self-admitted “short and plump” 47-year old Scottish woman with bushy eyebrows can stand in front of judges and an audience of people she’s never met before to act on her life-long goal of performing for the Queen of England, then maybe there’s a Second, Third, or even Fourth Act in store for the rest of us as well.

And so, whether she’s aware of it or not, Susan has become our latest feel-good story. In the same way that the plights of guests on morning and afternoon talk shows help us feel better about the quality of our own lives, Ms. Boyle makes us feel good about the quality of our own potential.

Lost in Transliteration

2009-04-22T17:36:00.000-05:00

The birth of a buzzword is probably a simple thing.

This one, I would guess, was no different. It likely began in the heart as an aspiration of the way things could be. In the mind, the word gathered weight, substance. It was a seed seeking fertile ground where it might take root and, finding sunlight and sustenance, begin to sprout. Spoken, the word received validation and bloomed. As it spread, it became something else, something more. A buzzword.

The word? Postracial society.

I’ve heard the term often enough. During those first frenetic days when the media was still grappling with the significance of the nation’s first Black President, some pundit would invariably ask: Isn’t a Black leader of the free world proof enough that we’ve gotten over our issues with race?

I’d like to believe that. I want to believe it. But wanting to believe a thing does not a reality make. I submit that we do not yet live in a postracial society, if only for one simple reason: people say the darndest things.

The 2008 Presidential campaign was remarkable in so many ways. The Democratic Party nominated its first African American to contend for the highest office in the country. Barack Obama proved that vision and charisma could be enough to bring unlikely voters back to the booths again. Not to be outdone, the Republican Party nominated its first woman as a Vice Presidential candidate. Sarah Palin, a little-known Governor from the state of Alaska. energized a listless group of supporters and rivaled- some would argue that even exceeded- her running mate’s ability to generate headlines and excitement.

And, of course, there was Hilary Clinton, the first woman to receive 18 million votes in a Democratic caucus and primary season.

For me, it was the first election in a long while where it didn’t seem as though we were making a President of the perceived lesser of two evils. Party and policy differences aside, these were individuals whose care for our nation was intelligently articulated in ways that inspired and motivated.

But it was a long, grueling process, one that strained the limits of respect and civility and shone a bright, unflinching light on the myriad differences within our electorate on issues of policy, vision for the future, and race. It was a campaign season I don't think we'll forget anytime soon.
What I won’t forget are the numerous statements I heard about race.

A random guy off the street told a CNN reporter this: “The only change a black man can make for me are for the dollar bills in my pocket.” Old people say the darndest things.

I heard Jeremiah Wright say he believed HIV was created by the U.S. government as a tool of genocide against people of color. Pastors say the darndest things.

Geraldine Ferraro had this to contribute: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” Former Democratic running mates from the 80s say the…you get the point.

Did all those sentiments about race simply fade away after Election Day? No. They’re all still out there, hidden (or not-so-hidden) beneath a very sensitive surface.

Whether you believe the statements or not, I think we can all agree that they are not the words one might expect to hear in a postracial society.

With Barack Obama’s election, the country has taken a visible step towards the goal. The journey, one that our national conscience has been walking for some time now, is far from complete. All that has come before has been a painful but necessary prelude for what is to come.

I recall these quotes not because I believe that a postracial society is beyond our reach. Achieving such a community, however, will take effort, resolve, and time. There have been and still are obstacles standing in the way - systems, institutions, and people who would hinder the pursuit of progress. Though they represent a kind of Old Guard, they are not all old. Some are actually quite young. Some haven’t been born yet.

If there is a future where this undiscovered utopia exists, then those of us still alive may have the toughest time living in it. There are so many ways in which intent, delivery, and reception can get screwed up.

Earlier this month, Texas State Representative Betty Brown, while addressing a member of the Organization of Chinese American on an issue of voter identification legislation, said the following: “Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese- I understand it’s a rather difficult language- do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”

She went on to say, “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Though Representative Brown maintains that her remarks were not racially motivated (see the video here), the fact remains that even a polite suggestion to change one's name- even for official purposes- doesn’t seem all that postracial to me. While I can imagine Arnold Schwarzenegeer as Robert Johnson or Rod Blagojevich as Steve Green, something important gets lost in the translation.

Politicians, it would seem, say the darndest things, too.

By Any Other Name

2009-04-22T17:32:00.001-05:00

There are optimists walking among us, people who see the silver lining in every cloud, never look a gift horse in the mouth, and always see the world in bright, cheerful color.

I am not one of them.

I operate under Murphy’s Law. I believe that if there’s something bad that can happen, it usually finds a way to happen…and chances are good that I’ve already imagined its occurrence. Countless times. Like that cheesy Seth Green movie a decade ago, it would seem that I have an imagination intent on moonlighting for evil.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality test that uses neat little acronyms to categorize how we interact with others, make decisions, and perceive the world. I have my own little acronym to describe my way of thinking. I am a WCSG: Worst Case Scenario Guy.

It’s hard to be a WCSG. It takes skill to dream up the worst possible thing that can happen. Plus, there are drawbacks: never being able to tell people that you knew things- bad things- were going to happen before they did, the inability to enjoy an episode of Law and Order because the twists failed to surprise, laughing inappropriately during the supposedly scary parts of horror flicks. Years ago, a friend told me that if I were a Winnie-the-Pooh character, I’d be Eeyore. Perhaps. Nevertheless, I’ve learned to live with my ability and even accept it as a gift of sorts.

I’m not always right. My small stock of Y2K supplies proved to be utterly unnecessary. My 4-year old remains in good health and has no broken bones (that sound you hear would be me knocking on wood). The country hasn’t gone to hell in a large, uncomfortable basket.

But there’s one scenario that hasn’t entirely resolved itself.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was awakened by a ringing cell phone. My wife worked for a large reinsurance company in a building that, unbeknownst to her, would soon be evacuated because it served as Lockheed Martin’s headquarters. Judging from the missed call counter on my cell, she’d tried to reach me several times. When I finally did answer, I was…grumpy.

“Why are you calling me?” I croaked.

“Are you watching?”

“Watching what?”

“Turn on the TV.”

“What channel?”

“Any,” she said. And that was how I learned of the attack on the Towers. I watched in awe. I watched in fear. I watched.

At the time, my wife and I were living in New Jersey, a stone’s throw across the Delaware and Philadelphia where I had returned for Grad School 2.0 (a long story ultimately summed up in another nifty acronym: ABD) at Penn. The City was less than two hours up the Turnpike from where we lived and we’d driven there many times.

As details emerged, I remember thinking that if these attacks were the opening salvo of some undeclared war by some unknown country, it wouldn’t be long before the U.S. became one giant war zone. There’d be suicide bombings on street corners, biochemical warfare, snipers hiding on rooftops. Martial law would reign as the social contract, the contract that says a person should be able to go shopping at the local mall without getting blown up or poisoned, was shattered.

Though the possibilities were limitless, I tried to imagine them all.

History hasn’t unfolded exactly as I projected and I’m pleased. Yet I find myself revisiting those thoughts in light of the recent shootings in Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York. Are we really that far from a war zone when one has to be concerned about getting attacked on the job, in their home, church, post office, school, or convenience store? Not really.

(Side note: And why is it that so many who want to End It All feel the need to rack up a body count along the way? Why can’t they just off themselves and let that be the end of it?)

In my opinion, these folks- though Americans, all- are as much a terrorist as any member of al-Qaeda. The 9/11 terrorists succeeded- for a time- in changing the way we traveled, the way we looked at the world and our place in it. This new crop is just as dangerous and these days, recruiting is good. Whether the impetus is a lousy economy or job market, a fear that President Obama will take away their precious guns, or a urinating dog, the numbers of the disgruntled seem to be growing. And they are succeeding where al-Qaeda has struggled: to change the very manner in which we live while destroying the basic trust we have for one another as Americans and human beings.

Even for me, that seems startling.

Seeing Red

2009-04-07T15:30:00.001-05:00

When I was a child, the world seemed a simple place. Right was incontrovertible, the ends never justified the means, and good always triumphed over evil. As I’ve grown older, however, time has taught me that right can be relative, the ends occasionally do justify the means, and evil is more formidable than I ever imagined.

This knowledge, while it’s given me a modicum of wisdom, hasn’t always made me happy. There have been times when the knowledge has made me flat-out mad. These days, there seems to be a lot of mad people out there. In fact, it only takes three little letters to cause me to see red: AIG

American International Group (AIG) has- in my opinion- become a catalyst of sorts, a symbol toward which the common man can focus our considerable frustration for everything that’s wrong right now. I think the reasons so many of us are upset about AIG come down to our basic concepts of fairness, morality, and justice. AIG violates them.

The first concept is that of a meritocracy. Growing up, I was told that America was a country where one’s achievements and talents would directly influence their advancement in life. In a meritocratic society, only the best and the brightest would ascend to positions of leadership because only the best and brightest would be elected or hired. In business, only the best and most profitable companies would continue to survive and thrive. There was a large element of personal responsibility attached to meritocratic principles. If you were a worker bee or a drone, it was because you didn’t apply yourself enough in school or on the job. If your company failed, it was because your product, sales force, or management group wasn’t good enough to capture the market share essential in ensuring its longevity. The ultimate responsibility for success or failure rested with the individual or company. And that was comforting.

Not so with AIG. AIG reminds us that life, like high school, is a popularity contest. We’re told that certain banks are ‘too big to fail’ and that losing them would throw the country into a deep, dark depression. They are the jocks you knew from school that sat at the back of the classroom and refused to study, refused to participate and continually fail tests. But they’ve never been benched, always pass class with a D and continue to play week in and week out. The meritocracy concept doesn’t apply to them because the rules bend for them.

And then there’s this retention bonus stuff. I know the bonuses account for less than 1% of the $170 billion recently given to the company (not that I know how the other 99% is being spent) and I know the company had contracts with these employees, but there’s something questionable about giving performance bonuses to employees within a company that missed the mark in so many areas. Even when there were employees, units, and divisions that did great jobs. Sorry, Mr. DeSantis. While I acknowledge your hard work and understand the points you make in your now famous resignation letter, I still don’t believe you’re entitled to receive a taxpayer-financed bonus, contract notwithstanding. That’s not fair.

Finally, there’s the concept of capitalism itself. I learned about supply and demand, the difference between a bull and bear market, and the point of the stock market in my 10^th grade Economics, Business, and Free Enterprise course. I loved that class. It’s easy to understand why some folks make a religion of the market: it is a kind of mysterious force guiding the fortunes of the masses. Fortune and favor, tragedy and devastation are meted out almost arbitrarily, though there is always a reason for its actions, even when those reasons cannot be totally understood.

The market was supposed to able to correct and take care of itself. But where AIG is concerned, even that concept is suspended out of fear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt told us that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. But if the past 8 years have taught us anything, fear can be an extremely big motivator.

Only time will tell.

Heroes, Villains, and Victims

2009-04-01T13:48:00.000-05:00

About two weeks ago, I got into a fight.

Well, not a fight so much as a disagreement. It happened on Facebook, so it was really nothing more than a few concise messages left on one another’s “walls”.

How did it begin?

I’d joined a group (FB is big on groups) whose sole purpose was to protest the existence and request the removal of another group called, ‘Soldiers are NOT heroes’. A friend saw my status update and asked why I would ever participate in such anti-democratic nonsense. Why, he asked, would I ever want to prevent others from exercising free speech?

Although he was correct in his advice to simply avoid the offending site, I told my friend that my action was an equally democratic expression of speech: I happen to think that soldiers are heroes. This is not a stretch for me since, like Forrest Gump’s Lieutenant Dan, I come from a military family. But I am neither idealistic nor naïve in my belief. I am fully aware that while our armed forces are responsible for doing quite a bit of good both in our nation and around the world, some of the greatest atrocities of the past 100 years were committed by uniformed men who justified their actions under the guise of ‘just following orders’.

My friend and I had a couple back and forths (at one point, he told me that if I really did believe that being a soldier, in and of itself, made one a hero then I was truly lost) before we agreed to disagree. No harm, no foul.

But the exchange has stayed with me. I keep thinking about the idea of heroes and villains. It is said that one man’s heaven is another man’s hell. A variation says that one man’s hero is another man’s villain. I tend to think that one man’s villain is another man’s victim.

There isn’t a lot of agreement on the subject of modern day heroes. Maybe because no one- beyond their own private fantasies, that is- sets out to become one. There is no Hero College or Heroes, Inc. seeking applications or resumes. We like to believe that, given the right circumstance, everyone has an inner hero who will rise to the challenge. I suppose this explains why we give the heroes we do agree on such extraordinary exposure. Witness Chelsey Sullenberger, the media-crowned Hero of the Hudson. I doubt anyone would argue that a pilot who managed to spare the lives of 155 passengers by landing an engineless plane in the middle of the Hudson River wasn’t a hero.

Villains, however, are a more complicated subject, whether in the movies, on TV, in books and especially the comics. Nearly every guy has a Bond villain or two within just yearning to breathe free and utter a few choice quotes (No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to…) given the flimsiest of excuses.

We make lists of our Top 10 villains every time a particularly villainous villain (yeah, I know that’s grammatically questionable) comes along. That doesn’t happen with heroes. Once they’ve fulfilled their mission, we tend to forget them. Villains, however, can arouse our patriotic spirit, bring us together and unite us against a common enemy long after the hero is gone. We need villains, but heroes? Meh.

Can heroes survive in a gray world where the lines are so blurred and it’s so much easier (and fun) to get excited about villains? I wonder. And if they can, how long before they begin to look identical to the villains?

Personally, I believe we need more heroes. And not just the larger than life, save-a-person-from-a-fire kind, either. No, I’m referring to ordinary heroes- people willing to volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, do the right thing when no one’s watching, and do the jobs, as Mr. Sullenberger would say, they were trained to do. Whether we call them heroes or not, we’re all just a little better off because of their efforts.

Update – I just learned that the FB group I mentioned was removed. The one I joined has been renamed ‘Do You Believe Soldiers Are Heroes?’, and touts itself as a place for ‘fair debate and discussions about the armed forces’.

It's a Start

2009-04-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

A couple months ago, I did the unthinkable. I created a Facebook account. My wife had amassed a following of several hundred friends on hers and was always telling me about the latest person to befriend her.

“You’d like it,” my wife would say to me in my bFB (before Facebook) days.

“I didn’t like high school when I was there,” I’d scoff. “Why would I want to relive it?”

“You could connect with your college friends,” she’d say.

“I’m in contact with everyone I want to be connected to from college.”

One day, though, I finally gave in. Truth be told, it’s not so bad. I’ve reconnected with people I haven’t thought about in years, decades even. And I’ve made new friends. Change can be good.

Facebook was a voluntary change for me. Recent circumstances have forced us all to deal with involuntary change. It’s not nearly as easy as setting up a social network account; involuntary change can be painful. Yet it can also drag us down paths we’ve known we should have started down years ago.

Change agent: Oil and gas prices

12 months ago, oil prices were on a march to $150 a barrel and companies like Exxon were enjoying successive quarters of unprecedented profit. And why not? Gas prices were the highest they’d ever been and were moving higher. Wall Street was speculating that our national and global demand for oil would only increase now that China was in the game. The turmoil in the Middle East was clearly not going to end any time soon.

But then something happened.

We decided to change. People began to carpool, take the bus, drive less, learn about hypermiling, and buy hybrid cars. As a result, the nation’s consumption of oil gradually inched downward. It wasn’t a big change, but it was a start. I still remember how thrilled I was to fill up the tank of my rental car in Houston this past Christmas to the tune of $1.36 a gallon. I couldn’t remember the last time gas prices were so low. I nearly cried.

Change agent: A failing economy

We are a nation of consumers who proudly spend more than we keep. In direct contrast to countries like Japan where 7-10 percent is the accepted minimal norm, the average U.S. family savings percentage has been in the negative for quite some time now.

But then the economic bottom fell out and nest eggs took significant hits. Thanks to charlatans like Bernie Madoff, a few were even wiped out entirely. Several senior citizens have reluctantly come to the realization that the bar for retirement has been moved a little higher.

The real estate industry, the force propping up the economy for so long, faltered and then fell flat on its face. I can remember when I was in financial advisor hell a few years ago attending business network meetings. The group’s realtor would tell us that houses, unlike stocks, were safe investments. She would tell us about the latest CNBC interview she’d watched and pass out magazine articles. In her CNBC-validated world, there was no stinkin’ bubble.

But those double-digit gains were simply too good to be true. The housing bubble, much like the ‘dot-com’ bubble that preceded it, was quite real after all. I couldn’t help but feel vindicated thinking of her as I watched John Stewart give Jim Cramer a public drubbing last week on The Daily Show.

We have been forced to change. Our savings rate, now at 3-4 percent, is still small. But it’s a start.

Change agent: Historic unemployment

We have more unemployed people in our country than we did a year ago and we all know someone who has lost their job. Our current national unemployment rate hasn’t been seen since Reagan’s early years in office. In fact, there are so many jobless that traffic congestion has visibly decreased across the country.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that more than 80% of those laid off since 2007 have been men. This means that the roles in families where the husband was the primary breadwinner and the wife stayed at home to take care of the family have reversed. Men are now asking for appreciation for what they do in the home and women are asking for recognition for the amount of time they spend outside the home. It’s like that show Wife Swap. Minus the voice-over.

But even in this, something is starting to happen. Children are spending more time with their fathers. Some families are having conversations about male and female roles. Husbands and wives are talking about how they can support one another no matter who does what.

I think it is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. Or at least a start.

I am NOT a role model

2009-04-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

It’s hard to be a young celebrity these days. You have fame, fortune, and privilege at precisely the time when you’re least capable mentally or emotionally of managing them responsibly. Plus, there’s always paparazzi lurking around to make sure your every step is photographed, recorded, and critiqued. It’s a sweet deal and generally works well when you’re doing things right, but can be a nuisance when you aren’t. Here are a few of the more recent and noteworthy mistakes (some are much bigger than others):

· Michael Phelps posed for a picture while holding a bong during a visit to the University of South Carolina. Kelloggs, as a result, chose not to renew its endorsement contract with him. They felt that the photograph was not consistent with their image.

· Miley Cyrus made a few fashion choices that raised eyebrows. She has yet to meet a camera she didn’t like.

· Pop singer Chris Brown became embroiled in a domestic battery case following an alleged altercation with his girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna. His contract with Wrigley’s gum was suspended, pending legal proceedings.

In each case, it wasn’t long before someone popped the big question: should these folks still be role models to children? It is a familiar, if ancient debate.

As a college administrator, I recognize and understand the importance of role models. They help to validate, motivate, challenge and inspire. Role models encourage us to dream big and pursue our personal potential. A role model says, “Follow me. I know the way to where you want to go and I’ve been there. If I did it, you can.”

Most of us think it a good idea for children to have role models. Unfortunately, we don’t teach them how to think critically about role models. We don’t teach them that role models have feet of clay and make just as many (if not more) mistakes as we regular folks do in our own lives. We don’t teach them that there are lessons to be learned in the failures and missteps of our personal heroes. And we don’t teach them that- like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy- our mental picture and accompanying expectations simply aren’t realistic or even real.

No, those lessons come only with age, exposure and experience. Or so we’d like to think.

In 1993, Charles Barkley did a commercial for Nike in which he proclaimed that he was not a role model. In no uncertain terms, he boldly told the world that his only job was to ‘wreak havoc on the court’. Barkley reminded us that role modeling was the task of parents and not power forwards.

He was right, of course. Parents should be our first, best models of behavior. Any parent, however, can point out the flaw in this line of logic. They will tell you that their influence in the life of a child waxes and wanes, seemingly at random. In a world where fathers imprison daughters in basement cellars and where stepmothers lock stepsons in bathrooms for a couple years, that’s probably a good thing; some parents flat-out suck at it.

Though Barkley was right, I always took issue with his message. Influence is not diminished by way of vehement denial or reluctance to acknowledge its presence. One doesn’t get to pick and choose what a fan will remember and imitate. Like it or not, celebrity behavior- whether bad or good- is recorded because it sells magazines, captures viewers, and fills stadiums and arenas.

And on some deep and secret level, I think maybe we want to believe the myth. Maybe we want to believe that the people we watch, whose CDs we buy, and whose books we read have discovered some small portion of the so-called secret to living a fulfilling and problem-free life. Maybe we want to believe that the Tooth Fairy really exists.

The unfortunate truth is that they don’t. And that’s made clear every time one of these guys make a mistake.

It seemed like a good idea

2009-03-19T10:18:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, the state of Nebraska enacted a Safe Haven law permitting parents- without fear of prosecution- to drop children off at approved hospitals throughout the state. As is frequently the case with such laws, its initial intent was beneficial: to curb and hopefully eliminate newborn abandonments. Every state in the U.S. has a safe haven law of some kind on the books.

Nebraska’s law contained one minor difference. It used the word “child” instead of “newborn” or “infant”. Apparently, a few senators were concerned about arbitrary age limits and felt that “child” was a more acceptable word.

The substitution would make all the difference in the world, because when theory was put into practice, consequences that hadn’t been fully anticipated arose. Parents from other states who’d had it up to here their troublesome teenagers decided to take a road trip to Nebraska. One Nebraska parent took her 14-year old to a police station.

The child was refused. Police stations were not on the state-approved drop off list.

One of the most shocking- and sad- cases involved a father who decided to surrender 9 of his 10 children (whose ages ranged from 20 months to 17 years) to a hospital in Omaha. When asked how he could do such a thing, the man said that he could no longer cope. He was unemployed, overwhelmed, and his wife of 17 years had died of a brain aneurysm shortly after delivering their youngest child.

The stories piled up. Saturday Night Live ran a skit. Scrutiny of Nebraska’s new law intensified. All told, 34 children were abandoned before the Nebraska legislature would propose a rewrite. A law that had once been a vanguard acquired a distinction of a different kind- it now imposed one of the strictest age limits in the land. Under the new revision, infants no older than 3 days of age could be left at a drop-off point.

A few news items have caused me to reevaluate Nebraska’s initial law and to contemplate whether those senators knew something the rest of us didn’t.

There is, of course, the story of Josef Fritzl. You may recall Fritzl as the (now) 73-year old man who decided it would be neat to abduct his 18-year-old daughter and keep her in the basement of his house for 24 years, repeatedly raping and impregnating the poor girl. She bore 7 children.

A safe haven law probably wouldn’t have made much difference; Fritzl lived in Austria, after all. Moreover, he certainly did not want to give up his daughter.

But such bizarre stories don’t just happen in Europe. Last week in Florida, a 16-year old boy recently escaped from a bathroom he’d been confined to for nearly three years by his adoptive mother and her boyfriend. The boy, who weighed a mere 111 pounds when the authorities showed up, had endured a lot over the past three years. His body was a veritable roadmap of scratches, scars, oozing wounds, and a broken arm from his last beating. Nebraska’s initial law could have saved this teenager from years of neglect and abuse.

I used to think that Cinderella was a simple fairy tale told to young children to pass the time. In truth, it is just that- a fable. Cinderella had it easy.

The Silencing of a Lamb

2009-03-16T09:41:00.002-05:00

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. In few places is this more apparent than morning radio. There’s rarely silence on a morning radio show and when there is, it’s usually the result of a mistake.

Not that long ago, I used to equate the radio with music (much like I used to equate MTV and VH1 with music videos). But as I’ve grown older, my listening tastes have broadened. When I turn on the radio now, it’s generally because I want to hear conversation or discussion about topics of the day or political issues. I am fascinated with hearing others articulate their thoughts and positions, even when they run counter to my own.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned to like (and even look forward to) morning radio. Since I spend a lot of commute time in my car these days, I depend on radio for news, entertainment and diversion. Sometimes all three at once.

And it is fairly predictable; there’s a lot of talking. That used to annoy me in my teens and twenties, but no longer. You see, I’ve discovered the drama of radio. Every now and then, things get just a little unpredictable. Every now and then, a morning show will unexpectedly peel away its shiny, happy veneer of harmonious conversation and good-natured ribbing to reveal differences in personality and perspective. The moments- as rare as they might be- allow me to hear who the person(s) behind the microphone really is, what they’re made of, and even who they think I am.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, a strange thing happened. I was listening to the radio and the show host and his morning minions were recounting the events of the weekend: the latest in the Chris Brown-Rihanna saga, the upcoming awards show, Madonna’s latest reinvention/conversion to…whatever. Typical banter.

And then things took a turn. It might have started with the announcement that Bin Laden had- like Tupac from the grave- released a new album. Or perhaps something else I can no longer remember. What I do recall, however, was one of the minions randomly asking the group if they’d heard about the guy in Buffalo, the one who founded a Muslim TV station and-

“Don’t go there,” the host said abruptly.

If I’d been a dog, my ears would have perked up. I watch Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski each weekday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Consequently, I can smell morning show conflict coming a mile away.

“What? I was just-“

“I said don’t go there,” the host repeated, this time a little more sternly.

“But this guy cut-“

“No. We’re not going to talk about that. What we are going to do is take a quick commercial break and come right back.” There was a short pause- a silence if you will- and then an ad for a local community college started up, followed by a second spot, then a third.

What was that all about? I kept asking myself in the seconds that followed. I was both excited and stunned.

The morning show minion was referring to something that I, too, had seen on the news while getting dressed that morning. Muzzammil Hassan, the founder of a Muslim TV station in Buffalo, a station specifically launched to counter negative stereotypes about Muslims and the Muslim lifestyle had been arrested for killing his wife. Manner? Decapitation. With a sword. I think I can omit the ‘alleged’ stipulation here because Mr. Hassan personally visited a Buffalo police station to report his wife’s death.

It’s no wonder the morning show minion wanted to bring the story up; the possibilities for conversation were almost limitless and the irony of the scenario alone could easily fill a few segments.

Unfortunately, there was no further mention of the topic that day and to my knowledge, it hasn’t come up since. Perhaps the host thought the mere mention of the beheading- even as a news item- would plunge the show down the bleak road of generalizations and negative stereotypes about Muslim culture and beliefs. After all, how much intellectual discourse can you expect from those who listen to a radio station that plays Britney Spears, Beyonce, T.I., Lady Gaga and a handful of others ad infinitum (outside of the morning show, that is)? Or maybe the host was mentally picturing riots not unlike those that swept through Europe and the Middle East after the publication of a series of Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad a few years back. Radio, much like the local newspaper, is a dying medium and such a scandal might just push the local station over the edge into the abyss.

I may never learn the real reason for what happened, but I do think an opportunity was lost in the station’s brief silence. And, in the long run, that might have been a mistake.

On the other hand, the morning show minion could have just been a moron.

Guns & God

2009-02-24T09:10:00.000-06:00

Barack Obama got it wrong.

As a presidential candidate, Senator Obama found himself in hot water over remarks he made about guns, religion, and the people of Pennsylvania. He said, ‘…it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.’

What he had hoped would be an insightful statement about how people cope when they feel abandoned by their government was lost, drowned out by the furor over what was perceived as a statement of arrogance and elitism. For the next few days, network TV’s talking (bobble)heads went into overdrive, endlessly debating whether these were the words of yet another outsider attempting to tell regular folk how they should live their lives. The other candidates couldn’t wait to join in, of course, each seeking to build up their (and I cringe to use this term even now) “Joe Six-Pack” street cred and capture what was perhaps President G.W. Bush’s most attractive attribute as a candidate and Commander-in-Chief.

Not surprisingly (because it happens every time a Democrat is elected President), gun sales in the days and weeks leading up to President Obama’s inauguration skyrocketed. It would seem that even in the harshest of economic times, we love our guns. Some even seek the right to bring them into church.

The issue of guns in church isn’t a new one. It’s been under debate in a number of states for a number of years now. However, the Arkansas House of Representatives recently took a first step in making it a reality.

The prospect- to say the least- is a little unsettling.

Church should be the place people go to worship and seek spiritual edification. I shouldn’t have to wonder whether some random guy off the street or former congregation member is going to wander in one Wednesday evening or Sunday morning and start shooting up the place like a saloon in the Old West. I should be able to worship without worry, without concern for whether the usher or person next to me packing a piece can keep a cool head in a crisis. Church should be the place people go if they are at the end of their rope and need to find a little peace and purpose.

All too often, however, this is not the case. A stream of seemingly ongoing offense and endless scandal across the board regardless of brand, denomination, or affiliation has made the church as likely a place of retribution as contribution.

And that’s truly unfortunate.

Though I am not currently a gun owner, I’m not a jumpy guy around them. From an early age, I knew where my Dad kept his guns in the house. Also, I come from a military family; my father and two of my uncles were career Army men. There exists among the three of them a combined total of 70+ years of service to this nation. Some saw tours of duty in Vietnam and returned to their families changed men, yet still served for decades afterwards. My sister was in JROTC in high school, ROTC in college, and was a Captain in the Army before retiring a few years ago. No, I am not averse to guns or gun ownership. One day, I’ll stop talking about it and finally have my friend Cindy teach me how to shoot. The skill will almost certainly come in handy right around the time my daughter becomes a teenager.

Yet I can’t help thinking that something gets a little lost in the translation when we Christians advocate relying on the Bible and God’s awesome power on the one hand, but say that it’s okay for practically anyone with a permit to bring a gun into His House on the other. Matthew 6:3 comes to mind.

Perhaps my sentiment would change if I or a church member carrying a concealed weapon were to use a gun to save a member of my family’s life. Perhaps. But it’s equally possible that the person seeking to save me might also unintentionally kill me. If the concept of friendly fire is a reality for our military- the finest and most highly trained in the world - then I suppose it should also be a reality for my church in Lakeville, Minnesota, too.

Now that this particular Pandora’s Box has been opened, it cannot be closed. Guns in church- even to save lives- will only soothe the symptom at best. And maybe that’s all we can ask of a gun. But what about curing the condition? What about more outreach to those suffering (and there are a great many these days), more forgiveness, more compassion, and less judgment? “Never leave a man behind” is a common military creed. We should all strive to follow that creed whether we’re in the Army of the United States or the Army of God.

No, the problem isn’t that people cling to their guns and religion in times of trouble. It’s that they don’t cling to them hard (or long) enough.

The Curious Case of Nadya Suleman

2009-02-13T10:20:00.002-06:00

I love a good mystery. I have since I was a child. I still wonder whether Oswald was the lone gunman, if Amelia Earhart will ever be found, and what really happened in Roswell, New Mexico on July 7, 1947. Nothing keeps me humble like knowing that there are still so many things I don’t understand.

These days, I can always count on the news media to bring me new things to ponder. My latest mystery involves Nadya Suleman, the woman who gave birth to octuplets last month. When the story initially broke, I marveled at this particularly rare occurrence. But that feeling of wonderment quickly shifted to bewilderment and bewilderment morphed into disbelief and disbelief into something else entirely: curiosity.

Curiosity is an essential element of all good mysteries. Curiosity is what compels us to read books by Sue Grafton and play board games named Clue and watch television shows called Lost.

Lost is perhaps one of my favorite indulgences. It is a serial drama about a group of plane crash survivors who live on a remote island. The characters have hidden, intertwined pasts and strange things tend to happen to them on this odd island. While Lost is a compelling (and albeit confusing) drama, it is also a mystery and with any good mystery, there are always questions.

In the Lost world, answers are doled out sparingly and for every question that is answered, at least two new questions arise to supplant the previous one. The truly remarkable part of the show, however, is its ending. Each week, an episode will end with a cliffhanger, plot twist, or some other paradigm shift the viewer cannot always anticipate. Some of the endings are genuine WTH moments that leave me speechless.

The Suleman story plays a lot like an episode- if not an entire season- of Lost. There are certainly enough plot twists and WTH moments:

• As the result of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a mother gives birth to 8 children. It is later revealed that she already has 6 children, each conceived via IVF.
• The mother, who is single, hasn’t held a full-time job since 1999. Yet all 6 of her children are less than 8 years old.
• The mother is diagnosed with a “depressive disorder” and believed to be “at some risk for suicide”.
• Although the mother was awarded over $167,000 in disability payments stemming from an injury sustained in 1999, her parents (in whose house the mother and her previous 6 kids all live) recently filed bankruptcy.
• The mother is on record as saying that she has not and will never accept welfare, yet receives $490 a month in food stamps.

Equally fascinating to me are the questions. I find myself wondering if it’s medically ethical to implant 6 embryos in a woman who already has so many children. I mentally debate whether a parent (single or married) can raise 14 children and not go clinically insane or broke. I consider the probability of two or more Suleman kids making an appearance on a future episode of Jerry Springer or Oprah. And I try to imagine the thought processes of this soon-to-be overwhelmed mother.
There are three things, however, that are more certainty than mystery to me with this curious case:

1. Nadya Suleman should not be permitted to have any more kids artificially. Ever.
2. No matter how noble the intention, a dysfunctional childhood is not an excuse to create what will likely become 14 more dysfunctional childhoods.
3. Ms. Suleman will receive millions of dollars from book deals, television interviews, a reality show or two, and at least one Lifetime movie. Some organization might even name her Mother of the Year. It sounds funny, I know, but stranger things have happened.

Hmm. Maybe I should give up on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and start thinking about whether it’s possible to impregnate a man with 6 embryos? Not that I have anyone in mind or anything…

Let them eat cake, indeed

2009-02-04T13:21:00.005-06:00

It’s been a tough week to watch the news and keep my blood pressure in check. No, I’m not referring to the escapades of Rod Blagojevich, the buildup to the Super Bowl, or even the debates over Jessica Simpson’s expanding waistline.

For me, it’s been all about the bailout.

I wasn’t crazy about the first bailout from the second former President Bush and I like this high-octane sequel from our new President even less. I get a little wary when elected officials clamor for action ‘because we’ve gotta do something’. Time has taught me that when everyone says something needs to be done now, it is precisely the time when nothing should be done beyond getting a precise bead on the problem. Hasty action makes a bad situation worse.

‘If something’s worth doing,’ any good father will say, ‘it’s worth taking the time to do right.’

I haven’t heard that with either bailout iteration. I hear people saying we need to act now before it is too late. It’s a rationale that makes for bad policy no matter the issue or the White House occupant.

So I was not surprised to hear of Wall Street executives awarding themselves more than $18 billion in bonuses last year.

Why? Because I believe that the idea of a bank bailout fails to account for a key tenet of human behavior: self-preservation.

The American people have ponied up billions for banks under the assumption that giving money to Wall Street will pull it out of insolvency, grease the tracks and permit it to freely issue loans again. This, in turn, will make us feel better about spending money on big and not-so-big ticket items like cars, houses, and…well…food.

My understanding of the concept, however, contradicts this. Self-preservation makes the human animal less likely to be altruistic and more likely to look out for Number One as the first, last, and general order of business. In fact, the urge for self-preservation in a crisis is so instinctual and hard-wired into our genetic code that it requires a conscious, sometimes Herculean, effort to override.

Self-preservation applied to financial matters dictates that we human (and capitalist) animals will- even if money is given to us- keep far more than we give. We may give out just enough to keep our most vocal creditors at bay or perhaps engage in some emotional spending from time to time, but there will always be a great deal of what the Bible calls hoarding (economists call it saving).

My theory is that with or without a bailout, banks will continue to issue loans only to those they deem virtual locks for repayment. And even then, banks will- like a Harvard admissions committee- exercise extreme selectivity. That’s the principle of self-preservation in action.

The news of last year’s fiscal stupidity, even as the proverbial Titanic known as the financial sector took on water, didn’t surprise me in the least. Come to think of it, the Titanic analogy is apt; wealthy Wall Street executives seem to be frantically engaged in finding seats on lifeboats, while the rest of us Main Streeters are stuck in steerage. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. That’s self-preservation in action.

Darwin would be so proud. I, however, am just plain pissed.

Fortunately, while self-preservation is difficult to overcome, it can be rerouted. We have one time-honored practice available: a big stick. If someone holds a big enough stick either over our heads or to our backsides, we will change our behavior.

I work for the state of Minnesota, where we face a record deficit. To fight it, Governor Tim Pawlenty has adopted what I call the “Minnesota Doctrine”. The Doctrine is simple: freeze everything. For state employees, that means freezing new hires, salaries, and pay raises. It means budget cuts so deep, they would cause a human to exsanguinate. It also means the resurgence of an education policy buzzword under George W. Bush: accountability.

I think accountability is the big stick we should hold to Wall Street’s backside. If John Thain is stupid enough to spend a million dollars redecorating his office when nearly 130,000 people were laid off by Wall Street companies in 2008, then he should be fired on the spot- no golden parachute, severance package or reference letter allowed. If AIG decides to throw a posh retreat for its executives the day after it receives a bailout from Congress, it should be forced to make immediate restitution and lose two to ten times that amount in bailout funds. And so on. Sooner or later, these companies will get the idea and turn over a new leaf.

“A hard head makes for a soft behind”, my Mom would say. I say it’s time someone went outside and got a switch; we have a Financial Revolution to get underway.

A blood thicker than water

2008-11-30T13:55:00.019-06:00

As I get older, I've found the saying about there being nothing new under the sun to be mostly true. Sure, there's your occasional record-breaking, revolutionary concept like Michael Jackson's Thriller, the first Matrix movie, or iPod, but on the whole, life tends to repeat itself over and over and over again with almost predictable frequency. Take this whole Twilight thing. A lot's been said and written about the movie and various books. My personal theory is that the movie is this decade's equivalent of James Cameron's Titanic (remember how all the tweens and teen girls were so into Leonardo diCaprio?) which means that we probably haven't seen (or heard) the last of Edward and Bella. I've read the Twilight book and plan to see the movie once I can Netflix it. They're certainly entertaining. The book was...meh. Not bad, but I thought the last quarter of it was far better than the preceding 3/4. Maybe it's because I'm a guy and I'm missing that particular base pair or something, but I found the first 3/4 of the book to be a lot like an author's extended cut of super-sized foreplay. Don't get me wrong. Foreplay's nice and certainly has its rewards, but at some point you gotta get to the good stuff.

I know the story's about first, forbidden love (and let's face it, that's the only kind of love that qualifies as tragic, isn't it?) between a vampire and a girl, but there's only so much fawning adoration ('Edward's such a God') and teen girl fluttery heart stuff ('Edward touched my cheek and the EKG machine went haywire again') that I can stand.

Particularly in a 500+ page romance story that happens to include a vampire as a main character. Especially in a book with a vampire as a main character. Why? Because vampires are so undeniably, automatically cool, like Billy Dee Williams or Samuel L. Jackson or Al Pacino or...

You get the point. If you've got a vampire in a book or movie, you gotta eventually let him or her be the badass they're supposed to be. Cursed-with-a-soul Angel and reformed-Spike-with-a-soul is all well and good, but it's when they're baddies (or fighting one another about the things they did when they were baddies) that they were the most fun to watch.

And now that you've read that previous paragraph, you know that I'm certainly not immune to the vampire's bite, either. Some of my all-time favorite shows have been about vampires (was that a rimshot I just heard?), with the Buffy/Angel shows at the top of the list. And my favorite series this Fall has been the HBO show, True Blood. Like Twilight, it is about a young girl who falls in love with a vampire and the challenges they face as a couple. There are a lot of similarities between Twilight, True Blood, and Buffy, but since True Blood is an HBO show, it's the raciest (and raunchiest) of the three. I like True Blood a lot, so much so that its caused me to break one of my own time honored and cardinal rules by reading the series of books by Charlaine Harris (The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries) upon which the series True Blood is based. I'm only about halfway through book one, but so far my decision seems to have been worth it. Season One follows the first book quite closely, with only a few noticeable (and enriching) changes. Time will tell whether I still feel the same since I've got another 6 books to read.

And so we come, full circle, back to the subject of time. It'll also be interesting to see which series of stories best stand the test of time. And who knows- maybe they will all be as watchable 50 years from now as they are today. I mean, if the Sci Fi channel can show 24 hours of Mork and Mindy (which, amazingly enough is 30 years old!) over this past Thanksgiving holiday break, I suppose anything's possible.

Earning the Chance to Lose...(or win)

2008-05-09T15:08:00.029-05:00

I have a new obsession: the 2008 presidential election. I follow it with an intensity most men only muster for their favorite sports team...or sex. I find politics to be heady stuff: polls and speeches, power and influence, maneuvers and machinations, scandals, debates, rebuttals and retorts. American politics is human nature at its best and worst.

The Darwinist in me really gets turned on by this stuff. The Christian in me absolutely abhors it. Kind of.

The Republican process seemed to end before it got really interesting, but not before I realized that Mitt Romney’s name and hair scared me. Still does.

Anyway, John McCain should be a formidable Republican nominee; military hero, experienced senator, and well-known for his candor and maverick attitude. I’m looking forward to the moments where he goes “off script” and speaks his heart. I just love when politicians do that.

The Democratic drama, however historic it may be, is still unfolding between the two remaining candidates.

Barack Obama is the grandiloquent speaker whose words inspire in ways most politicians envy. Words like “destiny”, “hope”, and “change” seem to mean something when he speaks them. People flock to his rallies in droves and he exudes political rock star status as effortlessly as Michael Jordan dunks or John Grisham writes novels about lawyers. Barack's racked up states, votes, delegates, and has fund-raised the crap out of everyone else.

Hillary Clinton is the savvy senator and former First Lady. When Hillary says she will wake up each morning thinking about how she can fight for the American people, she’s believable. She is politically adept, tough as nails and if I’m about to mix it up with someone, I would want her watching my back 'cuz I have no doubt chick would fight dirty if she needed to. Hillary’s the Jack Bauer of politics and the cat with nine lives; when all the pundits count her out, she pops up again and gets the job done.

The two are not without flaws. Hillary has enough baggage to fill an Airbus A380, while Barack’s affiliation with Reverend Jeremiah Wright has badly tarnished the initially transcendent nature of his campaign, rudely thrusting race into the election in ways that we are still talking about.

A great deal has been said about Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the Democratic nominee. At this point, even if she won every remaining state in play, she would not capture the required number of delegates to secure the nomination. Neither would Obama.

And there’s a new wrinkle: Superdelegates.

The morning after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, I watched Tim Russert tell an MSNBC panel that he’d recently heard Chris Rock joke about how no one had ever heard the term "superdelegate" until a black guy was in the lead for the nomination.

Like a number of Rock’s comedic observations, there may be some truth behind the joke. 794 people not required to announce a candidate preference in advance and free to change their preference right up to the second before they declare their choice at the convention might make for great television, but is poor political form.

Senator Clinton’s argument to the Supers is simple: yes, Obama’s won more states, leads in total delegates and has more popular votes, but she is the stronger candidate and the one who stands the best chance of defeating McCain. She is the candidate who won the critical states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. She is the candidate who appeals to the broader base and is, thus, more electable.

Hillary Clinton believes her argument should override all other considerations. It’s a smart strategy, one salespeople refer to as changing the base: instead of addressing the concerns your potential client/customer has voiced, you subtly show/tell them that they aren’t really concerned about what they’ve said, but about something else entirely. Something you define for them.

Could such a strategy work? Absolutely. George Bush’s 2004 campaign convinced the majority of voters that they weren’t nearly as concerned about the economy as they had expressed in poll after poll leading up to the election. Instead, national security and whether a Kerry administration would protect them in the War on Terror was the pivotal issue. Bush, of course, handily won a second term.

An aside: Who actually thought up the title, "War on Terror"? It's sounds so lame, futile and...funny. For the first few months, I couldn't hear that term without snickering a little on the inside. Can you really declare a war on terror? I mean, I know we did just that, but seriously: Hollywood thrives on the fact that we can willingly be coerced to give our hard-earned money to theaters to see movies purposely designed to scare (or terrorize) the bejeezus out of us and now we've declared a war on it? Wow.

I don’t know whether Obama would triumph against McCain. Republican campaigns are nothing if not shrewd, ruthless, and willing to repeat a message any number of times and any number of ways to drive a point home. I have no doubt the conservative media will trot out more Jeremiah Wright clips, continue referring to Obama as little more than a ‘motivational speaker’ and say he’s achieved nothing over the course of his political career. They will question the substance of his platform, judgment, patriotism, readiness as a leader and everything else.

Yet there are no guarantees Clinton could defeat McCain, either. It is her opinion that she has been "fully vetted", all her skeletons exposed for the world to see. But is that ever really true for a politician? Political skeletons, no matter how deep they’ve been buried, have a funny way of reanimating. For all we know, the Republicans have already assembled a dossier of campaign-killing revelations. Or maybe the dirt they currently have is enough.

I believe that unless something truly catastrophic occurs, Barack Obama will have earned his ticket to the big dance. The Supers should not be permitted to usurp this accomplishment from him because their analysis concludes he may not be victorious. He should be given the same chance past presumptive nominees of his party has had: the chance to win. Or the chance to lose.

Obama may feel he’s up to the task, that he’s toughened his skin in recent weeks. I'm reminded of the “Star Wars” movie where a cocky Luke Skywalker defiantly asserts that he is ready to face his father, Darth Vader, and is not afraid.

“You will be,” Yoda responds. “You will be.” Luke Skywalker lost his hand to Darth Vader in battle. Al Gore and John Kerry lost their political voices to George Bush. What might Obama lose against his competitor?

And I thought Cinderella had it bad...

2008-05-01T11:33:00.030-05:00

It’s not easy being a man these days. No matter what we do to try and shake it, bad press and negative publicity seem to follow us around like a Jeremiah Wright soundbite. And you know what? Frankly, we deserve a lot of it; there are times when we do some really crappy things to one another, and especially to girls and women. A recent news story is yet another example and it has got to be the most bizarre thing I’ve heard about in a long time...

...or at least since that whole Texas polygamy camp story broke a few weeks ago. Not exactly a shining moment for men then, either.

Back in 1984, Austrian Josef Fritzl (pictured left) decided that it would be cool to abduct his 18 year old daughter, Elisabeth, and keep her in the basement of his house. Josef had been sexually abusing Elisabeth since she was 11 years old, so I guess he saw abduction as a way to take their relationship to the next level. Josef liked his idea so much he, unbeknownst to his wife (Elisabeth's mother), kept Elisabeth captive for the next 24 years.

No, really…24 years.

Bizarre story, right? It doesn’t end there. With Elisabeth successfully imprisoned, Josef proceeded to father seven children, including twins, with her over the next two and a half decades. One child was stillborn. Josef permitted Elisabeth to raise three children and he took three others to raise with his wife, Rosemarie.

If you haven't figured it out by now, Josef was crafty. He had all the right moves: he reported his daughter as missing, told Rosemarie that their daughter had run off to join a religious cult, and somehow obtained a letter supposedly written by Elisabeth stating that she did not want to be found. When Elisabeth began bearing the children Josef would later take, he informed Rosemarie that Elisabeth had sent the three children to her parents to raise. The children Elisabeth raised were never permitted beyond the confines of their windowless cellar, a cellar behind a soundproof door with an electronic locking system. Escape, apparently, was an impossibility. It wasn't until Elisabeth's eldest child fell so ill he needed to be taken to the hospital by Josef that the truth of the horror Elisabeth and her children endured came to light. Sadly, a freelance journalist reported that one of the boys said he'd seen the moon for the first time when he was taken from his home by the police.

As they say on the show, "Loveline": Good times.

There are a great many things about this story that disturb me and a great many more things I hope I never come to understand. I don't get how a father could imprison his daughter in a cellar and keep her under lock and key for any period of time, let alone 24 years. I don't understand how he could commit sexual assault. Or take children to raise as his own, though maybe in Josef's mind, he saw this as an act of nobility. Whatever. Nor can I even begin to fathom the pain of a mother who realizes that the daughter she's worried, prayed, and fretted over for 24 years has been living under her roof the entire time, held captive by the man she married, the man her daughter called "Father". I can't imagine the thoughts that run through one's mind when the realization hits that the children you've been raising as your grandchildren are indeed your grandchildren...and also your stepchildren.

This whole thing is absolutely mind-blowing.

If Fritzl is convicted of rape in Austria, he faces up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors say they are also considering whether to charge Josef with murder "through failure to act" for the stillborn child. That particular penalty could carry a maximum of 20 years.

Here's the truly mind-blowing part: even if convicted and given the maximum sentences (assuming the sentences run concurrently), Fritzl would likely end up spending less time in an Austrian prison than Elisabeth spent in his cellar. Of course, it's unlikely that 73 year old Josef would even live to serve out his full sentence, but still...come on.

Situations like this cause me to fervently hope that this man be banished to the deepest and most torturous recesses of hell. Satan should maybe even consider creating a brand new level just to accommodate Josef.

Just when you think men can’t sink any lower, we seem to find eerily disheartening ways to lower the bar even further.

The Drama of Deviance

2008-04-23T12:39:00.025-05:00

Or that's how I refer to it anyway. These days, there seems to be a lot of cable drama shows out there about people who live outside of the norm, people who do repugnant- and sometimes very illegal- things. For example, there’s Dexter, a show about a serial killer named Dexter Morgan (hence the name of the show) who commits murder, but only in certain circumstances. He's a serial killer operating under a code of honor. Thus far, Dexter Morgan has not deviated from the code taught to him by his adoptive father, Harry Morgan, who had a distinguished career as a cop. The code? Only kill "bad" people, something that makes Dexter a kind of vigilante serial killer. For example, in an episode from season one, Dexter kills a husband and wife engaged in human trafficking.

Dexter is not without his share of psychological baggage. At age three, his mother was brutally murdered before his eyes. Harry was the cop who found Dexter and ended up adopting and raising Dexter as his son. One would expect an incident like this to have a lingering effect on the young boy, of course, and young Dexter grows up feeling very little empathy for others; he is socially stunted, unable to understand even the basics of human interaction or the nuances that color and shape relationships.

And he has unexplainable urges to kill. First animals and later people. Harry becomes aware of his son's urges and decides to teach Dexter how to blend in, subdue the powerful urges and avoid detection and suspicion. Sounds like a recipe for a horribly offense tv show, right? It certainly doesn't play out that way. I will say, though, that Dexter is not for the faint of heart.

I have other favorites. The Sopranos, now defunct, was a series about the trials and tribulations of a New Jersey crime boss. It had the distinction of being HBO’s most successful drama for several years running. Big Love, a show that will likely get monster ratings once it returns to the airwaves given recent events in Texas, is about a polygamist and his three wives. Weeds is a show about a suburban housewife who decides to become a drug dealer to make ends meet after her husband dies of a heart attack.

Why do I watch these shows? They're compelling dramas, told so well that I'm easily drawn into the plights of the main characters and their families. Plus, the main characters are likeable people. They're smart, funny, and human, each struggling with many of the same issues I face every day.

It’s certainly not my goal to come across as preachy, particularly since that would be more than a little suspect and hypocritical since I love to watch all of the shows I've mentioned. Yet I find myself wondering what trajectory television dramas like these will follow over the next few years. They tend to blur the lines between what's right and what's wrong, leaving everything an interesting shade of relativistic gray. You might never expect to find yourself cheering for a criminal, but these shows cause you to do so and feel good in the process. Is it conceivable- based on the success of these shows- that we might see dramas like these on the air soon?

· A Skinhead who kills gang members from minority groups whose crimes affect or victimize not only caucasians, but people from all races and ethnicities

· A level three sexual offender who is somehow able to moonlight as a substitute teacher because she needs money to pay for her mother’s chemotherapy and other medical expenses

· A bank robber who robs banks because he has a compulsive gambling addiction that originated around the time his wife left him for his best friend.

Doesn’t sound all that realistic, right? I sure hope not. Then again, when the reality TV show ‘Survivor’ first debuted in America, virtually no one knew that reality shows would quickly become a staple of the weekly show schedule. It just takes one monstrously successful "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", "Survivor", or "American Idol" to transform the landscape for the rest of the television and entertainment industry for untold years to come. And make the executives and the networks they work for a ton of money.

Maybe I’m making too much of this trend thing; maybe it’s not really a trend at all. Truth is, we have always elevated, mythologized, and romanticized the reprehensible actions of the few. Witness such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Godfather, Bonnie & Clyde, Set it Off, Pulp Fiction, to name just a few. We like these movies. Hey, I like these movies.

And so the real question is not whether the so-called "drama of deviance" will continue. Cable and television networks will always follow the masses and the advertising dollars attached to having large numbers of viewers; if we stop coming, they’ll stop building.

The real question is whether we’ll keep coming.

Nancy Drew and the Nature of Obsession

2008-04-17T13:04:00.019-05:00

I learned about obsession from Nancy Drew.

You see, for a period of time in the very early 80s, I had an unhealthy obsession with Nancy. Well, with her mystery books anyway. It started with the book covers. For weeks, I’d noticed the collection on the shelves of my junior high school library in Fort Benning, Georgia (I’m an Army brat) and I'd be curious. They were bright, colorful, and stylish in a retro kind of way. And they seemed to be mocking me; all those books, all those covers, all those cryptic titles. But, as a boy, I couldn’t let anyone catch me reading a girl's book; I'd never live it down.

First obsession lesson: An obsession- a real one- will cause you to do things you wouldn't otherwise dream of doing in a million years.

The books continued to taunt me until the day I decided to put my young male ego aside and feed my curiosity. I would see what the deal was with this Nancy Drew person by reading one of the books. And you know what? It wasn’t bad. I read another one. It wasn’t bad, either. And then I read another and another and another.

Second obsession lesson: Once begun, an obsession is difficult to stop. It's like trying to get a dog to stop peeing midstream.

I became consumed with the need to read every Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on until there were no more books left. But, still being a guy, I couldn't reveal my obsession to others, especially other guys.

Third obsession lesson: It takes subterfuge to hide your obsessions from others.

As a result, I started a ritual: I'd check out a book from the library when no one was paying attention, hide it in my book bag until I got home and then read it. Devour it, actually, oftentimes reading an entire book in less than a day. The next day, I'd repeat the ritual. Although I had a couple of close calls, my plan was quite successful. None of my friends ever found out that I was reading Nancy Drew mystery stories, which saved me from having what would have been an extremely awkward conversation. After the Nancy Drew books were gone, I moved on to the Hardy Boys and read all their books, too.

This has become the model for every obsession I've ever had, whether with music, books or television. It generally goes like this: I "discover" an artist, author or tv show. If they're an established with a body of work, I'll watch every single episode, listen to every single song, and read every single book until there's nothing left. And then I'm done.

You’d think I would have outgrown that obsession by now, right? Wrong: just last night, I watched 6 episodes of Dexter- Season 1. I had to know whether my favorite serial killer would triumph (albeit temporarily) over his circumstances.

By the way...I tried to watch the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries when the series was on tv (yes, I’m that old), but the show sucked. And so, as a young boy, I learned another important lesson: the book is always better than the movie. You only need to see one movie based on a Stephen King book (and just about any movie will do) to know that this is a cardinal law, as sure as the Law of Gravity.

Fourth obsession lesson: An obsession can be a bad thing.

If a movie is coming out that's based on a book, I’ve often felt the need to read the book first, so I'll know what to expect. It's kind of a control thing, I guess. There are scores of movies I'll probably never see because I haven't gotten around to reading the book.

Knowing what the book says, however, can get in the way of what could be a very enjoyable movie experience. A recent example: I Am Legend. Since I have a fairly lengthy commute, I frequently find myself listening to audiobooks to pass the time. If you haven't had an audiobook experience yet, you're definitely missing out; there's nothing like a good book read by a great narrator when you’re on a long drive. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend made for a fascinating listen: an engaging plot, inescapable suspense and a main character that wasn’t some mythological mix of common man and superhero. The book was authentic, thought-provoking and brilliant. But there were a lot of inconsistenies between the and the movie. I don't like inconsistencies. They bother me because I feel that I have to explain their existence in a way that makes sense to me. Inconsistencies keep me awake at night and I don’t like that, either.

Many of my favorite movies began as novels- some I’ve read, others I plan never to read. Here’s a sampling of books I’ll never read because I like the movies so much:

Gone with the Wind
The Godfather
Contact
Jaws
Forrest Gump
Jurassic Park
Somewhere in Time

Fifth obsession lesson: No matter how much we want to, obsessions cannot be rationalized.

Why do I refuse to read these books, when it's a foregone conclusion that the book will be better than the movie? Because the book will be better than the movie. And because there will be inconsistencies. I can just barely reconcile the inconsistencies between my religious and intellectual convictions. I don’t want to have to deal with inconsistencies between the books and movies I love as well.

Or maybe I'm just chicken.

And if that's the case, I can accept that. In the meantime, though, I'm off to watch my new favorite show, Weeds, on Netflix. I started watching it this morning and am nearly done with the first season. Or at least I will be before the day ends.

Damn you, Nancy Drew.

An Underdog Resurfaces

2008-04-09T09:16:00.025-05:00

I love rooting for the underdog. Unfortunately, they usually end up getting the stuffing kicked out of them by the bigger, stronger, richer, more politically-connected guys (and gals), but not all the time and not every time. Sometimes, David defeats Goliath and turns Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest on its head. Case in point: the New York Giants.

Jesse Ventura would like to think he's an underdog, too. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, the Minnesota man who "shocked the world" by winning a Governor's election that made the rest of the country pause a beat and go, "Wait, wait, wait…wasn't he a wrestler or something?"

Yes, he was. As a kid growing up in Fort Benning, Georgia, I have fond memories of watching "The Body", Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Ric Flair, Andre the Giant, and all the other personalities "wrassle" every Saturday morning. It was a Southern rite of passage for me.

Although it wins me absolutely no cool points with my wife, I like "The Body". Yes, he's probably as nutty as Tom Cruise free-styling on Oprah’s sofa cushions, but I still like the guy. (Incidentally, he has a new book out.) Say what you want, the man loves to speak his mind. He's like a wind-up doll: give him a topic, ask him a question, and watch him go. Probably comes from those days as a wrestler, when some announcer would shove a microphone in "The Body’s" face and let him riff about himself and the beat down he was gonna give his next opponent.

(Side note: It occurs to me that wrestlers and rappers might have a few things in common. I have to think about that for a bit.)

I knew almost immediately that Ventura would win the 1998 Minnesota Gubernatorial race. Why? The other candidates, Norm Coleman (Republican) and Hubert Humphrey III (DFL, or Democrat, for those of you unfamiliar with the eccentricities of our state), were public officials with solid records of service. Humphrey was a son of the late Vice-President, current Attorney General, and had overseen a $6.1 billion settlement of a lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Coleman was mayor of the city of Saint Paul, the twin of Minneapolis. They were generally the type of stock you’d expect to see competing for the governorship of any state. But I felt that they were about as condescending to Ventura as politicians can be when they think the other guy doesn't stand a snowball's chance in...well. You get the picture- think Hillary Clinton a month and some change before the Iowa caucuses.

I believe it was arrogance that blinded them to the threat Ventura posed and opened the door to the astonishing win. His Reform Party message and unique method of delivery was unlike anything we'd ever seen before and he was able to connect with the young and disenfranchised in ways the other candidates couldn’t (or wouldn't).

A large part of Ventura’s campaign charm was his frankness. Call it the Simon Cowell approach to politicking. In this era of pollsters and strategists and spin doctors, hardly anything is said from the heart anymore, so I find it refreshing to hear a politician who does, even when I don't agree with those views and especially when I think they are nutty views. I can respect a politician who comes right out and says what s/he thinks. Makes it that much easier for me come election time.

Does it matter that the former Governor once referred to the Minnesota media as "jackals"? Or that he insinuates that 9/11 may have been part of a conspiracy to justify war? Or that he believes we are a nation of "lemmings"?

Not at all. He may not be the man I’d want to see take that proverbial "3 a.m. call" and I highly doubt I’d vote him into any future political office, but in politics, you can never say never. Could anyone have predicted that we’d have a U.S. President who was a former movie star, two Bush presidents, and a former First Lady running for president- all within the last 30 years? I certainly couldn’t have.

God bless Governor Jesse. Oh, that's right. Ventura thinks religion is a crutch for the weak-minded. Well, somebody bless the man.

The Demise of the Art of Distraction

2008-04-05T21:55:00.018-05:00

Video may have killed the radio star, but it was the computer that ended my moonlighting gig as a Jedi Knight.

One of the most potent weapons in my parenting arsenal these past three years has been the ability to distract. I suppose it's something all parents learn: to constructively channel your child's attention toward something- anything- else at the drop of a dime. In the Star Wars movies, it's known as the Jedi Mind Trick. I call it the Art of Distraction and I've had many opportunities to hone my ability with Phoebe, my 3-year old daughter. It is a handy skill to have in a variety of places: at home, dinner parties, grocery stores and malls, or a long trip in the car.

At least it used to, anyway.

Lately, my skills have been slipping. Phoebe's become single-mindedly stubborn. Plus, her ability to recall what’s been said and promised to her has improved. A lot. These cognitive developments are requiring me to exercise greater degrees of intrepedity and creativity than ever before. Sometimes I’m successful, but I’m ultimately losing the war. It was always only a matter of time, I know, but I thought I had more of it at my disposal.

And now, there’s the computer. Our computer. We saw it coming, of course and in a way, even encouraged it. Her first computer was a gift. While I was in Texas for my grandmother’s funeral last December, my father gave me a small children's laptop computer, one of those jobs you can find in just about any store- relatively inexpensive and loaded with a ton of educational games.

“As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to get it for my little Phoebe,” Dad said, a proud smile on his face. “I know she’ll like it.” It was a very sweet thing for him to do and he was quite right; Phoebe loved it.

A few months later, Phoebe’s godmother gave us a handful of educational computer CDs. You know how the addiction experts say that marijuana is a gateway drug? I believe educational CDs are the gateway to creating preschool computer addicts.

After playing with a CD one day, Phoebe decided she wanted to branch out, so I took her to the PBS site for kids. She’d wanted to go to the Disney site, but I wasn’t down with that. Besides, I like PBS’ afternoon programming; it’s kid-friendly and generally age-appropriate. Initially, we played the games together, but when she became confident enough to play them on her own, and I was confident that I could trust the content, she didn’t need us as often. Occasionally, I allow her to go to the Disney site and we’ll play a few games together, but I don’t much care for that one. For starters, they’re always asking for name and address information in order to sign me up for different levels of login access and club or membership groups. I don’t like that. Besides, I’d much rather see Phoebe develop her problem-solving, spatial and physical coordination, and general computer skills in ways that don’t involve choosing the accessories that best match Barbie’s outfit.

Plus…I really can’t stand Hannah Montana.

But now we’ve created a monster. If we didn’t set limits, Phoebe would sit in front of the monitor 8 hours a day, playing the same games over and over again. Not good. At all.

Now, as a former Jedi, I find myself in a position where I must develop new strategies to keep her off the computer, creatively challenged, and manageable in public. Where’s Obi-Wan or Yoda when you need them?

Clear Skies with a Chance of Rain

2008-04-04T13:19:00.012-05:00

Although the weather is simply beautiful outside (sunny, cloudless, 50 degree day in Minnesota), things are otherwise pretty drab. The country's still on the brink of a recession, unemployment’s up, housing sales and values are down, gas and oil prices are at record highs, and over 4,000 brave men and women have died in the Iraq war, a fact that only 28% of the American population can correctly recall.

Oh, and it’s the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

What would MLK Jr. say about the United States if he were still alive? Would he be pleased to see that Barack Obama, a man born of a white woman from Kansas and a Kenyan man, stands a very real chance of becoming the first African-American candidate nominated to be the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States? Would he say without reservation that our nation had made significant strides towards realizing his 40-year old dream?

I look at my beautiful and vibrant 3-year-old daughter who herself is the product of two races and cultures and I wonder. I wonder how she will answer when she is inevitably asked one day what it was like to be raised by parents of different races? Her answer, and the experiences that will shape it, keep me awake at night. I so want to pass on a better world to her, to be able to say, “Here it is, honey. Your mom and I worked really hard and did the best we could and I think you’ll find it’s in much better condition than it was when you first entered it.” But I wonder whether I’ll be able to say that to her. I honestly don’t know.

A recent survey determined that 81 percent of Americans believe our country is headed in the wrong direction. I don’t wonder about that finding at all. Something’s gonna have to change soon…for all our sakes.