Category Life

Mental Meanderings – Get ’em while they’re hot!

Michael 5 Comments

A collection of things I saw/thought/wondered about/shook my head over last week.

I read a new car review. The reviewer loved the car, its handling, style, performance, gas mileage, comfort. Everything about the car. But he could not recommend it because the now ever present touchscreen in the middle of the dash becomes just a screen when the car is put in gear. Apparently the manufacturer values safety and disables the touchscreen function and you have to use either the fingertip controls on the steering wheel or the voice recognition. While I’m driving, other than driving type things like switching on a turn signal or operating the pedals and steering wheel, the only controls I might need to reach are radio station or volume, window control, or possibly to shout “Answer!” to accept a connected phone call but that’s quite rare. What is this guy doing that is so involved or intricate that it cannot be handled without pawing all over a mobile tablet? While moving?!

There was another gun found at the local airport security section. Once again the dipstick trying to board an airplane while toting a loaded firearm used the excuse, “I forgot it was in my bag.” I’m all for innocent until proven stupid and all that, but isn’t the admission of stupidity enough to take these people immediately out to tarmac and have the next arrival land on them?

There are at least 4 states where audits, legislative initiatives, and/or court cases are still questioning/contesting the results of last fall’s Presidential election. I applied for a job in 2009 and didn’t get it. I’m sure the interview notes were switched and somebody stole that job from me. Can I get one of the of the legal wizards behind these election follies to take my case.  I bet their last dollar that I probably have a better chance of winning.

It was 96 degrees where I was yesterday (which is actually where I am today and just about every day). (I don’t know why I felt the need to clarify that but… .) Yesterday was the first day of summer and summer is usually hot but three days prior it was 45 degrees! Doesn’t Mother Nature ever get whiplash from these dramatic swings?

HotSpeaking of summer. Sunday was the first day of summer but not the first full day. That’s today. Summer in the eastern time zone in the US began at 11:31pm, Sunday June 20. That has to be q great job. Figure out when summer start. How much do you think that pays.  Anyway, because summer did not start until after 11 last night, when it was 96 degrees outside my car, technically it was still spring! I’m sorry but that is just too hot for spring. Somebody find a lawyer and get the courts working to revoke that temperature.

Still speaking of summer, am I the only one who remembers when all the calendars labeled June 21 as the first day of summer. Now it can happen anytime between June 20 and June 22. All this exactness about when the seasons start began around the same time the government declared Area 51 off limits. It sounds fishy to me. Somebody should look into that.

Autumn begins on September 22 this year. That’s 94 days after Summer began. Summer is one of four seasons and should comprise one-fourth of the year. One fourth of 365 is 91.25 days. Summer is almost 3 days longer than it should be fairly allocated. No wonder there’s global warming!

Last week a business man in a Florida town I never heard of bought a small building from the town to use as a fitness center. Somewhere along the way when checking with the county about the property he discovered the deed included not just the building and the land it sat on but also the town’s water tower behind the building. Somebody was supposed to split the property and transfer only the small portion of land the building sits on, didn’t, and when the deed was recorded in the county office, the would be fitness trainer got it all. Naturally he didn’t want it. I mean, hydration is important when exercising but there is a limit to how much water one can take in! Long story short (too late) they got the paperwork sorted out and he deeded to water tower back to the municipality. And was charged $10 to do so! Wait. What? The town couldn’t swing the ten bucks without raising water rates? Quick, get another one of those lawyers working on the election. This guy has a better case than that fellow down in Palm Beach. I think he should his $10 back. That’s a steal that should be stopped.

Thank you. My brain feels much lighter now.

Oh, if anybody is wondering, and from the poll results I’d say not, it looks like I have to decide for myself how often to turn out this drivel. You guys don’t like answering surveys, do you?

Flying in the face of convention

Michael 2 Comments

As vaccination totals continue to climb and gathering limits are lifted just in time for the start of summer, people have been commenting on returning to normal. During an interview on a recent local television newscast, a party planner proclaimed, “Now we can get back to planning June weddings and graduations like normal,” and a vacationing couple interviewed at the airport said, “It’s good to be travelling again like normal.” “Like normal” is becoming the latest soundbite fodder, much in contrast to last June’s oft referenced, “Flatten the curve.”

As far as graduations go, June 2020 decidedly was not normal. My friend’s daughter graduated from high school last year in an on-line ceremony that may have truly been the only unprecedented moment during the early months of the pandemic. But was it “not normal,” or was it “not expected?” Years before the pandemic wreaked havoc on graduation schedules, my daughter graduated from college a semester earlier than typical, and her December commencement, although not broadcast on a streaming video platform, was recorded and made available for those who chose not to attend the small, indoor ceremony in contrast to the thousands who would fill the outdoor stadium the following spring. Broadcasting the ceremony was, for the winter graduates, quite “normal.”

In the half-dozen or so weeks that air travel has sort of started its return to normal, I hope its not what we will eventually come to expect whenever we get on a plane. So far this year, the FAA has identified over 400 cases in violation of its Zero Tolerance policy that states any passenger who “assaults, threatens, intimidates, or interferes with airline crew members” can be fined, jailed, or both. For comparison, the FAA recorded 146 violations in all of 2019. The rate of incidents has climbed dramatically since early May when the CDC relaxed mask wearing requirements but maintained the requirement for air and other public transportation.

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The cited incidents do not involve only mask controversies. People have attempted to open aircraft outer doors while on taxiways, refused to surrender open alcohol brought on board, and brawled over who gets to use a shared armrest. Many incidents devolved to violence, at least one resulting in a charge of felony battery, that when a passenger refusing to follow cabin instructions violently attacked a flight attendant caught on video, a video that went viral shortly after the incident. In May, the FAA announced that it was proposing penalties as high as $15,000 against five passengers for violations that included allegedly assaulting and yelling at flight attendants.

In an interview with CNBC, Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, relayed that unruly behavior are more than 20 times higher than what’s normally recorded in an entire year.  I’m not sure this is what we all meant when blithely referring to the new normal. New it may be. Normal? Let’s hope not.

In case you are wondering, Monday’s poll results were 100% in favor of me writing every darned day if I could. There was one write in vote for weekly. That made it a tie! I noticed that the poll was displayed on the post on the full site. For whatever reason, which I’m sure is an absolutely dandy, it was not included on the e-mailed or WordPress Reader versions. (No, me neither.) Anyway, I’ll stick it here one more time. If you really really really want to answer it, make sure to click through the blog site because I just know for sure, that wasn’t a one-time glitch.

Be careful out there

Michael 6 Comments

Deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Let me type that again. Deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Globally. If you are in the US, Canada, UK, pick a country that last year was locked up tighter than Marley and Scrooge’s backroom safe and you are going out later today without a mask on, that means there are places this year that make what you went through last year look like you were just trying to stay ahead of getting a really bad cold. One more time. Deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Globally

WorldDeathsAccording to data generated by the Johns Hopkins University, about 1,880,000 deaths from COVID-19 were recorded in 2020. As of the first week of June 2021, less than halfway through this year, about 1,883,000 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported. Globally.

Globally. That sort of is important because we are a global world. Planes are back in the air with all seats filled, crossing borders. Ships are at sea again stopping at ports not always in the same country as the previous port of call. Students, vacationers, businesspersons are moving to and fro, free as can be. Give or take.

In the United States, the total reported cases, not deaths, for the single day, June 11 (the last full weekday before this was written) was 26,006, the running seven day average cases was 14,768. The last time a seven day average of less than 15,000 was reported at week’s end was on Friday, March 27, 2020 at 12,127. Then, seven day averages were increasing; now, they are declining. Proof that mitigation and vaccination worked and is working. It’s questionable that mitigation without vaccination would have eventually gotten us to the current case load, and certainly not by the end of May. By the end of 2020 with only mitigation, seven day average case totals routinely ran greater than 200,000 and peaked in January 9, 2021 with a single day case total of 300,779 and a seven day average of 259,615 cases. Widespread vaccination and continuing mitigation have since reduced both single day and seven day averages continuously to where we are today. The lowest single day reported cases for 2021 was May 31 at 5,557  with a seven-day average of 17,171. The last time previous to that when a single day case load less than 6,000 was reported was on March 20, 2020, with 5,619 cases.

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Interestingly, since May 31, the daily totals and seven day averages of cases reported in the US have consistently increased. Also, since May 31, have the majority of states relaxed or eliminated mitigation requirements.  It would not be unreasonable to ask if vaccination without mitigation is and will be working. Certainly not wanting to cry wolf, but I will type once more, deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Globally.

Let’s be careful out there. There’s a lot of virus still out there.

Buddy, can you spare a spare?

Michael 8 Comments

Hey everybody!  I have a spare tire. No, not that kind. Sheesh. Out in the car. There’s a tire spare there! What, you don’t think that warrants an exclamation point, let along a blog post? Well, pull up a chair, get a cup of coffee, or tea, or whatever welcomes you to the day, and hear my tale.

Before we begin, you must either recall or take as new information now that I bought a new (to me) vehicle just a few posts ago, or a couple of weeks ago depending on your time reference preference. Another prefatory comment, the previous vehicle was the first “car” vehicle, as in sedan, I bought in this century, Other recent and many older vehicles (with the exception of the “little car” which is the little red roadster than lives 8 months of the year in the garage and doesn’t count for this discussion) have been trucks or SUVs and have always been called “car” though they weren’t, not even the SUVs which were the old truck based SUVs, not station wagons with big wheels we call SUVs (which probably are actually CUVs if you asked a car person) (that’s “car person” as in aficionado, not one who drives a “car” versus a truck, SUV, CUV, or any other V currently roaming the streets). So then, are we ready? Good! I’ll get my coffee and we’ll begin.

Previously I had no need to go looking for a spare tire. While I was driving the now former car of mine, I never had neither a flat nor the desire to lift the car off the ground. Even the existence of a spare tire was merely a curiosity, a conversation starter in very, very, very, very, very slow cocktail parties, or perhaps a discussion topic with my therapist if I had been going to a therapist and he/she/it was one always questioning one’s existence and thus the spare tire could be a tangible example. Or non-tangible as it turned out.

2 + 2 5When I was emptying the trunk of all it’s trunk items I wanted to make certain I had everything and thought I should check under the trunk cover and check to make certain nothing had fallen into the spare tire area. I lifted the carpet, lifted the compartment cover, and found nothing there. Not even a spare tire. Nothing is not true. You see, the spare tire was not missing because somebody had absconded with it. There was in its place a small air pump to be used in the event of a flat tire. (It might also have come in handy when I was blowing up pool toys over the years but not knowing of its existence any more than the non-existence of the tire, that consideration never came up.) After a little head scratching and a silent thank you for not having had to discover that on some dark and stormy night with only three fully inflated tires under the car, I gathered up my boxes of trunk things and brought them indoors awaiting their new residency in the back of the new car which is actually not a car but as previously mentioned they are all called cars.

If I may digress for a moment. If you are wondering if that was a typo, no. I typed and intended to type boxes, the plural. I have since streamlined the car trunk stuff to a amore manageable number of items, not including such things as: two wooden yardsticks, a frying pam, three umbrellas, a license plate frame, a can of wood stain, the pole from a pole lamp, and a dust pan.

(Yeah? Why not?)

So, back to our story. Most people are likely familiar with the space saver, limited use, temporary. “donut” spare tire. That thing has more names than British royalty. They seem to be everywhere but only because about 50% of all the vehicles on the roads have them.  If you consider that none of the buses,  tractor trailers, trailer trailers, full size pick-up trucks, truck based SUVs, motorhomes, and motorcycles and scooters don’t have them, that means a lot of cars and SUVs, CUVs, and other Vs do.

Since the 1980s most cars started carrying space saver spares (the first American vehicle to use a space saver as standard equipment was the 1967 Pontiac Firebird). Probably a big chunk of you reading this weren’t even driving before the 1980s so you might not have even ever seen a full size spare even if you ever even looked for one. I was driving before then, quire a while before then, and even though I rarely ever even looked for them I just made some wild assumption that every car on the road not driven by an “I needed to use my spare but I’m not going to replace it because those things are EX-PEN-SIVE” spare tire user had a spare tire. Even. And that’s how I came to be muttering thanks for not having a need for any kind of spare tire on my previous car when I discovered my previous care did not have any kind of spare tire. (Who gives you just a pump?)

2 + 2 5 (1)

But I am happy to report the new to me new car is fully equipped with not so fully sized space saver, temporary, limited use, “donut,” royal spare tire. I checked.

You may now go about your day. That’s it. We’re done here. That’s the end of the story. There’s nothing else. Good day folks.

(I wonder if I should put the frying pan in the new to me new car. It could come in handy. You never know.)

Now scoot. I have things to do. Bye.

All In

Michael Leave a comment

Through thick and through thin, all out or all in
We’re gonna go through it together
With you for me and me for you
We’ll muddle through whatever we do
Together, wherever we go

June 8 is Best Friends Day. I don’t know about the rest of the world but when I think of “best friend” I think of that number. Keen eyed readers with keen ears and keen theater sense will recognize those lyrics from that number don’t go together which is pretty okey dokey. I mixed them up a bit because that’s how I sing them in the shower or wherever I am thinking about best friends and that’s okey dokey too because, all things considered, that musical isn’t about friendship.

The musical in question, of course, is “Gypsy,” the 1959 David Merrick stage production written by Arthur Laurents, and those lyrics came from the pen of Steven Sondheim. In the play, Rose, the prototypical stage mother wants to see her daughters become stars, and so she drags them through the Vaudeville circuit across America. Long story short, outgoing talented daughter sets out on her own, leaving mother and introverted less talented daughter to fail or succeed on their own, Vaudeville dies, the act ends up in burlesque, introvert becomes successful stripper sensation Gypsy Rose Lee, mother confides she always pushed them only so she could live vicariously through them but instead eventually loses them and in the end mother Rose and daughter Louise (Gypsy Rose) sort of, kind of reconcile.

A masterpiece of the theater. Over 700 performances, four Broadway revivals, one London revival, two movies, a Great Masterpieces performance, a triumph indeed, but not the thing of friendships. But that song! “We’ll muddle through.” whatever it takes. Now that’s the thing of friendship – best friends. Not good friends, not close friends, not even canine friends. Best friends. Best, best friends. Bestest friends!

Real best friends aren’t typical friends. They are not the best friends of childhood. You could have had a different best friend every week of summer then. They are not the best friends of a contract like married best friends. You might well be as close as best friends but you’re also there because you’ve formally committed to each other. They are not the best friends of circumstances perhaps of being together in the military, serving or fighting side by side until transfers or separation orders send them apart.

Best, best friends could walk away any time. They could leave or be transferred. They could hide out, remember an important meeting, or realize their tardiness somewhere else when a real need comes up. They could grow tired of each other after so many years together and move on, nothing legally holding them together. But they don’t. Whatever obstacles they face, best friends face together and muddle through, because they want to. Even when it’s hard. Sometimes seemingly especially when it’s hard.

I have a best friend. A best, best friend. A bestest best friend. We greet each other every morning, wish each other a good night at the end of each day. Always we find a way to communicate sometime in between, often many times in between in by texts, or calls, or videos, always there for each other. We know we’ll never move apart. We already live apart, 3,000 miles apart. How much farther apart could we be? Physically. Physically we have been in each other’s company four times in the last ten years, totally maybe 12 days. But we’ve been in each other’s company every day. Together. Wherever we go.

I wish you a best friend like that for Best Friends Day. There aren’t many. Only the bestest. I have mine and I’m all in!

Dedicated to my best friend.

And like I always say, you’re lucky.
Because, you don’t have to take it alone.
Wherever we go, whatever we do, We’re gonna go through it together.

2021-06-06

From Gypsy, the Musical, PBS Great Performances, November 11, 2016

Continuing with my experiment on the WordPress/Anchor partnership, Don’t Believe Everything You Think is available on these platforms.

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Give me a shot and a beer!

Michael 2 Comments

I’m usually a day late and dollar short. Several dollars often. This time I’m a couple months late and running short on patience although high enough on admiration for those who are at least coming up with some ideas.

So what’s all this about? Vaccines, don’t you know? Apparently those who have waited have maybe waited their way into a windfall. Like those two Ohioans who each hit their state’s Vax-a-Million lottery. As long a we’re hanging around Ohio, how about that high school freshman (oops, first year student!), who won the first of five 4-year, all expense scholarships to any in-Ohio college.  In Maryland, they are awarding a daily $40,000 prize for 40 days culminating with a $400,000 on July 4. California, Washington, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, and more that I can keep up with are offering cash incentives for getting the vaccine. A number of states are offering full scholarships for resident admissions to in state institutions. Over 30 companies are giving away almost anything you can think of including free flights for a year, free groceries for a year, free Super Bowl tickets, discounts and cash. At least 50 companies are giving cash bonuses or paid time off to employees for being vaccinated. And in a major, vaccine related announcement from earlier this week, Anheuser-Busch will buy America a beer if 70% of us get a vaccine.

You know, that vaccine that protects lives, returns normalcy to normal, and makes it possible for people to live life, lavish liberties, and pursue happiness. The one people in other countries would pay a king’s ransom to get. That vaccine.

I know I said I was a late to the party, suggesting these awards are to get unvaccinated people on the way to the nearest vaccination site. In truth, most of these scholarship and lottery prizes and many of the non-contest incentives are available to anyone vaccinated against COVID-19 regardless of when they were vaccinated, even early birds like me. The beer bash apparently will include everybody, over 21, even the unvaccinated coattail riders. According to an article in The Washington Post, “Adults 21 and older will be able to get a $5 virtual debit card that can be used to buy one Anheuser-Busch product, including beers, seltzers and nonalcoholic products,” when American hits the 70% vaccination mark before July 4. As of June 2, that means another 20 million Americans have to stick out their arms and say “Ahh.”

So where is the sticking point. Hesitancy is still an issue, but so is logistics in some areas. And, there are still a large number of young adults not vaccinated. According the Kaiser Family Foundation Vaccine Tracker, through the end of May, less than 48% of Americans age 18-29 have received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine and only 32% of that age group are fully vaccinated. Many colleges have announced they will require students to prove COVID vaccination to attend in person classes starting this fall, not unlike the requirement for other vaccines like mumps and measles. Maybe that will encourage others in this age group to get vaccinated.

Or maybe they would like a beer with their shot.

Not Vaccinated Section (1)

Time Marches On

Michael 2 Comments

Just yesterday I was researching a topic for an article I am writing. I thought I had all the information I needed but I wanted to find something that I could reference that was not “scholarly” research. I turned to Google and typed in my query, then skipped the titles of the resulting pages and gave the descriptions a quick scan. I found a couple I thought would work. I clicked on one and then the other, and as the page painted on the screen, I realized I was looking at one of my own blog posts!

You would think I would remember a blog I wrote. In my defense it was from nearly three years ago, early in the kidney transplant series. Three years ago seems like a long time now. When we’re very young, preschool age, three years didn’t mean anything which makes sense because when you are only 4 or 5 years old, 3 years is most of our life. You don’t even think about time. There isn’t a reference to how long something is or lasts. You wake up, you eat, you play, you nap, you play again, you eat some more, you play one more time, you sleep.  The only thing that varies from day to day is what Garanimal you are wearing.

As we get older, three years starts to have some meaning although it’s still fairly abstract. To an 8 year old, the 11 year old version is bigger, has a bigger bike, maybe has more homework, but the 8 year old isn’t particularly chomping at the bit to close that three year gap. Now the 13 year old starts putting some meaning into a three year stretch. At thirteen things are starting to happen, not necessarily overt but now there are times when you look back three years and say how easy it was then, back in the safety of elementary school  when nobody really cared what color your bike was, while simultaneously looking ahead three years when you get to trade that bike in for a license and a car! But that also puts you into high school and all you can tell from your 13 year old perspective is those older kids are always angry about something.

By the time you get through those high school years, 3 years is an eternity.  The 18 year old version of you can’t even remember being a gawky 15 year old at a first dance absolutely refusing to make eye contact with those people on the other side of the gym. Looking ahead, three years wouldn’t even get you through college if that was your path, and whether you’re university bound or directly entering work life, your reign as BMOC (I suppose today, BNGSOC) has come to an end and your new status is back to low man on the totem pole. (And if you can rework that phrase politically correctly, congratulations!)

hourglassRise you did though, the years went by, and in your mid to late 20’s three years is much like the adult version of the elementary school years. You see ahead a bigger version of you – a bigger job with a bigger car, bigger house, bigger family. They come with more home work (now two words). The difference now is that you are chomping at the bit to close that gap and get to “biggers” as quickly as you can.

Young adulthood goes by in a blink. The real adult phase you don’t even remember. Then suddenly, you turn middle age. Three years is a drop in the bucket. Plans you made that you were “definitely going to do next year” don’t get done for three, a three year old car is now new to you, three years is the life expectancy of the paint on the walls, the feeling that every day is the same stretches to every year is the same, and the only thing that varies from year to year is what size waist band you are wearing.

And then there is now. Three years, only three years, yet I couldn’t recognize my own words. What other things happened three years ago that now belong to somebody else’s memories. The last time I went into work, the last time I planned a vacation, the last time I danced with somebody. The last time I shared picnic blanket and bottle of wine under a sunny summer sky.

I suppose it is only a matter of a few more year, perhaps three, that the years won’t mean anything which makes sense because when you are of a certain age you don’t even think about time. There isn’t a reference to how much longer something might last. You wake up, you eat, you play, you nap, you play again, you eat some more, you sleep.  The only thing that varies from day to day is the expression you are wearing and the feeling in your heart.

Continuing with my experiment on the WordPress/Anchor partnership, Don’t Believe Everything You Think is available on these platforms.

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Please let me know what you think. So far I’m still mostly just recording the blog posts but eventually there will be more than that. We might even get into a discussion about how we all got into blogging.

This post will begin to be available on these platforms later today.

Kindness Is Not an Option

Michael 6 Comments

 

Two big things happened in my general part of the country this past weekend. Pennsylvania celebrated 143 Day for the entire weekend and the city of Toledo, Ohio renamed its airport The Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport. Gene Kranz was the director of NASA mission operations, noted for the modern mantra, failure is not an option, and 143 Day was inspired by America’s favorite neighbor, Fred Rogers. Naturally these two belong in the same discussion. Don’t they?

MrRogers_ImagineWhatOurIf I had to make a list of the Top Ten People to Ever Walk the Face of the Earth, Pittsburgh native Fred Rogers would be high on that list. He lived for kindness and his type of kindness is returning to vogue, especially now that the generation that mocked him, his quiet, unassuming manner, and his gentleness to everybody, is now having grandkids and their favorite expression is “why can’t you be nicer?” Mr. Rogers didn’t love everybody regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, or gender identity. Mr. Roger loved everybody. Period. His mantra, “I like you just the way you are,” ended every one of his 912 shows. “You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are.”

If I had to make a list of the Top Ten People to Ever Walk the Face of the Earth, Toledo native Gene Kranz would be high on that list. As the division chief for the Apollo missions, Gene Kranz was in the midst of it all at the time of NASA’s Apollo 1 disaster that took the lives of Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee. He told his assembled team during the aftermath while several investigations were ongoing, that although he had no knowledge then of what the investigations would determine to be the cause, “…I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job.” He further went on to say that from then on, “Flight Control would be known by two words, Tough and Competent.” To him, tough equaled accountable, and competent meant to be never short on knowledge and skill.

Fred Rogers used 1-4-3, his favorite number, as his special code for “I Love You” based on the number of letters in each word. He once said, “Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.” Putting those two together, 143 and offering a kind word to somebody, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development in 2019 established 143rd day of the year (May 23 most years) as ‘143 Day In PA,’ and even created a tracker on their website asking people to report when they did something nice for someone.

genekranzGene Kranz was the Flight Director for Apollo 11 and Apollo 13. Apollo 11 is known for its success, landing two men on the moon and meeting President John Kennedy’s 1962 challenge to reach the moon before the end of decade. Apollo 13 is known for its inflight disaster, potentially losing another full Apollo crew, when faulty wiring caused a spark and explosion that caused the spacecraft to lose its oxygen supply. Rather than a moon mission it became a survival mission, racing the clock to return the astronauts to earth before their oxygen ran out. Those who read the book or saw the movie know the Flight Control team took accountability for the disaster and used their knowledge and skill to bring the flight crew safely home.

Time magazine recently published an article suggesting 143 Day should become a national holiday. In the article they quoted from a Pew Research Center study and reported, “nearly 90 percent of Americans think it’s possible to improve our confidence in one another. Their prescription, it turns out, is a simple one: neighborliness.” One of those polled in the study was quoted, “Get to know your local community. Take small steps towards improving daily life, even if it’s just a trash pick-up.” The magazine’s recommendation to make it a recognized national holiday rather than an informal day of remembrance would make a dedicated date as a permanent reminder for kindness, “even if just for one day.” They conclude the article with the thought that a national 143 Day can be, “A day not to accept every neighbor’s views, or to abandon accountability, or to sacrifice justice at the altar of being kind, but instead to do the most difficult work there is: loving thy neighbor exactly as they are.”

After the Apollo 1 fire and his meeting with the Flight Control team, Gene Kranz instructed his team to write on their office blackboards, “Tough” and “Competent” and to never erase them. “They are the price of admission to Mission Control,” he said. Tough and Competent may have been reserved for his inner team but the outside world may more readily remember another statement by Gene Kranz. Failure is not an option. As is so common of these things, even though Mr. Kranz used the phrase for his autobiography, he did not originate the phrase. It was coined by a screenwriter working on the “Apollo 13” movie project. He did live the phrase however, and his life and work epitomizes true leadership: dedication to excellence beyond self.

Fred Rogers may never be remembered with a national celebration of 143 Day and Gene Kranz may never have another airport dedicated to him, but both men have otherwise long resumes of competence, compassion, accountability, and kindness. Failure is not an option. Neither should be kindness. That should be a the natural course!

Kindness tough-competent

Continuing with my experiment on the WordPress/Anchor partnership, Don’t Believe Everything You Think is available on these platforms. 

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Please let me know what you think. So far I’m still mostly just recording the blog posts but eventually there will be more than that. We might even get into a discussion about how we all got into blogging. 

This post will begin to be available on these platforms later today.

Speaking of Others

Michael 4 Comments

Trigger Alert!! Trigger Alert!! Arh-oooo-Gah!!! Warning! Warning! If you’re easily offended get the forlorn abyss of despair out of here. Proceed at your own risk. You have been warned! I’ll save you the trouble right now, the punch line is – Just be nice for Pete’s sake. (And who is this Pete?)

Now, on with the show!

Have we gone nuts? I’m speaking to the Americans now. You others might have also but I have no first hand knowledge of your nuttiness. Here, it’s a whole different story. Pretty close to a hole different story too if you ask me.

Exhibits 1 though 10: Penn State to ditch ‘male-specific’ student titles like freshmen.
That was the headline in one of the local papers on Tuesday. In my day (yeah yeah I know, that was back when “Leave it to Beaver” was considered high art and we saw how they bullied poor Lumpy and mistreated Mrs. Cleaver terribly, made her cook dinner in high heels and pearls!) …as I was saying, in my day we were too busy trying not to flunk out before freshman year was over to worry about what people were calling us. Of course, back in my day there weren’t majors in Surf Studies (as in Surfin’ USA, thank you Beach Boys) and Social Media Management (a whole different sort of surfin’), real honest to gosh Bachelor programs, Surf Studies is even a BS for Brian Wilson’s sake!

It doesn’t stop at Freshman for good old Penn State (who by the way ended up with over $100,000 of my money not terribly long ago – my money, not some student loan company government maybe you can get out of paying back money – so I feel I can call them out on their lunacy). In their eyes, technically in the eyes of the Faculty Senate (like the regular U.S. Senate isn’t filled with enough nut cases), the entire student reference is flawed. According to the Faculty Senate who drafted a comprehensive set of “inclusive and welcoming” recommendations, “Terms such as ‘junior’ and ‘senior’ are parallel to Western male father-son naming conventions,” No word on if sophomore is too sophomoric for sophomores to handle but that goes too. Instead, the classes will be First Year Students, Second Year Students, Third Year Students, Fourth Year Students, and for those in five-year programs, Fifth Year Students (currently known as fifth year seniors or, colloquially, Super Seniors – clearly that has to go).  I mean that’s not such a big deal except it’s going to be hard to fit “Fourth and Possibly Some Fifth Year Students’ Recognition Day” on the football tickets for the last home game.

Shall we continue? Upperclassmen will be no more. Where there are upperclassmen there are underclassmen and that is just so wrong on too many levels that the naming stress must be why so many underclassmen never pass their way to being upperclassmen. The First and Second Year Students will be referred to collectively as the Lower Division. The Third and Fourth Year Students will comprise the Upper Division.

Naturally they recommend doing away with he/him/his and she/her/hers, replacing those with they/them/theirs or non-gendered terms such as student, faculty member, staff member, and presumably coach although there was no mention if sports staff terminology will be an separate convention. (Coach Member may have been discussed and if it was, wouldn’t you have just loved to have been a fly on one of those wall?) I have always had an issue with they/them/theirs as a singular. Besides the fact that it/they are grammatically incorrect no matter what any easily coerced style manual may say, it appropriates the schizophrenics’ culture.

I’ve wondered this before. When somebody brings up the new “proper way” to refer to people so as to not offend, pronounly speaking, how do they feel about languages that have gender-based pronouns for inanimate objects? According to a survey cited in Wikipedia (well, it was handy and I wasn’t going to look up all those languages separately), of 256 languages surveyed, 44% had gender-based pronouns. I don’t know if that means much considering there are close to 7,000 known languages but it does mean that in at least 144 languages the computer I’m typing this on may be male or female and isn’t having any of the fun that goes with being one or the other being with the other or the one.

Hey, here’s a little aside. We’re always so busy “correcting” the male based words like Freshman, why hasn’t anybody been beating the drum to get rid of Girl Scouts, charwoman, showgirl, shopgirl, and Congresswoman. And why do we still have separate Best Actor and Best Actress awards – in California for Oscar’s sake!

I warned you that it wasn’t going to be pretty, so let’s pretty this up a little before we move on with our day. First, I’m not some ranting privileged old white dude, and although even I chuckled at a couple lines here and there, this is a serious problem. Not inclusivity – this pseudo inclusivity that is running more amok than usual, probably because if the pandemic starts to wind down what will people have to talk about. Do you want to include people? Do you want to welcome people? Then welcome them. I, poor little ole under-woke me, am for sure, for certain, know that if you went up to somebody and said “Hi! How are you? Would you like to have a sit and chat for a while? I’ll bring the donuts, you bring the coffee,” they wouldn’t give two rats’ gluteus maximuses if you said while wiping the jelly off your chin, “Boy oh boy that new donut lady at the bakery knows how to fill a donut!”

Maybe we should spend more time welcoming people into our lives than we do figuring what to call them while we keep everybody an arm’s length away. Perhaps it is time to revisit the Golden Rule, Modified: Speak of others as you would like them to speak of you. And do that treating part too while you are at it.

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The 36% Club

Michael 5 Comments

Did everybody in the U. S. of A. hear the latest mask guidance? It’s what, 4 or 5 days old now and hasn’t changed so I guess it’s in place. Around here, and I imagine around most everywhere else, it’s gotten a lot of airtime and newsprint, or whatever the 21st century equivalents are. And of course, a bazillion or so pixels of social media coverage. To summarize, “Update that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services, May 13, 2021)

That was the big story last Thursday (bigger than even my blog post, can you imagine that?) but of course, that’s not the whole story.  Very few people bothered with the whole story because, well, because I don’t know. The rest of the story is just as important but isn’t easily compressed in a 2- or 3-word headline or meme. It’s been modified a little to clarify the language and expand on travel and post-travel guidelines. (The most recent complete guideline summary is on line at the CDC site here. Everybody should read it.  The entire summary is only about 800 words. That’s not much longer than one of my typical blog posts. Even to stop and look at the pictures it’s less than a 15 minute read. Much less. Again, I suggest everybody should read it. Go on. I’ll wait.

Welcome back! The CDC site has other great information, all in easy to read, short articles including the new youth vaccine guidance. By the way, that mask wearing guidance was updated Sunday morning. There could be clarified, revised, or new guidance even by now. That’s been some of the criticism aimed at the CDC. They change the rules too much. No. They don’t. The rules are the same. Protect yourself and others. How you do that changes, how you do almost anything in life changes as circumstances change. And even these circumstances haven’t changed for the majority of Americans.

You see, that new guidance was for those Americans who are fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated means those who have received all the required shots in the series depending on the formula (i.e., brand for this discussion), AND have accounted for a sufficient time for the body to have mounted an appropriate and adequate immune response, typically 2 to 3 weeks but for some immunocompromised individuals up to 6 six weeks after the final dose in the series. Going into the weekend, that would apply to 36% of the population (CDC, May 15, 2021). To the other 2/3 of you all, well there just ain’t no change to what you should be doing!

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to be out among the public and it scared me a bit. I probably didn’t count more than 15% of the people I saw wearing masks. If they were all older that number might be appropriate. About 70% of the over 65 population may be fully vaccinated but what I was seeing was a cross section of ages. Science would tell us that the unmasked, unvaccinated people are mostly placing themselves at risk, that the point of vaccination is to minimize the risk so one can carry on normal daily activities without fear of developing the disease or significant serious effects of the disease. In normal circumstances that is how it works. Consider the typical flu season.  Not everybody gets a flu shot yet even though those who do get the flu shot may get sick, they often present with less severe symptoms that those who get the flu who did not get the flu shot. But the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has shown a remarkable aptitude for accommodation and mutation, hence the myriad of variants. Again, science would suggest those variants are not growing in vaccinated individuals but in the hosts (people) where colonies (viruses) can grow unchecked.  Upon release into the air, the vaccinated individuals whose immune systems that have been primed for a previously identified or conjectured set of viral variants may or may not have as robust an effect, or theoretically no effect, against this new variant. Do you really want to be taking that chance with my life?

I absolutely think it’s wonderful that we have reached a point in this country where we feel good enough about the testing and followup testing of the vaccines, and the adequacy of social distancing measures to ease the virulence of COVID-19, among those who are fully vaccinated. I look forward to the day where there will be many, many, many more than just 1 out of every 3 of us who fit that category. But for now, even though I am one of that category, I will continue to wear my mask and maintain my distance in public because, and I say this most regrettably, I don’t believe that all of you running around without masks also fit that category and I really don’t want to be taking that chance with my life.

mask

Continuing with my experiment on the WordPress/Anchor partnership, Don’t Believe Everything You Think is available on these platforms. 

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Please let me know what you think. So far I’m still mostly just recording the blog posts but eventually there will be more than that. We might even get into a discussion about how we all got into blogging.