Category Society

Is it just me . . .

Michael 6 Comments

I was going to end the title here with “…or is it chili in here?” in honor of National Chili Day (get it, is it chili in here? I crack myself up), but then I thought better of it and opted not to start a new Internet controversy. There are arguments enough on line that I don’t have to add fuel to the fire and start shouting matches between the bean camp and the no beaners, fights between the beef chunkers versus the ground beef crowd, or debates over whether vegetarian chili is or is not mutually exclusive. No, I’m not going to be the cause of any more strife along the world’s interwebs.

Instead I thought I’d pose a more calm inducing topic to the world today. Does anybody else think that snowboarding should be banned from the Olympics? Like forever. Plus an extra 20 years for good measure!

It has nothing to do with whether snowboarding is a “sport” and are snowboarders “athletes.” That would be no and no. But neither is the biathlon and I have nothing against that being in the Olympics. And before anybody gets too excited, curling is a sport and curlers are athletes and it without a doubt belongs in the Olympics. (Contrary to popular belief curling is not just shuffleboard on ice. If anything it more closely resembles bocce on ice and it is a travesty that lawn bowling is not an Olympic sport in the summer games yet beach volleyball is. But I digress. If you’re interested in finding out why bocce belongs in the Olympics you can read what I said about that here.)

SnowboardingIOC18So what do I have against snowboarding and snowboarders? Nothing personally. It can be entertaining and they are talented but it’s not a sport. It cannot be quantified. There is no time or distance measured to objectively determine the winner. If there was a downhill snowboard race and the winner determined by who gets there first, that would be a sport worthy of inclusion in the winter games.

Ah ha! you say. What then about skating? Sorry, that has to go too. It’s been around since the first winter Olympics but it should have never been allowed and it has to go. If the figure skaters and ice dancers (does anybody really know the difference?) want to compete for a medal on ice, let them try speed skating or hockey. Or curling even. Otherwise I’ll be happy to enjoy their contributions to a genteel society when they show up in town with Disney on Ice. While we’re at it, freestyle skiing is out also as is ski jumping unless they agree to ditch the style points and award medals only for distance. Not giving yourself a concussion on landing would be nice but not essential if the length is there.

The Olympics have hung around almost 2000 years to celebrate the fastest, the strongest, the highest. Not who can spin around in the air with a surfboard strapped to his feet the prettiest.

Thank you for your unwavering support and agreement.

And Happy Chili Day.

Ground. With beans.

And yes, it is.

 

Happy No Not That

Michael 6 Comments

Today is Presidents Day in the United States. Actually it isn’t. It’s Washington’s Birthday but nobody calls it that anymore and I won’t dwell on that here because I already dwelled on it here. Regardless of what you want to call it I’m not going to talk about it here and not because I have an issue with the weirdo in office now. I have issues with all the weirdos who’ve been there except maybe Washington but I already took issue with those issues here.

No today is more important, more universal, more significant than presidents. Lots of countries have presidents. And why do we feel we have to “honor” these career politicians anyway? Do other countries with presidents have a special day set aside to remember the contributions of everybody who ever was crazy enough to take a job no sane person would want?

What about the countries without presidents? Are there King Days in monarchies? Are there Premier Days in oligarchies? Do puppet governments have Dictator Day? What about the countries with where the seat of government is more sofa-like with say a president and a prime minister? Who gets the day? Does each get a day? Maybe 12 hour shifts on the same day?

I’m sorry but there are just too many issues with Presidents Day. Leave it at Washington’s Birthday about the rest of them. You guys in other countries are on your own. Now to be truly universal, seriously inclusive, honestly honorable, let’s celebrate the day that everybody can get behind. Come on and join me in celebrating…..

Happy Fiftieth Anniversary to Mister Rogers Neighborhood!

Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.   -Fred Rogers

Although Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was first broadcast by what would become PBS on February 19, 1968, Fred Rogers first hit the airwaves from Toronto with his Children’s Corner in 1961. His gentle manner and strong devotion have done more for America than all of the presidents we’ve elected since then. We would have done well to more often hold him as one to emulate rather than ridicule. They say in America anybody can grow up to become President. But only one American ever grew up to become Mr. Rogers. While you are celebrating your extra day off take a moment to ask yourself who you have been more like as a role model for your children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. And knowing what you know now, who you would have more wanted as yours.

I could have written an entire post celebrating Mr. Rogers but there isn’t enough space available to me to say all the good things about this remarkable man. Our world is better because of his Neighborhood. Now if we could only get our country to follow suit.

Misterogers

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

It’s the Most Unwonderful Time of the Year

Michael 12 Comments

It’s time for my annual “Woe is me” party. I figure I have lots of reasons to celebrate my misfortunes. A rare weird disease, cancer, blood clots, lack of mobility, dialysis. Too much plaid in my wardrobe. The list goes on. But those are everyday disasters and things that almost everybody else will go through. Maybe not all of them or the ones you someday experience not all at once. But these are the things people deal with. And I deal with them pretty well. I have good family and good friends and a good medical team to help me along.

But all the help and support from family members and dialysis nurses won’t change the fact that on Wednesday I’m going to wake up alone. There will be no card taped to the bathroom mirror, they’ll be no second place setting at breakfast (and that’s a shame because I’m planning on a traditional Eggs Benedict with my own Hollandaise), there’ll be no impromptu dancing in the living room in front of an open window for the world to see that old people can still love.

I suppose old people still love. I see them. I know some who are seemingly doing all the right things. Maybe that’s it. Seemingly. In my experience, getting old did not help in the still loving department.

Broken_Heart_Pose_(1)First there was the ex. Forgive me for being so old fashioned here but by “ex” I shouldn’t have to explain ex what. It kills me when people refer to someone they dated three times as their ex. That’s a “guy or girl I dated.” Or someone they saw for almost a year. That’s an “old boyfriend.” By the way there is no “old girlfriend.” Just someone “I used to spend time with” accompanied by a wistful look into nowhere. But no, these people aren’t exes. There has to be something that existed to be exed out of. To me “ex” will always and only be an ex-wife. Or husband depending on your point of view.

Anyway, first there was the ex. We weren’t that bad when we were. We had our moments but then we also had our moments. It was hard getting together in the 70’s. Things were expensive. Money was expensive. It was not a time of destination weddings and yearly two week tropical vacations, new cars, new houses, or new tires no matter how much the mechanic whined they weren’t going to pass inspection next time. We’ll worry about it then. And that was pretty much how we got though out first 10 years. Worrying about it then. And then by the next 10 years we didn’t have to worry so much. Cars were newer. Houses were big enough that the daughter could have her own room with lots of space to spare. Plans were made and met and new ones thought up. One plan that caught us off guard was that I planned on turning 40 and she didn’t. So when I did and she should have soon followed there was lots of holding back and plans changed. Eventually my 40 turned 45 and her never ending 39 regressed to 30 and the 15 years difference was too much for her.

comforting__hearttle_6__by_domobfdi-d7186dwYears went by and I would meet a somebody now and then in between being dad and homemaker. Single parenting isn’t much fun for the male set either in case you’re wondering. Eventually a new she entered and if she wasn’t perfect, she was just right. Right enough that space could be made for her. We danced and swam and festivaled. We visited places from northern falls to tropical islands and enjoyed time in farm markets and art studios. Plans were made and met and new ones thought up. One plan that caught us off guard was that I planned on getting cancer (well, part of me did but didn’t bother to tell the rest of me until it was too late) and she planned on me always being the same. So when I did and the cure necessitated removing some parts of me, and some of those parts were the parts that impart a certain amount of masculinity to maleness, and plans changed. We struggled a bit until the phone call that spoke of things wanted and things able and they weren’t the same things. And then sometime in our 8th, maybe 9th, could have been 10th year, the new she began to become someone I used to spend time with.

So twice bitten I’ve had no will to risk adding even a girl I used to date to my record. The desire, yes. The will, no. I’d love to have someone warm to hold close at night or to slog through mud tracked roads leading to the demonstration area at the maple festival. Someone to see the old ships of New England and the old houses of the Old Country. Or someone to sit next to and read a book for the fourteenth time and for the thirteenth time to explain that it’s OK to reread a book. Or someone to share an Eggs Benedict then dance with in front of a window

Nope, not the most wonderful week of the year for me. But that’s ok. There are 51 others to amuse me. I’ll be back to normal sometime next week.

 

Images by Picquery

For the Glory of Sport

Michael 2 Comments

The first of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games will be held today. And the opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games will be held tomorrow. Yes, I noticed that also.

Getting things twisted around like that is nothing new for the First Olympic Winter Games. You can go back to the first Winter Olympics in 1924 to confirm that.

OL1924In 1924 athletes from sixteen nations gathered in Chamonix France from January 25 to February 5 to compete in 16 events. On January 26, 1924 (the day after the opening ceremonies), Charles Jewtraw, an American from Lake Placid New York, finished the 500 meter speed skating event in 44.0 seconds to win the first gold medal of the games.

The other events held at Chamonix including Four Man Men’s Bobsleigh, 18km and 50km Men’s Cross Country Skiing, Men’s Curling, Men’s and Women’s Individual and Mixed Pair’s Figure Skating, Men’s Ice Hockey, Men’s Military Patrol (a sort of 4 man team biathlon), Men’s Individual Nordic Combined, Men’s Individual Ski Jumping, and Men’s 1000m, 1500m, 5000m, and Combined Speed Skating. Two hundred, fifty eight athletes participated in these sports; forty-nine medals were awarded.

The last medal awarded went to another American athlete. Anders Haugen was awarded the bronze medal in Men’s Individual Ski Jumping. He was awarded the medal on September 12, 1974. He was originally scored in fourth place but was advanced to third when fifty years later an error was noted in the original results. It’s interesting to note Mr. Haugen is the only American to have ever won an Olympic medal in a ski jumping event.

The 1924 games were opened on January 25 by French National Olympic and Sports Committee member Gaston Vidal. The opening was accompanied by a parade of athletes, each country led by its flag bearer who took the official oath on behalf of his team.

We swear. We will take part in the Olympic Games in a spirit of chivalry, for the honour of our country and for the glory of sport.

French skier and member of France’s Men’s Military Patrol team Camille Mandrillon delivered the oath to the public on behalf of all athletes assembled there. The games began the following day and medals were awarded at the closing ceremony on February 5. In his remarks at the closing, International Olympic Committee president Pierre de Coubertin stated:

Winter sports have about them a certain purity, and that is why I was inclined to support and nurture them in this Olympic environment.

So where were things twisted around? The Chamonix games of 1924 was in 1924 officially “a week of international winter sport.” In May 1925 at their annual congress,the IOC retroactively designated the 1924 games as the “First Olympic Winter Games.”

What’s that saying? Right. Better late than never.

Olympic Flag

Photo: International Olympic Committee, Olympics.org

 

Pleased to Meet Me

Michael 10 Comments

In an effort to avoid the all day onslaught of football on television yesterday I stumbled upon on old episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche was researching her family tree. I recall my daughter having a similar assignment for some class in some year of some school. We got back a few generations on my mother’s side, but my father’s branch and both sides of her mother’s family stalled after two generations, just about the time the families arrived on American shores.

Tracing a family tree can be fun but back then genealogy was a lot of work. It involved going through family bibles and loose documents and asking questions of surviving friends and relatives of parents and grandparents when you could find them. For us it was further complicated by documents that were written in Italian, German, and Czech. Ancestry.com would have come in handy if it had existed then.

While I’m firmly behind the notion of finding your roots, I’m confused over the recent explosion of DNA testing to determine your ancestry. To me, a person’s heritage is what was learned from one’s parents. I’m American of Italian heritage not because some DNA inside me matches the DNA of some others who sent saliva samples to a particular lab, but because my mother and father raised me as American of Italian heritage. Although DNA testing is fine and dandy for determining lineage, there are many reasons why that DNA may not take a straight line to get to you.

For example, let’s look at a couple of the TV commercials’ reasons for why they think you should have your DNA tested and, to put it politely, blow them out of the water.

DNAFirst there is the one with the earnest sounding man wearing lederhosen and dancing in a German dance troupe. He had his DNA tested and there was no German DNA there. In fact he was Scottish and had to go out and buy a kilt. How could such a thing happen? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe adoption.

Then there is that equally earnest looking couple who were certain that the hubby half is Italian. Where would he have gotten such a foolish idea when his DNA clearly shows he is really “Eastern European.” The idea that nobody is certain of the actual separation of Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans aside, there has been so much commercial trade between northern and eastern Italy and the Austrian empire over the centuries that the trading of DNA was inevitable.

Although you can’t deny that DNA is what makes us, it’s not our DNA that makes us. Oh, it gives us our hair and eyes, our build and bones, and our blood and sex types. But it’s our parents that give us our substance, our values, our reason for being the beings we are. Maybe that’s just as high as our trees need to reach.

 

My State of the World Address

Michael 9 Comments

Tomorrow President Trump will deliver the State of the Union Address. Later tomorrow news and social media sites (which sound remarkably alike lately) will parse and criticize either Trump’s or Joe Kennedy’s (who will present the Democrats’ rebuttal) comments.

ResidentialSealSo in the spirit of annoying at least half the people out there, and as an official Resident of the United States, I’m going to make my comments on the state of the Union now. You see, I can do that because I don’t need a Trump or God forbid a Kennedy to tell me how my state is fairing. Unlike their addresses, mine is actually based on universal truths. So universal that you don’t even need to be from the United States to relate to them, thus I am considering this the State of the World.

The world is in trouble mostly because people want to believe it’s in trouble. It really isn’t. Without sounding like a t-shirt, keep calm and pray if you got ’em. What the world needs is a good dose of common sense. Here are some reasons why.

We are our own worst enemies. This weekend’s local news was filled with the city’s school’s teachers who are threatening to strike. They want to be paid more and to contribute less to their benefits. They will probably strike and eventually a compromise will be approved and they will get more money and a lower contribution though not as much or as great as they would like and will grudgingly return to work. Like labor unions that represent workers who make or sell something, the teacher unions don’t take into consideration that the extra money that must be spent on their increases must come from somewhere and it won’t be from profits. It will be from higher prices or to compensate for the teachers’ and other government employees’ windfalls, higher taxes. These will turn into reasons for next year’s higher pay demands by other unions, cost of living adjustments demands by non-union workers, and increased minimum wage proposals by politicians and thus the cycle continues. This is why although the average wage has risen from $7,300 in 1967 to $73,300 over fifty years to 2017, a tenfold increase, the average new car that in 1967 cost $2,750 cost $33,500 in 2917, 12 times as much as from 50 years prior, and the average house that cost $14,250 in 1967 rose to $377,100 in 2017, 26 & 1/2 times greater. Don’t even ask about insurance rates.

Big Pharma is not out to get you and all doctors are not pill mills. Yes, drug companies manufacture and wholesale opioid narcotics. Yes, opioid narcotics are an addictive nightmare and some abused opioids began as prescriptions. But most opioid that are being abused are being manufactured in illegal labs by criminals. Heroin and heroin/fentanyl combinations are by far the largest abused, and deadly, opioids. But, opioid by class are only the fifth most abused substances coming in behind alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamine, and cocaine. Prescription drug abuse ranks higher only when you include the prescribed opioids with benzodiazapines (anybody remember “Valley of the Dolls”), codeine and codeine derivatives, anabolic steroids, and the prescription stimulants methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine (Aderall).

It should not come as a surprise that efforts to fight opioid addiction are misdirected since every other addiction is being mistreated or outright ignored. Oooh, oooh, drugs are bad, drugs are bad say the sheep. Ooh, ooh, Marijuana is soooo good and it cures all kinds of diseases so we should all be allowed to have some say the same sheep. Drinking and driving is clearly bad. Sixty-five percent of fatal single vehicle accidents involve alcohol, 29% of all fatal accidents involve alcohol. Three drinks will impair an average build adult. Don’t drive if you drink that third drink! Cigarette smoking is evil. Period. The nicotine will get you every time. There is nicotine in those vaping thingies! That’s why people crave them. Duh!

Guns don’t kill people. But they sure do make it easy for people to. Especially those that fire 150 rounds a minute. Without taking the all or none approach can we agree that automatic weapons don’t belong in the hands anybody not currently and actively serving in the military in a combat zone? Hunting and target shooting can be accomplished quite nicely one bullet at a time.

Climate change is real. It’s also inevitable. The world changes. It has changed. It will continue to change. That’s how we got here. That’s how we’ll leave. Deal with it.

We are own worst enemies, part two. Data breaches continue and will so. Some of the biggest you may not have even know. The ten biggest data breaches by number of people’s information exposed are Yahoo (twice for number 1 and 2 at 3 billion in December 2016 and 500 million in September 2016), My Space (360 million, May 2016), Equifax (145.5 million, September 2017), EBay (145 million, May 2014), Target (110 million, November 2013), LinkedIn (100 million, May  2016), AOL (92 million, 2007), JP Morgan Chase (83 million, October 2013), and Anthem Health (80 million, February 2015). Just for grins, do you know who comes in at #11? The Sony Playstation network with 77 million exposures back in April of 2011. And who even knew that My Space still had 360 million users two years ago? Our privacy and our money are at risk every time we access the interwebs. Yet we continue to use digital financing at increasing rates. Starbucks now has stores that do not accept cash joining a growing trend of restaurants and convenience stores in large metropolitan areas that have gone cashless, and Internet sales in 2017 represented over 9% of all retail sales in the U.S. up from 3.6% in 2008.

I could go on. And on and on. But I won’t in the hopes of keeping a few readers. If you want an improving future it’s clear what we have to do. Rekindle common sense, invoke rational thinking, and pray if you got ’em.

NB: Salary and cost figures by USA Today; drug use figures via National Institute on Drug Abuse; drinking and driving statistics via Father’s Against Drunk Driving (FADD), data breaches and rates by USA Today, E-commerce statistics by U.S. Census Bureau.

 

A Virtue by Any Other Name

Michael 8 Comments

I’m writing this at about 11:30 Wednesday morning while I’m waiting for my car to be serviced. It’s not the little roadster I’ve often mentioned here but the daily driver. Since my daily drives are now short, few, and far between, it is more aptly a daily parker. But still with even less than 5,000 miles added to its journeys since last December, it needs its annual safety inspection and oil change.

Although there are more than a handful of 29 minute oil change places within a few miles of me I opted for the dealership service department. It’s very close. Close enough I could walk home if I didn’t want to wait although an oil change and inspection is usually only a half hour wait and I can amuse myself reading the paper or tackling a crossword puzzle. And it’s only 9°F (-13°C) outside. That’s warmed up from the 5° it was when I got here 3 hours ago. Less than ideal outdoor walking weather.

Oh, yes, you read that right. Three hours. I have seen people come and people go and I’ve worked all the puzzles I’m I the mood to except the one that answers why it takes so long to drain old oil out, pour new oil in, honk the horn, flash the lights, and tap the brakes.

I guess that’s not a fair representation. I know there’s more to it than that and that those who have come and gone might have had even less work done. After all, it was only 5° at the start of the day. I’m sure lots if batteries are being sold and they can switch out 4 or 5 of them in the time it takes 5° oil to ooze out of crankcase.

I don’t know what you do but whatever you do somebody has said, why do you have to take so long, why do you charge so much, why did you have to go to school for that? All you’re doing is…

Knowing that I had been the subject of such complaints throughout my work days, I was certain I never said such a thing of others. Until 3 paragraphs ago. More than likely, until 50 years ago. Impatience is not one if the seven deadly sins but it certainly should be. I spent the first hour of waiting just fine. I sat in a comfortable chair in a warm lounge and read the morning paper. By the second hour I started getting impatient. The chair got hard, the paper was boring, and there was a definite chill in the air. Heading to the third hour I am close to irate. Why am I still here when I could be home in a comfortable chair …

in a warm room …

reading … um …

the rest … ah …

of …

the … um …

paper.

Hmm…

You know I don’t do resolutions at the beginning of the year but maybe I’ll make an exception and not do that again and hope that you don’t either. So it’s taking a little longer than I expected. Across the room is a father and son playing some sort of game on a tablet. In the corner is a young man appearing to be watching a webcast on his laptop, two seats down from me a pair of young women are planning a brunch before they take a third friend shopping for her wedding dress. They all have more things going on in their lives and don’t seem to mind the wait. I’m sure I can learn something from that.

Even at my advanced impatience.

 

What Not To Buy

Michael 8 Comments

Country Living magazine recently published a list of the 29 gifts you do not want to give for Christmas. I’ll tell you up front that I disagree with 28 of them as well as the entire idea of the list.

First, why 29? That seems arbitrary. Who comes up with a Top Twenty-Nine of anything? We’re they just sitting around in the production office and tossing out things they don’t like getting while tossing back some double fortified eggnog? If you can’t be firm on a topic and declare “These are the 10 worst gifts ever!!!” why should you expect anyone to take the basket full of suggested “don’t do it” gifts with any seriousness?

NoGiftsBeyond the idea itself being of little value to normal people, the items they chose would actually make pretty wonderful gifts. Assuming you are gifting to those you care about enough to give thought and consideration to your gift giving, 28 of the 29 items could be tops on anybody’s wish list.

For example, they had to hop on the “let’s hate fruit cake bandwagon” and include the delicacy on their never ever give list. I personally like fruit cake. If you gave me a fruitcake you would go directly to top of my I Love You list. Just don’t give me one that was prepared 11 months ago in a factory that also puts out sparklers for the summer market. If you gave me a mass produced chocolate lava cake made more than 4 hours ago I would use that as a stop to prop open the front door while I threw you out on your ear. So stop knocking my decision to like fruitcake and start practicing that inclusion stuff you keep posting on Facebook!

Another item in their list of taboo tchotchkes is fitness equipment lest you send the message that your giftee is in need of some serious body work. If your friend or family member is an avid exerciser would he or she not appreciate that your share their enthusiasm for self-improvement? One of the best gifts I ever received was my fitness tracker. It provides daily encouragement to keep moving else I find myself behind a walker again. Interestingly, among their suggestions in lieu of exercise equipment is a pocket wine aerator. Now isn’t that just the perfect thing to gift to you closest drunk on the go?

I could go on 26 more times but you get the idea. Gift guides are fun because you can look at stuff out there you may never have thought of and know somebody who would be just right for this or that. But non-gift guides are just mean! They send the message that if you considered any of those items that you’re a lesser person. You know what those on your list like and appreciate. Don’t let somebody you don’t know tell you what your friends and family want!

Oh, what was the one thing on their list I would agree with being a less than thoughtful present? Toilet paper. Yep, toilet paper. Did that really have to be on a list at all? Then again, we are the culture that came up with pet rocks (still available!) and designer sweatpants (on sale now!!).

Remember, only 7 shopping days until Christmas. Happy Holidays!

(No, I don’t get any compensation from the pet rock people, Saks Fifth Avenue, designer anybody, lava cake bakeries, the Association for the Ethical Treatment of Fruitcake (EAT-Fruitcake), toilet paper, and Country Living magazine.) (Although I do subscribe to Country Living so if they want to gift me a couple years renewal I won’t argue.) (If they want to cancel me, I will argue.) (If you haven’t already figured it out, EAT-Fruitcake doesn’t really exist, at least as far as I know. That was supposed to be funny.) (Come on! I said supposed to.)

A Date That Will Live

Michael 4 Comments

The day that will live in infamy is becoming forgotten in the parts of the world that knew of it to begin with. The 2400 killed in the attack and the 400,000 Americans who died after the U.S. entered World War II, did not perish so others can live in oblivion.

While we’re good at commemorating things we’re also good at forgetting the impact those things had on the people who lived through them and why they took the positions they did. The service men and women who died on December 7, 1941 didn’t know they were putting their lives in jeopardy when shortly after dawn 414 planes rained terror on the American fleet harbored 50 miles west of Honolulu.

There was no U.S. involvement in the war in August 1939 when many of the sailors and soldiers enlisted who then found themselves on Oahu twenty-eight months later. There were world issues but they weren’t entering the service knowing they would be destined for the front lines. They made a decision to serve knowing the country needed individuals willing to be ready on any day to go from “training” to “executing,” from active duty to actively doing, probably with no warning.

On December 8, Franklin Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress opening his remarks with the now famous, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Those words get quoted at least once a year, every year, a day shy of the anniversary of their first utterance as we remember the event that thrust thousands of so many of enlistees onto the front line.

PearlHarbor

Source: History.com

President Roosevelt’s words that came after the famous ones are often lost to history. “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”

That last phrase again was, “…make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.” Unfortunately it did. Almost 60 years later almost the same number of people were killed at 3 sites on September 11, 2001 when 4 planes took aim on America.

So if today you find yourself calling today’s date one that will live in infamy, remember to also say to yourself, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and give today a little life.

 

Something in Common

Michael 4 Comments

What do I and Matt Lauer and I have in common? I wouldn’t have been given a second chance either. Finally somebody is treating the elite like the mere mortals they are!

If you were expecting to read a post decrying Matt or Charlie, Kevin or Harvey as scums who don’t deserve to share Earth with the rest of us, that’s not quite what you’ll find here today. They are and they don’t. You don’t need me to add to that conversation. You will find here a grudgingly admiring opinion recognizing the particular powers who finally started treating the Matts and Charlies, the Kevins and Harveys like the Regular Joes that they are. At least the Matts.

Mostly I have to say how I hope this trend will continue. No, not the trend of hate and fear and intimidation. The trend (if one instance can be hoped to be the start of a trend) that even the star quarterback of the team isn’t going to get any different treatment than the water boy when one who was wronged speaks up.

I worked in management positions for 30 years. In addition to nice salaries and bonuses, choice hours, opportunities to write and speak, and a really bigger office than I deserved but wasn’t about to give back, management positions bring with them lots of complaints. Complaints between coworkers that I had to deal with and complaints about me that somebody else made sure I had to deal with, and sometimes complaints about other supervisors that I was asked by my superiors to participate in the deliberations begun to deal with. And among all the complaints, though very few, were complaints of inappropriate behavior.

There were probably very few complaints of inappropriate behavior because for the most part we were a system within an industry within a country of water boys. But when inappropriateness raised its head (and I’ll keep using the questionable term “inappropriate” because at our level, inappropriate behavior was just as bad as blatant assault) there were no look aways, no second chances, no golden parachutes. There was termination. And sometimes criminal charges. If a creep was uncovered he (and sometimes she) was told to move on. Preferably in some other field, like envelope stuffing. See, there aren’t many star quarterbacks in the word. Nor many movie moguls, A-list actors, famous comedians, politicians, TV news anchorpersons. So the investigation, the deliberations, and the punishment were conducted like it was just A Regular Joe, not the face of morning news.

There are creeps among the Regular Joes but for most, Regular Joes are an ok bunch. When a Regular Joe is determined to be irregular, Joe is called out for it. There aren’t many “suspended with pay pending investigation,” “determined to be an isolated incident,” or “it was consensual.” Regular Joes were sent home while we looked into it, which usually took just a day or two or three. Only if there was clear evidence that the allegation was fabricated was Joe asked back. Then a whole different investigation was begun. Sometimes Regular Joe had to sit at home for a length of time. When that happened, Regular Joe better have had a decent savings account because in the Water Boy World, if you aren’t working, you aren’t earning.

Finally, I have to ask for blessings to the women and men who have stepped up and made known the atrocities they were forced to endure. I also have to state my disappointment that there were probably others who didn’t step up not because they felt threatened but because they sought out the attention of these creeps only because they were famous creeps. Some creeps are born to creepdom but many are encouraged along the way. It’s no excuse and it’s not making things easy for the ones opened up.

There aren’t a lot of breaks for Regular Josephines and Joes that stepped forward. There shouldn’t be for a Matt or a Harvey.

The famous already got their break.