Tag Life

What I Did Last Week

Michael 10 Comments

What a week. I’ve been so busy I barely noticed the tangerine tyrant threatening to drop 82nd airborne troops into Portland Oregon, the Notsoproudboys, aka immigration enforcement not-officers-and-gentlemen rappelling out of attack helicopters to storm an apartment building in America’s heartland, or Speaker Whatshisname sending the RINOs home then complaining that the Democrats don’t want to meet. All that good stuff all in one week.  Barely seems like it was just a week ago that I was concerned if there was intelligent life on this side of the planet.

Instead, I finally got around to doing some Christmas shopping. I know. I’m just so late this year. Usually by the back-to-school sale days I’m down to just needing stocking stuffers. Where did I go wrong?

Now I have rush through the remains of the list so I can get back on track and start shopping for next year’s May and June anniversaries and birthdays. Do you know how hard it’s going to be to find something June-worthy in December? That clearly should have been August activity.

The good news is, I have Halloween candy on this week’s shopping list.

Okay, maybe that was just a bit hyperbolic, but I really am behind the holiday shopping curve, and I know why. I’m not a “let’s go out with a big holiday shopping list on Black Friday and see how much we get in one day” shopper. I tend to pick things up all through the year as I see them and see that those things would be perfect for someone. I’ll squirrel them away, then during the week before Christmas I’ll scour the house trying to remember I hid it all. Which is still better than just starting to shop then like half of all the other men in America. Mind you now, I’ll likely still go out and shop during that week, but I’ll be calmer than the rest of the shopping crowd because I won’t have to go out and buy.

So that’s why I missed so much of last week’s news. I was out shopping. And I didn’t shop for any televisions or radios so, there’s that too.

Another thing I did was get out the ‘thank you for joining and here are some directions’ letters to the ARC team for Bad Impressions. (Those of you who did send emails expressing interest, if you didn’t get an email from me over the weekend check your spam folders. Anyone still interested in joining, there are a couple spaces left. Get back to me this week. Details and a request form are on the new website, www.michaelrossmedia.com, something else I did last week.)

Okay all, have a good week. I have a few more people to serendipitously come across things for.

What not to do

Michael 5 Comments

When I had my first surgery in the early years of this century, things didn’t go as well as they could have, and I spent a lot of time in bed watching television. (That could be why I don’t watch much TV now. Anyway…) There was a show I stumbled across called “What Not to Wear.” Over the course of a week distilled to a half hour or hour production, our intrepid hosts turned ugly ducklings into if not beautiful swans, better looking ducklings. The advice seemed simple enough.  Don’t follow a crowd. Don’t even do what you think you want to do. Do what works best.

I was thinking about that when I was reading this week’s major news stories – the releasing of National Guard on the nation, Cheesedoodle Donny and Pentagon Petey berated career officers, and of course, the government shutdown. All, yes all, a result of some people who just do whatever pops in their heads without consideration, without thought, without doing what would work best. They need a makeover show called “What Not to Do.”

Here in Pennsylvania, there has been a budget impasse for three months. They’ve not approved a budget on time in 10 of the last 14 years. It doesn’t matter what party is in the Governor’s office, the Democrats and the Republicans loyal to their party rather than their constituents, drag on and on, while on their way to eventually passing the same budget the Governor presented them well on time, all the while making news time for themselves, recording soundbites over what’s wrong with the other party, and how they are doing this “for the people who elected me to work for them.”

Over in Washington, the last time there was a shutdown over a budget fight was the last time the orange menace tried to run things his way. For 35 days the two parties listened to whatever their party leaders told them to argue about rather than to their constituents. It ultimately ended when the air traffic controllers, who hadn’t been paid for 35 days, walked out, leaving many politicians stranded in DC, unable to take their lobbyist paid junkets. All they had to do 35 days earlier was the right thing.

In yesterday’s Uplift post, The way of love, we discussed the right thing, how to get there, and how to stay there. It’s worth the few minutes to read it. Then maybe forward a copy to your Senators and Congresspersons.

Do as you say, or do as you do

Michael 5 Comments

Do you do what you say? Apparently, according to some social media reports I’ve seen, some half million people do. They are the ones who cancelled their Disney vacations, Disney weddings, and Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions. Not so many cancelled their ESPN subscriptions. Football trumps principles. That’s the verb, not the anthropomorphic cheese puff.

Perhaps it was because it was so easy. Boycotting Target had its success but the people more hurt by it were the Target employees who were “downsized” to keep the share holders happy. The outrage against CBS and Paramount never gained actionable speed probably because no one was certain what Paramount does nowadays. Should they maybe not go to a movie? But Disney, everyone knows Disney and not patronizing Disney stuff is easy. And nobody gets hurt. Just a company. No people. The Disney family members are protected bystanders rather than innocent bystanders (see Target sales associates) in such that regardless or how many or how few people travel through the various Disney parks, they still require the same number of people to work. (Think like if a play is performed in from of one dozen people or 120 people, if still takes the full company and crew.) It  is truly a matter of the only ones affected are the stockholders, the executives, the rich people at the top of the food chain.

Regardless if you are on the left side or the wrong side is not important here. Those who do what they say to do, or some might phrase it what they threaten to do, have an certain honesty in their lives, a level or respect for their words by turning them into their actions.

A good example of one who does what he says is a non-person, a character, a fictional figure – Atticus Finch.

We wrote about a great lesson Atticus Finch taught his children. His belief that all people deserve to be treated equally? Yes but no. His respect for life? Yes but no. His integrity? Yes but no. We brought all that up in yesterday’s Uplift post, Being Atticus, but his trait we were most taken by was his consistency is doing as he says and how he taught his children to do as he does. Whether you’re a movie fan of To Kill a Mockingbird, or a reading fan, or both, you are familiar with either the line, “I have to be the same in town downtown as at home,” or, “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets”  that calls to mind that what you believe in your heart you should not hesitate to express.

Take some time, click that link and read Being Atticus and then be him. We need more like Atticus and some of them need to be real people.

MacBeth walks among us?

Michael 12 Comments

Macbeth was fascinated with murder until he committed his first. Consumed with paranoia, he continued his murderous ways to avoid suspicion and then the fix was in. Or so some may say.  Almost from the moment of the murder, Scotland became a land depicted as one contrary to its natural progression as it was moving under the former king. It took a while longer for the bloodbath to encircle all in, and associate with, the household and drive them mad.

Of course, we know that as the EXTREME synopsis of Shakespeare’s tragedy, not close to what the historical MacBeth went through. Yes, he too killed, and his victim was King Duncan whose reign he then took for himself. But it was on the field of battle and that was how kingdoms were passed around in the eleventh century.

Often fiction resembles fact but not in that case. Perhaps though it does in the fiction we are currently living. We may not have found ourselves in a Shakespearean tragedy but there is at least a figurative bloodbath happening and those drawing the bath are indeed heading toward, if they haven’t already arrived at, insanity.

The seeming victim of our contemporary Hamlet is free speech, with such decrees as remove this comedian, remove that comedian. But no, it’s not about late night comedians. On the plane back from his recent trip to England, the orange menace railed about networks being “97% against me…that’s bad publicity, bad press…they have licenses you know.”

Let’s look at one of those networks and how intricate this really is. ABC claims Jimmy Kimmel was “pre-empted indefinitely” ostensibly because of a remarks made in a recent monologue. Those who have not listened to that monologue assume it was all about a particular right-leaning activist. But in the entire monologue his name was mention once over a 2 or 3 sentence portion of the bit. The vast majority of the time was devoted to our grand(iose) leader. The one who referenced those licenses.

It so happens ABCs parent corporation is negotiating several routine business and acquisitions which would all require federal approval. One of the network’s affiliate voicing most of the initial outrage Nexstar, happens to have a $6.2 billion purchase of a rival group of television stations pending government approval. The other affiliate group, Sinclair, also is pending FCC approval of their proposal to relax the rules limiting broadcaster ownership of its stations. And Disney itself is pending administration approval for the completion of its ESPN affiliate’s takeover of the NFL network.

There may just be more than speech being challenged with that particular incident. Now the Pentagon’s announcement over the weekend that all stories regarding or referring to the Pentagon must be approved by the Pentagon. That might be a different story  if it gets approved.

Maybe not the bloodbath (yet) but indeed we are living in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so stupid people will not be offended. Sane? I think not.

 

Unburden yourself

Michael 7 Comments

Have you taken on the burden of caring for a loved one? SHAME! Being a loving human being, generous with compassion and care, offering time and patience, is not an unpleasant experience. And indeed, the caregiving individual in a caring situation often benefits as much as the cared for person. I can’t say it better than we did in yesterday’s Uplift post, Unburden yourself. Check it out. 

Forgetting to remember

Michael 11 Comments

An article penned by Pittsburgh Post Gazette Ariana Ramirez sparked a thought in my old, tired brain. Her premise was that cries of “never forget” fall on deaf ears of those who are not intimately familiar with the whatever that is not to be forgotten. Her examples were the September 11 attacks and the JFK assassination.

There seem to be precious few of us who remember the events of 1963 and that may well explain why fewer tears are shed each November. The terrorist attacks of a mere 24 years ago though. That’s recent events, right? Ms. Ramirez reminded me that those on college campuses today were still years from being born. “How can someone remember something they never experienced in the first place?” She asked before clarifying, “Ninety to 95 million Americans were born since 1998. How can they understand what it means to the people who do remember?”

I’ll go a step further than that. In a world where the world’s most popular short form social network’s most popular post length is less than 30 seconds and “educational” content sometimes reach 60 seconds, the chance of remembering anything are roughly the same odds of college freshman remembering 9/11.

The same people who after last week’s shooting of a conservative activist were posting “We must never let this happen again,” had already forgotten about the two children killed and 21 others injured 15 days earlier. Or any of the 11 other Americans killed by gun fire during 16 mass shootings that took place between those two events.

The rhetoric on both sides is becoming embarrassing. That is a significant difference from a year ago when the rhetoric on just one side was embarrassing. The right continues to push that the problem is not guns but the people who use the guns unless it is a right-wing shooter then it’s the fault of the system and we need better active shooter training. By the way, here are our thoughts and prayers. When the left had been pushing for reasonable gun control laws, they seem to have now abandoned that hopeless (until the NRA is disbanded) case, and now have turned to remind the Republican caucus of their failures to address any meaningful gun issues and to remind the American public of the failures of the current administration. Both superfluous.

We must never forget:

     There are responsibilities that go with each right

     Guns don’t kill people, the bullets launched from them do

     People launch bullets from guns

     Thoughts and prayers are a component of humanity, not a solution to violence

     Things that happened before the most recent 40 second post are still important

On September 11, 2025, I had the opportunity to act as master of ceremonies for a special event. Before I opened the event I asked for a moment of silence to remember those who gave their lives during the 9/11 attacks. Usually when a “moment of silence” is requested, people begin to stir on their feet or in their seats at about the 20 second mark. I am pleased(?) to report the audience that day was still bowed in prayer and remembrance long after the full minute I held my silence, raised my head, and looked over the crowd. Maybe we are getting better. Maybe we are remembering. Maybe we will never forget. Maybe some day we will act.

One from Column A and/or

Michael 11 Comments

Did you ever pick your one from Column A and after you chose those two from Column B you wondered if the choice from Column A was the right one? Of course you did. Who hasn’t picked some selection, made some choice, committed to some decision, and then wondered if that was the right one to go for?

(For the younger crowd, Chinese restaurants once were noted for menu choices made from two columns, the first typically the proteins and the second were the sides. Do they still do that anywhere? They don’t here. More often than not, complete meals are presented, or aka carte choices can be picked from the entire menu.)

For me, messing up a menu selection would have significant impact, so strong is my love of food. Of course, I have made more significant yet errant choices throughout my life. I once turned down a promotion because I was concerned that I was being chosen over others who had significantly more time in their positions. After reflection, I realized that yes, they had more time, but I was vastly better at doing the actual work. As you would suspect, it was impossible to un-say no.

Just yesterday I was busy assembling the agenda for an upcoming meeting. Throughout the morning, I was interrupted by calls and messages and made little progress. I finally said to myself, “Self,” I said, “there’s nothing that important that comes through your phone any more. Ignore the darn thing and wrap this up so you can get back to your book and enjoy the afternoon.” So I put the darned thing on silent, finished the agenda, then got back to my book. It after lunch (naturally) before I checked to see if I might have missed anything. Of course I had. Unfortunately, one of them was indeed pretty important and I spent the afternoon trying to connect again without any luck.

Choices made because of rigid or poor thinking, each affecting my life rather significantly. We don’t have to do that. We can be creative in our thoughts and in our choices. I could have told my boss that I was honored to have been her choice, accepted the opportunity that frankly I had wanted and would have been good at rather than “magnanimously” stepping aside to make way for seniority. Or I could have configured the phone in myriad other ways than simply ignoring it, allowing important calls through while filtering the unwanted to a holding area.

Yesterday’s Uplift post, Certainty Unsure, looked at that very topic, how we can be certain we are unsure of what we’re doing. Or perhaps how we can be unsure of what we are certain of doing. The bottom line is that we don’t have to be certain. We aren’t restricted to a single path through life. We can choose our own way and it will be okay. I missed out on one opportunity, but I had many others come through. And I might have missed a phone call but like (all our) mother(s) told us, if it was importantly, they’d call again. Be certain to decide to pop over to the ROAMcare site and check it out.

Love thy neighbor – really?

Michael 9 Comments

Mother Theresa said, “Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Last week I wrote a post about humility and as I wrapped it up, I quoted Pope Leo. He said, “May no one think they have all the answers. May each person openly share what they have.” I opened that post with, “you can tell the measure of people by how they treat someone who can’t do anything for them.” Put them together and you have the essence of loving your neighbor.

Over the last 4 or 5 weeks, I’ve used my Monday posts to highlight the terrors of the current administration, ridiculing the current goldval office occupant as he has always done with his perceived enemies.

Incongruous isn’t it. One hand of mine calls for us to love thy neighbor, no exceptions. In fact, if you scroll to the bottom of this page, you’ll see a picture of a billboard that reads, “That “Love thy neighbor thing.” I meant it. —God.” My other hand does all it can to prove to whoever is within reading distance to see how strongly I don’t love that blot on mankind.

What do you think? Does He make exceptions? Should it be okay to not love someone who not only loves no one but himself but goes out of his way to destroy those who disagree with his lies and attempts to manipulate others to gain and increase his power and money.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe as much as I want to say, “how does it hurt you if two men or two women want to live together?” there is someone else saying go me, “How does it hurt you is someone on the other side of the country wants to keep a closet full of guns?”  I suppose I could answer that as long as those guns stay in the closet, they can’t hurt me. Can you prove they are just as innocuous as if those two men are let out of the closet?

But then we’re back to “love thy neighbor – no exceptions.” Isn’t a righteous exception okay?

Surely there is precedent for such exceptions. If more people made the exception in 1931 would that have been enough to save the world of 14 years of evil, war, and genocide.

Surely that would have been righteous enough. Only who decides what is righteous? Or more to the point, I’m not that one. Are you?

Humble is as humble does

Michael 12 Comments

It has been said that you can tell the measure of people by how they treat someone who can’t do anything for them. Perhaps by doing something as simple as pausing, paying attention, or making eye contact, or as life changing as being there for someone who just lost a loved one, is acclimating is new city, or by stepping up to volunteer after a natural (or manmade) disaster we can increase our measure.

Too often we either ignore those around us or if we do offer help or comfort, we expect praises of gratitude and a lifetime of holding someone in our debt for having done them a “good deed.”

There was a time I was probably one of the bigger violators of what is really just another way of loving our neighbors as we do ourselves. In some weird twist of expectations, I felt I was entitled to others loving me as much as I loved myself. I had become a big fish in a decidedly little pond, and it was easy to assume everyone knew me and knew I controlled what went on in my world.

Then I moved into a big pond and fish my size were decidedly quite numerous and on the little side. My only entitlement was if I did a good job this week, I could be allowed to come back and work next week. There was no longer the staff willing to do whatever I wanted but was now a team that needed to be convinced that I was capable of being a part of the solution.

It was then I learned to appreciate those working with me, others as smart and as experienced as I was but with slightly different backgrounds to pull from. I learned we pull harder when we pull together and soon was helping even in projects I was not directly responsible for but knew I or my team would be able to contribute.

I became a part of the community and was accepted as “one of them,” ultimately becoming “one of us.”

Pope Leo recently said, “May no one think they have all the answers. May each person openly share what they have.” We have wonderful gift at our disposal. Humility. For that is genuinely what being humble means. We can hurry along our way, ignore those around us, and when we do reach out it is to see what we can pull back. Or we can slow down, ignite those around us, and bring enthusiasm and joy to others without the expectation of recognition or recompense.

This week’s Uplift recounts the story of a most famous individual and perhaps his most humbling experience and how we can all learn that it is not the best known who brings the most to others, it is the one who contributes enthusiasm and joy. Check out The Humble Moviegoer at our ROAMcare website.

Happy no labor today

Michael 12 Comments

Happy Labor Day. In the past I’d have followed that with some wonderful tale of all those who labor to keep our cities, in fact our entire country going without needing parades or even particularly expecting recognition. First responders yes, military yes, but also hospital workers, flight attendants, television and radio presenters, even gas station, convenience store, and fast-food restaurant employees. All the people who are there for you when you drive home from the parades, or the semi-annual paint and appliance sales at the mega-marts (the other half of the semi-annual sales held on Memorial Day, naturally).

But not this year. This year I’m going to celebrate the PowerBall. It’s up to $1.1 billion and will continue to grow until the drawing at 11:00 EDT tonight. Just think of all the laboring you could get out of if you have that single winning ticket. You could fund yourself the company of poor South African draft dodger immigrants who stole the idea for electronic fund transfer and electric cars on your way to financing the biggest oaf to ever pave over a rose garden. You might be one proposal away from treating yourself to the most lavish wedding since those of Henry VIII while reducing the wages of those passing the hors d’oeuvres on solid platinum trays to your guests, mere millionaires who grovel at your feet.

Yes, with the fortuitous bounces of six ping pong balls, you could be on TV expounding how we’re all going to die someday but not you because you can now afford healthcare. You don’t have to care about gun laws because you can surround yourself with armed lackies to protect you and your ears from violence. You don’t have to worry about living alone and wondering where your next meal will come from because people will line up to be part of your inner circle where they all tell you how fortunate the world is that you are you, and of course they’ll happily pick up a quarter pounder for you for the promise that you will gladly pay them back on Tuesday for a hamburger today.

Yes, I could celebrate Labor Day, but I’d much rather hope I too can become America’s newest billionaire and take pride in the new deduction awarded me on the purchase of my own airplane and look down upon the worker bees, aka the former backbone of this country.

I could also stop and ask why are we celebrating anything when we’ve just experienced 44th school shooting (and 502nd mass shooting) of 2025? But then I remembered the main mass media has already moved on from that and and our esteemed former drug addict now secretary of HHS has assured us if we can reduce the use of antidepressants in this country the school shootings will go down too.

So instead, I’m buying up all the Powerball tickets I can afford and hit that $1.1 billion jackpot. Maybe then I’ll be good enough for the orange menace and his band of thieves to take advice from when I tell them they really need to go hell. And soon.