Today is a milestone of sorts for my little blog that I like to call The Daily Grind. This will be the 100th post that I have made, and I have been thinking of how I want to mark the occasion. Like a baseball player approaching 3000 hits, you think about how great it would be to hit a game winning grand slam on your big number, I think I’ll settle for a sharp single to right, or perhaps even a double to the gap. So I will leave aside the issues of the day for today, and focus on a bigger picture, namely who I am, as best as I can express it through words. While I am honestly working on writing shorter columns, I can’t make that claim for this one, there is just too much to say and it is a special occasion.
There are seven descriptions that define who I am if I really break it down, and I will tackle them in descending order, finishing up with what I feel is most important and relevant. First off, I am a teacher, a high school history teacher to be precise. I have been doing it long enough that I’ve learned a thing or two and feel like I pretty much know what I am doing, and also I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s hard to really imagine doing much else at this point in my life, despite my occasionally dreaming of the riches that could await me in some high rise office. The reason that I got into teaching is the main reason that I stay in it, which is the opportunity to interact with smart, mostly sweet, and always interesting young people on a daily basis. I love the subject matter as well and I thoroughly enjoy learning new information and synthesizing it in a way that has relevance and meaning to the lives of my students. I can’t lie, I also enjoy being able to wear my adidas to work every day in lieu of dress shoes, being able to get away with shaving once a week if that, and summer vacation is not such a bad deal either.
I am a writer, and while I don’t get paid for it, I am hoping that one day in the not too distant future to be able to call myself simply a self-supporting freelance writer. I started the Grind as a way to start writing for an audience, and while I found it surprisingly tough to do at first, I have gotten to the point where the words generally flow and I hope, come out in a way that is at least interesting, and maybe even sometimes enlightening and entertaining. Like everything in life, my writing is a work in progress, but like most things in life, you only get better at something by doing it, so I faithfully attempt to put out columns on a regular basis. I plan to start submitting some stuff to both online sites and print sources, and I am going to start working on a book that deals with the American dream, and what different people’s version of it is. I will be writing a column about that in more detail and hope to be able to talk to as many people from as many different walks of life as I can to use as material for the book.
I am a friend, not always a great one, but I try and what I lack in timeliness of returning emails and phone calls I always try to make up for in quality when I do respond. I was blessed growing up to have some great friends who loved and supported me through good times and bad, and who have, and in many cases continue to shape my thoughts and opinions. I am grateful to old friends and new, and the older I get the more I realize how important their companionship is. And I’m starting to get pretty dang old too!
I am a son, and my relationship with my parents is something that is at the core of who I am. I was raised by a dad who taught me that being a man means taking care of your family first and foremost, and everything else comes in second place. I was raised by a mom who gave me love and support and a kick in the pants when it was needed, which it often was, but who I could and still can always count on, and who provided me the role model of an intelligent, independent woman who loved her family more than anything else. She could have been anything she wanted to be, but she chose to be a mom and a wife, and while she also became a registered nurse, the first two far outweigh anything else in my book. I talk with my parents once a week on Sunday nights and keep in touch with my mom via email during the week, and I love them so dearly and their opinion of me is always in my thoughts when I make decisions.
I am a husband, and while I have written about my love and devotion to my wife Julie, it is worth saying again that I couldn’t have been more fortunate to meet her when I did, back in college as a naïve young college kid, and to have had her stick with me long enough for me to figure out what was what. Being a husband is not something that I always do properly, but I’m learning and getting better at it, I do the dishes and put the toilet seat down at least, even if I do leave my socks laying around at various point throughout the house, but being a husband means putting our relationship above almost all else, and that much I do without hesitation and with no sense of being obligated to do so, I do it because I want to. I guess the best way I can express myself here is that in the moment before I enter the house after being out at work or wherever, I get a good feeling when I know that Jules is inside waiting for me and that we’ll be spending time together.
The only responsibility that is more important to me than that of a faithful husband is as a dedicated dad. My kids, Jake and Chloe, are the light of my life and my soul, and there is no way I can even begin to express my love for them in a single paragraph so I won’t really even try. From the moment when I saw the tiny crown of Jake’s head start to appear in this world my life was changed forever. When Chloe came out, much quicker I might add, a few years later and I had my girl, I couldn’t have been more fulfilled. They are unique individuals, but they are also a reflection of Julie and I, and I couldn’t be prouder as a parent of who they are as people and the path in life that they are on, which is the path of a true human being. Nothing I do in my life nor any accomplishments I may achieve will ever come close to what I do as a parent, and when I leave this earth I can only hope that I am survived by the two quality human beings that I had a part in bringing into it.
I am a human being, which means that I share this planet with six and half billion other human beings, all of whom have their own stories to tell, their own hopes and dreams, their own fears and insecurities, and hopefully their own moments of joy and triumph. Humanity is fascinating to me, and being fully human is ultimately the greatest pursuit anyone can undertake. I don’t know what the end result will look like, or even what it should look like or what the goals are supposed to be, it is just something where you have to trust your instincts, trust in the people around you and in a higher power or powers if you are inclined to consider that possibility. But even though being human and achieving humanity may be hard to define and even harder to achieve, it is what keeps me going each and every day, trying to fight the good fight, preach the good word, and live the good life, and always, always trying to be just a little bit better today than I was yesterday.
Thanks for taking some time out of your day to read what I put out there, it may not always be in accordance with your own beliefs and philosophy, it may not always be as coherent or relevant as I would like it to be, but it is always from my heart and reflective of what’s in my soul. I’ve enjoyed writing the first hundred columns and look forward to putting out the next hundred, and hopefully I can keep on keeping on, and getting a little bit better every day.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
A Message to our New President
It seems very likely that Barack Obama will be elected as our nation’s 44th president in a matter of days, and while anything can still happen with regards to the election, I am going on the assumption that not only the polls, but my own intuition which I have gone with all summer long, as well as plain old common sense will prevail and Obama will win the election, very likely by a comfortable margin. Of course getting elected, like showing up, is only half of the battle. The real fun begins when you get to start ruling and when the buck officially stops with you. In the difficult economic times, dangerous foreign policy situation, and often fractured social system that we currently find ourselves living through, it is more important than ever that Mr. Obama rule from the center if he and the Democratic party are going to rule effectively and for any length of time.
There will be calls from those on the left to enact drastic and radical reform, and I must admit as one who tends to that side of the debate it is tempting to succumb to the desire to really shake things up. But I am old enough to know better, and as a student of political history I know that the philosophy of going for broke is a short term proposition. Change is needed, this is one of the major themes of this election and one of the main reasons why Obama has appealed to so many, but change must come gradually and it must be as all encompassing as possible.
There will be those on the right that will oppose Obama and the Congress at every step, and that is just the system we have, for better or worse. A strong and vocal opposition serves as an important check and counterbalance on the party in power, and my hope is that those on the right will keep their focus on what, in their opinion, is best for the country, and not simply become the current version of the angry pissed off liberals that have demonized President Bush for the last 8 years.
But most people are neither on the right nor the left, they may lean one way or the other, but they are moderate and not overly partisan. The policy debates and the decisions that emanate from them must take this into account if they are to be meaningful and have a lasting effect. Obama and the Democrats in Congress must enact reform and bring about change in a way that will allow the majority of Americans to get on board, and more importantly stay on board through difficult times. Playing to the base is not good politics in that it appeals to the few at the expense of the many, and it generally doesn’t produce good policies either. A few examples of this would be the failed Clinton health care proposal of the early 90’s or the failed Bush attempts at privatizing Social Security in the middle of this decade. Not coincidentally, both brought about a change in the balance of power in the Congress shortly thereafter.
On the pressing and vital issues of the day, foreign policy, health care, and what I call the four E’s of the economy, the environment, energy, and education, we must first build consensus with honest and open debate that takes into account all of the stakeholders, which basically means the American people. We must not demonize the opposition or look down upon each other while shouting each other down for the next four years. We must find common ground where it exists, and develop solutions and policies that first do no harm, and then provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number. If we can do this, we will realize the hope that so many of us have in a President Obama, that we will become a more united nation and a better, more equitable, and just society for all.
There will be calls from those on the left to enact drastic and radical reform, and I must admit as one who tends to that side of the debate it is tempting to succumb to the desire to really shake things up. But I am old enough to know better, and as a student of political history I know that the philosophy of going for broke is a short term proposition. Change is needed, this is one of the major themes of this election and one of the main reasons why Obama has appealed to so many, but change must come gradually and it must be as all encompassing as possible.
There will be those on the right that will oppose Obama and the Congress at every step, and that is just the system we have, for better or worse. A strong and vocal opposition serves as an important check and counterbalance on the party in power, and my hope is that those on the right will keep their focus on what, in their opinion, is best for the country, and not simply become the current version of the angry pissed off liberals that have demonized President Bush for the last 8 years.
But most people are neither on the right nor the left, they may lean one way or the other, but they are moderate and not overly partisan. The policy debates and the decisions that emanate from them must take this into account if they are to be meaningful and have a lasting effect. Obama and the Democrats in Congress must enact reform and bring about change in a way that will allow the majority of Americans to get on board, and more importantly stay on board through difficult times. Playing to the base is not good politics in that it appeals to the few at the expense of the many, and it generally doesn’t produce good policies either. A few examples of this would be the failed Clinton health care proposal of the early 90’s or the failed Bush attempts at privatizing Social Security in the middle of this decade. Not coincidentally, both brought about a change in the balance of power in the Congress shortly thereafter.
On the pressing and vital issues of the day, foreign policy, health care, and what I call the four E’s of the economy, the environment, energy, and education, we must first build consensus with honest and open debate that takes into account all of the stakeholders, which basically means the American people. We must not demonize the opposition or look down upon each other while shouting each other down for the next four years. We must find common ground where it exists, and develop solutions and policies that first do no harm, and then provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number. If we can do this, we will realize the hope that so many of us have in a President Obama, that we will become a more united nation and a better, more equitable, and just society for all.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A report from the wide world of sports:
So here we sit only a couple days from Halloween and still waiting for the World Series to play out, and it got me thinking about what’s good, what’s bad, and what is downright ugly or sad currently in the wonderful world of sports.
Let’s start with the good, since I like to focus on the positive, the sunny side of our sports world. This Saturday is a great day to get the yard work done early, the chores finished, or pushed back to Sunday, and settle in front of the tube with your favorite beverage, snack, and comfortable spot for two games that promise to have a big impact on the chase for the mythical national title. The first is what is called the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party, which takes place every year between Georgia and Florida, both of whom have a passionate fan base and a tradition of excellence to be passionate about. Both also happen to be right in the thick of the title hunt, and the winner will not only be chanting that it’s good to be a Florida Gator/Georgia Bulldog, they both have the same cool chant by the way, but will be setting their sights on possible vacation plans for early January.
The other big match-up is an in-state rivalry between two Texas schools, the mighty Longhorns of Texas versus perennial understudy Texas Tech. Texas is ranked as the top team in the nation, which means in theory at least, that if they win out they are guaranteed a slot in the title game, and Tech is also unbeaten and ranked high enough that a win over their rival could vault them near the top, which is how Texas got there, by beating their vaunted rival and then number one Oklahoma. This is the Saturday night prime time game on ABC, which is a really cool addition made within the last few years to the college TV schedule, and so far this year the matchups have been stellar and we haven’t been forced to endure some lame regional game like Cal v. Oregon in place of the big national game.
More good sees the start of the NBA season, which tipped off last night. The NBA is as good as it’s been in the last 20 years, and after a decade or so in the wilderness of 82-80 snooze fests with more holding and groping than a hotel room party after prom, the offense and the excitement is back. Look for the usual suspects to compete for the title, including the defending champ Celtics, the Labron James’, also known as the Cavaliers, don’t count out the old Pistons, or even a resurgent Miami Heat with Dwayne Wade back healthy, and look out for the up and coming Magic with Dwight Howard, the best big man to come into the game in awhile. The West is loaded as usual, the Lakers expect a healthy Andrew Bynum to make a big impact on their rotation, the already dangerous Rockets added a potent threat in Ron Artest, and the Hornets with Chris Paul are on the move. Old stalwarts like the Spurs and Suns figure to make some noise as well if they can muster up one more run and stay healthy. My pick, which admittedly is more with my heart than my head, is a Lakers-Celtics rematch with the opposite result this time around.
Now for the bad. The World Series is being delayed, seemingly inevitably, until either Barack Obama finishes his televised speech or the weather breaks in Philly, whichever comes first. At least it’s not Clinton giving one of his marathon speeches, we’d be playing the ballgame around Thanksgiving. But seriously, what does baseball expect when they push the season back to late October and when at least one of the host cities is generally in a cold climate. The weather the other night was not fit for baseball, both with the hard rain coming down and the condition of the field, which was better suited for a muddy pickup football game than a Series contest.
And as one more example of the bad, take Tuesday Night Football. Please. What’s that, you missed the big match-up last night between Houston and Marshall? What kind of sports fan are you, Tuesday Night Football is an American institution. This was a bad idea out of the gate, even die hard football fans need a break so that we can recharge our football batteries. My proposal, get back to the traditional schedule, which means high school games on Friday nights, college games on Saturdays, NFL on Sundays and cap it off with Monday Night Football. Then relax for a few days and get ready for the next weekend, people need time to study point spreads and set fantasy rosters, at least people that do that sort of thing.
For the ugly, it is more sad than anything else, but would be rookie sensation Greg Oden went down last night in the first half of his debut against the Lakers. Oden was the darling of college basketball two years ago after leading his Ohio State Buckeyes to the title game, was drafted number one by the Trailblazers and then suffered a season ending injury before ever suiting up for a game. So on his much anticipated return he goes down short of a complete half of play, and we can only hope that he will come back strong and not end up like another former Blazer center whose pro greatness was mitigated by a series of injuries, Bill Walton.
I must also note and wish nothing but the best for a legend of college basketball, and even though he coached at my college rival, the University of Arizona, one of my favorite coaches, Lute Olsen. Mr. Olsen just retired after a long tenure in Tucson marked by excellence on the court and class off of it, he ran a clean program and sent numerous young men onto the NBA, and until her recent passing, did much of it with his longtime wife and companion Bobbi. It was just announced that Olsen had earlier suffered a stroke, which has caused him some difficulties and no doubt led to his decision to step down. Lute Olsen is a first class individual, a great basketball mind, and a positive force in the lives of the young men he coached and the community he was a part of for so long, he will be missed and this Sun Devil alum wishes him the best of health and hopes that at some point he can return to the sidelines, or at the least enjoy a productive and healthy retirement.
So there you have it, the periodic update from the wide, wonderful, and often wacky world of sports. I would write much more, as there are always plenty of stories to comment on as they pertain to the games we love to watch, but I’ve got to get online and find out if Houston covered the spread against Marshall last night.
So here we sit only a couple days from Halloween and still waiting for the World Series to play out, and it got me thinking about what’s good, what’s bad, and what is downright ugly or sad currently in the wonderful world of sports.
Let’s start with the good, since I like to focus on the positive, the sunny side of our sports world. This Saturday is a great day to get the yard work done early, the chores finished, or pushed back to Sunday, and settle in front of the tube with your favorite beverage, snack, and comfortable spot for two games that promise to have a big impact on the chase for the mythical national title. The first is what is called the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party, which takes place every year between Georgia and Florida, both of whom have a passionate fan base and a tradition of excellence to be passionate about. Both also happen to be right in the thick of the title hunt, and the winner will not only be chanting that it’s good to be a Florida Gator/Georgia Bulldog, they both have the same cool chant by the way, but will be setting their sights on possible vacation plans for early January.
The other big match-up is an in-state rivalry between two Texas schools, the mighty Longhorns of Texas versus perennial understudy Texas Tech. Texas is ranked as the top team in the nation, which means in theory at least, that if they win out they are guaranteed a slot in the title game, and Tech is also unbeaten and ranked high enough that a win over their rival could vault them near the top, which is how Texas got there, by beating their vaunted rival and then number one Oklahoma. This is the Saturday night prime time game on ABC, which is a really cool addition made within the last few years to the college TV schedule, and so far this year the matchups have been stellar and we haven’t been forced to endure some lame regional game like Cal v. Oregon in place of the big national game.
More good sees the start of the NBA season, which tipped off last night. The NBA is as good as it’s been in the last 20 years, and after a decade or so in the wilderness of 82-80 snooze fests with more holding and groping than a hotel room party after prom, the offense and the excitement is back. Look for the usual suspects to compete for the title, including the defending champ Celtics, the Labron James’, also known as the Cavaliers, don’t count out the old Pistons, or even a resurgent Miami Heat with Dwayne Wade back healthy, and look out for the up and coming Magic with Dwight Howard, the best big man to come into the game in awhile. The West is loaded as usual, the Lakers expect a healthy Andrew Bynum to make a big impact on their rotation, the already dangerous Rockets added a potent threat in Ron Artest, and the Hornets with Chris Paul are on the move. Old stalwarts like the Spurs and Suns figure to make some noise as well if they can muster up one more run and stay healthy. My pick, which admittedly is more with my heart than my head, is a Lakers-Celtics rematch with the opposite result this time around.
Now for the bad. The World Series is being delayed, seemingly inevitably, until either Barack Obama finishes his televised speech or the weather breaks in Philly, whichever comes first. At least it’s not Clinton giving one of his marathon speeches, we’d be playing the ballgame around Thanksgiving. But seriously, what does baseball expect when they push the season back to late October and when at least one of the host cities is generally in a cold climate. The weather the other night was not fit for baseball, both with the hard rain coming down and the condition of the field, which was better suited for a muddy pickup football game than a Series contest.
And as one more example of the bad, take Tuesday Night Football. Please. What’s that, you missed the big match-up last night between Houston and Marshall? What kind of sports fan are you, Tuesday Night Football is an American institution. This was a bad idea out of the gate, even die hard football fans need a break so that we can recharge our football batteries. My proposal, get back to the traditional schedule, which means high school games on Friday nights, college games on Saturdays, NFL on Sundays and cap it off with Monday Night Football. Then relax for a few days and get ready for the next weekend, people need time to study point spreads and set fantasy rosters, at least people that do that sort of thing.
For the ugly, it is more sad than anything else, but would be rookie sensation Greg Oden went down last night in the first half of his debut against the Lakers. Oden was the darling of college basketball two years ago after leading his Ohio State Buckeyes to the title game, was drafted number one by the Trailblazers and then suffered a season ending injury before ever suiting up for a game. So on his much anticipated return he goes down short of a complete half of play, and we can only hope that he will come back strong and not end up like another former Blazer center whose pro greatness was mitigated by a series of injuries, Bill Walton.
I must also note and wish nothing but the best for a legend of college basketball, and even though he coached at my college rival, the University of Arizona, one of my favorite coaches, Lute Olsen. Mr. Olsen just retired after a long tenure in Tucson marked by excellence on the court and class off of it, he ran a clean program and sent numerous young men onto the NBA, and until her recent passing, did much of it with his longtime wife and companion Bobbi. It was just announced that Olsen had earlier suffered a stroke, which has caused him some difficulties and no doubt led to his decision to step down. Lute Olsen is a first class individual, a great basketball mind, and a positive force in the lives of the young men he coached and the community he was a part of for so long, he will be missed and this Sun Devil alum wishes him the best of health and hopes that at some point he can return to the sidelines, or at the least enjoy a productive and healthy retirement.
So there you have it, the periodic update from the wide, wonderful, and often wacky world of sports. I would write much more, as there are always plenty of stories to comment on as they pertain to the games we love to watch, but I’ve got to get online and find out if Houston covered the spread against Marshall last night.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
An Historic Moment
As I write this column we are exactly one week away from a potentially historical election day. America has been fortunate throughout our brief history in that when times have been toughest and we were most in need of great leadership, we have gotten it, with the aid of the voters. It is arguably, more than any other single factor, what has allowed our great experiment in democracy to succeed for as long as it has.
When we were getting the whole thing started we got George Washington, who basically invented the office of the president and set the precedent for the next 42 men to follow, some of course have followed his model better than others. When the nation was in danger of splintering into two, Abraham Lincoln appeared, as a mostly untested Senator from Illinois I might add, and while hugely unpopular among many at the time due to the war, is credited with keeping the Union together. When we faced economic depression and the threat of global fascism and totalitarian regimes taking over the developed world, we got Franklin Roosevelt, who kept us together long enough so that we could emerge from the Depression and the War a stronger and more unified nation. When we were facing economic recession, a loss of moral standing in the world and a crisis of confidence at home, we got Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, who guided us back from the brink of despair.
And here we stand today in 2008, a nation beaten and battered from 8 years of possibly the most inept and dangerous rule this great nation has yet endured. We are a military power that has been stretched to the brink, a global power that has seen her stature greatly diminish in the eyes of the free world that once looked to her as a shining light, and we have an economy and a social fabric that is in need of some serious mending. And once again, we have an individual who provides the hope that his leadership will allow us to keep it together long enough so that we can work as a people to solve our many problems and return to a greatness that we all long for, regardless of party preference or other societal factors that may separate us on the surface.
The anti-Obamaites among us like to point out that he is untested, and some go so far as to claim to be scared by him, although it’s not clear to me how he is any more untested or inspiring of fear than say, George W. Bush or John F. Kennedy was when they were elected. They like to claim that Obama is more of a celebrity than a serious leader, and that those of us that support him have drunk the Kool-Aid. I’ll leave alone the racial aspect of talking about a black guy and Kool-Aid, but their point is that we are following the Pied Piper off the bridge.
Of course only time will tell, will Obama be the great leader and inspiring figure as so many of us believe he will, and will he be able to rule effectively from the center and rein in a likely strongly Democratic Congress, who will no doubt want to exact a measure of revenge after having to deal with President Bush for the last four Congresses. Will the Democratic party of the Obama era become the Jacobins of the early 21st century, the group that took power after the French Revolution and basically destroyed itself through extreme policies and enacting repression over their enemies.
These questions will be answered over the next few years, but certainly if history is any guide, and it often is, we are in for a special time in our national narrative, a time that may very well be defined by creative problem solving, inspiring leadership, and a reunification of an often fractured society. This is the hope that Mr. Obama provides and why I will be casting a vote with excitement for a man who could go down as one of our nation’s great historical figures, alongside Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan. If not, we may like the French in the late 18th century get a decade of heads rolling and retribution, with a new Napoleon at the end of it all. But I am an optimistic American, so my money is on the former scenario, and if the American people summon the will to do the work that is needed, I believe that we can emerge from this dark period stronger and more united than ever before.
When we were getting the whole thing started we got George Washington, who basically invented the office of the president and set the precedent for the next 42 men to follow, some of course have followed his model better than others. When the nation was in danger of splintering into two, Abraham Lincoln appeared, as a mostly untested Senator from Illinois I might add, and while hugely unpopular among many at the time due to the war, is credited with keeping the Union together. When we faced economic depression and the threat of global fascism and totalitarian regimes taking over the developed world, we got Franklin Roosevelt, who kept us together long enough so that we could emerge from the Depression and the War a stronger and more unified nation. When we were facing economic recession, a loss of moral standing in the world and a crisis of confidence at home, we got Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, who guided us back from the brink of despair.
And here we stand today in 2008, a nation beaten and battered from 8 years of possibly the most inept and dangerous rule this great nation has yet endured. We are a military power that has been stretched to the brink, a global power that has seen her stature greatly diminish in the eyes of the free world that once looked to her as a shining light, and we have an economy and a social fabric that is in need of some serious mending. And once again, we have an individual who provides the hope that his leadership will allow us to keep it together long enough so that we can work as a people to solve our many problems and return to a greatness that we all long for, regardless of party preference or other societal factors that may separate us on the surface.
The anti-Obamaites among us like to point out that he is untested, and some go so far as to claim to be scared by him, although it’s not clear to me how he is any more untested or inspiring of fear than say, George W. Bush or John F. Kennedy was when they were elected. They like to claim that Obama is more of a celebrity than a serious leader, and that those of us that support him have drunk the Kool-Aid. I’ll leave alone the racial aspect of talking about a black guy and Kool-Aid, but their point is that we are following the Pied Piper off the bridge.
Of course only time will tell, will Obama be the great leader and inspiring figure as so many of us believe he will, and will he be able to rule effectively from the center and rein in a likely strongly Democratic Congress, who will no doubt want to exact a measure of revenge after having to deal with President Bush for the last four Congresses. Will the Democratic party of the Obama era become the Jacobins of the early 21st century, the group that took power after the French Revolution and basically destroyed itself through extreme policies and enacting repression over their enemies.
These questions will be answered over the next few years, but certainly if history is any guide, and it often is, we are in for a special time in our national narrative, a time that may very well be defined by creative problem solving, inspiring leadership, and a reunification of an often fractured society. This is the hope that Mr. Obama provides and why I will be casting a vote with excitement for a man who could go down as one of our nation’s great historical figures, alongside Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan. If not, we may like the French in the late 18th century get a decade of heads rolling and retribution, with a new Napoleon at the end of it all. But I am an optimistic American, so my money is on the former scenario, and if the American people summon the will to do the work that is needed, I believe that we can emerge from this dark period stronger and more united than ever before.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The Stories We Could Tell
There’s a great line from a relatively unknown Tom Petty tune, and it goes a little something like this. “Oh the stories we could tell/And if this all blew up and went to hell/I could still see us sittin’ on the bed in some motel/Listenin’ to the stories we could tell.” If you are wondering it’s on the double album titled Pack Up the Plantation Live, and while I argue with my wife over TP’s being a cool looking dude as I think, or strange looking as she proclaims, there can be doubt that Petty and the Heartbreakers are one of the all-time great rock bands. This song in particular comes to mind because in a weeks time my fellow classmates from the Torrance High class of 1988 will be attending our 20 year reunion, and no doubt there will be some good story telling’ going on.
I regret that I won’t be able to attend, for a variety of reasons it just won’t work out this time around, but the 25 year reunion will be upon us before we know it and hopefully the timing on that one will work out. But while I won’t be there physically, I will certainly be there in spirit, and if I were I would no doubt be spinning some yarns, and even more assuredly be the subject of some stories, a few of which might even be true.
I was the guy who as my good buddy Gary Guagenti used to love to point out, was always the one at the party surrounded by a group of girls and laughing and talking smack. Not that I was some sort of player, nothing could be further from the truth, not for lack of trying but more from desire to end the night hanging with my buddies, kicking back at Carly’s or Ruiz’s place, eating whatever we could find in the fridge, or in Carly’s case, the microwave, which is where his mima would store all the good stuff. Ruiz’s was known for what our buddy James Lopez coined, cold stuff in a bowl, because there was always some leftover pasta dish that needn’t be heated up to be enjoyed. And Mima usually had a pot full of black beans on the burner that were good heated or lukewarm. That and the gigantic bowls of cereal that Ruiz would pour were our late night staples, and no girl no matter how pretty was better than hanging out with the boys, eating, ragging on each other, and then heading to the family room for some RBI baseball on Nintendo, often into the wee hours of the night. But I always did enjoy the conversation with the girls, and for that matter I still do.
We could tell plenty of stories about Hickory Park, which as young kids was our hangout to play over the line, or tennis when the courts were open, hoops on the blacktop where we’d come home with hands so black you’d think we were out working at the coal mines, and nothing was better than throwing down and posterizing your buddy on the 8 foot hoops. Or of course when the rain would come and leave good mud puddles was the perfect time to get an impromptu tackle football game together and run and splash around in the mud. I remember one game in particular when the rain was coming down and my buddy Will kept saying, a little rain never hurt anybody. True, but it didn’t make Mom too happy when you’d come home with mud stained clothes and rain soaked sneakers.
As we got older, Hickory Park became the central hangout on Friday and Saturday nights after we had spent countless hours driving around in search of parties that never materialized, or after blowing off the ones that did but that turned out to be lame. We could always meet at the park, the rocket ship was our north star, and the party would grow larger as one after another of our buddies would pull up in their monster trucks or Volkswagen Rabbits or Ford Fiestas or in my case, the alligator, my green Ford LTD station wagon, or by my senior year the rain drop, my little blue Toyota Tercel that took me all the way through college until I finally beat it all to hell. In hindsight, we could have saved ourselves a great deal of time and gas money just meeting at the park in the first place, as that’s where we always had the best times, just hanging out, blaring tunes, enjoying a beverage or two, and being young.
Friday night football games at the stadium and going to Carl’s Jr. after for burgers and planning out the rest of our night, which of course usually wound up at Hickory Park. Wilson Park for fireworks on the 4th of July, lunchtime at Sandwich Plus, which has what I still consider to be the best tuna sandwiches ever created by man, and believe me, I am somewhat of an expert on tuna sandwiches. Dances in the gym where we had to take our shoes off because Coach Strong had just had a new floor put in and didn’t want it scuffed up, and the inevitability of White Lines and Money Money, hey motherf**…, well, you know the rest of the chant. Pep rallies on Friday mornings with the spirit stick, which we won as freshman, probably the first time ever which just went to show what a special class we were. Hookups and breakups too numerous to count, and always one of your buddies fighting with his girlfriend over something stupid, which made you glad you didn’t have a girlfriend to fight with at the time.
Eating those incredible apple fritters that were sold at snack, our little 15 minute break period between 2nd and 3rd periods. Walking to Steve’s Burgers with Lissa and Chere at lunch freshman year before we could drive anywhere. To this day if I happen to notice the time at 12:18 I think of how that was our lunch time for four years at THS.
Mr. Miller’s ties, Mrs. Wright’s passion, Coach Buscia’s jokes, Mr. Simon’s pointer stick that somebody once glued to the table so that it broke when he picked it up, and Mr. Pillet’s rug, which looking back on it was concrete proof that that dude was stoned out of his mind when he left the house every day for school.
Mrs. Jennings, our sophomore English teacher that every guy with a straight bone in his body had the hots for, and Mrs. Salcedo, our even hotter Spanish teacher who taught us Espanol with a British accent. Senior Stassi and Mr. Hulse, who although I never had him was rumored to be so tough that if you dropped your pencil you couldn’t even pick it up, apparently he was the soup Nazi of the Math Department. I only knew him as Coleen’s dad who would come to our baseball games often and one time came down to the dugout and gave me a good, and well deserved dressing down for not hustling or something like that.
And I will never forget Mr. Burger and the arena, I probably learned more in his driver’s ed class just listening to him read the paper and talk about current events and telling us stories about the old days at THS. These are just some of the many random memories I have and a handful of the countless stories I could tell.
So while I won’t be there with you at some hotel in Long Beach on Saturday night, know that if I were I would be right in the thick of it, cracking jokes and most certainly being the butt of many of them. Somehow I would get the credit for doing something silly even when I had nothing to do with it, as in, that’s something Nicholas would have done. But I always took it as a sign of love, and I hope that all my classmates know that the love was always mutual, even if as a typically insecure teenager I didn’t always do a good job of showing it like I should have.
While I wouldn’t want to be any other age than I am right now, nor in any other place in my life, I have so many great memories of the years between 1984, when we came in from our respective grade schools wide-eyed and not knowing what to expect, to 1988 and our final graduation party at Michele Gregory’s, where we celebrated the culmination of our experience together by breaking in Gary’s new high tech 6 way gallon sized beer bong. Enjoy the time together, take plenty of pictures and tell lots of stories, and I will be thinking of all of you and looking forward to hopefully being at the next one in five short years.
I regret that I won’t be able to attend, for a variety of reasons it just won’t work out this time around, but the 25 year reunion will be upon us before we know it and hopefully the timing on that one will work out. But while I won’t be there physically, I will certainly be there in spirit, and if I were I would no doubt be spinning some yarns, and even more assuredly be the subject of some stories, a few of which might even be true.
I was the guy who as my good buddy Gary Guagenti used to love to point out, was always the one at the party surrounded by a group of girls and laughing and talking smack. Not that I was some sort of player, nothing could be further from the truth, not for lack of trying but more from desire to end the night hanging with my buddies, kicking back at Carly’s or Ruiz’s place, eating whatever we could find in the fridge, or in Carly’s case, the microwave, which is where his mima would store all the good stuff. Ruiz’s was known for what our buddy James Lopez coined, cold stuff in a bowl, because there was always some leftover pasta dish that needn’t be heated up to be enjoyed. And Mima usually had a pot full of black beans on the burner that were good heated or lukewarm. That and the gigantic bowls of cereal that Ruiz would pour were our late night staples, and no girl no matter how pretty was better than hanging out with the boys, eating, ragging on each other, and then heading to the family room for some RBI baseball on Nintendo, often into the wee hours of the night. But I always did enjoy the conversation with the girls, and for that matter I still do.
We could tell plenty of stories about Hickory Park, which as young kids was our hangout to play over the line, or tennis when the courts were open, hoops on the blacktop where we’d come home with hands so black you’d think we were out working at the coal mines, and nothing was better than throwing down and posterizing your buddy on the 8 foot hoops. Or of course when the rain would come and leave good mud puddles was the perfect time to get an impromptu tackle football game together and run and splash around in the mud. I remember one game in particular when the rain was coming down and my buddy Will kept saying, a little rain never hurt anybody. True, but it didn’t make Mom too happy when you’d come home with mud stained clothes and rain soaked sneakers.
As we got older, Hickory Park became the central hangout on Friday and Saturday nights after we had spent countless hours driving around in search of parties that never materialized, or after blowing off the ones that did but that turned out to be lame. We could always meet at the park, the rocket ship was our north star, and the party would grow larger as one after another of our buddies would pull up in their monster trucks or Volkswagen Rabbits or Ford Fiestas or in my case, the alligator, my green Ford LTD station wagon, or by my senior year the rain drop, my little blue Toyota Tercel that took me all the way through college until I finally beat it all to hell. In hindsight, we could have saved ourselves a great deal of time and gas money just meeting at the park in the first place, as that’s where we always had the best times, just hanging out, blaring tunes, enjoying a beverage or two, and being young.
Friday night football games at the stadium and going to Carl’s Jr. after for burgers and planning out the rest of our night, which of course usually wound up at Hickory Park. Wilson Park for fireworks on the 4th of July, lunchtime at Sandwich Plus, which has what I still consider to be the best tuna sandwiches ever created by man, and believe me, I am somewhat of an expert on tuna sandwiches. Dances in the gym where we had to take our shoes off because Coach Strong had just had a new floor put in and didn’t want it scuffed up, and the inevitability of White Lines and Money Money, hey motherf**…, well, you know the rest of the chant. Pep rallies on Friday mornings with the spirit stick, which we won as freshman, probably the first time ever which just went to show what a special class we were. Hookups and breakups too numerous to count, and always one of your buddies fighting with his girlfriend over something stupid, which made you glad you didn’t have a girlfriend to fight with at the time.
Eating those incredible apple fritters that were sold at snack, our little 15 minute break period between 2nd and 3rd periods. Walking to Steve’s Burgers with Lissa and Chere at lunch freshman year before we could drive anywhere. To this day if I happen to notice the time at 12:18 I think of how that was our lunch time for four years at THS.
Mr. Miller’s ties, Mrs. Wright’s passion, Coach Buscia’s jokes, Mr. Simon’s pointer stick that somebody once glued to the table so that it broke when he picked it up, and Mr. Pillet’s rug, which looking back on it was concrete proof that that dude was stoned out of his mind when he left the house every day for school.
Mrs. Jennings, our sophomore English teacher that every guy with a straight bone in his body had the hots for, and Mrs. Salcedo, our even hotter Spanish teacher who taught us Espanol with a British accent. Senior Stassi and Mr. Hulse, who although I never had him was rumored to be so tough that if you dropped your pencil you couldn’t even pick it up, apparently he was the soup Nazi of the Math Department. I only knew him as Coleen’s dad who would come to our baseball games often and one time came down to the dugout and gave me a good, and well deserved dressing down for not hustling or something like that.
And I will never forget Mr. Burger and the arena, I probably learned more in his driver’s ed class just listening to him read the paper and talk about current events and telling us stories about the old days at THS. These are just some of the many random memories I have and a handful of the countless stories I could tell.
So while I won’t be there with you at some hotel in Long Beach on Saturday night, know that if I were I would be right in the thick of it, cracking jokes and most certainly being the butt of many of them. Somehow I would get the credit for doing something silly even when I had nothing to do with it, as in, that’s something Nicholas would have done. But I always took it as a sign of love, and I hope that all my classmates know that the love was always mutual, even if as a typically insecure teenager I didn’t always do a good job of showing it like I should have.
While I wouldn’t want to be any other age than I am right now, nor in any other place in my life, I have so many great memories of the years between 1984, when we came in from our respective grade schools wide-eyed and not knowing what to expect, to 1988 and our final graduation party at Michele Gregory’s, where we celebrated the culmination of our experience together by breaking in Gary’s new high tech 6 way gallon sized beer bong. Enjoy the time together, take plenty of pictures and tell lots of stories, and I will be thinking of all of you and looking forward to hopefully being at the next one in five short years.
Double Tall Shot
Double Tall Triple Shot Extra Skinny No Whip 130 Degree Mocha Chai Latte for Noel! Ok, so this is slight exaggeration, as I am wont to do from time to time, but it is inspired by an order I heard the gal in line behind me put in at Starbucks as I was waiting for my favorite Mammoth California coffee mug to be refilled with the house brew. Not that I am against lattes, I enjoy a Mocha or a Carmel Macchiato from time to time, but c’mon already. Now we’re calling out the temperature on our hot beverages, what’s next? I have no idea, but I’m sure I’ll hear something even better while waiting in line soon.
Of course the worst is when you are in a hurry to get to work, just want to order your coffee and get to the salt mines, and some blowhard in the front of the line is making one of these long winded orders not only for themselves, but for the rest of the office, and they really don’t even know what they’re saying, it’s like listening to high school students try to converse in Spanish when they just started taking Spanish I. And the frustration you feel is reminiscent of being at the track with 2 minutes to post, 7 people in line in front of you, the sure bet of the day just waiting for a winning ticket to be produced, and some amateur at the front of the line asking what the difference between an exacta and the daily double is. Bro, if you have to ask, just take the 3 horse to win and move along. Same thing in the Starbucks line during the morning rush, if you don’t know the difference between a Soy Chai Latte and a Skinny Macchiato, just order a freaking cup of coffee already and put a lot of cream and sugar in it, nobody will ever know the difference.
I am unabashedly old-school, with no apologies necessary nor forthcoming. I believe that being a man is defined by how you treat others, especially your own family and spouse, not by how much you earn or how many hours you put in at the office on a weekly basis. I believe that a gentleman shows respect for women, from little things like holding a door open or giving up your seat in a crowded room, to the more important stuff like showing respect for their individuality and intellect, not lumping all women into some category of those who have wronged you in some way, or using language that would make a World War II veteran blush.
I believe in respect for the working man, none of us are any better than anyone else because of our title or the size of our monthly mortgage or car payments. There is much honest and useful work that gets done by what we refer to as blue collar workers that for my money is much more important than the paper shuffling and widget marketing that brings home substantial bacon for much of the so-called white collar working world.
I also believe that the toughest, most honorable, and most admirable work in the world is a job that no man can do. I am referring to motherhood, without which we would all be a bunch of primates running around without manners or morals, yet when done right produces more beauty and justice in the world than anything else. It is perhaps why I am sometimes harder on women, because I expect more of them. So I believe that respect for women, which is increasingly an old-school value, is something that needs to make a comeback in our culture.
I believe in simplicity, honesty, and integrity. I believe that when you bring children into this world that raising them to be decent human beings is by far the most important task you will ever face and it better damn well take up the biggest slice of your energies and focus. I believe in marriage, both for straight and gay couples, and I believe that it is a commitment to be taken as a privilege and a responsibility, namely one to make it work out despite the inevitable tough times and disagreements that will come.
I believe that racism, sexism, and homophobia have no place in our society and that evil triumphs when good people do nothing in the face of it. I believe in youth sports and youth theatre and yard sales and playing in the park and at least once in awhile putting a hook and bait at the end of a fishing line and spending an afternoon with your pole in the water, preferably with your kids and your pops and a cooler full of ice cold beer.
I believe in family and friends, and that the more time you spend with people that you love and accept and that love and accept you back the better your life is. I believe in the great outdoors and in natural sunlight, I believe in open air sports stadiums with real grass, and if you can’t get out to the game I believe that watching it in high def is the next best thing.
I believe that the only sound more beautiful than John Coltrane playing the sax is Lucciano Pavarotti belting out Che Galida Manina from the opera La Boehme, or the harmonizing of Jerry Garcia and Bobby Weir with backup from the band. I believe that the book is always better than the movie, and that live music in a little smoky dingy juke joint is still the best.
So back to the coffee order. Complicate it if you must, if it makes you feel better to take three minutes to place your order for a $4 hot chocolate, that’s your right as an American I suppose. But as for me, I’ll take the simple life, and I am more than content to be, in the words of Lynrd Skynrd, a simple kind of man. Time for a refill on my cup of joe, house brew, no room for cream, simple and straightforward with no pretense, just like me.
Of course the worst is when you are in a hurry to get to work, just want to order your coffee and get to the salt mines, and some blowhard in the front of the line is making one of these long winded orders not only for themselves, but for the rest of the office, and they really don’t even know what they’re saying, it’s like listening to high school students try to converse in Spanish when they just started taking Spanish I. And the frustration you feel is reminiscent of being at the track with 2 minutes to post, 7 people in line in front of you, the sure bet of the day just waiting for a winning ticket to be produced, and some amateur at the front of the line asking what the difference between an exacta and the daily double is. Bro, if you have to ask, just take the 3 horse to win and move along. Same thing in the Starbucks line during the morning rush, if you don’t know the difference between a Soy Chai Latte and a Skinny Macchiato, just order a freaking cup of coffee already and put a lot of cream and sugar in it, nobody will ever know the difference.
I am unabashedly old-school, with no apologies necessary nor forthcoming. I believe that being a man is defined by how you treat others, especially your own family and spouse, not by how much you earn or how many hours you put in at the office on a weekly basis. I believe that a gentleman shows respect for women, from little things like holding a door open or giving up your seat in a crowded room, to the more important stuff like showing respect for their individuality and intellect, not lumping all women into some category of those who have wronged you in some way, or using language that would make a World War II veteran blush.
I believe in respect for the working man, none of us are any better than anyone else because of our title or the size of our monthly mortgage or car payments. There is much honest and useful work that gets done by what we refer to as blue collar workers that for my money is much more important than the paper shuffling and widget marketing that brings home substantial bacon for much of the so-called white collar working world.
I also believe that the toughest, most honorable, and most admirable work in the world is a job that no man can do. I am referring to motherhood, without which we would all be a bunch of primates running around without manners or morals, yet when done right produces more beauty and justice in the world than anything else. It is perhaps why I am sometimes harder on women, because I expect more of them. So I believe that respect for women, which is increasingly an old-school value, is something that needs to make a comeback in our culture.
I believe in simplicity, honesty, and integrity. I believe that when you bring children into this world that raising them to be decent human beings is by far the most important task you will ever face and it better damn well take up the biggest slice of your energies and focus. I believe in marriage, both for straight and gay couples, and I believe that it is a commitment to be taken as a privilege and a responsibility, namely one to make it work out despite the inevitable tough times and disagreements that will come.
I believe that racism, sexism, and homophobia have no place in our society and that evil triumphs when good people do nothing in the face of it. I believe in youth sports and youth theatre and yard sales and playing in the park and at least once in awhile putting a hook and bait at the end of a fishing line and spending an afternoon with your pole in the water, preferably with your kids and your pops and a cooler full of ice cold beer.
I believe in family and friends, and that the more time you spend with people that you love and accept and that love and accept you back the better your life is. I believe in the great outdoors and in natural sunlight, I believe in open air sports stadiums with real grass, and if you can’t get out to the game I believe that watching it in high def is the next best thing.
I believe that the only sound more beautiful than John Coltrane playing the sax is Lucciano Pavarotti belting out Che Galida Manina from the opera La Boehme, or the harmonizing of Jerry Garcia and Bobby Weir with backup from the band. I believe that the book is always better than the movie, and that live music in a little smoky dingy juke joint is still the best.
So back to the coffee order. Complicate it if you must, if it makes you feel better to take three minutes to place your order for a $4 hot chocolate, that’s your right as an American I suppose. But as for me, I’ll take the simple life, and I am more than content to be, in the words of Lynrd Skynrd, a simple kind of man. Time for a refill on my cup of joe, house brew, no room for cream, simple and straightforward with no pretense, just like me.
Friday, October 24, 2008
I'm Pro-America (and so can you!)
With apologies to Stephen Colbert, the patron saint of liberal wiseacres everywhere, for ripping off the title. There has been a good deal of talk lately in the world of politics over who is a true American, and where the pro-America places are. Apparently the roughly 80% of us who live in urban, suburban, or exurban areas are on the wrong side of the divide, at least if you listen to certain vice-presidential or congressional candidates. This is so ridiculous on its face that it is hard to believe it is actually used on the campaign trail, it is the type of stuff that is better suited for vitriolic chat rooms where people shout at each other in all caps while making absurd claims that have little basis in reality. But here we are, less than two weeks away from the big election and this is part of the debate, such as it is.
Here is what being a liberal progressive in the early part of the 21st century doesn’t mean, and more importantly what it does mean. For starters it doesn’t mean that you are a socialist. It doesn’t mean that you want to stifle the economy with oppressive taxes, because that would be counter productive to a healthy and vital economy, which matters to most anyone who has to work for a living. However it does mean that you are in favor of fair and equitable redistribution of wealth, so that those who benefit the most from the society we live in are required to pay more of the costs of keeping that society running smoothly.
Nobody is suggesting that having rich people pay the share of taxes they had to pay before Bush the budget buster came into our lives is any way to get out of a recession. That will only be accomplished when corporate America wakes up and realizes that by keeping wages artificially low for the last couple decades they have squeezed the American worker to the point where we can’t afford to buy the junk they are selling us anymore.
It doesn’t mean that you don’t want to win wars. But it does mean that you don’t want to fight unnecessary and costly wars just because they are out there. One of Marlon Brando’s great lines, back in the days before he got old and blew up like Alec Baldwin, was when, in response to the question what are you rebelling against replies, whatcha got? Great movie line, but not such a great foreign policy response to the question of what wars are you up for fighting? We are all for a strong defense and for keeping our nation safe, but we are not in favor of fighting wars for any other reason, on moral as well as economic grounds, not to mention plain old common sense.
Lastly, it doesn’t mean that you don’t love your country, in fact quite the opposite. It means that you care enough to complain and criticize when you see the nation that you love and the values you hold dearly being put in jeopardy. It means you speak out and exercise your first amendment rights whenever and wherever you can because you want your country to continue to stand for what is right in the world and to be an example of what is possible when the planet’s most powerful military and economy are used to make the world a better and safer place.
I am pro-America, just as my thoughtful conservative friends are, and the fact that we can disagree respectfully is a symbol of what makes this country great. It’s also in itself what makes us stronger as a nation and a society, because when all ideas are put on the table, and the free marketplace of ideas is allowed to work, we end up with the best ideas winning the day and we are all better off for that.
Here is what being a liberal progressive in the early part of the 21st century doesn’t mean, and more importantly what it does mean. For starters it doesn’t mean that you are a socialist. It doesn’t mean that you want to stifle the economy with oppressive taxes, because that would be counter productive to a healthy and vital economy, which matters to most anyone who has to work for a living. However it does mean that you are in favor of fair and equitable redistribution of wealth, so that those who benefit the most from the society we live in are required to pay more of the costs of keeping that society running smoothly.
Nobody is suggesting that having rich people pay the share of taxes they had to pay before Bush the budget buster came into our lives is any way to get out of a recession. That will only be accomplished when corporate America wakes up and realizes that by keeping wages artificially low for the last couple decades they have squeezed the American worker to the point where we can’t afford to buy the junk they are selling us anymore.
It doesn’t mean that you don’t want to win wars. But it does mean that you don’t want to fight unnecessary and costly wars just because they are out there. One of Marlon Brando’s great lines, back in the days before he got old and blew up like Alec Baldwin, was when, in response to the question what are you rebelling against replies, whatcha got? Great movie line, but not such a great foreign policy response to the question of what wars are you up for fighting? We are all for a strong defense and for keeping our nation safe, but we are not in favor of fighting wars for any other reason, on moral as well as economic grounds, not to mention plain old common sense.
Lastly, it doesn’t mean that you don’t love your country, in fact quite the opposite. It means that you care enough to complain and criticize when you see the nation that you love and the values you hold dearly being put in jeopardy. It means you speak out and exercise your first amendment rights whenever and wherever you can because you want your country to continue to stand for what is right in the world and to be an example of what is possible when the planet’s most powerful military and economy are used to make the world a better and safer place.
I am pro-America, just as my thoughtful conservative friends are, and the fact that we can disagree respectfully is a symbol of what makes this country great. It’s also in itself what makes us stronger as a nation and a society, because when all ideas are put on the table, and the free marketplace of ideas is allowed to work, we end up with the best ideas winning the day and we are all better off for that.
The Worst Form of Government
Winston Churchill, in my humble opinion perhaps the greatest non-American American in history, famously said of democracy that it was the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time. And the beauty of democracy lies in that it allows the people, be they rich or poor, young or old, urban or rural, and in the recent history of democracy, regardless of race, gender, or level of income, to have a voice. That voice will be heard loud and clear in less than two weeks, and the results will speak volumes about where we stand and where we are likely headed as a society.
That’s right, we get the final say, not the cable news pundits, the ones that line up for one candidate or the other and offer predictable and often lame defenses of their candidates on often indefensible positions, at least the ones on the right side of the box. Those boxes remind me of the Brady Bunch intro, and I’d love to see a true independent show up last in Alice’s box sometime to give us a little perspective that isn’t so predictably partisan.
It won’t be the so-called elite liberal media that makes the call either, although I would argue that they are neither elite nor liberal, and the media part is somewhat questionable as well. Perhaps a better moniker would be the mediocre middle of the road sounding boards, which is basically what they do, not challenging positions or asking pertinent follow-up questions lest they be accused of bias.
And it won’t be the pollsters, who love to tout the accuracy and relevance of their work, despite the fact that they are sampling such a small percentage of the population and mostly contacting people by land line. I for one rarely even pay attention when my land line rings anymore, figuring it to be just another sales call, and I certainly won’t pick up the phone when I see opinion research on the caller id as I’ve been burned before thinking I was going to finally get to partake in a political opinion survey, only to end up stuck on the line talking about how I feel about the service at my bank. Plus polls don’t even factor in the growing number of people who use only cell phones. No, the only poll that I put much stock in is the one that will occur on November 4 when civic minded Americans from coast to coast will register their verdict.
It is still of course far from certain who will win the ultimate poll. I am clearly on record for a long time now as predicting an Obama rout, I see as many as 35 states and close to 60% of the popular vote, because quite frankly the American people are finally seeing the light. They are finally rejecting the divisive politics offered by the McCain campaign in favor of the inclusive approach offered by Obama. They are finally wising up to the fact that raising taxes, back to the pre-Bush levels, on people making over a quarter of a million is not going to take any money out of their paychecks, nor is it going to cause a catastrophic loss of jobs as all the rich people either move to Ireland, or decide to stop working and go on public assistance so they can avoid paying higher taxes.
The American people are tired of waiting for the benefits to trickle down, all while the price of everything keeps bubbling up. We in the middle and working classes, in other words regular people that generally lack access to the means of production and work for someone else so that we can pay our bills and enjoy our weekends, we are tapped out and fed up, and Barack Obama offers us the best hope we have had in my lifetime of having a leader that actually gets it.
Redistribution is not the same thing as Socialism, and if you don’t believe me just grab a good dictionary and look up the words. Any government that collects taxes, which is basically every one in the history of governments, engages in some form of redistribution, it is simply a matter of who benefits and who pays. Socialism has become a dirty word in the same vein that the term Liberal was until recently, or Pacifism until we finally overshot our wad in Western and Central Asia. I am not an advocate of pure socialism anymore than I am of pure capitalism, there always has been and always should be a blend of the two, and on this there are legitimate differences of opinion between liberals, moderates, and conservatives. But socialism is the government controlling both the means of production as well as distribution, which with some notable exceptions, such as President Bush’s recent proposal to nationalize parts of our banking system, is not what our government engages in, nor is it anywhere close to what Obama and a Democratic Congress would do.
So despite the often bitter tone of the campaign and the good deal of plain silliness that has occurred, from Joe the Plumber to Sarah the Fashionista, we will get to make the final call on this whole thing. We will continue a tradition begun in 1800 when after a bitter and divisive campaign, full of mudslinging and accusations against both candidates, Thomas Jefferson narrowly defeated John Adams, thus ending rule by the Federalist Party and transferring that power peacefully to the Democratic-Republican party of Jefferson. What we now take for granted is actually a quite remarkable feat when you consider how infrequently power has peacefully changed hands throughout human history.
So we should show up and vote, sit back and watch the results on our network of choice, and when all is said and done, if we are patriotic Americans, we will support the winning side whether we voted for them or not, accept the results despite all the conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines and irregularities, and stay active in our politics so that we might have a voice in what happens to this great nation and society that we all hold so dearly. Adams and Jefferson would want no less, and so to I suspect would McCain and Obama.
That’s right, we get the final say, not the cable news pundits, the ones that line up for one candidate or the other and offer predictable and often lame defenses of their candidates on often indefensible positions, at least the ones on the right side of the box. Those boxes remind me of the Brady Bunch intro, and I’d love to see a true independent show up last in Alice’s box sometime to give us a little perspective that isn’t so predictably partisan.
It won’t be the so-called elite liberal media that makes the call either, although I would argue that they are neither elite nor liberal, and the media part is somewhat questionable as well. Perhaps a better moniker would be the mediocre middle of the road sounding boards, which is basically what they do, not challenging positions or asking pertinent follow-up questions lest they be accused of bias.
And it won’t be the pollsters, who love to tout the accuracy and relevance of their work, despite the fact that they are sampling such a small percentage of the population and mostly contacting people by land line. I for one rarely even pay attention when my land line rings anymore, figuring it to be just another sales call, and I certainly won’t pick up the phone when I see opinion research on the caller id as I’ve been burned before thinking I was going to finally get to partake in a political opinion survey, only to end up stuck on the line talking about how I feel about the service at my bank. Plus polls don’t even factor in the growing number of people who use only cell phones. No, the only poll that I put much stock in is the one that will occur on November 4 when civic minded Americans from coast to coast will register their verdict.
It is still of course far from certain who will win the ultimate poll. I am clearly on record for a long time now as predicting an Obama rout, I see as many as 35 states and close to 60% of the popular vote, because quite frankly the American people are finally seeing the light. They are finally rejecting the divisive politics offered by the McCain campaign in favor of the inclusive approach offered by Obama. They are finally wising up to the fact that raising taxes, back to the pre-Bush levels, on people making over a quarter of a million is not going to take any money out of their paychecks, nor is it going to cause a catastrophic loss of jobs as all the rich people either move to Ireland, or decide to stop working and go on public assistance so they can avoid paying higher taxes.
The American people are tired of waiting for the benefits to trickle down, all while the price of everything keeps bubbling up. We in the middle and working classes, in other words regular people that generally lack access to the means of production and work for someone else so that we can pay our bills and enjoy our weekends, we are tapped out and fed up, and Barack Obama offers us the best hope we have had in my lifetime of having a leader that actually gets it.
Redistribution is not the same thing as Socialism, and if you don’t believe me just grab a good dictionary and look up the words. Any government that collects taxes, which is basically every one in the history of governments, engages in some form of redistribution, it is simply a matter of who benefits and who pays. Socialism has become a dirty word in the same vein that the term Liberal was until recently, or Pacifism until we finally overshot our wad in Western and Central Asia. I am not an advocate of pure socialism anymore than I am of pure capitalism, there always has been and always should be a blend of the two, and on this there are legitimate differences of opinion between liberals, moderates, and conservatives. But socialism is the government controlling both the means of production as well as distribution, which with some notable exceptions, such as President Bush’s recent proposal to nationalize parts of our banking system, is not what our government engages in, nor is it anywhere close to what Obama and a Democratic Congress would do.
So despite the often bitter tone of the campaign and the good deal of plain silliness that has occurred, from Joe the Plumber to Sarah the Fashionista, we will get to make the final call on this whole thing. We will continue a tradition begun in 1800 when after a bitter and divisive campaign, full of mudslinging and accusations against both candidates, Thomas Jefferson narrowly defeated John Adams, thus ending rule by the Federalist Party and transferring that power peacefully to the Democratic-Republican party of Jefferson. What we now take for granted is actually a quite remarkable feat when you consider how infrequently power has peacefully changed hands throughout human history.
So we should show up and vote, sit back and watch the results on our network of choice, and when all is said and done, if we are patriotic Americans, we will support the winning side whether we voted for them or not, accept the results despite all the conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines and irregularities, and stay active in our politics so that we might have a voice in what happens to this great nation and society that we all hold so dearly. Adams and Jefferson would want no less, and so to I suspect would McCain and Obama.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Fall Classic
There are two sporting events which transcend the wide world of sports and are part of our national heritage and cultural fabric. Quite simply, those two are the Super Bowl, which used to be played in late January but now has been pushed back to early February, and the World Series, traditionally known as the Fall Classic. In our ever expanding sports calendar, the Series as it is known to baseball fans, of which I count myself an ardent one, used to end around this time of year but now due to the expanded playoff format, which I am ardently opposed to, is only about to begin. But just as a 15 minute delay at the start of a potential Game 6 for a speech from our next president won’t damper the enthusiasm for that contest, neither will the extra week or two we have to wait for our beloved Series.
I have faithfully watched every Series since I was about to turn seven years-old in 1977, which was a year in which my Dodgers lost for the first of two straight years to the dreaded Yankees. They got their revenge though a few years later, coming back from a 2-0 deficit to win the best of seven series against those same Yankees. Of course back then they were pretty much the same teams in an era before free agency had really hit and before the divide between rich big market teams and less rich small and medium sized market teams took effect, but I digress.
This year’s series actually pits a David in the salary cap sense, the Tampa Bay Rays, who took the Devil out of their name and have managed with the lowest payroll in baseball to win the American League Pennant and earn their spot against the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies. While no one can say whether the Rays will be able to keep their core unit together in the long run due to finances, they have bucked the recent trend of big market and big money teams dominating, and do remind us that sports may be one of the last remaining meritocracies in our society.
I will refrain from making a prediction for the series, as my predictions are notoriously, well let’s just say not always accurate and leave it at that. I will say that I will be rooting for the Fightin’ Phils as a lifelong NL guy, it is incumbent that I root for my league, and with the exception of the 2002 Series that featured the even more dreaded San Francisco Giants, I have stayed faithful to my league. I will enjoy watching one of my favorite players, big Ryan Howard, who is one of the best young sluggers in the game, my personal pick for NL MVP due to his prowess as a run producing machine, and probably the best big guy in the game since Frank Thomas, aka The Big Hurt was in his prime a decade or longer ago.
Baseball matters, and the World Series matters because while football may have surpassed baseball as our true national pastime, baseball still harkens back to a bygone era, a time before high speed connections and multi-tasking. The pace and tempo of a ballgame is such that with the game on the tube, you can make dinner, take a nap, walk the dog, have conversation with your spouse and kids, and still take in the game. It also matters because baseball is something that connects the two Americas, rural and urban. While pastoral in nature and origin, it has become representative of our urban society, and our teams really do represent the cities we live in, or in my case the cities in which we grew up as well. As such I consider myself to be both a Dodgers fan and a Diamondbacks fan as they represent the city of Phoenix that I have proudly called home for most of my adult life.
So bring on the cowbells and Mohawks from Tampa, and the rousing chorus of boos from Philly fans who are famous for once booing Santa Claus. The Fall Classic is upon us once again, and here’s hoping the games are competitive, well-played and hard fought, and that no matter who comes out on top, we are treated to a long and enjoyable series, which is what sports should be all about.
I have faithfully watched every Series since I was about to turn seven years-old in 1977, which was a year in which my Dodgers lost for the first of two straight years to the dreaded Yankees. They got their revenge though a few years later, coming back from a 2-0 deficit to win the best of seven series against those same Yankees. Of course back then they were pretty much the same teams in an era before free agency had really hit and before the divide between rich big market teams and less rich small and medium sized market teams took effect, but I digress.
This year’s series actually pits a David in the salary cap sense, the Tampa Bay Rays, who took the Devil out of their name and have managed with the lowest payroll in baseball to win the American League Pennant and earn their spot against the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies. While no one can say whether the Rays will be able to keep their core unit together in the long run due to finances, they have bucked the recent trend of big market and big money teams dominating, and do remind us that sports may be one of the last remaining meritocracies in our society.
I will refrain from making a prediction for the series, as my predictions are notoriously, well let’s just say not always accurate and leave it at that. I will say that I will be rooting for the Fightin’ Phils as a lifelong NL guy, it is incumbent that I root for my league, and with the exception of the 2002 Series that featured the even more dreaded San Francisco Giants, I have stayed faithful to my league. I will enjoy watching one of my favorite players, big Ryan Howard, who is one of the best young sluggers in the game, my personal pick for NL MVP due to his prowess as a run producing machine, and probably the best big guy in the game since Frank Thomas, aka The Big Hurt was in his prime a decade or longer ago.
Baseball matters, and the World Series matters because while football may have surpassed baseball as our true national pastime, baseball still harkens back to a bygone era, a time before high speed connections and multi-tasking. The pace and tempo of a ballgame is such that with the game on the tube, you can make dinner, take a nap, walk the dog, have conversation with your spouse and kids, and still take in the game. It also matters because baseball is something that connects the two Americas, rural and urban. While pastoral in nature and origin, it has become representative of our urban society, and our teams really do represent the cities we live in, or in my case the cities in which we grew up as well. As such I consider myself to be both a Dodgers fan and a Diamondbacks fan as they represent the city of Phoenix that I have proudly called home for most of my adult life.
So bring on the cowbells and Mohawks from Tampa, and the rousing chorus of boos from Philly fans who are famous for once booing Santa Claus. The Fall Classic is upon us once again, and here’s hoping the games are competitive, well-played and hard fought, and that no matter who comes out on top, we are treated to a long and enjoyable series, which is what sports should be all about.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Dogs That Won't Hunt
With now exactly two weeks to go before the election that has seemingly been going on for our entire adult lives, get ready for the good stuff. The camps will pull out all the stops and stop at nothing to put their guy over the top. Why Barack Obama is even using his ailing grandmother as a campaign tool, or so the conservative pundits will be telling you for the next few days, and Colin Powell, one of the most respected and revered political figures our nation has produced, is simply supporting a fellow brothah, or so Rush Limbaugh would have his rabid supporters believe.
For days now we have been treated to the claim that Obama pals around with terrorists, as the would be demagogue-in-chief Sarah Palin likes to tell her rallies, and now we have Joe the Plumber as somehow representative of the working class because he wants to buy a business that might make a quarter of a million and is worried about all the extra taxes he’ll have to pay. It’s enough to make a guy want to ditch the American dream and stick with that $10 an hour job after all. Hey you might work long hours doing mundane and thankless tasks while barely being able to keep up with your bills and giving up luxuries like air-conditioning your house in the summer, but at least you won’t be a victim to big government and their socialist designs of turning us into France!
The Mike Myers character from Saturday Night Live, the old Jewish lady who hosted coffee talk might tackle this one. Joe the Plumber is neither named Joe nor a plumber-discuss.
So why is the McCain camp taking this path, a path which seems not to be working all that well if the polls are to be believed, although as previously stated I don’t put too much stock in the polls until the one that counts on November 4. But the question remains as to why McCain, the self proclaimed maverick and one time honorable politician, is taking the low road he promised to avoid back when this whole ordeal got started? Quite simply because the issues that he would tackle if he were so inclined are losers for the Republicans after nearly 8 years of running our economy into the ground with misguided tax policies (isn’t upward redistribution, aka trickle down economics simply a rich boy’s version of socialism) a ruinous and unnecessary war in Iraq, and a general lack of anything resembling leadership and vision.
When it comes to the key issues that Americans, real Americans, pro Americans, white, black, brown, and Asian Americans, working and middle class Americans that might earn over a quarter of a million in a good decade, when it comes to what these people care about the Republican idea bank is out of funds. The issues that these Americans care about are things like access to quality jobs with health care, affordable housing without having to resort to gimmick loans, availability of quality day care for their kids while both parents go off to eke out a meager living every day, good schools to send their kids to so they don’t get stuck in the same rut as their parents, and a few breaths of clean air on a good day in a planet that isn’t burning up at warp speed. Oh, we also care about a humane immigration policy, an effective domestic social policy, and a foreign policy that doesn’t have us fighting wars in every corner of Asia.
So with not too much to say on these issues that matter the most, the Palin-McCain camp is resorting to what Ross Perot, the original big eared candidate, called Republican dirty tricks. The irony is that they were used to discredit McCain himself back in 2000 when he still had some virtue and integrity, and he has now allowed his campaign to be hijacked by these same dirty operatives. Associating with terrorists, looking out for Joe the Business Owner, and scaring the populace with cries of socialism are just simply, as they would say in what Ms. Palin terms the real pro America, dogs that just won’t hunt.
For days now we have been treated to the claim that Obama pals around with terrorists, as the would be demagogue-in-chief Sarah Palin likes to tell her rallies, and now we have Joe the Plumber as somehow representative of the working class because he wants to buy a business that might make a quarter of a million and is worried about all the extra taxes he’ll have to pay. It’s enough to make a guy want to ditch the American dream and stick with that $10 an hour job after all. Hey you might work long hours doing mundane and thankless tasks while barely being able to keep up with your bills and giving up luxuries like air-conditioning your house in the summer, but at least you won’t be a victim to big government and their socialist designs of turning us into France!
The Mike Myers character from Saturday Night Live, the old Jewish lady who hosted coffee talk might tackle this one. Joe the Plumber is neither named Joe nor a plumber-discuss.
So why is the McCain camp taking this path, a path which seems not to be working all that well if the polls are to be believed, although as previously stated I don’t put too much stock in the polls until the one that counts on November 4. But the question remains as to why McCain, the self proclaimed maverick and one time honorable politician, is taking the low road he promised to avoid back when this whole ordeal got started? Quite simply because the issues that he would tackle if he were so inclined are losers for the Republicans after nearly 8 years of running our economy into the ground with misguided tax policies (isn’t upward redistribution, aka trickle down economics simply a rich boy’s version of socialism) a ruinous and unnecessary war in Iraq, and a general lack of anything resembling leadership and vision.
When it comes to the key issues that Americans, real Americans, pro Americans, white, black, brown, and Asian Americans, working and middle class Americans that might earn over a quarter of a million in a good decade, when it comes to what these people care about the Republican idea bank is out of funds. The issues that these Americans care about are things like access to quality jobs with health care, affordable housing without having to resort to gimmick loans, availability of quality day care for their kids while both parents go off to eke out a meager living every day, good schools to send their kids to so they don’t get stuck in the same rut as their parents, and a few breaths of clean air on a good day in a planet that isn’t burning up at warp speed. Oh, we also care about a humane immigration policy, an effective domestic social policy, and a foreign policy that doesn’t have us fighting wars in every corner of Asia.
So with not too much to say on these issues that matter the most, the Palin-McCain camp is resorting to what Ross Perot, the original big eared candidate, called Republican dirty tricks. The irony is that they were used to discredit McCain himself back in 2000 when he still had some virtue and integrity, and he has now allowed his campaign to be hijacked by these same dirty operatives. Associating with terrorists, looking out for Joe the Business Owner, and scaring the populace with cries of socialism are just simply, as they would say in what Ms. Palin terms the real pro America, dogs that just won’t hunt.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Sunday Sermon-The Benefits of Split Government
In just over two weeks the voting public will head to their local neighborhood polling places and collectively cast votes that will reverberate around the world. America is the most powerful nation in the world, economically, militarily, politically, and culturally. While we are not the dominant force we once were and don’t figure to regain that status in my opinion, we remain a powerful force in the world, and what we do has an impact well beyond our own borders, which is the definition of what makes a nation historically significant. So suffice to say that the upcoming election has great importance for us, for our neighbors, for our fellow countrymen, and for our brothers and sisters throughout the globe. I’m reminded of the line from “All the President’s Men” when Jason Robards, playing Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee tells Woodward and Bernstein that there’s not much riding on their decisions, except for the constitution, the presidency, and the future of our democracy, or something to that effect. Then he gives them the rejoinder not to f it up. Same goes for us on November 4.
It is not my purpose to make the case for one candidate here, that is a decision that I imagine most people have already made up their mind on, for a myriad of reasons. Anyone who reads this blog on a semi-regular basis knows that I am an Obama supporter, and have been since the spring, after being first a Richardson, then Clinton, then Edwards supporter. I could have even been a McCain supporter if the McCain I admired from 2000 had run in this campaign, but that obviously hasn’t been the case. Nonetheless, this sermon is not a platform to espouse my views on who should be our next president and why, that column has been written awhile ago and I haven’t seen or heard anything to change my stance on that. Rather, I am going to make an argument for why we as a people are better off when our government is split between the two major parties.
First off, I will state that we would be even better off if we had more than two major parties, if we had a system where the likes of Ralph Nadar, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich to name a few could actually get air time and have their views seriously considered. But as our former Defense Secretary famously, and accurately I might add, put it regarding the Iraq War, you go to war with the army that you’ve got. So it is, you go to the polls with the system that you’ve got.
With that in mind, my contention is that our government has been at it’s most effective, it’s most creative, and it’s least destructive in terms of solving problems when it has been split between Democrats and Republicans, specifically when one party has controlled the Executive Branch while the other has controlled the Legislative Branch.
If you look at the modern era, which I define as starting in 1981 with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and the beginning of Movement Conservatism, which is the era of the Republican party being defined not by the fiscal and military restraint that defined it for most of the 20th century, but rather by social and cultural issues. It is also the era that saw the Democratic party allow itself to be defined largely by the right as out of touch, elitist, and effete liberals who would rather give out government checks to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, support abortion on demand, let gays and lesbians marry, let Mexicans in without conditions, and lose wars. This is also, not coincidentally, the era that gave rise to ultra partisanship, the notion of the liberal mainstream media, conservative talk radio, a runaway national debt, and the greatest inequality in wealth since the Gilded Age of the 1920’s that preceded the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
There have been a few bright spots in this modern era however, and they correspond with periods when the reigns of power were shared. From 1995 to 2001, which was a period that saw the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress, while a Democrat served as president, were generally a productive time for our much maligned federal government. Especially in the period from ‘95 to ‘99 before Clinton got bogged down defending his cheatin’ heart from Republicans hell bent on making him pay for his numerous personal transgressions, we had a period of relative peace and security for starters. Remember when we weren’t at war? It seems like a long time ago, but there was such a time. This was also a period that saw our economy grow at a steady and sustainable rate, when federal deficits were controlled to the point where we actually started running surpluses and making some headway against the national debt. Not to be forgotten, this was also a time when both parties combined to enact comprehensive welfare reform, a longtime domestic policy priority that actually came to fruition when both parties came together for the common good.
While not as productive, the period of time from 1987 to 1993 was also a comparatively benign period, a period which saw Republican presidents, the end of Reagan’s second term and the first George Bush’s term in office, along with Democratic controlled Congresses. By contrast, two periods that were marked by failed policies, both domestically during the period of 1993-1995, the first two years of the Clinton administration, and from 2001-2007, the disastrous and potentially ruinous period of the second George Bush reign, have seen one party control the levers of power. In addition to failed policies, these periods, especially the most recent one, have been marked by runaway spending as the party out of power either doesn’t have the power to check the majority, or would rather let them screw things up to the point that the electorate will reward them with a return to power the next time around.
It was famously said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. One need look only at our recent history to see the truth of this statement in action. So what does it all mean for us as we approach the 2008 election? Can a Republican controlled Congress really do a better job working with President Obama on the important issues of health care, energy/environmental policy, fiscal/tax policy, and foreign policy? It is unlikely that we will find out the answer to this question until 2011, when the 112th Congress will be sworn in. My own feeling is that this upcoming 111th Congress will, if the polls are accurate, be strongly controlled by the Democrats, and if recent history is a guide, they will likely fail to adequately tackle our most important issues. It is also likely that they will fail to extricate us from the boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that along with a rising tally of American war casualties, our national debt will continue to increase at breakneck speed. In two years, the voters will wise up and throw the bums out, and hopefully that will give Obama the Republican Congress that will allow us to start to get ourselves out of the massive hole we’re in, similar to the situation with Clinton in 1995. Time will tell, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Until next Sunday, when the sermon will focus on the five tenets that I believe a good government should adhere to, enjoy the political debate, and remember to take time to enjoy the moments that make life worth living, regardless of who is in power.
It is not my purpose to make the case for one candidate here, that is a decision that I imagine most people have already made up their mind on, for a myriad of reasons. Anyone who reads this blog on a semi-regular basis knows that I am an Obama supporter, and have been since the spring, after being first a Richardson, then Clinton, then Edwards supporter. I could have even been a McCain supporter if the McCain I admired from 2000 had run in this campaign, but that obviously hasn’t been the case. Nonetheless, this sermon is not a platform to espouse my views on who should be our next president and why, that column has been written awhile ago and I haven’t seen or heard anything to change my stance on that. Rather, I am going to make an argument for why we as a people are better off when our government is split between the two major parties.
First off, I will state that we would be even better off if we had more than two major parties, if we had a system where the likes of Ralph Nadar, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich to name a few could actually get air time and have their views seriously considered. But as our former Defense Secretary famously, and accurately I might add, put it regarding the Iraq War, you go to war with the army that you’ve got. So it is, you go to the polls with the system that you’ve got.
With that in mind, my contention is that our government has been at it’s most effective, it’s most creative, and it’s least destructive in terms of solving problems when it has been split between Democrats and Republicans, specifically when one party has controlled the Executive Branch while the other has controlled the Legislative Branch.
If you look at the modern era, which I define as starting in 1981 with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and the beginning of Movement Conservatism, which is the era of the Republican party being defined not by the fiscal and military restraint that defined it for most of the 20th century, but rather by social and cultural issues. It is also the era that saw the Democratic party allow itself to be defined largely by the right as out of touch, elitist, and effete liberals who would rather give out government checks to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, support abortion on demand, let gays and lesbians marry, let Mexicans in without conditions, and lose wars. This is also, not coincidentally, the era that gave rise to ultra partisanship, the notion of the liberal mainstream media, conservative talk radio, a runaway national debt, and the greatest inequality in wealth since the Gilded Age of the 1920’s that preceded the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
There have been a few bright spots in this modern era however, and they correspond with periods when the reigns of power were shared. From 1995 to 2001, which was a period that saw the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress, while a Democrat served as president, were generally a productive time for our much maligned federal government. Especially in the period from ‘95 to ‘99 before Clinton got bogged down defending his cheatin’ heart from Republicans hell bent on making him pay for his numerous personal transgressions, we had a period of relative peace and security for starters. Remember when we weren’t at war? It seems like a long time ago, but there was such a time. This was also a period that saw our economy grow at a steady and sustainable rate, when federal deficits were controlled to the point where we actually started running surpluses and making some headway against the national debt. Not to be forgotten, this was also a time when both parties combined to enact comprehensive welfare reform, a longtime domestic policy priority that actually came to fruition when both parties came together for the common good.
While not as productive, the period of time from 1987 to 1993 was also a comparatively benign period, a period which saw Republican presidents, the end of Reagan’s second term and the first George Bush’s term in office, along with Democratic controlled Congresses. By contrast, two periods that were marked by failed policies, both domestically during the period of 1993-1995, the first two years of the Clinton administration, and from 2001-2007, the disastrous and potentially ruinous period of the second George Bush reign, have seen one party control the levers of power. In addition to failed policies, these periods, especially the most recent one, have been marked by runaway spending as the party out of power either doesn’t have the power to check the majority, or would rather let them screw things up to the point that the electorate will reward them with a return to power the next time around.
It was famously said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. One need look only at our recent history to see the truth of this statement in action. So what does it all mean for us as we approach the 2008 election? Can a Republican controlled Congress really do a better job working with President Obama on the important issues of health care, energy/environmental policy, fiscal/tax policy, and foreign policy? It is unlikely that we will find out the answer to this question until 2011, when the 112th Congress will be sworn in. My own feeling is that this upcoming 111th Congress will, if the polls are accurate, be strongly controlled by the Democrats, and if recent history is a guide, they will likely fail to adequately tackle our most important issues. It is also likely that they will fail to extricate us from the boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that along with a rising tally of American war casualties, our national debt will continue to increase at breakneck speed. In two years, the voters will wise up and throw the bums out, and hopefully that will give Obama the Republican Congress that will allow us to start to get ourselves out of the massive hole we’re in, similar to the situation with Clinton in 1995. Time will tell, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Until next Sunday, when the sermon will focus on the five tenets that I believe a good government should adhere to, enjoy the political debate, and remember to take time to enjoy the moments that make life worth living, regardless of who is in power.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Civics 101
Here’s a news flash: Americans are undereducated and perhaps not politically literate enough to support an informed and enlightened democracy. And guess what, we can’t blame this one on the mainstream media, President Bush, or global warming. Nope, this one is on us as a people, and while many of us are educated and literate, many simply don’t have a clue, or even worse, know just enough to be dangerous, like how to register to vote and show up at the polls but little else. Why do you think the McCain campaign is resorting to scare tactics that appeal to people’s base instincts while the Obama camp is long on feel good messages of hope and change but short on actual details, which of course are where the devil always resides.
Perhaps it’s because, as Jack Nicholson would say, we can’t handle the truth. Of course by we I’m not referring to any of us, those who do take the time to read and listen and watch and discuss what is going on around us. But just how many of us are out there, as opposed to them, or as McCain might say, those ones, who don’t do the aforementioned activities. Yet their votes count exactly the same as ours, and if you figure that they outnumber us, then their votes actually outweigh ours, which is a bit depressing if you dwell on it long enough.
The way I see it there are two potential solutions to the problem, one of which is considered undemocratic and the other would require a Herculean effort on the part of our society. The first option is simply to require potential voters to take and pass a literacy test in order to become eligible to vote. Now I know what many of the more educated readers out there may be thinking, that this smacks of the tactics used in the South prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, where Whites used literacy tests and poll taxes to keep Blacks from voting. But this would be a test given to all people, and would also be something that a person could study for, and retake if they failed the first time around. I realize that this seems undemocratic by today’s standards, but do we really want uneducated and illiterate people casting ballots that determine our elected officials and policies?
We require teenagers to answer basic questions about driving safety and rules of the road in order to get a driver’s license, most teenagers also have to pass some basic skills test in order to receive a high school diploma, and certainly have to take entrance exams to get into college. So is it really a stretch to require potential voters to demonstrate basic knowledge of how our system functions before they take part in it?
Lest you think this is some sneaky way for a progressive such as myself to suppress the vote of Joe Conservative, consider these results from the recent Pew Survey that found only 18% of adults could correctly answer three basic questions regarding current political issues and people. When broken down by news sources that people utilize, there was basically no difference between those who listened to NPR, watched Hardball, or watched Hannity and Colmes. Of the sources measured, only four had a majority that correctly answered all three questions, which in addition to NPR and Hannity and Colmes, included readers of the New Yorker and viewers of the Colbert Report. So what does this all mean? Simply that neither liberals nor conservatives have the market cornered on political intelligence, and for that matter, neither do college graduates. Those who get their information from NPR and The New Yorker were more educated on the whole than viewers of Hannity and Colmes and The Colbert Report, yet the survey results found little difference in terms of who knew their stuff.
The second option is to go about the task of actually educating our young people before we throw them out into the world, which would require three things. First, making civics courses a requirement in all high schools as a year long course given to students as sophomores or juniors, not simply giving them a one semester course as seniors when many have already mentally checked out of high school, or giving them a current events course as freshman when many haven’t yet gotten serious about their education. Secondly, it would require agreement on a true national curriculum on what needs to be taught, and a way to hold schools accountable for doing so. And third, it would require hiring and keeping teachers who actually know what the heck they are talking about and have the ability to pass that knowledge onto students, not giving the government course to the longest tenured and often most burned out faculty, or to the football coach whose idea of a curriculum is to read the local paper every day and shoot the bull with his students about whatever the local media determines is important.
You may be wondering what the questions were, and how you would measure up, so here they are: Which party controls the House of Representatives? Who is the Secretary of State? Who is the prime minister of Britain? So how did you do? And is it important that we know this information? It can be argued that these questions aren’t representative of what’s most important, but the point is that most Americans probably couldn’t answer basic knowledge questions no matter how they were framed, and this needs to change if our society is truly going to thrive in the 21st century, an era where we will increasingly find ourselves no longer the dominant force in the world, but one of the major and important players among many others.
The answers in case you wanted to score yourselves: The Democrats control the House, and for that matter The Senate, and are expected to increase those majorities in the upcoming election. Condoleezza Rice is our Secretary of State, and of course will be finishing up her term of service in the next few months as the Bush administration wraps up their reign, unless McCain pulls off a Boston Red Sox like comeback to win the election and keeps Rice in her current position, which would seem as likely as his having a change of heart and nominating Tom Brokaw for Treasury Secretary after all. And the British Prime Minister, which is probably the one that stumped you? Not Margaret Thatcher, nor John Majors or Tony Blair, but none other than Gordon Brown.
Hope you did well, and this gives me an idea to come up with my own ten question political quiz that could serve as the basis for the voting literacy test, which I will reveal in a future column. Until then, enjoy the news you get, and know that if you are educating yourself on a regular basis, you are living up to the expectations that our Founders had for us when this whole crazy experiment in democracy got started a couple centuries ago.
Perhaps it’s because, as Jack Nicholson would say, we can’t handle the truth. Of course by we I’m not referring to any of us, those who do take the time to read and listen and watch and discuss what is going on around us. But just how many of us are out there, as opposed to them, or as McCain might say, those ones, who don’t do the aforementioned activities. Yet their votes count exactly the same as ours, and if you figure that they outnumber us, then their votes actually outweigh ours, which is a bit depressing if you dwell on it long enough.
The way I see it there are two potential solutions to the problem, one of which is considered undemocratic and the other would require a Herculean effort on the part of our society. The first option is simply to require potential voters to take and pass a literacy test in order to become eligible to vote. Now I know what many of the more educated readers out there may be thinking, that this smacks of the tactics used in the South prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, where Whites used literacy tests and poll taxes to keep Blacks from voting. But this would be a test given to all people, and would also be something that a person could study for, and retake if they failed the first time around. I realize that this seems undemocratic by today’s standards, but do we really want uneducated and illiterate people casting ballots that determine our elected officials and policies?
We require teenagers to answer basic questions about driving safety and rules of the road in order to get a driver’s license, most teenagers also have to pass some basic skills test in order to receive a high school diploma, and certainly have to take entrance exams to get into college. So is it really a stretch to require potential voters to demonstrate basic knowledge of how our system functions before they take part in it?
Lest you think this is some sneaky way for a progressive such as myself to suppress the vote of Joe Conservative, consider these results from the recent Pew Survey that found only 18% of adults could correctly answer three basic questions regarding current political issues and people. When broken down by news sources that people utilize, there was basically no difference between those who listened to NPR, watched Hardball, or watched Hannity and Colmes. Of the sources measured, only four had a majority that correctly answered all three questions, which in addition to NPR and Hannity and Colmes, included readers of the New Yorker and viewers of the Colbert Report. So what does this all mean? Simply that neither liberals nor conservatives have the market cornered on political intelligence, and for that matter, neither do college graduates. Those who get their information from NPR and The New Yorker were more educated on the whole than viewers of Hannity and Colmes and The Colbert Report, yet the survey results found little difference in terms of who knew their stuff.
The second option is to go about the task of actually educating our young people before we throw them out into the world, which would require three things. First, making civics courses a requirement in all high schools as a year long course given to students as sophomores or juniors, not simply giving them a one semester course as seniors when many have already mentally checked out of high school, or giving them a current events course as freshman when many haven’t yet gotten serious about their education. Secondly, it would require agreement on a true national curriculum on what needs to be taught, and a way to hold schools accountable for doing so. And third, it would require hiring and keeping teachers who actually know what the heck they are talking about and have the ability to pass that knowledge onto students, not giving the government course to the longest tenured and often most burned out faculty, or to the football coach whose idea of a curriculum is to read the local paper every day and shoot the bull with his students about whatever the local media determines is important.
You may be wondering what the questions were, and how you would measure up, so here they are: Which party controls the House of Representatives? Who is the Secretary of State? Who is the prime minister of Britain? So how did you do? And is it important that we know this information? It can be argued that these questions aren’t representative of what’s most important, but the point is that most Americans probably couldn’t answer basic knowledge questions no matter how they were framed, and this needs to change if our society is truly going to thrive in the 21st century, an era where we will increasingly find ourselves no longer the dominant force in the world, but one of the major and important players among many others.
The answers in case you wanted to score yourselves: The Democrats control the House, and for that matter The Senate, and are expected to increase those majorities in the upcoming election. Condoleezza Rice is our Secretary of State, and of course will be finishing up her term of service in the next few months as the Bush administration wraps up their reign, unless McCain pulls off a Boston Red Sox like comeback to win the election and keeps Rice in her current position, which would seem as likely as his having a change of heart and nominating Tom Brokaw for Treasury Secretary after all. And the British Prime Minister, which is probably the one that stumped you? Not Margaret Thatcher, nor John Majors or Tony Blair, but none other than Gordon Brown.
Hope you did well, and this gives me an idea to come up with my own ten question political quiz that could serve as the basis for the voting literacy test, which I will reveal in a future column. Until then, enjoy the news you get, and know that if you are educating yourself on a regular basis, you are living up to the expectations that our Founders had for us when this whole crazy experiment in democracy got started a couple centuries ago.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
With Liberty and Justice for All
So here we sit on the verge of arguably the most important election in our nation in the last half century, if not longer, and I turn on my cable box and what do I find? Vitriol and venom being spewed by the candidates and their surrogates aimed at discrediting and dehumanizing the opponent? Hardly. Half-truths, misleading statements and lies aimed at whipping up the partisan faithful into a frothy frenzy of anger and rage? Not quite. References to all kinds of Joe’s, from Joe Six Pac to Joe the Plumber to Joe the average guy from Scranton? Not particularly.
What I saw instead, was the two candidates for a most serious position in the most serious of times exchanging barbs and wisecracks, mostly poking good humored fun at themselves. Was I aghast that such tomfoolery could be occurring at a time when we should all be wringing our hands and shaking our heads, clinging to our guns and religion for dear life and planning for the apocalypse? Hell no! I was laughing my backside off, especially at Senator McCain, who while he may not have written all the jokes, certainly pulled them off like a veteran of standup. Say what you want about McCain, and believe me I won’t stop you, but the man has a sense of humor. And Senator Obama showed a humorous side as well, more of the dry witty type, and a bit prone to chuckling at his own jokes, which I am personally accused of doing by my biggest critic, my fourteen year-old sweetheart of a son, but Obama was funny as well.
So why should these two be telling jokes and poking fun when we are all going to hell in a hand basket, apparently up the proverbial Shiite creek without a paddle? Because it’s good to laugh, and it’s even better not to take ourselves too seriously. I’m sure I will be accused of being flippant about all that ails us, and if so my only response is, well, I don’t have a response, you’re as entitled to your seriousness as I am to my sarcasm, whatever gets you through the day. But I really think that with tensions running so high and emotions at such a fever pitch, it’s not a bad idea to step back and remember that we are all on the same team here after all.
We may have different ideas for how to improve our nation and our society in general. We can differ on whether or not Joe the Plumber should get a tax break, or whether Russians can also see Sarah Palin from their front yard, or any number of more serious issues, such as how to best end our addiction to oil, foreign as well as domestic, how best to provide health care and education to our people, how to spur job creation and how to best distribute the wealth we have. But at least we are on the same page that these are issues that need to be dealt with, even if we disagree on the best means of doing so. It’s not like one candidate is saying that we should have no education or health care, and jobs are overrated, or that we should keep on burning as much oil as we can, smoke ‘em while we got ‘em.
Seeing the two candidates brought home that these are decent men, as are most people that get into public service. Not that power doesn’t change and sometimes corrupt good men and women, and I don’t subscribe to cannonization and hero worship, they are people same as the rest of us, just with more power, publicity, and in some cases a few more houses. But they, and this includes our current president, are not evil doers intent on oppressing us for their own nefarious purposes.
We live in a republic, which basically means that we choose people to act on our behalf. We hold free and fair elections on a regular basis, and while we have a system that is far from perfect and always in need of reform, it is still as Churchill said, the best form of government that has so far been devised, flaws and all. It is all too easy to turn to cynicism and the politics of demonization, and all sides are guilty of their fair share. In times such as this, it is all the more important that we, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately. We are after all, one nation, under God, if you, like me, still believe in such things, and we ought to strive for liberty and justice for all, regardless of who wins the election and takes the reigns of power.
What I saw instead, was the two candidates for a most serious position in the most serious of times exchanging barbs and wisecracks, mostly poking good humored fun at themselves. Was I aghast that such tomfoolery could be occurring at a time when we should all be wringing our hands and shaking our heads, clinging to our guns and religion for dear life and planning for the apocalypse? Hell no! I was laughing my backside off, especially at Senator McCain, who while he may not have written all the jokes, certainly pulled them off like a veteran of standup. Say what you want about McCain, and believe me I won’t stop you, but the man has a sense of humor. And Senator Obama showed a humorous side as well, more of the dry witty type, and a bit prone to chuckling at his own jokes, which I am personally accused of doing by my biggest critic, my fourteen year-old sweetheart of a son, but Obama was funny as well.
So why should these two be telling jokes and poking fun when we are all going to hell in a hand basket, apparently up the proverbial Shiite creek without a paddle? Because it’s good to laugh, and it’s even better not to take ourselves too seriously. I’m sure I will be accused of being flippant about all that ails us, and if so my only response is, well, I don’t have a response, you’re as entitled to your seriousness as I am to my sarcasm, whatever gets you through the day. But I really think that with tensions running so high and emotions at such a fever pitch, it’s not a bad idea to step back and remember that we are all on the same team here after all.
We may have different ideas for how to improve our nation and our society in general. We can differ on whether or not Joe the Plumber should get a tax break, or whether Russians can also see Sarah Palin from their front yard, or any number of more serious issues, such as how to best end our addiction to oil, foreign as well as domestic, how best to provide health care and education to our people, how to spur job creation and how to best distribute the wealth we have. But at least we are on the same page that these are issues that need to be dealt with, even if we disagree on the best means of doing so. It’s not like one candidate is saying that we should have no education or health care, and jobs are overrated, or that we should keep on burning as much oil as we can, smoke ‘em while we got ‘em.
Seeing the two candidates brought home that these are decent men, as are most people that get into public service. Not that power doesn’t change and sometimes corrupt good men and women, and I don’t subscribe to cannonization and hero worship, they are people same as the rest of us, just with more power, publicity, and in some cases a few more houses. But they, and this includes our current president, are not evil doers intent on oppressing us for their own nefarious purposes.
We live in a republic, which basically means that we choose people to act on our behalf. We hold free and fair elections on a regular basis, and while we have a system that is far from perfect and always in need of reform, it is still as Churchill said, the best form of government that has so far been devised, flaws and all. It is all too easy to turn to cynicism and the politics of demonization, and all sides are guilty of their fair share. In times such as this, it is all the more important that we, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately. We are after all, one nation, under God, if you, like me, still believe in such things, and we ought to strive for liberty and justice for all, regardless of who wins the election and takes the reigns of power.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Why Writers Write
They say that birds gotta fly and bees gotta buzz, and I say that writers gotta write. If I could I’d do it every day all day because it is one of the things in life that gives me great pleasure, which at the core of it all is why I, or any writer does it. The way I see it, life is damn short and the goal should be to maximize pleasure in a way that corresponds with morality, ethics, and right behavior, which if done properly can bring about even more pleasure.
I came to the idea to write this particular column recently when reading an AP article, I have given up newspapers and stay current via AP and NPR, on the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is a French writer by the name of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, which is a name that would make Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter go, man this dude has a long name. But this writer was awarded for his body of work, and in particular for a novel titled “Desert” that I plan to read. When asked how he felt about winning the award, his response was that “we write to be read, we write to have responses, and that is a response.” Indeed it is quite a response, and while the rest of us pedestrians don’t aspire to win major literary awards, although I can imagine some ways in which I could spend the Kronors that come with it, we do write to be read, and to get a response.
It is a natural human desire to be responded to, from the time we are born into this world we crave attention and reactions to what we do. Infants who are deprived of this become less human than they otherwise would, and we’ve all been in a room, or a crowded restaurant, shopping mall, or movie theatre when a little kid has burst out in a chorus of loud and obnoxious whining. Or the obstinate teenager who wears shocking clothing, uses foul language in public, or colors their hair in a way that defies all common sense. How about the wife who strays from her husband seeking some love and attention that he is either too lazy or emotionally dense to give her. Yes, we all want a response to what we have to say, to who we are, and of course there are some ways of getting one that are healthier and more productive than others.
So back to the main point here, why do writers write, and in particular, why do I write. I’ve broken it down into four reasons, starting with the fact that I have a lot to say. For better or worse, my mind is constantly moving, like one of those Energizer bunnies that just keeps going and going. If I don’t release every so often I’m afraid my head would explode. Unfortunately for them, my family bares the brunt of this, especially on a Saturday night after a couple of Stoli’s. So to give my poor wife and kids a break from all of my bs every once in awhile I have to take out my aggression on the keyboard.
I also love to reach out and touch people, as the old phone commercial went, but my preferred method is with the written word. If I can write something that makes someone think, or laugh, or wonder what kind of a jackass could possibly write such dribble, then I’ve made a connection. And making connections and getting responses are the most basic element of our humanity. There is no feeling quite like knowing that what I put out there had an impact on someone, that it evoked some emotion or opinion, in teaching it is referred to as the light bulb moment, when a student gets it and the light visibly goes on.
Which gets me to my next reason for writing, I love to teach and even more importantly I love to learn. I love to learn about anything and everything that I can possibly wrap my mind around, albeit that limits the universe of potential knowledge for me, but I try to expand my ability to comprehend what I can as much as I can. I’ll never understand quantum physics, the workings of what happens under the hood of my car, or the appeal of MMA, but I can appreciate art and literature, music, storytelling, history, culture, sports, relationships, politics, and much else that speaks to our human existence and condition. And I want to know more than I do, and when I find out stuff I want to share my take on what I’ve learned with the world. So I write, and write some more, and no matter how much I write the list of my columns that I want to write keeps growing longer.
Finally, I write because I have this crazy dream that one day I might actually be able to eke out a meager living doing this sort of thing. Look, my main goal in life from a professional standpoint has always been to simply make enough money to pay the bills and have a few bucks left over at the end of the day, without actually having to work for a living. I’m close as a teacher, because I love what I do to the point that it doesn’t seem like work, except for when I have to grade papers and attend meetings and adhere to state standards, as if some beaurocrat working for the department of education has clue one as to what kids should be taught in the classroom. But as a self-supporting freelance writer, I could truly accomplish my goal of doing what I love to do without having to sell my soul or pucker up to someone’s backside just to make partner or get that corner office. If I can pull that off, I will have beaten the system, the one that tells us that we have to, as John Mellencamp sang, go to work in some high rise and vacation down in the gulf of Mexico. Personally I’ll take going to write at my local coffeehouse and vacation up in the Sierras every summer.
So I write, and I hope that what I have to say can make a difference, even in the smallest of ways, and if that is the case then regardless of whether I ever get to quit my day job, at least I can look back when all is said and done and know that during my brief time in this universe I did something that was worth a damn, that I left a mark. And that, it why I write, and why I appreciate deeply anyone who takes the time to read what I write, because that makes it all that much more enjoyable.
I came to the idea to write this particular column recently when reading an AP article, I have given up newspapers and stay current via AP and NPR, on the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is a French writer by the name of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, which is a name that would make Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter go, man this dude has a long name. But this writer was awarded for his body of work, and in particular for a novel titled “Desert” that I plan to read. When asked how he felt about winning the award, his response was that “we write to be read, we write to have responses, and that is a response.” Indeed it is quite a response, and while the rest of us pedestrians don’t aspire to win major literary awards, although I can imagine some ways in which I could spend the Kronors that come with it, we do write to be read, and to get a response.
It is a natural human desire to be responded to, from the time we are born into this world we crave attention and reactions to what we do. Infants who are deprived of this become less human than they otherwise would, and we’ve all been in a room, or a crowded restaurant, shopping mall, or movie theatre when a little kid has burst out in a chorus of loud and obnoxious whining. Or the obstinate teenager who wears shocking clothing, uses foul language in public, or colors their hair in a way that defies all common sense. How about the wife who strays from her husband seeking some love and attention that he is either too lazy or emotionally dense to give her. Yes, we all want a response to what we have to say, to who we are, and of course there are some ways of getting one that are healthier and more productive than others.
So back to the main point here, why do writers write, and in particular, why do I write. I’ve broken it down into four reasons, starting with the fact that I have a lot to say. For better or worse, my mind is constantly moving, like one of those Energizer bunnies that just keeps going and going. If I don’t release every so often I’m afraid my head would explode. Unfortunately for them, my family bares the brunt of this, especially on a Saturday night after a couple of Stoli’s. So to give my poor wife and kids a break from all of my bs every once in awhile I have to take out my aggression on the keyboard.
I also love to reach out and touch people, as the old phone commercial went, but my preferred method is with the written word. If I can write something that makes someone think, or laugh, or wonder what kind of a jackass could possibly write such dribble, then I’ve made a connection. And making connections and getting responses are the most basic element of our humanity. There is no feeling quite like knowing that what I put out there had an impact on someone, that it evoked some emotion or opinion, in teaching it is referred to as the light bulb moment, when a student gets it and the light visibly goes on.
Which gets me to my next reason for writing, I love to teach and even more importantly I love to learn. I love to learn about anything and everything that I can possibly wrap my mind around, albeit that limits the universe of potential knowledge for me, but I try to expand my ability to comprehend what I can as much as I can. I’ll never understand quantum physics, the workings of what happens under the hood of my car, or the appeal of MMA, but I can appreciate art and literature, music, storytelling, history, culture, sports, relationships, politics, and much else that speaks to our human existence and condition. And I want to know more than I do, and when I find out stuff I want to share my take on what I’ve learned with the world. So I write, and write some more, and no matter how much I write the list of my columns that I want to write keeps growing longer.
Finally, I write because I have this crazy dream that one day I might actually be able to eke out a meager living doing this sort of thing. Look, my main goal in life from a professional standpoint has always been to simply make enough money to pay the bills and have a few bucks left over at the end of the day, without actually having to work for a living. I’m close as a teacher, because I love what I do to the point that it doesn’t seem like work, except for when I have to grade papers and attend meetings and adhere to state standards, as if some beaurocrat working for the department of education has clue one as to what kids should be taught in the classroom. But as a self-supporting freelance writer, I could truly accomplish my goal of doing what I love to do without having to sell my soul or pucker up to someone’s backside just to make partner or get that corner office. If I can pull that off, I will have beaten the system, the one that tells us that we have to, as John Mellencamp sang, go to work in some high rise and vacation down in the gulf of Mexico. Personally I’ll take going to write at my local coffeehouse and vacation up in the Sierras every summer.
So I write, and I hope that what I have to say can make a difference, even in the smallest of ways, and if that is the case then regardless of whether I ever get to quit my day job, at least I can look back when all is said and done and know that during my brief time in this universe I did something that was worth a damn, that I left a mark. And that, it why I write, and why I appreciate deeply anyone who takes the time to read what I write, because that makes it all that much more enjoyable.
Monday, October 13, 2008
18 years ago today
So I'm sitting at a bar called What's Your Beef in Scottsdale, which is the farthest I've been away from my new home base in Tempe. Me and some buddies from California, who are out for the weekend, have just been turned away at a few bars down on Mill Avenue because not all of them had good fake ID's like I did and couldn't get in. The last place was particularly galling to me, because it seemed like it was going to be a great spot, beautiful people in every nook and cranny, good music bumping, and we found a good spot to hang and check it all out. Then one of our buddies can't get in so we've got to leave it all for who knows where. My roommate Schulz, who is an AZ native suggests a place he knows up in Scottsdale, so we pool our money for a cab ride and make the journey up to the hinterlands on a whim and a prayer.
Somehow I separate from the pack, and as I look across the crowded room I spot absolutely the most drop dead gorgeous girl I've ever laid eyes on. Her blue eyes pierced my soul in an instant, and her smile nearly knocked me off my barstool, or whatever the hell I was sitting on because at that moment I could have been levitating for all I know. Straight out of the scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Mark Rattner spots the cute girl from across the mall and she smiles at him, I turn around to see if there is some suave looking dude behind me that she's into, because I just don't get women that look that damn good smile at me for no reason. But when I see that nobody is behind me, everything changes, and I know that I'm the guy she's smiling at, and there is something about her that tells me all I've got to do is be myself and this is gonna take care of itself, so I turn on the charm and approach her. Well, first I stop and buy a rose, then I go over and introduce myself and ask her to dance. Luckily for me she only notices my smile and eyes, and overlooks my goofy haircut and complete lack of fashion sense.
As soon as we start dancing and talking at the table afterwards it's like we've known each other for years, like we were always supposed to meet and fall in love and have kids and live happily ever after and it was just a matter of when not if. We connect on a cosmic level, and somehow the universe had conspired to bring us together. After a night for the ages, we don't see each other for a few days, and after spending my 20th birthday together, we go another couple weeks until we see each other again, but all this time I know that I have been changed in some profound way by her and that something will come of this. When we see each other again the magic is even stronger, and although she tries to blow me off because I'm too young, I refuse to accept her premise and basically just hang around long enough that I become part of her wardrobe, like a comfortable shirt that you don't even remember where you got but you find yourself wearing it out.
And 18 years later here we are, the magic is still stronger than ever, and her beauty is as salient today as it was all those years ago. She is the love of my life and the light of my soul, and while I'm still not sure why she has put up with me all this time, I'm glad that she has and I hope that I make her half as happy as she makes me because that would be a hell of alot of happiness. I don't know where I'll be in another 18 years, but wherever it is, so long as she is by my side as my partner, my love, and my best friend, I'll be good to go. I love her with all my heart and all my soul, and more and more every day, and am thankful for every day that we have together.
Somehow I separate from the pack, and as I look across the crowded room I spot absolutely the most drop dead gorgeous girl I've ever laid eyes on. Her blue eyes pierced my soul in an instant, and her smile nearly knocked me off my barstool, or whatever the hell I was sitting on because at that moment I could have been levitating for all I know. Straight out of the scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Mark Rattner spots the cute girl from across the mall and she smiles at him, I turn around to see if there is some suave looking dude behind me that she's into, because I just don't get women that look that damn good smile at me for no reason. But when I see that nobody is behind me, everything changes, and I know that I'm the guy she's smiling at, and there is something about her that tells me all I've got to do is be myself and this is gonna take care of itself, so I turn on the charm and approach her. Well, first I stop and buy a rose, then I go over and introduce myself and ask her to dance. Luckily for me she only notices my smile and eyes, and overlooks my goofy haircut and complete lack of fashion sense.
As soon as we start dancing and talking at the table afterwards it's like we've known each other for years, like we were always supposed to meet and fall in love and have kids and live happily ever after and it was just a matter of when not if. We connect on a cosmic level, and somehow the universe had conspired to bring us together. After a night for the ages, we don't see each other for a few days, and after spending my 20th birthday together, we go another couple weeks until we see each other again, but all this time I know that I have been changed in some profound way by her and that something will come of this. When we see each other again the magic is even stronger, and although she tries to blow me off because I'm too young, I refuse to accept her premise and basically just hang around long enough that I become part of her wardrobe, like a comfortable shirt that you don't even remember where you got but you find yourself wearing it out.
And 18 years later here we are, the magic is still stronger than ever, and her beauty is as salient today as it was all those years ago. She is the love of my life and the light of my soul, and while I'm still not sure why she has put up with me all this time, I'm glad that she has and I hope that I make her half as happy as she makes me because that would be a hell of alot of happiness. I don't know where I'll be in another 18 years, but wherever it is, so long as she is by my side as my partner, my love, and my best friend, I'll be good to go. I love her with all my heart and all my soul, and more and more every day, and am thankful for every day that we have together.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Talkin' Some Shiite
Sunday Morning Column-Talkin’ Some Shiite
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Time to take off the gloves and get down to bidness. No punches being pulled today, just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em, so here goes.
The tone of the presidential campaign has reached a new low in American politics. I have resigned myself to the fact that the opposition party will now always lob personal attacks at the party in power, conservatives calling liberals a bunch of unpatriotic namby-pambies who don’t want to win wars, and liberals calling conservatives a bunch of inbreeds without the ability to harbor a thought of their own unless Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity gives them permission. But the nastiness has now turned overtly racial and racist, and it is past time that those who deserve it get called out.
Fortunately, in our society today you can no longer come right out and spew a bunch of racist bullsheet directly, unless of course it’s directed at Arabs and/or Muslims, then it’s still acceptable. And gay and lesbian bashing is still accepted in most circles, but aside from that the perpetrators of bigotry and hate have to speak in code, which they have become quite adept at doing.
Obama is a terrorist, his middle name is Hussein, he is a Muslim, and oh yeah, did we mention that you can’t trust him and he scares us. Us being small-minded, large gut, and pea-brained White people who are threatened by a Black man taking the reins of power and are lashing out in a desperate attempt to prevent their monochrome world from crashing in around them.
As stated, personal attacks and deionization have become par for our political course, but this crosses that line and delves smack into the world of racist hate speech. If McCain and his pit bull Palin don’t come out and denounce it in plain language with no nuance, they are guilty of playing to the racist Republican base and should be called out for that. Not all Republicans are racist, but many racists are Republicans, and that is a dirty little secret that has been known for a long time by those who aren’t white, and by those who simply open their eyes to the way things really are.
Speaking of Sarah Palin, has there ever been a national political figure more unfit for the job than “this one”? She is an empty blouse, a typical figurehead who advanced through the political ranks on charm and looks, which is indicative of the nature of our electoral politics, we elect simpletons based on likeability and renounce intelligent people as elitist. She obviously knows little to nothing about national politics, as evidenced by her lame attempt to describe the Bush foreign policy that has only been responsible for the biggest military blunder in our nation’s history and thus widely discredited. Her winking and speech mannerisms are smug and inappropriate for someone aspiring to such high office, and quite frankly just hearing the sound of her voice makes me cringe. I have no doubt that she will go down as the worst vp pick of the last century, or at least since we started paying attention to vp picks.
McCain has run a basically inept and incompetent campaign, and his pick of Palin just shows that he has allowed his candidacy to be hijacked by the Bush neo-con operatives who while they take much credit as political geniuses, were barely able to defeat two of the weaker Democratic candidates in Gore and Kerry in the last two elections.
Speaking of candidates, there is actually one candidate who has both come out against the irresponsible and with the extra pork included, immoral bailout package, and also has come out against not only the Iraq war but the ineffective campaign being waged in Afghanistan. What’s that you say, it doesn’t sound like either Obama or McCain, who both supported the bailout and who support keeping our troops in Asia waging endless battles with no definition of victory or any sort of exit strategy? Well, that’s because the candidate with the most sensible fiscal and foreign policy is none other than Ralph Nadar.
Ooooh, I can hear the liberals out there shuddering as I write that. Ralph Nadar of course is the devil incarnate who tossed the 2000 election to George W. and changed the course of American history. Of course they leave out the fact that Al Gore ran away from a then still popular president and didn’t really distinguish himself greatly from his opponent, and by doing so gave many thinking and caring people reason to look elsewhere. They also leave out how four years later they nominated John Kerry, probably the weakest Democrat since Walter Mondale. Ralph Nadar isn’t to blame for George W, and while Nadar admittedly has no chance of winning this election, it is a shame that we are stuck with a system that marginalizes candidates such as Nadar, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich, who have some pretty good ideas and could provide our debate with a needed jolt of reality.
And lastly, the debates, or what passes for debates in our present age. My idea of a debate has always been one where an issue is thrown on the table and then discussed, point-counter point. These debates are simply a game of talking point ping pong where each candidate says, “well, that’s an excellent question” then proceeds to completely ignore it in favor of whatever it is they want to talk about, followed by their opponent making a lame wisecrack about them and then launching into their own diatribe while the moderator sits there like a substitute teacher just trying to get to the end of the day without having to get up from his desk or write anyone an office referral. The best part is the post-debate wrap up, where each candidates supporters proclaim their guy the winner, and the sounding board media simply restate what we just heard the candidates say 30 minutes ago. I don’t know who the winner is in any of these debates, but I know that the loser is the thoughtful American voter who wants to hear discussion of issues that affect our lives, taxes, fiscal policy, foreign and domestic policy, energy and environmental policy, education and health care.
So much more to rant and ramble about, but I’ve monopolized enough of your time for one Sunday morning, so I’ll save the rest for another column. But I didn’t even touch the bailouts, both past and future, that figure to drive our nation deeper into bankruptcy while doing little to get the economic engine humming again, or the folly of our military strategy, our lack of a comprehensive energy policy, health care plan, or ability to educate our young people. As comedian Yaakov Smirnov used to say, “what a country!” What a country indeed, and despite all that ails us, this is still a great place to live and enjoy our lives, despite all the shenanigans that go on and the hooligans that run the show. And if the Dodgers get it together and beat the Fightin’ Phils tonight in the playoffs, all will once again be right with the world. Until next time, this is the ordinary average guy signing off.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Time to take off the gloves and get down to bidness. No punches being pulled today, just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em, so here goes.
The tone of the presidential campaign has reached a new low in American politics. I have resigned myself to the fact that the opposition party will now always lob personal attacks at the party in power, conservatives calling liberals a bunch of unpatriotic namby-pambies who don’t want to win wars, and liberals calling conservatives a bunch of inbreeds without the ability to harbor a thought of their own unless Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity gives them permission. But the nastiness has now turned overtly racial and racist, and it is past time that those who deserve it get called out.
Fortunately, in our society today you can no longer come right out and spew a bunch of racist bullsheet directly, unless of course it’s directed at Arabs and/or Muslims, then it’s still acceptable. And gay and lesbian bashing is still accepted in most circles, but aside from that the perpetrators of bigotry and hate have to speak in code, which they have become quite adept at doing.
Obama is a terrorist, his middle name is Hussein, he is a Muslim, and oh yeah, did we mention that you can’t trust him and he scares us. Us being small-minded, large gut, and pea-brained White people who are threatened by a Black man taking the reins of power and are lashing out in a desperate attempt to prevent their monochrome world from crashing in around them.
As stated, personal attacks and deionization have become par for our political course, but this crosses that line and delves smack into the world of racist hate speech. If McCain and his pit bull Palin don’t come out and denounce it in plain language with no nuance, they are guilty of playing to the racist Republican base and should be called out for that. Not all Republicans are racist, but many racists are Republicans, and that is a dirty little secret that has been known for a long time by those who aren’t white, and by those who simply open their eyes to the way things really are.
Speaking of Sarah Palin, has there ever been a national political figure more unfit for the job than “this one”? She is an empty blouse, a typical figurehead who advanced through the political ranks on charm and looks, which is indicative of the nature of our electoral politics, we elect simpletons based on likeability and renounce intelligent people as elitist. She obviously knows little to nothing about national politics, as evidenced by her lame attempt to describe the Bush foreign policy that has only been responsible for the biggest military blunder in our nation’s history and thus widely discredited. Her winking and speech mannerisms are smug and inappropriate for someone aspiring to such high office, and quite frankly just hearing the sound of her voice makes me cringe. I have no doubt that she will go down as the worst vp pick of the last century, or at least since we started paying attention to vp picks.
McCain has run a basically inept and incompetent campaign, and his pick of Palin just shows that he has allowed his candidacy to be hijacked by the Bush neo-con operatives who while they take much credit as political geniuses, were barely able to defeat two of the weaker Democratic candidates in Gore and Kerry in the last two elections.
Speaking of candidates, there is actually one candidate who has both come out against the irresponsible and with the extra pork included, immoral bailout package, and also has come out against not only the Iraq war but the ineffective campaign being waged in Afghanistan. What’s that you say, it doesn’t sound like either Obama or McCain, who both supported the bailout and who support keeping our troops in Asia waging endless battles with no definition of victory or any sort of exit strategy? Well, that’s because the candidate with the most sensible fiscal and foreign policy is none other than Ralph Nadar.
Ooooh, I can hear the liberals out there shuddering as I write that. Ralph Nadar of course is the devil incarnate who tossed the 2000 election to George W. and changed the course of American history. Of course they leave out the fact that Al Gore ran away from a then still popular president and didn’t really distinguish himself greatly from his opponent, and by doing so gave many thinking and caring people reason to look elsewhere. They also leave out how four years later they nominated John Kerry, probably the weakest Democrat since Walter Mondale. Ralph Nadar isn’t to blame for George W, and while Nadar admittedly has no chance of winning this election, it is a shame that we are stuck with a system that marginalizes candidates such as Nadar, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich, who have some pretty good ideas and could provide our debate with a needed jolt of reality.
And lastly, the debates, or what passes for debates in our present age. My idea of a debate has always been one where an issue is thrown on the table and then discussed, point-counter point. These debates are simply a game of talking point ping pong where each candidate says, “well, that’s an excellent question” then proceeds to completely ignore it in favor of whatever it is they want to talk about, followed by their opponent making a lame wisecrack about them and then launching into their own diatribe while the moderator sits there like a substitute teacher just trying to get to the end of the day without having to get up from his desk or write anyone an office referral. The best part is the post-debate wrap up, where each candidates supporters proclaim their guy the winner, and the sounding board media simply restate what we just heard the candidates say 30 minutes ago. I don’t know who the winner is in any of these debates, but I know that the loser is the thoughtful American voter who wants to hear discussion of issues that affect our lives, taxes, fiscal policy, foreign and domestic policy, energy and environmental policy, education and health care.
So much more to rant and ramble about, but I’ve monopolized enough of your time for one Sunday morning, so I’ll save the rest for another column. But I didn’t even touch the bailouts, both past and future, that figure to drive our nation deeper into bankruptcy while doing little to get the economic engine humming again, or the folly of our military strategy, our lack of a comprehensive energy policy, health care plan, or ability to educate our young people. As comedian Yaakov Smirnov used to say, “what a country!” What a country indeed, and despite all that ails us, this is still a great place to live and enjoy our lives, despite all the shenanigans that go on and the hooligans that run the show. And if the Dodgers get it together and beat the Fightin’ Phils tonight in the playoffs, all will once again be right with the world. Until next time, this is the ordinary average guy signing off.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
What Really Matters
So I was all set to write about the latest debate between Obama and McCain, and it occurred to me while hiking this afternoon at sunset on a still warm but no longer oppressive desert autumn day that while politics are interesting and this election is important, there are certain things that transcend politics and economic downturns and cut through all the haze and slights of hand with a clarity that puts everything in perspective. Besides, the campaign isn’t going anywhere for the next few weeks and that column will get written, but not tonight.
Tonight is a celebration of the things in life, little and big, that make life worth living, things that really matter, and that quite simply can’t be taken away by the politics and issues of the day. Going for a hike or a trail run on a late afternoon while the obstinate desert sun hangs around on the western horizon for just a bit longer is a sight to behold no matter which party controls the Congress. And the sweet sound of my best friend’s voice in conversation doesn’t sound any more or less sweet if a Republican or Democrat controls the Executive Branch.
The sound of my daughter singing show tunes and pop tunes and 60’s soul tunes up in her bedroom can overcome any market downswing. The joy and pride that comes from watching my boy grow into a young man trumps the price of gas, or for that matter the price of tea in China. There is certainly no deficit in the energy level and enthusiasm of the wonderful students I have the pleasure of working with every day as a high school teacher, and no recession or depression can outweigh the pleasure of getting a friendly smile or a warm hello from a total stranger.
Look, the nation I love so dearly is in rough shape, the economy that affects me and most everyone I know and care about is reeling, men and women are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when they should be home listening to their daughters sing, watching their sons play ball, and enjoying conversation with their partners. There is plenty to get worked up over and I haven’t forgotten those that are hurting or the seriousness of our time and place in the world. I will continue to write about such issues because they do matter, and because I, like many people, do care about what happens in my community, in my country, and in this world we all occupy for the briefest of intervals. But not tonight.
Tonight is a celebration of the things in life, little and big, that make life worth living, things that really matter, and that quite simply can’t be taken away by the politics and issues of the day. Going for a hike or a trail run on a late afternoon while the obstinate desert sun hangs around on the western horizon for just a bit longer is a sight to behold no matter which party controls the Congress. And the sweet sound of my best friend’s voice in conversation doesn’t sound any more or less sweet if a Republican or Democrat controls the Executive Branch.
The sound of my daughter singing show tunes and pop tunes and 60’s soul tunes up in her bedroom can overcome any market downswing. The joy and pride that comes from watching my boy grow into a young man trumps the price of gas, or for that matter the price of tea in China. There is certainly no deficit in the energy level and enthusiasm of the wonderful students I have the pleasure of working with every day as a high school teacher, and no recession or depression can outweigh the pleasure of getting a friendly smile or a warm hello from a total stranger.
Look, the nation I love so dearly is in rough shape, the economy that affects me and most everyone I know and care about is reeling, men and women are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when they should be home listening to their daughters sing, watching their sons play ball, and enjoying conversation with their partners. There is plenty to get worked up over and I haven’t forgotten those that are hurting or the seriousness of our time and place in the world. I will continue to write about such issues because they do matter, and because I, like many people, do care about what happens in my community, in my country, and in this world we all occupy for the briefest of intervals. But not tonight.
Monday, October 6, 2008
No Pain No Gain
What I am about to write may come off as insensitive to those readers who are feeling the pain of the current economic situation most acutely, those who have seen their stock portfolios or 401K balances plummet, especially those who have lost or fear losing their jobs as the stock market continues to plummet and unemployment is on the rise. It is not my intention to seem uncaring or cold to those in trouble, but my premise is that the short term pain that we are feeling today could actually turn out to pay off in the long run. As a champion of the middle and working class, it does pain me to see people suffering, and like many it also angers me to see the elites continue to benefit with golden parachutes and pork barrel projects being handed out in this time of anxiety and suffering. So when I say that there can be no gains without some pain, it is not out of anything other than a sense, and a hope, that what we are dealing with, and are about to go through will make us a stronger and more equitable society once we make it through the other side.
So how exactly is our current meltdown a good thing you ask? First off, our economy is in need of a serious diet and workout regimen. We have built up so many layers upon layers of excess over the last couple decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses, that we are like a middle-aged guy who wakes up one morning and realizes that not only can he not button his pants anymore, but that he can’t even see where the buttons are supposed to go. We can continue to ignore the reality of where we are with bailouts and tax refunds, the economic equivalent of going to sweatpants with drawstrings, or we can get serious about shedding the excess weight in hopes of getting back to the glory days of our youth. Of course there will be pain in the short term, changing habits is never easy and requires a good deal of sacrifice. Companies will be downsizing, jobs will be lost, and entire industries will either need to be seriously restructured or in some cases eliminated all together. But the end result can be a leaner and meaner economy and a return to jobs that actually produce something of value to society as a whole, not to mention jobs that are much more secure than what we have now as people would have skills that are marketable and transferable and employees would be less at the mercy of their particular employer.
Secondly, the current downturn can actually have a positive effect on the markets that impact the middle and working classes the most, namely the stock market and housing market for those of us fortunate enough to have a stake in them, and the market for basic necessities such as food and energy for all consumers, which is already starting to moderate after shooting up at alarming rates not too long ago.
The stock market has been a bubble waiting to burst, and with stock prices coming down and things like traditional price to earnings ratios falling in line with historical levels, stocks will be not only more affordable but their values will actually reflect reality more so than they have in recent years. The housing market has taken a nose dive, making it difficult for those who bought within the last few years, especially those unfortunate enough to buy at the peak of the bubble, to sell their houses. This has brought about a stagnancy in the market, which combined with excess supply thanks in part to what started out as a subprime mortgage crisis but quickly expanded to include all types of mortgages, has brought about a downward spiral in prices. But again, there are always two sides to markets, and at some point the decrease in prices, along with a corresponding decrease in interest rates, will make housing more affordable for the average worker. Assuming that there are any lenders left with capital to lend, this activity will spur prices to hit a price floor, and will eventually allow sellers to start to see an increase in the value of their most valuable investments, albeit one that is, like stock valuations, more in line with reality and the actual worth of what they are selling. We all knew that the rapid increase in prices wasn’t based on a real increase in the value of the assets, but as with most things, we don’t tend to question the system when it is working in our favor, we just go with the flow and often suspend our perceptions of reality. Regular people are just as guilty of that as the greedy money lenders that made huge profits from the whole situation while they could, and many of the middle class either took out gimmicky loans or took on more than they could reasonably expect to afford given their finances. Not to mention, they went out and bought expensive vehicles and other material items, and put most of the bill on the charge card in an era of easy credit and low interest rates. Those days are gone, and as Springsteen would croon, they ain’t comin’ back, and in the long run we will all be better off for it.
Last, but certainly not least is the impetus that the current crises can provide for the peasants to finally wake up and smell the coffee, or in the case of many, the four dollar lattes and hot chocolates we love so dearly. The combination of irresponsible and ineffective government bailouts, incredibly brazen pork barrel spending added on top of the recent bailout bill, and the fact that heads of failing corporations responsible in large part for the mess we are in are nonetheless coming out smelling like roses is enough to provide a shock to the senses, a jolt to the workers of this land to say enough is enough. Historically, real change only comes about when conditions get bad enough to overcome the innate forces of inertia that apply to societies at rest, but once that society is moved to act, the irresistible force can often bring about meaningful reform. The story is yet to be written, and many variables remain at play, as this doesn’t seem to be a situation that is likely to resolve itself anytime soon, and most likely things will get a good deal worse before they get better. The hope is that the pain we are feeling now will not be fatal to our economy or to our psyche, and that we will come out of this a stronger, leaner, more equitable and just society than we have let ourselves become.
So how exactly is our current meltdown a good thing you ask? First off, our economy is in need of a serious diet and workout regimen. We have built up so many layers upon layers of excess over the last couple decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses, that we are like a middle-aged guy who wakes up one morning and realizes that not only can he not button his pants anymore, but that he can’t even see where the buttons are supposed to go. We can continue to ignore the reality of where we are with bailouts and tax refunds, the economic equivalent of going to sweatpants with drawstrings, or we can get serious about shedding the excess weight in hopes of getting back to the glory days of our youth. Of course there will be pain in the short term, changing habits is never easy and requires a good deal of sacrifice. Companies will be downsizing, jobs will be lost, and entire industries will either need to be seriously restructured or in some cases eliminated all together. But the end result can be a leaner and meaner economy and a return to jobs that actually produce something of value to society as a whole, not to mention jobs that are much more secure than what we have now as people would have skills that are marketable and transferable and employees would be less at the mercy of their particular employer.
Secondly, the current downturn can actually have a positive effect on the markets that impact the middle and working classes the most, namely the stock market and housing market for those of us fortunate enough to have a stake in them, and the market for basic necessities such as food and energy for all consumers, which is already starting to moderate after shooting up at alarming rates not too long ago.
The stock market has been a bubble waiting to burst, and with stock prices coming down and things like traditional price to earnings ratios falling in line with historical levels, stocks will be not only more affordable but their values will actually reflect reality more so than they have in recent years. The housing market has taken a nose dive, making it difficult for those who bought within the last few years, especially those unfortunate enough to buy at the peak of the bubble, to sell their houses. This has brought about a stagnancy in the market, which combined with excess supply thanks in part to what started out as a subprime mortgage crisis but quickly expanded to include all types of mortgages, has brought about a downward spiral in prices. But again, there are always two sides to markets, and at some point the decrease in prices, along with a corresponding decrease in interest rates, will make housing more affordable for the average worker. Assuming that there are any lenders left with capital to lend, this activity will spur prices to hit a price floor, and will eventually allow sellers to start to see an increase in the value of their most valuable investments, albeit one that is, like stock valuations, more in line with reality and the actual worth of what they are selling. We all knew that the rapid increase in prices wasn’t based on a real increase in the value of the assets, but as with most things, we don’t tend to question the system when it is working in our favor, we just go with the flow and often suspend our perceptions of reality. Regular people are just as guilty of that as the greedy money lenders that made huge profits from the whole situation while they could, and many of the middle class either took out gimmicky loans or took on more than they could reasonably expect to afford given their finances. Not to mention, they went out and bought expensive vehicles and other material items, and put most of the bill on the charge card in an era of easy credit and low interest rates. Those days are gone, and as Springsteen would croon, they ain’t comin’ back, and in the long run we will all be better off for it.
Last, but certainly not least is the impetus that the current crises can provide for the peasants to finally wake up and smell the coffee, or in the case of many, the four dollar lattes and hot chocolates we love so dearly. The combination of irresponsible and ineffective government bailouts, incredibly brazen pork barrel spending added on top of the recent bailout bill, and the fact that heads of failing corporations responsible in large part for the mess we are in are nonetheless coming out smelling like roses is enough to provide a shock to the senses, a jolt to the workers of this land to say enough is enough. Historically, real change only comes about when conditions get bad enough to overcome the innate forces of inertia that apply to societies at rest, but once that society is moved to act, the irresistible force can often bring about meaningful reform. The story is yet to be written, and many variables remain at play, as this doesn’t seem to be a situation that is likely to resolve itself anytime soon, and most likely things will get a good deal worse before they get better. The hope is that the pain we are feeling now will not be fatal to our economy or to our psyche, and that we will come out of this a stronger, leaner, more equitable and just society than we have let ourselves become.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Time to Get Serious
There is some saying about dreams deferred, I don't remember it exactly but the point is that when you defer your dreams, when you fail to act on or pursue what you really want out of life, those dreams wither and die on the vine. I'm convinced that dead dreams are the main source of bitterness and disappointment in life, and quite frankly, I don't want to end up a bitter old man, blaming others and society at large for failing to accomplish what I wanted to in life. So it is time to get serious, to get about the business of pursuing my dreams, and to stop jerking around at the fringes, to turn ideas into action, and in my case to put pen to paper, in a manner of speaking, and to start writing.
My original intent with this blog was to use it as a mental exercise, something to get me going and to serve as an occasional workout, analogous to going to the gym. But just as going to the gym can often turn into the end in itself, so has writing in The Daily Grind. That is not to say I haven't enjoyed it, it gives me pleasure to be able to ramble on about various topics knowing that at least a handful of people that I know will read it and enjoy themselves for the brief time it takes to read most of my columns. It is a good outlet for me to have to get stuff off my chest, or out of my head, and is often therapeutic. But it is also a great way to avoid doing any of the heavy lifting that comes from really writing, and it's time for me to get after it.
I enjoy teaching high school social studies, the interaction with the kids is always enjoyable, I love their enthusiasm and their willingness to consider new information in a way that most adults are closed to. I enjoy the research that goes into preparing for class discussions and lectures, I have always loved doing research and learning new information, incorporating it into my existing knowledge and philosophy and trying to figure out creative ways to relate that information to others. That is probably one of the main skills that I have developed over the years that will contribute to my writing. But I never really set out to be a lifer, like many people I got into my profession almost by accident and just stayed with it until before you know it you've answered the question of what will you be when you grow up without even realizing it. Teaching is an honorable profession, and a valuable service to be sure, but let's face it, it isn't exactly a highly sought after skill, or an incredible challenge to accomplish, if it were the pay would be much greater than the meager wages that teachers are given. Oh sure, we like to talk up teachers, but when it comes right down to it it is not a profession that is highly valued, talk is cheap, and it sure as heck doesn't pay the bills, or at least it doesn't leave much left over after the bills have been paid. But this is about more than money, it is about fulfilling my own expectations and utilizing gifts that for whatever reason I have been blessed with.
Much like I imagine a musician has to create music, or an artist has to paint or sketch, and as an athlete has to compete, or an actor has to perform, a writer has to write. There is a fire in me that burns and and a yearning to tell my story, and the story of humankind as I understand it, and the best way I know how to do that is by writing. I may or may not succeed at making a living off of it, but I have to try, I have to pursue my dream and if I fall short it won't be for fear of failure, or on account of being too lazy or undisciplined to have gone after what I want. But if I make it, I'll know that I'm doing what I truly believe that I was meant to do, which is to create and express and enlighten and to in some small way contribute to making this world a better and more humane place to be.
So on that note, it's time to get busy. Like the song says, birds gotta fly, bees gotta buzz, and a writer's gotta write. I am not lacking for ideas or motivation, so it becomes a matter of putting pen to paper and getting after it. I will be working on the memoir I started over the summer, Ordinary Average Guy. In addition I am going to write a number of fictional short stories that I hope to get published as a prelude to getting a publisher to look seriously at my book, and with the hope of expanding some of those stories into a full length novel. I'll start with my premise of the Fab Four that I referenced in an earlier column, and also will be writing a modern day version of Death of a Salesman, creating a Willy Loman for the new century, for starters. I will be writing about what makes us human, our hopes and desires, what and who we love and why, the relationships that make life interesting and complicated. I hope to draw on my life experience, sharp observational skills, and vivid imagination to tell stories that resonate to the core of our existence as humans, our feats and failures, our greatness and our weakness, always our humanity. I also plan to write a non-fiction book, a history of the last 30 years, from 1980-2010, which is a period of time that has seen so many changes and of course is still being written as we speak. I will continue to write short columns from time to time on things that show up on my radar screen, and will post them on the Grind, but I will be spending considerable time writing, and reading, and writing some more, in addition to all of the everyday stuff of life that I enjoy so much, time with my family, with my own pursuit of happiness such as music, sports, and running, and of course my day job. I turn 38 years-old in less than two weeks, and my goal is to be a professional writer by the time I hit 40, that will make for one heck of a birthday celebration if I can pull it off, and of course all of my loyal readers are invited. So on that note, it's time to get serious.
With much love and appreciation,
Mark
My original intent with this blog was to use it as a mental exercise, something to get me going and to serve as an occasional workout, analogous to going to the gym. But just as going to the gym can often turn into the end in itself, so has writing in The Daily Grind. That is not to say I haven't enjoyed it, it gives me pleasure to be able to ramble on about various topics knowing that at least a handful of people that I know will read it and enjoy themselves for the brief time it takes to read most of my columns. It is a good outlet for me to have to get stuff off my chest, or out of my head, and is often therapeutic. But it is also a great way to avoid doing any of the heavy lifting that comes from really writing, and it's time for me to get after it.
I enjoy teaching high school social studies, the interaction with the kids is always enjoyable, I love their enthusiasm and their willingness to consider new information in a way that most adults are closed to. I enjoy the research that goes into preparing for class discussions and lectures, I have always loved doing research and learning new information, incorporating it into my existing knowledge and philosophy and trying to figure out creative ways to relate that information to others. That is probably one of the main skills that I have developed over the years that will contribute to my writing. But I never really set out to be a lifer, like many people I got into my profession almost by accident and just stayed with it until before you know it you've answered the question of what will you be when you grow up without even realizing it. Teaching is an honorable profession, and a valuable service to be sure, but let's face it, it isn't exactly a highly sought after skill, or an incredible challenge to accomplish, if it were the pay would be much greater than the meager wages that teachers are given. Oh sure, we like to talk up teachers, but when it comes right down to it it is not a profession that is highly valued, talk is cheap, and it sure as heck doesn't pay the bills, or at least it doesn't leave much left over after the bills have been paid. But this is about more than money, it is about fulfilling my own expectations and utilizing gifts that for whatever reason I have been blessed with.
Much like I imagine a musician has to create music, or an artist has to paint or sketch, and as an athlete has to compete, or an actor has to perform, a writer has to write. There is a fire in me that burns and and a yearning to tell my story, and the story of humankind as I understand it, and the best way I know how to do that is by writing. I may or may not succeed at making a living off of it, but I have to try, I have to pursue my dream and if I fall short it won't be for fear of failure, or on account of being too lazy or undisciplined to have gone after what I want. But if I make it, I'll know that I'm doing what I truly believe that I was meant to do, which is to create and express and enlighten and to in some small way contribute to making this world a better and more humane place to be.
So on that note, it's time to get busy. Like the song says, birds gotta fly, bees gotta buzz, and a writer's gotta write. I am not lacking for ideas or motivation, so it becomes a matter of putting pen to paper and getting after it. I will be working on the memoir I started over the summer, Ordinary Average Guy. In addition I am going to write a number of fictional short stories that I hope to get published as a prelude to getting a publisher to look seriously at my book, and with the hope of expanding some of those stories into a full length novel. I'll start with my premise of the Fab Four that I referenced in an earlier column, and also will be writing a modern day version of Death of a Salesman, creating a Willy Loman for the new century, for starters. I will be writing about what makes us human, our hopes and desires, what and who we love and why, the relationships that make life interesting and complicated. I hope to draw on my life experience, sharp observational skills, and vivid imagination to tell stories that resonate to the core of our existence as humans, our feats and failures, our greatness and our weakness, always our humanity. I also plan to write a non-fiction book, a history of the last 30 years, from 1980-2010, which is a period of time that has seen so many changes and of course is still being written as we speak. I will continue to write short columns from time to time on things that show up on my radar screen, and will post them on the Grind, but I will be spending considerable time writing, and reading, and writing some more, in addition to all of the everyday stuff of life that I enjoy so much, time with my family, with my own pursuit of happiness such as music, sports, and running, and of course my day job. I turn 38 years-old in less than two weeks, and my goal is to be a professional writer by the time I hit 40, that will make for one heck of a birthday celebration if I can pull it off, and of course all of my loyal readers are invited. So on that note, it's time to get serious.
With much love and appreciation,
Mark
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