Happy Bloomsday

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday

Definitely time to go back and re-read Ulysses.  

More Thoughts for Grads

Commencement is a time for reflection and wisdom.
my advice:  when life hands you lemons, make lemonade,
                                 sell the lemonade
                                 take the money and buy a gun
                                 go and shoot the bastards who
                                 gave you the lemons.

Good luck

My Speech to 2012 Graduates

When I was a student at Watertown High, my parents were constantly disappointed with my academic performance. My grades were generally in the “C” vicinity. I was not one of the honor students who get chosen to speak at the graduation ceremony. Heck, I was just happy to see my name on the graduation program.   

However, despite a mediocre high school career, I did eventually go on to get a college degree, had a fairly successful career, raised a family, and stayed married (44 years and counting). Having made it this far, I wish to offer a few unsolicited  words of encouragement to the graduating class of 2012. 

“Hello graduates. As you sit here today, ready to march into a new phase of your life, many of you probably feel a little uncertain about the future. This is completely normal, because the future is not promised to anyone.   

In fact, if you talk to older people, they will probably tell you, ‘Honey, you have no clue about what you are in for!’ Fifty two years ago, I was sitting where you are now and wondered about the future. When it happened, a lot of it surprised me.  

The journey can be wonderful and wild. Here are a few things I would like you to consider: Your personal view of the world will change dramatically in the next 7 years of your life. You should not do anything that cannot be undone until you are at least 25 years old, on your own and working at a job you like. Delay having children, getting married, getting a tattoo. These are typically choices that people tend to regret after a few years have passed - after it is too late. 

Also, you should not trust anyone who is on commission or on quota to tell you the truth about the thing they are trying to sell you. When I enlisted in the Air Force, three months after graduation, the recruiter, who had a quota to fill, convinced me to sign-up under a different career field than the one I wanted. When I got to basic training and told them the recruiter said I could change fields, they just laughed. I ended-up on a base in Wyoming, working in the maintenance department, operating a traffic marking machine. I do not denigrate the work. In fact, I actually learned some valuable lifelong skills, but this was not what I signed-up for.  That recruiter lied to me for his own benefit.

You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control how you deal with adversity. In the Air Force, I kept applying for a change and was eventually granted permission to switch fields. Later, after graduating from college, I was hired as a headhunter for a Boston recruiting firm. I lasted all of two months before the boss called me in and fired me. I was devastated ... for about an hour, until I realized how much I hated that job. I had been dreading going into the office everyday, and was feeling very stressed. Suddenly, I was free, a weight had been lifted, and my possibilities looked brighter. Within a few days I found a better job. 

The best way to have a successful life is to keep your eyes open, don't give up, keep at it until you find something that you enjoy doing, and wait until you meet someone who will put up with you for 40-50 years (and will edit your writing). 

All the rest of life is window dressing. Thank you and good luck.”

100 Snapshots of Your Vacation is 95 Too Many

Vin and Me at Le D'orsay

If you are like me, you have a problem with photographs.  The problem is: there are too many of them. A lifetime of snapshots, kept meticulously in albums during the first few years and then haphazardly stuffed in shoe boxes and stored on dark closets -- along with old tax returns and other items that you don't use but cannot throw away.  Discovered every few years and put away again with a firm resolve to get the photos organized "one of these days".

We have a ton of  photographs.  Many are of our kids and family over the years.  Most of them are pretty bad photography, taken on inexpensive cameras from the old brownie hawk-eye, then Polaroids, then the 35 millimeter Canon sure-shot pics.

Around  2002  I got my first digital camera, after that point there is a sharp drop-off in the number of blurry, faded, hard-copy photos.  In the pre-digital world you always took 2 or 3 "takes" in case someone moved.  There was no way to know what the photo would  looked like until you got the film developed - weeks, maybe months later.  (The popularity of Polaroid was not drive by the quality of the picture, but the fact that you could see the results in a few minutes.)

But the digital camera allowed an amazing time-shift in amateur photography.  Now, for the first time, you could  see what the photo looked like, instantly!   There was no film to buy or to take to the photography place to get developed.  You just stored the photos on a CD or removable memory stick.  As the photo developing services were disappearing, the Internet via the  web (www) took up the slack, offering to develop selected pictures into prints for as little as 9 cents each.  These days, I use Snapfish to upload and edit and share my digital pictures.  I generally print only the best of these in hard copy, look at them and then put them in a drawer.  Someday I will organize them into an album.  I have half a dozen CD's of photos that were offloaded from my PC to make room for new photos.  The truth is I will probably never get around to organizing this mess.

The worst invention: Webcam

Most digital cameras have a movie setting that allow you to record a video that you can store, and you can get video editing software on your PC so you can upload the video to places like YouTube.


Most of us have taken photos intended as a keepsake to capture a moment in time of  a special occasion, a vacation, an unusual vista...something of personal significance.  What used to be a private collection of memories can now be published to the world.  Evolving photo sharing Technology now lets us "share" photos (and videos) via social networking sites, like Twitter, Facebook and on our blogs.

Typical boring vacation photo

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. So I am appalled that so many people are so clueless that they think others have the time or inclination to look at 100 photos of your recent vacation.

People, it is just rude to send someone an email with 100megabytes of photos attached. (It takes a long time to down load and open).  And it is clueless to expect others to peruse 100+ boring pictures of you standing in front of some church or castle.  Please, just pick the 5 or 6 best photos of your trip - and omit the ones of you -- smugly grinning because you are on vacation and we are not.

Yes, I'm in Paris and you are in Podunk - go ahead and hate me.

Choosing A VPOTUS

The last presidential election was scary.  Even if you don't believe the unflattering characterization of Sarah Palin in the HBO movie "Game Change," an honest reflection of her qualifications makes you think twice about the process for selecting and vetting the VP candidates.   It is probably true that she had more administrative experience than did Barack Obama, but the big difference is that Mr Obama was chosen by voters, not a secret committee behind closed doors.

To be honest, I was not encouraged by the selection of Joe Biden either.  Despite his many years of experience in the congress, he has distinguished himself as a buffoon because of his penchant for the gaffe.

Another previous VP nominee, John Edwards,  is currently on trial for misuse of campaign funds (although his real crime in the opinion most everyone is that he was carrying on an affair with a campaign aid while his wife was struggling with  breast cancer.)

It all makes me wonder why nobody seems to think the system for finding a presidential running mate needs to be fixed.  Why should the party nominee for the highest office be the one who chooses the successor?  Rather than an afterthought to a campaign, VP candidates should be vetted and selected by the same process that should elect the president - popular vote.   Yes, that reminds me, the Electoral College is another concept that is astoundingly irrelevant to modern times.    Let's get rid of that while we are tweaking things, shall we?

Hooray for Apostasy

Hooray for Cory Booker, the Newark NJ Mayor, a Democrat,  who criticized the tenor of the anti Romney (Bain) attack ad strategy. In speaking his mind, last week on TV,  he got into hot water with the democratic faithful, but has opened up the discussion that might engage the big middle.  The WSJ editorial last week:

 Mr. Booker uttered his apostasy on NBC's "Meet the Press," calling out both Presidential campaigns for what he called a "nauseating" focus on side issues. He deplored attacks on President Obama for his long-ago association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but he added that "I have to just say, from a very personal level, I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity. . . . Especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses."

 was forced into a bit of pretzel prose to praise Booker's 'apostasy' while trying not to condemn all attack ads.

The Obama campaign's attacks on Bain haven't gone very well, in part because the claims are so transparently cynical. Everyone knows they're cherry-picking facts, focusing on the rare Bain Capital failures while ignoring the successes—all in order to distract attention from the failed results of Mr. Obama's economic policies. Presidents who have to take their own party allies to the woodshed for the offense of telling the truth don't tend to win re-election.

  Any thoughtful reader can see the parallels between what  WSJ observes as "cherry-picking facts" can be applied to either side.   When WSJ opens the door to critical thinking by party faithful, who knows where it may lead? Let us hope more voices begin to ask questions about the Emperor's clothes, call out the Boy who cries wolf, castigate those chicken littles and pull the mask off the Lone Ranger.

The Final Click for Inventor of TV Remote

Eugene Polley, the guy who invented the TV remote passed away yesterday.  He was 96.


I have mixed feelings in considering Mr. Polley's legacy.  On one hand, his invention (in 1955) revolutionized TV watching - because it allowed a viewer to switch  the TV on or off, control the sound, channel and as the first ads for the device promised the ability to "...shut off annoying commercials while the picture remains on the screen.”   All with the convenience of not having to get out of your chair.  
On the other hand, perhaps we should  blame him for a generation of obese couch potatoes, not to mention the fact that the remote enables us to click distractedly, instead of concentrating on a single program. 


I don't recall having a TV remote in our house, growing-up.   I remember having to get up to tune the sound or turning the channel (chunk, chunk, chunk).  In those days it didn't seem like so much of a hassle anyhow; there were only 3 stations,  and there were long stretches of time when the only thing broadcasted was something called "Test Pattern."  In those days every house had an antenna strapped to the chimney.  As kids we often went outside to play (unlike modern children whose only exposure to light is the radiated glow from their electronic game devices). 


As more programming was added and more channels came online, especially with the evolution of cable, the need for remote control was pressing, even to those of us who were late-adopters of technology.  With more than 100 channels, you had to click vociferously to find a program worth watching, so the remote became an invaluable staple of living rooms and dens.  Now the average TV  room has at least three remotes:  One for the TV, One for the cable box, and one for the DVD. All efforts to develop a "Universal" device have failed.  So we are stuck with multiple remotes.

So, although Mr Polley's idea for the TV remote has resulted in many of us being fat and unable to concentrate,  you gotta love the brilliant concept of the  mute button.

UnFair & Unbalanced

You probably have read/heard about the latest flap about Obama's birthplace.

I know I have promised not to get political, but I think the national debate has actually gone beyond politics into a worthy discussion of ethics, rhetoric, psychology  and fact.  

It is interesting that many anti Obama pundits will quickly deny that they believe the story, but are just as quick to pass it on, slathered with heavy gobs of innuendo.  Of course, this is like tossing red-meat to keep the mindless rabble aroused, and out for blood.  If you read the comments you will see that there are a lot of folks out there who do not like Obama and eager to join the attack.

Despite the fact that the author of the biographical blurb has admitted that it was her error, the fact that it was repeated over several years and venues, would suggest that Obama was doing nothing to correct the error.  In other words, it appears like he was cashing-in on the claim that he was born in Africa, until he realized that this would be a problem for a guy with presidential ambitions. Critics, like loudmouth radio host Michael Graham are referring to this as his "Elizabeth Warren moment".   Graham also had an amusing week of calls when it was  revealed (apparently someone actually read the Obama autobiography) that as a youth, the future president had eaten roasted dog meat. (Not to be confused with dog food - which used to be horse meat).

On the other side, Romney critics keep trying to dredge-up mud about his past.  The decades-old story of the dog in a cage on the roof of the car has been flogged mercilessly in liberal blogs and op-ed pieces.  More recently the story is about a bullying incident from prep school where the victim (suspected of being gay) was held down while Romney shaved his head.

The most interesting thing about these issues is that they really have little  to do with a candidate's qualifications as a leader or representative at this moment.   Most voters have already made up their minds anyhow, and reports of past sins by their candidate are dismissed as  faux pas (like Professor Warren's hoary claim to minority status) will not change anyone's mind - or vote. (That is, unless someone comes up with an official Kenyan birth certificate.)   It seems that the issue of "character" is an elusive concept, which seems important when your opponent seems to lack it.

 Does the word "minority" mean anything anymore? On May 17th the Globe and WSJ reported that the 50.4% of babies under 1 year are nonwhite.  And the median age for white Americans is over 50, (beyond childbearing), whereas other groups (Asian, Blacks,Hispanics) is young 30's.  Thus the tipping point has been reached where it is only a matter of time before white Americans are the minority.

They even report that 4 states (Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas) plus Wash DC are already  "majority minority" states.  Which to me sounds like an oxymoron.

As a fat,old, white guy I have already felt the sting of discrimination. Pretty young girls don't even look at me anymore, no one wants to hire me, Howie Carr wants to take my driver's license away...  My Doctor keeps checking my prostate,  friends and relatives send me articles about losing weight,  the mailbox is full of flyers for "senior" housing.  Where do I sign-up for reparations?

Prime time TV Viewing Down, Mystery Solved.

NYT reports that Prime time TV viewing has decreased.  This is not the normal transfer of viewers from traditional networks to cable, this is across the board.  The reported hand-wringing of the network execs because low numbers means lower ad revenues.

"Though there seems to be no one reason for the decline, many executives say they are concerned that long-term changes in watching habits are taking a significant toll on viewership."

No one commented on the obvious cause:  There are virtually no good shows. And, too many commercials

Reality shows - low budget shows about fishermen, lumberjacks, celebrity cops, housewives, and motorcycle shops have become tedious knock-offs of a standard script that contains high levels of bleeped-out language, phony conflicts, and zero pathos.  We don't care about these players.  They lack heroism; they are just angry people yelling at each other.   These hoked-up dramas are empty calorie fast food, that leaves the viewer bloated with unresolved angst and a brooding guilt for wasting valuable time.

Sporting events are marred by the unceasing yak-fest of announcers who are in love with their own voices, and the forced break in the action to get in pre-arranged commercial messages.  These forces are enough to get me channel surfing between innings, periods, and time-outs.

 I almost never watch prime time TV,  where you can be assaulted by as many as ten separate commercial messages between segments..   It is a huge waste of time.  I can record the few shows that I like with the DVR and watch them at my leisure.  By fast forwarding (I use the jump button that skips ten second intervals) I can watch most 1 hour shows in 38 minutes, or less.  

If there are a lot of commercial-averse people like me, who are not being counted by the network execs, it is no wonder that the trend line of the apparent viewers is going down.

The one show that I do watch in real prime time is Masterpiece Theater on PBS on Sunday night .  Most of these presentations are produced in UK.  These shows are uniformly well-done.  I suppose that makes me a snob.  So Be it.

It should be noted:  PBS formerly boasted that they were commercial free, but greed and money dictate everything, don't you know, so we have seen an encroachment of  low-key 20 second ads where they used to run a list of sponsors.  At least they do not (yet) break-up the presentations into segments punctuated by automobile or Viagra ads.

Stay tuned.

Obesity is the new Tobacco

An opinion piece this week  in the Boston Globe by Derrick Jackson  quotes a prediction that by the year 2030, 4 out of 10 Americans will be obese (i.e., more than 100 pounds) over their suggested shelf weight.

I hate to brag, but once again I am ahead of the curve.  They say that bragging, like eating, is addictive because it makes you feel good.  Apparently, talking about one's self excites the pleasure center of the brain.  I suppose this is why blogs and social network apps like Facebook are so popular.  

My doctor thinks people should try to maintain the same weight they had when they were age 21.  Sure, doc, I'll just stop eating bacon and drinking beer, and start getting more exercise, ha ha ha.

Just thinking about deprivation makes me hungry.

Another Reason to Turn Off the TV

Here is a statistic that every high school kid should know: The unemployment rate for College Graduates is running about 4%.

Neil Shah, blogger at WSJ wrote:

"American adults who hold college degrees are finding it easier to get jobs. The unemployment rate for those 25 years old and over who have at least a bachelor’s degree dropped to 4% in April from 4.2% in the prior month and 4.5% in April 2011. That is roughly half the overall U.S. jobless rate, which declined to 8.1% last month from 8.2% in March.

I was not a math wizard in college, but it seems valid to say that without a degree you are twice as likely to be unemployed.

100 foods

One of the popular diversions spawned on the Internet is a list of 100 foods, apparently selected at random by some bored journalist(s).  For some reason, people find it entertaining to check-off the foods that they have tasted and send the list to their "friends".    I guess the idea is to impress your friends that you are adventurous enough to actually eat boiled snake eyeballs, or tongue of newt.

Photo courtesy
www.edibleblog.com

Now, at the risk of being thought of as a total grump, this seems to me a bit silly. Juvenile, even.   It was  interesting when evil Watergate plotter G. Gordon Liddy admitted in an interview that as a youth, he once killed, roasted and ate a rat, because he thought it would make him fearless.  And, as mentioned in his  autobiography, a young Barack Obama, then living in Indonesia was introduced to eating dog, snake and insects (which he recalled as crunchy)  This is interesting stuff.

  But, mere lists of foods checked-off do not give the reader any information about your character or motives.  Who gives a rat's patooty that you have eaten Twinkies?

The rest of us are only interested in the story behind the meal?  We want the tasty details of setting, the personalities of your server, chef, host.  There should be an element of danger or passion or mystery associated with the dining experience for it to be worthy of sharing the disclosure with friends - even FBF's.

Cricket Salad

So do not present me with boasting lists that you have tried 60 of the hundred items.  Tell me about the most fabulous meal or the worst thing you have tasted and why you did it.

On a List of "America's Most Adventurous Eaters"  my name would be way, way down near the bottom - and in small print.  I have no exotic stories to report, except maybe  the time on that camping trip with Dick Cheney where the guide was shot and killed --  accidentally of course --  and the rest of us cooked and ate him.  You can't make stuff like that up.

Fenway at 100

Big deal: Fenway Park is 100 years old today.  The media folks are glad to have something to seize on that will fill time and space and also utilize old grainy footage of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.  So pardon me for jumping on the bandwagon.  

Since you ask, yes I have a lot of memories of Fenway growing-up as a kid from Watertown.  Dad took us to games, and I loved the hot dogs and peanuts, watching the greats like Ted Williams and Jimmy Pearsol.  We also collected and traded baseball cards which always retained the smell of the sheet of Fleer's bubble gum that came in the same packet. I once lost a rare Ted Williams in a flipping contest when my brother's Dell Crandall (then catcher for the Boston Braves got a "leaner" that beat my "incher" toss.

When I was 14 my buddy Dave Randall and I got our first jobs, working at Fenway Park.  We were hired by the company that cleaned-up after the games.  I think the pay was 85 cents and hour.  Our first (and , as it turned out - only) workday was a night game. After much debate, our mothers decided to allow us to go into Boston on the streetcar.  We got into the park during the 8th inning and watched the game.  Then we spent about 6 hours as part of the crew sweeping the stands.  (I learned some valuable sweeping skills that night which have served me well all my life.)  We didn't get through working until after 2am, and did not get home until the early hours of the morning.  That was 56 years ago and I think the MBTA stopped running after 1AM in those days.  Maybe we walked home; maybe we hitchhiked back to Watertown.  Needless to say our mothers had waited up for us, and were not happy.  We were forced to resign after only 1 evening of work.

I have not actually attended a game at Fenway in about 20 years. I have long since been priced-out of actually buying tickets to baseball games. ( It's not that I can't afford a ticket, its that I don't think it is worth the price to watch a bunch of overpaid baseball workers pretend to be "playing" a game.)

The last time I went to a game - my friend George had an extra ticket - we sat in the stands along the right field line.  I think they were playing the Orioles.  It was one of those typical boring games where nothing was happening, so the crowd was getting antsy.  Some fans in the bleachers started the wave.  Some broke out beach balls.   One gal sitting a few rows behind us had recently had an operation to enlarge her breasts.  She started to flash them whenever she thought the camera might be pointed in our direction.  As one of her friends explained,  "She's mighty proud of those $800 puppies."  I was not sure whether it was $800 each or for the set.  They were indeed attractive, if you like that sort of thing.
Pretty soon, many of the fans in our vicinity had taken up the chant "Show us your tits."   She obliged them several times, to cheers and whistles.  I couldn't help feeling bad for a dad who was not shouting and whistling who was sitting with his son who looked to be about 7 or 8.  They were trying to watch the game.  And I thought to myself, this is not the place to bring a kid.

Now, when I watch the games on HD TV, I relax in my comfy chair, sipping inexpensive beer, eating freshly cooked food, and if I need to take a bio break, I just hit the pause button, and never risk missing one of those rare, exciting moments in the game.  Usually, I click away during one of the incessant pitching changes, and forget about the game.  Or I doze off into a peaceful slumber.  And did I mention that the parking in my driveway is free?

Rhetorical Confirmation

I was gratified yesterday when I read in the morning Globe that the pope is still Catholic
("On his 85th, pope reaffirms his faith")  Gratifying, because I can confidently keep this rhetorical question in my arsenal of  standard responses to the bartender when asked, "Would you like another beer?"

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any reportage that could confirm my strongly-held belief that wild bears do indeed defecate in the woods.

Litter Marketing

A few days ago,  I was backing out of my driveway when I noticed a bright yellow piece of paper taped to my front screen door.  It was raining heavily, but  I stopped, got out of the car and splashed through a few puddles in the walk to retrieve what surely must have been an important communication.

Not so.  It was a flyer from a painting company.  "TIME TO PAINT YOUR HOUSE?" it wondered in bold 36 point Times Roman font.   Needless to say, it annoyed me to have been trespassed upon and judged in this manner.  OK, so my house could use a touch-up here and there, but I found it offensive just the same.   I looked up and down the street to see if others had been similarly insulted.  It was clear that the flyers were only left at the houses which the leafleter had deemed in need of a fresh coat.

Earlier this spring there are a couple of landscape entrepreneurs who drove around town throwing baggies full of stones into people's driveways.  Inside the baggie is an ad for their oriental gardening service. 

When did it become legitimate for stranger to drive down your street and tape things to your doors, or toss things in your driveway?  I guess it's just an extension of sticking flyers under your windshield wipers in the parking lot at the mall or super market.  I may be cranky, but I have always regarded these pieces of unwanted paper as, well, litter.

Generally, personal solicitations - whether they be at my door or on the phone – are met un-disguised hostility.  You can imagine how I feel about those who have the temerity to littler my driveway and doorways with marketing material.

If that isn't the definition of Spam, then what is?

I have a suggestion for the Selectman - stop trying to raise our taxes and make litter marketing a fine-able offense.  Lots of money can be levied in penalties, and the culprits leave their phone numbers as evidence.

I'm sure the culprits who littered my neighborhood feel that this is just a legal way for them to get their message out cheaply.   But it is an invasion of my space.   If I am on vacation, no one picks up the litter - If I was a crook, I would just cruise around looking for homes where no one had picked up the paper or phone book.  Not long ago some bright marketing genius decided to deliver a promotional copy of the New York Times to every home as a tease to show non customers the benefits of home delivery.  Three days later the papers were still sitting in the driveways of people who were away.  They might as well have put out a sign that said Nobody is home - Break in here!

I have spent a lot of money this year, but not one penny went to any business that left unsolicited marketing taped to my door or shoved under my wipers or tossed in my driveway by drive-by salespeople.

No Youngsters Need Apply

Today in the Boston Globe there was a nice article about a Needham MA company that welcomes and retains older workers instead of sending them out to pasture.  Yes I thought it was a belated April fools prank too, but it is legitimate.  The company is called Vita-Needle.  There are 49 employees. the median age is 73. 


The piece, written by Katie Johnson was encouraging for those of us who are "old, retired and restless":

"Now many other companies are learning what Hartman and Vita Needle have long known: A white-haired workforce can be hard-working, dependable, experienced - and economical. Nationally, the over-65 workforce is projected to grow 64 percent, to 12 million, by 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; by then, 7.4 percent of the workforce will be over age 65 - more than double what it was in 2000.
The notion of employing more older workers is growing in popularity, according to a 2011 study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a business analysis company. It found a majority of corporate executives see the increased longevity of workers more as a business opportunity than a liability.
And companies are learning to make accommodations that assure success. In a 2007 pilot project, for example, auto company BMW equipped older workers in a German plant with magnifying glasses and chairs, and made other small adjustments - and found decreased absenteeism and increased productivity.
At Vita Needle, employing older workers is viewed as a significant cost-saver. Most members of the 49-person workforce are part time, with starting pay a few dollars above minimum wage, with no health insurance, sick pay, or retirement benefits. It works because most of the older workers are covered by Medicare and draw income from Social Security.
Hartman also gives out companywide bonuses at the end of the year, sometimes equal to a few months’ pay."

Wouldn't it be nice if there were more companies out there that valued the experience and cost benefits of employing seniors?  Some of us would prefer a nap break to a coffee break, but we show-up, we git r done, and we don't ask for benefits.  Send offers to my email address above. 




http://articles.boston.com/2012-03-31/business/31281861_1_older-workers-needles-workforce

Future Games

I do not approve of the premise of the popular "Hunger Games" stories.  Pitting teenagers against each other for the entertainment of the masses is just wrong.  I know what you're thinking:  Hey we do it all the time, it's called high school sports.  Yes, but we don't force them to actually kill the opposition.

I have long been an advocate of getting old people to do government-sponsored  fighting.  It just makes sense to stop wasting young innocent lives and instead get really angry old guys to do the fighting with each other.  Geezer Games might be a popular sport.

In his novel "Twenty Thirty"  Albert Brooks envisions a society nearly 20 years in the future, where killer diseases such as Cancer and Alzheimer's have been eradicated by cures discovered  circa 2014.  The population of octogenarians has grown well beyond predicted lifespans.  The burden of medicare and social security  to support the new cadre of un-dead has bankrupted the government.  Young people are forced to enter virtual indentured servitude to support aging parents. Generational conflicts inevitably evolve into open warfare between the old and young.

Both Brooks' pre-apocalyptic vision and the world where Hunger Games exist seem all too possible as our national leaders in both parties are stuck on short-term selfish concerns.  It seems inevitable that the legacy we are leaving to our grandchildren is a polluted, over-heated planet, ruined economies, and the real specter of endless global conflict as a population control measure.  

One of the recent reality shows (National Geographic) features "Doomsday Preppers."  Folks who call themselves "Preppers" range from citizens who believe in being stocked with emergency supplies in the event of a local, short-term disaster, such as weather or other act of God, to those who are actually preparing for Armageddon or polar shifts or pandemics.  Preppers are a subculture whose fears and plans have created a whole specialized market, blogs and newsletters.  

As a fan of science fiction I have read numerous accounts of the post-apocalyptic future.  None of them seems worth the effort of preparation to me.  If I have the choice of a future, I think I would rather fight another geezer to the death for sport than to hide out in a  bomb shelter with no TV or cold beer.  

What's in your Bucket?

 My grandson, Dennis (who caught a 14" bass  his first time out), likes to go fishing with grandpa.
The other day, on our way home, empty-handed, from (shark) fishing, I took him to the local seafood store to see all the varieties of fish in the case. I bought some red snapper for dinner. He asked for a piece, which he took home.  My daughter says he insisted on cooking it himself. When I asked him how he liked red snapper he said, "It was good; I like the skin!"

He is going to be a fine fisherman some day, especially as his attention span improves. My previous experience fishing with kids is that at age 7-8 they are good for 1/2 hour of casting and reeling, then become more keenly interested in throwing rocks in the water, scaring away any hookable fish that might have been lurking nearby.  It takes a lot of sitting and waiting quietly to become a real fisherman.


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On somewhat parallel thread, last Tuesday, I was sitting at my regular corner stool at Dunn-Gaherins -- my favorite local Irish pub -- when a party of folks came in. 4 young people and one older guy. From the conversation, I could tell that it was the old guy's birthday. I offered to move down a few seats so they could all sit together and talk, whereupon they bought me a beer. (Sometimes a good deed can be rewarded). The old guy sat next to me and told me that it was his birthday. "How old are you?" I asked.

"Eight-four," he said stirring his martini. (He had asked them serve it in a bourbon glass, because his hand shakes and he didn't want to spill any). "These are my grandchildren," he nodded to the young folks who were smiling and giving him their full attention.

This gave me a new item to add to my bucket list: "Celebrate 84th birthday at a bar with grandkids."

Update 3-25 One of my math wizard friends has reminded me that Lila will only be 18 when I am 84.  I may have to ammend the bucket age to 87.  Scary. 

Disturbing News

One of the disturbing stories in the news lately is about the American G.I. who is accused of shooting 16 unarmed civilians in Afghanistan.    There is no excuse for such a killing spree, yet the blame must be shared by the US military brass whose policies forced a soldier who had already done 3 tours in Iraq to serve yet another tour in another war zone, against his wishes.  Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.  I hope an inquiry reveals the machinations of such decisions,  and the guilty higher-ups are identified.  Other recent instances of breakdowns in protocols -- for the treatment of remains of dead soldiers, disposal of religious materials, and handling of classified material --all lead to the conclusion that no one is minding the store.

Also disturbing is the pattern of abuse and insensitivity by the military-political establishment to veterans who have served and sacrificed for their country.   The media is rife with stories of rising suicide rates, violence and PTSD behavior by returning GI's.  Not to mention the way the military bureacracy ignores the needs of military families, who are also enduring the sacrifice of their soldiers.

Author Steven Moore writes:

" Other veterans’ services also lag far behind what they should be. Families of service men and women overseas have few if any support systems and returning veterans’ families don’t either. Service families are often faced with eviction or foreclosure from rental or mortgaged properties. Veterans make up the largest percentage of the homeless. We can cheer our military overseas at a Super Bowl—we can also forget all about them when they come home. Many disillusioned with their inability to reintegrate into American society re-enlist, often exacerbating their problems when they return once again."

The bureacracy allows policy makers and armchair generals to hide from their deadly decisions to send young men off to war.  The persistent problem since the beginning of modern warfare is that after the conflict, no one cares about the warriors.  We are happy to have them kill and die in foreign lands to preserve the status quo at home.  But we often feel ambivalent - perhaps it is because we don't want men capable of such violence among us. 

I don't like war.  I think it as a terrible thing for political forces to force young men who really have no beef with each other to go off to foreign soil to shoot at total strangers, just to satisfy the egoes of failed diplomats.  It's one thing to be defending one's own borders, but quite another to defend the supposed rights of all oppressed peoples in the galaxy.  I don't agree with the concept of preserving American liberty by trying to convert theocracies into democracies.  

Yes, I know it gets more complicated than that, but I do not understand why we have not learned the lessons of history.  We all know the fundamental truth of the age old observation "That which you take by force, you must keep by force."  Not understanding this simple dictum  was the downfall of the Roman Empire and it will probably be the draining force that eventually brings the US to its economic knees. 

The very least we can do for the patriots who serve, risking limb and life, is to treat them well when they return.  The Pols and Commanders need to be more accountable for their decisions and mistakes.

The Joy and Dread of Travel

They say that travel broadens one's perspective.  I think this is literally true, because it forces one to see and experience life outside of one's home village.

 Traveling always reminds me that my world is a very small piece of the universe.  As you fly over (or drive by) village after town, over hill and dale, your appreciation for the diversity and  extensiveness of human civilization is magnified. 

As we get older, we try fight the forces that tend to diminish our world.  It is a losing batttle: our increasing aches and pains attenuate the number of paths  we can explore,  and we strive to challenge our brains to stave off the fog of forgetfulness and worse -- the loss of desire.    At a certain point in life, we start to weigh the expected payback from adventure, we reflect on past experience, and often we conclude that many things we thought were exciting or pleasureable are just not worth the effort anymore. 

I am critical of nearly every aspect of air travel. It costs too much.  The tack-on fees for checking a bag or sitting in a comfortable seat are outrageious.   I dislike lines, I abhor being forced to sit for hours in a seat that is too small, I hate waiting, I loathe  airport food, and then there is the subtle but constant danger of imminent death.  The boarding process is still an mixture of  in colonial apartheid and goat rodeo.  Instead of sensibly boarding passenders from rear to front, they seat first class passengers first, then frequent flyers, moms with small kids, invalids, and when there are no more special categories they finally allow able-bodied, poor folks to enter the clogged passageway so they can stand and wait while all the others find their seats and stuff their carry-ons into overhead bins. 

The whole flawed process takes ten times longer than necessary.  I would feel even more annoyed if I were one of the privileged First Class passengers who has paid 5 times more than any of the rabble for the privilege of sitting in a comfortable chair and have drinks served to me in a real glass tumbler.
I would hate having to sit there and watch the unwashed standing over me bumping my elbow with their reticules and luggage waiting for others to get settled.

Other people who regard me as just another ranting, grumpy malcontent say that the slings and arrows of air travel are "the price we must pay to get from here to there, suck-it-up, you sniviling whiner."  To them I say, nonsense!   There is no legitimate reason that a person should suffer the indignities of modern aviation.
Wake me up when they invent the beamer (as in "Beam me to Albuqurque, Scottie.")

Having said that, I still have fun when I am in the new place.  The adventure of looking for a good place to have breakfast, or the enjoyment of the land and its variations, meeting new people, seeing where history occurred or just gawking at the art -- these are the joys of travel.

A poignant moment occurred yesterday in the Albuquerque airport, as we waited for our (re-scheduled) flight to DFW.   A group of about 20 civilians were lining-up in two columns, each holding a flag or banner, like the way a band forms on a football field to cheer on the team as they emerge from the tunnel.  When I asked one of the participants what was going on, he told me that it was a welcome home for a local soldier who was returning from war duty.  (He didn't know where the GI had been stationed).  As we sat and watched, the group grew.  More people came to stand and greet, several uniformed military were among them.   By the time the solder arrived, the group had swelled to around 40.  Finally, a round of applause broke out and the soldier - a tall black man - and his family 3 small kids and mother emerged, surprised but smiling.  They walked the "gauntlet" of greeters, shaking hands and sometimes embracing.  The kids' expressions were priceless, amazed that all these people (a diverse group of mostly white and brown skins) wanted to shake their dad's hand saying sincerely  "Thanks for your service." 
We onlookers were compelled to rise and applaud, as well, wiping our misty eyes, feeling proud of our countrymen.