The sub-prime mortgage collapse has helped make many Americans hesitant about buying a home. Frankly, I've been way ahead of the curve. I've always been hesitant. Even after I joined the great American suburban surge. But it wasn't the mortgage payments that worried me. It was the hardware bills...!
When you make a commitment like a home, you owe it to yourself to at least know the difference between a chisel and a crowbar. Between a gas line and a water line. If not, you are indenturing yourself for life to your local hardware man. And that, my fellow-suburbanites, is an investment likely to send his kids to the university and yours to the community college.
Not that cash-strapped consumers need any more warnings, but here are five that may scratch that itch to buy:
* Your house is like your body -- it keeps aging no matter how many times you re-paint it
* Your crabgrass is like your in-laws -- you can never ever be free of it
* Your furnace is programmed to go out every winter and your air-conditioning out every summer
* Your electrical wiring is exactly where you can't reach it
* Your neighbor's darling kids begin playing at precisely 30 minutes before you have to get up in the morning
These are among that relentless parade of problems that is sure to march you down to your local hardware man time after time. He's the only one with all the right materials and tools, so there's just no way of surviving without him. Oh, one thing he can't do for you. He can't muzzle those darling kids. That's something you have to find the materials and tools to do all by yourself.
I'm wondering where in the President's new mortgage recovery plans they intend to list these warnings. In any case, Ray my friendly hardware guy doesn't much care. He retired on my money to Marco Island years ago!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
SEX NEVER CHANGES...OR DOES IT?
The biggest problem with springtime storms is finding yourself caught in the middle of one. In life, change is like that too. A sudden storm you're caught in the middle of without an umbrella. But even though our economic, political and religious institutions all seem to be shifting under us, the biggest change may have to do with sex....!
No, not the act. The role.
In a rapidly shifting 21st century, is there any longer clearly defined roles for the two sexes? Speaking as a man, I'm probably disqualifying myself with 50% of the population. Or maybe not. After all, the roles of the sexes have been largely indisputable for millions of years. Historically speaking, men have always played the physical roles, women the feminine roles.
So far so good. But this is where it gets sticky, for what is physical has remained pretty constant while what is feminine has not. Look at the evidence.
Nothing so stirs the physicality of the American male than seeing (or being) tall in the saddle on a stallion charging up a hill. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have been doing it for generations. The thunder of the hooves. the smell of the leather, the jangle of the boots. It looks, feels, smells manhood. And if there isn't a horse handy, the speed and roar of a convertible or a racing car will do very nicely, thank you.
We could argue details, but in essence this is the consistent imagery of American male physicality. However, when it comes to American feminism, well that's become complicated.
At one time the imagery was fairly clear (forced but still fairly clear). Their chosen role involved fine homes....fine motherhood.. ...fine children...finery of all kinds. Before you snicker, this role not only prevailed for generations, it was often preferred. As the saying had it, the man was king of his world, but the wife was queen of everything else.
Then along came Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Oprah. Taking their cue from as far back as Abigail Adams, these feminists took sharp issue with these pre-ordained roles. Today -- even though there may be a silent minority out there who still prefer to be queen -- the awakened majority have re-defined feminism. It includes careers in business, medicine, sports and government. You name it, and they can nail it!
This old "king" applauds this over-due "revolt." Only looking from the outside in, he has to wonder how much harder it is for a young woman to choose her role today. There are so many! As for the young man, well nothing's much changed. The physical roles waiting for him still include the same old, same old. Changing the tires, fixing the leaks, throwing out the garbage. Oh, and when he really wants to get physical, tearing off his shirt and pounding his chest in the Wrigley Field bleachers.
There's one role today's women have little interest in. If, however, they did, you can be sure the guys on the television cameras would be working their zoom lens....
No, not the act. The role.
In a rapidly shifting 21st century, is there any longer clearly defined roles for the two sexes? Speaking as a man, I'm probably disqualifying myself with 50% of the population. Or maybe not. After all, the roles of the sexes have been largely indisputable for millions of years. Historically speaking, men have always played the physical roles, women the feminine roles.
So far so good. But this is where it gets sticky, for what is physical has remained pretty constant while what is feminine has not. Look at the evidence.
Nothing so stirs the physicality of the American male than seeing (or being) tall in the saddle on a stallion charging up a hill. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have been doing it for generations. The thunder of the hooves. the smell of the leather, the jangle of the boots. It looks, feels, smells manhood. And if there isn't a horse handy, the speed and roar of a convertible or a racing car will do very nicely, thank you.
We could argue details, but in essence this is the consistent imagery of American male physicality. However, when it comes to American feminism, well that's become complicated.
At one time the imagery was fairly clear (forced but still fairly clear). Their chosen role involved fine homes....fine motherhood.. ...fine children...finery of all kinds. Before you snicker, this role not only prevailed for generations, it was often preferred. As the saying had it, the man was king of his world, but the wife was queen of everything else.
Then along came Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Oprah. Taking their cue from as far back as Abigail Adams, these feminists took sharp issue with these pre-ordained roles. Today -- even though there may be a silent minority out there who still prefer to be queen -- the awakened majority have re-defined feminism. It includes careers in business, medicine, sports and government. You name it, and they can nail it!
This old "king" applauds this over-due "revolt." Only looking from the outside in, he has to wonder how much harder it is for a young woman to choose her role today. There are so many! As for the young man, well nothing's much changed. The physical roles waiting for him still include the same old, same old. Changing the tires, fixing the leaks, throwing out the garbage. Oh, and when he really wants to get physical, tearing off his shirt and pounding his chest in the Wrigley Field bleachers.
There's one role today's women have little interest in. If, however, they did, you can be sure the guys on the television cameras would be working their zoom lens....
Friday, April 17, 2009
KILLING GOD AIN'T AS FUNNY AS IT LOOKS
People laugh. Have been forever. What's really funny, though, is what we laugh at. Everything from the king slipping on the proverbial banana peel, to the king of kings we call God...!
When we were still living in caves, God wasn't anything to laugh at. But as we grew smarter, well it became easier to have some fun with the big guy. Like kids do behind the teacher's back, it makes you feel kinda sassy.
If philosophers like Nietzsche announce, "God is dead," that's something I have to take seriously. But when the likes of Bill Maher and the late George Carlin do, I can't take that any more seriously than the rest of their jokes. That's because I can't help thinking of scared urchins acting out for a laugh while the teacher's not in the room.
But here's the thing, boys, if there is a God, then he's always in the room.
Still, even jesters should have their day in court. So I'm imagining what the world might be like were our sassy atheists in charge:
* all coins would read "In Frontal Cortex We Trust"
* all courts would now have people swear on "The God Gene" inspired by atheist-in-chief Richard Dawkins
* all football teams could no longer offer a victory prayer (starting with Notre Dame which, after allowing President Obama to speak there, instantly killed God right there on campus)
* all churches and temples would be removed from tax-exempt status and turned into abortion clinics
* all clergy would be sent to re-doctrination classes to become certified life coaches and/or television MCs
* all clerical vestments would be shipped to Taliban outposts where dressing silly still makes sense
* all crosses, statuary and stars-of-David would be melted down into wrist amulets to ward off any hints of divinity
* all high school graduates would have to read "The DaVinci Code," all marriages would be presided over by genetic-biologists, all births would be recorded by DNA documentation, and all funerals would be conducted in officially-approved nuclear-waste dumps
Oh, one more thing! From this point on, by the sheer logic of their newly atheized society, all comedians would be banned from telling God jokes. Because, you see, now they wouldn't be funny anymore.
When we were still living in caves, God wasn't anything to laugh at. But as we grew smarter, well it became easier to have some fun with the big guy. Like kids do behind the teacher's back, it makes you feel kinda sassy.
If philosophers like Nietzsche announce, "God is dead," that's something I have to take seriously. But when the likes of Bill Maher and the late George Carlin do, I can't take that any more seriously than the rest of their jokes. That's because I can't help thinking of scared urchins acting out for a laugh while the teacher's not in the room.
But here's the thing, boys, if there is a God, then he's always in the room.
Still, even jesters should have their day in court. So I'm imagining what the world might be like were our sassy atheists in charge:
* all coins would read "In Frontal Cortex We Trust"
* all courts would now have people swear on "The God Gene" inspired by atheist-in-chief Richard Dawkins
* all football teams could no longer offer a victory prayer (starting with Notre Dame which, after allowing President Obama to speak there, instantly killed God right there on campus)
* all churches and temples would be removed from tax-exempt status and turned into abortion clinics
* all clergy would be sent to re-doctrination classes to become certified life coaches and/or television MCs
* all clerical vestments would be shipped to Taliban outposts where dressing silly still makes sense
* all crosses, statuary and stars-of-David would be melted down into wrist amulets to ward off any hints of divinity
* all high school graduates would have to read "The DaVinci Code," all marriages would be presided over by genetic-biologists, all births would be recorded by DNA documentation, and all funerals would be conducted in officially-approved nuclear-waste dumps
Oh, one more thing! From this point on, by the sheer logic of their newly atheized society, all comedians would be banned from telling God jokes. Because, you see, now they wouldn't be funny anymore.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
TODAY WE CAN'T GET LOST EVEN IF WE TRY
Doggone it, now even your dog has lost its liberty. If you define liberty as including the freedom to be anonymous, then you and I have lost it too...!
In the name of technological progress, someone from here in President Obama's own Chicago neighborhood has now created a GPS tag for your pet so you can track it down whenever and wherever you wish. You say, "Well after all, Spotty is just a dog." But wait -- we now have the very same satellite cameras, cell towers and computer banks at everyday work tracking down anything and anyone you're willing to pay for.
While you catch your breath at such startling technical accomplishments, hold it long enough to ask yourself: "ust because I can do it, should I?" At one time religious leaders like Jesus and Buddha sought the privacy of isolation. Monks and gurus fled to mountaintop retreats. Inventors and innovators closed their doors to the world. Thoreau and Gauguin escaped civilization for Walden Pond and the Islands. Hollywood's Greta Garbo famously announced: I want to be alone.
Actually so did my Uncle Benny back in the 80s when he walked out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Aunt Evelyn raised their three kids with enormous success, but recently one of them showed her how she could track down her long-errant husband. Google helped her do it, and now that the electron has re-fused their parted lives, I have to wonder whether things for all of them weren't better left alone?
Modern secular civilization has this thing about gadgets. We love them, adore them, fixate about the seemingly infinite range of powers they give us. Don't get me wrong, I adore indoor plumbing too! When, though, does this rush to progress pause long enough to weigh the merits? Not as related to our physical senses, for every gadget extends their reach wondrously; but for our human spirit, because there are times when our gadgets have become our gods. Think today's cars, cellphones, petrie dishes, Vicodin, DNA codes.
It's in our nature to probe each new frontier we meet. Frontiers exist to be crossed. The challenge is in what we do with what we find there. History offers countless examples. How man first found fire...flight....printing ...radio and TV transmission....space and galactic travel....and now GPS systems that can track any pet or person anywhere anytime on the planet.
I hear the voice-of-progress asking: And which of these marvels would you give up...? That, of course, is the wrong question. The infrequently asked question that comes to mind is: Which of these marvels are best left in the genie's lamp? Especially in our technological age of exponential genies.
Every holiday that I watch my re-united Uncle Benny and Aunt Evelyn sit in silence, I'm absolutely convinced her kids and their gadgets did them all a dazzling but disastrous disservice.
In the name of technological progress, someone from here in President Obama's own Chicago neighborhood has now created a GPS tag for your pet so you can track it down whenever and wherever you wish. You say, "Well after all, Spotty is just a dog." But wait -- we now have the very same satellite cameras, cell towers and computer banks at everyday work tracking down anything and anyone you're willing to pay for.
While you catch your breath at such startling technical accomplishments, hold it long enough to ask yourself: "ust because I can do it, should I?" At one time religious leaders like Jesus and Buddha sought the privacy of isolation. Monks and gurus fled to mountaintop retreats. Inventors and innovators closed their doors to the world. Thoreau and Gauguin escaped civilization for Walden Pond and the Islands. Hollywood's Greta Garbo famously announced: I want to be alone.
Actually so did my Uncle Benny back in the 80s when he walked out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Aunt Evelyn raised their three kids with enormous success, but recently one of them showed her how she could track down her long-errant husband. Google helped her do it, and now that the electron has re-fused their parted lives, I have to wonder whether things for all of them weren't better left alone?
Modern secular civilization has this thing about gadgets. We love them, adore them, fixate about the seemingly infinite range of powers they give us. Don't get me wrong, I adore indoor plumbing too! When, though, does this rush to progress pause long enough to weigh the merits? Not as related to our physical senses, for every gadget extends their reach wondrously; but for our human spirit, because there are times when our gadgets have become our gods. Think today's cars, cellphones, petrie dishes, Vicodin, DNA codes.
It's in our nature to probe each new frontier we meet. Frontiers exist to be crossed. The challenge is in what we do with what we find there. History offers countless examples. How man first found fire...flight....printing ...radio and TV transmission....space and galactic travel....and now GPS systems that can track any pet or person anywhere anytime on the planet.
I hear the voice-of-progress asking: And which of these marvels would you give up...? That, of course, is the wrong question. The infrequently asked question that comes to mind is: Which of these marvels are best left in the genie's lamp? Especially in our technological age of exponential genies.
Every holiday that I watch my re-united Uncle Benny and Aunt Evelyn sit in silence, I'm absolutely convinced her kids and their gadgets did them all a dazzling but disastrous disservice.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
PIRACY RIGHT HERE IN CHICAGO
Lets hope the piracy on the high seas has begun to meet its match in the US Navy. Frankly, though, there are little daily acts of piracy going on right here in Chicago. Count the ways...!
To get your parked car out of any loop lot, you have to pay a king's ransom. To have a fine meal in any downtown restaurant, figure it costing you another ransom. As for an afternoon at Wrigley Field or Sox Park, better bring a treasure chest. And to be released by a city ER, count on coming up with a loot of gold.
I don't want to overdue this piracy thing, but lets face it. Once you risk sailing your ship into any cove on this treasure island we call Chicago, you gotta figure paying reparations for your daring. This isn't to say it won't be worth the price, but it is to say the world's long history of buccaneering for a quick buck is alive and well right here in town.
Oh, in case it gets rough, though, don't count on the Navy to protect you. Mayor Daley would probably charge them docking fees!
To get your parked car out of any loop lot, you have to pay a king's ransom. To have a fine meal in any downtown restaurant, figure it costing you another ransom. As for an afternoon at Wrigley Field or Sox Park, better bring a treasure chest. And to be released by a city ER, count on coming up with a loot of gold.
I don't want to overdue this piracy thing, but lets face it. Once you risk sailing your ship into any cove on this treasure island we call Chicago, you gotta figure paying reparations for your daring. This isn't to say it won't be worth the price, but it is to say the world's long history of buccaneering for a quick buck is alive and well right here in town.
Oh, in case it gets rough, though, don't count on the Navy to protect you. Mayor Daley would probably charge them docking fees!
YELLING FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATRE
In case we haven't noticed, the nation is at another of those historic crossroads. Nationally -- what role should our government play in a society bulging with socio-economic crises? Internationally -- what role should our power play in a world bulging with powerful new players? In a democracy, we debate our choices which means everyone gets an equal voice. Or so it says here....!
Writing that principle into the Constitution was the easy part. Making it work to the advantage of the nation is where the ink on the pages begins to smudge. Among the biggest smudge-rs these days are the bloggers, Rush Limbaughs, Bill O'Reillys, Glenn Becks, and Anne Coulters!
When Supreme Court Justice Holmes is quoted as saying, "You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre," that laid down the marker for dissenters. Much like Hippocrates supposedly did for doctors when he said, "First, do no harm." However, the eternal question that accompanies this eternal flame of free speech is, "How do we distinguish between the free and the carefree use of our speech?"
Over an expensively, un-democratic Spiaggia lunch at President Obama's favorite Italian restaurant, I challenged my constitutional lawyer friend: "We're all created equal, yes, but don't some end up more equal than others? Aren't some public dissents more informed and useful than others?"
He instructed me, "In a free society, who is to judge that? And once you try, freedom is gone."
"But when today's dissenters raise outlandish, misinformed taunts -- Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, a traitor, a baby-killer -- how exactly does this advance the public dialog and the national interest?"
"The Founding Fathers anticipated this, and so by giving everyone the same freedom to dissent, the good eventually prevails," he smiled contentedly.
"And what about the the one rotten apple that spoils the barrel,?" I argued. By now the clients were staring.
"Once some someone decides whose apple is rotten, you start to have tyranny not democracy!" The stares grew a bit louder.
"And once the people are so thoroughly confused with angry misinformation, how long do we still have our democracy? How can the protests of a US Senator, a member of the State Department, a college professor, a street gang leader, and a 70-IQ dropout all be put on the same playing field of public dissent?", I dissented. "Teams, schools, hospitals, even religions recognize the difference between their first and third strings."
My lawyer friend frowned, "That's not democracy!" Guests shifted in their seats pretending this noxious duo weren't really here.
"No," I insisted, "that's reality."
Following our window-table dust-up, we were ready to order. I asked the waiter for an antipasto and lasagna. My friend put on his glasses and studied the menu much more precisely. Finally he looked up to the waiter, "Tell me, does the chef have a favorite choice for the day?"
I'm sorry, but I had to interrupt: "Hey, if everyone and everything is so damn equal, then why are you asking about an expert chef's expert choice? Why not just go with your democratic menu as is....?"
And, as always with us, the argument started all over again. The waiter patronizingly shook his head, and disappeared into the kitchen. I'm thinking to myself, everyone of the cooks back there has the same right to cook. But I'd swear on a stack of constitutions that some of them cook a lot better lasagna than others!
Writing that principle into the Constitution was the easy part. Making it work to the advantage of the nation is where the ink on the pages begins to smudge. Among the biggest smudge-rs these days are the bloggers, Rush Limbaughs, Bill O'Reillys, Glenn Becks, and Anne Coulters!
When Supreme Court Justice Holmes is quoted as saying, "You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre," that laid down the marker for dissenters. Much like Hippocrates supposedly did for doctors when he said, "First, do no harm." However, the eternal question that accompanies this eternal flame of free speech is, "How do we distinguish between the free and the carefree use of our speech?"
Over an expensively, un-democratic Spiaggia lunch at President Obama's favorite Italian restaurant, I challenged my constitutional lawyer friend: "We're all created equal, yes, but don't some end up more equal than others? Aren't some public dissents more informed and useful than others?"
He instructed me, "In a free society, who is to judge that? And once you try, freedom is gone."
"But when today's dissenters raise outlandish, misinformed taunts -- Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, a traitor, a baby-killer -- how exactly does this advance the public dialog and the national interest?"
"The Founding Fathers anticipated this, and so by giving everyone the same freedom to dissent, the good eventually prevails," he smiled contentedly.
"And what about the the one rotten apple that spoils the barrel,?" I argued. By now the clients were staring.
"Once some someone decides whose apple is rotten, you start to have tyranny not democracy!" The stares grew a bit louder.
"And once the people are so thoroughly confused with angry misinformation, how long do we still have our democracy? How can the protests of a US Senator, a member of the State Department, a college professor, a street gang leader, and a 70-IQ dropout all be put on the same playing field of public dissent?", I dissented. "Teams, schools, hospitals, even religions recognize the difference between their first and third strings."
My lawyer friend frowned, "That's not democracy!" Guests shifted in their seats pretending this noxious duo weren't really here.
"No," I insisted, "that's reality."
Following our window-table dust-up, we were ready to order. I asked the waiter for an antipasto and lasagna. My friend put on his glasses and studied the menu much more precisely. Finally he looked up to the waiter, "Tell me, does the chef have a favorite choice for the day?"
I'm sorry, but I had to interrupt: "Hey, if everyone and everything is so damn equal, then why are you asking about an expert chef's expert choice? Why not just go with your democratic menu as is....?"
And, as always with us, the argument started all over again. The waiter patronizingly shook his head, and disappeared into the kitchen. I'm thinking to myself, everyone of the cooks back there has the same right to cook. But I'd swear on a stack of constitutions that some of them cook a lot better lasagna than others!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
CHOOSING HOW TO USE TIME
Everyone knows time is relative. Even before Albert Einstein put a set of brilliant numbers to this ancient intuition, we knew it in our bones. And yet, this truth hits you especially hard when a friend tells you something like, "I see my parents about twice a year," and his parents live in the same Chicago he does...!
That gets you thinking. Maybe in their relationship twice a year is a actually just about right, whereas in another family twice a week wouldn't be enough. Al was right -- it's all relative. How long it should take for our economic recovery to click into place, for our potholes to be repaired, for the Cubs to win a World Series -- it's all relative.
If, then, life comes down to the tick of time, inevitably we're faced with evaluating these ticks relative to our life. For example, there's at least three cosmic categories: Slow time...fast time...eternal time.
Slow time is when you're a kid waiting for Christmas to get here, a guy waiting for the gal to say yes, for that big promotion to come through. Each tick has the slow, ponderous sound of Big Ben announcing that wide canyon between you and your goal. Slow time can be cruel, it's your enemy, it's insidiously reluctant to give itself up.
Now here's the irony -- fast time can be just as much an enemy. As in the case of a spectacular vacation whooshing past much too fast, a long-time life together hurrying by sooner than your hearts would wish, a world you both knew now hurtling ahead into frontiers of change you find hard to approve.
That third category -- eternal time -- that one Einstein never gave any formulas to. Actually he couldn't, for it looms larger than mere numbers can quantify. From the time we swung from trees right up to now when we swing from stars, eternal time neither ticks nor clicks. The eye can't observe it, the mind can't dissect it, only the heart can sense it. It is the unmapped distances that stretch out between the Eternal Now our carpe-diem proselytizers speak of, and the Eternal Eternal our poets and philosophers speak of.
Will Rogers once said, "The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for." I imagine he was talking about slow and fast time things. Eternal time things -- well, we're in line for that whether we want to be or not. Which makes spring 2009 as good a time as any for my friend to visit his parents more often, and for my country to visit our best dreams more often.
That gets you thinking. Maybe in their relationship twice a year is a actually just about right, whereas in another family twice a week wouldn't be enough. Al was right -- it's all relative. How long it should take for our economic recovery to click into place, for our potholes to be repaired, for the Cubs to win a World Series -- it's all relative.
If, then, life comes down to the tick of time, inevitably we're faced with evaluating these ticks relative to our life. For example, there's at least three cosmic categories: Slow time...fast time...eternal time.
Slow time is when you're a kid waiting for Christmas to get here, a guy waiting for the gal to say yes, for that big promotion to come through. Each tick has the slow, ponderous sound of Big Ben announcing that wide canyon between you and your goal. Slow time can be cruel, it's your enemy, it's insidiously reluctant to give itself up.
Now here's the irony -- fast time can be just as much an enemy. As in the case of a spectacular vacation whooshing past much too fast, a long-time life together hurrying by sooner than your hearts would wish, a world you both knew now hurtling ahead into frontiers of change you find hard to approve.
That third category -- eternal time -- that one Einstein never gave any formulas to. Actually he couldn't, for it looms larger than mere numbers can quantify. From the time we swung from trees right up to now when we swing from stars, eternal time neither ticks nor clicks. The eye can't observe it, the mind can't dissect it, only the heart can sense it. It is the unmapped distances that stretch out between the Eternal Now our carpe-diem proselytizers speak of, and the Eternal Eternal our poets and philosophers speak of.
Will Rogers once said, "The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for." I imagine he was talking about slow and fast time things. Eternal time things -- well, we're in line for that whether we want to be or not. Which makes spring 2009 as good a time as any for my friend to visit his parents more often, and for my country to visit our best dreams more often.
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