WHY BAMBI MAY HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT US

We're a news-conscious culture listening daily to newspapers, television and blogs for the latest. While each medium is different, they all share one thing in common. They're each loud and insistent about the news they're reporting.

Right now, though, there's a quieter yet no less insistent sound out there...!

When you listen carefully, it's the sound of nature blowin' in the spring winds. Whispering to us an evolutionary message for dealing more wisely with our cockeyed world. It's the message of the pigeons, the deer, and the geese that have lately multiplied throughout our city in staggering numbers

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There are complex biological reasons for this daily drama, but the simplest of them may be that these species have genetically learned to be less afraid of us. With the reluctant exception of gun-toting hunters, it seems evolution is doing its thing here. Specifically, altering the long-persistent genetic codes by which these flocks and herds have always feared us

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Now, instead, we feed the noontime pigeons, enjoy the parading geese, and watch the deer daring out of their preserves. Say -- maybe Bambi was wrong about us after all!

Could it be that what's at work here in our city parks and fields is evolution quietly re-coding ancient fear genes with emerging co-existence genes? Just as it has for centuries with our dogs, cats, horses, and other domesticated species who have learned to come out of the wilds, and peacefully co-exist with our species. After all, they've learned exactly how to let us take care of them for life.

If evolution can re-code animal gene pools this way, is it also possible nature is quietly demonstrating how a co-existence gene might also be acquired by other once-warring species? Consider the possibilities. Whites and blacks...rich and poor...young and old....neighbor and immigrant...why even such natural enemies as Democrats and Republicans?

The times are pregnant with possibilities. Why not Cub fans and Cardinal fans....Americans and French.... Americans and Russians... someday even Americans and jihadists? Evolution has accomplished far stranger things as it keeps proving to its many species how they all share this very same tiny blue planet in this very enormously uncaring universe.

Evolution is a funny fascinating thing that's led to many surprising changes. Even among the unchangeable. So it's hard not to hope.

Trouble is, this evolution thing is a stunningly slow, methodical process, and right now we don't have as much time as evolution usually likes to take. Is there something we can do about that...? Say like we have with the pigeons, the geese and the deer...?

THE LONG TALE OF THE GAY ELEPHANT

Some of us wish Michal Grzes had attend the opening ceremonies of the new Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois where Bill Clinton and Elie Wiesel spoke. But then Michal was busy attending a small holocaust of his own....!

Recently a Polish zoo added a new elephant. Ninio, to its attractions. Only half-ton Ninio is apparently not interested in mating with any of the elephantine femme fatales. In true, family-values outrage, a conservative Warsaw politician Michal Grzes protested, "We didn't pay 37 million zlotys to have a gay elephant!"

When you think about it, Michal is speaking for all the world's angry bigots. All those clear-compassed minds who can confidently tell you where true north is on every issue -- exactly right where they're standing. Gays, marriage, abortion, the Bible, the environment, elephants, whatever you've got they've got the answer.

Sure, everyone harbors some bigotries, often under the banner of "causes," but picking on Ninio could be the straw that breaks the elephant's back. Michal, you old Slavic savant, you perfectly demonstrate why this world of ours is always in trouble. Really! Your ignorant stance on homosexuality is the very same self-righteousness that has energized so many of our world's trouble-makers. Remember that other bigot, that Adolph guy who swallowed up your country in 1939? He had a cause too. The self-righteous destruction of all Slavs and Jews by his Aryan legions whose true-north destiny was to rule a purified world.

Look, Michal, I don't want you to go away mad. But I do wish your uninformed rage would go away. Not likely, though, for homo sapiens has harbored bigotries right from the beginning. Anyone swinging from a different forest than ours we determined was forever "different." The same with the tribes across the river from us. Then the countries across the ocean from us. And always, always those neighbors who somehow just didn't understand "normal" like we do.

Psychologists tell us that putting other people down like this automatically makes us feel taller. Theologians tell us that mankind's Original Sin comes from a pride that can't accept the possibility someone else may be more correct than us. Whatever the cause, the consequences have been interminable. We've been busy hating other people's habits throughout the bloody trajectory of history. Think about it -- no hate, no Alexander, no Hannibal, no Attila, no Crusaders and Jihadists, no KKK, no gay bashers, no Cub-Sox rivalry.

I guess, Michal, this means your hangup with gays is not really a headline-maker after all. Tragically, hating other's habits is page 6 news by now. But wait, here's a possible headline for tomorrow's editions: "Michal Grzes rides Ninio in Polish Gay Parade through what's left of the infamous Warsaw Ghetto!"

WAITING ROOMS HELP EXPLAIN AMERICA

The role and rule of contradiction has been coronated in our America. It thrives everywhere...!

Enormous wealth side by side with enormous poverty, stunning success neck and neck with disastrous failure, historic progress shoulder to shoulder with historic decline. But if you really want to experience this full throttle, try sitting in a public waiting room. Service shop, hospital, wherever. Sit there and indulge yourself in everything that's wrong with your world coming out of that television set, and then everything that's right with it coming out of those magazine issues.

Sure they're back editions, but my how they render the perfect solution to every problem in your life. Acne, wrinkles, obesity, colicky babies, destructive two-year olds, how to salvage your next block party, ways to save your marriage, tips for breaking the bank at Vegas, 3-minute casseroles to stun your guests, oh plus 10 easy-herbal-tea methods for overcoming clinical depression. And just think -- you're not even paying for these nifty answers!

But then you glance back up to the screen. Riots in the middle east, fires in California, tornadoes in Oklahoma, bank failures in New York, the ubiquitous closeups of grieving family members of the murder victim, talk shows that won't stop talking, and wait -- breaking news from a new campus shootout!

Exactly who are we, then? The land of the new Sodom & Gomorrah, or that Shining City on a Hill? Will the real America please stand up.

To be sure, the answer to most contradictions is: Yes! Yes, opposites do co-exist, but yes they do generate a kind of synergy all their own. The challenge -- as individuals and as a nation -- is somehow transforming what's so wrong with us into agendas for what can still be right about us.

We hardly lack for leadership in this tasking. Political leaders, reformers, researchers, educators, clergy, and lets not forget the most efficacious of all -- dreamers. They're everywhere trying to be heard.

When we listen carefully, the only ones who say silly things like "If you can dream it you can do it" are at sales meetings, motivation seminars, and such. Our really best dreamers are more modest. Instead, they put it this way: "So long as you reach for the stars, at least you won't come up with a handful of mud."

SUMMER CAMP -- ONE ANSWER TO THE RECESSION

Spring is when young men's fancy turns to thoughts of love, young women's thoughts turn fanciful, and worn-out parents start planning to send Betty and Freddy to summer camp...!

My parents did. God love them and their convoluted intentions, they selected Camp Wichiwakka. Let it be known far and wide that -- recession permitting -- summer camp is one of those honored American traditions by which wisdom and knot-tying are passed on to the next generation. I can't tell you how much my nautical skills have served me here in semi- landlocked Illinois. The glories of slip-knots and cleat hitches are, of course, only part of my story.

The chief reason for camping is getting in harmony with nature. My problem at Wichiwakka was that my body always played in a different key. Where my comrades inhaled the fragrance of the morning air, I smelled tree rot; when they romped through dewy beaches, I found leeches; while they studied the stars, I was swatting mosquitoes. In retrospect, mosquitoes were my first encounter with theological doubt. When I began questioning the goodness of God, the camp counselor put matters into quick perspective. "Stuff it, kid, I've got food poisoning to deal with!"

Competition is another of the honored American characteristics honed in summer camp. At good old Wichiwakka, it seemed like everything was a competition. Getting to the outhouse, getting to breakfast, getting to the available canoes. There was compelling incentive for the first two lines, but because I was always falling out of those damned canoes, I learned early on the gift of giving. I always gave the other kids my place in this line.

Given the perils of our times, I can see why bolder youth can better serve our nation's needs. So along with an appreciation for nature and competition, summer camp can teach collective effort. The merits of cooperation and the joys of camaraderie. I tried joining in at every opportunity. I remember sharing pictures of my pet turtles from back home, and demonstrating how I could crack my knuckles to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy." As I look back now, sharing has its limits in life. You have to have something worth sharing. I've always remembered that lesson whenever someone wants to mount a community talent show.

As today's parents study camp brochures there is one more feature to consider. Are there any camps nearby serving the opposite sex? This can prove to be a significant added value to your child's summer experience. America in today's global economy needs ambition, creativity, the Yankee can-do spirit. And while there are no courses so listed, such nearby camps can easily generate all kinds of night-time free-enterprise through the woods. I know this for a fact, because my comrades always picked me to stay behind and be their recorder of deeds.

Whenever I get nostalgic for the joys of youth again, I try to remember Algebra and Camp Wichiwakka. It helps me get out of today's bed everytime!

THE WAR WE THOUGHT WE WON IS IN SUDDEN-DEATH OVERTIME

It's hard to imagine saying anything important in just 600 words. But, then, Genesis did the whole creation in less....!

Thereby encouraged, here are 600 words on the most inexhaustible and inexorable law of life -- change. Change comes in all shapes, sizes and species. And yet many times we're as unaware of it as a butterfly cupped in our hand is that we have a spring cold. The cold we're experiencing right now promises to be epic, as we try to diagnose two opposite forces at work. Economic liberty and social planning.

The first (Capitalism) traces its history through such times as the Protestant Reformation, British Mercantilism, and Yankee free enterprise. It happily harnesses our primal passions for pursuit, profit and prominence. In some ways it scrapes down to the raw appetite of human greed. However its defined, it works. Capitalism has unleashed pent up personal ambitions that have built great industries, economies, nations and empires. From Adam Smith to Ayn Rand, its irrepressible energies have been esteemed and codified.

The second (Social Planning) has its roots in early Christian communities where sharing the wealth was also esteemed and codified. By modern times, these roots came to blossom in such diverse corners of the world as Anglo-American Utopian societies and Marxist-driven ideologies throughout Europe.

Six hundred words are hardly enough to span these centuries, but there are those who would say the late-20th-century Cold War between America and the USSR was the climax of the capitalism/planning clash. Having "won" that war, capitalism's historians saw the 21st century as the time when the victor's ideas converted the world.

But a funny thing happened on the way to global capitalism -- the great recession of 2009. The victory stalled, the dreams turned into nightmares. In the shambles of collapsed banks, businesses, and economies, we the victors are confronted with a peculiar twist in the game plan. Perhaps rather than a victory, it was a tie. And rather than easing into a new age of global capitalism, we're in sudden-death overtime.

The players in the program are no longer simplistically listed as the Free World and Communism. Now they include anyone and everyone with an economic opinion. For those who need to keep it simple, OK -- the White House vs Fox News. Hardly that simple, but simple sells in complex times.

If the butterfly were to take notice, it would realize the change raging through the body politic pits the bawdy history of capitalistic success vs the academic history of social planning. Capitalists (jot down: power brokers) defend what is, because what is is what has made them successful. A success which traditionally they hold out as the American Dream anyone can have. Social planners (jot down: liberal wings of both parties but especially the White House) argue that high-tech ingenuity has given social planning new tools whereas capitalism is still playing with old greed.

The pen of history is held in abeyance as the contest unfolds. But while the issues can be packaged in 600 words, the results will call for many more by the time our children someday read them.

BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH

Considering the evolutionary fact that 99.5% of all the animals who ever existed on the planet are now extinct, it has to make you wonder why we're still around? What qualifies us to still be in this existential race called life?

For those who simply get up every morning to do what they did yesterday morning, the question may have neither purpose nor imperative. However, there are at least five categories among we remaining 0.5% who have something to say on the matter. Surely nothing that can be squeezed into a few paragraphs here, but as a fellow runner in the race, you might want to consider some of their observations:

* Our biologists tend to to understand you and me as a part of the evolutionary process that began a long time and place ago. While they've pinned down the time to about 14+ billion years, they have no idea as to the place. Even the master biologist himself, Charles Darwin, gives us no firm location. Most evolutionary biologists just say it happened with the Big Bang, wherever and however that was. Which seems to be telling us we arrived here without any passport from there.

* Our neuro-scientists tend to focus on our amazing brains. That part of the human anatomy the ancient Egyptians didn't even bother to preserve with their mummies is today considered to be the power-source for billions of energy bursts Electrical bursts which seem to explain how we experience and behave, think and decide. We are told these energies, coupled with those from our gene pools, explain much of who and what we are. Which seem to be providing us the missing passport, but with so many crucial specifics still missing.

* Our sociologists tend to work without passports, chiefly because their interest lies in how we interact once we congregate here. Socio-economic behaviors and consequences are their areas of interest. Their work has shed light on such hitherto mis-understood behaviors like violence, crime and ghettos on one hand, sharing, cooperating and creating on the other. Still, the sociologists leave our passports with gaping holes for anyone who would fully understand us
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* Our theologians and philosophers have a word to say here too. Lately, though, they don't get as much coverage in the media, and they function mainly in backstage areas like college campuses and sabbath day services. At one time in history theirs were the preeminent voices, now muffled by more secular choruses. A loss, though, because theologians and philosophers are the ones who insist our passports must be stamped by both place of original origin and the place of destination.

* This leaves our artists. The painters, poets, composers, novelists, playwrights and cinema directors whose gifts allow them to speak directly to everyman. Whether we are degree-ed or not, wealthy or not, powerful or not. When our artists speak, they use the international languages of sights, sounds and language which strike directly into the deepest fathoms of our being. And while school budgets trim their role, while the recession thins their ranks, they would be this man's choice for what keeps our remaining 0.5% human in the midst of so much inhumanity and hopeful where there is so little hope. Our best artists are often the best reasons why our 0.5% just might keep making it by the skin of our teeth....

WHO'S HAPPY...?

How happy are you…?

Ever since Jefferson’s “pursuit of happiness,” Americans have had a fixation with this happiness thing. We are perhaps the first country who decided survival wasn’t enough; we also had the inalienable right to be happy. But

what gets complicated is how we define and pursue it.

To the Cubs and Sox it’s another win…to Hollywood another hit…..to a stockholder another split….to a banker another bailout...to a child another ice cream bar…..to a teenager a clear complexion.

Lately, it’s mainly come to mean being one of the Beautiful People. You know, the rich flawless few just before their stint in rehab. In a culture where you can buy a few diet pills, a new hair style, a little botox and a knock-off Armani, it’s actually possible to act like one of them.

The catch is -- and everyone from Freud to Oprah has preached it -- is you can never buy this happiness thing. You have to find it. Not on a shelf, inside yourself.

Self discovery like this can take a lifetime. Prayer, meditation, 12-step program, support group, backpacking to the Himalayas, or in my case perhaps a meaningful encounter with Catherine Zeta Jones. However it works for you, it only works from the inside out. In a glitzy consumer culture, it’s all too easy to believe it happens the other way around.

Some of the happiest people I’ve known seem to have transcended our proverbial happiness thing. All the way to the real stuff: Contentment, serenity and finally joy. Does that sound like saints and philosophers….? Yes, but In my experience it’s also meant school custodians and crossing guards. I keep writing about them, because well, because for me they seem to have some of the real stuff.

The custodians I’ve known don’t make a lot of money, and they’re not burdened with a lot of decision-making; but they always seem to take pride in maintaining a place for their kids. As for the those crossing guards in my town, they're usually retirees demonstrating that same kind of gentle pride in their kids.

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I admit we can’t all become custodians and crossing guards. But maybe we can notice how they smile a lot. That just might excavate a few of those same life-can-beautiful smiles still left inside us. Crazy…? I don’t know about that. Jefferson’s “pursuit” should at least be worth the effort.