One of our cosmic burdens in life is attending high school. No, really. Except for the few star athletes, chirpy cheerleaders, and straight-A kids, most of us slog though these four years with various combinations of acne and angst, disappointing grades and disappointed dates. Then, adding insult to injury, we get invited back to our reunion to live it all over again....!
But here's a story out of Los Angeles where the injured got the last insult. Andrea Wachner knew she was considered a shy geek at school, so she hired a slinky-dressed, fishnet-stockinged stripper to attend in her place. With long-repressed cunning, Andrea equipped her alter-ego with a hidden earpiece. This way she could coach her about what to say and to whom. In all this world, two hours of revenge may never have been so sweet.
The Bible teaches: Revenge is God's alone. How many times, though, have we asked for an occasional exemption to the rule? Right after insidious bosses and credit card companies, old hurts loom large on our list. The real problem comes when we carry this instinct to the level of nations. History has been spattered with the blood of revenge-wars ever since Cain slew Abel.
No need to know your history, though, because all you have to do is close your eyes in front of world globe and plant your palm. Presto -- you've just identified at least three or four neighboring nations that resent one another. And, most likely, have had wars with one another.
When wars were with clubs, losses were modest. Now with missiles, wars are apocalyptic. We can always escape our school reunion, but we can no longer escape one another on a shrinking energy-depleted planet. Who, then, do we turn to when it comes to managing this revenge syndrome...?
Science has been busy isolating and identifying various gene pools in our species. Among these are inherited pre- dispositions to envy, aggression and violence. Genetic engineering has long been the dream of many. To what purpose is, of course, the critical question (see Nazi science for ugly results).
The fine arts have always been busy "soothing the breast of the savage beast." Without music, sculpture, painting, cinema and literature, there is less to distinguish us from the other evolved beasts on the planet. But to what purpose is, again, the critical question (see Hollywood for mixed results).
Religion has always been busy sublimating our specie's vilest instincts to higher and more worthy purposes. To one theological degree or another, religions have sought to build bridges between the human and the divine. Gods and after-lifes help shape the nature of our behaviors. However, in the hands of zealots, to what purpose is, yet again, the critical question (see monastics to suicide-bombers for confusing results).
I'll be thinking about these perplexing matters at my next reunion. Fortunately, at my advanced age, I'll probably forget all about them after my first drink! Then again, maybe not....
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
CHRYSLER TESTING THE AMERICAN DREAM
This month's dramatic Chrysler bankruptcy and deal with Fiat isn't the first time Chrysler and the Italians have worked together. My Italian-born father knew Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli's American-born father long before this latest chapter. Only back then, Americans were in the business of saving Italians, not the other way round....!
The causes and consequences of the current crisis are many and complex. But I imagine our dads would have boiled them down this way. As two 20th century Americans, we've been born with a silver dream in our mouth. The American Dream, which means we have everything we need to succeed any honest way we can.
My father, a proud 30-year-long Chrysler dealer in Chicago, would have agreed with his friend's son today when Nardelli said, "It's not the fate I would have chosen, but it has allowed us to save the company." All three of these men would consider this an honest way left to succeed. And, if only the rapacious Wall Street debt-holders will stop bleating over the shortfall this deal will cost them, it will succeed. Chrysler is likely to emerge as strong an American institution as our dads once knew.
What's at stake, though, is more than a company. More than an industry. Even more than a presidential agenda. The stakes here include this challenge to the same American Dream which galvanized our fathers. Can the growling appetite that serves America's taste for free-enterprise capitalism be tempered by the even more intrinsic appetite that serves our taste for the general welfare?
The causes and consequences of the current crisis are many and complex. But I imagine our dads would have boiled them down this way. As two 20th century Americans, we've been born with a silver dream in our mouth. The American Dream, which means we have everything we need to succeed any honest way we can.
My father, a proud 30-year-long Chrysler dealer in Chicago, would have agreed with his friend's son today when Nardelli said, "It's not the fate I would have chosen, but it has allowed us to save the company." All three of these men would consider this an honest way left to succeed. And, if only the rapacious Wall Street debt-holders will stop bleating over the shortfall this deal will cost them, it will succeed. Chrysler is likely to emerge as strong an American institution as our dads once knew.
What's at stake, though, is more than a company. More than an industry. Even more than a presidential agenda. The stakes here include this challenge to the same American Dream which galvanized our fathers. Can the growling appetite that serves America's taste for free-enterprise capitalism be tempered by the even more intrinsic appetite that serves our taste for the general welfare?
AT LAST GIVING THE DEVIL A NAME
As the proverb would have it, the devil is in the details. And yet, most people never give these details a name. Here's one that works every time -- people!
Think of it this way. How many mechanical inventions, architectural wonders, bank bailouts and football plays have worked perfectly on the drawing board. Only to flop terribly once they were turned over to people? If you start counting, the numbers are staggering. Two examples will do: Christianity and Democracy.
Like most religious founders, Jesus today would very likely not join his own church. Surely not because of the ideas he left it, but because of what his followers have done with some of those ideas. Like Gandhi observed: "Christianity might be worth joining if anyone were really practicing it." Instead, Gandhi found what Jesus might. A claptrap collection of hundreds of denominations each more Pharisaical than the next. And lets remember, it was the Pharisee's obsession with rules the Messiah wailed against.
Consider now the bird-witted array of man-made rules that never dropped from the master's mouth. Two currently ripping some denominations apart are homosexuality and celibacy. The first draws from isolated passages in Ezekiel, Leviticus and Corinthians. But never from Jesus of Nazareth. Likewise celibacy which, though praised by Paul, was only made a rule in the 11th century. Then largely because of the expenses from the clergy's offspring. Another popular man-made rule was meatless Fridays, which comedian George Carlin famously asked after it was dropped: "I wonder how many folks are in still hell on a meat rap!"
I write this as a serious Catholic, but one who hears the current call from some frustrated laity: "Keep the faith, change the church." If for example we were to do so, then President Obama will speak at Notre Dame this month without any embarrassing incidents from rule-bound protesters.
Democracy is another sterling idea whose shine has been muddied by the people practicing it. Among its enduring principles drawn from John Locke through Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln is the "will of the people." In making this social contract with the people, the government obligates itself to rule for the good of the general welfare. In turn, the people obligate themselves to be informed and responsible citizens. It's the very reason for America's free public education for everyone.
I write this as a serious member of this educational system, but who has watched the cause of good citizenship slip and slide in the hands of the very people the system has tried to educate. After graduation, how many close their books and minds foreverafter? Listening instead to mostly the loudest voices what we envisioned a marketplace of ideas. Talk-radio hosts, cable shouters, angry bloggers, bar-stool buddies, whispered prejudices at the water cooler, and those whose understanding of democracy is not so much speech that educates, as it is speech that sells.
Christianity and Democracy -- it doesn't get much better than that. Until, that is, we the people get hold of the details.
Think of it this way. How many mechanical inventions, architectural wonders, bank bailouts and football plays have worked perfectly on the drawing board. Only to flop terribly once they were turned over to people? If you start counting, the numbers are staggering. Two examples will do: Christianity and Democracy.
Like most religious founders, Jesus today would very likely not join his own church. Surely not because of the ideas he left it, but because of what his followers have done with some of those ideas. Like Gandhi observed: "Christianity might be worth joining if anyone were really practicing it." Instead, Gandhi found what Jesus might. A claptrap collection of hundreds of denominations each more Pharisaical than the next. And lets remember, it was the Pharisee's obsession with rules the Messiah wailed against.
Consider now the bird-witted array of man-made rules that never dropped from the master's mouth. Two currently ripping some denominations apart are homosexuality and celibacy. The first draws from isolated passages in Ezekiel, Leviticus and Corinthians. But never from Jesus of Nazareth. Likewise celibacy which, though praised by Paul, was only made a rule in the 11th century. Then largely because of the expenses from the clergy's offspring. Another popular man-made rule was meatless Fridays, which comedian George Carlin famously asked after it was dropped: "I wonder how many folks are in still hell on a meat rap!"
I write this as a serious Catholic, but one who hears the current call from some frustrated laity: "Keep the faith, change the church." If for example we were to do so, then President Obama will speak at Notre Dame this month without any embarrassing incidents from rule-bound protesters.
Democracy is another sterling idea whose shine has been muddied by the people practicing it. Among its enduring principles drawn from John Locke through Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln is the "will of the people." In making this social contract with the people, the government obligates itself to rule for the good of the general welfare. In turn, the people obligate themselves to be informed and responsible citizens. It's the very reason for America's free public education for everyone.
I write this as a serious member of this educational system, but who has watched the cause of good citizenship slip and slide in the hands of the very people the system has tried to educate. After graduation, how many close their books and minds foreverafter? Listening instead to mostly the loudest voices what we envisioned a marketplace of ideas. Talk-radio hosts, cable shouters, angry bloggers, bar-stool buddies, whispered prejudices at the water cooler, and those whose understanding of democracy is not so much speech that educates, as it is speech that sells.
Christianity and Democracy -- it doesn't get much better than that. Until, that is, we the people get hold of the details.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
CRASHING ON FAST
Fast is the drug of choice in today's western culture. But like all drugs, you have to deal with the crash that follows....!
At this point in time, mankind has never been in faster communication with his world. Radio, television, and a portable Internet means most of us -- even in the remotest hills of Asia and Africa -- are within nano-seconds of news. Some call this the electronic global village. Has a nice ring to it, but here's the thing. It's no longer just a matter of all-the-news-that's-fit-to-print; it's now a matter of all-the-news-that's-fit-to-use.
The brain is a prodigious instrument for information, and yet it along with our sensorium can only process so much so fast. In some critical instances -- from local flood warnings to global pandemic alerts -- fast is fine. Fast is necessary. But threading the informational needle calls for steady hands on our part. How steady are we when assaulted 24/7 by dozens of networks, hundreds of channels, and thousands of websites each working hard to stagger us with their next headline?
One of the least articulated losses we face without our morning newspapers is no longer having the efficacious luxury of processing the news through the filters and clockworks of our own mind. Even our monster computers have to slice and dice the data fed into them. How, then, can the much smaller computers of our brain hope to keep up?
Here's a simple test. Spend the next 60 minutes scanning CNN, HuffingtonPost and Salon.com. Simply permit yourself to be the human receptacle they hope you are. Watch, listen, read, and ingest their breathless gorging of news. Now turn it off and ask yourself three questions:
* What do I know now that I didn't know 60 minutes ago?
* What do I know now that is a functionable fact?
* What can I really do about it?
According to my Bell Curve, most test-takers will come to the verifiable conclusion that their pulse rate is now higher! their sense of control is now lower! and, except for the pre-requisite touch of humor somewhere in there, they are one fatal step closer to blowing their brains out!
Which would, of course, be a shame, for none of these news sources would bother to report it.....
At this point in time, mankind has never been in faster communication with his world. Radio, television, and a portable Internet means most of us -- even in the remotest hills of Asia and Africa -- are within nano-seconds of news. Some call this the electronic global village. Has a nice ring to it, but here's the thing. It's no longer just a matter of all-the-news-that's-fit-to-print; it's now a matter of all-the-news-that's-fit-to-use.
The brain is a prodigious instrument for information, and yet it along with our sensorium can only process so much so fast. In some critical instances -- from local flood warnings to global pandemic alerts -- fast is fine. Fast is necessary. But threading the informational needle calls for steady hands on our part. How steady are we when assaulted 24/7 by dozens of networks, hundreds of channels, and thousands of websites each working hard to stagger us with their next headline?
One of the least articulated losses we face without our morning newspapers is no longer having the efficacious luxury of processing the news through the filters and clockworks of our own mind. Even our monster computers have to slice and dice the data fed into them. How, then, can the much smaller computers of our brain hope to keep up?
Here's a simple test. Spend the next 60 minutes scanning CNN, HuffingtonPost and Salon.com. Simply permit yourself to be the human receptacle they hope you are. Watch, listen, read, and ingest their breathless gorging of news. Now turn it off and ask yourself three questions:
* What do I know now that I didn't know 60 minutes ago?
* What do I know now that is a functionable fact?
* What can I really do about it?
According to my Bell Curve, most test-takers will come to the verifiable conclusion that their pulse rate is now higher! their sense of control is now lower! and, except for the pre-requisite touch of humor somewhere in there, they are one fatal step closer to blowing their brains out!
Which would, of course, be a shame, for none of these news sources would bother to report it.....
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
WEDDING BELLS AND WHAT THEY'RE CHIMING
It's that time again. That wedding time of year. But what do you do when in the middle of the ceremony someone actually answers the if-anyone-has-reason-to-object part? In New York a woman stood up and announced she was having an affair with the groom.The bride sued her seeking damages for "emotional distress on my wedding day." Later the judge offered this counsel: "Your best revenge on a woman trying to steal your husband is to let her keep him!"
There may be other good counsel for May and June brides trembling on the brink of this ageless and still evolving institution:
* When everyone gets into the usual argument over which family and friends absolutely must be included in the limited invitation list, remember this comforting rule: None of the guests really care
* When you select the bridesmaids and groomsmen, remember these are people you like, so please don't insist on dressing them in outfits so nuptially melodramatic even children snicker
* When you hire a videographer, don't be intimidated by all the lights and lens; remember it's still your wedding not theirs
* When you hire a singer, you may want to select someone who works in a choir, because remember: Every soloist is always auditioning, and this is your day not theirs
* When you're having the wedding pictures taken, really really try to remember this is no one-shot affair; you and your kids may have to look at this shot in your home every day of your life
* When you arrange the meal for the reception, remember the age-honored rule: Chicken is cheap, but can always sound richer by the name of the sauce the chef puts on it
* When you hire the band, remember to go over their music list and outfits beforehand; loud in either of those categories is not what you want
* When the bride meets the groom at the altar, this isn't the place to ask about last night's bachelor party
One more thought. Churches and temples are still the preferred wedding venue in our culture. Thank God, most couples agree it's good to invite God to the wedding. Now it's even better if you invite him for the marriage!
There may be other good counsel for May and June brides trembling on the brink of this ageless and still evolving institution:
* When everyone gets into the usual argument over which family and friends absolutely must be included in the limited invitation list, remember this comforting rule: None of the guests really care
* When you select the bridesmaids and groomsmen, remember these are people you like, so please don't insist on dressing them in outfits so nuptially melodramatic even children snicker
* When you hire a videographer, don't be intimidated by all the lights and lens; remember it's still your wedding not theirs
* When you hire a singer, you may want to select someone who works in a choir, because remember: Every soloist is always auditioning, and this is your day not theirs
* When you're having the wedding pictures taken, really really try to remember this is no one-shot affair; you and your kids may have to look at this shot in your home every day of your life
* When you arrange the meal for the reception, remember the age-honored rule: Chicken is cheap, but can always sound richer by the name of the sauce the chef puts on it
* When you hire the band, remember to go over their music list and outfits beforehand; loud in either of those categories is not what you want
* When the bride meets the groom at the altar, this isn't the place to ask about last night's bachelor party
One more thought. Churches and temples are still the preferred wedding venue in our culture. Thank God, most couples agree it's good to invite God to the wedding. Now it's even better if you invite him for the marriage!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
WHY NOT A CHILDRENS'S DAY?
There is perhaps nothing more written about, loved upon, and worried over than our children. Ever since Cain and Abel, parents have come to learn they can be the source of enormous joy and staggering sorrow. Often at the very same time. Which is why it's strange that with annually prominent Mothers Days and Fathers Days, we have no Childrens Day....!
Still, we do spend a great deal of time thinking about them.There are at least four trajectories of thought on the matter:
* At first the Greeks and later the Bible laboriously pore over the stories of archetypes like Electra (who takes Fathers Day much too seriously), Oedipus (who gets carried away celebrating Mothers Day), and Moses (the quintessential Jewish-boy-succeeds story). Shakespeare's "King Lear" and later Freud's psychoanalysis further plumb the filial depths.
When you read these guys you can't help do some serious introspecting about this sex thing. What at first seems so much fun brings with it more morning-after issues than any morning-after pill can ever handle!
* Evolutionists have come to understand us as essentially existing and evolving for one purpose -- our own reproduction. In this muted light, our species is hardly distinguishable from any other populating the planet. We're born to live, grow, mate and breed our own kind. Period. Exclamation point. End of story. And of any gushy Mothers or Fathers Day cards
.
Personally, I've stopped reading Darwin and his successors. Right and brights as they may be, I can't quit look at my wife as simply the plumpest ovaries in the jungle, or my kids as merely the ordained genetic results of a one-night genetic compulsion. I guess I'll just have to evolve a few layers more to handle that!
* Victorians, ironically in the same19th century of Darwin and Freud , decided to swing in a different direction. Maybe it was Charles Dickens's poignant Tiny Tims and orphaned Olivers, but gradually children were seen as something more than just little adults. Enriched by the graphic sentiments of such as Currie & Ives, Norman Rockwell, and Hallmark, childhood blossomed into a sainted little garden of protected life.
Enter the Anglo-American legendary joys of Christmas and all things children. This opulent festival of gift-giving has pretty much become our Childrens Day; and when you're a kid or a grandparent, who's going to argue it!
* Finally, in our own times, children have become more than the subject of great narratives and grand gifts. To today's generation, they are the subject of study. By pediatricians, statisticians, and especially editors of the 104 current parents magazines that bulge from out of checkout counters and doctor's offices. And what's most amazing about their endless studies is that most of them comes down to some variety of "10-easy-steps-for.....".
Among such recent offerings is this latest from DePauw University which has researched the marital history of 600 adults. Observation...? "Of those frequently photographed as smiling in childhood, only 11% have ever been divorced.: Conclusion....? "Overall, people who rarely smile in their childhood are five times more likely to get divorced."
This and other such epic examples of current research leave one breathless. Perhaps we have at last reached the pinnacle of our long parenting progress through history. Greeks, Darwin, Dickens and Santa be damned -- the real reason we have children is so we can turn them over for publishable study.
Still, we do spend a great deal of time thinking about them.There are at least four trajectories of thought on the matter:
* At first the Greeks and later the Bible laboriously pore over the stories of archetypes like Electra (who takes Fathers Day much too seriously), Oedipus (who gets carried away celebrating Mothers Day), and Moses (the quintessential Jewish-boy-succeeds story). Shakespeare's "King Lear" and later Freud's psychoanalysis further plumb the filial depths.
When you read these guys you can't help do some serious introspecting about this sex thing. What at first seems so much fun brings with it more morning-after issues than any morning-after pill can ever handle!
* Evolutionists have come to understand us as essentially existing and evolving for one purpose -- our own reproduction. In this muted light, our species is hardly distinguishable from any other populating the planet. We're born to live, grow, mate and breed our own kind. Period. Exclamation point. End of story. And of any gushy Mothers or Fathers Day cards
.
Personally, I've stopped reading Darwin and his successors. Right and brights as they may be, I can't quit look at my wife as simply the plumpest ovaries in the jungle, or my kids as merely the ordained genetic results of a one-night genetic compulsion. I guess I'll just have to evolve a few layers more to handle that!
* Victorians, ironically in the same19th century of Darwin and Freud , decided to swing in a different direction. Maybe it was Charles Dickens's poignant Tiny Tims and orphaned Olivers, but gradually children were seen as something more than just little adults. Enriched by the graphic sentiments of such as Currie & Ives, Norman Rockwell, and Hallmark, childhood blossomed into a sainted little garden of protected life.
Enter the Anglo-American legendary joys of Christmas and all things children. This opulent festival of gift-giving has pretty much become our Childrens Day; and when you're a kid or a grandparent, who's going to argue it!
* Finally, in our own times, children have become more than the subject of great narratives and grand gifts. To today's generation, they are the subject of study. By pediatricians, statisticians, and especially editors of the 104 current parents magazines that bulge from out of checkout counters and doctor's offices. And what's most amazing about their endless studies is that most of them comes down to some variety of "10-easy-steps-for.....".
Among such recent offerings is this latest from DePauw University which has researched the marital history of 600 adults. Observation...? "Of those frequently photographed as smiling in childhood, only 11% have ever been divorced.: Conclusion....? "Overall, people who rarely smile in their childhood are five times more likely to get divorced."
This and other such epic examples of current research leave one breathless. Perhaps we have at last reached the pinnacle of our long parenting progress through history. Greeks, Darwin, Dickens and Santa be damned -- the real reason we have children is so we can turn them over for publishable study.
Monday, April 27, 2009
AMERICAN MOMS - 94 AND COUNTING
America has been celebrating Mothers Day for 94 years now. But my how it's changed....!
Declared in 1914, it's been celebrated ever since by equal parts: Devoted children, guilty children, eager florists and dewy Hallmark stores. However, while a mother is always a mother, motherhood today is no longer one-size-fits-all. It now comes in all different sizes, shapes and saint-hoods.
For me it came straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Apron-wearing, pie-baking, stay-at-home mom who lovingly packed my lunches in the morning, and had cookies and milk waiting when I came home in the afternoon. Today that memory has become an endangered species in America. How, then, should we celebrate this 95th Mothers Day?
Maybe by understanding that endangered doesn't have to mean extinct. Plenty of moms are still putting out cookies and milk. But at that time of day, many others are working second shift at the plant, doing triage at the ER, directing traffic in the loop, or maybe meeting deadlines at the office. Their presence in children's lives today is felt in other ways. Exchanging stories in the van taking the neighborhood kids to school, hosting the weekend tour bus to Lincoln's Home, or just sharing their exhausted end-of-the-day bed with you wrapped inside their arms in front of a television screen.
There are widowed moms, single moms, teenage moms, latchkey moms, and gay moms. They aren't always the way we find them in the Bible or in the classics, but their maternal value is no more meant to be frozen in literary time than our faith is meant to be frozen in church statuary. These are living values, and the only true sign of life in this world is growth.
The lacy, pink patina of the last 94 Mothers Days is something to cherish. But growth is cherish-able too. Growth and change today is America's middle name. During a century of Mothers Days, we've witnessed a doubling of the population, a movement from the farms to the cities, the breakdown of urban family life, an explosion of different signs and sins. Yet running through it all is always the same back story: Moms!
Laud them or lament them, ask your psychiatrist how they molded you or messed you up. The one enduring fact of life -- personal or public -- is that they remain the great indispensables. Nothing happens without them. And when we are at last without them, there's a hole in the soul nothing can ever quite replace.
This coming Mothers Day will be one more chance for some of us to finally get it right....
Declared in 1914, it's been celebrated ever since by equal parts: Devoted children, guilty children, eager florists and dewy Hallmark stores. However, while a mother is always a mother, motherhood today is no longer one-size-fits-all. It now comes in all different sizes, shapes and saint-hoods.
For me it came straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Apron-wearing, pie-baking, stay-at-home mom who lovingly packed my lunches in the morning, and had cookies and milk waiting when I came home in the afternoon. Today that memory has become an endangered species in America. How, then, should we celebrate this 95th Mothers Day?
Maybe by understanding that endangered doesn't have to mean extinct. Plenty of moms are still putting out cookies and milk. But at that time of day, many others are working second shift at the plant, doing triage at the ER, directing traffic in the loop, or maybe meeting deadlines at the office. Their presence in children's lives today is felt in other ways. Exchanging stories in the van taking the neighborhood kids to school, hosting the weekend tour bus to Lincoln's Home, or just sharing their exhausted end-of-the-day bed with you wrapped inside their arms in front of a television screen.
There are widowed moms, single moms, teenage moms, latchkey moms, and gay moms. They aren't always the way we find them in the Bible or in the classics, but their maternal value is no more meant to be frozen in literary time than our faith is meant to be frozen in church statuary. These are living values, and the only true sign of life in this world is growth.
The lacy, pink patina of the last 94 Mothers Days is something to cherish. But growth is cherish-able too. Growth and change today is America's middle name. During a century of Mothers Days, we've witnessed a doubling of the population, a movement from the farms to the cities, the breakdown of urban family life, an explosion of different signs and sins. Yet running through it all is always the same back story: Moms!
Laud them or lament them, ask your psychiatrist how they molded you or messed you up. The one enduring fact of life -- personal or public -- is that they remain the great indispensables. Nothing happens without them. And when we are at last without them, there's a hole in the soul nothing can ever quite replace.
This coming Mothers Day will be one more chance for some of us to finally get it right....
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