We're coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic (April, 1912). An ocean catastrophe which has been the mother of hundred lessons. Perhaps the most recurring: (1) Humanity, even in all its technical glory, is still no match for the forces of nature (2) Human error, even when managed and contained, is still irrepressibly unavoidable (3) Icebergs, as enormous as they are, hide most of themselves out of sight.
Grandpa traveled that same sea route seven years later, taking his family to visit family in Italy. Their voyage encountered many of the same perils, but as my Mother always remembered, he had a Smith & Wesson with him, vowing, "I'll use this rather than let us die that way!"
They survived, and Grandpa never tired of repeating those lessons for the little kid at his knees:
* Ironically, that first one seems more rather than less relevant today. Today when you'd think our technology has grown so supreme. But while we can reach the moon and shoot for the stars, we simply have no answers for the tsunamis of the Pacific, the tornadoes of the Midwest, and the hurricanes of the Atlantic. This is when even the disbeliever has to give a nod to the Biblical tale about that infamous Tower of Babel. For it still seems we can grow only so tall before the crushing lessons of our limits. Limits our great minds still yearn to prodigiously defy, while quieter minds still accept as perfectly acceptable.
* Human error...? Well, our species has been passionately inclined to make errors ever since we met that smarmy serpent and his shiny apple. The way Grandpa always explained it: "Folks usually do dumb things, because they're always so much more fun. Until you get the bill for the fun!"
* Probably Grandpa's favorite lesson was that's-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg lesson. He had seen his share of icebergs. "Life ain't never what you see!" was his spin. Which at age 10 didn't make much sense, because all I could understand about life was what I could see about life. Which is why I believed everything I heard in school, read in papers, and most of all saw at the Saturday movie matinees. Grandpa is long dead, but my how I could now swap him story for story on that subject.
Now I'm Grandpa, and now I can better understand what he was telling me so long ago. However, here's my problem. Just like my Grandpa, I may not live long enough to see my grand-kids see what I've been telling them was really worth telling...
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
NOW YOU SEE, NOW YOU DON'T
Looking at the stark, empty space that was once New York's gleaming Twin Towers reminds us what once was is often no more. Margaret Mitchell gave it a wistful title: "Gone With The Wind." Frank Sinatra made it a plaintiff song: "There Once Was a Ball Park." As usual, the Bible says it best: "And this too shall pass."
How then are we -- who by nature so yearn for the familiar -- to manage our lives in a world that has reached a state of perpetual and inexorable change?
For many of us, the answer burrows deep into our religions. For others, into our extended families. Still others find the spectacle of nature their one true constant. And yet each of these moorings have so often proved so insecure against the press of the tides just outside the harbors.
Perhaps the best way to respect the vacant spaces in our lives is not simply to remember them, but to actively engage them. Right there on the spot. After all, that space was once a place, and that place was once a part of you. Where you once lived or laughed or maybe loved. Which means you and it are forever inextricably linked.
There are those special places where people gather to honor a lost life. Cemeteries. Memorials. Vigils. But other places are for the living. Spaces whose places have changed with time, but whose ghosts will not. Think Pearl Harbor...Gettysburg...Jamestown....Plymouth Rock.Think back further. The Tower of London ...the Bastille...the Coliseum....the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Think the Holy Land where every space of every place has changed and yet remained changeless.
Precisely why we visit them.
Having said that, this is exactly why some of us re-visit the spaces and places that were once the pieces of our own lives. We are drawn to reunions. Anniversaries. Celebrations of all kinds, especially when they can be held "where it began."
Every city is really a bundle of spaces that became places that were pieces in their citizens' lives. That's certainly true here in Chicago where each summer there are guided neighborhood tours sponsored by the Mayors Office. Busloads of seniors traveling through city blocks to once more see and smell and feel the-way-we-were. What's particularly interesting is the visitors are not so much washed in sentimental tears as they are refreshed in the realization they've come so far.
Oh, by the way, you don't actually need a guided tour to re-discover the old neighborhoods. On the next inviting summer afternoon, you can solo all by yourself. You're going to be amazed...
How then are we -- who by nature so yearn for the familiar -- to manage our lives in a world that has reached a state of perpetual and inexorable change?
For many of us, the answer burrows deep into our religions. For others, into our extended families. Still others find the spectacle of nature their one true constant. And yet each of these moorings have so often proved so insecure against the press of the tides just outside the harbors.
Perhaps the best way to respect the vacant spaces in our lives is not simply to remember them, but to actively engage them. Right there on the spot. After all, that space was once a place, and that place was once a part of you. Where you once lived or laughed or maybe loved. Which means you and it are forever inextricably linked.
There are those special places where people gather to honor a lost life. Cemeteries. Memorials. Vigils. But other places are for the living. Spaces whose places have changed with time, but whose ghosts will not. Think Pearl Harbor...Gettysburg...Jamestown....Plymouth Rock.Think back further. The Tower of London ...the Bastille...the Coliseum....the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Think the Holy Land where every space of every place has changed and yet remained changeless.
Precisely why we visit them.
Having said that, this is exactly why some of us re-visit the spaces and places that were once the pieces of our own lives. We are drawn to reunions. Anniversaries. Celebrations of all kinds, especially when they can be held "where it began."
Every city is really a bundle of spaces that became places that were pieces in their citizens' lives. That's certainly true here in Chicago where each summer there are guided neighborhood tours sponsored by the Mayors Office. Busloads of seniors traveling through city blocks to once more see and smell and feel the-way-we-were. What's particularly interesting is the visitors are not so much washed in sentimental tears as they are refreshed in the realization they've come so far.
Oh, by the way, you don't actually need a guided tour to re-discover the old neighborhoods. On the next inviting summer afternoon, you can solo all by yourself. You're going to be amazed...
Thursday, May 12, 2011
IS CAIRO COMING TO AMERICA?
Looking at the restless young generations in the Middle East with a self satisfied "it-was-inevitable" eye, brings to mind Matthew 7:15 . "Take the plank out of your own eye, and then shalt thou see more clearly to cast out the mite in thy brother's eye."
We have our own angry young generation here at home...! What's more they're in everyday communication. One of their gurus, George Carlin. always got strong applause with: "The trouble with the profit system is that it's unprofitable to most people."
Then they read statistics from the Commerce Department: "Consumers now spend $1.2 trillion on non- essential goods & services like jewelry, yachts, sports cars, alcoholic beverages and candy. Spending on discretionary luxury items has risen to 11.2% of total consumer spending, up from only 4% in 1960."
You wonder what they're wondering...
The unemployment rate among 18-24 year olds is 24%, about the same as in Egypt. College graduates by the millions are forced to move back with their parents, already sensing they'll be responsible for the nation's staggering deficits run up by their parents. One Ivy League graduate was quoted recently in the New York Times with what could be his generation's emerging credo: "Maybe it sounds silly to you that an Egyptian-style revolution could happen in a rich democracy, but watch out. The American Dream is unavailable to my generation, and the frustration out here is growing...!"
Brewing dissent in societies has traditionally been stanched by traditional policies by traditional officials. In ancient Rome the emperors offered bread-and-circuses. Today's presidents have unemployment benefits, job programs, and rhetoric. This time, however, old solutions may not work, because this time there is the new specter of automation.
In the name of progress, we automate everything. The results are usually good until they're bad. Today's automated culture no longer impacts only the blue-collar workers. Powerful software programs are replacing entire armies of financial officers, accountants, computer-chip designers, even lawyers and health technicians. Newsweek magazine said it well: "If not quite the Great Depression, it is certainly the Great Humbling."
Now to really get the facts, I plan to take my bright college-graduating grandson for a long lunch. And since my generation's the culprit, I will pay the bill...!
We have our own angry young generation here at home...! What's more they're in everyday communication. One of their gurus, George Carlin. always got strong applause with: "The trouble with the profit system is that it's unprofitable to most people."
Then they read statistics from the Commerce Department: "Consumers now spend $1.2 trillion on non- essential goods & services like jewelry, yachts, sports cars, alcoholic beverages and candy. Spending on discretionary luxury items has risen to 11.2% of total consumer spending, up from only 4% in 1960."
You wonder what they're wondering...
The unemployment rate among 18-24 year olds is 24%, about the same as in Egypt. College graduates by the millions are forced to move back with their parents, already sensing they'll be responsible for the nation's staggering deficits run up by their parents. One Ivy League graduate was quoted recently in the New York Times with what could be his generation's emerging credo: "Maybe it sounds silly to you that an Egyptian-style revolution could happen in a rich democracy, but watch out. The American Dream is unavailable to my generation, and the frustration out here is growing...!"
Brewing dissent in societies has traditionally been stanched by traditional policies by traditional officials. In ancient Rome the emperors offered bread-and-circuses. Today's presidents have unemployment benefits, job programs, and rhetoric. This time, however, old solutions may not work, because this time there is the new specter of automation.
In the name of progress, we automate everything. The results are usually good until they're bad. Today's automated culture no longer impacts only the blue-collar workers. Powerful software programs are replacing entire armies of financial officers, accountants, computer-chip designers, even lawyers and health technicians. Newsweek magazine said it well: "If not quite the Great Depression, it is certainly the Great Humbling."
Now to really get the facts, I plan to take my bright college-graduating grandson for a long lunch. And since my generation's the culprit, I will pay the bill...!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
MAY IS SO REMARKABLY DIFFERENT
May is traditionally considered the month-of-flowers following the month-of-showers. But really now, it's so much more. Isn't May more the month-of-memories? Mothers' Day...proms...graduations...all coming to an emotional crescendo with Memorial Day.
Each of these days is weighted with memories. Cherishable remembrances of the Mom that was somehow always there. The date that will always occupy a special place. The classmates who will always remain the emotional scenery to that once-in-a-lifetime day. And surely all the faceless ghosts you never knew whose deaths in strange lands helped make your Mays possible.
Which brings us to the question: So what should a person do with all these memories...?
Some can be quickly deleted. Re-living faults and failures is like re-arranging the skeletons in a tomb. There are better things to do. But wait...! this doesn't mean tombs don't have their place. From the very beginning, we have intuitively thought to keep holy that which has been lost or died. Even in America, the-land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-perpetually-young, we aren't obliged to dismiss whatever is past.
However -- being a hard-nosed, pragmatic people -- perhaps yesterday's memories need to be defined and defended as having some no-nonsense, practical uses for today. Fair enough.
Imagine all the accumulated memories tucked (or lost) somewhere in your home (or heart). Old photos... saved petals...trinkets from that day...letters from that person... diplomas and certificates from that institution...now even videotapes and cellphone pictures. Why have you kept them so long? Maybe because you needed some pragmatic assurance that these sweet moments really did happen.
Sweet...? Yes, possibly their very sweetness is their value. Everyday life can be a bitter-tasting menu of little battles and large struggles. How sweet it is to occasionally add some sugar to the cup. To re-visit the good people and good times which can brighten even your darkest hours. To feel the energy of forgotten victories surge through your sagging soul.
This is why games have timeouts...days have evenings...winters have spring. Sugar is not something to over-dose on; and yet, there is something indispensable to what it brings to the meals. We don't remember days, we remember moments. And these moments are the diary and the literature of our life. He who fails to keep the pages fresh -- both as an individual and as part of the collective culture -- is risking the loss of one of the spices that help make life worth eating...
Each of these days is weighted with memories. Cherishable remembrances of the Mom that was somehow always there. The date that will always occupy a special place. The classmates who will always remain the emotional scenery to that once-in-a-lifetime day. And surely all the faceless ghosts you never knew whose deaths in strange lands helped make your Mays possible.
Which brings us to the question: So what should a person do with all these memories...?
Some can be quickly deleted. Re-living faults and failures is like re-arranging the skeletons in a tomb. There are better things to do. But wait...! this doesn't mean tombs don't have their place. From the very beginning, we have intuitively thought to keep holy that which has been lost or died. Even in America, the-land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-perpetually-young, we aren't obliged to dismiss whatever is past.
However -- being a hard-nosed, pragmatic people -- perhaps yesterday's memories need to be defined and defended as having some no-nonsense, practical uses for today. Fair enough.
Imagine all the accumulated memories tucked (or lost) somewhere in your home (or heart). Old photos... saved petals...trinkets from that day...letters from that person... diplomas and certificates from that institution...now even videotapes and cellphone pictures. Why have you kept them so long? Maybe because you needed some pragmatic assurance that these sweet moments really did happen.
Sweet...? Yes, possibly their very sweetness is their value. Everyday life can be a bitter-tasting menu of little battles and large struggles. How sweet it is to occasionally add some sugar to the cup. To re-visit the good people and good times which can brighten even your darkest hours. To feel the energy of forgotten victories surge through your sagging soul.
This is why games have timeouts...days have evenings...winters have spring. Sugar is not something to over-dose on; and yet, there is something indispensable to what it brings to the meals. We don't remember days, we remember moments. And these moments are the diary and the literature of our life. He who fails to keep the pages fresh -- both as an individual and as part of the collective culture -- is risking the loss of one of the spices that help make life worth eating...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
THE PROFOUND MATTER OF THE HUMAN ARMPIT
There's something to be learned from the human armpit. Yes, there is. Take the time to examine any photo or film, and the point becomes folliclely clear. Men are allowed to keep their pit-hair, but women are not....
Rather than submit silently to current custom, some of us feel compelled to raise this matter. Does it not instruct us in the forever-changing ways of our species? At one time both genders were acceptable with hairy armpits. Just like they were with earrings, whigs, tattoes and perfumes. However, over time and space, the rules changed. Suggesting perhaps there really are no rules. Only passing customs.
The list is long. There have been times and places where goddesses not gods prevailed...where homosexuality was not a sin, but an addition...where the elderly were not confined, but revered...where the mentally challenged were not dismissed, but invited...where hallucinatory herbs were common, not convicted....where human sacrifice was deemed the highest form of religion.
As we come upon so many customs so different from our own -- one of the benefits and curses of today's worldwide web -- we are left to wonder. Better yet, to re-think who, what and where we are on this crowded road where 7 billion of us continue to journey and judge one another. As seen from down here on the dusty, angry trails, we're in competition. As seen from an astronaut crew, we are really all the very same mass of moving matter trying to survive on this spinning shrinking sphere.
Long before astronauts there have been prophets. Wise men and women who have taken the time to take the measure of our time on this brief planet. Very often these wise people say wise things which other wise people write down for the rest of us to consider. Some of us attribute all the world's good to these words; lately others attribute most of the world's evil to these words.
Lets us think of it all this way. We may each behold the armpit in different ways, yet we all have the same arm pits. Suggesting that our sameness -- that universal suite of virtues and vices in our nature -- was what those prophets and their words were trying to remind us. That this sameness should be a fine place from which our species might try once more to get this right....
Rather than submit silently to current custom, some of us feel compelled to raise this matter. Does it not instruct us in the forever-changing ways of our species? At one time both genders were acceptable with hairy armpits. Just like they were with earrings, whigs, tattoes and perfumes. However, over time and space, the rules changed. Suggesting perhaps there really are no rules. Only passing customs.
The list is long. There have been times and places where goddesses not gods prevailed...where homosexuality was not a sin, but an addition...where the elderly were not confined, but revered...where the mentally challenged were not dismissed, but invited...where hallucinatory herbs were common, not convicted....where human sacrifice was deemed the highest form of religion.
As we come upon so many customs so different from our own -- one of the benefits and curses of today's worldwide web -- we are left to wonder. Better yet, to re-think who, what and where we are on this crowded road where 7 billion of us continue to journey and judge one another. As seen from down here on the dusty, angry trails, we're in competition. As seen from an astronaut crew, we are really all the very same mass of moving matter trying to survive on this spinning shrinking sphere.
Long before astronauts there have been prophets. Wise men and women who have taken the time to take the measure of our time on this brief planet. Very often these wise people say wise things which other wise people write down for the rest of us to consider. Some of us attribute all the world's good to these words; lately others attribute most of the world's evil to these words.
Lets us think of it all this way. We may each behold the armpit in different ways, yet we all have the same arm pits. Suggesting that our sameness -- that universal suite of virtues and vices in our nature -- was what those prophets and their words were trying to remind us. That this sameness should be a fine place from which our species might try once more to get this right....
Monday, May 9, 2011
THE REVENGE OF THE REVENGE-OF-THE-NERDS
If you attend any college-prep school for boys, you understand that along with a classic education, there are the manly arts of football, basketball, and rifle clubs. That said, there is also the less manly arts of music, poetry and debating. Most everyone wants to be on the football team; those who can't often end up on the debating team. However, lately there's the popularly-reported twist to the tale. Long after the flashy runners have turned fleshy, the debaters (aka, nerds) often have the last laugh in adult life.
But wait, there's more to this story....!
Often the revenge-of-the-nerds turns out to be the glorification-of-the-glib. Just look around and notice how yesterday's articulate nerds often become today's power players. Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh are only two examples. Admit it -- glib is in style. In business, politics, academia, journalism, athletics, and in the mass media. If you've got the proverbial gift-of-gab, chances are you're a top salesperson ...a winning campaigner...a popular journalist...a highly interviewed player...and you usually show up on top rated programs from Saturday Night Live to the network news to hosting the latest game show to being featured on the newest reality show to being the MC at the next reunion.
Damn, but we just love the people who can charm and weave words together. Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Reagan; Orson Welles, Walter Cronkite, Maya Angelou; Oprah, Jay, David. Call it talent, call it personality, call it charisma, call it hustle. Whatever it is, it sells! Then, after it's all over, you sometimes wonder: What just happened??
Words can be tools or weapons, magic or delusion, beauty or monstrosity. They can be used like bricks on the Yellow Brick Road to emeralds, or steps down to the gates of hell. The funny thing about us is that as kids we were often convinced that beauty and brawn was what counted. Later in life, we still enjoy beauty and brawn...but now tend to follow wishes and words.
A closing plea. If the Trojans learned to beware-of-Greeks-bearing-gifts, when will we learn to beware of any gifts that sound too good to be true?
But wait, there's more to this story....!
Often the revenge-of-the-nerds turns out to be the glorification-of-the-glib. Just look around and notice how yesterday's articulate nerds often become today's power players. Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh are only two examples. Admit it -- glib is in style. In business, politics, academia, journalism, athletics, and in the mass media. If you've got the proverbial gift-of-gab, chances are you're a top salesperson ...a winning campaigner...a popular journalist...a highly interviewed player...and you usually show up on top rated programs from Saturday Night Live to the network news to hosting the latest game show to being featured on the newest reality show to being the MC at the next reunion.
Damn, but we just love the people who can charm and weave words together. Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Reagan; Orson Welles, Walter Cronkite, Maya Angelou; Oprah, Jay, David. Call it talent, call it personality, call it charisma, call it hustle. Whatever it is, it sells! Then, after it's all over, you sometimes wonder: What just happened??
Words can be tools or weapons, magic or delusion, beauty or monstrosity. They can be used like bricks on the Yellow Brick Road to emeralds, or steps down to the gates of hell. The funny thing about us is that as kids we were often convinced that beauty and brawn was what counted. Later in life, we still enjoy beauty and brawn...but now tend to follow wishes and words.
A closing plea. If the Trojans learned to beware-of-Greeks-bearing-gifts, when will we learn to beware of any gifts that sound too good to be true?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
RARE DISAPPOINTMENT WITH MY HEROES AT NPR
As every gun-loving red-neck knows, National Public Radio (NPR) is currently in the gun-sights of those pols who find it "un-American." A classic example of fears in the face of facts. Fears bred and spread by chatterers like Limbaugh and Trump, and even as thinkers like Gingrich and Boehner.
However, as a dedicated NPR fan who disagrees with these kill-the-messenger hawkers, I feel obliged to report a rare disappointment with NPR. In its recent program on centenarians, its stats were indisputable; but not all its conclusions.
Today there are 36 million seniors (12% of the population) projected to reach 86 millions by 2050 (21%). Today there are 483 million seniors worldwide, expected to be 974 million by 2030. As for centenarians, there are 68,000 today which will reach 580,000 by 2040.
So what did NPR do in talking with centenarians...? They could have plumbed the depths of their waning memories in order to assemble the benefit of their first-hand experiences. Instead, NPR seems to have caught America's chirpy seize-the-day-and-keep-yourself-busy mantra. NPR said, "We didn't want to dwell on the centenarians' old yesterdays, but rather their on opinions about their new tomorrows."
Isn't that like asking today's few remaining WWII veterans what they think about the new space age, instead of what they can report about an age which only a few of them are left to tell us about first-hand. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't care to hear how centenarians like basket-weaving, water-polo, three-card-poker, or wood-shop. Nor do I find their opinions about staying fit and eating healthy an imperative.
What I DO crave to hear and learn from them, is why and how they prevailed along the twisting trails of the times they lived. Times we might otherwise not fully understand. And that includes those crises and cures they lived through we might otherwise simply take for granted. Also both the prevailing principles and prejudices that walked with them over their trek through time. Centenarians are living time-capsules who have much to report about how we all got to where we are, and those capsules should be broken open.
Where we're going from here is for US to consider. But while the old are still with us, lets us gather around the campfires and ask THEM to tell us stories...
However, as a dedicated NPR fan who disagrees with these kill-the-messenger hawkers, I feel obliged to report a rare disappointment with NPR. In its recent program on centenarians, its stats were indisputable; but not all its conclusions.
Today there are 36 million seniors (12% of the population) projected to reach 86 millions by 2050 (21%). Today there are 483 million seniors worldwide, expected to be 974 million by 2030. As for centenarians, there are 68,000 today which will reach 580,000 by 2040.
So what did NPR do in talking with centenarians...? They could have plumbed the depths of their waning memories in order to assemble the benefit of their first-hand experiences. Instead, NPR seems to have caught America's chirpy seize-the-day-and-keep-yourself-busy mantra. NPR said, "We didn't want to dwell on the centenarians' old yesterdays, but rather their on opinions about their new tomorrows."
Isn't that like asking today's few remaining WWII veterans what they think about the new space age, instead of what they can report about an age which only a few of them are left to tell us about first-hand. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't care to hear how centenarians like basket-weaving, water-polo, three-card-poker, or wood-shop. Nor do I find their opinions about staying fit and eating healthy an imperative.
What I DO crave to hear and learn from them, is why and how they prevailed along the twisting trails of the times they lived. Times we might otherwise not fully understand. And that includes those crises and cures they lived through we might otherwise simply take for granted. Also both the prevailing principles and prejudices that walked with them over their trek through time. Centenarians are living time-capsules who have much to report about how we all got to where we are, and those capsules should be broken open.
Where we're going from here is for US to consider. But while the old are still with us, lets us gather around the campfires and ask THEM to tell us stories...
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