WANNA TALKS PACs? HERE'S THE BIGGEST!

"Death is a distant rumor to the young!"

That's according to Andy Rooney. Living into his nineties, Andy knew what he was talking about. He could have added this may be why the young are so intensely attracted to our digital information culture. They feel they're going to be around long enough for all this stuff to be important to them.

That, in turn, may be why the senior population use blogs, tweets and Facebook so much less. They seem to say: "Be there, done that, why bother!"

And yet counter-intuitive as it seems, seniors often participate more in the political process than do the young. Consider how many elders have mounted the Tea Party movement, calls to change the FDR monument in Washington (they don't like him in wheelchair), and now a demand about the new Eisenhower monument (they don't want him portrayed simply in his barefoot youth). Their loudest calls, predictably, are about protecting Entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pensions).

As it turns out, both the young and the seniors have only limited staying power when it comes to their political agendas. Kids have their life to live; seniors have the doctors to see. That's why no matter how large their majorities, some minority usually carries the day. Minorities defined as those lobbies and interest groups who quietly but relentlessly stay in the fight to the end.

Enter our newest minorities: Political Action Committees (PACs).These along with big-buck-billionaires have lately come to own our democracy. Lock, stock and barrel. After all, the Supreme Court said so!

Looking for a way to buy it back...? Every political activist out there has an idea and a 800 number. That's when I noticed a very different number. This image of a phone at our local train station which read: "You can call anywhere toll free. Press 12 for God and he will accept the charges."

FEEL LIKE A LOSER? YOU MAY HAVE A GREAT FUTURE.!

"Loser" has become this generation's new anathema. What could be worse? But wait, what does the record show? If you had paid more attention in your history classes, you might have noticed just how many losers end up winners. Well, they usually have to be dead first. But I'm just saying...!

The hottest example lately is Spartacus. You probably never heard of him in class, but ever since Kirk Douglas made the ancient Roman slave-warrior famous [ 1960 ] he's been a screen hit. Similarly, there are other famous losers [ read killed or died-out-of-power ] like Caesar...Cleopatra...Joan of Arc... Napoleon... Lincoln...Robert E Lee...George Custer...Jesse James...Truman...Kennedy. I had several uncles who were big-time losers too, but I won't force them into this august list.

To be sure, not every loser turns into a national hero after their death. But those who do may have something to say from the grave. For one thing, history is not written; it's re-written by each generation deciding for itself how to judge a loser. For another thing, it's always easier for a guilty nation [ like a guilty mourner ] to think good things about someone who is no longer with us. It sorta expunges our guilt plus gives us a safe new hero to worship.

This same chink in the armor of our tainted human nature needs to be re-examined every time loud verdicts are being rendered by the self-righteous. Say today! Talk-radio callers! cable-news pontificators! columnists, bloggers, and barbers across the land! Like the brawling fans in the stands, we can always play the game better; but only when we actually don't have to play the game!

So a long reflective time out here, fellow citizens.

The next time we judge another -- player, president, pope or even pop star -- a Mirror Moment, please. Looking at our self, don't we feel our losses in life should be judged in a boarder context than just the immediate moment? Just my latest action? Just my latest error? There's more to me than just now!

But think how long it took some of history's "losers" to be recognized as winners after all. If you don't want to wait that long or see these people that dead, then please. A long reflective time out.

WOW, NEVER SEEN THIS IRRESISTIBLE FORCE vs THIS IMMOVABLE OBJECT!

The world looks warily at the hundreds of millions in China and India. Such size spells power. But have we noticed the 800 million people who "inhabit" Facebook's growing digital kingdom? It's become the world's third largest nation; and even without flag or army, it's a sovereign force unlike any in history. I know, because I live there; and an unelected leader named Zuckerberg governs there.

Usually bold innovations like Facebook are the irresistible force meeting the Immovable object like humanity. You know who you are...! To date, Facebook may be winning, given the way it's helped change elections, topple governments, and lately made the Komen Foundation backtrack. Privately owned and regulated, how does the world deal with this growing nation?

For one thing, we need to adjust, adapt and adopt, because you can't hide in the stubborn closets of your mind any longer. For a second thing, we need to understand from now on there will always be new virtual realities side by side with actual realities. So here's the plan. When you take your iPhones and laptops with you, why not introduce the little giants to worlds they've never experienced before.

That favorite Willow under which you have often dreamed...that special shoreline you know so well... that trail through the city's forest preserve where you talk to the birds...that stop on the highway where you've often pulled over to smell the land...and if you're really lucky, that cruise ship taking you to your own far-off Xanadu.

It's really all so simple. As our species has developed the new -- wheel, fire, printing, radio, television -- it's been given another staggering opportunity. To use or misuse? You see, it's not the tool but the toolmaker that decides. For instance, whenever I notice another FEAR FACTOR or JERSEY SHORE on television, I know right down to the pit of my wrenching stomach that humanity has botched television. Lets see what we can do with Facebook....

A XANADU JUST FOR YOU...!!!

When I fall asleep I often wish I too could wake with such a mystic dream. But I'm not Coleridge. And I don't use his magic dust. However, if you're like me, you too would love to discover your very own Xanadu. Where...? Perhaps in those shrouded Tibetan highlands...or some Mediterranean island ...or why not tucked inside the impenetrable forests that give Maine some of its magic.

Those are the charts you like to travel when young and immortal. Later you discover smaller maps which, like an uncovered Mozart manuscript, lie hidden in some attic of your mind. Xanadu is usually closer than you thought.

Why not at your next school reunion? Where years of dis-information on your part suddenly glow in the realization that -- like Sally Fields receiving her surprise Oscar -- "you really really like me!" Or maybe that soup kitchen where you volunteered? You find, much to your own surprise, the embers of your young passion for others still flares. Or what about how your fingers find on Facebook lives you thought were no longer on your itinerary? Such an unlikely venue for sleeping memories to come digitally alive with distant family, friends, students and colleagues whose voices now become a soaring chorus in your new Xanadu.

There's that saying about old dogs and new tricks. You can't stop becoming old. On the other hand, you can stop forgetting how to be young. Not "American Idol" young! Eager old-age young! Whose youth the young cannot possibly yet understand....

WHAT I LEARNED BY CANCELING ALL MY WORKOUTS

Frankly, I don't believe you when you tell me you love getting up with the birds, trudging to the gym, and going from torture-machine to torture machine.

I grant our national fixation with wellness. There's even a popular rumor among the young that Science is on the brink of finding a cure for death. OK, reality-check. Not true. But it IS working on a pill to replace exercise.

That's when this overweight pasta-lover starts paying attention. Some healthy members of Harvard Medical School report a drug is possible soon. Be still my fluttering heart...! They explain when we exercise, our muscles produce a hormone that communicates with our body fat. This Irisin hormone transforms stagnant white cells into fat brown cells which burn calories.

So, I'm thinking a couple shots of Irisin with my evening snack drowsing through Letterman means I wake up each morning a few ounces less. By the end of a year, pasta-boy is svelt-boy and I can forget about that gym application I never intended to sign anyway.

Well, wouldn't you know it. Here's one of those small-print science footnotes. While the gang at Harvard are dreaming my dream, their counterparts in the US Army have found several popular workout supplements like Jack3d and OxyElite Pro may cause death. Never fails. Science giveth and science taketh away...!

Here's my theory. At one time being fat was a sign of prosperity. Being skinny usually meant poverty. Fat men were viewed as successful; fat women were the object of sculptor attentions. But today, Hollywood icons like Sydney Greenstreet and Marilyn Monroe would have to lose weight. What...??

I won't contest the wisdom of lean. But I will share a fragrant fable from mealtimes in an earlier America. Yes, my children, there really was an age when food was among humanity's highest pleasures. Boundless feasts of red meat... whole milk...eggs and cheese...sugary desserts and creamy thick fountain delights. And you know what? Not an ingredient label in sight...!

I kid you not. Back in that fabled time, Americans chose their foods based on pleasure not proteins, taste not thought. Did we die younger? There are many studies confirming that fact. Did we die happier? Aha, not a single study from either Harvard or the Army on that question.

"AN D THE WINNER IS..." OH NO NOT ANOTHER ONE!

Had your fill of award shows yet...? Wait, there's more...!

When members of the animal kingdom succeed at something, they award themselves by cackling, strutting, beating their chests, spreading their wings. Homo sapiens like to give one another trophies. Behold the awesome arrogance of the Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, Golden Globes, Obies, Country Westerns, the list runs on into televised perpetuity.

Nothing's wrong with celebrating achievement, for achieving is what living is supposed to include. But really, I ask you, when do we stop....! Along with 23 ego-extravaganzas a year where entertainers entertain themselves with entertainment baubles for their entertainment resumes, come countless retirement dinners, school reunions, and doctor/lawyer/teacher/cafeteria-of-the-year celebrations. Where sometimes there are awards just for showing up.

A new zeitgeist is afoot in our fair land, starting in our school PE classes: "Everyone's A Winner!" Good for our self-image, self-confidence, self, self and self. In fact, so much self, the concept selfless has been excised from most dictionaries. Teddy Roosevelt, Any Rand, George Patton, and Steve Jobs would not understand.

I don't understand. Not because honoring our betters is wrong. Rather, because lately we have decided no one is really "better." Not in a democracy. Not where the most uneducated, incoherent, dis-informed, bought-by-TV-ads voter can cast their ballot with as much authority as the Harvard professor, Silcon Valley entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal editor, and my highly educated and passionately informed children. Sorry.

Democracy was born in ancient Greece where the greatest Greek of them all, Aristotle, wrote: "Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them."

THE WHERE THAT IS NO LONGERE THERE

Everything in our life takes place in, well, in a place. It's the inevitable Where which comes with the When. You have them too, but let me mention one of mine. A Where that is no longer there.

A small white summer cottage at the end of a dusty gravel road off Route 120. Hugging a tiny lake called Lily just south of McHenry Illinois. I know, it's an unimportant place to bring to your busy attention. And yet you'll instantly recognize its symbology for your own life, where so many places are likewise no longer there. Somehow, though, their very absence gives them significance.

In the late 1930s, while the Great Depression raged on in cities like our Chicago, this modest corner of the green Midwest countryside became our family's 4 weeks of escape. Dad was struggling to sell new cars for which no one had the money to buy, but he and my uncles wanted their children to experience something more than the stark urban despair of an unemployed city.

Your own childhood Where's may have been a trip to the mountains, the seashore, or all right a cottage. Mine let me discover the un-citified splendors of fields of thick green, rows of yellow corn, blue tongues of water lapping white beaches, and what seemed like a thousand birds never before seen or heard in my mornings.

I drove by that fragrant Where last summer to breathe in the memories. The cottage was gone. Of course. Those summers were almost 80 years ago, Jack! But as I drove closer, I saw a crew of workmen. Something new was going up in my lovely empty Where.

"Good," I thought. If the beat is to go on, every sainted memory deserves a fresh one to take its place. Watching that crew, I thought I could hear my young cousins and I giggling a greeting to them. "We loved it here...maybe you will too!"