"An egotist is a person of low taste -- more interested in himself than in me...!"
When historian Ambrose Bierce said that, he had, oh, about 300 million Americans in mind. I mean, we all tend to think a lot about ourselves. Especially when we're presumptuous enough to write on the Web or on a Facebook wall. However, there are three guys who've turned self-centeredness into exquisite public affairs.
A man in Florida recently sued the manufacturer of his underwear for making "defective" garments. Albert Freed, 62, complained that during his Hawaii vacation, the fly flap was so poorly designed, it kept rubbing his genitalia "like sandpaper." When the judge asked why he hadn't noticed sooner, the 285-pound Freed said he couldn't see past his stomach, and he didn't want to ask his wife "because it might ruin her vacation."
Then there's ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips who was fired after admitting to an extra-marital affair. What gives an old tale a new twist is that the 22-year-old girlfriend has been harassing Phillips' wife with messages identifying the location of his birthmarks. He now reports he's entering rehab to "address his personal issues." When a reporter asked about the birthmarks, he was told "that's strictly personal."
Never a study in modesty, Reverend Jesse Jackson's ego was bruised lately when he was introduced by MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer as the Reverend Al Sharpton. Jesse exploded on the air, snapping, "Get it straight. I'm Jesse Jackson."
What might invite study here is that none of these affairs of ego had anything to do with the complainants' jobs. On the other hand, some of the most effusive public egos have everything to do with their jobs. Their jobs are their egos, and their egos are their jobs. Current cases in point: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Anne Coulter, and Keith Olbermann.
A few generations ago, modesty was considered the better part of valor. At least, that was the recommended role to play in public. What might call for study is at what point in 20th century social time did the rules change? Who changed them? And where was I when it happened....?
Saturday, October 31, 2009
WILL THE BIG BOYS IN TOWN WIN AGAIN?
Chicago Aldermen are objecting to being searched at the city's central headquarters "along with the masses" (SunTimes Nov 1). A small story with large consequences. If they succeed in bullying those operating these legal searches, it will be another body blow to this democracy we say we're waging wars to protect...!
Look at it this way. All through our history we've had the few setting themselves above the many. In the East there were the Boston Brahmin's and the New York 400; in the West, the guys with the biggest ranches and the most guns. Today the habit continues.
We've got "banks too big to fail"..."bonuses too valid to deny"..."games too important to expose drugged players"..."a government too essential to deny its illegal wiretaps"..."a military too set in its ways to allow gays" ...."secrets like Black Water and Halliburton too powerful to reveal." The mindset here is clear -- we're all equal except some of us who are more equal than others!
This small story is worth tracking to see if the big boys quietly win again. The only thing in a democracy that should distinguish one of us from another -- merit. When some of us excel at what we do, let the world know it. And respect it. But let the world still search us whenever necessary. Either that or stop calling this a democracy.
Look at it this way. All through our history we've had the few setting themselves above the many. In the East there were the Boston Brahmin's and the New York 400; in the West, the guys with the biggest ranches and the most guns. Today the habit continues.
We've got "banks too big to fail"..."bonuses too valid to deny"..."games too important to expose drugged players"..."a government too essential to deny its illegal wiretaps"..."a military too set in its ways to allow gays" ...."secrets like Black Water and Halliburton too powerful to reveal." The mindset here is clear -- we're all equal except some of us who are more equal than others!
This small story is worth tracking to see if the big boys quietly win again. The only thing in a democracy that should distinguish one of us from another -- merit. When some of us excel at what we do, let the world know it. And respect it. But let the world still search us whenever necessary. Either that or stop calling this a democracy.
Friday, October 30, 2009
WHEN DID WE BECOME SO MANY AMERICA'S?
There's a special corner in the near-northside which for me is kind of a trinity-of-truth. Here -- all in one neighborhood intersection -- America's three major sub-cultures meet. All within a friendly few feet...!
On the southeast corner -- a busy new Fed Ex office. On the southwest corner -- a cozy old coffee shop. There tucked into the northwest corner -- one of those neighborhood walk-in health clinics. The first is where today's action is! The second, where it was! The third, where a lot of us end up regardless of age!
Some details to flesh out this trinity.
The Fed Ex office bristles with Internet stations, xerox machines, various print and reproduction systems, along with a thriving backdoor fleet of trucks taking in and shipping out important packages to all corners of the city. Median age: 30-ish. Standard dress: smart but casual. Usual conversation: Business and the Bears.
Now the coffee shop is hardly new. Its old signage goes with the age of the neighborhood. Nothing bristles here except maybe some cranky tempers when the coffee arrives too tepid. Median age: 60-ish. Standard dress: casual casual. Usual conversation: Body aches and children in their 3o's who never call.
That health clinic is one of hundreds popping up throughout the metropolitan area. Everything from bruises to burns to flu shots. I've been in one or two, and they're usually a sullen portrait in pain. They serve a 24/7 purpose as the locals keep bumping into their physical fallibility's. Pain, regardless of age or aspirations, is one of the great levellers.
There was a time when there were more levellers. And not quite as many sub-cultures. Funny thing is that now with so many electronic ways to instantly connect, we're often more disconnected than ever. Rarely do we share the same sports or movies or TV programs or books or comedians or even national missions like our incredibly brave GIs fighting to keep little intersections like this one safe.
I visit the Fed Ex office and the gray in my hair stands out as an exception; I grab a breakfast in the coffee shop but frankly here I'm still not gray enough. Strangely, the only visit that reassures and re-connects me is that clinic. Here there are neither generational nor aspirational gaps to get in the way. Sit here for a awhile and you quickly remember what modern living helps you forget. We're really all the same where it counts...
...inside. Inside the heart, the soul, the essence, or maybe the DNA. Whatever it is, it is; and we forget this at our peril.
On the southeast corner -- a busy new Fed Ex office. On the southwest corner -- a cozy old coffee shop. There tucked into the northwest corner -- one of those neighborhood walk-in health clinics. The first is where today's action is! The second, where it was! The third, where a lot of us end up regardless of age!
Some details to flesh out this trinity.
The Fed Ex office bristles with Internet stations, xerox machines, various print and reproduction systems, along with a thriving backdoor fleet of trucks taking in and shipping out important packages to all corners of the city. Median age: 30-ish. Standard dress: smart but casual. Usual conversation: Business and the Bears.
Now the coffee shop is hardly new. Its old signage goes with the age of the neighborhood. Nothing bristles here except maybe some cranky tempers when the coffee arrives too tepid. Median age: 60-ish. Standard dress: casual casual. Usual conversation: Body aches and children in their 3o's who never call.
That health clinic is one of hundreds popping up throughout the metropolitan area. Everything from bruises to burns to flu shots. I've been in one or two, and they're usually a sullen portrait in pain. They serve a 24/7 purpose as the locals keep bumping into their physical fallibility's. Pain, regardless of age or aspirations, is one of the great levellers.
There was a time when there were more levellers. And not quite as many sub-cultures. Funny thing is that now with so many electronic ways to instantly connect, we're often more disconnected than ever. Rarely do we share the same sports or movies or TV programs or books or comedians or even national missions like our incredibly brave GIs fighting to keep little intersections like this one safe.
I visit the Fed Ex office and the gray in my hair stands out as an exception; I grab a breakfast in the coffee shop but frankly here I'm still not gray enough. Strangely, the only visit that reassures and re-connects me is that clinic. Here there are neither generational nor aspirational gaps to get in the way. Sit here for a awhile and you quickly remember what modern living helps you forget. We're really all the same where it counts...
...inside. Inside the heart, the soul, the essence, or maybe the DNA. Whatever it is, it is; and we forget this at our peril.
I KNOW ONE WHEN I SEE ONE
The carefully detailed ranking of Chicagoland schools (Sun Times, Oct 30) was almost but not quite complete. The perennial puzzle to what-makes-a-good-school is always missing a piece. The gifted teacher...!
We're not the first generation that's tried desperately to figure out what makes schools good. National programs like No School Left Behind and local programs like magnet and charter schools do all they can. But what they usually don't do is keep the few indispensable gifted teachers by rewarding them outside the fixed union-contract box.
Sure, we can measure things like building budgets and equipment inventories and now the prima donna of all measurements: Achievement scores. However -- as with all fields and professions -- we can't exactly measure giftedness. To alter an old adage: "I can't define a gifted teacher, but I know one when I see one!"
So here's the secret piece to the puzzle you didn't report. Virtually every principal, every faculty member, every parent, even every union rep, and certainly every student knows a girted teacher when they see one. These special few not only teach subject matter well, they touch lives forever! You've had one or two and so have I. But we've got to keep them from leaving the system, because they're the flame that helps fire the whole system.
How? Just like we do in far less important fields such as sports and corporations -- bonuses. There has to be a new category in the city school budgets for bonuses for the gifted. Sure, we're a democracy, but while every person is equal in the law, not every teacher is equal in the classroom.
We're not the first generation that's tried desperately to figure out what makes schools good. National programs like No School Left Behind and local programs like magnet and charter schools do all they can. But what they usually don't do is keep the few indispensable gifted teachers by rewarding them outside the fixed union-contract box.
Sure, we can measure things like building budgets and equipment inventories and now the prima donna of all measurements: Achievement scores. However -- as with all fields and professions -- we can't exactly measure giftedness. To alter an old adage: "I can't define a gifted teacher, but I know one when I see one!"
So here's the secret piece to the puzzle you didn't report. Virtually every principal, every faculty member, every parent, even every union rep, and certainly every student knows a girted teacher when they see one. These special few not only teach subject matter well, they touch lives forever! You've had one or two and so have I. But we've got to keep them from leaving the system, because they're the flame that helps fire the whole system.
How? Just like we do in far less important fields such as sports and corporations -- bonuses. There has to be a new category in the city school budgets for bonuses for the gifted. Sure, we're a democracy, but while every person is equal in the law, not every teacher is equal in the classroom.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
I've heard of investigative reporters, but you now have a special-ops one as well (Sun Times, Oct 29). Her name is Sandra Guy, and her cunning report from behind enemy lines was tucked into page 18. Any counter-intelligence agency -- or holiday shopper -- will be glad to get their hands on it...!
A compact summary that could have been squeezed onto a carrier pigeon, this report lays out the retailers' battle plan for the big 8-week campaign coming up. Great espionage, and your reporter lived to tell the tale. For instance, the names of the large emporiums that will announce major discounts and deals...the retailers who plan to add on-line layaway packages...the company coming up with a Black-Friday deal every Saturday from now to Christmas.
Hey, any general should be so lucky to have such intelligence days before the battle!
Of course, intelligence is only as good as its user. Put these secret reports into the hands of holiday-greedy kids, and they'll gobble them up in a reckless buying spree. With all due respect, the same might be said for some of the thrifty women who traditionally have to do all the shopping while their husbands watch football. Probably the smartest user will be the grandmothers.
They remember something of the Great Depression, so they've seen retailers on the prowl like this before. They know something about their strategies and their small print. So grandma is probably the best one to study this document, and design a pre-emptive strike.
There are 00 days to go. Let the games begin....!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
WOMEN & GAYS MAKE NEW NEWS
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced." Ever since James Baldwin wrote this, there've been enormous changes in the role of women and gays in our once- puritanical culture. And yet, progress has its backlash...!
Take the role of women. It's been growing as more and more leave the kitchen for the workplace. Now, however, this has ignited an intriguing backlash among some men. No, not the fading umbrage the male once took at the presence of the female in the workplace. It's now more a matter of money than mores. Today a whopping 26% of wives earn more than their husbands in two-income households. Among all married couples, that number hits 34%.
How is the fragile male ego responding...? In some cases, pragmatically. "Hey, whatever it takes to make the monthly rent," say many. Others, tho, have reported: "A funny feeling I'm not in control anymore" One wonders what these two categories of husband share in common. Perhaps the weekend tailgate parties where football is still played exclusively by the male of the species.
Of course there's always the argument that the women prevail here today, because, "No woman is dumb enough to play a sport in which the average career time is 6.5 years, followed by 20 years of arthritis!"
As for the role of the gays, this has not only grown in the world of the arts -- from Broadway to Hollywood -- but everywhere else as well. Take a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Italy this month. An Italian couple is suing their cruise line for a $4500 refund.They claim they were not advised the ship was Italy's "first all-gay cruise of the Mediterranean." The plaintiffs argue they were the only straight couple among the 1500 guests.
Nowhere in the court proceedings has anyone decided whether the cruise line will continue the practice. Outside the Vatican, the odds right now are 20 to 1 they will.
This is just a guess, but maybe comedian George Burns put it best in describing what makes people happy in a changing culture: "Happiness is having a large, loving, close-knit family in another city!"
Take the role of women. It's been growing as more and more leave the kitchen for the workplace. Now, however, this has ignited an intriguing backlash among some men. No, not the fading umbrage the male once took at the presence of the female in the workplace. It's now more a matter of money than mores. Today a whopping 26% of wives earn more than their husbands in two-income households. Among all married couples, that number hits 34%.
How is the fragile male ego responding...? In some cases, pragmatically. "Hey, whatever it takes to make the monthly rent," say many. Others, tho, have reported: "A funny feeling I'm not in control anymore" One wonders what these two categories of husband share in common. Perhaps the weekend tailgate parties where football is still played exclusively by the male of the species.
Of course there's always the argument that the women prevail here today, because, "No woman is dumb enough to play a sport in which the average career time is 6.5 years, followed by 20 years of arthritis!"
As for the role of the gays, this has not only grown in the world of the arts -- from Broadway to Hollywood -- but everywhere else as well. Take a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Italy this month. An Italian couple is suing their cruise line for a $4500 refund.They claim they were not advised the ship was Italy's "first all-gay cruise of the Mediterranean." The plaintiffs argue they were the only straight couple among the 1500 guests.
Nowhere in the court proceedings has anyone decided whether the cruise line will continue the practice. Outside the Vatican, the odds right now are 20 to 1 they will.
This is just a guess, but maybe comedian George Burns put it best in describing what makes people happy in a changing culture: "Happiness is having a large, loving, close-knit family in another city!"
NAKED vs NARCISSISTIC
With all the great debates raging in our country, this is a pretty small one. And yet it's been given some pretty big attention (Sun Times Oct 27 & 28). Apparently it's over the "great trauma" the last generations suffered because they had to swim naked in gym classes...!
Frankly, isn't this an example of past nudity vs present narcissism? Today's generation seems to have this self-indulgent habit of deciding in retrospect what was and wasn't traumatic. Which, really, is presuming to judge what was by what is. In the real world, each generation has its own standards that fit its own times. Nude swimming classes were really no more traumatic for most kids back then, than body-piercing parties are today. Just depends on which generation you're living in!
Before getting so hung up on judging what is or is not traumatic, lets remember. Today's generation might find Marilyn Monroe "fat," but her generation thought she was just fine. Today's generation has fun at the expense of the "mean" Catholic nuns, whereas most kids in their generation found them devoted and loving. Today's generation often damns President Truman for dropping the atomic bomb on civilians, but before passing sentence they'd have to be one of the scared GI's back then facing a million-man casualty attack on Japan.
Having opinions...? Fine! Pronouncing judgments...? Better think twice. Or to put that another way, better be in Cutler's helmet on Sunday before you judge his game on Monday...
Frankly, isn't this an example of past nudity vs present narcissism? Today's generation seems to have this self-indulgent habit of deciding in retrospect what was and wasn't traumatic. Which, really, is presuming to judge what was by what is. In the real world, each generation has its own standards that fit its own times. Nude swimming classes were really no more traumatic for most kids back then, than body-piercing parties are today. Just depends on which generation you're living in!
Before getting so hung up on judging what is or is not traumatic, lets remember. Today's generation might find Marilyn Monroe "fat," but her generation thought she was just fine. Today's generation has fun at the expense of the "mean" Catholic nuns, whereas most kids in their generation found them devoted and loving. Today's generation often damns President Truman for dropping the atomic bomb on civilians, but before passing sentence they'd have to be one of the scared GI's back then facing a million-man casualty attack on Japan.
Having opinions...? Fine! Pronouncing judgments...? Better think twice. Or to put that another way, better be in Cutler's helmet on Sunday before you judge his game on Monday...
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