Viva Toyota

I'm old enough to remember the late Telly Savalas telling that the car to buy was a Toyota. I loved the way he said the name: "Toyotaaaaaaa." It kind of drifted off into the depths of his baritone. Anyway, thirty or so years later I have taken him up on his suggestion and - with some assistance from you and your tax dollars - I have "purchased" a new toyota. Interesting note: in the owner's manual, it talks about the dangers of things being in the way of airbags when they deploy and it specifically states that things "such as hangers" should not be put on the coat hooks. Argh.

You Are What You Eat

At one point in my life I was more significantly involved in the politics of this state than now. And there is one meeting that stands out in my mind, because it so clearly set out, in a simple, edible metaphor, the differences between liberals and conservatives. For reasons that now escape me, a breakfast meeting had been set up so that members of the Governor's staff could meet with representatives of one of the houses of the state Legislature (I greatly dislike doing business at meals. Meals are for enjoyment, camaraderie, anything but work). As counsel to one of the Governor's Commissioners, I was told to come along. There was a group of perhaps five of us, and a like number of staffers from the Legislature. When all had arrived, we ordered breakfast, it being a breakfast meeting. The conservatives had: fried eggs, bacon, coffee, toast with butter, pancakes, etc. The liberals had dry toast, oatmeal with nothing on it, and tea.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, says it all.

...Like Flies

The latest to die was Thomas Disch. He was one of the new wave of the 60's, more literary than many science fiction writers had been, also, more scatalogical. I didn't care that much for what he wrote. As for his more recent fiction and poetry, I cannot comment at all, as I have not read it. Still I hated to read that he was dead - but for purely selfish reasons. The giants I grew up with all are gone - Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and the rest. I remember reading John Campbell's obit in Analog many years ago. This is part of growing old. People - not relatives or friends, but cultural touchstones - one is comfortable and familiar with grow old as well, and then they die. Or you see a picture of them as old, bent, wrinkled octogenarians and the shock of seeing that ancient face, that face which has buried somewhere within it just a hint of the youthful, ageless man or woman you remember, causes you to pull up short and contemplate just how little time we get.

Photos have only been around for about 200 years. Moving pictures, maybe 100 or so. Television a scant sixty. Yet these things let us see the past with that most vital of senses, they let us look into Lincoln's eyes, or watch Armstrong step on the moon for all mankind. Imagine what it may be like several hundred years hence. Imagine if we had movies of the Revolutionary War, of the first circumnavigation of the globe, of the pyramids being built...

Too much nostalgia, too much living in the past, is unhealthy. But it doesn't hurt to remember that, regardless of the world of physics, time flows for us in only one direction.

Prove It

I was at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles web site the other day, and I happened to look at the requirements for the new, improved, super-duper "Enhanced" Driver's License. For the uninformed (or too disgusted to look into it), the Enhanced Driver's License, or EDL, is a federal law-compliant license issued by a state that will allow individuals to drive across the border into the U.S. from Mexico or Canada. Or they can come in by boat from those countries (maybe a few other places in the Caribbean, I don't remember). However, and no, I am not joking here, it won't work if you FLY into the country from Canada or Mexico. Well, that makes perfect sense, you say. You see, if you're driving or on a boat, you're, well, um.... but, if you take a plane, see, then the security will be, er.... Okay, it makes no sense at all. In fact, it's idiotic. Almost as idiotic as having to take off your shoes to get on a plane. Or being forced to leave your toothpaste at the security station because it's more than three ounces. Pointless "do something!" responses to problems that no longer exist. Does ANYONE think a mad jihadist is going to try to hijack a plane and fly it into something now? The pilots know the score, plenty of them are armed, and the damn door to the cockpit is locked! No nut job is getting into a cockpit again in our lifetimes, but there we are, trampling on individual liberties, inconveniencing the HELL out of everyone, creating yet another dull-witted and money devouring bureacracy and treating citizens like cattle to prevent it from happening.

And by the way, the requirements for getting an EDL, which started this whole thing, are the typical government redundancies coupled with incomprehensible document requirements. One gets "points" for certain documents, and you must prove not only that you are you, but that the you you are is a citizen. One would think that a passport would be sufficient proof to get what is in effect a 'passport lite.' But, astonishingly, it is not. See, a passport proves you're a citizen, but it doesn't prove you're YOU. Honest to God, I am not making this up.

When the epitaph for this great and good nation is written, it will reference such pointless exercises in government control as the fulcrum upon which America was lifted and then hurled into the abyss.

Oooh, That Smell

I get that people have different levels of sensitivity; that some people can smell like a bloodhound, others like a - hmmm... what can't smell well? Anyway, most people can smell to some degree. So why do so many people ladle on their colognes/perfumes to the point that being near them is like being on the inside of one of those smelly pink cakes used in public restrooms? They must think it smells good; they must think others will like the smell; they must think they're using a reasonable amount. How can they be so wrong? This isn't quite the same as blabbermouths in public spaces on cell phones, or maniacs on the road. This is a calculated decision to put on something smelly, as a personal enhancement. It's just weird..

Get Lost

I fear that America is lost. I don't mean lost in some metaphorical, fin-de-siecle, last-one-out-turn-off-the-lights way; I mean lost, as in "where the heck am I?" How else to account for the proliferation of GPS devices and services? From the way they are being marketed for cars, hikers, PDAs, cell phones and probably other things I have missed, one would think that we were a nation of bubbleheads who can't make it to the corner store without a little voice saying "...avoid the panhandler immediately in front of you and turn LEFT into the pharmacy in fifteen feet..." I get that the point of manufacturing is to sell things, and that the point of marketing is to make people feel that they will be left out, laughed at or ostracized if they don't run out and get the latest whosis RIGHT NOW, but GPS seems to be even less essential- for most people- than SUVs. And there aren't many people who actually need an SUV (remember those big station wagons?). Of course they're cool, and they can put you within six inches of any place on the globe, and for some that's reason enough to buy one.

But if we're really buying them because we're lost, that does not bode well for the future.

Will Elder, R.I.P.

He drew pictures that even today make me gasp for air as I laugh. He didn't have the sophistication and technique of Wally Wood, but the content of his panels made the work he did for the early Mad classic. Ping-Pong, Dragged Net, Starchie - Elder, along with the crazed Harvey Kurtzman, savaged the contemporary comics and movies of their day, and did so with staggeringly funny pictures and words.

I was too young to see their work in the original Mad comics, but the paperback reprints of the '60s and the full color reprints of the '90s have been the source of hours of laughter. I had no interest in his later work, but for what he did in his time with Mad I will be forever grateful.

Stumped

I have spent much of the last few days clearing land around the house, and most of the clearing has involved the removal of small to middling-sized trees and their stumps. It is, I can now say from considerable firsthand experience, very hard work. I mean, really hard. I mean, soaked in sweat, panting, drink three quarts of water and your pee is still yellow, hard work. Cutting down the trees is, of course, the easy part. It's getting out the stumps that can be a bitch (no offense meant to the ladies). But, I did actually look up "stump removal" on the web and picked up a few tips the most important being - don't cut the tree flush to the ground, knucklehead! Leave a few feet to act as a lever that you can wiggle, hang on, push, etc. Duh. Such a small thing, but SO important. I also bought my new favorite tool - a pickaxe. Sometimes called a mattock, it's a fabulously effective tool, with the metal pick on one side and an axe-type end on the other side.

Anyway, I am now at the end of another clearing-day, exhausted but cleaned up by a long shower. And I got to thinking about the farmers who lived here a few hundred years ago, and how they had to clear the land. And not just for five hours a day for a couple of days, they had to bust their butts every day they could, and they were pulling out stumps a lot bigger than I was with the same kinds of tools and maybe a team of horses and maybe, I guess, if they were lucky, some dynamite. Farm life had - and still has - its joys, but it is hard, dirty, muscle-wrenching work, even today with power equipment. Imagine homesteading some piece of land that needed to be cleared, plowed, planted, harvested, and you were on your own, and you couldn't just "do it next year" because you'd be dead of starvation, or frozen because you didn't cut enough firewood if you put it off. We often have a different kind of stress than those hardy folk had, and it can be debilitating if we let it. Luckily - and I know that I am lucky - I can take off a few days and physically exhaust myself without needing to do it day in and day out.

Customer Service

I'm pretty steamed right now, but I'm trying to do the right thing and not yell at people (those rare times I actually speak to a person) when I get them on the phone. The sad thing is, I don't really expect to get anywhere without expending a large amount of time and effort, and that leads to "customer service." It's a phrase that is used by every business that provides a service or product, usually embedded in the "mission statement" (and don't get me started on those). But it's an empty phrase, used almost as a talisman in the hope that by printing it, circulating it to staff, posting it in a store, or repeating it, it will ward off bad results.

"Customer service" cannot substitute for, well, customer service. Some individuals care, and try to help. Many are stuck in a corporate morass, and the only way out is for them all to take to heart the platitudes that are generated and ignored by those in charge.

Hey, It's Me

Who hasn't said that? I certainly have. Of course it's me, who else would it be? But it leads me to the whole issue of telephone etiquette or, more precisely, the lack thereof in today's world. "Hey, it's me," is fine, I suppose, when one is calling one's spouse or, perhaps, a child or parent (unless, like my secretary, you have 14 (!) siblings). But I notice the annoying tendency of people whom I don't know all that well calling the house and simply starting to talk, while I search the memory files to see if their voice matches anything remotely connected to a name. It's not right. It puts the listener in the position of having to interrupt and query the caller as to his or her identity.

The flip side of this is the person who doesn't listen at all when I answer the phone. At work I will answer "J- T- speaking," if I don't recognize the number or name on the caller ID (a mixed blessing I'll discuss later; and DON'T get me started on people who 'screen' their calls, grrrrrr...). After identifying myself, I'll often be queried as to whether I am someone else. I will respond no, I'm the person I identified myself as when I answered the phone. How hard is that to understand? It's a specific form of the disastrously prevalent condition that has plagued mankind since we began grunting: we don't really listen to each other all that often. I mean, I specifically state my name upon answering the phone, and the person listening asks if I'm someone else. This hasn't happened once or twice, it has happened many times. Sometimes the farce continues, and the caller asks if this is a particular office. I answer that it is not. They question me, wanting to make sure. Could I be lying? Is it a plot to keep them from finding the office they need? I respond, again, that it is not the office they want.

How often do we not believe what we hear? How often does this carry over into other things - our lives, our loves? How often do we wait, fidgeting, for the other blowhard to finish - for the love of God, finish! - so that we can finally begin talking and explain everything to everyone? It's hard to listen sometimes.

Schadenfreude

Really cool word, but a crummy emotion (enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others). There's a lot of it going around in New York State today, as the soon-to-be former Governor resigned effective this Monday due to a truly astonishing sexcapade involving high priced prostitutes, laundered money, secret trysts and who knows what else. It seems only fitting to many, as he was an insufferable, arrogant, self-righteous bully. Still, it does not do one any good to relish another's suffering. If there is one thing about the human condition that I know with absolute certainty, it is that we screw up. Every single one of us, more than once, will screw up big-time. And when we do, we will need the help of others to deal with the mess we have created.

To enjoy or delight in the failure or misfortune of another diminishes us. Perhaps, being human, we can't help it, but we can know that it is wrong, feel guilty when we do it, and try not to in the future.

William Buckley Didn't Yell (Except at Gore Vidal)

I never met him, but I did go to a lecture of his in the '70's when I was in college. He was witty, quick, brilliant, devastating when squashing some budding leftist in the audience - pretty much all of the things people who knew him say that he was. And I watched him on Firing Line from time to time, and marveled at his quick mind and grasp of issues. But I was also fascinated, then and now, by his ability to remain friends with people whose political, social or cultural opinions he opposed. It's an ability that so many of us lack.

What passes for social discourse often degenerates into the shouting matches that infest television or the one-sided jeremiads of the radio talk show hosts. And I think it has infected us all. There can be passion and commitment without anger or ad hominem attacks. There can be, but there usually isn't, and that's sad.

Thank You. You're Welcome.

When did the response to "thank you" become "thank you?" It seems to happen all of the time on radio and television, and more often than I like in real life as well. Some announcer interviews an individual and when the whole thing is over, says "Mr. X, thank you for appearing," and Mr. X replies "thank you." It happens so much that I find myself sometimes coming close to doing it at, say a checkout counter in a store. The clerk (sorry, "sales associate" - funny, they still get paid like a clerk...) says "thank you" and I stumble over "th - you're welcome." Because, after all, that is the proper response, yes? There are many variations, and I use them as the situation warrants: "you're welcome," "oh, it was nothing," "my pleasure," even, in very relaxed circumstances, some variation of "sure, no problem." And, very rarely, "no, thank you." But that's a special situation, as you can no doubt tell from the italics. Anyway, it bugs me, because the whole point of the "thank you, you're welcome" dance is to show appreciation on one side, and to acknowledge it on the other. Two "thank you's" essentially say "we're all equal here, yes you did something for me, but my letting you do it for me is just as important as your doing it..." or some such nonsense. It's egalitarianising (no, I don't think it's a word, but it should be) one more aspect of our society where everyone is "special" and we're all above average. Well, phooey. Social conventions exist for a reason, and that reason is to grease the operation of the otherwise cranky machine we call society. When they become bastardized, it should be for a good reason, not for some silly cultural equalization process that is for our own good. Thank you. And you're welcome.

How Much Don't I Know?

Every now and then I get to thinking (always dangerous), and what sometimes gets me going is a reference to some scientific or historical fact of which I know little or nothing. Like, say, the Great Siege of Malta in the 1500s.

The what?

I came across a reference to it and, not having heard of it and feeling, for the umpteenth time, that my education had been sorely lacking, I had to go look it up. Of course, one looks up things on the web at one's own risk, but that's a different post... Anyway, there is so much that I don't know, that I sometimes feel like the donkey who starved to death between two bales of hay. Unable to choose, he wasted away, poor jackass. Then I look at all of the time I have wasted in nonproductive ways and if I'm not careful, things go downhill fast. But sometimes I get to work and learn something, and that's a good thing. At least for me it is. I like to learn things, and my aged brain can still stretch enough to keep new facts in place. Some things come easy, some hard. But I do need to make the time.

Six Days

No, not the Six Day War, the six days in Genesis. There's a creationism museum somewhere that some guy dredged up enough money to open, and people are flocking to it. I guess if otherwise intelligent people want to believe in a God who literally created the universe in six days and then, having tired himself out, sat out the seventh, it's none of my business. But it does kind of give me the willies. And it begins to annoy me when those same people want their belief taught co-equally in science class. I'm not anti-religion in schools, but if you want to discuss creationism (or its spiffed-up but equally retarded half-brother "intelligent design") in a classroom, do it in a "religion around the world" setting. Don't pawn it off as science. Because if that's done, science becomes opinion becomes junk. And there's enough junk science out there as it is.

Cheap, Free Power

While we dump umpty-gazillion dollars into the war in Iraq, we continue to have a, what can charitably be called, "fractured" energy policy. The Greens are beside themselves, as even they are forced to admit that all the wind/water/whatever systems in the world won't amount to anything compared to the current U.S. power consumption, which leaves nuclear as the only reasonable short-term (the next 50 to 100 years) power alternative, and some (but, to their credit not all) of them would rather go back to the Stone Age than use power generated by a *gasp* nuclear reactor. The government, in the way that only massive, self-concerned bureacracies can do, says to use hybrids - no, wait, not too many - or to use bio-fuel - yeah, THAT'S the ticket - no, wait, bio-fuel actually causes more "greenhouse gases" than it prevents... um, well... then use wind! solar! heck, we don't have a clue! (that last one is mine).

Here's the recipe, if anyone is asking: build a crapload of nuclear power plants in the U.S. This drives a collapse in the foreign oil market and, gee, what a nice extra, a collapse in the funding for those nuts out there who want to kill Americans. Develop solar power satellites. Big, feathery panels that capture the free solar power and beam it down to God-forsaken locations (Oh yes, IF global warming is man-made, they can deflect the energy coming into the atmosphere. But I sure don't want to be the one figuring out how much solar energy must be reflected to reduce the mean temperature of the earth. Today's meteorologists can't even predict Tuesday's weather with any degree of accuracy). Some day (don't hold your breath) develop fusion power. When I was a kid (mumblety-mumble years ago), fusion power was "20 years in the future." It still is. It may be when my grandchildren are my age. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

The Love of Money...

Money is the root of all evil, right? Well, you can believe that, but if you say it, don't think you are accurately quoting the original phrase. It varies depending on the Bible translation, of course (what? the Bible isn't just one version???) but it pretty much goes like this: "for the love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Timothy 6:10 if you don't believe me). Kind of different. In a great, big, way. Money isn't good or evil. Heck money doesn't even exist. Don't believe me? How much is a dollar bill worth? One dollar? Sez who? You? Your neighbor? The gummint? What if tomorrow they all say something different? Fact is, a dollar is worth a dollar because - and ONLY because - everybody agrees that it's worth a dollar. Money doesn't exist, at least not physically. It isn't a "thing." It surely isn't little pieces of metal or crinkly pieces of paper or electronic notations you see on your computer screen when you check your bank account. Money is all in your mind. It's all in eveyone's minds. But I digress...

The love of money, however, can be a real problem, as Tim pointed out 2000 years ago. If you scramble and dig and scrape for the old do-re-mi, and you get lots of it just because you wanted it, odds are the only thing you'll want to do is get more. Blah, who needs that? Not that having enough money to pay the bills is a bad thing, it most emphatically is not! There's nothing noble about being poor, just as there's nothing ignoble about being wealthy (right, John Edwards? Al Gore? Hillary? Teddy?). "I've been rich and I've been poor, and believe me, rich is better." Quick, who said that - Sophie Tucker, Mae West or Gertrude Stein? Well, according to various quote sources, all of them...

Simple statements sometimes contain complex truths, as I think this quote, properly rendered, does. Simple statements can also be stupid and pointless. You pays your many and you takes your chance.

For Want of a Nail...

I've been reading - okay, listening to - 1776, the novel about the year. It's a fascinating story about the early stages of the Revolutionary War and the critical battles and events that take place. One thing that strikes me is how thin was the margin by which the colonies succeeded in their attempt to break away from the Crown. There are so many times when, had a relatively small event taken place, an entire battle and, likely, the entire war would have been lost. And who knows what our world would be like had that happened? It seems that all wars have those little things which occur and on which the fate of something larger, perhaps the entire enterprise, hangs. That anyone is here at all is against the odds...

Reading is FUNdamental!

I was reading an article today, and it quoted Steve Jobs as saying something about not caring about Kindle (Amazon's new electronic book/reader) because "40 percent of the people in the US read one book or less each year." Or words to that effect. Then the article went on to quote some other study that said 27 percent of the people in the US do not read even one book per year, but that a like amount of people read 15 or more books per year (hmmmm... the law of conservation of reading?). But really, whatever the stat, it sounds like there is some really large number of people who don't read even one book each year. What a ghastly statistic! I think of the books I have read, am reading and (hopefully) will read, and I'm appalled that so many people won't get the enjoyment that I have from books. I don't think it has anything to do with class or snobbery, this is basic - reading, good, not reading, bad. I can't even imagine it, really. For as long as I can remember, I have read. I remember one of my early reading coups was reading all of the Tom Swift Jr. books available to date when I was little, maybe eight or so (and it was a lot - in the twenties, I think). And after that, so, so much - starting with science fiction, but branching out into everything. My life has been immeasurably enriched by reading, and to think that there are people who just... don't; it's sad. I know there are literacy problems for some, and language problems for others, but if we say 30 percent we're starting to talk about 100 million people for pete's sake! I've met people who have said in passing, "oh, I don't read books," but I've never really taken it to heart. How can one not read? My wife and I have so many books that we can't deal with them all. In fact, because I moved into her house, not vice versa, most of mine are still in boxes in the basement, sniff...
I don't even want to think about what this means in terms of an informed electorate *shudder* I think I'm going to have some more wine, read Guns, Germs and Steel and contemplate a world without the written word. Yikes.

The Burn

I downhill-skied for most of my life. I began when I was eleven, with wooden skies, cable bindings, "boots," and poles. Ski wear was jeans with longjohns underneath, a wool sweater and a jacket. A pair of goggles, gloves or mittens, and a hat rounded out the ensemble. Helmet? Puh-leeze. Skis changed - Metal! Fiberglass! Composite! Longer! Shorter! Parabolic! Clothes changed - Polypro! Ski Pants! Gore-tex! Goggles changed to the point that they sometimes actually didn't fog or ice up. And on I skied over the decades, on the ice, rocks and occasional powder of the northeast, on the deep, vast pillows of snow out west. And when it was time, I taught my three sons to downhill ski. Tiny little boots, and short little skis, and lots of clothing and helmets and goggles, all of it outgrown each year and handed down to a younger brother. And finally, as soon as he could formulate an argument, each of my sons said goodbye forever to skiing and began snowboarding.
So that is how it came to be that, three years ago, facing especially crummy conditions which left few of the difficult slopes open or worth skiing on, I decided to try snowboarding. I had taken one lesson several years before, and what I remembered most of that lesson was that one falls down a lot when learning to snowboard. True to my recollection, when I started out, I fell down. A lot. Hard. I fell on my back, my front, my knees, my arms, my head. It hurt. But I kept at it, watching others, trying to find the key that would let me move from pathetic novice to intermediate, a move that can happen literally in an instant in snowboarding. And it did. Something clicked, my body got it, and there I was.
Which is how, three years later, I am able to go with my sons and enjoy their company as we snowboard down whatever the mountain we're on can throw at us. And the burn comes in your thighs, after you have raced down a double black diamond without stopping, and your calves ache and your thighs are on fire and your breath is coming in gasps. It's great.