Manonaplane is on a plane, again. This blog or train of thought, or dribble, depending on your point of view or mine, originated in all the flying I do with the flight time being at least a few minutes of solitary thought. A period of time, which we rarely find in our busy daily lives of work, children or partners, and other commitments which serve a true and necessary function. So I sit here again thinking, overthinking, as much as my limited intellect will allow.
I am thinking about my day, my week, my year - my life. The things I like and love. The things I could do without but have to carry like a briefcase, which has a lot of what I need but an equal amount of what I don't necessarily want. A phone, a notebook, a schedule and itinerary, as well as a prospectus (not necessarily a document for a deal or company but often for the commitments of my life). Commitments which are often added like buttons to a blazer - some functional but some just for show: nice to be seen and on the odd occasion talked about. On a plane there are no blazers or buttons. There is the anonymity of being 2d or 24c, chattel to a destination. And it is in this, one can get lost in the depths (or shallow, baby pool) of one's own thoughts.
Sometimes the flights carry me home. Sometimes they carry me away for work. Sometimes they carry me to a destination that brings peace, relaxation and an unwind which a tired body and mind need. Sometimes they just carry me away from a life, which even in it's high notes, also find it's own discord and grind. I guess if life were easy, we would all carry ourselves upright in the confidence that all was always well and our impact on the world was true and beneficial and meaningful. Whatever the case, while I am on a plane, I can forget my place in anything other than 2d.
Often as I sit here cradled in some ergonomic excuse for a transcontinental armchair, I wonder what could be, or could have been. I am "old school", which came up in a conversationally this past weekend. A friend was not sure I was truly "old school". My rowdy, and not wholly civil behavior, might have influenced this observation at that point in time. But as those 3 or 4 of you who actually read this blog or my daily column know, I place a premium on things that it seems many people in today's world have forgotten. It does not make me the perfect ambassador of those values all the time. Let's be honest, at the root of our individual existence we are in the end, human, and imperfect. Some of us struggle harder to try to maintain that armor of civility and manner but even the best armor has it flaws and chinks. I try to be that chevalier of old. Sometimes I try too hard, fail and regret.
"Please's" and "Thank You's" do not always suffice. Holding a door or a chair, walking on the outside on a sidewalk, taking an arm, shaking hands, looking someone in the eye, "Mister, Miss, Sir or Ma'am", they get you part the way, but not always there. Sometimes no matter how well intentioned, they let you down as you try to be the person you want to be, not just for others but for yourself. You try, but let's be honest, this is not the world of our grandparents or great grand parents (which had it's own flaws). Chivalry is a foreign concept to most. Civility, something I often lack in my writings, too, trades at a costly premium. People treat each other with an inherent selfishness that belies a true desire to be a good neighbor, friend and citizen, which I think does lie within the hardened wrapper we have taken to protect ourselves from the constant bombardment of today's world. Yes, people are inherently good: some have just strayed further from the path than others.
I was once paid what today I still count as one of the greatest compliments of my life by a trader I was working with at the time, and who I like and respect (and find others do, as he is one of the most like-able and generous people I know). He described me to someone else, as the most polite salesman, and person, he had ever worked with. Maybe he has a limited roster of friends and colleagues from which to compare. I'd like to think, in a business which requires a certain amount of aggressiveness and motivation, that I have managed to find that balance that does not force me to sacrifice that which I hold most dear: my belief that not matter how I may suffer the occasional mis-step or lapse, I remain a gentleman, "old school, a friend to my friends and a person who people want to be around and have around in their lives.
As I fly I often get lost in the introspective. How do I improve? Do better? Be better? How do I take the example set laid out for me like a uniform on a bed, pressed and crisp, prepared for life and ceremony, and make it fit my frame? Can I march in that army, lead the charge, and will anyone follow? My children? My friends, who teach me more than I will ever teach them? Does it matter to anyone else?
I hope the world below, as I fly at 40,000 feet, will one day find a rhythm that finds us all able to appreciate each other. I am a realist though, in all my idealism. I remember that I am imperfect and for the moment only 2d.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Doctor Hack
-Can I tell you how much I hate doctors? Not all doctors. Not the ones who are friends who I know and see personally and in an unrelated means to professional needs (now that I think of it, I don’t have any friends who are doctors – maybe that says something). Just the ones I get stuck going to see, and by default, all those I have in theory to see for medical consultation. -I think doctors are the sadists of our era. Imagine if you would a leap back in time to the “Inquisition” in which men were flayed or roasted, and stretched on racks. Then jump back and picture the dermatologist or the proctologist who poke and prod, after scaring the daylights out of you with tales of cancers and other painful, lingering deaths, begin to carve on you to remove a spot or snaking a camera in places they it does not belong. What is the difference?
-Doctors love the value of fear. Think about it. Why else would we bother to see them? We don’t have the advantage of years upon years of education and training [I do find it amusing that the guy in my fraternity who took 7 years to graduate was called a slacker and bum, while other guys who stay in school for 7 years we choose to call M.D.]. We are forced to rely on that education and training to diagnose a tinge or winge, or worse. The Doctor, who cannot possibly know on the spot exactly what ails us, can reach into his black bag of medical litany and bluff his way through an explanation which we cannot contest. There is a huge leap of faith necessary in every visit and diagnosis.
-And this, if you get any kind of bedside manner, is a small plus. My last few doctors have been one step short of ghoulish. While I understand that one of my other favorite professions, lawyers, have made a nuisance of themselves in the medical profession via malpractice suits and other superfluous suits, doctors now seem determined to cover their keysters by presenting you the most dire of all possible consequences in everything they see. A pimple is a potential cancer, a sore knee a potential joint replacement and, God forbid, a headache a tumor.
-And this if the doctor will see you, let alone be on time to see you. This profession is renowned for its complete inability to run on a real business schedule. When was the last time you went to the doctor and he was actually on time? A doctor’s office is run like the Department of Motor Vehicles. Once you have passed the generally surly reception staff, you get to sit in some generic waiting room with only 7 month old copies of magazines you would never spend a penny on, like “Crocheting Monthly” and “Cuddly Pets Digest”. You wait, and wait, endlessly (“Next line, please. Where is your form, please”), and yet once you are in the examination room, you get a fly by from the doctor worthy of Tom Cruise in “Top Gun”. No other business runs this way.
-I’d like to know whom my doctor goes to for his yearly check up. I can only hope his experiences are as miserable as mine. If he has time, he could stop by my house. I’d be more than willing to consider leaving him with my 4 kids for 30 minutes in a small room while he waits for his “appointment”, and then you can bet your “Sweet Betsies” he would know the meaning of “Moon River”.
-Doctors love the value of fear. Think about it. Why else would we bother to see them? We don’t have the advantage of years upon years of education and training [I do find it amusing that the guy in my fraternity who took 7 years to graduate was called a slacker and bum, while other guys who stay in school for 7 years we choose to call M.D.]. We are forced to rely on that education and training to diagnose a tinge or winge, or worse. The Doctor, who cannot possibly know on the spot exactly what ails us, can reach into his black bag of medical litany and bluff his way through an explanation which we cannot contest. There is a huge leap of faith necessary in every visit and diagnosis.
-And this, if you get any kind of bedside manner, is a small plus. My last few doctors have been one step short of ghoulish. While I understand that one of my other favorite professions, lawyers, have made a nuisance of themselves in the medical profession via malpractice suits and other superfluous suits, doctors now seem determined to cover their keysters by presenting you the most dire of all possible consequences in everything they see. A pimple is a potential cancer, a sore knee a potential joint replacement and, God forbid, a headache a tumor.
-And this if the doctor will see you, let alone be on time to see you. This profession is renowned for its complete inability to run on a real business schedule. When was the last time you went to the doctor and he was actually on time? A doctor’s office is run like the Department of Motor Vehicles. Once you have passed the generally surly reception staff, you get to sit in some generic waiting room with only 7 month old copies of magazines you would never spend a penny on, like “Crocheting Monthly” and “Cuddly Pets Digest”. You wait, and wait, endlessly (“Next line, please. Where is your form, please”), and yet once you are in the examination room, you get a fly by from the doctor worthy of Tom Cruise in “Top Gun”. No other business runs this way.
-I’d like to know whom my doctor goes to for his yearly check up. I can only hope his experiences are as miserable as mine. If he has time, he could stop by my house. I’d be more than willing to consider leaving him with my 4 kids for 30 minutes in a small room while he waits for his “appointment”, and then you can bet your “Sweet Betsies” he would know the meaning of “Moon River”.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The New Jersey Hindenburgs
-Ara Parseghian, the famous Notre Dame football coach said: “act like you have been there before”. Clearly neither Rex Ryan nor any of his current players have been. From the “Fat Man’s” painful to watch and pathetic display of running, to celebrate the devastating touchdown, to his players constant “airplane flying” antics on the field, the Jets showed themselves to be the classless athletes, not to mention intellects, that they are.
-Rex and his band of idiots spent the week setting a stellar example with vitriol and arrogance, as displayed in interviews. Ryan said, regarding Patriots QB Tom Brady: “Nobody studies like [Manning, as in Peyton Manning, the Indianapolis’s QB]. I know Brady thinks he does and all that stuff, [but] I think there’s probably a little more help from Belicheck [The Patriot’s coach] with Brady than there is with Peyton Manning”.
-Tom Brady has played in 4 Super Bowls and has 3 rings for his victories. He was a 6th round and unheralded draft pick from the University of Michigan (Go Wolverines!). Peyton Manning, to compare resumes, who is no slouch and could and should be argued among the all-time NFL quarterbacking elites (as should Brady), was the first overall draft pick in 1998 and has only 1 Super Bowl ring to his credit (yes, he does have 4 NFL MVP awards – the most in NFL history).
-So Rex, and his band of Biplanes, spent the season, and preseason (as highlighted in their dramatic and much-hyped performance on “Hard Knocks”) shedding profanity and arrogance on television and in the press. Ryan and his team, backing comments from the likes of Antonio Cromarte (Antonio Cromarte cornerback and subject of a third round draft pick to bring him from The San Diego Chargers to the New York Jets largely due to a view that his effort was less than desired by management and ownership, as model citizen, and for reference here, has fathered 9 children with 8 women in 6 states and has been named in 5 paternity suits in the last two years. He has failed to appear in court twice on separate moving violation citations and was given a $500k dollar advance by the Jets so he could make child support payments – a plus I guess) paint a poor picture of what we should be teaching our young athletes, who like it or not, buy their jerseys and spend Sunday’s in front of the television rooting on their favorite players and teams.
-Cromarte, clearly educated in literature or some other liberal arts discipline during his time at Florida State, managed to launch into an expletive laced tirade regarding Tom Brady and was backed in his comments by his coach. Ryan should have handed him a bar of soap and shipped him to the nearest gulag. But Ryan, himself, a blowhard, and clearly as we saw from Sunday, a world champion sprinter, was in no position to chastise his linguistics major and defensive back as he almost managed to get a “XXX” rating on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” with his weekly vulgar verbal antics: once again showing skill, education and deportment (a word he clearly would have to look up).
-I am not arguing here for the civility of Ryan’s weekly opponents. I found Wes Welker’s, o so clever, hidden foot fetish comments neither amusing, nor clever. As is usually the case with the majority of pro athletes, I find they should leave “clever” to their agents and focus their limited skills on the field. What I am saying is that I am tired of the buffoonery of the majority of professional athletes who seem to forget that they are playing a game most of us would love to play. We pay for the right to see them display superior skills: athletic skills.
-I was embarrassed to have my 9 year old question me when reading the quotes and watching the focus on this war of words on ESPN and other pre-game shows. I was not letting my soon watch the Playboy Channel. I was letting him sit with me to watch a game I love and want to share with him.
-Why don’t we just let Rex and his guys blow hard on their own time. Maybe we should propose the NFL rename the team to the “New Jersey Hindenburg’s”, seemingly an appropriate leap given the New Jersey angle (Lakehurst for all you construction helmet-clad J-E-T-S fans is in New Jersey. Now, if you can, go look up the reference). Lord knows with Ryan and his team’s foul mouths, a match might do the trick.
-Rex and his band of idiots spent the week setting a stellar example with vitriol and arrogance, as displayed in interviews. Ryan said, regarding Patriots QB Tom Brady: “Nobody studies like [Manning, as in Peyton Manning, the Indianapolis’s QB]. I know Brady thinks he does and all that stuff, [but] I think there’s probably a little more help from Belicheck [The Patriot’s coach] with Brady than there is with Peyton Manning”.
-Tom Brady has played in 4 Super Bowls and has 3 rings for his victories. He was a 6th round and unheralded draft pick from the University of Michigan (Go Wolverines!). Peyton Manning, to compare resumes, who is no slouch and could and should be argued among the all-time NFL quarterbacking elites (as should Brady), was the first overall draft pick in 1998 and has only 1 Super Bowl ring to his credit (yes, he does have 4 NFL MVP awards – the most in NFL history).
-So Rex, and his band of Biplanes, spent the season, and preseason (as highlighted in their dramatic and much-hyped performance on “Hard Knocks”) shedding profanity and arrogance on television and in the press. Ryan and his team, backing comments from the likes of Antonio Cromarte (Antonio Cromarte cornerback and subject of a third round draft pick to bring him from The San Diego Chargers to the New York Jets largely due to a view that his effort was less than desired by management and ownership, as model citizen, and for reference here, has fathered 9 children with 8 women in 6 states and has been named in 5 paternity suits in the last two years. He has failed to appear in court twice on separate moving violation citations and was given a $500k dollar advance by the Jets so he could make child support payments – a plus I guess) paint a poor picture of what we should be teaching our young athletes, who like it or not, buy their jerseys and spend Sunday’s in front of the television rooting on their favorite players and teams.
-Cromarte, clearly educated in literature or some other liberal arts discipline during his time at Florida State, managed to launch into an expletive laced tirade regarding Tom Brady and was backed in his comments by his coach. Ryan should have handed him a bar of soap and shipped him to the nearest gulag. But Ryan, himself, a blowhard, and clearly as we saw from Sunday, a world champion sprinter, was in no position to chastise his linguistics major and defensive back as he almost managed to get a “XXX” rating on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” with his weekly vulgar verbal antics: once again showing skill, education and deportment (a word he clearly would have to look up).
-I am not arguing here for the civility of Ryan’s weekly opponents. I found Wes Welker’s, o so clever, hidden foot fetish comments neither amusing, nor clever. As is usually the case with the majority of pro athletes, I find they should leave “clever” to their agents and focus their limited skills on the field. What I am saying is that I am tired of the buffoonery of the majority of professional athletes who seem to forget that they are playing a game most of us would love to play. We pay for the right to see them display superior skills: athletic skills.
-I was embarrassed to have my 9 year old question me when reading the quotes and watching the focus on this war of words on ESPN and other pre-game shows. I was not letting my soon watch the Playboy Channel. I was letting him sit with me to watch a game I love and want to share with him.
-Why don’t we just let Rex and his guys blow hard on their own time. Maybe we should propose the NFL rename the team to the “New Jersey Hindenburg’s”, seemingly an appropriate leap given the New Jersey angle (Lakehurst for all you construction helmet-clad J-E-T-S fans is in New Jersey. Now, if you can, go look up the reference). Lord knows with Ryan and his team’s foul mouths, a match might do the trick.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Old Friends
-I am lucky enough, believe it or not, to have a lot of friends. Most are probably really husbands of my wife's friends, but then we are all in the same position, clinging to each other like passengers in a lifeboat, as our wives tug around life and events happy in each other's company as directed by their lives and those of our children. That said, I actually have a few friends of my own. They are guys upon whom I am not co-dependant for some passable conversation or companionship focused on football, ice hockey or beer, while the girls sort out the real issues of life, like parenting and china patterns. These are the friends I have actually made through effort over years and limited social skills while making attempts at growth and maturity.
-I have a friend, who has been my friend, since we were knee-high to a grasshopper. We grew up together in a small Connecticut town and we raised our parents together for years, as we "trialed and errored" a lot of their approach to raising their eldest children (which we both were). He and I have a litany of nearly fatal mis-steps during our adolescence - some of which made us stronger and some of which sent us cowering under our beds, even to this day, for fear of what the outcomes could have been. We survived and we moved away from home still in contact and continued to perpetuate some of our stupidities - even as adults (ask the staff at the La Perla Cantina on the Fulham Road in London). All in all, though, we never did anything that moved the dial beyond the usual actions of "stupid teens", and we managed to come out the back end, intact, and still best of friends.
-I do not see this friend terribly often. He lives in the "land of fruit and nuts" and I live on the east coast in reality. He is a "real" writer and has published a truly interesting volume of non-fiction (as opposed to my mostly daily musings at verbal diaharea). He is godfather to one of my sons. He and I manage to get together maybe once every other year given different geography and different lifestyles.
-When we do get together, it is like the clock has momentarily jogged right back to the last time we were together. The tapestry of our friendship is never ending. The threads while stretched, remain constant. He will always be the guy with whom I used to steal booze at his parent's house, replacing it with water (not that everyone has not done this) and calling it "demo juice". He is the guy I chased a girl halfway across New York with after one of those glitzy holiday black tie gigs (we never got the girl but we did get in plenty of trouble). He is the guy who hitchhiked from Stapleton Airport to the foothills of Denver to make my wedding.
-In life I have a few of these friends, as we all are lucky enough to have. I do not discount those bobbing ice cube's who have become my friends but became them as a result of our drift alongside our wives' social calendars, as some of these have become close members of my team (and I of theirs). But there are a few guys, the thought of whom and things we have done together, that always make me smile a little more wryly, and wistfully, and thankfully.
-I have a friend, who has been my friend, since we were knee-high to a grasshopper. We grew up together in a small Connecticut town and we raised our parents together for years, as we "trialed and errored" a lot of their approach to raising their eldest children (which we both were). He and I have a litany of nearly fatal mis-steps during our adolescence - some of which made us stronger and some of which sent us cowering under our beds, even to this day, for fear of what the outcomes could have been. We survived and we moved away from home still in contact and continued to perpetuate some of our stupidities - even as adults (ask the staff at the La Perla Cantina on the Fulham Road in London). All in all, though, we never did anything that moved the dial beyond the usual actions of "stupid teens", and we managed to come out the back end, intact, and still best of friends.
-I do not see this friend terribly often. He lives in the "land of fruit and nuts" and I live on the east coast in reality. He is a "real" writer and has published a truly interesting volume of non-fiction (as opposed to my mostly daily musings at verbal diaharea). He is godfather to one of my sons. He and I manage to get together maybe once every other year given different geography and different lifestyles.
-When we do get together, it is like the clock has momentarily jogged right back to the last time we were together. The tapestry of our friendship is never ending. The threads while stretched, remain constant. He will always be the guy with whom I used to steal booze at his parent's house, replacing it with water (not that everyone has not done this) and calling it "demo juice". He is the guy I chased a girl halfway across New York with after one of those glitzy holiday black tie gigs (we never got the girl but we did get in plenty of trouble). He is the guy who hitchhiked from Stapleton Airport to the foothills of Denver to make my wedding.
-In life I have a few of these friends, as we all are lucky enough to have. I do not discount those bobbing ice cube's who have become my friends but became them as a result of our drift alongside our wives' social calendars, as some of these have become close members of my team (and I of theirs). But there are a few guys, the thought of whom and things we have done together, that always make me smile a little more wryly, and wistfully, and thankfully.
Zombies
-Is anyone else out there a "zombie" movie junkie like me? I think I have seen just about every movie made within the last 30 years, no matter how camp or bad. I love the George Romero franchise of films: "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead", and the 3 that came after and were largely not worth mentioning. The remakes of his "Dawn of the Dead" and of his biological disaster film (much akin to zombies), "The Crazies", which was recently remade are also among my favorites. I love, and live for the next installment of, the "Resident Evil" franchise. I thought AMC's "Walking Dead" was brilliant in its vision of the end of the world focused on survivors in Atlanta (My youngest brother lives in Atlanta, and for those of you who have spent any great deal of time there, I am not sure that the series is not a period piece). I loved the spoof "Zombieland", arguably Woody Harrelson's best role since "Kingpin" or "Cheers". I almost forgot the British indie classic: "28 Days Later" and its ghostly vision of Westminster Bridge and Parliament Square filmed without a single person or vehicle in sight in one of the most heavily travelled 3 square blocks in the world (I lived in London during its filming which was done at 430am on Sunday morning). How could I omit Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and its homage to the walking dead. I even find that I will sit down on a Saturday night to watch some SciFi Channel low budget creeper about teens and recently deceased, come back to life, flesh eating ground crawlers.
-I don't know why I like "zombies" so much. Romero used them, in his craftier days, to poke fun at things like racism and consumerism (What could be better than the black/white racial mix and the taboo it presented in the two survivors in "Night of the Living Dead" or the rampant "shopping" while holed up in a West Pennsylvania mall as zombies swarmed the parking lot in "Day of the Dead"). Maybe it is the fact that zombies live a pretty good life. They are singular in their quest, generally (some movie makers have toned down their zombies in their hunger for "flesh" while others have sped them up to cheetah-like speeds making mockery of the foot-dragging decomposing flesh-eater we all first fell in love with), for a pound of flesh. Their hunger is both sexual (they spend a perpetual existence seeking the next piece of human meat) and spiritual (they seek in many franchises to eat "brains"). Zombies do not need money. They don't live in houses. They crawl around neighborhoods in various state of undress (and decomposition) as if in a perpetual rave. They observe no rules.
-Zombies are not evil. They are automatons. With few exceptions, while always starving, they run, or stumble, like the Duracell bunny, on and on. They moan or scream, in theory because they are acting only on primal instinct as that is all that is left of what they were. They are, quite frankly, a neat example of mass society. They have no real voice. They follow only the rest of their masses in aimless search for some sort of physical satisfaction. In the end, in most franchises, they overwhelm the remaining remnants of society as their numbers and our stupidity (that of the "living" survivors) allow them to overcome order and intelligence with mass.
-Zombies represent a "dumbing" down of the world. Whether created by an accident of the military or corporate doing, or science, as is the case in the remake of "I am Legend" (a cure for cancer goes horribly wrong), zombies are generally the result of arrogance or malignance. They are bred of greed or deceit and lead to a band of survivors forever struggling to maintain vestiges of the world that was. Zombies are not monsters. They are an allegorical representation of the 90% plus of our world today which blindly follows the talking heads on tv and assumes that success is a 3 bedroom house with a flat screened tv.
-I like zombies. I know some. I think my favorite zombie is the one in the original "Day of the Dead" which bites the great white. Seems like payback for that Christine "Chrissie Watkins". Go look up that reference.
-I don't know why I like "zombies" so much. Romero used them, in his craftier days, to poke fun at things like racism and consumerism (What could be better than the black/white racial mix and the taboo it presented in the two survivors in "Night of the Living Dead" or the rampant "shopping" while holed up in a West Pennsylvania mall as zombies swarmed the parking lot in "Day of the Dead"). Maybe it is the fact that zombies live a pretty good life. They are singular in their quest, generally (some movie makers have toned down their zombies in their hunger for "flesh" while others have sped them up to cheetah-like speeds making mockery of the foot-dragging decomposing flesh-eater we all first fell in love with), for a pound of flesh. Their hunger is both sexual (they spend a perpetual existence seeking the next piece of human meat) and spiritual (they seek in many franchises to eat "brains"). Zombies do not need money. They don't live in houses. They crawl around neighborhoods in various state of undress (and decomposition) as if in a perpetual rave. They observe no rules.
-Zombies are not evil. They are automatons. With few exceptions, while always starving, they run, or stumble, like the Duracell bunny, on and on. They moan or scream, in theory because they are acting only on primal instinct as that is all that is left of what they were. They are, quite frankly, a neat example of mass society. They have no real voice. They follow only the rest of their masses in aimless search for some sort of physical satisfaction. In the end, in most franchises, they overwhelm the remaining remnants of society as their numbers and our stupidity (that of the "living" survivors) allow them to overcome order and intelligence with mass.
-Zombies represent a "dumbing" down of the world. Whether created by an accident of the military or corporate doing, or science, as is the case in the remake of "I am Legend" (a cure for cancer goes horribly wrong), zombies are generally the result of arrogance or malignance. They are bred of greed or deceit and lead to a band of survivors forever struggling to maintain vestiges of the world that was. Zombies are not monsters. They are an allegorical representation of the 90% plus of our world today which blindly follows the talking heads on tv and assumes that success is a 3 bedroom house with a flat screened tv.
-I like zombies. I know some. I think my favorite zombie is the one in the original "Day of the Dead" which bites the great white. Seems like payback for that Christine "Chrissie Watkins". Go look up that reference.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Manners
-Just a couple of things to keep in mind. Seems like we could all use a refresher. Words which are indispensible: "please" and "thank you". A few more of us should try using these more often. Here is another one which is often lacking: "excuse me" or if you prefer "pardon me". Try it next time you try to squeeze through a tight space or walk in front of some one.
-When entering a house or building, please (not the use of the word) take off you hat, unless you are a woman. And, for God's sake please do not make the MC remind you that hats should be removed during the singing of the national anthem (by the way, for those of you physiologically challenged, your heart is on the left side of your chest, so use your right hand and out it over your heart - on the left).
-When a lady walks into a room (yes, even the women we all hang out with are "ladies" in the truest sense of the word), please rise to greet them and don't sit until they are seated. Should you be dining or sitting and they need to leave the room, rise again and when they re-enter, one more time stand up and wait for them to resume sitting. If you are dining with them, try to remember that it would be nice to aid them with their chair. It is not that difficult and all that time in the gym should be something you relish showing off in your strength to push a chair.
-When entering a restaurant allow the ladies to enter first, but, and here is one men get wrong all the time, when exiting, allow the ladies to follow. When walking down the sidewalk, the lady should always be on the inside (building side versus road side for those of you struggling with the geography).
-In general, try to remember how your grandparents behaved and what your parents tried to teach you, and pass it on.
-When entering a house or building, please (not the use of the word) take off you hat, unless you are a woman. And, for God's sake please do not make the MC remind you that hats should be removed during the singing of the national anthem (by the way, for those of you physiologically challenged, your heart is on the left side of your chest, so use your right hand and out it over your heart - on the left).
-When a lady walks into a room (yes, even the women we all hang out with are "ladies" in the truest sense of the word), please rise to greet them and don't sit until they are seated. Should you be dining or sitting and they need to leave the room, rise again and when they re-enter, one more time stand up and wait for them to resume sitting. If you are dining with them, try to remember that it would be nice to aid them with their chair. It is not that difficult and all that time in the gym should be something you relish showing off in your strength to push a chair.
-When entering a restaurant allow the ladies to enter first, but, and here is one men get wrong all the time, when exiting, allow the ladies to follow. When walking down the sidewalk, the lady should always be on the inside (building side versus road side for those of you struggling with the geography).
-In general, try to remember how your grandparents behaved and what your parents tried to teach you, and pass it on.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Defenders For All
-There is no heartening way to tackle the tragic shooting this weekend in Arizona. Jared Lee Loughner "is suspected" of shooting some 20 people, killing 6 and leaving others in a range of critical to severe condition. The victims included, as part of the media circus has detailed, an Arizona Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, who appears to have been the main target in an attempted "assassination". Unfortunately, included in the victim's list, among others, was an aid to the Congresswoman, a judge and a 9 year old girl who was attending to better understand and observe how our government works. All in, this is one of those tragedies at which one can only shake one's head and say a small prayer under one's breath for the victims and their families.
-If the press and reports are to be believed, Jared Lee Loughner is, at best, a very troubled young man. At worst he is a raging psychopath who, in being found guilty by a jury of his peers, should be ended, as the parents of 9 year Christine Green were quoted as wanting. Loughner's warning signs, if taken in aggregate, were rather large. A loner in his neighborhood, he also was noted for 5 run-ins with the campus police at the local community college he was ultimately thrown out of. He scared a lot of people and yet the inability of authorities or his community to take a measure in aggregate, of all the individual incidents, meant that there was an incomplete picture, allowing him to perpetuate his heinous crime, or "allegedly" to do so.
-The criminal system, as is supported by the Constitution, allows a man such as Loughner and any other, despite witnesses and footage (from cctv cameras and bystanders) to use the courts to delay, if not throw out conviction and ultimate penalty, by any means possible (innocent until proven guilty). Loughner has already retained the attorney, Judy Clarke, who can boast defending Ted Kaczynski (who we all know better as the "Unabomber" and the 20th hijacker who missed his plane on 9/11). Clarke will attempt to argue against the death penalty due to mental illness or "defect", as is her specialty. This is his right but what of those of the victims?
-The unfortunate thing here is that Loughner did not get help despite all the warning signs - assuming help would have indeed made a difference. What is even more unfortunate, and a necessary topic here, is that this lunatic, was cleared in November for the purchase of his gun, which held a clip for 31 bullets. Aside from clearing this guy who had twice dodged other pending criminal charges by attending "diversion programs", which allowed him to walk scotch free and left no "permanent marking" of his instability or trouble, his purchase further solidifies the argument that there is no need for anyone in the public sector to be cleared to buy a glock, or any other gun, with a 31 round clip capability.
-While the Congresswoman clings to life and others mourn their losses, there are a number of questions we should all be asking. Why can we not have a rational conversation about guns in this country? No one sane is arguing for elimination of all guns - that goes against so much of the spirit of the "pioneer nation" - but there need to be limits. "Red Dawn" is not going to happen tomorrow. No Russian paratroopers, or their allies, will land in midAmerica seeking to capture our nation. Guns for "protection" and guns for hunting don't need to be akin to an M-50 machine gun. There is just no excuse. Screening must get better. A 3 day process should be changed as needed - a nearly unlimited process is not unreasonable if warranted. Red flags should be allowed to fly without violating other Constitutional rights and if it takes a few weeks to clear you for a purchase, so be it. You and I have a right to live as much as others have a right to bear arms.
-Finally, as I read one congressional leader quoted as wondering if the current climate of campaigning vitriol was not at the core of violence and its increase at or towards politicians. I think that a Congressman should practice what he or she preaches. The current process of what we call a campaign "on issues" is laughable. Candidates no longer actually discuss real matter but rather seek to exploit every personal defect, rumour or innuendo, ignoring real substance. Elections are won on soundbites. Candidates refuse to speak in substance, often taken out of context about who is sleeping with whom, who cheated on whom, or who did what. There is no discussion of what is needed, how to help a constituency or what needs to be done to run a more effective government. The claim of "hostile climate" all rings a bit hollow to me.
-I hope what we can all agree on is our best wishes and prayers for a recovery for Congresswoman Giffords and the other injured victims. We can hope not to witness such an act again (no more Arizona's, no more Columbine's, no more Texas Army bases). We can hope that somehow this country can find a way to unite, instead of continue to divide before it is too late and we witness the short end of a golden era.
-If the press and reports are to be believed, Jared Lee Loughner is, at best, a very troubled young man. At worst he is a raging psychopath who, in being found guilty by a jury of his peers, should be ended, as the parents of 9 year Christine Green were quoted as wanting. Loughner's warning signs, if taken in aggregate, were rather large. A loner in his neighborhood, he also was noted for 5 run-ins with the campus police at the local community college he was ultimately thrown out of. He scared a lot of people and yet the inability of authorities or his community to take a measure in aggregate, of all the individual incidents, meant that there was an incomplete picture, allowing him to perpetuate his heinous crime, or "allegedly" to do so.
-The criminal system, as is supported by the Constitution, allows a man such as Loughner and any other, despite witnesses and footage (from cctv cameras and bystanders) to use the courts to delay, if not throw out conviction and ultimate penalty, by any means possible (innocent until proven guilty). Loughner has already retained the attorney, Judy Clarke, who can boast defending Ted Kaczynski (who we all know better as the "Unabomber" and the 20th hijacker who missed his plane on 9/11). Clarke will attempt to argue against the death penalty due to mental illness or "defect", as is her specialty. This is his right but what of those of the victims?
-The unfortunate thing here is that Loughner did not get help despite all the warning signs - assuming help would have indeed made a difference. What is even more unfortunate, and a necessary topic here, is that this lunatic, was cleared in November for the purchase of his gun, which held a clip for 31 bullets. Aside from clearing this guy who had twice dodged other pending criminal charges by attending "diversion programs", which allowed him to walk scotch free and left no "permanent marking" of his instability or trouble, his purchase further solidifies the argument that there is no need for anyone in the public sector to be cleared to buy a glock, or any other gun, with a 31 round clip capability.
-While the Congresswoman clings to life and others mourn their losses, there are a number of questions we should all be asking. Why can we not have a rational conversation about guns in this country? No one sane is arguing for elimination of all guns - that goes against so much of the spirit of the "pioneer nation" - but there need to be limits. "Red Dawn" is not going to happen tomorrow. No Russian paratroopers, or their allies, will land in midAmerica seeking to capture our nation. Guns for "protection" and guns for hunting don't need to be akin to an M-50 machine gun. There is just no excuse. Screening must get better. A 3 day process should be changed as needed - a nearly unlimited process is not unreasonable if warranted. Red flags should be allowed to fly without violating other Constitutional rights and if it takes a few weeks to clear you for a purchase, so be it. You and I have a right to live as much as others have a right to bear arms.
-Finally, as I read one congressional leader quoted as wondering if the current climate of campaigning vitriol was not at the core of violence and its increase at or towards politicians. I think that a Congressman should practice what he or she preaches. The current process of what we call a campaign "on issues" is laughable. Candidates no longer actually discuss real matter but rather seek to exploit every personal defect, rumour or innuendo, ignoring real substance. Elections are won on soundbites. Candidates refuse to speak in substance, often taken out of context about who is sleeping with whom, who cheated on whom, or who did what. There is no discussion of what is needed, how to help a constituency or what needs to be done to run a more effective government. The claim of "hostile climate" all rings a bit hollow to me.
-I hope what we can all agree on is our best wishes and prayers for a recovery for Congresswoman Giffords and the other injured victims. We can hope not to witness such an act again (no more Arizona's, no more Columbine's, no more Texas Army bases). We can hope that somehow this country can find a way to unite, instead of continue to divide before it is too late and we witness the short end of a golden era.
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