Saturday, February 26, 2011

location, location, location.


 
A dream tormented me last night. Tormented me like a fly during a Sunday afternoon nap in September. It just kept buzzing around my subconscious. I would put it away and get back to blissful sleep and then it would come back; pestering me lik this blankity blank "e" ky. It is rally slowing m down.

Back to the dream; I dreamed that the snow had finally broken my spirit and that I was ready to move to a warmer climate. Somehow Bev and I ended up in Waco Texas, looking at a suburban brick house across the street from an elementary school. It was late February. The children were on the playground in colorful light jackets. We could hear the distant squeak of a swing chain as they rode their happy parabolic track punctuated by the screams of delight from being untethered from their desks.

The front lawn had broke dormancy and was a lush green. Some of the early bulbs had pushed their heads through the sod. Then going inside, we found that the house had not been taken care of and there would be a large amount of work to get it back into shape. We were negotiating a fair price for that labor when suddenly it hit me that it was Waco Texas. In about two weeks the sun would cross the equator and start paying attention to this little quarter acre lot and it would turn into Hades on judgment day. You would walk outside for Memorial day and feel the sun stripping the skin off your bones like it had done to all of those longhorn cows in every western tableau ever painted.  Arghh.

Besides that, it was Waco Texas; home of the branch Davidian compound. The home of the Davidiots, the Waco Whackos, Reno’s last stand. We couldn’t live in Waco.

Why is it that some events become so tied to their geography? Waco, Columbine, Lake Placid, Little Big Horn, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Wood Stock, Tiananmen Square, are names that evoke immediate emotional responses. True most of them are tragedies but Wood Stock, and Lake Placid both elicit positive responses. Valley Forge, while a place of great suffering, resonates as a place of the power of perseverance through dark and difficult times. After the events are over, we flock there to see what happened. Our imaginations aren’t big enough to take it in unless we go there to see where it happened. Bev and I just finished a book about Columbine and its aftermath. We were both saddened by the part that recounted all of the tour buses that came through to look at the outside of the school and how it affected the survivors in the community; sharpening their  memories; reminding them over and over that they had become a curiosity that needed to be examined.

I must confess that I am the same way. I have read dozens of books about Gettysburg. The best ones are where the author can describe the geography the clearest. In spite of all of that knowledge, I was there last summer; one of the curious gawkers, going from front to front looking at the distances, the elevations, learning the place; the space that contained the event.

That is why we go look. We want to make sure that the events are contained. No matter how big the event, it was not larger than the space needed to contain it. By definition, that is the case but we don’t believe it. We have to make sure. People go by the thousands to make sure that the events that affected people so much were contained; making sure that they had not escaped the boundary of geography. Even the best books can’t describe the setting well enough. No, after reading we have to go and see the story’s fuzzy edges to make sure it didn’t go any further. We don’t even trust maps. How can we be sure that events did not escape off of the edge, and aren’t lurking just past the page? We have to see the place; make sure that geography captured every thing

We have to make sure the big events are in their place and we are in ours.

Take care,

Roger


Post Script
I found out today that I may have to explain the Branch Davidians to a large number of the readers. It was a small cult of people who made bad choices and followed David Koresh to a small camp ground in Texas and set up shop and then in 1993 after buying guns creating a bunch of bunkers, the ATF tried to arrest them. They shot at the ATF killing some officers and some Davidians died in return fire. A standoff and siege started and lasted  51 days. It ended when the FBI tried to knock down a wall with a tank. A fire started, and many people died including children inside of the compound.

I am a bit astounded that I have to explain it. But my daughter, son, and niece who are at the house this weekend had no idea what I was talking about. I pointed out that they were alive when it happened and if they were too young to remember shouldn’t a modern US history class cover an event where 76 of its citizens were killed as a direct result of actions taken by the government. No matter what you believed to have happened there isn’t it worth discussing.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

ridiculous?

A conglomeration of the ridiculous.



Object lesson for newspapers; the sports page, the comics, the target ad, the front page and an Ipad lay spread out on the ottoman in my man cave for Sunday’s reading perusal. 9 out of 10 people coming into the room picked up the Ipad first. Two hours later someone picked up the target ad followed by the comics.

Yesterday while cutting wood for the stove, I was listening to the radio and the Indiana High School Athletic Association (ISHAA) ran several ads stating that high school sports were an integral part of a well rounded education. According to my crude modeling, 360,000 students are in high school in the state of Indiana. According to the National High School Federation, last year there were 167,000 participations. I am guessing that if you take out all of the multi-sport participations you have at most 80,000 student athletes. That leaves ¾ of our students who are missing out on an integral part of a well rounded education. Mandatory sports for everyone is the answer. That would be gym right?

Yesterday also while listening to the radio, I heard a report of a young Iowa male student wrestler who refused to wrestle a young female student wrestler, also an Iowan. Mandatory coed wrestling may be the answer to the quandary of the previous paragraph. Except for those who refuse on religious grounds and they could coed bowl. Who doesn’t like bowling? Of course, coed wrestling may blur future boundaries in the work place. But they will be well rounded and should be able to handle the transition.

Protest alert; Greece, Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, Wisconsin. Just keeping up with the Jones. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the Chinese are starting to feel rambunctious again.

Protest reason alert; Country debt forced reduction in benefits, food prices and repression, repression, repression, repression, repression, State debt forcing reduction in benefits. Chinese don’t think it is right to fund US debt to provide medical care for 300 million Americans while 1.3 billion Chinese will have to pay their own insurance. Oops.

Protest outcome alert; protesters lost, protesters won maybe, too soon to call, too soon to call, too soon to call but 200 dead protesters, too soon to call, too soon to call but democrat legislators have left the building. China undeniably the best at putting down descent turned off the websites and stopped it without even warming up the tanks.

1,500,000,000,000 current annual deficit
      74000,000,000 Amount republicans want to cut. = 4.5% of deficit or 2% of 3.7 trillion spent
1,426,000,000,000 Amount still in deficit in other words my family of 4 needs to look in those couch cushions for another $20,000.

Now that’s ridiculous.

Take Care

Roger

Blog update; two weeks ago I wrote in a blog titled  “Random Thoughts”; “If organic foods are good for you, why won’t the mouse in our house eat the organic peanut butter I have put on the mouse trap. If I put a little Jif on there the problem will be solved. Now he is coming out taunting me like Stuart Little driving his little toy car down to the McDonalds drive-thru getting a big mac, large order of fries, and strawberry shake. Maybe he will get stuck on Lake Shore drive and die of exposure.  That will teach him not to live a simpler life.”

Update; I put Jif on the trap last Monday night, and within two hours his taunting ways had come to an end. That proves it, organic foods do extend life expectancy.

Take care

Roger

Sunday, February 13, 2011

what's in a name?

The Super Bowl is over. The little Vader boy can start a car using old Jedi mind tricks. Keep an eye on that one. Would the future be better if that Volkswagen had a Toyota moment and lurched forward at just the right moment? Would the population of Alderaan still be alive and Obewan not have felt a sudden disturbance in the force as if a million voices suddenly cried out? Would Natalie Portman have turned to ballet in an effort to blot out the awful knowledge that she had fallen in love with and married a psychopath and had carnal knowledge of him and begat him twins; one dweeb and one with breakfast rolls plastered to the side of her head? All of that tragedy could have been averted with one little sticky accelerator? 

Yes, the Super Bowl is over. The Packers won. The Steelers lost. Jerry Jones found that just because he wanted 4000 more seats doesn’t make it so. He should have listened to his grandma. “Don’t let your eyes be bigger than your tummy.” To all of my psychologist friends out there, what is the diagnosis for a person who would pay $200 to stand outside just outside the event site and watch the Black Eyed Peas on a big screen TV? Is there medication for that? 

I have always been interested in how teams got their names. Take the Packers. Who knew that a region of the country would have a high enough concentration of domestic servants whose job it was to make sure the master and mistress of the house had enough shirts, socks and unmentionables stowed away before their trips. Don’t get me wrong, Packers deserve to have a team named in homage to the work that they do. That is especially true in the age of TSA. Four ounces of this, two ounces of that, plastic baggies, do we check the guns, the master loves his talcum powder; it is all enough to make lesser domestics break down in tears.  It is better to have a person who specializes in packing. However, I would have thought that packers would be scattered to the four winds taking care of the rich and famous, keeping the critical nomenclature mass away from Green Bay Wisconsin. What roots they must have had to identify with a region so strongly that its sports team took on their moniker.

While I feel for the Pittsburgh fans, I must admit that I found it hard rooting for a region of the country that glorifies thievery. I believe that your team would be more beloved and find a broader fan base if you just started returning items. Common courtesy is all that I am suggesting. A few please and thank you’s and in no time you will be known as the Pittsburgh Borrowers. Mean Joe Green had something there when he threw that jersey back to that boy.

While the rest of the world’s media focused on the game and tried desperately to get us to ignore the monster storm, Indianapolis media had an additional side show.  As you may know, Indianapolis is (maybe) home to Super Bowl 46. Yep, we spent $12 million for a Super Bowl that might be wiped out because of a labor dispute between the owners and the players. The local news has been covering the situation closely. Every other day a panel of experts looks at all sides of the issue and makes their prognostication. Punxsutawney Phil predicts that there will be no Indianapolis Super Bowl especially after that stupid Borrowers joke earlier in this blog
But I digress. It seems that the city and state fathers, and mothers all went down to the Dallas “metroplex”  to learn lessons about how to run a Super Bowl. Yes, it sounds like we applied for hosting without any real life experience. But the fathers and mothers learned a lot while there and they are confident that Indianapolis will do a great job as the world’s host next February. They took most of their confidence from the fact a snow storm blew through Dallas and left them struggling for the entire week.

Here are two quotes:
"This is not a criticism of Dallas, but this is something we deal with all winter," said Allison Melangton, the CEO of the Indy Host Committee. "We have the salt, we have the equipment. And the fact that everything is so interconnected Downtown, you can still get wherever you want to go without going outside."
"I feel a little sorry for these guys because they don't have the equipment, they don't have the expertise," Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard said. "If something like this happens to us, we'll have 80 trucks out there going 24 hours a day, plus some smaller trucks to get into places where the big trucks can't get into. We know how to handle this very, very well."
No offense but what are they smoking? While the mommas and poppas were spouting off about what they don’t understand, the children in Indianapolis were getting on their parents nerves because they couldn’t go to school for 4 days that week.

I obviously have forgotten that we live in the myopic world of professional sports, and for the next year we have entered the vortex of that myopia. Never mind that 40% of the high school children don’t graduate, that our libraries can’t stay open, and the kids in Indianapolis are wondering if the Indy Parks pools will be open for Independence day vacation as they make up snow days, if so much as a snowflake falls during the 2nd week of February, we will have 80 trucks out there going 24 hours a day.

No wonder Pittsburgh calls them the stealers.

Take care,

Roger

Sunday, February 6, 2011

random thoughts?

All I have are random thoughts because I cannot think in a coherent logic pattern for more than a few minutes after the near catastrophic events of this week.

I know that there are readers in Egypt that think that a few inches of snow and ice are trifling matters but they can’t read this because their internet has been shut down. So I shall proceed.

I hate it when I feel like the weather is out to kill me. Whether dodging random icicle strikes or hoping my car doesn’t slide off in the ditch while going out in the middle of a storm because I am jonesing for a tastee freeze at the 7/11, it all takes a toll on me. It was the same while farming. I always felt like the weather was out to get me. Dry when it should be wet; wet when it should be dry, I knew that the weather gods had conspired against me and sooner or later I would pay the ultimate price.

We got 4 inches of snow yesterday without any warning. I like weather without warning. It is so much easier to get through. It snowed. We decided that it was too deep to go to dinner with friends. We canceled the dinner date and went on with our lives.  So much better than doom and gloom; doom and gloom; doom and gloom; and then it hits.

I have decided to take a December view of the weather. Remember December when the 1st snows come. All peaceful and white; a soft blanket covering the world, decorating the leafless trees with nature’s beauty; we love December snows. How many of us put pictures on facebook of unique snow drifts, snow covered pines, our stupid dogs catching flakes in their mouths? Guilty. No from now on, I feel blessed by the snow and right now my cup runneth over.  And as my grandmother used to say when the supper cup runneth over, “don’t cry over a little spilt milk.”  Actually she said “stop yappin and go get a towel. It ain’t going to clean itself.” But I remember too clearly.

Is it wrong to play Wii boxing with your wife? She challenged me.  I wasn’t looking for trouble. It found me.

If organic foods are good for you, why won’t the mouse in our house eat the organic peanut butter I have put on the mouse trap. If I put a little jif on there and viola problem will be solved. Now he is coming out taunting me like Stuart Little driving his little toy car down to the McDonalds drive-thru getting a big mac, large order of fries, and strawberry shake. Maybe he will get stuck on Lake Shore drive and die of exposure.  That will teach him not to live a simpler life.

Recommendation; read “Have a Little Faith; a True Story” by Mitch Albom. It does as good a job showing the long road to changing and becoming who we were meant to be. Two thumbs up.

Recommendation; Keep a dryer sheet handy so when your spouse gives you an amorous come hither look just pull it out and wipe it across their mouth and viola that nasty static shock you get when kissing in the house in February disappears and cupid can have his way. Of course, you may be challenged to a Wii boxing match. Evergreen scent is best. Minty.

If all of Texas were to get electric cars would it give new meaning to rolling brown outs when the electricity was cut because of lack of generating capacity.

Why would a government that allows the release of genetically modified alfalfa get all concerned about how much salt is in our diets to the extent that they are prepared to pressure food companies to make stuff we don’t want to eat because it is tasteless? Because, you have to eliminate enough producers so that you can pressure the ones that are left. This policy along with all other ag policies of the past 70 years has promoted consolidation allowing policy makers to force the few remaining producers to do what is “best” for us.

Finally, this was the first big snow storm for Bev and I while experiencing empty nest. It went fine but the dogs started to get nervous when I came home and announced that the grocery was out of eggs, bread, and milk.

Take Care

Roger