To Thine Own Self Be True

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A lot of literary critics like to skewer Shakespeare's character Polonius, but some of the advice Polonius dished out in Hamlet was good. How can you NOT be true to your "own self"? You are who you are. I suppose you can try to deny your "own self," an endeavor normally doomed to failure, as I realized last night while watching Nebraska Public Television.

I saw part of the American Masters installment about Willa Cather. I was struck by two things: (1) the driving force of her entire life was to get away from Nebraska; (2) she is the quintessential Nebraskan. It is said her desperation to get away was because she did not want to be buried in a farm field . . . yet no other writer limned the experience of rural Nebraska farm life, especially for immigrant families, as well as she did. My Antonia seared my soul when I first read it, and its frequently hopeless and bleak depiction of nineteenth-century life on the Great Plains haunts me to this day. [Yes, I remember the tragic aspects of the book more than the happy ones.--Ed.]

I understand why Cather felt she had to get out or suffocate. And yet, for myself, I also love that fierce attachment to the land that permeates her work, almost despite herself. The irony is that the more Cather tried to escape, the more she revealed her unbreakable connections to the place she grew up.

That got me to thinking about the varieties of experience humans can have. I know many who, like Cather, grew up in one place, got as far away as possible as fast as possible, and who never looked back. I rejoice in their energy, their drive, their curiosity. I mourn for their rejection of what made them. For, also like Cather, the harder they try to get away, the more they reveal the childhood-shaped aspects of their character.

There are also some who stay close to the place they were born for their entire lives. I rejoice in their serenity. I mourn their insularity. They are happy; they are safe; they are mostly incapable of coping with the larger world.

There are those who grew up as vagabonds (all military "brats," myself included, fall into this category) and who have been unable to settle ever since. I rejoice in their breadth of experience. I mourn their lack of stability.

There are those who grew up as vagabonds but who found a home later in life and settled there (my own exact circumstances). I rejoice again in their breadth of experience, for surely that knowledge imparts wisdom. [If you let it, that is.--Ed.] I also rejoice that they have found a home, a place to be grounded. However, I mourn their shrinking horizons, especially when financial or health difficulties contribute to those limitations.

Happiest must be those who can balance their needs for both a real home and mind-expanding travel. I rejoice in their good fortune for finding the best of all possible worlds. [Candide, are you listening?--Ed.]

I confess that I do not at all miss having to move, despite its several benefits: it makes one clean out one's possessions on a regular basis; it, by giving long-term exposure to different parts of the world, offers deeper understanding of those whose attitudes differ from one's own; likewise, it offers a greater appreciation of and desire for preserving diversity in the world.

Luckily, travel offers the same benefits without the many headaches of an actual move. You get the same experiences, even if not quite to the same depth. And you don't have to pack and unpack all your worldly goods every other year. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in Ozymandius, noted the egotist's perceived benefits of travel: "I am a part of all I have met." That line always struck me as more than arrogant. In my own case, "all I have met is a part of me." Thank goodness for the Internet, which lets me continue to travel, even if only in virtual space and time.

No matter what one's experiences have been, the trick in any life is to find balance. The values learned as a child can shape the interpretation of later experiences, but they should not be allowed to negate or overwhelm those experiences. For instance, if your family was intolerant of other religions, your experiences can teach you that such intolerance is wrong--as long as you are open to the lessons experiences offer. Yes, new experiences can teach you a great deal. If you constantly crave new experiences (mostly because you feel your childhood was totally drab and awful), on the other hand, you are not grounded. ADHD is no way to live a life.

As with diet, as with exercise, as with every other aspect of life, moderation in all things seems to be the most effective approach. No matter how anyone tries to trick it out or glam it up, the oldest, simplest advice is the best. Moderation and balance. However, the best balance is not struck by parking square in the middle of everything. Sometimes that's just not possible. So it is OK to compensate for a lack of physical health with an excessive sense of humor. It is OK to compensate for a lack of material wealth with an excess of, say, library usage. Mental travel on the cheap is far superior to no travel at all.

But never, ever try to run away from or deny who you are. You can change and improve who you are, but your roots are your roots. Acknowledging them will at once ground you and give you the knowledge to rise above their limitations. Only in trying to deny them do you risk losing your real self. Why else do you think the standard advice to writers (like Cather) is to "write what you know"?

A Creepy Commercial--And It's Nowhere Near Halloweentime

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A local cardiac center is running an ad ostensibly encouraging people to get their hearts checked "before it's too late." The tag line is "Call Or Be Called," and the ad consists of the Voice of God talking to a woman in a grocery store produce section. God tells the woman it's time for her to go, now. She protests, demonstrating that she eats broccoli--which is why she's in the produce section. God tells her it doesn't matter because her condition is genetic. God then gently berates her for not calling to get her heart tested, because now it's too late. The ad then cuts to the tag line, written in Gothic script, floating in front of a blue sky, and then cuts again to the cardiac center's (and other sponsors') logos.

My first question is: who thought up this thing? It's positively creepy! I doubt it will have its intended effect. It certainly isn't funny in the least. Believe me. My sense of humor is as broad as anyone's, and broader than most everyone's. I recognize the attempt at dark humor in the ad. It fails miserably. It's on the wrong end of absurdity to be effective--let alone funny.

My second question is: if the woman's condition is genetic and it doesn't matter that she eats healthy food, why would getting "the test" make one whit of difference? This ad is spectacularly bad at selling what it says it's trying to sell. It's own internal logic contradicts its putative point.

OK. I realize the central point is really that eating right isn't enough: the test will give people additional information they can use to protect themselves better against genetic heart disease than they could do without having taken the test. This ad does not make that point at all effectively, however.

I am hoping against hope that this was a national ad agency's product, and the local cardiac center bought it, as opposed the center's hiring a local agency and having had active input into the ad's contents. I don't know why that matters except as a point of pride that I wouldn't willingly be caught dead [pun intended--Ed.] living next door to people with such tin ears.

And why is it that the truly funny ads never run enough, and the bad/creepy/offensive ones seem to be on the air ubiquitously?

Economic And Environmental Idiocy

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On today's Marketplace Morning Report (aired on NPR), Cato Institute fellow Will Wilkinson trashed the Obama Administration's efforts to implement a cap and trade system for carbon emissions. Wilkinson pointed out that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu's proposal to slap tariffs on products from countries who won't "cap and trade" will start a trade war--and everybody will lose as a result, due to higher prices, decreased availability of goods and services, and overall economic misery.

Wilkinson's primary focus is China--as the largest holder of US debt and one of the largest polluters on the planet, China has a lot of muscle, true. As Wilkinson also noted, no global governmental organization exists that could enforce a genuine world-wide cap and trade policy. [The reasons none of the current international bodies can do much about it is a topic for another day, but the blame lays rightly at the feet of people like Wilkinson.--Ed.] And unless every country participates in "cap and trade," we won't reduce collective emissions enough to stop the runaway train that is global warming.

It's difficult to pick a starting point to refute Wilkinson's claptrap. The Cato Institute is a right-wing "think tank," and nothing ever comes from it that doesn't skew both facts and their interpretation to suit the right-wing's agenda.

Where to begin? First, the gist of Wilkinson's observations is the conclusion that we should do NOTHING about implementing a "cap and trade" policy now. But if not now, when? After we've warmed the Earth to the point where everyone is charbroiled? It is a typical right-wing tactic to wave the bloody shirt of short-term economic pain (for the masses) to delay necessary long-term reforms that will force business owners suffer even a minute reduction in their profits. But in the case of global warming, if we delay too long, no matter what we do when we finally do it, it will be too late. We're all going to die. So Wilkinson's priorities are backwards.

Second, he makes it sound as though China is all-powerful and we are helpless before the sleeping dragon that we've now provoked. During the Dubya Administration, that was probably true, mostly because of the enmity of the rest of the world to the interventionist bully he made of America. But with the Obama Administration in place, America is regaining its stature as the moral and ethical leader in the world, and even the Chinese government is not immune to united and concerted international pressure. Besides, he never even acknowledges the probability that the people of the world may be willing to suffer the results of punitive tariffs until everyone implements "cap and trade" because most people have higher priorities than maximizing their profit margins. Priorities like restoring the health of the entire planet for the benefit of all of us.

Third, Wilkinson offers no other solution to the problem as he described it. Reminded me of William F. Buckley's oft-quoted observation that conservatives stand "athwart history yelling 'Stop!'" Wilkinson's point seems to be that maintaining the status quo is the only option open to us. I say "phooey." Mister Wilkinson, you can lead, you can follow, or you can get out of the way. If all you do is raise objections without proposing solutions, you aren't doing anyone any good. So move aside.

Give the Obama Administration a chance to implement its proposals. If they work, we'll all be alive, even if not necessarily better off in our pocketbooks in the short run. If they don't work, we'll either have to come up with something else or we'll already be cooked. But the only possible outcome of doing nothing is making us all crispy critters, so doing nothing is no solution.

I suppose I shouldn't be carping so much. At least the right wing is finally acknowledging the reality of the threat global warming poses to us all. Let's just hope the right wing comes to its senses about the solution before we've all fried.

Oh, Laura!

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Three rules for dealing with one's attitudes about any particular actor: (1) never idolize; (2) never idealize; (3) never mistake an actor's attitudes for those of the characters s/he portrays.

I was dismayed to read in Sunday's Parade that Mary Tyler Moore watches Fox News, likes Bill O'Reilly, and would have campaigned for John McCain had she been asked.

I am mystified as to how someone who built a career on playing smart, forward-thinking, independent-minded women could be so effective in such roles when her own beliefs are the antithesis to everything she has portrayed on the small screen in terms of both Laura Petrie and Mary Richards.

She must be an even better actress than I recognized. Or her attitudes have grown more conservative over time. Or she just doesn't think deeply about the contradictions between the implications of her stated political beliefs and the characters she so vividly inhabited in the 60s and 70s. Or all of the above. Or something completely different.

Help me out here! I feel I am truly floundering. The one thing I do know is that it's silly of me to expect everyone to behave rationally--history teaches us that most people do not--yet I cannot help but wish [and thus tend to expect--Ed.] they would.

I am therefore fighting my own internal demons: I want the world to be understandable, categorizable, orderly . . . yet I love the process of discovery, the messiness of reality, and the challenge of making sense of the non-sensible and nonsensical. It all comes down once again to my compulsion to repeal the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy increases despite my efforts to make orderly interpretation of events and people. Yet without order, structure, some rational way to consider the world, there is no way to function within it. The chaos would drown out everything else.

Kurt Vonnegut knew this. "So it goes."

The "Somebody Wasn't Thinking Clearly" Department

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I just saw an ad for a new "as seen on TV" product [which, thankfully, I've not yet actually seen on TV--Ed.]. It's for a product designed to make a woman's hair look fuller, and must be ordered according to the woman's hair color. So far, so good.

It's called Bumpits.

So far, not so good. Even with the product in the accompanying illustration I just saw, my first reading of the name was "Bum-pits," not the intended "Bump-its."

I do not want "bum pits" of any sort, matching my head hair color or not, thank you very much. Why do you think I use an anti-perspirant deodorant every day?

Somebody ought to tell the genius [and I use the term very loosely--Ed.] who thought of the product's name that an en-dash (you know, the printer's measure for a single dash, like this one: "-") would have been in order, just to clarify matters.

Bum pits. Now there's a mental image I do NOT want to conjure. Eeeuuwwww! Too late!

Two Little Words--Thrice

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Whatever happened to "you're welcome" as the proper response to "thank you"? On the now rare occasions when I hear it, I nearly jump with surprise and joy. I am sick of hearing "Thank YOU" as a response to "thank you." It sounds like a Gaston and Alphonse routine: an ever-downward spiraling do-loop of "After you," "No, after YOU," "Please, I insist: after YOU" . . .

Yet another example of how we Baby Boomers collectively have failed our children and our children's children by not teaching them proper manners.

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Call the Grammar Police, Part II. The next time I hear or see someone using the words "from whence," I am going to scream, pull out my hair, and run around frothing at the mouth. (Not really, but it's a definitive image of the intensity of my feelings about this bit of grammatical atrociousness, don't you think?)

Since "whence" literally means "from where," to say "from whence" is to say "from from where," which is--unless one stutters [and possibly even then--Ed.]--redundant. "Whence" all by its little lonesome is enough, people! Where's a decent copy editor when you need one, anyway?

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And now, the question originally prompting my title for this post. I have listened to and read the reporting about the AIG bonuses and resulting outrage with a mixture of resignation and astonishment.

Resignation, because at some deep level I know the "geniuses" [think "Wile E. Coyote"--Ed.] in the financial industry who took the bonuses under AIG's circumstances, along with the idiots who defend them [again, think "Wile E. Coyote"--Ed.], honestly believe that they deserved those payments and that they did nothing wrong, so they have no reason to give the money back. We talk about people "inside the Beltway" in Washington DC as being out-of-touch, but the Wall Streeters and their publicity toadies are just as much in their own little worlds, divorced from any sense of reality.

Astonishment, because two words fundamental to ANY such discussions and reports and analyses have been entirely absent from the playing field. Those two little words? "Fiduciary duty." This one is axiomatic. It's a "taught in the very first day of law or business school" principle. Anyone who takes responsibility for handling someone else's money kas the fiduciary duty to care for it with more diligence than that person would with even his own funds.

The reckless trading behavior of those in AIG's derivatives division didn't just breach their fiduciary duty to AIG's investors--they demolished it. Therefore, they breached their contracts first; thus, requiring them to forego their bonuses would not breach any contracts; therefore, they should not have received the money; thus, the taxpayers should have no trouble getting it--all of it--back.

Why is no one talking about "fiduciary duty"? Or has that, too, like responding to "thank you" with "you're welcome," gone completely out of style?

I Want Answers, Mister!

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If Bernie Madoff were really as sorry as he claims to be for bilking thousands of people out of billions of dollars, wouldn't he be doing everything he could to provide restitution to his victims, instead of what he is doing, which is not saying a word about where all the money went?

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If we really do believe in "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," why are all politicians who pay attention to polls automatically considered to be bad, evil, craven, or otherwise unprincipled?

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Does anyone out there know where I left my keys?

"Real" IRA? Give Me A Break!

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I have listened with dismay to the news reports since Sunday of renewed violence in Northern Ireland. These acts of terrorism--let's call them what they are--are being claimed by the self-styled "Real IRA," an offshoot of the Irish Republican Army that refuses to recognize the peace accords that have been in place for a decade now.

I submit that the "IRA" in "Real IRA" actually stands for "Idiotic Republican Army." What is WRONG with these people? There is peace in Ulster for the first time in my memory, progress is being made on the political front, and these bozos are trying to muck it up.

I know. They are like spoiled 3-year-old boys who are mad that they are not the center of everyone's attention. Not unlike Kim Jung Il in North Korea. Nor any number of other idiots and petty despots all over the globe.

I hope the spokesmen in Northern Ireland and Britain who have said the peace process is too far along for these spasms of violence to derail them are correct. The last thing the world needs is more trouble.

Calling All Luddites!

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Count me among those appalled by the plethora of "social networking" and instant communication sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. It's not that I am uncomfortable with the technology per se--after all, I do post to this blog on an increasingly regular basis. I am uncomfortable with the implications "resources" like Facebook et al. have for the most fundamental American values.

It took decades and decades and decades for the US Supreme Court to recognize that the Bill of Rights enumerates specific instances of what is every American's most fundamental right: the right to privacy. The reason the Founding Fathers didn't just call it that is because such terminology was not part of the governmental vocabulary of the time. Just because they didn't call it "the right to privacy" doesn't mean they didn't intend to define or describe that right. It's not unlike an indigenous society calling a railroad an "iron horse" or an airplane "a metal bird." Things are described as accurately as possible within the limited framework of the existing vocabulary.

[I still say Justice Scalia missed the biggest implication of his majority opinion in last term's gun rights case--by hanging his interpretation of the Second Amendment on an American's unfettered right to have guns in his own home, he relied on the right to privacy, whether he called it that or not, and despite his oft-stated opposition to any such "right to privacy."--Ed.]

But how in the world are we to preserve the right to privacy and to call on it to defend ourselves from unwarranted governmental intrusion into our lives if all our behavior abrogates it? Whether it's because people posting to Facebook et al. are giddy from the relative anonymity they have, if they are just so desperate for contact with others that they'll say anything, or if it's for some other reason--analysis after analysis has found that people who participate regularly on such sites reveal a lot more than they perhaps intend. So much so that the line between what is public and what is private has become quite blurred.

If our collective behavior demonstrates that we no longer consider anything private, it becomes impossible for the government to violate our right to privacy. No matter how unwarranted the wiretap, the search of the house, the confiscation of papers, the government can do whatever it wants and take whatever it wants . . . and we have no legal grounds to complain. By our own behavior, we've already given up our rights.

In my more paranoid moments, I wonder whether this hasn't been the intended outcome all along. A poorly educated populace doesn't know what its rights AND responsibilities really are; therefore, it can neither define nor defend them. It doesn't matter a whit what the Constitution commands if there exist no means to enforce same. So we continue to base school funding on property taxes, guaranteeing that the residents of the poorer districts will never climb out of the traps of poverty and poor education.

Worse, that those residents will become the objects of ridicule and scorn. Look at the general reaction to the woman who called 911 three times because her local McDonald's was out of Chicken McNuggets yet took her money and wouldn't give it back. The scorn and outrage were directed at her, not at the McDonald's staff who wouldn't give her the refund she was totally entitled to get. Yes, she was wrong to use 911 to register her complaint--but she didn't seem to know better. She kept telling the 911 operators that it WAS an emergency. [Poor education, remember?--Ed.] But what the McDonald's employees did approached extortion--they wouldn't give her back her money when they couldn't fill her order. They tried to make her take and eat something she did not want. I am as much offended by the cruel stupidity of that as I am by the woman's repeated calls to 911.

The richest of the rich thus keep their riches and preserve a poorly educated (thus mostly complaint) laboring class. Once we lose enough of a sense of "self" to give up any sense of individual decorum or restraint, there will be no valid legal argument to keep the government out of our homes and even our thoughts--no matter what we say on paper about the limits on our government's power over us.

The most dire threat to any free society is in fact its freedoms. Within them they hold the seeds of their own destruction. More personal freedom is nonetheless preferable to any other system. But with rights DO come responsibilities. We must be diligent in protecting our freedoms. We cannot let them atrophy by apathy, ignorance, or carelessness.

Random Observations On The Passing Scene

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[With my thanks to whomever coined the title phrase . . . and my apologies for not remembering who that was . . .--Ed.]

Some Democrats want to put up a billboard in Rush Limbaugh's Florida home town to demonstrate how limited his popularity really is. My first thought upon hearing this was the simple, stylish, even poetic "Flush Rush!" Thinking better of it, I have settled upon this: "Eliminate Global Warming! Shut The Rush Up!"

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A dear friend and I recently discussed why the ideas of the right wing are in general so very, very wrong. For one thing, the right wing's "ideas" have been on the wrong side of history every time, from not wanting to end slavery to giving non-landowners the vote, to ending child labor, to giving women the vote, to instituting a minimum wage, to allowing labor unions, to enforcing equal civil rights for all . . . you name it.

As one particular instance, I cite Calvin Coolidge's oft-quoted observation that "the business of America is business." He was wrong--what's good for business is not necessarily good for the people, and America is both (1) a government of laws and not of men, and (2) a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Coolidge did not see the distinction, of course, because in his day the laws and the courts claimed that corporations were people too, and that John Q. Public, lone individual, had equal bargaining power to all the resources any corporation could marshal against him.

That was a legal fiction of which we did well to rid ourselves. But those who stand to gain from it (at the expense of those of us with more modest means) keep proclaiming it. Will the right wing ever figure out that no matter how loudly and for how long they shout it, it isn't true?

I doubt it. For the other major reason the right wing is and has been on the wrong side of history is that most of its adherents are shockingly indifferent to matters of FACT. Rush Limbaugh has already tried to call the present economic meltdown "the Obama recession," even though it started long before he won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, let alone was elected President.

More than one right-winger has claimed that FDR started the Great Depression, even though a cursory examination of the calendar proves it was in full swing for nearly 4 years before he was inaugurated President. Many right-wingers have claimed the New Deal didn't work, because it was World War II that got us out of the Great Depression and not anything FDR did . . . but federal spending is federal spending, whether it's on roads and rural electrification projects or on military armament. So even it we didn't get out of the Great Depression till we entered WWII, it was still federal SPENDING [read that "economic stimulus"--Ed.] that saved us. If the New Deal informs us of anything, it informs us that the federal government's spending was not big enough until after Pearl Harbor. Hence the arguments of eminent economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich that Obama's plan isn't big enough.

It's impossible to respect anyone who defends his views by lying or distorting documented historical facts. It's impossible to give such views credibility when all that supports them is quicksand. Until the GOP learns how to argue for its positions based on truth, its positions are more bankrupt than Lehman Brothers.

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In case you're thinking I just exhibited left-leaning bias, let me note that I have no use for Michael Moore, either. Of late, he's been called the Democratic equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, and in some respects, that's true. Moore lies. Several incidents from many of his films, including those from Bowling for Columbine to Sicko, have been misreconstructed or otherwise misrepresented. He also states "facts" incorrectly. In that regard, he's no better than Limbaugh. He should not be calling his films "documentaries" and he should not be excused for his excesses . . . even if he is largely correct as far as goes the substance of his arguments on the issues. As he is, however, I have no use for him, and no other "liberals" should, either.

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I hope Frank DeFord was kidding on Wednesday when he said on NPR that he could not understand why the clock was stopped in a football game after an incomplete pass but not after a run or a completed pass. After a run (whether it loses or gains yardage) or a completed pass, there's no reason to stop the clock: the ball is already at the spot whence the next play will be run. After an incomplete pass, however, the ball could be 99 yards away from the line of scrimmage. Not to stop the clock while the ball is returned to the next play's starting point would waste too much time. We want game time to be filled by playing the game (as much as possible), not by "administrative" tasks like returning the ball to the line of scrimmage. C'mon, Frank! You know better! I hope . . .

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Why Reaganomics is dead, though those few who benefited from it will keep trying to resurrect it: in 1980, the richest 1% of the population held 9% of the total wealth of this country. After a quarter century of generally right-wing economics in action unfettered by the federal government, however, the richest 1% of the population held 22% of the total wealth of this country. That's obscene, and it gives the ultimate lie to "trickle down" economics. The richest do not use their increased wealth to help the rest of us become wealthier; they hoard it and want more and more and more for themselves alone. Under trickle down economics, the only thing that ever trickled down was the rich peeing on the rest of us.

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I used to say that if most of the people on Wall Street had been alive 350-400 years ago, they'd have been pirates. After repeated viewings of Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End, however, I find I must modify that observation. Three-hundred-fifty to four hundred years ago, most people now on Wall Street would have been working for the East India Company: all's fair in war and business. The ones who wouldn't have been working for the East India Company would have been the pirates who cast their lot WITH the East India Company. The pirates fighting the East India Company and its allies and minions today would be union organizers.

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I laugh every time I see a commercial telling women that this miracle makeup or that miracle medical procedure will eliminate lines and wrinkles. For one thing, I feel as though those of us with lines and wrinkles have earned them. For another, most women who are so concerned about lines and wrinkles also buy into the ideas that a woman cannot be attractive until she (1) is tanned to the color of bronze, and (2) is underweight to the point of anorexia.

You want to lose the lines and wrinkles? Stay out of the sun and gain 10 pounds already!

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I saw my first two robins of the spring this morning. There are still a few isolated patches of snow on the ground, but after we get the thunderstorms predicted to start late tonight, they should melt away. People are already playing golf and running around in t-shirts and shorts. Ah, spring in Nebraska. Nothing else like it! Let's just hope it lasts a while this year and that we don't go from breezy, cool but sunny 65° highs to oppressively humid sun-beating-down mercilessly 100°+ in the shade the way we did last year. I like spring a lot more when it hangs around a while than I do when it comes and goes in 24 hours.

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Cats know how to push people's buttons. I had to take my two heathens to the vet for their annual checkups and distemper booster shots yesterday. When we all got home, they made it perfectly plain that I was in their bad graces. They both sat in plain sight with their backs to me for the entire evening. Things are back to normal [as normal as they ever are around here, that is--Ed.] today, but I guess I was taught my lesson.

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Daylight Savings Time starts again at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. BLEAH! All I can say is this: the ONLY good thing about DST is going off it in the fall.