Pause That Refreshes

My father had two religions, Lutheranism and Workism.  He had a difficult time relaxing after his service to the church (interim pastor whenever and wherever a local church had a vacancy) and after all the other spadework he executed, which included five days a week at Boeing and endless gardening and building tasks around the house.  Even when he sat in a comfy chair, which was rare, he would be reading the Bible to prepare for Bible Study class.  He was fond of saying, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.”  He nabbed that quotation from the Bible, from which he freely quoted and from which he was ever ready to offer a timely verse to suit any occasion.  So Dad worked.  Hard.  On those days that he didn’t drive to Renton and the aerospace plant, he would stand at the kitchen sink during lunchtime to eat a slapped-together cheese sandwich before returning to the garden to hoe or weed or plant.  He always had a task underway: an additional room to attach to our smallish house, a new fireplace after knocking down a wall, or the supervision of a work party at church.  Taking a day off for R & R was not on his schedule.  The closest he came to aimless recreation was after church when he would chauffeur the family for a drive through the tony neighborhoods by Lake Washington in Seattle, a drive-by tour, I guess, to show us where the well-to-do half lived. 

       Of course, I did not share then nor now his unbridled enthusiasm for work-work-work, at least not to the degree he valued the work doctrine—regardless, I had a fierce love for him.  Perhaps as an act of rebellion against parental authority, I have long cherished regular and mandatory timeouts when working, even though I am not cocksure what the definition of work actually is.  If my father passed down the work ethic to his children (and he sure tried), this child cultivated a pause ethic as well, a gratitude for teatime, for a spur-of-the-moment nap, for an unscheduled walk around the lake.  Pausing refreshes and allows me to be still and silent for a few moments.  It provides space for reflection, for rest, and for considering what needs consideration.

        COVID-19 has affected everyone except for hermits and a few far-flung herding Bedouin communities.  For the remainder of us, daily routines have become unsettling and a cause to look at time in a novel way.  In the end, prudent isolation and stepping back from the load we usually lift may be just the therapy to adjust our lives for the better.  This crisis, this dread, this pandemic is no practice drill, not a public announcement that interrupts the Hip-Hop music on the radio.  This time the virus will change behavior for a long time, if not forever.  My mother was fond of saying that the common cold was meant to slow us down, to make us rest and get well in the long run.  I did not see the logic in that claim then.  I do now.  Springtime 2020 presents the world with a pandemic that is destructive to lives and livelihood and is, bizarrely, an opportunity to change things for the better.

       Have you noticed that the crime is down throughout America?  Also, the stinkers who advocate for war have called time-out to regroup while hunkering down in their war rooms.  And, holy smoke, air quality has dramatically improved around the world because the gears that run industry and all those millions of combustion engines have temporarily shut down.

       All around my Steilacoom, Washington neighborhood people are walking their dogs, getting plenty of exercise, and cooking at home—all good for wellbeing.  Strangers walk by and wave as if we were old friends.  Able-bodied folks make grocery deliveries for the people next door who have physical limitations.  Out of necessity, family and friends connect via Zoom or FaceTime, nurturing closer bonds in spite of the coronavirus and all the physical distancing proscriptions.

       Finally, this unforeseen pause in the way we live may, just may, revolutionize our attitudes toward work and toward the important elements of our lives: family, faith, and enlightened reflection.  When we get to the other side of this crisis, there is a good chance that we will have learned an important lesson.

Schools Without Walls

As the novel coronavirus lays siege to our colleges, universities, and K-12 schools, the last day of the school year may have already passed, denying students the celebratory chant: “No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks.”  Ah, yes, so school administrators now must regroup and offer stopgap measures, mostly online services and formats.  Across our state, educators scramble to mount coursework on appropriate platforms.  Practicing physical distancing, teachers, professors, and administrators must adjust to the challenge: to entice students to learn while everyone stays home.  How does one build a new multi-layered education system in a few weeks?  How does one right the world once it has been tipped upside down?

       Having conducted college distance learning courses when curricula were delivered by public television, tape recordings, and workbooks, I realized long ago that formal education need not involve brick and mortar classrooms.  Back then, students snail-mailed their completed modules or delivered them in person.  Eventually, distance learning became indispensable and has been growing ever since.  As computers became ubiquitous, online classes provided attractive substitutions for real classrooms.  With fewer in-person obligations, a student could “attend” class in a park, a coffee shop, a library, a ferry, a comfy sofa at home, anywhere a laptop could connect to the internet.  The notion of going to school changed because school could go wherever a student chose to go.  Recent closures, however, have caused knotty problems.

       Preparing material for an online course takes an uncommon portion of time and effort.  Software and hardware issues present themselves when creating an effective course.  Even though programs such as Zoom and Skype offer video conferencing and communications, not all students have the tech savvy and appropriate devices to fully participate.  Nor do all faculty.  Again, big disadvantages fall on marginal students, especially those who cannot afford suitable hardware.  Left behind entirely are those unmotivated and the less proficient students who need added attention.  Special needs students and English as a second language students will likely find themselves detached from educational resources altogether.

       Despite research that demonstrates virtual classrooms do not prepare students as well as brick and mortar classrooms do, what little education schools now offer is mostly online.  What other choices are possible?  A few remarkable teachers will reach out to students in other ways (FaceTime, group chats, phone calls, worksheet packets, and so on), but for learners in low income groups and for the millions of otherwise disadvantaged students, closing our schools effectively means school is dark for this academic year.

       For those fortunate enough to have online classes available, chatting with your teacher and peers via an iPad or tablet is unlike engaging people in a real classroom.  Lack of social interaction and distractions incumbent with taking a class online can easily defeat an indifferent learner.  And let’s face it, if a student is on his or her own, obediently attending a virtual classroom takes extraordinary initiative.

       K-12 schools especially are left to mount an infrastructure required for comprehensive remote learning?  Too much to ask?  Sure, the horribleness will eventually end, and a boost for everyone will come when students can walk the corridors of real schools with real smiling teachers in real classrooms, when all of us can breathe deeply and touch one another.

Look at My Big Gun

Second Amendment advocates have been on a roll.  Recently, various factions of gun rights supporters have appeared in public to show their concerns (and weapons) over what they fear might be coming, namely, infringements on gun ownership rights from state and local governments.  In Portland (Oregon), Salt Lake City, Richmond (Virginia), Seattle, Frankfort (Kentucky), and dozens of other cities, Three Percenters, the most conspicuous contingent of gun rights activists, have gathered to support their right-of-center version of anti-big taxes and pro-gun privileges.  They resemble militia soldiers in this loosely organized advocacy group; frequently they wear camouflage and tote assault weapons in public places, often alongside other groups out for an afternoon protest of their own.  Outwardly, Three Percenters come ready for war, or they enjoy playing dress-up roles as they imitate battle-ready mercenaries, probably the latter with the threat of the former.  They often wear armor protection, holsters, ammo belts, all varieties of tactical gear, and assault weapons complete with slings—the total cost of their impedimenta must come to well over a thousand dollars per warrior, give or take.  So they march or idle around the public square, an intimidating bunch because they could mow down dozens if not hundreds of bystanders just by flipping off their safeties and pulling their triggers.  In some ways, I suppose, that is the point—spread a little fear while soaking up all that attention.  Flaunting assault weapons and attired in combat gear, these activists present a formidable in-your-face threat, saber-rattling to demonstrate their cause.  Most of these gun-toting groups fall to the right of center on the political spectrum.  That mentioned, what will happen when groups representing the far left (antifa, for instance) begin showing up armed and ready to trade insults (and much more).  It’s possible.  After all, Second Amendment rights apply to anti-fascists and anti-capitalists as well as to the rest of us.  And the antifa comrades believe in confronting the far right, not in elections so much as on the streets.  They appear to be itching for a fight.

  Consider the battle scene in “Braveheart” for reference.  Two large battle-ready combatants screaming insults and war whoops at one another.  What might be the outcome at such a scene?  You know what will happen, don’t you.  Of course you do.  Allowing armed protesters and counter-protesters to face off with lots of loaded weapons will surely end in bloodshed, and, as it stands now, the Bill of Rights permits people to gather brandishing weapons no matter how outrageous their motivations may be.

  In America, violence is a tool of political expression and always has been. From the American Revolution to the Civil War, from the labor riots to the protest movements during the Vietnam War, champions of one cause or another have been doing battle with their opposition.  Fomenting fear and the threat of violence to affect change in society remain common as well as being ethically objectionable, if not morally questionable.  But there it is, big as the Statue of Liberty wearing full battle gear.  Moreover, the divisions among the body politic have become especially alarming.  Consider:

  Earlier this year, political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe presented a paper at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting, titled “Lethal Mass Partisanship.” With data from two different national surveys, they found that 24 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats believe that it is occasionally acceptable to send threatening messages to public officials. Fifteen percent of Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats agree that the country would be better if large numbers of opposing partisans in the public today “just died,” which the authors call a “shockingly brutal sentiment.” Nine percent of both Democrats and Republicans agree that violence would be acceptable if their opponents won the 2020 presidential election.[1]

  In light of the perilous divisions we face and considering all the assault rifles (some estimates range from five to ten million) in the hands of Americans, it is urgent now to do something more than point out the danger.  Every time there is a yet another mass shooting, the sales of assault weapons skyrocket as people fear gun restrictions will tighten.

  Eventually, because enough is enough, we will have to figure out a way to defuse America’s surplus firepower.  As it stands now, Americans own nearly half the civilian owned guns in the world, even though our population measures about 4.2 % of the total world population.  Subtract the responsible gun owners and what remains are millions of people with millions of weapons all of which pose immediate danger.

  What will it take to blunt the daily bloodshed we read about each day in newspapers?  For starters, how about prohibiting knuckleheads on both sides of the political divide from openly carrying assault weapons in public?

Biometric fingerprint gun locks may help with America’s gun problem.  But that is another matter, another subject.  Beyond that, we had better explore ways to reduce the number of weapons that litter a neurotic and violence-obsessed citizenry.

(Greater Good Magazine)1

Got A Minute?

I’ve been thinking about getting a new car.  It’s been five years since I purchased the Volvo CX90 I currently drive.  Now that is not, most folks would concur, a long time on the road for a well-kept Volvo, I know, but a new car would be nice to own, anyway.  Speaking of bringing things up-to-date, I have wondered if my big-screen television is big enough.  Oh, it seems plenty big for our household’s purposes (baseball games, news programs, and PBS offerings), but others I know have bigger televisions than ours.  Also, I think I’d like the latest iPhone even though the model I use now works fine but is a few generations older than what is available.  Not only that, my wife and I have been thinking about upgrades around the house, you know, keeping current.  Carpeting is getting a little washed out, windows have seen better days, some furniture has become weary owing to twenty years of service, and we’ve been thinking about installing a water feature in the backyard, maybe a small fountain, something bubbling from a stack of artificial rocks, nothing essential but nonetheless something worth having.  Then there is the washer and dryer to consider.  Yes, they still work just fine, but one of these days one or both will go kerflooey, and then where will we be?  I keep thinking that our appliances cannot last much longer and ought to be replaced.  Owning a home means one must always consider enhancements.  “It’s always something;” that’s the line the guy at the hardware store says every time I go in for something.

Though my wife and I entertain purchasing possibilities, it occurs to me that my urges toward consumerism might be something close to an addiction.  Similar to preparing a meatloaf and mashed potato dinner on a winter evening, buying stuff is comforting.  Briefly.  But then one usually needs more consoling, another purchase, more stuff to fuel the high of defeating ennui.  To some degree, many of us have oniomania, an obsession to buy things even if we do not need things.  Pretty sure I have a mild case of that disorder.  Oh, well, we do live in a consumeristic culture, so in some ways I am conditioned to buying stuff just by being a targeted consumer in present-day America.

And, oh boy, are we ever marinated in commercial messages each day.  By some estimates, each of us exposed to 5000 adverts daily, probably more, depending on where we live and how much time we spend online.  Television spots, radio ads, online adverts, cold call telephone pitches, billboards, feather flag signage, blimps, airplanes dragging commercial messages, guys standing on corners twirling cardboard signs, email pleas: all means of imploring us to buy, buy, buy.  Buy now.  Don’t walk; run to the nearest shopping mall and buy our stuff.  You need it.  You want it.  “Call now!  But wait.  If you call now, you will receive an additional thingamajig for an added fee.”  If one includes charitable causes, the distractions multiple and become maddening.  “Change your will.”  “Donate your car.”  “Shall we round up that purchase for a contribution to the Children’s Hospital?”  “Save the whales.”  “The fundraising deadline is just hours away, so help us reach our goals.”  Is there no end to aggressive, nauseating begging?

The engine that powers consumerism is not sustainable, of course, but the advertisements keep coming at a madcap pace, and our over-the-top consuming demands abuses our environment and climate in the process.  There is a limit to how much stuff we can buy at Costco because our homes and garages can only store so much.  Our world is finite, of course, and consumerism depends on more, bigger, better—demands that have no limits.  One can stuff only so much rubbish into a can.  One can drive only one Lexus at a time.  One can only use one burial plot.  We are not sexy enough, not influential enough, not even close to up-to-date enough, and the antidote to all these shortcomings is to buy, buy, buy, and buy some more.  Don’t be left out.  That is, increasing consumption of goods and services is socio-economically desirable and good for the economy even if it does not make a good deal of practical sense.

Nonetheless, because we have yet to be cured of our addictions, my wife and I recently attended the local home show.  As we moved through the aisles of displays we were buttonholed by more than one marketer with the familiar opener, “Got a Minute?”  These sales reps were pitching smart phones, cable television hookups, window replacements, hot tubs, high-tech gizmos, all varieties of goods and services that we did not need.  But, yes, we had a minute.  After all, we paid to attend a home show and should have expected to stroll the gauntlet, subjecting ourselves to full-force, good old American hard sell.

And that got me thinking.  The home show is a microcosm of America.  All the ingredients squeezed into the Tacoma Dome.  Buyers.  Sellers.  Hustlers.  Gulls.  Dreams.  Visa and Mastercard.  Goods.  Services.  All of us looking for a commercial fix.  The whole shebang, the lot of us leading “lives of quiet desperation.”

Whad'ya Goin' Do?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that super-aggressive, line-cutting, loud-mouthed buffoons too often get their way while, counter to a sage Biblical reference, the meek and mild get jack-shit.

       Speaking truth to power usually gets the truth-speaker shouldered out of the way.  That’s how it works if the powerful one does not like what he or she hears.  Outta my way, loser.

       Speaking of loud-mouthed buffoons, what prosthetic balls Donald Trump has.  A man of great invention but peewee imagination, Trump has redefined experience to suit his role as the monarch of all humanity, King Donald.  As he shoulders “losers” out of his way, he is often met with timidity and well-measured responses that lose the day.  Even though he claims status as a “stable genius,” he in fact isn’t, droning his waspishness daily.  Infamously, he has derogatory names for all the people whom he belittles—“Quid Pro Joe” for Biden, “Mini Mike” for Bloomberg, “Crooked Hillary” for Hillary Clinton, “Slimeball Comey” for James Comey, “Al Frankenstein” for Al Franken, “Fat Jerry” for Jerry Nadler, “Pencil Neck Schitt” for Adam Schiff, and scores more insulting tags.  A shameful bully, Trump proves daily that he is an awful person and an even worse president.  Disagree with him, criticize him, and he loads hurtful barbs that he announces with impunity.  He is not ashamed and finds it impossible to ever say, “I’m sorry.”  Because he isn’t and never will be.  His normal response to a significant challenge is to file a lawsuit.

       How did this stinker become our president?  Nearly half the voters saw fit to select a man who can’t spell well, doesn’t read anything beyond stock market quotations, grabs women by their naughty bits, cheats on business deals, is unashamedly a misogynist (even to the point of agreeing with Howard Stern when he referred to Ivanka as “a piece of ass.”), brags about damn near everything, and wastes taxpayers’ time tweeting and playing golf.  To date he has claimed that he is the world’s leading expert on drones, ISIS, law, courts, lawsuits, construction, money, higher education, borders, technology, among just about any other subject known to humanity.  He brags that he is richer, smarter, more aware, better informed than anyone anywhere.  No person in the history of world, he claims, can surpass him in anything.  In short, he’s a nutcase (to use his preferred insult of others).

       I ask again, how did this stinker become president?  And what does one do to counter the behavior of perhaps the most shameful political bully since Joe McCarthy?    

       In his book Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, Dr Justin A. Frank, a  former Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center, concludes that the president has an erotic attachment to his daughter and a fixation with feces and dirt.  Sounds about right, doesn’t it?  Sex and dirt.  One does not need a couch and a degree in psychiatry to see the gaping flaws of this man who defines the role of a narcissist.

       Norman Vincent Peale officiated Trump’s first marriage and likely had a strong influence in molding Donald’s beliefs in prosperity gospel and the power of positive thinking, even if that thinking is far wide of truth.  Go ahead, big guy, inflate the truth so much that it no longer relates to anything that is verifiable.  And then take it even further into the realm of lies that only you believe.  Only you.  And maybe a few other nutcases.

Free Speech Ain't Free

  Along with most Americans, I believe in the principles detailed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, especially the wording that guarantees freedom of speech.  Certainly we are not the only country that believes in protecting the rights of citizens to freely express their views in an open society.  Not surprisingly, nearly all democracies make the boast that freedom of expression is a foundation to an open and free society.  Even some not-so-democratic countries (Russia or Turkey, for example) claim to value freedom of speech.  Moreover, some flat-out undemocratic governments insincerely offer freedom of speech and assembly to its citizens: Article 35 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China gives these rights to its citizens.  In practice, however, what the Chinese Constitution guarantees has little to do with what the Chinese government allows, which should come as no surprise to anyone.  For the most part, leaders of each country make or bend the rules as they wield power regardless of underpinning charters and rules.  Historically, many leaders of fascist countries, for instance, have duplicitously boasted over the freedoms enjoyed within their borders.  Benito Mussolini said, “The press of Italy is free, freer than the press of any other country, so long as it supports the regime.”  Even dictators realize that virtue dwells in freedom of expression, but that freedom must not be dangerous to the “regime.”

       Of course, there are speech limitations in America too.  Libel, slander, incitement to violence, and perjury are not included in freedom of speech protection.  Freedom of speech that we enjoy forbids prior restraint but does not guarantee that controversial or hurtful speech comes without cost.  Good ahead, say what is in your heart, but you can expect criticism from others who likewise have freedom to reply.  That’s what happens in the public square.  One citizen makes a claim, and another citizen may disagree.  And off we go.  There are, of course, limitations.  Hate speech in its many varieties can get one in trouble in most nations that embrace the tenets of freedom of speech.  You have heard the platitude about screaming “Fire” in a crowded theater.  But that example is not a free speech argument, is it?  That is an example of doing harm to others by using a cruel lie (assuming there is no fire).  Accordingly, if one were to confront a sworn enemy with the pledge, “I am going to kill you,” that threat categorically has no free speech license; in fact, it may be a misdemeanor, or worse, something arrestable.  Now, if one were to say, “I wish you were dead,” that unkind wish would be protected under the First Amendment.  Even so, the one targeted with that bad-mannered verbal assault might offer a comeback (“I wish both you and your dog were dead.”) that would also be covered under the First Amendment.  One is free to level an uncivil exchange at another party, but keep in mind that one bad turn deserves another, and usually that is the way it works out.

        Consider, though, where unresolved arguments over the First Amendment has delivered us.  A significant judgement from the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission concluded that money spent by corporations and unions in election campaigns cannot be restricted by governments.  Corporations and big unions, the Supreme Court ruled, were protected like individuals and were able to express themselves by spending as much money as they wish to influence elections.  And they have been doing so ever since.  Money is speech, so says the Supreme Court, but embedded in this ruling lies a danger to the integrity of our democracy because money talks.  Loudly and persuasively.  Consider: money talks.  Who, you may wonder, gets to enjoy the most freedom of speech?  No surprise that rich people have often purchased the microphone, rented the venue, hired the media consultants, secured the television ads, and so on.  (Didn’t I just read that Mayor Bloomberg has recently earmarked 100 million dollars of his own money to kickstart his campaign for the presidency?).  In other words, ultra-rich individuals are abler to employ their constitutional right to free speech.  And it is no surprise that well-to-do people hold most of the elected offices at the national level.  They can easily afford to be seen and heard.  Though the statistics are inexact from year to year, the median net worth of members of Congress ranges well above a million dollars.  That should not be a surprise since moneyed people have advantages that hoi polloi can only imagine.

       President William McKinley’s political ally, Mark Hanna, put the value of money in elections succinctly: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.”

       Two conclusions: 1) You are free to speak your mind.  Go ahead.  See how many will listen, and  2) Your free speech will stand a better chance of drawing an audience if you have lots of money.

       In other words, free speech ain’t free.  Never was.  And the way things stand right now, never will be.  If one has lots of money, several lawyers on retainer, and friends in high places, that person has more freedom of speech than the rest of us who fly in coach.  Money talks!

Strange Affinities

         Will it be The Rolling Stones, The Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Up With People, or some other pop or rock act for the Super Bowl halftime presentation?  Regardless, (I see Jennifer Lopez has been selected as the headliner for 2020) one can count on a halftime spectacular that will have a high production value, lots of dazzling special effects, and hordes of young fans swarming onto the field and gyrating to suggest they (and we) are having spontaneous fun attending a concert.  We aren’t.  With few exceptions (Prince and Michael Jackson), the grand scale of the venue overwhelms the immediacy and effectiveness of such a show, not to mention all the technical difficulties in channeling sound and spectacle to millions of television viewers.  Music, dancing, and special effects never fully connect with a television audience, most of whom are in the kitchen fixing a snack or in the bathroom off-loading the beer consumed during the first half of football.

         And yet.  Why music?  Why not a chariot race or a dancing bear act?  How about a pie eating contest?  Or a falconry demonstration?  If left to choose, I would prefer seeing and hearing a pig calling contest.  Why not have a halftime celebration without wham-bam music?  Why the alliance of pop/rock music to professional football?  My guess: NFL football is violent.  Rock/pop music is often sexually suggestive and/or violent.  There.  I said it.  (Frankly, I don’t know what to do with Up With People because they are mostly white rice and vanilla ice cream).  The marriage of NFL football and big-time pop/rock music is consummated because during a bruising fight nothing goes better than the idea of a good bruising sexual encounter, or perhaps the pounding beat that suggests even more violence.  Throw in piles of advertisement money (generated by football and headliners in the music business) and there you have the American dream: violence, sex, and money.  Let’s all stand and salute the flag.

         Hip-Hip-Hooray for the American way.

            The NFL presents a gladiatorial spectacle each weekend and on several other days each week during the fall and winter.  What goes well with broken bones and head-to-head concussions?  Music that vibrates the fillings in your teeth and knocks you out, sends you for a loop, that’s what.  And on Super Bowl day, brainwashed, slack-jawed Americans lean forward on their couches to absorb the advertisements, one shill after another selling cars, beer, medicine, insurance, and pure huckstering that contributes to a neurotic and sick society.

Okay, Boomer

Chlöe Swartbrick, a 25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker, recently gave a speech in which she proposed that her government take urgent action to reduce the damaging effects of climate change.  While she spoke, an older colleague heckled her mercilessly.  Undaunted, without even looking at her tormentor, she raised a hand indicating a stop sign and interjected, “Okay, Boomer,” and kept on talking.

       Her response has become an internet meme and a mild clapback against my generation, the Baby Boomers.  Her reaction speaks directly to a generational divide that should surprise no one.  

       I remember well my headband and tie-dye shirt days, and I also remember my cohort’s rallying cry back then: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”*  When I was in my early twenties, I believed the truth of that platitude.  That was then.  Now Chlöe and her generation are saying approximately the same thing, “Okay, Boomer.”  And while blameworthy for some of the mess my generation has shuffled off to Generation X, the Millennials, and Gen Z, we must accept that each subsequent generation edits and revises the work of the generation that precedes it.  That is the way it has always been.  So I am not insulted, not crying ageism, and not requesting a rebuttal for my fellow Boomers. 

       Even considering all the accomplishments and highwater marks* credited to my generation, we Boomers have, let’s face it, left a mess for the young ones to clean up.  And I believe the pleasant rejoinder, “Okay, Boomer,” is a kindhearted rebuke more than an insult because Generation X, the Millennials and Gen Z could easily point to damaging climate change, an increase of kill power for our war machines, growing scarcity of water and food for the 7.75 billion people in the world, and the rise of tyrannical governments across the globe as the true legacies they have inherited from us.  There you go.  You drive for a while.

       Sorry, kids.  May you make the world a much better place than what we leave you.

**Including the literal highwater marks that come from melting glaciers and global warming.

Screen Addiction

Dang, another traffic jam on a Seattle freeway.  As my car judders (stop and go, stop and go) forward at an agonizingly sluggish pace, I become aware that every other the driver in adjoining lanes is eyeing a smart phone or similar device.  Though distracted driving is illegal in Washington state, as it is nearly everywhere, scofflaws continue to pay more attention to their little screens than they do to traffic.  Judging by my cursory observations of other drivers caught in backed-up traffic on I-5, I wonder how many of us have Screen Addiction Disorder?  How can we sit and do nothing when we have the diversion of fingering our little devices that allow thoughts to be absorbed by a brain-numbing digital elixir?  The illuminated screen is so much better than twiddling one’s thumbs, I suppose, but, really, what is so alluring about those small rectangles of brightness?  Is the craving to fix our eyes upon our smart phone screens the equivalent of heroin, digital heroin?  Are the text messages, emails, memes, streaming films, and video games so important that we eagerly risk our lives and regularly demonstrate appalling behavior as well?  Sure, you bet they are!

       The evidence is all around us.  A surgeon takes a cell phone call during an open heart operation; the best man checks his smart phone while standing with the groom as they wait for the wedding march to begin; each member of a family of six each looks at his or her phone while they wait for the server to bring their orders—these occurrences no longer shock us, though we may raise an eyebrow, because we see or hear about them every day.  Criminy, I recently attended a funeral, and the fellow sitting in front of me, I could not help but notice, kept checking his phone for baseball scores.  And who hasn’t been in a public place and been subjected to a loud voice yapping into a cell phone, imposing one half of a conversation to all those nearby?  To many of us little screens induce bad manners and discourteous behavior, and we, unaccountably, have agreed to accept the results.  Well, no, perhaps not all of us.

       Many observers suggest that digital craving is just another obsession like drug, alcohol, gambling, and sexual addiction.  I mean, an addiction is an addiction, isn’t it.  The standard line: an addiction is an impairment in behavioral control.  In other words: an addicted person has got to have it (whatever it may be).  The craving trumps an ability to abstain.  The craving enslaves its victim.  In the end, interpersonal relationships are impacted, and significant emotional problems inevitably arise.  No surprise there, I suppose.  But, addiction is too strong a word for someone who thoughtlessly pulls out his or her cell phone whenever the outside world does not offer enough stimulation.  To that person, myself included, the attention paid to the little screen is a bad habit, not a pathologic condition.  Not to make light of bad habits, but many people have a real addiction to screens.  In South Korea, in fact, the government sponsors detox centers for teens whose lives have become overdependent on their phones and other screens.

       Such a remedy might be a good idea here in America.  My computer at work was acting up, so I called our IT guy to come have a look.  While he was updating my software, or some such remedy, I asked him about a certain video game that my son had mentioned.  The IT guy froze, turned his head and stared at me as if I were a demon sent to poke him with a red-hot pitchfork.  “What?” I asked.  Shamefaced, he explained that the game I had mentioned had cost him his marriage.  “How?” I asked.  Turns out that he had become so addicted to that game that he grossly neglected everything: his wife, his children, his job, and, well, everything including his health and hygiene.  He skipped meals, forgot to bathe or change clothes, and remained in the basement playing his game as if nothing else mattered, which, he confessed, was self-assigned madness.  When his wife announced that she was leaving, divorcing him, he barely looked up from the monitor to dissuade her.  At the time, he thought she was being melodramatic and would be upstairs making him a sandwich when he finally took a brief break from his game.  Months later, he received counselling, professional withdrawal help, and recognized that while his video gaming gave him a distraction from the important components in his life, it had become his life in sum.  All those important elements that comprised his life had wasted away.  In his case, a video game had kept him from dealing with the people, responsibilities, and duties, all foundations of his life pushed aside for (ding, ding, ding) playing a video game.

     For most of us screen time is an annoying habit rather than an addiction, but if you must have your smart phone with you (even when you go to bed), if you are having trouble with dry eyes because staring at a screen means you do not blink as much as you should, and if you refuse to take that wilderness retreat trip because there will be no Wi-Fi, no internet connection, then you may be crossing the line from a bad habit to a real screen addiction.

     Beware, in 2018 the World Health Organization recognized “gaming addiction” as a mental disorder.  They could easily have conflated that conclusion to include all compulsive screen gawking.  To revise and update Marx’s maxim, “Religion is the opium of the people,” one might substitute: Smartphones are the opioids of the people.

       In my case, stress or anxiety trigger an instant response for my digital pain-killer.  If I am at the dentist’s office waiting for that root canal that I have been putting off, I instinctively reach for my phone so I can anesthetize worries if only for a few minutes.

       Finally, most concerning, screens have become blinds to keep many of us from seeing the outside world, as well as hindering our view to look inward.  We are missing the grand landscapes around us and the meditative galaxies within us.

Nugatory News

Every news story has an angle, a spin, a political value encased in diction and syntax.  Words denote substance, of course, but they also come with nuances. They cannot be sanitized, scrubbed of associations, as if they were blood stains at a crime scene.  Words have color.  Like a chameleon, they change shades depending upon their surroundings.  They have (wink-wink) conflated meanings.  Did the victim die at the hands of the police from a “scuffle” or from a “beating”?  Is the person of interest an “extremist” an “agitator,” or a “devotee” of the opposition?  In this picture of a man wearing camouflage and carrying an AR-15, shall we label him a “terrorist” or a “freedom fighter”?  As we know, Fox News has a motto, “Fair and Balanced,” that depicts network productions that rarely are either fair or balanced.  Is the panhandler whom a reporter interviewed an “idler” or “a person down on luck”?  Pick a word, any word, and you make a choice that carries not only a denotation but also a connotation.  To add to the confusion, words are shape-shifters, they change their personalities from one generation to the next.  Take a studied look at the word ‘Nice’ in the OED and you will find contradictory meanings and treatments from one century to the next.  One of my students once identified me as “a real bad dude,” and he meant that tag, I think, as a compliment.  Syntax, too, adds nuances to any report; word order will add emphasis to meaning.  Moreover, modifiers come prepackaged with bias, lending nouns prejudicial meanings: “shady politician,” “dizzy blonde,” “ham-fisted wide receiver,” “cheap suit,” and so on.  Unless one uses numbers to communicate, objectivity is unmanageable.  And, I suppose, even if we used numbers exclusively to correspond, after a while some of those digits would carry connotations. After all, car license plates and phone numbers sell at auction in China for obscene prices (a recent phone number sold for over 50,000 US dollars) simply because 5s and 8s are considered lucky.  The most spiritual number is 10, don’t you think? Don’t you believe that 3 has some special alchemy?  The Greeks thought so.  We have already wrongly associated 666 with abundant satanic associations.  10-4 good buddy.  Gaa!

  News in its many formulae is not only devoid of objectivity but also increasingly devoid of stories with consequential value beyond over-the-fence gossip.  Why should anyone care about the daily activities of the Kardashians?  Really? Does the latest take on the Game of Thrones warrant lead story status across most websites?  Why should we focus attention on the “stunning” dress some starlet wears as she arrives at the Cannes Film Festival?  Sheesh! Should we all turn our attention to Kate Upton modeling a swimsuit just a few months after giving birth?  And how about that fender bender that Justin Bieber suffered on his way to church?  Is there no end to celebrity devotion and the attention we pay to the trivialities they encounter?  How about showing us a picture of the wart on Prince Phillip’s ass?  Did you know that a bride recently had a poop stain on her wedding dress?  Such no-count news items, “Ellen DeGeneres Defends Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Amid Vacation Controversy” crowd out reports of substance (bombings, typhons, political exposés, and factual accounts of significant events) that shape our lives.  When did news become silly chinwag for simple-minded people?  Maybe a better question is: what is worthy of being included in the news?  Are conspiracy theories really worth our time? If the first lady makes a face, the whole connected world gets both the picture and the explication because we care so much.  Did you know that I am a genius if I can answer eight of these next ten questions? Wow.  I had no idea.  Wait, where was I?  I must have a larger IQ than I had previously concluded.  Does Kim Kardashian really have six toes?  Amazing!  Another screaming click-bait feature informs me that so-and-so was caught bare-naked in the self-service aisle at Walmart.  That is a must-see.  Shame on me. Bare-naked, I confess, always captures my interest.

  Beyond the nugatory news items, if, in fact, news items they are, readers face difficulties sorting through the jumble to find what is of value.  The journalism department at Stony Brook University published the following challenges to us as we strive to find objective reporting and evidence-based information.

       The Digital Age poses four information literacy challenges for civil society:

1.     The overwhelming amount of information that floods over us each day makes it difficult to sort out reliable from fabricated information.

2.    New technologies to create and widely share information make it possible to spread misinformation that looks like it’s from an authoritative source.

3.    The conflict between speed and accuracy has escalated. We all want information as quickly as possible, but accelerating the distribution of information in the Digital Era has also increased the chances that the information will be wrong.

4.   The Internet and Social Media make it much easier to select only the information that supports our preexisting beliefs, reinforcing rather than challenging them.  (A NEW LITERACY FOR CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE 21st CENTURY)

 The expression, “you are what you eat” comes to mind.  A corresponding notion: your thinking is shaped by what you read and hear.  Though the analogy may be oversimplied, we have been consuming too much junk food lately, and, of course, that leads to poor health.  You’ve heard about the teenager in England who ate only Pringles, French fries, and white bread?  Vitamin deficiency eventually robbed him of vision, a condition he will suffer for the remainder of his life.

  Must I make the connection for you?  Our vision of the world is seen through the optics we choose.  The clear ones have the fewest flaws.

Sticks and Stones

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” a saying I used as a child when verbally assaulted by other children. Looking back, I probably deserved the abuse because I was a bit of a bully myself. Nevertheless, I now renounce the slightest truth in that playground chant. Words do hurt. They are weapons that often leave life-changing wounds. Or worse.

Recently, the Washington National Cathedral issued an admonition of Trump.  The letter signed by three faith leaders came after Trump used boilerplate tropes and insults toward people of color.  “Words matter,” they wrote.  “And Mr. Trump’s words are dangerous.”  They added that “the level of insult and abuse in political discourse…violates each person’s sacred identity as a child of God.”  Their letter comes at a time of an internecine war of words among Democrats seeking the presidency, and in a larger way, during a political civil conflict that expresses little civility.  As the political divide widens, we need voices that call for repair and that will no longer stay silent.

Trump draws an identity as a white nationalist and stirs up filth as he bloviates and flips blame towards people of color and those who come from “shithole countries.”  A baleful tone comes from him with almost every daily utterance.  In this manner, he is similar to Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader who dearly wanted to renew the Roman Empire during the twentieth century (Make Italy Great Again).  The slogan arose: “Il Duceha Sempre Ragione” (the leader is always right). And he infamously claimed:“Italian journalism is free because it serves one cause and one purpose... mine!”  Conspicuous connections, don’t you think? 

Earlier in the day, Trump retweeted a parody account that attributed a famous Mussolini quotation to Trump: "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep."  Not a bad thought, I suppose, but in Trump’s case, it would be more accurate if he said, “It is better to live one day as the ‘stable genius’ ass that I am than 100 years as a decent human being.”

Patriotism, Flags, and Scoundrels

Recently, Donald Trump crowed about being a Nationalist. To be clear, that word’s connotations fall on a political scale somewhere between being salute-the-flag patriotic to espousing jackboot totalitarianism.  Trump’s understanding of the word, in my view, tilts dangerously to the severe right. This is what Trump said in Houston at a political rally.  "You know, they have a word – it’s sort of became old-fashioned – it’s called a nationalist.  And I say, really, we’re not supposed to use that word.  You know what I am?  I’m a nationalist, okay? I’m a nationalist.  Nationalist.  Nothing wrong.  Use that word.  Use that word."

Okay, let’s use that word.  So Trump is a Nationalist.  Francisco Franco was a Nationalist.  Benito Mussolini was a Nationalist.  Kim Jong-un is a Nationalist, as were his father and grandfather.  And of course, Adolf Hitler avowed himself to be a Nationalist.  Historically, nationalists have opposed multiculturalism and ethnic diversity and are inherently divisive because they place their group (nation, religion, political values, ethnicity, or what have you) at the front of the line ahead of those who are not included in their group.  So just how far into the muck can the Orange Man drag us?  Aside from the fact that Trump uses mind-numbing repetition in most of his spoken addresses (the mark of a dimwitted thinker with a deficient vocabulary), Trump does convey to his supporters the notion that, above all, America goes to the head of the line, America First.  He wants, it appears, our country to be as self-centered as he is.  He wants, certainly, for America to reflect the narcissistic nature that defines his character.  The remainder of the nations in the world can eat goose turds.  Really, should we care about other countries?  Trump has even categorized several other countries (all with dark skinned populations) as “shithole countries.”  In short, we will comport ourselves according to self-interest.  Hip-hip-hooray.  Bravo for us. Let’s all chant: “We’re number one! USA!  USA!  USA!”

If we follow Trump’s cheerleading cues, we become what he is: obnoxious, objects of ridicule because we shamelessly love ourselves, cheerleaders chanting vapid praises about ourselves, and bullying others as we display racial and cultural superiority to the “losers” (his word) of the world.  Apparently, Trump judges people by skin color and wealth, the darker and poorer folks are the bigger the losers they are.  Tough nuggets, you stone cold losers!  Get to the back of the line.

An assessment that is supported by history, especially the last two World Wars, comes from Charles De Gaulle when he said, “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”  

Pretty sure that Big Orange likes his country all right because he has been feeding at the public trough most of his adult life. Pretty sure that he has shorted America yearly by finding loopholes in tax law and fudging on deductions. Pretty sure he avoided military service by claiming he had bone spurs, and so doing added cowardness to mendaciousness because our country indulges the rich and privileged.  Pretty sure he enjoys cheating on wives and associates with impunity (ain’t America great) because he has fixers who can smooth over the rough spots for him.  Pretty sure he is all for America because a sucker is born every minute, and he is nothing if not a con artist.

In many ways, Trump is the reincarnation of Mussolini.  Take, for instance these two pronouncements from El Duce, the man who dismantled the framework of democracy in Italy and subsequently became the leader of the fascist movement.  He said, “We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.”  And more, “Italian journalism is free because it serves one cause and one purpose…mine!”  Sound familiar?    

Death of Coherence

Death of Coherence

Just now as I strained to concentrate on an online news article about the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe, I was struck by the distractions surrounding, embedded, and frequently popping up smack-dab in front of the text.  Hard to concentrate on a passage of prose while a monkey dances on your head.

        --This is the SUV you’ve been waiting to test drive--

 Trying to absorb a well-developed story from the internet is like trying to dash across an eight-lane freeway without getting hit by a speeding sixteen wheeler.  What’s going on?

       --Do Reverse mortgages really work? –

 That’s what I’d like to know.  If I click on a local news app, I know what to expect.  Ads border the article and sometimes insinuate themselves into the text, often a half dozen of those hectoring adverts bounce and shudder across your screen.  Look at this shit now!  Now! Look at it!  Frequently, videos you click on require viewing 30-second advertisements before the requested material you want to see and hear is provided.  No free lunch, you know.  Tough luck.  This is the way we make money.  The longer your eyes linger on this annoying screen, the better it is for our bottom line. Stay there, chump, watch and listen to this while we queue up your requested content, which may or may not run no longer than the commercial you must endure.

       --America,our gut doctor says throw out this                                    vegetable immediately—

 Eat this, Sucker!  And now try this!  Why did we just watch a 30-second spot from IBM so we could enjoy a video, just a minute long, showing a dog run an obedience course?  We know the drill: nothing is free.  If we want information, we must shut up and hang there while the man pitches a product.  Just sit there and take it like a martyr for the free enterprise system.  This is the way the system works.  Don’t whine about reality.  What?  You’ve never been to a timeshare pitch?  Take it or leave it!  On second thought, take it but don’t leave it.

       --Mystery of Oak Island finally solved—

 Who knew?  Popups block the screen demanding that we invoke this or that.  And along the way as we try to read to the end of an article, a blaring audio message insinuates itself right into our heads.  Hopeless.  Vile.  Shameless.  All sorts of commercial pursuits demand attention, and, by God, we will heed their call or else!

       --25 movies released on Netflix this month—

 Really?  Not only that, but other headlines wheedle themselves right in the stream of the story we attempt to follow.  In the midst of the story we read about bobcats in urban areas, three bulleted headlines interrupt—an earthquake in Peru, a rediscovered fish thought extinct 80 years ago, and an outbreak of measles in Vancouver, Washington.  To make matters worse, almost every day a story we want to read is blocked by a pay-to-continue-reading barrier—a pay wall.  What do you want, something for nothing?  Or, worse, one is not allowed to read anything at all unless the reader switches to another site altogether.

       -15 Epic Life Hacks that will make you happy--

 Holy cow!  What’s that about the medium is the message?  The message is: never be bored.  Look at this.  Look at this. No, look at this-and-this-and-this-and-this-and-this.  Ever try to drive the speed limit with a tarp draped over the windshield?

       --Pay 0 interest for 18 months with this credit card—

 Gimme that card right now!  Lots of distractions.  Derailment.  Chaos. Don’t slouch on the couch.  How can you when a television commercial flips through 75 screen shots in twelve seconds.  Take that.  And that. Many television ads present hundreds of images per minute, the screen flashing from one image to another, sometimes so quickly one’s head spins.  One could have a seizure (and some people do) trying to keep up with what streaks and flashes on the screen. This is done, obviously, to capture one’s attention and keep one bedazzled.  Slack jawed and in a semi-trance, we duped shmoos absorb the commercial pitches like sponges left in a clogged, dirty sink.

      --Ranking the best, and worst—airlines in America--

 Got to see that!  Even our print media fall victim to distracting clutter.  When the newspapers arrive each morning, we have to shake out all the fall-away ads and uncover the slipcover commercials that drape each section.  In order to get to the news, one must first pull away and discard the trash.  The point of a hardcopy newspaper is not the news, you know.  The point is ad money.  Sell. Sell.  Sell.  Donate. Donate.  Donate.

        --How to save 20% on your mortgage payments-- 

 In all cases, whether on a screen or in hard copy, the thesis is often lost.  All the visual and auditory stimulus makes it impossible to focus.  “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”  That line from Yeats applies perfectly to our helter-skelter age of information.

  --If you owe the IRS, we save you big bucks--

 More, we must have noticed that many of the pictures associated with a story (say, Google News, for instance) do not have much to do with the news article itself.  For instance, a picture of a sandy beach beside a news article about priests accused of sexual improprieties.  What?  A Brexit piece alongside of a picture of Westminster Abbey, the article itself making no mention of the World Heritage Site.  Or how about a young woman wearing a tight sweater beside a story about the decline in attendance at Major League baseball games?  No rational connections necessary, Bud.  But, dang, that woman sure is a distraction.

       --Three genius ways to get controls of your finances--

 Of course, most of the commercial intermissions come from shameless greed.  According to some media watchdogs, we may be subjected to as many as 5000 ads each day as we view screens, read newspapers, drive by billboards, listen to the radio, and make our way in the world.

       --Blunder #10: Mismanaging Retirement Accounts-- 

 An assault on senses.  You’ve seen the clickbait nonsense: “If you can answer these ten questions, you have the IQ of a genius.”  “You can be a millionaire without ever leaving your home.”  Many online sites get paid every time you click on this crap.  How about the old list ruse?  “These are the top five restaurants in Idaho.”  Well, now, I just may go to Idaho sometime, so, what the hell, let me see that list.

       --The real reason your dog follows you everywhere—

 Like unwanted noise, information systems deliver clamor and unapologetic pleading for your money, your attention, and your personal data.  Could we escape a few weeks each year to simply unplug, to get away from all hectoring advertisements, to carry no smart phone, to read no newspaper or magazine, to remain uncorrupted by the commercial world?  Imagine that.

 Just imagine.

America's Existential Crisis

Years ago, I stood on a street corner in Oxford, England, a Broad Street juncture, watching people pile flowers smack dab in the middle of an intersection, which meant the street was closed to vehicle traffic.  If memory serves me correctly, I’d say there were several hundred bouquets stacked to a hip-level height.  “What’s going on?” I asked a passerby.  “That’s the spot where the three martyrs were burned at the stake,” was the reply.  “When did that happen?” I asked, confessing my ignorance of English history.  “Coming up on 500 years ago, this day October 16th, 1555,” was the reply.  I remember thinking that it was about time for the locals to get over it, move on, forgive and forget.  While forgiveness is always possible, I suppose, the memory of some injuries imprints an indelible stain.

 Such is the case with the Oxford martyrs put to death for apostasy by the Catholic hegemony.  Hugh Latimer, a British clergyman, Bishop of Worcester, a Protestant, before he was burned at the stake, turned to his fellow bishop, Nicholas Ridley, and reportedly said: “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out.”  Before being set ablaze, Ridley reportedly prayed, "Oh, heavenly Father, I give unto thee most hearty thanks that thou hast called me to be a professor of thee, even unto death. I beseech thee, Lord God, have mercy on this realm of England, and deliver it from all her enemies."  The remaining months of my stay in England, I learned just how deeply sectarian bigotry and hatred had divided that society, wounds that to this day refuse to fully heal. Of course, the rupture between Protestants and Catholics is one small example of uncompromising divisions throughout history and worldwide, sectarian violence being a major theme of humanity since Neanderthals tussled with Homo sapiens over jurisdiction of sacred hunting grounds.

 Come on, you must have noticed the embittered ideological schism our country has undergone since Trump strutted onto the presidential stage.  If you don’t recognize the sharp differences among our political voices, our religious leaders, our community leaders, and our media (especially social media) mavens, then you are a victim bumping through the world with a knife sticking between your shoulder blades, unaware that you are bleeding to death.

 Perhaps that exsanguination image is too dire. Perhaps not.  Certainly, we have had left leaners vs. right leaners in America since the inception of our republic.  What’s more certain, however, is that Americans have not had such sharp destructive differences since, I don’t know, the Vietnam War?  Perhaps all the way back to the Civil War?

 What is happening to us has been described as an existential crisis by some pundits and theorists.  The crevasse that was always there opened a gap larger than our ability to negotiate over or around it.  One portion of America expresses itself as wanting lower taxes, fewer immigrants, and fewer government regulations over their lives.  Another large segment wants better social programs, protections for disenfranchised people, and suitable medical coverage for all citizens.  And yet other fragments of our people advocate for every slot on the political spectrum.  So how do we keep our republic healthy and robust?  How do we embrace each other in the breach between conservatives and liberals?  Is democracy itself being tested?  Is the soul of America being tested?  Yep, it sure is.  Have our values shifted?  Down deep, probably not, but the present tense has produced a squabble that threatens our ability to tolerate one another.  We can no longer find common ground, a safe zone in which to discuss our differences.  We use vile and profane language to characterize our opponents.  To many, the sight of a MAGA baseball cap is enough to arouse thoughts of assault and battery.  To many others, an Obama bumper sticker elicits an immediate urge to perform a vulgar hand gesture. 

 It is not simply Democrat vs. Republican, either. It is something more ominous. Yes, it is tribal.  It is a divide similar to what Catholics vs. Protestants felt after the reformation in Europe.  It is the Bloods vs. the Crips at the height of the LA gang wars.  It is the global war of Shia vs. Sunni.  It is not easy to reconcile, but there it festers in the middle of the American experience, just as it infects most other places in our broken world.

 “Forgive him/her/them, Father.  For he/she/they knows not what he/she/they does.”

“Forgive them, Father.  For the liberals (or the conservatives) know not what they do.”

“Forgive me, Father, and allow me to do the right thing each day and purge all the hatred in my heart.”

 Simple answer solving a far too complicated problem?

 Yep.  Way too simple.

 Forgiveness, easier said than done.  Start a new day without the burdens of hatred.  Like letting out a deep breath, just expel the hatred.  Take bouquets and give them to the ones whom you formerly hated.  Say, “Here, these are for you.”  And walk away lighter than ever before.

 Okay, I agree, it is not realistic for the Hatfields and McCoys to meet in the church basement an attitude adjustment over a Jell-O salad.  In order to break the patterns of hatred and division, more is needed than an arranged hug and a coffee date to talk over differences.  Kindness is welcome, but it is not enough.  Singing “Kumbaya” is not enough, never was.  But, let’s face it, whatever we have been doing over the millennia will only invite self-destruction.  By that I mean the weapons we now employ are capable of such monstrous annihilation that everything, people, critters, plants, and the world on which they live, will melt away in a few exchanges of doomsday salvos. Oh, it probably will take a few years, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, after the missile exchange before everything (including cockroaches) is dead—a barren planet on which no birds sing.

 Really.

 Last I heard, the Doomsday Clock read two minutes to midnight.  Two minutes! In a world of Trumps, Putins, Jinpings, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Sauds, Kim Jong-uns, and that madman running the Philippines (the guy who claimed God is “stupid.”) what possible outcome is likely?

 It is down to this: either we give peace and forgiveness a chance or….  Or else! Sorry, I know that sounds trite and mawkish, but, folks, we are tied to a stack of kindling and the above-mentioned Bozos are dancing around us with a lit torch. 

What we Teach, We Learn

 Think of pedagogy and education theory the same way you would consider the potential within a box of LEGO bricks.  Kids love building things with those stick-together shapes. Along with their children, many parents, I assume, enjoy fitting LEGO bricks together as well.  It is almost ordained that our purpose in being alive is to put stuff together.  That is simply what we do throughout our lives.  Pour the contents of a LEGO kit onto the kitchen table after dinner and children’s imaginations take over.  Whatever is in the kit is what a child has with which to work.  The more pieces available, the greater the possibilities. If given a dozen blocks of LEGO, a child has limited options.  If given a thousand pieces, the opportunities are well-nigh endless.  The conclusion is apparent: more promise presents itself when more building blocks are available.

As you doubtless know, LEGO sets come in hundreds of configurations.  A few sets designed for adults have over 5000 pieces.  But most assortments for children have far fewer pieces and are designed to make just one or two small objects.  With enough pieces, one can construct the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal. Or just about any palpable object one’s imagination can bring forward.  But the most accessible sets allow for far less ambitious projects and are prescriptive in that all the pieces are meant to make, say, a truck or a small house.

 I shouldn’t get too carried away with this LEGO analogy, but it applies neatly to the building blocks available in education, especially higher education.  Doesn’t everyone have an idea about what constitutes a proper education?  Probably because we all have had life-changing experiences with schooling, we naturally have strong opinions about what works or what doesn’t.  In the past, college students would pick their classes like patrons at a smorgasbord feast, a little of this and a little of that to make a toothsome meal.  That free choice method does not work so well anymore because more often than not students are given the plat du jourmenus to fulfill their majors.  They are given a LEGO set, if you will, and told exactly how to put it together. Here you go, kiddo, follow these instructions and you will have a replica of the Lunar Rover Vehicle.  All good if one wants to build another LRV, but what if one’s dream is to create something for which no instruction sheet exists? What about the student whose dreams reach beyond the ordained grid?

Education kit makers are making generous cuts in college catalogues.  Pressures from business interests and politicians to scrub away programs that do not promise immediate career prospects triggered recent actions among higher education administrators and trustees to eliminate liberal arts courses in favor of occupational programs.  One sees a global climate change in curricula across the nation’s colleges and universities. The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, in fact, is in the process of eliminating majors in philosophy and political science. And that is just a start.  All traditional liberal arts and humanities — including history, English, German, French, Spanish, and sociology, along with art, art history, and music history— presently will be axed.  Mr. Gradgrind (a character in Dickens’s novel Hard Times) and his kind are steering curricula to favor, shortsightedly, what they consider pragmatic and profitable enterprises. In doing so, they set aside the educational fulfillment of the individual student in favor of collective materialistic needs.  These decision-makers see education as the engine of economy rather than the driver of human potential.  They also politicize their choices, believing, I suppose, that those decisions are for the common good.  The humanities and all its cousins are, for the moment, left waiting outside the figurative walls of school.

Certainly, the decline of liberal arts offerings may be overstated, for data-driven STEM educational programs have proven compatible if not enhanced by their counterpart programs in the arts.  We need balance in our educational structures. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic—foundational building blocks have always been where we start in a child’s education.  No handwringing need take place over an academic drift, for the powers that make curricula decisions come and go like flu seasons, and the value of the humanities will always support Pope’s pronouncement, “The proper study of Mankind is Man,” even if now we find our Man (or Woman) tapping at a cell phone while surfing the Web.

Preparing students for careers as engineers, software designers, computer systems analysts, business security analysts, and related positions that require heavy emphasis on math and science is both a practical and necessary goal of higher education.  That, however, does not mean that humanities offerings should be removed from college catalogues or devalued when advisors assist students in planning their academic schedules.  Those subjects that prepare students to explore and understand human experience, to solve problems not math related, to learn about the values of different cultures, to recognize the influences of history and politics, and to empathize with the human condition—these matters must be part of a balanced education system or we risk further dysfunctions of government as well as the crumbling of the pillars of our civilization.

In some ways, educators face conflicting interests in designing well-rounded programs for students.  The “cookbook” approach to education limits choice but delivers consistency and evidence-based results.  The opposite approach emphasizes discovery and experimentation beyond prescribed formularies. Students should have choices.  Faculty should have choices.  Administrators should have choices.  But too often politicians, community policy-makers, and powerful business interests, people who have not been in a classroom in years, make the consequential curricular decisions.

Talk to ten people, and you will get ten different views on what students should learn in college.  The danger here comes when we only listen to one view, only empower one choice.

Which brings me to a memory I cannot shake. Years ago, I visited The Art Institute of Chicago while attending a national convention for English composition teachers.  Somehow, I managed to find myself listening to a talk given by an art historian. I’ve forgotten most of what was said that afternoon, but I recall vividly what he proposed: mandatory art history and art appreciation classes for all K-12 students.  Never happen, I thought then, and I know now more than ever such a requirement would meet with derisory titters and immediate rejection. But I also know that students deserve a well-rounded education, which ought to include the study of aesthetics.

If we believe, as I think we do, that scientific investigation sharpens a student’s quantitative understanding of the properties of the world, then shouldn’t we also expose students to aesthetic appreciation that highlights a student’s qualitative understanding of the world?  Critical thinking is central to all useful teaching and learning.

When dealing with images and notions, philosophies and histories, students need lots of choices.  They need a full kit, all shapes and sizes of bits and pieces with which to construct their world.

Chatterbots and Artificial People

When I picked up the receiver, I heard dead air, well, not quite dead.  There was an indistinct shuffling sound.  I said “Hello,” for the second time.  Then the voice that came on the line sounded abrupt and not in-the-moment.

“Hello, my name is Richard.  How are you today?”

I said, “I am fine.  Are you a real person?  Or am I talking to a computer-generated voice machine?”

Programed artificial laughter came next, as if answering my question without having to answer my question.

“No, no,” the voice finally said after a too-long pause, “we are calling today to offer you….”

I hung up.

This kind of thing happens almost daily at my house. Just the other morning MultiCare called to schedule a medical appointment for me.

You guessed it, a robot call.  “Press 1 if you want to schedule now.”

“You called me,” I complained to the mechanical device.

“Apparently, you, Ms. Robot, believe that I need an appointment, but you are not giving me details.  I was not aware that I wanted an appointment.”

I pressed 1.  And waited.  And waited.

Soon I was switched to yet another machine voice that instructed me to hold the line and an operator would soon be available. So, they (MultiCare) called me and then had the chutzpah to plop me in a waiting queue to talk to a person.  And that person, when he or she finally connected, asked me to hold some more because my call needed to be transferred to another line.  But, of course, due to the high volume of calls….  Oh, and by the way, this call may be recorded for quality control.

“You called me,” I said again.”  All along I am thinking that I am being manipulated by a programed machine that will record me, ask me to press buttons, and finally put me on hold for God knows how long.  “You called me,” I said a touch too loudly.

Here’s the deal: virtual assistants are here now and will soon be part of most telephonic transactions.  Whether you are making an appointment or calling for credit card information, outbound interactive voice response programs are a fixture in our lives.  They chuckle, they cajole, they lie, they say “Hmm-mmm,” and they are becoming difficult to detect until the back-and-forth lasts a while.

Perhaps the crafters of robo calls will perfect a program that will be so convincing that we will never know if we are talking to a robot or a real person?  Is it possible that transactions of all sorts can be realized without people whatsoever?

I recall a cartoon penned years ago: a college lecture hall, a tape recorder propped upon a podium, a tiered roomful of empty seats, and each chair served as a platform for yet another tape recorder. The voice from the professor’s recorder on the podium begins with: “It has come to my attention that many of you are not attending class….”

I am thinking of getting a virtual assistant to answer all those calls from other virtual assistants.  Take the human element out of communication and frustration levels will plummet, for me at least.  Of course, not much actual communication will happen, but the result ought to be a hoot.

Let’s demonstrate how an exchange might transpire:

Inbound Robot Voice: “Hello.  How are you today?”

Outbound Robot Voice: “Hello.  How are you today?”

[pause followed by a rustling sound]

IRV: “We are conducting a brief marketing survey in your area and would appreciate your help.  The survey will only take a few minutes and, afterwards, you may be selected to win a free cruise from a major vacation tour company.  Are you ready to begin?”

ORV: “Hello.  How may I help you?”

IRV: “Good.  Are you ready to begin?”

ORV: “Hmm-mmm.”

IRV: “Using a scale of one to ten, ten being best and one being lowest, how do you rate….”

ORV: “Hello.  How are you today?”

At some point one or both artificial gizmos will end the call, but what fun tracking their exchange as they try to make sense of one another.

No laughing matter, though, when artificial voices are manipulated by advanced AI systems.  I imagine a time when I might insult the voice calling me, and as punishment the electricity and water are shut off to my house, and a drone is sent to hover over my roof just to keep an eye on me.

Future Shock

In 1970 Alvin Toffler wrote the best seller Future Shock.  His work stressed the influence of, among other things, information overload.  And he warned of new technologies and increasing military evolvements that could overpower our ability to halt our own destruction.  Though he may have overstated the harm that future shock may inflict, much of what he predicted is eerily accurate.

You might think of future shock this way. Imagine we are aboard a runaway train on a steep downhill grade.  As we pick up speed and look out the windows, we see the landscape as a blur.  Too fast, unsustainable speed.  The rails will not hold our weight and velocity.

Of course, predictions and scenarios of the future come in many flavors, some of which will be toothsome while others will be bitter.  But viewing the rapid changes over the last few decades, it becomes difficult to debunk the notion that challenges arise as we try to adjust to the don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it world.  As an anecdotal example, revisit that episode of “I Love Lucy” when Ethel and Lucy attempt to wrap each piece of candy funneling down a conveyor belt at a chocolate factory. You get the picture.  Lots of laughs as entertainment, not so much when applied to the anxiety and speedy pace of change everyone faces during the twenty-first century.  

Exponential acceleration in technology and information, worldwide population, and ecological degradation seem obvious.  As we thrive, we try to juggle just one more ball, just one more flaming sword.  Consider the brief interval (a little over one hundred years) since the first flight. Now the skies are peppered with commercial and military flights day and night.  Consider too the domination of mobile phones and tablet devices that allows seamless communication among those owning those technologies (the first mobile phone communication happened on April 3rd, 1973, not fifty years ago).  Now it is hard to make eye contact with anyone on the street because all eyes are focused on little screens.  Consider also the rapid change in social and cultural acceptance of the LGBTQ communities along with the gradual but certain rise in gender and racial equality. Would our great-grandparents have an easy time countenancing and understanding these long-awaited changes? Hardly.  What about changes that are less welcome?  For instance, the self-imposed and incontestable degradation of our environment (not sure how long it has been since the ruining began, but I am reasonably certain the last century has taken us near the pale, probably beyond it). Change happens, of course, and will until the whole shebang comes to an end (“not with a bang but with a whimper”), but now change comes at us with mind-blowing rapidity.  We play Whack-a-Mole, but as we raise our mallets the game moves so quickly that we are left pounding holes.  Too fast! Too much!  We find ourselves right there alongside of Lucy and Ethel trying to keep up.  

Anxiety results.  Gaa!

Admittedly, change is not theunwelcome element in this story: it is the acceleration of change, its velocity, its overburden on our ability to absorb it, and our unlikely aptitude to adjust to radical innovation.  For those of us who remember rotary dial desk phones, we may remember party lines.  That is, several households would use the same connection for making calls.  If you picked up the receiver to make a call, you might hear the conversation of someone else, perhaps a neighbor, or someone who lived miles away (such a temptation to listen in as my mother sometimes did).  You would know to answer the phone by the number of short rings.  All right, next came private lines, followed by an any number of gizmos that allow us to call from a fishing boat in the North Sea to a friend sitting in a coffee shop in the Bronx without so much as being amazed by it all.  Heck, riders in the International Space Station can call home whenever they desire. How many phone numbers are now assigned to me?  Three? Four?  Coming soon, I’m sure, will be communication devices that will allow us to interact telepathically.  “I was just thinking about you.”  So, during my lifetime, we have gone from switchboard operators to phone booths to mobile phones that send signals to satellites and get them back again.  What is more amazing is that many of us are trying to keep pace with all the change and doing a reasonably good job of it.

Commercial radio messages increasingly feature an annoyance that employs a fast-talker, a voice that zips along as fast an auctioneer trying to run up the bid.  Usually, I suppose, the pause between words is edited out in these radio spots.  The fast-talker does this for two reasons: to provide legal disclaimers (the equivalent of small print) and to save money when buying blocks of air time.  The listeners hear the opposite of white noise, whatever that is.  We can scarcely understand a word.  And are not meant to.  That’s the way of the world just now.  Try to keep up, Bucko.

Trouble is, our ability to adapt to change does not always keep pace with the tempo of change itself.  It is all too much! 

Too fast.  No brakes.

Think of Lucy and Ethel on their first day on the job at the chocolate factory.  Get ready, girls.  The conveyor belt just jumped to a faster gear.

This broken world will soon support ten billion people.

The seas will rise four to nine feet in some places.

We are plaining a military space force.

I just got 630 million hits on a Google inquiry.

Consider another illustration to show future shock in the present tense.  You are playing baseball, and it is your turn to bat.  The guy on the pitcher’s mound is winding up and about to throw you a fastball, some high heat, some nasty unhittable stuff.  You are not good at playing baseball, but the manager asks you to make solid contact.

Yeah, right!

The Worst Ever

       Trump.  Who else? A terrible president and even a worse person, he has no equal in ineptitude.  I have never met Trump and would not answer the front door if he stood there knocking, but how can one avoid knowing his loathsome flaws that are broadcast daily by the fourth estate.  So much has been reported about him that some days it seems impossible to find a story that is not Trump-centric.  It follows that most people cannot stop gawking at a train wreck.  And, of course, it is impossible to ignore a pile of poo on top of the kitchen table.  Only natural to focus on such things before being overcome by a strong urge to scurry to the toilet and throw up.  Or laugh. Or cry.  One would need to sidestep all news outlets in order to avoid seeing, hearing, or reading about Trump.  Ugh.  He is a toothache that won’t go away, an all-consuming throbbing that, for the moment, guarantees nothing but pain for the whole world.  And to think—he enjoys being reviled.  As long as everyone looks at him, listens to him, focuses on him, his masochistic need, an insatiable capacity to be the center of attention, is fulfilled.  He is a modern-day Richard III with a measure of Falstaff and a touch of Iago, not to mention a skoosh of Lucio the fop.  In other words, he is power-hungry, comical, evil, and driven by lies and foolishness.

       Is he really the worst ever?  Yup, well, probably not, but perhaps so.  I have met tens of thousands of folks over my lifetime.  But only two people I judge to be less worthy to serve as leader of the free world, I mean less worthy than Donald Trump.  One was a mouth-breather, a middle-aged, uneducable man whose I.Q. could not have been much higher than a portabella mushroom.  The other was a prisoner at McNeil Island penitentiary, a chronic criminal who had more tattoos than words in his vocabulary.  Come to think, either of those two may well surpass Trump in the role as president if given a keen support staff, something Trump lacks.  Perhaps Trump has a few intellectual advantages over subject #1 and a wider vocabulary over subject #2, but there are other important attributes when considering the make-up of a leader.

       Shall we consider the salient features of Trump’s character?

       He is an angry man as well as a racist (well documented).  He is arrogant (one needs no documentation to observe his Mussolini-esque pomposity and condescending smirk).  He is a misogynist, a braggart, and a liar (he prefers to grab women by their private parts and then brag about it before denying any such thing).  He is vengeful and avaricious (ask anyone at all).  He is emotionally unstable (he said of himself, “I think [I] qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!”).  He is immoral (think of the seven deadly sins).  He is not a reader; in fact, he is semi-literate (he claims to be a TV guy). His writing is burdened with spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors (check his daily tweets).  He is a narcissist (boy, is he ever).  He loves grandiosity (observe his bad taste in most of his over-the-top properties).  He has no ethical balance (no ethics at all, in fact).  He is unkind (witness how he treats people).  He is impulsive (one never knows what he will do next).  He is cruel (separating parents from their children probably qualifies as cruelty).  He is undiplomatic (“He’s a nutcase….”).  He is dishonest (even the most honest sources he deems to be ‘fake’).  He stiffs people who do jobs for him (long history on this account).

       On the other side of the ledger (might be seen as positive), we find the following.

       He knows how to use wealth and influence to persuade people and generate a subservient following.  He does what all good tub-thumpers do: rile up hoi polloi.  This dubious skill has worked brilliantly and continues to hold promise.  Also, his bloated ego affords him a shameless following among those who have little or no self-regard, those who will gladly follow the piper down the center of main street as they all march toward the swamp. Ironically, his larger-than-life dreadfulness attracts people in the same way that public executions used to summon forth all the townspeople.

       It still puzzles me how we got to this moment in American history.  But here we are devolving, most of us slightly sick as we breathe the air downwind of the dump.  I mean Trump.  

Essay on Essays

       The other day I took a mid-day walk around nearby Waughop Lake with a couple of former colleagues.  Since my retirement from college teaching, I have enjoyed shedding the responsibility of reading stacks of academic essays each week.  Also, I no longer need to confront student plagiarism, nor fight the daily in-class battle against clichés, incoherent sentences and disjointed essays devoid of even a remote scent of freshness.  Mind you, after 38 years of teaching literature and composition, I never became jaded, perhaps a little weary at times, but keen to get to work on Monday mornings.  I remained hopeful and full of purpose to the end of my career.  But I finally felt the relief of leaving the frontlines to the new recruits, those filled with youthful zeal and pleased to be riding on secure tenure track rails.

      However, what I learned on my walk around the lake made be grateful that I no longer work as a frontline sapper in the war against ignorance.  “You must be kidding!” I said when told that a contingent of the new hires fresh out of graduate school advocated a rewrite of the course outline for English 101, the composition course that is universally taught at most colleges and universities across the English-speaking world. “Really?” I said.  “What do they suggest students write if not essays?” Though I did not get a straight answer to that question, I inferred that newbies promoted journaling, blog posts, reflective and informal prose, writing that gives the finger to the five-paragraph essay and to academic writing in general.  Now I too am not a big proponent of the five-paragraph essay, but I am an advocate of essay writing in general as a way to organize thought and refine ideas.  Writing is a foundation skill of a well-rounded education, and essay writing helps a student advance logical, organized, and coherent expression, more formal than talking or improvisational responses.

      Come to think, isn’t that the curse of the world just now?  People tweet judgements rather than develop ideas.  People text bits of information because even writing an e-mail takes too long and requires concentrated thought.  People summon Google rather than study the long and wide view found in proper research.  Yahoos no longer want to enjoy the ride; they want to cut to the chase.  Do it to it.  NOW. Heck, folks do not even use words anymore.  Why use language when with one click an emoji is available as a shortcut through complexity and ambiguity?  Death to deep thought.  Splat! Out with analytical thinking.  Here is a frowny face, my totally heedless response to you and anyone else.  Do you think I care?  Take this smiley face as an answer.  To hell with tight organization.  LOL.

      Another retired professor told me an even more galling account of what was happening at her former university English department.  There, too, the freshly hired faculty were proposing new course outlines and seeking the removal of old courses.  Change is good, right?  Who doesn’t appreciate Hegel’s dialectic theory?  That is a model for progress, isn’t it?  Well, maybe not.  The newbies made a case for purging most of the literature courses covering periods before World War I because these weathered courses, the new faculty purportedly claimed, were not relevant to the 21st century student.  In short, out with Chaucer, bench Shakespeare, push aside period survey courses, and so on, all the seminal writers of our language. Chuck ‘em.  Apparently, the Great Books of the Western World were not so great after all.  Perhaps they were the Pretty Good Books of the Western World?  Set those aside.  The stale and moot writers of past generations, according to the New Wave, should be replaced with ethnic voices, literature from other cultures, LGBTQ voices, and Manga.  Okay, let’s compromise.  Include those fresh elements in literature offerings.  They belong and are worthy, but do not place all the oldies but goodies in the attic where only intrepid seekers may appreciate their beauty and usefulness.

      College enrollments and economics may have something to do with the devolution of English department course offerings.  In some cases, such as in The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, proposals were made to drop programs in humanities and social sciences beginning in June of 2020 — including English, philosophy, history, sociology and Spanish — while adding programs with “clear career pathways.”  The death of a liberal arts education hangs in the balance if colleges and universities across the nation adopt similar rearward policies.

      I realize my generation of educators must pass the baton to succeeding, eager academics, but the retired and retiring professionals are being told on the way out the door that what we taught, what we believe valuable, what we stood for is now rot and must be thrown out with the trash.  That’s how it feels, anyway.

      Among all the other scuffles that face higher education, now comes the threat to all liberal arts.  For decades higher education administrators have been paring music and art programs, but now comes a dystopian future for the liberal arts.  Big money kingpins (Gates and Musk, among others) want to fashion education to prepare students for the work force.  All well and good.  I am all for it.  A liberal arts education is still, I assert, the best preparation for lifting people toward a productive and meaningful life.  The big money buttinskies have a narrow view of education’s purpose: job training. Having a wheelbarrow loaded with money does not make one an expert in education theory, nor should it allow the ultra-rich carte blanche to suggest social engineering according to their business interests.

      The point here is simple: a good education is not solely job training.

      Someone should write an essay about that.

Comic Book Culture

Comic books mirror much of our recent pop culture, a salient piece of American life.  Superhero movies dominate the box offices.  Comic-con gatherings overrun convention halls, often attended by over 100,000 fans during a weekend (numbers approached a quarter of a million at a recent New York event).  What’s going on here?  The influence of comics, superheroes and science fiction offerings such as Star-Trekand Star Warsreveals societal and moral substructures of our culture. Also, devotees of comics and the Star-Trek/Star Warsexperiences find consolation as they escape into worlds where justice, fairness and adventure prevail.  Let’s face it: we live in a broken world in which justice and fairness are as rare as five-leaf clovers.  And most of us find little adventure during our daily same-old, same-old routines.  So, isn’t it nice to imagine worlds in which good triumphs over evil, where justice wins the day, and where human figures do extraordinary things?  

       Enhanced human figures, demigods if you will, have long made appearances in literature, but since mid-twentieth century the audience for American superheroes has grown each decade.  Accordingly, science fiction offerings have also found large and obsessively committed audiences, people who dress up like aliens or costume themselves as archetypical heroes who fly into space to carry on the cause of humanity, if that is what they are doing.  Who knows? For reasons hard to understand people glue on Spock ears or show up at exhibition halls wearing a Darth Vader suit.  Are they simply modeling the outrageous to get attention, or are they satisfying a wish fulfillment?  

       What is certain: people daydream about having augmented power, of exploring terra incognita, of doing noble acts, and of defending the cause of good versus evil.  As an escape from the mundane and oppressive real world, people may find great joy in entering the world of Ant-Man.  And, hey, look up in the sky.  Is it a plane or what?  Yes, who wouldn’t want to fly like Superman, or scale skyscrapers like Spider-Man? Who wouldn’t want to ride shotgun in the Batmobile en route to put Clayface in his rightful place?  Good versus Evil, that age-old battle, is the attraction to most of us.  Us versus the Other (humans against objectionable life forms) also plays into central conflicts in most science fiction.  Prototypical make-believe, part of childhood development does not halt when one reaches adult status.  

       Mythical and mystical, comic books have compelling attractions, and for most of the last one hundred years have indeed reflected our wide-ranging culture. Though often hopeful, comics also represent a retreat from confronting our broken world, leading us toward a place that is safe because it is fantastical.  It certainly feels good to see extreme justice done on the page or screen when it rarely reaches such verdicts in our real courts and on our streets.  Most of us would rather go see Spiderman defeat evil on the screen than work for justice on the mean streets of America. Why?

       Because it is harder to live the dream than dream the dream.  That’s why.