YULE BOCK

Have you ever noticed that any obstacle, no matter how small, can keep you from doing what needs to be done if the ‘needs-to-be-done’ thing is something you didn’t really want to do? 

Oh my! That sounds like something Andy Rooney would have said in his little, 3 minute gig that closed out the CBS program, “60 Minutes”. I wrote a piece about Andy a few years ago: he passed (died) in 2011 but was one one of my favorite television personalities. He did have a way with words. I don’t try to copy Andy’s style but then again, neither can I escape his influence. 

I will soon be stuck on the bubble between years. It begins to inflate like a Sleep Number Bed until you are teetering for balance on its north pole. The annual bubble doesn’t have a special day. It is just the period when you feel conflicted between last year’s number and the new one. It matters when dating cheques and forms you have to fill out every time you go to the doctor or dentist. Let me see, nooooo. . . I don’t think I’ve had pulmonary diarrhea in the last year; now where do I sign and date this, and how many more places do I have to sign? The bubble lasts until after the last time you write in the wrong year and you have to start over with another blank page. Then one day you wake up cured. 

This holiday season has been filled with parties and open houses more so than any season I can remember. We Unitarians celebrate this season with a month of Yule Bock open houses and parties. There have been 2 or 3 per week, one on Christmas day; they run on well into January. A full week after the New Year we turn Pagan with the burning of the goat. Old Norse custom was to honor Thor, the God of Thunder who rode around the heavens in a cart pulled by two bocks, (goats). So his followers, that would be us (tongue in cheek) fashion a huge, straw goat with festive red harness and bridle. At our last party someone is appointed (a great honor) to set the Bock ablaze. We torch the old Billy in the parking lot, stand by with a fire extinguisher as the straw crackles and the smoke unfurls. A shot of Scotch or Grog or Vino or even Cider will be lifted and a spiritually correct toast will be raised. 

Last week I went to the old, warehouse district, 6th & Central Street in KC. The building was built in the 1880’s but has been upgraded to quarter-million dollar condos. The woman who lives there opened up the Yule Bock party to her neighbors in the building so I met some new-to-me people and that was cool. The 16’ ceilings created an echo chamber effect which rendered my hearing aids useless. I went back to reading lips but body language was crystal clear. I was in a safe place with like minded people. I drank hot-spiced cider. I’ve learned that my alcohol tolerance allows for responsible behavior but balance and coordination take a hit with the first drink. So away from home I might sip a few ounces of wine or an even thinner slice of brandy but it was hot cider for my toast and nobody cared at all. 

When I arrived I had to announce myself through the security key pad at the door. When my host answered I identified myself, confirmed I was talking to the right lady, who I did not know well enough to connect the name with the face. She would have to give the door permission to open. She said she would call her daughter to come down and let me in. I thought it a little odd but then what do I know! Another party goer with their own pass word let me in and I arrived not knowing still, who was who. As the night progressed I learned that the mother, whose party it was, had unexpectedly been needed in California, where she was when I spoke with her through the key pad security connection. Her daughter, the lady who hosted in her mother’s place is a Unitarian as well. I recognized her face and thought I had connected the dots but again, what do I know! I didn’t give it a second thought but I’m sure Andy Rooney would have given it a 3 minute ride had he been around. 

BLESSING

This morning as I was doing my morning chores, hygiene, clothes, winding my watch, coffee, it occurred to me that I had no direct contact yesterday with another person. I can’t be certain but odds are that over the day and night, I never said a word out loud. I am not bemoaning a case of the lonesome blues. Solitude is a blessing if you believe in blessings. I did text message my son a photo and did text two of my favorite women, one with a ‘Good Morning’ and the other with a ‘Goodnight’. I got warm replies from the ladies which was indirect but affection in any form is worth the wait. 

Yesterday was a damp, cold day with no reason to go out into the post-Christmas decompression. Working in my wood shop has been a blessing: I need a better word. ‘Blessing’ is back loaded with Holy-Moly hyperbole that I don’t embrace. Believers qualify blessings by the source rather than the blessing itself.  ‘Good Fortune’ is blessing enough but the word lacks something. On a word search I came up with ‘Favored’ and ‘Lucky’ but either way, when something good happens that I didn’t earn, maybe don’t deserve I feel blessed. Blessings can come from anywhere, precipitate out of thin air like fog on the glass. I can give my own, personal blessing; ‘Bless You’! You have been blessed. There is no cheque in the mail nor will I be dropping off a fruit cake for your delight. Still, when I have the chance I’ll be a good listener and a willing accomplice. it may be a thin, short lived blessing but a blessing no less. 

In my wood shop, since I’ve reorganized and added some new tools, even house keeping leaves me feeling blessed. I can work for an hour, maybe and hour and a half, then I have to go do something else. Yesterday was a four-session day in the shop. When you are waiting for glue to dry, four rounds in the basement take all day. Today will find me there but I will go out. It’s not that I need the human interaction but I actually do have things to do. It’s getting light outside, my new coffee maker is out of brew and I have a list. I never used to make lists but that was when memory was a pup.  I have an easy-erase white board on the kitchen door and it’s organized into columns and numbered with things-to-remember. All in all, I’m feeling both enriched and endowed and if that ain’t blessed it’s close enough. In my lexicon the words ‘bless’ and ‘curse’ are antonyms of each other and to be cursed does not require a pious caveat. If, in certain contexts ’Good’ and ‘Bad’ can switch identities, then a ‘Blessing’ can be secular and I can be blessed with blessings whenever it suits me. Actually, after all my word play, leave out the Holy-Moly and I think blessings are good Karma coming back around. When you get down to it Karma is like God, a metaphor to which we attribute things we can't deny but don't understand.

SNEEZE

  Kalamazoo to Chicago makes a great day trip, where we went to the Museum of Science & Industry. Naturally, for a science teacher it would bring out the inner child, like a kid in a toy store, so many cool exhibits and hands on displays. Full size airplanes hung from the ceiling, light was scattered by a great glass prism and there was even a captured German submarine from WW2. But the most impressive, best remembered feature was the Gravity Well. It is large, a meter or more in diameter, a funnel that is nearly flat at the top like the bell of a french horn. But as you move inward the pitch steepens until the neck of the funnel drops into a vertical shaft with a radius of only an inch or so. Around the top edge is a slot-like track where you can drop coins and watch them roll down onto the surface of the gravity well. Momentum carries it out onto the nearly flat surface but the gentle slope to the middle makes the penny’s path start to curve in a downward spiral.

Once the penny has acquired an irreversible trajectory it seems to gain speed. But it doesn’t really gain speed, not if the designer got the math right, it only sounds like it. The sound of the coin going ‘round and ‘round would be boring but the doppler effect holds your attention. Moving around and away from the ear, the sound pitch lowers, only to rise again as it makes the turn and starts coming back. The sound gradient is so small but still important to keep the onlooker engaged.  

Obviously, everything has been calibrated to keep the penny on course, not to lose its way, not to wobble or fall. Its round shape and the coefficient between its mass and the pitch of the slope keep the coin rolling, descending on a predictable path. This is really, way-cool stuff. As the coin sinks deeper into the well its speed remains the same,(speed=distance/time). So said, revolutions inside the well increase their frequency. The coin makes more circles in less time but without any change in (d/t). At the bottom of the well the penny disappears into a black hole. Wow; gravity wells and black holes, you should have known that was coming. That story will have to wait for another day. By that time the penny’s ‘round-&-‘round is at seemingly break-neck speed. It loses the pulsating doppler RRRRrrrr-RRRR-rrrr to a buzzing sound. The impending fate of the whirring coin was our only concern. Then it’s all quiet.

In our case, my kids all respond the same: heads turned with a wondrous grin. They looked back to the bottom of the gravity well, turn to their dad and held out a hand, an unspoken request for another penny. They had no reservations about putting several coins in the slot, one after another so the sight and sound were compounded. The museum doesn’t make a lot of money on the gravity well but still, they got all of my pocket change. When you run out of pennies, all you can do is graduate to nickels and dimes. I tried to stop the run on my coin purse but we were hooked. We rolled quarters down the chute until there was nothing left in my pockets but lint. When was the last time you went to the Museum of Science & Industry! Next time, take a roll of pennies.

It’s a pretty good model, a metaphor for the lead up to Christmas. The slow, day to day calendar watching follows a set cadence but the tempo picks up just like the coin down the chute. Finally, in the moment of truth, all the money has been spent and everybody grins. My Xmas started unfolding on the 22nd. We ate too much and filled a barrel with wrapping paper. There were four generations of family in the house and we all went home friends. 

The come & go of New Years is more like a sneeze; not much preparation, little or no warning, your eyes blink and it’s over. The New Year can be a new beginning but you have to make it so. I experience new beginnings all the time, who needs a holiday or a season to start over or try something new, sort of like a sneeze. I don’t think life, at least no mine, is metered out in years. We try to make it so but I think this life is served up in moments that pass so fast you can’t capture them like hanging your hat on a hook. The moment is so busy, so complicated, it passes so quickly that assimilating a year in one day would require a wild imagination, run amok no less. But I’m starting to feel a New Year’s Sneeze coming on. I will be ready with some eggnog and a handkerchief. 

. . . AND I SAY, IT'S ALL RIGHT

I am feeling sort of like comedian John Candy, the bumbling houseguest who wears out his welcome. But somehow he redeems himself, making his exit with enough grace and affection to get a thin but real invitation to, “Come back again.” It seems, in the weeks since Thanksgiving that I’ve worn friends and family thin with my enthusiasm for Winter Solstice. I have the self imposed task of promoting Solstice. If I don’t do it, who will? Western (Christian) civilization has systematically supplanted Baby Jesus’s birthday in place the world’s oldest, longest continuously celebrated holiday. Baby J was born in the spring if the biblical account is correct. Shepherds were back out in the fields with their flocks; it was tax time in the Roman Empire, spring time. Christmas is awesome with wonderful stories to suit everyone’s appetite but my mission, if I accept it (Mission Impossible), is to restore a calendar correct Honoring for the first begotten Sun. 

So for those who have forgotten, for sure in the past 6,000 years and certainly long before that, humans have noticed the sun’s orbit sinking lower and lower in the south (Northern Hemisphere) as summer slips into fall and the onset of cold weather foretells the approaching winter. Way down in Africa of course, where it all began, the shadows stretched north. They saw it coming and knew the hardships that came with it. As shadows lengthened, old people in their 30’s and even kids would commiserate; “Oooh man, it’s gonna’ get cold, really, really cold.” Then, when the resident Shadow-Shaman noticed, the shadow cast by the sacred post or rock stopped its longer-ing and began to shorten. The Sun was on the rise again and that was good news. It would take a long, hard winter before it got high overhead again with warm breezes and mild weather but you gotta’ have faith. Every year, same-o same-o; they counted the days and there was a pattern. So they were able to anticipate the awesome day that the Sun started coming back. It did not spare them the hardships of winter but like other mysterious, unexplainable, miraculous things, it also carried the promise of Spring. Devout believers of all religions are still invested in promises of one kind or another. Something really troubling is going to get a lot better if you can stick it out a little longer. 

I will celebrate that shortening of shadows here in a few hours. I usually have company where we sit around a wood fire, commune with dark chocolate and brandy, listen to Sun significant music, stand up and shuffle our feet if it feels just right. I think about my long-distant forbearers, what it must have been like when you were educated if you knew the difference between 20 and 25 and you were really old if you lived long enough to see your grandchildren. But they were every bit as smart as the 21st Century smarty pants. They just had to know for sure about a jillion things that are no longer relevant. When snow is on the ground we don’t have to know where to look for leeks or dandelion root. 

I remember how good it felt to sing with my class mates, “. . . above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.”  Now I take comfort singing along with George Harrison, his song “Here Comes The Sun”  My solstice song goes, "It seems like years since its been here. Little Darlin’, here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say, it’s all right." I like the heretic’s life, it is a good fit. Take away believing in the unbelievable and the Obedience clause: doubt doesn't address the hereafter but it's really liberating in the here and now. Not to fault anybody’s religion. If it fits wear it, go in peace, judge not lest you be judged, do no harm and live as best you can. 

Tomorrow the daylight hours will have increased by a few seconds, not that we will notice but it is the implied promise and year after year, it hasn’t failed in all of human history. By tomorrow night I will have shifted completely into Christmas mode. My family will be celebrating Christmas together with sinfully rich food, plenty of outrageous foolishness and my pagan tendencies will either go unnoticed or be forgiven. 

SIT WHEREVER YOU LIKE

Any Tuesday evening around 6:30, you can get a free meal at 9th & Oak Street in Kansas City. Last night it included hot dogs, lasagna, green bean casserole, chicken chili, that baked, sliced potato dish all covered with cheese that my mother used to make, dinner rolls, cookies, brownies, energy bars, bottled water, coffee and hot cider. You don’t need a coupon and there’s no password, you just show up, get in line and take your turn. You say, “Yes, please” and hold out your plate for whatever you want and hold back on what you don’t. In either case you say “Thank you” and move on. Once served you can sit wherever you like. Behind the serving line is an urban green space, a well maintained city park with trees, walkways and benches. There is a low retaining wall along the sidewalk that sits well and curb seating accommodates latecomers. 

Last night there was several inches of snow on the ground; the wind had settled but it was cold. Still, as if by magic, at 6:20 several cars, trucks, vans pulled up, set up tables, quickly organized and put out containers of donated food. I was on the handle end of a ladle, loading 10 oz coffee cups with chicken chili. I wore really good, wool socks and insulated hiking boots, long johns, jeans and several layers up top under a heavy, hooded Carhartt coat. My gloves kept my hands warm but fingers and toes went cold after 15 minutes of standing in one spot. Hungry humans off the street were dressed, catch as catch can, as best they could. When you see beggars carrying backpacks, loaded shopping bags and dragging suitcases to dinner, it’s because it is all of their possessions. 

David was next to me up the serving line pouring coffee and hot cider. A crusty old guy with long white hair and beard, he is a regular, reliable volunteer with “K.C. Heroes”, a volunteer group that figures largely in the Tuesday meals program. Last night, besides his task, he helped me keep cups and containers organized. Cleaning up afterward I checked my smart phone; the temp was 23 degrees. 

If my friend Mark is like Don Quixote then I would be Sancho Panza; he drives, solicits and collects donated food, cooks and organizes along with K.C. Heroes. He convinced me that I should volunteer. David the coffee dude needed a ride last night so we drove him across town to a seedy neighborhood, a borderline barrio with residents and business’s that reflect every ethnicity; let him out in front of an old, 3 story, brick apartment building. 

On our ride home I asked about David and Mark explained, he was homeless as well. He noted the difference between being homeless and unsheltered. The latter being, not only homeless but not having access to any public or private buildings for the purpose of shelter. David lives unsheltered in a tent in the woods near the VA Hospital. There is a camp there; not a safe place but the folks who call that wood lot Home do try to take care of each other. In extreme cold, he has a friend in old NorthEast, just off Independence Boulevard who lets him sleep on the sofa. It violates her lease agreement so they have to sleep dressed, in the living room with the lights on and a card table set up. The landlord does watch who comes and goes and if it looks like unauthorized dwellers are present, he calls the police. When the police announce and enter they find friends playing cards; no vagrants, no problem.

As much as I’d like to think otherwise, I volunteer as much to ease my conscience as to exercise altruism. I truly identify with disenfranchised people. I don’t think anybody deserves anything; we get what we get. Nobody makes bad choices so they can fail. All decisions are inert until they unfold and you find out how well you read the tea leaves. I think about all the people who did the right thing and went to work in the towers on 9/11. We are creatures of habit and what worked once upon a time can be your undoing when the winds change. Ben Carson is the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. One would think that a famous surgeon could connect the dots but he confirms my doubts about narrow minded intelligence. At his senate approval hearing he said, “Poverty is a choice.” The people I served chicken chili to last night didn’t choose to be homeless or unsheltered. Privileged bigots profess; “We choose our station in life by the choices we make.” They may not be 100% wrong but they are dreadfully, irresponsibly incomplete. We have to make choices as if we Captain our own boat but in fact we are passengers. We can sit in a deck chair, hug the wall or lean against the rail but we go where the ship goes. I know David ate well last night and I hope his sleep was undisturbed. 

IF MOTHERS . . .

Sometimes I get distracted and wander off the subject, tracking down some piece of trivia that has nothing to do with what I’m doing. Add to that, I am drawn to quotes. If and when someone I respect and admire says something powerful or insightful, I add it to a long list of quotes I keep. As the list grows I tend to reread and review the list, rebooting those ideas. Yesterday I was looking for the source of, “If mothers ruled the world there would be no wars.” The quote pops up in various forms regularly. The best, most likely source is, Anonymous. But many famous people have leaned on it. In 2007, Sally Field won an Emmy for a dramatic role. In her acceptance speech she embellished her remarks paraphrasing “Anonymous”. She said, “If the mothers ruled the world there would be no God Damn wars anyway.” Fox Broadcasting  Company which aired the show, when they saw where she was going they killed the mic and camera so, with the time delay the tv viewing audience missed it. Fox knew her politics and were prepared to cut her off. So much for Sally and Fox, no secret who gets my respect or which one I admire. 

It takes something dramatic in the short term or something consistent and compelling over time to get adults to change their ways. We are creatures of habit and giving up anything that feels both good and right, it doesn’t come without a fight. A big part of that human paradigm would be; “Women are from Venus, men are from Mars.” The gender gap has, I think, always been a stumbling stone. One doesn’t need a story to understand male privilege and how primitive men dominated by physical power. Still, civilization came along and very little changed at the gender gap. Long story short, women still come up short on the equity score card and the rhetoric over the bitchiest bitch or (men) the shittiest ass hole still mucks up the gender bias. Men believe they are superior by historical precedent  and divine declaration while women defend their position by simply doing the math. 

I was a typical male, still believed in common sense and it told me, all those other men can’t be wrong. But I would change. When my daughter was born I began to consider the possibilities and pitfalls she would encounter. It was a sobering experience. When her three older brothers were born I had no such concerns. It took years of noticing holes in the male-myth, like a neural maze where every argument for male superiority petered out in a dead end. My cohorts would lean on double talk and fiction to sustain their egos but I was vulnerable to reason.  I thought of my own growing up, of my parents and their roles. Using a ‘sailing ship’ metaphor; if our family was a schooner then my dad would have been the main sail. He was larger than life, up high in full view, harnessing the wind, driving us forward. My mom on the other hand was nowhere to be seen. She was under the stern, she was the rudder but had full control over where we were headed and she could change course without permission, leaving the sail to flap and hang useless. 

Honey bees have adapted to the gender gap quite successfully. Drones are good for one thing. When they no longer serve a purpose and food gets scarce they are banished from the hive and starve. In the human realm, I tend to be critical of male hegemony. You do the math and numbers are so much more reliable than made up hyperbole. All we are good for is, like drones, sewing our seed. In the long time lapses between servicing queens we have become hopelessly competitive to the point of ultimate competition, waging war. Even then, the gain is measured out in prideful ego and temporary power. With women, if you can’t overpower your gender opposite, being bitchy works. At best, the weaker sex has a way of having their way. But times change and women are competing with men successfully, at least in my culture. They haven’t crossed the bar yet, (another sailing reference) and they don’t have parity just yet but who knows? 

Sally Field was right, she was right on the mark! If you don’t have a uterus and you haven’t nurtured life in the womb, brought it to fruition and launched it on its way, then you can’t appreciate the wonder of it all. Mothers are the glass half full. Men have to settle for half empty. Maybe it’s true, all we men are good for is ego driven pride and sending our progeny off to wage war. Men do a thorough job of over-inflating patriotism and the virtue of waging war. I didn’t want my baby girl to grow up the vassal of some man by way of a Y chromosome. Now I have granddaughters to further my concern. I feel fortunate to be a man who both understands and appreciates his role in the scheme of life. My role may be that of a boorish self-seeker but I can adapt and improvise, the gender gap gives me good cause. Civilization doesn’t have to be right, it just has to work and it's been working more for men than for women. Women are after all from Venus, and men are from Mars. 

I'LL HUFF AND I'LL PUFF

I served in the military for 4 or 7 years depending on how you count reserve status, worked in factories for several years, spent 5 or 6 years at college or university again depending on how you count. Then there was that 30 + year stretch, depending on how you count that I went to school because it was my job. But I have always been a storyteller. If all my mother wanted were facts she asked my brothers, but if she wanted the story, she came to me. 

About the time I retired from teaching I experienced a calling, not unlike righteous minded pilgrims who feel chosen to do the Lord’s work. I have been writing for a long time as well and writing is important, you don’t stop writing because you sense a new or different calling. Nothing takes the place of writing. Writing is a utilitarian endeavor that links language with information, then comes understanding. Story has a life and a purpose of its own. As a writer I am a source. As a Teller, I am an instrument. In the 20 years since, I’ve traveled the world with a bag full of stories. In all that time I’ve never made money, seldom broke even. Like Johnny Appleseed, I was planting story at my own expense. All those years in the classroom, the downside was low pay. But in retirement, the upside is good benefits and time to explore, wherever you want to go. It is not an extravagant life style, if you are frugal and if you live modestly, you can do just that; wherever you want to go. 

Inside the storytelling community the craft unfolds much the same way preachers accommodate religion. In many cases, preachers are the best tellers in the business. Their story can be so digestible, so satisfying, for thousands of years civilization has taken it to heart, both its fiction and its fact. But religion is only a small slice of the story pie. Story is the archive where human history is preserved, with an ever so thin, muddy boundary between myth and truth. When the story is so complicated or so big that the ear and the mind can not process it, there comes a simple story with metaphors and fictional characters to fit the need. Story-Teller-Listener, if they join hands with the teller in the middle, the circuit is closed and a light comes on. A window to possibility opens that otherwise the listener would never discover on their own. 

Beyond the fiction, history more than suggests that evolution has employed a BigBrain imagination and recently (at the time) acquired language to share complex ideas and experiences. Think of it; one person can describe to another, the differences between the footprints of buffalo and zebras, miles away from any foot prints, in the dark. They shared information on where it was safe to cross a stream and which roots were good to eat and which were not. Those stories and every other story have been linked together and they bridge the gap between campfires and solar panels. 

Can you imagine a chimpanzee trying to tell a rain forest version of the “Three Little Pigs”? What would, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.” sound like? We are, as far as we know, the only animals to tell stories. Whales and primates certainly do communicate, very well as their needs be. They can show how to do but they have no language to thread together like beads on a very long string. They can’t use the same words to tell very different stories. The fact that humans have such a rich history is more about language than it is about intelligence. Without story, every generation would have to reinvent the wheel. I am a StoryTeller and I want people to know that story is as much a part of our legacy, maybe more so than any other smart thing we dreamed up. Flush toilets are irreplaceable but without the story, we would still be squatting in the woods. 

POPCORN

I am in that loop between Thanksgiving and Christmas, trying very hard to be merry if not joyful, and I am for the most part. Still, it ain’t easy. I avoid news media with a sense of purpose. I don’t know much of anything that comes from talking heads or headlines that pass for news. If not depressing then certainly disturbing or worrisome; not a dooms day thing but like fatty meat, hard to digest.

When I was teaching school there was a one-word expression that described a particular type of ‘out of control’ classroom. It went like this: one kid (K1) does something disruptive that requires teacher (T) attention. Normal activity stops. With that break in the flow of instruction (T) gives undivided attention to the perpetrator. Whether they think about it or not, other students seize the moment. (K2) on the other side of the room, out of the line of sight, blurts out something intended to draw a response. If (T) doesn’t respond to (K2), everybody starts talking. (K3) who is triangulated away from (K1 & K2) screams, knowing that (T) won’t know for sure who screamed. If (T) doesn’t disengage with (K1) in an attempt to restore order in the room, it goes from a simple ‘Ping’ to zoo-chaos in 15 seconds or less. The word is “Popcorn”. In the lounge or in a meeting it was common to hear an adult confess, “Yeah, they went Popcorn on me this morning.” Everybody had their own way of counteracting Popcorn, some better than others but you had to have a plan. Even if you go nuts, act crazy, you become the center of attention, gain some control, do your job. That was my strategy. 

The news: on the local scene it’s all bad, or nearly all bad. Sometimes a sports star does something for poor or sick kids. Sometimes the police have an uplifting encounter with ordinary people or a new company brings jobs to the city. In national news, very little good news. It feels like the Popcorn effect on a global scale. When one bully-leader burns the house down and has his critics murdered, his neighbor, the bully across the border feels empowered to do something even worse, and so on: Popcorn. 

If the bully-leader is a narcissist demagogue, like the Donald, then his indiscretions go viral. Other wanna-be Donald autocrats model his self obsessed, bad behavior. In congress you get Popcorn, with partisan-tribal obsession between competing political interests. Out of that we now have Fake News and pushback against any and everything that doesn’t satisfy competing partisan whims. In a classroom where I am the biggest kid I wield at least some influence but when I step outside my door I’m just another kernel of unpopped corn. So I’m taking the coward’s way out. I’m not going to pop at all. I don’t need to know all the dirt or listen to any of the propaganda. Good music or educational programs are entertaining and even better, they digest without the gas pains.

My own personal ideology, if taken to its other end will offend or annoy typical citizens. Simply stated, I think we do well enough for high functioning monkeys. At the core of our dilemma, we are conflicted between an instinctive need to throw poop and take what doesn’t belong to us and biological/anthropological limitations that make us interdependent; we need each other. I guess that makes us narcissistic altruists, an oxymoron but what the heck, looking too hard, too long in the mirror isn’t very rewarding, neither is watching the news.