Unanswered questions on the cusp of a new year

    We're about to flip the page on the new year, but I still don't know . . .
    
     Does anybody else see incongruity in the name "Tea Party Express" for a group whose logo should be a Conestoga wagon?
    
     Would you want to go on trial for anything with a jury made up of predominantly Tea Party people?

     If the Republicans are serious about being the party of predictability and consistency, why have they dedicated their efforts to the politics of nullification: if you don't like the vote results, push back, delay, create chaos, oppose any attempt at compromise?

     Occupy (fill in the blank) people want a classless society, but haven't they seen the headlines on the covers of magazines in the checkout lines in food stores? "Sex Tips" and "Camilla Storms Out," and "How to make your man whimper during sex" is about as classless as it gets, isn't it? And we haven't even started to assess the class found in cage fighting and most of the TV reality shows.

     Would war be as prevalent as it is if somebody wasn't making a lot of money from it?

     And who makes all the money that the rest of us lose when the stock market tanks? And why aren't they roomies with that fella Madoff?

     How can we be proud of the fact that we are a nation willing to sacrifice justice in the interest of practicing law?  And how much practice does it take to get it right?

     Are any of the local jock types who have been pushing for turf fields for kids' athletic programs paying attention to the injuries suffered by so many pro players, like the "turf toe" that has kept the Ravens' Ray Lewis on the sidelines so long?

     And why doesn't anybody seem to notice the disconnect between mandating dietary changes in school cafeterias designed to fight childhood obesity, then sending kids home in school buses that stop every 75 yards so the poor kids don't have to walk so far?

     Anyway, may your New Year be less interrupted at suppertime by telemarketers and robo-callers asking for political contributions, or slinging mud at opponents.
    
    
     
    
    
    
    

Bing is still here, singing White Christmas

     For most of us, I think, there are certain Christmas traditions that have to happen to make the season, like going to midnight candle lighting services, or carving a turkey or ham on Christmas day, with the family gathered around.
     Ever since I can remember, I have to hear Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas" to get the season going. No other version, no other singer, quite does it.  It has to be Bing.
     I can recall walking out of a movie theater with my Dad when I was about five, and the lights were up and Bing's voice came through the house speakers, singing "Adeste Fidelis," and I had no idea what the words meant, but it felt good. I asked, "Daddy, how old is Bing Crosby?"
     He said, "I guess he'd be about 40," which was bad news, because to me, it meant that Bing Crosby was old. So then I asked, "Does Bing Crosby swear?"
     That made Dad laugh out loud. He had no idea, but I got the idea that maybe Bing used some of the words that I was not allowed to use. Not only that, but he had been divorced.  I hoped he mended his ways before he died, if he wanted to go to Heaven.
     Dad remembered that question the rest of his life. When I was little, I didn't know why he found it so amusing. This was serious business, this issue of virtue. If you sing Christmas songs, you shouldn't have bad habits. I knew Bing smoked, because he smoked a pipe in the movies, but that wasn't considered a mortal sin back then. Swearing was, except for the occasional four-letter words that Dad and his guy friends used.
     What Dad recalled, fondly and with humor, was the innocence of his little boy.
     I have a few memories of my own sons like that now, and I know my father better.
     Years passed, and every Christmas I await the mellifluous tones of Der Bingle, singing White Christmas, sometimes catching a playing of Adeste Fidelis, and in time, I realized why it was important to that little boy to know that Bing was right with God.
     I think Bing Crosby, because he was Dad's favorite singer, had become a father figure to me. I was newly aware that year that no one lives forever; not Bing, not Dad. And I wanted to hold on to them until I was sure they would go to Heaven.
     In my own maturity, I no longer worry about it. The whole idea of Christmas is that we shouldn't worry about it. Or so I believe.

More questions than answers on the info highway

    If I don't record the news on TV, I can't watch it.
    They should be required to change the name of the broadcast from "The Evening News" to "The Evening Tease."
     "Tease" is a technical term. It's what the industry calls the end of the segment before the commercial break:  "Who spanked the President? We'll tell you right after the break."
     This tease is a lie. They almost always present two more stories, each four sentences long, 10 words each, before the next break, but before they leave you with the commercial, they say, "We'll find out who spanked the President right after this."
     I have a theory about this. News departments have not made as much progress over the past 50 years as the advertising and marketing departments, so 15 minutes of news -- the standard local offering in 1955 -- is all you really get in an hour-long newscast. But they can sell a lot of advertising to run in that hour, so that's why you have so many breaks. And the tease keeps you around for the commercials.
     Take weather, for instance. I watch the local news mostly for the weather, but if you notice, you get the weather in bits and pieces. First, they tell you what the weather was like today -- with video, of course. If there is no video to go along with the evening news, it did not happen. Or at least it's not going to be on the broadcast. They used to have a graphic to put up on the screen when they had a story but no video, but that's apparently considered bush league today. Better to ignore a story than to run it without video.
     Anyway, after a few video-supported stories, the anchors -- it takes two to do the  job than one person used to be able to handle -- say, "Will we have a tornado tomorrow? We'll be back with the forecast after this."
     But they may have four more commercials before you see the weather person again, and three promos bragging that the station has three or four meterologists, which I think is supposed to impress us because a meteorologist is a professional weather person.
     If I were a professional meteorologist weather person instead of just a weather personality, I think I'd be embarrassed to being reduced to spreading five minutes of information out over an hour, but that's why nobody ever asked me to be a TV personality.
     Oh, I was asked to be a news director once, but I had to quit the job over a disagreement on how to do a "live, on-location story on the local blizzard."
     It was actually just a snow, but the station manager and the production people wanted to milk it. They valued camera equipment more than people, so they insisted on calling in a reporter to stand on the parking lot, "live, somewhere on location in Carroll County" while the camera and operator stayed in the garage, with the garage door open.
     This, apparently, is how you get a BS degree in TV production, video news, and communicatons management. Me, I ain't got no BS with me.
     Who spanked the president? Damned if I know; I switched to PBS.
    

Why you shouldn't read other people's mail

     You really shouldn't read other people's mail, but we do it all the time, when someone forwards an email to us to show how ridiculous someone else is. I saw one the other day that troubled me, and I shouldn't let it. It wasn't addressed to me, was not a personal attack on me, but rather on my friend, and so was none of my business.
     It's really no skin off my nose if someone who can't read or write with proper grammar shows his ignorance and lack of maturity with such silly tirades just because he dislikes President Obama. I guess it could be argued that anyone who likes President Obama lives in a fairy tale world and talks to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but why would anyone stoop to such a silly remark? Maybe it was the best they can do.
     Considering the company some of these angry people keep, and the bad habits they have picked up, they might benefit from a few hours sipping milk and cookies with Micky Mouse.
     I don't know; maybe they just feel they can't keep up their end of the debate by sticking to real issues, but they're comfortable in a bar fight.
     For a lot of the most incoherent out there, the only issue they have is that they don't want Barack Obama to have a second term as President. They seem to be reduced to sputtering when asked what it is that is so bad about Obama that it was deemed necessary by some people to start the campaign for the next election the day he took office. Kidnappers, thieves and child molesters get a better trial that some people have given President Obama.
     The rancor that pervades the country seems to have emanated from the fact that an African American from Chicago -- or some other foreign country -- has taken up lodging in the White House neighborhood.
     Despite the fact that many of Obama's liberal supporters are displeased with him because he has not been liberal enough, rock-ribbed Republicans and conservatives of even more libertarian stripes are not dissuaded from their annoyance. It's clear they don't like him, want him voted out, but there the clarity ends; they do not have the vocabulary to give a good argument.
     So what is a body to do if they don't support the policies of a president, or a governor, or a county commissioner? Be reduced to bleepity bleep kinds of ranting? Or would it be better -- more grown up -- to counter actions or proposals that you find objectionable with suggestions for another way, or challenges to the rationale for the current leaders' direction.
     It just seems to me that you can't defeat the rationale of opponents if you remain, or become, irrational yourself.

Let's put civility back in Christmas

     I promise, if you wish me "Happy Holidays," that I will not bite your head off, remind you that it's Christmas, and admonish you for missing the point of Christmas. I'll just say, "Thank you. Same to you."
     I may reply, "Merry Christmas to you," and I hope you don't think I'm being a smartaleck. I really mean it, and that's all I mean, so just accept my best wishes and we can avoid a tense moment, okay?
     Christmas season is tense enough without obsessing over how we wish each other well, in my opinion. Frankly, I don't understand how it got to be a competitive sport to show up three days early at a discount store to get a few dollars off something that will be in a yard sale in a year.
     True, I am known as a bit of an iconoclast, full of questions, and even challenges of some of the rituals we humans observe, but when it comes to Christmas, I'm a softy. And if someone else feels the same way about the traditions of a different religion than the one I grew up with, I get it. It's okay with me.
      One of the things I picked up when I started in Sunday School at the age of five was that we're supposed to be kind to each other. Even Samaritans, although I still am not sure how Samaritans were or are different; I just learned that there is such a thing as a good Samaritan, and that's reassuring to me now, just as it was when I was five.
     No sense in ticking off the Samaritans unnecessarily, is all I'm saying.
    

Partridges . . . other birds, and T-shirts for the electeds

     Some people grump about all the catalogs you get in the mail at Christmas, but I kind of like to browse through them. They give me all kinds of shopping ideas.
     A popular item this year is hearing enhancements, in varying forms, from headphones to tiny things you can put in your ear to eavesdrop on the conversations across the room. I might get a few of the heavy duty ones for Congress. They seem to be deaf to most of what the rest of us are saying.
     The little sneaky things might be good for reporters; they're always looking for stories that go on in secret. Some reporters are still having trouble reporting the obvious, so I might get a few t-shirts for them; I saw one offered with the saying, "A penny for your thoughts. Five bucks if they're dirty."
     Some copy editors I have worked with will get shirts that say, "National Sarcasm Society (like we need your support)." I want one of those for myself. Others will get the one that reads, "The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm," because it may be the only dictionary they use.
     Herman Cain's pals are getting him his own nightgown, to get into whenever he wants.
     Newt Gringrich reportedly asked for one of those backward watches offered in several of the catalogs I have seen. It runs in reverse of the normal face on a watch.
     I can get a special deal on bulk orders for t-shirts in one catalog, so I'm sending off for a selection for our local commissioners.
     For David Roush, there's, "I'm not aging, I'm fermenting" and, "Who says nothing is impossible; I've been doing nothing for years."
     Doug Howard is getting, "Please take a moment to appreciate my vast knowledge and experience."
     He can also share one with Richard Rothschild: "You don't have to agree with me, but I'm still RIGHT."  But then Rothschild, already ahead of the others in the wardrobe department anyway, will enhance his t-shirt collection with, "A team effort is a lot of people doing everything I say" and "What I really need are minions."
     I have to say that some people are harder to buy for than others. I picked out this one for Haven Shoemaker: "Life is a circus...and I'm stuck in the freak tent." He reportedly already has one that reads, "If idiots grew on trees, this place would be an orchard."
     Robin Frazier likes to show her math skills, so I got her one that reads, "There are three kinds of people in this world: Those who are good at math and those who aren't."
Personally, I think she'd make a statement in the t-shirt that has a carpenter's level on it and says, simply, "Half a bubble off."
     As for key staff at the county office building, I have word from Santa's elves that there is a run on two very different t-shirts this year. A lot of employees are ordering, "It is what it is," and there is a backorder on, "Your proctologist called . . . He's found your head."
     Ho ho ho . . . Can't wait for casual Friday....

Not everyone gets what they want for Christmas

      This time of year can be hard on grown-ups; putting up with the whining and tantrums of children who want what they want and can't believe they can't have it.
     These thoughts came to me while witnessing the dialog -- nice term for it -- among our local county officials about whether to keep a pet.
     This was about renewing the contract of the professional promoter that Richard Rothschild showed up with at the county offices. He said Jim Simpson followed him home, and could he keep him? Please, please please!
     Robin Frazier, too, had become attached to the bark of this conservative blogger/radio host/talker/writer, or whatever. He had a nice sound, and she supported Rothschild's efforts to fork over something approaching $100,000 in taxpayers' dollars to keep him on the porch, yarking at passing socialists and liberals.
     I suppose it makes sense to folks like Rothschild and Frazier to espouse frugality in government programs that serve the needs of widows and children, while donating Other People's Money generously to people who hate spending on social issues.
     "He gets our story out," I believe is the quote of the week, attributed first to Rothschild, but echoed by Frazier. She echoes well, as is often the case in hollow spaces.
     But wait a minute, said the grownups, led by Haven Shoemaker. The whole story of the hiring and compensation, a month at a time to avoid proper bidding and vetting processes, has been bad news for this board of commissioners. A public relations disaster, I think he called it.
     That's the old Haven Shoemaker talking. Nice to have him back. Doug Howard seemed to finally understand, too, that getting Rothschild speaking engagements in the the distant backwaters of Redneck Country and interviews on Right Wing, conspiracy theory radio talk shows was doing little to inform local residents. We have been paying for entertainment we do not get.
     So the whining went on, Rothschild and Frazier obviously frustrated.
     But grownups prevailed, this time. About time.