Fewer choices, please, but more quality

     Satellite radio came with my car, or I probably wouldn't have it.
     My past experience with satellite radio is that it costs more than it's worth, and is more trouble than it is a convenience. In fact, the last two cars I owned, I allowed the subscriptions to run out. I had six-stack CD players and could get all the way to Myrtle Beach without hearing screaming divas, twanging, booming, or foul lyrics of any kind. Not even Barry Manilow, unless my wife is along.
     But I have learned that cancelling a service is not the end of the inconvenience: Once you have ever subscribed to anything, be it a magazine, model car collection, satellite radio or TV -- anything -- you will forever after be harried with cards, calls, e-mails and sometimes even unauthorized restarts that have to be killed all over again.
     These calls are never from sales persons. I have not had any calls from a sales person in years. Instead, I get "courtesy" calls from customer service representatives. I tell them if you really want to be courteous, take me off your call list.
     And let me say right here and now that I understand that some people have to make a living with telephone sales and service jobs, jammed into a cubicle alongside 400 other such workers, and life is hard for everyone.
     And I am all in favor of diversity, and appreciate any person who can speak in more than one language, but I have to wonder, Why is it that the more insistent I am that I do not want a product, or future calls, or I want better service, the person on the other end becomes increasing less conversant in English.
      So when the notice came that it was time to renew the subscription, it was with some trepidation that I gave them a call.
      But I really had no choice but to call. The invoice gave me few choices. I could give them a check for the full amount for a year in advance, or I could give them a credit card number for the same amount. In either case, the small print said by using either method, I was authorizing automatic renewal in a year, which means that 12 months from now, I would be getting a bill, probably including an increase in the rate, and notifying me that because of my previous agreement with them, they have already charged it to the credit card on file.
     I can get something like 500 stations on my car radio, but I had only two ways to make a payment, neither of which appeals to me. I would prefer to pay quarterly, or every six months, or at least a year in advance without committing myself to a lifetime of automatic price increases.
     When they say "customer service," they mean the customer gets serviced, and if you're a farmer, you know what I mean.
     It isn't just the radio company. My satellite TV provider keeps sending me surveys and sales pitches pushing more choices, as if only backward tribesmen in the jungles of some lost continent would not want to watch American Idol on their wristwatch, any time, anywhere, as often as there are stops at red lights.
     Anyway, I called and got someone named Geel. Geel apparently had trouble with my accent, because I could not make him understand that I wanted a less costly, and less automatically renewed, service. Besides, I explained, the one station I listen to most jolts me every so often with vocals by the likes of Engelbert Humberdinck, for which he expressed no sympathy. Maybe he never heard of Englebert, but then he's not alone.
     Geel finally got it when I said I wanted to cancel my subscription. In the end, I agreed to a year's subscription to a less costly package, with invoice billing instead of automatic renewal.
     I should be happy, but I know what's next. Emails, "courtesy calls" at suppertime, and junk mail telling me I am in danger of slipping off the edge of relevancy if I don't have more choices.
     In the past, I had those CDs as backup to FM radio, but one of my 1,200 available Internet websites had a story recently that CDs will be going the way of the eight-track, or the cassette, and if you don't have an MP 3 player, or something called an App on your phone, you'll be out of luck.
     My cell phone has no camera, no texting, no messaging. I can make calls with an up to date and conveniently oversized set of buttons, and take incoming calls if I feel like it. I doubt it has an app.
     But that's my choice.

McDaniel discussion series more than fills in the gaps

      I believe that nothing speaks with more certainty or conviction than ignorance, so , given the opportunity to sit in on the Great Decisions lectures at McDaniel College, I was heartened to hear the very first speaker say that many of the topics we would discuss might seem to present questions without answers.
     The series invites local residents to visit the campus for about eight weeks to hear learned speakers talk about foreign policy issues of the day, and it has been going on now for about 10 years.
     The course laid out this year by the Foreign Policy Association provides each participant with a thick magazine containing in-depth articles about Middle East realignment, Mexico and immigration issues, cybersecurity, exit strategies from Afghanistan and Iraq, and four other issues.
     Much of what I am reading is familiar, but the talks by McDaniel faculty members provides the mortar between the bricks of knowledge and opinion that I can get elsewhere. When we look at a wall, we are quick to see the bricks, but too often, we under appreciate the strength added by the mortar.
     The personal experiences and observations of people who have studied cultures, and lived and traveled Mexico or Morocco add the human touch that elevates the knowledge of facts and opinion to the experience of living history and sociology.
     Professor Amy McNichols, speaking of her experiences living with families in Mexico, struck a chord with me because of my own experiences in The Philippines. The images we see on the evening news simply do not capture the generosity, humanity, and courage of the people who strive to rise above sometimes desperate circumstances. We can be overwhelmed with stories and pictures of poverty, crime and misery and never get to learn about the accomplishments, advances, culture, history and potential of a nation.
     For example, in response to a question about how do her friends in Mexico feel about the stereotypes Americans have about Mexicans in general and immigrants in particular, McNichols was careful to avoid a political answer. She could only relate a story about her experience in a home in Mexico, where she was a guest.
     The woman asked her, "Why do they think we are dirty? My family is clean, we keep a clean house.''
     Family is of paramount importance in Mexican culture. Faith is a way of life, and their sense of hospitality is such that they will move four children out of a bedroom so a guest can have a room to themselves. But enough generalizing; these discussions are all about avoiding generalizations and stereotypes.
     There is no proselytizing here; just informed, educated people in the McDaniel community sharing their knowledge with those in the community who are willing to listen, and perhaps even participate in a give and take discussion after each lecture.
     My formal education is wanting, so all my adult life I have compensated by embracing the concept and practices of continuing education. I always felt that as a professional in the the world of journalism, I had at least a window to the ever changing curriculum of life.
     I'm glad McDaniel offers these open opportunities to find out that we may not know as much as we think we do.

Retirement is another word for living for the moment

     We've all heard people say they don't know how they had time to work before they were retired.
     Now I know what they mean.
     I am working sporadically on a couple of novels, have written two short stories in the past several weeks, penned four or five poems, have enrolled in a digital photography class at Carroll Community College and find myself thoroughly engaged in a discussion/lecture group called Great Decisions at McDaniel College one day a week.
     I have breakfast with friends at least twice a week, regularly have lunch with someone and get out to dinner at least once a week with another couple.
     Our grandchildren are up to here in school functions, soccer, dance, theater and ballet, some of which we catch, and in between times, we all  gather for dinner or a cookout.
     Two stacks of novels on the table beside my best chair await their turn, and I have about 30 hours of television programs from the History Channel, The Learning Channel, Discovery and National Geographic to either watch or delete before the cooking shows fill out the DVR's memory.
     I enjoy cooking dinner, and so I enjoy going to the grocery store, and visit there several times a week, rather than pile up stuff that will rot in the refrigerator. Even so, I have found some cans in the pantry that I stocked up several years ago, and they need a proper burial.
     My spouse is a retired teacher who, it turns out, did not retire so much as change venue, and she volunteers one day a week at Shepherd's Staff, so that leaves Fridays for our "together" errands, usually starting with breakfast out.
     The money just reaches, but that's okay; there will come a time when we will not feel like going hither and yon, and we might as well enjoy our pensions while we can.
     I am neither bragging nor complaining; I always said there is no excuse for being bored, and no such thing as having nothing to do. When I hear young people complain about "nothing for kids to do," I would be more than willing to introduce them to some opportunities.
     You don't need a lot of money to satisfy your curiosity and explore an ever changing world, and if you aren't curious, stop thinking of yourself as the center of the universe and look around, and listen, and be filled with wonder.

Blessed be seekers of truth -- poor devils

I have a friend who desperately seeks truth about all the current issues of the day. He sends me clips from web sites, newspapers, magazines and other sources that back up his view of the world, and I respectfully review these versions of fact, knowing it will be best if I do not respond.
Like most of us, he roots around in the bins of comfortable truths -- those things he already believes to be true -- seeking affirmation and avoiding or dismissing sources that are not comfortable.
This is why the commentators on certain television or radio programs develop fans.
Few people will switch back and forth between Fox News and MSNBC, for instance, or flip over to see what CNN is reporting.
Even fewer will spend time on National Public Radio or Television. Especially those who consider any in-depth interviews that allow more than 12 sentences from any source to be too esoteric, or worse, liberal.
Most of what we see in publication is opinion.
You can find the "thought for the day" in the Carroll County Times on Page 3 most days, the last listing under Today in History, which I believe is a feature of the Associated Press.
In these two or three sentences daily, you may find more truth than in the rest of the paper combined, with the possible exception of the comics page.
I don't think my friend has time for the comics, which may bew why he struggles so.
Saturday's nugget under Thought for Today was, "Opinion is that exercise of the human will which helps us to make a decision without information."
I saw another good quote in the Feb. 3 issue of a magazine called "The Week," which runs a feature called, "Wit and Wisdom."
William Faulkner is quoted, "Facts and truth really don't have much to do with each other."
But let us not lose our reverence for the value of free speech, or our sense of humor.
That same magazine, in it's Feb. 24 issue, reminds us that it was George Burns who said, "It's too bad the people who really know how to run the country are so busy cutting hair and driving taxis."

Trash talk from law officers diminishes their status

     I see that a union for law enforcement officers is putting up a billboard in Westminster to put pressure on the city council.
     Instead of focusing on criminal activity that threatens citizens, the union wants callers to blow the whistle on anything they think might be unethical or fraudulent actions on the part of the town's elected officials. As if there isn't enough of that going on anyway.
     It's a headline-grabbing publicity stunt. Unbecoming.
     If it is true that this idea comes from some of the same individuals who were in the county sheriff's department when the question was raised about whether it was time for a county police force in addition to a sheriff, we're in for a nasty spate of misinformation, ugly rhetoric, and ultimately a black eye for uniformed personnel.
     The mayor, a former state trooper, wants none of it, and I don't blame him. When the language used by people who claim they speak for police officers is too similar to the kind of talk you expect from street thugs, it hurts the cause -- if your cause is pride in serving and protecting.
     If your cause is to win a dirty fight, that's something else.
     Westminster commited to a costly benefits package for officers some years ago, and the union leaders love it because they have no responsibility to the taxpayers who foot the bill. This showdown was probably inevitable.
     In any case, as a citizen of Westminster, I am sorry to see this kind of dirty hands tactic in the name of the officers in the rank and file, and I would bet that most of them are embarrassed by it -- or will be, before it's all said and done.
   

What is that hollow noise?

    It's only February, and already I'm tired of political campaign rhetoric.
     Millions have already been spent on selling candidates' images and spinning messages that can only in the most generous terms be called visions for a better America.
     In order to prove we need a better America, they take turns blaming the other for what's wrong with this country, then they take turns chastising the other side for all the negative talk about U.S. conditions and culture.
     If people believe any of this claptrap, that proves that political parties should neither claim credit nor blame the opposition for the economy any other issues in American life. They spend money to bet that we can be fooled yet again, and the worst that can happen to the candidates is that they lose this election, but live to run again, and in the meantime, make millions with speaking engagements, consultation fees, and book deals.
     We are our own worst enemies, and with the speed of light provided by social media, we can spread ignorance faster than we can illuminate any complex issue.
     Advertising and public relations are like distorted fun house mirrors, approximating but corrupting reality.
     And it goes on, and on, and on.
     My theory is that we succumb to it because it's easy. Thinking is harder.
     Perhaps we are like rats who are attracted to the last few apples in the bottom of a barrel simply because the lid was left wide open. We lean in too far, and fall in.
     Our greed and the bounty at the bottom of the barrel has lured us into a trap, prisoners amidst an embarrassment of of riches.
     We may think to escape, but wait! There is a treasure of apples, plenty to satiate ourselves for as long as we can see into the future, so we stay and take our fill until we are so fat and slow that we can no longer leap to escape.
     As the supply of apples diminishes and then disappears, we are left to wallow in our waste, starving, learning too late the consequences of bad decisions.
     Meanwhile, the rats who would be leaders gather at the lid of the barrel and yammer at us about who is to blame for our predicament. Conservative rats blame liberal ones, and the liberal ones blame the conservative ones.
    The show is at the rim of the barrel, and reality is in the bottom. When you yell into a empty barrel, you get great acoustics, a satisfying resonance of sound, sufficient for a culture of sound worshippers.
    But the barrel is still empty.

Did Rothschild just say, 'Let them eat cake'?

    I have to wonder if any of the county commissioners had any idea how worried county employees are about their futures. And then, when employees download their thoughts during what can only have been an unscheduled stop on the road to reality in an open and uncharacteristically candid give and take meeting, Rothschild is quoted as saying it would be nice to show appreciation by giving out awards and plaques. Is that true?
     Let them eat cake?
     Some months ago, I stopped being surprised at anything either Rothschild or Commissioner Robin Frazier said. But this scenario is like walking unwittingly into a fun house on the arcades of a cheap circus.
     People who work for you are saying they can't meet their bills, and you respond by offering them a platitude in brass and wood, and perhaps a cheese sandwich.
     Maybe they should have seen this coming when they were bragging about how they were cutting costs and taxes, too.
     Three years ago I sat on the sidelines and declined to participate in empty rhetoric before a conference room full of county employees who were given an offer they couldn't refuse. There were a lot of nice remarks by my colleagues about how much we valued the contributions of the people who had worked years for a county paycheck, but even if the buyouts and forced retirements were the best option, I saw nothing to celebrate.
     When I ran for office, people would ask me if I could be counted on to cut taxes. I always said no. If we could cut expenses without neglecting gradual improvement and progress in catching up with what were among the lowest pay and benefits in the state for county employees and teachers, yes, I would do that.
     Eventually, after correcting years of neglect in pay and education spending, we reduced the homestead tax by several percentage points, which was actually better than a cut in the tax rate, but people didn't see the several hundred dollars that they saved, so it didn't mean much. Many would rather see a $40 cut in what they pay in the form of a reduction in the rate; it's simpler, even if it is less beneficial.
     Two people showed up in Manchester for a hearing on education spending in their community. Two.
    Given the fact that many are disheartened by the realities of the overall economy, I suppose you can make a case for excusing such abject apathy, but I won't buy it. Just because people had nothing to say does not mean there was nothing for them to learn.
It's okay to go to a public hearing and listen, despite what the radical populists preach.
     I have been hearing from many whose incomes or programs have suffered in these current hard times, but the saddest stories are from the ones who have had a front row seat to the ineptitude, hypocrisy and deafness of the current commissioners.
     In truth, the elected officials have a hard job. I knew they would. It started before they got here, and it will continue. But they have taken a sick horse and ridden it to ground over the backs of good people.
     A plaque won't do.

Off message, but on purpose

     We'll be hearing a lot of flap for awhile about how the Carroll County Commissioners have been cited for violating the state open meetings law, but don't expect it to change the way they do business.
     In any case, people -- and the news media -- should be more incensed at the lack of smarts the commissioners show when they do enact something, in secret or otherwise.
     They cut the tax rate when revenues were projected to drop anyway, which was more showing off than anything else. If they knew how much less they'd have to run essential services, they were foolish. If they didn't know, their ignorance is alarming. Maybe it just didn't matter, so long as they had a tax cut to brag about for the next election campaign, which seems to have already begun.
     I worry about this perpetual campaign mode that elected officials seem to be in at every level in this country. They take actions that they have to know are detrimental in the long run just so they look good in the short term. That's not good for the public, short or long term.
     We see through it, and the loss of faith in holders of public office is pandemic.
     Apparently, we can't have leadership and politics at the same time, and we have politics all the time, now.
     The embarrassment of the Republican presidential primary campaign will be hard to get over. The rest of the world  thinks we're crazy.
     At least the juggernaut is shaking the really bad choices loose.
     It seems, four years after the Palin debacle, like Republicans are trying to find even worse choices. Bachmann, or Palin II, was too wiggy even for Iowans, which should tell us something. By the time pizza chain Cain departed the picture, we had figured out that we'd be better off with the guy who delivers pizza in his 1998 Honda. At least he's trying.  Huntsman tried to be civil, so no one noticed him, nor had any idea what he saw as the issues.
     In truth, does anyone know the issues, other than Defeat Democrats, particularly Obama? Shouldn't Republicans spend more time on explaining policy ideas and less trashing each other, or is the seduction of the spotlighted brawl too much to give up?
     And can't the news media be grown up enough to lay off the non-issue gaffs and out-of-context remarks and report more substance?
     Ron Paul has been the most civil, and the most consistent in where he thinks America should go. Unfortunately, he wants to go in reverse, which is not an option for most of us. He had good ideas for 1780, but not the 21st Century.
     Newt Gingrich talks a good plan for the 1990s, but can anyone believe him? Just because he's abrasive does not mean he's candid.
     Rick Santorum is solidly entrenched in the 1950s. His best moments are when he's trying to pull the spotlight off the Romney/Gingrich street fight to talk issues, but his issues are as narrow as a one-way alley in a town that needs a bypass.
     Mitt Romney is a moderate Republican, which I learned when I ran for public office means he is a RINO to a noisy faction of the party. That means "Republican In Name Only," and is the second dirtiest word in the GOP vocabulary, next to "Liberal."  Even Democrat is more polite.
     The only other words in the GOP vocabulary are, "No", usually followed by "taxes." That's about it. Simple, but hard to use for getting directions to the next corner, let alone across the country or around the world.
     Back to the locals: When Rothschild first appeared on the scene a couple of years ago, he complained that the county commissioners at the time had acted surreptitiously, even subversively, to steal people's property rights with a little-advertised master plan and zoning proposal.
     He said he didn't know there was a master plan revision on the public agenda, and why hadn't he been invited to chip in.
     I thought it was just another case of a citizen who awoke in the third act of the play and wanted the rest of the audience to accommodate him by starting the show all over again. He was either clueless about local processes, or he was a surrogate for the forces who had been pushing back at the previous commissioners from the beginning of their term.
     Rothschild gained traction by accusing the county of acting without public participation. He was wrong, but as they say in the public information business, it had legs.
     What an irony that now, it is he and his colleagues who are officially, purposefully negligent in engaging the public in the workings of their local government.