Negotiation, The Myth of Bi-Partsianship

When it was announced that the leaders of the West Bank Palestinians and Israel were going to start meeting bi-weekly, I'm quite sure many people took heart. Regional leaders and experts have been saying for years that the problem in the middle east is not Iraq, it's Palestine, or rather the lack of a free Palestinian state. Than with the equally shocking news out of Northern Ireland yesterday, regarding the meeting between Adams and Paisley, one could believe that anything is possible. Anything, it seems, except civility and co-operation between Democrats and Republicans in our national legislature.

What makes for progressive and meaningful agreements is not total capitalization by one side or another, but the true negotiations of all issues and a compromise that all parties can live with. It's a long and painfully slow process and certainly has been highlighted as a flaw in the democratic process. Reacting with anger and vengeance is always easier on the emotions, but rarely does anything but allow for short term gratification.

On the other hand, in a recent interview on NPR and expert said, "You should always talk to your enemies, but if they are dedicated to your destruction and elimination, it's hard to take anything they say seriously." Competition for the hearts and minds of the audience is one thing, genocide is something else.

Our problem is that current day politicians are looking at politics as war rather than the deliberation process that it should be. I listened to an interview with former House Leader, Tom "The Hammer" Delay, in which he fortified his reputation as a tough and unyielding legislator by repeating his intentions of the past. His creed was to seek no negotiation, rather he sought to secure capitulation. He was very successful for a long time by whipping his troops into order and requiring loyalty to the extent that he ran candidates against his own party members if they didn't toe the line.

You can and do make a lot of enemies that way and he did. His lack of familiarity with power and seemingly easy access to it caused him to cut corners. His opponents used those lapses of judgement against him. The lesson learned here is that power, justice and peace gained by the use of a force can and usually will backfire. General George Washington famously turned the harden heart of his enemies troops by treating his prisoners of war as well as he treated his own men.

However, the bottom line in any negotiation is both parties to an agreement need to want an agreement and have to be willing to meet somewhere in the middle. If like Mr. Delay you term compromise as capitulation than you have no negotiation room. And if you refuse to talk to the other side than the only recourse is continuing and probably escalating conflict.

At the present time, we have a environment in Washington that is in transitional. Republicans have suffered a severe blow in the recent election, with their loss of a majority in both houses and the dwindling lack of support for the administration. I don' t think they realize at this point or refuse to recognize how this War is hurting them. Either they are living in a state of denial that the current strategy in Iraq will save the day or look enough like success that they can claim victory. Or they are still in the Delay don't admit defeat, no compromise and insist on capitalization mode.

The Democrats are so lacking in confidence, they can't seem to get their wagons in a circle much less launch a counter attack. While I realize their left wing wants immediate withdrawal from Iraq, the rest of the country is not convinced that is the right thing to do. What they have to do is propose a reasonable settlement that insists that Bush negotiate with all the parties in this fight. If he doesn't, and I would bet he won't, he will fail and hang himself with his own rope. In this effort he will do more harm and likely take the rest of the Republican party with him.

In this likely event, the Democrats should concentrate on domestic issues and prepare the country for their agenda when they take the White House in 2008.

On Being an Orphan

My father died many years ago. I miss him still. I have done so many things I want him to know about and so many things I would love to talk with him about.

My mother died last Saturday. She was a good woman and I loved her, but we didn't have a relationship like my Dad and I did. Mom was always the person who set the rules and Dad enforced them. When we were young enforcement could mean getting a butt whipping.

Somehow, I always knew that he didn't like being the "cop", but felt that was his role or maybe just his lot in life. When I was very young he started treating me more like an adult than his son. I don't mean that there weren't rules, but he let me learn more by experience than keeping me out of trouble.

After I moved out and he and mom were alone, he started to drink to much. I was having the same problem. We both quit. He quit earlier than I did, but he did it and it gave me strength when I finally faced the reality of my addiction.

Mom was a women, I think, who feared life beyond the very close area of security that Dad built around her. She was dependent on him for most everything. She never worked and she stuck as close to her family as she could. Mom was oddly uninformed about the larger world. She had opinions about things, but for the most part they were constructed from opinions she formed in her youth. She did not change her opinion about anyone or anything easily.

I say this is odd because my father was much the opposite. He was always interested in new things and new ways of thinking. He was a salesperson and traveled extensively throughout Minnesota and Iowa. For a few years, we moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he managed a manufacturing plant that produced tubular steel scaffolding.

It might sound like I'm being tough on my mom, but from my perspective she was a tough person to get to know. To be fair, she was a conservative Catholic and my two divorces and drinking did not endear me to her. I understand that aspect.

When Dad died and I became the man in the family, I did my best. For the first few years, she got along fine in her apartment. I truly think she was happy even though I did the mean thing and convinced her to quit driving. My frequent business trips allowed me to see her regularly and she would travel to Texas to visit my sister and visit me in Wisconsin at least once a year.

It started to become obvious she was having more and more trouble taking care of herself. Her memory slips stopped being funny and incontinence became a problem she wouldn't deal with on her own. We got her some help, but eventually constant care was required.

Very quickly, my mother became someone nobody knew. She became wheelchair bound, lost what little hearing she had and became remote and private.

She had tenacity. I do not know what she was getting out of life, because her mind was in place where no one else could go But there was something worthwhile for her because she lived in
Franciscan Care & Rehab for almost nine years before she let go.

Mary Jane Blaylock-Jordan died at approximately 2:00am on Saturday, March 24, 2007. She would have been ninety on May 6, 2007. She left behind my sister, Marie and me,. ten grandchildren and nine grandchildren. Unfortunately she hadn't met them or wouldn't recognize them if she did. She is in a better place, if my Dad is by her side and the Vikings are winning Super Bowls

Slow Movie Season

You only have to look at the listings of films being shown at your local theaters to know that we have hit that part of the season I call the slow season. In late winter and early spring, film makers are releasing films that are going to appeal to the teen and date night crowd. I know your thinking, isn't that's the only audience that Hollywood thinks about and you not far wrong. But timing is everything concerning a movie release.

If you, as a producer, think your film has "Oscar" potential, releasing the film in late fall to December is almost mandatory. Academy voters seem to be loyal to the last thing they see. Remember all of the buzz about "Sideways", the wonderful buddy film that was staged in Napa
Valley wine country. It was hot for a long time, but was released to early to sustain the enthusiasm.

Movies that are shown on two screens on the last week of December and than are the subject of intense promotion have a better chance of winning, because of the out of sight, out mind flavor of the week mentality of a the majority of Academy voters.

When we get past the early spring drought, we are subjected to the battle for box office. We are talking about the season in which the majority of movie tickets are purchased. Films that are released during this time must have broad appeal. They are for the most part films that can be categorised as heavy budget, star leaden, and blockbuster. I have to confess that normally I do not see these films. Call me a snob, but I don't find over acted, extravagant special affected, and over hyped blockbusters entertaining.

Fortunately for me, I live in a neighborhood that supports theaters that feature independent films. Not all of these films are worth seeing, but I find that when I am disappointed in films like this, it is for reasons of effort rather than content.

Consider the film "The Italian". This Russian film about an orphan who takes great risks, including the opportunity to be adopted by a nice Italian couple, to find his mother. The film was good only because the little fellow that played the orphan was irresistible. On balance, other aspects of the film were okay, but this was not one of these films that would make my top ten list. However when I compare it to comparable film from Hollywood, the Home Alone saga comes to mind, I am inclined to inch the Russian film up in my evaluation.

The slow season extends than, only to the mall palaces. Our boutique movie houses will still provide challenging and exciting films

Some Days Are Better Than Others

Yesterday I had a pretty tight schedule. After I dropped Maria off at work, so I could have the car, David, our handyman had to be admitted to the building. We discussed the work that had to be done. I was than required to listen to laundry list of all of the things that could go wrong when he started the tasks I asked him to do. David has to do this because he is an honest man and he doesn't want to surprise me with anything. I think he feels it's better to paint a picture of gloom and doom and than let the sunshine in later.

I had to go to the clinic and have a test. This is part of my ongoing effort to find out what to do about the pain in my right foot. This test didn't take long and soon I was back home listening to more of the problems we might incur by snaking out the drain in the bath tub. Our plumbing is ancient so many of David's concerns revolve around getting replacement parts or totally replacing whole sections of plumbing stuff.

Leaving David to his tasks and I moved on to my biggy of the day. I had to put up a website on the host server. Maria and I had designed the site for her client and they expected it to be on the Internet that day.
My first effort failed and I could not figure out why. I went through the log in procedures again. F*%#@K!!! I admit I have no patience for these things. After e-mailing the support desk at the host, I made lunch.

David has found something else that might turn to into a disaster. "Corrosion", he said. I assisted by monitoring water flow while he snakes the drain. So far so good. I finish my lunch.

Back on the computer, I get an answer from my site host. This quick response does not surprise me since I've always received good service from these guys (Omnis.com). His advice however does not get the desired results. I double check and e-mail him again.

My problem is a job ticket with a number now. My ticket will be picked up by the tech that doesn't have a job at the moment, so I'm not necessarily dealing with the same support person every time. This can be a good thing. One person may see something the other didn't. This time it works that way, but again the new advice doesn't work. I e-mail them again and go on to another task.

I write this brilliant biographical memory of seeing Willie Mays play in the minor leagues and than again in the major's. I do the research and find out that I was older when I saw him play in Minneapolis and my article is good a good story, but not as factual as I thought. Than I discover that what I really wanted to write about was my memories of being with my Dad when I was a boy and the article begins shinning again.

David finishes and the bill is a lot less than what I thought it was going to be. Maybe it's because none of the disasters that David envisioned happened and he finished in less time than he budgeted. I'm getting pissed at my good friends at the Host server company.

I decide to put the whole thing aside and maybe just veg in front of the tube. I watched CSI, the good one with Petersen and Helgenberger, but I can't get the problem with the website out of my head. Gill bags the bad guy and Brass admits he killed his fellow police officer and the widow forgives Brass, AND WHY IN THE HELL WON'T THAT GOD %&()*%%*()_Website go up on the Web?

I sat down at the computer. I tried a new strategy. No luck. I thought to myself, I work on two other sites in this same software with the same host company, what's different? I looked at the upload section of one of the other sites and I noticed a pattern in the assigned user names. I looked at my new site and it hit me, I was missing one digit in the numerical expression of the user name. I went back to the new site, put in the missing digit and boom it went up like a hot air balloon on a calm day in Taos, New Mexico.

I slept well last night.

Say Hey Willie and Walt.

This is a true story about unintended outcomes, a father trying to bond with his son and well... you define it. I was ten years old. My father, Walter or Walt as everybody but his sister called him, was a white collar middle class guy, who in retrospect I guess was trying hard to figure out how to be a Dad. It's like Cher said in one of her films."Kid's don't come with instruction books".

In 1951, Minneapolis was not a hot bed of professional sports that it is today. The only major league professional sports team we had were the Minneapolis Lakers. They would be there until the 1960 when Bob Short would take them to LA

Dad took me to the Laker games. For those that don't know it the Lakers were named for the state with ten thousand lakes I saw George Mikan play, the first big man in the NBA. I wanted to be like Jim Pollard, the guy that got the ball up the court so that "wide body' Mikan could take it to the rack.

Years later, I worked at Golden Valley Country Club, where Mikan was a member. I always marveled at how he rolled his head underneath the doors so he wouldn't hit his head. You could tell he had been doing that most of his life and never even thought about it anymore.

Dad took me to the Golden Gloves fights. Besides the Golden Gloves, Dad was an avid fan of "The Wednesday Night Fights" on television. I asked him once if he wanted me to become a fighter. I think the question surprised him. I probably had mistook his love for boxing as a hint that he wanted me to become a boxer. Fortunately he didn't encourage me or push me. He told me that it was up to me, but if I wanted to box, he'd help me out in anyway he could. I say fortunately, because the whole idea of beating on someone while they pummeled me was and still is repellent to me.

In those days we had minor league baseball team the Minneapolis Millers. That season, one of the big league players was down either working his way out of baseball or rehabbing from an injury. I remember that it was Johnny Mize, but I checked and Mize was with the Yankee's by than. Besides, who ever the big hitter was, the buzz was all about this young negro player who was flashy and talented at the plate and in the outfield, Willie Mays.

I can't remember much about what happened that night. The thing that stuck with me is the atmosphere. The Stadium was one of those romantic places like in the movie "The Natural". I was just so glad to be with my Dad and the other men. Dad was treating me like one of the guys. It wasn't don't do this or do it this way. It was relax, have fun, your one of us.

We moved to Cleveland. In 1954, the Cleveland Indians established the best win percentage record in baseball. They earned the right to play the New York Giants in the World Series. My friends father got two tickets to one of the games. I sat in the right field seats and watched Willie play again. No, I didn't see the over the shoulder catch that robbed Vic Wertz of a possible game winning hit, that was in game one. But I did see him play. The Giants shocked everyone and won that series in four straight games. Cleveland went on to be a contender for a coupe of seasons after that, but we moved back to Minneapolis and I didn't follow baseball much after that until I fell in love with the Chicago Cubs in 1969. (See a trend here)

So, I saw Mays play in the minor league and the majors. And the thing I remember most is being with my Dad. Tells you something about all of those moments you spend with your kids that you might not even think much about or remember. But they just might and it may become real important to them.

Faith v. Hope

If you have faith, you have belief. If you have hope, you are basing your belief on something resembling evidence. If your lost on a mountain and people know where you were going you can have hope you will be found. If no one knows where you are, you need to have faith you'll be found.

That faith may be nothing other than the gut feeling that it is not your time to go, or that some one for some reason will miss you and figure out where you are. The first case, for hope, is obviously better and I guess in most all cases I would opt for hope.

Faith gets into the illogical area of as my father used to say,"When your wishing in one hand and defecating in the other, you know which one will fill up first." Not a pleasant analogy and a commendation that might be too strong for the faithful, but it makes the point.

We all seem to have faith is something. I belief that our spouse will not cheat on us or lie. We have to believe, even the most sceptical of us, that mot people are honest. Why in God's name would we be giving out our credit card numbers on the phone or over the Internet if we didn't.
We have no proof that we won't get ripped off, but we believe we won't so we do. Maybe it's because we want that book or record so badly we're willing to forget or ignore the possibilities.

Hope sounds more vague and ethereal than faith. Faith in God sounds so much stronger than hope in God. But hope is usually based on evidence that things may work in our favor. We beat their team twice this season, so we should bet them again, shouldn't we? One would think that to be true, but in reality it's just hoping.

The lesson here? When you go mountain climbing, tell some one where you are going. If you do get lost, hoping for rescue is better than faith that you will.

I still believe.

I'm a bit older and I hope wiser. Many thing in my life have changed, but one thing remains constant. I still believe in the liberal concept of community solutions to community problems. What has changed in the last thirty years is a loss of the sense of community and with that the growing belief that everyone is in this for themselves.

The current wave of conservative political popularity has put me and like thinkers on the outside of the discussion. Conservative thinking has thrived on an anti-government wave of reaction to unpopular and sometimes controversial laws and government supported social positions.

We have large numbers of people who do not trust the public organizations Americans have typically trusted. Home Schooling and private schools are the fall back to parents that mistrust the public schools. This has lead to a resentment toward supporting public schools, since they pay for them through their taxes, but do not get any benefit from them.

Many police and law enforcement organizations are mistrusted. Whole neighborhoods have fallen into the control of small gangs of thugs, because no one trusts the police to call them when they see a crime being committed. Citizens in these communities see the police as a greater threat than the gangsters that rule their neighborhoods.

Urban against rural. Race against race. Region against region. It seems that we are looking toward our differences in order to define ourselves in relation to others and in the end separate ourselves from what remains as a community.

We've allowed our society to become involved in a struggle for power. We are told that we are either red or blue. Conservative or liberal and Christian or professing another faith. We are told that we are Republican or Democrat. Are we truly feminist or chauvinist? And what does sexual orientation have to do with citizenery. The fact is that we are far more difficult to categorize than this but given the two party system, we don't have much choice.

We do not have a meaningful discourse on problems that affect all of us and are crying out for solutions and we need to do that. Returning to the social contract and trying to find community solutions to community problems is not going backwards. It is the basis for the founding of this country and it has been the method of assuring it's success. I have had enough of the "government is the problem" rhetoric. If the government is the problem than we have the duty and responsibility to fix it.

One way to fix it is to move the national dialogue out of the belt way and into the homes and communities of the rest of America. We need to send a message, as we did last November that this government is not satisfactory. We need to remind both parties that we are watching and will hold them responsible for their actions. The Democrats were not given a vote of confidence on November of 2006. They were given an opportunity and frankly I don't know if they are living up to expectations.

The climate is now warm with aspirations for the 2008 election. I see the candidates positioning themselves to secure the nomination by pandering to their base. It is a cliche, but the truth. The litmus test for both representatives of the major party is how far to the extreme they can go to secure their parties nomination and than how they hop over the fence to appeal to those of us in the middle so they can win a general election.
Take the statements they make now when they are running for nomination and compare their rhetoric when they are running in the general election. You wouldn't be wrong in assuming that your looking at the words of two different people.

The question in my mind is how is the candidate going to bring this nation together. He or she can do that by bringing the debate toward reality. Forget abortion, guns, gay marriage and flag burning. Let's talk about a new globalized foreign policy that truly represents the interests of the American People. I want to hear about reform of the heath care delivery system. Where are the plans to help individuals who are harmed, through no fault of their own, by globalization? What's the plan for reducing carbon based emissions? Lets debate a new approach to rampant drug use in this country and how we are going to rebuild our failing infrastructure. In other words, let's make the government the solution to our problem, by forcing a change in the focus of the government. The easiest and traditional way of doing this is to change the people in government.

Recognizing and Acting My Age

I don't know why I'm so thick, but it just occured to me that in in everything I "belong" to, I'm the oldest guy in the group.
If you don't count the boss, Michael Cudahy, I have to be the oldest guy at my part time job with Discovery World.
I am the oldest Toad
I am much older than my wife, which makes me the oldest member of my immediate family. (Only RM, my mother-in-law, is older)
I guess the best part of this realization is that I don't think of myself or feel like the oldest guy in the room, ever.
I still think of my life in terms of the possibilities, even though I'm realistic enough to realize a PGA tour card is not one of them.
I continue to learn new things because I think it's important to keep up with the world around me. (What Jennifer, Brad, Brittany and Nicole is not important, but than this kind of information has never been important to me.)
Age has it's drawbacks. I tell everyone not to bother to get old it's a wasted effort and way over rated. But it has it's advantages. Mine are named: Zack, Devon, Grace, Eli, Abbott, Max and KC

Differences of Opinion

You often hear the cliche, "We'll never agree on everything." It is the art of politics's that we must agree on something. I hear friends of mine, and I'm sure that I am no exception, saying things and posing solutions to political and social problems that sound nothing like the liberals we are suppose to be, but I observe the same in the other camp.

There is some current thought that the major parties are primarily aligned with the extremes of their party and can't be representative of the nation as a whole. Movements like Unity08 have sprung up in response to a search for middle ground and to better represent the perceived "middle" of the political spectrum, that is alleged to be under represented, disillusioned and uninvolved.

I will buy all of this if we get candidates that are clear about their stance on the hot button issues. If they tell the public where they stand on the future involvement of our troops in Iraq, pro-life v choice, gun control and gay marriage, they are asking for a multimillion dollar public relations battle that is breathtaking in it's scope. We've witnesses the destruction of careers and reputation of potential candidates for public office for just putting their figurative toe in the water for higher office. If they can withstand this gauntlet and still be standing to face election, I will have some faith that there is change in the wind., because this would mean the "middle" actually put their votes where their sentiments are believed to be.

I think there is political will with in the established parties to go to the middle, but no one has the courage to lead the charge. I hear a lot of lip service, but the smart money still favors the son's and daughters of the extremes of both major parties. Sadly, in this game, money is everything.

Unity08 asks it's members to nominate and support, a non-aligned slate that represents the group consensus "middle of the spectrum" view. As and alternative, it will run a candidate from each party. The presidential candidate has to be either a republican or a democrat. Depending on the party of the presidential candidate, the vice presidential candidate has to come from the opposite party.

Think of the possibilities. Clinton and Powell, McCain and Obama come to mind, or reverse their positions on the ticket. What would be apparent is that the so-called middle would have to put up or shut up. The hot button issues are not going to be solved or furthered by this group. My feeling is that while their view's on these subjects are known, they would not be leading a full front assault on any of these issues.

They would hopefully be re-establishing the American reputation in the international community, working toward a solution on health care delivery, giving hope to those displaced by globalization, working on the immigrant workforce issues and bringing defense costs into line with the rest of the world.

If the voting public indicated a preference for this kind of approach by giving these candidates their support Unity 08 will have done their job. the ticket doesn't have to win. The ticket merely has to get a significant portion of the vote, 15% of better, to wake people up.
Two things would happen. Either Unity08 would morph and grow into a viable political party or one or both of the major parties would take the risk and move strongly toward a more middle position in the pursuit of power.

The lynch pin in this whole scenario is the apathetic public, who are allegedly waiting for this mythical middle of the road candidate to get off their figurative butt's to support and vote for this ticket. We'll see.

It isn't the How, It's the Why

When you hear the cliche that knowledge is power, you should take that thought further. If knowledge is power and power can be turned to economic gain, what is knowledge worth? I think that we are willing to pay for in the economic world of is not so much the knowledge of how things work, but the knowledge of why things work. There is one codicil to this theory, but I leave that until later.

Consider the lowly disposable battery. The guy that makes the battery is paid pretty well, I imagine, but this product has become a commodity, therefore economy in production and scale will encourage further and faster modes of automation eliminating the human factor as much as possible. Certainly a child of four knows how to change or install new batteries, so field technology is non-existent. No, the real money to be made in the battery field is in dreaming up new batteries that are better and more functional than the current product. To do that you have to know more than how batteries work. You have to know why they work.

I don't know about you, but suspect that most of us are somewhat expert in certain area of how, but the why of things that we use everyday is a mystery to most of us. I know how and just little bit of why my car starts and propels me down the road. I know enough about my computer, but I'm saved from embarrassment constantly by my kids who bale me out on operational issues and software manipulations all of the time. (Thank you all for being so patient and understanding.)

My one exception to the rule is the person who knows the art of the thing besides the science. I remember well the days when we would set up two packaging machines side by side on production lines. In theory they should be set up exactly the same and should run identically. These machines had computer and digital controls. Mechanical operations were reduced to a minimum. But there always was a reason that one machine ran slightly different from the other. Discovering that reason and compensating for differences was the art of the thing. The person who could diagnose and allow for the differences was in high demand and paid very well, but than that was because he knew not only the how, the why and the art of the thing.

FEMA, A Pegoroative

Sometimes it's hard to believe how quickly the fortunes and reputations of an organization can change. The Red Cross went through a period of scandal. The Boy Scouts didn't make friends with their anti-gay stance. I can remember when people were proud to say they were liberals. (That might be coming full circle). But FEMA, The Federal Emergency Management Agency, has to be a case in of one bad decision after another, until we have admit that it is beyond the jokes of the late night comedians and truly a national disgrace.
The latest revelation is the the "FEMA Trailer" fiasco.

In response to the devastation on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katerina, the agency ordered on a no-bid basis 145ooo mobile homes. It now admits it bought to many and wants to get rid of them. I won't dwell on the obvious that there are still people that need shelter and could use the trailers and that we don't know if we might have another storm that could create further need. The fact is they want to get rid of them.

FEMA has a couple billion dollars tied up in this investment and seemingly needs get rid of some of them. They can't. The government won't let them because the very people that plucked the plum from the tree, the mobile home manufacturers, are afraid that by dumping that many mobile homes on the market the government would ruin their business.

The estimated value of the FEMA trailers would be in the neighborhood of 40cents on the dollar. Let me see, new trailer full price versus once purchased never used trailer 60% discount. Yeah, I'd say they have a point. And I don't blame the manufacturers for taking the government no-bid contracts at full price. None of our war supply contractors is offering voluntary discounts either. But folks, what happened to the sacred rite of the free market. The homes exist. The owner no longer has a need. A market, no matter how depressed, will be created. (I suggest they put them on E-bay) The people that claim they will get hurt made money, and I would bet great amounts of it, the first time around. They just have to treat the downside like they treated the upside and ride it out.

What we have going of course is the representatives of the districts in which the manufacturers are located are being lobbied to "save jobs and small business". The other representatives at this point can promise their votes on this issue and bank the good will for their pet projects. After all a couple of billion dollars is just chump change in our national budget and they can always explain it to the folks at home. It's FEMA's fault.

Sharing your Fate

Cancer is a horrible disease. It like most killers is misunderstood and hated because we fear what we don't know or understand. One thing we understand and accept about cancer is it's death sentence. Most of us never experience the Doctor telling us we have about so much time to live and that the last months, weeks, hours and minutes of our lives may be painful and humiliating. To those of us that do...? I have no answer to how that might feel. It's one of those things that I think you have to go through. I can't imagine a lot of things and being told I'm going to die isn't one of them.

I can imagine myself being brave and going on with life as if it didn't matter because, (what's the cliche?) we all know we're going to die, some of us just know when. It would help me to focus on what's important and although my life might be ending it would have more depth and quality because I would do the things that mattered and would take nothing for granted. But this is the product of an overactive imagination that has been groomed by way to many disease of the week television movies and anecdotal conversation.

I have observed this disease killing friends of mine. I must say that all of them died with as much dignity as they could muster and we could afford them. In total, it was not pretty and I would not wish it on anyone.
There was one commonality. I can't remember one of them that wasn't concerned about making people uncomfortable with their fate. It was as if talking about dieing was embarrassing and they simply didn't want to make people unhappy.

Yes, I'm sure that dwelling on their impending death did no good, but I dare say that even alluding to it was out of bounds. Again, I don't know what I would do or how I would feel, but I do know that I'd have to talk to someone. I would hope that I would have the courage to live as well as I could before I had to die and that the goodbye's would be short, sweet and heartfelt.

Common Sense & Politic's

Maybe the two don't mix, but I want to talk about common sense and politics. The Dixie Chicks won multiple awards for their music at the Grammy Presentations. Please forget for the moment that I don't believe in these Award shows, (see my blog about the "Oscars"). Let's concentrate on what many people thought this award represented. Commentators thought that it meant that at least the people in the music business had come around on the issue of the groups well known comments on the War in Iraq.

A few years ago while on European tour, Natalie Maines, the groups lead singer remarked from the stage that she was ashamed to be from Texas, because of the actions of President Bush regarding the invasion of Iraq. A firestorm of public criticism and a commercial boycott resulted. At least in the country music world, the once darlings of the genre, were verboten. Yet on this night, just a few years later, there are accolades and applause raining down on them as they accepted their awards. What changed?

Talent aside, certainly a strong component has to be that public opinion about the War in Iraq has changed. The balance of public opinion often moves like a landslide with a slow almost imperceptible roll of pebbles building to the roaring rockslide that tears down the slope. I believe public opinion on the war has moved partially by the "Groundhog Day " like reports of body counts and insurgent attacks that makes us seem helpless against the enemy and the misleading reports and hollow feel good rhetoric of our leaders that began to ring hollow and false.

I remember seeing Joan Baez in concert after the fall of the Berlin wall. While the conservatives were crowing about our great victory over the Soviet Union, Joan, the antiwar poster child for the left, put it into perspective. The Soviet Union didn’t fail because of anything we did. It failed because of its own weakness and inability to govern it's people fairly and honestly. The Soviet Union was and always had been a paper tiger. Its power was like the Wizard of Oz was in its ability to prevent us from looking behind the, in this case, iron curtain to view reality and to appear strong. However, the myth served certain interests in our county very well. The myth of the common enemy is a tremendous unifying fulcrum.

It's a true thing that given a common enemy more frightening than any of our other differences, a society can suspend conflict to fight that enemy. Today that concept is being challenged. Maybe Lucy has pulled the football away so many times that Charley Brown won't believe her no matter how sincere she becomes. People realize albeit a little late that fighting the real enemy in the wholly mislabeled “War on Terror” that the US hasn't done itself any good by invading Iraq.

What is served by this digression is more than likely important to understand if we are to make sense of something that seems designed not to make sense. But the whole cloth of wool that is being pulled over our eyes seems to be too loose of a weave for some light not to penetrate. People just can't be fooled forever and the timeline for the life of a myth is getting shorter, mostly because of the flood of information that is available. Not only the internet and print media but cable and local television are providing more information. Despite the claims of bias, that may be true from outlet to outlet, the overall effect of competition in the media industry presents people with a wide range of opinion on almost any issue.

While it, may be true that people gravitate to the opinions that they agree with, but I think that's true of only some. Most people can, do and will change their opinion. Why do they do it? If you believe in the "Wisdom of Crowds" and the theories of open or wiki operations, giving people more information and more time, common sense or majority opinion will prevail. I would postulate that public opinion on the war has come around from the Dixie Chicks being banished from country music stations to the darlings of the Grammy’s because we were able to look behind the curtain and we realize the truth.

Weather, A Zero Sum Game?

Well, there it was again. We are having a bout of bad weather in Milwaukee. It' almost inevitable that some one will remark that we should expect this weather, since we've had a relatively mild winter up to this point. People! Weather is not a zero sum game. We do not have a ration of bad weather and good weather days which must be used by the end of the year or we get taxed with a really bad day to make it up.

Our weather is effected by so many factors that it would be impossible to mention them all here, but there are givens. The migration of the sun from north to south and back again provides us with our seasons. Longer days mean more sunlight therefore warmer average temperatures. We have statistics that tell us what the average temperature, high and low, can be during a period. These variations can be dramatic as they were this last December (2006) and January (2007). So when some homespun prognosticator tells you, "We shoulda known it was going to be nasty this winter when we got all that warm weather in January", it's just talk.

The fact is that average temperatures are trending upward. This is one of the factors that are concerning scientists about global warming or climate change. If you like Milwaukee with 40 degree day time highs in January, you may think that global warming isn't such a bad deal. But before you become smug you might want to look at the down side. We have enough people from Illinois coming up here to cool off during the summer. Can you imagine what will happen if our climate becomes even more inviting?