Life or death for Saddam?

When confronted a right-to-life advocate is usually flummoxed with the assertion, “than you are against the death penalty, am I right?” This is a problem for many if not all right to life advocates, because while Terri Shivo deserves to get every opportunity to live, even after she is clinically dead, and unborn fetuses have rights even living people don’t have, convicted felons should not be allowed to live. And why do we feel we have the right to execute them? Because, they are bad people.

The problem that I have, as an anti-death penalty person, is every once in a while a really bad person comes along that my gut tells me probably should die. However, my convictions tell me there are no exceptions. If there is person that should die it is Saddam Hussein, the notorious and convicted former president of Iraq.

Let’s face it outside of the fact that he was deposed as the leader of his country by an illegal invasion and that his trial was questionable, there is not a lot to like about this guy and many people, his own people, will be happy when he stretches the rope.

I submit that this is the very reason that the death penalty is wrong. It’s wrong because its premise is that the person that is being executed is guilty of such terrible crimes that their life should be taken from them. Usually the crime is taking of someone elses life, so we get down to an eye-for-an-eye kind of logic that most people agree is senseless. What is really at work here is justice for the victim and the survivors. What we would call it, if we weren’t trying to justify it, is vengeance. The law then makes everyone in our society complicate in the execution. The question is, are we as a society becoming what we are executing, a murderer?

I’m sorry. I know Suddam and Bundy and any number of people qualify as being corrupted enough and dangerous enough that we need to make sure that they never walk free again, but killing them is just a momentary feel good solution to a problem we don’t really understand. Is it better to realize every morning you wake up that you will never be free or realize you’re going to die? Most people given that there is no hope would sooner or later chose death. And if they did not choose death, is there anyone who would trade places with them. I submit that life imprisonment without hope of freedom is probably the most deserving of punishments for a Saddam Hussein.

Let him observe the people he has tortured and the survivors of those he has murdered recover from his torment and prosper, while he lives a life of waste and hopelessness. In the mean time we do not appear to the world as the executioner.

Almost no free western society approves of the death penalty. And though we can claim that the Iraq government will execute Saddam, we will be held accountable throughout the Moslem world if he dies. We don’t need to put another sharp stick into that hornets nest. So, if for practical reasons if not moral, we should object to the execution of Saddam Hussein

Is Wisconsin a right to drive state?

I was listening to the radio this morning. It seems that the gloves are off regarding the enforcement of the child booster safety seat. State and local police are warning drivers of increased attention and rigorous enforcement. A fine of one hundred and sixty nine dollars will be assessed on anyone with children in the car that doesn’t have the child in an approved safety seat.

I think it’s a good idea to have kids in safety seats. Grace and Eli, the grandkids I see most often, know how to buckle themselves in so outside of having them in the proper car, (Mom’s v Dad’s), there is a hardly issues of time or trouble.The kids are safer. I am not one of a few people I’ve met that are convinced that even wearing seatbelts is a violation of civil liberties and seat restraint use is more dangerous than not using them. These beliefs are fueled by the never-go-away stories of people who can’t get out of cars that are upside down in a river or in flames on the side of a busy highway. To some these events seem to defy the odds and make it safer not use seat restraints and risk being launched through your windshield after a relatively low speed head on collusion, which is far more common.

On the other hand the punitive nature of enforcement again falls harder on the people who can least afford the seats in the first place. If this is a burden on poor families it is certainly one of the few regarding driving in the state of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin has the one of the lowest vehicle registration rates in the upper Midwest. We have no toll roads in our state. Our highways are essentially built and maintained by money collected through the fuel tax, which makes it a de facto user tax. If you don’t use much gas you don’t pay into the fund, but the streets and highways are there for you to use at any time.

Probably the biggest issue regarding the economy and access to the highway in Wisconsin is the lack of mandatory insurance. If you are involved in an accident with an uninsured motorist, no matter how little your actions may have contributed to the accident, you may end up paying.

You will pay in two ways. First unless you take the individual uninsured driver to civil court and sue for the amount of your deductible, you will pay it. Second, any accident will end up as an increased premium on your policy. Mr. or Mrs. Uninsured driver may end up paying for the entire damage to their car, but let me point out that people that do not insure themselves for automobile losses do not usually drive expensive vehicles and may just junk the remains and buy another low cost car rather than suffer the larger repair bill.

My wife and I have had personal experience in this type of incident. Our small truck was struck twice and broken into and vandalized in a three month period. In all three cases, the truck was legally parked. We paid the deductible in all three cases. The insurance company refused to sue the individuals for the amount even though it’s obvious we bore no responsibility for the accidents. Instead their reaction was to cancel our policy forcing us to pay higher premiums to the next company.

All in all, with our weak drunk driving laws and low cost of owning and operating a car in this state, Wisconsin comes off as being a state that would much rather see you driving than not, no matter how responsible you are. Is it that we feel that our citizens have some kind of natural right to drive?

History Boys

When we saw the History Boys on Broadway in NY we had SRO tickets. The play had run its course and was returning to London. Its popularity had not run its course however for last minute tickets just didn't materialize. Last night we saw the movie version of the play done with the same actors.

This tale of a group of middle class boys trying to qualify for entrance into Oxford University is one of those tales that set in the Unite States would have to entail the sports metaphor. There would be a player or a team that for some reason or another couldn't win the big one. There would be coach that was lost in his own life unable to coach or his methods were so controversial that he was out of the mainstream of conventional belief. All of these elements are included in this story, but its set in a preparatory school classroom.

But the Brits have a facility to understand the up from under tale without a ball being involved, Bend it like Beckham, not withstanding. We have the old school professors, one male and one female that have brought their charges to the brink of being accepted at the most prestigious university in the country, possibly the world. The headmaster, thinking of what it would mean to the school, to say nothing of his career, to get even one of his students accepted can't stand pat. He brings in a younger teacher to give these young men his tough love approach to preparing for the process of being qualified.

Each of the boys bring a slightly different angle to the challenge. Their race, intelligence, outlook, sexual orientation and appearance all work to allow you to identify with everyone of these kids as some one you might have gone to school.

The teachers also represent a broad spectrum of academic thought. The classicist, Hector, the pragmatist, Irwin and the feminist, Mrs. Lintot all form and inform their charges in their own unique and, as it turns out, useful ways. They produce young men with aggressively curious and skeptical minds.

Their is one scene that has to typify the whole film. The boys have studied, debated and rehashed every conceivable piece of information they could anticipate being part of the test and interview process. The three instructors set up a mock interview to prepare them. During the interview, Mrs Lintot rises and asks if they were prepared to be interviewed by a woman. She goes on to say that the difference is that only women know that the truth and the truth is that, history is the record of five centuries of male ineptitude and as such women might look at things a little differently. This scene shows the boys and us is that no matter what we know until we have looked at it from some elses viewpoint we will never know all we need to know.

As in all of these tales while it affirms the necessity of going forward and changing with the elevation of Irwin and the marginalization of Hector, it also shows the value of evolution rather than revolution. In this case however, right wins out when an enterprising student, who already recognizes the value of both saves Hector for another day.

While it may be interesting when we see a film about an actual event to follow up and see where the participants are today and what they are doing and this method is used commonly. I am thinking of the film about the US Hockey team that beat the Russians, Miracle, 2004. In the case of History Boys, the characters are fictional and this follow up was done to point out the possibilities. The results of their education did not necessarily fall into the cliche slots one might have expected and the death of one them was a chilling reminder that as I write intelligent, strong and good young people are dying. As it was the lot of teachers was not a happily ever after either, but than, that is how real life proceeds

As a reflection of life this play and the movie version show us that education is worth it for the whole of us not just the employable part of us that produces money and that service in the cause of education can be fulfilling even if it's not necessarily understood or appreciated.

Why should we trust W?

Here we go. The talking heads are softening us up for the next great theory of the enemy and how we deal with our involvement in Iraq. Let me preface my remarks. I do not think that the real terrorists are some how romantic reincarnations of the revolutionary forefathers of our country. They are thugs out and out. They are being used by powers much bigger than themselves as mercenaries in a world wide contest for power and prestige. The United States has the big target on its back because we are the biggest game in town.

On the other hand, we now know that to defeat this kind of force we need to selectively attack them in their holes and camps, not attack whole countries. Our efforts in Iraq have done nothing but hurt us in our effort to deal with terrorists of any stripe. Than there is the definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

In an effort to look as if we are not standing in the middle of the highway blinded to inactivity by the lights of an on coming truck, we ponder our future. This next move is being run up the pole by the pundits, columnists and self appointed experts. After years of sending a lean mean force into Iraq, we are admitting, not that we were wrong, but the situation on the ground has changed such that we need more troops in Iraq. We are being assured that these troops would be a short term run up merely to secure Baghdad and the surrounding area until the Iraq army and police forces can be brought up to speed so they can take over the security responsibility. The time frame, depending on who you listen to, is two to ten years.

We can't talk to the Syrians and Iranians about helping us because they are the problem in the area and negotiating with them would be admitting we are desperate. The linkage they would demand on other issues for their assistance would be too high a price and not in the interest of the American people.

We can't withdraw unilaterally because the Iraq's are not ready to maintain their own security, therefore and I hesitate to use this characterization, but let's face it, it is what it is, we are going to stay the course.

Election results are behind us. Baker - Hamilton is yesterdays news. We are going to do what Bush always does. We're going to keep on doing the same thing and maybe even more of it until this madman is out of office and we have complete and total change of command. And why would we expect any different? Bush has consistently said one thing and done another and the Democrats have never been able to offer an alternative. Bush the uniter, the decider, the leader will continue to lie to us as long as he is in office.

The Play was the thing

Last night Maria and I were the guests of our friends Carl and Carolyn for a Milwaukee Repertory performance of “Born Yesterday”. The Broadway play was written by the legendary Garson Kanin and opened on Broadway in 1946. The original film was done in 1950 starred Judy Holiday, William Holden and Broderick Crawford. A later remake was released with Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith, and John Goodman.

The great role in this play is the dumb blonde, Billie Dawn, girl friend of wanta-be power broker and thug Harry Brock. Billie, played by Deborah Staples, was both silly and compellingly lovable. She is a former chorus girl and the companion to the selfish, greedy and inconsiderate Harry. As Harry begins to rise in power and influence among the Washington elite, he realizes that Billie is not an asset. Her lack of grace, manners and conversation skills is a problem. He hires a young journalist to “educate” her and smooth out her edges.

The young journalist falls in love with Billie. Because of his desire to spend time with her, he takes his job seriously and perks up her limited but plucky intellect. Billie begins to see life through new eyes and realizes that she is just a tool in Harry’s box of tricks and that in fact he has put her into jeopardy but putting her name on a number of his shady business deals.

The good guys win in the end as the pugnacious Harry spends the last moments of this play sitting on the stage in a state of shock after his confrontation with the young lovers blows up in his face and Billie turns the tables on him. The play’s dialogue is dated and the outcome is pretty predictable, but the theme is timeless and everyone is happy when love conquers all

I Remember

Have patience with an old man today. I had occasion to remember back to when I was younger, much younger. There was a flash of file film showing the Beatles arrival in New York. In the back ground they were playing "Hard Days Night" and than they cut to their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I realize that even admitting that you were alive when the Beatles were together makes you old, remembering their first appearance in the U. S. is like admitting you are tantamount to a fossil.

I was working at The Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minnesota. The Beatles were the rage. If you were over the age of thirty, they were the bane of the nation, the epitome of what was wrong with kids in that day and the foreshadowing of the doom of the nation. But I had heard all of that about Elvis Presley and my father had heard that about jazz and bi-bop. The world was still spinning and the sun still came up.

The Sunday evening of the Ed Sullivan appearance, I was working the main dinning room. We had a fair amount of families dinning. The television set was on in the lounge area. There was no announcement, but just before the mop headed group took the stage and the always stiff Ed Sullivan introduced them, the lounge filled with the curious, concerned and converted.

I can't even remember for sure what they played, but I'll bet "Hard Days Night" was one of them. For weeks after that evening, our Puerto Rican dishwasher would sing that song endlessly. Nobody thought of it at the time, but two things were happening. The Brits were taking over American Music. The Beatles would open the door for The Stones, Clampton, Bowie, Elton John and on and on. And that Puerto Rican kid should have told us that they might take over the world

Community Meeting

My neighborhood had a meeting last night. We filled the local church with proponents and opponents to a “master plan” for the neighborhood retail district. We live in the kind of neighborhood that is rare in most cities. In the typical American city the retail district has moved to a mall on the edge of the old city. The former neighborhood retail centers have morphed into something that provides services to the area, but not such things as groceries, hardware, drug and liquor. We still have all of that, but it is being threatened.

The story is long and sad, but the short version is we had a landlord who neglected the area. Now we have a new landlord and his cure is not going down well with everyone. And that is okay, because the community should weigh in on the decisions that affect them and be part of the solution. The representative of the developer admitted that input that they received from the community had actually effected and improved the plan as it stood last night.

I’m not going to go into the details of the plan, but here is what I observed. The plan is not a simple proposal. It involves the re-facing of many buildings. It requires the moving of a couple of business, the purchase of a city parking lot and the rezoning of a plot to allow the construction of a high rise condo building. It proposes a goal of preserving and improving the residential nature of the neighborhood while improving the environment for the local businesses. Virtually everyone at the meeting said they supported the goal, but there were factions who were opposed to facets of the developers plan.

The biggest problem is the high rise condo. I would be willing to bet that half the people at the meeting would not have felt the need to attend if that issue were not on the agenda. Another small group would have been there in any case because they appear to be opposed any change. There were a number of people that supported the plan. What was interesting about this group is that except for the guy that was willing to stand up and testify, most of them seem almost embarrassed to stand up and be counted. I think that is because to support the plan is to be on the side of the developer and no one should support the landlord.

I was proud to be part of that group of neighbors. Their attendance was inspiring. I don’t agree with all of my neighbors, but I do applaud their need to be involved. Some form of this plan will be negotiated and implemented. It will be the result of consultation and compromise. It will not be the best solution or the worst, because we never know what may have been better or worse for not having been tried. Most ideas are stuck between the nostalgia of some of the neighbors that wish things would never change and others that have no long term ties to the area that are hungry for major change. As a result no one will be satisfied.

The joy of living in the Fozen Northland

I think it was Howard Cossell, the sportscaster on the original Monday Night Football broadcast, who used the term "frozen tundra" when referring to Lambeau Field in Green Bay. We've had enough exposure nationally as a place where ice and snow reign from October through March. If it isn't the late season baseball game, the December football broadcast, it's the national weather people telling everyone what they all know, it gets cold in my neighborhood.

But let me tell you it is not getting as cold as people might think. I ride a moped. I will ride until the temperature is not getting above fifty during the day. That means that sometimes in the early morning, I will be riding in forty degree temperature. With the natural wind chill that can be bone chilling if your not protected.

I have ridden as late as mid-November and there have been days after that that I could have used the bike if I hadn't put it in to storage. This year because of a early cold snap I put it away at the end of October and as a result missed a lot of good days. Last week, they reopened four of the county golf courses. Predictably they were rushed by people that wanted to say they played gold in Wisconsin in December.

I know it's going to get cold here. We will have some below zero nights and days when the wind chill will make it tough to get a round. I love it when we get unseasonably warm weather and people will grin, enjoy it and than worry about "paying for it down the line". Every warm day in December is not an automatic credit to the warm day account that needs to be balanced by a cold day in a month when we might expect warm weather. We do not have to look this gift horse in the mouth. It's just a nice day.

Is global warming effecting our weather in Wisconsin? I think so. As I've written before, my memories are sure no scientific proof that we are getting warmer, but recent records bear out that our winters are not only warmer but dryer. I like to joke that global warming will be a net gain for Wisconsin, but I know it won't help us shake the label as the land of the Frozen Tundra.

The Play is the thing

Last night, Maria and I went to a performance of Mercy of a Storm at the Next Act Theater. Let me say that this theater is one of those theater's that in all probability is struggling to stay open, because it's selections are dramatic not musical, relatively unknown, as opposed to straight from Broadway, and fresh unlike the tried and true comfortable fare one is offered at our more successful Repertory theater.

I am not knocking the Rep. Their performances are beautifully staged and competently performed, but the criticism of their selections is well taken. Mounting Shakespeare is not necessarily the right thing to do and when you do to much classical theater, you might be accused of pandering to an aging and less adventurous audience.
Next Act has consistently amazed us with new scripts that challenge our thinking and emotions. They also tread on subjects that other companies might consider to controversial.

The bigger question is why people aren't drawn to performances that make them think and possibly feel a touch uncomfortable. I wish I could answer that question

The Passing of John Edwards

I went to a Catholic funeral today. I didn't know John Edwards. His sister, Mary is my neighbor. In addition, his parents visit Mary every summer from their home in Naples, Florida. Over the last two years, I have gotten to know Rita and Carl quite well. Mary's brother Mark has visited enough that I thought it was inevitable that sooner or later we would meet the last member of the clan, John. Unfortunately, a bout of throat cancer, the radiation and chemo treatments left John vulnerable to Pneumonia, which sealed his fate. He passed on last Thursday in relative peace with his family near by.

They always say that the quality of your life will be judged by the size of your funeral. If this is true, John Edwards lead a very successful life. Eulogies always exaggerate the positive and eliminate the negative, but even taking that in to consideration, John either fooled a lot of people or was the real thing, because a couple hundred people showed up an a dreary December weekday to console his family.

John was a religious man. I say that because it was mentioned by everyone we talked to that knew him, and the fact that five priests that knew him were on the alter to celebrate his funeral mass. But he must have been one of those fun religious guys as opposed to the stuffy broom up the butt types, because the guy had a passion for the Beatles, that became his talisman.

All in all, when we lose some one close to us we think selfishly of how are lives a reduced in quality because this person is no longer in it. I know that is the way I felt when my Dad died. We also get a scare when we realize that our own mortality is no stronger than the person we have lost. If they can die, so can we.
It's at these times that even the faintest light of religion is fanned to flame, because we all want to believe that there is something beyond this and we will meet the departed in some kind of hereafter.

I felt for the people that stood up to speak well of John Edwards. Some of them had problems with their emotions interfering with their well thought out words of praise, shared memories and condolence for his family. Maybe John is in a better place, but for his own sense of his friends and the love they feel for him, I hope he was in the church today

When my Life is Perfect.

I find that I'm asking myself one question quite a bit lately. The question takes the form of, will my life be better if ... ? What fills in the blank can be a product, such as a new laptop computer, an article of clothing or a relationship.

Do I need that jacket, when I have two or three of them at home. Yes, it will look better on me than the ones I have, but outside of that momentary feeling of satisfaction, will my life be better? Very often the answer is obvious, easy and more often than not the answer is no.

What I'm doing is resisting the impulse to make decisions based on short term gratification versus a thoughtful decision. The other trick I've heard to assist in evaluating a purchase decision is to figure out how long you have to work to earn the money to enjoy the purchase. It's one thing to spend money, it's another thing to think of having to work a number of hours to earn the money to do it.

We are all confronted with relationships that are hard to maintain because of time and distance. In relationships the thought process is more complex to be sure, but often you find that you are expending a lot of time and effort to maintain a relationship with people that aren't willing to do the same for you. There can be reasons for the unbalance, but for the most part the answer will be obvious. If to many promises to keep in touch that go broken, it can tell you that the person is well intentioned in the promise, but not sufficiently motivated to follow up. And it may be that getting together once and a great while to catch up is all you can expect and that in itself might be reason enough to hang on. Realizing the boundaries of your relationships can go a long way to relieve the stress of spinning your wheels in a situation that is never going to change regardless of your best intentions and efforts.

Will my life be better? And what is the cost? Two good questions to ask if you want to ... well, make your life better.

Hunks with Hammers

My wife has an addiction to HGTV. Specifically, she TiVo's anything that has to do with remodeling and redesigning of homes. I have a name for the whole genre of HGTV remake and remodeling shows: "Hunks with Hammer's." While watching these programs with her, I began to deconstruct them. I soon realized that they are put together like a modern film drama or sitcom. The elements are all there. They feature compelling characters with a conflict to resolve. They have sex, violence, and intrigue; although I must admit the intrigue element gets a little thin.

Every drama has something like a ticking clock: there is usually a time constraint on the rehab job. The plot goes like this: Rita and John have two weeks to remodel their home before the realtor conducts an open house. Often part of the premise of the show is that the designers are challenged to finish in a day, two days, or some such constraint. In some cases, if they don’t get the job done they won’t sell the house for the maximum amount of money and, well, they fail. Failure in the other cases is a matter of pride. But as with most movies made in Hollywood, there is always a happy ending.

The latest version of the timeline challenge goes like this: Jim has given himself six weeks to remodel his house before he flips it. Flipping is the new way to make lots of money in a short amount of time, now that IPO’s and Internet companies are out of vogue. Flippers buy a home in distress, improve it, and then sell for a profit.

What is the consequence of failure? It is not recovering the cost of remodeling in the sale, or the client being unhappy with the redo that has been accomplished in less than twenty-four hours for less than (you fill in the blank) dollars.

The cast features a client in distress. The conflict is usually the client’s inability to solve a redecoration problem because he doesn’t have the time, money, or talent to do it. So in steps the designer or knowledgeable host with the solution. Knowledgeable hosts tend to know just the person who can solve the problem, or, in one scenario, three designers compete for the right to do the job.

Once the course of remedy is planned, the hunks with hammers, as I call them, arrive to do the real work. This is also the sex element and it's not always a guy. For an element of titillation, however, men work better with their tight-fitting jeans and skin-grafted t-shirts, because I'm sure that if the avid female viewer doesn't watch exclusively to enjoy this perk, then the equally large gay audience that follows these things will. Occasionally there arrives a good-looking woman who will sew, paint, or even pick up a power tool to save the day, but this is rare. Often the women in the cast serve as the knowledgeable hosts or called-upon experts.

To up the sex angle, the workers banter flirtatiously amongst each other and with the couples they are working for. In a commonly repeated scene the wife will be paired with Mr. Buff Hunk to be instructed on the proper use of power tools or how to strip paint and varnish off a wood surface.

The violence comes about when they are tearing apart existing structures in order to rebuild. Sledgehammers fly and crowbars crank as the workers trying hard not to disguise their glee while they destroy an entire wall or rip the drywall off an interior wall.

Tick, tock, tick, tock ... Will we get the patio landscaped in time before the couple returns or the open house commences? Will Rita and John get the price they need from the sale of their current home so they can afford to trade up to the bigger home they need for their expanding family?

There are things to be learned from these shows. The general conclusion is simple. If you want your home to look as if it belongs in a magazine, do not live in it. Homes being prepared for sale are staged like a Disney theme park.

Colors are neutral and furnishings are sparse to create roominess and to suggest a lifestyle with which most people cannot identify. Just as in the sitcoms, the decor does not reflect reality but merely suggests the way we see our homes without the strum und drang of living in them day after day.

In reality if you could set your home up to look like the finished product, it wouldn't stay that way long, for as soon as you hung a family portrait or left the press pot on the kitchen countertop,, you would destroy the whole image.

The other conflict element is the money issue. While I would never accuse these people of cheating (if it makes you feel better, you ignore all of the product-placement opportunities, but be reassured that they won't.), the one big thing they ignore is labor cost. The program features trades people who are versatile and talented. They can plumb, wire, and do finished carpentry, but their time and charges are never included in the money that the project is allotted. I'm sure that the show’s featured couple or client never pays a dime, but if you tried to duplicate the effort, you certainly would be required to pay for the labor.

I am always suspicious of some of the deals they get from yard sales, distressed-merchandise retailers, and found scratch-and-dent items. Items seem to be rather conveniently found at the right price when needed.

One show that features a redesign for almost no money relies on finding things the client already owns. While I can believe that almost anyone who owns his own home has scrap lumber in the garage, this designer seems to find bolt upon bolt of just the right fabric for window treatments and reupholstery projects.

What’s the bottom line? If you want your house to have “top dollar” value, first move out and than have a professional interior designer stage it. It needs to have an up-to-date kitchen and bathroom and typically most of the money will go in these areas. Common cheap fixes are window treatments, wall paint, and accessories. Your best bet is to have your own hunk with a hammer, but not every wife is so blessed. Mine certainly isn’t. She tells me that the best tools I have in my toolbox are a checkbook and a pen.

How cold was it?

I suppose I can now put on the badge as an official old coot. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you know your an old coot when the words "back in the day" start everyone of your stories. But, in addition to that the stories have to some how point out how much things have changed. The snow piles were higher. The temperatures were more extreme. The teachers were stricter. The cars were better. The women were prettier. You get the idea.

I personally do think that winters were colder when I was a kid and I also think if you compared the records you would find out I am correct, but this is a a blog not a newspaper article, so I'm not going to make the effort this morning.

I do remember one winter. It was going to the University of Minnesota, married to my first wife and working full time. That is not bragging. I was stupid to tackle all of that and as a result I didn't do any of them right.
But stupid as it might have been, it was my life. We had an extended cold spell in Minnesota. As I remember it the temperature did not go above 32 for about a month. I had a little Italian car that held two people. The battery was the size of riding lawn mower battery. When the cold moved in I couldn't get the car to start because the battery wasn't strong enough for the cold weather. I would get on my heavy winter clothing, go out to the car, take the battery out of the car and bring it in so it would hold full charge until morning.

Cars in general were not easy to start in those days. People had all kinds of devices to make their cars easier to start. We installed engine block heaters to keep the engine warm over night. Some people would place a light bulb on an extension cord near their battery to keep int warm. Others would throw a rug over the engine the night before when the engine was still warm in an attempt to keep it that way.

Non-the less on extremely cold winter days, tow trucks from every gas station in town would be out helping people get their cars started either by using battery jumper cables or push starting them. (Quite frankly I don't know if you can push start the cars we drive today.)

Push starting involved getting the car into the road, shifting into first or second gear and depressing the clutch. When the tow truck either pulled you or pushed you up to speed you would pop the clutch and usually the car would start.

Of course you would be bundled up to your eyeteeth with winter outer wear. The car would take forever to heat up and when it did all of the snow you tracked into the car would melt and the cabin smelled like wet wool all the way to school or work.

When the cold wave first moved in, I would garb up to get my battery out of the car the night before and to re-install it the next morning. That year demonstrates how we and our cars could acclimate to the weather, because when the extreme cold spell started to break about a month later I was running out to the car in my pajamas with a sweater pulled on and bare headed. The car started easier and sometimes I didn't even have to take the battery in.

Cars with their computerized systems are so much better these days. I haven't seen any body getting a push start in years and the only ones getting battery jump starts are people that probably should get new batteries.
Is it warmer these days compared to when I was younger. I think it is and I might even get up the energy to look it up.

Reading in the Winter

I'm not positive, but I think I read more in the colder months of the year than I do when the weather outside is more pleasant. It would make sense. When it's warmer and the daylight lasts longer there are many other options for my free time. When it's cold, today it is 10 degrees, the temptation to skip the morning walk and cocoon with a novel is often overwhelming. When the tundra is frozen, so to speak, we don't seem to take day trips and go on those excursions that we tend to do when the weather is better.

I have been reading mysteries that are written by authors who are not American. The stories set in Italy are intriguing me at the moment. I just finished a Michael Dibdin. Dibdin has a reoccurring character Aurelio Zen. Zen is cast as the rogue detective who sees his job as the avenging angel. In his personally appointed position of administrator of justice, the law is merely a set of guidelines to be interpreted and tested on a case by case basis. He is comparable to the magnificent Harry Bosch in the Michael Connelly series, Kinsey Milhone in Sue Grafton's excellent Alphabet series or long running champ Spencer from Robert B. Parker's genius mind.

I can't pry myself away from non-fiction, so I usually have one of each going. The political commentary is churning through the system faster than the authors can make the rounds of the talk shows. Yesterdays best seller, have to read is today's old news.

Some things are seemingly forever. I note that one of my early favorites, What Color Is My Parachute, is updated and reissued every year. I used it not to get a new job or to plan my career strategy, but to prospect sales leads and possibilities.

Tom Friedman's, The World I Flat, is been revised for the second time and never seems to leave the best seller list. He may have a franchise.

Everybody wants me to read, Marley and Me, but as long as I have my dog Sadie, I don't need to read a heart warming tale about a man and his dog.

This winter I am looking for new authors. I want to find a new Kite Runner. I want to keep my eye out for fresh talent that keeps getting better with each new book instead of churning out the same old same old with new characters.

It's not how the gift is wrapped

Am I the only one who has no idea what to buy his family for Christmas this year? My older kids are married or in settled relationships, working at well paying jobs, and getting pretty settled. In other words, whatever they want they go out and buy for themselves. The two youngest need everything. For them I could blindfold myself, throw a dart into a Target Store and as long as I missed the kids and women's departments I would have a winner.

The indecision created by to many choices isn't much better than the total lack of choices. The one thing I know is that I can't buy clothes for anybody else. Buying clothes is almost as difficult as ordering for someone else in a restaurant.

Thank God men don't wear ties anymore. It was the default gift for any man over the age of twenty five. Usually, they were, let's just say, not to the taste of the recipient. The tie was usually somebodies idea of getting the guy to free up his spirit and show some color. While they were at it they decided to show all of the colors on one tie.

Women's idea's of what men should wear is an interesting thing to study. My observations and experience is that opposites attract and no where does it express itself better than a women picking out clothes for her man. Now one fact we know and have to face up front. Women dress for other women no matter what phase of the mating cycle they are in. To women clothes are the costume phase of their life drama

Men dress to express their belief in what they are. Guys that live in jeans are guys that regardless of what they do for a living think of themselves as one of the guys who are men's men. They are not "Dockers" guys. Dockers guys believe they are socially and intellectually in a different league. Than there are the guys who wear Lauren and Polo. Well, we know what they think of themselves

It seems to me that way to often women are trying to get a man to dress to satisfy their image of what he should be. Let's look at it as costuming him as the right co-star in her life drama. In the recently popular "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" the make over was most often inspired by the need to impress some women in the guy's life. While I always was amazed and delighted by what they could do to redecorate the guy's apartment, what they did to his wardrobe was scary.

Make-overs for men always include duding him up in almost the opposite style as he was wearing. While the guy would good naturedly accept the new style and the gal would gush over the "New Look", you could tell he would be back in his sweats before the TV lights cooled.

Yes, I know men can be pigs. I do not condone slovenly behavior. But let's face it, a guy who showers, shaves and blows his nose into tissue is fit to live with some woman. I guy who wears a thousand dollar suit and cheats on his mate isn't a bargain no matter how he's wrapped.

Miracles?

There it was on my television screen. A concerned grandparent voicing the opinion that her grandsons, who were co-joined at birth, had been separated by surgery were the embodiment of a miracle. We hear this all of the time. We hear it to the point of the claim becoming nonsensical.

I know that Grandma is happy for her grandsons, daughter and son-in-law. I am sure that the outcome was a long shot from a medical standpoint. The decision to even attempt the surgery must have been fraught with fear and uncertainty. People can believe, if they wish, that the prayers of everyone enlisted by the constant TV coverage and publicity surrounding the young boys surgical separation was a factor in the success. Faith of that kind is a powerful thing.

However, calling every close scrape with death a miracle is just silly. Branding events such as this a miracle is flagrantly ignorant of the facts and the true events. I have to be honest it's beginning to make me unreasonably angry to have the efforts of fine doctors and medical workers brushed aside so cavalierly. It demeans the sacrifice made by all of the patients that didn't survive in the natural acquisition of knowledge that medical science requires. It minimizes the dedication and skill of all of the talented people that contributed to this successful operation.

When something happens we can't explain or understand, we pull out the miracle rationalization. Why do some live and others die? We often don't know for sure, but blaming every success on a miracle is a two sided coin. As a society, we are more than willing to blame the doctors, hospitals and medical industry for their failures by suing them. Maybe the next time a surgery doesn't turn out the way that we hope it should we should just pat the doctor on the back, tell him he tried his best and admit that the miracle wasn't in the cards for this patient.

After the Party

We have carried on the tradition of the "Christmas Tree Cutting Chili Party @ Maria's House". However, we don't cut the fresh Christmas Tree on the day of the party anymore. We actually cut that the week before, because it has to up and decorated for the new "Open House @ Maria and Jeff's" Party.

We no longer serve chili. The menu has morphed into a menu that is more holiday traditional with the inclusion of shrimp, cold cuts and raw vegetable and dips.

The consumption of alcohol has changed. I can't remember the last person who over indulged, although a discrete mate may have saved us from the spectacle. We serve far more soda and wine and noticeably less beer than we did in the beginning. More to the point we serve less of everything

People used to show up dressed for the weather because we were supposedly tramping through the woods in search of the "perfect tree". Now, folks show up in one version of their holiday finniest.

The tradition started in Appleton and featured our friends and neighbors. It became such a fixture on Woodstone Drive that some neighbors thought that our daughter and son-in-law, who bought our house, should continue the tradition in our absence. In our second run in Milwaukee only one of the neighbors showed up and a collection of friends that could only be defined as diverse. These wonderful people are representative of the new people we have met in our various jobs and social contacts in our new home. Booksellers, retailers, board members from Historic Milwaukee, museum workers from Discovery World, Villa Terrace - Charles Allis and our one relative in Milwaukee Terry and Donna, all gathered to met each other and have intelligent conversation. Alright, lets just say the the Packers and fortunes of the deer hunt are of less concern in the city than they were in Appleton.

This tradition is now part of the fabric of this new social cloth we weave in our new home. It helps to make that nostalgic transition from the old one.

Precious Moments

I had about an hour with my daughter this week. She was enroute from a visit with her mother to Montreal where she lives. We met at the airport before her flight.

We didn't talk about anything that profound. We exchange e-mail and phone calls on an eradic schedule. We ddn't talk about many things we don't cover in our other exchanges, but we were together for the first time in years.

I have always been proud and a little bit envious of Mary. She has done much of which she
has wanted to do in life by applying her intelligence and courage to her life plan. She is still youthful in her appearance and outlook on life. This has given her a lot of latitude. If there is a price she's paid for globetrotting and seemingly rootless life it escapes me. She has choosen not to have children, but that is a personal decision that I support and she seems not to regret.

She has a partner that is as dedicated to her as she is to him. She has the family backing her up and she has a glamorous career. Mary has acquired enough life experience and adventure that I find I can learn quite a bit from her, so our relationship has become more reciprocal.

As I wrote her this morning, the only thing wrong with a short meeting, like we had this week, is that it makes me miss not having more of them

Snow Day

We are in the midst of one of those old fashioned blizzards that make our area of the country notorious. We could accumulate in excess of twelve inches of snow by this afternoon. For the record I am writing this a 07:15 CST on December 1, 2006. We had zero snow n the ground when I went to bed at 10:30 last night.

As kids the first thing we would do is turn on the radio or television to find out if the schools were closed. If they were did we go back to bed? Hardly! Parents who have short memories often marvel at the child who can't be convinced to get up and get ready until they can hear the bus pulling up to the stop, suddenly are on the phone at seven thirty planning their day with their friends. These plans don't involve staying home out of harms way, by the way. You can be assured that the snow day that closes schools is a good day for the mall.

For parents the closed school is a huge problem unless they are excused from working. It is not secret that the school serves as educational increment and babysitter for the parents of young children. Child care issues abound when the school is closed. As parents you don't even want to think of the house hold with you at work and you teenagers at home by themselves. Depending on the age and the attitude of the kids, the scene could be a replay of "Animal House".

For adults the snow day can be one of those gifts from nature. Unexpected time to catch up on reading, household chores or who knows maybe writing to your blog, suddenly is laid at your feet. Problem is the reason you're getting this boon is also laying at your feet and someone has to shovel it.