Redefining Forever

Four years ago, on this very spot, I reiterated a sentiment that had first been advanced by Jimmy Buffett: I wish that lunch could last forever. I was referring to a rendezvous with my friend from down the street. She was the one who adapted her game of horses to include my character who was some version of kindhearted rancher or some such benign presence in order to include a boy in this obviously less testosterone-y version of make-believe. I was invited along on these flights of fancy because I was willing to pretend, to play "what if."
Four years ago, I lingered over my meal and stretched those refills of iced tea to savor the experience of reconnecting with a person who had accepted me when the boys in my neighborhood were busy making it harder and harder to be part of their crew. I remember feeling the embarrassment of ignoring my oath to the He-Man Woman Haters Club, or whatever fraternal organization I had unknowingly signed up for because of my Y chromosome. I needn't have worried, since all I felt on those afternoons spent in our front yards, creating and recreating worlds of our own imagination, was acceptance.
Four years later, when we got together for another marathon lunch, I was impressed once again with how easy it was to sit down and collapse into a friendship that had begun before we started school. A friendship that had transcended the slips and snares of puberty and all the ways that relationships could turn on an adolescent dime. This was the girl who showed up at my wedding and helped me pin my boutonniere on my lapel before I launched myself headlong into marriage. At that moment there was no one else who could have shown up and so readily shown me that kindness. It wasn't slippery or confusing. It made perfect sense.
Just like it made perfect sense to come back to continue that marathon lunch after four years, and make it last three hours, with the full and complete expectation that there would be another one just like it somewhere out there in the future. This lunch that allowed us to wallow in our past and speak easily about our present. And as for the future, there was only the mild expectation that we would do it all over again. Checking in and putting the pieces of our lives together again, with very little surprise at how well those pieces fit. A million years ago, it made me uncomfortable to think that my best friend might be a girl. As it turns out, that wasn't really a problem at all.

Look Up

The end of civility. Michelle Obama once said that "When they go low, we go high." A couple of years ago, this was her way of suggesting how to avoid getting into the fray that had begun well and full during the 2016 election. At the time, she was drawing a line between "them" and "us." The "us" was the Democratic party, to whom she was speaking directly, and "they" were Republicans who she felt had lowered the level of discourse as the nation prepared to go to the polls. It was her hope that the party for whom her husband had run for president nearly a decade before that would discuss the issues and their plans for the future instead of the name-calling and character assassination that became such a large part of the focus of the campaign.
This took place while a crowd outside the Philadelphia venue was chanting "Lock her up!" This was not a reference to Ms. Obama, but rather to the presumptive candidate of the Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton. The crowd that was doing the chanting were Democrats, supporters of Bernie Sanders.
I mention this bit of history because civility has been in short supply for some time now, without a sign of return to a kinder, gentler version anytime soon. The way candidates talked about each other within their own parties was surprising enough, with personal physical attributes becoming part of the discussion during debates leading up to the presidential primaries. Name-calling was the order of the day. How did that happen?
Fast forward to the family dinner that took place at my mother's house where my older brother asked a very good and very difficult to answer question: Why? What good did the ugly tweets and confrontations on comedy shows make in a country that is already so horribly divided? What purpose did all this rhetoric serve?
And it was with a sense of guilt that I began to defend the words that had been slung around over the past two years, and the answer became more and more clear: None. So I abandoned the defense, knowing that I was responsible for this trend from more than a decade ago when I refused to refer to George W. Bush as anything but "President Pinhead." I have been even less careful in my manner of address to the current "President."
Why?
The best answer I could come up with for my brother and anyone else who was listening was this: Anger. People are angry. They are lashing out in less than dignified ways because they are angry about where we find ourselves at this point in history. That anger is not exclusive to my side or their side or any side. There is a great big snot bubble of anger that currently stretches across the United States. The danger is this: What happens when that bubble bursts? Does someone have to be really hurt? I would argue that that has already happened. Or maybe I shouldn't argue.
But I will continue to express my outrage. And I will try and keep Michelle Obama's reminder in front of me. Now is not the time to go low. I believe we have gone low enough. Time to look up to the light.

The Practical Part Of Being A Joker

Here's a weird admission: I just turned fifty-six, which is not the admission, but I never knew before this week how to short-sheet a bed.
I have threatened, over the years, to do just that. I never have. I have had decades to attempt this well-known prank, but I have never been fully aware of just what would go into such an endeavor. I have understood the concept, but not the actual nuts and bolts involved. I have used the words, "short-sheet your bed" as a punchline without ever being able to say that I have participated in this practical joke. I turned, as I have so many times when I have been lost for how to begin a process, to YouTube. What I found there was, in its mildest form, a revelation. I was pleased to find that all my instincts and imaginings were confirmed. As I watched, I became aware of the details of the task. I was grateful for the tips regarding the intricacies of the undertaking: keeping the pattern of the sheet up to make it appear as a fitted sheet, tucking it in only halfway down. Many of these points I might have anticipated myself if I were to go off blindly to make this work for me.
A life spent without ever having the opportunity to short-sheet a bed feels like a life well-lived, in hindsight, but it did make me wonder how I had missed the chance to visit this annoying trick on anyone. I have two brothers. I went to band camp. Maybe I just didn't have enough chances at summer camp. Like none. My summer camp was living at my family's cabin in the mountains. There I slept in a sleeping bag. So did my brothers. I suppose I could have stitched one of those sleeping bags shut halfway down, but that borders on vandalism, which I tend to avoid.
So here I am, in the late-mid chunk of my life, wondering if I will have the chance. When I stayed at my mother's house, it occurred to me ever so briefly that I could try out my new skill on her bed, but something tells me that short-sheeting my eighty-three year old mother's bed would bring me very little satisfaction or appreciation from anyone I told about it. She's a good sport, one of the best, in fact. But I may have missed the window for this particular activity.
Probably. Which means that you might want to keep this in mind if you're planning to have me over as a house  guest anytime soon.

Agreeing To Disagree

Somewhere amid the jumble of decoration and bric a brac that makes up the interior design of restaurants from the local diner to the fanciest eatery, you will find a sign that lets you know that they have the right to refuse service to anyone. The line can be explicit, like if you happen to show up expecting to be served without wearing shoes or a shirt. The entire United States is covered by the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination by privately owned places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. Places of “public accommodation” include hotels, restaurants, theaters, banks, health clubs and stores. Twenty states, including New York and California, have enacted laws that prohibit discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation. In California, you also can’t discriminate based on someone’s unconventional dress. What this means is that a business cannot pick and choose those whom they refuse to serve. It cannot be arbitrary.
If someone shows up with shirt and shoes and no further dress code is established, I suppose that patron would have to be seated if he or she neglected to put on pants. A bakery could choose not to make a wedding cake for a gay couple if it did not conflict with any state laws. That business would have to practice this exclusion without exception. And it would still feel like discrimination. 
Because it is. It's protected discrimination. It's the second stated definition of the word: recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. 
Do I believe that  all of this reckoning was going through the mind of the owner of The Red Hen, located in Lexington, Virginia? Owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post that one of the chefs had called her at home to tell her Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, was sitting in the tiny restaurant, and that the staff had concerns. Wilkinson then drove over, huddled up with her staff and asked whether they would like Sanders to leave. They said yes. Ms. Sanders was asked to leave, and she complied. The owner said she and Sanders stepped outside, where Wilkinson explained that her establishment has “certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion and cooperation.”And then the questions began. 
Was this discrimination of the first definition, the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things? Are honesty, compassion and cooperation the basis of a policy that can be used for all potential customers? Diving just a tiny bit deeper, can one's political affiliation be that standard? How about judging someone by their employer?
And the answer is pretty clear: No. 
Do I understand it? Yes.
I can't condone Robert De Niro tossing out an F-bomb aimed at Trump while presenting at the Tony Awards. I flinch at the less than careful rhetoric of my side, like Peter Fonda's suggestion that Barron Trump be pulled from his mother's arms and put in a cage with pedophiles. This moves the discussion from the civil to the decidedly less than civil. We are living in times that are decidedly less than civil, but I would like to advocate for us all to remember how we got here in the first place. By drawing lines based on that first definition of discrimination, the one that uses the word "unjust," we are continuing a fight that has no end. It cannot be arbitrary, and anger bends the arc in that direction. Let us continue to work on an arc that bends, in the words of Dr. King, toward justice. 
Now if we can all just get together and push. 

The Spot

As it turns out, you can go home again. When you get there, sometimes, it's a nail salon. Or something like that. Having a hometown and a family that abides there provides me with the opportunity to make visits to the planet of my birth. Since I left under pretty normal circumstances, no lingering suspicion or bodies wrapped in plastic, I can go back there whenever I would like. Well, truth is, I would like to go back more, but it costs money to move my backside from the left side of the country to the middle. So when I do get my act together and take it on the road, I show up with an eye toward nostalgia.
It was just about half my life ago that I trekked west, with an eye toward greener pastures. Not that the pastures in Colorado weren't green all on their own, but the myth or notion that I might find a place as lovely as the one I was leaving seemed like a good one to test. Happily, it turns out that living next to an ocean was not necessarily green but blue turns out to be pretty keen. Which means that when I make it back to the Rocky Mountains, there's a whole world green forests and pastures to see like they were brand new.
All those rocks and trees are pretty much as I left them, but it's the brick and mortar that gets smooshed around a lot. Buildings change and the people who used to fill them have moved on to other buildings. Maybe they went in search of greener pastures themselves. Maybe they just wandered off without a thought about where they might land. This is probably the reason for all the energy folks exert on that reunion jazz. I have been out of high school for thirty-eight years now, and I haven't been back for any of those events. I am grateful for the chance to have family reunions in a spot where I can see the mountains and hear the wind rushing through the pines. No name tags. No  pressure.
Except when it comes time to pick a place to eat. Or shop for records. Or any of the things I used to do when I was a resident of the Centennial State. Which works out, since I have people on the inside, getting me all the latest intel and keeping a spot clear for me. On those greener pastures.

Still There

Hello, boys!
These are the words I uttered aloud when I came down the hill, past the cottonwoods, and looked up to the west. There they were. Right where I left them. Why exactly I would assume the gender of three giant slabs of granite is probably a worthwhile discussion, but that will have to wait for another time. The gratitude I felt when looking up at the geological wonders of The Flatirons was almost overwhelming. I can say "almost" because each new view of these monoliths is treated as new even though I can picture every notch and cranny when I close my eyes. Hundreds of miles away. I have pictures of them on my walls at home in Oakland. Why should I ever forget?
Maybe it is the abruptness with which they rush up out of the earth. This was the stop sign for plenty of settlers who made it as far  as the Rocky Mountains. They looked at these Foothills as some kind of insurmountable obstacle. So here they put down roots and made a city. And a university. And a whole bunch of other schools and stores and restaurants and houses and parks and all of them were just a westward glance away from the Flatirons.
I keep trying to explain the magic of this group of foothills, as if I need to convince someone. Myself, perhaps? Chief Niwot who cursed me with the burden of returning here whenever possible to stand and gawk. This time, I decided to consider the sound that those slabs of rock made when they came jutting up through the surface of a previously tranquil plane. Where once there was horizontal, suddenly there was vertical, and if I had been around then I couldn't be anymore impressed than I am right now.
Yes. I know: If I was so impressed, why did I bother leaving in the first place? It was a difficult choice. My wife appreciates the fact that I chose her over a pile of rocks. A really substantial and legendary pile of rocks. Still. A pile of rocks.
So I remind myself once again of just how much things change, but The Flatirons still meet the morning sun just as they have for millions of years. The KMart is now a Safeway, but they remain. Tom's Tavern is closed, and they look down in bemusement. They are so awesome that I can ascribe bemusement to them. And now we can discuss their gender. We've got time.

Hubris

It's called Bernoulli's Principle. It is the thing that keeps airplanes in the air. Airplanes as big as a C-130, or a 787. Eighteenth century Swiss physicist Daniel Bernoulli gets to have his name attached to a phenomena that exists in nature because he was the first one to describe it to everyone in a way we could label a principle. Daniel figured out that curving the top of a surface allows air to pass under it more easily, causing that surface to lift. Like an airplane wing, or your hand held outside a car window when your fingers are pointed directly into the wind. This is known in my world as the Superman principle in my world. More often than not, when you see the Man of Steel speeding through the air, you notice that he holds his hands in front of him, palms down. Never mind that this is a being who is dense enough for bullets to bounce off of him, but gaining proper speed and maintaining that position allows him to fly. And that he seems to also favor a closed-fist technique almost as often, it's a comic book after all.
This is the kind of musing that keeps me working toward a window seat when it comes time to pick. I have complete faith in Mister Bernoulli's discovery, but I confess that even after decades of personal experience and experimentation, I am fascinated by the way we routinely toss great cylinders of metal into the skies and bring them back down again. It's that getting back down thing that continues to puzzle me.
Not because of the physics, exactly, but rather because of those moments when all that science and math disappoints. I am the lucky recipient of a National Transportation Safety Board report describing just how wrong things can go. My father was on the receiving end of one of these failures of physics. To be fair to Bernoulli and his principle, the airplane wings worked quite well on the flight he and his friend were taking back from California in a small plane all those years ago. A whole lot of air went underneath them in order to get them within yards of their destination. It was the landing part of the equation that wasn't fully realized. This is the part of flying that will forever fascinate me, as it has for countless humans who made the absurd assumption that if they got up high enough, they could experience flight since falling through the air is a lot like flying. For a little while. Which makes me think that the gods controlling such matters must mutter to themselves every time a human tries to imitate a bird. Icarus found out the hard way. And when I complain that my flight has been delayed for any reason, I remind myself that this is still a pretty inexact science and I should appreciate every time we get it right start to finish.

Too Little, Too Late

Hey folks, if you're not angry, you're not listening. 
After months of breaking apart families and making the most out of comparisons to totalitarian regimes of the past, after weeks of insisting that it was anyone else's fault but his own, our "President" signed an executive order to stop this horrifying practice. A day after he had defended it to anyone who would listen. "It's the Democrats fault, they won't give us the votes needed to pass good immigration legislation. They want open borders, which breeds horrible crime. Republicans want security. But I am working on something - it never ends!" 
Let's all whisper a solemn prayer for our hard-working "President," and all the things with which he must contend. 
Or not. 
This obscene process of capturing and detaining one hundred percent of all illegal immigration and separating children form their parents will be halted. The sewage that has already gone under this bridge won't come clean. Stephen Miller, the architect of this policy, continues to be employed at the White House. Kristjen Nielsen, who runs Homeland Security and staunch defender of the human rights disaster, was shamed out of a night out by protesters at a Mexican restaurant. Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager to the "President," mocked the story of a ten year old girl with Down Syndrome who was taken from her mother. He did this on national television. Unapologetically. Fox News' Laura Ingraham compared the detention centers on our southern borders to "summer camp." Human beings were defending the United States' abuse of human rights.
And now our "President" would like us to appreciate how all his suffering has brought about this, sigh, solution. If only the Democrats would have caved into his demands for stricter immigration laws and ponied up the expense for a wall separating us from Mexico, none of this would have happened. 
Right. 
Is that the wall that Mexico was going to be forced to pay for, or did I miss something over the past couple months? Was holding children hostage until he got his way the only thing that our "President" the deal-maker able to come up with to make a deal? Are we supposed to thank him now for halting the grotesque scene on our border? He wants us to know that the zero tolerance measures are still in effect. All that whining got us something: the tiniest sliver of self respect possible from the rest of the world. 
Thank you, "Mister President." 

What We Go Through

What did they really mean when they said, International House of Burgers? This announcement set off an Internet-based conflagration not seen since the last silly thing that people got all worked up about for no particular reason. It made me think of how, once upon a time, Coca-Cola decided to ditch their old formula and start making New Coke, much to the dismay of human beings. This was back in 1985, when you had to use your MCI card to call friends across the country to rant and rave about this terrible rift in the pop culture stream. What was going through the hive mind at Coke headquarters that caused such a ridiculous notion to ever see the light of day, let alone set their plans for world domination back weeks by having to back fill in the wake of this glorious mistake with the "limited" return of Classic Coke? It wasn't long after the "New" and "Classic" distinctions were left in the dustbin of history and we were left with that singular pillar of American society: Coca-Cola.
Things change, but Coke stays the same. Except for that high fructose corn syrup replacing cane sugar thing. The secret formula that has been used since 1891 remains, essentially intact. Which doesn't keep the company from regularly trotting out variations of their soft drink on occasion. Very regular occasions. There are currently eight different variations available to sample at the World of Coca-Cola: Coca- Cola, Diet Coke, Coke Zero Sugar, Coca-Cola Life, Cherry Coke, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, Vanilla Coke, Coke Zero Sugar Cherry. These flavor enhancements are by no means the only permutations of the Coke you know and love. You can mix your own secret formula at Coke Freestyle self-serve soda fountains at a location near you. There are, for example, twenty-five of these machines within a five mile radius of my current location, some of which are open late at night or early in the morning to allow me to be able to slake my thirst in whatever particular version of Coca-Cola I choose. Or to savor any of the thirty-three Coke-driven and supported beverages I have a mind to swill. Ain't this America? Isn't this the Future?
Or maybe all this is just the K-Mart Grill. You could get a pretty good burger there, and once you had your cup and a little ice, you could slide down the rail and mix your own disaster of a drink, made all the more "suicidal" by the goading of your friends. International House of Whatever. K-Mart has it all. Or did. Only change is constant.

BD

I am currently living through a phase of meaningless birthdays. Not that each trip around is not a triumph, as my older brother so regularly asserts, but the benefits and privileges extended to me at each tick mark are less startling. I can say this with some measure of certainty, since I just lived through my son's twenty-first birthday. Much fuss and ballyhoo accompanied this transition. We stopped talking about our child and started addressing our adult. There were a lot of discussions about the responsibilities of turning twenty-one and the importance of designated drivers and knowing when to say when. Do not wait until English becomes optional.
Fifty-six? Not such a lollapalooza. Not like ages one through twelve, for example. Those were the years when six months made a difference. Being six and a half was a vast and impressive change from being plain old six. There was a race to get to get older. At the time, I didn't imagine what the finish line might be, but looking back it seems as though that magical twenty-one was where we were all headed. At twenty-one, you could rule the world. Or at least you could buy them a beer.
Of course, when I was young, there was that curious ledge upon which one could stand called eighteen. In the olden days, there was this thing called three point two beer. It was some weird concession to the idea that if you were old enough to vote and old enough to sign up for selective service, you were old enough to swill watered-down beer. For me, this was the point at which my professional drinking career began. There wasn't a lot of sneaking around, stealing booze for me. I waited until it was my turn, even for "baby beer," and then made the most of it.
And it made the most of me. Three years later, when "the hard stuff" was made available to me legally, I was already pretty solidly into my binge/recover/binge phase. Never needed a fake ID. Somewhere in there, I turned twenty-nine. A little voice inside my head suggested that maybe I had enough. This little voice echoed all those larger voices that had been suggesting to me for some time that I had already passed the tipping point. I like to tell people who are just finding out about my sobriety that I got a note from Milwaukee asking to please save some beer for everyone else.
Like maybe my son.
At fifty-six, I feel like I can speak with some mild authority about how to keep your mind and body humming along to my ripe old age. Knee surgery. Kidney stones. A few near misses. One suspended license. These are the gifts that keep on giving. And a piece of chocolate cake.

Brownsville

Superman was an undocumented immigrant. Separated from his parents, he was sent to this planet by parents who only wished that their child would be safe and happy. John and Martha Kent, Kansas farmers, raised the tyke they found crashed in their field as their own. They changed his name to keep him from being easily noticed by his Kryptonian handle, Kal-El. If Homeland Security had known that there was a foreign national living in secret, capable of mass destruction just by staring at something, I'm sure they would have swooped in and taken him away in some sort of super-restraints, leaving John and Martha crying on their front porch. Much in the same way Lara and Jor-El stood and watched that rocket carry their only son into space while their planet crumbled around them.
But ICE agents never showed up in Smallville. Even though there were all those crazy stories about school buses being pulled out of a raging stream and fires being extinguished in a single rush of air, almost as if they had been blown out like a birthday candle.
To his credit, "Clark Kent" did his best to assimilate. He got himself a real job and a pair of glasses, and went to work reporting on the very feats of heroism he was secretly doing in his cape and long johns. For this, he was admired and respected, though "Clark" never received the respect and admiration afforded his secret identity. Superman stood for truth, justice, and the American Way, and yet he was living a lie. He was out there, nominally risking his life for a country that was regularly uncomfortable with the idea of his existence.
Here is my wish: There are thousands of children being held in camps across the southwest. Maybe just one of them has mutant powers that would enable them to overcome their captivity. Maybe they could break free and find themselves a pair of horn-rimmed glasses to disguise themselves just enough to keep away that unwanted attention. They could become part of our American society and live productive lives of truth, justice and the American Way. But first they have to break out. I want to be there when the ICE agents show up and find a great big hole blasted through the side of the Wal-Mart where the alien children spilled out after some or all of them had enough.
And I hope they're afraid of what might happen next.

Bible Study

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who may or may not be leaving her post as White House press secretary at the end of this year, recently cited the Bible as a defense for her administration's detention of fifteen hundred immigrant children. And so spake Sarah: “It is very biblical to enforce the law, that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.” So let it be written. So let it be done. The Bible does say a lot of interesting things, many of which are very worthwhile. One of them is "Love thy neighbor." 
I don't think that was the direction Sarah and her boss were heading with that one, but maybe it's time to recognize that Leviticus 11:12 would put a pretty solid damper on your neighbor's Crab Shack, since "Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you." It might also be important to report back to our "President" what it says in Mark 10:11-12: “And He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.'” So, no divorce. No shellfish. And then there's 1 Timothy 2:9 which reads “Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments.” Sorry Stormy, Melania, et al. It's in the Bible, and we are nothing without the Word, and following the Word. Which could explain the "President's" issues with the NFL spring. Leviticus 11:8 tells us about pigs, “You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.” No pigskin.
And so, the truth about why anyone could possible justify the incarceration of hundreds of children can be explained away, or justified via blackmail: Give me my wall and I'll stop locking up kids. All of which may start to explain why rumors of Ms. Huckabee Sanders' imminent departure from her position. In order to maintain the slightest whisper of a soul, all real human beings must flee this black hole of reason and morals. This is where thoughts go to die. Like Cain slaying Abel. That worked out pretty well, didn't it? 
If she starts working in Beatles lyrics into her justifications, it's time to flee. 

Fences

Like many people, I marvel at the seemingly infinite variety of shapes and sizes of the canine world. Chihuahuas and Great Danes: Same genetic building blocks. Bred for specific purposes and traits, these beasts have been experimented with for thousands of years to the point that their ancient wolf relatives could only look on in puzzlement.
As many of you know, I am a confirmed dog person, meaning that I tend to prefer the company of dogs to cats, not that I am known to eat my weight when left unattended. But that can happen too. I look forward to those moments when I am introduced to a new dog, much in the same way others fawn over human babies. I feel it is necessary to insinuate myself into their doggie lives as much as possible in whatever brief time I am allowed.
The exception to this rule is the group of dogs that I encounter on my runs. I accept that during these times of exercise, I am not nearly as attentive to the animals along the route, concentrating instead on bringing my aging body around the circle I have chosen to make. These paths take me past countless gates and fences. Most of these I can glance through moments before I pass them, anticipating the greeting I may get from the pup prowling or resting on the other side. Inevitably it is the smallest of these dogs who have the most to say as I run by. I know that this is both a territorial and a fear response. I admire the way even the tiniest terrier can get all worked up about their turf. Often this initial alarm raised the defcon level for the rest of the block, and neighbor dogs get up to shout at me just because they heard I was coming.
And every so often, I stop. I make eye contact with the beast that is yipping or snarling at me from mere inches away. What is the big deal? In another universe, we could be friends. I could toss a tennis ball for you to chase in endless repetition. I could scratch your backside until you melted into a puddle of fur and drool. I could be your friend. Your best friend.
But that doesn't happen very often. Instead, I keep going, knowing that if I were to show up the very next day at the same time, and made that my habit, I would still be treated as a stranger. Because that is hard-wired, no matter what the breed. I have crossed in front of the television that is their world view. Who knows what foul intent I may have?
I suppose I could fill my pockets with jerky and take the time to ingratiate myself to all creatures great and small along the sidewalks of my neighborhood, but that seems somehow insincere. I just wish that all those dogs could get to know me before they decided to hate me.

Greatest Hits

If you are a parent, there are plenty of times at which you shudder at the idea of being quoted by your children. Five year olds playing The Fart Game on a crowded elevator need to be reminded that this is funny only when it's just you and daddy trapped inside. Getting off a floor early just so that you can explain to your offspring that not everyone plays that particular game is the price you pay for teaching it to them in the first place.
To my son's everlasting credit, he did not curse in front of his parents until he was almost through high school. Not that he was unable to, he reassured us, "I went to public school in Oakland." There wasn't much he didn't hear or repeat on occasion. That occasion just never occurred while mom and dad were in the room. Which didn't keep my from sharing my own bawdy sense of humor, a gift from my father before me, with my son and his friends.
Yes, I was "that guy."
And now that I am the father of an adult, I have absolutely no leg upon which I can stand when it comes to working blue. Or belching. Or taking more than the prescribed four years to graduate from an institution of higher learning. And because we sent him to college he is very good at citing his references. This means that, at times, he is quoting me and stretching the legacy of his grandfather who taught me everything I know. Much to the dismay of my mother.
And so, when I hear familiar bits coming from my son's mouth, I can't help but feel a certain pride. This can run headlong into the shock and dismay that I should probably be experiencing when my little boy starts in on something that rings a little off-color. And a little familiar. This does stir my wife's ire on occasion, since she rightfully suggests that he certainly knows better, not that he is always up to the task of showing that.
I do remember my mother's concern that I would be out "somewhere nice" and I wouldn't know how to act. While I have drawn scowls from patrons at Denny's and been admonished by the parking tram host at Disneyland to "take it down a notch," I have yet to be forcibly removed or even officially asked to leave anyplace "nice." At the time of this writing, neither has my son.
Which makes me even more proud.

Let's Make A Deal

"You gotta hand it to him."
This is what some people, even my wife, have been saying about our "President's" summit with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un. The handshake alone was a photo op some sixty years in the making. A sitting U.S. president had never met with the sitting leader of North Korea. And so they sat. For this, some people say "You gotta hand it to him."
Sitting down with the man he had so recently referred to as "Little Rocket Man" and opening with a fat joke shows just what kind of exacting preparation our "President" went through in anticipation of this historic meeting.
You gotta hand it to him.
The on-again-off-again summit between these two countries came to pass more or less along the lines as previously described just before it was cancelled in a fit of pique by the White House. And was back on again just as quickly. What changed? Who cares?
You gotta hand it to him.
This was the same "President" who showed up at the G7 meeting in Canada just prior to jetting off to Singapore to make his fat joke, looking to ruffle feathers. Right now it's all about trade for our "President." He is all but foaming at the mouth about tariffs and deals made over the past century. For him, none of it is fair, and if other countries don't look out, they'll have to go without our Made In The USA goodies, and we won't be buying any more of their overpriced goop and gadgets made elsewhere.
You gotta hand it to him.
So just before the G7 leaders went off to discuss climate change and the Paris Accord, our "President" excused himself to go and shake hands with the man he had been threatening with nuclear annihilation ten months ago. A little fire and fury, anyone?
You gotta hand it to him.
Which leaves us with a "President" who seems much more interested in forging new and interesting real estate deals with countries like Russia and North Korea, while our allies wonder where the love has gone. He told Kim Jong Un, "As an example, they have great beaches. You see that whenever they are exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, boy, look at that view, wouldn't that make a great condo? And I explained it. I said, instead of doing that, you could have the best hotels in the world."
You gotta hand it to him? 
No. I don't. 

Party Of The First Part

My son is preparing to move into a new apartment. Immediately this made me think of the apartments into which I moved over the course of my college career. I thought about the negotiations my roommate and I had when considering our lease. "They want a two hundred dollar damage deposit?" After a pause, "Yeah, we could do two hundred dollars in damage." This was an amusing, but very realistic exchange. This was primarily because, with the exception of the freshman dorm where I camped out in that first year, the apartments in which we lived were launching pads for frequent drunken brawls we called "parties."
And in those moments when the smoke cleared and the puddles had dried, I went to class. This was the reason I was living in those close-to-campus bunkers that were built to withstand eruptions of youthful indiscretion. The landlords knew what they were doing. Their monthly rates would pay for the holes in the drywall and the regular cycles of painting and repainting. It was our job to try and make them wonder if maybe they figured something wrong.
I'm a homeowner now. I'm a father. I teach elementary school. What was going through my head way back when in a celebration of some occasion or other we started up a pop bottle rocket fight ranging from the living room to the one bedroom we shared. Other fireworks displays took place on the patio of our deck, where the sparks scarred the roof that was a foot or two lower than the shower of fire we set off on purpose. In many ways, we were the stress test that these domiciles required. It was our gesture of public service.
And every so often, when things got "out of hand," we had a neighbor drop by. Most of the time, we were able to work things out by inviting them in. Sometimes that didn't work. They threatened to call the cops. I told them that they wouldn't have to call loud, since we often had a few off-duty sheriff's deputies hanging on the couch. I would love to tell you that at some point our collective conscience put a dent in the hooliganism. I can't tell you that.
I can tell you that I would advise my son to put down tarps. Just in case.

I Will Hop No More Forever

Around my house, there were some tense moments when the International House of Pancakes, IHOP to most of the planet, decided to change its name. This was where I learned, as a child, to love Pigs in a Blanket. Though I have never been a huge fan of breakfast food in general, this cartoonish fare was well suited for kid with a rather visceral imagination. When the announcement came down on Al Gore's Internet last week that there was to be a change in the way we would refer to the establishment that made it okay to sample a dozen different flavors of syrup on two pancakes, my wife and I began to conjecture. Her first guess was International House of Brunch.
I felt this was a savvy move, appealing to the millennials who enjoy their egg white omelettes and their skillet fried potatoes. I went with the much less inspired International House of Breakfast. This would be playing it safe, and would require little if any change in menu or branding. What I didn't say at the time was "International House of Bunnies."
Many years ago, on a Spring Break trip down to southern California, we stopped in San Luis Obispo for breakfast on Easter Sunday. It was a stroke of luck that we happened to spot the sign as we got of the exit: IHOP. What better place to land on Easter? My son was still young enough to believe that this was the sort of magic that happened on the day that a giant rabbit deposited colored eggs and chocolate treats in barely discrete hiding places.
As luck and time would have it, my son ended up attending college just up the street from that restaurant, and eventually got himself a job at the Best Buy across the parking lot from that IHOP. A year ago we all sat down and had breakfast together on Easter before he had to rush off to sell televisions. Some of the magic was gone, but it was a point of reference.
Now they've gone and changed the sign. And the focus. They have traded their pancakes for burgers. The International House of Pancakes has always served a wider menu, but their focus has shifted to the lunch crowd. I am sure it has to do with finding a way to drag more people in the doors rather than waiting for the breakfast crowd to hang around long enough to try page three and four of the laminated picture book from which orders can be made.
Trouble is, IHOB isn't fun. IHOP was fun. It could be conjugated: Ihop, wehop, theyhop, youhop. Just exactly how does one Hob? I wish them good luck, and I can imagine scenarios in which I find myself wandering in to sample their signature burger. Or maybe I'll see if they can't rustle me up just one more order of pigs in a blanket.

God Knows

Listen up, pollutants! God doesn't want you wrecking the planet anymore. For those of you who are not on God's mailing list, or don't get the monthly newsletter from his Holiness, the Pope, here's what He wanted us to know: “There is no time to lose,” the pontiff told them. “This is a challenge of epochal proportions. Civilization requires energy, but energy use must not destroy civilization.” So, when all is said and done, Pope-wise, the Pontiff is still a fan of civilization, but would like us all to be more responsible about how we fuel it. 
“With each month that passes, the challenge of energy transition becomes more pressing,” Francis warned, “Serious efforts be made to transition to a greater use of energy sources that are highly efficient while producing low levels of pollution.” Which is to say that all that beautiful clean coal that our "President" likes to babble about is not the alternative. 
Pope Francis issued his warnings in at an energy summit named “Energy Transition and Care for Our Common Home." The home of the title is the big blue marble upon which so much of our history has taken place. If you read the Bible, you know that it took seven days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and it took us two thousand years to mess it up. He called on those present to be the “core of a group of leaders who envision the global energy transition in a way that will take into account all the peoples of the earth, as well as future generations and all species and ecosystems.”
And while the Pope was talking to  executives who attended the meeting such as BlackRock Inc. chief executive Laurence Fink, Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executive Darren Woods and British Petroleum CEO Bob Dudley, our "President" was walking out on a G7 session focused on climate change and the environment. The "President" is fond of saying that global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese. Which kind of makes that seven days for the creation of the Heavens and Earth story seem quite reasonable. 
Come to think of it, most of what Pope Francis has to say these days sounds a lot more reasonable than what issues forth from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Hangin' On The Telephone

I remember, when I was a teenager, how important the telephone was. I can remember how important that long cord to the handset was. The one in the kitchen allowed us to take calls in the garage, for that extra measure of privacy. The one in the basement offered us the ability to flop around in various positions, as long as those positions did not take us more than four feet from the wall mounted phone. The idea of being able to traipse about the room, the entire house, even into the back yard was unthinkable at the time. I spent hours, when no one else was in the house, on the phone. With two brothers and concerned parents, one could never be sure that the extension could be picked up and all that privacy could go out the window in an instant. I knew this because my older brother showed me how to unscrew the mouthpiece while holding down the button inside the cradle so no ambient noise would spill into the transmitter when the switch was opened. Spy stuff.
But oh, how those teenage phone calls could linger on into the wee hours. There were those friends of mine who were fortunate enough to have a telephone in their room. This extravagance allowed them the ability to chat way past bedtime, even on a school night. Me? I was huddled in that corner of the basement, attempting to find the most relaxed posture possible while holding a chunk of plastic to the side of my head.
If I was expecting a call, there was a race to the nearest extension, and while covering the mouthpiece with one hand, the cry would go out from wherever the answering party was in our house, "I GOT IT!" There were plenty of times that my alacrity was rewarded with a call from a solicitor or some family friend who wanted to speak with someone other than me. In this case, a second cry would go out, "IT'S FOR YOU, MOM!" At which point the tension would double as I worried that whoever might be trying to reach me was on the receiving end of a busy signal. Voice mail in those days was someone else offering to take a message, and then forgetting to write it down. "Oh, Mom: Aunt Dorothy called yesterday. Something about the family picnic."
Meanwhile, when that connection was finally made, the most innocuous conversations were held between these proto-adults. Who did what to whom when and how was the customary starting point, with the standard reflection on what the eventual outcome of those events that would take up most of the discussion energy. And what would this mean to me? How would this affect my life?
For the most part, these conversations did little if anything to alter my life's course. However, once I had meandered on into my late twenties, and lived in a one bedroom apartment in which I had two phones, I took a call from the woman who would become my wife. I wondered if maybe I might find my way out to California to settle down with her. After some mildly tense negotiations, I arrived at my answer: "Why not?" When I finished that call and placed the handset back on the cradle, I did the happy dance. Neatly avoiding the cord.

I Am A Rock

The night before I reported to may last day of the 2017-2018 school year, I lay awake. That was not a surprise since I have spent many nights awake, wondering what the morrow might bring. Usually it is before the first day of school, not the last. I tend to fret about beginnings, but endings can be just as stressful.
Because of change. After twenty-one years, I can walk down a hall and attempt to generate a list in my head of all the teachers who have occupied this classroom or that. The names don't come as easily now as they once did. Many of them come from associations with another. Groups or grade levels are easier to assemble than individuals. More slots are opening for the Fall, and I will be that steady presence one more time. I know where the bodies are buried.
Not really. But I do know where the cases of paper clips that were ordered in excess ten years ago sit in a darkened closet under the stairs. I know that the upstairs rooms heat up more quickly in the afternoons. I have a history that can be traced back to the days when ours was a year-round school. But if anyone really wants to know what is going on, I send them to our cafeteria supervisor, who has an additional decade on me.
And somewhere in the middle of the night this image came to me: A rock in the middle of a fast moving stream. Students, staff and parents tumble past and I sit there, altering their flow just by my presence. Many times I have looked up and wondered if it wasn't time to pick myself up and wander downstream to see what is happening there.
But I don't need to seek out change. Change comes to those who sit and wait. It's relativity. A few years back, I was anxiously awaiting Christmas break, and mentioned this to our cafeteria supervisor. Her wisdom was easy to grasp: "You'll wake up and it will be January." And so it goes with this summer. I will wake up and it will be August. There will be ice breakers and introductions and new students and staff. I will wonder once again just what it is that keeps me stuck in this spot. The answer is easy enough: The view from here is the same as if I were doing all the moving. Elementary school is Brownian Motion, but there is order in the chaos. Order I can see just by holding still.

American Made

So, just how is that "get tough on immigration" plan going down Mexico way? The number of illegal crossings increased slightly in May, to nearly fifty-two thousand, according to figures released Wednesday by the Customs and Border Protection agency. That total includes eleven thousand five hundred sixty-eight people who came through legal ports of entry, some of whom were asking for asylum or other humanitarian protections under U.S. law. “These numbers show that while the Trump administration is restoring the rule of law, it will take a sustained effort and continuous commitment of resources over many months to disrupt cartels, smugglers, and nefarious actors,” wrote Tyler Houlton, press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. Tyler was also quick to point out that border arrests had increased one hundred sixty percent over May of last year. Good news?
Well, when you consider that this is an administration that has implemented a zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration, as well as enlisting the help of the National Guard to combat such nefarious activity, there doesn't seem to be much that stems the tide rolling. Another thing to consider is that those numbers remain low by historical standards. Border Patrol arrests stand at roughly two hundred fifty-two thousand so far for the fiscal year, which began in October. That would put them on track to exceed last year’s exceptionally low number of three hundred four thousand arrests, but the predicted yearly total would still represent only a quarter of the one point six million arrests recorded in 2000.  So, while there seems to be little to turn back the tide, that tide doesn't seem to be as horrible a problem as this administration would have us believe. 
Build a wall. Keep those murderers and rapists out of the country. Meanwhile, the walls in schools across the country could use a coat of paint and the murderers and rapists we have to deal with inside our own border are plenty to keep us busy, thank you very much. Maybe it's time to start looking at the real sources of those things that keep America from being Great. They should be pretty easy to find. They're right here. 

Missing

Somebody will ask: Will you miss any of them? And the truth is this: Not at first. When the fifth graders head out the door into a world filled with middle school and all the challenges that stand in front of them, I will breathe a sigh of relief. I hope that each and every one of them finds the education they need and deserve. I hope that they will remember the lessons that they learned here in elementary school: Be Safe. Be Responsible. Be Respectful. I hope they will continue to learn the lessons that we may have missed, or shortchanged. I hope they look back on their old school with humor and patience, like we tried to greet them all those years ago. But mostly that relief. It will only be a couple months before the new crop streams in and the adventure continues, much like it has for all these years before.
And I will miss Leon.
Leon was part of my after school group, Upward Roots. Made up of fourth and fifth graders, we met on Tuesdays after school to come up with a community service project over the course of ten weeks and turn it into action by working as a team. I knew Leon from the year before, when he came to our school as a fourth grader. Like many new students, his initial contacts were with adults, and he formed a quick bond with me, helping out on the playground, with a free-floating course of chatter that never kept him from finding that missing ball or fellow student in trouble.
By the time he became a fifth grader, he had installed himself as an integral part of the kitchen staff. Leon was there after lunch to help break down boxes and get them into the recycling dumpster. He never missed a day of helping out in the mornings with our breakfast in the classroom program. Without a grumble. Without a moan. He saw a need and he jumped in to fill it. Other kids came and went, their interests and patience tried by the repetitive nature of the work, but that didn't stop Leon. Those empty milk cartons weren't going to jump into the trash by themselves.
We didn't talk about it much, but I knew that Leon and his family sometimes struggled to make ends meet. That made it even more profound for me to hear him speak in Upward Roots about his wish to help the homeless. Sure, sometimes he talked about wanting a Nintendo Switch, or his phone, like all kids his age. But he also talked about the change he wanted to see in his world. Leon wanted the rest of the planet to be as hard-working and caring as he was.
I learned a lot from Leon. And I will miss him. I hope there will be more like him next year.

All That Winning

The reason our "President" invited Martin Truex Jr. to the White House has something to do with all the winning he did as NASCAR Cup Champion in 2017. If Martin's name doesn't immediately ring a bell, it could be that you are not part of the NASCAR fanbase. They are the ones who stand for the National Anthem, as do the drivers and pit crews. For this, they got to drive on the White House Lawn, and grab some selfies with the "good friend" of Bob France, the head of NASCAR. So much winning.
That was a few weeks ago. Earlier this week, America's biggest NASCAR fan rescinded his invitation to the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles. This came after the team suggested that a "smaller delegation" might make the trip. The equipment manager. Charlene from accounting. And that kid who picks up the coffee in the morning. It became clear that most of the Eagles, so named because of their fondness for seventies rock, had more pressing matters to which they needed to attend. Wide receiver Torrey Smith had this to say: ”For me, it’s not just about politics. If I told you that I was invited to a party by an individual I believe is sexist or has no respect for women or I told you that this individual has said offensive things towards many minority groups.… this individual also called my peers and my friends SOBs, you would understand why I wouldn’t want to go to that party. Why is it any different when the person has title of President of the United States?”
And some of them had to attend that thing, you know, that was happening on the same day. 
The players were not interested in participating in the kind of winning that takes place at this version of the White House. The really, really White House. And the "President," who was obviously still chapped by the owners unwillingness to fire the players who chose to continue their protest of the treatment of the aforementioned minority groups, decided to take back the invitation to give the appearance that he was somehow in control. This is the kind of winning with which he is familiar. It's not about inclusion. It's about exclusion. It's about walls. It's about firing. This is how he believes he will make America great again. 
Meanwhile, in sports, the NBA finals continue with the Cavaliers and the Warriors vying for a chance to have their invitation to the White House rescinded. 
Soc much winning. 

Loaded

It might be convenient to say that the reason I ended up reading the story about the FBI agent was because the dateline was Denver. I admit that I have a disposition toward checking out items that originate from the same state I did. Hence, I catch a lot of news that comes from the Centennial State.
That isn't why I read it.
You might also surmise that my interest in protecting our country from enemies foreign and domestic might bring me to reading up about the latest misadventures of our intelligence community. What would former director James Comey have said about this incident? Is this behavior consistent with the overall malaise of the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Nope.
I read the story because I honestly could not understand how an FBI agent shot someone while dancing. Not in a cool undercover way like Mel Gibson might have back when he was a Lethal Weapon, but in a really pretty stupid "What was going through your head?" kind of way that did not immediately allow understanding.
According to bystanders, one of whom was shot in the leg, the off-duty agent had just performed a handstand when his pistol fell out of his pocket onto the floor. At this point, the agent bent down to pick up the firearm and it went off. "Accidental discharge" is what they call it. Coincidentally, this is also one of the side-effects of Curactin. This tepid piece of choreography resulted in a non-life-threatening injury to the bar patron who probably hadn't counted on leaving the bar in an ambulance.
Which brings me to the real reason I read the story: What do guns and dancing have in common? There are dance clubs and there are gun clubs. Both seem to be covered by our Constitution, at least as far as the freedom of expression allows the Cabbage Patch. Keeping in mind that this was a trained and vetted individual who made the somewhat confounding choice of performing a handstand while carrying a gun in his waistband holster, it makes me wonder just how wrong this kind of thing could go in a place where concealed weapons were de regueur. It does make me wonder if the agent in question was wearing his Kevlar vest. That would have made doing a handstand even more challenging. Or maybe the rest of the crowd should have been issued bullet proof vests before the night's performance. 

Living In The Future

It took me about an hour to connect the wi-fi outlet to our network so I could shout into the ether, "Hey Google, turn on the Not." The Not is the name Ikea gave to the lamp we bought several years ago. My wife and I thought it was amusing enough to keep that name when it came time to robotize our household. We still have to flip some light switches and push some buttons. The dishes do not wash themselves. If I want a window open, I still have to lift that sash all by myself.

But I want to hear Ray Stevens singing "Gitarzan," I just have to yell in the direction of the doorknob shaped object at the front of our living room. I can ask it questions. If I want to know what time it is, or who that girl was in that episode of Scrubs, I ask Google. No typing. Just asking the doorknob. After I make sure that I have asked in a way that will make sense to the artificial intelligence that lives with us as long as the power stays on. 

I try hard not to think about the time I have spent connecting and wiring and making wireless connections and finding ways that this labor saving device could save me labor. Finding ways to amuse myself and others by asking this machine to respond to me in ways that feel clever. Then I have to remember that like all these bits, they are programmed in advance. My request to open the pod bay doors was anticipated by the artificial intelligences that preceded our know-it-all doorknob, but it still gave me a smile. And I try not to think about the rooms full of engineers it took to make that off the cuff silliness. All that energy and effort for the in-joke about the artificial intelligence that went crazy and killed all the astronauts in 2001.
Where is that labor-saving element again?
When I forget to phrase the request just so, or I want something that is not a pre-programmed response, I get a pre-programmed apology for the inadequacy of the response that has not (as yet) been programmed. Or sometimes I get some excuse about how the doorknob isn't able to connect to  the Internet. And guess who has to fix that?
A few minutes or an hour later, when our digital assistant is back online, we can get back to the stuff of life: Gitarzan. 

Letting The Air Out

The push pin on the floor should have given me a clue. In the past, it has almost always led to the same conclusion, but when I pushed my bike to the doors of school on that last full day of school, I should have expected a flat tire.
It is an established fact that teachers are not allowed to have favorites, even though they do. In the very same way we would never expect children to have favorite teachers, even though they do. Which is how moments like last Friday occur. This was by no means the first flat tire I have had in my borderline illustrious career as a teacher. I all but beg for such torment by leaving my bike in a corner of my classroom. Unattended. Most of the time it is a piece of furniture that does not concern people too short to climb aboard. Except when the perfect storm of pointy object, inflated tire, and issue with authority combine.
I remember the first time it happened. It was my second year teaching, and when I discovered the wheel resting on a flattened inner tube, I flew directly into detective mode: Who had access? Who had motivation? Who wanted to hurt me? So I questioned a bunch of students, and narrowed down the time during which the maleficence took place. It was a fifth grader who ratted on his friend. He cracked under the intense four minute interrogation. The culprit was troubled kid who just happened to be the son of one of the guys with whom I had worked at the book warehouse. I could not understand how such a terrible injustice could have been meted out to me, everyone's favorite teacher. 
Which is how I came to understand that I am not everyone's favorite teacher. I also discovered, over time, that even favorite teachers and students do things to one another that defy easy explanation. The nature of this dynamic can best be understood by understanding that both parties in this interaction are human beings, capable of doing horrible, rotten, inconsiderate things to one another. Sometimes purely by accident. 
Sticking a pin into a bike tire isn't something I would necessarily categorize as accidental, but by contrast I know that mispronouncing someone's name can be a terrible affront even though the intent was only to try and engender familiarity. And I know that occupying a certain level of authority makes me a pretty broad target for anyone's mild antipathy, especially that of a child who is struggling to form their neural pathways. Twenty years later, I have decided not to take such things personally. I know how to change a tire. I'm a grown up. 

Is It Okay To Shout C*** In A Crowded Movie House?

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, and other metaphors that ring of fairness. Samantha Bee, who is kind of a fixture in our household, said something pretty off-color on last week's broadcast. Which is no real surprise, since most every one of her broadcasts include an utterance or two that would make a drunken sailor blush. The difference this time was that she chose to target First Daughter and the symbol of all that is nepotism to hurl invective. Hers was essentially a more colorful version of the rant I recently had myself about her posting pictures of a cozy Sunday morning cuddle with her son while fifteen hundred refugee children had been misplaced.
So what's the problem?
First of all, it seems that Ms. Bee stepped across a line that had been pre-determined through years of politics: Don't mess with the kids. While steering clear of Barron Trump, for the most part, Ivanka has enjoyed some of the same cushy coverage that presidential offspring have generally experienced. This is in spite of the rather straightforward viciousness visited upon the two elder Trump sons. Even though Ivanka is an adult, with a job of some sort in the White House, she has generally avoided being a focal point for liberal rage. It's like one of those "unwritten rules" in baseball that get written about endlessly when they are broken. Samantha Bee ran right up to that line in the dirt, danced upon it, and then proceeded to hop merrily over it.
Recent events involving women comedians, like and including Rosanne Barr, have made this kind of indiscretion a fuse that has been lit and will continue to set off a series of media explosions until something more critical faces this great land of ours. Like the missing children or the undercurrent of racism and anger that seems to permeate so much of the discourse these days. America is a tough town.
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee remains that for the time being, with its titular host and a few less advertisers, and an apology from that titular host. Good enough? Not according to Ivanka's daddy, who wonders why Ms. Bee was not fired, a phrase he claims to have invented. So is the First Amendment strong enough to defend everyone in this matter? Between you and me, I prefer debates that center on this part of the bill of rights. Nobody has to get shot.

No Harm Asking

So here's what I have to say about that: Why not?
"That" would be television evangelist Jesse Duplantis would like your help in spreading the gospel, according to him. How can you help? You can become a "partner" by helping him purchase a fifty four million dollar jet. The Dassault Falcon 7X is a far cry from wandering the wilderness in sandals, but this is 2018. As the reverend himself suggested, “I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey. Think about it for a minute. He’d be in an airplane preaching the gospel all over the world. This plane was not designed for short hops and barnstorming, this technological marvel. It's got wi-fi. I suppose that's included for those moments when reception to the Lord Our God is sketchy. It seats up to nineteen, with plenty of room left for the father, the son and the holy ghost.
So, I return to my initial response: Why not? In a world in which the American "President" can insist that Mexico pay for a wall on their common border, this doesn't seem all that outrageous. The Reverend Jesse (not that one) is asking for help here. He is not demanding. He is praying for your assistance. 
It should be noted here that the Duplantis Ministries already has three private jets in its hangar. Two of them are being used by other servants of the Lord, and the Falcon 50 he owns currently is just not up to the task of spreading the Word anymore. ″[God] said, ‘I want you to believe me for a Falcon 7X,’” the evangelist said. “The first thing I thought of was how am I going to pay for it? And a great statement that he told me in 1978 flooded into my mind, and he said, ‘Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.’”
How about that for a business plan? Just believe in it. Let the rest of the world worry about sending in their nickels and dimes to make that belief a reality. Fellow preacher Kenneth Copeland defended their use of private jets in a television broadcast. Copeland, who was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board during the 2016 campaign, claims in the video that pastors use these private jets as a “sanctuary” where they can talk directly to God. 
And while they're up there, maybe they can find out about that wall. Just asking, right? 

The Many Lives Of Ms. Barr

Al Gore's Internet was congratulating itself on Tuesday for the cancellation of Roseanne. In case this is the only place you drop by on what must be a pretty lackluster surf of the 'net, Roseanne is the eponymous situation comedy based on the middle class lives of a middle class woman and her middle class family in middle class America. It was recently brought back from sit-com heaven to find a place on ABC's prime time schedule. It got huge ratings, and the somewhat more than middle class powers that be at the network watched as a rather conservative message got siphoned out into the airwaves through their auspices. After twenty years away from the tube, Roseanne was back.
And so were her "antics."
Way back when, 1988, ABC decided to take a chance on a brash comic voice with an "in your face" style that would challenge viewers. Roseanne Barr's somewhat meteoric rise turned into the kind of Hollywood Story that Hollywood Story would be happy to show in True form on E! Entertainment Television. Ms. Barr's tirades were taken in stride by a business that was used to that sort of thing, and was conscious of the potential double standard of putting a muzzle on a woman when men had been kicking up a similar fuss for decades without so much as a tug on the leash.
Until the whole thing just sort of collapsed in on itself, unable to contain the myth of a working class life within the bizarre looking glass of Hollyweird. For a decade, Roseanne traded on her infamy and "in your face style" to run for president as a Green Party candidate for a moment and then for the Peace and Freedom party. It was all a part of her "I will not be silenced" campaign, and she must have been happier than anyone to receive her very own Twitter account to spew whatever point of view she adopted at the moment.
All of which came to an abrupt end when she let fly with a racist slur of a Tweet directed at former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. This came as the folks at ABC were busy counting their Roesanne money, and for a moment it seemed as though things might have been show business as usual. 
Not this time. ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey, in a very few words, said, "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show." The following day, Roseanne blamed Ambien for her poor judgement. "I'm not a racist, just an idiot who made a bad joke." The jury is out on that one, but for now, so is Roseanne. 

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This

I don't know if anyone is going to ask me,but since I have my own blog I can pretend that someone did.
"What did you think of Solo: A Star Wars Story?"
I'm glad you asked. This is the Star Wars movie that everyone feared when Disney bought up all things Star Warsian. It delivers on the blockbuster tropes: Big, loud, and fast. Except not so much on that third one. It is fifteen minutes shorter than the Last Jedi, but it feels like it is half an hour longer. In an effort to cram in all the possible cliches and coincidences, the story lurches around in search of trivial bits to share with us. We who are the nerds who rushed out on the first weekend to see what Opie Cunningham had to bring to the canon.
Two hours and fifteen minutes later, the answer is: not much.
Yes. I grew up steeped in a pot of science fiction with ladles full of a galaxy far, far away. I read many of the spin-off novels and looked at all the schematics of the Millennium Falcon. I sat in my seat, transfixed, waiting for someone to tell me that I wouldn't have to wait a year to find out more about Darth Vader being Luke's father. But I did. And when they showed up and resolved the whole thing with Muppets and a bunch of Teddy Bears, I let it happen. Return of the Jedi let us all know that Han Solo wasn't such a bad guy after all. If the finale ended up looking a lot like the Star Wars Christmas Special, I let it go. Peace had been restored to that far, far away galaxy, and the Empire had been squashed once and for all.
Which is why I was confounded when George Lucas decided to make three new movies based on events that led up to that moment when Luke meets his godfather and they go off on some fool idealistic crusade. To those prequels, I can only say this: Jar Jar Binks. And if you read those words without a shiver going up your spine, feel fortunate, since the scars they left on me are everlasting.
Then someone decided to move the franchise forward. We were given the class reunion of The Force Awakens, and with it, Harrison Ford's insistence that Han Solo must die. And, spoiler alert, he got his wish.
So it became the mission of the machine called Disney to find a way to squeeze a few more dollars out of this flawed cad, a reluctant hero who had already been in four movies. Why not make a movie about when he was a little smuggler, stealing toys from other creatures in the intergalactic day care? Okay, so they didn't do that, but the beginning of the Solo saga tell us that the heart of gold that it took us years to discover was there all along. Surprise. And his buddy Chewbacca has been right by his side for most of those years. Because that's what we already know from watching Episode IV. And neither he nor his Wookiee pal are in any life-threatening danger, since they have to be around for the events that we know as The Rebellion. A lot of things blew up before then, and a lot of hearts were broken before Han showed up in that cantina in Mos Eisley. Sorry, but this is where I came in.
Now aren't you glad you asked?