Plane Crazy

This past weekend, Iran's armed forces shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border. I know what you're thinking: "Oh great, now the Iranians have our model plane technology." Well, that depends on how much blew up on impact. President "Members Only" Ahmadinejad unveiled Iran's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft in August 2010, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies. My suspicion is that the powers that be will probably want to detain the wreckage of the U.S. drone for as long as they can, holding the bits and pieces hostage until someone comes forward to pay their absurd demands for "bail."
All of this got me to thinking about just exactly what was at stake here. The U.S. had a spy plane shot down by a country that claims that they are not making nuclear weapons. Had the drone been blown up by a nuclear weapon, that would have been a pretty clear sign to our intelligence gatherers that they were on the right track. Since that didn't happen, we can only assume that there is something over there in Iran into which they would rather we weren't sticking our infidel noses. Fair enough, we're pretty tight with our secrets too. That's why I'm looking into just what the over-under is on our going to war with Iran. If there's going to be a shootin' war in the Middle East in the coming year, I want to get in on some of that defense contractor action. Papa needs a new unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.

To Bury Caesar

Okay, be honest: Would you really have wanted the leader of the free world to have running a pizzeria on his resume? "I'd like peace in the Middle East, a more understandable tax code, and can I get Crazy Bread with that?" Herman Cain didn't just run a pizzeria. He was Chief Executive Officer of Godfather's Pizza, the fifth largest pizza chain in the United States. While he has worked in and around politics for more than twenty years, he has never held public office. But it's really been the private offices that have been the issue for Mister Cain of late.
Like so many prominent leaders from John Edwards to Ashton Kutcher, Herman Cain had a problem with fidelity. The list goes on and on, including John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. Even Eisenhower had his indiscretions. These were powerful men, leaders. They have been elevated to that pinnacle of achievement wherein their likenesses appear on our coins, with the exception of Edwards and Kutcher. What I'm suggesting is that a lot of men who achieve lofty status seem to forget the lessons they learned about propriety in lieu of money, fame or power. Are you listening Newt?
And so we close the book on Herman Cain, the once and future second African American President of the United States. "Before you get discouraged, today I want to describe Plan B. . . . I am not going away. I will continue to be a voice for the people." That voice can be found on the Internet, the invention of another man who "drifted away" from his spousal commitment, Al Gore. The web site where multimillionaire and restaurant industry lobbyist Herman Cain will be holding forth can be found at TheCainSolutions.com. Order now and get a free two-liter bottle of your favorite soda.

It's In The Can

I make no bones about it: Ours is a Coke household, and while there may be an occasional Fresca or off-brand root beer that sneaks into the house from time to time, we are happy to support the secret formula from Atlanta exclusively. There have been times when, as a friend or party guest has shown up on our doorstep with a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, we have welcomed the other cola in as a matter of decorum, but it is never a conscious choice. There are, by contrast, a number of friends and family who hear that I am on my way to their house and consequently they rush out to grab a six pack of Coca-Cola just for me.
"You don't drink Diet Coke?" In a word, "No." In many more words, I don't choose to drink Coke because it will make me healthier, happier or change my life in any noticeable way. It may be a reaction to that Pepsi slogan that insisted that they were the choice of a new generation. I am not that generation. I rode through that whole "New Coke" nonsense with a certain measure of forgiveness, but was relieved when the regular, unleaded version reappeared.
That's why I had mixed feelings about the new white can. In spite of being the world's most recognizable brand, the Coca-Cola company takes little risks every holiday season with the paint on the side of their cans. Santa, or polar bears or snowflakes, they feel compelled to remind us all as we stock up for the high-carbonated-holiday season that we are buying something special. This is Coke with something wintry on the side. It tastes fresher. Colder. Coke-ier. But apparently this time they powers that be went too far. People were confused by the white can, because it looked a little too much like Diet Coke. Or didn't look enough like The Real Thing. Or it was just different and therefore scary. Again, we all remember New Coke. And Coke Zero. And all those other excuses for soda that is not Coke that we love. It's supposed to be a red can, with a white logo in that distinctive script. Otherwise it could be anything. Maybe something healthy, and that would be too terrifying for words. So imagine some gagging sound effects here.

Does It Hurt To Ask?

I had forgotten how long it was possible for a teenage boy to obsess on the vagaries of dating. Specifically, I have stood in wonder as I have borne witness to the struggle my son is waging against the forces of the high school social order in hopes of securing a date for the upcoming Winter Dance. He has fired endless salvos of text messages, as well as direct frontal assaults after class and at lunch. Still, she won't budge. He stands on the precipice of her ambivalence: "I'm not sure," she replies.
My wife and I have suggested that he could see if a bunch of his friends all wanted to go together, you know, as friends. But I have memory of the ancient history that is my own campaign to avoid going stag to a dance myself. If you showed up alone, or with your best pal, you had surrendered. You might as well have taken out a full page ad in the school newspaper trumpeting, "I don't have a date for the Winter Dance, and I don't expect to have one for the Spring Dance either." My old man experience tells me that this is far from a death sentence, and at the very least it would free one from the intense pressure of trying to get that special someone to acquiesce to the demands of going to a gymnasium and standing around for a few hours in the most uncomfortable way imaginable. And if you pay an additional twenty bucks, you can get a souvenir photo of this most memorable evening that you can cherish forever.
After going oh-for-five in my sophomore year, I managed to swing a date to the Homecoming dance with a cheerleader. As a point of clarification, she had only recently made the leap from being a flag girl in band to the upper strata of our caste system. I knew her when she was "just a flag girl." After the exquisite torment that was that evening, I spent the rest of the year chasing after that same girl, never fully comprehending that "I'll think about it," may have been the most polite way she could have responded to my tenacity.
In my senior year, I had it figured out, and after a mutually awkward Homecoming dance that year that turned out to be a mildly entertaining pas de deux between two people who probably wanted to be there with someone else, but I had a nice time. I missed the Christmas Dance that year, but by January I had secured the Holy Grail: A Girlfriend. I had a date for the rest of the social events of the year, and since she was a junior, I was assured a victory lap the following year, if I weren't too busy at college.
Well, as it turns out, I took a year off after I got out of high school and that meant I was available for every dance that year, as I struggled to maintain the relationship that would allow me to go to every dance that year. Was it worth it? Of course it was. I was living the dream, after all. The dream that burns deep inside my son's heart. I have tried to share some of my worldly experience with him, giving him suggestions of strategy and alternatives to the tireless texting and begging. His reply? "I'll think about it."

Target

First, the good news: Police in Oakland have not been dispatched over the past week to deal with protests, march or riots connected to the Occupy Movement. This is good news because those resources will be needed to deal with the bad news: Police searched for multiple suspects Tuesday after a gunbattle in a parking lot where a rap music video was being filmed left seven people wounded, including a one-year-old boy who was shot in the head.
I live in Oakland, so the phrases "multiple suspects" and "gun battle" don't make me flinch anymore. The one that stuck with me was "one-year-old boy." Up until recently, the definition of "innocent bystander" was the three-year-old boy who was killed in a drive-by shooting last August. Now we have a new standard.
Blame the parents who took their child to a rap video set? Blame rap music? Blame the tiny brain that sent the message to the trigger finger?
I wonder how a gangster consoles himself with the knowledge that he managed to kill a small child, a baby. Does that mind have abstract notions like "collateral damage" in it? Firing indiscriminately into a crowd does not constitute accidental shooting. The gun wasn't wandering through the parking lot by itself when it tripped on a pothole and went off. The idea of a "stray bullet" conjured up the image of a wandering pack of shells that roamed that particular neighborhood, and one of them just happened to find itself lodged in the head of a one-year-old. That's one more kid who'll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool, as the poet said.
One-year-old.

Chain Of Command

A friend of mine was soliciting my opinion on the current dust-up with Pakistan with the following phrase: "You work for the government, what do you think about it?" First of all, I very much appreciate the elevated level at which my thoughts are seen through that filter. As an public school teacher, I am in fact a member of that not-so-particular group of employees who are part of the great big machine that makes those kind of decisions: foreign policy, federal bailouts, school lunches. I am just a little further down that food chain, however, than Hilary Clinton.
To put my decision making capacity in perspective, the kind of choices I generally get are along the following lines: Do you think you can get the four square balls out of the store room? Yes, I think I can. Not much of a choice, actually. I live in a much more rhetorical world, like when we were trying to figure out where the rug for one of our first grade classes went. I was in on this process from the very beginning. Once the rug was located, another question came up: Who will put it back into the room? That would be me. Then came the trickier issue of trying to figure out how the floor of the first grade room became flooded and caused the rug to be soaked and consequently removed. It was a little like the story of the Little Red Hen. "Not I," said the classroom teacher when asked if she knew about the water being left running. "Not I," said the after school program staff. "Not I," said the night custodian. And so we were left with a mystery that was more in line with the abilities of CSI than elementary school employees.
At the end of the day, there was a clean rug on which the first graders could sit, and the water had been cleaned up so that there was only a clean floor to remind us of what had happened. And that's pretty much how I feel about Pakistan.

Bye Bye, News Guy

"I'm gonna write a little letter, Gonna mail it to my local DJ." That's what I thought last week when I woke up to the sound of the morning show. I wasn't a jumpin' little record I wanted my jockey to play. It was a letter of regret, a little note of reminisce. The news guy, Peter Finch, had taken his leave of the station. His was the second departure in the past couple of years that caused me to consider the noise my radio makes when I am awakened by it before the sun comes up. I grew accustomed to the way the new guy ran the show, but having Peter there was a settling influence for me. Now I feel the need to turn the dial and see what else is on.
This isn't because what I heard in his absence was so rude or objectionable, I had a link to the past with Peter. His eighteen years at KFOG roughly coincided with my entry into the Bay Area. He was the voice that came through the radio one morning when I was adjusting to the Pacific Time Zone: "Hey, haven't I heard that guy somewhere before?" It turns out that this was the same fellow who used to read the news and special features on the radio station I listened to back in Boulder, Colorado. Some of the sting of the unfamiliar was taken away by that connection. It was there, at the University of Colorado, that I had the good fortune to play on a Trivia Bowl team with him. It would make a better story to say that we won that year because of his innate knowledge of pop music, but he was a good all around player who helped us make it to the middle rounds, where he was able to answer the question, "Who was the first actor to posthumously win the best actor Oscar?"
That would be Peter Finch. who has gone on to pursue interests in the light of day. I miss the sound of his voice.