Feb. 07
I know you care, so here's the update: Only 634 days until the big day.
And you are going to hear something about it every single day from now until then. Six hundred-plus times. Whether you like it or not. Six hundred sound bites from Hillary and Mitt and Barack (is that the first name or the last? I forget) and maybe Newt and maybe John and the other John and a few from Rudolph and someone called Kucinich.
Six hundred days, 21 months, nearly two years to pat themselves on the back and pretend to be all things to all people. Two years. Think of your mission, think of high school, think of someone you know with a lingering illness if it helps you to put into perspective how long 21 months really is.
This is insane. And costly. And we are smarter than this. We don't need 24 months to decide whether or not we like Bill Richardson or not (yes, he is one of the declared candidates for president, 2008) or whether or not we trust Hilary Clinton (I'll let you put your own parenthetical thought here).
The ironic twist to this 600-day parade is that the longer these folks are exposed to the public eye and the longer the circus of media follows their every move, the less we actually know. Because the length of the campaign increases the likelihood that a candidate will say something stupid or say or do something that will separate themselves from some special interest group, the less they really say. Therefore, the less we know.
The candidates know that it is a statistical fact that the more times they are questioned, the more answers they give and the more times someone sticks a mini-tape recorder in their face, the chances increase they will make a faux pas or misstatement or offend someone. To cope, only trite slogans and well-crafted mini-bites will be spoken. Rather than substantive issues being examined, with detailed analysis and information being debated, the entire 600-day carousel will be reduced to snippets and nuggets, each getting smaller by the day. Expect 600 days of Pablum, not beef steaks.
The reason is, ultimately, because of the length of the campaign. And you and me -- the voter -- are the losers.
And think of the money spent. Flights to Peoria and stumping in Hannibal all have their attached costs and have to be paid for, as do the dozens of staff assistants and uncountable television and radio ads. Consider all the social programs, educational opportunities and charities, for heck sakes, that could benefit from the enormous amount of financial support these campaigns require.
Hillary is already going door to door in Iowa. Obama (is that a first name or a last? I forget) is already in New Hampshire. These local citizens are good, honest Americans that do not need a steady diet of Democrats and Republicans to know who they like. A handful of deep, issue-oriented speeches, a debate or two should do it. A couple of months would do it. I feel sorry for them.
And for some reason, state governments promote the extension of this problem by all clamoring to be the location of a "primary." Some egocentic desire to feel important drives this, I guess, because in their effort to make themselves important as New Hampshire these statewide primaries only extend the campaign further out on the front end. I don't want Utah to have a new, earlier-than-everyone-else presidential primary. Period.
Does anyone remember the convention process? Does anyone remember when it meant anything? The whole presidential election campaign process needs to be blown up and revamped. Getting rid of the hanging chads was only the first step.
Here's a plan, then: reduce the presidential campaign period to a manageable six months. Add no more state primaries on the front end, even trim a few, which would beef up the importance of the convention. Limit by dollar amount how much can be raised and, thus, how much can be spent, on a single campaign. Reduce the amount of federal support to presidential campaigns -- whatever you do, don't check the box on your taxes that gives $3 to support this nonsense. The media should point fingers at candidates who don't say anything and urge substantive debate by refusing to buy into the say-nothing sound-bite mentality.
And the positive results will be obvious: less corruption (the longer the campaign, the more need for money and the more "promises" that will be made to donors); a more intense debate of the issues; fewer tiresome negative advertising messages.
That alone should make us welcome a change.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
So, is language really a barrier?
Sept. 06
There are a two main cogs in this whole immigration reform wheel that I don't get.
The fence. And people whining.
Like either one is going to do any good.
Unless I'm missing something, the fence is like a wall. Didn't we learn anything from Berlin? Are we really thinking this will stop anything? Are we really that kind of people?
And if I hear one more person whining about how many Hispanics there are at Wal-Mart, I'm going to thump them with a foil-wrapped loaf of garlic bread. Yes, "they" have to shop and eat, too. This should not be a shock. And, yes, there are lots of "them." This should be no shock by now, either.
Again, I don't know what the long-term political answer is down there on the border -- and yes, there are several big questions that need to be answered under the heading of "immigration problems" -- but as I take a swipe at and break open the teetering pinata hanging above our heads, a couple of consistent thoughts about the issue spill out. Mind if I share a few of them?
I work at an institution of education, higher education at that. So if there are lots of "them" at Wal-Mart, why aren't they where I work? I don't see many.
We are basically into our third generation of Hispanic immigrants in Utah and the concept of going to college is still foreign to the Latino community. Now I am brushing with broad strokes here -- yes, there are exceptions to most generalities -- but it is not an exaggeration to say that Hispanics are not going to college. Twenty years ago, colleges braced for an anticipated onslaught and prepared "to get tanner," as the saying was then, but it hasn't happened.
In fact, USU felt a noticeable drop in admissions in Fall 2005 and one of the reasons blamed for the slide was that the number of students in Utah high schools that normally go to college declined, even though the total number of graduating seniors remained high. The total number was artificially high because of the every-increasing number of Hispanics students in Utah high schools whose education ended right there. College? Nada.
College is not a big deal to the Latino immigrant. In fact, high school barely is. Drop out rates for Hispanic teens -- especially girls -- is the second highest demographic, well above Anglos, and not just in Utah.
Why?
Well, fathers and mothers in immigrant families are more concerned about surviving day to day. Making money to help the family eat is much more of a concern than making an investment in college. Again, broad strokes here, but the statistics and individual life stories bear it out. A second reason is that the parents and grandparents of Latino students still aren't conversant in English. One educator -- a Latino -- told me that parents of Hispanic students don't hear from their kids about parent-teacher conferences, don't hear about problems their students might be having in school, just don't get involved in the school system because of the language barrier. And without the parental involvement, the average Hispanic student doesn't thrive, same as white students struggle without that support. It just happens much, much more often.
Utah high schools have also not gotten serious about the need to be Spanish conversant, even in English as a Second Language Classes. Daring districts that put Spanish-speaking teachers (dual language -- not Spanish-only) in classes dominated by Hispanic students have found that test scores soar. Students do much better. The goal of secondary education ought to be success, not forcing the immigrant students to catch a concept or two being taught in a new language. Come on — do what works.
Oops. I'm starting to whine and I hate that. So here are a few more random suggestions I think are better than a fence.
Universities have got to get serious about explaining -- not just recruiting for "diversity" sakes or token minority numbers -- the need for higher education to the Hispanic community. Get into lives early. Make it a heart-felt commitment, a long-term investment. Start in kindergarten, if needed. Nothing will change until this one thing changes. The Latino community will continue to put working two jobs ahead of education going to school, sending half of their money south of the border, and will continue to feel, act, live and learn in a more-impoverished condition than Anglos until they catch the vision of what education in America can do for them.
Universities also need to make a second language a requirement for an education degree. Yes, a requirement. Prospective teachers shouldn't graduate without it. What are we waiting for? Do we really believe this ethnic group is going to shrink in size? Do we really believe that waiting for them to learn English first is working? The ability to speak a second language as a teacher cannot be overestimated.
The education community (higher, secondary, both -- it really doesn't matter) also needs to get much more aggressive about helping the immigrant community learn English. It is critical that the parents of students be able to keep up with their students. Classes, mentoring, night school, neighborhood study sessions ... just biting the bullet and reaching out, realizing the benefits will be to the entire society, not just one immigrant family.
The Hispanic community has to stop isolating themselves and only seeking out their own kind. Be it soccer leagues, weekend activities, shopping or housing choices, Latinos also need to stop whining and realize their lives have changed. Whites are often blamed for not reaching out to immigrant families and for making only weak efforts to get beyond the superficial in an effort to help Latinos. Guess what? Hispanics can also be blamed for forming closed-in communities that are more comfortable only serving other Hispanics. They, too, need to make concerted, overt efforts to reach out and integrate into the Anglo community, making friends and asking for help.
And, yes, this means learning the language. With the same intensity as educators should feel to teach it, Latinos have got to learn their adopted language.
There is still more that needs to said on this issue, things about crime rates and self-policing, public relations, teen pregnancy and unwed mothers. Maybe later.
For now, I've got to go crack a few folks on the head with some French bread.
There are a two main cogs in this whole immigration reform wheel that I don't get.
The fence. And people whining.
Like either one is going to do any good.
Unless I'm missing something, the fence is like a wall. Didn't we learn anything from Berlin? Are we really thinking this will stop anything? Are we really that kind of people?
And if I hear one more person whining about how many Hispanics there are at Wal-Mart, I'm going to thump them with a foil-wrapped loaf of garlic bread. Yes, "they" have to shop and eat, too. This should not be a shock. And, yes, there are lots of "them." This should be no shock by now, either.
Again, I don't know what the long-term political answer is down there on the border -- and yes, there are several big questions that need to be answered under the heading of "immigration problems" -- but as I take a swipe at and break open the teetering pinata hanging above our heads, a couple of consistent thoughts about the issue spill out. Mind if I share a few of them?
I work at an institution of education, higher education at that. So if there are lots of "them" at Wal-Mart, why aren't they where I work? I don't see many.
We are basically into our third generation of Hispanic immigrants in Utah and the concept of going to college is still foreign to the Latino community. Now I am brushing with broad strokes here -- yes, there are exceptions to most generalities -- but it is not an exaggeration to say that Hispanics are not going to college. Twenty years ago, colleges braced for an anticipated onslaught and prepared "to get tanner," as the saying was then, but it hasn't happened.
In fact, USU felt a noticeable drop in admissions in Fall 2005 and one of the reasons blamed for the slide was that the number of students in Utah high schools that normally go to college declined, even though the total number of graduating seniors remained high. The total number was artificially high because of the every-increasing number of Hispanics students in Utah high schools whose education ended right there. College? Nada.
College is not a big deal to the Latino immigrant. In fact, high school barely is. Drop out rates for Hispanic teens -- especially girls -- is the second highest demographic, well above Anglos, and not just in Utah.
Why?
Well, fathers and mothers in immigrant families are more concerned about surviving day to day. Making money to help the family eat is much more of a concern than making an investment in college. Again, broad strokes here, but the statistics and individual life stories bear it out. A second reason is that the parents and grandparents of Latino students still aren't conversant in English. One educator -- a Latino -- told me that parents of Hispanic students don't hear from their kids about parent-teacher conferences, don't hear about problems their students might be having in school, just don't get involved in the school system because of the language barrier. And without the parental involvement, the average Hispanic student doesn't thrive, same as white students struggle without that support. It just happens much, much more often.
Utah high schools have also not gotten serious about the need to be Spanish conversant, even in English as a Second Language Classes. Daring districts that put Spanish-speaking teachers (dual language -- not Spanish-only) in classes dominated by Hispanic students have found that test scores soar. Students do much better. The goal of secondary education ought to be success, not forcing the immigrant students to catch a concept or two being taught in a new language. Come on — do what works.
Oops. I'm starting to whine and I hate that. So here are a few more random suggestions I think are better than a fence.
Universities have got to get serious about explaining -- not just recruiting for "diversity" sakes or token minority numbers -- the need for higher education to the Hispanic community. Get into lives early. Make it a heart-felt commitment, a long-term investment. Start in kindergarten, if needed. Nothing will change until this one thing changes. The Latino community will continue to put working two jobs ahead of education going to school, sending half of their money south of the border, and will continue to feel, act, live and learn in a more-impoverished condition than Anglos until they catch the vision of what education in America can do for them.
Universities also need to make a second language a requirement for an education degree. Yes, a requirement. Prospective teachers shouldn't graduate without it. What are we waiting for? Do we really believe this ethnic group is going to shrink in size? Do we really believe that waiting for them to learn English first is working? The ability to speak a second language as a teacher cannot be overestimated.
The education community (higher, secondary, both -- it really doesn't matter) also needs to get much more aggressive about helping the immigrant community learn English. It is critical that the parents of students be able to keep up with their students. Classes, mentoring, night school, neighborhood study sessions ... just biting the bullet and reaching out, realizing the benefits will be to the entire society, not just one immigrant family.
The Hispanic community has to stop isolating themselves and only seeking out their own kind. Be it soccer leagues, weekend activities, shopping or housing choices, Latinos also need to stop whining and realize their lives have changed. Whites are often blamed for not reaching out to immigrant families and for making only weak efforts to get beyond the superficial in an effort to help Latinos. Guess what? Hispanics can also be blamed for forming closed-in communities that are more comfortable only serving other Hispanics. They, too, need to make concerted, overt efforts to reach out and integrate into the Anglo community, making friends and asking for help.
And, yes, this means learning the language. With the same intensity as educators should feel to teach it, Latinos have got to learn their adopted language.
There is still more that needs to said on this issue, things about crime rates and self-policing, public relations, teen pregnancy and unwed mothers. Maybe later.
For now, I've got to go crack a few folks on the head with some French bread.
Is future technology worth worrying about?
If asked, my kids would say I spend way too much time worrying about mustard -- I have a couple dozen different kinds in the fridge and can't pass up a new one on the grocery store shelf. Spouse would say I worry too much about the Utah Jazz. And sprinkler heads.
Me, I think I'm starting to worry way too much about the future.
I'm getting a little like Ogden Nash, I guess, when he said: "Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long."
What got me all worked up this week -- yes, my hair-pulling reactions are getting about weekly, I would say -- was a lecture by a futurist who was describing several aspects of the Internet that are happening today. Futurist. That description on a business card or as an honest-to-gosh occupation or title gives me the giggles. Is there a soul among us who, when asked at age 9 what we wanted to be when we grew up, said, "futurist?"
I don't mean to make fun of him, mind you, because he undoubtedly is smarter than I am and makes more money that I do, but this deep thinker described a couple of ways the internet is changing relationships and normal -- or should I say common -- forms of communication. He was a marketer as well as a futurist, so he had half an eye on the old dollar sign, too.
His lecture just hit some iceberg tips, some highlights. Among them: A webgeek has rigged up a digital camera to "sense" when it should take a picture. This camera is worn constantly and is connected wirelessly to his web site. When someone walks within four feet of the camera, for example, it snaps a photo, as well as at other preprogrammed moments. He is also rigged up with a microphone, sending all interactions to his web site. If you want to, you can basically become this person, seeing all he sees, hearing all he hears, reading his innermost thoughts on his blog as he constantly updates his life.
Sounds a bit like a Jim Carrey movie, doesn't it, where everyone gets to participate in someone else's life, boring as it may be.
The lecture also discussed web sites where people live out an alternate reality. Web sites such as Second Life give people the chance to put on a false image -- they call it "a false personna, the real you, or someone you wish to be." But it's still false. These people play and shop and meet others in a virtual life.
There is even -- are you sitting down? -- a public relations firm that specializes in helping people get their message out in this FALSE world. Why would anyone think that a marketing message in a false world designed for pretend people would be true or accurate? Well, that question went unanswered.
Anyone who needs to adopt a false persona in a pretend world in order to have a relationship with another needs more than a web site -- they need a doctor with a nice couch to lay upon.
The discussion also touched on the concept of the World Wide Mind. In a nutshell, this is the futurist's label for the melding of human mind and computer technology. As evidenced in a recent PBS documentary, those involved can describe "personal imaging technologies" and "man-machine interfacing," not to mention speculating on the future ability of man to "communicate directly with more than just words, but with thoughts and feelings."
There is more than one road that leads to the WWM and some of the "simpler" trails have already been hiked. Using wires and electrodes and sensitive monitoring equipment, patients with "locked in syndrome" are able to have words, responses, thoughts displayed on a computer screen. These are patients -- almost coma-like -- with brain injuries that allow them to take in data but are unable to communicate. They can communicate by thinking. And this is happening today.
At NYU, experiments are underway to weave what they call "nanowires" into human brain which will bring about the wireless communication of thoughts and intentions and feelings between people. Communication with words would with this technology be considered inefficient, slow, incomplete. Words? Like, that's so 21st Century!
Futurists suggest this will lead to a more perfect world, because, as one WWM researcher says, "We won't be just walking a mile in someone else's shoes. We will be walking a mile in their brains. We will understand their pain, their yearnings, their fear, and not because we are told, but we understand it directly. We will truly become much better people."
You will be able to go to the beach and never move from your recliner. You will feel the wind, be warmed by the sun, smell the surf and have feelings of comfort and love, because all of that can be programmed into your brain and in a way that allows you to experience it, not just read about it or look at a picture of it.
Hmmm. What am I thinking right now?
If I may wax philosophical, using only ineffective words: Many believe that there will one day come a great judgement, where a person will be judged, not just for their deeds but by their deeds. Some even say a person's thoughts will be part of such a judgement. Doesn't sound so far fetched, does it? Guys at NYU figure to be doing it by 2030.
Some point to the trials of Pilgrims and pioneers and note how easy we have it today. Programmed minds? Communicating by thoughts and feelings? Implanted chips to help us have feelings of empathy? Sorry, but the pioneers had it easy.
I guess Ogden Nash and I better figure out how to program that darn VCR, eh? The Jazz might be on tonight.
Me, I think I'm starting to worry way too much about the future.
I'm getting a little like Ogden Nash, I guess, when he said: "Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long."
What got me all worked up this week -- yes, my hair-pulling reactions are getting about weekly, I would say -- was a lecture by a futurist who was describing several aspects of the Internet that are happening today. Futurist. That description on a business card or as an honest-to-gosh occupation or title gives me the giggles. Is there a soul among us who, when asked at age 9 what we wanted to be when we grew up, said, "futurist?"
I don't mean to make fun of him, mind you, because he undoubtedly is smarter than I am and makes more money that I do, but this deep thinker described a couple of ways the internet is changing relationships and normal -- or should I say common -- forms of communication. He was a marketer as well as a futurist, so he had half an eye on the old dollar sign, too.
His lecture just hit some iceberg tips, some highlights. Among them: A webgeek has rigged up a digital camera to "sense" when it should take a picture. This camera is worn constantly and is connected wirelessly to his web site. When someone walks within four feet of the camera, for example, it snaps a photo, as well as at other preprogrammed moments. He is also rigged up with a microphone, sending all interactions to his web site. If you want to, you can basically become this person, seeing all he sees, hearing all he hears, reading his innermost thoughts on his blog as he constantly updates his life.
Sounds a bit like a Jim Carrey movie, doesn't it, where everyone gets to participate in someone else's life, boring as it may be.
The lecture also discussed web sites where people live out an alternate reality. Web sites such as Second Life give people the chance to put on a false image -- they call it "a false personna, the real you, or someone you wish to be." But it's still false. These people play and shop and meet others in a virtual life.
There is even -- are you sitting down? -- a public relations firm that specializes in helping people get their message out in this FALSE world. Why would anyone think that a marketing message in a false world designed for pretend people would be true or accurate? Well, that question went unanswered.
Anyone who needs to adopt a false persona in a pretend world in order to have a relationship with another needs more than a web site -- they need a doctor with a nice couch to lay upon.
The discussion also touched on the concept of the World Wide Mind. In a nutshell, this is the futurist's label for the melding of human mind and computer technology. As evidenced in a recent PBS documentary, those involved can describe "personal imaging technologies" and "man-machine interfacing," not to mention speculating on the future ability of man to "communicate directly with more than just words, but with thoughts and feelings."
There is more than one road that leads to the WWM and some of the "simpler" trails have already been hiked. Using wires and electrodes and sensitive monitoring equipment, patients with "locked in syndrome" are able to have words, responses, thoughts displayed on a computer screen. These are patients -- almost coma-like -- with brain injuries that allow them to take in data but are unable to communicate. They can communicate by thinking. And this is happening today.
At NYU, experiments are underway to weave what they call "nanowires" into human brain which will bring about the wireless communication of thoughts and intentions and feelings between people. Communication with words would with this technology be considered inefficient, slow, incomplete. Words? Like, that's so 21st Century!
Futurists suggest this will lead to a more perfect world, because, as one WWM researcher says, "We won't be just walking a mile in someone else's shoes. We will be walking a mile in their brains. We will understand their pain, their yearnings, their fear, and not because we are told, but we understand it directly. We will truly become much better people."
You will be able to go to the beach and never move from your recliner. You will feel the wind, be warmed by the sun, smell the surf and have feelings of comfort and love, because all of that can be programmed into your brain and in a way that allows you to experience it, not just read about it or look at a picture of it.
Hmmm. What am I thinking right now?
If I may wax philosophical, using only ineffective words: Many believe that there will one day come a great judgement, where a person will be judged, not just for their deeds but by their deeds. Some even say a person's thoughts will be part of such a judgement. Doesn't sound so far fetched, does it? Guys at NYU figure to be doing it by 2030.
Some point to the trials of Pilgrims and pioneers and note how easy we have it today. Programmed minds? Communicating by thoughts and feelings? Implanted chips to help us have feelings of empathy? Sorry, but the pioneers had it easy.
I guess Ogden Nash and I better figure out how to program that darn VCR, eh? The Jazz might be on tonight.
Is this next year going to be worth the risk?
Dec. 27, 2004
It was one of those little one-sentence stories that pops up on the bottom of the CNN Headline News newscast. There was just enough info to make you say, “What?” or “You gotta be kiddin’ me.” So I checked it out and found out it was so:
Australian cowboys may, in fact, be required to wear helmets instead of traditional cowboy hats following the death of a cowhand falling from a horse.
More details (pretend you’re seeing on a the “crawl” just underneath the pretty face of a CNN anchor, if that helps): The New South Wales state government has charged a ranch owner with breaches of safety, fining him $72,000, and ordering him to provide “:equestrian helmets.” Cowboys and farmer’s cooperatives are fighting the safety laws, saying substituting helmets would increase the hazards of sun sroke and skin cancer. “The stockman’s hat is an icon of Austrailia,” a leader of the cowboys says. “You can’t replace it with an ice-cream bucket on the heat. Being a bushman myself, we’re not going to wear anything that doesn’t look good.”
OK. Picturing rough-and-tumble cowboys wearing skateboard helmets is a bit of a tickle, but hidden in the midst of this story is the concept of acceptable. risk. The cowboys -- including the one who was fatally injured -- understood and accepted the risk that accompanied getting on a horse and herding cows. Accidents from out of left field are one thing -- and, yes, they are plentiful, tragic and many should be examined for cause -- but this specific possibility of injury caught no one by surprise. It was an acceptable risk.
We understand this. We analyze the concept of acceptable risk every day on several levels of our lives.
We understand that if we elect a fireball new governor, we accept the risk that he might call for an examination of Utah’s liquor laws. Well, some Republicans didn’t understand that risk, but most did.
We take the risk that if we re-elect the president, he can catch us by surprise and clean house, wiping out nearly his entire cabinet. We run the risk of losing Colin Powell and keeping Donald Rumsfeld. Oops, you lose.
If we settle in a soft couch and grab the remote, we take the risk that “Return to Gilligan’s Island,” or “The Swan” might be on. Boy, and we thought sitcoms were bad.
If we get strapped into a dentist’s chair in December, we take the risk that only country-western Christmas carols will be piped in, furthering the torture. If we go shopping in a overly-busy mall the week before Christmas, and we make arrangements with a wife and daughter to meet them at what one would think would be an easy-to-figure-out location, we take the risk that the location will be forgotten or confused or watches will not be watched and someone will be left waiting in a cold car for, oh, say, 90 minutes. It’s a risk.
OK. Maybe those last two were a little too personal.
If we feel a hard sneeze coming on and we decide to hold it in and not make a big public noise, we accept the risk of injuring a body part. Now, this didn’t used to be an issue when I was, ahem, younger, but one day last week I tried silencing two sneaky sneezes and strained a before-undiscovered muscle in my abdomen and tweaked a shoulder blade. It’s a risk. Be warned.
If we rent a DVD these days, we take the risk that it will be the “unrated version.” What’s this all about? Movies are no longer movies, no longer subject to ratings scrutiny once they are on DVD? Who’s idea was this? Looks like just one more excuse for the Left Coast to the push the envelope and push it right into your home. Be warned.
It you get excited about doing genealogy, you run the risk of finding stories about all of your relatives, not just the good ones.
If you eat pastachios too fast, you run the risk of woofing down that nasty one the comes along every so often.
If you try not to offend anyone, not a single, solitary soul, you run the risk of satisfying no one. Maybe you heard that Denver officials recently changed the traditional Christmas Parade to a Holiday parade, citing concerns of not offending those who might not be Christian. No nativities or wise men or carols of Bethlehem allowed. Now, call me crazy, but in a city the size of Denver I suspect the non-Christians probably know that Christians celebrate Christmas. They are probably used to it by now. Christians hear about Ramadan and Hannukah and even the Chinese New Year and most don’t feel the need to stop it or change the celebrations. I guess some decision-makers’ policies of non-offensive behavior still confuse me sometimes. Isn’t understanding our differences what diversity is all about?
Finally, you just get through one year and, be danged, if you don’t run the risk of starting another one.
But, it’s an acceptable risk, don’t you think?
It was one of those little one-sentence stories that pops up on the bottom of the CNN Headline News newscast. There was just enough info to make you say, “What?” or “You gotta be kiddin’ me.” So I checked it out and found out it was so:
Australian cowboys may, in fact, be required to wear helmets instead of traditional cowboy hats following the death of a cowhand falling from a horse.
More details (pretend you’re seeing on a the “crawl” just underneath the pretty face of a CNN anchor, if that helps): The New South Wales state government has charged a ranch owner with breaches of safety, fining him $72,000, and ordering him to provide “:equestrian helmets.” Cowboys and farmer’s cooperatives are fighting the safety laws, saying substituting helmets would increase the hazards of sun sroke and skin cancer. “The stockman’s hat is an icon of Austrailia,” a leader of the cowboys says. “You can’t replace it with an ice-cream bucket on the heat. Being a bushman myself, we’re not going to wear anything that doesn’t look good.”
OK. Picturing rough-and-tumble cowboys wearing skateboard helmets is a bit of a tickle, but hidden in the midst of this story is the concept of acceptable. risk. The cowboys -- including the one who was fatally injured -- understood and accepted the risk that accompanied getting on a horse and herding cows. Accidents from out of left field are one thing -- and, yes, they are plentiful, tragic and many should be examined for cause -- but this specific possibility of injury caught no one by surprise. It was an acceptable risk.
We understand this. We analyze the concept of acceptable risk every day on several levels of our lives.
We understand that if we elect a fireball new governor, we accept the risk that he might call for an examination of Utah’s liquor laws. Well, some Republicans didn’t understand that risk, but most did.
We take the risk that if we re-elect the president, he can catch us by surprise and clean house, wiping out nearly his entire cabinet. We run the risk of losing Colin Powell and keeping Donald Rumsfeld. Oops, you lose.
If we settle in a soft couch and grab the remote, we take the risk that “Return to Gilligan’s Island,” or “The Swan” might be on. Boy, and we thought sitcoms were bad.
If we get strapped into a dentist’s chair in December, we take the risk that only country-western Christmas carols will be piped in, furthering the torture. If we go shopping in a overly-busy mall the week before Christmas, and we make arrangements with a wife and daughter to meet them at what one would think would be an easy-to-figure-out location, we take the risk that the location will be forgotten or confused or watches will not be watched and someone will be left waiting in a cold car for, oh, say, 90 minutes. It’s a risk.
OK. Maybe those last two were a little too personal.
If we feel a hard sneeze coming on and we decide to hold it in and not make a big public noise, we accept the risk of injuring a body part. Now, this didn’t used to be an issue when I was, ahem, younger, but one day last week I tried silencing two sneaky sneezes and strained a before-undiscovered muscle in my abdomen and tweaked a shoulder blade. It’s a risk. Be warned.
If we rent a DVD these days, we take the risk that it will be the “unrated version.” What’s this all about? Movies are no longer movies, no longer subject to ratings scrutiny once they are on DVD? Who’s idea was this? Looks like just one more excuse for the Left Coast to the push the envelope and push it right into your home. Be warned.
It you get excited about doing genealogy, you run the risk of finding stories about all of your relatives, not just the good ones.
If you eat pastachios too fast, you run the risk of woofing down that nasty one the comes along every so often.
If you try not to offend anyone, not a single, solitary soul, you run the risk of satisfying no one. Maybe you heard that Denver officials recently changed the traditional Christmas Parade to a Holiday parade, citing concerns of not offending those who might not be Christian. No nativities or wise men or carols of Bethlehem allowed. Now, call me crazy, but in a city the size of Denver I suspect the non-Christians probably know that Christians celebrate Christmas. They are probably used to it by now. Christians hear about Ramadan and Hannukah and even the Chinese New Year and most don’t feel the need to stop it or change the celebrations. I guess some decision-makers’ policies of non-offensive behavior still confuse me sometimes. Isn’t understanding our differences what diversity is all about?
Finally, you just get through one year and, be danged, if you don’t run the risk of starting another one.
But, it’s an acceptable risk, don’t you think?
Coming out of a coma, what will have changed?
Mixed in with all the wars and rumors of wars this past month was a fascinating little news item from Poland. Nineteen years after being injured in a railway yard which resulted in his falling into a coma, a 65-year-old man woke up. He reportedly was surprised about the fall of Communism, cell phones and "how beautiful everything is."
There are some sources that now claim he was only in a coma for four years and wheelchair-found for the rest of the time, his wife and family exaggerating the whole scenario. Who knows? It was Poland, after all. Maybe four years there feels like 19.
More precisely documented was an Arkansas man, who, in 2003 woke up from a coma — also 19 years, oddly enough. Injured in a car accident, 39-year-old Terry Wallis' first words were: "Mom, Pepsi." Here's a man with this priorities straight.
Comas are kind of a mystery, aren't they? Some who wake up claim vague recollections of what went on. Others were totally blank. We don't quite know where coma patients go when they aren't here. There is a coma prayer list on the Web and one person has been comatose for 29 years, the family still hoping for a miracle.
Nineteen years. That's almost Rip Van Winkle-like. What would we pick out as the the biggest changes in 19 years if we awoke after falling into a coma tonight? Here's what I think the world will be like when I wake up and ask for a cold soda pop in 19 years.
Voters are so pleased with Fred Thompson, after his two successful terms as president, that electing actors has become the norm. First Ronald Reagan, then Thompson, and in 2026, the Geico caveman will be completing his second term in office. Mitt Romney is vice president, now a lifetime position given to him after saving the 2016 Chicago Summer Olympics from financial ruin, even though the entire state of Tennessee still doesn't think he is Christian.
I will have missed 19 Super Bowls (the date for which is now a national holiday), 18 of which were so boring as to induce comas in some others.
With the exception of local news programming, television is now 100 percent "reality" TV. Every third person in the nation has been on television for one of these shows. Even comatose people, such as myself, were featured for 12 weeks on a reality show called "American Idle." The local news is still about 35 minutes in length, but now the talking torsos only constantly refer you to their web site and plays 28 consecutive car commercials. Not much change, really.
There are only 11 people left in the United States who smoke. All others have been shamed into stopping. However, there are millions of people hooked on Nicotine gum and they cannot chew it within 25 feel of any public building.
Men's disposable razors will now have 16 blades. Everyone in the state of Utah will belong to one huge Amway pyramid and only one guy in Orem will be making any money from it.
Professional hot dog eaters have gone by the wayside -- most of them dying of what was called "preservative poisoning," but there are now yearly competitions to see who can eat the most celery.
Google now owns all three major broadcasting networks, four major news magazines and the New York Stock Exchange. NASA is considering a bid by Google to rename Earth to "Google Earth." Google is not limited to just giving us a satellite picture of our housetop, you see, but with Google Family Room you can see into people's homes and Google Fridge allows you to see what's for supper before you leave the office. One Congressman is promising legislation to block the release of Google Shower.
The movies "Green Mile," "Shawshank Redemption" and "Braveheart" are still playing every weekend on TNT-Google. The top movie in the nation's theaters is "Oceans 15."
Road construction on I-15 will be ongoing.
Real Salt Lake will still be looking for their first winning season. They will also still be looking to break even. Some will vaguely remember that two studies back in 2006 and 2007 showed that the RSL complex would never make money, but, gosh, nobody can remember that far back.
Dick Nourse will finally retire. A child in Seattle will actually be born with iPod ear buds in her ears. Rocky Anderson will die of a heart attack while marching with a hand-written sign during his 10-year-long one-man protest of the Sky Bridge over Main Street in Salt Lake City. Several dozen people walking across the popular bridge see him fall to the ground, but just assumed it was another of his ongoing efforts to get Del Loy Hansen in trouble.
Cell phones will be used to unlock cars, activate vending machines, provide keyless entry into homes, watch movies, buy and sell stock, listen to music, keep calendars, have a taser option, calculate trigonometry problems, project holographic images of those receiving phone calls and to give GPS information on anyone in the world at any time. But they still won't work in Franklin County, Idaho.
Even though a PG or G-rated movie has not been made in six years, Hollywood directors will still maintain the rising sexual activity rate of teens and preteens and the increase in school violence has nothing to do with them.
Schools no longer teach "handwriting." Instead, most elementary students can text 55 words a minute by the third grade.
And road construction on I-15 will be ongoing. Gee, it's 2026. Where's my personal jet pack?
There are some sources that now claim he was only in a coma for four years and wheelchair-found for the rest of the time, his wife and family exaggerating the whole scenario. Who knows? It was Poland, after all. Maybe four years there feels like 19.
More precisely documented was an Arkansas man, who, in 2003 woke up from a coma — also 19 years, oddly enough. Injured in a car accident, 39-year-old Terry Wallis' first words were: "Mom, Pepsi." Here's a man with this priorities straight.
Comas are kind of a mystery, aren't they? Some who wake up claim vague recollections of what went on. Others were totally blank. We don't quite know where coma patients go when they aren't here. There is a coma prayer list on the Web and one person has been comatose for 29 years, the family still hoping for a miracle.
Nineteen years. That's almost Rip Van Winkle-like. What would we pick out as the the biggest changes in 19 years if we awoke after falling into a coma tonight? Here's what I think the world will be like when I wake up and ask for a cold soda pop in 19 years.
Voters are so pleased with Fred Thompson, after his two successful terms as president, that electing actors has become the norm. First Ronald Reagan, then Thompson, and in 2026, the Geico caveman will be completing his second term in office. Mitt Romney is vice president, now a lifetime position given to him after saving the 2016 Chicago Summer Olympics from financial ruin, even though the entire state of Tennessee still doesn't think he is Christian.
I will have missed 19 Super Bowls (the date for which is now a national holiday), 18 of which were so boring as to induce comas in some others.
With the exception of local news programming, television is now 100 percent "reality" TV. Every third person in the nation has been on television for one of these shows. Even comatose people, such as myself, were featured for 12 weeks on a reality show called "American Idle." The local news is still about 35 minutes in length, but now the talking torsos only constantly refer you to their web site and plays 28 consecutive car commercials. Not much change, really.
There are only 11 people left in the United States who smoke. All others have been shamed into stopping. However, there are millions of people hooked on Nicotine gum and they cannot chew it within 25 feel of any public building.
Men's disposable razors will now have 16 blades. Everyone in the state of Utah will belong to one huge Amway pyramid and only one guy in Orem will be making any money from it.
Professional hot dog eaters have gone by the wayside -- most of them dying of what was called "preservative poisoning," but there are now yearly competitions to see who can eat the most celery.
Google now owns all three major broadcasting networks, four major news magazines and the New York Stock Exchange. NASA is considering a bid by Google to rename Earth to "Google Earth." Google is not limited to just giving us a satellite picture of our housetop, you see, but with Google Family Room you can see into people's homes and Google Fridge allows you to see what's for supper before you leave the office. One Congressman is promising legislation to block the release of Google Shower.
The movies "Green Mile," "Shawshank Redemption" and "Braveheart" are still playing every weekend on TNT-Google. The top movie in the nation's theaters is "Oceans 15."
Road construction on I-15 will be ongoing.
Real Salt Lake will still be looking for their first winning season. They will also still be looking to break even. Some will vaguely remember that two studies back in 2006 and 2007 showed that the RSL complex would never make money, but, gosh, nobody can remember that far back.
Dick Nourse will finally retire. A child in Seattle will actually be born with iPod ear buds in her ears. Rocky Anderson will die of a heart attack while marching with a hand-written sign during his 10-year-long one-man protest of the Sky Bridge over Main Street in Salt Lake City. Several dozen people walking across the popular bridge see him fall to the ground, but just assumed it was another of his ongoing efforts to get Del Loy Hansen in trouble.
Cell phones will be used to unlock cars, activate vending machines, provide keyless entry into homes, watch movies, buy and sell stock, listen to music, keep calendars, have a taser option, calculate trigonometry problems, project holographic images of those receiving phone calls and to give GPS information on anyone in the world at any time. But they still won't work in Franklin County, Idaho.
Even though a PG or G-rated movie has not been made in six years, Hollywood directors will still maintain the rising sexual activity rate of teens and preteens and the increase in school violence has nothing to do with them.
Schools no longer teach "handwriting." Instead, most elementary students can text 55 words a minute by the third grade.
And road construction on I-15 will be ongoing. Gee, it's 2026. Where's my personal jet pack?
Bad decisions cause the dominoes to fall in Duke case
There were two related news events this past month, and as I watched both transpire, I couldn't help but think of dominoes. No, not the game so much, but a gymnasium filled with dominoes standing side by side, making intricate patterns and swoops and swirls Maybe you've seen this on TV or perhaps you have been involved in setting up hundreds, maybe thousands of dominoes and watching them fall.
After one gentle push, the whole scene changes, each domino being totally and fundamentally affected by the one on either side — no longer able to stand independently once the chain of events is underway.
As for the news items, here was the president of Duke University falling all over himself apologizing to the families of lacrosse team players for the anguish they have been through the past year. Apologizing to parents, on behalf of the university, because their children got drunk and phoned some strippers to come to their house. Oh, the apology wasn't worded that way, mind you, but that was one of the things that I couldn't help but hear.
The second event was days later when three of the aforementioned lacrosse team players announced they are suing the city of Durham, N.C., the police of that city and the city prosecutors for $30 million in a "malicious prosecution" lawsuit.
Let's hit some highlights of this quagmire.
Duke is a predominately white university in a racially mixed community and state, a private college, an expensive college. Duke students are often thought to be rich, coddled, and possessing a higher-than-thou attitude. The lacrosse team is often nationally ranked and 18 months ago was ranked first or second in the nation by most athletic pollsters. Lacrosse players are, well, a big men on campus, known by all and idolized in a way football players might be at a Texas university or star basketball players might be at UCLA.
Several players on the team decided to have a big party at their house, complete with plenty of booze, though many were underage. The house was rented by co-captains of the team. Key point here: some players stayed, some left as the night wore on (for varying reasons), and some on the team were never there. Second key point: the three key players are 20, 20 and 23 years old.
One of these brilliant 20-year-olds had the brilliant idea to phone in some strippers that could visit the residence. Those strippers happened to be black. All team members remaining at the party happened to be white. One of the black strippers had a history of alcohol and drug issues and, in fact, was thought by many -- both on- and off-campus who saw her that night -- to be tipsy at the very least, drunk at the most.
The district attorney for the city was in a political position, that is, he had to run for office and an election was upcoming. Many feel that a so-called big case was something the attorney felt would keep his name in people's/voters' minds. It has also been noted that Mike Nifong, the attorney, could woo black voters by taking a strong stand in a case that had overtones of racial inequity.
The young woman who worked the party as a stripper said she was raped at the end of the party. Nifong announced openly and publically that "a rape had definitely occurred' and he was prosecuting the case of assault against the stripper. Three players were picked out as principals. DNA and other evidence was taken from all the team.
A few days later, a group of Duke professors -- often referred to as The Group of 88 -- took out a full-page ad in the Duke Chronicle, a bold headline at the top asking, "What Does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" The ad was filled with anonymous viewpoints regarding the apparent rape incident. To this date, no one has taken full responsibility or credit for the ad, though it was apparently paid for by the African-American Studies program on campus.
Many picketed for weeks with signs that said "Castrate lacrosse" and "It's time to confess." Some lacrosse players had to take classes from professors that participated in pickets and the full-page ad.
Now that the case has been thrown out -- with the stripper unable to identify any player in a lineup, with DNA evidence exonerating the team and with the attorney losing his job and future -- some of these professors are saying the ad was really just about violence against women in general. Others on campus are noting that the signs and the ads should have said, "Let the justice system work," rather than the seeming mad rush to find guilt over innocence. Professors are lambasting professors.
The lacrosse coach -- though not at the party and unaware of its escalation -- was fired by the university president. The president is now taking lots of heat for not supporting his students and adding to the mob rush to guilt. After the rape case was thrown out of court, the coached reached a financial settlement with the university for wrongful loss of job, but is also considering a major lawsuit.
Lacrosse team players have reported that job interviews have mysteriously been cancelled once their former affiliation becomes known.
And that, frankly, is the one piece in this whole ugly pattern of falling dominoes that I feel for -- the kid who wasn't even there. The one who made the right choice based on a personal value system of right and wrong. He won't have a university president apologize to his parents and he won't earn a thin, silver dime from the lawsuit or from the movie likely to be coming down the pike (yes, HBO has purchased the movie rights to the "story").
As all the black and white dominoes fall, touching and pushing the next poor domino in the row down with it, soon there are none left standing. There are no winners, just a mess of dominoes that someone has to pick up.
But I keep looking back to the beginning, to three kids that nudged that first little teeny domino with a couple of teeny bad decisions, who have been exonerated as "innocent," but are far from it.
After one gentle push, the whole scene changes, each domino being totally and fundamentally affected by the one on either side — no longer able to stand independently once the chain of events is underway.
As for the news items, here was the president of Duke University falling all over himself apologizing to the families of lacrosse team players for the anguish they have been through the past year. Apologizing to parents, on behalf of the university, because their children got drunk and phoned some strippers to come to their house. Oh, the apology wasn't worded that way, mind you, but that was one of the things that I couldn't help but hear.
The second event was days later when three of the aforementioned lacrosse team players announced they are suing the city of Durham, N.C., the police of that city and the city prosecutors for $30 million in a "malicious prosecution" lawsuit.
Let's hit some highlights of this quagmire.
Duke is a predominately white university in a racially mixed community and state, a private college, an expensive college. Duke students are often thought to be rich, coddled, and possessing a higher-than-thou attitude. The lacrosse team is often nationally ranked and 18 months ago was ranked first or second in the nation by most athletic pollsters. Lacrosse players are, well, a big men on campus, known by all and idolized in a way football players might be at a Texas university or star basketball players might be at UCLA.
Several players on the team decided to have a big party at their house, complete with plenty of booze, though many were underage. The house was rented by co-captains of the team. Key point here: some players stayed, some left as the night wore on (for varying reasons), and some on the team were never there. Second key point: the three key players are 20, 20 and 23 years old.
One of these brilliant 20-year-olds had the brilliant idea to phone in some strippers that could visit the residence. Those strippers happened to be black. All team members remaining at the party happened to be white. One of the black strippers had a history of alcohol and drug issues and, in fact, was thought by many -- both on- and off-campus who saw her that night -- to be tipsy at the very least, drunk at the most.
The district attorney for the city was in a political position, that is, he had to run for office and an election was upcoming. Many feel that a so-called big case was something the attorney felt would keep his name in people's/voters' minds. It has also been noted that Mike Nifong, the attorney, could woo black voters by taking a strong stand in a case that had overtones of racial inequity.
The young woman who worked the party as a stripper said she was raped at the end of the party. Nifong announced openly and publically that "a rape had definitely occurred' and he was prosecuting the case of assault against the stripper. Three players were picked out as principals. DNA and other evidence was taken from all the team.
A few days later, a group of Duke professors -- often referred to as The Group of 88 -- took out a full-page ad in the Duke Chronicle, a bold headline at the top asking, "What Does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" The ad was filled with anonymous viewpoints regarding the apparent rape incident. To this date, no one has taken full responsibility or credit for the ad, though it was apparently paid for by the African-American Studies program on campus.
Many picketed for weeks with signs that said "Castrate lacrosse" and "It's time to confess." Some lacrosse players had to take classes from professors that participated in pickets and the full-page ad.
Now that the case has been thrown out -- with the stripper unable to identify any player in a lineup, with DNA evidence exonerating the team and with the attorney losing his job and future -- some of these professors are saying the ad was really just about violence against women in general. Others on campus are noting that the signs and the ads should have said, "Let the justice system work," rather than the seeming mad rush to find guilt over innocence. Professors are lambasting professors.
The lacrosse coach -- though not at the party and unaware of its escalation -- was fired by the university president. The president is now taking lots of heat for not supporting his students and adding to the mob rush to guilt. After the rape case was thrown out of court, the coached reached a financial settlement with the university for wrongful loss of job, but is also considering a major lawsuit.
Lacrosse team players have reported that job interviews have mysteriously been cancelled once their former affiliation becomes known.
And that, frankly, is the one piece in this whole ugly pattern of falling dominoes that I feel for -- the kid who wasn't even there. The one who made the right choice based on a personal value system of right and wrong. He won't have a university president apologize to his parents and he won't earn a thin, silver dime from the lawsuit or from the movie likely to be coming down the pike (yes, HBO has purchased the movie rights to the "story").
As all the black and white dominoes fall, touching and pushing the next poor domino in the row down with it, soon there are none left standing. There are no winners, just a mess of dominoes that someone has to pick up.
But I keep looking back to the beginning, to three kids that nudged that first little teeny domino with a couple of teeny bad decisions, who have been exonerated as "innocent," but are far from it.
No, life isn't fair
Christmas 07
What a month it has been to consider crime and punishment.
Or at least punishment. Some of the crimes, actually, feel a little "iffy."
For example, on the same day this past month the front page of the dailies had two seemingly unrelated stories about inflicting punishment.
First, a British women was charged by Sudanese officials with inciting hatred after her 7-year-old students — 90 percent of which were Muslim, mind you — named a teddy bear Muhammad. Sudan's top clerics — we'll just call them "extremists" or "kooks" due to space limitations — suggested this was part of the "broad Western plot against Islam." The kooks then petitioned the government to punish the woman to the full extent of Article 125 of the Sudan legal code and the Muslim law of judgement, which required — are you sitting down? — 40 lashes, six months in jail and a fine.
First of all, shame of them for calling her a broad. Shouldn't there be a punishment for that?
Secondly, does the punishment fit the crime? Was it fair?
Just above that story on the front page was a rehearsal of the now-famous Uintah County Taser incident. Many of us have seen the video. A young man, with wife and baby in the car, is stopped in broad daylight for speeding. He is unsure of the speed limit and asks to see the speed limit sign. The officer orders him back in the car and refuses to show him the sign. Because he took too long getting back into his car — maybe you saw something different, but that's what I saw — he gets nailed in the back with a disabling electronic shock which causes him to fall to the asphalt and injure his head.
Did the punishment fit the crime? Was it fair?
Add to these the Marion Jones saga. After years of denials, she admits to cheating to obtain Olympic honors. She was publically humiliated and had her medals taken away from her. One twist to this punishment: all her teammates who might have also received medals because of her use of enhancements (relay team members who might have been clean as freshly bleached teeth) also had to return their medals.
Fair? Fair to the teammates?
Utah State University information technology supervisors were informed this month that a USU student who had one -- let me emphasize: one -- downloadable song on a shared peer-to-peer internet software system was being taken to court as an example to others not to download copyrighted songs illegally. His punishment: $3,000 for a single song.
The teddy bear incident -- and we're certainly glad that the British ambassador intervened before it escalated into the Teddy Bear War -- is almost laughable. Was it wrong for her to assume her Muslim students should have known naming the teddy might have been offensive or should she have been required to be up-to-speed on the hundreds of intricate and possible ways to offend the Islamic society? Maybe the parents involved should be punished with stripes for not having taught their children properly. If visitors to Sudan are required to have previously studied the Qur'an, imagine what this will do their booming tourist trade.
As far as I'm concerned, the Taser incident is a perfect example of forgetting common sense.
In our post-9/11 paranoia, common sense is often sacrificed, it seems. Anyone with a drop of common sense who has seen that video can see that this little family was about as threatening as Cream of Wheat. And I'm still amazed the UHP didn't fall all over themselves apologizing for the macho-inspired actions. After their investigation, officers stunningly found no fault in the other officer's use of force.
Marion Jones deserved to be punished and all athletes who have skewed the records and their accomplishments need to be punished. I feel sorry for the teammates. Was that fair? And I can't wait to see how history will handle Barry Bonds, which will eventually happen. Will he have to "give back" his records? Would that be fair, would that be punishment to fit the crime?
Downloading without paying is illegal. But....
We have all had occassions in our life where it felt like the punishment we received did not fit the crime, where the consequences felt geometrically larger than the cause of that effect. Ask me about mine — I'll be happy to share.
Children are quick to point out that "it isn't fair." And most of the time it isn't. A baby was born in circumstances he didn't deserve. He lived a life of service, but for challenging tradition and standing mute in court, he was put to death. Fair?
I suspect one of the purposes of this Bethlehem babe's life was to demonstrate in an examplary way that life is not fair and punishments don't always fit the crime, but that we can learn to breathe deep and live with that fact of life.
Another reason, I think, for this season.
What a month it has been to consider crime and punishment.
Or at least punishment. Some of the crimes, actually, feel a little "iffy."
For example, on the same day this past month the front page of the dailies had two seemingly unrelated stories about inflicting punishment.
First, a British women was charged by Sudanese officials with inciting hatred after her 7-year-old students — 90 percent of which were Muslim, mind you — named a teddy bear Muhammad. Sudan's top clerics — we'll just call them "extremists" or "kooks" due to space limitations — suggested this was part of the "broad Western plot against Islam." The kooks then petitioned the government to punish the woman to the full extent of Article 125 of the Sudan legal code and the Muslim law of judgement, which required — are you sitting down? — 40 lashes, six months in jail and a fine.
First of all, shame of them for calling her a broad. Shouldn't there be a punishment for that?
Secondly, does the punishment fit the crime? Was it fair?
Just above that story on the front page was a rehearsal of the now-famous Uintah County Taser incident. Many of us have seen the video. A young man, with wife and baby in the car, is stopped in broad daylight for speeding. He is unsure of the speed limit and asks to see the speed limit sign. The officer orders him back in the car and refuses to show him the sign. Because he took too long getting back into his car — maybe you saw something different, but that's what I saw — he gets nailed in the back with a disabling electronic shock which causes him to fall to the asphalt and injure his head.
Did the punishment fit the crime? Was it fair?
Add to these the Marion Jones saga. After years of denials, she admits to cheating to obtain Olympic honors. She was publically humiliated and had her medals taken away from her. One twist to this punishment: all her teammates who might have also received medals because of her use of enhancements (relay team members who might have been clean as freshly bleached teeth) also had to return their medals.
Fair? Fair to the teammates?
Utah State University information technology supervisors were informed this month that a USU student who had one -- let me emphasize: one -- downloadable song on a shared peer-to-peer internet software system was being taken to court as an example to others not to download copyrighted songs illegally. His punishment: $3,000 for a single song.
The teddy bear incident -- and we're certainly glad that the British ambassador intervened before it escalated into the Teddy Bear War -- is almost laughable. Was it wrong for her to assume her Muslim students should have known naming the teddy might have been offensive or should she have been required to be up-to-speed on the hundreds of intricate and possible ways to offend the Islamic society? Maybe the parents involved should be punished with stripes for not having taught their children properly. If visitors to Sudan are required to have previously studied the Qur'an, imagine what this will do their booming tourist trade.
As far as I'm concerned, the Taser incident is a perfect example of forgetting common sense.
In our post-9/11 paranoia, common sense is often sacrificed, it seems. Anyone with a drop of common sense who has seen that video can see that this little family was about as threatening as Cream of Wheat. And I'm still amazed the UHP didn't fall all over themselves apologizing for the macho-inspired actions. After their investigation, officers stunningly found no fault in the other officer's use of force.
Marion Jones deserved to be punished and all athletes who have skewed the records and their accomplishments need to be punished. I feel sorry for the teammates. Was that fair? And I can't wait to see how history will handle Barry Bonds, which will eventually happen. Will he have to "give back" his records? Would that be fair, would that be punishment to fit the crime?
Downloading without paying is illegal. But....
We have all had occassions in our life where it felt like the punishment we received did not fit the crime, where the consequences felt geometrically larger than the cause of that effect. Ask me about mine — I'll be happy to share.
Children are quick to point out that "it isn't fair." And most of the time it isn't. A baby was born in circumstances he didn't deserve. He lived a life of service, but for challenging tradition and standing mute in court, he was put to death. Fair?
I suspect one of the purposes of this Bethlehem babe's life was to demonstrate in an examplary way that life is not fair and punishments don't always fit the crime, but that we can learn to breathe deep and live with that fact of life.
Another reason, I think, for this season.
The fair -- and our lives -- need more preserves
Aug. 03?
I wandered through the county fair this past week, as any good citizen ought to do when offered that opportunity, and made a few observations.
The slices of pizza for $2.50 are getting very slim. No, not that there aren't enough booths offering this snack, but the actual slices of pizza were very slim. Somewhere "slice" has become "sliver."
I appreciated those local acts -- singers and musicians -- who stepped up to the plate and the microphones provided and gave the fair visitors fair entertainment. For those who are best described as non-professional, talent shows and stages made of make-shift materials provide a scarey opportunity to show off a bit. Oh sure, they do the occasional wedding and High Priest party, but no agent is booking them. The fair might be as big as it gets. I applaud their courage. Singing before scutinizing eyes and ears just might be the toughest job in town.
Also, I must mention how few preserves were offered for competition in the home arts building. I wondered as I eyed the scanty bottles of peaches and the half-dozen bottles of jam if canning is becoming a lost art.
I suspect the word "canning" or the more obscure term "preserves" is not often visited in our schools. The concept of water baths and steaming has probably gone the way of the "sewing machine," another waning home art. With the evolution of consumer education and home technology classes moving understandably away from home arts, perhaps it is left to church groups and homes and mothers to instill -- to preserve -- an interest in canning.
And, yes, I understand the economics of canning -- that if the cost of the fruit and the sugars and the bottles, the cost of the equipment and the time spent (figured at even minimum wage) is compared to the cost of a can of peaches, well, it doesn't seem to make sense to preserve at home. But as one LDS leader was wont to say a few decades ago when challenged on the backwards economics of home production, there may come a time when you can't buy a can of tomatoes.
Spouse was once semi-famous -- yes, even to the point of putting them in the fair one year and winning some ribbons -- for her peaches. She used to use the bruised and battered peaches off the ground for juice which was then added to the more-perfect peaches instead of sweetened water for a sugarless but delightfully flavored bottle of fruit. As messy as it was, as sticky as your arms got, as hot as the kitchen became, canning was always a good bonding activity.
I've never entered a bottled item in the fair, myself, but if I could preserve stuff, I do have a short list.
I would have preserved my grandmothers pithy and pointed sayings. Yes, they were oldey-timey and often said in rhyme or song, but she had an odd and easy-going axiom for almost every occasion. Generations were affected by them and now we struggle to remember them all.
I would figure out a way to preserve Garrison Keilor. If you haven't yet discovered the charm and warmth of "Prairie home Companion” you are missing an American treasure. Yes, wearing another hat, Keilor often waxes political, but forget all that and listen to him tell a story. I dare you to let him explain what Memorial Day or July 4th means to small-town America without tearing up. He brings story-telling to the level of an art form.
I would preserve the smell of fresh-cut alfalfa, always intoxicating to me.
I would bottle evening summer thunderstorms and pop open the top whenever I want to sit on the front porch and be awed by nature's strength and raw beauty as the lightning moves along the east mountains of our valleys.
I would preserve Bear Lake before it evolves into something else. In fact, I would have preserved it as it was, say, 10 years ago. Something happened about half-a-decade ago, and suddenly dollar signs began popping out of the ground and people starting using words like "Park City" and "Jackson Hole." Heaven forbid. May Bear Lake always be raspberries and playhouses and public access to sunburns, like it has been in so many of our memories.
I would had preserved "The Dick VanDyke Show." Do you remember how funny it was? How well-written it was? Compare it to, heck, "That 70s Show" and you'll see what I mean.
I recently asked a group of 20- 22-year-olds what they would like to preserve. One described her "perfect day" and wished that she could preserve that day. As summer drifts slowly into an always-too-short autumn in northern Utah, I hope we can all figure out a way to make and preserve a couple of perfect days.
I will look for your Mason jar labeled as such in next year's county fair.
I wandered through the county fair this past week, as any good citizen ought to do when offered that opportunity, and made a few observations.
The slices of pizza for $2.50 are getting very slim. No, not that there aren't enough booths offering this snack, but the actual slices of pizza were very slim. Somewhere "slice" has become "sliver."
I appreciated those local acts -- singers and musicians -- who stepped up to the plate and the microphones provided and gave the fair visitors fair entertainment. For those who are best described as non-professional, talent shows and stages made of make-shift materials provide a scarey opportunity to show off a bit. Oh sure, they do the occasional wedding and High Priest party, but no agent is booking them. The fair might be as big as it gets. I applaud their courage. Singing before scutinizing eyes and ears just might be the toughest job in town.
Also, I must mention how few preserves were offered for competition in the home arts building. I wondered as I eyed the scanty bottles of peaches and the half-dozen bottles of jam if canning is becoming a lost art.
I suspect the word "canning" or the more obscure term "preserves" is not often visited in our schools. The concept of water baths and steaming has probably gone the way of the "sewing machine," another waning home art. With the evolution of consumer education and home technology classes moving understandably away from home arts, perhaps it is left to church groups and homes and mothers to instill -- to preserve -- an interest in canning.
And, yes, I understand the economics of canning -- that if the cost of the fruit and the sugars and the bottles, the cost of the equipment and the time spent (figured at even minimum wage) is compared to the cost of a can of peaches, well, it doesn't seem to make sense to preserve at home. But as one LDS leader was wont to say a few decades ago when challenged on the backwards economics of home production, there may come a time when you can't buy a can of tomatoes.
Spouse was once semi-famous -- yes, even to the point of putting them in the fair one year and winning some ribbons -- for her peaches. She used to use the bruised and battered peaches off the ground for juice which was then added to the more-perfect peaches instead of sweetened water for a sugarless but delightfully flavored bottle of fruit. As messy as it was, as sticky as your arms got, as hot as the kitchen became, canning was always a good bonding activity.
I've never entered a bottled item in the fair, myself, but if I could preserve stuff, I do have a short list.
I would have preserved my grandmothers pithy and pointed sayings. Yes, they were oldey-timey and often said in rhyme or song, but she had an odd and easy-going axiom for almost every occasion. Generations were affected by them and now we struggle to remember them all.
I would figure out a way to preserve Garrison Keilor. If you haven't yet discovered the charm and warmth of "Prairie home Companion” you are missing an American treasure. Yes, wearing another hat, Keilor often waxes political, but forget all that and listen to him tell a story. I dare you to let him explain what Memorial Day or July 4th means to small-town America without tearing up. He brings story-telling to the level of an art form.
I would preserve the smell of fresh-cut alfalfa, always intoxicating to me.
I would bottle evening summer thunderstorms and pop open the top whenever I want to sit on the front porch and be awed by nature's strength and raw beauty as the lightning moves along the east mountains of our valleys.
I would preserve Bear Lake before it evolves into something else. In fact, I would have preserved it as it was, say, 10 years ago. Something happened about half-a-decade ago, and suddenly dollar signs began popping out of the ground and people starting using words like "Park City" and "Jackson Hole." Heaven forbid. May Bear Lake always be raspberries and playhouses and public access to sunburns, like it has been in so many of our memories.
I would had preserved "The Dick VanDyke Show." Do you remember how funny it was? How well-written it was? Compare it to, heck, "That 70s Show" and you'll see what I mean.
I recently asked a group of 20- 22-year-olds what they would like to preserve. One described her "perfect day" and wished that she could preserve that day. As summer drifts slowly into an always-too-short autumn in northern Utah, I hope we can all figure out a way to make and preserve a couple of perfect days.
I will look for your Mason jar labeled as such in next year's county fair.
Respect for women is the benchmark for society
April 07?
Understand this: I am not a woman and I don't even play one on TV. But a couple of news items about women -- ironically airing within 48 hours of each other last week -- caught my attention, and probably yours, too.
The Rutgers University women's basketball team held a news conference last week to lambast radio "personality" Don Imus for remarks he made toward it. The remarks were labeled racist, sexist and demeaning, as they had, indeed, slapped broad, stereotypical and hurtful labels on the members of the team.
Understand this: I couldn't agree more with the Rutgers team. I'll go one step further and state that Imus should have been fired the same day. Not only for his words but for the hypocrisy involved. Have you seen this guy? He has the audacity to call another human being --– man or woman -- "rough looking?" The irony continues as he makes fun of their hair. Again, have you seen this guy? He has to be one of the homeliest males ever to put on a pair of boxers. He looks like he took hairstyling lessons from Hobo School of Cosmetology and he calls 20-year-old women athletes "rough looking," with "nappy hair?" He has a face for radio, for sure -- too bad he doesn’t have the intellect.
I felt the Rutgers team leveled the playing field with their excellent orchestrated press conference. They accurately pointed out how cheap and objectifying the comments were to, not just black women, but all women. They were correct to present the comments as an affront to all females.
One question posed at the conference, however, was glossed over.
One player was asked -- and I'm paraphrasing now -- why black women continue to accept a constant flow of demeaning and objectifying words from hip-hop music, while apparently abhoring the words and their meaning. The implication was obvious: Can black gangsta rappers say these things but commentators outside of the music industry cannot? Is misogyny exempted in the black-dominated rap music industry? Can young African-American women accept being called “"hos"” as long as there is a beat behind it?
Understand this: I am not minimizing the despicable Imus act or asking for a more muted response. However, I will jump from the edge of my seat, I will silently cheer and my heart with lace with theirs when a collection of African-American women hold a press conference and outline one by one their hatred and hurt felt from a constant flow of self-esteem destroying hip-hop language. And, if they do, will CNN cover it?
The president of Bennett College, Johnnetta Cole, an African-American woman, puts it this way:
"I strongly believe that hip-hop is more misogynistic and disrespectful of Black girls and women than other popular music genres ... The lyrics and the images -- and attitudes that undergird them -- are potentially extremely harmful to Black girls and women in a culture that is already negative about our humanity, our sexuality and our overall worth ... What value can there be in descriptions of Black girls and women as "bitches," "ho's," "skeezers," "freaks," "gold diggers," "chickenheads" and "pigeons"? What could possibly be the value to our communities to have rap music videos that are notorious for featuring half-clothed young Black women gyrating obscenely and functioning as backdrops, props and objects of lust for rap artists who sometimes behave as predators?"
Maybe the Rutgers players didn't get a chance to watch the Black Entertainment Television network's infamous Uncut video show before it was pulled from the air a few months ago. The program featured music videos in which nearly all the girls wore lingerie and performed, well, acrobatics. A common image shown as the repetitive beat pounded away was scantinly clad black women spreading their legs while money was thrown toward their midsections. "Rip Tide," an extremely popular rap record by the millionaire hip-hop artist Nelly, features a nearly nude black woman allowing Nelly to swipe a charge card down her buttocks as he grins and "sings" about what he wants.
Understand this: As important and timely and appreciated as the Rutgers resonse was, it was only a fig in a firestorm. Women, and black women in particular, are being demeaned by the producers of their own music in ways that cannot be fully described in a family newspaper.
Another news item to weave into this quilt of commonality was the vindication of the Duke lacrosse players. They were cleared last week of all charges related to a year-long charge of rape.
Understand this: These young men may be cleared of legal charges but they aren't innocent. They hired two exotic dancers to come to their apartment and strip for them and their teammates.
Innocent? Have I already used the word "objectify" too many times?
A third news item: An increasing number of women are being solicited or are volunteering as suicide bombers in Iraq. There have been seven documented cases of suicide bombings by women. That number is expected to rise. It seems Iraqi women are much less likely to be searched and have bulkier clothers to hide the implements of death. Male suicide bombers have been quoted as saying one reason they volunteer for the work is because of the 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven to reward them for their gallant work. So -- help me here -- how do the Iraqi women who commit such terrorism work into this fantasy?
Be it war, music, or a party with the guys, no man — heck, no civilization — rises higher than the pedestal upon which he places women. Why can’t we understand this?
Understand this: I am not a woman and I don't even play one on TV. But a couple of news items about women -- ironically airing within 48 hours of each other last week -- caught my attention, and probably yours, too.
The Rutgers University women's basketball team held a news conference last week to lambast radio "personality" Don Imus for remarks he made toward it. The remarks were labeled racist, sexist and demeaning, as they had, indeed, slapped broad, stereotypical and hurtful labels on the members of the team.
Understand this: I couldn't agree more with the Rutgers team. I'll go one step further and state that Imus should have been fired the same day. Not only for his words but for the hypocrisy involved. Have you seen this guy? He has the audacity to call another human being --– man or woman -- "rough looking?" The irony continues as he makes fun of their hair. Again, have you seen this guy? He has to be one of the homeliest males ever to put on a pair of boxers. He looks like he took hairstyling lessons from Hobo School of Cosmetology and he calls 20-year-old women athletes "rough looking," with "nappy hair?" He has a face for radio, for sure -- too bad he doesn’t have the intellect.
I felt the Rutgers team leveled the playing field with their excellent orchestrated press conference. They accurately pointed out how cheap and objectifying the comments were to, not just black women, but all women. They were correct to present the comments as an affront to all females.
One question posed at the conference, however, was glossed over.
One player was asked -- and I'm paraphrasing now -- why black women continue to accept a constant flow of demeaning and objectifying words from hip-hop music, while apparently abhoring the words and their meaning. The implication was obvious: Can black gangsta rappers say these things but commentators outside of the music industry cannot? Is misogyny exempted in the black-dominated rap music industry? Can young African-American women accept being called “"hos"” as long as there is a beat behind it?
Understand this: I am not minimizing the despicable Imus act or asking for a more muted response. However, I will jump from the edge of my seat, I will silently cheer and my heart with lace with theirs when a collection of African-American women hold a press conference and outline one by one their hatred and hurt felt from a constant flow of self-esteem destroying hip-hop language. And, if they do, will CNN cover it?
The president of Bennett College, Johnnetta Cole, an African-American woman, puts it this way:
"I strongly believe that hip-hop is more misogynistic and disrespectful of Black girls and women than other popular music genres ... The lyrics and the images -- and attitudes that undergird them -- are potentially extremely harmful to Black girls and women in a culture that is already negative about our humanity, our sexuality and our overall worth ... What value can there be in descriptions of Black girls and women as "bitches," "ho's," "skeezers," "freaks," "gold diggers," "chickenheads" and "pigeons"? What could possibly be the value to our communities to have rap music videos that are notorious for featuring half-clothed young Black women gyrating obscenely and functioning as backdrops, props and objects of lust for rap artists who sometimes behave as predators?"
Maybe the Rutgers players didn't get a chance to watch the Black Entertainment Television network's infamous Uncut video show before it was pulled from the air a few months ago. The program featured music videos in which nearly all the girls wore lingerie and performed, well, acrobatics. A common image shown as the repetitive beat pounded away was scantinly clad black women spreading their legs while money was thrown toward their midsections. "Rip Tide," an extremely popular rap record by the millionaire hip-hop artist Nelly, features a nearly nude black woman allowing Nelly to swipe a charge card down her buttocks as he grins and "sings" about what he wants.
Understand this: As important and timely and appreciated as the Rutgers resonse was, it was only a fig in a firestorm. Women, and black women in particular, are being demeaned by the producers of their own music in ways that cannot be fully described in a family newspaper.
Another news item to weave into this quilt of commonality was the vindication of the Duke lacrosse players. They were cleared last week of all charges related to a year-long charge of rape.
Understand this: These young men may be cleared of legal charges but they aren't innocent. They hired two exotic dancers to come to their apartment and strip for them and their teammates.
Innocent? Have I already used the word "objectify" too many times?
A third news item: An increasing number of women are being solicited or are volunteering as suicide bombers in Iraq. There have been seven documented cases of suicide bombings by women. That number is expected to rise. It seems Iraqi women are much less likely to be searched and have bulkier clothers to hide the implements of death. Male suicide bombers have been quoted as saying one reason they volunteer for the work is because of the 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven to reward them for their gallant work. So -- help me here -- how do the Iraqi women who commit such terrorism work into this fantasy?
Be it war, music, or a party with the guys, no man — heck, no civilization — rises higher than the pedestal upon which he places women. Why can’t we understand this?
Hey, Utahns ... "they" aren't going away
march 04
Every once in while you hear a statistic that really makes you sit up and take notice.
Not that it is outrageous, mind you, or unbelievable, and not that it is "good," reinforcing a personal belief, or that it is "bad" and makes you a little nervous. Just one that you had not considered in quite those terms -- a statistic to which you ought to pay attention.
Here's one I heard earlier this month: By the year 2015 -- let's just say "10 years from now" -- one out of every five Utahns will be of Latino background.
Again, this statistic is best thought of as neither good nor bad, just revealing. Mighty revealing. And the source is credible, coming right from an office with a shiny desk in Salt Lake City, not just from your brother-in-law after shopping at Smtih's one Sunday morning.
My gut feeling is that the average white, my-roots-are-here and I-love-my-fry-sauce Utahn isn't quite ready for the reality of that statistic. I think it is time we got ready.
I bounced some questions off a handful of Hispanic students at USU recently, questions about this influx and what it means for both the Latino and Anglo population. Based on their responses and that darn gut of mine, can I throw out some ideas?
To make this all work right, both Anglos and Latinos have got to throw out the stereotypes. For whites, that means that not all Latinos are Mexicans, not all are “illegals”; not all are gang members; not all get in trouble; not all Hispanics are disrespectful of laws, culture and the prevailing way of life. For Latinos, it means tossing out the idea that all whites hate them, that America is like the movies, that laws are there just to discriminate against Latinos, and education is only for whites. Yea, junk these stereotypes for starters.
This concept of law is new to many Latinos new to our country and often becomes a problem. One student told me that in his hometown in Mexico, if you want to have a party, you grab some rocks and block off the street and have a party. You don't have to tell the city or the police, he said, and it can go as long and loud as you want -- that's just life, the culture of the community. But here, the culture says there are rules to follow. Sometimes when Latinos are told of the rules they feel the restrictions are directed only at them, that they are being discriminated against in some way. And if you throw rules or culture norms about using facilities on Sunday or use of alcohol into the mix, even more misunderstandings can be spawned. Latinos need to overcome these sensitivities and not turn inward and feel like a picked-on clique, but gain an understanding of the laws. And follow them.
It is imperative that both whites and Latinos become more involved in community affairs and politics in order to increase understanding of the two -- sometimes clashing -- cultures. Latinos need to better understand that the laws and whites can use these forums to better educate their new neighbors.
But sometimes it is as simple as saying hello and getting acquainted. Whites might resist getting to know a new Latino neighbor because they don't want to offend or seem pushy. But many Latinos will perceive this as a put-down or a problem with them or “that they are not wanted because of the language barrier," a student told me.
Aaah. That darn language thing. Should both groups be learning the other's language? My response: What are you waiting for?
One Latino student's measured response: If the person is in a position of responsibility, like a vice principal or a city council member, they ought to learn Spanish, as it would go a long way to assisting the Latino population, as well as showing a overt desire to help -- an olive branch, if you will. If the Latino family is planning on staying or having their children stay in the United States, they should learn the language. Latino parents not being willing to learn the language is a major reason Latino students often find themselves in trouble during the teen years. Parents don't go to parent-teacher conferences, for example, because they don't know the language, and then the parents don't find out how the student is doing or if he or she is in trouble and pretty soon the kids are thinking they can get away with things. It’s natural.
Here's my gut speaking again: It should be a requirement to know Spanish in order to graduate from high school in Utah. It is a “suggestion” by most colleges for high school students to have two years of a second language for admission, but Utah’s high school graduation requirements ought to be ratcheted up to reflect this necessity.
The next generation of teachers in the public education system has got to give this population a chance. Here’s another statistic to slap you in the face: Sixty-five percent of all Latino students in Utah do not graduate from high school. And then we wonder where gangs come from.
The blame is not all theirs; the blame is not all the system’s. But it is a problem that has got to be solved. Latinos in Utah have also got to understand that going to college is a good thing, something many openly admit they do not believe. Until Latinos are getting all the way through the educational system, nothing will change.
Get acquainted. Lower the sensitivity level a notch or two on both sides. Learn the other’s language. Find a common demoninator. Enjoy each other’s celebrations. Help each other through the education system.
We are all on the same little corner of the same planet. And that’s a true statistic, too.
Every once in while you hear a statistic that really makes you sit up and take notice.
Not that it is outrageous, mind you, or unbelievable, and not that it is "good," reinforcing a personal belief, or that it is "bad" and makes you a little nervous. Just one that you had not considered in quite those terms -- a statistic to which you ought to pay attention.
Here's one I heard earlier this month: By the year 2015 -- let's just say "10 years from now" -- one out of every five Utahns will be of Latino background.
Again, this statistic is best thought of as neither good nor bad, just revealing. Mighty revealing. And the source is credible, coming right from an office with a shiny desk in Salt Lake City, not just from your brother-in-law after shopping at Smtih's one Sunday morning.
My gut feeling is that the average white, my-roots-are-here and I-love-my-fry-sauce Utahn isn't quite ready for the reality of that statistic. I think it is time we got ready.
I bounced some questions off a handful of Hispanic students at USU recently, questions about this influx and what it means for both the Latino and Anglo population. Based on their responses and that darn gut of mine, can I throw out some ideas?
To make this all work right, both Anglos and Latinos have got to throw out the stereotypes. For whites, that means that not all Latinos are Mexicans, not all are “illegals”; not all are gang members; not all get in trouble; not all Hispanics are disrespectful of laws, culture and the prevailing way of life. For Latinos, it means tossing out the idea that all whites hate them, that America is like the movies, that laws are there just to discriminate against Latinos, and education is only for whites. Yea, junk these stereotypes for starters.
This concept of law is new to many Latinos new to our country and often becomes a problem. One student told me that in his hometown in Mexico, if you want to have a party, you grab some rocks and block off the street and have a party. You don't have to tell the city or the police, he said, and it can go as long and loud as you want -- that's just life, the culture of the community. But here, the culture says there are rules to follow. Sometimes when Latinos are told of the rules they feel the restrictions are directed only at them, that they are being discriminated against in some way. And if you throw rules or culture norms about using facilities on Sunday or use of alcohol into the mix, even more misunderstandings can be spawned. Latinos need to overcome these sensitivities and not turn inward and feel like a picked-on clique, but gain an understanding of the laws. And follow them.
It is imperative that both whites and Latinos become more involved in community affairs and politics in order to increase understanding of the two -- sometimes clashing -- cultures. Latinos need to better understand that the laws and whites can use these forums to better educate their new neighbors.
But sometimes it is as simple as saying hello and getting acquainted. Whites might resist getting to know a new Latino neighbor because they don't want to offend or seem pushy. But many Latinos will perceive this as a put-down or a problem with them or “that they are not wanted because of the language barrier," a student told me.
Aaah. That darn language thing. Should both groups be learning the other's language? My response: What are you waiting for?
One Latino student's measured response: If the person is in a position of responsibility, like a vice principal or a city council member, they ought to learn Spanish, as it would go a long way to assisting the Latino population, as well as showing a overt desire to help -- an olive branch, if you will. If the Latino family is planning on staying or having their children stay in the United States, they should learn the language. Latino parents not being willing to learn the language is a major reason Latino students often find themselves in trouble during the teen years. Parents don't go to parent-teacher conferences, for example, because they don't know the language, and then the parents don't find out how the student is doing or if he or she is in trouble and pretty soon the kids are thinking they can get away with things. It’s natural.
Here's my gut speaking again: It should be a requirement to know Spanish in order to graduate from high school in Utah. It is a “suggestion” by most colleges for high school students to have two years of a second language for admission, but Utah’s high school graduation requirements ought to be ratcheted up to reflect this necessity.
The next generation of teachers in the public education system has got to give this population a chance. Here’s another statistic to slap you in the face: Sixty-five percent of all Latino students in Utah do not graduate from high school. And then we wonder where gangs come from.
The blame is not all theirs; the blame is not all the system’s. But it is a problem that has got to be solved. Latinos in Utah have also got to understand that going to college is a good thing, something many openly admit they do not believe. Until Latinos are getting all the way through the educational system, nothing will change.
Get acquainted. Lower the sensitivity level a notch or two on both sides. Learn the other’s language. Find a common demoninator. Enjoy each other’s celebrations. Help each other through the education system.
We are all on the same little corner of the same planet. And that’s a true statistic, too.
Advice for the soon-to-be-married
May 04
I got fitted for a tuxedo last week. No, it’s not for my funeral, funny bones. It’s soon to be June and that can only mean one thing: a wedding. June is still far and away the most popular month for weddings in Utah -- and the nation -- with September lagging in second place. This June will be an especially important wedding time in our family, as my oldest son is tying the knot.
We’re happy. He’s happy. Weddings are generally happy times.
I would like to take more credit for my son making it so ably into his 27th year. But from my perspective, he was 4 and the next day he was 14. Except for teaching him the correct and proper way to eat an Oreo cookie and gaining a deep appreciation for puns, he garnered precious little from me. But I’m going to make up for it now. As he embarks on this new adventure, I would like to offer the following suggestions to him and the thousands of other just-about-to-be-married types approaching June vows.
Write lots of thank you notes, especially to each other. Yes, it's trite, but all those stories you hear about notes in the lunch bucket and under the pillow can really be a fun part of life. These notes will really come to mean a lot to you over time. Write thank you notes to your friends for throwing a party or inviting you over for supper. Write to your relatives and tell them thanks after they drop by to give you a boost. Thank someone with a note for a great talk in church or some other unexpected remembrance. Yes, you'll likely write a lot of thank you notes for gifts received after all this wedding reception business, so take a hint and get in the habit.
Don’t get in a big hurry to get things. Don’t start out with the mentality that you need a 4-by-4 just like everyone else. My dad was 65 years old before he bought a new car. Now, I’m not saying you have to shop at Deseret Industries for socks, but never go into debt to buy “things.” If you must go into debt, do it for ideas -- a business, an education, a home. Understand how interest works. And as the old saying goes, those that don’t know how it works, pay it.
As you begin to build a home together, put lots of things on the wall. Junk up the walls of your apartment. Lots of photos, lots of images that tell who you are and why you are.
Turn off the television. Pull the cable out. Daniel (sorry, got to get personal here), you might remember that you went most of your growing-up years without a TV. You didn't miss it. You won't miss it again if you pull the plug. When little ones arrive, the evenings around the house go fast enough without television stuck in the middle of the equation.
Have lots of music in your home. With the possible exception of that industrial rock that sounds like a Satanic ritual, music is a good thing. Pick some great stuff and have it in the background. Play the piano. Tinker with some other instrument. Start a family band.
When your life begins to extend beyond a beat-up fourplex filled with other newlyweds, begin to look around your new neighborhood. When you pick out your first place to live, also pick out a neighborhood kid who needs a mentor. Be a great big brother and make a difference to someone. Also look around the neighborhood and pick out an older person to befriend and listen to. You might learn something and they might need to have a listening ear.
Take a camera wherever you go. I hope you get a digital camera for a wedding present. Be the guy that always has the camera at the reunions and at the church outings and at the birthday parties. Learn to take candid shots along with all the posed stuff. Then make lots of copies for everyone. It will be the cheapest way you'll ever make friends. And the record you retain will be priceless.
Pick out a sport to enjoy together. It might be a sport you do together or a sport you watch together. But hit the finish line or beat the final buzzer or run out of breath together and it will add years to your life and life to your marriage. Unless it's NASCAR. Or hockey.
Remember Jay's Theory of Marriage Magnification. That is, after marriage , everything is magnified. If your loved one is usually late and it usually bothers you, do you think that will change after marriage? Gals, if your new partner spends an occasional Sunday hunting with the boys, but you overlook it now, remember that after marriage it will be magnified. The hunting will be more often, the boys will be more important and your concern will be increased.
By that same token, good things are also magnified. If you love that little giggle, if you love the way she always says ‘Hello’ or her choice of movies, that, too, will be magnified.
Do you consider this theory to be a negative spin on marriage or a positive one? Your answer may be telling.
Marriage -- and particularly being a parent, as they go hand in hand -- is the great wine press of life. There will be many times you will feel great pressure bearing down; you will feel like a pained grape as juice begins to ooze from your brain and your heart. Will it be good juice or bad juice. Bitter? Sweet?
Was that a negative thing to say about marriage or a positive one? Again, a prospective bride or groom’s answer may be very telling as to whether they are ready for marriage.
Speaking of wine presses, you should see me in this tuxedo.
I got fitted for a tuxedo last week. No, it’s not for my funeral, funny bones. It’s soon to be June and that can only mean one thing: a wedding. June is still far and away the most popular month for weddings in Utah -- and the nation -- with September lagging in second place. This June will be an especially important wedding time in our family, as my oldest son is tying the knot.
We’re happy. He’s happy. Weddings are generally happy times.
I would like to take more credit for my son making it so ably into his 27th year. But from my perspective, he was 4 and the next day he was 14. Except for teaching him the correct and proper way to eat an Oreo cookie and gaining a deep appreciation for puns, he garnered precious little from me. But I’m going to make up for it now. As he embarks on this new adventure, I would like to offer the following suggestions to him and the thousands of other just-about-to-be-married types approaching June vows.
Write lots of thank you notes, especially to each other. Yes, it's trite, but all those stories you hear about notes in the lunch bucket and under the pillow can really be a fun part of life. These notes will really come to mean a lot to you over time. Write thank you notes to your friends for throwing a party or inviting you over for supper. Write to your relatives and tell them thanks after they drop by to give you a boost. Thank someone with a note for a great talk in church or some other unexpected remembrance. Yes, you'll likely write a lot of thank you notes for gifts received after all this wedding reception business, so take a hint and get in the habit.
Don’t get in a big hurry to get things. Don’t start out with the mentality that you need a 4-by-4 just like everyone else. My dad was 65 years old before he bought a new car. Now, I’m not saying you have to shop at Deseret Industries for socks, but never go into debt to buy “things.” If you must go into debt, do it for ideas -- a business, an education, a home. Understand how interest works. And as the old saying goes, those that don’t know how it works, pay it.
As you begin to build a home together, put lots of things on the wall. Junk up the walls of your apartment. Lots of photos, lots of images that tell who you are and why you are.
Turn off the television. Pull the cable out. Daniel (sorry, got to get personal here), you might remember that you went most of your growing-up years without a TV. You didn't miss it. You won't miss it again if you pull the plug. When little ones arrive, the evenings around the house go fast enough without television stuck in the middle of the equation.
Have lots of music in your home. With the possible exception of that industrial rock that sounds like a Satanic ritual, music is a good thing. Pick some great stuff and have it in the background. Play the piano. Tinker with some other instrument. Start a family band.
When your life begins to extend beyond a beat-up fourplex filled with other newlyweds, begin to look around your new neighborhood. When you pick out your first place to live, also pick out a neighborhood kid who needs a mentor. Be a great big brother and make a difference to someone. Also look around the neighborhood and pick out an older person to befriend and listen to. You might learn something and they might need to have a listening ear.
Take a camera wherever you go. I hope you get a digital camera for a wedding present. Be the guy that always has the camera at the reunions and at the church outings and at the birthday parties. Learn to take candid shots along with all the posed stuff. Then make lots of copies for everyone. It will be the cheapest way you'll ever make friends. And the record you retain will be priceless.
Pick out a sport to enjoy together. It might be a sport you do together or a sport you watch together. But hit the finish line or beat the final buzzer or run out of breath together and it will add years to your life and life to your marriage. Unless it's NASCAR. Or hockey.
Remember Jay's Theory of Marriage Magnification. That is, after marriage , everything is magnified. If your loved one is usually late and it usually bothers you, do you think that will change after marriage? Gals, if your new partner spends an occasional Sunday hunting with the boys, but you overlook it now, remember that after marriage it will be magnified. The hunting will be more often, the boys will be more important and your concern will be increased.
By that same token, good things are also magnified. If you love that little giggle, if you love the way she always says ‘Hello’ or her choice of movies, that, too, will be magnified.
Do you consider this theory to be a negative spin on marriage or a positive one? Your answer may be telling.
Marriage -- and particularly being a parent, as they go hand in hand -- is the great wine press of life. There will be many times you will feel great pressure bearing down; you will feel like a pained grape as juice begins to ooze from your brain and your heart. Will it be good juice or bad juice. Bitter? Sweet?
Was that a negative thing to say about marriage or a positive one? Again, a prospective bride or groom’s answer may be very telling as to whether they are ready for marriage.
Speaking of wine presses, you should see me in this tuxedo.
"Old" only important to cheese and wine
From May, 2003
I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Memorial Day is coming up next week – that’s part of the reason. And next week also marks a birthday for me. The big 5-0. When more of life is in the rear-view mirror than up ahead, well, it causes some reflection and pondering. Spouse says I shouldn’t worry so much about it. She says I’m twice the man I used to be, and I have the bathroom scales to prove it.
Cold one, that Spouse.
I’ve always thought Memorial Day – my parents still call it Decoration Day – is an important holiday. Growing up, it meant the end of school, the beginning of summer, a day to acknowledge that clouds of snow were now to be replaced by clouds of mosquitoes.
Memorial Day draws its roots from the Civil War. Three years after the war ended, the head of an organization of Union veterans started a movement in upstate New York to establish Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of Civil War dead with flowers and May 30 was chosen because of the availability of flowers. After a couple of years of smaller observances, in 1868 an service was held at Arlington National Cemetery and the holiday gained some legs. After WWI, the day was used to honor war dead from all conflicts, not just the Civil War.
In 1966, Congress and President Johnson declared Waterloo, NY, as the birthplace of Memorial Day and in 1971, the Monday national holiday we now know was established. At that time, it was still called Deciration Day in many communities, but the holiday was formalized as Memorial Day and set for the last Monday in May.
In some Southern communities, there is still a Confederate Decoration Day, such as May 10 in South Carolina and April 26 in Georgia.
While you are at the cemetery next week, you may want to consider that according to the National Center for Health Statistics, on an average day in America, 5,937 people die. (But 10,501 new Americans are born.) Of those dying, 886 persons are cremated and 4,928 are buried and the few remaining are unaccounted for by the undertakers, I guess.
Are you curious how likely it is that you won’t be standing outside the gravesite next Memorial Day, but lying down instead? Statisticians at the Dept. of Health and Human Services say you have a one in 115 chance of dying this next year. The risk of a heart attack is one in 77; that you will die in an accident, one in 2,900; that you will die riding your bicycle, one in 130,000; that you will be killed by lightning, one in 2 million; and that you will freeze to death, one in 3 million.
I couldn’t find a statistic for the likelihood of choking on chocolate cake and dying at your 50th birthday party, but for me that is a real fear. I hate birthday parties like Billy Crystal in “City Slickers.” I don’t want to go, though, like J. I. Rodale, one-time publisher of “Prevention” magazine and health food advocate. While appearing on the old Dick Cavett show in the late ‘60s to discuss his phyiscal well-being, he put his head down during a break and died. The taped show never aired.
A man named Bob Talley passed away in London during his 100th birthday party, moments after receiving a telegram of congratulations form the Queen and telling friends, “I made it to 100!”
Stanley Goldman, a candidate for mayor in Hollywood a few years ago, was chiding his opponent at one campaign stop for being too old to run for office when he dropped dead from a heart attack.
So with the determination that it is better to live life than to act your age, I’m facing my age head on.
I’m old enough to know that I can’t figure out what’s going on in the Middle East and neither
can they.
I’m old enough to know that each generation has its own favorite music …and mine was the best.
I’m old enough to know that Adam Sandler must be stopped.
I’m old enough to know there are fewer gays in real life than in Hollywood sitcoms.
I’m old enough to know that alcohol is no respecter of persons. It can make an idiot of anyone.
I’m old enough to know that most outside consultants don’t know half what an inside consultant knows.
I’m old enough to know that a little child’s self-esteem is the most precious element on earth.
I’m old enough to know we should have more family reunions.
I’m old enough to know that there is no such thing as a small leak.
I’m old enough to know that Ann Landers was right: “Inside every 70 year old is a 35-year-old saying, ‘What happened?’” And I’m old enough to know that old age will always be 15 years older than I am.
I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Memorial Day is coming up next week – that’s part of the reason. And next week also marks a birthday for me. The big 5-0. When more of life is in the rear-view mirror than up ahead, well, it causes some reflection and pondering. Spouse says I shouldn’t worry so much about it. She says I’m twice the man I used to be, and I have the bathroom scales to prove it.
Cold one, that Spouse.
I’ve always thought Memorial Day – my parents still call it Decoration Day – is an important holiday. Growing up, it meant the end of school, the beginning of summer, a day to acknowledge that clouds of snow were now to be replaced by clouds of mosquitoes.
Memorial Day draws its roots from the Civil War. Three years after the war ended, the head of an organization of Union veterans started a movement in upstate New York to establish Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of Civil War dead with flowers and May 30 was chosen because of the availability of flowers. After a couple of years of smaller observances, in 1868 an service was held at Arlington National Cemetery and the holiday gained some legs. After WWI, the day was used to honor war dead from all conflicts, not just the Civil War.
In 1966, Congress and President Johnson declared Waterloo, NY, as the birthplace of Memorial Day and in 1971, the Monday national holiday we now know was established. At that time, it was still called Deciration Day in many communities, but the holiday was formalized as Memorial Day and set for the last Monday in May.
In some Southern communities, there is still a Confederate Decoration Day, such as May 10 in South Carolina and April 26 in Georgia.
While you are at the cemetery next week, you may want to consider that according to the National Center for Health Statistics, on an average day in America, 5,937 people die. (But 10,501 new Americans are born.) Of those dying, 886 persons are cremated and 4,928 are buried and the few remaining are unaccounted for by the undertakers, I guess.
Are you curious how likely it is that you won’t be standing outside the gravesite next Memorial Day, but lying down instead? Statisticians at the Dept. of Health and Human Services say you have a one in 115 chance of dying this next year. The risk of a heart attack is one in 77; that you will die in an accident, one in 2,900; that you will die riding your bicycle, one in 130,000; that you will be killed by lightning, one in 2 million; and that you will freeze to death, one in 3 million.
I couldn’t find a statistic for the likelihood of choking on chocolate cake and dying at your 50th birthday party, but for me that is a real fear. I hate birthday parties like Billy Crystal in “City Slickers.” I don’t want to go, though, like J. I. Rodale, one-time publisher of “Prevention” magazine and health food advocate. While appearing on the old Dick Cavett show in the late ‘60s to discuss his phyiscal well-being, he put his head down during a break and died. The taped show never aired.
A man named Bob Talley passed away in London during his 100th birthday party, moments after receiving a telegram of congratulations form the Queen and telling friends, “I made it to 100!”
Stanley Goldman, a candidate for mayor in Hollywood a few years ago, was chiding his opponent at one campaign stop for being too old to run for office when he dropped dead from a heart attack.
So with the determination that it is better to live life than to act your age, I’m facing my age head on.
I’m old enough to know that I can’t figure out what’s going on in the Middle East and neither
can they.
I’m old enough to know that each generation has its own favorite music …and mine was the best.
I’m old enough to know that Adam Sandler must be stopped.
I’m old enough to know there are fewer gays in real life than in Hollywood sitcoms.
I’m old enough to know that alcohol is no respecter of persons. It can make an idiot of anyone.
I’m old enough to know that most outside consultants don’t know half what an inside consultant knows.
I’m old enough to know that a little child’s self-esteem is the most precious element on earth.
I’m old enough to know we should have more family reunions.
I’m old enough to know that there is no such thing as a small leak.
I’m old enough to know that Ann Landers was right: “Inside every 70 year old is a 35-year-old saying, ‘What happened?’” And I’m old enough to know that old age will always be 15 years older than I am.
About Pioneer Day, Rocky the mayor ... and love
July, a couple years ago!
For me, it was like a perfect double play: First of all, it was the week of Pioneer Day, my favorite holiday. I love everything about Pioneer Day. I don’t mind wrapping myself in the state flag, and so those feelings of affection were flowing through my veins to begin with.
Secondly, I was driving along the Fruit Freeway, that lovely stretch of “old highway” between North Ogden and Brigham City.
Heck, it might have even been a triple play, because it was dusk, and I was enjoying one of those orange and purple Northern Utah sunsets, one that brings moisture to the eyes. You know the type. Just the day before, I had mentioned to my teenage daughter -- in one of my rare “sensitive” moments -- that the vast majority of the world will never see a backdrop as impressive and heartwarming as what she sees every evening by stepping out onto our front porch. I love the mountain valleys and rolling thunderstorms and painted sunsets of a Utah summer evening.
So here I was, awash in this triple whammy of pleasant emotions, when this guy comes on the radio and says how much he hates Utah. Oh, he didn’t say it exactly like that; he said he would like to change Utah. It still felt like s slap in the face.
I love Utah. I especially love Utah in the summer. I love parades, with hay wagons decorated with cellophane and napkins, road apples, and some guy trying to ride a unicycle. A good Utah community will have a parade at the drop of a Stetson, regardless of the heat.
I love hometown drive-ins. They are getting fewer in number, it’s true, but I love “home fries” and thick shakes at all the Pit Stops and Polar Freezes and Joe’s Places across the state.
I love the drive from Hurricane to Springdale or better yet, continuing on to Mt. Carmel Junction. Heck, while we are in our cars, how about the drive from Wanship to Echo Reservoir, at about dusk. Or the drive from Logan to Cove, at night, with the windows rolled down, just an hour or two after the first alfalfa cutting. Maybe with a hint of rain in the air. Oooh, nirvana.
I like towns with Indian names and those named after famous founders. I love Monte Cristo.
And I love the Fruit Freeway. Spouse and I argue about it whenever I turn off to take that stretch, rather than the interstate. It has nothing about the minute or two you might lose. I has to do with the flavor you gain. I even enjoy moving on up the road to Honeyville and Deweyville. You can’t know Utah from the interstate. Oh, sure, there are several vacant lots full of weeds and some sheds and fences that either need a coat of paint or a match, but take the Fruitway and you see real people instead of someone’s license plate in front of you. You see kids lifting pipe and swayback horses with little girls atop. You see overgrown lilacs and dusty young farmers taking a break and playing basketball in the driveway, in their cowboy boots, no less. You see new modular homes going up right next to grandma’s old rock home. You see lots of people making their situation in life work for them.
But this guy on the radio made it sound like he hated all this.
I like Hyrum’s town slogan and knowing that Levan is “navel” spelled backwards. I liked it when the Utah Travel Council had all those great promotional names, like Panoramaland and Color Country and Bridgerland. What happened to those? I like cattle guards and the Beach Boys singing “Salt Lake City.”
And I really don’t mind being, well, unique. Or even odd.
But it bugs Rocky, apparently. He says we are out of touch, antiquated, a laughing stock and it’s time to join the real world. Now, you might say he didn’t said say that exactly. And he didn’t. But that is what I heard, and that is what lots of folks I know heard, too.
Do we need stronger gun laws, like Rocky claims? I’m not a big gun person myself so I’m a little out of my element, but there haven’t been a lot of shooting sprees lately. That guns-in-church thing is kind of loony, but all in all we probably aren’t way out of step. Utah needs to change booze laws, he says. As soon as he can point to a single positive thing that alcohol does for society -- besides just “being like everyone else” -- I’ll buy into that one. He said we need to dance late into the night, teach about condoms, let gays adopt and a bunch of other stuff. Some of his list of “freedoms” we have heard before and are not all that exceptional.
But it was his tone. It was the underlying current. It was what wasn’t said that irked me while listening to the radio during my utopian triple-whammy. It was this feeling that he projected that says the average Utahn is a hick and a sheep, who needs someone to step out and point the way in order to keep up with California.
No, he didn’t say that. But he didn’t say he loved Utah, either. To call a news conference the day before Pioneer Day and not at least say that, well, that speaks volumes to me.
For me, it was like a perfect double play: First of all, it was the week of Pioneer Day, my favorite holiday. I love everything about Pioneer Day. I don’t mind wrapping myself in the state flag, and so those feelings of affection were flowing through my veins to begin with.
Secondly, I was driving along the Fruit Freeway, that lovely stretch of “old highway” between North Ogden and Brigham City.
Heck, it might have even been a triple play, because it was dusk, and I was enjoying one of those orange and purple Northern Utah sunsets, one that brings moisture to the eyes. You know the type. Just the day before, I had mentioned to my teenage daughter -- in one of my rare “sensitive” moments -- that the vast majority of the world will never see a backdrop as impressive and heartwarming as what she sees every evening by stepping out onto our front porch. I love the mountain valleys and rolling thunderstorms and painted sunsets of a Utah summer evening.
So here I was, awash in this triple whammy of pleasant emotions, when this guy comes on the radio and says how much he hates Utah. Oh, he didn’t say it exactly like that; he said he would like to change Utah. It still felt like s slap in the face.
I love Utah. I especially love Utah in the summer. I love parades, with hay wagons decorated with cellophane and napkins, road apples, and some guy trying to ride a unicycle. A good Utah community will have a parade at the drop of a Stetson, regardless of the heat.
I love hometown drive-ins. They are getting fewer in number, it’s true, but I love “home fries” and thick shakes at all the Pit Stops and Polar Freezes and Joe’s Places across the state.
I love the drive from Hurricane to Springdale or better yet, continuing on to Mt. Carmel Junction. Heck, while we are in our cars, how about the drive from Wanship to Echo Reservoir, at about dusk. Or the drive from Logan to Cove, at night, with the windows rolled down, just an hour or two after the first alfalfa cutting. Maybe with a hint of rain in the air. Oooh, nirvana.
I like towns with Indian names and those named after famous founders. I love Monte Cristo.
And I love the Fruit Freeway. Spouse and I argue about it whenever I turn off to take that stretch, rather than the interstate. It has nothing about the minute or two you might lose. I has to do with the flavor you gain. I even enjoy moving on up the road to Honeyville and Deweyville. You can’t know Utah from the interstate. Oh, sure, there are several vacant lots full of weeds and some sheds and fences that either need a coat of paint or a match, but take the Fruitway and you see real people instead of someone’s license plate in front of you. You see kids lifting pipe and swayback horses with little girls atop. You see overgrown lilacs and dusty young farmers taking a break and playing basketball in the driveway, in their cowboy boots, no less. You see new modular homes going up right next to grandma’s old rock home. You see lots of people making their situation in life work for them.
But this guy on the radio made it sound like he hated all this.
I like Hyrum’s town slogan and knowing that Levan is “navel” spelled backwards. I liked it when the Utah Travel Council had all those great promotional names, like Panoramaland and Color Country and Bridgerland. What happened to those? I like cattle guards and the Beach Boys singing “Salt Lake City.”
And I really don’t mind being, well, unique. Or even odd.
But it bugs Rocky, apparently. He says we are out of touch, antiquated, a laughing stock and it’s time to join the real world. Now, you might say he didn’t said say that exactly. And he didn’t. But that is what I heard, and that is what lots of folks I know heard, too.
Do we need stronger gun laws, like Rocky claims? I’m not a big gun person myself so I’m a little out of my element, but there haven’t been a lot of shooting sprees lately. That guns-in-church thing is kind of loony, but all in all we probably aren’t way out of step. Utah needs to change booze laws, he says. As soon as he can point to a single positive thing that alcohol does for society -- besides just “being like everyone else” -- I’ll buy into that one. He said we need to dance late into the night, teach about condoms, let gays adopt and a bunch of other stuff. Some of his list of “freedoms” we have heard before and are not all that exceptional.
But it was his tone. It was the underlying current. It was what wasn’t said that irked me while listening to the radio during my utopian triple-whammy. It was this feeling that he projected that says the average Utahn is a hick and a sheep, who needs someone to step out and point the way in order to keep up with California.
No, he didn’t say that. But he didn’t say he loved Utah, either. To call a news conference the day before Pioneer Day and not at least say that, well, that speaks volumes to me.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Ethanol from corn is an idea that needs rethinking
From April 2008
Now, I'm not a farmer and I don't even play one on TV, so much of what I understand is from, well, shall we call it observation. Some of it is close observation, mind you, as I did spend a few years of my youth on the unforgiving end of a seat on a scatter rake. I know who John Deere is, trust me.
There might only be a dozen people who amble through this column that would even know what a scatter rake was used for and it would take me about 600 words to explain, but suffice to say that, by and large, I kind of "get" this whole farming supply and demand equation. Most of us understand how the circle of life begins with the hope of a seed and ends up on our dinner plates.
And also having a vague understanding of how a butterfly in Japan flaps his wing and a whirlwind in Oklahoma is the result, I was skeptical from Day One about biofuels in general and producing ethanol from corn in particular.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist -- or a farmer -- to see that the amount of actual product (corn) and effort (energy or fuel) needed to reconstitute corn into a usable fuel or replacement for gasoline is probably more than the value of the end product.
Would it be great if we weren't paying $110 a barrel for oil? Would it be great if gasoline were only $1.25 a gallon again? Do we need to find ways to make the oil companies more competitive, to make our vehicles and users of petroleum more efficient? Do we need more fuel sources than one, so we are not vulnerable to blackmail or inordinate fluctuations in the supply and demand curve?
Certainly.
But as one pundit put it, corn may turn out to be a con job.
So, the butterfly flaps his wing and now I hear something about this circle of life that I can't quite believe. So I went to my neighborhood grocery store to check it out for myself -- there is, indeed, a national wheat storage.Sacks of flour at many Utah grocery stores are being rationed. You can only buy x-number or pounds of flour at a time. Flour!
If you're not into this whole global game of bio-dominoes, check out last week's Time magazine. Here's just a few random facts in a nutshell, or in a cornhusk, in this case:
• If 100 percent -- a total depletion -- of soybean crops and corn harvests in the United States (and we lead the world in both categories) were turned into biofuel, it would only be enough to offset about 20 percent of fuel consumption of cars alone (not counting jets, trains, etc.).
• When many soybean farmers in the United States switched to corn, hoping for a biofuel profit, soybean prices rose (and supplies diminished), causing enterprising farms in Brazil to expand into their treasured rain forests. And — are you sitting down? — the acreage of Brazilian rain forest lost to soy and corn production in the last six months alone is equal to the area of Rhode Island (750,000 acres). Worried about global warming? Forget your car's emissions and start pointing your finger toward the loss of rain forests.
• Corn-based ethanol is not any cleaner than gasoline. In fact, when its use is combined with the emissions caused by its production, corn isn't considered "green" fuel by any stretch.
• One person could be fed for 365 days on the corn needed to fill up one ethanol-fueled SUV.
Now, back to your neighborhood store and your Western Family flour. Wasn't it only a dozen years ago or so when wheat farmers were being paid to not grow wheat? This almost panic-like dash to biofuels needs more thought, more planning and more coordination. Butterflies are flapping like crazy.
So what's the answer? Currently U.S. gasoline consumption is 320,500,000 gallons per day or about 3,700 gallons per second. Thus, there is no easy answer.
The American consumer and those that represent them in Washington need to lean on Detroit to get more serious about hybrid and more efficient automobiles. Get out of the box — it's going to take new thinking to reduce a 3,700 per second appetite.
We have to use mass transit, and that includes the soon-to-be Frontrunner. We have to get out of our boxes. We need to even rethink how much meat we eat and how that impacts the entire chain. If corn continues to go out of food production, I guarantee you that you'll be rethinking your meat eating.
We need to urge appropriate biofuel production. Take switchgrass, for example, which can also produce ethanol, but does not disrupt the food chain and can actually be grown in areas generally considered "unfarmable." Algae as fuel shows some hope. We need to come up with ways to develop oil fields within U.S. borders that satisfy the many concerns over such development, and that includes arctic fields.
We need to get our nose out of Middle East politics and do whatever it takes to change the label of aggressor to that of equal partner on the planet.
But, unless you like dipping into your food storage for the next several years, this whole corn plan needs to be popped.
D-Day lessons must continue to be taught
July 2009
I couldn't help but pay attention to the several televised specials and news reports this past month regarding the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landing at Normandy. Not having lived through that event, I can only feel peripherally the enormity of that event. But I do feel. I'm one of those that bawls like a babe at the ending of "Saving Private Ryan" — edited version, of course — and you should, too.
I find the statistics regarding D-Day itself almost staggering:
On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. The American forces landed numbered 73,000: 23,250 on Utah Beach, 34,250 on Omaha Beach, and 15,500 airborne troops. British and Canadian troops numbered 83,115 (61,715 of them British): 24,970 on Gold Beach, 21,400 on Juno Beach, 28,845 on Sword Beach, and 7,900 airborne troops.
Just over 11,550 aircraft were available to support the landings. In the airborne landings on both flanks of the beaches, 2,395 aircraft and 867 gliders of the RAF and US Army Air Corps were used on D-Day.
Naval forces included 6,939 vessels: 1,213 naval combat ships, 4,126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels.
By the end of the day June 11 (D-Day plus 5, as it is known by historians), 326,547 troops, 54,186 vehicles and 104,428 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches.
The exact number of casualties (defined as dead, wounded, captured or missing in action) may never be known. The National D-Day Memorial Foundation puts the figure of US casualties at 1,465 dead, 3,184 wounded, 1,928 missing and 26 captured. The US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2,000 casualties at Omaha Beach.
Staggering, is it not?
D-Day truly was a tipping point in the history of the world. Had it been delayed, Hilter may have had time to more fully develop jet airplanes, for example. Had it been unsuccessful, London might have been the capital of North Germany.
Did you know that there is a memorial in Bedford, Va., to give tribute to the valor of just the D-Day forces, in addition to the World War II memorial on the Washington, D.C., mall? Why Bedford, Va.? It has been determined that this community suffered the highest per capita losses of soldiers on D-Day.
As I watched these special reports — including Pres. Obama's visit to the Normandy beach and cemetery — I could not help asking myself: "Would our nation have this same resolve and commitment today? If asked to 'man up' and come together in a World War II or D-Day-type effort, would American citizens of 2010 do it?"
It worries me. I wonder if the Greatest Generation really has passed us by. I don't see that kind of resolve today. And I suspect there are several cultural reasons for that.
Again, not having lived through it, but I feel one reason that makes resolve and unity in 2010 different than 1942 is the lack of a defined enemy. I think the specter of Adolph Hilter, the knowledge of what he was doing and the firm understanding that he fully intended to eventually rule the world, was a powerful bonding agent. The War on Terrorism doesn't seem to have a fully developed, easily understood, here-I-am-look-at-me enemy. Don't get me wrong. There is an enemy, but is it a person or a hard-to-understand philosophy? Fanatical extremists, many of them currently of the Islamic ilk, don't seem to project Hilter-like panic or are not reacted to in that same way.
I also feel the country is more divisive than in the World War II era. Yes, there were those who didn't vote for Roosevelt or those who promoted this cause over that 65 years ago. But the rancor and discord over every social and political issue — beginning with and especially with Congress and spilling right down to the local school board — seems so much more pronounced than what I see of WWII history. Be it red versus blue, immigration or gay this or that, being loud seems to be more important than being united. Common bonds are getting rarer by the year, it seems. We look at how we are different today, not how we are alike.
I wonder if greed — seemingly rampant in corporate America currently — would actually allow the American manufacturing machine to stop and retool, to take a hit on profits for the sake of the common good, like had to happen in World War II.
I wonder if we have become so accustomed to immediate gratification that rationing would be laughed at today.
Yes, times change and today's culture is what it is. We can't go back and transfix former attitudes on the current scene.
But we can make sure the rising generation understands what a staggering commitment this was. We can insist that history lessons spend more time digging into the enormity of the sacrifice given by Allied forces during WWII. We cannot allow this history lesson to be hurried in any curriculum at any level. We can honor those who were in the European and Pacific conflicts until 14-year-olds finally take out their earplugs and ask, "Why is he so important?" Then we can teach.
And maybe, maybe some of it will rub off. I suspect that's the only way my worries will be alleviated. Even when the final D-Day veteran is laid to rest, we still cannot forget.
Here’s someone that should have carried the torch
From February 2002
If you were like me, you were a little surprised how much hub-bub the Olympic torch run caused. The following of the Olympic flame -- surprising to me -- was not just a "Utah thing," but spawned positive interest and results wherever it went. As it drew closer and closer to the opening ceremonies, I found myself picking up on all the stories about those chosen to carry the flame. Even if it was only one sentence in passing by commentators -- "In Tucson, the flame was carried by this person who has overcome this great thing or accomplished this marvelous thing" -- the honor of being a torch bearer become heightened.
Today I grit my teeth and exhale an "Oh darn" kind of sigh for not nominating someone to be a carrier of the flame. You may be like me and have slapped your forehead and said, "Boy, why didn't I nominate someone? Why didn’t I think fast enough?" Who would you have nominated?
Here's my too-late nomination: Joann Autry.
If the name sounds vaguely familiar, you will likely recall her daughter’s name first. Trisha Autry is Joann's daughter. Trisha was a popular Mountain Crest High School student who, at 16, was reported missing by her parents in June of 2000. A Hyrum man is currently in jail, after being found competent to stand trial on charges related to her death.
2001 was not a good year for Joann. After enduring months of agony and efforts to find her missing teen, Joann put her husband to rest in April 2001, after a lingering illness. Just a couple of weeks later, law enforcement officials would ask Joann to identify two pieces of clothing found in the foothills near Hyrum. A facial bone was also found and it soon became apparent that her daughter was not coming home. She admits that her family has, at times, been angry and nearly overcome with grief, “but we never became bitter. We have been strengthened.” It only takes a sentence of dialogue with Joann for her to emphasize that the pain she has experienced can has only been overcome by faith in a redeeming hereafter.
“People don’t have a clue of the horror of this thing,” she said just last week in her south Cache County home, “and we know only some it. But there are times when it comes back and the only thing that drives those thoughts from our minds is to picture Trisha in our Savior’s arms. You get to the point where you are almost inconsolable, but you know what the promise is.”
Joann says her emotions, and those of her four remaining family members, are best described as “roller coaster.” She says she tries to “stay in the middle, because we have to keep moving,” but some days are tougher than others. The most poignant days recently? When she shoveled two feet of snow off Trisha’s memorial headstone after a snowstorm. Or when she sees Trisha’s friends drive by in a car, “and I think that she never got that chance.”
“It’s like a song cut short and it seems so unfair,” she said. “Without faith, we can’t understand that this is only part of the song, that there are more verses, other stanzas that will be played out.”
Joann’s whole life has been reaching out to others. She is currently the Drug and Alcohol Prevention and Education director at the Student Wellness Center of Utah State University. She wants to take Trisha's memory and continue to reach out to others. She said she is forming a foundation in her daughter’s name to increase her efforts of warning parents about dangers that can reach their families.
“Parents need to be aware that the world is not always a safe place for children,” she said. “That’s what we are doing with our foundation. We want to educate and be an advocate for parents of missing kids.” She said her family will be part of support efforts to help parents in this situation work through their frustrations and explain ways to better work with law enforcement officials. She said a similar group, Team Hope, gave her ideas and a listening ear when she needed it most.
I'm sure there wasn't a bad person in the thousands chosen to touch, walk, wheel or jog with the flame along the entire route that brought "the fire within" to Utah. But there are few more deserving than Joann and you can bet your favorite Olympic pin on that.
Meanwhile, I get the gold medal in a new Olympic sport: Kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner.
Kobe’s rape case finally exposes a little secret
August 2003
Part of me wants this space to be devoted to an open letter to Arby’s Corp., with a passionate plea to please end the “talking oven mitt” advertising campaign. It’s not working. End it soon, Arby’s. I will swear on piles of thin-sliced roast beef that this nonsense leads to fewer sales, not more.
But, alas, I suspect there are more important issues to be looked at than oven mitts without noses. The Kobe Bryant sexual assault case, for example.
And the dirty little secret no one seems to be talking about.
I tuned to a sports talk radio station soon after the charges were filed and heard a smattering of interesting opinions. There was a bundle of folks – OK, mostly guys – saying that we shouldn’t convict Kobe until more information comes in. Others saying that we need to know why the girl was going to his room (as if that mattered) and if she went to his room, she must have known what would happen. One person even used the term “gold digger” to describe the 19-year-old victim.
But no one was talking about the dirty little secret.
Since the day Bryant was charged, most media outlets have refrained from publishing the victim’s name, as is the norm. Some, however, have gotten rather specific in their efforts to avoid listing her identity, pointing out that she is a blonde who was a cheerleader in the small town, who lives in a cul-de-sac who is well-known from her singing voice … and lives in the white and yellow house next to the tall beech tree one mile west of the cattle guard. Now, I made that last part up, but those in the media who have justified their actions by saying, “We didn’t name her,” well, they should be spanked. Don’t these reporters have daughters?
One radio caller on a show I was listening to even said that he felt the case will likely be settled out of court – as many such high-profile athlete-in-trouble cases have been – and, he said, it looks like the girl “will now be set for life.” A sociologist type on the other end of the radio transmission suggested that it is more likely that she will be traumatized for life. Slam dunk for the sociologist.
Gold digger? Naïve? Had a motive in mind? Seeking an autograph or seeking something else? I don’t care.
I don’t care if she was after money. I don’t care if she was of evil intent. I don’t care if she understood fully what NBA players do in their rooms. I don’t care how she was dressed -- or undressed -- when Kobe opened the door. I don’t care if she blatantly asked for trouble (which I don’t believe, by the way).
I don’t care if all that’s true. It was still his fault. It’s always the man’s fault.
That’s the little secret that never seems to come out. It is always the male’s purgative to stop the sex act. Period. It is always the male’s decision to say “this far and no further.” It is always the responsibility of the male – some would say burden, some might say duty – to control the sex act. Always. Regardless of the time of day or night, regardless of dress or undress, or music in the background, or presence of alcohol or whether you work in the NBA or the AFL-CIO. Always. That’s part of being a man. It comes with the scratchy beard and deeper voice.
And don’t go telling me about some obscure case where handcuffs and 300-pound accomplices conducted a sexual assault where the male was not in charge. That’s about as rare as a lightning hitting a lottery winner. A left-handed one, to boot.
Mr. Bryant has labeled the incident “adultery,” which is true. But that softens the blow, makes it sound like an affair with an old friend. It wasn’t. This was a classic one-night stand. It wasn’t anything approaching a “relationship.” This was a stranger and a situation that screamed “End this. Now.” And he could have. Any male could have, and any man should have.
That’s the secret. Kobe had the physical ability and the responsibility to end it. He’s the one that extended the activity, not her. And he’s the one that should pay the price for the rest of his life. But he won’t. A 19-year-old desk clerk who lives in a quiet cul-de-sac will. Kobe may yet find a way around the assault charge; he may yet pass the legal test.
But he failed the manhood test.
And if you can convince me otherwise, I’ll buy you lunch. Anywhere but Arby’s.
Part of me wants this space to be devoted to an open letter to Arby’s Corp., with a passionate plea to please end the “talking oven mitt” advertising campaign. It’s not working. End it soon, Arby’s. I will swear on piles of thin-sliced roast beef that this nonsense leads to fewer sales, not more.
But, alas, I suspect there are more important issues to be looked at than oven mitts without noses. The Kobe Bryant sexual assault case, for example.
And the dirty little secret no one seems to be talking about.
I tuned to a sports talk radio station soon after the charges were filed and heard a smattering of interesting opinions. There was a bundle of folks – OK, mostly guys – saying that we shouldn’t convict Kobe until more information comes in. Others saying that we need to know why the girl was going to his room (as if that mattered) and if she went to his room, she must have known what would happen. One person even used the term “gold digger” to describe the 19-year-old victim.
But no one was talking about the dirty little secret.
Since the day Bryant was charged, most media outlets have refrained from publishing the victim’s name, as is the norm. Some, however, have gotten rather specific in their efforts to avoid listing her identity, pointing out that she is a blonde who was a cheerleader in the small town, who lives in a cul-de-sac who is well-known from her singing voice … and lives in the white and yellow house next to the tall beech tree one mile west of the cattle guard. Now, I made that last part up, but those in the media who have justified their actions by saying, “We didn’t name her,” well, they should be spanked. Don’t these reporters have daughters?
One radio caller on a show I was listening to even said that he felt the case will likely be settled out of court – as many such high-profile athlete-in-trouble cases have been – and, he said, it looks like the girl “will now be set for life.” A sociologist type on the other end of the radio transmission suggested that it is more likely that she will be traumatized for life. Slam dunk for the sociologist.
Gold digger? Naïve? Had a motive in mind? Seeking an autograph or seeking something else? I don’t care.
I don’t care if she was after money. I don’t care if she was of evil intent. I don’t care if she understood fully what NBA players do in their rooms. I don’t care how she was dressed -- or undressed -- when Kobe opened the door. I don’t care if she blatantly asked for trouble (which I don’t believe, by the way).
I don’t care if all that’s true. It was still his fault. It’s always the man’s fault.
That’s the little secret that never seems to come out. It is always the male’s purgative to stop the sex act. Period. It is always the male’s decision to say “this far and no further.” It is always the responsibility of the male – some would say burden, some might say duty – to control the sex act. Always. Regardless of the time of day or night, regardless of dress or undress, or music in the background, or presence of alcohol or whether you work in the NBA or the AFL-CIO. Always. That’s part of being a man. It comes with the scratchy beard and deeper voice.
And don’t go telling me about some obscure case where handcuffs and 300-pound accomplices conducted a sexual assault where the male was not in charge. That’s about as rare as a lightning hitting a lottery winner. A left-handed one, to boot.
Mr. Bryant has labeled the incident “adultery,” which is true. But that softens the blow, makes it sound like an affair with an old friend. It wasn’t. This was a classic one-night stand. It wasn’t anything approaching a “relationship.” This was a stranger and a situation that screamed “End this. Now.” And he could have. Any male could have, and any man should have.
That’s the secret. Kobe had the physical ability and the responsibility to end it. He’s the one that extended the activity, not her. And he’s the one that should pay the price for the rest of his life. But he won’t. A 19-year-old desk clerk who lives in a quiet cul-de-sac will. Kobe may yet find a way around the assault charge; he may yet pass the legal test.
But he failed the manhood test.
And if you can convince me otherwise, I’ll buy you lunch. Anywhere but Arby’s.
Closing the door on 2002
December 2002.
Another year is crawling to a close and as we pull ourselves away from stores open 24 hours in order to more fully celebrate a religious holiday, one thing stands above the rest, something that I'm sure we can all agree on:
There are some really bad Christmas carols out there.
Stuck in a doctor's office for a couple of hours with all-Christmas-all-the-time being piped in, I decided the following: Neil Diamond should be arrested for what he does to a good Christmas carol, with "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" standing as prime evidence; the In 'Sync carol I heard was way, way out of whack; if I would have heard one more country-western killing of "Jingle Bell Rock," I would have taken a hostage.
But we all survived and can now look back on 2002 with a forced tear in our eye. Personally, I'm ready for a new year, a new chance at things, but let's close the door on the last 12 months with these reminiscent thoughts:
2002 Event most likely to bring Utahns together in one voice: The Olympics, duh.
2002 activity most likely to bring Utahns together in two voices: Main Street Plaza. My, what an interesting sausage to watch being made. I thought it interesting that it was the shrill voices that both initiated and brought to an end the "controversy." It seems some free speech advocates took to shouting "Whores of Babylon" and other such compliments -- perhaps phrases first heard at their own weddings -- at brides and grooms near the plaza. Even ACLU-bred Rocky the Squirrel said that it was such mismanagement of vocal chords that caused him to decide that "time and place restrictions" for such behavior will probably not work. So, another idea fails due to the Wingnut Principle ("For every dozen well-thought-out arguments, there will always be one Wingnut").
I'm an advocate of the First Amendment, believe me, but even I know when to keep my mouth shut.
2002 Kudos Korner: It should not go unnoticed how well things continue to work at Salt Lake International Airport even in the wake of ever-changing post-Sept. 11 efforts to keep things "safe."
2002 quote that made me go, "Huh?": An animal rights activists said a television campaign showing talking cows in California being contented and pleased to service the dairy industry was "unrealistic." Talking cows unrealistic? Go on. She said the advertising campaign unrealistically portrayed the pain and suffering cows suffer at the hands -- pun intended -- of man.
This comment came on the heels of another such activist's assertion, coming midway in a speech I attended. She said killing domestic animals for food was cruel and unusual punishment because pigs, for example, have no understanding of an afterlife, and having no hope for an afterlife, their impending doom is even more devastating and painful for them.
I like vegetarianism. I like many aspects of what it might offer me. But tell me about how red meat clogs my veins, how vegetarian culinary habits will keep my heart ticking longer. Tell me how much less damaging to the environment and cost-effective vegetarian harvesting is compared to cattle ranching. But please don't use arguments that reside in another solar system. I can't grasp those.
2002 movie that was surprise: Changing Lanes
Most surprising meal I had in 2002: Everybody in the world has eaten there, so maybe it is no real surprise to you, no real surprise here, but I had a Spicy Sirloin Steak (medium, if you're curious) at Maddox Restaurant that was marvelous. Not a big steak eater, myself, but I was rewarded by the waitress's suggestion and found a piece of meat that matched their rolls and clam chowder.
Biggest geopolitical surprise of 2002: That we aren't at war in Iraq yet. I don't doubt that Saddam is an unbalanced jerk, but what bothers me is that George W. won't show all the evidence he claims to have. He keeps saying in speech after speech that he has evidence of the production of big, bad. So let's see it. We all have TVs. We are bright people. Show it on the big screen at the U.N. Let's see trucks moving stuff from the back of the palace in the middle of the night. Let's see night-vision photos of the inside of a powdered milk factory with Scud missiles being loaded up with plutonium or whatever.
Was the evidenced gathered illegally or something? (Is anything illegal in a war?) Will it let out secrets about how advanced our spy system is? Or is the evidence kind of wishy-washy? The more Dubya and Tony Blair scream about the evidence they have in their briefcase but wont' show, well, the more I am thankful for Colin Powell and get nervous when I see Dick Cheney.
See you next year….
Here's an idea to save ourselves from ourselves
The recent anti-smoking advertising campaign that showed the irony of our 20-20 hindsight got it right.
When we look back at commercials promoting cigarettes or see old video clips of doctors and professionals puffing away, trying to do their work and look cool with a dumb ol' cigarette hanging off their lip, well, we shake our head and ask ourselves, "How could they be so stupid?"
Well, let me toss this idea at you -- and I hope you are sitting down: Wouldn't it be great if 15 or 20 years down the road we see an old Mountain Dew commercial from, oh, say, 2008, and we slap our foreheads and say, "How could they think we would have fallen for that?"
Pretty radical, eh? Or is it?
Now, I'm probably a little like you. I've heard and watched cliched stories about childhood obesity and the fattening of America on the tail end of the 5 o'clock news for years and they have pretty well rolled right over me, never making a dent. Then I recently heard a couple of statistics that, well, made a dent.
The Center for Disease Control estimates that 33 percent of the children born after the year 2000 will become diabetic in their lifetime. One in three. And that number, shocking as it is, is even higher for Latino and African-American children, approaching 50 percent.
Now this isn't some high school science fair project or a fly-by-night university researcher doing a master's project that spits out this number. This is the Center for Disease Control (CDC, the nation's top think-thank for disease analysis and prevention.
Next, a study concluded back in 2001 but recently brushed off for public distribution, found that 21 percent of the population of Georgia -- now, this isn't a middle school in Georgia, or an obscure town in Georgia, but the whole dang cornbread-eatin' peach-lovin' state of Georgia -- is obese.
Of the two statistics, the first one worries me more.
Me and you -- well, we are what we are. We are not exactly clay on the potter's wheel anymore, if you know what I mean. And, no, I'm not the picture of sinewy, six-pack-abs health. Ken, of Barbie fame, I am not; spongy, I am. But it doesn't take a weightlifter to figure out the single most obvious ingredient in the recipe of an obese youth is soda pop. There are -- and again I hope you are sitting down -- about 15 teaspoons of sugar in a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. Somewhere around 13 or so in Pepsi. About half that in Vitamin Water (which is owned by Coca-Cola, mind you.)
We've got to convince kids that walking around with a 64-ounce personal Thermos of sugar water is not going to be in their best interest. Type 2 Diabetes used to be called "adult onset diabetes" until so many kids starting getting it that the moniker no longer applied. Onset diabetes is generally preventable, so why not start preventing it?
In the United States, the average teen male drinks 868 cans of soda pop. In a year. One can a day can add up to 50 pounds of sugar -- that's like one leg of sugar. Soda consumption has passed both milk and bottled water. Milk! When's the last time you saw an exciting commercial for milk? Overall, Americans are consuming twice as much soda pop as they did 25 years ago. And they’re spending $54 billion a year on it.
Does your school have soda pop vending machines? There's a start. Every legislative session it seems like someone proposes restriction of junk food -- including sugar water -- in schools. "But we get x-number of pennies from each vending sale and we need the money and blah blah wah wah," comes the response.
And 33 percent of the next generation will find themselves looking back in regret.
Cola companies are often co-sponsors of school events and activities. Surely we have enough creativity to figure out other ways of getting money besides through the kidneys and pancreases of our children. Is sugar the only problem? Well, of course not. School lunch programs have long been dumping grounds for excess cheese, butter, overly refined grains and such. But Coke machines would be a good start, an easy fix.
Deep thinkers are looking at a myriad of reasons why American's in general are becoming thicker -- in the middle, I mean. Some suggest it is because of inadequate sleep. Sleep patterns have become less regular in the past 20 years and studies confirm that some hormones and other triggers for hunger and fat retention are affected by lack of sleep.
The size of portions has increased in the past 20 years. A medium drink at some outlets is now 32 ounces and small fries may not exist at some restaurants. Some point to smoking cessation as a cause -- those who give up smoking, which is happening with more regularity, often gain weight. Some claim that living in environments that are excessively cold or warm tends to burn calories, thus, living with air conditioning and ambient temperatures adds the pounds.
But despite these edgy findings, the same old thing we have been hearing for a generation now remain the two silver bullets of success: diet needs to managed and exercise needs to be increased.
With that said, then, I hope you're not sitting down.
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