Lake New Orleans

What an overwhelming disaster brought by Katrina. I can't imagine how New Orleans will ever get drained, dried out, and rebuilt. It seems like it will take years. It must be very difficult for all of those families who have lost their homes, and I wonder what percentage of them had insurance that will actually cover their losses and temporary housing. Most people can't buy flood insurance, so unless people in Louisiana and Mississippi are exceptions, I'm guessing a huge number will be without their homes and jobs and possibly ruined by Katrina.

The political stuff is so disappointing. RFK Jr. apparently blamed Bush for Katrina. He certainly has shamed his father, let alone the rest of the nation in playing politics with such a tragic disaster. Let's hope there aren't more stupid leftist Bush-haters that start in on him, but instead everybody needs to pull together regardless of political stripe to help the people recover and rebuild.

An interesting observation is the lack of response from our so-called "friends" around the world. Over the years, whether it's earthquakes or tsunamis or famine or disease, who's there first with food, medicine, and money? We are. But I recall after the Tsunami, where both the American people and their government were overwhelmingly generous to help in the recovery, there seemed to be more criticism than thanks from the world. So I sort of wonder, now that we've had our own major disaster, where is everybody?

Maybe I'm premature, and we'll see an outpouring of assistance and support from Europe, Russia, and our #1 trading partner, China. But somehow I don't think it will happen, because aside from Great Britain, I'm beginning to believe that most of the rest of the world are not friends of the US. They want our trade, they want our protection, they want our money and medicines, but they really resent our superpower status and enjoy seeing us suffer.

I hope I'm wrong.

Gotta Love Gershwin

Well, in case you wondered, the show at Beef & Boards was Gershwin's Crazy for You. A show I've always enjoyed, especially for the great music. Some of the best timeless classics are right there in the show. I've seen the Broadway version that was recorded for PBS, and of course the High School version (that Nick skipped because he didn't want to do all that dancing).

If I were playing critic, I would rate the performance at Beef & Boards about 3 stars. The cast were all good singers and actors, but I felt it could have been much better.

Among the leads, I thought the redhead playing Polly gave a strong performance overall. She had a strong voice and lots of attitude as the part requires. But I noticed a number of timing slips, not on song entrances and the like but with the acting. It seemed at times that her facial expressions and body language weren't quite right for what was going on, that somehow she was a little late on things. For example, when she transitioned from anger to amour with "Bobby", instead of a gradual thing it was more like turning a switch. That was almost confusing. That, and many lines that scream for a pregnant pause she delivered much too quickly, missing some chances for comedic impact.

Then again, that impression might be partly the fact that I never believed she (or about any woman, for that matter) would ever fall for a twinkle-toes like the Bobby character. OK, I know the character is supposed to be some sort of Broadway wannabe who loves to dance, and how many straight men realistically fit that mold? But seriously, can't the guy at least do a better job pretending to be hetero?

The Bobby character just didn't impress me, despite the fact he obviously had the part down cold. The classic drunk scene with Bobby and Zangler is hilarious no matter who's playing the roles, and I did enjoy that in this show. But I never believed in any sort of chemistry between Bobby and Polly.

But the rest of the cast were energetic and athletic, and overall the performance was enjoyable. We talked about getting a bigger gang to go to Grease, the next show coming up there. (Nick and Tim, start thinking about it now, and whether you want to bring a date.)

Anyway, back to work.

Saturdays are Good

This one is pretty good, anyway. I made a nice sale today and am getting treated to a show at Beef & Boards in Indy tonight. Although I'm not exactly sure what the show is, and have never been to Beef & Boards before. But it was started by the brother of a guy I knew in University Singers back at Ball State, and I've heard it's pretty good.

Too bad North lost to East last night, but it was an exciting game. Last play of the game, 4th and 17, clock ticking down under 10 seconds, 1st down on the 2 yard line but needing a touchdown for the win. Pass caught and the receiver fights with all he has to try to reach the first down, or better yet the endzone, but is tackled 1 yard short. Game over. East wins 28-24. Stevie Brown is amazing.

Getting "tagged" by Nick I assume must mean I have to post my version of 10 things that make me happy. There are lots more than 10, but I'll try to make it a "top 10". O yeah, and I won't bother to tag anybody else (unless somebody wants me to)

1. Listening to a thunderstorm lashing the roof and windows while I drift off to sleep under the blankets.
2. Driving through the mountains on a clear day with my favorite tunes on the radio and my favorite female companion under my arm.
3. Watching one of my kids play (insert name of sport here) from a comfortable canvas chair on the sidelines.
4. Going to a football game with one to three of my boys. Colts, college game, High School game - any will work.
5. Shooting hoops in a nice gym.
6. Singing in front of a large audience and being able to see that I am reaching them emotionally with my song.
7. Ice cream. Especially "home-made".
8. Hugs.
9. Road trips - anywhere, as long as the weather's nice and the scenery's decent.
10. A great book.

The Difference between Men and Women

Here is a list of observable differences between men and women. Some of the following is borrowed, some is my own:

RELATIONSHIPS:
When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, she will either gain or lose 30 pounds, then she will find a new guy and get on with her life.

A man seems to get over it very quickly and say nothing to his friends, except six months after the breakup, in a drunken haze at 3AM on a Saturday night, he will call and say, 'I just called to let you know you ruined my life, and I'll never forgive you, I hate you, you're a whore. I still believe there's a chance for us, just give me another chance.' By Sunday afternoon he's forgotten all about it, and besides, would not admit it ever happened in front of his friends.

MATURITY:
Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are focused on playing video games and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

MAGAZINES:
Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked women. Women's magazines also feature pictures of naked women. This is because the female body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is lumpy and hairy and shouldn't be seen by the light of day. Men are turned on at the sight of a naked woman's body. Most naked men elicit laughter from women.

BATHROOMS:
A man has five items in his bathroom - a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. No man would be able to identify more than 20 of those items.

SHOPPING:
A woman goes to the mall for the day to wander through all of the stores and look at or try on every item before finally settling on the things she wants to purchase. A man discovers he needs a new pair of jeans, drives to the nearest store that sells jeans and buys the first pair of the appropriate size off the rack, then goes home.

GROCERIES:
A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the grocery store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies.

CATS:
Women love cats. Men pretend they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

OFFSPRING:
A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

DRESSING UP:
A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, read a book, talk on the phone, get the mail. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

LAUNDRY:
Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, at least twice or until it stinks, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will take his mountain of clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the Laundromat. Most men don't understand why that only works on TV.

MIRRORS:
Men are vain; they will check themselves out in a mirror once a day. Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections constantly in any shiny surface: mirrors, spoons, store windows, some man's bald head.

MENOPAUSE:
When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of these changes varies with the individual. The male equivalent of Menopause provokes a uniform reaction...he buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving gloves, flirts obnoxiously with 20-something women, and goes shopping for a Porsche.

TOYS:
Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and silly and impractical. Examples of men's toys: little miniature TV's. Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Home Theatres with Surround Sound. Pool tables. Video game Systems. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires at least six batteries to operate.

MOVIES:
Women want to see the proverbial "chick flick", which is usually a dramatic tear-jerker film about relationships. Men like action, adventure, and science fiction films. Each will accompany the other to their favorite movie genre only when there's an expected direct benefit to be received afterward.

JEWELRY:
Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get away with wearing one ring and that's it. Any more than that and he will look like a lounge singer named Ramone.

TIME:
When a woman says she'll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she's using the same definition of time as when a man says the football game just has five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.

FRIENDS:
Women on a girl's night out talk the whole time. Men on a boy's night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are 'Pass the Doritos' or Got anymore beer?'

RESTROOMS:
Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in a restroom will never speak a word to each other. Women who've never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, 'Hey, Tom, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?'

ATM's

I've decided to make this blog just my own thoughts and experiences, and switch the political ideas to another blog.

If you have any interest at all in political issues, or my perspective on them, feel free to visit my alternative blog:

dnsdailyjournal.blogspot.com


Ever wondered how men and women differ when using an ATM?

MAN:
1) Pull up to machine
2) Wind window down
3) Insert ATM card, enter PIN
4) Retrieve cash
5) Drive away

WOMAN:
1) Pull up to machine
2) Open door (too far away from machine)
3) Search through all of the 112 compartments in handbag for ATM card
4) Do make up, apply lipstick, fix hair
5) Insert Card
6) Remove card
7) Insert card the correct way up
8) Search for piece of paper with PIN on it
9) Enter PIN
10) Enter correct PIN
11) Retrieve cash, put in bag
12) Drive off
13) Reverse back to machine
14) Retrieve card
15) Drive three miles away
16) Release hand-brake

Allergy Season

Every year I can tell exactly what day it started. This year it was August 18th. I can tell simply by the start of some sneezing, eye irritation, and sinus drainage. To verify, the next day I went online to see what the pollen counts were for this area, but was surprised to see "Low" on the site. But then I was exonerated the next morning, when the local newspaper confirmed a high weed pollen count.

My severe fall allergy curse has been with me my entire life. I've had the allergies as long as I can remember, and my parents once told me they first realized the problem when I was a toddler and showed the symptoms after they had taken me somewhere in the country one day.

An annual event for me up until I had my tonsils removed at 23 was the daily sneezing, running eyes and nose, and wheezing that began in mid August and continued into mid or late September. Inevitably, sometime in October I would come down with a case of Tonsilitis. It turns out that I probably should have had the tonsils out when I was very young, but doctors failed to catch the pattern of my annual bouts with tonsilitis and kept to the popular medical wisdom of the time, which was to avoid removing tonsils as much as possible.

Football camp was always a special challenge for me, especially through Jr. High (it wasn't called Middle School back then) and High School. There I was, on the worst days of 2-a-days, eyes swollen and watering so badly I could barely see. Sneezing regularly and trying to figure out what to do with the constant flow from my nose. It usually just ended up on my practice jersey. I probably would have been a better football player if there had just been a way to control the allergies back then.

I remember many nights suffering with coughing and asthma, all though for several years I didn't know it was asthma. Nighttime for me was worse than the day, because many nights I slept very little or not at all as I mostly tried to find a comfortable position that would let me breathe freely.

The culprits for me are ragweed, several varieties of grasses used in most lawns in Indiana, and the red oak tree. My condition is known forever as "hay fever", and nothing short of a hard frost could alleve my suffering.

When I was in my early 20's back in Ft. Wayne, I tried desensitization treatments. Every week I went at lunchtime to the doctor's office, where I got a little shot of all the bad stuff that cause my allergies. It usually itched and raised a welt, but that was about all - until that day they switched to the next vial.

The next vial had a slightly higher concentration of those allergens. I got the shot and waited the proscribed 10 minutes, which at first seemed routine. But after leaving the office and driving back to work, I began to feel very strange. My face felt overheated and my entire body began to itch. I began to feel spacy, and everything around me began to seem unreal, as in a dream.

This couldn't be good, so I went home, which was closest to where I was in the car at that time. Claudia immediately saw I was in trouble even before I said anything, and immediately loaded me back into the car and drove me back to the doctor's office. I was covered in red all over, my bronchials were swelling shut, and I couldn't see very well. I was feeling faint along with the feeling of my body being on fire.

The doctor immediately injected adrenalin, and kept me in the office for observation for awhile. Now my feelings of burning skin, itching, trouble breathing, etc., were quickly replaced with a racing heart and mind and a generally strange, "wired" feeling that's difficult to describe.

Later I met a widower who had lost his wife because of a bad reaction in a very similar desensitization program. So I thought it might be best to abandon that course of treatment and just find a way to make peace with my personal curse.

Today I am more careful this time of year to try to keep the symptoms at a minimum. The allergy medications are much better than they were 20 and 30 years ago, but I still prefer to stay off the drugs as much as possible. So I keep outdoor time to a minimum, especially in the country (which is harder to do now that we live on the farm). Air conditioning helps, and some dietary adjustments seem to help a little for some reason that escapes me. Strangely, during allergy season I crave ice cream more than any other time of year, but that's exactly the food that seems to make my symptoms worse.

All I hope for this season is the same as every allergy season: That it is relatively short and mild. Based on today's sneezing fits, it's not looking too promising.

Two Down

The last weekend with Tim wasn't what I had hoped, and probably not quite what he had hoped either. It got off to a rocky start on Friday, which is still rather painful for me to recall.

We had planned to meet for dinner before going to the football game Friday night (North vs. Seymour). Tim told me he would call me when he was ready to meet for dinner, so I waited in the office for his call. When it was getting a little late to be able to fit a meal in before kickoff, I tried to call him a couple of times and left voicemails asking him to call me and let me know what was going on. Finally, it was late enough that I had to get going, and I grabbed a quick meal at McDonald's alone before going on to the game.

I called him and got through as I arrived for the game, and found out he had decided to eat with friends. He was at the game with the same friends. Now eating with his friends and going to the game with them didn't bother me at all; but the fact that he didn't have the courtesy to call and let me know did.

So I talked to him briefly when I arrived at the game, then headed for the stands. He and his gang appeared and sat (if you could call it that) several rows below me. They seemed to be having a good time, talking with others who came by and seemingly paying no attention at all to the game. They weren't there long, as sometime in the third quarter I noticed that they had left that area. By halftime I looked around and guessed that they had left the game altogether.

No, sitting at the game with friends and leaving early didn't bother me per se. But making no effort to at least come and talk with me in the stands, tell me they were leaving, or answering my call late in the game to try to find out what was going on did.

I arrived home about 10, and began to be concerned. Tim wasn't communicating with me at all, and I took that to mean he had plans he really didn't want to share with me. I tried calling him a couple of times, leaving a couple of messages in the process. His normal curfew passed with no contact and me still unable to reach him. I began to get concerned.

Another hour passed, with still no communication. Concern turned to anger. Anger that he was completely disrespecting me by refusing to take my calls or otherwise let me know he's OK. I assumed (correctly) that he was of a mindset to have one last blowout before he went to school, which by itself is understandable, but his failure to even discuss it with me was not.

So in the wee hours of the morning I finally get a call. By this time I'm so angry I'm about to burst a blood vessel or two. And unfortunately I gave him both barrels, ending with removing his rights to the Volvo and promising to withhold my payment to Butler if he didn't get home immediately.

So things improved somewhat Saturday, when Tim packed and we prepared a list of items he needed for school. We went to town for church, then went to find dinner. But the power was out in a huge chunk of Columbus, so we had to go all the way downtown to find a place to eat that had electricity. Then we visited grandma and headed to Target for the supplies.

The Target trip was expensive. Painful for me to recall in a different way. But by Saturday night, we had Jed well packed and ready to go.

Sunday morning we made the drive to Indy. What a contrast between the move-in day for Nick at Rose and the move-in at Butler. The information we had from Butler made it sound like the move-in process would be similar, but that turned out to be wrong. First we found Tim's RA, who was hanging out in his room playing a video game. He found Tim's key, pointed out the room (next door), and that was about it. No welcome, no offering of information or assistance, well, pretty much nothing beyond "here's your key, there's your room". What a slug.

So we went searching for a parking spot, and of course there were none. I parked on the street as close as I could get to the dorm, and we began to lug Tim's stuff into the room. There were no students around to help move things in, contrary to the Butler literature, and it took something between 8 and 10 trips for both Tim and I to get everything into the room.

Tim began working on setting up his computer, so I started unpacking and storing his clothes and other stuff. He's in a "triple", and we soon met the two roommates. They both had moved in on Saturday, and of course had taken the prime beds and desks. The room wasn't really designed as a triple, so it had 2 closets and only 2 actual desks. Tim was relegated to a small computer workstation that had no drawers or shelves. He needs to build some shelves, as there is absolutely nowhere in the room he can keep his books.

So he couldn't get the computer online to the campus network and it was lunchtime, so we went for lunch. The lunchroom was jammed with people, of course students with parents and often siblings. It took awhile to get through the lines, but I was able to grab a table and we had an acceptable lunch. We also stopped by the bookstore, where I purchased the MS Office suite for him. I was expecting a great low price, but apparently there is no such thing at Butler. There was another painful purchase.

Back at Tim's room, we found that he had to upgrade his XP operating system with SP2 and a bunch of other security patches before he would be allowed onto the network. But unfortunately, there was no way to install those upgrades since he didn't have a valid copy of XP. I figured, no big deal, we'll just see if we can get IT to let us online long enough to purchase and download it, and we'll be all set. We visited the IT workshop in the basement of the dorm, and initially they seemed to think that would work for us - we just had to bring down the computer.

So much for that strategy. After proving to the tech in the basement that we needed a valid XP license to access the network, he had no solution for us. He couldn't get us on to purchase and download it, because that was against policy. Nobody on campus sells XP, so we have to find somewhere to purchase it. However, there were people from CompUSA on campus, and maybe we could buy it from them.

By now it's time for the welcome ceremony. We walked over to Clowes, where Tim sat with the rest of the freshmen on the main floor and I climbed the stairs all the way to the top of the highest balcony. After the university president took the podium to deliver his speech, I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew I was being startled awake by applause. At least the Butler chorus and string ensemble were pretty decent.

The photo of the freshman class had them on the lawn forming a giant "150" for Butler's 150th anniversary.

Then Tim and I went to find the CompUSA people. They didn't know that people would be wanting to buy XP, and had no copies with them. They would be happy to bring some with them the next day (Monday). For an outrageous price, of course.

So our last gasp was to try to go out and buy it from a store. But we don't know the area that well, and the nearest store I knew of was off the northern section of Indy's 465 loop. By the time we got into that area, we were already running late for Tim's opening orientation session back on campus. So we drove back to campus as quickly as we could, and good-bye was just a drop-off from Jed in front of the building.

I was very worried that this was less than the positive experience I would have hoped for Tim. A long, tiring, and frustrating day to kick off his college experience didn't seem a good omen, and since then I've been worried about how he will do.

But I talked with him today, and he seems to be doing well, settling in, and enjoying himself. I ordered XP from NewEgg.com per Nick's recommendation, and have them shipping it to me to make sure he gets it as soon as possible. I'll run it up to Indy the day it comes in.

Now I can't quite figure out why I wrote this extremely large post. It might be of no interest to anyone but me, but what's done is done I suppose.

Only one left in the nest. I'm not sure how to adjust to that.

End of a Strange Week

There hasn't been much going on this week work-wise, but in other areas it has been a pretty strange and eventful week. Aside from some personal things I'll just leave personal, there's been all this other stuff, like:

1. Nick's car needing a major repair, costing about half of what the car itself cost when we bought it back in June. And the dealer isn't helping much, saying it's not their fault and they couldn't have foreseen this catastrophic failure even in what they represented to us as a thorough inspection. Ouch. I called to check on their progress this afternoon, and was told it won't be ready until Tuesday at the earliest, but more likely Wednesday. A week and a half in the shop just adds insult to injury.
   
2. A fairly big development in my CASA case, which of course I can't talk about.
3. Tim went to Nick's for part of the week and is heading to Butler this weekend.
4. I updated the Columbus North Football website for the new year. The first game of the season is tonight. I'll miss seeing Tim out there, but on the other hand can relax and just enjoy the game without trying to catch every move when he was playing.
   

It will be strange with Chris the lone child remaining at home. Oh well, at least we should start saving some money on groceries. Maybe not much, though, because Tim hasn't eaten at home pretty much all summer. But the grocery bills haven't seemed to go down much; wonder why?

There's more happening this coming week related to work. That's a very good thing, because I'm ready to actually do some work again. It definitely beats trying to find customers.

Another Story - Part 2

The story left off with a trip into the Appalachian mountains in our church bus to a youth camp, when the bus broke through the dirt road and turned over into the river below. The rest of the story follows below.

As the bus came to rest on it's roof at the bottom of the muddy-brown river, I suddenly realized that I was sitting upside-down in my seat. My hands had a vice-grip on the seat in front of me, somehow still seated in the inverted bus seat. I let go and fell down toward the roof of the bus, scraping my elbow in the process.

The pain of the scrape served to rouse me somewhat from the fog of disbelief at what was happening. But somehow it didn't shake much sense into me, as my first priority was to insure that my guitar hadn't been damaged. I found my sister and asked her to make sure the guitar was OK.

Then I saw Dad, making his way toward us to verify we were not seriously hurt. He told me to leave the bus and run down the road to find help. The camp we were on our way to visit should only be a mile or two ahead.

The bus had settled into the river on an angle, with the right side where I had been against the riverbank and the left side facing upward. I climbed to the nearest window and grabbed the latches to open it, but it wouldn't open until I realized I had to pull up instead of down; of course, the bus was upside-down, so the windows had to open in the opposite direction.

As I was preparing to exit the bus, I spotted Onnie and Shirley, two of the older adults who had come along on the trip. Onnie was holding his arm, and I immediately assumed it was broken. I asked if they needed help, and they told me to go ahead, but asked me to help their son, Tim, off the bus.

Tim was a younger, elementary-school-aged kid, who I could tell was shaken from the accident. So I grabbed him and helped him through the open bus window and followed him out. We climbed over the bottom of the bus and jumped onto the river bank, where we grabbed tree roots to climb through the muddy bank up to the road.

I left him on the road and immediately began running forward to find help. There was no way to know how far I would have to run, but I ran as fast as I could. As I ran ahead, my mind filled with fears and concerns. Did everyone survive? Even if I found help at the camp, how long would it take to get an ambulance all the way into this remote area? Should I have stayed behind and helped people who were hurt? What if I didn't get help in time, and people died? What if the bus moved farther into the river and people drowned?

All of these thoughts just pushed me to run a little faster, despite the fact that my chest was hurting from ragged breathing. I was going to run until I dropped if I had to.

Suddenly I rounded another curve around the mountainside and spotted a camp. There was a softball game in the field, and I saw adults behind home plate and the pitcher's mound. I picked the tall man behind the pitcher and sprinted to him, trying to get his attention by waving my arms and weakly calling out as I ran.

When he first spotted me, his expression was puzzled. He must have wondered where this kid came from, and why he was running and gesturing like that? When I arrived next to him in the softball field, I breathlessly tried to blurt out what had happened, but he didn't understand me. He grabbed my shoulders and told me to calm down and take a deep breath. When I caught my breath, I told him of the accident.

He and the other man, upon hearing my message, moved very quickly. After I confirmed that there were probably people injured and in need of medical care, the second man ran to the lodge to place an emergency call. The first went to his car, and the three of us were soon on our way to the scene of the accident.

We arrived at the scene quickly, and the men immediately began helping pull passengers from the bus. One of the older boys, a graduating high-school senior, was dispatched to run back to the camp for blankets. I asked some of the adults who were helping remove people from the bus if I could help, and they thanked me for getting help so quickly and told me to just stay on the road and get some rest.

I began looking around. A group of men and high school boys were continuing to pull people out of the bus. Some were helped up the bank to the road, and others carried. One of the older boys was working to help others, oblivious to a large laceration in his knee. I thought I saw a flash of bone through the blood on the knee, then someone told him to get out of the river and get help for his knee. He stopped and looked down at his injury for the first time, and immediately turned pale with the realization. He was helped up to the road, where another adult began to tend to his wound with a bandage from the first aid kit.

Wandering around on the road, I saw the gathering survivors milling around silently in groups of three or four. On a makeshift stretcher at the side of the road I saw one of the adult women, Bev, lying completely still and seemingly comatose. Although there were no outward signs of injury, she laid silently with her eyes open and unseeing. I asked a nearby adult what was wrong, and was told Bev was in shock, that she would come around soon.

Then I heard a shaking sob from one of the girls standing in the road. The single cry was like a trigger, setting off a wave of crying, sobbing, and wailing from all of the girls along the roadway. I separated myself from the crying mobs quickly, because no self-respecting boy should be seen crying with the girls.

In the end, there were a variety of minor scrapes, bruises, and scratches, but not many serious injuries. Onnie did suffer a broken arm, and there was the deep knee laceration, and a few other injuries that required brief hospital stays. And Bev did come out of her shock-induced coma, quite shaken but able to recover quickly.

We heard from the emergency services personnel that we were highly lucky or blessed. If we had slid off the road almost anywhere else, they said, the accident would have been much more serious. We somehow avoided trees that could have broken the bus apart. We went into a relatively calm and shallow part of the river, which otherwise might have flooded into the bus much higher with rapid-moving muddy water. As it was, they found it remarkable to find our injuries as few and minor as they were.

So we did a farewell performance of our program before going home in the cars of many friends and family members who drove to Kentucky to take us home. That performance, in the little Krypton church, was standing room only. The evening was electric, with all of us singing our hearts out and the locals in attendance finding themselves swept up in the emotional thanksgiving everyone in our group were feeling and expressing. A very large number of people walked to the front of the church for the altar call which customarily ended the service.

The newspaper did a big article on the accident, which listed the names of everyone involved; except for mine. The paper published a list of all who were "injured", which included Dad and my sister Julie, but skipped me. But I brushed it off, deciding that since I wasn't injured, there was no reason for me to be listed as such.

After arriving home, an encore of our program was presented at my home church, where the entire congregation came forward during the altar call to weep and hug each other. The experience seemed to bring everyone in the congregation closer together and led to a strong feeling of extended family among everyone in the church for many years to come.

There are several people who shared this experience who clearly saw the hand of God in protecting us from major injury or death, and using the incident to closely knit the members of the church together. Was divine providence at work, or was everything that happened easily predicted and explained?

The answer is a matter of faith.

Another Story

I find myself with 30 minutes free and nothing much to do, so here's another story for my valued readers, whoever you may be.

I think I had just finished the eighth grade, when a fairly ambitious trip was undertaken by the youth in my church. We gathered together the teens and pre-teens from our church and a couple of other area churches in our denomination and prepared for a trip to Kentucky. We met for a few rehearsals at the church to get our program ready, then were on our way to Kentucky in the bus.

The bus was a school bus just recently purchased used by the church, and was still painted that schoolbus yellow. Dad was the driver, and my sister and I were part of the group. The trip was lots of fun for most of us, with a chance to hang out with our freinds for that interminable ride in uncomfortable seats to Hazard County, Kentucky.

Our base was a little town called Krypton, where there was a small mission church supported by our denomination. I was very familiar with Krypton, having been there several times before with my parents, a bit of a tradition during the Fall Break from school every October. Most of the previous trips were with adult groups and involved repairs and painting and distributing used clothing and whatever else needed done at the little church in the hills or the parsonage next door.

We had been there a couple of days, working on various tasks during the day, like digging a new hole for the outhouse. Evenings were time for our little program, which was full of music and skits and some preaching and "personal testimonies". There was plenty of free time as well, and Euchre was the game of choice for most of us that trip. I found myself trying to avoid one female admirer while admiring another from afar. The pastor from my church surprised us with a hilarious wake-up call each morning, when he would play and sing a raucous version of "Pistol-Packin' Mama" on the old piano in the church. We laughed at our irreverant reverend and roused for breakfast.

That day we loaded up the bus for a trip back into the mountains to spend time at a church youth camp. It seemed to be a long drive, so after what seemed to me an endless journey into the Appalachian hills, I made myself as comfortable as possible and began to doze.

It had rained in the hills very recently, and the dirt roads were eroded and washed out in some places. Dad didn't see that this particular stretch of mountain road had been weakened from underneath by the erosion, and perhaps ran a bit to close to the edge preparing to round a curve.

I was startled from my doze by a sudden thump, as the right front wheel fell through the road surface. Before I could gather my wits to realize what was happening, I felt the rear wheels follow and the bus begin to list to the right. I turned to look out my window, next to my seat on the right side of the bus, and time seemed to slow as I watched the green foliage of the river bank rise up to meet the window.

In a sort of trancelike fascination, I watched as a single round hole radiated cracks through my window, as if someone was drawing them into the surface. Then, I felt a slide into the river, where the top of the bus rocked like a rowboat until the water displaced into the bus and it settled into the muck.

(to be continued ...)

Feels Like Limbo

I've had a couple of weeks where very little has happened. I've made some half-hearted efforts at filling the gap between projects with something that might make me some money, but nobody's really doing anything in the business world right now either. It seems that those last weeks of the summer before school starts are just time for everybody to sit back and get prepared for getting back into the Fall routine.

In the past I've started projects in June and July, but they all seemed to fizzle during the summer months. It seems like it just takes a lot longer to get things done in the summer, but once Labor Day comes around, everything gets going again.

You wouldn't think that summer should be that much different in the business world, since businesses don't go on vacation. True, businesses continue to operate in the summer, but except for seasonal businesses, the people who work for them take summer vacations and like to generally take it easy in the summer. So projects like those I get involved with tend to get pushed off to the fall.

Case in point, my new project that starts right after Labor Day. Originally it was scheduled to start this week. But key people were going on vacation, and other things came up they didn't share with me, and all got pushed back. Too bad, because I'm more than ready to get back to work.

Philosophical Formation

One fact of life is that young liberals often age into old conservatives. Although that has a kernel of truth in my case, I'd have to say my philosophies are simply a natural result of my life experience.

Growing up, I had a Democrat father and Republican mother. Dad was a teacher, which is probably all you need to know about his political choice. Despite their opposite political views, it was never a source of friction for anyone in the family. When the topic did come up, it was mostly worth a chuckle, hearing Dad spout his Democratic talking points and Mom just responding that she'll make sure to get to the polls to cancel out his vote.

Before I went to college, it all pretty much rolled off. I didn't know or care a thing about politics. Up until I took government class in high school, I would have told you I was a Democrat in deference to Dad, but would not have been able to tell you why.

That high school government class wasn't really a great eye-opening experience for me, but I did learn more about what sort of political process we had and the basic arguments between the two major parties. Mr. Harley impressed me the day he announced to the class that he was neither Republican nor Democrat, but an independent. He told us that he found himself agreeing and disagreeing with both parties to an extent that he couldn't choose one or the other. That seemed inspired to me at the time, so mostly through college, if you asked, I would tell you I was a political independent.

Of course, I couldn't avoid the whole story of the Nixon years. I heard a lot of grumbling about the wage and tax freeze he used to try to slow down inflation. Then Watergate was all over the news for what seemed an eternity, until finally that night at the football game the announcer told the crowd that Nixon had resigned and Gerald Ford would take over as President. I'd never heard of Gerald Ford before that day.

In college I didn't have much time or use for politics either. Going to the state university (Ball State), naturally most of the faculty were on the liberal side of the line. Jimmy Carter was elected my sophomore year, and most of the campus celebrated, and even my singing group, the University Singers, were invited to perform at one of his inaugural balls. I was disappointed that, as a first-year member, I wasn't eligible to make that trip. It sounded like a lot of fun.

Generally, not because of any knowledge of Jimmy Carter's politics but because of the glowing comments from professors and those students who cared, I was pleased that he won. But if you were to ask me any question about Jimmy's policies or political philosophy at that time, I couldn't have given any sort of intelligent answer.

There were attempts at left-wing indoctrination on campus. One of my honors classes was a popular elective on "Violence in America", or something like that. It was taught by a colorful, highly entertaining professor, who utilized multimedia and the talents of a variety of student artists and musicians to explore the "culture of violence" in society.

Even though the class was tremendously entertaining, I couldn't help but develop a sort of "give me a break!" attitude. From the Vietnam war to anti-gun to spanking children, the message was that it was all violence and if we were to be an enlightened society, we should stop it in all its forms. I instinctively understood that this was utopian silliness.

There was an active gay group on campus, which was quite an eye-opener for a naive boy from Amish country. I knew some guys who arrived on campus as just ordinary 18 year olds, no more "gay" than the meanest member of the Cardinal football team. But they were uncertain of themselves, maybe had a little trouble finding and keeping girlfriends, and going through that identity crisis I think we all experience at some point during our formative years.

Well, the group of gays on campus were on the prowl for just these people, who were ripe for their brand of indoctrination. They reminded me of a sort of strange religious cult, only their religion just happened to be centered around deviant sexuality. They attracted people with friendly acceptance and understanding, and closed the deal with the message of a persecuted, "us-against-the-world" mentality. These quite normal but malleable young guys I knew transformed in short order into skinny, vain, trite, effeminate caricatures. They had crossed over into the cult that now campaigns to force everyone via government fiat to bow down and pay deference to their religion.

A particularly egregious example on campus was my Sociology instructor. It was one of those core classes everybody was required to take, and freshmen were jammed into one of those giant lecture halls to listen to a daily diatribe from a professor who is quite possibly the most radical person I have ever encountered in person. She was an open lesbian who went against the normal dress code of professors, who at that time were still mostly wearing professional suits when in front of their classes. She instead wore jeans and usually some sort of long-sleeved t-shirt, braless of course. She was extremely angry and disaffected, and gave daily rants on the evils of the American European Christian-inquisition white-male-dominated minority-exploiting native american-killing capitalistic minority and women-enslaving society.

From my perspective, she was a sad joke. I came to feel sorry for her, because there had to have been some horrible experience in her past that led to her hostility toward all things American, and male.

One other example was when I attended a session about the Kennedy assassination. Presented by (I later discovered) a communist party activist, the presentation was mostly a replay, over and over and over, of the famous Zapruder film of the JFK assassination. And the message was that Lee Harvey Oswald was set up, the assassination was spearheaded by the CIA in support of the vast so-called capitalist military-industrial complex, that the Warren Commission was a fraud and a coverup, etc.

At first, that evening got me worried. But as I did some reading and studying on that topic later, I began to discover who the purveyors of that theory were and what their underlying motives might be. I suspect we'll never know exactly who might have been behind or involved with the JFK assassination, but I came to believe it most likely was not the CIA.

So then I graduated from college and learned about "real" life under Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. These were the post-RFK-JFK-VietNam-Watergate years when Democrats dominated the political landscape, and for the most part the public never heard conservative thought on key issues. We lost the VietNam war due to poor leadership and lack of commitment, but were told our military were just a bunch of evil dopers and baby killers. There was a gigantic recession, and jobs were hard to find. Taxes were extremely high, with the top marginal tax rate on income around 70%. But the word was that very few people paid the top rate, because there were plenty of "loopholes" they could exploit to shelter their income from such confiscatory taxes. High wage-earners simply deferred salaries or took compensation in forms of non-taxable "expense accounts" and company cars to avoid those huge tax bites, while those of us at the bottom of the scale paid all of our ten to fifteen percent.

I struggled personally in those first couple of years after college, leaving my high school teaching job to try to find something that actually paid a living wage. The news stayed bad through the Carter years, ending with the Iran hostage crisis, which made Carter look extremely weak and indecisive.

Then I voted for the first time, casting my vote for Ronald Reagan. And from where I was, life improved dramatically almost immediately. Tax rates went down for the lower and middle classes and the top marginal rate was slashed, while loopholes were closed, gas prices stabilized, I found my career in computer software, and life just got better and better.

These days, whenever an important issue comes to my attention, I try my best to understand the issue and listen to all sides before arriving at my own position. Now and then I will end up siding with a reasoned Democratic position, usually if it involves trade or economics. But most of the time, especially since the current president took office, I find myself siding with either the Republicans or neither side. I almost always side with Republicans on social issues. The last three or four years, I haven't really heard any reasoned Democratic arguments at all; the only message they have is to beat the drum over and over, "Bush sucks" (boom-boom), "Bush is a liar" (boom-boom), "Bush is a Nazi" (boom-boom), etc. Talk about your intelligent political discourse.

Right now I side with neither party on issues like illegal immigration, tax reform, government spending, the role of the federal government, and some parts of foreign policy. Those few I find agreement with on those issues tend to lean conservative, but don't represent the Republican party. I'm disgusted by the latest highway bill out of congress that is little more than a gigantic pork barrel, and does nothing to solve our real energy and transportation problems while wasting my tax dollars on politicians' pet projects and graft for big campaign donors.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, their historic populist message has been obscured by the radicals who have taken over the party. The party isn't run by pragmatic people who believe that government should care about all of the people and not just the fat cats. It's now a party of atheists, gays, racial minorities who want handouts and preferences, socialists, communists, radical environmentalists, abortionists, radical women's groups, labor unions, and globalists. To me, that is hardly a party that represents me, the ordinary little guy just trying to get by.

But as to my early idea of remaining an independent, I've decided that is just a synonym for irrelevant. These days, for good or bad, you've got to choose your party and stick with it, or the other party will take over and we'll return to the bad old days of Jimmy Carter. Despite their faults (which are defined very differently by me than the Democrats), at least there are grown-ups in the white house now, if you compare them to the arrested-development 60's-retro Clinton gang.

What Actually Happened

This story is old news, and not even relevant to anything that is happening today. But for some reason I thought writing it down might be useful.

I took the job with the software company in 1993 after becoming an odd man out in the reshuffle of management at my previous employer. Before '93, I had been the IS Director for a major trucking company in South Carolina. The short version of that story is that the trucking company's management was forced out in a hostile takeover but a couple of real estate speculators from New York.

I had been responsible for a highly successful implementation of new software systems at the trucking company from the software company I ended up going to work for in '93. The trucking company had grown very quickly, and initially had trouble turning a profit because they couldn't effectively manage the growth. However, after the total revamp of internal systems, mostly led by me, they turned the corner and were increasing in profitability quarter-over-quarter, and just as the hostile takeover occurred, they had their best quarter in something like 4 years.

Anyway, the real estate guys went shopping for managers. I knew it was only a matter of time before they got to me, and sure enough, I was cut loose in July of '93. Other than being worried about finding another job, I didn't feel too terrible about it, given nearly all of the other top-level managers were also terminated. Besides, I was sort of vindicated, since the new IS guy yanked out all of the software I worked so hard to implement in favor of his preferred brand, and the company went completely under within about 4 years. It was sort of interesting, because I got a few calls from people who stayed with the company before it went under, telling me that all the problems we solved while I was there had returned, with even more new ones added.

Anyway, working for the software company was like being released from prison. I had forgotten what it was like to be treated fairly, with genuine care and concern, while doing something I really enjoyed. It wasn't long before I was formally promoted to "Project Manager", where I happily plied my trade for several years.

The subject of advancement into management came up a few times over the years, but I had no desire to relocate to one of the cities with a regional office, and enjoyed the freedom of doing the consulting work out in the field.

But the beginning of the end came when my software company decided to go public. Immediately there was pressure from investors to show results and growth quarter-after-quarter. The company started cutting back, with the first things to go that affected me the monthly staff meetings and other training and teambuilding sessions. The people I had gotten to know and enjoyed spending time with now only showed up on the occasional conference call or email, and I increasingly felt disconnected from the rest of the company.

At first, it wasn't a terribly big deal for me, as I just continued to do my job. Until that year of the big project, when everything changed.

I managed a major year-long, multi-million dollar implementation project for an international company in the oil industry. My travels for that project took me mostly to the southwest US, but also other parts of the country and a 2-week trip to the Patagonia region of Argentina. It was an exciting and very rewarding project for both me and the company, and my bonuses at the end of that year added up to more than I ever dreamt I would earn in a single year.

But I was burned out. The constant travel, constantly being away from home, and wear-and-tear on my physical and mental well-being took a toll. So I leveraged the goodwill I had built with the company's management to convince them to allow me to join the Sales group in a Professional Services sales role.

In objective measures, I did OK in that role. At the end of that year working in Services Sales I was the top producer for consulting services sales in the company. A large part of that was a major contract with McDonalds, which was a difficult but rewarding accomplishment. However, I was very disappointed to find that they chose not to present that award at the end-of-year company awards banquet, even though it had been awarded every year previously. I never found out why, but always suspected that they didn't want to give the award to me.

The only reason I have for that suspicion is that I often frustrated the salespeople with my consulting estimates. They often feared that my numbers were too high, and that my services proposals might be "deal killers". This was very difficult and stressful for me, because I've always taken pride in being completely honest and open, and I often felt I was being pressured into "low-balling" estimates to help beat the competition.

But then an even greater change in the business happened. The bottom fell out of the ERP software market. After 2000, sales leads dried up. Practically nobody in the business world was doing anything with systems. So many system replacements and enhancements were made across the nation that after the millennium came with virtually no impact on business, everyone decided to focus on other things for awhile.

I kept working, focusing on finding those little projects to help customers upgrade or enhance the systems they already had in place. Selling little 1 and 2 week projects was about all we could manage for some time. And in the process, layoffs began. Managers left or were fired. Even the President of the company changed three times, as each one came and went without success.

The Professional Services division, which I reported to again in my selling capacity, experienced perhaps the greatest upheaval. Everyone on the management team was gone in about a six month period. Some because they grabbed at the lure (which later turned out to be false) of the new internet start-ups. Others saw the writing on the wall and took other positions. Others were simply fired for lack of production.

Without any formal process or even much of a chance to consider, I suddenly found myself thrust into a management position. It was a nightmare, practically from the first day. Projects were happening all over my assigned territory (Eastern US and all of Canada) with no oversight. Consultants were running wild, billing all the hours they could without regard to the project budget or contract. Third parties were openly violating their non-compete agreements by competing with the software company for business from its own customers. And consultants were being asked to implement new products that did not work.

Customers were upset at consultants running projects over budget and at products that didn't work. Consultants were upset at products that didn't work, at receiving less lucrative bonus plans than in the past, and at being asked to raise their billable productivity.

I felt like one single lonely person trying to stop the dam from breaking and flooding the town. But I did have the support and mentorship of a great VP for a short time, who appreciated my honest and hard-working approach to the job. But at the same time I had serious problems with the Sales managers.

In hindsight, the only thing I can think of that might have helped me back then was to try harder to reach out to the sales managers in my region and establish a good working relationship. But I was that same guy who kept overestimating projects, and then I was tagged as the protege of the new VP, who had not endeared himself to them, mostly because he shared my commitment to honesty in quoting services. Then there were my former co-workers, now subordinates, who felt they were much better qualified for my job, and were constantly undermining me and lobbying management to replace me, hopefully with themselves.

So that VP was replaced by the third and final President. He and the new President had a previous relationship, and their strategy was to get the company profitable and attractive enough to sell off. I was given a scaled-down role by the new VP, which I was actually thankful for, and continued working long hours. But at least I mostly worked at home. And, even though the new guy was a demanding taskmaster, and I often worked 12 to 15 hour days, at least some of the stress of the impossible situation I had faced before was relieved somewhat.

So then the sale was made of my company to a very large software company. The president and my boss, the VP, left happily with their millions, and the rest of us remained and wondered what would happen.

Well, I suppose it should have been easy to predict what did happen next. The same characters who tried incessantly to undermine and sabotage me because of their own ambitions redoubled their efforts. Before I knew it, I was being identified as the person to blame for some projects gone bad. And the finger was being pointed by the very people who were actually responsible for the problems. In one case, I wasn't even involved in a project, but somehow the person directly responsible took the opportunity to point the finger of blame for problems with that project to me when I wasn't around to defend myself. I might never have found out, except a friend who participated in a conference call told me about what happened later.

And the big difference this time was the change in management to the new big company. I never had the opportunity to meet my direct supervisor, even though I reported to him for nearly a year. The North American President was a top-down manager who relied on his own insight and intuition to run the company, and did not bother himself with advice or feedback from the ranks. So whatever reached his ears was what he acted upon. And in any organization like that, those who are most aggressive at political gamesmanship are the victors, at least in the short term.

I was unceremoniously demoted back to the ranks of ordinary consultant, not even given my old title back of "Project Manager". My salary was cut to about 40% of what it had been, although my bonus plan gave me the opportunity to make back almost all of my previous salary if I was highly productive.

So I made the change. I spent about six months planning, evaluating business plans and franchise opportunities, and submitted my notice. Once again, I felt a freedom similar to when I joined that dynamic and growing company at the beginning. Now I can earn plenty continuing to do the consulting work for the big software company as an independent contractor, but they remain so poorly managed and difficult to work with that I am developing a marketing campaign to sell my services to their customers directly.

I've recently talked with some old friends who are still working for the big software company. They tell me not much has changed. That the best politicians mostly remain in the higher positions, but that upper management has begun to catch on and has already either demoted or terminated several of them. Others, though, have been promoted even higher. And the company remains an uncaring, monolithic, top-down place where morale and teamwork are nothing but slogans.

So am I still glad I left? You bet.

Being Someone Else

If I could be someone else for 24 hours, who would I be?

My first thought goes to sports, then to my favorite sport (as a player), basketball. To be Larry Bird for 24 hours - not today, but back in his prime in the 80's - would be pretty cool. Especially on a game day. Better yet, a game seven in the champioship series against the Lakers. I'd get to experience first-hand Larry's amazing skills and have a chance to make the game-winning shot. That would be an amazing 24 hours.

Hmm. On second thought, I don't want to be Larry Bird. As cool as it would be to experience a day in the life of one of the best basketball players on the planet who also happens to be filty rich, what would be the point? It would have been much better to be myself and the premier player in the NBA. After all, basketball was always my favorite sport.

I spent all those days shooting hoops, from the time I was about 2 years old. Countless hours spent on the driveway or playground, making up moves and shooting from everywhere, dreaming about being the greatest player since ...

Silly dreams.

What about Peyton Manning? That would be pretty great, to be Peyton Manning for a day. Having his incredible skills to pick apart defenses plus being filthy rich. How about getting to be Peyton for 24 hours, the day of the AFC Championship game, against the Patriots of course. And passing for 450 yards and ten touchdowns to utterly embarass those Boston jerks. What fun that would be.

On second thought, if I were to be in that situation at all, I would much prefer to be there as myself, not Peyton Manning. There couldn't be much satisfaction from merely being there with Peyton's skills, as much fun as it might be. I couldn't really experience the satisfaction that comes with putting in a lifetime of practice and study, coming up short all those years in the NFL, then finally breaking through for the lifetime performance in the biggest game.

What about a famous singer or recording artist? Hmm, can't really think of anybody in that field I'd want to inhabit for a day. Most of them are wierd, druggies, from other cultures or races I'd have difficulty relating to, or all of the above. Again, I would much prefer to be there and experience all that as myself.

It has taken all of, umm, 48 years to figure this out:
If you have a dream, don't dream about being someone else, but go make your dream happen as yourself.

I suppose I'm a slow learner.

Outrageous NCAA

Brave. Strong. Courageous. Relentless. Warriors. Proud. Fearsome.

All of these describe characteristics you want in your sports teams. The team mascot is generally chosen to embody these characteristics, so many sports teams have taken on American Indian inspired names, such as Warriors, Indians, Braves, Redskins, Seminoles, Illini, Utes.

Now the NCAA has decided that these names are "hostile" and "abusive", and colleges which use American Indian models for their sports teams will be banned from using those names and mascots in all NCAA-sanctioned tournaments.

Small wonder, given the President of the NCAA is Myles Brand, who brings with him a legacy of being the past president of Indiana University, recognized as the best party school in the nation, one of the most liberal campuses in the nation, and home of the Kinsey Institute for Sexual Deviance.

The very terms used to explain this decision, "hostile and abusive", are all we need to understand the intellectual vacuum in which these people exist. Has anyone ever in recent memory been "hostile" or "abusive" to any tribal member anywhere, because the way their race is represented by some sports mascot? Has any tribal member alive experienced hostility or abuse of any kind because of their tribal or ethnic status? Never, as far as I can tell.

If we're going to decide that for some reason using American Indian icons for sports teams is disrespectful, then I suppose Myles' former university should also be sanctioned. After all, isn't "Hoosier" based on a derogatory term for hicks from Indiana? What about Irish People, who might be offended at Notre Dame's leprechaun and the stereotypical term "Fighting Irish"? How about the brothers in Catholic monastic life, should they be offended by the Providence "Friars"? How about PETA, surely they find the use of animals like Lions, Tigers, and Bears (Oh My!) objectionable.

Watch out Wisconsin and Iowa, schools who announced that they will refuse to schedule any teams with American Indian nicknames. How hypocritical, when they are hostile and abusive to Badgers and Hawks!

Even in the story, the Seminole Tribe in Florida is proud to be represented by Florida State. I believe it is because they have embraced the characteristics I listed at the top of this story and abandoned the silliness of those few always on the lookout for something that offends. Even our nation's capital has an NFL team called the "Redskins"!

I'm disgusted and outraged. Colleges have always been the primary refuge for the wierd and disaffected, but now things have gone way over the edge. Not only have the eccentricities of academia spilled over to take control of the institutions themselves, but they have succeeded in implementing a liberal fascism that is revealing the tip of the iceberg in this crazy and stupid NCAA ruling.

Bioethics

A topic I never completely formed an opinion on, and hesitate even now to take a hard and fast position with, is embryonic stem cells. This lies in that continuum of difficult moral and ethical questions most refer to as bioethics.

First we should discard the extreme positions of those who have chosen to politicize this particular question:

The left side pillories the president, which is their favorite sport these days, for stopping important stem cell research that, if not for his ignorant obstruction of science, would have cured all manner of diseases by now. If your source of information is television news programs, not to mention certain Democratic politicians, then you probably believe that Christopher Reeve would be alive and walking around by now, Ronald Reagan wouldn't have died from Alzheimers, and Michael J. Fox would still be appearing in lots of movies without a trace of his Parkinsons' symptoms, if not for the ignorant policies of the president.

The right side envisions a doomsday scenario where the abortion mills selling aborted fetuses to a new embryonic stem cell industry that gained enough clout to convince a majority of Americans that abortion is not only a positive choice, but helps save lives. The scenario is reminiscent of the old Capra film, Soylent Green.

What we have to do is separate the facts from the rhetoric. And in this particular case, I can't say for certain that I completely understand all the facts. Because it's very hard to tell the truth from spin when proponents of either side of the issue seem to be saying opposite things.

All that considered, here is a list of what seem to be the facts:

• Stem cells are showing terrific promise in treatment of a wide range of maladies.
  
• Adult stem cells are already being used successfully to treat some illnesses.
  
• Placental stem cells have shown the greatest promise yet, and some researchers say they appear to be better than embryonic stem cells.
• Embryonic stem cells, although appearing to hold great promise, have yet to be successfully applied to any positive effect, even in a laboratory environment.
• The president did not ban or restrict stem cell research. There are no laws preventing private companies from experimenting with embryonic or any other stem cells as much as they please. His only crime was in restricting federal funding only on embryonic research to the use of existing lines. Public and private research never stopped, and is continuing today.
• The latest flap is over Bill Frist, who has come out in favor of expanding embryonic stem cell funding to include embryos from fertility clinics that were going to be discarded anyway.

So what conclusions do I draw from what (admittedly little) I understand about the issue?

1. That some research scientists are using the debate to try to get more funding, whether or not there is any potential of a miracle cure in this research.
2. That Frist's new position means nothing, other than he's trying to broaden his support base for a possible run for president.
3. That abortion rights activists see this as a way to get wider acceptance of their philosophy.
4. That the discussion hasn't even gone to the true ethical question yet, but just to how much should taxpayers be forced to contribute to this particular research project, even if they object on moral and ethical grounds.
   
5. That the president's position on this has to come from his core principles and not political calculation. Why? If he had done nothing, nobody would have noticed, and he would have received little or no criticism on the issue.
6. That the bottom line question is, are we willing to sacrifice human life to save other human life? Even when even the possibility of that process working is still in doubt?

I am sort of leaning toward the president's point of view on this one.

The Secret of Misleading Polls

I got polled today. Most of the poll was pretty straightforward, asking what I thought in general about the president and a few basic issues. Along the way, though, there was a single question that made me angry and frustrated.

The question was whether or not I supported teaching of religious values in public school. What a horrible question to ask, because if I were to respond to the clear intent of the question's wording, the answer would have to be "no". Because that implies a specific religious content from a specific religious sect, presumably required, which of course would not be appropriate in our pluralistic society.

But that is so far from an accurate picture of my opinion on the real topic. If, as I interpreted the question, the proposition is to set up a class that is required of all students teaching, say the United Methodist brand of Christianity, then absolutely not. But that's nowhere near the same as asking whether religion of any kind should be allowed past the doors of the local school.

But what the poll would not allow me to communicate was that I totally support academic classes on religion. And elective classes on specific religions - in other words, if a local Rabbi wants to come to the school and provide an elective class on Judaism, fine! Likewise a Mormon class, a Catholic class, an Islam class, a Comparative Religion class; just not anything evil like Paganism or Wicca or Satanism. Students should be free to choose to attend elective classes on religion, as long as it does not interfere with the primary mission of public education. They also should be free to organize, on their own, specific religious clubs or bible study groups or music groups, whatever they wish, meeting at lunchtime or study period or outside school hours.

The problem with the poll is that when they report the results, they will say something like, "over 70 percent of respondents said they did not support the presence of religion in public schools". And that's not just a distortion, it's a lie! Religion should be embraced by the schools as a positive influence on the development of children's values and morality, but no single religion should be given preference over another.

The lesson we all need to learn is to never fully believe the results of a poll you might hear reported. Because the results are driven by the way the pollster phrased the question, which obviously has the goal of achieving a particular outcome.

The Big Secret

Sorry fellow members of my gender, I'm going to let the cat out of the bag. The following is the result of a 48-year study by the Institute for Theoretical Social Behavioral Studies (ITSBS), and is based on empirical observation of hundreds of adult relationships.

Have you ever seen couples that are disgustingly happy? You know, always together, exhibiting public displays of affection, never seeming to argue, and so on.

Here's the secret: The female of the couple knows and applies the simple principles of conditioned response, aka behavior modification.

Face it, men are uncomplicated creatures. And despite all the "modern feminist" protestations otherwise, women want a caveman. In a contest for woman's affections between the caveman and the "sensitive, thoughtful, empathetic" girly man, the caveman ALWAYS wins.

It's probably something about the fact that the caveman is uncomplicated, strong, and dominant. Women want that alpha male who is going to protect her against the dangers of the outside world. It is simple instinct. And why the "nice guys" finish last.

Paradoxically, once the female of the species has trapped her choice caveman, she is not satisfied. Because being a new feminist thinker, she believes she can domesticate him. Unfortunately, most women are clueless as to what approach works best in that effort, and they either remain unhappy in their "bad relationship" or dump the bum (assuming he doesn't dump her first).

What do the successful women do that lets them have their caveman and domesticate him too? They understand and employ those basic principles proven long ago with Pavlov's dog and used by animal trainers everywhere. Conditioned Response.

When you get to the root needs of the average male animal, there are only 3:

• Food
• Sex
• Toys/Games (aka Cars & Sports)
  

Not necessarily in that order.

Women who understand Conditioned Response and employ it with maximum effectiveness are the women who can rule the world (or at least their house). And the best accomplish all this without the man ever realizing through expert application of the above 3 rewards.

It's very simple, really. Using some variation of rewards which meet the 3 driving needs, the female may entice her caveman to, say, mow the lawn, with an immediate reward that includes an effective combination of some or all the three. The better the perceived reward, the more likely the behavior is to be repeated. For another example, if the female catches her caveman picking up his socks and rewards him with a memorable experience from among the big three, it won't be long before he's picking up his socks without even being asked.

Nagging and cajoling and other forms of verbal and nonverbal punishment, the most common methods employed by modern women, have proven to have the opposite effect. Such responses to a man's behavior are known as Extinguishers, and the more they are attempted, the less likely the man is to respond. But unfortunately, most women never seem to learn this simple but important lesson, and thereby doom themselves to a life of anger, hostility, and disappointment. Because no self-respecting caveman will ever consciously allow a women to dominate him, but will instead withdraw into his cave or avoid contact with the female to eliminate the source of irritation.

Thus proves the thesis of this study, that the happiest and most successful women are able to get whatever they want from their mate through a simple understanding of Conditioned Response. So the next time you see one of those deleriously happy couples out there, observe the micro-level conditioned response at work, and you will find the practitioner is nearly always the female.