Jharrin4's Blog

Good riddance, 2011. Sack the coach! Throw the bums out! If I never see another…  Just once I’d like to see…  You fill in the rest. I, for one, have little faith that the world-at-large or the local village quite small, are going to see much improvement in the level of civility of fellow man. The more things change the more they seem to change for the worse. Lead stories: suicide bombers, remote-control drones inadvertently targeting civilians in the course of endless wars; yellow police tape marking off  various urban kill zones, including headless corpses left lying around Mexican landscapes compliments of drug cartels to act as sensational scarecrows for all to see; and generally all the flotsom and jetsom of modern living: skin heads, dickheads, dipshits, dumbasses, dingdongs, nitwits, halfwits, numbskulls, digitally dazed zombies, the impolite, the oblivious, the petty, the haughty, the cheats, backstabbers, double-dealers, two-timers, con artists, scammers, schemers, cheaters and chumps. Oh, there’s much more, but you KNOW what I’m talking about. And it’s been dangerous out there for a long time. None of these bits of anecdotal evidence are really “news”.  History, to paraphrase a famous quote, is a nightmare from which I need to awake. After the rubble and ruin has been academically analyzed, there’s always new chapters for the coming year’s tomes on the times in which we live, or have lived. There are always feel good stories, too, tho more often than not, they derive from some initial  outrage: Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords making a miraculous recovery from a lunatic gun shot to her head; countless war vets overcoming loss of limbs with the help of prosthetics and perseverance; 911 survivors; those rehabbing from an encounter with a drunk driver, or a drive-by shooter; someone finally being cleared on all charges via DNA testing–20 years after being sent to prison, and similar tales of straightening out one’s life following a vicious twist of fate. Then there’s Mother Nature adding to the angst via tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes.  More subtlely we have the politics of greed and corruption, the haves and the have-nots, the pampered, the persecuted, the passed-over.  But maybe, just maybe, in some barely perceptible way, 2012 will be more civil, more sedate. Next year is going to be different! Under new management. A new game plan. A fresh infusion of comradery and compassion! This year is going to be the year! Hope! Change we can really believe in and confirm! Reforms, new regulations, fairness and balance. Dare we dream?  Certainly. Dream on. Turn over, go back to sleep and drift off again. All will be made well…or all may be Orwell. Which way trends the tilt? I want to be more positive, and see the world become a quieter, more cooperative place, but history won’t let me wake up to such a  brave new world.

As a college instructor who teaches  speech and media classes, I hear a lot of arguments formally advanced during persuasive speaking rounds. Recently, there’s been a repetition of one “hot button” issue, the controversial “conceal & carry” laws that are in effect in some states, but not all. The majority of speakers who sound off  on this gun control issue are in favor of conceal & carry laws. They’re entitled to their opinions, and the better speakers arm themselves with indispensable argumentative “ammo” known as credible research, typically statistics that seemingly indicate crime rates go down where citizens are allowed to pack heat. Well, statistics are always subject to close scrutiny, but if the source is credible (a study produced by an entity that has no financial or political conflict of interest on the issue) then points can be scored for “cherry picking” the data and putting a particular supporting “spin” on their interpretation. I, personally, however, can’t fathom how more guns equates with greater safety. Unless, of course, we have passed some disturbing point-of-no-return when it comes to the massive amount of firearms already on the streets, legal or illegal. Guns are meant  to inflict serious injury at the least, and fatal wounds at worst (or best, depending on the situation, I suppose). Sportsmen know this, and use their weapons accordingly. Why, however, a mature adult wants to put on camouflage, creep around wooded areas and cap a deer or duck is a matter for clinical psychiatry, I suppose. One could moralize on sport hunting, but conceal & carry laws are supposedly about safety and security. Okay. But still, how does an even greater proliferation of weapons meant to maim and kill make society safer and more secure? I can’t ignore the tortured logic that resides in such a calculus. The USA is rather gun crazy. I know I can find credible evidence that supports that assertion. But this is a blog, not an academic article demanding a bibliography. My instincts and my ability to flag news stories both local and national attest that we are already awash with weaponry of various calibers and heft. Gangs, guns, crime. Freelancers looking for a quick score. Reach for the sky! Put everything in the pouch and don’t move for 5 minutes… Right. Police? Well, they apparently are not large enough in number or competent enough to offset the badasses, otherwise why the call for conceal & carry? Okay, but what about the mindset of some folks? Hot-tempered. Brash. Impetuous. Impulsive. They’re out there. There’s likely one not too far away at any moment. Hell, you or I may be that very angry, frustrated, bitter, alienated soul. (Okay, not YOU, but that guy over there, looking a bit fidgety and snaked-eyed?). I prefer not to have to contemplate hidden heat on all comers. The odds are there’s going to be a showdown sooner than later, folks.  That’s in the abstract, though. When I said I flag the news stories that really give me pause, I refer to recent events such as the 30 year-old mother that gunned down her children and live-in boyfriend, then turned the gun on herself. Then, not a week or so later, on Christmas day, a Santa Claus- costume-clad member of a family shows up, pulls out his concealed gun and kills his family, then himself. VAriations like these unfortunately abound. The high-profile cases, such as Columbine, of course, or more recently Gabrielle Giffords shine a glaring light on what guns can do in the wrong hands of the wrong people at the very worst time. But this is the country  that, in spite of having John and Bobby Kennedy shot dead, along with M.L.King, Malcolm X and president Reagan wounded in 1981, still has a love affair with guns. Did I say love? Well, love is inherently irrational, is it not? So, let’s all lock and load, and carry our hearts on our sleeves, and our Glock 9s in a holster.

June 6, 1944. The Allied invasion of the northern coast of France. The push-back of the German army, and their ultimate defeat, along with Italy and Japan in the last real war. I say real, because WWII had distinct consequences for all countries involved. As an American, and the son of a WWII veteran (I myself served during the Vietnam conflict) I deeply appreciate and admire how the Allied armies literally SAVED THE WORLD from the demented likes of Hitler and Hirohito. Sadly, on this 67th anniversary of D-Day, a current young generation seems to know so little about the enormity of what was at stake in the fight against fascism. In the ensuing years since the end of WWII, we Americans have seen what appears to be a series of questionable military “adventures”: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf I & Gulf II, along with our presence in Afghanistan. The military and the media call these actions “war,” but really, why are they fought? What freedoms of ours in the U.S. did we seriously risk losing? My generation arguably lost the Vietnam conflict, since the North eventually took over South Vietnam after we bailed out in 1975. What was the consequence for life in America? Nothing, other than our prestige. Those who died fighting in Vietnam (or Korea, considered a “draw,” as if it were a chess game or a boxing match) certainly suffered a consequence, but did our government surrender to an enemy? Hell no! We just said, “we’re splitting” and sent the troops home. Imagine if we had done the same in WWII!! Absurd, of course, because we were actually, honestly fighting for the American way of life then. Now we fight for slogans (and Big Lies). We fight for the military-industrial complex. For oil. Oh, we responded to 911 by going into Afghanistan, which is now a ridiculous quagmire for our troops. Iraq? Please! That was Bush II propagandizing and bullying his way to an illegal invasion of a sovereign country–that had nothing to do with 911. Anyway, these post-Second World War incursions have never been declared a “war” by any Congress (as is supposed to be required to commit troops to combat). The Soviet Union is history, so we no longer have the commie boogeyman.  Now we have terrorism; but other than finally killing Osama Bin Laden, I’m not sure what the hell we’ve accomplished other than getting thousands more of our troops killed with vague and vain military planning. This bit of a rant may seem anti-military, but it’s not. We need to defend ourselves, of course, but from whom, and why? Bin Laden is dead. Why are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why did we invade Vietnam? Korea? Grenada? Because we could? Until there’s tangible,  perceptible, consequences for the public-at-large regarding how we fare in fighting perceived enemies, the only people who pay attention to what’s happening in these conflicts are the soldiers actually fighting them and their family and loved ones. I guarantee that was not the case when we fought in WWII. The entire country knew what was on the line. We came together as a country. Rosie the Riveter! That we prevailed was all that mattered, and thank goodness we did. We knew that there would have been great–and supremely negative–consequences for the USA if we failed to crush Hitler’s army and Japan’s as well. Maybe I’d still be part of this world, but what kind of world would a victorious Hitler/Hirohito be like? For those ever dwindling numbers of WWII vets, thanks for really, truly, fighting a fight that had to be fought.

Recently, two news stories struck me as evidence of how our emotions tend to rule us, mostly at the expense of rational thinking. The first event regards those 33 miners finally freed from their subterranean confinement following a mining mishap. For over two months these men endured an environment that was barely tolerable. The small space they inhabited was an adverse atmosphere, both in the physical and mental sense. But they endured, persevered and prevailed by being retrieved, rescued by  lots of up-top determination and inventiveness. Naturally, the men’s loved ones prayed, hoped, prayed and hoped even more, finally to see each man emerge from what could have been a grave half-a-mile below their family’s feet. Was their rescue a miracle? Well, of course it was! A miracle of science and technology, I’d say. Nasa helped design the rescue capsule. Doctors, engineers and mining rescue experts worked steadfastly to give this human drama a happy ending. Naturally, of course, others, including some of the miners (all of them?) and friends and family (all?) feel their prayers to a higher power were answered. God’s will, etc. Well, they can credit their faith in whatever diety they worship, but it was, after all, science and technology that saved their lives.  If any “miracles” occured, it had to do with how smooth the rescue operation unfolded once it was set in motion. No cables snagged, no earthquakes (Chile, remember?) sealed their doom, no glitches or goof-ups of any kind got in the way of 33 miners beating the odds over 68 days of doubt duking it out with hope.  However, when the going gets tough, even some hard-bitten non-believers will find their faith, and thank, more than any other circumstance of good fortune,  supreme beings they previously preferred to do without. Fine. But don’t forget to thank what you can see and touch, smell  and hear, that being the material mechanisms that brought them home.

The other story popped up on a TV report about a tent-bound evangelist in Alabama and his flock of followers and true believers. The report showed video clips of “laying on of hands” and some speaking in tougues, both of which are standard issue occurances in the realm of evangelical fervor. The reporter noted that this preacher has gotten a buzz via YouTube and its seeming documentation of spontaneous healings, including someone who suffered from a desease that kept her wheelchair bound but who was able to “stand” after the rapturous theatrics of the man with the healing hand had finished his incantations.  She stood alright, with the help of three others holding her up. Later the reporter asked the preacher, if the person was able to get up, but still needed help to do so, why couldn’t the devine interventionist simply make the “cure” complete? Why doesn’t she just walk? The reply was, she at least got up at all (with assitance). Can you say flim-flam? Another woman, blind and deaf, went crumbling to floor after the evangelical spell was again incanted, but alas, she remained sightless and without hearling. Her husband, however, insisted they’d come back for another shot at a miracle. For whatever amount a “true believer” wants to drop into the donation basket, they can buy a bit of hope, fine. The disturbing part (for me) of these instances where people let their hearts rule their heads is that it seems to be the rule, not the exception. The miners wanted to live, and they did. Thanks to science and technology. The people who fill the seats in revival tents, and at places of worship for one religion or another, or who even confide in horoscopes, rabbit’s feet, lucky charms or whatnot, want results, too. But there’s this thing called “critical thinking” that is grounded in reality, that demands the head to have at least equal footing with the heartstrings. Critical thinking and listening produces results, too. It can vastly improve one’s ability to make sound choices, choices that can benefit one’s mind and body, and certainly one’s pocketbook.  Those miners and their families are entitled to believe whatever they want about how they survived, but take away the science and technology from their situation and one thing is absolutely certain: they’d all be doomed to die together in that mine. If your spinal cord has been damaged and you can’t walk, putting your faith in medical science is a better use of “faith” than going to the evangelist or even Father O’Reilly down the street. If one is swayed by others who use emotional appeal at the complete expense of any logical, evidence-based reasoning, a famous quote by W.C.Fields come to mind, a quote having to do with “suckers”…

As of this posting, the battle to retain collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin is about a month along. Governor Walker defies the swarms of protestors–teachers, firefighters, police, various public workers and private sector workers alike–by maintaining his assertion that the financial woes of Wisconsin demand his proposed course of action. Recent polls document the public-at-large is not in agreement, with 61% disapproving of the legislation he wants passed. And of course most people don’t approve because what Walker–a toadie of the Koch brothers (who contributed generously to his campaign for election in 2010)–really wants has nothing to do with fiscal realities. It’s all politics and power. The Koch brothers are billionaires who run energy companies, among other interests. Koch Industries is the 2nd largest private corporation in the U.S., and it would benefit financially not to have to deal with organized labor as it seeks ever-wider-influence in Wisconsin and beyond. The Koch brothers view regulations and unions as unecessary obstacles  in the way of absolute, free-market, unfetttered capitalism. Now, with Walker doing their bidding, the republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature wants to enact draconian measures that are tantamount to an assualt on the working class. Public employees, and workers in the private sector are evidently being blamed for Wisconsin’s budget blahs. Seemingly, they make too much money, have too many benefits, and worst of all, many of them have such because of their being in unions. Never mind the Wall Street crooks who cooked the books and created bubbles that inexorbaly had to burst,  creating a national economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression. No, it’s the working class, not the well-heeled, crass Wall St. greedsters, that must be held to account. It’s a blantantly transparent ruse to simply bust unions, to add  even more corporate/financial  dominance over 98% of  the rest of us. And it’s not just Wisconsin. It’s virtually every state with a republican governor. Aiding these governors are the corporate controlled mass media, which pays much more attention to the Oscars Awards outcomes, Lindsay Lohan’s and Charlie Sheen’s personal demons and such, than what amounts to a extreme agenda by republicans and neo-cons to set the working  and labor class back decades in terms of the gains made since the vile days of the robber barons. And that’s what the Koch bros. are, make no misstake about it: modern day robber barons.  If you’re really, really rich, then you probably hope Walker gets his way. Profit and power  over real democracy. The rule of the few over the many. But, if you’re not all that well-off,  you might just want to show up and/or speak up in this matter. Don’t be an ignorant Koch Sucker!

I just saw the movie “The Social Network”. It dramatizes the Facebook story. Chances are, anyone reading this blog has a Facebook page. There are 500 million people using Facebook these days, and the company is valued at 25 billion dollars. It’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is the focus of the film. He’s still only in his 20s and is the world’s youngest billionaire. Like, far out, man! Oops, that’s a slang expression from MY generation, the Boomers. 

So, Zuckerberg is  a “Gen Y” member, as are many of the students in the college classes I teach. I’m easily 3 times the age of most of my students, and while that’s certainly a “gap,” I get along pretty well with most of them but I certainly wouldn’t fit in with them beyond in the college classroom context. So be it. And the more power to them. Each generation does its own thing, so-to-speak, and always will. However, while the chronological gap between myself and my typical student is easily measured by simple math, the technological divide might just span the Grand Canyon! Certainly, Facebook seems to be emblematic of Gen Y-ers and even those much younger. I call my students “digital natives” because they’ve been in the computer age from the day they were born. I was born in the time of ice and fire, and since about 20 years ago, I’ve been trying to evolve beyond primitive levels of a digital I.Q. Not that Facebook is difficult to use–that’s it’s beauty, it’s so simple that yes, even us ever-more-fossilizing, late-to-the-digital party Boomers are increasingly barging into its virtual nightclub for some cyber-mingling and chatter. But at the same time, even when I’m in the a virtual social world such as Facebook, or You-Tube or whatnot, I can’t help but feel out-of-place.  I’m so analog! Being on-line has never gotten the best of me. This blog is the most digitally daring action I’ve ever undertaken. But since I like to write, here I am in cyberworld. With whom am I even “connecting”? Maybe nobody. Well, a friend or two at least. I’m not soliciting readers, not really. All writers actually are speaking to themselves, unlike most of those half-billion Facebook members who seem to be compelled to post some remarkably mundane detail about their day (just had lunch at Potbelly. Next stop Abercrombie & Fitch). Okay,  what EVER! But that gap. It’s a reality gap, actually. They’re immersed in a virtual world so much of their day that instead of even calling a friend to say “lunching at Potbelly later, wanna meet?” they post it on a social network site. How facile is their world of connectivity! Then they meet at Potbelly and instead of chatting face-to-face, they stare at their smartphones half the time, no doubt checking Facebook. Forget Potbelly, they do it in classrooms, from Stanford to Harvard to, in my case College of DuPage. Hey, who am I kidding? Any Boomer worth his or her generational salt spaced out in some nether world in college classrooms, but that was, most likely, pharmaceuticals and Budweiser calling the shots; the  electronics back then would be the Boob Tube and a decent stereo system. Harvard? Did Zuckerberg even finish his degree there? Who cares, right?  

That brings me back to the movie. I never knew much about the “back story” of Facebook or Zuckerberg. Evidently, he may be less than a pillar of business virtue. Hey, no one’s perfect, eh? But he’s the billionaire for being that Facebook guy, however he obtained generational guru-dom. In my generation, what might a tye-dye, bell-bottom wearing Zuckerberg  have had to conjure up as “the next Big Thing”? If he wanted to expand social networking in the 60s in similar orders of magnitude such as Facebook totals of today, he’d have to settle for “brick-and-mortar” hang-outs, or groovy music scenes in the park, with Frisbees flying all about. We mingled at coffee houses or head shops. Much social networking took place in these spaces.  Unlike Facebook, however, there would be a legal limit to how many patrons could pile into such a building. Parks had curfews. In fact, the fire marshal would require a formal notice to be posted: not to exceed 100 people (or whatever). A bum’s rush awaited those who lingered too long in the parks.  So, how would a 60s Zuckerberg make his mark?  He could still get 500 million patrons on board his movement by opening 50,000 hippie-dens and packing them to capacity. Coffee houses, head shops, poetry, pot, platitudes, pretentiousness, party people and a profit margin for Mr.Z., the CEO of this pre-digital, bandwagon hipsterism.   Now that I think of it, doesn’t Starbucks have 50,000 outlets now? Seems that way, no? Hmmm. My 60s Zuckerberg scenario has actually played out, to some extent. I sense a symbiotic Zen vibe here. The cyber coffee house has been flourishing for the last 15 years or more already!  Starbucks and Facebook. Facebuck. Starbook. Free wi-fi. Come on in, plop down with the laptop, a latte and beam yourself up so can you express every banal  thought lurking in your digitally dazed noodle. Starbucks? Hell, even Dunkin Donuts! I myself, however, don’t own a laptop, and don’t like Starbucks coffee (Dunkin works, tho). I’m not writing this at any Cup of Joe hang-out, actually. I’m at a public library that also offers free wi-fi but prefers the frappachinos and lattes stay where they belong.

Here in the Chicagoland area, the leaves are turning and, along with the temperatures,  soon will be falling. But before Old Man Winter completes his insidious takeover of temperatures, the mythical Injuns will provide a last burst of mild-to-warm days with which we indigenous types can enjoy a last outdoor dining experience, a bike ride, tennis, a boat ride or whatever can be indulged while wearing no more than two layers of clothing. I know there are those who claim to prefer winter to summer, but unless those folks are of Inuit or Emperor Penguin ancestry, it makes no sense to me. Summer and winter can both be extreme, but one never has to shovel heat, or scrape it off a windshield, nor slip on it and break a hip. Nor does heat require rock salt. Okay, maybe extreme heat can kill as does exposure in winter, but what the hell? It’s 2010 and it’s not like we’re all hunters and gatherers moping around a wilderness while striving to climb up from the ground floor of Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. And even if we were, I’d rather be Fred Flintstone of Furness Creek, California than Blue-lipped Bob of Barrow, Alaska. So, bring on that last balmy breeze or two or three you Indians of Summer. Whatever winter brings, at this point in the history of my Mid-Western habitation, I’m sure I’ll again be able to say “You think this is bad? I’ve been in a lot worse than this!” And my reward will be reaching the regenerative splendor of spring and what follows. I’ll take my chances anytime with a season in the sun, leaves holding tight to their branches, vegetable gardens and even the occasional biblical rain. After all, I have the good sense not to live next to a river…

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart is having a “Rally to Restore Sanity” gathering October 30 in Washington, D.C. I plan to attend, along with a friend or two, and hope many others will, too. Sure, Stewart is usually playing for laughs, but if the way our government functions isn’t a joke, then it’ll do until one gets here. Even President Obama has alluded to the rally in his recent public appearances, and while he and democrats decry the “just say no” republicans, I doubt the rally will focus solely on the GOP. There’s plenty of blame left for the inept (or complicit?) democrats in D.C.

The Tuesday following the rally is the mid-term election, and I doubt Stewart’s confab will impact anything that happens election day. But I appreciate his efforts at trying to restore, if not complete sanity, some objective and satirical commentary on the our state of affairs. We need a few laughs, as always. And if the pundits are right, the democrats stand to get a punch-line right in the face.

Perhaps deservedly, the spineless, wimpy democrats will lose congress, in spite of the GOP not having any solutions other than tax cuts for the rich. (Note to public: vote 3rd party!) So, rally on Jon, and I hope the weather is fine on the 30th, and that the laughs (bittersweet, no doubt) will be non-stop. Whatever the election results, the joke, I’m afraid, will as usual and seemingly as always, be on the American public.