The (mis)Giving Tree

Shel Silverstein's children's classic, The Giving Tree, came to mind as we worked our way through the move to college. It's also mentioned in the book, Between Mothers and Sonsby Evelyn Bassoff, which I mentioned in the previous post. The idea that the familiar, protective, generous tree was always there for the boy - whenever he needed her - appealed to me as I helped my oldest move away.

I loved reading that book to the boys when they were younger. It tells the story of a boy who grows up literally under the shade and protection of a fruit tree that just keeps on giving. The generous tree gives everything from her leaves to her fruit to her trunk to the boy over the years, to help him achieve his dreams and deal with whatever he faced in life. At the end of the story, when the tree is nothing but a stump and the boy is an old man who has very little energy or interest in any new pursuits, they resume their mutually satisfying relationship, when the boy sits down to rest on the stump, and the tree is once again providing something for the boy.

It's a lovely story, and according to the flap notes, it's a "moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and the serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return."

That it is. But if you also accept Evelyn Bassoff's interpretation, it's a little troubling. The tree literally sacrifices its abilities (like its leaves, fruit, branches and trunk) and its very life to benefit the growth of the boy she loves so much. The boy loves the tree, too, but seems to have little conflict with his decisions to continue to take from her throughout his life.

I don't quite know how I feel about this. Supporting a child's dreams is something that most parents embrace without objection. The challenge, I guess, is figuring out when you've moved past that embrace into a stranglehold. Or how you separate that support from literally sacrificing yourself for the cause.

Over the past year or so, I've talked with parents - mothers mostly - who seemed very far down that "sacrifice all" road for the sake of their child. If I think as objectively as I can about my "career" as a mother, I think I'm pretty far from the Giving Tree model. In fact, I remember telling Trevor that I couldn't be the mom who was always there, always pitching in, always the first to volunteer and become a fixture at the school. I promised to do what I could but I had other interests and obligations that required my time.

He was fine with that.

The present-day equivalent of The Giving Tree is the helicopter parent who hovers just above the child, and maneuvers just close enough to manage every move that child makes. They sacrifice just as much as the tree, but somehow have lost that sense of generosity and humility that endears the tree to readers. They're replaced it with smugness and hubris.

I've enjoyed the various bits of success each of my children have experienced over the years because they were just that: their own success, not mine.

I hope they know they can always turn to me - or return to me as the case may be - for the support and love and hugs and nurturing they may need from time to time. But I also hope they know that sometimes I'll be the one who needs exactly the same from them. We can be a whole little grove of giving trees, thriving right beside each other.

The transition continues...

In her wonderful book, Between Mothers and Sons, psychologist Evelyn S. Bassoff, Ph.D., discusses the many and varied relationships that exist between women and their sons, from the functional and healthy to the truly debilitating.

While full of interesting and thoughtful insights into the inner workings of mothers and sons, I wanted to write the author a thank you note after reading the last chapter of the book, titled The Tranformation of Mother Love. The chapter is focused on the idea of mothers letting go of their sons, and the fact that western cultures have no ritual that signifies the separation of mother and child. Indeed, the woman who seemingly holds onto her children, full of support and unending comfort, is somewhat revered in our culture. As Bassoff writes, "In our culture, mothers who remain always available to their children, always the "essential" ones, are deified as the 'good mother,' while the mothers who discourage their children's dependence may be labeled 'cold' or 'unmotherly.' "

Truth be told, over the years as my children grew, I found myself feeling more like the "unmotherly" kind of mom, not the "essential" one. Make no mistake: I love them more than life. I can't imagine life without them and can't begin to express the joy and pure love they have ignited in me. But even given all that, I have always reserved a bit of myself along the way; I never spent much time wondering why, or even thinking about it objectively.

She goes on to talk about the fact that "letting go" is not a one-step procedure; it's a process that takes many years and many mini-steps to complete. Unfortunately, it's a process many women are not willing to endure.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand, the recent departure of my oldest child - my oldest son - for college. I find myself comtemplating the space that has left in my - in our family - in our home - and wonder if it will ever feel like it did. I wonder if it can. Or even, given Bassoff's analysis, if it should.

Turns out, this idea of separateness as a mother is a good one. In her research, Bassoff learned that the men who remain closest to and connected with their mothers as adults are men who were always aware - even on an unconscious level - that their mothers had lives apart from them.

I'm going to spend some time with this - think about how my own selfhood did or didn't have any impact on my own relationships with all three of my boys. I know I've spent countless hours torturing myself over what I always believed were incontrovertible mistakes in terms of raising my sons and having a career and interests beyond them. Maybe it wasn't quite the tragedy I've recreated in my memory.

More to come, on this, and how Shel Silverstein's book, The Giving Tree, may revealing more about one kind of motherhood than we ever thought possible.

Trying to make a transition - and so far, it ain't working

Okay.

So it's been 48 hours since we left our oldest son on his college campus and I hugged him (tightly) good-bye. I'm writing a column about this so I don't want to go too deeply into things here except to say this feels very, very weird.

He's been away before - but the short term nature of that absence made it feel much different. The truth is, this fall could be the beginning of his permanent move away. I know - we have summers coming up and time together on school breaks but he may in fact never really live her again. That just feels too strange to even contemplate.

I've said this before but I have to echo it here - I'm not ready for this. Could it really be time for this? Clearly, the calendar tells me it is. My heart tells me something different.

Not like me. Not one bit.

What I don't understand about the viewers and voters who go wild with joy during convention speeches - coming from candidates on either side of the aisle - is this cold, stark reality that not one of them ever seems to contemplate: there is not one person on that stage who shares the middle class, lower middle class, or upper middle class lives that the viewers are living. Not one.
I'm not talking about someone's "humble beginnings." Yes, we've had some leaders that emerged from rather austere childhoods but let's face it. Once you've had a career in politics that was successful enough to land you in the national spotlight, I'm pretty sure you've left the habits of those humble beginnings pretty far behind. The last president I remember showing any vestiges of simple living was Jimmy Carter and he was criticized for taking the glamour away from the White House. (The glamour?) Rosalind Carter's book, First Lady from Plains, told quite a "fish out of water" story about their early days in Washington.
But getting back to the conventions and the candidates, I don't care how long and hard the speakers deliver their "I'm just like you" messages. Just isn't so. Every single candidate is wealthy, and privileged, and nothing like you and me.
So why do we buy it? Why do we feel like we have to connect on a supremely personal level with the politicians who want to sit at the top of the government's flow chart? Why can't we elect them without feeling the love?
The truth is, I don't care how much the president is "just like me." In fact, I hope the president is smarter, shrewder, and more collaborative than I. I want discerning, open-minded, experienced leadership in that office. I hope the president hires a staff (based on nothing but their ability, experience and character) who can execute the tasks at hand and knows when to stop micromanaging to let them do the work. I hope he or she has a track record of measurable, demonstrable, obvious success in something in this life beyond tireless campaigning and delivering rousing stump speeches.
How can a lifelong politician know anything about working in the private sector?? How does a senator who lives and works in Washington, DC, whose family lives housands of miles away, relate to the day-in, day-out challenge of raising children? (Spare me the long-distance connections and email and any other thing in defense of being involved with your children from a distance. Yes, you can be; it's certainly possible and lots of people do it.) But long-distance parenting - or even long-distance marriage - as a result of a political career by itself makes most politicians not like any of us.
Whatever happened to the idea that you don't have to like "the boss," as long as he or she does the job at hand - and then some - and treats you fairly? No one said you had to be best friends. No one said you had to simpatico to respect someone's leadership and talents.
I guess their deeper message of politicians who are "just like me" is more along the lines of this: I stand before you as the absolute embodiment of the best Americans can be. Sure, I used to be like you - but I've realized the dream. Through hard work and determination and gumption and guts and feistiness. You can, too.
Umm, no I can't. I can be the star of my own life, I guess, but other than that, I'm not going to be the next junior senator from Pennsylvania who becomes a presidential contender in 8 years.
As one of my sons put it, we can't all be the star. If we were who would sit in the audience and clap??

Who let what happen?

I read the update of the sentence handed down to Timothy Gearhart this week, who was convicted of third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, after attacking and killing Kutztown University sophomore Kyle Quinn last fall.

Speaking to the court, Gearhart apologized to Kyle Quinn's family and to his own, saying a night of ''overindulgence'' was partly to blame for his actions. He'd spent the eveing with friends in a bar.

According to the news report, the court learned the following from Gearhart: ''I didn't mean to hurt so many people. I do not know why God allowed this to happen. For the past year, I have thought of your son every day and will for the rest of my life.''

Why God allowed this to happen? Why God did? I'm pretty sure the God familiar to many people of faith, regardless of their individual beliefs, had no part in what took place at about 2:30 in the morning on Main Street in Kutztown. God wasn't dangling the puppet strings that night, watching Timothy and his two drunken friends, brothers Kenneth and Terry Kline, execute some macabre dance steps that ended in violence and death.

I believe Tim Gearhart will think of Kyle Quinn everyday for the rest of his life. That horrifying moment on Main Street that happened after last call last year cast a long, unending shadow over the lives of many, many people. Most of them will live out their lives thinking of Kyle everyday as well, never quite understanding why or how this happened. Tim says he will, too, and even though he has a minimum of twenty years to contemplate his answer, I don't think he'll come up with one for Kyle's family and friends.

But I hope he gets to the point where he recognizes that God - in whatever form God takes for him - was clearly absent from the actions he chose to take on Main Street in Kutztown last year.

Curlers? Really?

I drove through some kind of time warp on the way home from work. For reasons I won't go into, I'' stuck scrolling thorugh radio stations these days to hear some music these days, and rarely pause on a station that's not broadcasting a song.

But, for some reason, I did stick on a station long enough to listen to a GEICO commerical today. One of the selling points was that anyone can, in fact, meet with a GEICO representative face-to-face should you desire to do so. Their business is not entirely online or over the phone. That is, unless you want it to be.

On the other hand, the friendly announcer let me know that if face-to-face won't work - because maybe I'm in curlers or something like that - the phone works just fine.

Curlers? I can't make an appointment with GEICO because I'm wearing curlers? He may be confusing me with Lucy Ricardo or Laura Petrie. Who on god's green earth wears curlers these days - especially long enough to be held captive in her house while her curlers take effect? Are you kidding me?

I'm sort of serious. If there is a woman out there who is taken out of the mainstream regularly and has to arrange her schedule around her curler-wearing habits, I want to meet her. I really do. And I want to take a really close look at your hair. If you're devoting curler time to it, it'd better be gorgeous.

GEICO is losing their clever edge if this is what passes for amusing these days.

the elephant in the room

I've read several news stories and updates over the past few weeks, updating the allegations and charges against three Shenandoah teens. According to the lastest story, Judge Anthony Kilker confirmed that there was sufficient evidence against Colin Walsh, 17, and Brandon Piekarsky, 16, to try them on counts of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation. Because there is no longer first- and second-degree murder charges against them, these young men will not face possible life in prison sentences if convicted.

The judge also ruled that Derrick Donchak, 18, was ordered to stand trial on aggravated assault.

These young men were involved in an attack that resulted in the death of Luis Ramirez, age 25.

This crime is tragic. And sickening. And clearly a case of young people who acted irratonally and outrageously in the face of an incendiary situation. For reasons only swaggering young men can understand, they overpowered and attacked another young man whom they encountered in a park, in the compnay of a youhng woman. Throw in a racial slur and a "hate crime" component and you have a situation that exploded into violence and murder.

Here's the elephant in the room.

Whatever happened to Joseph P. McTiernan? McTierman, 23, of Mahanoy City, furnished alcohol to these underage men gave alcohol to Donchak, Walsh, and Piekarsky, as well as two other underage men.

I simply can't understand why he is getting away with this. I'm inclined to believe a case could be made on behalf of the young men, including the one who dealt Ramirez his final blow, that absent the alcohol, their swagger and intimidation would have been dialed down quite a few notches that fateful night. They may have called out insults; they may have evn done a little "in your face" shouting...but murder? Literally kicking a man while he was down?

That's beer guts. Or in this case, malt liquor guts. They deserve to be heard in court but if the eyewitnesses are telling the truth, I also believe they deserve to punished according to the law. But so does McTiernan. He broke the law that initiated this horrible event.

Once again, Olympic confusion

I'm not one of those people who goes Olympic crazy everytime the Olympics come to life and take over everyone's entire existence for about three weeks before fading away for a few years. So as a result of my only very casual interest, I don't have tons of Olympic facts at hand, like those people who are superfans and know every statistic, every athlete, every backstory, every nuance of competition.

With all that said, I have a question or two. I've watched very little television coverage but a few puzzling thoughts immediately occured to me:

Synchronized diving? Isn't it enough that someone can execute these amazing dives as an individual? Why do two divers have to match? Who said doing this side by side is worth judging? Is there a reason synchronization is connected to water competition? Why not synchronized pole vaulting? Synchronized archery? Synchronized curling in the Winter Olympics?

More pressing is this: why are the male swimmers wearing more fabric on their bodies than the female beach volleyball players? I know. Something about slickness and cutting through the water with very little drag that results in faster times and new world records. But what could the volleyball "uniforms" - and I use that term in the same way someone could call lingerie "pajamas" - possibly be contributing to their performace as athletes? The female volleyball players are wearing bras and bikini pants. Is there a reason wearing shorts and tops would have a negative impact on their games?

Hey - that sand isn't all that soft. In fact, I'm guessing it can be pretty abrasive so wouldn't the players welcome bike shorts and tank tops? The male volleyball players wear shorts and tank tops.

Well, I'm not some enormous volleyball fan and maybe there is some compelling reason the women are on display in fairly revealing "uniforms," but if you're going to outfit the women in tight, tiny underwear, I say the men should play in their skins -no shirts. I've never seen men play volleyball wearing clothing on the top half of their bodies. In fact, the Olympics is probably the only venue on the planet where men do wear shirts to play volleyball.

I'm sure I'll have more puzzling thoughts about the Olympics in the weeks to come. If I get a chance to post them, I will. And welcome your thoughts as well!

What is it they say about statistics, again?

A few weeks ago, on April 29 to be exact, The NYT ran a troubling article that recapped the torturous last days of college admission being endured by anxious high school seniors across the country.

According to the article, by Tara Parker Pope, this year's class of applicants faced some pretty tough competition and it's only going to get worse. One of the numbers cited is that 90% of the applicants to Harvard and Yale were rejected.

Unfortunately for many seniors, the arrival of that fat acceptance letter is their ticket to legitimacy. It proves that they are successful. In cases where the envelopes are slim and the news is not so good, students are suffering severely. The article quotes doctors and teachers who report sleeplessness, stomach pain and headaches among seniors who are facing rejection from a favored school.

The most troubling part of the story was this quote, from Denise Pope of Standford University: "...some of these kids have had college on the brain since sixth or seventh grade or even earlier. [emphasis mine] When you have that kind of stress over that kind of time, that's where it starts to worry us."

I'm sorry but if there is even one child out there who begins stressing about college acceptance at the age of 9, we are really doing something wrong.

One story recounted the perfect SAT scores of a student, a young man who rowed crew, played golf, performed in the school musical and thanked third in his class. Good kid, right? Nice catch for any school, right? He was rejected by both Stanford and Princeton.

Luckily, he was pragmatic about the news. As he put it, "I realize I didn't found a company or discover a new insect. I feel like it's coming to a point where you have to do something like that to get into schools like Princeton or Stanford."

That may be true; it seems like he would have been an asset to any number of schools, including those two.

But according to another story I read, we shouldn't be surprised by his news. Another Times article, this one from April 1, reported that "Elite Colleges Reporting Record Lows in Admission." Interesting, I thought. I wonder why?

I read the article to find out. Turns out, elite colleges are not admitting fewer students. It's just that more students are applying than in the past so the numbers look lower. The percentage of students being admitted is nearly the same as it's always been. Here are the numbers:

Yale College accepted 8.3% of its 22,813 applicants. Wow - seems very tough indeed.
In order to prove the point about record lows in admission, they compared this figure to the numbers Yale reported ten years ago. At that time, "slightly fewer than 12,000 students applied to Yale, but the admittance rate was nearly 18%."

Ummmm - calling all Math 101 professors. 8.3% of 22,813 applicants is 1,893. 17.8% (nearly 18%) of 11,850 (slightly fewer than 12,000) is 2,109. (Both those percentages and totals are my estimates based on the information at hand.) So let me understand this: a difference of 216 students is the basis for these "record low" admissions?

I think the article took the wrong approach to this information. For me, the question is this: In 2008, why did some 10,000 more students applying to college believe they were Yale material? Are they that much smarter than they were in 1998? If you watch the SAT reports each year, the answer is no - the numbers are going down.

So what is it? Can you spell entitlement? Somehow, I think that applies here.

is anyone measuring this footprint?

To promote her new autobiography, Audition, celebrity newswoman Barbara Walters is doing what almost every author on the planet can only dream about: she's taking her story on the road and visiting 25 cities to promote her book. As I write this, the book is # 1 on the Amazon bestseller list.

This tour intrigues me for a number of reasons. First off, the number one thing publishers want to know about anyone who submits a book proposal is not what your story is, not what your goals are, not the wisdom you have to share with book buyers around the world nor the poetic voice in which you will deliver that message. Not one of those things matters to publishers. What matters most is that you have a "platform," a built-in audience who will not only welcome the news that you've written a book, they'll rush out to buy a copy or two or three as well. Having a platform means that the publishers can P/L your book with some measure of comfort about the number of books that will sell right off the bat; it means they can count on your audience to support their investment in you. It also means they won't have to engage a publicist to promote you or your book. They won't have to spend much on advertising or marketing. In other words, you've done their job for them.

But in the case of writers who may need a boost, whose platform may be lacking a bit in scope or reach, those writers who could benefit from some face time with a crowd to build momentum for their book, publishers create the "book tour" and put authors on the road. Authors visit bookstores and sell and sign books to their anxious public - or not. I've attended some book signings where the store is so empty your voice echoes. Yes, a tour can work but it's expensive and risky - for everyone.

So - at the risk of sounding jealous and petty, let me pose the following questions. Why is Barbara Walters on a 25-city book tour? Doesn't she have a national platform large enough to engender some good will with her publisher? Isn't it enough that she produces a daily talk show, commands network attention anytime she wants it to conduct her celebrity interviews and is arguably the most well-known female television journalist in the world? Is it possible her book will NOT sell because no one will have heard of her or heard of it? Particularly since she leaked the intriguing tidbit about her affair with a married politician some forty years ago?

But all that aside, here's what's really bothering me. According to a report in Publisher's Weekly, Ms. Walters is using private jet to travel to her tour cities. A private jet. Why isn't someone from the green police writing a scathing OP Ed about the wretched excess of Ms. Walters and condemning this wasteful carbon footprint from the sake of promoting a soon-to-be-bestseller book?

If a journalist from the FOX network or another conservative-leaning organization were doing the same thing to promote their own book, you can bet the media would be screaming for their decidedly not-green head.

hydration schmydration

I haven't seen this story hit the front page yet but I was amused and bemused to read the latest health update in the NYT earlier this week. The short item was titled Perceptions: Go Ahead, Put the Water Bottle Down.

Turns out, according to Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a team of researchers, there is not now, nor has there ever been, scientific evidence that proves the health benefits of drinking eight glasses of water every day. Even that mostly benign little claim is unsubstantiated according to the men who searched for the facts.

I don't know about you, but I have spent my entire life listening to everyone from dietitians to exercise gurus to my mother opine about the benefits of drinking water - lots of it. And now according to Dr. Goldfarb and his colleagues, none of the claims that are made about the curative and restorative benefits of drinking water - like relief from headaches, removing "toxins," keeping various organs of ours in top shape and reducing the risk of conditions like hypertension - have even been scientifically proven.

Could drinking water possibly help people control their weight and decrease appetite? Yes. Well - possibly, yes. More study and research is necessary before the evidence points to one answer or another.

And the truth is, it's doubtful that water is literally harmful to us so in that sense, it's a good beverage. I'd rather fill up on water than empty calories (spoken like a woman who has been dieting since the age of 17.)

I love the conclusion Dr. Goldfarb offers us in the Times article. Since, under normal conditions - not during a grueling trek through the Sahara, not during a bout of excessive dry mouth after surgery, not with the onset of a diabetic condition, not even after one awakens from a beer-soaked frat party the previous night not that I've even experienced that - he and his colleagues doubt any real health benefit from drinking massive quantities of water. "I want to relieve people of schlepping around a water bottle all day long."

I love that!

Carrying around water bottles has become something of a label these days. It's like listening to NPR or voting for Ralph Nader. You're somehow more enlightened and feel smarter than everyone else if you carry your own water - to every meeting, on every walk, in every moment of your life you have access to ready hydration. I've even seen people pull out a bottle of water and drink it in church, for god's sake. (Well, for their own sake, actually.) Unless there is some kind of unique medical condition here, can you really not live for sixty minutes without a drink of water?

Please. Enjoy your water. Drink up. Just stop making it into a political / superior statement about how smart you are since - according to the research - it provides no measurable health benefit.

is it any wonder we're all broke?

I saw a new favorite commercial on television the other night from one of my least favorite advertisers: VISA.

It depicts a man - baby-boomerish age - sitting in front of a large, state of the art flat screen TV - and a salesperson hovering around him, spelling out the features of the set, and no doubt encouraging a purchase. (Note that there is no woman in the commercial, looking askance at the possibility of spending thousands of dollars on a television.)

Luckily for the consumer to be, now completely entranced by the television and the hours of ecstasy it can provide, VISA is there - electronically of course - to help him make that difficult buying decision. Now, you can use your phone to have VISA send you a message about your credit limit, so you can decide on the spot whether or not to add another $5,000 to your card.

Isn't that so helpful? Now you don't even have to check your balance, or wait for your next statement, or make a phone call to see where you stand with your credit. You can just email them using your phone and find out immediately that it's a wonderful idea to add thousands of dollars to your balance.

This is completely ridiculous. Anyone who sends a text message to VISA to check his credit limit in order to buy a big screen TV is an infant who has no concept of something called delayed gratification. Pathetic.

And yet - I'll bet the message of the commercial is a big hit with consumers who can't wait to get deeper into debt with toys and gadgets they can't live without. I'm sure VISA's market research told them this was exactly the right move to make to capture even more financial half-wits who have no concept of money, debt and credit.

And - by the way - I don't have anything against large, flat screen TVs. I covet one in fact - just haven't quite seen my way clear to purchasing one for our family to enjoy. Things like tuition, rising household expenses and saving for the future always seem to take priority. Rats. I hate it when I'm sensible that way.

signs of the times

Because the Pennsylvania primary is a matter of days away, neighborhoods have begun sprouting signs, promoting the candidate of choice in that household. I can't help but wonder about the time, effort and focus-grouping that goes into the final design of those placards and signs, as they create an image, implant an impression, call out a message to us as we pass by them each day.

What's extremely interesting to me is the choice one of the candidates - or that candidate's committee - made with the sign. You'll notice one of the democratic candidates is using first name only to remind voters of her candidacy: Hillary. You have to ask yourself why.

I can't think of another candidate who ran on his or her first name in a presidential election. And it's obviously not because she has something to hide with her last name. Clinton is about as successful a political name as there could be in national politics.

It's also not because it's unprecedented that someone traded on political clout in a campaign. George W. didn't run as George W. if you recall. All of those signs used his well-known last name: Bush.

I wasn't part of the focus groups but I'm going to guess this was a girl decision. Women use first names when we address each other or refer to another woman. Men use last names more commonly than we do.

By noting Hillary on her signs, we feel like she just might be the girlfriend we have in Washington. It's familiar. It's a fun name. It's not dowdy or boring or conventional. It's hip. It's classy. It's modern.

Somehow, I think if Mrs. Clinton's first name were Gertrude or Mildred or Blanche or Ethel, we wouldn't see those signs posted around town. Male presidents can have very traditional names - they almost all do, in fact. They conjure up images of steadfast, loyal, trustworthy, reliable men.

And what of Barack Obama? Do you wonder if he considered - even for a day or so - going by 'Barry,' not Barack? You have to believe someone somewhere floated the idea by him. His signs contain his last name only: Obama. In this case, both his first and last name are not exactly mainstream American name lexicon - it's a toss up about which would be the catch-word to capture him for the masses. Obama is more lyrical. And it is following tradition to use a last name only on a sign.

It will be interesting to see who is the candidate and who is the eventual running mate of that candidate. I'd love to see Hillary choose her husband for many reasons, not the least of which is that her signs may then read Hillary and Bill or even better, Clinton and Clinton.

I have no idea who would make the right partner for his sign. Whomever he chooses will most likely bring a waspy sounding name to the ticket, which may help or may cause more confusion. It may create a complete disconnect to voters. Obama Richardson sounds like people from two different parts of the planet. Same with Obama Edwards. Doesn't really work, does it?

on the other hand...

...in many, many cases, the growing up experience has not one thing in common with applying to colleges.
A friendly email from a reader responding to my column on Sunday reminded me gently of that fact. And he was right. The world is full of talented, skilled, energetic, creative, accomplished, successful people who have never stepped foot on a college campus.
Reading the email served as a reminder to me that my own perspective is not the only perspective. (Yes, I write an opinion column and as such, it needs perspective, preferably my own. But I appreciate people pointing out the obvious from time to time - something along the lines of: "Hey genuis! Did you ever consider ____??" Many times, I haven't.)
The school year is coming to an end for thousands of high school seniors who will graduate and begin their lives as working adults. Maybe they'll follow up on some training they began during their high school years and become skilled tradespeople, working with professonals who will continue their education, on the job.
Maybe they'll take a job in a restaurant, a retail store, a medical facility or in a business setting, and learn how to do the job at hand.
Not one of them is checking the daily mail for acceptance or rejection letters. Not one of them composed an essay about their unique talents and why they should be accepted in a university. And not one of them is taking on many thousands of dollars of debt to continue their education.
To them I say congratulations - welcome to the workforce - and believe it or not, no matter how much you looked forward to graduating, you will miss those carefree high school days.
http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/oped/all-james3-23.6320510mar23,0,7686104.column

Inexplicable and yet, yes, still annoying

Okay, I'll admit I don't know much about men but I really don't understand this thing so many of them have about sports teams, and loyalty and unrelenting passion year after year for a game. I've had men try to explain this to me and believe me, they get no where.

The mystery about men and sports was in the headlines over the past few days because comedian Billy Crystal was able to fufill a lifelong dream - a LIFELONG DREAM - LIFELONG!!!! - to play baseball with his favorite team, the New York Yankees. He got to wear a real uniform and face a real major league pitcher and stand at bat and try to get a real honest-to-God hit during spring training with the Yankees. Apparently he got ahead on the count and then struck out.

Wow. I wish I could relate to this on some level but I can't do it. Just can't summon up much to help me conjure up what this felt like for him. Oh wait - maybe having a baby? Creating the miracle of birth, perhaps, and in a matter of seconds have a living, precious, newborn baby emerge from my body and begin life as an independent human being on this planet? Maybe that? Maybe not. I'm sure he felt something just a little deeper, a little more cosmic, a little more mystical when he swung at the ball.

The funniest stories I've read about men and sports in a long time are found in a book titled True Believers by one of my favorite writers of all time, Joe Queenan. All I can tell you is that if you want the definitive book on men as fans, particularly men who relentlessly support perennial losers, please treat yourself to this book.

But getting back to Crystal and his fascination with the Yankees, I'll have to quote Queenan because I can't do better: "Crystal is one of those infuriating New Yorkers who acts as if his passion for the Yankees involves some sort of risk, when in fact saying you support the Yankees is like saying you support the air."

I haven't looked at the comments people posted about this story on MSN because I didn't want them to influence this post with the thoughts of others. I plan to check them out, though. I'm sure they'll run ten to one in favor of this whole episode - full of delight as they exclaim over this story. They'll mostly come from men who express some kind of desire to experience the same ridiculous fantasy Crystal has vicariously lived for millions of men in America.

You wait. Next year, Crystal will produce a documentary about his Yankee at-bat experience, or start a reality show about giving people their fantasy come true or some such nonsense. I could do without that. But I could've done without this whole story, too, and that didn't seem to matter.

Star indulgence and supremely annoying fan wrapped into one story. Almost like a double-header of aggravation.


http://amazon.com/true-believers

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb

Thanks for visiting -

a postscript to E.P.L.

In response to Sunday's column about my strong, somewhat dismissive commentary about the book Eat, Pray, Love, I'm relieved to report that the responses I've received from women have been 100% supportive. Writing that column was kind of risky - the book is beloved by millions, and most women I know who liked it seem like perfectly reasonable people to me. Which is why I feel so confused. Maybe I'm really missing something. Maybe I'm just too grouchy to live.

So many of us find ourselves in the same psychological boat: we're challenged by everyone from Oprah to people like Elizabeth Gilbert and her ilk to "discover" ourselves but we're very, very busy trying to keep up with everyday life. It simply angers me beyond words when I hear about women who are "searching" and "contemplating," and think they are doing us some kind of cosmic favor by encouraging us to join their search for truth.

These models of personal growth seem to have crossed a line somewhere that creates - for me at least - a great divide. I'm not sure exactly what belongs on either side of that divide but the women occupying each space are substantively different. I'm going to guess that on one side, women use a phrase like "teachable moment" when they discuss experiences about raising their children. Women on the other side have never uttered those two words in the same sentence, much less as a standard phrase. Women on the enlightened side arrange play dates and memorize the school nurse's phone extension on the first day of school. The rest of us are trying hard to keep up with everything every weekend and have a school contact list posted on or near every phone in our home.

I'm not saying there's anything particularly wrong with any of those "enlightened side" attributes but when they're all wrapped up in an "I'm more evolved than you are, you poor thing" aura, it's nauseating.

I appreciate hearing from women who helped me feel like I'm not completely crazy. I'm not some kind of misanthrope who hates everyone. But I have little tolerance for privileged women who make the rest of us feel like losers. In the spirit of Nancy Reagan, we need to "just say no" to these modern day gurus of garbage. I may not be all that enlightened, but I'm hanging in there. It's gratifying to hear I'm not alone.

Thanks for visiting -
R

PS
Opening email in the days following a column is always a challenge. Some people spend a lot of time and energy telling me exactly what a jerk I am, and what a waste of space my weekly column is. What I can't understnd in cases like that is why the bother to read me if I'm such an idiot. I don't waste time reading articles or columns by people who have little of interest to say to me. Why do they??

my very favorite harry potter story

A few days after my boys finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I turned the final page. All three of them started the book around 12:30 am on Saturday (the day it went on sale) and the last one to finish it closed it about 12 hours later. Which put me about three days behind them.

I finished it last night (Wednesday) at about 11:30 pm. Each of the boys was hovering around in the kitchen as I closed in on the end and I shooed them away - telling them they couldn't talk to me, they couldn't interrupt until I was finished reading it.

When I closed the book, I headed upstairs and found two of them in a room and called their brother in to talk about the book. And ask all the questions about the dozens of things that confused me as I read the story.

So here it is: my very favorite Harry Potter moment. After years of reading aloud, years of watching them strike out on their own and race through the books by themselves, years of anticipating this final chapter to the story: this was my very favorite moment of the whole thing. The night I finished the book, we sat in Cameron's room and talked about it for an hour or more. Everything we loved, everything that scared us. Everything that we wondered about, and our favorite moments.

I cherished every second of it. They sort of looked like they were little boys again, excited to talk about a child's story about a wizard. They were older though, and their remarks were not those of children. They were smart, thoughtful, inquisitive, enthusiastic and amazing. I can't even really explain how I felt about the experience.

Lucky, I think. Lucky to know them, to feel like they're friends of mine. I won't forget it.

they amaze me

Okay, so tonight we're sitting around the dinner table, anticipating the Harry Potter book coming out on Saturday (at midnight on Friday, actually), and my boys start to list the first chapters of every book. From memory. Many years after reading them.
Then they start to list their favorite chapters ever...and each one of them not only remembers what happened in that particular chapter, they remember the book it appeared in as well.
I was floored. I can't remember where I left my car keys and they remember the title to the first chapter of the fourth Harry Potter book.
Astonishing.

So then answer me this: why can't they remember to start the dishwasher?
Why can't they remember to feed the dog?
Why can't they remember to pick up the mail from the mailbox?

I know why. None of these tasks - or any of the other four dozen I could name in one minute's time capture their imagination and their interest as powerfully as do the stories they found on the pages of each Harry Potter book. I'd love to believe they would accomplish these small duties simply for the sake of doing them; for the sake of pitching in; for the sake of scraps of sanity I'm trying desperately to hold onto.

Then I remember: oh, yeah. They're teenagers. And they're pretty normal. One day, they'll wonder why their own kids can't seem to remember to cap the toothpaste or put the milk away. I hope they won't be too hard on them. I hope they remember the night they sat around naming Harry Potter chapters, and recall the kinds of things that captured their minds and attention as teenagers. It certainly wasn't mowing the lawn.

Let's all buy one rose in her honor

God bless Kathleen E. Woodiwiss.

This prolific author had three decades of bestsellers to her credit before passing away in early July in Minnesota. Her final work will be published this fall. The numbers vary, but total sales of her body of work total upwards of 25 or 30 million copies.

Never heard of her? Check your chromosomes and get back to me. Woodiwiss basically invented the genre of the historical romance novel, and women haven't been the same ever since. I haven't read her books in many years, but I do remember them fondly and with no little sense of romance. Sure, maybe the heroine was originally kidnapped and possibly even raped by the man who ultimately becomes her lover and partner. Maybe it was unlikely the captain of the pirate ship would tuck away a wench for his personal pleasure on a ship packed with less than savory male companions.

Ummm...you're thinking about this w-a-y too much. The novels were pieces of candy women could devour, guilt free. They were a respite from the reality of daily life, where the most romantic thing a woman might encounter is an exchange between Kermit and Miss Piggy as her toddlers watched Sesame Street. They were a vacation you took in your own living room.

Romance novels are the unseen workhorses of publishing. There may be showier steeds out in front of the parade, but these hardworking books keep the business chugging along. They don't need promotion; or endless praise, or cover blurbs or author chats with Diane Sawyer to boost their sales. They just work, day in and day out to make bottom lines look better at publishers the world over and make daily lives that much more fun for women the world over.

Thanks, Kathleen. You made a lot of us very happy to know you.

Abstract from the journal Science: italics my own -


Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, stability, and water quality decreased exponentially with declining diversity. Restoration of biodiversity, in contrast, increased productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%, on average. We conclude that marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Yet available data suggest that at this point, these trends are still reversible.

Got that? Everybody clear on the message found in the journal Science? Let's move on.

If you read the home page of MSN, and take note of the list of earth-friendly things you can do to make your "carbon footprint" smaller, you'll read that:

"The world's seafood will be entirely depleted by 2048, according to an early November report in the journal Science."


Got that? "...entirely depleted by 2048..." I must have missed that critical point that was somehow left out of the abstract, which, last I heard, summarizes the salient points of a study or a paper.


This is the problem I have with most major "news" stories that reach our collective consciousness. We accept everything we read, hear or google, or nearly everything we read, hear, or google, as the absolute truth, when in fact, it is neither. It took me about six minutes to find the article that was being used to engender fear on the MSN homepage and compare what the two documents stated.


The larger problem is that someone will begin spouting off about not be able to have shrimp scampi in 2008 and everyone around them will nod in horror as they denigrate and deride all the eco-rats who are destroying our planet (i.e. everyone who cares enough to voice a syllable of doubt about the "news" we're fed.)


Do I want the oceans to be healthier? Yes. Do I want to encourage bio-diversity so all aquatic life will flouish in this century and the next several dozen centuries? Yes. Does that mean to do that, I have to embrace a climate (you'll pardon the word) of fear and destruction in order to effect some change? No.

Wow, that was quite a message.

The news on the Gore front isn't so great today. At least from the West Coast. The arrest of Al Gore III, for speeding, possession of prescription narcotics sans the prescriptions and the scent of pot lingering in his car during an early morning driving citation doesn't do much to start the Live Earth weekend off with a big hug to daddy.

Quite the opposite if you think about it. I don't care what anyone says, the timing of this matters. Here stands Al Gore, former almost leader of the free world about to launch his weekend of worldwide attention on climate change (aka global warming) and mingle with some of the coolest people on the planet (rock stars of several generations, playing at his request around the world) and what happens? His son drives his hybrid vehicle about 100 MPH on a California highwway and gets pulled over, then runs into all kinds of extra trouble about what he's carrying in his car (and perhaps his system.) To the tune of an arrest and $20,000 bail.

Jeez, if that isn't a "Daddy notice me" cry, I don't know what is.

My favorite part of the story is the "help" Al III is going to get for his problems. It's funny to me. The regular schlubs who get pulled over for speeding and possible narcotics possession just go to court and possibly to jail. If they manage to avoid serving time, they have to figure out how they'll get the money to pay a fine, get themselves to their jobs and conduct their lives while living with suspended licenses.

The famous ones pay the fine, and "get help" for their problems. I appreciate the idea of family supporting family during troubling times but I'm not convinced that this is the first sign of trouble with young Al. In fact, it isn't. He has run afoul of the law in the past as well.

The timing on this one, however, says it all.

it almost worked for me

Because my children know me very well, they know they can not go wrong by giving me anything with a connection to Hugh Grant. They're right about that. There's almost never anything not to like about Hugh Grant if you ask me.

Which is why, when they gave me his movie, Words and Music, for Mother's Day, I appreciated their thoughtfulness. With my usual glacial speed, I finally watched the movie the other night and it almost worked for me. Almost.

Hugh was, of course, brilliant and adorable, and even Drew Barrymore seemed to work as his soulmate-to-be. The story unwound just a little too quickly for me - there weren't nearly enough near misses or "what if's" for a typical romantic comedy but that was okay. There were plenty of amusing lines and repartee to keep me interested.

Here's where it fell apart for me. When they were finally going to have their moment - the memorable first kiss that usually indicates the high point of the movie as it draws to a close (see Pride and Prejudice for the best one of all time - I don't care what version you watch but the latest one works pretty well to illustrate that point) - or the point at which the story takes a turn into confusion and miscommunication, which is always resolved in hour two.

In this case, it was the latter. There was plenty of movie yet to come so I knew there was conflict ahead. But the fact is, I couldn't really get past the kiss itself. How can I put this? It just wasn't sweet enough. It was a little too fierce. I don't mind fierce but this wasn't the place for it. We're not talking about the elevator scene in Fatal Attraction for god's sake. We're talking about two adorable people who have discovered they just may be falling in love.

I wish I had been on the set. I'm convinced this is the reason the movie didn't do better at the box office. All the other elements were there. But if you get the kiss wrong - you're doomed.

Next time, I hope Hugh's people call me. I'd be delighted to help.

great moments that didn't happen in judicial history

If only.

In an unprecendented break from my vow to write not so much as one word about one Paris Hilton, I'm taking this opportunity to make a plea to every judge sitting on a bench today to impose severe sentences where appropriate, particularly if he or she serves in a particularly upscale district filled with particularly upscale clients who can't seem to stay on the right side of the law.

The judge who sentenced Paris Hilton to a meaningless fourteen days in jail - or whatever it was - would have made judicial history with the following pronouncement. Instead of having her serve out her remaining days, and then subject all of us to a relentless rehash of her ordeal and then have to endure the nonstop news cycle that will surround her every move for god knows how long to come, what if he had said this to her:

Miss Hilton. In the name of everything that is holy, I sentence you to the following:
You will not serve any more time in jail. In lieu of serving time, you must become immediately and completely absent from the media that surrounds you. For the next ten years, I don't want to read an inch of type about you, see your image on any existing or on any not yet developed piece of electronic equipment. I don't want to hear your voice, see your photo or
read one word written by you for any medium. You don't need to do anything except disappear from our collective consciousness.

If you do re-appear prior to July, 2017, you will immediately be detained and made to serve a full six months before you come before me again.

How great would that have been? We all get the break we deserve from this vacant woman, she gets to stay out of jail, and we never have to hear from her again until she's ten years older. At that point, maybe even she will have grown up.

In anther world perhaps. But I can dream.

Just in time for Father's Day

Earlier this week, I was delighted to read a short blurb in the newspaper giving me an update of exactly what's on Yoko Ono's mind these days.

Turns out, just in time for Father's Day, she revealed that on the fateful night of John Lennon's death, he could have possibly avoided the bullets that were waiting for him outside the Dakota, courtesy of Mark Chapman. According to her story, when given a choice between grabbing a bite to eat and heading home after they finished their recording session that evening, John Lennon chose to skip the meal so he wouldn't miss seeing his son, Sean, before he went to sleep. And that made the difference in whether he would live or die if you believe her story. Perhaps Chapman would have given up his watch had Lennon and Ono been detained by a prolonged dinner, and the evening would have passed without incident.

As if that weren't enough to make Sean Lennon want to regret being alive, she had more to share. After a two-year separation, Ono and Lennon reconciled in 1975. Shortly after that, she became pregnant with Sean. As a future mother of the year, she turned to Lennon and asked him if he wanted the baby. Apparently, it made no difference to her whether or not she carried the child to term or aborted it. As she put it, "I thought I should let John decide whether to keep it or not. We'd just got back together and I became pregnant very soon, and I didn't know if it was the right moment to have a child. I didn't want to burden him with something he didn't want."

It's immaterial to me that she was conflicted about the pregnancy or that she wasn't sure she wanted to "burden" Lennon with a child. None of that is the point, really.

What is amazing and disturbing to me about her latest appearance in the news is that she very publically told her only son two things:

1.) you're the reason your father was killed that night; he was coming home at that hour only because of you; to make sure he could help tuck you in.

2.) giving birth to you was something I felt ambivilent about; and if your father hadn't wanted me to go one with the pregnancy, I was ready to end it.

If this weren't so sad I'd be amused by it. Why are we still reading about Yoko Ono anyway? Why hasn't she faded from our view? I don't get it. And especially this particular story. It uplifts no one as near as I could tell.

Meth is only one of their problems.

One of the big news stories around here is the arrest of middle school principal for alleged drug activity. I'll leave that to the investigators and courts to decide. But after I read the latest update on the story, I realized that methadone may be the least of school district's problems.

Turns out many of the teachers suspected and reported some of the questionable behavior by the principal. Some came forward and made their suspicions known to administrators.

Last week, independent investigators planned to question some of the teachers and faced some obstacles. Quote: "None of us is going to our interviews," one teacher said Tuesday, a day when several scheduled interviews never happened.

"None of us IS going. NONE of us...."

I'm ready to cry. Let's try this together, shall we?
None of us ARE going...
Not ONE of us IS going...

What is going on here?

I don't know why I'm surprised. A post or two ago I lamented the illiteracy of a reporter for the NYT; now I'm reading the same sort of regrettable grammar ignorance, this time in a quote from a teacher of all people.

As long as the district is considering random drug testing for everyone interacting with students, perhaps they should also institute random grammar testing for anyone speaking to students.
Or at least random grammar tests for the teachers. I don't care if you're teaching participles or molecules or multiples, shouldn't you be responsible enough to speak to children using proper English?

Once they clear up that methadone problem, they should turn to the grammar problem uncovered by this investigation as well.

Still incredulous -
Renee

waiting for the other shoe...or feather-trimmed mule...to drop

I'm pretty sure I have a good sense of humor. Really, I think I do. So why wasn't I laughing at the shampoo commercial I watched the other night? And then watched a second time just to make sure I understood it?

It shows two pretty blonde women talking about the merits of some new shampoo developed especially for their very particular hair needs. (I've written about this hair-color based shampoo phenomenon before so this wasn't new to me.) But here's the thing: at the end of the commercial, they speak rather disdainfully to all their brunette sisters who are watching them in sadness, mourning their own plight as non- blondes. They deliver a line that sounds something like this: "Sorry brunettes. At least your moms think you're pretty."

Ahem.

I think it's hilarious that these women appear to value their own looks above all else and have no compunction about sharing that world view.

I also think it's hilarious that they think everyone shares their view. Not looking pretty is clearly a tragedy in their world. And unless you're a blonde, you can't be pretty.

More than one woman I shared this with had the same reaction: is there an equvilant commercial for brunette shampoo where the tagline at the ends sounds like this: "Sorry blondes. At least your moms think you're smart."

If there is, I haven't seen it. But I did see products for brunettes by this company when I was shopping on Saturday.

Are they kidding me? They just dissed more than half the women on the planet with their we're bonde, we're pretty and we're proud of it in your face televison commerical and then they want to sell us shampoo? Then again, if this is all a really big joke, it's a good one. Just not that funny to all the non-blondes out there. And I have to believe there is at least one blonde who is annoyed that the commercial keeps the idea of blonde, pretty and vacant alive and well during network television commericals.

More soon....

Calling Lynne Truss....

Lynne Truss is my hero. In case you missed her marvelous book, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Truss is a British writer who does her best to encourage us to maintain some semblance of rules and order when it comes to grammar and using our language properly, whether writing it or speaking it. I happen to be one of those people who admires those who use language correctly and can't help but feel a little less kindly toward those who don't, especially those who should know better.

I'm by no means an expert on language but I'd like to think that writers who get their bylines published in The New York Times are. I'll go you one better than that and say that even if the writers themselves aren't perfect grammarians, certainly the copy editors and people who literally make a living correcting the grammar and spelling of others should be perfect.

I'd be wrong about that, too. I read this just today and had to reread the first paragraph three times to figure out who on earth wrote the letter being discussed. Turns out it was Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father. Except that's not what the article indicated. Here's the opening paragraph. My notes and questions follow:

"On April 30, 1941, just days after a Gestapo courier may have threatened to denounce Anne Frank’s father, Otto, to the Nazis, he wrote to his close college friend Nathan Straus Jr. begging for help in getting his family out of Amsterdam and into America."

What? A Gestapo courier wrote a letter to a close college friend about escaping Amsterdam? Why would a Nazi officer want to...wait a minute, I think I read that wrong....[re-read]...no, it definitely states that the Gestapo officer wrote a letter to a friend just days after he possibly threatened Otto Frank....wait a minute; let me see this....[re-read again]...Oh, I get it. Otto Frank wrote the letter to his college friend looking for help for his escape to America. Except it doesn't say that.

Here's how I think the opening paragraph of this interesting story should read:

On April 30, 1941, just days after a Gestapo courier may have threatened to denounce him to the Nazis, Anne Frank’s father, Otto, wrote to his close college friend Nathan Straus Jr. begging for help in getting his family out of Amsterdam and into America.

Or even better:
On April 30, 1941, just days after a Gestapo courier may have threatened to denounce him to the Nazis, Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, wrote to his close college friend Nathan Straus Jr. begging for help in getting his family out of Amsterdam and into America.

Again, I'm not some kind of grammar freak or grammar goddess but this is just wrong and it appears in what is arguably the number one newspaper in the country, if not the world. Any misused grammar bugs me but it bugs me even more that it appears on the front page of the NYT.

In this particular case, the problem stems from using antecedents and making them represent the correct noun (or something like that.) I told you I wasn't an expert. According to the Guide to Grammar and Writing website,

"Generally (but not always) pronouns stand for (pro + noun) or refer to a noun, an individual or individuals or thing or things (the pronoun's antecedent) whose identity is made clear earlier in the text." This particular antecedent was about as far from 'made clear' as you can get.

I ask you: Where does it leave us if The New York Times publishes incorrect grammar? I know this isn't nearly the first time this has happened and sadly, it won't be the last. Yes, I'm accustomed to having to read through stories to ferret out the "spin," the agenda, the bias behind a particular story. But having to read the same sentence more than twice to understand the content is asking just a little too much, even for me.

Soon -

And another thing....

We have another day or two before the wacky crazy female astronaut story leaves our national consciousness. Before it does, her's one more comment on one of the most predictable aspects of this (or any) news story.

According to reporters, Lisa Nowak's neighbors were stunned and shocked to learn of her behavior. That's always the case when it becomes evident that someone in your daily life turns out to be quite different than you imagine them to be. I'm not surprised that this was the reaction of her neighbors.

But here's my larger question, totally separate from the headline du jour: what does anyone really know about the people living up the street? What do any of us really know about each other? Here's the answer, in case you're thinking up a list of things you know. You ready? Nothing. You really don't know anything of substance. People are tricky animals and can hide much much more than we ever give each other credit for.

I'm not saying that we don't open up, we don't trust, we don't tell those closest to us our deepest thoughts. I'm just saying that even at that, there are some things in each one of us that will never be expressed to anyone. Even to a therapist, a priest or a rabbi. And if we have secrets from each other, why in the world would we ever expect our neighbors would know more about us?

I'm guessing if the press spoke to Nowak's husband, he'd agree that there were signs that something wasn't quite right these days. In fact, the couple had recently separated. But I'm guessing even he wouldn't have said it was so she could take her cross-state drive to destiny and the national headlines.

See? Even her husband for god's sake had no idea what she was thinking. And we think it's interesting or newsworthy that her neighbors didn't know?

Please.

Well, she was no rocket scientist...except she was.

What on God's green earth was she thinking? How do you make a living as a rocket scientist for god's sake and then develop some kind of maniacal plan to murder someone because of a love triangle?

I'm trying to understand this. Astronaut Lisa Nowak drives some 900 + miles (say from here to South Carolina) to catch up with her rival, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. She wasn't looking for a friendly chat about their mutual friend, astronaut Bill Oefelein. It doesn't appear she was, anyway, since she carried pepper spray, a knife, a mallet and a BB gun with her. But the truth is, I don't want to get into the details of the case against Nowak or the state of her marriage or her disintegrating romance.

The case itself - your classic love triangle - isn't all that surprising. People have battled romantic rivals for thousands of years, often with tragic results. I guess the astonishing part of this story for me is the fact that Nowak is without a doubt one very intelligent woman. She is the cliche: she's a rocket scientist!!! How could she ever imagine this was a good plan, worth following through, and possibly risking the rest of her life as a free woman should she get caught? How could she imagine causing harm to Captain Shipman was a reasonable idea, that would ultimately gain the affection her lover? Hasn't she ever seen an episode of CSI? You can't get away with anything if you're a criminal. The CSI team would find just a single blade of grass indiginous to Texas underneath Shipman's unconscious body and one hour later someone would be knocking on Nowak's door. Plus, she was no career criminal, just a woman with (sick, twisted) love in her heart.

Most of all, here's a question that's bothering me: is this the kind of person we're sending into space? I mean, if this story were about a banker from Baltimore or an accountant from Albany, we'd think it was strange and erratic and that she was evidently disturbed, but Nowak isn't any of those things. She's a rocket scientist!! NASA claims her state of mind showed no signs that she was "troubled" and perhaps contemplating an attempt on another woman's life that would require her to drive almost one thousand miles to accost her, and wear adult diapers during the entire trip so she didn't have to stop for bathroom breaks. Then again, I don't know what kinds of signs one would exhibit to indicate this behavior was in the offing. Clipping coupons for Depends? Choosing "quickest" when given a choice of routes from Houston to Orlando on Mapquest?

But what exactly was NASA going to say? "We knew she was a whack job but boy, could she manipulate that robotic arm. All in all, we thought she was worth the risk." Doubt it. What's going on up there in all that weightlessness? Is it party party party? The ultimate out of town trip for the married astronauts?

Now of course, NASA is going to review all of their policies regarding personnel and screening and how they can keep knife-carrying, pepper-spraying, diaper-wearing astronauts on the second or third tier lists for the next shuttle flight. Good idea. The problem is, your can't write HR rules when it comes to passion. Passion is passion is passion. And if NASA can figure out how to regulate their hiring practices to account for passion among the ranks, I want to read that report.

Certainly Nowak has some problems. But despite her status as an elite scientist, a shuttle astronaut and an employee of NASA, she is still a human being. A flawed human being who went way beyond the pale in terms of saving her romance and her relationship.

The only thing that will complete this story for me is when the press somehow links it all back to President Bush and how some policy he put into place contributed somehow to NASA's shame. It's coming.

More soon -

I'm in the wrong business

Just the other day, I read an article about something called "life coaches" and at the end of it, I hadn't learned one blessed thing about managing my life better or figuring out my next move toward greatness. I did, however, find it enormously entertaining.

Apparently, as a society of needy people seeking help, guidance, counseling, assistance, and encouragement every minute of every day of our lives, we have moved beyond the idea of a counselor, or a therapist or even a mentor to help us achieve our potential. Any of the above mentioned people may in fact be able to help but jeez, they can be so negative sometimes, can't they? I mean, who wants to spend three years with a licensed therapist only to learn that you still haven't confronted your anger issues and you have spent no time at all listening and learning some new habits that may help you control your temper? Who needs to hear that without you either making some significant changes to your everyday activity or in fact seeking a new place of employment, your job simply isn't going to change like magic into the dream position you imagine you deserve?

Yes, therapists can deliver some tough messages from time to time, and ask you some very tough questions. This is why anyone with any sense at all is turning to a life coach to help them figure out how to make their dreams come true.

Life coaches come from all walks of life but my favorites are the ones who achieve their credentials through an online course of instruction in a matter of months. What kind of ego must you own if you believe that you can - in all good conscience - and with every confidence that the advice you're imparting to your clients is truly useful and achievable - become something as amorphous sounding and un-measurable as a life coach?

I have no earthly idea. But one of my favorite quotes from the article summed up the entire discipline of life coaching as follows: "If life is a ball of yarn, therapy helps you untangle it. Life coaching helps you knit a sweater."

What? If life is a ...what? A ball of yarn? Hold on a second; I'm going to give this a try:

If life is bowl of apples, therapy helps you peel them. Life coaching helps you bake the pie.

If life is a pile of socks, therapy helps you remove them from the dryer. Life coaching helps you match them in pairs.

If life is a ...oh, forget it. All I know is that some of these coaches are getting something like $225 AN HOUR to coach their clients VIA EMAIL OR VIA PHONE. From their own livings rooms. In their pajamas. They're using the cut and paste features of their email programs as they send scads of empowering, positive, life-affirming advice by the hour. They're watching Law and Order with the mute button pressed on their phone as they half-listen to the next crisis from their clients.

Think about it. They would create various categories of "life" that seem to cry out for coaching skills: employment, marriage, children, your all purpose family issues, money, home management, spirituality, health, recreation. They could then cobble together little snippets of pithy, important-sounding but vapid pieces of wisdom they could share, and little worksheets they could tweak with the stroke of six keys, so that the questions they ask you to fill out to honestly evaluate how you handle money, for example, could be easily edited to indicate how you handle your children, or your parents, or your boss, or your spouse or your exercise program.

I'm trying to figure out how I would sign off my emails at the conclusion of each session if I were a life coach who doled out my wisdom via the internet. "Have a super-empowering week!" "Go be the best you ever!" "Say yes! And keep going!" "You are powerful. You are aware. You are your own destiny."

Honest to god, I could do this for hours. And at $225 per, I wouldn't have to do it for that many hours every week. I'm thinking three clients a day, four days a week and I'd be pretty content.

I'll grant the tiniest bit of leeway here and say that maybe - just maybe there are people in the world who are very, very good at helping others see their strengths, and weaknesses, and call them on bad habits, wrong choices, and mistakes that could have been avoided. They help others make tough choices and stand by them when they do. They celebrate accomplishments and success right along side others, and help them enjoy a moment of glory.

In the old days, they were called friends and family. And they didn't charge $225 an hour.

.....Thanks for visiting......I'll try not to stay away so long next time but god forbid I make a resolution about it. The last thing I need is some life-coach voice in my head telling me to update the blog and stick with my resolution to write here several times a week. I hope you understand.

Let me be clear

I'm stating this for the record: I don't ever want to, or ever plan to, buy any drugs from anyone or from any company in Canada.

None. Ever.

Not so much as an aspirin. Or a cold pill. Or anything at all that means I have to get even one more email offering me dr%#s from Ca8ad% at half price.

There. Maybe that will help.

I've never opened even one of those 'buy your meds here' emails which is why its so hard to believe they still arrive in my inbox with alarming regularity.

I can only guess that it makes sense to keep sending stuff to someone because one day it just may pay off but dear god, is someone really making a living off of these email solitations for antibiotics from Quebec?

If universal health care is such a successful social experience, why is every Canadian drug company relentlessly looking for business south of the border? Why isn't their government keeping them in the black year after year after year? Did Michael Moore include these companies in his upcoming 'why I hate the lying, deceitful, money-grubbing, profit-grabbing drug companies and you should, too' expose? I'm no fan of MM but when will he do a scathing report about the email campaigns many of us deal with on a daily basis?

I know. In the scheme of things, this is so irrelevant. But it's the little things that can make the difference between life being a joyous ride on a gorgeous fall day or a slippery backroads experience during a February storm.

I'm going to keep track of how many days in a row I do NOT get an offer on a fantastic deal for some prescription meds from our northeern neighbors. I'll bet I don't make it to two.

This is why we're all slowly but inexorably, going insane

Because we can't keep up. I mean it. We just can't.

It's just begun to register with me that I'm hearing about something called a blueray which is some kind of supercharged DVD. I think. My husband tells me that blueray is one kind of revved up DVD - hi def I think he called it - and they have a competitor, not unlike the old VHS / Beta wars. If you don't remember those you also don't know who Radar O'Reilly is or why almost everyone who watched the final episode of St. Elsewhere was disappointed. (St. Elsewhere was the TV show where Howie Mandel made a living about twenty years ago. Right around the time he did stand-up but long before the bald pate and the Deal or No Deal deal.)

Wait just one minute. DVDs are on their way out and these new guys are elbowing the shleves for dominance? I cannot stand it.

This is why our parents weren't nuts. Because once they welcomed the television into their living rooms - not their family rooms, their living rooms - they had to do little more than upgrade to a color tv set for the rest of their lives. Luckily for them they had things like raising kids, holding down jobs and running households to keep them busy.

I LOVE that. I really do. I wish I could buy technology and forget about it for at least ten years. I guess it's possible; just not easy. I recently tried to get my laptop repaired and was told it wasn't worth the $200. I could buy a new one with five times the power for about $600. When I asked exactly what I was to do with the one in my hands, the clerk offered few options. Sell it for parts on ebay? It's disturbing. Is there no one on the planet who could use this laptop? Is it destined for the dusty techno-heap?

I love that everyone in Hollywood who claims to love the planet and inspires us to be kind of the earth will switch formats faster than Kid Rock and what's her name are getting divorced. Nothing like a good landfill, packed to the brim with old technology, to express your love for Mother Nature, I say.

Soon -

a mile long and an inch deep

That's pretty much what I believe about my knowledge about our country's policies and where we stand on certain issues. And I think that's the extent of most people's knowledge goes when it comes to some of the key questions we face these days. Most people won't admit that but I do, without shame.

Case in point: about six or seven years ago I used to make several trips a year to San Diego to see a client. Every couple of trips, I would combine the San Diego trip with a drive up to Los Angeles as well. I drove through an immigration "checkpoint" on that Highway 5 I think it is , where theoretically border patrol officers were insuring that illegal immigrants from Mexico weren't hiding in my trunk or back seat. The stops and searches they made appeared to be pretty random. But not unexpected since there were enormous booths you had to drive through to continue on your way north.

Here's what I don't know: what about the rest of the border? Especially the border with Canada? I've also driving and flown into Canada and had to go through security checks. But are there vast expanses of border with no checks? Am I the only person in America who doens't understand how we protect our borders? Aren't there thousands of miles of border with Canada - many of them just open land with few people living right there, right on the premises so to speak and watching out for who goes in and who goes out? What happens there?

I don't get it. Yes, I could educate myself and find out exactly what our options appear to be and how we can insure our safety and what exactly happens along the border of Canada and Washington. I'm guessing not much but I'm not sure at all.

Maybe like most citizens, I have my global view of immigration and what seems to make sense as I see it. But I have little or no real facts to back me up. I also have my own views of minimum wage, tax codes, abortion, welfare and public education. The problem is, so do the politicians and they refuse to discuss anything with any real substance, beyond their own agendas. Their facts, as it were, appear to back up only their own agenda, not the greater good in most cases.

Which is why a mile long and an inch deep is about as far as most of us get before we give up in disgust.

Today's puzzlement

Here's what's on my to-do list:

call the music school and try to reschedule the violin lesson
get to the bank and deposit a check
dry cleaners pick up milk and cereal again. stop into the paint store to pick out and buy paint
organize all the receipts in my wallet - collecting in one little pocket for about three weeks now - and record them into the checkbook
figure out where all my money goes every week nail polish - take some off and figure out what to do with my nails, even though I know I won't really like any color I decide to use and will seriously envy the nail color I see on every single woman I encounter, not to mention it really won't matter because they'll all crack or split in about three days send congratulations card to friend who had baby girl 7 weeks ago
call my mom
call my sister
call my friend
paint the bedroom
wallpaper Mom's kitchen and paint
shampoo the carpets
refinish a cabinet
shop for paper goods for the brunch at school
stop into the dealership so they can fix the service engine light that's been lit up on my dashboard for about three weeks
shop for a new washer and dryer since ours are dying and it takes about 8 hours to dry three towels
write emails to teachers about the "(no) progress" reports
change all the sheets on all the beds in the house

And that's just the stuff around my personal life. Don't get me started on the emails I owe people, the column that's due that isn't going to write itself, the miles I'm not putting in on the treadmill, and the projects that are horribly behind at work.

When are all these married couples I'm reading about having sex day and night, night and day???? Who is doing all their errands?

Wondering....
R

I'm certain I'm missing something

On the rare occasions that I don't have a book with me, I love to read Skymall, the catalog you find on airplanes. Actually, I have a love / hate relationship with Skymall. I am never disappointed when it comes to the products I find it in: I can always find something that completely mystifies me.

The companies selling their goods and services in Skymall run from the very familiar, like The Sharper Image, to those you may have never heard of, like The Brightfeet Lighted Slippers company. You won't be surprised to learn they sell lighted slippers. So you can put them on and walk to the refrigerator in the dark at 3 am. The tiny lights on the front of your slippers shine a path for you. Once you step into them, they automatically light up if it's dark. And when you step out of them, they stay lit for a few seconds so you can safely get back into bed.

Our kids had light up slippers once. The lights lasted for about three weeks before growing ever weaker. I will tell you, however, that the ones they wore were definitely NOT from the Brightfeet Lighted Slippers company.

I usually try to find the most annoying product in the catalog and sometimes it's difficult to make that decision. Last weekend, on a trip back from Las Vegas, I had plenty of time to study the selections. I actually couldn't make a final decision so I had to settle for two products that tied for the most ridiculous and overated items in the catalog.

The first was a trash can that opened as a result of an electric-eye sensor. Because I can't top the copy that accompanied this product, I'll quote the sales pitch here: "Sure, a step on trash can is covenient, but how often do you get frustrated fumbling for the foot control? Free your feet and your frustrations with our stainless steel touchless trash can, a completely foot- and hands-free waste disposal system." I love that: "waste disposal system."

It goes on from there to explain the specifics but I couldn't help but think the following in my head: We have a step-on trash can in our kitchen and I don't believe I've ever missed the foot control - ever. It isn't really all that hard to find or operate. I can name three dozen things that frustrate me on a daily basis but finding the foot pedal on our trash can isn't one of them.

In a tie with the electronic trash can, I found the 'Breakfix Cereal Dispenser.' It's not that I'm opposed to a device that dispenses cereal - although it feels much like dog or cat food dispensers to me - I cringed at the copy that accompanied the product. "...fixing the day's first meal will never again be a messy, time consuming chore."

We're not talking about making eggs benedict here! We're not even talking about microwaving bacon strips. We're talking about 'fixing' a bowl of dry cereal!!!!! We have reached some kind of nadir as a society of thinking, breathing human beings when we can be sold a device with ad copy that calls pouring a bowl of cereal for our kids a "messy, time-consuming chore." If three seconds is time-comsuming, it's news to me.

I love the photo for this product. In the background, we see a young, attractive mom in jeans and a t-shirt, smiling gratefully at her young daughter who is holding what appears to be an empty ceral bowl. I imagine the daughter is saying this with her expression: "My mommy is so lame she can't even pour me a bowl of cereal. I think she resents having to put in such a time-consuming chore every morning to make sure I leave the house nourished and ready for my day. Look at her. You can just tell she'd rather be at the gym than caring for me. But that's okay. When she's ninety, I'll set up an automatic pill dispenser in her ratty little apartment and smile as I leave her when I visit three times a year."

Okay. Maybe she wasn't saying that. But she should be.

Talk soon -

# 4,967 in the list of things I don't understand

I'd like to think I'm not dense or obtuse about most things in life. Don't ask me to explain even one thing Stephen Hawking ever wrote about or how electricity works but despite the title of this post, I feel pretty comfortable moving about on a daily basis; understanding many things about my environment and the people in it.

Except for my latest problem: cell phones. I swear to God in heaven I don't understand what it is with men and cell phones. The only thing I can think of is that a cell phone is kind of like a remote control men can speak into. And since years ago I figured out that a remote control is a polite way for a man to hold himself in a room filled with family or friends,a cell phone is yet another way for him to do it. Except this time, he gets to take pictures with it and set up lots of individual bells and whistles to announce to the world: this is mine! Look at me!

With cell phones, smaller is better - perhaps the only place in a man's life that you'll find that to be true. Cars are getting bigger but phones are getting smaller. So if you're a man who wants to really make a statement about your own conspicuous consumption, drive an Escalade and talk on a chocolate phone. Drive a Hummer and listen to your mini.

Exception: TVs. Thin screen: yes. Small screen: NO. Imagine the man who sits in front of his 6 foot television screen holding his remote and his cell phone. The whole image is scaring me just a little bit.

Women - god help me - will never understand this. Every single thing in a woman's life isn't much more than a placeholder until she can get together with someone face to face. Cell phones, watching tv, listening to music - fine, lovely, fun. But nothing compared to meeting up with a real live person or people to connect in person.

I just can't get excited about new cell phones. It's just not in my DNA. I can fake it - enough to be thrilled for everyone in my house who has a new phone these days -but I don't really get it.

this is just plain sad

I just realized I am old enough to have been one of Josh Holloway's babysitters when I was young.

It's just a little sad to think that Holloway is ten years younger than I. And that the character he plays on Lost - the character I find most attractive (Sawyer)- really, if you were honest about it - is way too young for me. Had I lived up the street from him many years ago, when I was thirteen years old and he was three, I could have been reading him books, helping his mom get him potty-trained, or doing other useful "mother's helper" kind of tasks, and earning a dollar an hour to do it.

That's the weird thing about age. I guarantee you not one of us imagines getting older every single day - not to mention every single year - but we do. We tend to think of ourselves in some kind of perpetual state of suspended animation; where the rest of the world changes but we're pretty much the same as we were when we were 32 years old.

I mean, short of actually doing the math, what would ever possess me to imagine I'm too old for Sawyer? (I'm of course leaving out the fact that I would never have the opportunity to get to know Josh Holloway in any personal way for the rest of my life. Or that I've been married for twenty years and have three sons. Or that he's married - maybe he has kids. Or that I've never been to Hawaii and have no plans to go to Hawaii where I would have zero chance of runing into him in a 7-11 as he heads to the studio one morning anyway. We're talking imagination here, not reality.)

There must be some "sweet spot" for age - where we think we live and how we think the rest of the world sees us - that we choose for ourselves and never adjust as time passes by. It's the Glory Days Springsteen sings about - those days where we are at our best, with just about everything good in life to look forward to, where we and everything around us, can only get better.

Thing is, even when the Glory Days can arguably be called "behind us," we still think we're in 'em; or even that they're just ahead. I know I couldn't really function at my best if I didn't believe on some level that the best was yet to come in my life, as Sinatra (?) sang many years ago.

But that can't really be true - or it can't be true for a lot of us. I suppose there is that Grandma Moses kind of stuff that happens. You (and the rest of the world) can discover a whole new amazingly wonderful element about yourself after you've spent about seven decades just picking up around the house and balancing your checkbook.

This leaves me exactly no where with my revelation about Holloway and my old age. But I'd love to know what age most people believe they are - what is your imaginary age? We forget the limitations that come with youth - and rely on the standby theory that goes something like, "if I knew then what I know now"... then what? We'd all be brilliant twenty year olds? Doubt it. I'm not a brilliant almost 50 year old. We want to retain our collected "wisdom" (for lack of a better word) that our advancing years afford us. But we want to feel thirty-two. And have the world see us that way, too.

Maybe that's where friends and family come is. As you age together, you preserve the whole fantasy together on some level, right?

Which is exactly the reason I could never really hook up with Josh Holloway. We don't have a past - even a parallel past - to share. When he was playing Little League, I was writing my senior thesis on D. H. Lawrence for college. I can try for a very long time and I guarantee you there is just no way to connect those two events into anything really substantive.

Sorry Josh - I was born too late.

talk soon -
R

Ummmm; how shall I put this?

How about: I don't care.

Or more accurately (I hope): we don't care.

That's how I felt when I read about Runaway Bride - that's how she'll always be referred to forever, it will probably be on her tombstone some day - Runaway Bride Jennifer Wilbanks - suing her ex-fiance for something like $500 million bucks. Honestly, I could barely skim the article so if you want the real story, don't count on finding it here. Something about he kept the toaster and the sofa and the shower gifts - and - oh, yeah - most of the money she made on her deal to tell her story to Regan Books.

Poor R - B Jen. She really needed a better lawyer than whoever it was who set up her book deal and left her fiance - not even her husband - holding all the money. She's the one who did the running - and the subsequent fessing up - and the community service for causing all that angst in her hometown - not to mention nationwide if you'll recall. (I wasn't particularly anxious about her running but many were.) And he gets most of the money, not to mention the fondue pot and cappuccino maker? Is there no justice?

I hate this story. I hate that they made half a million bucks. I hate that we were subjected to hearing about this story for several weeks a few years ago. I hate that she took the money - only to lose it to her ex-boyfriend, when she should have donated it to a women's shelter or some national organization that truly tries to help women who NEED to run for their lives.

Maybe Katie Couric will do a follow up interview and ask Jennifer about how the relationship ended, what she learned about herself along the way and why she didn't have a decent pre-nup in place. I can't wait.

Talk soon -
R

I have hair gel and I'm not afraid to use it

Before I hear from all the hysterics in the world who write to tell me I don't respect or understand our need for national security, let me save you the trouble. Yes. I do.

But as I passed through security the other day at Dallas Fort Worth airport, I wondered if we had all gone just slightly insane. I had heard about the "carry your potentially dangerous creams,lotions and gels in a plastic bag or else" edict from the FAA. I even told a traveling companion about it in case she hadn't read the news.

I thought I'd be safe (and logical), by zipping up my grooming accessories in a plastic bag designed for travelling, the kind that comes with your luggage and is easy to use.

I was wrong. No sooner did the security officials begin barking out the "show us what you're carrying" orders, than I was under scrutiny by one of the officers at the checkpoint. He picked up bag and my stuff and said, "This isn't in a plastic bag." Me, being a perfect combination of bold and dumb, touched the bag as if to reassure myself that I did recognize the product commonly called plastic and said, "I thought it was plastic." At which point, he jabbed at a zip lock bag on the counter and snarled, "THIS is a plastic bag." He pawed through my things and removed a tiny tube of toothpaste, a teeny bottle of perfume - really teeny - and a 4 oz tube of brilliant brunette styling gel which I had just purchased not so much as a week earlier and was still quite full of the stuff I love to use on my hair. I was furious but what do you do? Nothing.

I wanted to say this (but didn't for fear of being locked up and missing my opportunity to get some frozen yogurt just down the hall by our gate): "I'm so sorry you have a small penis and need to assert yourself in this pathetic way. But - we all have our burdens."

Seriously, I thought it would be pretty funny if I had boarded the plane, gel intact, and at some point accosted the steward...err, flight attendant and held the tube to her head: "I have hair gel and I'm not afraid to use it. I want another bag of pretzels - now - or believe me, your hair will not know what hit it. And if that's not enough, I'm going to start dabbing this perfume on every pulse point on your body." Maybe I would have gotten a round of applause.

I'm positive that in about ten days, the FAA will refine their restrictions and rule that any plastic bag with contents that are clearly visible is acceptable. And where does that leave me? Replacing my confiscated stuff and packing lunches for my kids for the next seven years.

I kind of love the fact that the plastic bag security system has been a great equalizer among travelers. The first class flyers have to carry and reveal their bathroom accessories in zip lock bags, exactly like the rest of us (and the homeless). How soon will it be before Lands End or Magellan or some such higher end company designs and begins selling "name" zip lock bags for their customers? It can't be too long. I want to watch who carries them and laugh.

Talk soon -

a satellite visit

Today's brush with greatness - or near greatness actually - took the form of a short interview I had with the news organization at the Howard Stern Show.

Stern reporter Steve Langford called to discuss Sunday's Morning Call column on Howard Stern and the relentlessly bad press he's received of late - most of it courtesy of one particular reporter. The column I wrote did little more than point out the questions all of us should ask regularly about what we read and what the agenda behind it may be. Yes, the column discussed Howard and his current leadership position on satellite radio but the larger question is this: how do we filter the information we get and why do we tend to believe what we see in print?

It's hard to know who tells the truth and who has a spin that twists the facts of the story just the slightest bit. I write an opinion column; I'm not remotely an investigative journalist. But even with opinion writing, I take the time to make sure I'm being as accurate as possible so I don't mislead readers about the "truth" that prompted my response.

I'm kind of stunned that a rumor - with just one published column in the New York Post- could then become a "report" that created an illusion of fact but I watched just that unfold with the Stern story. If I weren't already skeptical of what gets reported as "news" these days, this little incident would encourage that skepticism. It shoud do the same for you.

If you missed the original piece, it's online at www.mcall.com in the opinion writers section.

Talk soon -