As another Monday comes to a close, maybe it&rsquo;s time for a movie review? Here&rsquo;s a peek at &ldquo;American Sniper.&rdquo; (Gimme a few more days to recover and, time and energy permitting, I&rsquo;ll summarize &ldquo;Inherent Vice,&rdquo; &ldquo;Blackhat,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Paddington.&rdquo; Two I recommend, one I do not.)
But now for the big boy, American Sniper.
For starters, if you saw it, no, your imagination is NOT playing tricks on you: it was &ldquo;CRAZY PACKED,&rdquo; because it opened to HUGE January numbers.
Having played only in limited release since Christmas Day, American Sniper opened nationwide this past weekend and grossed $90.2 million in three days, setting two box office records along the way: (1) It had the largest January opening in cinematic history, besting 2014&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ride Along&rdquo; (starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart) by a whopping $58 million dollars. (2) It is the second highest R-rated opening ever, second only to The Matrix Reloaded's $91.7 million. (Interestingly, Bradley Cooper also starred in the third largest R-rated movie ever, &ldquo;The Hangover Part II,&rdquo; which grossed $85.7 million in 2011.) American Sniper received the coveted &lsquo;A+&rsquo; Cinemascore, which conceivably bodes well for its six Oscar nominations.
I enjoyed the film&mdash;if &ldquo;enjoy&rdquo; is the correct verb&mdash;experiencing it with 26 &ldquo;Movie Men.&rdquo; The word each of us used most frequently as we shuffled out of the theater was &ldquo;sobering.&rdquo; Save a few gunshots and explosions here and there, I found it to be a very quiet film. There is much on the screen, sure, but more of the action occurs within one&rsquo;s heart. If you search for its soundtrack on iTunes, you won&rsquo;t find one...because there isn&rsquo;t one. There are only three songs attributed to the film (&ldquo;Taya&rsquo;s Theme,&rdquo; &ldquo;Someone Like You,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Funeral.&rdquo;) It&rsquo;s THAT quiet.
And precisely as I predicted a couple weeks ago, &ldquo;the left&rdquo; has lashed-out at the film, from Michael Moore and Seth Rogen to countless others bemoaning its [exactly as I wrote] &ldquo;glorification of killing.&rdquo;
C&rsquo;est la vie.
I suppose they&rsquo;d prefer we defend God and Country with butter knives or shoehorns or not at all. Or that we, fighting that shadowy terrorism for which we never asked, simply abide hijacked planes flying into our buildings or stand by silently while disenfranchised punks with guns shoot cartoonists in one of the most pacifistic countries in the world, the land of baguettes, croissants and crepes. Je crois que non.
And for those who lambast snipers as &ldquo;cowards,&rdquo; as some have done in the media recently, all I can say is they are living in fantasyland. The English were routed in our American Revolution because colonists employed tiny militia who, for primarily utilitarian reasons, incorporated guerilla tactics rather than presenting nice, clean lines of infantrymen to be shot down easy as tin ducks at the state fair. Such military adaption is as old as time itself, and snipers have always been and will always be a core force multiplier in wartime. To cede high and superior vantage points, whether through aircraft or rooftops, is suicide. End of politics, end of manners, end of story.
As for the film itself, it&rsquo;s simple and pure and entirely unornamented, as are all Eastwood&rsquo;s sparse creations, from &ldquo;Unforgiven&rdquo; to &ldquo;Gran Torino.&rdquo; In this case, it&rsquo;s a man and his long rifle, representing in their simplicity the entire sweep and zeitgeist of our 14-year war-on-every-front thus far. My takeaway? We are damned if we do and damned if we don&rsquo;t. There is no winning if we continue, but there is surely failure if we stop. In a world-sized playground in which bullies keep on comin&rsquo;, what choice remains but to stand one&rsquo;s ground? Better to die defending oneself than to forfeit freedom by allowing radicals to run the asylum unchecked.
But imagine plunging one&rsquo;s fist into a bucket of water. There&rsquo;s spillage, there&rsquo;s a wet hand, and as soon as it&rsquo;s removed, the water returns&mdash;save a tad less water now&mdash;to much of its original form and state and shape.
Such is the case here, it seems: as Bradley Cooper&rsquo;s SEAL sniper Chris Kyle eliminates 160-255 targets [actual figures remain murky] and kicks down door after door after door, deployment after deployment, tour after tour, the emotional and traumatic spillage is everywhere, and no one&rsquo;s hands are dry. There will be blood, indeed.
And eventually, Kyle makes the very logical decision to fight for his wife, for his children, for the vets who battle an equally real enemy back home in every form imaginable: mental, physical, spiritual.
As with &ldquo;Foxcatcher,&rdquo; we know how Sniper ends, too, but that doesn&rsquo;t make it any easier to bear. Kyle&rsquo;s casket, glistening in gold with an estimated thirteen dozen tridents, is but the umpteenth reminder the high price of war.
As has been described by all, yes, the film ends in utter silence. At this point, really, there is nothing more to convey anyway. A life is gone, more will follow, damned if we do, damned if we don&rsquo;t.
As for Cooper himself, he faces stiff competition for the Oscar on February 22nd. In a field that includes Steve Carell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Keaton and Eddie Redmayne, there isn&rsquo;t one weak performance in the lot. Keaton is the shiny frontrunner, Cooper&rsquo;s role will likely divide voters right down the middle, Redmayne&rsquo;s Hawking is seamless, and Cumberbatch&rsquo;s Turing may be too obscure for some, so it&rsquo;s a complex race any way you slice it. I suspect Keaton will win (the Academy is lapping up I&ntilde;&aacute;rritu&rsquo;s longshots like sweet milk), and Cooper is phenomenal, but I&rsquo;d personally like to see Carell&rsquo;s portrayal of John E. Du Pont take the prize. He&rsquo;s ceaselessly flawless and haunting in ways only partially seen among his peer group here.
I don&rsquo;t know whether you saw &ldquo;Interstellar&rdquo; but, if you did, you might agree that HALF the film is easily &ldquo;the music.&rdquo; Without it, there is little to no movie. With it, it&rsquo;s arguably anthemic and propulsive, at least to me. And so, if I have only one negative thing to say about American Sniper, it&rsquo;s literally that in Eastwood&rsquo;s classic style, sans much music, American Sniper fails to create what it might have otherwise created had the ringing in Cooper&rsquo;s ears been further exploited, or had the funeral scenes been layered with more auditory crescendo, or had the moments of stillness been&mdash;gasp&mdash;accompanied by some strings or piano or lonely horn, a la &ldquo;The General&rsquo;s Daughter.&rdquo;
Musical accompaniment is, for me, immeasurably potent at creating layers and dimensionality, at creating emotion and movement in an otherwise line-free scene. Powerful as it was, I can only imagine how powerful Kyle&rsquo;s funeral scene(s) would have been had Sigur Ros&rsquo;s Jonsi scored them, or Michael Mann&rsquo;s team (think &ldquo;The Insider&rdquo; or &ldquo;Manhunter&rdquo; or &ldquo;Last of the Mohicans&rdquo;). Had Mann scored the film, for example, and accompanied the funeral procession with Taps, and rolled the credits silently afterward, wow. There DEFINITELY would NOT have been a dry eye in the house, I gua-ran-tee.
As it is, as his procession and burial occur, we only get one scant line of text which conveys that Chris Kyle was killed while trying to help troubled Iraqi veteran Eddie Ray Routh.
No larger account, no further contextualization, no grander perspective beyond what we&rsquo;ve just witnessed for, sure, two hours.
And I&rsquo;m fine with that; this was Kyle&rsquo;s story, not some attempt to cleanly encapsulate the entirety of war. But yes, I do wish we could have gotten four or five black screens about his life, his death, his family, his fallen brethren, our progress or lack thereof and our current state of affairs over there, and a suitable tribute to his legacy today, which is vast.
It is a haunting and beautiful and stripped down film, and I hope that Eastwood and Cooper continue to be acknowledged for their efforts in what is undoubtedly politically-charged subject matter, as they have proficiently created a lasting and impactful tribute&mdash;memorializing for all time one man&rsquo;s sacrifice, the greatest there is, for the country he loved so dearly, so actively, so passionately, so firmly, so unquestionably, so continually.
May he, and eventually each of us, rest in peace.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

American Sniper

Movies & More

Public Speaking, Stage Fright, and Beyond

True Thanksgiving

<div class="_li">
<div id="pagelet_bluebar">
<div id="blueBarDOMInspector" class="_21mm">
<div id="blueBarNAXAnchor" class="_4f7n _xxp fixed_elem">
<div class="_uaw clearfix _uaw" style="text-align: left;">&ldquo;You just have to decide whether you are Tigger or Eeyore.&nbsp;&nbsp;You have to be clear where you stand on the Tigger/Eeyore debate.&rdquo;</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="globalContainer" class="uiContextualLayerParent">
<div id="content" class="fb_content clearfix">
<div>
<div id="mainContainer">
<div id="contentCol" class="clearfix hasRightCol homeWiderContent _5ss6 _5r-_">
<div id="contentArea">
<div id="stream_pagelet">
<div class="_5pcb">
<div id="u_0_n" class="_4-u2 mbm _5jmm _5pat _5v3q _5x16 _5uun">
<div class="userContentWrapper _5pcr _3ccb">
<div class="_5pbx userContent">
&nbsp;
Ten months before succumbing to pancreatic cancer at age 47, Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s Randy Pausch made it clear where he stood on the Tigger/Eeyore debate in his final lecture, which ultimately sold 4 &frac12; million copies in the U.S. alone when committed to paper as The Last Lecture.&nbsp; The runaway bestseller has now been translated into 46 languages. 
 It seems the world loves Tigger, in part because he&mdash;like each of us at our very best&mdash;bounces rather than breaks.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s the ultimate proprietor of the proverbial lemonade stand, always making the very best from the worst life has to offer.
 In a world besotted with news, soundbytes, spin and social media, we are similarly saturated in hyperbole and hysteria, much of it negative.&nbsp;&nbsp;It&rsquo;s difficult to turn on and tune in without soon wishing to tune out.&nbsp; Terrorism, &ldquo;fearbola,&rdquo; the long tail of 2008, Congressional gridlock, wars without end, crime, thoughtlessness, selfishness, shallowness&hellip;it&rsquo;s understandable that after prolonged exposure to virtually any newscast, one finds him or herself slowly devolving into Eeyore. 
 Be they good or bad, our attitudes and behaviors&mdash;like yawning and laughing&mdash;are often contagious, and all the more so when they are extreme.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not the lukewarm and middlers who influence us most, it&rsquo;s the superstars and the slugs, the hot and the cold, the zealots and the absolutely catatonic who seem to motivate or demotivate us the most.&nbsp; The tiggers cajole, challenge and champion, often bringing out our best, while the eeyores serve as cautionary tales, reminding us what happens when one loses his passion, purpose or hope. 
 Any time one finds herself discouraged, daunted or down, it&rsquo;s helpful to consider &ldquo;The Six P&rsquo;s,&rdquo; each and every one of which was demonstrated by Pausch and admittedly run like an undercurrent throughout the entire philosophies of Pooh himself, but which you&rsquo;ll similarly find in any optimistic archetype, from Terry Fox and Viktor Frankl and King George VI and Helen Keller and Winston Churchill to Clara Barton and Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony and George Washington Carver and Teddy Roosevelt, who captured the sentiment of tiggerness so perfectly on April 23, 1910 when he spoke at the Sorbonnes in Paris, saying, in part:
&ldquo;It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.&nbsp; The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.&rdquo;
 Both optimism and pessimism are incontrovertibly contagious, but the former bolsters our immune system, while the latter simply makes us&mdash;and those around us&mdash;ill.&nbsp; But if one were to journey toward optimism, by what stars would he chart his course?&nbsp; Is there such a constellation?&nbsp; Indeed there is, as demonstrated by the aforementioned superstars, so many others like them, and enumerated here:
 1. Perspective. The primary difference between the dour and the dynamic is perspective.&nbsp; It is from perspective that we see the following flow. 
2. Proportion. When bad things happen, the pessimist (Eeyore) blows things out of proportion.&nbsp; The optimist (Tigger) keeps things in proportion. 
3. Pervasiveness. For the pessimist, one bad thing becomes universal, leaking and tainting everything it touches.&nbsp; The optimist partitions &ldquo;that one bad thing.&rdquo; 
4. Permanence. For the pessimist, bad things become lasting, while optimists see them for what they generally are: temporary. 
5. Personalization. Pessimists are blamers, waving their accusatory finger at others, and pointing out the window at those whom they perceive as responsible for their own problems.&nbsp; Optimists are owners, taking responsibility for their choices, the consequences, and staring in the mirror at the captain of their ship (or, as described in Invictus and recounted by Nelson Mandela day after day for the majority of his adult life, &ldquo;the captain of my soul&rdquo;). 
6. Power. Pessimists behave as if they are hapless and helpless victims to a buggy code that lost a zero or one somewhere along the way, while optimists assume control of their own software and rewrite it to achieve a new and better outcome.
&nbsp;
We do well to remember Tolstoy who wrote, &ldquo;Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself&rdquo; because, ultimately, regardless our role, each and every one of us is in charge of us&hellip;and is an influencer in his/her own right.&nbsp; A force for good, positivity and possibility, or for negativity, criticism or despair. 
 Far better, it seems, to be realistic, of course&mdash;but optimistically so.&nbsp; After all, the perils of pessimism are well-documented and undesirable all the way down the line.&nbsp; Doom and gloom may sell tickets and lather crowds, but they never win elections, rarely rally, and have a very poor track record for catalyzing communities or companies toward any sustainable change or culture.
 But Pausch, or Tigger himself, why, they seem to have tails so springy and levers so long that&mdash;time and again&mdash;the world is moved.
&nbsp;
*** Please forgive any errors, omissions or abruptness; this post was conceived around midnight, completed on an iPhone, and uploaded while being jostled in line at TGI Friday's in an airport. But I CHOSE to upload it nonetheless, so any shortcomings are mine and mine alone.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

The Perils of Pessimism & The Power of Positivity

[ Soundtrack for today&#39;s musing:
Jose Gonzalez&#39;s Step Out, followed by M83&#39;s Wait or
Jungle&#39;s Busy Earnin&#39;.&nbsp; It won&#39;t take that long to read my
brain toot, of course, but these are great songs to launch an evening. ] 




&nbsp; 




*** 




&nbsp; 




Finally saw the documentary
Tim&#39;s Vermeer last night on that most antiquated of devices, our
actual television set.&nbsp; 




&nbsp; 




It&#39;s a tiny tale about one man&#39;s
towering commitment and creativity.&nbsp; Clocking in at just 80 minutes, the
film is one of the fastest routes I can imagine to get from &quot;I&#39;ve lost
faith in people&quot; to &quot;human beings are amazing critters,
right?&quot;&nbsp; 




&nbsp; 




I couldn&#39;t help but think of people
in my own life who already have or whom I believe could do something as
breathtaking: my dad who, at 78, shoots par on a regular basis, plays competitive ping pong and pickleball, has taught
himself to draw, paint, whittle, play guitar and who, just last week (having
never made anything remotely like it before) delivered the most spectacular
&quot;billiard-style conference table light&quot; to our studio that he crafted
from reclaimed GA and NC barn wood, riveted tin scraps, Edison light bulbs and
cotton cording, all while using ordinary implements.&nbsp; His fancy toolbox
was a red Folger&#39;s can.&nbsp; My cousins, Gale Odom and Howard Johnson, the
Centenary opera singer/Dean/professor and voice mail/chip speed guru/Oxford
lecturer, respectively.&nbsp; John Odom, former JAG lawyer, public servant,
amateur photographer, historian, sailor, and public speaker
extraordinaire.&nbsp; My incomparable wife, Dawn, whose spiritual gifts and
leadership abilities seemingly know no bounds.&nbsp; Folks on our team: Dave, Scott,
Amanda, Cesar, Stan, Charity, JR, Clay, Matt, Anne, Patty, Dick, Joe, Lou,
Peter, Sharon (among so many others).&nbsp; These people&#39;s patience, attention
to detail, ingenuity, commitment to excellence and creativity is, at times,
absolutely staggering.&nbsp; Polymaths, in many cases, who are not ensnared by
or entangled in what Bruce Lee called &quot;the classical mess&quot; (but here,
the unnecessary and limiting and ultimately stultifying boundaries between liberal
arts/technical professions and all points in between, most of which were the
Middle Ages&#39; rudimentarily handy way of splitting and lumping disciplines). 




&nbsp; 




Think of all the people in your own
life (or yourself, for that matter), their displays of commitment and creativity,
and smile.&nbsp; As Morpheus might say, &quot;They choose the red pill.&quot; 




&nbsp; 




The little girl who loves to build
wood forts with a saw, hammer, and bucket of nails, or who sews, or writes, or
looms until her fingers practically fall off, then goes to bed journaling, reading The
Hobbit or pre-thinking the launch of her new etsy store.&nbsp; The boy who
loves Tonka truck robotics, origami, judo, scouting, cartooning, soccer,
poetry, mathematics, or video editing.&nbsp; Whatever.&nbsp; Whomever.&nbsp;
Wherever. 




&nbsp; 




We, the people, are an amazing lot,
despite the debauched mess you&#39;ll sometimes see on TV, be it contrived and
often vitriolic reality junk (which might as well be &quot;Hyperbole TV&quot;),
the pablum that passes for journalistic news nowadays, or the political
posturing and grandstanding that we see among our elected nitwits.&nbsp; (Gosh,
what I wouldn&#39;t give for an Abraham Lincoln right now.) 




&nbsp; 




There is much good in the world, and
much genius, especially when considering multiple intelligences.&nbsp; Though
generations have been brainwashed and misled to believe standardized tests are
any worthwhile indication whatsoever of true intellect and/or potential, Tim
Jenison&#39;s Vermeer is a reverberative slap in convention&#39;s face.&nbsp; A
glorious reminder that what we know, or think we know, or are, or think we are...is
only the beginning of a tale that, much like the Choose Your Own
Adventure books of old, can go any which way for tens of pages before it
occurs to you to throw&nbsp;the thing&nbsp;in the nearest wastebasket, grab your own notepad and
pen, and write your own dang story. 




&nbsp; 




&quot;It&#39;s just a mirror on a
stick,&quot; Tim summarizes to a stone-cold-shocked scholar.&nbsp; 




&nbsp; 





That&#39;s right, Tim, in the same way
that a wheel is just a wide circle, water is just a liquid, or Kwai Chang Caine
was just a grubby little grasshopper.




&nbsp;




&nbsp;







<div style="text-align: center">
<img style="width: 575px; height: 368px" src="/blogging/image.axd?picture=2014%2f7%2flight.JPG" alt="" width="2592" height="1730" />
</div>




&nbsp;




&nbsp;




&nbsp;

Tim's Vermeer

(1) Proper snorkeling&nbsp;begins at dawn.&nbsp;
That&#39;s insane.&nbsp; This is supposed
to be a &quot;vacation.&quot;&nbsp; I wouldn&#39;t
get up at sunrise if our house was on fire and Frank the Fireman stood over my
bed threatening me with his 4&#39; axe.&nbsp; 


&nbsp;


(2) Showering prior is illogical, and any scenario in
which showering is a bad idea is a bad scenario.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(3) To board the boat with 60 strangers, one must remove
his flip-flops.&nbsp; For an OCD germaphobe,
this is a mountainous problem riddled with red flags all across its peak.&nbsp; [Don&#39;t even get me started on the problems associated with
sharing recycled snorkels and masks.&nbsp; It
reminds me of Ms. Hightower&rsquo;s 4th Grade Music Class, after which&nbsp;thirty of us&nbsp;plopped our
plastic piccolos in a small bucket of water for the class following ours.]&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(4) Climbing the stairs up from the teensy galley, I
accidentally strike my skull so hard on the steel crossbeam that I hear four
vertebrae crack.&nbsp; I am now dizzy,
nauseous, and sporting a splitting headache and nice goose egg.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(5) My only breakfast drink choice is a Yoohoo.&nbsp; Chocolate milk should not come in an aluminum
can and contain water in lieu of milk.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(6) My allergies are so bad&nbsp;transitioning from
Texas to here that I down generic Benadryl along with Dramamine, and because
&quot;Captain Martin&quot; has scared the bejezus out of us regarding the fates
of those miserable landlubbers unfortunate enough to become seasick.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(7) Time for sunscreen.&nbsp;
Wow, I hate sunscreen.&nbsp; Applying
it gives me the heebie-jeebies.&nbsp; Slimy,
sticky, cold, and stings.&nbsp; Who makes this
stuff?&nbsp; The Agent Orange Consumer
Products Division?&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(8) After 90 minutes of sputtering across the sea,
battering wave after wave as if this were Pong, we arrive at...an unremarkable&nbsp;big brown
rock.&nbsp; But apparently, one so treasured
that if we touch the coral we shall be put to death, and if we bother the one
lone bird circling the alleged &quot;bird preserve&quot; atop the vegetation-free big
brown rock we shall be put to death a second time.&nbsp; Electrocuted, surely, but sans water like&nbsp;the pitiable&nbsp;Eduard Delacroix in The Green Mile.




&nbsp;


(9) After some lite instruction from two different men,
we are shown opposing ways to put on our snorkel masks, which amounts to this:
&#39;mount&#39; it from the front or rear, just don&#39;t drink the seawater, or you shall
become sick and/or die.&nbsp; By now, I&#39;m
convinced that dying would not be so bad after all.&nbsp; Really, really convinced.&nbsp; Preferred, perhaps.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(10) After awkwardly stripping down with all these
wonderful people, stumbling down the rickety, wet ladder with fins in one hand,
sunglasses in the other [it&#39;s bright, y&#39;all!], slathered in Crisco, and gasping
for air within this contraption-of-death gripping my face, I eventually &#39;fall&#39;
into the gorgeous blue sea, only to think [and perhaps scream like a little
girl], &quot;It&#39;s FREEZING!&quot;&nbsp; This
10th eventuality had not crossed my mind earlier. 


&nbsp;


(11) After peeking
at the admittedly beautiful sea bottom for a few seconds, all bets are off: I&#39;m
guzzling seawater, my mask is choking me, my little yellow floaties are
spinning around this way and that, my sunglasses are&mdash;of course&mdash;useless, and
I&#39;m being kicked by strangers.&nbsp; I
eventually turn in my snorkel and one of my two life vest devices, resorting to
just swim around like a dignified normal person for a few stolen minutes before
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.&nbsp;
It occurs to me that my &quot;I coulda been a Navy SEAL if only I&#39;d just
chosen to&quot; is a silly and childhood delusion.&nbsp; Had there been a bell, I woulda knocked over
the 72-year-old woman in the neoprene knee brace to ring it first.&nbsp; 



&nbsp;


(12) Unexpectedly carried one additional meter by a
malevolent wave, I gently but surely rack myself on the base of the steel ladder and, for a brief
moment, the drawstring&nbsp;securing my ordinary yet necessary swim-trunks gets tangled in and snagged by
the 3&quot; Cotter pin attaching the bottom rung to the ladder itself.&nbsp; I panic momentarily, but do survive and remain clothed.&nbsp;&nbsp;By this point, admittedly,&nbsp;the prospect of nakedness is not even a Top 5 concern.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(13) I, along with three score of other drippy,
disoriented humans slipping to and fro like Bambi on ice eventually re-board our vessel of hell, but we are SHOCKED
to learn that, no, we are not going home yet, we are moving to &quot;another
spot&quot; for 3.5 more hours.&nbsp; Dear
lord, take me now.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(14) After a comical half-day at a second location no
different from the first [water is water, rock is rock, fish is fish, bird is
bird, sick is sick, headache is headache, sunburn is sunburn], the Captain
announces we are heading home.&nbsp; Praise
Jesus.&nbsp; We eat salad, rice, succulent teriyaki
chicken breast, and a buttery roll under the noonday sun on a white catamaran, jostling
for 15 coveted yet thinly padded seats, leaving 45&nbsp;unfortunate souls&nbsp;to eat sitting cross-legged on their derri&egrave;res, the equivalent of
picnicking on the floor of a hotel shower.&nbsp;
[Had we remained another 2-3 days, I&#39;m convinced I could have formed a
powerful union among the seven or eight people I noticed grimacing alongside
me.&nbsp; &quot;Germaphobes unite!&nbsp; Cleanliness for all!&nbsp; Mutineers Against the Ship Unsanitary!&quot;&nbsp;
I would have listed, &quot;You confiscated our shoes, without notice,
dehumanizing us from the get-go&quot; among our first of many deep-seated grievances.] 




&nbsp;


(15) Captain
Martin lied to me.&nbsp; He promised we were
going home after this second detour to the second dirt clod.&nbsp; We
are not.&nbsp; We are headed for &quot;a
surprise.&quot;&nbsp; Good grief.&nbsp; The LAST thing I need is another
surprise.&nbsp; I&#39;m still coming to terms with
the knot on my skull and the fact that I knowingly PAID for this misery.&nbsp; With money.&nbsp;
The surprise amounts to circling an area where, we are told, magical
green sea turtles live.&nbsp; We see no such
creatures, doubt they were ever there, and I&#39;m now wondering if the next
surprise will be a snipe or unicorn hunt or Bigfoot expedition back at the harbor.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(16) For our final 90 minutes back to shore, we are
subjected to &quot;merch sales.&quot;&nbsp; As
if I&#39;d want to be doing laundry three years from now, come across an overpriced
T-shirt&nbsp;commemorating this fiasco, and think to myself, &quot;Oh, what a lovely day that
was.&nbsp; If only I could relive it all over
again.&quot;&nbsp; Or just die instead.&nbsp; 




&nbsp;


(17) We are absolutely rocked by roiling, rollicking
waves, chaffed by gale force winds, and blistered by the sun as we tack our way
to and fro into what the captain brags is &quot;the second windiest port in the
world, second only to one in New Zealand.&quot;&nbsp;
[&quot;Yeah, and that&#39;s why no one in his right mind would live here,
you martyr,&quot; I mumble to no one in particular.&nbsp; The Darwin Awards are coming, and I nominate
every last one o&#39; you.]




&nbsp;




Eventually, it is over, and our indignity finally ends
when they allow us to collect our shoes from a steamy, communal rubber bin, but
not before proclaiming, &quot;If you&#39;ve had as wonderful a day as we have, be
sure and tip Eric, Josiah, Mario, and your other hosts.&quot;&nbsp; Yeah, that&#39;ll happen.&nbsp; Just as soon as I find my wallet in this asylum.&nbsp; Stockholm Syndrome notwithstanding, these are
nice guys, but at this point I just wanna be able to stand on land and die with
my flip-flops on.




&nbsp;




The shower back at our hotel takes a good two hours, as
such showers do.




&nbsp;




Gosh, it felt good to be sparkling clean, dry, Gold Bond powdered and to eat
dinner with family and friends in a place with white tablecloths and fine
china.




&nbsp;




On vacation, knowing these are only first world
nuisances, it&#39;s still nice to celebrate the 4th of July and not worry whether
one will survive the day or not.




&nbsp;




Long live land.


&nbsp;


&nbsp;


***

Recollections from the Sea: 17 Reasons Why Snorkeling Is Not for Me

The hotel calls a cab for me, which arrives promptly.&nbsp; Early, in fact.


My host&nbsp;escorts me from the&nbsp;ballroom where I&#39;ve&nbsp;just concluded a talk,&nbsp;through the lobby, and out to the curb where the taxi awaits on a gorgeous Friday afternoon.


My escort and I&nbsp;shake hands,&nbsp;ultimately man-hug, and off he goes as I turn my attention to the&nbsp;cab driver&nbsp;who has popped the trunk.&nbsp; Oddly, though, once the trunk is open, he hops back in the cab.


Hmmm.&nbsp; That&#39;s sorta rude.


Self-service, I guess.&nbsp;&nbsp;


Undeterred, I heave my rolling bag into the trunk with one hand, close it with the other, gather my squirrelly posters under&nbsp;one arm, toss my&nbsp;shoulder bag&nbsp;across the backseat, and slide&nbsp;in.


&quot;Airport?&quot;&nbsp;


&quot;Yep.&quot;


And vroom,&nbsp;off we go.


&nbsp;


Within seconds, he is singing at the top of his lungs.&nbsp; Wailing, really.


He&#39;s a small fella, maybe 5&#39; 5&quot;, with&nbsp;obnoxious Bono sunglasses that hide a&nbsp;third of his face.&nbsp; He has&nbsp;wavy black Elvis hair,&nbsp;black button-up shirt, and blue jeans.&nbsp; He&#39;s probably 40 with deep dimples that remind me of&nbsp;some soap opera actor.


With his left hand out the window, he is conducting an imaginary orchestra.&nbsp; Thumb and index forming an O, palm out, flick, snap, twist.&nbsp; His right hand is struggling to drive, inconvenienced&nbsp;by doing&nbsp;so, what with the feverish tapping, thumb-drumming, snapping and so forth that is required by this apparent anthem.&nbsp; 


The&nbsp;wild, whooshing&nbsp;air is blowing through four open windows, and I&#39;m an afterthought to this possessed, soprano-ing man-banshee en route to hell.


&quot;Oh dear,&quot; I think to myself, &quot;this is going to be one long ride.&quot;


&nbsp;


But then, after a few beats and bars, something miraculous happens: I actually recognize the upbeat riff from 2008&#39;s Slumdog Millionaire.


&quot;Jai Ho,&quot; I whisper to myself.&nbsp; 


He stops mid-scream, bolts upright, whips his head &#39;round so fast I thought it was gonna snap plumb-off his shoulders and shouts, &quot;You know Jai Ho?&quot;&nbsp; (It&#39;s not really a question, though, coming more in the form of a revelation&mdash;and delivered accordingly.)


&quot;Jai Ho.&nbsp; Sure, I know it.&nbsp; Slumdog Millionaire.&quot;


He is beyond jubilant.&nbsp;&nbsp;Words do not suffice.&nbsp; I simply cannot describe his countenance and behavior.&nbsp;&nbsp;He is now euphoric, rapturous, even happier than when singing.


With a smile so&nbsp;wide&nbsp;it tears at his cheeks, he stares at me and says, &quot;No one knows Jai Ho.&nbsp; How you know Jai Ho?&quot;


&quot;I love movies,&quot; I say.&nbsp; The universal language of cinema, I think.


&quot;Latika!&quot; he growls.&nbsp; &quot;You know Latika?&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;


&quot;Of course,&quot; I reply, recalling the female lead in the film.&nbsp; &quot;She was beautiful.&quot;


&quot;Latika, Latika, Latika,&quot; he announces to the world.&nbsp; Hilarity ensues.&nbsp; He is laughing uproariously, hands waving and dancing about, his head bobbing and bounding as if he&#39;s found water after a week&#39;s thirst.


&nbsp;


&quot;Where are you from?&quot; I ask.


&quot;Mumbai.&nbsp; Then Queens.&quot;


&quot;What brought you here?&quot;


&quot;My Latika,&quot; he says.


Wow, I think.&nbsp; He found his Latika.&nbsp; That&#39;s awesome.&nbsp; 


I mine for more, awaiting his love story, but then he says, &quot;Ex-wife.&quot;


&quot;Ex-wife?&nbsp; I don&#39;t understand.&nbsp; You moved here for your ex-wife?&quot;


&quot;She was not my ex-wife then!&quot; he exclaims, still bobbing and laughing and dancing in his seat.&nbsp; 


We are weaving through traffic like a video game, everyone else seemingly in reverse while we pulse along at forty through downtown snarls.


&quot;We are divorced now.&nbsp; I go home soon.&nbsp; No more games.&quot;


&quot;How did you meet her?&quot;


&quot;Online.&quot;


And so it goes for several minutes.&nbsp; My curiosity and confusion, his broken English, and our slapping meaning together brick by brick, often through arcane movie references, Bollywood and Hollywood converging as one.


&nbsp;


At first, when the unattended, yawning trunk greeted me, I hadn&#39;t liked this fellow very much.


And then, the singing.


But then, Jai Ho, and we were off.&nbsp; Laughing and commiserating about one thing or another like two boys do.


Now, we had ebbed again, in light of what I thought was a rather cavalier way to think about marriage.&nbsp; He made it sound&nbsp;so transactional, disposable, like a lottery ticket expired.&nbsp; He&#39;d found her online, moved to America, it hadn&#39;t worked out, and off he&#39;d go, soon enough, back to India to fish again.&nbsp; 


But he was extraordinarily charming.&nbsp; He had studied Economics, once worked at Compaq, then&mdash;to hear him tell it&mdash;had ditched working &quot;for the man,&quot; as it were, equating full-time employment with &quot;slavery of another kind.&nbsp; Too many games.&quot;


Life, apparently, seemed to have many games, marriage and employment among them.


Oy vey, what to do, what to do.


&nbsp;


But then, another surprise.&nbsp; 


As we were visiting, his cell phone rang.


He was exceedingly polite, kind, tender-hearted with his caller.


&quot;Yes.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Twenty minutes.&nbsp; I will be there, do not worry.&nbsp; We will make it.&quot;&nbsp; His voice so chirpy and sing-songy I could listen to it all day long.


As he hung up, I inquired.&nbsp; I just had to.&nbsp; Normally I wouldn&#39;t.&nbsp; But he seemed game.&nbsp; &quot;Is everything okay?&nbsp; Do you have a fare you&#39;re late for?&quot;


&quot;No, no,&quot; he says.&nbsp; &quot;No one else will drive him, so I do.&quot;


Pause.


Beat.


What?


&quot;He is in a wheelchair.&nbsp; Other side of city.&nbsp; He has no money.&nbsp; Appointments.&nbsp; I drive him for free 3 to 4 days a week.&quot;


&quot;Wow,&quot; I say, &quot;that&#39;s a really nice thing to do.&quot;


&quot;Sure.&nbsp; Well.&nbsp; I would hope someone would do it for me, no?&nbsp; I take care of him; help him.&nbsp; Maybe someone will pray for me some day.&quot;


&nbsp;


At which point I am stopped in my tracks.


&quot;Pray for you?&quot;


&quot;Sure.&nbsp; He cannot pay me, so maybe he will pray for me.&quot;


&quot;How much is his fare?&quot;


&quot;$38,&quot; he says.


He knows it by heart.


He does it all the time.


&nbsp;


His mind appears to wander for a moment, drifting to another place.&nbsp; Praying perhaps.&nbsp; Or wondering.


And with this proclamation, he is back: &quot;Karma,&quot; he says.


&quot;Excuse me?&quot;


&quot;Karma.&quot;


&quot;What about karma?&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; 


&quot;I do good, maybe good things happen to me.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;


If only it worked that way, I think to myself.&nbsp; And also glad it doesn&#39;t.&nbsp; 


&quot;Well, it&#39;s a really nice thing you&#39;re doing.&nbsp;&nbsp;I think it&#39;s just great.&quot;


&quot;Thirty-eight dollars&nbsp;is not so much. If I do it for him, I&#39;m not poor.&nbsp; If he paid me, I&#39;m not&nbsp;rich.&nbsp; I&#39;m same.&quot;&nbsp;


&quot;I&#39;m same,&quot; I repeat, as if I&#39;m hearing a philosophical mantra&nbsp;for the first time.&nbsp; A chant I can visualize cross-legged monks repeating over and over again in some faraway hilltop monastery.&nbsp; Transcendence by way of perspective.&nbsp; Material neutrality by way of selflessness.&nbsp; The tributaries flow for several seconds....


And like him before, I find that we are now both deep in thought.


The sing-songy way he said, &quot;I&#39;m same&quot; is a lilt in my mind.


He continues, his left hand riding a wave that appears to&nbsp;permeate the windshield.&nbsp; &quot;Flow like water.&nbsp; God will sort it out.&quot;


Huh.&nbsp; A surprisingly seamless juxtaposition and combination of east and west, yin and yang, this and that to create&nbsp;his sweet marmalade.


&nbsp;


Just then,&nbsp;his horrifically annoying squawk box squealed to life as the dispatcher made some sort of terse announcement.&nbsp; 


The cabbie snorts and guffaws.


&quot;See?&nbsp; Karma!&quot; he howls.


&quot;Karma?&quot; I ask.&nbsp; &quot;What happened?&quot;


His sedan is floating on a cushion of air as we coast into the airport and approach the entrance&nbsp;for my departure gate.


&quot;I have co-worker,&quot; he says.&nbsp; He raises both hands in the air and balls them into fists and shakes them.&nbsp; &quot;Bully.&nbsp; A bully.&nbsp; He takes good fares.&nbsp; He had a $200 fare.&nbsp; Would have been mine, but I lost it.&quot;


&quot;Why?&quot;


&quot;Wheelchair.&nbsp; Will be getting man in wheelchair.&quot;


&quot;But...?&quot;


&quot;But dispatch says $200 fare has cancelled.&nbsp; Got a ride with someone else.&quot;


As it turns out, the bully had apparently usurped my driver (poaching his fare while&nbsp;he prepared to perform&nbsp;his Samaritan act of altruism), only to arrive at the pick-up location and depart empty-handed because the impatient customer caught a ride with someone else.&nbsp;&nbsp;Out the two-hundred bucks as a result.


It had apparently become a rather good afternoon after all, and my driver wore the beautiful expression of vindication like the Joker wears lipstick.


The tires squealed us to a stop, he threw it into neutral, bounded to the trunk like Tigger...Gollum&#39;s happy twin...Disney&#39;s Quasimoto...or Frankenstein&#39;s Igor (as played by Marty Feldman)...enthusiastically grabbing my bag and walking me all the way to the door.


&nbsp;


In fifteen minutes we&#39;d covered nearly&nbsp;five miles in heavy traffic.&nbsp; I paid him my fare, a generous tip, and handed him two twenties and said, &quot;For driving the other man.&quot;


He stood before me, a few paper bills in his hand, fanned-out like cards.


With tears in his eyes, he looked up and hugged me.&nbsp; 


&quot;It&#39;s okay,&quot; I whispered.


&quot;I will&nbsp;pray for you,&quot; he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;What is your name, so I can pray for you?&quot;&nbsp;


&quot;Blake,&quot; I said, and he told me his.


&quot;Poor, rich, same,&quot; I chuckled.


&quot;Karma,&quot; he said, and the maestro turned to walk back to his cab,&nbsp;a surprising carriage filled with hope and overflowing with music, one destined for&nbsp;a very important&nbsp;passenger waiting on the other side.

Karma Cab

Good grief, has it really been five months?
Life is flying by.... That, and the fact that&mdash;as I joked with a client months ago&mdash;"Blogging feels so...long-form." (Anything more than 140 characters seems like such a colossal imposition on folks' finite reading allowances these days.) Alas, I have not written you since August.
But I'm in a "writerly" mood, finding myself eyeballs-deep ghostwriting for a client and needing a twenty-minute brain-break over lunch. So I'll turn to something simpler: my own thoughts.
&nbsp;
Here it is...January 7th, 2014. As a dear friend at a New Year party commented, "2014 can't help but be a better year than one with a thirteen in it." Who knows. 2013 was awesome, but it's always a crapshoot, isn't it?
Or, as the philosophical-Oreo-center&nbsp;might say, "Calendars are just arbitrary, mechanistic, ill-fitting templates&nbsp;designed to make sense of seasonal rhythms in ways that nature never intended, so there's no point resolving that the next twelve whatevers would be any different than the last twelve."
But sure, 2014 certainly sounds more fun than 2013. I'll give her that.
&nbsp;
I sincerely hope that 2013 was a wonderful year for you, and that 2014 will be even better.
I find that as I grow older, my wants and wishes have become simpler.
I still pump and pedal, search and strive, reach and run, but it's fair to say that The Serenity Prayer best captures my heart's desire: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
Most of the time, I don't pray FOR&nbsp;THINGS so much as for everything. Rather than some animated Aladdin, I instead view Christ as the one with whom I must be aligned. "Lord, may I seek and see and serve your will today." I pray for contentment, peace, and sometimes understanding, but mostly contentment and peace, because I know that understanding is a bit of a stretch, particularly in this broken world where war, starvation, disease, hate and genocide rage.
I cannot explain 99.99% of what occurs, but I can pray that when it happens, it would somehow be well with my soul. Or that when I cannot reconcile a particular splinter with my nail, that I might find tweezers or some other suitable instrument designed to make things healthier for all involved.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Regardless, I&mdash;and we&mdash;likely have one goal or another for 2014.
Sure, I pray that if they are God's will they would come true.
But more importantly, I pray that if or when you get some lemons, you can find an outlet for that juicer.
&nbsp;

A Serene 2014 to You & Yours

2013 marks the 25th anniversary of Baylor grad Robert Fulghum&rsquo;s beloved &ldquo;All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.&rdquo;&nbsp; If you don&rsquo;t already own this, you really, really should.&nbsp; The poem for which he is so well known is but one of many in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345466179/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_s=center-2&amp;pf_rd_r=0MA275ABJ0SF456BTJZB&amp;pf_rd_t=101&amp;pf_rd_p=1389517282&amp;pf_rd_i=507846" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this beautiful little book</a>.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum
Most of what I really need To know about how to live And what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top Of the graduate school mountain, But there in the sandpile at Sunday school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life&mdash; Learn some and think some And draw and paint and sing and dance And play and work everyday some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, Watch out for traffic, Hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Being my remedial self, it took me 54 lines to approximate as much nearly four years ago.&nbsp; (Additionally, I'll&nbsp;throw in the oft-attributed, &ldquo;If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.&rdquo;)&nbsp; 
&nbsp;
Long after my music has died, accompanying flowers have dried, the food in the fridge has gone bad and&nbsp;bi-fold poetic programs have been tossed in the can, may these remain.&nbsp; I love you, Lauren.
<a href="../../blog/post/some-assembly-required-54-lessons-for-a-life-worth-living" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Some Assembly Required: 54 Lessons for a Life Worth Living</a>
&nbsp;
&nbsp;***&nbsp;
&nbsp;

On this First Day of School, Fulghum's Reminders

&ldquo;Those who defend mediocrity get to keep it.&rdquo;&nbsp; &mdash;Author Unknown
&nbsp;
As a general rule, I resist complaining about things I cannot solve. Or, at least, would not strive to solve. Or, at the very least, believe I cannot dent.
But today, I'll climb the tallest peak and scream into the wind, "We deserve better." Or, if we do not deserve better&mdash;I sure wish we had better.
Perhaps we get and have precisely what we deserve. Maybe that's part of the problem? Maybe too many of the good, worthy people see the growing abomination that is &ldquo;professional politics&rdquo; and elect, wisely, to not stick their hands in the gears and risk mangling everything and everyone near and dear to them.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t know.
I&rsquo;d like to say, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anymore,&rdquo; but I suspect I never knew. I have never understood politics, perhaps because I confuse it with public service, public policy, legislation and law itself. More accurately, I suspect it&rsquo;s because I mistake it for a brew that illogically combines ethics, morality and denying oneself.
I would like to think, perhaps naively, that our founding fathers were wiser. Were better. Were more noble, selfless, sacrificial than today&rsquo;s leaders. But the more I read David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and their ilk, the more inclined I am to relinquish such pollyanna notions. Forever in awe of all our founding fathers accomplished, but also acutely aware that lightning rarely strikes the same target twice, I&rsquo;m inclined to believe the 18th Century was the perfect libertarian greenhouse&mdash;and one that we shall not soon see again. An alchemic period that combined crisis and opportunity, burden and hope, pragmatism and intellectualism with the will to change or die trying. A flash of transcendent alliances that brought France to the aid of ragged and often disjointed colonists, legislators and entrepreneurs and writers and social philosophers to the cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre of freedom, and settlements separated by time and space and culture and ideology together at the eleventh hour to achieve something momentous if not altogether unprecedented.
An assembly of flawed human beings, many of whom were slave owners, or womanizers, or self-serving schemers parading as diplomats to curry favor with the wealthy. In spite of these sins, which range from avarice to arrogance (ailments as old as time), a Committee of Five, comprised most notably of Thomas Jefferson, whipped up the most delicious rhetoric this side of the Renaissance that began with the soaring teaser, &ldquo;When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.&rdquo;
Wow.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s unquestionably one of the most gorgeous, luminescent, ambitious&nbsp;preambles of all time.
Its piers bore deep, to the bedrock of all human expectation. Its slab runs broadly, invoking freedom and joy. Its spire reaches high, as if brushing the hem of God Almighty and tugging at the warm side of His promises.
Thirteen years shy of one century later, this timeless preamble would be as fresh to Abraham Lincoln as if it had been written&nbsp;days prior when he solemnly opened his Gettysburg Address with the words, &ldquo;Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.&rdquo;
America&rsquo;s work&mdash;the great democratic experiment&mdash;continued to blossom 101 years later with the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act.
The work continues, and I trust it always will.&nbsp;
But my disappointment, perhaps like yours, will ebb and flow over a lifetime. It recedes when we, as a nation, achieve something unique or spectacular, which we sometimes do. And it surges, as it does now, when I believe we can do better.
On a recent flight, the woman next to me saw that I was engrossed in This Town by Mark Leibovich. She remarked, &ldquo;Is it any good?&rdquo; to which I replied, &ldquo;Yeah, it&rsquo;s great. But disheartening.&rdquo; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve heard,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve thought about getting it, but I think it&rsquo;ll just make me mad. I&rsquo;m so sick of our politicians.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Amen.&nbsp;
And particularly the men.
To be reaching the end of This Town (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/books/review/this-town-by-mark-leibovich.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">synopsis</a>) while turning on the news at night only to see Anthony Weiner stagger through the public arena like a man who&rsquo;s been knocked out but doesn&rsquo;t quite realize it yet (or accept it) brings into sharp focus how far we have fallen, how low our expectations have degraded in recent years. Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton, and a longer, deeper list if one bothers to search.
And should one be willing to cast a broader net, the sort that scoops up professional male athletes, today&rsquo;s baseball is replete with liars, gamblers and shenanigans of all sorts and stripes. As is cycling, football, basketball, seemingly every sport. And I wouldn&rsquo;t let the winner of this past Sunday&rsquo;s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational anywhere near my child, his depravity runs so deep. He so wantonly objectified women through his perverted appetites that, were I the Mayor of Moralia, his photograph would be in a municipal database warning neighbors of his past offenses and current address. The notion that Nike values money over virtue is emblematic of the problem itself: as long as the cash flows, we care very little about the cesspool from which it springs or the stain it leaves behind.&nbsp;
At a recent dinner during which, of all people, Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson gave the invocation, he spoke passionately about our country, how far afield our leaders have wandered, and the immoral content our children are bombarded with daily via social media like fish in water. &ldquo;God, help us through these times of depravity we find ourselves unwittingly swimming in.&rdquo;
Our founding fathers were far from blemish-free, and perhaps today&rsquo;s are no worse, but I had hoped we would have evolved by now. Martin Luther King optimistically commented, &ldquo;The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.&rdquo; I would like to believe this is true, I will choose to believe this is true regardless, though I do seem to become more jaded and skeptical with time. I doubt whether justice is an ore mine-able on earth.
An eternal optimist becoming pessimistic. Say it isn&rsquo;t so.
Writer and philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, &ldquo;Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.&rdquo; But it appears to me that those who do remember the past are simply inclined to see it as a transient news cycle, everyone getting a second, third, fourth act, and yesterday&rsquo;s criminal is tomorrow&rsquo;s gavel wielder, trophy hoister, or bedazzling spokesman.
I am comforted by grace and forgiveness, as we all&mdash;by any measuring stick&mdash;fall so short of our goodness, though I do hope against hope that from among our ranks, in this generation and not the next, an assembly of finer leaders would emerge in this nation. How they might become electable without possessing the pedigree that big money seems to back, yet still represent the common man, I do not know. How they might run the various gauntlets and gates required to win any votes without selling their souls or finding themselves over the proverbial barrel (indebted to this constituency or that while striving to find their own voice and letting the chips fall where they may), I do not know. How we might flush the overwhelming majority of leaders already entrenched within and attached to our nation&rsquo;s capital and every city of consequence like cancer cells, parasites, barnacles or lichens, I do not know. How they might wind their way up from &lsquo;everyday America&rsquo; without first graduating Harvard or creating a multi-billion dollar empire, I do not know. Why anyone capable would, in his or her right mind, willingly enter what Americans now view as the unseemly, seedy world of politics, I do not know.&nbsp;
But what joy it would bring me to see an army of saints overtake Washington. One can pray, and hope, and continue donating time and money to see it happen, but were it to occur, it would defy two out of three laws of motion: (1)First, some substantive force&mdash;stronger than the &ldquo;We Are the 99% Movement&rdquo;&mdash;would have to disrupt the inertia of current political practice, and (2)Second, this force would have to overcome the status quo in perpetuity, tantamount to a knife winning the gunfight, then holding that fort for a generation or two or three.
Highly unlikely, because where there is money, there is temptation. And where there is temptation, there are vices. And where there are vices, there are dealers and dopers and the reverberating echoes of depravity.
In short, Washington would have to become a vacuum, one devoid of money, squatter's rights, and limitless terms in which former legislators 'naturally' mutate into lobbyists and economic hangers-on. Somehow, inconceivably, the poli-sphere writ large would have to be perceived as a sacrificial and service-centric theater of actual contribution, not unlike a tour of duty (accompanied, as it is, by hazards and risks that one cannot endure indefinitely) rather than a mint.
Time, as always, will be the great arbiter.
And He who created time.
Meanwhile, rather than simply waiting for the ocean to boil (which it will, eventually, according to Revelation 19, 20 and 21), may we each commit to doing and being better one-on-one, in our families, in our places of worship, in our communities, in our villages-hamlets-towns-burgs-boroughs-cities-counties-states, and as actors on the national and international stages.
Butterflies flapping our wings and so forth, beachcombers throwing starfish back and all that, should the bedtime&nbsp;stories we heard as children (which&nbsp;reliably documented victorious protagonists and vanquished antagonists) prove true: &ldquo;And they lived happily ever after. The End.&rdquo;
&bull;&bull;&bull;
&nbsp;

An Elegy for Good Men

This is totally random, but I recently saw a fun, quirky little TV interview with Jeff Bridges.&nbsp; It put me in The Big Lebowski state of mind.&nbsp; What a crazy-hilarious movie, and a treasure trove of great quotes:
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Strikes and gutters, ups and downs, [but] the Dude abides.&rdquo; </li>
<li>&ldquo;Well, sir, it's this rug I had. &nbsp;It really tied the room together.&rdquo; </li>
<li>&ldquo;Look, let me explain something to you. &nbsp;I'm not Mr. Lebowski. &nbsp;You're Mr. Lebowski. &nbsp;I'm the Dude. &nbsp;So that's what you call me. &nbsp;That, or His Dudeness...Duder...or El Duderino if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing. </li>
<li>&ldquo;This is a very complicated case, Maude. &nbsp;You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you&rsquo;s. &nbsp;And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man. &nbsp;Lotta strands in old Duder&rsquo;s head. &nbsp;Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind limber." &nbsp;</li>
<li>&nbsp;&ldquo;Careful, man, there's a beverage here!&rdquo;&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
From here, of course, it&rsquo;s only a hop and skip into a Bruce Lee state of mind.&nbsp; I loved his movies.&nbsp; Growing up, my friends and I created and recreated fight scene after fight scene, videotaping and, once, accidentally knocking a huge 2x3' hole in the garage wall&mdash;right through sheetrock to the studs.&nbsp; Years later, one of our sweet, beloved &ldquo;stuntmen&rdquo;&mdash;David Feagins&mdash;died, along with one of his young sons, in an absolutely tragic and gut-wrenching car accident near Red River, NM.&nbsp; He and I had talked about philosophy often, for well over a decade during our formative years, and we just loved the &lsquo;ol Brucester.&nbsp; I can hear Feags&rsquo; laughter and see his bright, mischievous&nbsp;eyes light up just like it was yesterday:
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Don't get set into one form; adapt it and build your own, and let it grow. &nbsp;Be like water. &nbsp;Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless&mdash;like water. &nbsp;Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. &nbsp;Now water can flow or it can crash. &nbsp;Be water, my friend.&rdquo; </li>
<li>&ldquo;Why, when I point to the moon, do you stare at my finger?&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Why stare at the finger, indeed.&nbsp;
Look up.&nbsp; This is life, and it ain&rsquo;t no dress rehearsal, man.
&nbsp;
 * * *&nbsp;
&nbsp;