Tribute

War is hell. That has been stated many times by different Generals in the field. The nightmare is real. The risk is great.

During World War II many families were devastated by the loss of sons, brothers, fathers, or uncles. One family suffered a devastating blow when all five of the Sullivan brothers were killed with the sinking of their ship, USS Juneau.

Inelegantly lifted from another site: "The 'Fighting Sullivan Brothers' were national heroes. President Franklin Roosevelt sent a letter of condolence to Tom and Alleta. Pope Pius XII sent a silver religious medal and rosary with his message of regret. The Iowa Senate and House adopted a formal resolution of tribute to the Sullivan brothers."

Tom Sullivan was a man who could be forgiven for a total preoccupation with his own pain. His beloved sons, five sons, were all dead. The US Navy changed their rules to make sure that this would never happen again, forbidding men from the same family to serve on the same ship. The brothers had wanted to be together, but the cost was too high.

My uncle, Lawrence Richard Francis, was killed when the USS Borie was attacked and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Twenty-seven men died that night. My mother's only brother was lost at sea.

My grandfather, another Irishman who had come to America to find a better way of life, met Tom Sullivan in a bar – as good Irishmen do. They began to talk. They talked of the war and of loss. And my grandfather told the story of their commiseration which my mother repeated for us.

The story says that my grandfather asked the grieving Tom, "How can you stand it?"

And a man who could be forgiven anything looked at his friend and with the most generous sentence I have ever heard uttered simply replied, "Frank, all your sons are all your sons."

My grandfather died when I was just three months old. I've never met Mr. Sullivan. But whenever I'm posed a question about generosity, this story comes to mind.

It is no wonder that the Sullivan brothers were willing to be there and support each other. We can hope that they were together to comfort each other in their final minutes. But it is my belief that they learned to be such caring people because their father showed them how.

Embarrassing

Over at Really Good Quotes they have sections for reader submissions. There are places for 15 Minutes of Fame where you can send in an essay about any old topic although we shy away from politics which suits me just fine. They have a section for Cute Things Kids Say and one for Embarrassing Moments.

Another writer is part of a forum called My Writers Circle and he has sent out a challenge to the people there to send in essays to RGQ from MWC and perhaps in the hopes of getting them to subscribe to the ezine as well. Either that or I just like accronyms.

So what is embarrassing? What makes something embarrassing to one person and not to another? Why does an event cause embarrassment one day and if it happened the next day it would be inconsequential?

I think for something to be embarrassing it must be witnessed. If you trip over something or even when you trip over nothing, the first instinct is to look around and see if anyone noticed. If no one else is around – you just got a freebie.

With the tripping thing. Why is it that right after you trip in front of someone they say "careful" like you were some kind of idiot who went around purposely tripping over lint on the carpet? We learned to walk ages ago and give it no more thought than to breathing. We just get up and walk and usually are doing something else at the same time. So tripping over obstacles seems quite natural to me. The "careful" comment seems more to be a sigh of relief from the person who had NOT just tripped and has no bearing on the person who tripped.

How different is embarrassment from shame? I think they are related. Embarrassed is what we are for others, shamed is what we are to ourselves. It is mildly shameful to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, unless you are 13 months old. Then you shouldn't be chewing gum anyway. Mostly because you spit it out on the carpet and your Nana steps in and trips in front of everyone.

Why embarrassment or shame for such trivial things? Tripping over a crack in the sidewalk shouldn't make you feel either emotion. But it does. Why do we feel the need to project an image of competence at all times?

As I've gotten older and found that there are so many things that I don't know that it would fill entire libraries – the size of the New York City Public Library with the Library of Congress thrown in, too – I have stopped being embarrassed to say "I don't know." That used to throw me for a loop. I hate not knowing. Now I know that I'm not supposed to know everything. What I know is so limited in scope, depth, and breadth that it is stunning. What I do know now is how to look it up.

I wonder how much of our embarrassment comes from having standards for ourselves that we wouldn't foist on one another person on the entire globe. Never trip? Who would expect that of anyone? Know everything? Even Einstein didn't – or da Vinci. Be perfect. Ah, that is the crux of the problem. Can we go through life without ever making a mistake? The mistakes themselves change. With changes in Politically Correct and obfuscatory language, you can say something that is offensive today that wasn't offensive ten years ago. I learned this week that polygamy is now called "plural families" because that has fewer negative connotations. Seems to me that "human breeding farms" would be a more accurate description, but that would not be PC. I might embarrass myself if I called them that.

Before I embarrass myself further, I should – oops hit a wrong key there, tripped with my fingers – end this.

Stop Spending

Being one of the idle rich, I have a lot of free time on my hands. I am definitely idle, but not really rich. However, since I don't have enough money to spend all my free time shopping, I have to do other things.

Oprah had a couple on her show that needed someone to tell them that spending money until you are nearly $1 million in debt with much of not real estate (which mean true stuff) while making about $100,000 a year is probably not the best plan. Having to wear only name brand clothing, brand new name brand clothing at that, is not necessary to a full life. Driving new and fancy cars is not a way to impress the world. The world doesn't really care.

Suze Orman is an in-your-face sort of financial consultant. She was adamant that the family stop buying hundreds of dollars of clothing three or four times a week and get some health insurance for the kids. Wow! What a concept. These people were part of the statistic about uninsured kids because they simply chose to shop instead.

I was reading an article about a bipartisan bill to be introduced into the Ohio State Congress to limit payday loans and interest rates. The bill would limit interest to 36% where it can top 300% now. This used to be called usury and was illegal in the past. The loan shops say that it is just short term loaning and the APR is irrelevant because the money is not held that long.

The payday loans or car title loans or places that lend money to people who don't have money so that they can pay their bills are dangerous. If you don't have enough money to pay your bills this week and you borrow money from one of these places, paying an up front fee and then outrageously high interest, you aren't going to have enough money next week to pay them back AND pay your current bills. So you crawl further into debt.

What to do? At one time I was neither idle or even remotely rich. I had to watch every single penny I spent. I had to choose between formula for the baby and roast beef for the adults. The baby had formula and the adults lived another day on tuna, or hamburger, or no meat at all. I used to yearn for meat that had not be chewed up first. But I didn't buy what I couldn't afford.

It is probably a symptom of that long ago deprivation that I have 100+ pairs of shoes in my closet today. That and the fact that I don't throw anything away. I have some shoes in there that are over 15 years old but they are comfortable and I wear them rarely enough that they are still in good shape. So I keep them.

I could, if I chose to do so, spend up into bankruptcy court. It wouldn't really be difficult. There are many things that I could buy that would be fun to have. Starting with a newer computer right here in my office and working outward. Most of the furniture in my house is old, some we've had since we got married 34 years ago.

Children ask for all sorts of things. They are easily led to crave things by the advertising they see on television. Real parents learn to say "no" frequently. You can't have everything you see and learning that when you are two isn't really that horrible. My children can recite with the same intonation and inflection I have imbued the statement with – "We all have wants and needs that go unfulfilled." Get used to it.

Teaching your children that you are a bottomless pit and can supply all their earthly wants is cruel and a disservice to the small people put in your charge. There will come a time when what they want cannot be purchased from a store and after a certain age the lesson of self-denial gets more and more difficult.

I would like to be able to get in my car and drive to where I want to be without interference from other drivers or traffic impairment. It doesn't happen. I can deal with the denied want. Those who can't get road rage. They were not taught that life is full of disappointments and they are not prepared to handle the frustration of sharing the planet with 6.5 billion other people.

~ Stop buying so much crap.
~ You do not need to live in a mansion. It doesn't impress the rest of the world because the rest of the world does not care.
~ Designer clothing is not necessary and is usually ugly anyway.
~ Cooking is not that hard and much cheaper than buying premade crap or eating out.
~ A car is to get you from point A to point B. It is not a status symbol.
~ Living within your means might just mean you don't have to trip over so much stuff, and wouldn't that be nice?
~ Payday loans are a really bad idea.

Henry David Thoreau told us to "Simplify, simplify." It would be much easier if we did.

Life Is Not Fair

I'm not sure why we strive for perfection. There is no perfection here on earth. There is near perfection on rare occasions. But we want perfect. Always perfect.

I always thought that if we kids were perfect than our father would remain sober. If we didn't do anything "bad" like noise or messes, then perhaps we wouldn't have to live with a man who could not control his own drinking.

Of course, the entire problem was that the man could not control his drinking and had no bearing whatsoever on what the imperfect children did. The imperfect adult was in control. Sorta.

Since I lived in a house with an alcoholic, my fears are based on living in a house with an alcoholic. But since in the lottery of life there are no perfect parents, other kids grow up to be adults trying to "correct" the mistakes from their own childhood homes.

There were no perfect childhood home. See paragraph one.

Children are not responsible for the sins of their parents, but it is really difficult to tell the kids that. But we try. And that is a good thing. Because truly, the kids are not responsible for the sins of the parents.

However, we may be doing too good of a job. While we convince kids they are not responsible for the sins of the parents, they may over-generalize to their stance that they are simply not responsible. And carry that irresponsibility into adulthood.

No home is perfect. However, there are certain choices that are made by adults that can lend to more imperfection than is absolutely necessary.

In a committed relationship, there should be no cheating. If you cheat, you are responsible for all the pain and heartache you cause to your partner and to any children who were unfortunate enough to be around.

If you live with a limited income – and even Bill Gates has a limit, but that's not the type of limits I'm speaking of here – and you spend money like water, you are irresponsible. If you spend grocery money on frivolous items that you do not need, you are responsible for the pain and heartache you bring into your home.

If you choose to opt out of reality for short times by overindulging in alcohol or drugs, you are responsible for the pain and heartache you bring into reality after the buzz wears off. As a child of a drunk, I know from where I speak. Booze is bad, drugs, being illegal are even worse.

I know that these are the top three problems in marriages. I know that living in a house with one or more of these problems scars the kids. I know that all children are scarred in some fashion because … see paragraph one.

I don't think that means we can give up. We, each and every one of us, comes from a flawed past. There is no other kind. I vowed to not make the same mistakes my parents made, I found new ones. And my children are finding new ones of their own.

All I really know for sure is that the Golden Rule really is all you need. Well, and an open heart that tells you that the annoying shit your significant others are doing are not really a plan to drive you insane, but their own issues from working in a flawed world.

I've learned over the many years that I've been forced to stroll on the planet that things said in anger are the most hurtful. I told my children that they were the best and most wonderful and most brilliant and most talented and most of everything all their lives. And then I got angry and told my son as he remembers it that he was "worthless" and he punched a hole in the wall. All the previous 16 years of his life were wiped out in one hurled epithet.

I can't imagine how horrible it must be to have to hear terrible things over and over again. But it crushes spirits. Fights are never won. Everyone loses in a fight. Even if you "win" you did so by crushing an opponent. When that opponent is someone you love and care about, you've lost big time. When the opponent is just some passing asshole, you've still lost because even for just a moment you have lowered yourself to asshole status. You cannot win a fight.

You can, however, win a discussion. You can negotiate a peace. You can find out what everyone wants and work towards getting as much as possible for everyone at the table. This is both easier and more difficult with a loved one. Easier because you can at least talk with someone and harder because the stakes are higher.

Be kind to each other, everyone out there is fighting an uphill battle.

Leave Smokers Alone

I volunteer at a hospital. I work there for free four hours each week. I help in the Ambulatory Care Center where people are staged before going into surgery and again before they are discharged. It is a nice community hospital. They have about 100 beds. They are part of a larger national system.

They are going smoke free next month. Right now they have a few designated places for smokers to go and get a nicotine fix. But this, too, will soon disappear.

The CDC lists smoking related deaths without actually checking to see if the death is truly related to any smoking. If the corpse had certain lung diseases, then the death is attributed to smoking regardless of whether or not the person actually ever smoked. This is usually called bad data.

Based on the CDC data, all sorts of smoking regulations are put into place. Smoking "causes cancer" but not everyone who smokes gets cancer so this is suspect. There is a laundry list of diseases with secondhand smoke. Now, if smoking cannot cause cancer, how does secondhand smoke cause cancer?

Smoking stinks. It is dirty. It is a nasty habit. You are better off not smoking. Smoking exacerbates certain lung problems and increases your possibility of getting lung cancer. The nicotine also causes vasoconstriction and makes circulatory diseases like stroke and heart attacks more likely. Smoking is not good for you and never has been.

There is a national epidemic that is increasing in size as we speak – or as I type. Morbid obesity is more and more prevalent. Each fat person is at risk for a host of health problems beginning with diabetes and all the secondary issues that come with that disease as well as that pesky stroke and heart attack thing that smokers are scared to death about. Then there is joint disease, strain on internal organs and resulting liver and kidney disease which is also exacerbated by diabetes.

All in all it is very unhealthy to be fat. Very unhealthy. In fact, being obese has more deleterious effects than smoking.

So what is the hospital doing about obesity? More and more of the staff are fat – grossly fat. I look around at the people waddling through the hallways and am amazed that they even make scrubs that large. We have to get special gowns for the obese patients. The OR tables have been "improved" with better hydraulics because more people are heavier and need the tables that will raise 450 pounds.

And the cafeteria is still selling sugar water in the form of Coke or Pepsi products. There is a vending machine that has high fat sandwiches – breakfast or lunch style. They serve high fat meals that are oozing in grease. I don't eat there but I have walked through the line just to look. There is a salad bar but it isn't all vegetables. Even at the healthy section there is cheese, croutons, sunflower seeds, and high fat dressings.

It is much easier to pick on smokers. It is less easy to make healthy and delicious meals. A slice of cheese and pepperoni pizza is easier and more Americans are liable to choose it. However, both staff and patients are way too fat and the hospital should address that issue before totally banning smoking anywhere on the campus.

If I were a smoking patient, I would take my business elsewhere. If I were smoking staff, I guess I would have to walk out to the sidewalk to smoke and wouldn't that be a lovely advertisement for the hospital that looked like it was on strike. That, and the smokers would be gone away from their work stations for even longer than just having to duck into a Butt Hut somewhere, burn one, and get back to work.

I suppose it looks good on paper. Hospital Doing Something About Health. Dumb asses.

Whether or Not the Weather is Hot

So, global warming due to citizens of the United States was supposed to kill the planet over the summer. I'm not sure why global warming isn't due to the carbon dioxide in China and that we should understand that one-sixth of the planet should get to emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide while make lead coated children's toys while we should cower in angst-ridden fear – but there you have the Kyoto crap in a nutshell.

Regardless of what the cause is, it has been slightly warmer. Not as warm and the doomsayers like to pontificate on, but warmer. Since we have been studying the weather with ever refined instrumentation, we have a huge store of knowledge without any understanding. We measure FACTS without knowing the meaning of them.

Since there have been ice ages and mini ice ages since before mankind hit the planet, what sort of hubris demands that we take the heat – at it were – for this newest step away from the last ice age?

Glaciers used to cover Canada and reach into Ohio, where I am from. You can look at the archeological evidence in places seeing where the weight of tons of ice carved grooves into the bedrock. Really sort of neat to see. Even with natural weather erosion, the grooves were so deep that they remain today.

In Ireland, The Burren is a hundred square miles of boulders dropped by a receding glacier. Ireland has a mild climate now. They get a little snow up in the northernmost portion of the island nation.

Glaciers in Alaska are in retreat except for one that isn't. And somehow THAT is also a problem. If the glacier advances as it has been for another year or two, it is going to ice over the mouth of a river and turn that river into a lake and flood the region and cause havoc and ruin. If it recedes, then there is havoc and ruin.

Not to mention earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis and tornadoes and all sorts of volatile weather and geologic transgressions.

And then there are hurricanes and cyclones. This was to be a very busy hurricane season. We were to be attacked by more and larger hurricanes and they would eat Florida right off the map along with taking out Caribbean Islands right and left. There was much hoopla about this prior to the season's start.

They have managed to have lots of Tropical Depressions. Our measurement systems are so precise and so vast that any drop in the millibars – whatever they are – makes a new storm appear on HOAA's site. They seem relieved to finally get a storm. And then the poor dear peters out and dissipates and goes away while still just causing a few waves in the Atlantic.

But they have named the storm. We have had up to Melissa now. Eight storms in September in the Atlantic with three of them actually, almost gleefully, turning into hurricanes. Eight storms ties a record – since we've kept track. But please remember that before the sensitive data collection apparatus was in place, many of these smaller storms that stayed at sea were never named, categorized, or even noticed.

Six hundred years ago, Europe didn't even know that the Americas existed. They had no idea the land was here and inhabited by tons of people already. They certainly didn't know about our hurricanes if they didn't know the land was here. I read somewhere how shocked they were with the first hurricane breezed through after they located us.

So weather is volatile. It gets hotter and colder. The planet has earthquakes because the tectonic plates crash together – or pull apart. The largest and most volatile earthquake region in the US isn't along the San Andreas fault, but in the center of the US where Yellowstone's geyser is helping to equalize the pressures from the plates slowing tearing apart. When it last burped, the shock waves were felt in Washington, DC.

What we don't know can hurt us. What we do know isn't always correct. We keep refining our measurements and then pointing to how much MORE of something there is. Because with our new equipment we have moved the labels.

There are no storms presently brewing in the Atlantic. Sigh.

Little Germany

I live in Little Germany. No, there aren't a bunch of ex-patriots living here after leaving Deutschland. I live in a HomeOwners Association Nazi village. There are people here who have never once even hinted at paying my electric bill, let alone paying off the house itself, who believe that they have every right to tell me what I can do with said house.

They insist on approving everything I wish to do. At least on the outside of my house. Actually, there are things I'm not permitted to do to my garage, as well. And maybe they want me to think in a certain manner. They do need total control. My garbage can was out too early once and they sent me a very nasty letter. Threatened to issue a fine if I ever had the temerity to try THAT stunt again.

I had to cry to get my lanai enclosure put up. Well, I had to pretend to cry to get approval. And I was wearing a sheer top and a lacy bra. But it worked and I got permission. The lanai is much nicer now. That rotting wood appeared to be okay, but something nice and clean and with windows and screens that didn't sag and a door that actually closes – well we can't have that sort of stuff just popping up. I mean think of the chaos.

The HOA is a bunch of volunteers who go around terrorizing the citizens and keep the pool open. I've actually used the pool. Twice this past summer. When the grandchildren were visiting. Other than that – I've not been there. And they even complain about that. I'm supposed to go to the pool and meet people – young parents with screaming children. I used to go to the pool daily when I was the young parent with the screaming children. It was great then. Probably not so much now.

We also pay for a service from some idiots who "help" with the community. They are paid so much per household per year and they do stuff like ignore emails and not return phone calls. Their own website claims that they will help maintain the community's website. But they don't.

There are monthly Board Meetings where the volunteer Board Members get to act important. This is Roberts' Rules stuff and so there should be an agenda which is made out by the President in the real world. And then there are minutes taken, which should be done by the Secretary as in the real world. The next month, the minutes are approved and then the paid people take the minutes and make a PDF file because somehow just HTML is not good enough. They then upload them to the portion of the website for our Little Germany Nazi place. This can take weeks to months. We are then chided for not being up on the issues of the community.

In a bid for sanity, I used the message boards and asked that the President his very own self place an agenda and the Secretary his very own self put up the approved and the tentative minutes on the message boards. Since the paid help doesn't do this, I figured that the guys who actually do the work could bypass the bottleneck of the overworked Holly who was outraged that I would question her dedication to her job and use her name on the message boards right before she uploaded the minutes only 15 days AFTER the meeting where they were approved – a mere six weeks later than the actual meeting.

One of the Board Members must be a descendant of Adolph's because he is just so dictatorial. He loves being a BM and shits all over the rest of us. He enjoys throwing his power around and does it with a snide and nasty manner. He is all for totalitarian government with himself as head of state. However, he isn't all that good at it and so there are issues. Who would even imagine such a thing?

He and his wife peruse the message boards and he rarely responds. However, his wife, Eva Braun, is forever protecting his back. Her favorite thing is "why don't you volunteer" as if we wanted the stupid jobs. I've volunteered for many things over the years. And when I did that, I assumed that I was supposed to actually DO what I volunteered for. I didn't just volunteer to be able to write it on a résumé somewhere and then go on my merry way.

The people who ran for the Board of Directors did so and then were elected to the position. They asked to be rulers of the little fiefdom. I guess it is enjoyable when you get to make the homeowners cry, or at least pretend to cry, but not so much when you have to actually work a little bit.

To make Eva Braun happy, I've volunteered to let the President and the Secretary email me with the agenda and the approved and tentative minutes and post them on the message boards. I'm not sure how that would save them any time at all, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that Little Germany be a place of harmony and light.

It would be nice if they could make the guy with the fence that is falling down get it repaired, but that probably isn't as much fun as making sure that no one has a For Sale sign in their yard.

What's With All the Racket?

Sounds of Silence.
You just don't get that much anymore. Silence is terrifying. Noise is ubiquitous. Noise must mean that something is happening. Yes, there is noise.

Once upon a time, shopping was a solitary experience where you went to a store and the only sound was conversation between shopkeepers and customers or between the customers themselves. No one even heard of a cell phone and there was no talking to thin air. Fighting with thin air. Yelling at thin air. There was interaction only between the humans present.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far away, someone thought "background music" would somehow encourage people to shop. That may have been true in a time when there was only one sort of music. And when it was background. Some stores blare music so loudly that you can't even fight with someone over a cell phone. And it is awful music. I only assume it is music because background or white noise would be so much more pleasant. And there is caterwauling with the "music" so I also assume it is a "song." It only encourages me to either get what I came for quickly, or else to abandon the store altogether. But perhaps that is the goal, keep the coots out.

Then the doors scream. I understand that theft is a problem. However, the doors that yell when someone passes through do nothing to assuage shoplifting. The people who work there are inured to what becomes one more piece of background noise – IF they can hear it over the music. Stand in one of those stores some time and watch. Clerks, or whatever the PC term is now for clerks, don't even look up. Sure, if they weren't doing anything. But if they are busy – the time when shoplifters actually lift – they just ignore it as one more assault on their ears. It only bothers the customers.

And my new favorite. School buses that honk. Before there were drivers too distracted by talking on the phone, there were bright yellow school buses that had red lights that flashed when they were taking on or letting off tiny passengers. Then they added a stop sign that came out at a ninety degree angle. Then they added reflective tape. Then they added a strobe light to induce seizures in the unwary. And now, there is a horn that beeps each and every time they get ready to move the bus again. I know this because my driveway is somehow the bus stop. Each morning and every afternoon. Honk, honk, honk, honk, honk. It took me a while to figure out it was the bus.

With each improvement in the bus, there were still accidents. There will continue to be accidents. It doesn't matter what anyone devises as a safety measure. There will be accidents. That is why they are called accidents. They aren't "on-purposes" because no one is really out there aiming at the kids. No matter how much at times you might want to mow down a row of moseying teenagers who can't use the sidewalk because the street is the place to saunter. They don't do that while exiting the bus. Trust me, I watch. They leave the bus with alacrity. They mosey later.

The honking must send the drivers into a headache induced tizzy. If I were a bus driver, I would specifically ask to not drive a bus that honked all fucking day. Bad enough the kids are so loud. Why have a loud bus, too? I'm not even certain what the honk is supposed to DO. Is it to tell the person behind the bus who is too engaged in their cell phone conversation that it is now time to drive erratically again? The bus driver knows that the bus is going. Is it to warn kids playing under the wheels that the bus will be moving again? They put the kid catcher that is reminiscent of the cow catchers from trains on the front of the bus. If a child is too stupid to know not to play under the wheels of the bus, what will the horn do? And why don't we give Darwin an award winner?

I no longer hear the horn on a daily basis. And I only have it honk here once in the morning and once in the afternoon. The kids riding the bus hear it as often as the driver. How long did it take for them to completely tune it out? Probably less than a week. It is now background noise. Just one more way to "protect" while not protecting. Just annoying.

In a piece of perfect irony, I may go and play the Simon and Garfunkle song Sounds of Silence. That is a nice noise.