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pop culture  /  PotD
Trolls And How To Be Them
February 9, 2016
charles i. letbetter - trolls and how to be them

Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, which is an ancient way of saying ‘Don’t feed the trolls.’—Anonymous

 

charles i. letbetter - trolls and how to be them

The Internet is full of disgusting, disagreeable creatures that lurk in dark shadows and say stupid things. These are Trolls. We all flirt with them.

Somewhere, well back into the mid-1960s, my parents gave me a paperback book with a yellow cover. I still remember the event clearly. We were on our way to visit one of my aunts and, presumably, they gave me the book to keep me quiet and out of the way. The trick worked. I can only assume now that we were visiting my aunt for rather serious reasons. She was the single mother of five, her husband having abandoned her when the youngest was but a few months old. Single moms were rare back then, and the challenges she faced were significant. We visited often, and I would assume now that those visits were not necessarily social, but more to help with various issues. Therefore, keeping me quiet and out of the way was beneficial.

The short title of the book is Goops and How To Be Them by Gelett Burgess. The complete title, though, is: Goops and How To Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants Inculcating Many Juvenile Virtues Both By Precept and Example, With Ninety Drawings. Yes, the title is almost as long as the book itself. First published in 1900, there can be an occasional challenge in how some words are defined. For example, when he uses the term “infants,” he’s referring to any child not yet in school. The book is meant to be humorous, to be sure. After all, this is the same person who gave us that poem about a purple cow. Yet, the manners he prescribes are timeless. The book starts like this:

Let me introduce a Race
Void of Beauty and of Grace,
Extraordinary Creatures
With a Paucity of Features.
Though their Forms are fashioned ill,
They have Manners stranger still;
For in Rudeness they’re Precocious,
They’re Atrocious, they’re Ferocious
Yet you’ll learn, if you are Bright
Politeness from the Impolite.
When you’ve finished with the Book,
At your Conduct take a Look;
Ask yourself, upon the Spot,
Are you Goopy or are you Not?
For, although it’s Fun to See them
It is Terrible to Be them!

The book was out of print for several years, so I was not able to give a copy to my own boys. Thankfully, a 2014 reprint is now for sale and I’m thinking of a certain seven-year-old who might well benefit from having a personal copy of this particular volume. The lessons truly are well worth the effort.

Yet, as I look back over the title now, considering where and what we are as a society so deeply embedded in digital content and social media, I wonder if Burgess, were he alive today, might re-work the title as Trolls and How To Be Them. After all, or so it would seem, Internet trolls and Goops would have a great deal in common. In fact, it may well be that the infantile Goops grow up to be the adolescent trolls and, no matter their age, never seem to grow beyond that stage of development. While their adult-sized bodies may be large and misshaped, trolls never really grow up. They never assume responsibility, they don’t take care of their own business because they’re too concerned about everyone else’s, and they never socialize with friends because even trolls don’t like being around other trolls. They’re Goops, to be sure, just in larger bodies.

I apologize for not writing this next section in verse, something at which Burgess was especially talented, but let’s consider for a moment some of the ways Goops and trolls are alike.

  1. They are aggressive and rude. Goops pull on little girls curls, and trolls enjoy making fun of women’s features in general, body shaming every aspect bust especially focusing on faces, breasts, and hips.
  2. Goops and trolls go out of their way to create trouble. Goops might trip someone walking or push them in the mud. Trolls hurl verbal mud at the nicest of people and then berate them for being “dirty.”
  3. Both Goops and trolls enjoy their ignorance. Goops tear up books and pay no attention to teachers. Trolls delight in spreading rumor and innuendo without bothering to check their facts and are consistently unable to provide a reliable source to back up their comments.
  4. Neither are respectful of authority. Goops are disobedient and don’t listen to their parents. Trolls don’t care about community standards and challenge administrators and managers charged with moderating comments. Trolls also enjoy attacking anyone in a position of authority, from the President or Prime Minister to the manager of the local burger joint.
  5. They think only of themselves and the things that bring them pleasure. Goops are lazy, never helpful, and want everything done for them. Trolls provide no benefit and tear people down rather than build them up. Trolls never have anything positive to say.

Trolls are nasty creatures and I am constantly astonished at how they are tolerated in places they don’t belong. You may or may not have noticed that I don’t provide for commenting on any of my articles. Goops and trolls are a large part of why that feature is not present here. I struggle to understand why it is present on things such as news stories or magazine articles. Why are comments necessary at all? If one has a legitimate disagreement, then make appropriate contact through appropriate channels. Trolling comments serve no beneficial purpose at all.

Burgess created Goops as an object lesson. He featured them in a comic strip for about a year and I do desperately wish that those would make a renewed appearance. I think we might learn a lot about how we should behave. Perhaps, just maybe, they might teach us how to not be trolls.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Why Football Has To Change
February 8, 2016
charles i. letbetter - why football has to change

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it’s so incredible, it’s unbelievable.—Tom Landry

 

charles i. letbetter - why football has to change

If the NFL is going to make it to Super Bowl 100, the game has to fundamentally change

Late in last night’s Super Bowl game, the NFL ran a ten-second spot where they asked children who might still be alive what they think Super Bowl 100 might be like. The answers were cute if not a little outrageous including things like hoverboards and other stuff I don’t remember. Coming at the end of the game, I doubt too many people noticed the spot at all, but I couldn’t help thinking that unless the NFL makes some serious changes, there won’t be a Super Bowl 100, and there may not be an NFL at all.

Let’s be very clear, growing up in Oklahoma, I was immersed in sports, even though I was too clumsy and uncoordinated to actually play. I love watching a good game, whether it’s baseball, basketball, or football. I love being at a game live, I enjoy being passionate in supporting a team, and I have this strange thing for hot chocolate from a concession stand. I’m not anti-sport by any stretch of the imagination.

However, I noticed something at the beginning of last night’s game that almost made me cry. Being the 50th Super Bowl, someone thought it would be nice to honor the MVPs from each of the preceding games. The names were those from my childhood, the men I’d watched battle on Sunday afternoons, the champions that defined the game in my imagination: Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, Larry Csonka, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana. I watched as they took their places, crossing a corner of the field and I couldn’t help but notice that every one of those men who had played more then ten years ago had something in common: They were hurting. Sure, some handled it better than others, but you could see it in how they walked, how they held themselves, and how they stood, uneasily, on the risers. This is what football does to you.

There has been a tremendous amount of overdue attention this past year to the physical dangers imposed upon those who play football, especially at a professional level. Most critical among those is a problem with concussions, resulting in Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. CTE is caused by repeated traumatic brain injury, the kind frequently experienced from concussions received while playing football. While advances have been made in regards to better helmets and other protective measures, concussions are still the game’s most dangerous injury. Even during last night’s game Carolina lost a player in the first half due to concussion.

CTE has only been identified in American football players since 2002. CTE is a degnerative disease that can lead to alzheimers, balance issues, severe changes in mood, blindness and hearing loss. There are multiple on-going lawsuits against the NFL from players, but the league has still been reluctant to fully address the problem and make significant changes to the game. Doctors are beginning to draw lines between CTE and erratic player behavior. Already, several retired players with CTE have committed suicide. There is even some speculation that O. J. Simpson has CTE and that it may have factored in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

CTE isn’t the NFL’s only problem, though. Millennials are not embracing the sport in the same way Boomers did, and the Generation Z kids coming up behind them are even less enthused. While stadiums are trying to digitize in an effort to keep millennials in their seats, a handful of old-timers charge that millennials are soft, the reality is much more severe. Millennials are a problem for football because millennials don’t trust the NFL.

What we’re looking at are generations of young people who are more connected to what’s real, more adverse to taking risk, and place greater value in day-to-day life. They are less concerned about making millions (though several of them already have) and more concerned about doing better by the planet, society, their friends, and their families. As a result, when they come across an organization, whether it be the NFL, the GOP, cable companies, or Wall Street Banks, they tend to walk the other way and find alternatives.

How can football survive if upcoming generations refuse to attend the games run by corrupt owners? What does the NFL have to do to survive at all? Of course, opinions vary, but here are some critical elements that simply must change:

  • Acknowledge that in-game concussions are a serious threat to every player and not only change equipment but change rules to prevent them from happening. Yes, this will fundamentally change how the game is played, but it is necessary.
  • More closely monitor behavior of active athletes. Cincinnatti Bengals quarterback Johnny Manziel is the poster child for this one. Fans are tired of off-field aggressiveness and won’t pay to watch childish brats being paid too much money.
  • Provide more thorough and complete medical and mental care for retired players. One of the greatest scars across the face of football is players who are permanently disabled by the time their 40 and in financial trouble trying to pay for care.
  • Lower ticket prices. Millennials and those behind them aren’t keen on paying $100 a ticket for nosebleed seats to a game that only marginally holds their interest in the first place. The same applies to basketball and most concert venues. They’re going to find seats increasingly empty if this doesn’t change quickly.
  • Teams need to stop leaning on host cities and sponsors and learn how to pay their own way. Football teams, both college and professional, rake in billions of dollars, yet they don’t pay for the facilities in which they play, and in most cases they demand tax expemptions and other favors as well. Millennials and others are tired of footing the bill for the 1%. Let team owners and the NFL pay for their own damn stadiums, practice facilities rather than sucking host cities dry.

Dont’ let the excitement over last night’s game fool you. The writing is very clearly on the wall. Fans are not happy with the state of football and more than just millennials are ready to walk out the door and do something else with their Sunday afternoons. We love the sport and would like to see it continue, but the bullshit needs to stop. Football has to change.

Got that, Roger Goodell?

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Music
Ethics Are A Real Thing, Bey
February 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - ethics are a real thing, bey

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.—Potter Stewart

 

charles i. letbetter - ethics are a thing, Bey

Being a big star can get you a lot of leeway, but there are some lines no one has a right to cross

There’s little question that Beyoncé is one of the biggest stars on the music scene today, and when she hits the stage during the halftime of today’s Super Bowl crowds will scream and yell, forgetting the horror of Coldplay that they’ve had to sit through first. In addition to being a fantastic musician, Beyoncé is also a brilliant marketer. Last night, less than 24 hour before the Super Bowl halftime show, she released her new music video, Formation, which immediately set the Internet on fire, zooming to the top of both Billboard and iTunes hot charts. #Formation is still trending on Twitter and probably will continue to do so through the day.

There’s just one problem: The video makes heavy use of documentary footage from the documentary, That B.E.A.T., by Abteen Bahgeri and Chris Black. Chrisk Black was quick to lash out on Twitter:

Later, Entertainment Weekly publishes this statement supposedly from Queen Bey’s representative:

“The documentary footage was used with permission and licensed from the owner of the footage. They were given proper compensation. The footage was provided to us by the filmmaker’s production company. The filmmaker is listed in the credits for additional photography direction. We are thankful that they granted us permission .”

So, everything’s cool, right? Permission was granted, rights were secured, etc.

Well, hold on. If rights and permission were secured in advance, how did the filmmakers not know that? Yes, their names are in the credits, which had to have been added before the video was uploaded, but how is it even possible that the people who created the documentary wouldn’t know those things?

This comes on the heels of another dustup concerning the Coldplay video featuring Beyoncé  Hymn For The Weekend,  which was released last week. Almost immediately, anger erupted across the Internet over whether Bey and the band were guilty of cultural appropriation. Opinions were diverse and strong. Among the people from India or Indian-American, the greatest offense seemed to center around the sari and headdress that Beyoncè was wearing in addition to various backgrounds that identify with the culture. Was the video, as Coldplay claims, an appreciation of Indian culture? Or is it a westernized version of that culture appropriated for commercial purposes?

Thes are not easy question to answer, but then, matters of ethics are rarely easy. They take time to think through the multiple perspectives of an issue or situation, not just one’s own. One’s intention is not always how an action is receieved. Unfortunately, when one is a big star, with millions of people buying albums and screaming their adoration, ethics often flies out the window. Beyoncé is certainly flirting with that line, and in the opinions of many she’s crossed it.

Plenty of people would come to the singer’s defense, saying that any offense is imagined and that she’s simply being edgy or trying to bring attention to a specific situation. She’s trying to do good. Here’s the paradox: when one has to do something wrong in order to create the appearance of doing something right, is the wrong justified? Rarely is that the case, and certainly a music video does not justify any harm toward anyone, at any time.

The music industry has often crossed ethical lines and more than a few artists and record companies have paid a significant price for their errors. Yet, there are some who think the rules don’t apply to them, that it doesn’t matter if they don’t ask permission up front, or if they appropriate the culture of an entire country. We all love good music and Beyoncé is among the best, but ethics are a real thing, Bey. When our stars hurt other people in an  attempt to stay on top, what choice do we have but to walk away and leave those stars to fade?

When you sit on top of the world, everyone is watching. Ethics matter.

 

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Disaster In The Making
February 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - disaster in the making

Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we’re still at the mercy of nature.—Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

charles i. letbetter - disaster in the making

Zika is one of those diseases that, unless we find a treatment, could unravel the fabric of society

I have been watching over the past few days as the specter of snow looms over tomorrow’s forecast. As much as a heavy snowfall has the potential to really mess up my schedule for this week, that may be exactly what we need. With our winter, to date, having been so very mild and comfortable, there hasn’t been enough snow and freezing temperatures to do what winter does best: kill bug larvae. Unfortunately, we’re likely to get little more than a dusting tomorrow, or so it seems. Our portion of the Midwest has missed the blizzards and the sub-zero temperatures that usually help keep the insect population in check. I’m beginning to worry. We could use a minor disaster to prevent a major one.

The problem isn’t all bugs, of course. The danger the lurks in the coming of Spring is a common nuisance: mosquitoes. We fight them every year and the wetter the spring the more challenging that battle becomes. For most people in the United States, they’re little more than a nuisance, but this year they hold the potential to bring society to its knees as they may be carrying a deadly disease known as Zika.

This past Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Zika a public health emergency. Such a move is fairly rare as it raises warnings that affect economies and social practices. Even in this statement, the WHO was been accused of playing politics in not putting a restriction on travel to affected areas by pregnant women. Why? Because ground zero for the disease is currently Brazil, the country hosting this summer’s Olympic games. Any level of travel restriction (which the US implemented last month ) could devastate Brazil’s already shaky economy. Yet, the risk to pregnant women is severe, and not exactly welcoming for anyone else.

While pregnant women and their unborn fetuses have been the primary focus of those attempting to corral the disease, Zika can affect anyone. Most healthy people would experience the all-too-common symptoms for about a week and not know what was the cause. Fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes, and perhaps a headache are the most common symptoms and most people who contract the disease never need to see a doctor or go to the hospital. They can wait out the symptoms, which last about a week, and be fine. So, what’s the big deal? Why are we worried?

Because Zika has the ability to do so much more. While mosquitoes remain the primary means of transmitting the disease, having sex with anyone currently infected with Zika can also spread the disease to an uninfected partner. Not everyone whose bloodstream is infected will present symptoms and while, for most people, the disease only stays in the bloodstream about a week, it can hang around longer without the host being aware of its presence. The one case of Zika that has occurred in the US was spread through sexual contact with an infected person. As we’ve seen with other sexually transmitted diseases, once the spread begins it can be difficult to stop.

Where Zika becomes a real disaster is in the effect it has on unborn children. Zika appears to affect the development of the head and brain, resulting in something called Microcephaly. There is no treatment that diminishes the effects. There is no cure. Children born with the disease are disabled for life and will never be able to care for themselves. Seizures, loss of hearing and/or sight, balance difficulty, and difficulty swallowing are among the dangers faced by children with microcephaly.

As if affecting children wasn’t bad enough, the great social disaster could be in how to respond, especially for pregnant women. Already, women in affected countries, most of which are in heavily Catholic South America, are beginning to re-think their stance on abortion, which not only puts them at odds with the church, but in most South American countries, such as Brazil, abortion is illegal except under the most extreme circumstances. The Church also forbids the use of any form of birth control, including condoms, which could contribute to the further spread of the disease.

Already, the United Nations has issued a statement urging “the repeal of laws and policies that restrict access to sexual and reproductive health services.” Here is where the disaster threatens to do the most damage. While few debate the need to curb the disease with medicine and science, when the most readily available means of prevention collides with religious beliefs, people are ready to go to war to protect what they consider their religious duty. Even in the United States, women’s reproductive rights are a hotbed of controversy, with Congress repeatedly attempting to defund women’s care providers, specifically Planned Parenthood, because of their willingness to provide various methods of birth control. Given that this is a presidential election year with passions already running high at both political extremes, this could be the disaster the ultimately leads to domestic violence on a level we’ve not seen since the Civil War.

Even in the United States, women’s reproductive rights are a hotbed of controversy, with Congress repeatedly attempting to defund women’s care providers, specifically Planned Parenthood, because of their willingness to provide various methods of birth control. Given that this is a presidential election year with passions already running high at both political extremes, this could be the disaster the ultimately leads to domestic violence on a level we’ve not seen since the Civil War.

Public health officials in the US are attempting, for the moment, to downplay the risks, citing effective mosquito extermination programs in the past. However, given that Zika can be spread through sexual contact, and we’ve not yet begun mosquito season, it is too early to be so dismissive. At the very least, it would seem prudent to impose even more stringent travel restrictions to places where Zika is a known problem. The CDC is already urging the use of condoms and other means of birth control as a way of avoiding pregnancy if one plans on traveling to an infected area. Consumer Reports, whose content is normally behind a paywall, has made public a list of mosquito repellants that best protect against Zika.

Disaster could still be averted, but to ignore the threat is foolish. We’re still three to four months away from seeing mosquitoes begin to spread across the United States. For many areas, especially rural communities, measures to fight mosquitoes are likely to require federal funding, something Congress has loathed. If the funding is not there, the risk for disaster increases. If people attending the Olympics are not careful in every possible sense of the word, the risk for disaster increases.

In comparison, maybe getting snowed in for a couple of days isn’t so bad.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Matters Of Polite Conversation
February 6, 2016
charles i. letbetter - matters of polite conversation

A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.—Truman Capote

 

charles i. letbetter - matters of polite conversation

“Let them eat cake” is a fine party philosophy until you run out of cake. Then what?

There is no predicting the future, no matter how hard we might try. There are prognosticators and statisticians working like crazy in an attempt to predict how Super Bowl 50 is going to play out tomorrow. Everyone wants a good game, and everyone wants their favorite team to win. However, there are times when that just doesn’t happen. In fact, there are five Super Bowls, three involving the Denver Broncos, there were nothing short of blowouts. They were, in order of severity:

  • Super Bowl XXII – Washington Redskins 42 – Denver Broncos 10
  • Super Bowl XXVII – Dallas Cowboys 52 – Buffalo Bills 17
  • Super Bowl XLVIII – Seattle Seahawks 43 – Denver Broncos 8
  • Super Bowl XX – Chicago Bears 46 – New England Patriots 10
  • Super Bowl XXIV – San Francisco 49ers 55 – Denver Broncos 10

Those scores are rather depressing if one is a Broncos fan. No matter how much one might want to see Peyton Manning go out on top, the very real numbers are not necessarily in his favor. There is a frightening chance that by the end of the halftime show there’s not much left to do besides eat hot wings and chat with whomever is left in the room. This could get awkward, especially if one happens to be at a Super Bowl party where one doesn’t know many people. Yeah, we’ve been there.

However, and you can thank me for this later, I have compiled a list of topics that are great conversation starters. You have some time between now and tomorrow to study up a little bit so that should there be an unforeseen lull in the game, you can break the silence and monotony with one of these gems. You may be the one who actually saves the party! Any of these can work, so take a good look and find a couple with which you can get comfortable.

  1. Traffic fatalities took a huge jump last year. When one considers the increase as a percentage, 9.3 doesn’t sound like much. Yet, in terms of real numbers, we’re looking at an increase of 2,200 and those numbers are still preliminary; they could go up. Now, there’s no need for complete panic just yet. When one adjusts for the numbers of cars on the road, which also increased, the percentage falls to five percent, which isn’t nearly as alarming. What seems to be the difference? Two major contributors seem apparent. One is the decline in road conditions. We’ve heard about our crumbling infrastructure for a few years and now that lack of attention is costing real lives. The second is distracted driving, with cell phones being the primary culprit. That particular problem is 100 % preventable. Play this topic off one of the many new car ads running during tomorrow’s game.
  2. A sale isn’t always as good as it looks. Everyone’s looking for a bargain, right? In fact, we all know someone who enjoys bragging about the deals they’ve scored. They never pay regular price for anything. However, many stores, especially department stores such as Nordstrom and Kohls, are facing an increased number of class-action lawsuits based on what consumers consider deceptive sale pricing. Shoppers see a 75% off sign, but fail to read the small print that qualifies how that 75% is actually calculated. There are other times when sale prices and regular prices appear to be the same. JC Penney set aside a whopping $50 million to settle a suit claiming their 40% off prices were actually their regular prices. Designer Michael Kors settled a suit claiming made-for-outlet goods were misrepresented as discounted regular clothing. Stores often settle these suits so they don’t have to admit any wrongdoing. Remember that when your favorite retailer’s ad pops up on the screen between downs.
  3. Twitter is changing to be more like Facebook. This topic may only work if you’re watching the big game with people who are constantly looking at their smartphones. People who don’t use social media, and especially those who don’t use Twitter, won’t give a damn. Those who do, though, are likely to be furious. Switching the timeline feed over to an algorithm similar to the kind Facebook uses means that tweets will not necessarily appear in chronological order.  Popular and trending topics would appear first. On one hand, it might help sort out what’s important from all the white noise that Twitter attracts. At the same time, though, those who don’t have 20 million followers might have difficulty getting their tweets seen at all. While Twitter has yet to officially respond to this Buzzfeed article, the lack of a denial has the hashtag #RIPTwitter trending. Use this when you see everyone at the party staring at their phone.
  4. Beer is getting into the fashion business. In a way, this isn’t the biggest revelation in the world, but given the number of beer ads shown during the game, it’s an easy segue for conversation. What’s going on is that more beer companies, from small-label craft beers to mass-produced brands such as Heineken (which does have a new ad during the game) are doing collaborations with designers to work their logos into clothing designs. We’re talking about more than just the PBR fishing hat or the Bud Light t-shirt here. Brands are spending major cash to have their brands show up subtly on department store shelves attached to designer names. They’re also likely to show up in places like the comforter on the bed at your favorite B&B, or the shades your girlfriend is wearing. While the collaborations haven’t gotten too noisy yet, if those $5 million ads don’t work we may see Clydesdale imprints on the catwalk come fall.
  5. The Zika virus has the UN asking countries to loosen abortion restrictions. Warning: only use this topic if the game is a complete blowout and you’re desperate for some aggressive action. You won’t find this in any US newspaper because, to date, Zika isn’t an American problem. By summer, though, when the mosquito population increases and people are out more, we could see the issue here as well. Zika is a devastating mosquito-born disease that primarily affects the brain size of newborns. There is no cure, and to date there is no sure means of prevention. Pregnant women are, of course, most at risk, but it is worth noting that the disease can also be spread through sexual activity. The Zika outbreak has been declared a global health concern and even insurance companies, who are not prone to wanting government interference, are asking for help in finding some way to slow this deadly disease. Ths one is certain to start a lively conversation, though, so don’t bring it up unless the game is just so far gone that you’re need something dramatic to prevent you from stabbing your eyes with a colored toothpick.

Sure, we all hope the game is close and that you never have any reason to take your eyes off the screen. We also hope you don’t get food poisoning for wings that have been left out too long. Still, it is better to be prepared than caught sitting in a quiet room where everyone can hear you fart.

And if all else fails, try stripping in front of the TV. If that doesn’t start a conversation, it’s time to leave.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
The CDC Is Victim Blaming
February 5, 2016
charles i. letbetter - CDC is victim blaming

You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.—Hillary Clinton

 

charles i. letbetter - maternal instincts vs. the cdc

Having a uterus should not in any way limit a woman’s activity, regardless of what her future plans may or may not be

Yep, I’m going there. While I, myself, can never bear children (for which I am intensely thankful), most of my favorite people in the world can, and many have. That factor is naturally limiting to some degree I suppose. Scheduling get-togethers can be a nightmare when one has children. Budgets are strained when one has children. Fatigue is often a factor when one has children, as is stress and worry. However, at no point would I, or any other sane person, suggest that women should limit their activity in any way, shape or form simply because they have, or might have at some point down the line, a child. Yet, that is exactly what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just did.

The assessment comes in Vital Signs, the CDC’s monthly health report and to say it is insulting to women is putting it mildly. Even the CDC’s press release is offensive when, right off the bat, it states: “Sexually active women who stop using birth control should stop drinking alcohol, but most keep drinking.” Yes, you read that correctly. It is the CDC’s opinion that, should you have any ability to have children, then you should either be on birth control or not drink. Ever.

What many women find especially offensive, and I wholeheartedly support their outrage, is this infographic the CDC released with the report:

Maternal Instincts versus the CDC

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Now, let’s be totally fair before we go off flaming the entire report. Yes, fetal alcohol syndrome is a totally preventable problem and yes, women who continue drinking heavily during the first 4-6 weeks of pregnancy, when not everyone knows they’re pregnant, is a problem. And yes, if one is intentionally trying to get pregnant, then abstaining from alcohol is just one of a very long list of adjustments one makes. Those portions of the report are based upon real science and are backed with several years of empirical scientific evidence.

However, not all the statements in the report are weighted equally. Much of the information related to women who are not pregnant is a derivation of data collected by the National Survey of Family Growth. Surveys, while useful for studies of social behavior at a given point in time, are not science. They can be flawed in hundreds of different ways from the type of questions asked, to the tone of voice used by the person asking, to how participants are chosen. Under no circumstances should the results of such surveys ever be considered anything more than opinion, not fact. Yet, that is exactly the error the CDC has made. As a result, they come up with some really offensive and scientifically unsupportable statements.

I’m running almost 48 hours late with my response here. What angers me is the inference that women who drink are sexually irresponsible. Such an attitude feeds directly into the infuriating rape culture which we screamed about yesterday. Anyone who takes advantage of a woman who is drunk or otherwise impaired is committing rape. Women who are drunk cannot give informed consent for sex and should, therefore, be left alone! To blame women for pregnancy or the transmission of disease during the course of a rape is wholly and unapologetically immoral ! Way to blame the victim, CDC.

Understandably, condemnation of the report, and especially that damn infographic, has been swift and severe. Here are a few you might want to read:

Yes, we understand what the CDC is trying to do in eliminating any chance of fetal alcohol syndrome. But so much of what they are recommending in this report actually relies not merely on abstinence from alcohol, but regular medical screenings and readily available birth control, something the US Congress has repeatedly attempted to make impossible by defunding Planned Parenthood. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways folks. If you want healthy babies, you have to fund health care for mommies, especially those at greatest risk.

We should also mention that women who might be planning to become pregnant are already concerned about the Zika virus, which is still new but poses a potentially greater threat. Can we expect the CDC to also suggest that women who don’t use bug spray are equally irresponsible?

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a problem, we get that, but I would challenge that victim blaming and perpetuation of the rape culture is an even larger problem that affects the health of both women and children far more substantially than does drinking alcohol. Blaming women for rape and sexual assault, which this report inherently does, is inexcusable. Shape up, CDC. Use science and abandon the good ol’ boy mentality that is dangerous to women.

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Rape Is NOT Masculine
February 4, 2016

It seems that whatever we do is somehow beyond reproach – murder, rape, drunk driving – as long as we go on a TV show and apologize.— Eric Stoltz

 

charles i. letbetter - rape is not masculine

Rape is not a right of gender. Rape is not a right of marriage. Rape is not right. Ever.

I’m relatively certain that every woman I’ve met in the past 30 years, with maybe one or two exceptions, has been the victim of sexual violence at some point in her life. Don’t think for a second that such a statistic comes because I hang out with “that kind” of women, whatever “that kind” may be in your mind. Quite to the contrary. Women from every walk of life, religious or not, cautious or not, across every socio-economic status, across every level of education, are victims of sexual violence.

You work with them, these women who are victims. They hand you your morning coffee. They check you out at the grocery. They handle your tech support calls, your banking problems, your investments and insurance, your pious donations, and even the porn subscription you claim isn’t really yours. They sit as members of Congress, the chief executives of major corporations, and maybe even your own boss.

These women have been made victims at the hands of fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, boyfriends, husbands, customers, co-workers, classmates, bosses, church workers, pastors and priests and many others who all, for some stupidly insane reason, thought they had the “right” to violate someone in the most intimate of ways possible. We have perpetuated a culture where some find it acceptable to use drugs or alcohol to coerce a young woman into sex. We have created a deplorable society wherein it is the victim, not the perpetrator, who is shamed and blamed. And being the male-dominated society we still are, we pass laws so that our sins can go without punishment.

I have been sickened over the past several years as elected officials and those running for office, those who are chosen to represent all the people, have attempted to justify rape in order to avoid funding healthcare for women. Just a few of their statements (verified by Snopes) include:

“Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Clayton Williams (R-TX) 24 March 1990

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that thing down.” Todd Akin (R-MO) 19 August 2012

“Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” Rick Santorum (R-PA) former US Senator and, until yesterday, presidential candidate. 20 January 2012

“Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” Richard Mourdock (R-IN) 23 October 2012

“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”  Lawrence Lockman (D-ME) February 2014

There also seems to be a problem among professional athletes, many of whom accept plea deals for lesser charges rather than face up to the consequences of what they’ve done. Among those convicted for sexual assault are:

Kevin Allen, Philadelphia Eagles, released after 33 months

Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, Dallas Cowboys, released after 28 months

Darren Sharper, retired NFL, lifetime probation

Nate Webster, retired NFL, 12 years

Milton Bradley, Major League Baseball, 2 years and 230 days imprisonment, plus 400 hours of community service

Chad Curtis, Major League Baseball, 7-15 years

Mel Hall, Major League Baseball, 45 years, charges involved children

Tom Payne, Atlanta Hawks (NBA), multiple counts, 15 years to life

Ruben Patterson, Seattle Supersonics, served 15 days.

Mike Tyson, boxing, served three years

Bob Hewitt, tennis, served six years of an eight-year sentence.

If that list feels short and dated, it is. Many athletes now avoid conviction by agreeing to enter some form of treatment, which further diminishes the severity of their crime. The problem is severe, but those in charge (all men) don’t want to taint the image of their sport by letting the public see just how many players are guilty of sexual assault and other violent crimes.

Most recently, and what currently has me beyond furious, is this bullshit concept of neomasculinity, as though, somehow, masculinity needs to be redefined in terms that reward aggression and domination with concepts that are misogynistic and pro-rape.  These jackasses even claim to have rape clubs, though I cannot find any direct evidence of any being caught by law enforcement. The movement is headed by one particularly creepy douchebag who goes by the name RooshV. I’m sorry to say he’s an American citizen, from Maryland, who has this warped idea that rape should actually be legal so long as it occurs on private property. He’s written multiple books on “seduction,” and, until yesterday, was organizing a global meet-up of like-minded douchebags around the world this Saturday. Fortunately, as word of this massive circle jerk spread and protests began to form to disrupt the meetings, they have been cancelled, though he encourages “private” gatherings.

There is absolutely, positively, without any possible exception, no terms or conditions under which rape is justified and it certainly is not masculine. Real men respect women. Real men support women rather than take advantage of them. Real men don’t threaten or cajole. Real men don’t use positions of authority to convince women to have sex with them. Real men don’t call women “bitch,” “whore,” or “slut.”  Real men understand that women have the right to maintain control of their bodies at all times.

We fully and unapologetically condemn the entire neomasculinity movement and the rape culture it perpetuates. We condemn RooshV and anyone who agrees with his dangerous and quite likely criminal methods and intentions. The time has come for real men to join women in their stance against reduced sentences and plea agreements that diminish the severity of sexual assault against women.

Rape is not masculine; never has been, never will be. Rape is a crime not just against women but against all humanity.  Stop making excuses.

 

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Bookstores And Dreaming: A Natural Combination
February 3, 2016
charles i. letbetter - bookstores and dreaming

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.—Jerry Seinfeld

 

charles i. letbetter - bookstores and dreams: a natural combination

Bookstores do so much to stoke our imaginations that our dreams cannot help but be influenced by what we see there

This past summer, I was downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee with two of my sons enjoying Moon Pies and Coca-Cola when we came across a store they hadn’t visited before. The storefront was unassuming, a simple black on yellow sign giving the name of the store but not really indicating its contents. From the opposite side of the street, glare prevented seeing through the plate glass window, so we chose to investigate.

Walking through the door, our senses were immediately overwhelmed. Books lined hand-made shelves from one end of the store to the other. Not just new books, either. Beautiful, old, brown-at-the-edges books that had been loved and read for years upon years were there, some dating back to the very first part of the 20th century. My boys are equally avid readers as their parents and quickly took to exploring everything they could find in the stacks. There were books they’d never known were available. Books that were so far out of print that even digital reprints can’t be had. Every genre one could imagine, at every reading level, was right there, waiting to be explored, to be loved, and perhaps to be taken home. Had common sense not prevailed, we might have gone broke.

Bookstores were once a staple of Western culture, a part of life that was critical to society. Having a bookstore meant a town had vision to look beyond itself. Having more than one bookstore meant the city was open to ideas and fostered intellectual pondering. Bookstores were part of a neighborhood identity and their contents gave as clear a demographic picture as any census or survey. Bookstores were heaven.

Then came the mega stores, Borders and Barnes & Noble, that forced the small mom-and-pop stores out of business. We griped. We complained. But the new stores had coffee and would let us sit and browse for hours without actually making a purchase, so we still shopped there.

Along came the Internet and a man named Jeff Bezos introduced us to this thing called Amazon.com and the entire business of bookselling changed. There were easy comparisons. There were ready reviews. There were lower prices; sometimes significantly lower. Slowly but surely, even the biggest brick and mortar bookstores began to close or severely downsize. While bookstores still exist, they’re much more difficult to find.

Yesterday, a mall real estate developer, Sandeep Mathran, said during a corporate earnings call that Amazon, that giant online retailer that drove everyone else out of business, is going to open between 300-400 new brick-and-mortar bookstores. The Internet lost its collective mind. Yes, we understand the irony. At the same time, though, the romantic thought of 400 new bookstores dotting the country got everyone very excited.

Since that initial statement was released, there has been speculation that Mr. Mathran may have been trying to paint a picture for investors that is less than accurate. Amazon has refused to confirm or deny Mathran’s statement and persons close to the company say the move doesn’t make financial sense for the retailer. So, don’t go planning those browsing trips just yet.

Still, we like to dream and nothing fuels dreams any faster than do bookstores. While shopping online might be more cost effective and give us access to a wider range of books, nothing beats wandering the aisles of a bookstore and finding titles and authors we would not have considered otherwise. Bookstore shopping is very different than online book shopping. When we shop online, we are typically looking for something specific, either in terms of subject or author. We might, occasionally, click on the automated recommendations of the website, but we go to the site with a fair idea of what we want to buy.

When we shop in a bookstore, however, we allow ourselves the option to browse. We might go in looking for a specific book, but then we stay and look at different genres, explore different interests, and allow ourselves to be swept away by all the possibilities. Instead of leaving with just one book, we are more likely to walk out the door with multiples.

As much as I like bookstores, I will admit that I frequently do shop Amazon. Not only do I shop on Amazon, I sell on Amazon. You can buy all my books, including the one in the pictures above, by clicking this link. One of the great advantages of Amazon is it that they have the ability to sell print-on-demand titles that a bookstore would not be able to stock. Where I would never be able to convince Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million to carry my tomes, Amazon is eager to cooperate.

I love bookstores and can get lost spending hours wandering the stacks. I would not complain at all if Amazon were to actually open several brick-and-mortar stores (though 400 does sound unreasonably aggressive). Bookstores and dreaming are a natural combination and I don’t know any creative person who doesn’t like to dream. We’ll wait and see what happens. Should Amazon open a store near me, though, don’t expect to find me online too often. I’ll be somewhere midst all the shelves, indulging in dreams.

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Dance With Your Own Shadow
February 2, 2016
charles i. letbetter - dance with your own shadow

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

charles i. letbetter - dance with your own shadow

Our challenge today is that we expect too much of others while expecting too little of ourselves

It is still dark as I’m writing this, but already hundreds of reporters and photographers are gathered in Pennsylvania for the weather prognostications of Punxsutawney Phil. The 130-year-old tradition, much like last night’s Iowa caucuses, has little to do with the actual outcome, but the tradition is one we can’t seem to break and, for a day, we are distracted by a myth that something might actually change. In our minds, we know both events are heavy on hype and short on substance. There’s a blizzard moving into the Northern sections of the Midwest, and powerful thunderstorms, some possibly with tornadic activity, will hit the opposite side of that system and move Eastward. Being in Pennsylvania, Phil could actually see his shadow, supposedly indicating six more weeks of winter but that won’t stop the storms from coming. We expect too much from a groundhog.

We are the same way with our politicians. None of last night’s results produced a clear winner. On the very crowded Republican side, no one achieved even a third of the overall vote. As I’m writing, most news outlets are saying the Democrat side is still too close to call, so again, no clear winner, no one standing above all the others. We know the system is broken. We know little, if anything, said on the campaign trail will ever evolve into reality. Yet, we buy into the rhetoric and hyperbole of a presidential campaign just as surely as we do the shadow of a chubby little groundhog.

I firmly believe that the measure of a person is not in the size of their stature nor the poetry of their speech but in the length of the shadow they cast. There is an overabundance of people who stand tall and talk big but whose actions fall quite short at their feet. Interestingly enough, a great number of those people are politicians. Talk is cheap on the campaign trail and it is easy to be boisterous and make promises that are popular with the electorate. What one discovers after being elected, however, is that moving a nation is as complex and slow and difficult as trying to move the Rocky Mountains from Colorado to Florida. To pin all our hopes and dreams on one personality is about as foolish as making picnic plans based on the predictions of a Pennsylvania rodent.

Change comes from those who cast a long shadow. To know who casts the longer shadow, pay attention to where they stand in relation to the light. Have you ever noticed what happens to a shadow at high noon? It’s almost non-existent. Those standing directly under the spotlight, those who seem to glow with the radiance of illumination, cast very little shadow and affect very little change. They are too concerned with keeping the light on themselves and do so by saying what pleases the ears of those listening. Those who stand at an angle from the light, those who buck the system, those who claw their way through red tape, those who spend more time doing rather than talking, those are the people who cast the long shadows, those are the people who get results.

To that end, who best to rely upon to create change, to get work done, to clean up the mess and change the system than ourselves. We are not powerless, and we certainly are not brainless (with a few questionable exceptions). There is much one can do through invention, creativity, and more often than not, good ol’ hard work. If the banking system is no longer meeting the needs of the people, let’s create a new system of money management that better addresses contemporary realities. If global corporations truly cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of their customers (and they can’t) then you have the ability to work around them, create a local cooperative if necessary to achieve the same service in a more responsible manner. If you don’t like how a coffee shop brews their coffee, do as I do: buy a french press, buy and grind your own beans, heat your own water to 150°, and make your own coffee (it really is much better this way). Dance with your own shadow.

You are the one who has the power. You have two incredibly strong weapons: your wallet and your vote. Don’t let anyone tell you that your voice doesn’t matter; people who say that are cowards who would rather complain about the system than contribute to its overhaul. You can do great things. So can the person next to you. Working together, we are invincible.

Yes, we need a strong, central government and we need strong people who can cast a long shadow running that government. Make no mistake, though, when it comes to real progress and creating genuine change, the shadow that makes the most difference is your own.

 

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Living Is Frightening
February 1, 2016
charles i. letbetter - living is frightening

We are always getting ready to live but never living. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

charles i. letbetter - living is frightening

Plenty of events make living a frightening proposition. Whether to hide or stand is up to you.

One of the first things to greet me this morning, besides three very hungry cats, was this story from the Associated Press about Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram burning a village, killing 86 people including children. A survivor, hiding in a tree, said he could hear the children screaming as they died in the flames. A triple bombing claimed by Daesh killed 45 in Damascus.

Business Insider reports that nine US citizens are among 33 people being held by Saudi Arabia on terrorism charges. There are no fewer than five different stories this morning detailing the precarious state of the global economy, especially in China where people are beginning to sneak large amounts of cash out of the country. Britain’s largest lender has imposed a hiring and pay freeze amid economic concerns. Tensions between China and the US continue to mount in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, everyone living in the Midwest is bracing for severe storms that threaten blizzards in the North and West and severe thunderstorms in the South and East. At the same time, all eyes are on Iowa today as people there caucus in the first official act of the 2016 presidential election. The outcome of today’s vote could seriously impact who is still running tomorrow.

No one ever said that living is easy; we don’t expect it to be so. At the same time, however, no one told us that living was going to be so incredibly frightening. Even as I’m sitting here writing, Kat read to me a story of a man who, fearing that there might be a shooter at the movie theater, carried his own weapon to the show, whereupon he accidentally shot another person in the shoulder. Even when fleeing our fears, living is fraught with danger.

Add to everything else the fact that this is a Monday and one might question whether it is even safe to get out of bed.

All my life, and probably all of yours, we have been told we should be living our lives to the fullest. While that platitude sounds good, how we define a “full” life is a matter of great subjectivity and the nature of one’s pursuit of that “full” life can introduce one to some rather severe circumstances threatening your very existence, not to mention severely diminishing how “full” one’s state of living might be.

For example, I know some truly wonderful, giving people who have dedicated their lives to helping better the living conditions of people in third world countries. While the lack of basic resources makes those situations difficult, they feel their lives are fulfilled in helping others. What we’ve seen in recent years, however, is that terrorist groups, specifically Boko Haram, targeting NGOs and aid workers with bombs and brutal killings. Terrorists are only able to control out of fear and the preventing anyone from providing help or assistance keeps that fear level high. Just wanting to help people can make one a target.

Even people who are simply trying to eke out a modest living and prepare for old age with moderate investments have reason to fear. China arrested 21 people in a $7.6 billion Ponzi scheme this morning. US investors, again mostly individuals saving for retirement, have been victims of similar schemes as well, such as the Bernie Madoff scheme uncovered a couple of years ago.

I realize that this is typically the point in the article where I’m supposed to offer encouragement, give a “go-get-em” conclusion that encourages everyone to stand up, take the bull by the horns, stare down the serpent, and claim dominance over one’s life. I’m not going to do that this morning, though, because it’s just not realistic. There are things in and around our lives which we legitimately need to fear. Everything does not work out for good. Life is not a bowl of cherries nor a box of chocolates. Sorry, but sometimes all we get is a box of rocks.

Yes, we need to respond to life’s dangers with determination and aggressive action. Cowering in a corner doesn’t help matters at all. But it’s difficult to stand up and face an enemy one can’t see coming, and for many of the dangers we face there’s no advance warning system. When one gets on an airplane, there can be no absolute guarantee that it won’t blow up somewhere over Michigan. While the odds are in your favor, the danger is still there and there’s not a lot, if anything, one can do to prevent whatever is going to happen. Winter storm Kayla? Yeah, go ahead and “stand up” to that blizzard. Buy all the milk and bread. That won’t stop the snow and the wind.

Living is frightening. Dangers are real. The best I can offer is to be your friend as we face the challenges together. Maybe we’ll make it, maybe we won’t. Either way, know that we’ll always be for you.

Good luck, and good living.

 

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Sleeping Through Sunday
January 31, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sleeping through sunday

I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.—Mark Twain

 

charles i. letbetter - sleeping through sunday

None of us are sleeping as much as we should. Going back to bed may be the healthiest thing you do

I would dearly love to be sleeping right now, truly I would. Unfortunately, my body has conditioned itself to wake up at this ungodly hour, while everyone else is still sleeping, so that I can actually get some work done before the world starts getting noisy. As a result, to sleep even past 6:00 AM is a luxury rarely afforded these days. I’m not the only one, though. For the past four years, doctors have been warning that we’re not sleeping enough. Cases of insomnia are on the rise. Sure, there are sleeping pills that help some, but those also bring the chance of abuse and, in some cases, addiction. The problem isn’t just limited to the US, either. The whole world is having trouble sleeping.

What causes us to have so much trouble falling asleep and staying that way? There are a number of issues, of course, but the three most common to our contemporary first-world lifestyles are:

  1. Lack of proper diet and exercise
  2. Worrying about events we cannot control
  3. Looking at our smartphones in bed

That third one, of course, is new, and largely limited to people in industrialized nations. In places where 24-hour wifi isn’t quite so prevalent, concerns over personal/family safety take the third spot, which is certainly understandable. In the US, especially, we have a problem putting down our phones even to sleep. Whether it’s playing some silly game, browsing the latest cat memes, or actually reading something worthwhile, we rarely turn off our phones. Making matters worse, recent studies indicate that the light emitted by our phones is bright enough that our brains mistake it for daylight so that the little trigger telling us to go to sleep gets turned off.

Such insomnia is not totally new. Throughout the twentieth century, there were plenty of things keeping our parents and grandparents awake at night. In the early part of that century, we feared becoming involved in a European war, so much so that we were almost too late to help, Then came the Great Depression and I’m not sure anyone slept much. Homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and hunger all have a way of keeping a person up at night. Then, from 1936 on, the threat of a second European war became a worry and those who remembered the first one were especially sleepless. The 1940s were a decade of war and no one sleeps well through that. Troops were back home for most of the 1950s, but the Cold War set in hard and the Red Scare had Americans wondering whether their neighbors and co-workers might be communists. Air raid drills were common in schools, making sure children didn’t sleep well, either.

By the 1960s, parents worried about war in Southeast Asia, violence around the growing Civil Rights movement, and an exploding drug problem. 1972 crushed our faith in government. 1974 introduced us to the worries of inflation. By 1979, we looked at the Middle East as our newest enemy and worried how to keep them in check. Fear of nuclear annihilation reached its peak in the 80s and we responded to any and every threat by attempting to outlaw it, sending more people to jail than the prison system could handle, most for non-violent offenses. By the 90s economics were again a major fear and this thing called the Internet threatened to change the very fabric of our society.

Society is too complex for us to not find things to worry about. My current personal list of immediate concerns is about 20 items deep, and that’s with me trying to be positive. I refuse to be pollyannish and say everything’s going to be alright. The fact that we’re not sleeping like we should is itself a warning that no, everything may yet go to hell in a handbasket.

So, why are we not sleeping through Sundays, every Sunday? I challenged my father on the topic more than once. If one is going to actually believe Old Testament mythology regarding creation, then one has to deal with the notion that, after six days of work, God rested. Throughout the Old Testament, he seemed rather adamant about that whole resting thing and to this day devout Jews struggle with the juxtaposition of secular demands to do things and their religious commandment to not do things on the Sabbath. Spending all day at church seems to me, still, as just as much a violation of that command as if one were working. One does not rest at church, at least, you’re not supposed to actually sleep through the whole thing. My father was never amused, nor moved, by that argument, though.

To me, it just makes good sense. Our bodies, and our minds, need a break. We fill our lives with so very much the other six days, we need a respite to allow our bodies to catch up, re-energize, and recuperate. We need scheduled time to laugh, to read fiction, to have pleasant conversations, to enjoy non-stressed company of friends who don’t care if the house is clean, to ponder, to appreciate. More than anything, we need to be sleeping.

Go back to bed. Chores can wait. Ducktape kids to the wall if necessary. You should be sleeping. Get to it.

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When Nipples Offend
January 30, 2016

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.—George Bernard Shaw

 

charles i. letbetter when nipples offend

Policies suggesting that women’s nipples are offensive and men’s do not suggest God and/or evolution made a mistake

I’m rather surprised that I would have cause to visit this topic more than once in a week. Just a couple of days ago, we posted a video from the New York Times and talked about whether efforts by #FreeTheNipple and HeForShe were doing any good. While both are doing a wonderful job of raising awareness, which is a good start, the pace of change in painfully slow in the face of antiquated, hypocritical, and misogynistic moralities.

Just how heavy-handed some entities are become very apparent yesterday when Russian model Irina Shayk shared a collection of images from her recent Givenchy campaign. She appears in the ads with male model Chris Moore. Ms. Shayk is nude, Mr. Moore is topless, but their torsos are pressed together seductively so that nothing is actually showing. At least, that was the intention. Apparently, the fascists at Instagram get their jollies pulling out their magnifying glass and inspecting every little detail of a photo, because they managed to find just the hint of Irina’s nipple in the shadows and took down the photo.

Now, everyone who has half a brain is well aware that the censors at Instagram base their policies on a 13th-century morality that equates female nudity with the very devil him/herself while totally excusing men who do the same. This particular instance, however, is especially egregious as someone has to really get up close and wayyyyy to personal to even notice the hint of areola that can be found in the shadow of this photo. Here, look for yourself:

charles i. letbetter - when nipples offend

Givenchy

At this point, I fail to understand why anyone uses Instagram for anything more than photos of their cat and what was regurgitated from dinner. Sure, I have an account, but there are more pictures of cats and food there than people. I especially fail to understand why Tommy Hilfiger is putting in a separate Instagram pit at his Fall/Winter runway show and Burberry has chosen 16-year-old Brooklyn Beckham to shoot its new fragrance campaign, live on Instagram. Not only do both acts offend legitimate photographers everywhere, but they further endorse the sort of idiotic policies that Instagram uses to continue their inequality toward women!

Meanwhile, someone shoved pop artist Rita Ora in front of the lens of Terry Richardson, who has had more accusations of sexual misbehavior than Bill Cosby, but yet someone keeps letting him take pictures of naked women. Why, I fail to understand. Bill Cosby has been shamed into perpetual hiding, but not only does Richardson roam free, publishers keep hiring the creep! Exactly how this all is supposed to make sense, I don’t know. Richardson’s name alone has the power to offend, and perhaps that’s his schtick.

Of course, the photos themselves are, true to Richardson’s form, quite horrid. Again, don’t take my word for it. Look for yourself:

charles i. letbetter - when nipples offend

Pardon me while I yawn

Not surprisingly, there was pushback yesterday when these pictures became public. Some of the criticism was to be expected, given that the music industry as a whole seems to be in this rut of one artist disparaging another. However, I found it interesting that the Telegraph‘s left-leaning Rebecca Reid, who has supported nudes in the past, totally went off on Ora, calling her topless photos, “A slap in the face of women everywhere.” The points she makes, essentially claiming that Ora’s stunt objectifies women rather than celebrating and supporting them, are valid though the examples she uses are a little shaky. Rita’s appearance in the mag is only to promote her new album, not to express some greater sentiment or value.

And Terry Richardson’s bad photography just makes the whole thing trashy.

Let’s face it: our whole attitude toward nipples and breasts and body parts, in general, is skewed. We can’t have one standard for men and a totally opposite one for women. If you don’t think that approach is wrong, then you might be a degenerate misogynist in need of an attitude adjustment.

And through all this one thing seems frightfully obvious: I need to be shooting more nudes and offend more people. Apparently that’s all anyone notices any more.

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Music  /  PotD  /  science
History and Hashtags
January 27, 2016
charles i. letbetter - history and hashtags

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.—John F. Kennedy

 

charles i. letbetter - history and hashtags

Today may be one of our greatest achievements or more devastating disasters; which is totally up to us

27 January is one of those dates that history just seems to like. Events of note, people whose lives are noteworthy, have connections to this date in a volume that exceeds the norm and causes us to sit up and take notice. One day can make a difference, a big one, and much of that comes down to the actions or decisions of one person. Here’s a partial list of historical events that happened on this date, concatenated from the Associated Press:

  • In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.
  • In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
  • In 1901, opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy, at age 87.
  • In 1913, the musical play “The Isle O’ Dreams” opened in New York; it featured the song “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” by Ernest R. Ball, Chauncey Olcott and George Graff Jr.
  • In 1944, during World War II, the Soviet Union announced the complete end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for more than two years.
  • In 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
  • In 1965, “Up the Down Staircase,” Bel Kaufman’s novel about a young, idealistic teacher at a New York inner-city school, was published by Prentice-Hall.
  • In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.
  • Ten years ago: Salzburg, Austria, held an exuberant 250th birthday party for its native son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Western Union delivered its last telegram. The first inhalable version of insulin, Exubera, won federal approval.

Understanding this is just a partial list and realizing how broad a representation of life it represents, perhaps we might find some encouragement in making a little extra effort to make this 17 January yet another day of note. To that end, the hashtag #LetsMakeTodayBetterBy has been trending since yesterday afternoon. While celebrating the great lives and events of history is important, equally necessary is that we make the effort for today to become one of those days that history remembers.

Granted, not everything for which today might be known would be obvious at first. Who can foretell which of the hundreds of thousands of new lives born today will grow up to excel in ways we currently cannot imagine. Inventions that might seem overly simple or unimportant when first unveiled may prove to dramatically change all our lives. Yet, without our making an effort to improve today, and the future, this just becomes another day where history yawns and keeps on going.

How can you make today better? Here are some of the things that have been mentioned so far:

As I’m writing, there are over 66,000 suggestions for how to make today better. Naturally, some of them are self-serving and more than a few relate to specific events that, for geographic reasons, are not necessarily available to everyone. Still, by making a deliberate effort to make today better, we all increase the chances that this will be another 27 January for the history books. The future history is up to you.

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PotD
The Virtue of Silence
January 26, 2016
charles i. letbetter - virtue of silence

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.—Khalil Gibran

 

 

charles i. letbetter - virtue of silence

In silence we hear the whispers of wisdom

Among the list of people whom I can no longer find, and may well be deceased, is an associate professor of music by the name of Robert Woods. Dr. Woods was a rather unassuming individual from my student perspective, but in January of 1982, while teaching a course in electronic music, he taught us a very valuable lesson about the importance of silence. His assignment sounded simple enough: find a place with absolute silence, and see how long you can stand it. Being cocky college students, we laughed. It was J-term and the campus was more than half empty. Finding a quiet spot would be easy.

But Dr. Woods didn’t say find a quiet spot. His instructions were to find a place absolutely void of sound and when class convened the next day we shared our stories of just how difficult it had been to complete the assignment. So difficult, in fact, that I was the only one who had actually found a place of complete silence: the morgue.

I worked part time in a funeral home. After everyone else had left for the evening, I went into the empty embalming room, which was totally sealed, and shut the door. The experience might have been eery had I not been accustomed to being in the room. There was nothing in there that would make a sound without human intervention, or so I thought. As I settled in on a stool, I soon realized that the fluorescent bulbs were humming. One wouldn’t have noticed under normal conditions, but when all other distractions were removed, there it was: a low but distinct hum. There was only one thing to do: turn off the lights.

Yes, sitting along in a sealed embalming room in the dark is eery. Worse than the dark, though, was the complete silence. Not a sound. I not only could hear my own breathing, but my heart beat sounded louder the longer I sat there. I’d shift my weight on the stool and the shuffle of my slacks against the metal was loud. I cracked my knuckles and it sounded like fireworks. With its ceramic tile floor and walls, the acoustics of the room amplified any sound, but the only sound was that of me, being alive. I stayed for what felt like an eternity then felt my way along the wall back to the door. I had been in the room a mere four minutes.

Dr. Woods’ point had been that silence is a necessary part of music and he wanted us to experience silence so we would appreciate the presence of rests amidst a flurry of sound. Music, he explained, finds its life not in the cacophony of notes and sounds as we might layer them together, but in those brief moments of silence, the rests, especially when unexpected, that allow us to catch our breath.

I can’t say I learned a great deal from the remainder of that class. Electronic music was still finding its roots and our resources, which had been borrowed, were painfully limited. Dr. Woods soon left for a teaching position at a university that appreciated his forward thinking and we went on to do other things that had no relationship to our degrees. What stuck, though, was that very important lesson in the virtue of silence.

Life since that moment in 1982 has only gotten increasingly louder. The reason I get up at 4:00 AM every morning to write these articles is because, in relative silence I can think, put words in order, consider what phrasing best communicates an idea, and pull together stories that are, hopefully, worth reading. Outside this morning, the wind is literally howling and the heater is struggling to keep our house warm, but in the absence of children laughing, music playing, or the whole world trying to talk at the same time, there is a peacefulness that gives life amidst the cacophony.

One of the reasons I so dislike presidential election years is the amount of overwhelming noise they generate. Every candidate, especially at this point of the approaching primaries, is shouting as loud as they can, trying to shove their message through the eye of the needle that is our attention span. Add to that all the sports, not just the impending Super Bowl, but all the cricket and the soccer and the basketball going on around the world. There are ads, and movies, and trailers, and … I think someone has a field trip today but I don’t remember which child. Then, there’s laundry and dishes and I suppose I should plan something for dinner because people do need to eat every once in a while. Pictures to schedule and take and edit. Conversations about books and an upcoming deadline and no I’ve not even started that outline. Did I remember to order underwear? I hope so, because I don’t have time to go out and buy more. Rumors that Sarah Burton is leaving Alexander McQueen and going to Dior, are they true? Men’s fashion in Paris, then couture, then, SHOWTIME, a month of ready-to-wear. And …

So. Much. Noise.

Learning the virtuosity of silence doesn’t happen by accident. Too many people ignore the rest signs. We need those quiet places; in our lives, in our thoughts, in our schedules, in our creativity. We  need space to take a breath so that we don’t choke on our own lifelong diatribes.

May you find that moment, if not now, soon, where you can experience the virtue of silence. May you find Peace. And thank you, Dr. Woods, wherever you are.

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PotD
#MondayMotivation
January 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - #MondayMotivation

The older you get, the more fragile you understand life to be. I think that’s good motivation for getting out of bed joyfully each day.—Julia Roberts

 

charles i. letbetter - #MondayMotivation

Does a positive attitude really increase our life span? Does it hurt to try?

Another week is starting and if ever there were a time the hashtag #MondayMotivation was necessary, this would be it. Getting out of bed was rough; there’s rain coming in today and my arthritis has my hands hurting to the point that every letter I type is painful. I can use a little encouragement to get through the next several hours. There’s too much to do to stay in bed.

More than just getting out of bed in a timely manner, though, I’m trying an experiment this morning. It may run a day, or a few hours, or all week. I went to the death clock yesterday for amusement (yeah, I’m that weird) and noticed something interesting. Of all the variants that might make a difference in my longevity, attitude played the biggest role. If I leave all the settings at their default, which is what I’m inclined to do, the death clock has me kicking the bucket at age 73, which is less than 20 years from now. I’m not especially happy with that outcome. However, if I change the “mode” or attitude to “optimistic” the calculator has me living to the ripe old age of 93. Twenty years difference in longevity simply based on attitude. Now there’s some #MondayMotivation for you.

Of course, the calculator is meant for entertainment purposes only and while there’s some lightweight science behind their use of the BMI index, it certainly shouldn’t be taken too terribly seriously. Things happen that we can’t predict. Still, it got me thinking that it probably would make everyone’s life a bit more pleasant if I made more of an effort to be just a touch more optimistic in my attitude, and that certainly applies to how I feel about Mondays. This is rarely my favorite days, and for me, Tuesdays are often worse.

However, none of that replaces the fact that the joints in my fingers are screaming at me this morning. So, rather than type a lot of motivational platitudes at you, I’m going to borrow some from Twitter, which conveniently stores all the #MondayMotivation things in one place. These are totally random, but hopefully they at least give you reason to smile a bit.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Avoiding Bad Blizzard Sex
January 24, 2016
charles i. letbetter - avoiding bad blizzard sex

My favorite thing of all time is a New York City weekend when there’s a blizzard. Everything gets really quiet, and everyone goes to the movies and the park.—Idina Menzel

 

charles i. letbetter - avoiding bad blizzard sex

Stop and think: do you really want to be handcuffed to that person if the power goes out?

This has been a crazy weekend, has it not? New York is reporting 26.8 inches of snow, officially; the second largest snowfall since 1869. The #JonasBlizzard logged the most snow ever in Baltimore, second heaviest at Dulles International Airport. In keeping with tradition, no one knows exactly how much snow fell in Washington, D.C., because they’re still arguing over how to measure the white stuff. The good news is that at least the snow has stopped falling. The bad news is that now comes the problem of getting rid of the frozen wonderland. Flooding has already started in New Jersey and several other areas. It could still be several days before the majority of roads are passable and people’s lives are back to normal.

Of course, as Idina mentions above, a little snow doesn’t stop New Yorkers. By the time you’re reading this, New York’s travel ban should be lifted and people will be getting out, making their way to Central Park, and trying to make the best of the situation. Aged rock star Steven Tyler even found a CNN live report to bomb, which may actually be one of the most interesting things to happen in the past 24 hours.

One of the biggest challenges now is avoiding bad sex and keeping yourself from participating in the seemingly inevitable spike in births currently scheduled for late September. Sure, I know we told you to make new friends to help keep you warm, but do you really want these people to hang around all summer, smelling things up, putting their stinky feet on your coffee table, and taking over your life in ways you never imagined? No, of course you don’t. The last thing you want is to encourage your blizzard buddies to linger by having sex with them. Even worse, you definitely don’t want to have bad sex with them and chances are high that any sex you would have at this juncture would not be the best ever. Let’s not make this blizzard any more of a disaster than it already is, okay?

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back, metaphorically speaking. Here are some tips you can use to avoid having bad blizzard sex.

  1. Don’t. Just don’t. For the love of warm bagels and cream cheese, show some restraint for once why don’t you? Do you really want to risk going into the fall with a newborn, or a partner that acts like one? Having sex with someone you didn’t know well before the blizzard destroys any chance for you to have a long and meaningful friendship. Two days in the snow is not enough time for you to really get to know each other, no matter how many secrets you spilled after you were three beers into Friday night. Don’t go there. Don’t. Stop it. Don’t even entertain the idea.
  2. Stay ready for further emergencies. Just because the snow has stopped falling doesn’t mean the worst of this blizzard is over. There will be flooding. Power outages may still happen. You might need to evacuate quickly and without warning. Stop and think for a minute: do you really want to be handcuffed to that person if the power goes out? Would you want first responders breaking down your door and finding you struggling to get back into your footed pajamas? No, that isn’t a risk you dare take. You must remain alert and vigilant until your guest(s) leaves.
  3. Keep all your adult toys well hidden. Despite the weel-long warnings that this was going to be a “blizzard for the ages,” no one really prepared for the thing until late Thursday afternoon. You may not have picked up your stray friend until Friday. Nothing says bad sex like someone discovering your box of sexual indulgences and asking, “What are these?” Even worse is the question, “Can you show me how these work?” Now is not the time for you to take up teaching remedial sex education. Should your temporary body heat buddy come across your stash, pretend they were left by a former roommate and then, for added measure, suggest they could be covered with some STI. That should keep you safe.
  4. Use Netflix to determine their sexual maturity. This one might be a bit complicated for some of you, so pay attention. From within Netflix, enter category number 1402, which takes you to Late Night Comedies. Be sure, there is nothing here that is socially redeemable or actually funny. These are disastrous films made for adolescent minds. So, as you’re scrolling through the list, should your would-be partner give any indication that they’ve not only seen but actually enjoyed any of these movies, you definitely don’t want to have sex with them. If you are unsure, start one of the movies. If they giggle at the first sight of bare boobs, you know you’re in trouble. Kick them out into the snow. Now.
  5. Go for a walk in the snow.  This is the real reason you find all those people in Central Park after the city gets socked in. You’ve been cooped up with this person (or these people) since Thursday or Friday. Your decision-making ability is not as strong as it should be. Get out, taking a walk, cool down. The cold air will help you snap to your senses and remind you of all the things that could go wrong if you have sex with this person. Can they even tell the difference between a tube of lube and a tube of toothpaste? What would happen if you had to introduce this person to your mother? Walking in the snow is great for clearing your head, and if you’re lucky maybe the dimwit will get lost in a snowbank and you won’t need to worry any further.

Hopefully, that is enough to engage your creative juices, as opposed to those associated with adult copulation. Obviously, if you are sequestered with someone you already love and cherish, nothing here applies. We still encourage restraint unless you really want a September baby. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your Ob/Gyn will have a half-price sale due to all the volume. One thing for sure, though, is that sex with someone you just brought in from the cold is definitely not going to be good. What happens in your fantasies doesn’t exist in real life.

Perhaps it’s time to warm up another frozen pizza. Good luck.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Everything Eventually Becomes Trivia
January 23, 2016
charles i. letbetter -everything becomes trivia

I think democracy’s undermined when those who own newspapers fill them with trivia rather than real issues.—Ken Livingstone

 

charles i. letbetter - everything is trivia

As increasing amounts of information are thrust at us, even the things we enjoy risks becoming trivia

News, valid information that people need to know, too easily becomes trivia in our world. I look through the headlines this morning and struggle to choose a topic that is appropriate for this space. It’s not that there isn’t plenty to talk about, but sometimes the volume becomes so much that each additional voice begins to mute the whole.

Granted, I could keep talking about the #Snowmaggedon that is plaguing the East coast. I do genuinely feel sympathetic toward the people who live there. However, to write about an event like that when one is not actually experiencing it at the moment risks turning the whole story into trivia. Our eyes become tired of seeing the subject in headline after headline. We begin to assume that we’ve already consumed all the important information and ignore the rest.

At the same time, because of the sheer volume of information flooding the pipeline, there are a number of stories that become trivial simply because they don’t stand out enough to grab our attention. These stories fall under the category of, “oh yeah, this happened, too, but no one really noticed.” In newspaper terms, it becomes page six fodder. No one reads page six.

So, as I’m going through the headlines this morning, let me share with you some stories that you might have missed but that are probably more important than we realize. I’ll just give you a synopsis and then a link to the full article. These deserve to not be relegated to trivia.

Hidden peanut connection kills Minnesota man. If you’ve ever been around anyone with a peanut allergy, you know how crazy careful they are not only about not eating peanuts themselves, but staying away from anything that has come into contact with peanuts. Peanut allergies are one of those against which the body has limited immunity. Each negative reaction takes away from that immunity and when it’s gone, there’s no replacing it. This young man was being careful, but ate a chocolate from a manufacturer who also processes peanut candies. While none of the chocolates in the box contained peanuts, and he had eaten other chocolates from that box without a problem, the one he grabbed that morning was enough to kill him. Read the story here.

The global refugee crisis hasn’t stopped. One of the dangers of this election year is that when an issue stops being the talking point of the moment, it is promptly forgotten. A couple of weeks ago, the refugee crisis had everyone’s attention, mostly because no one in the US wanted to actually deal with the situation. Now that our political attention is literally stuck in the snow, we’ve stopped talking about the continuing waves of people flooding Greece so heavily that the EU is seriously considering, get this, building a fence around Greece to keep refugees from entering mainland Europe. People are dying on a daily basis. The humanitarian crisis is more severe than ever. What we treat like trivia now will come back to haunt us. Here’s the story from the Washington Post.

There is a superbug waiting to kill you. Getting competing drug manufacturers to agree on anything, especially government involvement, is nearly impossible but that is exactly what happened yesterday. 83 companies, including Pfizer and Merck, signed a declaration urging governments around the world to take action in combating drug-resistant infections. The bug that has them most concerned at the moment is called MCR-1. The bug was found in China late last year and has since popped up in Denmark as well. There is no existing drug to combat it and the potential fatality rate makes last year’s Ebola scare look like a tea party. You know it’s serious when drug makers are asking governments for help. Read up on the matter here.

China is still a horrible totalitarian regime. As trade relations with China have normalized over the past few years, we tend to forget that the Chinese government still has one of the worst records on human rights in the world. Recently, they’ve been rounding up dissidents and human rights attorneys and charging them with “subversion of state power.” People continue to disappear off the streets, and the crackdown isn’t limited to Chinese nationals. A Swedish citizen employed by a human rights NGO has been arrested as well. We have to ask ourselves whether the cheap electronics and fashion knockoffs are worth turning a blind eye to this tragedy. The Wall Street Journal has the story. 

Skin cancer is five times more deadly when you’re pregnant. Melanoma is a personal issue for me because my father died of complications from melanoma, even after doctors initially said he had a 95% chance of beating it. Now, a study published this week shows that when melanoma is found in pregnant women, or within a year of pregnancy, they are five times more likely to die. Understand, this isn’t in older women, this is among women under the age of 50, women who are still very much in their childbearing years, women who, under more normal conditions, shouldn’t have to worry about the disease for another 20 years or so. The test group was small, but the results were strong enough to be frightening. Read the story here and then, if you’re pregnant, talk to your doctor.

I’m stopping there because my intent is not to totally depress everyone, but to emphasize just how much information, news we really need, is being missed, relegated to the trivia bin of social media’s short attention span. I understand, sometimes the glut of “bad” news is so heavy that we have to turn it off for a while to prevent our own plunge into depression. The world is not hopeless, though. The more you know, the better equipped you are to do something. Watch labels. Talk to your doctor. Avoid certain Chinese imports. You don’t have to be radical to make a difference. We just need to be aware.

And if you were expecting a trivia game from me this morning, I’m sorry. Maybe we’ll do something fun tomorrow.

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PotD
Snow Survival Essentials
January 22, 2016
charles i. letbetter - snow survival

Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.—Bill Watterson

 

charles i. letbetter - snow survival essentials

Winter Masquerade (2012) was a delightful romp in the snow. It can be done.

Those of us sitting here in the heart of the Midwest are feeling rather pleased this morning. Sure, it’s cold, as it always is in January, but this year we’ve gotten off lucky. There is, at most, maybe two-and-a-half inches of snow on the ground with no more in the immediate forecast. By most any comparison, this is proving to be a delightfully mild winter and that makes us very happy.

Our friends along the East coast, from Virginia to Massachusets, are bracing for a blizzard this afternoon that could dump two to three feet worth of snow on them. Boston, of course, home of the everlasting winter, knows how to handle an event like this. After last year’s great snow-in, this storm is practically a cake walk. For our nation’s capitol, though, this snow is an Armageddon. The mayor of Washington D.C. has closed city schools and offices at noon, and is encouraging businesses around the city to do the same. Even underground transit will be closed by Saturday.

Federal offices are closed as well, which is great for all the government employees who actually get things done. Be sure that all the hot air, otherwise known as Congress, has already left the city, which may be one reason so much snow is in the forecast. In a way, though, D.C.’s tragedy is a great advantage for the rest of the country in that, the longer Congress stays away, the longer they can’t do something stupid, like attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the 50 gazillionth time. From that perspective, the rest of the country wouldn’t really mind if the city stayed socked in until Spring. Sorry, D.C.

Since we have so very much experience with piles upon piles of snow, I thought this might be a good time to share some of our expertise with those who are about to experience one of nature’s most amazing displays of power. You really have no defense against a storm like this, so it is better to make some last-minute adjustments this morning so you’ll be able to survive until Monday. Not this coming Monday, mind you. We’re thinking the third Monday in April if you’re lucky. Here is our list of essentials.

  1. Rush to the store and buy everything. It doesn’t really matter how much food you already have, you must go buy more. Buy anything edible, just in case it doesn’t stop snowing and this is the beginning of the next ice age and you’ll never see your friends and family unthawed again. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t have enough room in your refrigerator. When it’s this cold, you can store foods right outside your window. Most likely, there’s not much left on the stores now but bad beer and brussel sprouts, but that can keep you alive.
  2. Make new friends and invite them over. This is a perfect time to make lots and lots of new friends. Hang out at the coffee shop (which will be the last place to close) and buy coffee for any prospective new partners. Now’s not the time to stand on morality, though, and it certainly isn’t a good time to be embracing monogamy. The more the marrier, and warmer! You never know but what you might need to help re-populate the city. This also gives you more options should you run out of food.
  3. “Borrow” the Netflix passcodes from four or five additional people. You don’t want to run out of entertainment during the storm, but neither does anyone else, and, sadly, Netflix has limits as to the numbe of devices that can be signed on to a single account simultaneously. Everyone is going to be watching Netflix, which means the passcodes belonging to the most popular people are likely to be ineffective. Stock up. Get the passcode from that little old lady three doors down who has all the cats. Hit up the wino on the second floor. Check around on dating sites. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
  4. Refill all your medications. This can be a little tricky if you’re on something that is highly regulated, but the last thing you, or any of us, want is for you to get stuck three days in without your crazy pills. This is a severe danger, because people on anti-depressants are often to depressed to remember their refills, and people on anti-anxiety meds are too jacked up to go by the pharmacy. There are also those regulartions about the number of pills you can have at one time. Lie. Go to multiple pharmacies. Do whatever it takes to make sure you have enough meds to get you through until Spring. Just don’t take them all at once.
  5. Assemble all the candles you can find. I’m not sure there are any Wicks ‘N’ Sticks locations still open (their website is completely gone), but if nothing else this would be a very good time to raid the Dollar Tree. It doesn’t matter if the candles have pictures of the Virgin Mary or Donkey from Shrek, you need all the candles you can find. Power outages are inevitable during a storm like this, and flashlights just don’t cut it because you can’t heat up a can of Dinty Moore over a fucking flashlight. You need candles. Be sure to save the wax as it melts, too, because it’s reusable once your other candles are gone. You can use shoestrings as wicks because you aren’t going anywhere.
  6. Leave instructions for your next of kin. Sadly, not everyone is going to survive this storm. As the days linger on and you grow hungry and delerious, you may post things on social media that would tarnish your sterling reputation. Make sure your next of kin knows your username and password for all your social media accounts so they can delete that shit upon your demise. You want people to remember the good, happy side of you, not the starving, raging, homicidal maniac you are about to become.

That’s about the best advice we have to offer. Those survival steps have kept folks in the Midwest going for almost 200 years now. We wish everyone about to be affected by today’s storm good health and long periods of sanity. For those who don’t make it, we promise to miss you and think of you every time we’re stranded and shivering in the cold. Be careful, stay safe, and, should you survive, keep in touch.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Water You Thinking?
January 21, 2016
charles i. letbetter - water you thinking

When a country wants television more than they want clean water, they’ve lost their grip.—Lewis Black

charles i. letbetter - water you thinking

The United States has grown too accustomed to a constant source of clean drinking water that is no longer sustainable

Ah, coffee. While I can imagine a morning without it, such a tragedy does occasionally happen, I don’t want to even think about such a horrible state. That hot water and a crushed bean could bring so much life and happiness to people is simply amazing. While I’ll admit to being a coffee fanatic, I’m by no means as obsessive about it as some I’ve seen. I like mine black, moderately strong, but not to the point that the acidity upsets my stomach. No sugar. No cream. No foam. Just pure, simple coffee. Those of you who get all upset about half-this, whipped-that are just crazy.

Now, imagine a world without coffee. As horrible a condition as that sounds, it could happen, and it may happen much sooner than anyone would like. Even without any external events involved, the sheer number of people on the planet, well over seven billion now, is beyond the level of sustainability. We’re going to run out of clean water. We’re going to run out of coffee.

The country has been relatively transfixed on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan this past week. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has, justifiably, been on the hot seat and universal condemnation of the city’s poisoned water supply has been laid on his doorstep. And while there is plenty of blame to be spread not only among the Governor’s office but other agencies as well, finding a solution to the problem is much more challenging than first thought. People of Flint are having to deal with the reality of not having a ready supply of clean drinking water, and that reality is quite frightening.

As much as I am sympathetic toward the plight of those stuck living in Flint, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the crisis there might, possibly, be a good thing for the rest of the country. Why? Because the whole reason this issue has gotten national attention is that every city in the country is just as vulnerable as Flint was. What happened there could happen here and the odds of such tragedy are increasing on a daily basis. The situation is not new. We’ve been on the precipice of disaster for several years. The tragedy in Flint, though, has awakened our senses to the issue of clean water like nothing else could.

We’ve had water disasters before. Just this past year, an oil spill into the Yellowstone River threatened drinking water. We, as a nation, yawned. The Environmental Protection Agency, the very people who are supposed to help us keep water clean, took responsibility for a giant waste water dump at Gold King Mine, near Silverton, Colorado. An oil spill along the coastline at Santa Barbara, California affected cities and beaches and even roadways all along the coast. Manure spills put the Green Bay water supply at risk. An ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to pollute waters there will little being done to remedy the problem. All of those things happened, received attention from the press, and the US population, as a whole ignored them.

Those are just the most recent tragedies in an ongoing global crisis that is just now beginning to impact our privileged society. We’ve known about the water crisis in sub-Saharan Africa for decades, but because it’s not right here in our back door we’ve turned a blind eye to the millions of people who lack proper sanitation and clean drinking water. Some might occasionally cut a check to NGOs such as The Water Project, but once the check is in the mail we don’t give the matter a second thought. We think we’ve done our part. We don’t realize the extent to which it is our own overuse, our own over-industrialization, our own lack of careful water use that has contributed to the larger global crisis.

Just how bad is the situation? Consider these facts:

  • 663 million people – 1 in 10 – lack access to safe water
  • 2.4 billion people – 1 in 3 – lack access to a toilet
  • A review of rural water system sustainability in eight countries in Africa, South Asia, and Central America found an average water project failure rate of 20 – 40 percent
  • Globally, 1/3 of all schools lack access to safe water and adequate sanitation
  • In low and middle-income countries, 1/3 of all healthcare facilities lack a safe water source

We haven’t given much thought to the water crisis until now because it has always been “somewhere else.” We’ve been more than content with letting other countries deal with their own problems. The crisis is coming home to roost, though.  Last April, California Governor Jerry Brown placed restrictions on water consumption across the entire state. Many complained that the restrictions were too severe, but as the state faces a continuing drought conservationists are concerned that current restrictions may not be enough.

Here’s the thing: our very lifestyles contribute to the severity of the water shortage. Americans waste more clean water every time we flush a toilet than many people see in a month. Our national lack of industrial oversight pollutes our water supply on an ongoing basis and we get extremely upset with any effort to curb such industrial use. States such as Indiana have even fought back against restrictions in the Clean Water Act because “they would prove too expensive to implement.”

Maybe, just maybe, the water crisis in Flint is a good thing. Maybe seeing people there struggle will be the wake-up call we need to realize that our current water habits are killing our water supply.

Imagine life without coffee. If we don’t push for dramatic change, and quickly, that is exactly what is going to happen. Flint is just the beginning.

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Art  /  PotD
A Clean Start To The Day
January 20, 2016
charles i. letbetter - a clean start to the day

I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over.—Kristin Armstrong

 

charles i. letbetter - a clean start to the day

Just as we might start the day with a clean body, our minds and our agendas could use a good scrubbing as well

I like a nice, hot shower first thing in the morning. There is something wonderful about having a few minutes while the coffee is brewing to wash away all the cobwebs, clear my head from whatever nonsense was left by bad dreams, think through the day’s schedule, and set a proper attitude for getting things done. Unfortunately, that’s not typically the way my day starts.

Most mornings, I stumble into the living room in the dark, trying not to wake anyone else while simultaneously doing my best to not step on one of the three cats at my feet. I look at any headlines from overnight, check email and web stats, then start coffee. Coffee takes 20 minutes, but since we do french press it’s not something you can just leave and come back when it’s done. You have to watch the water to make sure it doesn’t boil; 140 degrees is perfect. The beans have to be ground. The press has to be emptied and cleaned. Cups have to be prepared. Twenty minutes later, I can sit down and start working.

Kat will have joined me by this point, which is lovely. She’s not a morning person, but the Marine Corp conditioned her well. She sits with her coffee, looking through Facebook and other correspondence. She shares when she thinks it appropriate, but is careful to not disturb when I’m writing, or especially when I’m not writing because the words just aren’t coming.

We won’t have been up long before one of the children will poke a head out. “Mommy, can I get dressed?” I’m waiting. One of these days I’m sure Kat is going to slip and say, “No! No clothes for you! We’re sending you to school naked.” I’m going to laugh when that happens because the children are still young enough to believe the majority of what Mom tells them. That interaction is my cue to hurry and get to a stopping place because once there are children in the room there’s no peace and quiet until they’re on the bus.

With all that commotion and routine, I rarely get my shower until after Kat leaves. I still enjoy the shower no matter when I get it, but the day doesn’t feel as clean as it does when the shower comes first. Sure, that’s totally a mental wall, but there’s no getting past it. If I want the day to really start clean, I have to put a shower at the very front.

Starting the day clean with a physical shower is one thing, but we have a need to start clean in other ways as well. With all the information overload we get, our minds and our thought patterns too quickly become cluttered with details and news and trivia we just don’t need. Sure, all those cat memes are cute, but they can get in our way. The more clutter, the more time we waste, the less productive we are, and ultimately, the less fulfilled and satisfied we feel.

How one choses to clean their mind of leftover clutter is a highly personal thing. Yoga and meditation is a preference for several friends. Friends more aligned with traditional religions spend time praying. I even know some people who rely on morning sex to get their mind clean and ready for the day.

For me, it’s music. Exactly what changes from day to day. Mozart happens frequently, but then so does my blues playlist. If everything has me a bit down, then old-school gospel does the trick. If I’m pissed at the world, classic rock at full volume is just the cleansing tonic I need. There’s been a lot of classic rock lately.

Everyone’s pattern, routine, and methodology is going to be unique. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for getting your day scrubbed and clean. I know plenty of people for whom clean is a literal thing and everything around them must be spotless. I’m not one of those people. I like my clutter organized, mind you, and I get anxious if the stacks start getting too tall. Still others can step over mounds of trash in the floor and not be bothered. I don’t understand either extreme, but I don’t need to understand anything beyond what works for me.

What’s important is recognizing that starting our day clean isn’t just a soap and water thing. Our minds and our spirits must be just as refreshed and rejuvinated as our bodies. If we overlook this simple matter, we eventually become overshelmed, depressed, and disturbed. We become ineffective, destructive, and unproductive. I firmly believe that much of our attitude toward other people come from the amount of garbage we hold from day to day. The nonsense and the clutter alters our perspective of people and situations, leading us down paths of thought we might not touch if we were thinking with clearer heads.

So, take some time, my dear friends, and clean up. Maybe take a shower. Go for a run. Have a quiet cup of coffee. Whatever works for you, do it now. Don’t let the day continue with yesterday’s grime. You deserve better. Start the day clean and enjoy it.

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Music  /  PotD
If Musicians Would Stop Dying
January 19, 2016
charles i. letbetter - if musicians would stop dying

Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.—Billy Joel

 

charles i. letbetter - if musicians would stop dying

Beautiful music is timeless, but the musicians creating that music are not

Tuesdays are beginning to annoy me. Traditionally, major music labels drop new songs and new albums on Tuesday, so that is how I plan my day’s soundtrack. Some weeks I hear some really great stuff, others not so much, but that’s part of the joy. This year, however, this 2016, is upsetting that plan. Last week, instead of music dropped that day, I, along with nearly everyone else on the planet, was still listening to David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. We even wrote about it. Now, this morning, I’m postponing new music once again to listen to Glenn Frey’s last album After Hours (2012). If musicians would stop dying for a couple of weeks, I would be most appreciative.

There are some musicians whose deaths are not quite so surprising. Country crooner Mel Tillis has been in critical condition in a Nashville hospital for several days. Had it been his obituary in my newsfeed, I would have been sad, but not surprised. There are several others, rock stars whose lives in the 70s should have dictated early deaths but didn’t, who I suspect are one good bout of pneumonia away from the grave. But Glenn Frey, man, I wasn’t ready.

What’s frightening, is that Glenn wasn’t the only musician to pass yesterday. Within 24 hours, we also lost Blowfly, musician/songwriter/producer whose work many found offensive; Dale Griffin, drummer for Mott The Hoople, one of those bands you didn’t know you knew;  Mic Gillette, brass player with Tower Of Power, a band that helped define the sound of the early 70s; and Gary Loizzo, lead singer for American Breed, whose Bend Me, Shape Me put them on the charts in 1967. Loizzo was also the sound engineer for Styx, who recorded many of their hits in Loizzo’s studio. 

Of course, musicians aren’t the only ones who seem to be dying at a heavier rate than usual. If you were paying attention, just this past Sunday I wrote about the high number of notable deaths just last week. What makes a difference with musicians is that we connect them so strongly with their music and their music is so strongly connected to our lives. Music is not just something to keep our ears occupied. Music defines places, memories, and even relationships. Is there anyone from my generation who doesn’t have some memory connected to Hotel California, or Take It Easy? When musicians die, we lose more than a person, we lose a connection to a specific time and place.

One might think music fans would be somewhat accustomed to the unexpected and even untimely deaths of the musicians they honor. After all, the 27 Club, musicians who died young at the age of 27, is legendary; from Jesse Belvin in 1960, to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in ’70, Kurt Cobain in ’94 to Amy Winehouse in 2011. The list of club members is long enough that every musician should make a big deal of making it to their 28th birthday.

Even when they don’t die young, we lose dozens of musicians each year. Last year saw the passing of greats like B.B. King, Lemmy Kilmister, Scott Weiland, Alan Toussaint, Cory Wells, and about 60-something others. Each year, we can be sure that the “In Memoriam” reel at all the awards shows won’t be too short. Death happens.

Yet, when they seemingly happen one right after another we’re left wondering just what’s wrong with the world. Music gives our frayed world some sense of sanity. As we lose those who give us music, our world feels a little less assembled. Critical pieces are missing. Sure, we still have the recordings and are thankful for them, but knowing the people who gave us those recordings are gone, that there will be no new albums or concerts coming, creates an abscess we don’t know how to fill.

So, here we go with another Tuesday emersed in memories. Glenn Frey left us more than enough to fill the day and enjoy every minute. We are thankful for everything he gave us.

But seriously, musicians need to take a break from dying for a while. Please.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Still Chasing A Dream
January 18, 2016
charles i. letbetter - still chasing a dream

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

charles i. letbetter - still chasing a dream

Despite all the advances, racism is still just as alive and well in America as it was in 1964

I hardly know where to start this morning. I have been thinking for the past week about what I would write this morning, and all that has done is left me angry that I should need to write anything specific at all. Here we are at yet another Martin Luther King, Jr. day, and I would be hard pressed to define any substantial way in which matters of racism have improved. There are days when I wonder if we’ve actually moved backward.

When President Obama took office in 2009, it was widely assumed that we had entered a post-racial era; we must be beyond racism for us to elect a black president. What the past eight years has shown us, though, is a very different picture. The hate and animosity hurled toward the president, not just in secret but openly and defiantly, has been unprecedented. Over the past eight years, we have seen more public demonstrations of hate toward people of color, any color, than since the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Over the past eight years, we have come to realize that not only are our cities and our schools still segregated in very real ways, but that the playing field of opportunity is tilted against people of color. There is, in far too many cities and states, a different system of justice for people of color than what exists for whites. The Ku Klux Klan has been allowed to return and the prevalence of armed neo-nazi groups has been steadily on the rise.

There is no justification for such blatant racism. There is no excuse. I’m tired of hearing people start a sentence with “I’m not racist,” and then turn right around and follow that with some form of slander against people of color. I’m weary of having people tell me they’re reluctant to go into certain parts of town because of the number of blacks present. I’m exhausted from seeing white people, especially white people of affluence, go out of their way to avoid coming into contact not only with those whose skin is a different color,but whose religion requires a different manner of dress.

One of the most public, and disgusting slights came just this past week when the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for their annual awards; you know, the ones most commonly referred to as the Oscars. While the Academy is just fine having a black person host the show (Chris Rock), and utilizing people of color as presenters, for the second year in a row every last one of the nominees for major awards is white. There are no blacks up for best actor or actress. There is no one of Asian ancestry nominated in a supporting role. There is no one of Hispanic or Persian heritage anywhere on the list.

What frustrates me the most is that white people just don’t seem to understand how very racist they are. Bring up the subject and they are quick to say something like, “I have black friends,” or “my next-door neighbor is black,” or “I have black employees.” Apparently, too many white people fail to see how condescending their actions are, how they speak to and treat people of color differently than they do other white people.

Racism isn’t something we can just legislate away. Racism is an attitude, a belief system built upon the principle that one group of people are better than another simply because of the pigmentation of their skin. Eliminating racism means doing away with that belief system that has been ingrained within the human race for millennia.

Here’s the rub: scientifically, there is no such thing as race. There is no differentiation of species that make humans from the African continent any different from humans in Asia. Humans in South America are exactly the same as those in North America. Any difference in pigmentation is an adaptive trait based upon the climate and has absolutely no bearing on the species at all. From a scientific perspective, race doesn’t exist; it is all in our stupid little heads.

Yet, here we are, more than 50 years after the fact, still chasing a dream that is rooted in common sense and plain decency. We like to tout our progress while completely ignoring our many failings. We have set aside today to celebrate a dream, but we refuse to allow that dream to become reality. How can we call today a holiday when the person for whom it is named is just as likely to be arrested on false charges today as he was in 1964? This is no dream. This is a nightmare.

Don’t ask me for a solution when the solution is you. The solution is each of us. I can only work on myself. I might try to hold immediate members of my family accountable, but ultimately the decision is one we each make for ourselves. Racism isn’t an accident and until we universally adjust our attitudes the dream can never become reality.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
When The Fairy Tale Ends
January 17, 2016
charles i. letbetter - when the fairy tale ends

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.—Alexandre Dumas

 

charles i. letbetter - when the fairy tale ends

Not every day is a good one, nor should we ever expect them to be.

One of my dear friends, Jane, whose birthday I missed yesterday and who writes a most wonderful blog, frequently reminds her students that the versions of fairy tales they see presented by Disney and the like are not true. When Hans Christian Anderson wrote The Little Mermaid, he justifiably kills his title character at the end; that’s right, the little mermaid dies. In the original telling of Cinderella, the evil stepsisters have their eyes plucked out. The tales penned by the brothers Grimm were bloody, vicious and violent. Why? Because such stories were meant to be cautionary tales, warnings against dangerous, self-centered, and inappropriate behavior. Life is not fair, the stories warn, and happily ever after is a myth.

This week has been a painful reminder of just how unhappy life can be. People we have admired, who have entertained us, who have sacrificed for us, who saved our lives, have passed on. Not just one or two people, as we are rather accustomed to hearing, but several people of some noteworthiness, have left us. Here’s a partial list, in case you weren’t paying attention:

  • David Bowie, sing, actor, and creator of worlds
  • Ernest Yazhe, the last of the WWII Navajo Code Talkers
  • Noreen Corcoran, an actress best known for her role in the television series Bachelor Father
  • Alan Rickman, versatile actor of innumerable memorable roles
  • Dan Haggerty, actor best known for his role on the television series Grizzly Adams
  • Andrew Smith, Butler University basketball hopeful
  • René Angélil, who discovered and then married singer Celine Dionne
  • Lawrence Phillips, promising NFL player caught up in violence
  • Brian Bedford, Tony award-winning actor known for his productions of Shakespeare
  • David Margulies, character actor best known for his role as the mayor in the original Ghostbusters movie
  • Otis Clay, Blues Hall of Fame member and Grammy nominee
  • Pete Huttlinger, Master guitarist known especially for his work with John Denver
  • Daniel Dionne, brother of Celine Dionne, died two days after her husband
  • Michael Galeota, actor best known for his role in the Disney Channel Original Series The Jersey

All those people, gone in the span of seven days. There were more, of course. Many died whose names are not so familiar to us. On Friday, a terrorist attack on a Burkina Faso hotel left at least 28 dead, including an American missionary. All around the world, in every hospital in every city, families gathered as loved ones, some old and suffering, some never really having a chance at life, moved on.

So much for a fairy tale with happy endings. This week seems to have gone out of its way to show us that there is no “happily ever after.” Even the lives that seem the most wonderful and glamorous, those who appear to have everything in the world going their way, still die.

What, then, shall we do when the fairy tale is over? When we have run out of tears to cry and are weary from mourning, how do we face this incredibly cruel world? Any good reader should know the answer to that question. When one fairy tale ends, you start another. Tragedy is the platform upon which the foundation of comedy arises. The ending of one story, or one set of stories, prepares us for the beginning of the next.

Yes, it is true that even the next story likely ends with its main character’s demise, but every story is worth the telling. There are lessons to be learned even in the most heart-breaking situations. We do not stop here. We keep going.

I have been distantly following the continuing saga of Cory and Joey Feek, as have millions of others. I’m not going to sit here anre pretend that I was ever a fan. I’m not big into contemporary country music, and until their lives took a tragic turn I’d not even heard of them. Now, it appears that Joey’s story is nearing its end.  When it does, headlines will focus on the love of a mother for her daughter, and a husband for his wife, and many will share in their grief. What’s important is that we realize that there is a story that goes onward. Their daughter, Indiana, is just beginning her story, even as her mother’s is ending.

While it is easy to become emeshed in the stories of others, however, we must remember that we are the ones writing our own stories. While our tales may be entertwined with those of others, we are ultimately the authors of our own fates. Even in circumstances where we might not have control of when or how our story ends, we still decide through the way we live and the decisions we make whether our fairy tale is tragic or happy.

2016 seems to be getting off to a very rough start, but perhaps this is this universe telling us that we need to focus more on the future, not the past; that we should focus less on the lives lost and more on those still living. Not that we don’t remember those who have died, but we realize that their passing is but the end of a chapter, not the whole book. The fairy tale is not over. There is so much more to be written and it is up to you to do the writing.

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PotD
#MakeMeThinkIn5Words
January 16, 2016
charles i. letbetter = #MakeMeThinkIn5Words

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.—George S. Patton

charles i. letbetter - #MakeMeThinkgIn5Words

Ah, the weekend! You made it and, quite fortunately, you’re still alive! This has been a very emotional week with the deaths of so many prominent people and we’ve all expended an abundance of energy mourning, fussing, remembering, arguing, and various other activities that, in the end, contributed to little more than the grayness of our hair. If all of 2016 is going to be this stressful, we’d just as soon go back to the previous year, please.

After such a difficult week, we thought it was time to have a little Twitter fun again this week. This time, the hashtag we’re playing with is #MakeMeThinkIn5Words, which, interestingly enough, involves six words, not five. The whole premise is to ask mind-challenging questions using only five words. This is interesting because, while the game fits well within Twitter’s 140 character limit, it comes at a time when the executives running the social media app are questioning expanding the limit to 10,000 words. Whatever would we do with all that space? There are advantages in being forced to be succinct.

Nonetheless, five words are our limit. We’ve seen some good ones already, such as, “What if Darth Vader sneezes?” and “What’s another word for thesaurus?” Even our friends at NPR got in on the game with tweets such as this:

Obviously, we’re going to have to put our thinking caps on for this one! So, let’s see what we can do:

(Sorry, couldn’t resist getting that one in early)

 

An old platitude involves the line, “you can win the battle and lose the war.” Maybe winning isn’t always everything. That is a very difficult concept to grasp when we live in such an aggressive that champions winning at all costs. Still, if you’ll give it a moment’s thought, I’m sure you can come up with a scenario in which winning on one level results in losing on another. For example, breaking the record for running the mile, but dying as you cross the finish line. 

 

No one really wants to die, and medical science is doing a lot to prolong our lives. But if we never died, would that not remove the need to procreate? Would we have to make sex illegal in order to survive? I can imagine life getting quite uncomfortable if we begin living too long.

 

I do my most serious thinking and research sitting right here in front of this computer. The more thinking I do, the more sedentary I am. The more sedentary I am, the more likely I am to snack on junk food. Knowing that there is a cherry turnover in the kitchen right now isn’t helping. I tend to consume more coffee and scotch when I’m thinking as well, which leads me to the possible consideration that thinking, ultimately, could kill me.

 

Frequent visitors know how I feel about the benefits to posing nude.However, we’ve not written about it yet this year, and we’re getting a lot of new visitors. Maybe we should write about it again. I need a different hook, though, don’t you think? We will need to revisit this question soon.

 

You know the concept already: If a man says something and no woman is around to hear it, is he still wrong? Or, more commonly, If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Whether there can be reality without perception has been an arguable point for centuries. One can take sides, but the truth of the matter is that anything that might answer the question would amount to perception in some form, therefore the question is unanswerable. Bloody frustrating.

 

Another philosophy question because I’ve not seen them asked and they’re so much fun. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716) proposed that, “We live in the best of all possible worlds.” He based that statement on the concept that, prior to making the world, God must have considered every possible iteration, including one without hate and malice and other forms of evil, and decided that we were better off with them. A world void of evil, he thought, would rob man of free will. However, given that modern science no longer binds us to a mythological view of creation, does Leibniz’s concept still apply? Could the universe have done a better job of evolving?

 

Seriously, chocolate may honestly be the best food ever! Whether eating it by itself, or using it as a layer with other foods, it is difficult to imagine any situation that cannot be enhanced by chocolate. Even when it’s messy, it’s still good. What other food can come close to possibly comparing to the pleasure and satisfaction that chocolate brings? There are many great foods in the world, but none are going to beat chocolate.

I’m going to stop there because I think you fully understand how the game works now and should be able to carry on without my assistance. Be sure to follow me on Twitter (@charlesletbetter) and I’ll follow you back. Have a wonderful, thought-filled Saturday!

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Lottery Lost, What’s Next?
January 14, 2016
charles i. letbetter - lottery lost

I have never played the lottery in my life and never will. Voltaire described lotteries as a tax on stupidity. More specifically, I think, on innumeracy.—Daniel Tammet

 

charles i. letbetter - lottery lost

If you really need to get your blood pumping, there’s nothing like a romp in the snow in your underwear

So, you lost the lottery. Again. Please excuse me if I don’t feel too terribly sorry for you. My opinion of lotteries is right down there with wet shoes and jeans that don’t fit right. Sure, the concept of $1.4 billion is alluring, but no one is going to get that. There were no fewer than three winning Powerball tickets sold. The amount will be divided, half will be taken in taxes, and what’s left will be less than what one might make from investing wisely. What bothers me is that I’m sure there was more than one person who spent their last two dollars on a damn lottery ticket instead of food, and are now both hungry and broke.

The country has been so obsessed with the lottery over the past week or so that its passing leaves a bit of a void in the realm of mindless office conversation. With dreams of telling the boss to fuck off having gone out the window (for now), whatever shall we do? Wherever shall we go? Oh, the hopelessness of humanity! (Please tell me you’re picking up on the sarcasm there.)

I’m not inclined to leave everyone stranded this morning, though perhaps some of you deserve such. So, here’s a list of options for you, carefully crafted over the day’s first cup of coffee, of things you can do today despite not having won the lottery.

  1. Go play in the snow. Make it more exciting by doing it in your underwear. Really brave and daring? Do it naked. Just, uhm, pick me up before you do that last one. We need pictures or it didn’t happen.
  2. Drop by your favorite coffee shop, order coffee, drink it there. Too often we’re in such a hurry that we don’t take the time to enjoy the little things around us. Relax. Sit. Drink your coffee. Maybe even strike up a conversation with a new friend.
  3. Get your hair done. Hair deserves to be pampered when it’s this cold. If you don’t have hair, maybe get a scalp massage.
  4. Have lunch with someone who loves you. Maybe your mother, or a sibling, or a spouse. Call them up, meet them for lunch, enjoy the company.
  5. Adopt a pet. Winter is an especially rough time for strays. Two of our favorite kitties are ones we brought in out of the cold last winter. They’ve now acclimated and become the best lap cats ever. Many shelters are full. Gain a friend and save a life by adopting a new pet.
  6. Try a new cuisine or, at least. a new restaurant. Kat and I are fortunate to have both been around the world and privileged to try many different foods. Still, there are plenty of restaurants around we haven’t tried and each one offers the chance for a new culinary and perhaps cultural adventure.
  7. Have sex in the middle of the day. I’ll leave the details to your own imagination.
  8. Discover a new local artist. There are artists everywhere, even in smaller communities. Look around, ask your local arts organization. Meet someone creative and maybe even buy something. They’ll appreciate your time and patronage.
  9. Read a book; it doesn’t even have to be a new one. I can think of no better way to spend a moment’s down time than to pick up a book and read a few pages. Your brain really could use the exercise.
  10. Have your picture taken! Okay, so not every photographer you know is going to be available on such short notice, but I know I have openings today and I’m guessing a number of my colleagues do as well. As with our first suggestion, you can always make it more exciting by doing it naked. In the snow. Contact us.

See, you have options! Okay, so they don’t involve quitting your job and buying an island in the Caribbean. You really don’t want all that hassle anyway. Relax. Enjoy the life you have instead of wasting time wishing for you one you don’t. You don’t need to win the lottery to have an amazing and rich life.

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