Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette

Thursday night we had Thanksgiving dinner at my brother-in-law Randy's house. We've been together for many years. Conversation was fun, we laughed and told stories.

At least once one of the family smokers slipped outside the house for a cigarette. In those long ago holiday celebrations three and four decades ago ashtrays were all over the house. We all just lit up where we were. We had a great meal, then finished it off with a cig and a cup of coffee or a drink. My father-in-law, Ray, smoked, I smoked...several people smoked until the air was choked with noxious fumes.

I started smoking as a teenager, but was in the Army before the addiction took hold. In June, 1967, we were taking a night class, outside, sitting on a lawn. An old sergeant noticed one of the guys in the back lighting up, so he said, "What the hell. Smoke 'em if you got 'em." I had a pack in my pocket and realized I was craving a smoke. Not just wanting it, but needing it. That's when I knew that all of the experimenting I'd done with tobacco over the past two or three years had finally come to addiction. When I tell that story people say, "How did you feel about it?" I guess they expect me to say I hated it. But I'm honest about it: "Well, it made up my mind as to whether I was a smoker or someone who just flirted with it. I knew then I was." I was kind of relieved. It was cheap, too. When I was in the Army cigarettes were 17¢ a pack! When I got home in late '68 the price doubled to 34¢.

It took ten years of smoking before I decided to seriously kick it, and it was because of the publicity about second-hand cigarette smoke, about kids growing up in a smoking household. My wife was pregnant with our son at the time. I set a target date and quit that day three months before he was born. I went through several days of withdrawal agony. By the time I'd been nicotine free for about two weeks I figured I'd beat the habit, and it turned out I had. Over the next few months I gained 30 pounds, though, and was pretty upset about that. That took another ten years to get rid of, but that's another story.

Nowadays I've almost forgotten how obnoxious smoking really is. I just don't see it that much. I'll be sitting at a traffic light and smell tobacco smoke from another car, or I'll see people standing outside a workplace, in the cold, puffing away. I'm grateful that on that date in 1978 I quit smoking. Just six months after my addiction became noticeable my father died of a heart attack at age 47. He was a lifelong smoker. Legend is, although he never confirmed it, that when he was 12 his mother handed him a carton of cigarettes and said, "I know you're going to smoke anyway, so you might as well smoke in the house." I didn't take heed of his death, let it be a lesson. I kept smoking anyway for nearly another decade.

When I quit smoking the average price of a pack was 65¢. Outrageous! Now I see people spending the better part of a $5.00 bill on a pack of cigarettes. If I hadn't already quit that would be enough to make me take the pledge.

"Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette" was a song that came out the year I was born--1947--and was made popular by Tex Williams. Asleep at the Wheel does a great version, featured in this video of happy, smiling--and presumably addicted--smokers.

"Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.
Puff, puff, puff, and if you smoke yourself to death.
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate, you just hate to make him wait,
But you've just gotta have another cigarette."

Help, my life is a reality show!

Along with my recent posting about people who think they've been abducted by aliens, comes this recent article about people who think they're participants in a reality TV show. It's called the Truman Syndrome, after the 1998 movie, The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey. Some psychiatric patients believe their life is being filmed without their permission.

Like alien abduction, the Truman syndrome is fueled by popular culture, and has worked its way into personal delusions. Quoting the copyrighted article by Jennifer Peltz of the Associated Press:

Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are secretly playing out on a reality TV show. Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions. "The question is really: Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion ... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.

In the last two years, Gold has encountered five patients with delusions related to reality TV. Several of them specifically mentioned "The Truman Show." Gold and his brother, a psychologist, started presenting their observations at medical schools in 2006. After word spread beyond medical circles this summer, they learned of about 50 more people with similar symptoms. The Oscar-nominated movie stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank. He leads a merrily uneventful life until he realizes his friends and family are actors, his seaside town is a TV soundstage and every moment of his life has been broadcast.

His struggle to sort out reality and illusion is heartwarming, but researchers say it's often horrifying for "Truman syndrome" patients. A few take pride in their imagined celebrity, but many are deeply upset at what feels like an Orwellian invasion of privacy. Delusions can be a symptom of various psychiatric illnesses, as well as neurological conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Some drugs also can make people delusional.

It's not unusual for psychiatrists to see delusional patients who believe their relatives have been replaced by impostors or who think figures in their lives are taking on multiple disguises.

But "Truman" delusions are more sweeping, involving not just some associates but society at large, Gold said. Delusions tend to be classified by broad categories, such as the belief that one is being persecuted, but research has shown culture and technology can also affect them. Reality television may help such patients convince themselves their experiences are plausible, according to the Austrian woman's psychiatrists, writing in the journal Psychopathology in 2004.

Ian Gold, a philosophy and psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal who has researched the matter with his brother, suggests reality TV and the Web, with their ability to make strangers into intimates, may compound psychological pressure on people who have underlying problems dealing with others. That's not to say reality shows make healthy people delusional, "but, at the very least, it seems possible to me that people who would become ill are becoming ill quicker or in a different way," Ian Gold said.

Other researchers aren't convinced, but still find the "Truman syndrome" an interesting example of the connection between culture and mental health.

Makes sense to me. My personal feeling is that for some people fantasy, in the form of television, can become reality. It's a hell of a lot more interesting. Unfortunately for some of us, the dull reality of daily life can't be shut off by a remote control. For anyone actually wanting to invade my privacy and watch my daily life, well, good luck. I lead the most boring life imaginable. Even I pray for commercial breaks to get relief from the crushing monotony.

"Please sir, can you spare 25 bil?"

The American automotive CEOs flew to Washington last week. After stepping out of their individual corporate jets, to everyone's disgust they went before Congress with hats in hand to beg for money.

I thought of the American car makers that have gone out of business in my lifetime. Just off the top of my head I can think of Studebaker, Packard, American Motors, Hudson...if I took the time to do a little research I'd probably come up with more that I've forgotten.

With all due respect to the working folks who earn their livings from GM, Ford and Chrysler, your companies have been mismanaged and their priorities gone askew. I hope that some help will come your way, but to ask me--who already pours more than enough of my income into your products--to contribute through taxes, well, gee, I gave at the office.

Anyway, looking at this beautiful car, in an ad in the July 7, 1947 Life Magazine, makes me wonder exactly what sort of thing happened to Studebaker that made it stop production in the U.S. in 1966. Studebakers were kind of a joke when I grew up in the 1950s and '60s; their cars were ugly to us, but now seem pretty in a designer way. Maybe they were just ahead of their time. The point is that as painful as it was I don't remember anyone asking the government for money to bail them out. Nor do I remember any other car companies doing the same. For all of our lives, as far back as we can remember, when a business succeeds it does it on its own, but there are lots and lots of reasons for failure, and no one cries to the government to extract them from the mess of their own making.

That awful whisper

This ad came from a 1947 issue of Life magazine, a gift from my friend Peggy.

Paranoia rears its ugly head! The man hears a whisper between two women. They're talking about his body odor. Doesn't he notice it? Why not do something about it before the whispering starts?

Maybe he just thinks that's what they're whispering. Maybe what the women are whispering has to do with not wanting to be in an elevator with him because his hands get real busy. Maybe he eats garlic and his breath turns the elevator into a noxious fume factory.

Why not worry that the women know about something that's going to happen to him, like he's going to lose his job. He goes home and takes a shower using Lifebuoy soap, then goes to work the next day and gets a termination notice! No need to smell pretty for that.

The man is experiencing just what the ad men and copywriters want him to think. That he smells bad. That he offends. He not only has B.O., he has halitosis. He doesn't use a Gillette razor so he has a five o'clock shadow. His teeth are yellow because he doesn't use Pepsodent. He has nostril hairs and dandruff. Better get Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie!

The list of bodily offenses goes on and on. When you think about it, just stay home so you won't offend anyone at any time! No one will have to whisper about you...

False memories

In my last posting I mentioned false memories as being amongst the reasons people thought they'd been abducted by UFOs. I don't think I've been abducted by a UFO, although it's tempting to think that the reason I act the way I do might be attributed to aliens, but I'm sure I have a few false memories here and there. We humans, with those imperfect things called memories, are under a lot of influences. We can remember things that never happened.

Barb, a school secretary I encounter on my route, has reminded me several times when she met me I had long hair in a ponytail. I got my long hair cut in 1981, and was sure I hadn't met her until years later. As I pinned her down on the year she started working at the school district I found it was 1988, long after the ponytail was history. How had she remembered it? Because she worked with another lady who had worked with me in the late '70s and told her. As Barb and I established a working relationship her friend's memory became Barb's memory.

How many things do we actually remember, and how many we remember for some extraneous reason like that? I wonder how many things I have in my head that happened to me that actually didn't, that I may have seen on the ABC Movie Of The Week. Whew. The mind boggles.

**********

Believe in synchronicity? I do. I mentioned a couple of things in my last posting, the false memories and creationists who believe dinosaurs existed at the same time as people 6,000 years ago, and saw those things the next day in the Sunday comic strips. If you pay attention there are a lot of coincidences in life, some of them meaningful, some not, but when they happen to me I always pay attention.

Reason to believe

It feels good to get off the political kick we've all been on for weeks.

Sally and I were talking about what makes a person believe. I've been reading a book called Abducted by Susan Clancy. It's subtitled "Why people come to believe they were kidnapped by aliens." The author did some studying of folks who believe, or say they believe, they have been abducted by little gray aliens. The author attributes a lot of the reason they believe this to sleep paralysis, false memories and pop culture, movies and television, planting images in peoples' heads.

Some belief is borne of the brain trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. That opens up a whole area that I don't want to get into because it's just too big. But I told Sally I'd heard an author talk about a book, The God Gene, about being genetically predisposed to believe.

Like the folks who think they've been abducted by aliens and had invasive medical experiments done on them, so do lots of people believe unequivocally in God, religion--at least one they find conforms to their needs--without any real proof that what they are believing in is real. Apparently Sally and I have missed out on that. Neither of us feels the need to believe in any kind of unseen world. I should qualify that by saying we just don't know. Unlike others who are seeking spiritual enlightenment, we just don't bother. We both come from families with that history, too.

Author Clancy is a psychologist with several degrees. In a clinical setting she talked to a lot of people who believed they'd been kidnapped. She asked if they had specific memories of the abduction and many said no, they just knew they'd been abducted. There were feelings they couldn't explain in themselves and when they cast about for reasons they settled on alien abduction. I guess it wouldn't be much different to say they'd been visited by angels, or the Virgin Mary. As she states in the book, she didn't test how religious the abductees were, but thinks that may have relevance.

Susan Clancy might be as close to figuring it out as anyone, but human beings are complicated. It seems everyone has a reason for everything no matter how strange--or alien--it might seem to other people. Often the person with the belief doesn't know why they hold that belief. That's probably where the idea of a gene that determines whether a person is a believer or not would kick in.

I believe, relying on the science of brain research, that people have a genetic predispositon to be a believer or non-believer. It could explain why it's so hard to communicate on that level, and causes people to puzzle over the behavior of others: "Why don't those people believe like we do? Can't they see the truth? It's right in front of them!" I look in the sky, I see lights, and that's what they are to me: lights. You look in the sky and see those same lights and you believe they are people from another planet, that they might be here to take you aboard their spaceship so they can perform hideous experiments. I have unexplained feelings and attribute them to my medication, stress at work, or insomnia, and you might look at those same problems and think they were caused by aliens giving you an anal probe or getting you pregnant with their babies. I see dinosaur bones and think of an earth hundreds of millions of years ago. You look at those same bones and think they were living creatures who were around 6000 years ago when Adam and Eve were setting up housekeeping in the Garden of Eden.

There are a lot of people, most, I'd guess, who'd resist the idea of a gene determining how and what we believe. Even though I can believe there's such a gene I don't believe it's wholly responsible. People just have too many influences and too many choices. There are also peer and family pressures to believe a certain way. To the religious folks It would take God out of the picture to have a gene that tells your brain whether you're religious or not. To them that's completely unacceptable. To the abductees it takes away a notion that why they act the way they do is beyond their control because they're being controlled by an external force.

The latest I heard is that a gene might determine whether you're a political liberal or conservative! I'm sure everyone could have fun with that.

**********

While we're on the subject of believing, here's a fine cover of the old Tim Hardin song, "Reason to Believe," by Daniel Has Six Strings.

Veteran's Day 1968

To all Veterans and someday-to-be veterans, HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY.

Forty years ago today I was being processed out of the U.S. Army at Fort Dix, NJ. Several of my buddies from Utah, and other areas of the country, were also being discharged in a group that was going home from Germany. I'd been looking forward to this for so long that I was running on adrenaline. Except for a catnap here and there I hadn't slept in over 24 hours.

We arrived at Fort Dix somewhere around 2:00 a.m. and were processed through customs. A GI ahead of me had his duffel bag searched. In the bottom they found a stack of porno magazines. The customs inspector said, "You know you can't bring these into the country," and they went into some sort of receptacle. Maybe later the customs agents had a look. Gotta see the evidence, you know. I'm sure there was a lot of porn in those pre-Internet days that was smuggled in, but a lot that was confiscated.

We were bused to the messhall, which even at that ungodly hour of the morning was staffed by basic trainees. We were tired, but I'll bet the KP's were even more tired. Can you imagine working the all-night diner? These poor guys suddenly had a hundred or more people to feed. As we went through the line I noticed a lot of trainees gawking at us. We were in our Class-A uniforms, with all our ribbons, patches, brass and insignias. I'll bet to them we looked like a bunch of generals. It hadn't been all that long since I'd been a trainee and didn't know the difference between grades or rank.

We were processed as quickly as possible because it was Veteran's Day, a federal holiday, and no one wanted to be there. I understood that normally it took about three days to clear Fort Dix, but they got us done in a matter of hours so they could all go home. Our discharge papers, our DD214 forms, were typed and presented to us. We were also given travel money. As the clerk said to us: "You have choices. You go by privately owned vehicle (POV) and you get the most mileage money for travel. You go by train or bus you get less, you go by air you get the least of all." He paused for effect. "You don't have to put down POV if you don't want to." Naturally, every one of us wrote down POV. I worried for a couple of years afterward that Uncle Sam would come knocking at my door and ask for his $500 back. Like everyone else I headed for the airline counter and got a flight to Salt Lake City. Cost: $55.00.

Before we left we stood in a formation. Dawn was breaking. A sergeant stood in front of us. "Now this is a goddam holiday. You're gonna be veterans on Veteran's Day. Everything's closed today. But if it was up to me I'd march every goddam one of you to the barber shop and get your goddam hair cut. You are a disgrace to the goddam uniforms you're wearing." With that last goddam farewell to the troops we were suddenly free men, shaggy heads and all, piling into buses for the nearby Philadelphia airport.

My buddy Wally and I snoozed on the way to Chicago's O'Hare International. We had to make a connection, but had a couple of hours to kill. We headed for an airport bar. While we were having our drinks--rum and Coke--we saw a commotion in the concourse. We looked up to see a dozen or more people moving fast, led by Diana Ross, the singer late of the Supremes. After forty years that memory is still clear: Ross was wearing a floor-length white mink coat which was flapping open as she ran. The people behind her were carrying luggage, and one man even had two small poodles in his arms. They were all African-Americans, and they were all wearing fur coats.

Diana Ross at LAX this year. No mink coat for this trip:

My brother picked me up in Salt Lake in the late evening, and we talked some before I crashed. I had been up for what seemed like days. We had left our unit in Nuremberg, Germany, on Saturday the 9th, traveled by train to Frankfurt, and except for our time at Ft. Dix we had been in airports and on planes ever since. That Monday night I slept in my own bed for the first time in a long time. The next morning I got up and went to see Sally. As I think back on those events forty years ago it's like the old cliché: It was the first day of the rest of my life.

For another Veteran's Day message click here.

Last year's Veteran's Day message is here.

When the storm hit

You watch as the clouds roll in, big, dark, ominous. You know that you're in an exposed place, vulnerable, and the full force of the storm will hit you.

You know there is nothing you can do but wait for the fury to envelop you, to hang on to anything you can, a tree, your wife, anything that will keep you from being blown off the ground and tossed like a woodchip through the air.

Suddenly it's on you and you take the full brunt, all the energy that has been gathering and building. It is just what everyone predicted, and you must ride it out however you can. Within a few hours it's over. But the storm has left massive damage, not only to you but to everyone around you.

Imagine you're John McCain and that storm was last Tuesday. If there is anything left to pick up, I hope you won't need FEMA to help.

***********

While Barack Obama might be the first African American to attain the job of President of the United States, portrayals of black presidents have been around for a long time, going back at least to The Man, starring James Earl Jones as Douglas Dillman. In the movie Dillman becomes President through a complicated set of coincidences with the line of succession to the presidency. In 1972, when the movie was produced, that would have been the only way a black man would have gotten the job.

More recently we had Morgan Freeman, who has played other roles not traditionally seen as black--Little John in Robin Hood comes to mind--as the president in the 1998 movie Deep Impact.

Dennis Haysbert, tall and distinguished, was President David Palmer for several years in the series 24. Haysbert went on to represent Allstate Insurance in commercials and to the lead in the series, The Unit. Haysbert has said publicly that he believes his portrayal helped Barack Obama win the nomination.

I believe Haysbert in a larger sense, that these roles have helped put in the public mind the notion of a black man as president wouldn't be all that unusual.

I also believe that having black people more active in television and movies has placed them in the public consciousness, a place where they were invisible until the late 1960s. In response to the Civil Rights movement producers put more African Americans in movies and TV. The generation my son represents grew up seeing black people on TV every day. They weren't as exotic as they seemed to us Baby Boomers who grew up in a whites-only television environment.

Finally, I found it interesting that the latest Time has a front cover with Obama, and a back cover with Tiger Woods. Both men are superstars in venues formerly closed to people of color, both men are mixed race. Could this juxtaposition have been a coincidence? Hmmm.

Halloween goes SPLAT!

Every year it's a challenge to know how many Halloween trick-or-treaters we need to be prepared for. We've lived in our neighborhood for 33 years; young children have grown up, left home. The neighborhood's aggregate age got older, so for a few years we had no trick-or-treaters, then more young families with young kids moved in. Last year we had a bunch of little kids, but the rush was over by 8:00 p.m. Last night they came until we turned out the lights and locked the door at 9:00. All night we had little kids with parents in tow, but many of the kids looked older; last night the very last visitors were teenagers who were with a person standing outside our gate. He/she was in costume, but just out of the light so I couldn't make out details. The person looked large...looming, scary. The teenagers took their candy without a thank-you, then scrammed so we shut it down for the evening.

I didn't recognize many of the kids who were ringing our doorbell; I believe they had been at it for a while, going from block to block, and had pillowcases full of candy to show for it.

What's fun about trick or treating is seeing the real little kids in costume, maybe out for their first time. I don't want to see jaded, greedy teenagers. Kids, when you're about 9 or 10 you should really be thinking about retirement from the trick or treat experience. Leave it to the littl'uns.

My son told me his daughters were content to watch the kids who came to their house all evening. The girls didn't want to go out trick or treating themselves. It's something I've noticed about them, and especially the older one, Bella. She is a very careful observer. She checks it out. She doesn't jump into anything. I think that's a good quality. It'll help keep her out of all kinds of trouble as she grows up.

Happy Halloween from the Famous Monsters!

The Famous Monsters faces of fear!

Frankenstein's monster, the Phantom of the Opera, and Mister Hyde!

Dracula, the Mummy and Wolfman...

Your sexy 8th grade English teacher after school!

Sarah Palin after you've had a couple of drinks!

The clown from your third birthday party!

Yo' Mama!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO YOU ALL!

Make your own masks

It's hard to believe that:

a) It's Halloween tomorrow;

b) this damn election stuff is nearly over.

The way the news organizations are carrying on, the way the Republicans are acting, it appears that they are bracing for a big scare.

So, BOO!

While we're at it, let us not forget that we still have a sitting president with a sitting cabinet, and they are supposedly working, not watching The Daily Show, CNN or Fox News. Just to remind us you can print off one or all of these faces, cut eyeholes and holes at the ears, tie on some string and make your own Halloween masks.

Goodbye Uncle Jack

They held a graveside service for Sally's Uncle Jack today. He died last week at age 86.

This picture, taken circa the late 1950s, shows Jack at the very left. Next to him is his mother, we called her Nany, Jack's wife LaVon, Shirley and Ray, Sally's parents. That's Sally, sitting on the couch far right, holding her baby brother. Jack and LaVon's three kids are on the couch, intermingled with Sally's brothers and sisters.

All the people in the back row are gone. Jack was the last of them.

Jack had an incredible sense of humor and a natural storytelling ability. You gravitated toward Jack at a party because he was so entertaining. Jack had some funny sayings, including one that cracks me up just to think of it. "How was the honeymoon?" "Two pot bellies and a short pud."

Jack told a joke at a family function years ago, and I wish I'd recorded it. But when I remember it I can hear Jack's voice:

"A man goes to a doctor. He's got a big wart on his nose. The doctor says, 'Hmmm. Better lay in bed, rest the wart in a chair. Once an hour rub this ointment on it and call me in the morning.'

"The next morning the man called the doctor. 'So how's it going?' asks the doc. 'Terrible!' says the man. 'Now I'm in the chair and the wart's in the bed!'"

That joke was probably old during the time of Vaudeville, but no matter. They way he told jokes, stupid or not, they were funny.

When Sally and I first got married, 40 years ago, Nany told a story about Jack and Sally's mom, Shirley, when they were little kids. They were mad at their parents so they packed little suitcases and made their way down the sidewalk. They sat on their suitcases for a while, then wandered back home. Nany didn't respond to them, so Jack said to her, "Well, I see you've still got the same old cat."

That was Jack. Even at an early age.

We'll really miss you, Jack.

"Republican for a reason"

We were driving on a street adjacent to ours when my wife noticed a man standing by his lawn sign. "Republican for a reason," she quoted. "Hmm. We ought to stop and ask the guy what his reason is."

I have written before about how Republican Utah is, for seemingly no reason except that some people feel they have to be. (See here.)

My mom and dad were staunch Republicans. My dad gave money to the party, attended money-raising dinners for a local congressman, and hated the Democrats.

If you asked my Mom and Dad why they hated Democrats they'd say, "They always get us into a war." If you asked why they loved Republicans they'd say, "They keep us out of war." If you consider Woodrow Wilson and World War I, FDR and World War II, Truman and the Korean War and Lyndon Johnson with the Vietnam War, that seemed to be the case. That was before Republican George W. Bush and the Iraq War (and does anyone call it Operation Enduring Freedom anymore?) As far as World War II went, there was that little thing called Pearl Harbor.

My parents might also have complained, "Democrats tax and spend," which is a Republican mantra. The difference is, of course, that our Republican generation spends and doesn't tax, just puts it on the tab "for later."

My father was a Goldwater Republican, very conservative, and if you mentioned Franklin Roosevelt you'd get a lecture on "those goddam government giveaways." Along with being Republican Dad was racist. He thought black people were all siphoning welfare money and using it to drink, take drugs, impregnate teenage girls and play craps. I'm sure Mom went along with that viewpoint. They were born in the early 1920s and were purely products of their generation and upbringing. I can hardly blame them if all they ever heard about other races was bad. It was what it was, an era of intense race prejudice.

What always struck me was that Mom and Dad, each coming from different rural towns in the center of Utah, where the Depression hit very hard, were so anti-Roosevelt and his government programs. I think I know why, because Mom and Dad came from successful families and had more than the people who were struggling. My dad's father died in 1932, before Social Security, and his widow, who never worked, and children got through the Depression just fine. Dad went to a private school and an exclusive college, so Grandpa must've had some good insurance. Even so, could they not see what was going on around them, the poverty, the bank failures, the near-anarchy that raged before Roosevelt got into office and implemented programs to bring back American confidence?

Lately there are some revisionist histories of the Depression, that laissez-faire economics could have eventually saved us. That was the platform of the Republicans at the time, and it's why they got booted from office in 1932. The Depression claimed the jobs of 25% of the population. As some historians have noted, America was very close to revolution. Maybe laissez-faire economics might have saved the system, if there had been time for it to work. However, we are talking about events that happened nearly 80 years ago. Someone can point a finger and say it didn't have to happen that way but it's immaterial because it did happen.

I'm sure that lurking in the minds of our modern politicians who pushed through the 700-billion dollar bailout were thoughts of the Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal. Bush and Company would want to be thought of in the same way, that they were the white knights who rode in and saved the economy.

When the time comes, everybody, conservative or liberal, signs up for Social Security, a Roosevelt-era program. They love Medicare, a Great Society program from Democrat Lyndon Johnson. No one wants to give up the social safety net those programs provide, and when George W. Bush tried to sell the idea of privatizing Social Security his sales job fell on deaf ears. Even Republicans claimed not to be home when he came to call with that proposal.

I don't believe the Republican party my parents belonged to is the same Republican party that exists today. Barry Goldwater was a thinking man's conservative, a pragmatist who was still able to work with Democrats. Today's Republicans have been co-opted by radical religious types, unthinkable forty years ago. They don't want to work with anybody, just dictate. Dad wasn't religious and he would have been appalled by their takeover of the GOP. The spending the Republicans now do would have disgusted him.

I'd hope that Dad, who died in 1967, a year of racial and civil turmoil, would have been educated over the years and would have realized that this is a different world than the one in which he grew up. I'd hope he'd have left those prejudices somewhere in his past and embraced the new era, where an African-American can actually be leading in the polls in the race for President of the U.S.

And, oh yeah. I was once also a Republican. My first vote in 1968 went to Richard Nixon because I believed him when he said he had a plan to win the war. By 1972 I was a Democrat and have never looked back.

Here's a Republican platform I could support

Just a couple of years ago this incident would have embarrassed me, but no more. Now I understand more about being male. It means we look. It means we have to look, must absolutely put our eyeballs on that spot that shows the least bit of femininity, that promises the allure of skin, of sex.

Women don't think like that. They just dress like they do to feel stylish, and if they turn us on, that's OK, but I'm guessing it isn't the reason they buy the clothes and shoes they choose to wear.

So I walked into the first school on my route yesterday, and saw a young woman standing behind the counter in the cubicle where all three secretaries sit. The woman--girl, really, because she's college-age--is January, whose mom sits right next to her: Kandie is one of the two main secretaries. January is the girl who keeps track of lunch money and does the accounting.

Both Kandie and January are probably 20 pounds overweight, but they both dress as stylish and trendy as they can. I glanced over and saw that January was wearing a pair of black slacks, but on her feet were a pair of patent leather platform shoes with 5" heels. A pair of shoes like that, especially at work, will get my attention. I guess I had a look on my face, or I looked too long. January didn't see me because she was talking to someone, but her mom did. I looked up to see Kandie smiling at me. She knew what I was looking at. Instead of blushing deep red because I'd been busted looking at her daughter's sexy footwear, I had the opposite reaction. I made the universal sign to Kandie of "OK!" with thumb and forefinger.

Maybe later Kandie pulled January aside and said, "That dirty old man was looking at your shoes!"

Oh well. Like I have said many times: It's deep down in our DNA. A man has to look.

**********

I was wowed by the news that the Republicans have been spending campaign money--to the tune of $150 large--to dress Sarah Palin. Hey, Republicans...give me some of that budget and I'll dress her the way I'd like to see her. For starters, a pair of platform thigh-high leather boots with 6" stiletto heels would be great!

The buzz from the hive

When I was growing up the word Red meant communist. Now it means a state that votes Republican. Who thought that up? Utah is overwhelmingly Republican because the good people of the State of Utah, god bless 'em, really like to be told what to think and how to vote. They are deep red, scarlet. I read a statistic once--and again, who thinks this stuff up?--that about one-quarter to one-third of people like to be told what to do, what to think. It makes life so much easier, doesn't it?

Faithful red Latter-day Saints usually vote as a bloc, and are very conservative. It wasn't always so. During the 1930s Utah, like most states, was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt's policies. Church leaders who hated Roosevelt were usually ignored or criticized. But nowadays if a church leader expresses an opinion he automatically has credibility. It's Mormon-think: When church leaders have spoken, all thinking is done.

In the 1960s Utah people elected Cal Rampton, a Democrat, as governor, and he was one of the most popular governors ever. He was followed by an equally popular Democrat, Scott Matheson. They were truly bipartisan and had to be, because the legislature was overwhelmingly then, as now, Republican. All of those days of bipartisanship are gone. Republicans hold every major office in the state except for one congressman, Scott Matheson's son, who could well be a Republican based on his voting record. Only local offices, some mayors and city and county council people, are Democrats, and they are from areas that usually vote for any Dem.

And why is this? Well, it goes back to that Mormon-think, back to the mentality that church leaders know what's right for their flock.

“In February 1974 Apostle Ezra Taft Benson was asked during an interview if a good Mormon could also be a liberal Democrat. Benson pessimistically replied: ‘I think it would be very hard if he was living the gospel and understood it.’”

- John Heinerman and Anson Shule, The Mormon Corporate Empire

“There is a joke in Salt Lake City expressing a feeling that Mormon Democrats say they know well. It goes:
I thought I saw Brother Williams in the Temple last week.
Why that’s impossible. He’s a Democrat, you know.”

- ibid.

Ezra Taft Benson, who served as LDS Church president for a time before his death, was Secretary of Agriculture during the Eisenhower administration, and had a narrow view of Democrats, or at least the liberal types, as expressed in his statement from '74. I remember when that came out, and what a bombshell it was. I'm sure a lot of faithful LDS who considered themselves Democrats had second thoughts, maybe even changed party affiliation.

What Benson didn't foresee is that when there is one-party rule, as there is in Utah, it just proves the adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely. Some of our legislators seem almost drunk with power to get their own agendas passed into law, helping a narrow group of people, or even just their families. It reminds me of the stories of Sarah Palin's abuses as a mayor and governor, bending laws to get her own way and settle her own scores. That happens a lot in Utah because when everyone is on the same wavelength, when everyone is part of that big beehive, they tend to go along for the good of the hive. Sometimes I realize how apt the state nickname as The Beehive State is; it was intended to mean we're industrious, but it also means that everyone is thinking exactly alike.

There are a few of us, though, who don't follow that buzz, and we'll find out after the upcoming election how many in Utah are there to protect the hive, and how many are attackers from outside.

Let's dance

Monday morning I got one of those annoying e-mails, not from some anonymous spammer, but from a coworker. It was yet another regurgitation of the lies, half-truths and libel about Barack Obama. Usually I’d just hit the delete button and forget it, but I approached it with him an hour or so later at work.

“Don't send me any more of your goddamn e-mails,” I said, “I've already voted, so you're not going to change my mind about anything.”

On Saturday Sally and sent in our absentee ballots. We signed up to be permanent absentee balloteers after being out of town during a couple of previous elections. It sure is easier than standing in line. Early voting at select polling places started yesterday, and will go through the week. Local news cameras showed long lines of voters, trying to avoid long lines on election day. If interest is this high then there will be more than a few problems on November 4 due to long lines.

In the meantime, we can always go dancing. (Thanks to Eddie Hunter, from whose Chicken Fat blog I swiped this. It’s very clever and makes me wonder how can anyone ever trust a photograph in the era of Photoshop?)

That was the week that was...

Things have happened so fast this past week as the presidential campaign and financial crisis accelerate that it's been hard to stay current with editorial cartoons. These are my two favorites from the past week.

Pat Bagley's cartoon hits the nail on the head of what will be the Bush legacy, and Ed Stein shows how removed the campaign is from the meltdown of the economy.

Good ideas, great drawings!

Stumped

Sally and I got back Wednesday night from our visit to family in Pennsylvania. We were there at the perfect time for weather and time of year; the days were sunny and in the 70s, and the leaves got more colorful every day.

We're walkers and we made use of the rural lanes and roads where we were, hiking out in the morning, camera in hand. This past Tuesday I not only got some brilliant leaves, but this stump.

This is a carving of...who? It looks biblical. It's a nice job and looks brand new.

Our granddaughters, Bella, nearly four, and Gabby, just over two, are both talkative and smart. We always swear we're going to write down what they say, like when Gabby said: "When I was little I was in my mommy's tummy."

Bella: "Grandma, where's your airplane?"

Sally: "It's at the airport, in a garage."

I also like the way both of them say "Daddy" with two distinct syllables, "Dad Dee." Of course Gabby has precedents to guide her, so she's way ahead of the curve. Her older sister is articulate and smart. She understands humor and uses it. It's also hilarious to listen to the two of them singing together. I think there's a potential for a duo in the future.

They are a couple of born posers. Bella leads the way with her expressive and different ways of standing for a photo. Little sister has to do what big sister does, so she does her best to pose, also. It makes for some great kid pictures.

Thursday afternoon Sally and David contacted each other using Skype, and there were the girls again on webcam, talking, laughing and joking. My heart did this little thing in my chest when I saw them. Now I know what is truly meant by tugging at your heartstrings. Consider mine tugged.

Here in Butler PA

My wife, Sally, and I have been in Butler PA since last Wednesday visiting our son and his family.

We find it a nice place. The fall weather is gorgeous as I write this, while at home in Utah I understand it's snowing. When Sally and I set out on our exercise walks passers-by smile and wave. We don't get that in Utah.

Yesterday we visited downtown Butler, looking in antique stores and bookstores. With two small children in tow it became a challenge, but I was enjoying the funky 1960s-style of the place.


We stopped at Democratic hq and posed in front of the big picture of Barack Obama. I'm planning to vote for him, but sometimes these pictures remind me of the cult of personality. Obama is bigger than life, and this artistic portrait represents some of that; an idealized view of a complex human being.

My son, David, swears as we were taking our pictures that an old man walked by and snorted.

On our way out of downtown we stopped at a local family restaurant for lunch. We were set up in a dining area with another family with young children, and I saw us as being segregated from the rest of the patrons so our children wouldn't annoy them. On the one hand I thought it was smart, on the other hand I was a bit perturbed.

The man and his family seated next to us as the only other diners seemed like a military family. Three boys and a dad, all with buzz cuts. Mom was a very pretty lady who somehow didn't look like she belonged with this testosteronic bunch. What made me think they were military--besides the haircuts--was Dad trying to get the boys under control by saying things like, "Keep this up and I'll make you run five laps with a 20-lb sandbag on your shoulders." Later he upped the punishment to 12 laps with thirty lbs. It didn't do a bit of good. The kids, all of whom appeared to have ADD, knew that Dad was a blowhard who wouldn't back up his threats.

With my poor hearing I couldn't hear this, but David told us later the man was telling a story about a past experience with a waitress in a restaurant. He said, "I told the waitress if she put on the receipt I paid $5.00 for the ice cream I'd give her a $5.00 tip. If she put down $8.00 I'd give her an $8.00 tip!" He finished by saying, "She wrote down $8.00 so I gave her the tip and I got free ice cream!" Wow, with math skills like those I'm sure this is the guy who engineered sub-prime mortgages or is one of the authors of the current financial crisis.

So that's Butler from my exceedingly narrow viewpoint. It has smart and friendly people, it has hicks and dumb people. Just like every other town in the world.

Oh yeah, the road out of town has a Dairy Queen, old-style. I haven't seen one of these old timey drive-ins for years. It turns out they serve just ice cream, and today is the last day of the season, but I got a picture because it can't last. It just can't. I'm sure someday soon it'll be a 7-Eleven or a gas station, but I wanted a picture to prove I saw one of the last of the old DQ drive-ins in America.