Category Archives: Big Thoughts

I Need a Friend

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The lovely gekko uses the story of the [broken] teacup to illustrate the transience of friendships, but I have a different viewpoint.

In the story of the glass or teacup, Ajahn Chah points to a glass at his side. “Do you see this glass?” he asked. “I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. Yet for me, this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”

I know a lot of people. A lot more people probably know me.

  • I was the voice of the Maple Festival, on stage in front of 50,000.
  • I chair an arts council with very public events.
  • I was the elected School Moderator at Town Meeting in my Vermont Town for a decade.
  • I had a TV interview show for six years.
  • I have a fairly extensive Internoodle presence.

And more. All those folks I’ve met are very friendly but maybe not close friends.

The peeps who see me at concerts, on stage, on television, in the grocery story may very well see me as “the already broken glass” of relationships, but that’s because they are acquaintances. I prefer the story of the teacup that I caught before it shattered, the teacup I cared for and groomed, the teacup that can last forever. My bone china teacup holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. And it can last forever.


A friend will help you move. A real friend will help you move a body.

“You are also a hoarder,” Liz Arden noted. “You would never throw away the body.”

I do have Quaker roots but I wouldn’t keep it after the stink set in.

I ran into some old friends, the kind who carry shovels in the trunk. One was our flag marshal from my racing days, a man I hadn’t seen for a quarter century. We picked up the conversation we had interrupted at Bridgehampton and haven’t stopped yattering since. I can call Tom an old friend because he is so much older than I. Likewise, one of my college roommates shanghaied me for our reunion last year. All four of us who shared a fourth-floor, cold water, walk-up in downtown Hoboken were there. I’m not sure we’d really use shovels anymore — digging a hole that size by hand is hard work when there are backhoes around — but there’s no question that I’d trailer in the hoe if any of them called.

Those guys are the exception. Lucky, I am.

“Many adults find it hard to develop new friendships or keep up existing friendships,” says the Mayo Clinic. “Friendships may take a back seat to other priorities, such as work or caring for children or aging parents. You and your friends may have grown apart due to changes in your lives or interests. Or maybe you’ve moved to a new community and haven’t yet found a way to meet people. Developing and maintaining good friendships takes effort.”

Friendship takes work.

The teacup story is a far better tale than the broken glass because the teacup has pathos averted, a lesson in maintenance, and a very bright future.

My friend Rufus and I live 400 miles apart. Tom is 1,200 miles away. Gekko and I average 2,000 miles. That means we don’t go to many ball games together; we haven’t worked side by side under the hood of a car for years. We remain besties not only because we have a bond but also because we work at it with cards and calls, email and Skype, and occasional visits. With or without the excavator.

Still, it would be nice to be physically closer. I’ll keep looking.

“It’s never too late to build new friendships or reconnect with old friends,” the Mayo Clinic reminds us. “Investing time in … strengthening your friendships can pay off in better health and a brighter outlook for years to come.”

Exactly. It’s more important to keep the teacup from breaking than to expect to see the broken shards on the floor.

A friend may well be reckoned a masterpiece of nature.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s more satisfying to dig a ditch with friends
than to design a skyscraper with a team of sociopaths.
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail
A really good friend will be sitting next to you saying,
“Damn…that was fun!”
Jerry said we don’t tend to the friendships in our lives
I’ve spent perhaps most of my adult life talking to strangers
Why don’t people take more time to talk to the ones we love?
–Alan Shore
A man’s never so rich as he is with friendship.
-Denny Crane
Keep only cheerful friends.
The grouches pull you down.
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
–Martin Luther King Jr.

 

 

Memorial Day

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Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday once known as Decoration Day commemorates the men and women who perished under the flag of this country, fighting for what sets our America apart: the freedom to live as we please.

Holiday is a contraction of holy and day; the word originally referred only to special religious days. Here in the U.S. of A. “holiday” means any special day off work or school instead of a normal day off work or school.

The Uniform Holidays Bill which gave us some 38 or 50 Monday shopaholidays moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. Today is not May 30 but perhaps we can shut up and salute anyway.

Editorial cartoon from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Lest we forget, the Americans we honor did not “give their lives.” They did not merely perish. They did not just cease living, check out, croak, depart, drop, expire, kick off. kick the bucket, pass away or pass on, pop off, or bite the dust. Their lives were taken from them by force on battlefields around the world. They were killed. Whether you believe they died with honor, whether you believe our cause just, died they did.

Today is not a “free” day off work or school. Today is not the big sale day at the Dollar Store. Today is a day of Honor.

“All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”

The American flag today should first be raised to the top of the flagpole for a moment, then lowered to the half-staff position where it will remain until Noon. The flag should be raised to the peak at Noon for the remainder of Memorial Day.

There are those in this country who would use today to legislate the man out of the fight. They can do that but the men and women we honor today knew you cannot legislate the fight out of the man. They have fought and they have died to protect us from those who would kill us. And perhaps to protect us from those who would sell out our birthright.

There is no end to the mutts who would kill our men and women in uniform even faster than they would kill their own. And there is no end to the mutts in our capitol who would let them. If I had but one wish granted on this day, I wish not another soldier dies. Ever. But die they did around the world again this year and die they will. For us. For me.

Because those men and women died, I get to write these words again this year. And you get to read them. Please pause and reflect as you go to a concert, stop at an artist’s studio, grill a burger, or simply read a book in the sunshine the price we pay to keep our right to do those things. Thank a soldier today. And then do it again tomorrow.

Editor’s Note: This column is slightly updated from one that appeared first in 2008.

 

Take It Back

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“Did he mean this as a joke?”

Some back story: A few election cycles ago, conservatives formed Take Back Vermont in response to the then-new law that established civil unions for same-sex couples.

Take Back Vermont wanted to do more than repeal civil unions. It was wanted to shackle the affluent, liberal, Democratic flatlanders who were changing both the laws and the values of the state.

Looking back more than decade later we see the movement was a flop. Liberal Vermont still flirts with socialized medicine (bad) and has done what it should have done in the first place by passing a marriage law that allows any loving, unrelated couple to marry (good).

Professor Louis SeidmanThe Take Our State Back folks have scattered.

A Georgetown Professor of Constitutional Law told the CBS Sunday Morning audience that it’s time to “Take our country back, from the Constitution.”

Didn’t he learn anything from Vermont?

Professor Louis Seidman wants all of us (and presumably all of the lawyers he trains) to stop paying attention to the Constitution and instead consider what process and policies we need to move the country forward.

“To be clear, I don’t think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago.” Professor Seidman said.

Oh. This could be good. We’ll keep the all parts I like and dump the ones I don’t?

Cool.

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” That’s not very inspiring. Congress has an approval rating of about minus 362 percent. Let ’em get real jobs and leave the rest of us alone.

“The Congress shall have Power … To borrow money on the credit of the United States.” I’m thinking the purse snatcher who charged the big screen TV on Anne’s credit card is Congress’ stupid younger brother. Let’s jettison that one, too.

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Oh, no. In these Patriot Days, we need to deep-six that. Treason against the United States must, must consist of whatever the President says it is. I can dig it.

John AdamsExcept. Except as dead white guy John Adams wrote in his letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Zealots often use that quote for religious purposes but I see the rest of the words. Mr. Adams believed that the U.S. Constitution was inadequate to govern the immoral.

The world is full of politicians like Professor Seidman who seduce us with promises of loose morals and anarchy.

The danger was summed up by an Egyptian protester yesterday: “the president must resign and a new constitution must be written” to replace the Morsi sham. Egypt’s current Sharia-based document replaced the 1971 Mubarek charter.

If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document,” Professor Seidman said.

Alrighty then. No more irrelevant dead white guys.

All you Muslims, listen up. The Koran is no longer your law. All you Englishmen, listen up. The Magna Carta is null and void. All you African Americans, listen up. Professor Seidman has retracted the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Democracy depends upon its people not acting out of blatant self interest,” Glenn Peacock wrote on the Internoodle recently.

“We are doomed,” Rufus said.

Perhaps not. Maybe Professor Seidman’s talk was simply a Saturday Night Live skit that got to the wrong network.

Last Day

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Everyone else is looking backwards today, but that’s simply too too easy. After all, we can sum up this year (and last year and the year before that) quite simply:

America’s national politicians-for-life, faced with a $16,352,743,884,513.53 debt and a bank that turns into a pumpkin at midnight tonight, decided to fight the War on Guns instead. (This follows the War on Drugs and we all know how well that worked out.)

Maybe they have finally realized that the Arab Spring of 2012 could become the American Spring of 2013.

~ ~ ~

I have just finished a loverly vacation. The weather was beachy. Marathon had a sand castle contest and Key Weird opened a sculpture exhibit with unicycles. We chased fleas, talked to birds, sang to sea lions, and took about 2,600 pictures, the digital equivalent of 72 rolls of film. And through it all, it did not once snow in the Florida Keys.

I don’t make New Year’s Revolutions but I would like to make a few changes in my life. For the record I am blessed with the two best friends a man could have and I don’t particularly want to add stuff. I bought the best camera I’ve ever owned last month. I have a couple of pretty good computers and plenty of pocket electronics. I don’t need an airplane.

I need time. See, this year I want to
hit a home run, even in the minors;
revisit the 40 states I’ve already photographed and visit the rest of them for the first time;
win the lottery;
hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (as long as there’s an elevator back up);
sell an invention;
sell 100 photographs;
sell a book;
and reduce my use of serial semi-colons.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve replaced or repaired most of the little things that plagued me and stole the time I needed to do all of the above:
the gas chainsaw that never ran (bought an electric);
the hydronic heating pipes that freeze in the winter (installed an antifreeze pumping system);
the satellite receiver that didn’t receive (they sent me another);
the IT client who lied to me, chewed up hours of time to repair stuff their prior service company did wrong, then refused to pay (shed same);
the pellet stove that stopped burning (I stopped trying to repair it and bought an exhaust fan);
my iPod dock (put a couple of powered speakers in service instead);
the slow leak in a couple of car tires that the fixes never seem to last and always seem flat when needed (ongoing);
and the new TV that hums in the external speakers (diagnosed but not fixed).

It’s time to stop having to fix the little stuff.

That all means 2013 will be the year Mr. Fixit puts a new roof on this house, digs up the sewer line, and has to drag the seawall out of the sea, innit. At least I shall endeavor not to take on new clients.

Happy New Year!

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
— Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a Member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
–Mark Twain

There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
— Mark Twain

Thanks to the Congress, the public debt rose $3,009,622.24 between 11:59 a.m. and noon today.

Shooting Motive Puzzles Investigators

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Most of the kids in Newtown, Connecticut, were born in 2006 not long after the 21st Century began. Many of them would have seen the turn of the 22nd Century.

From the Daily Beast to the Violence Policy Center, special interest groups, editorialists, and politicians lined the Sunday talk shows to politicize the murders in order to … well, you already know, don’t you?

Mr. Obama came under increased pressure this weekend from Democrats to lead the charge to ban guns.

CBS’ Bob Schieffer wonders if this is the tipping point so we finally try to ban guns.

Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT) released a statement Saturday that “to do nothing in the face of continuous assaults on our children is to be complicit in those assaults” in his effort to ban guns.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) promised immediate action on gun control.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), the author of the Brady Bill who just three days ago worried that the fiscal cliff will hike milk prices to $6 per gallon, has joined with Michael Bloomberg to make 16 ounce drink cups illegal. And to shrink the size of handgun clips.

The killer who triggered the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history got off lucky. His quick suicide was far less than he deserved. No, I will not publish his name.

But I have two teeny little niggling questions:
(1) Isn’t there a fiscal something-or-other out there that we’re supposed to worry about? and
(2) What about the other people killed this year? Don’t they count, too?

Mother Jones reported that, “Since 1982, there have been at least 62 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii.” 43 people were slain in other mass murders in 2012 alone. And the year isn’t over yet.

Since 1982, there have also been at least 90 commercial airline crashes that killed people in this country alone. I didn’t total how many thousands died. Heck, 445 people have died so far this year in commercial aircraft accidents around the world. That includes the Allied Air flight on June 2 that overran the runway and hit a bus. All four in the crew survived but 12 people on the bus died. And the Ozark Air Lines flight that struck a snow plow at Sioux Falls Regional Airport. The driver of the snow plow was the only casualty there.

Dammit, we need to ban commercial air travel is what!

There were 32,367 motor vehicle deaths last year. Cars kill more people than bathroom accidents (341 people drowned in baths and showers in 2000).

Don’t you think we need to ban cars? And probably bathrooms?

The War on Terror has taken 4,977 American lives since 2001 in Afghanistan and Iraq alone.

How about a ban on terror?

On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In fact, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner in 2000. 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.

We probably need to ban intimate partnerships.

The mad bomber of the Bath School “disaster” in 1927 killed 38 elementary school kids, most in the second to sixth grades, plus two teachers, four other adults, and the bomber himself. It remains the deadliest mass murder in a school in U.S. history. And a truck bomb made of fertilizer and diesel fuel killed 168 people and injured over 800 in the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. No, I will not publish those murderers’ names, either.

Maybe we stick a plug up the back end of cows to eliminate fertilizer.

Newtown was one nut with a gun.

The number of crimes involving handguns in the UK has more than doubled since the ban on the weapons that passed after the Dunblane massacre, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871 last year. The United bloody Kingdom.

It is already illegal to shoot people, even if you didn’t mean to. Connecticut and New York have about the toughest gun laws in the nation. This is the second mass killing in Connecticut in two years.

Puzzled investigators. Huh.

We don’t need more laws. We need more answers.

In fact, as the earth gets hotter, I’m surprised no one has noticed the direct correlation between mass murder and Global Warming. Or between mass murder and nutcases who dream about killing people.