| Previous Year |
A column by Gary Webster |
What a bunch of maroons!
Or not.
I'd like to thank the 6.6 million Americans who had nothing better to do last Saturday night than to sit on their keesters watching six Republican presidential candidates debate the issues in next year's campaign on television, thereby ruining a perfectly good essay. There I was, all set to razz the heck out of whichever Republican geniuses scheduled a presidential debate for a Saturday night when no one would be paying attention, when I discovered this morning that more people viewed the debate than any of the numerous other showdowns between the candidates who hope to challenge President Obama in November of 2012. Six point six million people stayed home on a Saturday night to watch Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman duke it out verbally in hopes of convincing their fellow Republicans to bestow the party's nomination on them next summer. At least, I assume Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Paul, Romney and Huntsman were the participants. I wasn't paying attention. And I certainly wasn't sitting in front of my television watching the proceedings. First of all, I'm a Democrat, so I don't really care who the Republicans nominate. Unless they find a way to bring Abraham Lincoln back to life, I'm not going to vote for him (or her, if Bachmann gets the nod.) Secondly, it was a Saturday night! Unlike the 6.6 million dweebs who watched the debate, I have a life, and it does not include watching a political debate on a Saturday night!
All right, I confess to spending Saturday night alone in my apartment watching TV. But I was watching sports. I watched the Army-Navy football game, then I watched a couple of college basketball games. That's acceptable. That's fun. And Saturday nights are meant for fun. What could be more fun than sitting at home on a Saturday night in early December watching college sports on TV? Okay, a lot of things could be more fun than sitting at home on a Saturday night in early December watching college sports on TV. Such as consoling Kim Kardashian over her failed marriage. Or consoling Jennifer Lopez over her failed marriage. These weren't options, however. Watching the presidential debate was, and I chose not to because it was a Saturday night. Only pathetic losers would spend a Saturday night watching a presidential debate on TV. That's not fun!
What's happening to the spirit of this great land of ours? (Personally, I think it's the result of electing too many Republican presidents, but that's just my opinion.) Remember Saturday Night Fever? The classic film (well, the film wasn't so great, but the soundtrack was) about a kid from Brooklyn who lived for Saturday nights so he could forget about his crummy job and his crummy life for a few hours, dress up in a tacky suit, and impress the ladies with his dance moves at a club where they played really cool music. That's what Saturday nights are for! Hanging out and doing fun stuff. The movie was so popular, Hollywood made a sequel. I have yet to see a movie about a group of people gathering in front of a big screen, high-definition TV on a Saturday night to watch a group of politicians discuss what they'd do if Greenland invaded Iceland, or vice versa. You'd never catch Democrats holding a debate on a Saturday night.
I was all set to write 45 brilliant lines about how stupid some Republican campaign manager was to schedule a debate on a Saturday night when 6.6 million policy wonks had to ruin it for me. Thanks a lot. Just another reason to vote Democratic in 2012!
Why did they make me do that?
A writer never knows where inspiration will come from. This month's essay was inspired by the comic strip Rose is Rose. The punchline of today's strip dealt with Rose's husband's hatred of math, a subject I could easily have done without during my primary education days, if only the school board had allowed me to.
I'm not suggesting that it isn't important to teach children to add, subtract, multiply and divide. . .although I rarely (make that never) perform any of these basic functions without the aid of a calculator these days. I'm not proud of it, but everyone else uses calculators, so why shouldn't I? Especially since it's a solar-powered calculator, meaning I haven't spent a penny on batteries since I bought it more than 20 years ago. Unfortunately, in the dark northern climate in which I reside, that also means I can't do much calculating in November, December, or January. Things begin to improve in February, just in time to calculate my income tax.
I understand why it was necessary for me to learn basic math skills. I actually have to use them as I stand in the check-out line on Sunday mornings trying to figure out in my head how much the groceries in my cart are going to cost. No, I don't bring my calculator shopping with me. That's just too geeky! What I don't understand is why I had to waste nine months of my youth trying to master algebra. From the late summer of 1970 through the late spring of 1971 (ninth grade to be exact), Mrs. Marilyn Allegretto had the unenviable task of trying to teach me (and approximately 30 other kids, most of whom were just as disinterested as I was) the basic tenents of algebra. As hard as Mrs. Allegretto tried, and she went so far as requiring me to report to her room before 8:00AM for special tutoring; algebra, to me, was then and always will be the clever name the Little Rascals gave their pet donkey in the 1934 film Honkey Donkey. What a bunch of kids were doing with a pet donkey I don't know, but, whenever I see the film, the efforts of Don Barclay, who played the flustered and frustrated rich boy's chauffeur, to keep the recalcitrant animal under control still crack me up. Barclay had about as much luck getting Algebra the donkey to obey his commands as Mrs. Allegretto had getting me to understand how to solve algebraic equations. I'm proud to report that not once since I left Mrs. Allegretto's classroom in June of 1971 have I been called upon to solve an algebra problem. Not once! And that's fortunate since I had forgotten everything she managed to get into my thick skull by June of 1972, if not sooner. Why did we both have to waste our time? Admittedly, Mrs. Allegretto was getting paid for her efforts. But what about me?
Then there was geometry, which I studied (and I use that term loosely) in 11th grade, once again because the board of education demanded that I do so. Luckily, I was assigned to Mr. Paul Serra's class, and without his patience I never would have passed and the Euclid, Ohio, schools would still be trying to get rid of me. I knew Mr. Serra and he knew me because he was the assistant varsity baseball coach and I had been the equipment manager for the junior varsity team the year before. I do remember something of my nine months in Mr. Serra's class, but it has nothing to do with geometry. I remember the class wiseacre, Laurie Heisner, constantly asking Mr. Serra if he knew what and where his "pernerndle" was. He didn't. After she'd driven him crazy for weeks, Laurie finally told Mr. Serra that his "pernerndle" was in his car. It was the gear shift for the steering wheel (P-R-N-D-2-3, get it?). Forty years later, I couldn't solve a geometric problem if I was offered a million dollars to do so, but at least I know where my "pernerndle" is!
Why couldn't I have spent those two years studying something important. . .like how to meet girls?
FORE!!
I've always had a soft spot for Scotland, a country I've never visited and probably never will. But Scotland gave the world two things, one of which holds a special place in my life and the other of which is the topic of this month's essay.Scotland gave the world Macbeth, the nobleman upon whose life Will Shakespeare based his classic tragedy of the same name, that name being Macbeth, in case you've forgotten or weren't paying attention. I know next to nothing about Macbeth, aside from the fact that he actually existed and that the utterance of his name inside a theater is considered bad luck. Technically, the utterance of the play's title within the confines of a theater is considered bad luck, but since the man's name and the play's title are one and the same, don't ever mention either one inside a theater unless you want to be thrown out on your tuchus by an irate usher (or performer) without having your ticket money refunded.
I'm assuming Shakespeare took a lot of what writers call "creative liberty" with the story he wrote about the life of the noble Macbeth. Or maybe not. Maybe Macbeth did come upon three witches hanging around a heath in a forest one day, and maybe those witches did predict that he'd become the king of Scotland (a position that was occupied when the witches made their prediction.) Maybe Macbeth went home and told his wife about the prediction, and maybe the ambitious Mrs. Macbeth, wishing to be the wife of a king, did encourage her noble husband to shed his nobility and murder the incumbent king, who just happened to have been invited for dinner and a sleep-over at Macbeth's castle at Elsinore. Maybe Macbeth's wife then told him to violently eliminate anyone who stood in his path toward the kingship, including his best friend, Banquo. I have no idea whether there was a real Banquo or not, but I think there was since the king of England at the time Shakespeare wrote Macbeth allegedly traced his lineage back to Banquo, who, in the play, is promised by the witches that he'd sire kings although he'd never achieve that lofty position himself. Maybe Macbeth really did spend a few heady weeks as king of Scotland before being taken down by a bunch of soldiers dressed as trees, led by the noble Macduff, who was born C-section, thereby fulfilling the witches promise that Macbeth need fear no man of woman born. How should I know if Shakespeare made that story up or if it actually happened? Truth is, after all, often stranger than fiction. What I do know is the role of Macbeth, bestowed upon me by my classmates in Miss Sullivan's sixth grade class at Upson School in the spring of 1968, was the first role I ever played on stage. That's why Scotland will always be special to me.
The other thing Scotland has given the world, which is not special to me but which is the topic of this essay, is golf. At the urging of a friend, I took up golf 23 years ago. I'd been playing miniature golf since elementary school, and I'm rather good at it. I wasn't good at real golf, which humorist Mark Twain once accurately described as "a good walk spoiled." I spent a lot of money on greens fees and golf balls during the half decade I tried to master the sport. Actually, I never expected to master golf. Even Jack Nicklaus couldn't master golf. I just hoped to reach an agreement with it. What we eventually agreed on was that I stink at golf and I didn't want to play anymore. So I gave it up about the time Bill Clinton became president and haven't swung a club since. The last straw came on a chilly early October morning at a golf course described as a "championship level" course, on which I had about as much business playing as I have of entering this year's Mr. America bodybuilding competiton. I had a dozen balls in my bag when my friend and I teed off on the first hole. By the time we reached the 10th hole, I couldn't tee off because I'd lost every ball I had with me, scattering all 12 of them over the front nine holes of the course. I'd still be looking for them today if I hadn't announced my immediate retirement.
Golf is a legitimate and honorable means of recreation, and an honorable and legitimate profession. People who are good at it make millions of dollars playing professionally. Nonetheless, I often wonder what happens when a golfer's time on this planet ends and he or she encounters St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, seeking admission. "What did you do with your time on Earth?" St. Peter will ask, as if he didn't already know. Some people can answer that question by responding that they educated children or healed the sick or provided leadership to mighty nations. The professional golfer will answer by saying "I hit a little white ball into a little hole in the ground." I know this pursuit brings pleasure to many (usually the people who watch much more so than the people who participate), but when all is said and done, YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE HITTING A BALL INTO A HOLE IN THE GROUND?
What would Thomas Edison or Franklin D. Roosevelt or Dr. Spock think of that?
That's all I was asking for.
During the 13 years I've been writing these essays (with time off in 2009 and 2010 due to lack of internet access), another essayist has been out-essaying me. His name is Michael Heaton, and his life's work has been writing essays of a similar length for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Heaton's essays have earned him the tongue-in-cheek title of "The Minister of Culture," which Heaton himself admits is totally facetious. "Do I look like the minister of anything?" he asked in one of his essays, which are accompanied by his picture. The answer to that question is that I'm not sure. The only ministers I have any familiarity with are the ministers who presided over the Methodist church I grew up attending and, admittedly, Heaton doesn't look like any of them. Especially Reverend Debbie.
I could moan and groan about the role nepotism undoubtedly played in Heaton's hiring by Ohio's largest newspaper. . .at least it was when it hired Heaton. I'm not sure The Plain Dealer is still Ohio's largest newspaper. Everything about Cleveland is shrinking, why not the importance of its one and only newspaper? And I'm not sure whether being Ohio's largest newspaper meant The Plain Dealer printed the most pages each day or had the most readers. Regardless, I don't think it's coincidental that Heaton's father, Chuck, was one of the newspaper's senior sports reporters when he was added to the staff as an essayist. As the old saying goes, it isn't what you know, it's who you know, and it didn't hurt that my mother worked for Falon, the company that gave me a summer job in 1974. My best friend Dave and I interviewed on the same afternoon. I was hired. Dave wasn't. Did I mention that two of my cousins also worked for Falon, one of them a foreman, the other in the front office? Nepotism? You decide.
I don't mean to imply that Heaton isn't a talented writer. He is. Creativity runs in his family. I enjoyed reading his father's stories in the sports section for years. His sister, Patricia, won an Emmy Award for playing Debra Barone, Ray Romano's wife on the hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. I almost met Heaton two years ago when he lectured at the Western Reserve Writers Conference. He was hawking a book of his essays I lacked the money to buy, which explains why I didn't meet him. Writers hawking books at writers conferences really don't want to meet you unless you're asking them to autograph the copy of their book that you just purchased. I can dig that. I hope to be in that situation some day.
Until recently, I wondered what Heaton's essays had that mine lacked. An essay he wrote in The Plain Dealer's Friday! magazine explained everything. In that essay, Heaton reviewed a movie. In that review he said he hadn't been so impressed by a film since 1968 when, at age 12, he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Heaton's own words, 2001 "shook me to my foundations" and "turned my brain inside out." I'm pleased to say I've never had such a painful experience at a movie theater, and that includes the day in 1968 when I, also 12 years old, saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unlike Heaton, I didn't see the film by choice. I was instructed to see it by my English teacher for reasons I didn't understand then and don't understand now. 2001: A Space Odyssey did not shake me to my foundations or turn my brain inside out. In all honesty, it bored me. I sat there praying for a Bugs Bunny cartoon to break the monotony. All I remember about 2001 is that it featured a talking computer named Hal. A 12 year old should've thought a talking computer with a man's name was pretty cool, but I didn't.
Our extremely disparate reactions as pre-teens to the same flick clearly reveal why Heaton became "The Minister of Culture" and a published essayist and my essays remain available for free on this website (thanks for reading this, by the way.) I obviously need an experience that shakes me to my foundations and turns my brain inside out. I think a date (or two or three) with the beauteous Amanda Bynes would provide such a sensation. I wonder if Amanda would do it, for the sake of culture?
What? Them, too?
Pop quiz time. How many states are there in the United States of America? Did I hear someone say 50? WRONG!!! If that was your voice I heard, here's the dunce cap. You're in time out until further notice.
I hate to make a liar out of your first grade teacher, or whoever told you there were 50 states in the United States, but they were mistaken. Don't be too hard on them, though. No one knew until 1995 that there are only 49 states in the Union, and that fact hasn't become general knowledge until recently.
According to information that has just worked its way on to the internet, a resident of Grand Forks, North Dakota, named John Rolczynski discovered some 16 years ago that an inadvertant omission in the state's constitution rendered its status as the 43rd state invalid, to say nothing of null and void. Or maybe North Dakota was the 44th state. Both Dakotas were admitted to the Union in 1889, but I don't know which was first. That would seem to be a moot point now since, according to Rolczynski, North Dakota isn't legally a state. And, boy, are the folks in South Dakota getting a chuckle out of their neighbor's embarrassment.
It seems that North Dakota's constitution doesn't require the governor to take an oath of office. The Constitution of the United States, however, requires that the governors of each state swear such an oath, nullifying North Dakota's constitution, since state constitutions can't supercede the federal Constitution, which is why the federal Constitution is capitalized and the state constitution isn't. North Dakota, due to this oversight, is therefore not legally a state, or so claims Rolczynski, and his opinion is good enough for me.
Public officials are, apparently, a bit slow on the uptake in North Dakota, as it took Rolczynski more than a decade and a half to convince state lawmakers to put an issue on the ballot amending the state's constitution to conform with Old Glory. . .wait, Old Glory is the flag, not the Constitution. Anyway, if the amendment passes, North Dakota's constitution will pass muster with the Constitution written by the Founding Fathers and the state's statehood will become legal. . .technically, for the first time. However, the amendment won't be put before the voters until November of 2012. Just what the heck is North Dakota supposed to do until then? And what are the 49 legal states supposed to do with North Dakota? If it's not really a state, what is it? Should it be demoted to "dwarf state" status, as astronomers recently demoted Pluto to "dwarf planet" status?
First, North Dakota's Congressional representatives must be expelled. If North Dakota's not a state, and Rolczynski says it isn't, it has no business interfering in the business of the 49 legitimate states. North Dakota's representatives can return to Washington in January of 2013 when they have a real state to represent. That's assuming North Dakotans approve the change to their constitution. In the meantime, with North Dakota's status in limbo, what's to stop some enterprising person or group from declaring it an independent nation? Maybe all the members of the Tea Party will move to North Dakota and set up their own country. Personally, I'd prefer the independent nation of Florida, but it's still a state and therefore not available. Who could blame dissatisfied Americans from starting a new country in North Dakota? The United States is so messed up right now, why would North Dakotans want to apply for re-instatement? Maybe they can do better on their own.
North Dakota must not be permitted to cast ballots in next year's presidential election. It isn't technically a state, so it's none of their business who the next president is. My guess is if Sarah Palin isn't elected, she'll move to North Dakota and declare herself queen. It might be a good fight. Palin, being from the legitimate state of Alaska, can handle the brutal North Dakota winters.
There is precedent for such a snafu. Back in 1950, someone poking around a government office in the nation's capital discovered that Ohio wasn't legally a state. Some pooh-bah in the federal government (I think it was President Jefferson) neglected to sign some paperwork on March 1, 1803, when Ohio's statehood was to have been made legal and official. As a result, Ohio spent 147 years thinking it was a state when it really wasn't.
Maybe we should've declared our independence when we had the chance.
Hey, did you see that?
Unless you were standing somewhere on the Antarctic Peninsula, communing with the penguins (or whatever other creatures live on the Antarctic Peninsula) at approximately 9:30 on the morning of June 27th, you didn't. What you missed, according to the computerized news service from which I piece together The Gloom and Doom Report, was a close encounter with an asteroid. This asteroid was described as being the size "of two buses," and it passed within 37,000 miles of Earth, which is pretty doggone close considering it was 203,000 miles closer than the moon. The story noted that, due to its minuscule (by celestial standards) size, the asteroid couldn't be seen by the naked eye, even by those standing on the Antarctic Peninsula, over which it flew directly.
As for the size of the asteroid which almost hit us (coming within 37,000 miles constitutes "almost" in our vast universe), just how large were these two buses? There are several types of buses. There are the six-seaters which transportation agencies use for 'dial-a-ride' services. There are standard-size city buses. There are double-decker buses, such as those which transport citizens and tourists around London. There are the kind of buses used to move those who can't afford (or are afraid to) fly from one major metropolitan area to another. Inquiring minds want to know, and scientific minds need to know, since the size of the asteroid would've determined if it would've wiped out a town the size of Mayberry or a megalopolis the size of Los Angeles had it whizzed 37,001 miles closer to our planet than it did.
We lucked out this time, but we may not be so fortunate in the future. Ironically, only a few days before I learned of the near-miss with the bus-sized asteroid, my morning radio program's daily science feature, Earth and Sky, interviewed a scientist discussing the topic of asteroid collisions. The scientist said that in the year 2036 (just around the corner in astronomical terms) a much larger asteroid than the one which blew past us in late June has a 1-in-237,000 chance of colliding with the Earth and leaving behind major carnage in its wake. If an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, think of what could happen to us scrawny humans! There's a chance (hopefully better than 1-in-237,000) that I'll still be around in 2036, and that's not the way I want to depart this mortal coil. In other words, somebody better do something!
Let's consider Earth's impending doom logically. I may sound alarmist, and I admit that a 1-in-237,000 chance of the asteroid colliding with us is an extreme longshot. But the odds of winning the old Ohio Lottery Super Lotto jackpot were 1-in-11,000,000, and quite a few people who put down a buck laughed all the way to the bank. As I see it, this crisis provides a golden opportunity for the current administration in Washington to save the planet and the economy simultaneously. All the government needs to do is give NASA a mega-billion dollar contract to figure out how to obliterate the approaching asteroid before it obliterates us. Failing that, NASA needs to determine how to move Earth out of the intruder's path. Either solution is fine, although I'm guessing the latter is more feasible than the former. According to the latest figures from the Labor Department, 8.9% of the population is unemployed. That number will be reduced to zero after NASA hires everybody who doesn't have a job and puts them to work figuring out how to save us from the asteroid. So what if these people aren't scientists? Some of civilization's most important discoveries were made by non-scientists. Was the Neanderthal who discovered the wheel a scientist? Was the Cro-Magnon who discovered fire a scientist? Was the person who invented soap-on-a-rope a scientist? Some of mankind's most important discoveries were made by complete morons! If the government hires each of the ten million or so people presently out of work and pays them to sit around and think of ways to escape the asteroid, the economy will rebound and someone will surely think of a way to save the human race from being blown to smithereens. . .or squished, as if it makes any difference.
Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
I don't envy much about Canada. No offense to all the Canadians who visit this website, because Canada has quite a lot going for it. Especially those snack cakes I've only been able to find at a certain grocery store in Morpeth, which is almost due north from Cleveland, from where these essays originate. I don't recall who makes the delicacies or what they're called, but they have a flaky crust lightly dusted with sugar (my favorite taste treat, next to cheese) and inside is a mouth-watering mixture of jelly (I think it was strawberry, another one of my favorites) and cream, the kind of cream they put in Twinkies. When my parents used to vacation in southern Ontario, I gave them sufficient funding to buy the store's entire supply of the goodies. Unfortunately, my parents haven't vacationed in southern Ontario since 1992, and since a passport is now required to cross the bridge into Canada, I fear I won't enjoy the delectable confection ever again. One great snack, however, isn't enough to absolve Canada of blame for its main export….ARCTIC AIR…which brings misery to northeastern Ohio in November (sometimes October) and December and January and February and March and sometimes April…even May.
Canada does have a handle on something, however. It sure knows how to run a government. It took them only six weeks to do what it'll take us here in the states a year and a half to accomplish, that being selecting the nation's next leader. In late March, Canada's prime minister received the dreaded vote of "no confidence" from Parliament, which, in a Parliamentary system of government, means, as Arnold Schwarzenegger would say, "hasta la vista, baby!" If I understand the Parliamentary system correctly (and I may not, since I've studied American political science, not Canadian) I believe not only the prime minister was shown the door, the entire Parliament had to stand for re-election. You'd think they would've agreed with the guy if only to keep their jobs and not have to go through the hassle of an election. But that's the beauty of the Parliamentary system. Elections aren't nearly the hassle in Canada that they are south of the border.
On May 2nd, Canadians went to the polls (probably wearing parkas and traveling via dogsled in some extreme northern regions) and selected a new, conservative-leaning Parliament led by Stephen Harper. No muss, no fuss, and no 18-months of electioneering, which has already started here in the U.S.A. even though the presidential election is nearly. . .well, 18 months away. How do they do it? Five weeks barely gave the candidates time to select the exploratory committees needed to select the committees needed to decide if the candidate should form an exploratory committee to determine the possibility of considering…well, you get the point. No wonder Canada has gone through half a dozen prime ministers (and, by extension, half a dozen Parliaments) since the turn of the millennium. How do they expect to find qualified candidates without long, drawn-out campaigns filled with mud-slinging and accusations and counter-accusations? Let's not forget debates. Candidates standing at podiums ignoring frustrated moderators and barking at each other is a tradition as old as democracy itself…and those are the debates between the candidates from the same party. The Republicans have already had their first debate, and the convention is more than a year away. Who's going to remember which candidate said what by the time the primary rolls around? That's assuming anyone actually had an original idea.
I don't know much about Canada's new leader, but I have a suggestion for his administration (if they call governments "administrations" in Canada). He should put people to work designing, building, and operating a giant fan that will blow all that cold, arctic air over the North Pole and into Siberia instead of over Lake Erie and into northern Ohio. That would be greatly appreciated.
| Previous Year |
Copyright © 2011 by Gary Webster |