• Middle-class epic

    This is a story of a man whose adventures will one day be remembered in song. This is the story of John, of the suburban warrior clan Kauffman.

    “Yeah, though he walks through the shadows of the valley of Beth, he shall fear no tantrum.”

    “Neither early hour, lack of sleep, looming holiday, nor foul taste of breath, shall keep him from his appointed rounds.”

    “Sick to his stomach and he’s still riding that damn bike to work?”

    “Doesn’t have much sense as to what is lyrical, does he?”

    —

    It is that rarest of workplace occasions, the Friday before a holiday. They only come two or three to a year – tops. When they do, there’s a dearth of warm bodies in the office. Me? I’m usually right here in my office, toiling away the minutes with remarkable dedication. Although, I am taking a time out to write… maybe I’m not so dedicated after all.

    Maestro, cue up the band. It’s time to pick things up a notch. (Or just turn on the radio, which ever is more convenient.)

  • Finding trouble

    It started in the most unlikely of places; a peanut butter on wheat bread sandwich. All right, I’ll admit that wheat bread is a little suspect on it’s own (I’ll take my flour bleached and enriched, thank you very much!), but desperate times lead to hasty choices on the bread isle. In short (and with no further explanation), all I had was wheat bread to satisfy my hankering for a PB sandwich. And no, I didn’t forget the jelly.

    Two sandwiches and a can of Cherry Coke later – and I was curled up in a fetal position on the bed wondering where it all went wrong. Being a stomach means never having to explain why you are pissed off. Mine was good and pissed, but it wasn’t doing any talking. A trip to the can seemed to smooth things over for a while, so I tried to quell the other brewing storm – my wife’s impatience. The view from the gestation throne apparently was not very good, so it was time for some serious choring up.

    I was right in the middle of taking out the trash when I completely ignored the twelfth law of child rearing: never take something from your child’s bathroom waste can for granted. You never know what you might find there – so don’t go looking. What possessed me to tempt the fates will never be known, but what followed will go right in the log book under “this is what happens when you do something stupid.” In short order I found myself kneeling before the throne, offering my sacrifices to the god of well-being.

    Thanks for tuning in.

  • Is nationalism a four letter word?

    No, I was not dropped on my head as a child. What I want to know is what the word “nationalism” means to you. For me, “nationalism” means fanaticism, self-righteousness, and pharisaism. Where some see enthusiastic flag waving and patriotism, I see a tool to perpetuate some of the worst evils of the last two centuries. (Remember the holocaust?) Some will say that no such evil has come of good old fashioned American nationalism, but I say FOOEY! Think no further than this continent’s indigenous people; if you think they got a fair shake then you need a history lesson. Some will say that we’re no worse than other nations; nations guilty of wiping the floor with other people’s rights. Are you familiar with the trail of tears? Whole societies were erased from the face of the Earth in the name of a contrived “Manifest Destiny.” But surely we’re better now, right? How many people have been detained since 9/11 without so much as a phone call to an attorney? How many examples “Justice, American style” have graced the airwaves these last several years? Police beatings and prison torture may be the exception rather than the rule, but they seem to happen more often than they should, and the world takes notice. We can say that these exceptions don’t reflect our values, but talk is cheap. We are judged by how we react to these exceptions and how we strive to eliminate them. If all we do is talk about our “real values” and rest on our imagined laurels as a great nation, we loose credibility among ourselves, let alone everyone else.

    This July 4th, I will look fondly upon much of our country’s history. I will appreciate the ideals and values championed by our founding fathers. At the same time, I will remember that ideals and values are no more than just ideals and values. They mean nothing unless our actions reflect them.

    Today I see our leaders using nationalism as a tool once again to further an agenda. As I’ve said before, I’ve heard it suggested repeatedly that disagreement with our leaders is tantamount to anti-patriotism. This July 4th I will look fondly on those values that have distinguished us from many of history’s empires, monarchies and republics – chief among them being freedom; freedom to speak our mind, freedom to disagree.