• Also known as mid-term elections.

    I’m just now getting over the anguish from last week’s elections. I think I’m taking a healthy approach to all of it though; surely everyone who voted the other way is wrong.

    I overheard a heated discussion about one of the amendments that was voted on last week. I did not get involved in the conversation – they were already having enough fun without me. Anyway, I thought I would take the cowardly step of venting my feelings to no one in particular (the vast, silent void that is my audience). Hhhhhhhh…haaaaaa. They were talking about the “no indoor smoking” amendment that just passed. One person mentioned that they could not go into a restaurant without getting exposed to smoke, and took the position that the amendment was a good thing. The other person stated that “it’s your choice to expose yourself to the smoke or leave; to vote with your patronage.” Can you guess their position? The first person came back with the assertion that there were few restaurants that did not allow smoking, and that the only real choice would be to not eat out at all. The second person stated that the issue was personal liberties, disappearing personal liberties. They claimed that if you draw a line that excludes one personal liberty it is a slippery slope to drawing more lines, eliminating more personal liberties. This is where I step in and cowardly submit to all of you that this was a pile of steaming horse crap. Since when did we not draw lines that excluded “personal liberties.” We have a long history of drawing such lines, particularly when “personal liberties” cause others harm. The facts are these: cigarette smoke causes people harm, the harm is not limited to the smokers themselves, and the harm is not limited to abstract, far down the line problems. It can cause immediate breathing problems. It can cause immediate side effects such as eye irritation, nasal congestion and headache. We are not free to wear weapons grade plutonium as jewelry because it can do others harm. We are not free to walk up to someone smoking and punch them in the nose to vent our frustration because it may do them harm. I am not worried that these “personal liberties” have been taken away from me because I don’t think I should have them in the first place. I must say don’t think the smokers are being mean. I do think they tend to dismiss my complaints as being “just in your head.” Smokers just don’t feel my pain. I can understand this because I’ve walked in those shoes. I used to think the same thing about my wife, while we were still dating. That ended one day when her breathing became audible only to dogs and we went for a visit with our friends in the ER.

    So go ahead and tell me my raging headache is just in my head. Tell it to my wife who had to walk outside to take a puff on her inhaler. Tell it to the scores of others who have every right pursue life, liberty and happiness, so long as it does not involve going out for a nice dinner. No, I don’t think they should stop cooking in peanut oil because some people have food allergies. We can still go out to eat if we order something that doesn’t have the peanut oil. No, I do not think perfume should be banned. We can refrain from wearing it ourselves, and we can usually avoid it pretty well. It’s rare that I notice someone’s perfume from across the room. cigarette smoke is another matter. The particulates in the smoke carry in breeze like nuclear fallout. We can’t seem to avoid it, unless we don’t go out at all. Is that fair to us? Why can’t smokers step outside for their nicotine fix? Why don’t they stay home if they don’t like it? Better yet, why not quit? Didn’t anyone tell them that smoking isn’t good for you?

    Thankfully, the issue appears moot.

    Here endeth the rant.

  • Kitchen fun.

    Take an ordinary frozen chicken pot pie, note the suggested oven temperature, add 100 degrees, set the oven timer for the suggested duration of time (in this case, approximately one hour), then go outside to enjoy the nice weather we’re having. What do you think you will have when you come back inside after the timer goes off? Let your imagination run amok, or try it for yourself; I leave the matter in your capable hands.

  • This is the story of a boy.

    There was a boy, named Jack, who hung out with a group of friends from his neighborhood. They all did many things together, and Jack had a lot of fun doing them. For the most part, they did not do things to get into trouble, but that didn’t make them any less fun. His friends liked to kid each other, but it was something that they all did to each other, except Jack. He had always been kind of shy, so he did not have the courage to say things about the others, even if it was a joke. Years passed, and Jack increasingly became the focus of the group’s jokes. At first he tried to tell himself that it all was just a joke and not something that he should take personally. After a while he began to believe some of what they said. He would be the last to be picked for games, and they would make jokes about how he couldn’t do this or that. Then they would play and Jack would do well, but that didn’t stop the comments. The substance of the comments changed, but not the comments. More time passed and the things the group did for fun stopped being completely harmless. Jack found himself excluded from more and more of the group’s activities, in part by choice and in part by exclusion. This too he took personally. The hardest part of it was that he really liked, respected and even looked up to the other members of the group, before he became the focus of their “jokes.” They were the only friends he had, and everyone knew it.

    They all went on to high school, and their lunch routine at school devolved into long sessions about what was wrong with Jack; sessions that Jack sat in on. They did not offer much in the way of constructive criticism. It was all done for entertainment, and Jack was left with the bill. He dreaded going to school because he hated lunch. He grew to hate the other’s company, but he didn’t know who else would be his friend. Why it did not occur to him that they were not his friends either is beyond me. I think he feared the awkwardness of eating lunch alone more than he feared the jokes at his expense, so he stayed. One day they all came over to his house to play football, something they had done more than anyone could remember growing up. However, this time they did not end up playing football. They somehow thought it was funny to taunt Jack’s mother and younger sisters. They spent the better part of half an hour running in and out of the house, carrying on like a group of wild creatures. Jack’s mother screamed at them to leave. Jack’s sisters were hysterical. His friends thought it all was hilarious, and it fed their enthusiasm like gasoline on a fire. Jack sat out side and listened to his mother’s screams. He just sat there, not knowing what to do. The others kept at it until the danger of Jack’s father coming home from work became too great, and they left. Jack felt responsible. He hadn’t taken part in the torment, but the others were there only because of him. The guilt, shame, and anger (both at his “friends” for doing it and at himself for not intervening) weighed on him heavily, perhaps rightly so.

    Shortly thereafter, he was sitting at lunch, at school, and everyone was discussing how much fun the afternoon at Jack’s house had been. The one known as BJ said something cruel to him and he snapped. He rose suddenly and threw a punch at BJ. He was angry, but even in his angry state he did not really want to hurt the other boy, even if he thought he could (he didn’t). BJ chuckled nervously at Jack, and everyone else erupted in laughter. Jack sensed that his outburst would come to be more fuel on the fire, so he got up and left. He never went back. You should know that throwing that punch really meant something. You may be thinking that a school fight is no extraordinary event, in the grand scheme of things. You would normally be right but you should know that, as far as I know, this was the first and last time that Jack resorted to physical violence of any kind in public.

    What I want to know is, what brings people to be so mean to other people? You might say that they were just kids, but is our capacity to empathize completely undeveloped at 15? Much worse things happen to people when they are growing up. Jack’s parents were loving, caring people – they did not physically abuse him. He did not have to overcome horrible illness as a child. And yet, if you know Jack, knowing this helps to explain the kind of person he is today.

    I know Jack thinks about them all every now and again. He wonders what happened to all of them. He wonders why they turned on him. Did he make an easy victim? Was he partly to blame? I wonder if the others ever think of him. I wonder if they have come to regret the later years, if they miss his friendship, the one they threw away.

    I was driving to work today when this story took me down memory lane. I hope you don’t mind my decision to share. I just hope you’ll be carefull about the little comments we somethimes make at each other’s expense. Sometimes it’s just a joke, but not everyone always takes it that way.