Category Archives: COMMENTARY

Nurses: We Should Care About The Caregivers.

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By: Chris Warren.

Late night phone calls almost never bring good news. Everyone has experienced being whacked out of a dead sleep by a ringing phone, and the first thought is, someone died. In a best-case scenario, it’s a wrong number. My blood pressure drops to pre-freak out levels and I roll over and go back to sleep. As a group, my circle of friends and family are emotionally stable and seldom require a late night consultation with anyone, much less the likes of me. So when the phone rings in the darkness and they are not calling with a death or serious injury notification, it’s not vanity. They’ve got my undivided attention.

When my foggy eyes focused on a squawking cellphone and I saw it was my friend Phil, I initially did not think much of it. Phil works odd hours and it’s not unusual for him to be up at 2:00 am. I thought he might be messing with me. I’ll be a good sport and play along. Instead of making me the victim of a prank, Phil was clearly upset and went into a no-limits explanation about how stressed out and unhappy he was at his job. The lack of management support, workplace politics, the weird schedule, physical demands, and the overload of work assignments were pulling him apart. This was not about one bad day. I could hear the hurt in his voice. Phil is not used to needing help. He’s always the guy giving it, usually to people who are very sick and suffering. Phil is a nurse.

When I was researching for this blog article and googled “job stress among…” the auto-fill listed “nurses” in second and fifth place. Google does nothing randomly. The more popular a search term is, the higher it lands on the list of suggested search options. That “nurses” claimed two of the top five results is not just evidence of it being a hot topic a lot of other people are interested in, it’s a symptom of a bigger problem.

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Times are tough, jobs are hard to get, and everyone who is lucky enough to be employed is feeling the squeeze. So why should we care about nurses and their problems? Because job stress among them is so severe and widespread that it threatens patient care. This very thoroughly annotated article from 2013 documents a direct relationship between nurse job satisfaction and patient outcomes.

Most medical professionals have contact with a patient for a short amount of time and are focused on one aspect of treatment. Doctors, x-ray techs, therapists, and all the rest busily come and go, but nurses are there all the time, day and night. They face suffering, confrontational family members, uncooperative patients, juggling attention between several patients, making sure medications are administered and lab tests are completed. They deal with puke, blood, urine, crap (both kinds) and more and more often are physically assaulted by the people they are trying to help.

Nurses are the only constant human presence in what is usually a chaotic and frightening patient experience. It’s not nearly enough for a nurse to be technically skilled. They must also be gentle and have a cool head while giving hope to very sick people who are at a low point in their lives and may not be in a frame of mind to show gratitude. How are nurses supposed to do all that when they themselves are depressed and drained?

Unfortunately, not only is there is no Easy Street ahead, things are expected to get more difficult. Politics notwithstanding, no one on any side of the argument rationally believes the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will make life better for healthcare workers. The new reality of “passing a law to find out what’s in it” is that a lot of what used to be done by doctors, such as basic exams and checkups, will now be delegated others, particularly nurses.

My sister in law is also a nurse and works full time traveling all over the country doing nothing but health screenings and wellness checks. I don’t think she has any idea how often she’s detected an early-stage, treatable condition and sent the patient to the doctor in time to save them from some horrible disease. I am certain there are many people who are alive and healthy today because they took her advice; there are probably also a few who are dead because they didn’t. She does her thing, then folds up her kit and jets off to the next stop. Her home life and personal free time is compromised because of the constant travel; the complete strangers she deals with every day may never appreciate what she gives up to help them avoid hurt and misery.

As upset as he is, Phil does not talk of leaving nursing. For the short term he is reaching out to other nurses for ad hoc group therapy. I wish I could be more supportive, but with no personal insight about the medical field or direct knowledge of his specific concerns, I’m of limited usefulness. I am close enough to the situation to understand why nurses do what they do. Even with all the job pressures, there are a lot of bright spots, perhaps the most meaningful is actually making a difference in a patient’s life. The satisfaction of being a key player in relieving suffering and helping someone recover and move on is priceless. Of course nurses have to earn a paycheck like all the rest of us, but believe me, if it was only about money, no one would ever become a nurse. There are a zillion easier ways to earn a living.

Since that late night phone call over a week ago, I’ve had daily conversations with Phil and am happy to report that he is feeling better and his outlook has improved. Through all this his desire to treat the sick was never even vaguely in doubt. We outsiders seldom if ever see the behind the scenes forces that drive nurses’ anguish. It’s not drama and they are not making it up. Their pain is as real as the high ranking google searches suggest.

Phil is the kind of nurse who will call into work on his off days to check up on “his” patients. He is the kind of nurse who will stay after his midnight shift ends because the emergency room sent up a late admission. He is the kind of nurse who, with his own time and money, reads medical books and attends training courses that are not required by his employer. Phil is the kind of nurse who prays to God for the welfare of sick people and those who care for them. I’m not exaggerating any of this to make a point; it all really happened and I’ve personally witnessed it. But here’s the kicker: Phil and my sister in law are not outliers. Nearly all nurses go twice past normal. This behavior is easy to find in a             humanitarian profession where being above average is average.

 

 

 

Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, The Good Neighbor.

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By: Chris Warren.

Editor’s note: I usually post a new blog article every Saturday, but due to the urgency of this week’s topic, I am moving my deadline up to Thursday. I hope by Saturday there will be positive news to report. 

I once had a “high maintenance” neighbor who was quick to ask for favors and help yet when any request was made of her would always have a reason why she could not come through. We would regularly mow her lawn, shovel her snow, and in one case lug out several old heavy appliances and muscle the new ones in. An older married couple in the neighborhood was particularly kind to this woman by providing her with free babysitting and handyman services around her house. The benefactor of their generosity repaid them with a weak excuse for not being able to do something as simple as pick up the mail while they were on vacation. This woman was not a horrible person, and not even a bad neighbor. But she had an inconsiderate manner and lack of grace and that made that her the type who no one would purposely choose to live near.

U.S. Marine Corps Sargent Andrew Tahmooressi was in southern California for medical treatment after serving two tours in Afghanistan. During the night of April 1, 2014 he was running a personal errand and by mistake lost his way on a dark road and ended up in Mexico. This might have been the makings of a funny “I should have made a left turn at Albuquerque” style crazy road trip story, but for Tahmooressi and those close to him, it was the beginning of a nightmare that is now in its second month.

What landed Tahmooressi in a Mexican prison was the three guns he had in his truck. He legally owned the firearms in the United States; instead of simply letting him turn around and go back down the road from which he came, the Mexican authorities arrested him for “gun running”.

This is not the first time an American service member has been sucked into the vortex of the Mexican justice system because of simple misunderstandings that could have and should have been quickly resolved at the scene, or at most within a day or two. Mexico seems to have a penchant for drama and goes out of its way to turn any little transgression into an international incident. This is the same Mexico that not only does nothing about thousands of illegal immigrants pouring over its border into the United States every year, but expects the US to give them immunity from deportation, eligibility for public services, and all the trappings and rights enjoyed by everyone who came here by the rules.

That is the logic of our mostly respectable but very one-sided neighbor: Mexican citizens who willfully and deliberately enter the United States in violation of our laws should be given a pass but if an honest American mistakenly wanders out of his own yard, he is given zero consideration, tossed in a notoriously nasty prison, and treated in a way that would give immigration activists a coronary if a Mexican detained in the U.S was given the same deal.

The U.S. State Department and the White House have remained faithful to the effete foreign relations philosophy that has become a hallmark of the Obama administration by being predictably coy about the whole mess, saying only that they are looking into it or some such pablum. As of Monday, May 4, over a month into this horror movie comes alive, a State Department spokesperson would not comment on the matter due to “privacy reasons” or even acknowledge if Secretary of State John Kerry was aware of Sgt. Tahmooressi’s situation.

Fortunately, public pressure is mounting; the White House and Secretary Kerry will not be able to hide behind their spokespeople for much longer. Kerry is scheduled to make a previously planned visit to Mexico on May 21 (and conveniently unavailable to testify before a Congressional hearing on the terror attack in Benghazi, but that’s a separate blog article) and the only acceptable excuse for not bringing  Sgt. Tahmooressi back with him would be because the Marine was already released.

As a goodwill gesture for the mountain of generosity the USA has shown Mexico, freeing Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi and returning all his personal possessions including the guns should be a no-brainer. It does not benefit Mexico to keep him and it involves zero cost or effort to let him go. But like my old neighbor who enjoyed the kindness of others and then had the nerve to act put upon when a very simple reciprocation was asked of her, Mexico exists in its own realm of one-way relationships.

The United States is owed a deep apology for this, but simply getting our Marine back would be good enough. I am demanding that the Mexican government immediately and without conditions free Sargent Andrew Tahmooressi, USMC, return his personal property, and assure his safe passage back to American soil.

 

B.C. (Before Cellphones).

COMMENTARY

 

By: Chris Warren.

While visiting my brother’s family a few weeks ago, my seven year old nephew volunteered to “help” pick up some pizza I bought for the kids. He thinks my jeep is totally badass and was excited about going on a little road trip. As we rolled along, he gave me a look of sincerity that only a child old can pull off and asked, “Where is the button to open the window?” My jeep is a bare-bones mode of transport, and he could not wrap his young brain around the concept of rolling the window down by hand. I likewise did not get very far trying to explain the stick shift transmission and lack of power door locks. The interaction encapsulated the stark if not humorous differences between generations and how they embrace or resist technology.

People in my age group have a unique perspective: We are young enough to accept new technologies, yet old enough to know what it was like before they existed. Less than ten years ago I was buying at least one and sometimes three newspapers every day, and subscribed to about half a dozen magazines too. Once I got a smart phone all that ended. I haven’t bought three newspapers in the last few years, and the only magazine I get is one that comes included with my membership in an organization. The thirty bucks or whatever it is I pay for the data plan on my phone is more than offset by all the periodicals I’m no longer buying. I am still an anachronism compared to guys like my nephew: He will probably go through his entire life having never read a printed newspaper.

At the other end of the scale, my retired parents still have a “dead tree edition” newspaper delivered to their door every morning. It does not impress them that they already pay for an internet connection offering infinitely greater choices and more timely information. One of my Dad’s favorite gripes is that the weather report is never correct. I’ve tried, with zero success, to explain that one of the reasons the newspaper weather report is always off is because it’s already twelve-plus hours old when the paper hits the porch. Mom & Dad are from an era when newspapers had a morning and evening edition. I spend a few minutes reviewing the news on line before leaving for work each morning, and I use my phone to update myself a few times a day. Print media has been in a death spiral for years and it’s squeaking by only because of people like my parents. I don’t know a single person in my age group or below who regularly reads a newspaper.

If it’s true young people take well to technology, then it’s not much of a reach to conclude they are least able to live without it. Teenagers are constantly staring into their phones because, well, they are not capable of going more than ten minutes without checking in with their friends. I can’t smack them around too much on this one, though: I too am lost in the little screen a lot more than I’d care to admit. In the business world the reasons may be more legitimate but the addiction is just as bad. There no longer is such a thing as being “out of the office”. My boss expects me to be responsive and there are very few acceptable excuses for not being available.

It seems that for every new annoyance technology creates, an old annoyance is eliminated. And I think most of the new annoyances are not inherent to the technology, but rather, how it’s used. In another time all my great words would have been generated on a typewriter, on paper, then sent to a publisher…assuming I could convince a publisher I had something worth printing. This blog is created with a Macbook and Open Office, and through the magic of the internet I am my own publisher, how many readers I have notwithstanding. I miss the IBM Selectric and White Out days like I’d miss stomach flu. If you were born too late to use an IBM Selectric or White Out (or don’t even know what they are), say a little prayer of thanks.

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Those of us who are old enough to have lived through the transition to the internet and a techno-centric society can see it both ways: It’s great to have cool features on cars but we miss the days when cars were low tech enough to work on without plugging them into a laptop. We love our smart phones but at times resent the expectation that we remain constantly in touch with everyone in our circle. Electronic banking is easy and efficient but there’s security risks. And everyone is concerned about more and more government snooping into every little thing we do. Modern life offers plenty to love and plenty to hate.

The stress of resisting technology is greater than the stress of accepting it. I realize that’s a hard reality to grasp when sitting on hold lost in the special hell of “press one for billing, press two for sales,” but as someone who has had the dual experience of having to run to deposit a paper check in the bank before they close at 1:00 pm on Saturday (and then wait until Tuesday for it to post) versus depositing it electronically through my phone at 10:00 pm Sunday night and seeing the updated balance in real time, I can say with complete assurance that modern conveniences solve more problems than they create.

Guys like me are nostalgic for the straightforward simplicity of the old days, even if those days weren’t so long ago, while at the same time recognizing that iPads and high definition TV and zippy internet is pretty cool, even if they don’t always work flawlessly. The gadgets and gizmos give me more “screw this!” moments than I would care to endure; my rage tempered by a Zen-like moment to affirm that I would not enjoy going back to buying newspapers every day and balancing my checkbook by hand –oh wait– I don’t use checks anymore! People like my parents are understandably given some deference due to their age. As for me and my peers, we don’t feel too old to try new things, but we are old enough to remember a time when not having so many of contemporary life’s bells and whistles wasn’t all that bad.

 

 

earth day 2016

Earth Day Should Not Have A Reason To Exist.

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By: Chris Warren.

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted on April 19, 2014. We are reposting it for Earth Day 2015 with a few edits and updates.

I’m going to say up front that today’s blog article is not going to be a conservative hit piece on Earth Day, nor will it be a sappy New Age love song about windmills and composting. As someone who has been a strict vegetarian for close to three decades, incorporates numerous meaningful green practices into his life, and is gun-toting, flag-waving Libertarian (which is not the same as a liberal), I feel I have an understanding of this issue that belies the absolute left and right attitudes that define it.

April 22 is Earth Day, and for political liberals, leftover hippies, and various eco-activist groups, it’s a High Holy Day. Started by flower children in 1970 on the momentum of anti-Vietnam counterculture, Earth Day has evolved into a slick, professionally organized international media spectacle complete with its own website and corporate sponsors. Like all things liberal, Earth Day is heavy on shallow sentimentality, squishy platitudes, and calls for “investments” in green projects (taxescoughtaxes). The real message: We simpletons need big government liberalism to save us from our own stupid. And like all things conservative, Earth Day is an opportunity for overt mockery and to dismiss environmentalism out of hand, because in the Orthodox Church of “drill, baby, drill!” it’s apostasy to even hint that the green movement has a legitimate point buried in there somewhere, especially if it interferes with making a lot of money.

I absolutely do believe in a clean environment and the premise behind Earth Day. I also have a big issue with advancing the cause via rules and edicts that make for good press releases but never achieve their intended goal. I’ve spent a lot of time arguing with myself over how to resolve my conviction that we need to stop trashing the planet against my conservative sensibilities of resisting at every chance an egalitarian nanny state that, especially regarding environmental policy, regulates our lives down to the ridiculous, up to and including federal standards for…shower heads?

Years before recycling became fashionable, I was lugging magazines and aluminum cans down from my 12th floor college dorm to a recycling center on the other side of campus. Back then, recycling required considerable dedication and muscle. As one can guess, hardly anyone bothered. Today, recycling is as straightforward as placing recyclables at the curb where they are picked up along with garbage. My neighborhood even has entrepreneurially-minded scrappers who will scoop up discarded appliances, hot water heaters, bikes, BBQ grills, and whatever metallic waste suburbia tosses away. I don’t know how much money they make, but it must be pretty good because there are more than one of them patrolling the streets competing for junk every week. In many locales, recycling has developed to the point that there aren’t any good excuses not to do it.

Renewable energy is one area that has made considerable progress but is still a long way from being a real game changer. Even with tax incentives and subsidies (which I have a problem with), the bang for the buck is just not there. I will be well into retirement before my roof full of solar panels pay themselves off. Fortunately for me, my motivations are not solely about money. For most, the start up costs of green energy for individual use is well beyond the budget. Germany is often held up as a proud example of a “successful” national renewable energy program, but the rationalization works only if affordability is taken out of the equation.

For the Germans, solar energy may be an environmental win but it is collapsing as a business model due in no small part to regulatory overreach and meddling. Progressives here in the United states have been trying for years, but they cannot come up with a talking point that gets them over the mountain of government incompetence. Green energy will never evolve beyond the fringe unless it becomes cost effective, and it will never be cost effective without free market-based energy policy. The environmental movement will never, ever embrace this simple truth. They run their mouths about how the US should emulate Germany’s example while completely blowing off the ugly fact that it is breaking the bank.

A recurring theme in my blog is making fun of the left for doing things just to feel good. It’s not an unfair criticism: A major piece of liberal dogma is that good intentions and feelings are a valid substitute for reality and actual results. But here’s where I split with conservatives: While liberals are all about being warm and happy even if nothing gets done, conservatives seem to be of the attitude that the value of something is proportional to the amount of difficulty and sacrifice needed to do it. Or to put it another way, if something is enjoyable it’s either not worth doing or you are not working hard enough. Some of the most pissed off, bitter people I know are conservative, possibly because they have forgotten that life can’t always be about that hard journey going for the gold. But what if I can do something that really does produce results and I can feel good about it…what’s wrong with that?

Unfortunately, most of what passes as “environmentalism” is really just fluff. Earth Day will have plenty of celebrity appearances and petition signings and resurrected Joni Mitchell songs. Within twenty four hours everyone will go back to what they were doing before. They have conned themselves into thinking they are environmentalists because they plop a blue bin full of junk mail at the end of the driveway every week. Toss in an annual one day feel good retro hippy trip and they are completely sold on the hustle. I don’t know what’s worse: Liberals who pretend to be environmentalists with their hollow showmanship or conservatives who never claimed to care in the first place.

I no longer accept the idealism of my youth that had me thinking I could singlehandedly save the world one aluminum can at a time. But it is within my reach to save my little slice of this big huge planet. Decades out of college dorm life, I’m still recycling. I’ve also been on solar panels for a while. They aren’t enough to run the whole house, but I can produce a significant chunk of my electricity with them. When I switched to a vegetarian diet 27 years ago, it was not for environmental reasons. Since then I’ve learned a lot about how dirty and energy-intensive meat production really is, and how many thousands of gallons of water are needed to produce just one pound of beef. I work only a little over a mile from where I live; some weeks I rack up less than 25 miles on my vehicles. When the weather is good I get around on a motorcycle. These are things I do all the time, not just for display purposes. I don’t wear my environmentalism on my sleeve and people who do annoy the hell out of me, especially since most of them are pretenders.

Those of us who live our lives as if every day were Earth Day are a little vexed about the concept of waiting for a special occasion to take positive action towards keeping the planet clean, nor do we feel a need to show off how “green” we are. True Earth Day practitioners divorce themselves from the fad of environmentalism and go quietly about their eco-friendly business. It’s a lifestyle, not a hobby or a holiday. Conservatives will be pleased to know that when done properly it requires effort and is often a challenge; liberals can be assured that in the end, yes, it feels good. In a truly honorable world, there would be no need to reserve a spot on the calendar to commemorate what everyone should have been doing the whole time anyway.

Editor’s note: For previous articles about the energy and the environment, please check out “The Linguistics of Climate Change” and “Solar Energy Gives Us The Power to Feel Good.” 

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted on April 19, 2014. We are reposing it for Earth Day 2015 with a few edits and updates. 

 

 

 

A Suburban White Boy’s Escape Plan.

COMMENTARY

By: Chris Warren

Before World War II, everyone either lived in the city or in the country. There was no in between. The post war industrial (and baby) boom, along with faster and more reliable transportation fostered conditions for people who wanted out of crowded cities, but were not willing to live in the sticks, to settle for a very attractive compromise. The suburbs were born. At face value it’s a total win-win: Most of the big city amenities and fresh air and wide open spaces and good schools and low crime. In the beginning, farmland near cities could be bought for cheap and replanted with very nice albeit repetitive mass produced “cookie cutter” housing. The ‘burbs did not have much character, but they were affordable, clean, and safe.

In the decades since, the suburbs have become small scale versions of the metropolises they were intended to be an escape from. They have upscale shopping, nightlife, entertainment venues attracting big talent, all the goodies, and in some cases crime and traffic jams. It’s no longer necessary to go to the big city to find cool things to do. Somewhere along the line, they took the sub out of suburban.

I grew up in a very clean, decent, safe, friendly community. The schools and local government are highly effective and there is nowhere in the town I would be afraid to walk through at night. It’s a perfectly respectable place. Now I’m seriously looking into eventually relocating to a rural area in a Southern gulf or Western state. I’ve blogged before (here and here) about the “thin veneer of civilization.” My quaint and comfortable existence is one terrorist attack or financial collapse from becoming a third world hellhole (see also, Detroit). As much as I like my neighbors, I do not want to support them when society implodes, and I certainly do not want to fight with them for whatever resources are left, especially if the resources are my private stock.

When I mention my plan to others, I typically get funny “why don’t you want to stay?”  type stares followed by the usual arguments for hanging around: It’s clean and safe, there’s lots of shops and stores, there’s good medical facilities, yadda yadda yadda. Yes, I get it. Everything they say is true. I think their defensiveness comes from a false sense that my wanting to leave is an affront on their choice to stay. As I’ve said many times, It’s a lovely place, really! There’s no need to defend it. The other and probably main motivation for my wishful exodus is much more basic: I’ve spent my entire life as a suburban white boy. Now I want something else, somewhere else. Getting out of here is a long term goal that may take another decade or more to achieve, if it’s achieved at all. I’m not completely certain where this plan will take me but I’m sure that I do not want to die in suburbia.

It’s not lost on me that rural living comes with compromises, some of them substantial. A lot of the infrastructure of society that is assumed in urban areas is deliberately excluded for the country folk. Along with probably having a well instead city water and a county sheriff instead of local cop, I can forget about a pizza in thirty minutes, good cell coverage, fast (any?) broadband, and running to the store for every little thing. Maybe I’m nuts: I see living in a trailer set in the middle of a bunch of acres as a net-plus. In exchange for big city amenities I get tons and tons of space, and with space comes freedom!

I want to enjoy my ham radio hobby with no concerns for aesthetics…tons of antennas and wire and hardware all over my roof. I want to sit on my back deck and and shoot my guns. I want to find an old dirtbike and make my own little motocross track on the property. I want a big garage where I can mess with my machines and have an electronics/radio shop too. If any family or friends fall on hard times, all they have to do is show up dragging a trailer behind them. I’ll have the means to supply a patch of dirt for them to plop down on without feeling crowded in myself. There will be plenty of fresh air and sunshine to go around. And speaking of sunshine, I need enough space for the solar panels I’ll use to power the place. When (not if) the cities become unglued and society starts regressing to chaos, I’ll be far away from all of it and hopefully situated well enough to come out the other side in one piece.

Are the give-ups worth it? It depends on what one considers a give up. Not having decent pizza for an hour in any direction is something I can probably live with but having to drive an hour to see a dentist or get a fan belt for my truck is not a minor hassle. Any major life event comes with a level of uncertainty. Who has ever changed jobs, bought a house, got married, or had a baby without thinking, even fleetingly, that they were making a huge mistake? Never having a moment’s hesitation or always wanting to rush a decision solely to end the discomfort of having to decide is in itself a red flag. It indicates a lack of seriousness, which turns an educated decision where risk is at least understood if not mitigated into a gamble where risk is the only factor in play. Indeed, there are no “educated decisions” being made in a casino. The very long odds of striking it rich are the same for everyone in the place no matter how much they’ve all bullshit themselves into believing they have figured out how to game the system. Taking the same approach to real life issues yields the same chance results. As strongly as I feel pulled out of the suburbs, there is the counterbalance of good judgement telling me to be completely self aware that what I’m what I’m gaining is worth more than what I’m giving up.

As much as I belabor on about carefully thinking everything through, at some point it’s time to stop pondering and start doing. Or, conclude that it’s best to stay where I am and be happy with it. Either way, the cycle of beating my head against the wall cannot roll on forever. Life changes (relationship, baby, job, etc.) sometimes make these decisions for us. I am fully cognizant that I may someday make a big leap out to the country only to discover that even after doing all my homework and calculating the minutiae, the life is not for me. Sigh. It’s better to try and fail then to not try at all and spend the rest of my life wondering what if.

 

Parents These Days!

COMMENTARY

by: Chris Warren.

It’s an informal birthright for each generation to complain that the generation coming after it is lazy and unmotivated. It pops up pretty much everywhere that “kids these days” are not as principled as the kids of years ago. Debate over which generation is morally superior misses the point, though. I think it’s more meaningful to first ask how “kids today” got to be the way they are, and second, be fair minded enough to admit that it’s just as wrong to cast the wide net of stereotyping over young people as it is with any other demographic.

I’m not clear on the concept: Parents are responsible for the values their children are exposed to, which is is the main driver of what kind of adults the children will ultimately become, yet the parents complain about the content of kids’ character. So if the kids have an attitude problem, then where did they get it from? Isn’t it kind of like screwing up your own do-it-yourself home remodeling project and then complaining that you’re the victim of an incompetent contractor? The most common defense to this is that your offspring are darling angels and everyone else is raising wretched beasts. Good luck with that lame justification. All the other parents think the same thing, too.

The adults who whine about children who aren’t respectful, who are not capable of dealing with the slightest disappointment, who cringe at the language and attitudes of young people, are the same adults who will raise hell with any teacher who dares put a kid in his place, who think kids have the “right” to feel awesome no matter how mediocre they actually are, who insist that sports are for self-esteem and not winners and losers and every child should get a trophy even if they do, in fact, suck.

The other half of the discussion is if it’s even fair in the first place to cast young people as being lesser than their elders. Adolescent basket cases such as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are over the top media spectacles who make it easy to write off an entire generation. But for every one of them there are thousands of nameless kids who are level-headed and well grounded. Either in spite of or because of their upbringing, they are quietly going about their lives, getting good grades, accepting failures with grace, and respecting others. We never hear about these young people because focused, well behaved teenagers do not make compelling news stories. They are too busy being positive and productive to worry about who is paying attention.

Anyone who has ever met one of the “good” kids knows they all seem to have a common thread: They have parents who expect excellence and don’t put up with any excuses, nor do they defend failure. When Junior doesn’t make the team, dad does not call the coach and threaten a lawsuit. He instead tells his kid he didn’t make the team because he wasn’t good enough. Get over it; don’t be a crybaby. Practice harder and try again next season. Kids who turn to Jell-O over every letdown were trained to act that way.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I used to believe if a kid grows up to be a bum, it’s the parents’ fault. I don’t believe that any more. There are tons of people who had dreadful, even abusive childhoods with no encouragement or support yet grew up to be very successful and respected. And of course there are people who had every possible advantage: A loving family, a stable home, a good education…and ended up as losers, in some cases committing famously violent crimes. A parent has a duty to teach their children morals and values, but at some point the child becomes an adult and makes their own decisions. If the parents truly did their job and the kid chooses the wrong path anyway, that’s not mom & dad’s fault. We can’t declare parents guilty forever.

I know someone –I won’t even say if they are male or female or how I know them– who was raised in a warm home by two very kind parents. Though of modest means, they went to great trouble and expense to provide for the children. The family attended church, sent the kids to upscale schools…did everything right. This person is now a middle aged adult and by any measure is a disappointment. They are not a criminal or a gang banger or anything serious, but their character is not at all in line with what they were exposed to growing up. The long retired parents are often visibly distressed at how their grown child acts. I genuinely feel bad for them because I know they are sincerely decent and honorable people who worked very hard to equip their kid to be so much more. Incidentally, the other siblings have solid jobs, a family, are respectful towards the elders, and are someone any parent would be proud of. Same environment, completely different outcome.

When a kid goes wrong, there is a real good chance that behind the scenes is a parent who at least partially failed in their role. I realize this contradicts my theory that it’s unfair to blame the parents for everything and good parents sometimes produce rotten kids and vice-versa, but if we accept that then we must also accept that it’s not fair to label kids universally as overindulged little brats. A huge majority of them are capable of making good decisions and exhibit their maturity every day. It’s disingenuous to denigrate young people as if they operate in a vacuum and their elders had nothing to do with how the kids formed their beliefs. In modern society, stereotyping minorities, women, religions, or ethnic groups is generally unacceptable and in some versions is even illegal! All adults, not just parents, owe young people the simple dignity of being treated as individuals, looking for the best instead of assuming the worst.

 

 

Madison Cawein Knows You Better Than You Know Him.

COMMENTARY

by: Chris Warren

The justice system of the literary world is somewhat random, richly rewarding pablum not worthy of a greeting card while genuinely talented writers are condemned to being the obscure subjects of graduate school term papers that will be read once for grading, then time-capsuled on a shelf in a remote corner of the university library where they become mere stuffing to help make the library’s volume collection numbers look good. This concept can also be applied to lives and situations outside of the literary world.

Madison Cawein (CAW-wine) was born in 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky and died in 1914, after publishing thirty six books of over 1500 poems. In his time he was well known and for at least a while earned a respectable living as a poet before losing most of his fortune to bad investments. He was also a critical success, having his work featured in Chicago-based Poetry magazine (to this day still the top-tier international poetry showcase) and gaining the respect of Ezra Pound and other contemporary heavyweights.

So why does almost no one know who this guy is? A confluence of bad timing, the poet’s own stubbornness, and not being taken seriously by scholars in the years since his death relegated Madison to minor poet status. His backstory is one we of the twenty first century should pay attention to.

Cawein’s life began just as the Civil War was ending. In the years that followed, the United States was too culturally fractured for any meaningful domestic writing movement to take hold. The Romantic Period had fizzled out, and its replacement, the Victorian Era, was borrowed from Europe to fill the literary vacuum in the USA. Madison Cawein loosely adapted the Victorian style, and this would later contribute to his being largely ignored after his death.

Cawein’s father was a herbal practitioner who made medication from wild plants he picked himself. The young Madison often went along on these outings, and that was the beginning of a lifelong love of nature which became a central theme in most of his compositions. Nature themes written with a rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (known as iambic meter) were popular in Victorian literature. This style of composition became Cawein’s trademark:

The cricket’s cry and the locust’s whirr,
And the note of a bird’s distress,
With the rasping sound of the grasshopper,
Clung to the loneliness
Like burrs to a trailing dress.

Especially when read aloud, the deliberate sing-song pattern of this passage from Cawein’s Waste Land dances off the page. Had the Victorian Era lasted longer, Madison Cawein could have kept on doing what he was doing and likely become a legend for it. By time his writing career started in earnest, Victorian literature was falling out of favor to make way for the ascending Modernist movement which began in the late 1800’s.

Remaining true to oneself is fine when creating art for art’s sake, but to make a living at it and stay on the literary radar, one must be a little more practical. In Cawein’s time, anyone who was not on the Modernist bus was probably going to be run over by it. Resistance to change frequently comes with harsh consequences even in the otherwise gentle realm of poetry. Hindsight being always clear, we nonetheless will never know if Cawein by design or by accident sacrificed a professional writing career to maintain the purity of his style.

Literature is not a stand-alone entity that exists solely to look and sound nice. It has a deeper purpose of offering insight, to give the reader something to think about and ultimately teach a lesson that can be applied to ourselves. The lesson does not necessarily have to come out of the literature itself; it can and often does come from the author’s life experiences. This is the place of enlightenment Madison Cawein brings us to.

There is no set system to decide which writers become successful and which do not. Certainly, much lesser poets than Cawein received acclaim they did not earn. But isn’t that how it works for pretty much all of life’s pursuits? I want to believe we’re in a meritocracy, where everyone truly gets what they deserve and work for. Yet, let’s not kid ourselves: Success can often be attributed to personal connections, good old fashioned luck, and sometimes outright dishonesty. The literary world that initially loved Madison Cawein ultimately kicked him to the curb. The adage “life is not fair” has no poet’s exemption.

An unfortunate setback was that Cawein’s year of birth went against the Victorian style he adopted. He must have had some sense that his chosen genre of poetry was on the wane, yet he continued with it. That might have made him a devoted artist, but it was a poor career choice. Fast forward to today: It no longer applies, especially for young people, to “do what you love and the money will follow.” Not too long ago, a kid could pursue a passion for medieval history or bee keeping or dance and have a decent shot at finding work in their field. But like Cawein, anyone who now aspires to place their dreams first and thinks the bills will magically take care of themselves has the reality of the times beating them back. Imagine a modern day parent’s reaction if their son or daughter disclosed that they wanted to be a poet, much less a poet in a literary style that was near the end of its run.

We short ourselves by blowing off the words and writers of the past as having no contemporary relevance beyond grudgingly satisfying a high school or college language arts elective requirement. Those who break through the stasis and open themselves to the insights of these writers and the lives they lived will find a surprising connection to their own twenty-first century existence. In Cawein we have a guy whose professional career and legacy was stunted by a string of bad luck and bad decisions. Who cannot relate to that on some level?

The beauty and power of the written word is that it preserves the wisdom of others, becoming a keeper of thought reaching across the ages. Writers make me feel like they are always at my side: It’s a comfort to read words from hundreds of years ago and see myself in them and know that even back then someone understood me, someone “gets it.” Madison Cawine has been gone for a century but like all writers great and small, his words and deeds are worth listening to; the lessons of literature are ageless. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Legend of Super Jeep.

COMMENTARY, , , , , , ,

by: Chris Warren

Almost everyone has owned a favorite car, usually long ago, that had a certain “it” factor. The car probably came as a used junker but delivered more fun per mile than can possibly be remembered. First dates, road trips, late night pizza runs, breaking down at the worst possible time…it was a car that may not have seemed like much at the time but years later still makes us smile every time we think of it. We absolutely loved that car and will never forget it.

“Super Jeep,” as my friends jokingly dubbed it, was a 1979 CJ that was at least as much rust as it was metal and the small V8 with 3-speed stick gave only marginally better gas milage than a loaded cement truck. But it ran well, had low miles, and was a Jeep. I got it in the spring, removed the doors and the top and drove it that way for most of the summer. It was epic cool. Me and my friends had a blast; it was the kind of fun that can only happen when you’re nineteen and it’s warm out and you’re laughing your ass off tearing around town with your friends.

A lot has been said about the allure of cars. It seems to be mostly an “American thing”. You don’t hear too many stories about the French or Japanese or Mexicans glowingly reminiscing about their cars. For Americans, the cultural attraction of the automobile goes back to our very first days as a country. We wanted to expand, to travel, to discover what’s over the next hill. We wanted to be there, even when we weren’t sure where “there” was. Horses and later trains filled the need for over a century. When cars became affordable to the average person, it freed us from the limitations of horses and the schedules of trains. There’s no substitute: Cars just ooze freedom in a way that nothing else can.

Fourth of July weekend rolls around; my friend Rich and his brother invite me along to a three day music festival in northern Illinois. We drove separately and it was a long, hot ride for my cranky old CJ. I got there ok but getting home was going to be an issue. There it was, sitting broken and lifeless amongst all the noise and excitement and rock and roll. Some freaky headbanger dude in a tow truck comes along, pokes around under the hood and tells me I need a new ignition coil. The good news is it’s an easy fix. The bad news is I’m a long way from home in a strange town on a holiday weekend and have no idea where I’m going to find a coil for a ’79 Jeep.

Rich and I missed several hours of the festival driving around hoping to find an auto parts store that was open, we even drifed up into Wisconsin. Desperate and having no other options, we stopped at a Farm & Fleet and took a chance on a coil that was for a John Deere tractor. I connected it with alligator clips. The engine started & ran perfectly! When I got home I didn’t even bother installing the proper part. The jeep ran on that John Deere coil for the rest of the time I owned it.

Car adoration is one of the few things that binds generations. Look around any car show and it’s easy to spot grandfathers who are just as excited as the children to be there checking out the kickass rides. And I’ll bet every one of those grandpas could remember every detail of that car as if it were still sitting in his driveway. As the little kids grow into teenagers, they dream of the day when they too will experience the freedom of sitting solo behind the wheel. Having mom or dad lug them around will never again be acceptable. And even though a dad may be nervous about giving the keys to his kids, inside he reluctantly if not totally understands. Even an overprotective parent knows the call of the road cannot be resisted forever.

Winter and heavy snow do not present much of a challenge for a vehicle originally designed for the Army to fight wars with; neither does a young male’s sense of invincibility. Mixed together, we end up with with three college guys deciding, literally out of no where in the middle of the night and for no particular reason, to hop in the jeep and go on a roadtrip to Rockford, Illinois. Rockford was not a terrible town but there was nothing so awesome about it that it’s worth driving through the dark in a snow storm to go there just for the hell of it.

So there we were: Me, my roommate Mike, and Skippy (whose real name was Tom) truckin’ north on highway 51 with the snow howling all around us. The poorly fitting removable doors on the jeep let a lot of cold air blow through. We were freezing our asses off and the wimpy heater just barely kept the windows clear. As we exited the highway we get a bad vibe about the neighborhood so I call on my CB radio and try to get some information as to where we could gas up and find something fun to do.

Surprisingly, some local answers back! When I told him where we were, all he said was, “you nice white college kids are gonna get yer asses kicked over there!” We took the hint, turned around and headed right back for the highway. As we left the area, I overheard the local CBer tell another, “some boys came up from the university and they have no idea what the shit they are doing.” We ended up eating greasy truck stop slime somewhere on Illinois 20.

That was the denouement of our big idea. We rolled back onto campus just as it was getting light out. My jeep was a mess and we were barely awake. By all objective judgement the whole deal was a disaster. But here I am, decades later, still smiling while I recount this story. It would not be the same had we taken Skippy’s car. I might not have remembered it at all.

All cars, even the cool ones, have a finite lifespan and sooner or later the end comes. I finished school and was finally working a solid job; still driving the jeep. It had duct tape and nylon ties all over it, and I had removed the spare because the body was so rusty it would not support the weight of a tire hanging off its rear end. One day the radiator springs a leak (the second time). It was just another in a long parade of constant fixes. My no-nonsense dad looks at the jeep, looks at me, and says, “You know, you have a real job now. Maybe you should get rid of this thing and buy something decent.” I knew he was right, and within a month or so the jeep was traded in for a truck.

But that was not the end of Super Jeep. There is no “end.” For over twenty years I pined for that old junk every time I saw another Jeep going down the street. Today the sprit is reborn, and it’s as strong as ever: Last summer I bought myself a brand-new Jeep Wrangler. Rag top. Stick shift. No frills. I badly missed my old jeep and wanted to recreate the feel-good vibe. I named it “Super Jeep 2.0” in honor of the original. Wow! All the cool is still there! Over time, Jeeps have not lost a thing and have retained every bit of the quirky fun personality I remember. Only many years later does it sink in how much that old wreck meant to me and the impression it made. So many miles, so many good times revolved around a rusty jeep with the driver’s seat not fully bolted down and water leaking from under the dash every time it rained. None of it could have happened with any other vehicle. For me it was and always will be that car.

(this article was originally published on March 22, 2014 and  was revised/edited on July 14, 2016)

 

 

 

The Linguistics of Climate Change

COMMENTARY

by: Chris Warren

Years ago when I was a college English major, I spent a more time than I would have cared to studying the concept of etymological fallacy. For those who understandably do not want to sit thorough a whole semester of undergraduate linguistics, here is the abridged version: Etymological fallacy is what happens when the present day meaning of a word or term is incorrectly associated with the meaning it had in the past or in some cases never had. Less precisely, it’s a stubbornness, a failure to acknowledge that language is fluid and never settled and word definitions change -sometimes radically- over time.

What works for language cannot so easily apply to science because science has to operate within the limits of facts. Writers are encouraged to pick and choose words to suit the purpose; it’s part of the creative process. Language is, after all, mostly an art. There is an entire generation of climate scientists trying to be artists, and they are not succeeding at this conflicting dual role.

The word “pollution” was the standard noun at the beginning of the climate movement. For a long time, this worked for the activists. It is very generic, nebulous, and can be easily blamed on big, bad corporations. Pollution evolved into the currently favored term, “carbon footprint.” It may not seem like it matters, but it does. Blaming corporations is still a big part of the plan, but calling it a carbon footprint presents the issue in a way that makes it very difficult for the individual to push the blame off on industry. We all have feet, right? Anyone can relate to the metaphor; it requires little scientific acumen to understand, and is too personal to ignore. The strategy worked. Now it’s fashionable to reduce one’s carbon footprint. The term has become so mainstream it’s even used in advertising. By design or by accident, “carbon footprint” is a brilliant success. Well played, guys.

The other benefit is that the activists have magnanimously given us a path to salvation. Yes, brothers and sisters, we’ve all committed the sin of pollution but we can make it a zero-sum game by planting a tree or car pooling “to reduce our carbon footprint.” It’s a relatively painless way to absolve our guilt. This is how people like Al Gore and other Learjet liberals justify their carbon-puking lifestyles and multiple gigantic homes that inhale more electrons than many American neighborhoods. They confidently tell themselves, “I paid the World Wildlife Fund to plant a bunch of trees for me in South America so I’m good to go.”

At the corporate level, proposed sales of carbon tax credits has very little to do with keeping the environment clean; it’s about the government profiting from something they claim to want to eliminate (see also, tobacco tax). The concept is simple: Dumping toxic waste is bad, but if you give the government a pile of cash they will let you do it anyway. There is never any sincere talk about reducing pollution to begin with because that would shut off the cash flow. Cap and trade, carbon tax’s cousin, should be a more palatable solution because in theory all the money changes hands between private parties and the government doesn’t get a cut. It appears very libertarian and free-market capitalist-driven. The catch: The final version of these deals never has any resemblance to the original proposal. Are we expected to believe the government will leave alone anything that does not include them receiving a payoff? No matter which scheme is rolled out, the end result will be corporations get to keep pumping out the filth, the government makes a ton of money, and both will cheerfully brag about how they really, really care about the environment. Take a guess who receives absolutely zero benefit from any of this? That would be you, John Q.

The Roman Catholic Church used to allow the wealthy to purchase their way out of feeling guilty. Borrowing from history, the climate movement has created its own modern day secular version of Papal indulgences. Whether it’s schoolchildren planting trees in the park or big companies forking over millions of dollars for the right to poison the planet, buying absolution is a centuries-old concept.

We’ve long passed the point where scientists stepped over the line of being objective fact finders and turned into biased advocates for a cause, which includes the very unscientific task of selling the cause: Climate scientists are almost entirely government funded; they want us to believe that the results of their research is in no way connected to their desire to assure their livelihoods or fulfill a predetermined outcome. These are the same people who have the nerve to dismiss any privately-funded research (what little there is) that doesn’t toe the line as propaganda cranked out by paid shills. The oft-cited statistic that 97% of all climate scientists believe climate change is real, and more importantly, manmade, cannot shake the stench of self-interest. It’s like 97% of cattle ranchers claiming excessive consumption of red meat has absolutely nothing to do with heart disease.

Anyone paying casual attention to the media for the last few years may have noticed that the term global warming is almost never used anymore and has been replaced by “climate change.” The semantic slight of hand is not random: It’s hard to convince the public that we’re all going to fry when it’s snowing in Atlanta. What to do? Dump all reference to warm and find a term that has more wiggle room for interpretation. But wait…wasn’t global warming supposed to be “settled science?” Science that periodically needs to be redefined to accommodate changed or newly discovered facts is by default not “settled.” Is the planet boiling or not? By contrast, no one has ever revised the law of gravity because there’s no reason to. The scientific truth of gravity cannot be broken. It’s been the same since the beginning of time and no poll-tested talking points are necessary.

I agree the planet is getting warmer, and we as a concerned society need to find cleaner ways of living. Where I disagree with the climate activists is I believe the latter is not necessarily connected to the former, nor do I accept as “settled” that increasing temperatures are both long term and man made. Cleaning up the planet is its own virtue. Do we really need expensive scientific research as a rationale for doing the right thing? No, but that assumes the research does not have a political agenda behind it. Industry/conservatives need to pull their head out their ass and quit pretending that there’s nothing going on with the climate, because something clearly is going on. And environmentalists/liberals need to end the pretzel logic hypocrisy of selling the right to pollute to the highest bidder while telling everyday Americans what kind of light bulbs they may use.

The climate movement hurts itself with their efforts to change the meaning and language of what years ago they insisted was a done deal. Whatever merit their argument has gets lost in a miasma of political correctness and sloppy rhetoric that would not make the cut in a freshman composition course. The settled science of ten years ago doesn’t work now, so they just alter what it means and call it change. It’s the climatologists’ bastardized version of linguistic fallacy. My college English professors would always call us out on it; climate activists have the luxury of making up their own rules.

Facebook Sucks.

COMMENTARY

by: Chris Warren

I strain to understand why, in a world where everyone is more connected than at any time in human history, there are concurrently so many people who are going through life out of touch, lonely, and mostly devoid of meaningful human contact. It seems that it doesn’t take much to be someone’s “friend”.

Those who defend the proliferation of social media (mainly Facebook) will argue that it allows us to maintain connections to people we might otherwise not have on our radar: Old high school friends, former coworkers, distant relatives, etc. I have to surrender that point to the Facebook fanboys. It is a great medium for keeping in touch with people who you don’t mind having around as long as they don’t get any closer than your News Feed.

And I hate to break it to the serial News Feeders, but if the internet is a way to “keep in touch” then we also have to accept that it provides an easy excuse to avoid genuine relationships while giving the appearance of a normal life. Can’t have it both ways.

Every now and then a Facebook post will pop up that goes along the lines of  “my Facebook friends have helped me through my troubles and are always there for me….”  The sappy verbiage varies but the ending always sounds like middle school gushing: “Facebook friends are real friends! Repost if you love your Facebook friends!“ How pathetic and forlorn does a soul have to get to reach a point where they allow themselves to become emotionally attached to people they rarely if ever deal with face to face, and then affirm the “relationship” with a cyber version of a chain letter? I don’t know if I should hug them in consolation or give them a bitch slap. I tend towards the latter.

I have close friendships that might not have happened if the internet was around at the time. The internet makes it too easy to remain at a distance while at the same time giving some semblance of a real relationship. Giving a damn about someone and wanting to be their friend requires more effort than a few clicks on a screen. That which is valuable is worth working for.

When I pull it all together, what I conclude about the “Facebook phenomenon” is that it attracts a few specific types of people:

The Loner: Facebook is a haven for their socially lazy and unskilled ways. Of course that does not mean everyone there is a misfit, but it’s a safe bet that the concentration of “people with issues” is much higher on Facebook than it is anywhere else outside of group counseling. Loners will often only respond to others’ posts and seldom start topics of their own because their existence is so empty they have nothing to say, but still want to feel like they are participating in a conversation. It’s totally lost on Loners that people with strong, meaningful real-world relationships don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, because, uuhhmm, they don’t have to? And those who are isolated, lonely, or do not have much going on in their lives never seem to leave. 

The Attention Whore: Where else but Facebook could they tell the world about their new lover/car/house/job/Nobel prize, health club triumphs, and rescuing damsels in distress? It’s a never-ending monologue of me, me, me! Their abilities and accomplishments are so superlative that it makes me wonder how they find time in their awesome lives to post regular updates. They always claim to come out on the winning side of every challenge and truly believe they are inspirational figures. Attention Whores love to tease interest in their upcoming adventure: “Leaving for the gym! Those (insert name of exercise equipment here) are in for a rough night!”. There is a 100% chance that a follow up post will be made a few hours later declaring supremacy. They characteristically have large numbers of “friends,” most of whom are also Attention Whores. They spend most of their time “liking” and commenting on each other’s missives, which serves the dual purpose of making them appear to be popular and assuring the circular neurosis of ego masturbation never dies.

The Whiner: The least harmful species of Facebooker, Whiners are sometimes misclassified as Attention Whores. The difference is that Whiners are not necessarily looking for attention; they are mostly trying to blow off steam. How many people are paying attention is not the point, which is good because few people actually are. They like to post numerous short items as opposed to long rambling speeches. The whining is often about small hassles most of us experience every day but are emotionally stable enough not to broadcast on the internet: “I can’t sleep,” “I hate this weather,” “I have a headache,” “My pizza was cold,” “This cab driver is a dick,” are all common whiner-style gripes.

The Therapist: There’s always that one person who seems to have an endless supply of unsolicited internet wisdom. No matter what problem it is, they’ve got a meme or quote that will fix it. Photos of rainbows, waterfalls, puppies, and fields of flowers are on their greatest hits list, with pithy sayings front and center. If your mother is an alcoholic, or your spouse is cheating on you, or your son is on probation, just look at the nice picture of the sunset overlaid with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote and your troubles will melt away. The reason Therapists should never be taken seriously is because they tend to be pretty messed up themselves, which brings forward the obvious question: If their condescending clichés couldn’t resolve their issue, what makes them think it will work for you?

The Political Screecher: This is the only class of Facebooker whose level of vanity is equal to Attention Whores. Screechers are masters of cherry-picking ideas and facts and whipping them into what they think is an unbreakable fortress of logic. Screechers sincerely believe they will win others over to their side, one meme at a time. Anyone who does not concur is a moron. It’s a kick to disagree just to disagree with them and then watch them fall over themselves trying to pick apart your argument, as if Facebook was a forum for meaningful discussion. It goes right over their head that you are only messing with them just for the fun of it. For what it’s worth, most screech posts are anti-conservative because Facebook has a disproportionate number of young internet-saavy liberals who have plenty of free time to grace our newsfeeds with insightful political analysis while the rest of us are out all day working legitimate jobs. Screechers should be avoided even when you do agree with them: Any acknowledgement, whether positive or negative, only encourages them to keep at it.

I’ve been called a snob, and worse, for my disdain of social media. That’s ok. If anyone sees themselves in the above categories, or is embarrassed to admit how much they are on Facebook and think I am talking about them: You’re right. I am talking about you! My deepest respect to Mark Zuckerberg for becoming a billionaire off others’ harebrained mutterings. I cannot deny that there are some valid uses for Facebook, but the ratio of garbage to good is so high, it’s not worth it. It’s like sticking your arm in a porta-potty full of fermenting shit to pull out a ten dollar bill.