Or, People Stash their Opinions in a Lock Box

Or, People are not Interested in Other People’s Ideas

Or, Doesn’t Anyone Listen Anymore

A BLOG entry completed. . .  with a hat tip to David Brooks of the New York Times. . .

Op-Ed Columnist

What It Takes

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: May 10, 2010

Mr. Brooks - you have discovered in your editorial the demise of the “question authority” phase in our higher educational system.  It has been followed by the “suck up” phase which looks to be settling in for a good long time.  I’m five years older than Ms. Kagan, Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court.  And within that five years there is a great divide between myself and Ms. Kagan’s ilk.  I graduated high school in 1973, college in 1978.  I first attended an elite private men’s college in Virginia, Hampden-Sydney.  I failed my mandatory Bible class because I had the audacity to question the Bible and I failed my English composition class because I refused to write entirely in complete sentences.  While that added an extra year to my date of graduation (along with my debut in Hollywood) I sure had fun and so did my fellow students in those classes.  In both Bible and Composition, my professors told me that I failed not because I was stupid but because I did not follow the rules.  I was proud of that then and I am proud of it today.  What your column makes clear is that we have rolled into this new century with leaders who are much more aligned with play it safe and placate, or they preach as if their God was the only God in existence.  I am a liberal, capital L, but I have lost respect for liberals and conservatives because of a lack of courage in their thinking, a lack of audacity in their thoughts.  Big Daddy had it right in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” when he talked about mendacity.  To forsake honesty and curiosity, to listen only to your precise views replayed to you through the voices of sycophants is to trade in your brain for a much lesser organ, a tone deaf one at that - a brain that has no meaning anymore because its synapses have stopped dancing to the rigors of intellectual curiosity.  If you are on that path you deserve what you get.  Just stick another pacifier in your mouth and call it a life. 

On a different note, I enjoyed the tape of Win McMurry, the sportscaster on the Golf Channel, when she was reporting why Tiger Woods withdrew from the Player’s Championship. She blamed it on his “bulging dick. . .”  I guess there are a few curious people left on television, just keep that dial tuned to the Golf Channel and get your cage rattled.  I love golf. 

The UPS lady rang my buzzer this afternoon.  I opened my front door.  She held up the envelope.

“My memory is here,” I yelped.

“It is,” she said.

It was the memory for my Mac Book Pro.  Which I tried to install myself - big mistake.  First, I can’t see.  The screws that open the memory cage on my Mac are no bigger than a period at the end of a sentence.  Fortunately, I have a magnet screwdriver and reading glasses so I went to work.  Installing memory is harder than it sounds.  Or maybe not.  Anyway, I took out the old memory first, no small feat.  Then I inserted the first half of the whole Gigga Byte memory on the bottom and then inserted the second half on top of the first Gigga Byte me.  Happy with myself, I used my handy magnetic screwdriver to fasten down the memory cage, put the battery back in and turned on my Mac.  Blink - Blink - Blink - that was all the power light did.  The computer would not come on.  So, what to do?  I pulled the new memory out. 

Then Luke arrived.  First thing he saw was all the discarded memory lying on the living room floor.  So naturally I explain about buying the new memory and installing it even though I had a hunch I had no business opening up the back of a Mac. 

Luke grabbed a beer and sat down.

“What was wrong with the old memory?”

He had a point. 

“I just thought we needed more,” I said.

“We have enough,” he said. 

And then he used my magnetic screwdriver and slid the old memory back in.  And the Mac came on. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUKE !  (Oh, how I love to laugh with you.) 

Uncle Edmon died this morning.  He was 95.  My grandmother used to call him when my grandfather was pitching a fit, Uncle Edmon was my grandfather’s brother.  He would use the excuse of coming in his Higgins Oil truck to fill Papa’s gas tank on his farm and while he was there he would talk Papa down.  Up until the day Papa died, Uncle Edmon had to talk him down. 

Uncle Edmon was always like a second father to my mother.  She turned to him growing up when Papa pitched his fits and she turned to him later in life after Papa outlived my grandmother and continued pitching fits.  But, here’s the thing.  Uncle Edmon and Papa understood each other.  Papa was the first born, Uncle Edmon the second born, from a family of two boys and four girls.  My grandfather’s parents gave my grandfather away after he was born, to his mother’s parents, Grandad and Grandma Livesay.  They lived a rock’s throw apart but a world away from each other. 

Uncle Edmon and Papa were just two years apart.  All the time growing up, they kept it going between the two houses - boys standing in for adults - trying to keep a family together.  When they were grown with their own families, they stayed in touch via Higgins Oil.  They talked and told stories that over the years they had heard countless times before.  It was the laughter that mattered.  The visit was their bond.     

They were two brothers, working out the mess the adults made of their lives. 

R.I.P. Uncle Edmon

and Papa. 

The 7.2 quake yesterday afternoon was a long one, it was as if the ground had turned into a roily sea.  There was another quake at 4 this morning then one at 6:30 that woke me up.  Just 15 minutes ago there was another one with the same characteristics - I’m in a boat, a swell pushes underneath me - I roll along with it in my office.  

Life is good.       

There are several David H. Campbells and David Campbells on Facebook.  None of them are me.  I am not on Facebook. 

President Obama delivered on the health care bill in an engaging way. He pulled the Congress into the debate kicking and screaming. And it worked out. The bill passed. Twice. Now we have a blueprint to work with in the years to come.

We also have a blueprint of what the opposition looks like running up to the November midterms. I predict the Republicans will be very disappointed when they don’t perform nearly as well as they seem to think they will in November. Who wants to spend their time and waste their money and vote on a party and movement that makes threats like schoolyard bullies, throws bricks with misspelled notes on them through windows, and in the name of pro-life threatens to kill health care providers? It just tells me that they are not capable of articulating an opposing position. I cannot tolerate cowards.

The bottom line is:

We, the citizens, are employers, we fund the U.S. government with our tax dollars and therefore must insist that we are entitled to the same health care benefits that our employees are - from the President and VP, Members of the House and Senate, and the Supreme Court, on down. . . to do otherwise is not good business.  (It is not good politics, either.)  If this can’t be accomplished then we must strip our employees of their health care until parity can be reached. 

THIS is what I call starting over.   

I’m simply saying, to all my people out there in the political realm, if you ever wanted to challenge an incumbent, now is the time.  Every incumbent needs at least one challenger from his/her own party and at least one challenger from another party.  If you run, I’ll support you.  Obama was right about change, it needs to happen. 

It’s all about the journey and we’ve just gotten started.  We must continue on, with or without President Obama.   

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to my man, Luke, for his nomination to the Hillcrest Town Council. He got started working with the HTC during some parking issues in Hillcrest last year and was bitten by the community service and organizing bug. He’s a natural born leader as anyone who knows him well understands. The vote is a month from tonight!

GO LUKE!

Obama called out the Republicans on their “just say no” strategy.  How can he be bipartisan if the other side pretends to cooperate but then flat out refuses to work with him?  He’s extended the olive branch.  Bush 2 never did.  During 8 years of the Bush 2 administration not one Republican ever publicly declared that we were not paying for the Iraq war and that we were diving head first into massive deficits when they were handed a surplus after Clinton left office.  And when a few Democrats did object to Bush hiding the cost of the war, they were called traitors.  Remember that?  So now the deficits that were being piled up because we were not paying for 2 wars has front-loaded Obama’s administration.  Remember when Bush said the profits from Iraq’s oil would pay the cost of the war?  Ask your Republican representative to explain that to you next time you meet. . . 

DEMS, wake up.  Slice and dice the health care bill down to its basics.  Take charge.  If you don’t, you deserve what comes next.  REPUBS, just saying NO can’t work forever.  I don’t care how long it takes, it will come back to haunt you.  Our country is in trouble.  Say what you will about Obama but he’s been working his ass off while you put your hands under your asses and sit on them.  Good luck with that.