Walk with St. Jerome

Walk 

If you are young and you are reading this, here is a scary thought – someday you will be married more years than not. To reach this dubious milestone, you will have to learn to work out the problems of living together. St. Jerome, best remembered for his bad temper, says, Solvitur ambulando, – “to solve a problem, walk.”

I have been married to my wife now more years than not. The kids are grown and we are too often alone. It seems like we are a little too quick to criticize, to complain about things that don’t really matter.

I acknowledge, I am the problem.

To solve my problem I follow St. Jerome’s advice – I walk. I load the two dogs up into the back of my GMC Yukon and off we go in search of solitude and adventure. Normal haunts include the old quarry pit at Lake El Dorado where Toby, a mixed Jack Russell Terrier and Mountain Cur, and I like to swim. Toby barks like a seal when he swims. I try to stay out of his way for I liken his constantly moving paws to the killer shark in Jaws. Sammy, a German Shepherd stays mainly on the shore. Sometimes, if it is really hot, she will daintily tread into the water and make a spin before returning to the shore.

There is also Pawnee Prairie Park on the west side of Wichita where we go to chase deer. The deer, flags raised are off in a flash. The dogs give futile pursuit but quickly tire and come back tongues lagging from their mouths.

Finally, there is South Lake where we go when time is limited. It has the clearest water of all the lakes, ponds, and creeks in and around Wichita. It has the disadvantage of being the most crowded spot and, sadly, the most trash, beer bottles, coke cups, and empty bait cups that fishermen and party-goers leave behind. In spite of the trash we still go. The clear water lures us and the hope of finding a kindred soul or canine.

On all of these sojourns, the two dogs and I will occasionally come across someone worth talking to. And if we are lucky, someone will have a dog or two for Toby to play with. Sammy is always leery of other dogs, and so she growls and barks for a time before settling down to an unsteady peace.

 Recently, the dogs and I changed the time that we would arrive at South Lake. In spring we went in the midday sun. Being summer now, we wait until the hour before sunset. It is cooler. It is also prettier. The setting sun casts colors of red, blue, and violet across the lake.

Half way around the lake we came across a pack of five dogs and their three owners. The owners, two women and a man, stood on the shore, while their five pets, ran to and fro. Being ever so polite I asked if we could join them for a while. Toby ran and swam and had a grand old time. Sammy growled and barked, but eventually found her manners. We spoke like strangers do, of dogs and the weather and sunsets.

“Walking is man’s best medicine,” says Hippocrates.

It was nice. The dogs got their walk and I had a moment without giving or getting criticism or complaint. And the sunset was gorgeous.

Vanishing Point

Is reality what we perceive? Perhaps, reality has its own existence beyond our human ability to see and know, but, if so, how would we know?

a dusty Kansas road in Sumner County, Kansas, 2013

A vanishing point in a picture is a point beyond which we cannot see. An artist would understand that it is a matter of perspective. Perspective meaning how in space we relate to worldly objects. The artist observes that all longitudinal lines point to the vanishing point, a point beyond which nothing can be see. The horizon is, of course, the exception. It stretches infinitely in a 360 degree arc to our point of reference.

The old man was at the Lake of the Ozarks this last weekend with friends. The conversation gently moves from wine and women to the subject of string theory. Sting theory, in a nutshell, is man's attempt to understand how non-dimensional points become one-dimensional objects. The old man's friend attempted to explain string theory. So, we must begin with Einstein's famous equation E = mc(2) . "At some point," the friend explains, "matter disappears and only energy exists." "If this is so," says the old man, then,  "I can pound my fist upon the table until the energy's force creates matter."

All is Grist for the mill

Grist may seem a strange topic for an old man to talk about.

But the word is onomatopoetic and the old man likes words that get to the point. Moreover, the week before, while shooting pictures of the Little Walnut Pratt Truss bridge in Bois d'Arc, Kansas, he came across the remains of an old gristmill. Finally, the old man likes grits, which is corn grist coarsely ground.

Hey, old men don't always make sense, that is, unless you think about it.

Remains of the Gristmill at Bois d'Arc, Kansas

Grist is corn or wheat grain separated from its chaff and ready for grinding at a grist mill. It also means the grain that has been ground. It is not too hard to guess that grist comes from Old English, grinden, meaning to grind.

Grits, which sounds a lot like grist, is simply corn ground coarsely. It is popular in the South and with the old man. And, in case you were wondering, corn ground finely is corn meal, good for making corn muffins.

Gristmills have been around a long time. Strabo, the Greek geographer who popularized the map, reports of a mill in ancient Pontus, on the Black Sea, where Strabo was born. This was in the year 71 BC, about the time when Spartacus was giving the Romans fits, and Julius Caesar was just starting his military career. Certainly gristmills had been around long before this, and maybe Strabo, who traveled extensively and to Egypt, was only mentioning the mill in Pontus because of the connection to home and the mills' familiarity.

William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066, thought gristmills important enough to be counted in the Domesday Book. That is grist for thought.

And this thought leads the old man on to the proverb, "all is grist for the mill", which symbolically states what the old man blathers about.

The mill is where the grist is ground, and the miller is the grinder of the grist. A miller ground whatever grain was brought to him, charging a portion of the final product for the service. Therefore, all grain coming to the mill represented income.The miller surely held an important place in village life, for every farmer and consumer came to him, either to sell grain or to buy grits and flour.

We also know that the mill was important by the number of phrases concerning mills that have come into common use. Jut to name a few, these are: "holding one's nose to the grindstone", "carrying a millstone around one's neck", "to be put through the mill", and "run of the mill". All these phrases are so descriptive as to not need further explanation. Read on if you like semantics.

Santa was an Old Man

Santa was an Old Man

What do you see when you look at me?
A jolly Old Man with twinkling eyes?

 An Old Man merry and wise?
What do you think when you look at me?

Will I put presents under the Christmas tree?
While you dream of faraway places.

Oh now, does anyone believe that a few good graces
Should outweigh so many mistakes through the year?

Have you been naughty? Have you been nice?
Have you been kind once or twice?

Never fear nor shed a tear for Santa is forgiving
You see, an Old Man has little time left for living

All that he has is a pipe for pleasure and,
A cup of strong ale for good measure.

Jest if you must for an Old Fool like me
For I trust in the kindness of all that I see.

Source:

This poem is based on a poem by Phyllis McCormick that is out there called Cranky Old Man. The actual poem seems to have been Crabbit Old Woman, with crabbit the Scottish word for cranky. The tale concerns an old woman in a nursing home. The sentiment seems to make the rounds of hospitals and homeless shelters. You can see one version of the poem here.

Life is a Gift

Life is a gift, enjoy each day

Life is a Gift

Life is a gift enjoy each day,
Find something nice to say;
Find someone troubled by sorrow,
Lighten a burden, brighten tomorrow.

Remember those who have less
Try to be generous and do your best;
Do a kindness now and then
And joy will fill your heart again.

Left or Right

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume Two (1840), Book One, Chapter II.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

The Old Man would suggest that both political parties attempt to define the debate by definition. Thus, whether one is left or right depends on who is standing next to you.

Questions and Answers

Read it in a book recently - The answer doesn't matter if you don't ask the right question. So true.

Tobie, doing what he loves to do.

I am fed up with political debates where the questions and answers never seem to match. So, the Old Man took the two dogs Sammy and Tobie to the park where the only question that mattered was whether we would see any deer. Sad to say, it was too windy.

On Writing

Ezra Pound by Henri Cartier-Bresson

The Old Man gets criticized for his writing. It is too long, too complicated, too this and too that. But then, the Old Man knows that critics are just failed writers.

But then again, so are most writers.

Outside the System

Note to my son on his freshman year at CSU.

College is not an education. A diploma is not the guarantee that you possess all the answers.

Remember the classic movie and book, The Wizard of Oz. Dorthy and her companions go to the Emerald City looking for the answers to their problems. For the Scarecrow, it is his lack of a brain. The Wizard concocts a bran cereal mixture, places it in the Scarecrow's head, and declares that he has bran-new brains. The Scarecrow then shows his brain power by placing his finger to his head and incorrectly reciting the Pythagorean Theorem:

"The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isoceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. [Is this answer correct?] Oh joy, rapture, I've got a brain. How can I ever thank you enough?"

The Wizard reminds the now brainy Scarecrow about the universality of brains and solemnly presents him with a rolled up diploma:

"Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have! But they have one thing you haven't got - a diploma. Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Universitatus Committeatum E Pluribus Unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of Th. D...that's Doctor of Thinkology"

Common sense is not so common, said Will Rogers, and brains are not so universal. Creative thought, the purpose of an education, requires thinking outside the box.

I am sitting on the back porch sipping a cup of coffee and reading Outside magazine. It contains stories of unconventional athletes, of extraordinary cities, and out-of-the-way places. It reminds me that one has to get outside the system to experience life.

Life is not about following a well worn path, it is about blazing a new trail. I think back to my own freshman experience and remember Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, a spiritual journey of self-discovery. Siddhartha has it all - he is rich, lacks for no worldly wants, has the best teachers, and yet, he knows nothing of the real world and its problems.

Thinking back on it now, isn't all philosophy a journey of self-discovery?

You mentioned to me the other day how dry and dismal is the Economics class you are taking.

It is thirty-some years later and the method of teaching an Economics class hasn't changed.  They are still teaching the same supply and demand curves as an explanation for all economic activity. Sure it is easy to quantify economic activity as a relationship between supply and demand, but this merely identifies that there is a economic relationship and doesn't begin to touch upon the many factors that determine production and price in an economic relationship. One example, water is in unlimited supply, therefore it should have a price of zero. And yet, we know that Madison Avenue has created a market. This market extends not only to the "rare" spring waters, but also to natural tap water, that Coca Cola markets and sells as Dasani.

My second major objection to the teaching of Economics is that it assumes for the most part that all transactions involve two individuals. Someone is selling and someone buys. In law, the buyer and seller in an exchange are referred to as ready, willing and able. The problem of how markets work is not so simple as to say I have X widgets and Y buyers, and therefore, Z production or price. Production, prices, and demand are products of many things. And distortions can occur because of many factors. Think monopolies, governmental regulation, cultural taboos, popularity, etc. Thus, Economic theory is an alphabet soup and not simply X's and Y's. Economics theory also demands an understanding of group dynamics. Read the work of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, and the protagonist of the movie and book A Beautiful Mind.

I think the Rolling Stones had John Nash in mind when they wrote and sang You Can't Always Get What You Want.

You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes well you might find,
You get what you need.

Bargaining often involves compromise of needs. Nash can be summarized as saying that most human interchanges are a function of game theory. We sometimes get what we want, but usually we have to compromise with the world around us, and settle for what we need. This distinction underlies the difference between macro and microeconomics. And if they are not teaching game theory in your Economics class, shame on them.

Enough of boring Economics.

My real point is that you have to get away from the classroom to get a real education. Like Siddhartha, you need to take your own spiritual journey to learn both the questions and the answers to life. You will learn in life, that both the questions and the answers change from generation to generation. This means that the problems that your generations face are markedly different from those of your parents and teachers.

Get outside from time to time. Go kayaking or hiking! Watch a dorky video on conventional stuff to do in Fort Collins.

We're going to hell in a hand-basket

Every boy's favorite movie has got to be Stand By Me, Steven King's paean to the awkward years of growing up. Growing up implies a slow process of maturing, but there is always a seminal moment when it strikes us that something has changed. The change is forever and there is no going back.

I suppose that we don't fully understand the change that comes over us at that critical age. And our conversation is an odd mixture of profanity, humor, and budding philosophy. It is only years later, as an adult, that the change make sense.

Memories are rare. There are simply too many people and too many events to remember it all. We have to be selective in what we choose to remember. In the movie, Stephen King's omniscient Writer, speaks:  "It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant."

My growing up summer was long ago, but I can remember some of the details like it was yesterday. That summer's popular TV show for boys was Daniel Boone, starring Fess Parker as Daniel and Ed Ames as Mingo, his Indian companion. Boone and Mingo were blood brothers, having partaken of the ritual of cutting their forearms and mixing blood. My friend and I became spit-brothers. Not brave enough to cut ourselves with a knife, we still mixed a little saliva and achieved a similar, though less painful result. Funny, I can remember what Fess Parker and Ed Ames look like, I can't remember my friend's face or even his name. 

I was in sixth or seventh grade. My family was then living in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. My father went to the Army's War College, a kind of graduate school to the Army Command and Staff School at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, where we had been a couple of years prior. I was the middle child of five, I had four sisters who made my life miserable. Why not, we had nothing in common. In the two years we lived at Carlisle, my mother would give birth at some point to a sixth and final child, a brother. Too little, too late to make a difference in my isolated personality.

We lived along a street with a row of houses that are common to the military, two story red brick, all alike. In front of our house and all the houses were young sycamore trees. I remember them because the limbs were springy like a trampoline. Everyone in the neighborhood climbed the trees, and most fell from the tree at least once. Middle age is a time of dares. The big dare was to see who could climb the highest in the tree without falling. I remember climbing to the top and flipping upside down to get my toes just a bit higher than anyone else. I don't remember now why I thought that suspending myself upside down was an advantage. But then, not everything we did then made sense.

My strangest memory is what the mother of my closest friend said. I don't remember much of my friend now even though we built tree forts and rafts together, and, like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, we were often to be found in the woods on adventure. In time, he became like one of those many busboys in a restaurant a distant figure.

But his mother said something one day that has stuck with me ever since.

It was a normal day. It must have been summer for it was the middle of the day and we were not in school. The two of us, my friend and I, were going in and out of the house, annoying everyone with our rowdy behavior. Then, on one of the trips in or out, it matters not which direction, we ran into his mother who was standing at the door. She was tall and had brown hair. She wore Capri slacks and a white blouse with the sleeves cut off. Her brown hair was short. I remember her as a sort of Jackie Kennedy look alike, but who knows how accurate that is. She might have been carrying in the groceries, but I don't remember. All I remember is that she had the air of one who was busy.

She was like all mothers and fathers of that era. They lived in a parallel universe. We kids had little interaction with them, only at breakfast and dinner would we sit down together and exchange forced pleasantries.

What I do remember is that she said to the two of us something that was strange at the time. "We're going to hell in a handcart, and I am pushing the cart." There was no context, no reason to make the remark that I can remember. Perhaps, I had said to her, "How are you doing Mrs. SoAndSo?" And, this was her way of being flip. The world stopped for a moment as I processed this strange comment, and then it went on its way.

The phrase has taken firm root and like an oak tree stood the test of time. I can't be sure of the exact words, for the colloquialism should be, "Going to hell in a hand-basket." This is generally translated to mean, things are slowly coming apart at the seams. This might describe the mess we kids were creating, but, I remember her phrase slightly differently, and that she assured me that it was she who was one driving.

That, I think, is why the phrase has stuck in my mind. It was different. It was my first inkling of an existentialist philosophy. No matter where life takes you, be in charge.

A Contest of Wills

It is Sunday, May the 6th, 2012.

The Cranky Old Man sitting on his back porch, here in Wichita, Kansas, quite alone. When one is alone, there is no contest of wills, and that is heavenly. The Cranky Old Man insists that he is not really cranky, but methinks he does protest too much. His family insists that he is and it is their will that seems to prevail.

The family is gone, but the dogs, Tobie and Sam remain, and together, we have the day to ourselves. Where should we go, what should we do?

This Sunday, the weather is mild. It is an English summer day, one where billowy clouds shield the earth from the harsh rays of the sun. A gentle breeze stirs the leaves in the trees. The honeysuckle vine's yellow and white blooms announce that Spring is here to stay. All this suggests to me that a trip to Shakespeare's London of 1599 is in order. My trip is arranged by way of James Shapiro's, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599. To make such a trip is simple enough, pour a glass of wine and open the book. Let the breeze stir your thoughts to Elizabethan England.

In Shapiro's England, it is still Winter, for a I am reading chapter one, A Battle of Wills. The chapter begins on December 26, 1598, and Shakespeare's troupe, the Chamberlain's Men, is off to Whitehall to perform The Second Part of Henry the Fourth this Christmas for Queen Elizabeth.

Shakespeare's play, as many did, had an opening prologue and an epilogue. This is a rhetorical device, well known to public speakers. Tell the audience what they are going to hear, tell them again, and follow that up with a summary of what they heard. The rule of three is often repeated - repetition makes for memory retention.

In The Second Part of Henry the Forth, the epilogue was delivered by the actor Will Kemp. Kemp was perhaps the most famous actor of his day, a bit of a Charlie Chaplin, acting in comedic roles and always center stage. Kemp was also well known for what followed the play. This was a dance called a Jig. Today we imagine a jig as a robust dance, but back then it was more. Jigs, as Shapiro explains, were, "basically semi-improvisational one-act plays, running to a few hundred lines, usually performed by four actors. Kemp's jigs were so popular that in London of 1599, everywhere you turned, you could hear "whores, beadles, bawds, and sergeants filthily chant Kemp's jigs." The word "beadle" refers to a parish constable who was charged with the duties of charity; and "bawd" refers to a prostitute or the madam that keeps them. Thus, Shapiro suggests, those coming to see Kemp dance the jig were the riff-raff of London, those who waited until the end of the play to enter the theatre without paying their penny.

Shapiro's first chapter, A Battle of Wills, concerns the battle of egos between Kemp and William Shakespeare. Kemp had come to believe, with reason, that the audience came to see him dance and sing, and not to hear the staid and lifeless words of a lengthy play. Most plays at the time were dry and humorless. Shakespeare changed that with his wit and wisdom. His plays were topical, his words biting and quotable. The fact that the Queen herself viewed many of Shakespeare's plays suggests that the plays of Shakespeare and The Chamberlain's Men were the blockbusters of the stage.

Kemp was a member of The Chamberlain's Men and an equal owner in the profits of the company. Yet, egos often get in the way of common sense, and Kemp decided that he could take his name and his jig elsewhere for more money. He was wrong, and within a few years died penniless. Shakespeare got the last word in at the Globe.

And as for the Epilogue, take that of The Second Part of Henry the Forth, spoken by a dancer, Will Kemp:

First, my fear; then, my curtsy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure, my curtsy, my duty, and my speech, to beg your pardon. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you,—as it is very well,—I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better. I did mean indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some; and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

...   

My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

Fame, as Shakespeare so well understood, depends on an uncertain audience.

In the Second Part of Henry the Forth, the words of the play center around Will Kemp's character - Falstaff, friend to Prince Hal, son of King Henry the Forth. Although Shakespeare promises to write further of him, he changes his mind. There are no more words for either Falstaff or Will Kemp in Shakespeare's plays and so his audience is gone. For Kemp, "the jig was up."

Note and afterword.

Thomas Platter, a native of Basel, visited England in 1599. The following, from his diary translated from German, describes his visit to the Globe theatre, and the premier of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

On September 21st after lunch, about two o'clock, I and my party crossed the water, and there in the house with the thatched roof witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar with a cast of some fifteen people; when the play was over, they danced very marvellously and gracefully together as is their wont, two dressed as men and two as women. ...

There are different galleries and places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only pays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door and pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats, which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried round the audience, so that for what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.

 Read more from the Norton Anthology of Literature.

"This too shall pass"

"This too shall pass," a proverb that I have heard repeated at various times in my life.

The proverb applies to many things in life, to success as well as travail. Simply understood, it suggests that we bear both success and difficulty with humility and patience. The proverb concerns a great king who is humbled by the simple words. The poet Shelley constructed a poem, Ozymandius, whose theme is about the temporal state of all things. The poem is short and worth repeating:


Ozymandius, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

 And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Everything has its place and time. And, each of us struggles with challenges in life. These difficulties may seem insurmountable and unbearable, but with time become bearable. "Do you wish to rise," St. Augustine asked. Then, "Begin by descending."

Humility has its place.

History Never Repeats

"History," Voltaire said, "never repeats itself, man always does."

There are three players in this earlier French historical drama. The point of which is that even intelligent adults will find a way to squabble.

François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694 – 1778), was a French writer, historian and philosopher, famous for his wit and willingness to tweak the noses of the establishment. He was one of the bellwethers of the Enlightenment, steadfast in his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Madame Françoise de Graffigny, née d'Issembourg Du Buisson d'Happoncourt (1695 - 1758) was a female French novelist, playwright and salon hostess. Madame Graffigny earned her own way though life, but she did so with difficulty. In 1738, needing a temporay place to stay, she managed an invitation to Cirey, the château where Émilie, marquise Du Châtelet, had been living since 1734 with her lover, Voltaire. Two women and one man in one household rarely works well. There were jealousies.  Eventually, a prise de bec, (literally in French a beak or nose tweaking, in English, a tiff or spat), split the two women. Presumably, Voltaire, master of the prise de bec, watched from the side, amused. As an aside, Gabrielle Émilie, marquise du Châtelet (1706 – 1749) was a French mathematician, physicist, and author during the Enlightenment. She translated into French Isaac Newton's work Principia Mathematica. She independently contributed to an understanding of physics that led to Albert Einstein's later Theory of Relativity. She died in childbirth, having been forewarned of its difficulty at her age.

Émilie Du Châtelet is not necessary to my story. I only mention her because far too few women are given credit for scientific advances. Hers, among others, a recognition of the fundamental law that energy and force are squarely proportionate to the speed of matter. Think of Einstein's famous formula: E = mc2. She is also an interesting study in human nature, for she proves the strong maternal instinct to preserve life, even at the risk of one's own.

I mention Madame Graffigny only because of her association with my family. The village of Graffigny in Haut-Marne,  once part of the larger independent Duchy of Lorraine, is where the French side of my family is from, dating from the Renaissance. The village of Cirey where Voltaire, Émilie Du Châtelet, and Madame Graffigny spent a few idealic months before their prise de bec is also part of the region of Haut-Marne, near Graffigny. The connections are admittedly tenuous, but it is still wondrous to wonder if a family member bumped into any one of the trio on the street.

Fast froward history to the year 2012.

My son is a senior in high school. He has three weeks to go before graduation and then we happily ship him out of state to college. His high school is a private parochial school where visitors are greeted with the message "God's Goodness is Everywhere."

My son is involved in a "spat" in his religion class which contains 28 students, both boys and girls. I call it a spat because I was not there. I don't know what happened. I read the redacted report from the substitute teacher and found it disturbing. Any parent would. Parents hope that they raise their children well. They hope that the school they send them to instills sound values. Then again, history intervenes and boys act up, inappropriately.

Students, boys 18 years old should treat any teacher, especially a female one, respectfully. Allegedly, my son is one of six male students who disrupted a religion class. That it was a class on religion, the letter said, was disturbing.  The disruption was "farting" and tossing tennis balls. One or more tennis balls struck the teacher, and one ball caused a red mark which was photographed by the school nurse. "It hurt!" she remarked. I don't doubt that. I don't like the disrespect. I don't like what happened. I am saddened that the teacher was put though this ordeal by boys who should know better. If I had been there, I would have taken the offending miscreants to the woodshed. That is what they did in my day, and in my father's day, and before that.

The teacher is female and a substitute. And the rule, now as always, is to give substitute teachers a hard time. History doesn't repeat itself, but the inappropriate conduct of the students does. There are inevitably the conflicting stories of witnesses, the involvement of authorities and parents. Eventually, it all gets resolved one way or another. History teaches us that.

There are few saints in life. Father Emil Kapaun, for whom the school is named, is one of them. And even he was a cut up in school. Unless one has been a saint though out one's life, a Joan of Arc, then at one time or another there is a clash with school administrators. Senior pranks, the movie Ferris Buhler, anyone. I for one was involved in incidents in second grade, fourth, and seventh grade. The history of each incident varies, they all do. And the way matters were handled by the school and my parents likewise varied.

The  historical perspective has changed. Now it is parent to child, instead of child to parent. In hindsight, I can compare my parent's reactions to my childhood foibles with my own reactions to my son's. In my case, things resolved themselves, mostly for the better. Sometimes changes were necessary, certainly on my part, and sometimes on the part of the school.

Hopefully, history is a predictor of the future.

Tuchman's Law

In 1978, Barbara Tuchman, Pulitzer Prize winning historian, said it best. The fact of being recorded makes a disaster appear both continuous and ubiquitous. Barbara Tuchman was speaking of ancient records, specifically the few records relating to the disastrous 14th century, an era visited by plague, war, religious dissension, greed, political maladministration, and decay of manners. Thus, an age not unlike our own, or any other age.

She thus formulated Tuchman's Law, "The fact of being reported multiples the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold. (or any figure [one] would care to supply)." By including the parenthetical observation, Tuchman anticipated the development of videotape and the reporting practices of CNN, Fox, and all of the other news reporting media who play and replay a tape snippet, thus magnifying the event twenty-fold and continuing its reportage over days, weeks, and even months.

To take but one horrific disaster as an example, consider the early reporting of the disaster at the World Trade Center in September of 2001. Surely, CNN and Fox and all the other media put on loop the videotape of the two planes crashing into the two towers. Viewers were mesmerized by the repeating scene. This made it appear that New York City and every other city in America was under attack, as plane after plane crashed into building after building. Buildings tumbled into a mass of destruction, smoke clouds rose, and people fled in terror.

In this one instance, editors and newsrooms quickly came to their senses. They quit rebroadcasting the tapes. Showing the destruction only served the interests of the terrorists who want to sow fear and loathing. Instead they focused on the task at hand, aiding the injured, finding survivors, and finding out who perpetrated the disaster.

Since 2001, it has been back to normal.

Just think about it.

It's is the same old thing, being misunderstood, that is. I say one thing, the other person hears something else. Just think about it.

Communication is not an easy thing. We talk, we listen. That is it. But what happens once the spoken word leaves the lips and before it reaches the brain seems to be a mystery. I could give a hundred examples of being misunderstood. We all could. That is why miscommunication seems to rank high on the chart of human conditions that needs addressing.

I guess the problem stems from the old cliche that we hear what we want to. After all, if the message is not one that sings to the ear, change the tune. A mother listening to her child's plaintiff cry, hears a cry for help. A stranger hearing the same thing, finds the cries annoying, that is, unless the stranger has his or her own small child and has a visceral transfer of emotion.

If I had to put my finger on the problem, I would chalk it up to a lack of empathy. Empathy, the ability to feel someone else's pain. Speaking of which, isn't that what the life of Christ was all about. Jesus is born to humble beginnings, preaches a message of love and understanding, is betrayed and crucified. His crucifixion symbolizes an atonement for the sins of the world. But Christ did not commit those sins. Why then did God demand that he be sacrificed for our sins? Well, just another example of transference. Let someone else deal with it. It is another day in Paradise for those of us who are well off.

Excuse me, if for a moment I become political. Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for President of the United States says in an interview "I don't care about the poor." Yes, I know, he followed that up saying that there is a safety net, and, if that is broke' he'll fix it. Nor does he care about the rich, he just cares about the hard working Middle Class whose votes he needs to get elected.

I like Mitt, he is a likable guy, and if he had a Facebook page, I would press the like button. Mitt's problem is not just his choice of words. How, after all can a candidate announce that he doesn't care about a voter. And sure enough, silver-tongued Newt Gingrich announces the next day that he cares about everyone.

I guess it is another example of Mitt not feeling the pain. I can sympathize with him. He is well-to-do, never wanted for anything, except votes, and has a hard time understanding what it means to struggle day to day. If he is going to communicate to the electorate, he better get the message. We are all struggling, we all have problems, and we all need to be heard. Empathize.

Enough of politics.

So, I am over half way into this essay, and I find myself talking about how others fail to relate to me. That, in itself, points to the problem. The major problem with communication is not with the talking or the writing of words. Rather, it is with the listening. Christ spoke rarely, saving his words for important occasions. Most of the time he was all about dealing with the problems of others. His most famous words, "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." is itself a role reversal.

So, I will try to listen, and then, maybe in understanding, I will be understood. A good start is Phil Collins song, Another Day in Paradise. Here are the lyrics, You can also listen to it on Youtube in another window.

Just think about it. No, do something about it.

Another Day in Paradise, official version.

She calls out to the man on the street, "Sir, can you help me? It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep. Is there somewhere you can tell me?" He walks on, doesn't look back, he pretends he can't hear her He starts to whistle as he crosses the street, seems embarrassed to be there Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise.

Just think about it She calls out to the man on the street, he can see she's been crying She's got blisters on the soles of her feet, she can't walk, but she's trying Oh, just think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise Oh yes, think twice, it's just another day for you, you and me in paradise

Just think about it, uh - huh, just think about it.