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I have a favorite uncle and I got to see him twice in March.
His name is Harry Rosenfeld and he’s my mother’s brother and he was the editor in charge of the Watergate investigation for the Washington Post. He was a major influence on me growing up and had a lot to do with the fact that I became a newspaper reporter in another life.
This won’t hurt anyone’s feelings because Harry is my only Uncle. Thanks, or no thanks, to the holocaust, my extended family is very small.
Harry left the Washington Post to become editor-in-chief of the two Albany, New York papers and there he and my wonderful Aunt Annie reside. I left Newsday in Long Island to seek my fortune in Hollywood.
Harry has three married daughters and they live in Boston, Chicago, and New York City. My kids live in New York, La Conner and Los Angeles. My Mom and sister live in Palm Springs and my brother lives in Savannah, Georgia.
The Diaspora refers to the dispersal of a people from their homeland. It is often used to describe the continual migration of Jews, starting with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 587 BC when they were exiled to Babylonia up to the present time.
With the formation of Israel, and the safe haven provided for Jews in the United States and other welcoming countries, that migration has slowed considerably.
But the newest Diaspora is the migration of the American family.
As late as the 1950’s, your extended family often lived within driving distance. Weekends and holidays often meant a big shindig with siblings and cousins and grandparents.
There are lots of factors for the dispersal of the American family and a major one is the availability of affordable air travel.
The first time I stepped on an airplane was in fourth grade on a class trip. The father of one of my classmates was an American Airlines pilot, and we got to have lunch on the plane, served by flight attendants. We never took off!
I didn’t actually fly until I was 17 years old. An airplane trip was such a special event that we used to have going away parties at the airport. That sounds pretty extraordinary by today’s standards, where most of our kids have flown from infancy.
This has had a tremendous effect on commerce and it often means that you don’t end up working where you grew up. There is literally a world of opportunity out there and you go where the work is.
The film and television industry, where I work, is a perfect example. Until the 1960’s, location movies were rare. Whole worlds were created on the back lot with visual effects because it was just too expensive to take a film crew on location.
Now, it’s very rare that I get to film anything in Los Angeles because of the more favorable rates provided by tax credits and lower crew costs.
I’m sure most of you have experienced a similar phenomenon in your occupations.
My wife’s family was very Norman Rockwellian and exemplary of this pattern. Her father and his brother were lawyers in their father’s firm in a small town in Pennsylvania. The two brothers married sisters whose parents owned the hotel in the same town.
The two families built houses next door to each other on a hilltop just outside of town. Susan and her four siblings grew up with four double cousins who lived right next door.
Of the nine cousins, only two still live in the area, and one of her cousins is a lawyer at the firm founded by her grandfather. The rest are dispersed from Maine to Washington to California and New Mexico. Five of the nine cousins have been through at least one divorce.
Divorce was a dirty word in the 50’s when families stayed together, happy or not. Even the nuclear family has been nuked so it’s easy to do the math in terms of what that has done to the extended family.
When I hugged Uncle Harry and Aunt Annie good-bye last week, it was with tears of ambivalence–wonderful being together but sad knowing that I wasn’t going to see them for another year. They have a standing invitation to come to La Conner to visit us but that’s quite a schlepp for a couple in their early 80’s who already spend a lot of time in airplanes visiting their three daughters’ families.
Of course, now we have email, smart phones, text messaging, face time, Skype, and Bluetooth phone connections in our cars–so many ways to stay in touch with relatives and friends around the country and around the world.
But it’s not the same as being there, together, face to face. You can’t hug on email.
At 4:31 on the morning of January 17, 1994, we were asleep in our Los Angeles home when our world started to shake. My first instinct was to duck and cover but then I heard a strange sound. I bolted up, looked through the chattering shutters to the back yard, where a tidal wave had erupted in our swimming pool, throwing a wall of water towards our patio.
Our son Michael was at a sleepover at his friend Isaac’s house in Laurel Canyon, and they were camping out on the roof that night. Luckily they weren’t too close to the edge of the roof as they got the wake up call they would never forget.
Our neighbors the Cohans lived on a promontory made up mostly of landfill. Their lot shook like Jello and they were so traumatized that they left town that day and never came back.
My doctor, a young woman, lived in one of those Hollywood Hills houses that teeters over a cliff. Her house slid down the hill that morning and her young baby was killed by the resulting thud.
I wouldn’t say I was shell shocked by the Northridge Earthquake, but if a truck rambles by outside, I perk up like a hyper-alert woodpecker.
Having moved to Washington State, you can imagine how unsettling it was to hear about a seldom mentioned phenomenon called the Cascadia Subduction Zone. AKA the Cascadia Fault, it is an underwater plate that stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to Northern California.
A fault like this one needs to release built up tension every 300 years or so and the last time that happened was in 1701. That means we’re due.
According to Timothy Walsh, the Chief Geologist for the State, Washington sits on a similar geologic setting to Japan, which means we also have to be prepared for a tsunami. This is all carefully mapped out on the Internet on the Department of Natural Resources web portal for those who want to see the details.
We all have vivid images in our minds of the Japanese scurrying for their lives as the water level continued to rise, and I’m not talking about those cheap horror movies Mike Heaton likes to watch. We all watched these images live on television just one year ago.
My intention isn’t to put a scare into everyone but I want all of us to be prepared. Forewarned is forearmed and there are simple steps we can all take to be ready for a cataclysmic event like this.
Our city leaders have given all of this a lot of thought, and Mayor Hayes says that we are fortunate because if there is a tsunami, the event would start in Bellingham and we would have about two hours notice to get ourselves to higher ground. In La Conner, you literally have to head up the hill towards the Catholic Church or the Skagit County Museum, which are designated as shelters.
If you live in the Swinomish Community or Shelter Bay, again, head up towards the highest ground above Eagle’s Nest. We can all meet at Neon Mike’s house.
Unfortunately, because we have wonderful old buildings in La Conner with unreinforced masonry, if you’re in town, you need to find a safe place to perch while the shaking is still going on.
The Mayor wants everyone to know about a new reverse 911 system which will call everyone who opts in to warn them of an impending disaster. This won’t help with a sudden earthquake, but it would let you know if a tsunami or a flood was headed our way. You can opt in to this plan by going to the website: Skagit911.com. It takes less than five minutes to sign up.
If we get record rainfall and our rivers overflow and there is a flood heading towards town, the nearest breach would be the dam at Avon Allen Road. In anticipation, La Conner is building a flood wall on the north side of town from funds collected from the Waste Treatment Plant.
Tim Walsh, the State geologist, recommends that everyone keep a disaster kit in their home. You need to be prepared to be stuck without electricity or phone service for three days so a kit would look something like this:
Ready-to-eat canned and dry food
Manual can opener
Water (1 gallon per person per day)
Diapers, infant formula, and wipes
Medications and personal hygiene items
First-aid kit
Whistle
Flashlight (battery-powered or hand-crank style)
Radio (battery-powered or hand-crank style)
Extra batteries
Sturdy shoes, warm clothing, hat and gloves
Sleeping bag or blanket
Tarp or tent
Food, water and supplies for pets
Geologist Walsh also cautions that every family should have a contact person who lives in another part of the country so that everyone can check in and be accounted for in case local phone and Internet service goes down. This can be a challenge if you have no phone, but cell phones will probably work initially until all of the circuits get overwhelmed, as they have in recent California quakes.
Don’t lose sleep over this and don’t panic if your walls start to shake. Just be prepared, like the Boy Scouts have always preached. “It’s certainly timely to think about it now”, says Tim Walsh, “because we could have such an event any day or a couple of centuries away—we don’t know.”
I’m as impatient as the next guy.
For those of you who have spent any time with me, you know that I can’t sit still. Even though I make my living in television, I can’t watch television if it doesn’t involve men and balls: basketballs, baseballs, tennis balls, even soccer balls. And that’s only because I can do many other things while the game is playing in the background.
We are living in a world designed for people like me. I call it the Age of Instancy. So much is available at our fingertips.
Recently, I was attending ComiCon, the yearly convention in San Diego at which my series Psych always has a panel. I got separated from the rest of the group as we were heading out for coffee.
In the past, I might have had a mini-freak out, found a pay phone, called someone who knew where we were supposed to meet, borrowed another quarter from the person waiting to use the pay phone, called the place and got directions, which I would have promptly forgotten.
I would have gotten lost three more times on the way over there.
That was then and this is now. I pulled my smart phone out of my pocket, texted one of my colleagues, got the name of the place where they were headed, clicked on Google maps, and within seconds a little beeping cursor directed me to my destination.
Because I’m an information junkie, there is a world of cool stuff available at my fingertips. I subscribe to several newspapers and magazines and blogs that I can read on my iPad while I’m at the coffee house.
It sounds wonderful, but here’s the rub: if there is a world available at your fingertips, what’s going to make you get off of your ass? If all of this information and all of this entertainment and even your next date is a click away, what are the consequences?
I was curious how the Age of Instancy would affect our libraries. Do people still go to the library when they have access to Google and Wikipedia?
Joy Neal is the head librarian at the La Conner Library on Morris Street. She reports that our local library is alive and thriving, thank you very much.
Joy said that last year the library had a record number of visitors. Many people came in because they needed help navigating the vastness of the Internet. There are SO many resources out there, and some of them are more reliable than others. Our librarians know how to find the correct information and they know how to sift through it.
Also, some people don’t have access to a high speed connection or they can’t afford it.
Still others come because they live alone and it’s a nice way to interact with another human being.
Here’s a shocker: some people go to the library to take out books. I’ve actually seen some people reading actual books lately. Joy said some people come to the library for help operating their Kindles and Nooks.
Even kids still come to the library. The La Conner school system has excellent libraries but sometimes the kids come to the town library outside of school hours.
Joy and her colleagues have noticed a distressing trend with this Gen Millennial. “The adults are still patient,” says Joy. “The kids want it right away and if they can’t find it with two clicks, they are on they’re way.”
There is a pattern developing here with a risk of dire consequences. What happens to a generation that grows up without ever deferring gratification?
Are we only promoting The Easy Way instead of those qualities that we used to hear so much about when we were young: resiliency, fortitude, sticktoittiveness?
We see this in so many aspects of modern life. If we are depressed, we take an anti-depressant rather than explore the source of our depression. When we can’t sleep, we take a sleep aid instead of making changes in our lifestyle that have gotten us too stressed or too wound up.
The highly esteemed clinical psychologist Dr. Connell Cowan, put it this way when I called on him for an opinion: “Seems to me that Instancy comes at a terrible price,” he said, “thoughtful deliberation, the exquisite joy of longing, and the experience of mastery as a process.”
I didn’t walk to school with hand me down shoes through huge snow banks, but I did grow up with an ethos that valued hard work. Writing a term paper could be interminable, but there was tremendous satisfaction when you turned it in.
As I approach the Age of Social Security, perhaps I’m starting to sound like one of those old geezers who always starts sentences with “In my day…”.
We are living in very challenging times right now, times in which perseverance and grittiness have become especially important. Instant gratification is very elusive for young people graduating from college right now. I’m worried that we are creating a culture in which our get up and go has gotten up and left.
Bob Skeele is an energetic man with a daily routine that would be a challenge to most of us.
He awakes at 3:30 AM, does some floor exercises, then takes advantage of the quietude to write—poetry, essays, a journal—before he takes a vigorous walk around La Conner, making a big loop through downtown and the Port of Skagit Marina.
He ends up at Balance Point, the small fitness center in town, doing a demanding regimen of weight training, building up what he playfully refers to as his “buns of Skeele”.
I tried to keep up with him last Sunday as I was interviewing him for this column and finally I stopped, a little winded, and asked him how old he was. He smiled and said “Today is my 85th birthday.”
Bob’s routine has been curtailed of late as he has become the caretaker for his wife Joan–pronounced Jo-Ann–who has lost her memory. Both long term and short term.
These are bright, creative people. Bob was the Dean at Marlboro College in Vermont. Joan passed the Bar at age 60 without the benefit of law school.
The Skeeles moved to LaConner in 1987. Not the retiring sort, after stints as a baker and a yardman at a local boat yard, Bob became the head of maintenance at the Skagit County Historical Museum. Joan wrote poetry and two novels and lots of letters to editors.
One day two years ago, Joan came to visit him at work and disappeared. After a frantic search, Bob heard a small voice saying “help me!” He found Joan lying at the bottom of the hill behind the Museum. She was dazed and confused and very scared. She had her cell phone with her but didn’t think to use it to call for help.
Soon after, she got lost at Haggen Market, and fortunately a young couple corralled her and brought her to the checkout counter before she wandered out into traffic on busy Burlington Avenue. A lot of family members, many of them deceased, started to appear in the Skeele house, especially Joan’s mother who had long since passed away. “Our house is loaded with ghosts and invisible guests”, says Bob.
Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia have become more and more in the spotlight as people live longer. With the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age, a lot of money is being spent and many resources utilized to try to come up with treatments but so far, there is very little that can be done once a person has the disease.
AARP—The Magazine ran a headline in its last issue AGE-PROOF YOUR BRAIN. The article summarized the prevailing wisdom: exercise a lot, develop new skills, pump iron, eat a healthy Mediterranean diet, have an active social life.
Scientists used to believe that you were born with so many brain cells and they would simple deteriorate over time, but now they have found that brain cells actually regenerate.
Avoid routine. Take a different route every day, with new stimuli. Do the crossword puzzle or play scrabble online. Watch your weight—obesity increases your chances of having diabetes, and diabetes doubles the risk for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
Like all of us, I want to keep playing with all of my marbles for as long as I’m in the game. I’m playing Words With Friends and Scrabble online with five or six people at any one time, and I love working on the crossword puzzle. I always want to be able to follow the intricacies of a low-scoring baseball game.
Dr. Jerry Eisner, my high school friend who now practices medicine in Mt. Vernon, suggests trying to master a new language and learning how to play an instrument so don’t be surprised when you see me strolling down First Street with a guitar singing Besamé Mucho–I promise I won’t scare the tourists away during Tulips!
When I heard last week that the FDA warned that statins are likely to cause memory loss, I stopped taking my Crestor immediately. I’m going to try to keep my cholesterol down through diet and exercise so I can be alert like Bob Skeele when I turn 85.
Amazingly, Bob has stayed fit and he has maintained his positive outlook and his sense of humor. The other night he was tucking Joan into bed when she asked him his name. “Bob”, he said, patiently. “That’s a funny name for a woman”, Joan said.
Bob had to laugh. If not, he said, he said he would be doing a lot of crying.
Washington Post
Washington State just legalized same sex marriage, and New Jersey will too unless it’s governor overturns the state assembly.
This is a no brainer that should have happened a long time ago.
People grow up believing that one day you will find your soul mate and you will take vows and commit to spending the rest of your lives in a loving and faithful relationship. They believe in the sanctity of marriage.
For whatever reasons—and there has been absolutely no reliable science to explain why it happens—a certain segment of every population in every corner of the globe is attracted to and falls in love with members of it’s own gender.
These people grew up believing in love and marriage and they naturally want not only to sanctify, but also to celebrate, these bonds. They want to shout from the mountaintop “I love this person and this person loves me and we are bonded together in holy matrimony”.
Just like the rest of us straight folks, they want the rights and privileges that come with marriage: certain tax advantages, clearer inheritance protection, social standing within the community.
KCTS 9
How many instances have we heard about in which a gay or lesbian person loses their life partner of many years only to be shut out of the will and barred from the funeral by bigoted in-laws?
How many people have been denied health care benefits from their lifetime partner’s medical plan?
It’s not always just bigotry. Often it’s a case of a misguided religious conviction. The high-minded people who think they have a direct line to the Lord and think that the bible was written in stone a few millennia ago like to cite chapter and verse to argue against same sex marriage.
It is a travesty to invoke the name of Jehovah or Jesus Christ, the most enduring symbols of love and understanding, as a justification for intolerance.
Among the groups opposing the New Jersey bill were Orthodox Jewish men—their wives apparently weren’t invited. These are the people who think men and women shouldn’t sit together in a synagogue, another misguided interpretation of scripture.
Too many ministers in African-American churches have strongly condemned same sex marriage on religious grounds, knowing full well that inter-racial marriages were banned in many states within their lifetime. What does this say about the gospel of love?
Several members of black churches in New Jersey who are also legislators were caught in the crosshairs of this ridiculous contradiction. One of them, Cleopatra G. Tucker, agonized over the decision but finally voted in favor because “I came to the conclusion that the people sent me here from my district to protect what’s right.”
The bible doesn’t just preach faith in the Lord. It also involves a social and moral contract, as exemplified by the Ten Commandments. Some very smart people throughout history thought it was necessary to have a moral code to live by so that there would not be chaos in the land.
The marriage contract was seen as a way to protect the family and propagate the species. They wanted as much begetting going on as possible and homosexuality would naturally be seen as a threat to that.
The problem is that you are who are, no matter what the Good Book says, and hopefully you’re not going to live a lie just because the Bible tells you to.
Both Governor Christie and Governor Gregoire openly wrestled with their Catholic faith in deciding whether or not to support these bills. The hypocrisy of the Catholic Church condemning homosexually while so much of its clergy is gay is beyond belief.
And whatever happened to separation of church and state? Interesting that so many people who are against big government think it’s fine to meddle into people’s bedrooms when it comes to this issue.
Fortunately, many of my friends have joined churches and synagogues that don’t put human behavior into such a small box. They have welcomed same sex couples and single homosexuals with open arms, feeling as I do that we are all God’s children.
Unfortunately, this issue has become a political hot potato and so sometimes it’s much more about the prevailing winds of politics than it is about doing the right thing.
Governor Christie of New Jersey, who I believe is one of the outstanding young politicians in the country, will be motivated for at least two reasons to veto this bill. One, it will make it much easier for him to run for President in 2016 because you cannot make it through a Republican primary without the support of religious conservatives.
Two, he is touting a referendum on the issue on election day in November that will motivate conservative voters to come to the polls even if they are tepid about supporting, say, Mitt Romney against President Obama. This would help make New Jersey red and not blue and losing New Jersey would be a tremendous blow to the Obama campaign.
This might help Christie in the primaries but it would undoubtedly hurt him in a general election. For independent minded voters like myself, it would be a deal breaker and I could never vote for him because it would say to me that he does not have a basic understanding of our Declaration of Independence: all men (people) are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Many people have said to me that they don’t understand what all the fuss is about: why not give same sex couples equal protection under the law and just call them civil unions? That would ostensibly keep the religious right on the sidelines.
They answer is simple. Stephen Sweeney, a New Jersey state senator, changed his vote this week and became one of the most outspoken supporters of same sex marriage. “These are human beings with feelings that love their partners and they want to be married”, he said. “So be it.”
Amen.
Having spent time in five cities in just over a month, I’ve thought a lot about why I choose to live in La Conner.
Los Angeles, Santa Fe, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and New York.
We can learn what to do and what not to do from each of those places.
Los Angeles is a mess. Too many people and too many cars and not enough water add up to a toxic environment. Architecturally, it screams Ucco Stucco. Although there are some beautiful homes and neighborhoods, the commercial streets are long boulevards with no sense of design–just a hodge podge of ugly stucco strip malls with terrible signage. There are billboards everywhere, and now many of them are electric. Where is Lady Byrd Johnson when we need her most. Or Ogden Nash, who wrote “I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree!”
Santa Fe is beautiful. The plaza and surrounding homes at the core of the city have preserved the incredible array of historic Spanish Mission style buildings. The newer neighborhoods surrounding the downtown blend beautifully into the surrounding mesas. No sore thumbs here.
New Orleans has its French Quarter and Garden District and Uptown and The Marigny and a stroll through these neighborhoods is an opportunity to travel back to a time when style and detail were extremely important. I loved walking through these streets wondering what it must have been like to drive a horse and buggy to visit a friend. I particularly loved staying in the Warehouse District, in which old buildings like the Cotton Mill were turned into upscale lofts.
Baton Rouge was a disappointment for me. Although it’s the capitol of Louisiana, the downtown is virtually deserted while the many malls in the suburbs are teeming with shoppers and it’s hard to find a parking place.
There’s not much I can say about New York City that hasn’t been said so many times before. It is spectacular and overwhelming at the same time. Incredible ethnic neighborhoods, impressive skyscrapers, a place where you can literally shop until you drop–the possibilities are unlimited. But it’s extremely expensive, very noisy, and always a challenge to get from location A to location B. I like to go there for the adrenalin rush and to visit friends and family, but now I’m one of those who think it’s a nice place to visit but I can’t see myself living there again.
What is admirable about any city is how well it preserves it’s past and protects it’s future. I’ve become more aware of my surroundings the older I get. I don’t know how this former clueless football player developed a strong aesthetic sense–probably from working with so many artists and crafts people in designing my films and television shows.
It’s become a burden. When I’m editing in Los Angeles, I often stop and look around and take a mental snapshot of the cluttered and senseless urban landscape. It’s very often not a pretty sight and it makes me angry that this city was built on greed by cramming as many people as possible into the basin that lies between the foothills and the Pacific Ocean. Sure, the houses in the canyons may all slide down the hillsides when it rains and the others may burn down during fire season but they’re growing the tax base and apparently that’s all that matters.
There’s a lot to learn from these other cities. La Conner is a beautiful town in a beautiful location–surrounded by water and hills and lush farm land with distant mountain vistas. We have wonderful old buildings, a small town atmosphere with beautiful shops and no chain stores. Many residents are artists and crafts persons and many of the rest of us have a great appreciation for the wonderful work these people produce.
In a recent discussion with the Mayor, he assured me that he and the city fathers are totally committed to maintaining this small town atmosphere. Mayor Hayes said that plans are moving along and permits have been acquired to develop our boardwalk, the town has hired the consulting firm Art Space to help our growth as an art colony, and he regards the surrounding farmland as sacrosanct.
I suggested to the Mayor that we create a historic walking tour of La Conner, including a map featuring our many heritage buildings and much more detailed descriptions of how the town developed over the past 130 years. It won’t cost a lot of money to hire someone to do the research and create more detailed plaques at the various locations.
There is a mother lode of stories to be told from not only the town, but from the surrounding farmlands and our neighboring Swinomish and Skagit reservations. La Conner was also the birthplace of the Northwest School of Art inspired by local resident Gary Anderson. We have two great museums in town which continually showcase the cultural as well the artistic development of the area.
This is a great place to visit and even a better place to live. I’m looking forward to walking and riding my bicycle around town for many years to come as, hopefully, La Conner and I age together gracefully without feeling old and stodgy.
America is the greatest country in the world!
How many times have I heard that in my lifetime. It is something that has given me a tremendous sense of pride throughout my life. I heard it first from my parents and relatives, so grateful to the country that took them in after the holocaust.
We heard it from candidate after candidate and president after president as they repeated that mantra. It imbued in me not only pride, but a sense of superiority as I looked at all of the other struggling nations that couldn’t match our political system, our manufacturing prowess and our powerful armed forces.
We’ve had a tremendous run as the dominant country in the world, and I’ve decided that the time has come for us to step aside and let someone else be the greatest country in the world. China would certainly love to accede to the throne. Iran would be happy to take our place.
Our maybe we just retire the crown entirely and accept the fact that we have finally become a league of nations and it’s good enough to just be one of the great countries in the world.
Why am I so willing to step down? Because the price of life at the top of the heap has become too great.
Let’s start with our military. By the end of World War Two, we had established our superiority but we also became the world’s police force. We intervened across the globe in Korea, Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, Kosovo, Iraq again and Afghanistan, always leading the charge much like Teddy Roosevelt on his horse, sword drawn high, charging up San Juan Hill.
What were our goals and did we accomplish them? We isolated North Korea and now we worry about how far their rockets can carry nuclear warheads. We never gained a foothold in South East Asia and the domino theory that suggested that communism in Hanoi would spread throughout Asia seems to have been disproven.
In retrospect, our interventions in the Middle East will be considered huge blunders. Moments after our last troops pulled out of Iraq, the Sunnis and Shiites went back to doing what they’ve done for a centuries–blowing each other to smithereens. By removing Saddam Hussein from power, we did exactly what George Bush Sr. and his smart Secretary of State James Baker predicted we would do–we further destabilized the region and empowered Iran.
When the Weapons of Mass Destruction ruse didn’t pan out, George W. Bush claimed we did it in the name of democracy because it wouldn’t look good to just admit it was about protecting the flow of oil. We didn’t seem to mind the autocrats in Africa because we had no strategic interest in the region.
It’s not going to be any different in Afghanistan or Egypt. There are places where democracy is simply not ingrained in the psyche, where it’s more about ruling with an iron fist. Egypt is now being ruled by the military and a Noble Prize laureate just pulled out of the so-called elections, admitting they were a sham.
Afghanistan is a country ruled by tribal allegiances and the corrupt government propped up by the United States is largely irrelevant in many parts of the country. Religious fundamentalism is a fixture that all of our troops and money don’t seem to be able to topple.
Even our so-called allies have different forms of democracy. Pakistan, like Egypt, is run by the military and secret service with a figurehead as President. Russia’s Putin is making a mockery of democracy as he returns to power in a rigged election.
I’m not opposed to our military joining in an international peacekeeping mission, as we did in Kosovo, but let NATO lead it, and let China and Japan lead South Korea take charge of isolating North Korea.
And careful what you wish for. The Arab Spring is going to become the Fall of Modernism in many countries as the Muslim Brotherhood gains power and tries to impose Sharia Law in countries where women were starting to make significant political gains.
Fortunately, our government has finally come to its senses and is going to significantly cut back our Pentagon budget. David Letterman joked last week that it will now be called The Rectangle. We won’t be able to fight two wars at the same time. Awwwww!
As for our economy, it’s no longer ranked in the top five in the world because of globalism and the rise of China as a manufacturing dynasty. We’re not at the top in any credible surveys when it comes to education or health care or quality of life.
What still makes us very special is our incredible ingenuity, our multiculturalism, and an American Dream that allows a first generation African-American man to go to Harvard and become President.
We live in a wonderful country, truly ONE OF THE GREAT COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD, and there is no other place that I’d rather live.
You all know from reading this column that I plan to live forever, and with that in mind, I went on a vegan diet this week.
I was inspired by a CNN special entitled “The Last Heart Attack” in which Dr. Sanjay Gupta highlighted former President Bill Clinton’s conversion to veganism after suffering a heart attack.
Clinton’s diet guru is Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who contributed to a movie and subsequent book entitled “Forks Over Knives”. I ordered 10 copies of the book from Amazon and gave one to each of my five kids as a Hanukah gift, gave a copy to other people I love and care about, and kept one for myself.
I flew to Baton Rouge, Louisiana last Wednesday for my current directing assignment, and read the book on the plane. It’s a quick read and it espouses a simple philosophy: avoid anything that came from a source that had eyes or a mother.
That means no meat, including fish, dairy or eggs. You eat the best foods that Mother Nature offers: grains, fruits, vegetables and and legumes.
I get the meat thing. On New Year’s Eve, I ordered a huge bone-in New York Sirloin Steak and we had a little chat, the steak and I–this was going to be our last date for quite a while. I was breaking off a relationship that was dangerous and exciting but ultimately not healthy for either of us. I wasn’t sure how long I could hold out, but I was determined to find a nice safe artichoke to settle down with.
But hold your horses, no fish! I thought fish was supposed to be good for you. No olive oil! What about the so-called Mediterranean diet? Nope, it’s a refined food and mostly fat. White bread–don’t even think it.
Swallowing hard, I decided to give it a go for a week. This would be a daunting challenge even in the verdant Skagit Valley but I was landing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home of the shrimp Po-Boy sandwich and lots of Cajun and creole food laden with heavy breading and naughty delicious sauces.
Fortunately, there is a Whole Foods in Baton Rouge and I headed right for it. My new best friend is a young man who works the deli counter there and has guided me through an array of healthy choices marked “vegan”, such as Autumn Rice which combines whole grain brown and wild rice, sweet potatoes, dried cranberries, walnuts, and other yummy things.
In other parts of the store, there are prepackaged vegan dinners, such as Tofu Spinach Ravioli and Seitan Piccata with Lemon Caper Sauce. Pop them in the microwave and three minutes later you are in hog heaven. Poor choice of words. You are taking the first small step towards nirvana!
The book comes with 125 recipes for great vegan food that you can cook at home, but that doesn’t work when you are living in a hotel. The first place they put me in had no kitchenette, so I had to move to a suite hotel that had a refrigerator and a microwave oven. The wise guys out there are now saying that the radiation from the microwave will get me if the plaque in my arteries doesn’t but that’s a column for another day.
If you can cook at home, it’s easy. On the road, not so much. I solved breakfast with whole grain granola, bananas, berries and almond milk. That was fabulous.
Lunch was much tougher. When we scout locations, six of us drive around in a van and we stop for lunch along the way. While everyone else is pigging out on 20th Century Fox’s dime, I’m eating a side of cauliflower, a side of spaghetti squash, and a house salad.
Dinner becomes a solitary event, just me, a microwave oven, and internet scrabble.
This brings us to an irony of life as a vegan. You don’t really want to think about food that much, yet that’s all you think about. You drive by huge billboards offering McMonster burgers, there are colorful neon signs offering every kind of verboten foods, and the ads on television are very seductive.
You become like a cave man, consumed by the hunt, looking everywhere for something you can eat. You almost never stop thinking about your next meal because you’re not going to find it at a drive-through window.
Speaking of cave men, you might remember my friend Dr. Mark Gardner, the buzz killing cardiologist who said I wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, live forever. Dr. Mark said one way to approach healthy eating is to eat what the cave men ate.
I responded that, recently, in what is now Zimbabwe, they found a two thousand year very moldy old crust bearing vestiges of tomato sauce and cheese and mushrooms. The discovery proved once and for all beyond a scintilla of doubt that cave men ate pizza!
I have a fighting chance of eliminating meat from my diet and I can live without sweets and eggs, but I suspect I will end up with a hybrid regimen that includes fish and olive oil and healthy cheeses and whole grain crackers and crusts. I can’t see a future without pizza, although it might be made with whole grains and lots of veggies. And the occasional single malt scotch. (Bill Clinton probably would admit he swigs but doesn’t swallow!)
As I write this, I’m in day four of my one week as a vegan. I’m over the hump. Last night, I reached a crucible in my journey, as I drove by an appealing restaurant that offered New York Pizza. I slowed down, pulled over to the curb and thought about the message of the book: forks over knives, in this case, surgical knives. And I reached into that deep place in my psyche where pleasure and restraint battle it out, summoned some heretofore untapped inner strength and drove back to the room and ate a pear.
Susan and I go to couples’ therapy every 25 years, whether we need it or not. Okay, maybe a little more frequently than that but not often.
We went recently to talk to a therapist about our relationship with our 5 adult children. They are all struggling against the currents of a stalled global economy and despite dogged determination, they are having trouble finding satisfying work that pays the bills and provides health care.
We questioned how much support we should give them, financially and otherwise. Were we creating a disincentive by giving them a small monthly stipend and letting them boomerang back to live at home from time to time?
We also wondered why none of our kids, ages 35 through 22, is married or engaged. Only one has a significant other. Why was it taking them so much longer than it took us to move into the mainstream?
“Ah,” said Dr. Geoffry White, “this is what we call Failure to Launch, a very common syndrome with today’s youth.”
We feel much better knowing that this situation is not unique to our family and in fact has risen to syndrome status. It means that it isn’t just that we screwed up–there are global forces at work here.
According to Dr. White and his colleagues in head shrinking circles, theories abound as to why this up and coming generation is taking its time growing into adulthood. That is, of course, adulthood as our generation defines it: a stable job, marriage, family, home ownership.
Let’s start with a stable job. Not that easy to get these days. Even with a graduate degree. There is a general backsliding in the job market, with older experienced workers taking jobs away from younger people, jobs that in the past they might have scoffed at.
You can routinely see older people working on check-out lines at grocery stores, for example. Other entry level jobs for a young college graduate might well be taken by someone who has a graduate degree and no better offers.
Also, people who are actually hiring these days say they are unimpressed with recent high school and college graduates. They feel educational standards have been watered down and this emerging generation has been pampered and over protected by parents and teachers, so that they don’t have the competitive edge or drive that makes them appeal to prospective employers.
As for marriage, my generation can take some responsibility for making a mess out of this once respected institution. A recent survey of people under 30 said more than a quarter of them believe that marriage is no longer a viable option.
If you’re not planning on getting married, you’re certainly not planning on raising children. And even those who are willing to take the marital leap are less likely to have children because they waited until they are older, they are both working to get by, and they are thinking maybe children are a luxury they can’t afford.
And forget about buying a house in this economy. Unless you have great credit or a lot of money in the bank, its going to be very tough to buy a home, even though there are great bargains out there. Many young adults are saddled with credit card debt because banks found them to be easy marks. Now those same banks don’t want to loan them money for a mortgage because of poor credit scores.
Now you’re in your 30’s, you feel you are under-employed, you aren’t married, and you can’t afford to buy a house. There are very few role models out there for productive manhood, and for some unexplained reason, according to Dr. White, there is a lowering of testosterone levels in young men. He also says video games and smart phones have contributed to a lack of proper socialization among young adults that slows down maturation.
Dr. White adds that because so many of us were divorced, we tended to be too overindulgent with our kids and this may have given them a sense of entitlement as opposed to a strong work ethic.
This all sounds cynical but I have spoken to many young people while researching this column and these same issues keep coming up. They are in no hurry to grow up and take on more responsibilities. Maybe someday, but not now.
This means going back to live with Mom and Dad or having roommates or working several jobs. Some people are staying in school longer, hoping that the economy will turn around.
According to Dr. White, if your kids are trying hard and running into obstacles not of their making, it’s alright to help them financially and with a roof over their heads.
To break the pattern, Dr. White thinks we should limit the amount of time our younger kids spend playing video games, provide family activities that involve social interaction, and introduce career counseling early in the high school years.
That might take some time to take effect so I’ve come up with an interim strategy. If my kids are going to take longer to grow up, I’m going to take longer to grow old. I’m turning the clock back so I just went from 65 to 55. Susan and I are going to stay healthy, keep working, and make sure we are still ambulatory so that someday we can play with, God willing, our grandchildren.
If I Ran The Zoo 