Merry Christmas

Ah, the big day. Christmas.

Once more set against a world rich in turmoil, its message of love and goodwill seem almost childishly naive. Perhaps they have endured because all of us, whether or not we make our feelings public, wish for them.

Rancor and divisiveness are exhausting.

Peace, understanding and cooperation are not.

Just a thought.

 

The Beautiful Convergence

 If you live in the northern hemisphere, there's a good chance that December is the darkest month of the year. This is because the Earth has reached that portion of its orbit where it is actually leaning away from the sun.

It can be hard to fathom in a universe measured in light years, but this seemingly minor event is what plunges the northern hemisphere into what we call 'winter'. (In the interests of keeping this post family-friendly, we will ignore the fact this word is frequently preceded by colorful adjectives, such as 'fucking'.)

Oops.

This change means that where I live, daylight shrinks from a high of fifteen hours and thirteen minutes to just nine hours and seven minutes—a decrease of forty percent. And these kind of profound changes don't come without consequences.

With a diminished heat source comes less heat, or if you're a glass-half-full kind of guy or gal, more cooling. Naturally, this cooling has its own consequences, like the formation of snow and ice.

Yeah, it's the northern hemisphere's annual win-win.

So. It's dark. And cold. And very likely windy. If you're really lucky, it's snowing, too. What do we do? How do we counteract this? Is there even an answer?

Yep.

Christmas.

Say what you want about this holiday, which too-often devolves into a crass orgy of materialism. We celebrate it with lights. Lots of lights.

We put lights on trees and on houses and on hedges and in some instances, even cars. In a truly beautiful convergence, in the observance of this holiday we fight the dark with light. We ward off the chill of another winter with the warmth of light.

No matter my age or state of mental health, I am always made glad by these displays of light so many of us bother with. In a hard and exhausting and frequently bitter world, those tiny bulbs sand off the edges and let us imagine—however temporarily—a world that is a good and peaceful place.

And I can't imagine anyone needing that more than we do in this year.

Be they displays visible from space or a single strand adorning a forlorn bush, my thanks to all who festooned their homes with light. You light up my life.

A Holiday Wish

Merry Christmas to all,

And to all, a good night.

The Not-So-Merry Christmas

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for clarifying who is to blame for our third government shut-down: the Democrats. 

Which is certainly interesting given that Republicans control two-thirds of the Executive branch. And that not so long ago, you publicly stated you'd be “proud” to initiate a government shutdown over funding for your border wall.

I understand your ire, Mr. President. Nothing like having to backpedal after running a campaign based on the exploitation of racist fears, is there?

Yes, you went all bravado in the summer of 2016, telling your base that not only were you going to build the Berlin Wall of immigration, but that Mexico was going to pay for it. And the high school drop-outs slash opioid-addicts who put you over the top ate it up.

Making America Hate Again, indeed.

And for a long time, all was well. Like the arena rock star who could count on a reaction merely by mentioning the city he (or she) was performing in, you could liven-up those dead spots in your rallies by asking “Who's going to pay for the wall?”

But for those of us not infected with the Trump virus, this was a load of fertilizer as obvious as it was odorous. It was only a matter of time before reality would rear its ugly head.

And here's the reality: After a botched trade war with China, speeding up—if not instigating outright—the end of the economic recovery, losing untold staffers because you are—to put it mildly—difficult, suffering public humiliation over the paucity of people willing to fill those vacancies and, finally, the ongoing pressure of the Mueller investigation, you have your Secretary of Defense not only resign but openly question your judgement and maturity in the process.

Good times, eh Mr. President?

But there was always the lectern-pounding distraction of The Wall. That would get the base going, wouldn't it?

Unfortunately, your base doesn't (and couldn't ever hope to) occupy seats in the House and Senate. And the faint support your wall enjoyed in an all-Republican legislature disintegrated still-further when those damn Democrats were voted in, probably by the millions of illegal aliens streaming across an unsecured border still bereft of your indomitable wall.

Which is both a good and a bad thing. Like the United States with a reinvigorated Russia, you now have a viable enemy. Someone outside of your party you can point to and blame all of your failures on, even if those failures are nearing their second birthday.

But who's counting?

So what's a billionaire president to do?

Tweet.

Yes, tweet about your solitary confinement. Tweet about your abandonment and your intractable enemies and the fake-news media. Everything is everybody else's fault. You are a genius none of us can see.

In an incredible and remarkably symbolic moment, a charter member of the one-percent is cutting off paychecks for roughly 800,000 workers. On Christmas. If that doesn't scream 2018 America, what does?

So while you, Mr. President, attempt to save face, the rest of us are left to enjoy the irony of our oldest-ever president acting like the youngest.

Santa? If you're out there, all I want for Christmas is a grown-up in the White House.

Confronting #MeToo

If you need proof that anything can be taken to an unhealthy extreme, witness the removal of Baby, It's Cold Outside by Cleveland radio station WDOK from its holiday playlist. According to the station's general manager, this is in response to complaints that the song's lyrics are “inappropriate”.

If you're not familiar with the standard, it is a playful exchange between a man and a woman. The man wants his companion to stay the night, citing the undue cold and potential risk taking her home could subject her to.

The woman effectively pleads her case that this is not the right time, and the song draws to a close. There is no rape. There is no assault. There is no predation.

We don't even know if she stays or returns home. 

Apparently, the #MeToo community is privy to information the rest of us aren't.

Let me address the sexist hysteria responsible for turning this harmless song into an invitation to date-rape. (I should also apologize in advance for possessing a penis, which likely renders this yet-another unbearable example of mansplaining.)

Baby, It's Cold Outside is a vignette. An imagined dialogue between two people confronting the eternal question: I want to. Don't you?

Men express this thought. Women express this thought. There is no gender monopoly here. It is a song about the beautiful longing two human beings can feel for each other. It is a wry and poetic seduction. 

I hear it and smile at the memory of my own (mostly unsuccessful) attempts.

It is cute. Playful. Nothing more, nothing less.

I am of the opinion that the well-intentioned people who have issues with this song could find evidence of Satanic worship in a Norman Rockwell painting, or enticements to methamphetamine use in The Sound of Music. 

Look hard enough for something and you'll find it.

But beyond that, I'd like to know the whereabouts of the legions of fierce, strong women I hear so incessantly about. I mean, seriously? A guy cooing in your ear and inviting you to a sleepover is your kryptonite?

Sorry, but that's crazy.

For those of us with the broad and deep frames of reference age affords, this is the feminist equivalent of the Tawana Brawley scandal. A flimsy, cheap, over-reaching and ultimately damaging effort that will undermine, not strengthen, #MeToo.

Please. Keep your sexism out of my Christmas.

Simple Post

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

321,000

As if you could forget, it's that time of year again.

No, I'm not referring to Christmas. I'm referring to the annual November jobs report, which nearly every year portrays a robust economy firing on all cylinders like a V8 under full throttle.

It's economist's version of a baby animal story and as full of fluff as Good Morning America.

This year, the Department of Labor reported that 321,000 jobs were created in the United States of America. By almost any measure, that's a lot of jobs. Except in a country with 320 million people saddled with a moribund economy which continues to seek an order of protection from the Great Recession of 2008.

What the Department of Labor's report fails to tell us it that approximately 320,000 of those jobs are either seasonal, part-time, or both. In other words, it's Christmas, stupid!

Yet the media continues to gush, swarming over the news like kids at a free cotton candy store. As it did last November and the November before that. And why not? Consumer confidence is a critical measure of the economy, and if people feel things are looking up they'll be more willing to open up those wallets and spend, spend, spend.

And that means more advertising revenue and more tax revenue for the selfsame media and government who told you everything is just great. 

I think I smell a great big win-win! Yay!

A convenient side-effect of this news is that when jobs are created the unemployment rate goes down. But you should know that the government has a very generous definition of 'employed'. It has almost nothing to do with the notion of being self-supporting that 'employed' implies.

For instance, the government considers me employed. This despite the fact I can't afford an apartment within several zip codes of where I work and am unable to find enough hours in the week to accommodate the number of crappy jobs I'd need to support myself.

The government also considers a single mom employed as a Wal-Mart cashier employed, even though she's part-time and dependent on multiple government programs for her survival--and that of her kids. 

It considers busboys, convenience store cashiers and CNAs employed in spite of hours worked and dollars earned. In other words, the Department of Labor job report is like your resume. It is formatted to present the best-possible picture, not necessarily the most-honest one.

I'm not against good news. I'm against spin and massaging the facts and painting a picture which says everything is okay when it isn't.The fact remains that 320,000 temporary jobs aren't going to change anything. 

Except a politician's resume.

My Chicago Bulls Christmas Wish

One of the things sport taught me is the meaning of words like ephemeral and ethereal. Life is fragile. And short. And that no matter how indomitable something may appear, it is often little more than smoke curling through air. It takes only a faint breeze to disturb and redirect its trajectory.

In the spring of 2011, the Chicago Bulls were a young team on the rise. They had lucked into that elusive thing called chemistry, with talented, heady players who bought into a charismatic coach’s vision of how the game should be played. All of this was cemented by the skills of a nascent superstar named Derrick Rose.

Yes, the view from northeast Illinois was mighty sweet. The Miami Heat might be the team of today, but it was very hard to believe the Bulls weren’t the team of tomorrow. Yet two and-a-half years later, the team of tomorrow looks like the woulda shoulda coulda team of yesterday.

Derrick Rose’s future as an NBA point guard is very much in doubt after successive anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus injuries. It’s hard to look at him and not see Anfernee Hardaway or Grant Hill.

Small forward Luol Deng has already expressed his intent to explore free agency, following public questioning of his toughness and commitment. Power forward Carlos Boozer, signed to an enormous contract following the Bulls failed attempts to land either LeBron James or Dwyane Wade in the summer of 2010, will likely remain, but is untradeable and on the downside of a productive career.

Gritty point guard Kirk Hinrich is feeling the effects of multiple seasons spent sacrificing his body in the name of defense, leaving center Joakim Noah and reserve forward Taj Gibson as the Bulls’ sole long-term assets.

The window of opportunity that magically opens for certain combinations of players and coaches has silently and immutably closed. Run ragged by an unceasing succession of injuries, the formerly resilient Bulls are now exhausted and overwhelmed. It is a good thing it’s Christmas.

My Christmas wish for the Bulls begins with David Robinson’s foot.

You see, David Robinson was an elite professional basketball player. He was fast, strong and agile. He was a seven-foot center who could move with the speed and quickness of a much smaller man. He single-handedly turned the San Antonio Spurs into contenders, and quickly became one of the NBA’s most dominant players.

His greatest weakness was that he possessed the physiology of a human being.

On December 23rd, 1996, while playing in just his sixth game after recovering from an off-season back injury, Robinson suffered a broken foot. This not only ended his season, but effectively ended the Spurs’ as well. Without their stellar center and small forward Sean Elliot, they nose-dived to an NBA-worst 20 and 62 record.

But with Robinson’s injury and the Spurs’ dismal 1996/97 season came a blessing: the number-one pick in the 1997 NBA draft. And with it, the Spurs chose Tim Duncan, beginning a run of sixteen straight winning seasons which includes four NBA championships.

So as this scarred and ravaged edition of the Chicago Bulls picks its way through the schedule, the prospect of a high draft pick in next year’s draft might be the silver lining in what has become a very dark cloud. I’m not advocating tanking here; just holding out a carrot amid the wreckage of what was once a contender.

Merry Christmas.

Who Knew?

A remarkable confluence has recently passed practically unnoticed, save for the watchful, observant eye of La Piazza Gancio.

Great Lakes water levels have fallen markedly, with Lake Michigan currently at a record-low first established in 1964. Other Great Lakes have likewise experienced significant drops, which are partially the result of a brutally hot summer and prolonged drought.

But a little more than twenty-years after the 1964 low, Lake Michigan hit record highs in the mid-eighties, indicating that perhaps a regular cycle of high and low is at work.

In a seemingly unrelated event, Friday kicked-off the Christmas shopping season, which cynics like me refer to as DroolFest. It is purely speculative, but I have to wonder if there might be an ecological benefit to our chain stores edging ever-closer to obliterating Thanksgiving in their attempts to open our wallets ever-earlier.

Not to be forgotten is consumer’s enthusiasm for packing their homes with crap made in China, to the point of trampling each other in an attempt to snag an electronic appliance (quantities limited) offered at or below cost by a smirking, misanthropic merchant.

The cumulative drool produced by retailer and consumer could, conceivably, elevate water levels sufficiently to improve conditions for aquatic life, since a greater volume of water would offer both increased feeding opportunities and the dilution of any chemicals and poisons in the lake via run-off and direct discharge.

This emerging symbiotic relationship represents a remarkable—if unplanned—synchronicity between commerce and the custodial care of one of Earth’s great resources.

You must excuse me now—I’ve got to grab a $17 fiberglass stepladder (250 pound load capacity) in aisle eight to get over the fact that seven-dollar Snuggies and the health of Great Lakes marine life could ever be related.

Wait

I was at K-Mart yesterday. Namely, it was to purchase a boot tray. Despite the $4.49 price tag, it is priceless when it comes to storing big, wet winter boots.

Once I had secured said tray, I headed towards the registers. That’s when I encountered the most jaw-dropping Christmas gift of the year: the camouflage Snuggie.

I ask you—is there a better example of conflicted? I mean, where do you even begin? Declaring your masculinity from underneath a Snuggie? Are you serious?

Marketing-types should know there are places where camouflage just doesn’t work: Smart cars. Taylor Swift albums. Eat Pray Love. And Snuggies.

Convincing the world you’re an alpha-male from beneath a Snuggie is Michael Buble pretending he's Fifty Cent.

Ours is a culture of intimidation. Confrontation. Which is why we embrace reality TV and enormous SUVs and threat-spewing conservatives. And if you want to wear camo, fine.

But do it right. Drive a big, black pick-up. Shave your head. And don't forget the goatee, sunglasses and Oakland Raiders T.

But a camouflage Snuggie? There isn't a calculator in the world that can make that add up.

On the other hand, you could always hope no one sees you. Which I recall was the original intent of camouflage to begin with.