ThomStratton.com

One of the popular goals these days is the improvement of society as a whole and human beings individually. Certainly a noble goal, and one I can support. So if we had to hold up some examples of human beings who exemplify what we are aiming for, who would we select? I recently asked this question to my Facebook friends and found a certain degree of similarity between the nominees.

None of the people could seriously be considered libertines.

On the contrary, these people possess a high amount of either self-control, self-sacrifice, or perhaps even both in uncommon amounts. This is no accident. It is difficult to achieve a high measure of compassion and caring for others while focused entirely on the gratification of oneself. It is contradictory to expect to attain high degrees of civility and enlightenment while actively indulging the animal.

So why is it, then, that society continues on a path toward less discipline, less self-denial, and more of a  “just do what feels good” mentality? Why is it we encourage, even applaud, diminished levels of personal responsibility, while continually pursuing ways to avoid unpleasant consequences of choices gone awry? We encourage accountability for others, while actively avoiding it for ourselves.

We cannot improve ourselves without self-sacrifice, self-denial, self-control. If we’re seriously trying to build a better person, it must start with ourselves. We must expect more of ourselves, not less. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard than we currently do. We need to hold ourselves accountable for our actions, even when no one else is watching. We need to choose to choose the moral choice even if everyone else goes a different way.

It starts with discipline. It starts with saying, “I might enjoy doing X more, but Y is the right thing to do, and therefore I will fore-go the pleasurable for the commendable. ” It comes from telling oneself “no” repeatedly.

We will never, as a society or as individuals, achieve a higher existence so long as we continually seek to remove restraints and bypass consequences. True greatness is marked as much by what we will not do as what we do.

I’m starting to think that William Gibson is meant to be enjoyed out loud. My first introduction to his work was several years ago when my brother loaned me his audiobook copy of “Pattern Recognition”. I loved it. I adored it. I’m still not sure why I haven’t bought my own copy of it yet. Gibson captures something transcendent in that book.

More recently I decided to expand my experience. I read “Neuromancer” and “The Difference Engine” and wasn’t impressed. I read “Zero History”, which is even in the same setting as “Pattern Recognition” and was only moderately impressed. But I decided to try again, this time with another audio book. I started listening to “Spook Country” yesterday while I cleaned the shed, and I’m loving it. It’s even a different narrator, so Hubertus Bigend sounds all wrong to my ears, but it doesn’t matter.

At the risk of comparing Gibson to Shakespeare I’ll compare him to Shakespeare. Shakespeare can be fun to read, but to be fully appreciated you must see it on the stage. Gibson takes work to get used to in printed form. His sentence structure and evocative language don’t always flow well to the eye, but can be beautiful to the ear.

Maybe I’ll feel differently by the end of the book. “Pattern Recognition” impacted me in a way few books have, so that can be a difficult standard to live up to. But if any Gibson book can do it, this one is at least showing promise.

So, the US Government is shut down while the two parties continues to take their game of chicken to a higher, though not by any means new, level. The real losers so far? Vacationers, WWII vets, and anyone who lives or works on Federal land. The government seems determined to keep people out of public monuments, including ones that never relied on Federal employees for access before and are therefore requiring added resources and personnel to close. Jon Ondrasik of “Five For Fighting” cites his personal experience on the Mall.

But then how big is the shutdown really? Perhaps only as little as 17% is really shut down. I know there are still plenty of employees still going to work at the Dept. of Homeland Security building down the street from where I work.

Evidently the Amber Alert system, however, is not part of the 83% still functioning. I’ll bet you they still found the funding for that NSA program that records our cellphone calls and reads our email. Certainly union representatives are allowed to work.

Elderly couples living on Federal land, however, aren’t so lucky. Also at that link, not only are privately funded/operated cites being closed, but the Fed is having a difficult time remembering what land they own. Mt. Vernon, folks, is not Federal land.

As for the National Park Service, I’m sure it’s not hard to find disgruntled employees willing to get their digs in, but there certainly seems to be at least anecdotal evidence to support this quote:

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” an unnamed park ranger told the Washington Times. “It’s disgusting.”

I was around for the last government shutdown and I don’t remember it having this big an impact then. Of course it could just be I’m paying closer attention now. Seventeen years ago I was a cloistered college student who really didn’t have a stake in the game. Colleges are state funded. But then the Federal Gov’t has asked that state parks be closed, also.

Meanwhile, though it looks as though nothing is happening in Congress, the House has passed several measures to fund parts of the Federal government. No word from the Senate as yet, though Harry Reid seems ill-disposed toward most of it. However, a bill granting back pay for furloughed workers has been passed by both houses.

On the brighter side, Dr. Ben Carson’s audit may be postponed. On the other hand, Tea Party requests for tax exempt status will continue to be stalled–though with less paperwork required, at least.

Is Jennifer Lawrence fat? Some people in Hollywood seem to think so. She talks about some of the unkind criticism she’s endured in her career in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK. Fortunately she’s reached the point where if anyone tells her she needs to diet she just invites them to go do something anatomically impossible.

I don’t know much about Lawrence. I’ve not seen her act. But what I do hear about her is that she’s candid, off-the-cuff, self-deprecating, and about as natural as you can get in Hollywood. If so, good for her. What I do know is that she is not fat. Nor is Christina Hendricks.

These are beautiful women, and yet we’re told by the “expert people watchers” that they are overweight. Something is wrong with this picture. How can our society handle the cognitive disconnect over holding up only near-emaciated women as the paradigms of beauty while preaching that we should be promoting a healthy body image?

I’m not sure how we’re supposed to break this cycle. Yes, we want to promote healthy living and curb obesity, but at the same time we need to somehow stop condemning every woman who pushes the upper range of healthy weight. Hollywood, for all their devotion to nearly every other cause under the sun, seems to continually ignore the most obvious problem in their midst. They are one of the causes of poor body image, with male and female actors alike going through all sorts of procedures that would be considered barbaric torture if they weren’t voluntary, and all to stay looking young as long as possible.

It’s no wonder that so many young actors and actresses lose their way. How are they supposed to “stay real” when they’re constantly surrounded by the fake and transitory, and people are judged not for who they are but for what they look like? Those who manage to keep their wits about them and not lose sight of who they are deserve to be applauded and supported, not continually badgered.

J-Law, I hope you can continue to keep it real. While I can’t approve of the phrasing, please hang on to that attitude. Those who say you should diet deserve to be sternly lectured. Let ’em have it.

Tom Clancy is one of the few authors I discovered as they were getting started. My older brother and I were both into military history at the time, and he had even sketched out an idea for a military thriller that turned out to have been written already (“Firefox”, if you’re curious). If I remember correctly, my brother had a scout leader who shared/encouraged his interest, and I believe we found out about “The Hunt For Red October” from him.

I was fourteen, and I was blown away. If ever a book had “teenage military geek” written all over it, this was it. But that was not the reason I still respect Tom Clancy today. That would come in the fourth book he published, “The Cardinal of the Kremlin.” This was a book with incredibly depth, and while it was rife with conflict and tension, there were practically no “bad guys”. As easy as it would have been for Clancy to cast the Russians as evil, he took the time to explain Russian history and the Russian psyche. Yes, these characters were opposed to the American characters, but not from any evil intentions, but for the exact same reason as the Americans: love of country. It caused a significant, tectonic shift in my worldview. I was cheering for Americans and Russians alike.

I’ve tried to remember that lesson ever since, with varying degrees of success. There are always reasons beyond the surface for why people do what they do or believe what they believe. More often than not people are who they are for a reason, and even if you dislike that result, you can understand how they got there.

I also gained from Clancy my love of the every-man hero. Jack Ryan, in the beginning at least, was just a decent guy doing a job he loved and was good at, but was typically not considered a heroic job. Analysts only get screen-time if they’re helping out the hero. But Jack Ryan did his job well, and as a result found himself thrust into events beyond his control, and in which his only choice was to see it through as best he could or let things fall apart. Jack Ryan always chose to see things through. Unfortunately, to me at least, this resulted in Ryan being promoted up the chain far too quickly. Yes, it was cool watching a good man become President of the United States. But once he got there he became significantly less interesting–and became a vehicle for Clancy’s wish fulfillment.

To his credit, Clancy chose not to infect Ryan with “Captain Kirk Syndrome” and have him out front protecting the grunts, and instead gave us a secondary cast of interesting people whose job it was to do those interesting jobs. But we no longer got to watch Jack Ryan being the fun version of himself. I stopped reading Clancy not long after Ryan became president. Something was missing after that. Perhaps he got it back and I just didn’t take time to find out. But regardless of my interest, he never lost sight of what he was doing:

”Literature means a hundred years after you’re dead they make kids read you in high school,” he told The New York Times in 1988. ”I’m in the entertainment business, like John D. MacDonald, Jack Higgins and Freddie Forsyth. Our mission is to take people away from driving trucks or fixing toilets or whatever they do, away from their drudgery. That’s a good enough purpose for any man.”

I have to give credit where credit is due. Though I love to write fantasy and sci-fi, my love of writing likely comes as much from Clancy as from Card, Tolkien, or Bradbury. He knew how to tell a story, and I absorbed a lot from him.

His death yesterday at 66 (Dang! That made him younger than me when he was first published!) is an unfortunate loss. I believe the world is a better place for his having written, and hence, lived in it.

I have about decided I can either study history or keep up on current events, but I shouldn’t do both. It’s just too depressing and/or frightening.

I’m listening to a lecture series about the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of nations. It covers a period of time full of wars, rebellions, civil wars, cultural clashes, power struggles, and conflict. The trouble is, it’s far too easy to see parallels between then and now. For example, today I listened to the beginnings of the English Civil War. It began with a power struggle between King Charles and the Parliament. Charles was trying to increase his own power, especially to create and raise taxes, while Parliament were trying to secure more rights for themselves and the people. Round One ended with Charles invoking his right as king  to disband Parliament. They were out of session for more than ten years.

It would have been longer, but Scotland invaded. Needing the power of Parliament to raise taxes to pay for the war, Charles called them back into session. They promptly got to work–passing laws and trying to get them put in place without the King’s signature. When Charles tried to have their leaders arrested it would be only a short time before Parliament threw in with Scotland to fight against their own king.

In the intransigence of both sides I couldn’t help but see parallels with today’s situation. This and many other similar situations throughout the history of Europe have me nearly convinced the United States of America is doomed. Unless we find a way to set aside this “scorched earth” approach to politics I predict we’ll be either embroiled in a civil war or no longer united states within ten years. This latest partisan staring-match is perhaps nothing new, or is it? One side began the “discussion” by absolutely refusing to negotiate on any point. The other side followed suit. There was no attempt to resolve their differences. Indeed, they as much as promised this back in April when they refused to try to reconcile conflicting budget bills.

We like to think we’re more civilized these days, but certainly our talk is not. Lawmakers have been speaking in violent analogies, and the public has surpassed that to actual death threats. Where our talk goes, our actions cannot be far behind. Once each side decides they must hold their ground and that that the other side is beyond reason, then extreme actions are all that are left. Breaking up the country peacefully is the best-case scenario. Devolving into a massive, nasty civil war is more likely.

We think it can’t happen. We would be wrong. For all our technological advancement, in many other ways it’s 1640 all over again.

This is one prediction I really hope I get wrong, but recent events reveal a deepening frustration and sense that the other side is incapable of bending. This sort of zeitgeist seldom ended well in Europe. I hope we don’t need our own Thirty Years War to convince us something is wrong with this country, and that we need to fix it before it’s too late.

It seems the Associated Press is determined to place the blame for our current budgetary mess on a single party, but is that really true? John Hindraker takes a look at their assertions.

I wonder if the public truly understands why we are where we are…again. Here are a couple of reminders of how the budget proces works, but in short the process is supposed to work like this:

– The President submits a budget by the first week of February

– Committees in both the House and the Senate take up the budget and submit their resolutions by April 1st.

– Each chamber is expected to debate, amend and approve their own versions of the budget by April 15th.

– A committe is appointed to reconcile any differences between the budget bills, and each chamber votes on the reconciled budget.

– If approved, the budget goes to the President to sign or veto.

– If not approved, or vetoed, the process begins again with each chamber coming up with their new resolutions.

– The new budget goes into effect on October 1st. If no budget has been approved, Congress must pass “continuing resolutions” to avoid a government shutdown.

This process has failed to produce a budget on time, resulting in a government shutdown, at least 17 times since 1976, the most recent in 1995 and 1996, during President Clinton’s tenure.

So why is it happening this time? Well, as best I can tell, because both parties ignored the lack of a budget until a few weeks before it would have gone into effect. President Obama’s budget was submitted on April 10th. By then both houses of Congress had submitted their own budget proposals (both on March 15th). That the two bills, coming from a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled House, were vastly different is not surprising. However, the process is supposed to be able to deal with this. According to wikipedia, however, “As of early April 2013, neither house had begun debating the budget resolution passed by the other, and neither house had requested a conference or named conferees.”

So, in other words, they’ve done nothing since April, five months ago. It’s as if they wanted this game of fiscal “chicken”. Considering that neither house has made any effort to negotiate a compromise in all that time, it’s really difficult to see how this is any one party’s fault. If you listen to the news, however, it would sounds like it’s all because of the Tea Party. Except the numbers don’t add up. There are 49 members of the House of Representatives listed as part of the Tea Party Caucus. Yet according to Hindraker, “The House passed its continuing resolution by 231-192, with 229 out of 231 Republicans voting in favor.” Quite obviously, if the Tea Party Caucus were the only ones interested in passing that particular continuing resolution they would have failed. Like it or not, this is still a “Republican vs. Democrat” problem, no matter how much the media and liberals like to cast the Tea Party as the villains.

But what of the Senate? They passed their version of the CR, 54-44. And around we go again.

Most of the press claims it’s the GOP that is unwilling to compromise. But I’ve not seen or heard anything that suggests the Democrats are willing to compromise, either. And, frankly, there is no rule that I know of that requires either side to budge. As much as I’d like to see a compromise, neither side seems willing. They prefer to wait for the other side to blink.

What I’m waiting for, perhaps even more naively, is for either side to own their responsibility for what’s going on. This showdown was purposely set up (yet again) back in April. This cannot be considered accidental. It’s intentional negligence.

I recently came across an article about a boyfriend and girlfriend that seems to be generating some controversy. It seems the woman saw a spider and freaked. The man came and removed the spider, capturing it and taking it outside. The woman was so relieved she told the man he was only 100 spiders away from her agreeing to marry him. It seems he just has to remove 100 more spiders to win her hand in marriage.

Of course people are weighing in, complaining about how sexist this arrangement is. They’re castigating the woman for forcing the man into outdated gender stereotypes, and for making their relationship a master-servant dynamic.

Okay, I’m kidding, obviously. If this were really the story I doubt we’d ever hear about it. But the truth is that the man, who does most of the cooking in their household, would ask her to make him a sandwich. For him making a sandwich represents an act of love. She finally made him a sandwich, and he liked it so much he told her she was just 300 sandwiches away from a engagement ring. She took the joke and ran with it, creating a blog to document her process of making 300 sandwiches.

The cries of sexism and male-chauvanism have been deafening.

And I think these critics are stupid. Who are we to judge their relationship, to apply our own definitions of what a relationship should be to two strangers we know nothing about? Who are we to demand that they live up to our expectations? Isn’t that something as bad as or even worse than sexism? Wasn’t feminism about providing women with the full range of choices, not exchanging one dictated lifestyle for another?

Besides, the entire concept is an ingenious form of marketing. In this era of continual self-promotion I fail to see how Miley Cyrus twerking for a living is empowering, yet making a sandwich is demeaning. Yeah, yeah, I get the whole “Get into the kitchen and make me a sandwich, woman!” vibe. Get over it. The fact that the notion has become a punchline proves that we’re beyond that now. The blog concept works because it’s a joke.

The guy does most of the cooking. He views the preparing and offering of food as an act of love. In that light, would this not be an unequal relationship that would take far more than 300 sandwiches to balance? If anyone is getting the short end of the stick here, would it not be the guy? Yes, of course I’m being ridiculous. That’s the point. The people criticising this woman are being ridiculous. It’s their relationship, and they should be free to make it work any way they want. Believe it or not, people, they are not doing this for our benefit. They really couldn’t–and shouldn’t–care what any of us think of their relationship. They don’t need our approval.

Feminists have been insisting that everyone stay out of their bedrooms. So why are they so determined to push their way into our kitchens?

I’m not who you think. I’m not sure anyone knows me well enough to be able to answer the question accurately and completely. Not even me.

Besides, most of the labels we like to use to define one another probably really apply. Liberal? Conservative? What do either of those mean, really? I believe in many liberal causes, but my preferred methods of implementation may differ from those of the “typical liberal”, if such a creature exists. I also believe in many conservative causes, but not to the degree others may.

Christian? That depends on who you talk to. Business Analyst? Sure, that’s my title, and yet my actual job experience would never get me far with the IIBA. Father? Certainly true in a very literal sense and, I would hope, a broader sense as well. But still, what does that mean? Husband? Again, far too broad a spectrum for that to be overly meaningful.

Labels are more often than not useless for really defining a person. And yet we use them all the time and think we know something about someone. But the funny thing is, by the time we get to know a person well enough to really be able to apply labels with any hope of accuracy, those labels become largely meaningless and unnecessary. I don’t have to catalog  my friends with labels, though I might consider using them to describe them to someone else. But I know that to call friend X a Catholic doesn’t really do X justice. To call friend Y a plumber really doesn’t tell you all that much about her.

Yet it’s almost impossible to not use labels. We put them on ourselves. The clothes we wear, the places we go, the music we listen to, the car we drive, the books we read–everything anyone can see can become a label. It’s inescapable. It’s instinct. It’s survival. If I’m on a desolate street at night and I see someone approaching me you can bet I’ll be labeling. Their clothes: business suit vs. torn jeans and a hoodie. Their posture: slouching vs. erect. Their grooming: clean cut vs. scruffy. What they carry: newspaper vs. baseball bat. I don’t even have to look at skin color to make a dozen judgments about someone in a matter of seconds and adjust my response accordingly.

Those same labels might evoke an entirely different response in different circumstances, say my front yard during broad daylight, or at the state fair. The very signals that might have me double-checking for my can of mace on a deserted street at midnight I might not even register at the mall on a Saturday afternoon.

This is why, as a general rule, I try to evoke positive labels in my dress and demeanor. People may still see my twill slacks, button-down shirt, and glasses and assign a negative label. I can neither help nor predict that. But for better or for worse, my chances of a positive label are higher than if I were to wear shorts, a ratty t-shirt, and flip-flops.

And yet people still wouldn’t know that much about me even from my attire. They don’t need to in most cases. Most of the time they only need to identify me as a potential threat or not.

Still, it’s human nature to apply more labels than necessary and refuse to explore beyond them. It’s unfortunate, and I’m as guilty as the next man. It’s a defense mechanism–we don’t have time to get to know everyone–but it’s not really a defense. We need to be careful of the labels we assign.

Who am I? Check every single fact from A to Z and you’ll still know nothing about me.

Union High is currently without a football team. Coach Matt Labrum decided it was time to give his players a lesson in life:

Labrum knew that a few of his players were struggling with academic issues and attitude problems this season. Then, last week the coaches learned that a Cougar player or two might have used the social media website ask.fm to anonymously engage in cyber-bullying. The target was a Union student who is not on the team.

“It just felt like everything was going in a direction that we didn’t want our young men going,” Labrum said. “We felt like we needed to make a stand.”

So after a tough home loss to Judge Memorial Catholic High School on Sept. 20, the coaches told all 80 varsity and junior varsity players to hand in their jerseys.

“We were looking at football as a right, rather than a privilege,” Labrum said.

Labrum has also outlined a fairly clear, strict path to redemption:

The entire team hadn’t been cut, though. When they met again with the coaches early the following morning they learned they had a chance to play again, but under some very specific terms.

A vote would be held to elect new captains. Players would perform acts of service for their families and document what they’d done. They would also take part in two days of community service in lieu of regular practices, attend a mandatory character-education class, a study hall session and memorize and recite a paragraph-long quote about the value of having good character.

Finally, they had to pledge to be to all practices on time, to demonstrate respect for their teachers, fellow students and members of the community and to maintain their grades.

“I think it’s going to bring our team closer,” Labrum said. “It think we’re going to be more accountable, not only for ourselves, but for our buddy next to us.”

Would that more of us had the guts to take such a stand. How are kids–boys or girls–going to learn their behavior is unacceptable if no one ever attempts to set them straight. Last night we took our cub scouts to a nearby nature preserve for a hike. They were okay on the hike (although I wouldn’t want to be the one to wash their clothes), but in the van on the way back they started getting beyond rowdy–they were coming close to tearing our van apart. We called them on it, and one boy responded, “This is just how boys play.”

This not our first group of cub scouts. We know better than that. Boys can be loud, wild, and have a perverse sense of humor, yes. But most of them understand there are limits.

My daughter later reported seeing several of the boys on their way home playing around in a neighbors’ yard and messing with their Halloween decorations. In their uniforms.

It may be time for a serious talk about representation and responsibility.