Why Is It Surprising?

I poked fun at the topic of this post on Sunday, but after reading today's LA Times (which I get through email), I thought it odd that the subject of said email was "Top of the Times:HBO chief executive fired in wake of arrest." Now, I don't mean that I think it odd that someone as powerful in the cable network industry as Chris Albrecht is got fired or arrested. Rather, I thought it odd that the people at the LA Times thought (or more likely KNEW) the headline would get more people to open the email rather than just passing it over. It's the whole celebrity thing and as Americans we have this strange fascination with seeing celebrities and people in powerful positions fall from grace in the most public way possible.

But why is it surprising to us when they do fuck up? Is the CEO of HBO supposed to be more than human and not ever make a mistake? Is Paris Hilton supposed to be in college so she can take over and manage daddy's fortune? Alright, you got me there... Paris, get your ass in college and grow up! The list could go on and on about the people we love to hear about getting in trouble, or having trouble in their lives. How many copies of Enquirer has Britney sold in the last couple of years? How many mainstream newspapers sold off a little flash during the Superbowl of a nipple? Or the subsequent reaction of the FCC with the hearings and fines?

Personally, I don't have a fascination with celebrity. I don't know these people, they mean nothing to me in my day to day life. There are celebrities that I admire, but frankly, I would admire them even if they were not famous and rich. I think Charles Barkley summed it up best while playing basketball when he said he does not consider himself a role model for kids. He knew, and said, that he was just a guy who got lucky and was able to play basketball for a living. Charles, in the same interview, said in his opinion it would be much better for the kids to have role models closer to home (parents, teachers, grandparents, etc.) than to make a basketball player (or any celebrity) into one. The kids don't know the basketball player, they do know their parents. And maybe that is the reason his comments caused such an uproar among the parents and society in general. Maybe, just maybe, rather than trying to "find" decent role models for their kids, Charles Barkley pointed out they should just "be" decent role models.

Anyhow, I just think that when we pay celebrities millions to act crazy and stupid for a living, or millions to play a game, and then read in the paper that they are still acting crazy and stupid in real life, or still playing games in their personal lives, we get what we ask for. So why is it so surprising to everyone?

The Political Wrongness of Political Correctness

I do not think the whole phenomena of being "politically correct" started with some public relations spin doctor who coined the phrase (or at least thrust it into the spotlight of main stream media. I'm not sure who or when it was coined.) in the mid 1990's. The ideas behind it, and the fact that in society in general we try not to intentionally be nasty or hurt any one's feelings, have always been here. The only difference is that in the time before it was considered common decency. It was just how you acted. On the other hand, it was not restrictive when it came to your own thoughts on a subject. Prior to the political correctness craze, we had a good idea, or could get a good idea quickly, of the topics between ourselves and who ever we were talking to that should be avoided in polite, social conversation. Not that they would be avoided at all times, and not that one or the other should have to change their views. If you were in the mood for a good informal debate, you knew who to talk to, and you could.

The version of this concept that is presented through political correctness is not quite like that. It literally states that I am to express no thoughts, feelings, or opinions, that might potentially be offensive to anyone, at anytime. I just don't get that. I got the idea of "picking my battles" and the fact that some things were just off limits depending on the company, but I just cannot get my head around the idea that a change in company (to one more akin to my thinking or opinions on a subject) still does not open that subject up to discussion. It simply makes for more "pariahs" that shouldn't think that way.

So why is this so politically wrong? Simply because of the way that our laws are formed. We have a "representative" government. The whole "By the people, for the people..." thing. The greatest measuring stick our elected officials have to go by are the conversations that happen between normal folk. Gallop polls, CNN polls, MSNBC polls, or any other poll, do not even come close to giving an accurate depiction of what Americans think. Talking to us candidly does, though. However, as long as we adhere to the idea of political correctness, we cannot have candid conversations about issues effecting our society. We can merely dance around them and hope we do not step over some invisible line somewhere and perhaps offend someone.

I'm sure there's some comedic quote I could put here, but the fact is this. The Bill of Rights grants us all kinds of wonderful liberties, but it does not grant us the right to never be pissed off, or disagreed with. In fact, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, gives us the right to be pissed off at, and disagree with, our government. Seeing as how that very same government is representative, by inference, we all have the right to be pissed off at each other and disagree. If our policies and laws are derived from public feeling on a particular subject, we then have to keep open the avenues of discussion and debate, no matter if it pisses us off or we get disagreed with. The alternative, closing these through the idea of political correctness, means that only the lobbyists, the people with enough money to donate so they are heard, get a say in how the policies and laws are formed. This in not the American way! Nonetheless, if you support the idea of political correctness, as it is now, this is the very thing you supporting no matter what comes out the other side of your mouth.

Want to change it? Start living by, and teaching the children, the idea of social decency, and throw the flawed ideals of political correctness out the fucking window.

Sometimes We Just Move Too Fast

I just finished watching Cars... Yeah, the animated, G rated flick put out by Pixar... Yeah, I know I'm a single 37 year old male who happens to be sitting alone watching a "kid" movie... I know, I know, I need a life, and I'm working on it...

Anyhooo... there was one point in the movie when they were explaining what happened to Route 66, and all the little towns that straddled it before the huge expansion of the interstate system that got me thinking. Sometimes, we are just in too big of a hurry in this country.

I don't mean just the act of driving across it, though that is definitely a great example. But this plague is striking at every part of our day to day lives now. We are either in a hurry to "get on with life" and start making our killings in the business world, or in a hurry to have kids and get the family started, or in a hurry to hit the bar before last call for alcohol so we can manage to get through a night with a spouse we just can't stand. There are a million things we are in a hurry for, and not one of them makes most of us a damn bit happier than we were sitting on the sofa watching the Soprano's!

Or we are in a hurry to get gardens planted, flowers in the flower beds, the yard fertilized and the weed killers spread. I know these things need to be done, even that some people actually want to do them. But whatever happened to taking a walk on the first nice spring day and actually getting out of the house, out of the office, out of the cars, to just relax and enjoy the outdoors even if only for a couple of hours? Is it going to kill the garden dreams if it gets planted over two evenings instead of one? Are the flowers going to bloom a different damn color if they are planted two days late? Somehow I just don't think so.

I know we live in a culture that measures everything on what you have or don't have materialistically. What kind of car you drive, how nice the damn lawn is manicured, how much money did you make last week, month or year. I know we live busy lives and most of us are just managing to keep up. But I know something else, too. Taking that drive down Route 66 at 50 miles an hour rather than staying on the interstate at 70 may mean spending an extra hour or two to get to your destination. But I know for every minute you spend on Route 66 is an hour more you can manage to keep your sanity when you get back on the interstate of your life.

Just Because We Can, Doesn't Always Mean We Should

Went grocery shopping today. Nothing strange in the act, do it every week, just not normally on Sunday with all the blue haired old ladies after church. You don't want to get between one of these ladies and the pot roast they are spying for Sunday dinner. Talk about competitive shopping! But that is a topic for another day.

One of the things that has been bothering me about the grocery store recently is the presence of the self-checkout lines. Even though I used one today, they really do get on my nerves. I know they are supposed to be there as a "convenience" to the customer (which it was today), but I normally take a different view about them.

I go to the grocery store and pay whatever is listed on the label because it is cheaper than shopping at a convenience store like 7-11. I know it is. However, I also know that part of the pricing of the food I am buying is to pay for the cashiers. When the people who dictate the pricing sit down to figure out what they can sell the hotdogs for, the price doesn't magically appear. They have to take into account what they pay for it wholesale, what it costs them to transport it to the store, stock it, and how much it costs to employ the cashiers to handle the customers. It's called overhead. The self-checkout lines help with the store's overhead since they can use one cashier to cover four or five registers. So, in real terms, by me checking myself out, and basically doing a job that I am paying them to do for me, I am saving the store money.

Now, I realize the amount of money I am talking about here on any given item is maybe a penny or two. Doesn't sound like much right? Well, if you figure that I buy 100 individual items on average, that one or two pennies is suddenly a buck or two. I know people who will drive half way back across town to get the coupons they left on the fridge in order to save a buck or two! And that for me is really the thing that gets me with the whole idea of self-checkout.

If the savings were being passed back to the customer (either by lower prices overall, or even a one cent per item discount on the bill for checking out yourself) I wouldn't have a problem. But as it is now, I am doing a job that I am already paying to have done for me. To make matters worse, stores have now figured out that with all the self-checkout lines, if they do NOT open the traditional lines, their customers are more willing to use the self-service lines rather than wait.

Now, I am a business man, and I completely understand the business idea behind it. But as a customer, I have to say that just because technology made it possible for the self-checkout to be possible, it doesn't necessarily mean that the store should do it. Whatever happened to the customer service aspect of the grocery store? We are still paying for it, but they aren't providing it. I felt like walking up to the manager and asking for a refund on my bill for doing their damn job!

The American Dream

I am part of the so-called Generation X. I have no idea what it means, and have doubts if anyone else does either. Luckily, it seems to be a label that has died out a bit. Unfortunately, some of the ideas which were typical of the Generation X are taking a bit longer to die off.

One of the worse things our generation does is how some of us seem to twist the concept of "The American Dream." For some damn reason we have turned it to mean a sense of entitlement. A guarantee of end result. Maybe it was because the Babyboomers where too busy "keeping up with the Jones'" and deciding which car was to be the new yuppy icon rather than teaching us what the American Dream was really all about.

It was never about the result, it is about the pursuit. Rather than have a rigidly stratified society, our is more fluid. You can be born with nothing, and achieve greatness. You can go the other way, too. But the end result isn't guaranteed. It is the right of pursuing your interest, of determining your own destiny within the culture, that is the foundation of the American Dream.

The American Dream has never been about entitlements, or handouts. The American Dream simply means you have the right to work your ass off, achieve anything you are capable of, and NO ONE has the right to say you don't deserve the rewards because of where you came from and which family you were born to.

So, dream your dreams, as big as you wish, and know that the American Dream is still there alive and well to make sure you can still pursue them.