July Ends

Back home again.

One person could not get what he wanted from living arrangements in another state, so he's here. He will resume a hard-won academic career at a very good university because he cannot get what he wanted elsewhere, and will live to pursue that another day.

Another person was really disappointed that the Chicago Cubs lost to Arizona today, but glad to be going out this evening. She wants to visit a half-dozen outstanding unversities this fall, starting the cycle with Labor Day weekend.

Yet another person was happy that everyone was here and had to get at least a little sleep before working a Saturday midnight night shift at a local hospital.

A friend in Chicago resigned his job and, before even preparing a resume, has four solid offers from reputable companies.

I hope to breakfast tomorrow with another friend who has not had a "regular" job since he lost his three years ago. He's paying the bills, though, by working a series of interim jobs.

The weather is getting warmer once again after a brief heat respite, moving into August, the warmest month of the year.

My deepest joy is in helping other people.

I'm listening to Patricia Barber and wondering how I can help. I think I do more wondering than actual helping, but there is a school of thought that says it's the thought that counts.

The days are getting shorter. The sunset last night came way too soon, although it was a lovely one.

We'll Build A Mighty Union

After 70 years, the AFL-CIO seems on the verge of a breakup.

Everything runs in cycles. Birth, growth, development, stagnation, death. For some reason, though, I felt that organized labor in the United States was immune.

For at least ten years, the only union to be "out front" on women's issues, diversity and other key concerns was the SEIU. No coincidence that they were also the only one showing any decent growth rates.

I bargained with the SEIU in Florida a few years ago. They, like most unions, suffered from internal divisions of opinion, member apathy and, most poignantly, operating in a right-to-work state (where they had to "earn their wings every day" in order to be paid dues by their constituents).

They were an interesting bunch. As they might documentably represent the "best" in American organized labor, they did not do so well, actually. But at least they gestured in the direction of understanding the needs and interests of their members, and responding to them.

And now they allegedly want out of the AFL-CIO. My view is that the AFL-CIO, already shrinking steadily, will now fall apart with this withdrawal.

Actually, my question would be whether the SEIU, freed of the obligations to the AFL-CIO, will redefine American labor. It's possible.

But I would not bet on it without some serious oddsmaking concessions.

Home Again

I returned home today.

I have been living away from our home in Kingsport, Tennessee since last November (although with frequent visits). As I covered the last fifty miles or so, I felt so, so good.

There's a great old bluegrass song, called "In My Tennessee Mountain Home." I felt just like this...

Sittin' on the front porch on a summer afternoon
In a straight back chair on two legs, leaned against the wall
Watch the kids a-playin' with June bugs on a string
And chase the glowin' fireflies when evening shadows fall.

In my Tennessee mountain home, life is peaceful as a baby's sigh
In my Tennessee mountain home, crickets sing in the fields nearby.

Honeysuckle vine clings to the fence upon the lane
Their fragrance makes the summer wind so sweet
And on a distant hilltop an eagle spreads its wings
And a songbird on a fencepost sings a melody

Walking home from church on Sunday with the one you love
Just laughin', talkin', making future plans
And when the folks aren't looking you might steal a kiss or two
Sittin' in the porch swing holdin' hands.

In my Tennessee mountain home, life is peaceful as a baby's sigh
In my Tennessee mountain home, crickets sing in the fields nearby.

My trip home was unexpected and sudden, and won't be permanent. Heck, arguably this is not even my home; I'm from Chicago. But life has a lot to offer here...

Two weeks ago I was back, and family was at our house. The house resonated with the sounds of children laughing and playing - it was so happy. During a lull my daughter and I went out for fast food. When I got to a local Hardees, I discovered that I only had $2.46 in cash, and they did not take plastic. I prepared to leave without the food. The manager, who had never set eyes on me in my life, put up $1 of her own money to buy my hamburger, and gave me the coke without charge.

There are kind, generous and loving people everywhere. But it seems that so many of them decided to live around here.

I really like that. It's good to be home, even if "home" is where the hat is.

Michael Moore's Lasting Effect

A review of "The Big One," a Michael Moore movie...

An Entrance, An Exit
Reviewer: John P Bernat (Kingsport, TN USA) - See all my reviews

Moore cannot do a whole movie - he does not have it in him.

Even his best movie, "Bowling for Columbine," is, at essence, a collection of vignettes but informed by an overall questing sensibility. Why do we like our guns? With that being understood, why are we so violent with them?

Well, Charlie Chaplin described the essence of acting as having a good entrance and a good exit.

In this film, the entrance is a national tour, meant to discover the real America via interview and question-and-answer sessions in meeting halls. Moore is using, roughly, a technique the unions used to favor for organizing. Even the unions, though, from hard experience, came to learn that this method was not producing results.

It's a quaint technique, filled with sentimental attraction, but it does not work any more. We've been purged of that kind of attention span by entertainment and information access.

The exit? Moore claims credit for successfully organizing union bargaining units at two Borders locations. He does a standup talking about how hypocritical big business is by insisting on free enterprise, when they do not themselves believe in it. He is drinking a bottle of Evian water. Evian is bottled in France. Moore will not drink anything but Evian and if a different (American-bottled) brand is furnished, he will refuse to speak.

His sad exit. I like the fact that he expresses a point of view not heard enough in our country, but he abuses the privilege his success has conferred on him. Like the corrupt union bosses in the 1950s, he, too, has fallen prey to the temptations of success.

Yesterday (7/9/2005), I visited one of the Borders stores in West Des Moines that Moore takes credit for organizing. The movie depicts this as a triumph. The checkout lady confirmed that this was the Borders store in the movie, but that it is now non-union. She asked around, and only one out of the entire store staff on hand even remembered that a union represented these employees at one time. She said that the union was decertified over a year ago because they never bargained a first contract, and was doing nothing at all for the employees.

Does this sound like Michael Moore himself?

Libraries

Libraries are passing out of existence, at least as we have known them. Ask Garrison Keillor.

Garrison Keillor's literary devices have served him (and us) extremely well. Those who thought he was in danger of becoming a victim of his own success have been proved right. But we are victims, too.

As a fellow only a few years younger than Garrison Keillor, I, too, bemoan our culture's voracious appetite for "content." The universal availability of our culture cannot be criticized. That's like saying there is too much breathable air. But, it has its consequences.

We drown in words now. What used to be made precious by its limited availability in libraries is now everywhere. When we got what we wished and worked for - universal access to literature, art, music - we did not fully understand the scope of human ability to adapt to environment.

Something about "evil overlords" has been making its way around the internet recently. There are 100 top things a current-day evil overlord can do; here are the last two:

"99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size."

"100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access."

Drowning in thought, we lose the ability to think. Garrison left home, as he had to, and then turned it into content; we're all with him now.

The Best TV Series in Ten Years?

The Sopranos is is the best television we've seen, possibly ever. What's good about the Sopranos?

1. The writing. There has not been better writing for TV to my knowledge.

2. The viewpoint. We are made terribly uncomfortable by this series, because it holds a mirror up to our own desires (some cultural, some more deeply ingrained). It's a show about aspirations, materialism, power, family love, but ultimately the values distortion that occurs when we convince ourselves that we should put our love for people before values and principles. It's about people who either are or can be converted into slaves to their own desires, whether for drugs, sex, gambling or just love. The viewpoint deals deep and common emotions without sentimentality, which is mighty tricky.

3. A constant exploration of narcissism. If we are self-absorbed, we can be exploited by our vanity.

4. Tragedy's best basis is folly and coincidence.

5. A talented and effective leader always risks the loss of the very thing pursued: the genuine love of those led. When Tony is given evidence of that kind of love, he doubts and rejects it.

6. Consumerism, maybe even more than money, is the root of all evil. And we all are consumed by consumerism.

7. The effective depiction of family moments, created via extremely effective writing, direction and acting, will knock your socks off.

8. Psychology practice operating without morals or even ethics cannot save us from our own self-created torments. Pulp Fiction is shocking, frank and violent, and so is this wonderful series. But The Sopranos presents so very, very much more than that.

And then there's "The West Wing..."

Against Love, By Laura Kipnis

Laura Kipnis wrote "Against Love: A Polemic" last year. It's a book about marriage and more...

Laura Kipnis starts this book with a rapid fire series of observations that are amazingly accurate. The sheer brilliance of these observations is undeniable. She also places some truly provocative frames before us and immediately denies their core validity by saying that they are only argumentative devices.

Where the book disappoints is failing to synthesize a coherent viewpoint after such great deconstruction.

In other words, OK, you got us in the mode of questioning whether a love relationship should be "work," and that therapeutic approaches may fail because of that wrong assumption. But, when we're miserable, suicidal, aching, isn't a mechanistic band-aid better than standing over the sufferer and shrugging?

In other words, after her indictment of conventional therapy, she offers no replacement or alternative: If your car breaks down, you should walk.

I want to know whether Laura has played "the Sims 2," the brand new issue of the most popular computer game ever released. In this more sophisticated version, the synthetic people are made (by you) with"aspirations." They can be money, popularity - and romance.The Romance sim craves multiple intense romantic interludes.

TheRomance sim is born to pursue intimacy, consummate it, and even marry.

The Romance sim can marry a sim with a Family aspiration and havechildren. But, often, the Romance sim cannot remain satisfied with this arrangement and is rewarded if they succeed in flirting with, seducing and having sexual intimacy with another Sim.

The more such relationships, the better the Romance sim's aspirations are met and the higher his or her satisfaction score.

What's the point? A very simple one: the wise designers of this game acknowledged that everyone has differing aspirations. There will be people who will never be satisfied with monogamous, stable relationships, and will endlessly pursue outside parties. And, strangely enough, this is how they are satisfied.

Not reckoned, though, is the damage wrought to the partners who haveother aspirations. In the Sims 2, you can discern what other Sims'aspirations are. If only we could do that as easily in life...