With profound apologies to Walt Whitman

 I Hear America Bitching

I hear America bitching, the varied noises today I hear,

Those of media commentators of every chordless type, each singing and underestimating the good sense of folks who don’t see the world and its myriad issues splattered against a black-and-white canvas,

The well-paid extremists who swarm in to condemn a drunk-driving cop who kills an innocent biker, yet remain light years away and mute when a decent officer is gunned down dead,

The minions of a Kansas maniac professing God’s hate of gays, Catholics, Jews [for that matter everybody] and who show up at service members’ funerals merely to grab sound bites for the news media,

The benign bleatings of career politicians, whose melodies of promise and pledges are shorn swiftly with such sheepish ease,

The warped arias of pin-striped, corporate cowboys on whom so many livelihoods depend, falling safely and richly beneath canopies of gold in the aftermath of their misdeeds and mismanagement,

The song of the lazy and those who don’t give a damn, whose misguided measures with many rest signs seek full harvest without sowing one seed,

Perhaps soon we shall hear new tunes, each measure robust and hopeful,

Singing with open mouths a similar lyric echoing 1776 and stretching for future harmony.

The Wacky Maniac Resurfaces



The Arabic Al Jazeera news network today aired a videotaped message from Osama Bin Laden where he threatened "dire consequences" if judges failed to select him as a contestant for American Idol. U.S. intelligence analysts have confirmed that the likeness is genuine, adding that they have been pursuing leads that the maniacal terrorist has infiltrated a popular ventriloquist's comedy tour.



A star is reborn

I am here -- somewhere.

I remember a few days before my good Dad died back in November 1990, I had this fleeting dream of him. For whatever reason, he was wearing the tattered clothes that were the uniform-of-the-day for boys of the Great Depression. A skinny, red-haired lad in a large, hardscrabble family near Yankeetown, Ind. But there he was, amidst all of the misery of those days, scampering through a field and then suddenly hopping around the stars you still can see in back-country Hoosierland on a clear night.

That wonderful dream has clung to me for two decades. I think of the Creator, the profound philosophers and even the great scientists who, in their different ways, say we all come from the stars and are destined to return to them. I like that; I believe it.

To this day I recall those three Magi who followed that Star to Bethlehem that is one symbol of my faith. And I recall the great explorers who navigated their way through this planet and into outer space. What wondrous journeys we are capable of, eh?

Meal ticket

"Well, fellas I gotta tell ya, the only da Vinci code here is the mystery of who's gonna pick up the tab for this dinner. But I hear Judas has just come into some extra cash."

Trash talking on a Wednesday

IT WAS AN EARLY WEDNESDAY EVENING. I know this to be a fact because I was preparing to snake up my snow-glazed driveway into the garage and was prepared to do so in what has become a routine at this time of day.  Neither snow nor sunshine is not a factor. Either edge my tired Mercury to the side of the road, or make an S-shaped maneuver around the obstacle and nose into the garage.

Trash day in Indianapolis. Today, the heavy-duty container stood as upright as Patton reviewing an Army parade right in the center and entrance of my 100-foot gravel driveway. I sighed some choice “Blood-and-Guts” words as I reconnoitered around it, parked the car and did my solemn duty. Retrieve the empty canister and drag it back toward the house.

Giving back from 'the next life'

God bless IMPD Officer David Moore and his parents Jo and Spencer Moore. He passed this morning after being removed from life support.

Click on   David Moore.

News with no silly advertising to get in the way...

Isn't this what cable TV promised when it first got started?  Check out Ongo.

Art of Communication: Never Hit the 'Reply-All' Button

Things I have learned about communicating and interacting with others...
When they've sounded "Taps" in Army boot camp ending the training day -- it's not really a good idea to strut up and down the barracks hallway and impersonate your drill sergeant when you think he's gone for the day.

Suppose you're in the fifth grade and in the school spelling bee in a crowded gym with your Mom looking on. You misspell a word and they "ding" you out of competition. And you react into the microphone with a certain four-letter word that you've heard your Dad say a gazillion times before when he's angry.

When you get an e-mail from a "friend" in your office asking for your opinion about the boss's "latest and greatest idea"… never, ever hit the Reply All button.

If you're visiting a foreign country, say, like Nicaragua, your Spanish-speaking skills won't necessarily work if the stranger you're trying to speak to turns out to be Egyptian.

Message from the Creator

Howdy, y'all --

As the architect of the universe and creator of life, I thought I’d drop you a few lines. I just finished reading this interesting little study, America’s Four Gods: What We Say About God – And What That Says About Us. It was based on two fellows’ 2008 survey of adults trying to take measure how you perceive my personality and behavior.

You can order it off Amazon or your buy it at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble. If you’re willing to wait and spend fewer bucks, you can find it at Half Price Books. Or catch it on Kindle if that’s more convenient. If you really want to go out on a limb, visit a local library and borrow it, if you can find one that’s still open.

On balance, I was glad to hear that 90 percent of you still believe in me. Not surprisingly, I was interested to learn how your views of me shape your attitudes about justice, morality, war, politics, science, love and other topics. Similar surveys have come up quite often since your ancestors drew their first breaths. They frequently touch my heart in good ways and bad.

And these surveys and studies always amuse me. It's like that sweet, Southern expression you hear old ladies say, "Well bless your little heart!"  That's just another way of saying, "Nice try, buck-o, but you don't really have a clue, d'ya?"

Cremains of the Day

Snort 'em if you got 'em -- bum 'em if you don't. Further proof that the Mayan calendar and the spirit of Hunter Thompson are running a parallel course.
http://www.examiner.com/strange-news-in-national/florida-teens-arrested-for-stealing-and-snorting-human-remains

A summer 'Ode to Joy'

I WAS DRIVING to my office and listening to the news on the radio, slumping deeper in my seat with each report. Another murder in Indy. A Greenwood toddler clinging to life at Riley Hospital while his mother’s boyfriend was behind bars awaiting beating charges. National unemployment expected to go up. Idiotic politicians and sign-carrying citizens, recklessly spreading their disinformation about health care reform and calling each other Nazis.

Some news you don’t have to summarize, just say a name and you know the story -- or punchline: Lindsay Lohan.So there it is.
 
Then I came to a stop sign on McFarland Road. Ordinarily, I would look in all directions and make sure it was my turn before moving on, but something caught my eye that kept me in place. There was a white-haired woman on a porch swing – not just sitting there slightly moving back and forth, but really pushing and swinging the same way a youngster does on a playground.

Not covered by national health care reform

Artemus Taylor was pretty sure he was well-informed about government-approved medical coverage, but he had some reservations about the way his Lasik procedure was being conducted.

Cutting-edge cliches and other gibberish

TO BEGIN WITH, I work in the world of media and public relations. My duties in that realm essentially have been playing pitch-and-catch with the news media. In 199, I paddled my way across the Styx waving goodbye to many years as a journalist to the shore of that place where I am now at.

What I do can pretty much be summed up as a game, of sorts: Pitch and catch. Specifically, I pitch stories that have some measure of news value to reporters and editors. And I catch stories from the media, seeking some unique perspective or localized angle to bigger stories.  

One aspect of pitching comes in the form of news releases. In the old days of ink and smoke-stained newsrooms, they arrived daily in the mail. Bundles of them. Every conceivable source with a word-generating machine mailed. Saturation bombing via the U.S. Postal Service. In today’s dizzying world of communications technology, they can be sent to multiple sources and locations merely by hitting the “send” button.

To say that Lionel Lattimore had become a basket case was putting it quite accurately.

Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill...

“[Diane says] ... Baby you ain’t missing a thing…"

SHE PEERS through the kitchen window, which is just starting to reflect the salmon-colored shadows of dawn. In the background on the radio that old Mellencamp tune – back when he was called “Cougar” – sings about a couple sucking on chili dogs outside the Tastee Freeze.

Behind her is a sink full of spaghetti-stained plates bobbing in a greasy sea of cereal that must be washed. The baby sits in the booster chair wearing a lop-sided grin. The older boy flops in the blue haze of the living room, soaking in the prime-time world of cable cartoons.

“Gotta get cracking,” she thinks, grabbing a washcloth and swiping it over the toddler’s face. She hustles the other boy up from his TV-induced trance after the show ends and gets them ready for day care.
Use to be that tears would come at that point; now it was just a long, drawn-out sigh and be done with it.

Get up again tomorrow and start all over again.

Slip-slidin' away

I WAS STOPPED AT A TRAFFIC LIGHT on Indy’s south side and doing my best to recon away from apparent hill-jack motorists during our most recent snowblast. Off to the side, I saw a couple of youngsters fancying  some kind of faux skating routine in the parking lot of St. Mark Catholic School. One of the kids lost his footing and went spread-eagle down onto the pavement – then immediately bounced right back up and continue on with his pals.

Many years ago, some time between an era when T. Rexes roamed the planet and a few millennia after the last Ice Age, I made the bold decision to cave into pleas to my then-spouse and our blended-kid household to visit the Pan Am skating arena, now dubbed the Indiana/World Skating Academy.

I had never been on ice skates; in fact, my distant experiences on roller skates would have gotten me annihilated in roller derby for 3-year-olds. I remembered Peggy Fleming from the 1968 Winter Olympics and a more recent speed-skate sensation named Eric Heiden. I had visions of being a fast learner. How tough could it really be? Winter Olympians aren't real athletes.