Author: docthink

no one of consequence

The White Bronco

Must…not…comment…Must…hold…out…Must pay no attention to Michael Jackson trial/circus. Must….

I was watching some basketball event when the station cut to a camera following a white Bronco down some road in California. In pursuit were the police–and my rapt attention. I remain embarrassed that I watched that low speed chase for 45 minutes. My eyeballs and molded mind were joined by some 95 million Americans that night.

Try as one might, it is near impossible to avert eyes and brain from these very public, very ubiquitous happenings. It could be a young woman needing some space before her wedding or a very strange man on trial for abusing children. The young woman was doubly punished because she wasn’t dismembered–“off with her head” demanded America. How dare she grab our attention and then just be like us? Just a person who lied to her family.

On the other hand, all this is part of our collective consciousness. Pop culture references that we put in songs and movies so when we look back, we can say…uh, what would we say of any value?

Fight the Borg….

Posted on by docthink 0

The President’s Men?

I had to catch my breath when I heard that Deep Throat had outed himself. I was back in Warren, Mich, watching the Watergate hearings all summer long. I ran home from school or came in from playing outside to watch Sam Ervin, Howard Baker, Daniel Inouye and Barbara Jordan peeling back the layers of subterfuge. I wanted to be them. I wanted to come to Washington.

The parade of “bad guys” was part of the pull. This was my introduction to reality TV. Sometimes it was dull, but sometimes something shocking would happen. Who were all these people in the White House? What did they do? There wasn’t a West Wing to school me in the arcane White House ops.

While I thought that we were witnessing the end of an era–one in my child’s mind included the unthinkable of a lying president–I don’t think anybody at the time really saw for whom the bell tolled. It was for being honorable and answering a Congressional investigation truthfully. Not to say, “I don’t quite recall” as a duck, or arguing over what the definition of “is” is.

When the Watergate crooks were asked a question, they answered it. They made deals and took the Fifth, but they answered questions. With the current level of obfuscation and bombardment of a message until it becomes de facto fact, whatever happened to the old-style political fiends?

Posted on by docthink 2

My Next PC? A MAC

And this time I mean it. I am not wishing for the good ole’ days of the c:prompt or anything. (c:/format c: was just too easy.) But, I really hate how everything is hidden in the Windows registry, and the computer still doesn’t work right. They made it harder!

That fake plug and play–we all know that once Windows thinks that your mouse is actually a cd-rom, you will never point and click again. Bill Gates, your computers are NOT smarter than me. I am absolutely SURE that Gates saw 2001, so he knows what can happen.

OSX is a thing of beauty, with true multi-threading. No viruses. It all works right from the box. Everyone is happy when they make the jump. I am going to get me a Mac.

I mean it.

Posted on by docthink 3

analogies : SAT

(A) picture tube : TV
(B) Red Dye #2 : Red Pop
(C) Democrats : White House
(D) ozone : atmosphere
(E) knuckle-rapping : Catholic Schools

This is a trick question, or maybe not. It’s either all of the above, and that’s not an available choice. Or choose any and you are correct (well, maybe not really D, and–perhaps–not forever C). For those of you who don’t get analogies, the relationship between the two terms are “is no longer a part of.”

I am sorry to see analogies excised from the SAT. And the addition of the essay. It seems to me –uninitiated in the predictive nature of standardized tests–that you can learn more about how somebody thinks based on the relationships that they see between concepts than the 2-3 minutes spent seeing if there is structure to an essay. Let’s evaluate the quality of the thinking by making SAT examinees write their own analogies and explain them. Naaaah, that would be hard.

You try it. Post your own analogy as a comment to the Doc.

Posted on by docthink 0

Mainstreamin’

I didn’t watch American Idol this season. I don’t really remember if I watched it last season either. I am, however, stuck with William “She Bangs” Hung in my head. Except via the Numa Numa guy, and I don’t think that is a positive.

But some guy from TV Guide did a really lame analyis on what makes an Idol a commercial recording success. (I always like it when my analysis is better than the pundit/experts. My next career will be to be the color football announcer. But I digress again.)

TV Guide-guy said that Idols who kept “mainstream” were more successful. Going “urban” was a mistake. So black Idols need to continue to sing Bonnie Raitt, Bee Gees, and Miami Sound Machine circa 1980-something. And the white Idols are okay, since they sing “mainstream?”

I have another idea, since more than 1/2 of the Billboard Top 50 Pop, Hot, and Airplay are hip hop or rap, maybe the issue isn’t the “urban-ness.” People listen to and buy rap. Maybe the problem is that the failed Idol product was bad.

The top song last year was Yeah! with Usher, Ludacris and Lil’ Jon. This is not your daddy’s pop-mobile. Let’s stop beating up on “urban” music. It’s like saying that music in the 60’s would have been okay except for that Motown stuff.

Posted on by docthink 0

Dear Parent of My Kid’s Friend,

You do not have my permission to serve my (waaaay) under-age kid alcohol at your house. Not for a graduation party, not for a birthday party, not for an end-of-the-school-year party. Never, nada, nyet, oh-nay*. No drinkie my kid.

And certainly not because you think it it is better that they drink at your house, “under supervision,” than somewhere else. I would prefer if I made it hard on my kids to hurt themselves. Make it easy on your own kid, if you want. Leave mine to his own devices.

I will walk in your house and meet you. I will ask you if you allow drinking. Don’t save my kid from me.

I am not judging you. My parenting motto is “any port in a storm.” You choose the port that your family is comfortable with, and I will choose my family’s port. That’s my job. Did you know that my niece’s best friend’s mom let her daughter’s boyfriend sleep at their house? She thought is was sweet that the 15 and 17 year olds slept in the same room. Guess what happened? The daughter got pregnant. I am not comfortable with this port action, for example.

Maybe you’re the same parent who was amazed that I didn’t give my kids twinkies and ho-hos, and cheezie-doodles in their kindergarten lunch. I will tell you now what I told you then.

YOU ARE THE PARENT.

*that last one is pig-Latin

Posted on by docthink 2

Ain’t No Hollaback Girl

Eminem is a bit like Dorothy. Nothing to do with shoes, though. Dorothy was born in Kansas. Eminem was born in Kansas City.

Dorothy is bored with Kansas. Eminem is bored with Warren, Mich. There is this nasty witch that keeps coming around and trying to screw up the future. (One is green, one is named Debbie.) Dorothy hooks up with a group of unlikely friends. Have you seen Bizarre from D12? ‘Nuff said.

They both head away from home, their roots. Both end up longing for home, but home means their people. Dorothy goes back to Auntie Em (no relation) and Uncle Henry. Eminem (as Marshall Mathers) makes his own home. His people are his home, too.

Sure, Eminem might seem alot angrier than Dorothy. If you think about it, though, Dorothy actually killed a few people. I guess she ends up with the street cred.

Posted on by docthink 2

Today’s Topic: Fisticuffs

1. A fistfight.
2. The activity of fighting with the fists.

Help me with this. Generally, I have been limited to physical violence within my immediate family, and generally restricted to siblings. One sib could beat the crap out of me (and rarely did). The other sib was mine to pulverize, but that would be the one time that I would get the crap beat out of me. (See previous sentence.)

I tell my kids that fighting is bad. It is. Someone could get hurt. It could be them.

So, fighting is bad. Except when you get hit, especially if they are trying to intimidate you. Then, I say, you can defend yourself, but be prepared for the consequences. Like at their school, it would be suspension. But it could be worse.

This whole fighting thing is making me feel uncomfortable.

A lady was hit by a car in traffic and took off after the perpetrator. She chased him to a parking lot. She got out of her car to give him a piece of her mind. He ran her over. Her kid was in her car. Why would she chase after some punk with her first-grader in her back seat?

There was man–a grown man–coaching third base for the opposing team at my son’s game yesterday. He was yelling insults at our pitcher. A grown man, yelling that the 14 year-old on the mound was “scared.” The pitcher did NOT apppreciate the insults and thought about how it would feel to take the bat to the meanie. Meanie is my word, not theirs. But that is all the guy was. A 40-year-old man, insulting a kid with a bigger and better future than he has. The guy is a weanie.

My son helped talk the pitcher down. Later on, he told me that it’s much worse to hit an adult than a kid. There are rules in fisticuffs, I suppose. I think that the 3rd base coach deserved it more than a kid. But anyway, fighting is bad. And there are consequences.

Posted on by docthink 0

Watching for the Water to Boil

There is alot (too much??) pressure on young kids to have it all together. When I was ten, I didn’t have to remember what books to bring to which class. We sat in Mrs. Gibson’s class at these table groupings and did our work from there. Mrs. Gibson was a very progressive teacher for those days. We didn’t sit in rows, and we had group projects. I recall liking them. My supplies were in a cubby immediately underneath the part of the table I sat by. And I don’t remember books. We didn’t bring them home. I think they were passed out at each class. Yeah, that’s right.

Ten year olds today switch classes and get yelled at (at least that’s how they feel) when they don’t bring the correct notebook or textbook. The teacher is frustrated because she keeps handing out additional pencils, since they don’t travel with the kids. This is, of course, to prepare them for the next year when this forgetfulness won’t be tolerated. Using this logic, parents better expect fully formed adults out of their pre-schooler because that is how they will be expected to act as adults.

My fifth grader son is having a devil of a time with this remembering thing. He has been reminded about a zillion times. The teacher asked me to emphasize the importance to him. I did. This has been a source of conflict. Then someone (not the teacher) told me that he is still a little kid. She is right. Makes me think about what pediatricians always tell us when we are potty-training our babies, “He won’t go to college still in diapers.” Some things take time. Some people take more time than others. I am switching to observing and offering some atta-boys. He will remember his pencils better when he is ready. He has some time to learn to be an adult.

Do you know where I put my cell phone?

Posted on by docthink 1

If I only had a brain…

…a heart, a home, the nerve.” Probably because I saw it at umpteen Thanksgivings while growing up–in the old days when we had to wait for the broadcasters to bestow our favorite movies–I guess I have overanalyzed the importance of the messages.

I flip flop on Dorothy all the time. How I admired her drive to see something different, experience new worlds. I left home, too. I didn’t know what I wanted, other than more and new. I really loved when it turns out that Dorothy has the power to do what she wants all along, but needs to learn to believe in herself. That was a comfort. But when Dorothy gets spun and realizes that she has everything at home and never will leave again, well, that leaves me cold. So, I turn to the Scarecrow.

Posted on by docthink 1