I was sitting on my neighbor’s porch with a drink, above the lemonade stand at the sidewalk’s edge. My 10-year old was threatening to skateboard down the 10 or so cement steps to the commerce area. People walked by, and more than a few bought lemonade from the 3 little sales girls.

One woman crossed the street and stealthily bent down to put out her cigarette–beyond the view of the lemonade stand but in view of the porch. She bought her fifty-cent lemonade then took a loop around and retrieved her cigarette. With a smile she crossed back over and cut back through the alley, probably going home.

Years ago, I was talking about my neighborhood to a friend. She was shocked that I lived in D.C., proper. She had lived her life outside the beltway in Va. “The difference between my street and yours,” I told her, “is that when an ambulance or firetruck arrives you part your curtains to see what’s happening. We go down to the sidewalk to see.”

Conflict is the place where good ideas are born. Problem is, conflict is really hard to manage. Getting to the good ideas requires some level of civility. Well, maybe a bit more than some.

I am wondering if I still have the ability to hear what someone I disagree with is saying, or if I can’t get beyond “my side.” With my varsity letter in debate, it’s no surprise that I am all for a good row of ideas. But it seems that persuasion (or even discussion) has become a binary sport–1 or 0, win or lose.

We have the nuclear option (or is that nucular?) and the filibuster. Neither of which really facilitate a good discussion toward a good decision. It is either I win, or I lose. You lose, and I win. It’s all a big show.

So, do I do the same thing? Or do I look for common ground? Is it always black and white, or can a middle ground be located?

The first time I was in New Orleans, a friend I was visiting called the median in the road “the neutral ground.” Being from the North, I was clueless. He said that local legend has it that the neutral ground got its name from early New Orleans when the French and Spanish could do business between sections of the city standing on the “neutral ground.”

If you found the neutral ground and went there for discussion, do you risk your irate opponent careening up and running you over?

Some people know what God wants.

Okay, I can have a hard time knowing what God wants, but I don’t doubt that some people know. That they know doesn’t mean that they really know, but who could know?

When I was little, I saw a movie about some kids who saw visions of Mary Mother of God at Fatima. I had a 36″ religious statute in my bedroom. We used to say it was Jesus, but actually it had to be a saint since it didn’t resemble Jesus. Anyway, for a month or so after seeing the movie, I would pray to the Jesus statue that no holy person would come see me. I’m like, “Please God, don’t send any of your spooky saints!”

So, maybe that’s why I don’t know, with absolute certainty (or any certainty for that matter), what God wants. I mean, I would bet that God would be against hatin’, and being mean or selfish. Probably a big two thumbs up for helping folks, especially those in need–sick, hungry, poor. But some folks who “know” seem to have different ideas.

I saw the best bumper sticker. It said W.W.J.B. Translation,”Who Would Jesus Bomb?” I think some people think that they know. I think that some of them are wrong.

Last year, my son used a permanent marker to express himself by use of the F-word (and others) on the bathroom wall at school. Cursing really made him feel big.

A friend told me that people curse because they have limited vocabularies. She could make a sailor blush. Cursing can be a shortcut. My mom would curse and sometimes it let us know she was playing around. Other times, generally indicated by volume, it was a shortcut to convey her extreme displeasure. Maybe people curse since there is something cathartic in emitting a fully felt curse. I think that my son felt something big–probably a mix of fear and power when he let his go.

My kids learned to curse the way I did, by example, at home. That did limit my cursing vocabulary to my family’s favorites, but college taught me appropriate use of the rest. When my other son was learning to curse I told him that if he wanted to use that word, he should go in the bathroom, shut the door, and say it to his heart’s content. He came out of the bathroom in about 30 seconds. Bored.

A lot of blogs include a lot of cursing. It doesn’t offend me, but I expect that it offends some. Sometimes though, it is just boring. Maybe small vocabularies? I decided not to use these powerful words in my blog. So today, I’ll write about cursing.

Or would that be Todog? Either way, there is no sense to be made of it. The idea of tofu hotdogs is beyond rational thought.

Okay, let’s say that you love hotdogs and for some reason–it could be religious, political, health, pick one–you are unable to eat them. How does substituting tofu help? I like tofu. But that’s tofu as tofu, not as hot dog. There is absolutely nothing that tofu has in common with a big fat Nathan’s dog, or for that matter even the Hebrew National Reduced fat dog. No juicy, no flava, no mouth feel. Nothin’.

It’s not like subbing out a Ford Pinto for a Boxter (a sad substitution). But more like a pinto bean for a Boxter. Not related. (Well I guess tofu and hotdogs are both food so there is some relationship, but you get the idea.)

The only logical reason available might be that the person doesn’t really miss eating hotdogs, but wants to have mustard and ketchup and relish on a bun. Here is my idea then. Skip the tofu and have your condiment sandwich.

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….

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?

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.

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.

…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.