My State Is So Blue That Even The Whining Is Cyan.

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I’m sitting on my couch watching the election returns from a Congressional district where Satan would get 71% of the vote if he put a “D” behind his name on the ballot. I have grown accustomed to most of the boxes I check on my ballot being a waste of time. For the sake of Pete, Walter Mondale carried Minnesota against Ronald Reagan. It’s that kind of blue.

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However, even in this very blue state, I’m enjoying the schadenfreude of my friends on the left whining about how rude people are to President Obama tonight, and how the projected return of the Jim Crow laws and the supremacy of the Klan will take away women’s rights. I don’t know what kicked this off, but it’s been building for a day or two in the social media. I didn’t see any of those on the ballot, but I can assure you that I would definitely have voted against them.

Speaking as a primary member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (VRWC,) [I qualify because I’m white, I served in the intelligence community, and I was a cop] I’d like to point out a few things to my friends on the left:

1. Jim Crow was actually a Democrat deal. Not Republican. Sorry, those facts sting.
2. The Klan, again, was a Democrat deal. I’m seeing a trend.
3. Women being denied the vote is not making a comeback. A surprising number of Republican women did well at the polls Tuesday night. Congratulations to Lt. Colonel Ernst of Iowa.

Further, as far as this stuff goes, I’d respectfully ask everyone to calm down and have a sip of coffee before you continue your rants.

Done? Okie-dokie. Listen, we’re all going back to work on Wednesday. Nobody is going to be put up on an auction block and be sold into slavery, white or black. Women will not be beaten in the street. Dogs will not be served in the local diner. Your education will continue in your college. Etc.

America, as a representative form of government, is set up to have checks and balances. I know that no matter how jacked up things get, short of changing the Constitution, the excess of the current government will be corrected at the next turn of the election cycle. Things get miserable on occasion, and some of that misery is so stupid that it makes my teeth hurt. So, let’s all get on the stick and move, as a nation, for a few things before the next national election:

1. Let’s have term limits. Guys and gals that I hate a little bit less than the current crowd are in charge the next time around. But I don’t want them there forever. Washington and Jefferson would barf if they saw Mitch McConnell being reelected tonight. This was not meant to be a forever job. How about 2 and out for both the House and the Senate. Same for governors, mayors, etc. I’m sick of machines controlling the politics of this nation. It’s not the money in the mix, it’s the incumbency that hurts us. These clowns (yes, clowns, not clown-car occupants) hurt us as a nation when they grow old in positions of power.

2. Let’s have some form of voter-identification throughout the nation. The linked article lays out some reasons for my view, but the simple fact is that the worst form of voter suppression is fraudulent voting. James O’Keefe presented a brilliant piece on this recently. When I voted tonight nobody was concerned that I really was me. Let’s all get past the blind hatred of each other on racial lines and move together as a nation to make every election fair. I appeal to the leaders of the civil rights community to work with governmental agencies to ensure it is a fair process. I want everyone that is qualified to vote to have a chance to cast their vote without it being nullified with fraud. I want not a single soul who shouldn’t vote to vote. I want no body of people, in or out of government, to prevent legal voters from voting. We can make this happen if we work together.

3. Let’s feed the poor, care for the sick, and love one another as Jesus commanded. Not as the government taxed it, but on our own. As a church, as a community, as a body of Christ. Join me in doing this simple act.

4. Let’s all take a breath and look at our fellow citizens as decent beings who do not have our doom and demise as their primary goal based on political, racial, or gender lines. We do a great deal of harm to our nation by letting that anger override our love of rational discourse. I have many liberal friends with whom I can have a rational discussion. I only can think of two that I can’t. Not that I sway the rest, but because the two come unhinged and disparage instead of debate. Do you want to be that person? I don’t. I want my friends, of any sort, to enjoy our discussions. They might think me a fool when we are done, but hopefully a thoughtful fool.

Let’s all take a moment to pray for thoughtful leadership, accommodation in order to honor the Constitution, and the dignity of our fellow citizens. Let’s not get out the tar and feathers. Let’s not gloat. Let’s not whine. Come to think of it, Santa Claus IS coming to town. Let’s get ready to celebrate that wonderful event and get on with our lives.

Finally, be blessed. I’m glad you stopped to read this little missive. I appreciate your loyalty to the blog.

Ebola Is A Bigger Threat Than You Realize.

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You can stop rolling your eyeballs right now. I actually have a considered argument that I have given great thought to in the past few months. Read the blog and then continue to roll your eyeballs all you like. But read it first.

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There is a tremendous amount of news regarding Ebola at the moment. I get more than a bit of news that the average person doesn’t see through some contacts I have, some groups I belong to, and some experience I’ve had working with, and having, infectious diseases. My view of this is fairly solid, and it’s not relying on black helicopters, tin foil hats, or visions from Thetans.

Let’s lead off with an anecdote first: Two years ago I visited Haiti. Two years ago I got dysentary. Two years ago Immodium and a strong antibiotic dealt with the dysentary. Two years ago I flew back to the United States feeling just fine. Four hours after I landed I developed all the symptoms of Dengue Fever. My bathroom rug was never the same. I should have been in the hospital, but I was too sick to get out of bed and call an ambulance: the high fever and hallucinations, combined with dehydration, will do that to a fellow. Thankfully I recovered without further ado in about a week. I felt terrible for a month. Had I known how sick I was, I would have been at the hospital for sure.

That’s how febrile diseases impact you: it’s very fast and horrendously powerful. I don’t think that the current CDC endorsed method of dealing with Ebola is appropriate. I don’t play a doctor on television, nor have I gone to medical school. But the warning signs that we’re being fed a ration of pablum are making my antennae twitch.

Today I got an alert from a missionary support group I belong to that they are discouraging any travel to that region. The VA hospital I use had Ebola warnings posted starting in the parking ramp: If you have been to West Africa, or in contact with those who have been, and have the following symptoms contact our medical staff immediately. I have also talked to several people in the first responder world who are very nervous about this in the wake of their training.

No big deal, you say, they’ve treated all the people infected here and cured them all except that first guy in Dallas. Yes they have. And at what cost? Not that saving lives is a bad thing, nor should we deny care to the sick. But each one of those patients requires a massive amount of care, isolated rooms, special linen and trash service, decontamination of ambulances, decontamination of planes, decontamination of bowling alleys, etc. Each patient is going to cost approximately $300,000 to treat.

In onesies and twosies this is manageable. But wouldn’t it make more sense to isolate anyone coming back from a medical mission, or from one of those countries, for the full 28 days? (21 is the protocol. I like a little insurance in this case – throw in free cable and gourmet meals.) It’s going to be cheaper. The argument is that you will stop the great humanitarians of our age from going to treat the sick. Yes, it will stop a few narcissists from making the trip. But the real saints? 30 days extra after risking their lives so that others may be safe from infection? I don’t think it would be an issue. If you can go and work there for a month, budget two. Three months? Budget four. It prevents the spread of a contagion.

Here’s the nub of the problem: it’s very expensive in both manpower and money to treat a single patient. There are finite resources available to safely handle these patients. What happens when a cluster breaks out, and it will happen here just as it does in Africa, and twenty or thirty people are infected? That effectively shuts down two major hospitals to treat the people. Multiply 30 patients x 25 health care providers and you now need 750 doctors, nurses, orderlies, janitors, etc., to handle the cases. All of whom are now at some risk. For many metropolitan hospitals that’s the end of treating anyone else for a while.

Spread that out now to an ambulance/paramedic system where you have everyone who responds to the scene needing to be monitored and disinfected. Two paramedics, five firefighters in my area will be exposed, as well as a couple of cops. Should they go home that night? Who does their job while they are out of circulation? Who cleans that ambulance if they’re all in isolation? Who goes to the heart attack call down the block while they check it out for being a hot zone?

It’s not the individual patient that creates the panic, it’s the cascading effect. We can handle a case here and there, but one big outbreak in any city and you will see store shelves cleared, EMS shut down, and hospitals vacant. It’s the chaos factor that is the problem.

So the next time they tell you on the news that it’s being handled and you’re a sissy and a panic patient to worry about it, think of the real costs to our infrastructure if a group of 10 people in a mid-sized city come down with Ebola.

But don’t worry: our state department is busily working on plans to bring non-citizens in for treatment as I type this up. It’s as reliable as rocket launches that we will be able to handle this as well. And we’ve been launching those things for over 60 years. Heck, Ebola is only 40 years on our screens. We’ll whip that just as well and twice as quick-like.

Just for a change, couldn’t we err on the side of caution?

Unfair Web Reviews Are A Form Of Extortion

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Have you ever had someone spread vicious rumors about you? Probably. Have you ever seen anything printed in the local paper that defames you? Probably not the latter, but you can get away with it on the internet with no problem. One version of it is nothing more than extortion.

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What happens is that some unscrupulous company (and there are several of them) puts up a review of you, your business, your product, or your reputation on the web. They let it fester for a short time and then send you a lovely email offering to help remove such horrible things from the surface of the earth. They don’t mention that they started the nonsense and hope to take some of your money to undo their damage.

This may sound insane, but I know one professional who fell victim to this whole concept. Their business actually suffered because they refused to play the extortion game. They fought back and asked people to post positive reviews on the web. I did right away and now my good review shows up over the bad one. The bad one is obviously a hit piece, it doesn’t say anything except my contact stinks.

How do you fight such things? Do like my contact did – get everyone in your business circle to write a review. Flood the internet with positives. Don’t lie for anyone, don’t coerce, don’t have your employees do it, but get the people that know the truth to write about it. Find a blogger who writes on your product and invite them to come and sample your product. Tell them you’d like a review of your business. Let them know it can be anonymously done, you don’t want to know when they are there. But get them in the door. If the extortion attempt is bogus, stand on your merits and fight!

On the other hand, sometimes the extortion attempt is legitimate. Sometimes you were a train wreck at some point and the information is valid. What can you do to fix that one? Simple – change your ways. What if it was well in the past and you’re no longer guilty of whatever the sin was. See the paragraph above. Be honest – let the person reviewing you know that you did have problems in the past but have worked hard to fix them. One of the few things that won’t fall into that category is your being a sneaky lowlife. That one is hard to fix in the public world of the internet. For that, you need to go one step further as I describe below.

Hire a Public Relations specialist. The good ones know how to go about repairing your justly deserved reputation as a skunk. Sometimes they can’t fix it – especially if you’re still a skunk. That’s the point at which you had best consider truly reforming your image from the inside out. No? You like being a swine? Then prepare to hand over several thousand dollars for that PR person to line up interviews with shills (in this case, journalists who like free stuff) and expensive planted stories. You will likely have to do something nice for a charity and then keep your mouth shut about your true motivations.

But back to the original point: isn’t it easier just to turn over a new leaf? Live that way for a year, or two, and then plead your case in the court of public opinion.

We’re lucky that our God doesn’t require that we do those things. He only requires an honest confession of our hearts. Beats the internet.

Bill Murray’s “St. Vincent” – A Review

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Let’s cut to the chase: I loved the movie. If you don’t want to see a movie that portrays real life where people gamble, drink, consort with strippers, and bet on the ponies while cursing up a streak, St. Vincent is not for you. You have been warned. (Remember: I have the tender ears of a sailor. My threshold is very high.)

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Let’s start with the good stuff: the St. Vincent trailer

The stars, Bill Murray, Naomi Watts, Melissa McCarthy, and a strong supporting cast (including the children – featuring Jaeden Liberherr) all turn out great performances. The story is a good one and well written for the screen. There are more than a handful of memorable lines in the movie, and the audience seemed to respond well to the ones I enjoyed most (so it wasn’t just weird little me.)

I’m not going to tell you the story line. What I will tell you is that the movie actually has a strong moral message. I know this will upset some of more conservative brothers and sisters, but even rank sinners (which includes me) have some good points. Bill Murray’s character has them in abundance. He is a foul-mouthed, drunken boor on some levels, but a guy you’d want to know on others.

I had an emotionally hard time with parts of the movie. It reminded me, down to the house the movie is set in, of a neighbor in his final years. I loved him as a friend and a compatriot. He was my dad’s age, and he was one of those guys who probably retired too early and fell into disrepair. He had some real reasons for his final decline. Very different in many ways from the Murray character, but the similarities were abundant and touched on a few memories. It reinforced the need to be kind and considerate of people we don’t understand, or would sometimes look down on in our lives.

Compassion is a rare trait these days. I find it joyful on more than one level that a character like this brings it to the fore in my thinking. I smiled a lot during the movie. I also choked up a bit and shed a few tears at one point. Most of all, I enjoyed the movie and rejoice that there is about zero chance of a sequel – it would ruin a great stand-alone flick.

If you can tolerate the language and amoral behavior, it’s a movie you should see. Not for anyone under 16, nor for anyone who can’t stand guys like those that live in my world. I have to give it four ratings:

Five stars for fans of Bill Murray.

4.5 stars for people who can enjoy a great performance and ignore some grime.

Two stars for anyone who objects on a moral basis to any of the commandments being broken. The underlying message is good, the patina is not.

One star for the fussy among us who will complain about anything that you couldn’t do in church on Sunday.

I hope you enjoy the movie as much as I did. St. Vincent is a winner. Look for Murray to grab a little gold statue in the late winter months.

We Turn On Lights For Each Other.

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Many couples stumble around darkened homes, both metaphorically, and literally. The two of them go through their days not concerned with the other unless they are side-by-side. Often that’s not enough to bring out the best in them as a couple. I am proud to say that my wife and I have been schlepping around for 30 years and we still turn on the lights for each other.

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Sometimes that light is just opening a car door. Other times it is making sure that when I leave the house at 11:30 in the morning, still full light, that I turn on the kitchen light so that she will be able to get to the alarm panel without tripping on the dog at 7:30 that evening when she gets home. Other times it is turning on the bedroom light for her before I go back down stairs to work. I hear the click of my room light behind me. I get her switch, she gets mine.

We never organized this campaign of light giving. We didn’t say, “You do this for me, and I’ll do that for you.” We fell into the pattern because we love and respect each other. We have bad days like all couples, but we’ve pretty consistently made sure that the other member of the team is priority number one in our lives. I like that in our marriage.

If I could give any counsel to others who are dating, newly married, or in a marriage that’s getting stale and runs the risk of breaking up, it would be to turn on some lights.

Take the time to make sure that when you stock the beverage drawer in your fridge you put in a couple of bottles of her favorite soda. Ensure that the licorice bag on the top of the fridge has enough to get him through the weekend. Get the extra container of handy-wipes for her because she’s got that art project this weekend and goes through a whole bunch of them. You get the idea: think of the other before yourself.

We, my wife and I, try to do this for others as well. I truly enjoy chatting with the homeless guy who stands on the corner as I make my way to church on Sunday. Last week I had a gift card for McDonalds for him, and a spare hashbrown from my breakfast. He needed that hot food way more than I did. The gift card? I have a couple in the car at all times for people in need. Sometimes they are hungry, sometimes sad, sometimes just in need of a kind gesture. The smile I got on Sunday, and the wish that I would have a great morning at “God’s House,” was payment for all that I’d ever done in this realm. I touched another and lived my Christian values in that moment.

It’s not that hard to live outside yourself and nurture others. I’ve even done it when I was pretty much flat broke. It’s a good story, and it’s short. It was Christmas and I didn’t have any money to buy stuff for Toys For Tots. So I went to the warehouse to unload trucks for them as my contribution. One thing led to another and I became their Santa. I paid my mortgage off years early with some of the money I made as a professional Santa. But if I’d never done the right thing and gone to unload trucks that December morning, I wouldn’t have had the blessing of being Santa today.

He does bless us. We just have to be smart enough to open the windows and let the blessings in to our lives. Turning on a light or two along the way doesn’t hurt, either.