Murder / Puppy Dog / Car Wash

Info-tainment


Unless you see it happen with your own eyes, everything is editorialized. If you see a car wreck, tell your mother, she tells her neighbor and they tell a co-worker, chances are that theco-worker's vision of the carnage is much different than what you saw. Each successive interpreter of the story puts a slant on it or leaves something out. This is editorial-ism. Sometimes it is unintentional, but most times it isn't. At least where the media is concerned.

If it bleeds it leads - The 'Breaking News'

Some of you may live in pretty rural areas (lucky bastards), but most of us live in the cities. If you do, and you happen to get your daily information fix from the local TV news channel this should come as no surprise. Without fail, every time I tune in the 6pm Evening News, there is always a bold graphic with an urgent sounding voice-over, "Breaking News ONLY on Channel 12: Pickup Truck Stuck In A Dry Creek Bed.....News-Copter 12 is on the scene...come in Captain Dave."

There has to be a breaking news story to get your attention. It has be to urgent, and if it is bleeding or on fire....ALL THE BETTER. Lets face it, our inner demons love looking at the things we aren't supposed to see. Do all those Nascar fans go to see who wins or who hits the wall hardest? Since producers and editors know this, and since producers and editors jobs are on the line if the advertisers don't show up to cover their paychecks....Captain Dave is kept pretty busy hovering near overturned vehicles and house fires. Not that this is News by the way....it is just good entertaining carnage and destruction. If they were still sacrificing Christians in the Colosseum in Rome, you know the news blimps would be fighting for the airspace above it.

This sort of media manipulation has been going on since scribes put pen to parchment. What concerns me at this point is the saturation level. There is a growing segment of the population that is feeding off this like hungry piranha.

When I was a young man in college I had one of those moments that made me stop and think. I was working in the college media center. This is back in the day when most of us still had black & white televisions, and there was no cable, much less the Internet. You had three channels (ABC / NBC / CBS) and that was it. One evening I was alone in the media center and had all three of the networks up on different studio monitors and watched all three nightly news casts at the same time. It was eye opening to say the least.

The lead story on ABC and NBC was the same, but it was the 3rd story on CBS. Likewise all the other stories deemed newsworthy by the network gods were jumbled in random order, and some were missing entirely from various stations. This puzzled me. Who was making the decision on what I should and shouldn't know about?

Later that evening, I walked back to my college apartment and turned on my shortwave radio (yes I used to have one, Radio Moscow was a hoot to listen to). I tuned in the hourly BBC shortwave broadcast (which always started out with the chiming of Big Ben and the intro "This Is London") and got the 'world' prospective. I was amazed that almost none of the stories on the BBC were even mentioned on the American nightly newscasts. Especially the 47 Ugandans that had been murdered that afternoon. Africans dying back then wasn't considered real news-worthy I suppose.

This is what started the seed in my mind about who was telling me what and for what reason. That seed has since grown into a redwood.

Media outlets lean more and more toward hype and our base voyeur instincts and less and less toward the knowledge that we really need to make an informed decision.

As in school or any training class, repetition is the key to retention. You memorize things until they become second nature. That includes what you see as well. Repeated images of Paris Hilton /IEDs in Iraq / and college gunman reinforce the 'image' not the message.

You can tell teenage girls not to act like Paris Hilton, but the more they see her, the more they want to be like her.

You can tell folks that we are winning the war in Iraq, but if all you show are Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) blowing up American soldiers, that isn't the perception.

You can report on the missed opportunities to help a troubled student before they go postal, but the resultant images and media blitz only reinforces a troubled youth's belief that violence is a valid option.

Media has always manipulated the masses that watch it. William Randolph Hearst knew that, so does Rupert Murdoch, but I don't think anyone is questioning what the digital revolution and global compression are doing regarding the effect on society's mental health not to mention its ability to make an informed decision.

Which brings me to the title of this Blog. I suspect that there is actual a psychology to the evening news format that goes beyond our thirst for voyeurism. I have noticed this pattern in local news coverage. I call it the Murder / Puppy Dog / Car Wash scenario.

The lead off story, is usually some grisly murder or death (preferably with pictures). This imagery is sad and depressing, but holds our 'thriller' interest.

The next news story is warm and cuddly. Usually involving a furry animal or baby or an elderly person riding a unicycle or knitting the worlds largest pot-holder. This calms our fears and anxiety and softens or erases the images of grisly death from the first story.

Then comes the story of redemption. The car wash, which is usually being held by high school students to raise money for the funeral of their classmate who was killed in the previous days grisly murder. Thereby leaving the viewer with some sense that there is hope in a really wacky and screwed up world.

Then they go to commercial.

You may laugh at this and think I am stretching it a bit. But seriously, watch your local news and keep in mind that those stories are not put there in random order. There is a producer / news editor behind the scenes pulling strings and determining what you need to see and what you need to know (and what you need to think).

Hand me the remote....I want to see what is on Cartoon Network.

Retribution

Is Lynching Really A Bad Thing?


I am going to rant for a while....

There is something that has been really bugging me. It has been growing and not diminishing over time. It just keeps getting worse.

It is the concept that no one is accountable for their actions. You can make a mistake and be forgiven. No foul, no harm done. I understand that this had a certain logic in the past. Forgiveness was divine, tolerance and patience were a virtue . But like so many things in our lives, this concept has been corrupted over time. The lack of accountablility has become so ridiculous that it has direct adverse consequences on all of us.

I first started thinking about this when the whole illegal immigration debate started heating up last year. I live in the American Southwest where illegal immigrants from Mexico are a daily way of life. They are ingrained into the economy and we couldn't live without them. The folks that don't want them here endlessly debate how to 'get rid of them' or how the laws need to be changed.

This raised a question in my mind. Instead of how to deal with the problem, why aren't we looking at what caused it in the first place. Where was the proper funding for the border patrol back in the 1970s? Who was in charge of the INS at the time, how much money did they request from Congress and was it approved? Were there reports documenting the increase in illegal crossings? If so, where did they go and who made the decision NOT to act on them?

Many will say that it does little good to look for the lack of management or leadership in past and to deal with the problems as of today. To that statement I say, "bullshit". If there is no accountability in the past, what motivation do the current people in charge have to make the correct decisions. They know that if they fail, they won't be held accountable for the failure that the public entrusted them to prevent.

This same scenario is repeated in the news on a daily basis with people arguing over how to fix a problem that should never have been allowed to fester in the first place.

Corporate CEOs at Enron, Home Depot and Cessna are making millions of dollars a year in compensation while running their companies into the ground. Where are the federal regulators and Board of Directors 'before' the companies collapse?

Several years ago, in the Arizona legislature, a state senator put forth a bill that was approved by the house, the senate and signed by the governor. This bill allowed Arizona citizens to receive a tax break on vehicles that were converted to propane power. Only problem was, everyone wanted the tax break, everyone started converting to propane and the state went bankrupt. The next election year the senator was booted from office and promptly went to work for a propane distributor. Where was the oversight in state government that allowed all these senators, representatives and even the Governor to allow this debacle to happen? No one served any jail time and the senator that pushed the bill through was 'investigated' by the Attorney General who found nothing improper. The end result is that our elected government threw away almost 800 million dollars of taxpayer money. Those legislators are all retired now and living on state pensions. Does this seem right?

My wife and I are fixing up an old house in an historic neighborhood. Needless to say, there isn't much standard on our house (it is 70 years old) and finding a competent contractor to do work on the home has been next to impossible. There is a housing boom in the desert southwest, but most of the homes are built by unskilled labor from cookie-cutter parts found at Home Depot. Contractors are more than willing to take your time to meet with you, but when they find out that they will actually have to do some 'work' and not just plug something in, they quickly back out the door. If I take off 10 hours of work, at $20 an hour, only to find out that the contractor can't do didly for me (even though he said he could), should HE be paying me for my lost wages?

Some of the other scenerios that have stocked my fire recently are:

-Contractors make appointments to give estimates and never show up.

-Retailers sold us furniture, promising deliver in 3 weeks. After 3 months we call to find out they sold the stock to someone else instead and never told us.

-A car dealership takes 4 weeks to do simple maintenance on a vehicle, fails to correct any of the problems and then forgets to reinstall engine components.

-I have uncovered massive failure to collect required data at my job, and when pointed out, no one is tasked to clean it up or reprimanded for not doing their job (albeit, this is government work, not the private sector).

The overriding issue here appears to be a 'push' toward mediocrity where no one is held accountable and if they are, it is generally done in committee where nothing is really accomplished.

The rights of the individual to cover up their bad mistakes, declare bankruptcy, drop their 'failed' jobs from their resume has undermined us all. We have forgotten that living in a society means that certain individual rights are forgone for the good of the group as a whole. In order to reap the benefits of health care, police protection, sewage removal, and well lighted streets, we have to give up our individual rights to start fires where ever we want, disobey laws, throw litter everywhere and fail to yield to ambulances.

If you want to live a life free of responsibility, move to Wyoming or Alaska and live in the wilderness where you are the master of all you survey. If you choose to live within a society, set forth laws that promote the good of the whole (not the individual), tax the populace to fund the infrastructure for them and then ENFORCE them. Living within a society means the loss of some individuality. That is the price we all pay for the benefits of society.

This concept has been lost with the advent of not holding those accountable for the mistakes that they have made. Those that aspire to rise to public office or law enforcement need to be made aware, that if they fail because of their own stupidity (and not by circumstance) they will be brutally held accountable. They are given a public trust to do what is best for all of us and the generations that follow. I do not understand why they can be allowed to walk away while our children suffer because of their actions (or inactions)

Is it just me, or shouldn't we all be mad as hell? I know I get more angry every day.

Salt & Pepper

The Space In Between


Black & White, Mustard and Ketchup, Ying & Yang....you get the idea. Everything has its counterpart.

On my recent day off from work (I take a lot of them, seniority has it's perks) I took my car into the shop to have some work done on it. If you have read enough of my ramblings, you know that my car is not a practical thing; it is more of a hobby. It is also more of an expensive hobby. I guess it is considered one of those mid-life crisis toys that men get when they turn 50. It is also one of those things that every 18 year old dreams of having. Let me tell all you young'uns one thing, the reality isn't quite what you dreamed it would be.

So on my day off I am driving the "Red Rocket" to the other side of town for some $150/hour TLC. I am passing folks left and right and turning a few heads as I go, which is basically what this car is designed to do. More than once, I have driven down the interstate and thought to myself that "I am living the dream", while at the same time calculating in my head how much it is costing me to traverse each mile of asphalt.

I ended up at the dealer and droped off my toy, handed over the keys, chit-chated for a while and left. The dealer has never worked on the car for less than 10 days and I knew I wouldn't be seeing the Red Rocket again for a while. That is just part of owning an expensive adult toy. There are long periods of separation.

Since my wife was home sleeping off some anesthesia from a recent dentist visit and in no shape to drive a car, I hopped on the local bus system for the 2 hour bus ride back to our house. This was the other side of the coin.

Phoenix is a driving town. It is built on the assumption that everyone has an automobile. Although, Phoenix has improved its bus system over the past few years. They had to, with the shifting economy and the influx of immigrants that need to ride it. This city is really spread out and you can't walk anywhere, especially when it is 110 degrees in the summer.

I boarded the west bound bus at its terminus and grabbed a prime seat. What I got to see over the next 2 hours was a succession of folks getting on and off the bus at almost every stop. There were construction workers with tools, office workers, students, elder folks in wheelchairs, some transients, and a whole mess of young Hispanic woman with several toddlers in tow. After a few stops, the bus was standing room only.

As I sat in my chair with my sunglasses over my eyes and my iPod plugged into my ears, I got to watch this whole inner-city opera of characters come and go to the strains of Nino Rota's music composed for Federico Fellini's early films of the 1950s and 60s. It was all a bit surreal.

I mused how each of them would react to driving the rocket to their destination. I wasn't being smug or condesencding. I just wondered if they thought they would ever be living their dream and what it might be.

I as I stared into their faces, I saw the cross section of America that many people don't see while commuting to work in their Chevrolets and Lexus. Some of these bus riders had aspirations and hopes that hadn't been crushed by corruption or bad luck. Some had lived hard lives and it showed in the lines around their eyes and on their foreheads. Some didn't seem to have a clue and were just going through the motions.
This was the 'melting pot' that we all hear about in history books and in social studies. It is a real thing, not just a cliché.

If the politicians that are spending mountains of money to get themselves elected president really want to get my vote, they need to ride this bus for a week. They need to give up their seat for an elderly woman; they need to stand next to the foul smelling drunk. They need to contemplate the 15 year old rapper with the tattoos and the pierced lip. They need to stand holding on to a strap for 50 minutes until their anlkes swell and their feet hurt. They need to become one with the 'melting pot'.

This is one of the little things that the Red Rocket has taught me. It is just one end of a spectrum. Seeing the spectrum from both ends has given me a much better view of all the things that lay in between. Strength isn't found at the ends, it springs from somewhere in the middle.



Sleeping Bus Rider

Three Coins

R.I.F. (Reduction In Flow)
[Federal Building, Phoenix, AZ]


If you live in a big city there are a lot of distractions. Noise made by helicopters, airliners, traffic and pedestrians is everywhere. It is enough to drive you insane sometimes.

When I was young man, fresh out of college and looking for my first job in the Pacific Northwest, I lived in Portland, Oregon. I really loved this city. During those lean years, I had a copy of War and Peace. Every day (when it wasn't raining) I would walk downtown to a huge fountain complex, climb up on one of the high perches in the middle of it, sit down and read Tolstoy for about an hour each day. It was a wonderful experience, because even though I was in the heart of a modern metropolis, I could be totally alone and at peace with all the water falling around me.





Ira Keller Fountain, Portland OR


But now I live in the Desert Southwest. They have fountains here, but they aren't the same. The State Motto of Arizona is "Ditat Deus" (God Enriches). A reference to the bounty of land. This may have been true back in the 1950s, but with the influx of millions of people (many of them illegal from south of the border), the land can't provide as much as it used to.





Wesley Bolin Plaza, State Capital, Phoenix, AZ


When it comes to public works in Arizona (building, roads, bridges, etc...) they don't tend to fund things for the long haul. They build it, and when a fiscal crisis hits, they tend to yank back funding. The end result is that the public works fall into disrepair, and are often times never revived. The end result is money wasted.





City Hall, Phoenix, AZ


Such is the case with the fountains of Phoenix. They were once pretty common. Places where the madding roar of the city could be hushed by the sound of falling water and the cool mist from their spray would comfort the citizens passing by in 100 degree heat. But not anymore. They are tomb stones to miss-management and the shrinking water resources of a society that is unchecked in its growth. There are no more refuges where you can find solitude to read a book or get lost in your thoughts here.





Public Library (Main Branch), Phoenix, AZ


Although, I haven't noticed any brown golf courses around Phoenix, and the fountains in front of huge planned communities in the suburbs still seem to flow. If you have money and influence, the water still bubbles. If you just pay your taxes here, the well ran dry a long time ago.

Cubes

Wake Up Gary.....


A short work of fiction in 4 parts.

Chapter - 1, Pelicans


Chapter - 2, Pirates


Chapter - 3, Sentinals


Chapter - 4, Cubes



Gary had the chills. A storm front had moved in during the night and it had been raining all morning. He was already frustrated from the drive into work. When it rained in this town all the drivers slowed to a crawl, which made his 45 minute commute to the office twice as long. To top it all off, the office air conditioning was on which made the damp air seem even colder.

For a Monday, it was pretty quiet in the ‘cube farm’. Most of his fellow co-workers hadn’t shown up for work yet, even though it was almost 8:30am. Gary had been busying himself with some left over work from Friday. He e-mailed another copy of the spreadsheet to Ralph in accounting and had pulled up his favorite news websites to find out what had been going on for the past two days.

Gary’s co-worker Bob poked his head over the cube wall.

“What’s Up, G-man? Have a productive weekend?”

“Somewhat. Can’t say that it was too enjoyable, but I suppose you could say I got some stuff accomplished. How about yourself, Bobster?” Gary replied.

“Lawn mowing, car shopping, laundry…you know, the usual manly stuff. Aint’ this weather a bitch? Betcha half the staff call in sick just to avoid commuting in this shit.”

“No doubt, should make for a quiet Monday….I hope.”

“Speaking of which, Der Furher won’t be in today either. I guess Rick had something pop up unexpectedly. His secretary said he won’t be in today.” Bob added.

“Really?” Gary responded.

Gary downed the last of his second cup of coffee and stood up from his chair. “Nature calls big guy, back in five.”

“Hope they restocked the toilet paper, they were out on Friday.” Bob responded as he disappeared back into his cube.

As Gary walked down the hall to the men’s room, he wondered why Rick wouldn’t be in. He rarely missed a day of work. Rick broke his arm once playing flag football with his kids and still showed up on Monday with his arm in a cast.

He had returned Fran's call on Sunday but all he got was her voice mail. He wanted to talk to her about a lot of things but hadn't heard back from her.

Gary entered the men’s room and found an empty stall. He closed the door and sat down. This was his second office. This was the place where he could sit in relative isolation and think things through without interruption. He had a lot of things to think about at this point.

Soon after he closed the stall door, he heard two co-workers enter the bathroom. From the sound of their voices it was one of the company vice-presidents and someone else from the finance division.

“So what do you think the scoop is? Was it just an accident or do you think there is something fishy about it?” the voice from finance asked.

“Something sounds funny. From what he knew, she was supposed to be in San Diego visiting her sister, not driving back from Mexico. I am sure there are a lot of questions he'll be asking. At times like this, he'll have to juggle a bunch of things; telling the kids, making arrangements, calling relatives, friends, whatever. I don’t envy him the task. He won’t be back in the office anytime soon.” was the V-P’s response.

Gary sat in silence as he heard the V-P wash his hands.

“Sometimes you never know what’s going on in life until……..” the voice of the finance worker trailed off as both men left the bathroom and the door closed behind them.

Gary got up from the seat, left the stall and headed back to his desk. He sat down and started browsing the internet news stories for his local area. In the archived section, buried in the stories from 2 days ago, it showed a young women killed in a roll over accident south of town.

Gary sat frozen as a wave of doubt, grief, sadness and anger rolled over him like a torrent. He lost track of the time until his cell phone rang and jolted him back to reality.

He looked at the number on his phone’s caller ID. It was an incoming call from Fran!

Gary opened the phone and put the receiver to his ear….”Fran?”

"Hello Gary, this is Rick……we need to talk."

Biarritz

Newer Isn't Always Better


I am sitting here lamenting the end of something. It has actually been gone for quite a while.

I keep coming across the notion that newer isn't always better. There are things that I used to buy or wanted that I can't get anymore at any price. The stuff of my dreams really aren't obtainable anymore, unless I want to manufacture them myself, which just isn't practical.

I don't drive much anymore. Don't need to. When I do, I have a toy car to move around in. It is more of an ego machine than anything else. It is hardly practical and pretty expensive to run. It is 16 years old. The ones they make today are much more expensive and not as well made.

I suppose it is a loss of innocence. We used to dream big and the American Capitalist Dream Machine was there to fill those fantasies, because the machine dreamed big as well.

But those dreams all got lost somewhere between the Summer of Love, the Vietnam War and Watergate. I suppose the Apollo Moon Landing was the last time we really dreamed big and lived large. It has been a slow decent into mediocrity since then.

Pictured above is the 1958 Cadillac Biarritz Convertible. They only made them for about 3 years. Lord knows how many are left and what they might go for at Pebble Beach or the Barrett-Jackson Auction. I am sure they would be worth more than our house.

It isn't that they were great cars (they were). But their real value is they stand as a monument to what our dreams were. And you can't buy those dreams anymore. The Cadillac’s of today pale in comparison. And besides, most folks want Hummers these days anyway.

I have to struggle to remember that there was a time when I looked forward to going for a drive. Back when the roads were empty, I didn't have to pay taxes and my parents owned a car like the one pictured above.

I feel for the kids that get piled into the mini-van to be shuttled through traffic to spend the afternoon at the mall. We lost something in getting from there to here. We lost a lot more than we realize.

(Clicking on the picture, takes you to the website where more of the hand made behemoths are viewable.)

Sentinals

Fran & Gary ...continued


A short work of fiction in 4 parts.

Chapter - 1, Pelicans


Chapter - 2, Pirates


Chapter - 3, Sentinals


Chapter - 4, Cubes



Gary kept his eye on the temperature gauge. It kept inching upward toward the redline and it made him nervous. He had been sitting in line for what seemed like an hour. His Corvette sat at idle in the 105 degree heat as he waited for traffic to inch forward.

This was the unbearable part of returning home. First the wait at the border, then the secondary check by INS several miles into the country, and now this. He had no idea what the delay was, but it had lasted over 30 minutes and he was getting frustrated.

The line of cars in front of him snaked over the hill a half mile away and disappeared. He had no idea how long the line was or how long before his car would start to melt in the desert heat.

As the line of cars slowly crept forward, one car length at a time, he noticed a turnout by the side of the road. It was a rest area with some covered picnic tables. Gary turned his car into the rest area and shut off the engine. "Better to wait here and save some gas than to just sit waiting in traffic." he thought.

The blast of desert heat overwhelmed him as he left the air conditioned cockpit of his mid-life crisis toy. "Dry heat my ass!" he muttered to himself as he walked over to the covered picnic tables Gary sat down and contemplated the barren scenery around him.

This was where reality started to set in. No more cold beer and warm ocean. He was smack dab in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. This was the road back to real life. The trek was seldom pleasant. All around him, tall saguaros stood guard at the entrance to the American dream. Gary pulled out his cell phone to see if he was back in range of the network. "Might as well face the music." he said to himself. He pushed the series of buttons that logged him back into the electronic grid that ruled his world.

“You have 5 new messages and 12 old messages. You are at the main menu. Press….”, Gary cut the automated phone voice off by pushing the #1 button.

“First Message, Sent Friday at 5:32pm......Gary, this is June. I was wondering if we could get together sometime this weekend, maybe have dinner. I want to go over the shared portfolio to see if we want to keep it joint or cash out and cut the final ties. I am going out this evening, but will be…..” Gary hit the save button and sent his ex-wife’s message to voice mail.

Next Message, Sent Friday at 6:41pm……”Yo, Gary! It’s Ralph. Hey, I need a favor. I think I deleted the Excel file that contained the revised annual report with the new numbers from Wednesday. Can you resend the workbook to me before Monday so I can have it ready for the…..” once again, Gary hit the save button. He sort of wondered if the world actually stopped functioning when he wasn’t around. Did everyone just stand around and ask where Gary was until he returned?

Next Message, Sent Friday at 7:05pm…….”Yo Gary! Ralph. Where are you man? I need to get the presentation updated before the boss shows up and…..” click, Gary simply deleted Ralph’s follow up message. He had been riding his coat tails ever since he started the damn job.

Next Message, Sent Saturday at 4:30pm……”Hi Gary. This is Brenda. We met at Rick and Fran’s house warming last month. You had mentioned that if we could find a good wine bar that served a decent Pinot Noir we should check it out. Well I just found a new place that might fit the bill and was wondering if you were available this evening. Its been a long week and I could use the diversion and some good company. If you are interested, give me a call before 6pm. Hope to hear from you! Bye.” Gary smiled for a moment. He remembered what Brenda looked like. She was pretty easy on the eyes and they had flirted quite a bit at the party. To bad he had missed the call. He would have to call her back and see if there were still some possibilities there.

Next Message, Sent Sunday at 11:35am…….Gary, its Fran. Look, I know this past weekend wasn’t any easier on you than it was on me. I…...I wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a bitch. This wasn’t your fault….and…..and I sort of feel that I may have been a bit insensitive. My insides are jumbled up right now, in more ways than one (she laughed) and I have had a lot on my mind……”

There was a long pause and Gary wondered if he had lost the connection. “I just wanted to tell you……”

As Gary listened, the wail of a siren and a revving engine raced past the rest area as a police squad car roared up the side of the road past the stopped traffic. Gary couldn’t hear what Fran was saying even though he pushed the cell phone close to his hear.

“……I don’t know if we can work this out. I suppose we should think about things. Things like this change a relationship. I hope it doesn’t change ours. You mean a lot to me and sure there are times when I have my doubts. But Gary, there are times when I think I would be lost without you...........”

There wasn’t any goodbye, just a pause and the sound of the connection ending. The dust from the squad car drifted over the picnic tables and Gary hit the repeat button combination on the cell phone. He listened to the message once more to hear it uninterrupted.

Gary listened intently and could hear a slight quivering in Fran’s voice. She was usually always calm and collected and rarely got emotional. But this was a different Fran than the one he had known for the past six months.

After the long pause, he listened…….”I just wanted to tell you that I love you……..” she said.

Gary closed the cell phone and brushed the sweat from his forehead. “Damn”, he thought out loud.