Pretty Good Beards

I'm going to talk about beards for a moment.

I hate mine.

I've been cursed with my Grandpa Spiers' wispy beard which, when covered with shaving foam and scraped at with a razor, just happily slops around without actually getting cut. I've shaved three times tonight and the best I've been able to achieve is the look of Radiation Victim.

This is how shaving works for me:

Round One: The weakest members -- namely any of those which are my original hair color -- fall first.

Round Two: I can succeed in getting most of the hair off the upper portion of my face, leaving a horrendous-looking neck beard white as the drifted snow.

Round Three: With a new disposable razor, I begin the scraping of the remnants.

Sink is clogged with fallen hair. Neck still looks like a neckbeard meme waiting to happen.

Round Four usually succeeds, but I have to shower first so the hairs on my neck know the gig is up and surrender.

Then it Immediately. Grows. Back.

The only utility it serves is:

1. It reminds me why dogs constantly scratch themselves
2. The mustache does an admirable job of hiding the most offensive nose hairs
3. I go from looking like Commander Riker's fat stepbrother to looking like Commander Riker's fat out-of-work bum uncle.

There's no point to this episode, except to announce that at Round Five I'm typically ready to try desperate measures, like a flamethrower or Nair.

Thanks for listening.

Now, I'll sing: "Buu buh, bu-pa bu-pa bu-pa bu-pa, BUH BUH BUH!"

Taffy Stretching

Explain something to me:

Business A should do business with Person X because even though Person X espouses a view that the owners of Business A don’t support, Person X has the right and obligation to be served by Business A and the owners of Business A are terrible, terrible people for refusing to do business with Person X.

Business B, however, should NOT do business with Group Y because Group Y espouses views that may not necessarily jibe with the culture of Business B, but Business B regards a larger part of its culture as obligating it to do business with Group Y which clearly has a right to be served no matter what they believe. But because Group Z opposes what Group Y espouses, Business B is a terrible, terrible business for refusing NOT to do business with Group Y.

It’s happening here, folks.

Business A and Person X.

Business B, Group Y, and Group Z.

This is the question I want answered: Should business be blind to the political and social proclivities of potential customers, or should businesses be allowed to pick and choose whom they serve based on those proclivities?

Also, I'm pretty sure Figure B has fallen asleep.

"Do I Still Get Paid?"

You, kind sir or madam, could be making money while reading this.

Not from me, obviously. You can’t really expect to earn money from people who don’t have any to begin with. But Google, which owns Blogspot, could indeed be paying you money – and maybe even me money – even though I’m technically not a big revenue generator and you’re reading all of this for free.

Luke Dormehl, writing at digitaltrends.com, seems to think so.

I have no idea who he is, or what his expertise on the subject might be. He could indeed be a writing robot, soon to doom dorks like me into unpaid oblivion for providing free content for Google’s search-bots to . . . nevermind. That’s where I’m at already.

But Google (and I keep saying Google, but it's ANYBODY out there on the Internet: Facebook, blah blah and all) is getting something out of both of us. I’m providing content, marginally valuable as it is. And you, by reading said contact, clicking on said links, are providing some kind of data that Google somehow can alchemically convert into revenue.

So why don’t we get a micro-slice of that, Dormehl argues.

To answer: I dunno.

To answer in a longer way: We’re not Google or whoever is busily scraping that data away, so neener neener to us.

If data is the new oil, what grade are we?

As a content producer, I’m probably in the OPEC grade, though I’m staggeringly behind in producing the quantity needed to fully consider myself such a producer.

As a consumer, it’s a wildcatter’s guess as to where I fall on the grade level. Same for you. But since consumers far outnumber producers, it’s fair game Google and others are still making money selling whatever miniscule bits of data we provide, simply because we’re in a wide, deep pool of data producers.

What kind of a micropayment – and by micropayment, you have to imagine pennies cut to the atomic level is my assumption – are we worth? I don’t know.

There are people making some pretty good educated guesses, though.

So if you’re sick and looking to buy a car, you’re probably worth something. But you ain’t gonna find that kind of advice on this blog. So shoo. If you’re surrendering your data, may as well get something for it.

This Bears Repeating, Apparently

From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago":

At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). ... For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the stormy applause, rising to an ovation, continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin.

However, who would dare to be the first to stop? … After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who would quit first! And in the obscure, small hall, unknown to the leader, the applause went on – six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly – but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them?

The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter…

Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved!

The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:

“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”

The Wheel on the School, Part III

NOTE: This is a note I'll deliver to my writing students Monday.

Evert looked at the roof across the street. With enormous flappings of its huge wings, a stork, with a twig crosswise in its bill, was just then settling down on the rim of the wheel.

“See that?” Auka said.

“Sure, I see it,” Evert said testily. “But they’ll land on mine just as well, once we get it up.”

“The bright paint will keep them away,” Auka said knowingly. “What you need,” he pursued relentlessly, “is an old beat-up wheel  -- just so it’ll hold storks. Lina’s aunt’s is just an old wheel.”

“Oh, so,” Evert said. “Well, all I’ve got is a good, solid, painted wheel, and they’ll take it or leave it.”

“They’ll leave it,” Auks said promptly, “and next fall you’ll just have to haul it down again. What a work!”

“I called you over here to help me, not to give me an argument,” Evert said sourly. “And if I didn’t have to stand here arguing and holding up a heavy wheel at the same time,” I’d give you a good sound swat around the ears!”

“No, but,’ Auka said, “I mean, I know where you can get just the wheel you need, good and old, and it doesn’t have one speck of paint on it. It’s even more beat-up than Lina’s aunt’s.”

He put his shoulder under the wheel and took most of its weight, so he could carefully explain to Evert about the tin man and his hopeless wheel. “He can’t go out with it again,” Auka finished in all earnestness, “no matter how long he soaks it in the canal.”

The man looked at him oddly. “Say, you’re a funny kid, bothering your head about other people’s troubles. The tin man has always had troubles and always will with that houseful of kids. But those are his troubles, not yours nor mine.”

“No, but,” Auka persisted, “if he had your wheel, he could use his wagon, and if you had his, you’d get storks."

Auka, a young schoolboy in Meindert DeJong’s “The Wheel on the School,” has a problem. And so do two others around him.

Auka needs a wagon wheel so his schoolmates can put it up on their roof to attract storks, which the Dutch regard as lucky.

The tinsmith in the village of Nes has an old wagon on which he relies for his livelihood and for that of his wife and children, but it’s got a wobbly wheel that constantly falls off.

Evert has a brand-new wheel, painted brightly in the colors of the Dutch flag, that he hopes the storks will build a nest on. But storks won’t like the bright colors.

So Auka, seeing the problem, proposes a solution: Swapping wheels. Evert gets an old one for the storks to nest on. The tinsmith gets a new one to literally fix his wagon. Auka is still wheel-less, but he gets the satisfaction of seeing two potential friends help each other solve their problems.

I’m hoping that’s what happens in class this week, as we discuss topics for the Argumentative Synthesis Essay. We can help each other through the rough parts of getting our topics right so the wheels don’t come off our wagons later. We might be struggling with a topic -- or blind to its pitfalls -- and someone else, with different experiences, different opinions, might be able to get us pointed in the right direction. Working together, we have much more power than working alone.

The Psalmist writes in Psalms 71:12, “O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help.” Let’s be the servants of God this week and seek to help each other out.

The Wheel on the School, Part II

God, as they say, helps those who help themselves.

And God, as He says, commands His children to treat their neighbors as themselves.

And if your tiny Dutch seaside village is so tiny even the storks don't stop there, you figure out straight away hoe to get them to stop to bring the good luck storks are famed for in The Netherlands.

The six schoolchildren in Shora work mightily to bring the storks in Meindert DeJong's delightful book "The Wheel on the School," which won the Newbery Medal in 1957, deservedly so. The children and their teacher decide Shora needs wagon wheels on their steep roofs -- traditional Dutch habitat for storks, apparently -- to get the storks to stop by, build a nest, and return the next year. The kids spend days combing their village and the farms that surround it for wheels, all the while looking for wheels in unexpected places. They find stealing wheels doesn't work all that much, but befriending the elderly population in the village -- about all that's left, what with the fathers out to sea and the mothers looking after those too young for school -- helps them find wheels where they might never find them.

First to find help is Lina, who becomes friends with Grandmother Sibble III, who tells them Shora used to have storks, and that to get storks they need to find the wagon wheels.

The boys find help in the unlikely shape of Grandfather Douwa, who never strays far with his cane, and Janus, the old crank in the wheelchair who had his fishermans' legs bitten off by sharks. The children quickly discover the old relics in town are more full of knowledge, resourcefulness, and pepper than they ever thought possible.

So it is with God's children. We never know what's in those we encounter until we take the time to remove any preconceived labels or notions and see them for who they are. And despite what we think, the vast, vast majority of people we could meet are pretty interesting and valuable, no matter what our brains or others might have us think.

That's what the folks in Shora found out. We ought to as well.

“People Should Get Beat Up for Stating Their Beliefs”

So. If people saw a Muslim ranting against Christians and Christianity on public transportation, should vigilantes use social media to track the person down and beat him up on a public street?

What if it were a Nazi, ranting against blacks?

You say I’m creating a false equivalency?

Look at that first scenario again.

I’ll bet you’re more likely to want to track down and beat up the Christians, right?

This isn’t an apology for Nazism. Nor is it to be added to the ball of “The Persecuted Christian.”
What it is, is this: Should people get beat up for stating their beliefs? Even if said stating is meant to intimidate and harass? Or do we just believe that free speech applies only to speech we agree with and that the best answer to hatred is more hatred?

I’m reminded, of all things, of a scene from the 1980 film Popeye, where Olive Oyl and J. Wellington Wimpy recognize the baby Swee’Pea has a gift for picking winning horses at the betting parlor.

Popeye happens to be against gambling. But the Oyls are in dire straits, having lost everything to the Commodore.

Popeye: What are you doing, there? No childs 'o mine will be exploiticated for ill-gotten gains. [to Swee'Pea] Yeah, that's true. You're gonna be president one day.

Olive Oyl: It is not ill-gotten, it's good-gotten gains. These races will clothe us, and feed us, and save us.

Popeye: Wrong is wrong, even when it helps ya.

J. Wellington Wimpy: The horses are at the gates.

Olive Oyl: I think family is more important than dumb morality, hmm?



What would I do if I saw a Nazi on public transportation harassing black people?

I’d speak up about it. On the bus. In the face of that Nazi. And hope others in the same car or on the same bus did the same. I might contact the local police if the situation escalated.

I would not track the dude on social media and then cheer when he got the shit beat out of him.
Because in that victory, you’re adding to the paranoia. He is persecuted. He is being held down by whomever. He’s got the bruises to prove it.

And that smug feeling of superiority you get watching “justice” be done? That comes from using fascist tactics against the fascists. Maybe you think using force is right. It’s not. Because the person who uses fascist tactics is a fascist themselves.

I’d love to have this conversation with my father. He saw real Nazis in action during World War II as a civilian in The Netherlands. Maybe he’d think I’m wrong. Maybe he’d want us to punch any Nazi we saw. But I doubt it. Because as much as he hated Nazis, he also loved Tevye’s line from “Fiddler on the Roof”:

Villager: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

Tevye: Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.

Wrong is wrong, even when it helps ya. I learned that from Popeye.

But I’m just a quiet voice in a world where this is becoming the anthem.

The Wheel on the School

In the morning it was school again. There they were in the schoolroom again, the five boys and Lina and the teacher. But this Saturday morning they did not start out by singing the old, old song about their country – “my lovely spot of ground, my fatherland, where once my cradle stood.” No, they sat quietly as the teacher stood looking at each one of them in turn. And then he said, “Who wondered why? And where did it take you?”

The teacher in Meindert deJong’s Newbery Award-winning book “The Wheel On the School” asks his six students an important question. They spent part of the previous week wandering their Dutch village of Shora, wondering why the storks that bring the Dutch good luck never stop to stay with them.

Jella, the natural leader of the boys, went as far as to ask his mother why the storks never stayed. “She said storks don’t come to Shora because they never did,” he said. “She said storks go back each year to the same nesting spots. So if they never came to Shora, they never will. So there’s just nothing to be done about it, she said.”

Lina, however, did some wondering. She thought the roofs in Shora were too sharp for the storks to build their nests on. She also happened to ask Grandma Sibble III, whom prior to that day Lina had regarded just as another old lady. As they talked, Grandma Sibble pointed out Shora had no trees – which the storks also liked. She also said Shora used to have both trees and storks, at a little house surrounded by a moat and willows where their school now stood. Sibble’s Corner, it was called, and was owned by her own Grandmother Sibble. A terrible storm came and blew salt spray over the dike onto the trees and killed them. The moat was filled in, the house torn down, and the school built. If they could bring back trees to Shora, Grandmother Sibble suggested, perhaps the storks would return as well.

I’ve just started reading this book – a lucky thrift store find – and am finding it delightful. I love the teacher’s approach: Sending his students out to wonder why, and asking where it took them.

That’s the kind of journey we should all be on.

And it’s tough row to hoe, being an introvert as I am. Talk to people? Yuck.

But I do. Sometimes. And it does work. It’s wonderful, if I can recharge a bit afterward.