Music of the Day: James Brown, Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'

Not serious: The first two buttons of a three-button polo shirt.
Serious: The third button of a three-button polo shirt.

Not serious: SportsCenter.
Serious: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon.

Not serious: Most contemporary movies.
Serious: Radical Islam.

Not serious: Most "celebrities."
Serious: Not having a sense of humor.

Not serious: Any "news" about a "celebrity."
Serious: Hydroplaning.

Not serious: Al Gore, Michael Moore.
Serious: Mark Steyn, Victor Davis Hanson.

Not serious: Undercooked bacon.
Serious: Undercooked bacon.

Not serious: Going bald.
Serious: Going blind.

Not serious: Snowfall.
Serious: A blizzard.

Not serious: Your high school or college GPA (unless you're in high school or college).
Serious: Being fully literate.

Not serious: Forgetting your sunglasses.
Serious: Amnesia.

Not serious: Milk chocolate.
Serious: Dark chocolate.

Not serious: Playing Trivial Pursuit.
Serious: Playing Scrabble.

Not serious: Dry, flaky skin.
Serious: Alzheimer's disease.

Not serious: Most contemporary "pop" music.
Serious: Beethoven.

Not serious: Having a weak backhand.
Serious: Having a good doctor.

Not serious: Fear of a Black Hat (see IMDB).
Serious: The Brothers Karamazov.

Not serious: A sore back.
Serious: An ill child.

Not serious: A rude, clueless boss.
Serious: An ill parent.

AJ

I wear a thin band of aluminum on my right wrist; each morning, after my shower, i put the band over my wrist and each evening, before I go to bed, i remove the band and place it on the shelf in my closet. Every time I put the band on or remove it, I take a moment to consciously think about the name engraved on the band--Charles A. Dale.

I never met Charles Alva Dale, nor have I ever met anyone from his family. The little I know of him I learned from the brief snippet of information that came with the thin metal band that bears his name, his branch of service, and the date he went MIA in Vietnam--6/9/65. I was about a month shy of my fifteenth birthday when Charles A. Dale was lost to his family and his country; my recollection is that tiny Laos was considered to be the next potential "hot spot" that Americans needed to be concerned about, but that prediction turned out to be wrong. Vietnam became the "hot spot" for my generation and Charles A. Dale was just one of the thousands of Americans who became casualties in that little country.

Each day I think about Charles A. Dale and each day I think about how lucky I am to be here and how fortunate I am to have been born and raised in this country. Each day I think about how men like Charles A. Dale gave completely of themselves to try to bring the blessings of liberty and freedom to others. And each day I think of the sacrifice of the young men and women in our armed forces who strive to bring the blessings of liberty to others and who secure the blessings of liberty for those of us who are fortunate to live in this country. These are "only" thoughts I have, and I know that i could "do" more--there are a thousand things I could do but don't do because I'm caught up with my own needs, desires, and struggles (mostly small)--but I at least think about these young men and women who serve in our military.

My friend, The Good Doctor, often has the opportunity to see young men and women in uniform and he always takes a moment to shake hands, offer thanks, and lend a sympathetic ear to any stories that need to be told--his example is a good one, and it's one that I try to emulate when I travel. When I spot a young man with a particular kind of haircut, or someone who is wearing a spit-shined pair of combat boots, I try to go out of my way to introduce myself, thank them for their service, shake hands, and move on--it's a small thing and it's the least that I can do. Afterwards I always look at the thin band of aluminum on my right wrist and I say a silent prayer for Charles A. Dale.

AJ

Music of the Day: Jeff Golub, Temptation

SPECIAL NOTE: I am NOT writing this while wearing pajamas; one of the criticisms leveled at bloggers is that too many of us write about meaningless things while sitting around in our pajamas--for the record, I do not either own or wear pajamas. I am wearing a pair of Levis 501 button-fly jeans, a tee shirt from the Kauai Crazy Shirts store, a Woolrich two-button pullover, some wool socks, and my Acorn sock-booties (worn by NASA astronauts while in space!). This piece may well qualify as more meaningless twaddle on the internet, but at least I am appropriately attired. . . .

The Bacon Conspiracy. Perhaps some nice reader out there can explain to me why it is that short-order/breakfast cooks can not, or will not, make bacon crisp when they cook it; I always ask for my bacon to be "as crisp as humanly possible," but it still usually comes draped over the side of the plate. If bacon can be "draped" and "un-draped" over the side of one's plate, it is not crisp. Here's the definition of crisp that ought to count when it comes to bacon: the bacon should SHATTER if given so much as a stern look by the person who ordered crisp bacon. Anything less than that isn't crisp.

Admittedly, this is not a big deal; most of the time, I simply ask to have my bacon "nuked," which always does the trick, but making crisp bacon in the first place doesn't seem to be too difficult a task, does it? It shouldn't require a doctoral degree to get bacon to appear on somebody's plate in a crispy condition. My lovely and intelligent wife cooks perfect bacon every time--every time!--so maybe it DOES, in fact, require a doctoral degree. I'll have to ask her if making crispy bacon was part of her comprehensive exams. . . .

Why crispy bacon, you ask? Is this simply a matter of taste, you ask? No. I dimly recall some lesson in an elementary school science class (I went to a Lutheran parochial school and they taught science along with religion!) about trichinosis, how humans could be stricken with this disease from un-cooked, or under-cooked, pork products and since then I have always asked for my bacon to be "as crisp as humanly possible." Sometimes I amplify this idea by jokingly mentioning to the server that it would be okay to see smoke billowing from the kitchen while my bacon is being cooked and sometimes this works--other times, I still have to ask to have my pig nuked to achieve the proper level of crispness.

Perhaps some nice reader out there can answer these questions for me: Has trichinosis been eradicated? Do the other chemicals and compounds we routinely ingest in all of our other foods counteract the trichinae that cause the fever, nausea, diarrhea, and muscular pains associated with trichinosis? My 10 pound Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (good both for the clarification of meaning and the tightening of the biceps) makes no mention of this nasty ailment having been eliminated from the inventory of diseases that make us miserable, so I think it's perfectly reasonable to take the simple precaution of having one's bacon cooked until. . .smoke billows out of the kitchen.

I am not given to conspiracy theories, but I do wonder--have all the cooks and chefs gotten together and decided, for whatever bizarre reason that might drive such a decision, to undercook all bacon unless forced to do otherwise? Is there a Bacon Conspiracy? Someone ought to look into this--maybe Oliver Stone could make a movie. . . .

AJ

Music of the Day: Mannish Boy, by Jimi Hendrix

Just before the end of December 2004 my lovely wife's life-long friend Cindy sent us a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. It was a perfect book to end the year--funny, perceptive, useful, righteous. While stumbling around in our local chain bookstore the other evening, I came across Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door, also by Lynne Truss. Whereas Eats, Shoots and Leaves concerned itself with the misuse and abuse of punctuation and grammar, Talk to the Hand is about rude behavior, manners, respect, and ultimately civilization itself.

Ms. Truss must be one of a kind, even in daffy old England--which according to another British writer, Melanie Phillips, is now the nexus for many of the world's most virulent and active Muslim terrorist cells and organizations (see her book Londonistan for some fairly grim details). Please pardon the digression. . . .

Anyone who can get as worked up as Ms. Truss does about a misplaced, or forgotten, apostrophe in a shop window is clearly going to struggle with aggressively rude people, public cell phone conversations about wholly private matters, careening skateboarders on sidewalks, spoiled-rotten children who loudly tell Mum to Eff-Off, metastasizing vulgarity in movies, music, and on television "reality" shows, impersonal corporate and government voice-mail loops, and all of the other manifestations of the rudeness and crudeness of what we now call Western "culture." In Talk to the Hand, she gets pretty worked up, but never enough to be rude (thank goodness!).

As in Eats, Shoots and Leaves, this book is a joy to read; it was a two-day book for me, but then I had to contend with work, various sub-contractors for our house-building project, a recalcitrant and confusing electronic thermostat (with no instructions), and loneliness (my lovely wife was consorting with other academics and then, as a saving grace, with some members of her large and sweetly barmy family). If I'd had fewer distractions, I could have read and absorbed the 206 pages of this engaging little book in a day. As noted in some previous entry, I'm a sucker for scatological humor, which always makes me laugh (I think this is a holdover from military basic training, when the DI's, with their florid vulgarity, constantly forced me to suppress my laughter), but I'm also a sucker for British humor. There's just something about that cool, dry, sly British point of view that makes me smile. (Full disclosure--I've been a Monty Python fan for too many decades to count; it's a sickness, I admit, and there doesn't seem to be a cure.) So, while reading about the frustrations suffered by Ms. Truss, I found myself smiling a lot--not at her, but with her. She always tempers her with wit and that makes this book less a "rant" than a gentle scolding.

But at the core of the book is a serious point about how having manners helps us as individuals to become better people and how that adds to the general welfare of the society in which we live. As she notes at the end of the book, this is about "a different kind of manners--manners, based for the first time, not on class and snobbery, but on a kind of voluntary charity that dignifies both the giver and the receiver by being a system of mutual, civil respect." If nothing else this little book reminds one that even small actions can lead to sweeping improvements; these improvements can be made without the encroachment of government legislation and legislators, or without new burdensome taxation, or without the aid of speech codes, or without more star chambers meant to ferret out instances of sexual harassment.

She quotes Henry James--"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." And she writes this: "Manners are based on an ideal of empathy, of imagining the impact of one's actions on others. They involve doing something for the sake of other people that is not obligatory and attracts no reward." There's something to think about and to act upon. . . .

AJ