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I thought this magazine was long gone. Am I glad to be wrong!

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I had a thought when I heard an NPR report about a professor whose speech at a university was cancelled due to death threats and the like. This professor promoted the idea that people in the World Trade Center operated the machinery which resulted in the deaths of many Arabs, and thus were not innocent victims on September 11, 2001. He called them "little Eichmanns" (not sure of the spelling) referring to a Nazi war criminal who made the Holocaust possible. NPR Morning Edition

Although I don't really agree with his thoughts, I have to believe that the al-Qaeda are winning when we threaten death to someone whose views, while reprehensible to ours, do not result in or advocate harm to others.

However the bigger problem is this: nobody who would read my blog or listen to NPR News seems at all likely to be the sort of person who would threaten to kill someone else for the viewpoints. So all of the people that I know can pat ourselves on the back for not being that sort of person, but we haven't really dealt with the fact that there are Americans that would make those kinds of threats. It's like there are two Americas woven together. So there don't have to be any more terrorist attacks from outside the U.S., because there are evidently plenty of Americans who will happily terrorize other Americans who don't agree with them.

You want to lead the U.S. to greatness, Mr. George Bush? Lead us out of this self-destructive trap.

Michele has the hots for Hugh Jackman. She gushes every time she sees him. She did, anyway, though she's toned it down a little. Hunter knows this, and has mangled the man's name; he calls him Hoo Jack-Human.

So when I saw this, I had to laugh a little.
Flushed Away (2006)
Poor old Hugh plays a rat.

Nothing against the guy personally; I think he's a very talented and good-looking actor. Just stay away from my fiancée, Hoo Jack-rat.

The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs

A MAN and his Wife had the good fortune to possess a Goose which laid a Golden Egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it in order to secure the whole store of precious metal at once. But when they cut it open they found it was just like any other goose. Thus, they neither got rich all at once, as they had hoped, nor enjoyed any longer the daily addition to their wealth.

Original moral: Much wants more and loses all.

Mocker's moral: Quoth I, "The love of money is the root of all evil." The Man and his Wife were the embodiment of evil, and they received their just deserts. (No, I don't mean desserts.) So, if you have a Goose that lays Golden Eggs, I will kill it, because you will just be corrupted by it anyway.

Mockee's moral: The Man and his Wife with a Goose that lays Golden Eggs can have Fabergé decorate their eggs, which will give them a greater financial net worth. They can then auction these eggs at Sotheby's, being sure to donate some of their profits to a worthy cause, which increases their personal social standing and spiritual net worth. That's what I will do when I get a Goose that lays Golden Eggs, someday.

Victim's moral: That Man and his Wife should just remember how lucky they were to have ever had a Goose that lay Golden Eggs. I sure never had a Goose like that, and probably never will.

Critic's moral: Why the hell would anyone imagine that a Goose that was made of pure gold could actually lay eggs? That's moronic. It's like imagining that real geese are actually made of goose eggs when you cut them open.

Pacifists moral: This just goes to show that you should treat all of God's animals with respect. The Goose was made of gold, until they cruelly cut it down in the prime of its life.

Modern moral: We can be greedy. So, what to do when we find ourselves wondering whether we can increase the rate of our prosperity by trying to liquidate an asset?

1. Try to liquidate your assets for an immediate gain (AEsop: you will wind up with a lot less than if you kept it)


2. Decry greed loudly and proudly (note: you might still hoard your own stash while doing this)


3. Don't liquidate: leverage your assets to increase your net worth (or, try to get more money than other people with similar assets; i.e., be greedier)


4. Instead of being greedy, have you tried just impotent coveting (also called wishful thinking)? It's a great way to feel depressed, fast!


5. Change the subject.


6. Be greedy for spiritual assets by critizing the greed of possessions (capital assets)

I should probably point out here that the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs is often interpreted to mean some kind of financial or capital asset, or, as is more frequently found in ManagerWeaselSpeak, access to a resource (such as the people who work for you). I don't limit myself to this interpretation.

I interpret the Goose in this story to represent any thing that is valuable to us that we believe we can change and grow through an act of will, and more specifically, that we can use to put ourselves above others. For example, if you value your honesty, and you can demonstrate to other people that you are more honest than your neighbor by calling attention to a lie made by your neighbor, then you are showing greed for public acclaim, or spiritual righteousness, etc.

It is almost always greed that makes us want to assess ourselves against other people in any way, whether we base our assessment on finances, intelligence, style, strength, spirituality, street cred, or what-have-you. It does not matter whether we wind up ahead in our assessment, or woefully lacking. Just the act of comparing ourselves against others is, at its core, begun from greed.

Greed is something that naturally occurs to us as infants and children. Another child has a toy in her hand, and I don't have that toy, nor do I have the big smile on my face that she has as she plays with the toy. So... I can either take the toy from her, or feel sorry for myself that I don't have the toy, or try to put a bigger smile on my face so as to prove that I didn't really want that dumb toy. I get older, and I just learn more sophisticated ways of doing the same thing. Or, I learn to live with my greed and find ways to manage it.

So, having greed is natural. "Being greedy" is just having unmanaged greed. (Remember, I'm not just talking about material or power assets.)

I recognize my greed as the reason I compare myself to somebody else, for any reason, at any time. The only time when I can effectively make my greed disappear is when I look only within myself to determine whether I have done my best to be or have or do a thing, without basing my standard for "best" on anyone else's accomplishment, but only on what I believe myself to be capable.

That said, I still find that I compare myself to others. Sometimes I choose this deliberately, but I try to be careful how I do it. The best reason for comparing myself against someone else is to challenge my own beliefs about what is or could be my "best." However, I try to quickly take "ownership" of that best as my new standard for what I could achieve (after I've decided that I really could do better than what I had been assuming to be my best). I avoid trying to hit the ever-moving target of just doing better than my competition.

So ... what would I do with a Goose that lays Golden Eggs? Feed the damn thing good Goose Chow, and be smart with the Eggs, but remember it's just a dumb Goose. If I really want to be rich (in spiritual, financial, emotional ways, etc.), then I better learn to start laying Golden Eggs myself. They will probably be really, really tiny Golden Eggs at first, but I bet with practice, they will get bigger. In plain English, I just mean that I would learn how to be an asset to the world in every sense of the word. I would be the best friend I could be, the best investor I could be, the best father I could be, the best teacher I could be, the best humorist I could be, etc.

All right, so I finally hit upon an idea that will keep me posting for quite a long time on a regular basis.

I have an edition of AEsop's fables. It's a facsimile reproduction of the 1912 edition from Avenel Books, New York. My Aunt Pat gave me this for my 9th birthday. Not many things of mine from then have made it with me this far; in fact, I think this may be the possession I have owned the longest.

The premise of my new postings are captured in the title of today's entry, The Mock Pit. I will take one fable at a time, and examine it from whatever viewpoint suits me. Often, this will be a somewhat dry or sarcastic analysis directed at what I see as the silliness in mob psychology around me in the world today. I will be mocking people (sometimes myself included), using fables for leverage. The image to paint for yourself is something like a mosh pit, where rather than moshing, the participants in the mock pit are:

Mockers (played by Moshers)

demonstrate their mental strength and superiority by verbal assault and derision (much like throwing your body at someone else)

Mockees (played by Moshees)

gets blows to their self-esteem by taking something said by someone else (usually a Mocker) too seriously and personally (like getting a body thrown at you)

Victims (played by hurt Moshers or Moshees)

blames others for injuries sustained in the pit, both real and imagined

Critics (played by Critics)

standing on the outside of the verbal fracas, feeling too superior to the people inside the pit to join, perhaps mocking their meaningless battles

Pacifists (played by Pacifists)

standing on the outside, constantly fretting over the likelihood that someone will be hurt by what happens inside the pit

I will not be including the non-participants of the Mock Pit. These are the people who are simple too self-absorbed to be bothered by what happens in the pit. (At a concert, this would describe the vast majority of people who are only there to get high and listen to some tunes.) Some may be temporarily entertained by the mosh pit or mock pit, or both, but only until it's time to take a drag or groove to the beat.

I'm not a cruel person. My point in mocking is to illustrate the absurdity of some of the notions that our modern world has taken on, not to merely humiliate people for my own amusement. The absurdity is found in the way that we've abandoned, in many cases, a basic understanding of character and the human condition that can be found in fables that have survived mostly untouched for thousands of years. Why do we act so silly? I do not know. Perhaps it has something to do with information overload, and our natural desire to distinguish ourselves from others without coming out on the short side of that battle. Everyone wants to be, or perhaps just to believe, that they are at least a little better than most other people. So, I'm going to do what I can to present a practical moral to each fable, one that might apply to a modern day audience. Perhaps some of the people in the Mock Pit will recognize this as my way of reaching down into the pit and helping some of those trapped inside to get out. (You certainly didn't expect me to believe that I'm in the Mock Pit myself, do you?)

And, so what? Well, nothing really. Maybe this is useful, and maybe it's just so much mental masturbation. Either way, it works for me. So, here goes.

The Fox and the Grapes

A HUNGRY Fox saw some fine bunches of Grapes hanging from a vine that was trained along a high trellis, and did his best to reach them by jumping as high as he could into the air. But it was all in vain, for they were just out of reach: so he gave up trying, and walked away with an air of dignity and unconcern, remarking, “ I thought those Grapes were ripe, but I see now they are quite sour.”

Original Moral: Any fool can despise what he cannot get.

Mocker's Moral: The Fox is pathetic, and should know better than to try to get Grapes that he can't reach. Get a life, Fox.

Mockee's Moral: The Fox just hasn't tried hard enough. Keep trying, Fox! Keep trying! You'll get them! I just know it!

Victim's Moral: Whoever built that trellis so high was clearly being mean to Foxes. From now on, all trellises should be built low enough for even poor, small foxes to have all the grapes they want.

Critic's Moral: Foxes don't eat grapes, people. Foxes eat rabbits. What kind of moron wrote a story about a fox that wanted grapes?

Pacifist's Moral: Would someone please give the Fox some Grapes already? I would, but it's a Fox, and I'm not sure whether it will try to bite me.

What's the modern moral? All people want things they can't have (yes, I'm talking to you, too, Person who just said "Not Me"). It's only human. There are many different ways to handle this frustration.

1. Despise the thing you can't have (or, in AEsop's words, be a fool).


2. Stop wanting things you can't have (or, give up and be happy with what you have).


3. Want those things even more (or, pursue a fool's errand)


4. Find fault in the circumstances (or, demand that other people hand you things that you want because you feel like you deserve it more)


5. Philosophize about the value of wanting things you can't have (or, never actually face your frustration and powerlessness)


6. Hallucinate having the things you want (or, mock the fox with unrealistic ideals)

What would you choose? What I try to do (not always successfully) is this: When I want things I can't have (and I'm sure it's not just limiting beliefs that keep me from having them) then I just feel a little sad and powerless for a little while, and then I find something else to do that will make me happy and help me feel more powerful.

Michele asks:

How do you feel about me (Michele Princess of Everything) having a blog you can't read, but I'm allowed to read yours?

The short answer is that I've accepted it.

The longer answer is that I understand Michele's requirement serves Michele's interest in that it proves that I can be trustworthy as well as trusting, and that, in turn, serves my interest. Obviously, it's on the verge of being a flagrant abuse of my trust, but I reason that if there's anything there that I should know about, then I will find out about it one way or another. If I don't find out about it, that's on Michele's conscience, not mine.

It is easy for me to feel her having a blog that I can't read is a bit humiliating, disempowering, even emasculating. However, that's a meaning I assign out of my own general fears, not because she has ever shown me that she prefers a relationship like that with me. I can just about completely correlate the worst times in our relationship, for both of us, were the times when I felt the most picked on and helpless; the best times where when I was at my best. In fact, several times I remember deliberately pulling myself out of my helplessness feelings (something I've learned how to do when I choose), and reasserting myself, and then the relationship would take a sudden turn for the better. (This seems only natural.) So I reject that the prohibition from reading her blog is in any way symbolic of power or authority.

I'd also have to add that I would never want to do the same, in reverse. I do have thoughts I don't want to share with Michele. But I don't want to share them with anybody online. My relationships must be personal. Otherwise, it’s not a relationship to me; it’s a sort of reverse voyeurism: living vicariously through the person that I imagine others see me as. Not exactly narcissism, but not far away from it, either. And before you put the word into my mouth that I said this was a bad thing (Michele!), note that I did no such thing. Most people practice living vicariously through other people, especially using our own imagination of ourselves (only a better version). We do something like it when we read books or watch movies. This is not that much different. But I do the vicarious thing, the reverse voyeurism thing, when I want to be entertained. It can amuse me to believe that I’m actually writing something that someone else will find worth reading.

So what gives with this entry in this blog? Ignorant hypocrisy? Unintentional self-satire? Or worse, intentional exhibitionism thinly veiled as a self-satire? No. I write now for two reasons. First, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier entry, Michele has asked me to share some of my thoughts, because she has found them interesting and perhaps helpful. Second, I’ve come to believe that I tend to become a pompous ass when left to my own devices. Writing my thoughts out and sharing them can be an excellent way to pop my big head when I stop to think about how full of myself I must sound to the people who actually know me. This is not to say that I think all bloggers are guilty of either over- or under-self-inflation. I don’t try to answer that; I only know myself, and even then, not very well.

Michele has shared some of her entries with me. I’m curious to read the rest, and I hope to, some day. I’m impressed with the overall experience of reading her stories. She seems to have a talent for balancing the pace, mood, detail, and rhythm of the story. For those who would pick her writing style apart, I would counter with this. Mario Puzo, the author of the novel The Godfather, and two-time Academy Award^® winner for the screenplays for The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, told Terry Gross in an interview on Fresh Air^® (re-broadcast on December 10, 2004), that he had no training whatsoever for writing a screenplay when he wrote the screenplays for which he won the awards.

“After I had won two Academy Awards, you know, from the first two Godfathers, I went out and bought a book on screenwriting, ‘cause I figured I’d better learn, you know, what it’s about, because, it was sorta off the top of my head. And, uh, the first, the first chapter of the book said, ‘Study The Godfather I; it’s the model of a screenplay.’ So, so, I was stuck with the book.”

Well, Michele’s writing just works for me. But I get plenty of her stories, told in real time, by the author herself, so I don’t think I’m missing anything crucial. But one of these days, she’s going to get herself really famous and published, and then her blog will be turned in a book, and it will be a best-seller, and then I’ll get the audio version to listen to in my car, and then I will get it all anyway.

Love ya, sweetie. Thanks for letting me spend a lot of time making these entries that only you will read.

Michele asks:

What was your best holiday memory. or What is is like not having any family (besides your kids) make you a priorty on christmas.

I'm not sure whether I have a single distinct memory of a Christmas holiday, or whether it's a few of them mixed together in my memory. I suppose I have favorite scenes from Christmases past that I like to revisit.

My Grandma and Grandpa McBee had the tree with the bubble lights, and I was absolutely fascinated by those. I deliberately sought them out and bought some a few years ago when I lived in Seattle. I still have them, much to Michele's dismay. One of these years, I'm even going to get to put them on the tree, no matter how tacky she thinks they look.

My Grandma and Grandpa Schreiner always had a beautiful tree and a fireplace and all the trimmings of Christmas that we didn't have at home. But the best part was always how much we could laugh. Grandpa and Uncle Hank were funny to the point where I thought I would never be able to breathe again from laughing so hard. I wish I had inherited Grandpa's knack for telling funny stories and jokes.

Oddly, my favorite memory is not exactly the happiest one. We were returning from Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa McBee. It was a good Christmas, both in terms of the overall experience and the booty. The only items I definitely remember getting were Disney comic books, and a ViewMaster. I'm sure we got more, but can't place anything else in this memory.

So, as I said, we were returning home. This would be the Christmas when I was in fourth grade, so I would be ... nine? Yes (I checked), nine. We lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas (home of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks in the northwest corner of Arkansas), but Grandma and Grandpa lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The trip back is about three and half to four hours in good weather (which, by the way, is nearly FOR-EVER in a nine-year-old boy's mind), because we have to go through Fort Smith, Arkansas. It's 1978, folks. The new highway between Tulsa and Fayetteville has not yet been built.

In case you missed the two minutes in high school geography class where they mentioned this, or don't happen to live near there, the Ozark mountains cover the northwest corner of Arkansas. Not a problem for you, because you are one of the billions of Americans that has an SUV that is four times as much car as you need and you drive like you own the damn road and, since you have a SPORTS Utility Vehicle, you can also pretty much ignore weather conditions and road curves because SPORTS Utility Vehicle is virtually synonymous with Can't Touch This and also with I Am Mr./Ms. Indestructible. So what do you care about mountainous roads in the middle of winter at nighttime? You don't. So go back to your SUV already and run more people off the road because you have enough money to pay for God's insurance deductible, and get off my blog, because this is a NO-SUVs-ALLOWED blog.

Where was I? Oh. Right. Mountain roads. Winter. Night time. And not an SUV, but a ten-year old Plymouth Valiant. Or a Fury. Or something. I was not into cars.

So, we were coming back, and had already been delayed for several hours because there was too much snow on the road and we didn't have chains for the car. Or we had chains and it didn't matter. Whatever. We had to wait at some restaurant with hundreds of other people who were also delayed and Not Happy At All Mister With This. Now it was dark, and we were tired and worn out from Juvenile Christmas Exhaustion, but we couldn't sleep because of something which had happened on the trip out to Tulsa.

[The blog screen skews sideways with a video-rewinding special effect, along with rewinding sound effects.]

We were probably an hour away from Grandma and Grandpa's house, and although we had seen the signs saying Watch For Ice several times, we had not seen any. Nevertheless, as we made a turn on a nearly flat but curving section of the interstate hightway, every one of us immediately noticed the sudden and unexpected absence of centrifugal force that normally pulled us to the outer edge of each turn. I think we were all a little stunned into silence as the car kept turning to face the side of the road, and kept turning to face backwards, all while we kept our 50 MPH pace along the highway. I want to say we made three rotations while slipping on the ice, but perhaps it was only three-fourths of a rotation. It was, regardless, too much rotation for any car to make. We hit nothing, but slowly came to a halt on the side of the road. A fellow traveler stopped to make sure we were all right. We were shaken, but exhilirated that no harm had come to us, and, after all, it was almost as fun as any amusement park ride. None of us, however, felt lucky enough to think that another slip like that would end so pleasantly.

[The blog screen swews again with fast-forward special effects and sound effects accompany.]

So we were dead tired but unable to sleep on the return trip, for we knew that the ice in the mountains was much more treacherous than ice on the flat interstate highway. For one thing, ice in the mountains would be surrounded by actual mountains, which tend to have a lot of height to them, and darkness actually increases this height by making it much harder to see how far away the height ends. So, unlike our little spin on the interstate which ended with us thinking we would do it again if we could just be sure that it would end the same way, this time we were filled with silent dread as we watched the dark gray shadows of trees and towns float past the car. I think I prayed a lot that night.

Finally, Mom needed a rest. Frankly, so did we. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. No one was open, and we needed a place where we could go inside and get warmed up. We trudged on. I was beyond exhausted, but I was even more worried that Mom would tucker out and fall asleep at the wheel, or at least wouldn't be alert enough to avoid the treacherous mountain ice. Then we saw it. Lights on, inside the window of a building. It was an all-night laundromat. We didn't care. Mom stopped the car, and we brought some of our Christmas stash with us. I brought my comic books. Mom tried to get a little rest. I tried to rest also, but was thwarted in my attempt by a savage industrial chair designer, who had, with clear reckless abandon for the comforts of mere nine-year-old boys, designed a fiberglass chair molded so as to contour a seated body. This might have been all right by most standards, but my body did want to be seated. My body would much rather have been prostrate across several chairs. If the side of my body were designed with large soft scallops along it (so that it would dovetail neatly into several molded fiberglass chair seats) then, again, this might have been all right.

Forever, in my mind, I will have a haunted feeling whenever I see large, boxy, corrugated steel buildings in the middle of nowhere, illuminated by cheap mercury vapor lights outside and cheap flourescent lamps inside. We weren't even in a town, or, if we were, there was no way to tell. The laundromat smelled of detergent, bleach, and mildew.

What makes this my favorite memory? For once, we were actually all alive, together, as a family. Sure, I still didn't want to share my new banana-scented Pickles® Brand soap with my brothers. But there weren't many other times when we were closer. Yeah, it was an "adversity brings you together" kind of thing. But what the hell. I would take any kind of way to have a family that felt like it belonged together.

I don't know whether that thought occurred to me at the time. I think it did not. But I did know that we were in a really lonely place, at a lonely time of night, and Christmas was over. Maybe I didn't really feel very thankful for having my family right then. But I most certainly did have my family then, and now, when I look back, I'm really, really glad I had my family back there in a lonely laundromat at the lonely hours of the night on the lonely side of a mountain.

We got home okay. We had to leave the car at the bottom of the steep road that climbed the mile-and-a-half to our house, and walked up, because our car wouldn't make it up the snow and ice that covered it. But at least we were home, and we were all safe. Well, I was safe. And I'm glad, now, that we were safe.

How do I feel now, with a family that is still barely there? About the same, I suppose. It's not a family that I count on for happy family memories. But it is my family, and all my wishing for a happy-family-memory-making family has not yet yielded one, as such, so I'll take the family I have.

I do love my family. And I love my new family. If I could have a Christmas wish really come true, it would be that I could have both families together, both happy, both thankful that none of us are cursing ignorant chair designers.