What's Wrong With Merry Christmas

The holiday season is upon us, with lots of helpful Santas, and a few scattered Grinches.  It also means we're all going to be exposed to another useless argument about saying 'Merry Christmas' as opposed to the more generic 'Happy Holidays' or 'Seasons Greetings'.

I grew up in a super-conservative Christian area.  There was / is no controversy about this issue there; one was / is expected to say Merry Christmas lest they be identified as an outsider.  I imagine this is true for most of the U.S. fruited plain, which is vastly rural and Christian.

But once you've lived in a more populated area, and have plenty of non-Christian friends, the lines get blurred.  I'm much more likely to say Happy Holidays now, not because political-correctness requires it, but because it's easier.  It covers more bases, and I simply don't have to think about it.

The other day, I asked my non-Christian neighbor about his thoughts, not only on Merry Christmas, but other traditions such as Christmas trees and presents.  A native of India, he said he thought nothing of it.  He certainly was not offended in any way.  Unlike me, he came from a religiously diverse country, and everyone there respected others' traditions.

I'm not offended by anyone who wants to say Merry Christmas, but I am offended by those who would expect it of me, or that think it's the only holiday greeting that should be posted on public property.  Those people are close-minded, and ironically, not being very Christian when it comes to respecting others and their faiths.

Just accept my secular holiday greeting if you get it, as I would accept a non-secular one, and let's move on.

No Thank You

Thanksgiving-time is here, and so is my 9th annual list of things for which I am not thankful.  You can get to the prior lists by starting here or by using following the Thanksgiving label on the blog.

As usual, the following list is in no particular order:

Charging my technology devices.

Confederate statues.

Office workers who don’t clean up after themselves.

Invitations to things I don’t want to attend.

Fake (Fox) News.

The first snowfall, and all of the others that follow.

Sexual harassment deniers who’ve had multiple independent claims against them.

Confirmation bias.

Those who forward their confirmation biases on social media dozens of times a day.

The excessively slow pace of college and professional baseball games.

Christmas advertisements and music before Thanksgiving.

Hurricanes.

Beyond The Evolutionary Lottery

There are all kinds of built-in advantages to being a natural 1) Caucasian-born 2) American 3) male.  Any one of these three gives a person a head start in life; being all three is like winning the evolutionary lottery, especially economically and socially.  I realize this, although most do not.

However, there is one thing I believe no one is naturally born with that, if attained through effort and some luck, creates a big advantage in life.  Intelligence.  (I say luck is involved because although it isn't natural, intelligence is still more likely to be attained by those advantaged, white American males who are far more likely to be educated through college.)

Smarter people are capable of doing more things in life, and doing them effectively and efficiently, and therefore they gain advantages over others.  There are tons of examples, some obvious (understanding technology) and some not so obvious (critical thinking).

Knowledge is power, whether it's at the office, at the bar, or at the neighborhood block party.  Just being able to carry on a conversation with the person standing next to you, whomever that is, can be a big plus in a variety of situations.

There is one major downside for some of the smarties out there:  Their frequent inability to grasp that they aren't always the smartest person in the room.  This brings them well-earned disregard from those they would seek to impress.  Let's just say the positive correlation between knowledge and power is sometimes offset by the negative correlation between intelligence and self-awareness.

Regardless, knowing things other people don't know is a huge advantage in a world that relies less and less on physical talent.  The best part of this is, almost anyone can do it.  (I say almost because again, it helps a lot to be born in America, home of taxpayer-funded public education and the public library.)

If only it mattered more in politics, where intelligence apparently provides no advantage whatsoever.

Visiting The Chowdaheads

I've long wanted to visit the far northeastern portion of the United States -- the New England area, as I usually refer to it.  As a bonus, I've always wanted to do that in October, during the peak of Fall colors.

This month, that visit finally happened.  During the week I was there, I swept through parts of six different states.  Here are some observations from each state:

Massachusetts -- The trip started and ended in Boston, the only place in the area to which I'd previously been.  As with that prior trip, I consider it a friendly town, but unless you're really into colonial history, not that exciting.  A day-trip to Cape Cod was a lot of driving, but more interesting.  It doesn't take much to imagine that big sand bar to be choked with tourists and traffic during the summer months.

Rhode Island -- Spent a night in Providence, which struck me as being like Des Moines if it was located on the Atlantic shore.  Even though it's a small state, didn't have the time to get to Newport, which I suspect would have been a lot like Cape Cod.

Connecticut -- Only drove through the corner of this state.  Nothing to report, except that I was there.

Vermont -- It generally fit the stereotype.  A mostly rural state, with dense (and colorful) birch and maple trees covering the landscape, bed and breakfast-type inns, dairy herds, and friendly people.  Home to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Cabot Cheese, both of which I toured.  It's not that much different than Iowa, with the White Mountain range instead of silos.

New Hampshire -- A lot like Vermont, with one major, unexpected exception: About 25 miles of Atlantic shore line, with vast sandy beaches and some huge houses and resorts.  Who knew?  That small corner of New Hampshire was actually a lot more like I expected Cape Cod to be.

Maine -- We weren't able to make it up to Acadia National Park, but the southern part of the state had its own charm.  Think lighthouses, lobsters, and coastal shipping passages.  I got the feeling that everyone who lives there wither worked as a fisherman or longshoreman.  However, that feeling went away on a visit to Kennebunkport -- a vacation destination for the very wealthy and connected, with the Bush family compound being the elite of the elite.

By my count, this leaves Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and North Dakota as only states I haven't yet been to.  A couple of golf trips should fix that.

A Failed History Lesson

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  So goes the famous quote attributed to Sir Winston Churchill.

This quote came to life for me again in the past week, after watching parts of two different, public television documentaries on the Vietnam War.   The main one was a new, 10-part series called The Vietnam War from Ken Burns.  The other was from a couple of years ago called Dick Cavett’s Vietnam.

I was only in the single-digits old during the Vietnam War, so I didn’t understand then what was happening, either in Southeast Asia or in America.  I only have a few real recollections of it.  One was a day around 1970, when my family was watching a television scroll of calendar days next to numbers.  (I didn’t realized this until many years later, but they were looking at the draft lottery, and probably wondering if a randomly drawn number would send a loved one to the war.)  Another memory was the day the war informally ended, in April 1975, watching TV reports of the last people being lifted by helicopter from the U.S. embassy roof in Saigon.

So, watching parts of these documentaries was new information for me.  It’s hard to understand even now how much of a dumb, tactical, human failure it was for the U.S.  Tremendous, unnecessary sacrifice and loss of life, just to keep a small, remote territory from becoming Communist.  But that’s the way it was then, Communism was our enemy, and we were blind to our limits to contain it.

What really struck me, however, is how similar things were to the (current) U.S. 'wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They also started out as something that would be quickly managed, and with a fair amount of support after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  But again, we were blind to our limits to defeat an idea (terrorism), and the length of the wars and their eventual human cost, which turned American attitudes against it.

Not only are there general similarities, but as the Cavett documentary showed, there are fascinating similarities with the personalities involved then and now.   I thought of a number of them within a few minutes as I was watching:

Lyndon Johnson = George W. Bush

Robert McNamara = Donald Rumsfeld

Dick Cavett = Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert

Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda = George Clooney (and Jane Fonda?)

Muhammad Ali = ?  Unfortunately, no contemporary famous athlete compares to him, and no contemporary athlete suffered like him.

It’s was 40 years between the Vietnam War and the Iraq / Afghanistan conflicts.  Did we learn anything from history?  Now it’s been 50 years since the Vietnam War.  Have we learned anything yet?

Iowa Pride

This past weekend, I attended another Iowa - Iowa State football game in Ames.  I've gone to a lot of these games over the years, and while the product on the field isn't always great, and some (Hawkeye) fans are irrational about their team, the pre-game tailgating and camaraderie are always above par.

For example, a picture that went viral (at least in Iowa) was of two men wearing Iowa State gear lifting a wheelchair-bound Iowa fan -- later identified as a relative of an Iowa player -- up some steps into the stadium.  This is the kind of routine nice that you usually see in Iowa.

It got me to thinking that I've been spending too much time thinking about what's wrong with Iowa.  Things like our politicians, our weather, our meth labs, and did I mention our politicians?

Anyway, there are plenty of good things about Iowa and its residents, including but not limited to.....

* Generally relentlessly friendly people
* Generally intelligent people
* Wide open spaces
* Low crime rate
* Low cost of living

.....and at the end of the day, it's better to focus on these things than on Iowa / Iowans' shortcomings.

But it's easier to spot and write about the shortcomings, so that's going to keep happening.

Winning The Family Feud

It’s long been an axiom that family and politics don’t mix.  This has never been more true than in the past year, with the unexpected election of a polarizing president – and that’s saying the absolute best thing I can about what happened / what’s happening in America.

Even amongst families, there seems to be no bridging the current ideological divide that has been forged by Fox News, Trump, and the Republican Party.  It’s crazy, because none of those aforementioned things even mattered to the general public until recently.

Since the last national election, I’ve been at a few gatherings of immediate family members.  When social and/or political matters have inevitably come up in conversation, I’ve been very good about quickly changing the subject.  (My favorite line is, ‘So who do you think is going to win the [name sports division here]?”)  Changing the subject is better than silence, lest someone mistake that silence as a tacit agreement about anything being said.

I suppose it was just a matter of time, however, before I heard one of my relatives say something racist or homophobic or xenophobic or misogynistic to the point I could no longer bite my tongue. That happened last week.

So I spoke back at them, trying to expose their beliefs as unacceptable in today’s society, and definitely unacceptable in present company.  (By ‘present company’ I refer to me, but there were several other family members in the room, none of whom were willing or able to engage in a sociopolitical conversation.)

At first, I tried to make my points in a passive-aggressive way, with sarcasm and mocking.   Not surprisingly, that resulted in the other person getting defensive, and doubling-down on their hate speech.  So I stepped up my game to equal their verbal aggression, making much more salient and intellectual points.

But of course, that’s where the ‘conversation’ went off the rails and crashed into an awkward silence, because you can’t argue with another person who is unable to recognize – much less agree with – demonstrable facts.  I knew we’d reached that point when the other person claimed Fox News was actually anti-Trump.  Good god, not even Fox News or Trump agrees with that.

So what was the outcome of this family strife?  I simply declared victory by ignoring the other person.  It was a great moment for rational minds.  #Winning!