Posted on September 30, 2004
A barnacle is a person or thing that clings tenaciously, according to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. And a variety of barnacles are creeping into the English language. They are as unwelcome as their watery cousins, the alewives, since both tend to pollute that which they inhabit.
Barnacles repeat the meaning of the verbs they attach to and are basically unnecessary. Yet, everyone uses them. In the course of a single day, I heard the following examples: “He fell down from the ladder.” “I lifted up my glass in a toast.” “The gardener sprayed on the weed killer.”
Hey, could he have fallen up the ladder? Could I have lifted down my glass in a toast? And what about the gardener?
Are we so lazy that we don’t think before we speak? Or maybe we’re thinking of something else internally while casually expressing a thought on a subject externally. It’s just that we are losing the battle against clarity and preciseness. By removing ‘down,’ ‘up,’ and ‘on’ from the above examples, the sentences lose no meaning but are actually better written or spoken.
I’m waiting for the first debate this evening between presidential candidates Bush and Kerry, and one of the things I plan to listen for are barnacles. It will help keep me awake, and I’ll provide a report in a day or two.
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Posted on September 29, 2004
“So,” I said to Earl over our usual morning coffee, “what would you think of creating some ground rules for watching the first debate tomorrow night? I mean, in the same room?”
He looked dubious. After all, we are rooting for different presidential candidates and, at times, have been very vocal about the other’s obviously ridiculous choice.
“I have an idea,” I said, pursuing the topic when he didn’t jump in. “I plan to iron; maybe you could do other busy work too. This way, we’d get something accomplished. As for the candidates’ remarks, we would have to agree that neither of us could editorialize aloud. We could not comment on the commentators either. The only thing that would be open for discussion is the actual question that is asked and its merit. This way, we take the focus off the people and put it on the issues.”
Now I know Earl loves me very much, and that he would much prefer to spend an evening together rather than each of us being sequestered in our own corners watching our own televisions. So I wasn’t surprised when he agreed.
Then I sweetened the pot by offering to bake a Presidential Pumpkin Pie and serving it at what might be the half-time show, if there is one. Failing that, we’ll eat when we please, since I’m a great believer that the way to quell anger is through a man’s stomach.
See more 10 Minutes in category 2004 Election, Politics
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Posted on September 28, 2004
Five weeks – that is, thirty-five days — from today is the national election to determine who will be the President of the United States of America. While I am eager to learn the outcome, (and definitely have a preference regarding the candidates) I am even more eager for this election is over.
I’m tired of talking about war records that are three decades old. I’m tired of boots vs. flip-flops and mudslinging that even gives mud a bad name. I’m tired of snide remarks from the candidates and snider responses. I’m tired of political pundits trying to take center stage with their wit and insight and predictions. Lastly, I’m already tired of the betting, as in futures and soon-to-be in Las Vegas, that has begun regarding this election.
In fact, I’m so tired that I’m beginning to choose disenfranchisement over debate.
The first of the various presidential debates is forty-eight hours away, and I plan to watch it while I iron. I figure the two activities are on an equal par. I feel I should participate in both, although each is tedious and boring. I hope both will make me feel better, although I suspect wearing pressed pants and shirts will do more for my psyche than listening to Bush and Kerry. Then, when it’s over, I will dismantle my iron and board and move on to other, more interesting, things until I need to iron again.
Hopefully, this will coincide with the next presidential debate!
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Posted on September 27, 2004
When I worked at La Leche League International as the Director of International Relations and Marketing, I often used the phrase “I’ll sleep on it” with my staff. It didn’t mean that I would actually go home, lay down, and spend eight hours in bed. What it did mean was that I would think about it seriously before saying, “Yes” or “No.”
I’ve found sleeping on it is an effective way to allow oneself time to come to a decision, an opinion, or a course of action. In today’s world, with its “I want it all now” approach, instant decisions can sometimes spell disaster. So when I say, “I’ll sleep on it,” what I’m really saying is that I need time, even if it’s just a few minutes, to think about the issue before making a dyed-in-the wool decision.
My La Leche League staff members eventually became comfortable with this approach, because they knew I took their requests seriously and that I would get back to them with an answer when the sleeping period was over. They came to understand it wasn’t a ploy to avoid answering; rather, it was a technique for providing the most thoughtful answer possible.
Today, I’m no longer at work in the nonprofit world, but I still use this technique whenever a difficult issue arises. Ultimately, taking time to analyze a decision one is about to make is time well spent. It’s well worth sleeping on.
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Posted on September 26, 2004
Bill O’Reilly was one of the guests on tonight’s “60 Minutes,” having achieved fame for himself for the “No Spin Zone” he hosts on Fox TV five nights a week. I found him to be somewhat argumentative with the 60 Minutes interviewer, as if he wanted to moderate the interview with himself, himself.
I’d not heard of O’Reilly until last spring when he appeared before the local Southwestern Michigan Economic Club, of which Earl and I are card-carrying members. Mr. O’Reilly spoke before this group; and, truthfully, I was taken with his speaking abilities. He didn’t seem so radical then.
But since May, I’ve watched him on television more than once. And, politics aside, what I find is that he likes to fight, likes to debate the cause, likes to engage the battle. To me, this seems to stand in the way of maintaining a “No Spin Zone,” because O’Reilly puts his spin on things regardless.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. It seems to afflict every rising popular television or radio star. There’s Dr. Laura, who once dispensed sage advice but now rails against anything west or east of center. There’s Dr. Phil, who once was Oprah’s sidekick one day a week but who has acquired his own show where he pontificates like never before. There’s even Dr. Phil’s son, whose name escapes me, but who is hosting some kind of reality show.
I call all this the real “O’Reilly Factor” where the master of ceremonies seems to pride him or herself on being a celebrity, rather than simply interviewing those who are.
Posted on September 25, 2004
It’s an early autumn weekend, golden and glorious. Being the organized person I am, I’m not only thinking about battening down the garden hatches for this season but I’m also thinking about Christmas, which is three months from today. The sun, lazing in my yard, smiles in approval.
Why do Christmas and autumn go together in my world? Because I do as much of my shopping as possible in October so that the catalog companies can deliver my purchases in November. While I’m wrapping the gifts in December, my credit cards come calling with the final tallies. By the time the Big Day arrives, I’ve got everything wrapped and paid for. January is welcomed like a long, lost friend rather than a harbinger of bad news.
It wasn’t always like this. For many years, I ran to the mall the week before Christmas with my plastic card in hand. Waving it here and there, I bought what I needed and ran back home to wrap and ribbon and tag just in time to have it unwrapped by my eager family. Then January, with its financial reckoning, came skulking.
I don’t mean to rush the season, like some retail merchants who already have their displays up. Rather, I mean to make it easier on my budget by dividing the shopping tasks into a few months rather than just one week.
There’s also an additional benefit. Instead of worrying about holiday bills after the first of the year, I am free to think about daffodils and tulips three months early. And perhaps that is why the sun smiles today.
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Posted on September 24, 2004
It’s the little things that take the most getting used to. For instance, the new headset I bought a couple days ago, so that I could talk on the telephone with my hands free, is very different from my previous one. It isn’t just the color, which is white instead of black. Nor is it the brand name.
It’s littler things than that. Like how much smaller the buttons are and how much louder the ring is. And how different it sounds. In fact, I was in the kitchen demolishing a tuna sandwich when my new phone rang, but the “tune” was not the one my ears were accustomed to. In the back of my mind a voice asked: “Hey, isn’t that your phone?” “Nah,” I mentally replied.
I have a new calculator too. One of its features is that it turns itself off when its buttons aren’t pushed for a certain amount of time. I imagine this is a battery-saving feature, but it’s driving me nuts. When I want to calculate, I want my machine at the ready.
In time, I’ll get used to these new versions of old gadgets and, like Pavlov’s famous dog, I’ll come running when the bell rings.
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Posted on September 23, 2004
A few days ago, I wrote about Robert Louis Stevenson. Through his writings, he was my childhood friend. Through mine, I hope he would consider me a fellow writer. But with only ten minutes to share something about him, I never got to what I like most. It is his epitaph.
Stevenson died of tuberculosis in Samoa, on December 3, 1894 at the age of forty-four. According to A Concise Treasury of Great Poems, “sixty natives carried him to a peak on the Pacific, and there a tablet was placed carved with the lines which Stevenson always intended as his epitaph.
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here lies he where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Epitaphs are the final words about a person that Posterity reads years down the road. I haven’t chosen mine yet. I only wish I’d penned Stevenson’s verse first. Failing that, I may have to resort to:
RLS, may I join you?
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Posted on September 22, 2004
It is every writer’s disappointment: to enter a contest or send a manuscript to a publisher with high hopes, only to have them crushed by rejection.
I have played this game long enough – at least fifteen years – to know the chances of having one’s work accepted are close to slim and none. Yet, like any addict, I return again and again to that which hurts me.
Yesterday’s particular pain came from the posting of the Power of Purpose awards on the web site by the same name. I was not among the winners.
Back in spring, I’d been struck with the goals of the competition: to explore how the power of purpose directs one’s life and, possibly, changes the world. So I’d submitted an essay for the contest that, by the way, had a $100,000 first prize. No that isn’t a typo. One hundred thousand dollars is the largest sum I’ve ever seen given as a literary prize. I had to enter.
Since this was the first annual contest of its kind, there were no previous entries to study. There were no former winners to pour over, in the hope they provided some clue to the organizers’ personal bias on the topic.
I submitted my story about Earl, who at age 63 achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a rookie policeman in the City of Chicago. If that didn’t take a power of purpose to achieve, I don’t know what did. Truthfully, I knew from the start that his accomplishment might not qualify as a world-changing event, but I reasoned his example could motivate others his age to do likewise. Going forward, wouldn’t that be world-changing?
The Power of Purpose organizers saw differently. The winning essays were posted yesterday; and, while I haven’t read them all, what I’ve read so far indicates they were looking for lofty, life-altering, philosophical answers to the question of the power of purpose.
I can’t fault them their preference; it is their contest, after all. I just need to recover from the disappointment and keep sending those manuscripts out.
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Posted on September 21, 2004
Traditionally, today is the first day of autumn, although I imagine the constellations don’t always fall into line every year. Regardless, this is the day I celebrate the disappearance of summer and the arrival of fall.
In reality, it isn’t a one-day thing. Here in southwestern Michigan some trees have been slowly turning color for a couple weeks, at first making me think autumn would be early and winter would be long. However, my neighbor tells me the season proceeds about the same pace every year.
I think I’m too used to city life, where autumn shows up one weekend and disappears. She’s like a casual date whose affections are fickle.
Here on the river, I watch every little nuance of change, every subtle shift of color; and I realize that if autumn were a record, she would be an extended play sort of thing. Today, the colors of some trees sing for attention, but next week there’ll be others and even more the week after that. By season’s end, it’s the entire chorus that overwhelms.
My neighbor says the best week will be toward the end of October; and, since she has lived here over three quarters of a century, who am I to argue? I’ll take it, and realize that city dwellers catch only a glimpse of the real season as it struggles to exist at all amid concrete canyons and blacktopped parking lots.
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