Author: fscobe144

It Snowed in Denver!

 

My God, it snowed in Denver on April 28th and 29th, cancelling the 27th game Jerry “Stickman” and I were to attend on our see-every-stadium-in-America tour. So far this was the only cancellation we experienced in 29 stadiums. (There are 30 major league baseball stadiums,)

Seriously, snow at the end of April!

Should Denver even be allowed to have a major league baseball team? Come on; put a roof over the damn stadium. Also take care of your homeless problem as there were dozens of homeless on seemingly every block in Denver’s downtown area. Hey, have the homeless build the roof as that might help them and major league baseball fans too!

This trip saw us first on a two-day visit where we saw a game at Houston’s Minute Maid Park, a stadium where the lights went zip-zap right into your eyes so that just about every fly ball was un-see-able. Hot, humid, flooding Houston, a city built on a swamp (why build cities on swamps?), and the game was so uncomfortable because of those lights that we left after six innings, blinded and depressed (well, my wife the Beautiful AP and I were blinded and depressed; Stickman and his wife the Sainted Tres didn’t comment).

Next stop was Dallas for a couple of days to visit our niece Melanie, her husband Damian and their two children, their son D3 (Damien III) age 3.5 (you have to put the “point” in—3 point 5—as little kids always want to grow up fast and little do they know most of us grown-ups want to grow-down just as fast) and their daughter Holly, age eight months, who doesn’t have much of an opinion about age yet. These are two happy, well-behaved, joyful kids. And that’s because they have two happy, well-behaved, joyful parents.

Dallas was somewhat different from Houston, it was hotter and wetter and the news was broadcasting that thunder storms, tornadoes and hail the size of D3’s head were probably going to hit us during game time—if there were a game that is. But there was a game that night.

Dallas Globe Life Park was hung with heavy clouds and the scent of death (okay, okay, it was just heavily cloudy; I like to be dramatic). Still, all four of us knew that Dallas Globe Life Park was not the place to be when a raging tornado came down from the sky. In fact, if there were many deaths the name of the stadium would be changed to Dallas Globe Death Park.

Indeed, the Dallas stadium director had the upper deck cleared of fans during the game. Man, these Texans aren’t afraid of death; maybe it’s all that bronco busting.

This game was special to me as it would be my first chance to see my beloved Yankees on the road. Fat lot of good; they were creamed 10 to one by a team not afraid to play life-and-death with their fans and themselves.

Usually Stickman and I root for the home teams to prevent fanatical home-team fans from taking the opportunity to pummel us for not doing so. We learned this in Philadelphia when the drunken Philly fans were shouting to kill the visiting team’s fans. Philadelphia fans are notorious for being notorious.

But I had to root for the Yankees! I just had to! But my friend (my friend, my pal, my buddy, that traitor), the Stickman, stuck with the home team. His team won. My team got clobbered.

Next morning off to Denver where our plane dipped so far and so fast that the flight attendants, who were serving at the time, had to hit the floor after almost hitting the ceiling. They stayed prone on the floor for about 10 minutes until given the all clear by the pilot. Drinks and food went flying all over the place and my wife was relieved that she had ordered water and not coffee.

That should have alerted me to the fact that Denver was to be the game that would not be.

We had a good time in Denver (kind of). The snow, mixed with a thick-snowy-kind of rain did postpone the baseball game at Coors Field to a time that we couldn’t attend. Although, the precipitation continued non-stop for our three days, we got to see a great little National Baseball Museum and an amazing Denver Nature and Science Museum with the best dinosaur bones I’ve ever seen. I’m all for bringing dinosaurs back ala Jurassic Park. And the Beautiful AP got to visit the seven-story Denver Public Library that has its own social workers to help the homeless who try to make a home out of the library.

Our wives returned home and Stickman and I headed to the last two ballparks for this trip, St. Louis’ Busch Stadium and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium (one of the top four stadiums we’ve seen).

Both of these teams, the Cardinals and the Royals, lost to the current National League juggernaut, the Washington Nationals.

After the Royals game which ended about 10 p.m., Stickman and I walked the 10 miles back to our hotel (okay, okay, it was a half mile, but I was tired) and we had to awaken at 2:30 a.m. to get to the Kansas City International Airport in time for my 5:30 and his 6:30 flight. Stickman likes to get to the airport early since (as the old saying goes) “You can’t miss a flight by being early,” although he actually did once miss a flight when he was early because he fell asleep in the terminal.

Stickman drove our rental SUV to the airport. Since it was 3 o’clock in the morning there were not too many cars on the highway. Thank the Lord!

Now, Stickman is a good driver. He is. He is a very good driver. In fact, he is an amazingly very good driver. Oh, yes, and, uh, fast. A very fast driver. Lightning. And a daring driver. A very daring driver.

And when he is not a 100 percent certain where to go he uses his GPS device.

You would consider that a smart way to drive, right? Yes, of course; except he holds it in his hand and has to constantly look down to see if his direction is correct. Driving about 1,000 miles per hour, in the night, without his high beams on, he reads his GPS.

And when the car drifts to the right and sometimes to the left and sometimes into the next lane, he corrects its direction when he bothers to look up.

And me? What of me? What am I doing when he’s doing what he’s doing? With closed eyes I often pray to Jesus, God, or any divine being that would let me live.

But we make it to the airport (thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you) and the damn place is closed! I’m not kidding. At 4 a.m. the Kansas City “International” Airport is closed! Do “international” airports close?

And add to this the fact that the whole huge complex that houses all the car-rental companies is open, but no one is there. We just leave the keys on a desk. Again, there are no human beings around. I wondered if we were in a zombie apocalypse.

But the shuttle bus was there, with a living driver, and he took us to the Delta terminal which had miraculously opened. Two TSA agents were outside the building smoking. They saw us and hustled inside.

Stickman was heading to Memphis via Detroit and I to New York via Atlanta. I’d go home to hug and kiss my wife whom I missed as if I had been away from her for two years instead of two days.

But in Atlanta two women, young, pretty and bejeweled like Cleopatra, got on the plane and for the one-hour and 39 minutes of our air time, they talked about nothing but how rich their husbands were and how much money they had.

Every chance they got, they flashed their huge (read: HUGE) baubles at the flight attendants while demanding more service. I couldn’t sleep on the plane because their behavior fascinated me in a repulsive way.

I got home. Kissed and hugged my wife and then…fell dead asleep.

Yes, it snowed in Denver.

[Read Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! On sale at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle and at bookstores.]

The Titmouse and My Grandson

 

I have three squirrel-proof bird feeders outside the large windows in my office. As I write I can see these “little schweeties” as my wife calls them, flying, eating and squabbling out there in my corner of nature.

I know I will never be a birding expert. For example, we have a host of different kinds of sparrows that come to the feeders and although I can see differences among them, I am hard pressed to identify each and every kind. I just point and say, “Man, look at all those different kinds of sparrows!”

But I can identify a number of birds. One that I love, for example, is the tufted titmouse. It’s a pretty little creature that comes to my feeders even in the dead of winter.

Now, in addition to my birding hobby, another hobby of mine concerns my grandchildren. I happen to like them, a boy 11 and a girl nine. Not all grandparents like their grandchildren, mind you, no matter what some grandparents proclaim.

I want to talk about the birds to them (not the birds and the bees) and include them in my new hobby, but I hesitate. My granddaughter would at least tolerate me going on about our feathered friends; but my grandson might be a different story.

You see, he’s a boys’ boy and that means he is interested in all the things we boys’ boys are interested in–come on, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I? Bodily stuff like farts, vomit and poop, yes. But above all else, sex stuff – any stuff to do with females.

I’ll give you an example: Ever since he heard the word “wiener” he’s been using it nonstop to describe his own wiener and anything he can attach the word “wiener” to. He is as interested in his wiener as is Anthony Weiner, but as far as I know he has not texted an image of it to anyone. And all that stuff about women? Forgetaboutit!

So here’s what will happen when I tell him about my love of tufted titmice.

Grandson: “Tit, oh, ho, ho, tits! Ha! Ha! Grandpa Scobe said tit! Tit! Tit!”

Grandpa Scobe: “No, that’s just its name. Tufted titmouse.”

Grandson: “Tits, tits, tits, yeah, yeah!”

I can imagine that during the entire day (and then some) he would incorporate the word “tit” as much as he could. That’s just what I’d need, my grandson telling my daughter-in-law that Grandpa Scobe had been talking about tits. My son would kill me.

But my grandson is not the only one. When my wife the Beautiful AP first told me the name of that pretty bird, I responded: “Tit? Ha! Ha! Tit! Tit! I have a tit at my feeders.”

Beautiful AP: “Scobe, come on, titmouse is its name; not just tit.”

Scobe: “Ah ha!”

Beautiful AP: “Grow up.”

Scobe (whispering): “Tit.”

So I am going to figure out how to get around telling him about titmice. He will see several when he comes to my house and looks out the window, so I have to figure out something when he asks, “What’s that bird?”

I am just hoping there isn’t a bird called “tit-wiener” because then we will never hear the end of it.

[Check my books at Amazon.com and bookstores.]

My Guppy Is Gay

 

I have four fish tanks in my house: a five gallon tank with a Beta and five guppies (this sits right here on my desk); a 20 gallon tank with 18 guppies and 12 neon tetras; and a 55 gallon tank with eight really big angel fish and about 14 platies. Then I have the monster, the 205 gallon tank with an assortment of fish.

Platies are live bearers and, although this is gruesome, my angels have gotten huge because they devour the platies’ constant supply of babies.  Between the flake food and platy babies my angels have a good, clean, healthy diet. The 55 gallon tank is right behind my desk in my home office.

So the five, the 20, the 55 and the 205 gallon tanks are in my office.

Today I got in an order of 12 more really, really fancy guppies for my 20 gallon tank, four males and eight females You always need more females because the males are maniacs when it comes to sex—they must have 100 orgasms a day! Then I noticed something—one of my new, magnificently beautiful male guppies is gay, I kid you not.

After they got used to the tank, which for guppies takes about five minutes, the other male guppies were nailing the female guppies all over the place. These fellows have constant boners. They are like 12-year-old human males.

But this particular guppy didn’t go near a female. No. Instead he’d go under the male guppies and try to copulate with them (dare I say this?) anally. I mean, guppies do have, uh, openings and you should see how long and fearsome their do-do’s are but this guy was going for the exit. He totally ignored the females. (You cannot mistake a male guppy for a female. They are two totally different looking fish.)

I watched for a good half hour and not once did he give a damn about the females scurrying all over the place trying to escape the rapaciousness of the other male guppies. This guy just kept trying to plow the other guys. I’ve never seen anything like it. A gay fish! It has nothing to do with his upbringing or a desire to turn his sexuality in a different direction. His DNA simply said, “Yay, gay!”

Then I noticed something else—something amazing—one of my new female guppies is a lesbian, I swear to God. What the hell was going on? There was one female Guppy who fought—and I mean went head to head—with the male guppies trying to, uh, court her. She was a tough gal. The male guppies were much smaller and actually afraid of her. Of course, the raging boners of the males made them go to her time and again and she just violently shoed them away.

The male guppies had to avoid the jabs of my gay guppy and then they had to be really wary of the big female guppy who seemed to have murder in her heart.

It is possible that this is an evolutionary breakthrough—although I don’t know how the gay guppy and the lesbian guppy will reproduce more of their kind. I only have this to say, God created these guppies so He must approve of them and want them to (you know) do whatever the hell they do.

(My new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is now available at Amazon.)

 

 

Mommy Weirdest

I have now read one of the nuttiest decisions a court has ever made when it comes to a five-year-old child and his thieving mother.

You see, the mommy created her own two–person gang, that being her and junior, dedicated to robbery.

Alas, her gang was caught. She was arrested when she and junior stole $2,700 in goods from Bloomingdale’s.

According to the court, junior wore two stolen coats under his clothing plus a pair of really, really nice boots. Mom was convicted. Nothing happened to junior because he was just five.

So you figure the court would take the kid from her. Or make her take “honesty” classes. Nope! Kid stays with mom and…

The appellate court of New York ruled that the mother cannot have her career cut short by her thieving ways or by making her little boy part of her criminality and…

The court ruled she should be allowed to work in her chosen profession (take a deep breath, remain calm, because here “it” comes) – her chosen profession being child care. Yes, yes, yes, mommy dearest will continue to be allowed to care for children! That is her damn career – child care!

I can see it now. She could draft dozens of the little kids she cares for and form one of the biggest gangs in New York.

Child care? Child care? I’ll bet she doesn’t even work cheap.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! ]

Huck Finn and The Declaration of Independence

The school board of a Virginia school has decided to take Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn out of its curriculum because someone complained about the use of the term “nigger.” This district isn’t alone. Since its publication in 1888, the book has garnered a lot of criticism, not just for that term but for the cruel and racist life it shows in the Antebellum south. It is probably the most banned book in America.

Banning this book is the equivalent of banning the Declaration of Independence, as I will explain.

But first, a precise and accurate quote by Ernest Hemingway: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a hilariously satiric tale of a vagabond boy (Huck Finn) who travels America with Jim, an escaped slave who is looking for freedom and to then buy his family from their slave owners. The book is told by Huck in his common dialect. It is like stepping back in time to hear Huck and Jim and others of that epoch speak.

At its core, what is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn about? Oh, certainly it is a sendup of hypocritical values and the folks who have them. It is also the gradual opening of Huckleberry’s mind to the reality of what his society is – a society where he is one of the lowest of the low, being a poor, abused white kid whose father is a truly evil man, and it also tells the story of an individual, Jim, who is even lower on the social scale, if he is even on the social scale – because Jim is a slave, a piece of property, in a world that has little compassion for his station.

How were blacks viewed in those days?

When Huck is making up a story for Aunt Sally, he weaves a tale of a shipwreck he experienced.

Aunt Sally asks “‘Good gracious, anybody hurt?’”

Huck’s response: “‘No’m, killed a nigger.’”

Aunt Sally sums it up: “‘Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.’”

There you have the southern society’s attitude perfectly stated. No people were killed because a “nigger” isn’t actually a part of the “people” world. Huck doesn’t think twice about his statement nor does Aunt Sally. But the reader certainly does!

In the pivotal scene of the book, where perhaps the greatest American literary line was ever penned, Huck struggles with his conscience over helping Jim to escape. He has been taught that slaves are not actually people and that Jim is the property of someone else. Huck knows, because he’s been well-taught, that helping a slave escape is terribly, terribly wrong:

“So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter – and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

“Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.

“ HUCK FINN

“I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking – thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking.

“And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind.

“I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

“It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

“‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’” – and tore it up.”

This is the moment – “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” – when Huckleberry Finn, a prisoner of society’s false notions of racial inequality epitomized by the institution of slavery, makes his personal declaration of independence and frees himself. This young man is willing to go to Hell, to eternally burn for his sin of seeing Jim as a real person, a friend, a mentor. Huckleberry Finn was compelled to make the morally correct decision. Yes, he has broken with the past. He will go to Hell but in reality he saves his soul.

In this scene, Huck Finn represents America at its best.

Now to the schools and libraries that have banned the book; to the individuals who only read the word “nigger” in the book without any idea of why it is used and of how the reader should actually feel as the book progresses, I can only say I wish there were a Huck Finn in your conscience; a person who could tear up the letter of your mistaken notions and your sad desire to squash one of the greatest books of all time.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

The Search for the Great Snowy Owl

 

All the birders (birders are bird watchers but “birder” sounds stronger and classier than bird watcher) were at Jones Beach West Field #2, tromping through the sand and the dunes with one harried lady scolding us: “Do not walk on the grass on the dunes!” We were not listening; instead we tromped all over the grass which was unavoidable since it was under our feet.

The grass is not like the grass on your lawn or on a golf course. Each stalk is about a foot or two high and every couple of inches there it was. You couldn’t help but step on the grass. But this lady, protecting our planet as she had a “Protect Our Planet” shirt on, was adamant. Everyone smiled at her benignly and she finally gave up the fight and stepped on the grass too.

Birders were all over the place – on the dunes, the beach, near the parking lot. Wherever you looked, there was a birder or groups of birders in their birding clothes with binoculars pointed wherever they thought they would see the creature we had all come to Jones Beach to see, the great Snowy Owl.

My group is from the South Shore Audubon Society and we were hunting for that great Snowy Owl also known as Bubo scandiacus. (Bubba scandiacus, if you are from the south.) We hungered to see it as these owls are tough to spot around our area since they hang out in the Arctic, which is a long drive from Long Island, New York. In the fall they migrate to the south. I guess these birds are the real snow birds, not to be confused with NY senior citizens who spend three months in Florida every winter.

Now, birding is not a precise activity. The leaders of our group saw the Snowy Owl just a few days earlier and some photographed it. So, everyone excitedly looked here, there and everywhere to catch a glimpse of this magnificent owl. Alas, after an hour and twenty minutes of climbing, walking and binoculing, Mr. Owl didn’t make an appearance. I have printed a great one from Claire Reilly, a pro photographer, who photographed the bird several days later on Jones Beach.

That night, after our day’s disappointment, my wife the Beautiful AP and I watched a documentary titled Wild Arctic and one beautiful sequence had a fabulous video of this fabulous bird. In the birding world, this sighting doesn’t count. We can’t put it on the list we’re not keeping (see article “The Pelican Brief”). But the documentary was great to watch.

snowyowl

Photo by Claire Reilly

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

 

Bad Teachers

 

***They lit his tie on fire as he napped in class; they threw his desk and bookshelves out the window. The students did things such as this for 30 years. This teacher had tenure. His very first year of teaching saw the kids throw his overcoat out the window; put glue on his desk drawers, and cause him befuddlement when they asked questions he couldn’t answer. He kept sending kids to the administrators. Nothing helped. He never got any better. He stunk on his first day of teaching before tenure and he stunk on his last day of teaching with tenure. He stunk every day in between.

***She would take attendance and as she called the kid’s name, the kid would say “present” or “yo” or “here” and then get up and leave the class. She never noticed that but when she looked up there might have been 10 kids remaining out of 30. She had tenure. She’d been teaching for 20 years.

***Everyday, he would cry when he came into the teacher’s room. He’d complain that the kids were torturing him. Indeed, they were. He’d been teaching for two years. He did not have tenure yet. He had graduated from Columbia’s school of education.

***She screamed and yelled at her students every day; every damn day. You could hear her on the second floor although she taught on the third floor. She’d been teaching five years. She had tenure. She yelled from the second day of her first year on the job and never stopped.

***She’d been at the job for 32 years. She only taught honors classes. She couldn’t teach non-academic classes because the kids ate her alive. She couldn’t teach academic classes because those kids ate her alive. So to save her sanity, she was only given honors classes. They ate her alive because many of these kids were disdainful of her intellect. But they ate her alive without throwing stuff at her or throwing stuff (or her) out the window. She won Teacher of Excellence in some New York State competition.

The above are just some examples of bad teachers. Without exception they all had tenure. That one exception – the crier – received tenure after his third year. My understanding is that he became a principal. He was on his way to the top! For all I know he could be a superintendent of schools now.

The unknowledgeable in educational matters, meaning non-teachers, would think that those “old” pros had merely lost the ability to teach or just got bored and allowed the kids to run rampant.

Not so.

Teachers who were bad before tenure were bad after tenure. So I ask you this? How the hell did these bad teachers get tenure? You had good teachers before tenure who became great teachers after tenure, yes, that is true, because they gradually learned the secrets of success – but they were good to start with. The bad stayed bad. No bad teacher in my wealth of experience ever became a good teacher.

There was only one exception to my tenure rule (Scobe’s rule: bad stays bad) and that was one teacher at my high school who was a brilliant man, loved by students, who went stock-raving mad after 25 years of teaching. The teaching didn’t drive him mad; his divorce from his wife did; it sent him over the edge. He started taking everything out on his students. His classes became rants. He was fired after he poured ketchup and mustard on a student’s head after the student said something he didn’t like in the cafeteria. The student got drenched then beat up the teacher. The student was not thrown out of school; in fact he was a hero to some students for pounding the living shit out of this poor guy. The teacher was a nerdy type; not much of a fighter. Still the teacher was fired.

A second tenured teacher halfway through his 37th year – he was still a good teacher now mind you – reached out and grabbed a girl’s breasts while teaching his lesson. “These are nice,” he said squeezing them. He disappeared 10 minutes later and was never seen again. But he left when he was still a good teacher – although obviously something snapped inside his head (whichever head you think that was).

I have no idea why teachers who didn’t have it, got it – tenure I mean. I just don’t really recall teachers going from good to bad after tenure. The great teachers – and I did know some great teachers at Lawrence High School – never just became “okay.” They were great before tenure and great after tenure.

I am not a cheerleader for public education but I can say tenure is necessary – otherwise I would never have had a teaching career. You see, when I was a new teacher I was fired from my first job. I didn’t even finish my second year after having (dare I say this) a somewhat physical altercation with my principal. He thought I was a good teacher but he couldn’t stand me because I was – and this is the truth – an arrogant bastard. I also taught stuff he didn’t think I should teach. Even when he told me not to teach it; I taught it. As I said, I was arrogant and, yes, I know this now – I was stupid.

On my second job at Lawrence High School, once again I alienated some administrators who had the ear of some Board of Education members. My science fiction club did a comic book “Lawrenceman” that teachers and kids liked but that the administration hated. I made everyone who joined my club a “president” (they had to pay for the position) so it would look good on their college transcripts. We didn’t hide this fact. I had giant signs all over the school telling students to join and become the president. In fact, some of the major colleges wrote me little notes telling me how much fun it was to see a teacher enjoying his career and to keep sending them my presidents. I even allowed teachers, custodians, and secretaries to become members but they could only pay to be vice-presidents.

I barely squeaked by to get tenure – and if I didn’t get tenure at Lawrence, I would never get another teaching job. I’d be blackballed.

You see, before I was hired at Lawrence I went on six interviews and as soon as I told the principal the fact that I had been fired – I never hid that – I didn’t get the job. At Lawrence, four people became my strong supporters after I taught a sample lesson: Greg Monahan, chairman; Edwin Krawitz, principal; Lenore Israel, great teacher; Gabe Uhlar, great teacher and also the kids of the class I taught. The school – and the students – took a chance on me, and thanks to them I actually had a career.

Still, I only got tenure by one vote. Over my career tenure protected me.

Tenure protected other controversial teachers too. We had teachers who were socialists; ultra-conservatives, libertarians, religious nut cases, but all damn good in a classroom. Our school thrived because of these people; it certainly didn’t thrive because of the bad teachers. These were great teachers – before and after tenure – but some of them were outspoken; they were fighters. Certainly, those bad teachers never had to worry about being fired; but the firebrands did. Tenure protected them. It protected me. And it gave students great teachers from which to learn.

Bottom line, I whole-heartedly believe in tenure but, come on, teachers have three years to show their stuff – their teaching stuff – and if they just don’t have it then they shouldn’t get tenure.

Tenure is great because it is a method of protecting those who should be protected; but it is a disgrace to give someone tenure who is not now and will never be a competent teacher.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

Crazy You Ain’t

First the quotes:

“Oh, we were so crazy in college!”

“What a nutty bunch of people we are!”

“Don’t get me started because I am so crazy.”

“We girls are so crazy when we get together!”

“We guys are so crazy, yahoo!”

“Get us all together, baby, and it is crazy time!”

I am sure you have all heard people — maybe even yourself — proclaim how crazy you are or were or continue to be. Or when you were younger or in school or last week you shouted to the rooftops or to waiters or bartenders or waitresses: “We are so crazy.”

Everyone who proclaims they are crazy is like everyone else who proclaims they are crazy. They aren’t crazy. They are just typical. No different than all the others saying, “Oh, we are so crazy.” You are not crazy. Take it down a notch.

Really crazy people — and I have met really crazy people — usually don’t delight in calling themselves crazy to impress others who can see clearly that these truly crazy folks are really crazy, I mean really, really crazy. It’s not, “Oh, we girls are partying tonight, aren’t we so crazy!” Truly crazy people say (usually to some voice in their head or some emotion welling up in their tortured hearts), “That dirty prick, I am going to hurt him!” Or, “Let me punch myself in the face because Daddy didn’t love me.”

The really crazy don’t usually share their craziness with waiters, “Oh, I am so crazy, I just killed five people at my bible class! Aren’t you impressed?”

So stop being the type who proclaims craziness as some good quality for which others will be impressed. You aren’t crazy; you are just going out to dinner; you are just going out for a few drinks; you are just enjoying a party. You are not crazy. You are not slitting someone’s throat from ear to ear.

 

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

The Poor versus the Rich

Let’s talk liberal and conservative. The liberal believes the conservative is on the side of big business, the corporations and the wealthy. The basic liberal attitude I’ve been reading on Facebook postulates that the conservatives wish to have a truly dual society — wealthy businessmen and women, big corporations paying low wages, no unions, etc.

I am not so sure this is correct. If I were a rich business owner or the head of a monstrous corporation wouldn’t I want people to have money so they can buy the things I produce? It would seem stupid to want the money exclusively in the hands of the rich because then all those products and services would crumble.

Doesn’t poverty help the liberal more than the conservative? If you can make sure a significant percentage of society is living on entitlements and that is how they “earn” their money to spend on goods and services, doesn’t the liberal have control over those people? Don’t these “poor” folks become a huge voting block because they want the money the liberal doles out?

So as I see it, at least for this article’s musings, the liberal is far better off with a lot of poor people and the conservatives are far better off with fewer poor people.

I’ll get to the “war on women,” the “science versus religion,” and the “gay marriage” issues in the future.

Right now the bottom line is this: Who benefits more from poverty and low wages? The Left or the Right?

 

G-d is not God’s Name

Pious Jews will rarely write the word God for fear of violating the First Commandment of not taking the Lord’s name in vain. Instead they will write the word as G-d, figuring this is not calling upon God but merely referring to Him without using His name. Even some Christians have started using the G-d to express their piety as well.

Sad to say this but God is not God’s name. YHWH (English pronunciation Yahweh) is God’s name (some religions use the word Jehovah as God’s name). Using that name in vain is a violation of the First Commandment. The use of the word God is merely the use of a title, although using a capital “G” means the God of the bible as opposed to the gods of Greece, Rome and other cultures.

So pious Jews and pious Christians have taken their piety a little too far, which tends to be a problem in most religions – the overly pious keep making things increasingly more extreme for others in the group. Before you know it such religions might be using G–, or –d, or — to say God. Then they might substitute *** for the dashes and who knows how far it will go? If you don’t want to say Yahweh or Jehovah that’s fine but referring to Him as G-d is mistaken and misplaced piety.

So why that First Commandment in the first place? It is quite simple really. When you say Yahweh’s name, He must hear you. You have gotten His attention. If you are wasting His time that is a serious thing for that is a vain use of name calling, a vain use of His attention, and a vanity on the speaker’s part.

Think of it this way: If I call your name in a crowded area, you will hear it. If I call out Mary or Jane or some name that is not your name chances are you will ignore it or not hear it. You respond to your name. God responds to His name.

Even writing His with a capital “H” is showing that we are dealing with the God of the bible but “His” is not His name.

So I recommend dropping the dash and looking for other ways to show piety.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic.]