About My Posts on Facebook

     I felt compelled to comment about my posts on Facebook and it's not because of any comments others have made. It's my own morning subconscious guiding me. I'm guessing that, like most of you, I take all the events going on in the world quite seriously. Those who know me best know that I often think deeply and sometimes wear my heart on my sleeve. I've always been like that and wished I could wave my hand and make all the wars, strife, hatred, pain, catastrophes, and suffering we see each day in the news disappear forever. I'm not immune to tears and sadness at what I see in the news. But, I like to look at Facebook as though we were a group of intimate friends sitting around together in the same room and having a polite or light discussion. What do friends talk about? Often how the kids are doing, what our mates are up to, that new recipe, a joke heard...in other words, small talk. I never object to what others say within reason, but for me, I try to write comments in Facebook with the same considerations in mind as if talking to friends or relatives face to face. There is a time and place for everything to be said, with the exception that this post is for the record. While I'm feeling deeply compassionate about the people in Nepal's earthquake, concerned about conflicts, or passionate about a social or political issue, we all need a way to remind us that life can be beautiful and that love among friends is precious. Facebook is that parlor where we share a cup of coffee or a beer and say, "Hello, my friend. I've missed you. What's new in your life> I have a funny story. Wow, have I got news for you!" Small talk in some ways connects us as a family of friends. So whether you just landed the lead in a Broadway show, or baked a wonderful cookie recipe today, it's all good. My final point is, it's okay to have a lively discussion on the biggest issue of the day if done with respect for other points of view, but please never feel what you would like to write on your Facebook page is too trivial to post. My father taught me that it's the every day small moments that string our lives together and show others our true nature, just as seconds string together to make minutes, hours, days, or years. Now go forth and multiply Facebook (or Twitter) posts freely!

Nutty Laws Around the World

The U.S. has its share of crazy or perplexing laws. For example, it's illegal to import Vegemite for commercial sale  (as though we have to worry about Americans wanting Vegemite). Australian expatriates can relax. Contrary to rumor, it's not illegal to bring Vegemite here for personal use. I'm relieved to know I'm not a a criminal after trying it (for the first and last time) when offered by an Australian actress during the run of our play. She wanted to make peanut butter similarly illegal in Australia.

 Around the world, there are other nutty laws.

•  In Australia, you could be fined $90,000 for sharing a YouTube video  (it's not enforced). I'm not sure about Facebook.
• It's also illegal in Australia to sharpen a Japanese katana sword, even though you may own one. Be careful what you grab to cut the turkey.
• Don't wear camouflage patterns in Barbados. If the police catch you, you will be told to take it off on the spot, even in public. This is an ill-advised law as it may encourage exhibitionists.
• In Toronto, Canada, it's illegal to drag a dead horse down Yonge street on Sundays. Wait until Monday.
• In Egypt, don't get caught using binoculars near an airport. Squinting to watch planes take off and land is probably okay.
• In Finland, it's okay to buy a shotgun at age 15, but teens will have to wait until age 18 to buy a sparkler.
• In France, it's okay to name your pigs, but if you name any Napoleon, you could be prosecuted. I think maybe Leon would be okay.
• In Germany, pillow fights are out as the law considers a pillow to be a weapon. No word yet about water balloons. 
• If you move to New Dehli, India, you have a responsibility to beat warning drums if locusts invade the city. You can be fined 50 Rupees if you don't. I'd be in favor of adding warnings about politicians invading the city. 
• If you dream of becoming a pig farmer in Israel, forget it. It's illegal unless for medical research. Okay, I may not be Jewish, but I get it. 
• I'm guessing DISH or Direct TV have no customers in Malaysia. It's illegal to have a parabolic dish. Family members probably need to take turns standing on the roof wrapped in aluminum foil. 
• It's unlawful in the Philippines for two unrelated men to ride tandem on a motorbike. I imagine that there is a sudden growth in the number of cousins in each family. 
• Saudi Arabia is not the best country to start a music career. Public live music is illegal. 
• If your family is shopping in Scotland cover the eyes of boys under 10 if you come upon a naked mannequin. If he sees it, the law has been violated. 
• Don't chew gum in Singapore. However, pedestrian accidents are down as people are walking better without gum. 
• In the United Arab Emirates, you can be arrested for kissing, hugging, or holding hands. That's especially true if you do that with someone else's wife. 
• In England, you should know better than to wear a medieval costume to parliament. The law has been on the books since 1313. So far they've failed to ban medieval minds in parliament. We shouldn't point fingers, however. The U.S. Congress has its share of medieval mentality.

From What Dreams May Come to What Dreams May Inspire

  Among my favorite romantic movies is WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. Last night I watched this 1998 stunning film once again, with it's powerful visuals and fantasies about what happens to us after we die. It is a beautiful fantasy of what heaven may look like--perhaps a fantastic vision of how we may wish heaven will be like and a darker, plausible vision of Hell for those who believe in Hell. As a side comment, it's so poignant that in a film that touches on the theme of suicide, star Robin Williams' character is the rock and salvation for someone whose soul is condemned by such an act. In the end, it was Williams who most needed the very words his character spoke to his soul mate.

What prompted this post is that I had one of my very vivid dreams last night. "What Dreams May Come," indeed. My epic dream was not a dream of heaven, but about a romance in Paris. Those highly vivid dreams with a defined story are rare in my life--such as a dream about Three Mile Island exactly as it happened six months before the actual accident (another story); a dream about enemy soldiers in an Asian country, exactly as it happened (an upcoming novel); or a dream about walking on the moon inside a domed settlement, looking up at Earth and the sun shining through the transparent dome, feeling the gritty, gray soil under my feet, and breathing cool, oxygenated atmosphere. The latter dream has yet to happen.

This time the dream was down to Earth, in Paris. I was someone else--a war amputee with a prosthetic leg and magic shoes that could transport me around the city, even walking on water (that happened in the movie). The woman was a complete stranger--a waitress who works at an outdoor cafe along the Seine River, although I have a very clear idea of what she looks like. Keep in mind that this woman was probably fabricated in my mind and I've yet to visit Paris, although my wife and I plan to visit Paris this year or next. A non-writer may wonder and raise an eyebrow. What am I doing dreaming about another woman? But a writer thinks differently and this writer's wife is secure enough in my love for her. She encourages my writing. She is the muse for my dreams.

Moving right ahead with the freedom to dream, I ask myself, could this be the idea for a story? The real question is, if you dream about a stranger, is there a stranger somewhere in the world who dreamed about you? Is there a waitress in Paris who dreamed about me around the same time? While the reality is, even if this was possible or true, it is as if I dreamed about being someone completely different, like an actor in a movie. I am not that person and fictional characters should not be confused with real life. For a writer, however, all things are possible and a new idea is born.

For my friends who are writers, producers, or actors, my apologies, but I don't trust you with the details of my dream. In God I trust--all others get your own ideas. But, this is one of those moments when a rare dream is the fuel for a fresh idea.

Seattle's Football Deflated, Tom Brady a Super Hero, Katy Perry Great

Great Super Bowl this year. I didn't have a pony in the race since the Steelers were knocked out, so no danger of throwing myself out the basement window if my team lost. But, oh, what a finish with both an immaculate reception and interception (alluding to the Franco Harris and the Steelers miracle of the early 70s). Mind boggling for Seattle fans when you consider all the hours, weeks, and months of grid iron battles, making it back to the Super Bowl, and after brilliant moments in the game, and on the verge of winning the game, it took about 2 seconds to snatch defeat from from the jaws victory at the goal line. I would have been okay with either team winning, but it appears Seattle was the one that had its football deflated. I admire Tom Brady, so I'll toast the Patriots with the rest of New England. Katy Perry, Lenny Kravitz, and company, BTW, put on a great half time show, despite the sound limits. My new sound bar makes it sound like you're at the game to enjoy the echoes and unintelligible lyrics, but since we know the songs already, the performance was. . . well, let's just say, "I saw the girl and I liked it."

Auld Acquaintances Are Never Forgotten

    The holidays for me have always meant taking a poignant, pensive reflection on my life, what I've accomplished, and where I'm going. The days between Christmas and New Year's Day have been a kind of purge of bad karma, a recharging of spirit, but a determination to  focus on the good, celebrate the highs of the year, and set the course for the New Year. I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolution, just a practical time to stop and smell the poinsettias, clear the slate, and start again. Some years dealt with loss--loss of members of my family, loss of love, loss of a family fortune, loss of opportunity. But when I weigh the years and compare them with the lives of many others, I know I am blessed and lucky. I've never lost hope, never lost my sense of humor, and never lost my determination to live life my way.  New Year's Day marks the end of reflection and the start of the first day of the rest of my life. There really is a blank page upon which it really is up to me--and no one else--to decide what will be written. 

   When I hear the words of "Auld Lang Syne"..."Should auld acquaintance be forgot," I think, wait a minute, the mind of this writer never forgets—in a good way. Memories have been a rich source of ideas for stories. Better yet, I prefer to selectively remember the best of times and filter out the bad days. I may not ever see you again in this lifetime face to face, but my mind and heart never forgets. In love, friendship, and in common mission, I do remember you. In love, I never stopped loving. One thing I've learned about the human heart is its huge capacity to love others, even as we loyally give our hearts, souls, and lives to one person. With parents, relatives, and friends no longer with us, the happier memories have crowded out the grief. In friendship, I never stopped caring and do hope there are more good times to share. In mission, it was grand while it lasted and wish we could do it again. Some of you have inspired my writing and, even better, inspired me during my life. 

   Even with the heart of a poet and being a dreamer, there is a solid feet-on-the ground acceptance of what is and what cannot be changed. Still, when I was very young, a friend wrote in my yearbook the simple abbreviation, "RMA”—Remember Me Always. I can say after all these years, I took that simple wish to heart as a promise to keep. I have remembered, so auld acquaintances are not forgot. 

   Happy New Year, my auld acquaintances, and to anyone else I offer a "cup o' kindness."

What is the cost of doing nothing about air pollution?

      Already, some members of the new incoming Congress is complaining about the air quality agreement reached by President Obama and the Chinese. The reaction to it goes along the line of "it will cost taxpayers and businesses too much." My question is, what is the cost of not doing it? Even if you have your doubts about global warming, there is another side that is not being mentioned by the media and that is the actual deaths from air pollution recorded each year. A study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that there are about 200,000 early deaths from air pollution each year in the U.S. alone. What is the cost to those families, our health care system, our communities, and, yes, to taxpayers? China has an incentive also. Early deaths in China attributed to air pollution are at a minimum of 300,000 to 500,000 people per year. Another study concludes that there are 1.2 million deaths. This new agreement for the two biggest polluters, with a deadline of 2025 in the U.S. and 2030 in China, will not eliminate fossil fuels, but rely more on technology to advance cleaner emissions. So I ask again, what is the cost of doing nothing? I cannot bring back my mother who died prematurely from COPD, but I'd like to know that my children and their children will breathe cleaner air.

Paying Respect to a Beacon of Journalism

     I can name a small handful of people who influenced my career directions in life, including a change of college majors from political science to journalism, as a columnist and writer of nonfiction, and on to efforts as a novelist.  The people who influenced me certainly include a scattering of authors, from Homer to Mark Twain and from Ernest Hemingway to Ray Bradbury. More specific to the art of writing, the path as a writer began with an unknown author in my hometown of Altoona, who kindly sent me a complimentary copy of her book that I read when I was in the jungles of Southeast Asia, while trying to think about my future with a war going on around me. Then, with my G.I. Bill grants for college (I still ended up eating popcorn for meals the week before each check arrived) it was time to decide between my John F. Kennedy-inspired direction in politics, or consider the realities that I did not want to spend more years in college. I was too anxious to get out into the world and do something with my life.  I always enjoyed writing--I supposed writing song lyrics, short stories, and love letters told me I was much better with my pen than with my mouth.
       When I switched to the School of Journalism at the Pennsylvania State University, a college professor of media ethics, who through his fatherly lectures and whose voice sounded very much like Harry Reasoner, instilled in me the idea that journalism without ethics is like government without morality. Then there was the newspaper editor who faced down a government, the CIA, and judges who threatened to imprison him just because he wanted to tell the truth.
    Today, we mourn the passing of Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee, known professionally as Ben Bradlee. As anyone remotely connected to the media prior to Bradlee's retirement or in upper eschelons of government know, he was the executive editor of The Washington Post. Bradlee represented the finest example of a free and unbiased press. His unflinching courage to face down the Central Intelligence Agency, the President of the United States, and a judicial system tasked to stop him from publishing the truth, inspired me to look at the world with a true curiosity, open mind, and a willingness to suspend my own biases (character traits much of the broadcast news media of today seem to lack). 
    It was under Bradlee's management that supported Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward ("Woodstein," as he often called them when he called them into his office) in their efforts to successfully expose one of the biggest scandals of politics in American history. Anyone alive in 1972 probably remembers the headlines when operatives broke into the Watergate Hotel offices of the National Democratic Party. The entire news media then followed Bradlee's and "Woodstein's" courageous reporting--soon followed by nearly every newspaper and broadcast news organization in the world--resulting in the near impeachment and resignation of President Richard Nixon, who was exposed attempting to cover up the break in.
    It was also Bradlee's decision to publish, along with The New York Times, "The Pentagon Papers," given to the newspapers by Daniel Ellsberg, a former employee of the RAND Corporation, which was at the time a top secret Pentagon study that might have prevented the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The report told the truth about certain incidents that led up to American commitment to the war;  predicted that U.S. casualties would be very high; and that, in fact, the war could not be won.
    The details of these two events are available in many books and on the Web. If Bradlee believed in a reporter's work, then you can be confident that the truth was being presented objectively. The evidence for his integrity and being respected is supported by 17 Pulitzer Prizes being awarded to The Washington Post during Bradlee's tenure. My point here is to pay respect to a man who stood for the highest ideals of a free press and as a credible watch dog to expose wrong doing in government, business, and, in a responsible way, present a window to the world that allows the opportunity for a free people to view the world and make their own informed decisions.