“You need to behave the way I think you should or I’m going to have to punish myself by feeling bad!”  Pretty amazing to think about but that is what I find myself doing from time to time.  I’m not sure if it is being separated from my family, the everyday stresses that occur at work or the freekin’ nightmare that is our current government but lately I find myself aggravated more than I would like.  Something pissed me off the other day, it matters not what.  I shall refrain from using names or a description of the incident to protect the guilty.  Anyhoo, I figured I might just as well try to figure out what the heck my problem was and I began to look for clues for the causes of this new pattern of underwear tightening.  Oh, wait!  That initial sentence suggests that the only guilty person in my disgruntlement would be myself. 

          I may have to rethink this philosophy.  I am not really comfortable with the idea that the problems I have in my life are of my own making.  It is so much more fun to think about the harms that someone else has heaped upon my innocent soul.  After all, a virtuous cat such as myself could hardly be described as anything but charming, intelligent and jovial.  (I hate the word jovial.  Have you ever noticed that only fat people are described as jolly or jovial.)  As indicated on my “About the Red Hog” page I am not fat.  I am merely short for my weight.  Were I say, oh maybe 9’3” I would have the physic of a Greek God.  I think this would be an appropriate place to say, “but I digress.” 

          When I don’t receive an expected call from the family out East or the appropriate expressions of life not being worth living away from me I have a tendency to get cranky.  When I am in the middle of a project and somebody else interupts with an urgent need my blood begins to silently boil.  Or when I hear that the Democrats have come up with, in conjunction with the Republican majority, an estate tax repeal that they can live with I slam my fist down on my keyboard and after replacing the control, alt and shift keys find that I need to reboot.  All of those examples are real and yet when I look back at the first two it seems rather silly that I would stew about such events. 

          Perhaps the real problem is that I have expectations that others should obviously know what I want when I want it.  It is rather naïve to assume that someone could read my mind especially when you consider what a mess my mind can be at times.  I get lost in it sometimes.  Like that time I imagined that Julia Roberts had called me to make arrangements for dinner and…  (That damn digression thing again.)  What goes into our thinking when we get bent out of shape over trivial matters?  Perhaps it is an unhealthy sense of self import or a greed to be perceived in a manner that is more consistent with our self perceptions.  Sometimes anger can be brought on by fright.  A fear of ability, adequacy or adaptability.  Regardless, I think perhaps I should take a little of that Buddhist advice I posted here June 13^th and simply choose to not accept being angry. http://redhogdiary.com/2006.06.11_arch.html#1150161073576

          Now, about the House planning to pass a permanent Estate Tax repeal, what the hell are they thinking!?!   The legislation calls for an exemption on all estates worth less than $25 million dollars.  Currently only one percent of all estates in America are subject to an estate tax!  Only one in a hundred and keep in mind that the wealthiest one percent of Americans have over one third of the acculated wealth in all of the United States.   http://www.chicagofed.org/publications/workingpapers/wp2005_10.pdf This gift to the Paris Hilton’s of the world will cost YOU, as a tax payer not in the highest one percent of accumulated fortune, $279 billion dollars over the next ten years.  If you are a reader who has an estate valued at over $25 million dollars I’m happy for you but you can kiss my ass if you think you deserve ANOTHER tax cut.  Get this, you know how the Republicans are getting the support they need from the Democrat side of the House?  They wooed Democratic Senators from Washington state and Arkansas by promising $10 billion additional dollars in tax relief for the timber industry in their respective states.  They made no offer of reducing taxes on wages or spending on education in an attempt to reduce property taxes.  Nope, they gave it to multi-billion dollar corporations.  Can you feel the love? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001316.html?nav=rss_politics

          November is closer than you think.  Vote with your head and your heart and not with your backside that holds the wallet that will never in a million years accumulate the kind of wealth we are talking about here.  And even if you did get that rich would it kill ya to give a little bit of that back?  I mean, come on, there are hungry kids, grandparents without medicine and mere millionaires who have to pay their share of taxes.  Their only crime was they were not born into a family that had the gift of screwing the public and their customers out of their hard earned wages to the point of owning nearly everything.

          Sheesh, I got of on a bit of a rant there didn’t I?  Stop by Sunday morning to see if I have calmed down.  Hey, there is nothing quite so relaxing as reading the Red Hog Diary while sitting at your computer in your underwear while enjoying a nice cup of coffee.  See ya!

          Did you catch the news last week that the members of the House of Representatives voted themselves a $3,300 pay increase?  For ignoring your wants and subordinating your needs to the richest special interests they now earn $168,500 per year.  For the record it was the seventh consecutive raise they have approved for themselves.  Was there a significant philosophical change in leadership seven years ago?  I don’t remember.  At nearly the same time the pocket men of wealthy special interests were raising their own wages they voted against a proposal to have a vote that would boost in the minimum wage.  House Speaker Dennis Hastert indicated he wanted to hold off debating the minimum wage until after the November elections. Ya think?

          Click this link:  http://www.barackobama.com/media/take_back_america  I’m telling you, there is a fresh breeze blowing across the land.  That cool breeze is one Barack Obama the US Senator from Illinois.  Obama recently gave the closing address at the 2006 Take Back America Conference where he pointed out that “it’s the timidity – the smallness – of our politics that’s holding us back right now.”  He claims we find ourselves at a crossroads in American history.  He must be right because I have alluded to that line of thinking in this space many times.  Obama said, “It's a time where you can go to any town hall or street corner or coffee shop and hear people express the same anxiety about the future; hear them convey the same uncertainty about the direction we're headed as a country. Whether it's the war or Katrina or their health care or their jobs, you hear people say that we've finally arrived at a moment where something must change.  These are Americans who still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do. These are Americans who still dream big dreams -they just sense their leaders have forgotten how.”

          Also during this speech Obama said, “…during those moments in history where it looked like we might give up hope or settle for less, there have always been Americans who refused; who said, we're going to keep on dreaming, and we're going to keep on building, and we're going to keep on marching, and we're going to keep on working because that's who we are. Because we've always fought to bring all of our people under the blanket of the American Dream”   If ever there were a paragraph that summarizes my liberal philosophy that paragraph would have to be it.  A Libertarian government would ideally be a utopian form of government but until we can change the self centered nature of man to a more compassionate and philanthropic being there is little chance that I could ever support that. 

          There is a little test out on the internet that takes about two minutes to complete.  You may find the results interesting. http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

I scored a 90 on personal issues and a 30 on economic issues.  After I got my score I played with the test a little bit and decided that to score low on personal issues and high economic issues you would pretty much have to be an asshole.  Of course that is just my opinion and I could be wrong.  Don’t bet on it though. 

          I’m heading to the Nation’s Capital for Independence Day.  It will be somewhat bittersweet as the trip is to move my son to live with his Mom, sister and brother for most of the rest of the summer.  The old house will be quiet without the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire emanating from the non-stop video gaming that seems to go on around here.  I will return home for a couple weeks before taking off for my west coast trip.  Already that trip is looking better and better.  On our second night we will stop in Salt Lake City where we plan to  rendezvous with some friends from CUSA Technologies.  One of the division managers has a cabin in the mountains near Salt Lake and has invited us up for a relaxing evening with adult beverages.  If you are in need of a credit union data processing system I strongly recommend http://www.cusa.com/welcome

          Happy Friday!

          I gotta throw another shout out today!  It seems there is a concentration of Tigers in the land of dangling chads.  Yesterday at work I was surprised to see an email notification pop across my desktop advising me that I had mail from Halvy.  Halvy came across my blog from the cleverly placed URL in my Classmates.com profile which linked him to, of all places, The Red Hog Diary. Ahh, the Cedar Falls Tigers Class of ’78.  The glory days!  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat!  The classmates’ site has proven valuable in several reconnections since I joined.  First I became reacquainted with sister blogger www.hahnathome.com, Cedar Falls class of ’79, then eventual college roommate Bob, class of ’78 and now the Halv-meister!  Halvy and I shot a couple of emails back and forth this afternoon and he informed me that Juice, Scott E, Wade W, Guillo N, and Steve M (the "77 one) are all residents of the greater Orlando area now.  Steve was the king of YMCA Bombardment (Dodge Ball) back in the day.  Think Vince Vaughn’s Peter LaFleur in the movie DodgeBall.  http://www.dodgeballmovie.com

          All of this nostalgia presents me with a dilemma for the coming weekend.  I added a page to the site today for an event that has become an Iowa Biker tradition.  See The Romper Room Fun Run Page.  This year marks the 17^th anniversary of the Romper Room Fun Run which touts itself as the largest one day biker rally in the state of Iowa.  I used to attend the ride on a regular basis but age has limited my participation in recent years.  The other event of import in my little world is the annual Sturgis Falls Celebration in my home town, “home of the Tigers” Cedar Falls.  The celebration is hugely successful for the old hometown and traditionally a great opportunity to reacquaint with lots of old friends who you may have not seen in years.  Decisions, decisions. 

          Halvy is a genuinely hilarious fellow and I think I may have to work on him to send a guest post or two in the near future.   Upon reviewing my site he seemed most impressed with the guest post that my wife wrote and encouraged me to allow her more opportunities to write in the future.  I won’t tell him how much that hurt that after months of pouring out my deepest dreams and hopes that he would say, “Nice site.  You should let your wife do more of the writing.”  So it goes.  Spread the word about the site Halvy and I will see what I can do.   http://www.redhogdiary.com/2006.04.09_arch.html#1144724330227

          1978 was almost thirty years ago.  How in the hell did that happen?  Back in those days I am certain I could not have imagined what it would be like to be where I am now.  I was an athletically challenged chubby teenager, a sarcastic guy who never had enough money.  Yeah, it would have been impossible to imagine what it would be like to not be a teenager. 

          Prior to my mind being spun down memory lane by the unexpected email from Florida I had planned to rant for the entire post about motorcycle helmets.  That damn Ben Roethlisberger losing control of his scoot has resulted in an avalanche of news stories, editorials and blog postings commenting on the stupidity of someone who would ride a motorcycle without a helmet.  I just love how people are always quick to propose restrictive legislation on others as long as the restrictions have nothing to do with them.  Here are the facts.  States with mandatory helmet use laws average 2.98 fatalities per 100 accidents.  States without mandatory helmet use laws have an average of 2.90 fatalities per 100 accidents.  HUH?  Yes it is true.  I am actually more likely to survive a motorcycle accident by NOT wearing a helmet. http://www.abate-of-maryland.org/xhmt_pa.htm I once hit the pavement after splitting a deer in half while traveling 75 mph.  I’m pretty sure that had I been wearing a helmet it would have killed me.  Okay, maybe not but if people who support helmet laws can make stupid comments so can I.  Maybe the damn deere is the one who should have wore a helmet.  I will take the high road now and not comment on the stupidity of all anti-freedom, fun-hating, totalitarian, control-freak, death-wishing butt-weasels who would want to mandate my wearing a helmet.  Let those who ride decide.  If you don’t ride, shut the hell up.  Okay, I feel better now.

          I found a fun new blog-space toy today.  Check out the map at the bottom of this page.  Follow the link and sign up for a free account, mark where you live and we will then have an online map of friends of the Red Hog.  Halvy signed up on his first visit.  Thanks brother.

          I had to stop into my favorite shopping venue to replenish my stock of Port on the way home this evening.  I selected Graham’s Six Grapes for those of you at home keeping score.  I purchase my Port almost exclusively at Benz Beverage Depot.  In the first place they are located very near my office.  In the second place they have a fine selection of Port which is unmatched by any other spirit dispensary in the local area.  But I think the main reason I opt to shop at Benz Beverage Depot would have to be Elody, that’s like “Melody, without the M” she claims.  Elody is quick to flash a disarming smile and she has one of the coolest accents you would ever want to hear.  Anyway, I promised to give her a "shout out" in today’s post and give the Depot a plug.  I am sure she would be more than willing to ship any of the products found on her website.  Check it out!  Http://www.benzbeveragedepot.com

          NPR Marketplace had an interesting report today.  Wage increases have not kept up with inflation for the average American.  Citing a report by Bloomberg news service NPR reported that, “The vast majority of Americans are seeing wage increases evaporate when adjusted for inflation.”  Real wages for the average American fell by almost ¾ of a percentage point in the last month.  In fact “pay has been flat or declined in more than half of the 65 months since President Bush took office in 2001.”  When you factor in inflation and additional expenses related to reductions in Federal spending the net effect on yours and my bottom line is not a pretty picture.  The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are falling behind.  Actual median income adjusted for inflation fell ½ percent during the same time that they were actually increasing for the richest 10% in the same time period.  This skews the median income reports you will hear from your conservative friends who claim income has not fallen under the Bush Administration.  More significantly, a large majority of Americans do not believe their incomes will rise by the end of the year and over sixty percent of Americans disapprove of the way the current administration is handling the economy. 

          If you are a fan of the Bush administration perhaps you enjoyed the news that “a federal jury convicted former White House official David Safavian of lying and obstructing justice in the first trial to come out of the influence-peddling investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.”  This case was key for the Department of Justice who now plans to aggressively pursue corruption allegations inside the beltway.  It is expected that key Congressional leaders will face grand juries.  LMAO!  Who voted for these guys?  Hey, I can’t report all bad news.  Housing starts rebounded in May from a 13 month low.  Oh wait, the S&P 500 fell for the third straight day on a concern that housing starts will pave the way for yet higher interest rates.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/regions/us.html

          Okay, here is my thing.  When there are elected officials out there like Louisiana Senator David Vitter (R) who said, “I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one.” when discussing the same-sex-marriage-ban amendment I just have little confidence in the integrity of the Grand Old Party.  Vitter was voted idiot of the week at Get Your Head Out Of Your Butt.com June 7^th.   http://www.getyourheadoutofyourbutt.com/2006/06/07/idiot-of-the-week Okay, Vitter may be a bad example and his idiocy might just be a Louisiana thing.  Louisiana is home of Representative William Jefferson (D) who was recently stripped of his committee seat on the House Ways and Means Committee as a result of a corruption probe.  

          So maybe neither side of the congressional aisle are any good but I do know one thing for sure.  I do not like the way our country is headed but I do love the fact that in November we can begin to change that.  (wait, that was two things I know for sure.) There will be all kinds of attack ads and misleading issues that try to divert our attention from the poor job our elected officials have done in the last six years.  Abortion, Same-sex-marriage, prayer-in-schools, the Ten Commandments displayed at the courthouse and immigration are sure to be the hot topics of the debate from the party in power.  They don’t want you to look at the economy, energy policies, the environment, education, health care or the war on terror because they have screwed all that up.  It is time that the people of this nation take back control of our government by closely examining all incumbent candidates.  If they are hiding behind moralistic platitudes it is because they can and to hide behind an issue you have to be smaller than the issue, not out front leading the way for a better America.

          The blank page sits before me.  Good thing I have not had a problem with that yet.  That is one of the greatest benefits of being full of crap.  You don’t run out of stuff to say.  This is my 139^th consecutive post.  Time flies.

In that third of a year my blogging life has sort of taken on a life of its own.  Originally I started with the hopes of working out what I was certain was a mid-life crisis.  In retrospect, it became apparent that it must have only been a bad case of gas.  I don’t even want to get into the Freudian conclusions one might conclude if they looked at my writing as an entire body of work.  There seems to be frequent reference to more basal biological functions.  Or so it seems as a reader recently pointed out that a significant percentage of my posts are focused on bathroom humor.  (See introductory paragraph and reference to being full of crap.)

I am anxious to see if the recent mention in http://www.wherethehellwasi.com will translate into an expanded reader base.  Hearing from you regular readers is one of the more enjoyable things about putting this page out every day.  Thanks for your patronage.  My site count, after a plateau or two has continued to rise, albeit slowly.  That’s okay with me.  As long as the numbers aren’t falling I will have motivation to refine my persuit of this so called craft.  When I pull my site report I see that there are certainly many readers whom I have never heard from.  That is okay with me but I am just damn curious to know who some of you could be and how in the heck you found this fledgling blog.  In particular; Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands and Germany, who are you?  When I see 10 and 12 visits a month from each of these countries I assume I have repeat visitors.  I would love to get a confidential email from you letting me know what you like and dislike about the site and how you found it.  If you have something to share with our other readers let me know.  I’ll put it out there for ya. 

Tustin California, Medford Oregon, Bloomington Illinois, and Nashville appear frequently on my demographics report.  Who are you guys?  Do you revisit this page because you like what you see or are you undercover National Security agents monitoring my subversive poopy posts?  If you are NSA be advised, I know about the silent black helicopters and being an avid visitor of the monkey cages when ever I frequent a zoo I know what to do with the poo if you buzz too close to my house!        

All seriousness aside, if you are one of my unknown readers and have been thinking of contacting me with an idea, a comment or a criticism I invite you to do that now.  I know that some of you enjoy some aspects of my posts and loathe others.  Frequent emails encourage me to do more of one type of post and less of another.  Were there a strong identifiable trend in suggestions for one type of post over another I would naturally migrate that way.   The requests seem to be all over the board, however, so I think the unplanned randomness of writing whatever the heck I feel about writing about will continue in the near future.  If you don’t want to contact me and are content to lurk behind the scenes, that okay,  I’m just glad you stopped by.

 

What the heck is going on in New Orleans?  Having lived for three years in Louisiana I had the opportunity to visit the “Big Easy” many times.  It would seem the Big Easy is easy no more.  Last weekend’s bloodshed and murders have evoked an equivalent of martial law as Gov. Kathleen Blanco, at Mayor Ray Nagin’s request, ordered the deployment of 300 National Guardsmen and 60 state police officers to patrol the streets of New Orleans.  While I know not of the desperation that may exist among those who were left behind or those who choose to remain in New Orleans, it is obvious that nothing warrants what happened there last weekend.  Six murders in one weekend in what is reminiscent of a Hollywood gangland movie does much to undermine the security of the residents who remain.  I would imagine it is not doing much for the tourism industry either.  I’m thinking the once vibrant jewel of the Mississippi Delta has suffered enough lately and the city needs people to help one another, to foster hope and rebuild lives.  I’m not sure soldiers in the streets are the way to get that message across.  It seems that everywhere we see conflict we run to arms to convince the bad guys to knock it off or pay the price.  At what point are we provoking an escalation of bad behavior?  It would seem that gangland violence or atomic weapons in North Korea or Iran would be less likely if the people who lived there were prosperous, free and had a sense of security.  How do we make that happen?

           

          I guess it depends on how you look at it but the realization that you have totally warped one of your children can be either a good thing or a bad thing.  My son and I spent Fathers Day with my mother.  We do that a lot lately, first for the hugs and conversation, second for the home cooked vittels, but I guess mostly for the unconditional acceptance that only a mother can provide.  She doesn’t care how odd, obnoxious or immature I can be and I find great comfort in that.  Wait, I was talking about my warped son, not hers. 

          On our trip home my son and I were discussing his upcoming move to DC to join his Mother and siblings for the rest of the summer.  We were driving on a scenic road when my son brought up how content he is living in Iowa.  Immediately I knew that he was noticing what I was; the green landscape, blue sky and general beauty of the Iowa countryside.  He might not have brought that up were he not feeling some angst regarding his eminent move to a big city where green space is limited and empty highways are non-existent.         

          He went on to tell me that one of the things he likes about Iowa is the lack of congestion and when he explained further is when I got my inkling that the young man just ain’t quite right.  He was telling me one thing he likes about living in Iowa is that in the event of using a public restroom there are rarely other occupants; let alone long lines that must be endured prior to finding relief for an impending expulsion.  Then he said, “Even when someone comes into a public restroom while you are busy there is something comforting about the fact that it is not uncommon for that individual to know you by your shoes.”  HUH?  He claimed that frequently, while behind a closed stall a fellow visitor will say, “Hey Willy” and that they know it his him by his shoes.  He appreciates that he lives in a place small enough that your friends and neighbors can recognize you by your shoes.  He may have a point.  There is something to be said about living in a place where people will greet you and wish you a good day by name even if all they get is a glimpse of your shoes under the stall of a public restroom.

          I tried to suggest that perhaps it had nothing to do with his shoes but more likely the consistency of the paint peeling signature that is a result of his unbalanced diet and he glanced over at me with a hurt look on his face.  I laughed and assured him that I knew what he was talking about but reminded him of some of the benefits of spending the summer in our Nation’s Capital.  We laughed hard over the next couple of miles as we applied his bathroom logic to different scenarios he can apply to telling new friends out East what he liked about living in Iowa.  His best one was attributing the shoe recognition to a stall at the state fair.  When I interjected something about a serendipitous occurrence of a traveling friend recognizing his shoes in a Smithsonian restroom or perhaps at Ronald Reagan National Airport I realized that being a son of mine meant none of this was his fault.  The kid never stood a chance.

         

          I hope that you visit my favorite links page from time to time.  One of my favorite links there is “Where The Hell Was I?” http://www.wherethehellwasi.com Where the Hell Was I? is a nationally read blog by the East Coast Comedian Charlie Hatton.  Charlie puts out a hilarious read and through some freak of nature (Okay, I sucked up and made a purchase from his online store) the Red Hog Diary was able to grab a moment of his attention.  He linked The Red Hog Diary in his anniversary post and put a permanent link in a position of prominence on his sidebar.  Sunday was the third anniversary of Where The Hell Was I and nearly half of his post centered around some interaction between he and I.  Both The Red Hog Diary and Hahn at Home, my sister blogger at http://www.hahnathome.com were referenced in the post. He took some liberty with anything resembling actual events but that is okay.  If you are visiting this site via the link from Where The Hell Was I, welcome!  I hope you like what you see here.  It was an exciting day for a relatively new blogger.  

AP News reported on June 15^th, “In her book, Ann Coulter writes that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act "as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. She also wrote, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.”

“The comments have also drawn criticism from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who said the book should be called "Heartless," and New York's Republican Gov. George Pataki, who said he was stunned by the remarks.”

“The women — Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza — have spent the years since the 2001 terror attacks supporting an independent commission to examine government failures before the attack. During the 2004 presidential race, they endorsed Democrat John Kerry.”

Sigh, I don’t care so much what Coulter puts in her books.  I’m never going to buy one.  I do care that her new book, which shall remain unnamed in this post, is the number one best seller on many book charts.  I understand that there are as many ways of seeing the world as there are souls walking the planet but the fact that there are large numbers of people willing to purchase her book is very disturbing.  The whole shock jock mentality that dominates our popular culture is wearing thin on me but seems to be gaining momentum across the land.  It is peculiar to me that the more outrageous you are, whether coming from Randi Rhodes on the left, Rushbo on the right or the gutter as in the case with Howard Stern, the more successful you are.  Why does our culture buy into the crap these extremists are expecting us to eat?

The methodology of these pundits is simple and shallow and we keep coming back for more.  They make an outrageous statement and then when somebody calls them out on their impropriety they attack and demean the moderate into submission.  No credibility is given to truth or decency in the case of the talking heads and the more publicity they get for their outrageousness the better.  The behavior of the shock jock is the ultimate prostitution of one’s personal dignity.  I often wonder how much money is enough to help those like Stern, Rhodes, Limbaugh and Coulter sleep at night.  Perhaps a larger question would involve consideration of whether they believe what comes out of their mouths and onto their pages.  I pray that even they do not believe the poisons they spew and are in fact the sell outs that I imagine them to be.

I can only imagine what makes these people so popular is that they are making some connection with a sense of disenfranchisement that has become a large part of our society.  Our sense of community has changed so dramatically in the last couple of decades and I fear many people are lost and looking for a connection.  It as if there is the slightest correlation in an outrageous comment and our experience we buy into it then tune in to hear more; only to be swept beyond our initial identification with the comment.  We long to be part of something bigger than ourselves because we have retreated too far into our own individuality.  We have replaced the time spent socializing and preparing meals with micro-waves and take out.  We have replaced going to the theatre or a concert with HBO and MTV and we have stopped going to see our friends because we held them captive on our cell phones as we sought them out for entertainment while in traffic.  We no longer need the face to face time because we are electronically connected 24-7.

In our not so distant past a majority of us lived in close proximity to large concentrations of our extended families and we took advantage of that.  Family gatherings were just what we did.  We didn't plan reunions we just reunited.  Often.  Our neighborhoods were close knit and we socialized with one another.  I long for those days of street parties where a permit would be granted from city hall and a city crew would appear to place barricades at the ends of the street and everyone would bring their picnic tables out and enjoy each others company in block parties.  That was a regular occurrence in our neighborhood in my youth.  I would prefer to visit with my friends face to face as opposed to emailing, instant messaging or video conferencing with them but I too, it seems, have bought into the electronic connections that substitute convenience for proximity.

It would seem hard to believe that things will get worse before they get better with regards to the compartmentalizing of our lives.  The next time you are stuck in traffic and can not overcome the urge to call your friend limit your call to seeing if you could stop by, inviting them to your place or arranging to meet them for a coffee.  If you are planning to rent some videos this coming weekend scratch that idea and ask your neighbor if they would like to go with you to the theatre.  Instead of bringing home take-out Tuesday night why not prepare some lemonade and invite the family to sit on the deck and grill some Johnsonville brats.  And whatever you do, don’t talk about what you heard Al Frankin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore or that Coulter woman did to make the news that day.  Go on, get out there, and go visit someone today!

 Hey for all you Father's out there, have a wonderful day!  I gotta give a shout out to my Father-In-Law Herold.  From my perspective, as an experienced Dad myself, you did and are doing a helluva job Herold.  You should be proud when you look at what has become of your family.  My Dad passed away in 1989 at too young of an age.  You are in my thoughts Dad.  I love you and I miss you.