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Rants March 3, 2013

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1. We read about a girl who went off the road due to snowy road conditions. Please don’t laugh. That’s what it said in the police report. She went off the road due to snowy road conditions. In 62 years of driving I've never gone off the road due to snowy road conditions, but I've probably gone off the road several times because I was driving too fast.

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2. Our topic today is sports related injuries. Let us start with this quote which I garnered from a newspaper blog: "He should have been told after his second concussion that his hockey playing days were over." What do you think? Should someone quit hockey after only a second concussion? Would not a reasonable person argue that throwing in the towel should be contingent upon the age or occupation of the participant? Every week we hear on the evening news that mild head trauma can result in long-term cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment are two big words doctors and lawyers use when they don’t want to come right out and say that an athlete is punch drunk or downright bonkers. So --- not knowing any more about sport related injuries than I hear every week on the news, please understand that I can offer no more than this tentative suggestion for regulating sport injuries. Anyone below the age of 12 or high school should be required to quit after only one serious crack to the occipital. Grades 9 through 12 would only permit two splits in any of the cranial bones. In college, which is the proving grounds for professional heroes, three good ones to the cranium might be tolerated --- if enough time were allowed between games to permit the bones to fully knit. Cracks in facial bones would count only half as much as similar injuries to cranial bones. Because of the big money involved, a professional athlete could decide for himself when his head had been pounded enough. And --- one bright and sunny morning he would let the world know by shooting his wife, lover, children or anyone else who happened to be handy.

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3. I never thought I'd agree with a politician who puts corporate America above working people, but one turned up this morning on what passes for our news broadcast. It is my firm belief that betraying one's wife and children has nothing to do with a man's ability to lead a great army or turn a profit for a large company or be a capable governor or president. South Carolina's Mark Sanford agrees with me. Mark Sanford, who voted for the Clinton impeachment following the Lewinsky scandal, declaring Clinton's behavior to be "reprehensible," said that everyone deserves a second chance. When he said "everyone" he probably meant "any Republican who has paid his $70,000 ethics fine deserves a second chance." A deeply religious man, he adds, "It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one's faith ought to be in how one lives his life." We are not surprised to see that the libertarian Cato Institute called this hero from South Carolina "the best governor in America." Although Mark Sanford's wife divorced him because of his infidelities, he is running for office again and is marrying his mistress. Because many Americans eagerly vote against their own economic interests, Mark Sanford has a chance of being elected. Stay tuned.

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4. Here’s a letter from radio friend of 35 years Ed who writes, Dear Robert, I was awake early this morning and heard your show on WGDR. Good that Chris puts you on. Nowadays I listen to radio more for the talk than the music, and I always enjoy your comments. Also, although I'm of a generation that listened to pop, rock, folk, jazz, etc. of the sixties and seventies, your "old fashioned music" has grown on me, and I very much enjoy it now, largely thanks to the exposure I've gained from your shows. You spoke about not remembering people, as you mentioned when I visited you this summer. Myself, I often forget people's names, though not faces--not that names mean all that much to me, but this can be awkward. Anyway, I wrote a long paper letter to you a couple of months ago, and considering I have corresponded with you many times since 1978 by mail and email, and it has been your practice to answer every time, I was surprised not to hear from you, not that I have any right to expect it. I went through wondering whether you received the letter, or if you forgot or there was some other reason, so I decided to ask about it. – Signed, Ed Ed, it was a great letter – it was a classic piece of historical writing --- but stamps cost so much now that I simply can’t answer all my hard copy letters. I do enjoy making this program for you, but all I get out of it is a lot of friends, and, although I wish it were otherwise, warm, fuzzy feelings count for nothing in a grocery store. . I’m the humble farmer at gmail dot com

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5. This from a letter in the newspaper. "My understanding is that schools are built and maintained to teach our children the skills they will require to earn a living." Why don't our schools teach children how to live? Life is not easy for comfortably retired people who have never learned how to live. To paraphrase what a friend told me: You get up. You make coffee. And then, every single morning, you wonder what you're going to do for the rest of the day.

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6. I was not surprised that the first ten minutes of one morning's "news" program, was about a singer I had never heard of who took her own life. Ten minutes on national news. As unfortunate as the incident might be, does it typify our media's present role in creating an enlightened American public? Are people subjected to this kind of broadcasting likely to whine about the low scores their children get at school?

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7. The question in the newspaper was: "Should smokers have to pay more for their health insurance than non smokers?" Someone observed: "The problem with not letting them charge more for those that cost more is that the rest of us will have to pay that amount." We'd like to read this comment and hear this comment over and over until everyone understands it. We pay more because of them. We;re tahis is true with smokers, overweight people, drinkers, people who run stop signs, bikers without helmets, --- the list of self destructive habits is endless .... This is why those of us who want to keep as much of our Social Security checks as we can encourage our friends to quit smoking, lose weight, stop drinking, stop at stop signs and wear helmets. Overweight libertarian helmetless bikers who smoke should smile and realize that they still have a lot of freedom in this country. And that you and I are paying their way.

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8. The other night I read in a 2009 psychology book that one out of every four people in this country have some kind of mental illness. Later, I read on an ABC news blog that “One in five Americans experienced some sort of mental illness in 2010.” That’s a five percent gain in one year, so by 2014 Americans should be in pretty good shape.

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9. I about froze to death the other night sitting in the garage/office watching an Internet course that turned up when I Googled “Free Sociology Courses on the Internet.” I know I Googled Sociology. But the Yale professor talked about Hobbes and Locke and Nietzsche and Marx and Freud and Mill and Adam Smith and I went to bed and got up the next morning pondering it. You certainly realize that what I watched was an exciting class on an introduction to political and economic systems and not sociology. Yes, that class on Social Theory turned up when I Googled sociology and I was so excited I didn’t figure it out until I’d slept on it. Did you know that you can listen to a Yale professor lecture on Social Theory on the Internet? There must be other college classes out there that we can watch, too. And when we find one we should tell our friends how to find it. This one will certainly take the place of my Italian language studies and the Mentalist for at least a month. I don’t know when I’ve been so excited to learn about something. For over 40 years I’ve had all the books those fellows wrote and now this professor promised me that he’s going to help me pull all that thinking together with lectures and selected writings by these great men. Oh, there’s no question but what every man jack of them made a valuable contribution to our society: there’s hardly a one who didn’t have to flee to another country or lose his head for simply speaking the truth.

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10. There are some very clever characters in Maine. They are people who know how to get things done. What would you do if you were annoyed by the amount of valuable clutter your neighbors were accumulating in the weeds and bushes around their homes? Would you complain to the officials in your town? Make your neighbors haul it off? If you were smart you wouldn’t, because then you’d be considered a nut or a crank, or even worse, someone from away. Let me tell you how one man single handedly cleaned up his entire town. He dragged stuff home from the dump and artistically decorated his yard with old bicycles and bedsprings much as someone in Camden or Kennebunkport would plant flowers or shrubs. Old washing machine here. Comfortable sofa there. A few broken chairs and a dozen or so lawnmowers for parts. Weeds in between. At last some of his neighbors couldn’t stand it any longer and got up a petition which led to an ordinance. The selectmen then came to this man’s house and said that they were sorry but because of a new regulation everyone had to haul off their junk.

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11. One of my favorite poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes contains the line, “I only ask that Fortune send A little more than I shall spend.” And it is true. No matter how much we have, it is human nature to want more. I have 14 Model T Ford engines, but last week someone asked me if I’d like two more and I couldn’t say no. Drive down the road in any town or village and you will see row after row of storage sheds where people proudly pile possessions --- little alliteration there like you hear in Beowulf --- people proudly pile possessions that they obviously don’t need. For years I coveted my next door neighbor’s old green garage. It sagged on both sides and I knew that someday soon he’d tear it down and build a new one. Before that happened I planned to offer him a couple of hundred bucks for it and drag it home behind my tractor. But I went away for a day and when I came home I discovered he’d burned it down. A couple of hundred? If he’d said to me, “Robert, it breaks my heart but I’ll let it go for four,” I would have given him as much as $400 for that great storage building. What he did was tantamount to putting a match to 40 ten dollar bills. Remember that no matter how wretched something looks to you, one of your neighbors probably wants it. You might want to keep this in mind if your wife suddenly takes an interest in bowling three times a week.

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12. If you are big enough --- if you are powerful enough, you can get away with doing and saying anything. Perhaps you saw the Martha Stewart television show that she called “Five Meals From One Bag.” If I were to even suggest that Martha Stewart produce such a program, I would be shut off the air.

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