Occasionally, my paper posts a column written by Steve Lambert of which I have quoted before. The column is entitled 400 words. I find myself starting to like this guy more and more. Here is the latest column.
Written by Steve Lambert, editor and publisher of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.
GUYS: GIVE UP ON HAIRBRAINED IDEAS.
Guys and their hair..............call me jealous, but I just don't get it.
And after watching Bob Costas host NBC's Olympics coverage with brown dye practically streaming down his face, I'm reminded how lucky I am for genetics some would consider a curse.
I sure did, when I was 25 and well on my way to the low-maintenance monk fringe I sport today. Time has a way of healing, however, and by the time my friends were pulling strands of hair out of their combs, I'd long since accepted my place among the follicly challenged (a.k.a.) bald guys, cue balls, chrome domes.)
Which speaks to this simple truth, men; It's not whether your hair will fall out or turn gray, but when. The sooner it happens, the happier you'll be --- and less likely that you'll waste your middle years trying desperately to hide the truth.
"Trying" is the operative word here. When it comes to aging's effect on men's hair, there is no hiding.
We've all known guys who thought they'd be the exception -- that they'd fool Mother Nature with their bad dye jobs, plugs, creepy-looking hairpieces or comb-overs.
Some joke about it, as Art Garfunkel did (yes, those curly locks are false) during his recent appearance in San Bernardino. Which may be stranger still --"I'm bald, I'm going to cover it up with a bad wig, then tell you all I'm covering it up with a bad wig." Why not just stay bald?
Telly Savalas did. Michael Jordan did. And if you ask women which version of Sean Connery they find sexier --- the buzzed, confident street cop in "The Untouchables" or the badly touped submarine captain in "The Hunt for Red October" it's not even close.
Which is part of the problem. Even in an age of uber mass media and information overload, men still don't understand what women find attractive. Inner strength and self-confidence -- yes. Vanity and overcompensations? Let's just say wearing our insecurities on our sleeves (or in this case, on our heads) gets us nowhere.
The fact that we are, by our nature, superficial beings plays right into this. Guys will live with gooey dye dripping down their faces or a hairy road kill-looking piece glued to their heads if, though their own blurred eyes, it makes them feel younger.
I don't want to work that hard.. Bald may not be beautiful, but it's the best some of us got.
____________
Larryj
Another 400 words from Steve Lambert---
CENSUS PARTICIPATION WELL WORTH THE TIME
It took about 15 minutes to fill out a census form I trust will be put to good use.
"Trust" is the operative word here. When it comes to government, our already-shaken sense of confidence has reached magnitude-8 levels.
Take health care (please, in the words of Henny Youngman). While America is looking for movement on the economy, Washington has spent the better part of a year stuck on Obamacare. Here's an idea: You want to guarantee coverage for more people? Create some jobs.
Then there's sideshow freak Eric Massa, the New York congressman who in a single week managed to make both sides -- Democrat and Republican -- look about as bad as they possibly could.
By the time "Saturday Night Live" got a chance to poke some fun at Tickle Me Eric last weekend, we'd already memorized the punchlines: inappropriate behavior with aides, naked confrontations in the congressional locker room with Obama staff chief Rahm Emanuel, even an apology from Fox's own goofball Glenn Beck, who admitted he'd "wasted an hour" by giving Massa 15 more minutes of fame, times four.
Which brings us back to the census, and our duty to participate. It's too easy to get cynical in times like this -- to write off everything government does as corrupt, poorly thought out or otherwise disconnected from reality.
Certainly the Census Bureau did itself no good when it mislabeled tens of thousands of addresses on the official forms that went out this past week -- including a large number sent to Whittier households but addressed "Pico Rivera."
The bureau claims it wasn't a mistake, but the result of some bulk distribution mumbo jumbo and that all will be counted correctly. Maybe, maybe not.
But not participating isn't an option -- not if you want your community to have anything resembling a fighting chance when it comes to congressional districting, federal funding and any number of other fair-representation benefits that come from accurate census reporting. It's why cities, counties and states are so desperately getting the word out -- the census may be a federal program, but the impact is local.
Refuse to play, and you become part of the problem, alongside those who don't vote, don't get involved in their kid's schools, or don't take the time to try to make a difference in their communities.
Filling out a census form may be a bother, but only about 15 minutes worth.
Trust me on that.
____________________________________________
Larryj
Another one from Steve Lambert------
GOVERNMENT SPENDING IS A TAXING PROBLEM
By Steve Lambert, Editor and Publisher of the San Gabriel Valley Newsgroup.
Wednesday is the 104th day of 2010. For the average California worker, it means the money you make moving forward is yours. What you have earned up until then is the governments -- a sobering fact at a time when individual tax liability is certain to go up before it comes down.
Which is worth considering as the California Primary and the November mid-term elections approach. Who's got your back? Who's got your wallet?
I wish the answer was easy. In today's world, you can't assume that one party has an edge when it comes to running government efficiently. Nor is government spending necessarily a bad thing.
It's how that money is spent.
When California recently expanded its home buyer tax credit to $10,000 -- at a cost to you and me -- even some Realtors wondered why. It's already a buyer's market, what's really needed are sellers and financing.
Then there's this bit of expensive irony from the recently passed health care bill. While every man, woman and child in America will see his or her tax liability grow by an average of $165 a year, the government is setting aside $10 billion to clothe and feed 16,500 IRS agents needed to make sure the new taxes are collected.
Who's making these decisions? Indirectly, all of us, by the choices we've made at the polls. We've enabled government to run fat and lazy while the rest of us try to operate leaner and meaner than we ever have.
My good buddy Tim Gallagher, a former newspaper publisher who now consults businesses from his home base in Ventura, put it in simple terms the other day: "State government commits $1 in spending for every 75 cents in income," he wrote on his Facebook page. "Homeowners who operate this way find themselves in bankruptcy court."
What's to keep California from a similar result?
Very little, short of a mandate from voters. And candidly, that's not likely to happen anytime soon. Not since 1982 has any non-presidential primary in California attracted at least 50 percent of registered voters, which is why the same people get elected over and over again. Term limits might change the names and faces, but the DNA is indisputably the same.
In two months, we can reverse that trend or stand back and watch as the government we work so hard for finds new reasons to hire more IRS agents.
Larryj
Steve Lambert again-----
FOR YOUNGSTERS TODAY, LIFE IS A ROLLER COASTER
My dad and his dad worked a collective 60 years for the same company.
I've spent 32 years in this business.
My kids? Chances are, they'll venture in and out of five or six different careers, which makes any of my fatherly advice suspect at best.
So it goes as I look for ways to counsel my oldest on what the future may as he finishes his second year of college, unsure what he wants to do, but with opportunities ahead of him I can't begin to comprehend.
That's the difference between the grown-up world I entered way back when and the one he's about to tip-toe into. Mine offered security; his is all risk.
Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily. Scary, yes, especially for someone whose role models went down traditional career paths. And yet, as we've all come to learn, even the most deeply rooted professions have lost their safety nets.
I used to say that my parents generation had it best -- pensions, job security, Christmas bonuses -- but in all likelihood, our kids will fare better, by understanding from the start the value of self-reliance. They will be more adventurous, more entrepreneurial, more willing and able to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
And they will follow their dreams in ways we could only dream of.
In a small way, my son is doing that now as a top-of-his-class junior college baseball pitcher. It could get him a scholarship to a four-year college, and might even get him drafted by the pros.
For now, it's the opportunity to do something he's loved since he was a kid.
I gave up that dream way too soon, trading my glove and bat for a typewriter (we used those back then) and focusing my energy on a more sure thing.
Can't say I regret it. To paraphrase Chico Escuela, newspapers have been "berra, berra good to me." But I admire my son's willingness to take a chance.
Sort of like Grandma's metaphorical take on life and merry-go-rounds in the old Ron Howard movie, "Parenthood." "That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."
Young people today have no choice. Their's will be a roller coaster ride.
And my guess is, the only ones with white knuckles will be their parents.
__________________________________________________________
Larryj
Steve Lambert---------
BLUSHING AT THE THOUGHT OF FACEBOOK IN 25 YEARS
When I was 13, we'd take our brand-new bell-bottom jeans, drench them in bleach, rip holes in the knees, and sew bright funky fabric along the cuff line.
Our parents hated it -- and not just because of the money being poured down the drain (along with all that blue denim dye.)
They hated it because they didn't want to be seen with us. To them, our expression of nonconformity was less a style statement than proof that we'd lost our minds.
Fast forward 40 years, and my wife and I have a 13-year-old who's suddenly obsessed with modern teen-age fashion -- skinny jeans, saggy drawers and enough hair gel to lubricate a 747 -- convincing us, like every generation of parents before, that our kid's gone completely nuts.
Was it really a year ago that he stood guard at our spring yard sale, decked out all Alex P. Keating-like in a gray two-piece suit and gold tie? True story. He said it made him "look hot" and helped drive sales.
Not that he's gone completely the other way. By today's standards, his preferences are still reasonably tame. But we see what's coming; eighth grade, then high school, then our three daughters not too far behind.
Lord help us.
Which is what our parents said, and theirs said before them and theirs before them and theirs before them. Then, eventually, reality set in, we landed that first real job interview, and the planets realigned themselves precisely as they should have.
The fun part is looking back on our artistic, rebellious and expressive pasts via the photographic evidence our parents kept.
Long after we decide to fit back in, the goofy clothes and goofier hair invariably come back to haunt us. For today's young generation, the scariest will be even more extreme thanks to social media.
It's how I found our our oldest son -- at college in New York -- has a Mohawk. He posted a picture of himself on his Facebook page.
Again, pretty benign, all things considered.
But what he's too young to appreciate is that all this Internet stuff is retrievable long after it's been deleted -- maybe 25 years. Which gives me an idea for his 45th birthday present -- something we'll enjoy sharing with his wife and kids.
Including, with any luck, his very own 13-year-old.
_________________________________________
Larryj
Steve Lambert----------
ARE LUCKY NUMBERS REALLY LUCKY --- OR JUST NUMBERS?
If I have a lucky number, it's 15.
My oldest son was born on the 15th, as were his brother, two of his sisters, my wife, and my dad. Another daughter was born on the 30th -- double 15.
And while I've never had my 15 minutes of global fame, as Andy Warhol promised, a very distant ancestor, James Buchanan, was the 15th President of the United States.
Not all 15s are lucky. Babe Ruth hit his first career home run in 1915, but it was also the year of Typhoid Mary, World War I and the locust plague in Palestine. And, April 15 is the one day of the year every taxpayer would just as soon forget, refund or not.
So why do we take lucky numbers and rabbit's feet and ladder and black cats to such extremes?
Why is it that athletes will wear the same pair of socks -- unwashed -- until good fortune begins or ends?
Or that Michael Jordan always wore blue University of North Carolina shorts --washed, we hope -- under his red-and-black Chicago Bulls uniform?
Or that Napoleon was afraid of cats and the number 13?
Why did Harry Truman nail a horseshoe over the his White House door?
Or John McCain carry lucky coins and a feather on the campaign trail?
Or William McKinley were a red carnation on his lapel?
In McKinley's case, the story goes, he gave the flower to a little girl moments before he was shot by an assassin.
Call it a coincidence, or dumb luck, but if the smartest, richest people in the world believe in this stuff, why shouldn't the rest of us? Or is superstition a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, as some even smarter people claim?
I asked my buddy Bill Brenner about that. Years back, he was diagnosed with OCD and now writes a blog on the subject, "The OCD Diaries."
"With a superstition," he told me, "the compulsion is driven by the fear that something bad will happen if you fail to do the compulsive action or if you fail to avoid the proverbial broken mirror. If I break a mirror, I don't freak out. Never did. I just go out and by another one."
Which means, I think, that my lucky number is nothing of the sort. It won't win me the lottery or a $15 bet at Santa Anita Race Track.
It just makes it easier to remember all those birthdays.
Larryj
by Steve Lambert-------(and I put this on here just for Diane)
SAN GABRIEL VALLEY LOOKING FOR PROPER SLOGAN
Years ago, my home state tried to capture some tourism dollars with this catchy little musical slogan, "Just outside Chicago there's a state called 'Illinois.'"
These days, we all know that "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
But my favorite dubbing came from a newspaper in Delaware who, responding to a contest in the local press a number of years back, suggested that the state change its motto to "close to where you'd rather be" -- which, if you've ever been to the Land of Biden, speaks for itself.
The irony is that Delaware already has several slogans: "The First State" (first to ratify the Constitution), "The Company State" (so christened by Ralph Nader for DuPont's influence on all things Delaware) and "The Diamond State" (I'm not sure why ... maybe because some DuPont heiress wore diamonds.)
Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the San Gabriel Valley, and new efforts to put our tourism industry on the map.
In recent weeks, a group led by Cynthia Kurtz and the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership has been batting around ideas to attract more visitors, increase hotel occupancy and put the Valley's hidden gems in a platinum setting for all to see.
That's really what it's all about -- visibility. From the Huntington Library to Old Pasadena, Santa Anita to the Pacific Palms Resort, the San Gabriel Valley has no shortage of destination spots for people with time and money to spend. But while some are world renowned, they tend to operate in the shadow of Greater L.A.'s major attractions.
Collaboration and branding can begin to change that, and it starts with determining who we are and what connects us. Could it be Route 66, which runs through the Valley and offers plenty of branding opportunities? Or is it our weather, our relative affordability or, very simply, our location?
It's probably all of the above -- and more -- which makes coming up with a clear, powerful, digestible message all the more arduous.
One thing's for sure; We're not "close" to where you'd rather be, we "are" where you'd rather be.
Sorry Delaware.
__________________________________________________
Larryj
The "Diamond State" nick name came from Thomas Jefferson. He considered us a jewel among states because of our location. Also because we are small, but valuable. In spite of the teasing it's very pretty state with the north being rolling hills, lots of trees and plantings and downstate is rural sandy farm land, flat as can be, with bay and ocean beaches and fishing. We're not more than 2 hours from an enormous amount of "everything." We are also sometimes called "Small Wonder" and sometimes we call ourselves the "State of DuPont." Their influence isn't as strong as it once was. Wilmington, our one big city in New Castle County has has it's slogan," A Place to be Somebody." Because of the gun problems in the one bad area, we have renamed it. "A Place to be a Body."
By Steve Lambert
Titled: SUMMER'S HERE; TIME TO LET LOOSE.
I can't remember when I've looked forward to a summer as much as this, which is part of the reason we are getting out of town this weekend.
No oil spills. No market crashes. No home renovations or bill payments.
Just enjoy the ride. Enjoy the kids. Enjoy the start of what I hope will be a memorable summer.
We aren't alone. Heading into this weekend, AAA projected that 32.1 million Americans would travel over the Memorial Day holiday, up about a million and a half from last year.
Economics certainly have helped. The recovery, soft as it is, has us ready to do what we do best --- spend.
Consumer spending: up -- New-home sales: way up. And now, at long last, we're ready to hit the road again.
But there's something else going on here, and has to do, again, with the Great Recession. If we've learned anything these past three years it's to appreciate those things we've taken for granted.
We don't need to travel to Bermuda or Europe or even across our own continent to have a good time. There are so many amazing things close to home -- places people elsewhere pay good money to see.
We've also discovered a reconnection with our families, and learned not only how to enjoy the time we have together, but to revel in it.
At least, that's what I'm thinking now, before the kids start terrorizing each in the back seat and my wife and I have to ground each one of them for life. But, isn't that what summer's about? Letting loose?
That's how I remember it, from ......... well, it's been a long, long time. Even in college, I came to dread those three months of midnight shifts at some local factory. I made speaker cones, assembled plastic pots, even swept floors at a diaphragm factory -- a story for another time.
The point is, I want this summer to be the antithesis of all that. To make it special for my kids, even if they are grounded.
We can go to the beach, have barbecues, and recharge their batteries for another school year.
I'm liking the sound of this
Have a great Memorial Day weekend , and see you on the other side.
________________________________________________
Larryj
By Steve Lambert
TEA PARTIERS MAY BE NEEDED WAKE-UP CALL
Give the tea party movement this--it has raised voter consciousness is ways our mainstream parties have forgotten or ignored, and in doing so is forcing Democrats and Republicans to work harder than ever.
Whether it leads to some kind of seismic demagoguery -- as some fear is already in motion -- or simply energizes a political process that lost its mojo long ago remains to be seen.
But what is certain is the imprint this largely grassroots movement has had in a relatively short amount of time.
In Nevada, tea party-backed Sharron Angle beat out more than a dozen candidates Tuesday to win the GOP Senate primary -- momentum she hopes to carry in her quest to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November.
In Arkansas, Sen. (and Democrat) Blanche Lincoln, fresh off a hard-fought runoff victory in her re-election bid, now looms as a likely tea party target in the general election.
And in our own 59th Assembly District, tea party and Minutemen activist Tim Donnelly emerged from seemingly nowhere to top a crowded field in Tuesday;s GOP primary. Provisional ballots will decide the winner of that still-to-close-to-call race., but Donnelly's reliance on e-mail, word of mouth and door-to-door campaigning defied the conventional wisdom that you need to spend a whole lot of money ($100,000 or more) to win a legislative seat in California.
Which speaks to two of the tea party's most valuable assets: An angry electorate and a keen sense of viral marketing. Throw is low voter turnout, and an otherwise low-profile candidate has a fighting chance.
That can change as the stakes rise, and certainly November will be a more formidable challenge.
In Nevada, Reid's camp wasted no time in declaring Angie out of touch with the mainstream and "more extreme than Rand Paul," the tea party backed Kentucky Senate candidate and self-declared "constitutional conservative" who caused a national stir with his controversial take on the Civil Rights Act.
Then there's money, though there, too, the tea party is stirring things up. In the past ten months, Rand Paul has raised more than $1 million through four "money-bombs" - 24-hour online and social media-heavy campaign blitzes.
All of which will make for some fascinating watching -- and reading -- over the next four and a half months.
And for the parties in power, perhaps, just perhaps, it's the wake-up call they need.
___________________________________________________
Larryj
I'm interested in how many women won. :D
By Steve Lambert
FATHER'S DAY HONORS DADS, CELEBRATES KIDS.
The first Father's Day was in honor of a single parent, a Civil War veteran whose wife died during childbirth.
By himself, William Smart raised the baby and his five other children, embodying the notion that good fathers don't come from a single mold.
The Ward Cleavers and Cliff Huxtables we grew up watching were composites -- prefab creations for a fictional world. Real dads have to navigate their real lives in varied ways.
Some are better at it, to be sure, and as much as we think we've evolved, ours is a culture that enables fathers who choose to escape any and all responsibility for parenting their children. Spend a day in family court, and you'll see what I mean. For every mom who abandons her kids, there are at least three other guys who've done the same thing.
Which, to a degree, makes it harder on good men to prove that they're up to the challenge.
Rightly or wrongly, no one thinks twice about a single mom balancing work and child rearing; put a father in that position, and we assume the worst -- and that short of divine intervention, the poor guy hasn't a chance.
Not that either has it easy. It wasn't until I became a solo act in raising my two girls that I could more fully appreciate what single mothers, sty-at-home moms and mommies generally have faced for generations.
An yet, knowing that, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I'm now a father of five, and each and every one of them has enriched my life in ways I can't begin to describe.
Do they have their moments? Can they drive you crazy? Oh, the stories my wife and I could tell.
But they also have an uncanny way to turning your worst days into some of your best, with a twinkle in their eyes and a soft "I love you" that comes straight from their amazing little hearts.
As they grow, so do we as parents guiding them through challenges and heartbreak, opportunities and discovery.
No man with an ounce of soul can resist any of this, which is why there are more good dads than bad, and far more great ones than the deadbeats we too often hear about.
It's those good and great fathers we celebrate today, and it's their kids we celebrate even more -- for giving us the opportunity to raise them, and love them.
_________________________________________________________________
Larryj
Steve Lambert's take on being an American--------------
REMEMBER WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN
By Steve Lambert
Wisdom and courage.
Foresight and sacrifice.
Words you won't find among the 1,337 in the Declaration of Independence, but which are at the heart of this most heartfelt of documents.
"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."
It's an amazing passage, when you think about it -- as relevant today as it was 234 years ago. And yet, it's almost impossible to fully appreciate the wisdom and courage behind it -- the foresight and sacrifice that spurred and sustained our battle for independence.
There were no red states and blue states back then -- just 13 colonies united in their resolve to become free and independent and, in their words, to "mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
The Civil War threatened that bond, and certainly we've had our ups and downs since as statesmanship has given way to politics, altruism to self-interest.
But we carry on, as the strongest country in the world still capable of leading by example.
The fact that we continue to debate immigration control -- as volatile and polarizing as that discussion often can be -- is but a tiny example of how brilliant our forefathers were in understanding that the world is far grayer that it is black and white.
America, as it often does, will lead the world out of global recession.
America, as it always has, will stand toe to toe with those who pose a danger to global security.
Our tactics don't always work -- and we can and must criticize ourselves when we fall short -- but we can't allow this to sidetrack us spiritually.
We are a good people.
Our republic is built on a strong foundation.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are as important to the left as they are to the right.
On this Fourth of July, between the family gatherings and barbecues and fireworks shows, take time to reacquaint yourself with the Declaration of Independence.
Say a prayer for the men and women who have died to preserve and safeguard the wisdom and courage behind those 1,337 words.
Remember what is means to be an American.
I guarantee you will fell good about it.
________________________________________________________
Larryj
From Steve Lambert
U.S. HAS NO JOBS PROGRAM, JUST ZONED-OUT LAWMAKERS
Some years back, my son and I grabbed a bite at the ESPN Zone in Times Square. I had an overpriced beer. He had an overpriced burger. We took in basketball highlights on the thousand or two big screen TVs on the wall, and made fun of Knicks fans.
It was a uniquely American father-and-son experience, devoid of real world depth but rich in male bonding.
So when Disney -- which owns ESPN and its spin-offs -- announced recently that it was closing five of it seven Zone restaurants across the U.S., I couldn't decide if it was the end of an era or a sign of the times.
Was this simply Planet Hollywood II --- an ego-driven business venture with eyes bigger than its stomach? Or is it, as Disney says, another casualty of a soft economy?
Probably somewhere in the middle, which is why the only buzz you'll hear in Washington about all this is who gets the memorabilia from the Zone's shuttered D.C. franchise. Even the conservatives are having a hard time mustering up much ado about the restaurants demise, though a few bloggers have tried -- of course, pinning the blame on the Obama administration's failed economic policies.
They're right, to a degree, and so are the liberals who point out that their party inherited a mess.
And yet if either side really had its fingers on the pulse, doncha think we'd have a national jobs program by now?
Forget Obama's criss-crossing the country this past week to declare was on unemployment. Funny how mid-term elections and eroding popularity numbers will force one into action.
Again, not that the Republicans have done any better, allowing themselves to get sucked into a year-long debate on health-care reform as the economy sputtered and the federal deficit grew.
Now, in large part because of our mounting debt, we don't have the tax flexibility we could have to stimulate job growth.
If the NBA can have a salary cap (and still manage to overpay for stuff), why can't the federal government?
Sadly, Knicks fans won't be able to debate that over overpriced beers and burgers at their ESPN Zone.
Perhaps we can invite them out our way. Turns out, the two LA area restaurants have been spared the corporate butcher knife.
And if Knicks and Lakers fans can sit elbow to elbow, maybe there's hope for Democrats and Republicans.
_________________________________________________________
Larryj
Here are more that are expected to disappear or be bought out by the end of 2011. Readers Digest, Kia Motors, Dollar Thrifty. Zales Blockbuster, T-Mobile, B P plc, Radio Shack, Merrill Lynch, Moodys...... A new list from 24/7 Wall Street.
From Steve Lambert----
VOTERS WAS RESULTS, NOT AGENDAS OR TALK
Barack Obama sold America on hope.
Selling his economics has proved to be a far more formidable challenge, one that appears to have him and his party heading for a crash and burn not quite halfway into his first -- and possibly only -- term.
Which is a warning to Republicans as the begin drafting their mid-term victory speeches: Give us hope, but show us the money.
If economics are a party strong suit, as the GOP has long maintained, that shouldn't be a problem.
But the disconnect between Washington and the world we live in has never been greater, and the patience of voters has never been thinner.
They're tired of talk. They're tired of agendas. They want results.
And they want government to stop ignoring them, which arguably has been Obama's biggest failing as president. The man flat-out doesn't listen, and admits as much in dismissing his plummeting poll numbers.
But if Republicans think they'll be able to ride that to victory beyond this November, they've got a surprise coming. Few presidents came into office with the momentum and mandate Obama had 18 months ago, but despite his recent efforts to validate economic progress since then, Americans don't see it.
Ask Ken Rausch, who is about to close his Edward's Steakhouse in El Monte, a restaurant his family has owned since 1946.
"it's frustrating to hear politicians in D.C. saying things are getting better," he told our Rebecca Kimitch this past week. "They are not. Things are getting worse."
So much for hope. Or the power of persuasion.
It was Obama, after all, who spent the first year of his presidency pulling out all stops to promote health care reform as a modern-day equivalent of the civil rights movement. And yet, according to a new Pew Research poll, only 35 percent of Americans approve off the legislation. In the meantime, according to a CBS News poll, 54 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy.
How the Republicans plan to use that information to effect a robust economic turnaround is unclear. So far, the GOP and the tea party have been heavy on criticism, light on solutions -- which might get you elected, but won't keep you around very long.
Not in today's environment, where actions speak louder than words, and jobs mean more than hope.
__________________________________________________________
Larryj
From Steve Lambert
NORMAL FAMILIES COME IN ALL SHAPES, SIZES.
A "normal" family. What does that mean, anyway?
"Normal."
Can a blended family be normal? Is a single-parent household normal? Is a traditional two-parent household normal anymore?
As parents, we tend to dwell on that. We want our kids to feel normal, even if the environment they're in is anything but.
And that's just the point. In these times, every situation is as normal, or abnormal, as the next -- a point I found myself struggling to make when Shirlee Smith, a parenting columnist, invited me on her TV show a few weeks ago.
I was there to talk about my experience as a one-time single dad who finds himself co-parenting a blended household. When I think about it, it's pretty remarkable -- five kids melded together from different bloodlines, siblings in every sense of the word.
We've worked hard at that, my wife and I, but we also know that for our kids, simple situations -- simple questions -- can quickly become more complicated.
"Is that your Mom?" "Is that your Dad?"
Yes, and no.
Which is different than the answer we'd give, for they're undeniably our kids. As blended parents, we can't and won't make decisions based on genetics. Our job is to raise them the best way we can, accepting that we'll be less that perfect along the way.
Again, perfectly normal, even as we hold our own parents to a higher, achievable standard.
To this day, when I look at the old black-and-white family portrait, circa 1968, I marvel at the contrast between those happy suburban smiles and the turmoil that hounded us in the dozen years that followed.
It took me a long time to understand that life happens, that my parents did the best they could, and that a normal family is more a state of mind than anything else.
Parents divorce. Siblings make bad choices. We all have decisions and regrets to overcome.
Helping each other -- to move forward, to grow, to fulfill our dreams -- is what real families do.
Which is my problem with the traditional family values movement . It's far too quick to pass judgement on those families that don't fit its own narrow definition.
The world's not that tidy. And as my kids prepare to go back to school -- a little older and wiser -- they'll see they're not alone and that "normal" families come in all shapes and sizes.
____________________________________________
Larryj
From Steve Lambert
SHOPPING FOR BACKPACKS GIVES DAD AN EDUCATION---
Sometimes I can act like such a guy, and I don't mean that is a good way, either.
Take backpacks. More specifically, backpacks for our three school-age girls.
Part of a distant and forgotten generation (we carried our books under our arms, and walked barefoot in the snow, too). I foolishly thought the process would be as simple as shopping for Bic pens or No. 2 pencils.
Silly me, so unaware that in today's world, backpacks are so much more than the green canvas knapsacks we used to take on camping trips, but a deeply personal expression -- as important to the self-esteem of a young girl as hairstyle, shoes and designer
T-shirts.
It's why there are moms. They get it. They know that whatever choice is made, it may never be good enough -- something that engineered to last a year will likely fall out of favor long before then.
And so our trek began -- to discount stores, department stores, drug stores.
Compounding our challenge was the nexus between style and functionality that has made already demanding school girls even more so. It began early last school year, when our 11-year-old decided she wanted a backpack with wheels and a handle.
I didn't quite understand it, until I tried to lift her old book bag and nearly went into traction. Kids today don't just carry home a book or two. Even in first grade, they're little ants carrying 10 times their body weight in books, homework papers and anything else they can stuff in there.
There are even studies that show as many as a third of children in the United States have neck or back pain as a result of carrying backpacks.
So the strolling variety makes a lot of sense -- as long as it looks good, too. Which is where I erred when I somehow coerced our two youngest girls to grab the two remaining strolling backpacks at the drug store down the road.
Mind you, we'd looked everywhere up until then, and found nothing to their liking.
But that's just the point. It needs to be to their liking, not something one would find at a bait-and-tackle shop. I suggested pink ribbons for the zipper tabs -- an idea quickly dismissed.
Long story short, my wife went online and found exactly what they were looking for, I returned the two we bought, and all three girls are pleased as can be.
All's well that ends well. Sometimes it's the best we guys can hope for.
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Larryj
(More of a politics thing, but I will leave it here)
From Steve Lambert------------
WE MUST MAKE INFORMED CHOICES IN NOVEMBER
It's hard to fathom, as we send our kids off to school every morning, how uncomplicated and carefree their world is compared with ours.
They're not worried about unemployment or 401(k)s or how many troops we have in Afghanistan, and if we're good parents, we keep it that way.
Which is why these next two months matter so much.
Perhaps more than ever, the choices we make, the messages we send as the mid-term elections approach will determine what kind of country, what kind of world, our children will inherit.
Will they have jobs? Will we have jobs?
Will our trade balance and budget deficits allow us to rebuild our economy, hold down taxes and provide the kind of security and defense needed to keep our families safe?
The challenge for us, as voters, is to try to separate rhetoric from a legitimate plan to fix things.
As one who voted for Barack Obama, I've also been very candid in my disappointment over his handling of the economy. Not that the the Republicans have bowled me over with their plans either.
The wild card this year is the tea party, which has done a formidable job of winning votes, but has yet to demonstrate it has what it takes to move the country forward.
Therein lies the art of political leadership, and why -- from the state house to the White House -- we see so much activity but so little action.
We've always been a people of differing views, and we've expected the people we elect to represent our interests. But we also counted on them to compromise where it made sense to, in the spirit of getting things done.
Now we just argue, and hope that the other party screws things up so badly that our team is put back in power.
The Republicans are taking full advantage of that now, just as the Democrats tried to in 2008.
Which brings me back to us -- as voters, as members of our communities, as parents.
We can't allow ourselves not to make informed choices -- to allow the angry rhetoric that surrounds us determine who "wins" in November.
Start by asking who or what is going to create jobs -- and quickly.
As is always the case, the answer is open to our own personal interpretation, but until and unless we're open minded enough to listen to all sides, we're destined to repeat the mistakes of our past.
For our future -- our kids -- let's vow not to do that this time.
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Larryj
Thank you Larry. I totally agree.
From Steve Lambert---
FALL IS MAGICAL, EVEN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Stare at a tree long enough on a September afternoon, you'll see one of God's simplest wonders-----a leaf quietly spiraling to the ground in a manner uniquely its own.
It's right up there with the smell of a rose on a spring morning or the twist and turn of a snowflake as it drifts toward your tongue---reminders that nature in its most subtle form is a powerful antidote to all we do to complicate the world.
Fall, in particular, has always carried that kind of magic for me.
As a Midwest kid, I'd marvel at how the rows of green trees that lined our streets would instantaneously transform into an electrifying light show of orange, yellow and red.
Kids throughout the neighborhood would make window displays out of the most colorful of those dying oak leaves. sandwiching them between pieces of waxed paper, which our moms would then iron together.
And, as much as our Dads hated raking leaves, they loved watching, and smelling, them go up in smoke, back before the fire department frowned on such things.
Then, just as quickly, it would all vanish, as if a plug was suddenly pulled and winter had arrived.
Autumn is different from place to place, but even here in Southern California it remains the best time of year, with its cool breezes and crisp blue skies.
It reminds me a little of the first time I experienced Albuquerque. It was October 1979, and, as I drove over the Sandia Mountains from the east, I saw a color of sky I'd never seen before, and have seen replicated only once since -- in Robert Redford's great film on life in rural New Mexico, "The Malaga Beanfield War."
For a second, I thought I saw it again the other day as I looked toward the San Gabriel Mountains during a midday jog. "Not quite," I told myself, but stopped to enjoy the view anyway.
I thought of how fall has played such an inspiring role in the travelogue of my life -- those brilliant Octobers in Colorado and New England, where for three or four weekends quiet mountain roads became the I-10 at rush hour, but no one complained. I thought back to Evansville, IN., and Aston, PA., and West Nyack. NY. -- places I may never see again, but won't forget if only for the way they made me feel this time of year.
To want to stop and smell the roses, or watch a beautiful leaf at the end of its life gently fall to the ground.
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Larryj
He's right about those evening sky colors. We don't see them here. The Milagro Bean Field War was a good movie. We were able to find the little town where it was filmed and found the bean field and that irrigation ditch. The film crew had added some buildings and things that were later taken down, but we had no trouble finding the place.
From Steve Lambert
BABY-SITTING NOW A WELL-PAYING JOB.
I'm almost sorry I checked.
But after chatting with a colleague about the high cost of baby-sitting, I was curious: Are my wife and I paying enough to have someone play zoo-keeper to our brood on those rare nights we dare to venture out?
And as long as I'm asking, what about the allowances we pay those little darlings every week as an incentive not to destroy the house, the dogs or each other?
Turns out, while it may pay to have kids in the eyes of the IRS, the price on the street is a whole other story.
Call it the PPI ---- the Parental Price Index ---- which, according to my calculations, has grown about twice the rate of inflation since the early 70's.
Let's use 1970 as a benchmark, and assume a standard baby-sitting fee back then of $1 an hour. Today, that dollar, adjusted for inflation, would be worth $5.63.
We pay our sitters almost double that -- $10 an hour --- factoring in that four little monsters are more work than two.
I thought we were being more than fair, but it turns out, we're a little on the cheap side, at least according to the three professional baby-sitting services I checked into. Their prices range from $10.50 to $13.50 an hour.
Well, OK, I thought, a professional service is going to cost more than a sitter down the street. And we do buy the pizza.
So what about allowances?
I never had one as a kid (poor, poor pitiful me) because we all worked. Paper routes. Mowing lawns. Caddying.
But let's assume a going rate in 1970 of a buck a week -- again $5.63 in today's dollars.
That's about what we pay each of our kids -- $5 a week, minus dollar deductions (fines, if you will) for those inevitable missteps. In a typical week, it adds up to about $15-$16 for the four of them.
Again, it appears we're on the low side. Though I couldn't find a true average, I found one source with a sliding scale, based on a child's age, and which in our case would add up to $25.39 per week.
I guess the $25 makes sense --- more so than the .39 -- but I think we'll stick with our formula.
Our kids will have to live with what they get.
Or, find jobs baby-sitting.
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Larryj
From Steve Lambert
BEATLES' MAGIC, MUSIC REMAIN UNMATCHED.
Paul was the Beatle I most wanted to be when my brothers and I got out the broomsticks and mom's furry winter hats to play act the Fab Four during those early "Ed Sullivan Show" appearances.
Give me a break, I was 7.
By the time I was 8 1/2 --- around the time of "Rubber Soul" ---- I knew John was a genius, even if I didn't understand a word of "Norwegian Wood."
And so it goes all these years later, as radio stations and old Baby Boomers across the globe commemorate what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday.
Lennon had already reached mythical status long before he was murdered at the age of 40, but his death cemented his and the Beatles' place as cultural icons of unmatchable proportion.
Never would they reunite.
Never would Lennon-McCartney pen another masterpiece.
Never again would America stop everything it was doing to watch musicians make music.
I've tried sharing those stories with my kids, and just last week made them sit through a new CD set of the Beatles' four Sullivan Show appearances in 1964 and '65. To my delight they liked it, and asked questions, and wondered why all those girls were screaming.
Was it the hair? The music? The Beatle boots?
It was all of that and more.
The Beatles were a perfectly timed lightning bolt of energy for an America, and a world, reeling from the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
They weren't the first rock 'n' rollers to captivate audiences or write their own music -- Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly helped blaze those trails half a decade earlier -- but they were the best.
Over the next five years, everything they touched turned to gold -- 29 Top 10 singles in the U.S., including 20 that landed No. 1 on the Billboard charts. At one point in 1964, 14 of Billboard's Top 100 songs were by the Beatles.
But it's how they changed music over that half-decade that stands out. Lennon once called "Ticket To Ride" the first heavy metal song, and few have stood up to argue the point. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" remains the consensus No. 1 rock-era album of all time. And when the band released Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever" in 1967, the Beach Boys reportedly pulled the plug on their experimental album "Smile," figuring they were no match.
They weren't.
Four and a half decades later, no one else has been, either.
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Larryj
From Steve Lambert-------
REFLECTING ON A PICTURE WORTH AT LEAST 400 WORDS.
My very limited recall of the third grade does include losing both front teeth on the same day, a seminal moment in a child's life that ranks right up there with your first bicycle crash and having your mouth taped shut by a first-grade nun.
OK, so that last one never happened to you.........................your loss.
Anyway, back to kids and teeth, and a picture that's worth a thousand words --- or at least 400.
My wife took a picture while playing room mom to our youngest daughter's first-grade class, and other than it being unbelievably cute (a dad talking), it's a reminder that the best things in life are ofter -- and literally -- right under our noses.
Our little Susu (short for Suraya) couldn't care less than that she'll be chewing her Halloween candy a bit slower this year. She's dropped two teeth in less than a month, and that means two visits -- and four bucks -- from the tooth fairy.
Yes, she's still a believer and with the money she and her older sisters have made in the past two years, they might as well give the tooth fairy the keys to the house.
As they grow up, of course, they'll find teeth taking on new meaning. Retainers and braces, root canals and crowns. Coffee stains and bleaching, dentures and night guards.
Americans spend $100 billion on dental care each year -- an even more staggering number when you consider that one in four children has never been to a dentist.
My parents had the means --- and perhaps the sense of humor -- to make sure we had regular checkups. Which brings up another memory -- the sign in the waiting room that read, "Painless dentist upstairs." I didn't know it was a joke and come to think of it, I'm not sure my parents ever let me in on it. No, they made me go to the "painful" dentist downstairs.
It was probably worth it, in the end. I've been pretty lucky with my teeth. I did wear a retainer, had my share of fillings and cracked one of my pearlies in half on a bad hop at shortstop, but all my wisdom teeth are still intact and my checkups today amount to x-rays and cleaning.
My kids should be so lucky.
Looking at their smiles, they already are.
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Larryj
More from Steve Lambert--
A NAUGHTY BLACK FRIDAY IS NICE FOR THE ECONOMY
Naughty and nice.
Back when I was a toe-headed lad, Santa wasn't the only one keeping tabs. My mom was right there with him, enticing us with a day-after-Thanksgiving tradition that rivaled Christmas morning.
Early that Friday -- the moon and stars still visible in the frosty November skies -- the one or two reasonably well-behaved kids in our household would hop a commuter train with Mom and head into downtown Chicago to navigate the crowds and Christmas displays at the iconic department stores along Michigan Avenue.
We'd endure Mom's incessant shopping in return for our own time in the toy department, a bag of chocolate from the Marshall Fields candy counter, and an indescribably good -- and greasy -- burger and fries at Wimpy's across the street.
They didn't call it Black Friday back then. That name sprung up on the East Coast in the mid-60s, but really didn't become part of the national lexicon for another 20 or 30 years.
We knew it simply as The Day We Get To Take The Train Into The City With Mom, well worth our best behavior for the weeks leading up to it.
And perhaps it's why, as I've gotten a little older --ok, a lot older -- and more reflective, I've come to appreciate again this unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season.
The bargains can he mind-blowing, but it's the people, the energy, that make it an experience.
I know what you're thinking. You hate shopping. You detest traffic. You loathe crowds.
So would Scrooge if he were around today -- and were an actual human being. But Dickens' humbugger also appreciated commerce, and with an economy just waiting for the chance to bust loose, this Thanksgiving weekend is the perfect time to do your part.
Early indications are that holiday sales will be up this year, which would be better than any bailout our elected leaders could dream up. According to the National Retail Federation, shoppers will spend an average of $688.87 on holiday stuff.
Globally it comes out to nearly a half-trillion dollars -- about $100 billion in the U.S. alone.
That's enough to put a whole lot of retailers in the black (hence the name, Black Friday) and take us back to a time when the sound of cash registers brought smiles to our faces.
Sometimes being a little naughty has a nice ring to it.
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Larryj
From Steve Lambert----------
SOMETIMES PARTING IS THE RIGHT THING
At a firehouse in Industry, somewhere around 3 o'clock this past Monday afternoon, a woman who had given birth only hours before gave that baby boy a life.
I can only imagine what was going through her mind.
Maybe I don't want to know.
Maybe I'd prefer to view it simply as the right thing to do, no questions asked.
Which is how California sees it, and why nearly 10 years after the Safe Surrender Baby Law went into effect, 81 newborns in Los Angeles County have been given a new start.
All 50 states have some form of safe haven law, essentially allowing a parent to give up an unwanted newborn at a designated drop-off point, such as a hospital or police station.
Usually the parent remains anonymous, assuming there's no sign of abuse or neglect.
That was the case Monday. The woman had given birth three hours earlier and, for some reason we'll never know, handed over the child.
Neither one's life will ever be the same.
After a 14-day "cooling off" period, during which the mother can change her mind, the child can be adopted by a family pre-approved by the Department of Children and Family Services.
As for the mom, it's hard to say how her decision will affect her, but it will. It's part of her personal resume -- one that can't be erased by time.
Again, I can't imagine.
Again, I don't want to.
I prefer to accept safe haven as an alternative to pure abandonment or, worse, the kind of harm or death we often read about in cases such as this.
Parenting isn't a biological act. It goes far beyond that, to a place of indescribable responsibility. No one is perfect at it. Just ask anyone who has tried to navigate love and discipline, wanting to provide the best for your kids while not simply giving them what they want.
Our job is to provide them with the tools they need, and when we lack those tools ourselves, it can be overwhelming. Too often, the responsibility is deferred -- to television, video games or, worse, the streets.
Fix parenting, I've often said, and you fix the problems of the world.
The reality, of course, is you can't fix it -- not on a global scale.
Sometimes the best we can hope for is someone willing to do the right thing.
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Larryj
From Steve Lambert
TIME FLIES------------AND STANDS STILL-----------AT CHRISTMAS
If Einstein was right, and the Earth -- with its mass and gravity is capable of distorting space and time, there must be some scientific explanation as to why Christmas -- with its ribbons and bows -- flies by with greater speed each and every year.
Remember when you were a kid, and the countdown took F-O-R-E-V-E-R?
The local newspaper would remind us how many shopping days were left to the big day, and one year, I swear, the number stood at "17" for a week.
Even "A Charlie Brown Christmas," all 25 minutes of actual running time, seemed to carry on like an epic motion picture.
And as much as we reveled Christmas morning, we couldn't wait for the next day, when we could really play with our toys.
Of course, as we get older, very little about time makes any sense whatsoever. Years become months, Months become weeks. And by the time Christmas rolls around, we can barely get up our lights and ornaments before we're putting them back in their boxes and up in the attic. (If it were just me -- which I know its not -- why is it that those boxes don't seem to collect as much dust from one year to the next?)
Not surprisingly, scientists have studied this phenomenon quite exhaustively, though the results are pretty much what you and I could figure out over a couple of beers.
That a year to a 5-year-old is mathematically more significant than a year to a 50-year-old.
That the "firsts" we experienced as kids take up so much room in our brain that they seem to have lasted forever.
That as we get older, there are more things we'd just as soon forget.
I like that one, even if the things I'd like to forget never seem to get forgotten.
Christmas isn't on that list, by the way. All these years later, it's still a magical day -- especially with children around to remind you why.
It happened the other night. I got home after a long day at work to find my three girls huddled around the stereo listening to Christmas music.
A simple moment locked in time.
Einstein may have been right, but once again I've found the real answer in the sweet innocence of my kids.
Maybe, just maybe, by living vicariously through them, time actually can stand still.
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Larryj
Another oddity way back then was that the number of shopping days until Christmas did not equal the number of days until Christmas.
Nothing, but nothing, was open on Sunday. Most stores closed at 6:00 pm on Saturday night.
From Steve Lambert
'Z' RIGHT FORMULA FOR THE NEW YEAR
New Year's Day isn't quite life's equivalent of "Ctrl-Z" -- that beautiful little keystroke that lets you back through your miscues one at a time -- buy it's about as close as we humans come to giving ourselves a blank slate.
We promise to be better people, to lose weight, to save our money. Then Jan. 2nd or 3rd or 10th comes around and we forget it all.
Which is why I'm not making any New Year's resolutions this year -- just as I didn't this past year -- but will simply try to treat the turn of the calendar for what it is.
That means taking care of all those meetings and lunches I put off until after the first of the year, getting my oldest son squared away at his new school, and making the first of the seven final payments on my car.
For the greater, bigger world out there, the challenges are far more formidable. By Jan. 1, U.S. national debt will stand somewhere in the vicinity of $13.92 trillion, nearly 2.3 million Californians will be out of work, and the war in Afghanistan will have reached its 3,374 day -- seven months longer than Vietnam and more than eight years since then Defense Secretary Donald Runsfield declared, "The Taliban are gone. The al-Qaida are gone."
North and South Korea are on the brink of their own war, Europe's financial crisis shows no signs of letting up, and the approval rating for the same Congress Americans voted in just last month has dropped to 13 percent.
No flip of the calendar, no reset button, no Ctrl-Z can fix that, but you can't convince me either that amazing days aren't ahead.
Just as 2010 gave us the awe-inspiring heroism of the Chilean coal miners, the remarkable rebirth of General Motors and the innovation of the IPad, 2011 can be remembered for its contributions, not just its debits.
Who will overcome adversity to achieve greatness?
What invention or medical breakthrough will change our lives?
Which world leader will take the boldest step toward peace?
The more I think about it, the more jazzed I get.
Happy New Year!
Wipe the slate clean!
Oh, and if I do decide to make any resolutions, I reserve the right to Ctrl-Z them at any time.
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Larryj
From Steve Lambert---------------
HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR FAMILY HOUSEGUESTS---
It's been said that house guests -- especially the familial kind -- are like fish. After three days, they start to smell.
Which explains the funny looks directed our way as our clan of six celebrated the holidays at my mom and step-dad's place in Florida.
We're used to each other -- the four kids, my wife and I -- but are clearly an acquired taste to those who aren't exposed to our special kind of interaction on a daily basis.
That would include Mom and Mike, who got to experience the best and worst of grandparenting over those 10 days.
The best: The quality time you get to spend with your grandkids, knowing that you can send them back to their parents once your patience has expired.
The worst: When you're stuck in the same house as the little monsters even after you've returned them.
It probably wasn't as bad as I'm making it out to be.
The air mattress borrowed from a kindly neighbor would have blown a hole at some point anyway, even if all four kids hadn't used it as a trampoline.
And the punching and teasing in the back seat of the rented mini-van -- followed by the crying, the tattle-tailing and the always popular threats of grounding -- should have been no shocker to my mom, who raised four kids of her own.
Even so, as happy as Memom and Grandpa were to see us arrive, it's a scientific certainty that they were just as happy to see us go.
My own grandmother, she of old world Corsican descent, could barely withstand 10 consecutive hours -- much less 10 days -- of my siblings, cousins and me, but we never doubted her love for us. Why else would she so cheerfully chase us around the house with a wooden spoon when we misbehaved?
Notice I said "when" and not "if."
Which again, is why grandparenting is usually such a great gig, or so I'm told. When "when" happens, you don't have to be the disciplinarian, the bad cop, the crazed Corsican with a wooden spoon.
You can play the role my grandfather mastered -- the soft-hearted "Papa" who'd hoist us on his shoulders to pick apples and grapes in his backyard.
They don't have apple trees, but my mom and Mike are pretty awesome grandparents themselves.
They may even let us return .. as long as we keep our visit to less that three days.
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Larryj
(While this column appears most Sundays, it may be more localized and not relevant to this forum. However, it can be of interest generally.)
From Steve Lambert-------
GREAT EQUALIZER IS TOO COSTLY FOR MANY
"Education is the great equalizer in our nation. It can bridge social, economic, racial and geographic divides like no other force. It can mean the difference between an open door and a dead end. And nowhere is this truer than in higher education."
No time has this been truer than today, eight years after two Republicans -- John Boehner and Howard "Buck" McKeon -- made their case in a congressional report they titled, "The College Cost Crisis."
And yet, even as higher education does its best to bridge rich and poor, millions of middle Americans find themselves underwater --unable to afford rapidly rising tuition costs, too affluent to qualify for free financial aid.
It's only just beginning, tool. In California, proposed state budget cuts to higher education will drive tuition costs at community colleges up 30, 40, 50 percent or more this fall. At Mt. San Antonio College, one analysis has in-state tuition increasing from the current $26 per unit to anywhere from $36 to $66.
Again, it's the middle class that will suffer the most, which speaks to one of two inconvenient truths when it comes to the 2011 version of the college cost crisis: Higher education remains an at-all-costs priority for families, even if it means mortgaging a young person's future with loan obligations that average $30,000 upon graduation. (my note: Mt. San Antonioo College is a local junior college here in the San Gabriel Valley, and, $30,000 seems a bit low to me.)
The other uncomfortable reality -- that colleges and universities have little incentive to control their spending -- was discussed in the 2003 Boehner-McKeon study, which demanded that higher education be held more accountable for cost increases.
That's fine political theater, but the reality -- as we discussed here a few weeks back -- is that relaxed standards for student loans opened the flood gates to out-of-control borrowing and allowed colleges to raise their costs practically unchallenged.
Go to any campus, and you'll find loan programs being peddled like candy to -- you guessed it -- students from the middle class backgrounds who have no alternative.
Eliminating that option hardly seems fair. Relaxing the income standards for free financial aid hardly seems practical.
What's left is an increase in tuition rates, which is neither fair nor practical given the competitive nature of our global economy.
No, the real fix -- and the one hardest to achieve -- will be for the university system to manage spending in a way that does not compromise classroom instruction. Keep teachers. Hire more teachers, in fact. But eliminate non-essential spending, in much the same way every business has had to.
For countless middle-class students drowning in debt, it may be the only lifeline left.
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Larryj
(This column is not entitled "400 words" as it usually is, but it is written by the same person, Steve Lambert).
FABRIC OF MEMORIES ON THE 4TH.......................
Of all the moments in time a family captures through the years -- photographic proof of who we are and where we came from -- a few invariably stand out.
Me in a Tarzan suit at age 5, for instance (sorry, ladies, that loin cloth is long gone).
There's one picture, though, that gives me special pause this July Fourth weekend.
Taken years before I was born -- toward the end of World War II -- it shows my mom, her little sister and brother, their mom and dad, all standing proudly next to an American flag.
It's classic 20th Century Americana -- an immigrant man, his wife and kids, and the one thing, other than themselves, they could always turn to for strength and inspiration.
To them -- and to to countless millions before and after -- the flag was and remains more than just a symbol, but a beacon, guiding us through the turbulence of wars, economic calamities and out own imperfections and insecurities.
Digitally enhanced or on grainy old black-and-white film, its brilliant color palette in neither defined nor limited by technology, rather the lens we choose to see it through.
For my grandfather, who came to this country from Eastern Europe as a teenager, the stars and stripes represented the freedom and opportunity he'd dreamed of since boyhood.
He became a mechanic for the Army, ran an auto body shop, built his home and planted the seeds of a family that long after his death continues to honor him in the best way it can -- by believing, as he did, that anything is possible.
It's an ideal we struggle with as a nation right now. We're too quick to assess blame, too willing to forsake responsibility -- compounding problems that are challenging enough in a world as complicated as this one is.
I'm sure those challenges seemed just as daunting to our grandparents' generation, but somehow they survived the Depression, two World Wars and a future every bit as uncertain as ours. And in the midst of it all -- through the heartache and hardships -- they found time to appreciate what really mattered.
Family.
Freedom.
A flag and the hopes and dreams it continues to inspire.
Happy Fourth of July!
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Larryj