Al Gore and the Heat Index

Yeah, it’s hot.

No. This is not another diatribe on global warming. I’m not buying it, and I’m not selling it. If that’s your angle then you might want to go and fish another pond.

No, my beef is with the Heat Index. It’s not really a beef – I just find it amusing that we have invented a new way to make it sound hotter than it is. Now, don’t get me wrong, ‘cause I know it’s hot. But I grew up in Oklahoma, and it’s always been hot. Seems like now-a-days anytime it get’s over 100 degrees, people get excited, likes it’s never happened before. When the mercury gets into the century range, the newscasters always give the temperature in two parts, like this: “Well, it’s 102 degrees out there today, but with the heat index, it feels like it’s 114!”

Now 102 degrees, that’s pretty impressive, I guess, but 114? Now that’s something to brag about. I suppose that people have always fudged the truth a little when it has come to extremes, but it used to be called exaggerating. Now, it's scientifically backed!

I’m wondering why we don’t apply this same philosophy to other aspects of the weather. Can you imagine all the old men down at Pixley’s Sunshine Diner bragging about their rain-guage readings like grandchildren?
“We got two-anna-quarter inches at my place”, says one old farmer.
“Well, I got two and nearly-three-eighths”, says Mr. One-Up-On-Ya.
Then, there’s the 3rd guy who watched Mr. High-Tech Weatherman on the oh-six-hundred newscast. “I got over two-annie-half at my place”. Then he adds with a gotcha-smirk, “but with the Precipitation Index, that’s almost two-point-eight inches”. Only, he pronounces precipitation like this: Pree-sip-ee-TAY-shun. A gen-U-ine $10.00 word.
And what’s more, we could come up with a Snowfall Index, a Wind index, fog indices –the possibilities are endless.

But what if we carried this idea into other aspects of our lives?

How about Age indices? For older folks, we could sound younger. “Well, I’ll be seventy-one next year but with the Spry Index, I feel like I’m only sixty-five!” Or for the younger set, “My Betsy’s only four but she’s so bright! Almost five and a half on the Maturity Index!”

An Obesity Index can’t be far off, right? I mean relatively speaking, I’m not as fat as those other guys are.

An official index for singles playing the bar scene would be helpful, I’m sure.
“Karl, check out that gal!”
“Shoot, Bubba, she’s homely. Only a three on a ten-scale.”
“Yea, maybe Karl, but she’s a solid seven on the Budweiser scale.”
Yea, I know. The Budweiser scale has been around since prohibition ended. It just needs to be standardized for those of us who don’t drink.

There should be an index for those handicapped with a lead-foot; “Yes, officer, I know I was going ninety-six, but this is a ‘Vette, right? I mean that’s only fifty-three on the Chevy Cavalier Speed Equivalency Index.”

I think what would really be cool is if there was a Super-Christian-Spirituality Index (SCSI). It would work like this. Joe and Susie Christian (not real people) attend their church three times a week, and even teach Sunday School classes. They don’t swear, drink, smoke, or dance and they pray before eating in public. Susie has a bumper sticker on her Volvo that says “WWJD” and Joe occasionally wears a t-shirt that says “Real Men Love Jesus”. Joe and Susie would rate a solid nine-point-eight on the Super-Christian-Spirituality Index even though, in reality, apart from their church and Sundays, there is very little about Joe and Susie that is Christ-like. They don’t give to charities, or stop to help stranded motorists. They don’t know their neighbors names, much less their needs. They are rude and condescending to people they deem worthy of noticing, and treat the remainder as invisible. They are vain and self-serving and their lives lack real spirituality.

Still, a 9.8 on the SCSI aint bad!

Anyway, it’s too hot for this. It’s like, 114 degrees outside.

Maybe Al Gore is right.

Dangerous Books and Kipling

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered two copies of "The Dangerous Book for Boys" -- one for each of my sons. I won't bother reviewing the book here because many others have done a better job of that (See the review at The Discerning Reader). The boys and I have been reading the book together most nights before bedtime, and have really been enjoying it. It's an excellent and entertaining book for all ages.

There's a chapter entitled "Seven Poems Every Boy Should Know" and one of the poems included is Rudyard Kipling's "If". This poem has really become meaningful to me and I wanted to post it. If you are like me, you probably haven't read this since high school (over 20 years ago for me).

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Zoolander and the $1,400 Phone

I am seriously and voluntarily out of touch with mobile phone technology.

Until a few months ago, I didn’t know what Bluetooth was. I did know that Josh has a blue tooth in his mouth. Seriously – It’s like a leftover from some childhood trauma or something, but there it is, this little, bluish-tinted tooth. He’ll show it to you if you ask him.

When it comes to cell phone technology though, I am out. MMS, G3, WiFi, GPS, SMS – I read those terms from a tech review of a new phone. I don’t know what they mean. I don’t care. If I didn’t have to carry a cell phone for my job, I wouldn’t have one (that’s probably not true, but I wish it was).

And now, the iPhone is coming. I am writing this 2 days before the thing hits the streets and they are already on sale on Ebay for $1,400. I guess these things will be the official status symbol of the mobile elite, at least for a few months until the next gadget comes out. If you get one of these puppies, you will be able to look down your nose at all the mobilephiles still bragging about their Blackberrys or Razors. How droll of them.

I remember the first truly mobile phones. Motorola DynaTacs. Now, those were something, and only Somebodies had them. Back in the day, loudly answering your mobile phone in a public place was a status thing – it meant you were important, and everyone knew it. Now, loudly answering your mobile phone in a public place is just plain rude. Those old bag phones were expensive too. If you had told those original Motorola phone owners that someday, cell phone service providers would be giving phones away, they would have told you that you were crazy. Right.

After a while, everyone had a mobile phone. Just having a mobile phone was no longer status-worthy. So, pretty soon, status came with size (remember Zoolander's phone?). Mine is smaller that yours, right?

Then, it was cameras – remember the controversy? People thought that if camera phones became commonplace, there would be rampant cases of ID theft and privacy invasion as a result. Well, they were right about that.

Now there’s Blackberry, Bluetooth, WiFi, MP3 and video players. Video players?? Are they nuts?!! Do you think the morons who are determined that they can effortlessly drive with complete focus and attention during rush hour while dialing and talking on their mobile phones need video players? How long will it be before a traffic accident report reads like this:

The Victim was found dead upon arrival of emergency responders, and had to be extracted with the “Jaws of Life”. However, the Victim’s Sprint mobile phone was unscathed and still playing the season finale of “24”.

Can I rant for a moment longer? Are these wireless, in-the-ear phones the most obnoxious things ever invented??

I got on an elevator the other day, and this dude says “Hey, how’s it going?”
Now, I’m a friendly guy so I say “Great, thanks. How you?”
You know where this is going, don’t you?
He glances at me with this perturbed look and then I see the Borg implant in his ear, pulsing red – he’s on a call.
“No, just some guy on the elevator” he says to no one in particular, and I’m there for five floors staring at my shoes and boiling while he talks about really important stuff.

It’s amazing how ingrained these things are in peoples lives, isn’t it? How many times do you pull out of your driveway and see your neighbor firing up her Hummer and pressing her cell phone to her ear. “You just left your house”, you want to say, “Who are you calling and why can’t it wait?” Then there’s the guy at the grocery store deli aisle looking like he’s never seen pastrami before. He’s talking to his wife, you suppose, and he’s like “Well, they have Oscar Mayer but I don’t see the Louis Rich. Is Oscar Mayer OK?” Please.

All of these radio waves, Bluetooth, and WiFi are flying through the air, zapping our brains and our reproductive systems, aging us, growing brain tumors, and killing all of the honey bees. For what?
Oscar freaking Mayer.

So, go ahead and get your iPhone. Surf the internet on your Blackberry, and listen to MP3s on your Razor. It’s cool. I’m OK with it, but I don’t want it.

I’m going to wait for the inner-ear mobile phone implant that I just read about. Now that’s cool.

Where are you John Wayne?

As you may have gathered from the title and byline of this blog page, I love Louis L’Amour westerns. I have often described his books as “Harlequin Romance” for Men. I love the allure of the old west, and the romanticized idea of the men and women of that time period that are portrayed in L’Amour’s books. Within his many novels and collections of short stories (there are over 100 books) there are some common themes:

The Good Guys always triumph in the end.
Men act with integrity (even the bad guys usually fight honorably).
Men act like men and treat women with respect.
A man’s word is important.
Honor is respected, cowardice is loathed.

A man deals with his own problems, or as L’Amour liked to put it, he “forks his own broncs”.

Men lived by a "code".

A typical L’Amour plot line goes like this:

A stranger rides into town. He’s not too big, but tough, strong from hard work, and travel stained. His name, if he gives it, may be Nolan, Lance, Borden, Flint, Utah, Sackett, Kilkenny, or Talon. He asks around for work and takes a cowhand job for a pretty lady who has recently inherited her father’s ranch. He works hard, and keeps his shoulder to the wheel, but he doesn’t take any guff, and he rubs some of the cowhands the wrong way. He whips the toughest hand in a fair fist-fight, but is later dry-gulched with a branding iron or shot in the back. While recovering from his near-fatal wounds, he discovers a plot whereby the bad guys are plotting to steal the ranch from the unsuspecting and overly trusting, previously-mentioned pretty lady. With the help of the previously mentioned tough cowhand who was whipped in the fair fight, our hero ferrets out the bad guys plans and reveals them to the pretty lady and “the law”. In the end, he is forced into a gun battle with the bad guy, who turns out to be the step-uncle of the pretty lady. The hero dispatches the bad guy and rides off into the sunset, much to the disappointment of the pretty lady. (There are variations on the ending: sometimes he stays, and sometimes there’s a lingering “maybe” as he considers the merits of ranch life with a pretty lady versus the life of the trail).

I think it’s sad that L’Amour’s depiction of a western man is considered “romanticized”. I believe it’s the way a man still ought to be defined – integrity, independence, respect and the fortitude to stand and fight for what’s right.

If L’Amour were still alive to write his story using today’s idea of a man, would the plot look like this?

A stranger rides into town. His finely featured face has been augmented by a plastic surgeon to project a strong chin and cheekbones. He is a fashionable dresser, and his saddle has a designer name on it. His name is hyphenated. He takes a job at an art gallery, owned by a pretty lady, where he works half-heartedly every day from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM. He files a restraining order against an evil co-worker after he perceives he has been insulted. The co-worker retaliates by filing a civil suit against our hero. They eventually work out their differences over a tofu-and-artichoke-heart lunch where they conspire together to swindle the pretty lady out of her ownership of the art gallery. Before they can act, however, the pretty lady declares bankruptcy and absconds to Europe with all of the cash and assets. In the end, our hyphenated stranger finds himself beside the interstate holding a hand-lettered sign that reads “Anything Helps” and pondering the merits of welfare housing versus life on the trail.

It's the capital of France, right?

Why are we so obsessed with this person?

This morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia intends to aim missiles, probably nuclear, at targets in Europe.

Yesterday, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, was once again predicting and celebrating the destruction of Israel (remember, he's the guy who said that Israel should be "wiped off the map").

Today, the FBI announced crime statistics for 2006: over 16,000 murders and over 92,000 rapes.

And, don't forget the war in Iraq, shark attacks, tornadoes, the Democratic debates, the JFK Airport plot, GLOBAL WARMING, Oh my!

Sounds like a lot of important news, huh?

Why then, will every television news magazine, radio talk show, and Internet news source devote so much attention to this pathetic, wealthy, socialite who went to jail yesterday? (For that matter, why am I?)

I guess we're finally tired of talking about that other morally challenged celeb who recently shaved her head. I suppose that her hair is growing back, and she's not noteworthy right now.

At least for today.