Open letter to my beautiful daughter

Honey... Just once, could you pee on Mommy instead?

A hole is just a tower upside-down

"Because I said so... That's why."

"But, Sir... We've been digging this hole for 5 years now. We came here to build a tower. So far, there's no signs of a tower forming," the Boy replied.

"Well, keep digging. I'm sure a tower will sprout from this hole eventually."

"All due respect, Sir - I'm not sure these people even want us digging a hole here. How will we know when we're done digging it?" asked the Boy.

"When the people here fill it back up. That's how we'll know a tower is about to grow."

"No offense, but we're much better at digging holes than they are at filling them. Why should we keep digging this hole?"

"Because it's not hole-y enough," replied the Man with an audible level of irritation in his voice. "See... The people back home? They've just offered to pay your salary to dig this hole for another year, but they've asked that you come home after that year. I say that means they don't believe in your ability to dig this hole. I'm gonna tell 'em 'no go.' If they don't believe in your ability to dig this hole, we don't want their money."

"So, we get to go home?"

"No! That would be admitting we can't dig a hole. We're gonna keep digging this hole until it's done," replied the Man.

"But, how will we know we're done digging the hole?"

"We'll know we're done digging this hole when there's a tower here," the Man said, rolling his eyes.

"Again, sir... I mean no disrespect, but... It seems kind of counter-intuitive to dig a hole when you want a tower."

"A hole is just a tower upside-down," the Man said.

The Boy levels a stare at the Man, who shifts uncomfortably.

"Kid... I like you, so I'm going to level with you. This hole is all I've got. Some things have gone wrong, and I blamed this hole. Some things haven't gone right, and I blamed this hole. I've been willing to sacrifice my friends, lie, cheat, and steal to justify this hole. If you were to fall into this hole, there's a hundred thousand other kids to take your place digging it. I will do whatever it takes to keep digging this hole. I've told the people back home and I'll tell you now, if you're not for digging this hole, you're against our home. So, I suggest you stop asking so many questions and keep digging."

The Boy holds his stare for a moment longer, then wipes the sweat and dust from his brow and grabs more dirt with his shovel...

Shit Trek

Here's the scenario if the current administration were an episode of Star Trek: Captain Bush, Mr. Cheney, Dr. "Bones" Rove, and Ensign Chiefofstaff beam down to a planet. Guess which one is wearing a red shirt...

I'm pretty sure this is how it will play out: Despite overwhelming evidence that Karl Rove waltzed into various government agencies, hooked his personal laptop up to the projector in the meeting room, and presented his PowerPoint deck, "Supporting the Republican Party: How to keep your job," some heretofore unknown "Chief of Staff" will take the hit and go down in a flurry of Congressional Testimonies. Hopefully, he'll at least have a cute nickname or a full name that sounds like a porn star.

Celebrity Encounters Part... Whatever.

Well, it's baseball season again. Therefore, the sightings resume. I just saw Derrick Turnbow (Brewer's relief pitcher) on my way to go get coffee. For some reason, I always run into players the day after they kill the Cubs. I'm too worn down by disappointment to be angry anymore. I just nodded at him and he returned the nod.

So, this is pretty good...

I recently found out one of my coworkers was let go. Naturally, I responded, "Wow. What happened?"

"Well, she threatened someone with violence," my informant(s) said.

"That's pretty bad. That's assault. Is anyone pressing charges?"

"That's not why she got fired."

"Really?" I said. "What happened?"

"Well, she was caught in the closet with one of the guys from the copy room."

"Whoo! That's pretty bad, too. So they fired her?"

"Not for that," my informant(s) said.

"What did she do to get fired?" I asked.

"Well," my informant(s) started," she got caught taking completed work from other people's outboxes and putting her incomplete work in their inboxes. Apparently, she never actually did any work."

I feel like employee of the month by comparison.

Knee-jerk jerks

I wasn't going to comment on the Imus issue because the mainstream media seems to have it over-covered. However...

I haven't heard the audio of the actual comments made on-air. I don't know if Mr. Imus actually considers the young women who play for the Rutgers basketball team to be prostitutes with heads like diapers. I can only assume that the comment was made for shock value. This doesn't make it right, but separating content from intent does make a difference.

Here's why I say this: Imus was fired by CBS this week for the comments he made. He was fired because of the pressure being put on the network by groups and individuals who have grasped the content out of context and who didn't take the time to verify if the intent was pernicious. The content was certainly despicable, but does it justify firing?

Even though the writing was on the wall for his firing, Imus carried on with his annual Radio Charity drive. Since 1990, he's raised over $50 million to combat SIDS. With the increase in visibility recent events brought, he raised $1.3 million in the first 5 hours of the drive this year. By firing him, CBS has ended this revenue stream for SIDS research.

I've never even listened to Imus. I don't know if he's an ass or not. Even if he's an ass, I don't know if he's the evil kind of ass, or the annoying kind of ass. But, looking at the facts I've been given, I do know this:

Babies will die to satisfy the outrage of those who object to the content (separate from the intent) of what Imus said. It's a simple cost-benefit analysis. I hope it's worth it.

Gettin' our Cubs on

The proof.

R.I.P. Kilgore Trout

Joe Gastiger, former Director of NIU's Honors Program, once told me a story about his time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was there while Kurt Vonnegut still lived in Iowa City. At the time, Mr. Vonnegut owned a pet chicken. One of the neighborhood dogs went after Vonnegut's chicken and began chasing the bird around the house. When he heard the noise, Mr. Vonnegut burst out of the house wielding a kitchen knife and started chasing the dog. For the next 15 minutes, Joe said he saw chicken, dog, Vonnegut... chicken, dog, Vonnegut... I like to picture it in black & white with that Keystone Cops music playing.

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.

Happy Easter

Here I sit as Easter 2007 A.D. (Although, it can be argued whether 1 was D's first A - Smooth move, Dionysius Exiguus) dawns upon the Midwestern United States. My beautiful wife and daughter sleep a bit restlessly in the next room. Baskets are sitting in the front room that contain bunnies, balls, books, and Sesame Street's Bert (so Ellie will have both "Oonie and Boot") and eggs are "hidden" for her to find. There is also a rocking horse which she will ride and say, "Whee!" Daddy is charging the video camera to capture the magic of Easter Morning in glorious, steadicam-enhanced HD.

Today marks the third day - the day the Son of God/Son of Man rose from the dead to walk among us again. It is the "real" Christian Holy Day. His birth, while miraculous, did nothing to change the human condition. It wasn't until he died and was reborn that the circuit was complete. He was killed by the hand of man, risen by the hand of God, and proved that all evil committed by man can be undone by the benevolent hand of the Creator.

Today is the day to celebrate your faith should you be a Christian. It is not my faith. However, it is the faith of my wife and shall be the faith of my daughter until she is old enough to question for herself. It may yet be her faith once she is. It is the faith of many of the people I love.

My Easter message to all of you who share this faith is to deepen your faith. Take a moment to wonder. The path to faith is to ask "Why?" until you run out of "Becauses." Faith does not preclude questioning, it demands it. Faith without wonder is just following.

A friend of mine quoted his priest as saying "Philosophy died on the cross that day." I challenge him by saying that if Philosophy died, then so did faith. Without rigorous questioning to keep it vital, faith becomes stagnant, docile, dogma... dead. You owe it to your faith to make it more than spending the time to get your cracker before your kids' baseball games. You owe it to yourself to keep your faith like a hearth to warm you when all else leaves you cold. You owe it to your Creator to get to know them better, and the only way to get to know someone better is to ask questions of/about them.

There is far to much hatred in this world. Far too much using the Book as a bludgeon, or using it as a dividing line. Please use this time to find the Spirit in the Book and know that coming back from the dead was far to difficult for you to use as justification of your ignorance.

Peace. Love. Happy Easter.